August 31, 2026 – Select Board – Video & Transcript
August 31, 2026 - Select Board
Thank you. Good evening. As chair of the select board, I'm going to call the meeting of August 31st, 2026 to order at 601 p.m.
This is a remote access only meeting. The meeting may be recorded, and if recorded, it will be available to the public on Wacom as soon as possible after the meeting.
Public will be excluded from tonight's executive session.
Pursuant to Chapter 2 of the Acts of 2025, this meeting will be conducted via remote access and according to the law.
No in-person attendance by members or the public will be permitted.
One may watch the meeting there or participate remotely with the meeting link that is found on the Waylandtown calendar on the web page and or the select board's agenda.
When required by law or allowed by law,
by the chair, persons wishing to provide public comment or otherwise participate in the meeting may do so via remote access.
Again, through the link on the calendar or on the select board agenda.
Public comment should be limited to two minutes per person.
I'm going to read the agenda, but before I do that, I want to mention that in joining me this evening is Mr. Levine, Mr. Fay, Mr. Whitney, Mr. Reynolds.
I believe we are also.
Going to be joined by town manager Michael McCall shortly, and myself, Carol Martin.
So tonight's agenda is going to call to order review the agenda for the public.
We'll have announcements and public comment. We will then have a vote on the design for the Wayland Select Board banner for use at parades and other events.
We will have a quick discussion and vote on the date, time and location for the 2027 annual town meeting.
We will have a vote to authorize town manager Michael McCall to establish a planning group for the Constructor Dialogue Program that we approved last meeting.
We will have one reappointment, which is to the Economic Development Committee.
And we will have a vote in the discussion to reconstitute the Cable Advisory Committee before entering into Executive Session at approximately 640, where we will, under
Pursuant to Massachusetts General Laws Chapter 30A, Section 21A3, we will discuss strategy with respect to the collective bargaining units within the town.
We will discuss strategy with respect to litigation in the matters of cascade development.
We will discuss strategy with respect to litigation on 16 West Spring Lane.
We will do a periodic review of minutes.
We will review and consider for potential release the following Executive Session minutes related to strategy with respect to collective bargaining for the public employees.
We will then review and vote with the intent to hold the Executive Session minutes, regular Executive Session minutes of August 13, 2026.
And finally, we will meet to discuss strategy with respect to litigation on Sean Gibbons v. Town of Whalen.
Approximately 730, we anticipate we will return to open session.
We will then have a joint meeting with, I believe, the chair and possibly one or two other members of the board.
Thank you.
Thank you.
For other members of the school committee along with some superintendent and the school business manager.
Approximately at 820 we will have a discussion, a brief discussion with the, this is a follow-up discussion with the Planning Board chair regarding some assistance, legal assistance for the Planning Board regarding Rule 20.
That will be followed by the Consent Calendar.
And at 830, we will have an Eversource meeting.
Ebersource will join us for a grant of location hearing on
Kachichewit Road. Approximately 8.45, we will look
at a back-to-town meeting. We will review potential warrant articles.
We will have a discussion of the scope of the Route 20
South landfill project and vote on possible requests for design funds.
We'll have a review of some select board policies to determine
if we need some additional policies or we want to make some edits to current
policies that are listed on the agenda. That will be followed by the Town Manager's
Report, minutes of July 20th and August 13th,
2026. We'll review correspondence. We will appear at
select boards with members' reports and concerns, and hopefully by 9.40, we
will adjourn. So, the first question I have is
are there any announcements from the board?
Now, I have two, if I may. First of all,
I do want to remind everyone, if you haven't
participated in early voting, that we are voting tomorrow as the state primary
and that voting is at the town building in the gym.
And if you haven't voted already, you can do that tomorrow.
Also, that the select board's summer meetings, to be fully remote,
ends with tonight's meeting, and we will be hybrid once again, starting with
next week's meeting, which is on September 8th, and we will be back
in person in the town building.
All right. Is there any public
comment?
I see no public comment. Great. Thank you very much. That brings us to item number three, and this is going to be on page seven in the main packet. We want to invite Jalyn Braddock, our Management Analyst Communications Coordinator. She joined us last week. We had some designs. We asked for some revisers, and here we are. The floor is yours, Jalyn. Yes. So, I made the changes to the banner. I did make the seal a little bit smaller, and I did make an orange and black version to represent the town colors. So, I'm asking for the board to decide on what banner they would like to move forward with, and once you do decide, I will be able to place an order and start production of that banner with our vendor. That's very good, and then, for those please, if there are any submission comments from the board? I defer to my colleague who has had great experience with the Arsewhelan Group and has an eye for color and layout. Mr. Reynolds, you are on mute, by the way. He is thinking. you might have frozen it's back all right Mr. Whitney I'd still like to hear Mr. Reynolds you unmuted so I said he's ready to go move on he could point out for orange or down for red you know Chris can you unmute yeah he just unmuted beautiful it's your turn please I thank you I apologize Madam Chairman I was clicking unmute feverishly and for some reason it was slow which may be an indication of how good it is when I am muted Jalen thank you I liked all of them and I liked the second one the best I could go into detail about why but I will defer to the chair when you said the second one you mean the one with the the the blue and the red yes okay okay gentlemen would you like to opine someone want to make a motion I moved that I'll go ahead Tom no no go ahead I move that the select board approve the second banner with the red white and blue color scheme for use at parades and other public events I have a second please second thank you is there any further discussion okay let's go to the vote and because we are remote I have to do them all roll call so Mr Reynolds aye Mr Levine aye Mr Fay yes Mr Whitney yes and Ms Martin yes so that passes 5-0 thank you Jalen very much for what you did on this and patience with us Jalen thank you you're awesome thank you so the next the next topic we're also going to invite Jalen to stay with us because she's also working on the 2027 warrant in the town meeting and we Tom just for your edification we talked about this last week and I think we realized there was the moderator had a conflict with one week another week didn't seem to work too well and so I think we were looking at the second option am I right Jalen yes and we had this option to pass Hayes right yes Yes So in this instance, we're still waiting for confirmation of theontology on the 12th of January correct I would go ahead and do that okay да There will be monthly meets there will be monthly meetings yeah This is The the second option would be like annual town election on May 4th and then town meeting would be held on May 10th, 11th and 12. Page 11 the packet At last meeting we were still waiting for final confirmation from the high school about the phiượcalpachlin , what has happened with that Jalen Ms NCo heard back from the high school those dates look fine to them the only thing is that there is going to be AEP testing on Monday the 10th and Wednesday on the 12th but that should not be a problem as in previous years we've had town meeting on AEP testing day and it just takes a little more coordination and communication between our facilities department the school custodians in our office to get it set up correctly um but we've never had an issue in the past with that also Thomas you know before you ask we have confirmed right right dealing with the town the moderator town council town clerk uh mr keveny mr mccall and apparently all of us as well so we i think we're in good shape the only last thing we have to decide on is what time because we have to we have to vote that the time last year we started at six 30 we tried that because we thought we'd give that a shot and then if that worked we thought i think we thought we might move it a slightly bit earlier with the idea that perhaps we might be able to get this done in one night uh last year i think we did about seven hours but that also includes two intros if you will so anyway um one option we talked about briefly last week was six o'clock one was 6 15 one was leaving at 6 30. so anyway open that back up to discussion how about four o'clock and we'll be done by 11 o'clock that night that works
i'm on for the earlier side i understand the pros and cons uh i also feel for the vast majority of folks that have been to town meeting before that they don't necessarily need the prologue introduction and explanation coupled with the fact that all of that information is contained in the and they could refer to that as well um so i'm a six o'clock vote all right anybody else want to add in something does the town moderate moderator have an opinion on time i think i didn't speak to her recently but the last time i spoke to she was fine with time whatever we said
i um i'm a fan of incremental change stage in this on a meeting like this right so i'd be more of a fan of 6 30 versus 6 45 which is when we started most recently i believe and then see how that goes and then maybe the following year go to 6 15 and then we happen i'm not opposed to six but i just think um you know just get people used to the idea ten years from now we'll hit four o'clock which is my goal . 10 years from now we'll hit four o'clock which is my goal. Actually, Tom, we started at 6.30 last year. So for an incremental, it might be 6.15. All right. But I'm happy with 6.15. That's fine. You're okay with 6.15? Mr.
Tom is an incrementalist. I'm a stick in the mud. I prefer 6.30, having commuted into Boston for more years than I can't care to recall. It was always a struggle to get back. And so, you know, forget the notion of having anything to eat before the meeting. So I think 6.30 is heroic as it is. Mr. Reynolds? I'm not qualified. I'm not qualified to comment. I think all the points are good. So I have to tell you that I'm also in favor of test driving. I like Tom's idea that incremental, push it back a little. It's a little bit disheartening after all the work we do and all the work everyone else does at 9 o'clock, 9.15, to just see the hall really start to empty out because it is a Monday night, it's a school night, it's a work night, and people are leaving. So I think I also am in the, maybe in the. Let's try 6.15 and see what happens. Madam Chairman, may I bring up a separate issue? Just please, if this is way off. There's also the upcoming matter of whether the quorum threshold will be changed, which I understand is not directly related to the question at hand, but vis-a-vis Mr. Whitney's point, it is related. So you're right. We'll be talking about that a little bit later. That's a potential article that we might support. We haven't, as a board, I don't believe, taken a position on whether we support reducing that quorum. Well, I just want to underscore Mr. Whitney's point. If we change that threshold to a lower number and fewer people can make it because of the time picked and the commute, we may exacerbate a problem that we're already aware of. Right. Okay. So the other thing, too, is that. What happens is the first 15 minutes of town meeting is taken up with us, documents and explanations. Then we also have the Public Ceremonies Committee does their two awards. And so that we did, but I don't think the last few years we've gotten to that first article for about 15 minutes. So when we start at 6.15, technically we're starting at 6.30 because by the time people get in there. So anyway, let's have a motion and see where we go. Anyone have a motion? I move that we retain the annual time meeting time at 6.30 p.m. One extra second. Further discussion?
All right. Are we going to have a vote? I really want this moved back. Let's see what happens. This is exciting. All right. Let's have a vote. Okay. Chris? Aye. Bill? Yes. Tom? Yes. Doug? No. Me, too. They win. I'm going to abstain. How's that? All right. This was the swing vote. Yeah, it wasn't going to be swinging anywhere. So all right. Let's say. So it's going to be 3-1-1? Yeah. So that helps Jalen out now. So Jalen, we're all set. And you can just sort of send it out to everyone that. Um, 630 time is what we're going to be doing. All right. So I think is that all the questions you needed from us for the moment? I also think you do need to make a motion to hold annual town election on May 4th and town meeting on May 10th, 11th and 12th because you only voted on the time. I think you're absolutely right. So may I have that motion, please? Is that the same motion or did you? Do those need to be broken up into two motions or it doesn't matter? Doesn't matter. So some moved. Second. Okay. Any further discussion? All those in favor? Doug? Yes. Tom? Yes. Bill? Yes. Chris? Yes. And Carol? Yes. That's 5-0. So all right. You'll live on. Good catch, Jalen. Thank you, Jalen. Thank you. Good night. You get to leave. Good for you. All right. The next item. All right. So I think the next item is on. It's not on any page, but it is last meeting we approved a program called Constructive Dialogue. And actually the contract, we got the contract resolved and signed. So the next step is, you know, to start implementing this. I believe there's going to be training in October. So what we need to do is have a planning group established. And so this vote. Is to authorize the town manager, Michael McCall, to establish a planning group. And I need that motion. And I also am going to ask you to, I think we should, I've mentioned on this, Doug, I think we should ask you to be our liaison to that planning group for the board. So maybe we could do both motions in the same question. So moved. Second. Who said that? Bill. Thank you. All right. Any further discussion? Let's vote. Bill. Yes. Doug. Yes. Tom. Yes. Chris. Yes. Carol, yes. 5-0. Terrific. Thank you very much. Number six. Reappointments to the committee. I just need a motion on this, please. I move. I move that the board. Did you want to do that, Chris? No, no. Go for it, Doug. Sorry. I move that the board. I move that the board. I move that the board appoint David Bellari to the Economic Development Committee for a term ending June 30th, 2029, clarifying that this is a reappointment. Second. Thank you. All right. Further discussion? Let's vote. Tom. Yes. Bill. Yes. Chris. Yes. Doug. Yes. And Carol, yes. That passes 5-0. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. I want to mention on page 14 is the list of the open positions. I would like to have this, you know, every couple of meetings so that we can see what we have. I think everyone will look at the different ones. We are going to be having a conversation with the Audit Committee. They have asked us to look at their committee and the structure, and I think we may be having one at the Doric Control Appeals Board, but we definitely need to find some candidates to interview for the Zoning Board of Appeals. because we have three non-voting um associate members there and i think that's really key so anyone knows anyone or that's it any other comments on this list
all right let's move to um number seven which is about the it's that time again i think we do this every 10 years we meet with the the cable companies and and we have a cable advisory committee the information from the last time is appears on page 16. it gives you the mission statement and then it follows along talks about the implementation of the mission statement um and then also where mr turkington in 2011 decreased the membership from eight to five members so doug did you want to uh address this agenda item sure i served on the cable advisory committee during my first term on the select board at some point between 2017 and 2020 and we worked hand in glove with one of the attorneys at kp law who had been doing this type of very niche law for several decades i do believe he's retired and we will end up working with a different attorney at kp law i was also fortunate to work with several other residents in town which i hope folks will step forward and that said we did receive an email from doug stotts who asked that we potentially modify the charge for this committee to explore what he is aware of regarding broadband technology directly pertaining to a municipality which i didn't even realize was an option he linked at the end of his email to a website called gcet.net which is this broadband technology that provides internet phone and cable through just the municipality which is the town of greenfield i i think it would be interesting to just look into this as i didn't even realize it was an option and perhaps there's even a chance that mr stotts will join the cable advisory committee and dedicate his considerable efforts and knowledge to assist the town in that respect so i think that we'll have to take a crack and i can if he's so willing work with tom on charge language and get some uh input if it's appropriate from doug stotts and we can come back to the board with that document so the only thing with that uh mr faye the only thing with assigning two people isn't that a subcommittee? so the only thing with that mr faye the only thing with assigning two people isn't that a subcommittee? it is it is i'll just say regarding the charge it seems like a cut and paste job from yeah from prior parking me so i'm not sure that really requires my role anyway so okay well i can just update this version that we have in the packet right from 2010. so and i believe uh doug is willing to serve as a liaison to that committee once we get it established again excuse me unless somebody else would like to step forward all right so we'll revisit this on on nine eight okay is that too soon nine eight no okay we'll revisit this on a lot so that brings us to um so jalen i see you're still here is mike do you see michael in here anyway
i do not see him in here no okay so um how am i doing on time am i running a little bit ahead here yeah you're ahead by 15 minutes are you sure yeah because we're on item number eight which is executive for 640. with the board's intelligence i'm going to just do a couple other quick items before we go into executive session because we do need um mr carl to uh join us so is that okay with you jalen as well because i know she's waiting to help us with the minutes so yeah that's fine okay thank you all right so um how about number 12 should we go to consent
let's have a motion please before you make the motion i just want to make sure everybody understood there were four items in the consent calendar and there was a haywire with the with the documents and so one of the explanations is in twice and so that explanation for item number four was in the supplemental consent package if you didn't see it i would like to discuss item two please okay can you make a motion though uh i move uh the consent calendar items one three and four for approval second i think we're gonna have i think i'm gonna have the same problem indeed michael all right i think so All right. All those in favor of approving Consent Items 1, 3, and 4, let's have a roll call vote. Doug? Yes. Chris? Yes. Bill? Yes. Tom? Yes. And Carol, yes. So that's 5-0. So now we're on Item Number 2. And would you like to present your question? We may have to come back to this. Yeah, I had actually sent Michael a note requesting some clarification on this, but hadn't heard back. I just don't know what the scope of this project is, where it's located, and would like to just understand it better. So I'm going to table that. Somebody will? Mr. Whitney, you'll remind me. Yeah, then we come back to that. Okay. Miss Lewis isn't here, is she? You see, Miss Lewis has been an hour early, but... Do you want to do 14, the Annual Town Meeting Potential Warrant Articles? It's going to take more than a couple minutes, so... It's only on there for five minutes. Do you want to do Number 15, the Route 20 South Landfill? Because I think that's going to be shorter than we thought it was. What do you think of that? That's on page 25 in the packet. And... So, just to... Set it up for those, you know, we had a committee that worked on the 17 acres of the Route 20 South Landfill to see what was a possibility. They actually came up with about 17 items. Tom chaired the committee, and while he's getting himself together here, I'll just fill in some of the air. And then in March, they brought a... They presented their final report to us with three recommendations for three projects. And... Are you all set, Tom? Sure. So, the three ideas that the committee recommended to this board were a playing field, bus parking, and a lay down area for DBW. This board has put together a working group to examine the future of the Wayland Town Building. My sense is that the consensus of that working group is that the town building should continue to act as home for town offices. That the buses that... currently parked at the town building could continue to do so and that would eliminate any expense for placement at the south landfill unless the board wanted to put them there anyway so that would leave these two other uses if the board were inclined to follow the committee's recommendation um i have asked um the dbw director to speak with the engineer to get a more detailed outline of costs for each of the three projects right now it's a five million dollar uh estimate for construction of the three uh uses um i would ask the we're going to ask the engineer to kind of provide more more detailed numbers so that we can appreciate what each aspect might might cost and then the next issue is sorry that's all well and good but this is a capital expense and and what role the sips you have here significant and how it's going to be paid for at least the design money so there i i now turn to our budget with the chair cal martin to help a us through how we might be able to pay for this expected design monies if we wanted if the board wanted to go forward before you turn over to carroll town does this include parking adjacent to the field or is it just the field itself it does and uh i forget um page 38 in the packet everyone you know the list of the where we're at here excuse me for just one second everybody i would like to know if you're going to to note that mr mccall has joined us at 6 30. thank you so if you go to page 35 of the packet you'll see the western and sanson western samson drawing with the field parking on the left yeah um you know and the uh lay down area and so um that um that so the answer the answer your question is yes so what we're waiting for is to have um so i think when i just have a couple little facts here is that the reason that tom and i brought this forward now is because capital requests are due basically by it now to the sipsy so we wanted to you know comply with the process follow the process and get our request in there um when we did a little research here we which kind of off doing a bit different piece of the pie here we found out that mr holder has already filed the five hundred thousand dollar request with sipsy for the design funds if you see that the very bottom three or four lines it says five six seven eight nine you'll see there it's uh am i on the right page yeah the on the far right it's five hundred thousand is uh design funds by 550 i think it is so he's already filed it so i think we were thinking then we would at least to let board know that we were this was in the process of this is going forward there's some work that needs to be done um but we wanted to see what the board let the board know that we had gotten this filed in and that um once those numbers come back we'll look at at the funding like tom said maybe we do all three items maybe we're only doing two maybe we're doing one whatever we'll determine what our plan is going to be and and see if we can't find a funding source so the design gets done in the next year did i get all the points yes would the funding source potentially be such that you wouldn't need a vote from town meeting for design funding or would that still be an article i think i'm glad you asked that question it actually would be in the capital budget you know the little blurbs for each item but if we have a funding source you know it goes through quicker you know if you say hey we already got the funding source you're not raising taxes you're not you you know you're doing debt you're not doing so but i we're a little we're not quite at that point because we need we really feel i mean i have to be honest and say you know 500 000 contingency on a 3.6 million dollar project i'm sure mr whitney's eyebrows got raised on that as well that's 30 that seemed pretty high so we're hoping to get some more refined better numbers but again it's been a couple years so who knows does anyone else have any questions on this
well i do first i want to thank tom and his committee for a very detailed and thoughtful analysis of alternatives weighing i think 17 alternatives at various points and really looking carefully at a number of them is very laudable i am concerned that we're contemplating the expenditure of half million dollars for a project that i frankly don't know where it falls in the town's five-year capital budget or in the long-term capital planning of the town it strikes me that putting a request for a half million dollars in advance of understanding where a four or five million dollar project might fall vis-a-vis other costs of the town particularly as we consider an operating override strikes me as
a very somewhat reserved reformist i'm concerned that that might be the way we get along um i agree with that and i think it's very appropriate that you refer to that as a more a more flexible plan perhaps uh something that bears for the discussion and and i think that's the intent is that we just want to let you know that one of the committee's recommendation this has been submitted and we're trying to get some refined numbers and to tom's point we're saying perhaps the school bus project doesn't need to be included in this one we haven't gotten that far yet and we'll come back i think it's premature to have uh a drama with a department like that just being a pre-mature project is all right i do not want to play with a department like that for a time or two A REQUEST FOR THAT FUNDING SUBMITTED TO SIPSI. I JUST DON'T KNOW WHERE THE PROJECT FALLS VIS-A-VIS OTHER CAPITAL NEEDS OF THE TOWN. TO BILL WHITNEY'S POINT, MADAM CHAIR, EXPLAIN TO US THE PROCESS FOR SIPSI'S CONSIDERATION OF POTENTIAL CAPITAL PROJECTS. DO THEY NEED AN AFFIRMATIVE DIRECTION FROM OUR BOARD ON EVERY CAPITAL PROJECT OR CAN OTHER BOARDS AND COMMITTEES WHO HAVE INTEREST IN CAPITAL PROJECTS, SCHOOLS, WHATEVER, DO THEY HAVE EQUAL WEIGHT? WHAT'S YOUR SENSE? YEAH, AND MR. MCCALL, FEEL FREE TO HOP IN AS WELL, PLEASE. ANY BOARD CAN SUBMIT. THEY RECEIVE REQUESTS FROM, I'M GOING TO SAY THE BOARD OF PUBLIC WORKS, BUT THROUGH MR. HOLDER PUTS THEM IN. THE FACILITIES DEPARTMENT SUBMITS FOR A NUMBER OF DEPARTMENTS, INCLUDING US. THE SCHOOL COMMITTEE AND SCHOOL DEPARTMENT WILL SUBMIT REQUESTS. THE SELECT BOARD CAN SUBMIT REQUESTS, BUT THE IDEA IS THAT THEY'RE ALL SUBMITTED AT THE SAME TIME, THEN THEY ARE REVIEWED VERY REGULARLY, IN FACT, I BELIEVE THEY'VE ALREADY ASKED FOR SOME FURTHER INFORMATION ON THIS PARTICULAR REQUEST. JUST BECAUSE IT'S SUBMITTED DOESN'T MEAN IT'S GOING THROUGH. BUT THERE'S NO CONSIDERATION OR PRIORITIZATION OF THE PROJECT IF WE DO NOT SUBMIT IT, AND WE DO NEED TO SUBMIT BEFORE THEY PUT THE REPORT OUT, BEFORE THEY SAY, OKAY, OTHERWISE WE'RE NOT GOING TO DO IT. DID YOU WANT TO ADD ANYTHING, MR. MCCONNELL? GO AHEAD. SIR? SORRY. FIRST, LET ME SAY I APOLOGIZE. I WAS HAVING CONFUSION. I CAN ALSO TELL YOU ATTORNEY ECKERT IS DONE WITH HER MEETING ALREADY. SHE CONTACTED ME. SO WHEN WE START EXECUTIVE SESSIONS, SHE CAN JOIN RIGHT IN. EVERYTHING IS CORRECT, MADAM CHAIR. THE SIPCY, NOTHING CAN GO BEFORE TALENT MEETING UNTIL IT'S BEEN REVIEWED BY SIPCY ACCORDING TO THE BYLAW. AND THEY WILL MAKE A RECOMMENDATION TO ME AFTER THEY REVIEW EVERYTHING SO THAT MR. KEVITY AND I ARE REVIEWED. WE CAN MAKE A DECISION AS TO WHETHER IT'S WHAT WE PRESENT TO THE FINANCE COMMITTEE AS OUR FINAL CAPITAL BUDGET. SO THIS IS STILL IN A VERY PRELIMINARY STAGE WHEN IT'S GOING BEFORE THE CAPITAL IMPROVEMENT PLANNING COMMITTEE. THANK YOU. BILL, DO YOU HAVE A FURTHER QUESTION? NO. I WROTE DOWN WHAT YOU SAID, THOUGH. FOR THE NEXT DISCUSSION, WE WILL INCLUDE THAT PART OF THAT. DOES ANYBODY HAVE ANYTHING ELSE? ANY OTHER QUESTIONS OR COMMENTS ON THIS? THIS REALLY IS A PRELIMINARY. I THINK IT'S IMPORTANT. THIS REALLY IS A PRELIMINARY ROLLOUT CONVERSATION AND WE WILL RETURN TO IT. IF I MAY, TO BILL WHITNEY'S POINT, IT MAY BE PRUDENT FOR US IN THE NEXT FEW WEEKS WHEN THE SUPREME COMMITTEE HAS DIGESTED THE INFORMATION, PRESENTED TO THEM TO CHAT WITH US ABOUT THEIR THINKING AND WE CAN PASS ON OUR THINKING. I THINK WHAT MR. WHITNEY HAS SAID IS IMPORTANT. WHAT'S THE FUTURE AND WHAT ARE WE GOING TO PRIORITIZE, BASICALLY? RIGHT. I THINK RIGHT NOW MR. HOLDER IS REPRESENTING THIS PROJECT, BUT I DO THINK WHEN IT GETS REVIEWED AGAIN, WHEN YOU AND I DISCUSSED IT, ONE OF US SHOULD GO BEFORE THE COMMITTEE AND EXPLAIN WHAT THE SELECT BOARD IS THINKING. DON'T KNOW IF WE'VE CUT THAT YET, BUT WE DO NEED TO HAVE THOSE NUMBERS, I REALLY WOULD LIKE TO SEE THEM ITEMIZED, HOW MUCH FOR EACH OF THOSE THREE PROJECTS AND THEN GO FROM THERE. WE'LL GET THOSE NUMBERS SOON AND WE CAN REVISIT. DOES THAT SOUND ABOUT RIGHT? I THINK WE SHOULD GET THOSE IN 30 DAYS. SOON AS WE GET THEM, I'LL PUT THIS RIGHT BACK ON HERE. EVERYBODY'S GOOD? ALL RIGHT. THANK YOU. SO I'M GOING TO MOVE THAT THE SELECT BOARD ENTER INTO EXECUTIVE SESSION. PURSUANT A, PURSUANT TO MASSACHUSETTS GENERAL LAW CHAPTER 30A SECTION 21A3 TO DISCUSS STRATEGIES WITH RESPECTIVE COLLECTIVE BARGAINING WITH THE FOLLOWING UNIONS. MR. FAIR, DO I NEED TO READ THEM ALL OUT HERE? YES. YEAH. OKAY. WAYLAND POLICE OFFICERS UNION, NEW ENGLAND POLICE BENEVOLENT ASSOCIATION, LOCAL 176. THE INTERNATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF FIREFIGHTERS, AFL-CIO, LOCAL 1978. WAYLAND DEPARTMENT OF PUBLIC WORKS, DPW, ASSOCIATION TEAMSTERS, LOCAL 170. THE AMERICAN FEDERATION OF STATE, COUNTY AND MUNICIPAL EMPLOYEES, AFSCME, LOCAL 690-1 AND 2. B. PURSUANT TO MASSACHUSETTS GENERAL LAWS 30A SECTION 21A3 TO DISCUSS STRATEGY WITH RESPECT TO THE LITIGATION IN THE MATTER OF CASCADE DEVELOPMENT LLC. C. PURSUANT TO MASSACHUSETTS GENERAL LAWS CHAPTER 30A SECTION 21A3 TO DISCUSS STRATEGY WITH RESPECT TO LITIGATION ON 16 WHISPERING LANE. D. PURSUANT TO MASSACHUSETTS GENERAL LAWS CHAPTER 30A SECTION 21A7 TO REVIEW AND CONSIDER FOR POTENTIAL RELEASE THE FOLLOWING EXECUTIVE SESSION MINUTES RELATED TO STRATEGY WITH RESPECT TO a strategy with respect to collective bargaining with the Public Employees Committee Peck Agreement. That's going to be September 9, 2024, September 17, 2024, and June 16 of 2025. E, pursuant to Massachusetts General Laws Chapter 38, Section 21A7, to review and approve the Executive Session Minutes of August 13, 2026 with the intent to hold seven minutes. E, pursuant to Massachusetts General Laws Chapter 38, Section 21A3, to discuss strategy with respect to litigation on Sean Gibbons v. Stonewall et al. Is there a second to the motion to enter into Executive Session Second. Thank you. The Chair declares that a public discussion on these matters may have a detrimental effect on the litigating, negotiating, or bargaining position of the Town. We'll have a roll call vote, please. Mr. Fay? Yes. Mr. Levine? Yes. Mr. Reynolds? Yes. Mr. Whitney? Yes. And Ms. Martin, yes. That's 5-0-0. The Chair invites attendance by Michael McCall, Town Manager, Jalen Bradica, Management Analyst, Communications Coordinator, and Deborah Ecker of KP Law. The Board will rejoin the public meeting from Executive Session, and the meeting will return to open session in approximately 50 minutes. Thank you. So I'll see you all at the link.
