July 10, 2026 – Economic Development Committee – Video & Transcript
July 10, 2026 - Economic Development Committee
All right. So we are calling to order the EDC meeting for July. It is July 10th, and it is now 9.14. So calling to order. We are all in person, so we have no persons remote for members, but we do have Tom Fay attending as a guest.
So with that, we don't have any public comment. I don't know. How do we, you know, check raised hand? No. Participants?
You'll see it. You'll see it.
Okay. There we go. So participants, nope, we're good. Okay. So with that, there is no public comment. We will go to the 3 and 12 meeting minutes. You guys had a chance to take a look beforehand. Did you look at the minutes, Jeff?
I do have them. I only have one copy, feeling. You can take a quick look if you want.
So I think at this point, as he does that, so I've got the meeting minutes prompt template. It's about four pages long at this point. It keeps teaching itself, but it's getting better. But the biggest problem is just that the transcript is so bad. It's just, you read the transcript, and it's pretty horrifying that it's just, the quality level just isn't there. Yeah. So hopefully with the owl, it has it in the middle of us. We're relatively small. We'll, hopefully that'll be a good test case. So Seth will send you the link. You can download the transcript, or Jeff can, and then be able to fill it out. And then you send Jeff the, like, prompt. I did. So I sent it to both you and Jeff. Oh, perfect. So, great. Yep. Awesome. So it's the prompt, it's the template, and then you just plug in the agenda, and then the transcript. So, all right. Any comments to the minutes from June 12th? Nope. None. Do I hear a motion to approve? Motion. Motion. Needy. Do I hear a second? Second. Karen, second. All in favor? Voice vote? Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Approved 4-0. Meeting minutes for July 12th. Town planner update. Robert's not here since they're out on Fridays. But, Tom, you're here. You can update for what you know or what we heard in the patch with the very exciting headline, which may have a few asterisks, maybe. But you want to update on what you know on the economic development bond bill? Yes. The headline, I think, is somewhat misleading. I mean, that apparently was simply a vote that Representative Linsky had taken in support of the bond bill, which contained monies, significant monies for Wayland. But it'll have to go to the Senate and probably will have to be some sort of a conference committee. So, it's, I would say it's, that bill is in the, it's not the initial stages, but it certainly isn't law yet. And the governor hasn't signed any bond bill. So, if it's going to happen, it'll probably happen in the next few days, I would think, because the legislature is wrapping things up for the session. And the session will start up again, a new session in January. So, I'm not going to hold my breath on this, but we'll see what happens. Okay. And so, the same thing before. If it is a bond bill, then the bill gets passed, but then the bond issuance has to get passed, or it has to be issued by the governor's office. And then it's almost like a, it's funny, I did it just a chat GBT. And what's the process? And we basically have to apply for it, even though we're already set aside, so we can start thinking about what it takes to do that. But the first thing is understanding what that $500,000 was. Did Michael have any, where did that number come from? No, he wasn't contacted by anybody on, which is significant. Typically, when legislation is about to be passed and signed by the governor, the town manager is notified. But that wasn't the case here. So, that's consistent with the fact that this is not close to the goal line, as of right now. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. But the $500,000 itself, because Michael had asked us at our last meeting, I forget if you were here, that he was like, what are a couple suggestions? And we had said $50,000 for economic development director and, you know, like $50,000 to be able to relook at MBTA. Did he add in some other stuff? Do we know what that, what he- I don't know. I think that might have been different, right? That might have been, oftentimes, you know, Representative Linsky will ask, you know, what are, what are some small items that, that you, you all need? So, those were earmarks. I think that's right.
So, it seems like if the governor signed off in the budget yesterday, we would have heard that. So, we don't, how do we find out if the earmarks are in there or not in the budget that was just approved? I think Michael will probably get an email today from Representative Linsky if they were. Okay. All right. Well, we'll find out whether we're earmarks, whether it's bond bill, whatever it is. And I try to stay on top of it. So, and I keep saying Representative Linsky, I mean, I think Representative Gentile is also involved in that process. No. Okay. All right. While we have you, I know that, and I actually watched it, the, that town center came to the select board and gave a presentation. So, I'd send around the links if you guys want to take a look at it. But, any surprises on your end, Tom, of what you were seeing or is generally in line with or any questions or anything that, that popped out of you as you saw that presentation? The only surprise, pleasant surprise was the owner's representation that he's possibly close to working in a deal out with a couple of well-known and liked restaurants. So, that would be, that would be, those would be great additions to the, to the town center. And then he continued to talk about, as he has in the past, the, their intention to make a, uh, attractive hookup between the rail trail and the town, and the town center itself, um, as well as general beautification that, uh, um, that's being done now. And then, of course, closing, closing the street for, and the, and the design there looks very attractive. So, it's, it's, it's all positive news and, um, looking forward to seeing some of the, continue to see these changes in the upcoming months. I think I saw something in your email about, um, new Route 20 slash 27 signage. Yeah. Yeah. So, they did show, that's the first time I had seen it, but they wanted to redo the major signs out front. Uh, they still want to look at the interior signs, but they're really focusing on the entrances first. But they're, um, the Route 21 is more vertical. It's a little bit more modern looking. It's not sort of that weird contrived white thing that's trying to look historic. So, it's, it was much larger. And then there's a 27 one is more horizontal just because of the setting, but it will have room for the, the shops, names, things like that. But that, I didn't see anything that was sort of, one of Chris Reynolds comments was, how is there a way to have an active sign? That always says there, this event going on, or this special thing is happening, or whatever. Not necessarily a lit LED sign, but it, I didn't see that as part of the signage, but I don't know if they've heard that comment before. But I thought that was a good point, that you always want people to think that there's something going on here that they should be coming for. And that, that's definitely one of their pushes, is they want it not just to be somewhere you're going here to come get dog food and leave. You, it's somewhere that you actually want to come and hang out for a while. So, I, I agreed with Chris's comment there. How you do that tastefully? Yeah. That's a question, but I think important to get those 20,000 eyes that pass by every single day, understanding what's going on at Town Center. And, and they're not moving the location of those signs. They're not moving the location. Okay. And so, they were saying everything that they did in working with the planning board, it's all just a change to the master special permit, which the planning board can do. There's no zoning changes that are needed that would have to go to Town Meeting, which is, which is great. So, they have done preliminary discussions with the planning board. Now, two meetings are going to apply this month. And I think they'll have the approvals in September and then be able to start improvements in October and over the winter and then really be kind of full bore as of next spring. I will comment that the, it was nice to hear the skating rink idea looks like a go as well as the dog park idea. Yes, that's, those are two good additions to the Town Center. And also good to hear that the relationship between this owner and the planning board is a positive one, that they're working together. Yeah. That's, that's good news. Yeah. And it was also good to hear that they are really reaching out beyond and they're talking with the Russells and Terrain and some of the others around. And that's great. That's really good that they can coordinate with Russells because there's a lot of energy across the street. Like, how do you, how do you get it all to intermittent? So. Do we know the timing on like when the diner and like the dog park and like, do we know when all of that is coming? Yeah. So like dog park, depending if they don't have their approval till September, whether they do it this fall or whether it's ready for next spring. I think it's really just going to depend on, you know, timing to be able to do this stuff. But they want like Alyssa Avenue, they want to be able to shut it down. They want it shut down year round. So they'll probably start on a lot of this stuff that they want to do sort of this decking that's going to be in the parking spaces and all this app, like all that stuff they want it to be year round. So they may start it. So it's really a question of what they can get seasonally and ordered and everything else. So do they, have they made proposals about location for this gating rink and the dog park? Like I'm trying to visualize. Yeah. Yeah. So the dog park is that triangular kind of moundy area, like just next to the medical building. Okay. So if you're coming in 27, before you get to the medical building, there's sort of this weird island. Yes. It's bigger than anything. Yeah. And they love when you come in. So I was like, oh, it's really small. When you look at it, it's pretty big. So they would just fence it. That goes there. The ice rink is going next to Sperry's. Okay. I was interested to know. I didn't realize that that was being jointly run with Eliza Norton Foundation. Oh. I didn't realize that. So they're paired up with an ice rink operator, but they'll really be the ones. I thought that was great. Or the like gazebo thing. Yes. I don't know if it'll be in the way or not, but I think they'll probably. There's also more space there. There's a lot of space there. There's a lot of space there. And when it's not an ice rink, like what is it in the summer? That's a good question. That question did not come up. I kind of had the same question. Splashback? I don't know. Something with water coming out of it? I don't know. Because they just, is it going to be a hard surface? Is it like, I don't know. How does it transform? Okay. Not sure. I'm sure they'll figure that out. It's almost like temporary. Like in New York, they will do pop-up ones for the season. And just stumble them. Yeah. And if the grass is dormant enough, it won't kill it. But I have no idea. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. And then the volleyball, they're talking about in the area behind the volleyball. And then the soccer would be right across from X-Wolf, kind of behind X-Wolf. Soccer? There's like mini 5v5. It's like, it's again, there's more space there than you think. I totally believe that. And it's like mini five-on-five soccer. Come on. Yeah. So it's going to be, all this stuff is just going to be activated. And then the bike path extends all the way in. Like Alyssa Ab will feel like, it'll all feel like one quarter all the way up to the bike path. So this makes me want to weep. I know they'll have parking for the bike path. Totally brilliant. They're moving the dumpster that's sitting right. They're like, we don't even need the dumpster. We're just getting rid of it. And we're just using the ones we have. And we'll just pick up more often. Like, wow. So it's, yeah. So they're, they're really thinking. Well, so we want to put out a letter, a newsletter that includes some of this information, not necessarily from the letters from us, but it's more about here are the things that are being discussed with the select board and for Fido and whatnot. Not like, let's talk, let's talk with Jesse and maybe we should do that. Yeah. Because it should a lot here. It shouldn't wait until, you know, whenever people, I don't know. Yeah. You guys on the Facebook community forum at all? Has it been popping up there? I'm not. I haven't been on. I'm not on Facebook. I haven't. Katie usually is. I know. Yeah. Let's check it out. But yeah, like we should post something there or just get some, you know, have Jesse post there or whatever. Yeah. Something that a lot of eyes will see. Yeah. But even pushing it out through our email. Yeah. Because when we do that, somebody takes it and posts it in there. There you go. So perfect. So yeah. Yeah. So we'll connect with Jesse and see if he wants to do that. So Tom, anything else from select board perspective? Nothing comes to mind, frankly. Okay. All right. So with that, next topic is the FinCom EDC recommendations. And Jeff, you're going to be working on some one pagers. Were you able to make any progress this month? It was kind of a short month. Yes. But I would like to, is there like a good format that we have to put it in? I think a, I know we've been using some other ones. Are they, are they, are they PowerPoint files or? Usually we've been using Canva, which I don't use and I don't have a membership. I don't know if you do, but you could do, you could just do PowerPoint. Yeah. Yeah. I don't think we have necessarily a consistent format. I know Robert, were you guys on the emails with Robert with those? No, he was going to send you info. Yeah. No. Yeah. He's been copying me on some, uh, emails to Michael. So what he's proposed, I know he's talked a little bit about it, but, um, he had some good data. He said the, the fourth quarter, um, gross, just about a hundred thousand in meals tax, which is the highest one in on record. So, um, we only had about, I think like 300,000 total in meals tax for the year, but that spiked to a hundred thousand in the fourth quarter. So it's, um, you're attributing that obviously to kind of some. Um, what came on in fourth quarter? Um, when's our fiscal year? When did Q4 end? Oh, is it Q4 fiscal year? I think he's referring to fiscal year. So that would be ending on June 30th. Yeah. So that would be, that would be April, May, and June. Yeah. Jimmy John's done. Uh, I don't know. Could they have generated that much though in that? No, no. I mean, Jersey likes his opening, but again, how big was the jump? Um, it was 300,000, maybe 75 to a hundred thousand dollars in a quarter. Like before I was averaging 75. Yeah. We did, we did a hundred thousand in the fourth quarter. And then it jumped to 175 and it jumped to a hundred. Okay. So it's 25 K that we're talking about. Yeah. But to increase by 25%, it's a pretty big, I don't know if that's just seasonality, but I don't know. Could it be, um, yeah. Summer. Yeah. Yeah. So it's not what you're in. Good point. Like, yeah. Which we're all snowed in for forever. Yeah. Yeah.
No. So he's recommending that, um, he's asking Michael if we can portion, uh, I think 50,000 at least towards the UDC, um, for funding or just like putting back in to, to kind of fund future initiatives. Yep.
What if you for us? Yeah. Tom, were you on the call last week when you were talking about this with Michael? I forget. You were not here, right? So we were talking about it a little bit. And the question is, you know, it's like, it's too small to be an enterprise fund. Nobody wants to manage that. If that becomes just a, this administrative nightmare. But the question is, you know, can we sort of set aside some funds? Do other towns do it? We as EDC wouldn't necessarily, it's not like we're the granting authority. It would be through the select board. Um, and we'd probably make recommendations and then, you know, we kind of work through it together. So that was kind of the thought process. Um, and we're just trying to find some precedents. I know that, you know, Carol is always concerned about this and setting aside funds. But again, if these are new ones and we're not taking the money out of anybody's pocket necessarily, do we, you know, put those funds toward a productive use, whether it's grants for signage or small businesses or events or, you know, whatever it is, um, things that development. So my recommendation is that you as a committee put together a proposal, right? My recommendation may be a 24 month period as to what you see as the need and how you think, uh, what kind of budget you're thinking about and, and, uh, how it would be spent. And then our board can, can consider it. To be honest with you, I, I haven't had any, any discussion with Brian about, um, the logistics of this, and I don't know whether there's a precedent, uh, but I don't think it's that original. I mean, put it another way, if you take another committee that the select board works with, the, uh, uh, diversity, equity, inclusion committee, you know, we set aside monies for them to do certain activities, right? So, uh, I just think it's a matter of, um, appreciating the need and then, and then setting up a line item, um, where the monies can be placed. Yeah. Okay. So Jeff is putting together one pagers on this and then also the split tax rate idea. So again, you know, the split tax rate that we're not jumping to $25, right? It's just adding two or $3 to the tax rate. Every dollar is $160,000. We have $160 million tax base. So if we had a $3 increase, that'd be worth half a million dollars to the town. I did have a question on that because, um, it was Michael, right? Who, who came in last night. So his concern with that was that we can only increase total taxes like two and a half percent. Right. But if there's an override, um, are we able to kind of get around that? So like, how, how would that work? I guess if we increase the split tax rate, because what he was saying was if you do that and let's say that $3 per thousand on the commercial base pushes the total tax intake above the two and a half percent, that's a problem, right? Well, he sort of had to look at all that. He was saying basically it's not found money because our, our pie basically, it doesn't We would have to reduce the residential kind of like an equal amount, which basically just pushes more to the commercial side than the residential. So it's not as if we found the money. That's what he was going into. Is that, is that an accurate, is that an accurate statement though? I don't know. We've figured it out. But at the end of the day, if you're collecting more from the commercial, you're collecting less than residential. So whether it's added revenue or whether it's less burden on revenue. I think more people than not would appreciate any sort of relief on the residential side without putting an unfair burden on the commercial side. I think even if it's just a little bit of a reallocation and for the town were to vote on an override, does that uncap it for that particular year? So you would be able to like, and then it resets from there. I don't know. Yeah. So he was going to check with Brian and, you know, have Brian advise on that. So, um, and in our most recent infographic, I mean, you see that the share commercial share of the tax pie has been shrinking over past decades, just because their values have been flat really are very, very subtly raised where residential rates have gone like that. So it really just gets them back to paying their fair share. So it's, it's a relatively fair thing. Um, but also we just need to think of timing wise, because we're also reaching out to all the business on route 20 and trying to get them to make improvements and, you know, a lot of good things. Yes. And then we immediately hit them upside the head with a tax increase. So, you know, we have to think about all of those things, but again, if it's modest, it's not, you know, if it went to a Framingham like tax rate where, you know, residential was at 14 and they were at 25, that would be huge, but if it just goes to something lower than even adjacent tax communities, we should be okay. So I'm guessing a lot of the businesses on route 20 are probably on gross leases, except when you get into the town center and accept, um, I mean, yeah, I don't, I don't think a lot of, right. I don't think a lot of those landlords are sophisticated enough to be doing triple net leases on some of this space. Yeah. I don't know. So, so anyway, so Tom, so we'll put together those one pagers. Um, so Jeff is working on those and maybe be ready to talk them through, you know, we can present next time, get a massage and then be able to present to you guys after Labor Day. Cause it's like, you know, in August, nobody's going to be around paying attention to anybody. So kind of split tax rate. Um, I mean, traditionally our board, you know, at least 20 years, at least, um, hasn't changed the split, you know, same rate. Um, and I think largely because we appreciate there's so few businesses in town and we don't want to create reasons for them to, to close up shop. Uh, so if your board thinks that that should be revisited, again, I'd recommend you put together something that you want to formally present to the select board. I don't recall when the board typically addresses that issue. I'm not sure if it's the fall or spring, I just forget. But, um, you know, if your board thinks that it's something that board should, should seriously look at and make a change. Um, I recommend you put something in writing to make, to make your argument. Yeah. So yeah, we'll do that. And, you know, it can go in the whole budget washing machine, right? If it makes sense and let's do it, but it's, you know, it's not going to plug a huge amount of holes, but it's, you know, it's like, we need to, uh, you know, look under every rock at this point. It's kind of the budget issues that we have going on. So, okay. So Jeff, if you can kind of pull them together and circulate before next meeting, and then we kind of look at them and be ready to be forwarding them to select board after labor day, we're not meeting in August, right? We are, but it's later. So it's the 21st. Okay. So, um, so yeah, if we can review it, that meeting and then be ready to go.
