March 2, 2026 – Select Board – Video & Transcript
March 2, 2026 - Select Board
Good evening. As the chair of the Select Board, I'm going to call tonight's March 2nd, 2026 meeting of Select Board here at 6 p.m.
This is a hybrid meeting. It is in-person and remote access, and we are physically in the Wayland Town building.
We have also relocated from the traditional Select Board meeting room to the former CLA area,
which has now been renamed Wayland Common.
This meeting will be recorded, and if recorded, it will be made available to the public on Wacombe as soon as possible after the meeting.
The public will be excluded from the executive section that we're having later this evening.
Pursuant Chapter 2 of the Acts of 2025, this meeting will be conducted in person and via remote access in accordance with applicants.
One may watch or participate remotely with the meeting link. It can be found on the Wayland Town calendar.
It can also be found on the Select Board's agenda.
Required by law or allowed by the chair, persons wishing to provide public comment or otherwise participate in the meeting,
they may do so in person or via remote access, and public comment we request would be limited to two minutes per person.
Okay. I'm going to read the agenda, but I do want to indicate that please note the agenda items are approximate.
The items may not be discussed in the order or at the time listed, and all topics are subject to deliberation and roll.
So, in order, announcements, public comment, we're going to make an appointment on the council this evening.
We will have a quick discussion for issuing citations and confirmations.
After that, around 6-20, we will be entering into an executive session where we, I believe, there are no minutes,
so we will just be having two items, which is discuss strategy with respect to the collective bargaining with the AFCIL by Association of Firefighters,
and also conduct strategy session in preparation for negotiations with the non-unit personnel, the town manager.
We anticipate returning to open session, possibly 6-55.
We will have a follow-up discussion and potential vote on the DAX inclusion ballot question, and we will invite attendance for Dr. Abby Surrest and Tom Holder.
At 7-30, we will have a discussion with the potential vote on the Millennium Fund Senate Council changes to the legislation's past last, during the entire meeting.
At 7-45, we will have a discussion with the two, six minutes, and we have submitted a combination, or a total, I should say, of six articles.
At 8-30, we will have a discussion of the articles submitted primarily by the select board, of the town manager's report.
I don't believe there are any minutes to it, and we will have review correspondence, select boards, reports, and concerns.
I have no topics, not easily anticipated by the Chair 48 hours in advance of any,
and I believe we have a revised agenda and a better consent calendar item.
Hopefully, I think it's optimistically, we'll adjourn at about 9-40.
So, joining me in the ceiling in the room is Mr. Whitney, Mr. Fagg, Mr. Levine,
and joining us remotely is Ms. Bransley, myself Carol Martin.
We are also joined by Michael McCall, the town manager, and Kelsey Powers-Berrette, our assistant town manager.
So, with some of that, do we have any announcements from the group?
Last week, I mentioned these plaques that we received from organizations,
and I wanted to just show them to the members here before staff members and the family takes them
and puts them up in the town building.
And again, these recognize Whalen's role in Henry Knox's trip from Diconderoga
to Dorchester Heights in December, January of 1775 and 1777.
Anybody else have any announcements?
No, I don't know.
Michael McCall?
No, okay.
Any public comments?
I have any public comments online.
Yes, there's one person with her hand raised.
It's Alyssa Carter.
Thank you.
Alyssa Carter, I recognize you.
Thank you. Thank you for letting me say something. I am, as you all are, concerned about not being able to get the free no interest loan for the water project. And I'm wondering if we might consider going to a cheaper possible plan because we did pick the most expensive plan. And the other thing is the special town meeting that was held for voting on moving the debt from the Department of Public Works building debt. It was so minimally attended and I just, I think it should be reconsidered if it's possible. I don't know if that's possible, but I don't think we should be moving any other debt into the main, I don't know the terms, you know, but just if we have to pay this debt off, we're going to be paying it off along with the water for a long time and let it end then rather than permanently raise the base for our taxes. Because I know that's something you're going to discuss today. I hope you understand what I'm saying because I'm trying to be articulate on things I'm not very familiar with and trying to be fast. Thank you very much. Anybody else? There's nobody else. There was no more public comment. Mr. Sulton, would you like to join us here? So we are going to interview Mr. Sulton. He has some more information. There was a supplemental packet that came out today. He has applied the position of the constable from the town. He returned in June 3, 2027. He has been, it's a little bit different than on the process here, but he has already been in contact and spoken with Trudy Reed, our town clerk, and I also believe we're the acting police chief, Mr. Huber. I've been in touch with Ms. Reed and with Abigail. So those are the two folks I've been in touch with from your town. Great. So would you like to just, you can leave any address and just give us a brief. Sure. You'd like to add us to your stable. So my name is Jeffrey Sulton. I'm a lifelong greater Boston resident. I've been a Newton resident for 35 years. Actually grew up in Newton as well. I've been a constable for the city of Newton for 27 years. Been reappointed nine times. I've been a constable for the city of Watertown for 12 years. Been reappointed there three times. I'm a Wellesley constable because they have two. They lost one and I filled in the next lot. Last year, Arlington had a vacancy, contacted me. I became a constable for them. And then I spoke to Trudy probably about two months ago. And I know that you didn't have a constable here because I've been doing all sorts of constable business through other constables and attorneys in your town. So I thought it would be prudent that I talk to her and just tell her that I've got a vast experience doing this. I do this full-time. My regular job for 30 years was high-tech sales and I did this on the side. And two years ago when I started to do this full-time, it really became a business and it keeps me plenty busy. So I am fully busy Monday to Friday. I actually just did a tax lien service for another town five minutes from here on the way out. So you guys are close. I do all your apartments there on Route 20. So I do those through special process or since I'm not appointed, they get a special process approval and I've got to do it. So if I get appointed, I will be doing that as a wedding council. Thank you. So thank you very much. Our process is that the board will have questions. Yes. So who wants to start? Sir, thank you for appearing before us today. What does the certification process entail to becoming a constable in the Commonwealth? That's an excellent point because there isn't a specific certification process, but I'll tell you what I know. There's a couple of things because there's that pending legislation now that I'm involved with through some of the constable associations because they're trying to get some hardened facts for all the constables. And there's probably 2,000 in Massachusetts and they're absolutely necessary too because deputy sheriffs can't handle the volume of business. I mean, that's a huge problem. I'm getting a lot of stuff right now as are other constables because deputy sheriffs are so backlogged. They're telling people, we'll get to you two to four weeks out. So there is not a hard and fast certification process at present, but I can tell you for myself, what I did is I took some trainings. I actually worked with a senior Brookline constable for two years and he kind of taught me the ropes. And again, I did some classes and I learned a lot of it is on the job training and the old school stuff. But then what I've done is supplemental training. Plus, we all have to be bonded by the individual cities and towns in which we work. So every town where I'm appointed, I have a bond, a certi bond that I'm responsible to pay every year to cover me if there's any problem. The other thing I've said in my mini bio is in 27 years, I've never had a center of a complaint. And I do a volume of business, a huge volume of business. So I know about one thing that this, the old time when Brookline taught me is he said, whatever you do, do it right. You know, if you make a mistake, it's all bad and I get it. So, you know, it's about integrity. You know, you say what you do. If you make a mistake, fix it, own up to it. But I'm in a network of other constables that they're top-notch folks. And they're also folks that I use, like if I needed to serve stuff outside of the 12 towns that I cover geographically, I'll contact them in the North Shore, the South Shore, the Cape, Worcester. And likewise, I do all sorts of service here, around here for guys that are in Worcester, South Shore, North Shore, Western House, et cetera. So, but like I said, there is legislation that we've actually put to fore with some state reps, and I'm working with State Senator Creamer right now to see if I can get her to endorse this. And if she endorses it, we can then get some hard and fast rules, because I want to see a certification program. Okay? So, we don't have it. It doesn't exist, but I think we'll have one in the next, probably within the next year. Okay, thank you. Bill, Tom? I have a couple questions. How many constables does every town have that you work? It all depends. I can tell you, Newton, when I started 27 years ago, at eight or nine, and I was number nine, I was the young guy. And they were all, you know, the old timers. And over time, I kept going up. I'm now the senior, I'm the chief constable for the city of Newton. There's five constables in Newton, but there's only two active, and I do 9% of the work. Okay? In Watertown, I do 100% of the work, and they have three constables. You know, Wellesley has two, and I do a lot of stuff. So, not only do I do work independently for landlords and attorneys, but I do work for the towns. So, like for Newton or Watertown, I do health and human services. I do tax liens. I do utility bills. You know, after utility bills, I post warrants. I'll actually serve termination letters to employees. Okay? So, I'll actually serve, I do animal control citations for the town of Watertown. I actually deliver them on behalf of that animal control. So, it's a lot of stuff. So, it all varies. Okay? I can tell you that a lot of towns, some towns, a lot of towns are deficient with the number that they should or could have, but it's tough. You've got to get someone who, number one, knows the business, wants to do it, and is good at what they do. So, you know, you guys are a neighboring town. I mean, I'm driving out Route 20, Route 30 all the time. And I'll cover as far as, like, Natick and Framingham, but that's not my court or territory. So, you build flat rate? Yeah, what I do, depending on the town. So, I have, like, a flat rate with Newton. I have a flat rate with Watertown. And they're all different. So, but, yes, the answer is yes. And if I have to do services, like multiple services, if they're required to do in hand, then, you know, you're paying a per service charge. If I have to do services outside of the city, then it's an add-on to that. Thank you. Tom just covered my question, which was how constables in the Commonwealth are compensated. Yeah, so I run all my business. So, I run a 1099. So, I do 1099s. I pay quarterly taxes. I've been doing that for 27 years. So, I'm actually, my wife is going through my taxes with me right now because I have, I get probably 50 1099s with the various people, attorneys and other constables in the towns that I do business with. So, Ann, do you have any questions? I know, I know what constables do. I, I looked you up. So, I know that you worked with, with Newton in Arlington, I believe. Is that right? Okay. That's right. Yep. I got it. I got it. I'm all good. Thank you. Thank you. Here you're going lastest. Questions are all asked. So, I know you're all set. Unless the board has any other comments, I think I'll just take a motion. I move that the select board appoint Jeffrey Silton as a constable in the town of Whalen for a term ending June 30th, 2027. Second. Second. Thank you. I think this is any part of the discussion. We'll call Whalen. Ann? Yes. Doug? Yes. Bill? Yes. Yes. Carol, yes. And the motion passes 5-0. Now, I have to look at somebody, Ms. Kelsey. He gets the letter, like the town clerk. Hmm. They were saying yes. Okay. So, yeah, I'm going to do the speech. Yeah, the process that I know, because I'm about to get a renewal with the town of Wellesley, so what they do is they actually, they do an annual letter. Some do three years, some do two years, five years, one year. Wellesley does one year. So, they just renew it, and then they don't tell me. And I'm like, am I been renewed? Oh, yeah, come and sign. Yeah, you'll get a letter and some information from the town manager's office to come into the town clerk's office and take the oath. Right, and every time I do that, I'm Corey Chex. So, on my renewals, my reappointments, I'm Corey Chex. So, all right. Thank you. Congratulations. Congratulations. Thank you very much. Thank you very much. Appreciate it. Appreciate you coming in personally as well. Thank you. Thank you. All right, so we want to have a quick discussion on the, this is a follow-up discussion, our discussion of the last week on how select what issuing citations and proclamations. We'll, we asked, do you know what I saw in May? I mentioned I did hardly any of this, to put together some, some guidelines, you know, how this would roll out. We, I'll let Jayla speak to it, and it's on page, what, and you can't be in, because I don't have any page now. It's in the regular, it's a page that was clarified. So, these are the basic guidelines that we would have for select board citations and proclamations. So, the citations would be presented as certificates of recognition, which are going to be intended for congratulatory occasions, and they may be presented to Wayland residents and organizations. Right now, we're going to limit them to either Girl Scout Gold Awards or Boy Scout Eagle Awards, and then any outstanding service or deed that's performed by a group or person in Wayland. And then proclamation requests are going to be used to serve and educate and bring awareness to the public on issues related to history, culture, health, public safety, and other important education causes, and those have to be sponsored by an organization and serve a purpose to Wayland residents. And they're not going to be automatically reissued each year. So, for example, if it was National Childhood Cancer Awareness Month, that group would need to come back and re-ask for us to reissue it. The town manager's office is going to review all the requests, and then this content is subject to change based on board approval, and then the select board reserves the right to deny or approve any of those requests. We do ask that those looking for requests submit them at least 15 days prior to the date that they want the citation or proclamation issued on it. Terrific. So, of course, I think it's perfect, but let's do it with a board of things. Does anybody have any comments on this? No. I just, I wasn't sure if, I saw some emails go when I looked recently. I think Doug just sent out an email. But I guess I just need a little more context behind this.
Well, okay, what kind of context? So, it's... I can call it. I have seen these and used primarily for Eagle Scout accomplishments and gold awards for Girl Scouts. That's how I've seen it happen. That's how I've seen them issued in the past from the Select Board's office. So, it won't be new to Aniland? This kind of just maybe codifies the procedure? Correct. Yeah. Because there's no really, like, current procedure for them at the moment. Yeah. Okay. Okay. I presented this and it's going to be the very next thing we're going to talk about. We got asked to, as we do annually, you know, to attend the Girl Scout Gold Award ceremony, which is actually Thursday, I think, this week. And after I accepted and said I would come, I had asked if I would not only speak, but would the Select Board be issuing a citation? So, we talked about this. I'm in the office. And then we talked about it last week briefly. And when the Board asked Adrienne and I went to go and put something together, this kind of a... We don't... We think it's a terrific idea, but we don't want to create, you know, high... A lot of volume type project, which is why we're starting with just a couple items on the list. Okay. Yeah. I mean, I know that they're very involved in town. And so, like, they're part of a lot of ceremonies that we have in general in town. Like, I saw them at the... What was it? Veterans Day events. They're at a ton of the two organizations. I just wasn't sure whether this was somehow connected to their programming or whether this was something that we had been doing and we just wanted to formalize it. So, it sounds like it's the latter. It sounds like the latter to me, too. All right. She hasn't made changes or edits or anything like that. I'm going to go on. So, this is... To follow up on that, this is the one that we're doing our first one already, see? We're not wasting any time. And this one is to, you know, the light. And it talks all about her extraordinarily. She's more happy for the work she's done. And then, it's going to be signed by the select board, second day of March, 2026. And, of course, so I'm going to show this like this so those at home can see it. And then, everybody who's here should... Sorry, if I pass it out now. I think we're going to sign it right now. And then, I'm going to take it with me Thursday. So, everybody okay with that? And these guidelines were placed on the website? Yes, I'm going to place them on the select board page. Great. All right. So, Madam Chair, I think you have to vote to approve the request. You can do too. I got too excited. I need a motion to approve... I move that the select board approve the certificate of recognition, which will be presented to Fiona White for extraordinary leadership for the Wayland Girl Scouts. She is a Wayland High School senior this year from this date. Second. Thank you. Any further discussion? I... Yes. I'm not sure that the select board needs to vote on each citation, correct? Based on these guidelines. It says that the board deserves the right to approve or deny the citation, but there's no... I don't see a requirement in the guidelines that a motion be allowed. Because you're saying it's just a sense of the board and nobody ejects it because we're just approving. Exactly. Which I think may make it easier for the select board office staff to handle this without a form of vote. Each citation. Each citation. Just a suggestion. Having said that, I'm not voting, but I'm just saying I don't think we need to, based on this guideline. How would we, how would we know if the sense of the board was to approve or deny? I think the staff would let us know through communications. The staff would let us know about the citations, but I think the only one, I think your approval is assumed unless somebody speaks up and has an objection. The board reserves the right to approve or deny any citational proclamation request. That's the sentence. Would you like it to be awarded? Well, I want to hear from Bill. Do you think a vote would be important? No. I think we should. It's unclear to me whether the board ought to go to adopt the policy or just say, this is the sense of the board. And does that then go into the handbook? The policy. The policy. Let's go on the panel page. I do think we should vote on the policy. Okay. So since all, you heard me say this, all topics are subject to deliberation of vote, why don't we have a motion to approve the policy? But we'll move this one first. All right. So does it have to withdraw? No, no. Are we voting this one now? Oh, we're back to this. Okay, good. Thank you. It's on the agenda.
I said to myself, what could go on tonight? I really am on the money. Is she guessing? You are? All righty. I'm going to start with Mr. Levine. Some of the mean votes, yeah. Thank you, sir. Mr. Whitney. Yes. Mr. Fred. Yes. Ms. Breslin. Yes. And Ms. Martin says yes. So that is for the citation, right? And then do we would like to take a vote on the policy? Happy to move that this board vote to approve the select board's citation, the confirmation guidelines set forth and act act second. Thank you. And now do I do your service? Any further discussion? Okay, great. Let's go to the vote. Tom. Yes. Doug. Yes. Bill. Yes. Ann. Yes. And Carol. Yes. Okay, great. Thank you, Madam Chair. I'm sorry. Can I make up another mistake? No, no. I just want some clarification. So how do we let the board know? So coming out of the discussion we just had, how does the board, how do we let the board know? Because you just said you don't want to take votes on it. Well, no. I think he's saying it's optional, but I think at this point you can bring them in for votes and it seems if it's onerous that this policy may not require it. That's just where I was confused because I was like, well, what do I do now? Yeah. I think it would go to the chair because if it's scheduled on the agenda. Right. And then they'll look at that and if they have questions, most likely the chair would have a consult on it with yourself, with Jaylen or Michael, and then we'll go from there, put her on the agenda, and then the board will make the decision. Okay. Over the years, we often see emails that come in the office requesting this. Right. We kind of get noticed that. Mm. Excuse.
Okay. I'm going to, um, we all set them here? Yeah. Just sign it later, maybe. Maybe we have to fix something.
We'll go to executive session, and I'm going to have to find out if the visit has disappeared. I need a motion. I'll leave it to the SEC. Nope. One second, please. Mm-hmm.
I'll be able to see if something disappeared, so I got it turned right away to them. Okay. I'm going to let the Senate board enter into executive session. Um, since there are no minutes tonight, I don't have to include that, but, oh. Since there's no minutes down, I don't have to include that in the executive session. Uh, that is true. Okay. Okay. So, okay. Move the select board enter into executive session. Pursuant to Massachusetts General Laws, Chapter 30A, Section 21A3, to discuss strategy when we select the collective bargaining with the International Association of Firefighters, AFL-CIO, World Bill 1978. Pursuant to Massachusetts General Laws, Chapter 30A, Section 21A2, to conduct strategy sessions in preparation for negotiations with non-union personnel, and in this case, it's the town manager. Is there a second to the motion to enter into executive session? Thank you. The chair declares that a public discussion on these matters may have a detrimental effect on the litigating, negotiating, or bargaining position of the town. Can we all come vote, please? Anne? Anne? Yes. Doug? Yes. Tom? Yes. Bill? Yes. And Carol? Yes. That's five zero. The chair invites attendance by Michael McConnell, town manager, Kelsey Powers-Burlett, assistant town manager, and Jalen Braddock, the management analyst and communications coordinator, and is Ms. Ryan joining us? Yes. And Kate Ryan, our human resource director. The committee will rejoin the public meeting for an executive session, and the meeting will return to open session in approximately 35 minutes.
You got it.
Okay. So I'm going to return the select board to open session at 6.59.
On our agenda, we're going to have a follow-up discussion with a potential vote on the debt exclusion ballot question, and we invite Abby Charest, and Tony Anthony and Tom Miller, the director of the department, who wants to join us on the ARLine.
Yes. Hi, Tom. Evening. Good evening. Hi, Tom. How are you? So the question that we have, is Abby joining us? Yes, she's on. Okay, we've got to find her. We lost her.
I'm here. I'm just getting my video. We can't see you. Oh, there you are. Hi. So, Abby, before we start, I want to say welcome, but do you know all the board members, and maybe we should introduce ourselves? I don't think I do. Okay. So, evening, Abby. I'm Bill Worthy. Yeah. I'm Tom. Good evening. Hi, Tom. Hi, Abby. I'm Doug Levine. Hi, Doug. And the screen above you or next to you is Ms. Brensley, and I'm Caroline. Nice to meet you. Thank you. Nice to meet you. Nice to meet you. Nice to meet you. Well, theoretically.
So, I think last week, the Finance Committee came to the select one and made a presentation about the wastewater capital project at the high school. I don't think there's anybody in town that isn't aware that this is an issue that needs to be resolved, so I don't think that's where we're at. I think the question is, they have asked us to consider funding this through debt exclusion versus perhaps living debt or some other means, and I think the board had a few questions about the project, I think somewhat was prompted, and let the board speak for themselves, but it was somewhat prompted by the fact that there was some discussion of perhaps should we or shouldn't we combine this with the failed project at the high school. I will say the Finance Committee did vote not to support that project with debt exclusion, so that's not really the full question, but I think there seems to be some questions, so we thought we'd ask you to come and join us and see if we can.
They voted not to the fields, by Jeff, the fields, the fields. So, we are only considering the debt exclusion question for the wastewater project, and I know that you put it on, and I'm saying this for those who watch our meetings, this is about 30 pages of documents in our path, starting on page seven, so let me get a sense of the board how we want to start. Do we want to just ask questions, or would we like a brief overview first? Nice to have a short overview. Okay, well then, would you like to give us a brief overview of how this project's going to work? Sure. So, I think we know that there's been an issue for a while at the high school. I think that the initial thoughts were to bring that original treatment plant back online. That original cost estimate to bring it online was about $5.5 million, and that's about when I started here at Wayland. In reviewing that plan, I was concerned that we would see the same types of problems going forward if we just reconstructed the same type of treatment plant. So, we've worked with MassDEP and the Board of Health to reduce the design flows in such a way that we could do a Title V system, and that Title V system would be the $2 million project. So, that includes a little bit of demo in the existing building. It includes a new treatment process and one of the tanks that is existing, and then an expansion of the leach fields. So, the design is smaller, but the leach fields will have to be larger, and that's because the original treatment plant treated to a higher level. So, they were able to do smaller leach fields, and now that we'll be doing a Title V system, we'll be building larger leach fields out there.
Thank you. I have a couple of questions on the design development budget that's included in the packet. I take it that the design is advanced through design development, but not contract documents as yet. That's correct. Okay. A $300,000 contingency at 35% strikes me as a big number.
What's your opinion?
Sorry. No, that's fine. I don't think it is 35. Is that what the math is? Hold on. Yes. Okay. I thought I had reduced the contingency there. We're actually on page 44 of the packet now.
Says 300 on the contingency, but that to me is not 35%. I couldn't figure out the 8% either. Right. Okay. So, 35% is actually 525,000. So, that was a text error in that box there. I think the 300 is, is that 20 or 25? I think there was a, it was a, it was 35, it was 35 initially. And then when we just went to 90%, we reduced it. I think that we didn't change the actual text. That box doesn't, that 35% doesn't link in the math to the other ones. It's just a text box, but let me.
You engineers are good with math. Tell me what the percentage. That's, it's now 20%. So, we reduced it from 35 to 20. Do you expect that number to come down when you get the, the working drawings done or the bid price? What, that is to say, what's a reasonable contingency to carry that you've got a contract amount? I think going forward at this point, I would still stick with the 20%. You're going to want to continue to carry contingency through the project. And with bid pricing these days, it's harder and harder to actually estimate real construction costs. So, my assumption at this point would be to carry the 20%. Even after you get a, or you'd stick with the 300 irrespective, pretty much of what the contract amount is. That's correct. I'm surprised that you wouldn't reduce the 300, once you have a firm price. Well, I'm an engineer, not a finance person. So, I, I would like more contingency all the time.
But... You're also the owner. The owner doesn't want to spend more money than they have to. No, I hear you. But I, I think at this point, we just, we wouldn't want to get to a place where we ended up bidding the project and we wouldn't be able to proceed with the wastewater project without the contingency. And the eight, and the 130,000, again, I don't know what percentage that represents. That, is that to complete the working drawings and for construction administration? Yes. The construction administration is the first 130 and the second 130 is, as you said, the design and getting the bid documents out. We have the design pretty much done. The bid documents and then the construction-faived services. So, that is just 130 percent. It's roughly that 0.5 million. That's right. Yeah. Sorry. There used to be a line in here that had design, but we don't have that there anymore because we're, we're pretty much done with the design. How much is the total engineering cost?
Tom, do you remember what that original budget was for the high school design?
Yeah. I'm not sure what the actual contract value was. We had, we had upwards of $375,000 that was available to us for the design effort, but I, I'm not certain of what the actual contract value was for the design. I think there is, um, like 60 to $70,000 left, which I think was part of the reason we were talking about the ball fields, that using that money to incorporate the ball fields as well. Yeah. Yeah. Again, it, it, it strikes me as high as 130, but 8% at this stage. Well, it's going to be more interesting because somewhere along the line today, I think somebody was asking questions of Mr. Holder and he graciously, or maybe not so graciously included me. And I saw that the common estimate of the time bond is not on a 2.6 million for the fields.
This is the wastewater, right? Yeah. And the one thing that, you know, Les has learned as, as we've gone through, you know, projects all through these years is that, you know, we have healthy contingencies. We have healthy, uh, um, you know, figures assigned to construction oversight and permitting and all of that. And that's because, you know, we have to go into town meeting, um, asking for what we believe, uh, the potential costs could be. Um, there was a question posed that, uh, you know, once we get the bid prices, could we come down? That may be a possibility, but on May 4th, we're likely going to be going to be in a position where we're going to request what you see on that, uh, that estimate breakdown.
I have a couple of questions. Um,
would the municipal building committee be involved in this project?
They generally have not been involved, um, with process treatment types of projects. Uh, the actual, um, work that's done on the facility is nominal. Uh, so this generally would not be something that they would be assigned or would participate in.
The next question is the, um, the design of the leach field suggests it's fairly well contained. Um, do you see any concerns, um, Abigail, about PFAS making its way, um, subtly direction towards the happy other one? I don't. Um, one, it's been, you know, designed with DEP and board of health, um, in terms of the PFAS we've had to, um, well, that's for the night. We haven't been required to increase the treatment of the title five. It's called an advanced title five system. So allow for a higher level of treatment, but then, um, you know, going into the, um, being in the zone to any PFAS will be removed at the new treatment plan, the new water treatment plan. So one last question, um, will there be communication with Michael Thayer on products being used at the high school that can, that could contribute to PFAS, um, uh, pollution, I'll call it? Um, uh, is there an education that, that, that has happened or will happen? Um, I haven't been involved with that process. I do know that Michael Thayer's department and the, uh, sustainability chair have been working on, um, green supplies and, and, and that green process, but that's not something that I have been a part of. I'm just going to say that I really hope there is, and this is the reason you've, you've made this design and you just referred to an enhanced, uh, design to, um, address PFAS, but, um, there really should be a good communication between you, uh, you and, and, and Michael Thayer's office, so that, and the high school staff, so that the custodians understand what products are appropriate and what aren't, so we can maximize the use of that new plant, um. Go ahead, Mr. McCollish. Because of this ongoing conversation, I've mentioned it to my department heads, and last July, I sent out a directive on, uh, PFAS containing materials, purchase, use, and disposal, and then further sent out the, uh, guidance from the Massachusetts Operational Service Division, to avoid purchasing of PFAS contaminated products, products. And I have recently, when this discussion came up, double-checked Mr. Fay and said that we are not, we are, for the best of his knowledge, we're no longer buying anything, but we're trying to go through our stock to make sure there's nothing still on the shelves that would contain it. Right. So, thank you. Um, I have some information, I think the kid adds a bit, Tom's second point, so I'm going to hop in with the board's indulgence here. Um, a long time ago, I was the liaison, the Finance Committee liaison for the school committee, when the decision was made that we had to start pumping, make sure it was it. And the, what has, we all have septic systems in our house, and we all know you have to treat them nicely, for lack of better words. And the real issue was that there were, and I'm not fingerprinting, but it was just deemed that, uh, cleaning materials, um, and, um, some items in the food service area were going down the system. So, I'm not so sure the education really needs to start with the PFAS, but I think it really should include what products can and cannot go down there. Um, because that is what I, I was led to believe at the time as to what caused our system to over miss out, but maybe not. I don't think so. You know, that's what you put back. It doesn't help, but that wasn't really. Okay. That's what they said at the time. All right. There were a lot of reasons. I don't believe them. All right.
Abby, can you help me, um, understand? So we've been pumping now for a number of years, and I was raising this question last week with the Finance Committee at, at, at a cost of about $120,000 per year, but I was informed that that's just not a long-term solution because of certain requirements by the DEP. Can you help me understand those? Yes. So DEP regulates whether or not you have a treatment plan or you have the Title V and what you can do in terms of, um, putting, where you put your wastewater. And a tight tank like we have is, is, is not allowed. Sometimes in an emergency situation like we've had, they will, um, work with you and they've been very generous in working with us on this. Um, but it's not a solution that's, um, allowed through MassGEP. So have they been pushing us to stop pumping and transporting for several years? Or how is this coming to a head right now? They have been, but we have also been working with them. So, um, um, while they've been pushing, we've been allowed to, um, go through design with them. They know we, our timeline with the Board of Health, um, they've been very, uh, generous with us because we've been showing the forward movement. Um, but I think we need to continue that forward movement to get that generosity. Thank you. Diane, do you have any questions? Um, no, I get it. But, um, I would say this, um, because Tom brought up a really important, you know, thought, which is, we don't want any future contamination. And the only thing that I would throw out there for everybody is that one of the best ways to really, um, regulate and make sure that you don't have some sort of leakage that you don't expect besides reducing and making sure that you're prudent in what supplies you use or what you allow through the infiltration system is ongoing testing of the site. It's the easiest way to know if you have a leak. So just something to keep in mind. That's not really, um, Abigail's space as an engineer, but it's something that you can do periodically just around the area to just double check. Hey, there, there hasn't been something that we're not aware of or some spreading of a chemical that we didn't even realize was going to contribute. It's something that, um, you're actually seeing with PFAS spreading so much with really unknown causes. Um, it's, it's something you're seeing, uh, people do a lot more in the private industry than the public, but it's, it's really not that expensive to do periodically. We have to do regular testing as a part of the system anyways, because it is, um, like called it an advanced system or they called an IA system. Uh, so it will be tested. Uh, PFAS isn't on that list, but if we wanted to test PFAS at that time, it would be feasible. So, uh, Tom, a good example of that is you're seeing this happen a lot on the Cape. And so when you look at IA systems, they're becoming almost required in a lot of towns for this very reason, because we can't even find the source. We're like, we don't know how it happened. The IA systems just allow like just a, a much cleaner system in general. So, um, that's it.
