October 21, 2025 – Board of Public Works – Video & Transcript
October 21, 2025 - Board of Public Works
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All right, we're going to start with a roll call.
Mike Weckebauer?
Here.
Mike Spelman?
You're muted, Mike. Here. Judy? Here. And George Avigis here, and we do not have Ed yet. Okay, we'll recognize him when he comes on. Any announcements?
Staff have none. Anybody else? None. Okay, we're going to open public comment. I want to remind everybody that there is a two-minute limit to comments under public comment, and that any person regarding Sherman Bridge, this will be your opportunity. There will be no participation when we get into that section of the agenda. So let's open for public comment, if we could, Don.
Okay. Okay, first one is going to be, I'll let them speak, but here it is. Oh, here it is. Tom Largy.
Hi. Can you hear me at all? Yes. Okay. Just quickly, I'm interested from the point of view of public access to the Sudbury River. We've been here over 50 years, and I've used Sherman Bridge numerous times to launch both trailered and untrailered boats. I made the observation at the last meeting that sometimes when highways and roads and bridges go in, things like public access launch areas tend to be overlooked. But as an example is the Pelham Island Road Bridge was always an informal canoe, kayak-type access. That went away. Just flat went away. It has to do with the fences, the fencing that went way up. So, and otherwise, we're left with, you know, three accesses in Weyland, Route 20, which nicely has a launch area, River Road off of 27, which I'll call an unofficial site. It's Fish and Wildlife Land. I heard a prior director say she shuttered every time she drove by it. But nevertheless, it's very, very heavily used, frequently five, six vehicles there, you know, with either fishing or putting vehicles in, boats in, or whatever. And would hate to lose Sherman Bridge, which is in a great part of the Sudbury River. Actually, if you know the river, it's a deeper part, deeper than at Route 20 and the Route 27. It kind of opens up and starts on its real course toward Concord. So there is a tendency. I mentioned the last time around Washington State, I was out there fishing in June. If I look around, I'm 85 now, but if I look around launch areas, not necessarily launch areas, but public access have gone away, bridged away is the term. Bridges go in, and now there's no way to get onto the river. Okay. Thank you. You're tying me up. That's enough. Thank you. Okay, but for everybody, please give me, for the minutes, your name and address. Oh, yeah. Tom Largate, 59 Moore Road, Wayland. Sorry about that. Hey, should be my biggest problem today. Okay. Thank you very much. Next. Okay. All righty.
Next.
Oh, thank you. My name is Marlies Henderson, 31 Sprake Street in Berica. I am the chair of the Sudbury, Azabet and Concord Wild and Scenic River Stewardship Council. Good evening, members of the Wayland Board of Public Works. Thank you for this opportunity to speak, and it won't take me more than two minutes. As a brief background, since 1968, the Wild and Scenic Rivers Act preserves certain rivers with so-called outstandingly remarkable values, scenic, recreational, historic, geologic, fish and wildlife, literature, or other cultural values. The acronym that the National Park Service uses is ORVs. In 1999, Congress designated 29 miles of the Sudbury, Azabet and Concord Rivers as a component of the national wild and scenic river system. This federal designation recognizes the river's free flow and nationally significant outstanding scenic, ecological, recreational, historical, and literary values. Seeing that the Sherman Bridge stands to lose scenic, recreational, and historical ORVs, and the River Stewardship Council is responsible to preserve those, I speak here to inform you that the River Stewardship Council is deeply concerned, also because one of the River Stewardship Council members, the one representing U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, Great Meadows National Wildlife Refuge, landowner on, I believe, both ends of the bridge, happens to be unavailable as a result of the government shutdown. Proceeding in the direct abutter's absence during the government shutdown, I think, is unconscionable, and potentially subject to litigation. So I urge you that you pause the Sherman's Bridge process and that you allow for a task force to be appointed as suggested by Mr. Stoltz. And that's all I have to say. Thank you very much for your time. Thank you.
Next.
Gretchen, you're on. Thank you. Gretchen Schuller, 126 Old Connecticut Pass, not near Sherman's Bridge, but I've biked over and driven over it many, many times. And I spoke and wrote in 1990, when the bridge was being reconstructed at that time, advocating for preservation of the wood bridge and the wood rails. And I have sent you a fairly long email today, and I'm not going to repeat any of that because I think that you'll see it. But I think it's a little bit different than my historic, usually the historic hat that I'm wearing. I'd like people to think about how you can make it safe and wood and wood rails and perhaps cut down on the speed by having rumble strips on each side before somebody hits the bridge. We all know that width and smooth pavement and straightening a road increases speed. I live on Old Connecticut Path. They want to certainly do all of that in our end. And we did fight it. And we've had only the only deaths that have been on this road have been on the wide part at the other end. Yes, of course, there have been accidents. There are accidents on every road. But when you're going 25 miles an hour, you don't usually end up dead. Excuse me for being so blunt. At any rate, I think you're in a tough position. And I appreciate your opening this up to the public and listening to people and receiving all the emails. And thank you very much to each and every one of you that's serving on the board. Thank you, Gretchen.
Who's next? Oh, hi. Henry White, 109 Lincoln Road in Wayland. And I wanted to say briefly that I concur with what Gretchen just said, that I think safety as well as preservation of the bridge's historic and recreational uses, in addition, of course, to its use for vehicular traffic, is important. I think, and I've looked into this, that speed is really the key factor in terms of the wear and tear on the bridge, that speed goes up with the square of the velocity so that if we keep the vehicles at 20 miles an hour or 15 miles an hour, there'll be four times less wear on the bridge than if we allow what is now currently the fact of traffic at 30 to 30 to 40 miles an hour. That would allow you to preserve the wood nature of the bridge for many years, because whether you have it paved or not paved, you're going to be in the same situation as far as having to repair it, whether it's asphalt or bridge, it will wear much more quickly if the traffic moves more quickly. So I appreciate your attention to this and the careful thought you're giving the renovation process. Thank you. Next. Next. Joe, who have you got? It was Sheila Corbett. Am I now speaking? Yes. Sorry. Okay. I'm Sheila Corbett. I live at 72 Sherman Bridge Road. And I am very disappointed in the fact that there's going to be, you may put pavement on the bridge. We've been here for 30 years. There've been minimal accidents and the only accidents that have been have been on either side of the bridge. I live directly next to the bridge, so I'm really attuned to what's going on in the area. I took my dog for a walk today. There were two ladies painting right at the water's edge. There was another couple walking down the bridge and enjoying the beautiful sights of the bridge. We have people come from all around taking photographs. People come all around for doing a lot of recreational activities. The place is just beautiful. And if you put a highway on the bridge, it's going to end up being a really bad thing for our community. Okay. Thank you very much. Hi. Is this me? Yes, David. Go ahead. Yeah. Hi. David Hornstein, 22 Candy Hill Road, Sudbury. I'm just kind of new to this situation, so I won't say too much, but I've been going to that bridge rowing for the last 25 years or so, pretty much, almost every day, and seeing hundreds or thousands of people over that time enjoying the bridge, as the previous speaker just said, painting, photographing, fishing, hanging out. You know, it's really, you know, I've looked at a lot of different places to move in this area, and actually that bridge and that piece of river is what keeps me here. I think it's an incredibly unique place and just, you know, being on the river when I'm rowing back and it's dusk and I hear the cars rumbling over the bridge even before I can see it and I know that I'm sort of getting near home. It's like, it's a very special, unusual thing. And there's, you know, as the previous person mentioned, you know, the bridge on Pelham Island Road, you know, very boring highway bridge and just no character and you really lose stuff. And the problem with losing character is it's gone and nobody knows it was ever there. And there's so few things like that left around here that I think it's a priority to preserve them. I'm also an architect and I know that there's a million innovative ways to solve these problems. And I think that it's really important to have a task force where you get some, some new ideas. Like for example, I've done a lot with having steel railings encased in wood. So you get the strength of steel, the aesthetic of the old wood railing. I think there's lots of different approaches that can be taken. But the main thing is just not to rush into something. Thank you. Thank you, David. John, you're, you're up. Oh, yeah. John Flint. I'm sorry. Go ahead. John, go ahead. He's muted. Okay. How's that? Is that working now? There you are. Okay. Yeah. John Flint, 183 Concord Road in Wayland. I attended the meeting last week or the week before. Very disappointed in the design that was proposed. I was really surprised that they claimed that it preserved the character of the bridge. When you looked at it, it was an asphalt bridge with, it looked like metal railings. I agree with people saying that speed is the key to safety. Aggressive speed bumps should be able to solve that problem. And in addition, there should be a weight limit. I think there's supposed to be a weight limit on the bridge and that will cut down on how quickly it, it deteriorates. And as far as the inability to screw down the boards, I'm sure there's many, many ways of attaching boards with, you know, lag bolts is only the easiest way to do it. So I'm sure we can solve that problem if we put our minds to it. Thank you. Thank you, John. Tom Siakka. Yeah. Hi, guys. Tom Siakka, Rolling Lane, and wearing my hat as Wayland Rep to the River Stewardship Council. I'll just add a couple of points to the ones that the neighbors are making, which is I live on the other end of town. I am not a neighbor, but in fact, I have responsibility and look at the entire 29 miles of the wild and scenic river. And Sherman's Bridge is a unique spot. It is the only river crossing where you can't see other human structures from the bridge other than the bridge itself. And the bridge has the appearance of a historic structure, which makes it uniquely valuable from a scenic standpoint. And I'd also like to note that this is not an issue only for the neighbors. I make a habit of stopping at all the Wayland River crossings whenever I'm nearby. You know, I'm the river steward guy. And I talk to people, and most of the visitors to all of the crossings are not from Wayland. They're from surrounding towns, even from the Cape or Western Mass, and every once in a while from out of state. So this is not an issue for the neighborhood only. The wild and scenic river is a national wild and scenic river. And that's what you have responsibility for here. Thank you. Thank you, Tom. That seems to be it. Hello. Okay. Hello. My husband wanted to speak. My husband wanted to speak. George, so Sheila Corbett is asking for her husband to speak. Go ahead. Yeah. Hi. My name's Jim Corbett. I live at 72 Sherwin Bridge Road. On this design, I don't understand a lot of it. You put asphalt over a foundation that's only good for 17 more years, and you stated that it was going to be a 40-year bridge that you were putting on top. I don't understand that part of it. Also on the drainage, where Lincoln Road drains into the Sudbury River from the hill, and Sherman Bridge Road drains into the Sudbury River from the hill. There's no catch basins or anything else. So why would you put a catch basin on the bridge? The sidewalk, three feet, it doesn't work. People stand on there in groups. You can't walk around them. And you want to put a railing on the bridge that you can't step over. So that's not going to work. That's all I have to say. Okay. Thank you. Mr. Chair? Yes, Carol. Thank you. Carol Martin. Chair recognizes Carol. Thank you. Carol Martin, Lake Road member of the select board. I think what you want to do, and Tom probably can tell Joe how to do it, is you want to remove from the meeting those who have spoken because they are now eligible to speak as part of the meeting goes forward because they've been pulled in. So, Tom, do you know how to do that? Yep, I can remove them. Okay. It's probably the best. Thank you. All right. Nothing else? Gretchen Shuler has her hand up again. No, she already spoke, though. Right. If I understand the rules, it's one time. Is that correct, Carol? The chair of each committee establishes the rules. The select board generally allows everyone to speak once, particularly when there's multiple participants. All right, Gretchen, I'll give you a quick time because we're at our time limit for this. She took her hand down now, so. That was a mistake. I didn't raise my hand. Okay. Sorry. We have one more that just popped up. Jeff Stein. Go ahead, Jeff. Jeff, you are on mute. Jeff, you're up. I'm hearing nothing. Okay. Let's take all those people out and move to the next topic. We move everybody. Yep. You're doing it. Okay. Tom, it's up to you now on your update on the Sherman Bridge. And then we'll open it for board questions. Yes. I'm going to make just a few talking points that I'd like to mention and then be happy to take questions. There's a lot involved with this project and many, if not all of the folks that just made remarks were also at the forum. But I just wanted to start off by saying that we do have a project webpage, which you can access. It's a shared webpage between Whalen and Sudbury. You can access it from the Whalen Public Works website. So as was mentioned, a visioning workshop was held at the Fairbanks Community Center in Sudbury on October 9th, just a couple of weeks ago. Approximately 41 residents from both Whalen and Sudbury attended. They voiced their ideas and concerns for over three hours. We listened and learned what the concerns were. There is a link to that workshop that is on the project webpage. Sudbury Cable Access kindly recorded it and have posted it. So if you weren't able to attend and you wanted to hear it, you'll find it on the project webpage. At the conclusion of the workshop, I stated that all the remarks were welcomed. They were heard and then an updated planned approach would be advertised within three weeks. And that is our intent. The municipal project team, you know, has since discussed what we heard at the workshop. We're developing a revised plan, which incorporates what we heard, what we learned. And the update will identify those things and offer, describe reasons why some suggestions, you know, could not be included in the design. A meeting with MassDOT is scheduled for later this week. We are going to identify the revisions that we made with MassDOT to make certain that what we are now proposing aligns with what is allowed. And as I had mentioned, the intent is within three weeks by October 29th to provide an update, which will include the revised proposal. Okay. Thank you. Yeah. Board questions. I've got a couple, but other people first. Tom, would it make sense to include? Excuse me, Mr. Chair. Yes. Apparently when we, I'm sorry. Apparently when we removed folks from the screen as panelists, we dropped them from the entire meeting altogether. I've just received a call from someone and they can't get back in. Can we let them back in as they apply to come back in? I have no idea how to do this. They should be able to get back in the same way that they arrived first. You know, they'll, they'll be sitting as attendees and not a panelist, but they should be able to use access that same. Just log back in. You're saying? Yeah, I, that should work. And Judy has her hand raised. So, um, let me see. I don't see them. I think Mr. Siak is the one that just called me. I'm sorry to interrupt here. And he said he can't get back in. I see some of the folks who just were speaking are on here. So, but. So I also received an email from Sheila Corbett saying she, uh, was not allowed to see the rest of the meeting. That's what I'm saying is they've, they've been dumped and they can't get back on. See the meeting is one thing. They just shouldn't be panelists. Yeah. Can we. Does anybody know how to fix that? I think it's just, they have to log, just log back in. Cause I've been bounced out and just logged back in. Apparently when Mr. Siak had tried to log back in, it said, you've already been in the meeting and you can't come back. I don't know. Anyway, just throwing that piece of information out. I'm not sure any of us are great enough to know how, but. It was, I've had to, um, I've had to step out of a meeting because of a technical glitch or whatever, and then just came right back, you know, attended the way that I had initially done. And so I, I'm not, I'm not so certain. If I could, if I could think of a, uh, a resolution, I would, but I can't think of anything else to offer. Okay. And just tell them that's the best we can do. Otherwise we apologize and they catch it on way cam is the best we can do. I'm researching and now I'm going to try to figure it out. Okay. Yes. I don't, I don't see Ms. Corbin and I don't see Mr. Siaka in here. I do see a couple of folks who spoke. It shows 21 participants right now. So. There are some different ones. Anyway, sorry. Okay. That's okay. Let's keep, let's keep moving. First of all, it is a 629 and let the minute show that Ed has joined us. Hello, Ed. Say hello, Ed. So we have you on tape. We can't hear you. Are you, are you muted again? Or we have communication problems? Well, Ed is, Ed has joined us. Okay. Uh, who is speaking? Mike, were you speaking? I'm sorry. I was, but Judy can go ahead. She had her hand raised. Yeah. I think, uh, I might have something similar that, that other board members have, are thinking, which is, can we propose a wood bridge? Like the, uh, participants have asked for so that people can have, uh, an option to look at, uh, versus the one that currently is being proposed. That, uh, is more engineered to look like a normal bridge versus a scenic river bridge. Uh, and I did watch, uh, the October 9, uh, recording. And the thing that I heard tonight that I didn't hear at the recording was the issue of the government shutdown, preventing the river stewardship from participating as a butters. And that might lead to problems later on. Um, my understanding is the DOT has, uh, said that it's, it's in severe need of, of repair. And therefore, if we don't do such and such by such and such time, and I'm not sure what exactly the time is, Tom, you probably know, um, that they would have to shut it down. So, uh, if you can confirm that as well. Thank you. Yeah. I'd be happy to, if, uh, George, am I recognized to answer Judy? Yes, please. Yeah. So that is indeed the case. MassDOT, uh, you know, the, uh, the two latest bridge inspection reports characterized, uh, the debt condition as being severe and, uh, to repair as soon as possible. Literally that's what the bridge inspection uses ASAP as a, as a characterization. They have, uh, told us that this has to occur within 2026, that, uh, we cannot continue to, um, repair it the way that we've been repairing it. That, uh, um, that we have to, we have to do something more significant on this. And so I, I, we have heard, uh, as many of these folks spoke about the, the, the primary opposition, uh, factor is the asphalt. So it is something we are taking into consideration. Uh, that was heard. We understand that. And I can tell you tonight that it's being taken into consideration. Thank you. Anything else, Judy, before we go to Mike? So I drove over the bridge today and I have a rather low sedan, not one of those high SUVs where you can look over everything. Um, and one of the things I did notice, uh, that is very pleasant about the current bridge is that you can look left and you can look right. And you can see the river. And one of the things about the design that includes the new safety bumper is that I can't tell from the drawing if that would, therefore, uh, obscure the river from people who are, uh, just driving over. You don't get to see it anymore. So that's one question I have. And then the other thing I have is, uh, I know that the current design and people talked about it at the meeting is that it will go from a five feet wide, uh, walkway to a four feet wide walkway. And there are some ideas about how to keep it at least five, if not going to six, which I think would be, um, you know, it's a shame if we can't do that. Um, and so again, I think in keeping with the character of the current bridge as much as possible, um, and of course, keeping safety as a primary concern and lowering the speed as well as having some kind of weight limit seems very reasonable. Um, ideas and thank you, Tom, for listening. Yeah, certainly. So it is likely correct that when you put a reinforced rail between the vehicle deck and the walking deck, it will impede, uh, the viewing of the river from a vehicle as you're going by. And I, and I, I, people have to keep in mind that, um, the reason for that crash tested rail is for vehicle safety and pedestrian safety on, on the sidewalk platform, um, whichever you'd like to describe it as. And one of the results may be that as you're driving your view, perhaps may be more limited than it is right now. Um, you know, I said earlier that we had learned a lot, heard a lot, some things, um, very confident we're going to be able to revise. There are some things that we may not be able to do, um, and we'll be able to identify what those are and why we were not able to make some adjustments. And that, uh, that crash tested wooden rail separating the road from the, the walking platform may indeed be one of those. You are right that, uh, the current width of the sidewalk, the platform is five feet. The proposal reduces that to four. And that is for the reason that I just described that that crash tested rail between the vehicle lanes and the walking path would restrict that, reduce that