Um, all right. So the 10 year production data, I did get data from Brian. It was incomplete. It didn't have the historic. So I'm asking him again, copying Michael and seeing if we can get that last piece. Um, but we do have the 10 year projections. There were some questions. Basically it showed some growth. And the question is that tax rate, but like assessment growth on the existing residential, or is that absolute added growth? I think there's a little bit of both, but what he's assuming for growth almost adds like $40 million to our tax base every year, which is, that's a lot. So for a base of almost 60, uh, 40, just general, whether it's residential or commercial. Uh, so, but that's still, that's still quite a bit. So we're not building that many single family homes and our commercial. So I wanted to get his assumptions behind that. Um, but importantly, we also wanted the five-year historic so we can see the trend and then be able to look at the projection. So as soon as I have the complete data, I'll send it around. If, if I can't get ahold of them sort of this week, um, I may just send around and can start digesting a little bit if you want.
So with that, actually, Tom, FinCom, um, you know, after Labor Day, we'll probably want to loop back in and start talking with them again, but a lot of, there's been a lot of turnover and yeah. Are you guys making progress on filling up the FinCom board? What, what do you think the timing is? Should we plan on waiting a couple of months until they kind of get up to full, full committee again, where are they at and what status? So it's my understanding that all but one position has been filled and the last position should be filled relatively soon. Excellent. Okay. I mean, to the extent that you want to educate some of these new members on your, uh, committee's role on your ideas, I recommend you, you reach out to the chair, who I think is Carl Barnes and let him know and just get his thoughts and then work that out. Either he may suggest you do a one-on-one for the members or, you know, you come in and present. Okay. That's good that Carl's still there. He's got a lot of the history. Yes. That's good. Okay. Good to know. I'm glad you guys were able to, I know you're struggling to find people or maybe it was just so many at once, but. Yeah. There were quite a few openings there quickly. Yeah. Okay. Good to know. All right. Um, Route 20. So Town Center, we talked about select board presentations, shared streets. I saw a draft, um, memorandum of understanding or agreement go back between, uh, Michael's office and those guys. So hopefully that can get released soon. Um, playground amenities, Tom, any update on the environmental? Um, still waiting to hear from town council, but, um, should soon. Um, she's working right now on some issues all up to 212 constituent. After that, I think she'll turn her attention to, to the, uh, uh, to the town center issue. So I would hope, I would hope with the next two, two and a half weeks. Okay. So I guess with Jesse, with everything, if they're getting filed this month, then that will sort of free them up to, you know, with their landscape consultant, et cetera. So it's a question of, we can get a little bit of feedback. Do we start the, the, um, discussion process with them, with the landscape consultant? And then part of it was Jesse had, I remember originally had asked about what's called the formal garden, like this patch of grass that's now next to the COA where we're sitting. Um, and before that was supposed to be the garden club and they were supposed to be doing, you know, native species and all this stuff. And I was talking to Jean and she said that had fallen apart because it was just sort of maintenance between them and DPW or something. So at this point, is that, that area completely unplanned is, does anybody else have plans for it? Do you have any idea what's going on there? I really don't know. Um, I'll make a note to reach out to Bill Sterling and, uh, he may know, and I'll, uh, I'll get, I'll get back to you on that. Okay. Cause if, if Jesse and their landscape architect are willing to look at it, then you just look at the whole thing at once. If there's not a sort of a set aside use for it. So there should have been like some irrigation, like an irrigation line, I think. And I thought power, I don't know, but hopefully that was actually brought under the parking lot, um, at least conduit. So it should be usable space. Yeah. So hopefully that would be good. So right now it's all, unfortunately, you know, the landscaper, I guess there was a lot of punch list. And so now it's kind of all weeds. It's not really grass and there, you know, there's no irrigation. They only can use irrigation during growing. And at this point, the grass is not. I'll look into it. Good question. Okay. Um, the route 20 master plan. So Robert's not here, but I heard that they were going out or asked, doing an RFP, I think for, uh, people drafting zoning. Have you heard anything on that Tom, or we can check with Robert? I have not heard anything on that. No. Okay. All right. But the RFP that, um, on the other issue should go up Monday and Tuesday. Yeah, the RFQ on that one for the curb cut sidewalk. Right. Okay.
Um, let's see. Existing corridor cleanup. So I've sent to you, Tom and Michael and Nate. Um, you would have gotten in the last couple of days, but the, the visual summary and the chart, and then also the draft letter. So you can take a look at that as you have comments, but the thought is it'd be signed by Michael, which he was game to last time. He was able to join us for almost our whole meeting last time, which was great. So he's away next week. And I think today as well. So you, you, you won't hear from him for another eight, eight or nine days. Okay. I might reach out to Nate and kind of get him up to speed. We had talked with him about it before, um, but ultimately just, I recommend just deal with Michael and, um, Michael McCall and, uh, um, that'd be best. Let's go through him. Okay. All right. Um, and one of the things we pointed out, and I did copy it to Bill Sterling and to Tom White, because we had talked about it a ways back. Um, and they may have some good input just from design review board and CBA perspective. And then we had mentioned Robert last time in the meeting, there is a column that's basically, you know, what, what are zoning, uh, zoning and code very, you know, violations essentially, or it's not in compliance. And then what the second column is we don't have zoning that addresses some of these things. So that whole column, and we'd point out to Robert and it'd be good for Bill Sterling, like as they do the route 20 zoning, those are the types of things that you want to be writing in because those make those visual difference. Um, even if nobody builds, you know, two and three story buildings for a while, anybody who renovates their building will then have their HVAC covered up and their dumpsters enclosed and no more donation boxes. And, you know, like it will, it will definitely clean up a lot of the area. So, uh, so we'll coordinate with that with, uh, with Bill in that regard, liquor license, we talked about, uh, the infographics. So five, you were just able to upload to you last ones. So when we send out, that's usually you sending them out, right? Are you able to send before you go, but you're leaving like today? I can send. Try for this video. Sure. Okay. So we already had, we had a letter written. We did have a letter. It's still sitting in my drafts. It was like ready to send. So let's re-look at that. Let's look at it again. Yeah. Essentially the PDF of the, of the graphic. Yeah. It's particularly with changes at town center and more information. Yeah. I agree. Probably a little bit on that. Or we judge. Okay. Got it. Okay. All right. Done with that one. Wow. That just took seven months. You just like, usually it's much faster. So I had downloaded this stuff. I was amazed. Like I took our presentation that we did for FinCon and just plugged it in to Claude. I know. Like, shoot. I was like, now I'm like, a little bit, but it was just like, wow. Yeah. So I don't know if you'd open up the draft or you wanted to put it to Canva. I just use Pac because I don't have Canva. So I might, I might have Claude judge it to the format that we have just so that it's like consistent, but I think that's a good starting point. Yeah. So I can take that one. Okay. So yeah, we won't be sending it out like right after. Yeah. So we can do it for next time and then it can go out right after Labor Day. So great. Same timing. Good here, folks. Yeah. Hey, I'm going to take forever. Encouraging Wayland Business Association. So you had drafted a letter actually printed out if anybody didn't see it. I thought it was great. Oops. I can't even hurt. I know Jeff, if you got one or not. So the thought process that you would send it to Jesse and then he's excited and on board about this. He's happy to send this to all of his tenants. Good. Um, so the idea is, you know, we want to create connectivity and support within the small business, uh, small businesses in Wayland. And we don't really have a database, very spant information on how to reach these folks. So he can at least take all of town center. And then we have some, some other businesses in South Wayland that we obviously have known for a while and we can reach out to them and send it to them as well. But the idea is to just start, start creating the weave for these folks. So when they get this, um, there will be a form link to sign up. It's just super simple. Like I want to be part of the Wayland Business Association. It's their name, the name of their business and like their email address. And then that'll dump into a sheet. And then after, you know, we'll probably send out like, well, I would ask Jesse to send it twice, probably just to make sure we catch everybody. Yep. Um, so like send it once and then bump everybody again. And then we'll probably be four to six weeks from now, whoever's on that sheet, we're going to just reach out. Well, essentially we will have that sheet. We'll have that contact information and we will just send it to them and say, Hey, here you guys go. You know, we, we unfortunately can't really be involved in this, but we've, we're connecting you all now is yours and run with it. Yeah. Is it