Okay. Good evening. I'm returning the select board to open session from Executive Session at 7.40 p.m. Thank you. Next agenda item is to have a joint meeting. With the School Committee, we're inviting, I believe, Ms. Sambuco, Ms. Gibbons. We're also inviting Mr. Kemeny to join us, who is our Finance Director, Dr. Fleischman, the Superintendent of Schools, and is there anyone else here, Erin? Have I got everyone? No. That's it for us tonight. Okay. Great. Just hold on one second. So the purpose of this meeting is to have a discussion. The Select Board and the School Committee have asked to meet with us to talk about a possible override. I do want to say before we start this agenda item, the Select Board has received no request to have an operating override, so we are just in high-level discussions. If you've been watching any of our meetings, you'll have seen that Mr. Kemeny has come in and showed us some forecasts that show that we could have a gap next year and may need an operating override, and so we are just having a discussion. So, Erin, I think Brian has put together in our packet a spreadsheet or a little summary sheet, and maybe we should have him start with that. What do you think? Did you want to speak first? No. That would be helpful just to kind of right-size some expectations. I know, Carol, last time we had kind of talked about this and us joining you, it was, we were thinking more of something formal of a presentation around budget and request for operating override. And I think that's a good idea. I think that's a good idea. I think that's a good idea. Yes, that is certainly a good idea. But we read a lot of companies that are not engaged in fixed deadline defragmentation which was something I could have focused a lot more on one of the possessive behind that and that usually is in the area of sense for us to hold off on any formal presentation and request, um, until we could get some more solid numbers from both the town side and the school, um, business office. So it would be great if, um, Brian could kind of walk us through that and then we could kind of go from there. So that sounds good to me too. Um, so, you know, Aaron, I know you and I talked a little offline about this, but I didn't really have a formal, you know, you, you know, when you're doing these agenda items, you have a step forward and talk about, and I thought, let Brian, you know, speak and then anyone can ask questions and we can kind of just get some thoughts and comments out on the, on the floor. I usually, um, I'll just go around and let everyone speak as they want. All right, Brian, the floor is yours now. Did you want to complicate things? Do you want to share screen on top of all of this? Yeah. So I, I put together, um, another chart that has two, the font is very high, but I'll do my best to walk through it. Okay. Are you going to put it up on the screen?
I think that would help everybody if we, Oh, that'd be terrific. Thank you, Brian. And then the floor of yours is yours. Of course. Appreciate it. Okay.
So this is what I sent out to the board. If I may interrupt, uh, Brian, can you, can you enlarge that with the, uh, the top right middle button on the, on the screen, the square, let's go up to the top, right of your box. Keep going.
This one it's doing, no, keep going up where the check mark is next to the X to the right.
No, no. All the way at the top in the blue bar. See if it will maximize it next to the X. Yeah. Right there. See if that'll blow it up. No, it went the other way. No, no, that worked. And now you can expand it. Yeah. Unfortunately, I'm opening, I'm opening this up in preview. I'm not opening it up in a, as a download. So it's giving me limitations. So what I want to do is I did send this out to the committee over the weekend. So excuse me, anybody who has access to our packet, like I said, it's on page 19 and you can follow along probably a little better. Aaron, do you have a copy of it from the packet? I pulled it up from online. Can you see it? And David, can you see it as well? Again, because we all got the packets in front of us as do, as does anyone who's watching our meeting. Okay. I'm sorry. Go ahead, Brian. Okay. So we talked about this, I believe a couple of weeks ago at the select bins. And then I sent this file out this past week. The main numbers to look at here is B, we have the total deficit. We were trending in fiscal 28 at 1.1 million. And then the override number will be 2.9. And then in fiscal 30, it would be 3.2. So to get away with some of the confusion of all these busy excuses, what I tried to do was structure it a different way, which is here in chart two.
And unfortunately, I can't get this font down, but let me try to walk through it a little bit where we are. So before I say that, two weeks ago when we did a presentation, we were getting preliminary numbers from Middlesex Retirement. We were expecting anywhere from 6% to 9% increase. They came in at less than two. So our assessment for fiscal 28 is less than 2%, which really changes the numbers. We haven't had a 2% increase in quite a while. And what they ended up doing was they wanted to be fully funded in 10 years. So we had calculated an amortization that was going to be going up six and then down to nine, then back to six and then back to nine. What they ended up doing was the first two years coming in at 2%. Which means the back years, 7, 8, 9, 10, are going to be large increases in retirement assessment. I don't know why they did that. I would rather have had a level service type amortization of the unfunded liability, but we didn't get that. What we did get is a 2% increase over fiscal 27. So the best way to do this is if you take a look at right on the top, fiscal 28, 29, and 30. If you take a look at line four. Total expense budget. Those numbers you're seeing there will stay with fiscal 28. We have $120.7 million. And 29 is $127.4. 30 is $133.9. So let's focus on fiscal 28. So if you drop down, line six, that's our current levy limit. The most amount of money we can raise without an override in fiscal 28 is $100.4 million. $100.4 million. We have other revenue that we're going to depend on to the tune of, what did I do here? Did I lose it? Yeah, you lost it.
Is there that file in the email right there? Maybe double click it again. The one that says FY28, FY, it's in gray, Brian. Oh, you got it over here. What did I get? What did I get? Hold on.
All right, you see it? Yep, we do. Yep. All right. So let's stay with fiscal 28. So where I locked out before I hit the wrong button is the most money we can raise is line six, $100.4 million. We have other revenue in fiscal 28 to the tune of $19.6 million. So our revenue total for fiscal 28. Is line nine, $120.1 million. Now, if you go back up to here, line four, you see $120.7. So we have a revenue deficit to the tune of line 13 of $631,000. We add an additional $200,000. So the total amount of the override that we would vote if we were indeed going to vote a budget to the top number that I talked about would be $800. So that would be about A and double. So we we take that residence from A, we subtract the 21,000 from A, we add our default unit, each of the block assets as a point of我們的 motto, kita mas That's the amount of money in fiscal, 28, we would need to vote to cover the override. But remember the override these numbers are based on assumptions of payroll, health insurance. So remember the override these numbers are based on assumptions of payroll, health insurance. remember the override these numbers are based on assumptions of payroll, mental health insurance We do have our retirement number. We do have our retirement number. We do have our debt number that we're going to be issuing debt in November, but these are our best experiences at this point. but these are our best experiences at this point. So to round up our override number is probably something a million to a 800,000 from fiscal 28. So if you stay with this, if you go to fiscal 29, the budget, including the retirement assessment, is $126.3 million. If you go down to line six, you see $104. That levy limit adjusted is including us voting a successful and approved override of $831,000. So that $104.7 million would be the new adjusted levy limit. Now, if you can see in line nine, the total revenue budget is $124.8, but our budget is $127.4. Again, we have a revenue deficit in fiscal 29 of $2.5 million. If you add $200,000 to that, the total override number would be $2.7. We've talked about this adding $200,000. I think it's important to do that. Now, particularly with the snow and ice issue. I think we should put in a little pad in our estimates of what the override number would be. We wouldn't want to be caught short on a tax recap in the event we ever had to raise a snow and ice deficit. So in staying with this, you go back up to 30, and you're talking about $133.9 million budget. Now, the $110 highlighted in bold, $110.4, that's our new levy limit. That includes both the first year override of $831,000 plus the second year override of $2.7. So that's our new adjusted number. So if our new levy limit is $110,000, then our total revenue is $130.9. But if you go back up to our total expenses, we're at $133.9. Again, we have a revenue deficit. In order to balance the budget based on these numbers, we would need to vote a $2.9 million budget plus $200,000 or $3.1 million. So under these assumptions, the total amount of accumulated three-year override number would approximately be $6.7. But I would caution everybody that the biggest driver in the budget would be getting a better number on the school side. They just recently agreed to a contract. If we get a better number, we're going to be able to get a better number on the school side. Number on the projection of school payroll for 28 and 29. These numbers will probably change a little bit. So that's our best guess. I'm carrying the school budget at a 5% increase in payroll and a 5% increase in non-payroll. Health insurance right now we're carrying at 12%. Like I said, we are going to be issuing debt service in November, bringing on another $1.8 million, both in principal and interest. So this is our best guess at this point. I know Carol mentioned to me earlier today about getting a new estimate in two or three weeks. We can do that. But this is the best guess we have at this point. So I'll turn it back to any questions. Thank you, Brian. Does anybody have any questions for Brian? Who would like to start? You know what? Maybe we should just go back to the full screen so I can see. Brian, stop sharing. Because I'm missing people and I don't want someone to have the hand raised. I may have the log out. I'm going to get back in. I'll be right back. However, I do think I'm going to call in the birthday girl first. What? So unfair.
Do you have any questions or comments? And otherwise, I'll start with the select board. So a couple of things. One, agreed that having a better understanding of where we really think we're going to fall realistically on percentage. I think I wasn't going to have a better understanding of the balance between the difference of how much we are spending and what we're making on the return. How much we're making on the benefits and what we're paying back. I also think the increase of both payroll and non-payroll will help us and help Brian, obviously. So, I have spoken to David and Kirsteen, and we're hoping that we can have that in the next week or two, max. And that's kind of that aspect. Aside from that, I have a lot to say. In the next couple of weeks. I'm sure people will be happy about that. I'm sure people will be happy about that. But I don't have that plan yet. Yeah, but that's kind of what I have to do. Yeah. I have, I think I can speak for the whole committee when I say there are concerns around, obviously, the stability of the finances. And we really want to be sure that we are credible when we speak to you as a select board and or the finance committee and ensuring that we are not working with numbers that then, you know, if we're really crying that we need the override, that we really need it. And that, you know, it's not continuing to see, oh, this cut in our favor, that cut in our favor. Because then we're putting on the table. in a, in a difficult position, um, down the line. That being said, I think we all are aware of the need of the school districts facilities. Um, and we're working on getting an SOI submitted to MSBA for April of 2027. Um, I think we've all heard about the school moving the request for the $2 million. Did we lose Carol? She just disappeared off my screen. No. Okay. She just went off camera. Oh, okay. Um, I, so we pushed, we're looking to push the $2 million, which was originally further out and at a $1 million, um, price point for, um, the feasibility study, um, to 2 million and into fiscal year 20. I'm going to screw this up. 28, right? Right. Okay. Um, so I think the 2 million is a more realistic number given what our consultants at, um, HMFH have, have given us at this stage. Um, we don't want to not be in a position to tell MSBA that the town and the community are in support and they have voted those funds, um, to be spent on the feasibility study. So we want to push that up. The hope is that we will get accepted in this round. Um, this is our third submission. It's not our first. It's our third in the past, um, I'd say probably five years. Um, so, and then, so we'll be asking for that from, you know, the community to support that. But then on the heels of that, we will also have the need to fund the construction of some level of new facilities, whether that be one, two, three, whatever it may be. Um, And that, that is, that is what we need to do. And it doesn't, it's not, it doesn't, it hasn't been determined and won't be determined, but by the time we ask for it, it will be. Um, and so coupling that with the need for an override, which I think, you know, whether it comes to everyone's decision that we needed in 28 or we needed in 29, we're looking at it, we definitely needed in 29 and 30. Um, so we're going to need that. We're going to be asking for that at some point. Okay. for facilities to be supported it's a lot of money um and so we want to be smart with everything that we're looking at coming down the pipe um
what else kate what am i missing i think we you know we've started these conversations with vidcom and select board early because we want to be forward thinking we don't want to surprise anyone here we also don't want to surprise our community we want to have this conversation and it's really tricky when the numbers when we don't have firm numbers but we know there will be shortfalls and we know that we have these really important projects looming in the future it's also tricky because you know the costs that are driving as brian referenced are not necessarily things that are under our control it's opep it's retirement so um i think we've you know tried our best to be really good financial stewards with our budget and trimming as much as we possibly can and even seeing the shortfalls for the next fiscal year are concerning um because we have we have trimmed quite a bit and i think we want to be able to communicate that to these boards in our community while still weighing the important facilities needs that we have coming up
all right thank you um since we're uh you're our guest dr fleishman would you like to speak next sure um just to build um on what kate was alluding to we're continuing to every position when we have somebody leave we're taking a look at do the positions need to be replaced just uh you know we just moved our preschool to happy hollow and we cut the preschool director and we cut the preschool administrative assistant we had somebody leave last week and we're not replacing that person full time so we're going to continue over the next couple of weeks as we prepare our budget to think about how we can be as lean as possible while still giving the students what they need um so that's why we're going to spend time we've also had some people leave this summer um and that's why it's going to take us time to really calculate what the costs are going to be because if somebody leaves you know one question we ask is can we replace somebody just as skilled at a lower salary um and and that's something we've spent a lot of time thinking about because the savings can be can be significant obviously payroll is our biggest expense we have other expenses that are challenging for example the first day of school today we have buses that are very full and adding buses is very expensive and so we get people saying you know there's not enough room for everyone in the bus or the routes are too long and that's something so those are certain you know aaron k we're talking about the operational issues there's the facilities but there are also things like transportation также Juha um that are challenging that we try to be as efficient as possible. So I would say, as you were saying, Erin, within the next two weeks to really have better numbers, we are going to take a look at our enrollment the following year and certainly how we can staff and support students while being as efficient as possible. Perfect. Thank you. Erin, you raised your hand. Did you have another comment? Did I raise my hand? I'm sorry. No, but that is something that the bus contract is up, I think, in a year. So that'll be something that'll have to be renegotiated. To be perfectly candid, we're running kind of a super skeleton crew on the buses. You know, we used to have 16 buses. We're running with 13. You're seeing more families that are trying to utilize the bus. But then it's difficult because there are some buses that run habitually late and it's not the bus driver's fault. You know, we're packing a lot of kids on not a lot of buses. We have our dispatcher that ends up, because she can also drive, she ends up driving a lot of the time. So it's, you know, the macro hits us in the sense that a lot of those people are not going to be able to drive. So it's, you know, the macro hits us in the sense that a lot of those people are not going to be able to drive. So it's, you know, the macro hits us in the sense that a lot of those people are not going to be able to drive. it up um to the board does anybody want to speak first i'm going to go with mr fay so we have a macro question to uh town manager um superintendent and the finance director so over the past 20-25 years the state budget has about doubled but adjusted for inflation state aid to municipalities has gone down 20 20 30 25 30 percent um is there an effort that you have heard of of towns working together and developing a lobbying campaign to address the legislate legislature on this issue i know mma has has touched upon it but i really do think that it's going to take a a more vocal um group of municipalities and not just w towns right um to to make that point in order to be treated more failing have you heard my question have you heard of any any efforts along those lines i mean i'll michael do you want to start i have i want to go first or i'm happy to go all i will say is it is a common theme at the municipal managers meeting as you indicated the mma through adam chapman was put out two position papers the perfect storm and then the successor how to deal with it and they've touched upon this very issue that when they clawed back i believe under the romney administration they were used some nine seat cuts there was some changes to local aid and you're right it's never got back to the levels it used to be but do i know local town managers that just sat down and said you know we should be writing letters or starting to lobby i'm not aware of individual efforts it's mostly been through the mma and the uh the subsection of the municipal manners the mmma that talked about lobbying so on the school side um the mass association of school superintendents and the mass association of school committees are incredibly active with the legislature which will be a real issue if we think about it from a public perspective i think we need to we meet with legislators regularly. You know, I talked to David Linsky and Carmine Gentile. I've met with Robbie Simon. And one of the areas where there's been significant increase in costs is special education, tuition, and transportation. And that has been number one. And we've had some success. For example, Wayland has benefited for the last two years from getting extraordinary relief funding. And that is funding from the state when our special education costs increase above a certain percentage for students who need a lot of support. And so that fund, which we've benefited from for two years, came out of our lobbying efforts. So I do think it really matters. We spend, you know, a lot of time with legislators helping them understand, but I think that special education, tuition, and transportation is the most concrete example where we've had some success. So I'm going to move on to Mr. Levine. I think you had your hand raised next. I did. Brian, I think the issue that I'm having is that, and it's obviously not your fault, but I think it's really hard in terms of messaging for us to figure out in a reasonable period of time if we actually need an override vote. Specifically, I'm looking at the August 28th edition of the Wayland Post, and it's an above the fold article called Town Moves Toward Vote on First Override Since 09. And it talks about a projected budget shortfall of up to $3 million in FY28. And then I'm looking at our June 15th packet, and the number is actually, you know, below $2 million. And then it came down to $1.2 million. And then it came down to $1.2 million. And then it came down to $1.2 million. And then it came down to $1.2 million from our last couple estimates. And then today we're hearing it's potentially like in the $800,000 range. And so what I would be looking for, since I know these are moving targets, is a worst case scenario number and a best case scenario number. And we know that it will more likely than not fall somewhere in between in that range. But I want to get a sense for what is actually the best case scenario. Could we be falling as low as like $400 thousand or $300 thousand? Because if we continue to fall further, speaking for myself, I feel very uncomfortable going to the voters for an override when we're just talking about a handful of hundreds of thousands of dollars, especially given the fact that when you look nearly 20 years ago, that override vote was north of a million. And here we are doing a great job over the last 20 years. But I don't want to ramp up our efforts to educate what is a good amount of new people in town about the override and the proposition two and a half process just for a few hundred thousand dollars. I'd rather keep our powder dry, figure out, and I know it's difficult to tighten the belt this year and go for a much larger override vote starting next year when it seems, at least at this point, that it's somewhere falling between two and three million dollars. I really would just rather go to the voters at a time when we need a significant amount of money to get us through three years. And what it's sounding like to me, the way it's trending, is I'm just hearing that this may not be an appropriate year for an override vote, recognizing that there would have to be some cuts on the town side and the school side, because it's far more unlikely that we're ever going to balance the budget and go down to zero. But if we're somewhere where we're going to have to make sure that we're not going to have to somewhere in the hundreds of thousands of dollars, that's just how I'm feeling at this point. And I'm wondering if you could give us some sense of what our best case scenario is, if this is going to fall further potentially in the next 60 or 90 days.
Well, in the next 60 to 90 days, the only new information that we can get would be that the school gives us a trued up number on the payroll. Carol, can you hear me? Nope.