I just have to say, I really appreciate your, your good creative work, uh, Abigail on this project. You're saving time, a lot of money and, uh, we really appreciate it. Well, thank you. Sorry, two words out of my mouth, but it was my turn. I'm sorry. I can see I'm the only one that's sort of off tonight. Um, so I actually had a conversation, a couple of conversations with everyone. I think she first started coming up with all these creative ideas and, you know, looking at capacity and flow. And she had a number of ideas, maybe even to expand the system so that it would have equal flow for 12 months to be in, which is the nine months, because it's not really good for the system. And I was just wondering if you're still working on just real quickly on that, or this is going to be the extent of the system and it's not going to have any other capacity. Yeah. So as you mentioned, there were several issues with the previous treatment plant. One of them was what we call varied flows. So we'd have a fairly steady flow in the school year. And then all of a sudden it was almost zero in the summertime. And because of the type of treatment process that we had there, it was very difficult to, um, maintain it over the summer months. So one of the ideas was to add in some houses or some flows so that we could get a higher level of flow and make that treatment plant run better. Um, and at a more continuous wastewater flow, we looked at, um, including some of the neighbors, um, extending it to Dudley Ponds possibly. Uh, but the quantity of money that it would take to be able to do that, um, when that treatment plant was always very small. So we could only add a few houses to it. Um, it wasn't going to give us quite as much flow as we would have wanted to keep it as steady. Uh, and the cost wasn't very feasible. We did even consider, um, expanding the treatment plant, but because it is in the zone two, um, we, we didn't want to put more wastewater, um, in that area. Thank you. So Mr. Holder, do you want to add anything? No, I think we've covered, uh, much of what, uh, was interested in tonight. Great. Great. Thank you. So what doesn't have any other questions? Go ahead, Mr. Uh, to your last point, Abigail, was the pool considered as a source of, um, um, water or whatever, uh, to keep it busy during the summer months? It was one of, it was one of the options. Uh, it wasn't considered, um, as part of like the town project. It would be separate from that. Uh, but because of the cost to upgrade the treatment plan, it just, it wouldn't have made financial sense. Thank you. So thank you very much. I think we will. So the question before us actually is, you know, obviously I don't think there's anyone who's not thinking we should, this project should go forward. I don't think the question really becomes the fundances and how we fund this. Is it something we can fund, um, um, I'm going to just say through levy debt or another system? Or, um, do we feel we have to support this through, you know, a debt exclusion for the ballot and the question on the, on the ballot? Um, so does anybody want to start? I don't know where they're going. Oh, other recommendations from the town manager or the finance committee on this? So the finance committee of course recommended that we do damage exclusion. That was the presentation they gave us last week. Um, they did mention that I thought on policy that we put into place recently said a minimum is five million. Well, we worked on those policies quite a bit. Um, I, I, I think I asked that question. I was corrected by the chair who said that, uh, any project that finally ended over should be subject to debt exclusion, but there's nothing to, uh, prevent the town from issuing debt for a small arm. There isn't. However, the prevailing philosophy of this, and I think this is going to be one of the things that I personally want to recommend we look at establishing policy and it's clearer next year is the purpose of debt exclusion is to not make it an extension of the capital plan or we can't put these, you know, three projects and we'll have a debt exclusion. It's for the big one offs kind of thing, which is why we have a, when, when Louise was here, she said pass, establish a threshold for project of, uh, two and a half percent of the general fund budget or the operating budget so that, you know, you had a guideline. And at that time it was what, two and a half million. Then it would, it was about three, three and a half million. Now when we did the policies, we went with five million. Is that the correct number? I don't know, but I'm saying the concept is rather than to use it as an additional funding source for the annual operating budget. So that's, um, one thought. So would you like to address us too? Right. To, per the board's policy, to initiate the process, I made a request to the board to consider putting both projects an aggregate of 4.5 million dollars for excluded debt. Now, so far the finance committee has rendered opinion. They have to give one back to the board and they're in favor of that. They're still having some ongoing discussions. I think it's again on their next agenda. Um, I don't know, you know, the vote isn't in on what they want to do with the, uh, the varsity baseball series. But what you have before you is just the high school waste water and the concern here and the reason it was brought forward in, in the capital budget was because mass DEP is not, um, in favor of us continuing. Um, so that's, that's how it got here. And speaking with Mr. Keveney, we worked to get the DPW project out of levy debt. And if we are looking at a potential override or a multi-year override, if it was in levy debt, that would be factored into that number as well. So we recommended excluded debt for both projects. So far, only half of what we've asked for has come back to you. So I really still maintain the respectful requests for excluded debt. I'd like to just divorce this to just the wastewater because the recommendation or the request before us is the wastewater. We have this problem about mingling mentioned things on the line. It took us nine, a couple of my meetings to be really clear on what we were being able to do. So at the moment, my news committee has not voted to support or not support the video project. So I think we need to stick with the request reports and, you know, essentially my opinion is that how would we fund this? What are the options to fund this project? And the pros and the cons of how it could be funded? And I'm looking at you all at the level and still speak besides me. What are the options besides that exclusion?
It's that or it's levy debt, right? It's that or it's basically budgeting the debts or the annual debt services. Or I suppose there's capital stabilization. That could be an option. Do we know what the annual debt service would be? I think Mr. Keveney said roughly $200,000. I'm just mindful of the fact that we spent $120,000 in additional interest to advance the bans. We went to the voters, a handful of voters, as it turned out for the reclassification of the debt on the DPW facility. I'm unclear where we ended up or where it looks as if we're going to end up a piece of the state aid and health care.
What kind of excess levy we would have this year.
All of which is to try to get to the question of, you know, do we have the ability to absorb $200,000 in debt service if that worked? So I really hope, excuse me, I believe that there are some numbers have been, there's some recent numbers and I'm going to ask, we're still a contract provider for those next week that will answer that question when we are already. I think they're now remaining on under the budget numbers. And I think other than if we get additional state aid, I think we're pretty close to what we would have for additional levy. But right now, you're projecting about one, two, Michael?
It was slightly over a million. I don't have the exact number because late last week, I just have to preface. No, no, I'm holding it to 100%. It's about a million.
One of the issues was, although West Suburban came in with a favorable rate, when we were doing the calculations, we realized we had a lot of people, let's say, younger employees that went from 25 to 26 came off their parents' health plan. So we had some unanticipated people jumping on insurance, which ate into some of the savings we were projecting when we first got the number about two weeks ago from West Suburban, as we were actually putting it into the budget and doing projections. So the increase in the health insurance was projected to be 12%. It came in around eight, but now with these additional members onto our system, it's about 10. So we still have a little cushion.
One of the other options, it's an option. I don't think the one we would pursue, but we could fund it with big cash, which I'm sure that's not an option we do. But when you say, what are the options? So I'm sort of thinking that we need a little more information about this maybe by next week. Does that sound about right? And we can look at, you know, in reality and use living. And for Carole, you're uncomfortable with a debt exclusion. Can you talk a little bit about that? Yeah, I mean, I think that we have a lot of obligations coming down from the town. I think we are really concerned. And first of all, let me say this. Major kudos to Michael and the staff. We have avoided the operating override for a couple of years. But in the end, it is somewhat inevitable because our costs go up. You know, our personnel costs continue to increase our health insurance increases. I haven't said we've got this pension obligation now. And so I would not want to jeopardize an operating override. And they are harder to get through than just a debt exclusion. So we went to the voters in December and now we're going to go again in April. And they're small monies that we're asking for. And then we're going to ask for a larger one. I'm not, I'm a little concerned that we might jeopardize the big one which we need. But I also think that we should be able to fund this. Michael, can you look at this? We just reclassified the debt deeply down in the building. And although it's 700 in this budget, we're going to pay that debt for another half a dozen or so years. So it's 700 this year, 600 next year, making the numbers up here. You know, 500 hours we continue to pay the debt off. It's $200,000 to know the debt service. So either we take it out of free cash, or we use it out of the Andrews levy. Or the other thing that just started while we were sitting here is there's going to be $120,000 freed up in pumping costs. So it's like if you use $100,000, there's half the cost of the debt service right there. So those are some of my issues. I think I would like to see more than just borrow the money, you know, go and ask for more money. I would like to see some creative thoughts of how we do it, I guess. Does that answer your question? So that goes back to my original question, though, is what other options would there be of? What do you mean by creative options? What are you envision? Well, like the one I just said, maybe we take the $100,000 out of the operating budget that we're using for pumping, plus $100,000 for me, the free cash, or maybe we do the cap stabilization fund, and it's funded. You know, then the next year, we've got to come up with the $200,000, but maybe it comes out of that additional levy that's coming forth. I just think we we possibly have a couple options. I'd like to explore that first before I vote. That's just me.
Carol, are you also talking about the $100,000 a year that we are spending to pump? Yes. Is that the $100,000? Okay. So time is on the essence. Well, we need to vote this in the next week or two, so we can talk about this again next week. And it is debt exclusion, and I think it's important for us to have it in a couple meetings, and so the public knows we are talking about it, rather than just, okay, here it is, and we voted in, and it shows up at the ballot. Mr. McCall. Just to move to Faye's point, state law, we have to give the court 35 days notice for ballot question. I think based on your meeting schedule, that drop-dead date would be the 23rd of March. I think your meeting on the 16th, you probably best bet is to target no later than the 16th, and have that others fall back. That's my plan. Maybe we could have Mr. Kevin join us next week to discuss the options. Mr. Kevin is joining us to speak to us about the enterprise article, so I can just expand his repertoire. Maybe the finance committee might have voted on the other item finance. Yeah, there has been some correspondence back and forth about the other item, and the reason that was brought forth initially was there might be some cost savings, but it appears that may not in fact be 100% the case. So I don't know what the finance committee is going to do. See, that is not good for us. So is everybody comfortable with that plan? Anne, you're comfortable with that idea? Just maybe Mr. Kevin, you come in and provide us with a couple ways to fund this? Yes. Okay. Thank you, everybody. Thank you, Mr. Holman. Thank you, Mr. Red. All right. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Okay, so now we have all one. Item number eight, and the page is 44, I think, of the packet. This is a discussion with a potential both on the Millennial Fund Senate Council changes to legislation. What has happened here? Bill, do you want to speak to us? Sure. Sure. Thank you. So you'll all recall that the meeting authorizes the Blackboard to file this act that would have the effect of recognizing the Millennial Fund as a trust fund. And the Home Rule petition was filed. It made its way through the House. This approved. It went to the Senate. The Senate Council has raised a couple of questions and proposed certain changes, which are indicated in the red line, which is included in the packet, beginning on page 47. First is some capital letters. It should be lowercase. Lowercase should be capital. Another... Daniel Rowling, Mr. Whitney. Excuse me. Are there any comments to be corrected? Please. That's unkind. You're disturbing the comedy of the board here. I'm into punctuation. I'm into punctuation. I'm into punctuation. I'm into punctuation. Another comment was the draft talked about the trust fund commissioners having the ability to invest the funds. The Senate Council pointed out that the trust fund commissioners are not bonded, whereas the town treasurer is. And so they're suggesting that change in which change the commissioners, the library board agrees. A third suggestion was that there be a cap placed on the amount of a donation that could be made. The library trustees have looked at that, and they prefer not to have a cap on that. They point out that if someone were to give a generous gift of a whole bunch of additions that might exceed whatever the cap is established. So they...their request of this board is to provide the markup as it's indicated, which does not accede to the suggestion of the Senate Council that there be a cap placed on the amount of donations which could be accepted. Will that create a problem with the legislative process in the Senate? It could potentially create a problem. And we have Mr. Murray connect to the Senate Council directly to talk it through. They have... We have had quite a few conversations. I'm sorry. No, please. I've spoken with... I saw Ms. Janess on. I've met with her. I met with Senator Eldridge, his staff, David Emmers, and Attorney Michael D'Artensio from KB Law, and we've been going back and forth.
Senate Council has informed Senator Eldridge's office, unless the board gives some guidance specifically on the first two items. The likelihood of this moving forward is, you know, they want to hear that we're...the Division of Local Services wants somebody bonded. So those...to minimize changes and the change about the treasurer, they need to hear from that. The piece that's left open for debate is the cap. And speaking to Ms. Janess, you know, town meeting didn't vote a cap. And our own gift policy doesn't have a cap. So it would stand to reason that the town supported this...this act without a cap. We would like to go forward and see what happens. But basically, we've been told nothing will happen until the board at least weighs in. So that...that's why you have this memo and they're asking for some guidance from the town. Wait...wait one second, so I'm just waiting to finish with your explanation, David. Well, just that the library trustees have considered this question. They understand that...not to accede to the request might contain a delay, but they are prepared to go forward on that basis. Yes. So, for one of the questions I want to say, I also heard from the chair and the library trustees, and that was the impression of God. But I did also kind of the mystery call to provide us with that information that should...I just want to go through the process here. If we support the library trustees want to do it and it goes forward and it is not accepted by by the Senate, Senate Council. Again, I want to look at my paper. There is a...there is a possibility then we may have to, as Stu Martin would say, we're back and go outside at the beginning, because then we will have to submit the process through. So, I'm going to open up to questions, but I do think we probably at one thing should have as a follow-up, is maybe Bill reminds that we do support it that this is what could happen before, in case they want to change that. I think they've been deep and meaningful discussions about this and this is their position. Okay, I'm going to go with the questions. Anne?
I got to think that one through a little bit. I mean, I just want it to be successful. I don't want this to be something that lingers on unnecessarily, just because there's a cap issue. So, the question becomes is if we establish a cap, then we're establishing a cap that's not been discussed. Exactly. So, best than that should be a problem. So, do you have any other questions? No, I just want to...I want to hear you guys and think it through. I have this memo to go on. I don't know what the substance of the conversations are, but this memo doesn't seem like there are real lines in the sand being drawn. So, I'm wondering if at this stage, if we don't support a cap, but it seems they are then drawing the line on the sand, it's some sort of cap where this is not going forward, we could revisit that. I'm assuming if at this point we're going forward without the cap, it's not going to derail the whole process just based on the language used in the memo, but you could confirm that with you. So, if I may not just...I don't think, you know, we don't have a crystal ball. We can't tell it. Senate Council is going to do on the cap issue. I know I've had conversations with Attorney Deer Tenziel, and we've tried to float and talk with the library trustees, Ms. Jeunesse in particular, about whether we could try and meet them halfway and pick a cap or pick a cap that could be amended by bylaw by a town meeting.
The opinion or the comments that we got back with consistent with Mr. Whitney that they're pretty firm and they believe that they shouldn't have a cap. And every indication I've had is they're willing to go forward on that. But town council and our council and center council wants something back from the board supporting that decision. Because I think the act itself, and it's probably in the memo, says that the select board can make some changes. So they're okay with that first group of changes. And it has to be grammatical changes, as well as the treasurer being bonded, being the one who makes the money. It's just that they're not. So I support the position of the library trustees who want to take this risk and become fine with that, because I know this is something that's important to them. My question to you, to our manager, is what is the public policy thinking of the legislature relative to their desire for a cap? Where does that come from? I don't have a very good answer. Mr. Emmers on Senator Eldridge's staff is the one who's been kind of relaying information back and forth. And I think they're just, it's rather arbitrary. In my opinion, I mean, we don't have any cap on our gift policy here in town. And there isn't one under the statute that allows them to accept gifts. I think they're just concerned that large gifts could come in and who would be handling it. But this board accepts gifts of all major, you know, denominations, cash, and we can take tangible items as well. So, but as previously pointed out, if it runs into a stalemate over the cap and the session of the buyers, then you have to refile legislation. So, like, that's all I have. All right. So, you know, I've accidentally sent Doug that I wanted him to send Mr. Stomson. So, the wrong time. So, we're looking for the other person. So, I'll wait a second here. So, I think we need a motion here. Is there any more further discussion or questions on this? Being none, I would move that the select board, uh, authorize the, uh, filing, I suppose, followed by town council or the, the filing of, uh, an amended act, uh, an amendment to the, uh, act authorizing the town of Wayland to establish a Millennium Fund of the Wayland Free Public Library, uh, well, uh, substantially in accordance with the markup that's included in the package. Second. Thank you. I'm going to wait one minute. Um, I was concerned that somebody might be in the select board meeting room and they were spurring wasn't very good and students should go. I would like to wait for Ms. Delivine to come back. If I could wait one minute. I think he's going to stop. That's what I thought I was doing.
You want to roll today. Why don't we have any discussion then? Well, I have any discussion and saying, you know, we should, we should, regardless of all, if you would communicate with trustees and then explain to them that we are concerned that, um, but where were, where was, we hope that we have, want to make sure that was where it was.
All right. So Doug, we have, thank you. I'm sorry. I didn't mean to send you. Um, so we had a motion on the floor to sit with, uh, the changes, you know, the changes as presented and we have a second. So now we have any questions. Okay. Um, we are going to reach out to live trustees and make them aware that we're aware of the risk, but we're willing to support as Tom's decision. All right. So the roll call hold, um, Mr. Whitney. Yes. Mr. Beck. Yes. Mr. President. Yes. And there's one. So yes, motion passes five zero. So the next item is, um, we're going to talk, we're going to start now, but fairly lengthy discussion of I tell me, I can tell them to town meeting articles and I'd like to start. We have, um, we have six potential articles that we have not, uh, had an opportunity to review yet. I need to start in the public. Um, 53 is why, why, um, we were going to start with Ms. Carter. I don't think Ms. Carter is here or not. She was online previously. I was told she was, she was here in public comment online. Sorry. Yeah. And she spoke to me today and I did explain which door to come in and it wasn't in the other room right now. Okay. Um, if you want to matter chair, I'll even go to the big room down there and just double chair, but she was not wondering. There was no real meetings down there, were there? No. Well, there, no, there was, there was a meeting in the large room. It's probably over by now, but there was till the second, third. Screen. Clear. Well, I mean, while they're checking out, I just want to make a note, um, in the article list that we have, I believe article C should be crossed off. You've got something you decided last. No, no, no, no. We wrote that. We, and that's still alive. It's still alive. No, and we, we're going to need that article. Okay. Um, but you know what? Let me do that instead then. So to Mr. Fair's point, we are going to, um, for the article, so we just need to vote to not insert things. We have been notified in the color store. It's by the board that they, uh, with time and article, um, PP ground mount and solar photovoltaic installations. Um, we did also insert that, so I think we need to take another vote on that. We say withdraw, right? I mean, sorry. Yeah. And then we've already voted to insert them. So now we're voting again. We want to withdraw. What do you want to do? We're redoing the vote to insert. Is that what you want to do? I think that what the point is, you can vote to, uh, so we're taking another vote to insert. Is that what we've done before? Wait, wait, uh, reconsideration? No. We can vote to pull it. We can say pull. You have to. We're going to say withdraw because the program board. Well, that's it. Don't put the withdraw on a steroid. Okay. Okay. Second. I think I said to me. All right. What would you like to do? No. The motion of the made. Secondary. It's going to pop up. Is it up? When you're ready and happy to vote. Okay. Ann? Yes. Todd? Yes. Todd? Yes. Bill? Yes. Bill? Yes. Oh, yes. So we also are not, the, um, the, um, finance director has advised me, and we're not going to be needing article AA transferred funds to fund the fire 26 budget. Now, we did not insert this. So I don't believe we have to do anything, but we can vote. We can vote to insert and then not support the insertion here. So why don't we have a motion on that? Anything? Anything? I move that the board vote to insert article AA into the law. Second. Okay. Any further discussion? Um, so Bill? No. No. Todd? No. Doug? No. Eric? No. And Carol? No. So it's 050. Correct? No. And then, um, Do you agree with article Y manager there? Yes. I'm going to talk about article Y as well. Well, I made my motion last week. I was fairly certain I made a motion to insert and support article Y, but the, um, minutes reflected otherwise. So I will be proven to vote, um, tonight to insert and support article Y. Yeah. We did support the original shows on the chart. It says, but just, but the closed gap is in there. In other words, I prefer it. Just the procedure of purposes might be inserted and supported. Otherwise, you can't support an article that isn't inserted, right? That might be an article, right? It would separate. It doesn't go anywhere. But it would make me. It would make you happy to do that? Yeah. I'll circle the motion.
Any further discussion? All right. Let's have a vote. This is to insert and support article Y. And Bill? Yes. And Tom? Yes. Doug? Yes. Claire? Yes. And Carol? Yes. I do want to make a note on article Y that in the supplemental package, there is some correspondence regarding this. Did you want to just address that real quickly, Tom? Sure. So in the supplemental, um, packet, there is a letter signed by the owner of, the new owner of Whaling Town Center. Basically, by giving it a sense to the town, securing a permanent easement and temporary easements as needed relative to the completion of the rail trail on its property. And there it's going to be right after we come in. If there are any questions on that, I think this is that, that's not going to be an exhibit. That's just for the board. Should we reference that in the right? Or else, because we already said they would not bring it to us, right? Awesome. Yeah. So just in time, we're going to have a seat. Chris, were you in the wrong place? Oh, there's a lot. Oh, you're in the back. This one is right in the back. So we're going to write down Ms. Carter, who's going to speak to us about her two articles, which are Y, Y, and Z, Z. That will be followed by Mr. Stotts, who's going to discuss his full particular article, which is TT, UU, TV, and WW. So if you would just join us, and then state your name and your address, and then state your name and your address. Thank you. Thank you. Lisa Carter. And then Jeremy Bridge Road. So we're going to start with article YY. And as I explained to you on the phone, what we are talking about here is just what's in the article. This is what's going forward to the town meeting. We're not looking at any other emails or documents or anything like that, because we're just focusing on the 150 words in the background information. This is just the process. Thank you. What was yours? Is this the background information, or should I tell you what's in the article? You have a few minutes to talk about it, but essentially what your article is about. Okay. Yeah. Basically, I'm looking to make Sherman Bridge Road safer because of speeding traffic and people being unaware or not paying attention to the fact that the roads are the only place that many people can walk. And it's also a popular place for cycling. You get people from out of town coming and cycling there. You go across the bridge. And people certainly at my end of the road are afraid to use the road because it is a little twisty. It changes height. It's a designated scenic route. So there's stone walls right at the road. Sometimes people have a very short driveway around a curb. They have to back out. And people are speeding up that part of the road. And basically we get a lot of traffic because people from other towns are using the bridge. So they either come onto the bridge by using Sherman Bridge Road and then get off on the other side or they come on the other side and get off here. And I don't mean people from Sudbury. I mean people and trucks from all different places who are trying to bypass basically 117 or Route 20 or 27, whatever. And there was... So the bridge was replaced around 1992. With the replacement, it was widened. There was no weight limit established. But there was previously a weight limit for 2.5 tons, I think it was. And those signs remained up from the late 60s until the late 90s. And unfortunately, around the same time that a collapse, partial collapse of a bridge in Concord on 117, closed 117, which was at the very end of 1999, that's just about the time Sudbury had petitioned MassDOT, can we get rid of the 2.5 time weight limit? So our buses that go from Lincoln to Sudbury and Sudbury to Lincoln could use the bridge because we can't use 117 anymore. And so they did a so-so evaluation of the bridge, said we don't need to give it a weight limit. And so ever since then, a lot of traffic has been using the bridge because they discovered it because of that problem on 117, which was pretty much closed for like nine years. I mean, I think for a while they put up a temporary bridge. But in the time when people were looking for an alternative route, particularly trucks, 117 is a truck route, they found out about the bridge. So over time, there is a lot of commuters and trucks. And, you know, personally, they're lined up in front of my house at 19 all the way to Concord Road. But that's okay. I mean, it's not great. But they speed, you know, they speed and then they slow down. And there's very few speed limit signs. And there's a big difference in the danger to a human being hit by 20 mile an hour and 30 mile an hour. And but even at 20 mile an hour, if someone's hit, they can die. They're the risk of death and or serious injury, especially the elderly people in my neighborhood. And there's one woman who is afraid. She told me every day she has to go across the street because her mailbox is across the street. She's terrified of the traffic because it's a little bendy and it's close to Concord Road to 126. So as soon as they come on that road, they're just speeding. And then there are two speed limit signs, one around one Sherman Bridge Road and then another one around 10 on the other side of the road, both facing Concord Road for the people coming on to Concord Road. You don't find one for the people coming from the other direction heading towards 126 from the bridge until you get down the hill to the stop sign, which is past the new preservation land. And and then I think there's one on the other side of the maybe on the left. But there's there. There's almost nothing in the direction towards 126. So the problem is and then if you go into Lincoln Road on the other side of the bridge, that road is so weird. You know, it's 25 right before the bridge. Then it becomes 20. Then it becomes 35 for about 40 feet or maybe 40 yards. And then it becomes 30 again. And so it's all over the place. And it's a big, long road. Sherman Bridge is only, you know, point seven point six point five miles long and narrow. And people used to walk more. I mean, I'm told I'm in there, but they said we used to walk on the road and, you know, we're afraid. And it shouldn't be that we don't have a place for sidewalks. So I wanted to make it safer by getting better signage up, by letting people, you know, slowing it down a little bit, making the road perhaps a designated safety zone, whatever. But at least 20 miles an hour and some signs about the vulnerable road users, because people know more or less you're supposed to give cyclists four feet of space. They might do three, four, but they don't know that about people walking and or someone in a wheelchair or an animal for that matter. And so I think we need a little education about that if, you know, which might be good to get it out out there. But if we slow the road down and we have more signs and maybe put a, I would love to have a crosswalk. There's one crosswalk. It's down at, what's the name of that road? Alport. Yeah, Alpine and the other things. There's one crosswalk. The crosswalk goes to the center island. And there's no crosswalk off the center island. I'd just like to have a crosswalk at my end where there's a lot of fast traffic. And so that this woman could cross the road to get her mail or there is a bus, actually a school bus. It stops twice a day in front of my house. Actually, for the guys across the street, it starts in front of their house. Somehow it manages to do it on the same side of the road, picking up and dropping off. So right now they don't need to switch sides. Sorry. Yeah. So if we had, you know, at least a walk across this road, somewhere near that area, then people could go back and forth. That's where it gets twisty. You've got the the stone walls and the retaining stuff. And the site lines are very poor up there. So, you know, that was why I threw in the crosswalk there. So that's right. So now what we do is we open them up to the board for questions. And we'll start over. I want to thank you. Oh, sorry. Let's just start with Anne. And did you have any questions? Yeah. So have you kind of presented some of this information and this idea to neighbors of yours? And what was some of the feedback that you received, both good and bad? Yeah. I presented it to all the people who signed. And everyone I talked to was like, yeah, we need to slow people down. Some people talked about having speed bumps, but I was thinking in terms of keeping it as cheap as possible for the town so that we could maybe actually get things, you know, signs up and slow down. So that was pretty much it. There was one guy. I don't even know if he lives here, but he was in one Sherman Bridge Road and he said he would hate it if it was 20 miles an hour. He doesn't even like 25 miles an hour. He doesn't even like 25 miles an hour. I don't know where he goes. He's right at Concord Road. And he's young. And I imagine there would be some issues with people who are really young, but everyone I talked to, you know, loved the idea. And that, you know, it's a problem, especially because of the bridge being used as a cutthroat that has been going on now since, you know, 2000, year 2000, and it's just gotten worse and worse. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Tom, do you have any questions still? So my question is to the town manager. This is the town manager. My understanding is that when asked, and I may be wrong on this, that the police chief will examine a roadway or an intersection and make a judgment based on the professional chart that he has in establishing speed limits. Is that accurate? Is that some process that might be appropriate to this particular bridge? Well, I think there's a couple of things. The chief could give guidance. The select court has the authority to set certain speed limits in different places. They can adopt 25 mile an hour speed limit in certain streets on the town. And there are things called speed zones that can be adopted in about 20 mile an hour. So there, there are avenues that would allow the board to do it. I think it was one of them. I can't speak to all of them. I have had a little bit of this dialogue with some of the folks there. You probably want to look, there is some history. There's been some traffic counts. They put up the radar. So they have some history of showing the works out there, which you'd want to take into consideration if the chief's opinion. I mean, this particular issue of speed seems appropriate outside of the town meeting, if it can be achieved between now and then, if it's appropriate. The other consideration, of course, is the town celebrating. They may think it should be 30 mile an hour. And that gets tricky. Just to clarify, this is only for Sherman Bridge Road. This is just increasing .