possible to ask them, are you interested in helping taking an active role? Yes. So do you want to be part of it versus do you want to help organize it? Yeah. Or help be reconstituted, whatever. Yeah. Yeah. Perfect. Yeah. And then they'll be good to go. Yeah. Yeah. Excellent. All right. So next step is you're reaching out to Jesse and doing that. Yeah. Okay. Perfect. Um, and then the post-permitting building department survey needed a great, did you hear from anybody else? I have not heard of that. I'm assuming that. I think it looks great. I want to give you some feedback on that. I apologize. It's a little long. It is long. So part of it is getting it to the departments, right. And getting their feedback because we need to hear from building department. We need to hear from planning CBA, like, because we're asking them about their process. So part of it is just getting all the information out there and then we can kind of trick it down. The question is like, so this would go out to businesses. This would be to people who just got their permit and it wouldn't, it's not residents. It's only businesses. It's only businesses. New businesses. Yeah. Which there aren't that many. There aren't that many. Right. So the question is too, when I always look at a form like that, it's like, how motivated are they to fill it out? And if they're pissed, they're motivated. Oh, yeah. Oh, they're motivated. They're motivated. But also if they're very busy at that moment in time. Like, I don't know. I'm just weighing back and forth in terms of the length. Did you forward that to me again? I'm sorry. Did you have it? It's in your inbox. Yeah. I would have. I re-sent it yesterday. Oh, from you. Okay. I re-sent it yesterday. Okay. Sorry. That was okay. Yeah. Yeah. It's the input forward, input requested. Yeah. But typically having been through that process before. I have it. I have it from Becky. You've lived and breathed it and you usually have some feedback, right? So you might skip over sections or whatever, but I think it's fair that it's longer. I think too short, you're not going to get the information that you need. But I think that- I agree. I think people will be motivated to do it because you often get the same people who are going through the process and they have opinions. Yeah, no, 100%. And they're going to be happy. So totally hear that. And I thought it was great how you shrunk down the boards together. So it's just whatever one you did. Yeah. Like that box, whatever it was. Like that one. That was great. Did you put this all together or? Yeah. That's some help with AI, but yeah. Yeah. I mean, it helps. AI is great. It's a natural extension. It looks like. Did you apply for where it pulls in? Pull everything together. Before applying. Yeah. I mean, I agree. It's a little long. My target for something like this is usually like 20 to 25 questions. I was going to say 20. Yeah. Yeah. 31 right now. 31. Yeah. So, and maybe, maybe, maybe you have two different surveys. One, did you have to go through an approvals process? And one is, did you just go through the building department? Maybe that would. Oh, are there two different tracks? Oh yeah. Because if you went through planning boards, EBA, CONCOM, board of health, like things like that, who's sending this out? That's the question. So part of it is kind of putting it out there and then say, okay, well, you know, it's just something that is. I can send it out. Right. Is there any reason we couldn't do it or? Well, presumably it would come from the building department after they got their CO, then it should be sent out type of thing. That's the thought process. But do they have the capacity to do that? They're just going to bury it. Like they're not going to care. They don't want, they don't. If it becomes part of their process. Negative feedback. Part of it, they have an online system now, right? So if everything's online, it could just kick out at the end. It should be automated. It should be automated. If there's anything else that goes out right afterwards. Do those people? Yeah. Yeah. I don't know if they're like processing them through email. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. You can build a rental workflow. Yes. Yeah. 100%. Yeah. But so maybe that, that is because if you go through the planning board, OZBA process, it's much longer versus if you're just going for a building permit. But so maybe, maybe we split it. Do you do, um, I guess you could do a non-applicable, like just so there's only one form. One survey. Yeah. Logic in. So that, yeah, I did that. If you went through planning board, answer these questions. If not, keep going. Yeah. So. I might just send back, um, the main, I like, I think it's very thorough. If the main goal is to cut it down, maybe I'll just highlight a couple of things just to like, okay, maybe we can shave this. This is okay. Yeah. Please.
So at this point, maybe, uh, so Tom, should we just send it to Michael or send it to Michael and Nate? This is the draft letter that you want to send to all the businesses? No, this is the draft survey. So this is, if you've gone through permits and approvals and you've gotten your CO, this is a survey you take about how the process was going through the boards and committees you may have had to go through or just the building department. Um, maybe what we'll do, we'll send it to you and Michael and just get your vibe on it and then thoughts otherwise, and then kind of go from there. But it's, it's sort of, it's just quality control. And, you know, we always hear that Waylon is a incredibly hard place to do business and they, people find it confusing and difficult. And that's our reputation. So, you know, you start unpeeling the onion and it's always, well, we don't have specific details. And so it's time to get detail. Right. So, so it's pretty comprehensive. It doesn't single out any single board. It really just, what are all your touch points and how did it go? So we'll send it to you and Michael, and then we'll get your vibe and then kind of figure out next steps from that. And, uh, you know, he may have some insights or otherwise, um, but yeah, this is really the 80s idea for me. I mean, it's just, it's great that we need to, it's something we need to fix. Um, and so now it's particularly with everything online, um, we're sort of in a good spot to be doing that. So, you know, paper process was always difficult and subject to. Just recommending that as a town policy, any resident or business that, uh, that applies for a permit be offered the opportunity to complete it or what's your, what's your, it wouldn't, it wouldn't be residential, right? That's just too many, but it's for any business, you know, that it's, you know, if you're getting a building permit from the town, whether it's for a new structure, whether it's for TI build outs, whatever it is. And so we don't have that many in any given year, but that's where you hear the problems are. It's really difficult, um, difficult. So, you know, sometimes the homeowner will be the applicant, right. Versus the, versus the construction company, right. And then what about individuals who are simply applying to, to get a new septic, right? Wouldn't. No, this would, it would not be residential. It's just business. Yeah. It's commercial. If you guys want to do residential, that's not our purview. Ours is how do we make the process better for businesses to come here? That is really the push because you hear about these things that just make it difficult. Why aren't our resident, our res, um, restaurants as of right, right. It's like in Sudbury restaurants are as of right here. They're not. Why do we make restaurants jump through all these hoops? Right. So it's, it's kind of, we don't even have the question on that, but you know, it's, it's getting to that. And what parts of the process are that, you know, the board's communicating, you know, teachers, you have a pre-meeting, you know, all this stuff, you'll see it. Um, and it's like, how do we figure out where our weak links are and how do we fix it? But it's definitely for businesses. Um, if as a town, you want to do it for homeowners to have a ball, but that's not, not necessarily, um, our focus here. Okay, fine. I'll look for it. Yeah. So we will send it to you and Michael, uh, and how do you guys can kind of digest?
If everyone wants to send their feedback in the next site, we can do too. Yeah. So Jeff, can you send it like, she's going to be on the gate. Are you going to have specific feedback? Will you send me your direct feedback and then I can get it over. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Send it to Tom. Yeah. And Michael. Okay. Yeah. Thanks for doing that. Nice to putting that together. Yeah, of course. Yeah. Excited about it. Yeah. Um, okay. So that is all the way through our agenda and it's not even 10 o'clock. It's a beautiful thing. Anything that we didn't cover? Anything to raise? Tom, anything last? No. Otherwise. I'm good. I appreciate all your, all your work folks. Yeah. Otherwise our next meeting is not until August 21st. It's right back here, same location. So we'll be able to do zoom. If you need to patch in, you can, but it sounded like that date worked for most. Um, but we've kind of collect our thoughts before labor day. So infographic number six, one pagers. We should have feedback from these guys on the survey. Hopefully you have data. So yeah, we should be. What about the letter that you were writing and what I did the QR code for? What the heck was that again? Um, Oh, so that was for the route 20 improvements. Yeah. That is now with Michael and Tom. Got it. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Michael and Tom and Nate and Bill Sterling and Tom and those guys and just get all the fantastic, all the feedback. But ideally, you know, I'd ask for comments back within a week. Um, but Tom, you just mentioned that Michael's now out. Uh, he's out for all next week. And he's out there too. Okay. So ultimately the goal is to get it out sooner rather than later, given that terrain is opening up this fall. So, you know, instead of, you know, if we can start looking like we're good as terrain also is cleaning up their act. I mean, they're super busy over there. So it's driving by every time I drive by and they are, they are. And I'm like, I'm afraid I'm going to hit somebody.