So between 60 and 90 days, a better number on the school. We will be issuing debt in November. I'm carrying the projected debt around 3.75, in some cases four, but those differentials is immaterial. We'll get a high number on our debt in November. So for the next 60 days or so, the only numbers that are going to be trued up would be school payroll and debt service. As we head into the fall and getting into December, our new growth number will be finalized. Right now, I'm carrying 600. Right now, the assessor is at 370. They're still working on re-evaluations and bringing in a personal property. But right now, they're less than 400,000 on new growth, and it is September 1st tomorrow. And I believe they're down to the last 30 days to bring in valuations. I don't see this number coming down. We still think we're going to be around a million dollars or so. It depends upon where the school comes in. They have a lot of steps and lanes that they need to consider when projecting out their payroll. They did an enhancement on the teacher assistant pay for fiscal 28. But I go back to a lot of discussions we've had at both the school committee, I mean, the select board and the finance committee is, what kind of budget do we want to bring to town? Meaning that we'll raise what kind of taxes? The 10-year average on tax increases runs between four and four and a half percent. A lot of the numbers you're looking at now, the tax increase is six percent. So even if we did an override, you'd be asking residents to not only vote an override, but to accept a tax increase of six percent. At the same time, we're going to be having possibly excluded debt being brought in. We have four projects out there right now, we did talk about the $200,000, $2 million on the MSBA, but we also have the high school field that's in the queue. We have the town building, $5 million that's in the queue. And Route 20, the land development across from the transfer station, there's conversation of that being developed. So there could be four sizable projects that will be funded by excluded debt. Those would need to be considered. So to answer your question, Doug, I see this number being at
impossibly higher, depending upon where the school comes in. And I don't see anything else besides debt service in the school number that will change what we're looking at tonight for the next 60 to 90 days. What did you say the number, what is 331? Say it again? You said that the best case scenario you could see is 331. Did I hear that right? I meant 831 to a million. 831 is now the best case scenario in your mind. To a million dollars, yes. But I got to see the school numbers. So my last question is, for example, a few of us went to the grand opening of the terrain space, which is beautiful, by the way. And so I imagine that the assessment for that will go up significantly for all of the money that they put in that. Is that something that's taken into account? Well, we received a large building permit. Michael, can you comment? I don't believe the building was sold. It was sold to a different developer. I was looking that up. It was sold to a different developer who then now has signed a long-term lease with terrain for 15 years. That's not a long-term lease. Did they actually buy the real estate property? What? Say again? Did they actually buy the real estate? The new holding company bought the real estate and has now leased it to the real estate. That's not a long-term lease. That's not a long-term lease. That's not a long-term lease. That's not a long-term lease. That's not a long-term lease. So if that's the case, then we'll get some new growth on that as well. Which we haven't taken into account yet, right? No, no, this, no. And the assessor did not mention that to me when we were going over the numbers. So would that hit? Sorry. Go ahead, Erin, but then I'm going to hop in, please. Yes, yes, yes. Would that hit fiscal year 28? would that be where that would be yes they would have to get a revaluation that would be where it would be okay well similar to river's edge when river's edge was sold um you know the assessor went through a lot a lot of conversation with the new owner they wanted one in an abatement i believe um it sold for substantially more than it was originally built for and there was a lot of on that one so i think with the property of the old whole foods i'm not completely sure it's going to hit 28 i would have to get with the assessor on that yeah okay so i do um i still have a couple board members and want to speak and i want but i do want to say i hear a lot of we've got to get these numbers and this and that um our next meeting is on september 8th and brian had and not his right we spoke earlier today and he was going to try and give us a little bit a firmer number it would be you absolutely perfect if you will for this process if we could have those school numbers to brian short up so he's able to get that into our packet it only gives you about 10 12 days this week to the end of next week um that would be really really great because although we're talking that we're not talking about an override at the moment should we go forward we do want to have we the select board a really firmly want to have ample time to communicate with the residents and be able to send out some information whether it's just on a web page or it's a flyer to the home i don't know what we're thinking but we are thinking we want ample time so if we are going to have an override we need to vote this probably by mid to late october to allow us um i know jay was shaking said because we did this already about 75 days or something like that between the time we take the vote and able to get back to school and uh that's to get the information out and dance around the holidays. So we really need this school payroll information probably for our September 8th meeting. I think that, and Brian, to Doug's point, we do need the range. So when we do the next revise, just say that range is blah to blah, whatever it is, X to Y. So having said that, Mr. Whitney and Mr. Reynolds, I don't think you've had a chance to speak yet. Did you want to say something? Yes, thank you. Brian, thanks for putting together this analysis. I note that the information you showed on your screen is different than what was in the packet. So it would be helpful to get a copy of the update. And also, prospectively, if you have new numbers, if you can get them out before the meeting, that's great. If not, if you could go with the old numbers, you know, we spend some time going over this stuff in advance of the meeting. And it's a little confusing when the numbers change between Friday and Monday. But I appreciate it. I appreciate that it's a dynamic process, and you're trying to give us the best information available. A question for Aaron. As I've listened to your remarks and yours and the superintendent's, we very much appreciate the fact that you're all working hard to deliver the consistent level of quality education to which we've all become accustomed at the best possible level. You mentioned, Aaron, a $2 million number for the consultant to do the feasibility study. And I was unclear about the nexus between that $2 million request and going to the town meeting and to the voters for a potential override. Do I infer correctly that, ideally, we would avoid the necessity of doing an override while asking for the $2 million? Or I'm just trying to understand the relationship of those two matters. No, I was trying to just kind of give a global picture of all of the items that would be coming that are large items. And, you know, just kind of aligning the timing so that it's not such sticker shock or the best way to kind of plan out those items, whether I know there was discussion with Brian or question to Brian offline about, you know, how should that be done? Should it be its own article? Should it be included in the capital plan? You know, those kinds of things. Yeah. It's a how, not a whether. Right. Okay. Thank you. That's helpful. And Brian, finally, the other thing that might potentially affect the budget, I suppose, that we may learn more about in the coming days is settlement of contracts with our employees. I guess that's a potential buster, a potential savings to the budget. What's your degree of confidence that the assumptions you're carrying will be sufficient to meet where we may end up as far as the budget is concerned? Well, the assumptions are in the salary reserve account. I know Michael's working on all the bargaining groups, and I believe there's enough in the salary reserve to, you know, fund any collective bargaining agreement he settles on. So I don't anticipate any collective bargaining agreements being greater than what we have in the reserve. Okay. Thank you. Most of the departments have employees that are still in the reserve. So I don't anticipate any collective bargaining agreements being greater than what we have in the reserve. Okay. Most of the departments have employees that are still getting steps and lanes. So hypothetically, if we gave everybody, say, a 2% increase, with all the steps and lanes, you're probably talking, some departments would be in the 3%, 4%, and 5% increases, just like in the school. So every time you give a collar increase, it doesn't mean across the board, it's going to go up steps and lanes, really drive that number up. Great. Okay. Thank you. That's it, Carol. Thank you. And Chris. I had a question for Mr. Fleishman, Dr. Fleishman. I read the perfect storm paper from MMA. And there really are two issues in front of us. One is, what are we going to do about the next 12 and 24 months? I'll call that the local issue. And then there's the broad structural issue you brought up. Many cynical voters think that overrides happen too automatically. And the whole point of the perfect storm paper was there's been a structural change here. And so my question is, do you agree with that? And do the politicians you spoke with understand that? Was that part of your lobbying? Or was the conversation just like all the other overrides? Yeah. Well, I mean, a couple of issues is that, you know, there are certain costs, Chris, that are so much higher than two and a half percent. You know, if you look at increases in transportation, particularly during an inflationary time. So when we talk about special education, tuition, and transportation, and we have schools where we send students to that have 12 and 14 percent tuition increases that we don't control, that's really, really hard. What that means is that we reduce in other ways in order to have a budget that's reasonable. So, for example, I anticipate when we give the budget to Brian, that we're going to have fewer employees for FY28, than we do in FY27. Because there's no other way for us to make our budget work, except having fewer employees. Or an override. Or an override. But when I say fewer, Erin, we may have just a few, fewer employees, because we want to be as efficient as possible. We can only go so far, because we've already reduced in the last several years. And this year, for example, our kindergarten students were welcoming, on Wednesday. There are more of them than we expected. Which is actually a good thing for Wayland. We're seeing a lot of communities now with lower numbers. Our enrollment's a little higher. So the answer is, in Wayland, I'm impressed, has not had an override. You know, as a new person to Wayland, last year, since 2009, when I look at our peer communities, there have been many more overrides in most communities than we've had in Wayland. So I think that's a credit to the community, in terms of its creativity and fiscal responsibility. But at this stage, you know, we can only go so far without impacting the education that Wayland residents know and expect. So I think our legislators, I think they are sympathetic. What I would say is, they are facing competing needs, particularly, you know, the number one expense in state budgets is Medicaid, and the federal cuts, whenever the state has to pay more for health insurance or Medicaid, that really hurts education. And so if we could have a federal government that would put more into health insurance, that would be the greatest thing that would help us at the local level. Mr. Mendelsohn, do you have any follow-up? Yes, I do. And I'm sorry to take more time, Ms. Martin, but this is really elemental. No. I'm circling back, Dr. Fleishman, to Tom Fay's point. In your opinion, do you think there is merit to continuing to pursue more aggressively and in a more organized way some lobbying at the state level? Say it another way, when I look at what recently happened in South Hadley with the double rejected override, what voters said, including voters who said they wanted to vote for it, was they just couldn't figure out a way to get a message to government that's saying expenses are out of control. And then making voters pay for it was getting painful enough that they were going to have to change the habitual override. Right. I don't think, you know, hopefully, you know, Wayland is not the community that has habitual overrides. I do think there are times when, you know, what we've seen, if we saw it in Natick or Arlington or here in Brookline, we are seeing overrides passing. I think when part of the job, I think, is that residents need to have trust. We need to have trust and confidence in the leadership, and we need to show that we've been efficient. That's why I was just talking about, you know, moving our preschool out of Town Hall to Happy Hollow and cutting two positions with a major saving. So I think part of our job is to let people know, number one, that we are efficient, and number two, like you're saying, that we're going to look for additional resources whenever possible, as I was alluding to with our special education fund that we got from the state that we were lobbying for, and then we've received money. So I agree with you that it's a communication issue, particularly when there hasn't been an override in 17 years, and it's not something we want to do. Our number one job is to give the kids the support and services they need in an efficient way, and we're going to try to keep doing that. Ms. Martin, I'm done, but with one final comment, a number of speakers, including you, Mr. Whitney, we've really got a communications issue here to get something out that's super clear and builds credibility. And the discussion I've heard tonight I don't think does that. I hope it's just too early. But it seems like there are a lot of unknowns still and a lot of assumptions that we're going to have to get a lot crisper if we really think voters are not only going to vote for the override but come out of it respecting us. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Reynolds.
I think... I would like Mr. McCall to have a chance to speak next, if I may, and then you can be next after that, if that's possible. I do think I hear this... I'm hearing this a lot. We do have to do due diligence in order to be able to support whatever vote we take. So, Mr. McCall, could you have a brief comment or two you'd like to make? I've got a hearing at 830. No, they were all valid points all around. I mean, I think what is critical, Mr. Reynolds touched upon it, is the message. And there's still a lot of unknowns at this point. And one thing we have to make sure when we do go out, and I've talked to people on the town side and the school side, is we're looking in all likelihood for a three-year override in the number that gets us through three years. So if we have an override this spring, it's for the next three fiscal years. If we are able to push it off for another year, it is still going to be in all likelihood for three years. But that number may be bigger as the costs continue to go up. One thing I just want to let people know that we, like Dr. Fleischman, we're always looking for efficiencies on the town side. We've tried to do things better, streamline, take advantage of technology where possible. But most of my departments are running at least down a person because we haven't been filling some of these positions due to attrition. And the one thing I think we have to also think about if we are contemplating holding off for one more year is the level of services that we continue to provide for our residents and our guests and our businesses here in town. A lot of the costs, as you know, if you've read The Perfect Storm and other materials, it's not really what we are doing here in town to manage some of our budgets and our salary line items. Right. Right. Right. It's these unfunded or unclassified portions of our budget that are just increasing faster. So just the parting comment is, you know, I want to make sure that we continue to deliver the best services possible for the residents and try and make it as affordable as possible. But until we get better numbers, it will be hard to message the exact amount and what we need it for. Thank you. So I think Erin, you wanted to have one more comment before I close it? One quick question. And it's probably an easy question to answer. But just because the pension board gave us, gave members a lower number that they have to pay in for fiscal year 28 doesn't mean that any of the numbers going forward changes. It actually is just going to make, still going to be fully funded by the time we get to the time they want it fully funded. So it's just going to make the other increases bigger. Is there any thought of potentially just paying in a higher amount than we are demanded to pay for fiscal year 28 and kind of keep that consistent so that it's more stable and steady or no? Is that crazy? I think that's a really long, complicated answer. Okay. So it's not a quick answer. I'll tell you what. We are paying, we're paying a current amount. We also pay for retirement through the OPAP. Oh, no, I know. Yeah. No, no, this is all retirement. And the third one, Brian's going to tell you, this is a special assessment. This is what, yeah, go ahead, Brian. Yeah. So I actually have talked to Middlesex Retirement last week on that matter. When we got the increase of 2%, I asked them, is it possible for us to pay? An amount greater than the assessment to sort of make the out years less painful. And they said that some communities do do that. And the conversation led to, I mean, if we wanted to take a look at you and our uses of free cash and direct some of that to attack the unfunded liability beyond our assessment, we could talk about that. The way we work would be, we would have to pay, and they gave me a quote, almost $1,400 dollars for Segal to do a study. Or we could use our own actuary to do our own study. But you would have to get a study done and take a look at the unfunded liability where it currently is. Take a look at the assessments for 28 and 29, and then calculate in additional payments. Typically, just like a mortgage, if you're going to pay $100 more every month on your mortgage, you know exactly what your payments are going to be in the out years. With this thing, you don't. In two years, they're going to give a totally new. Okay. Calculation. And that is based upon wages, longevity, mortality, and the performance of the stock market. But any amount of money that we do give greater than the assessment amount will always impact us in a positive way in the out years. It's just a matter of, do we want to pursue that? Brian, I just want to add just a point of information. Teachers do not. The town does not pay for the teacher's retirement. System. Those of us who belong to the mass teachers retirement system, we fund it all ourselves. So it's non teachers. So there's no cost to the school district. Just wanted to be clear about that. But we know that. Thank you though, for adding that. I am going to thank everybody for coming. I personally think this was very, very instructive and helpful. I really liked that we've come together. Aaron, you and I can talk offline again, if we think we want to have another conversation with the full boards together. Yeah. I'll give a little more time on the agenda. Hopefully everybody feels they've had. Opportunity to ask questions and we've we've heard, and if we're all good to go, I am going to say, thank you to everybody. And we're going to move to the next item on the agenda. Thank you. Good night, everybody. Thank you. Good night. Bye. Bye. Everybody. So, thank you, Dr. Fleischman. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you, everybody. So, the next agenda item is a very five short, five minute item. I'm going to invite Ms. Lewis to join us. And this is a follow-up to a discussion we had in the spring where we granted for the planning board needed some extra additional council. And so we said, yes, find someone you think can do the work for you to help you get some of the zoning work you'd like to get done. And we voted to support it with about 20,000 and they need us now to vote it. So that they can then implement. So, Ms. Lewis, you've got three minutes. How are you? Thank you for joining us. Thank you. Annette Lewis, Claypitt Hill Road, chairman of the planning board. Our town planner, Robert Hummel, reached out to a number of law firms and law schools to see if we could get assistance in crafting our proposed new zoning. None of the law firms responded at all. But, Suffolk Law School did respond. They have an environmental law and policy clinic. And their students work on things like this. It's part of their coursework. I don't believe there would be any payment required to have them do this work. They would be assigning two students to the work. There's an attorney advisor for the program who would oversee it. And they would. They would. they would be working with Robert and the board. We don't want to give up the opportunity to have counsel, however. So what I said to Robert was that I would reach out to people that I've worked with over the years and see if they could recommend a youngish lawyer who might want to do this at lower rates than they could possibly charge. Everyone that I know is in the astral sphere. I mean, they're just too expensive. So what you're asking for tonight is for us to approve the use of the students from Suffolk Law? Yes. So may I have a motion on this, please? And there's no cost to us. As far as I know, there is none. I know that Robert has talked to Michael. I'm hoping that what I'm saying is correct. All right. And so we just need to authorize this because we authorized town council. So could I have a motion and then we can have a questions? I move that. The select board approve up to 12 law students from Suffolk University to assist the planning and zoning departments in legal and land use related work for rezoning along our Route 20 corridor, including but not limited to drafting proposed zoning bylaw amendments and any related regulations for implementation. Thank you. Do I have a second? Second. Thank you. Okay, we'll have a discussion, Mr. Fay. Yes. Good evening, and thank you for this idea. Do you envision that Mr. Hummel would supervise these students and guide them or yourself or someone else? I think it would be a combination of Robert and me working with the students, but they also have an adjunct professor who oversees them. Right now, it's Robert Cox, he's an experienced attorney who oversees them. Who has been working with them, and they hired someone new whom I haven't spoken with yet, who is also oversees the program because it's a course, so that they have to have, you know, teacher supervision. Right. Thank you very much. And any further questions? Otherwise, shall we all go to the vote? Mr. Levine? Yes. Mr. Fay? Yes. Mr. Whitney? Yes. Mr. Reynolds? Yes. Ms. Martin? Yes. Ms. Martin, yes, so the motion passes 5-0. Thank you. Give us a little thanks on that, I appreciate it. Sorry you were so late in the agenda. It's okay. I'm going to want to make a comment on your next item, so. Okay, so just hold on. Go ahead, let's see. So the next item on the agenda is the consent calendar, which we partially did. I'm going to come back to that bill so we can finish that just so I can do that. We can do the grant hearing. So we are now going to have, it's 8.30, we're scheduled to have Eversource's ask for a grant of location hearing on Conchituent Road to install a new utility pole and anchor guy. So we're going to invite Jacqueline Duffy from Eversource representative to join us. No, she was here. She has her hand raised. Yes, I am here. Okay. Do you want to put your video on or are we just, you're on your phone? I'm just on my phone. Okay. So here's what I'm going to do. You've done this before, so you'll hang on two seconds. So I'm going to declare that the hearing is open by saying that the hearing is open for the purpose of considering the application for a grant of location from Eversource Energy and Verizon to install one pole number 4-73-A on the easterly side of Conchituent Road approximately 107 plus or minus feet north of Yaeger Way. Okay. Then this notice was published in the Metro West Daily News on Friday August 14th, 2026 and it said, the Whalum Select Board will hold a public hearing on Monday August 31st, 2026 beginning at 830 p.m. remotely via Zoom on the application from Enstar Electric Company DBA as Eversource Energy and Verizon for a grant of location installing one pole number 4-73-A and on the easterly side of Conchituent Road approximately 107 plus or minus feet north of Yaeger Way. Okay. The petitioners request permission for the erection or construction of poles to be owned and used in common by them and for such other fixtures, including anchors and guides, as may be necessary to sustain or protect the wires of the line upon, along, and across the public way or ways of said town as described above. The hearing, which we are in the middle of doing, can be attended to on Zoom remotely on the WACAM and, of course, the link is in the Whalum Town calendar and also on the Select Board's agenda. Copies of the plan are available for public review online at www.whalum.ma slash 245 slash select dashboard. So, all right. So, and we've already welcomed Ms. Dovey here. So the formal rules of evidence and other court procedures do not apply to public hearings before the Select Board. The Board expects the prospective applicant and any members of the public who comment to present credible and reliable information in a clear and concise manner. So we're going to start by giving the floor to you, Ms. Dovey. You can explain the reason you are applying for the grant of location. I will also say that there is information about this application in the packet starting on page 20. So the floor is yours, Ms. Dovey. Good evening. We'd like to install a new pole 4-73A and it's to provide electric service to 172 and 164 Cotuit. I know I said the word wrong, road. Cotituate. Cotituate. Okay. All right. Did you want to add any other information? No. On page 24 of our packet, I believe, is there a map that shows the proposed pole will be cited. All right. So any questions from the Board for the applicant? Mr. Fay? I just had a comment from Ms. Dovey. Good evening, Ms. Dovey. As the Chair just mentioned, the diagram of where this pole is going to be is on page 24. I think sometimes in the past, not always, your company includes an aerial photo with a marking as to where the pole is. Okay. Where a pole is going to be placed or other equipment. I just find that very helpful. I think the residents do as well. So don't be shy to include those in the future. Thank you. Okay. Doug? Bill? Chris? Any comments? Questions? No questions. Chris, you all set? All set, Madam Chairman. All right. So now, members of the public who would like to provide public comment may do so. I know we have a few more questions. We have a few more questions. We have a few more questions. All right. Thank you. Thank you. I know Ms. Lewis has raised her hand, so the chair recognizes Ms. Lewis, please. Thank you. Annette Lewis, Claypitt Hill Road. I'm hoping that every time you approve a new pole location or anything that is requested of someone regarding utility poles, that you require them to take out the double poles that are all over town. We have double poles. We have pieces of poles. We have poles that are hanging from wires, and it's really quite disturbing across from my house. I think for more than five years, we've had ropes holding up things, wires that are hanging on those poles. They're not utility wires. I'm not sure if they're Verizon's or if they're the cable companies, and they're really low-lying, and low-lying enough that trucks hit them. Okay. I'm hoping that you will pay attention to that as selectmen and not just give them a grant of a new pole without having them take out the old poles. I noted in the plans, it didn't look like any of the old poles were coming out, because if they were coming out, they would have been clear circles, and these were all dark circles. Also, I did not note on the plans where any anchors or guys were going. I didn't notice any anchors or guys mentioned at all. So if there are none, then you shouldn't be approving those, because what happens is they place the anchors and guys on private property, not even in the right-of-way. Thank you very much. Oh, one other. On Kichichewit Road, near those poles that are the pole that's being replaced, if you drive down the road, the poles are incredibly old and thin, and I would hope that they would check those out to make sure. That they will be substantial poles going forward. Thank you. Thank you for the feedback. I'm just writing all these notes down. Okay. All right. Well, Ms. Duffy, I... Can I just ask one question? What is your address, just so I can send it back to the division and see if they can go by your house and look at those poles? Oh, Annette, you're on mute. Sorry. 33 Clay Pit Hill Road. What is it? 33? Clay Pit. C-L-A-Y-P-I-T. Next word, hill. Road. Okay. Thank you. Perfect. Thank you. All right. I think that Ms. Lewis, in my personal comment here now as part of the hearing, I think Ms. Lewis has a good point that we should really make sure that we... As part of our grants, that we make sure that the double poles and the hanging poles and the half poles are removed, I think is a good point. Does anybody else have any further comments? If not... Just a quick one. I've gotten complaints about unsupported poles too. Okay. So, Ms. Duffy, do you have any comments about that? Any of the comments that were made or any further comments, information for the board as we proceed with the hearing? No, I will take everything back to the division. Okay. So, what I'm going to do now is I'm going to move to close the hearing, right, and normally at this stage, well, actually, this is it. We've deliberate, we consult with the town manager and or the town council, and we vote to have a decision, but I am going to say that I am going to recommend that we continue this hearing. Because we were unable to secure a recommendation. Okay. So, we're going to have a recommendation from the DPW and or the acting police chief, which is normally a piece of information that we use in evaluating a grant request. So, I would like a motion to... Oh, let me ask you that, Mr. McCall, can I just continue the hearing myself or do I need a vote? You need a vote. I would, Erin, actually have the vote to continue to your next regular scheduled meeting, which I think is the eighth. Okay. Yeah. So, I would like to have a motion then to continue the hearing until September 8th, please. So moved. Second. Thank you. All right. Any further discussion? And then all those in favor, say aye. Mr. Fay? Aye. Mr. Reynolds? Aye. Mr. Whitney? Yes. Mr. Levine? Yes. Ms. Martin? Yes. So, that's 5-0. So, Mr. Reynolds? Yes. So, Ms. Duffy, we will do this on September 8th, and the town manager's office will reach out to you at the time. You're certainly welcome to come and join us that night. Maybe perhaps in the meantime, if you have an aerial photo of the area, you want to forward that to us for that discussion, that would be terrific. Okay. All right? All right. Thank you, everybody. Thank you. Have a nice night, everybody. Thank you, you too. You too. All right. All right. So, I think I'd like to go back now to the consent calendar. So, Mr. McCall, while we were waiting, we were running ahead, and so we did a couple of things. On the consent calendar, we were able to approve items 1, 3, and 4, but I believe Mr. Whitney had a question on item number 2 on the consent calendar, and I was voting the question of authorizing you as a signatory for approving the contract from Parry Corporation in the amount of $150,000 for the local street crossing replacement project. So, have I got it right, Bill? Yes. My question is, Michael, what's the scope and the location of this project? With all due respect, Madam Chair, this may have been put on during a couple of days when I was unavailable. The reason that this usually comes is because I'm not available. I'm not available. The reason that this usually comes to the board is it is in excess of $100,000. So, this may have, and I apologize, too, I've been out of town the last two business days, do not have an answer to that question, Mr. Whitney. Would it be hopefully not too detrimental if we wait and review this on September 8th? I have no problem doing that. So, I would rather you have the answer than not. Okay. Does that sound acceptable to the board? No, I don't care. That works? Okay. I think we're all sitting on the consent. Thank you. Thank you. We want to make sure we know what's cooking here. So, the next item is going to be part two of the annual uptown meeting discussion. What I did this week, and Tom, just so you know it, I split these out because Jaylen is here and then she goes home in a timely manner, you know, in a timely manner, and I think that's going to be a great discussion. So, let's get to it. Okay. in this part, we just do amongst ourselves, if you will. So that's what this is. What we did last time is we looked at, there's been three or four suggestions of articles that we might pursue for town meeting. And you and I were at the meeting with the chair of the finance committee and Ms. Bradica, where they said they would like some, you know, some feedback from us if we're going to be having articles and what we're going to have and what we're going to put in, if we could help doing them sooner than later, rather than all at the last minute, it would help smooth out, helps to smooth out their, their workflow. So this, that's basically where we are. So one of them was, and we mentioned them last week, and then everyone wanted to mull noodle on a couple of them over. So I'm going to start in the middle here. One was to reduce the quorum below a hundred. This was mentioned by the moderator and I put this on the agenda. Because for discussion, if we are going to pursue this or what we are thinking. So did you want to opine on that? You weren't here last meeting to opine on that.
