October 20, 2025 – Select Board – Video & Transcript
October 20, 2025 - Select Board
Good evening, Karen Martin, Chair of the Select Board, and I'm calling the meeting of the Select Board to order for Monday, October 20, 2025.
It is a hybrid meeting. We are meeting in the Town Building, the Select Board Meeting Room at 41 College Road in Wayland.
One may watch the meeting with a link that can be found on the agenda and in the Wayland Town Calendar.
Pursuant to Chapter 2 of the Acts of 2025, this meeting will be conducted in person and by a remote means in accordance with applicable law.
This meeting may be recorded, which will be made available to the public on WACAM as soon after the meeting as is practicable.
When required by law and allowed by the Chair, persons wishing to provide public comment or otherwise participate in the meeting may do so by in-person attendance
by accessing the meeting remotely as noted above.
We request public comment be limited to two minutes per person.
So in the room with me this evening, we have Mr. Fagg, Mr. Levine, and myself, and we have Ms. Brinsley who is participating remotely.
We're anticipating Mr. Whitney will join us soon, as will the Town Manager, Mr. McCall.
Because Ann is participating remotely, all votes tonight will be by roll call. So our agenda will be announcements of public comment, followed by appointments to committees. We have one candidate for the Economic Development Committee and one for the Energy and Climate Committee. On 620, we will discuss, review, and possibly vote to co-sponsor the Planning Board Accessory Dwelling Unit Farm, being sponsored by the Planning Board, followed by a discussion and review by the Finance Committee recommendation regarding the reclassification of the levy debt at the DPW building. We will have a discussion review of the debt exclusion, including but not limited to ballot preparation and residential communication, discussion and review and timing of the cost of issuing bond anticipation notes. At 8 o'clock, we will hold a liquor license hearing for BAPA Whalen Corporation, located on an application for a change of stock interest, change of offices, change of manager, and change of corporate name.
At 8.15, we will have a discussion review of the equity audit recommendations, followed by a review and the potential vote to approve our expanded charge for the report advisory committees. We have a revised agenda, so there's an item number 12 is now to designate the position of a part-time procurement specialist in the town manager's office, followed by the town manager's report with board follow-up questions and comments, consent calendar, minutes of September 29 and October 6th, review of correspondence, select board members' reports and concerns, topics not reasonably anticipated by the chair 48 hours in advance, and hopefully at 9.30, we will adjourn. So please note that Mr. McAuliffe has joined us.
And could somebody just do me a quick favor and text Bill to see if he's on his way? Maybe he didn't realize we're starting at 6. And so... You got it. Yep. Thank you. So for announcements, I have one interesting one. Town manager's office has bought us a gabby lap. The last week, when I kept trying to talk a lot, I couldn't get through, so I'm going to call the media officially to order.
It's a select board gabby. Is there anybody in the room who would like to offer public comment? Is there anybody online who wants to offer public comment, Robbie? Is there anybody in the room who wants to offer public comment? Anyone on the board or, Mr. McAuliffe, do you have any announcements?
No, Madam Chair. Are we all set? Yeah. Okay. Yep. No? Okay. All righty. Well, then, let's move on to appointments. I think you must be Ms. Mahan. Mahan, yeah. Would you like to join us, please? How are you? Thank you for coming. And I believe you're looking for a position to fill one of the empty seats on the Economic Development Committee. Yes, that's right. And this is a term ending June 30, 2020. So, it's very informal here. You take just a minute or two to talk to us about your interest in, you know, being a member of the committee. The board members will have questions, and then we'll go from there. That's nice. Thank you. The floor is yours. Yeah. So, hi, everyone. My name is Niti Mahajan. I actually grew up in Wayland, graduated from Wayland High School back in 2011, spent the rest kind of between 2011 and 2025 in lots of different places. I went to New York City for a while, went to grad school in Philly, went to Broad for a bit, went down to Buenos Aires for a while. And my husband and I just bought a house this summer. I moved back to Wayland. We decided we wanted to raise our family here. My professional background is in business. So, I studied economics and consumer psychology at Penn for undergrad. I then did my MBA at Wharton and did marketing and operations. Started my career in management consulting. So, supporting businesses and thinking about future growth. And then I spent sort of my last two stints in-house at various companies. So, I was at a startup called Daily Harvest and most recently in fact Vital Farms, which is a terribly traded egg and butter business, and I knew corporate strategy. And so, I'm very interested in bringing my, you know, business skills and business acumen back to my community. It's a town I love, obviously. That's why I moved back. And figured that this committee was a great way to make impact, leveraging the experience and the expertise that I have.
Thank you. So, questions from the board?
Sure. Having had a chance, good evening. Nice to meet you. Thanks for bringing your application. Have you met any of the members of the committee or attended any EDs or met the chair? Yeah. So, I chatted with Becky earlier. And then I also, you know, David Villar, actually went to high school together. Oh, great. So, I'm about to catching up with him just on sort of how it's going, what to expect. That's what the big priorities are. Right. Good. Well, thanks for your background. Excellent. You'd be a great, you'd be a great advocate for me. Thank you. When did you say you moved back into town meetings? It shuts down. Okay. In August. I think we bought our house in June. We closed in June. We moved physically in August. So, you haven't been into any recent town meetings that soon? No, I just read the meeting. Yes. So, then a question that I have is, do you bring to the committee a couple of ideas of what you're thinking for sparking some development? Because, as you may have heard, we're consistently up against potential override votes in the foreseeable future and some tight budgets and economic development is really a priority of this board, as well, obviously, as the driving force of the Economic Development Committee. But curious to hear what kind of ideas you're bringing in with you. Yeah. I mean, I think I probably share a vision that you all have for the town, which is like a vibrant community center with businesses that we all want to frequent regularly in order to drive kind of turns, traffic, but still maintaining kind of the character and uniqueness of Wayland. We're not a native, right? We're not a free man. And I don't think any of us want necessarily to move in that direction. So, a lot of what I want to do is actually understand and learn kind of where we've been, what we've tried, and what hasn't worked. I have some ideas of the types of businesses I'd want to see in the town center, things that, you know, you'd see in like a Concord town center, for example. But I also know that we face a little bit more, a few more structural challenges in those towns, just in terms of we don't have a great corridor for foot traffic today. So, I want to start there to kind of understand what we have done, what we've tried, and what has failed, and why, before I come in and suggest, you know, a bunch of new ideas. I know that the team is working on some business outreach for the corridor. I know that there's been some work done to think through small things like signage. But I have some ideas around pop-ups or, you know, supporting local and some campaigns and things that we can run, leveraging more of my marketing experience, but would never want to come in and suggest anything without understanding kind of what's worked and what hasn't. Great. Thank you. Yeah, of course. Anne? Do you have any questions? I'm super impressed. Thank you. Thank you so much for helping and joining. Thank you for having me. So, I was very intrigued and pleased to see you have data analysis as one of your skill sets, because recently we've asked the EGC, when they come forward with proposals to also provide us, you know, what's the economic benefit to the town? Dollars benefit to the town primarily is what we're looking for. So, I think this is a terrific skill set addition, you know, to the board. The last proposal, they were in here last week with a proposal for some amenities at the town center that town manager is going to be looking into. And they did come in with, you know, a little bit of financial analysis. So, this is a directional hope and that continues. So, yeah, data is my love language. So, I'm really, really excited to tie it into data. That's a little bit like me. Well, we're discussing some important finance issues later. So, you can stick around if you want to. So, I'm happy to move that this board vote to appoint Nidhi Singhai Mahajan, I apologize if I did not get your name properly, to the Economic Development Committee for term ending June 30th, 2028. Second. Okay. Any further discussion? Otherwise, we'll have a roll call vote, Tom? Yes. Doug? Yes. Anne? Yes. Carol, yes. So, you will hear from the town clerk's office, which in the town manager's office, you will receive a letter of appointment. And when you get that into the town clerk's office and you swear in officially, you'll be given some materials, including conflict of interest training. And then once that process is complete, you'll earn official voting number of the board. Awesome. Thank you. I appreciate it. Thank you. Welcome aboard. Thank you so much. And you must be close. Thank you. Join us. Who are you? Welcome. And office has applied for a position on the economic, the energy, climate, energy, climate and committee. And we're also with the term ending June 30th. So, I think you've heard me, but if you could just give a short explanation, we have your information, obviously, on the pathway, which I now managed to get to come up so I can read it. And then the board will ask questions and off we go. Thank you for applying, by the way. Well, my pleasure. So, I wasn't born or raised in Welland. I was born in France. I was raised there as well. I started as a software engineer. After I graduated, I did a stint for one year in the U.S. before I moved back to France with my wife. So, I spent a couple of years in the French VDR. Always wanted to move back to the U.S. with my wife. So, we moved with one small-aged kid. We had the second one here. Originally, it was only two, three years. But, yeah, we stayed there for the quality of life. We settled in Welland in 2013. And so, it has a professional background in software engineering, moving up kind of as a developer, then team lead manager, and values level management in values tech companies. Currently, I'm on a job break. So, I'm bringing that up because that's since last year, basically, I grew passionate about not only climate science, but really climate solutions and climate action. So, I joined the Energize Welland Association. So, it's meant to foster, to help, basically, with free services, coaching with volunteers. So, I started doing myself installation of rooftop solar. Then, I installed HeatBump this year. I know the process is very complicated and involved. So, you need help. But, you'd rather have unbiased with neighbors to have trust to begin with. So, I started coaching very eagerly. The HeatBump is more involved. And, I'm also involved with the HeatSmart Alliance. So, it's a state-based, mostly in Massachusetts. And, then, a couple of other coaches in New England, where I'm also volunteering with my data. I'm a data nerd, as well. So, lots of data analysis that I've done for myself, but I'm pushing into a template for other coaches to help homeowners decide between quotes. And, yeah, very excited to have the opportunity to potentially join as a member of the Energy and Climate Committee. What I'd like to focus on is really help with the Climate Action Plan that was signed a couple of years back. Essentially, on the outreach and education of residents, because that's where the majority of emissions are coming from. I know that it's kind of very much in control, I think, with government buildings at the time. I've attended the committee last month, and I could see, at a different level, how to deploy heat pumps or solar, or battery backup. A lot more costly, as well. But, yeah, resident outreach is where I really want to help and push for. And it's really also climate education and advocacy slash agency with the high schoolers, or middle schoolers. I've got two high schoolers now, ninth and tenth grade. I really love them, not only to get education in climate science, but how will they help with their parents and helping, you know, maybe their parents, coaching them for heat pumps, how that's involved, what's the economical benefit, because there is some, and financial incentives as well. And the last thing I wanted to comment is climate action tracking. So we've got figures on a yearly basis from MassSafe, but we've got an online database, property database, we've got the permitting database. Lots of noise in there, but there is lots of, the data is in there for who's got heat pumps, who's got solar, who doesn't have gas, has an oil furnace, maybe what age, to maybe prioritize the outreach with residents, who could benefit the most from upgrading their headlock systems, or install air conditioning if they don't have any. So yeah, that's what I wanted to tell you about myself. Thank you. Welcome back. What are you doing, Mr. Whitton? Sir? I could let the record show have joined at 6.50. Thank you. Right on time.
Yes, go ahead. Thank you. Excuse me, Bill Whitney, you've already appointed Ms. Mahalong to the EDC, and now we're interviewing Clovis Shaw for a position on the ECC, which is, he's the liaison for that. But Doug would like to start the questioning, so go ahead. Clovis, thank you for submitting your application and your interest. You clearly have a lot of relevant background experience. A question that my colleague, Mr. Faye, tends to ask, and I'm curious about, is have you connected with any members from, I know you're on Energized Whitton, and there's some overlap members on the Energy and Climate Committee, and or have you watched any of the meetings so far? See how you could be useful there. I attended the one last couple of weeks back, three weeks back, maybe. So I know very well Ed Antone, because she's chairing the Energized Whitton Association as well. I know Anne Harris, she's coaching Heat Pumps, and she recently moved out of the ECC. I guess that's one of the openings. One of the openings, yeah, that she opened up. Anne told me about the dynamics of the committee, which sound very kind of collegiate, whether you're a voting member or not. And I, yeah, she was very reassuring as well in terms of the time investments, which is good. It's however, I feel like investing. And with areas that, yeah, it's mostly open to individuals' interests. Yeah, the meeting that I attended was very interesting with lots of different people coming from state associations, so there is an ongoing discussion about being a climate leader with Whelan, as an example, with the EV-first vehicle policy still to be amended, as I understand from your feedback, but from the board. So that's such initiatives on the policy scale, but I was not kind of attuned to, which are also of interest to me, how to tweak and push the policy towards more energy efficiency and carbonization. Thank you for submitting your application. With the federal government's viewpoint of global warming, it seems to me that local initiatives are important.
Are there any initiatives that stand out for you, based on what you've seen in Whelan, that seem particularly unique? And have you learned anything from studying other communities that suggest you might want to pursue, that we haven't pursued these projects? Are you progress?
So yeah, it's too bad for the energy transition at the federal level, but there is lots of advocacy at the state level in the U.S., and Massachusetts is one of the leading states with California and New York policies. And then also in terms of funding. So Massave has a program over a couple of years, World Billions, which needs to be tapped into more. So for me, it's about pushing more awareness of available incentives, 0% interest loans with homeowners. I will say Whelan definitely was ahead in terms of pushing for coaching with heat pumps, as an example, years back. It was already called HeatSmart programs, as I understand. And it's also lots of focus on the webinars and also outreach on social medias like Facebook. Also the Whelan post, which is pretty impressive, pushing on the newspaper as well. What I like to push is more of the old schools' newsletters, as an example, and really the green team there. And another thing I'm thinking about, maybe you've got over towns which are providing town-specific incentives and in the comfort. I don't know how financials could work, honestly, but that's something I wish Whelan could offer to their residents as well. Thank you very much. Will or Anne? I would just ask, as you're hopefully in the position, I started to read some audits on some of the energy policies that have been coming out, like MassSave and some of these environmentally conscious types of programs. And some of the costs, I don't think people are quite aware of. And so I would just ask that you kind of balance. We're about to look at an override that we're trying to avoid at all costs. So just looking at the financial consequences of some of it, it would be great to have somebody kind of approach the position with that in mind. It makes me think of the battery for the shelter at the middle school. So that one was a cost which was very prohibitive to me. I'm not attuned, you know, to that level of expense compared to residential. In terms of costs at the residential level, I know that it makes sense, at least that I would want to push with homeowners. And in terms of upgrades for buildings, I'm just learning now, having attended my first committee last month. Awesome. Thanks, Dan. Bill? Well, I'd just like to add my thanks to those of my colleagues for your willingness to step forward. And I must say I was particularly impressed by your letter of interest where you anticipated questions that the board often asks, which is, are there particular areas in which you'd like to work? And so you're having done so. I congratulate you. Thank you. And I'm going to say the same. It's a beauty of going last. All the good questions are gone. So all I have to say is thank you so much. I appreciate it. I think your background is a fabulous fit. You've got a lot of experience in this area. And I know the committee will really benefit from your help. It is an associate position. It's a non-voting position is when we make the motion. So I'll move on this board point, Clovis Schaaf, to the Energy and Climate Committee, a non-voting position for term ending June 30th of 2028. Second. If there's no further discussion, we'll have a vote. So Doug? Yes. Bill? Yes. Yes. Yeah. And Carol, yes. So that's 5-0. Congratulations. And? Clovis, you might have heard this spiel that I gave earlier. Earlier, you'll receive a letter from the Town Manage Apps, which is your official appointment letter. Take that and bring it back here to Town Building, to the Town Clerk's Office. We'll officially swear you in, give you some materials, including conflict of interest training, and then you'll be an official voting member of the committee. Non-voting. Non-voting. You'll still be official. He'll be here. Yes. It's a real deal. Thank you. Thank you so much. I'll stand back. Okay. Robbie, do you see Rachel Bratt on the... Peter? Yes, she's done. Yes, she is. Hi, Rachel. Hang on just one second. Sure. The next agenda item is going to be discussed with you and possibly vote to co-sponsor the Planning Board's Access Redwelling ADU Forum. So we've invited Rachel Bratt as member of the Whalen Housing Partnership to speak to us so briefly and we are going to co-sponsor. Thank you. How are you? Thank you so much, Select Board, for having me this evening. As you probably know, in 2024, Massachusetts enacted a new law, the Massachusetts Affordable Homes Act, and a part of that included the ability for homeowners to create accessory dwelling units by right in a much simpler process than we had had because we've had a bylaw for ADUs since, I think, 1986, but it was probably never used, according to Sarki, our prior town planner. This is an opportunity for the Housing Partnership and the Planning Board to really communicate with residents about what this new law, to provide them with information, and to allow them to assess whether or not this is a strategy that makes sense for them. One can envision a number of scenarios that would be highly beneficial and of interest to homeowners if they're able to create an accessory dwelling unit, either by reconfiguring their internal dwelling space or creating an apartment over a garage, perhaps, or even a freestanding unit if they have a large enough backyard. The point of the meeting is to provide information from the town planner, from the building department, from, hopefully, Board of Health, and talking about septic regulations. The point is they need to understand the steps they can go through, what they're allowed to do, but whatever they propose has to comply with zoning, public health, safety, and septic rules and regulations. So, what it allows, and it has to be no more than 900 square feet. So, the purpose of the meeting is strictly informational, trying to provide a vehicle for people to better understand what their rights are under this new law and see whether they are interested in pursuing it. Thank you. So, the board is being asked, and since I think I received this email, it says, from Mary Anderson, it said, we're asking various boards, like the select board, to co-sponsor the event. No effort is required on the board's part, but it would demonstrate that important boards support the concepts of the ADUs. So, if anyone has any questions, Rachel's here to answer them. Otherwise, I guess we're taking a motion, right?
I would move that the select board agree to co-sponsor an accessory dwelling unit forum with the planning board. And this, I want to also, thank you, Bill. And this also, of course, is with the Weyland Housing Partnership. The Housing Partnership and the planning board are essentially the first co-sponsors. I will accept that amendment. Thank you very much. Second. Second. Is there any further discussion? Otherwise, we'll have a vote for a vote. So, Bill. Yes. Yes. There you are. The motion, Carol, 5-0. Thank you, Rachel. Thank you very much, select board. I appreciate all the work you guys do, really. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you, as well. Yep. All right. So, I think the next item is going to be discuss and review the Finance Committee recommendation regarding the reclassification of the public works building at 66 River Road, and we are inviting Phil G.G.C. Chair of the Finance Committee to join us. There are some informational slides in the packet, starting on page 11, for those who are following along. Did you need them put up? No. You're all set. Are there any members of the committee here? I don't see them. Something's wrong with my thing today. It's just good. I think it will just be me, but... Okay. Just want to make sure I don't missing anybody. So, the floor is all set. Great. Thank you, Board Chair. I appreciate being here tonight. The Finance Committee has deliberated on this question of reclassifying the remaining debt for the DPW facility and voted in favor of doing that unanimously. I think it was 5-0, as far as the folks that were there. Brian Keveney, Finance Director, put together a two-page memo that kind of laid out the pros and cons of this, that we have circulated in the select work package. The debt was issued initially and was voted by the Finance Committee to be issued as excluded debt when it was first put in place back in 2013, but for various reasons, it was decided to put it into the general obligation fund. Moving it now back to excluded debt will actually help our fiscal year 27 financial circumstance by freeing up some levy so that we won't be as close to the top as we otherwise would be. It still is an open question as to what we are going to want to fund for our budget in fiscal year 27, and that will be a process that we're going through. But to the degree that we don't have to go to an override for fiscal year 27, that would be a good thing from our standpoint, and particularly dealing with all of the open labor agreements in parallel with that, and giving us time to really start looking at the longer-term levy question and override questions, which is in front of us, but it's just a question of maybe being able to not have to do it in 27, or for fiscal year 27. This, as you know, will go to a town ballot to get the views of the town on this, and we'll see how that results. I know. Town manager Michael McCall has been considering how best to help educate the town, not take a position on the ballot issue, but to help lay out the topic. And so that will be getting underway shortly. So that's the substance of where we're at. There's going to be a lot of conversations between the select board and FinCom and the whole town on our financial outlook and how best to pay for the services that we want to pay for. And that doesn't change that nature of that, but it just sort of addresses the immediate need. So there are some slides. Let's talk about the slides first, as we don't have any questions on any of the slides for Phil, obviously here. Some of them will probably look familiar because I think we've saw them when Brian and Kevin presented them, but just in case anyone has any questions on any of the slides. So I did pull six slides from Brian's presentation. They aren't edited. They're the same exact slides, just to lay context. In case somebody doesn't remember them or has questions on them, open them up to the board to have any comments. I don't see any, which is great. Okay. Then there is a two-page memo from Brian and me that I thought was a nice addition. Thank you for having me together, everyone. And basically it talks about, it gives very succinct, very clear background of the project and the pros and the cons of every classification. Does anyone have any comments or questions on any of that?
I just had one. I'll go ahead, Tom. I just wanted to comment. I may have made this comment before, but I really appreciate you coming tonight and I appreciate the Finance Committee's attention to these issues, as well as the Town Manager, as well as the Chair of the Select Board, because Wayland, like so many communities, are in different phase in municipal financing. We've had a good run with the lack of a need for overrides, but I think we're into a new chapter, so we have to be creative, which the Town Manager and the Finance Director is here. And we have hard decisions in the years to come, but I really appreciate your attention today. Thank you. You have a question? My question was generally, would it be a good practice to convert this debt anyway, even if we didn't really need this full amount to avoid an override? Is this a smart move to make regardless of the need? So Moody's actually weighs in on the large capital projects are best to put into excluded debt. The operating budget is really all about the year-to-year cost running the town, and that's the best place to put debt that might have to go to buying the next truck or other sorts of things. So, yes, in general, keeping large capital projects that have 10-plus-year lives out of the general fund is an appropriate, prudent financial practice. Thank you.
Anybody else have a question on the memo? Well, Chris, I have one on pro arguments, and it says, number five, says reclassification has no effect on the annual debt service, which is correct, and no direct effect on the amount of taxation to be raised. However, again, and this has been my problem with this all along, we are doing this so that we are freeing up an additional $700,000 of levy capacity, which will be added to the tax bill, depending if we use all of it or a portion of it. So, up to, I like that up to line, which I said at the task force meeting, although I was corrected that it was going to be up, but up to, and I think that needs to be added to this particular list that will be published because... That is the probe number six there, provides additional levy capacity. It doesn't say. It provides additional $700,000 of levy capacity. Well, during the Marina Loan, but in FY27... Right, it is a declining number from there for the final time. If I was reading this and I hadn't served a few years on the finance committee, I would not be able to pick those semantics out. And I'm a little bit concerned that we need to be clear on that when we talk... No intention to hide anything. No, you don't. I'm just saying. I just feel we need to be clear on this. Michael, can you say back to Brian the comment of Carol's to potentially edit this a little? I'm sure we can look at it. I mean, the other thing is, it's not permanent, where a debt exclusion comes off the tax rolls, where if you leave it in there, levy debt and an override are permanent increases to your tax levy. So, I mean, if you start putting in one thing, you have to put in another to explain. Yeah. However, yes, but I do think we need to explain. We're not just correcting an accounting area issue or resolving something we feel should have been taped on, resolved prior to this year. We're doing this so that we will be able to have another $700,000 of taxation. Levy capacity. Yes. Yeah. So, you're saying that could be a pro or a con, depending on how you interpret it, right? That's why I'm getting that sense. Well, it could be in the middle, couldn't it? It could be either. We'll put it on both sides of it. Except if you're dying to add another $700,000 to your tax bill, yes, it's a pro.
Okay. Anybody? I mean, we have seen this material, and appreciate your comment, Phil. And Phil has come as representing the Finance Committee because under the proposition two and a half policy, a select board, before they place a debt exclusion on a ballot, gets and asks for a formal recommendation from the Finance Committee. And then the policy says we wait. It says one week, but I think they mean one meeting. And so, we will be meeting on Friday to move forward. We did take the vote already. We do need the recommendation in order to put it on the ballot. So, that's also... And I think Mr. Whitney had a question, so... It's probably just an academic question. But if $700,000 were to come off the general fund, does that affect the two and a half cap? Is the cap reduced slightly because there's less of a levy for the prior years? Our levy limit would not change. What has happened is what we are spending has reached that levy limit. We've reached capacity. So, by converting this from something we're spending in the levy to something that's excluded, you've now made available room in there if you need to raise your... Spend more on your budget, raise the taxes to do that. But if the next year's levy is a factor of about 102 and a half percent of the prior year's levy, if the levy is reduced by $700,000, is... Next year... If the limit reduced slightly because of that. Next year, it would be as well because we won't be including... We're paying off that debt, and this year it's $750,000. I'm spitballing, but it would be like next year it would be $700,000. The year after that, $600,000. I understand. So, you would have the increase of two and a half plus any new growth, and we would have that additional declining amount in there as well.
Isn't it also the fact that... No, I think I get a question. Isn't it also... I'm not sure if I understand your question, but I don't think you understand my answer, so I'm just... I think I understand my answer, and I don't have the answer for that. But I do understand... I don't think it's a material amount of money either way. Right. No, I think Bill has a good point. I think, however, in this case, the intent is to refill that gap with the FY27 budget. So, we're not having a... This doesn't mean we move it over here, and we only have one $700,000 that we account for. We're going to have that one over there, which we already have on our budget, and then we're going to have room for another $700,000, which, therefore, there shouldn't be any very small dip in that $700,000, because it goes to $650,000, right?
So, we recharacterize the dip, but there's no savings. There's no increase. There's no savings unless or until town meeting approves a budget that uses that additional $750,000. Right. Which the budget task force has said most likely will be using... At least a chunk of it. We'll see. Say a significant... But this, obviously, the room votes on whether to reclassify this dip, and it may determine that it doesn't want to reclassify it. So, then we'll be back to looking at what other options do we have. So, Bill's point is, if you take $700,000 out and you don't replace it, that would infect the $2.5 formula, I think, for the following year. If we took $700,000, we moved it over to debt exclusion, comes out of the operating, the debt service drops, then for the operating budget drops. So, his point is, it would be impacted. However, most likely filling that gap with some portion of the $700,000. Does that make sense? I don't... Maybe we can discuss this all. Yes, because I think it's your levy limit that increases 2.5% in your fee. You mentioned debt service. Well, we're removing... We'll have an offline. All right. He had a good question, though. All right. Let's get... Watch this. You ready? We have. We have. This is for a while. I'm having fun playing with it. Okay. For sure. Let's racially calm. Mr. McCall, did you want to add anything to this discussion? I know you're the one that engineered the budget work task force, so... Well, all of this was done, as you know, since I've been here, we've utilized this budget task force in order to get a broader perspective for greater input from members of the FinCom, school department, as we're planning, and to get a jump on the budgeting process by starting shortly after the beginning of the new fiscal year. I think it's helped us, not only this year, but in prior years, to come in under the levy, and that's the goal this year, to try and avoid, for the reasons stated by Mr. Judy's, an operational override in this particular year. To Mr. Fay's point, the MMA released an article, which I shared with the board and others have seen. I don't know if the Finance Committee has seen, called a perfect storm, how numerous communities across the Commonwealth are facing a similar problem with increasing non-discretionary costs, such as pension, healthcare, OPEB, and inflation, and declining state aid and federal aid in light of what's been happening in recent months. So, a lot of communities are up against their levy limit, and so we're not unique in that, and so we're all, all of us town managers and select board members, city councillors, are all looking at ways how to address this. And, unfortunately, it's not something that I foresee getting easier in the coming years. There was a legislative breakfast last week. I attended with some of my peers, and we talked to some members of the legislature, and we offered up some other suggestions, including treating some of these things as excluded debt, because one of the biggest problems with our levy is we have to pay for pension out of that and other costs. And as you've seen on some of the slides prepared by Mr. Keveney, our obligation for the pension is going to go out for 10 years. It's going to increase slightly year over year until it falls off around 2037. So, if we could get some relief from the state in how they characterize that, or something along those lines. Would they take legislative change of what you characterize within the levy? I believe so, and that's why we brought it up for discussion. And the MMA, who is an advocacy group for municipalities, they were there, and they were taking note of it. They sponsored the forum the other day. And as Michael indicates, it's not unique to Wayland. The entire Commonwealth is, and Wayland has done a better-than-average job of funding its unfunded liability, pension liability. But that one change would actually make a significant difference. But we'll see. So, what Michael, I think, is saying here is that up until now, our pension expenses are treated as an operating expense because they're an ongoing expense. And therefore, they're in our operating budget, part of our levy. And if we were able to treat it as excluded debt, we still have to pay it. But then it doesn't impact our levy as much. It's a very significant amount we're paying. And you've given me a segue of something I wanted to point out here is that when you look at the Delta, the forecast deficit is $1.8, $1.9 million, somewhere around there. If you look at the increase that we, Wayland, have to pay for our pension obligations this year, it's $900. So, $900,000, thank you. His eyes clicked. I said, okay, I have a mistake here. I think it's $9 million, actually. And to be clear, it's current pension that we have to be putting away, plus the unfunded liability that prior that we haven't caught up to. If you look right here, our increase, though, in our pension was $900,000, FY27. And so, if you subtract that from the 1A, technically, Michael and his team have done a terrific job just on a forecast. And usually, the forecast is a little higher than the actual budget. And so, we probably would have had a nice ending if it wasn't for that. But we're not going to have that at the moment. So, anyway. All right. Did you want to have the last word here? Are you all set? No, I'm all set. We thank you very much for coming. We thank the finance committee for their help. We will continue to work together. We will continue to work together on all these matters. Thank you. We'll be looking forward to see you again in a couple of weeks just to talk about MWRA financing. It's not something we're, like, cold required to do, but we would like your input. So, I'll brief to go to you on that. Yeah. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.