I know. You want to take care. Okay. You want to take. I'll say I predicted it. So yeah, if we can get comments to that, Tommy, interested to hear yours, you know, perspective and maybe the select board signs it too. I don't know. I, that's a, that's a question. If you guys want to be part of that and it's really about communication with these business owners and property owners, you know, maybe select board does sign it too. I don't know. So think through that. We'll cross that bridge. Okay. That's good. Sounds good. All right. So next meeting, August 21st, uh, do I hear a motion to adjourn? Motion to adjourn. Karen motion. Do I hear a second? Second. Meady second. All in favor roll call. Or not roll call. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye.
So I think at this point, as he does that, so I've got the meeting minutes prompt template. It's about four pages long at this point. It keeps teaching itself, but it's getting better. But the biggest problem is just that the transcript is so bad. It's just, you read the transcript, and it's pretty horrifying that it's just, the quality level just isn't there. Yeah. So hopefully with the owl, it has it in the middle of us. We're relatively small. We'll, hopefully that'll be a good test case. So Seth will send you the link. You can download the transcript, or Jeff can, and then be able to fill it out. And then you send Jeff the, like, prompt. I did. So I sent it to both you and Jeff. Oh, perfect. So, great. Yep. Awesome. So it's the prompt, it's the template, and then you just plug in the agenda, and then the transcript. So, all right. Any comments to the minutes from June 12th? Nope. None. Do I hear a motion to approve? Motion. Motion. Needy. Do I hear a second? Second. Karen, second. All in favor? Voice vote? Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Approved 4-0. Meeting minutes for July 12th. Town planner update. Robert's not here since they're out on Fridays. But, Tom, you're here. You can update for what you know or what we heard in the patch with the very exciting headline, which may have a few asterisks, maybe. But you want to update on what you know on the economic development bond bill? Yes. The headline, I think, is somewhat misleading. I mean, that apparently was simply a vote that Representative Linsky had taken in support of the bond bill, which contained monies, significant monies for Wayland. But it'll have to go to the Senate and probably will have to be some sort of a conference committee. So, it's, I would say it's, that bill is in the, it's not the initial stages, but it certainly isn't law yet. And the governor hasn't signed any bond bill. So, if it's going to happen, it'll probably happen in the next few days, I would think, because the legislature is wrapping things up for the session. And the session will start up again, a new session in January. So, I'm not going to hold my breath on this, but we'll see what happens. Okay. And so, the same thing before. If it is a bond bill, then the bill gets passed, but then the bond issuance has to get passed, or it has to be issued by the governor's office. And then it's almost like a, it's funny, I did it just a chat GBT. And what's the process? And we basically have to apply for it, even though we're already set aside, so we can start thinking about what it takes to do that. But the first thing is understanding what that $500,000 was. Did Michael have any, where did that number come from? No, he wasn't contacted by anybody on, which is significant. Typically, when legislation is about to be passed and signed by the governor, the town manager is notified. But that wasn't the case here. So, that's consistent with the fact that this is not close to the goal line, as of right now. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. But the $500,000 itself, because Michael had asked us at our last meeting, I forget if you were here, that he was like, what are a couple suggestions? And we had said $50,000 for economic development director and, you know, like $50,000 to be able to relook at MBTA. Did he add in some other stuff? Do we know what that, what he- I don't know. I think that might have been different, right? That might have been, oftentimes, you know, Representative Linsky will ask, you know, what are, what are some small items that, that you, you all need? So, those were earmarks. I think that's right.
So, it seems like if the governor signed off in the budget yesterday, we would have heard that. So, we don't, how do we find out if the earmarks are in there or not in the budget that was just approved? I think Michael will probably get an email today from Representative Linsky if they were. Okay. All right. Well, we'll find out whether we're earmarks, whether it's bond bill, whatever it is. And I try to stay on top of it. So, and I keep saying Representative Linsky, I mean, I think Representative Gentile is also involved in that process. No. Okay. All right. While we have you, I know that, and I actually watched it, the, that town center came to the select board and gave a presentation. So, I'd send around the links if you guys want to take a look at it. But, any surprises on your end, Tom, of what you were seeing or is generally in line with or any questions or anything that, that popped out of you as you saw that presentation? The only surprise, pleasant surprise was the owner's representation that he's possibly close to working in a deal out with a couple of well-known and liked restaurants. So, that would be, that would be, those would be great additions to the, to the town center. And then he continued to talk about, as he has in the past, the, their intention to make a, uh, attractive hookup between the rail trail and the town, and the town center itself, um, as well as general beautification that, uh, um, that's being done now. And then, of course, closing, closing the street for, and the, and the design there looks very attractive. So, it's, it's, it's all positive news and, um, looking forward to seeing some of the, continue to see these changes in the upcoming months. I think I saw something in your email about, um, new Route 20 slash 27 signage. Yeah. Yeah. So, they did show, that's the first time I had seen it, but they wanted to redo the major signs out front. Uh, they still want to look at the interior signs, but they're really focusing on the entrances first. But they're, um, the Route 21 is more vertical. It's a little bit more modern looking. It's not sort of that weird contrived white thing that's trying to look historic. So, it's, it was much larger. And then there's a 27 one is more horizontal just because of the setting, but it will have room for the, the shops, names, things like that. But that, I didn't see anything that was sort of, one of Chris Reynolds comments was, how is there a way to have an active sign? That always says there, this event going on, or this special thing is happening, or whatever. Not necessarily a lit LED sign, but it, I didn't see that as part of the signage, but I don't know if they've heard that comment before. But I thought that was a good point, that you always want people to think that there's something going on here that they should be coming for. And that, that's definitely one of their pushes, is they want it not just to be somewhere you're going here to come get dog food and leave. You, it's somewhere that you actually want to come and hang out for a while. So, I, I agreed with Chris's comment there. How you do that tastefully? Yeah. That's a question, but I think important to get those 20,000 eyes that pass by every single day, understanding what's going on at Town Center. And, and they're not moving the location of those signs. They're not moving the location. Okay. And so, they were saying everything that they did in working with the planning board, it's all just a change to the master special permit, which the planning board can do. There's no zoning changes that are needed that would have to go to Town Meeting, which is, which is great. So, they have done preliminary discussions with the planning board. Now, two meetings are going to apply this month. And I think they'll have the approvals in September and then be able to start improvements in October and over the winter and then really be kind of full bore as of next spring. I will comment that the, it was nice to hear the skating rink idea looks like a go as well as the dog park idea. Yes, that's, those are two good additions to the Town Center. And also good to hear that the relationship between this owner and the planning board is a positive one, that they're working together. Yeah. That's, that's good news. Yeah. And it was also good to hear that they are really reaching out beyond and they're talking with the Russells and Terrain and some of the others around. And that's great. That's really good that they can coordinate with Russells because there's a lot of energy across the street. Like, how do you, how do you get it all to intermittent? So. Do we know the timing on like when the diner and like the dog park and like, do we know when all of that is coming? Yeah. So like dog park, depending if they don't have their approval till September, whether they do it this fall or whether it's ready for next spring. I think it's really just going to depend on, you know, timing to be able to do this stuff. But they want like Alyssa Avenue, they want to be able to shut it down. They want it shut down year round. So they'll probably start on a lot of this stuff that they want to do sort of this decking that's going to be in the parking spaces and all this app, like all that stuff they want it to be year round. So they may start it. So it's really a question of what they can get seasonally and ordered and everything else. So do they, have they made proposals about location for this gating rink and the dog park? Like I'm trying to visualize. Yeah. Yeah. So the dog park is that triangular kind of moundy area, like just next to the medical building. Okay. So if you're coming in 27, before you get to the medical building, there's sort of this weird island. Yes. It's bigger than anything. Yeah. And they love when you come in. So I was like, oh, it's really small. When you look at it, it's pretty big. So they would just fence it. That goes there. The ice rink is going next to Sperry's. Okay. I was interested to know. I didn't realize that that was being jointly run with Eliza Norton Foundation. Oh. I didn't realize that. So they're paired up with an ice rink operator, but they'll really be the ones. I thought that was great. Or the like gazebo thing. Yes. I don't know if it'll be in the way or not, but I think they'll probably. There's also more space there. There's a lot of space there. There's a lot of space there. And when it's not an ice rink, like what is it in the summer? That's a good question. That question did not come up. I kind of had the same question. Splashback? I don't know. Something with water coming out of it? I don't know. Because they just, is it going to be a hard surface? Is it like, I don't know. How does it transform? Okay. Not sure. I'm sure they'll figure that out. It's almost like temporary. Like in New York, they will do pop-up ones for the season. And just stumble them. Yeah. And if the grass is dormant enough, it won't kill it. But I have no idea. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. And then the volleyball, they're talking about in the area behind the volleyball. And then the soccer would be right across from X-Wolf, kind of behind X-Wolf. Soccer? There's like mini 5v5. It's like, it's again, there's more space there than you think. I totally believe that. And it's like mini five-on-five soccer. Come on. Yeah. So it's going to be, all this stuff is just going to be activated. And then the bike path extends all the way in. Like Alyssa Ab will feel like, it'll all feel like one quarter all the way up to the bike path. So this makes me want to weep. I know they'll have parking for the bike path. Totally brilliant. They're moving the dumpster that's sitting right. They're like, we don't even need the dumpster. We're just getting rid of it. And we're just using the ones we have. And we'll just pick up more often. Like, wow. So it's, yeah. So they're, they're really thinking. Well, so we want to put out a letter, a newsletter that includes some of this information, not necessarily from the letters from us, but it's more about here are the things that are being discussed with the select board and for Fido and whatnot. Not like, let's talk, let's talk with Jesse and maybe we should do that. Yeah. Because it should a lot here. It shouldn't wait until, you know, whenever people, I don't know. Yeah. You guys on the Facebook community forum at all? Has it been popping up there? I'm not. I haven't been on. I'm not on Facebook. I haven't. Katie usually is. I know. Yeah. Let's check it out. But yeah, like we should post something there or just get some, you know, have Jesse post there or whatever. Yeah. Something that a lot of eyes will see. Yeah. But even pushing it out through our email. Yeah. Because when we do that, somebody takes it and posts it in there. There you go. So perfect. So yeah. Yeah. So we'll connect with Jesse and see if he wants to do that. So Tom, anything else from select board perspective? Nothing comes to mind, frankly. Okay. All right. So with that, next topic is the FinCom EDC recommendations. And Jeff, you're going to be working on some one pagers. Were you able to make any progress this month? It was kind of a short month. Yes. But I would like to, is there like a good format that we have to put it in? I think a, I know we've been using some other ones. Are they, are they, are they PowerPoint files or? Usually we've been using Canva, which I don't use and I don't have a membership. I don't know if you do, but you could do, you could just do PowerPoint. Yeah. Yeah. I don't think we have necessarily a consistent format. I know Robert, were you guys on the emails with Robert with those? No, he was going to send you info. Yeah. No. Yeah. He's been copying me on some, uh, emails to Michael. So what he's proposed, I know he's talked a little bit about it, but, um, he had some good data. He said the, the fourth quarter, um, gross, just about a hundred thousand in meals tax, which is the highest one in on record. So, um, we only had about, I think like 300,000 total in meals tax for the year, but that spiked to a hundred thousand in the fourth quarter. So it's, um, you're attributing that obviously to kind of some. Um, what came on in fourth quarter? Um, when's our fiscal year? When did Q4 end? Oh, is it Q4 fiscal year? I think he's referring to fiscal year. So that would be ending on June 30th. Yeah. So that would be, that would be April, May, and June. Yeah. Jimmy John's done. Uh, I don't know. Could they have generated that much though in that? No, no. I mean, Jersey likes his opening, but again, how big was the jump? Um, it was 300,000, maybe 75 to a hundred thousand dollars in a quarter. Like before I was averaging 75. Yeah. We did, we did a hundred thousand in the fourth quarter. And then it jumped to 175 and it jumped to a hundred. Okay. So it's 25 K that we're talking about. Yeah. But to increase by 25%, it's a pretty big, I don't know if that's just seasonality, but I don't know. Could it be, um, yeah. Summer. Yeah. Yeah. So it's not what you're in. Good point. Like, yeah. Which we're all snowed in for forever. Yeah. Yeah.
No. So he's recommending that, um, he's asking Michael if we can portion, uh, I think 50,000 at least towards the UDC, um, for funding or just like putting back in to, to kind of fund future initiatives. Yep.
What if you for us? Yeah. Tom, were you on the call last week when you were talking about this with Michael? I forget. You were not here, right? So we were talking about it a little bit. And the question is, you know, it's like, it's too small to be an enterprise fund. Nobody wants to manage that. If that becomes just a, this administrative nightmare. But the question is, you know, can we sort of set aside some funds? Do other towns do it? We as EDC wouldn't necessarily, it's not like we're the granting authority. It would be through the select board. Um, and we'd probably make recommendations and then, you know, we kind of work through it together. So that was kind of the thought process. Um, and we're just trying to find some precedents. I know that, you know, Carol is always concerned about this and setting aside funds. But again, if these are new ones and we're not taking the money out of anybody's pocket necessarily, do we, you know, put those funds toward a productive use, whether it's grants for signage or small businesses or events or, you know, whatever it is, um, things that development. So my recommendation is that you as a committee put together a proposal, right? My recommendation may be a 24 month period as to what you see as the need and how you think, uh, what kind of budget you're thinking about and, and, uh, how it would be spent. And then our board can, can consider it. To be honest with you, I, I haven't had any, any discussion with Brian about, um, the logistics of this, and I don't know whether there's a precedent, uh, but I don't think it's that original. I mean, put it another way, if you take another committee that the select board works with, the, uh, uh, diversity, equity, inclusion committee, you know, we set aside monies for them to do certain activities, right? So, uh, I just think it's a matter of, um, appreciating the need and then, and then setting up a line item, um, where the monies can be placed. Yeah. Okay. So Jeff is putting together one pagers on this and then also the split tax rate idea. So again, you know, the split tax rate that we're not jumping to $25, right? It's just adding two or $3 to the tax rate. Every dollar is $160,000. We have $160 million tax base. So if we had a $3 increase, that'd be worth half a million dollars to the town. I did have a question on that because, um, it was Michael, right? Who, who came in last night. So his concern with that was that we can only increase total taxes like two and a half percent. Right. But if there's an override, um, are we able to kind of get around that? So like, how, how would that work? I guess if we increase the split tax rate, because what he was saying was if you do that and let's say that $3 per thousand on the commercial base pushes the total tax intake above the two and a half percent, that's a problem, right? Well, he sort of had to look at all that. He was saying basically it's not found money because our, our pie basically, it doesn't We would have to reduce the residential kind of like an equal amount, which basically just pushes more to the commercial side than the residential. So it's not as if we found the money. That's what he was going into. Is that, is that an accurate, is that an accurate statement though? I don't know. We've figured it out. But at the end of the day, if you're collecting more from the commercial, you're collecting less than residential. So whether it's added revenue or whether it's less burden on revenue. I think more people than not would appreciate any sort of relief on the residential side without putting an unfair burden on the commercial side. I think even if it's just a little bit of a reallocation and for the town were to vote on an override, does that uncap it for that particular year? So you would be able to like, and then it resets from there. I don't know. Yeah. So he was going to check with Brian and, you know, have Brian advise on that. So, um, and in our most recent infographic, I mean, you see that the share commercial share of the tax pie has been shrinking over past decades, just because their values have been flat really are very, very subtly raised where residential rates have gone like that. So it really just gets them back to paying their fair share. So it's, it's a relatively fair thing. Um, but also we just need to think of timing wise, because we're also reaching out to all the business on route 20 and trying to get them to make improvements and, you know, a lot of good things. Yes. And then we immediately hit them upside the head with a tax increase. So, you know, we have to think about all of those things, but again, if it's modest, it's not, you know, if it went to a Framingham like tax rate where, you know, residential was at 14 and they were at 25, that would be huge, but if it just goes to something lower than even adjacent tax communities, we should be okay. So I'm guessing a lot of the businesses on route 20 are probably on gross leases, except when you get into the town center and accept, um, I mean, yeah, I don't, I don't think a lot of, right. I don't think a lot of those landlords are sophisticated enough to be doing triple net leases on some of this space. Yeah. I don't know. So, so anyway, so Tom, so we'll put together those one pagers. Um, so Jeff is working on those and maybe be ready to talk them through, you know, we can present next time, get a massage and then be able to present to you guys after Labor Day. Cause it's like, you know, in August, nobody's going to be around paying attention to anybody. So kind of split tax rate. Um, I mean, traditionally our board, you know, at least 20 years, at least, um, hasn't changed the split, you know, same rate. Um, and I think largely because we appreciate there's so few businesses in town and we don't want to create reasons for them to, to close up shop. Uh, so if your board thinks that that should be revisited, again, I'd recommend you put together something that you want to formally present to the select board. I don't recall when the board typically addresses that issue. I'm not sure if it's the fall or spring, I just forget. But, um, you know, if your board thinks that it's something that board should, should seriously look at and make a change. Um, I recommend you put something in writing to make, to make your argument. Yeah. So yeah, we'll do that. And, you know, it can go in the whole budget washing machine, right? If it makes sense and let's do it, but it's, you know, it's not going to plug a huge amount of holes, but it's, you know, it's like, we need to, uh, you know, look under every rock at this point. It's kind of the budget issues that we have going on. So, okay. So Jeff, if you can kind of pull them together and circulate before next meeting, and then we kind of look at them and be ready to be forwarding them to select board after labor day, we're not meeting in August, right? We are, but it's later. So it's the 21st. Okay. So, um, so yeah, if we can review it, that meeting and then be ready to go.
