October 19, 2026 – Select Board – Video & Transcript
October 19, 2026 - Select Board
This is a hybrid meeting. We'll be here in person. This meeting may be recorded, and if recorded, it will remain available to the public on weekend as soon as possible at visit. Tonight we will have an executive session on our agenda, and the public will be excluded from that portion of the meeting.
Pursuing to Chapter 2 of the Acts of 2025, this meeting will be conducted in person and via remote access in accordance with ethical law. You may watch and participate remotely with the meeting link that can be funneled on the calendar, with webpages, or in the agenda of the select meeting. When required by law or allowed by chair, persons wishing to provide a comment or otherwise participate in the meeting will do so at the meeting location.
John, she's here at the 21st teacher group. On the comment, we respectfully ask, is to be limited to two minutes per person. So, joining me this evening, we have Mr. Reynolds, Mr. Gray, Mr. Levine, Tom Merida and Mr. McCall, and myself, Captain Martin. Mr. Whitney is unable to join us this evening.
We're going to read the agenda. Please note, agenda item times approximate. The items may not be discussed in order or at the time listed. And all topics are subject to deliberation and vote. So we are reviewing the agenda. We're going to have a swimming in on five firefighters. Three new ones, three new promotions. We'll have announcements and public comment.
635, we will keep the chief with us to give us an update on the draft hazard mitigation plan.
What if we can tell a quote for us so that she can discuss and review potential articles that she would like to present at the 2027 being the Old Town meeting. It's approximately 6.50. We will enter into executive session. We're pursuant to Massachusetts General Laws, Chapter 3, Section 21A3. We discuss strategy with respect to litigation on Sean Gaines versus the Town of Wayland. And also discuss strategy with respect to litigation on which one of the election.
Finally, we will also have a agenda item, so to domestic system laws, chapter 38, section 21A3, to suppress strategy in respect to collective bargaining with the following union, the waiting of police officers, and also AFSCME. Finally, we will soon to general laws, chapter 38, section 21A7, we will be able to approve the executive session minutes of October 5, 2026, with the intent to hold said minutes.
We anticipate the open session at approximately 7.35, which will be followed by a discussion on the updates on the recent Sherman's Bridgeport traffic studies. We will have a discussion potentially while remaining on outdoor dining level scene. We will have some 20 discussions, interviews, one for the ZBA and one for the broadband and a couple for broadband and cable advisory committee.
Finally, we will discuss and vote with Select Board, Ladies and Honourable, to the same committee. Finally, 8.15, we will have a joint meeting with the Board of Public Works to discuss the transfer station funding. That will be followed by a discussion through vote with the Special Water Honourable Seeker and Select Board to support the five-town pilot program to develop and implement remote participation in a meeting.
We will discuss an update about the transfer of the remaining unused ARFA funds, American Rescue Plan fund from the 813 project, followed by the town manager's report, consent calendar. There are no minutes available tonight. Review correspondence.
Followed by Select Board members. We're going to start with the swearing in and we will do the announcements in the public comment after that. So we're going to hear the swearing in James Sykes, Roni, Colin Milrick, Milrick, go ahead and get that right.
Support and Celebrate Promotions, Mitchell McCarty, and Canada. I'm going to invite Mary Sam, Assistant Chief, Iron Chief, Rich Ripley, and Trudy Reid, Town Court, to undertake this jump. I'm going to just stand over here so I can see everybody. So first things first, I want to start by thanking the residents and this White Board. Is he going to be in the camera? Yes, I can see him. Okay. Thank you.
Certainly for their support. I want to make sure the town recognizes, we have a lot of our firefighters here, the tremendous service that these firefighters provide day in and day out, certainly for the community of Wayland. And also, I see a lot of family members here. I appreciate that having a loved one who is a firefighter is not always easy. They're not always there when they're supposed to be there. They don't always get home when they're supposed to get home. Such a tremendous sacrifice.
For the families. I just want to start out by saying that. So tonight what we're going to do is I'm going to read a few comments about each of the people. They're going to go over and get sworn in with Trudy. And then they're going to be pinned. The object of pinning is not the drunk blood. And if you want no injuries as a result of pinning. So anyway, I'm going to start with the newest first. So Mr. Colin Millerick. All right. So Colin was hired as a firefighter paramedic.
And he started in August 31st this year. Should he come over? So, thank you. Colin has been a tremendous hockey player, I think, most of his life, in high school and certainly in college. And he worked as an EMT basic for private EMT service in a busy EMS system to gain experience. He attended the pro paramedic program in Cambridge.
All right. He's currently finishing his orientation for our department and will be attending the 10-week career program in January of 2027. He's going to be pinned tonight by his mother, Lisa. And I want to comment one other thing about two people here. Number one, Colin and James. One of the things that we have done to help with our retention and attraction to new people is that we allow people to come in, have conversations, and ride with us.
And Colin and James both started at one point in time. They said, hey, I might be interested in the fire service. So they came in, they talked to us, we let them ride with us, and then we helped them work through a process of getting their basic EMT. And they moved to the Paranormal School, and we stayed in touch. And both these two candidates were people that, as a result of that contact, that experience, they saw what they liked, they wanted to come back to Wayland. So, anyway, congratulations. Now you're going to have Trudy, who's going to do your swearing in, and then your mother gets to do your pool.
I'm going to bring you on here because you guys aren't on camera and everybody should see you. Please raise your hand.
Do you solemnly affirm that you will support the Constitution of the United States of America, the Constitution and laws of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, the laws and the ordinance of the Town of Wayland, the rules and the regulations of the Wayland Fire Department, and you will, to the best of your ability, faithfully perform the duties of the firefighter, paramedic, and for the Town of Wayland during your continuance of office? Thank you. Like me to sign here, please.
And if you could also sign the official book right there. I put it in the rest of you. Congratulations. Thank you. Thank you, Claire. You're welcome. Give me a smile for the camera. All right. So, Claire has been hired in as a firefighter paramedic. We're a little closer, so you can see that, right? Okay. Her start date was May 15th of this year. She went to college at UMass, which is a member of the rowing team. In fact, Claire was ranked nationally as a rower. Pretty incredible accomplishment. She went to Mass Bay for her paramedic program, worked for numerous EMS, private EMS services in busy systems, which provided her with valuable EMS experience. So she came to us with great paramedic level experience because of working those busy systems. She's currently attending the 10-week career recruit program, and that finishes on December 11th of this year. She'll be pinned tonight by Samantha Broglio. Broglio. Do you solemnly affirm that you will support the Constitution of the United States of America, the constitutional laws of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, the laws and the ordinance of the Town of Wayland, the rules and the regulations of the Wayland Fire Department. And you will, to the best of your ability, faithfully perform the duties of your position firefighter paramedic in and through the town of Wayland during your intervention. Thank you. Okay, now we have James Sykes. James has been hired as a firefighter paramedic. His start date was July of 2025. James is one of the few people who actually grew up in Wayland, who are still in Wayland. I'm very proud of that fact because I do believe it makes a big difference when you're out there serving the population, with connectivity with the community, when you know the people, you know the town, right? And it's very calming, I think, for many people when they see somebody they know who shows up to render them aid. So we think that is wonderful. James went to the MassBay Paramedic Program. All right, and as I mentioned before, James and Cullen were both ride-along participants. So tonight, James is going to be pinned by Paul Sykes. Thank you. Do you soundly affirm that you will support the Constitution of the United States of America? The Constitution allows... The Laws and the Ordinance of the Town of Wayland, the Rules and the Regulations of the Wayland Fire Department, and you will, to the best of your ability, faithfully perform the duties of Firefighter Repair and Managed in and for the Town of Wayland during your continuance of office.
So Mitch is being promoted from firefighter paramedic to lieutenant, and that was effective on September 3rd. For those of you who don't know, the department has four lieutenants and four captains. Mitch has eight years of experience with the Wayland Fire Department. This promotion was based upon a rigorous promotional process, which included a test, a resume screen, and an assessment center. Mitch had the highest score. He has served in numerous roles for the Wayland Fire Department, a CPR coordinator, Our Emergency EMS Coordinator. He's part of the District 14 Tech Rescue Team and Dive Team. His extensive fire experience has worked for numerous other fire departments in different capacities. He has a lengthy list of certification in the classes. Too long to review tonight. All right. And he'll be pinned by his mother, Nancy Williamson.
Please raise your hand. Do you solemnly affirm that you will support the Constitution of the United States of America, the Constitution laws of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, the laws and the ordinance of the Town of Wayland, the rules and the regulations of the Wayland Fire Department, and you will, to the best of your ability, faithfully perform the duties of lieutenant in and for the Town of Wayland during your performance of office? Thank you.
The last person we have tonight is Kenneth McGuire is being promoted from lieutenant to captain. All right. Again, this promotion is based upon a rigorous process. The captain has 20 years of experience with the Wayland Fire Department. I think something interesting that I just learned today, and I should have known this, all right, was that he actually took, when he got hired, his father-in-law's spot, all right? And that's Fran Burke who's sitting in the back there. And we owe Fran Burke a debt of gratitude, too, because Fran Burke worked for the Wayland Fire Department for 34 years, all right? A pretty incredible career. So thank you. And he became a lieutenant in 2012. He served in the acting captain's role. He's been very involved in training over the years. He has some specialized skills being a member of the Wayland Fire Department District 14 fire investigation team. Something I learned today is he was nominated for Firefighter of the Year Award in 2013, and he had numerous other recognition letters that I knew, but it was for an auto explication back in 2013. So anyway, tremendous career, many accomplishments, well earned by him and certainly Mitchell, and he's going to be pinned tonight by his wife, Jen.
Do you solemnly affirm that you will support the Constitution of the United States of America, the Constitutional Law of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, the laws and ordinance of the Town of Wayland, the rules and regulations of the Wayland Fire Department, and you will, to the best of your ability, faithfully perform the duties of Captain and for the Town of Wayland during your continuance of office. Thank you. Congratulations to all five members. Truly deserved. Thank you.
Thank you, everybody. Thank you. I'd like to start with the board, but I'd like to start with the board. I'd like to say something and then I'll open it to the board. Thank you, Madam Chair. And thank you all for being first and foremost willing to serve the people in the town of Wayland. It's great to see the internal promotions and it's great to see the new faces. I wish you a long and safe career with the Wayland Fire Department and thank you for your service. And I want to congratulate everybody as well. I've spent a number of years working with first responders. I've been over at the state police for the last seven years, and I have tremendous respect for fire and police at all levels and grateful for everything you do every day for us. Appreciate it. Congratulations to all five of you. Back in 2010 was around the time that our board committed to paramedic programs. And one reason why I voted for it was a service that provides individuals, residents here in the town, and those visiting the town that's been a serious situation. You all do a great job, and you save lives, and you'll continue to do so when we're in your debt. I want to add to Chief McPherson's remarks about the sacrifices you made, and I'm overjoyed about the continuity. None of these positions came out of nowhere. It sounds like some of them might even have started 10 years ago. The ride around where you are. And of course, I want to thank everybody myself. Police and Fire are such an integral, important part, especially as you age and we have a fairly older population here now in Maryland. And trust me when I tell you, and I know this firsthand myself, My neighbor will tell you that when you see that ambulance pull off at 3.30 in the morning, you're never so happy in your whole life. And we really appreciate it. We're really happy when we don't see you very often. I really love when we get to see you here. So congratulations to you all. And I'm going to do something I don't do too often to say, well done. I'm all set to go there. We're just going to be straight for anything. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. I want to share that the Hill is having a Art has some events on November 12th from 6th to 8th. It's got to be a bonding class. And I think it's in the organizations. Like what members were there. Are you involved in? Mr. McCall, did Mr. McCall, are you announcing somebody? Thank you. Hello, Carol? We're just trying to get started. I think we have an announcement from the town manager first. Right. Carol, this is Steve Clifford. I wanted to make a public announcement or a comment. Yes, can you just wait just one second, please? Sure, absolutely. Thank you. Okay, go ahead, Mr. McCall. Thank you, Madam Chair. Tonight, I wanted to introduce to the board our new building commissioner. His name is Tom Zupa. Tom has been working with us for almost a year now, roughly? Yeah, just over. Yep. He came to us from Gardner. He was our local building inspector. And as you know, Nate Maltinsky, who was our local, had been serving. I'm allowed to make someone interim building commissioner without being a formal certified building commissioner. They have 18 months to serve. And we brought Tom on at that time. Tom had served in a similar capacity in Gardner. And he's been serving us well as a local. And when Nate Maltinsky recently came to me and said he was thinking of transitioning into Greener pastures, I don't know. But Nate's done a great job for us here, but Nate's looking to retire in the not-too-distant future. And so we had an internal conversation, and Tom was very willing to take on the role and has gone back and passed his exam and has become a certified building commissioner. And so we sat down recently and we decided to promote Tom. Nate is going to step back and be our local and continue to serve with us for a period of time. But Tom is going to take the reins here and he's going to be leading going forward. He's been a great asset to the building department and I thought it'd be great if the community said the new name and face of the building department. It's Tom Zubweather we have right here. Thank you. Thank you. I know you don't want to speak, but I probably put you on the announcement. So when I did want to, I thought the board would want to, you know, acknowledge your... Motion and congratulate you and thank you very much. I'd like to comment. I've had several dealings with Mr. Zuba and he's terrific. It's always pleasant. It's always efficient. And he'll help myself. Thank you very much, sir. Thank you. If you do want to come speak to us, feel free. Let me let, you know, Abby know. We'll put you on the agenda. Of course. Thank you. Thank you. All right. Now, public comment. There's no public comment in the room. And it looks like I have Mr. Clicker would like to make public comment. I recognize you. Steve, please. Thank you. Yes, Steve Clifford. It's 274 Concord Road, and I know you'll be talking later about the transfer station, and I had a written comment I'd like to read out, and I will email it to you, Carol, just for your records. Okay. Okay, access to the Wayland's transfer station is a service currently providing a quarter of Wayland's households. These residents love the service because it costs half the amount charged by a commercial hauler for curbside pickup. For their household trash and small recyclables, plus they can dispose of their yard debris, a service that's not provided by these commercial haulers. Though the actual annual budget to operate the transfer station was $548,000 for FY26 for all the services, the people that are getting the... Taking the trash there only involved three large bins with small cycling items and two large bins for the household trash, plus the staff to monitor these five bins. And that's the only thing that actually replicates curbside pickup. Now, the actual FY26 revenue and expense detail, residents purchased of stickers, generated $334,000. And the purchase of the orange bags generated another $113,000. And so in total they generated $447,000 in revenue for the town. Now there are two main expenses incurred by the station as they relate to this service and this service alone, which is staffing expenses and they call the tipping fees to dispose of the contents of these five bins. Now, I'm assuming that half the station's staff salaries plus their benefits service this function, which totals about $154,000 a year. And the tipping fees were about $150,000 for a total related expense of $304,000. Now, by my rough estimate, the sticker holders actually generated profit for the town and the landfill of about $143,000. Now, I'm not trying to say that I got all the expenses because there are other modest expenses and I would like Joe or somebody else to kind of put them together. And there are long-term capital expenses that periodically replace the bins. But my point is that if you do an honest calculation, those households that use the landfill are actually generating a nice profit for the town. The second thing that goes with this is that the numbers of users have been declining. And this is an issue. And it will be, it's been going on for many years, but I think it'll be many years before the bag, I call it the orange bag service, actually loses money. And so I would suggest that part of this decline is due to the town's failure to promote this service for new residents. Now, I'd like to leave you with three thoughts. One is a quarter of the town actually uses the transfer station. They love its convenience, low cost, and friendly staff. The orange bag service is actually very profitable, and obviously we need some detail to know exactly how profitable, but I think it's very profitable. And then the forced curbside service that would happen if we canceled this service for those residents would be significantly higher. Now, I know we're looking as a town to consolidate callers, and that may drop the price, but I have no expectation that it would be that much. In any event, as you're thinking about it, I'd like you to kind of have these thoughts in mind, and I will send that to you as an email. Thank you. Just in time, we were just going to tell you how to give you two minutes, so. Okay. Appreciate it. Is there any other comments, Bobby? Yeah, Alyssa. Sure, okay. Ms. Carter, I recognize you. Hi, Alyssa Carter, Sherman Bridge Road. Congratulations to our fire department, and I echo everything you guys said already about them. I feel the emergency management plan does not take seriously the threat of wildfire disasters nor the extent of tree killing by bittersweet throughout Wayland. We have a huge concentration of mature trees and forest land here, but the risk of a serious fire is practically dismissed in this plan. Between drought conditions, dried brush and trees in the minimally Maintained public forests, lightning that can hit tall and dying trees, worsening of storms due to climate change, and this year is Super El Nino. Increasingly, jets flying low over Wayland as they depart fully fueled from the private airport in Bedford, including many chartered by ice in recent years. This risk goes far beyond just a brush fire, especially if a jet disaster occurs here. Keep in mind, private jet pilots don't typically have the number of hours nor expertise of commercial airline pilots, and that airport may be expanding dramatically. As for bittersweet, it's destroying trees everywhere in town, even crawling on power poles and lines. Just look at the forest along the transfer station road and anywhere you drive. Also, neither Sherman's Bridge nor Sherman's Bridge Road nor the boat ramps are mentioned as either Recreational areas, nor as critical transportation infrastructure in this plant. Despite the town management initiating a costly plan to repair and upgrade this bridge, trees along all the roads are an ongoing threat to power maintenance for homes during any wind or heavy snow event as well. I was trapped on my road for several days from a fallen branch on live wires in a storm last year. And regarding my road, I'm still startled by westbound vehicles passing me at my mailbox by only one or two feet. We need signs informing drivers of state VRU laws here on Sherman Spitz Road. There's so much on the agenda today. Sorry if I went over time. Thank you. Is there anyone else who wants to share? Actually, no one else online. Thank you very much. Since we are finished with a public comment, I'm going to move to join the chief to join us. I asked her since he was here to join us, did it. And I think I sent an email out to everyone. The agenda says would be you, a draft hazard mitigation plan. I think we'd love five minutes, but it's really an update. This is a program, honestly, it's going to want someone to work to put this together. The chief's going to experiment. But at the end of the day, we're seeing what we need to adopt. We'll come back to us to adopt it. So I wanted us to be included as each draft comes through. Okay, thank you. So I'd like to start by thanking the town staff and citizens who already contributed to this plan. A lot of work has gone into at this point in time. And the HN Hazard Mitigation Plan is required to get mitigation grants and required as part of Disaster Mitigation Act. All right, so the plan is looking at three things. Number one, identifying natural hazards. Number two, assessing vulnerabilities and outlining mitigation actions to reduce risk, right? So we currently have a draft plan that is available for review. We did not go ahead and print off a bunch of copies because it's 363 pages, but it's available on the town website under news and announcements. So we just had somebody under, I think, public comments who had some feedback. We welcome the feedback. So what we have today is a draft plan. If people send us feedback relative to the plan, things they think should be revised, that we have a working group who's going to look at those comments and incorporate feedback as appropriate. So the review period is October 13th through October 27th. If, in fact, you have questions or comments, you can certainly email me at firechief at wayland.ma.us. I want to emphasize, again, the review period, meaning for citizens to give more feedback. We only have a few weeks here. That's October 13th through the 27th. When the review period ends, we're going to make final edits to this draft that is going to be sent to MEMA and FEMA for their review. They may come back with comments. Last time we did this five years ago, they really didn't have any significant comments. So that plan came back to us without comments. And then it comes in front of this board for a final plan. And as you said, needs to be adopted by the town. That's what I got to say for an update, keeping it short and sweet. I don't know if you have any questions. So if you look at the, it's in a separate packet, it's called the Supplemental, and it was just a separate packet because it was such a large document. I think on page 236, there's a chart on the summary with our risks. Probability. I think there's on page 27 to 28, there's the five goals that they look at. There's an awful lot of information on this thing. I think on page 283, there's a list of our capabilities. In other words, what strengths we already have in town to deal with all of these different hazards. And there are a zillion hazards that they look at. If you've looked at it, it's fires, it's tornadoes, it's snowstorms, it's flooding, it's a dam. Issue, you know, breach. It just goes on and on and on and on. And so I just want to And then so I think on page 291 is where we have the final plan for some recommendations. I think we the board will be really concerned, speaking real quickly, we'll be interested in what the recommendations are, particularly as they relate to capital or operating expenses that might be incorporated into future budgets. So I think that's really our goal. I had a question. Was there anything egregious in there that is really bugging you? I looked at the sheer mass of the document. I got to ask that question. So, I mean, there is a lot of different hazards that we face. And the hard part becomes analyzing the hazards, scoring the hazards, and prioritizing the hazards. So that's the hardest part. But again, water. It's one of the bigger issues for the Town of Wayland. And I think that's one of the things where there's a lot of recommendations relative to water and mitigation. And the important part here becomes this opens the doors for getting federal funds like we did with Snake Brook Dam. So if we go ahead and we say water is an issue and we come up with a mitigation strategy, the good news is it may not have to be town capital. It might be partially town capital. But also it's going after grants makes this HMP plan and the benefits of it so important to this community. So I think one of the, we got one, what did we get? One point something million dollars for Snakebrook now, which is a good chunk of money. One three. One three. And we also got money from the state through the DM&C wall project as well. Thank you. Yeah. Two questions. Chief, when this is approved, Does the town create policies for some of these topics? So that if there's a tornado, and this is a resource, instead of having to cover page 256, the policy is already created. So did that, in the world, does that exist now? Yes. So this is overall, again, identifying hazards and giving some suggested recommendations for dealing with them. Beyond this is the policies and procedures, for example, the SEMP, Advancing Emergency Management Plan that the town has, and other operational hoops that we have, which talk about if we had this building, for example, can only be used for the fire station. So there's a whole bunch of other plans beyond this. So this is not an operational plan. This is high level. Look at some of these things and hear some potential solutions. The second question is, you mentioned this is a five-year document. It is. And so you took the required plan and you modified it. And what stood out from you in this plan versus this from five to this field? Anything in particular? So I would say one of the biggest concerns I had in the last plan was Snake Perk Dam. And the good news is that sometimes it takes a long time for big projects like that, that we can almost take the check and say that this is complete, that we have much better control. Because if that flooded, let loose, and that overtopped once, that could have significant ramifications. So I think there's some new things that have been added to this. I know that someone just talked about invasive vegetation. That is an element of this plan. I'm not sure it was as pronounced in the last plan. So there's some other things that were added to this. And you can see it, 300-something pages. There's a lot of information that's been included compared to the 120 pages for