March 18, 2026 – Capital Improvement Planning Committee – Video & Transcript

March 18, 2026 - Capital Improvement Planning Committee

Autoscroll:

Pursuant to Chapter 2 of the Acts of 2020, this meeting will be conducted in person and via remote access in accordance with the full law. You may attend in person or via remote access at the link available on the website for town. When required by law or allowed by the chair, persons wishing to provide public comment or otherwise participate in the meeting may do so here in the meeting location or on Zoom. Public comment should be limited to two minutes per person. This meeting may be recorded and, if recorded, will be made available to the public on Wacom as soon as possible after the meeting. Okay. So, I'm going to review the agenda. 630 is called the order review agenda and public, but we'll do that for public and announcements. 635 is public comment members' response. 640, review and discuss latest changes, developments as the Finance Committee finalizes their capital plan recommendations for FY27 through FY2031. 7 p.m., review of articles submitted for annual time meeting to assess impact on capital plan, if any. 715, discuss next steps to advance future CIPC report process improvements, including but not limited to those outlined in CIPC's fiscal 2027 through fiscal 2031 report amended February 17th to 2026. 815, review and approved minutes of March 4th. 825, topics not reasonably anticipated by the chair 48 hours prior to posting, if any, and setting time of next meeting. 830 p.m. adjourn. And so, we have members attending are myself, Kelly, Brian, Brad, and Liz. John is not able to join us tonight. And are there any announcements from anybody? Okay. And public comment? Okay. All right. So, with that, we can go ahead and get started. So I wanted to start first with any new developments that have happened since we last spoke. And so, Brian, first, if I could ask you, you sent me a couple edits, I think, of typos in my comparison, if you could just cover those, the comparison that I did of our plan to the town manager's plan, and then I will go over the, what FinCom is recommending. Brian Bradford- Yeah. I was putting the attachment together for the minutes, it's effectively a copy of Kelly's spreadsheet reformatted to scrunch on one page. I think the high school baseball field. I think I accidentally said, in the comments, I said it was moved from 2018. 28 to 27. But we had it in 29. Brian Bradford- That was just a comment. Brian Bradford- That actually had come up with the finance committee when they were discussing whether or not to include this. They were looking at your schedule. And someone said, well, Kelly's schedule says it's 28. So I went back and looked at it. It's a typo on my part. Brian Bradford- And then I think the only other one was… It was the last, it was the water, it was a vehicle for the water department. Brian Bradford- Yeah, I'm sorry. The vehicle W6 utility body, the description said that it also moved from free cash to borrowing, but they were both water borrowing. Yeah. Brian Bradford- I just deleted that. Yeah. It was so it was both things in the comments, not it wasn't the actual comparison. Brian Bradford- Yeah. Brian Bradford- So anyway, the minutes, the attachment to the minutes reflect those two changes. I sent Kelly a revised Excel for the cheat list set to be used for future purposes, and you may end up using it because of other changes that… Kelly Bradford- Possible. Brian Bradford- So I believe I sent you guys this email from the actual Excel file that backs it up, but the current vice chair of the FinCom sent me what they were asked the town manager to do to amend the files for the capital plan for their recommendation. So they don't improve, they don't support the high school field improvements project for 2027 and believe it should be moved back to 29. I don't remember if we talked about this at the last meeting, but apparently the athletic, the athletic director had expressed that the plan from 2017 doesn't include lighting, and they want those fields to have lighting at a cost of, I heard, a half a million to a million dollars, so that wasn't included in the project. Kelly Bradford- So lighting. Kelly Bradford- Yeah, I know. Kelly Bradford- So FinCom's expressed similar feelings to what I think we had, which is, while there's, you know, some savings of doing the projects together, it wasn't as compelling, right? There wasn't overlap in the fields and that they think modest investments to bring the fields up to plain condition are what is warranted at this time. They also cut the roads figure back down to what we had had. They did that based on the same sort of logic that I had used. And then they had expressed concerns about the putting the district and middle school sidewalks, which was two different projects, pulling those in, and they thought those should be split between 27 and 28. And they pulled the HVAC for the middle school back from 28 back into 27, which is how I believe we had that. So a couple of changes, right? Really, I would say around the edges other than the field, but they did take the field out of 27. Any? Just to add to that, the vice chair spoke to the town manager and the finance director, both of whom agreed to make the changes. And FinCom voted that budget last night. Last night? Last week. They have re-voted it last night. There was a lingering question that they got confirmed that the finance director had not, when he took the fields out of fiscal 27 in his workbook. He had not. Amid 29. Fiscal 29, which in his workbook would go in under the article. Yep. Funded that article. And vice chair again went back to get affirmation that he planned to do that. And he confirmed last night that, yes, they put it back in their five-year plan in fiscal 29 in the articles. Yeah. Unlike what we presented, where we have that item within our five-year plan, this likely will, I haven't seen the FinCom's report, but it'll likely appear below the line again, if you will. So. All right. Did you, I didn't look, I forgot to look. Did they, they fixed the $90,000 police project that was duplicated? They brought it up, FinCom brought it up. I just don't know if it got fixed. I raised it when I was there. Yeah. I think, I think. I think they got a response back that the now acting police chief, uh, requested that in fact, 90,000 be left in fiscal 27. And that there's two $90,000 requests now, but that's the last I heard. Previous time, he said that he pulled it up from 28 to 29. And then someone pointed out that it was still in both places. Yeah, I did. That sounded like a convenient explanation as to it having inadvertently been left in fiscal 27. But in any event, it's not a budget buster, but. No, it's not a budget buster. It's just, again, illustrating. It's illustrating why having those conversations collectively would have been more efficient for everyone. Because we would have all heard the same thing at the same time. Instead of. Yeah. And this is complicated by the fact that the police chief retired. But I, I don't, I think if we had all heard it at the same time, there would have, it would have been clear and consistent. Right. So that, that pincon meeting was, you went to that immediately after our last meeting. Yes. But they've had several since then. Okay. Yeah. So. Okay. Yeah. Cause I was gonna ask how, how'd the meeting go that you went to? A lot of questions or. Yes. I got pepper with a lot of questions and a few times wasn't able to answer them before the next question came out. So I did have to have a. Pause and like, why don't we. If I can finish all the way, then we'll get there. But I think pincon very rightfully so. Was very interested right from trying to get the budget finalized. They were not just. Going to rubber stamp. The capital budget, which is great. So I think they had a lot of good questions and. I think it's a little bit difficult when. The committee's in the room. I was in the room and Brian and Michael were on zoom. So that just, it just creates a little bit of stilted, like if they can hear you. Right. That, that caused a little bit of. Difficulty in the conversation just because of the two different places, but. And they seemed appreciative of the information. They asked good questions. Brian, did you watch? I watched on tape. Thought you did a good job. Thought you got all our points across. I think in several meetings. I think many of the FinCon members spoke favorably of the CIPC's CIPC, as they say. Our, our work. Seeming to express that they thought we spent a lot of time and diligence. In producing what we did. I think they, like us, would have preferred there not be as much. As many differences between what town manager. Ended up proposing to them. And at the end of the day. I think they were looking at the total. Dollars of each of the two recommendations and. It's turned out that it's about split the difference. But clearly, I think would prefer going forward that there be. Better coordination. Which I think we agree with. Right. So. So anyway, I think. I think our work was appreciated by the finance committee anyway. Yeah. They did. They did thank us for that. And I think as Brian said, they. They agree. Right. There should be better coordination. I think they've had some frustration in general with the budget process this year. And it's consistent with the same. That that we've had. So. I told them what we talked about. Right. We want. We would like to have. A joint. Debrief. With town manager and finance director and finance committee. To talk about right. We've talked about what we think needs to go better. But let's make sure we're all on the same page about how this goes. Next year. But as early as possible. Right. Because we've got to get started. You know, not next fall. Right. If you get started. Pretty much immediately. So. We're open to that. And I would say as an aside. The town manager updated the select board. On the changes that were made to his recommended capital budget. At their last meeting. And a. And. You know, similar. I think comment was made by the chair. That. She seemed appreciative of this committee's work. She too hopes that there'll be better collaboration. The next cycle. Bill Whitney, who. I think. Over a year ago. Um. When they're discussing the mission of this committee. Uh. Really felt the focus should be on the long range. Planning. Uh. And. And the chair continues to point out. And that. The bylaw was drafted. To include that. But. It's. You know. At least a five year plan. And. And it. Required us to. You know. Do what we did. Which is focus on. This for 27. In the next four years. Um. And you can't. I want to focus on the long term plan. But you can't do the long term plan. If you don't have. The first year. First five years of working order. Because you don't know what you're planning for. Right. I think. You know. If I. If I. If I step back from it. And. And assess. Uh. You know. What. Would the town managers. Recommended capital budget. Been different. If we produced. The same report. Um. In November. Still after October 15. And the answer is. I'm not sure. Because. Um. I think we knowingly. Uh. Took a de novo. Is that the right? Legal term. To look at. Um. All of the capital requests. That were otherwise embedded. In the five year plan. That appeared. Last year. For. To. Try to see. If we all agree. As a committee. Get a good starting point. Going forward. I think the finance director. Kind of viewed that. Five. Viewed and views. That five year plan. From last year. It's really. The four years. Twenty seven. Thirty. Is more or