And these are just potential articles. These aren't remote, you know. You know, I don't love the idea because it just bothers me that so few people in a room can sometimes make extremely important decisions for the town. On the other hand, you know, I've been on a regular time meeting since I've moved to town. thirty-four years ago, and I'm fully aware of the numbers at time meeting, particularly late, late on the second or third night. So, given the fact that I have high regard for the moderator and this is something she supports, I'm okay with it. And, The question would be, what do we think it's going to be? Any more discussion here? Is this an article we should pursue? Obviously, we'll want to do it in conjunction with the moderator if we did it, because it's her suggestion.
I would like to underscore that I'm in favor of the motion as out of respect for the moderator, but I would very, very, very much like to hear her answer to the question Mr. Fay just raised. And or excuse me, not question the issue of, you know, the 1130 p.m. third night mini group that some people might claim is not representative. And I can be brief with this, as you know, already. I'm just always worried about the credibility of our our system and how voters see us. Yeah. Doug or Bill.
Yeah. I can see that both sides of it. And I was just looking up to see what some other towns are doing around us and that are of similar size. And it sounds like the range is between 50 and 150 for a quorum. So we're smack dab in the middle of that if AI is to be believed here. But I think it would be nice to have a conversation about this with the moderator so we could discuss the pros and cons, because I'm leaning toward it right now. But I'd like to have a discussion with her and Bill. I'd welcome the opportunity to hear from the moderator. I have a great deal of respect for her, but I, I really disagree with the notion of reducing the quorum from 100, given that we've got something like eleven thousand four hundred registered voters in town. You know, we've all seen that. You know, some. Sometimes there's a move for reconsideration that happens at the eleventh hour and everybody leaves and an article that failed early is approved later by a handful of people, you know, I think if this is a chronic issue, we should think about maybe switching to a representative town meeting. Maybe then the elected representatives would feel some obligation to show up and to poll their neighbors. But I wish I could say I have an open mind, but I guess I don't. We could go right to a mayor form of government, Bill, and then we'll get out there for Whitney for mayor. No, I think you're much better qualified. So you'll be happy to know that I still get the curmudgeon hat on. I'm with you.
So let me invite the moderator in. Another one we talked about last week. Was expanding the Mullen rule to include the select board, you know, for hearings and the question was raised by it, because we do have this in town already for planning zoning, the historical district, I think conservation and I'm not going to say this word. Right. But it was questioned first by a resident whether we had hearings. There were help me out here. Doug judicatory nailed it. Yay. And I actually was. Mentioned it to keep you on the other day that we were thinking about this and her position was she thought we could just implement this on the model for the select board. Probably we could just do it. So the question is, do we really want to do this just for the select board when the odds of this happening are very minimal or not? Doug did say he would take it on. If we're still good with that, that's fine.
Is everyone okay with that one today? Okay. Then we also had one that Michael had suggested he would like to have not just right now. Our system is we allow the department heads and there's a list of folks who work for us to get up and answer questions at town meeting and he had suggested right after Tom meeting. I think maybe last year, even that we consider adding in staff participation, which we identified last week would also mean. That staff could go up to the pro and the con and then, and speak in favor or against an opposition to articles and I don't think we kind of finished that discussion as to whether we thought we wanted to look at pursuing an article. So I want to open the floor up on that. I'm trying to get a sense of yay or nay on these, so I can kind of communicate with the FinCon what we're thinking.
No objection to that.
Comments. Anyone else. I would just comment. You asked us to think about this last time we all got together and a wise person brought up that, you know, maybe people who don't live in town shouldn't be. In that position, and I did think about it and it. I think that matter would self police. I don't see town employees just getting up at the mic to propose measures or comment on them willy nilly. So, so in the end, I have no objection and I kind of decided that point doesn't hold a lot of water i think 100 mr mr whitney
okay with it it's okay so i'm going to be the lone dissenter here i'm really on a roll tonight
what did i have for dinner uh i'm really uncomfortable again i'm going to say this that i believe tom meeting is for the residents by the residents and i don't think this i think it's important that the staff is there and answer questions for us as we need them but i really feel that this is these are 45 minute maximum discussions including the presentation the presentation of the article which can take what seven someone can oppose for seven now you've got like 30 31 minutes left or whatever it is i do the math right there well 30 minutes left you know for the residents to speak at the pro and the con you see oftentimes the pro and the con and there's still people in the line when the moderator says you know we're done here we're going to cut that off or or or another resident calls calls the question so we want people to go to so they can be heard and then you're gonna i don't know i'm not comfortable with this i i think it needs to be maybe michael and i can have a sidebar and we can come up with something to modify the current language that allows for a little more more discussion without a full-fledged, every staff member can get up and speak. I just think of them as our subject matter experts and that they can help elucidate sometimes what can be very confusing. And they come with such gravitas when they get up there and say a few sentences. It's so meaningful to hear from them. I want to make that as easy as possible without even having to take an extra vote and waste the time of town meeting to allow them to speak. And it doesn't necessarily have to be to answer a question. It could be for them to step up and say, this discussion right now is so misguided. I'm going to come in here and provide some information to provide clarity to town meeting. And it takes us in a different direction. And it's like a godsend at that moment. So how is it that we have the article right up so off track and knowing nobody from the staff advised us when we were putting this thing out wrong in the book? I just really am uncomfortable with where it's going to go. But since we seem to have consensus that we want to pursue this, who would like to take this up so we can draft up the 150 words? Well, you took Mullen, didn't you? I'll switch. What are you going to give the Mullen to, Tom?
Didn't we talk about Mullen not being as useful because it's so rare that this would come up? Well, I said that earlier, but then no one said, yeah, yeah, I agree with you. So I thought it was still with us. So let's take Mullen out. How's that? This one is a lot more important because it can be used frequently. Everybody's good with that? Mullen's off the table and Doug will draft the 150 words for us to look at in the next couple of meetings. All right. Reduce the quorum. We'll have the moderator come in and speak to us. All right. In addition to that, we have reached out and I think the planning board bill, I don't know if you know this, the planning board is going to have four or five articles. These are the only thing there that I think we want to do is like we did last year. They had a great suggestion where we somewhere around November vote to authorize Michael to forward those bad articles back to them for a report so that we get the reports back in time to get them in the warrant. I thought that was was terrific. Terrific. But you might want to check with them to see what what articles they're putting for. So you're in the loop on those. And if you need help with them, you'll let us know. And then I think, Tom, the town clerk's putting in three or four articles. Yeah. Do you want to talk a little bit about those or any of those? Well, I was out of the gate sooner than later. Sure. So these are articles that some of you saw in the town meeting this past spring, including animals in the town building and and rather dogs and dogs in the town building. And. I think we're in the loop on the Great. That would be great. And I think that now, Mr. McCall, do you have any suggested articles that you think we should talk about for the next year or two? Well, I think we're in the loop. I think we're in the loop, but, you know, it's important. You know, it's important. should be looking at submitting. I know last year you had a number of them.
I have some in the queue, but one that has come up recently and I had to speak to town council as a select board member, Levine knows we've been talking with WACAM about a variety of different things and working with them on cameras and meetings. And while we were going through that, something came to my attention. The way we handle the receipt of our cable franchise fees has changed. And not the way we do it, but what DOR has suggested. And through no fault of our own, we took our prior contract and select board member Levine and I worked with WACAM and Mr. Mullane to just update that. There was information sent out by... The DOR, which is changing how we have to receive the fees. So right now they come into the general fund. The DOR would prefer that there's a special revenue account. So we would have to adopt a certain part of Mass General Law to create the revenue account to have those funds come in. So I'll get more detail about that. But I finally got an opinion last week from KP Law as to what we needed to do. So I hope... So we need someone to be following that one. But Doug, that's going to be you if you want that one. Oh, God, you're overwhelming me. I know. I got the curmudgeon hat on today. Watch it. I don't think that will be too daunting. I mean... I know. What I'm thinking is maybe other communities have done it. We could just do a cut, a little bit of a... Take that for the guide. All right. So sorry. All right. Are there any other questions? Are there any others that you're thinking of? This is good. I don't have any for you this evening. Okay. I'll circle back to you and see that we can just sort of be saying, yeah, this sounds good or whatever, and start working on some of them to help the Finance Committee. That would be really good. Can we make some up and just heap them on Doug while he's on a roll? Keep them coming, Chris. Actually, I think, to be honest with you, the Finance Committee, and I hope I'm not talking out of school here, but I think they are going to go back and look at the standard articles that we have. As well, I'm going to say OPEB, for example, and see, you know, if there's any language changes they want to make now, because they're standard language. And so we may end up getting some of those back. And whatever helps them is great. All right. Excuse me, Madam Chair. Just to let the board know, as I shared with you, my office, I have tasked them to go back and look at all the authority for... I mean, we have the authority for every board and committee that was created here in town. As we've talked, there's some that may have lived their usefulness. So there may be some of those boards and committees that are really no longer functioning or that we want to phase out that we may need a town meeting vote to rescind, make a bylaw change. So, those are the types of things that are in the queue with us. We're evaluating those to make recommendations to the board. Thank you. Thank you. Actually, that's going to be, I think, on September 22nd. The audit committee will come before us. They're one that would like to talk to us about their structure. There's a couple of them. So we will look at that chart then, and that's on the agenda for the 22nd. So, all right. I'm just trying to think where I am so I'm not making any mistakes, which would be a good idea. Number 16 is about the policies. This is one of our objectives, you know, is to look at policies that need to be updated and also to create, formalize, I should say, policies that we feel we would like to do. I put down here two that came right off the top of the bat, is that I think Michael has suggested, since it's on my list, that we go back and look at our social media policy, which is not that old. I think we approved it in 25, but that maybe we want to add in about the use of AI. So. I open this up to the board. Is that something we think we'd like to do?
Would have to change it six months later, but I think it's a good idea. In other words, it's just moving so quickly, but I think it's not a bad idea. Happy to get involved in that, unless someone else wants to. Oh, no, no. You're already in. But you know what I think, too, Tom, in all fairness, is that we really needed to get that formalized, and so there may be some language that could be tightened up in that as well. So I'll get Abby to send that off to you, and then you can have a look at that. I have put on the list, and actually, this social media policy is in the packet on page 41. On page 39 is the debt exclusion, and this has not been done. The last time, what was we? 10-1-10. Bill, were you on the board then? So long ago, I can't remember. 19-10. It's not 19-10.
18-10. Scarcely 18-10. Oh, my gosh. You went and played tonight, Doug, aren't you? Wow. I haven't eaten dinner yet. I think this policy rambles a little bit, and I think it needs to be – I mean, it has a finance committee coming in twice to present the same information. I don't want to know. I think this one probably could use some – I don't know if it's going to be a revision. And so I'm happy to take that on if everyone thinks that makes sense.
Fine. True. Okay, good. I'll do that. I understand that Watertown, I think, has revisers and might have a nice draft. I couldn't find it on the webpage, but we might look at that. All right. Then there was a suggestion to a couple new policies that I, again, have on the list. Someone has suggested. I think this was you, Michael, accepts gifts of land. Yes, Bill? Sorry, on the social media, before we leave that up. To follow up on Tom Fay's point, I wonder if the policy ought to reference sub-stack or whether that's included under blogs. It strikes me that that's a whole separate category of people expressing their views, so should that be called out as one question. Then, with respect to under Section 4, policy for use on social media sites for official purposes, which appears on page 46 of the packet. Number six. Section 416 discusses political activities with respect to candidates, but it makes no reference to ballot questions. So, I wonder if that should be comprehended so that we assure that the town's information goes out or anyone speaking for the town is presenting facts rather than advocacy. Sure, I've made note of those points. Thank you. I do know that, and I don't know if this is really a crossover, but I do know, I think Jalyn has got on her list is use of the town seal and the town, you know, the town name, and the use of the seal. We might reference it here as well. You can't do that, whatever. But that's another one. Okay, those are good points. Thank you. This is good. Then I think we had, accept gifts of land, which I think I have to say, I think Bill was one of the first meetings that we had with Michael when you first got to be chair. He's mentioned we should have this. Someone had wanted to give us something. We said we should have a gift of land policy. So, I don't know if that's something we still want to do. Do you want to speak to that, Michael? I always think it is good for the board to have something to fall back on in the event that just like we take gifts, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, people want to donate objects of art or a bench. Similarly, people may want to donate land and we may want to have reasons that we may or may not. So, I think it's worth exploring that as well. Maybe look at some other pure towns that way in case there's something that's ever offered to the town. It's something that's not consistent with what you want to do or you don't want it to come off the tax rolls. You can fall back on that. Would you put that in a gift box? policy, Michael, or would that be a separate policy? It may be separate. I will flesh that out a little further, but sometimes you want to take things that are contiguous to town land. I will work with whomever on the board to rule. Yeah, I mean, I'm sort of saying we should take these because I have to say that, and I guess we're in the draft agenda meeting, and Tom had suggested, and I'm implementing it without mentioning it, sorry, that each of us should follow these policies, you know, be attached to them rather than and then when you're ready, let me know or not, and we'll put them before the board. So I hope everyone thinks that's a great system. Would you be willing to do the gifts of land one, Bill? Sure, I'll be happy to work with Michael on that. Okay, great. And then the last one I had on the list, this doesn't mean there aren't others that you wanted, but this is what I have on my list, is religious expression, and I think, Tom, did you want to speak to that? Well, I know our board has discussed this issue in the past. We have been instances when individuals have come before the board seeking, particularly during the holiday season, to place items on town property consistent with their faith, and they simply don't have a policy. Other communities do. Some don't, but I think it's wise to have something because it usually is a last minute request, and I just think it's good to have a policy that residents can, and frankly non-residents who come to town and ask, can look at and appreciate what they can and cannot do. So I'm happy to put something together. Okay. Is everybody good with that? Yes. I would like to add to what Mr. Fay just said, that I've seen people's people make what appeared to me to be ad hominem attacks as a result of that conversation, and that one of the benefits of what Mr. Fay is proposing is that it puts a little bit of good bureaucracy behind the request, so the person being asked can we put up a sign or a display or something doesn't have to feel awful for bringing up some logistical constraints. I think that was your intent, wasn't it, Tom? Yes. Yeah, the intent is not, it's just consistency. So, all right. If anybody thinks of any other policies we should have, you can let me know. I think we have enough to work on at the moment, so that ought to keep us busy. So I think the next item on the agenda is the town manager report. Mr. McCall, the floor is yours. Thank you, Madam Chair. What's on there currently, there's two items. As you know, next week will be Labor Day. We will be celebrating that on Monday, September 7th, so the town offices will be closed. We will then be going back to having a full day through 7 p.m. on Tuesday, September 8th. And that's a nice segue into a recap. Just to remind everybody, we are back on our five-day-a-week schedule, so our hours are going to be on Monday, September 8th. We're going to go back to 8 to 4 on Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, and we'll be here until 1230 on Fridays.
I just want to comment a little bit on the unfortunate incident that happened on August 18th. And I know our two chiefs would like to come in at a future meeting to talk about specific individuals and their actions that day, but it was truly a tragedy. I commend all the board. In town and the employees, especially our EMS, for the way they conducted themselves. The two chiefs did an excellent job working with Gilfoyle, our PR consultant, handling the media that day. But these types of incidents are never easy. They can often linger in people's minds and it took an emotional toll on a lot of our employees. And we've got a lot of work to do to make sure that they're doing the right thing. We've got a lot of work to do to make sure that they're doing the right thing. I've asked the respective chiefs and even the inspection staff that were involved to take some time to take care of themselves because these are just never anything that any community wants to do with them. But I want to commend everybody in town, how they've responded. And I did reach out to our peer communities, specifically Sudbury and Weston, and I thank the town managers and the respective police and fire chiefs there. I would say that our EMS talking with inspections and DPW has thought long and hard about what happened that day and we are taking some steps to just walk some of our lands here in town, including some of the school grounds, to make sure we don't see any trees that are potential problems and we will be addressing those in a proactive fashion. Just a couple of things. Just other items that we've been working on. I've been working with staff on the historic parking. We're going to have another meeting this week. We have ongoing collective bargaining. I've met with Mr. Reynolds and the folks at Town Center doing some preliminary work to ensure that Wayland Fest goes off without a hitch. I know it will. But we have new partners in North Pond, Jesse Burkhan, and they are highly motivated. As you know, we are looking to move forward with them on the pedestrian zone there. And last thing I just want to comment, it was mentioned briefly, we had the ribbon cutting at Terrain the other day. It was very exciting. It's a lovely facility. We had our legislators, members of the board there. We're excited to have them. They're excited to partner with us. We were already making introductions that day to some of the businesses in town and outside of town. And they can attract more business there. And the one thing that came up that day from a couple different people is what Wayland needs to do is attract a boutique hotel somewhere in town so that all the guests for the wedding can stay here and the dollars will stay in Wayland. So that's the next thing we'll be working on. And that's all I have, Madam Chair. Mr. McCall, I can do it in my reports, but I think I would like to pass it to you. Do you want to speak about our articles? The AG has responded and we've sent that. It's going out to the board tomorrow morning, that email I got from the town clerk. No, I'll defer to you, Madam Chair. Okay. That's fine then. All right. I think we are on the minutes of July 20th. This starts on page 51 and the minutes of August 13th. So I have a motion. It's been told that it's the July 20th, 2026 as amended. Second, please. Second. Thank you. Any comments? This is July the 20th, Carol? Yes, please. All right. I will require some assistance to read my own writing here. If others have comments. We'll get Mrs. Comer over here to help you. All right. Anybody else have anything? Nope. While you're thinking about it, Bill, I'd like to say on A5, the second sentence says the Kaplan Consulting LLC joined the meeting and presented. Technically, they called it a hearing. It was a public hearing because then we had to allow public comment in the agenda item. So I would say join the meeting and open the hearing to public comment. You know, sent to the slide deck, did the board and opened it to public comment. Or maybe the board discussed the plan and opened the hearing. I'm open to the hearing to public comment, but it should say something like that. All right. And I don't know that I have any other remarks. Can you decipher your handwriting? Yeah, I've just got one little thing on page 53 in the packet under A6. Okay. In the third paragraph. The fourth line down, underage individual without verifying the buyer's age. I think it should be apostrophe S. See, it was a comma, except it was an uppercase comma. No, it's an apostrophe. All right. I do syntax, too, you know. I realize that. All right. Let's have a vote. Where am I? Mr. Fay? I'll abstain, actually. Okay. Mr. Levine? Yes. Mr. Reynolds? Yes. Mr. Whitney? Yes. Mr. Martin? Yes. So that's going to be 401, right? Correct. I'm looking at someone. Okay. How about the minutes of the 13th, please? Happy to move their approval as amended. Second. Okay. Page 57. All right. Any comments? I got lost there. Is Mr. Whitney happy with those minutes? I was not sure. I was not paying attention for a second. I thought I asked you. Didn't I have 401? The ones from before, right? 20th. That was the 20th, that vote. Then I'm all set. Thank you. Okay. So now we're on the next one, which is August 13. We have a motion on the floor. All right. Anybody have anything? No. I've got one. I've got one. The very bottom on A4. All right. All right. All right. All right. All right. All right. All right. All right. All right. All right. All right. I'm on A4. I'm going to look to Tom. So I announced, I believe, that the Board would adjourn from executive session, and would not return to open session. Not we adjourned, but I have to announce it, don't I, and not return to open session. I'm not sure you really need to. But why don't you throw that in there. Sure. Okay. That's what I'm actually. We were clear on that. so all right let's have a vote anybody else all right let's have a vote on those mr reynolds yes mr whitney yes mr fay yes mr levine yes it's martin yes that's five zero okay correspondence every few items in there thank you all right i think we're on select board reports and concerns i'm going to start with doug because the last item in the packet on page 59 is something he's going to speak to i think um there i i get the as i think chris does i don't know about others information sent frequently by the mass municipal association and there's a save the date notification that we received a couple weeks ago about a fiscal summit and specifically the agenda talks about the current municipal fiscal landscape around the commonwealth and then an overview of funding sources available to municipalities and a discussion on effective budget collaboration between boards and committees i feel like it would make sense for at least one of us to attend this i am going to check my schedule and see if i can do that it's located in rent them on thursday october first looks like a half a day seminar from 8 30 in the morning till 1 15 p.m um i i think it would be good for us specifically to not only hear about the landscape from some of our fellow communities but how some of them are are attacking it um and then i also i wanted to mention that there was this federal housing legislation that passed into law um over the summer called the 21st century road to housing act and in it there are a number of potential grants that could be stood up specifically for municipalities around the country and we've reached out to kp law to see if they can keep us apprised of that it will be an unfolding process over the next couple of years they have to stand up new regulations draft new regulations and potentially stand up new offices at the federal level but i feel like that's something that we should remain at the forefront of since we're constantly staring down this fiscal cliff within our town and potential override votes to be in the judges seat because we've lost a lot of our folks in the past and most of the little things that we needed to do that work just so we can get it out of our hands and so that's something that i've been working on so long that i've been trying to make sure we keep that in the way that we can be locked up in the process i don't know if it's actually going to happen but i do know that we still have we still have a lot of land here that we have to keep up we have to keep up most of our land we still have a lot of land here that we have to keep up with so we're still doing a lot of work to get that off the ground in the first place i think maybe if there's a lot of land cc me or she'll tell me and we'll figure out how we'll process that all right anything else mr reynolds uh no but thank you madam chairman okay um bill or tom nothing from time um i uh will reiterate a concern uh expressed earlier about the
route 20 south landfill i was concerned to hear the finance director identify that as one of four projects that might well be subject of a uh capital budget inclusion or override and uh you know i i would really appreciate that having a robust discussion as to the inclusion of projects uh in the capital budget that may or may not be in the five-year capital plan and also the discussion of the relative roles and responsibilities of the finance committee and the SIPC. It was always my understanding that the SIPC would be a long-term capital planning body rather than comment on the coming year's capital budget. And I think there's just a lot of confusion, certainly on my part and perhaps others. This Route 20 project may be a great project, but what's the point in having a capital plan if we just dump stuff in it? So if you could put that on your list, Carol, I'd appreciate it. Actually, it's my turn now. It is on my list, unfortunately, because we didn't have as many meetings all summer. I've got a couple of things that I'm carrying. But that brings me... You should have gotten an email from Abby about the fall schedule. I'm going to try and maintain the every other week. Schedule, I think that's good for us. I think it's good for the staff so we get a break in between and get some of the things done that we identify at the meeting. If for some reason, I shouldn't say this because this will happen, knock on wood, we do need to have a little extra meetings. I'm going to try. Tom, I didn't get a chance to tell you this, but I'm going to try that Thursday morning one hour, the short meetings, if that works. We'll see how far we get with that. Okay. When Michael was doing the report, I did allude to the fact that the town clerk has received a notice from the AG's office, Michael, correct me if I get this not correct, indicating that all the articles that we passed at town meeting, we got the thumbs up, so we're good to go. It was really interesting. A lot of information, particularly if you're in the legal field, you know, about comments and articles we took on, particularly the banning of the crypto. Okay. ATMs, I thought was very interesting, so I've asked Abby to forward that information to you. If you haven't gotten it, you'll probably get it tomorrow. You can just read through it. That's really great. Put it in the correspondence packet, but we're good, so we're good to have town meeting later in the year. We're good to, we've got liquor licenses, we're rolling. So anyway, the other day I was at the bank and I was facing Russell's. Okay. So I went to get out of the car, a couple of people came whooshing by on the rail trail. It was really, really cool. And I looked and there was a little teeny path right there by the local there, I think the little path connecting and then we're a little farther down and there, there was a nicer path coming from the rail trail that has definite specific designated signs on about 10 or 12 parking spaces that say rail trail parking. So that was, I know they had come and said they were going to do it. I actually saw it. It's pretty good. I did mention before that it was when I had seen the article in the Globe on July 24 about the state wants to get 225,000 more housing units. And one idea was that they were going to allow religious properties to build is my understanding. And somebody can confirm for me if otherwise that that bill is not going to go forward this year. I don't know if the right word. Doug, you'll have to tell me if it's in committee or whatever, but I don't believe it's going forward as permanently as we thought. So perhaps we can wait now and speak to the legislators in November rather than bring them in in September. But if one of you realize that I misread that, then please let me know and I'll get that right on the schedule. I'm going to think what else I had. I think that should about do it. So with that. Thank you. I will take a motion to adjourn at 930, please. So moved. Way to come in 10 minutes ahead of schedule. Carol. Yeah. What happens when you're a curmudgeon? All right. Have a second, please. Second. Thank you. Okay. All those in favor. Doug. Yes. Chris. Yes. No. Yes. Tom. Yes. And Carol. Yes. Five zero. Thank you very much. See you on the 8th.