down to four feet. There were a lot of good ideas at the, at the workshop that we're describing cantilevering a sidewalk so that you could actually keep it to five, perhaps even increase it to six. We're still looking at that cantilevering the sidewalk, maybe beyond what the repair, um, uh, project would, the scope of the project would be. And I say that because there is no stringer underneath that walking path. Uh, there's just one on either edge of it and to cantilever it, we would have to do some substructure work. It would also require work, uh, at the wing walls at either abutment. Uh, and for those reasons, it may not be able to be included in the scope of the project that we currently have. And, um, so we'll make that determination and be able to identify the outcome of that in the revised update, but that was heard. We understand it. And when you say cantilevering, is that moving outside of the bridge? Is that what it is? Extending it away from? Yeah, it would, it would give you the ability. It would, it would give you the ability to support that platform, um, further out than it is right now. And it just, the, the, the substructure of the bridge may not allow for that. And the scope of the project does not include, uh, adjusting the substructure. There are repairs down at the water's surface, but it does not include, um, making an adjustment to the substructure. If that was a separate project, could that be funded by, uh, uh, some other group other than the town, just to put that extension as a separate project, even if it's only on one side? Yeah, I, it's, it's, what it does is it, it, uh, causes the project to expand dramatically. This is, this is a repair to the bridge deck. Uh, when we touch the bridge deck, we have to touch the rails, uh, both along the edge of the bridge and also, uh, between the, the, the platform and the, and the driving surface. Um, so could it be done? Yes, but this is, uh, a project that's really just a deck repair and what would be required, what may be required. We'll be able to finalize this in a week or so is that the, the, the substructure of the bridge currently could not accommodate a cantilever. Right. I'm just wondering outside of, let's say we do the repair. If we could, there could be another project per se, not funded by the town, but by environmental groups or whoever to run a sidewalk along the bridge. As a separate walk, even if it's only on one side, so people could get some of the things that they're asking for. Yeah. I, I think it would be difficult if not impossible, because what we're in planning on doing is making a significant investment, um, to the top of the bridge. And you would have to pull that off to get to the underneath. Um, I don't, I don't think those kinds of accommodations could be made from underneath, but it's something we can, we can certainly look toward and, and, and consider for a future project. Yeah. Okay. Mike, you had a question? Go ahead. Go ahead. Go ahead, Tom. Did you have something else? I just think, you know, it is, you know, I've, I've walked on that platform many times during the course of preparing, you know, for this project and, um, you know, seeing what the five foot to a four foot. It does. And, you know, it is a, it is a reduction, but I do not see it as a deal breaker. It still provides plenty of room for people walking for people that are, uh, setting up camera tripods for people that are setting up, you know, painting easels if that's what they're doing. And still allowing people to, you know, to, to, to get by. Okay. Michael. Sure. Um, so I, I did attend the forum in Sudbury and Tom did a great job, a very professional job of presenting all of the comments and answering the questions. So I appreciate that, Tom. Um, one, one suggestion I would make, and I, I don't know if you considered this early on, but when we have, uh, a project such as this with, uh, valued asset in town. Um, and this is for Carol too, I guess, um, maybe establishing a working group that includes the, you know, some key, uh, residents in the decision-making process. Um, it would probably help us later on, uh, and come back to us. Um, and, and, uh, you know, in terms of folks supporting and helping their neighbors to understand why we chose different options. Um, it, it came across a little bit as a reveal and not that it was, and I'm not saying it was, but a lot of work went on. And then, um, then we had the forum and a forum attended by 41 people. We know from our town meeting and we've seen the attendance lately. That's a significant attendance, especially a meeting that, uh, was mostly Wayland residents and it was in Sudbury. Um, so I wonder if there's a way, I know you're going through a revision. Right now, Tom, and you're probably making decisions as you're going through that. Um, is there some way that we can include some appointees from the neighbors to weigh in on different options? So, yeah, I think they'd like that. I don't think they'd like that. Is, is there any way we could do this? And I think we heard one, uh, neighbor who's an architect and might have, um, some ideas on how to, uh, although we. Have a very structurally sound and safe solution. It also still appears as a, uh, uh, historic looking bridge. So your point of having a working group or a task force, it was mentioned, you know, in a number of the, the emailed remarks that we received, it was mentioned at the workshop. Uh, it's been mentioned here tonight. I, I, what I would like to. Talk about is. The timeline and why it appears to be so fast paced is that. You know, we received these reports on an annual basis from MassDOT and we received earlier in the summer, um, the most recent report that identified the characteristic as being severe and repaired ASAP. And we know what it takes to repair that bridge, the, the level of effort. And we know that we can't sustain that. So we know, we knew at that point in time, we needed to, to do something different. MassDOT very quickly, um, said. We're willing to help. We're willing to purchase, uh, the material. Uh, they have verbally told us, um, that. It's quite likely that they would be able to include the actual. Construction work within their area contract. Uh, they did that for us on the route 27 bridge two years ago. They actually brought in their area contractor and repair the deck, uh, themselves on MassDOT. On MassDOT's dime. So we, we do know, um, it's within their car character to do that. Um, and it's because of the, they have a particular timeline. I know I've been asked, we've had several, uh, freedom of information, uh, act requests, FOIA requests come in asking for me to provide written, um, documentation that MassDOT is making these statements. That they have made all of these to us verbally, you know, so we'll reply back to those FOIA requests. And that's what I'm going to say is that we meet with them regularly over this and they are providing these, this information to us verbally. So a task force, um, although I understand it, I've been a part of a number of them throughout the years. Um, they would certainly cause this process to, um, the process would be extended. And what MassDOT is telling us, asking us as even a month ago, they were looking to, um, get affirmation from both Sudbury and Wayland that we were a go on this project. Because they need to order this material and they won't order the material until we affirm that we are indeed ready to go. Um, so we have a meeting with them later this week. They're again asking, I'm honest, I'll say we had a, we have a forum. We still have some opposition. These are the changes, the revisions that we're prepared to make. I think that they will be satisfactory to the folks that are making these remarks. Um, they provide a significant change from what we were proposing two weeks ago. So although a task force is nice when you've got the time, it does take a lot of time. And, um, you know, we're talking about a bridge repair. It's not a bridge reconstruction. What we're proposing. I'm confident we'll meet the desire to preserve the historic appearance of the bridge. And, um, yeah, that's, that's my thoughts on a task force, not against it, but just in these circumstances, we are a little bit pressed for time. Um, I guess I'll ask Carol, is there any way that we can allow, uh, citizens to provide input, um, and, and discussion, uh, maybe more directly. As some appointees, just, just so that we, we don't wait three weeks and then the design comes out and it's not at, um, with a lot of enthusiasm. Are there any mechanism we can use? Yeah. Mr. Chair, are you going to recognize? Yes, please. Thank you. Carol Martin. Uh, for those who are listening and may not know, I'm actually here as a liaison from the select board to the board of public works. I've been, they've been stuck with me for a few years. And so I've been through some of these. First, I want to say that I, I hear what everybody has said. The select board is also receiving all the emails and more than you are receiving as, as the board of public works. Um, I want to say upfront, I couldn't be more proud of Tom Holder. He has represented the town of Whalen beyond phenomenally and professionally as Mike, as you mentioned earlier at the forum, but he has graciously taken all of these emails. He's met with, he's met with residents. He's working on the task force. He's working with the town manager. He's even talking to me as a liaison. I think that we have a really collaborative approach in place. I think that I, who am not making this final decision, I'm very clear on the concerns that the residents have because we have received, like I said, several, several emails. So I also am very, very concerned about, you know, waiting. I liked, you know, when someone says to me, I've heard what you said, Carol, and I'm going to get back to you in a couple of weeks. I like to let them have the couple of weeks to get back to me before I decide they're not going to work with me. And so I am going to unfortunately say that I respectfully ask everybody to wait for Tom and his task group from the forum to come back. I think it's about two weeks now or 10 days or whatever it is and tell us what thoughts they have come up with. They're very creative. They're very professional. They're very focused on doing the very best job for us. So I really am going to say that and probably not going to be too popular to everyone for saying it, but I, I really think we should just wait and see what comes out of the task force from the forum. I mean, we had a public forum to gather information and we have. Thank you, Carol. Yeah, I think, thank you, Carol. I think my question was, is there a mechanism to allow a little more iterative decision making because I know from the software development side, there's a lot of iteration in these decisions. And when you wait three weeks and then come out with a, not that it's a final product. Um, but a lot of decisions have gone into that, that if you're sharing with the folks that have the concerns along the way might be changed along the way. So I was just thinking in the ideal world, there'd be a way for them to provide input along the way, maybe a couple of representatives. And I didn't know if there was a way to do that without establishing a formal task force. No, I hear you. I hear you a lot. I hear everybody. I hear everyone who calls me and speaks to me and writes me emails. Unfortunately, my personal opinion is that we pay folks like Tom Holder for the skill set that they bring to the town to do the job we need done. And I have incredible confidence. He's going to come back with something that's going to probably be pretty close to what we want or near what we want. We'll have listened. I should rephrase that. I don't want to commit you anything, Tom. He will show he has listened and taken in the feedback. So. Okay. So my question was about the mechanism, I guess. Yeah, the mechanism I think has worked. They've used public comment. We've held a forum. To me, those are the mechanisms for the residents to participate and provide info. So I feel that we've done those things. Yeah. And I do. You're asking if we can, we can do so. I really would like to personally, again, I would, I would like to wait to see what the group comes back from, from the response from the forum meeting. Yeah. And then have this conversation. And they haven't been shy in their comments. That's for sure. Which they shouldn't be. That's their right. Right. Yeah. It's just the ability to collaborate in the moment. Sometimes leads to things that are a little bit different versus going back and then coming back with a new model. And I, I understand your, your opinion, Carol. And I do believe Tom, Tom is probably one of the most collaborative folks and, and does, he does his utmost to listen to comments and to come back and address them. I'm just saying there's a lot of value often in having those interim decisions and questions answered that can often lead to a better outcome. So if there's not a way to do that, that's fine. Tom, didn't you tell me that you've met with some of these people in your office? Yes, I have. Yes, I have. Great. Yeah. So Matt, and I'll forget, we have a third party here. We're partners with Sudbury. We have a third party, which is the state. They are also at the table. So, and I have to tell you, we cannot afford to lose that money and get this. I'm not sure where we would find the funds to repair it if we don't keep our partnership in place. So we have a bunch of pressures on us, but we're also listening. And I do think that Tom has, like I said, go up and beyond. And I've taken more time than I'm entitled to. Sorry, George. That's okay. Anything else, Mike? Yeah, I just wanted to mention that there are some neighbors who are not opposed to the project. They're in favor of the project of paving because of the noise levels in the area. I think that was the main concern of neighbors that were not in favor of not paving. They're supportive of the design. They're supportive of paving. I think they'd be, and Tom, just for your thought process, I think they'd also be in favor of continued boards on the bridge if there was a way to ensure that they weren't noisy. And we go through, there's a wood bridge on Merriam in Weston, and that isn't very noisy when you go over it. It's a shorter bridge, and it's curved over the train tracks, but just a thought there. I think the main concern for removing the boards was the noise if there's a way to accommodate that just for the looks and eliminate the noise, not eliminate, but significantly reduce. I think that would be helpful too. Yeah, I mean, to that point, the number of speakers opposing asphalt, opposing some of the design aspects, far outnumbered those that support, but there were that supported having a new deck installed. Having something smoother, having something quieter. Many of them, you know, were cyclists, you know, as we've all been talking about, even those in opposition have been saying that it's not just for vehicles. It's for people walking, for people cycling. And that bridge, if you've ever been there, those boards, you know, they are rough. It's by nature. That's the way the boards are cut. We have to special order them. So it provides a very rough riding surface for both cars and more pointedly for cyclists. They talked about accidents falling off the bikes, blowing tires, bending rims, you know, trying to kind of navigate the bridge around and amongst cars. We've got lag bolts that are popping up that they have to kind of navigate around. So it is, it's a real safety concern. You know, one of the speakers earlier in the night talked about alternatives to lag bolts. And of course there's alternatives. Right now we use lag bolts because that's what we have in house, the ability to install. The new proposed design will be using a glue lamp technology. It's got a different fastener. Those fasteners are actually installed from beneath the deck. You know, so that's obviously, you know, especially trained and equipped contractor that has the ability to, you know, to mobilize a barge underneath that bridge, much like we did at Route 27. And that's how the fasteners in the future will have to be installed. We will no longer be able to just simply, you know, screw in lag bolts. Those, those stringers won't accept those any longer. They, they just, well, there's nothing to bite into. So I wanted to also mention, you know, kind of in response to that one speaker's remarks that we are intending on using different fasteners. But in house, both Sudbury and Wayland Public Works employees do not have the ability, are not equipped to make an installation from beneath the deck. So I think those comments mainly came from a group of bicyclists out of Weston who use that bridge regularly, who were concerned about the safety. And we heard from a lot of bicyclists who live nearby and they didn't have those same concerns. You just want to make it clear that it seemed like that those comments came from one group. They, I, I got a, I got an email from a couple, live on Oxbow Road. I think it was just over this weekend that, that were saying the remarks about, you know, the cycling issues or whatever. So there are those that I'm aware of that are local that are, that are making that point known as well. Okay. And last, just last comment, the rendering. We had one comment about the rendering and I fully agreed. The rendering does not sell this well at all. So hopefully we can get a more realistic or lifelike looking rendering that, that will sell this a little bit better. Not that I'm trying to sell it, but that, that was an immediate turnoff. I would say way it, the way it was set up looked very industrial. Yeah. To improve the understanding of what's going on. Yeah. Yeah. So that, that message was received and you'll see something different. Sounds good. All right. Mr. Spellman, anything? No, I agree. Both with Mike and Judy, they've explained things really well. Um, so I can't really add anything onto that. Okay. Ed, anything? Ed, we can't hear you. Ed, we, you're not coming through at all. I'm sorry, Ed. I don't think he can hear us either. Can you hear us? You may not have turned his audio on. Okay. I, just a couple of real quick questions. I'm, I'm not as smart as you guys are, but just a couple of real dummy questions. I know that, uh, there's some roads that the state will set speed limits on or weight limits on and others that the town can do. Does the town have the ability to set speed limits and weight limits on this road? Or is it controlled by the state? We have the ability to recommend a speed limit, which we're willing to facilitate that. There was talk right now. It's set at 25 miles per hour. Um, what I would like to do is to perform the project. Let's see the resulting speeds and obligate ourselves that should the speeds not be satisfied through enforcement, through some traffic calming measures that we, uh, we have thoughts on that we would then facilitate, uh, and work with the state to perhaps lower that. With regard to the weight restriction, that is a mass dot jurisdictional item. And because the bridge itself is structurally capable of handling the truck traffic that it currently experiences, they are not open to issuing a weight restriction. Now, could we campaign to have that changed? Certainly. But that's what we're hearing every time I bring up the subject. So it's not a pure town call is what you're saying. Correct. Okay. Uh, just. We had talked about speed bumps or things that may impact the speed coming up to the bridge. Did you just want to touch on that briefly for the people that are listening? So neither Sudbury nor Wayland are supportive of speed bumps. Um, we have a number of them in town and on the Wayland side, uh, though they were installed for a whole host of, uh, reasons and we've experienced some real breakdown in the roadway, uh, adjacent to and amongst the speed humps, the public safety department is not supportive of having them because of the damage that it does to the emergency apparatus, uh, the impact that it has to response times. So Sudbury was quite clear on that aspect as well. We are not supportive of speed humps. We are supportive of, you know, Gretchen Shuler was talking about, uh, rumble strips. That might be an option. Um, also pavement markings on either end, the approaches of the bridge, uh, saying slow, uh, those types of things. We also have been successful in town of installing solar powered speed limit signs that actually show the speed that you are going at versus what the regulatory speed limit is. Those have been pretty effective. Um, so that would also be something that we could install that would, uh, provide at least more awareness of the speeds. Yeah. You may want to, when we come up with the final design, talk about those as options. that we would like to put in it to address the needs of the people. Can I add a comment on that? Go ahead. So I spoke with Kevin Dandrade at the meeting and we, uh, we did, um, conduct, um, a survey of the speed, uh, traffic, uh, calming survey on that road in the past. So we have what I consider to be a baseline based on the, um, uh, the traffic, uh, traffic counts taken and the speeds taken. Um, so I, I suggested to him that once we get through with this repair, that perhaps we look into has this actually increased the speeds. I don't know if we, uh, conducted those at, at the bridge or if they were further down. I think they were a little further down the road, but, um, we kind of have a baseline that we might be able to measure against. That's good. Thanks. Okay. Okay. Uh, last one. And it goes to Carol's comment that people need to understand that while we may come up with a design or a recommendation, we are subject to the budgetary concerns of the town. Uh, and the, what the town is going to be willing to the select board to put into the budget. And so that, that is another, especially if, uh, we're going to forego, let's do an extreme, the eight 50 and have to pay for that ourselves. Obviously that's going to be something that we can't make unilaterally. It's gotta be included in discussion with the, the select board and the budgeting process. And whether that be the capital or the operating budget. So that, again, it's not just so people understand, it's not solely our decision to make. Okay. Anybody have anything else before we move on? I would just like to say, um, thank you for the kind remarks. I do appreciate it. The, the, the DPW team works very hard. Um, I know there's been some things said and written in some recent correspondence that would, uh, counter that, but, um, I, I, I do, do appreciate the, uh, the, the professional and kind remarks. Thank you. You deserve them. Okay. Uh, we are now what about a half hour behind, uh, a little bit more than that. So, uh, let's talk about where we are year to date in terms of the, uh, financial financials of where we are. Um, you're going to do this one start. Yes, I can. And my, my intent, if I had my laptop working would