Thank you. That's what we can do.
So, thank you, Madam Chair. As I indicated in my email to the board a little over a week ago, we have not adopted Massachusetts General Law Chapter 53, Section 18B. That is one that will allow us to send informational packets out as a community. There are only a handful, about a dozen or so, cities and towns that have adopted this. So, town council knew right away, so we were not one of them. And there tend to be some of the larger municipalities. They further informed me that we can't place any objective information on the ballot. I know that was a question, I think, maybe from a select board member. So, what we are left with doing is creating some informational pages on our website. We can actually push out information through the website and our social media about the upcoming election. And we can put hyperlinks, say, if you want more information, have people on their own come back to the town to pages that have more detailed information. We can't push out a lot of information because it would look like we're campaigning. So, if we let people know and send reminders about the election, if you want more information on what the town is doing, here's the link you can click back. And so, that gives them the option to either read our information or not. We can hold public information sessions. And members of staff and elected officials, if invited to a forum, say, hosted by the League of Women Voters or another organization in town, are allowed to speak in their capacity if they are asked in such a forum. So, I can give a few more details. There are a couple of bulletins from the Office of Campaign and Political Finance that I believe I attached to that email that outlined some of the do's and don'ts. And I'm happy to answer any questions. But Ms. Powers-Furlett, who's currently out of the office today, she and I have been working on putting together the language for an FAQ, Frequently Asked Questions page, and also explaining how Proposition 2 1⁄2 works, so that people understand. That's what we have. I'm just going to hop in for one second here. Actually, two quick points. Mr. Kemeny had recommended when I was at the Budget Task Force that perhaps we might want to consider joining a public forum, you know, about this. And so, I was going to ask the board while we're having this discussion to kind of apply and if we want to hold the forum as one part of our meetings to talk about this, is whatever we can say. My question is, because I've noticed a public forum only reaches so many people, can we take, Michael, whatever information is gleaned from the public forums and reduce that into some type of written document? Because now that's out in the public. And then maybe people who weren't able to attend or who won't watch a recording of the forum, they can digest all of that in the document.
Maybe a question for town council. I can look into that. I would imagine we could have WCAM record it. I'm just thinking, you know, if it's 30 minutes or 45 minutes and the vast majority of voters aren't going to watch that, but they would read something that distills it down into some takeaways from the forum, then the forum is, to me, is very worthwhile. So my next question, what goes with this is, would we be able to print like the FAQs in the paper, the newspaper, for example, because that goes to all the homes? Because we do press releases. I'm just trying to throw out some ideas of how... I think the newspaper could do a story. They could do a story. I don't think we can put an ad in. Oh, no, we're going to put an ad in, but they could put things in, right? We can write in that. We can do whatever they want. So let me open it to the board. So that was one thing I wanted to just throw out was a thought as we discussed. So Paul, would you like to start?
Sure. I just wonder, in the course of a presentation at such a forum, how does one avoid taking a position to advocate for or against the matter?
I think it's quite possible. You basically review process that would have followed. The efforts have been taken to discuss the budget committee that the time manager put together, discuss the proposals put together by the finance director, review our discussions, review the input of the finance committee, recommendations that were adopted, and in other words, you're basically stating facts without argument and without advocacy, just stating facts. So just... I mean, I understand. So it wouldn't be like our traditional format that we use for a forum, and it would just be an agenda item, and then this is the information process. We wouldn't be able to field questions, would we? We couldn't. Okay. Yeah. I don't think so. You know, you're not... Again, it's just... You're just stating facts. Stating facts, okay.
Anyone else have anything they want to have here? So how do I answer the question, if it's posed? Why is this so like what the posings?
Persons... I'll take a stab at it. I... It's per policy. Under the... This essentially, the conversion of levy to excluded debt is... We, the budget working group, and me, the town manager, and now the Fint and Tom, are invoking a question under Proposition 2 1⁄2 per statute and policy, someone has to ask the select board, and only the select board can vote to put something of this nature on the ballot, and the select board is the only one who can call for a special election, so... Why is the select board doing this? Well, I really can't answer it, but I've sat in that seat in the past, and I can't recall if we had this exact... I know we had a couple of school questions for overrides, and my recollection is when I was posed with it, I put it on the ballot so that the public could weigh in on it. I think it's a personal choice at the end of the day, but it is me. I'm asking the board to entertain this.
So, and you're thinking maybe a better format would be, it's part of a select board meeting, but then we let some, like Michael, speak to the agenda item versus the... No, I mean, I think a form is a... I'm going to get the hang of this here. ...is a good idea. I just am concerned about this prohibition against any kind of advocacy. Mm-hmm. And sort of implicit in the action is advocating for this, or you could say this is one way to address the identified problem. This is a way that arguably could contribute to avoiding an override, but it's the voters' choice. I think you just have to be very disciplined and have kind of an electric shock. It's like a dog approaching, you know, one of those invisible fences. So I just, that's my only hesitation. Maybe, yeah, maybe if I could hop in here, maybe we should consider asking town council to join this agenda item to make sure we don't stray, or what do you think of that idea? Or do you have to get a forum, or I think you could. I think invariably someone is going to ask individual members in some public forum, be it a slight for me, you know, how do you stand on this? And, you know, I think that's your point. How do you avoid... I think you can answer without saying, by the way, come on down and vote on the 11th for this. I mean, that's the campaigning, but I think if you want to state your position, you know, double-check, but I believe that is in one of those campaign bulletins that, you know, if asked, you can give your position, but that doesn't mean your campaign. We're just prohibited from campaigning. I mean, by the way of background, I mean, our board sponsors articles every year in a town meeting, and we're bound by the same rule, I believe. In other words, am I missing something, Michael, or is it this? You mean we do the warrant hearing, I mean? Our position is already in the warrant. Yeah, we take a position. We've already taken a position, so.
All right, let me throw this out then. We have... When do we think we should do this, time-wise? Because on Friday, we're probably going to vote... What did we say it was? December 11th? 15th? 11th? 11th. When is the election date we're proposing? 11th? 15th. It's a first date. Okay, it is. So we're meeting on the 3rd, the 17th, and then we're all... I mean, how close to the election should we do it? Like, December 1st meeting? Should we do a separate meeting for this? We need to do a separate meeting for you. December 1st? We count for the 15th because we'll have already had the election. I think closer to the election would be most beneficial to people because they'll be paying more attention to it. Well, that would be December 1st, if everybody thinks that's... Michael, do you think that's a good day to do it? Which day? That's all. Maybe December 1st? What am I saying?
And then the next question I'm going to ask is, when will the FAQs be ready and online? Because I think the board was initially really concerned about taking full advantage of the 45 days in order to communicate with residents. So do you have a sense of when the FAQs will be ready?
We are working on that. I'd like to get them out as soon as possible. Just pending the return of Ms. Parrish-Pollett, we were going to work on it together. Okay. Maybe you can give me a date and then we can... Okay. Does anybody else have any... Michael, do you have anything you want to add to this topic? Does anyone else have anything they want to add to this topic? I'm going to move on to the next one.
Let's go to the next item. Now, this one is the... It says discussion and review of the timing, the cost of the issuance of the vans. This actually, to put in a colloquial phrase, bill is your money in, money out spreadsheet. So it shows where the $140,000 is. If you look at fairly large, I asked them to shrink it. It's probably pretty tight. Did you want to speak to it? Do you want me to just run them through it? Okay. So actually what Brian has done here is included everything here. At the top half of the spreadsheet, items one through about 13, appeared to be the water and the wastewater items, capital projects that were under bans and those are going to be bonded. So that's the top half. The bottom half down here, oh, that was one through 17, starting at number 18, where it says general fund. These are the projects that if we were having a normal year, we would be purchasing bonds for what we have elected to forego that and do the bans. So you can see where he shows the different items, the general fund advancing, and there's no interest that, and the five-month ban, and the da-da-da-da. But if you get over here in this column, S&T, I think it is over here, in a small little amount here. Do you see where I am on this? What does it say at the top of the column? It says, how about, good answer, good question, short-term interest pay in FY27 for bans. Do you see that? It's only two columns. Oh, out of the way. Yeah. It's the, it's the, not the last two columns, the second to last two columns. Everybody see where we're at? Right. So if you add those two numbers at the bottom, 54,000 and the 91, I get 145. So this is what 145 is. But if you notice, this is at 4% bond rate. Our bond rate comes in at less. And do we know the bond rate yet? No? That hasn't been related to me. Okay. Could it come in higher? Probably not. But Brian's really good and conservative on these estimates. I'm sorry? Well, sure. I mean, the rate's going to be small at 4%, I think. Because the timeline is so short in these notes. Sorry, Tom, I didn't get that. I said, I just think the rate's going to be lower because the time period of these notes is going to be shorter. There was another spreadsheet that Brian had several tabs on that showed it at 4%, 3.5%, 3%, just to give us a sense. But historically, obviously, he needs to be conservative because tell us it's 4%, what if it's 3.5%, we're happy. It's the other way alone. Yeah. So this is where the 145 comes that was projected. So does that blear to anybody? Anybody? Everybody? So, Carol, the short-term interest paid, which is shown in blue, is the interest only, I take it, for the 12-month period. And the principal, the associated principal is in the five-month bans column, general fund bans issued June 26. So we have two sets of bans being issued. And hopefully I have this right. Two sets of bans being issued. We're issuing them through the general fund where there's no interest, you know, from November to June. Then we have to reissue so that we can refund payback the general fund, or else we won't be able to get that money certified and be able to have it used for the next year's budget, which is 28. I think that's why he has two sets, because we're issuing, we're paying back, and we're issuing, reissuing. Have I got that right, Michael?
I'm making notes about the town of Townsville. Okay. Okay. So this is what I think is the answer. If you have any more technical thing, we'll have to ask Brian. But I think this is, like we're buying one CD, and then we're, that's not what we're doing. And then we're passing that in. And we're buying something with that, or we're doing something with that, and then we're getting another CD. This is not the correct explanation, but it's the gist of it. So we're expiring, and we're reissuing them. Right. Well, at the end of the, at the end of the, you can see which ones are expiring, and he's got this really nicely written out, and he took snakebook damn out, which was originally him, because you've got the grant.
Is this clear? What does DW stand for? District Y. District Y.
And they just use that nomenclature because every year we find something in there, so it doesn't necessarily say, excuse me, doesn't necessarily say specifically, although the CIP will tell you specifically what it is, or depending on 1.3, it would be some work done in each one of the five buildings.
Is there any questions on this, or is this clearer? Are you good with this?
Yeah. Yep.
Keep moving here, then. Oh, 7 o'clock? I propose, Madam Chair, we move on item 10.
Item 10? We're not going to go to 9? I thought that's a hearing at 8 p.m. with. I don't see them. Okay. Let's go to 10. Go to 10.
So item 10. Somebody want to tell us where we are.
Do we know what page we are on the packet? The paragraph.
Let me read it out for those who are listening. Item 10 is in the review and the potential vote to approve the expanded charge for the advisory committee, select board advisory committee. It's 46 of 51. Thank you. So, Bill, what happened last week is we looked at this, and I did get it in one paragraph, but one member who might be sitting next to you thought it could be shorter, so they've revised it, and this is what we said. We will have a look-see this week. So, go ahead, Tom. Well, I have proposed this language. However, I have, upon further thought, a couple of other suggestions. That is, after the third line will be authorized by the board, I recommend we insert the word by the town manager or board, as appropriate. So, the original thought was that so many of these advisory committees constantly, including Michael and I, we've seen it again, so I specifically, purposely left him off. Okay. Because, guess what? If we decide to do something, like give someone access to town council, we will say, Michael, could you make those arrangements? Right. That's fine. I think, Michael, that's kind of the flow you were looking for, right, to come from us, from us to him versus everybody, so. The other proposed change is on the fourth line, which says prospective town meeting. We want that to be annual town meeting or not necessarily. And the reason is because annual town meeting would be October 31st. What this doesn't provide for is a town meeting that is not annual. Can we just do a certain number of days in advance? Yeah. That's one thing. That's a good point. Is it like a special town meeting can be called in a short period of time, right? So, if we did 160 days prior to the town meeting. How many days? A special town meeting can be called in a short period of time. Correct. Correct. And that's, and that. 160 days. 160 days would be approximately. Five months. Five months and 10 days. Which is approximately what October 31st is, right? Right. Right, because it's November, December, January, February, March. Five months. Should we just call it five months, 150 days? 60 days. And then you can. That doesn't. Let him have it. Whatever. Did you help him? No. Because in years, there's leap year. Thank you for doing this. Does anybody else have any comments on this? Question. What? To all proposed projects. Yes. What is a project? No, no, that was my last point. And I thank you, Ms. Whitney. The last point is expenditures. The word projects is arguably too vague. Where are you with the word? A line ship. Oh, it's all about endeavors. It's a good each cake.
What do you think? Because I think you gave me that language. Is a project something that will require an expenditure of more than $50,000? Is it a capital project? Is it action by the board? What does a proposed project have?
Because it should be something that's substantive, you know, on every small idea to come before the board. Well, I can give you examples without identifying who has come before me and my staff. But I have, on occasion, had department heads call me saying, hey, do you know anything about X? And I'll say, what's X? I don't know. But two or three members of a board committee or an advisory committee have come in and started asking a lot of questions, asked if they could run it by either an engineer or legal. And I say, no, those should come to me. And depending upon who it is, I say, no, that should be the board. So it may be an idea. You know, somebody says, you know, maybe we should explore a new memorial. Let's put it that. That's kind of neutral. We should have a memorial for, you know, something that happened 200 years ago. Is it a project? It could be. Is it an idea? Something they need to flesh out. But before it gets too far, I think they should be coming through the liaison to the board before staff spends hours answering questions. Or they ask an unassuming department head, hey, could you just call town council and ask them this one question? Could we put a memorial at this intersection? They start out innocent enough, but sometimes they grow legs, so to speak. And, you know, I'm hearing these types of questions. People want to, you know, lock up drawing or can I call an LSP or an engineer or town council? And that's usually when I say no. You need to come. You need to come and make sure the board's comfortable with this. There's a difference between a proposed project and a discussion of an idea.
In other words, I think what we want to do is avoid a situation where a whole committee spends hours on an idea. It becomes a proposed project and then they come to us without us not even knowing about it. I think what you're trying to avoid is all that workup. Take a lot of time, staff time, et cetera, without any blessing from our board. And, uh, which I think is the goal here. So just to work it in practice, because I think that's sometimes a good idea, right? So in this situation, in this expanded charge, the idea of doing that park, the Economic Development Committee would have gone to the liaison and said, hey, we're thinking we want to do this park. And then all proposed projects must be discussed with the select board or its liaison and receive prior approval before proceeding. So I'm not sure if sheriff received prior approval before proceeding means from the select board or its liaison. That's not quite clear. But let's say that it's, um, either. Then they came to us and they presented to us and we say proceed. And that allows them to continue to have those conversations, but any access to actual professionals to help them would require the board again to decide that. And if it moved to a warrant or an article, I'm assuming the liaison would have talked to us about it, presented it, and then we would have seen it presented to the select board. Is that about what everybody is thinking this all works out to look like in a process? I think that's what we're thinking, but I'm looking around. Are you, I don't see a lot of yays or nays here. I think the goal here too is we, the real goal here is, and I wanted to say this is, the real goal here is, and it's one of our objectives is to improve communication flow with the advisory committees. Select board advisory committees. Other committees have advisory committees as well. And also so that it also provides, um, I don't know if it's the right word, but a structure or a process for the advisory committee to use, because currently as Michael described, you know, they're floundering and it's frustrating. It's frustrating for them as well as frustrating for us, um, because they're going off to the different departments. Can we talk to the LSP? They're into the main office. Can we call the town council? This also costs money when this happens. So the idea is we should just come, we should have a process in place. The way you would describe it, it sounded pretty good to me, actually. Yeah, I thought it sounded good, but Mike, um, I was thinking based on the last question, maybe the answer should be that a town manager can assign a project or what he deems to be to the level of a project that might not be coming from an advisory committee, but rather an individual like the dog, a dog park idea. Right. And the town manager can assign that to a board member. Remember if he believes it's reached the project stage. It means the dog park, the dog, the dog park is a capital project. Okay. So that's a little bit different because it's not coming from an advisory committee. Okay. So you don't want to include any of those types of projects in this. The goal here was this, or the title of this is to call it an expanded charge for each of the advisory committees. It's going to go right into their charge on their webpage. This is why it has to be one paragraph to go on to the other one paragraph. How about if you say something like all proposals of select board advisory committees that would entail material expenditure of staff time or resources by the town must be discussed. Something like that to qualify. Yeah. I like that. Another thought would be at the end, approval before proceeding with any due diligence. Does that encompass that? In other words, so the sentence we'd oppose. I think he's got it in there now, up in that one sentence. Right. Yeah. Say it again because I don't can get it down. I'm all ears. The other question I have is... Oh, no, no. Could you hear me? You have to watch the tape. I would say something like all proposals of advisory committees that would entail material investments of staff time or talent resources. Okay. Must be discussed with the select board.
Okay. And in that line, all proposed projects must be discussed with the select board or its liaison and receive prior approval before proceeding. Is that prior approval before proceeding coming from the liaison, the select board, or both? Excellent. Before proceeding by the advisory committee. But who can give prior... I think Anne's question is who can give prior approval? I think the board. Yeah, I don't think the liaison should give prior approval. Okay. And that should just be made clear in that one line. I don't think the liaison would want that responsibility. No. Especially if there's an expenditure, potential expenditure. They'd want to go back to the board. Presumably, the liaison would discuss it with the town manager and that ultimately was the chair as to whether, you know, is something that should be an agenda item the board should consider. Exactly. So everybody's had their edits again. I was hoping we could vote this. Do you think we could vote this with these amendments? And then... Or do we have... I defer to other members. I'm happy to watch the tape and finalize this. Or if the board is more comfortable, I'm happy to revise it and put it in for our next meeting in two weeks. Put it in for the next meeting? No, no. I'm happy to support your provisions. I'll entertain a motion. I want to entertain anything. I'll make a motion. I'll make a motion. Before we have a motion, I did have... And we're going to get questions about it. And I think this is great questions you've raised. Because we're trying to accomplish them, but there'll be questions raised that we didn't think of. But I think we should put it forward and then we can adjust if we still make average. One question I had was... Received was, does this mean you have to tell every program and what have you doing or just those that cost money?
Well, he's also said staff time. Right. So that's its own category. Yeah, I think that's important. It's important to add if the whole purpose is to become more efficient. So I like that in Bill's amendment.
So I had notes and I'm on the wrong page. So there you go.
Yeah. Do we have to have every program reviewed? So let's say we're going to run a free program. You know, do we have to... I think I should just let the liaison know what you're doing. That's my thought. But anyway, I'm sure that question will be raised. All right. Go with the motion, please. I move that the board approves the expanded charge for advisory committees draft dated 10-15-25 as amended at tonight's meeting. For select board advisory committees? Yeah. Okay. Do we have a second? A second. Okay. Is there any further discussion? All right. Let's have a vote. Anne, please. Yes. Doug? Yes. Bill? Yes. Yes. Motion passes 5-0.
That's on this. And Michael, I think we should apply in here, too. Because I think we need to figure out how we want to distribute. And we are going to put this on all the webpages of the various... Whoops. Does this mean we're not working? It's conserving energy. The energy committee, hard at work. So I can keep them on the TV. I have to start. My view is best to start.
Right. So I think we want to put this on all the second paragraph of all the charges, on the select board advisory committee charges. I also would like to recommend anything about having this distributed to all the chairs of the advisory committees, the select board advisory committees. And then I'm wondering if we should also include in the staff liaisons to the advisory committee so we all know it's happened. Maybe Michael has a different thought to distribute this, expand the charge to the staff. I was going to suggest the staff liaisons. Staff liaison department heads. Okay. So do we want me to just, because it's coming from us, to just add a quick little two-sentence note on it as well and then Jalen sends it out? Yeah, just to say this is what we're doing and tie it back to our objective. This is one of our goals to improve communication and blah, blah, blah. Okay. All right. So we've got that done. I'm happy to move the consent calendar except for the item relative to Snakebrook Ham, which is number, paragraph six.
Number six? Yes, please. There's a second on this. I think I've seen it as well.
Later, one through five and seven. And then it was? It was a proposed contract amendment. There are, I think, two, perhaps. I think. Number two is about wine vendor selling the Wayland Thanksgiving market. No. Contract. And to be clear, the items I'd like to pull out at number four and number six. Number four and number six. Okay. So you would like one, two, three, five, and seven. That's right. And I'm waiting for Mr. Whitney to indicate which one he would like. In particular, interested in discussing the proposed contract amendment with the Pear Corporation to Snakebrook Ham. Okay. So you've got that covered.
You're okay with that? Yeah. All right. So do I have a second on the consent council? You second it? Levine. Thank you, Mr. Levine. All right. So we'll vote on items one through three, number five, and number seven. We'll call vote Tom. Yes. Yes. Yes. Motion passes. Now we'd like to talk about number four and six. So I think you had the questions, Tom. If I can ask the town manager to give us an update on where we stand with the Snakebrook Dam funding for it and what this particular expenditure will achieve.
Okay. That was under my announcement. Yeah, so we should probably. Well, it's still part of. Okay. Yeah. Okay. It's still part of what? It's on count. We're going out of order. Okay. Yeah. So this is which one, number four? Number four. Yeah. So let me just pull that up. But I believe that is just our acceptance of the grant. So we have to accept the inbound. That's what should be on there. This is the construction services from Paré. There's two things. Because, yes. There's also, that money is being used, as my recollection is ARPA money. We have, I can't sign any contracts, over $100,000. So I'm looking for approval for that. Where we stand on the grant, as we talked about in the past, is we've been waiting for the FEMA. Folks to get back to us on our hazard mitigation grant of the $1.4 million. What I was going to allude to in my update, and I'll mention it again later, I keep reaching out almost every two weeks. And the reply I got the other day was that the gentleman who is our liaison, who is the Northeast District Director, he's been furloughed. And it now says we are not getting any additional information. And it was moving as slow as molasses before. And I am becoming less and less optimistic as we are running down the clock, because we're using companion ARPA funds to pay for some of this engineering work, the $600,000. And if we don't start this project, we're going to lose those monies. Town meeting approved us using monies to complete the project. So if you combined what town meeting authorized, the ARPA funds, and the funds that came in with this grant, we have enough to go it alone. But it was my understanding, once we decided to start construction, and we've been concurrent with all of this, we did go out with an RFP to pick a contractor, and we just got all of our bids in recently. We're going through those motions so as not to waste time. But we are now, you know, everything's converging where we're going to have to make a decision. And what I was going to suggest to the board, it's looking more and more like we need to go out and alone. We're going to wind up waiting another year or two for another FEMA grant. And I'm not sure in the current political climate if we're going to receive those types of funds from Washington. So the dam itself is some issues, and it's been noted by the state that it needs repair. I think we're at a point where we have to go by ourselves. So can I take a stab at this? Yes, you may. I can resolve this. So the bridge cost is approximately $2.5, maybe $2.7 million. We have applied for this grant of the 1-4, and if not, we've appropriated that through telemeeting funds. Okay, we got that done. The grant that we received from the state, which is in number 6, the 884, they don't allow you to use the grant money from the state to fund bid, engineering services, and constructions. So we're using ARPA funds, which is in number 4, to get the bid and the construction done, so we can then start the work in the state funds. Does that clear? That's thoughtful. So this is my concern, that we're spending close to $300,000 for engineering services that may be moved if we don't get this damn project going. I appreciate what you just said, and I appreciate that if we can get over a million dollars from the federal government, that's great. But it's been years, and I think you're right. The climate that we're in, even if this closure of the federal government ends in November, December, or the way this state's being treated, I don't think we can count on that money. I'm not a betting man. And you balance that right against the condition of the dam, potential damage it could do. If we get a huge rain event, I hate to give up the kind of money, and we're not going to get a credit if we do the work, and then all of a sudden the money comes through. We're not going to get credit. We have the money funded. We funded the one for... If we get the federal money a year from now, or a year and a half from now, after the construction is done, we're not going to be able to use that money. Chair? I have to get details, but it's my understanding, once we start, we are ineligible. So we never know the answer to that. But your point, if we wait too long, we risk losing more money. And it's not an easy decision or one anyone makes lightly. But my recollection, Ms. Hanson, we've applied for this numerous times. And I consider this just lost time because when they come back to work, whenever it is two weeks from now, four weeks, or two months from now, they're going to pick up where they left off in the last week of September because this was supposed to be in a review process down there. So we're not going to be any further along two or three months from now. Right. And they'll still say, well, you've got to wait. You've got to wait. And I think we're reaching that point of no return where we have to make a decision. And, you know, I know we've allocated the money, and I would much rather get federal funds and be able to release that for another project. But I don't know if we can do that. That's my view. May I also add in my opinion, on this one thing, on my little career in the finance committee, I started around 2012. May I tell you how much this project has increased over the years. So may I mention, in my opinion, we're not going to win either way. We funded the money. I say on delay and move along and have that done thing done. My name is Mr. Whitney. Thank you. My comment was about something else. But with respect to this contract, there are two pieces of work. One is to advise the town during the bid process for a total estimated fee and expense of $20,000. The balance, $275,000, is for construction administration. So if you don't go to construction, you won't be spending that money. So if there's a concern, one could authorize the $20,000 and not give a notice to proceed on the construction unless and until the board made a bid award on the actual construction. So I don't know if that's helpful. What would we do about the $884,000 then, if we only gave it, authorize the $20,000 now in number six? Well, it sounds like a decision has not yet been made about whether to proceed irrespective of the FEMA grant, right? Or is that what you're leaning to, Mr. I am leaning towards, at the end of the day, I think I, as a day-to-day operations, would be making that call. And I would look for your input or at least advise you. That's the direction. And you could tell me otherwise. But I do not feel confident that we are going to get the federal money. So I'm leaning very strongly towards moving forward on our own. And I think we have to start that in the next month or two. And we timed the RFP for the contractors so that they would come in right around now. We want them to leave adequate time to get going and spend those monies before December of 20 – the ARPA monies, I should say, before December of 2026. And I believe we have an additional year to spend this new $884,000 from the state. So I have to spend the design and some of the OPM monies first. I would not execute this contract as it's drafted because you're obliging the town to $275,000 in construction administration. And the construction contract hasn't been left yet, right? And we have not signed with a contractor yet. That's my understanding. So I would – you know, if you want to keep things moving, I would go ahead with a phase. But I would not give them a notice to proceed on the construction phase in less than until you're ready to execute a contract for the construction services. Beyond that, I am concerned about the statement of terms and conditions. This looks to me like the engineer's boilerplate. Has the town negotiated these terms at all? I cannot say for certain. This was provided to me from Ms. Hansen. So I do not know what level of involvement. Oftentimes, these come to me from the department heads. Right. Well, I understand. But it's all about what happens if the client doesn't do this or doesn't do that. And if we don't pay within 30 days, there's a 1.5% interest charge monthly.