I see no public comment. Great. Thank you very much. That brings us to item number three, and this is going to be on page seven in the main packet. We want to invite Jalyn Braddock, our Management Analyst Communications Coordinator. She joined us last week. We had some designs. We asked for some revisers, and here we are. The floor is yours, Jalyn. Yes. So, I made the changes to the banner. I did make the seal a little bit smaller, and I did make an orange and black version to represent the town colors. So, I'm asking for the board to decide on what banner they would like to move forward with, and once you do decide, I will be able to place an order and start production of that banner with our vendor. That's very good, and then, for those please, if there are any submission comments from the board? I defer to my colleague who has had great experience with the Arsewhelan Group and has an eye for color and layout. Mr. Reynolds, you are on mute, by the way. He is thinking. you might have frozen it's back all right Mr. Whitney I'd still like to hear Mr. Reynolds you unmuted so I said he's ready to go move on he could point out for orange or down for red you know Chris can you unmute yeah he just unmuted beautiful it's your turn please I thank you I apologize Madam Chairman I was clicking unmute feverishly and for some reason it was slow which may be an indication of how good it is when I am muted Jalen thank you I liked all of them and I liked the second one the best I could go into detail about why but I will defer to the chair when you said the second one you mean the one with the the the blue and the red yes okay okay gentlemen would you like to opine someone want to make a motion I moved that I'll go ahead Tom no no go ahead I move that the select board approve the second banner with the red white and blue color scheme for use at parades and other public events I have a second please second thank you is there any further discussion okay let's go to the vote and because we are remote I have to do them all roll call so Mr Reynolds aye Mr Levine aye Mr Fay yes Mr Whitney yes and Ms Martin yes so that passes 5-0 thank you Jalen very much for what you did on this and patience with us Jalen thank you you're awesome thank you so the next the next topic we're also going to invite Jalen to stay with us because she's also working on the 2027 warrant in the town meeting and we Tom just for your edification we talked about this last week and I think we realized there was the moderator had a conflict with one week another week didn't seem to work too well and so I think we were looking at the second option am I right Jalen yes and we had this option to pass Hayes right yes Yes So in this instance, we're still waiting for confirmation of theontology on the 12th of January correct I would go ahead and do that okay да There will be monthly meets there will be monthly meetings yeah This is The the second option would be like annual town election on May 4th and then town meeting would be held on May 10th, 11th and 12. Page 11 the packet At last meeting we were still waiting for final confirmation from the high school about the phiượcalpachlin , what has happened with that Jalen Ms NCo heard back from the high school those dates look fine to them the only thing is that there is going to be AEP testing on Monday the 10th and Wednesday on the 12th but that should not be a problem as in previous years we've had town meeting on AEP testing day and it just takes a little more coordination and communication between our facilities department the school custodians in our office to get it set up correctly um but we've never had an issue in the past with that also Thomas you know before you ask we have confirmed right right dealing with the town the moderator town council town clerk uh mr keveny mr mccall and apparently all of us as well so we i think we're in good shape the only last thing we have to decide on is what time because we have to we have to vote that the time last year we started at six 30 we tried that because we thought we'd give that a shot and then if that worked we thought i think we thought we might move it a slightly bit earlier with the idea that perhaps we might be able to get this done in one night uh last year i think we did about seven hours but that also includes two intros if you will so anyway um one option we talked about briefly last week was six o'clock one was 6 15 one was leaving at 6 30. so anyway open that back up to discussion how about four o'clock and we'll be done by 11 o'clock that night that works
i'm on for the earlier side i understand the pros and cons uh i also feel for the vast majority of folks that have been to town meeting before that they don't necessarily need the prologue introduction and explanation coupled with the fact that all of that information is contained in the and they could refer to that as well um so i'm a six o'clock vote all right anybody else want to add in something does the town moderate moderator have an opinion on time i think i didn't speak to her recently but the last time i spoke to she was fine with time whatever we said
i um i'm a fan of incremental change stage in this on a meeting like this right so i'd be more of a fan of 6 30 versus 6 45 which is when we started most recently i believe and then see how that goes and then maybe the following year go to 6 15 and then we happen i'm not opposed to six but i just think um you know just get people used to the idea ten years from now we'll hit four o'clock which is my goal . 10 years from now we'll hit four o'clock which is my goal. Actually, Tom, we started at 6.30 last year. So for an incremental, it might be 6.15. All right. But I'm happy with 6.15. That's fine. You're okay with 6.15? Mr.
Tom is an incrementalist. I'm a stick in the mud. I prefer 6.30, having commuted into Boston for more years than I can't care to recall. It was always a struggle to get back. And so, you know, forget the notion of having anything to eat before the meeting. So I think 6.30 is heroic as it is. Mr. Reynolds? I'm not qualified. I'm not qualified to comment. I think all the points are good. So I have to tell you that I'm also in favor of test driving. I like Tom's idea that incremental, push it back a little. It's a little bit disheartening after all the work we do and all the work everyone else does at 9 o'clock, 9.15, to just see the hall really start to empty out because it is a Monday night, it's a school night, it's a work night, and people are leaving. So I think I also am in the, maybe in the. Let's try 6.15 and see what happens. Madam Chairman, may I bring up a separate issue? Just please, if this is way off. There's also the upcoming matter of whether the quorum threshold will be changed, which I understand is not directly related to the question at hand, but vis-a-vis Mr. Whitney's point, it is related. So you're right. We'll be talking about that a little bit later. That's a potential article that we might support. We haven't, as a board, I don't believe, taken a position on whether we support reducing that quorum. Well, I just want to underscore Mr. Whitney's point. If we change that threshold to a lower number and fewer people can make it because of the time picked and the commute, we may exacerbate a problem that we're already aware of. Right. Okay. So the other thing, too, is that. What happens is the first 15 minutes of town meeting is taken up with us, documents and explanations. Then we also have the Public Ceremonies Committee does their two awards. And so that we did, but I don't think the last few years we've gotten to that first article for about 15 minutes. So when we start at 6.15, technically we're starting at 6.30 because by the time people get in there. So anyway, let's have a motion and see where we go. Anyone have a motion? I move that we retain the annual time meeting time at 6.30 p.m. One extra second. Further discussion?
All right. Are we going to have a vote? I really want this moved back. Let's see what happens. This is exciting. All right. Let's have a vote. Okay. Chris? Aye. Bill? Yes. Tom? Yes. Doug? No. Me, too. They win. I'm going to abstain. How's that? All right. This was the swing vote. Yeah, it wasn't going to be swinging anywhere. So all right. Let's say. So it's going to be 3-1-1? Yeah. So that helps Jalen out now. So Jalen, we're all set. And you can just sort of send it out to everyone that. Um, 630 time is what we're going to be doing. All right. So I think is that all the questions you needed from us for the moment? I also think you do need to make a motion to hold annual town election on May 4th and town meeting on May 10th, 11th and 12th because you only voted on the time. I think you're absolutely right. So may I have that motion, please? Is that the same motion or did you? Do those need to be broken up into two motions or it doesn't matter? Doesn't matter. So some moved. Second. Okay. Any further discussion? All those in favor? Doug? Yes. Tom? Yes. Bill? Yes. Chris? Yes. And Carol? Yes. That's 5-0. So all right. You'll live on. Good catch, Jalen. Thank you, Jalen. Thank you. Good night. You get to leave. Good for you. All right. The next item. All right. So I think the next item is on. It's not on any page, but it is last meeting we approved a program called Constructive Dialogue. And actually the contract, we got the contract resolved and signed. So the next step is, you know, to start implementing this. I believe there's going to be training in October. So what we need to do is have a planning group established. And so this vote. Is to authorize the town manager, Michael McCall, to establish a planning group. And I need that motion. And I also am going to ask you to, I think we should, I've mentioned on this, Doug, I think we should ask you to be our liaison to that planning group for the board. So maybe we could do both motions in the same question. So moved. Second. Who said that? Bill. Thank you. All right. Any further discussion? Let's vote. Bill. Yes. Doug. Yes. Tom. Yes. Chris. Yes. Carol, yes. 5-0. Terrific. Thank you very much. Number six. Reappointments to the committee. I just need a motion on this, please. I move. I move that the board. Did you want to do that, Chris? No, no. Go for it, Doug. Sorry. I move that the board. I move that the board. I move that the board appoint David Bellari to the Economic Development Committee for a term ending June 30th, 2029, clarifying that this is a reappointment. Second. Thank you. All right. Further discussion? Let's vote. Tom. Yes. Bill. Yes. Chris. Yes. Doug. Yes. And Carol, yes. That passes 5-0. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. I want to mention on page 14 is the list of the open positions. I would like to have this, you know, every couple of meetings so that we can see what we have. I think everyone will look at the different ones. We are going to be having a conversation with the Audit Committee. They have asked us to look at their committee and the structure, and I think we may be having one at the Doric Control Appeals Board, but we definitely need to find some candidates to interview for the Zoning Board of Appeals. because we have three non-voting um associate members there and i think that's really key so anyone knows anyone or that's it any other comments on this list
all right let's move to um number seven which is about the it's that time again i think we do this every 10 years we meet with the the cable companies and and we have a cable advisory committee the information from the last time is appears on page 16. it gives you the mission statement and then it follows along talks about the implementation of the mission statement um and then also where mr turkington in 2011 decreased the membership from eight to five members so doug did you want to uh address this agenda item sure i served on the cable advisory committee during my first term on the select board at some point between 2017 and 2020 and we worked hand in glove with one of the attorneys at kp law who had been doing this type of very niche law for several decades i do believe he's retired and we will end up working with a different attorney at kp law i was also fortunate to work with several other residents in town which i hope folks will step forward and that said we did receive an email from doug stotts who asked that we potentially modify the charge for this committee to explore what he is aware of regarding broadband technology directly pertaining to a municipality which i didn't even realize was an option he linked at the end of his email to a website called gcet.net which is this broadband technology that provides internet phone and cable through just the municipality which is the town of greenfield i i think it would be interesting to just look into this as i didn't even realize it was an option and perhaps there's even a chance that mr stotts will join the cable advisory committee and dedicate his considerable efforts and knowledge to assist the town in that respect so i think that we'll have to take a crack and i can if he's so willing work with tom on charge language and get some uh input if it's appropriate from doug stotts and we can come back to the board with that document so the only thing with that uh mr faye the only thing with assigning two people isn't that a subcommittee? so the only thing with that mr faye the only thing with assigning two people isn't that a subcommittee? it is it is i'll just say regarding the charge it seems like a cut and paste job from yeah from prior parking me so i'm not sure that really requires my role anyway so okay well i can just update this version that we have in the packet right from 2010. so and i believe uh doug is willing to serve as a liaison to that committee once we get it established again excuse me unless somebody else would like to step forward all right so we'll revisit this on on nine eight okay is that too soon nine eight no okay we'll revisit this on a lot so that brings us to um so jalen i see you're still here is mike do you see michael in here anyway
i do not see him in here no okay so um how am i doing on time am i running a little bit ahead here yeah you're ahead by 15 minutes are you sure yeah because we're on item number eight which is executive for 640. with the board's intelligence i'm going to just do a couple other quick items before we go into executive session because we do need um mr carl to uh join us so is that okay with you jalen as well because i know she's waiting to help us with the minutes so yeah that's fine okay thank you all right so um how about number 12 should we go to consent
let's have a motion please before you make the motion i just want to make sure everybody understood there were four items in the consent calendar and there was a haywire with the with the documents and so one of the explanations is in twice and so that explanation for item number four was in the supplemental consent package if you didn't see it i would like to discuss item two please okay can you make a motion though uh i move uh the consent calendar items one three and four for approval second i think we're gonna have i think i'm gonna have the same problem indeed michael all right i think so All right. All those in favor of approving Consent Items 1, 3, and 4, let's have a roll call vote. Doug? Yes. Chris? Yes. Bill? Yes. Tom? Yes. And Carol, yes. So that's 5-0. So now we're on Item Number 2. And would you like to present your question? We may have to come back to this. Yeah, I had actually sent Michael a note requesting some clarification on this, but hadn't heard back. I just don't know what the scope of this project is, where it's located, and would like to just understand it better. So I'm going to table that. Somebody will? Mr. Whitney, you'll remind me. Yeah, then we come back to that. Okay. Miss Lewis isn't here, is she? You see, Miss Lewis has been an hour early, but... Do you want to do 14, the Annual Town Meeting Potential Warrant Articles? It's going to take more than a couple minutes, so... It's only on there for five minutes. Do you want to do Number 15, the Route 20 South Landfill? Because I think that's going to be shorter than we thought it was. What do you think of that? That's on page 25 in the packet. And... So, just to... Set it up for those, you know, we had a committee that worked on the 17 acres of the Route 20 South Landfill to see what was a possibility. They actually came up with about 17 items. Tom chaired the committee, and while he's getting himself together here, I'll just fill in some of the air. And then in March, they brought a... They presented their final report to us with three recommendations for three projects. And... Are you all set, Tom? Sure. So, the three ideas that the committee recommended to this board were a playing field, bus parking, and a lay down area for DBW. This board has put together a working group to examine the future of the Wayland Town Building. My sense is that the consensus of that working group is that the town building should continue to act as home for town offices. That the buses that... currently parked at the town building could continue to do so and that would eliminate any expense for placement at the south landfill unless the board wanted to put them there anyway so that would leave these two other uses if the board were inclined to follow the committee's recommendation um i have asked um the dbw director to speak with the engineer to get a more detailed outline of costs for each of the three projects right now it's a five million dollar uh estimate for construction of the three uh uses um i would ask the we're going to ask the engineer to kind of provide more more detailed numbers so that we can appreciate what each aspect might might cost and then the next issue is sorry that's all well and good but this is a capital expense and and what role the sips you have here significant and how it's going to be paid for at least the design money so there i i now turn to our budget with the chair cal martin to help a us through how we might be able to pay for this expected design monies if we wanted if the board wanted to go forward before you turn over to carroll town does this include parking adjacent to the field or is it just the field itself it does and uh i forget um page 38 in the packet everyone you know the list of the where we're at here excuse me for just one second everybody i would like to know if you're going to to note that mr mccall has joined us at 6 30. thank you so if you go to page 35 of the packet you'll see the western and sanson western samson drawing with the field parking on the left yeah um you know and the uh lay down area and so um that um that so the answer the answer your question is yes so what we're waiting for is to have um so i think when i just have a couple little facts here is that the reason that tom and i brought this forward now is because capital requests are due basically by it now to the sipsy so we wanted to you know comply with the process follow the process and get our request in there um when we did a little research here we which kind of off doing a bit different piece of the pie here we found out that mr holder has already filed the five hundred thousand dollar request with sipsy for the design funds if you see that the very bottom three or four lines it says five six seven eight nine you'll see there it's uh am i on the right page yeah the on the far right it's five hundred thousand is uh design funds by 550 i think it is so he's already filed it so i think we were thinking then we would at least to let board know that we were this was in the process of this is going forward there's some work that needs to be done um but we wanted to see what the board let the board know that we had gotten this filed in and that um once those numbers come back we'll look at at the funding like tom said maybe we do all three items maybe we're only doing two maybe we're doing one whatever we'll determine what our plan is going to be and and see if we can't find a funding source so the design gets done in the next year did i get all the points yes would the funding source potentially be such that you wouldn't need a vote from town meeting for design funding or would that still be an article i think i'm glad you asked that question it actually would be in the capital budget you know the little blurbs for each item but if we have a funding source you know it goes through quicker you know if you say hey we already got the funding source you're not raising taxes you're not you you know you're doing debt you're not doing so but i we're a little we're not quite at that point because we need we really feel i mean i have to be honest and say you know 500 000 contingency on a 3.6 million dollar project i'm sure mr whitney's eyebrows got raised on that as well that's 30 that seemed pretty high so we're hoping to get some more refined better numbers but again it's been a couple years so who knows does anyone else have any questions on this
well i do first i want to thank tom and his committee for a very detailed and thoughtful analysis of alternatives weighing i think 17 alternatives at various points and really looking carefully at a number of them is very laudable i am concerned that we're contemplating the expenditure of half million dollars for a project that i frankly don't know where it falls in the town's five-year capital budget or in the long-term capital planning of the town it strikes me that putting a request for a half million dollars in advance of understanding where a four or five million dollar project might fall vis-a-vis other costs of the town particularly as we consider an operating override strikes me as
a very somewhat reserved reformist i'm concerned that that might be the way we get along um i agree with that and i think it's very appropriate that you refer to that as a more a more flexible plan perhaps uh something that bears for the discussion and and i think that's the intent is that we just want to let you know that one of the committee's recommendation this has been submitted and we're trying to get some refined numbers and to tom's point we're saying perhaps the school bus project doesn't need to be included in this one we haven't gotten that far yet and we'll come back i think it's premature to have uh a drama with a department like that just being a pre-mature project is all right i do not want to play with a department like that for a time or two A REQUEST FOR THAT FUNDING SUBMITTED TO SIPSI. I JUST DON'T KNOW WHERE THE PROJECT FALLS VIS-A-VIS OTHER CAPITAL NEEDS OF THE TOWN. TO BILL WHITNEY'S POINT, MADAM CHAIR, EXPLAIN TO US THE PROCESS FOR SIPSI'S CONSIDERATION OF POTENTIAL CAPITAL PROJECTS. DO THEY NEED AN AFFIRMATIVE DIRECTION FROM OUR BOARD ON EVERY CAPITAL PROJECT OR CAN OTHER BOARDS AND COMMITTEES WHO HAVE INTEREST IN CAPITAL PROJECTS, SCHOOLS, WHATEVER, DO THEY HAVE EQUAL WEIGHT? WHAT'S YOUR SENSE? YEAH, AND MR. MCCALL, FEEL FREE TO HOP IN AS WELL, PLEASE. ANY BOARD CAN SUBMIT. THEY RECEIVE REQUESTS FROM, I'M GOING TO SAY THE BOARD OF PUBLIC WORKS, BUT THROUGH MR. HOLDER PUTS THEM IN. THE FACILITIES DEPARTMENT SUBMITS FOR A NUMBER OF DEPARTMENTS, INCLUDING US. THE SCHOOL COMMITTEE AND SCHOOL DEPARTMENT WILL SUBMIT REQUESTS. THE SELECT BOARD CAN SUBMIT REQUESTS, BUT THE IDEA IS THAT THEY'RE ALL SUBMITTED AT THE SAME TIME, THEN THEY ARE REVIEWED VERY REGULARLY, IN FACT, I BELIEVE THEY'VE ALREADY ASKED FOR SOME FURTHER INFORMATION ON THIS PARTICULAR REQUEST. JUST BECAUSE IT'S SUBMITTED DOESN'T MEAN IT'S GOING THROUGH. BUT THERE'S NO CONSIDERATION OR PRIORITIZATION OF THE PROJECT IF WE DO NOT SUBMIT IT, AND WE DO NEED TO SUBMIT BEFORE THEY PUT THE REPORT OUT, BEFORE THEY SAY, OKAY, OTHERWISE WE'RE NOT GOING TO DO IT. DID YOU WANT TO ADD ANYTHING, MR. MCCONNELL? GO AHEAD. SIR? SORRY. FIRST, LET ME SAY I APOLOGIZE. I WAS HAVING CONFUSION. I CAN ALSO TELL YOU ATTORNEY ECKERT IS DONE WITH HER MEETING ALREADY. SHE CONTACTED ME. SO WHEN WE START EXECUTIVE SESSIONS, SHE CAN JOIN RIGHT IN. EVERYTHING IS CORRECT, MADAM CHAIR. THE SIPCY, NOTHING CAN GO BEFORE TALENT MEETING UNTIL IT'S BEEN REVIEWED BY SIPCY ACCORDING TO THE BYLAW. AND THEY WILL MAKE A RECOMMENDATION TO ME AFTER THEY REVIEW EVERYTHING SO THAT MR. KEVITY AND I ARE REVIEWED. WE CAN MAKE A DECISION AS TO WHETHER IT'S WHAT WE PRESENT TO THE FINANCE COMMITTEE AS OUR FINAL CAPITAL BUDGET. SO THIS IS STILL IN A VERY PRELIMINARY STAGE WHEN IT'S GOING BEFORE THE CAPITAL IMPROVEMENT PLANNING COMMITTEE. THANK YOU. BILL, DO YOU HAVE A FURTHER QUESTION? NO. I WROTE DOWN WHAT YOU SAID, THOUGH. FOR THE NEXT DISCUSSION, WE WILL INCLUDE THAT PART OF THAT. DOES ANYBODY HAVE ANYTHING ELSE? ANY OTHER QUESTIONS OR COMMENTS ON THIS? THIS REALLY IS A PRELIMINARY. I THINK IT'S IMPORTANT. THIS REALLY IS A PRELIMINARY ROLLOUT CONVERSATION AND WE WILL RETURN TO IT. IF I MAY, TO BILL WHITNEY'S POINT, IT MAY BE PRUDENT FOR US IN THE NEXT FEW WEEKS WHEN THE SUPREME COMMITTEE HAS DIGESTED THE INFORMATION, PRESENTED TO THEM TO CHAT WITH US ABOUT THEIR THINKING AND WE CAN PASS ON OUR THINKING. I THINK WHAT MR. WHITNEY HAS SAID IS IMPORTANT. WHAT'S THE FUTURE AND WHAT ARE WE GOING TO PRIORITIZE, BASICALLY? RIGHT. I THINK RIGHT NOW MR. HOLDER IS REPRESENTING THIS PROJECT, BUT I DO THINK WHEN IT GETS REVIEWED AGAIN, WHEN YOU AND I DISCUSSED IT, ONE OF US SHOULD GO BEFORE THE COMMITTEE AND EXPLAIN WHAT THE SELECT BOARD IS THINKING. DON'T KNOW IF WE'VE CUT THAT YET, BUT WE DO NEED TO HAVE THOSE NUMBERS, I REALLY WOULD LIKE TO SEE THEM ITEMIZED, HOW MUCH FOR EACH OF THOSE THREE PROJECTS AND THEN GO FROM THERE. WE'LL GET THOSE NUMBERS SOON AND WE CAN REVISIT. DOES THAT SOUND ABOUT RIGHT? I THINK WE SHOULD GET THOSE IN 30 DAYS. SOON AS WE GET THEM, I'LL PUT THIS RIGHT BACK ON HERE. EVERYBODY'S GOOD? ALL RIGHT. THANK YOU. SO I'M GOING TO MOVE THAT THE SELECT BOARD ENTER INTO EXECUTIVE SESSION. PURSUANT A, PURSUANT TO MASSACHUSETTS GENERAL LAW CHAPTER 30A SECTION 21A3 TO DISCUSS STRATEGIES WITH RESPECTIVE COLLECTIVE BARGAINING WITH THE FOLLOWING UNIONS. MR. FAIR, DO I NEED TO READ THEM ALL OUT HERE? YES. YEAH. OKAY. WAYLAND POLICE OFFICERS UNION, NEW ENGLAND POLICE BENEVOLENT ASSOCIATION, LOCAL 176. THE INTERNATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF FIREFIGHTERS, AFL-CIO, LOCAL 1978. WAYLAND DEPARTMENT OF PUBLIC WORKS, DPW, ASSOCIATION TEAMSTERS, LOCAL 170. THE AMERICAN FEDERATION OF STATE, COUNTY AND MUNICIPAL EMPLOYEES, AFSCME, LOCAL 690-1 AND 2. B. PURSUANT TO MASSACHUSETTS GENERAL LAWS 30A SECTION 21A3 TO DISCUSS STRATEGY WITH RESPECT TO THE LITIGATION IN THE MATTER OF CASCADE DEVELOPMENT LLC. C. PURSUANT TO MASSACHUSETTS GENERAL LAWS CHAPTER 30A SECTION 21A3 TO DISCUSS STRATEGY WITH RESPECT TO LITIGATION ON 16 WHISPERING LANE. D. PURSUANT TO MASSACHUSETTS GENERAL LAWS CHAPTER 30A SECTION 21A7 TO REVIEW AND CONSIDER FOR POTENTIAL RELEASE THE FOLLOWING EXECUTIVE SESSION MINUTES RELATED TO STRATEGY WITH RESPECT TO a strategy with respect to collective bargaining with the Public Employees Committee Peck Agreement. That's going to be September 9, 2024, September 17, 2024, and June 16 of 2025. E, pursuant to Massachusetts General Laws Chapter 38, Section 21A7, to review and approve the Executive Session Minutes of August 13, 2026 with the intent to hold seven minutes. E, pursuant to Massachusetts General Laws Chapter 38, Section 21A3, to discuss strategy with respect to litigation on Sean Gibbons v. Stonewall et al. Is there a second to the motion to enter into Executive Session Second. Thank you. The Chair declares that a public discussion on these matters may have a detrimental effect on the litigating, negotiating, or bargaining position of the Town. We'll have a roll call vote, please. Mr. Fay? Yes. Mr. Levine? Yes. Mr. Reynolds? Yes. Mr. Whitney? Yes. And Ms. Martin, yes. That's 5-0-0. The Chair invites attendance by Michael McCall, Town Manager, Jalen Bradica, Management Analyst, Communications Coordinator, and Deborah Ecker of KP Law. The Board will rejoin the public meeting from Executive Session, and the meeting will return to open session in approximately 50 minutes. Thank you. So I'll see you all at the link.