be to share, um, my screen, which would have shown the year to date, you know, it's got some green, green highlights on it. I'm not, I'm not sure if anybody has the ability to do that. Um, if not, I could certainly talk through it. There, there are some things that, uh, um, I can remark on without having a visual. Does anybody have that handy? Mike's a suggestion. He'll do it. I'm sorry. You know, so what you have, what you have before you in the packet, um, is, uh, a report that we put together, um, every two weeks. And, um, it gives us staff an idea on all of the programs. We have this sheet, uh, and you've seen these before in, in past years, uh, a year to date glance at how we are, uh, financially, you know, within each budget. So what we have tonight is the water because that's the focus of the discussion tonight. And Don can talk a little bit about the causal factors of, uh, of some of the increases that we're seeing presently. And I, I would point out the most significant one is equipment repairs and maintenance. Now we're 29% through the year, through the fiscal year. And that, um, line, including a conference is, is about 58%. And the primary cause of that is over the course of this first quarter in the fiscal year, the water division has experienced, uh, a dramatic increase in equipment failures. And, you know, Don is prepared if you're interested in hearing, you know, what these are, um, you all know that, you know, we had to, uh, uh, to take Baldwin Pond offline for a number of days, a couple of weeks where we were reliant on the emergency connection. Uh, there's a number of equipment that failed. This equipment is now 15 years old, um, at or beyond its useful design life. Uh, it's outdated much of it. You can't even replace in kind you have to purchase new and the equipment itself is actually, you know, configured differently. So that just by purchasing one new part causes us to change up and downstream, you know, uh, fixtures as well. So aside from that, we are in fairly good shape. We're right on target with the point of the fiscal year that we're currently at. Uh, we are a little bit behind lagging in the revenue side of things. You'll see at the bottom of the sheet, um, it shows all of the revenue stream that we experience on any given year. And you, you'll see what we actually, you know, need to raise and what we're currently at. And we're, you know, in essence about 23% versus the 29% through the year. That said, we just issued a commitment that was, um, it exceeded over $400,000. Um, you know, that doesn't even, that doesn't quite fit into this, the sheet. It was done after the sheet was prepared. So, um, that will change that 23%. That's there's your sheet. Here's the sheet. Yes. Thank you. On my phone. It looks really small. Um, but that, that's the sheet that I was referring to. And you'll see, um, about a third of the way down in the expense line, you'll see equipment repairs and maintenance. Um, we have a, a budget of a hundred grand. We've spent 44, 601 to date. We've encumbered over 13 grand, uh, shows the balance, shows the percent year to date. And then the percent, including the encumbrances of 58. That was what I was referring to. So it's that line. And then the other, um, aspect. And I had mentioned that we had actually, um, Tom, before you move on, can I ask what, what do you mean by a commitment? Do you mean by a commitment of 400,000? Oh, a commitment. So it's, it's the, uh, the finance, um, terminology. So when we get a bill run, uh, send out a bill run, the value of that bill run, should we collect all of the revenue from that is what they call a commitment. And we send that to the finance department. So the, a bill run that just went out had a value of over $400,000. Okay. Yeah. Like accounts receivable. Right. Yep. Got it. Exactly. Um, when we. Activated the emergency connection, uh, we used, uh, a little over 11 million gallons a day, uh, pardon me, 11 million gallons. And in working with the MWRA, since this is our second time that we've actually, uh, activated this, uh, there's a different pricing structure. Every time we activate it, the cost, uh, the, uh, the rate increases. So in essence, this last activation equates to about $70,000. So that's not shown on this sheet and we'll likely receive that invoice within the next month. You know, so when we, when this occurred a year ago, uh, we actually activated it for 52 days and it was about 110,000. Um, we utilize the contingency fund for that. As that's really what that's intended for on anticipated, um, expenses. So it's likely that that's, that that line will be used to fund. The purchase of the MWRA water. Couple of. Couple observations that I make as I look at this. One obviously is the expenses are high, especially in terms of things like the, uh, contracted services, uh, where we have a high percentage. In terms of what we're looking at, uh, professional services and equipment repairs. As Tom said, electricity and chemicals are all running very high. We do not see the, uh, increase from the meters that we are hoping for. Uh, so obviously that's a second concern, uh, in terms of where we're going to end up. Tom talked about the MWRA. The other thing that we've, I found out as we're working through some of these analysis and talking to Brian about the debt, uh, that is being, uh, issued, uh, this week or next week. Uh, to finance the, uh, 2025, 26, uh, calendar, uh, or physical 26, uh, spending. The water tower is that we were going to have a debt, an interest payment due in May that we have not budgeted for. It was not in our budget because of the way we were looking at it. Uh, and that'll be about $160,000. Uh, that is going to be a problem for us because it is not in our expense estimates. So in terms of where we think we're going to end up for the year, that's going to be a significant variance. That we have to look at. Now we do have one upside and we'll talk about it when we get to the billings. And that is going to be the possible revenue. We can pull in early, uh, if we can get to quarterly billing in the first quarter of calendar 26. So that's just a thought in terms of, uh, where we are and what we're looking at in terms of our spending levels in P and L on the water department. Any questions? No. Okay. Now, unfortunately, I'm going to have a bit of a problem because as I was trying to set that up, I wiped out all my, uh, slides I was going to pull forward. All right. Next one is the, uh, if we can, the cash flow analysis and hold on for a minute. Tom, do we have any update on the, uh, funds from the, uh, lawsuits, PFS lawsuits? Yes. Um, so we have received, uh, two, well, we've received one payment and are anticipating receiving a second payment. Uh, it equates to about $800,000. Um, over the course of coming years, um, the, the DuPont, um, damages equate to about 1.3 million. And the way that the payout schedule was established, you get a, a, a large portion of that, of, you know, uh, early. Uh, so we had a, we have a 200,000 that we've received and another 600,000 that we're going to receive, uh, this coming month. Uh, then it, it's, it's dwindles off a little bit, uh, with each payment received. And then we, then we still have the, the 3M that is likely going to be equivalent to that, that has yet to be settled. You know, so in essence, we'll be looking at in excess of, of $2 million in, in PFAS claim damages. And are those, were those in your report, the, uh, analysis? So those are not captured or identified in the year to date, certainly. Um, and I, I'm not sure, um, George would know better than I, whether those are actually identified or, uh, at least itemized someplace in some of these, uh, these financial reports that we're going to go through in, in moments. No, and I'll, I'll leave it to Carol, but my understanding is that there's no decision that that's actually going to come to, uh, the water fund versus the town. And one of the, if we, when you go to, we get to the recommendation, one of the things that we're suggesting is that all that money that's going to come from these lawsuits. Come in and reduce the borrowings that we're going to have to do and reduce our, uh, debt service, uh, from all these projects. So right now, I don't know that it's actually even going to, it is planned to come. Carol, do you know? I recognize Carol. Thank you. Um, the select board has still, is undertaking. There's still another executive session. Um, we, we are participating in, I think it's the two lawsuits for, you know, the town. Um, and we are waiting to hear and receive funds and we've made no decision to date that I'm aware as to how those funds will be utilized. Um, so that's what the board has done. I think it's wise for the board of pop this personally, this is myself, not the board speaking, um, makes sense for the, the board of public works to recommend that those funds be applied against the MWRA project. Because as we know, the happy hollow, um, issue is, has arisen because of PFAS. So Carol, it does sound like, uh, according to Tom, we've already received 200,000. It's, has that come in as a water fund received, um, or. It's, it's sitting in its own, uh, individual accounts awaiting some direction. From the select board. Okay. Mike, Mike, the money goes to the town. I understand what the board will recommend a disbursement. Yeah. I heard you say you were waiting for the payments to come in and I just want to make it clear. It sounds like some have come in already. Well, I should say we have not visited that for some time. If I remember right, in one of the analysis that we did, the, uh, town did give us almost $200,000, uh, pay for some professional fees. And that's one of the reasons our expenses were lower. I'll try and find that as we talk, but I remember seeing that. I think we received about a million in terms of the, uh, infrastructure grants. Right, Tom? Uh, 1.3, maybe. The ARPA funds? ARPA funds, yeah. Yeah. That was 1.4. Uh, it actually wound up being a little bit less than a million at the end of the project for the emergency connection. And then we also had a million, uh, that was, um, preserved and issued to us for the permanent connection side of things. That's ARPA funds. That's different than. Yep. Yep. Yes. Yep. Just, you know what, um, Mr. Chair, excuse me, Mike, I just made myself another note. Maybe the next time we have executive session, I'll put that on the agenda. Wow. Cool. Thank you. I'm not going to go through this in detail, but if anybody has any questions, I'll be happy to. Just wanted to have you understand the general, uh, focus of this analysis. And one of the things that dawned on me as we were going through the analysis with, uh, Matt and Brian and Tom is that we have an issue in terms of cash flow. Uh, because of how we have built, uh, the budget for this year and next year. We have all the, uh, debt service on the new debt, other coming in, uh, to the budget next year. We have nothing in this year. And the timing of when that will be collected versus when we have to make payments is an issue. We have to have sufficient cash on hand. That would be our cash balance to cover the debt service. Uh, it hasn't been an issue to date because the, we had the existing debt has been within the realm of, uh, what we have as a cash balance, but we have to be very careful not to drop that balance below what we need for debt service. Uh, why is this? Because we borrow money at the start of the project to fund the work. Uh, the first debt service, uh, part of the town borrowings is normally, uh, principal payment in November, interest payments in May and November because interest is paid twice. So when the town will borrow in 25, the, uh, schedule, uh, at the, I'm sorry, it's scheduled to be closed at the act in October of 25. The first payment will be May of 26 principal and interest in November of 26. Problem is we won't have collected enough money at those dates to pay that increase because we've only got a couple of months going on. So that's what this section is calculating. Okay. It's taking a look at the principal and the interest payments. And again, remember that that interest is based on the amount that's borrowed. It's not necessarily relationship to your principal payments. And so if we take a look at that, we can see that, uh, basically it requires about 1.4 million there. Uh, concern is how much we'll have, uh, in terms of the losses that we may have. Uh, through lower revenue and through, uh, higher expenses that might eat into some of that carryover. Uh, so we have to be very careful in terms of where we are. Uh, the upside on that. And then. So George, what happens if we can't pay? We are, we have a problem. We have a default. Now I assume that the town will have to step in and help, but you know, it is our obligation to pay. Absolutely. But doesn't the town pay anyway? It's a, it's not like we have a separate bank account for water. Yeah, we do. That we're going to run out of funding for. We have, we have the cash balance. That's what your cash balance is. That's your bank account. We have an accounting that's different from an actual bank account, a physical bank account. We're not going to run out of money in default. No, I don't think so. Mike, because remember we are an interest on that. So yeah. Is it technically combined with other things in the investment pool? Yes. But again, you can't go negative. I don't think that's what I'm told. I'm told if we're negative, the town general fund has to pay it, which would not put us in good steed. Yeah, Carol, maybe you can weigh in on that. My understanding is that it's all one big pot of cash the town has. At the end of the year, we get allocated the interest that we're owed for the portion of cash, free cash that we had invested. But when payments come in, they don't go out from the water fund or from the highway department or from, we don't have separate bank accounts. It's an accounting practice. Well, they track our balance fund because Brian sent me a schedule that shows the month by month balance changing every month in terms of our cash balance. So they post it in and out. Now, you're right. It's your percentage of a shared investment pool. But they track the amount of cash balance that we have. It's an internal accounting. We're not going to default. That's my understanding. Well, I don't know. Carol, do you have any thoughts on that? Okay. Mr. Chair. Yes. You're recognized. Thank you. So I'm going to give you my famous line, Mike. I'm not a CFO and I'm not the finance director. He's heard this from me like a zillion times. He knew I was going to say it. This is definitely probably above my pay grade and maybe Tom knows, but I would check with Brian Kemeny. This is probably a case where everybody is technically right, but I do believe, and please let's confirm with, let's get this confirmed with Brian. Okay. I believe that if you, you are a default, if you don't, if you're not able to meet your obligations. So I do think that's, that, so this would be a good question for him to ask, answer. Brian just basically said you don't want to do that, but there is an upside. First of all, understand that I have not, there's no modeling of the actual cash expenses and other things. One of the benefits is that some of the items, I'm trying to remember what it was. One of the fees that are charged is not charged until the end of the year. It's in the narrative there somewhere. But the, there is an upside that reduces some of that risk. If, and we'll talk about it when we get to the AMI, if we get those billings done and started to do quarterly billings, that'll bring in additional revenue that will reduce the shortfall. But the real key is that if we happen to have some big expenses that aren't budgeted in this time period or in this year, it's a risk. So the real message here is, as we look at the cash balance that we want to carry over, we need to keep these in mind. And when we get to 29, it becomes an even bigger issue. Now, the amount and timing is whether it's 28, 29 or 30. If you remember the discussion with Greg in September, there's different funding mechanisms that can be done. So as we look at the 28 and 29 budgets, we've got to look at that as the message and make sure we understand when those are coming in, in terms of the cost to be paid. And compare that to our budget and billings and cash flow becomes, it becomes a much bigger number because of the MWRA debt and the Happy Hollow debt service. George, this is Judy. I have a question. Sure, Judy. So I see the numbers as principles 3.2 million, interest of 789, almost 790, which is approximately 30%. Yeah. Why is our interest so high? Well, because remember, these are payments. These aren't the borrowings. So your interest is based on the 35 million you borrowed. It's like 1%. Yeah, but... 30... Okay. So it's based on the 35 million you're borrowing, we're paying twice a year. So I would think that it's six months worth of interest that we're paying at a time. Is that correct? Yes. But this is an annual. This is annual on this chart. But still, at an annual interest rate, that still seems awfully hot. Doesn't it look off to you? 30... What's 1% of 35 million? Uh... 35,000? 350,000. 350,000. 350,000? Yeah. And that's what you've got there. A little less. But this is not just the MWRA stuff, right? This is existing debt, new debt, other debt. Right. But these two, the 35 million is the bottom two. That's the interest on your 35 million. Right. And even on the top line, existing debt, 560,000, 134, that's almost 25%. No, but these... No, you can't compare the percentages. This is your principal payment. This is your interest payment. That's your total payment. Just like your mortgage, okay? You have a principal portion of your mortgage and an interest portion of your mortgage. Those two aren't related. It's related to how much you borrowed on your house. These are payments, not balances of debt. Judy, the 789 is the interest on the 35 million. It's not the interest on the 3.2. Okay. Thank you, Mike. And it's based on the fact we're paying twice a year, so it's six months worth of payment of 35. No, this is your debt service for the year. So on the right-hand side where it says interest November and May, so each November and May we're making a payment and that will be half of the 789 or would it be 789 in November and other 789 in May? No, neither. Neither. Neither. The principal payment, let's just take your existing debt. Okay. Okay. Okay. The 560 principal payment is in November. Uh-huh. Your interest of 134, half of that will be paid in November and half will be paid in May. Okay. Okay. So that's the amount that you split into two and pay half of it in November and half of it. Right. So in a fiscal year, you're talking 694. Yes. Okay. And what I'm just trying to show here, again, the only thing you know about these numbers is it will change. Okay. Okay. Right. Because we might do a 30-year instead of a 20-year at the less than 1%. Well, even more than that, you don't know where interest rates are going to be when we actually borrow. You don't know where we're actually going to end up in terms of the amount that we'll spend on the dual source. Right. And the type of loan, whether it could be the term, it could be that they said he's got several different types. If you remember in the discussion of loans that are available, the board and the select board are going to have to make that decision when we get down to the actual application of the loan, which is a year or so out. Okay. But again, the message here is think in terms of the cash flow that we're going to have to have to have to cover these amounts because, again, you will be collecting during the year, but you're going to have payments early in the year, November, okay, and May where you have not collected at all. So, you've got to have a buffer in terms of your cash balance to cover your liability here for payment. So, we could maybe petition the select board to provide us with some of those lawsuit funds to cover that shortfall for the short period in between. Well, it happens every year, Mike. So, you know. Well, we can plan for it next year. We're into the year this year, and we've already set the rate. So, it's good to be aware of. Well, this year, I don't think we have a problem. We just have to watch it. It's going to be more next year when we're going to set the rates for, because we'll talk about the, if we bill the first quarter, quarterly, that's going to cover any shortfall. Okay. Okay. And in the years I've been on the board, we've never talked about cash flow before. You've never had 35 million of debt. But we've had some big expenses. Expenses are different. Okay. Okay. Because you know when those are and when you're going to pay them. This is set based on the town borrowing. That's the difference. And then when you take a look, this is your debt service, and this is split. Remember, we're going to get the recommendation. We're going to talk about the interest in principle. This just shows your split if we decide that, for example, Happy Hollow will be paid by rates. MWRA will be paid by taxes. This is a split on that payment. So that's the message we're trying to get to here. And so the bottom line is that there's some significant dollars in there. Excuse me, Mr. Chair. Excuse me. Yes. You're recognized. Thank you. This is based on the 20 year term, right? Yes. Okay. And so what you're saying is, I just saw it flipped away. The one that was there before. What you're saying is the year one, once we're constructed, the MWRA. Oh, it keeps moving, George. What's it about? It's 1-2. Principal and interest is 1-2. It's right there. Okay. Great. And then, of course, the next year would be slightly less. Right. Or would it be constant? No, it'll be less because in the first year you have a higher interest rate than you will going forward because you have the origination fee. One of the reasons that that number is high is because of the origination fees. Oh. Yeah. Okay. Just think of it like points on your mortgage. Yeah. I'd be interested to know from when we have this presentation what the second year cost would be then. It's in there. It goes down to 70,000. Down by 70? No, it goes to 70. The whole principle and interest goes to 70? No, no. Interest. We're only talking about the interest. Oh, okay. So we save about 130. Yeah. Okay. 130. Okay. Got it. Okay. Yep. Anybody have any other questions on this? And I know there's a lot of information here. I don't want to lose everybody by trying to go through line by line. But if you haven't, take a look at it. Understand that the question is how we need to look at the cash balance as we go forward. And when do we need to set rates? And where do we come out on some of these? If you have any questions, there's a lot of meat in here. It took a number of meetings with different people to go through it. Can I stop sharing this? Yep. Oops. Sorry. Okay. Be back with you in just one second. Okay. We're now looking at the next section, which is the impact on the water rates. And again, this was, and we've seen this before. This is a request by the town manager. I recall, wanted to see the impact of what we have. And there's a lot of detail in here, but the bottom line is that, and we'll just deal with averages first, and then we'll look at some of the pieces. Now the average for residents is 623. Other debt service is going to add $200, which is 32%. Happy Hollow will add 107. And MWRA will add 153. Take your average to about 1100. The highest users will grow from the 4100 over to 7124. That's a 3000 increase. Your lowest will go from 271 to 471, which is about $200 increase. And your town costs will go from 69 to 120,000. That's this sheet. So again, and we'll talk about when we get to the recommendation. But depending on what we do, this is laid out so that you can see the impact of the rate increases in terms of other debt service, Happy Hollow, MWRA in total. And we have it for residential, commercial, and municipal. And you can see that the majority of the dollars are in residential. George, this is Judy. Yep. It's 88% is the residential impact. Yes, Judy. Hi. Thank you. I was just going to say. This is your schedule, by the way. I know. I like this one. I was just going to say that I was really impressed to see that, you know, the less than 500 to 500 to $1,000 ones. That is, you know, 86% of the accounts. Let's just say, put it that way. And for those folks, the impact is on the low side, which one would hope that the smaller households that theoretically represent lower income would also not bear the brunt of the increases. So, this was a very nice and useful way to look at things, George. Thank you very much. Well, Tom's people did all the work. They did all the heavy lifting. Thank you, Tom. One of the things I do watch is that second group is going from $700 to $1,200. That's a $500 increase. And, you know, again, depending on the fixed income that they have, those two groups are the ones I'm most worried about. Now, this still has the municipal at the low dollar amount in terms of their usage. And Tom has told me he's checked everything and thinks it's correct, but I have some real concerns. You know, only $50,000 for all the school buildings, for example, or, you know, $11,000 for municipal buildings. I'm sorry, $7,600 now for municipal buildings and $34,000 for the schools. That seems very low to me, but Tom's researching it and we'll see what happens. But somewhere just doesn't pass my smell test, but it could be right. Do these assume that all of the debt will be in water rates or, I'm sorry, is the assumption that this will be split? No, there's no assumption. What it shows you is the impact of each of the pieces. So, you can go through here and say, okay, this is the impact of other new debt. This is the impact of Happy Hollow. This is the impact of MWRA. And so, that's my total increase. So, you can pick and choose what you want. And then, you can't see it now because of the pieces, but you have the last columns give you the projected water rate bill after each of those. So, you can see what the impact is. When you said the second group's moving from $700 to $1,200, that's if all debt. If everything was in the water rates. Yes. In the water rate. Okay. Yep. And if you have your copy of what went out, that's the ending column. Yep. I see it. Thank you. Yep. The other concern, let me close this off. This is the little analysis that I put together and I was surprised. Basically, I wanted just to see and I used the document that was in the town in terms of their projections for debt. And looked at 26, 27, 28, and 29. Debt service paid for the town and projected. The water fund, again, this is assuming that everything is paid by rates, but it really doesn't matter. It's the amount of debt we have outstanding. So, the combined debt, for example, in 29 will be 100 million. The water fund debt will be 44 million. And the town will be 56. So, we're getting close. We're at 44% of the total town debt will be water rate, water related. And so, that's a high piece. And my concern, especially if we build too much into the rates, is we've got a number of other projects that will be coming down the line in this area, like your water mains, your lead pipe timing, et cetera, because this will go out 20 years. That's a significant debt load that we have to look at as we do capital items going forward. It's a very sobering list. Yeah, I think we may want to take a look at our water main replacement plan in light of the debt that we're amassing because of this emergency project. Yeah. And other things also. You know, what can we do? What can we change around? And even, you know, you and I always have a disagreement about some of the smaller dollar items in terms of capitalizing them. Again, we may also have to take a look at some of those. And do we want to start to pay some of those out of water rates rather than continue to add to debt? Because if it's got a five year life after five years, it's no longer an increase because it's the same as you would be getting for debt service, except you're not paying the interest. So, I mean, there's a lot of things that have to be looked at when you think about the type of debt level, especially if the town decides select board decides that they want to have it all paid by water rates. Can I get a reminder on the timeline on the retail water tank project? So that project, Mike, is going to start in the spring and be completed by the fall. Okay, where's the where's the payment? Where's the money for that coming from? So the the there's a number of appropriations that go towards that. The most recent was this past town meeting, which then is included in this November's borrow. And that's what George was referring to. We have an interest payment in May and a principal payment next November. All right. Thank you for the reminder. Sure. Sure. And what I had forgotten about, to be honest, is that they we borrow the money at the beginning of the project. So we've borrowed that that loan is actually happening this week or next week. And so the first interest payment is due in May of 26 versus we normally think in terms, well, that's a 27 item. So it doesn't have to be in that. We didn't put in the 26 budget, but we missed that. We missed that. And as we get to the MWRAs, that's something we have to pay much more attention to in terms of either having the cash or building into the rates a year ahead. If you have the cash available, you don't have to build it into the rates a year ahead. Okay. Any questions on that before we go to the recommendation? I lost everybody. Still here. Okay. So if you remember, we had a recommendation in September, and that's in your package. And basically, at that point, what we requested is that the dual source debt service be funded by real estate taxes. We got pushback on that. And so we took a step back and remember, let's start again. There's three options, all real estate taxes, all water rates, or a combination. Those are the three options that we have. If we want one or two, I'm sorry, if we want the real estate taxes or the split, we have to have a recommendation to the board to select. If it's in water rates, there's no recommendation required because we're not asking them to do something. So that kind of frames it. Okay. September recommendation was that it was all real estate taxes. Feedback was that's too much in the current environment. The issue is the prop two and a half override timing. They've got additional funding surprises from pensions. And select board, see how we say, was not overly enthused in our meeting with them in terms of 100%. So in October, hold on. So I put this together in terms of the recommendation for October, not saying that this is what we should do, but I wanted to get the three alternatives. First, all real estate taxes, second split, and third, all water rates. And so this one has a recommendation of splitting the debt service between the MWR connection and the Happy Hollow. And this is where Mike was talking about the proceeds. And this recommendation is that all those proceeds from the PFAS litigation with DuPont and 3M come to pay down that debt service. Second is that we have property at Campbell Chamberlain that can be sold. And those proceeds, to the extent there are any, because I don't know what it's going to take to tear down those facilities. And there's also a house that we own that can be sold in the Baldwin Pond. At some point, those proceeds would be used to pay down the debt service in our proposal. Now, that can be taken added, taken out, whatever you guys want. But I was just trying to find out ways to reduce the impact in terms of the water rate by doing the split. And remind the board that they also have the ability, at some point, as we talked about in our last meeting with the select board, they can, after the fact, decide that they want to cover some of that of our share with real estate taxes later without going to the town board to get a vote. That was the 21C versus whatever the other one was. One is the tax exempt, two and a half exempt funding initially, and this is something that you could do annually. So, that is basically what we put together, trying to address both the debt service requirement in terms of water rates and the debt level. So, questions, thoughts? I agree with the dual source funding for the dual source water project, as I mentioned to Carol when we spoke. My thought was that it might make sense to have the happy hollow portion be part of the water rates just because that's a town, it's more of a town owned system than the MWRA connection, which is a supportive connection. So, you're saying the October recommendation? Well, you have some other bullets in there that I'm not sure I'd... Okay. ...certain fundings. So, I think any dual source I think I'd be fine with. I don't know about committing the income from the lawsuits to lower the debt if we're getting a zero interest debt. I'd rather have that in cash to pay off the debt. Just one other consideration, the MWRA connection consists of two portions. One is the water main replacement, which is what we were just talking about, which we have a program in place to do that. So, I consider that kind of a town asset too. So, that's about 11 million of that 22 million, what we're calling the MWRA connection. So, there's almost three components. When I spoke with the folks at the town paper, I mentioned as an idea 22 million being paid by taxes and 13 million for happy hollow being paid by water rates. But I think I'm kind of open to how we split it, but I think it should be split. Okay. I'm sure whatever we come up with this recommendation, we'll have some horse trading to do. So, I tried to put some things in there that we could give up looking like the good guys. So, George, this is Judy. Yes, Judy. Question. So, when I attended the select board meetings, it sounded like there were certain hurdles or certain procedures that have to be followed in order for something to be paid through real estate taxes. And I think that's the ballot. It has to get on the ballot, right? So, if we split it like this, whether it's MWRA or happy hollow, but that's just to say that part of it goes on real estate taxes and part of it is paid by water rates. Does that complicate the process? Because if you put some of it on ballot and then go to town meeting for the final, I think it's two-thirds approval versus, right? Well, they both have to go to town approval because they're both borrowing. Right. But only one of them would have to go through the ballot. Is that correct? Yes. Right? Yes. Okay. So, that to me seems more complicated, whereas if everything is in the water rates, then it doesn't do the ballot. You still have to go to town meeting to get approval for a big project, right? Mm-hmm. So, I guess the benefit. So, just to finish up, my thought is the easier or the less complicated, the better, because if you split it, it might be hard to explain to people why we're splitting it, even though I can say, hey, this one's MWRA and that one's happy to follow. Then it follows two tracks, and I worry the two tracks complicates things, and the accounting of it hopefully is not that hard to do, but would that be problematic if later on in the project some equipment or something is used for both? I agree with you that this is a little more complicated. I think the real question that Tom keeps talking about that I agree with is the key is to get these approved, and I have a real concern about getting the town to approve a 74% water rate increase. And so, I think you'd be better in terms of the MWRA being real estate taxes being, let's say, 1% increase in the real estate taxes, and the happy hollow being rates, and I don't remember what it was, 32% increase in the rates or something less. So, I mean, there is no right or wrong on this stuff. It all depends on how we want to structure it for our own future water rates and flexibility, and where we're going to come out, and what we think is going to pass. So, Judy, I agree that it's going to be more complicated. It might be more complicated to explain to folks. The benefit of putting a portion in taxes clearly is for those who are writing off and itemizing on taxes, they'll have a write-off for that portion of it. So, that's the main reason for putting a portion in taxes from my standpoint. You know, George mentions the water rate increase, but I think they're going to see that increase one way or the other, whether it's split or in all taxes or in all water rates. The same people are going to pay. Yep. Yep. And, you know, we talk about in the board, select board talked about, you know, the people that use a lot of the water, well, chances are that they're probably in houses that have a higher value and will bear a higher percentage of the real estate taxes, even though I haven't got any response in terms of how that would break out. But my guess is that somebody is spending that kind of money on irrigation, probably does not have a small house like I do. So, I mean, the real question is, you know, what do you want to do, how do you want to change this, and what do we want to recommend, because Carol will opine that they are looking to have us come in with a recommendation. Also, I think I sent out to everybody late, I got it late from Carl Barnes, that they haven't made a decision yet on theirs, but they're looking at some kind of a split. So this, go ahead. Sorry, so if I were to think about this, I mean, I like clean, so whether it's all in water or all in real estate, that would be my first choice. But if we had to split, I would put a higher amount, like if it's 40 million total, put 30 of it into real estate and the lesser amount in the water. The only reason for that is, as you mentioned, for those who do itemize, they at least could get some kind of benefit out of it, whereas if it's all in water, you can't itemize it. There's no deduction for your water usage. Correct. Yeah. I would agree. I think I find that interesting, Judy, because I think it was your initial suggestion to split in a prior meeting, or at least it was an idea that you had mentioned. She is wise as can be. Yeah, so this would be swapped, right? So the higher cost is the MWRA connection at approximately 22 million. It's 20.5 and 14.2. Okay. So far. It's on the sheet. That's the only reason I said that. Yep. I think we have some padding in those, but. We hope. Yeah. Yeah, for the safety and security of the finances of the project. Right. But yeah, so it sounds like maybe swapping this. I don't know that we should commit any proceeds or property to either one of these. I think that would be a decision we, we'd come to later in coordination with the select board. You can do that. I think that having it as a recommendation. They can, we can then talk about it with them, but otherwise you're not going to bring it up. I want it. I will put it in there so we could talk about it and at least get, get that thought process. And it doesn't, they may say, okay, we'll split it, but you know, we'll talk about the others later. I just think we should get it out on the page. And I think this makes sense a little bit in this split because the MWRA connection is a new source, whereas Happy Hollow is a replacement of an existing facility. So for the users, it makes a little bit more sense. I think, you know, basically people, especially with what you hear going on with the water these days and the PFAS will be happy that they'll still have turn the faucet on and get water. So this, George, this is Judy. I was at someone's house party where there were a couple of Whelan couples there. And the question I got from them was, given the dismantling of the EPA, is the pressure still on to lower the PFAS from the current 20 down to 4? I thought is, I certainly would be more comfortable if we go with the more stringent recommendation and not worry too much about whether or not EPA is still in existence. But I just wanted people to know there was that sentiment out there. Yeah. And it's a good question. But by the time this project gets finished, there'll be a new administration. I'm not saying what party, but hopefully it'll be an election before that. I hope so, too. So my recommendation would be, as I mentioned, just to swap these. So MWRA connection would be paid for by tax. Happy Hollow, which is kind of our own facility, would be paid by the water rates. And I would eliminate or remove the discussion of proceeds external to this. They may be related, but I don't think we should be discussing the proceeds at this point. Okay. Well, first of all, in terms of the real estate versus rates, that's how this is laid out. The MWRA is real estate taxes. It doesn't say that. I read will be paid for by water rate revenue at the bottom of MWRA connection and Happy Hollow says funded by SRF debt. So it's the opposite of what's stated in this. That's because debt service costs would be paid by real estate taxes. While operating costs would be paid for water revenue. Got to read the whole line. Oh, so that's the purchase of the water rates will be paid for by water rate revenue. Yeah, the actual operating costs in the water that you might use. Right. Right. Gotcha. Okay. And I kind of get it. That's a little confusing. Down below it says Happy Hollow be funded by SRF debt. Right. The cost of which will be paid by water revenue, i.e. an increase in water rates. Because we're borrowing the low cost debt to do both. The question is, how will you service that debt? Where will you pay it from? Real estate taxes, water rates. Got it. Okay. Okay. Mike would like to take these two out. I would prefer to leave it. Mr. Spellman, what's your dither? You're talking about saying it's better to get it out there on the table to discuss. What's your reasoning behind that? If they want to have a victory of some type, okay, they can take these out. Okay, fair. I've negotiated many a deal, and it's always nice to have something you can give up without killing yourself. If you don't have anything, you've got your back against the wall. I get you. I'm not sure what we're giving up here. Well, this could be $3 or $4 million. Yeah. Do we know what the cost of the demolition of the Campbell and Chamberlain facilities are going to be? No. And we don't know whether we'll sell it as is or have to demolish it and do it. I have no idea. And that's a long way out, but I know that somebody's going to decide that maybe conservation is going to want to say, well, we want that land for conservation land. Birdwatching. Birdwatching, yeah. Birdwatching, yeah. And that's fine, but I think we should all recognize that there's value there that our property that's owned by the DPW and the proceeds from that property could be used or should be used to fund the programs. And in Mike's case is an example of maybe we use that to do the water main work. I agree, but that's a future process, and we can use that as a bargaining chip further down the line. Maybe, or maybe say, why didn't you bring that up before? I don't know. It's up to you guys. Yeah. Yeah. And you too. So I would leave the proceeds from the PFAS litigation and take out the property. Leave the first bullet, but take out the one about selling the land, because the first one seems more directly related. The second one would be contentious for, you know, property owners next to it and all that kind of stuff. I would just, for future reference. Carol, how do you think the Board of Selectmen would react to this? I thought you would ask Mr. Holder what he thought first. And the Board of Selectmen, the Select Board, has had a number of preliminary conversations about this. And it's interesting that Carl has written you from your finance committee liaison, because when I spoke to the chair, I said, even though we're not required to, we were going to ask the finance committee for a recommendation on the financing of this project. And they had asked for a written proposal. So then I reached out to George and said, could you put that on your agenda for the meeting on the 21st so that you can send it to us so we can start discussing this really digging in, I should say, our two meetings in November and hopefully with the thoughts of having a decision to by December 1st so we can all prepare for the article that was due on January 15th. Okay. The Select Board has had some preliminary high-level discussions. And if you watched our meetings, you will see there's, as you've noted here, two ways to fund the debt exclusion. And one is through the traditional debt exclusion where we go to the ballot and then we vote it again at the time meeting through the article. This gives the, this is then becomes what the traditional bank loan, the principal and the interests are set, the term is set, and that's what happens. With the other provision, which I think is CN on the same chapter is, that is the one that allows a Select Board 5 residents to make that decision on behalf of all the residents that we're going to have a debt exclusion. And then there's also provides them with the flexibility to change that formula of what they're willing, you know, what percent they're willing to take on the debt whenever they feel like taking such a vote. I mean, it's really casual or very casual, I should say. There seems to me, we've taken no position yet, but there seems to be some concern that that, that other approach is not really one that we're attracted to again, because we feel that if it's a large debt, the residents should have the opportunity to vote at the, both at the meeting and at the polls. So, I don't know if that answers your question on that. Well, and I was more talking about the proceeds discussion. Well, see, the proceeds is an interesting thing. As I stated earlier, it is the Select Board that will make the decision how those are going to be disbursed. They're not automatically going to your fund. So, I do think it makes sense, personally, to leave that in there and say we would like that to be used to pay down the debt that at least gives the board a discussion point. Okay. Yeah, I'm fine with that because I, George, I thought the, I thought the funding was swapped on these as I, I made a mistake that in reading these. So, I thought you were giving away the proceeds. But I, I still think it may complicate things. We're, we're just trying to figure out, can we split these? Will the, the Select Board approve of splitting these? I, I don't know if that complicates things a little bit by talking about future proceeds. So, I do like your change though and put in there or fund future capital items so that we don't have the, we could fund some of the other things without incurring additional debt in here. Add that. Yeah, I just don't know if getting into future proceeds complicates the matter even further. We're just trying to figure out if they'll go for a split or they want to throw it all on water rates. Yeah. You know, adding in a discussion about proceeds kind of, that's a future discussion, I think. Well, it also can give them a place where they can point to the users and say, well, as we get these funds for PFAS, we'll be using it to subsidize your water rates. Because by paying for debt or reducing your debt or using it to fund other capital items, you're going to reduce the rate that they'll have to pay. Right. I think it gives them some ammunition with the, with the public taxpayers. Should we leave the one and take out the second? Ed, can you talk yet or are you still? Can't hear you. Ed, your hand is up, but I can't hear anything. He doesn't have his audio button up. Ed, you're not coming through. I think I'm in favor of keeping the one and taking away the second one. Okay. Thank you, Michael. Judy. Keep the proceeds from PFAS litigation, remove the property at Campbell and Chamberlain. Okay. We can do that. Any other changes to that language? All right. So if we change, we'll, we'll fix that up and we'll send that to the select board. Can I have a motion to do, to do that? So moved. Judy moves. Second. Seconded. Mike Spelman seconds. Roll call vote. Mike Spelman. Yes. Judy. Yes. Weigenbauer. Yes. Ed. Can you just give us a thumbs up if you agree, since we can't hear you? All right. The, let the minute show that we got a thumbs up from Ed. And I vote yes. Okay. Tom, anything that you want to add? Nope. Good discussion. I have nothing to add. Okay. Mr. Chair. Yes. Carol is recognized. Thank you. I think what I'm going to have this on the November 3rd, obviously agenda. Did you want to come and speak to this? Uh. We're going to have a full night, but you could come and speak. I've got to check my schedule, but we. You'll let me know. I will let you know. Thank you. Okay. Okay. The next, uh, topic is the, uh, financial planning policies and procedures. And I'm not looking for a discussion of this today. Just wanted to make sure that people are aware that it's out there. It was, uh, presented and adopted by the select board on September 29th. Uh, my understanding and Carol can correct me is that, uh, this was the investment bankers request, uh, or documentation, uh, to help us maintain our triple a rating. Uh, and Carol has asked us for input in terms of some of the levels. So at a future meeting, we should go through, but basically there's three sections on page 13, 14, 18, and 21, and nine, I'm sorry, four and 19, uh, attached, uh, to your present, the packet is the information behind this. Uh, so if you would take a look at it, at your convenience and at it, get Tom, your comments, uh, that he can put together. Uh, and then we can review those at the next meeting and give back to, uh, Carol where we think, cause some of these are, uh, significantly different than what we have in mind, uh, in terms of debt service and, uh, maintain of the, uh, minimum of, uh, was it 25% of, uh, minimum reserve amount of the operating current budget. So, uh, but we can talk about that when we go through. So please just take a look at that and get Tom older your comments. Can I ask a question? Sure. So it says page 13, retire at least 50% of principal within 10 years. Does that mean we're obligated to take the 20 year SRF and not a 30 year then? Not necessarily because it would depend on when your other debt is retired. Ah, okay. So you'd have to take a look at it, but I think the real key to this is that they want to, uh, be careful and Carol can comment in terms of how long out you're going on debt. Gotcha. Okay. Um, the other thing that you just mentioned that 25% are, are Abrams group recommended something between, I forget, is it 15 to 25? So 25 would be at the high end. We voted in 20. So what this is saying is going forward, we have to do 25. Is that what that means? Well, we don't have to do anything. Okay. Okay. Okay. Because as Mike keeps saying correctly, you know, it's ours to set the rates, but this is their recommendation in terms of what appropriate levels would be. Gotcha. So I think we have to take a look at this. Uh, and the other part of that is, you know, just looking at the operation current budget that includes debt service of such a high percentage, we could argue that we should be looking at a percentage of the operating budget, ignoring the capital. But we have to remember that it's looking not only at your, uh, risk in terms of expenses, but also shortfall in revenue. Uh, and you know, other things that may come up in terms of capital or operating requirements like we're going through today with the, uh, all the contract work that's being done. So, you know, none of these are cast in the, they've cast it in stone, but we haven't accepted it. That's why she's asking for our comments. Mr. Chapman, let me clarify. I didn't ask. I just said you should review them. Okay. Let it, let it, let it say that, uh, that review will, I'm sure result in some comments coming back to you. How's that? That sounds lovely. Okay. I stand corrected. And the policies were voted and George is correct. They were voted because we didn't have them. We had policies. We just didn't have them formalized. And it was noted several times by Moody's that this was the best practice. We are a AAA community and we, we should really do this. It was a lot of work. Um, and the intent, the select board will do is we'll look at these and we'll look at, I can actually knock on wood. I shouldn't say this. Haven't gotten in. I've gotten one comment, I think from one group, but unless something's really egregious, we will probably look at all the comments and make an annual review and adjustments, but we'll see what you come up with. And this was done by the, uh, not done solely by the town. It was the division of local services, financial management resource bureau. So it was done by, by that group. The town manager got a grant that came out. The woman does this. These are pretty, a lot of this is very standard language. And then they plop in your individual idiosyncrasies of how you operate. Um, for the most part, these dovetails with the policies the town already had in place. And as George said, they are in the select board packet from September 29. If you know, I, I, I, somebody else had difficulty doing this. So I'll tell you, you go to the, the town website, you go to the select board page, you go to the agenda from September 29. And when you click on it, it should show you a packet and it'll be in the supplemental packet. And the whole hundreds of pages will be right there. If you can have a ball reading them all. But I've attached to you in your packet where the pages that relate to this. Right. So you don't have to go through all hundred pages. Okay. Any questions on this? We've set. Okay. Next section is the, uh, water fun motions. Mike, it's yours. Okay. Um, let's see. And share my screen. So this is essentially what's in the packet. Um, the motions that I put together. Um, I've, I've taken some input and adjust them, uh, to some degree to accommodate that input. Um, both of these motions are designed simply to allow us when it comes to setting water rates, to have the freedom to do that without restriction. Um, it doesn't dictate water rates. It does not dictate that we'll use borrowing for all capital items. It just in, uh, that's the second motion. Um, it's just intended to ensure that the board of public works weighs in on these decisions. Um, the first has to do with designating retained earnings as a funding source for the water enterprise fund. Uh, in certain amounts. This is a mechanism that Tom, Louise, and I put in place. Uh, not I, uh, the board put in place. Um, in 2019, uh, we took out all of the excess. Um, uh, padding in the individual line line items in the budget. And we put those into an expense line called the contingency expense, something that we didn't plan to expand. But Tom wanted to make sure that if we, if he went over the budget that he expected to spend, that we would have access to that without having to go back to town meeting. Now we, we know that we, we really don't have to go back to town meeting in those cases as we've found, um, over time, but it's still nice to have that in place. So we put that contingency expense in place and match that with a funding in the budget article in, in the warrant, um, uh, designating funding from retained earnings. So retained earnings is our rainy day fund. The idea was we would make sure we have a portion of that rainy day fund available above board to, to spend if we go over our expected expenses. So in, uh, fiscal year 20, it was listed in the warrant at 50,000 and matched by a contingency, contingency expense in the budget, the expense budget for 50,000. That was article six. It was approved in fiscal year 21. We were over our target in the retained earnings budget or retained earnings, certified retained earnings account. So we voted to use some of the retained earnings to bring us back down closer to our target. And so that's why the retained earnings noted in that, um, and that warrant was greater than the contingency expense. And that's because the annual town meeting because of the pandemic was held after we had set water rates. So we knew exactly what we were planning to use. In most cases, we're setting water rates after annual town meeting. And so we went back in fiscal year 22, because we went back to the normal schedule, uh, ATM first and water rates being set second. And we increased the contingency expense and the matching, uh, funding from retained earnings. And that occurred again in fiscal year 23. So this is a standard practice that was board and staff coordinated with the town administrator and the DPW director. A few years ago, um, that clause in the budget was removed, um, not by the board. Um, and so all this is, uh, doing is ensuring that that clause gets back into the warrant. So I'm trying to put it simply, uh, as I can, um, and again, it doesn't, um, it doesn't require us to use retained earnings when it comes to setting water rates. It just allows them to be available if we want to use them when we do set the water rates. Not including that drives us to increase rates, whether or not we need to increase rates, uh, to match what's in the warrant. Now the DOR had no problem with our, uh, retained earnings balance. Their main concern is that we bring in the revenue from water revenue that we say we're going to bring in, in the warrant. Now, if we lower that revenue by the 200,000 that we have as the contingency expense, then that's a lower target for us to hit. And the DOR, um, would, there would be less concern that we would hit that target and less concern than by the DOR. So, uh, well, why don't I make the motion and then we'll see if we get a second and then we can discuss any questions. Um, so the motion is to designate retained earnings as a funding source for the water enterprise fund operating budget in the annual town meeting warrant in an amount equal to the contingency expense dollar amount stated in the expense budget for the same fiscal year. Plus any amount by which staff projects the retained earnings balance will exceed the beginning of year target set by the board. So, uh, the second point is if we expect to be 500,000 over the target we set for retained earnings. Then we want, uh, this is saying we want to be able to use some of that so that we don't increase rates. When we've just had a, uh, uh, uh, great windfall and, uh, profit in that year, we want the access to some of those increases to offset the rate increases. Mike, can I ask a question before we vote? Yep. So, sorry. There'll be a whole discussion period on this after the motion is made and seconded. Oh, okay. All right. Sorry. All right. So moved. Thank you. Thank you. Go ahead. So if you move the, um, paper down a little, so we can look at the warrant. Okay. Stop there, please. Yep. Um, so what, what's caught my eyes when you look at this and it says water revenue, wastewater revenue, wastewater certified retained earnings, and then transfer stations certified retained earnings. So it seemed to me that what we're adding is a line between one and two that says water revenue certified retained earnings. And, and the numbers we've been discussing is $200,000 and therefore the 4.1 million goes down to 3.9 or something. So that we would actually be consistent with the other, uh, groupings here. Is there another one that has, uh, Transversation. I don't think so. No. Okay. Maybe that one then. So basically we'll look like that. We'll look like water revenue. It'll look like this. Yeah. And then I, so the, so the, so the, so the 200,000 is money. We were, we, we don't think we're going to touch, but we'd like to be able to access it without having to go back to town needing. Correct. Correct. Um, all right. It's different than me saying, oh, I need a new roof. I need to put money away to, to start paying for that. That would be the reserved amount of 25% of operating for your budget. This is, this is different. This is like disaster happened meteorite hit our water treatment facility. Nobody expected it, but hey, here's $200,000. We thought we could use. Correct. Yeah. That might even exceed the 200,000, but the idea is that we, you know, if we go over, we, uh, on our regular expense items that we don't, uh, that it's reasonably over and, and we'll have that covered by our rainy day fund, the emergency fund. So it's just access to the fund. Okay. Thank you. Yep. And in this year, it was not put into the budget. Um, and so the select board voted to add it back into the budget. Once they, uh, I believe there was a conversation with, uh, one of the board of public works representatives, and they put it back into the budget. So they had to vote on, uh, they had to put this in the errata for the warrant. So the original, um, warrant looked like this up here, one, two, three, four, five. Right. And the revised warrant and the motion that was voted, um, and presented by Adam, uh, included the water certified retained earnings. So that's all we're asking is to get this back in there as it had been in, uh, each year prior. And it also, uh, lowers the goal that we're supposed to hit according to the department of revenue. Exactly. Gotcha. Okay. Judy, anything else? Nope. Mike? Spellman? Nope. Okay. Pretty clear. All right. Ed, you have any, uh, yeah, can't get them. I'm sorry. Okay. I got a couple of things. Uh, first of all, just to be clear, we cannot spend any more than, uh, what we, the town has approved in terms of our spending. So, and that doesn't matter where it's coming from, but we have a spending limit and that is the amount that we can spend anything over and above that. We have to find others. Uh, for example, the town has a fund that's used to cover if somebody goes over their budget, but that, that amount is the maximum that we can spend. Uh, second, uh, we already have that ability. This doesn't give you anything you don't currently have. So it's, it's kind of sends a mixed message, but the bigger issue is where we have historically been. And remember that if you put this in as a contingency in retained earnings use and you spend it, then you're going to have to either replace it or you reduce the amount of cash balance that you have. We just went through a long conversation about what we need to do to cover, uh, the cash flow that's coming in. Remember that this fund balance he's talking about is not just contingencies. Okay. Cause he's using the, the, the retained earnings or cash balance, uh, for part of this, but it's also to cover revenue shortfalls that we've had about every year. It's to cover a replacement costs for equipment that may be over budget. Uh, and if you go back to the original setup of the enterprise fund, one of the comments was they wanted enough money in there to replace or cover any item that, uh, might have to be replaced, uh, which is a little bit of a, uh, increase. Uh, we have to be careful because a rate jump if funding issues arise in the current year and that we have to then make up in the next year, if you set the target. Uh, if we take a look at history, if you remember the, the schedule that we had, uh, we've historically spent, uh, the amount, our retained earnings, our cashflow had been fairly flat. Uh, we have to make sure that we look at the escrow and liabilities at the end of the year, but basically we've had, uh, fairly flat net results and retained earnings, uh, have been fairly flat. Your, uh, revenue budget is where the shortfalls of income. And this, uh, contingency covers part of that. So don't kid yourself that this is only expense related because it's not. And I think that if you put this in, you've made a terrible mistake, but that's just my opinion. And Mike and I have had this discussion more than once. Yeah. Yeah. And it is fairly flat because we set a target and that target is designed to cover the shortfalls, the fluctuations, because we can never predict year to year, uh, where we'll end up with expenses nor with revenue. So that's why we take our consultants recommendation on the target for the retained earnings balance. And as Judy mentioned, his recommendation is between, between 10 to 25% of operating plus, um, well, operating and including debt service. And we have set our targets at 20%, which is fairly conservative based on that range. And we are above that target currently. So all of that has been taken into consideration. And the fact that we're flat and remaining close to our target year after year, that's a testament to the fact that we've, we've done a pretty good job of setting rates to hit those targets. Well, it also is. Mr. Holder does a great job in terms of shutting off the spigot on expenses when he sees a shortfall to get us there. And let's not kid ourselves. That's one of the ways we get there. But again, if you start to use some of that money in terms of retained earnings against revenue, you're going to start to decrease that retained earnings fund balance. That you're going to have to replace the next year by raising rates. Correct. Or go down. So, I mean, you're really moving money between years, which I think is silly. We've been doing a good job of it. And Tom can only push it off a year or two. It's been pretty on target for the past 10 years. What has? We've been on target with hitting our reserve balance. We've kept it close to almost on exact target to the targets we've set. So, for quite some time now, George. And so, give some credit to the boards that have preceded you. Oh, I give a lot of credit to them. That's not the problem. The issue is, again, you know, we maintain that retained earnings without using the contingency against retained earnings. If we had done that, we wouldn't have been flat. Or we would have had higher rates the next year. You're just moving money between years. All right. Anybody have any other comments? Tom, do you want to add anything? Yeah. Thank you. So, the creation of the contingency with the use of retained earnings was, you know, it was created precisely as Mike described. I guess one of the concerns I have or one thing that we should consider and maybe talk about tonight is the fact that we are now regularly using the retained earnings. I think it was pretty much established. I think it was pretty much known that, you know, they were rarely used. But over the course of several years, there was 176,000 for membrane replacement. Last year was $110,000 for MWRA water. We're now only in October and we're going to spend $70,000 against the contingency. I guess what I'm concerned about is with this anticipated increase in debt service and needing to have the proper funds to keep pace with that, in knowing that the equipment that we currently operate is not going to get any better and we're going to be spending money like I demonstrated and showed earlier in the meeting. I'm concerned that if each year that we're setting rates to only achieve revenue, which is budget minus 200, and I keep using that 200 contingency, we're going to have a trend whereby we're always bringing in less money than is necessary. So that's, I'm not sure if anybody wants to comment. That is a concern that I have as we kind of, we're moving into a new kind of financial situation, different, far different than we were in 2019. Yeah, and that is true there. That's, but each year we get to look at that and reset rates. If you're seeing a trend and there's something you want to, you want to increase the budget in one line item for a particular year, that's going to be covered. I don't think we want to budget based on emergencies. And if we do, that's exactly what the retained earnings fund is for. That's our rainy day fund for emergencies. And this is just allowing us access to that. If we fall below our target, then we'll have to increase rates. But so far, we haven't been falling below our target. In fact, we're above our target. I think what we're at 22, 23% this past year. So in reality, I don't, I haven't seen evidence that we're falling below. But Mike, your target has got to be re-looked at because of debt service. We will. Yeah, every year we have to look at the target. Every year when we go to water rates, this is just to allow us to have that flexibility as water commissioners to set rates. And that's what we're elected to do. Not if we're forced to accommodate per DOR the budget, including, you know, kind of a false expense line item. That's all if we keep spending it. If we keep spending it, then it should be in the budget. It should be an actual line item that we're putting in the budget. Not something that's simply a mechanism allowed to access retained earnings, which is what it was put there for. You have too many unknowns to do that. And you have that right today by statute. Statue says that we set the rates. Now, just because at one year, Cliff agreed with the Board of Selectmen to take that out, doesn't mean that he had to do it. That's the one you're talking about, but all right. No, no, no. That happened years before. It happens multiple years in a row. One year, Mike Lowry raised it and they put it back in. So it's something that's happened year after year, George. I don't think we want to get into that. This is allowing us freedom. We haven't fallen below our targets, have we? I don't see that we've fallen below our targets. And in fact, we're above our target. But instead, we've been getting pressure from the finance director stating that the DOR has concerns and pressuring us to increase rates to cover that contingency expense line item. And I don't think that puts the board in a good position, especially new board members who don't understand where that's coming from. Mike, in 2022, we're 357,000 short of our target of break even. Retained earnings. George, retained earnings target. I'm talking about just versus break even with that in there. In 23, we're down by 185. We came back in 24 up by 161. But 193,000 of our costs were paid by ARPA funds. So we actually would have been down lower. And then in 25, we basically broke even. And our expenses were below every year. And we ended up with our retained earnings target right where we targeted it. Mike, you can't look just at the target or above. You keep ignoring the escrow and liabilities at the end of the year that never flow through the P&L. You can't just look at the expense line. It's not complete. I don't need to. I can look exactly at the retained earnings certified, retained earnings certified by the state, George. And we've been at or above our target every year. So that is black and white. Let's not talk about the accounting mechanisms or items that you're discussing. That gets shady. We're talking black and white. We've come in above our certified retained earnings target. Well, you've decided what that target should be. No, no, no. The board has. The board voted it. Let's move right on. Did not the board vote that, George? The board voted the target. No, the board votes the budget. The board voted the target earlier this year, George. Back to the minutes. I know what you slid in there, but that was something you had said was not binding at the time was to get a feeling. It doesn't bind the water rates. All right. Anybody have anything else? Yeah, George. Yeah. This is all extraordinarily confusing. How can. How is Mike's motion detrimental to the to the citizens of. Well, it's not necessarily detrimental. It does send a I think a wrong message, but more importantly, you don't need it. Because you've got this you've got this authority at all. But it is setting a thought process, which I have a problem with in terms of taking your whatever we have in contingency and saying that's going to come out of retained earnings instead of rates. So that whole thought process, I think, is is a significant error that I have a real problem with. All right, Mike. Same question. Why is it good for the community? Because it allows us to set water rates on the expenses we expect to cover that year. And when we have that additional expense, not including that forces us or or pressures us, I should say, it doesn't force us, but it pressures us to increase the rates, even though we don't need to to cover expenses. And that ends up in increasing the amount of money we're socking away in that rainy day fund. And I don't think people in the town want us taking the money out of their wallet, throwing it in the town coffers where we get such low interest rates anyway. Thank you. Thank you. All right. Anybody have anything else? Mikey, stop screen sharing, please. Yep. So we can see people. Okay. Let's go around. Yes. Yes or no on it. You know where I'm going to stand. You know where Mike stands. So, Mike Spelman? Yes. Judy? I vote yes. Ed? Okay. I vote no. And Mike, I assume you vote yes. Yes. So it's 4-1. And the second motion. So we've discussed this with, we've discussed this in the past. In the past, the board, any capital expenses, we've received CIP forms and we have. But in recent years, those CIP forms haven't had the box selected as to how they were going to be funded. And typically, the board voted to fund capital items with longer term expected life and larger purchases. We had selected borrowing as the option for those items. And in recent years, and I included some examples here, we didn't get these CIP forms with the funding identified. Right. And instead of borrowing, for example, we purchased a truck here for I think 200,000 or maybe this was it. Yeah, utility truck for 200,000. And we didn't borrow for it. So I think the expected life on this, Tom, was maybe 10, 15 years. It would be that, yes. Yeah. So it was a 10 to 15 year expected life. And instead of borrowing, I'm not sure if it was FinCom or the finance director, they designated water revenue. So what that meant is it put pressure on the board to in. So ATM happens and then water rates get set. It put pressure on the board. They put 300,000 in capital acquisitions. One was water mains, which have maybe a 30 to 50 year life. So 300,000 was designated to be funded by water revenue, meaning we had to increase water rates that year to accommodate these long term capital purchases. And that's OK if the board decides that. But the board didn't. And it is a board decision. So this this motion is to designate water debt borrowing in the annual town meeting capital budget warrant article as the funding source for capital acquisitions greater than or equal to 50,000, which have a greater than five year useful life unless the board is consulted and approves otherwise. So the intent here is to ensure that capital equipment over a certain dollar amount and over, you know, with an expected longer term life use borrowing as the funding unless we're consulted. And and, you know, whoever is making or has an idea that they want to use different funding sources for these capital purchases comes to the board and requests approval. That's as simply as I can put that one. So I guess I would need a second because I made a motion and then we can discuss. Second. Thank you. Mike made the motion and Judy second for the minutes. Comments? Anybody? None here. Okay. The other thing I want to point out is this is inconsistent with the hundred thousand dollar recommendation from the select board in their policy. All right. Let's take a vote. Spellman. Yes. You want to quit screen stops screen sharing, please. Yeah. So I'm sorry. Mike, you said yes. Spellman. Yes. Judy. Yes. Ed. Yes or no. Or abstain. You can give a thumbs up at if you agree or thumbs down or. Or safe signal if you want to say. Right. Ed, can you hear us? We'll count that as an abstain. I say, Mike, you say yes? I think he just gave a thumbs up. Oh, he gave a thumbs up. Okay. Judy, do you have a hand? It's not that okay. And so we got four one. Four in favor, one negative. Thank you. Okay. AMI is the next section. Making sure that I'm off mute. You are. Yes. Thanks very much. So we are at a point right now, and I apologize for not getting that typical report. And I do have it. But with all the background material, that one didn't make it into the packet. But in essence, we are at the 92% mark. I am going to access some statistics that I want to offer up. So there remain about 120 accounts that are considered non-responsive. They have not responded to the first, second, and third notice. We've gone by when the crews are in the neighborhoods to see if we can cold call, to see if we can get somebody's attention to make an appointment. So at this point in time, what we are planning to do is to issue certified return receipt letters to these 120 accounts, notifying them. Of some particular points, there is mass general law that states that the municipality does indeed own the meter, has the right to inspect, remove, replace, and that we have that right. And it'll be written to be firm, not abusive. But my point will be that we need to get into these remaining accounts. There are a number that the town is working on replacing curb stops. There's about 52 accounts that the town is on the hook for, is trying to make the service line able to be isolated so that the meter can be replaced. But the remaining ones are non-responsive. So that's where we're at right now. So I'll be crafting a letter to be sent out with hopes of gaining access to these 120 households. Tom, this is Judy. Yes. Can we, as board members, see the list? Maybe we know some of these people and can help convince them. Yeah, I don't, I mean, it is, it's actually a matter, all this stuff is actually a matter of public record. So, of course, yes, I can, I can provide the board with this list of folks. Yeah, because I know like down the street from me, there's a house that looks abandoned. So maybe that's one of them. So you're never going to hear from them. So, yeah, we've got, we've got 93 accounts that are actually fit that category. But, I mean, your point is, is well made that, you know, if, if somebody happens to know this person. Funny story is that a past town administrator, when we first embarked on this project, relayed to me that she made the town that they lived in contact them six times. And I said, really? I mean, why was that? And it was, I don't know, there was really no logic. But anyway, this was somebody that was in municipal government that still made the town that they lived in contact them six times before they were able to replace the meter. But anyway, very strange, but so, and this happens everywhere. I was, I was anticipating a small percentage of households. This happens in every community that I've done a meter replacement program. So not unanticipated, but it just, it makes for a very awkward situation. We don't, within our water regulations, we don't allow for the shutoff of service in these types of situations. So that is not a tool that I have in the toolbox that we can assess, we can assess, you know, fees that will raise attention because there's added costs to staff and staffing time to accommodate, you know, this particular situation. So that will likely be mentioned. It won't, it'll be very generalized, but so the intent will be to, to, to, to gain access to these, these accounts. But I, I will certainly issue you the list, uh, in a, in an email to the, to the membership. Dom, do you know how many of these actually have water usage for the last six months? Cause these are, these are occupied. Um, the ones that, you know, like Judy was describing abandoned homes or whatever, uh, um, you know, inactive, uh, there's 93 accounts that we're working through. But those 93 are not part of the one 12. No, uh, no, no, no. You have a total of like 200 then. That are, yeah. 12 meters. Yep. Okay. So this one 12 are people that actually are using water. So we know they're there. They just fail to respond. Correct. Okay. Yep. Um, yeah, so we are working towards, as it was mentioned earlier in the meeting, um, we are working towards transitioning to quarterly billing. In the packets under this heading, you will actually see a sheet, uh, that was developed, uh, by staff. Uh, and it's, it, it takes into accommodation, a lot of factors. And you'll actually see for every district, uh, the six districts that we have, you'll actually see the bill dates. And this, this schedule was developed, um, in striving to have equal billing dates, um, equal days between billings, uh, very consistent with what currently exists. Breaking them in half from semi-annual to annual. We also need to, uh, to consider that there is a proration when we change rates. It won't apply now because our rates were the same as last year. And, uh, but when should we re, um, review the rates and set new rates for FY 27, there's a proration to be taken into consideration. There's also the tier thresholds have to be, um, taken into consideration. So those will be broken in half. We have two districts, five and six that are currently already quarterly billed. So those will remain the same and you'll see that on this spreadsheet. But, um, yeah, so that is what we are working towards currently. Okay. A couple of things I'd like to add to that, just so everybody remembers. Uh, dependent, the going to quarterly billing is dependent on getting the software up and installed and running correctly and people classified correctly. A lot of work on Tom's, uh, people's half. Uh, if we can get it done in like January of 26 per se, we will have the advantage of the pull in of revenue that otherwise would be in the next year. So that will give us some cash and funds that we can be used in case we have a shortfall on the debt. But as we go and look at the rates that are set based on the motion that was passed, you'll have to figure out what you're going to do with that extra cash. If you're going to use it to pay down because remember it's a one time to some of the rate increase or put it in retained earnings or cash balance in order to fund some of that debt service coming up. Remember it's a one time benefit. Uh, and so it needs to be looked at as you look at the 27 rates. It also provides some cushion if we get a build for the, uh, interest and principal payments that are coming up. And it could be as much as a half a million dollars. I mean, did I miss anything? Nope. Good addition. Any questions? Okay. Transfer station. So I'm going to hand this over to, to Joe, who is becoming our, uh, transfer station aficionado. Yeah. The one thing that, uh, that, uh, Joe, if you want, if you wanted to share the screen, uh, did not get into the packet, but we have for your review is the same type of sheet that we had earlier in the meeting for water. We have it for the transfer station as well. Uh, let me pull it up real quick. Okay. Okay. Are you seeing the right thing? Cause I can't. So yeah. Yeah. That looks like it. Yep. That looks like it. So in essence, you know, this is, you know, 29% of the year complete, uh, report was created on October 15th shows our expenses. It also shows our revenue stream in the box at the bottom. Um, you know, so we actually did a comparison of the revenue, uh, this time last year, and it's relatively consistent, the revenue side. The one thing that we. Don't have this year is the years prior. We had a $75,000 in essence, a general fund subsidy. Um, this year, um, it was agreed that that would become 50,000, but the understanding that it would be spent towards the evaluation that Joe is going to talk about shortly. So you don't, you're not going to see that in blue at the bottom revenue. Screen where in years past, you would have had that benefit. And you can see the expense lines. Um, you know, nothing, nothing, it's overly concerning. The one thing that, uh, we did get notified of, um, we hit a record high for the cost for us to process single stream recycling. It, uh, was $101 per ton. It's never been that high ever. Uh, so that will, that will impact. The tipping fees moving forward. We, that gets adjusted every month based upon market. That's the way our contract is written. That's the way really all contracts are written. So that fluctuates monthly. So it's just, it's a, it's at a level I've never seen before, which means that the market is awful. Um, likely tied to, um, perhaps tariffs that, uh, because a lot of the recycling interaction actually occurs with China. So, uh, if things sour with them, the market, you know, kind of is impacted by that. But anyway, that's really the only significant, you know, difference that we're experiencing right now. But then I know Joe can also talk about, you know, sticker sales in comparison, talk a little bit about the RFQ that went out the schedule for that. And then, um, it would be good to, I know we've discussed it in the past and we want to talk about the, the, the membership, uh, of our, of our, you know, kind of a, a working group that's going to evaluate the, the RFQ submittals. And then, you know, work with us as we kind of work through the evaluation once we get it underway. So Joe, this is Judy. A question that I have is, um, do we have a list of people who have bought tickets? Do we know their names? Yes. I mean, we have their addresses, their names, most likely phone numbers. Um, we haven't collected all their emails. We have gotten quite a few, uh, in the process this year. Um, I can tell you our full sticker sales right now. Sticker sales right now are not awful. I mean, uh, as of today, our full stickers were 1340, uh, last year, end of year, it was a total of 1505 for full stickers. We're only down 165, uh, total. And we do see a pickup usually in January, um, because that's when people are allowed to buy a half, you know, a half year sticker at half the price. So we do usually see an increase, um, in that timeframe. So, you know, um, surprisingly, I think the sticker sales are not as bad, uh, bad off as I would have expected. And there is, there is a benefit of the fact that while the sales are down, we did put a price increase in. So our revenue from, uh, sticker sales is fairly flat versus last year. Yeah. Um, and as far as request for qualifications, the RFQ, um, it did go out. It's currently, uh, we'll be opening the bids, uh, on the 29th. So a week from tomorrow, um, and then we can decide at that point, or we can decide prior, uh, who we want on a, uh, a working group to, uh, evaluate that. And that's pretty much it. If there's any other questions regarding transfer station, who on the board would like to be on that evaluation committee. I would. Okay, good. Here's your member. Thank you, Mike. Sure. And Tom is going to solicit, uh, other people who have expressed an interest to get a committee to, to deal with it. So I, um, I think some of the men, uh, pardon me, some of the names that were mentioned, uh, in the past, I know Klaus, um, he's on the, um, I think the audit committee, uh, he was on finance committee when I first arrived in Wayland. And I know that he's had an interest in trash and recycling program. So I was going to suggest him, it would probably be good to have somebody from the finance committee, um, and maybe a likely candidate. I'm not sure if I can't see who's on this call, but, uh, uh, Carl Barnes is our liaison, whether or not he would be interested in joining. And then we would have, we would have staff, obviously, uh, participating as well. Myself, Joe. Can we just have interested citizens in joining or not? I mean, you, I think you want to keep the membership manageable. I don't think any more than, you know, five would, would be necessary. And it seems like we're kind of at that point, but certainly, uh, you know, you, your decision. But I think, you know, five, five is a nice number. But if, if you think you want to have seven and, um, something along those lines. I think the thought process when Tom and I talked is probably a committee of five plus, uh, Tom and one of his, one of his people. Yeah, I was just thinking like, uh, earlier mentioned, it'd be nice to have, um, you know, for the Sherman Bridge, if we had people who actually are butters who wanted to help out or something. Yeah. That's why I'm asking. And, and what I'm hearing you say is that you want an odd number so you can vote. So, and maybe, maybe if, if that's the concern and you can only find one other person who wants to join, then that person doesn't have voting rights or something. So they, you don't have the problem with the, not having a majority vote. I don't think that's, that's, it'd be a real issue because they'll, they'll report, the vote will be by this committee. Oh, I see. Okay. This board. So they'll, they'll come back with an evaluation and a recommendation. I see. All right. Yeah. So that said, we, you know, we could have six, we could have an even number. I see. All right. That's good to know. I think it's at least worth asking. Yep. Does it, do you have anybody in mind, Judy? I mean, is there. Yeah, I do, but I don't want to say who until I ask. Okay. Okay. That's fine. So what I'll, you know, I'll, I'll reach out to Klaus. I'll reach out to either through the FinCom chair or directly to Carl, Mike Wegerbauer and staff. And then Judy, if there's somebody that, that you think would be interested. Judy can twist arms. No, I break kneecaps. Okay. I'm not even going to go there. All right. Can I, can I just ask Tom, do you know if these are sticker holders, Klaus and, and Carl and others? I think we should have a mix of folks that are current sticker holders and, and those maybe that have pickup. Yep. Yeah. It's a good question. I, I, I don't know the answer, but I don't, I don't. I don't recall seeing Klaus or, or Carl down there, but I will find out. So that's a good point. So if those two gentlemen are not, obviously, Mike, I know you're a sticker holder. Judy, do you know whether the person you're considering is? Yes. Okay. All right. So that's good. So we're, so we've got sweet. We'd be, if that person came on board, that would be two, two with stickers, two without. And staff. Sounds good. Okay. But I would, I would go to the chairman of FinCom rather than Carl. Okay. Yeah. That, that seems like a better protocol. Yeah. And you can ask him if one of his people that you could appoint would be a sticker holder. Right. Yep. We can, not required, but it's good to know. Yeah. Yep. Yep. Any questions on the transfer station? If you get stuck, I'm happy to hop in. I'm a big, Mike and I a hundred percent on agree on this transfer station. And I'm, I'm been a sticker holder for. 75 years. Oh, at least. All right. And you have plenty of free time. Yeah. I know. But it's up to, it's up to Tom, but just if you need someone. All right. Yeah. Okay. One, one question, Joe, how many, how many firms did the proposal go out to? Oh, I honestly don't know. I, uh, Kelsey sent it out. She put on the central registry. So we'll, we'll have a better idea next week. Okay. All right. Anything else on transfer station? Okay. South 20 landfill update. Right. Um, so we met a couple of weeks ago, um, virtually and online. Um, first 45 minutes of the meeting, uh, we're spent discussing, uh, dog park. Um, which was one of the, one of the intended uses, uh, that the committee came up with, uh, a couple of years ago. But the committee has not met since March of 2024. So it's been a bit, um, if you didn't know the, the, uh, the dog park people are only slightly less passionate than the Sherman bridge people. Um, but they are very interested in, in using some of that space for a dog park. Their first goal is to get one into town center, which I think is a great idea. It brings more foot traffic to the, to that area and those storefronts. Uh, but if not, they'd like to throw their hat in the ring for, uh, for putting it in the landfill area. Um, another part of landfills, which is right on top of the huge part of the cap where the trash is the deepest. Um, that they really, we really can't build anything on because it's too squishy. The ground levels are too, too unstable. Um, was going to be an athletic field, a mixed sport athletic field. Uh, some walking paths and some maybe benches and bird watching and things like that. Um, and then the further over, when you get over the hill closer to the, to the Sudbury end of things. Um, there was a lot of discussion for putting some town homes there. Now it hadn't been decided what the best use of that was to