I think you just answered my question, which is, Does this pertain to the entirety of Sherman Bridge Road or specifically to the bridge? No, the road. This is for the road. Certainly. Thank you. Certainly. So Doug, of course, is the liaison. Actually, Doug has stepped up and is doing all six of these because they're kind of the same topic. So anyway, do you have any questions? Yeah, so a couple of questions, Lisa. Thank you for coming in tonight. So related to what Tom was saying, have you had conversations either with the previous chief or the acting chief in the past about reducing the speed limit? Because over the past 10 years, I have worked with various residents who are concerned about their area of town, and they ended up sitting down with one of our previous chiefs to discuss that. And then our recommendation would be made from the chief. So I'd love to hear if any feedback came in from the police. Well, actually, before I moved here in 2023, there was some speed studies done, and the chief had written that he thought that something needs to be done, that it's pretty bad. And then he did, I went and talked to the town manager actually in last September, I think, and he reached out to the police chief about this issue. Unfortunately, the address that the police chief was given was wrong. He was given 18 instead of 19, which is my house. So he did a brief speed study. It wasn't great. It was like a Monday through a Friday through a Monday. And it started after the rush hour on the Fridays. We only got the morning rush hour on Monday. But I mean, that shows this was three years ago, you said? No, that was last. That was this year? Yes. In the fall of 2025. September, October of last year. Okay. And but unfortunately, he never got it back to me. And I just found out recently that the town manager had done anything at all. I didn't know that he reached out to him. But by the time I found out, he had already retired. So I didn't get to sit down with him. And I I'd ask, you know, what should I do and to talk to the police? And he said he'd reach out and he did. But I didn't know that because there was an address glitch. Oh, OK. So then next question I have is for Bill and Tom or Carol, if you have any previous memory of any similar type article ever coming before town meeting, because similar to me, it strikes me that this isn't the business of town meeting that we have a statute that sets the select board as the traffic commission in town and the board of public works as the traffic calming measure making those determinations. That's the board that handles that, which is spelled out in the statute. So I'm just wondering if you either you remember any precedent for something like this. I do not. I do not. I do not. And then the question for Michael is, did we hear anything about this from the town council? I mean, if just the appropriateness of town meeting with this article. So a couple of things. I call the speed zone. It's a safety zone. The ones that are 20 miles an hour. Are you sure, Mr. Stotz? Um, let me just address it because I see the hands raised. This is not a forum. This is. So when you'll have your friend to come up and speak then. Thank you. Um, so town council has met with the petitioners and reviewed them. I've had some informal discussions on, um, with, um, town council. Some of these, as was noted, um, there may be mechanisms that the town, the select board can, uh, achieve the same results. And so this, you know, this would be a vote essentially of the, the town body endorsing the petitioner, but, um, may not, I don't want to say have teeth, but it would still be a coming up on this board to take action. And, you know, you may decide not to vote on something. So it would be giving the board. That's what you learned from town council? Well. Like, would we be bound to take this action? Well, there are statutes that give you the authority to do it. So I think some of these, you know, I'll have to get a further opinion, but I think, you know, some of them would be giving the board direction, but some may not have the ability to bind you because there's statutes that also give you certain authorities. Right. So the answer. So that's to another question. But, um, Ms. Carter? Yep. Okay. Um, I, I'm all set because I read all the emails and information. So why don't you talk to us about articles? See, I do want to say one thing on, um, these petitioner articles. I noticed that everyone is new to this process. So the part that says article description is actually going to be the legal language that you vote on it. I mean, that is actually, that section is actually done by town council. And then I noticed in some of these, there's some, like, additional information besides what would be the actual language we vote on. So if there's anything in there, in that first article description that you feel you really need to get into the warrant, you might need to incorporate it into your 150 words. Because our background information belongs to the petitioner. That's the 150 words. And the finance committee comments belong, obviously, to the finance committee. It's like what both belongs to us. And as we go along through the process, each one fills in their own section. So, um, if there's anything in that talk that you feel should be, because she will just say, if the town will vote to, for example, a staff should want to be a woman, an ad signage or something. I don't know what she would write. I'm not the council, but I'm just saying they don't spit out. Okay. Same thing on this article. Look at it all run as easy. Make sure if there's anything in there you want in your 15 words, you might want to put it down. So you're essentially saying the second paragraph. We did. This is this. Right here. This is her. But the legal language, supposedly, would just be this. Because that first paragraph is background. And this is what, what is the action you're asking for town meeting to vote on. The action that's being asked for town meeting is what we vote on. If you look at any of these rules, it just says, for example, authorize the select board to blah, blah, blah. Do you follow that, Elisa? Yeah. Um, if she and I worked on these. You and town council? Yeah. Well, she read them. They don't work on them. They give you advices that I need, like, to clarify my phrase here. They, they look at it to make sure it's not, it's the right word. They're pregnant. Right. So that we don't get to town meeting and someone stands up and says. Right. You can't put your article through. And then it's very frustrating. But they don't, we don't provide legal, um, assistance for these. No, she, I mean, she tried to help me with the language. I'm just telling you that when it comes out, I don't want you to be disappointed when it comes out. And you'll say, what happened to someone? This is just me giving you that piece of advice. Because that first paragraph is kind of providing background information versus the, the action language that town meeting votes on. If you go look at your. So it gives you an opportunity to look at that and see if you want to make some changes too. I mean, technically you're supposed to have your 150 words in, but whatever. Okay. Okay. Let's talk about article ZZ, which is being heavy commercial vehicles on Sherman Bridge Road. And you have the board. Okay. So I gave you some of the background already. Um, this, uh, because the bridge became a cut through when, um, that, uh, bridge on 117 needed to be repaired. Um, it had a partial collapse in, um, like December, 1999. Um, our bridge has become known and the roads, our road, uh, Sherman Bridge Road, as well as Lincoln Road on the other side have increasingly, um, been used as, um, almost a major thoroughfare for anybody who knows about it for, um, commuting to avoid the routes. 27, 126, 117, a designated truck route, 120, Route 2, uh, whatever they can, you know. And, um, part of the, I think the condition that we have bridge in now is because of all that, those vehicles and, um, the heavy vehicles in particular. And, um, and these vehicles also speed, um, and they are scary because they're even bigger than a car. And this is a narrow road with no sidewalks. Certainly at my end, there's a few sidewalks here and there at the very other end, but not consistently. And it's not possible to have them, um, because of, um, either on one side it drops suddenly down onto a house or the other side there's a preservation forest. So, um, I was hoping that we could, um, prohibit heavy commercial vehicles on the road. What that would do is it would cut down on, um, the trucks that use the bridge to, um, avoid, and our roads to avoid, um, going on regular roads where they belong and reduce the traffic and make it safer for the vulnerable road users there, including the wildlife and the elderly people, the children. This would not bar school buses, safety, you know, fire trucks and that kind of stuff. Um, any repairs that are being done or anybody going into that neighborhood where it would just, um, keep the heavy vehicles from coming along Sherman Bridge Road, which where everybody lives pretty close together. And, um, in that area, I mean, it reminds me of Watham. It's almost city-like the way people are, um, crunched together from like 126 till you get to the, to my house basically. Um, and, um, it would be a lot safer and there would be the nice, uh, side thing that it would, you know, stop the heavy vehicles also from going over the bridge because they couldn't get there on our road. And they couldn't get off the bridge if they came from the other direction. So it's a little trickier because we'd have to put up some signage, um, to make sure that they know that there's women. Okay. So we'll open it to questions from the board. Um, Mr. So have you had conversations with the town of Sudbury as to whether they would support a ban on commercial traffic on Sherman Bridge Road on, in the town of Sudbury? Have I spoken with the town of Sudbury? No. No. I haven't because I'm not directly dealing with them. I'm just talking about my road. I guess my concern is that if a commercial vehicle comes from Sudbury and goes to over the bridge into Wayland, is that an enforceable restriction? Well, they can certainly go Route 20 or, uh, 27 to 117. Right. And down 126. But if someone goes down, a truck goes down Sherman Bridge Road from Sudbury, goes into Wayland, if they're ticketed, would they sue the town because they couldn't turn around on the bridge? That's why we have to put the signs up for a while. And I recommend it in the background information, putting it up at particular intersections and well in advance. And then we would also put it in papers notices. Right. Um, probably in a, um, uh, paper that would be, uh, would go to a greater area than just one town. Um, so I live in near a designated scenic road and there, uh, is considerable truck traffic there. So I can imagine lots of people wanting to have no commercial vehicles on roads in front of their houses. Um, so I'm trying to understand what is particular about this case that warrants this action versus anyone else, frankly, who's concerned about commercial traffic on their, on the street. Um, well, um, one is the fact that it is a very small road. It's, you know, 0.7 miles tops. And it goes directly to a bridge that, um, was expanded in 1992 so that it could have two-way traffic. You wouldn't have to stop at either side. Um, and that was discovered by commuters and truckers who were trying to avoid taking the other roads. So, um, it, it is particularly vulnerable and has suffered, um, because of that since, um, 1999. And, um, in that time that people have lived here, the older people, you know, they've seen it change and they're the ones who have become more and more frightened and need to be protected. And we have new laws now, uh, the vulnerable youth road users, um, laws from 2023, which, um, would further protect people. There, there isn't a lot of room for, like, if a truck wants to move out of the way, I mean, they don't, you couldn't have two big trucks passing each other. You know? It's, there's not enough room. So. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Yes. Mr. Yes, so Mike has shown with this article that this seems kind of vague. In other words, it seems to me if your goal is to ban heavy commercial vehicles, there really could be a clear delineation as to not the type of commercial vehicle, not its, what state it's from, not what company has on its side, but, but weight. Please. Right. And, um, now we, if you ride around New England, you see roads that say no heavy trucks. It doesn't have weight limits, it says no heavy trucks. And, and the local police enforce that to the best of their ability. Um, because another proposed article of a warrant that does have a specific weight limit, and we'll be discussing that this evening. And my main concern with this article, it just isn't specific enough and cause too much speculation. And, um, that's my concern. Thank you. Um, Ann? Um, I, I slightly ditto every, what everybody said when I looked at this, um, I had to educate myself a little bit because I wasn't really sure whether your concern was the weight of the vehicles or whether it was the space, uh, on the road. And I think, um, both, uh, Bill and Tom kind of said the same thing I was feeling, which is there's a heavy commercial vehicle exclusions act, which, uh, talks more about the weight and kind of fits some of what you were saying. But I, I don't know if that, I don't know if that would actually work, especially if part of the road is on in Sudbury. And then I looked up that the, um, specific law that you mentioned in 2023, and it really was not designed for this type of scenario. Um, I don't know if you've researched it too much, but when you look into it, it's like this, the, if you looked, if you just took it as, Hey, a specific width of road now qualifies to ban, uh, commercial vehicles because there's not enough room, you would be dealing with a lot of streets in Wayland. And that's not really what it was designed to do. Um, so I, I think you're, you're taking that law and you're expanding it significantly. Into all right. That's not in this article. Yes, it is. It says users, the vulnerable road users law in 2023. Uh, excuse me. Um, so I'm just concerned that you're expanding that, um, that use of that law, um, in this article. Do you have any other questions or comments? Yeah. Thank you. Mr. Alisa, just, we can talk about this offline at some point this week as well. I am fortunate to be liaison to this article. I have similar concerns to what Mr. Fay outlined. And that's specifically how you enforce the exceptions. If it's not just a straight weight man of two and a half tons, say for these heavy vehicles, what are we actually putting on the sign except for school buses, instruction vehicles, local deliveries, like there would be so many potential exceptions. It seems like the signage would be impractical. And I don't think we could just necessarily, like you were saying, publicize this information, because I feel like there could be vendors coming from anywhere. Be coming from throughout New England and coming down this road and not being aware of this restriction with certain exceptions. And I, that's why I was curious to have town council give you some guidance. Is this even feasible to have this kind of a nuanced law with those, with those exceptions? And that's what I wanted to hear from her as well at some point. Those, those are part of the law. We don't have to specify those. That's the law. You cannot, if you exclude, if you ban heavy commercial vehicles, that ban does not apply to school buses, people who are serving the community. So that's just the law. So we don't have to spell that out. So we don't have to put that on the signs? No. Like it's just, I'm just feeling like it's a tricky one to enforce, to be able to distinguish who's there for delivery. Like how does the police officer know who to pull over? There's never any police officers for the speeding either. So I don't think that enforcement, if you're going to come into it. Well, we have, we have to consider that when we bring the article forward. Yes. So thank you very much. Appreciate it. Um, we will, I think we're in the middle here. Um, again, I wanted to say this. So what happens next is the finance community. Hey, Miranda, are you seeing them frozen? Yes. Okay. There we go. They're, they're back. I'm sorry. Uh, you froze for, for a few seconds. Okay. So that's what will happen next. And then once they finalize that, then they, they will give you, you know, to review them. Have a look, see what's going to be in the warrant. They do finance community, just like your background notes are yours. They can make suggestions, but nobody changes them without their input. So anyway, thank you for coming in. Thank you. We've done that with, uh, with, um, with finance. Already. Yeah. No, ma'am. This is the process to get it into the warrant, the book that goes to the residents that we're voting on in town. So thank you very much. Thank you. Um, I'm trying to rush along because we're running a little late here. Sorry. I'm going to recognize Mr. Stutz, uh, who is a third petitioner. And then he has four articles. So Doug, do you want to come up and introduce yourself? Sure. And identify yourself. We know who you are. I believe I may be well known to the select board and the town manager already. But for the record, I'm Doug Stutz of 39 Sherman's Ridge Road, a 32 year resident of Waylon. Thank you. Thank you. So you're going to give me, but you want to look at the article description. Sure. And make sure, make sure there's nothing in there that's, that, uh, general information that you want in your background information because the town council has control over what goes in those sections. Yes. I did spend some time with Ms. Murray and it was a very productive and professional conversation and I appreciate her help. And I don't think she raised showstoppers and, uh, I look forward to working with her on the fine tuning as, uh, as she suggests. And I also want to recognize, um, Ms. Jones, the moderator who joined us, um, a few minutes ago. Thank you, Miranda. So, so you're going to direct your comments and the question, just a brief, please. You're running behind explanation. Each of these articles and then we'll have questions. Thank you. I believe the board may be familiar with my thoughts on the topics in general. Yeah. So I'll try to be brief. Article TT. Article TT. We're about to spend about a million on that. The 1.1 million or so of taxpayer, the Commonwealth funds on improvements to Sherman's bridge, which largely benefit motorists and also cyclists as an ardent cyclist. I'll appreciate the smoother walkways. Um, it seems to me, this is an interesting opportunity that may be the best in for 40 years to come to spend the incremental hundred thousand or so, uh, to create a second pedestrian walkway, which will greatly benefit the hundreds of recreational users of the bridge, uh, kayakers, canoeists, fishermen, stargazers. And, you know, it's one of the key gateways, one of the key viewpoints of our marvelous Great Meadows National Wildlife Refuge, which the federal government has provided us. Um, so, you know, the spirit of this article is more or less a resolution, sense of the town, sense of the select board that, Hey, you know, here's an interesting chance. Let's do it right away. If we can, you know, if it needs to wait a little bit, so be it. Um, one of the interesting and frustrating shot thoughts I'll share with the board is throughout the whole Sherman's bridge process. It's no time been clear who the ultimate decision makers are, who votes on it, et cetera. Um, you may be equally at sea with who, who those decision makers are. But at least this gets, uh, you know, the voters of the town through their elected representatives, that this is something we think that is important and we would like to see happen. Um, towards that end at, uh, January's board of public works meeting, our DPW director spoke of perhaps having a technical member and them prepared on the feasibility of this. Excuse me. He indicated that one potential source of funding for that would be the river stewardship council, but Tom Siaka. Um, again, lots of change. Lots of things have changed since I submitted these articles on January 8th. But I think you understand the, the, the spirit and what we're trying to achieve here and welcome your questions. I would like to start the questions. Um, sure. Um, so as you just commented, Mr. Stotts, the, uh, a lot's happened since we filed these articles. Um, as we sit here tonight, my, my senses for public works has discussed this, um, this topic. And what's your understanding as to where things stand relative to the design and planning of the project? And, and is there a consensus in the neighborhood that the current proposal is something they could look with? Um, I think, you know, I speak to my neighbors quite frequently on this. I mean, they seem to accept my version of the facts and hear what I'm saying. And I would say that the proposal, the current proposal, as I understand it. And, uh, a key point was that, uh, last week's board of public works meeting, our DPW, DPW director said that he and Sudbury's DPW director went to MassDoc and obtained approval to use what he terms the steel backed wooden guard rails. In fact, he does himself a disservice on a PR wise because the steel back is actually a piece of steel strip about that long with bolts on it, which is the existing guard rail. And I think we are very, very close to a solution for the design of the bridge, retaining its historical character that I, for one, would be very comfortable with. You know, something that was added, and I think there's a tremendous improvement, is conduit along the underside of the bridge to bring the ugly horizon and, uh, comcast lines underneath. There are no energized power lines running over the bridge, so that's a relatively simple fix. There's a 1990s vintage sodium halite, uh, light fixture on the pole on the Sudbury side, which ideally comes down and gets replaced by a dark sky LED fixture. Um, there is a proposal to add a historical kiosk. All of those are additive to what we have today. And I, for one, greatly welcome them. Thank you. That's all I have. Thank you. Thank you. Uh, my question really is kind of a technical one. Um, in your conversation with the town council, have you discussed the notion of, uh, as it says, the select board and board of public works are directed to use their best efforts? Yes, she raised that and, and the fact that directed is not economic, is sort of the power of the legislative branch, I believe, of the executive branch, I believe. And, uh, I understand that. And, uh, I understand that. And report your. So it's. Yes. Yes. Thank you. Sorry. Yeah. Yeah. I actually looked into this. I thought it was really, um, I liked the idea when I looked at the plans. For, uh, that we currently have. Um, so I think it's probably something a little further down the line, but, um, I, I just like that you're, you're planning ahead. Yeah. And I should mention there is arguably a major safety issue with, with plans. Uh, as currently laid out. And that is that, uh, the north and south sides of the bridge are equally beautiful. There's a walkway on one side. There's not on the other. Uh, people often are on that south side of the bridge in the roadway. Um, sometimes during the day, fishing or looking sometimes at night, stargates. Um, right now, if a car comes around the corner from the Sudbury side, uh, folks who are, you know, in the roadway as pedestrians have two escape angles. One is currently on that south side. There's a shelf that's about 16 inches wide and five or six inches high, and you can step on it and squeeze against the rail. And, you know, fellow of my size may still have some exposure, but most people wouldn't and, and avoid the cars that way. Or you can scamper across the 20 feet of the bridge and go up the, what is now the 11 inch gap between the roadway and the, uh, the existing walkway under the current proposal that shelf disappears. And so that the guardrail is right protruding into the roadway. There's no safety space there. And the, uh, safety, uh, barrier on the walkway side would be a 21 inches high. And I know I'm not hopping over that anymore. So, and, you know, the, the second walkway by providing a place for people to, uh, look up the, the, the, the Southern side remedies that problem as well. Okay. And, um, does that answer your question? Yeah. Hey, Melissa. Yep. Um, Mr. Stotts and I had a very nice conversation via zoom on Friday afternoon. We're joined by our finance committee liaison, Ms. Method. Um, and I have done some digging since then as well. And one issue that comes to my mind is, uh, if this question were to be posed to the town meeting voters and the language in the article includes, uh, quote, supporting the appropriation of funds. And if we get the question, which would be entirely justifiable at town meeting, what, how much money are we talking about for a second walkway? You and I have discussed something on the order of a hundred thousand dollars. When I did my own digging and, and spoke with folks, including members of the department of public works, I was told 500 to $700,000. So I think some more information should be able to be provided at that, that point. If, if we are potentially coming to the town. Um, and the other point I want to make is. There is a timeline right now to get this work done. And it includes several months to get the materials, which will hopefully happen shortly. And, um, two to four months to actually do the work. And I think if we, no pun intended, derailed this by having to add the second walkway, we wouldn't be completing this project in this calendar year. So I do like what Ms. Frensley said and others about keeping this concept alive, um, but not joining it. And so I'm, I'm troubled by the word current versus future. And so I don't have any questions, Doug, but that's what I want to add. Yeah. If I could offer to that, uh, you know, your question about how much. Yeah. The technical memorandum. Yeah. Would be a good way to put that to bed. Uh, secondly, my hundred thousand there, 500 to 7,000. No one really knows. Yeah. I would offer to you right now that, uh, the, uh, the estimate is $1.1 million for a lot of work on, you know, fixing the substructure piling, all new guardrails and 2,200 square feet of five and a half inch glulam covered by two inches of sacrificial wood planking. Here we're talking about 500 square feet or so of two inch thick wood planking and a few glulam struts, perhaps. So, uh, you know, and, and there's, there's fixed costs in the project, obviously. So there should be declining marginal costs to, uh, adding features like this. So, you know, truth may well lie between a hundred thousand and 500,000. We all seem to be working together well going forward. Let's find out. Let's do the technical. Let's see. Yeah. Thank you. Doug, I don't have any questions for you. I have some, um, good part about going last. All right. So I want to move on to you here, which is the next article. Yeah. The five ton weight limit. What was it? Sherman's bridge. I have people who listen to our meetings. So I'll tee them up. Thank you. Uh, Sherman's bridge, uh, five ton weight limit. It's okay. We are now somewhere. Um, 56. 56. Thank you. Okay. The floor is yours. Sure. Um, I think Mr. Whitney asked, you know, the genesis of this and the justification, if you will. And I think of it as a restoration of a weight limit, but also a modernization of the weight limit that was first agreed upon by the towns of Sudbury and Weyland in the sixties. Um, it predated the infamous 1971 neighborhood agreement. Um, it survived the rebuilding of the bridge, um, in a much more robust fashion. And in 1992, because it was intended to not recognize the technical limitations of the bridge, but serve as the statement of the intentions of the people of the towns of Sudbury and Weyland as to the role of Lincoln road and Sherman's bridge road, that it is a country lane, that it is a scenic road in each. In Weyland in particular, it's also a very dense residential neighborhood. And for the, uh, you know, for not of the circumstance of, uh, Leesbridge collapsing in 1999. Sudbury seeking a temporary dispensation to allow its school buses to get to school more or Lincoln Lincoln, Lincoln Sudbury asking for the dispensation to allow their buses to reroute. So they don't go via route two. And, uh, Leesbridge taking eight or nine years to fix. And no one thinking to replace the darn sign. Um, we may not be here job voting about this. We have two questions from the board. Thank you. Yeah. Um, okay. So the only thing that I had was, I wasn't sure. Um, and maybe it was that I missed it somewhere. Um, it's how much does school buses weigh? School buses weigh about 30,000 pounds or 15 tons and go up to about 40,000 pounds. I think. Okay. And this would exclude school buses. Uh, this would exclude school buses. Okay. I just want to make sure it wasn't written in here, but I want to make sure that was your intent. I believe the board received a letter in December from the Lincoln Sudbury school committee expressing their concerns about traffic on Sherman's bridge road. And, and they are aware that, uh, you know, perhaps a weight limit is part of the solution, which would, you know, make them go around, uh, be everyone 17, which Google maps tells us would add about one minute to the length, each way of a school bus trip from Lincoln center to Lincoln Sudbury high school. Okay. Okay. Okay. Thank you. Um, okay. Um, I'm going to go around the corner. Sure. So I don't see an exception for school buses in this article. No, uh, school buses, banning school buses was part of the original intent in the sixties. And, uh, you know, they would be, uh, not, uh, not excluded from this article, if you will. And so be supportive of that. Uh, Lincoln Sudbury school committee knows of the potential. And I think the residents, uh, Lincoln lane and, uh, Lincoln road would be equally supportive. You know, the, the town of Sudbury itself is not taking an efficient solution on the matter. Thank you. Yeah. No questions. Thank you. Uh, Mr. Stotz, are you aware of any precedent in Wayland or through your studies in any surrounding towns where such a weight limit was imposed by one town for a bridge that spans two towns? Uh, that's a great question. And no, I, all my research has been rather thorough. I think you might've been, uh, I've yet to tread that ground. And in your conversations with Ms. Louis, did she have any advice? No. No. She, she stuck to the knitting of the language. Mm-hmm. Yep. So, um, and I think that needs, take control of this, but I'm going to ask a question. Are we aware that the town of Sudbury can see any articles to their town meeting regarding Sherman Bridge Road or Sherman Bridge? Bridge. Sorry. I don't want to send it. Yes. Yeah. Sorry. I think there's submission, article submission deadline was before ours, and I don't think they have any on their own. Okay. Thank you. So, thank you. Thank you. Nice job. Thank you. Thank you. But for informative now, we're going to talk about Article BB. Will we negotiate the Sherman Bridge Road neighborhood agreement? Yes. Um, have you guys heard of the 1971 neighborhood agreement? Never. What? Uh, I think, uh, the residents of Sherman Bridge Road would be very willing and able and wanting to, you know, sit down and negotiate a change of terms to the 1971 neighborhood agreement that works better for today's day and age and makes all of us friends again. Um, I'm going to open this up to, um, my question is, was it an agreement or was it kind of a memorandum of understanding? It was sort of a handshake memorandum of understanding. You know, so we can argue, you know, is it, you would know better than I, whether there stands a chance in the court of law. Well, the reason I asked you, you referred to it in the, in the article as a 1971 agreement with the Capitol Bay, and I'm just not sure how accurate that. Yeah. Yeah. You know, I, I haven't spent 40 years sweating punctuation like some have, but, uh. That's another topic. Yeah. That'd be a problem. I, I know how I'm going to vote on this one. And with that note, do you have any questions for Mr. Stotsky? No, I might say something I'd regret. You know, I think Tom spoke before about, there are certain things going to town meeting that don't necessarily need to go to town meeting. And, and I suggest this is a good day. Excuse me. We're in questions now from the board. Okay. Not editorializing. I'm telling you, I'm sticking around my system. All right. Actually, cause if I don't, then someone else comes in and say, you know, so-and-so was there five years ago. I'm not kidding. I get those calls all the time. All right. Miss Brinsley. Do you have any questions for Mr. Stotsky on article? Phoebe? Yeah, I'm not going to get too legal on it. And those would just be, my thoughts would be legal thoughts. So, um, thank you for submitting. Thank you. Um, Mr. Levine. Uh, Mr. Stotsky and I discussed this, uh, on the phone, on zoom on Friday. And for the benefit of the rest of the board, um, can you discuss why you separated these two articles? You have two, obviously, pertaining to the so-called 1971 agreement. Uh, A, I got these articles written a fairly short time before I was leaving the country on a pre-planned trip, and, uh, I thought it doubled my chances to win, basically. You know, I haven't spent 40 years on this stuff, and, uh, but, uh, I, uh, I'm hopeful that, uh, I'm hopeful that, uh, all of these actually could be resolved and withdrawn by the petitioner by the time of town meeting. And my, my, um, last question is, did you have any discussion with town council, uh, about the, the 1971 agreement as you were drafting these and running the buyer? Uh, well, I believe this board asked her to, through the town manager asked her to provide an opinion on the fall. I suggested to her, as I have to this board, that additional evidence has emerged since then, which I think is pretty powerful, that some sort of uncapitalized A agreement was reached at some point, and that it might serve this, your board well to have asked her to prepare, prepare a, uh, a refreshed opinion, if you will. Thank you. Actually, I think that was your, that request to me, to have a reflection of opinion. Yes. So, I do want to set the record straight. Um, and let me clarify, I thought that was to, the, the board should want it as opposed to me at looking for pre-legal work. I'm sorry. Uh, my thinking is that if I was on the board, I would want that opinion refreshed, as opposed for me asking the town council to front my legal work. I think I need some signatures. Um, all right. We have some, besides our honored guests of the petitioners, we also have some honored guests running up, running up on the local local, of the cell troops. They have the civics. Absolutely. Um, requirement, or we're going to go for things, or something. And, one of the things is that they come to a select board meeting, and listen to a couple topics, and they're going to go and write about them. besides our honored guests of the petitioners we also have some honored guests running up on the local groups they have the civics
requirement and one of the things is that they come to a select board meeting and listen to a couple topics and then they go and write about them so it's very exciting so um i would like you to i'd like to because we're having this discussion to also say that not there is a resident on the street where there's been fairly vocal that this agreement does not exist and i believe that obviously the town has looked like i'm going to speak here but we look we haven't been able to find anything either yes so we all agree it was an oral yes but that's the whalen town prayer wrote about yes there is someone in the street who has responded multiple times with this contract 40 years contract um where is that very work yeah i could consult you with all my other words if i said the wrong word um it's supposed to be an interesting amendment here well well not to be fentonian my speech especially since both have been deposition in the last week but it may boil down to the difference between capital a and lowercase a agreements right okay so it's not the point this wasn't the youtube debate i mentioned that is also out there so that's all the stuff um and i think i don't have any questions because we have received probably um probably close to 100 emails from the showman bridge i grew since uh the fall so i think we're pretty familiar with it you you don't say i'm gonna go count them i responded to just about every one of them all right uh now we'll go on to if no one else has any questions on that michael you're all excited to answer right okay thank you article w dummy was renegotiated the sherman bridge of the neighborhood agreement number two and in my haste to get these articles filed before i left the country i
yes so if possible this should be retitled something like uh you know sherman's bridge maintain sherman's bridge historical appearance forever for a better form of words than that but that's basically the intention that's uh when i wrote this on january 7th or whenever uh the bridge design as then proposed was a far for peace as they say from where it is today and i thought that uh we might want to uh get the people of wayland to speak on their feelings on this through through town meeting um you know the uh the current proposal is uh has come a long way and uh you know by the time town meeting rolls around i may be entirely comfortable with this not coming to the floor so we'll open up to questions who wants to start bill no questions oh no i i support the flavor of this uh oracle though i think the historic importance of this bridge uh is significant um obviously we need to be mindful of the obligations to public safety in the years ahead yeah no better way to improve that um i think one of the things that also needs to be addressed is how many changes the group has asked the joint task force committee to make an adjustment in the bridge project i think we probably should gather this information and how many have been granted i think we have completely avoided or not avoided and not addressed yet i'm getting tired i'm saying the wrong words here um i think we need to also acknowledge how much compromising these these two two towns all these people in walls not just want to be difficult get all those together have made umpteen changes and i believe that i think we have to be honest and we have to be honest and and advise the residents that the only change that i'm aware of that has not been granted was the second walkway um so i didn't want to say that because of the bad animation here since the recent controversy over the bridges renovations which prepare and the proposed use of asphalt and steel so i don't think that is still relevant since january two yeah well i think the sense there was the original proposal to give me food asphalt and steel it doesn't matter and we're trying to guard against that i echo you with you know there have been a large number of improvements made to get us to this line today and i appreciate the work of the municipal project team getting there it would bother me not but i don't want to really enjoy it so all right um nobody else has any comments mr mccall did you want to have the last one you're the liaison although if i could just add one thing uh when mr mccall spoke about the uh jurisdiction and speed limits and traffic calming measures he got it absolutely spot on so thank you yeah we've had some side conversations about safety zones and we haven't agreed on everything through this but yeah here we are all right thank you very much for joining us all right thank you thank you everybody say it before that the finance really is on it's like whether it's gonna get together and finish off this and off we go and hopefully we make it to the deadline which is in two weeks tonight and get them into the lawn so thank you for joining us i appreciate it all right so now we are going to turn our attention here to item number 10 which is on work to simply get some of these articles
just before we move on while the petitions are still in the room i'm just throwing there is some similarity in some of what liz carter is working on as well as mr stotts and just a general observation comment it might be possible but they could find some common ground and reduce the number from six articles to four i just leave that as a closing thought and if they were to do that they would need to do it fairly quickly because until we've got to get into the back so anyway but thank you all right so on number 10 we're going to turn to um articles that are on the article tracking list um on the list starting on the page there's a number of articles listed which they are not reading tonight because they're not ready but at this point we're putting all the articles in in whatever form they're in so that we can move on i'm going to come back and talk about those in a minute um but i do want to talk about the personal life we're going to talk about the part is f tonight right um let me say this enterprise fund i mentioned this earlier there's been some changes in this um there's been some edits and uh public works is asked so that should be ready next week and we'll get that back for us article f um this is your your article and did you want to walk us through this one this one was pretty ready to go oh you're on mute uh what page am i on here yeah i thought you were at a where's f we're doing f it's nothing in a oh you're just doing f you're just going rogue okay i'll go there's some in here that aren't even ready to be discussed yet but we're just carrying yeah f is um what page is it i'm sorry guys what page because i'm 56 66 66 that's a group 66
all right this is
expenditure limits that's your article and yes it is mostly ready and there's no even updates like we've um brian uh kevin has had some updates and some um but this one has been pretty stable um and the language hasn't changed so i'm feeling like this is ready to go anybody have any comments happy to move moving right in okay i have a couple comments so first of all on the list of revolving funds last year we established an energy revolving fund so my question is is could you just circle back for someone to find out if they have any funding in their surgery uh that's not the right word in their fund and if they are claiming on if they need a budget that they think they're going to be expending any funds for a particular item this year so we do need that um and um put that on that list so we should check with brian on that michael yep let's check with brian on that one now okay and then and then on the school department professional development last year that amount actually decreased from 45 to 900 and so this year is decreasing from 900 in fy 26 to zero and fy 27 say where i am no i'm just looking i i'm just making sure that these yeah these are the most updated numbers okay i'll circle back around with them development that's the language from last year when they decrease it from 45 to 900. now they're going from 900 to zero so we just need to make that adjustment and then we let pamerman know yeah just that we're okay whoever your person is here okay does anybody else don't like the census documents and arguments and figuring the rolling funds expenditure limits reflect the needed business limits sounds like somebody made a booboo whatever like maybe when it comes to the assistant telling manager and i can grab that and fix that sentence in artist class i was in favor all right so we have a motion on and then you want to
thank you so we have to move motioning and who's seconding um and you're making it i'm happy to move that this board vote to support article f fiscal year 2027 involving planning expenditure that's that's not second okay move further discussion all those in favor and yes that yes um yes yes hello yes motion passes five zero the next item is the packet is out of article i stabilization fund appropriation i think this is your article well and yeah okay i just don't okay um i thought we were going in our order okay um we do have numbers uh oh no no wait it's already in here perfect uh this is our latest one um the numbers the only difference between this article and the one that we've had before presented to us is the amount is now in here it's solidified
it's 250 000 right this year yeah okay could you repeat the last sentence yeah i couldn't hear you oh uh there was i was waiting because i heard that the number might change but it didn't so this is exactly what we've seen in our packet before thank you any discussion here so i in our efforts to streamline some of these articles i would like this is our article i would like to suggest the text is only a deposit this a lot of this copy has come from when the astrology the fund so in my opinion we can get rid of pretty much that except for the first sentence we can get rid of all that paragraph just before the select board recommends approval and also the paragraph about the treasurer so it's we're going to make the deposits this is how we get the money in this is how we get the money out and that's it