You know, other projects I've worked on, there's a 60- or 90-day period. And there are just – you know, some of these, again, are things that could be negotiated. The burden is entirely on the client, as I read this thing, with the exception of negligence on the part of the engineer. So I would just ask that someone take a hard look at this, because these look like the standard conditions of the engineer rather than something that the town and the engineer have discussed and agreed upon. So are you comfortable, Mr. Temeran, if we defer on 4 and 6 until our next meeting in two weeks? Or is this – you think that would put us potentially in a bad spot?
Or I think we – I don't have a problem, because we haven't signed and we haven't picked a contractor. I think we could get some answers relative to Mr. Whitney's questions. The money has been given to us by the state, and they've already sent the paperwork to accept to us. I don't know off the top of my head the time requirements, but they usually like you to acknowledge receipt of the grant and sign their state paperwork as soon as possible. As I said, they emailed that to me the other day. I don't know about holding out another two weeks on acceptance of the grant. I can't comment on that one with certainty.
What if we – do you think we could support number 6 so that we can acknowledge the grant, and then we hold out number 4? Because Bill raised, of course, some good points here.
Bill, your points about the engineering contract lead to 4 solely? I'm saying let's – oh, sorry.
Bill, are you comfortable voting 6 with some sort of proviso from our board of the town manager? Well, what is the effect of approving 6? Is it – we're accepting the grant. Is that obliging the town to go forward irrespective of funding sources? I don't know. I believe we have the money, and oftentimes if we don't spend money, they come looking for it, much like the monies we received for town center, for the pedestrian walkways. Recently, the Department of Revenue contacted us about unspent community compact grant money. So there is typically some type of accounting with these grants where we have to demonstrate how much we've utilized. If not, they come after us. I don't think there was anything in the letter that committed us to spending right away. But I think – I think as a town, we're committed to doing that. Committed as much. But – right. So I think it's what we're – I think – If we don't do it, they will ask for the money back, typically. But what if the proviso and the number 6 provide the town manager decides to pull the lever on this project, then this would apply, right? No, we're authorizing Michael to sign. He doesn't have to sign, but he has the authority to sign. Yeah. It's just signing that we acknowledge the grant. If we don't – obviously, if we don't do the project, we're going to give them back the money, and they're going to ask us for the money. So I think that one should be okay. But you okay with number 6? The money won't be dispersed if we don't go forward. Right.
You okay with 6? I'm personally fine. Everybody okay with 6? Yeah. And then – so I – The noise here. On number 4, we're going to hold number 4 out. So pending, perhaps pulling it apart into a bid, contract, and wait for construction to start before we have the other, and also look at the terms. Is that what we're doing? Okay. So I'll move that this board approve item 6 in the consent count.
You have a second, please? Second. Thank you. Roll call vote. Bill? Yes. Tom? Yes. Doug? Yes. Ann? Yes. Carol, yes. Motion passes 5-0. All right. I'd like to go back now up to number 9. What I'll let Michael do is tell me, and there's a report, because we got kind of out of order there. And somebody – I don't know this at least. You mean number 13? What number is it? 13? How about if we go to number 13? Okay. So – I'll have an updated consent calendar. Or is it in the – I don't see it in the packet. Yeah, it's in there. Yeah, it would be in the – It's on page 4 of the revised. Yeah. It's on the – So, Michael, it's your health manager report, please. Yes. Thank you, Madam Chair. If you're ready. Yes. Just a little bit of an update. Working with the EDC and my staff, we have started work to acknowledge new businesses coming into town. And we've been doing ribbon cuttings. There was one done during Wayland Fest. And since the last time we met, we've done three. United Volleyball that's coming to town center, we went over. We brought some staff over. Representative Gentile was there as well and staff from Senator Eldridge's office. Last week with the town manager of Sudbury, I cut the ribbon on the Sudbury food pantry, which is now located in Wayland. They just moved over by the tennis club right there on the other side of the Alta Oxbow in the industrial park right there. They're right on the corner. And then this morning I participated in Mui. I think I'll pronounce it. Nails. It's a new nail salon that's opened up next to Mills in Cachichuit. Right. And so, you know, we go out, we take pictures, we try and promote it. We thank them for choosing Wayland. And the other night when I was meeting with the officials in Sudbury, there was some talks at Sudbury Chamber of Commerce. We'd like to sit down and talk with me and staff and maybe the EDC to see if they can expand and maybe bring in folks from Wayland. Because we don't have a genuine business organization right now in Wayland. There had been one when I first got here. They had a Facebook page, but it doesn't seem to be active. But anything we can do to help promote the businesses coming in and bring attention to them, we're trying to do that. Whatever I think we do to help them, it helps us in the long run by gaining attention to what we're doing and to the businesses that want to come here and we want to support them. We just talked a little bit about Snakebrook Dam, so we don't have to touch that. On the Sherman Bridge project, I attended the public input forum at the Fairbanks Community Center last Thursday, October 9th. I was fairly well attended and had approximately 41 residents from Wayland and Sudbury that came, voiced their opinion. We were there for a little over three hours. At the conclusion of the forum, Mr. Holder, as well as his counterpart and his reward in Sudbury, had acknowledged that we were taking all that input. And we would look at updating the approach that we were doing and we would get back to them within the next couple of weeks. The project team, which has been consisting of the various DPW folks of both sides, have met and they are looking to incorporate in a lot of what was discussed the other night at the forum. Mr. Holder said that he would get back to me on or about the 30th, which is next Thursday. To see what MassDOT, MassDepartment of Transportation has to say, as many of you may know by now, the Department of Transportation has offered to kick in $325,000 worth of materials towards the bridge, as well as use their contractor for in-kind labor. The biggest issues that came up were the concerns over some of the guardrails, whether or not the bridge deck would be paved, and some of the traffic-related issues coming to and from the bridge. I believe some of those traffic issues can be mitigated through signage, putting a weight limit on the bridge, maybe changing the speed limit, but also enforcement. And I talked to the chief, we looked at some of the speeding traffic patterns and the accident history there as well. So I think what the project team is looking to do is go back and create some type of solution and see if it's palatable with MassDepartment of Transportation to avoid using the paving on the deck and see what else can be accommodated and still allow us to get some of that in-kind materials and the in-kind labor. So that's where we are. We're going to update everyone once I hear from Mr. Holder, but, you know, he heard what the residents had to say and tried to come up with a compromise and wants to see if that's palatable with MassDepartment.
Palatable, meaning the funding would come or not come? Correct. You know, when we originally came, I mean, we have to do something about the bridge because they've said that its condition is such that it needs to be repaired. And could could potentially be shut down for safety reasons. So the towns jointly are going to be responsible for the work, which is roughly $1.6 to $1.7 million. The state ideally would like it paved after putting what's called this glue lamp, these LVL beams. And based upon what the residents said, that one of the biggest concerns was changing the character with the pavement is the team is now looking to see whether there's a way that they can still get some of the in-kind contributions and avoid putting the pavement down. And then we can work on some of those other traffic related things. And that's what we're talking about. So that's my opinion. Thank you. Did you want to talk about Permanent D? Yes. So there will be a community meeting in, to my understanding, in Framingham. And the reason we're doing this, it's part of the permitting process because Framingham, where the connection will be made in a lot of the work, is designated as an environmental justice community. And as such, much of the information that's been shared with Wayland has to be shared also with Framingham. And because it's an environmental justice community, it was a designation relative to income and language barriers. The presentation will have to be made and translated in different languages. And it's my understanding from Mr. Holder, it won't be any new information. It's just a part of the permitting process. And I neglected to type what day it was going to be held. I apologize for that. It's tomorrow?
Not sure. Press release on it.
I'll check. Was this the meeting that you asked me about and I gave you the long info on?
So we don't know. Do we know? I will, before the end of the meeting, I will get the... I think we had a press release on it. Someone was... Okay. I also just wanted to touch on, there is one more Wayland Health Department vaccine clinic. It's going to be held on Wednesday, October 22nd from 3 to 7 p.m. in the large hearing room. This is for residents and non-residents age 12 and above. And the only other thing that I wanted to comment on was that we had our AAA rating reaffirmed by Moody's last week after the call. And I think a lot of that credit goes to Mr. Kebany, as well as the other staff and including the board for working with us to pass financial policies, to continue to stand by our best practices and manage our finances responsibly. And I think it is a very good thing for the community, especially as we go out, as you saw before, for borrowings, for bans, for bonds, that people recognize this rating. There's only a handful of communities in the Commonwealth that have this AAA rating, and it helps us to get better rates. So I think it is a very good thing for us. Thank you. Questions from the board? Overall, sir. Are there other ratings agencies that assign ratings to the municipalities in the Commonwealth? I believe Standard & Poor's does. The other big one that I know of, I'm not sure of the others. I'm only familiar in my time. I've only ever seen either Moody's or Standard & Poor's. S&P do the ratings of the community. We have both. As far as I know, we only have Moody's. Some communities seem to be one or the other. Okay. Thank you. I think I'm going to suggest that we're kind of working a little backwards. So let's go to number 12. Michael, this is the position of the part-time procurement specialist in the town manager's office. This was added on, if you're seeing that on the agenda now, it's number 12. So as a special minister, we, this is as defined in the last general launch, chapter 2, 68A, section 110. There is that copy information is in the packet as well. So do you want to speak to that while we're here? Yes, Madam Chair. As I previously indicated, since the departure of our most recent procurement specialist management analyst, we've tried a couple of different things in my office. Now we have several people in my office that have gone through the entire MCPPO program, which is the Massachusetts Certified Public Procurement Official Designation Process. You have to take multiple courses, which you're graded on, to get the designation. I have a full designation. Ms. Power Spurlett and Ms. Braddocka have gone through it. I believe they are at the associate level. We've sent people in facilities and elsewhere so that we can decentralize. Before, we had one person and they were doing it full-time. And I'm not sure that it was worth our while to have one designated employee only for procurement because I don't think we're big enough. A lot of other towns don't do it. But what we have done, and I know select board members, Faye and Whitney may have realized, we are using some folks who have been full-time public procurement officials and purchasing agents for other communities to do some work that either the staff can't take on or they're much more complex. One of the persons that we're utilizing has retired and is doing this for more than one community. And so in each community, they have asked for this designation because under the special designation, they're capped at the number of hours they can work and they're allowed to work for more than one community when they're doing this type of work. So it's pretty standard. A lot of positions are designated that way. We're not looking to use this person for 100 hours. It's more in the order of maybe five or 10 hours a month to do some of the larger, more complex. I've known this person for quite a while. I actually took some classes at Suffolk with this individual, and they're doing this type of work for a couple other larger communities that have been doing so for a while. So we're just looking for that position. It's the position, not the person that the designation goes to. So is there any questions from the board on this request? Do we need to make a designation for each person who does this kind of work, or do we just make one position, and then whether one person could fill that same position in your office, correct? Okay. I move that the board approve the designation of special municipal employees to find MGLC 268A S Section 1N for a part-time chairman specialist in the town manager's office. which has a special municipal employee.
That's a great one. I think I said that. Yeah. But you'd have to run. I will. All right, I'm going to skip. Second. Mr. Fett, no, for heck with you. Mr. Fett, would you like to second? I'll only second.
Thank you. Is there a part of the discussion? All those in favor? Doug? Yes. Phil? Yes. Tom? Yes. Ian? Yes. Thank you. And Carol? Yes. Motion passes. Carol 5-0. We have a hearing, but by second, start before 8, so I'm going to just keep moving around here. Would we like to have anything to say about correspondence? I'm good. I noticed we had an item of correspondence where, I don't know if it's in this packet, but we have a request for a fence viewer. Yes. Claire's going to talk about that at number 18, topics, so I can move there next if you'd like. Is it within the packet of correspondence? It's in the packet? Is it? It was in the packet for a fence viewer? I don't know. I don't think it was. Okay. That's why it's a topic.
Someone just check to make sure, because otherwise I have to have a different robot, right?
I don't see it. It came in Friday after the packet. I thought it was Friday after the packet went out. Yeah. Okay. Yeah, it's not there. Any other comments on correspondence? No, I don't see it. I think that's going to be in the, that's a spoiler alert. It's going to be in the next meeting. November 3rd is back in. All right.
Why don't I, why don't I skip down then to that, to topics since it was brought up? Or do minutes, maybe? Minutes? Or do minutes, Madam Chair? Do minutes. You can do whatever you like. So, could someone just tell us what page we're on? What?
Minutes for September. 54. 54. That's correct.
I'm good on that one. I move that this board approve, as amended minutes, select board, Monday, September 29, 2025. Second. Okay. Wait a second.
Okay. Who was seconded? Oh, good. Thank you. Do we have any edits to the minutes? Did you do them both together? Just one. Okay. Anybody have any comments or edits to the meetings of September, minutes of September 29?
I did not.
Tom? I'm good. Yeah. On A6, it talks about the voting. And CMART noted the board needed to first receive the recommendation of the fine committee, finance committee, and then wait. It's not two weeks. It's one meeting, which is two weeks. But one meeting is what I think the phrase is. Maybe I said it wrong. If I said it wrong, we have to live with it the way it's printed. And on the mat, I don't think I have anything. And did you have anything on the minutes of September 29? No. Okay. Okay. And then roll call vote. Tom? Yes. Doug? Yes. Bill? Yes. Ann? Yes. Carol? Yes. So motion passes 5-0. Move the minutes of this board for October 6, 2025, as amended. Second. Second. Second. Okay. Do we have any edits? I have one edit. Okay. Under A14, I just request that the word would be, the word would, W-O-U-L-D-B, deleted from the first line.
Thank you. Anything else? That's it for me.
No one else? Okay. Ann? Roll call vote. Sorry. Thank you. Doug? Yes. Bill? I will abstain as I was not at the meeting. Tom? Yes. And Carol, yes. So it's going to be 4-0-1. Correct? Correct. All right.
Minutes, correspondence. I'm going to go to the topics now, if you don't mind. So we did receive a request on the mail, on the email on Friday, which was less than 48 hours. So I am going to bring this up for a fence viewing. And prior to about four years ago, we had another request and the board had appointed Tom and myself as a fence viewers. So I haven't reached. In the regular. I did it with him in 2019. So I have reached out to Mr. Faye and he has agreed to work me on this issue, this fence viewing. And we will report back to the board our findings at a future meeting. I had a question. Isn't this a matter for a surveyor rather than a fence viewer? Well, we will determine that when we go out. Maybe correct. By the way, it's topics from the chair. So I don't know if we can discuss it. Can we? Probably not. Okay. I don't want to be getting the look now.
Okay.
What have I got left here? I don't want to start concerns. This will have to space. Maybe we won't be done that quickly.
Well, on number 11, this one we probably can do really quickly as well. This is a possible annual telemeeting articles. And there's been two more suggestions for articles that we might put forth to telemeeting. And one of them might send to us, but I will let him speak to this as well, is that we received this as a white paper, I guess, from KP Law that we, the state has now allows conversion from on-premises, all out on-premise wine and all only licenses to all alcoholic beverage licenses. Did you want to speak to any of them? I want me to just, the bulletin I previously sent, Madam Chair, I think self-explanatory, but with the adoption of this statute by town meeting, in the absence of having any new liquor licenses, which is also something I would like us to consider for annual town meeting, is that anybody who's currently holding a beer or wine only license, it could be converted to a license. With Terrain coming to town and applying, that was our last all-alcoholic on-premise license. At the time, I did speak to our legislators to see if there was any way to fast track us. And they said, essentially, no, that we would have to go the town meeting route. So I have taken a crack at drafting something that I submit to our legislators so that they can have their respective council review it and hopefully present that. But in the interim, the legislature realizes that they're hard to get. So they've come to the alternative, allowing the towns once adopting the language to convert some existing beer and wine.
Right. I'm sort of keeping a little bit of a list of ones we've identified. Actually, this white paper from KP Law pretty much writes the article for you. So I think this stuff is a cut and paste because it gives you the sample town meeting walked article. It also explains the conversion process. It also explains that the converter license is no longer used. It reverts back to its original status and can only be reissued as an on-premise license for sale and wine and malt beverages only. I mean, it's all written right here, which is bad. So I think the action here is that we wanted to talk about that and see if the board would like to pursue that. We need telemeaning approval in order to have this tool in our toolbox, basically. So now we have to vote on that. I think it's unclear as to the effect, if any, of, say, three malt and wine licensees coming forward and wanting to convert. What does that do to our cap of particular licenses? Do they not count against the cap? No, we've already issued those licenses and we can convert it. So that's what the white paper says. That it's converted. We don't increase the number of licenses we're allowed to issue. It's just we're changing the configuration. So instead of having, say, three wine and malts, we now would have only two. So, but, but, but if we have the ability, but if we have a cap inside five licenses and can we add three more through the conversion without violating the five. No, we don't have any new conversion. So we have three, three wine, malt licenses and four all alcohol. If we convert one, we now have five all alcohol and two wine and malts. The total doesn't change. It's just the, am I not saying it right? You're saying it right. No, that's exactly right. I am. Okay, good. My question is, though, if the conversion puts us over the cap for liquor licenses that we presently have, is that okay? I don't see us. I don't see it putting us over the cap. Right. Because this legislature is saying all our licenses could be all alcohol. However, Mr. Town Manager, what is your understanding of what the legislation may be doing, may do the next few years on making it easier for towns to increase the number of, liquor license? You're supposed to be hearing next week on the Municipal Empowerment Act, and they are looking to find ways to make things easier, and I think they are open to changing that. I, unfortunately, will not be able to attend, otherwise I would have some more information. But it's my understanding, they want to streamline procurement processes, getting liquor licenses, other things to make it easier for towns to do business and generate revenue. So, to select board member Whitney's point, we can't add any liquor licenses without legislative approval. Correct? Right. Yeah, but aren't liquor licenses based on population in the area? I think it's, I think there's a formula for how many liquor licenses you get as a town based on your poppy, the number of residents in your town. So, increases and decreases based on population. I do know that we've asked for special legislation in the last two communities I worked in for economic development purposes and relief. We've gone in and asked for additional liquor licenses, and we've been given them in designated zones where we have business districts and things. So, I think it's possible to get additional ones. I'm going to check with, excuse me, Kelsey, because I somehow think we voted to put this before to tell me for the additional liquor licenses. Not this one. Well, we're talking about the conversions, but I'm going to check with that. I think we already put that on the draft list.
Sorry. It says, generally, a town can be granted one license per 1,000 residents, but all municipalities are guaranteed a minimum of 14 all alcohol licenses and five additional licenses for wine and beer, regardless of population size. That's 19. We don't have 19, do we? Right. What do we have?
Tell you in one moment. We have 19. Like 14, I think. We have a total of 14. I have somewhere around there. I had it from the ABCC recently. I can look at that, too. So, this, what we're talking about right now, adding additional liquor licenses, not on the agenda. What is on the agenda is to have an article to go to a town meeting to ask for their permission or the ability, for the select would to have the ability to convert the wine and malts to the all alcohol. I just want to say that's the agenda. But these questions will come up by residents as part of this article. But in my view, it's all. We're going to have two articles because we're going to ask for additional licenses and we're going to ask for this and we're going to ask for something else. I think we've got two or three of these articles coming forward. So, I guess I'm looking for a motion. Do we want to do that now? No, but just to select board member Levine's point, the most recent quota breakdown that I received from the ABCC, which is the Alcohol Beverage Control Commission, last spring when we first had the applications from Terrain, we are allowed 14 all alcoholic beverage on premises retail and five wine and malt. So, we've now issued that last one to Terrain, and it looks like we have four available in the wine and malt. Which are equivalent to, if this passes, it's equivalent to 18. Well, my understanding was you have to have, my recollection is you have to have it already issued. You can't come in now and add a wine and malt just to get the all alcohol. It kind of rewards. If you look, I think it's in there. Let me just check on that because I think we voted on that one. If not, I'll put that on another agenda. But in the meantime, I would like to have us look at having a motion to. Well, we don't have to have a motion here, do we? We just have to have a consensus because we're not even putting together articles yet, right? In other words, you want a consensus of the board. Do we have the consensus? Yeah, I'm fine with it. Okay, so let me add this to the list here. And then there's another article that we would like to, Doug and I would like us to consider accepting Chapter 53, Section 18B, which would then allow us as a community to communicate with residents regarding valid questions. So then we would be able to say, you know, this is what it is to do, to do, to do, a yes, no, is, no, vote is. If you read the language, which I believe is in the packet, it also shows you that if there are opponents, proponents, let's say we're the proponent, if there are opponents to the article, they also are entitled, kind of like a petitioner's article. Or if it's a state ballot question, you read the pro and the con, and you read a summary before you, well, not if you walk in not knowing anything at the ballot. So I think if we are, I think it's a nice tool for us to have period, but if we're thinking there's possibility of an override, we kind of thought this made sense so that we don't run into the situation we're in right now where we can't give a yes or a no when you go to the actual ballot itself. I'm all for transparency. I'll just say this. If we're going to support this and if it passes, I suspect it might. I think we need to consider, as a board, changing the amount of information we put in the warrant, because there's only so many hours between staff and volunteers to deal with. It's not for the warrant. This is for ballots. For ballots, right? But it's all the same world, right? It's for the debt exclusions and for the ballot questions, rephrase that. Right. And sometimes there are between two and five. So I'm just concerned about person power. Yeah, I don't. Person power is involved. I normally am very sensitive to that because I know how much work goes into these warrants. I just think this is a really, this would also allow us to do the Q&A more openly, you know, rather than having to be careful to not take a position. I think it's critical for the person who's walking into the polling station who may not have any information and now would have to vote on a question in a vacuum if they're only getting the specific legislative language, so to speak. I would just ask maybe if we reach out to the Secretary of State's Office to find out how they come up with the language. How is it fair to both sides? What formula do they use? Because that's, I think that's the biggest challenge, right? What formula? Who uses? Like he would say that the pros and cons need to be balanced. Right. Because there were a word limit for both. You know, the way you phrase it, like I always have issue in our con language in the word where we write some may argue, but we never do that for the pro argument. So it seems imbalanced when we do that. So maybe there are some rules of the road about it. I think a bunch of towns do it too, though. There was an example, I received an example of something Gardner did in 23 over and override. There's a lot of materials. They sent out a booklet, basically like the state does, you know, to the residents, talking about being in a yes vote and this and FAQs and what have you. But this would allow us to communicate more transparency, whatever, however you want to phrase it with the residents about any ballot issues, questions, ballot questions. So, all right. So we, the consensus of the board is we would, we'll put that one forth as well. Okay. So, Robbie, I think I see Mr. Hines there and I think I see Mr. Porter there. There is, is there a third gentleman there as well? I think Mr. Yeah, good evening board. I'm Matthew Porter. I'm the attorney for the applicant. And along with me on the Zoom call is Michael Hines, the proposed new license manager, as well as Niton Raval, who is the principal. Excuse me. Could you just hold on until I open the hearing? I was just letting you know who is here. Okay. I was just trying to help with that. That's all. I know. I was just asking our assistant here to help me. So, just let's... Oh, I'm sorry. Okay. Maybe now I see two gentlemen named Michael Hines there. So, one of them must have been the owner. Maybe you could change your name. All right. All right. Let's get a comment. Open the hearing. I declare that this hearing is open for the purpose of considering the application filed by Bapa Whalen Corporation for the application amendments for the change of stock interest, change of offices, directors, LLC managers, change of managers, and change of corporate name, DBA for the premises located at 302 Commonwealth Road, Whalen, Mass, 01778, the annual all-alcoholic license number, 00014-PK-1340. It was a notice published in the Metro West Daily News on October 3rd for 2025, basically has the same information that were notices, hereby given that the Whalen Select Board will hold a public hearing on Monday, October 20, 2025, beginning at 8 p.m. On the application for the change of stock interest, change of office, directors, LLC managers, change of manager, and change of corporate name, slash DBA filed by Bapa Whalen Corporation. And again, ABCC number is 00014-PK-1340, located at 302 Commonwealth Road in Whalen, Mass. Now, the hearing can be attended in person, and we are in the town building at 41 Constituate Road in the select board meeting room, but can be reviewed more remotely on WACAM as well as on Zoom. And those wishing to provide public comment remotely may do so by accessing the meeting via Zoom link posted on the town of Whalen website, which is on our calendar page, and also as part of the Whalen Select Board Agenda. So, with us for this evening tonight, we have Matthew Porter, who I believe is legal counsel, and Mr. Hines, who is the proposed manager, and the second Mr. Hines, who I think is the owner, is Mr. Ravav. Am I correct? Yes. I didn't receive the Zoom link, so I joined with my manager, Michael. Okay. That sounds good. Thank you. So, this is how the hearing works. The rules of the evidence will not be applied during the hearing, but the board expects that the prospective licensee and any member of the public will comment to present credible and reliable information and clear and contingency. So, we will allow you now to describe the business and the reason for applying. Then the select board will ask questions. If the members of the public would like to have questions, we'll call on them. And then you summarize your application, and then I will close the hearing, and we'll take the matter under advisement and make a decision at a later meeting or maybe even this evening. Okay. So, why don't we start with you describing your business and your reason for your application, please? Sure. I'd be happy to take the lead. Thank you, Chair. Thank you, Board. My name is Matthew Porter. I'm the attorney for Bapa Whelan Corporation. So, before the board, this is a three-fold application, but it all relates to the current Liquor World location. Nitant Raval is a current shareholder, majority shareholder in Bapa Whelan Corporation. He's currently a 75% shareholder. He is buying out one of his existing partners, 25%, so in essence becoming a 100% shareholder of the corporation. He was already the controlling partner. So, this is more so just an internal transfer. It also removes Jignesh Pachani, who is the 25% shareholder, as one of the officers of the corporation. So, essentially, Nitant Raval becomes president, treasurer, secretary, director, 100% owner of the corporation. In doing so, Michael Hines is going to be coming on and replacing Amita Pachani, who is the existing manager. Michael will be the manager there now 40, if not more, hours per week on site. He's been in the alcohol industry, I think, 23, 24 years now working in the package store industry. So, it certainly brings a wealth of experience. He is alcohol tip certified. Mr. Raval is alcohol tip certified as well. They already have his scanning machine in place. So, from an outward perspective, there's really no changes to the operation of the business whatsoever, because it is a transfer of stock with a liquor license. It requires board approval, as well as ABCC approval. The last piece is, Mr. Raval is just rebranding this, as he's taking over the locations wholly on his own. He's going to be rebranding it from Liquor World to Liquor Hub. So, there'll be new signage, but no changes to the hours, the structure of the business, nothing along those lines at all.
Okay. So, either Mr. Raval or Mr. Raval want to add something? No, I think, thank you. Thank you, board member. Matt covered almost everything. It's just a stock transfer for internal ourselves. Okay. Thank you. Questions from the board? Mr. Faye? Good evening, gentlemen. I have a question. The retail liquor industry is a very challenging industry. How is your business doing in Whale? So far in Whale, and we are almost flat as last year, not much up and down. So, so far, no complaint. We are happy where we are right now, and we have good, loyal local customer. And we do also online delivery also for, you know, the outside platform from Uber and the DoorDash. Thank you.
Mr. Whitney? A question for counsel. I'm not sure which document, but there is an amendment change of officers, stocker ownership interest, which indicates Mr. Raval owning 50% of the ownership and Mr. Pachani owning 50%. Is that incorrect? I think you said 75 and 25. Hang on just one second. You're right. It was 50-50. That's my fault. Yep. So, it went from 50-50 to 100. That is correct. So, that section six is accurate in the application. Thank you. And have there been any violations for sale of alcoholic beverages to underage people in the last three years? It was one year ago in the current location, yes. That time, we are on getting a process of ID scanning machine, and the company got sold and Facebook take over the company. So, my machine was late. And unfortunately, it happened one time. And, you know, we trained the employee, and everything else is fine after. Thank you. You're also done. You did. Okay. Ms. Brinsley, do you have any questions? Yeah, just because I thought I did a check on that. So, that was under the same corporation name? Yes. Got it. What was the result? I believe it was just a warning with ABCC. So, there's no violation. He means there was an underage jail that occurred once a hearing with ABCC. And the ABCC has become a little bit more lenient as far as fake identification just because of how, you know, just quickly these folks are able to sort of get around the technology. But the new scanning machine in place has helped. But it was just a warning at ABCC, and therefore, you wouldn't see any violations, suspensions, revocations, anything along those lines. Okay. That makes sense. Thanks. Yep. It was the ABCC that issued the annihilation and not us?