less. Having been cast. Yeah. The only change. So I think. He was then tasked with. Oh. We don't have the. Recommendation yet. So we got to get something. And so he went off. And. Did his normal thing. He would have done. Before this committee. Was. Set up. He started with. Last year's five year plan. And then. Obviously. Had to deal with the curve ball. Of the. Whatever. Twelve. Fourteen. New. New requests. That came in. And I don't think. At that point. I don't think. There was much. Effort made. Probably more. Due to lack of time. At that point. To see if. He would be agreeable. To some of the things. We agreed to. And I think the other. As I said last week. I think. The other. Handicap we had. Was we. We didn't. Have a full deck. On what the available. Resources were. To fund. A capital budget. And so. With. That lack of information. We. I think. In a lot of places. Made decisions. To defer. Some projects. To try to. Have each of the years. Fit in. To the. Incoms. Kind of. Financial. Sort of. Ranges. Whereas. He had. More information. That is. Capital. Closeouts. For example. And. And so. Anyway. The other thing. I can't remember. If I mentioned it. Last week. When you look. At. The capital. Budget. That was approved. By the fincom. The board. Of support. It was. Two weeks ago. Declined. To put. Ballot question. On. For debt. Exclusion. For the waste. Water facility. Budget. Now. Shows. That is. Levy. Debt. So. Where. The original. Managing. Proposal. Had. Four to four and a half. Million. Levy. Debt. Which is. About. Amount. We had. Different. It. Now. The capital. Is. When it starts. Will be funded. Assuming town meeting. Approved it. Each year. Will be funded. By drawing on the capital. Stabilization reserve. Which means. There'd be no. Impact. On the operating budget. Per se. In terms of taxation. But it will require. A boat. Each year. And I'm trying to figure out. My own mind. Mechanically. Probably have to. Do an article. Right before the budget. That. Because it requires. A two thirds vote. To take money. Out of the capital. Stabilization fund. Probably have to. Take a vote. Before the operating. Budget article. To make sure. There's two thirds. Allow. Two or three hundred. Thousand dollars. To come out of that. Each and every year. Going forward. That'll be used. To fund the debt service. On the two million dollars. And that was a way. To. Sort of achieve. The same. Financial result. As excluded. Debt. Would have actually. Hit the taxpayer. Just wouldn't have. Impacted the levy. Whereas. Pulling it out. Of. Cap stabilization. It's been funded. Largely. With free cash. I think. Yeah. So. There was some. Financial maneuvering. That's anticipated. But. That. You know. That's up to. Whether it's. The finance director. The town manager. At the time. It's up to the select board. At the time. And it's up to town meeting. At the time. So. That. Yeah. That's fair. So. Again. I don't think. I think. Telly. You agree. We've. I don't think. Our role is to dictate. How things are funded. For say. how things are funded per se. We put in a recommendation, but we just don't have full visibility. No, we put in a recommendation because that's what the bylaw says. It says we'll include funding sources and consideration of the financial impact. We are not the ultimate, right, voter is the ultimate decision maker, but we are not even the penultimate decision maker, right? There's two more layers between us and the voters at town meeting. So that's fine. They can do what they want. I think we did our job, in my opinion, best we could with what we had. And we laid out where and why we did that, right? Staying within the guidelines we were given. If the finance committee or the town manager, the finance committee or residents want to deviate from that, they're free to do so. The only other thing I wanted to raise that, I think there's two things. One is, we've talked about it before, I think a lot of that variation, right, between ours and the town manager finance director's plan could have been avoided if we were having the discussions with everybody at the same time. Because we would have had more than the department manager saying, hey, we need to do this, we would have had a more robust discussion, right, about some of the items. So that's what I hope will happen in the future. We can still choose, right? Like, I hear you, I have, I feel differently than you, and agree to disagree, but I think we would have been closer on some of them if we had had that discussion. The other item that I was asked at the meeting that is worth mentioning to the committee is I was asked if CIPC would be making a presentation at town meeting. And I may have been asked that slightly differently, but my response was no, right? It's ultimately FINCOM's recommendation to town meeting. I didn't specifically answer this question this way, but my opinion, and I want your opinion, is if asked the question, right, if someone got up to the mic and asked the question of what, you know, of CIPC, I could get up to the mic and answer, right, provided I have an answer. But I'm not planning to get up and give a presentation with the article. It's finance committee's article. As you know, when questions come at town meeting, is there anybody here that, and the moderators, is there anybody here that can answer that question? So if it's a specific question, why did the CIPC do whatever? I think it's fair, Kelly, if you're intended to be at town meeting, that we collectively either have no issue or have an issue with Kelly or spine height, have no issue. But also, I don't think we or you should feel compelled to have to get it up and ask a question. Our reports are public documents online. I think they lay out what our positions were. I agree. I think we've done a better job expressing that we're advisory to the town manager for the bylaw. Then I think the finance committee understands exactly where we sit in the pecking order. And
the town manager made that point, I think, while you were meeting with him a little bit emphatically, that we're advisory to him. He presents the budget to them. But they ultimately, and it was even not clear to some of the newer members on the finance committee that the finance committee bylaw provides, because there was talk of changing it. But the finance committee, in fact, still has got the responsibility and authority to present an operating budget and a capital budget. And it may or may not be what town manager presents. And if it's different, they likely, in this case, if the town manager hadn't agreed to make changes, they probably would have presented something in their write-up that says, here's what the town manager recommended, and here's what we're recommending you town meeting, and then explain the differences. But now they don't have to do that. But I, it wouldn't have surprised me if, because the report's available and we were at a lower threshold, not quite as much lower now that they made changes, it wouldn't have surprised me if somebody would get up to town meeting to just ask, why are you, why are you proposing we spend more money than this new committee said we should spend? Right, which I can't answer and won't answer, right, won't get up to answer that question. But if, if there was a factual question asked, right, about either what the differences were and that was, you know, folks weren't able to answer, or if there was a question about why we recommended what we did, as long as you guys are comfortable, I'm comfortable, and I, and I'm attending town meeting, which is not always a given depending on work travel, um, then I'd be comfortable. Yeah, I'm probably going to be there. I don't know about you two or John, but, um, I, I probably wouldn't get up myself. I bet I couldn't, but I probably wouldn't get up and respond to the question, I think, if our chair is present, um, Brad's vice chair. So, you know, if you want to do it too, but I would struggle. I would struggle. All right. Did they elaborate on the why behind it, other than, like, in the spirit of collaboration, like, why they wanted to have? Maybe not a presentation, but is it, did they not understand the report, or? Um, I, I, it was a question from a specific member. I think, I can't speak for why he asked it, but I think he was getting at the point, at the point that thing, right, ultimately, we're not the ones going to town meeting with the number. Finance committee, and the town man, and the town manager, and the finance director are. So, they've got to be able to explain why they're running up. He was like, oh, no, I was going through your report, and I said all these questions, and it'd be so much easier if we should just get together and, like, hash it out, or, well, that wasn't the dialogue then. Yeah, I think, actually, if we're talking about the same member, I think, and maybe there's two questions, but he did ask a specific question of you as to whether you would choose opposition. As a personal matter, would Kelly speak in opposition to the town manager's budget, if that's the budget that FinCon recommended to which you responded? Well, it wasn't quite that question. It was, he asked me if, um, if the town managers, if I personally, not as, I would not say, um, if the town manager's budget was presented, um, as is, would I vote for or against it? Yeah, at town meeting. Um, and I was comfortable answering that in my personal capacity, um, and I said I wouldn't because I thought we were spending, you know, given how many other projects, and the biggest being MWRA, that I thought it was spending too much money at one time. So I'm comfortable answering that, um, for me, not for the rest of you. Well, that was important for him because you mentioned it later, that meeting, and then you mentioned it at the next meeting as well. So I asked the question, but that's still, that's, that's a resident's opinion, not. Yeah, no, I understand. It wasn't like they didn't understand the report, like nothing like that. I was thinking, is there a way part of the conversation later is, you know, talking about the report for next year. So is there, is there some takeaway there about, and I'm hearing no. I don't know. Saying no, I'm hearing a no. Brian answered. It's hard to know uh, of those FinCon members, anyway, how many read the report, how detailed they read it. A particular member that was asking the questions based on some of his comments at a prior meeting, uh, suggested to me that he had read the report, because, uh, several members, because they asked specifically, for example, the town manager and the finance director, uh, did you prioritize, um, capital projects in any way? Mm-hmm. For example, high, medium, low. Yeah. Yeah. Big Tish. Suggest to me that. Yeah. Big Tish, I explained, I was asked that question, like how we ranked it, um, and I said, listen, in a perfect world, we would have liked, or I would have liked a more quantitative ranking method, but given time, right, we used something relatively simplistic. I explained it, it's explained in the report, but it was, um, potentially a bit of a lead, like, person already read the report and wanted it, um, said out loud, which is, is fine. Um, I think the other sticking point, you know, probably between our recommendation and the town manager, uh, finance director's recommendation is exactly what Brian was mentioning earlier, which is this. I had a plan. I'm taking that plan forward a year, and I'm making small adjustments, but I'm not making wholesale reordering of the projects for FY27. And I had expressed, I believe, to FinCom, I don't remember which meeting, right, we felt as a committee, like, we