so you want the passage of this article gone and then from from there until the funds may be transferred um passage is fine the next paragraph is fine funds may be transferred and the next paragraph that starts the treasurer is the one i'm suggesting we're not discussing how it gets invested here we're just a deposit but feel happy no no no no okay and then the next paragraph that starts appropriations from the cfs to support the capital require two-thirds majority of both at town meaning i think that sentence is fine and then the rest of the paragraph i think we can get rid of we're not talking about how what we invest the funds in what we're using to spend on we're just making a deposit so i'm suggesting that to the board under though people who pay attention to a lot of this stuff with some kind of overview maybe not in this detail but it's the purpose of the fund this is what it's used for this is the basis on which disbursements can be made it says okay to support future expenses related to the town capital plan see this all the language when we first established it i guess i'm just suggesting looking at it through the lens of someone who's coming to their first town meeting what what is this thing why are we putting money into it and how does it come out yeah so it'll contribute 250 to support the capital plan and the next one would tell me to hope the fund and established it the objectives are provide a source of funds to keep projects previously moving forward level the impact of capital expenditures and create funding source for the town that you share with drinks and then the funds may be transferred by simple blah blah blah and then hopefully it's just to come out i don't think we need all of this one two three four five stuff but my only concern is really just the streamlining like you know next next year and the year after you know you go back to this and you pretty much have a template and you're just updating it for the current situation but if you take that language out you may find yourself in another year wanting that language in there so i just feel like it's a good template but and that's my whole argument about the streamlining some of these things like for example when tom streamlined the remote participation that language has been there we need we need we don't need this this has been since 21 but anyway i'm not going to stick a federal case of it if no one else agrees with me we'll leave it but i don't have strong feelings on it either but i don't really see a need to leave it to remove anything either you don't want to check it out then we'll leave it i have been happy to move to this board uh vote to support article i titled the capital stabilization fund appropriate okay and further discussion dan yes yeah tell me yes yes probably yes motion passes five zero all right the next one i think is yours as well article j yeah but go page of my own now it was 69 next one it's the next one um uh nothing has really changed all the names were there before and they're just in red for some reason so you've been asked have they been asked uh i don't think so is that why they're in red shoot kelsey you said yes no they haven't been asked yeah i would i would think it's important to ask them because they may have an objection that they have as at least one has had in the past
well somebody on there be cast this one i want to take out some language in this one where it talks all about uh with after it says whalen continues the tradition of electing these positions even though the select one may appoint some then it says the purpose has written is to decide whom to elect not the method of appointment has nothing to do with the topic we're choosing offices we're not doing the method um and then the home rule petition sentence i don't think we need either
anybody want to agree with those that's fine you okay with that am taking that sentence out um sure um so we need to confirm this should we hold up on voting this one no no i think we can vote it and uh it meant it me too yeah okay i will vote vote to fourth article j choose town conference in second okay um if there's no further discussion we'll have a vote uh bill yes yes and yes um yes and carol yes that's passed to bottom zero um the next one i have on my list is k it reports i think that's yours as well yeah um i'm going to uh just so that um i'm going to reach out to those individuals on um jay i'll let you know for some reason somebody won't take it but hopefully we can assume that that'll that'll won't be brought up again sorry okay okay article k is you guys know this article it's it's the same format i feel like carol may want to change it um but it's for one typo that i found there was nothing else i changed in it from the two times that i've seen it before um there was a typo it's fixed let me check with um your assistant town manager here do we because that was voted in the article last year that um i think public ceremonies could submit um i think they're almost required to by the code so i go down and check with public ceremonies because that article was changed that they could they could doesn't the language say they could submit i'm gonna double check right now what the code says so no it says shall well no it says permit the publishing of attribute of no more than one page per award recipient under the here reports appendix of the annual time needed so it's they can they can they it permits so we should probably just that's what i thought that they could so let's check to make sure see if they want and is this the list um this is the correct list i'm looking for any other reports i know cpc planning um you know planning should be on yeah planning planning um ppc and uh board of assessors those are the three main ones we get every year so this article kind of has
two write-ups if you will one is it's a standard article which has the pros and the cons and the other one that says it's a non-negligible one so i think we need to pick which method we're going with um madam chair if i may i thought that the dis the agreement that we had because of the language in town code was that under the finance committee comments they would allow us to if they've determined that there's a non-negligible yeah normally there'd be no comments so i thought that there was a agreement that this year they would allow they being the finance committee would allow us to to sub to suggest some language and they would put it into their comments area so that they would allow to have comments and then the last the next paragraph would say following blah blah blah blah blah okay so let's just make sure this is 100 less than 150 words then yeah okay everybody okay just for the for the record you guys keep saying non-negligible i think you mean negligible yes thank you okay just i don't want it to look to cut be in the minutes wrong happy to move to this we go to support rf okay hear reports all right no further discussion thank you um done yes and yes bill yes yes yes yes yes yes motion passes five zero five zero thank you now l uh we will get them but we never do until the last minute so we will find out if uh did you get it i know one second i wanted to check with see if anyone has any vehicles so i have four from fire already um i facilities told me no that they don't have any i'm waiting to hear back from dpw and the police the police uh acting chief hebert uh did indicate that there are going to be both vehicles and equipment that are going to go up for um surplus disposition um and i think that's really it because the the bulk of the vehicles are either in facilities dpw police fire or schools and i also reach out to schools i have not heard back from them all right so can we have that information for the next meeting yes i already forwarded it to the fincom um liaison i will board it to the separate liaison because i don't think i did that um and uh like where are these vehicles coming from but that's okay it's awesome yeah it's all different here oh i love it by the way last year it was you i love it no it's awesome thank you for doing that making charge the article things got moving yeah i love it i love it the next one is article m special education reserve this is i think um mr levine yes one i think it's got way too much stuff in it all over at all
i heard last week from my fincom liaison miss hawks that they had a chance to review and vote on article m um and they voted to approve it unanimously and this is the version she forwarded to me that they had reviewed what would you like to remove miss martin go on a lot of this yeah three paragraphs i would like to start with passage of this article will fund a special education reserve fund versus as gifted whalen decides we've been doing this we're not deciding we've decided but wait wait that's it first sentence instead of this article passage of this article will be heard afterwards no i'm taking it all the purpose of this article decided whalen will come out anybody else have any edits you know i really don't know i would offer some but i don't want to incur the abuse so go ahead i'm getting it i want to share them i want to share i think this paragraph has got way too much in it we don't need the first one yeah don't you i mean the thing is and the arguments they were supposed to be like one line items they're a little bit wrong i need this up and down so just a little bit there um but i'm mad if you're willing to have a little bit of a cold take a look at that there and see what's here yeah anything then i need to get something about in school um did they have a question yeah thank you good yeah i did notice that a lot of these that the other boards were coming through without the votes on them you've got to grab some of them but i haven't got all of them are you uh raising your hand to be nope you don't want to talk about this article okay so everyone's all set with that let's uh take a motion please i have to move this board go to square article m special education reserve thank you for the discussion let's go with tom yes yes and yes and carol yes motion does five zero yeah so now we are going to go up um oh is in here but it's got to come in next week as you heard um there's been some changes and we're going to be we're going to wait until the next week on this one to see if we how much we can capture i don't know to be honest with you what all this red is carl and i have worked on this and we have a um uh drafted we're just waiting for the numbers to drop in so we will see that one on the 16th i'm pretty sure so the next four articles that we're going to process are from from the planning board um and building if you want to run through the recent i'm starting with ellen page something um very straightforward just a series of adjustments uh cleanup uh recognition of change of state agency uh the name of state agencies um no real substantive changes so the proposal's comments are here can someone tell me what the proposal's comments deadline doesn't come up it's uh it starts man share page 81 the proposals comments are there also from the planning board and the finance committee um what's missing here for me is a planning board bone there's a line that needs to be the planning more voting this and do we know what they voted because they voted their articles uh last week right i believe they voted to support their articles with the exception of the one that's being called so i'll confirm that yeah okay so that needs to get dropped into this before we send it out other than that i don't think there's anything to um to change right the rest of its code i mean for you bylaw or whatever yeah pretty technical stuff so all right so do we think we should have a motion happy to move to support article ll uh housekeeping is only exactly thank you no further discussion and yes sir yeah um yes bill which account motion passes five zero now we're on article n8 by the way i'm going to say we need plenty more vote on all of these so do you want to not suggest any changes uh just an update of uh relevant sections of the code as pertains to uh the flood hazard boundary map all right um certain other definitions so on this one what's interesting is there's no financing many comments so um we'll go back to your liaison and ask them what we want
so this background information is interesting because this as opposed to the planning was proposed comments and i don't i think it looks longer than um 150 words so let's just we might have to check that and there is a comment from the trident's community that it's negligent i'm on mn what does it mean i thought we did that one no like what's there on m m yeah yeah i'm just going to game the whole line because i'm in the floodplain in the federal flood protection district okay so let's scroll down and see if that does have finance committee comments yeah let's see if it has planning board comment here where is it yeah see what we get down to 88 it says proposes comments blah blah then the finance committee comments so you can see that the layout is the the code you know whatever it proposes the finance committee all right let's vote on this one happy to move to this point vote and support article mm and then the floodplain and federal flood protection district thank you any further discussion yes bill yes yes yes yes and kelly has motion passes five zero now let's do nn okay this is the accessory dwelling unit making changes uh to uh the accessory dwelling unit changes to the bylaw that were made early i was gonna say hastily uh fairly promptly following adoption of the statute uh making adus uh of a certain size as a right uh this uh creates a category called accessory adus and also enables uh petitioner proposers to in certain uh zoning districts to build uh or propose a construction of an adu that would be in excess of the otherwise limit of uh 900 square feet or half the not more than half of the area of the principal president principal dwelling whichever is less uh by seeking a special permit from the board of the field and perhaps also of variance in certain cases so i think this is the one i was talking about now i don't know it doesn't give me a page number but i scroll down this is background information it's more than 150 words and it's not by mainstream comments when we board reports so we can just gather those we can submit that's page 94. sorry thank you that was my thing a little all right do you have a motion happy to move to vote to support article nn accessory dwelling unit and zoning amendment yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes motion passes five zero so now we're on oh oh multifamily proposal to amend um the uh dimensional requirements and aggregate limits chart uh mbta zoning for every group 20 west uh subdistrict uh specifically with respect to maximum building height and maximum units per acre right so any comments on this no so here again this one's got this background information you know finance any comments and we are missing the planning board vote so do you want to have a motion on this so before we make a motion i just want to impress my opposition to the article okay for the reasons i um mostly stated last week um i'm very concerned that this article sets a precedent um in wayland for a height that is not consistent with typical 35 foot um height restriction um we made for example a exception to alta oxbow i believe it was 45 feet and um i think that that should be the maximum for this awesome as well i i'm not persuaded by the argument that because 58 feet of a building at this location um now long fellow and sundry is equal not as high as alta oxbow if you follow that logic you find a lower um location in town that would permit you to build a 70 foot building because it's lower than the um driveway at um at long fellow and sundry um i'm looking at two flat buildings here at least two that will just morph that road wolf that area um i admit that it's not an area where there are a lot of residents um but still i just think it it um is not consistent with um current town bylaws and sets of dangers present future buildings in wayland um i support the idea of housing i support the idea of getting 10 10 of affordable housing in these buildings but i think the height um is one reason why i can't support it number two uh communications from the fire chief that building this height would present safety problems for residents that's a further serious consideration um so um for those reasons i cannot support the other comments or this article um oh oh i'm just wondering um phil if you happen to know as a courtesy was the sudbury select board advised or sudbury planning board just as a heads up that this is potentially in the work not to my knowledge you build in the comments well i know that the uh planning board chair uh one indicated that she had spoken with uh fire department and had a different read uh tom's information is more recent so i think it'd be helpful to the board if we could reconcile those two statements so and i'm sorry did you have any comments on this article yeah no i some of what tom just said was new to me but it would it make sense to just to throw this one now until next week and see if we can't get some more information so we'd like to have some input from the fire department or maybe even michael could speak on that behalf of them and then drag everybody in there so we're there's a lot of guests next week and i don't know i don't want to be classified after so manager you want you just want the fire chief of the fire department to confirm the difference between what mr faye received from him being a fire chief and what um miss lewis chair lewis uh received from them when they uh discussed is that what you're asking for like the confluence of just getting a straight answer yes or no is 58 feet too high or too low or fine and i think i'll read you what he wrote to me i'll make this comment that um unless you have a plan or design and then i think it's tough for fire chief to give a definitive answer to whether the current equipment can handle a 60-foot building because of the distance that a truck has to be from from the building that that is a factor but he wrote he said as follows back in february 9th he says i believe that the current height restriction is 35 feet but an exception was made where we said you're 45 if they are proposing 58 feet that does make a big difference and it would be a real concern the largest structures between commonwealth 490 and 492 and 494 of austin building assisted living communities etc have created some challenges for us we've got a number of kitchen fires brilliant in these large buildings and simple things like removing smoke caused by burnt food can require mutual aid assistance but that's from the fire chief but what would we like to have next meeting well i think it'd be well to pose the question again to the chief uh and i'd be happy to discuss this further with the uh chair of the planning board or um
that sounds good and if possible a plan has a possible plan for the property from a transfer from a transparency perspective one reason why i asked the planning board chair last week but who the resident was who asked her to push to push this article was transparency the fact that it's a form of select board member is important i think and that person as i understand is david watkins which he has every right to um sue the uh the article to ask the planning board chair to pursue it but i think from a transparency perspective residents should know that the former select person as we discuss and vote on these articles i support the project again of housing that location i think it's a good location for housing i just have a big problem with the type could you just clarify what the beginning part of your statement i missed the like one of the first words you said could you just repeat what you said just the first couple of words sorry you said you said i something but just before transparency and i didn't catch the word but that's okay i can re-watch it on yes okay i should have wrote i was like i i'm trying to hear the word okay who was hanging on to every word tom said and tell us what the first word was i'll just listen to the meeting um i think i think that'll make sense why don't we ask we need to get some more information from miss lewis and maybe we'll reach out to the budget i think that thomas correct at auto fire chiefs whoever said it is that without the plan it's really hard to evaluate i know that there's been some discussion i think it's all the hearts but one of the things the way it's in it's a little bit difficult to get at get the trucks to and around i think this was brought up when uh the mill creek folks were coming in and then also when we talked about the same the answer proposal is that making sure there's an approval term flex to make the turn is really an issue i don't think it's going to hype the turn and i could be wrong somehow i remember that all right why don't we move on to the next one and i'll sit on that one so we are on the next part
so um we have two articles that we're going to have updates on them and one of them is article dd in the holiday road so i'm going to tee this up because this what looks like is a rewrite of the draft article was actually submitted to us this is not one that we are doing and we have received communication from the school committee chair and that communication is that ended up in the correspondence world and this somehow ended up in a packet but they actually belong together so this is not a change of the article so i'm going to let bill um address that uh the updates will you avoid well because carol and kate this is a proposed rewrite by the school committee and um both the blue and the red front yes yes uh at least that's that's my
that's my inference i did not make these changes so i don't know who else would have so in essence uh i think the school committee is suggesting that they co-spons the article which i think is a great idea um they're they have an ongoing uh k-8 uh long-term facility study which identifies um a series of choices uh that the town can make with respect to future i guess aspirations for future uh elementary and middle school facilities there are either 16 or 20 alternatives uh that have been luminary luminarily looked at by uh their consultant and uh presentation was made to the advisory committee uh monday of last week into the school committee on wednesday of last week because of these alternatives uh there was there have been a meeting on friday with the superintendent and members of the school staff and the consultants in preparation for a community meeting which i believe is going to be on the plains day of the high school uh to review probably um some subset of those alternatives among them is uh the notion of building a new elementary school elementary school on the holiday road orchard lane site so we're a little out of sync with where those options will be called even further so in the meantime the school committee has proposed uh basically a joint effort uh where both the school committee and the select board of representatives thereof would need to agree on the scope of services to be investigated um so the question arises what happens if the two parties don't agree so that is one question another is uh how does this relate to their ongoing effort uh their planning effort as i understand it uh the consultant is is basically going to work with the town to come up with a recommended approach to a master plan and that would then be the subject of a um a statement of interest that gets admitted to the massachusetts school building authority or msba uh then the msba looks at that uh a discussion slash negotiation with the town ensues and if the msba finds merit in the proposal then they will entertain a funding request to do preliminary investigation of the investigation which is uh which is a lot of kind of information that uh we envisioned would be forthcoming from this proposal including site survey preliminary design geotechnical civil and site engineering and to that nature um ordinarily one would not do that kind of work for a school site that was not going to be the subject of an soe or ssoi rather statement of interest so it's um it's a little bit of variance with i think the normal process with the msba so the also it strikes me that the school committee has engaged a consultant hmfh out of cambridge whose uh specialty really is school design so i don't know that it makes sense uh if it be decided to be considered for a school for there to be a preliminary design effort funded by this and a subsequent design effort funded by the msba so um we have invited or the chair has invited uh the chair of the school committee and another member of the school committee to meet with this board in a week to discuss this in the meantime the uh we've had conversations we've had obviously a lot of public comment uh neighbors uh i attended a meeting with a few of the neighbors i believe it was last week uh this the finance committee has not rendered any comments yet because they're just kind of waiting for this to stop oscillating so um so that is the current state of the party um feels correct so there's been a little bit back and forth and we just said let's see the language in advance um i have written back um on our behalf as the chairman said you know phil is the you know to avoid a lot of cooks in the kitchen inside or liaison for article and he's the driver on me on the right of the business for the select board side there's also another component did you mention this part about that it would have to have a joint agreement on how the funds were spent that's when you said it's scope right yeah well there uh i think this talks about the uh the select board the school committee jointly um agreeing but then the email goes on to talk about specifically how that might work so i think i replied and said that there's a general rule didn't write that back but yeah but general is that the select one is authorized by town we need to engage on behalf of the town the contracts but then once the contracts are you know signed proved authorized then we hang them packages over and the work is done whether it's something on the smaller scale more scope extended directly by the town manager in his office or it gets you know facilities or whomever so i was just trying to indicate that we don't we don't currently opine on like with this 200 000 that we have we wouldn't opine 20 000 here and 20 there we just tried to contract and off some of those and gets the work done and we would like done so i did want to put that out to hopefully that would help some provide some background information um before we got to the meeting next next week so anyway i'll open it up to the floor who has comments questions
the only comment i have is i think these are good developments i think um my concern is that the school committee will work at a certain pace and that this land may um not that would be seriously considered the end for for school and it would last period of time which i would prefer not to lose that's my only that's my only concern i hate to uh needlessly delay looking at this property producing minimal at this point minimal due diligence minimal due diligence that's in my view that's what it's all right then i'm going to find out right but one of the basics whether it be a school or housing or whatever the town was i actually just like the idea that um school committee is kind of backing this you know sometimes i feel like we we don't really have a sponsor for some of our ideas when it comes to development of properties so i i like that there's somebody spearheading it with a purpose there'll be some room to work out some agreeable language so i'm looking forward to having share here to talk this through because i would um like us to move forward um um so one of my big concerns was and i understand that the school committee does not write the article language but it's our article and we seem to have gotten subordinated it really should read for the select board you know to look at items we're looking at and the school committee well on those items this kind of thing it just seemed to become more of a school committee article and um i i'm just going to say this i actually said it to doug today so i'm going to just say it there is that my big concern is um michael and i looked around and we found literally one two hundred thousand dollars of funds to do this kind of work on a piece of property you know to do the due diligence because our goal here is some new development it's a new growth that's our goal we're looking for a revenue sourcing if the talent says no we don't want to do that at least we are doing our job to find some new growth that's what our goal appears and we have one two hundred thousand which we even haven't showed up that number maybe it could be less but there is not another two hundred thousand floating around so if we put the money i think we have to be almost miserly as to where we plug our 200 and i think to tell the point you know we were kind of hoping to get some information in the next year versus a couple years and um i just wanted to that's why bill and i thought that perhaps we could have this conversation at the board level to get a sense before we you know that um that was open so i wanted to filter did you want to add anything to the problem no no i would just add that the information that i think can be gleaned would be very useful for the school committee if they decide our school is to be built there uh or the town decides i should say uh in terms of survey availability utilities and there's soil conditions and so forth so it's going to be a valuable information with respect to it it's a little interesting but anyways okay so we're going to come in on the night um the last one we're going to have an update on is hh which is the long-term water supply um construction funding article and this time was going along and we were just about done and um carl is my uh my co-writer here when the summer leaves on with carl barnes and um then if you heard that uh we could go our application for the uh the state of the law we come zero when it was turned down so this has caused us to make a few um changes and credits to this i'm i had it scheduled to come before us tonight uh we did vote to co-sponsor it but i was thinking that the board would actually want to see the title right up number one and i also thought we might want to vote the vote again i don't know we voted to go sponsor are we we're in we don't have to re-vote yeah we voted to co-sponsor we're in okay but i do want to so i'm going to wait probably until the 16th just to finish it off because i think that uh mr kevin and mr will call are speaking to the bond council and
they'll talk and looking at things um there there has been a material change though right we don't know what the new debt service is right um i'd be interested in understanding the timing of when decision of an appeal might be forthcoming vis-a-vis the town meeting uh i'd be interested in knowing whether the town is disadvantaged if it adopts uh authorization to bond for 38.6 at packs of her markup rates for a municipality versus the zero percent are we disadvantaged by doing that uh with a uh an appeal penalty so you know i uh what are the impacts on the rate payers i think it's uh it's a substantial change substantially i'd like to understand that so this is what's being discussed you know they've seen some numbers that debt service basically doubles then it becomes a question of do we do they recommend a 20-year or a 30-year um when it comes over across 30 years you can't even know if that improves the debt service or do we wait and find out whether uh an appeal is likely because the dbw director seemed quite surprised and uh speculated that maybe someone at the state didn't understand what was going on all the assurances he'd been given that this seemed eligible and then all of a sudden we get this rating which is half what was expected so it would be well to understand what it changed so that's who we are and um unfortunately i don't think we can have this conversation continue uh see what michael wants to present maybe next week or you want to speak to those questions now but it sounds like i've had the same conversation with mr holder that mr whitney has the same information so i just made a list of all the questions that had about you know how quickly you know i know he was trying to follow in to somewhere in the state i don't know the formal process here so i'll get those answers so i think to be honest with you there seems to be a really thought that we will probably not have answers to those questions when we go to press that doesn't mean we won't gather more and be better positioned to answer those questions come mad then we'll go to tell me this is where we're at um i do want to point out that on the article text on this one which we put forth it says appropriate or something 38 million for the construction of a permanent camping hollow water treatment facility i have a issue with the word permanent because somehow things are not permanent so i'm going to suggest we take that word out so it'll say construction of a happy hollow water treatment facility and then it's to distinguish it from the temporary and run it to fulfill right i understand that that's an average person permanent means you never have to do anything to it and now here we go you call it a non-temporary so the comment in the margin says long term long term so i want to replace the word permanent and then i wanted to replace the word permanent on the connection to the mass water resource authority but i think that actually could be considered for me because it would be really take quite an interesting thing for us to be disconnected so that's one suggestion i have on that one um and you can see i've highlighted this service thing because we just don't know the answers to that so i do want to tell you that um so before we go on to the order the things they want to say this we have two weeks two meetings to finish off these articles and we did about 10 tonight to do about 10 tonight so that's going to stop about 19 18 somewhere oh man i'd like to i'd like to finish off at least ideally 10 next week and just have a soft landing on the 16th um and so that means i'd like to have not going to be able to complete an article a b c d and why are we not looking at b and d i didn't have any numbers for them where were the write-ups the numbers were sent for article b but are we i mean if we're looking just to submit them um i mean the numbers for i got article d's final numbers today so i sent them over so i can tell you the difference but the numbers are we can't vote to to submit it even if it's with the understanding that some of these numbers are going to change and so if you've got the numbers today you or do you have them in the in the form the format the template here and then you can send them in to abby for including in the packet the next week and it is i'm sorry madam chair if there's going to be changes to articles jalen and i also need to be jalen and i also need to be copied on by so that we have them these are just the draft ones right right okay so you need to so the numbers change like they've they've moved around a little bit like e the language is changing um so it got reviewed one more time but we need the final numbers just to vote to submit yes okay all right article um article b and article d those have been um given over for for final numbers uh well some of them yeah okay yeah let me say this again i would like to have let me try again we got yeah oh no we'll say it again i would like to know where we are with these articles when you are with them before the packet closes so on thursday you let me know if it's getting in this week or it's not because we want to finish these on um i don't know where we stand by the way we recognize citizens if we get back i i just gotta all right so in an ideal world my happy world we do a b i think c is ready d ryan is coming to speak to us about e next week so hopefully we can do e um h is the budget i think we won't see that till the 16th l is the vehicles i'd like to see that one next week oh is the wage and salary classification clip this one's also mine but it's um we're gonna wait to the last week just in case there's any other uh changes on that um ee um i don't think we've seen the final write-up to vote it did we vote that did we vote ee yeah so we need to see that final write-up can we get that in the back thursday yeah and you i just sent it today okay i copied you and kelsey okay and japan all right yeah it said she was starting the clock today
yeah okay i'll grab that but what you're saying even though i referred it the other day right not at me but yeah yeah okay and then petitioner articles next week um so x you saw miss plum came in the week before that one is ready double x we'll have that in the packet as soon as these others are ready i would imagine the public appearance was 16. if you can be writing on this would be great um i do want everyone to know there are two articles in my opinion someone will tell me otherwise that we have not inserted one of them is kk which has been proposed by the senior tax voting group um i don't know if they're actually going to be ready so there's a decision that we want to have that conversation next ready or not next week because they're making changes they're making genes another desire and then dd we not only haven't um voted to insert that but we also had talked about being setting um we can go forward with that and the foreign date so yes madam chair i'm looking at the working article list it looks like you inserted 25 holiday road on the 20th of january okay well let me answer it then
all right i just want to let go through that this is what we we're doing great we're going to stick with it so i'm sure uh what are we going to do about the uh high school ball fields well the high school ball field is not on our plate because it has not been put officially into the capital plan
to give me the look like era and we have a recommendation from town manager um and we're waiting to hear from the finance committee early on my name's committee did not put it forth as a debt exclusion and they are discussing that project still i believe michael said he'll going to speak on it on wednesday night so if it comes back then we'll deal with it when it comes yeah that's what that was my question is do you want to add that to the monday discussion no anything that pumps up i just add in okay yeah no no i've got my eye on that one as well to make sure we don't miss anything that's the problem they don't miss stuff so that's that's a biggie all right so i think we're on good i've got everything mr face says i do so i'm good okay so the next item is we're going to talk about the article the order of the articles and um we'll hand this over to mr routine um so i'm page whatever i've been talking one of two one of two thank you last page yep there's one article that i missed as a heads up this article a a no it's article cc amend town code chapter 36 one okay i'm meeting an election and i would probably plug that into my abbreviated presentation procedure so it would be nine abbreviateds yeah i want to go back up and explain that so i spoke to the moderator and she of course was comfortable with us doing a consent calendar again this year um but then we also said to you we have a lot of um housekeeping small bylaw amendments we don't want to put those in consent so um the moderator said she was okay with it i talked to doug and we are recommending that we do all those with abbreviated so they should you know you should go really quick so do you think it makes sense to keep all the abbreviated together like that or just split them up throughout the night how has that been done in the past because i obviously i put there's eight there'd be nine and i put them all in or both is that how we typically do i'm asking the moderator hey marinda hi um i actually like the idea of buzzing through those eight if not nine abbreviated procedure articles as fast as possible okay just because i think it's there's a certain flow to it yeah i think we can get through that consent calendar at the beginning and then we're going to obviously spend quite a bit of time on the budget uh then the second consent calendar yeah i think i think it would be good it'd be it would it would get rid of quite a bit okay um permanent and temporary easements at town center for rail jail is that about it i didn't have any sense for timing on that do you have that bill i have that um there may be questions about that so maybe i think in 10 minutes after but it's the corner of a vote gonna be on that i think that's two-thirds yeah okay so one of the things is that last year can we run into this a lot is last year i did this and i had the days thought the thing is that we don't have a crystal ball to say how long we're really going on and if the budget goes shorter or longer we can do get further deeper into it and then that's so i um think we'll actually discuss leaving out the tuesday you know the second day and just run them through knowing full well this might be a natural break but if not we have time we'll just keep going so because once we stay it then it's going to be on tuesday then even if we finish it like 10 yeah was we we adjourned and you know we were we could have done you know two two three more articles so okay i'll make that change everyone's good with that well i'm going to say this for significant articles that are gonna that may be controversial or have particular interest i think it's important you place them so that people know will be discussed on a particular yeah yeah for example you've got dd on the holiday road that may gender a lot of conversation yeah you've got 45 minutes yeah and um we'll definitely get to that on day one right yeah i think you will we will i think i hit all the big ones yeah yeah so that's everything else there is so quick the only main substantive ones are budget mwra 25 holiday road three substantive articles i think the water one's going to be 30 minutes i think it was short yeah let's face it then we know it's coming and we know we need it when we want to pay for there is another country yeah okay maybe one person in town that doesn't know we're doing this and we have to do it i i have a question for the board that i'm very curious what folks think about is if we compared to prior town meetings have far less if any real controversial articles here maybe mwra somewhat but yeah listen things so maybe holiday road and we're getting now to the very end and we have a very small number of voters there already yet should i have all the petitioners articles at the end if we don't need to wonder who people's position is on that because i know that's just been done historically but i'm not sure that we're required to do that and do we want more critical and more from bigger mass and voters to be able to weigh in on this my concern is that the petitions articles may result in a lot of discussion um and people feel let me put this way people's energy at the end of town meeting is less than yeah than the beginning of timing and you're talking about a topic that may gender a lot of ideas and what about this people are not for following the topic they could go 45 minutes each if you put these in my opinion if you place them in the wrong place so right so i kind of like where they are definitely so i had such a doubt that i felt that we should put uh so we usually have with the petition hours and then we have one or two of us after it i think we should put something down there i was i would suggest maybe article ee the planning board appeal article that's our article something like that but that will help because what happens is sometimes we get down the end there we have a hard time maintaining the quorum so i think we need something that's going to be um i think sherman's bread is going to get people in the streets but i wouldn't learn about that well if you if some board members have mentioned to me it might be a local local concern it's not a widespread concern maybe the folks will say eight to nine paragraph yeah but they know people in town get their friends to come out but she's but then why would they stick around for the article after that if you want to put you you want he to be the anchor the very last article yeah well on something that goes down there one or two down there maybe are there any resolutions or no no never mind they usually go they go at the end i'm sorry they usually go at the end they have to be the last right i know but we don't have any sadly they're not instructions
bill's saying that some of these sherman's bridge if not all of these articles are potentially resolutions not drafted as such though no right no so the resolution i think is it's a sense of down meaning when you know binding requirements at all this sounds like these are on the fence but the legislature can't find the executive okay let's can we just i think effectively there are resolutions the the other uh in the past we have had uh the um articles of uh the cpa articles at the end at the end at the end and if i were on the cpa i would love that because
well we have another agreement well i have to tell you having been the liaison for the super for several years they're really not crazy they always are on the back end of the wall and i always