Okay. Good evening. I'm returning the select board to open session from Executive Session at 7.40 p.m. Thank you. Next agenda item is to have a joint meeting. With the School Committee, we're inviting, I believe, Ms. Sambuco, Ms. Gibbons. We're also inviting Mr. Kemeny to join us, who is our Finance Director, Dr. Fleischman, the Superintendent of Schools, and is there anyone else here, Erin? Have I got everyone? No. That's it for us tonight. Okay. Great. Just hold on one second. So the purpose of this meeting is to have a discussion. The Select Board and the School Committee have asked to meet with us to talk about a possible override. I do want to say before we start this agenda item, the Select Board has received no request to have an operating override, so we are just in high-level discussions. If you've been watching any of our meetings, you'll have seen that Mr. Kemeny has come in and showed us some forecasts that show that we could have a gap next year and may need an operating override, and so we are just having a discussion. So, Erin, I think Brian has put together in our packet a spreadsheet or a little summary sheet, and maybe we should have him start with that. What do you think? Did you want to speak first? No. That would be helpful just to kind of right-size some expectations. I know, Carol, last time we had kind of talked about this and us joining you, it was, we were thinking more of something formal of a presentation around budget and request for operating override. And I think that's a good idea. I think that's a good idea. I think that's a good idea. Yes, that is certainly a good idea. But we read a lot of companies that are not engaged in fixed deadline defragmentation which was something I could have focused a lot more on one of the possessive behind that and that usually is in the area of sense for us to hold off on any formal presentation and request, um, until we could get some more solid numbers from both the town side and the school, um, business office. So it would be great if, um, Brian could kind of walk us through that and then we could kind of go from there. So that sounds good to me too. Um, so, you know, Aaron, I know you and I talked a little offline about this, but I didn't really have a formal, you know, you, you know, when you're doing these agenda items, you have a step forward and talk about, and I thought, let Brian, you know, speak and then anyone can ask questions and we can kind of just get some thoughts and comments out on the, on the floor. I usually, um, I'll just go around and let everyone speak as they want. All right, Brian, the floor is yours now. Did you want to complicate things? Do you want to share screen on top of all of this? Yeah. So I, I put together, um, another chart that has two, the font is very high, but I'll do my best to walk through it. Okay. Are you going to put it up on the screen?
I think that would help everybody if we, Oh, that'd be terrific. Thank you, Brian. And then the floor of yours is yours. Of course. Appreciate it. Okay.
So this is what I sent out to the board. If I may interrupt, uh, Brian, can you, can you enlarge that with the, uh, the top right middle button on the, on the screen, the square, let's go up to the top, right of your box. Keep going.
This one it's doing, no, keep going up where the check mark is next to the X to the right.
No, no. All the way at the top in the blue bar. See if it will maximize it next to the X. Yeah. Right there. See if that'll blow it up. No, it went the other way. No, no, that worked. And now you can expand it. Yeah. Unfortunately, I'm opening, I'm opening this up in preview. I'm not opening it up in a, as a download. So it's giving me limitations. So what I want to do is I did send this out to the committee over the weekend. So excuse me, anybody who has access to our packet, like I said, it's on page 19 and you can follow along probably a little better. Aaron, do you have a copy of it from the packet? I pulled it up from online. Can you see it? And David, can you see it as well? Again, because we all got the packets in front of us as do, as does anyone who's watching our meeting. Okay. I'm sorry. Go ahead, Brian. Okay. So we talked about this, I believe a couple of weeks ago at the select bins. And then I sent this file out this past week. The main numbers to look at here is B, we have the total deficit. We were trending in fiscal 28 at 1.1 million. And then the override number will be 2.9. And then in fiscal 30, it would be 3.2. So to get away with some of the confusion of all these busy excuses, what I tried to do was structure it a different way, which is here in chart two.
And unfortunately, I can't get this font down, but let me try to walk through it a little bit where we are. So before I say that, two weeks ago when we did a presentation, we were getting preliminary numbers from Middlesex Retirement. We were expecting anywhere from 6% to 9% increase. They came in at less than two. So our assessment for fiscal 28 is less than 2%, which really changes the numbers. We haven't had a 2% increase in quite a while. And what they ended up doing was they wanted to be fully funded in 10 years. So we had calculated an amortization that was going to be going up six and then down to nine, then back to six and then back to nine. What they ended up doing was the first two years coming in at 2%. Which means the back years, 7, 8, 9, 10, are going to be large increases in retirement assessment. I don't know why they did that. I would rather have had a level service type amortization of the unfunded liability, but we didn't get that. What we did get is a 2% increase over fiscal 27. So the best way to do this is if you take a look at right on the top, fiscal 28, 29, and 30. If you take a look at line four. Total expense budget. Those numbers you're seeing there will stay with fiscal 28. We have $120.7 million. And 29 is $127.4. 30 is $133.9. So let's focus on fiscal 28. So if you drop down, line six, that's our current levy limit. The most amount of money we can raise without an override in fiscal 28 is $100.4 million. $100.4 million. We have other revenue that we're going to depend on to the tune of, what did I do here? Did I lose it? Yeah, you lost it.
Is there that file in the email right there? Maybe double click it again. The one that says FY28, FY, it's in gray, Brian. Oh, you got it over here. What did I get? What did I get? Hold on.
All right, you see it? Yep, we do. Yep. All right. So let's stay with fiscal 28. So where I locked out before I hit the wrong button is the most money we can raise is line six, $100.4 million. We have other revenue in fiscal 28 to the tune of $19.6 million. So our revenue total for fiscal 28. Is line nine, $120.1 million. Now, if you go back up to here, line four, you see $120.7. So we have a revenue deficit to the tune of line 13 of $631,000. We add an additional $200,000. So the total amount of the override that we would vote if we were indeed going to vote a budget to the top number that I talked about would be $800. So that would be about A and double. So we we take that residence from A, we subtract the 21,000 from A, we add our default unit, each of the block assets as a point of我們的 motto, kita mas That's the amount of money in fiscal, 28, we would need to vote to cover the override. But remember the override these numbers are based on assumptions of payroll, health insurance. So remember the override these numbers are based on assumptions of payroll, health insurance. remember the override these numbers are based on assumptions of payroll, mental health insurance We do have our retirement number. We do have our retirement number. We do have our debt number that we're going to be issuing debt in November, but these are our best experiences at this point. but these are our best experiences at this point. So to round up our override number is probably something a million to a 800,000 from fiscal 28. So if you stay with this, if you go to fiscal 29, the budget, including the retirement assessment, is $126.3 million. If you go down to line six, you see $104. That levy limit adjusted is including us voting a successful and approved override of $831,000. So that $104.7 million would be the new adjusted levy limit. Now, if you can see in line nine, the total revenue budget is $124.8, but our budget is $127.4. Again, we have a revenue deficit in fiscal 29 of $2.5 million. If you add $200,000 to that, the total override number would be $2.7. We've talked about this adding $200,000. I think it's important to do that. Now, particularly with the snow and ice issue. I think we should put in a little pad in our estimates of what the override number would be. We wouldn't want to be caught short on a tax recap in the event we ever had to raise a snow and ice deficit. So in staying with this, you go back up to 30, and you're talking about $133.9 million budget. Now, the $110 highlighted in bold, $110.4, that's our new levy limit. That includes both the first year override of $831,000 plus the second year override of $2.7. So that's our new adjusted number. So if our new levy limit is $110,000, then our total revenue is $130.9. But if you go back up to our total expenses, we're at $133.9. Again, we have a revenue deficit. In order to balance the budget based on these numbers, we would need to vote a $2.9 million budget plus $200,000 or $3.1 million. So under these assumptions, the total amount of accumulated three-year override number would approximately be $6.7. But I would caution everybody that the biggest driver in the budget would be getting a better number on the school side. They just recently agreed to a contract. If we get a better number, we're going to be able to get a better number on the school side. Number on the projection of school payroll for 28 and 29. These numbers will probably change a little bit. So that's our best guess. I'm carrying the school budget at a 5% increase in payroll and a 5% increase in non-payroll. Health insurance right now we're carrying at 12%. Like I said, we are going to be issuing debt service in November, bringing on another $1.8 million, both in principal and interest. So this is our best guess at this point. I know Carol mentioned to me earlier today about getting a new estimate in two or three weeks. We can do that. But this is the best guess we have at this point. So I'll turn it back to any questions. Thank you, Brian. Does anybody have any questions for Brian? Who would like to start? You know what? Maybe we should just go back to the full screen so I can see. Brian, stop sharing. Because I'm missing people and I don't want someone to have the hand raised. I may have the log out. I'm going to get back in. I'll be right back. However, I do think I'm going to call in the birthday girl first. What? So unfair.
Do you have any questions or comments? And otherwise, I'll start with the select board. So a couple of things. One, agreed that having a better understanding of where we really think we're going to fall realistically on percentage. I think I wasn't going to have a better understanding of the balance between the difference of how much we are spending and what we're making on the return. How much we're making on the benefits and what we're paying back. I also think the increase of both payroll and non-payroll will help us and help Brian, obviously. So, I have spoken to David and Kirsteen, and we're hoping that we can have that in the next week or two, max. And that's kind of that aspect. Aside from that, I have a lot to say. In the next couple of weeks. I'm sure people will be happy about that. I'm sure people will be happy about that. But I don't have that plan yet. Yeah, but that's kind of what I have to do. Yeah. I have, I think I can speak for the whole committee when I say there are concerns around, obviously, the stability of the finances. And we really want to be sure that we are credible when we speak to you as a select board and or the finance committee and ensuring that we are not working with numbers that then, you know, if we're really crying that we need the override, that we really need it. And that, you know, it's not continuing to see, oh, this cut in our favor, that cut in our favor. Because then we're putting on the table. in a, in a difficult position, um, down the line. That being said, I think we all are aware of the need of the school districts facilities. Um, and we're working on getting an SOI submitted to MSBA for April of 2027. Um, I think we've all heard about the school moving the request for the $2 million. Did we lose Carol? She just disappeared off my screen. No. Okay. She just went off camera. Oh, okay. Um, I, so we pushed, we're looking to push the $2 million, which was originally further out and at a $1 million, um, price point for, um, the feasibility study, um, to 2 million and into fiscal year 20. I'm going to screw this up. 28, right? Right. Okay. Um, so I think the 2 million is a more realistic number given what our consultants at, um, HMFH have, have given us at this stage. Um, we don't want to not be in a position to tell MSBA that the town and the community are in support and they have voted those funds, um, to be spent on the feasibility study. So we want to push that up. The hope is that we will get accepted in this round. Um, this is our third submission. It's not our first. It's our third in the past, um, I'd say probably five years. Um, so, and then, so we'll be asking for that from, you know, the community to support that. But then on the heels of that, we will also have the need to fund the construction of some level of new facilities, whether that be one, two, three, whatever it may be. Um, And that, that is, that is what we need to do. And it doesn't, it's not, it doesn't, it hasn't been determined and won't be determined, but by the time we ask for it, it will be. Um, and so coupling that with the need for an override, which I think, you know, whether it comes to everyone's decision that we needed in 28 or we needed in 29, we're looking at it, we definitely needed in 29 and 30. Um, so we're going to need that. We're going to be asking for that at some point. Okay. for facilities to be supported it's a lot of money um and so we want to be smart with everything that we're looking at coming down the pipe um
what else kate what am i missing i think we you know we've started these conversations with vidcom and select board early because we want to be forward thinking we don't want to surprise anyone here we also don't want to surprise our community we want to have this conversation and it's really tricky when the numbers when we don't have firm numbers but we know there will be shortfalls and we know that we have these really important projects looming in the future it's also tricky because you know the costs that are driving as brian referenced are not necessarily things that are under our control it's opep it's retirement so um i think we've you know tried our best to be really good financial stewards with our budget and trimming as much as we possibly can and even seeing the shortfalls for the next fiscal year are concerning um because we have we have trimmed quite a bit and i think we want to be able to communicate that to these boards in our community while still weighing the important facilities needs that we have coming up
all right thank you um since we're uh you're our guest dr fleishman would you like to speak next sure um just to build um on what kate was alluding to we're continuing to every position when we have somebody leave we're taking a look at do the positions need to be replaced just uh you know we just moved our preschool to happy hollow and we cut the preschool director and we cut the preschool administrative assistant we had somebody leave last week and we're not replacing that person full time so we're going to continue over the next couple of weeks as we prepare our budget to think about how we can be as lean as possible while still giving the students what they need um so that's why we're going to spend time we've also had some people leave this summer um and that's why it's going to take us time to really calculate what the costs are going to be because if somebody leaves you know one question we ask is can we replace somebody just as skilled at a lower salary um and and that's something we've spent a lot of time thinking about because the savings can be can be significant obviously payroll is our biggest expense we have other expenses that are challenging for example the first day of school today we have buses that are very full and adding buses is very expensive and so we get people saying you know there's not enough room for everyone in the bus or the routes are too long and that's something so those are certain you know aaron k we're talking about the operational issues there's the facilities but there are also things like transportation также Juha um that are challenging that we try to be as efficient as possible. So I would say, as you were saying, Erin, within the next two weeks to really have better numbers, we are going to take a look at our enrollment the following year and certainly how we can staff and support students while being as efficient as possible. Perfect. Thank you. Erin, you raised your hand. Did you have another comment? Did I raise my hand? I'm sorry. No, but that is something that the bus contract is up, I think, in a year. So that'll be something that'll have to be renegotiated. To be perfectly candid, we're running kind of a super skeleton crew on the buses. You know, we used to have 16 buses. We're running with 13. You're seeing more families that are trying to utilize the bus. But then it's difficult because there are some buses that run habitually late and it's not the bus driver's fault. You know, we're packing a lot of kids on not a lot of buses. We have our dispatcher that ends up, because she can also drive, she ends up driving a lot of the time. So it's, you know, the macro hits us in the sense that a lot of those people are not going to be able to drive. So it's, you know, the macro hits us in the sense that a lot of those people are not going to be able to drive. So it's, you know, the macro hits us in the sense that a lot of those people are not going to be able to drive. it up um to the board does anybody want to speak first i'm going to go with mr fay so we have a macro question to uh town manager um superintendent and the finance director so over the past 20-25 years the state budget has about doubled but adjusted for inflation state aid to municipalities has gone down 20 20 30 25 30 percent um is there an effort that you have heard of of towns working together and developing a lobbying campaign to address the legislate legislature on this issue i know mma has has touched upon it but i really do think that it's going to take a a more vocal um group of municipalities and not just w towns right um to to make that point in order to be treated more failing have you heard my question have you heard of any any efforts along those lines i mean i'll michael do you want to start i have i want to go first or i'm happy to go all i will say is it is a common theme at the municipal managers meeting as you indicated the mma through adam chapman was put out two position papers the perfect storm and then the successor how to deal with it and they've touched upon this very issue that when they clawed back i believe under the romney administration they were used some nine seat cuts there was some changes to local aid and you're right it's never got back to the levels it used to be but do i know local town managers that just sat down and said you know we should be writing letters or starting to lobby i'm not aware of individual efforts it's mostly been through the mma and the uh the subsection of the municipal manners the mmma that talked about lobbying so on the school side um the mass association of school superintendents and the mass association of school committees are incredibly active with the legislature which will be a real issue if we think about it from a public perspective i think we need to we meet with legislators regularly. You know, I talked to David Linsky and Carmine Gentile. I've met with Robbie Simon. And one of the areas where there's been significant increase in costs is special education, tuition, and transportation. And that has been number one. And we've had some success. For example, Wayland has benefited for the last two years from getting extraordinary relief funding. And that is funding from the state when our special education costs increase above a certain percentage for students who need a lot of support. And so that fund, which we've benefited from for two years, came out of our lobbying efforts. So I do think it really matters. We spend, you know, a lot of time with legislators helping them understand, but I think that special education, tuition, and transportation is the most concrete example where we've had some success. So I'm going to move on to Mr. Levine. I think you had your hand raised next. I did. Brian, I think the issue that I'm having is that, and it's obviously not your fault, but I think it's really hard in terms of messaging for us to figure out in a reasonable period of time if we actually need an override vote. Specifically, I'm looking at the August 28th edition of the Wayland Post, and it's an above the fold article called Town Moves Toward Vote on First Override Since 09. And it talks about a projected budget shortfall of up to $3 million in FY28. And then I'm looking at our June 15th packet, and the number is actually, you know, below $2 million. And then it came down to $1.2 million. And then it came down to $1.2 million. And then it came down to $1.2 million. And then it came down to $1.2 million from our last couple estimates. And then today we're hearing it's potentially like in the $800,000 range. And so what I would be looking for, since I know these are moving targets, is a worst case scenario number and a best case scenario number. And we know that it will more likely than not fall somewhere in between in that range. But I want to get a sense for what is actually the best case scenario. Could we be falling as low as like $400 thousand or $300 thousand? Because if we continue to fall further, speaking for myself, I feel very uncomfortable going to the voters for an override when we're just talking about a handful of hundreds of thousands of dollars, especially given the fact that when you look nearly 20 years ago, that override vote was north of a million. And here we are doing a great job over the last 20 years. But I don't want to ramp up our efforts to educate what is a good amount of new people in town about the override and the proposition two and a half process just for a few hundred thousand dollars. I'd rather keep our powder dry, figure out, and I know it's difficult to tighten the belt this year and go for a much larger override vote starting next year when it seems, at least at this point, that it's somewhere falling between two and three million dollars. I really would just rather go to the voters at a time when we need a significant amount of money to get us through three years. And what it's sounding like to me, the way it's trending, is I'm just hearing that this may not be an appropriate year for an override vote, recognizing that there would have to be some cuts on the town side and the school side, because it's far more unlikely that we're ever going to balance the budget and go down to zero. But if we're somewhere where we're going to have to make sure that we're not going to have to somewhere in the hundreds of thousands of dollars, that's just how I'm feeling at this point. And I'm wondering if you could give us some sense of what our best case scenario is, if this is going to fall further potentially in the next 60 or 90 days.
Well, in the next 60 to 90 days, the only new information that we can get would be that the school gives us a trued up number on the payroll. Carol, can you hear me? Nope.