needed to evaluate for ourselves the projects rather than just start with what was in the plan, um, and assume, you know, that's good, tweak up or down. And so you're, you're fundamentally going to have a difference, right, because of that. Hopefully you don't going forward, because you get on the same page about, um, prioritizing what, what takes priority, but I don't think they got an answer. Brian, you correct me if you think I'm wrong. I don't think they got an answer from the finance director or the town manager of any methodology for deciding, um, what goes in or what goes out for, for 27? Uh, no. Um, yeah, the only other thing of import, and I may have just missed it, um, they, I don't believe the FinCom took a vote on a five-year capital plan. They voted on the operating budget, they voted on the capital budget, fiscal 27. They, they began to talk about needing to take a vote a couple meetings earlier on the five-year plan, but realized they really couldn't, because they needed to get responses for fiscal 27, part of the five-year plan. And I don't think they ever came back to it. And under the bylaw of FinCom, they're, they're supposed to present the town meeting a five-year plan. The five-year plan is not voted on by town meeting. It generally has appeared in the finance committee's report. But since I haven't seen the report, I don't know what's going to appear in the report. Um, I, I'm assuming that the finance director, when he, you know, took, took the items out of fiscal 27, he redeployed them wherever he redeployed them. And, and the town manager's recommended five-year plan. But anyway, I just don't think they ever actually voted, uh, on a five-year plan. All right. Well, they, they, I mean, it's a risky move, but they could still vote it before town meeting. It's just, they already went, it, I thought it was going to the printer. Yeah. I mean, they, um, sometimes, sometimes they'll do that. Um, um, I just don't think they had any time left to actually look at four more years worth of capital projects. And so, it may be that they, I'm assuming they were going to go with the town manager's recommended five-year plan with the adjustments to fiscal 27. And I think because of the number of differences between our recommended fiscal 27 and town managers, even though we could do it probably to think about how to go about it, trying to reconcile between the two five-year plans is just, I think it's very convoluted. Yeah, I'm not gonna, so, because things are, you know, we generally agreed on projects. It's just where they appeared and how they were financed. And, um, I just don't know if that's worth, um, a lot of brain power trying to. So I'm gonna wait until, I recommend that we wait until the town meeting lands, um, on, and then, then I will reckon, you know, reconcile it and have our starting point, right, for next year's report, which is, here's what we recommended, here's where the town was, and onto the, you know, okay, now we've got new information. But just how do you, do you think our starting point then becomes what gets approved by town meeting? And, and we may, well, we may change things around again? The thing is, the town doesn't approve the plan. So I don't know, right? The town's only approving FY27. So I think you almost, you just have to say, well, here's what went to town. Here's what the finance committee presented to town meeting. You know, here's what we recommended. Here's what the finance committee recommended to town meeting. And here's the differences. Alternatively, you can be like, all right, here's what we recommended. Rejigger 27, right? Because that's a done deal at that point. And then do the delta on the rest, because 27 doesn't matter. I mean, we can, we can put it in the report how different they were, but it'll have been voted by that point. Yeah. I mean, like the biggest item, I think, again, I think you've circulated the finance director's capital workbook. Yeah. I think he took the 4 million, 5 million of building improvements here. And that were originally slotted in the five-year plan in fiscal 27. And he picked up the elevator and a couple other things. Whereas we, we put the other 4 or 5 million into purgatory in our report. I think he just put them in fiscal 28 as an article funded. Yeah. Yeah. So it kind of achieves the same. Yeah. Same thing. Well, we'll be interested in this, to your point, where do you, where do you start the next process? 27 is for the town boson, but going forward, if for the five-year plan, are we going to go with what we recommended or what? Well, what we recommended won't work because they pulled a bunch of stuff forward into 27. So there, you immediately have to adjust what we recommended. I'm going to have to give that a little more thought and just like some of our other stuff, like to actually put it on paper and see what makes sense. Yeah. I mean, it may be- I'm not going to do that until they've, until it's all set in stone. Sure. It may be- that may be the first good opportunity to see how collaborative we can be by saying, before we get going on next year's process, we really need to establish the starting point. And so our manager, finance director, please come sit with us for meeting, two meetings, whatever it takes to discuss. Yeah. Can we get agreement on- can we get an agreement on- on a five-year plan? Based on the existing projects in this plan before we then layer on whatever changes come along the way. I think that's ideal. Yeah. Oh, it's going to get very confusing. So we're looking for future near-term agenda items, that might be one. And then all members here can judge for themselves as to how collaborative that process. I'm hopeful it'll be a collaborative process. But again, as we talked last week, I don't think that can wait until town meeting. I think we need to- between the joint meeting to talk about maybe a little higher level how the board, the town manager, finance director. I can't remember if you were planning to invite finance committee. They seem to be interested. No, it would be the joint finance committee, us, town manager and- Maybe that's the first meeting at a little higher level. And maybe during that meeting, we get a commitment to then, next thing we do is have the town manager and finance director work with us to establish this reconciliation starting point. Yeah. And then begin to talk about sort of the process and how do we get this done sooner so we can meet the October 15th deadline. Then, oh, by the way, we still have the long-term planning process that we need to start to pencil out of how that's going to go. So anyway, I thought all the issues were kind of aired one way or another. And again, I just want to make sure everybody here has worked hard to understand that they're- I'm not saying the town manager was not appreciative. He said on several occasions, he very much appreciated, but also acknowledged that we got a late start. First year, late start, it just, it was not ideal conditions for anybody. I'm going to chalk it up to that and move on. Okay. All right. Next on the agenda is the review of articles submitted for annual town meeting to assess impact on the capital plan. And so I sent just before forwarded the Holiday road article, which is, what's the other name for that? Sorry. Portrait Lane. Portrait Lane, right? So this is one we talked about a while back, right? That the select board chair had brought to me. It's a 13 plus acre parcel that is under the control of the school committee. But the select board was interested in a, at the time when we talked about it, a study, a feasibility study of what that land might be used for with the possible, right? Intent of, could it be sold? Could it have housing development on it? With the, with the intent of, you know, revenue for the town, right? To deal with some of the budget constraints and, and levy issues we're facing. At the time we discussed it and we agreed, we didn't think it needed to come through this committee because in the policy, at least this is how I recall, in the capital improvement or capital planning policy, the definition of the capital improvement, I'm going to just read it out loud, is capital improvement is a tangible asset or project estimated to cost over $25,000 and to have or extend five or more years of useful life. These include real property acquisitions, construction, and long life capital equipment, major renovations of existing capital items that extend their useful lifespans as distinguished from normal operating expenditures, major improvements to physical infrastructure such as streets and stormwater drains, planning, feasibility studies, and designs for potential capital projects such as new buildings or major additions to existing buildings, which would include equipment needs to furnish such building or addition. Equipment acquisition, placement or refurbishment, including but not limited to vehicles, furnishings, technology, hardware, and software are other items that when combined together make it a capital project, items obtained under long-term capital leases. All purchases of similar items like software, furniture, or radios than expected useful life of five or more years that when aggregated have total costs exceeding $25,000. So the bullet point on that list, right, that sticks out is the planning feasibility studies and designs. But the thing that I, at least personally, when we voted on it or agreed on it was that I hinged on was that was for potential capital projects such as new buildings, additions to existing buildings. And at the time, that wasn't necessarily part of the article. We were talking about the sale of it, right? Not the town building buildings. So we didn't think that it had to come through the capital process. Since that time, the article is broader and includes feasibility for potential school buildings. So... And active and passive recreation. And active and passive recreation. So other, other uses, but the one I get hung up on is, is probably more the school buildings. So does the question I have for, right, does that change our view? And obviously we've already, we've already issued our report. It didn't go through the process for that report. Um, we could, suppose, issue an addendum. Addendum number two. Um, but the question, right, how we do it is probably is secondary to, do we feel that this changes how this should be evaluated? Right? And should it come through, um, should it come through CIPC? Just the 200,000? Yeah. This is the 200,000, right, for the feasibility study? I think it probably does. Change it. Because I mean, it's specifically talking about perhaps a school or, or you said recreation, which seems like it would fall within that. Where would it fall? It doesn't go through us, I guess. Just would it be operating budget as... So we're just required by the bylaw. Yeah. We're required by the bylaw to evaluate. Doesn't mean they can't, doesn't mean they can't put it through, but we're required to evaluate it if it, if it... In theory, anybody presenting some... In theory, something cannot be presented at town meeting for the bylaw. Right. Unless this committee has reviewed it. If it's a capital project that meets definition. Yeah. And so, uh, I believe the select board and the chair of the board was well aware of that because he served on the working group that developed the bylaw. Um, I think understands that the changes that they now have agreed to and voted this past Monday to agree to this, um, revised language. Because it was unclear up until Monday whether they were going to or they were going to stick with their original article that was presented to us three months ago. Um, um, but I think the chair of the support is well aware that it would at a minimum be bad form if, if the select board, um, you know, goes to town meeting with an article that otherwise,