That's okay? Okay. All right. And, Robert, do you see anyone online that has their hand raised from the public who would like to raise a question? Okay. Mr. Paul, do you have any questions for the applicants? Okay.
Would you like to summarize your application, Mr. Porter?
Well, I would just, I suppose I would repeat what my introductory comments were. But, yeah, to summarize, I would say that this is an internal transfer of stock with an existing shareholder just taking, buying out one of his other partners and continue to operate the store in the same fashion with bringing along a new manager with a wealth of experience and rebranding it from Liquor World to Liquor Hub is how I would summarize it. Thank you very much. Thank you very much. Thank you very much. I'm going to move to close the hearing, and now we will deliberate and consult with the town manager, who I've already consulted with. Are you okay with this application? Through the public hearing process, yes. I mean, yeah. Exactly. Do you have any opportunity to hear from the applicant and you just check to see if there's any opposition and hearing none? Make a decision now or take it under advisement? What's the sense of the board? Are we comfortable with proceeding or do we want to? Find a proceeding. Okay. Do we need to deliberate at all? We all set. Need deliberation? No. I see answers. All right. Can we make the motion? Please. Close your public hearing. I did. Didn't I say I closed this? Please tell me. Sure. Let's go ahead. I move to approve the application filed by BAPA Whalen Corporation for the application amendments for change of stock interest, change of officers slash directors slash LLC managers, change of managers and change of corporate name slash doing business as for the premises located at 302 Commonwealth Road, Whalen, Massachusetts, 01778 annual all alcoholic license number. 0 0 0 0 1 4 dash P K dash 1340. Do I have a second to the motion? Second. Thank you. Sorry for discussion. We're going to have a roll call vote and yes. Doug. Yes. Bill. Yes. Yes. Yes. Motion passes. Congratulations. Thank you. Thank you very much. Have a great evening. Thank you. Thank you. All right. Um, now we're going to move to the item. See if, um, animals care. Yeah. And also. She's already on here already. Yeah. Okay. And how about, um, as other, you know that? Nope. Yeah. All right. All right. Hang on. Just one second here. Smart. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. So we're going to have a discussion and review of the equity audit recommendations. We've invited attendance by Karen Blumenfeld, um, and Dr. Ian Renee Hayes. Hello. Good evening. And is, is I going to be able to join us, Karen? No, her schedule didn't allow her to join us. Okay. Okay. So can, I don't know what page you're on. Can somebody find the page over here? But, um, Karen and Heather put together kind of a little summary sheet here, which is entitled Whaling Community Life and Engagement Executive Report. Um, you see at the very bottom, they, they credit themselves as having prepared this draft. And I think they want to talk to us about this. Um, we have looked at the, the equity audit that was done for us. And we saw it in the, in June. And I think there was some edits made to the file. And then we saw that again, when it came back, I think about five or six weeks ago. So now we're trying to move forward here. Um, also in the packet, I just want to say that there were the three recommendation pages. Uh, all the recommendations are on three pages, three different themes. Theme one, theme two, and theme three. There are a total of nine topics with a total of 40, uh, recommendations. I will say two of the, two of the topics are, um, more under the purview of the schools than the town, which we will discuss when we get there. And, um, the other seven are more in our, in domain. So I think we, uh, we want to start digging into this and figuring out what, how we're going to proceed. So I'll turn the floor over to you for a few minutes. And I would like to start. Madam chair, may I make a few introductory remarks to, to set the table for the conversation. Would that be acceptable? Right. I think that's what I said. We were going to, you're going to kind of go through your, your, um, memo that you put out to us. Well, I actually wanted to kind of take it, um, it, put it in a context before we get into the details. Would that be okay? Yes, fine. Um, I think, I think Tom was right. Um, now the volume's too high. I can't hear you either. So. I'm sorry. You can't hear me. It's tough to please, Madam Chair. It's tough to please. So, your, my sound isn't good. Is that what you're saying? It's just sounds a little muffled, Garen. It's not very clear. Oh, thanks. It's not me. Thank you. He's making fun of me over there. It's, it's off. Okay. Like when he didn't talk, it's very different. Yeah. That's better. It's better. Okay. Um, so if I may, Madam Chair, uh, make a couple of introductory remarks before we get into the conversation. And if my sound is no good, please tell me so I don't go on at length where no one can hear me. Um, so first we wanted to thank you for inviting us to talk about the community life and engagement, um, study findings. Um, we want to also open by thanking you for your commitment, um, to these issues, to being a welcoming and inclusive community as evidenced by, um, your creation of the HR DEIC, your strong and ongoing support for our work, uh, your, your, your support for the multicultural festival and for this study itself. Um, we also recognize the financial concerns that the town is now facing. And so we wanted to kind of place the community life and engagement report findings in that context, uh, as you consider moving forward. Um, so research consistently shows that communities who welcome people of all backgrounds experience stronger economic vitality. They attract and retain talent. They foster entrepreneurship and build resilience. A couple of examples, um, of, of some data. The national Bureau of economic research reports that immigrants are nearly twice as likely to start new businesses as us born residents. JP Morgan reports that black women are the fastest growing group of entrepreneurs. Communities recognized by welcoming America's certified welcoming program. have seen faster business growth than other communities. And analyses from the Brookings Institution and Harvard Business Review show that inclusion and diversity are linked to higher innovation and productivity. And clearly having more businesses in town center would be great for everyone in town. Um, so just to clarify, while some communities pursue diversity primarily for the economic benefit, um, our charge here is deeper. We do this because belonging is a cornerstone of civic health. The measure of how much community members trust one another, participate in local life, and feel proud to call our community home. And we want to note also that diversity alone is never enough. The limits come when inclusion is intentional. When a community invests in equitable participation, inclusive governance, fair policies, and strong civic networks. So the takeaway is this, that welcoming isn't just a moral issue, it's also strategic. When people feel they belong, they contribute because they have a stake in the community's success. And when everyone contributes, the whole community grows stronger. So as you consider our recommendations, we encourage you to see the initiatives described in the report, not as a new expense, but as the next stage in building the kind of community you've already shown you want to lead. A community where belonging, opportunity, and accountability grow together. So Heather and I, as you mentioned, um, Heather and I have submitted some suggestions, which you'll find in your packet. And we, we don't, I'm not going to read them all to you because, because you already saw them in your packet. Um, just want to draw your attention to, um, to, to the two overarching suggestions. And one is, um, in the spirit of transparency and community engagement, we recommend that the select board issue a public letter before the year, before the end of the year, outlining how you plan to respond to the report. Not that you will know all the answers yet, that's not what we're saying, but just that you, that, that to demonstrate that there's a plan in place for getting to those answers. Um, and second, uh, um, in setting your priorities for follow up, we proposed a, a kind of a, a single and sort of simple, um, criterion, which is, will this initiative recommended in the report lead to meaningful changes in people's lives? And I think if we use that criterion to evaluate what steps to take next, it'll help guide us toward the, you know, there are so many recommendations in this report and it can be really overwhelming. And so we think that criterion can help us, um, prioritize. So with, with that, I'll turn it back to you. Thank you. Um, Dr. Hayes, is you, uh, you're kind enough to join us tonight. Would you like, and oh, by the way, Karen, you probably should have given your address. Your hair is, your hair is a resident now, not on the HR DEI, right? I'm here as the HR DEIC chair. Okay. And Dr. Hayes, did you want to just identify yourself and then, um, uh, would you like to say something as well? Hi, I am Dr. Hayes. Eden Renee is also totally fine or as is Dr. E. Um, I'm just, I was hired to be the thought partner on this. Uh, so I am here to be, to answer any deeper questions that come directly from, from the report. So I'm, I'm really here as support today. Thank you though. Thank you for joining us. We appreciate it. Um, so as I, I had said at the beginning and, and, and Karen has, has, has agreed with me. It's a lot of material here and we really haven't had a chance to dig into. We kind of had the, the, the consultants came and gave us the report. And then there was some revisions made to the report. And now we are, um, I think getting ready to be able to dive into this. So there are, as I said, about 40 recommendations. And there are about, if you scroll down, um, nine different topics. So does anybody want to take a stab at, um, where we are? Then there's this summary sheet that they've put together, which, um, basically talks about developing three year action plan, which these are pulled from the recommendations. Um, the one thing I will say though, Cameron is it looks like in almost every item you have is, you know, provide a budget or, you know, to hire a part time person. And, um, that's probably the elephant in the room for this. But, um, did you want to chime in here? I think that we've just, um, I appreciated your introductory remarks, Karen, and how we think about budgeting. And I know that there are also other creative ways to be able to achieve some of these ends, potentially without going directly to the taxpayers. And one of them would be, um, seeking different grant funding, um, whether that's, um, within Massachusetts or organizations outside of the Commonwealth. And I don't know if the grant funding will require matching funding from the town. But I think that, that a couple of these recommendations specifically in theme one or two, where it talks about hiring a part time town employee or a consultant, I think we could potentially achieve the ladder of the consultant. If, if we're able to get some money from outside of the town. Um, and I know, uh, as we develop future budgets, it's something else to think about in terms of what we're prioritizing, but I don't know if you caught some of the earlier part of our meeting. Um, as I had mentioned to the two of you, when we had talked earlier, we're, we're trying to find the best way possible for this upcoming fiscal year to try and avoid this looming override vote. So there, there's just, there's no wiggle room, um, right now in terms of budgeting. And, and so that's why I think we should be exploring actively some grant funding at this point to, to start achieving some of these. Are there some grants that you are aware of? Who? Us or Doug? Oh, no, I'm looking at you. I'm sorry. Um, I mean, one possibility that comes to mind is the MAPC. I, I know they have grants for technical assistance to communities. Um, I have not looked at their thing recently. The Sudbury foundation has grants for, um, I forget the name of their, the category, but there's a category that could be relevant. Um, I think one, one really important aspect to this. And I think it's when Karen put this together, she probably was thinking about just the organization of it all. Like theme one, theme two, three, theme three, let's, let's start prioritizing these, um, themes. But, uh, a while back, Karen, uh, along with Yamini had put together a budget and it was essentially like the annual budget to do. I think it was like five different events and it was like $12,000. And so something that I think isn't necessarily reflected on this is that there is some, um, work that had been done and it wasn't large sums of money. Um, it was also to support activities that were already going on in the town that, um, was pretty much being funded, uh, through, you know, just pulling it together. And so to just know that that funding would be there became, you know, just the next step in the development of, Hey, are we really going to do community engagement? Um, so I do think that there's a possibility not only of looking at grant funding, which, uh, is definitely something that we should look at, but I also think that there's an ability to maybe start looking at charging for some of these events, but the town has to realize that in not providing a basic budget for some of the stuff that's really a small number compared to, you know, for the 250 year anniversary, which was really, really important obviously for the town, but it was a one day event. Uh, we spent what 50, 75,000. And that in, in this budget, we were looking at 12,000 for a full year of, uh, events. So I, I think what would help just in knowing what Karen has done and what the group has done, and then also knowing the, the positive impact it's had. Um, I think what might make sense, Karen, and if the select boards open to it is, is really kind of just looking back at that budget and seeing if there are specific events that are a lower number event, a lower dollar number event, uh, and saying, okay, this is, this is maybe the, the first phase of theme one. Yeah, I, I, um, I think events are really important. And, and I appreciate what you're saying, Anne. Um, and I know you've been a long time advocate for getting funding for events and, uh, the things that this report is prioritizing are different than events. It, you know, it's prioritizing training. It's prioritizing, um, uh, what cultural competency workshops, um, uh, broadening efforts to implement equitable selection processes for hiring and volunteer opportunities, making accessibility improvements. So these are all things that are different from events. And I, I think, you know, both are important. If we look at our criterion of will, will this initiative change lives? I think we need to dive into some of these bullets that are, that are already here, um, in terms of sort of changing structures and institutions and the way we do business in the community, um, to make sure that everybody feels like they belong. Um, so I don't think they're mutually exclusive, but I just think we need to really look at both. Do you have a sense of budget for what you are talking about for some of these items built into the themes? Um, we have not created a budget. Um, Dr. Hayes, I don't know if you want to speak to that, to some of those specifics. Um, it's hard to speak to a budget, um, with the number of recommendations that are outlined by, by the consultant. And, but if we were to narrow down and say, these are our priorities, I'd be able to help to say, this is what I would recommend as, as a budget. Okay. Right. It depends which ones we pick, um, from that, from that list, which ones we prioritize. I thought it was almost okay. There's a bit of a more. So, all right. I guess, um, in an effort to, to, to try to get a better sense of what we'd be looking at financially. Like if we delve into one of these sub bullets, such as offer community-based discussion groups and cultural competency workshops, and we would be hiring a part-time town employee or a consultant. If we went with the latter and it was a consultant, like we were talking about earlier offline. We talk, we're talking like in the thousands of dollars, but we're not talking 50 to $100,000. So, so we're talking, you know, in the multiple thousands of dollars, but somewhere along the lines of $10,000 or so. And I, I think that that might help the board, Karen and Dr. E. Um, get a better sense of what we're thinking about in terms of going forward. So we have a sense of numbers. And my, my colleague, the chair always wants to understand the numbers. And I know we didn't ask you to come with a specific budget. But when we look at the sub bullets, which talks about hiring or retaining a consultant. It's hard when it's so amorphous, if we don't have a sense of, of what the round numbers are. And where we could potentially seek some grant money. So with the grant money, if we saw the grant and achieved it, would it cover half of that? Would it cover 75%. 75%. I, I think that would be helpful for our purposes for planning. And so if you looked at someone to, uh, to hold conversations around these topics, uh, depending upon how many conversations over, how many periods of time, uh, you could be looking at, um, the, the, the thousands, uh, if it, if it's something that's over, over a year and it's once a month and you know, it's, um, a, like a, I don't know, like 90 minutes and it's over like, like once a week, you just, the more you have, obviously the more it's going to cost. So you could get into the tens of thousands. If you have something that frequent, if you have something that's monthly and like, like a 60 minutes to an hour and a half and something more like that, it, it could be in over a year. Yeah. It could totally be $10,000 like every other month. Yeah. It could be more, uh, it could be closer to the thousands because it's, it's a conversation, not a workshop. So if it is actual cultural competency workshops, then you're totally going for, for the tens of thousands for, for frequent workshops over, uh, over the course of six months, a year. And, you know, things that are, that are focused and specific for, for Waylon, things like that. Uh, you, you're, you're getting into higher numbers. And so the numbers will depend on frequency and they will depend upon, um, the specific specificity of the topic. And like, if it's a conversation, it usually costs less than a workshop. And, and Dr. Yi, what about community engagement training? The first bullet for theme two, um, you know, we have a finite number of staff here in town and it, would that take place over multiple sessions over the course of several months? Or how would you look at that? It depends on the consultant. Um, so some might come in and think that they could do it once. Um, I would caution against the consultant that said that they can come and do something like that in 90 minutes and, and be done with it. One and dones are usually not the best way. Uh, something like that would probably take a, a few different sessions. I, what my recommendation would be. And then because it is a training, it probably closer to, to the tens of thousands. Like workshop and training are, or I tend to be interchangeable words. Okay. This is helpful though. I think you've got the right idea. We need to have a sense of the, the cost of the item. It makes sense. Does anybody else, um, pop in here please. Good evening. Thank you for your good work. Um, I have three comments. Um, my first comment is on recommendation theme two. You talk about, um, actually theme one about continued support of the HRDI committee. I'm not asking for an answer now, but I wonder whether it'd be worthwhile to have the committee modified. So that a town employee is a member of the committee. And I think one benefit of that would be that individual. Would be certainly aware of the work of age, uh, HRDI. And as time passes, maybe be the, not necessarily liaison, but contact person to help share information and ideas and attitudes to other members, other employees in the town. My second comment is, as I look at these recommendations, I think an approach worth considering is a five-year plan, right? A five-year plan that, uh, that this board can commit itself to. That is fiscally responsible, but more importantly reflects our commitment to what we're trying to achieve that you've set forth in these, in these recommendations. Um, if we, uh, by the other five-year plan, I think. These goals could be achieved in, in effectively in, in, in chunks versus kind of feeling overwhelmed, uh, feeling overwhelmed and thinking, well, where do we begin? Um, and, um. Um, the third comment is, relative to training, in my workplace, we train people on, for example, computer security through training videos. And that may be worth considering might be less expensive to the town versus bringing in a consultant to a consultant with so many hours. And that might be, uh, worth considering. Those are my comments. Thank you.
You know what, Karen? I would like the board to have the questions first, or do you want the back and forth? No, but whatever you want, Madam Chair, whatever you prefer. Okay. I think we should have the bill first. And then hold on your question for a few minutes. Thank you. Well, let me add my thanks to those of my colleagues, uh, for the work you've done. Thank you. Karen, you obviously anticipated, uh, the reaction, uh, to, uh, uh, a suggestion that the town incur additional expense for part-time employer consultants. Uh, we're, you know, all, uh, working hard, uh, some of us harder than others, to, uh, see if we can close a substantial budget gap. And, um, so I, I think the, uh, suggestion, uh, of coming up with a budget and to the extent that, uh, matching funds could be identified as something that might possibly leverage any town contribution would be helpful. Uh, this is important work, but, uh, we are really, uh, kind of laser focused on this question of budget. Uh, personally, I think that a consultant is a little easier pill to swallow given, uh, that, uh, the tenant manager has a hiring freeze on bringing on employees involves, uh, only salary, but, uh, benefits and so forth. So, uh, uh, I think, uh, the earlier suggestions are, are, are useful. Thank you, Mr. Whitney. Um, Ms. Blumenthal. I'm going to let, um, you wanted to ask me, and then I'm going to, um, Mr. McCall speak, so go ahead. Go ahead. Me or Mr. McCall? I'm letting you pop in. Sorry. Karen, please go ahead. Okay, sorry. Yeah, it's hard to hear. Um, so I just wanted to say, um, Mr. Fay, I'm really happy to let you know that our charge calls for either the town at the time. It's a town administrator, but let's call it town manager or their designee to serve as an ex officio member on our committee. And we did have that previously. Um, and then it dissipated and now we don't have anyone from the town, but we would love to have someone on the town, um, on the committee. That would be fantastic. Um, and then also the five year plan, I don't have a problem with that stretching it from three years to five years. Um, and the training videos, I think Dr. Um, Hayes can speak to that better than I can, but I do think this work is relational. Um, this work really asks a lot of us to, there's a lot that comes in this kind of work and you can't get it from videos. Um, in my opinion. So I, I don't know, just wanted to say that. Um, and then also I wanted to ask about, um, Mr. Oh, sorry. Go ahead. You wanted to respond to Mr. McCall wanted to get his points in and I, I want to make a couple of points too. So could we kind of go back and forth? Would that be okay? So go ahead, Mr. McCall. Thank you, Madam Chair. And I do appreciate the work that the HR DEI has done. And as I'm sure. Ms. Blumenfeld knows as well as Dr. Eden Renee Harris. Um, I've been involved with the assessment all along meeting with them and Dr. Damon, his team. Um, one of the two comments I was just going to make, uh, I, I, I hope that bullet number two under, uh, theme number two is reflecting in what we've been trying to do here. We, we've been trying to broaden our efforts for recruitment, um, bringing in more diverse workforce. But one thing I just wanted to touch on that people talked about, um, the first bullet on the theme two is I did look, uh, our insurer Maya, which is the Massachusetts interlocal insurance, uh, association, uh, offers a lot of risk management programming, um, including videos, as well as in-person education. And they offer a bunch of different, uh, initiatives for, for leadership, teaching them about diversity, equity, and inclusion, as well as for staff and gender. Uh, more inclusive culture within the workplace. So I think that is one area. If we're, you know, concerned about our finances, they want to put those on because they, they are risk averse and they do not want us to have problems, um, and have any type of claim brought against the town. So I can explore that to see what, if any, they would, uh, trainings that we do both in-person and offer, uh, online to, uh, our staff. So I just wanted to raise that. Mm-hmm. Um, and I obviously thank you for the work and I see a lot of things here that I think we're sort of doing or mostly doing that around the list, which is encouraging. Uh, I see a lot of things that need to be done. I, too, agree with, um, my colleagues that this is a marathon, not a sprint. And unfortunately, right now we do have a couple, uh, uh, more than a couple of agenda items that are a sprint that are going to kind of force us to maybe not get right back to this right away. I am, I'm pretty sure we're not going to be able to, um, you know, do a letter or a response on the plan by December 31st, but I would like to think we should probably have some kind of a sense of a discussion, um, by in January. And I would like to recommend, because I was thinking about this today, actually, the board really hasn't had a chance to deliberate on this. We've had a report from the consultant and then we've had the follow up, uh, finalized report. And now we've had a couple of conversations and I think that we don't want to be rude to the guests and not let them, you know, have the questions, but it does, we really need to have time to just deliberate, um, as a board. So I am going to, um, possibly, um, maybe if I could work with Karen on getting some thoughts on the budget items on some of these things offline, it would be great. I know Karen and I have, uh, been working on a welcoming statement, which is number two. And then I'm going to suggest to the board that we schedule like, um, a deliberation session and look at all of the items to just kind of get a wrap our hands around our arms around, you know, what we think and where we think. Um, I do like the grant idea. I love the Meyer idea. That's terrific. So, um, anyway, what does anybody think? That's pretty good. I'll do something to come back. Makes sense. Makes sense. All right. Um, and you're good. I see you shaking your head. So I'm going to give, um, the last remarks to Dr. Hayes, Dr. E and Karen and, um, and you're on the air. Go ahead. Oh, no, I just, uh, I want to say thank you for, um, spending time with us and moving forward with us. We see, you know, that your priorities are, are, are aligned with us and that's very important as it comes to join us. Oh, it's been back and forth a few times. Yes. Yes. Um, but, uh, you know, so I just, I just look forward to the, to the forward movement, uh, on, on this, cause I know how important this is. And I know that you share that same value. Amy, thank you for your assistance and kindness. Um, Karen, did you have one last question? You had another question you wanted to, to raise? No, no, I don't even remember anymore. So I'm, I'm good. Thank you so much for your time and for your attention and for your care and concern about these issues. Thank you so much for helping us with this. All right. I'll be in touch. How's that sound? Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Um, with the board's permission, I'm going to hire if these gentlemen are here for a specific agenda item. It's bridge. Yes. I know. May I help you? Did you come for a specific item? Uh, for the, uh, town manager's assessment of the meeting on Sherman Bridge. So we. Should I leave his agenda item at 9 p.m. So I just let me. Do I have a repeat? We are. Do I agree? You do. Um. Uncharacteristic for us lately. Oh, pardon. Miss. Miss. We've been really liking me because we're going to be out in about five minutes. We're on the last item, which is select boards, reports, and concerns. We've already. I'm not too late then. No, you, uh, you missed the town manager's report. So that has happened. My name is Kurt Traposh. I don't remember that. Right. You're. I want to let him just give a brief.
Um. Okay. So now I'm going to go to, um, thank you. Thank you, everybody indulging me. Um, I'm really going to, I think the last topic I have, did I miss any? Cause we bounced around, but I think we're on select board reports and concerns. Are we not? That's correct. That's correct. Oh, I love it. Okay. Mr. Whitney, would you like to start? Totally. Um, as far as reports, uh, I would report that, uh, I guess this. The superintendent of schools, uh, has, uh, following a consultation with the master plan advisory committee engaged, uh, the architectural firm of HMFH of Cambridge, Massachusetts, uh, to conduct, uh, really, uh, a study, uh, kind of a master plan study of, uh, elementary and middle school, uh, facility needs, uh, going forward. Um, a number of, uh, kind of visioning sessions have been scheduled. Uh, two of them, unfortunately, immediately preceding, uh, select board meetings. So I'm going to, uh, advocate for future meetings to be held before school committee meetings. Take that. Uh, but, uh, you know, the, uh, the process had begun, uh, in, in the spring, I believe. And so, uh, consultant is now on board. Uh, also, as you know, I did not attend the prior meeting at the board. So I, but I did watch, uh, the, uh, tape on way cam. And for those of us accustomed to watching high definition television, uh, the, the way cam image, uh, is comparatively fuzzy. Uh, also, uh, the, the focus of the camera is quite distant. And so, um, one can't really see the expressions on the board members' faces. Maybe that's a good thing. I don't know. But, uh, a tighter focus, I think, would be helpful in terms of just, uh, people being able to, uh, appreciate what happens at the meetings. And, and also the sound when it isn't great, if you can read the lips of people, I think that's a lot. Uh, so I just offer that, uh, suggestion. So that's pretty much what I have. Thank you. Um, Tom? Sure. Just two items. Um, I wanted to, um, thank Tom Holder, public works director, as well as the town manager for organizing another swift meeting on Sherman's Bridge topic. Um, it's clearly a great deal of interest by residents, particularly in that, uh, neighborhood, but others as well. And, um, look forward to further discussion coming up this Thursday. Um, I'm, I'm confident that a reasonable compromise can be accomplished involving the town of Sudbury, of course, on that, on that, on that, that historical bridge. Number two, um, um, um, understand, please report that the school committee's policy relative to cell phone use. The middle school has been implemented using yonder pouches where students place their phones in yonder pouches and don't use them during the course of the day. And the reason why I bring it up is I do see it as a, as a public health issue, not necessarily a school policy issue. That's good to hear. And I'm looking forward to a supplementation, uh, at some point, uh, uh, soon at the high school. Thank you. Thank you. Um, Ms. Brinsley, do you have any thoughts or concerns? Yeah. So, um, I think everybody was invited to a high spirits, um, event. I don't know if you guys saw it. It actually went into my spam folder and I only bring it up because I know, uh, we've been looking at, um, alternatives for, um, adults, um, care or a, um, a adult. Living co-living, uh, type of concept. And the more I looked into that group, the more I found some of their work just, uh, relevant to putting together a future plan. Um, even if it's not connected to the adult co-living, uh, concept we were coming up with, but more just this, uh, work living type of, um, community. So I just wanted to encourage you guys or bring, bring light to that because you guys, I think are all invited, but more importantly, there's some information on it. If you guys haven't seen it yet. Thank you. Mr. Levine. I'm good. Okay. Um, I have a couple of things, but, um, I did forgot to mention last time that, um, I received after we took the vote on the 14 West Plain. I received just personal emails and conversations calls from a couple of folks who had, had expressed interest in the property saying that they felt that the select board made the right decision. Um, that the timing just was not right, even though we all agreed it was a lovely property. And I wanted to share that because I don't know that we always, when we have to make difficult decisions, I don't know that we always feel that that's, no one is totally thrilled with our thoughts. Um, that one seemed to hit on the head. Um, on Friday, we are meeting it's 11 o'clock meeting and, um, I did really well resisting 50 agenda items to try to hop in there, but when I did add one. And that is that Michael has a draft of the pilot program. I think it is that we're going to just look at cause we were interested in moving that forward. I didn't want to wait till November 3rd. It's just, just get that conversation started. Um, I hope that's okay with everyone. Cause I did say it would be one agenda item and it wasn't. And, um, well, on November 3rd, we're going to, we have a very full list as well. We'll be having the annual financial summit to which we've invited the finance committee and the, the school committee. Haven't heard if they're coming yet. I assume they are. Um, you'll be signing and voting the bands and the documents that we just talked about. We're going to also start looking at the MWA financing discussions in the next steps. I'll be attending tomorrow night's meeting. I've asked them to put forth a formal request to us. So hopefully by the time we meet on the third, we'll have a formal request and some numbers to look at as to what the costs are going to be as we, as this goes forward. So, and with that, um, I think we're ready. So I'm going to take a motion to adjourn at what? 8.58? 8.59. Oh, am I early? Still moved. Excuse me. Watch this. Are you doing it? We have a video training for that, Madam Chair. Yeah. All right. So we have, we have a motion for those in favor. Ann? Yes. Um, Doug? Yes. Bill? Yes. Tom? Yes. And are you ready? Yes. Meeting of the third. Meeting of the third. Meeting of the third. Meeting of the third. Meeting of the third. Meeting of the third. Meeting of the third. Meeting of the third. Meeting of the third. Meeting of the third. Meeting of the third. Meeting of the third. Meeting of the third. Meeting of the third. Meeting of the third. Meeting of the third. Meeting of the third. Meeting of the third. Meeting of the third.