um so every end agreement we'll just take the tuesday up and run them out we'll double check we've got them all maybe dug them out the middle of the next what i'd like to do is get a sense that we're pretty good here there's no major changes because i'd like to get this we want to get this to the staff because as the finals come in they can start you know blow it laying up the book um and then green if you would like we can bring back the revise next week you know with the changes because a couple of the obstacles have come out and we might move that worked everybody so i'm already on four hours i hope i'm not going for a new record yet yes sorry to add something but i did just look through um you mentioned something hadn't been inserted it wasn't the article you said it's actually the article y i just went through the minutes of our meetings since we just didn't know you did turn it article what's going on okay no we don't know we inserted it we considered and supported even though we already did it once tom and i can get it now so i think but this is good keep track right on this because we don't want to have one all right so let's move on to the next item which i think is the town manager is the town manager thank you everybody all right i'm going to see brother to put it into awareness no no no no all right i'll get done before 10. it's back like an auctioneer oh my god i feel terrible so um just a couple quick things community choice rate update we met last week um i did with the julie gagans who's our sustainability coordinator energy and um paragon and we reviewed the bids and they come in usually on six month increments and we also asked for something slightly off at 25 months and the best rate we got was from first point power who's our current provider and they gave us the best price at 14.01776 cents per uh dollars per kilowatt hour i'll get it all street um but it's for 25 months and the idea of going 25 versus 24 we can incrementally get off the peak season into a shoulder season for future purchasing but it was the best rates we locked in um we went to uh 36 months for more it costs more don't understand why but this was the best rate we took that and that will be for everybody who's um part of the community aggregation how does that compare with our current rate uh i don't have it committed but i know it is higher because we locked in obviously earlier and now on energy has been going up across the boards with slightly higher um and then i just have a couple items under a recap the last two um two times i've had uh town manager office hours they get canceled due to snow so we're going to try again on march 23rd um at 5 30 before our select board meeting i just want to let you know we did have our first professional development day last thursday it was very well attended by everybody we had our as we said we would pursuant to the equity assessment that we did we did a segment on cultural awareness and diversity training for all of the staff uh we had a gentleman named steven bernstein who's a licensed mental health professional and he also works with our eap to discuss that and we had a few and a it lasted about over an hour and a half so that was good um we got a notification from the department of public utilities that the per ride assessment that we get for 20 cents on ride sharing trips is going to be going away as of january one next year we don't get a lot we used to get about four thousand dollars or so but um they're going to do away with that um and i think we're getting closer to getting a draft on our fire staffing study which does not i don't believe the personnel board but we may want somebody from this board when we sit down and take a look at it because if there's any suggestions for increasing staffing it would obviously have impact in the town going forward so maybe this is someone uh you know as a liaison when we start looking at that and like i can defer anything else too thank you so there are no minutes anybody have any comments and correspondence i'm great i believe i'm not looking at the of revised agenda but i believe we have a revised agenda with a consent item correct yes and you just might want to speak to that consent then or no just remote it right okay you just voted if you're quite happy to move the consent calendar from our second to the one second second thank you any further discussion okay there's no discussion let's take a vote and yes yes yes yes yes
Thank you. Thank you for letting me say something. I am, as you all are, concerned about not being able to get the free no interest loan for the water project. And I'm wondering if we might consider going to a cheaper possible plan because we did pick the most expensive plan. And the other thing is the special town meeting that was held for voting on moving the debt from the Department of Public Works building debt. It was so minimally attended and I just, I think it should be reconsidered if it's possible. I don't know if that's possible, but I don't think we should be moving any other debt into the main, I don't know the terms, you know, but just if we have to pay this debt off, we're going to be paying it off along with the water for a long time and let it end then rather than permanently raise the base for our taxes. Because I know that's something you're going to discuss today. I hope you understand what I'm saying because I'm trying to be articulate on things I'm not very familiar with and trying to be fast. Thank you very much. Anybody else? There's nobody else. There was no more public comment. Mr. Sulton, would you like to join us here? So we are going to interview Mr. Sulton. He has some more information. There was a supplemental packet that came out today. He has applied the position of the constable from the town. He returned in June 3, 2027. He has been, it's a little bit different than on the process here, but he has already been in contact and spoken with Trudy Reed, our town clerk, and I also believe we're the acting police chief, Mr. Huber. I've been in touch with Ms. Reed and with Abigail. So those are the two folks I've been in touch with from your town. Great. So would you like to just, you can leave any address and just give us a brief. Sure. You'd like to add us to your stable. So my name is Jeffrey Sulton. I'm a lifelong greater Boston resident. I've been a Newton resident for 35 years. Actually grew up in Newton as well. I've been a constable for the city of Newton for 27 years. Been reappointed nine times. I've been a constable for the city of Watertown for 12 years. Been reappointed there three times. I'm a Wellesley constable because they have two. They lost one and I filled in the next lot. Last year, Arlington had a vacancy, contacted me. I became a constable for them. And then I spoke to Trudy probably about two months ago. And I know that you didn't have a constable here because I've been doing all sorts of constable business through other constables and attorneys in your town. So I thought it would be prudent that I talk to her and just tell her that I've got a vast experience doing this. I do this full-time. My regular job for 30 years was high-tech sales and I did this on the side. And two years ago when I started to do this full-time, it really became a business and it keeps me plenty busy. So I am fully busy Monday to Friday. I actually just did a tax lien service for another town five minutes from here on the way out. So you guys are close. I do all your apartments there on Route 20. So I do those through special process or since I'm not appointed, they get a special process approval and I've got to do it. So if I get appointed, I will be doing that as a wedding council. Thank you. So thank you very much. Our process is that the board will have questions. Yes. So who wants to start? Sir, thank you for appearing before us today. What does the certification process entail to becoming a constable in the Commonwealth? That's an excellent point because there isn't a specific certification process, but I'll tell you what I know. There's a couple of things because there's that pending legislation now that I'm involved with through some of the constable associations because they're trying to get some hardened facts for all the constables. And there's probably 2,000 in Massachusetts and they're absolutely necessary too because deputy sheriffs can't handle the volume of business. I mean, that's a huge problem. I'm getting a lot of stuff right now as are other constables because deputy sheriffs are so backlogged. They're telling people, we'll get to you two to four weeks out. So there is not a hard and fast certification process at present, but I can tell you for myself, what I did is I took some trainings. I actually worked with a senior Brookline constable for two years and he kind of taught me the ropes. And again, I did some classes and I learned a lot of it is on the job training and the old school stuff. But then what I've done is supplemental training. Plus, we all have to be bonded by the individual cities and towns in which we work. So every town where I'm appointed, I have a bond, a certi bond that I'm responsible to pay every year to cover me if there's any problem. The other thing I've said in my mini bio is in 27 years, I've never had a center of a complaint. And I do a volume of business, a huge volume of business. So I know about one thing that this, the old time when Brookline taught me is he said, whatever you do, do it right. You know, if you make a mistake, it's all bad and I get it. So, you know, it's about integrity. You know, you say what you do. If you make a mistake, fix it, own up to it. But I'm in a network of other constables that they're top-notch folks. And they're also folks that I use, like if I needed to serve stuff outside of the 12 towns that I cover geographically, I'll contact them in the North Shore, the South Shore, the Cape, Worcester. And likewise, I do all sorts of service here, around here for guys that are in Worcester, South Shore, North Shore, Western House, et cetera. So, but like I said, there is legislation that we've actually put to fore with some state reps, and I'm working with State Senator Creamer right now to see if I can get her to endorse this. And if she endorses it, we can then get some hard and fast rules, because I want to see a certification program. Okay? So, we don't have it. It doesn't exist, but I think we'll have one in the next, probably within the next year. Okay, thank you. Bill, Tom? I have a couple questions. How many constables does every town have that you work? It all depends. I can tell you, Newton, when I started 27 years ago, at eight or nine, and I was number nine, I was the young guy. And they were all, you know, the old timers. And over time, I kept going up. I'm now the senior, I'm the chief constable for the city of Newton. There's five constables in Newton, but there's only two active, and I do 9% of the work. Okay? In Watertown, I do 100% of the work, and they have three constables. You know, Wellesley has two, and I do a lot of stuff. So, not only do I do work independently for landlords and attorneys, but I do work for the towns. So, like for Newton or Watertown, I do health and human services. I do tax liens. I do utility bills. You know, after utility bills, I post warrants. I'll actually serve termination letters to employees. Okay? So, I'll actually serve, I do animal control citations for the town of Watertown. I actually deliver them on behalf of that animal control. So, it's a lot of stuff. So, it all varies. Okay? I can tell you that a lot of towns, some towns, a lot of towns are deficient with the number that they should or could have, but it's tough. You've got to get someone who, number one, knows the business, wants to do it, and is good at what they do. So, you know, you guys are a neighboring town. I mean, I'm driving out Route 20, Route 30 all the time. And I'll cover as far as, like, Natick and Framingham, but that's not my court or territory. So, you build flat rate? Yeah, what I do, depending on the town. So, I have, like, a flat rate with Newton. I have a flat rate with Watertown. And they're all different. So, but, yes, the answer is yes. And if I have to do services, like multiple services, if they're required to do in hand, then, you know, you're paying a per service charge. If I have to do services outside of the city, then it's an add-on to that. Thank you. Tom just covered my question, which was how constables in the Commonwealth are compensated. Yeah, so I run all my business. So, I run a 1099. So, I do 1099s. I pay quarterly taxes. I've been doing that for 27 years. So, I'm actually, my wife is going through my taxes with me right now because I have, I get probably 50 1099s with the various people, attorneys and other constables in the towns that I do business with. So, Ann, do you have any questions? I know, I know what constables do. I, I looked you up. So, I know that you worked with, with Newton in Arlington, I believe. Is that right? Okay. That's right. Yep. I got it. I got it. I'm all good. Thank you. Thank you. Here you're going lastest. Questions are all asked. So, I know you're all set. Unless the board has any other comments, I think I'll just take a motion. I move that the select board appoint Jeffrey Silton as a constable in the town of Whalen for a term ending June 30th, 2027. Second. Second. Thank you. I think this is any part of the discussion. We'll call Whalen. Ann? Yes. Doug? Yes. Bill? Yes. Yes. Carol, yes. And the motion passes 5-0. Now, I have to look at somebody, Ms. Kelsey. He gets the letter, like the town clerk. Hmm. They were saying yes. Okay. So, yeah, I'm going to do the speech. Yeah, the process that I know, because I'm about to get a renewal with the town of Wellesley, so what they do is they actually, they do an annual letter. Some do three years, some do two years, five years, one year. Wellesley does one year. So, they just renew it, and then they don't tell me. And I'm like, am I been renewed? Oh, yeah, come and sign. Yeah, you'll get a letter and some information from the town manager's office to come into the town clerk's office and take the oath. Right, and every time I do that, I'm Corey Chex. So, on my renewals, my reappointments, I'm Corey Chex. So, all right. Thank you. Congratulations. Congratulations. Thank you very much. Thank you very much. Appreciate it. Appreciate you coming in personally as well. Thank you. Thank you. All right, so we want to have a quick discussion on the, this is a follow-up discussion, our discussion of the last week on how select what issuing citations and proclamations. We'll, we asked, do you know what I saw in May? I mentioned I did hardly any of this, to put together some, some guidelines, you know, how this would roll out. We, I'll let Jayla speak to it, and it's on page, what, and you can't be in, because I don't have any page now. It's in the regular, it's a page that was clarified. So, these are the basic guidelines that we would have for select board citations and proclamations. So, the citations would be presented as certificates of recognition, which are going to be intended for congratulatory occasions, and they may be presented to Wayland residents and organizations. Right now, we're going to limit them to either Girl Scout Gold Awards or Boy Scout Eagle Awards, and then any outstanding service or deed that's performed by a group or person in Wayland. And then proclamation requests are going to be used to serve and educate and bring awareness to the public on issues related to history, culture, health, public safety, and other important education causes, and those have to be sponsored by an organization and serve a purpose to Wayland residents. And they're not going to be automatically reissued each year. So, for example, if it was National Childhood Cancer Awareness Month, that group would need to come back and re-ask for us to reissue it. The town manager's office is going to review all the requests, and then this content is subject to change based on board approval, and then the select board reserves the right to deny or approve any of those requests. We do ask that those looking for requests submit them at least 15 days prior to the date that they want the citation or proclamation issued on it. Terrific. So, of course, I think it's perfect, but let's do it with a board of things. Does anybody have any comments on this? No. I just, I wasn't sure if, I saw some emails go when I looked recently. I think Doug just sent out an email. But I guess I just need a little more context behind this.
Well, okay, what kind of context? So, it's... I can call it. I have seen these and used primarily for Eagle Scout accomplishments and gold awards for Girl Scouts. That's how I've seen it happen. That's how I've seen them issued in the past from the Select Board's office. So, it won't be new to Aniland? This kind of just maybe codifies the procedure? Correct. Yeah. Because there's no really, like, current procedure for them at the moment. Yeah. Okay. Okay. I presented this and it's going to be the very next thing we're going to talk about. We got asked to, as we do annually, you know, to attend the Girl Scout Gold Award ceremony, which is actually Thursday, I think, this week. And after I accepted and said I would come, I had asked if I would not only speak, but would the Select Board be issuing a citation? So, we talked about this. I'm in the office. And then we talked about it last week briefly. And when the Board asked Adrienne and I went to go and put something together, this kind of a... We don't... We think it's a terrific idea, but we don't want to create, you know, high... A lot of volume type project, which is why we're starting with just a couple items on the list. Okay. Yeah. I mean, I know that they're very involved in town. And so, like, they're part of a lot of ceremonies that we have in general in town. Like, I saw them at the... What was it? Veterans Day events. They're at a ton of the two organizations. I just wasn't sure whether this was somehow connected to their programming or whether this was something that we had been doing and we just wanted to formalize it. So, it sounds like it's the latter. It sounds like the latter to me, too. All right. She hasn't made changes or edits or anything like that. I'm going to go on. So, this is... To follow up on that, this is the one that we're doing our first one already, see? We're not wasting any time. And this one is to, you know, the light. And it talks all about her extraordinarily. She's more happy for the work she's done. And then, it's going to be signed by the select board, second day of March, 2026. And, of course, so I'm going to show this like this so those at home can see it. And then, everybody who's here should... Sorry, if I pass it out now. I think we're going to sign it right now. And then, I'm going to take it with me Thursday. So, everybody okay with that? And these guidelines were placed on the website? Yes, I'm going to place them on the select board page. Great. All right. So, Madam Chair, I think you have to vote to approve the request. You can do too. I got too excited. I need a motion to approve... I move that the select board approve the certificate of recognition, which will be presented to Fiona White for extraordinary leadership for the Wayland Girl Scouts. She is a Wayland High School senior this year from this date. Second. Thank you. Any further discussion? I... Yes. I'm not sure that the select board needs to vote on each citation, correct? Based on these guidelines. It says that the board deserves the right to approve or deny the citation, but there's no... I don't see a requirement in the guidelines that a motion be allowed. Because you're saying it's just a sense of the board and nobody ejects it because we're just approving. Exactly. Which I think may make it easier for the select board office staff to handle this without a form of vote. Each citation. Each citation. Just a suggestion. Having said that, I'm not voting, but I'm just saying I don't think we need to, based on this guideline. How would we, how would we know if the sense of the board was to approve or deny? I think the staff would let us know through communications. The staff would let us know about the citations, but I think the only one, I think your approval is assumed unless somebody speaks up and has an objection. The board reserves the right to approve or deny any citational proclamation request. That's the sentence. Would you like it to be awarded? Well, I want to hear from Bill. Do you think a vote would be important? No. I think we should. It's unclear to me whether the board ought to go to adopt the policy or just say, this is the sense of the board. And does that then go into the handbook? The policy. The policy. Let's go on the panel page. I do think we should vote on the policy. Okay. So since all, you heard me say this, all topics are subject to deliberation of vote, why don't we have a motion to approve the policy? But we'll move this one first. All right. So does it have to withdraw? No, no. Are we voting this one now? Oh, we're back to this. Okay, good. Thank you. It's on the agenda.
I said to myself, what could go on tonight? I really am on the money. Is she guessing? You are? All righty. I'm going to start with Mr. Levine. Some of the mean votes, yeah. Thank you, sir. Mr. Whitney. Yes. Mr. Fred. Yes. Ms. Breslin. Yes. And Ms. Martin says yes. So that is for the citation, right? And then do we would like to take a vote on the policy? Happy to move that this board vote to approve the select board's citation, the confirmation guidelines set forth and act act second. Thank you. And now do I do your service? Any further discussion? Okay, great. Let's go to the vote. Tom. Yes. Doug. Yes. Bill. Yes. Ann. Yes. And Carol. Yes. Okay, great. Thank you, Madam Chair. I'm sorry. Can I make up another mistake? No, no. I just want some clarification. So how do we let the board know? So coming out of the discussion we just had, how does the board, how do we let the board know? Because you just said you don't want to take votes on it. Well, no. I think he's saying it's optional, but I think at this point you can bring them in for votes and it seems if it's onerous that this policy may not require it. That's just where I was confused because I was like, well, what do I do now? Yeah. I think it would go to the chair because if it's scheduled on the agenda. Right. And then they'll look at that and if they have questions, most likely the chair would have a consult on it with yourself, with Jaylen or Michael, and then we'll go from there, put her on the agenda, and then the board will make the decision. Okay. Over the years, we often see emails that come in the office requesting this. Right. We kind of get noticed that. Mm. Excuse.
Okay. I'm going to, um, we all set them here? Yeah. Just sign it later, maybe. Maybe we have to fix something.
We'll go to executive session, and I'm going to have to find out if the visit has disappeared. I need a motion. I'll leave it to the SEC. Nope. One second, please. Mm-hmm.
I'll be able to see if something disappeared, so I got it turned right away to them. Okay. I'm going to let the Senate board enter into executive session. Um, since there are no minutes tonight, I don't have to include that, but, oh. Since there's no minutes down, I don't have to include that in the executive session. Uh, that is true. Okay. Okay. So, okay. Move the select board enter into executive session. Pursuant to Massachusetts General Laws, Chapter 30A, Section 21A3, to discuss strategy when we select the collective bargaining with the International Association of Firefighters, AFL-CIO, World Bill 1978. Pursuant to Massachusetts General Laws, Chapter 30A, Section 21A2, to conduct strategy sessions in preparation for negotiations with non-union personnel, and in this case, it's the town manager. Is there a second to the motion to enter into executive session? Thank you. The chair declares that a public discussion on these matters may have a detrimental effect on the litigating, negotiating, or bargaining position of the town. Can we all come vote, please? Anne? Anne? Yes. Doug? Yes. Tom? Yes. Bill? Yes. And Carol? Yes. That's five zero. The chair invites attendance by Michael McConnell, town manager, Kelsey Powers-Burlett, assistant town manager, and Jalen Braddock, the management analyst and communications coordinator, and is Ms. Ryan joining us? Yes. And Kate Ryan, our human resource director. The committee will rejoin the public meeting for an executive session, and the meeting will return to open session in approximately 35 minutes.
You got it.
Okay. So I'm going to return the select board to open session at 6.59.
On our agenda, we're going to have a follow-up discussion with a potential vote on the debt exclusion ballot question, and we invite Abby Charest, and Tony Anthony and Tom Miller, the director of the department, who wants to join us on the ARLine.
Yes. Hi, Tom. Evening. Good evening. Hi, Tom. How are you? So the question that we have, is Abby joining us? Yes, she's on. Okay, we've got to find her. We lost her.
I'm here. I'm just getting my video. We can't see you. Oh, there you are. Hi. So, Abby, before we start, I want to say welcome, but do you know all the board members, and maybe we should introduce ourselves? I don't think I do. Okay. So, evening, Abby. I'm Bill Worthy. Yeah. I'm Tom. Good evening. Hi, Tom. Hi, Abby. I'm Doug Levine. Hi, Doug. And the screen above you or next to you is Ms. Brensley, and I'm Caroline. Nice to meet you. Thank you. Nice to meet you. Nice to meet you. Nice to meet you. Well, theoretically.
So, I think last week, the Finance Committee came to the select one and made a presentation about the wastewater capital project at the high school. I don't think there's anybody in town that isn't aware that this is an issue that needs to be resolved, so I don't think that's where we're at. I think the question is, they have asked us to consider funding this through debt exclusion versus perhaps living debt or some other means, and I think the board had a few questions about the project, I think somewhat was prompted, and let the board speak for themselves, but it was somewhat prompted by the fact that there was some discussion of perhaps should we or shouldn't we combine this with the failed project at the high school. I will say the Finance Committee did vote not to support that project with debt exclusion, so that's not really the full question, but I think there seems to be some questions, so we thought we'd ask you to come and join us and see if we can.
They voted not to the fields, by Jeff, the fields, the fields. So, we are only considering the debt exclusion question for the wastewater project, and I know that you put it on, and I'm saying this for those who watch our meetings, this is about 30 pages of documents in our path, starting on page seven, so let me get a sense of the board how we want to start. Do we want to just ask questions, or would we like a brief overview first? Nice to have a short overview. Okay, well then, would you like to give us a brief overview of how this project's going to work? Sure. So, I think we know that there's been an issue for a while at the high school. I think that the initial thoughts were to bring that original treatment plant back online. That original cost estimate to bring it online was about $5.5 million, and that's about when I started here at Wayland. In reviewing that plan, I was concerned that we would see the same types of problems going forward if we just reconstructed the same type of treatment plant. So, we've worked with MassDEP and the Board of Health to reduce the design flows in such a way that we could do a Title V system, and that Title V system would be the $2 million project. So, that includes a little bit of demo in the existing building. It includes a new treatment process and one of the tanks that is existing, and then an expansion of the leach fields. So, the design is smaller, but the leach fields will have to be larger, and that's because the original treatment plant treated to a higher level. So, they were able to do smaller leach fields, and now that we'll be doing a Title V system, we'll be building larger leach fields out there.
Thank you. I have a couple of questions on the design development budget that's included in the packet. I take it that the design is advanced through design development, but not contract documents as yet. That's correct. Okay. A $300,000 contingency at 35% strikes me as a big number.
What's your opinion?
Sorry. No, that's fine. I don't think it is 35. Is that what the math is? Hold on. Yes. Okay. I thought I had reduced the contingency there. We're actually on page 44 of the packet now.
Says 300 on the contingency, but that to me is not 35%. I couldn't figure out the 8% either. Right. Okay. So, 35% is actually 525,000. So, that was a text error in that box there. I think the 300 is, is that 20 or 25? I think there was a, it was a, it was 35, it was 35 initially. And then when we just went to 90%, we reduced it. I think that we didn't change the actual text. That box doesn't, that 35% doesn't link in the math to the other ones. It's just a text box, but let me.
You engineers are good with math. Tell me what the percentage. That's, it's now 20%. So, we reduced it from 35 to 20. Do you expect that number to come down when you get the, the working drawings done or the bid price? What, that is to say, what's a reasonable contingency to carry that you've got a contract amount? I think going forward at this point, I would still stick with the 20%. You're going to want to continue to carry contingency through the project. And with bid pricing these days, it's harder and harder to actually estimate real construction costs. So, my assumption at this point would be to carry the 20%. Even after you get a, or you'd stick with the 300 irrespective, pretty much of what the contract amount is. That's correct. I'm surprised that you wouldn't reduce the 300, once you have a firm price. Well, I'm an engineer, not a finance person. So, I, I would like more contingency all the time.
But... You're also the owner. The owner doesn't want to spend more money than they have to. No, I hear you. But I, I think at this point, we just, we wouldn't want to get to a place where we ended up bidding the project and we wouldn't be able to proceed with the wastewater project without the contingency. And the eight, and the 130,000, again, I don't know what percentage that represents. That, is that to complete the working drawings and for construction administration? Yes. The construction administration is the first 130 and the second 130 is, as you said, the design and getting the bid documents out. We have the design pretty much done. The bid documents and then the construction-faived services. So, that is just 130 percent. It's roughly that 0.5 million. That's right. Yeah. Sorry. There used to be a line in here that had design, but we don't have that there anymore because we're, we're pretty much done with the design. How much is the total engineering cost?
Tom, do you remember what that original budget was for the high school design?
Yeah. I'm not sure what the actual contract value was. We had, we had upwards of $375,000 that was available to us for the design effort, but I, I'm not certain of what the actual contract value was for the design. I think there is, um, like 60 to $70,000 left, which I think was part of the reason we were talking about the ball fields, that using that money to incorporate the ball fields as well. Yeah. Yeah. Again, it, it, it strikes me as high as 130, but 8% at this stage. Well, it's going to be more interesting because somewhere along the line today, I think somebody was asking questions of Mr. Holder and he graciously, or maybe not so graciously included me. And I saw that the common estimate of the time bond is not on a 2.6 million for the fields.
This is the wastewater, right? Yeah. And the one thing that, you know, Les has learned as, as we've gone through, you know, projects all through these years is that, you know, we have healthy contingencies. We have healthy, uh, um, you know, figures assigned to construction oversight and permitting and all of that. And that's because, you know, we have to go into town meeting, um, asking for what we believe, uh, the potential costs could be. Um, there was a question posed that, uh, you know, once we get the bid prices, could we come down? That may be a possibility, but on May 4th, we're likely going to be going to be in a position where we're going to request what you see on that, uh, that estimate breakdown.
I have a couple of questions. Um,
would the municipal building committee be involved in this project?
They generally have not been involved, um, with process treatment types of projects. Uh, the actual, um, work that's done on the facility is nominal. Uh, so this generally would not be something that they would be assigned or would participate in.
The next question is the, um, the design of the leach field suggests it's fairly well contained. Um, do you see any concerns, um, Abigail, about PFAS making its way, um, subtly direction towards the happy other one? I don't. Um, one, it's been, you know, designed with DEP and board of health, um, in terms of the PFAS we've had to, um, well, that's for the night. We haven't been required to increase the treatment of the title five. It's called an advanced title five system. So allow for a higher level of treatment, but then, um, you know, going into the, um, being in the zone to any PFAS will be removed at the new treatment plan, the new water treatment plan. So one last question, um, will there be communication with Michael Thayer on products being used at the high school that can, that could contribute to PFAS, um, uh, pollution, I'll call it? Um, uh, is there an education that, that, that has happened or will happen? Um, I haven't been involved with that process. I do know that Michael Thayer's department and the, uh, sustainability chair have been working on, um, green supplies and, and, and that green process, but that's not something that I have been a part of. I'm just going to say that I really hope there is, and this is the reason you've, you've made this design and you just referred to an enhanced, uh, design to, um, address PFAS, but, um, there really should be a good communication between you, uh, you and, and, and Michael Thayer's office, so that, and the high school staff, so that the custodians understand what products are appropriate and what aren't, so we can maximize the use of that new plant, um. Go ahead, Mr. McCollish. Because of this ongoing conversation, I've mentioned it to my department heads, and last July, I sent out a directive on, uh, PFAS containing materials, purchase, use, and disposal, and then further sent out the, uh, guidance from the Massachusetts Operational Service Division, to avoid purchasing of PFAS contaminated products, products. And I have recently, when this discussion came up, double-checked Mr. Fay and said that we are not, we are, for the best of his knowledge, we're no longer buying anything, but we're trying to go through our stock to make sure there's nothing still on the shelves that would contain it. Right. So, thank you. Um, I have some information, I think the kid adds a bit, Tom's second point, so I'm going to hop in with the board's indulgence here. Um, a long time ago, I was the liaison, the Finance Committee liaison for the school committee, when the decision was made that we had to start pumping, make sure it was it. And the, what has, we all have septic systems in our house, and we all know you have to treat them nicely, for lack of better words. And the real issue was that there were, and I'm not fingerprinting, but it was just deemed that, uh, cleaning materials, um, and, um, some items in the food service area were going down the system. So, I'm not so sure the education really needs to start with the PFAS, but I think it really should include what products can and cannot go down there. Um, because that is what I, I was led to believe at the time as to what caused our system to over miss out, but maybe not. I don't think so. You know, that's what you put back. It doesn't help, but that wasn't really. Okay. That's what they said at the time. All right. There were a lot of reasons. I don't believe them. All right.
Abby, can you help me, um, understand? So we've been pumping now for a number of years, and I was raising this question last week with the Finance Committee at, at, at a cost of about $120,000 per year, but I was informed that that's just not a long-term solution because of certain requirements by the DEP. Can you help me understand those? Yes. So DEP regulates whether or not you have a treatment plan or you have the Title V and what you can do in terms of, um, putting, where you put your wastewater. And a tight tank like we have is, is, is not allowed. Sometimes in an emergency situation like we've had, they will, um, work with you and they've been very generous in working with us on this. Um, but it's not a solution that's, um, allowed through MassGEP. So have they been pushing us to stop pumping and transporting for several years? Or how is this coming to a head right now? They have been, but we have also been working with them. So, um, um, while they've been pushing, we've been allowed to, um, go through design with them. They know we, our timeline with the Board of Health, um, they've been very, uh, generous with us because we've been showing the forward movement. Um, but I think we need to continue that forward movement to get that generosity. Thank you. Diane, do you have any questions? Um, no, I get it. But, um, I would say this, um, because Tom brought up a really important, you know, thought, which is, we don't want any future contamination. And the only thing that I would throw out there for everybody is that one of the best ways to really, um, regulate and make sure that you don't have some sort of leakage that you don't expect besides reducing and making sure that you're prudent in what supplies you use or what you allow through the infiltration system is ongoing testing of the site. It's the easiest way to know if you have a leak. So just something to keep in mind. That's not really, um, Abigail's space as an engineer, but it's something that you can do periodically just around the area to just double check. Hey, there, there hasn't been something that we're not aware of or some spreading of a chemical that we didn't even realize was going to contribute. It's something that, um, you're actually seeing with PFAS spreading so much with really unknown causes. Um, it's, it's something you're seeing, uh, people do a lot more in the private industry than the public, but it's, it's really not that expensive to do periodically. We have to do regular testing as a part of the system anyways, because it is, um, like called it an advanced system or they called an IA system. Uh, so it will be tested. Uh, PFAS isn't on that list, but if we wanted to test PFAS at that time, it would be feasible. So, uh, Tom, a good example of that is you're seeing this happen a lot on the Cape. And so when you look at IA systems, they're becoming almost required in a lot of towns for this very reason, because we can't even find the source. We're like, we don't know how it happened. The IA systems just allow like just a, a much cleaner system in general. So, um, that's it.
I just have to say, I really appreciate your, your good creative work, uh, Abigail on this project. You're saving time, a lot of money and, uh, we really appreciate it. Well, thank you. Sorry, two words out of my mouth, but it was my turn. I'm sorry. I can see I'm the only one that's sort of off tonight. Um, so I actually had a conversation, a couple of conversations with everyone. I think she first started coming up with all these creative ideas and, you know, looking at capacity and flow. And she had a number of ideas, maybe even to expand the system so that it would have equal flow for 12 months to be in, which is the nine months, because it's not really good for the system. And I was just wondering if you're still working on just real quickly on that, or this is going to be the extent of the system and it's not going to have any other capacity. Yeah. So as you mentioned, there were several issues with the previous treatment plant. One of them was what we call varied flows. So we'd have a fairly steady flow in the school year. And then all of a sudden it was almost zero in the summertime. And because of the type of treatment process that we had there, it was very difficult to, um, maintain it over the summer months. So one of the ideas was to add in some houses or some flows so that we could get a higher level of flow and make that treatment plant run better. Um, and at a more continuous wastewater flow, we looked at, um, including some of the neighbors, um, extending it to Dudley Ponds possibly. Uh, but the quantity of money that it would take to be able to do that, um, when that treatment plant was always very small. So we could only add a few houses to it. Um, it wasn't going to give us quite as much flow as we would have wanted to keep it as steady. Uh, and the cost wasn't very feasible. We did even consider, um, expanding the treatment plant, but because it is in the zone two, um, we, we didn't want to put more wastewater, um, in that area. Thank you. So Mr. Holder, do you want to add anything? No, I think we've covered, uh, much of what, uh, was interested in tonight. Great. Great. Thank you. So what doesn't have any other questions? Go ahead, Mr. Uh, to your last point, Abigail, was the pool considered as a source of, um, um, water or whatever, uh, to keep it busy during the summer months? It was one of, it was one of the options. Uh, it wasn't considered, um, as part of like the town project. It would be separate from that. Uh, but because of the cost to upgrade the treatment plan, it just, it wouldn't have made financial sense. Thank you. So thank you very much. I think we will. So the question before us actually is, you know, obviously I don't think there's anyone who's not thinking we should, this project should go forward. I don't think the question really becomes the fundances and how we fund this. Is it something we can fund, um, um, I'm going to just say through levy debt or another system? Or, um, do we feel we have to support this through, you know, a debt exclusion for the ballot and the question on the, on the ballot? Um, so does anybody want to start? I don't know where they're going. Oh, other recommendations from the town manager or the finance committee on this? So the finance committee of course recommended that we do damage exclusion. That was the presentation they gave us last week. Um, they did mention that I thought on policy that we put into place recently said a minimum is five million. Well, we worked on those policies quite a bit. Um, I, I, I think I asked that question. I was corrected by the chair who said that, uh, any project that finally ended over should be subject to debt exclusion, but there's nothing to, uh, prevent the town from issuing debt for a small arm. There isn't. However, the prevailing philosophy of this, and I think this is going to be one of the things that I personally want to recommend we look at establishing policy and it's clearer next year is the purpose of debt exclusion is to not make it an extension of the capital plan or we can't put these, you know, three projects and we'll have a debt exclusion. It's for the big one offs kind of thing, which is why we have a, when, when Louise was here, she said pass, establish a threshold for project of, uh, two and a half percent of the general fund budget or the operating budget so that, you know, you had a guideline. And at that time it was what, two and a half million. Then it would, it was about three, three and a half million. Now when we did the policies, we went with five million. Is that the correct number? I don't know, but I'm saying the concept is rather than to use it as an additional funding source for the annual operating budget. So that's, um, one thought. So would you like to address us too? Right. To, per the board's policy, to initiate the process, I made a request to the board to consider putting both projects an aggregate of 4.5 million dollars for excluded debt. Now, so far the finance committee has rendered opinion. They have to give one back to the board and they're in favor of that. They're still having some ongoing discussions. I think it's again on their next agenda. Um, I don't know, you know, the vote isn't in on what they want to do with the, uh, the varsity baseball series. But what you have before you is just the high school waste water and the concern here and the reason it was brought forward in, in the capital budget was because mass DEP is not, um, in favor of us continuing. Um, so that's, that's how it got here. And speaking with Mr. Keveney, we worked to get the DPW project out of levy debt. And if we are looking at a potential override or a multi-year override, if it was in levy debt, that would be factored into that number as well. So we recommended excluded debt for both projects. So far, only half of what we've asked for has come back to you. So I really still maintain the respectful requests for excluded debt. I'd like to just divorce this to just the wastewater because the recommendation or the request before us is the wastewater. We have this problem about mingling mentioned things on the line. It took us nine, a couple of my meetings to be really clear on what we were being able to do. So at the moment, my news committee has not voted to support or not support the video project. So I think we need to stick with the request reports and, you know, essentially my opinion is that how would we fund this? What are the options to fund this project? And the pros and the cons of how it could be funded? And I'm looking at you all at the level and still speak besides me. What are the options besides that exclusion?