the last report that we did. 540. It's interesting because it says 301 pages, but in the packet for some reason it says 540. There's a lot of information. Thank you, Chief, for being here and sharing information about this. My questions were somewhat similar to Mr. Fay's in that since you were here for the last process in 2021, do hazards just get added on? So five years from now, will we have an even longer hazard plan or are some things ever dropping off? So we dropped some things off, but I think as part of this plan, you're looking at For example, environmental impacts. One of the realities is that we're going to expect more rainfall. And I forget the number of something like between 5% and 16% more rainfall each year in the future. So the plan kind of ends up morphing based upon what we see happening. The other elements that we're facing. So I think that the plan is in fact... Being adapted to the new things that we're experiencing. Okay. And then my other question is that I think I asked the consultant, but curious to hear your perspective. It's fairly phenomenal to me that FEMA reviews all of these plans for municipalities around the United States since there are so many. Justin Commonwealth has 351. Did we get any meaningful feedback from them before? Did you get any meaningful feedback from MIMA? Or are they just... Trying to check certain boxes when they pour through these. I would say to you our last review of the plan that we did had very little feedback and very few changes afterwards in MEMA. I think MEMA does the bulk of the work. Yeah. And there are certain things they look for. And the other part is part of the value of hiring a consultant is. They also know exactly what Myanmar and FEMA are looking for. We as a town don't because we don't do these plans often. So it's very important. I think we've got grant funding to pay for our consultant to help us with this, to use that consultant to help us navigate that process and make sure the plan is thorough and going to meet those standards. Yeah, I appreciate that. Thank you, sir. So before we let you go... I have one question for the board, and it will be an edit. I noticed I'm paying something. It was four. It asked where's where we sign it. It just looked for the chair and the vice chair, and I had myself and Doug listed. But as a general rule, what else sign? So I wanted to ask the board, they're comfortable with just having the two sign. Wouldn't we want to all sign this plan? Yeah, either way. So could you make that edit, or is that not? I can make that edit. I have a... Which is a stakeholder review and comment form that I will fill out for you so that we can submit that and make sure that we look at that. So adding additional name slots and that's an easy change tonight. And I don't want you to think I read the whole 300 pages as I didn't. I did skim, skim, skim. I did notice on page 52 that it said snake probably received several million in grants. I think, as you said, it was like one plus. Right. Didn't want anyone to read it. I think, gee, Wayland already got scads of money, so maybe we skip them in the next round. All right. So that was my only other one. And I appreciate it. And I'm going to skip it. Thank you. Thank you. Have a great night. I appreciate it. So I recommend Trudy now. We are in the process of doing something a little different this year as we're kind of identifying articles that are going to go with a warrant for the 2027, you know, annual warrant. And since Trudy was already here, she's been two or three that she would like to have submitted. So I said, why don't you just stay and give us a quick... Look at them. We don't have anything in writing yet. The liaison, the liaison is probably going to be working on them. Sure. But I just thought she was here taking advantage of it and the floor is your list. Thank you. Good evening. I have a couple of articles that, with your approval and support, I would like to bring forward for consideration for the 2027 Angletown Meeting. We're all familiar with Sales and Animals Bylaws, also known as the Solicitors and Dog Bylaw. So the Sales Bylaw is more commonly referred to as the Solicitors Bylaw. It was included in last year's Town Meeting, but was indefinitely postponed following questions and concerns raised during the discussion at Town Meeting. Since then, I've continued to work on it, on revisions with Select Board Member Mr. Fay. with the goal of bringing it forward for consideration for next year's town meeting. On the animal bylaw, the dog bylaw, I had also had brought that one forth with proposed updates and after considerable Consideration from the Select Board and Residence, it was determined that the proposed revisions were not quite ready for Town Meeting. So I continued to work on that over the summer with former Select Board Member Cherry Carlson with the hope of submitting a warrant article for that one as well. With both of these bylaws, we have reviewed comparable bylaws in surrounding communities, and as we continue our work on the solicitor's bylaw, I intend to again consult with the acting police chief for additional input since our last review with him at the time he was not as acting chief. So with the respect of the dog bylaw, our primary goal is to ensure that the Wayland's regulations are current and consistent with the provisions of mass general law in this of Chapter 140, Sections 136A through 174G. And those sections address a range of matters, including dog registration, kennels, animal control responsibilities, and any new laws that have been added over the last several years, particularly Ollie's Law. So it's my goal to bring both of those forward in a more complete and informed form, and hopefully we can address some of those concerns that were raised at last year's town meeting and get more support for those two. So just a little second. So the purpose of this meeting is to kind of let us know those are coming. And also I think that Town Park has expressed to myself and to Mr. Bay and I believe as well. Thank you. Can't remember if we talked about this. That, rather than, although she came through the bylaws, she would like to select what to sponsor for these two articles. Am I right? Yes. So that's really what we're talking about. So the draft will be created. We will present the articles on those. So, now that's the two. Now, did you want to talk about the book? Yes. So the third one, this may be the first time you're hearing about it. It's our general. Code Recodification, which is our town bylaws. So the code was originally codified in 1997. I've got to read a lot of this because some are before my time. So since that original codification, updates have been made through supplemental updates on bylaws that have been approved to town meeting. While those updates have kept the code current in respect, a comprehensive review is needed to ensure that the code remains up to date, consistent with mass general laws. And this particular project began in September of 24. And I'm working with General Code, who is the vendor who currently maintains the code on the town's website. So they look at it. They take an editorial and legal review of the existing code. After their initial review, General Code provided a draft identifying questions and comments in areas where updates and revisions should be considered. I then worked with appropriate departments, heads, boards, and committee chairs to obtain their input and feedback on the proposed changes. That information is now back in General Code for their incorporation into the next draft. So they're preparing a revised draft, which will then be returned back to the town for review by town council. So the goal is to complete this process in time to present the recodified code at the annual town meeting for next year. It is a substantial undertaking, but it's an important opportunity to ensure that Wayland's bylaws are organized consistently following a uniform format, style, and way that reflects the current legal requirements. It's a goal to provide the Town with clear, well-organized, and legal review code that will be easier to navigate and maintain and update in years to come. I wanted to bring these initiatives to the Board's attention as we begin looking ahead at 2027, and it is my goal to continue to move forward working on these over the next couple of months and with the appropriate input and review. So that we can be well prepared to bring these to town meetings with your feedback and hopefully the support of these efforts. Thank you. Trudy, this is a Herculean task that she has undertaken and is really important. And although when I spoke to Trudy, and it was probably when Tom did as well, she did ask for us, you know, to sponsor it. But I think that, I don't know if we want to put it as a co-sponsor because I think Trudy should get 100,000% credit for it. You're initiating this project, gathering funds, and then doing this work. So I don't know how we would like to structure that as well. So the issue on the table here is do it will be the sponsors of the DOC bylaw and the solicitors bylaws, and then how do we want to support the bylaw recodification? I think that's two different questions for myself. I got it. But did you want to speak first? Well, I think our board should be involved in all three. I see the town clerk's post as a non-controversial dog support. And I can see the dog bylaw, the social bylaw, being maybe not terribly controversial, but somewhat controversial. We saw that the last time. So I'd like our board to be the armor for those two topics. Regarding town code and codification, that's a significant undertaking with a significant effect. And I think it should be associated with our board, at least in part. I have no problem if we want to... Sponsor it with you. But I think that our board needs to have its name associated with it so people understand that this has our blessing, it has our review, and that might help its passage. Okay. Thank you. So does anybody disagree with that that will sponsor too? I agree with the town code recodification for sure. On the dog bylaw and solicitations, I want to hold up and I would like to see some of these revisions. Yeah. Or I won't be informed. Oh, we're not voting and we're just voting. But that's fine. Yeah. I'm perfect. Okay. Well, what happened? I said the same thing. It won't grow me either. I would agree here. Just keeping it short. It doesn't help you either. They didn't worry. Anyway, do you have any other? Nope. So I think we've done this. So to be honest with you, now, once the draft's already, you know, get them in either to have you or let me know they're going to let Tom know they're going to put them on the agenda. We'll then look at them. We are. They will have to be submitted, so we'll have to figure out who's going to submit, and then we'll go from there. I think the recodification would be the bigger issue because of how to submit it, and it should probably go through Town Council's review, whether before it's submitted or after it's submitted, but that's something that we can all work together through. I think as soon as it's ready, because that sounds like, and the question on our one is, I mean, how do we... How would we present that at town? Do you give the red line version in the back? I mean, is it a supplemental? Because, I mean, I'm thinking to myself, how do we... We'll cross that. Yeah. So I think that's a lot of questions. Probably just going to be a total replacement. So when... You're ready with the draft. We should get that to Town Council, and to your point, I agree. We should get it there sooner or later, because that's going to take some time. In order to make the time today. That'll be the moment when Mr. Fay's point is in. Great time. Exactly. All right. Thank you. Thank you very much. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. I move the Select Board enter into Executive Session A, pursuant to Massachusetts General Laws, Chapter 38, Section 21A3, to discuss strategy with respect to litigation and showing givens versus Town of Wayland that fall. B. Pursuant to Massachusetts General Law, Chapter 38, Section 21A3, to discuss strategy with respect to litigation on 124 Lake Shore Drive. C. Pursuant to Massachusetts General Law, Chapter 38, Section 21A3, to discuss strategy with respect to collective bargaining with the following union. Wayland Police Officers Union, New England Police Benevolent Association Local 176, and the American Federation of State and County Municipal Employees, AFSCME. Local 690-1 and 2. And then Pursuant to Master's Agenda Laws, Chapter 38, Section 21, Page 7, to review and approve the Executive Session Minutes of October 5, 2026. Review 10 to hold 10 minutes. There are no minutes available from September 22. Is there a second to the motion to enter into Executive Session? Second. Thank you. The chair declares that a public discussion of these matters may have a detrimental effect on the litigating, negotiating, or bargaining position of the town. So we'll have a welcome vote. Mr. Reynolds? Aye. Mr. Fay? Yes. Mr. Dean? And Ms. Martin? Yes. That's 4-0. The chair invites attendance by Michael McCall, town manager, Deborah Hecker, Katie Law, and Abigail Warren, executive assistant for the town manager. The board will rejoin the public meeting from executive session. And we anticipate returning to open session in approximately 45 minutes. Good to go. Thank you. Let's go back into open session at 2 p.m. Please let us three minutes. Item number eight is to discuss updates on the recent shows of additional traffic studies. I should say these were the additional traffic studies. And we are inviting attendance by Mark Hebert, our acting police team. So, how are you? Good, how are you doing this evening? Thank you for joining us. I know you've been working on this and there were some additional... Yeah, I mean, we've made good progress on it. There's new devices up there now, so pulling the reports from them, they're good because I can see them in live time. I monitor them on a daily basis, which is very helpful. Pulling the past reports is a little more of a difficult they are capable of doing it, but just getting that off of the devices is something I'll call into the company to see exactly how you do that and how far back you can go. But they're fairly new. So whatever data we're pulling off of it, you know, it's kind of bright now. I can tell you anecdotally from looking at it, you know, a couple times a week I usually log in and look at them that they're doing a decent job, probably reducing the speed by, you know, two to three miles per hour, which has been all the research predictable of what their devices can do and be effective at doing. So I'm happy with how they're functioning out there. I haven't put in the slow churn or the kind of hash marks for the churn yet. That's going to be the next step. I kind of did that purposefully so we could see how just these signs do and then how they do in combination with the other signage. I'm kind of thinking of the study of my own, you know, information here as, you know, how much these signs can affect actual speeds. So I think it's going well. I think they've had a positive impact. And we don't see the... Really high speeds in it. I think the highest I've seen on them is maybe in the high 40s, but not those 70 to 75s that my original device was picking up. So I think it kind of confirms more kind of outlier data that wasn't really that reliable. Made one seem a lot more reliable on their speed reporting back to us. So that's what I have on Stonebridge so far. If you guys want any more information, just let me know. Open it to the board for questions. None, but thank you. This is on Sherman's Ridge. Sherman's Ridge, yeah. Sorry, I apologize about that. Have you, I think I've asked you this before, Chief. Can you compare, like, for frame of reference, when you've seen these numbers for Sherman's Bridge versus a similarly situated side road like that or cut-through road, so to speak, where you would give us that comparator? Like, what kind of roads are similar to it? In terms of the flow and the speeds. Yeah, so speeds are a little harder just because I haven't really done a study on any of those other roads yet. I am purchasing a new device to do those. I know it's a lot of money for these traffic devices, but we have to keep up with the current technology. As far as traffic flow, I think it's pretty clear that northbound was up to Waltham Road. Once it gets off of Sherman's Bridge and goes conferred to Waltham or 117T. And then the self-bound of either Gleason or Claypit slash Plain. I haven't seen as much on Claypit and Plain. I think just because of the Route 20 intersection, that left turn from Plain onto 20 is kind of self-limiting where a lot of country people don't want to deal with that. So we just go all the way down to the square and go on Route 20. So we actually, myself and Tom Holder, DPW Director, I've been demoing a software. We're just in a demo, so I don't want to use it too much as live data because I'm sure the company wants us to pay for it before we use it as kind of our own data, but it shows that as well. So I can right now see the traffic flows. That you pulled off of the telematics of cars, you know, all anonymized, nothing that identifies cars, but can give you average daily traffic totals. So I, you know, took an hour and looked through that, and it kind of paints that picture pretty clearly. That's either Waltham Road, Gleason, or down to the 20 to keep on going. And then my other question is, have you ever been in touch with your counterpart in Sudbury to see if they've done some speed studies? Just so we can see. Actually, that company that I'm... Looking at now, that was what was recommended to me from them was to look at that company because they have used them or currently use them. So that's why I have spoken with them and they said it's a great product because we get this, you know, it's pulled off of 60% of the cars out there. So you're getting a real good population level data, but it's expensive. I'm not sure if Tom and I will recommend, you know, adopting the software for that reason. So, yes, that seems to be what they do is just use that data to just collect it. Thank you. I think that touched on something that I was thinking that, you know, with these navigation systems in cars, You know, you have a three-minute delay up ahead, and it's giving you a secondary set of roads. And so that was the question I had. It's not only on Wayland, but I don't believe all communities seeing this, where there's all sorts of traffic. I mean, I was coming back from the Cape, and there was a few traffic ahead, and it took me off one accident, went down a road that parallels, well, we call it suicidality, part of 6A there. And I thought, oh, this is a nice little show. I threw a whole neighborhood. There's a whole bunch of us going through it. And I thought... Is this part of what we're seeing here, you know, in our native roots as well? Yeah. Yeah, I think it is. I think that Route 20, 27, 126 interchange is kind of limiting. You know, it's two lanes at some spots, but it still doesn't absorb all the traffic. You know, I think Waltham is one of the biggest commercial space cities, you know, in our area. So we've got a lot of people traveling through, always trying to find a better way pretty much to Waltham or east of there. So, yeah, everyone's logged into their Apple, their Google Maps, trying to find the best ways, and it's that live update, and that gives the data that we can buy from them and learn where everybody's going, but it can also make it so everybody gets pushed into these cup-through streets, as we'd want to call them. Thank you very much. No one has any other questions. I think we'll go to the next. I skipped you. No, you didn't. I said I had no questions. Thank you very much. You're polite. Thank you. I got all the data. I'm sure you're dated out, and I'm sure you am, too. Is there anything that can be done, I feel, for the people on the street? You're a pro. What do we got? Is there anything? I think the additional signage we're going to put up there. I really don't know what else we can do without running afoul of MassDOT or these other restricted way roads. Yeah, I don't have... I'd have to look into what the next best step is, because all my recommendations all can run afoul of different groups that, you know, wouldn't see that as the best solution either. Have we tested that, or is that just a rumor that the DOT is going to blow a fuse? This is a scenic bridge, there aren't a lot of bridges, and the pedestrian use of it is pretty frightening. Yeah, I'm taking my information from the DPW, so I don't know what conversations Tom Holder might have to get in here to ask those questions. I do feel it's pretty scary. I've been scared out of that bridge. I mean, I've seen some pictures, too, of, like, trucks still cutting through there and stuff. They have tractor-trailers. I mean, it seems like it is, you know, not the safest to have them, you know, make some of those curbs. They have to go in the other lanes and stuff. So, I would start. Thank you. Essentially what I was saying, the same thing with this. Navigation systems are wonderful for when you're saving a couple minutes, but it's not. Yeah, the thing I'm adding to what you just said is what I hear every time is we get to a certain level and then we're supposed to panic and quail because the DOT gets involved. I'd like to know what the DOT has to say. We have to wait for a death certificate to come in. You can see fishermen there backing up as they fish. It's not a good situation. Thank you. Thank you. Well, Cynthia, Mr. McCall, are you all set? Yes, Madam Chair. Thank you. All right. Listen, I think I asked the Chief to stay for another item. I alluded to this last week when we were at the, we conducted the hearing for boomstones that wanted to be able to serve alcoholic beverages outside, and the Chief would like to recommend an amendment, I think I mentioned this before, for dining. Let's see, Brian. Yeah, I just wanted to come and have a discussion about it. It's things I've seen other communities or other events where they kind of post, you know, no alcohol beyond a certain point on a property. And when I asked if our policy had a similar type of requirement, I was told that it doesn't at this point. From my brief research on it, it seemed like the state kind of left up to the local municipalities to implement those type of rules. From an enforcement standpoint, it's something I would like to see. It makes it a lot easier for us, obviously. The more signing we have, the easier it is for us to enforce the alcohol laws that are out there. You know, it's something I feel strongly about. We've done the compliance checks, and I feel that. The more signage, the better. I don't want to go overboard, and you'd recommend that we have it posted at every, you know, single wall or every single corner of the building, but maybe at, like, the furthest point of egress off the property or where it's allowed, there'd be some standard signage that we can recommend. I don't have any examples yet. I just kind of wanted to open up the conversation and see if it's something that the Select Board is willing to, you know, entertain. I can, you know, I can drop some signs. I can work with the town manager's office to drop some. Things that we could recommend to you, if that's something, you know, the Board is amenable to. Mr. Phillips? I'm strongly in favor of this. I like the idea, Chief. I would suggest that the policy implementation perspective have the signs placed when people are leaving the assembly. That's when they're most likely. To be in a position to dispose of what they have in their lives, right? Yeah, I agree. As opposed to, at the end of the driveway, leaving onto a roadway is too epic. Yeah. Yeah, I agree. It's like once they leave, the area where the alcohol is served is the last point. That's where it should be advertised at. So, obviously, and I think, not so sure, we should have to provide these summons, but I do believe, like, Foomstones, I think, at your recommendation, did provide them on their property. And during that discussion, we had with some public comment, and, you know, your suggestion is terrific because as an abutter, They better would want to know. This is the area, and it says right there, stay in there in this area. Don't bring, you know, don't be walking on the property. Going up the street or down the street or whatever. So do we want to add to that from the Wayland Festival, I've learned the very first thing people say 100% of the time. So I wish they had no idea. Exactly. You know, so. Right. So I think the language would be. I got to say, I think we should come back with set language. Okay. So if you're comfortable with it, time manager, then vote on it then. Does anybody want to draft him? I'm happy to. We'll do what I'm assisting. Yeah. Okay. All right. That sounds terrific. Thank you very much. I don't know if we have any more outdoor dining amendments coming. So thank you very much for your time. Thank you. Thank you. All right. Thanks everybody. Thank you. I am living now, once to my delight, a few weeks early. However, I see Mr. Chang is here. He is being interviewed for a position on the CBA. Why don't we... Do that. And then I'll hold on a minute. It's just in case it isn't not here. Mr. Chuck, would you like to join us, please? Public comment, chair? That's your chair, yes. That's the all-purpose chair. I'm glad I came earlier. I thought maybe... We have usually a very full agenda. We're running pretty close to the mess, although sometimes we do run off. Welcome and thank you for volunteering. I know at the funeral, there's the board members, there's a very informal process here. Chris Reynolds, good evening. I'm Chris. Tom Fay, nice to meet you. Thanks, sir. Doug Levine. And Mr. Whitney is unable to join us because he's on vacation this week. And I'm Carol Martin. So, hi. Hi. So, what we'll do is we'll just give us, we have your information in our packet. Okay. And your interests and rigs. Lots of great information here. We've all read it, of course. Phil, just give us a two-minute explanation of why the CBA appeals to you, and I'll open it up to the floor for questions. It was actually the Design Review Advisory Board. Yeah. That's what I wrote about initially. Yeah. Just because, I mean, I'm an architect. I've lived here since 2004. And just more recently, I'm just doing some things here and just... Beginning to interact again with some of the people here. And my two kids now, the second one is off to college. Might as well, you know, now I have some time to do something for the town. That's a terrible thing to say to us. We have lots of openings. So the Design Review Advisory Board, I thought, okay, I can maybe have some input in some things which are going on. And then I wrote to Nina Fleury, and she said, you know, there's also something else, Adele, or maybe, you know, you can be more active there. I said, okay, I can look into it. I think it's not so much time, so it seems okay. I don't mind. Especially when you get to Mr. Levine. I'm giving you a spoiler alert here, but anyway. I heard it's not a voting position, so I can sort of see how it goes, right? Isn't that kind of the idea? Why don't you start? I served on the ZPA for a couple of years. And so it depends. Sometimes the associates are relied upon because the members need to be watching all of the meetings related to a certain hearing. And so if some have to miss them, then the associate members are there. They step into the learning halls. I learned a lot serving on that board, and we're very fortunate. There are three members on that board who have been serving for some time, including the chair. And so they've seen all varieties of projects come through, including some of the larger projects that we have, these 40B projects, bigger developments, as you're aware of, obviously. So I think that your views will be greatly welcomed and appreciated. We have had architects serve in the past on the board. And have you met the current chariot? Have you had a chance to sit down with them? Tom White. I think I maybe emailed or something, but no, yeah, because I was a proponent, so I think from that side. Yeah. And I've dealt with many Xavier boards, but on the side of the architecture. Sure, sure. Get things approved. Good idea probably to just have a one-on-one with him at some point just to get some informal advice from him. Yeah. I mean, I don't know how to write opinions, and that's illegal. Right, right. Those are attorneys that are doing that? Well, we do have a woman who is an attorney on the board, but the writing rotates among different members, and actually... You learn, you kind of are an apprentice for a period of time, and you can learn from some of these other board members. But for the more complex ones, like the 40B project, those will be written by Town Council. And we're often assisted by Town Council through those sets of hearings. But for some of the more straightforward projects from individual homeowners, yeah, the board just takes turns writing the decisions. And the senior folks help the junior folks, yes. But thank you. Thank you for putting your name in the ring. Okay. We'll see how it goes, right? Yes. That's what I said. That's how they told it to me. Just wanted to try. Thank you. Okay. Learning experience. So there's a position also on design reviewers, Ben? I think