So between 60 and 90 days, a better number on the school. We will be issuing debt in November. I'm carrying the projected debt around 3.75, in some cases four, but those differentials is immaterial. We'll get a high number on our debt in November. So for the next 60 days or so, the only numbers that are going to be trued up would be school payroll and debt service. As we head into the fall and getting into December, our new growth number will be finalized. Right now, I'm carrying 600. Right now, the assessor is at 370. They're still working on re-evaluations and bringing in a personal property. But right now, they're less than 400,000 on new growth, and it is September 1st tomorrow. And I believe they're down to the last 30 days to bring in valuations. I don't see this number coming down. We still think we're going to be around a million dollars or so. It depends upon where the school comes in. They have a lot of steps and lanes that they need to consider when projecting out their payroll. They did an enhancement on the teacher assistant pay for fiscal 28. But I go back to a lot of discussions we've had at both the school committee, I mean, the select board and the finance committee is, what kind of budget do we want to bring to town? Meaning that we'll raise what kind of taxes? The 10-year average on tax increases runs between four and four and a half percent. A lot of the numbers you're looking at now, the tax increase is six percent. So even if we did an override, you'd be asking residents to not only vote an override, but to accept a tax increase of six percent. At the same time, we're going to be having possibly excluded debt being brought in. We have four projects out there right now, we did talk about the $200,000, $2 million on the MSBA, but we also have the high school field that's in the queue. We have the town building, $5 million that's in the queue. And Route 20, the land development across from the transfer station, there's conversation of that being developed. So there could be four sizable projects that will be funded by excluded debt. Those would need to be considered. So to answer your question, Doug, I see this number being at
impossibly higher, depending upon where the school comes in. And I don't see anything else besides debt service in the school number that will change what we're looking at tonight for the next 60 to 90 days. What did you say the number, what is 331? Say it again? You said that the best case scenario you could see is 331. Did I hear that right? I meant 831 to a million. 831 is now the best case scenario in your mind. To a million dollars, yes. But I got to see the school numbers. So my last question is, for example, a few of us went to the grand opening of the terrain space, which is beautiful, by the way. And so I imagine that the assessment for that will go up significantly for all of the money that they put in that. Is that something that's taken into account? Well, we received a large building permit. Michael, can you comment? I don't believe the building was sold. It was sold to a different developer. I was looking that up. It was sold to a different developer who then now has signed a long-term lease with terrain for 15 years. That's not a long-term lease. Did they actually buy the real estate property? What? Say again? Did they actually buy the real estate? The new holding company bought the real estate and has now leased it to the real estate. That's not a long-term lease. That's not a long-term lease. That's not a long-term lease. That's not a long-term lease. That's not a long-term lease. So if that's the case, then we'll get some new growth on that as well. Which we haven't taken into account yet, right? No, no, this, no. And the assessor did not mention that to me when we were going over the numbers. So would that hit? Sorry. Go ahead, Erin, but then I'm going to hop in, please. Yes, yes, yes. Would that hit fiscal year 28? would that be where that would be yes they would have to get a revaluation that would be where it would be okay well similar to river's edge when river's edge was sold um you know the assessor went through a lot a lot of conversation with the new owner they wanted one in an abatement i believe um it sold for substantially more than it was originally built for and there was a lot of on that one so i think with the property of the old whole foods i'm not completely sure it's going to hit 28 i would have to get with the assessor on that yeah okay so i do um i still have a couple board members and want to speak and i want but i do want to say i hear a lot of we've got to get these numbers and this and that um our next meeting is on september 8th and brian had and not his right we spoke earlier today and he was going to try and give us a little bit a firmer number it would be you absolutely perfect if you will for this process if we could have those school numbers to brian short up so he's able to get that into our packet it only gives you about 10 12 days this week to the end of next week um that would be really really great because although we're talking that we're not talking about an override at the moment should we go forward we do want to have we the select board a really firmly want to have ample time to communicate with the residents and be able to send out some information whether it's just on a web page or it's a flyer to the home i don't know what we're thinking but we are thinking we want ample time so if we are going to have an override we need to vote this probably by mid to late october to allow us um i know jay was shaking said because we did this already about 75 days or something like that between the time we take the vote and able to get back to school and uh that's to get the information out and dance around the holidays. So we really need this school payroll information probably for our September 8th meeting. I think that, and Brian, to Doug's point, we do need the range. So when we do the next revise, just say that range is blah to blah, whatever it is, X to Y. So having said that, Mr. Whitney and Mr. Reynolds, I don't think you've had a chance to speak yet. Did you want to say something? Yes, thank you. Brian, thanks for putting together this analysis. I note that the information you showed on your screen is different than what was in the packet. So it would be helpful to get a copy of the update. And also, prospectively, if you have new numbers, if you can get them out before the meeting, that's great. If not, if you could go with the old numbers, you know, we spend some time going over this stuff in advance of the meeting. And it's a little confusing when the numbers change between Friday and Monday. But I appreciate it. I appreciate that it's a dynamic process, and you're trying to give us the best information available. A question for Aaron. As I've listened to your remarks and yours and the superintendent's, we very much appreciate the fact that you're all working hard to deliver the consistent level of quality education to which we've all become accustomed at the best possible level. You mentioned, Aaron, a $2 million number for the consultant to do the feasibility study. And I was unclear about the nexus between that $2 million request and going to the town meeting and to the voters for a potential override. Do I infer correctly that, ideally, we would avoid the necessity of doing an override while asking for the $2 million? Or I'm just trying to understand the relationship of those two matters. No, I was trying to just kind of give a global picture of all of the items that would be coming that are large items. And, you know, just kind of aligning the timing so that it's not such sticker shock or the best way to kind of plan out those items, whether I know there was discussion with Brian or question to Brian offline about, you know, how should that be done? Should it be its own article? Should it be included in the capital plan? You know, those kinds of things. Yeah. It's a how, not a whether. Right. Okay. Thank you. That's helpful. And Brian, finally, the other thing that might potentially affect the budget, I suppose, that we may learn more about in the coming days is settlement of contracts with our employees. I guess that's a potential buster, a potential savings to the budget. What's your degree of confidence that the assumptions you're carrying will be sufficient to meet where we may end up as far as the budget is concerned? Well, the assumptions are in the salary reserve account. I know Michael's working on all the bargaining groups, and I believe there's enough in the salary reserve to, you know, fund any collective bargaining agreement he settles on. So I don't anticipate any collective bargaining agreements being greater than what we have in the reserve. Okay. Thank you. Most of the departments have employees that are still in the reserve. So I don't anticipate any collective bargaining agreements being greater than what we have in the reserve. Okay. Most of the departments have employees that are still getting steps and lanes. So hypothetically, if we gave everybody, say, a 2% increase, with all the steps and lanes, you're probably talking, some departments would be in the 3%, 4%, and 5% increases, just like in the school. So every time you give a collar increase, it doesn't mean across the board, it's going to go up steps and lanes, really drive that number up. Great. Okay. Thank you. That's it, Carol. Thank you. And Chris. I had a question for Mr. Fleishman, Dr. Fleishman. I read the perfect storm paper from MMA. And there really are two issues in front of us. One is, what are we going to do about the next 12 and 24 months? I'll call that the local issue. And then there's the broad structural issue you brought up. Many cynical voters think that overrides happen too automatically. And the whole point of the perfect storm paper was there's been a structural change here. And so my question is, do you agree with that? And do the politicians you spoke with understand that? Was that part of your lobbying? Or was the conversation just like all the other overrides? Yeah. Well, I mean, a couple of issues is that, you know, there are certain costs, Chris, that are so much higher than two and a half percent. You know, if you look at increases in transportation, particularly during an inflationary time. So when we talk about special education, tuition, and transportation, and we have schools where we send students to that have 12 and 14 percent tuition increases that we don't control, that's really, really hard. What that means is that we reduce in other ways in order to have a budget that's reasonable. So, for example, I anticipate when we give the budget to Brian, that we're going to have fewer employees for FY28, than we do in FY27. Because there's no other way for us to make our budget work, except having fewer employees. Or an override. Or an override. But when I say fewer, Erin, we may have just a few, fewer employees, because we want to be as efficient as possible. We can only go so far, because we've already reduced in the last several years. And this year, for example, our kindergarten students were welcoming, on Wednesday. There are more of them than we expected. Which is actually a good thing for Wayland. We're seeing a lot of communities now with lower numbers. Our enrollment's a little higher. So the answer is, in Wayland, I'm impressed, has not had an override. You know, as a new person to Wayland, last year, since 2009, when I look at our peer communities, there have been many more overrides in most communities than we've had in Wayland. So I think that's a credit to the community, in terms of its creativity and fiscal responsibility. But at this stage, you know, we can only go so far without impacting the education that Wayland residents know and expect. So I think our legislators, I think they are sympathetic. What I would say is, they are facing competing needs, particularly, you know, the number one expense in state budgets is Medicaid, and the federal cuts, whenever the state has to pay more for health insurance or Medicaid, that really hurts education. And so if we could have a federal government that would put more into health insurance, that would be the greatest thing that would help us at the local level. Mr. Mendelsohn, do you have any follow-up? Yes, I do. And I'm sorry to take more time, Ms. Martin, but this is really elemental. No. I'm circling back, Dr. Fleishman, to Tom Fay's point. In your opinion, do you think there is merit to continuing to pursue more aggressively and in a more organized way some lobbying at the state level? Say it another way, when I look at what recently happened in South Hadley with the double rejected override, what voters said, including voters who said they wanted to vote for it, was they just couldn't figure out a way to get a message to government that's saying expenses are out of control. And then making voters pay for it was getting painful enough that they were going to have to change the habitual override. Right. I don't think, you know, hopefully, you know, Wayland is not the community that has habitual overrides. I do think there are times when, you know, what we've seen, if we saw it in Natick or Arlington or here in Brookline, we are seeing overrides passing. I think when part of the job, I think, is that residents need to have trust. We need to have trust and confidence in the leadership, and we need to show that we've been efficient. That's why I was just talking about, you know, moving our preschool out of Town Hall to Happy Hollow and cutting two positions with a major saving. So I think part of our job is to let people know, number one, that we are efficient, and number two, like you're saying, that we're going to look for additional resources whenever possible, as I was alluding to with our special education fund that we got from the state that we were lobbying for, and then we've received money. So I agree with you that it's a communication issue, particularly when there hasn't been an override in 17 years, and it's not something we want to do. Our number one job is to give the kids the support and services they need in an efficient way, and we're going to try to keep doing that. Ms. Martin, I'm done, but with one final comment, a number of speakers, including you, Mr. Whitney, we've really got a communications issue here to get something out that's super clear and builds credibility. And the discussion I've heard tonight I don't think does that. I hope it's just too early. But it seems like there are a lot of unknowns still and a lot of assumptions that we're going to have to get a lot crisper if we really think voters are not only going to vote for the override but come out of it respecting us. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Reynolds.
I think... I would like Mr. McCall to have a chance to speak next, if I may, and then you can be next after that, if that's possible. I do think I hear this... I'm hearing this a lot. We do have to do due diligence in order to be able to support whatever vote we take. So, Mr. McCall, could you have a brief comment or two you'd like to make? I've got a hearing at 830. No, they were all valid points all around. I mean, I think what is critical, Mr. Reynolds touched upon it, is the message. And there's still a lot of unknowns at this point. And one thing we have to make sure when we do go out, and I've talked to people on the town side and the school side, is we're looking in all likelihood for a three-year override in the number that gets us through three years. So if we have an override this spring, it's for the next three fiscal years. If we are able to push it off for another year, it is still going to be in all likelihood for three years. But that number may be bigger as the costs continue to go up. One thing I just want to let people know that we, like Dr. Fleischman, we're always looking for efficiencies on the town side. We've tried to do things better, streamline, take advantage of technology where possible. But most of my departments are running at least down a person because we haven't been filling some of these positions due to attrition. And the one thing I think we have to also think about if we are contemplating holding off for one more year is the level of services that we continue to provide for our residents and our guests and our businesses here in town. A lot of the costs, as you know, if you've read The Perfect Storm and other materials, it's not really what we are doing here in town to manage some of our budgets and our salary line items. Right. Right. Right. It's these unfunded or unclassified portions of our budget that are just increasing faster. So just the parting comment is, you know, I want to make sure that we continue to deliver the best services possible for the residents and try and make it as affordable as possible. But until we get better numbers, it will be hard to message the exact amount and what we need it for. Thank you. So I think Erin, you wanted to have one more comment before I close it? One quick question. And it's probably an easy question to answer. But just because the pension board gave us, gave members a lower number that they have to pay in for fiscal year 28 doesn't mean that any of the numbers going forward changes. It actually is just going to make, still going to be fully funded by the time we get to the time they want it fully funded. So it's just going to make the other increases bigger. Is there any thought of potentially just paying in a higher amount than we are demanded to pay for fiscal year 28 and kind of keep that consistent so that it's more stable and steady or no? Is that crazy? I think that's a really long, complicated answer. Okay. So it's not a quick answer. I'll tell you what. We are paying, we're paying a current amount. We also pay for retirement through the OPAP. Oh, no, I know. Yeah. No, no, this is all retirement. And the third one, Brian's going to tell you, this is a special assessment. This is what, yeah, go ahead, Brian. Yeah. So I actually have talked to Middlesex Retirement last week on that matter. When we got the increase of 2%, I asked them, is it possible for us to pay? An amount greater than the assessment to sort of make the out years less painful. And they said that some communities do do that. And the conversation led to, I mean, if we wanted to take a look at you and our uses of free cash and direct some of that to attack the unfunded liability beyond our assessment, we could talk about that. The way we work would be, we would have to pay, and they gave me a quote, almost $1,400 dollars for Segal to do a study. Or we could use our own actuary to do our own study. But you would have to get a study done and take a look at the unfunded liability where it currently is. Take a look at the assessments for 28 and 29, and then calculate in additional payments. Typically, just like a mortgage, if you're going to pay $100 more every month on your mortgage, you know exactly what your payments are going to be in the out years. With this thing, you don't. In two years, they're going to give a totally new. Okay. Calculation. And that is based upon wages, longevity, mortality, and the performance of the stock market. But any amount of money that we do give greater than the assessment amount will always impact us in a positive way in the out years. It's just a matter of, do we want to pursue that? Brian, I just want to add just a point of information. Teachers do not. The town does not pay for the teacher's retirement. System. Those of us who belong to the mass teachers retirement system, we fund it all ourselves. So it's non teachers. So there's no cost to the school district. Just wanted to be clear about that. But we know that. Thank you though, for adding that. I am going to thank everybody for coming. I personally think this was very, very instructive and helpful. I really liked that we've come together. Aaron, you and I can talk offline again, if we think we want to have another conversation with the full boards together. Yeah. I'll give a little more time on the agenda. Hopefully everybody feels they've had. Opportunity to ask questions and we've we've heard, and if we're all good to go, I am going to say, thank you to everybody. And we're going to move to the next item on the agenda. Thank you. Good night, everybody. Thank you. Good night. Bye. Bye. Everybody. So, thank you, Dr. Fleischman. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you, everybody. So, the next agenda item is a very five short, five minute item. I'm going to invite Ms. Lewis to join us. And this is a follow-up to a discussion we had in the spring where we granted for the planning board needed some extra additional council. And so we said, yes, find someone you think can do the work for you to help you get some of the zoning work you'd like to get done. And we voted to support it with about 20,000 and they need us now to vote it. So that they can then implement. So, Ms. Lewis, you've got three minutes. How are you? Thank you for joining us. Thank you. Annette Lewis, Claypitt Hill Road, chairman of the planning board. Our town planner, Robert Hummel, reached out to a number of law firms and law schools to see if we could get assistance in crafting our proposed new zoning. None of the law firms responded at all. But, Suffolk Law School did respond. They have an environmental law and policy clinic. And their students work on things like this. It's part of their coursework. I don't believe there would be any payment required to have them do this work. They would be assigning two students to the work. There's an attorney advisor for the program who would oversee it. And they would. They would. they would be working with Robert and the board. We don't want to give up the opportunity to have counsel, however. So what I said to Robert was that I would reach out to people that I've worked with over the years and see if they could recommend a youngish lawyer who might want to do this at lower rates than they could possibly charge. Everyone that I know is in the astral sphere. I mean, they're just too expensive. So what you're asking for tonight is for us to approve the use of the students from Suffolk Law? Yes. So may I have a motion on this, please? And there's no cost to us. As far as I know, there is none. I know that Robert has talked to Michael. I'm hoping that what I'm saying is correct. All right. And so we just need to authorize this because we authorized town council. So could I have a motion and then we can have a questions? I move that. The select board approve up to 12 law students from Suffolk University to assist the planning and zoning departments in legal and land use related work for rezoning along our Route 20 corridor, including but not limited to drafting proposed zoning bylaw amendments and any related regulations for implementation. Thank you. Do I have a second? Second. Thank you. Okay, we'll have a discussion, Mr. Fay. Yes. Good evening, and thank you for this idea. Do you envision that Mr. Hummel would supervise these students and guide them or yourself or someone else? I think it would be a combination of Robert and me working with the students, but they also have an adjunct professor who oversees them. Right now, it's Robert Cox, he's an experienced attorney who oversees them. Who has been working with them, and they hired someone new whom I haven't spoken with yet, who is also oversees the program because it's a course, so that they have to have, you know, teacher supervision. Right. Thank you very much. And any further questions? Otherwise, shall we all go to the vote? Mr. Levine? Yes. Mr. Fay? Yes. Mr. Whitney? Yes. Mr. Reynolds? Yes. Ms. Martin? Yes. Ms. Martin, yes, so the motion passes 5-0. Thank you. Give us a little thanks on that, I appreciate it. Sorry you were so late in the agenda. It's okay. I'm going to want to make a comment on your next item, so. Okay, so just hold on. Go ahead, let's see. So the next item on the agenda is the consent calendar, which we partially did. I'm going to come back to that bill so we can finish that just so I can do that. We can do the grant hearing. So we are now going to have, it's 8.30, we're scheduled to have Eversource's ask for a grant of location hearing on Conchituent Road to install a new utility pole and anchor guy. So we're going to invite Jacqueline Duffy from Eversource representative to join us. No, she was here. She has her hand raised. Yes, I am here. Okay. Do you want to put your video on or are we just, you're on your phone? I'm just on my phone. Okay. So here's what I'm going to do. You've done this before, so you'll hang on two seconds. So I'm going to declare that the hearing is open by saying that the hearing is open for the purpose of considering the application for a grant of location from Eversource Energy and Verizon to install one pole number 4-73-A on the easterly side of Conchituent Road approximately 107 plus or minus feet north of Yaeger Way. Okay. Then this notice was published in the Metro West Daily News on Friday August 14th, 2026 and it said, the Whalum Select Board will hold a public hearing on Monday August 31st, 2026 beginning at 830 p.m. remotely via Zoom on the application from Enstar Electric Company DBA as Eversource Energy and Verizon for a grant of location installing one pole number 4-73-A and on the easterly side of Conchituent Road approximately 107 plus or minus feet north of Yaeger Way. Okay. The petitioners request permission for the erection or construction of poles to be owned and used in common by them and for such other fixtures, including anchors and guides, as may be necessary to sustain or protect the wires of the line upon, along, and across the public way or ways of said town as described above. The hearing, which we are in the middle of doing, can be attended to on Zoom remotely on the WACAM and, of course, the link is in the Whalum Town calendar and also on the Select Board's agenda. Copies of the plan are available for public review online at www.whalum.ma slash 245 slash select dashboard. So, all right. So, and we've already welcomed Ms. Dovey here. So the formal rules of evidence and other court procedures do not apply to public hearings before the Select Board. The Board expects the prospective applicant and any members of the public who comment to present credible and reliable information in a clear and concise manner. So we're going to start by giving the floor to you, Ms. Dovey. You can explain the reason you are applying for the grant of location. I will also say that there is information about this application in the packet starting on page 20. So the floor is yours, Ms. Dovey. Good evening. We'd like to install a new pole 4-73A and it's to provide electric service to 172 and 164 Cotuit. I know I said the word wrong, road. Cotituate. Cotituate. Okay. All right. Did you want to add any other information? No. On page 24 of our packet, I believe, is there a map that shows the proposed pole will be cited. All right. So any questions from the Board for the applicant? Mr. Fay? I just had a comment from Ms. Dovey. Good evening, Ms. Dovey. As the Chair just mentioned, the diagram of where this pole is going to be is on page 24. I think sometimes in the past, not always, your company includes an aerial photo with a marking as to where the pole is. Okay. Where a pole is going to be placed or other equipment. I just find that very helpful. I think the residents do as well. So don't be shy to include those in the future. Thank you. Okay. Doug? Bill? Chris? Any comments? Questions? No questions. Chris, you all set? All set, Madam Chairman. All right. So now, members of the public who would like to provide public comment may do so. I know we have a few more questions. We have a few more questions. We have a few more questions. All right. Thank you. Thank you. I know Ms. Lewis has raised her hand, so the chair recognizes Ms. Lewis, please. Thank you. Annette Lewis, Claypitt Hill Road. I'm hoping that every time you approve a new pole location or anything that is requested of someone regarding utility poles, that you require them to take out the double poles that are all over town. We have double poles. We have pieces of poles. We have poles that are hanging from wires, and it's really quite disturbing across from my house. I think for more than five years, we've had ropes holding up things, wires that are hanging on those poles. They're not utility wires. I'm not sure if they're Verizon's or if they're the cable companies, and they're really low-lying, and low-lying enough that trucks hit them. Okay. I'm hoping that you will pay attention to that as selectmen and not just give them a grant of a new pole without having them take out the old poles. I noted in the plans, it didn't look like any of the old poles were coming out, because if they were coming out, they would have been clear circles, and these were all dark circles. Also, I did not note on the plans where any anchors or guys were going. I didn't notice any anchors or guys mentioned at all. So if there are none, then you shouldn't be approving those, because what happens is they place the anchors and guys on private property, not even in the right-of-way. Thank you very much. Oh, one other. On Kichichewit Road, near those poles that are the pole that's being replaced, if you drive down the road, the poles are incredibly old and thin, and I would hope that they would check those out to make sure. That they will be substantial poles going forward. Thank you. Thank you for the feedback. I'm just writing all these notes down. Okay. All right. Well, Ms. Duffy, I... Can I just ask one question? What is your address, just so I can send it back to the division and see if they can go by your house and look at those poles? Oh, Annette, you're on mute. Sorry. 33 Clay Pit Hill Road. What is it? 33? Clay Pit. C-L-A-Y-P-I-T. Next word, hill. Road. Okay. Thank you. Perfect. Thank you. All right. I think that Ms. Lewis, in my personal comment here now as part of the hearing, I think Ms. Lewis has a good point that we should really make sure that we... As part of our grants, that we make sure that the double poles and the hanging poles and the half poles are removed, I think is a good point. Does anybody else have any further comments? If not... Just a quick one. I've gotten complaints about unsupported poles too. Okay. So, Ms. Duffy, do you have any comments about that? Any of the comments that were made or any further comments, information for the board as we proceed with the hearing? No, I will take everything back to the division. Okay. So, what I'm going to do now is I'm going to move to close the hearing, right, and normally at this stage, well, actually, this is it. We've deliberate, we consult with the town manager and or the town council, and we vote to have a decision, but I am going to say that I am going to recommend that we continue this hearing. Because we were unable to secure a recommendation. Okay. So, we're going to have a recommendation from the DPW and or the acting police chief, which is normally a piece of information that we use in evaluating a grant request. So, I would like a motion to... Oh, let me ask you that, Mr. McCall, can I just continue the hearing myself or do I need a vote? You need a vote. I would, Erin, actually have the vote to continue to your next regular scheduled meeting, which I think is the eighth. Okay. Yeah. So, I would like to have a motion then to continue the hearing until September 8th, please. So moved. Second. Thank you. All right. Any further discussion? And then all those in favor, say aye. Mr. Fay? Aye. Mr. Reynolds? Aye. Mr. Whitney? Yes. Mr. Levine? Yes. Ms. Martin? Yes. So, that's 5-0. So, Mr. Reynolds? Yes. So, Ms. Duffy, we will do this on September 8th, and the town manager's office will reach out to you at the time. You're certainly welcome to come and join us that night. Maybe perhaps in the meantime, if you have an aerial photo of the area, you want to forward that to us for that discussion, that would be terrific. Okay. All right? All right. Thank you, everybody. Thank you. Have a nice night, everybody. Thank you, you too. You too. All right. All right. So, I think I'd like to go back now to the consent calendar. So, Mr. McCall, while we were waiting, we were running ahead, and so we did a couple of things. On the consent calendar, we were able to approve items 1, 3, and 4, but I believe Mr. Whitney had a question on item number 2 on the consent calendar, and I was voting the question of authorizing you as a signatory for approving the contract from Parry Corporation in the amount of $150,000 for the local street crossing replacement project. So, have I got it right, Bill? Yes. My question is, Michael, what's the scope and the location of this project? With all due respect, Madam Chair, this may have been put on during a couple of days when I was unavailable. The reason that this usually comes is because I'm not available. I'm not available. The reason that this usually comes to the board is it is in excess of $100,000. So, this may have, and I apologize, too, I've been out of town the last two business days, do not have an answer to that question, Mr. Whitney. Would it be hopefully not too detrimental if we wait and review this on September 8th? I have no problem doing that. So, I would rather you have the answer than not. Okay. Does that sound acceptable to the board? No, I don't care. That works? Okay. I think we're all sitting on the consent. Thank you. Thank you. We want to make sure we know what's cooking here. So, the next item is going to be part two of the annual uptown meeting discussion. What I did this week, and Tom, just so you know it, I split these out because Jaylen is here and then she goes home in a timely manner, you know, in a timely manner, and I think that's going to be a great discussion. So, let's get to it. Okay. in this part, we just do amongst ourselves, if you will. So that's what this is. What we did last time is we looked at, there's been three or four suggestions of articles that we might pursue for town meeting. And you and I were at the meeting with the chair of the finance committee and Ms. Bradica, where they said they would like some, you know, some feedback from us if we're going to be having articles and what we're going to have and what we're going to put in, if we could help doing them sooner than later, rather than all at the last minute, it would help smooth out, helps to smooth out their, their workflow. So this, that's basically where we are. So one of them was, and we mentioned them last week, and then everyone wanted to mull noodle on a couple of them over. So I'm going to start in the middle here. One was to reduce the quorum below a hundred. This was mentioned by the moderator and I put this on the agenda. Because for discussion, if we are going to pursue this or what we are thinking. So did you want to opine on that? You weren't here last meeting to opine on that.
And these are just potential articles. These aren't remote, you know. You know, I don't love the idea because it just bothers me that so few people in a room can sometimes make extremely important decisions for the town. On the other hand, you know, I've been on a regular time meeting since I've moved to town. thirty-four years ago, and I'm fully aware of the numbers at time meeting, particularly late, late on the second or third night. So, given the fact that I have high regard for the moderator and this is something she supports, I'm okay with it. And, The question would be, what do we think it's going to be? Any more discussion here? Is this an article we should pursue? Obviously, we'll want to do it in conjunction with the moderator if we did it, because it's her suggestion.