whoever, and I guess this committee is good places others to start, haven't, haven't done a review and I assume made a recommendation one way or the other. And, um, um, um, so, um, I mean, clearly it's changed. I think, I think the reason I, and I think others were comfortable not feeling it was something we needed to review is what Kelly said, because the original thrust had nothing to do with it ultimately being a town owned asset. Um, but, uh, the school committee made it quite clear that they were not prepared to cede control of the property or the process. And, um, I guess if you put that aside and say, well, if we were talking about a new community center, um, and it was $200,000 feasibility study, should that run through this committee? I, I think yes. Yes. Yes. And so to me, a school building or potential passive and active recreation, um, no assurance, that's what it'll turn out to be, right? Because what they're trying to do is assess the site to see what it could accommodate. And it may be able to accommodate all those uses. And then it comes down to the schools determining on their longer range planning, is that a site they're going to need to retain control of because they think they're going to be using it to build a building as a permanent school or a building that serves as a swing space as they build, rebuild other elementary schools. Um, so I, I think that it's something we should now, you know, consider and then take a position on. Uh, and the way I guess we would do that is to report our position, report, have a discussion and then report our position through, uh, probably an addendum, uh, some sort, um, or, or you could have an application of. Yeah. I don't know if it has to be an addendum necessarily. Maybe because then it's all in one place, right? And what I'm afraid of, so I, I happen to agree. I think it's changed to a point where we need to apply on it. But what I'm afraid of is part of the reason, and I was on the working group that created the bylaw, part of the reason for this was to, um, make sure that everything was flowing through the capital process and not getting, you know, thrown in after the fact at the end. Now, I don't think that's the case with this. I think this is just evolved. We were asked three months ago and it's evolved. So I think that's a different story, but I don't want to open up a precedent where, right, lots of things can come in at the end. I think this express, right, for the record, because this was asked, right, early on in the process and has evolved, I think it's acceptable to be discussing it at this point in, in the year, right, versus if somebody had just dreamed this up yesterday. Oh, no. Right? It would be like, no, we're not, we're not going to talk about that. We're not going to opine on it. Um, and, you know, go, go, go to, go to town meeting at your peril. Um, but because it's evolved, I think we should, and then we can, I don't care if it's an addendum or a letter, but it's simple enough to add a page to the back and add yet another revised date on the, you know, front paragraph, um, if we think we need to opine. I guess my question would be based on the description of the agenda item for this discussion, uh, review articles, which is what we're doing. Um, this is the only article that I think has the potential impact on our, on the capital plan. Um, I don't think you're required, although I think there is, there is, there is, there is generic language below the word agenda that all topics may be subject to deliberation and vote. So technically the public's on notice that if we were to choose tonight to address it, um, we could probably do so. And if people were prepared to vote a decision, we could do so. Uh, um, I'm not sure we need to do it tonight. Probably wait for the next meeting. It's also comfortable if we discuss it tonight and write something up and at the next meeting we vote it because I don't, I don't think it's not going in a warrant. It just needs to be done, I think, before they go to town meeting. The other question on the agenda wording is assess its impact on the capital plan. Um, as we just talked about with this building, I think we did the same, we, we did a similar thing with the route 20, uh, capital request that the, uh, EW made, uh, for funds to, uh, address any impacts on the landfill, fill cap at the old group, south route 20 landfill. And I think because we were unclear as to what the exact plan was for the ultimate capital projects, housing, dog park, DPW lay down, bus parking, some combination of all those things. Uh, we put, we put that funding request into. Right. And so I kind of view this the same way. It probably doesn't impact. My opinion doesn't impact directly the five-year capital plan that we recommended because we really don't know ultimately what capital project might come out of it. We're still talking about orchard, right? Yeah. Um, um, um, but that said, um, it still could lead to a capital project. And, um, so I, I guess the question Kelly would be
those items that were in purgatory. We, we, I guess, really other than taking a position that we couldn't take a position and rec, we couldn't recommend them because we didn't have sufficient information to do so. Uh, I guess the question on something like this with a feasibility study,
you know, a point of a feasibility study is to figure out what you can do, right? And then some other process will determine, you know, what, what is going to be pursued. I, I just questioning what, you know, where would this, had we had this information a month ago or two months ago, though? We can get there. I want to ask some clarify questions. So I'm tracking the ball here. So going back to the, the nuance here is that the language in the article says pretty much other than, um, future years would be school recreation and conservation land. All of those items fall within capital planning prerogatives. It's only the revenue producing development that falls outside of that, correct? Based off of the definitions you gave earlier. Yes. Yeah. Active or passive recreation town, you see, uh, including, uh, that's beyond our work here, right? I think that that's generally what generally, generally, it could be a circumstance where the town retains control of the land or ownership of the land. Yeah. I'm just, I think that's what we generally conclude. Okay. So the reason why we're bringing it up again is because the school committee came back and said, no, we don't want to, well, we don't know. We don't know yet. Well, the school committee would not agree to relinquish control. So the question came up. They weren't, they weren't being asked to relinquish control. But they, they didn't want the select board to have sole oversight of doing this whole study when they have interest in the site. In the property. They want to ensure that their interests are properly represented. And so there was discussions over three site board meetings where the site board wasn't quite sure they wanted to do that because their original focus was exactly what Kelly said at the outset, which is what was presented to us. This came up on the site board because it's been sitting there that Bill Whitney would say 70 years, uh, with no use. The town needs new growth. This is the one of the last large parcels that could potentially generate some new growth. That's what really got the select board thinking that, okay, well, we don't know what we don't know. So at least we need to spend some money to see what could be done in that regard. And then school committee said, hey, wait a minute. You know, we know you're not asking for us to agree to relinquish control at this time, but we're talking about in our long-term plan. It's actually mentioned in the long-term plan by the architect, outside architect, that this site may be needed for their long-term plan. So they're just saying, we get why you want to do what you want to do. We have no issue with that. We also have an interest. We want to do this jointly. And the select board up until Monday night was not sure they wanted to do it jointly. They finally relented and said, we'll do it jointly. Versus they were just going to do it on their own. They would do it on their own, not expand it to just take their chances at town meeting. The school committee doesn't get up and say, please vote against this because. Which is personally, my opinion, is a risk to go to town meeting like that because and there have been, I believe, residents in that neighborhood say, why would you spend $200,000 if the school committee has, right, control of the land and they're not on board with this? Why would you even go and spend that money? That may be a waste of money if, right? So it would be about, it's a valid reason for them to expand it. I'm not debating that. I think though, our, hold on, Liz, you have other questions because I want you to ask questions. With this point of the 27 budget or is this going to be a 28 ask? It would be a 27. All right. So it's asking. That's, that's where I want to go next, which is. The five year plan. So I disagree with that. If it's going to go into 27, even if it's $200, 200,000, which isn't huge sums, it is still something which typically means we have to say no to something else or we would maybe say no to something else. So. Well, the, just for full disclosure, their collect board proposed funding source for this is not through borrowing. It's not through free cash. It's not through increase in taxation. It's to use $200,000 that is kicking around in a reserve fund that is leftover from prior sales of town property, the proceeds of which got deposited into a reserve fund. And if the town, meeting approves using those funds, and it's a simple majority vote, those funds can be used. So they've, they've identified in year mark 200,000 being available. And it has to be used for real estate related purposes. That's interesting. So that, so that 200,000 doesn't impact. Won't impact taxation. Tax rate, or it doesn't impact what we did. That said, that said, there's lots of things in the capital budget that don't impact taxation, right? Things that use ambulance funds, things that use capital reserve, or capital stabilization, right? There's, there are many things in there that don't free cash. So, although, right, it's coming from a source that isn't going to impact taxation. If it's capital, right, if it meets the definition of capital, I still think it's part of, it's an article, right? That's part of, becomes part of the capital plan that is being put forth, right? Now, I know we keep articles separate, but it's still a part of the, like, we're asking the town to approve this as our capital, if we deem it's capital. The fact that it's not going to cause taxation may be a reason why we would support it, right? Or not support it. But I think, first question is, is it capital? Second question is... We want to just make you all agree that we think it's capital, as defined by what Kelly read? I think it is. Yes, I think it is. So, sounds like we'll continue then. We have to discuss this. Yeah. So, we think it's capital. Just for clarity, I didn't mean to suggest that because it's not being funded through taxation or borrowing, that that somehow means it's different, right? I agree with Kelly. Right. But what it does mean is we not only need to focus on, do we agree that this is a capital project that we think we