Because Ann is participating remotely, all votes tonight will be by roll call. So our agenda will be announcements of public comment, followed by appointments to committees. We have one candidate for the Economic Development Committee and one for the Energy and Climate Committee. On 620, we will discuss, review, and possibly vote to co-sponsor the Planning Board Accessory Dwelling Unit Farm, being sponsored by the Planning Board, followed by a discussion and review by the Finance Committee recommendation regarding the reclassification of the levy debt at the DPW building. We will have a discussion review of the debt exclusion, including but not limited to ballot preparation and residential communication, discussion and review and timing of the cost of issuing bond anticipation notes. At 8 o'clock, we will hold a liquor license hearing for BAPA Whalen Corporation, located on an application for a change of stock interest, change of offices, change of manager, and change of corporate name.
At 8.15, we will have a discussion review of the equity audit recommendations, followed by a review and the potential vote to approve our expanded charge for the report advisory committees. We have a revised agenda, so there's an item number 12 is now to designate the position of a part-time procurement specialist in the town manager's office, followed by the town manager's report with board follow-up questions and comments, consent calendar, minutes of September 29 and October 6th, review of correspondence, select board members' reports and concerns, topics not reasonably anticipated by the chair 48 hours in advance, and hopefully at 9.30, we will adjourn. So please note that Mr. McAuliffe has joined us.
And could somebody just do me a quick favor and text Bill to see if he's on his way? Maybe he didn't realize we're starting at 6. And so... You got it. Yep. Thank you. So for announcements, I have one interesting one. Town manager's office has bought us a gabby lap. The last week, when I kept trying to talk a lot, I couldn't get through, so I'm going to call the media officially to order.
It's a select board gabby. Is there anybody in the room who would like to offer public comment? Is there anybody online who wants to offer public comment, Robbie? Is there anybody in the room who wants to offer public comment? Anyone on the board or, Mr. McAuliffe, do you have any announcements?
No, Madam Chair. Are we all set? Yeah. Okay. Yep. No? Okay. All righty. Well, then, let's move on to appointments. I think you must be Ms. Mahan. Mahan, yeah. Would you like to join us, please? How are you? Thank you for coming. And I believe you're looking for a position to fill one of the empty seats on the Economic Development Committee. Yes, that's right. And this is a term ending June 30, 2020. So, it's very informal here. You take just a minute or two to talk to us about your interest in, you know, being a member of the committee. The board members will have questions, and then we'll go from there. That's nice. Thank you. The floor is yours. Yeah. So, hi, everyone. My name is Niti Mahajan. I actually grew up in Wayland, graduated from Wayland High School back in 2011, spent the rest kind of between 2011 and 2025 in lots of different places. I went to New York City for a while, went to grad school in Philly, went to Broad for a bit, went down to Buenos Aires for a while. And my husband and I just bought a house this summer. I moved back to Wayland. We decided we wanted to raise our family here. My professional background is in business. So, I studied economics and consumer psychology at Penn for undergrad. I then did my MBA at Wharton and did marketing and operations. Started my career in management consulting. So, supporting businesses and thinking about future growth. And then I spent sort of my last two stints in-house at various companies. So, I was at a startup called Daily Harvest and most recently in fact Vital Farms, which is a terribly traded egg and butter business, and I knew corporate strategy. And so, I'm very interested in bringing my, you know, business skills and business acumen back to my community. It's a town I love, obviously. That's why I moved back. And figured that this committee was a great way to make impact, leveraging the experience and the expertise that I have.
Thank you. So, questions from the board?
Sure. Having had a chance, good evening. Nice to meet you. Thanks for bringing your application. Have you met any of the members of the committee or attended any EDs or met the chair? Yeah. So, I chatted with Becky earlier. And then I also, you know, David Villar, actually went to high school together. Oh, great. So, I'm about to catching up with him just on sort of how it's going, what to expect. That's what the big priorities are. Right. Good. Well, thanks for your background. Excellent. You'd be a great, you'd be a great advocate for me. Thank you. When did you say you moved back into town meetings? It shuts down. Okay. In August. I think we bought our house in June. We closed in June. We moved physically in August. So, you haven't been into any recent town meetings that soon? No, I just read the meeting. Yes. So, then a question that I have is, do you bring to the committee a couple of ideas of what you're thinking for sparking some development? Because, as you may have heard, we're consistently up against potential override votes in the foreseeable future and some tight budgets and economic development is really a priority of this board, as well, obviously, as the driving force of the Economic Development Committee. But curious to hear what kind of ideas you're bringing in with you. Yeah. I mean, I think I probably share a vision that you all have for the town, which is like a vibrant community center with businesses that we all want to frequent regularly in order to drive kind of turns, traffic, but still maintaining kind of the character and uniqueness of Wayland. We're not a native, right? We're not a free man. And I don't think any of us want necessarily to move in that direction. So, a lot of what I want to do is actually understand and learn kind of where we've been, what we've tried, and what hasn't worked. I have some ideas of the types of businesses I'd want to see in the town center, things that, you know, you'd see in like a Concord town center, for example. But I also know that we face a little bit more, a few more structural challenges in those towns, just in terms of we don't have a great corridor for foot traffic today. So, I want to start there to kind of understand what we have done, what we've tried, and what has failed, and why, before I come in and suggest, you know, a bunch of new ideas. I know that the team is working on some business outreach for the corridor. I know that there's been some work done to think through small things like signage. But I have some ideas around pop-ups or, you know, supporting local and some campaigns and things that we can run, leveraging more of my marketing experience, but would never want to come in and suggest anything without understanding kind of what's worked and what hasn't. Great. Thank you. Yeah, of course. Anne? Do you have any questions? I'm super impressed. Thank you. Thank you so much for helping and joining. Thank you for having me. So, I was very intrigued and pleased to see you have data analysis as one of your skill sets, because recently we've asked the EGC, when they come forward with proposals to also provide us, you know, what's the economic benefit to the town? Dollars benefit to the town primarily is what we're looking for. So, I think this is a terrific skill set addition, you know, to the board. The last proposal, they were in here last week with a proposal for some amenities at the town center that town manager is going to be looking into. And they did come in with, you know, a little bit of financial analysis. So, this is a directional hope and that continues. So, yeah, data is my love language. So, I'm really, really excited to tie it into data. That's a little bit like me. Well, we're discussing some important finance issues later. So, you can stick around if you want to. So, I'm happy to move that this board vote to appoint Nidhi Singhai Mahajan, I apologize if I did not get your name properly, to the Economic Development Committee for term ending June 30th, 2028. Second. Okay. Any further discussion? Otherwise, we'll have a roll call vote, Tom? Yes. Doug? Yes. Anne? Yes. Carol, yes. So, you will hear from the town clerk's office, which in the town manager's office, you will receive a letter of appointment. And when you get that into the town clerk's office and you swear in officially, you'll be given some materials, including conflict of interest training. And then once that process is complete, you'll earn official voting number of the board. Awesome. Thank you. I appreciate it. Thank you. Welcome aboard. Thank you so much. And you must be close. Thank you. Join us. Who are you? Welcome. And office has applied for a position on the economic, the energy, climate, energy, climate and committee. And we're also with the term ending June 30th. So, I think you've heard me, but if you could just give a short explanation, we have your information, obviously, on the pathway, which I now managed to get to come up so I can read it. And then the board will ask questions and off we go. Thank you for applying, by the way. Well, my pleasure. So, I wasn't born or raised in Welland. I was born in France. I was raised there as well. I started as a software engineer. After I graduated, I did a stint for one year in the U.S. before I moved back to France with my wife. So, I spent a couple of years in the French VDR. Always wanted to move back to the U.S. with my wife. So, we moved with one small-aged kid. We had the second one here. Originally, it was only two, three years. But, yeah, we stayed there for the quality of life. We settled in Welland in 2013. And so, it has a professional background in software engineering, moving up kind of as a developer, then team lead manager, and values level management in values tech companies. Currently, I'm on a job break. So, I'm bringing that up because that's since last year, basically, I grew passionate about not only climate science, but really climate solutions and climate action. So, I joined the Energize Welland Association. So, it's meant to foster, to help, basically, with free services, coaching with volunteers. So, I started doing myself installation of rooftop solar. Then, I installed HeatBump this year. I know the process is very complicated and involved. So, you need help. But, you'd rather have unbiased with neighbors to have trust to begin with. So, I started coaching very eagerly. The HeatBump is more involved. And, I'm also involved with the HeatSmart Alliance. So, it's a state-based, mostly in Massachusetts. And, then, a couple of other coaches in New England, where I'm also volunteering with my data. I'm a data nerd, as well. So, lots of data analysis that I've done for myself, but I'm pushing into a template for other coaches to help homeowners decide between quotes. And, yeah, very excited to have the opportunity to potentially join as a member of the Energy and Climate Committee. What I'd like to focus on is really help with the Climate Action Plan that was signed a couple of years back. Essentially, on the outreach and education of residents, because that's where the majority of emissions are coming from. I know that it's kind of very much in control, I think, with government buildings at the time. I've attended the committee last month, and I could see, at a different level, how to deploy heat pumps or solar, or battery backup. A lot more costly, as well. But, yeah, resident outreach is where I really want to help and push for. And it's really also climate education and advocacy slash agency with the high schoolers, or middle schoolers. I've got two high schoolers now, ninth and tenth grade. I really love them, not only to get education in climate science, but how will they help with their parents and helping, you know, maybe their parents, coaching them for heat pumps, how that's involved, what's the economical benefit, because there is some, and financial incentives as well. And the last thing I wanted to comment is climate action tracking. So we've got figures on a yearly basis from MassSafe, but we've got an online database, property database, we've got the permitting database. Lots of noise in there, but there is lots of, the data is in there for who's got heat pumps, who's got solar, who doesn't have gas, has an oil furnace, maybe what age, to maybe prioritize the outreach with residents, who could benefit the most from upgrading their headlock systems, or install air conditioning if they don't have any. So yeah, that's what I wanted to tell you about myself. Thank you. Welcome back. What are you doing, Mr. Whitton? Sir? I could let the record show have joined at 6.50. Thank you. Right on time.
Yes, go ahead. Thank you. Excuse me, Bill Whitney, you've already appointed Ms. Mahalong to the EDC, and now we're interviewing Clovis Shaw for a position on the ECC, which is, he's the liaison for that. But Doug would like to start the questioning, so go ahead. Clovis, thank you for submitting your application and your interest. You clearly have a lot of relevant background experience. A question that my colleague, Mr. Faye, tends to ask, and I'm curious about, is have you connected with any members from, I know you're on Energized Whitton, and there's some overlap members on the Energy and Climate Committee, and or have you watched any of the meetings so far? See how you could be useful there. I attended the one last couple of weeks back, three weeks back, maybe. So I know very well Ed Antone, because she's chairing the Energized Whitton Association as well. I know Anne Harris, she's coaching Heat Pumps, and she recently moved out of the ECC. I guess that's one of the openings. One of the openings, yeah, that she opened up. Anne told me about the dynamics of the committee, which sound very kind of collegiate, whether you're a voting member or not. And I, yeah, she was very reassuring as well in terms of the time investments, which is good. It's however, I feel like investing. And with areas that, yeah, it's mostly open to individuals' interests. Yeah, the meeting that I attended was very interesting with lots of different people coming from state associations, so there is an ongoing discussion about being a climate leader with Whelan, as an example, with the EV-first vehicle policy still to be amended, as I understand from your feedback, but from the board. So that's such initiatives on the policy scale, but I was not kind of attuned to, which are also of interest to me, how to tweak and push the policy towards more energy efficiency and carbonization. Thank you for submitting your application. With the federal government's viewpoint of global warming, it seems to me that local initiatives are important.
Are there any initiatives that stand out for you, based on what you've seen in Whelan, that seem particularly unique? And have you learned anything from studying other communities that suggest you might want to pursue, that we haven't pursued these projects? Are you progress?
So yeah, it's too bad for the energy transition at the federal level, but there is lots of advocacy at the state level in the U.S., and Massachusetts is one of the leading states with California and New York policies. And then also in terms of funding. So Massave has a program over a couple of years, World Billions, which needs to be tapped into more. So for me, it's about pushing more awareness of available incentives, 0% interest loans with homeowners. I will say Whelan definitely was ahead in terms of pushing for coaching with heat pumps, as an example, years back. It was already called HeatSmart programs, as I understand. And it's also lots of focus on the webinars and also outreach on social medias like Facebook. Also the Whelan post, which is pretty impressive, pushing on the newspaper as well. What I like to push is more of the old schools' newsletters, as an example, and really the green team there. And another thing I'm thinking about, maybe you've got over towns which are providing town-specific incentives and in the comfort. I don't know how financials could work, honestly, but that's something I wish Whelan could offer to their residents as well. Thank you very much. Will or Anne? I would just ask, as you're hopefully in the position, I started to read some audits on some of the energy policies that have been coming out, like MassSave and some of these environmentally conscious types of programs. And some of the costs, I don't think people are quite aware of. And so I would just ask that you kind of balance. We're about to look at an override that we're trying to avoid at all costs. So just looking at the financial consequences of some of it, it would be great to have somebody kind of approach the position with that in mind. It makes me think of the battery for the shelter at the middle school. So that one was a cost which was very prohibitive to me. I'm not attuned, you know, to that level of expense compared to residential. In terms of costs at the residential level, I know that it makes sense, at least that I would want to push with homeowners. And in terms of upgrades for buildings, I'm just learning now, having attended my first committee last month. Awesome. Thanks, Dan. Bill? Well, I'd just like to add my thanks to those of my colleagues for your willingness to step forward. And I must say I was particularly impressed by your letter of interest where you anticipated questions that the board often asks, which is, are there particular areas in which you'd like to work? And so you're having done so. I congratulate you. Thank you. And I'm going to say the same. It's a beauty of going last. All the good questions are gone. So all I have to say is thank you so much. I appreciate it. I think your background is a fabulous fit. You've got a lot of experience in this area. And I know the committee will really benefit from your help. It is an associate position. It's a non-voting position is when we make the motion. So I'll move on this board point, Clovis Schaaf, to the Energy and Climate Committee, a non-voting position for term ending June 30th of 2028. Second. If there's no further discussion, we'll have a vote. So Doug? Yes. Bill? Yes. Yes. Yeah. And Carol, yes. So that's 5-0. Congratulations. And? Clovis, you might have heard this spiel that I gave earlier. Earlier, you'll receive a letter from the Town Manage Apps, which is your official appointment letter. Take that and bring it back here to Town Building, to the Town Clerk's Office. We'll officially swear you in, give you some materials, including conflict of interest training, and then you'll be an official voting member of the committee. Non-voting. Non-voting. You'll still be official. He'll be here. Yes. It's a real deal. Thank you. Thank you so much. I'll stand back. Okay. Robbie, do you see Rachel Bratt on the... Peter? Yes, she's done. Yes, she is. Hi, Rachel. Hang on just one second. Sure. The next agenda item is going to be discussed with you and possibly vote to co-sponsor the Planning Board's Access Redwelling ADU Forum. So we've invited Rachel Bratt as member of the Whalen Housing Partnership to speak to us so briefly and we are going to co-sponsor. Thank you. How are you? Thank you so much, Select Board, for having me this evening. As you probably know, in 2024, Massachusetts enacted a new law, the Massachusetts Affordable Homes Act, and a part of that included the ability for homeowners to create accessory dwelling units by right in a much simpler process than we had had because we've had a bylaw for ADUs since, I think, 1986, but it was probably never used, according to Sarki, our prior town planner. This is an opportunity for the Housing Partnership and the Planning Board to really communicate with residents about what this new law, to provide them with information, and to allow them to assess whether or not this is a strategy that makes sense for them. One can envision a number of scenarios that would be highly beneficial and of interest to homeowners if they're able to create an accessory dwelling unit, either by reconfiguring their internal dwelling space or creating an apartment over a garage, perhaps, or even a freestanding unit if they have a large enough backyard. The point of the meeting is to provide information from the town planner, from the building department, from, hopefully, Board of Health, and talking about septic regulations. The point is they need to understand the steps they can go through, what they're allowed to do, but whatever they propose has to comply with zoning, public health, safety, and septic rules and regulations. So, what it allows, and it has to be no more than 900 square feet. So, the purpose of the meeting is strictly informational, trying to provide a vehicle for people to better understand what their rights are under this new law and see whether they are interested in pursuing it. Thank you. So, the board is being asked, and since I think I received this email, it says, from Mary Anderson, it said, we're asking various boards, like the select board, to co-sponsor the event. No effort is required on the board's part, but it would demonstrate that important boards support the concepts of the ADUs. So, if anyone has any questions, Rachel's here to answer them. Otherwise, I guess we're taking a motion, right?
I would move that the select board agree to co-sponsor an accessory dwelling unit forum with the planning board. And this, I want to also, thank you, Bill. And this also, of course, is with the Weyland Housing Partnership. The Housing Partnership and the planning board are essentially the first co-sponsors. I will accept that amendment. Thank you very much. Second. Second. Is there any further discussion? Otherwise, we'll have a vote for a vote. So, Bill. Yes. Yes. There you are. The motion, Carol, 5-0. Thank you, Rachel. Thank you very much, select board. I appreciate all the work you guys do, really. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you, as well. Yep. All right. So, I think the next item is going to be discuss and review the Finance Committee recommendation regarding the reclassification of the public works building at 66 River Road, and we are inviting Phil G.G.C. Chair of the Finance Committee to join us. There are some informational slides in the packet, starting on page 11, for those who are following along. Did you need them put up? No. You're all set. Are there any members of the committee here? I don't see them. Something's wrong with my thing today. It's just good. I think it will just be me, but... Okay. Just want to make sure I don't missing anybody. So, the floor is all set. Great. Thank you, Board Chair. I appreciate being here tonight. The Finance Committee has deliberated on this question of reclassifying the remaining debt for the DPW facility and voted in favor of doing that unanimously. I think it was 5-0, as far as the folks that were there. Brian Keveney, Finance Director, put together a two-page memo that kind of laid out the pros and cons of this, that we have circulated in the select work package. The debt was issued initially and was voted by the Finance Committee to be issued as excluded debt when it was first put in place back in 2013, but for various reasons, it was decided to put it into the general obligation fund. Moving it now back to excluded debt will actually help our fiscal year 27 financial circumstance by freeing up some levy so that we won't be as close to the top as we otherwise would be. It still is an open question as to what we are going to want to fund for our budget in fiscal year 27, and that will be a process that we're going through. But to the degree that we don't have to go to an override for fiscal year 27, that would be a good thing from our standpoint, and particularly dealing with all of the open labor agreements in parallel with that, and giving us time to really start looking at the longer-term levy question and override questions, which is in front of us, but it's just a question of maybe being able to not have to do it in 27, or for fiscal year 27. This, as you know, will go to a town ballot to get the views of the town on this, and we'll see how that results. I know. Town manager Michael McCall has been considering how best to help educate the town, not take a position on the ballot issue, but to help lay out the topic. And so that will be getting underway shortly. So that's the substance of where we're at. There's going to be a lot of conversations between the select board and FinCom and the whole town on our financial outlook and how best to pay for the services that we want to pay for. And that doesn't change that nature of that, but it just sort of addresses the immediate need. So there are some slides. Let's talk about the slides first, as we don't have any questions on any of the slides for Phil, obviously here. Some of them will probably look familiar because I think we've saw them when Brian and Kevin presented them, but just in case anyone has any questions on any of the slides. So I did pull six slides from Brian's presentation. They aren't edited. They're the same exact slides, just to lay context. In case somebody doesn't remember them or has questions on them, open them up to the board to have any comments. I don't see any, which is great. Okay. Then there is a two-page memo from Brian and me that I thought was a nice addition. Thank you for having me together, everyone. And basically it talks about, it gives very succinct, very clear background of the project and the pros and the cons of every classification. Does anyone have any comments or questions on any of that?
I just had one. I'll go ahead, Tom. I just wanted to comment. I may have made this comment before, but I really appreciate you coming tonight and I appreciate the Finance Committee's attention to these issues, as well as the Town Manager, as well as the Chair of the Select Board, because Wayland, like so many communities, are in different phase in municipal financing. We've had a good run with the lack of a need for overrides, but I think we're into a new chapter, so we have to be creative, which the Town Manager and the Finance Director is here. And we have hard decisions in the years to come, but I really appreciate your attention today. Thank you. You have a question? My question was generally, would it be a good practice to convert this debt anyway, even if we didn't really need this full amount to avoid an override? Is this a smart move to make regardless of the need? So Moody's actually weighs in on the large capital projects are best to put into excluded debt. The operating budget is really all about the year-to-year cost running the town, and that's the best place to put debt that might have to go to buying the next truck or other sorts of things. So, yes, in general, keeping large capital projects that have 10-plus-year lives out of the general fund is an appropriate, prudent financial practice. Thank you.
Anybody else have a question on the memo? Well, Chris, I have one on pro arguments, and it says, number five, says reclassification has no effect on the annual debt service, which is correct, and no direct effect on the amount of taxation to be raised. However, again, and this has been my problem with this all along, we are doing this so that we are freeing up an additional $700,000 of levy capacity, which will be added to the tax bill, depending if we use all of it or a portion of it. So, up to, I like that up to line, which I said at the task force meeting, although I was corrected that it was going to be up, but up to, and I think that needs to be added to this particular list that will be published because... That is the probe number six there, provides additional levy capacity. It doesn't say. It provides additional $700,000 of levy capacity. Well, during the Marina Loan, but in FY27... Right, it is a declining number from there for the final time. If I was reading this and I hadn't served a few years on the finance committee, I would not be able to pick those semantics out. And I'm a little bit concerned that we need to be clear on that when we talk... No intention to hide anything. No, you don't. I'm just saying. I just feel we need to be clear on this. Michael, can you say back to Brian the comment of Carol's to potentially edit this a little? I'm sure we can look at it. I mean, the other thing is, it's not permanent, where a debt exclusion comes off the tax rolls, where if you leave it in there, levy debt and an override are permanent increases to your tax levy. So, I mean, if you start putting in one thing, you have to put in another to explain. Yeah. However, yes, but I do think we need to explain. We're not just correcting an accounting area issue or resolving something we feel should have been taped on, resolved prior to this year. We're doing this so that we will be able to have another $700,000 of taxation. Levy capacity. Yes. Yeah. So, you're saying that could be a pro or a con, depending on how you interpret it, right? That's why I'm getting that sense. Well, it could be in the middle, couldn't it? It could be either. We'll put it on both sides of it. Except if you're dying to add another $700,000 to your tax bill, yes, it's a pro.
Okay. Anybody? I mean, we have seen this material, and appreciate your comment, Phil. And Phil has come as representing the Finance Committee because under the proposition two and a half policy, a select board, before they place a debt exclusion on a ballot, gets and asks for a formal recommendation from the Finance Committee. And then the policy says we wait. It says one week, but I think they mean one meeting. And so, we will be meeting on Friday to move forward. We did take the vote already. We do need the recommendation in order to put it on the ballot. So, that's also... And I think Mr. Whitney had a question, so... It's probably just an academic question. But if $700,000 were to come off the general fund, does that affect the two and a half cap? Is the cap reduced slightly because there's less of a levy for the prior years? Our levy limit would not change. What has happened is what we are spending has reached that levy limit. We've reached capacity. So, by converting this from something we're spending in the levy to something that's excluded, you've now made available room in there if you need to raise your... Spend more on your budget, raise the taxes to do that. But if the next year's levy is a factor of about 102 and a half percent of the prior year's levy, if the levy is reduced by $700,000, is... Next year... If the limit reduced slightly because of that. Next year, it would be as well because we won't be including... We're paying off that debt, and this year it's $750,000. I'm spitballing, but it would be like next year it would be $700,000. The year after that, $600,000. I understand. So, you would have the increase of two and a half plus any new growth, and we would have that additional declining amount in there as well.
Isn't it also the fact that... No, I think I get a question. Isn't it also... I'm not sure if I understand your question, but I don't think you understand my answer, so I'm just... I think I understand my answer, and I don't have the answer for that. But I do understand... I don't think it's a material amount of money either way. Right. No, I think Bill has a good point. I think, however, in this case, the intent is to refill that gap with the FY27 budget. So, we're not having a... This doesn't mean we move it over here, and we only have one $700,000 that we account for. We're going to have that one over there, which we already have on our budget, and then we're going to have room for another $700,000, which, therefore, there shouldn't be any very small dip in that $700,000, because it goes to $650,000, right?
So, we recharacterize the dip, but there's no savings. There's no increase. There's no savings unless or until town meeting approves a budget that uses that additional $750,000. Right. Which the budget task force has said most likely will be using... At least a chunk of it. We'll see. Say a significant... But this, obviously, the room votes on whether to reclassify this dip, and it may determine that it doesn't want to reclassify it. So, then we'll be back to looking at what other options do we have. So, Bill's point is, if you take $700,000 out and you don't replace it, that would infect the $2.5 formula, I think, for the following year. If we took $700,000, we moved it over to debt exclusion, comes out of the operating, the debt service drops, then for the operating budget drops. So, his point is, it would be impacted. However, most likely filling that gap with some portion of the $700,000. Does that make sense? I don't... Maybe we can discuss this all. Yes, because I think it's your levy limit that increases 2.5% in your fee. You mentioned debt service. Well, we're removing... We'll have an offline. All right. He had a good question, though. All right. Let's get... Watch this. You ready? We have. We have. This is for a while. I'm having fun playing with it. Okay. For sure. Let's racially calm. Mr. McCall, did you want to add anything to this discussion? I know you're the one that engineered the budget work task force, so... Well, all of this was done, as you know, since I've been here, we've utilized this budget task force in order to get a broader perspective for greater input from members of the FinCom, school department, as we're planning, and to get a jump on the budgeting process by starting shortly after the beginning of the new fiscal year. I think it's helped us, not only this year, but in prior years, to come in under the levy, and that's the goal this year, to try and avoid, for the reasons stated by Mr. Judy's, an operational override in this particular year. To Mr. Fay's point, the MMA released an article, which I shared with the board and others have seen. I don't know if the Finance Committee has seen, called a perfect storm, how numerous communities across the Commonwealth are facing a similar problem with increasing non-discretionary costs, such as pension, healthcare, OPEB, and inflation, and declining state aid and federal aid in light of what's been happening in recent months. So, a lot of communities are up against their levy limit, and so we're not unique in that, and so we're all, all of us town managers and select board members, city councillors, are all looking at ways how to address this. And, unfortunately, it's not something that I foresee getting easier in the coming years. There was a legislative breakfast last week. I attended with some of my peers, and we talked to some members of the legislature, and we offered up some other suggestions, including treating some of these things as excluded debt, because one of the biggest problems with our levy is we have to pay for pension out of that and other costs. And as you've seen on some of the slides prepared by Mr. Keveney, our obligation for the pension is going to go out for 10 years. It's going to increase slightly year over year until it falls off around 2037. So, if we could get some relief from the state in how they characterize that, or something along those lines. Would they take legislative change of what you characterize within the levy? I believe so, and that's why we brought it up for discussion. And the MMA, who is an advocacy group for municipalities, they were there, and they were taking note of it. They sponsored the forum the other day. And as Michael indicates, it's not unique to Wayland. The entire Commonwealth is, and Wayland has done a better-than-average job of funding its unfunded liability, pension liability. But that one change would actually make a significant difference. But we'll see. So, what Michael, I think, is saying here is that up until now, our pension expenses are treated as an operating expense because they're an ongoing expense. And therefore, they're in our operating budget, part of our levy. And if we were able to treat it as excluded debt, we still have to pay it. But then it doesn't impact our levy as much. It's a very significant amount we're paying. And you've given me a segue of something I wanted to point out here is that when you look at the Delta, the forecast deficit is $1.8, $1.9 million, somewhere around there. If you look at the increase that we, Wayland, have to pay for our pension obligations this year, it's $900. So, $900,000, thank you. His eyes clicked. I said, okay, I have a mistake here. I think it's $9 million, actually. And to be clear, it's current pension that we have to be putting away, plus the unfunded liability that prior that we haven't caught up to. If you look right here, our increase, though, in our pension was $900,000, FY27. And so, if you subtract that from the 1A, technically, Michael and his team have done a terrific job just on a forecast. And usually, the forecast is a little higher than the actual budget. And so, we probably would have had a nice ending if it wasn't for that. But we're not going to have that at the moment. So, anyway. All right. Did you want to have the last word here? Are you all set? No, I'm all set. We thank you very much for coming. We thank the finance committee for their help. We will continue to work together. We will continue to work together on all these matters. Thank you. We'll be looking forward to see you again in a couple of weeks just to talk about MWRA financing. It's not something we're, like, cold required to do, but we would like your input. So, I'll brief to go to you on that. Yeah. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.