Um, all right. So the 10 year production data, I did get data from Brian. It was incomplete. It didn't have the historic. So I'm asking him again, copying Michael and seeing if we can get that last piece. Um, but we do have the 10 year projections. There were some questions. Basically it showed some growth. And the question is that tax rate, but like assessment growth on the existing residential, or is that absolute added growth? I think there's a little bit of both, but what he's assuming for growth almost adds like $40 million to our tax base every year, which is, that's a lot. So for a base of almost 60, uh, 40, just general, whether it's residential or commercial. Uh, so, but that's still, that's still quite a bit. So we're not building that many single family homes and our commercial. So I wanted to get his assumptions behind that. Um, but importantly, we also wanted the five-year historic so we can see the trend and then be able to look at the projection. So as soon as I have the complete data, I'll send it around. If, if I can't get ahold of them sort of this week, um, I may just send around and can start digesting a little bit if you want.
So with that, actually, Tom, FinCom, um, you know, after Labor Day, we'll probably want to loop back in and start talking with them again, but a lot of, there's been a lot of turnover and yeah. Are you guys making progress on filling up the FinCom board? What, what do you think the timing is? Should we plan on waiting a couple of months until they kind of get up to full, full committee again, where are they at and what status? So it's my understanding that all but one position has been filled and the last position should be filled relatively soon. Excellent. Okay. I mean, to the extent that you want to educate some of these new members on your, uh, committee's role on your ideas, I recommend you, you reach out to the chair, who I think is Carl Barnes and let him know and just get his thoughts and then work that out. Either he may suggest you do a one-on-one for the members or, you know, you come in and present. Okay. That's good that Carl's still there. He's got a lot of the history. Yes. That's good. Okay. Good to know. I'm glad you guys were able to, I know you're struggling to find people or maybe it was just so many at once, but. Yeah. There were quite a few openings there quickly. Yeah. Okay. Good to know. All right. Um, Route 20. So Town Center, we talked about select board presentations, shared streets. I saw a draft, um, memorandum of understanding or agreement go back between, uh, Michael's office and those guys. So hopefully that can get released soon. Um, playground amenities, Tom, any update on the environmental? Um, still waiting to hear from town council, but, um, should soon. Um, she's working right now on some issues all up to 212 constituent. After that, I think she'll turn her attention to, to the, uh, uh, to the town center issue. So I would hope, I would hope with the next two, two and a half weeks. Okay. So I guess with Jesse, with everything, if they're getting filed this month, then that will sort of free them up to, you know, with their landscape consultant, et cetera. So it's a question of, we can get a little bit of feedback. Do we start the, the, um, discussion process with them, with the landscape consultant? And then part of it was Jesse had, I remember originally had asked about what's called the formal garden, like this patch of grass that's now next to the COA where we're sitting. Um, and before that was supposed to be the garden club and they were supposed to be doing, you know, native species and all this stuff. And I was talking to Jean and she said that had fallen apart because it was just sort of maintenance between them and DPW or something. So at this point, is that, that area completely unplanned is, does anybody else have plans for it? Do you have any idea what's going on there? I really don't know. Um, I'll make a note to reach out to Bill Sterling and, uh, he may know, and I'll, uh, I'll get, I'll get back to you on that. Okay. Cause if, if Jesse and their landscape architect are willing to look at it, then you just look at the whole thing at once. If there's not a sort of a set aside use for it. So there should have been like some irrigation, like an irrigation line, I think. And I thought power, I don't know, but hopefully that was actually brought under the parking lot, um, at least conduit. So it should be usable space. Yeah. So hopefully that would be good. So right now it's all, unfortunately, you know, the landscaper, I guess there was a lot of punch list. And so now it's kind of all weeds. It's not really grass and there, you know, there's no irrigation. They only can use irrigation during growing. And at this point, the grass is not. I'll look into it. Good question. Okay. Um, the route 20 master plan. So Robert's not here, but I heard that they were going out or asked, doing an RFP, I think for, uh, people drafting zoning. Have you heard anything on that Tom, or we can check with Robert? I have not heard anything on that. No. Okay. All right. But the RFP that, um, on the other issue should go up Monday and Tuesday. Yeah, the RFQ on that one for the curb cut sidewalk. Right. Okay.
Um, let's see. Existing corridor cleanup. So I've sent to you, Tom and Michael and Nate. Um, you would have gotten in the last couple of days, but the, the visual summary and the chart, and then also the draft letter. So you can take a look at that as you have comments, but the thought is it'd be signed by Michael, which he was game to last time. He was able to join us for almost our whole meeting last time, which was great. So he's away next week. And I think today as well. So you, you, you won't hear from him for another eight, eight or nine days. Okay. I might reach out to Nate and kind of get him up to speed. We had talked with him about it before, um, but ultimately just, I recommend just deal with Michael and, um, Michael McCall and, uh, um, that'd be best. Let's go through him. Okay. All right. Um, and one of the things we pointed out, and I did copy it to Bill Sterling and to Tom White, because we had talked about it a ways back. Um, and they may have some good input just from design review board and CBA perspective. And then we had mentioned Robert last time in the meeting, there is a column that's basically, you know, what, what are zoning, uh, zoning and code very, you know, violations essentially, or it's not in compliance. And then what the second column is we don't have zoning that addresses some of these things. So that whole column, and we'd point out to Robert and it'd be good for Bill Sterling, like as they do the route 20 zoning, those are the types of things that you want to be writing in because those make those visual difference. Um, even if nobody builds, you know, two and three story buildings for a while, anybody who renovates their building will then have their HVAC covered up and their dumpsters enclosed and no more donation boxes. And, you know, like it will, it will definitely clean up a lot of the area. So, uh, so we'll coordinate with that with, uh, with Bill in that regard, liquor license, we talked about, uh, the infographics. So five, you were just able to upload to you last ones. So when we send out, that's usually you sending them out, right? Are you able to send before you go, but you're leaving like today? I can send. Try for this video. Sure. Okay. So we already had, we had a letter written. We did have a letter. It's still sitting in my drafts. It was like ready to send. So let's re-look at that. Let's look at it again. Yeah. Essentially the PDF of the, of the graphic. Yeah. It's particularly with changes at town center and more information. Yeah. I agree. Probably a little bit on that. Or we judge. Okay. Got it. Okay. All right. Done with that one. Wow. That just took seven months. You just like, usually it's much faster. So I had downloaded this stuff. I was amazed. Like I took our presentation that we did for FinCon and just plugged it in to Claude. I know. Like, shoot. I was like, now I'm like, a little bit, but it was just like, wow. Yeah. So I don't know if you'd open up the draft or you wanted to put it to Canva. I just use Pac because I don't have Canva. So I might, I might have Claude judge it to the format that we have just so that it's like consistent, but I think that's a good starting point. Yeah. So I can take that one. Okay. So yeah, we won't be sending it out like right after. Yeah. So we can do it for next time and then it can go out right after Labor Day. So great. Same timing. Good here, folks. Yeah. Hey, I'm going to take forever. Encouraging Wayland Business Association. So you had drafted a letter actually printed out if anybody didn't see it. I thought it was great. Oops. I can't even hurt. I know Jeff, if you got one or not. So the thought process that you would send it to Jesse and then he's excited and on board about this. He's happy to send this to all of his tenants. Good. Um, so the idea is, you know, we want to create connectivity and support within the small business, uh, small businesses in Wayland. And we don't really have a database, very spant information on how to reach these folks. So he can at least take all of town center. And then we have some, some other businesses in South Wayland that we obviously have known for a while and we can reach out to them and send it to them as well. But the idea is to just start, start creating the weave for these folks. So when they get this, um, there will be a form link to sign up. It's just super simple. Like I want to be part of the Wayland Business Association. It's their name, the name of their business and like their email address. And then that'll dump into a sheet. And then after, you know, we'll probably send out like, well, I would ask Jesse to send it twice, probably just to make sure we catch everybody. Yep. Um, so like send it once and then bump everybody again. And then we'll probably be four to six weeks from now, whoever's on that sheet, we're going to just reach out. Well, essentially we will have that sheet. We'll have that contact information and we will just send it to them and say, Hey, here you guys go. You know, we, we unfortunately can't really be involved in this, but we've, we're connecting you all now is yours and run with it. Yeah. Is it possible to ask them, are you interested in helping taking an active role? Yes. So do you want to be part of it versus do you want to help organize it? Yeah. Or help be reconstituted, whatever. Yeah. Yeah. Perfect. Yeah. And then they'll be good to go. Yeah. Yeah. Excellent. All right. So next step is you're reaching out to Jesse and doing that. Yeah. Okay. Perfect. Um, and then the