would recommend doing now, or bringing to town meeting now, and secondarily, the extent it has a funding source associated with it. Is this particular funding source one that we would have a view on? And the view could be, you know, maybe we think that fund should be used for some other potential purpose other than that. So, I think that's ultimately what we need. Yeah. Because we have to, we've decided we have to discuss it. We have to decide, now that it's been presented, how do we feel about it? And I don't know, I know enough about it just because I've watched several meetings at which this has been discussed. But the rest of you may, the rest of you may not. 27? Pardon me? Can you answer why the urgency of 27? Why it needs to happen in 27 versus? Yeah, the SEC board, just they have a sense of urgency given the budget deficits that are down the road to figure out whether their focus is still, is this capable of supporting a new growth, a revenue-producing option to help reduce the budget deficits over the next decade? That's that's kind of where their focus is. It's kind of ironic then because by adding possible school use, that won't help growth at all and just add millions of dollars to it. Well, if you put a school there. They weren't, they weren't not interested in including the school for that reason. Right, right. Understood. So, um, um, but, but, you know, the analysis, even if, even if it were used for school purpose, part of that analysis also needs to be, I'm sorry, even if it's used for a salary land to the developer for housing, you still need to do an analysis of, well, how many kids do you project that however many real estate units you produce, um, you know, go there. And I think when they started out this discussion, um, I know, and I'm not sure exactly the genesis, but you know, the town had a very successful experience with Oxbow, uh, like a landfill. And there weren't any neighbors to that property other than the ducks and the, uh, and the people don't drive the landfill. Um, um, and so you could put a 220 or 240 unit apartment project there. And that generated a lot of new growth, um, on far less than 13 acres, um, or less than 13 acres. I don't know precisely. And I think it probably may have been some vision by some people that you could put a reasonable size housing project, rental housing project, on 13 acres and generate a pretty good slug of revenue. Um, this project is Orchard Lane and Holly Road or private residential, you know, owned houses. And, uh, immediately pushback was, uh, we're going to build a, you know, who knows how many units department building. Um, one of the site board members has really been selling the notion of, no, we're thinking maybe, uh, uh, conservation cluster, which, uh, means you preserve, uh, the land, you know, eight, eight acres of land around it, and you have a, a more dense footprint, but even then it might be, you know, townhomes, and not that many of them. Kind of like they did on plain road. Now, that's fine. I don't know how much real new tax revenue you produce if that's where you're going, right? But at best, that's kind of where the neighbors might get you that is possibly okay. Not that the neighbors will ultimately control. But, um, but, but then on the other hand, you have, you know, if it's a school, I mean, that obviously is, I mean, I don't know if you all, I think I sent you the slide deck for the long-term planning and the, uh, understand they're inflated, they're inflated, but the, the numbers are staggering. Oh, of what, of what? Did you see them? They're just staggering. It's lowest, the lowest number there was six, I think 674 million dollars. Uh, I said to my wife, that's a billion. They're, uh, they're more than Boston, right? So put it that way. Well, it was because, listen, it was because it was basically the cost of replacing both of them, right? Everything but the high school, because it was what it came down to. So I, and put that aside, right? For, for... But to your point, yeah, I mean, even if it's a, I mean, even if it's a school, there's, there's traffic, uh, implications, uh, going to that neighborhood. Uh, so I'm not saying that, I mean, less to the neighbors, um, they like it just the way it is. And I think, hence, um, active passive recreation got inserted. I don't think that is really high on the radar screen for the SUCC board or the school committee. Actually, the school committee, if they determine it wasn't usable for a school, they might be inclined for a new playing field, for example. And if they control the land, unless SUCC board could convince them to transfer it for development, then it could become, but even an active playing field. If you go up to Oxbow road, um, where we did the Nike site housing, and then part of that project was, uh, another eight, ten acres next to the two acres of housing was to be used for active and passive recreation. So there's a, a path around what is a soccer field now. And even that got a lot of pushback from the neighbors because of the noise element and there's no lights up there. But, you know, at the local field, the lights were a problem for the, so any use other than woods is going to understandably draw opposition from abutters and those in the general neighborhood traffic. Um, so, you know, I don't think, I don't think we're necessarily needing to focus on are any of those projects things that we think would make sense. Um, I think more of the question for me is, um, this, I think, goes to your question. Is this an appropriate request of town meeting at this time? Yeah. Well, I was just trying to, I just, I, I know we talked about it and knowing that I asked this to happen in 27, again, what is it, what's the cliff we're falling off that it needs to happen? Uh, fiscal, from the select board's perspective, if, if they hadn't brought this forward, it wouldn't be in front of town meeting because I don't think the schools... They're not ready yet. ...are far enough along in their process to begin this type of study, nor do they need to, right? I mean, we've been presuming, you know, we got the 200,000 from someone, somebody gave us a quote, maybe, maybe not, um, who's going to do the assessment, leave the lines with... I don't know where the 200,000... So, one, I don't know the 200,000 number. I've been floating around for a while, and it was floating... That's all, that's all that apparently was left in the reserve from... I was going to say, I was going to say, because when I heard you say 50,000 for feasibility, I thought that seems pretty low. No, because Bill, Bill, in the same discussions, Bill Whitney has several times noted that it cost the town 350,000 four or five years ago or more to do similar types of analyses at the old landfill where the Oxbow apartments are now. It was, it was, it was a, it was a more challenging partial because it... Because it was the Nike site. Because it was the Nike site, right? You're talking about... No, no, not, not that actual. Okay. Okay. The apartments by the landfill. Okay. So, there, there were some environmental, uh, uh, uh, cleanup issues of Oxbow. There were some environmental issues that had to be addressed there, and so there, there, there was more cost involved. But yeah, I think the 200 was backed into just because that was what supposedly is left in this particular reserve account. Which means anything about 200 is going to come from... Yes. It'll have to go back to town meeting and have some more money. Yeah, so I... Okay, give my... So, I think you phrased it correctly. The question is, the question for us in evaluating this, right, we've made, we've just, we've agreed, we should, that we need to evaluate it. The next question is, is this a recommended use of these dollars for this project at this time, right? Because that's, that's the ask. It's an article to be spent, 200,000 to be sent, spent in 2027 or after, right? So now, is it an approach, is, is it a recommended use? And I'll, I'll state what my struggles are, right? One, first, I absolutely support and believe that we have to find more ways to get improved. That said, I never like when the amount that we're spending is because that's all we have set aside. I'm, I'm assuming that's where that number came from. Okay. I don't, I don't like, just like we've, we've talked about every other, I'll phrase it, phrase it. We don't have a budget. Let me... Every other project, we, we're trying to hold to the standard of, we've got a reasonable estimate of what this is going to cost. I haven't seen anything that tells me that this is a reasonable estimate of that cost. I can ask that question of our select board liaison, since she's the one who brought it to us. Like, is this what it's going to cost? Or is this what we're willing to spend? Because my concern when we do it based on what we're willing to spend, is that we'll spend that money, not get what we need. It doesn't progress the immediate need, to your question, Liz, of like, it can be used for housing because it's not enough to get, to get us there. And the complication also being, even if it is enough to get us there, unless the answer is, it can be used for the passive recreation, and you can sell it to be market rate housing, but you'll never build a school there or a field there. Then is it all likely the school committee is going to give it up, which then says it's not an immediate need, because if they're not going to give it up, what's the purpose of doing it now? And I don't know that answer until they do the feasibility. So I would like to know, can you actually do the feasibility study you need to do for that amount of money? Because I absolutely do detest when we spend money, almost knowing that we're going to have to spend more money and stretch a project out over. I definitely wouldn't want this to become phase one, because that's what we have the budget for. And then phase two is like, oh, now we're going to, you know, it's going to be the next 200, okay, that we're going to ask for to finalize it. Well, if they, if they had said it's phase one, and there will be phase two, phase two feasibility studies, like have the wherewithal to kind of think that out, right? We need this much to know if it's even viable for any of these things. And then once we know that, we'll figure out what we want, we think we want to use it for, and we'll do phase two of we're going forward down this path. Yeah. I mean, I think just to flesh out a little bit more, I think, and I think it's described in the article. I think Bill was pretty good at describing a laundry list of things that this would be used for, well, maybe it's not a study. Okay, it's not up there. I think it's, and that may be, Brian, but like, how do you know, like, did, does anybody know that this is going to be enough to do the work you want to do? Yeah, I mean, I think it's down in the FinCom write-ups, but it's just, they want to do a site survey, they want to do the perking for septic, although perking for septic depends on what you're going to build, right? Site plan, phase one environmental. You do a phase one environmental that, if, hopefully there's nothing there, it's in the middle of the woods and, you know, who knows, but, you know, as we found at the old highway garage area where they discovered PFAS in the ground, that has just now opened a whole can of worms where, you know, we had to ask for more money and probably going to have to ask for even more money at some point for remediation. So I think better approach would be that this committee would be presented with a detailed budget for what scope of services they think they want to do.