there is. And that I would highly recommend. That I applied for. That was the one I actually was... And there you should definitely connect with a gentleman named Bill Sterling, who's a long-serving architect in town, who's served on that board for a number of years. I believe has served on the zoning board in the past, or at least the planning board in the past. He's volunteered in a number of capacities. I would definitely pick his brain. I think they have another interview like this one. Oh, with... Okay. They just haven't got back to me, but they asked me to send sort of the same materials. Which I did. Design review board is on the planning board. Oh, so they interview the applicants. Right. I'm not sure. Does that make sense? Yeah. Yeah. Go ahead. I would like to see myself. Go ahead. I'm happy to say I'm very excited about your application for this poll. Very excited. Right? Okay. I'll tell you why. Because if we don't have a good ZBA, We have to get engaged in problems, right? But we have a very good CBA, half a million years, and they do a great job. But, you know, the backgrounds of these members really make it an effective board. And your background is extraordinary. And I think you're going to be a huge asset. You're going to be able to give great advice to the members. You're going to bring in perspective. So people coming before the CBA, because you've been on both sides, right? I've been on one side, yeah. Exactly. And now you're reviewing and giving advice so that we have a good product. The other comment I have to say is, you know, we live in excited times, speaking of the word excited. And some people may not agree with that word, exciting times, but the zoning changes in the Commonwealth are significant. I mean, just today, there's an article about the city of Summerfield and how they're... The backyard, triple-deckers. Right, right. So, who would have thunk it, right? Yeah. But Wayland's affected, and there'll be many decisions that RZBA will have to address in the years ahead. Experienced people like yourself along the family would be great to have a great lesson. So thank you for inviting me. Yeah, you know what I found? A lot of times, like, and I've talked for a long time, is that lots of problems people think are design problems. And I said, it's not a design problem. It's his only problem. And, like, like a summer goal, it's not conceivable unless that's allowed or something like this, right? Or the problems that you encounter these days, like many thesis students' projects, they're just sort of kind of fantastical, you know, things. And then there are some people that are doing more serious. You know, we have a housing problem, an affordability problem, you know, ADUs or these backyard houses. There's so many interesting real problems that I find that I'd like to be more involved in those real problems, which are design problems. So, yeah, no, I mean, I'm not a lawyer, but I see the way you can make more impact is actually beyond that side where you can sort of deal with some of these policy issues. Yeah, it's not always a design problem. You have to sort of open those things up so that then there can be a design problem. But until then, yeah. But your answer there tells me how great a person you're going to be in this sport, Mr. Toulouse, because you're a problem-solver. And a lot of those issues for ZBA are solving problems. How can we help you within the rules? That's kind of what your role is. Yeah. Thank you. Yeah, no, I'm happy to do it. I'll try. And we very much enjoyed pouring through your CV and all the photographs. I want to visit all these folks. It was beautiful. Thanks. I would echo that. We had approximately seven times as much stuff to read for this meeting as we normally get. And the part I like, they're also so much. Because of pictures, right? Yeah. And they're very attractive. I want to go there. I would echo one comment earlier, so I'll be brief because it is a repeat. It's not about you figuring out what the rules are and then building something in or out. It's about creative problem solving. We've got a history in town, we've been in no town, and resorting to rules too much. We need to be a can-do town in any sense. Stop there. I had talked to a builder recently in another town, and I told him where I was from. I told Will, and he goes, I'll never build there. And I said, it's not a great, it didn't sound great. Right. Yeah. Things are changing. We're not in no town, I assure you. I mean, I think no for good reason, but just as a general, I don't want to entertain it. I don't like so much. The reason I was so excited about Tom Zuppa earlier, I actually spoke out of order to commend him. We always try to commend town employees. Is this Tom? No, Rob, but there was no Tom. I've emailed Tom. I never saw you. I'm glad you've had some contact with him. He is always trying to find ways to say yes. He'll say no if he has to, to your point. But there's nothing automatic about it. He's the only tuition, all right? Yeah. Yeah. He's actually very, he's very responsive for, to me, in my experience, billing departments. You almost just said he's very responsive. No, he's, he's very, he responds right away, but like, yeah, I actually like dealing with him. Very happy, thank you. Yes. Anyway. Hi. So, my turn, probably, please. The one thing that really... Very impressive. We're so thrilled to reply. Thank you. We'll give you a million slots. I noticed that your company focuses on residential and mixed-use projects, and we really are trying, hopefully, to get some mixed-use projects, particularly on Route 20 corridor, maybe with the new MBTA community zoning areas that we've created. I've got that right. And there is another committee that... Mr. Jung would fit in nicely, I think, at the PMBC, right? I wouldn't burden him. I've already talked about two. You look pretty good to me. Anyway, so what I'd like to do is say thank you very much. I appreciate it tremendously, and I would like to have a motion, please. I move that the Board appoint Stephen Jung to an associate position on the Zoning Board of Appeals for a term ending June 30th, 2029. Second. Okay, so any further discussion? Otherwise, all those in favor say aye? Aye. Motion passes. 22.9. Three-year term. So, Mr. Chung, you will receive a letter from the town building indicating that your appointment has been confirmed. And it will ask you, you should receive that via email from the town manager's office. And it asks you to bring that letter into the town clerk's office, which is where you would get formally sworn in. They'll also give you some information related to conflict of interest training and you are an official associate member of the CBA. Yeah, so in the case that... I've said this before. So if I have a project, let's say, I don't have a project, but it's passed through TV already, but in the future, I would just remove your screen. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. Exactly. Thank you. Okay. Thank you, sir. Thank you. Thank you. Looking forward to seeing you. You're not on Zoom. This is off the zoning board, did you? No, it's live board. Oh, so I'll meet those numbers one next time, the first time there's a meeting. First meeting. Sure, they meet monthly. Okay. Take care, Nick. Take care, Nick. Thank you. All right, if we look to see online, we have Mr. Beckford or Mr. Stotz? Stotz, what? I'll allow him. Yeah. So three minutes, and there you go. Doug is here. Hi, Doug, would you want to bring Doug over? Doug's already over. And do we have Mr. Beckford here? Hi, Doug. How are you? Hang on a second. I'm doing great. How are you? Good. So thank you for applying for a position on the board. We have another candidate, but I don't see him. We can. We are just trying to move together. Okay. So thank you for applying. We have your information in our packet. Did you want to just give us a brief two-minute explanation as to your interest? Well, I think you laid it out really well. And then we'll have a question, as you know, from the board members and go from there. Well, I'm going to sound a bit like Mr. Chung in that in 33 years in town, I think this is probably the fourth time this committee's been convened. I think it's a very important role. I think I can bring something to it. And unlike the first three times, I don't have a full-time job having me traveling during the week. So now's my chance to raise my hand and give it a try. Thank you. Opening questions to the board. Mr. Fay, would you like to start? Thank you, Doug, for stepping up on this. Your background is ideal and I feel that a lot. Thank you. Mr. Reynolds? I'm strongly in favor. There's no questions at all, Doug. Mr. Levine. And Mr. Stotz, I'm very happy to have you step forward as well. I did serve on one of the previous iterations of the Cable Advisory Committee when I served on the board between 2017 and 2020. And we were fortunate at that time to work with an attorney from KP Law, who's... Focus was working with Towns to renew their licenses with the cable companies. He has since retired, as I'm looking at the KP Law website, so we will hopefully have successor counsel that we end up working with. But it was a very positive experience. We received some very helpful guidance from him and KP Law, which I will anticipate receiving again. But I'm mostly looking forward to expanding our mission, as you wrote about, around broadband. I think it's critical because, as you point out, and it was true back when I served several years ago, Cable is decreasing. More and more folks are cutting the cord. And as we've had conversations with WACAM, it's really not sustainable to be depending on this as the financial means to support our peg stations. So I'm looking forward to exploring these other options with you. Thank you. And I don't think we'll solve WACAM, but I think we can give WACAM and the folks interested in it a sense of the trajectory of decline and what can be anticipated for revenues over the next five years under perhaps a couple of scenarios and then discuss it from there. Thank you. I don't have any questions for you, Doug. We actually had a conversation before you applied, and I love your focus that you're bringing to this committee because it's wonderful. So I'll just entertain a motion, please. I move that we appoint Mr. Stotz to a term on the Broadband and Cable Advisory Committee, and that date will run until the project is completed. Second. Thank you. Any further discussion? Otherwise, all those in favor say aye. Aye. Aye. Passes 4-0. Do you remember your explanation, please? Doug, you will hear from the Town Manager's Office via a letter indicating that you have been appointed by this board to serve. At that point, please bring a copy of that letter to the Town Clerk's Office. You'll be sworn in, given some information around conflict of interest training, and then in the coming weeks, once we have a full complement of the board pulled together, we will convene. Thank you, Doug. I look forward to it. Thank you to the board. Thank you. I think it's going to be an email, Doug, so watch your email as opposed to a email. All right. Thank you. So the next item is... Have a good night. Thank you. We have five positions on this committee. I know we have, I think there's one, possibly two candidates interview on the second, and we'll see if Mr. Batcourt is available the second. There might have been some confusion there that people would... Can we appoint you without an individual? Do we have that option? We do, but we can. We may have another candidate applying in the next couple of days, though, so we'll probably have a different day. We have four more slots. However, if you look at item A, under that, it's discussable to report a select board member either as a liaison or a member to the committee. And I think last time... We had Mr. Watkins-Waz, and I think when you served as well, they were members of the committee. Correct. So now let me ask this. Is there anyone on the Select Board who would be interested in serving on this committee? Perhaps you. Yes, I would be happy to serve. Okay. So unless there's any competition, I'll have a motion, please. I move that this board appoint Doug Levine to be the Select Board Member who sits at the bottom of it. Question. Would you like to second anything? I'm ready for the discussion. All those in favor say aye. Aye. Can I hold for myself? Aye. You have to. Aye. Okay. We have two members already of that committee. So? Unanimous. Unanimous. Unanimous. So the next item on our agenda is going to be a joint meeting with the Board of Public Works to discuss the transfer station funding. We're going to invite the Board of Public Works. Mr. Winterbauer is the chair. He's joining us. We have Mr. Stollman, Vice Chair. Mr. Stollman, Vice Chair. Mr. Stollman, Vice Chair. Mr. Stollman, Vice Chair. Mr. Stollman, Vice Chair. Mr. Stollman, Vice Chair. Mr. Stollman, Vice Chair. Mr. Stollman, Vice Chair. Mr. Stollman, Vice Chair. Mr. Stollman, Vice Chair. Mr. Stollman, Vice Chair. Mr. Stollman, Vice Chair. Mr. Stollman, Vice Chair. Mr. Stollman, Vice Chair. Mr. Stollman, Vice Chair. Mr. Stollman, Vice Chair. Mr. Stollman, Vice Chair. Mr. Stollman, Vice Chair. Mr. Stollman, Vice Chair. Mr. Stollman, Vice Chair. Mr. Stollman, Vice Chair. Mr. Stollman, Vice Chair. Mr. Stollman, Vice Chair. Mr So what happened is back in the spring meeting, I think around in April, the Board of Public Health put together this very nice, very informative memo that's in our packet on page 40, outlining some financial concerns they have with transportation. And then they asked if they could come and meet with us. This summer, so we said we'd wait till the fall, and in the meantime, we're also involved with this transportation study committee, so let's wait till the fall. We don't want to wait much longer. So we want to get this discussion started. I don't know that we're going to solve anything later tonight, but I think we're going to have an conversation. This is a joint meeting, so everyone on there. Public Works, you know, board will be allowed, you know, to speak as part of the discussion if you'd like to, you know, speak because there's a lot of us. I'll just call on people. I usually do that. However, to start the floor is yours, Mr. Winnie Bowen. I think we have to call to order. Yeah. Go ahead. Yeah. Have you called to order? Not yet. Yeah. Please do. Thank you. So this is the Board of Public Works joint meeting with the Select Board. It is October 19th, 2026. We'll call. Judy? Here. Here. John? Here. Here. Mike is here. And with that, we bring the board meeting to order. Thank you. Thank you. The floor is yours. Great. Thanks. You know, the concerns and the questions you want us to ponder. Yeah. So I think the board laid it out pretty directly in the memo. But essentially, With the increased pricing for the sticker fees at the transfer station and the continued increase to those sticker prices, we're seeing fewer members. So folks are dropping out. So we're seeing some challenges there. So we're an enterprise fund currently, and we went into effect in 2021 Article 5. And in that article, we suggested that The transfer station or the finance committee suggested that the transfer station would probably continue to need subsidies, significant subsidies each year. And at the time it was established at $75,000. The last couple of years that's been reduced to $50,000 by the finance committee or finance director, I'm not sure who. But that's been a challenge particularly because There had been a longstanding non-verbal or verbal agreement, non-written agreement that the transfer station wouldn't be responsible for OPEP. Last year that got put into our budget. There was about $81,000. So we got a reduced subsidy. We got an added expense. And we're being challenged with the increased prices. So this is a service that is enjoyed by about 30% of the town paying members. It supported the town expenses in terms of town pickup at parks, at fields, at town buildings. And that's all been borne by traditionally the sticker holders until about 2021 when we started receiving a subsidy. I think what we want to do is recharge departments for the costs, which we estimate to be about $61,500. It might be more than that because, as Carol has mentioned in some of our meetings, that doesn't cover indirects for the town employees. But the town employees, the days they don't work. At the transfer station, which is open three days a week, they work sometimes at transfer station to keep that cleaned up, but then they work at other town responsibilities. So I think what we would like to do is create an expense line for the town costs, but then we'll still need a subsidy to keep the transfer station reasonably priced so that we can continue to maintain the membership there. And again, I think it's a service that's unmatched. And this is not true data, but unmatched. With 30% of the town supporting about 95% of the costs of a service in town. And people enjoy it. There's the swap area. It's kind of a social entity in itself. As much as it sounds strange, you know, it's a dump, right? But it's a transfer station. People see neighbors there that they haven't seen in a while. Folks that are running for office go there to get there. Signatures. You've probably all done it. Everyone here in this room has done it. So, you know, the Girl Scouts will sell cookies there. Boy Scouts, they get the proceeds from the cans, I think. Not anymore. Not anymore. No, the Boy Scouts are, they offload their Christmas trees there. Okay. So there's some benefits of Boy Scouts. Okay. Yeah, so it's kind of a town, traditional town service. So we're looking for some support in maintaining. The subsidy as well as kind of establishing an expense line for the town costs. So I had a conversation with Tom and Mike last week. And we determined it as, like, this article 5, 2009. So I put that in the packet for everybody to see what happened was, because they were a revolving fund, and then the thought was to move them to an enterprise fund, and there's an accounting reason why they did it. This thing just is not working tonight. And so I wanted that. And I think you should think about, Mike, if you haven't done it already, maybe I may suggest including in your packet for tomorrow night for your board, you know, to look at it. Some really good information in here. It talks about that. So anyways, I'm going to open this up now to questions from the board and then the board can speak or is anybody who wants to speak first? I don't need to. I would have bet money you would say that. Judy, did you want to add something to what Mike has said before we open it up to questions for the Select Board? No, I just wanted to reiterate a lot of things that Mike said, especially in the enjoyment part. Steve and I go there probably three times a week. I know that a lot of people who have dogs really like taking her dogs to the transfer station because Rodney always has dog biscuits for all the pets. So it does become a social norm and a way to meet your neighbors. I do think that's irreplaceable. And my neighbors across the street who do have curbside pickup, they told me their costs are about $50 a month. So that's like $600 a year. And then another $200 on top for the Black Earth Organics pickup. So, you know, that's about $800 in total. No, $700, sorry. Whereas for most of us who are using The transfer station, our costs, at least Steve and I estimated our costs between the stickers and the orange bags were $300, maybe a little over that. So about half of what other people are paying. And we get to remove our garden waste, down limbs, things that unless you have Special curbside pickup. They're just not going to pick up that stuff. Thank you guys for presenting. This is helpful. In doing a little bit of research, back in 2010, as you're probably aware, there was a shared arrangement that started as a pilot program with Sudbury. Yes. Where Sudbury was open on certain days and Whalen was open on certain days and you could use each other's transfer stations. I'm wondering what went wrong with that and if that's ever an idea that would be revisited again. It's more what went right with that for Sudbury. They loved our transversation. We were packed. It backed things up quite a bit because the days that Wayland was open, they liked our system much better. So I'm not saying it's not something we should explore again, though. I think that's something we should look at. I'm not sure. So right now, the transfer station is only open to town residents. I'm not 100% sure why we wouldn't open it up to other town residents. Yeah, so we might pull Sudbury. I mean, it wouldn't be a good neighborly thing to the Sudbury transfer station, right? But... But it could potentially bring in additional users. Okay. So I think it is something we should look at. Okay. Yeah. And then my other question is, so about 30% of households is the statistics of folks who use their transportation and buy the stickers. Yes. Do you know if the demographic is refreshing itself, that is, the younger folks that are moving into town, is that, are they fairly represented? Or is the demographic trending older, such that the 30% is going to continue to tail off in years to come? I don't know if we have that demographic data, I would suspect. The latter is true, that we probably have a base of folks that use the transfer station. And I was talking to John earlier today, you know, it's kind of who you move in next to. You know, if you move in next to someone who uses the transfer station, they're like, oh, we use the transfer station. And if you go to the transfer station, maybe, unless you have prior experience. And then if you move in to someone who has pickup, you might say, okay, what do you use for pickup? What do they charge? And then they end up going with pickup. We did start a plan of putting out flyers because the companies that pick up put out flyers every time a new person moves in, right? Yeah. So we started doing that as well. Tom, do you have any data with regards to the demographics? So we don't have any official formal data, but I think when you poll the employees, I think I agree that that latter example is more applicable. I think it is an older demographic. I think that the younger families that are moving into town, everybody's got busy lives. You know, may not have time to put their trash in the car and make their way over to the transfer station. I know it's more expensive, but I think that they might make the choice that that additional expense is worth when they're trying to manage their time with their family and their activities. I think that that's what we're experiencing. Okay. And my last question, Tom, or others, if you know, is... What is the threshold where it would become particularly difficult to cover our costs in terms of percent households that use the transfer station? Like if we fall below 20%, are we going to be in tough straits? Can I answer this one a little bit? So Mike and I... Judy's husband and Mr. Holder are on a transfer station. Municipal trash. Municipal trash. Study. Right. He's a consultant. And this is one of the numbers that I had asked. When do these intersect? And that report's coming out in about a month or so. So this is just like, but I think it's in a couple years before that, right now. And then that's assuming a 7%. Drop off of stickers, which isn't. It's probably a little high, 7% a year. It's slowed down a little bit. So we may have two or three years, which is why this is a terrific opportunity to start these discussions and start to understand the issues that we face and see what solutions we can work with, including perhaps having a conversation with somebody. So we don't have the exact number right now, but I did ask for that one. Thank you. One more point on your question about sticker holders. A lot of folks have pick up and apply or are members of the transfer station for the convenience that they can drop off three days a week and maybe they get pick up once a week. So there are a number of folks that use both services. Okay. Thanks, Mike. Sure. Thanks for joining us tonight, everybody. So a few months ago, I chatted with Mike about this topic, and I made some phone calls to Wellesley and Needham because I was curious, given that they have free services, you don't have to pay to get their sticker, you know, what percentage of the population Use the transfer facilities there. And my vague memory is around 55, 60%. So my question to you, Tom Holder, is if we as a town decided to make transfer facilities free, so the cost would be borne by everyone, town, would you anticipate that we need to, and let's say you increased the usage then, the number of residents. Would you think you'd have to increase the staff in any way to handle the increase in users? That would be an unfair question. Yeah, well, it's interesting you mentioned Wellesley because that was one community that a number of years ago, you know, we did some outreach just trying to see if we could, you know, do things a little differently, a little better, you know, change things up a bit. Wellesley, if you can believe it, employs 18 people. At their recycling facility. We employ two and a half. You know, so it's a significant difference. Their budget, as you can imagine, is tremendous compared to what we have. So I think, you know, I think just by considering that, I think it would, you know, our budget would need to increase significantly to be able to handle 60%, 80% of households. And the property itself, May not lend itself to that type of participation. You know, I guess it's we're trying to increase participation, but we have to stay within the limits of the layout of the property and all of that. But, you know, I think we could all we all agree that it would be nice to increase things. I think we just got to be careful on what we can practically handle at that location. I wanted to touch upon the topic that Dr. William brought up, and that is an intramusical green pool. So back in 2010 when we did this, it was my memory that the reason why I failed was because the time spent by residents per visit was much greater than at this time. The reason was because of the recycling. was different. It wasn't a combination of a single string. It was cans over here, your bottles over here, your paper over here. So you'd spend maybe five to seven minutes versus maybe two to three minutes. So that was my memory. So I do think an intermissible agreement with Sudbury is worth exploring. It's right next to each other, and I think it might be a ruin for both residents of both hands. Just one comment regarding the... The number of users and percent of town. Until very recently, we had 40% of the town using the facility. So, I mean, we're a smaller town, of course, and I think it was the same staff, Tom, correct? I don't know that we've decreased yet. So, we certainly have more capacity in the current situation. And this 2010 study keeps popping up. I'm going to make a comment on that before I go to you. Crystal, we finished that. I remember going up there and it was, you couldn't get into the Wayland one because it was full because ours was so much nicer. I didn't want to say the word. So much nicer. What happened was, and Fred and Nathan, the deal was separate, and what happened was we would just go back and forth. There was no money or anything transferred. So we lost money in the deal because it was coming too early. And when we stopped the deal, you would go up there for months afterwards, and the person next to you has got, you know, Lincoln Sunbury stickers on their car, so you know, they're still coming in. So I really, I think, to your point, we'd have to have a different model. Sure. And then we, I'm sure we would, so. Okay. I'm all set. I'm all set. Okay. I wanted, I do want to say, spoiler, I am a transfer station user. I have been since I moved here a million years ago. I think it's a terrific, I would do a terrific job up there. I do think there's a few things along, personally, with the mob, and one is... I've been harping on this for years. Maybe this is the year. The town is having the 30% that use the transfer station pay that bill for a municipal trash collection. So no matter what happens that we decide for the next year's budget, we need to resolve that number. In here, it shows you that 9 to 10% increase in labor. Costs every year, and yet that number at $61,000 has not been met, and it's less. My opinion is it's about $75,000. And I also think that no matter what else happens, even though we're going to have a long-range discussion here, we're going to review that, I think we need to resolve that issue, and we can resolve that issue by asking Mr. McCall. And Mr. Keveny to have another look at that situation. I know there's been a conversation to maybe have the Board of Public Works build the different towns. That's a lot of labor. I think we should just say it's X amount of dollars for the trash collection and it should be borne by all the residents. That's one that has just been kind of in my craw for a long time. So anyway, Mr. Holder, you haven't had a chance to speak. Would you like to address? This issue, not the one I'm talking about, but it's a little topic. No, I think everything that's been said is accurate and accurately portrays what we're dealing with at the property up there. And so I don't really have anything additional to add to what's already been said. Thank you, though. You're welcome. Thank you for participating. I'm a small call.