post-permitting building department survey needed a great, did you hear from anybody else? I have not heard of that. I'm assuming that. I think it looks great. I want to give you some feedback on that. I apologize. It's a little long. It is long. So part of it is getting it to the departments, right. And getting their feedback because we need to hear from building department. We need to hear from planning CBA, like, because we're asking them about their process. So part of it is just getting all the information out there and then we can kind of trick it down. The question is like, so this would go out to businesses. This would be to people who just got their permit and it wouldn't, it's not residents. It's only businesses. It's only businesses. New businesses. Yeah. Which there aren't that many. There aren't that many. Right. So the question is too, when I always look at a form like that, it's like, how motivated are they to fill it out? And if they're pissed, they're motivated. Oh, yeah. Oh, they're motivated. They're motivated. But also if they're very busy at that moment in time. Like, I don't know. I'm just weighing back and forth in terms of the length. Did you forward that to me again? I'm sorry. Did you have it? It's in your inbox. Yeah. I would have. I re-sent it yesterday. Oh, from you. Okay. I re-sent it yesterday. Okay. Sorry. That was okay. Yeah. Yeah. It's the input forward, input requested. Yeah. But typically having been through that process before. I have it. I have it from Becky. You've lived and breathed it and you usually have some feedback, right? So you might skip over sections or whatever, but I think it's fair that it's longer. I think too short, you're not going to get the information that you need. But I think that- I agree. I think people will be motivated to do it because you often get the same people who are going through the process and they have opinions. Yeah, no, 100%. And they're going to be happy. So totally hear that. And I thought it was great how you shrunk down the boards together. So it's just whatever one you did. Yeah. Like that box, whatever it was. Like that one. That was great. Did you put this all together or? Yeah. That's some help with AI, but yeah. Yeah. I mean, it helps. AI is great. It's a natural extension. It looks like. Did you apply for where it pulls in? Pull everything together. Before applying. Yeah. I mean, I agree. It's a little long. My target for something like this is usually like 20 to 25 questions. I was going to say 20. Yeah. Yeah. 31 right now. 31. Yeah. So, and maybe, maybe, maybe you have two different surveys. One, did you have to go through an approvals process? And one is, did you just go through the building department? Maybe that would. Oh, are there two different tracks? Oh yeah. Because if you went through planning boards, EBA, CONCOM, board of health, like things like that, who's sending this out? That's the question. So part of it is kind of putting it out there and then say, okay, well, you know, it's just something that is. I can send it out. Right. Is there any reason we couldn't do it or? Well, presumably it would come from the building department after they got their CO, then it should be sent out type of thing. That's the thought process. But do they have the capacity to do that? They're just going to bury it. Like they're not going to care. They don't want, they don't. If it becomes part of their process. Negative feedback. Part of it, they have an online system now, right? So if everything's online, it could just kick out at the end. It should be automated. It should be automated. If there's anything else that goes out right afterwards. Do those people? Yeah. Yeah. I don't know if they're like processing them through email. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. You can build a rental workflow. Yes. Yeah. 100%. Yeah. But so maybe that, that is because if you go through the planning board, OZBA process, it's much longer versus if you're just going for a building permit. But so maybe, maybe we split it. Do you do, um, I guess you could do a non-applicable, like just so there's only one form. One survey. Yeah. Logic in. So that, yeah, I did that. If you went through planning board, answer these questions. If not, keep going. Yeah. So. I might just send back, um, the main, I like, I think it's very thorough. If the main goal is to cut it down, maybe I'll just highlight a couple of things just to like, okay, maybe we can shave this. This is okay. Yeah. Please.
So at this point, maybe, uh, so Tom, should we just send it to Michael or send it to Michael and Nate? This is the draft letter that you want to send to all the businesses? No, this is the draft survey. So this is, if you've gone through permits and approvals and you've gotten your CO, this is a survey you take about how the process was going through the boards and committees you may have had to go through or just the building department. Um, maybe what we'll do, we'll send it to you and Michael and just get your vibe on it and then thoughts otherwise, and then kind of go from there. But it's, it's sort of, it's just quality control. And, you know, we always hear that Waylon is a incredibly hard place to do business and they, people find it confusing and difficult. And that's our reputation. So, you know, you start unpeeling the onion and it's always, well, we don't have specific details. And so it's time to get detail. Right. So, so it's pretty comprehensive. It doesn't single out any single board. It really just, what are all your touch points and how did it go? So we'll send it to you and Michael, and then we'll get your vibe and then kind of figure out next steps from that. And, uh, you know, he may have some insights or otherwise, um, but yeah, this is really the 80s idea for me. I mean, it's just, it's great that we need to, it's something we need to fix. Um, and so now it's particularly with everything online, um, we're sort of in a good spot to be doing that. So, you know, paper process was always difficult and subject to. Just recommending that as a town policy, any resident or business that, uh, that applies for a permit be offered the opportunity to complete it or what's your, what's your, it wouldn't, it wouldn't be residential, right? That's just too many, but it's for any business, you know, that it's, you know, if you're getting a building permit from the town, whether it's for a new structure, whether it's for TI build outs, whatever it is. And so we don't have that many in any given year, but that's where you hear the problems are. It's really difficult, um, difficult. So, you know, sometimes the homeowner will be the applicant, right. Versus the, versus the construction company, right. And then what about individuals who are simply applying to, to get a new septic, right? Wouldn't. No, this would, it would not be residential. It's just business. Yeah. It's commercial. If you guys want to do residential, that's not our purview. Ours is how do we make the process better for businesses to come here? That is really the push because you hear about these things that just make it difficult. Why aren't our resident, our res, um, restaurants as of right, right. It's like in Sudbury restaurants are as of right here. They're not. Why do we make restaurants jump through all these hoops? Right. So it's, it's kind of, we don't even have the question on that, but you know, it's, it's getting to that. And what parts of the process are that, you know, the board's communicating, you know, teachers, you have a pre-meeting, you know, all this stuff, you'll see it. Um, and it's like, how do we figure out where our weak links are and how do we fix it? But it's definitely for businesses. Um, if as a town, you want to do it for homeowners to have a ball, but that's not, not necessarily, um, our focus here. Okay, fine. I'll look for it. Yeah. So we will send it to you and Michael, uh, and how do you guys can kind of digest?
If everyone wants to send their feedback in the next site, we can do too. Yeah. So Jeff, can you send it like, she's going to be on the gate. Are you going to have specific feedback? Will you send me your direct feedback and then I can get it over. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Send it to Tom. Yeah. And Michael. Okay. Yeah. Thanks for doing that. Nice to putting that together. Yeah, of course. Yeah. Excited about it. Yeah. Um, okay. So that is all the way through our agenda and it's not even 10 o'clock. It's a beautiful thing. Anything that we didn't cover? Anything to raise? Tom, anything last? No. Otherwise. I'm good. I appreciate all your, all your work folks. Yeah. Otherwise our next meeting is not until August 21st. It's right back here, same location. So we'll be able to do zoom. If you need to patch in, you can, but it sounded like that date worked for most. Um, but we've kind of collect our thoughts before labor day. So infographic number six, one pagers. We should have feedback from these guys on the survey. Hopefully you have data. So yeah, we should be. What about the letter that you were writing and what I did the QR code for? What the heck was that again? Um, Oh, so that was for the route 20 improvements. Yeah. That is now with Michael and Tom. Got it. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Michael and Tom and Nate and Bill Sterling and Tom and those guys and just get all the fantastic, all the feedback. But ideally, you know, I'd ask for comments back within a week. Um, but Tom, you just mentioned that Michael's now out. Uh, he's out for all next week. And he's out there too. Okay. So ultimately the goal is to get it out sooner rather than later, given that terrain is opening up this fall. So, you know, instead of, you know, if we can start looking like we're good as terrain also is cleaning up their act. I mean, they're super busy over there. So it's driving by every time I drive by and they are, they are. And I'm like, I'm afraid I'm going to hit somebody.
I know. You want to take care. Okay. You want to take. I'll say I predicted it. So yeah, if we can get comments to that, Tommy, interested to hear yours, you know, perspective and maybe the select board signs it too. I don't know. I, that's a, that's a question. If you guys want to be part of that and it's really about communication with these business owners and property owners, you know, maybe select board does sign it too. I don't know. So think through that. We'll cross that bridge. Okay. That's good. Sounds good. All right. So next meeting, August 21st, uh, do I hear a motion to adjourn? Motion to adjourn. Karen motion. Do I hear a second? Second. Meady second. All in favor roll call. Or not roll call. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye.