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Try: Select Board School Committee Real Estate Town Meeting Budget

December 1, 2025 – Select Board – Video & Transcript

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December 1, 2025 - Select Board

 
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Good evening, Carol Martin, next chair of the Select Board, I'm following the meeting. It's December 1st, 2025, on the Select Board, to order at 6 p.m. This is a hybrid meeting. We are in the New England Town Building, from the Select Board meeting room, and 41, it seems to be a road in Greenland. One May launch, with the meeting link that can be found on the calendar, it's also on the agenda. During Chapter 2 of the Acts of 2025, this meeting will be conducted in person, and by remote means, in accordance with ethical law. This meeting may be recorded, which will be made known to the public, and so after the meeting, as is practical. When required by law, or allowed by the chair, persons wishing to provide public comment, or otherwise participate in the meeting, they do some personal attendance, or by accessing the meeting remotely, as known as the problem. We request the public comment to be limited to two minutes per person. So, joining me in the meeting room this evening is Mr. Ben, Mr. Whitney, and Mr. Lillie, for participating remotely on this arrangement. Thank you very much. Thank you very much. Tonight, if they, again, are in full November, after we have mountains of public comment, we will be tabling the appointment due to an illness of the applicant. We've fallen out of the discussion of potential work on the mass chiefs for our resource authority, a discussion primarily about the finance project, followed by a discussion of possible work on people who will tell me, as a chair, to sign the corporate end-to-day-owned services in time-long for the ways to allow that facility to replace school. After the 645, we will enter into executive system to discuss strategy we expect to a clearance file under the flag by his local man in December 8th, and we will review through the executive session on September 15th, and then by the intent for the sentence. We will participate in the training to open session in 2010. We will follow that with a public forum on the special election that was going to be held on Thursday, December 11, 2025. We will have a pool on licensing renewals for 2026. We will have a discussion, a very short discussion on the solicitor at 126, including the creation of a 20-quota joint task force, followed by a 2026 annual town meeting discussion to the actually a vote to open to the meeting, followed by a 15-minute agreed by two hearings, related locations, approved by AT&T, one at 238 recently, and the other at 90 people on Central Coast Road, which will be followed by the Tom Innes report. Senate founder, minutes of November 3rd, we believe November 17, 2025. Review correspondence, select board members, reports of concerns. There are no topics, reasonably anticipated by the chair, 40 hours in advance, and hopefully by 925 we will adjourn. So, I also want to know that joining us this evening we have Tom Innes, our assistant town manager. Do we have any announcements from the board? Any? Great. If you have any comments, do you see any in the room? Do you have any online? No plan online with our interviews right now. Perfect. Thank you. So then I think we will move right to this discussion and possible both. I think we're going to be joined by the Agent Director of Public Works. Ola, good evening. Thank you for joining us. Good evening, everyone. Good evening, John. Thank you. Thank you. The last time that we met, I mean, I'm going to make a decision as to, we've been asked by the Board of Public Works, you know, to contribute. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. You know, to support some of the debt through the general fund. And we've been looking at three options. We had several questions last time about, I think the first question I want to go is, Brian had presented a suggestion that included that the general fund carry the debt, about the debt paid for the water rates. Bill had a question on that, which the result of that is the charge that's in public act. So, Bill, do you want to relate what your question was? Sure. And then Brian can kind of explain it a little bit. Brian and I have had a subsequent conversation, but my question at this time was, as I understand the idea is that the Congress seek to essentially approve the jury both in the economy and authorizing the borrowing of $38 million. It would be the application of debt. That I'm clear as to whether it would be debt exclusion per se. But I think the principle of interest would come as a transfer to the general fund. So, my first question was, there's this constitutional thing that an individual, a homeowner water customer getting twice, once in taxes and once in the rates. Right? That would not be the case given the waterfront scenario, basically makes a transfer to the general fund, avoiding the necessity of the taxpayers. But I guess the second question is whether, under this scenario, while two-thirds vote at the time of meeting would be required to authorize borrowing, whether we would also need to go to an election for debt. So, the best way to answer that would be, you would have, in my opinion, you would have to have it voted as excluded debt. Because in the event in the future years that the water department would be unable to pay, the general fund still needs to make the payment on obligation. You would thus have a revenue shortfall in the particular year that you were expecting the deficit, so your town's fund balance would drop. When you're preparing a budget and you realize that the waterfront would not be able to pay in a subsequent year. Again, the general fund would have to pay that by tax. That would be taxed by levy, which you would not want. They're talking about $2 million of expense heading into years of overrides. That would just compound our problem with overrides. So, having it excluded assures the town that it wouldn't have to cut into its levy bucket of tax. The problem with that is, the side effect is this, is that you would want it as excluded debt. So, the excluded debt portion roughly is about $2 million. We carry about $2 million. So, in any particular year, the max levy in the DOR calculation about Prop 2.5 would go up an additional $2 million. It would open, it could potentially open the window to spend something else. Because the excluded debt, although it's a revenue source, you don't need that. Because the general fund is already giving you the $2 million. But you needed to protect yourself in the event that they didn't pay it. The issue is, is that you would be asking future employees and future members of different boards to never cut into that excluded debt portion. And never spend it, because that was set aside specifically for the water fund. So, you would have an inflated max levy. I hope you guys follow me on that. There's a side effect. And it can't be controlled, except for people controlling it in future years. Now, we're talking about 10, 20 years of debt payments. You're asking future people who are here to that. And they're probably all going to forget it in 10 years. So, that's the side effect. You have to have it to protect the general fund. But here's the side effect. How do you protect that amount of money not being used for something else? Well, my question, Brian, is the language within the water we can include to diminish the possibility that the water fund never gets too low. So, what you always want, assuming the debt service stayed in the water fund to pay for it by rates, you would need to ensure that the Board of Public Works would raise rates properly, not only to cover their revenues, but also start to build back the fund balance. Remember, they went from $4 million down to $1 million. So, they're substantially depleted. But right now, you have a $1 million or so fund balance, and their expenses are about $5 million. So, they're around 20%. Their budget's going to go up below $2 million to $3 million. So, their expenses are going to go up $3 million as their fund balance stays at $1 million. Now, you're dropping below to 20%, which is going to pull down the town's fund balance. In the eyes of Moody's, they want us to keep it at $25. So, the general fund's doing okay. The wastewater is okay, transportation. But you have the water fund on a projection going down. So, their expenses are clearly going to go up. So, they need to set rates to not only bring in their revenue that was voted at the town meeting. Whatever that number was that voted at the town meeting, that's what they need to set the rates at. They have other categories of revenue, not just water uses. There are about three or four other categories. But, collectively, they need to set a rate to achieve their revenue that was voted at the town meeting, plus start building back, hopefully, some of this fund balance. So, I just wanted to ask a question. The question was, trying to get some of these answers to get down to them both, eventually. Bill's question was, this proposal does not entail tax and taxpayer paying twice, once in the water rates and once on the general fund level. Because we're not tax, we're not including the excluded debt, the 1.9 excluded debt, in the tax. It's being funded once, just in the water rates, correct? That's his question. It's my question, not to . Well, town meeting will appropriate the debt service within the general fund. Right. The town meeting will appropriate the expenses for the water department in the water department. The difference is, once you get to the tax recap, the payment coming in from the waterfront will offset the use, the raising of tax to fund the debt service. If you did not have that $2 million coming in, let's just call it $2 million first year. Right. You would have to raise taxes. 2 million. So, we may have remitted the 1.9. That's correct. That's the, oh, my God, this one could have happened. But on the basic premise, you get a tax once when you want to rent. Is everybody going to get that? Yeah. Let's go back to, okay. There was another question, just hang on a second, Brian. Who was? Another one was, even mine, I saw there was, I added something to Brian as well. Mine was, how often will the water department submit the into access? Is it going to be annually? So, they submit them for the next year's budget around January or February. That's when we calculated. They actually make the payment in May. Right. Every May, all the various funds make the payment to the general fund. So, basically, what we have is kind of like that, the answer situation where the general fund is going to fund, it's not quite the second, it's going to fund the payments, but then it may be reimbursed. So, we may have all. Yeah. And this is one of the things that I took away, it was a question about that. And I talked to town council about it, and they said there's no different than us charging indirect costs to any other enterprise funds. So, we would just take that in. So, we used to be able to do this with them. That was another question we had. Is this a suggestion? Well, we're currently doing what the ambulance fund. We paid the debt service related to the truck we bought about six, seven years ago. How? The ambulance fund, they reimbursed the town for the cost of that debt service. So, this is a reimbursement fund. I do have a question on the 38 million. Is it carried in the general fund? Or is it the 38 million carried in the water? Is it going to be loaded to their retail balance? Can you say that again, Carol? Yeah. So, the debt service is going to be carried in the general fund? Will it be carried in the water enterprise fund? Will it impact their retained earnings target? Really both. Because the water... Assuming it's going to be funded out of the water fund, it would impact their fund balance the water fund, meaning they would have to raise the proper rates to meet their expenses. It would impact the general fund if, in fact, the water fund was unable to make that payment. The question that was raised, and Tom, we might have to chime in on this one. It was a question of equity. In the following the meeting... Excuse me. Before we do that, to Tom's earlier question about the language could essentially oblige the Board of Public Works to raise fish revenue to pay that service and increase the fund balance. Is that a town council question? Can the town meeting oblige this and future Boards of Public Works to raise sufficient revenue through water rates to meet those obligations? I think we may need