Thank you. That's what we can do.
So, thank you, Madam Chair. As I indicated in my email to the board a little over a week ago, we have not adopted Massachusetts General Law Chapter 53, Section 18B. That is one that will allow us to send informational packets out as a community. There are only a handful, about a dozen or so, cities and towns that have adopted this. So, town council knew right away, so we were not one of them. And there tend to be some of the larger municipalities. They further informed me that we can't place any objective information on the ballot. I know that was a question, I think, maybe from a select board member. So, what we are left with doing is creating some informational pages on our website. We can actually push out information through the website and our social media about the upcoming election. And we can put hyperlinks, say, if you want more information, have people on their own come back to the town to pages that have more detailed information. We can't push out a lot of information because it would look like we're campaigning. So, if we let people know and send reminders about the election, if you want more information on what the town is doing, here's the link you can click back. And so, that gives them the option to either read our information or not. We can hold public information sessions. And members of staff and elected officials, if invited to a forum, say, hosted by the League of Women Voters or another organization in town, are allowed to speak in their capacity if they are asked in such a forum. So, I can give a few more details. There are a couple of bulletins from the Office of Campaign and Political Finance that I believe I attached to that email that outlined some of the do's and don'ts. And I'm happy to answer any questions. But Ms. Powers-Furlett, who's currently out of the office today, she and I have been working on putting together the language for an FAQ, Frequently Asked Questions page, and also explaining how Proposition 2 1⁄2 works, so that people understand. That's what we have. I'm just going to hop in for one second here. Actually, two quick points. Mr. Kemeny had recommended when I was at the Budget Task Force that perhaps we might want to consider joining a public forum, you know, about this. And so, I was going to ask the board while we're having this discussion to kind of apply and if we want to hold the forum as one part of our meetings to talk about this, is whatever we can say. My question is, because I've noticed a public forum only reaches so many people, can we take, Michael, whatever information is gleaned from the public forums and reduce that into some type of written document? Because now that's out in the public. And then maybe people who weren't able to attend or who won't watch a recording of the forum, they can digest all of that in the document.
Maybe a question for town council. I can look into that. I would imagine we could have WCAM record it. I'm just thinking, you know, if it's 30 minutes or 45 minutes and the vast majority of voters aren't going to watch that, but they would read something that distills it down into some takeaways from the forum, then the forum is, to me, is very worthwhile. So my next question, what goes with this is, would we be able to print like the FAQs in the paper, the newspaper, for example, because that goes to all the homes? Because we do press releases. I'm just trying to throw out some ideas of how... I think the newspaper could do a story. They could do a story. I don't think we can put an ad in. Oh, no, we're going to put an ad in, but they could put things in, right? We can write in that. We can do whatever they want. So let me open it to the board. So that was one thing I wanted to just throw out was a thought as we discussed. So Paul, would you like to start?
Sure. I just wonder, in the course of a presentation at such a forum, how does one avoid taking a position to advocate for or against the matter?
I think it's quite possible. You basically review process that would have followed. The efforts have been taken to discuss the budget committee that the time manager put together, discuss the proposals put together by the finance director, review our discussions, review the input of the finance committee, recommendations that were adopted, and in other words, you're basically stating facts without argument and without advocacy, just stating facts. So just... I mean, I understand. So it wouldn't be like our traditional format that we use for a forum, and it would just be an agenda item, and then this is the information process. We wouldn't be able to field questions, would we? We couldn't. Okay. Yeah. I don't think so. You know, you're not... Again, it's just... You're just stating facts. Stating facts, okay.
Anyone else have anything they want to have here? So how do I answer the question, if it's posed? Why is this so like what the posings?
Persons... I'll take a stab at it. I... It's per policy. Under the... This essentially, the conversion of levy to excluded debt is... We, the budget working group, and me, the town manager, and now the Fint and Tom, are invoking a question under Proposition 2 1⁄2 per statute and policy, someone has to ask the select board, and only the select board can vote to put something of this nature on the ballot, and the select board is the only one who can call for a special election, so... Why is the select board doing this? Well, I really can't answer it, but I've sat in that seat in the past, and I can't recall if we had this exact... I know we had a couple of school questions for overrides, and my recollection is when I was posed with it, I put it on the ballot so that the public could weigh in on it. I think it's a personal choice at the end of the day, but it is me. I'm asking the board to entertain this.
So, and you're thinking maybe a better format would be, it's part of a select board meeting, but then we let some, like Michael, speak to the agenda item versus the... No, I mean, I think a form is a... I'm going to get the hang of this here. ...is a good idea. I just am concerned about this prohibition against any kind of advocacy. Mm-hmm. And sort of implicit in the action is advocating for this, or you could say this is one way to address the identified problem. This is a way that arguably could contribute to avoiding an override, but it's the voters' choice. I think you just have to be very disciplined and have kind of an electric shock. It's like a dog approaching, you know, one of those invisible fences. So I just, that's my only hesitation. Maybe, yeah, maybe if I could hop in here, maybe we should consider asking town council to join this agenda item to make sure we don't stray, or what do you think of that idea? Or do you have to get a forum, or I think you could. I think invariably someone is going to ask individual members in some public forum, be it a slight for me, you know, how do you stand on this? And, you know, I think that's your point. How do you avoid... I think you can answer without saying, by the way, come on down and vote on the 11th for this. I mean, that's the campaigning, but I think if you want to state your position, you know, double-check, but I believe that is in one of those campaign bulletins that, you know, if asked, you can give your position, but that doesn't mean your campaign. We're just prohibited from campaigning. I mean, by the way of background, I mean, our board sponsors articles every year in a town meeting, and we're bound by the same rule, I believe. In other words, am I missing something, Michael, or is it this? You mean we do the warrant hearing, I mean? Our position is already in the warrant. Yeah, we take a position. We've already taken a position, so.
All right, let me throw this out then. We have... When do we think we should do this, time-wise? Because on Friday, we're probably going to vote... What did we say it was? December 11th? 15th? 11th? 11th. When is the election date we're proposing? 11th? 15th. It's a first date. Okay, it is. So we're meeting on the 3rd, the 17th, and then we're all... I mean, how close to the election should we do it? Like, December 1st meeting? Should we do a separate meeting for this? We need to do a separate meeting for you. December 1st? We count for the 15th because we'll have already had the election. I think closer to the election would be most beneficial to people because they'll be paying more attention to it. Well, that would be December 1st, if everybody thinks that's... Michael, do you think that's a good day to do it? Which day? That's all. Maybe December 1st? What am I saying?
And then the next question I'm going to ask is, when will the FAQs be ready and online? Because I think the board was initially really concerned about taking full advantage of the 45 days in order to communicate with residents. So do you have a sense of when the FAQs will be ready?
We are working on that. I'd like to get them out as soon as possible. Just pending the return of Ms. Parrish-Pollett, we were going to work on it together. Okay. Maybe you can give me a date and then we can... Okay. Does anybody else have any... Michael, do you have anything you want to add to this topic? Does anyone else have anything they want to add to this topic? I'm going to move on to the next one.
Let's go to the next item. Now, this one is the... It says discussion and review of the timing, the cost of the issuance of the vans. This actually, to put in a colloquial phrase, bill is your money in, money out spreadsheet. So it shows where the $140,000 is. If you look at fairly large, I asked them to shrink it. It's probably pretty tight. Did you want to speak to it? Do you want me to just run them through it? Okay. So actually what Brian has done here is included everything here. At the top half of the spreadsheet, items one through about 13, appeared to be the water and the wastewater items, capital projects that were under bans and those are going to be bonded. So that's the top half. The bottom half down here, oh, that was one through 17, starting at number 18, where it says general fund. These are the projects that if we were having a normal year, we would be purchasing bonds for what we have elected to forego that and do the bans. So you can see where he shows the different items, the general fund advancing, and there's no interest that, and the five-month ban, and the da-da-da-da. But if you get over here in this column, S&T, I think it is over here, in a small little amount here. Do you see where I am on this? What does it say at the top of the column? It says, how about, good answer, good question, short-term interest pay in FY27 for bans. Do you see that? It's only two columns. Oh, out of the way. Yeah. It's the, it's the, not the last two columns, the second to last two columns. Everybody see where we're at? Right. So if you add those two numbers at the bottom, 54,000 and the 91, I get 145. So this is what 145 is. But if you notice, this is at 4% bond rate. Our bond rate comes in at less. And do we know the bond rate yet? No? That hasn't been related to me. Okay. Could it come in higher? Probably not. But Brian's really good and conservative on these estimates. I'm sorry? Well, sure. I mean, the rate's going to be small at 4%, I think. Because the timeline is so short in these notes. Sorry, Tom, I didn't get that. I said, I just think the rate's going to be lower because the time period of these notes is going to be shorter. There was another spreadsheet that Brian had several tabs on that showed it at 4%, 3.5%, 3%, just to give us a sense. But historically, obviously, he needs to be conservative because tell us it's 4%, what if it's 3.5%, we're happy. It's the other way alone. Yeah. So this is where the 145 comes that was projected. So does that blear to anybody? Anybody? Everybody? So, Carol, the short-term interest paid, which is shown in blue, is the interest only, I take it, for the 12-month period. And the principal, the associated principal is in the five-month bans column, general fund bans issued June 26. So we have two sets of bans being issued. And hopefully I have this right. Two sets of bans being issued. We're issuing them through the general fund where there's no interest, you know, from November to June. Then we have to reissue so that we can refund payback the general fund, or else we won't be able to get that money certified and be able to have it used for the next year's budget, which is 28. I think that's why he has two sets, because we're issuing, we're paying back, and we're issuing, reissuing. Have I got that right, Michael?
I'm making notes about the town of Townsville. Okay. Okay. So this is what I think is the answer. If you have any more technical thing, we'll have to ask Brian. But I think this is, like we're buying one CD, and then we're, that's not what we're doing. And then we're passing that in. And we're buying something with that, or we're doing something with that, and then we're getting another CD. This is not the correct explanation, but it's the gist of it. So we're expiring, and we're reissuing them. Right. Well, at the end of the, at the end of the, you can see which ones are expiring, and he's got this really nicely written out, and he took snakebook damn out, which was originally him, because you've got the grant.
Is this clear? What does DW stand for? District Y. District Y.
And they just use that nomenclature because every year we find something in there, so it doesn't necessarily say, excuse me, doesn't necessarily say specifically, although the CIP will tell you specifically what it is, or depending on 1.3, it would be some work done in each one of the five buildings.
Is there any questions on this, or is this clearer? Are you good with this?
Yeah. Yep.
Keep moving here, then. Oh, 7 o'clock? I propose, Madam Chair, we move on item 10.
Item 10? We're not going to go to 9? I thought that's a hearing at 8 p.m. with. I don't see them. Okay. Let's go to 10. Go to 10.
So item 10. Somebody want to tell us where we are.
Do we know what page we are on the packet? The paragraph.
Let me read it out for those who are listening. Item 10 is in the review and the potential vote to approve the expanded charge for the advisory committee, select board advisory committee. It's 46 of 51. Thank you. So, Bill, what happened last week is we looked at this, and I did get it in one paragraph, but one member who might be sitting next to you thought it could be shorter, so they've revised it, and this is what we said. We will have a look-see this week. So, go ahead, Tom. Well, I have proposed this language. However, I have, upon further thought, a couple of other suggestions. That is, after the third line will be authorized by the board, I recommend we insert the word by the town manager or board, as appropriate. So, the original thought was that so many of these advisory committees constantly, including Michael and I, we've seen it again, so I specifically, purposely left him off. Okay. Because, guess what? If we decide to do something, like give someone access to town council, we will say, Michael, could you make those arrangements? Right. That's fine. I think, Michael, that's kind of the flow you were looking for, right, to come from us, from us to him versus everybody, so. The other proposed change is on the fourth line, which says prospective town meeting. We want that to be annual town meeting or not necessarily. And the reason is because annual town meeting would be October 31st. What this doesn't provide for is a town meeting that is not annual. Can we just do a certain number of days in advance? Yeah. That's one thing. That's a good point. Is it like a special town meeting can be called in a short period of time, right? So, if we did 160 days prior to the town meeting. How many days? A special town meeting can be called in a short period of time. Correct. Correct. And that's, and that. 160 days. 160 days would be approximately. Five months. Five months and 10 days. Which is approximately what October 31st is, right? Right. Right, because it's November, December, January, February, March. Five months. Should we just call it five months, 150 days? 60 days. And then you can. That doesn't. Let him have it. Whatever. Did you help him? No. Because in years, there's leap year. Thank you for doing this. Does anybody else have any comments on this? Question. What? To all proposed projects. Yes. What is a project? No, no, that was my last point. And I thank you, Ms. Whitney. The last point is expenditures. The word projects is arguably too vague. Where are you with the word? A line ship. Oh, it's all about endeavors. It's a good each cake.
What do you think? Because I think you gave me that language. Is a project something that will require an expenditure of more than $50,000? Is it a capital project? Is it action by the board? What does a proposed project have?
Because it should be something that's substantive, you know, on every small idea to come before the board. Well, I can give you examples without identifying who has come before me and my staff. But I have, on occasion, had department heads call me saying, hey, do you know anything about X? And I'll say, what's X? I don't know. But two or three members of a board committee or an advisory committee have come in and started asking a lot of questions, asked if they could run it by either an engineer or legal. And I say, no, those should come to me. And depending upon who it is, I say, no, that should be the board. So it may be an idea. You know, somebody says, you know, maybe we should explore a new memorial. Let's put it that. That's kind of neutral. We should have a memorial for, you know, something that happened 200 years ago. Is it a project? It could be. Is it an idea? Something they need to flesh out. But before it gets too far, I think they should be coming through the liaison to the board before staff spends hours answering questions. Or they ask an unassuming department head, hey, could you just call town council and ask them this one question? Could we put a memorial at this intersection? They start out innocent enough, but sometimes they grow legs, so to speak. And, you know, I'm hearing these types of questions. People want to, you know, lock up drawing or can I call an LSP or an engineer or town council? And that's usually when I say no. You need to come. You need to come and make sure the board's comfortable with this. There's a difference between a proposed project and a discussion of an idea.
In other words, I think what we want to do is avoid a situation where a whole committee spends hours on an idea. It becomes a proposed project and then they come to us without us not even knowing about it. I think what you're trying to avoid is all that workup. Take a lot of time, staff time, et cetera, without any blessing from our board. And, uh, which I think is the goal here. So just to work it in practice, because I think that's sometimes a good idea, right? So in this situation, in this expanded charge, the idea of doing that park, the Economic Development Committee would have gone to the liaison and said, hey, we're thinking we want to do this park. And then all proposed projects must be discussed with the select board or its liaison and receive prior approval before proceeding. So I'm not sure if sheriff received prior approval before proceeding means from the select board or its liaison. That's not quite clear. But let's say that it's, um, either. Then they came to us and they presented to us and we say proceed. And that allows them to continue to have those conversations, but any access to actual professionals to help them would require the board again to decide that. And if it moved to a warrant or an article, I'm assuming the liaison would have talked to us about it, presented it, and then we would have seen it presented to the select board. Is that about what everybody is thinking this all works out to look like in a process? I think that's what we're thinking, but I'm looking around. Are you, I don't see a lot of yays or nays here. I think the goal here too is we, the real goal here is, and I wanted to say this is, the real goal here is, and it's one of our objectives is to improve communication flow with the advisory committees. Select board advisory committees. Other committees have advisory committees as well. And also so that it also provides, um, I don't know if it's the right word, but a structure or a process for the advisory committee to use, because currently as Michael described, you know, they're floundering and it's frustrating. It's frustrating for them as well as frustrating for us, um, because they're going off to the different departments. Can we talk to the LSP? They're into the main office. Can we call the town council? This also costs money when this happens. So the idea is we should just come, we should have a process in place. The way you would describe it, it sounded pretty good to me, actually. Yeah, I thought it sounded good, but Mike, um, I was thinking based on the last question, maybe the answer should be that a town manager can assign a project or what he deems to be to the level of a project that might not be coming from an advisory committee, but rather an individual like the dog, a dog park idea. Right. And the town manager can assign that to a board member. Remember if he believes it's reached the project stage. It means the dog park, the dog, the dog park is a capital project. Okay. So that's a little bit different because it's not coming from an advisory committee. Okay. So you don't want to include any of those types of projects in this. The goal here was this, or the title of this is to call it an expanded charge for each of the advisory committees. It's going to go right into their charge on their webpage. This is why it has to be one paragraph to go on to the other one paragraph. How about if you say something like all proposals of select board advisory committees that would entail material expenditure of staff time or resources by the town must be discussed. Something like that to qualify. Yeah. I like that. Another thought would be at the end, approval before proceeding with any due diligence. Does that encompass that? In other words, so the sentence we'd oppose. I think he's got it in there now, up in that one sentence. Right. Yeah. Say it again because I don't can get it down. I'm all ears. The other question I have is... Oh, no, no. Could you hear me? You have to watch the tape. I would say something like all proposals of advisory committees that would entail material investments of staff time or talent resources. Okay. Must be discussed with the select board.
Okay. And in that line, all proposed projects must be discussed with the select board or its liaison and receive prior approval before proceeding. Is that prior approval before proceeding coming from the liaison, the select board, or both? Excellent. Before proceeding by the advisory committee. But who can give prior... I think Anne's question is who can give prior approval? I think the board. Yeah, I don't think the liaison should give prior approval. Okay. And that should just be made clear in that one line. I don't think the liaison would want that responsibility. No. Especially if there's an expenditure, potential expenditure. They'd want to go back to the board. Presumably, the liaison would discuss it with the town manager and that ultimately was the chair as to whether, you know, is something that should be an agenda item the board should consider. Exactly. So everybody's had their edits again. I was hoping we could vote this. Do you think we could vote this with these amendments? And then... Or do we have... I defer to other members. I'm happy to watch the tape and finalize this. Or if the board is more comfortable, I'm happy to revise it and put it in for our next meeting in two weeks. Put it in for the next meeting? No, no. I'm happy to support your provisions. I'll entertain a motion. I want to entertain anything. I'll make a motion. I'll make a motion. Before we have a motion, I did have... And we're going to get questions about it. And I think this is great questions you've raised. Because we're trying to accomplish them, but there'll be questions raised that we didn't think of. But I think we should put it forward and then we can adjust if we still make average. One question I had was... Received was, does this mean you have to tell every program and what have you doing or just those that cost money?
Well, he's also said staff time. Right. So that's its own category. Yeah, I think that's important. It's important to add if the whole purpose is to become more efficient. So I like that in Bill's amendment.
So I had notes and I'm on the wrong page. So there you go.
Yeah. Do we have to have every program reviewed? So let's say we're going to run a free program. You know, do we have to... I think I should just let the liaison know what you're doing. That's my thought. But anyway, I'm sure that question will be raised. All right. Go with the motion, please. I move that the board approves the expanded charge for advisory committees draft dated 10-15-25 as amended at tonight's meeting. For select board advisory committees? Yeah. Okay. Do we have a second? A second. Okay. Is there any further discussion? All right. Let's have a vote. Anne, please. Yes. Doug? Yes. Bill? Yes. Yes. Motion passes 5-0.
That's on this. And Michael, I think we should apply in here, too. Because I think we need to figure out how we want to distribute. And we are going to put this on all the webpages of the various... Whoops. Does this mean we're not working? It's conserving energy. The energy committee, hard at work. So I can keep them on the TV. I have to start. My view is best to start.
Right. So I think we want to put this on all the second paragraph of all the charges, on the select board advisory committee charges. I also would like to recommend anything about having this distributed to all the chairs of the advisory committees, the select board advisory committees. And then I'm wondering if we should also include in the staff liaisons to the advisory committee so we all know it's happened. Maybe Michael has a different thought to distribute this, expand the charge to the staff. I was going to suggest the staff liaisons. Staff liaison department heads. Okay. So do we want me to just, because it's coming from us, to just add a quick little two-sentence note on it as well and then Jalen sends it out? Yeah, just to say this is what we're doing and tie it back to our objective. This is one of our goals to improve communication and blah, blah, blah. Okay. All right. So we've got that done. I'm happy to move the consent calendar except for the item relative to Snakebrook Ham, which is number, paragraph six.
Number six? Yes, please. There's a second on this. I think I've seen it as well.
Later, one through five and seven. And then it was? It was a proposed contract amendment. There are, I think, two, perhaps. I think. Number two is about wine vendor selling the Wayland Thanksgiving market. No. Contract. And to be clear, the items I'd like to pull out at number four and number six. Number four and number six. Okay. So you would like one, two, three, five, and seven. That's right. And I'm waiting for Mr. Whitney to indicate which one he would like. In particular, interested in discussing the proposed contract amendment with the Pear Corporation to Snakebrook Ham. Okay. So you've got that covered.
You're okay with that? Yeah. All right. So do I have a second on the consent council? You second it? Levine. Thank you, Mr. Levine. All right. So we'll vote on items one through three, number five, and number seven. We'll call vote Tom. Yes. Yes. Yes. Motion passes. Now we'd like to talk about number four and six. So I think you had the questions, Tom. If I can ask the town manager to give us an update on where we stand with the Snakebrook Dam funding for it and what this particular expenditure will achieve.
Okay. That was under my announcement. Yeah, so we should probably. Well, it's still part of. Okay. Yeah. Okay. It's still part of what? It's on count. We're going out of order. Okay. Yeah. So this is which one, number four? Number four. Yeah. So let me just pull that up. But I believe that is just our acceptance of the grant. So we have to accept the inbound. That's what should be on there. This is the construction services from Paré. There's two things. Because, yes. There's also, that money is being used, as my recollection is ARPA money. We have, I can't sign any contracts, over $100,000. So I'm looking for approval for that. Where we stand on the grant, as we talked about in the past, is we've been waiting for the FEMA. Folks to get back to us on our hazard mitigation grant of the $1.4 million. What I was going to allude to in my update, and I'll mention it again later, I keep reaching out almost every two weeks. And the reply I got the other day was that the gentleman who is our liaison, who is the Northeast District Director, he's been furloughed. And it now says we are not getting any additional information. And it was moving as slow as molasses before. And I am becoming less and less optimistic as we are running down the clock, because we're using companion ARPA funds to pay for some of this engineering work, the $600,000. And if we don't start this project, we're going to lose those monies. Town meeting approved us using monies to complete the project. So if you combined what town meeting authorized, the ARPA funds, and the funds that came in with this grant, we have enough to go it alone. But it was my understanding, once we decided to start construction, and we've been concurrent with all of this, we did go out with an RFP to pick a contractor, and we just got all of our bids in recently. We're going through those motions so as not to waste time. But we are now, you know, everything's converging where we're going to have to make a decision. And what I was going to suggest to the board, it's looking more and more like we need to go out and alone. We're going to wind up waiting another year or two for another FEMA grant. And I'm not sure in the current political climate if we're going to receive those types of funds from Washington. So the dam itself is some issues, and it's been noted by the state that it needs repair. I think we're at a point where we have to go by ourselves. So can I take a stab at this? Yes, you may. I can resolve this. So the bridge cost is approximately $2.5, maybe $2.7 million. We have applied for this grant of the 1-4, and if not, we've appropriated that through telemeeting funds. Okay, we got that done. The grant that we received from the state, which is in number 6, the 884, they don't allow you to use the grant money from the state to fund bid, engineering services, and constructions. So we're using ARPA funds, which is in number 4, to get the bid and the construction done, so we can then start the work in the state funds. Does that clear? That's thoughtful. So this is my concern, that we're spending close to $300,000 for engineering services that may be moved if we don't get this damn project going. I appreciate what you just said, and I appreciate that if we can get over a million dollars from the federal government, that's great. But it's been years, and I think you're right. The climate that we're in, even if this closure of the federal government ends in November, December, or the way this state's being treated, I don't think we can count on that money. I'm not a betting man. And you balance that right against the condition of the dam, potential damage it could do. If we get a huge rain event, I hate to give up the kind of money, and we're not going to get a credit if we do the work, and then all of a sudden the money comes through. We're not going to get credit. We have the money funded. We funded the one for... If we get the federal money a year from now, or a year and a half from now, after the construction is done, we're not going to be able to use that money. Chair? I have to get details, but it's my understanding, once we start, we are ineligible. So we never know the answer to that. But your point, if we wait too long, we risk losing more money. And it's not an easy decision or one anyone makes lightly. But my recollection, Ms. Hanson, we've applied for this numerous times. And I consider this just lost time because when they come back to work, whenever it is two weeks from now, four weeks, or two months from now, they're going to pick up where they left off in the last week of September because this was supposed to be in a review process down there. So we're not going to be any further along two or three months from now. Right. And they'll still say, well, you've got to wait. You've got to wait. And I think we're reaching that point of no return where we have to make a decision. And, you know, I know we've allocated the money, and I would much rather get federal funds and be able to release that for another project. But I don't know if we can do that. That's my view. May I also add in my opinion, on this one thing, on my little career in the finance committee, I started around 2012. May I tell you how much this project has increased over the years. So may I mention, in my opinion, we're not going to win either way. We funded the money. I say on delay and move along and have that done thing done. My name is Mr. Whitney. Thank you. My comment was about something else. But with respect to this contract, there are two pieces of work. One is to advise the town during the bid process for a total estimated fee and expense of $20,000. The balance, $275,000, is for construction administration. So if you don't go to construction, you won't be spending that money. So if there's a concern, one could authorize the $20,000 and not give a notice to proceed on the construction unless and until the board made a bid award on the actual construction. So I don't know if that's helpful. What would we do about the $884,000 then, if we only gave it, authorize the $20,000 now in number six? Well, it sounds like a decision has not yet been made about whether to proceed irrespective of the FEMA grant, right? Or is that what you're leaning to, Mr. I am leaning towards, at the end of the day, I think I, as a day-to-day operations, would be making that call. And I would look for your input or at least advise you. That's the direction. And you could tell me otherwise. But I do not feel confident that we are going to get the federal money. So I'm leaning very strongly towards moving forward on our own. And I think we have to start that in the next month or two. And we timed the RFP for the contractors so that they would come in right around now. We want them to leave adequate time to get going and spend those monies before December of 20 – the ARPA monies, I should say, before December of 2026. And I believe we have an additional year to spend this new $884,000 from the state. So I have to spend the design and some of the OPM monies first. I would not execute this contract as it's drafted because you're obliging the town to $275,000 in construction administration. And the construction contract hasn't been left yet, right? And we have not signed with a contractor yet. That's my understanding. So I would – you know, if you want to keep things moving, I would go ahead with a phase. But I would not give them a notice to proceed on the construction phase in less than until you're ready to execute a contract for the construction services. Beyond that, I am concerned about the statement of terms and conditions. This looks to me like the engineer's boilerplate. Has the town negotiated these terms at all? I cannot say for certain. This was provided to me from Ms. Hansen. So I do not know what level of involvement. Oftentimes, these come to me from the department heads. Right. Well, I understand. But it's all about what happens if the client doesn't do this or doesn't do that. And if we don't pay within 30 days, there's a 1.5% interest charge monthly.
You know, other projects I've worked on, there's a 60- or 90-day period. And there are just – you know, some of these, again, are things that could be negotiated. The burden is entirely on the client, as I read this thing, with the exception of negligence on the part of the engineer. So I would just ask that someone take a hard look at this, because these look like the standard conditions of the engineer rather than something that the town and the engineer have discussed and agreed upon. So are you comfortable, Mr. Temeran, if we defer on 4 and 6 until our next meeting in two weeks? Or is this – you think that would put us potentially in a bad spot?
Or I think we – I don't have a problem, because we haven't signed and we haven't picked a contractor. I think we could get some answers relative to Mr. Whitney's questions. The money has been given to us by the state, and they've already sent the paperwork to accept to us. I don't know off the top of my head the time requirements, but they usually like you to acknowledge receipt of the grant and sign their state paperwork as soon as possible. As I said, they emailed that to me the other day. I don't know about holding out another two weeks on acceptance of the grant. I can't comment on that one with certainty.
What if we – do you think we could support number 6 so that we can acknowledge the grant, and then we hold out number 4? Because Bill raised, of course, some good points here.
Bill, your points about the engineering contract lead to 4 solely? I'm saying let's – oh, sorry.
Bill, are you comfortable voting 6 with some sort of proviso from our board of the town manager? Well, what is the effect of approving 6? Is it – we're accepting the grant. Is that obliging the town to go forward irrespective of funding sources? I don't know. I believe we have the money, and oftentimes if we don't spend money, they come looking for it, much like the monies we received for town center, for the pedestrian walkways. Recently, the Department of Revenue contacted us about unspent community compact grant money. So there is typically some type of accounting with these grants where we have to demonstrate how much we've utilized. If not, they come after us. I don't think there was anything in the letter that committed us to spending right away. But I think – I think as a town, we're committed to doing that. Committed as much. But – right. So I think it's what we're – I think – If we don't do it, they will ask for the money back, typically. But what if the proviso and the number 6 provide the town manager decides to pull the lever on this project, then this would apply, right? No, we're authorizing Michael to sign. He doesn't have to sign, but he has the authority to sign. Yeah. It's just signing that we acknowledge the grant. If we don't – obviously, if we don't do the project, we're going to give them back the money, and they're going to ask us for the money. So I think that one should be okay. But you okay with number 6? The money won't be dispersed if we don't go forward. Right.
You okay with 6? I'm personally fine. Everybody okay with 6? Yeah. And then – so I – The noise here. On number 4, we're going to hold number 4 out. So pending, perhaps pulling it apart into a bid, contract, and wait for construction to start before we have the other, and also look at the terms. Is that what we're doing? Okay. So I'll move that this board approve item 6 in the consent count.
You have a second, please? Second. Thank you. Roll call vote. Bill? Yes. Tom? Yes. Doug? Yes. Ann? Yes. Carol, yes. Motion passes 5-0. All right. I'd like to go back now up to number 9. What I'll let Michael do is tell me, and there's a report, because we got kind of out of order there. And somebody – I don't know this at least. You mean number 13? What number is it? 13? How about if we go to number 13? Okay. So – I'll have an updated consent calendar. Or is it in the – I don't see it in the packet. Yeah, it's in there. Yeah, it would be in the – It's on page 4 of the revised. Yeah. It's on the – So, Michael, it's your health manager report, please. Yes. Thank you, Madam Chair. If you're ready. Yes. Just a little bit of an update. Working with the EDC and my staff, we have started work to acknowledge new businesses coming into town. And we've been doing ribbon cuttings. There was one done during Wayland Fest. And since the last time we met, we've done three. United Volleyball that's coming to town center, we went over. We brought some staff over. Representative Gentile was there as well and staff from Senator Eldridge's office. Last week with the town manager of Sudbury, I cut the ribbon on the Sudbury food pantry, which is now located in Wayland. They just moved over by the tennis club right there on the other side of the Alta Oxbow in the industrial park right there. They're right on the corner. And then this morning I participated in Mui. I think I'll pronounce it. Nails. It's a new nail salon that's opened up next to Mills in Cachichuit. Right. And so, you know, we go out, we take pictures, we try and promote it. We thank them for choosing Wayland. And the other night when I was meeting with the officials in Sudbury, there was some talks at Sudbury Chamber of Commerce. We'd like to sit down and talk with me and staff and maybe the EDC to see if they can expand and maybe bring in folks from Wayland. Because we don't have a genuine business organization right now in Wayland. There had been one when I first got here. They had a Facebook page, but it doesn't seem to be active. But anything we can do to help promote the businesses coming in and bring attention to them, we're trying to do that. Whatever I think we do to help them, it helps us in the long run by gaining attention to what we're doing and to the businesses that want to come here and we want to support them. We just talked a little bit about Snakebrook Dam, so we don't have to touch that. On the Sherman Bridge project, I attended the public input forum at the Fairbanks Community Center last Thursday, October 9th. I was fairly well attended and had approximately 41 residents from Wayland and Sudbury that came, voiced their opinion. We were there for a little over three hours. At the conclusion of the forum, Mr. Holder, as well as his counterpart and his reward in Sudbury, had acknowledged that we were taking all that input. And we would look at updating the approach that we were doing and we would get back to them within the next couple of weeks. The project team, which has been consisting of the various DPW folks of both sides, have met and they are looking to incorporate in a lot of what was discussed the other night at the forum. Mr. Holder said that he would get back to me on or about the 30th, which is next Thursday. To see what MassDOT, MassDepartment of Transportation has to say, as many of you may know by now, the Department of Transportation has offered to kick in $325,000 worth of materials towards the bridge, as well as use their contractor for in-kind labor. The biggest issues that came up were the concerns over some of the guardrails, whether or not the bridge deck would be paved, and some of the traffic-related issues coming to and from the bridge. I believe some of those traffic issues can be mitigated through signage, putting a weight limit on the bridge, maybe changing the speed limit, but also enforcement. And I talked to the chief, we looked at some of the speeding traffic patterns and the accident history there as well. So I think what the project team is looking to do is go back and create some type of solution and see if it's palatable with MassDepartment of Transportation to avoid using the paving on the deck and see what else can be accommodated and still allow us to get some of that in-kind materials and the in-kind labor. So that's where we are. We're going to update everyone once I hear from Mr. Holder, but, you know, he heard what the residents had to say and tried to come up with a compromise and wants to see if that's palatable with MassDepartment.
Palatable, meaning the funding would come or not come? Correct. You know, when we originally came, I mean, we have to do something about the bridge because they've said that its condition is such that it needs to be repaired. And could could potentially be shut down for safety reasons. So the towns jointly are going to be responsible for the work, which is roughly $1.6 to $1.7 million. The state ideally would like it paved after putting what's called this glue lamp, these LVL beams. And based upon what the residents said, that one of the biggest concerns was changing the character with the pavement is the team is now looking to see whether there's a way that they can still get some of the in-kind contributions and avoid putting the pavement down. And then we can work on some of those other traffic related things. And that's what we're talking about. So that's my opinion. Thank you. Did you want to talk about Permanent D? Yes. So there will be a community meeting in, to my understanding, in Framingham. And the reason we're doing this, it's part of the permitting process because Framingham, where the connection will be made in a lot of the work, is designated as an environmental justice community. And as such, much of the information that's been shared with Wayland has to be shared also with Framingham. And because it's an environmental justice community, it was a designation relative to income and language barriers. The presentation will have to be made and translated in different languages. And it's my understanding from Mr. Holder, it won't be any new information. It's just a part of the permitting process. And I neglected to type what day it was going to be held. I apologize for that. It's tomorrow?
Not sure. Press release on it.
I'll check. Was this the meeting that you asked me about and I gave you the long info on?
So we don't know. Do we know? I will, before the end of the meeting, I will get the... I think we had a press release on it. Someone was... Okay. I also just wanted to touch on, there is one more Wayland Health Department vaccine clinic. It's going to be held on Wednesday, October 22nd from 3 to 7 p.m. in the large hearing room. This is for residents and non-residents age 12 and above. And the only other thing that I wanted to comment on was that we had our AAA rating reaffirmed by Moody's last week after the call. And I think a lot of that credit goes to Mr. Kebany, as well as the other staff and including the board for working with us to pass financial policies, to continue to stand by our best practices and manage our finances responsibly. And I think it is a very good thing for the community, especially as we go out, as you saw before, for borrowings, for bans, for bonds, that people recognize this rating. There's only a handful of communities in the Commonwealth that have this AAA rating, and it helps us to get better rates. So I think it is a very good thing for us. Thank you. Questions from the board? Overall, sir. Are there other ratings agencies that assign ratings to the municipalities in the Commonwealth? I believe Standard & Poor's does. The other big one that I know of, I'm not sure of the others. I'm only familiar in my time. I've only ever seen either Moody's or Standard & Poor's. S&P do the ratings of the community. We have both. As far as I know, we only have Moody's. Some communities seem to be one or the other. Okay. Thank you. I think I'm going to suggest that we're kind of working a little backwards. So let's go to number 12. Michael, this is the position of the part-time procurement specialist in the town manager's office. This was added on, if you're seeing that on the agenda now, it's number 12. So as a special minister, we, this is as defined in the last general launch, chapter 2, 68A, section 110. There is that copy information is in the packet as well. So do you want to speak to that while we're here? Yes, Madam Chair. As I previously indicated, since the departure of our most recent procurement specialist management analyst, we've tried a couple of different things in my office. Now we have several people in my office that have gone through the entire MCPPO program, which is the Massachusetts Certified Public Procurement Official Designation Process. You have to take multiple courses, which you're graded on, to get the designation. I have a full designation. Ms. Power Spurlett and Ms. Braddocka have gone through it. I believe they are at the associate level. We've sent people in facilities and elsewhere so that we can decentralize. Before, we had one person and they were doing it full-time. And I'm not sure that it was worth our while to have one designated employee only for procurement because I don't think we're big enough. A lot of other towns don't do it. But what we have done, and I know select board members, Faye and Whitney may have realized, we are using some folks who have been full-time public procurement officials and purchasing agents for other communities to do some work that either the staff can't take on or they're much more complex. One of the persons that we're utilizing has retired and is doing this for more than one community. And so in each community, they have asked for this designation because under the special designation, they're capped at the number of hours they can work and they're allowed to work for more than one community when they're doing this type of work. So it's pretty standard. A lot of positions are designated that way. We're not looking to use this person for 100 hours. It's more in the order of maybe five or 10 hours a month to do some of the larger, more complex. I've known this person for quite a while. I actually took some classes at Suffolk with this individual, and they're doing this type of work for a couple other larger communities that have been doing so for a while. So we're just looking for that position. It's the position, not the person that the designation goes to. So is there any questions from the board on this request? Do we need to make a designation for each person who does this kind of work, or do we just make one position, and then whether one person could fill that same position in your office, correct? Okay. I move that the board approve the designation of special municipal employees to find MGLC 268A S Section 1N for a part-time chairman specialist in the town manager's office. which has a special municipal employee.
That's a great one. I think I said that. Yeah. But you'd have to run. I will. All right, I'm going to skip. Second. Mr. Fett, no, for heck with you. Mr. Fett, would you like to second? I'll only second.
Thank you. Is there a part of the discussion? All those in favor? Doug? Yes. Phil? Yes. Tom? Yes. Ian? Yes. Thank you. And Carol? Yes. Motion passes. Carol 5-0. We have a hearing, but by second, start before 8, so I'm going to just keep moving around here. Would we like to have anything to say about correspondence? I'm good. I noticed we had an item of correspondence where, I don't know if it's in this packet, but we have a request for a fence viewer. Yes. Claire's going to talk about that at number 18, topics, so I can move there next if you'd like. Is it within the packet of correspondence? It's in the packet? Is it? It was in the packet for a fence viewer? I don't know. I don't think it was. Okay. That's why it's a topic.
Someone just check to make sure, because otherwise I have to have a different robot, right?
I don't see it. It came in Friday after the packet. I thought it was Friday after the packet went out. Yeah. Okay. Yeah, it's not there. Any other comments on correspondence? No, I don't see it. I think that's going to be in the, that's a spoiler alert. It's going to be in the next meeting. November 3rd is back in. All right.
Why don't I, why don't I skip down then to that, to topics since it was brought up? Or do minutes, maybe? Minutes? Or do minutes, Madam Chair? Do minutes. You can do whatever you like. So, could someone just tell us what page we're on? What?
Minutes for September. 54. 54. That's correct.
I'm good on that one. I move that this board approve, as amended minutes, select board, Monday, September 29, 2025. Second. Okay. Wait a second.
Okay. Who was seconded? Oh, good. Thank you. Do we have any edits to the minutes? Did you do them both together? Just one. Okay. Anybody have any comments or edits to the meetings of September, minutes of September 29?
I did not.
Tom? I'm good. Yeah. On A6, it talks about the voting. And CMART noted the board needed to first receive the recommendation of the fine committee, finance committee, and then wait. It's not two weeks. It's one meeting, which is two weeks. But one meeting is what I think the phrase is. Maybe I said it wrong. If I said it wrong, we have to live with it the way it's printed. And on the mat, I don't think I have anything. And did you have anything on the minutes of September 29? No. Okay. Okay. And then roll call vote. Tom? Yes. Doug? Yes. Bill? Yes. Ann? Yes. Carol? Yes. So motion passes 5-0. Move the minutes of this board for October 6, 2025, as amended. Second. Second. Second. Okay. Do we have any edits? I have one edit. Okay. Under A14, I just request that the word would be, the word would, W-O-U-L-D-B, deleted from the first line.
Thank you. Anything else? That's it for me.
No one else? Okay. Ann? Roll call vote. Sorry. Thank you. Doug? Yes. Bill? I will abstain as I was not at the meeting. Tom? Yes. And Carol, yes. So it's going to be 4-0-1. Correct? Correct. All right.
Minutes, correspondence. I'm going to go to the topics now, if you don't mind. So we did receive a request on the mail, on the email on Friday, which was less than 48 hours. So I am going to bring this up for a fence viewing. And prior to about four years ago, we had another request and the board had appointed Tom and myself as a fence viewers. So I haven't reached. In the regular. I did it with him in 2019. So I have reached out to Mr. Faye and he has agreed to work me on this issue, this fence viewing. And we will report back to the board our findings at a future meeting. I had a question. Isn't this a matter for a surveyor rather than a fence viewer? Well, we will determine that when we go out. Maybe correct. By the way, it's topics from the chair. So I don't know if we can discuss it. Can we? Probably not. Okay. I don't want to be getting the look now.
Okay.
What have I got left here? I don't want to start concerns. This will have to space. Maybe we won't be done that quickly.
Well, on number 11, this one we probably can do really quickly as well. This is a possible annual telemeeting articles. And there's been two more suggestions for articles that we might put forth to telemeeting. And one of them might send to us, but I will let him speak to this as well, is that we received this as a white paper, I guess, from KP Law that we, the state has now allows conversion from on-premises, all out on-premise wine and all only licenses to all alcoholic beverage licenses. Did you want to speak to any of them? I want me to just, the bulletin I previously sent, Madam Chair, I think self-explanatory, but with the adoption of this statute by town meeting, in the absence of having any new liquor licenses, which is also something I would like us to consider for annual town meeting, is that anybody who's currently holding a beer or wine only license, it could be converted to a license. With Terrain coming to town and applying, that was our last all-alcoholic on-premise license. At the time, I did speak to our legislators to see if there was any way to fast track us. And they said, essentially, no, that we would have to go the town meeting route. So I have taken a crack at drafting something that I submit to our legislators so that they can have their respective council review it and hopefully present that. But in the interim, the legislature realizes that they're hard to get. So they've come to the alternative, allowing the towns once adopting the language to convert some existing beer and wine.
Right. I'm sort of keeping a little bit of a list of ones we've identified. Actually, this white paper from KP Law pretty much writes the article for you. So I think this stuff is a cut and paste because it gives you the sample town meeting walked article. It also explains the conversion process. It also explains that the converter license is no longer used. It reverts back to its original status and can only be reissued as an on-premise license for sale and wine and malt beverages only. I mean, it's all written right here, which is bad. So I think the action here is that we wanted to talk about that and see if the board would like to pursue that. We need telemeaning approval in order to have this tool in our toolbox, basically. So now we have to vote on that. I think it's unclear as to the effect, if any, of, say, three malt and wine licensees coming forward and wanting to convert. What does that do to our cap of particular licenses? Do they not count against the cap? No, we've already issued those licenses and we can convert it. So that's what the white paper says. That it's converted. We don't increase the number of licenses we're allowed to issue. It's just we're changing the configuration. So instead of having, say, three wine and malts, we now would have only two. So, but, but, but if we have the ability, but if we have a cap inside five licenses and can we add three more through the conversion without violating the five. No, we don't have any new conversion. So we have three, three wine, malt licenses and four all alcohol. If we convert one, we now have five all alcohol and two wine and malts. The total doesn't change. It's just the, am I not saying it right? You're saying it right. No, that's exactly right. I am. Okay, good. My question is, though, if the conversion puts us over the cap for liquor licenses that we presently have, is that okay? I don't see us. I don't see it putting us over the cap. Right. Because this legislature is saying all our licenses could be all alcohol. However, Mr. Town Manager, what is your understanding of what the legislation may be doing, may do the next few years on making it easier for towns to increase the number of, liquor license? You're supposed to be hearing next week on the Municipal Empowerment Act, and they are looking to find ways to make things easier, and I think they are open to changing that. I, unfortunately, will not be able to attend, otherwise I would have some more information. But it's my understanding, they want to streamline procurement processes, getting liquor licenses, other things to make it easier for towns to do business and generate revenue. So, to select board member Whitney's point, we can't add any liquor licenses without legislative approval. Correct? Right. Yeah, but aren't liquor licenses based on population in the area? I think it's, I think there's a formula for how many liquor licenses you get as a town based on your poppy, the number of residents in your town. So, increases and decreases based on population. I do know that we've asked for special legislation in the last two communities I worked in for economic development purposes and relief. We've gone in and asked for additional liquor licenses, and we've been given them in designated zones where we have business districts and things. So, I think it's possible to get additional ones. I'm going to check with, excuse me, Kelsey, because I somehow think we voted to put this before to tell me for the additional liquor licenses. Not this one. Well, we're talking about the conversions, but I'm going to check with that. I think we already put that on the draft list.
Sorry. It says, generally, a town can be granted one license per 1,000 residents, but all municipalities are guaranteed a minimum of 14 all alcohol licenses and five additional licenses for wine and beer, regardless of population size. That's 19. We don't have 19, do we? Right. What do we have?
Tell you in one moment. We have 19. Like 14, I think. We have a total of 14. I have somewhere around there. I had it from the ABCC recently. I can look at that, too. So, this, what we're talking about right now, adding additional liquor licenses, not on the agenda. What is on the agenda is to have an article to go to a town meeting to ask for their permission or the ability, for the select would to have the ability to convert the wine and malts to the all alcohol. I just want to say that's the agenda. But these questions will come up by residents as part of this article. But in my view, it's all. We're going to have two articles because we're going to ask for additional licenses and we're going to ask for this and we're going to ask for something else. I think we've got two or three of these articles coming forward. So, I guess I'm looking for a motion. Do we want to do that now? No, but just to select board member Levine's point, the most recent quota breakdown that I received from the ABCC, which is the Alcohol Beverage Control Commission, last spring when we first had the applications from Terrain, we are allowed 14 all alcoholic beverage on premises retail and five wine and malt. So, we've now issued that last one to Terrain, and it looks like we have four available in the wine and malt. Which are equivalent to, if this passes, it's equivalent to 18. Well, my understanding was you have to have, my recollection is you have to have it already issued. You can't come in now and add a wine and malt just to get the all alcohol. It kind of rewards. If you look, I think it's in there. Let me just check on that because I think we voted on that one. If not, I'll put that on another agenda. But in the meantime, I would like to have us look at having a motion to. Well, we don't have to have a motion here, do we? We just have to have a consensus because we're not even putting together articles yet, right? In other words, you want a consensus of the board. Do we have the consensus? Yeah, I'm fine with it. Okay, so let me add this to the list here. And then there's another article that we would like to, Doug and I would like us to consider accepting Chapter 53, Section 18B, which would then allow us as a community to communicate with residents regarding valid questions. So then we would be able to say, you know, this is what it is to do, to do, to do, a yes, no, is, no, vote is. If you read the language, which I believe is in the packet, it also shows you that if there are opponents, proponents, let's say we're the proponent, if there are opponents to the article, they also are entitled, kind of like a petitioner's article. Or if it's a state ballot question, you read the pro and the con, and you read a summary before you, well, not if you walk in not knowing anything at the ballot. So I think if we are, I think it's a nice tool for us to have period, but if we're thinking there's possibility of an override, we kind of thought this made sense so that we don't run into the situation we're in right now where we can't give a yes or a no when you go to the actual ballot itself. I'm all for transparency. I'll just say this. If we're going to support this and if it passes, I suspect it might. I think we need to consider, as a board, changing the amount of information we put in the warrant, because there's only so many hours between staff and volunteers to deal with. It's not for the warrant. This is for ballots. For ballots, right? But it's all the same world, right? It's for the debt exclusions and for the ballot questions, rephrase that. Right. And sometimes there are between two and five. So I'm just concerned about person power. Yeah, I don't. Person power is involved. I normally am very sensitive to that because I know how much work goes into these warrants. I just think this is a really, this would also allow us to do the Q&A more openly, you know, rather than having to be careful to not take a position. I think it's critical for the person who's walking into the polling station who may not have any information and now would have to vote on a question in a vacuum if they're only getting the specific legislative language, so to speak. I would just ask maybe if we reach out to the Secretary of State's Office to find out how they come up with the language. How is it fair to both sides? What formula do they use? Because that's, I think that's the biggest challenge, right? What formula? Who uses? Like he would say that the pros and cons need to be balanced. Right. Because there were a word limit for both. You know, the way you phrase it, like I always have issue in our con language in the word where we write some may argue, but we never do that for the pro argument. So it seems imbalanced when we do that. So maybe there are some rules of the road about it. I think a bunch of towns do it too, though. There was an example, I received an example of something Gardner did in 23 over and override. There's a lot of materials. They sent out a booklet, basically like the state does, you know, to the residents, talking about being in a yes vote and this and FAQs and what have you. But this would allow us to communicate more transparency, whatever, however you want to phrase it with the residents about any ballot issues, questions, ballot questions. So, all right. So we, the consensus of the board is we would, we'll put that one forth as well. Okay. So, Robbie, I think I see Mr. Hines there and I think I see Mr. Porter there. There is, is there a third gentleman there as well? I think Mr. Yeah, good evening board. I'm Matthew Porter. I'm the attorney for the applicant. And along with me on the Zoom call is Michael Hines, the proposed new license manager, as well as Niton Raval, who is the principal. Excuse me. Could you just hold on until I open the hearing? I was just letting you know who is here. Okay. I was just trying to help with that. That's all. I know. I was just asking our assistant here to help me. So, just let's... Oh, I'm sorry. Okay. Maybe now I see two gentlemen named Michael Hines there. So, one of them must have been the owner. Maybe you could change your name. All right. All right. Let's get a comment. Open the hearing. I declare that this hearing is open for the purpose of considering the application filed by Bapa Whalen Corporation for the application amendments for the change of stock interest, change of offices, directors, LLC managers, change of managers, and change of corporate name, DBA for the premises located at 302 Commonwealth Road, Whalen, Mass, 01778, the annual all-alcoholic license number, 00014-PK-1340. It was a notice published in the Metro West Daily News on October 3rd for 2025, basically has the same information that were notices, hereby given that the Whalen Select Board will hold a public hearing on Monday, October 20, 2025, beginning at 8 p.m. On the application for the change of stock interest, change of office, directors, LLC managers, change of manager, and change of corporate name, slash DBA filed by Bapa Whalen Corporation. And again, ABCC number is 00014-PK-1340, located at 302 Commonwealth Road in Whalen, Mass. Now, the hearing can be attended in person, and we are in the town building at 41 Constituate Road in the select board meeting room, but can be reviewed more remotely on WACAM as well as on Zoom. And those wishing to provide public comment remotely may do so by accessing the meeting via Zoom link posted on the town of Whalen website, which is on our calendar page, and also as part of the Whalen Select Board Agenda. So, with us for this evening tonight, we have Matthew Porter, who I believe is legal counsel, and Mr. Hines, who is the proposed manager, and the second Mr. Hines, who I think is the owner, is Mr. Ravav. Am I correct? Yes. I didn't receive the Zoom link, so I joined with my manager, Michael. Okay. That sounds good. Thank you. So, this is how the hearing works. The rules of the evidence will not be applied during the hearing, but the board expects that the prospective licensee and any member of the public will comment to present credible and reliable information and clear and contingency. So, we will allow you now to describe the business and the reason for applying. Then the select board will ask questions. If the members of the public would like to have questions, we'll call on them. And then you summarize your application, and then I will close the hearing, and we'll take the matter under advisement and make a decision at a later meeting or maybe even this evening. Okay. So, why don't we start with you describing your business and your reason for your application, please? Sure. I'd be happy to take the lead. Thank you, Chair. Thank you, Board. My name is Matthew Porter. I'm the attorney for Bapa Whelan Corporation. So, before the board, this is a three-fold application, but it all relates to the current Liquor World location. Nitant Raval is a current shareholder, majority shareholder in Bapa Whelan Corporation. He's currently a 75% shareholder. He is buying out one of his existing partners, 25%, so in essence becoming a 100% shareholder of the corporation. He was already the controlling partner. So, this is more so just an internal transfer. It also removes Jignesh Pachani, who is the 25% shareholder, as one of the officers of the corporation. So, essentially, Nitant Raval becomes president, treasurer, secretary, director, 100% owner of the corporation. In doing so, Michael Hines is going to be coming on and replacing Amita Pachani, who is the existing manager. Michael will be the manager there now 40, if not more, hours per week on site. He's been in the alcohol industry, I think, 23, 24 years now working in the package store industry. So, it certainly brings a wealth of experience. He is alcohol tip certified. Mr. Raval is alcohol tip certified as well. They already have his scanning machine in place. So, from an outward perspective, there's really no changes to the operation of the business whatsoever, because it is a transfer of stock with a liquor license. It requires board approval, as well as ABCC approval. The last piece is, Mr. Raval is just rebranding this, as he's taking over the locations wholly on his own. He's going to be rebranding it from Liquor World to Liquor Hub. So, there'll be new signage, but no changes to the hours, the structure of the business, nothing along those lines at all.
Okay. So, either Mr. Raval or Mr. Raval want to add something? No, I think, thank you. Thank you, board member. Matt covered almost everything. It's just a stock transfer for internal ourselves. Okay. Thank you. Questions from the board? Mr. Faye? Good evening, gentlemen. I have a question. The retail liquor industry is a very challenging industry. How is your business doing in Whale? So far in Whale, and we are almost flat as last year, not much up and down. So, so far, no complaint. We are happy where we are right now, and we have good, loyal local customer. And we do also online delivery also for, you know, the outside platform from Uber and the DoorDash. Thank you.
Mr. Whitney? A question for counsel. I'm not sure which document, but there is an amendment change of officers, stocker ownership interest, which indicates Mr. Raval owning 50% of the ownership and Mr. Pachani owning 50%. Is that incorrect? I think you said 75 and 25. Hang on just one second. You're right. It was 50-50. That's my fault. Yep. So, it went from 50-50 to 100. That is correct. So, that section six is accurate in the application. Thank you. And have there been any violations for sale of alcoholic beverages to underage people in the last three years? It was one year ago in the current location, yes. That time, we are on getting a process of ID scanning machine, and the company got sold and Facebook take over the company. So, my machine was late. And unfortunately, it happened one time. And, you know, we trained the employee, and everything else is fine after. Thank you. You're also done. You did. Okay. Ms. Brinsley, do you have any questions? Yeah, just because I thought I did a check on that. So, that was under the same corporation name? Yes. Got it. What was the result? I believe it was just a warning with ABCC. So, there's no violation. He means there was an underage jail that occurred once a hearing with ABCC. And the ABCC has become a little bit more lenient as far as fake identification just because of how, you know, just quickly these folks are able to sort of get around the technology. But the new scanning machine in place has helped. But it was just a warning at ABCC, and therefore, you wouldn't see any violations, suspensions, revocations, anything along those lines. Okay. That makes sense. Thanks. Yep. It was the ABCC that issued the annihilation and not us?