These issues are never easy. As I mentioned to somebody else who's seen something very similar with what goes on with the cable. You see a decline in subscribers and how do you deliver a service? And at some point, I've seen some towns, they fold the... Cable provider into the town. They absorb it and become a town department. I mean, that's one thing we may have to consider at some point. The idea of the enterprise fund is to allow it to be self-sustaining and work off its own revenues. I understand, you know, there's indirect costs. Mr. Kevin and I have made a point. We go for everything in grants. We try and get back as much money because we have to cover those costs. Happy to go back with him and to look at this. You know, you just wonder at what point you hit that intersection. You have to make decisions. I know in my other communities, this was an issue one town had. Transfer, stay on a landfill. Then they were looking at a transfer station. One of the big challenges is tipping fees. You know, if you're bringing more people, you're looking at tipping fees. And the problem we were running into when I was looking at this about three years ago, and I did share the RFP that I helped create on whether you would do curbside, is where does your waste go? It's getting more and more expensive. We have fewer and fewer landfills. And so you look at shipping out of state. It's a long-term problem. So, you know, I'm happy to help where I can with our staff to look at this. Okay, I see Ms. Ling has her hand raised. I'm sorry. I can hardly see just two fingers, please. Thank you, Carol. I just wanted to comment that if we do close our transfer station, we have to use somebody else's. If our cost is $75,000, I can't imagine somebody else charging us just the cost, which is $75,000. It would be cost plus a margin. So it would always be more expensive if we don't have our own. And as a town, we simply must have one for town waste. You know, trees come down on school properties, etc. Thank you. Does anybody have anything? In our memo, we suggested considering a revolving fund. I think looking back at Article 5, I realize that's probably not the right solution because we have this, as Carol mentioned, we have this income coming in at the end of the fiscal year for people buying their stickers for the following year. We need to, that wouldn't work with a revolving fund well, and that's why we moved from a revolving fund. But it could be a town department, or it could continue as an enterprise fund, and I think we included a list of other towns that do have enterprise funds and provide subsidies to support that enterprise fund, which is common practice. So that's all I got. Thank you. The board on the top. The Town did provide some capital expense in 2024 because we supported the Retro-Southern New Thorn Pack, which I think was... Yes. No, I don't have... What did I tell you the other day? $70,000? $20,000. $70,000 or $100,000. It was a capital expense in 2024 was funded for free crash. So we have provided some more there over the years. Yes. We just got a piece of it. If you want to go back... I also think one spoiler alert here thing is that all these private halls coming into town, streets, and so one of the things that the study has shown us is that, I mean, I have a house on the street that has been 25,000. And when we started the study, I looked around, and there are six private hallers collecting trash on one street. That's a lot of rarity on our streets. So, you know, that's another thing I think we're going to want to look at. Is how do we address that? Because, you know, less wear and tear on the streets is less work. On the roads. Yeah. And that's a related topic that we're dealing with through this committee. Through the committee. And studying. So it's all interrelated here, but anyway. All right. You're going to be talking about this tomorrow night? Yes. So I'd probably join them tomorrow night if I may. Sounds good. All right. Does anybody have anything they would like to add in before I see anything? Thank you all for joining us. Thank you, guys. Appreciate that. Thank you, folks. Thank you for the consideration. Good night. Thanks. Good night. So the next item on our agenda is to discuss and vote potential warrant seeking payment and second budget support for a five-town filing program and implement the order of participation of local town meetings such as we have in Wayland. So I'd like to invite Miranda Jones, a town moratorium, the Chair of the Electronic Voting Implementation Subcommittee to join us, please. How are you? Good evening. I'm well. How are you all? Good. So, the information starts here from page 47. This is, um, Randall laid out for us very clearly, uh, what has happened. I know Tom's been very much in all of this, but do you want to say, believe me? Well, I invite our town moderator and chair of Elvis to, uh, explain where we've been and where we're going to go. Excellent. Well, thank you all for your time. We really appreciate it. I'm Miranda Jones, the town moderator. With me is Dave Bernstein, the chair of our ELBIS committee. So as you know, the town at our last annual town meeting voted for the fifth year in a row to support remote participation open town meeting. And to that end, we have pursued a number of strategies in the legislature in order to make it legal in the Commonwealth to allow for town meeting to have remote participation. We filed. I gave you a history of what's happened recently in this current legislative session. And when I say I gave it to you, I sent the email to the Select Board. Dave Bernstein truly drafted it, though, so I cannot take credit for that eloquent email. So where we are currently is that our homework petition was sent to Study Committee to die. And now it was recommended to us by Representative Kate Hogan from Stowe that we perhaps engage in or launch a five-town pilot program that might make the legislature more interested in this issue. And so we have been working towards that. And one of the issues we have discussed is if we had a five-town pilot program, who would oversee it? And so we had a meeting, Dave and I had a meeting on October 9th with members from the Attorney General's Office, essentially the Municipal Law Division. Dave has it all written down. You would think I would know who they are since I used to work there, but I don't. So they were very attentive. And one of the things that they asked, what would we be asking the Attorney General's Office specifically to do? In order to oversee this pilot program. And so in my email to you, I don't know if you want me to go through it, but what it is we would ask the Attorney General's office to do. And so Dave and I discussed it and felt it was prudent for us to come before the Select Board and talk to you folks about it if we were going to ask some sort of government entity to oversee this. And it was really, I think, at our state rep, Linsky's suggestion that we go to the Attorney General's office. Are you okay with this? Are you on board with what we've proposed to have the Attorney General's Office do in terms of their oversight? Does that seem to make sense? And I mean, particularly for if we're talking about five counts together, we need to have some state agency looking. We should have some state agency looking at it as opposed to just one little moderator saying, yeah, we're good to go. I would also like I think it would behoove us to have Some sort of entity give us the green light on allowing it to go forward. There very well could be legal challenges, and I just assume it'd be the Attorney General's office who defends it. So this could all, while we anticipate that if we were to be allowed to have remote participation, it may not be fully executed, we may not go live with it for quite a period of time. Until we get there, we would go through many mock trials before we were willing to actually go live. Just, it could, you know, anything could happen. It would just rather have the okay, the approval of the government than when we launch it, that this wasn't, if it is a failed experiment, which we don't believe it ever would be, but just the government knew what was happening the entire time. So we come before you to ask you to file yet another article in next year's annual town meetings warrant to talk about just assets. Getting the feel from the town that they're interested in us pursuing this, continuing to pursue this, and in what manner. So until now, we've really, we've done home rule petitions. We've always filed those, but our state reps have been wonderful to work with. They really have been fabulous. We would also like to get some language drafted for a five-town pilot program in addition to a home rule petition. We're trying to go at it at multiple angles. There are also some statewide bills that other state reps have filed, including our own state reps, but the one that our current state rep, Representative Gentile, who will not be with us much longer as he is retiring, that hasn't gotten far. There are a couple that are still pending in Senate Ways and Means, correct? But so we do recognize that other statewide petitions will probably be filed, but it's just we want to do a little bit more. And so we're seeking your approval and any insight guidance that you may have and also any questions that you may have about what we are doing. So that's right here tonight. So I just want to clarify one. Yeah. So we only put in as a standard article, you know, to get some little petition. Yeah. So, you're talking two separate articles this time, right? Oh, you're going to put them in the same one, Dave? Let me respond to that. Okay. Because I thought they were going to be two. I think technically the ask that has just been expressed is something our board can do. Our board can express our support related in the letter of necessary to whoever needs to receive that express approval to The work towards drafting the bill, the legislature, where Wayland would be one of the five towns to participate in this power program. I don't think we need town meeting approval for that. It certainly would be in the spirit of the past several town meeting bills. Having said that, I think the ask is, the suggestion would be to have a warrant article this coming town meeting, asking for the town's
Directive to Select Board to support legislation that would include, but not be limited to, a pilot program or any other legislation that would support Town being able to do remote dissipation. I think that's how this would play out. So just to clarify for myself, it's not only two articles, we take one and then just tweak the language a little? Different language. Because we're putting together, this is why we're coming out, we're putting together as we go along a draft, a list of draft. Draft list of potential articles. I had put two in, thinking it would be the standard, Article 11 was used to saying, but we could tweak the language. Last year, the article asked for a vote on specific language of a bill. This would be more broad and purposed because the bill hasn't been written and might not be finalized by the time. This time you need to occur. And there's really two votes. There's the home rule petition. Right. And there's the five-town pilot. Correct. And then there's third then, which is if the five-town pilot were approved, we'd like Wayland to apply to be one of those five-towns. Right. But if we could put it in the same one, you think that's okay? Yes, I do. I think you could also add an additional or any, by any means necessary, we get the legislation passed. That type of sort of general provision that says that we will support. Remote Participation that seems to make sense for the Town of Wayland. Right. So, a little bit of questions. So the five-town pilot program option wouldn't name the specific five towns in advance. It would then be up to whoever was supervising, because you also listed the Secretary of State's office as a possible overseer, so to speak. So that was that question. And the second part of that question is, did you have any conversations with anybody at the Secretary of State's office as well? Well, with regard to your first question, we right now have two towns that are interested, Wayland and Concord. Weston will be voting on it in the spring of 2027. We would pretty much suggest it would be the next fourth and fifth towns that are, assuming Weston votes in favor of it, the fourth and fifth towns that are next in line, who express and don't exist. It's really first come first serve into the pilot program. And so... With regard to the Secretary of State, to answer both of your questions, Dave has attempted to contact them. They have not listened. They have not been responsive at all. It would be foolish to shut them out, I think, completely, so we want to try and encourage them to express some sort of interest in this, give us their opinion, but I wouldn't mind having the Attorney General on our side with this because I would rather... If the Secretary of State is not interested in this program, which we have heard that he may not be, that he is afraid of the security of it, I would rather have the Attorney General's office fighting for us than us doing it alone. But I would continue, I think we should continue to try and engage the Secretary of State's office out of respect to that office, and also, more importantly, is trying to convince them that this is not as scary as they may think it is. So we heard from them indirectly more than a year ago that they were concerned about security. So in response to that, we wrote them a six-page document, which you helped construct and talk to explain exactly what we had in mind. We've heard again indirectly that they had questions as a result, but our effort to understand their questions, meet with them in any way, shape, or form have produced no response. So that's where we stand. I think it would be a mistake to proceed without having at least made sure they know what we're doing so that they can't accuse us of keeping them in the dark. But other than invading their office. We're trying to do everything we can that we're trying to get town council to help us do that. And who would be the champions of this legislation? Would it be Lindsky and Eldridge, or who will be the lead sponsors? So, Senator Barrett is the highest-ranking legislative official to submit a statewide bill. He did that at our request. We met with him. We have good friends in Concord that we're working with. He better friends in Concord. They are part of our team, in fact, at this point. They got us a meeting with Senator Barrett, who was very responsive, very helpful, and submitted a statewide bill. So the advice we've gotten is that we should submit two identical bills for the five-time pilot, one in the House, one in the Senate. We're thinking that Representative Lindsky would be the ideal person to submit the House bill, and Senator Barrett would be the right person on the Senate side. There's an off chance that we could convince Representative Peich to jointly co-sponsor the House bill. House bills, I have a merit badge now, legislature. Yeah, I do. In House bills, you can have a co-presenter. And if she would agree to co-present, she's the assistant majority leader. So Representative Linsky said he would approach her on that topic. We haven't heard her to respond to you. Yeah, I mean, I spoke to Representative Peich about this. Gosh, that was well over a year ago, and she seemed fairly supportive of it. She represents Weston, right? Yeah, so her town is on the test for potentially approving, right? Yes. Yeah, and she was, when I talked to her about it, I was at a fundraiser for her, and I was able to grab her ear about this, and she was pretty supportive of it, and in fact sent me a thank you card and mentioned it. So she's aware of what this is. So if we could have her and Representative Linsky together. We've spoken to Representative Linsky about this. We were on a Zoom with him with Tom. So that would be great on the House side. And then if Senator Barrett would do something similar on the Senate side, that would be great. Okay. If Western approves a Home Rule petition at their Springtown meeting, it would be Representative Peish who submits it. Okay. Yeah. Thank you. Sure. Any other questions? We answer everything for you, Doug? We'll see. Okay. Any other questions? I was just telling Tom I was going to skip him, but he said he was good, so wrong to Chris anyway. Do you have any questions, sir? Mr. Reynolds, any questions? I'm so happy you're doing this. This just sounds so hard and so necessary. It's going to reduce costs. It may help address... Lower attendance. It's a little bit pioneering. I understand the subjections. Everybody's worried about security these days. But that just means it's easy to do nothing and we can't do nothing. So you have nothing but my applause. Well, thank you. And I have to tell you that 99% of this effort is being done by Dave. So he is relentless. And we are very fortunate to have him working on this. Very fortunate. But remember that the proposal came from Elvis, which is more than just me. So there are several people in there that basically did the technical work to put this together, and it's held up very well in front of a lot of technical people who were very skeptical, and both Tom and Doug have contributed to this, as have some other people who know operating them. Did the HE Zappas have a person with that technical capability and understanding, too? I didn't detect it. Yeah, I didn't either. Based on my experience, probably not. But I'm sure they have capability in some way. Yeah. And our folks in Concord have been great, too. So Chris is right. And listening to you saying, oh my God, this is so complicated. And the effort you put in is just a little... David, I remember when I was in finance committee, you were coming to us. So how many years have you been working on this? It's been six, seven, eight years. 2021. 2021. Yeah, six years, yeah. You've become the face of this. Dennis started this on this back in 2017. It took Elvis several years just to come up with ways to solve the technical problem before we would even say it's worth going through a legislature. So anyway, I applaud it. I think it's a terrific, I think it's a worthy, noble endeavor. I think, I think you're so close to succeeding. Oh, well, you know, the legislature is a funny, it's a funny life, man. I've been working on some, some stuff before, it's 13 years of age, it's absurd. We have four or five Tombo here. We're going to be in a pilot program, that's, that's very strong. We should also acknowledge the work that Robbie Simon has done. He has been a legislative coach. He's been great. Nancy Brumbach with the League of Women's Voters has been excellent. She's helped us set up all kinds and hosts all kinds of webinars, and we're hoping to get the Mass Municipal Association. Michael's been helping us with that to try and get them to... To move from sort of being a silent sponsor to a public sponsor. As well as the Mass Moderators Association. As well as the Mass Moderators Association. So, Fred Pastings, who is the moderator in the Town of Weston, he and I convinced the Board of Directors for the Mass Moderators Association to vote in favor of supporting this. Now, they're taking it to the broader membership at our December 5th meeting. So, we'll see. We'll see how it goes. It's going to go well. Yeah. So, just for the next steps here. Yeah. I already had a talk with Tom about this. We need, it says in here, and you really like town councilors drafting articles just for information that they review our articles. Sure, fair enough. This one may need a little more review. So normally what we do is we draft something and then she looks at it. Well. The warrant article we can draft. Right, so we'll draft it. But the pilot legislation I think will be written by... For us, we feel from all the towns, a combination thereof, right, David? Oh, no. I'm an amateur. So it wouldn't be from the pilot legislation, opposed to the legislation, to the five-town power program, wouldn't necessarily be offered by our program. We would just be supporting the concept. Right. Just for the record, there is a precedent for pilot programs and legislation. There's one for energy stuff where... I think it was a low-carbon building stuff, and they had like 10 towns, so, and they used the Department of Energy as the supervisor. So there is some precedent for doing this. It doesn't directly reflect on what we're doing, but we're not flying completely blind to this pilot. I'd like to move that this board spoke to support the effort of Chair Belvis and the town moderator to pursue the legislation for the Five Town Power Program and other related legislation. Concerning remote participation. Do you have a second, please? Second. Thank you for the discussion. All those in favor, say aye. Aye. Motion passes 4-0. Thank you all very much for your time. We really appreciate it. Thank you, buddy. David, this qualifies as superhuman service. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Great. All right. So the next item is in our package. On page 50 in our package, we have to re-vote the other transfer forms that was in last meeting. So let's see. What does it say? Discuss the updates and vote for the transfer remaining unused. Harper funds from the St. Book Dam project that other previously obligated are projects including but not limited to the Massachusetts Water Resource Title. So the last time I think we voted was $100,000 and I think what's happened is with the memo and the packet, it'll explain to you that there was not invoices that were processed against $100,000 in the balance number of these at the $83,714. So $83,713. So I move on this board to vote. to transfer $83,714 for the MWRA Engineering Project when we send the vote taken on October 5th relative to October 5th. Thank you. Excellent. All right. Any further discussion? All right. All those in favor say aye. All right. Motion passes 4-0. I think that brings us now to the Town Manager Report. So, Michael, the floor is yours. Thank you, Madam Chair. So, we have a few things. A couple of these were born out of, well, we have reports and concerns. And Mr. Reynolds had some questions about some of the tree removal going on in town. So I did talk to staff about that. And I did share with a few folks an email that I had from the conservation agent. But I've also heard the same comments from our DPW. We have taken the time to look at a few areas around town or school properties about trees. Roundabout way this came about because of the storms we've been having, climate change, but also the tragedy we had at Camp Chickamee. People are coming around. We're told for solar and recommending people taking trees down if they have residential solar. And there's been other issues. As I said, you know, the drought has impacted everything. So people are looking more and more to take down some trees on their properties. I was reminded to share with people that if you're taking down more than six trees, you need to go before the Conservation Commission to ensure that you have a proper permit. And to that end, Mr. Reynolds had brought up a particular property. I did check with our Conservation Engine. It was over in Greenland. And they are taking enforcement action because that person went in and took down trees without proper permitting. They've sent them a notice that they have to come in and apply for it. And they're at the point where if they don't get an appropriate response, we will start taking punitive actions against them in terms of fines. Staff is following up on these issues. They were doing it even without the questioning from the board. They just want to make sure that these things are going on behind the scenes. People are recognizing these trees are coming down. And just to remind the public, you do need to take a bunch of trees down. You need to go get a approval from the Conservation Commission if it's more than six. Since our last meeting, I did, Mr. Kevin and I did go meet with the Capital Improvement Planning. Committee. We received a copy of their recommendations. Their final version was sent to us last Thursday. We had a good meeting. They went over everything. We were very pleased with the report they gave to us. It's consistent with what our staff was looking at. There is always the possibility we make a tweak or two, but I'm sure that will come to you folks in short order as we start the budget process. But if anybody wants to get a copy of it, if you hadn't already received it, I think Mr. Carver sent it out to several folks, including Madam Chair. But if anybody at the board wants it, just let me know I'll get you a copy. They're coming in for us to present the report on the 16th. Okay. How do I tell everybody was back? I did manage to attend terrain, had the community event last Thursday. I went in, there was quite a few folks coming in. As always, every time I go over, go past it or go through the lot, it is packed. The cafe was packed that night and there were a lot of residents coming in and out. I saw members of the EDC, some former town officials. So it was a good event. Again, got to speak to... The staff there and everything seems to be going well. I did follow up on our liquor legislation. We submitted testimony over the summer before one of the committees and it has been, it got through that committee favorably and has been now referred to the House Committee on Steering Policy and Schedule. So hopefully that'll get improved in short order. That'll enable us to have a few more liquor licenses in town. I already know that we have some. Potential new businesses coming in, working with Terrain, not Terrain, Town Center. And so they are excited to see that get passed as well. I was asked today where we are with the chief process. I now have three volunteer police chiefs, current and former chiefs that are willing to be on my panel. We are finalizing and hope to have the meeting. The posting, job posting out today. We were just tweaking a few things this evening and didn't get it up, but it will be up this week, and we're hoping to do a six to eight week timeline, having it posted, reviewing your resumes, and starting the screening process. So I would like to say before the end of the year, we will have a candidate to bring to you. I did a tour of the Middlesex Regional Emergency Communication Center in Framingham. That's our partnership with Natick Framingham, where we'll have the regional dispatch. It's the building located adjacent, or I should say between Framingham City Hall and their police department. It's being renovated. We're going to take the top couple of floors. I would say the preliminary build out, all the studs and wiring are in. They're about ready to sheetrock it. They're hoping to have the building open around the first of the year so they can start doing some of the interior fit up. The Acting Chief and I are going to be meeting with State 911 in furtherance of the Support and Incentive Grant, which is the $700,000 I referred to. Hopefully, we will be getting that soon and I can come before the Board. That will be the monies that they are finding us in other grant programs to ensure that we will open on July 1 of next year. Today, I received an email. From Ben Gould from CMG, who is our environmental engineer, notifying us that we will be filing a notice of delay. As you know, we were supposed to be submitting a Phase II comprehensive site assessment report in November. However, he's looking to file a Phase II status report and that once all the additional testing is complete, he will update that with the DEP. And lastly, it was given to me on short notice, but the towns of Newton, Lexington, Maynard, Natick, and Truro are doing an RFQ for residential solar bulk purchasing. And what they are doing is they are looking to find a service provider that vets residential home solar installers. So that they can get good pricing for the residents of the respective communities. There's no obligation for us to sign on. If we sign on to the RFQ, we're not obligated to participate any further, but we'll see what we get back in terms of the vendor and what they promise for rates for our residents. And it would be much like mass save that if we select somebody and they will manage it. We would lend our seal to say to Wayland residents, you know, we're co-sponsoring with these other communities. So I was just forwarded this by our sustainability manager late last week. Didn't have time to put it on the agenda. But at this point in time, I'm leaning to join with the other managers, administrators, and mayors to put our name on at least the RFQ to see what they get for responses and if it looks like a favorable program going forward. I would come back here to the Board and present whether or not we would want to sign a contract with any of these providers. But it would be an effort to get better bulk rates for the residents of all these communities should they want to install residential solar. And that's all I have to share. Thank you. Anybody have any questions for Mr. McCall? Appreciate it. Very, very informative. All right. Now, you're live. I move the consent calendar for October 19, 2016. Second. Thank you. There's further discussion. All those in favor say aye. Aye. Motion passes 4-0. There are no minutes. There's an agenda earlier, which brings us to correspondence. Does anybody have any questions, comments about correspondence? I have two comments I made. One is I wanted to recognize the letter sent by the Wayland 250 Committee. Thank you, Jailyn. for all the good work with that committee that I attended most of the meetings. It's actually very, very helpful. I was, as we know, a positive attitude and able to deal with issues quickly and we really appreciate our professionalism. The second item, I want to recognize the AAA rating, the notice that was in our packet. It never should be taken for granted. It reflects hard work on the staff's part. And I know residents like to see it because it means the town is in good hands. That's all I have for correspondence. It also ensures that we get cheaper rates. We're well aware of that. Anybody else have any comments on the correspondence? Whereas I'm going to move to Select Board members reports and concerns. Anybody have any? Mrs. Chris? I'm all set. Thank you. I have four items. Of course. I'm not sure this was mentioned before, but last year at the time meeting we had a warrant article relative to easements concerning the rail trail. So DCR has taken over that project from ASDOT and due to their lack of control over a portion of the rail trail between... The Wayland Depot, Russells, we need to have a kind of meeting vote granting state, VCR basically, portion of that land for permanent easement for pavement of the rail trail. Excuse me. On number 16. Great. Just want to make sure to mention. Number two, speaking of the rail trail, happy to report that the hard work of Barney Gossels and Rick Connard In the past two and a half years, at least, to put up historical signs of the middle trail. It's come to fruition, and the signs have started to go up, and I appreciate the good work. So if you're in the neighborhood, feel free to take a look. Mike Fay also was very helpful in getting the crossing the goal line. The third item, I wanted to thank our town engineer, Abigail, for her work in applying for the grant that was awarded to the town for close to $500,000 for wastewater issues. That'll help us quite a bit. And the fourth item is the issue of the trees that the town manager spoke about. I think people need to understand why. Conservation Commission feels so strongly about trees, and that is because, as I've seen firsthand, if developers take down a slew of trees on a property, it can really affect a waterfall and possibly flood a neighborhood. That happened back, I believe, in 2010. So that's one big reason why they are concerned about that. I don't know how bad the issue is as the town manager. I don't know how bad the issue is. That's where the people don't know of that rule. But to the extent the town or the Conservation Commission thinks that a lot of it should go out to each resident to remind them of this. Given people's attitudes now about global warming and protecting their homes, it might be needed. But I think we should leave it up to them. We may have some opportunities to provide notices on certain subjects during election season. That's all I have, thank you. Can you just tell me what you said? You said there may be opportunities during the town election season to send out a letter. Okay. Or when they come in. We can't be aware of what's concerns, so I don't want to call it. Go ahead. With the board's intelligence, I'm going to recognize Michael on this topic as well. Okay. I just wanted to go back when Select Board Member mentioned the rail trail, a couple things. I am still working with the historical parking, and I'm hoping to lead and lead that group based on some information that came in from our town surveyor, Mr. Lashman. But I also wanted to just make mention, we've had several inquiries for what's happened over at Collins Market, because there was construction, and it's in stock. And what I gleaned from our building department is they... We wound up changing contractors. So that's why you saw the work stop and the new contractor had to come in and reapply for some of the permits in their needs. So that's just, we've had a lot of questions about what's going on. That's all. Historic district parking I think we put on November 2nd. And if you're doing the minutes, you will say we had an additional town managers. Report Update. Now we'll go back to Select Board Reports and Concerns in that week. All right. So we had a poll about the December schedule. This is trying to fit a couple of things in, including the regular schedule. It's just the Monday that Monday is the 14th. Is that right? If I got that right. And if we have to have something else, we'll add in. It'll be a Thursday. Morning or something like that. So we'll just play it right here. Somehow I don't think we'll make it three weeks. I mean, not to focus on scheduling, but I don't have the full case of the meeting date, but I think we should. Well, we've been debating this. Go for it. Is it a done deal? Done. Okay. I just gave it to you right here on the tape. Thank you. And then the January 4th is the next official one after that. We should have it in there as well already. And then we may add this other one that you and I talked about. A couple of the topics may pop up. After we had, I think it was the last meeting or a couple meetings ago, we had a full location hearing, which was continued. I had Abby reach out and say two things. One, we would like to have an aerial view of the one. This is one thing we sometimes get some difference. I don't want the board members ask for that. And I also asked for a strategy on double polls. And to that, I got a response that they would like to meet with myself and Michael, which I think is on Wednesday. And I was going to ask if anyone knew of any particular double polls or unsaid polls that need to be addressed if you just let me know where they are, what have you. And Chris... I've read my mind and sent me pictures yesterday. So, I'll tell you, I've been close now with thinking life. So, I appreciate it. But if you have another one I would like to be able to address, you know, rather than perhaps a global issue, I'm going to say there's two or three specific ones we'd like to address if I get lucky. At that point, I will not respond because we're in the talk. That's fine. Right. Okay. I might call on that one in a minute. Now, on November. I think it's 22nd. There's going to be a dedication from the Mosaic to John Antis, you know, over at the COA, and I've been asked to speak on this. I did not know Ms. Antis personally, so I'm going to ask if there's any board member known personally. Thank you, John. Yeah. Would you like to be the speaker to the dedicated room? That's Sunday. I don't have to send it to. I think it's Tuesday. Yeah, that works. All right. So rather than that, I just think because it's a little volunteer. It just reminded me of something. Okay. I was just to ask, is that allowed? What's the... What's alone? During reports and concerns. No! I'm surprised he's not calling me out. I didn't ask my question. The answer is yes. You may have one now. Mr. Doug is asked to have one. I just wanted to underscore something, Mr. Fay said. My particular concern with the trees was not the trees. I love trees. I assume they're all doing. But I already made the estimation that our wonderful conservation commission was probably worried about the trees, too, and doing a great job. My concern was that I had multiple confirmed reports that the person involved, who I'm going to call a perpetrator now, explicitly said that the rule that we're talking about does not apply to him. That was what... And he specifically brought up the Dover Amendment. And I want my friends who are listening now, or who may listen to catch this later, to know that we specifically addressed that. That was, it's not the trees, it's the, well, it doesn't matter, we don't care, we're a superior business. And I think you are on that. Right, okay. Going to reopen reports that says right down the line. Start with Mr. Levine. On Sunday, I've been asked to speak. I don't believe that information has been circulated formally yet, but they're going to do the community pool mural, official unveiling. And so I've been asked to make a couple of remarks with your blessing. That's terrific, because I didn't invite him, and I thought, well, I hope Doug's doing this. Hey, would you like to read these? You know what? What's this? Going once? Going twice? Happy to move that this board adjourned. 907. 907. I already want to have your journal. Yeah, that's fair. Thank you. I will see you all. Thank you. All right. Thank you.
And if you could also sign the official book right there. I put it in the rest of you. Congratulations. Thank you. Thank you, Claire. You're welcome. Give me a smile for the camera. All right. So, Claire has been hired in as a firefighter paramedic. We're a little closer, so you can see that, right? Okay. Her start date was May 15th of this year. She went to college at UMass, which is a member of the rowing team. In fact, Claire was ranked nationally as a rower. Pretty incredible accomplishment. She went to Mass Bay for her paramedic program, worked for numerous EMS, private EMS services in busy systems, which provided her with valuable EMS experience. So she came to us with great paramedic level experience because of working those busy systems. She's currently attending the 10-week career recruit program, and that finishes on December 11th of this year. She'll be pinned tonight by Samantha Broglio. Broglio. Do you solemnly affirm that you will support the Constitution of the United States of America, the constitutional laws of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, the laws and the ordinance of the Town of Wayland, the rules and the regulations of the Wayland Fire Department. And you will, to the best of your ability, faithfully perform the duties of your position firefighter paramedic in and through the town of Wayland during your intervention. Thank you. Okay, now we have James Sykes. James has been hired as a firefighter paramedic. His start date was July of 2025. James is one of the few people who actually grew up in Wayland, who are still in Wayland. I'm very proud of that fact because I do believe it makes a big difference when you're out there serving the population, with connectivity with the community, when you know the people, you know the town, right? And it's very calming, I think, for many people when they see somebody they know who shows up to render them aid. So we think that is wonderful. James went to the MassBay Paramedic Program. All right, and as I mentioned before, James and Cullen were both ride-along participants. So tonight, James is going to be pinned by Paul Sykes. Thank you. Do you soundly affirm that you will support the Constitution of the United States of America? The Constitution allows... The Laws and the Ordinance of the Town of Wayland, the Rules and the Regulations of the Wayland Fire Department, and you will, to the best of your ability, faithfully perform the duties of Firefighter Repair and Managed in and for the Town of Wayland during your continuance of office.
So Mitch is being promoted from firefighter paramedic to lieutenant, and that was effective on September 3rd. For those of you who don't know, the department has four lieutenants and four captains. Mitch has eight years of experience with the Wayland Fire Department. This promotion was based upon a rigorous promotional process, which included a test, a resume screen, and an assessment center. Mitch had the highest score. He has served in numerous roles for the Wayland Fire Department, a CPR coordinator, Our Emergency EMS Coordinator. He's part of the District 14 Tech Rescue Team and Dive Team. His extensive fire experience has worked for numerous other fire departments in different capacities. He has a lengthy list of certification in the classes. Too long to review tonight. All right. And he'll be pinned by his mother, Nancy Williamson.
Please raise your hand. Do you solemnly affirm that you will support the Constitution of the United States of America, the Constitution laws of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, the laws and the ordinance of the Town of Wayland, the rules and the regulations of the Wayland Fire Department, and you will, to the best of your ability, faithfully perform the duties of lieutenant in and for the Town of Wayland during your performance of office? Thank you.
The last person we have tonight is Kenneth McGuire is being promoted from lieutenant to captain. All right. Again, this promotion is based upon a rigorous process. The captain has 20 years of experience with the Wayland Fire Department. I think something interesting that I just learned today, and I should have known this, all right, was that he actually took, when he got hired, his father-in-law's spot, all right? And that's Fran Burke who's sitting in the back there. And we owe Fran Burke a debt of gratitude, too, because Fran Burke worked for the Wayland Fire Department for 34 years, all right? A pretty incredible career. So thank you. And he became a lieutenant in 2012. He served in the acting captain's role. He's been very involved in training over the years. He has some specialized skills being a member of the Wayland Fire Department District 14 fire investigation team. Something I learned today is he was nominated for Firefighter of the Year Award in 2013, and he had numerous other recognition letters that I knew, but it was for an auto explication back in 2013. So anyway, tremendous career, many accomplishments, well earned by him and certainly Mitchell, and he's going to be pinned tonight by his wife, Jen.
Do you solemnly affirm that you will support the Constitution of the United States of America, the Constitutional Law of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, the laws and ordinance of the Town of Wayland, the rules and regulations of the Wayland Fire Department, and you will, to the best of your ability, faithfully perform the duties of Captain and for the Town of Wayland during your continuance of office. Thank you. Congratulations to all five members. Truly deserved. Thank you.
Thank you, everybody. Thank you. I'd like to start with the board, but I'd like to start with the board. I'd like to say something and then I'll open it to the board. Thank you, Madam Chair. And thank you all for being first and foremost willing to serve the people in the town of Wayland. It's great to see the internal promotions and it's great to see the new faces. I wish you a long and safe career with the Wayland Fire Department and thank you for your service. And I want to congratulate everybody as well. I've spent a number of years working with first responders. I've been over at the state police for the last seven years, and I have tremendous respect for fire and police at all levels and grateful for everything you do every day for us. Appreciate it. Congratulations to all five of you. Back in 2010 was around the time that our board committed to paramedic programs. And one reason why I voted for it was a service that provides individuals, residents here in the town, and those visiting the town that's been a serious situation. You all do a great job, and you save lives, and you'll continue to do so when we're in your debt. I want to add to Chief McPherson's remarks about the sacrifices you made, and I'm overjoyed about the continuity. None of these positions came out of nowhere. It sounds like some of them might even have started 10 years ago. The ride around where you are. And of course, I want to thank everybody myself. Police and Fire are such an integral, important part, especially as you age and we have a fairly older population here now in Maryland. And trust me when I tell you, and I know this firsthand myself, My neighbor will tell you that when you see that ambulance pull off at 3.30 in the morning, you're never so happy in your whole life. And we really appreciate it. We're really happy when we don't see you very often. I really love when we get to see you here. So congratulations to you all. And I'm going to do something I don't do too often to say, well done. I'm all set to go there. We're just going to be straight for anything. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. I want to share that the Hill is having a Art has some events on November 12th from 6th to 8th. It's got to be a bonding class. And I think it's in the organizations. Like what members were there. Are you involved in? Mr. McCall, did Mr. McCall, are you announcing somebody? Thank you. Hello, Carol? We're just trying to get started. I think we have an announcement from the town manager first. Right. Carol, this is Steve Clifford. I wanted to make a public announcement or a comment. Yes, can you just wait just one second, please? Sure, absolutely. Thank you. Okay, go ahead, Mr. McCall. Thank you, Madam Chair. Tonight, I wanted to introduce to the board our new building commissioner. His name is Tom Zupa. Tom has been working with us for almost a year now, roughly? Yeah, just over. Yep. He came to us from Gardner. He was our local building inspector. And as you know, Nate Maltinsky, who was our local, had been serving. I'm allowed to make someone interim building commissioner without being a formal certified building commissioner. They have 18 months to serve. And we brought Tom on at that time. Tom had served in a similar capacity in Gardner. And he's been serving us well as a local. And when Nate Maltinsky recently came to me and said he was thinking of transitioning into Greener pastures, I don't know. But Nate's done a great job for us here, but Nate's looking to retire in the not-too-distant future. And so we had an internal conversation, and Tom was very willing to take on the role and has gone back and passed his exam and has become a certified building commissioner. And so we sat down recently and we decided to promote Tom. Nate is going to step back and be our local and continue to serve with us for a period of time. But Tom is going to take the reins here and he's going to be leading going forward. He's been a great asset to the building department and I thought it'd be great if the community said the new name and face of the building department. It's Tom Zubweather we have right here. Thank you. Thank you. I know you don't want to speak, but I probably put you on the announcement. So when I did want to, I thought the board would want to, you know, acknowledge your... Motion and congratulate you and thank you very much. I'd like to comment. I've had several dealings with Mr. Zuba and he's terrific. It's always pleasant. It's always efficient. And he'll help myself. Thank you very much, sir. Thank you. If you do want to come speak to us, feel free. Let me let, you know, Abby know. We'll put you on the agenda. Of course. Thank you. Thank you. All right. Now, public comment. There's no public comment in the room. And it looks like I have Mr. Clicker would like to make public comment. I recognize you. Steve, please. Thank you. Yes, Steve Clifford. It's 274 Concord Road, and I know you'll be talking later about the transfer station, and I had a written comment I'd like to read out, and I will email it to you, Carol, just for your records. Okay. Okay, access to the Wayland's transfer station is a service currently providing a quarter of Wayland's households. These residents love the service because it costs half the amount charged by a commercial hauler for curbside pickup. For their household trash and small recyclables, plus they can dispose of their yard debris, a service that's not provided by these commercial haulers. Though the actual annual budget to operate the transfer station was $548,000 for FY26 for all the services, the people that are getting the... Taking the trash there only involved three large bins with small cycling items and two large bins for the household trash, plus the staff to monitor these five bins. And that's the only thing that actually replicates curbside pickup. Now, the actual FY26 revenue and expense detail, residents purchased of stickers, generated $334,000. And the purchase of the orange bags generated another $113,000. And so in total they generated $447,000 in revenue for the town. Now there are two main expenses incurred by the station as they relate to this service and this service alone, which is staffing expenses and they call the tipping fees to dispose of the contents of these five bins. Now, I'm assuming that half the station's staff salaries plus their benefits service this function, which totals about $154,000 a year. And the tipping fees were about $150,000 for a total related expense of $304,000. Now, by my rough estimate, the sticker holders actually generated profit for the town and the landfill of about $143,000. Now, I'm not trying to say that I got all the expenses because there are other modest expenses and I would like Joe or somebody else to kind of put them together. And there are long-term capital expenses that periodically replace the bins. But my point is that if you do an honest calculation, those households that use the landfill are actually generating a nice profit for the town. The second thing that goes with this is that the numbers of users have been declining. And this is an issue. And it will be, it's been going on for many years, but I think it'll be many years before the bag, I call it the orange bag service, actually loses money. And so I would suggest that part of this decline is due to the town's failure to promote this service for new residents. Now, I'd like to leave you with three thoughts. One is a quarter of the town actually uses the transfer station. They love its convenience, low cost, and friendly staff. The orange bag service is actually very profitable, and obviously we need some detail to know exactly how profitable, but I think it's very profitable. And then the forced curbside service that would happen if we canceled this service for those residents would be significantly higher. Now, I know we're looking as a town to consolidate callers, and that may drop the price, but I have no expectation that it would be that much. In any event, as you're thinking about it, I'd like you to kind of have these thoughts in mind, and I will send that to you as an email. Thank you. Just in time, we were just going to tell you how to give you two minutes, so. Okay. Appreciate it. Is there any other comments, Bobby? Yeah, Alyssa. Sure, okay. Ms. Carter, I recognize you. Hi, Alyssa Carter, Sherman Bridge Road. Congratulations to our fire department, and I echo everything you guys said already about them. I feel the emergency management plan does not take seriously the threat of wildfire disasters nor the extent of tree killing by bittersweet throughout Wayland. We have a huge concentration of mature trees and forest land here, but the risk of a serious fire is practically dismissed in this plan. Between drought conditions, dried brush and trees in the minimally Maintained public forests, lightning that can hit tall and dying trees, worsening of storms due to climate change, and this year is Super El Nino. Increasingly, jets flying low over Wayland as they depart fully fueled from the private airport in Bedford, including many chartered by ice in recent years. This risk goes far beyond just a brush fire, especially if a jet disaster occurs here. Keep in mind, private jet pilots don't typically have the number of hours nor expertise of commercial airline pilots, and that airport may be expanding dramatically. As for bittersweet, it's destroying trees everywhere in town, even crawling on power poles and lines. Just look at the forest along the transfer station road and anywhere you drive. Also, neither Sherman's Bridge nor Sherman's Bridge Road nor the boat ramps are mentioned as either Recreational areas, nor as critical transportation infrastructure in this plant. Despite the town management initiating a costly plan to repair and upgrade this bridge, trees along all the roads are an ongoing threat to power maintenance for homes during any wind or heavy snow event as well. I was trapped on my road for several days from a fallen branch on live wires in a storm last year. And regarding my road, I'm still startled by westbound vehicles passing me at my mailbox by only one or two feet. We need signs informing drivers of state VRU laws here on Sherman Spitz Road. There's so much on the agenda today. Sorry if I went over time. Thank you. Is there anyone else who wants to share? Actually, no one else online. Thank you very much. Since we are finished with a public comment, I'm going to move to join the chief to join us. I asked her since he was here to join us, did it. And I think I sent an email out to everyone. The agenda says would be you, a draft hazard mitigation plan. I think we'd love five minutes, but it's really an update. This is a program, honestly, it's going to want someone to work to put this together. The chief's going to experiment. But at the end of the day, we're seeing what we need to adopt. We'll come back to us to adopt it. So I wanted us to be included as each draft comes through. Okay, thank you. So I'd like to start by thanking the town staff and citizens who already contributed to this plan. A lot of work has gone into at this point in time. And the HN Hazard Mitigation Plan is required to get mitigation grants and required as part of Disaster Mitigation Act. All right, so the plan is looking at three things. Number one, identifying natural hazards. Number two, assessing vulnerabilities and outlining mitigation actions to reduce risk, right? So we currently have a draft plan that is available for review. We did not go ahead and print off a bunch of copies because it's 363 pages, but it's available on the town website under news and announcements. So we just had somebody under, I think, public comments who had some feedback. We welcome the feedback. So what we have today is a draft plan. If people send us feedback relative to the plan, things they think should be revised, that we have a working group who's going to look at those comments and incorporate feedback as appropriate. So the review period is October 13th through October 27th. If, in fact, you have questions or comments, you can certainly email me at firechief at wayland.ma.us. I want to emphasize, again, the review period, meaning for citizens to give more feedback. We only have a few weeks here. That's October 13th through the 27th. When the review period ends, we're going to make final edits to this draft that is going to be sent to MEMA and FEMA for their review. They may come back with comments. Last time we did this five years ago, they really didn't have any significant comments. So that plan came back to us without comments. And then it comes in front of this board for a final plan. And as you said, needs to be adopted by the town. That's what I got to say for an update, keeping it short and sweet. I don't know if you have any questions. So if you look at the, it's in a separate packet, it's called the Supplemental, and it was just a separate packet because it was such a large document. I think on page 236, there's a chart on the summary with our risks. Probability. I think there's on page 27 to 28, there's the five goals that they look at. There's an awful lot of information on this thing. I think on page 283, there's a list of our capabilities. In other words, what strengths we already have in town to deal with all of these different hazards. And there are a zillion hazards that they look at. If you've looked at it, it's fires, it's tornadoes, it's snowstorms, it's flooding, it's a dam. Issue, you know, breach. It just goes on and on and on and on. And so I just want to And then so I think on page 291 is where we have the final plan for some recommendations. I think we the board will be really concerned, speaking real quickly, we'll be interested in what the recommendations are, particularly as they relate to capital or operating expenses that might be incorporated into future budgets. So I think that's really our goal. I had a question. Was there anything egregious in there that is really bugging you? I looked at the sheer mass of the document. I got to ask that question. So, I mean, there is a lot of different hazards that we face. And the hard part becomes analyzing the hazards, scoring the hazards, and prioritizing the hazards. So that's the hardest part. But again, water. It's one of the bigger issues for the Town of Wayland. And I think that's one of the things where there's a lot of recommendations relative to water and mitigation. And the important part here becomes this opens the doors for getting federal funds like we did with Snake Brook Dam. So if we go ahead and we say water is an issue and we come up with a mitigation strategy, the good news is it may not have to be town capital. It might be partially town capital. But also it's going after grants makes this HMP plan and the benefits of it so important to this community. So I think one of the, we got one, what did we get? One point something million dollars for Snakebrook now, which is a good chunk of money. One three. One three. And we also got money from the state through the DM&C wall project as well. Thank you. Yeah. Two questions. Chief, when this is approved, Does the town create policies for some of these topics? So that if there's a tornado, and this is a resource, instead of having to cover page 256, the policy is already created. So did that, in the world, does that exist now? Yes. So this is overall, again, identifying hazards and giving some suggested recommendations for dealing with them. Beyond this is the policies and procedures, for example, the SEMP, Advancing Emergency Management Plan that the town has, and other operational hoops that we have, which talk about if we had this building, for example, can only be used for the fire station. So there's a whole bunch of other plans beyond this. So this is not an operational plan. This is high level. Look at some of these things and hear some potential solutions. The second question is, you mentioned this is a five-year document. It is. And so you took the required plan and you modified it. And what stood out from you in this plan versus this from five to this field? Anything in particular? So I would say one of the biggest concerns I had in the last plan was Snake Perk Dam. And the good news is that sometimes it takes a long time for big projects like that, that we can almost take the check and say that this is complete, that we have much better control. Because if that flooded, let loose, and that overtopped once, that could have significant ramifications. So I think there's some new things that have been added to this. I know that someone just talked about invasive vegetation. That is an element of this plan. I'm not sure it was as pronounced in the last plan. So there's some other things that were added to this. And you can see it, 300-something pages. There's a lot of information that's been included compared to the 120 pages for the last report that we did. 540. It's interesting because it says 301 pages, but in the packet for some reason it says 540. There's a lot of information. Thank you, Chief, for being here and sharing information about this. My questions were somewhat similar to Mr. Fay's in that since you were here for the last process in 2021, do hazards just get added on? So five years from now, will we have an even longer hazard plan or are some things ever dropping off? So we dropped some things off, but I think as part of this plan, you're looking at For example, environmental impacts. One of the realities is that we're going to expect more rainfall. And I forget the number of something like between 5% and 16% more rainfall each year in the future. So the plan kind of ends up morphing based upon what we see happening. The other elements that we're facing. So I think that the plan is in fact... Being adapted to the new things that we're experiencing. Okay. And then my other question is that I think I asked the consultant, but curious to hear your perspective. It's fairly phenomenal to me that FEMA reviews all of these plans for municipalities around the United States since there are so many. Justin Commonwealth has 351. Did we get any meaningful feedback from them before? Did you get any meaningful feedback from MIMA? Or are they just... Trying to check certain boxes when they pour through these. I would say to you our last review of the plan that we did had very little feedback and very few changes afterwards in MEMA. I think MEMA does the bulk of the work. Yeah. And there are certain things they look for. And the other part is part of the value of hiring a consultant is. They also know exactly what Myanmar and FEMA are looking for. We as a town don't because we don't do these plans often. So it's very important. I think we've got grant funding to pay for our consultant to help us with this, to use that consultant to help us navigate that process and make sure the plan is thorough and going to meet those standards. Yeah, I appreciate that. Thank you, sir. So before we let you go... I have one question for the board, and it will be an edit. I noticed I'm paying something. It was four. It asked where's where we sign it. It just looked for the chair and the vice chair, and I had myself and Doug listed. But as a general rule, what else sign? So I wanted to ask the board, they're comfortable with just having the two sign. Wouldn't we want to all sign this plan? Yeah, either way. So could you make that edit, or is that not? I can make that edit. I have a... Which is a stakeholder review and comment form that I will fill out for you so that we can submit that and make sure that we look at that. So adding additional name slots and that's an easy change tonight. And I don't want you to think I read the whole 300 pages as I didn't. I did skim, skim, skim. I did notice on page 52 that it said snake probably received several million in grants. I think, as you said, it was like one plus. Right. Didn't want anyone to read it. I think, gee, Wayland already got scads of money, so maybe we skip them in the next round. All right. So that was my only other one. And I appreciate it. And I'm going to skip it. Thank you. Thank you. Have a great night. I appreciate it. So I recommend Trudy now. We are in the process of doing something a little different this year as we're kind of identifying articles that are going to go with a warrant for the 2027, you know, annual warrant. And since Trudy was already here, she's been two or three that she would like to have submitted. So I said, why don't you just stay and give us a quick... Look at them. We don't have anything in writing yet. The liaison, the liaison is probably going to be working on them. Sure. But I just thought she was here taking advantage of it and the floor is your list. Thank you. Good evening. I have a couple of articles that, with your approval and support, I would like to bring forward for consideration for the 2027 Angletown Meeting. We're all familiar with Sales and Animals Bylaws, also known as the Solicitors and Dog Bylaw. So the Sales Bylaw is more commonly referred to as the Solicitors Bylaw. It was included in last year's Town Meeting, but was indefinitely postponed following questions and concerns raised during the discussion at Town Meeting. Since then, I've continued to work on it, on revisions with Select Board Member Mr. Fay. with the goal of bringing it forward for consideration for next year's town meeting. On the animal bylaw, the dog bylaw, I had also had brought that one forth with proposed updates and after considerable Consideration from the Select Board and Residence, it was determined that the proposed revisions were not quite ready for Town Meeting. So I continued to work on that over the summer with former Select Board Member Cherry Carlson with the hope of submitting a warrant article for that one as well. With both of these bylaws, we have reviewed comparable bylaws in surrounding communities, and as we continue our work on the solicitor's bylaw, I intend to again consult with the acting police chief for additional input since our last review with him at the time he was not as acting chief. So with the respect of the dog bylaw, our primary goal is to ensure that the Wayland's regulations are current and consistent with the provisions of mass general law in this of Chapter 140, Sections 136A through 174G. And those sections address a range of matters, including dog registration, kennels, animal control responsibilities, and any new laws that have been added over the last several years, particularly Ollie's Law. So it's my goal to bring both of those forward in a more complete and informed form, and hopefully we can address some of those concerns that were raised at last year's town meeting and get more support for those two. So just a little second. So the purpose of this meeting is to kind of let us know those are coming. And also I think that Town Park has expressed to myself and to Mr. Bay and I believe as well. Thank you. Can't remember if we talked about this. That, rather than, although she came through the bylaws, she would like to select what to sponsor for these two articles. Am I right? Yes. So that's really what we're talking about. So the draft will be created. We will present the articles on those. So, now that's the two. Now, did you want to talk about the book? Yes. So the third one, this may be the first time you're hearing about it. It's our general. Code Recodification, which is our town bylaws. So the code was originally codified in 1997. I've got to read a lot of this because some are before my time. So since that original codification, updates have been made through supplemental updates on bylaws that have been approved to town meeting. While those updates have kept the code current in respect, a comprehensive review is needed to ensure that the code remains up to date, consistent with mass general laws. And this particular project began in September of 24. And I'm working with General Code, who is the vendor who currently maintains the code on the town's website. So they look at it. They take an editorial and legal review of the existing code. After their initial review, General Code provided a draft identifying questions and comments in areas where updates and revisions should be considered. I then worked with appropriate departments, heads, boards, and committee chairs to obtain their input and feedback on the proposed changes. That information is now back in General Code for their incorporation into the next draft. So they're preparing a revised draft, which will then be returned back to the town for review by town council. So the goal is to complete this process in time to present the recodified code at the annual town meeting for next year. It is a substantial undertaking, but it's an important opportunity to ensure that Wayland's bylaws are organized consistently following a uniform format, style, and way that reflects the current legal requirements. It's a goal to provide the Town with clear, well-organized, and legal review code that will be easier to navigate and maintain and update in years to come. I wanted to bring these initiatives to the Board's attention as we begin looking ahead at 2027, and it is my goal to continue to move forward working on these over the next couple of months and with the appropriate input and review. So that we can be well prepared to bring these to town meetings with your feedback and hopefully the support of these efforts. Thank you. Trudy, this is a Herculean task that she has undertaken and is really important. And although when I spoke to Trudy, and it was probably when Tom did as well, she did ask for us, you know, to sponsor it. But I think that, I don't know if we want to put it as a co-sponsor because I think Trudy should get 100,000% credit for it. You're initiating this project, gathering funds, and then doing this work. So I don't know how we would like to structure that as well. So the issue on the table here is do it will be the sponsors of the DOC bylaw and the solicitors bylaws, and then how do we want to support the bylaw recodification? I think that's two different questions for myself. I got it. But did you want to speak first? Well, I think our board should be involved in all three. I see the town clerk's post as a non-controversial dog support. And I can see the dog bylaw, the social bylaw, being maybe not terribly controversial, but somewhat controversial. We saw that the last time. So I'd like our board to be the armor for those two topics. Regarding town code and codification, that's a significant undertaking with a significant effect. And I think it should be associated with our board, at least in part. I have no problem if we want to... Sponsor it with you. But I think that our board needs to have its name associated with it so people understand that this has our blessing, it has our review, and that might help its passage. Okay. Thank you. So does anybody disagree with that that will sponsor too? I agree with the town code recodification for sure. On the dog bylaw and solicitations, I want to hold up and I would like to see some of these revisions. Yeah. Or I won't be informed. Oh, we're not voting and we're just voting. But that's fine. Yeah. I'm perfect. Okay. Well, what happened? I said the same thing. It won't grow me either. I would agree here. Just keeping it short. It doesn't help you either. They didn't worry. Anyway, do you have any other? Nope. So I think we've done this. So to be honest with you, now, once the draft's already, you know, get them in either to have you or let me know they're going to let Tom know they're going to put them on the agenda. We'll then look at them. We are. They will have to be submitted, so we'll have to figure out who's going to submit, and then we'll go from there. I think the recodification would be the bigger issue because of how to submit it, and it should probably go through Town Council's review, whether before it's submitted or after it's submitted, but that's something that we can all work together through. I think as soon as it's ready, because that sounds like, and the question on our one is, I mean, how do we... How would we present that at town? Do you give the red line version in the back? I mean, is it a supplemental? Because, I mean, I'm thinking to myself, how do we... We'll cross that. Yeah. So I think that's a lot of questions. Probably just going to be a total replacement. So when... You're ready with the draft. We should get that to Town Council, and to your point, I agree. We should get it there sooner or later, because that's going to take some time. In order to make the time today. That'll be the moment when Mr. Fay's point is in. Great time. Exactly. All right. Thank you. Thank you very much. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. I move the Select Board enter into Executive Session A, pursuant to Massachusetts General Laws, Chapter 38, Section 21A3, to discuss strategy with respect to litigation and showing givens versus Town of Wayland that fall. B. Pursuant to Massachusetts General Law, Chapter 38, Section 21A3, to discuss strategy with respect to litigation on 124 Lake Shore Drive. C. Pursuant to Massachusetts General Law, Chapter 38, Section 21A3, to discuss strategy with respect to collective bargaining with the following union. Wayland Police Officers Union, New England Police Benevolent Association Local 176, and the American Federation of State and County Municipal Employees, AFSCME. Local 690-1 and 2. And then Pursuant to Master's Agenda Laws, Chapter 38, Section 21, Page 7, to review and approve the Executive Session Minutes of October 5, 2026. Review 10 to hold 10 minutes. There are no minutes available from September 22. Is there a second to the motion to enter into Executive Session? Second. Thank you. The chair declares that a public discussion of these matters may have a detrimental effect on the litigating, negotiating, or bargaining position of the town. So we'll have a welcome vote. Mr. Reynolds? Aye. Mr. Fay? Yes. Mr. Dean? And Ms. Martin? Yes. That's 4-0. The chair invites attendance by Michael McCall, town manager, Deborah Hecker, Katie Law, and Abigail Warren, executive assistant for the town manager. The board will rejoin the public meeting from executive session. And we anticipate returning to open session in approximately 45 minutes. Good to go. Thank you. Let's go back into open session at 2 p.m. Please let us three minutes. Item number eight is to discuss updates on the recent shows of additional traffic studies. I should say these were the additional traffic studies. And we are inviting attendance by Mark Hebert, our acting police team. So, how are you? Good, how are you doing this evening? Thank you for joining us. I know you've been working on this and there were some additional... Yeah, I mean, we've made good progress on it. There's new devices up there now, so pulling the reports from them, they're good because I can see them in live time. I monitor them on a daily basis, which is very helpful. Pulling the past reports is a little more of a difficult they are capable of doing it, but just getting that off of the devices is something I'll call into the company to see exactly how you do that and how far back you can go. But they're fairly new. So whatever data we're pulling off of it, you know, it's kind of bright now. I can tell you anecdotally from looking at it, you know, a couple times a week I usually log in and look at them that they're doing a decent job, probably reducing the speed by, you know, two to three miles per hour, which has been all the research predictable of what their devices can do and be effective at doing. So I'm happy with how they're functioning out there. I haven't put in the slow churn or the kind of hash marks for the churn yet. That's going to be the next step. I kind of did that purposefully so we could see how just these signs do and then how they do in combination with the other signage. I'm kind of thinking of the study of my own, you know, information here as, you know, how much these signs can affect actual speeds. So I think it's going well. I think they've had a positive impact. And we don't see the... Really high speeds in it. I think the highest I've seen on them is maybe in the high 40s, but not those 70 to 75s that my original device was picking up. So I think it kind of confirms more kind of outlier data that wasn't really that reliable. Made one seem a lot more reliable on their speed reporting back to us. So that's what I have on Stonebridge so far. If you guys want any more information, just let me know. Open it to the board for questions. None, but thank you. This is on Sherman's Ridge. Sherman's Ridge, yeah. Sorry, I apologize about that. Have you, I think I've asked you this before, Chief. Can you compare, like, for frame of reference, when you've seen these numbers for Sherman's Bridge versus a similarly situated side road like that or cut-through road, so to speak, where you would give us that comparator? Like, what kind of roads are similar to it? In terms of the flow and the speeds. Yeah, so speeds are a little harder just because I haven't really done a study on any of those other roads yet. I am purchasing a new device to do those. I know it's a lot of money for these traffic devices, but we have to keep up with the current technology. As far as traffic flow, I think it's pretty clear that northbound was up to Waltham Road. Once it gets off of Sherman's Bridge and goes conferred to Waltham or 117T. And then the self-bound of either Gleason or Claypit slash Plain. I haven't seen as much on Claypit and Plain. I think just because of the Route 20 intersection, that left turn from Plain onto 20 is kind of self-limiting where a lot of country people don't want to deal with that. So we just go all the way down to the square and go on Route 20. So we actually, myself and Tom Holder, DPW Director, I've been demoing a software. We're just in a demo, so I don't want to use it too much as live data because I'm sure the company wants us to pay for it before we use it as kind of our own data, but it shows that as well. So I can right now see the traffic flows. That you pulled off of the telematics of cars, you know, all anonymized, nothing that identifies cars, but can give you average daily traffic totals. So I, you know, took an hour and looked through that, and it kind of paints that picture pretty clearly. That's either Waltham Road, Gleason, or down to the 20 to keep on going. And then my other question is, have you ever been in touch with your counterpart in Sudbury to see if they've done some speed studies? Just so we can see. Actually, that company that I'm... Looking at now, that was what was recommended to me from them was to look at that company because they have used them or currently use them. So that's why I have spoken with them and they said it's a great product because we get this, you know, it's pulled off of 60% of the cars out there. So you're getting a real good population level data, but it's expensive. I'm not sure if Tom and I will recommend, you know, adopting the software for that reason. So, yes, that seems to be what they do is just use that data to just collect it. Thank you. I think that touched on something that I was thinking that, you know, with these navigation systems in cars, You know, you have a three-minute delay up ahead, and it's giving you a secondary set of roads. And so that was the question I had. It's not only on Wayland, but I don't believe all communities seeing this, where there's all sorts of traffic. I mean, I was coming back from the Cape, and there was a few traffic ahead, and it took me off one accident, went down a road that parallels, well, we call it suicidality, part of 6A there. And I thought, oh, this is a nice little show. I threw a whole neighborhood. There's a whole bunch of us going through it. And I thought... Is this part of what we're seeing here, you know, in our native roots as well? Yeah. Yeah, I think it is. I think that Route 20, 27, 126 interchange is kind of limiting. You know, it's two lanes at some spots, but it still doesn't absorb all the traffic. You know, I think Waltham is one of the biggest commercial space cities, you know, in our area. So we've got a lot of people traveling through, always trying to find a better way pretty much to Waltham or east of there. So, yeah, everyone's logged into their Apple, their Google Maps, trying to find the best ways, and it's that live update, and that gives the data that we can buy from them and learn where everybody's going, but it can also make it so everybody gets pushed into these cup-through streets, as we'd want to call them. Thank you very much. No one has any other questions. I think we'll go to the next. I skipped you. No, you didn't. I said I had no questions. Thank you very much. You're polite. Thank you. I got all the data. I'm sure you're dated out, and I'm sure you am, too. Is there anything that can be done, I feel, for the people on the street? You're a pro. What do we got? Is there anything? I think the additional signage we're going to put up there. I really don't know what else we can do without running afoul of MassDOT or these other restricted way roads. Yeah, I don't have... I'd have to look into what the next best step is, because all my recommendations all can run afoul of different groups that, you know, wouldn't see that as the best solution either. Have we tested that, or is that just a rumor that the DOT is going to blow a fuse? This is a scenic bridge, there aren't a lot of bridges, and the pedestrian use of it is pretty frightening. Yeah, I'm taking my information from the DPW, so I don't know what conversations Tom Holder might have to get in here to ask those questions. I do feel it's pretty scary. I've been scared out of that bridge. I mean, I've seen some pictures, too, of, like, trucks still cutting through there and stuff. They have tractor-trailers. I mean, it seems like it is, you know, not the safest to have them, you know, make some of those curbs. They have to go in the other lanes and stuff. So, I would start. Thank you. Essentially what I was saying, the same thing with this. Navigation systems are wonderful for when you're saving a couple minutes, but it's not. Yeah, the thing I'm adding to what you just said is what I hear every time is we get to a certain level and then we're supposed to panic and quail because the DOT gets involved. I'd like to know what the DOT has to say. We have to wait for a death certificate to come in. You can see fishermen there backing up as they fish. It's not a good situation. Thank you. Thank you. Well, Cynthia, Mr. McCall, are you all set? Yes, Madam Chair. Thank you. All right. Listen, I think I asked the Chief to stay for another item. I alluded to this last week when we were at the, we conducted the hearing for boomstones that wanted to be able to serve alcoholic beverages outside, and the Chief would like to recommend an amendment, I think I mentioned this before, for dining. Let's see, Brian. Yeah, I just wanted to come and have a discussion about it. It's things I've seen other communities or other events where they kind of post, you know, no alcohol beyond a certain point on a property. And when I asked if our policy had a similar type of requirement, I was told that it doesn't at this point. From my brief research on it, it seemed like the state kind of left up to the local municipalities to implement those type of rules. From an enforcement standpoint, it's something I would like to see. It makes it a lot easier for us, obviously. The more signing we have, the easier it is for us to enforce the alcohol laws that are out there. You know, it's something I feel strongly about. We've done the compliance checks, and I feel that. The more signage, the better. I don't want to go overboard, and you'd recommend that we have it posted at every, you know, single wall or every single corner of the building, but maybe at, like, the furthest point of egress off the property or where it's allowed, there'd be some standard signage that we can recommend. I don't have any examples yet. I just kind of wanted to open up the conversation and see if it's something that the Select Board is willing to, you know, entertain. I can, you know, I can drop some signs. I can work with the town manager's office to drop some. Things that we could recommend to you, if that's something, you know, the Board is amenable to. Mr. Phillips? I'm strongly in favor of this. I like the idea, Chief. I would suggest that the policy implementation perspective have the signs placed when people are leaving the assembly. That's when they're most likely. To be in a position to dispose of what they have in their lives, right? Yeah, I agree. As opposed to, at the end of the driveway, leaving onto a roadway is too epic. Yeah. Yeah, I agree. It's like once they leave, the area where the alcohol is served is the last point. That's where it should be advertised at. So, obviously, and I think, not so sure, we should have to provide these summons, but I do believe, like, Foomstones, I think, at your recommendation, did provide them on their property. And during that discussion, we had with some public comment, and, you know, your suggestion is terrific because as an abutter, They better would want to know. This is the area, and it says right there, stay in there in this area. Don't bring, you know, don't be walking on the property. Going up the street or down the street or whatever. So do we want to add to that from the Wayland Festival, I've learned the very first thing people say 100% of the time. So I wish they had no idea. Exactly. You know, so. Right. So I think the language would be. I got to say, I think we should come back with set language. Okay. So if you're comfortable with it, time manager, then vote on it then. Does anybody want to draft him? I'm happy to. We'll do what I'm assisting. Yeah. Okay. All right. That sounds terrific. Thank you very much. I don't know if we have any more outdoor dining amendments coming. So thank you very much for your time. Thank you. Thank you. All right. Thanks everybody. Thank you. I am living now, once to my delight, a few weeks early. However, I see Mr. Chang is here. He is being interviewed for a position on the CBA. Why don't we... Do that. And then I'll hold on a minute. It's just in case it isn't not here. Mr. Chuck, would you like to join us, please? Public comment, chair? That's your chair, yes. That's the all-purpose chair. I'm glad I came earlier. I thought maybe... We have usually a very full agenda. We're running pretty close to the mess, although sometimes we do run off. Welcome and thank you for volunteering. I know at the funeral, there's the board members, there's a very informal process here. Chris Reynolds, good evening. I'm Chris. Tom Fay, nice to meet you. Thanks, sir. Doug Levine. And Mr. Whitney is unable to join us because he's on vacation this week. And I'm Carol Martin. So, hi. Hi. So, what we'll do is we'll just give us, we have your information in our packet. Okay. And your interests and rigs. Lots of great information here. We've all read it, of course. Phil, just give us a two-minute explanation of why the CBA appeals to you, and I'll open it up to the floor for questions. It was actually the Design Review Advisory Board. Yeah. That's what I wrote about initially. Yeah. Just because, I mean, I'm an architect. I've lived here since 2004. And just more recently, I'm just doing some things here and just... Beginning to interact again with some of the people here. And my two kids now, the second one is off to college. Might as well, you know, now I have some time to do something for the town. That's a terrible thing to say to us. We have lots of openings. So the Design Review Advisory Board, I thought, okay, I can maybe have some input in some things which are going on. And then I wrote to Nina Fleury, and she said, you know, there's also something else, Adele, or maybe, you know, you can be more active there. I said, okay, I can look into it. I think it's not so much time, so it seems okay. I don't mind. Especially when you get to Mr. Levine. I'm giving you a spoiler alert here, but anyway. I heard it's not a voting position, so I can sort of see how it goes, right? Isn't that kind of the idea? Why don't you start? I served on the ZPA for a couple of years. And so it depends. Sometimes the associates are relied upon because the members need to be watching all of the meetings related to a certain hearing. And so if some have to miss them, then the associate members are there. They step into the learning halls. I learned a lot serving on that board, and we're very fortunate. There are three members on that board who have been serving for some time, including the chair. And so they've seen all varieties of projects come through, including some of the larger projects that we have, these 40B projects, bigger developments, as you're aware of, obviously. So I think that your views will be greatly welcomed and appreciated. We have had architects serve in the past on the board. And have you met the current chariot? Have you had a chance to sit down with them? Tom White. I think I maybe emailed or something, but no, yeah, because I was a proponent, so I think from that side. Yeah. And I've dealt with many Xavier boards, but on the side of the architecture. Sure, sure. Get things approved. Good idea probably to just have a one-on-one with him at some point just to get some informal advice from him. Yeah. I mean, I don't know how to write opinions, and that's illegal. Right, right. Those are attorneys that are doing that? Well, we do have a woman who is an attorney on the board, but the writing rotates among different members, and actually... You learn, you kind of are an apprentice for a period of time, and you can learn from some of these other board members. But for the more complex ones, like the 40B project, those will be written by Town Council. And we're often assisted by Town Council through those sets of hearings. But for some of the more straightforward projects from individual homeowners, yeah, the board just takes turns writing the decisions. And the senior folks help the junior folks, yes. But thank you. Thank you for putting your name in the ring. Okay. We'll see how it goes, right? Yes. That's what I said. That's how they told it to me. Just wanted to try. Thank you. Okay. Learning experience. So there's a position also on design reviewers, Ben? I think there is. And that I would highly recommend. That I applied for. That was the one I actually was... And there you should definitely connect with a gentleman named Bill Sterling, who's a long-serving architect in town, who's served on that board for a number of years. I believe has served on the zoning board in the past, or at least the planning board in the past. He's volunteered in a number of capacities. I would definitely pick his brain. I think they have another interview like this one. Oh, with... Okay. They just haven't got back to me, but they asked me to send sort of the same materials. Which I did. Design review board is on the planning board. Oh, so they interview the applicants. Right. I'm not sure. Does that make sense? Yeah. Yeah. Go ahead. I would like to see myself. Go ahead. I'm happy to say I'm very excited about your application for this poll. Very excited. Right? Okay. I'll tell you why. Because if we don't have a good ZBA, We have to get engaged in problems, right? But we have a very good CBA, half a million years, and they do a great job. But, you know, the backgrounds of these members really make it an effective board. And your background is extraordinary. And I think you're going to be a huge asset. You're going to be able to give great advice to the members. You're going to bring in perspective. So people coming before the CBA, because you've been on both sides, right? I've been on one side, yeah. Exactly. And now you're reviewing and giving advice so that we have a good product. The other comment I have to say is, you know, we live in excited times, speaking of the word excited. And some people may not agree with that word, exciting times, but the zoning changes in the Commonwealth are significant. I mean, just today, there's an article about the city of Summerfield and how they're... The backyard, triple-deckers. Right, right. So, who would have thunk it, right? Yeah. But Wayland's affected, and there'll be many decisions that RZBA will have to address in the years ahead. Experienced people like yourself along the family would be great to have a great lesson. So thank you for inviting me. Yeah, you know what I found? A lot of times, like, and I've talked for a long time, is that lots of problems people think are design problems. And I said, it's not a design problem. It's his only problem. And, like, like a summer goal, it's not conceivable unless that's allowed or something like this, right? Or the problems that you encounter these days, like many thesis students' projects, they're just sort of kind of fantastical, you know, things. And then there are some people that are doing more serious. You know, we have a housing problem, an affordability problem, you know, ADUs or these backyard houses. There's so many interesting real problems that I find that I'd like to be more involved in those real problems, which are design problems. So, yeah, no, I mean, I'm not a lawyer, but I see the way you can make more impact is actually beyond that side where you can sort of deal with some of these policy issues. Yeah, it's not always a design problem. You have to sort of open those things up so that then there can be a design problem. But until then, yeah. But your answer there tells me how great a person you're going to be in this sport, Mr. Toulouse, because you're a problem-solver. And a lot of those issues for ZBA are solving problems. How can we help you within the rules? That's kind of what your role is. Yeah. Thank you. Yeah, no, I'm happy to do it. I'll try. And we very much enjoyed pouring through your CV and all the photographs. I want to visit all these folks. It was beautiful. Thanks. I would echo that. We had approximately seven times as much stuff to read for this meeting as we normally get. And the part I like, they're also so much. Because of pictures, right? Yeah. And they're very attractive. I want to go there. I would echo one comment earlier, so I'll be brief because it is a repeat. It's not about you figuring out what the rules are and then building something in or out. It's about creative problem solving. We've got a history in town, we've been in no town, and resorting to rules too much. We need to be a can-do town in any sense. Stop there. I had talked to a builder recently in another town, and I told him where I was from. I told Will, and he goes, I'll never build there. And I said, it's not a great, it didn't sound great. Right. Yeah. Things are changing. We're not in no town, I assure you. I mean, I think no for good reason, but just as a general, I don't want to entertain it. I don't like so much. The reason I was so excited about Tom Zuppa earlier, I actually spoke out of order to commend him. We always try to commend town employees. Is this Tom? No, Rob, but there was no Tom. I've emailed Tom. I never saw you. I'm glad you've had some contact with him. He is always trying to find ways to say yes. He'll say no if he has to, to your point. But there's nothing automatic about it. He's the only tuition, all right? Yeah. Yeah. He's actually very, he's very responsive for, to me, in my experience, billing departments. You almost just said he's very responsive. No, he's, he's very, he responds right away, but like, yeah, I actually like dealing with him. Very happy, thank you. Yes. Anyway. Hi. So, my turn, probably, please. The one thing that really... Very impressive. We're so thrilled to reply. Thank you. We'll give you a million slots. I noticed that your company focuses on residential and mixed-use projects, and we really are trying, hopefully, to get some mixed-use projects, particularly on Route 20 corridor, maybe with the new MBTA community zoning areas that we've created. I've got that right. And there is another committee that... Mr. Jung would fit in nicely, I think, at the PMBC, right? I wouldn't burden him. I've already talked about two. You look pretty good to me. Anyway, so what I'd like to do is say thank you very much. I appreciate it tremendously, and I would like to have a motion, please. I move that the Board appoint Stephen Jung to an associate position on the Zoning Board of Appeals for a term ending June 30th, 2029. Second. Okay, so any further discussion? Otherwise, all those in favor say aye? Aye. Motion passes. 22.9. Three-year term. So, Mr. Chung, you will receive a letter from the town building indicating that your appointment has been confirmed. And it will ask you, you should receive that via email from the town manager's office. And it asks you to bring that letter into the town clerk's office, which is where you would get formally sworn in. They'll also give you some information related to conflict of interest training and you are an official associate member of the CBA. Yeah, so in the case that... I've said this before. So if I have a project, let's say, I don't have a project, but it's passed through TV already, but in the future, I would just remove your screen. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. Exactly. Thank you. Okay. Thank you, sir. Thank you. Thank you. Looking forward to seeing you. You're not on Zoom. This is off the zoning board, did you? No, it's live board. Oh, so I'll meet those numbers one next time, the first time there's a meeting. First meeting. Sure, they meet monthly. Okay. Take care, Nick. Take care, Nick. Thank you. All right, if we look to see online, we have Mr. Beckford or Mr. Stotz? Stotz, what? I'll allow him. Yeah. So three minutes, and there you go. Doug is here. Hi, Doug, would you want to bring Doug over? Doug's already over. And do we have Mr. Beckford here? Hi, Doug. How are you? Hang on a second. I'm doing great. How are you? Good. So thank you for applying for a position on the board. We have another candidate, but I don't see him. We can. We are just trying to move together. Okay. So thank you for applying. We have your information in our packet. Did you want to just give us a brief two-minute explanation as to your interest? Well, I think you laid it out really well. And then we'll have a question, as you know, from the board members and go from there. Well, I'm going to sound a bit like Mr. Chung in that in 33 years in town, I think this is probably the fourth time this committee's been convened. I think it's a very important role. I think I can bring something to it. And unlike the first three times, I don't have a full-time job having me traveling during the week. So now's my chance to raise my hand and give it a try. Thank you. Opening questions to the board. Mr. Fay, would you like to start? Thank you, Doug, for stepping up on this. Your background is ideal and I feel that a lot. Thank you. Mr. Reynolds? I'm strongly in favor. There's no questions at all, Doug. Mr. Levine. And Mr. Stotz, I'm very happy to have you step forward as well. I did serve on one of the previous iterations of the Cable Advisory Committee when I served on the board between 2017 and 2020. And we were fortunate at that time to work with an attorney from KP Law, who's... Focus was working with Towns to renew their licenses with the cable companies. He has since retired, as I'm looking at the KP Law website, so we will hopefully have successor counsel that we end up working with. But it was a very positive experience. We received some very helpful guidance from him and KP Law, which I will anticipate receiving again. But I'm mostly looking forward to expanding our mission, as you wrote about, around broadband. I think it's critical because, as you point out, and it was true back when I served several years ago, Cable is decreasing. More and more folks are cutting the cord. And as we've had conversations with WACAM, it's really not sustainable to be depending on this as the financial means to support our peg stations. So I'm looking forward to exploring these other options with you. Thank you. And I don't think we'll solve WACAM, but I think we can give WACAM and the folks interested in it a sense of the trajectory of decline and what can be anticipated for revenues over the next five years under perhaps a couple of scenarios and then discuss it from there. Thank you. I don't have any questions for you, Doug. We actually had a conversation before you applied, and I love your focus that you're bringing to this committee because it's wonderful. So I'll just entertain a motion, please. I move that we appoint Mr. Stotz to a term on the Broadband and Cable Advisory Committee, and that date will run until the project is completed. Second. Thank you. Any further discussion? Otherwise, all those in favor say aye. Aye. Aye. Passes 4-0. Do you remember your explanation, please? Doug, you will hear from the Town Manager's Office via a letter indicating that you have been appointed by this board to serve. At that point, please bring a copy of that letter to the Town Clerk's Office. You'll be sworn in, given some information around conflict of interest training, and then in the coming weeks, once we have a full complement of the board pulled together, we will convene. Thank you, Doug. I look forward to it. Thank you to the board. Thank you. I think it's going to be an email, Doug, so watch your email as opposed to a email. All right. Thank you. So the next item is... Have a good night. Thank you. We have five positions on this committee. I know we have, I think there's one, possibly two candidates interview on the second, and we'll see if Mr. Batcourt is available the second. There might have been some confusion there that people would... Can we appoint you without an individual? Do we have that option? We do, but we can. We may have another candidate applying in the next couple of days, though, so we'll probably have a different day. We have four more slots. However, if you look at item A, under that, it's discussable to report a select board member either as a liaison or a member to the committee. And I think last time... We had Mr. Watkins-Waz, and I think when you served as well, they were members of the committee. Correct. So now let me ask this. Is there anyone on the Select Board who would be interested in serving on this committee? Perhaps you. Yes, I would be happy to serve. Okay. So unless there's any competition, I'll have a motion, please. I move that this board appoint Doug Levine to be the Select Board Member who sits at the bottom of it. Question. Would you like to second anything? I'm ready for the discussion. All those in favor say aye. Aye. Can I hold for myself? Aye. You have to. Aye. Okay. We have two members already of that committee. So? Unanimous. Unanimous. Unanimous. So the next item on our agenda is going to be a joint meeting with the Board of Public Works to discuss the transfer station funding. We're going to invite the Board of Public Works. Mr. Winterbauer is the chair. He's joining us. We have Mr. Stollman, Vice Chair. Mr. Stollman, Vice Chair. Mr. Stollman, Vice Chair. Mr. Stollman, Vice Chair. Mr. Stollman, Vice Chair. Mr. Stollman, Vice Chair. Mr. Stollman, Vice Chair. Mr. Stollman, Vice Chair. Mr. Stollman, Vice Chair. Mr. Stollman, Vice Chair. Mr. Stollman, Vice Chair. Mr. Stollman, Vice Chair. Mr. Stollman, Vice Chair. Mr. Stollman, Vice Chair. Mr. Stollman, Vice Chair. Mr. Stollman, Vice Chair. Mr. Stollman, Vice Chair. Mr. Stollman, Vice Chair. Mr. Stollman, Vice Chair. Mr. Stollman, Vice Chair. Mr. Stollman, Vice Chair. Mr. Stollman, Vice Chair. Mr. Stollman, Vice Chair. Mr So what happened is back in the spring meeting, I think around in April, the Board of Public Health put together this very nice, very informative memo that's in our packet on page 40, outlining some financial concerns they have with transportation. And then they asked if they could come and meet with us. This summer, so we said we'd wait till the fall, and in the meantime, we're also involved with this transportation study committee, so let's wait till the fall. We don't want to wait much longer. So we want to get this discussion started. I don't know that we're going to solve anything later tonight, but I think we're going to have an conversation. This is a joint meeting, so everyone on there. Public Works, you know, board will be allowed, you know, to speak as part of the discussion if you'd like to, you know, speak because there's a lot of us. I'll just call on people. I usually do that. However, to start the floor is yours, Mr. Winnie Bowen. I think we have to call to order. Yeah. Go ahead. Yeah. Have you called to order? Not yet. Yeah. Please do. Thank you. So this is the Board of Public Works joint meeting with the Select Board. It is October 19th, 2026. We'll call. Judy? Here. Here. John? Here. Here. Mike is here. And with that, we bring the board meeting to order. Thank you. Thank you. The floor is yours. Great. Thanks. You know, the concerns and the questions you want us to ponder. Yeah. So I think the board laid it out pretty directly in the memo. But essentially, With the increased pricing for the sticker fees at the transfer station and the continued increase to those sticker prices, we're seeing fewer members. So folks are dropping out. So we're seeing some challenges there. So we're an enterprise fund currently, and we went into effect in 2021 Article 5. And in that article, we suggested that The transfer station or the finance committee suggested that the transfer station would probably continue to need subsidies, significant subsidies each year. And at the time it was established at $75,000. The last couple of years that's been reduced to $50,000 by the finance committee or finance director, I'm not sure who. But that's been a challenge particularly because There had been a longstanding non-verbal or verbal agreement, non-written agreement that the transfer station wouldn't be responsible for OPEP. Last year that got put into our budget. There was about $81,000. So we got a reduced subsidy. We got an added expense. And we're being challenged with the increased prices. So this is a service that is enjoyed by about 30% of the town paying members. It supported the town expenses in terms of town pickup at parks, at fields, at town buildings. And that's all been borne by traditionally the sticker holders until about 2021 when we started receiving a subsidy. I think what we want to do is recharge departments for the costs, which we estimate to be about $61,500. It might be more than that because, as Carol has mentioned in some of our meetings, that doesn't cover indirects for the town employees. But the town employees, the days they don't work. At the transfer station, which is open three days a week, they work sometimes at transfer station to keep that cleaned up, but then they work at other town responsibilities. So I think what we would like to do is create an expense line for the town costs, but then we'll still need a subsidy to keep the transfer station reasonably priced so that we can continue to maintain the membership there. And again, I think it's a service that's unmatched. And this is not true data, but unmatched. With 30% of the town supporting about 95% of the costs of a service in town. And people enjoy it. There's the swap area. It's kind of a social entity in itself. As much as it sounds strange, you know, it's a dump, right? But it's a transfer station. People see neighbors there that they haven't seen in a while. Folks that are running for office go there to get there. Signatures. You've probably all done it. Everyone here in this room has done it. So, you know, the Girl Scouts will sell cookies there. Boy Scouts, they get the proceeds from the cans, I think. Not anymore. Not anymore. No, the Boy Scouts are, they offload their Christmas trees there. Okay. So there's some benefits of Boy Scouts. Okay. Yeah, so it's kind of a town, traditional town service. So we're looking for some support in maintaining. The subsidy as well as kind of establishing an expense line for the town costs. So I had a conversation with Tom and Mike last week. And we determined it as, like, this article 5, 2009. So I put that in the packet for everybody to see what happened was, because they were a revolving fund, and then the thought was to move them to an enterprise fund, and there's an accounting reason why they did it. This thing just is not working tonight. And so I wanted that. And I think you should think about, Mike, if you haven't done it already, maybe I may suggest including in your packet for tomorrow night for your board, you know, to look at it. Some really good information in here. It talks about that. So anyways, I'm going to open this up now to questions from the board and then the board can speak or is anybody who wants to speak first? I don't need to. I would have bet money you would say that. Judy, did you want to add something to what Mike has said before we open it up to questions for the Select Board? No, I just wanted to reiterate a lot of things that Mike said, especially in the enjoyment part. Steve and I go there probably three times a week. I know that a lot of people who have dogs really like taking her dogs to the transfer station because Rodney always has dog biscuits for all the pets. So it does become a social norm and a way to meet your neighbors. I do think that's irreplaceable. And my neighbors across the street who do have curbside pickup, they told me their costs are about $50 a month. So that's like $600 a year. And then another $200 on top for the Black Earth Organics pickup. So, you know, that's about $800 in total. No, $700, sorry. Whereas for most of us who are using The transfer station, our costs, at least Steve and I estimated our costs between the stickers and the orange bags were $300, maybe a little over that. So about half of what other people are paying. And we get to remove our garden waste, down limbs, things that unless you have Special curbside pickup. They're just not going to pick up that stuff. Thank you guys for presenting. This is helpful. In doing a little bit of research, back in 2010, as you're probably aware, there was a shared arrangement that started as a pilot program with Sudbury. Yes. Where Sudbury was open on certain days and Whalen was open on certain days and you could use each other's transfer stations. I'm wondering what went wrong with that and if that's ever an idea that would be revisited again. It's more what went right with that for Sudbury. They loved our transversation. We were packed. It backed things up quite a bit because the days that Wayland was open, they liked our system much better. So I'm not saying it's not something we should explore again, though. I think that's something we should look at. I'm not sure. So right now, the transfer station is only open to town residents. I'm not 100% sure why we wouldn't open it up to other town residents. Yeah, so we might pull Sudbury. I mean, it wouldn't be a good neighborly thing to the Sudbury transfer station, right? But... But it could potentially bring in additional users. Okay. So I think it is something we should look at. Okay. Yeah. And then my other question is, so about 30% of households is the statistics of folks who use their transportation and buy the stickers. Yes. Do you know if the demographic is refreshing itself, that is, the younger folks that are moving into town, is that, are they fairly represented? Or is the demographic trending older, such that the 30% is going to continue to tail off in years to come? I don't know if we have that demographic data, I would suspect. The latter is true, that we probably have a base of folks that use the transfer station. And I was talking to John earlier today, you know, it's kind of who you move in next to. You know, if you move in next to someone who uses the transfer station, they're like, oh, we use the transfer station. And if you go to the transfer station, maybe, unless you have prior experience. And then if you move in to someone who has pickup, you might say, okay, what do you use for pickup? What do they charge? And then they end up going with pickup. We did start a plan of putting out flyers because the companies that pick up put out flyers every time a new person moves in, right? Yeah. So we started doing that as well. Tom, do you have any data with regards to the demographics? So we don't have any official formal data, but I think when you poll the employees, I think I agree that that latter example is more applicable. I think it is an older demographic. I think that the younger families that are moving into town, everybody's got busy lives. You know, may not have time to put their trash in the car and make their way over to the transfer station. I know it's more expensive, but I think that they might make the choice that that additional expense is worth when they're trying to manage their time with their family and their activities. I think that that's what we're experiencing. Okay. And my last question, Tom, or others, if you know, is... What is the threshold where it would become particularly difficult to cover our costs in terms of percent households that use the transfer station? Like if we fall below 20%, are we going to be in tough straits? Can I answer this one a little bit? So Mike and I... Judy's husband and Mr. Holder are on a transfer station. Municipal trash. Municipal trash. Study. Right. He's a consultant. And this is one of the numbers that I had asked. When do these intersect? And that report's coming out in about a month or so. So this is just like, but I think it's in a couple years before that, right now. And then that's assuming a 7%. Drop off of stickers, which isn't. It's probably a little high, 7% a year. It's slowed down a little bit. So we may have two or three years, which is why this is a terrific opportunity to start these discussions and start to understand the issues that we face and see what solutions we can work with, including perhaps having a conversation with somebody. So we don't have the exact number right now, but I did ask for that one. Thank you. One more point on your question about sticker holders. A lot of folks have pick up and apply or are members of the transfer station for the convenience that they can drop off three days a week and maybe they get pick up once a week. So there are a number of folks that use both services. Okay. Thanks, Mike. Sure. Thanks for joining us tonight, everybody. So a few months ago, I chatted with Mike about this topic, and I made some phone calls to Wellesley and Needham because I was curious, given that they have free services, you don't have to pay to get their sticker, you know, what percentage of the population Use the transfer facilities there. And my vague memory is around 55, 60%. So my question to you, Tom Holder, is if we as a town decided to make transfer facilities free, so the cost would be borne by everyone, town, would you anticipate that we need to, and let's say you increased the usage then, the number of residents. Would you think you'd have to increase the staff in any way to handle the increase in users? That would be an unfair question. Yeah, well, it's interesting you mentioned Wellesley because that was one community that a number of years ago, you know, we did some outreach just trying to see if we could, you know, do things a little differently, a little better, you know, change things up a bit. Wellesley, if you can believe it, employs 18 people. At their recycling facility. We employ two and a half. You know, so it's a significant difference. Their budget, as you can imagine, is tremendous compared to what we have. So I think, you know, I think just by considering that, I think it would, you know, our budget would need to increase significantly to be able to handle 60%, 80% of households. And the property itself, May not lend itself to that type of participation. You know, I guess it's we're trying to increase participation, but we have to stay within the limits of the layout of the property and all of that. But, you know, I think we could all we all agree that it would be nice to increase things. I think we just got to be careful on what we can practically handle at that location. I wanted to touch upon the topic that Dr. William brought up, and that is an intramusical green pool. So back in 2010 when we did this, it was my memory that the reason why I failed was because the time spent by residents per visit was much greater than at this time. The reason was because of the recycling. was different. It wasn't a combination of a single string. It was cans over here, your bottles over here, your paper over here. So you'd spend maybe five to seven minutes versus maybe two to three minutes. So that was my memory. So I do think an intermissible agreement with Sudbury is worth exploring. It's right next to each other, and I think it might be a ruin for both residents of both hands. Just one comment regarding the... The number of users and percent of town. Until very recently, we had 40% of the town using the facility. So, I mean, we're a smaller town, of course, and I think it was the same staff, Tom, correct? I don't know that we've decreased yet. So, we certainly have more capacity in the current situation. And this 2010 study keeps popping up. I'm going to make a comment on that before I go to you. Crystal, we finished that. I remember going up there and it was, you couldn't get into the Wayland one because it was full because ours was so much nicer. I didn't want to say the word. So much nicer. What happened was, and Fred and Nathan, the deal was separate, and what happened was we would just go back and forth. There was no money or anything transferred. So we lost money in the deal because it was coming too early. And when we stopped the deal, you would go up there for months afterwards, and the person next to you has got, you know, Lincoln Sunbury stickers on their car, so you know, they're still coming in. So I really, I think, to your point, we'd have to have a different model. Sure. And then we, I'm sure we would, so. Okay. I'm all set. I'm all set. Okay. I wanted, I do want to say, spoiler, I am a transfer station user. I have been since I moved here a million years ago. I think it's a terrific, I would do a terrific job up there. I do think there's a few things along, personally, with the mob, and one is... I've been harping on this for years. Maybe this is the year. The town is having the 30% that use the transfer station pay that bill for a municipal trash collection. So no matter what happens that we decide for the next year's budget, we need to resolve that number. In here, it shows you that 9 to 10% increase in labor. Costs every year, and yet that number at $61,000 has not been met, and it's less. My opinion is it's about $75,000. And I also think that no matter what else happens, even though we're going to have a long-range discussion here, we're going to review that, I think we need to resolve that issue, and we can resolve that issue by asking Mr. McCall. And Mr. Keveny to have another look at that situation. I know there's been a conversation to maybe have the Board of Public Works build the different towns. That's a lot of labor. I think we should just say it's X amount of dollars for the trash collection and it should be borne by all the residents. That's one that has just been kind of in my craw for a long time. So anyway, Mr. Holder, you haven't had a chance to speak. Would you like to address? This issue, not the one I'm talking about, but it's a little topic. No, I think everything that's been said is accurate and accurately portrays what we're dealing with at the property up there. And so I don't really have anything additional to add to what's already been said. Thank you, though. You're welcome. Thank you for participating. I'm a small call.
These issues are never easy. As I mentioned to somebody else who's seen something very similar with what goes on with the cable. You see a decline in subscribers and how do you deliver a service? And at some point, I've seen some towns, they fold the... Cable provider into the town. They absorb it and become a town department. I mean, that's one thing we may have to consider at some point. The idea of the enterprise fund is to allow it to be self-sustaining and work off its own revenues. I understand, you know, there's indirect costs. Mr. Kevin and I have made a point. We go for everything in grants. We try and get back as much money because we have to cover those costs. Happy to go back with him and to look at this. You know, you just wonder at what point you hit that intersection. You have to make decisions. I know in my other communities, this was an issue one town had. Transfer, stay on a landfill. Then they were looking at a transfer station. One of the big challenges is tipping fees. You know, if you're bringing more people, you're looking at tipping fees. And the problem we were running into when I was looking at this about three years ago, and I did share the RFP that I helped create on whether you would do curbside, is where does your waste go? It's getting more and more expensive. We have fewer and fewer landfills. And so you look at shipping out of state. It's a long-term problem. So, you know, I'm happy to help where I can with our staff to look at this. Okay, I see Ms. Ling has her hand raised. I'm sorry. I can hardly see just two fingers, please. Thank you, Carol. I just wanted to comment that if we do close our transfer station, we have to use somebody else's. If our cost is $75,000, I can't imagine somebody else charging us just the cost, which is $75,000. It would be cost plus a margin. So it would always be more expensive if we don't have our own. And as a town, we simply must have one for town waste. You know, trees come down on school properties, etc. Thank you. Does anybody have anything? In our memo, we suggested considering a revolving fund. I think looking back at Article 5, I realize that's probably not the right solution because we have this, as Carol mentioned, we have this income coming in at the end of the fiscal year for people buying their stickers for the following year. We need to, that wouldn't work with a revolving fund well, and that's why we moved from a revolving fund. But it could be a town department, or it could continue as an enterprise fund, and I think we included a list of other towns that do have enterprise funds and provide subsidies to support that enterprise fund, which is common practice. So that's all I got. Thank you. The board on the top. The Town did provide some capital expense in 2024 because we supported the Retro-Southern New Thorn Pack, which I think was... Yes. No, I don't have... What did I tell you the other day? $70,000? $20,000. $70,000 or $100,000. It was a capital expense in 2024 was funded for free crash. So we have provided some more there over the years. Yes. We just got a piece of it. If you want to go back... I also think one spoiler alert here thing is that all these private halls coming into town, streets, and so one of the things that the study has shown us is that, I mean, I have a house on the street that has been 25,000. And when we started the study, I looked around, and there are six private hallers collecting trash on one street. That's a lot of rarity on our streets. So, you know, that's another thing I think we're going to want to look at. Is how do we address that? Because, you know, less wear and tear on the streets is less work. On the roads. Yeah. And that's a related topic that we're dealing with through this committee. Through the committee. And studying. So it's all interrelated here, but anyway. All right. You're going to be talking about this tomorrow night? Yes. So I'd probably join them tomorrow night if I may. Sounds good. All right. Does anybody have anything they would like to add in before I see anything? Thank you all for joining us. Thank you, guys. Appreciate that. Thank you, folks. Thank you for the consideration. Good night. Thanks. Good night. So the next item on our agenda is to discuss and vote potential warrant seeking payment and second budget support for a five-town filing program and implement the order of participation of local town meetings such as we have in Wayland. So I'd like to invite Miranda Jones, a town moratorium, the Chair of the Electronic Voting Implementation Subcommittee to join us, please. How are you? Good evening. I'm well. How are you all? Good. So, the information starts here from page 47. This is, um, Randall laid out for us very clearly, uh, what has happened. I know Tom's been very much in all of this, but do you want to say, believe me? Well, I invite our town moderator and chair of Elvis to, uh, explain where we've been and where we're going to go. Excellent. Well, thank you all for your time. We really appreciate it. I'm Miranda Jones, the town moderator. With me is Dave Bernstein, the chair of our ELBIS committee. So as you know, the town at our last annual town meeting voted for the fifth year in a row to support remote participation open town meeting. And to that end, we have pursued a number of strategies in the legislature in order to make it legal in the Commonwealth to allow for town meeting to have remote participation. We filed. I gave you a history of what's happened recently in this current legislative session. And when I say I gave it to you, I sent the email to the Select Board. Dave Bernstein truly drafted it, though, so I cannot take credit for that eloquent email. So where we are currently is that our homework petition was sent to Study Committee to die. And now it was recommended to us by Representative Kate Hogan from Stowe that we perhaps engage in or launch a five-town pilot program that might make the legislature more interested in this issue. And so we have been working towards that. And one of the issues we have discussed is if we had a five-town pilot program, who would oversee it? And so we had a meeting, Dave and I had a meeting on October 9th with members from the Attorney General's Office, essentially the Municipal Law Division. Dave has it all written down. You would think I would know who they are since I used to work there, but I don't. So they were very attentive. And one of the things that they asked, what would we be asking the Attorney General's Office specifically to do? In order to oversee this pilot program. And so in my email to you, I don't know if you want me to go through it, but what it is we would ask the Attorney General's office to do. And so Dave and I discussed it and felt it was prudent for us to come before the Select Board and talk to you folks about it if we were going to ask some sort of government entity to oversee this. And it was really, I think, at our state rep, Linsky's suggestion that we go to the Attorney General's office. Are you okay with this? Are you on board with what we've proposed to have the Attorney General's Office do in terms of their oversight? Does that seem to make sense? And I mean, particularly for if we're talking about five counts together, we need to have some state agency looking. We should have some state agency looking at it as opposed to just one little moderator saying, yeah, we're good to go. I would also like I think it would behoove us to have Some sort of entity give us the green light on allowing it to go forward. There very well could be legal challenges, and I just assume it'd be the Attorney General's office who defends it. So this could all, while we anticipate that if we were to be allowed to have remote participation, it may not be fully executed, we may not go live with it for quite a period of time. Until we get there, we would go through many mock trials before we were willing to actually go live. Just, it could, you know, anything could happen. It would just rather have the okay, the approval of the government than when we launch it, that this wasn't, if it is a failed experiment, which we don't believe it ever would be, but just the government knew what was happening the entire time. So we come before you to ask you to file yet another article in next year's annual town meetings warrant to talk about just assets. Getting the feel from the town that they're interested in us pursuing this, continuing to pursue this, and in what manner. So until now, we've really, we've done home rule petitions. We've always filed those, but our state reps have been wonderful to work with. They really have been fabulous. We would also like to get some language drafted for a five-town pilot program in addition to a home rule petition. We're trying to go at it at multiple angles. There are also some statewide bills that other state reps have filed, including our own state reps, but the one that our current state rep, Representative Gentile, who will not be with us much longer as he is retiring, that hasn't gotten far. There are a couple that are still pending in Senate Ways and Means, correct? But so we do recognize that other statewide petitions will probably be filed, but it's just we want to do a little bit more. And so we're seeking your approval and any insight guidance that you may have and also any questions that you may have about what we are doing. So that's right here tonight. So I just want to clarify one. Yeah. So we only put in as a standard article, you know, to get some little petition. Yeah. So, you're talking two separate articles this time, right? Oh, you're going to put them in the same one, Dave? Let me respond to that. Okay. Because I thought they were going to be two. I think technically the ask that has just been expressed is something our board can do. Our board can express our support related in the letter of necessary to whoever needs to receive that express approval to The work towards drafting the bill, the legislature, where Wayland would be one of the five towns to participate in this power program. I don't think we need town meeting approval for that. It certainly would be in the spirit of the past several town meeting bills. Having said that, I think the ask is, the suggestion would be to have a warrant article this coming town meeting, asking for the town's
Directive to Select Board to support legislation that would include, but not be limited to, a pilot program or any other legislation that would support Town being able to do remote dissipation. I think that's how this would play out. So just to clarify for myself, it's not only two articles, we take one and then just tweak the language a little? Different language. Because we're putting together, this is why we're coming out, we're putting together as we go along a draft, a list of draft. Draft list of potential articles. I had put two in, thinking it would be the standard, Article 11 was used to saying, but we could tweak the language. Last year, the article asked for a vote on specific language of a bill. This would be more broad and purposed because the bill hasn't been written and might not be finalized by the time. This time you need to occur. And there's really two votes. There's the home rule petition. Right. And there's the five-town pilot. Correct. And then there's third then, which is if the five-town pilot were approved, we'd like Wayland to apply to be one of those five-towns. Right. But if we could put it in the same one, you think that's okay? Yes, I do. I think you could also add an additional or any, by any means necessary, we get the legislation passed. That type of sort of general provision that says that we will support. Remote Participation that seems to make sense for the Town of Wayland. Right. So, a little bit of questions. So the five-town pilot program option wouldn't name the specific five towns in advance. It would then be up to whoever was supervising, because you also listed the Secretary of State's office as a possible overseer, so to speak. So that was that question. And the second part of that question is, did you have any conversations with anybody at the Secretary of State's office as well? Well, with regard to your first question, we right now have two towns that are interested, Wayland and Concord. Weston will be voting on it in the spring of 2027. We would pretty much suggest it would be the next fourth and fifth towns that are, assuming Weston votes in favor of it, the fourth and fifth towns that are next in line, who express and don't exist. It's really first come first serve into the pilot program. And so... With regard to the Secretary of State, to answer both of your questions, Dave has attempted to contact them. They have not listened. They have not been responsive at all. It would be foolish to shut them out, I think, completely, so we want to try and encourage them to express some sort of interest in this, give us their opinion, but I wouldn't mind having the Attorney General on our side with this because I would rather... If the Secretary of State is not interested in this program, which we have heard that he may not be, that he is afraid of the security of it, I would rather have the Attorney General's office fighting for us than us doing it alone. But I would continue, I think we should continue to try and engage the Secretary of State's office out of respect to that office, and also, more importantly, is trying to convince them that this is not as scary as they may think it is. So we heard from them indirectly more than a year ago that they were concerned about security. So in response to that, we wrote them a six-page document, which you helped construct and talk to explain exactly what we had in mind. We've heard again indirectly that they had questions as a result, but our effort to understand their questions, meet with them in any way, shape, or form have produced no response. So that's where we stand. I think it would be a mistake to proceed without having at least made sure they know what we're doing so that they can't accuse us of keeping them in the dark. But other than invading their office. We're trying to do everything we can that we're trying to get town council to help us do that. And who would be the champions of this legislation? Would it be Lindsky and Eldridge, or who will be the lead sponsors? So, Senator Barrett is the highest-ranking legislative official to submit a statewide bill. He did that at our request. We met with him. We have good friends in Concord that we're working with. He better friends in Concord. They are part of our team, in fact, at this point. They got us a meeting with Senator Barrett, who was very responsive, very helpful, and submitted a statewide bill. So the advice we've gotten is that we should submit two identical bills for the five-time pilot, one in the House, one in the Senate. We're thinking that Representative Lindsky would be the ideal person to submit the House bill, and Senator Barrett would be the right person on the Senate side. There's an off chance that we could convince Representative Peich to jointly co-sponsor the House bill. House bills, I have a merit badge now, legislature. Yeah, I do. In House bills, you can have a co-presenter. And if she would agree to co-present, she's the assistant majority leader. So Representative Linsky said he would approach her on that topic. We haven't heard her to respond to you. Yeah, I mean, I spoke to Representative Peich about this. Gosh, that was well over a year ago, and she seemed fairly supportive of it. She represents Weston, right? Yeah, so her town is on the test for potentially approving, right? Yes. Yeah, and she was, when I talked to her about it, I was at a fundraiser for her, and I was able to grab her ear about this, and she was pretty supportive of it, and in fact sent me a thank you card and mentioned it. So she's aware of what this is. So if we could have her and Representative Linsky together. We've spoken to Representative Linsky about this. We were on a Zoom with him with Tom. So that would be great on the House side. And then if Senator Barrett would do something similar on the Senate side, that would be great. Okay. If Western approves a Home Rule petition at their Springtown meeting, it would be Representative Peish who submits it. Okay. Yeah. Thank you. Sure. Any other questions? We answer everything for you, Doug? We'll see. Okay. Any other questions? I was just telling Tom I was going to skip him, but he said he was good, so wrong to Chris anyway. Do you have any questions, sir? Mr. Reynolds, any questions? I'm so happy you're doing this. This just sounds so hard and so necessary. It's going to reduce costs. It may help address... Lower attendance. It's a little bit pioneering. I understand the subjections. Everybody's worried about security these days. But that just means it's easy to do nothing and we can't do nothing. So you have nothing but my applause. Well, thank you. And I have to tell you that 99% of this effort is being done by Dave. So he is relentless. And we are very fortunate to have him working on this. Very fortunate. But remember that the proposal came from Elvis, which is more than just me. So there are several people in there that basically did the technical work to put this together, and it's held up very well in front of a lot of technical people who were very skeptical, and both Tom and Doug have contributed to this, as have some other people who know operating them. Did the HE Zappas have a person with that technical capability and understanding, too? I didn't detect it. Yeah, I didn't either. Based on my experience, probably not. But I'm sure they have capability in some way. Yeah. And our folks in Concord have been great, too. So Chris is right. And listening to you saying, oh my God, this is so complicated. And the effort you put in is just a little... David, I remember when I was in finance committee, you were coming to us. So how many years have you been working on this? It's been six, seven, eight years. 2021. 2021. Yeah, six years, yeah. You've become the face of this. Dennis started this on this back in 2017. It took Elvis several years just to come up with ways to solve the technical problem before we would even say it's worth going through a legislature. So anyway, I applaud it. I think it's a terrific, I think it's a worthy, noble endeavor. I think, I think you're so close to succeeding. Oh, well, you know, the legislature is a funny, it's a funny life, man. I've been working on some, some stuff before, it's 13 years of age, it's absurd. We have four or five Tombo here. We're going to be in a pilot program, that's, that's very strong. We should also acknowledge the work that Robbie Simon has done. He has been a legislative coach. He's been great. Nancy Brumbach with the League of Women's Voters has been excellent. She's helped us set up all kinds and hosts all kinds of webinars, and we're hoping to get the Mass Municipal Association. Michael's been helping us with that to try and get them to... To move from sort of being a silent sponsor to a public sponsor. As well as the Mass Moderators Association. As well as the Mass Moderators Association. So, Fred Pastings, who is the moderator in the Town of Weston, he and I convinced the Board of Directors for the Mass Moderators Association to vote in favor of supporting this. Now, they're taking it to the broader membership at our December 5th meeting. So, we'll see. We'll see how it goes. It's going to go well. Yeah. So, just for the next steps here. Yeah. I already had a talk with Tom about this. We need, it says in here, and you really like town councilors drafting articles just for information that they review our articles. Sure, fair enough. This one may need a little more review. So normally what we do is we draft something and then she looks at it. Well. The warrant article we can draft. Right, so we'll draft it. But the pilot legislation I think will be written by... For us, we feel from all the towns, a combination thereof, right, David? Oh, no. I'm an amateur. So it wouldn't be from the pilot legislation, opposed to the legislation, to the five-town power program, wouldn't necessarily be offered by our program. We would just be supporting the concept. Right. Just for the record, there is a precedent for pilot programs and legislation. There's one for energy stuff where... I think it was a low-carbon building stuff, and they had like 10 towns, so, and they used the Department of Energy as the supervisor. So there is some precedent for doing this. It doesn't directly reflect on what we're doing, but we're not flying completely blind to this pilot. I'd like to move that this board spoke to support the effort of Chair Belvis and the town moderator to pursue the legislation for the Five Town Power Program and other related legislation. Concerning remote participation. Do you have a second, please? Second. Thank you for the discussion. All those in favor, say aye. Aye. Motion passes 4-0. Thank you all very much for your time. We really appreciate it. Thank you, buddy. David, this qualifies as superhuman service. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Great. All right. So the next item is in our package. On page 50 in our package, we have to re-vote the other transfer forms that was in last meeting. So let's see. What does it say? Discuss the updates and vote for the transfer remaining unused. Harper funds from the St. Book Dam project that other previously obligated are projects including but not limited to the Massachusetts Water Resource Title. So the last time I think we voted was $100,000 and I think what's happened is with the memo and the packet, it'll explain to you that there was not invoices that were processed against $100,000 in the balance number of these at the $83,714. So $83,713. So I move on this board to vote. to transfer $83,714 for the MWRA Engineering Project when we send the vote taken on October 5th relative to October 5th. Thank you. Excellent. All right. Any further discussion? All right. All those in favor say aye. All right. Motion passes 4-0. I think that brings us now to the Town Manager Report. So, Michael, the floor is yours. Thank you, Madam Chair. So, we have a few things. A couple of these were born out of, well, we have reports and concerns. And Mr. Reynolds had some questions about some of the tree removal going on in town. So I did talk to staff about that. And I did share with a few folks an email that I had from the conservation agent. But I've also heard the same comments from our DPW. We have taken the time to look at a few areas around town or school properties about trees. Roundabout way this came about because of the storms we've been having, climate change, but also the tragedy we had at Camp Chickamee. People are coming around. We're told for solar and recommending people taking trees down if they have residential solar. And there's been other issues. As I said, you know, the drought has impacted everything. So people are looking more and more to take down some trees on their properties. I was reminded to share with people that if you're taking down more than six trees, you need to go before the Conservation Commission to ensure that you have a proper permit. And to that end, Mr. Reynolds had brought up a particular property. I did check with our Conservation Engine. It was over in Greenland. And they are taking enforcement action because that person went in and took down trees without proper permitting. They've sent them a notice that they have to come in and apply for it. And they're at the point where if they don't get an appropriate response, we will start taking punitive actions against them in terms of fines. Staff is following up on these issues. They were doing it even without the questioning from the board. They just want to make sure that these things are going on behind the scenes. People are recognizing these trees are coming down. And just to remind the public, you do need to take a bunch of trees down. You need to go get a approval from the Conservation Commission if it's more than six. Since our last meeting, I did, Mr. Kevin and I did go meet with the Capital Improvement Planning. Committee. We received a copy of their recommendations. Their final version was sent to us last Thursday. We had a good meeting. They went over everything. We were very pleased with the report they gave to us. It's consistent with what our staff was looking at. There is always the possibility we make a tweak or two, but I'm sure that will come to you folks in short order as we start the budget process. But if anybody wants to get a copy of it, if you hadn't already received it, I think Mr. Carver sent it out to several folks, including Madam Chair. But if anybody at the board wants it, just let me know I'll get you a copy. They're coming in for us to present the report on the 16th. Okay. How do I tell everybody was back? I did manage to attend terrain, had the community event last Thursday. I went in, there was quite a few folks coming in. As always, every time I go over, go past it or go through the lot, it is packed. The cafe was packed that night and there were a lot of residents coming in and out. I saw members of the EDC, some former town officials. So it was a good event. Again, got to speak to... The staff there and everything seems to be going well. I did follow up on our liquor legislation. We submitted testimony over the summer before one of the committees and it has been, it got through that committee favorably and has been now referred to the House Committee on Steering Policy and Schedule. So hopefully that'll get improved in short order. That'll enable us to have a few more liquor licenses in town. I already know that we have some. Potential new businesses coming in, working with Terrain, not Terrain, Town Center. And so they are excited to see that get passed as well. I was asked today where we are with the chief process. I now have three volunteer police chiefs, current and former chiefs that are willing to be on my panel. We are finalizing and hope to have the meeting. The posting, job posting out today. We were just tweaking a few things this evening and didn't get it up, but it will be up this week, and we're hoping to do a six to eight week timeline, having it posted, reviewing your resumes, and starting the screening process. So I would like to say before the end of the year, we will have a candidate to bring to you. I did a tour of the Middlesex Regional Emergency Communication Center in Framingham. That's our partnership with Natick Framingham, where we'll have the regional dispatch. It's the building located adjacent, or I should say between Framingham City Hall and their police department. It's being renovated. We're going to take the top couple of floors. I would say the preliminary build out, all the studs and wiring are in. They're about ready to sheetrock it. They're hoping to have the building open around the first of the year so they can start doing some of the interior fit up. The Acting Chief and I are going to be meeting with State 911 in furtherance of the Support and Incentive Grant, which is the $700,000 I referred to. Hopefully, we will be getting that soon and I can come before the Board. That will be the monies that they are finding us in other grant programs to ensure that we will open on July 1 of next year. Today, I received an email. From Ben Gould from CMG, who is our environmental engineer, notifying us that we will be filing a notice of delay. As you know, we were supposed to be submitting a Phase II comprehensive site assessment report in November. However, he's looking to file a Phase II status report and that once all the additional testing is complete, he will update that with the DEP. And lastly, it was given to me on short notice, but the towns of Newton, Lexington, Maynard, Natick, and Truro are doing an RFQ for residential solar bulk purchasing. And what they are doing is they are looking to find a service provider that vets residential home solar installers. So that they can get good pricing for the residents of the respective communities. There's no obligation for us to sign on. If we sign on to the RFQ, we're not obligated to participate any further, but we'll see what we get back in terms of the vendor and what they promise for rates for our residents. And it would be much like mass save that if we select somebody and they will manage it. We would lend our seal to say to Wayland residents, you know, we're co-sponsoring with these other communities. So I was just forwarded this by our sustainability manager late last week. Didn't have time to put it on the agenda. But at this point in time, I'm leaning to join with the other managers, administrators, and mayors to put our name on at least the RFQ to see what they get for responses and if it looks like a favorable program going forward. I would come back here to the Board and present whether or not we would want to sign a contract with any of these providers. But it would be an effort to get better bulk rates for the residents of all these communities should they want to install residential solar. And that's all I have to share. Thank you. Anybody have any questions for Mr. McCall? Appreciate it. Very, very informative. All right. Now, you're live. I move the consent calendar for October 19, 2016. Second. Thank you. There's further discussion. All those in favor say aye. Aye. Motion passes 4-0. There are no minutes. There's an agenda earlier, which brings us to correspondence. Does anybody have any questions, comments about correspondence? I have two comments I made. One is I wanted to recognize the letter sent by the Wayland 250 Committee. Thank you, Jailyn. for all the good work with that committee that I attended most of the meetings. It's actually very, very helpful. I was, as we know, a positive attitude and able to deal with issues quickly and we really appreciate our professionalism. The second item, I want to recognize the AAA rating, the notice that was in our packet. It never should be taken for granted. It reflects hard work on the staff's part. And I know residents like to see it because it means the town is in good hands. That's all I have for correspondence. It also ensures that we get cheaper rates. We're well aware of that. Anybody else have any comments on the correspondence? Whereas I'm going to move to Select Board members reports and concerns. Anybody have any? Mrs. Chris? I'm all set. Thank you. I have four items. Of course. I'm not sure this was mentioned before, but last year at the time meeting we had a warrant article relative to easements concerning the rail trail. So DCR has taken over that project from ASDOT and due to their lack of control over a portion of the rail trail between... The Wayland Depot, Russells, we need to have a kind of meeting vote granting state, VCR basically, portion of that land for permanent easement for pavement of the rail trail. Excuse me. On number 16. Great. Just want to make sure to mention. Number two, speaking of the rail trail, happy to report that the hard work of Barney Gossels and Rick Connard In the past two and a half years, at least, to put up historical signs of the middle trail. It's come to fruition, and the signs have started to go up, and I appreciate the good work. So if you're in the neighborhood, feel free to take a look. Mike Fay also was very helpful in getting the crossing the goal line. The third item, I wanted to thank our town engineer, Abigail, for her work in applying for the grant that was awarded to the town for close to $500,000 for wastewater issues. That'll help us quite a bit. And the fourth item is the issue of the trees that the town manager spoke about. I think people need to understand why. Conservation Commission feels so strongly about trees, and that is because, as I've seen firsthand, if developers take down a slew of trees on a property, it can really affect a waterfall and possibly flood a neighborhood. That happened back, I believe, in 2010. So that's one big reason why they are concerned about that. I don't know how bad the issue is as the town manager. I don't know how bad the issue is. That's where the people don't know of that rule. But to the extent the town or the Conservation Commission thinks that a lot of it should go out to each resident to remind them of this. Given people's attitudes now about global warming and protecting their homes, it might be needed. But I think we should leave it up to them. We may have some opportunities to provide notices on certain subjects during election season. That's all I have, thank you. Can you just tell me what you said? You said there may be opportunities during the town election season to send out a letter. Okay. Or when they come in. We can't be aware of what's concerns, so I don't want to call it. Go ahead. With the board's intelligence, I'm going to recognize Michael on this topic as well. Okay. I just wanted to go back when Select Board Member mentioned the rail trail, a couple things. I am still working with the historical parking, and I'm hoping to lead and lead that group based on some information that came in from our town surveyor, Mr. Lashman. But I also wanted to just make mention, we've had several inquiries for what's happened over at Collins Market, because there was construction, and it's in stock. And what I gleaned from our building department is they... We wound up changing contractors. So that's why you saw the work stop and the new contractor had to come in and reapply for some of the permits in their needs. So that's just, we've had a lot of questions about what's going on. That's all. Historic district parking I think we put on November 2nd. And if you're doing the minutes, you will say we had an additional town managers. Report Update. Now we'll go back to Select Board Reports and Concerns in that week. All right. So we had a poll about the December schedule. This is trying to fit a couple of things in, including the regular schedule. It's just the Monday that Monday is the 14th. Is that right? If I got that right. And if we have to have something else, we'll add in. It'll be a Thursday. Morning or something like that. So we'll just play it right here. Somehow I don't think we'll make it three weeks. I mean, not to focus on scheduling, but I don't have the full case of the meeting date, but I think we should. Well, we've been debating this. Go for it. Is it a done deal? Done. Okay. I just gave it to you right here on the tape. Thank you. And then the January 4th is the next official one after that. We should have it in there as well already. And then we may add this other one that you and I talked about. A couple of the topics may pop up. After we had, I think it was the last meeting or a couple meetings ago, we had a full location hearing, which was continued. I had Abby reach out and say two things. One, we would like to have an aerial view of the one. This is one thing we sometimes get some difference. I don't want the board members ask for that. And I also asked for a strategy on double polls. And to that, I got a response that they would like to meet with myself and Michael, which I think is on Wednesday. And I was going to ask if anyone knew of any particular double polls or unsaid polls that need to be addressed if you just let me know where they are, what have you. And Chris... I've read my mind and sent me pictures yesterday. So, I'll tell you, I've been close now with thinking life. So, I appreciate it. But if you have another one I would like to be able to address, you know, rather than perhaps a global issue, I'm going to say there's two or three specific ones we'd like to address if I get lucky. At that point, I will not respond because we're in the talk. That's fine. Right. Okay. I might call on that one in a minute. Now, on November. I think it's 22nd. There's going to be a dedication from the Mosaic to John Antis, you know, over at the COA, and I've been asked to speak on this. I did not know Ms. Antis personally, so I'm going to ask if there's any board member known personally. Thank you, John. Yeah. Would you like to be the speaker to the dedicated room? That's Sunday. I don't have to send it to. I think it's Tuesday. Yeah, that works. All right. So rather than that, I just think because it's a little volunteer. It just reminded me of something. Okay. I was just to ask, is that allowed? What's the... What's alone? During reports and concerns. No! I'm surprised he's not calling me out. I didn't ask my question. The answer is yes. You may have one now. Mr. Doug is asked to have one. I just wanted to underscore something, Mr. Fay said. My particular concern with the trees was not the trees. I love trees. I assume they're all doing. But I already made the estimation that our wonderful conservation commission was probably worried about the trees, too, and doing a great job. My concern was that I had multiple confirmed reports that the person involved, who I'm going to call a perpetrator now, explicitly said that the rule that we're talking about does not apply to him. That was what... And he specifically brought up the Dover Amendment. And I want my friends who are listening now, or who may listen to catch this later, to know that we specifically addressed that. That was, it's not the trees, it's the, well, it doesn't matter, we don't care, we're a superior business. And I think you are on that. Right, okay. Going to reopen reports that says right down the line. Start with Mr. Levine. On Sunday, I've been asked to speak. I don't believe that information has been circulated formally yet, but they're going to do the community pool mural, official unveiling. And so I've been asked to make a couple of remarks with your blessing. That's terrific, because I didn't invite him, and I thought, well, I hope Doug's doing this. Hey, would you like to read these? You know what? What's this? Going once? Going twice? Happy to move that this board adjourned. 907. 907. I already want to have your journal. Yeah, that's fair. Thank you. I will see you all. Thank you. All right. Thank you.