It's that or it's levy debt, right? It's that or it's basically budgeting the debts or the annual debt services. Or I suppose there's capital stabilization. That could be an option. Do we know what the annual debt service would be? I think Mr. Keveney said roughly $200,000. I'm just mindful of the fact that we spent $120,000 in additional interest to advance the bans. We went to the voters, a handful of voters, as it turned out for the reclassification of the debt on the DPW facility. I'm unclear where we ended up or where it looks as if we're going to end up a piece of the state aid and health care.
What kind of excess levy we would have this year.
All of which is to try to get to the question of, you know, do we have the ability to absorb $200,000 in debt service if that worked? So I really hope, excuse me, I believe that there are some numbers have been, there's some recent numbers and I'm going to ask, we're still a contract provider for those next week that will answer that question when we are already. I think they're now remaining on under the budget numbers. And I think other than if we get additional state aid, I think we're pretty close to what we would have for additional levy. But right now, you're projecting about one, two, Michael?
It was slightly over a million. I don't have the exact number because late last week, I just have to preface. No, no, I'm holding it to 100%. It's about a million.
One of the issues was, although West Suburban came in with a favorable rate, when we were doing the calculations, we realized we had a lot of people, let's say, younger employees that went from 25 to 26 came off their parents' health plan. So we had some unanticipated people jumping on insurance, which ate into some of the savings we were projecting when we first got the number about two weeks ago from West Suburban, as we were actually putting it into the budget and doing projections. So the increase in the health insurance was projected to be 12%. It came in around eight, but now with these additional members onto our system, it's about 10. So we still have a little cushion.
One of the other options, it's an option. I don't think the one we would pursue, but we could fund it with big cash, which I'm sure that's not an option we do. But when you say, what are the options? So I'm sort of thinking that we need a little more information about this maybe by next week. Does that sound about right? And we can look at, you know, in reality and use living. And for Carole, you're uncomfortable with a debt exclusion. Can you talk a little bit about that? Yeah, I mean, I think that we have a lot of obligations coming down from the town. I think we are really concerned. And first of all, let me say this. Major kudos to Michael and the staff. We have avoided the operating override for a couple of years. But in the end, it is somewhat inevitable because our costs go up. You know, our personnel costs continue to increase our health insurance increases. I haven't said we've got this pension obligation now. And so I would not want to jeopardize an operating override. And they are harder to get through than just a debt exclusion. So we went to the voters in December and now we're going to go again in April. And they're small monies that we're asking for. And then we're going to ask for a larger one. I'm not, I'm a little concerned that we might jeopardize the big one which we need. But I also think that we should be able to fund this. Michael, can you look at this? We just reclassified the debt deeply down in the building. And although it's 700 in this budget, we're going to pay that debt for another half a dozen or so years. So it's 700 this year, 600 next year, making the numbers up here. You know, 500 hours we continue to pay the debt off. It's $200,000 to know the debt service. So either we take it out of free cash, or we use it out of the Andrews levy. Or the other thing that just started while we were sitting here is there's going to be $120,000 freed up in pumping costs. So it's like if you use $100,000, there's half the cost of the debt service right there. So those are some of my issues. I think I would like to see more than just borrow the money, you know, go and ask for more money. I would like to see some creative thoughts of how we do it, I guess. Does that answer your question? So that goes back to my original question, though, is what other options would there be of? What do you mean by creative options? What are you envision? Well, like the one I just said, maybe we take the $100,000 out of the operating budget that we're using for pumping, plus $100,000 for me, the free cash, or maybe we do the cap stabilization fund, and it's funded. You know, then the next year, we've got to come up with the $200,000, but maybe it comes out of that additional levy that's coming forth. I just think we we possibly have a couple options. I'd like to explore that first before I vote. That's just me.
Carol, are you also talking about the $100,000 a year that we are spending to pump? Yes. Is that the $100,000? Okay. So time is on the essence. Well, we need to vote this in the next week or two, so we can talk about this again next week. And it is debt exclusion, and I think it's important for us to have it in a couple meetings, and so the public knows we are talking about it, rather than just, okay, here it is, and we voted in, and it shows up at the ballot. Mr. McCall. Just to move to Faye's point, state law, we have to give the court 35 days notice for ballot question. I think based on your meeting schedule, that drop-dead date would be the 23rd of March. I think your meeting on the 16th, you probably best bet is to target no later than the 16th, and have that others fall back. That's my plan. Maybe we could have Mr. Kevin join us next week to discuss the options. Mr. Kevin is joining us to speak to us about the enterprise article, so I can just expand his repertoire. Maybe the finance committee might have voted on the other item finance. Yeah, there has been some correspondence back and forth about the other item, and the reason that was brought forth initially was there might be some cost savings, but it appears that may not in fact be 100% the case. So I don't know what the finance committee is going to do. See, that is not good for us. So is everybody comfortable with that plan? Anne, you're comfortable with that idea? Just maybe Mr. Kevin, you come in and provide us with a couple ways to fund this? Yes. Okay. Thank you, everybody. Thank you, Mr. Holman. Thank you, Mr. Red. All right. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Okay, so now we have all one. Item number eight, and the page is 44, I think, of the packet. This is a discussion with a potential both on the Millennial Fund Senate Council changes to legislation. What has happened here? Bill, do you want to speak to us? Sure. Sure. Thank you. So you'll all recall that the meeting authorizes the Blackboard to file this act that would have the effect of recognizing the Millennial Fund as a trust fund. And the Home Rule petition was filed. It made its way through the House. This approved. It went to the Senate. The Senate Council has raised a couple of questions and proposed certain changes, which are indicated in the red line, which is included in the packet, beginning on page 47. First is some capital letters. It should be lowercase. Lowercase should be capital. Another... Daniel Rowling, Mr. Whitney. Excuse me. Are there any comments to be corrected? Please. That's unkind. You're disturbing the comedy of the board here. I'm into punctuation. I'm into punctuation. I'm into punctuation. I'm into punctuation. Another comment was the draft talked about the trust fund commissioners having the ability to invest the funds. The Senate Council pointed out that the trust fund commissioners are not bonded, whereas the town treasurer is. And so they're suggesting that change in which change the commissioners, the library board agrees. A third suggestion was that there be a cap placed on the amount of a donation that could be made. The library trustees have looked at that, and they prefer not to have a cap on that. They point out that if someone were to give a generous gift of a whole bunch of additions that might exceed whatever the cap is established. So they...their request of this board is to provide the markup as it's indicated, which does not accede to the suggestion of the Senate Council that there be a cap placed on the amount of donations which could be accepted. Will that create a problem with the legislative process in the Senate? It could potentially create a problem. And we have Mr. Murray connect to the Senate Council directly to talk it through. They have... We have had quite a few conversations. I'm sorry. No, please. I've spoken with... I saw Ms. Janess on. I've met with her. I met with Senator Eldridge, his staff, David Emmers, and Attorney Michael D'Artensio from KB Law, and we've been going back and forth.
Senate Council has informed Senator Eldridge's office, unless the board gives some guidance specifically on the first two items. The likelihood of this moving forward is, you know, they want to hear that we're...the Division of Local Services wants somebody bonded. So those...to minimize changes and the change about the treasurer, they need to hear from that. The piece that's left open for debate is the cap. And speaking to Ms. Janess, you know, town meeting didn't vote a cap. And our own gift policy doesn't have a cap. So it would stand to reason that the town supported this...this act without a cap. We would like to go forward and see what happens. But basically, we've been told nothing will happen until the board at least weighs in. So that...that's why you have this memo and they're asking for some guidance from the town. Wait...wait one second, so I'm just waiting to finish with your explanation, David. Well, just that the library trustees have considered this question. They understand that...not to accede to the request might contain a delay, but they are prepared to go forward on that basis. Yes. So, for one of the questions I want to say, I also heard from the chair and the library trustees, and that was the impression of God. But I did also kind of the mystery call to provide us with that information that should...I just want to go through the process here. If we support the library trustees want to do it and it goes forward and it is not accepted by by the Senate, Senate Council. Again, I want to look at my paper. There is a...there is a possibility then we may have to, as Stu Martin would say, we're back and go outside at the beginning, because then we will have to submit the process through. So, I'm going to open up to questions, but I do think we probably at one thing should have as a follow-up, is maybe Bill reminds that we do support it that this is what could happen before, in case they want to change that. I think they've been deep and meaningful discussions about this and this is their position. Okay, I'm going to go with the questions. Anne?
I got to think that one through a little bit. I mean, I just want it to be successful. I don't want this to be something that lingers on unnecessarily, just because there's a cap issue. So, the question becomes is if we establish a cap, then we're establishing a cap that's not been discussed. Exactly. So, best than that should be a problem. So, do you have any other questions? No, I just want to...I want to hear you guys and think it through. I have this memo to go on. I don't know what the substance of the conversations are, but this memo doesn't seem like there are real lines in the sand being drawn. So, I'm wondering if at this stage, if we don't support a cap, but it seems they are then drawing the line on the sand, it's some sort of cap where this is not going forward, we could revisit that. I'm assuming if at this point we're going forward without the cap, it's not going to derail the whole process just based on the language used in the memo, but you could confirm that with you. So, if I may not just...I don't think, you know, we don't have a crystal ball. We can't tell it. Senate Council is going to do on the cap issue. I know I've had conversations with Attorney Deer Tenziel, and we've tried to float and talk with the library trustees, Ms. Jeunesse in particular, about whether we could try and meet them halfway and pick a cap or pick a cap that could be amended by bylaw by a town meeting.
The opinion or the comments that we got back with consistent with Mr. Whitney that they're pretty firm and they believe that they shouldn't have a cap. And every indication I've had is they're willing to go forward on that. But town council and our council and center council wants something back from the board supporting that decision. Because I think the act itself, and it's probably in the memo, says that the select board can make some changes. So they're okay with that first group of changes. And it has to be grammatical changes, as well as the treasurer being bonded, being the one who makes the money. It's just that they're not. So I support the position of the library trustees who want to take this risk and become fine with that, because I know this is something that's important to them. My question to you, to our manager, is what is the public policy thinking of the legislature relative to their desire for a cap? Where does that come from? I don't have a very good answer. Mr. Emmers on Senator Eldridge's staff is the one who's been kind of relaying information back and forth. And I think they're just, it's rather arbitrary. In my opinion, I mean, we don't have any cap on our gift policy here in town. And there isn't one under the statute that allows them to accept gifts. I think they're just concerned that large gifts could come in and who would be handling it. But this board accepts gifts of all major, you know, denominations, cash, and we can take tangible items as well. So, but as previously pointed out, if it runs into a stalemate over the cap and the session of the buyers, then you have to refile legislation. So, like, that's all I have. All right. So, you know, I've accidentally sent Doug that I wanted him to send Mr. Stomson. So, the wrong time. So, we're looking for the other person. So, I'll wait a second here. So, I think we need a motion here. Is there any more further discussion or questions on this? Being none, I would move that the select board, uh, authorize the, uh, filing, I suppose, followed by town council or the, the filing of, uh, an amended act, uh, an amendment to the, uh, act authorizing the town of Wayland to establish a Millennium Fund of the Wayland Free Public Library, uh, well, uh, substantially in accordance with the markup that's included in the package. Second. Thank you. I'm going to wait one minute. Um, I was concerned that somebody might be in the select board meeting room and they were spurring wasn't very good and students should go. I would like to wait for Ms. Delivine to come back. If I could wait one minute. I think he's going to stop. That's what I thought I was doing.
You want to roll today. Why don't we have any discussion then? Well, I have any discussion and saying, you know, we should, we should, regardless of all, if you would communicate with trustees and then explain to them that we are concerned that, um, but where were, where was, we hope that we have, want to make sure that was where it was.
All right. So Doug, we have, thank you. I'm sorry. I didn't mean to send you. Um, so we had a motion on the floor to sit with, uh, the changes, you know, the changes as presented and we have a second. So now we have any questions. Okay. Um, we are going to reach out to live trustees and make them aware that we're aware of the risk, but we're willing to support as Tom's decision. All right. So the roll call hold, um, Mr. Whitney. Yes. Mr. Beck. Yes. Mr. President. Yes. And there's one. So yes, motion passes five zero. So the next item is, um, we're going to talk, we're going to start now, but fairly lengthy discussion of I tell me, I can tell them to town meeting articles and I'd like to start. We have, um, we have six potential articles that we have not, uh, had an opportunity to review yet. I need to start in the public. Um, 53 is why, why, um, we were going to start with Ms. Carter. I don't think Ms. Carter is here or not. She was online previously. I was told she was, she was here in public comment online. Sorry. Yeah. And she spoke to me today and I did explain which door to come in and it wasn't in the other room right now. Okay. Um, if you want to matter chair, I'll even go to the big room down there and just double chair, but she was not wondering. There was no real meetings down there, were there? No. Well, there, no, there was, there was a meeting in the large room. It's probably over by now, but there was till the second, third. Screen. Clear. Well, I mean, while they're checking out, I just want to make a note, um, in the article list that we have, I believe article C should be crossed off. You've got something you decided last. No, no, no, no. We wrote that. We, and that's still alive. It's still alive. No, and we, we're going to need that article. Okay. Um, but you know what? Let me do that instead then. So to Mr. Fair's point, we are going to, um, for the article, so we just need to vote to not insert things. We have been notified in the color store. It's by the board that they, uh, with time and article, um, PP ground mount and solar photovoltaic installations. Um, we did also insert that, so I think we need to take another vote on that. We say withdraw, right? I mean, sorry. Yeah. And then we've already voted to insert them. So now we're voting again. We want to withdraw. What do you want to do? We're redoing the vote to insert. Is that what you want to do? I think that what the point is, you can vote to, uh, so we're taking another vote to insert. Is that what we've done before? Wait, wait, uh, reconsideration? No. We can vote to pull it. We can say pull. You have to. We're going to say withdraw because the program board. Well, that's it. Don't put the withdraw on a steroid. Okay. Okay. Second. I think I said to me. All right. What would you like to do? No. The motion of the made. Secondary. It's going to pop up. Is it up? When you're ready and happy to vote. Okay. Ann? Yes. Todd? Yes. Todd? Yes. Bill? Yes. Bill? Yes. Oh, yes. So we also are not, the, um, the, um, finance director has advised me, and we're not going to be needing article AA transferred funds to fund the fire 26 budget. Now, we did not insert this. So I don't believe we have to do anything, but we can vote. We can vote to insert and then not support the insertion here. So why don't we have a motion on that? Anything? Anything? I move that the board vote to insert article AA into the law. Second. Okay. Any further discussion? Um, so Bill? No. No. Todd? No. Doug? No. Eric? No. And Carol? No. So it's 050. Correct? No. And then, um, Do you agree with article Y manager there? Yes. I'm going to talk about article Y as well. Well, I made my motion last week. I was fairly certain I made a motion to insert and support article Y, but the, um, minutes reflected otherwise. So I will be proven to vote, um, tonight to insert and support article Y. Yeah. We did support the original shows on the chart. It says, but just, but the closed gap is in there. In other words, I prefer it. Just the procedure of purposes might be inserted and supported. Otherwise, you can't support an article that isn't inserted, right? That might be an article, right? It would separate. It doesn't go anywhere. But it would make me. It would make you happy to do that? Yeah. I'll circle the motion.
Any further discussion? All right. Let's have a vote. This is to insert and support article Y. And Bill? Yes. And Tom? Yes. Doug? Yes. Claire? Yes. And Carol? Yes. I do want to make a note on article Y that in the supplemental package, there is some correspondence regarding this. Did you want to just address that real quickly, Tom? Sure. So in the supplemental, um, packet, there is a letter signed by the owner of, the new owner of Whaling Town Center. Basically, by giving it a sense to the town, securing a permanent easement and temporary easements as needed relative to the completion of the rail trail on its property. And there it's going to be right after we come in. If there are any questions on that, I think this is that, that's not going to be an exhibit. That's just for the board. Should we reference that in the right? Or else, because we already said they would not bring it to us, right? Awesome. Yeah. So just in time, we're going to have a seat. Chris, were you in the wrong place? Oh, there's a lot. Oh, you're in the back. This one is right in the back. So we're going to write down Ms. Carter, who's going to speak to us about her two articles, which are Y, Y, and Z, Z. That will be followed by Mr. Stotts, who's going to discuss his full particular article, which is TT, UU, TV, and WW. So if you would just join us, and then state your name and your address, and then state your name and your address. Thank you. Thank you. Lisa Carter. And then Jeremy Bridge Road. So we're going to start with article YY. And as I explained to you on the phone, what we are talking about here is just what's in the article. This is what's going forward to the town meeting. We're not looking at any other emails or documents or anything like that, because we're just focusing on the 150 words in the background information. This is just the process. Thank you. What was yours? Is this the background information, or should I tell you what's in the article? You have a few minutes to talk about it, but essentially what your article is about. Okay. Yeah. Basically, I'm looking to make Sherman Bridge Road safer because of speeding traffic and people being unaware or not paying attention to the fact that the roads are the only place that many people can walk. And it's also a popular place for cycling. You get people from out of town coming and cycling there. You go across the bridge. And people certainly at my end of the road are afraid to use the road because it is a little twisty. It changes height. It's a designated scenic route. So there's stone walls right at the road. Sometimes people have a very short driveway around a curb. They have to back out. And people are speeding up that part of the road. And basically we get a lot of traffic because people from other towns are using the bridge. So they either come onto the bridge by using Sherman Bridge Road and then get off on the other side or they come on the other side and get off here. And I don't mean people from Sudbury. I mean people and trucks from all different places who are trying to bypass basically 117 or Route 20 or 27, whatever. And there was... So the bridge was replaced around 1992. With the replacement, it was widened. There was no weight limit established. But there was previously a weight limit for 2.5 tons, I think it was. And those signs remained up from the late 60s until the late 90s. And unfortunately, around the same time that a collapse, partial collapse of a bridge in Concord on 117, closed 117, which was at the very end of 1999, that's just about the time Sudbury had petitioned MassDOT, can we get rid of the 2.5 time weight limit? So our buses that go from Lincoln to Sudbury and Sudbury to Lincoln could use the bridge because we can't use 117 anymore. And so they did a so-so evaluation of the bridge, said we don't need to give it a weight limit. And so ever since then, a lot of traffic has been using the bridge because they discovered it because of that problem on 117, which was pretty much closed for like nine years. I mean, I think for a while they put up a temporary bridge. But in the time when people were looking for an alternative route, particularly trucks, 117 is a truck route, they found out about the bridge. So over time, there is a lot of commuters and trucks. And, you know, personally, they're lined up in front of my house at 19 all the way to Concord Road. But that's okay. I mean, it's not great. But they speed, you know, they speed and then they slow down. And there's very few speed limit signs. And there's a big difference in the danger to a human being hit by 20 mile an hour and 30 mile an hour. And but even at 20 mile an hour, if someone's hit, they can die. They're the risk of death and or serious injury, especially the elderly people in my neighborhood. And there's one woman who is afraid. She told me every day she has to go across the street because her mailbox is across the street. She's terrified of the traffic because it's a little bendy and it's close to Concord Road to 126. So as soon as they come on that road, they're just speeding. And then there are two speed limit signs, one around one Sherman Bridge Road and then another one around 10 on the other side of the road, both facing Concord Road for the people coming on to Concord Road. You don't find one for the people coming from the other direction heading towards 126 from the bridge until you get down the hill to the stop sign, which is past the new preservation land. And and then I think there's one on the other side of the maybe on the left. But there's there. There's almost nothing in the direction towards 126. So the problem is and then if you go into Lincoln Road on the other side of the bridge, that road is so weird. You know, it's 25 right before the bridge. Then it becomes 20. Then it becomes 35 for about 40 feet or maybe 40 yards. And then it becomes 30 again. And so it's all over the place. And it's a big, long road. Sherman Bridge is only, you know, point seven point six point five miles long and narrow. And people used to walk more. I mean, I'm told I'm in there, but they said we used to walk on the road and, you know, we're afraid. And it shouldn't be that we don't have a place for sidewalks. So I wanted to make it safer by getting better signage up, by letting people, you know, slowing it down a little bit, making the road perhaps a designated safety zone, whatever. But at least 20 miles an hour and some signs about the vulnerable road users, because people know more or less you're supposed to give cyclists four feet of space. They might do three, four, but they don't know that about people walking and or someone in a wheelchair or an animal for that matter. And so I think we need a little education about that if, you know, which might be good to get it out out there. But if we slow the road down and we have more signs and maybe put a, I would love to have a crosswalk. There's one crosswalk. It's down at, what's the name of that road? Alport. Yeah, Alpine and the other things. There's one crosswalk. The crosswalk goes to the center island. And there's no crosswalk off the center island. I'd just like to have a crosswalk at my end where there's a lot of fast traffic. And so that this woman could cross the road to get her mail or there is a bus, actually a school bus. It stops twice a day in front of my house. Actually, for the guys across the street, it starts in front of their house. Somehow it manages to do it on the same side of the road, picking up and dropping off. So right now they don't need to switch sides. Sorry. Yeah. So if we had, you know, at least a walk across this road, somewhere near that area, then people could go back and forth. That's where it gets twisty. You've got the the stone walls and the retaining stuff. And the site lines are very poor up there. So, you know, that was why I threw in the crosswalk there. So that's right. So now what we do is we open them up to the board for questions. And we'll start over. I want to thank you. Oh, sorry. Let's just start with Anne. And did you have any questions? Yeah. So have you kind of presented some of this information and this idea to neighbors of yours? And what was some of the feedback that you received, both good and bad? Yeah. I presented it to all the people who signed. And everyone I talked to was like, yeah, we need to slow people down. Some people talked about having speed bumps, but I was thinking in terms of keeping it as cheap as possible for the town so that we could maybe actually get things, you know, signs up and slow down. So that was pretty much it. There was one guy. I don't even know if he lives here, but he was in one Sherman Bridge Road and he said he would hate it if it was 20 miles an hour. He doesn't even like 25 miles an hour. He doesn't even like 25 miles an hour. I don't know where he goes. He's right at Concord Road. And he's young. And I imagine there would be some issues with people who are really young, but everyone I talked to, you know, loved the idea. And that, you know, it's a problem, especially because of the bridge being used as a cutthroat that has been going on now since, you know, 2000, year 2000, and it's just gotten worse and worse. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Tom, do you have any questions still? So my question is to the town manager. This is the town manager. My understanding is that when asked, and I may be wrong on this, that the police chief will examine a roadway or an intersection and make a judgment based on the professional chart that he has in establishing speed limits. Is that accurate? Is that some process that might be appropriate to this particular bridge? Well, I think there's a couple of things. The chief could give guidance. The select court has the authority to set certain speed limits in different places. They can adopt 25 mile an hour speed limit in certain streets on the town. And there are things called speed zones that can be adopted in about 20 mile an hour. So there, there are avenues that would allow the board to do it. I think it was one of them. I can't speak to all of them. I have had a little bit of this dialogue with some of the folks there. You probably want to look, there is some history. There's been some traffic counts. They put up the radar. So they have some history of showing the works out there, which you'd want to take into consideration if the chief's opinion. I mean, this particular issue of speed seems appropriate outside of the town meeting, if it can be achieved between now and then, if it's appropriate. The other consideration, of course, is the town celebrating. They may think it should be 30 mile an hour. And that gets tricky. Just to clarify, this is only for Sherman Bridge Road. This is just increasing .
I think you just answered my question, which is, Does this pertain to the entirety of Sherman Bridge Road or specifically to the bridge? No, the road. This is for the road. Certainly. Thank you. Certainly. So Doug, of course, is the liaison. Actually, Doug has stepped up and is doing all six of these because they're kind of the same topic. So anyway, do you have any questions? Yeah, so a couple of questions, Lisa. Thank you for coming in tonight. So related to what Tom was saying, have you had conversations either with the previous chief or the acting chief in the past about reducing the speed limit? Because over the past 10 years, I have worked with various residents who are concerned about their area of town, and they ended up sitting down with one of our previous chiefs to discuss that. And then our recommendation would be made from the chief. So I'd love to hear if any feedback came in from the police. Well, actually, before I moved here in 2023, there was some speed studies done, and the chief had written that he thought that something needs to be done, that it's pretty bad. And then he did, I went and talked to the town manager actually in last September, I think, and he reached out to the police chief about this issue. Unfortunately, the address that the police chief was given was wrong. He was given 18 instead of 19, which is my house. So he did a brief speed study. It wasn't great. It was like a Monday through a Friday through a Monday. And it started after the rush hour on the Fridays. We only got the morning rush hour on Monday. But I mean, that shows this was three years ago, you said? No, that was last. That was this year? Yes. In the fall of 2025. September, October of last year. Okay. And but unfortunately, he never got it back to me. And I just found out recently that the town manager had done anything at all. I didn't know that he reached out to him. But by the time I found out, he had already retired. So I didn't get to sit down with him. And I I'd ask, you know, what should I do and to talk to the police? And he said he'd reach out and he did. But I didn't know that because there was an address glitch. Oh, OK. So then next question I have is for Bill and Tom or Carol, if you have any previous memory of any similar type article ever coming before town meeting, because similar to me, it strikes me that this isn't the business of town meeting that we have a statute that sets the select board as the traffic commission in town and the board of public works as the traffic calming measure making those determinations. That's the board that handles that, which is spelled out in the statute. So I'm just wondering if you either you remember any precedent for something like this. I do not. I do not. I do not. And then the question for Michael is, did we hear anything about this from the town council? I mean, if just the appropriateness of town meeting with this article. So a couple of things. I call the speed zone. It's a safety zone. The ones that are 20 miles an hour. Are you sure, Mr. Stotz? Um, let me just address it because I see the hands raised. This is not a forum. This is. So when you'll have your friend to come up and speak then. Thank you. Um, so town council has met with the petitioners and reviewed them. I've had some informal discussions on, um, with, um, town council. Some of these, as was noted, um, there may be mechanisms that the town, the select board can, uh, achieve the same results. And so this, you know, this would be a vote essentially of the, the town body endorsing the petitioner, but, um, may not, I don't want to say have teeth, but it would still be a coming up on this board to take action. And, you know, you may decide not to vote on something. So it would be giving the board. That's what you learned from town council? Well. Like, would we be bound to take this action? Well, there are statutes that give you the authority to do it. So I think some of these, you know, I'll have to get a further opinion, but I think, you know, some of them would be giving the board direction, but some may not have the ability to bind you because there's statutes that also give you certain authorities. Right. So the answer. So that's to another question. But, um, Ms. Carter? Yep. Okay. Um, I, I'm all set because I read all the emails and information. So why don't you talk to us about articles? See, I do want to say one thing on, um, these petitioner articles. I noticed that everyone is new to this process. So the part that says article description is actually going to be the legal language that you vote on it. I mean, that is actually, that section is actually done by town council. And then I noticed in some of these, there's some, like, additional information besides what would be the actual language we vote on. So if there's anything in there, in that first article description that you feel you really need to get into the warrant, you might need to incorporate it into your 150 words. Because our background information belongs to the petitioner. That's the 150 words. And the finance committee comments belong, obviously, to the finance committee. It's like what both belongs to us. And as we go along through the process, each one fills in their own section. So, um, if there's anything in that talk that you feel should be, because she will just say, if the town will vote to, for example, a staff should want to be a woman, an ad signage or something. I don't know what she would write. I'm not the council, but I'm just saying they don't spit out. Okay. Same thing on this article. Look at it all run as easy. Make sure if there's anything in there you want in your 15 words, you might want to put it down. So you're essentially saying the second paragraph. We did. This is this. Right here. This is her. But the legal language, supposedly, would just be this. Because that first paragraph is background. And this is what, what is the action you're asking for town meeting to vote on. The action that's being asked for town meeting is what we vote on. If you look at any of these rules, it just says, for example, authorize the select board to blah, blah, blah. Do you follow that, Elisa? Yeah. Um, if she and I worked on these. You and town council? Yeah. Well, she read them. They don't work on them. They give you advices that I need, like, to clarify my phrase here. They, they look at it to make sure it's not, it's the right word. They're pregnant. Right. So that we don't get to town meeting and someone stands up and says. Right. You can't put your article through. And then it's very frustrating. But they don't, we don't provide legal, um, assistance for these. No, she, I mean, she tried to help me with the language. I'm just telling you that when it comes out, I don't want you to be disappointed when it comes out. And you'll say, what happened to someone? This is just me giving you that piece of advice. Because that first paragraph is kind of providing background information versus the, the action language that town meeting votes on. If you go look at your. So it gives you an opportunity to look at that and see if you want to make some changes too. I mean, technically you're supposed to have your 150 words in, but whatever. Okay. Okay. Let's talk about article ZZ, which is being heavy commercial vehicles on Sherman Bridge Road. And you have the board. Okay. So I gave you some of the background already. Um, this, uh, because the bridge became a cut through when, um, that, uh, bridge on 117 needed to be repaired. Um, it had a partial collapse in, um, like December, 1999. Um, our bridge has become known and the roads, our road, uh, Sherman Bridge Road, as well as Lincoln Road on the other side have increasingly, um, been used as, um, almost a major thoroughfare for anybody who knows about it for, um, commuting to avoid the routes. 27, 126, 117, a designated truck route, 120, Route 2, uh, whatever they can, you know. And, um, part of the, I think the condition that we have bridge in now is because of all that, those vehicles and, um, the heavy vehicles in particular. And, um, and these vehicles also speed, um, and they are scary because they're even bigger than a car. And this is a narrow road with no sidewalks. Certainly at my end, there's a few sidewalks here and there at the very other end, but not consistently. And it's not possible to have them, um, because of, um, either on one side it drops suddenly down onto a house or the other side there's a preservation forest. So, um, I was hoping that we could, um, prohibit heavy commercial vehicles on the road. What that would do is it would cut down on, um, the trucks that use the bridge to, um, avoid, and our roads to avoid, um, going on regular roads where they belong and reduce the traffic and make it safer for the vulnerable road users there, including the wildlife and the elderly people, the children. This would not bar school buses, safety, you know, fire trucks and that kind of stuff. Um, any repairs that are being done or anybody going into that neighborhood where it would just, um, keep the heavy vehicles from coming along Sherman Bridge Road, which where everybody lives pretty close together. And, um, in that area, I mean, it reminds me of Watham. It's almost city-like the way people are, um, crunched together from like 126 till you get to the, to my house basically. Um, and, um, it would be a lot safer and there would be the nice, uh, side thing that it would, you know, stop the heavy vehicles also from going over the bridge because they couldn't get there on our road. And they couldn't get off the bridge if they came from the other direction. So it's a little trickier because we'd have to put up some signage, um, to make sure that they know that there's women. Okay. So we'll open it to questions from the board. Um, Mr. So have you had conversations with the town of Sudbury as to whether they would support a ban on commercial traffic on Sherman Bridge Road on, in the town of Sudbury? Have I spoken with the town of Sudbury? No. No. I haven't because I'm not directly dealing with them. I'm just talking about my road. I guess my concern is that if a commercial vehicle comes from Sudbury and goes to over the bridge into Wayland, is that an enforceable restriction? Well, they can certainly go Route 20 or, uh, 27 to 117. Right. And down 126. But if someone goes down, a truck goes down Sherman Bridge Road from Sudbury, goes into Wayland, if they're ticketed, would they sue the town because they couldn't turn around on the bridge? That's why we have to put the signs up for a while. And I recommend it in the background information, putting it up at particular intersections and well in advance. And then we would also put it in papers notices. Right. Um, probably in a, um, uh, paper that would be, uh, would go to a greater area than just one town. Um, so I live in near a designated scenic road and there, uh, is considerable truck traffic there. So I can imagine lots of people wanting to have no commercial vehicles on roads in front of their houses. Um, so I'm trying to understand what is particular about this case that warrants this action versus anyone else, frankly, who's concerned about commercial traffic on their, on the street. Um, well, um, one is the fact that it is a very small road. It's, you know, 0.7 miles tops. And it goes directly to a bridge that, um, was expanded in 1992 so that it could have two-way traffic. You wouldn't have to stop at either side. Um, and that was discovered by commuters and truckers who were trying to avoid taking the other roads. So, um, it, it is particularly vulnerable and has suffered, um, because of that since, um, 1999. And, um, in that time that people have lived here, the older people, you know, they've seen it change and they're the ones who have become more and more frightened and need to be protected. And we have new laws now, uh, the vulnerable youth road users, um, laws from 2023, which, um, would further protect people. There, there isn't a lot of room for, like, if a truck wants to move out of the way, I mean, they don't, you couldn't have two big trucks passing each other. You know? It's, there's not enough room. So. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Yes. Mr. Yes, so Mike has shown with this article that this seems kind of vague. In other words, it seems to me if your goal is to ban heavy commercial vehicles, there really could be a clear delineation as to not the type of commercial vehicle, not its, what state it's from, not what company has on its side, but, but weight. Please. Right. And, um, now we, if you ride around New England, you see roads that say no heavy trucks. It doesn't have weight limits, it says no heavy trucks. And, and the local police enforce that to the best of their ability. Um, because another proposed article of a warrant that does have a specific weight limit, and we'll be discussing that this evening. And my main concern with this article, it just isn't specific enough and cause too much speculation. And, um, that's my concern. Thank you. Um, Ann? Um, I, I slightly ditto every, what everybody said when I looked at this, um, I had to educate myself a little bit because I wasn't really sure whether your concern was the weight of the vehicles or whether it was the space, uh, on the road. And I think, um, both, uh, Bill and Tom kind of said the same thing I was feeling, which is there's a heavy commercial vehicle exclusions act, which, uh, talks more about the weight and kind of fits some of what you were saying. But I, I don't know if that, I don't know if that would actually work, especially if part of the road is on in Sudbury. And then I looked up that the, um, specific law that you mentioned in 2023, and it really was not designed for this type of scenario. Um, I don't know if you've researched it too much, but when you look into it, it's like this, the, if you looked, if you just took it as, Hey, a specific width of road now qualifies to ban, uh, commercial vehicles because there's not enough room, you would be dealing with a lot of streets in Wayland. And that's not really what it was designed to do. Um, so I, I think you're, you're taking that law and you're expanding it significantly. Into all right. That's not in this article. Yes, it is. It says users, the vulnerable road users law in 2023. Uh, excuse me. Um, so I'm just concerned that you're expanding that, um, that use of that law, um, in this article. Do you have any other questions or comments? Yeah. Thank you. Mr. Alisa, just, we can talk about this offline at some point this week as well. I am fortunate to be liaison to this article. I have similar concerns to what Mr. Fay outlined. And that's specifically how you enforce the exceptions. If it's not just a straight weight man of two and a half tons, say for these heavy vehicles, what are we actually putting on the sign except for school buses, instruction vehicles, local deliveries, like there would be so many potential exceptions. It seems like the signage would be impractical. And I don't think we could just necessarily, like you were saying, publicize this information, because I feel like there could be vendors coming from anywhere. Be coming from throughout New England and coming down this road and not being aware of this restriction with certain exceptions. And I, that's why I was curious to have town council give you some guidance. Is this even feasible to have this kind of a nuanced law with those, with those exceptions? And that's what I wanted to hear from her as well at some point. Those, those are part of the law. We don't have to specify those. That's the law. You cannot, if you exclude, if you ban heavy commercial vehicles, that ban does not apply to school buses, people who are serving the community. So that's just the law. So we don't have to spell that out. So we don't have to put that on the signs? No. Like it's just, I'm just feeling like it's a tricky one to enforce, to be able to distinguish who's there for delivery. Like how does the police officer know who to pull over? There's never any police officers for the speeding either. So I don't think that enforcement, if you're going to come into it. Well, we have, we have to consider that when we bring the article forward. Yes. So thank you very much. Appreciate it. Um, we will, I think we're in the middle here. Um, again, I wanted to say this. So what happens next is the finance community. Hey, Miranda, are you seeing them frozen? Yes. Okay. There we go. They're, they're back. I'm sorry. Uh, you froze for, for a few seconds. Okay. So that's what will happen next. And then once they finalize that, then they, they will give you, you know, to review them. Have a look, see what's going to be in the warrant. They do finance community, just like your background notes are yours. They can make suggestions, but nobody changes them without their input. So anyway, thank you for coming in. Thank you. We've done that with, uh, with, um, with finance. Already. Yeah. No, ma'am. This is the process to get it into the warrant, the book that goes to the residents that we're voting on in town. So thank you very much. Thank you. Um, I'm trying to rush along because we're running a little late here. Sorry. I'm going to recognize Mr. Stutz, uh, who is a third petitioner. And then he has four articles. So Doug, do you want to come up and introduce yourself? Sure. And identify yourself. We know who you are. I believe I may be well known to the select board and the town manager already. But for the record, I'm Doug Stutz of 39 Sherman's Ridge Road, a 32 year resident of Waylon. Thank you. Thank you. So you're going to give me, but you want to look at the article description. Sure. And make sure, make sure there's nothing in there that's, that, uh, general information that you want in your background information because the town council has control over what goes in those sections. Yes. I did spend some time with Ms. Murray and it was a very productive and professional conversation and I appreciate her help. And I don't think she raised showstoppers and, uh, I look forward to working with her on the fine tuning as, uh, as she suggests. And I also want to recognize, um, Ms. Jones, the moderator who joined us, um, a few minutes ago. Thank you, Miranda. So, so you're going to direct your comments and the question, just a brief, please. You're running behind explanation. Each of these articles and then we'll have questions. Thank you. I believe the board may be familiar with my thoughts on the topics in general. Yeah. So I'll try to be brief. Article TT. Article TT. We're about to spend about a million on that. The 1.1 million or so of taxpayer, the Commonwealth funds on improvements to Sherman's bridge, which largely benefit motorists and also cyclists as an ardent cyclist. I'll appreciate the smoother walkways. Um, it seems to me, this is an interesting opportunity that may be the best in for 40 years to come to spend the incremental hundred thousand or so, uh, to create a second pedestrian walkway, which will greatly benefit the hundreds of recreational users of the bridge, uh, kayakers, canoeists, fishermen, stargazers. And, you know, it's one of the key gateways, one of the key viewpoints of our marvelous Great Meadows National Wildlife Refuge, which the federal government has provided us. Um, so, you know, the spirit of this article is more or less a resolution, sense of the town, sense of the select board that, Hey, you know, here's an interesting chance. Let's do it right away. If we can, you know, if it needs to wait a little bit, so be it. Um, one of the interesting and frustrating shot thoughts I'll share with the board is throughout the whole Sherman's bridge process. It's no time been clear who the ultimate decision makers are, who votes on it, et cetera. Um, you may be equally at sea with who, who those decision makers are. But at least this gets, uh, you know, the voters of the town through their elected representatives, that this is something we think that is important and we would like to see happen. Um, towards that end at, uh, January's board of public works meeting, our DPW director spoke of perhaps having a technical member and them prepared on the feasibility of this. Excuse me. He indicated that one potential source of funding for that would be the river stewardship council, but Tom Siaka. Um, again, lots of change. Lots of things have changed since I submitted these articles on January 8th. But I think you understand the, the, the spirit and what we're trying to achieve here and welcome your questions. I would like to start the questions. Um, sure. Um, so as you just commented, Mr. Stotts, the, uh, a lot's happened since we filed these articles. Um, as we sit here tonight, my, my senses for public works has discussed this, um, this topic. And what's your understanding as to where things stand relative to the design and planning of the project? And, and is there a consensus in the neighborhood that the current proposal is something they could look with? Um, I think, you know, I speak to my neighbors quite frequently on this. I mean, they seem to accept my version of the facts and hear what I'm saying. And I would say that the proposal, the current proposal, as I understand it. And, uh, a key point was that, uh, last week's board of public works meeting, our DPW, DPW director said that he and Sudbury's DPW director went to MassDoc and obtained approval to use what he terms the steel backed wooden guard rails. In fact, he does himself a disservice on a PR wise because the steel back is actually a piece of steel strip about that long with bolts on it, which is the existing guard rail. And I think we are very, very close to a solution for the design of the bridge, retaining its historical character that I, for one, would be very comfortable with. You know, something that was added, and I think there's a tremendous improvement, is conduit along the underside of the bridge to bring the ugly horizon and, uh, comcast lines underneath. There are no energized power lines running over the bridge, so that's a relatively simple fix. There's a 1990s vintage sodium halite, uh, light fixture on the pole on the Sudbury side, which ideally comes down and gets replaced by a dark sky LED fixture. Um, there is a proposal to add a historical kiosk. All of those are additive to what we have today. And I, for one, greatly welcome them. Thank you. That's all I have. Thank you. Thank you. Uh, my question really is kind of a technical one. Um, in your conversation with the town council, have you discussed the notion of, uh, as it says, the select board and board of public works are directed to use their best efforts? Yes, she raised that and, and the fact that directed is not economic, is sort of the power of the legislative branch, I believe, of the executive branch, I believe. And, uh, I understand that. And, uh, I understand that. And report your. So it's. Yes. Yes. Thank you. Sorry. Yeah. Yeah. I actually looked into this. I thought it was really, um, I liked the idea when I looked at the plans. For, uh, that we currently have. Um, so I think it's probably something a little further down the line, but, um, I, I just like that you're, you're planning ahead. Yeah. And I should mention there is arguably a major safety issue with, with plans. Uh, as currently laid out. And that is that, uh, the north and south sides of the bridge are equally beautiful. There's a walkway on one side. There's not on the other. Uh, people often are on that south side of the bridge in the roadway. Um, sometimes during the day, fishing or looking sometimes at night, stargates. Um, right now, if a car comes around the corner from the Sudbury side, uh, folks who are, you know, in the roadway as pedestrians have two escape angles. One is currently on that south side. There's a shelf that's about 16 inches wide and five or six inches high, and you can step on it and squeeze against the rail. And, you know, fellow of my size may still have some exposure, but most people wouldn't and, and avoid the cars that way. Or you can scamper across the 20 feet of the bridge and go up the, what is now the 11 inch gap between the roadway and the, uh, the existing walkway under the current proposal that shelf disappears. And so that the guardrail is right protruding into the roadway. There's no safety space there. And the, uh, safety, uh, barrier on the walkway side would be a 21 inches high. And I know I'm not hopping over that anymore. So, and, you know, the, the second walkway by providing a place for people to, uh, look up the, the, the, the Southern side remedies that problem as well. Okay. And, um, does that answer your question? Yeah. Hey, Melissa. Yep. Um, Mr. Stotts and I had a very nice conversation via zoom on Friday afternoon. We're joined by our finance committee liaison, Ms. Method. Um, and I have done some digging since then as well. And one issue that comes to my mind is, uh, if this question were to be posed to the town meeting voters and the language in the article includes, uh, quote, supporting the appropriation of funds. And if we get the question, which would be entirely justifiable at town meeting, what, how much money are we talking about for a second walkway? You and I have discussed something on the order of a hundred thousand dollars. When I did my own digging and, and spoke with folks, including members of the department of public works, I was told 500 to $700,000. So I think some more information should be able to be provided at that, that point. If, if we are potentially coming to the town. Um, and the other point I want to make is. There is a timeline right now to get this work done. And it includes several months to get the materials, which will hopefully happen shortly. And, um, two to four months to actually do the work. And I think if we, no pun intended, derailed this by having to add the second walkway, we wouldn't be completing this project in this calendar year. So I do like what Ms. Frensley said and others about keeping this concept alive, um, but not joining it. And so I'm, I'm troubled by the word current versus future. And so I don't have any questions, Doug, but that's what I want to add. Yeah. If I could offer to that, uh, you know, your question about how much. Yeah. The technical memorandum. Yeah. Would be a good way to put that to bed. Uh, secondly, my hundred thousand there, 500 to 7,000. No one really knows. Yeah. I would offer to you right now that, uh, the, uh, the estimate is $1.1 million for a lot of work on, you know, fixing the substructure piling, all new guardrails and 2,200 square feet of five and a half inch glulam covered by two inches of sacrificial wood planking. Here we're talking about 500 square feet or so of two inch thick wood planking and a few glulam struts, perhaps. So, uh, you know, and, and there's, there's fixed costs in the project, obviously. So there should be declining marginal costs to, uh, adding features like this. So, you know, truth may well lie between a hundred thousand and 500,000. We all seem to be working together well going forward. Let's find out. Let's do the technical. Let's see. Yeah. Thank you. Doug, I don't have any questions for you. I have some, um, good part about going last. All right. So I want to move on to you here, which is the next article. Yeah. The five ton weight limit. What was it? Sherman's bridge. I have people who listen to our meetings. So I'll tee them up. Thank you. Uh, Sherman's bridge, uh, five ton weight limit. It's okay. We are now somewhere. Um, 56. 56. Thank you. Okay. The floor is yours. Sure. Um, I think Mr. Whitney asked, you know, the genesis of this and the justification, if you will. And I think of it as a restoration of a weight limit, but also a modernization of the weight limit that was first agreed upon by the towns of Sudbury and Weyland in the sixties. Um, it predated the infamous 1971 neighborhood agreement. Um, it survived the rebuilding of the bridge, um, in a much more robust fashion. And in 1992, because it was intended to not recognize the technical limitations of the bridge, but serve as the statement of the intentions of the people of the towns of Sudbury and Weyland as to the role of Lincoln road and Sherman's bridge road, that it is a country lane, that it is a scenic road in each. In Weyland in particular, it's also a very dense residential neighborhood. And for the, uh, you know, for not of the circumstance of, uh, Leesbridge collapsing in 1999. Sudbury seeking a temporary dispensation to allow its school buses to get to school more or Lincoln Lincoln, Lincoln Sudbury asking for the dispensation to allow their buses to reroute. So they don't go via route two. And, uh, Leesbridge taking eight or nine years to fix. And no one thinking to replace the darn sign. Um, we may not be here job voting about this. We have two questions from the board. Thank you. Yeah. Um, okay. So the only thing that I had was, I wasn't sure. Um, and maybe it was that I missed it somewhere. Um, it's how much does school buses weigh? School buses weigh about 30,000 pounds or 15 tons and go up to about 40,000 pounds. I think. Okay. And this would exclude school buses. Uh, this would exclude school buses. Okay. I just want to make sure it wasn't written in here, but I want to make sure that was your intent. I believe the board received a letter in December from the Lincoln Sudbury school committee expressing their concerns about traffic on Sherman's bridge road. And, and they are aware that, uh, you know, perhaps a weight limit is part of the solution, which would, you know, make them go around, uh, be everyone 17, which Google maps tells us would add about one minute to the length, each way of a school bus trip from Lincoln center to Lincoln Sudbury high school. Okay. Okay. Okay. Thank you. Um, okay. Um, I'm going to go around the corner. Sure. So I don't see an exception for school buses in this article. No, uh, school buses, banning school buses was part of the original intent in the sixties. And, uh, you know, they would be, uh, not, uh, not excluded from this article, if you will. And so be supportive of that. Uh, Lincoln Sudbury school committee knows of the potential. And I think the residents, uh, Lincoln lane and, uh, Lincoln road would be equally supportive. You know, the, the town of Sudbury itself is not taking an efficient solution on the matter. Thank you. Yeah. No questions. Thank you. Uh, Mr. Stotz, are you aware of any precedent in Wayland or through your studies in any surrounding towns where such a weight limit was imposed by one town for a bridge that spans two towns? Uh, that's a great question. And no, I, all my research has been rather thorough. I think you might've been, uh, I've yet to tread that ground. And in your conversations with Ms. Louis, did she have any advice? No. No. She, she stuck to the knitting of the language. Mm-hmm. Yep. So, um, and I think that needs, take control of this, but I'm going to ask a question. Are we aware that the town of Sudbury can see any articles to their town meeting regarding Sherman Bridge Road or Sherman Bridge? Bridge. Sorry. I don't want to send it. Yes. Yeah. Sorry. I think there's submission, article submission deadline was before ours, and I don't think they have any on their own. Okay. Thank you. So, thank you. Thank you. Nice job. Thank you. Thank you. But for informative now, we're going to talk about Article BB. Will we negotiate the Sherman Bridge Road neighborhood agreement? Yes. Um, have you guys heard of the 1971 neighborhood agreement? Never. What? Uh, I think, uh, the residents of Sherman Bridge Road would be very willing and able and wanting to, you know, sit down and negotiate a change of terms to the 1971 neighborhood agreement that works better for today's day and age and makes all of us friends again. Um, I'm going to open this up to, um, my question is, was it an agreement or was it kind of a memorandum of understanding? It was sort of a handshake memorandum of understanding. You know, so we can argue, you know, is it, you would know better than I, whether there stands a chance in the court of law. Well, the reason I asked you, you referred to it in the, in the article as a 1971 agreement with the Capitol Bay, and I'm just not sure how accurate that. Yeah. Yeah. You know, I, I haven't spent 40 years sweating punctuation like some have, but, uh. That's another topic. Yeah. That'd be a problem. I, I know how I'm going to vote on this one. And with that note, do you have any questions for Mr. Stotsky? No, I might say something I'd regret. You know, I think Tom spoke before about, there are certain things going to town meeting that don't necessarily need to go to town meeting. And, and I suggest this is a good day. Excuse me. We're in questions now from the board. Okay. Not editorializing. I'm telling you, I'm sticking around my system. All right. Actually, cause if I don't, then someone else comes in and say, you know, so-and-so was there five years ago. I'm not kidding. I get those calls all the time. All right. Miss Brinsley. Do you have any questions for Mr. Stotsky on article? Phoebe? Yeah, I'm not going to get too legal on it. And those would just be, my thoughts would be legal thoughts. So, um, thank you for submitting. Thank you. Um, Mr. Levine. Uh, Mr. Stotsky and I discussed this, uh, on the phone, on zoom on Friday. And for the benefit of the rest of the board, um, can you discuss why you separated these two articles? You have two, obviously, pertaining to the so-called 1971 agreement. Uh, A, I got these articles written a fairly short time before I was leaving the country on a pre-planned trip, and, uh, I thought it doubled my chances to win, basically. You know, I haven't spent 40 years on this stuff, and, uh, but, uh, I, uh, I'm hopeful that, uh, I'm hopeful that, uh, all of these actually could be resolved and withdrawn by the petitioner by the time of town meeting. And my, my, um, last question is, did you have any discussion with town council, uh, about the, the 1971 agreement as you were drafting these and running the buyer? Uh, well, I believe this board asked her to, through the town manager asked her to provide an opinion on the fall. I suggested to her, as I have to this board, that additional evidence has emerged since then, which I think is pretty powerful, that some sort of uncapitalized A agreement was reached at some point, and that it might serve this, your board well to have asked her to prepare, prepare a, uh, a refreshed opinion, if you will. Thank you. Actually, I think that was your, that request to me, to have a reflection of opinion. Yes. So, I do want to set the record straight. Um, and let me clarify, I thought that was to, the, the board should want it as opposed to me at looking for pre-legal work. I'm sorry. Uh, my thinking is that if I was on the board, I would want that opinion refreshed, as opposed for me asking the town council to front my legal work. I think I need some signatures. Um, all right. We have some, besides our honored guests of the petitioners, we also have some honored guests running up, running up on the local local, of the cell troops. They have the civics. Absolutely. Um, requirement, or we're going to go for things, or something. And, one of the things is that they come to a select board meeting, and listen to a couple topics, and they're going to go and write about them. besides our honored guests of the petitioners we also have some honored guests running up on the local groups they have the civics
requirement and one of the things is that they come to a select board meeting and listen to a couple topics and then they go and write about them so it's very exciting so um i would like you to i'd like to because we're having this discussion to also say that not there is a resident on the street where there's been fairly vocal that this agreement does not exist and i believe that obviously the town has looked like i'm going to speak here but we look we haven't been able to find anything either yes so we all agree it was an oral yes but that's the whalen town prayer wrote about yes there is someone in the street who has responded multiple times with this contract 40 years contract um where is that very work yeah i could consult you with all my other words if i said the wrong word um it's supposed to be an interesting amendment here well well not to be fentonian my speech especially since both have been deposition in the last week but it may boil down to the difference between capital a and lowercase a agreements right okay so it's not the point this wasn't the youtube debate i mentioned that is also out there so that's all the stuff um and i think i don't have any questions because we have received probably um probably close to 100 emails from the showman bridge i grew since uh the fall so i think we're pretty familiar with it you you don't say i'm gonna go count them i responded to just about every one of them all right uh now we'll go on to if no one else has any questions on that michael you're all excited to answer right okay thank you article w dummy was renegotiated the sherman bridge of the neighborhood agreement number two and in my haste to get these articles filed before i left the country i
yes so if possible this should be retitled something like uh you know sherman's bridge maintain sherman's bridge historical appearance forever for a better form of words than that but that's basically the intention that's uh when i wrote this on january 7th or whenever uh the bridge design as then proposed was a far for peace as they say from where it is today and i thought that uh we might want to uh get the people of wayland to speak on their feelings on this through through town meeting um you know the uh the current proposal is uh has come a long way and uh you know by the time town meeting rolls around i may be entirely comfortable with this not coming to the floor so we'll open up to questions who wants to start bill no questions oh no i i support the flavor of this uh oracle though i think the historic importance of this bridge uh is significant um obviously we need to be mindful of the obligations to public safety in the years ahead yeah no better way to improve that um i think one of the things that also needs to be addressed is how many changes the group has asked the joint task force committee to make an adjustment in the bridge project i think we probably should gather this information and how many have been granted i think we have completely avoided or not avoided and not addressed yet i'm getting tired i'm saying the wrong words here um i think we need to also acknowledge how much compromising these these two two towns all these people in walls not just want to be difficult get all those together have made umpteen changes and i believe that i think we have to be honest and we have to be honest and and advise the residents that the only change that i'm aware of that has not been granted was the second walkway um so i didn't want to say that because of the bad animation here since the recent controversy over the bridges renovations which prepare and the proposed use of asphalt and steel so i don't think that is still relevant since january two yeah well i think the sense there was the original proposal to give me food asphalt and steel it doesn't matter and we're trying to guard against that i echo you with you know there have been a large number of improvements made to get us to this line today and i appreciate the work of the municipal project team getting there it would bother me not but i don't want to really enjoy it so all right um nobody else has any comments mr mccall did you want to have the last one you're the liaison although if i could just add one thing uh when mr mccall spoke about the uh jurisdiction and speed limits and traffic calming measures he got it absolutely spot on so thank you yeah we've had some side conversations about safety zones and we haven't agreed on everything through this but yeah here we are all right thank you very much for joining us all right thank you thank you everybody say it before that the finance really is on it's like whether it's gonna get together and finish off this and off we go and hopefully we make it to the deadline which is in two weeks tonight and get them into the lawn so thank you for joining us i appreciate it all right so now we are going to turn our attention here to item number 10 which is on work to simply get some of these articles
just before we move on while the petitions are still in the room i'm just throwing there is some similarity in some of what liz carter is working on as well as mr stotts and just a general observation comment it might be possible but they could find some common ground and reduce the number from six articles to four i just leave that as a closing thought and if they were to do that they would need to do it fairly quickly because until we've got to get into the back so anyway but thank you all right so on number 10 we're going to turn to um articles that are on the article tracking list um on the list starting on the page there's a number of articles listed which they are not reading tonight because they're not ready but at this point we're putting all the articles in in whatever form they're in so that we can move on i'm going to come back and talk about those in a minute um but i do want to talk about the personal life we're going to talk about the part is f tonight right um let me say this enterprise fund i mentioned this earlier there's been some changes in this um there's been some edits and uh public works is asked so that should be ready next week and we'll get that back for us article f um this is your your article and did you want to walk us through this one this one was pretty ready to go oh you're on mute uh what page am i on here yeah i thought you were at a where's f we're doing f it's nothing in a oh you're just doing f you're just going rogue okay i'll go there's some in here that aren't even ready to be discussed yet but we're just carrying yeah f is um what page is it i'm sorry guys what page because i'm 56 66 66 that's a group 66
all right this is
expenditure limits that's your article and yes it is mostly ready and there's no even updates like we've um brian uh kevin has had some updates and some um but this one has been pretty stable um and the language hasn't changed so i'm feeling like this is ready to go anybody have any comments happy to move moving right in okay i have a couple comments so first of all on the list of revolving funds last year we established an energy revolving fund so my question is is could you just circle back for someone to find out if they have any funding in their surgery uh that's not the right word in their fund and if they are claiming on if they need a budget that they think they're going to be expending any funds for a particular item this year so we do need that um and um put that on that list so we should check with brian on that michael yep let's check with brian on that one now okay and then and then on the school department professional development last year that amount actually decreased from 45 to 900 and so this year is decreasing from 900 in fy 26 to zero and fy 27 say where i am no i'm just looking i i'm just making sure that these yeah these are the most updated numbers okay i'll circle back around with them development that's the language from last year when they decrease it from 45 to 900. now they're going from 900 to zero so we just need to make that adjustment and then we let pamerman know yeah just that we're okay whoever your person is here okay does anybody else don't like the census documents and arguments and figuring the rolling funds expenditure limits reflect the needed business limits sounds like somebody made a booboo whatever like maybe when it comes to the assistant telling manager and i can grab that and fix that sentence in artist class i was in favor all right so we have a motion on and then you want to
thank you so we have to move motioning and who's seconding um and you're making it i'm happy to move that this board vote to support article f fiscal year 2027 involving planning expenditure that's that's not second okay move further discussion all those in favor and yes that yes um yes yes hello yes motion passes five zero the next item is the packet is out of article i stabilization fund appropriation i think this is your article well and yeah okay i just don't okay um i thought we were going in our order okay um we do have numbers uh oh no no wait it's already in here perfect uh this is our latest one um the numbers the only difference between this article and the one that we've had before presented to us is the amount is now in here it's solidified
it's 250 000 right this year yeah okay could you repeat the last sentence yeah i couldn't hear you oh uh there was i was waiting because i heard that the number might change but it didn't so this is exactly what we've seen in our packet before thank you any discussion here so i in our efforts to streamline some of these articles i would like this is our article i would like to suggest the text is only a deposit this a lot of this copy has come from when the astrology the fund so in my opinion we can get rid of pretty much that except for the first sentence we can get rid of all that paragraph just before the select board recommends approval and also the paragraph about the treasurer so it's we're going to make the deposits this is how we get the money in this is how we get the money out and that's it
so you want the passage of this article gone and then from from there until the funds may be transferred um passage is fine the next paragraph is fine funds may be transferred and the next paragraph that starts the treasurer is the one i'm suggesting we're not discussing how it gets invested here we're just a deposit but feel happy no no no no okay and then the next paragraph that starts appropriations from the cfs to support the capital require two-thirds majority of both at town meaning i think that sentence is fine and then the rest of the paragraph i think we can get rid of we're not talking about how what we invest the funds in what we're using to spend on we're just making a deposit so i'm suggesting that to the board under though people who pay attention to a lot of this stuff with some kind of overview maybe not in this detail but it's the purpose of the fund this is what it's used for this is the basis on which disbursements can be made it says okay to support future expenses related to the town capital plan see this all the language when we first established it i guess i'm just suggesting looking at it through the lens of someone who's coming to their first town meeting what what is this thing why are we putting money into it and how does it come out yeah so it'll contribute 250 to support the capital plan and the next one would tell me to hope the fund and established it the objectives are provide a source of funds to keep projects previously moving forward level the impact of capital expenditures and create funding source for the town that you share with drinks and then the funds may be transferred by simple blah blah blah and then hopefully it's just to come out i don't think we need all of this one two three four five stuff but my only concern is really just the streamlining like you know next next year and the year after you know you go back to this and you pretty much have a template and you're just updating it for the current situation but if you take that language out you may find yourself in another year wanting that language in there so i just feel like it's a good template but and that's my whole argument about the streamlining some of these things like for example when tom streamlined the remote participation that language has been there we need we need we don't need this this has been since 21 but anyway i'm not going to stick a federal case of it if no one else agrees with me we'll leave it but i don't have strong feelings on it either but i don't really see a need to leave it to remove anything either you don't want to check it out then we'll leave it i have been happy to move to this board uh vote to support article i titled the capital stabilization fund appropriate okay and further discussion dan yes yeah tell me yes yes probably yes motion passes five zero all right the next one i think is yours as well article j yeah but go page of my own now it was 69 next one it's the next one um uh nothing has really changed all the names were there before and they're just in red for some reason so you've been asked have they been asked uh i don't think so is that why they're in red shoot kelsey you said yes no they haven't been asked yeah i would i would think it's important to ask them because they may have an objection that they have as at least one has had in the past
well somebody on there be cast this one i want to take out some language in this one where it talks all about uh with after it says whalen continues the tradition of electing these positions even though the select one may appoint some then it says the purpose has written is to decide whom to elect not the method of appointment has nothing to do with the topic we're choosing offices we're not doing the method um and then the home rule petition sentence i don't think we need either
anybody want to agree with those that's fine you okay with that am taking that sentence out um sure um so we need to confirm this should we hold up on voting this one no no i think we can vote it and uh it meant it me too yeah okay i will vote vote to fourth article j choose town conference in second okay um if there's no further discussion we'll have a vote uh bill yes yes and yes um yes and carol yes that's passed to bottom zero um the next one i have on my list is k it reports i think that's yours as well yeah um i'm going to uh just so that um i'm going to reach out to those individuals on um jay i'll let you know for some reason somebody won't take it but hopefully we can assume that that'll that'll won't be brought up again sorry okay okay article k is you guys know this article it's it's the same format i feel like carol may want to change it um but it's for one typo that i found there was nothing else i changed in it from the two times that i've seen it before um there was a typo it's fixed let me check with um your assistant town manager here do we because that was voted in the article last year that um i think public ceremonies could submit um i think they're almost required to by the code so i go down and check with public ceremonies because that article was changed that they could they could doesn't the language say they could submit i'm gonna double check right now what the code says so no it says shall well no it says permit the publishing of attribute of no more than one page per award recipient under the here reports appendix of the annual time needed so it's they can they can they it permits so we should probably just that's what i thought that they could so let's check to make sure see if they want and is this the list um this is the correct list i'm looking for any other reports i know cpc planning um you know planning should be on yeah planning planning um ppc and uh board of assessors those are the three main ones we get every year so this article kind of has
two write-ups if you will one is it's a standard article which has the pros and the cons and the other one that says it's a non-negligible one so i think we need to pick which method we're going with um madam chair if i may i thought that the dis the agreement that we had because of the language in town code was that under the finance committee comments they would allow us to if they've determined that there's a non-negligible yeah normally there'd be no comments so i thought that there was a agreement that this year they would allow they being the finance committee would allow us to to sub to suggest some language and they would put it into their comments area so that they would allow to have comments and then the last the next paragraph would say following blah blah blah blah blah okay so let's just make sure this is 100 less than 150 words then yeah okay everybody okay just for the for the record you guys keep saying non-negligible i think you mean negligible yes thank you okay just i don't want it to look to cut be in the minutes wrong happy to move to this we go to support rf okay hear reports all right no further discussion thank you um done yes and yes bill yes yes yes yes yes yes motion passes five zero five zero thank you now l uh we will get them but we never do until the last minute so we will find out if uh did you get it i know one second i wanted to check with see if anyone has any vehicles so i have four from fire already um i facilities told me no that they don't have any i'm waiting to hear back from dpw and the police the police uh acting chief hebert uh did indicate that there are going to be both vehicles and equipment that are going to go up for um surplus disposition um and i think that's really it because the the bulk of the vehicles are either in facilities dpw police fire or schools and i also reach out to schools i have not heard back from them all right so can we have that information for the next meeting yes i already forwarded it to the fincom um liaison i will board it to the separate liaison because i don't think i did that um and uh like where are these vehicles coming from but that's okay it's awesome yeah it's all different here oh i love it by the way last year it was you i love it no it's awesome thank you for doing that making charge the article things got moving yeah i love it i love it the next one is article m special education reserve this is i think um mr levine yes one i think it's got way too much stuff in it all over at all
i heard last week from my fincom liaison miss hawks that they had a chance to review and vote on article m um and they voted to approve it unanimously and this is the version she forwarded to me that they had reviewed what would you like to remove miss martin go on a lot of this yeah three paragraphs i would like to start with passage of this article will fund a special education reserve fund versus as gifted whalen decides we've been doing this we're not deciding we've decided but wait wait that's it first sentence instead of this article passage of this article will be heard afterwards no i'm taking it all the purpose of this article decided whalen will come out anybody else have any edits you know i really don't know i would offer some but i don't want to incur the abuse so go ahead i'm getting it i want to share them i want to share i think this paragraph has got way too much in it we don't need the first one yeah don't you i mean the thing is and the arguments they were supposed to be like one line items they're a little bit wrong i need this up and down so just a little bit there um but i'm mad if you're willing to have a little bit of a cold take a look at that there and see what's here yeah anything then i need to get something about in school um did they have a question yeah thank you good yeah i did notice that a lot of these that the other boards were coming through without the votes on them you've got to grab some of them but i haven't got all of them are you uh raising your hand to be nope you don't want to talk about this article okay so everyone's all set with that let's uh take a motion please i have to move this board go to square article m special education reserve thank you for the discussion let's go with tom yes yes and yes and carol yes motion does five zero yeah so now we are going to go up um oh is in here but it's got to come in next week as you heard um there's been some changes and we're going to be we're going to wait until the next week on this one to see if we how much we can capture i don't know to be honest with you what all this red is carl and i have worked on this and we have a um uh drafted we're just waiting for the numbers to drop in so we will see that one on the 16th i'm pretty sure so the next four articles that we're going to process are from from the planning board um and building if you want to run through the recent i'm starting with ellen page something um very straightforward just a series of adjustments uh cleanup uh recognition of change of state agency uh the name of state agencies um no real substantive changes so the proposal's comments are here can someone tell me what the proposal's comments deadline doesn't come up it's uh it starts man share page 81 the proposals comments are there also from the planning board and the finance committee um what's missing here for me is a planning board bone there's a line that needs to be the planning more voting this and do we know what they voted because they voted their articles uh last week right i believe they voted to support their articles with the exception of the one that's being called so i'll confirm that yeah okay so that needs to get dropped into this before we send it out other than that i don't think there's anything to um to change right the rest of its code i mean for you bylaw or whatever yeah pretty technical stuff so all right so do we think we should have a motion happy to move to support article ll uh housekeeping is only exactly thank you no further discussion and yes sir yeah um yes bill which account motion passes five zero now we're on article n8 by the way i'm going to say we need plenty more vote on all of these so do you want to not suggest any changes uh just an update of uh relevant sections of the code as pertains to uh the flood hazard boundary map all right um certain other definitions so on this one what's interesting is there's no financing many comments so um we'll go back to your liaison and ask them what we want
so this background information is interesting because this as opposed to the planning was proposed comments and i don't i think it looks longer than um 150 words so let's just we might have to check that and there is a comment from the trident's community that it's negligent i'm on mn what does it mean i thought we did that one no like what's there on m m yeah yeah i'm just going to game the whole line because i'm in the floodplain in the federal flood protection district okay so let's scroll down and see if that does have finance committee comments yeah let's see if it has planning board comment here where is it yeah see what we get down to 88 it says proposes comments blah blah then the finance committee comments so you can see that the layout is the the code you know whatever it proposes the finance committee all right let's vote on this one happy to move to this point vote and support article mm and then the floodplain and federal flood protection district thank you any further discussion yes bill yes yes yes yes and kelly has motion passes five zero now let's do nn okay this is the accessory dwelling unit making changes uh to uh the accessory dwelling unit changes to the bylaw that were made early i was gonna say hastily uh fairly promptly following adoption of the statute uh making adus uh of a certain size as a right uh this uh creates a category called accessory adus and also enables uh petitioner proposers to in certain uh zoning districts to build uh or propose a construction of an adu that would be in excess of the otherwise limit of uh 900 square feet or half the not more than half of the area of the principal president principal dwelling whichever is less uh by seeking a special permit from the board of the field and perhaps also of variance in certain cases so i think this is the one i was talking about now i don't know it doesn't give me a page number but i scroll down this is background information it's more than 150 words and it's not by mainstream comments when we board reports so we can just gather those we can submit that's page 94. sorry thank you that was my thing a little all right do you have a motion happy to move to vote to support article nn accessory dwelling unit and zoning amendment yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes motion passes five zero so now we're on oh oh multifamily proposal to amend um the uh dimensional requirements and aggregate limits chart uh mbta zoning for every group 20 west uh subdistrict uh specifically with respect to maximum building height and maximum units per acre right so any comments on this no so here again this one's got this background information you know finance any comments and we are missing the planning board vote so do you want to have a motion on this so before we make a motion i just want to impress my opposition to the article okay for the reasons i um mostly stated last week um i'm very concerned that this article sets a precedent um in wayland for a height that is not consistent with typical 35 foot um height restriction um we made for example a exception to alta oxbow i believe it was 45 feet and um i think that that should be the maximum for this awesome as well i i'm not persuaded by the argument that because 58 feet of a building at this location um now long fellow and sundry is equal not as high as alta oxbow if you follow that logic you find a lower um location in town that would permit you to build a 70 foot building because it's lower than the um driveway at um at long fellow and sundry um i'm looking at two flat buildings here at least two that will just morph that road wolf that area um i admit that it's not an area where there are a lot of residents um but still i just think it it um is not consistent with um current town bylaws and sets of dangers present future buildings in wayland um i support the idea of housing i support the idea of getting 10 10 of affordable housing in these buildings but i think the height um is one reason why i can't support it number two uh communications from the fire chief that building this height would present safety problems for residents that's a further serious consideration um so um for those reasons i cannot support the other comments or this article um oh oh i'm just wondering um phil if you happen to know as a courtesy was the sudbury select board advised or sudbury planning board just as a heads up that this is potentially in the work not to my knowledge you build in the comments well i know that the uh planning board chair uh one indicated that she had spoken with uh fire department and had a different read uh tom's information is more recent so i think it'd be helpful to the board if we could reconcile those two statements so and i'm sorry did you have any comments on this article yeah no i some of what tom just said was new to me but it would it make sense to just to throw this one now until next week and see if we can't get some more information so we'd like to have some input from the fire department or maybe even michael could speak on that behalf of them and then drag everybody in there so we're there's a lot of guests next week and i don't know i don't want to be classified after so manager you want you just want the fire chief of the fire department to confirm the difference between what mr faye received from him being a fire chief and what um miss lewis chair lewis uh received from them when they uh discussed is that what you're asking for like the confluence of just getting a straight answer yes or no is 58 feet too high or too low or fine and i think i'll read you what he wrote to me i'll make this comment that um unless you have a plan or design and then i think it's tough for fire chief to give a definitive answer to whether the current equipment can handle a 60-foot building because of the distance that a truck has to be from from the building that that is a factor but he wrote he said as follows back in february 9th he says i believe that the current height restriction is 35 feet but an exception was made where we said you're 45 if they are proposing 58 feet that does make a big difference and it would be a real concern the largest structures between commonwealth 490 and 492 and 494 of austin building assisted living communities etc have created some challenges for us we've got a number of kitchen fires brilliant in these large buildings and simple things like removing smoke caused by burnt food can require mutual aid assistance but that's from the fire chief but what would we like to have next meeting well i think it'd be well to pose the question again to the chief uh and i'd be happy to discuss this further with the uh chair of the planning board or um
that sounds good and if possible a plan has a possible plan for the property from a transfer from a transparency perspective one reason why i asked the planning board chair last week but who the resident was who asked her to push to push this article was transparency the fact that it's a form of select board member is important i think and that person as i understand is david watkins which he has every right to um sue the uh the article to ask the planning board chair to pursue it but i think from a transparency perspective residents should know that the former select person as we discuss and vote on these articles i support the project again of housing that location i think it's a good location for housing i just have a big problem with the type could you just clarify what the beginning part of your statement i missed the like one of the first words you said could you just repeat what you said just the first couple of words sorry you said you said i something but just before transparency and i didn't catch the word but that's okay i can re-watch it on yes okay i should have wrote i was like i i'm trying to hear the word okay who was hanging on to every word tom said and tell us what the first word was i'll just listen to the meeting um i think i think that'll make sense why don't we ask we need to get some more information from miss lewis and maybe we'll reach out to the budget i think that thomas correct at auto fire chiefs whoever said it is that without the plan it's really hard to evaluate i know that there's been some discussion i think it's all the hearts but one of the things the way it's in it's a little bit difficult to get at get the trucks to and around i think this was brought up when uh the mill creek folks were coming in and then also when we talked about the same the answer proposal is that making sure there's an approval term flex to make the turn is really an issue i don't think it's going to hype the turn and i could be wrong somehow i remember that all right why don't we move on to the next one and i'll sit on that one so we are on the next part
so um we have two articles that we're going to have updates on them and one of them is article dd in the holiday road so i'm going to tee this up because this what looks like is a rewrite of the draft article was actually submitted to us this is not one that we are doing and we have received communication from the school committee chair and that communication is that ended up in the correspondence world and this somehow ended up in a packet but they actually belong together so this is not a change of the article so i'm going to let bill um address that uh the updates will you avoid well because carol and kate this is a proposed rewrite by the school committee and um both the blue and the red front yes yes uh at least that's that's my
that's my inference i did not make these changes so i don't know who else would have so in essence uh i think the school committee is suggesting that they co-spons the article which i think is a great idea um they're they have an ongoing uh k-8 uh long-term facility study which identifies um a series of choices uh that the town can make with respect to future i guess aspirations for future uh elementary and middle school facilities there are either 16 or 20 alternatives uh that have been luminary luminarily looked at by uh their consultant and uh presentation was made to the advisory committee uh monday of last week into the school committee on wednesday of last week because of these alternatives uh there was there have been a meeting on friday with the superintendent and members of the school staff and the consultants in preparation for a community meeting which i believe is going to be on the plains day of the high school uh to review probably um some subset of those alternatives among them is uh the notion of building a new elementary school elementary school on the holiday road orchard lane site so we're a little out of sync with where those options will be called even further so in the meantime the school committee has proposed uh basically a joint effort uh where both the school committee and the select board of representatives thereof would need to agree on the scope of services to be investigated um so the question arises what happens if the two parties don't agree so that is one question another is uh how does this relate to their ongoing effort uh their planning effort as i understand it uh the consultant is is basically going to work with the town to come up with a recommended approach to a master plan and that would then be the subject of a um a statement of interest that gets admitted to the massachusetts school building authority or msba uh then the msba looks at that uh a discussion slash negotiation with the town ensues and if the msba finds merit in the proposal then they will entertain a funding request to do preliminary investigation of the investigation which is uh which is a lot of kind of information that uh we envisioned would be forthcoming from this proposal including site survey preliminary design geotechnical civil and site engineering and to that nature um ordinarily one would not do that kind of work for a school site that was not going to be the subject of an soe or ssoi rather statement of interest so it's um it's a little bit of variance with i think the normal process with the msba so the also it strikes me that the school committee has engaged a consultant hmfh out of cambridge whose uh specialty really is school design so i don't know that it makes sense uh if it be decided to be considered for a school for there to be a preliminary design effort funded by this and a subsequent design effort funded by the msba so um we have invited or the chair has invited uh the chair of the school committee and another member of the school committee to meet with this board in a week to discuss this in the meantime the uh we've had conversations we've had obviously a lot of public comment uh neighbors uh i attended a meeting with a few of the neighbors i believe it was last week uh this the finance committee has not rendered any comments yet because they're just kind of waiting for this to stop oscillating so um so that is the current state of the party um feels correct so there's been a little bit back and forth and we just said let's see the language in advance um i have written back um on our behalf as the chairman said you know phil is the you know to avoid a lot of cooks in the kitchen inside or liaison for article and he's the driver on me on the right of the business for the select board side there's also another component did you mention this part about that it would have to have a joint agreement on how the funds were spent that's when you said it's scope right yeah well there uh i think this talks about the uh the select board the school committee jointly um agreeing but then the email goes on to talk about specifically how that might work so i think i replied and said that there's a general rule didn't write that back but yeah but general is that the select one is authorized by town we need to engage on behalf of the town the contracts but then once the contracts are you know signed proved authorized then we hang them packages over and the work is done whether it's something on the smaller scale more scope extended directly by the town manager in his office or it gets you know facilities or whomever so i was just trying to indicate that we don't we don't currently opine on like with this 200 000 that we have we wouldn't opine 20 000 here and 20 there we just tried to contract and off some of those and gets the work done and we would like done so i did want to put that out to hopefully that would help some provide some background information um before we got to the meeting next next week so anyway i'll open it up to the floor who has comments questions
the only comment i have is i think these are good developments i think um my concern is that the school committee will work at a certain pace and that this land may um not that would be seriously considered the end for for school and it would last period of time which i would prefer not to lose that's my only that's my only concern i hate to uh needlessly delay looking at this property producing minimal at this point minimal due diligence minimal due diligence that's in my view that's what it's all right then i'm going to find out right but one of the basics whether it be a school or housing or whatever the town was i actually just like the idea that um school committee is kind of backing this you know sometimes i feel like we we don't really have a sponsor for some of our ideas when it comes to development of properties so i i like that there's somebody spearheading it with a purpose there'll be some room to work out some agreeable language so i'm looking forward to having share here to talk this through because i would um like us to move forward um um so one of my big concerns was and i understand that the school committee does not write the article language but it's our article and we seem to have gotten subordinated it really should read for the select board you know to look at items we're looking at and the school committee well on those items this kind of thing it just seemed to become more of a school committee article and um i i'm just going to say this i actually said it to doug today so i'm going to just say it there is that my big concern is um michael and i looked around and we found literally one two hundred thousand dollars of funds to do this kind of work on a piece of property you know to do the due diligence because our goal here is some new development it's a new growth that's our goal we're looking for a revenue sourcing if the talent says no we don't want to do that at least we are doing our job to find some new growth that's what our goal appears and we have one two hundred thousand which we even haven't showed up that number maybe it could be less but there is not another two hundred thousand floating around so if we put the money i think we have to be almost miserly as to where we plug our 200 and i think to tell the point you know we were kind of hoping to get some information in the next year versus a couple years and um i just wanted to that's why bill and i thought that perhaps we could have this conversation at the board level to get a sense before we you know that um that was open so i wanted to filter did you want to add anything to the problem no no i would just add that the information that i think can be gleaned would be very useful for the school committee if they decide our school is to be built there uh or the town decides i should say uh in terms of survey availability utilities and there's soil conditions and so forth so it's going to be a valuable information with respect to it it's a little interesting but anyways okay so we're going to come in on the night um the last one we're going to have an update on is hh which is the long-term water supply um construction funding article and this time was going along and we were just about done and um carl is my uh my co-writer here when the summer leaves on with carl barnes and um then if you heard that uh we could go our application for the uh the state of the law we come zero when it was turned down so this has caused us to make a few um changes and credits to this i'm i had it scheduled to come before us tonight uh we did vote to co-sponsor it but i was thinking that the board would actually want to see the title right up number one and i also thought we might want to vote the vote again i don't know we voted to go sponsor are we we're in we don't have to re-vote yeah we voted to co-sponsor we're in okay but i do want to so i'm going to wait probably until the 16th just to finish it off because i think that uh mr kevin and mr will call are speaking to the bond council and
they'll talk and looking at things um there there has been a material change though right we don't know what the new debt service is right um i'd be interested in understanding the timing of when decision of an appeal might be forthcoming vis-a-vis the town meeting uh i'd be interested in knowing whether the town is disadvantaged if it adopts uh authorization to bond for 38.6 at packs of her markup rates for a municipality versus the zero percent are we disadvantaged by doing that uh with a uh an appeal penalty so you know i uh what are the impacts on the rate payers i think it's uh it's a substantial change substantially i'd like to understand that so this is what's being discussed you know they've seen some numbers that debt service basically doubles then it becomes a question of do we do they recommend a 20-year or a 30-year um when it comes over across 30 years you can't even know if that improves the debt service or do we wait and find out whether uh an appeal is likely because the dbw director seemed quite surprised and uh speculated that maybe someone at the state didn't understand what was going on all the assurances he'd been given that this seemed eligible and then all of a sudden we get this rating which is half what was expected so it would be well to understand what it changed so that's who we are and um unfortunately i don't think we can have this conversation continue uh see what michael wants to present maybe next week or you want to speak to those questions now but it sounds like i've had the same conversation with mr holder that mr whitney has the same information so i just made a list of all the questions that had about you know how quickly you know i know he was trying to follow in to somewhere in the state i don't know the formal process here so i'll get those answers so i think to be honest with you there seems to be a really thought that we will probably not have answers to those questions when we go to press that doesn't mean we won't gather more and be better positioned to answer those questions come mad then we'll go to tell me this is where we're at um i do want to point out that on the article text on this one which we put forth it says appropriate or something 38 million for the construction of a permanent camping hollow water treatment facility i have a issue with the word permanent because somehow things are not permanent so i'm going to suggest we take that word out so it'll say construction of a happy hollow water treatment facility and then it's to distinguish it from the temporary and run it to fulfill right i understand that that's an average person permanent means you never have to do anything to it and now here we go you call it a non-temporary so the comment in the margin says long term long term so i want to replace the word permanent and then i wanted to replace the word permanent on the connection to the mass water resource authority but i think that actually could be considered for me because it would be really take quite an interesting thing for us to be disconnected so that's one suggestion i have on that one um and you can see i've highlighted this service thing because we just don't know the answers to that so i do want to tell you that um so before we go on to the order the things they want to say this we have two weeks two meetings to finish off these articles and we did about 10 tonight to do about 10 tonight so that's going to stop about 19 18 somewhere oh man i'd like to i'd like to finish off at least ideally 10 next week and just have a soft landing on the 16th um and so that means i'd like to have not going to be able to complete an article a b c d and why are we not looking at b and d i didn't have any numbers for them where were the write-ups the numbers were sent for article b but are we i mean if we're looking just to submit them um i mean the numbers for i got article d's final numbers today so i sent them over so i can tell you the difference but the numbers are we can't vote to to submit it even if it's with the understanding that some of these numbers are going to change and so if you've got the numbers today you or do you have them in the in the form the format the template here and then you can send them in to abby for including in the packet the next week and it is i'm sorry madam chair if there's going to be changes to articles jalen and i also need to be jalen and i also need to be copied on by so that we have them these are just the draft ones right right okay so you need to so the numbers change like they've they've moved around a little bit like e the language is changing um so it got reviewed one more time but we need the final numbers just to vote to submit yes okay all right article um article b and article d those have been um given over for for final numbers uh well some of them yeah okay yeah let me say this again i would like to have let me try again we got yeah oh no we'll say it again i would like to know where we are with these articles when you are with them before the packet closes so on thursday you let me know if it's getting in this week or it's not because we want to finish these on um i don't know where we stand by the way we recognize citizens if we get back i i just gotta all right so in an ideal world my happy world we do a b i think c is ready d ryan is coming to speak to us about e next week so hopefully we can do e um h is the budget i think we won't see that till the 16th l is the vehicles i'd like to see that one next week oh is the wage and salary classification clip this one's also mine but it's um we're gonna wait to the last week just in case there's any other uh changes on that um ee um i don't think we've seen the final write-up to vote it did we vote that did we vote ee yeah so we need to see that final write-up can we get that in the back thursday yeah and you i just sent it today okay i copied you and kelsey okay and japan all right yeah it said she was starting the clock today
yeah okay i'll grab that but what you're saying even though i referred it the other day right not at me but yeah yeah okay and then petitioner articles next week um so x you saw miss plum came in the week before that one is ready double x we'll have that in the packet as soon as these others are ready i would imagine the public appearance was 16. if you can be writing on this would be great um i do want everyone to know there are two articles in my opinion someone will tell me otherwise that we have not inserted one of them is kk which has been proposed by the senior tax voting group um i don't know if they're actually going to be ready so there's a decision that we want to have that conversation next ready or not next week because they're making changes they're making genes another desire and then dd we not only haven't um voted to insert that but we also had talked about being setting um we can go forward with that and the foreign date so yes madam chair i'm looking at the working article list it looks like you inserted 25 holiday road on the 20th of january okay well let me answer it then
all right i just want to let go through that this is what we we're doing great we're going to stick with it so i'm sure uh what are we going to do about the uh high school ball fields well the high school ball field is not on our plate because it has not been put officially into the capital plan
to give me the look like era and we have a recommendation from town manager um and we're waiting to hear from the finance committee early on my name's committee did not put it forth as a debt exclusion and they are discussing that project still i believe michael said he'll going to speak on it on wednesday night so if it comes back then we'll deal with it when it comes yeah that's what that was my question is do you want to add that to the monday discussion no anything that pumps up i just add in okay yeah no no i've got my eye on that one as well to make sure we don't miss anything that's the problem they don't miss stuff so that's that's a biggie all right so i think we're on good i've got everything mr face says i do so i'm good okay so the next item is we're going to talk about the article the order of the articles and um we'll hand this over to mr routine um so i'm page whatever i've been talking one of two one of two thank you last page yep there's one article that i missed as a heads up this article a a no it's article cc amend town code chapter 36 one okay i'm meeting an election and i would probably plug that into my abbreviated presentation procedure so it would be nine abbreviateds yeah i want to go back up and explain that so i spoke to the moderator and she of course was comfortable with us doing a consent calendar again this year um but then we also said to you we have a lot of um housekeeping small bylaw amendments we don't want to put those in consent so um the moderator said she was okay with it i talked to doug and we are recommending that we do all those with abbreviated so they should you know you should go really quick so do you think it makes sense to keep all the abbreviated together like that or just split them up throughout the night how has that been done in the past because i obviously i put there's eight there'd be nine and i put them all in or both is that how we typically do i'm asking the moderator hey marinda hi um i actually like the idea of buzzing through those eight if not nine abbreviated procedure articles as fast as possible okay just because i think it's there's a certain flow to it yeah i think we can get through that consent calendar at the beginning and then we're going to obviously spend quite a bit of time on the budget uh then the second consent calendar yeah i think i think it would be good it'd be it would it would get rid of quite a bit okay um permanent and temporary easements at town center for rail jail is that about it i didn't have any sense for timing on that do you have that bill i have that um there may be questions about that so maybe i think in 10 minutes after but it's the corner of a vote gonna be on that i think that's two-thirds yeah okay so one of the things is that last year can we run into this a lot is last year i did this and i had the days thought the thing is that we don't have a crystal ball to say how long we're really going on and if the budget goes shorter or longer we can do get further deeper into it and then that's so i um think we'll actually discuss leaving out the tuesday you know the second day and just run them through knowing full well this might be a natural break but if not we have time we'll just keep going so because once we stay it then it's going to be on tuesday then even if we finish it like 10 yeah was we we adjourned and you know we were we could have done you know two two three more articles so okay i'll make that change everyone's good with that well i'm going to say this for significant articles that are gonna that may be controversial or have particular interest i think it's important you place them so that people know will be discussed on a particular yeah yeah for example you've got dd on the holiday road that may gender a lot of conversation yeah you've got 45 minutes yeah and um we'll definitely get to that on day one right yeah i think you will we will i think i hit all the big ones yeah yeah so that's everything else there is so quick the only main substantive ones are budget mwra 25 holiday road three substantive articles i think the water one's going to be 30 minutes i think it was short yeah let's face it then we know it's coming and we know we need it when we want to pay for there is another country yeah okay maybe one person in town that doesn't know we're doing this and we have to do it i i have a question for the board that i'm very curious what folks think about is if we compared to prior town meetings have far less if any real controversial articles here maybe mwra somewhat but yeah listen things so maybe holiday road and we're getting now to the very end and we have a very small number of voters there already yet should i have all the petitioners articles at the end if we don't need to wonder who people's position is on that because i know that's just been done historically but i'm not sure that we're required to do that and do we want more critical and more from bigger mass and voters to be able to weigh in on this my concern is that the petitions articles may result in a lot of discussion um and people feel let me put this way people's energy at the end of town meeting is less than yeah than the beginning of timing and you're talking about a topic that may gender a lot of ideas and what about this people are not for following the topic they could go 45 minutes each if you put these in my opinion if you place them in the wrong place so right so i kind of like where they are definitely so i had such a doubt that i felt that we should put uh so we usually have with the petition hours and then we have one or two of us after it i think we should put something down there i was i would suggest maybe article ee the planning board appeal article that's our article something like that but that will help because what happens is sometimes we get down the end there we have a hard time maintaining the quorum so i think we need something that's going to be um i think sherman's bread is going to get people in the streets but i wouldn't learn about that well if you if some board members have mentioned to me it might be a local local concern it's not a widespread concern maybe the folks will say eight to nine paragraph yeah but they know people in town get their friends to come out but she's but then why would they stick around for the article after that if you want to put you you want he to be the anchor the very last article yeah well on something that goes down there one or two down there maybe are there any resolutions or no no never mind they usually go they go at the end i'm sorry they usually go at the end they have to be the last right i know but we don't have any sadly they're not instructions
bill's saying that some of these sherman's bridge if not all of these articles are potentially resolutions not drafted as such though no right no so the resolution i think is it's a sense of down meaning when you know binding requirements at all this sounds like these are on the fence but the legislature can't find the executive okay let's can we just i think effectively there are resolutions the the other uh in the past we have had uh the um articles of uh the cpa articles at the end at the end at the end and if i were on the cpa i would love that because
well we have another agreement well i have to tell you having been the liaison for the super for several years they're really not crazy they always are on the back end of the wall and i always
um so every end agreement we'll just take the tuesday up and run them out we'll double check we've got them all maybe dug them out the middle of the next what i'd like to do is get a sense that we're pretty good here there's no major changes because i'd like to get this we want to get this to the staff because as the finals come in they can start you know blow it laying up the book um and then green if you would like we can bring back the revise next week you know with the changes because a couple of the obstacles have come out and we might move that worked everybody so i'm already on four hours i hope i'm not going for a new record yet yes sorry to add something but i did just look through um you mentioned something hadn't been inserted it wasn't the article you said it's actually the article y i just went through the minutes of our meetings since we just didn't know you did turn it article what's going on okay no we don't know we inserted it we considered and supported even though we already did it once tom and i can get it now so i think but this is good keep track right on this because we don't want to have one all right so let's move on to the next item which i think is the town manager is the town manager thank you everybody all right i'm going to see brother to put it into awareness no no no no all right i'll get done before 10. it's back like an auctioneer oh my god i feel terrible so um just a couple quick things community choice rate update we met last week um i did with the julie gagans who's our sustainability coordinator energy and um paragon and we reviewed the bids and they come in usually on six month increments and we also asked for something slightly off at 25 months and the best rate we got was from first point power who's our current provider and they gave us the best price at 14.01776 cents per uh dollars per kilowatt hour i'll get it all street um but it's for 25 months and the idea of going 25 versus 24 we can incrementally get off the peak season into a shoulder season for future purchasing but it was the best rates we locked in um we went to uh 36 months for more it costs more don't understand why but this was the best rate we took that and that will be for everybody who's um part of the community aggregation how does that compare with our current rate uh i don't have it committed but i know it is higher because we locked in obviously earlier and now on energy has been going up across the boards with slightly higher um and then i just have a couple items under a recap the last two um two times i've had uh town manager office hours they get canceled due to snow so we're going to try again on march 23rd um at 5 30 before our select board meeting i just want to let you know we did have our first professional development day last thursday it was very well attended by everybody we had our as we said we would pursuant to the equity assessment that we did we did a segment on cultural awareness and diversity training for all of the staff uh we had a gentleman named steven bernstein who's a licensed mental health professional and he also works with our eap to discuss that and we had a few and a it lasted about over an hour and a half so that was good um we got a notification from the department of public utilities that the per ride assessment that we get for 20 cents on ride sharing trips is going to be going away as of january one next year we don't get a lot we used to get about four thousand dollars or so but um they're going to do away with that um and i think we're getting closer to getting a draft on our fire staffing study which does not i don't believe the personnel board but we may want somebody from this board when we sit down and take a look at it because if there's any suggestions for increasing staffing it would obviously have impact in the town going forward so maybe this is someone uh you know as a liaison when we start looking at that and like i can defer anything else too thank you so there are no minutes anybody have any comments and correspondence i'm great i believe i'm not looking at the of revised agenda but i believe we have a revised agenda with a consent item correct yes and you just might want to speak to that consent then or no just remote it right okay you just voted if you're quite happy to move the consent calendar from our second to the one second second thank you any further discussion okay there's no discussion let's take a vote and yes yes yes yes yes