That's okay? Okay. All right. And, Robert, do you see anyone online that has their hand raised from the public who would like to raise a question? Okay. Mr. Paul, do you have any questions for the applicants? Okay.
Would you like to summarize your application, Mr. Porter?
Well, I would just, I suppose I would repeat what my introductory comments were. But, yeah, to summarize, I would say that this is an internal transfer of stock with an existing shareholder just taking, buying out one of his other partners and continue to operate the store in the same fashion with bringing along a new manager with a wealth of experience and rebranding it from Liquor World to Liquor Hub is how I would summarize it. Thank you very much. Thank you very much. Thank you very much. I'm going to move to close the hearing, and now we will deliberate and consult with the town manager, who I've already consulted with. Are you okay with this application? Through the public hearing process, yes. I mean, yeah. Exactly. Do you have any opportunity to hear from the applicant and you just check to see if there's any opposition and hearing none? Make a decision now or take it under advisement? What's the sense of the board? Are we comfortable with proceeding or do we want to? Find a proceeding. Okay. Do we need to deliberate at all? We all set. Need deliberation? No. I see answers. All right. Can we make the motion? Please. Close your public hearing. I did. Didn't I say I closed this? Please tell me. Sure. Let's go ahead. I move to approve the application filed by BAPA Whalen Corporation for the application amendments for change of stock interest, change of officers slash directors slash LLC managers, change of managers and change of corporate name slash doing business as for the premises located at 302 Commonwealth Road, Whalen, Massachusetts, 01778 annual all alcoholic license number. 0 0 0 0 1 4 dash P K dash 1340. Do I have a second to the motion? Second. Thank you. Sorry for discussion. We're going to have a roll call vote and yes. Doug. Yes. Bill. Yes. Yes. Yes. Motion passes. Congratulations. Thank you. Thank you very much. Have a great evening. Thank you. Thank you. All right. Um, now we're going to move to the item. See if, um, animals care. Yeah. And also. She's already on here already. Yeah. Okay. And how about, um, as other, you know that? Nope. Yeah. All right. All right. Hang on. Just one second here. Smart. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. So we're going to have a discussion and review of the equity audit recommendations. We've invited attendance by Karen Blumenfeld, um, and Dr. Ian Renee Hayes. Hello. Good evening. And is, is I going to be able to join us, Karen? No, her schedule didn't allow her to join us. Okay. Okay. So can, I don't know what page you're on. Can somebody find the page over here? But, um, Karen and Heather put together kind of a little summary sheet here, which is entitled Whaling Community Life and Engagement Executive Report. Um, you see at the very bottom, they, they credit themselves as having prepared this draft. And I think they want to talk to us about this. Um, we have looked at the, the equity audit that was done for us. And we saw it in the, in June. And I think there was some edits made to the file. And then we saw that again, when it came back, I think about five or six weeks ago. So now we're trying to move forward here. Um, also in the packet, I just want to say that there were the three recommendation pages. Uh, all the recommendations are on three pages, three different themes. Theme one, theme two, and theme three. There are a total of nine topics with a total of 40, uh, recommendations. I will say two of the, two of the topics are, um, more under the purview of the schools than the town, which we will discuss when we get there. And, um, the other seven are more in our, in domain. So I think we, uh, we want to start digging into this and figuring out what, how we're going to proceed. So I'll turn the floor over to you for a few minutes. And I would like to start. Madam chair, may I make a few introductory remarks to, to set the table for the conversation. Would that be acceptable? Right. I think that's what I said. We were going to, you're going to kind of go through your, your, um, memo that you put out to us. Well, I actually wanted to kind of take it, um, it, put it in a context before we get into the details. Would that be okay? Yes, fine. Um, I think, I think Tom was right. Um, now the volume's too high. I can't hear you either. So. I'm sorry. You can't hear me. It's tough to please, Madam Chair. It's tough to please. So, your, my sound isn't good. Is that what you're saying? It's just sounds a little muffled, Garen. It's not very clear. Oh, thanks. It's not me. Thank you. He's making fun of me over there. It's, it's off. Okay. Like when he didn't talk, it's very different. Yeah. That's better. It's better. Okay. Um, so if I may, Madam Chair, uh, make a couple of introductory remarks before we get into the conversation. And if my sound is no good, please tell me so I don't go on at length where no one can hear me. Um, so first we wanted to thank you for inviting us to talk about the community life and engagement, um, study findings. Um, we want to also open by thanking you for your commitment, um, to these issues, to being a welcoming and inclusive community as evidenced by, um, your creation of the HR DEIC, your strong and ongoing support for our work, uh, your, your, your support for the multicultural festival and for this study itself. Um, we also recognize the financial concerns that the town is now facing. And so we wanted to kind of place the community life and engagement report findings in that context, uh, as you consider moving forward. Um, so research consistently shows that communities who welcome people of all backgrounds experience stronger economic vitality. They attract and retain talent. They foster entrepreneurship and build resilience. A couple of examples, um, of, of some data. The national Bureau of economic research reports that immigrants are nearly twice as likely to start new businesses as us born residents. JP Morgan reports that black women are the fastest growing group of entrepreneurs. Communities recognized by welcoming America's certified welcoming program. have seen faster business growth than other communities. And analyses from the Brookings Institution and Harvard Business Review show that inclusion and diversity are linked to higher innovation and productivity. And clearly having more businesses in town center would be great for everyone in town. Um, so just to clarify, while some communities pursue diversity primarily for the economic benefit, um, our charge here is deeper. We do this because belonging is a cornerstone of civic health. The measure of how much community members trust one another, participate in local life, and feel proud to call our community home. And we want to note also that diversity alone is never enough. The limits come when inclusion is intentional. When a community invests in equitable participation, inclusive governance, fair policies, and strong civic networks. So the takeaway is this, that welcoming isn't just a moral issue, it's also strategic. When people feel they belong, they contribute because they have a stake in the community's success. And when everyone contributes, the whole community grows stronger. So as you consider our recommendations, we encourage you to see the initiatives described in the report, not as a new expense, but as the next stage in building the kind of community you've already shown you want to lead. A community where belonging, opportunity, and accountability grow together. So Heather and I, as you mentioned, um, Heather and I have submitted some suggestions, which you'll find in your packet. And we, we don't, I'm not going to read them all to you because, because you already saw them in your packet. Um, just want to draw your attention to, um, to, to the two overarching suggestions. And one is, um, in the spirit of transparency and community engagement, we recommend that the select board issue a public letter before the year, before the end of the year, outlining how you plan to respond to the report. Not that you will know all the answers yet, that's not what we're saying, but just that you, that, that to demonstrate that there's a plan in place for getting to those answers. Um, and second, uh, um, in setting your priorities for follow up, we proposed a, a kind of a, a single and sort of simple, um, criterion, which is, will this initiative recommended in the report lead to meaningful changes in people's lives? And I think if we use that criterion to evaluate what steps to take next, it'll help guide us toward the, you know, there are so many recommendations in this report and it can be really overwhelming. And so we think that criterion can help us, um, prioritize. So with, with that, I'll turn it back to you. Thank you. Um, Dr. Hayes, is you, uh, you're kind enough to join us tonight. Would you like, and oh, by the way, Karen, you probably should have given your address. Your hair is, your hair is a resident now, not on the HR DEI, right? I'm here as the HR DEIC chair. Okay. And Dr. Hayes, did you want to just identify yourself and then, um, uh, would you like to say something as well? Hi, I am Dr. Hayes. Eden Renee is also totally fine or as is Dr. E. Um, I'm just, I was hired to be the thought partner on this. Uh, so I am here to be, to answer any deeper questions that come directly from, from the report. So I'm, I'm really here as support today. Thank you though. Thank you for joining us. We appreciate it. Um, so as I, I had said at the beginning and, and, and Karen has, has, has agreed with me. It's a lot of material here and we really haven't had a chance to dig into. We kind of had the, the, the consultants came and gave us the report. And then there was some revisions made to the report. And now we are, um, I think getting ready to be able to dive into this. So there are, as I said, about 40 recommendations. And there are about, if you scroll down, um, nine different topics. So does anybody want to take a stab at, um, where we are? Then there's this summary sheet that they've put together, which, um, basically talks about developing three year action plan, which these are pulled from the recommendations. Um, the one thing I will say though, Cameron is it looks like in almost every item you have is, you know, provide a budget or, you know, to hire a part time person. And, um, that's probably the elephant in the room for this. But, um, did you want to chime in here? I think that we've just, um, I appreciated your introductory remarks, Karen, and how we think about budgeting. And I know that there are also other creative ways to be able to achieve some of these ends, potentially without going directly to the taxpayers. And one of them would be, um, seeking different grant funding, um, whether that's, um, within Massachusetts or organizations outside of the Commonwealth. And I don't know if the grant funding will require matching funding from the town. But I think that, that a couple of these recommendations specifically in theme one or two, where it talks about hiring a part time town employee or a consultant, I think we could potentially achieve the ladder of the consultant. If, if we're able to get some money from outside of the town. Um, and I know, uh, as we develop future budgets, it's something else to think about in terms of what we're prioritizing, but I don't know if you caught some of the earlier part of our meeting. Um, as I had mentioned to the two of you, when we had talked earlier, we're, we're trying to find the best way possible for this upcoming fiscal year to try and avoid this looming override vote. So there, there's just, there's no wiggle room, um, right now in terms of budgeting. And, and so that's why I think we should be exploring actively some grant funding at this point to, to start achieving some of these. Are there some grants that you are aware of? Who? Us or Doug? Oh, no, I'm looking at you. I'm sorry. Um, I mean, one possibility that comes to mind is the MAPC. I, I know they have grants for technical assistance to communities. Um, I have not looked at their thing recently. The Sudbury foundation has grants for, um, I forget the name of their, the category, but there's a category that could be relevant. Um, I think one, one really important aspect to this. And I think it's when Karen put this together, she probably was thinking about just the organization of it all. Like theme one, theme two, three, theme three, let's, let's start prioritizing these, um, themes. But, uh, a while back, Karen, uh, along with Yamini had put together a budget and it was essentially like the annual budget to do. I think it was like five different events and it was like $12,000. And so something that I think isn't necessarily reflected on this is that there is some, um, work that had been done and it wasn't large sums of money. Um, it was also to support activities that were already going on in the town that, um, was pretty much being funded, uh, through, you know, just pulling it together. And so to just know that that funding would be there became, you know, just the next step in the development of, Hey, are we really going to do community engagement? Um, so I do think that there's a possibility not only of looking at grant funding, which, uh, is definitely something that we should look at, but I also think that there's an ability to maybe start looking at charging for some of these events, but the town has to realize that in not providing a basic budget for some of the stuff that's really a small number compared to, you know, for the 250 year anniversary, which was really, really important obviously for the town, but it was a one day event. Uh, we spent what 50, 75,000. And that in, in this budget, we were looking at 12,000 for a full year of, uh, events. So I, I think what would help just in knowing what Karen has done and what the group has done, and then also knowing the, the positive impact it's had. Um, I think what might make sense, Karen, and if the select boards open to it is, is really kind of just looking back at that budget and seeing if there are specific events that are a lower number event, a lower dollar number event, uh, and saying, okay, this is, this is maybe the, the first phase of theme one. Yeah, I, I, um, I think events are really important. And, and I appreciate what you're saying, Anne. Um, and I know you've been a long time advocate for getting funding for events and, uh, the things that this report is prioritizing are different than events. It, you know, it's prioritizing training. It's prioritizing, um, uh, what cultural competency workshops, um, uh, broadening efforts to implement equitable selection processes for hiring and volunteer opportunities, making accessibility improvements. So these are all things that are different from events. And I, I think, you know, both are important. If we look at our criterion of will, will this initiative change lives? I think we need to dive into some of these bullets that are, that are already here, um, in terms of sort of changing structures and institutions and the way we do business in the community, um, to make sure that everybody feels like they belong. Um, so I don't think they're mutually exclusive, but I just think we need to really look at both. Do you have a sense of budget for what you are talking about for some of these items built into the themes? Um, we have not created a budget. Um, Dr. Hayes, I don't know if you want to speak to that, to some of those specifics. Um, it's hard to speak to a budget, um, with the number of recommendations that are outlined by, by the consultant. And, but if we were to narrow down and say, these are our priorities, I'd be able to help to say, this is what I would recommend as, as a budget. Okay. Right. It depends which ones we pick, um, from that, from that list, which ones we prioritize. I thought it was almost okay. There's a bit of a more. So, all right. I guess, um, in an effort to, to, to try to get a better sense of what we'd be looking at financially. Like if we delve into one of these sub bullets, such as offer community-based discussion groups and cultural competency workshops, and we would be hiring a part-time town employee or a consultant. If we went with the latter and it was a consultant, like we were talking about earlier offline. We talk, we're talking like in the thousands of dollars, but we're not talking 50 to $100,000. So, so we're talking, you know, in the multiple thousands of dollars, but somewhere along the lines of $10,000 or so. And I, I think that that might help the board, Karen and Dr. E. Um, get a better sense of what we're thinking about in terms of going forward. So we have a sense of numbers. And my, my colleague, the chair always wants to understand the numbers. And I know we didn't ask you to come with a specific budget. But when we look at the sub bullets, which talks about hiring or retaining a consultant. It's hard when it's so amorphous, if we don't have a sense of, of what the round numbers are. And where we could potentially seek some grant money. So with the grant money, if we saw the grant and achieved it, would it cover half of that? Would it cover 75%. 75%. I, I think that would be helpful for our purposes for planning. And so if you looked at someone to, uh, to hold conversations around these topics, uh, depending upon how many conversations over, how many periods of time, uh, you could be looking at, um, the, the, the thousands, uh, if it, if it's something that's over, over a year and it's once a month and you know, it's, um, a, like a, I don't know, like 90 minutes and it's over like, like once a week, you just, the more you have, obviously the more it's going to cost. So you could get into the tens of thousands. If you have something that frequent, if you have something that's monthly and like, like a 60 minutes to an hour and a half and something more like that, it, it could be in over a year. Yeah. It could totally be $10,000 like every other month. Yeah. It could be more, uh, it could be closer to the thousands because it's, it's a conversation, not a workshop. So if it is actual cultural competency workshops, then you're totally going for, for the tens of thousands for, for frequent workshops over, uh, over the course of six months, a year. And, you know, things that are, that are focused and specific for, for Waylon, things like that. Uh, you, you're, you're getting into higher numbers. And so the numbers will depend on frequency and they will depend upon, um, the specific specificity of the topic. And like, if it's a conversation, it usually costs less than a workshop. And, and Dr. Yi, what about community engagement training? The first bullet for theme two, um, you know, we have a finite number of staff here in town and it, would that take place over multiple sessions over the course of several months? Or how would you look at that? It depends on the consultant. Um, so some might come in and think that they could do it once. Um, I would caution against the consultant that said that they can come and do something like that in 90 minutes and, and be done with it. One and dones are usually not the best way. Uh, something like that would probably take a, a few different sessions. I, what my recommendation would be. And then because it is a training, it probably closer to, to the tens of thousands. Like workshop and training are, or I tend to be interchangeable words. Okay. This is helpful though. I think you've got the right idea. We need to have a sense of the, the cost of the item. It makes sense. Does anybody else, um, pop in here please. Good evening. Thank you for your good work. Um, I have three comments. Um, my first comment is on recommendation theme two. You talk about, um, actually theme one about continued support of the HRDI committee. I'm not asking for an answer now, but I wonder whether it'd be worthwhile to have the committee modified. So that a town employee is a member of the committee. And I think one benefit of that would be that individual. Would be certainly aware of the work of age, uh, HRDI. And as time passes, maybe be the, not necessarily liaison, but contact person to help share information and ideas and attitudes to other members, other employees in the town. My second comment is, as I look at these recommendations, I think an approach worth considering is a five-year plan, right? A five-year plan that, uh, that this board can commit itself to. That is fiscally responsible, but more importantly reflects our commitment to what we're trying to achieve that you've set forth in these, in these recommendations. Um, if we, uh, by the other five-year plan, I think. These goals could be achieved in, in effectively in, in, in chunks versus kind of feeling overwhelmed, uh, feeling overwhelmed and thinking, well, where do we begin? Um, and, um. Um, the third comment is, relative to training, in my workplace, we train people on, for example, computer security through training videos. And that may be worth considering might be less expensive to the town versus bringing in a consultant to a consultant with so many hours. And that might be, uh, worth considering. Those are my comments. Thank you.
You know what, Karen? I would like the board to have the questions first, or do you want the back and forth? No, but whatever you want, Madam Chair, whatever you prefer. Okay. I think we should have the bill first. And then hold on your question for a few minutes. Thank you. Well, let me add my thanks to those of my colleagues, uh, for the work you've done. Thank you. Karen, you obviously anticipated, uh, the reaction, uh, to, uh, uh, a suggestion that the town incur additional expense for part-time employer consultants. Uh, we're, you know, all, uh, working hard, uh, some of us harder than others, to, uh, see if we can close a substantial budget gap. And, um, so I, I think the, uh, suggestion, uh, of coming up with a budget and to the extent that, uh, matching funds could be identified as something that might possibly leverage any town contribution would be helpful. Uh, this is important work, but, uh, we are really, uh, kind of laser focused on this question of budget. Uh, personally, I think that a consultant is a little easier pill to swallow given, uh, that, uh, the tenant manager has a hiring freeze on bringing on employees involves, uh, only salary, but, uh, benefits and so forth. So, uh, uh, I think, uh, the earlier suggestions are, are, are useful. Thank you, Mr. Whitney. Um, Ms. Blumenthal. I'm going to let, um, you wanted to ask me, and then I'm going to, um, Mr. McCall speak, so go ahead. Go ahead. Me or Mr. McCall? I'm letting you pop in. Sorry. Karen, please go ahead. Okay, sorry. Yeah, it's hard to hear. Um, so I just wanted to say, um, Mr. Fay, I'm really happy to let you know that our charge calls for either the town at the time. It's a town administrator, but let's call it town manager or their designee to serve as an ex officio member on our committee. And we did have that previously. Um, and then it dissipated and now we don't have anyone from the town, but we would love to have someone on the town, um, on the committee. That would be fantastic. Um, and then also the five year plan, I don't have a problem with that stretching it from three years to five years. Um, and the training videos, I think Dr. Um, Hayes can speak to that better than I can, but I do think this work is relational. Um, this work really asks a lot of us to, there's a lot that comes in this kind of work and you can't get it from videos. Um, in my opinion. So I, I don't know, just wanted to say that. Um, and then also I wanted to ask about, um, Mr. Oh, sorry. Go ahead. You wanted to respond to Mr. McCall wanted to get his points in and I, I want to make a couple of points too. So could we kind of go back and forth? Would that be okay? So go ahead, Mr. McCall. Thank you, Madam Chair. And I do appreciate the work that the HR DEI has done. And as I'm sure. Ms. Blumenfeld knows as well as Dr. Eden Renee Harris. Um, I've been involved with the assessment all along meeting with them and Dr. Damon, his team. Um, one of the two comments I was just going to make, uh, I, I, I hope that bullet number two under, uh, theme number two is reflecting in what we've been trying to do here. We, we've been trying to broaden our efforts for recruitment, um, bringing in more diverse workforce. But one thing I just wanted to touch on that people talked about, um, the first bullet on the theme two is I did look, uh, our insurer Maya, which is the Massachusetts interlocal insurance, uh, association, uh, offers a lot of risk management programming, um, including videos, as well as in-person education. And they offer a bunch of different, uh, initiatives for, for leadership, teaching them about diversity, equity, and inclusion, as well as for staff and gender. Uh, more inclusive culture within the workplace. So I think that is one area. If we're, you know, concerned about our finances, they want to put those on because they, they are risk averse and they do not want us to have problems, um, and have any type of claim brought against the town. So I can explore that to see what, if any, they would, uh, trainings that we do both in-person and offer, uh, online to, uh, our staff. So I just wanted to raise that. Mm-hmm. Um, and I obviously thank you for the work and I see a lot of things here that I think we're sort of doing or mostly doing that around the list, which is encouraging. Uh, I see a lot of things that need to be done. I, too, agree with, um, my colleagues that this is a marathon, not a sprint. And unfortunately, right now we do have a couple, uh, uh, more than a couple of agenda items that are a sprint that are going to kind of force us to maybe not get right back to this right away. I am, I'm pretty sure we're not going to be able to, um, you know, do a letter or a response on the plan by December 31st, but I would like to think we should probably have some kind of a sense of a discussion, um, by in January. And I would like to recommend, because I was thinking about this today, actually, the board really hasn't had a chance to deliberate on this. We've had a report from the consultant and then we've had the follow up, uh, finalized report. And now we've had a couple of conversations and I think that we don't want to be rude to the guests and not let them, you know, have the questions, but it does, we really need to have time to just deliberate, um, as a board. So I am going to, um, possibly, um, maybe if I could work with Karen on getting some thoughts on the budget items on some of these things offline, it would be great. I know Karen and I have, uh, been working on a welcoming statement, which is number two. And then I'm going to suggest to the board that we schedule like, um, a deliberation session and look at all of the items to just kind of get a wrap our hands around our arms around, you know, what we think and where we think. Um, I do like the grant idea. I love the Meyer idea. That's terrific. So, um, anyway, what does anybody think? That's pretty good. I'll do something to come back. Makes sense. Makes sense. All right. Um, and you're good. I see you shaking your head. So I'm going to give, um, the last remarks to Dr. Hayes, Dr. E and Karen and, um, and you're on the air. Go ahead. Oh, no, I just, uh, I want to say thank you for, um, spending time with us and moving forward with us. We see, you know, that your priorities are, are, are aligned with us and that's very important as it comes to join us. Oh, it's been back and forth a few times. Yes. Yes. Um, but, uh, you know, so I just, I just look forward to the, to the forward movement, uh, on, on this, cause I know how important this is. And I know that you share that same value. Amy, thank you for your assistance and kindness. Um, Karen, did you have one last question? You had another question you wanted to, to raise? No, no, I don't even remember anymore. So I'm, I'm good. Thank you so much for your time and for your attention and for your care and concern about these issues. Thank you so much for helping us with this. All right. I'll be in touch. How's that sound? Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Um, with the board's permission, I'm going to hire if these gentlemen are here for a specific agenda item. It's bridge. Yes. I know. May I help you? Did you come for a specific item? Uh, for the, uh, town manager's assessment of the meeting on Sherman Bridge. So we. Should I leave his agenda item at 9 p.m. So I just let me. Do I have a repeat? We are. Do I agree? You do. Um. Uncharacteristic for us lately. Oh, pardon. Miss. Miss. We've been really liking me because we're going to be out in about five minutes. We're on the last item, which is select boards, reports, and concerns. We've already. I'm not too late then. No, you, uh, you missed the town manager's report. So that has happened. My name is Kurt Traposh. I don't remember that. Right. You're. I want to let him just give a brief.
Um. Okay. So now I'm going to go to, um, thank you. Thank you, everybody indulging me. Um, I'm really going to, I think the last topic I have, did I miss any? Cause we bounced around, but I think we're on select board reports and concerns. Are we not? That's correct. That's correct. Oh, I love it. Okay. Mr. Whitney, would you like to start? Totally. Um, as far as reports, uh, I would report that, uh, I guess this. The superintendent of schools, uh, has, uh, following a consultation with the master plan advisory committee engaged, uh, the architectural firm of HMFH of Cambridge, Massachusetts, uh, to conduct, uh, really, uh, a study, uh, kind of a master plan study of, uh, elementary and middle school, uh, facility needs, uh, going forward. Um, a number of, uh, kind of visioning sessions have been scheduled. Uh, two of them, unfortunately, immediately preceding, uh, select board meetings. So I'm going to, uh, advocate for future meetings to be held before school committee meetings. Take that. Uh, but, uh, you know, the, uh, the process had begun, uh, in, in the spring, I believe. And so, uh, consultant is now on board. Uh, also, as you know, I did not attend the prior meeting at the board. So I, but I did watch, uh, the, uh, tape on way cam. And for those of us accustomed to watching high definition television, uh, the, the way cam image, uh, is comparatively fuzzy. Uh, also, uh, the, the focus of the camera is quite distant. And so, um, one can't really see the expressions on the board members' faces. Maybe that's a good thing. I don't know. But, uh, a tighter focus, I think, would be helpful in terms of just, uh, people being able to, uh, appreciate what happens at the meetings. And, and also the sound when it isn't great, if you can read the lips of people, I think that's a lot. Uh, so I just offer that, uh, suggestion. So that's pretty much what I have. Thank you. Um, Tom? Sure. Just two items. Um, I wanted to, um, thank Tom Holder, public works director, as well as the town manager for organizing another swift meeting on Sherman's Bridge topic. Um, it's clearly a great deal of interest by residents, particularly in that, uh, neighborhood, but others as well. And, um, look forward to further discussion coming up this Thursday. Um, I'm, I'm confident that a reasonable compromise can be accomplished involving the town of Sudbury, of course, on that, on that, on that, that historical bridge. Number two, um, um, um, understand, please report that the school committee's policy relative to cell phone use. The middle school has been implemented using yonder pouches where students place their phones in yonder pouches and don't use them during the course of the day. And the reason why I bring it up is I do see it as a, as a public health issue, not necessarily a school policy issue. That's good to hear. And I'm looking forward to a supplementation, uh, at some point, uh, uh, soon at the high school. Thank you. Thank you. Um, Ms. Brinsley, do you have any thoughts or concerns? Yeah. So, um, I think everybody was invited to a high spirits, um, event. I don't know if you guys saw it. It actually went into my spam folder and I only bring it up because I know, uh, we've been looking at, um, alternatives for, um, adults, um, care or a, um, a adult. Living co-living, uh, type of concept. And the more I looked into that group, the more I found some of their work just, uh, relevant to putting together a future plan. Um, even if it's not connected to the adult co-living, uh, concept we were coming up with, but more just this, uh, work living type of, um, community. So I just wanted to encourage you guys or bring, bring light to that because you guys, I think are all invited, but more importantly, there's some information on it. If you guys haven't seen it yet. Thank you. Mr. Levine. I'm good. Okay. Um, I have a couple of things, but, um, I did forgot to mention last time that, um, I received after we took the vote on the 14 West Plain. I received just personal emails and conversations calls from a couple of folks who had, had expressed interest in the property saying that they felt that the select board made the right decision. Um, that the timing just was not right, even though we all agreed it was a lovely property. And I wanted to share that because I don't know that we always, when we have to make difficult decisions, I don't know that we always feel that that's, no one is totally thrilled with our thoughts. Um, that one seemed to hit on the head. Um, on Friday, we are meeting it's 11 o'clock meeting and, um, I did really well resisting 50 agenda items to try to hop in there, but when I did add one. And that is that Michael has a draft of the pilot program. I think it is that we're going to just look at cause we were interested in moving that forward. I didn't want to wait till November 3rd. It's just, just get that conversation started. Um, I hope that's okay with everyone. Cause I did say it would be one agenda item and it wasn't. And, um, well, on November 3rd, we're going to, we have a very full list as well. We'll be having the annual financial summit to which we've invited the finance committee and the, the school committee. Haven't heard if they're coming yet. I assume they are. Um, you'll be signing and voting the bands and the documents that we just talked about. We're going to also start looking at the MWA financing discussions in the next steps. I'll be attending tomorrow night's meeting. I've asked them to put forth a formal request to us. So hopefully by the time we meet on the third, we'll have a formal request and some numbers to look at as to what the costs are going to be as we, as this goes forward. So, and with that, um, I think we're ready. So I'm going to take a motion to adjourn at what? 8.58? 8.59. Oh, am I early? Still moved. Excuse me. Watch this. Are you doing it? We have a video training for that, Madam Chair. Yeah. All right. So we have, we have a motion for those in favor. Ann? Yes. Um, Doug? Yes. Bill? Yes. Tom? Yes. And are you ready? Yes. Meeting of the third. Meeting of the third. Meeting of the third. Meeting of the third. Meeting of the third. Meeting of the third. Meeting of the third. Meeting of the third. Meeting of the third. Meeting of the third. Meeting of the third. Meeting of the third. Meeting of the third. Meeting of the third. Meeting of the third. Meeting of the third. Meeting of the third. Meeting of the third. Meeting of the third.