town council to weigh in on that. The way I would look at it is they're an independent board created by statute. And I don't recall that they're beholden to town meeting under the... It's, I think, Chapter 347 of 2008, if I'm not mistaken. They've created the Board of Public Works. Generally, the only way you take an elected board to task, it is through the ballot box. There's not... Unless there's something built into that legislation that says they're bound by town meeting, and I don't recall anything. When I looked, I think they have all the powers and duties that water commissioners have, and that's generally a statutory creation so that they would set their rates. But I'm not sure if there's an enforcement mechanism in town meeting other than creating it, because town meeting already established, I think when they established the enterprise, they put in something in language, if I'm not mistaken, I wasn't here, that required them to maintain that minimum balance in their... Retain balance and increase. So there's already something that town meeting did create that's not being adhered to. Is that correct? Well, it was in the 2012 annual town meeting. There was language in the warrant book citing the fact that there was two consultants who gave a recommendation on what the fund balance should be. DEP said $4 million. Mark Abrams, who had done work for the time years ago, also said like $3.5 million. So I don't believe town meeting voted a certain fund balance amount, but it was clearly written in the warrant what the intentions were. But I don't think the waterfront started with a fund balance policy on day one. Although, whenever you create a enterprise fund, town meeting needs to vote how much money it's to start with, the seed money. We've done that before. I couldn't see in the article what town meeting voted for them to start with. They simply carry forward their balance. So for a long period of time, they built up the $4 million because over a long period of time, or through a period of time, revenues were exceeding expenses. That's how they obtained $4 million. Since they started as an enterprise fund, it's just gone down. So I couldn't trace back from 12 because the water fund was sort of an arm of the general fund. The water revenue was coming in as a local receipt. So it was sort of like an arm of the general fund. But on day one, first day of the operation, they had $4 million to stop it. They carried forward their fund balance. And they had $4 million because clearly revenues had exceeded expenses. Since then, expenses have exceeded revenues to where we are today. So I think let's get a question to town council that is, can the select board obligate enterprise funds to support Okay, tell me a large enterprise funds to support debt. And retained earnings levels. Can the select board do it for the enterprise funds? So those are the two questions that are going to meet. Does that sound okay? Okay. So that takes care of that. And I want to go to the equity question that's been raised a few times. I'm going to try the bank's going to lose off their toe. And Tom, I'm going to explain it and then you're going to correct me. Sounds fine. All right. So I spoke with Georgia University Chair afterwards, and I think I've got to do it now. Our water rates are tiered, but they're progressive. So you're not a tier one person, and then that's what you pay. You're a tier one, tier one, tier one, tier two, tier two, tier four. The construction costs are included in the tiers. So the more water you use, the higher the tier you are, the more you're contributed towards the construction costs. So I think that's the equity, and I would like to confirm my statements or not. Well, I guess what I can say is that, yes, we do indeed have a tiered system. It is generated and established to promote water conservation. The less water that you use, the less money you pay. So the tiers are set up such that, you know, from one to 3,000 units, which is 100 cubic feet. So just one to 3,000, you're charged, you know, $6.87 per unit. And then when you exceed that and you go from three to 5,000, you're charged $8.80. And then from 5,000 to 8,000, you're charged, you know, $9.97 and so forth. So it's established such that when people are using more water, when they reach and surpass those particular thresholds, the cost for each unit is increased. And again, that, you know, as part of our Water Management Act permit, we're to establish a tiered system to promote water conservation. So that's how those tiers are established and why. But in that rate is included all capital costs for all the capital projects. And it wouldn't include the capital costs for the construction of the MBT-10, then we are a project, correct? Yes. So what we do is we establish an annual budget. That annual budget includes the anticipated debt service. We then, we use Abraham's group still. Brian was referencing Mark. We use his son, Matt, currently. So what he does is based upon historic consumption patterns, he's able to create a model which predicts how much water will be consumed. We know the amount that we need to raise in a future fiscal year. And so he's then able to establish what the rate would be per unit in each one of those tiers to then obtain, achieve the projected revenue needed. So the answer is yes. If it's in the rate that it would be included, you know, in that tiered structure. So what I need to hear, and I think the board needs to hear, is that the construction costs for this project are also progressing to. What you can also do, and many communities do this, we do something similar on your water bill. You'll see, you know, metered usage, and then you'll also see PFAS treatment surcharge. And so we break out the cost the town incurs to treat for PFAS at Happy Hollow. And that's a separate charge. Many communities, you've probably seen it in others, have a capital surcharge. And what they do is they break out their debt service for their capital funding, and they charge that outside of the actual consumption charge. So that's another philosophy that could be used. So if you did the construction cost fee, would it be flat for every user, or would it be progressive based on tiers? It's flat. So that's the issue that we have. So the board is concerned... Go ahead. This is your... Okay, I'm doing fine. Go ahead for me. The board is concerned that... One of the concerns about funding through the real estate taxes is that each person would be paying the same amount for the construction costs. And we're not sure that... I'm not sure the board is 100% comfortable with that being equitable, that someone using the tier one level would be the same amount for the construction costs as someone who's using tier four level consumption of water. So I think that's one question still. Right? So I think... Go ahead. It was that, and there's the non-profit versus... Right. And then that grabs the non-profits in the next one. So... I just heard of Tom Holder. Billion can be set up, Tom Holder, so that the construction costs is progressive. Yeah. It's based on use. You can set up it. Right? Oh, yes. Yeah. It would be much like it is today. You know, any debt service that we have right now is incorporated in that tiered system. And I don't need to ignore you, so I think something helpful. No, I... This is all in line with how I thought things worked. Good. It could have been a good week or less. Okay. So I think then the last thing you touched on, Tom, on this page anyway, is we have a lot of questions about the terms permit. I didn't explain it well. I thought we had X gallons, 65 gallons per person, but we could explain that to the board. They were looking for the number of gallons, how it works, and what will change when the town draws NWA water. Yes. So I think what you're referring to, that first item, that first statistic that you were referring to, is part of a Water Management Act permit that we have to account for water, and we have to achieve at or below 65 gallons per person per day. And that's what we strive to do. That's entirely independent of the second question as to how much water we're going to obtain and how that will be charged. To answer that question, we are seeking from the MWRA the ability to draw the town's entire amount of water. We want to be able to preserve that amount of water. What they do is they've got a peaking calculation. We know that we use 1.65 million gallons of water per day on average. Our max daily demand is around three and a half, but it's our average daily demand that the peak factor is calculated based on. What we know and the MWRA is aware of is that the MWRA supply is to be supplemental to the Happy Hollow. And we're using a figure right now that Happy Hollow would provide 85% of the town's water. The MWRA would provide the remaining 15 during times of high demand, peak demand, when Happy Hollow could not sufficiently provide all of the town. So the MWRA knows that generally that's the amount of water that we will likely draw from their system. But they do understand and we are seeking and will obtain a permit. We'll have the ability to draw the entire town's demand from the MWRA should we need it. Should we have planned or unplanned shutdowns of the Happy Hollow wellfield, the MWRA at that point in time would provide all of the town's water. I think the only other comment was what board member Whitney asked for this to be a true debt exclusion going to the voters. It's my understanding of proposition two and a half, and I did speak to town towns about this. If we're doing it not for the water rates, which the Board of Public Works originally came, we would do a traditional what's called subsection K voter approved debt exclusion for the debt for this water service. And then it would have to be obviously approved by town. And then it would have to be approved by town. That's my understanding. So I think, I think, trying to get us closer to something. I think we all agree with that any moment we have would be via traditional debt exclusion, which would be the two votes. So I don't think anyone's disagreeing on that. I think we're agreeing on that. I'm going to open up one other questions. I will listen. Frank, can you walk through the bottom part of the box, where you can annotate what this chart is, and you talk about the two issues using the FY26 tax recap. Just read what those items, I don't know. You wrote, having debt voted as excluded debt ensures the town law was cut to six minutes outside of about two and a half. The indirect from the water fund does a direct offset of tax. The indirect payment to the general fund causes the excluded debt amount in the tax limit calculation never to be used. So that's your first issue. Right. It's available. You need to ensure that it's not used specifically for that debt. However, you got reimbursed from the water department. So you'll always have your, you know, prop two and a half calculation plus the excluded. The excluded portion will technically be inflated, because you're not going to use a portion of that being the formula. Two million dollars. Thanks. Thanks. Thanks. So Brian, how do we eliminate that excluded debt point to use? How does, how will you calculate the amount? Because it's actually 1.9. Because it's a 0 of our law and forget it. So it's always 1.9. No. Every year the debt. So it's a decrease. How do you calculate that? Well, every year, the debt service amount changes. So the excluded debt number on a tax recap will change because debt is being paid down. And over the course of time, that number does come down. Yeah. So the excluded debt number related to the excluded debt right now about 4.6 million on our tax recap that we just certified today. This is another 1.9 for 20, 29. 