And ideally that would add up to $200,000, because again, as Kelly has made clear over the years, you just don't want to have to keep going back to town meeting for more money, right? Sometimes you can't help it. If phase one discovers something, you might have to spend more money than you anticipated. Or you come forward and say, we only have $200,000. Here's what we'd like to try to accomplish, but we're going to rank order what we're going to do first. And then I think that goes to the question, or your question, do you get, do you find yourself able to complete a site survey, able to complete a phase one, but now you're kind of running low on funds. You're not going to be able to get to a site plan or testing the soils for kind of support foundations for school structures or certain types of housing. And I mean, I tend to agree that the rush on it was because of fiscal deficit scenarios that we're looking at fiscal 28 for 10 years. That said, it's still 10 years worth of those. And personally, even though I've not seen any specific housing proposal from listening to Bill Whitney describe it, that instead of an Alta Oxbow, not that it would have ever been that big, but even a 24 to 30-unit type carbon project, you know, some portion of which would have to be affordable for it to be able to be built there under 40B, that might generate sufficient revenues to make a small dent in what we're looking at. But the more you shrink that down to try to tampen down whatever objections you're getting from the neighbors to, well, maybe we get down to a two to three acre site with conservation land around it, so you can't see it, right? And then maybe we can build six to eight housing units or three or four housing lots. And then you factor in the cost of school-age kids going to the school and how much are we really talking about in terms of the need for immediately dealing with this? So my first little instinct is that this is one of those articles, in spite of how far it's gotten, this is one of those articles that I just don't think is ready for prime time. And again, I don't think the school committee would have pushed it to this town meeting. And I'm not necessarily opposed to evaluating sites such as this. And also I would say the so-called RAP report, which is a real estate asset, Whelan Real Estate Asset, Whelan Real Estate Asset Committee, I think identified this site, largely because it had been there for many years as potential for housing. So that's been recommended by another planning committee in town. And so I think personally, I think it makes sense to do the investigation. I just think it's premature. I think it's at the very least, I don't know how we could recommend something without a budget in front of us, when we're requiring all of the department heads to give us some reasonable sense of where numbers came from. And 200,000 is 200,000.
My view is that the committee needs to be, where possible, consistent in how it approaches what it's doing, no matter who the proposer is. I agree completely. I mean, I agree with Bill Whitney that we absolutely have to have the development in the town. No doubt in my mind about that. I think you also have to have a feasibility study. But as we talked about, there's no detail on that feasibility. So there's no quote, as you said that. So it just seems very mature. I'd also have that in terms of environmental issues. It's also given that land that just my knowledge of whaling a little bit, it could be huge archeological issues in that area too, which would really complicate matters. I would say, I'm just looking at a map, just indigenous populations in the area. That could be, that could be a real issue. So I'm not saying I know anything in particular, but just, or vernal pools, or frogs, or all of which are important to, to, you know, whalen generally, those, those, those come up in lots and lots of whalen projects, just because we have so much wetland right there, and there is so much history. But you're right, it's like in the middle of several neighborhoods, like woods, just in the middle. Yeah, we're putting aside, given its location, you know, 70 years ago, all those houses probably weren't there. 70 years ago, they were. Yeah, yeah, that's no 70, 70 donated to the town in 1956. It says it was acquired, but I thought it was donated. It says it was acquired. But having said that, folks that live in that neighborhood, presumably over the years, have understood that that was a town owned parcel. And this parcel, by the way, I forget the year, but this parcel came to town meeting many years ago, where the select board then were asking the town to approve the transfer to the select board for ultimate disposition for the ultimate development of housing, affordable housing. And it required, as it does now, the school committee to vote to transfer control. And there was a legal issue that apparently got raised and ultimately went to the Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts. And it was raised by a resident who happened to be an attorney. And he won at the Supreme Judicial Court. And therefore, whatever vote town meeting took to approve the transfer for that ultimate use was void. Was it a technicality, or was it like an LB transfer? I can't remember if the school committee hadn't actually voted to transfer. The town couldn't apparently, I think, take its vote. I may be wrong, but it was a very interesting legal issue that required it. Yeah, anyway. We're, we're, I way underestimated the time on this, but I would like to, we can, we can do the, have an official vote at the next meeting, but it sounds like we are leaning towards this is not ready and we would not recommend because it's not ready. I mean, I will ask, in the meantime, I will ask for a budget. And, and if we have new information, we can discuss it at our next meeting. But yeah, absent that information, I don't know how, how we, how I could vote to put that forward. Now, again, and, and, um, anticipating a question may come up on an issue that I raised in an email to the rest of you or copy the rest of you on, which is not on the agenda. So I'm not sure I can really spend a lot of time on it tonight, but you might, might put something on the next agenda, just so ask me about it, but I do, I am here as the school committee's designee. And, um, um, I have, as I think I've stated in past meetings, um, I feel stuck sometimes between, um, whether as their designee, I need to be advocating in this case for the school committee, who is now a co-sponsor of this article, uh, and thereby I should be voting put forward, uh, versus my view just as a member of this committee. And, uh, I, I, I, I've been struggling, I struggle with that on the ball fields. And I'm, I likely will, before I vote, likely struggle with it here. But for now, I would say, well, I don't want, if we could ask, uh, the chair of the sec board, provide us with a budget. Yeah, I will do that. Um, and we can discuss, I, I think we probably should, uh, we can put an agenda item on to discuss that. I just, I'm trying to think about what the agenda item is. Well, I, I mean, we, it, it, you know, it is a, the email that I forwarded copies to you guys is a public document that is identified in the minutes. The first email, the second one will be in the minutes for this meeting, because I forward, I think, forward you by follow-up email to the chair of the school committee. Um, so I suppose it could be talked about, um, while we're analyzing the minutes, but. Okay. It was in the last. Okay. Um, we can. Or, or, or the agenda item could be what, what, you know, role of, um, role of fin comments and school committee appointees to the CIPC. Because I know you have a view, uh, on, on whether you're representing a fin com here or another member. So maybe just combine it into a short agenda item. Um, just because I think it generically is something that is potentially going to come up into the future. And, um, and so maybe that's the way we could get at my ability to answer any specific questions that all of you might have. But in the meantime, I, because I circulated those emails to you, right? Those are public documents and they listed in the minutes. So. Okay. All right. Let's. Okay. Yes, we'll do it at the next. But I'm struggling on this for that reason. Yeah. Well, I think we're, I'm going to end discussion if it's okay with everybody on that tonight. I'll ask to see if we can get more information on a budget and then we can discuss it again, um, at our next meeting. Because like I said, I don't, I think we just have to do something before town meeting. Okay. And it also would give, um, you know, the chair of the select board or Bill Whitney seems to be um, the point person at least gives them the courtesy and opportunity to meet with us. If you put it on front end of the agenda, I'll pick the meeting on Wednesday night. So
I know Bill could do a far better job answering, you know, specific questions that members might have. All right. So next on the agenda was to discuss next steps to advance future CIPC report process, which we talked a little bit about as we were talking about developments with the FinCom. Um, but I think this was really focused on the things that, that we first and foremost, what we put in the report that we wanted to work on. And I asked you each to take a look at that list and think about what you would like to help, uh, volunteer with. And so we had six bullets, um, in the future process improvement target section of the report, right? The first was a new CIP form. Um, volunteer, John.
Actually, I had actually, for some reason, I had started working on that early on. No, no, I'll be glad to. All right. Because I already, I already. She's brazen. Yeah, John.