I would like to underscore that I'm in favor of the motion as out of respect for the moderator, but I would very, very, very much like to hear her answer to the question Mr. Fay just raised. And or excuse me, not question the issue of, you know, the 1130 p.m. third night mini group that some people might claim is not representative. And I can be brief with this, as you know, already. I'm just always worried about the credibility of our our system and how voters see us. Yeah. Doug or Bill.
Yeah. I can see that both sides of it. And I was just looking up to see what some other towns are doing around us and that are of similar size. And it sounds like the range is between 50 and 150 for a quorum. So we're smack dab in the middle of that if AI is to be believed here. But I think it would be nice to have a conversation about this with the moderator so we could discuss the pros and cons, because I'm leaning toward it right now. But I'd like to have a discussion with her and Bill. I'd welcome the opportunity to hear from the moderator. I have a great deal of respect for her, but I, I really disagree with the notion of reducing the quorum from 100, given that we've got something like eleven thousand four hundred registered voters in town. You know, we've all seen that. You know, some. Sometimes there's a move for reconsideration that happens at the eleventh hour and everybody leaves and an article that failed early is approved later by a handful of people, you know, I think if this is a chronic issue, we should think about maybe switching to a representative town meeting. Maybe then the elected representatives would feel some obligation to show up and to poll their neighbors. But I wish I could say I have an open mind, but I guess I don't. We could go right to a mayor form of government, Bill, and then we'll get out there for Whitney for mayor. No, I think you're much better qualified. So you'll be happy to know that I still get the curmudgeon hat on. I'm with you.
So let me invite the moderator in. Another one we talked about last week. Was expanding the Mullen rule to include the select board, you know, for hearings and the question was raised by it, because we do have this in town already for planning zoning, the historical district, I think conservation and I'm not going to say this word. Right. But it was questioned first by a resident whether we had hearings. There were help me out here. Doug judicatory nailed it. Yay. And I actually was. Mentioned it to keep you on the other day that we were thinking about this and her position was she thought we could just implement this on the model for the select board. Probably we could just do it. So the question is, do we really want to do this just for the select board when the odds of this happening are very minimal or not? Doug did say he would take it on. If we're still good with that, that's fine.
Is everyone okay with that one today? Okay. Then we also had one that Michael had suggested he would like to have not just right now. Our system is we allow the department heads and there's a list of folks who work for us to get up and answer questions at town meeting and he had suggested right after Tom meeting. I think maybe last year, even that we consider adding in staff participation, which we identified last week would also mean. That staff could go up to the pro and the con and then, and speak in favor or against an opposition to articles and I don't think we kind of finished that discussion as to whether we thought we wanted to look at pursuing an article. So I want to open the floor up on that. I'm trying to get a sense of yay or nay on these, so I can kind of communicate with the FinCon what we're thinking.
No objection to that.
Comments. Anyone else. I would just comment. You asked us to think about this last time we all got together and a wise person brought up that, you know, maybe people who don't live in town shouldn't be. In that position, and I did think about it and it. I think that matter would self police. I don't see town employees just getting up at the mic to propose measures or comment on them willy nilly. So, so in the end, I have no objection and I kind of decided that point doesn't hold a lot of water i think 100 mr mr whitney
okay with it it's okay so i'm going to be the lone dissenter here i'm really on a roll tonight
what did i have for dinner uh i'm really uncomfortable again i'm going to say this that i believe tom meeting is for the residents by the residents and i don't think this i think it's important that the staff is there and answer questions for us as we need them but i really feel that this is these are 45 minute maximum discussions including the presentation the presentation of the article which can take what seven someone can oppose for seven now you've got like 30 31 minutes left or whatever it is i do the math right there well 30 minutes left you know for the residents to speak at the pro and the con you see oftentimes the pro and the con and there's still people in the line when the moderator says you know we're done here we're going to cut that off or or or another resident calls calls the question so we want people to go to so they can be heard and then you're gonna i don't know i'm not comfortable with this i i think it needs to be maybe michael and i can have a sidebar and we can come up with something to modify the current language that allows for a little more more discussion without a full-fledged, every staff member can get up and speak. I just think of them as our subject matter experts and that they can help elucidate sometimes what can be very confusing. And they come with such gravitas when they get up there and say a few sentences. It's so meaningful to hear from them. I want to make that as easy as possible without even having to take an extra vote and waste the time of town meeting to allow them to speak. And it doesn't necessarily have to be to answer a question. It could be for them to step up and say, this discussion right now is so misguided. I'm going to come in here and provide some information to provide clarity to town meeting. And it takes us in a different direction. And it's like a godsend at that moment. So how is it that we have the article right up so off track and knowing nobody from the staff advised us when we were putting this thing out wrong in the book? I just really am uncomfortable with where it's going to go. But since we seem to have consensus that we want to pursue this, who would like to take this up so we can draft up the 150 words? Well, you took Mullen, didn't you? I'll switch. What are you going to give the Mullen to, Tom?
Didn't we talk about Mullen not being as useful because it's so rare that this would come up? Well, I said that earlier, but then no one said, yeah, yeah, I agree with you. So I thought it was still with us. So let's take Mullen out. How's that? This one is a lot more important because it can be used frequently. Everybody's good with that? Mullen's off the table and Doug will draft the 150 words for us to look at in the next couple of meetings. All right. Reduce the quorum. We'll have the moderator come in and speak to us. All right. In addition to that, we have reached out and I think the planning board bill, I don't know if you know this, the planning board is going to have four or five articles. These are the only thing there that I think we want to do is like we did last year. They had a great suggestion where we somewhere around November vote to authorize Michael to forward those bad articles back to them for a report so that we get the reports back in time to get them in the warrant. I thought that was was terrific. Terrific. But you might want to check with them to see what what articles they're putting for. So you're in the loop on those. And if you need help with them, you'll let us know. And then I think, Tom, the town clerk's putting in three or four articles. Yeah. Do you want to talk a little bit about those or any of those? Well, I was out of the gate sooner than later. Sure. So these are articles that some of you saw in the town meeting this past spring, including animals in the town building and and rather dogs and dogs in the town building. And. I think we're in the loop on the Great. That would be great. And I think that now, Mr. McCall, do you have any suggested articles that you think we should talk about for the next year or two? Well, I think we're in the loop. I think we're in the loop, but, you know, it's important. You know, it's important. should be looking at submitting. I know last year you had a number of them.
I have some in the queue, but one that has come up recently and I had to speak to town council as a select board member, Levine knows we've been talking with WACAM about a variety of different things and working with them on cameras and meetings. And while we were going through that, something came to my attention. The way we handle the receipt of our cable franchise fees has changed. And not the way we do it, but what DOR has suggested. And through no fault of our own, we took our prior contract and select board member Levine and I worked with WACAM and Mr. Mullane to just update that. There was information sent out by... The DOR, which is changing how we have to receive the fees. So right now they come into the general fund. The DOR would prefer that there's a special revenue account. So we would have to adopt a certain part of Mass General Law to create the revenue account to have those funds come in. So I'll get more detail about that. But I finally got an opinion last week from KP Law as to what we needed to do. So I hope... So we need someone to be following that one. But Doug, that's going to be you if you want that one. Oh, God, you're overwhelming me. I know. I got the curmudgeon hat on today. Watch it. I don't think that will be too daunting. I mean... I know. What I'm thinking is maybe other communities have done it. We could just do a cut, a little bit of a... Take that for the guide. All right. So sorry. All right. Are there any other questions? Are there any others that you're thinking of? This is good. I don't have any for you this evening. Okay. I'll circle back to you and see that we can just sort of be saying, yeah, this sounds good or whatever, and start working on some of them to help the Finance Committee. That would be really good. Can we make some up and just heap them on Doug while he's on a roll? Keep them coming, Chris. Actually, I think, to be honest with you, the Finance Committee, and I hope I'm not talking out of school here, but I think they are going to go back and look at the standard articles that we have. As well, I'm going to say OPEB, for example, and see, you know, if there's any language changes they want to make now, because they're standard language. And so we may end up getting some of those back. And whatever helps them is great. All right. Excuse me, Madam Chair. Just to let the board know, as I shared with you, my office, I have tasked them to go back and look at all the authority for... I mean, we have the authority for every board and committee that was created here in town. As we've talked, there's some that may have lived their usefulness. So there may be some of those boards and committees that are really no longer functioning or that we want to phase out that we may need a town meeting vote to rescind, make a bylaw change. So, those are the types of things that are in the queue with us. We're evaluating those to make recommendations to the board. Thank you. Thank you. Actually, that's going to be, I think, on September 22nd. The audit committee will come before us. They're one that would like to talk to us about their structure. There's a couple of them. So we will look at that chart then, and that's on the agenda for the 22nd. So, all right. I'm just trying to think where I am so I'm not making any mistakes, which would be a good idea. Number 16 is about the policies. This is one of our objectives, you know, is to look at policies that need to be updated and also to create, formalize, I should say, policies that we feel we would like to do. I put down here two that came right off the top of the bat, is that I think Michael has suggested, since it's on my list, that we go back and look at our social media policy, which is not that old. I think we approved it in 25, but that maybe we want to add in about the use of AI. So. I open this up to the board. Is that something we think we'd like to do?
Would have to change it six months later, but I think it's a good idea. In other words, it's just moving so quickly, but I think it's not a bad idea. Happy to get involved in that, unless someone else wants to. Oh, no, no. You're already in. But you know what I think, too, Tom, in all fairness, is that we really needed to get that formalized, and so there may be some language that could be tightened up in that as well. So I'll get Abby to send that off to you, and then you can have a look at that. I have put on the list, and actually, this social media policy is in the packet on page 41. On page 39 is the debt exclusion, and this has not been done. The last time, what was we? 10-1-10. Bill, were you on the board then? So long ago, I can't remember. 19-10. It's not 19-10.
18-10. Scarcely 18-10. Oh, my gosh. You went and played tonight, Doug, aren't you? Wow. I haven't eaten dinner yet. I think this policy rambles a little bit, and I think it needs to be – I mean, it has a finance committee coming in twice to present the same information. I don't want to know. I think this one probably could use some – I don't know if it's going to be a revision. And so I'm happy to take that on if everyone thinks that makes sense.
Fine. True. Okay, good. I'll do that. I understand that Watertown, I think, has revisers and might have a nice draft. I couldn't find it on the webpage, but we might look at that. All right. Then there was a suggestion to a couple new policies that I, again, have on the list. Someone has suggested. I think this was you, Michael, accepts gifts of land. Yes, Bill? Sorry, on the social media, before we leave that up. To follow up on Tom Fay's point, I wonder if the policy ought to reference sub-stack or whether that's included under blogs. It strikes me that that's a whole separate category of people expressing their views, so should that be called out as one question. Then, with respect to under Section 4, policy for use on social media sites for official purposes, which appears on page 46 of the packet. Number six. Section 416 discusses political activities with respect to candidates, but it makes no reference to ballot questions. So, I wonder if that should be comprehended so that we assure that the town's information goes out or anyone speaking for the town is presenting facts rather than advocacy. Sure, I've made note of those points. Thank you. I do know that, and I don't know if this is really a crossover, but I do know, I think Jalyn has got on her list is use of the town seal and the town, you know, the town name, and the use of the seal. We might reference it here as well. You can't do that, whatever. But that's another one. Okay, those are good points. Thank you. This is good. Then I think we had, accept gifts of land, which I think I have to say, I think Bill was one of the first meetings that we had with Michael when you first got to be chair. He's mentioned we should have this. Someone had wanted to give us something. We said we should have a gift of land policy. So, I don't know if that's something we still want to do. Do you want to speak to that, Michael? I always think it is good for the board to have something to fall back on in the event that just like we take gifts, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, people want to donate objects of art or a bench. Similarly, people may want to donate land and we may want to have reasons that we may or may not. So, I think it's worth exploring that as well. Maybe look at some other pure towns that way in case there's something that's ever offered to the town. It's something that's not consistent with what you want to do or you don't want it to come off the tax rolls. You can fall back on that. Would you put that in a gift box? policy, Michael, or would that be a separate policy? It may be separate. I will flesh that out a little further, but sometimes you want to take things that are contiguous to town land. I will work with whomever on the board to rule. Yeah, I mean, I'm sort of saying we should take these because I have to say that, and I guess we're in the draft agenda meeting, and Tom had suggested, and I'm implementing it without mentioning it, sorry, that each of us should follow these policies, you know, be attached to them rather than and then when you're ready, let me know or not, and we'll put them before the board. So I hope everyone thinks that's a great system. Would you be willing to do the gifts of land one, Bill? Sure, I'll be happy to work with Michael on that. Okay, great. And then the last one I had on the list, this doesn't mean there aren't others that you wanted, but this is what I have on my list, is religious expression, and I think, Tom, did you want to speak to that? Well, I know our board has discussed this issue in the past. We have been instances when individuals have come before the board seeking, particularly during the holiday season, to place items on town property consistent with their faith, and they simply don't have a policy. Other communities do. Some don't, but I think it's wise to have something because it usually is a last minute request, and I just think it's good to have a policy that residents can, and frankly non-residents who come to town and ask, can look at and appreciate what they can and cannot do. So I'm happy to put something together. Okay. Is everybody good with that? Yes. I would like to add to what Mr. Fay just said, that I've seen people's people make what appeared to me to be ad hominem attacks as a result of that conversation, and that one of the benefits of what Mr. Fay is proposing is that it puts a little bit of good bureaucracy behind the request, so the person being asked can we put up a sign or a display or something doesn't have to feel awful for bringing up some logistical constraints. I think that was your intent, wasn't it, Tom? Yes. Yeah, the intent is not, it's just consistency. So, all right. If anybody thinks of any other policies we should have, you can let me know. I think we have enough to work on at the moment, so that ought to keep us busy. So I think the next item on the agenda is the town manager report. Mr. McCall, the floor is yours. Thank you, Madam Chair. What's on there currently, there's two items. As you know, next week will be Labor Day. We will be celebrating that on Monday, September 7th, so the town offices will be closed. We will then be going back to having a full day through 7 p.m. on Tuesday, September 8th. And that's a nice segue into a recap. Just to remind everybody, we are back on our five-day-a-week schedule, so our hours are going to be on Monday, September 8th. We're going to go back to 8 to 4 on Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, and we'll be here until 1230 on Fridays.
I just want to comment a little bit on the unfortunate incident that happened on August 18th. And I know our two chiefs would like to come in at a future meeting to talk about specific individuals and their actions that day, but it was truly a tragedy. I commend all the board. In town and the employees, especially our EMS, for the way they conducted themselves. The two chiefs did an excellent job working with Gilfoyle, our PR consultant, handling the media that day. But these types of incidents are never easy. They can often linger in people's minds and it took an emotional toll on a lot of our employees. And we've got a lot of work to do to make sure that they're doing the right thing. We've got a lot of work to do to make sure that they're doing the right thing. I've asked the respective chiefs and even the inspection staff that were involved to take some time to take care of themselves because these are just never anything that any community wants to do with them. But I want to commend everybody in town, how they've responded. And I did reach out to our peer communities, specifically Sudbury and Weston, and I thank the town managers and the respective police and fire chiefs there. I would say that our EMS talking with inspections and DPW has thought long and hard about what happened that day and we are taking some steps to just walk some of our lands here in town, including some of the school grounds, to make sure we don't see any trees that are potential problems and we will be addressing those in a proactive fashion. Just a couple of things. Just other items that we've been working on. I've been working with staff on the historic parking. We're going to have another meeting this week. We have ongoing collective bargaining. I've met with Mr. Reynolds and the folks at Town Center doing some preliminary work to ensure that Wayland Fest goes off without a hitch. I know it will. But we have new partners in North Pond, Jesse Burkhan, and they are highly motivated. As you know, we are looking to move forward with them on the pedestrian zone there. And last thing I just want to comment, it was mentioned briefly, we had the ribbon cutting at Terrain the other day. It was very exciting. It's a lovely facility. We had our legislators, members of the board there. We're excited to have them. They're excited to partner with us. We were already making introductions that day to some of the businesses in town and outside of town. And they can attract more business there. And the one thing that came up that day from a couple different people is what Wayland needs to do is attract a boutique hotel somewhere in town so that all the guests for the wedding can stay here and the dollars will stay in Wayland. So that's the next thing we'll be working on. And that's all I have, Madam Chair. Mr. McCall, I can do it in my reports, but I think I would like to pass it to you. Do you want to speak about our articles? The AG has responded and we've sent that. It's going out to the board tomorrow morning, that email I got from the town clerk. No, I'll defer to you, Madam Chair. Okay. That's fine then. All right. I think we are on the minutes of July 20th. This starts on page 51 and the minutes of August 13th. So I have a motion. It's been told that it's the July 20th, 2026 as amended. Second, please. Second. Thank you. Any comments? This is July the 20th, Carol? Yes, please. All right. I will require some assistance to read my own writing here. If others have comments. We'll get Mrs. Comer over here to help you. All right. Anybody else have anything? Nope. While you're thinking about it, Bill, I'd like to say on A5, the second sentence says the Kaplan Consulting LLC joined the meeting and presented. Technically, they called it a hearing. It was a public hearing because then we had to allow public comment in the agenda item. So I would say join the meeting and open the hearing to public comment. You know, sent to the slide deck, did the board and opened it to public comment. Or maybe the board discussed the plan and opened the hearing. I'm open to the hearing to public comment, but it should say something like that. All right. And I don't know that I have any other remarks. Can you decipher your handwriting? Yeah, I've just got one little thing on page 53 in the packet under A6. Okay. In the third paragraph. The fourth line down, underage individual without verifying the buyer's age. I think it should be apostrophe S. See, it was a comma, except it was an uppercase comma. No, it's an apostrophe. All right. I do syntax, too, you know. I realize that. All right. Let's have a vote. Where am I? Mr. Fay? I'll abstain, actually. Okay. Mr. Levine? Yes. Mr. Reynolds? Yes. Mr. Whitney? Yes. Mr. Martin? Yes. So that's going to be 401, right? Correct. I'm looking at someone. Okay. How about the minutes of the 13th, please? Happy to move their approval as amended. Second. Okay. Page 57. All right. Any comments? I got lost there. Is Mr. Whitney happy with those minutes? I was not sure. I was not paying attention for a second. I thought I asked you. Didn't I have 401? The ones from before, right? 20th. That was the 20th, that vote. Then I'm all set. Thank you. Okay. So now we're on the next one, which is August 13. We have a motion on the floor. All right. Anybody have anything? No. I've got one. I've got one. The very bottom on A4. All right. All right. All right. All right. All right. All right. All right. All right. All right. All right. All right. I'm on A4. I'm going to look to Tom. So I announced, I believe, that the Board would adjourn from executive session, and would not return to open session. Not we adjourned, but I have to announce it, don't I, and not return to open session. I'm not sure you really need to. But why don't you throw that in there. Sure. Okay. That's what I'm actually. We were clear on that. so all right let's have a vote anybody else all right let's have a vote on those mr reynolds yes mr whitney yes mr fay yes mr levine yes it's martin yes that's five zero okay correspondence every few items in there thank you all right i think we're on select board reports and concerns i'm going to start with doug because the last item in the packet on page 59 is something he's going to speak to i think um there i i get the as i think chris does i don't know about others information sent frequently by the mass municipal association and there's a save the date notification that we received a couple weeks ago about a fiscal summit and specifically the agenda talks about the current municipal fiscal landscape around the commonwealth and then an overview of funding sources available to municipalities and a discussion on effective budget collaboration between boards and committees i feel like it would make sense for at least one of us to attend this i am going to check my schedule and see if i can do that it's located in rent them on thursday october first looks like a half a day seminar from 8 30 in the morning till 1 15 p.m um i i think it would be good for us specifically to not only hear about the landscape from some of our fellow communities but how some of them are are attacking it um and then i also i wanted to mention that there was this federal housing legislation that passed into law um over the summer called the 21st century road to housing act and in it there are a number of potential grants that could be stood up specifically for municipalities around the country and we've reached out to kp law to see if they can keep us apprised of that it will be an unfolding process over the next couple of years they have to stand up new regulations draft new regulations and potentially stand up new offices at the federal level but i feel like that's something that we should remain at the forefront of since we're constantly staring down this fiscal cliff within our town and potential override votes to be in the judges seat because we've lost a lot of our folks in the past and most of the little things that we needed to do that work just so we can get it out of our hands and so that's something that i've been working on so long that i've been trying to make sure we keep that in the way that we can be locked up in the process i don't know if it's actually going to happen but i do know that we still have we still have a lot of land here that we have to keep up we have to keep up most of our land we still have a lot of land here that we have to keep up with so we're still doing a lot of work to get that off the ground in the first place i think maybe if there's a lot of land cc me or she'll tell me and we'll figure out how we'll process that all right anything else mr reynolds uh no but thank you madam chairman okay um bill or tom nothing from time um i uh will reiterate a concern uh expressed earlier about the
route 20 south landfill i was concerned to hear the finance director identify that as one of four projects that might well be subject of a uh capital budget inclusion or override and uh you know i i would really appreciate that having a robust discussion as to the inclusion of projects uh in the capital budget that may or may not be in the five-year capital plan and also the discussion of the relative roles and responsibilities of the finance committee and the SIPC. It was always my understanding that the SIPC would be a long-term capital planning body rather than comment on the coming year's capital budget. And I think there's just a lot of confusion, certainly on my part and perhaps others. This Route 20 project may be a great project, but what's the point in having a capital plan if we just dump stuff in it? So if you could put that on your list, Carol, I'd appreciate it. Actually, it's my turn now. It is on my list, unfortunately, because we didn't have as many meetings all summer. I've got a couple of things that I'm carrying. But that brings me... You should have gotten an email from Abby about the fall schedule. I'm going to try and maintain the every other week. Schedule, I think that's good for us. I think it's good for the staff so we get a break in between and get some of the things done that we identify at the meeting. If for some reason, I shouldn't say this because this will happen, knock on wood, we do need to have a little extra meetings. I'm going to try. Tom, I didn't get a chance to tell you this, but I'm going to try that Thursday morning one hour, the short meetings, if that works. We'll see how far we get with that. Okay. When Michael was doing the report, I did allude to the fact that the town clerk has received a notice from the AG's office, Michael, correct me if I get this not correct, indicating that all the articles that we passed at town meeting, we got the thumbs up, so we're good to go. It was really interesting. A lot of information, particularly if you're in the legal field, you know, about comments and articles we took on, particularly the banning of the crypto. Okay. ATMs, I thought was very interesting, so I've asked Abby to forward that information to you. If you haven't gotten it, you'll probably get it tomorrow. You can just read through it. That's really great. Put it in the correspondence packet, but we're good, so we're good to have town meeting later in the year. We're good to, we've got liquor licenses, we're rolling. So anyway, the other day I was at the bank and I was facing Russell's. Okay. So I went to get out of the car, a couple of people came whooshing by on the rail trail. It was really, really cool. And I looked and there was a little teeny path right there by the local there, I think the little path connecting and then we're a little farther down and there, there was a nicer path coming from the rail trail that has definite specific designated signs on about 10 or 12 parking spaces that say rail trail parking. So that was, I know they had come and said they were going to do it. I actually saw it. It's pretty good. I did mention before that it was when I had seen the article in the Globe on July 24 about the state wants to get 225,000 more housing units. And one idea was that they were going to allow religious properties to build is my understanding. And somebody can confirm for me if otherwise that that bill is not going to go forward this year. I don't know if the right word. Doug, you'll have to tell me if it's in committee or whatever, but I don't believe it's going forward as permanently as we thought. So perhaps we can wait now and speak to the legislators in November rather than bring them in in September. But if one of you realize that I misread that, then please let me know and I'll get that right on the schedule. I'm going to think what else I had. I think that should about do it. So with that. Thank you. I will take a motion to adjourn at 930, please. So moved. Way to come in 10 minutes ahead of schedule. Carol. Yeah. What happens when you're a curmudgeon? All right. Have a second, please. Second. Thank you. Okay. All those in favor. Doug. Yes. Chris. Yes. No. Yes. Tom. Yes. And Carol. Yes. Five zero. Thank you very much. See you on the 8th.