30 could be 1.7. Next year it could be 1.6. So your question is how do you control? Can we just be excluded debt? You can't. It's not. You see, you're cutting a corner because if you don't vote it as excluded debt and they never default on that payment, you're fine. If in fact they default one year, the general fund will not receive that payment during the year. Your fund balance and the general fund is going to come down. Your free cash is going to come down. If you're heading into the subsequent year and you realize they're not going to be able to make that payment. You're going to, the general fund will have to make the payment by tax and you would have to use levy portion of your crop two and a half, which is exactly what you don't want to do. So you're kind of in a corner. You need the excluded debt coverage with the hope you never have to use it. So what if we have some, we might have to speak to town council where maybe 45 years we would take off 45 million. Can we retire to the debt? No, because you borrowed that way. How do you get rid of that debt? Excuse me? We've paid it off. We've paid it off. Well, that's a good time. We've paid it off. It's still the $43 million in the city loan. How do we retire that? You definitely don't unless you've paid off the amount. Well, it's just $60 million. No, we've retired the debt. It's over 20 years. It's an amortization schedule. Because we're making payments. Right. So it goes off. Eventually. Okay. Again, the indirect portion scenario works. However, you're leaving a bucket of revenue out there for somebody to use. And you're asking future employees, committee members to adhere to that, which is kind of like, how do you control that? That's the downfall of debt. Everything else only works fine. You know, unless you, my own two cents, if you put it in the water department by rates, if you could find a way to go to town meeting to ensure either through the selectman's article. The selectman article is what brings the enterprise budgets to town meeting. If somehow you could go to town meeting with some kind of language, ensuring that there's a review of the rates at the end of the year. We go to town meeting in, say, April, May, if every given year. The board of public works in June sets the rates at the town meeting. And then they simply just do that. It would sort of have to be somehow to figure out a control. But maybe the town manager reviews that rate setting or approves it or can push it back. There's got to be some mechanism in place to ensure that the money is raised properly, that you're meeting your expenses. And we could probably do that through the article. It's very complicated because they're the water commissioners right now. So the second issue you raise is basically if the town doesn't support the excluded debt vote and the water fund can't cover it, then it automatically has to be funded by levy debt. What you said is a significant problem. Right. So we don't have any money. Because we're already heading into years of overrides. You would just be adding that debt service as an additional amount of money. Well, I don't know. Of course, each month with the fund would be covered by the tanger and the enterprise fund. So if they have a million in there and the payments won't pull off, it's not good. But that's what would happen on weekend. Well, if we appropriated in the general fund, the expense, and we did not get the receipt, the general funds fund balance would have revenue shortfall. General fund fund balance would drop by, say, $2 million. Free cash would go down by $2 million. No, actually, I'll go back to Tom meeting him. At least general obligation are relevant. General obligation. First budget obligation. Yeah, we would have paid. I have two questions, Tom Holder. Can you give us a sense as to the sense of the Board of Public Works as to what was motivating them and driving them to keep revenues lower than they really should be, based on Ryan Keveney's statements to us about what consultants in the past have recommended? Why have revenues been lower than they should be? What have you seen in your attendance meetings? Yeah, I mean, I guess that question is probably better posed to the Board of Public Works. I do know that one of the items is that several years ago, we took all of the contingencies and each one of our car centers, we probably have 15 car centers within the water operating budget. We took all of those contingencies. We took all of those contingencies and put those into one line called a contingency line, and it's valued at about $200,000. The Board of Public Works. The Board of Public Works several years ago took the position that, you know, if we don't need that money, we won't need to spend that money. So they've set the revenue, the rates to achieve revenue of the budget minus that $200,000. In recent years, equipment failures, purchasing MWRE water through the emergency connection, we've repeatedly needed to tap into that contingency line. And so that has caused, you know, an unbalanced expense revenue budget. I think also that in FY26, the Board of Public Works did not raise rates at all. They maintained the same rates that were used in the prior year. I had some questions about that when they established that rate. I think what they were attempting to utilize was the theoretic increase in revenue based upon having new meters in the system. It's known within the industry that when you replace old meters with new, that you're going to capture water that was slipping past the old meters. That forecast has been, you know, six, eight percent. So the Board of Public Works were counting on that increase from the new meters. We're we're seeing moderate increases, not that six to eight percent level. You know, so it remains to be seen how how we're doing as we get further into the into the into the fiscal year. I do know that in preparing for town meeting this past May or this past it was early was this past April. We had projected a rate structure whereby in anticipation of the debt service with the MWRA connection, that it was known that we would need to increase rates by about 11 percent each year for the coming seven years. But even knowing that the Board of Public Works was counting on, I believe that increased revenue from the new meters rather than increasing the rates. I mean, that's my concern is is having this cost being paid through the rates of a loan. There simply won't be enough money to pay. But that's why I think downtown's advice on how we can language it within the one article to prevent this very thing is very important. My next question, final question is, based on your discussions with those in the field, when municipalities do what we're about to do, do they see a reduction in water usage, thus bringing down typical revenues for that municipality? I believe that. I believe that at this point in time, people are probably using about as little water as they can. You know, we've we've had water bans consistently throughout the last several years because of drought conditions. You know, we've raised rates, people, you know, families are doing the best they can to make ends meet. So in knowing that and seeing that historic, you know, kind of situation, I don't think you're going to see a continued decrease in consumption. I think people are using about as little water as they possibly can at this point in time. Thank you. Thank you. Can I just follow up? Tom, to your point, given that we've had these water bans, with the Happy Hole Wells rebuilding the MWRA connection, you would expect that the town will be consuming more water, given its greater availability. So the communities that were members of the MWRA a decade ago, they are actually grandfathered into the consumption protocols that were established for those MWRA computer communities years ago, say Weston, for instance. Currently, when a community joins like we're going to join, we are held to very strict consumption patterns. We have to meet those same conservation practices that we currently do with a Water Management Act permit. We have to have under 10 percent unaccounted for water. We have to achieve 65 gallons per capita per day. So although it would be nice to think that we would not have these restrictions, that we would let people water their lawns as much as possible, when we exceed that 65 gallons per capita per day, that will trigger, you know, leverage by the MWRA for us to take action to reduce that to an acceptable level. And that's that's a national level that I'm talking about. So I don't foresee us being able to sell more water because we have this abundant supply from the MWRA. We're still going to be held to these same very strict conservation protocols. So I do want to say one thing, since the last meeting on this is, I think it's now a concern to get into a long arrangement with somebody wanting to make sure that, you know, as you both sign along, that they have now known to other people. I do think we need to maybe add this conversation with what kind of works, but maybe we sent a note off to the chair, or what have you, so they can be in the next meeting, that one of our big concerns is the willingness of them to adjust the rates in order to pay the debt service. And that we need that commitment from them. I think the other thing we could say, which is barely coming in and listening to me, I don't mean this today, but perhaps we say we made an agreement. You know, we kind of agreed that we're going to do this and that's what their obligation is, and it's all written out. It also explains that we're not to utilize this excluded debt in future years, so that's covered. But then we say that should the water enterprise fund default, then the board will take whatever action necessary to protect the town, including an article that will just be in the water enterprise fund. I mean, maybe that's the route we've got. I'm just talking out loud, just, because I think we somewhat have a little bit of capital form of us, because we haven't asked the question is, are you prepared to make these payments? Yes. Then maybe another public policy discussion point would be whether our board should pursue making ourselves the Water Commission. That way we can see the numbers as we need to see them and budget accordingly. So basically the buck starts with us on that. Maybe we should have to talk about small money. Since I like this. Did we get invited to the council tonight? We tried, but we couldn't get somebody here. But I was like, yes, sorry. Yes. Right. But I do think we would want to be extended the professional credit. We need to do this. We need to go forward. We need to have a joint agreement as to what we're going to do. So I don't know what suggestion. So maybe you have one. How do you suggest we give that so that we can get closer to a decision? Any suggestions? You suggested maybe invite them to come to a future meeting. I'm not sure if time is in the essence I'm going to vote right now. I'll just say this challenge here. Regarding agreement, agreements are less effective than bylaws. That's not just about people can be well intentioned, but stuff happens. Right. I think there's I think you can I think you can pass expenses to public works. And this could be an expense that's passed to public works, but I think that requires a town meeting boat. And I think we could become the public works board. But that, too, would require a town meeting boat. So I think both suggestions that have been brought up have a path, but both I think would require. And of course, we can ask counsel, but I think both would require a town meeting boat. So all right, let me ask this other than this sure that we don't have a default. What other question do we have on the table here? So we have two or three questions, but time comes over, and we have to decide about default. And anything else that we're missing. Ryan, did you want to add anything? No, I can take it right now. Mr. Holden, do you have anything you want to add? No, not at this time. Take a sense of the board at this point. I do. I think that's a good idea. Do we want to have a sense of the board's direction that we're going in? Well, I think the next discussion has been very slow for me. I'm mindful of the concerns that Bryant has raised with respect to the creating of this $1.9 million buffer to offer debt extension. I feel ignored in respect to the budget and not going for the basis. I was not so sure about the motion of debt extension, but I would say that Bryant's promoted to the extent that there is insufficient. Water level transfer to the agenda. And we've got to have the ability to pay them on over to pay to the debt service. And the rest of the rate structure. That's about five feet. So I think that this is the concern. So I think on balance, Bryant's suggestion and the other with OMS, you know, in OMS, and the other with OMS, you know, actually, the amount of debt infrastructure. That's about five feet. So I think that that's the concern. So, I think on balance, Bryant's suggestion, we're going with OMS, you know, I'm sure it's not possible to do it, it's sufficient to transfer the water farm, water farm, and the farm to that service operation, and to raise the government to do it at the university. So, that's the prototype of the best part of it. My question is, what other approach would we need to consider? We need to go in this direction, what is, what is our family? Well, could you, the other two options, we just put in the general fund, pay the whole area, it's an old, real hybrid, and the board of public works, and as asked in the finance committee has, they, has endorsed the condition, is that we fund the construction, the construction costs in the 20 million, and that they would fund the construction costs that they have involved. So, I do believe that the board is, is hoping that the board of public works is very much hoping that's what we do, which isn't what we are doing. So, I thought, maybe, the other option would be to be from the camping home, and from the other, which is less likely. Um, like, less than a person. I mean, I mean, one of them. That's a lot of fun. Which is where you started. All right. Right. That's a lot of fun. That's a lot of fun. That's a lot of fun. That's a lot of fun. That's a lot of fun. I mean, there are a few expenses, more important people, I think, than the expense they paid the other day, people value it very highly. But I do think one challenge we have, no matter how this turns out, is establishing expectations, or, put another way, explaining people what we've done, why we've done, what we haven't done, why we haven't done that, and what they should expect next year, the year after that, the year after that. I think if we do that, I think people understand that people will be able to gulp over the issue. Sorry. People will be able to gulp over the issue, so to speak. But I do think paying this through rates for work, I understand that that's what Mr. Kemeny supports. I think the rest of billing, both water use, construction, doable, most fair way to accomplish the goal. People are going to pay one way to go. Absolutely. That's one way to go. That we've been on since the beginning. And Ann, did you want to give us a sense of what the thinking is? I mean, I understand everything. So I think in the end, a part of me is just going to roll a little bit with what the majority wants. I like the hybrid idea, and I did do some research on the surcharge concept for nonprofits, and that's available. So everything that's been kind of introduced to us, I feel like there's a solution in all of it. Something that makes me feel comfortable enough to do some sort of hybrid. And, and frankly, I think Brian has been just, he's gone down every single path we've asked. And I think he knows this inside and out. And, you know, I, I kind of defer to him a little bit on final decision. And I hate to say it, but his, his recommendation on day one is kind of where we're ending up right now. So, um, I, I'm going to head that way unless I hear something very, very new. Okay. So it looks like we're going to have a lot of fun to keep it here from the townhouse or Phoenix. And I know that both Brian and, like, have expressed interest in this solution with a lot for me. So, you know, I'm running up there today, so I'm going to go on to the next time. The next one is, the next one is, um, the PFAS funds. There has been a conversation that is in the recommendations that, um, each funds we receive from the litigation and the trust act. And this is the right word. Explained it. We need little bit by little bit to come in so much every year for anything. But we've been requested by the Board of Public Works, you know, to allow them to have the inbox funds to come to, you know, I think, um, and I wanted to make a decision on that. I'm going to preempt this by saying, I think we could accomplish that with just having the funds just come through, and Brian, there's a toxic in the public service. Versus giving the money to the Board of Public Works. They would like us to give that in funds. Yes, sir. Well, we, we received, for the seventh, the money comes to the town now, and he goes to Brian, he has, unlike the opioid settlement, there are no restrictions on how we can use this. Right. In the opioid settlement, there's only certain things that you could pay for. Here, there are unrestricted funds. We could give it to them. But I think, based on the discussion we had, the prudent thing would be to do is to retire the debt as it's incurred for this project and leave it with the finance director. So, for example, if we receive a hundred thousand by twenty-seven, one by twenty-nine, the debt service is one to nine. Then we will retire the $1,800. Brian, can you prepay the portion of the debt of the principal? I'm assuming you can. I've never seen it done either. Never done that before. But that would reduce the debt service each year on a full-on basis. Well, we'd add, how much is the PFAS settlement? I think this next round, we're getting a total of about $1.3 million from Mr. Holzer, can correct me if I'm wrong, but it's going to be on a schedule over a series of years. I think we got $200,000 last year, we're going to get an additional bump this year, but then it's going to be about $100,000 for about 10 years after that. I mean, you probably just adjust the borrowing to reflect those future revenues from the cities. We could do that, but I haven't seen a town prepay ever, debt obligation. But we can include that and go on with a couple of NEP-fasting money. NEP-fast, some of the money's time received shall be required to the debt of the relative to the Epi-Hoglu. Yeah. And if you can see what we've done, it's not that much compared to the flowing on the cost, and it's pregnancy. I mean, I'm not going to say, but I wouldn't be such a way. I think everyone is comfortable with co-sponsoring articles. Board of Public Works suggests that we're about half hour a little bit. So, could somebody just say that they will select board co-sponsors with the Board of Public Works, the NWA article for the 2026 time meeting? But how can we co-sponsor an article that hasn't been signed? They made his degree. But what I'm asking is, do you know something written in that? With that perspective? Right. How this is going to play out at a different moment? We will defer until we receive it. Okay. So, I know I want to talk about the thing in Paris. We've got folks online for agreements. I think I'm going to have this for the ballot session. And I don't know what I'm going to do about this one. We need to go into executive session. Mr. Williams. Anyway, I want to thank Thomas for joining us. I appreciate it very much. Thank you very much. He was here to answer the time bomb question as well. But I'm already... No, I'm just letting you know. I understand. All right. What am I going to do? The data readings. I've been moving to Google. I'm from the town manager to assign the engineering services. Right. I don't know. Say it. You know what I have to say? Bless you. I thought you were going to say something else. No. Let's say it's something else. Okay. All those in favor will have roll call because you have to participate in the moment. So if not. Yes. Bill. Yes. Ann. Yes. Carol, yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yeah. All right. Thank you. Thank you and good night. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Amin. So. We have an answer, we know what I can do. Well good. Thank you. It's okay for you. Thank you. Thank you guys, are you ready? Yes. Thank you. That's right. Thank you. Why do you develop it in the session? It's nice to the call. Did you call it? Why do you do that? And then I'll take over and I'll manage doing this. Okay. I will have a select one entity. Section 30A, Section 21A, Section 21A, Section 21A, Section 21A, Section 21A, Section 21A, Section 21A, Section 21A, Section 21A, Section 21A, Section 21A, Section 21A, Section 21A, Section 22A, Section 22A, Section 22A, Section 22A, Section 22A, Section 22A, Section 22A, Section 22A, Section 22A, Section 22A, Section 22A, Section 22A, Section 22A, Section 22A, Section 22A, Section 22A, Section 22A, Section 22A, Section 22A, Section 22A, Section 22A, Section 22A, Section 22A, Section 22A, Section 22A, Section 22A, Section 22A, Section 22A, Section 22A, Section 22A, Section 22A, Section 22A, Section 22A, Section 22A, Section 22A, Section 22A, Section 22A, Section 22A, Section 22A, Section 22A, Section 22A, Section 22A, Section 22A, Section 22A, Section 22A, Section 22A, Section 22A, Section 22A, Section 22A The committee will join the public meeting in the technical section, and the meeting will return to open session in approximately 30 minutes. And the executive session link was sent out by Seth Prandtl at 12.38 today. So I want to return to open session at 7.37. If you want to make one announcement. Got it. So I want to return to open session at 7.38 p.m. Shall we go to the next agenda item? I do want to make one correction. Moving into the technical section, we announced that the executive board will be represented for the Scottish Socialist Firefighters Manufacturers Attorney Cale Burks. The next item on our agenda is going to be the forum on the public forum of the special election. The time is open on Thursday, December 11, 2025. There is a post online, and I think I'll need some assistance in telling me where exactly it is on the line. There are some FAQs that explain what we are doing. So I will just read the beginning. On October 25th, suing to request by the town manager, and the federal recommendation from the finance committee is select one voting to place the following question on the ballot for a special election on December 11, 2025. The question that we're going to be voting on is, shall the town of Whalen be allowed to vote on the provisions of proposition to remain now, so far, the remaining amounts required to pay for the bond issued and the purpose of instruction from the facility or the Department of Public Works, located on 66 River roads, including accessory structures, related accessways, and all incidental and related expenses as authorized under Article 2 of the November 2013 special town meeting. And there is a note here that we do want to point out the rest of FAQs. Actually, it will be on the slide here. They are posted on the webpage. And they're going to have some assistance on it to tell you where they are. But I do want to say in front of this ballot question in relation to the town's letting capacity members are building their tabs. First, it is not related to the Massachusetts large resource-envolving question. It will also be in town meeting. So, Michael, did you want to talk about this? Yes, Madam Chair, happy to do so. As many of you know, it's been discussed at select board meetings in recent months. We were in the early stages of looking at the FY 2027 budget. We started shortly after the town meeting. Mr. Keveney, the finance director, is here. We assembled a budget working group that consisted of some citizens, former elected officials, members of the finance committee, some staff, including Ms. Powersperlet. We invited the school administration. So, we began looking at what we were forecasting to happen in FY 27. From the get-go, we realized we were going to be challenged. As alluded to in the FAQs, there's a hyperlink to an article that has been put out by the Massachusetts Municipal Association called The Perfect Storm, talking about how many towns are facing challenges under Proposition 2.5, especially with rising costs that a lot of towns have incurred in recent years, specifically due to pension obligations, health care obligations, etc. Early on, we thought we may be facing a $2 million shortfall, and that was using conservative numbers that we had put into our proposed budget. As time went on, we were able to refine those numbers, and we also came up with a couple of suggestions that we thought would help alleviate the pressures that we were facing financially by doing some housekeeping measures of sorts. One of those which the Board took on was refinancing some of our bonds and issuing some short-term bond anticipation notes. The Board did approve that. That helped us cut that shortfall down considerably by approximately $800,000. We continued to keep conservative numbers for our state aid estimates of what some of our other insurance costs would be, especially our health insurance. We had to wait until the fall to get our new growth numbers. Traditionally, we had low new growth, and that's what we had plugged in. We had some slightly better than anticipated new growth, which has helped us a little bit more on the way to closing this gap. But as we sit here today, we have approximately a $700,000 to a $1 million shortfall. And one of the other suggestions that the Budget Working Group came up with was not only to help us in this particular fiscal year, but in future fiscal years going forward was reclassifying the debt that we had on the books for the construction of the DPW facility on River Road. Oftentimes, when you do a large capital project, you finance it outside what is known as your levy limit. I often tell people your levy limit is a lot like your limit on your credit card and your personal finances. You can put things outside of that levy limit calculation using what's called excluded debt. Back in 2013, for whatever reason, that financing was not done outside of the normal levy limit. It was done with inside the levy, which means it's part of the annual budget, those payments to reduce that debt. And it's approximately $700,000 a year for the next few years. So we know that in past when we've gone to Moody's for our bond rating, which continues to be a AAA rating, they indicated that we would be best served and best practices to finance those large capital projects outside of the levy and using excluded debt. So the working group suggested to this board that we consider placing a ballot question on for a special election that would allow us to reclassify this debt. And the board did vote back in October to do that. The town clerk needed approximately 45 days to prepare. So we've given the holiday schedule December 11th. So we now have placed on the website. I've gone through with town council as well as vetted the FAQs, the frequently asked questions with staff, other elected officials, members of our finance department. So we have when you go to the town's website, you'll see that we have a red banner reminding everybody that there's a special election. You can click on the special election page. It'll give you the hours at times, how to vote, vote by mail, vote in person. And then there is a link to the frequently asked questions, which explains why we're doing this, what the definitions are and how this will help us out in not only FY27, but going forward. And I'm happy to handle any questions from the board or the public manager, whatever your preference is. And I do have, if there are questions, some slides that may illustrate a couple of the issues. One, I've neglected to say, which I want to say before we go further, is that we're sorry we're running late tonight. We're not going to say that much. So we're caught up with the blue button. And that is, if you subscribe to the town's newsletter, writing about, or something. It is there. It does list all the information about voting. We are, for this election, allowed in-person early voting, which is done at the town's office. And that will be Friday, Monday, and Tuesday. Pretty much, pretty much regular working hours on votes. A little bit shorter, so do double check before we come in. And then we also have, I think there's mail-in voting. We're only allowed. And of course you can vote. All four precincts, we are still in the test trial, but all four precincts are voting here in the town building. So I want to make sure you see that. And the last day, to apply for the vote by mail, this is Thursday, December 4th. There's all those distractions of gathering, of course. So hopefully that brings you all in the conditions to vote. I think that the board has asked plenty of questions about this election, and in fact, were instrumental in, you know, putting together some FAQs. I think the purpose of our forum is to open it up to those who are either in attendance or participating alone for the questions they have on the floor. So, Robbie, do you have any thoughts? Okay. Yes. Next, we're going to recognize that, Louise. Please. Hi, Annette. Go ahead. Hi, Annette Lewis. The reason I raised my hand is because, Carol, you cannot be understood. You're totally muffled. I could understand Michael very clearly. Okay. I did say that. I was indicating that there was information about where the times to vote on the newsletter. And also, and also that the, you can do in-person early voting at the top works office. Use the Friday, next Monday, then Tuesday, the 9th. And then also that everybody will be voting here in the town building. We are still on the test, but I want one voting spot. Last day to vote live for a vote-by-mail ballot is Thursday, December 4th. So, I'm looking forward to seeing what information is on the webpage and if it is in the town newsletter. I just wanted to reiterate on that. And again, if you didn't hear me earlier, I apologize for the delay in starting. We, uh, we, uh, stepped behind and we do apologize for not to inconvenience. So, now that I said that, it is important, and for that holiness, as it doubled forward, for those who would like to ask questions, or comments, or to see if anybody has anything they would like to say. As a gentleman in the room, as, are you here to speak above the phone? Okay, thank you. Okay, and I recognize Ms. Lewis. You still can't be heard. You're echoing, and it's impossible to pick out what you're saying. Well. Perhaps you could switch seats and take where Michael is sitting, because we could understand him. Can you hear us now, Annette? Is that clear? Better. Yeah. Annette, basically, I just said this is a public forum. No, I know. I mean, I've picked out the words. It's just not for me. I mean, you want to get to the whole public. We're holding this forum to hear from residents who have questions. So, I'm really waiting to recognize someone who has a question about a special election. Did you hear that? Yes. I have a statement about the special election. Okay. Michael said, for some reason, we determined to take out the loan for the DPW building within the operating budget, within the not debt exclusion, but within the included debt. And there was a reason for that, because the town at the time had been spending so much money without thinking. And then selectmen determined that they wanted to do it the way that they did it because they wanted to force an override. We had two overrides in a row that weren't needed. And people took that money over budgeted and then took the excess money and put it in free cash, where if you were going to try and accumulate money for a future project, the way to have done it would have been a stabilization fund, but they didn't do that. And there was a big brouhaha. And there was a big brouhaha, as you may recall, I think it was in 2013, where we had a, it might have even been a special town meeting, where we voted unanimously as a town to take back that free cash and distribute it to lower our taxes. So there was a logic for why it was done. Thank you. Thank you. Is there anyone else who has a question or question? Yes, thank you. Thank you. Yes. Ms. Lane there, I recognize you recognize. Hi. I could hear everything that was being explained, and I still don't really understand. Is there a way of explaining everything, again, in much simpler terms? And I think you mentioned also that you had slides. If you have visuals, that would absolutely help me. Thank you. Oh, and my screen, can you just give us your address, please? Yeah. Thank you. So on the screen right now, hope everyone can hear me, is the question that's going to appear on the ballot that I read earlier. It's also at the top of the queues. So, Jessica, correct? All right. Since Madam Chair already read the question, I won't repeat it, but I just put that up for simplicity just to explain to everybody what the question is in the format, which is pursuant to Massachusetts Proposition 2 1⁄2, the statute. So, hopefully, what you have here is a little better explanation, a little more simplified. And I put the town manager, Michael McCall, has asked the select board to place this question on the ballot, the previous question, which will ask residents whether to reclassify the approximately $700,000 of remaining debt incurred by the construction of the DPW facility into excluded debt. This reclassification would not increase taxes for the fiscal year 2026, but it would shift approximately up $700,000 within the levy. Taxes would increase for fiscal year 2027. Additionally, the reclassification of the debt would substantially help alleviate the need for a potential Proposition 2 1⁄2 override in the spring. I think that's really the key sentence here, is that if the town needs any of this, we both can free up the $700,000. Annette, are you having problems hearing them again, or no? Oh, did she leave? I'm having problems hearing at all, Carol. You have to talk later. There we go. Okay. So, I think, tell me if you can hear me now. If you need. Let me. Let me. Just talk loud, man. All right. So, the key sentence in this paragraph is, it says, can you hear me now again? Okay. So, the key paragraph in this sentence says that if we vote yes, we will free up $700,000 that can be used to balance next year's budget. But it also says that may not use the $700,000. Well, whatever portion that we use would increase your taxes. So, if we use $100,000 out there, or $500,000 out there, it would increase the taxes. The next, for FY27, not this year, we're already in FY26. And we're doing this not only for FY27, but other future years, and also to be consistent with the guidance from Moody's. We've used conservative numbers for our health insurance, as well as for our state aid estimates. Should we get more state aid than anticipated, or should our health care costs come in lower than anticipated, and that would break in our favor, we may not need to use any of this $700,000. But we are asking now, so that it will help us with our planning for the spring, as we go to present a budget to the finance committee, ultimately for them to present to town meeting. So, this slide illustrates the problem that we're running into. If you notice, the difference here is what we have, what our levy, our total levy, which is the tax we have to raise every year, and our levy limit is the blue line. The blue line is created by a calculation under proposition two and a half, and I'll have an illustration in a few minutes, where you take your prior year's tax levy, you multiply it by two and a half percent, you add any new growth, and any potential override that you have on the books, and you generate your new levy limit. And then you can raise taxes up to that levy limit, and then you can raise taxes up to that levy limit. The problem is, if you don't have enough revenues or state aid coming in, you have to rely more and more on your tax levy. We do not historically have a lot of significant new growth in Weyland, so we're typically increasing our taxes year over year based on that two and a half percent. So, our max levy in the blue is not going up at the same rate our costs are going up because they're being driven by inflation, healthcare costs are rising exponentially, and we have pension obligations as well. So, this projects that in 2027 we are going to cross what we need for what we're allowed to raise so one of two things generally has to happen you either has to go to the voters for an override when those lines cross or you have to make significant cuts. Before we get to that point we're asking for this reclassification which would create a little breathing room on that blue line. As Madam Chair indicated, it doesn't mean we'll use it if the numbers break our way, but if they don't, we may have to use some of that $700,000. So, what I have is this shows how you would calculate your levy limit, you have what's called your levy base which is last year's taxes that you raised, you add your two and a half percent automatic increase under proposition two and a half, you add in any new growth and any override that may be out there. So, this is just an illustration, we are one of a handful of towns in the Commonwealth that have a AAA rating, and Mr. Keveney had put this together when we did our 10 year financial forecast as well as our financial summit. It shows that of all the communities with AAA ratings, we have the lowest percentage of new growth relative to our peers in that same category. We are challenged by the amount of new construction, especially commercial instruction that comes into town. So, when we look at that previous illustration, we're not gaining anything in terms of our levy limit relative to new growth or very little. So, this has been the pattern for the last couple of years. In 2024, the spike you saw in new growth was the Alta Oxmo property coming online. It has since dropped back down closer to the $500,000, $600,000 range for 2025. I don't have that there, but it's been a consistent issue here going back several years having significant new growth. So, let me see, how many slides can we have here? Just two or three more. Okay. So, as I showed earlier, you have these lines crossing. Mr. Keveney is projected at the rate we're going. We are going to see shortfalls in the outlying years from 2027 on based on what we're growing year over year relative to our obligations for pension, healthcare, etc. And what portion of this shortfall illustrated on this slide in blue is the debt service for the DPW. So, if we were to convert it from being paid out of the levy to an excluded debt, that blue portion of this chart would be removed. So, it would create some breathing room, not only in FY 2027, but in future years. And when one adds debt exclusion, debt by debt exclusion, you'll notice in this slide, it's at the top of this stack. It's on top of the dotted line above the override. That's because it's not used as part of the calculation of your annual levy limit. It is outside that, but it's below your levy ceiling. And I've included a link in the frequently asked questions to the Commonwealth's primer on proposition two and a half, which explains a lot of this in detail. So, what essentially we're looking to do is the following. I've now put in the levy base just a box that says DPW construction debt. The DPW construction debt is currently part of our levy limit base and is factored in the calculation of our new levy limit. What we're looking to do is to take it out of the levy limit and put it above the dotted line of the override where it would be considered excluded debt. So, if we were to vote yes, we would treat it, I now have it highlighted yellow, it would be excluded debt, not part of our levy limit calculation. It would be much like if you had a reoccurring bill on your credit card. And I say, for example, you're paying your auto loan on your credit card. You go and get a separate auto loan and you stop paying on your credit card. You're still paying the same amount of money every year, but you have freed up some room on your credit card without getting a limit increase. And that's what an override would be. So, you would now have much more room in that levy limit base than you would have if you move it into the yellow area of being excluded debt. So, I hope that illustration helps a little bit. Do we have any questions from anyone who is listening online? I think this is all very complicated. I think we kind of understood. I believe the board understands it because we have had probably six or eight discussions about this topic in the fall. It is very confusing, I think, to learn from residents who feel it's very confusing when you say move it, move it, move it. We are not eliminating that debt, right, Michael? We are still keeping that debt. We still going to pay the $700 next year that we owe on the DBW building. Correct. What we are saying is if we pay on a separate credit card and take out a credit card just for that, as an example here, then that will bring up $700,000 additional dollars in the operating budget if we needed to close the gap. I think that's what you said, right? Yes. Okay. So that, and I believe I've seen Mr. Turner has his hand raised, so I'm going to recognize him. Go ahead, Richard. Richard, I read you back. I cannot hear you without turning the volume up on my computer wide open. I'm doing my best, Richard. Can you hear me? You need to tell the on-duty technician there to do something about it. I think it's a problem. Thank you. All right. Well, does anyone else have a question who is listening remotely? Because if not, does the board have anything to say? Can you speak louder than I am? I feel like I'm yelling at you. Now, I've gone through two of these now, Rob. I'll go closer to you. I'm sorry? All right. I don't believe anyone else has any more questions. So if there's no other questions, I am going to close this public forum. I'm sorry. Yes. I have any questions, sir. Thank you very much all for coming and listening. If you have any further questions, please get the FAQs or perhaps someone select a question on our email, and we'll see if we get that information to you. Hopefully we vote on the 11th. Madam Chair, anybody can reach out to either me or the finance director with their questions via email. We'd be happy to answer them and add them to the FAQs if needed. Thank you. I'm going to move, Madam Chair. This board is going to approve the rule of 2026. Successful within our packet for liquor, common, particular, and entertainment. As well as use card dealership class one, use card dealership class two, sale of secondhand office. Thank you. We'll be for the discussion. Question. Yes, previously. Okay. The board has discussed the question of outdoor outdoor service and my question is whether the licenses for us, traditionally done outdoor service including that real estate in the license. um it's my understanding that if they do pre-existing outdoor dining is part of the liquor license application process so it has to be part of when they're proposing where they're going to serve the alcohol in their initial license application that has to be noted if they're adding it in afterwards pursuant to um the guidelines that were sent forth by the the abcc then that would be a separate thing but as far as i know we have not adopted a policy for such so i'm not that's sort of an answer to that but it's my understanding that if they had outdoor dining previously and it was part of their license as they started that was something that was put into their original application just carries forth because that's the approved space that allowed to serve and i guess the question though is uh certain certain establishments had outdoor dining service quicker during cold cold and i don't know if each and every one of them that had additional permission had expired by the abcc whether they have in fact modified their licenses previously before the fact that they're having outdoor servicing uh michael can correct me if i'm wrong but it's my understanding that only one one event venue reached out to change that and we haven't moved forward on it because we haven't approved the policy on it am i correct michael regarding the outdoor dining policy none of these uh applicants for the renewal of their liquor license have gone through that process yet because we haven't set up the processes to do so but therefore they haven't expand expanded their outdoor dining areas that weren't already in compliance with their original application to serve liquor as like the initial liquor license process i believe that there are i think there are some if i'm not mistaking select board member whitney i think you're referring there may be some people who continuing to operate as if they have outdoor liquor license but haven't formally been adopted by the board and there is a mechanism and i i think um i'm not aware that anybody has a plot to have that change but i think he's asking if anyone is still doing it even though even though it's not we would have to either send a building inspector or uh a member of the police department to go over and verify whether they're doing indoor outdoor dining so um you already missed issues it seems to me like the channel sent letters to each of these establishments that listen to clarify their position on this issue that might be one way as opposed to yes no no no i i agree i'm doing now yeah but uh uh well if a license expires on december 31st i sort of don't want the license but uh i would appreciate it that you see the follow-up and be sure that each and every license that is approved that where they serve out the words you know those pardon me with the license premises what we could do is when we send out the license we could say to those that we were informed and believe that you may be continuing to operating at an outdoor dining and liquor service from kobe that is since cease to exist you need to apply and please come in between now and springtime to ensure to ensure that it's probably a little bit so what are you going to read that oh i'm going to withdraw my motion i'm going to withdraw the motion so i move that the board through the 2026 renewal uh the licenses included in our packet into december 1st including a lot of dealer licenses for 2026 with your licenses for 2026 um and victual or licenses for 2026 yeah entertainment licenses i use car dealership classes one and two and sale second again the particle licenses um pending receipt of all renewal paperwork updated insurance information both grab below any outstanding taxes under fee payments for the law and any outstanding suspensions for the law and any outstanding suspensions right after the book second yeah before tonight discussion if you would want to add in the letter only just actually get free any further discussion then we can bring it up right now i'm going to say we'll call both in yes yes yes yes yes now it's a motion pass five zero okay that the board uh approves the question of designating the town manager like we'll call as the sole signatory sign off on all 2026 approved renewals listed in our december 1st 2025 back in the green second to the motion sorry any further discussion yes i have a question motion that 2026 then it said 2025 that's going to be a typo which should it span both 2025 and 2026 so yeah so yeah okay so it's 2027 on the back on the internet okay so we have a given a man doing your own lines for that okay when i second it all right so
yes yes yes yes yes yes And finally, the board vote to approve the designation of Carol Martin, the chair of the board with the sole signatory to sign up on all 2026 about their control commission, and let their license for removal reports. Second.
Discussion? Yes. Yes. Tom? Yes. Ian? Yes. Yes. Um, yes, which varies by zero, but I think we've got a bit of audio about this kind of, um, I'd like to, uh, move to the hearings, because it's a really important deal, which is what we're talking about. As we speak. Is it good? Yeah, it is good. Um, I declare a hearing over to the purpose of concerning the application of the application of AT&T. to install a small, uh, to install a small, small, small facility to be installed and to create a reason to land. Now, the following notice was published in the Metro, which is daily news on Friday, November 14, 2025. It says, And I'd like to recognize... Edward Parry. Okay, Parry. Yeah, I'm an attorney at Brown Rudnick, One Financial Center in Boston, Mass. And I'm here representing New Singular Wireless, PCS LLC, which operates as AT&T. Thank you. So I'm sure you'll find your name. Sure. You'll be... I do want to say, I do want to say, there's quite a bit of information on these two hearings. And in our packet beginning on page, there is an entire supplemental packet, which includes all sorts of method of information and testing information, radio frequency and full stability. There are also the items that they... So with the... The main packet on page 32... Thank you. Good evening. My name is Ed Parry. I'm here on behalf of AT&T. I know from watching previous videos of your meetings that you've done a few of these in recent times, probably from a competitor, which begins with a V, and we'll leave it at that. So this is AT&T's effort to improve cell phone coverage and capacity. I know there was some problems with the microphone, so we okay? I'm not hearing any issues. I do have a mic right next to me here. So this is AT&T's attempt to improve coverage and capacity in the town of Wayland. Last week I was in Weston, so we're kind of working our way through to try to better coverage. In this instance, we've proposed a poll near 238 Gleason Lane. They don't have exact addresses because they're in the public right of way. Pursuant to Massachusetts state law, we are permitted to attach two utility polls, and we license these through Eversource, a license kind of being like a lease agreement where Eversource reviews our proposal. We provide a structural report, which we provide to the town, and a set of plans, which you should have in front of you. In this instance, we're doing what we call a side mount antenna attachment. We're using the existing poll, so it doesn't have to be replaced. As I mentioned, you have a structural showing that the poll can accommodate AT&T's antennas. AT&T will use two panel antennas in this instance, so that we'll get good coverage along Gleason Lane.
The type of attachments tends to be dictated by Eversource. They own the poll. We just happen to be a co-locator on it. We can't use the top of this poll, so they put us on the side. They'll basically be mounting arms. Two rectangular antennas will be attached to the side of the poll. There's an equipment box which contains the radio units so you can connect to the AT&T network. The cabinet itself is about 48 inches in length and 24 inches wide. It's at about an elevation of 11 and a half feet above ground level. We have fiber and cables that run from the antennas to those radios inside the cabinet. There's a shutoff switch for the electrical power and a meter, of course, so Eversource can bill us for our utility usage and a couple of grounding rods. As part of the packet, as I said, there are elevation drawings, there are location drawings. In this instance, the closest residential structure is about 120 feet from the poll.
We've provided some photographs of existing conditions, photo simulations, which depict the antennas being attached to the poll and the equipment cabinet. Those are all available online. We do comply with the FCC requirements relating to emissions. In this instance, the maximum would be 39% of the FCC maximum. We have some coverage maps that we provided showing that AT&T does not have good solid coverage in this area. And if you look at the before and after, you'll see that the AT&T's coverage will improve dramatically. These are not high-powered, you know, big tower installations. So we don't get the biggest bang for the buck from these. But, you know, typically we'll get about a quarter to a third of a mile in coverage. So it'll provide nice capacity, good coverage in the area. And as I said, as AT&T works its way through, we'll get good connectivity throughout that area. So with that, I'd be happy to answer any questions, members of the board, members of the public. So thank you.
Try to be respectful.
Anne, can you hear us?
Yeah, Carol. Unfortunately, it's just, I hate to say it. I can hear everybody else, but you're just... Do you have any questions? What? No, I'm fine. Thank you. All right. Does anyone have any questions, Ms. Charon, on the certification for the grant location on Blaise and Lane? The question is, as these small cell wireless facilities are installed, will they accommodate future generations of the network? Would this be for many years? Will these eventually need to be replaced to accommodate for 5G success? You know, once we get a location, we can switch equipments, we can upgrade. So even though we have these towers that have been around for 20, 25 years, we'd switch the antennas, we'd switch the radio units so we can upgrade service by using the infrastructure, just changing and upgrading equipment. So would I expect these antennas will get switched out in the next, you know, three to five years? Yes. And if there's the next generation, they'll figure out a way to be able to provide that. So, yeah, is what you, your company, if you need to rather, these utility poles, does that preclude another vendor from being on that? Yeah, we, Eversource limits it to one per pole. National Grid does the same. So, I've probably done maybe a thousand of these over, you know, throughout New England over the last seven or eight years. Most of the utility companies will only allow one for a steel pole, which, you know, nobody likes in the public right-of-way, you might be able to accommodate two, but generally, the rule is one per carrier, but there are other poles in the area that you could use, you know, as possibilities. Thank you. You're welcome. Any other questions? Any other questions from the board? I noticed that it's like for the substantial AT&T or Eversource area.
Yeah, it's really a call for Eversource. So, you know, I know the listing, you know, occurs from time to time with poles, but, you know, it does have the structural capacity. I also find that the utility company likes to get us to replace poles, so this one must be solid because we pay for all of the make-ready work. But if we were going to replace the pole, we would pay for it. Eversource would certainly require us to replace it in the sense that they're not. It's probably because we're side-mounting and not putting the, you know, the antennas and the weight up on the top. Of course, a newer pole, a brand new pole is going to be, you know, more structurally accommodated for sure. And like I said, they do it on our dime, so it's, if they had their druthers, I'm sure it would be replacing it if they had to.
You will. I just had a question. I don't, Carol, I still can't hear you, but so from a town's perspective, what is the benefit to us? It's the, the AT&T capacity. AT&T coverage, oh, I'm sorry. Yes, AT&T coverage and capacity for the AT&T customers, new customers that come on board where they may, you know, not have service. People in the immediate vicinity will get, you know, much better speeds, data speeds and availability on the AT&T network. Okay, and then are you leasing your space on these poles to, from Eversource? Yeah, we call it licensing because we know it's not, you know, a lease is usually, you know, a real estate transaction, so we're licensed to use the pole, just like any of the other, you know, any of the other co-locators or pole attachers, cable companies, Verizon, et cetera. Okay, all right, and it won't interrupt anybody else's service. I think Doug brought that up, it doesn't prevent other service companies from coming in, is that right? Correct, but Eversource is not going to let them use the same pole, they'll have to use a pole thereby. Okay, thank you. You're welcome. Thank you. reviewed this as well, the project manager, Paul Pacholi, responding favorably to this petition. You haven't heard any butters, so I don't think you're in the clear to make informed on this. department, however, it does say that the detail and I did that that that's okay with you. Yes, we're fine. The board approves the application for a grant of location from AT&T to install and maintain one small cell wireless facility to be installed. At 238, please, in Maine, promise the directives of the Department of Public Works regarding timing and execution of the construction and minimize construction and ensure public safety. Ah, we read the bottom. Yeah, I understand. Yeah, I understand. Yeah.
I second. Second. Second. Second. All right. Motion to be in. Ann? Yes. Yes. Bill? Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. That's exactly 830. Thank you. And I'm going to declare the hearing opening for the purpose of considering the application for a grant of location from AT&T to install a small cell wireless facility on a replacement and resource utility for a small cell. The small cell to install a small cell phone. The notes that were posted on Friday, March 14th, 2025 are the test track. The Wayland Select Board will hold a public hearing on Monday, December 1st, beginning at 830 PM. for the Wayland Town Building, 41 constituent rural care and mass, and remotely on the application of new CEL wireless DVA at AT&T for a grant of location for one small cell wireless facility on a replacement utility pole in the public right of way near 93 Boston Post Road, the Wayland Mass 01778. So the petitioner requests permission to install the system that maintains small cell wireless antennas and wireless attachments in a permanent system, including fiber optic cables, remote radio units inside an equipment cabin, electric heater, electric power, shutout switch, cable protectors, mounting bracket, and frown rods, all as depicted on the plans attached to the store, the placement and the source control. So again, all this information is in the packet, the application, and the supplemental packet is going to be backed up testing and analysis information. Representing AT&T, we have Mr. Terry Perry from Brown-Rudnick. Would you like to explain and detail your application request? I will, Madam Chair. Again, my name is Ed Perry from Brown-Rudnick. One financial center in Boston, Massachusetts. This is very much similar to the last proposal we just went through at 238 Gleason. This is located near 93 Boston Post Road. In this instance, Eversource is requiring AT&T to replace the pole. This pole will also have top-mounted antennas antennas on it, same antennas as previously proposed. There's a mounting bracket that will go on the top of the pole in this pole. In this instance, with the two panel antennas, same equipment cabinet with the remote radio units inside of the equipment cabinet. The existing pole is at about 30 feet, 29 feet, six inches, and the new pole will be at 34 feet. So a little bit of a height increase in the new pole, but only above 5 feet in additional height. We do get a little bit better coverage here because we're up a bit higher. The emissions are also a little bit lower because we're up higher. They're measured at ground level for a human being. So in this instance, the emission maximum is 21%. It's a little bit higher in the last application that we just went through. You have a new structural for this. Obviously, the pole will be able to accommodate it since it's new. Our coverage maps were provided as part of our packet. This, the closest residence in this instance is at about 105 feet from the pole itself. Eversource will replace the pole. I did see the DPW comments. This pole is in the sidewalk and we'll have to deal with Eversource and making sure that it complies with the ADA. And it's, you know, outside of the, that it complies. It's an Eversource thing. It's not much I can do about it, but we understand that, you know, we're likely to see a condition that we comply with all applicable standards. The other thing I would mention, it was a question from a select board member about what else this produces for town benefit. AT&T, Wayland is a FirstNet customer, which AT&T operates the first response network. This will be part of that network. So there is a benefit there for public safety also. I did want to mention that and I failed to do so in rushing through my notes. With that, same type of installation. I'd be happy to answer any questions or provide further details. Thank you. And do you have any questions? Just pretty much the same one. All the costs related to this pole are being covered by you. So none of it's getting lost to Eversource that will pass to us. Correct? Correct. Okay. Yeah. Thank you. It will get removed. We do typically see conditions that require the pole to be removed. I'd love to say it'll be removed, you know, in 30 days. I don't control the removal. It's an Eversource. I'm sure you're dealing with it, you know, just generally from the utility companies. I don't see a lot of activity on this pole. The typical delays that we encounter in complaints from municipalities are the time it takes for all of what we call make ready work. So drilling the hole, putting the pole in doesn't take a lot of time. But if there are eight wires from seven different vendors, they all have to come in one at a time, you know, move their wire or their equipment, whatever they need to do. So this pole does not look like it's busy. I don't see a streetlight. That's all. It tends to be a little bit of a delay. Also, it will get removed. I would anticipate that maybe a condition that no double, no double pole remain in place. But the timing of it is just hard to, we see them everywhere. We appreciate the concern. Thank you.
Understood. And I know that there are police, we use police details. You know, in accordance with any local requirements. I believe DPW suggested some time limits. So we don't have any problem with conditions like that. And we're going to work with police to make sure that we're the least disruptive. No, no. No, no. Thank you. Thanks. That's why. We're going to work with the director of the police. We said, well, if the sidewalk area, the sidewalk, the sidewalk, the sidewalk, the sidewalk dimensions. Why, and obviously, do we see them from the DLT? Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. You know that already? Yes. There's no, in capital letters, no construction after 9 a.m. Plus, until after 9 a.m. to allow for the warning traffic, slowdown, and immediately until office on the site, which I need to let you go. So we have, again, added those items to the concerns of our two of the motion, if that's okay with you. Absolutely. Okay. So, Brian, don't believe there's any questions from anyone. I don't see anything that's raised over there. So I am going to. If I may, then we did DPW and the police chief, I believe, came out. We did a site visit with each of those. I didn't participate, but we had scheduled that with the town. So DPW and police have actually visited the site. I think that was referenced in this memo also. I just wanted to make clear that, you know, we did spend the time and effort to do the best we could to do it right. Okay. Thank you.
Anyone have any?
As I said previously, we have input from DPW, indirectly, public safety. Didn't hear any objections. I think they satisfied all of the important decisions. Yeah. Location. Location. VT&T to install and maintain one small cell wireless facility to be installed at 93 Boston Post Road. Following the directives of the Department of Public Works regarding timing and execution of the construction to minimize disruption and ensure public safety. It also talks about the sign of their order. I'm going to amend my motion to add these conditions. It's not a fault.
As long as our wireless facilities just essentially comply with the plans by which order. VT&T will finally remove any and all equipment that is no longer used to deliver a wireless communication service. And then telecommunication and wireless attachments and occurrences shall be installed and operated in compliance with all federal, federal, state, and local laws and regulations. Okay. We have a second. Second. In further discussion? Yes. Bill? Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Thank you. Thank you all. Happy holidays to you. Thank you very well. Okay.
Thank you all. Thank you.
Number 10. This is going to be a five-second, five-minute discussion of a select board objective. We are meeting next meeting with the CDC. One of the things that are probably going to follow us about being this, you know, let's say one of our objectives, number two, I don't know the one that we would, we would participate in a joint task force that's going to give us some evidence of those progress on the route to our development team. And I asked, I mentioned it to Tom, I don't know if we continue to do it, but I asked him if we kind of, the board's thoughts, put together some suggestions about us when we have this topic next week when we have the CDC. Happy to put something in.
I'll put together a proposal. All of the gun. All of the guns. New guns. All right. It's been a islic. Nice to see you. Can you see that?
I will go for the record with the planning board. You've discussed. I've discussed that. The advisory committee. So this is why we're going to have this discussion next week, so now I think we need to have this discussion. I agree. We need a good discussion. We need a good discussion now. All right, so we'll go to the next item. So the next item is the endpoints on the meeting. What I will say is the endpoints on the meeting. So basically, all we need is to open. Open the board from December 3rd, 2020. The endpoints on the election. So basically, all we need is to open. Open the board from December 3rd, 2025, 3.30 a.m. January 15, 1 to 26, at 4.30 a.m. So moved. Sorry. We've got a discussion. All right. On the vote, please. On the vote, Ann? Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Thank you, Madam Chair. We did devote some time earlier this evening to the topic of the special election. And it may be redundant, but I do want people to know that we cannot use town resources campaign, but we can provide information. So we have sent out in the town manager's newsletter as well as put on the homepage of the website that the special election is coming up. We do provide you all the details of the hours of voting, how you can vote. And then we do have a link to our frequently asked questions for those who need to have more information. I will note that we did receive an email during the meeting that some people attempted to get in during the executive session and they thought there was a problem, so they didn't rejoin. I did respond to one of the persons that wrote an email. People are welcome to send emails to me and the finance director. We'll do our best to answer any questions that we haven't already tried to answer in anticipation of the upcoming election. And if there's things worth putting up on the frequently asked questions, we will add to those. But I hope that the information out there sufficient for most people to understand what the issue is and which way the vote will impact the taxes. The Civic Plus website migration. If some of you may have heard previously, our existing website format is being phased out by Civic Plus, and they've offered us to migrate to an updated platform. And we are in the process of doing that. Ms. Bradica, who is now our management and analytics communication coordinator, is working closely with the vendor. And she wanted me to pass on that we should start seeing some of the changes on or about December 25th. So it's about three weeks, three and a half weeks from now, we'll start to see some of the changes, new look, new appearance, navigation, etc. Just a quick update on Chairman's Bridge. As you know, we did hold a public forum not too long ago. We, when I say we, the DPW in both Sudbury and Wayland as well as the town manager in Sudbury, we've incorporated many of the concerns that were raised by the residents that evening and also through the comments that came back in by email. After going through that, as you may know, the project team did share with the public an updated design. On November 17th, the town manager of Wayland, she and I both sent a letter to MassDOT asking whether or not the modifications we made would still allow us to receive the approximately $325,000 in materials as well as the assistance of the MassDOT contractor. And I did hear from Mr. Holder late this afternoon that we received an email from Barry Lorian who was involved with MassDOT that said that they would be okay with the proposal, the modified proposal that we put forward. So I don't have any more details than that, but that is the latest update that I have. We confirmed with them that they would accept the changes. And we've heard back that they were acceptable. So I will keep you posted as to the next steps where we go from here. We, because of holiday hours coming up and trying to make sure everybody can get in. And we have chosen Monday, December 29th to do my next town manager office. And they're typically held around 530. We'll put them. I think they're in the newsletter and they're right here in the town offices. Anybody wish to come on down and have Q&A with me or share their comments about how things are going. Always happy to entertain. The only update since the last meeting, I did exchange some emails with Mr. Gould. They had put in their additional iteration of wells up around the Wayland Middle School earlier this month on or about November 12th. He informed me today that he just got back the results of those testing, those tests, excuse me. He needs a little time to digest them, but I asked if he'd be available on around December 15th to do a quick update remotely just to share the results of what he found. I don't think there'll be any surprises. He gave me a quick overview, but I think the culprit is probably going to be the leaching field up behind the Wayland Middle School. And that given the underground water flows, they flowed downhill towards the old DPW site, which is why we have all those heavy concentrations. He'll have a more detailed analysis, but I think that's what we're going to find. He hasn't sent me the final version of everything, but we will have it in time if we want to do that on the 15th. And that's the only update on it. Thank you. Anybody have any thoughts? Okay. That's what I do since I think. So I think the next is going to be consent. Yes. Well, we've told them that could be up to, so I think, what else in fact, some of the updates from the fire chief. With regards to the fire department fees that I just wanted to move forward there. So that they move to the same calendar, but for . Any further discussion? Okay. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Almost not. Maybe we want to have that for 15. No, no, no. It's just a small fraction. It's going to be on the margin of the 15. 15. It's in it. It's in it. So it's been a 15? Yes. Okay. I just want to compliment your system in there and explain a photo memorandum. The two larger contractors. Yes. I know there's something. No questions. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Let's go to the minutes. Yeah. Yes. Minutes. Madam Chair. I'm not sure these minutes are on the agenda. The minutes, I have five back in the process on the 26th. Because I believe that was a typo I've done that myself and I believe the minutes is not involved with that on the 4th. 4th of the 3rd. In other words, the date date should... Yeah, November 3rd. So I think the date should be changed. So I move the Board to approve the minutes from November 3rd, 2025, as amended. Even though, noting that the typo in the draft minutes, it's April, October 6th, in fact, November 3rd. Discussion? One item. Yeah. 815. Semicolon after Rausch's. Line 2 of 815. What? Line 2. R-E-U-S-C-H plus V-S. Get rid of the semicolon. A-15. A-15. A-15. A-15. A-15. A-15. A-15. A-15. Anybody else have any? Yes? I'm not saying. A-15. Second to the last paragraph. I think it's bringing this suggestion to be a positive PSR. I don't know. Ann, do you have any edits on the first set of minutes? No. Tom took mine. I didn't. I have two. Under announcements in public comment, I think it's a little confusing the way it reads, and I think we should do, maybe we should go on the agenda separate. But there is a very first one where it talks about the seminar that's coming up on the level 10. That was actually I announced it. So it shouldn't say that I stayed there. It sounds like it just blends into the announcements. Anyway. And then down onto section A-4 for the finance committee. It's in red. So I don't believe that . I don't believe she was president. I don't believe she was president. Then, finally, I don't believe she was president. I don't believe she was president. Then, finally, that's it. All right. So I was in favor of minutes on November 3rd, 2025, Mr. Benedictine. I did. Yes. Yes. Yes. But definitely, I don't believe it's there. So, down to the office is directed to the operations president. I don't believe she was president.
Then, finally, that's it. All right. So, in favor of minutes of November 3rd, 2025, Mr. Benedict, then? Yes. Yes. Bill? Yes.
Well, the minutes of the 17th. We won't even have it. Okay. That sounds reasonable. How about correspondence?
Comments on correspondence? None? Okay. Select board reports and concerns? Bill? Bill? Anne? No. The only thing I'd say is that I was looking up stuff for 212 Cachituate online and just trying to get an update on that. I would love to find out where that project sits. But it looks like it's hard to understand online because it looks like there's a bunch of people on there from select board. I think it's designed to say something different, but in description, it says select board. So, if you were reading the 212 Cachituate advisory committee information, you would be confused as to who's involved and what their role is. It's just FYI. Because it says name, position, description, and maybe it should say like appointing authority or it's a description. It's just that time. That was my report. Oh, that's it. Okay. Thank you. All right. Let's give you back. I just have a couple. One thing you've got to notice today from at me about the schedule for January. Um, I am, I am also concerned that I think having these really overly full of the Germans, we're skating through them, we're running a little late here. I don't like preventing people that were running so late, um, and they are going to have a three-week break, so I don't know what we should do. So if you want to send me your thoughts and email, I'll be reading them, and I will adjust the schedule according to the set site. Specifically, would you like to know? Well, I'm comfortable with having these really extra long meetings. It's really, really open for, I feel like I'm showing everyone a little speedy here. Um, would we feel like getting in a discussion time, maybe when we just do a meeting or meetings, we do have a three-week break, and, um, I have a pretty full agenda here on the date, and we just picked up two more tonight. I can guarantee you we're going to be in near three or four hours in this week, so, just, you know, I'm facilitating, and I want to make sure I'll, um, facilitate the way you'd like to facilitate it. I'll send some. I'll send some. No, no. Thank you. Send me a number, please. We should make some adjustments in the way we're scheduled. And with that, I will take a motion to adjourn. Oh my God, that was one. So moved. It's all. It's all. It's all. It's all. It's all. It's all. Okay. Um, all those in favor, please. It's been. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Thank you, everyone. Good night.