Uh, by the way, what, do we have deadlines as to when these things came by? Uh, we can talk about it after. I think we probably want to stagger it. Um, but it's, it's what, in the time we have now, the FinCom is still probably working, right? To get wrapped up for town meeting. I will work on arranging that joint meeting, but in the, like the next meeting, I'm hoping we don't have a time other than the holiday road to talk about. So as soon as we've got stuff, I want to just start doing it in these meetings, right? Can I ask a question? Um, and I, I mean, I appreciate your volunteering for that. Um, my sense is from prior meetings that, that of all of us, John seems to have some particular experience of expertise in some of this type of thing. Um, is it possible that for one or more of these, we could assign two people without it? It actually was going to suggest we sign two people because it won't violate open meeting law. And that way for each that involves input, there's a, there's somebody to like give feedback before it comes here. So I think that would be ideal. Um, we're not, we're not creating subcommittees. You gotta be careful with that. No, it's not a subcommittee, right? It's just somebody, because I would have envisioned somebody's going to do it and the other person's going to like, yeah, here's, you know, I edit it a little bit and then come back to the rest of the group, proofread it, whatever. Do you think that's an issue? Um, why don't we, that's something maybe you could ask the town manager to give you guidance on. How is it different though than any other, kind of think of like? Well, when deciding, uh, get some proofreading and you get the report. Right. They're, they're, they're, they're, I don't think we'd be crossing a line if, if it's literally, you know, working on something else, you know, is going to come back. There's just, I have a bunch of stuff I dredged up on this issue when I was on the FinCom, uh, just because I know over the years that I was on the FinCom, the chair and the vice chair would go to working group, working groups together. And I, I was concerned at times that that could be viewed as a subcommittee, right? The schools set up subcommittees for, two-person subcommittees for budgeting, for policy, for something else. If it's, if it's a subcommittee, then it's subject to the open meeting law. You have to meet, you have to keep minutes, et cetera. And the, and the sub board has set up a number of two-person, uh, subcommittees. Uh, and so I just don't want to inadvertently. I mean, this is a limited ask, right? It's, I know, I, everything we're going to talk about here is coming, it's coming back to us as they are in these other committees. Then it's done. I mean, we're talking about as, as it was with these other subcommittee. I'm just suggesting that maybe, maybe it's, if you have to talk to Carol, the chair of the sub board about, um, the article, maybe you just ask her to give you the benefit of her experience, because they, they have had to address this issue. Um, I just want to make sure that we don't inadvertently, um, because certainly John can, if, if Brad, you know, on that item, Brad works on that item, ultimately, whatever we're doing is going to come back in the full committee. We're going to talk about it. John will certainly have the opportunity at that point to weigh in. Uh, I, I think it's more efficient if it's done in advance of it coming in the full committee, but I'd hate for us to have a inadvertent footfall. Um, so I have one caution. Okay. Well, we'll say Brad for now. Yep. All right. Coordination with the department managers. I will take that just because that's for now, because that's part of working with the town manager, finance director, and the, and the department managers to schedule. And what I'd like to do is put together project plan for the, for the year, right, to meet our October deadline and then get everybody's bio. Okay. So the next couple are enhancing member understanding and how we do that. Like that's obviously it's on all of us to, to make sure that we've got better understanding. But I think that this third bullet, I think there's work to be done that I ultimately need from the department managers, the town manager, like we never got a robust. What's the status of everything? When's it expected to be completed? I did express that at the finance committee meeting that, you know, our hope is that at a minimum for the new projects in 2027, that there is a, this is when we expect to complete, right? Start the project, complete the project. So that we can then evaluate, because I got asked the question, like, how did we evaluate? Were we able to evaluate resource capacity? And it's like, no. I said, no, because we're not really sure, right, how much work is left and when it's going to be finished for the existing projects. So I think there's a step here to try and get that information from the town. At a bare minimum, that's the, that's sort of the work that I did on the open capital. Right. That's kind of the basic stuff. The assistant town manager was, my understanding, was assigned for this responsibility. And she very well may have it on her list and just, you know, been dragged on other things. Normally, I would say I'd be happy to do that just because I'm used to dealing with the open capital. But I don't know, Liz, if that's something that you or John, just looking you're down the road. This is you're talking about the report that was in the back of our. Yeah, but expanding, expanding on the, it's, it's the, it's the work that. That was kind of the financial approach to seeing what, what's left in open capital. What Kelly is saying is there's always been this intention of. But that list of items, right? And the open capital project has, is trying to figure out how, how to track that the town, you know, had apparently started using some third party software to try to do that. And then they, I think they, I think they're going a different direction. So how is that being done? Who's doing it right now? I think it's supposed to be the assistant town manager and then sort of working with that person to figure out a process that we could then stay sort of tied in so that when we get to the the budgeting process, um, we have a sense on where they stand on open projects, both financially, but also more importantly, uh, staffing staffs ability to take on more projects. Yeah. Yeah. You put my name down for that one. As I said, I, it's easy for me to do that one, but I just think that that would be a good one. Um, and it'd be helpful to have continuous experience on that one, but, um, so I actually thought John would be well suited to the next one of getting, we all have to understand it better, but I think, sorry, we'll clear, five questions. I can reach out directly. I know Kelly, you've been kind of identifying. Yeah. What I'll do first is what I'll do first is let town manager know that this is what we're planning on working on who's planning on working on and just confirm. Liz should reach out to it's Kelsey, right? This is great. Reach out. System manager. Right. And that way I I've made. Yeah. I made the reach out. And I'll reach out right now though. Yeah. No, I will make the reach out and I want him to say, yes, they're working on the, they're working on the warrants. So yeah, we're not going to do that until after, um, yeah, after the warrant goes to press the next one is, is the one I think. So the, the member understanding of current capital assets, how they're utilized conference of cost to maintain and update needs. So this really comes into getting in knee deep with the onsite insight based on our previous discussions. I think John is the best suited to that, but I'll. Yeah, I think that this point, I think grew out of some of his comments. Yeah. Along the way. I'm willing to volunteer.
Yeah. I'm going to do it. I'm, I'm willing to volunteer, John. Yeah. I was going to say. So as you and, you and John can duke out which of those two projects do you want longer, right? You can, you can have a battle royale on that. Okay. John can have that. Okay. Um, all right. And then, uh, develop and employ a robust quantitative rating system to enhance prioritization of capital projects. I'm happy to volunteer for either of the last few, but that one's fine. I think this one, Brian, because I think the long-term capital plan is the one that's got to sort of be the product of. We need to, we need to do some of the groundwork before we can work on the long-term capital plan. So I'm going to leave that one. I'm unassigned for the moment until we make some progress on the others. And then. Just on back on the other, the one that you assigned to me, or I volunteered for, how many decimal points should I go to?
Depends how you do the rating scaling from one through five, or are you doing one point? However you want to do it. I don't know where that community was I sent you. It was Millis. It was Millis. It was Millis. Two or three decimal points. My former boss, who's also an actuary who did that, I'm pretty sure.
Okay. First, my first boss in my adult life. And do we have a time, I mean, some of these are going to require ongoing. Yeah. Initial work, ongoing work, but do you have a, some targets for when you would like this stuff brought back to the committee for discussion? Preliminary detention, initial consent? I don't yet. So I think that's why I have to do the project plan and then sleep that in. Right. I would, based on the list, I think obviously enhancing our understanding is important, but the one on the list that I absolutely do not want to be without is a new CIP form. Like that's, that's my highest, it's first on the list. That was my highest priority. Um, I just think we could save a lot of time and back and forth and heartache if we're, we're asking the right questions, getting the right framework, um, up front. And that's, Brad, there's, there's, there are examples out there, right? Millis, I think I said. Millis has one. North has a really good one. Yeah. Cause I remember looking at that, uh, very early on, early on in the process. So it shouldn't happen. I know I had something at the wheel too much. I mean, these things that we want to do. And one of my biggest question or concern, I suppose, on that is, uh, in terms of developing a comprehensive form is if it's, if it's too detailed, we're going to get a lot of pushback. I assume from department head saying, I'm not going to fill out one of these forms for every one of my capital. What I would think that's going to be an issue. Yeah, I, I agree with you to some extent. And so, but I'll, let me, my experience is they only have done CIPs for year one, which let's, let's get a, we can get a better form and get year one, use year one. We can tweak it, right? To see how hard it was, how compliant were they? Then can be expand beyond. We can expand beyond year one. But the flip side of it, I understand the, like, we've had this discussion since I started on FinCom, like, oh, that's a lot of effort to do that for five years. I'm like, it's a lot of money. And so I, I understand it's a lot of effort, but it's a lot of money. And I think we would be well served as a town to put a little more effort into the. And the first, certainly the first, first time through to build the full five years is going to be the biggest effort. And then in theory, it's just tweaking it. Um, and then the question is what, you know, what are we using any of that for the year six through 10, um, less, less meaningful, but. And maybe that's what you think about as you're looking at it. Um, is what do I need to know? What's the level of detail I need to know for the project that the town is going to vote on, right? Town's not voting on the rest of the plan. We're going to recommend a plan. Our manager is going to revise it. FinCom is going to revise it, but ultimately it's a plan, but the, the, the town's not actually voting on it. They're just seeing it, right? So what level of detail do we need to do that planning, right? Versus what level of, it is a different level of detail versus what you need. And it's a different level of available information, right? You're doing it this year. You likely have a better estimate what it's going to cost, right? Versus I'm just a roll an estimate forward. So I think we should think about that and maybe it's, Hey, for, for year one, you fill out the form for the years beyond that, uh, you don't have to fill out the form, but here's the criteria for submitting a project. It should be using XYZ estimator, right? For, you know, use, use everybody, use a consistent building, uh, escalator, right? Of cost, whatever. I just think if we lay out some round rules, um, I know that one of the other problems we've had, and we have it now with the field, like we keep moving this field around and we're not changing the price of the field for sure. That field is going to cost something different when we move it, but we just, you know, just shift it all over, right? It's, it's fine. So. And to me, it's both the form and I assume you're not, what we're talking about here is not going to be replicated in the warrant. No, no, no, no. The warrant means some of the information that comes from the current CPI forms, but not. Yeah, very little. Um, but what I kind of good about the millis one is in addition to whatever the form looks like and whatever information they're required to populate on that form, um, is they, they in turn then also required things to be attached to that form. And most specifically that I would be interested in is just give me something that, um, be it an actual quote from a vendor or spreadsheet that says, here's how I calculated the cost. So we, we got something from, I think the fire chief, uh, on the ambulance that showed kind of how he determined contingencies, et cetera. Um, and I'm sure most of them have that information. It's just that they haven't been asked. I think we're going to need, uh, to accompany. And again, if it gets, if it gets too cumbersome, they just won't do it, but, um, you'll need some, uh, reasonably detailed instructions as to how to fill out the form. For instance, for example, attach an estimate or, you know, whatever. Yeah. Yeah. So, yeah, I mean, we can, we can work on the, let's get the content down and then we can work on the format logistics and we'll have AI help us a little bit with, you know, how to, what's the most effective way to put that together. And again, this gets the collaboration part of it. Um, is AI making subject to open meeting law? No. As to the town manager and staff, um, his staff, um, uh, you know, I'm not, it'd be nice to think we could create this form and just ship it out to the department heads and say, here you go. But I think, no, I was just going to have to run. There's feedback. I want, I want the town manager. It's got to be the one probably disseminating as he's historically done. You know, uh, here's, here's the timeframe. Here's what we need from you. And it's all going back to the CIPC, I think, but maybe as a process matter, maybe not. Yeah, I don't, so we send that out. They read the, the, I don't know if it was in the bylaw or the capital planning, um, policy, but it actually says on a form, a form requested by us. So, or maybe it doesn't say request, but it, it directly was like, no, if they have to give what we asked for, I don't want to do it that way. I would like to create it and seek feedback, right? And have whoever Michael Fayette say, well, you know, typically I don't have that, but I have this. Right. I'd like to, I'd like to take their feedback into it. We have, but you don't want to, you can't have a different form for different. No, I, no, no, I just want, I, no, I'm not saying different form for different departments, but I am saying perhaps in the instructions, right? For a particular item, you can give the examples of for buildings. I mean, you know, this, I, I'm making it up. I just, the feedback process. Would it, would it make sense before we get, you know, Brad and then we spend too much time on that and then have a draft of something to say, okay, review this. We have ex officio members, head of the DPW, head of the school of France, um, building facilities. We've got three big ones, right? Should we, on a near-term agenda, simply have them attend the meeting? If this is it? My opinion is we've got to put something in front of them to react to. I, I really, I, I really think we have to have an initial draft. It may not, it's not going to be the perfect draft, but like, I think we've got to put something in front of them. I'll, I'll maybe just do a little, a few more sentences in the minutes. Just hopefully they read the minutes. Um, uh, so that they're on notice that we're starting down this path. Uh, because ultimately, those three are going to be responsible for most of this. Yeah. But then ultimately, yeah, the town manager needs to also buy into this. I would like everybody bought into it so that we're all on the same page of operating right from the same songbook next year. Okay. All right. So you'll plug that into the, um, project. The project plan. Yeah, I'm gonna, I'll make a project plan and then you guys can go find the next meeting. I should have it done to the next meeting. Um, anything else you guys want to discuss there for a moment? Liz, do you feel like you? Well, I, I want to just, I think this is probably not a part of our overarching topic, so we'll save it to the end unless we're at the ends. Uh, I've got a few minutes. Yeah. Uh, yeah, we got a review and vote to approve minutes of March 4th. That's something that's what you said earlier. Are you, it was, it was more just, I was going through and just reviewing the report and trying to educate myself just on where the information's coming from. And I know we've asked for a SharePoint before where we can just put everything, but, you know, I was just looking at, you know, Brian had sent out version, I think it was 16 of our 27 through 31. It didn't necessarily tie to the numbers in here. It was close, but it wasn't like the actual final file that went in here. So it's like, so it was just a consolidated place where we can have everything so we can just be like, oh yeah, that's what I do. I can actually do the math myself and get to the, you know, um, um, my concern is, is that, you know, your year is coming up and with, it's going to go all this information, not that you're not accessible by email, but at the same time, you know, would like to, income doesn't seem to have a problem. But it was just in the, in the, you know, how do you learning how to fish kind of like, okay, like if I felt like if I could get to the same place that you did, but again, I, maybe I don't have the right. I, I will ask. I think I asked a while ago, but I'll ask again, to the extent that's not possible to have a SharePoint. What I can do, because I need to do it anyway, is clean up my car driver of files and create a zip file of sort of everything that we use this year with this final versus all the prior drafts organized so that, so that you guys have a complete record of everything that we have. I mean, it's not to say like, if we're on version 22, then we probably don't need version 15 anymore, right? But at the same time, it's one of those where at a point in time, when we submitted a file at that point in time, again, you could tie back to, I don't even know if it's like updating the report to say, you know, reference these files, so that way you can easily kind of think. Yeah, I have them on, I mean, I have them all saved order, um, and designated. So I can, I can organize, organize and send you a package. And I didn't do 16A and 16B. Wait until you see that I have a file, the court, I have a corresponding file for every file that Brian did. That's how I did the exhibits and checked everything. I could tell because I was like, all right now, this is like, I started like, you know, doing spot checks on certain numbers, and I was like, okay, yeah, this is, this is the pretty version, is what's in here. You have the working version, which is like color-coded, and you know, there's extra lines, and I'm like, oh, yeah. I mean, the easiest way for my stuff would be just to go backwards in the minutes, and whatever, whatever last version shows up in the most recent minutes is the last version. That last version typically will include everything else that occurred, albeit, yeah, some numbers. But other than they're needing to, other than if someone wanted to look at the trail of changes that occurred, you can do if you have all the files, which we all have all the files, and they're in the town system by virtue of them being attached to emails. Yeah. Just starting to go back and find them in your email. Yeah, the only, I mean, what I, what I've been doing, you can do however you do, but I, I take every document that Kelly might send to me by email or if I send to you, and I have folders for each meeting, and so I deposit them in each meeting folder, knowing that we're going to likely talk about them at that meeting. And that, again, if I'm looking for something, I just, I just then go backwards. And I, I do it by topic, so, so all the, all of Brian's files are together, all of Brian Keveny's files are together, all mine are together. But a valid point. It's valid, yeah, it's a valid point. All right, I'll, I added it to my to-do list to create a... If you're a real auditor, you would take the report and you'd, you'd, you'd do cross-references. Yeah. Excel file, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. If, if, if the doc would buy Workiva, I would put the document Workiva and then... You can embed notes. That's better. Yeah. And then append all the attachments on. All right. No, it's just... That was all guys. Yeah, that's a good point. Okay. Any... That was under topics, not reasonably anticipated. Yes. Yeah, so it was not reasonably anticipated. Okay. Minutes, March 4th. Any edits for Brian? I'm here. Thank you, Brian. Brian, do you have edits to your own minutes? You usually do. Not today. Awesome. All right. Can I get a motion to approve the minutes of March 4th? I'll move. And a second. Thank you. All in favor? Aye. Aye.
All right. Any other topics not reasonably anticipated by the chair?
All right. 48 hours prior to posting and setting times in the next meeting. I don't have any other topics. We're going to table... We'll have a discussion about Brian and my roles as select... As, sorry, FinCom and school committee representatives in our next meeting. Okay. And then I just wanted to... I had a note from... So next meeting, going around in circles here. Next meeting is scheduled for April 1st. So April Fool's Day, that seems appropriate. But that is also...
According to my calendar, that's Passover. However, Apple has a tendency of not necessarily doing the date correctly for Jewish holidays. That's what Google says, too. It says the first? Yeah. Wednesday? Sunday on the 1st. Yeah. I'm just shocked because they... Apple used to screw up the Sunday. I wouldn't put it on the right day when it actually started. Okay. So that means I may not be able to do that. Generally speaking, unless there's an urgency to meet, the town generally doesn't schedule meeting. Yeah, I know. So... I don't think we have anything urgent, urgent for that. I don't think we have anything urgent, urgent. Other than talking about this article thing.
Right. Or... But when's town meeting? That's the first week of May. May 6th, I think. So are we okay leaving that? Skipping a meeting and leaving it for the 14th? Yeah. But... Does somebody have access to the town website?
I do. Can you pull it up, too?
And after the 14th, which is it Tuesday? Tuesday the 14th is then the next... Tuesday the 14th. Sorry. Yep. The 14th? Tuesday the 14th is our next meeting, then. It's Tuesday the 14th. Yeah. But on the town website, I wanted someone to go to the calendar and then... Calendar for us or in general. Or... Yeah, town calendar. Yeah. I just... What's the town election date? So April 27th, 8th, 9th, 30th, somewhere around right? Okay. Hold on. It doesn't... The 8th of April. 28th? Yeah. Tuesday, yeah. Tuesday, okay. So we would then be meeting on every two weeks, April 29th, Wednesday. Yep. 630, does that sound right? Yes. We'll skip the first. We'll go ahead on the 14th and then kind of on the 29th, 640. And so between now and the 14th, you'll get that other information, hopefully, from the chair of the select board and... Yeah. And then I did want to tell you, I also had gotten a note from Abby at the town who helped graciously books all our rooms for meetings. Um, I had to move, we were scheduled, if we worked all the way out through November, we were scheduled for the 11th and the 25th of November. Uh, the 11th being Veterans Day and the 25th being the day before Thanksgiving. Um, and so I moved both of those up a week so that they're going to be the 4th and the 18th. Um... Might have to remind me of that. Oh, I know. I'm just saying in case you did what I did and put them on an every two-week repeat on your calendar, you can move those. Um... You didn't do that? I don't... I can't do anything without, like, my color-coded calendar. Okay.
I think that's it.
Yeah, I get it. Does anybody else have anything not reasonably anticipated?
And can I get a motion to adjourn? I move. Second. Thank you for the second. All in favor? Aye. Aye. Passes 4-0. Thank you very much. We're adjourned at 8-24.