be. It was to be leasing the land or selling the land or developing ourselves. But either way, it was going to be a source of revenue for the, for the town, uh, especially if you get lower income, uh, and there would be very, very beneficial. Unfortunately, uh, in the year and a half since we've met, um, Weston and Sampson's been over there and done a lot of test borings, a lot of drilling, and they've discovered trash even on that far side of the hill. Um, so there's a lot of trash. It's not just in the peak part of the place where it's deepest. There's between even over, even over the, over the hill where things start heading towards Sudbury. There's still five to seven feet worth of trash there. The DEP is very concerned about us putting any kind of, um, housing over there because of, let me get this, uh, methane migration from the, from the trash coming in and creating a toxic atmosphere for any homeowners that could possibly be there. So it's not looking like we can develop it as is. Um, so now we're looking at remediation or removal. So the current, um, costs are around five to $7 million. They don't know that. They don't know specifically what are getting any closer to that because we don't know exactly what's down there. So far the test borings and the drilling, it's just recovered regular landfill trash. A lot of it ash. Cause it goes back to a day when we used to burn trash, but they have encountered rare, you know, the rare, you know, fire engine that comes up or something like that. So there, there could, who knows what's down there. So they can only say five to $7 million could be the cost of removing this and trucking it offsite. If it's just ash and regular trash, that's your bottom lower level five, $5 million cost. Once you start getting the stuff that's more toxic stuff, that's not recyclable, things like that, it could, could drive the cost up quite a bit, but that would have to be done before we could develop anything for any type of housing that could be put there. There is some money left over from, from the money that was spent to Weston Sampson to do more testing. So we can find out, explore, so we can get a better idea exactly where things are and what's down there. So they're going to push forward with providing us with more information. Right now we're still in the informational gathering area. Do we have any risk in terms of doing the testing, finding something that requires removal and a lot of money being spent that if it was just left alone, we wouldn't? I'm sure there's, I'm sure there's, that's a great question. That's my biggest concern. Yeah, all of a sudden we dig up something and it's an archeological dig. Yeah. Or we find out, you know, a whole bunch of asbestos or things like that. There's, there's definitely that risk, I'm sure. That's what we had with the, the one area that we redid. Ended up being a lot of asbestos and police firing range. Oh, geez. Yeah. And then you're dealing with a lot of lead. Yep. Mike, was there talk of a solar farm on, in any of this area? There, there hasn't been, there is talk of doing that, but currently I think there's something about ground-based solar that isn't allowed. So it's not like we can just throw up a bunch of solar on the hill. I think that discussion would be if, you know, cause one of the other uses could be down closer to the Sudbury river area. We could do something similar to what's at the town building right now. Puts put, you know, elevated solar panels. We could put our school buses there. And as you know, we start transitioning to hybrid or all electric buses. Now all of a sudden, this is a nice thing for the town, but I think we're a little farther away from that right now. Are you, is this border of the Sudbury river? Yeah. Yeah. So the discussion, I'm sure I was thinking Sherman bridge discussion about both launches and stuff. I don't know if that would be a part of there, but. Well, there's the actual, the boat launches is, is over on the other side, uh, closer to the council on aging building. Um, so they have a launch there, but I suppose you could, we could possibly put it in there, but I'm not sure if that end of the Sudbury river is accessible if they want people in there because that's also a national wildlife preserve. Okay. I don't know. I'm just, just trying to draw between the two. Yeah. Just enough to be dangerous. Oh yeah. No. Sounds like it. Uh, we are meeting in a couple of weeks, uh, to discuss further, uh, movement and see what, what else, uh, what other ideas we can come up with. Okay. Anybody have questions? Good update. Thank you. Thanks, Mike. That's about the most you'll ever hear me talk. No, no, no. We're gonna, you're gonna be chairman next year. Oh, stop it. Okay. Uh, board member concerns. Any? Then here. I'm still concerned about, uh, the Sherman bridge situation where there's such a strong. Outpouring of support for a. Scenic wood bridge. And, and I, and I know that based on the timeline and, you know, DOT offering, you know, as much help as they are, that that's, um, doesn't seem very likely, but it would still be nice. I think to let them know. What that would entail just in case. Um, so, so you don't, so we don't come off as. Fate complete. This is what we're doing. You know, DOT offered us money. So we really don't want to hear, uh, anything about the wood bridge anymore. I think it just, um, presentation wise might go over well. Yeah. I guess if, if you don't mind, you know, we are really aware of what people concerns are. And, and a lot of people have spoken up. A lot of their concerns are very similar to one another's. Um, you know, some of these things, I think we're going to have the ability to find a solution to satisfy those desires. Um, some we're not going to be because of, uh, you know, transportation, um, standards that have to be met. You know, when you do this type of work nowadays that you didn't have to do 40, 50, a hundred years ago. Um, I feel comfortable with how we've gone about, you know, holding a work, you know, working session with the folks. And I, I think that the, the revisions that we're going to make, I think are going to go a long way to making accommodations. And what I said, what I said, you know, when you said you listened, uh, Judy is at the end of it is that, you know, we have. Contact information for every one of those 41 people that attended. So they will be personally notified of the update where to find it and offered some suggestions to be able to, to provide continued feedback. So it won't be a fade to complete. Um, but at some point, I think the decision will need to be made that the proper accommodations were made. And that we need to move forward with, with securing the funding for it and, and ordering the materials and working towards contracting the work and getting it done in calendar year 26. You should check that 41 list against your 112 to see if there's any overlap. And leverage it somehow. Tom, why, why, why do we need that guard rail? Like when we repave a road, we don't have to put in a new guard rail for a sidewalk, for example. But that, that seems odd that that would be required. Yeah. I mean, there's been a lot of points made on other bridges that, that don't, that do not have that. And there's the American association of state highway transportation officials, AASHTO. And there are a series of regulations and standards that are associated with that. And much of what we've included with that design are AASHTO requirements. And so in, and the terminology that's used and what needs to be built when you start to touch things is that these things need to be crash tested. They need to be crash tested on the bridge. They need to be crash tested on the approaches to the bridge. And one of the things that has been, you know, spoken, we didn't talk about it earlier in the meeting, but I'd like to bring it up now. And I, there has been, you know, some, some misinformation that's been disseminated relative to some of these approach guardrails. You know, and we'll identify all of this in the updates, but we have to install features and fixtures on the bridge that meet and are compliant with those AASHTO regulations. And why aren't they on other bridges that were just redone? I don't know the answer to that offhand. Yeah. Yeah. It just seems odd that it looks very industrial, at least the rendering I saw. Yeah. And that adds to it. Tom, is it because the normal bridge is just repaved and this is rebuilding of the whole bridge? I don't think so. I mean, this is, this in essence is a deck repair. And it's much like I liken it to, you know, when, when we touch a sidewalk, even if it's only a small portion or whatever, then you are required, you know, to maintain particular standards with that. And you have to make changes and, and have particular slopes and truncated domes installed and all of those types of things. And this is a situation that's very similar. I know that Kevin Dandrade with tech at the, at the forum, at the workshop, spent a fair amount of time at the podium describing the need, you know, for this, for this crash tested rail that separates the walking platform from the vehicle platform. So one last question on the, on that guardrail, can we get an exemption based on the historic or scenic blah, blah, blah. So, no, I mean, it's the thing about the bridge, you know, and it was mentioned at a CPA meeting a week ago is it's, it's not, it's not an historic bridge. It was built in 1992. It was built to look historic. It was built, you know, to, to fit in with, you know, the look and feel of that neighborhood of that area. And I fully appreciate that. And what we're striving to do is to be able to repair the deck, build the deck with something that provides modern safety features, but also accommodates that the preservation of that historic look. And I think we'll be able to achieve that. Mike, just a quick question. Do you have an example of one that does not have a guardrail with a walkway? I haven't searched for one. I was just researching it myself and I'm not finding it. So I just was asking. Someone mentioned the Sudbury one that was just built up Route 27 or redone up Route 27 on Route 27. So I think one thing that might help clarify this is that any bridge has to have a crash tested rail. Most bridges have that at the edge, you know, at the edge of the backside of the bridge, the backside of the sidewalk. The way that the Sherman's Bridge understructure is built, the way that it's established currently, is that that crash tested rail can't be located on the outside, that furthest thing, the furthest away from the driving surface. So to be able to have a crash tested rail, the other location to have it, is that the separation between the walkway and the drive. So that is the, you know, so right now, you know, tech is working towards seeing whether or not we would be able to install a fortified rail that separates somebody standing there from going over the bridge. If we can do that, that would help alleviate this issue. But if the understructure of the bridge will not accommodate, won't support that, that, you know, fortified rail, then it's got to go in the other location. Yeah. So that, that would differentiate what you see when you, when you're driving on a bridge like Pelham Island Road, there's, there is no separation between the walkway and the paved surface. That's because the fortified crash tested structure is on the outside. Got it. Okay. I did look that up. It, it technically does not have a sidewalk. Pelham Island? No. The one on 27. Oh, great bridge. Old subway road bridge. So Tom, just to clarify, so what you're saying is that because the crash tested railing is, is for cars to not run off the bridge. It's not for cars to not run into the pedestrian. That's my understanding. Yes. Yes. It's gotta be there someplace. Okay. Anybody, anything else? I have one. Uh, once we get the software far enough along, so we know the January or February date, whatever it's going to be for the implementation of quarterly billing. Uh, can you, uh, provide us with a communication program you're going to use to, uh, get this information out to people explaining what we're doing, why we're doing it and how it's going to impact them. The answer is yes. Um, yes. What we're, what we're planning to do is, uh, create, develop an oversized postcard. Uh, much like we did with the lead and copper, uh, program that we had, those will go out to every account holder. We'll be, uh, putting, uh, all kinds of, um, uh, advertisements, uh, outreach going up on social media, all of those types of things. So that is our plan and we'll get the board, all of that. So you'll, you'll be able to see it and, uh, and be able to provide feedback. Right. Okay. I assume until we know that we're actually going to be going in January or February, whatever the date is that anything is premature until that we can start to develop some of it, but you don't know when you're going to pull the trigger. Yeah. And, and, and part of that message, a good part of that message will be the implementation, uh, implementation of the customer portal. Yep. Um, you know, and the alarm packages and all of that, uh, those are pretty strong, solid features that we all know were, were, uh, a major part of our decision. To go in this direction. So that, that'll also be a part of the outreach as well. People will be able to, they'll be offered instructions on how to create an account, sign up for account and, and utilize it. You set up a YouTube demonstration. What I would do is I would suggest that I bring you in and you can be our model. Yeah. Yeah. I do not fit the model role. All right. Anybody have anything else? Can I just retract what I said? I'm looking at a Google earth and I, I don't know what to call it. It says it's not a sidewalk, but there is a granite berm that runs along and there's like maybe a four foot, I guess, walkway just over this bridge. And that's it. You can't access it from either side really, unless you're in the woods. But, so I just don't want to, you know, be called out as, uh, lying. So. No. And a lot of these bridges, they don't, they don't have, they don't have walkways or they don't hook up to sidewalks. I think that's true on Sherman's bridge road, right? There's no sidewalk that you hook up to. Right. You just cross the bridge on this sidewalk or this area, but there, it's kind of weird because. Aren't you typically not, not allowed to have that where you can have a sidewalk that leads to nowhere where you're dumped out on the road. At least we can't have crosswalks that, that. I think that's crosswalks. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. And this is, you know, I think people regularly refer to it as a sidewalk. It really is kind of a walking platform. You know, it's just, it's a feature of the bridge that separates the cars from, and there's, you know, a safe zone for people to stand and, you know, paint, take photographs, gaze, you know, all those types of things. So it's more of a walking platform. Yep. Cool. Yeah. Carol, anything that you want to add before we go to the last couple items? I'm good. Thank you. Unless you have any more questions for me. Yep. Okay. Uh, comment on minutes. Anybody have questions on the minutes? Can I get a motion to approve the minutes? So moved. Michael Weyerbar moved. Second. By Judy. All in favor say roll call vote, Mike Spelman. Mike Spelman. Mike. Judy. Hi. Michael Bauer. Hi. Ed. Thumbs up. Ed gives a thumbs up. And George is a yes. Okay. Uh, meeting, uh, upcoming meeting. Tom, you want to cover that? Yeah. So on Thursday evening, um, I know we've discussed as part of the permitting process for the MWRA project, uh, and knowing that, um, much of the infrastructure is actually located within the city of Framingham. Um, the city of Framingham is a, an environmental justice community. So therefore we're required per, uh, protocol to hold a community meeting. And that meeting will be, um, uh, held, uh, and offered in a number of different languages. So it will provide information that you've all seen. The town of Wayland has, has seen via, you know, our board of public works meetings, our forums that we've held prior to town meeting. But this one is particularly scheduled to meet that environmental justice, um, requirement. So that is this Thursday at six o'clock. It is completely virtual. Um, we have, the link is up on the town's main webpage. So folks can access it there. Uh, we have translators that are scheduled, uh, to be in attendance. That will be providing, uh, translation services for other languages. So that's Thursday. Is that posted as a meeting for us? So I did not do that only because, um, you, you, you're, you're able to attend. Um, and I thought that that was fine. You know, attending would be, would be adequate. So I did not post that meeting for the board of public works. So if any of us attend that meeting, I would suggest you don't participate. Because if you get more than three people and you're participating, then we haven't posted the meeting. Mr. Chair. Yes, ma'am. I believe you can participate, but you cannot deliberate. So therefore you cannot share your opinion on any questions that get asked. If the board was asked a question, you would have to defer to another meeting. If you had a quorum present. What's the difference between participating and speaking in terms of a position? Nevermind. That's fine. Be careful. That's the message. Is that okay? Don't deliberate on. Oh yeah. We think that's a great thing. And, you know, we'll, uh, we support that, you know, whatever. Generally speaking, if you don't have a, if you have a quorum present, it's best to not speak or just let the chair speak. That's it. Then there's no deliberation. Okay. We have meetings on November 18th and December 16th. Now the question I've raised with Tom is the timing of the, uh, financial, uh, expense and income budget and the, uh, capital plan. So I think that especially the budget part with the information we now have in terms of the cash flow for the debt. Think you need to work with Matt to make sure he's got that adjusted because the expense level has to be correct because we can't spend more than that. Mm hmm. Yeah. So at one of those meetings, well, you have to make, you guys have to make a decision on the use of retained earnings. So the first budget is the capital budget. Um, so I am submitting the DPW capital budget on Thursday to the finance team. Um, so I would be prepared at any point after that to bring it to the board of public works. And I, I think that November 18th would be, would be fine. You know, if we find that we've got a jammed agenda and, uh, there is a room for it, you know, we, we could carve out a, uh, you know, uh, um, a particular night just for the, the capital budget. But at this point in time, my recommendation would be just to, for me to present it then it's, it's not all that complicated. Um, and then later on in the calendar year, we, we have not yet, um, um, got a, a, a schedule, uh, relative to the submittal of the, the operating budget. And when that's, I know George, you were talking about a schedule relative to, you know, town meeting, you know, warrant being opened up. And when warrant articles were going to be discussed and all of that, I'm speaking with Jalen today. I think the select board is working towards developing that, that calendar, but as, as yet to be, um, advertised. So all that being said, um, I, I don't see a reason sitting here tonight to schedule anything other than the November 18th. Okay. I just want to, again, I agree with Mike. And one thing I know probably surprises Mike, but I want to make sure that we go through and we have an understanding of what is in both the capital budget. And the operating budget before it's signed off by the town, because at that point it's too late. So we should be seeing what's going to the town. And remember that the 27 budget, depending on the timing of the borrowing of the SRF funds and the first interest or payments, we need to make sure we have that in the proper year. Right. Right. And then back towards the capital side of things, I will be using the motion that was just approved tonight relative to the CIPs. And I think in essence, I can't think of an item that we have that's less than 50 grand and less than a five year life. So I think every single one of them will on the CIP will have the box checked borrow. Right. But I have a feeling you will get pushback and anything that's between the 50 and $100,000 level, because it doesn't meet the, uh, what the select board is adopted. So we need to just to see how many of those we have and how, how big of a push we want to make on that. If at all, especially if we get some of the, uh, extra money from the quarterly billings. It might give us an opportunity not to raise the rates, but that's going to be up to the discussion. But I want to make sure we have that before, not after the fact. Understood. Okay. Anybody have anything else in terms of the, uh, meeting schedules, pre hearings? Do we have any coming up? Any what? Actually, sorry. I, um, I spoke with the chair of the planning board, um, actually last week. And it looks like they are booked solid until maybe the end of December, early January. They suggested I send the list out, uh, sometime next week. So at least they have it, can look at it, question any issues, problems, et cetera. Uh, meeting with the tree warden Monday morning, we're going to go over that. Um, so that's where we stand on that. So we wouldn't meet till January. Maybe. Um, I would think, uh, yeah, I, I'm waiting for her to get back to me, but, uh, she wanted the list first and then was going to get back to me with the open dates. Sounds good. Good question. Anything else? Mr. Chair. Yes. I recognize Carol. Thank you. Mr. Holder. Thank you for the reminder. I'll get, um, the ATM calendar. Jalen's a waiting for it. I'm sorry. Jalen's a waiting. Carol needs the file. Okay. Topics not reasonably anticipated. Staff have none. Anybody? Nope. Can I have a motion to adjourn? Moved. Mr. Spellman moved. Can I get a second? Second. Second from Judy. All in favor. Mike Spelman. Yes. Judy. Yes. Ed gives a thumbs up. Mike. Yes. George. Yes. Yes. ödm Jiangu. Yes. Dale. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. necessary necessary necessaryだから done. There we go in, from the ring left the ring left the ring mace.
Mike Spelman?
You're muted, Mike. Here. Judy? Here. And George Avigis here, and we do not have Ed yet. Okay, we'll recognize him when he comes on. Any announcements?
Staff have none. Anybody else? None. Okay, we're going to open public comment. I want to remind everybody that there is a two-minute limit to comments under public comment, and that any person regarding Sherman Bridge, this will be your opportunity. There will be no participation when we get into that section of the agenda. So let's open for public comment, if we could, Don.
Okay. Okay, first one is going to be, I'll let them speak, but here it is. Oh, here it is. Tom Largy.
Hi. Can you hear me at all? Yes. Okay. Just quickly, I'm interested from the point of view of public access to the Sudbury River. We've been here over 50 years, and I've used Sherman Bridge numerous times to launch both trailered and untrailered boats. I made the observation at the last meeting that sometimes when highways and roads and bridges go in, things like public access launch areas tend to be overlooked. But as an example is the Pelham Island Road Bridge was always an informal canoe, kayak-type access. That went away. Just flat went away. It has to do with the fences, the fencing that went way up. So, and otherwise, we're left with, you know, three accesses in Weyland, Route 20, which nicely has a launch area, River Road off of 27, which I'll call an unofficial site. It's Fish and Wildlife Land. I heard a prior director say she shuttered every time she drove by it. But nevertheless, it's very, very heavily used, frequently five, six vehicles there, you know, with either fishing or putting vehicles in, boats in, or whatever. And would hate to lose Sherman Bridge, which is in a great part of the Sudbury River. Actually, if you know the river, it's a deeper part, deeper than at Route 20 and the Route 27. It kind of opens up and starts on its real course toward Concord. So there is a tendency. I mentioned the last time around Washington State, I was out there fishing in June. If I look around, I'm 85 now, but if I look around launch areas, not necessarily launch areas, but public access have gone away, bridged away is the term. Bridges go in, and now there's no way to get onto the river. Okay. Thank you. You're tying me up. That's enough. Thank you. Okay, but for everybody, please give me, for the minutes, your name and address. Oh, yeah. Tom Largate, 59 Moore Road, Wayland. Sorry about that. Hey, should be my biggest problem today. Okay. Thank you very much. Next. Okay. All righty.
Next.
Oh, thank you. My name is Marlies Henderson, 31 Sprake Street in Berica. I am the chair of the Sudbury, Azabet and Concord Wild and Scenic River Stewardship Council. Good evening, members of the Wayland Board of Public Works. Thank you for this opportunity to speak, and it won't take me more than two minutes. As a brief background, since 1968, the Wild and Scenic Rivers Act preserves certain rivers with so-called outstandingly remarkable values, scenic, recreational, historic, geologic, fish and wildlife, literature, or other cultural values. The acronym that the National Park Service uses is ORVs. In 1999, Congress designated 29 miles of the Sudbury, Azabet and Concord Rivers as a component of the national wild and scenic river system. This federal designation recognizes the river's free flow and nationally significant outstanding scenic, ecological, recreational, historical, and literary values. Seeing that the Sherman Bridge stands to lose scenic, recreational, and historical ORVs, and the River Stewardship Council is responsible to preserve those, I speak here to inform you that the River Stewardship Council is deeply concerned, also because one of the River Stewardship Council members, the one representing U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, Great Meadows National Wildlife Refuge, landowner on, I believe, both ends of the bridge, happens to be unavailable as a result of the government shutdown. Proceeding in the direct abutter's absence during the government shutdown, I think, is unconscionable, and potentially subject to litigation. So I urge you that you pause the Sherman's Bridge process and that you allow for a task force to be appointed as suggested by Mr. Stoltz. And that's all I have to say. Thank you very much for your time. Thank you.
Next.
Gretchen, you're on. Thank you. Gretchen Schuller, 126 Old Connecticut Pass, not near Sherman's Bridge, but I've biked over and driven over it many, many times. And I spoke and wrote in 1990, when the bridge was being reconstructed at that time, advocating for preservation of the wood bridge and the wood rails. And I have sent you a fairly long email today, and I'm not going to repeat any of that because I think that you'll see it. But I think it's a little bit different than my historic, usually the historic hat that I'm wearing. I'd like people to think about how you can make it safe and wood and wood rails and perhaps cut down on the speed by having rumble strips on each side before somebody hits the bridge. We all know that width and smooth pavement and straightening a road increases speed. I live on Old Connecticut Path. They want to certainly do all of that in our end. And we did fight it. And we've had only the only deaths that have been on this road have been on the wide part at the other end. Yes, of course, there have been accidents. There are accidents on every road. But when you're going 25 miles an hour, you don't usually end up dead. Excuse me for being so blunt. At any rate, I think you're in a tough position. And I appreciate your opening this up to the public and listening to people and receiving all the emails. And thank you very much to each and every one of you that's serving on the board. Thank you, Gretchen.
Who's next? Oh, hi. Henry White, 109 Lincoln Road in Wayland. And I wanted to say briefly that I concur with what Gretchen just said, that I think safety as well as preservation of the bridge's historic and recreational uses, in addition, of course, to its use for vehicular traffic, is important. I think, and I've looked into this, that speed is really the key factor in terms of the wear and tear on the bridge, that speed goes up with the square of the velocity so that if we keep the vehicles at 20 miles an hour or 15 miles an hour, there'll be four times less wear on the bridge than if we allow what is now currently the fact of traffic at 30 to 30 to 40 miles an hour. That would allow you to preserve the wood nature of the bridge for many years, because whether you have it paved or not paved, you're going to be in the same situation as far as having to repair it, whether it's asphalt or bridge, it will wear much more quickly if the traffic moves more quickly. So I appreciate your attention to this and the careful thought you're giving the renovation process. Thank you. Next. Next. Joe, who have you got? It was Sheila Corbett. Am I now speaking? Yes. Sorry. Okay. I'm Sheila Corbett. I live at 72 Sherman Bridge Road. And I am very disappointed in the fact that there's going to be, you may put pavement on the bridge. We've been here for 30 years. There've been minimal accidents and the only accidents that have been have been on either side of the bridge. I live directly next to the bridge, so I'm really attuned to what's going on in the area. I took my dog for a walk today. There were two ladies painting right at the water's edge. There was another couple walking down the bridge and enjoying the beautiful sights of the bridge. We have people come from all around taking photographs. People come all around for doing a lot of recreational activities. The place is just beautiful. And if you put a highway on the bridge, it's going to end up being a really bad thing for our community. Okay. Thank you very much. Hi. Is this me? Yes, David. Go ahead. Yeah. Hi. David Hornstein, 22 Candy Hill Road, Sudbury. I'm just kind of new to this situation, so I won't say too much, but I've been going to that bridge rowing for the last 25 years or so, pretty much, almost every day, and seeing hundreds or thousands of people over that time enjoying the bridge, as the previous speaker just said, painting, photographing, fishing, hanging out. You know, it's really, you know, I've looked at a lot of different places to move in this area, and actually that bridge and that piece of river is what keeps me here. I think it's an incredibly unique place and just, you know, being on the river when I'm rowing back and it's dusk and I hear the cars rumbling over the bridge even before I can see it and I know that I'm sort of getting near home. It's like, it's a very special, unusual thing. And there's, you know, as the previous person mentioned, you know, the bridge on Pelham Island Road, you know, very boring highway bridge and just no character and you really lose stuff. And the problem with losing character is it's gone and nobody knows it was ever there. And there's so few things like that left around here that I think it's a priority to preserve them. I'm also an architect and I know that there's a million innovative ways to solve these problems. And I think that it's really important to have a task force where you get some, some new ideas. Like for example, I've done a lot with having steel railings encased in wood. So you get the strength of steel, the aesthetic of the old wood railing. I think there's lots of different approaches that can be taken. But the main thing is just not to rush into something. Thank you. Thank you, David. John, you're, you're up. Oh, yeah. John Flint. I'm sorry. Go ahead. John, go ahead. He's muted. Okay. How's that? Is that working now? There you are. Okay. Yeah. John Flint, 183 Concord Road in Wayland. I attended the meeting last week or the week before. Very disappointed in the design that was proposed. I was really surprised that they claimed that it preserved the character of the bridge. When you looked at it, it was an asphalt bridge with, it looked like metal railings. I agree with people saying that speed is the key to safety. Aggressive speed bumps should be able to solve that problem. And in addition, there should be a weight limit. I think there's supposed to be a weight limit on the bridge and that will cut down on how quickly it, it deteriorates. And as far as the inability to screw down the boards, I'm sure there's many, many ways of attaching boards with, you know, lag bolts is only the easiest way to do it. So I'm sure we can solve that problem if we put our minds to it. Thank you. Thank you, John. Tom Siakka. Yeah. Hi, guys. Tom Siakka, Rolling Lane, and wearing my hat as Wayland Rep to the River Stewardship Council. I'll just add a couple of points to the ones that the neighbors are making, which is I live on the other end of town. I am not a neighbor, but in fact, I have responsibility and look at the entire 29 miles of the wild and scenic river. And Sherman's Bridge is a unique spot. It is the only river crossing where you can't see other human structures from the bridge other than the bridge itself. And the bridge has the appearance of a historic structure, which makes it uniquely valuable from a scenic standpoint. And I'd also like to note that this is not an issue only for the neighbors. I make a habit of stopping at all the Wayland River crossings whenever I'm nearby. You know, I'm the river steward guy. And I talk to people, and most of the visitors to all of the crossings are not from Wayland. They're from surrounding towns, even from the Cape or Western Mass, and every once in a while from out of state. So this is not an issue for the neighborhood only. The wild and scenic river is a national wild and scenic river. And that's what you have responsibility for here. Thank you. Thank you, Tom. That seems to be it. Hello. Okay. Hello. My husband wanted to speak. My husband wanted to speak. George, so Sheila Corbett is asking for her husband to speak. Go ahead. Yeah. Hi. My name's Jim Corbett. I live at 72 Sherwin Bridge Road. On this design, I don't understand a lot of it. You put asphalt over a foundation that's only good for 17 more years, and you stated that it was going to be a 40-year bridge that you were putting on top. I don't understand that part of it. Also on the drainage, where Lincoln Road drains into the Sudbury River from the hill, and Sherman Bridge Road drains into the Sudbury River from the hill. There's no catch basins or anything else. So why would you put a catch basin on the bridge? The sidewalk, three feet, it doesn't work. People stand on there in groups. You can't walk around them. And you want to put a railing on the bridge that you can't step over. So that's not going to work. That's all I have to say. Okay. Thank you. Mr. Chair? Yes, Carol. Thank you. Carol Martin. Chair recognizes Carol. Thank you. Carol Martin, Lake Road member of the select board. I think what you want to do, and Tom probably can tell Joe how to do it, is you want to remove from the meeting those who have spoken because they are now eligible to speak as part of the meeting goes forward because they've been pulled in. So, Tom, do you know how to do that? Yep, I can remove them. Okay. It's probably the best. Thank you. All right. Nothing else? Gretchen Shuler has her hand up again. No, she already spoke, though. Right. If I understand the rules, it's one time. Is that correct, Carol? The chair of each committee establishes the rules. The select board generally allows everyone to speak once, particularly when there's multiple participants. All right, Gretchen, I'll give you a quick time because we're at our time limit for this. She took her hand down now, so. That was a mistake. I didn't raise my hand. Okay. Sorry. We have one more that just popped up. Jeff Stein. Go ahead, Jeff. Jeff, you are on mute. Jeff, you're up. I'm hearing nothing. Okay. Let's take all those people out and move to the next topic. We move everybody. Yep. You're doing it. Okay. Tom, it's up to you now on your update on the Sherman Bridge. And then we'll open it for board questions. Yes. I'm going to make just a few talking points that I'd like to mention and then be happy to take questions. There's a lot involved with this project and many, if not all of the folks that just made remarks were also at the forum. But I just wanted to start off by saying that we do have a project webpage, which you can access. It's a shared webpage between Whalen and Sudbury. You can access it from the Whalen Public Works website. So as was mentioned, a visioning workshop was held at the Fairbanks Community Center in Sudbury on October 9th, just a couple of weeks ago. Approximately 41 residents from both Whalen and Sudbury attended. They voiced their ideas and concerns for over three hours. We listened and learned what the concerns were. There is a link to that workshop that is on the project webpage. Sudbury Cable Access kindly recorded it and have posted it. So if you weren't able to attend and you wanted to hear it, you'll find it on the project webpage. At the conclusion of the workshop, I stated that all the remarks were welcomed. They were heard and then an updated planned approach would be advertised within three weeks. And that is our intent. The municipal project team, you know, has since discussed what we heard at the workshop. We're developing a revised plan, which incorporates what we heard, what we learned. And the update will identify those things and offer, describe reasons why some suggestions, you know, could not be included in the design. A meeting with MassDOT is scheduled for later this week. We are going to identify the revisions that we made with MassDOT to make certain that what we are now proposing aligns with what is allowed. And as I had mentioned, the intent is within three weeks by October 29th to provide an update, which will include the revised proposal. Okay. Thank you. Yeah. Board questions. I've got a couple, but other people first. Tom, would it make sense to include? Excuse me, Mr. Chair. Yes. Apparently when we, I'm sorry. Apparently when we removed folks from the screen as panelists, we dropped them from the entire meeting altogether. I've just received a call from someone and they can't get back in. Can we let them back in as they apply to come back in? I have no idea how to do this. They should be able to get back in the same way that they arrived first. You know, they'll, they'll be sitting as attendees and not a panelist, but they should be able to use access that same. Just log back in. You're saying? Yeah, I, that should work. And Judy has her hand raised. So, um, let me see. I don't see them. I think Mr. Siak is the one that just called me. I'm sorry to interrupt here. And he said he can't get back in. I see some of the folks who just were speaking are on here. So, but. So I also received an email from Sheila Corbett saying she, uh, was not allowed to see the rest of the meeting. That's what I'm saying is they've, they've been dumped and they can't get back on. See the meeting is one thing. They just shouldn't be panelists. Yeah. Can we. Does anybody know how to fix that? I think it's just, they have to log, just log back in. Cause I've been bounced out and just logged back in. Apparently when Mr. Siak had tried to log back in, it said, you've already been in the meeting and you can't come back. I don't know. Anyway, just throwing that piece of information out. I'm not sure any of us are great enough to know how, but. It was, I've had to, um, I've had to step out of a meeting because of a technical glitch or whatever, and then just came right back, you know, attended the way that I had initially done. And so I, I'm not, I'm not so certain. If I could, if I could think of a, uh, a resolution, I would, but I can't think of anything else to offer. Okay. And just tell them that's the best we can do. Otherwise we apologize and they catch it on way cam is the best we can do. I'm researching and now I'm going to try to figure it out. Okay. Yes. I don't, I don't see Ms. Corbin and I don't see Mr. Siaka in here. I do see a couple of folks who spoke. It shows 21 participants right now. So. There are some different ones. Anyway, sorry. Okay. That's okay. Let's keep, let's keep moving. First of all, it is a 629 and let the minute show that Ed has joined us. Hello, Ed. Say hello, Ed. So we have you on tape. We can't hear you. Are you, are you muted again? Or we have communication problems? Well, Ed is, Ed has joined us. Okay. Uh, who is speaking? Mike, were you speaking? I'm sorry. I was, but Judy can go ahead. She had her hand raised. Yeah. I think, uh, I might have something similar that, that other board members have, are thinking, which is, can we propose a wood bridge? Like the, uh, participants have asked for so that people can have, uh, an option to look at, uh, versus the one that currently is being proposed. That, uh, is more engineered to look like a normal bridge versus a scenic river bridge. Uh, and I did watch, uh, the October 9, uh, recording. And the thing that I heard tonight that I didn't hear at the recording was the issue of the government shutdown, preventing the river stewardship from participating as a butters. And that might lead to problems later on. Um, my understanding is the DOT has, uh, said that it's, it's in severe need of, of repair. And therefore, if we don't do such and such by such and such time, and I'm not sure what exactly the time is, Tom, you probably know, um, that they would have to shut it down. So, uh, if you can confirm that as well. Thank you. Yeah. I'd be happy to, if, uh, George, am I recognized to answer Judy? Yes, please. Yeah. So that is indeed the case. MassDOT, uh, you know, the, uh, the two latest bridge inspection reports characterized, uh, the debt condition as being severe and, uh, to repair as soon as possible. Literally that's what the bridge inspection uses ASAP as a, as a characterization. They have, uh, told us that this has to occur within 2026, that, uh, we cannot continue to, um, repair it the way that we've been repairing it. That, uh, um, that we have to, we have to do something more significant on this. And so I, I, we have heard, uh, as many of these folks spoke about the, the, the primary opposition, uh, factor is the asphalt. So it is something we are taking into consideration. Uh, that was heard. We understand that. And I can tell you tonight that it's being taken into consideration. Thank you. Anything else, Judy, before we go to Mike? So I drove over the bridge today and I have a rather low sedan, not one of those high SUVs where you can look over everything. Um, and one of the things I did notice, uh, that is very pleasant about the current bridge is that you can look left and you can look right. And you can see the river. And one of the things about the design that includes the new safety bumper is that I can't tell from the drawing if that would, therefore, uh, obscure the river from people who are, uh, just driving over. You don't get to see it anymore. So that's one question I have. And then the other thing I have is, uh, I know that the current design and people talked about it at the meeting is that it will go from a five feet wide, uh, walkway to a four feet wide walkway. And there are some ideas about how to keep it at least five, if not going to six, which I think would be, um, you know, it's a shame if we can't do that. Um, and so again, I think in keeping with the character of the current bridge as much as possible, um, and of course, keeping safety as a primary concern and lowering the speed as well as having some kind of weight limit seems very reasonable. Um, ideas and thank you, Tom, for listening. Yeah, certainly. So it is likely correct that when you put a reinforced rail between the vehicle deck and the walking deck, it will impede, uh, the viewing of the river from a vehicle as you're going by. And I, and I, I, people have to keep in mind that, um, the reason for that crash tested rail is for vehicle safety and pedestrian safety on, on the sidewalk platform, um, whichever you'd like to describe it as. And one of the results may be that as you're driving your view, perhaps may be more limited than it is right now. Um, you know, I said earlier that we had learned a lot, heard a lot, some things, um, very confident we're going to be able to revise. There are some things that we may not be able to do, um, and we'll be able to identify what those are and why we were not able to make some adjustments. And that, uh, that crash tested wooden rail separating the road from the, the walking platform may indeed be one of those. You are right that, uh, the current width of the sidewalk, the platform is five feet. The proposal reduces that to four. And that is for the reason that I just described that that crash tested rail between the vehicle lanes and the walking path would restrict that, reduce that down to four feet. There were a lot of good ideas at the, at the workshop that we're describing cantilevering a sidewalk so that you could actually keep it to five, perhaps even increase it to six. We're still looking at that cantilevering the sidewalk, maybe beyond what the repair, um, uh, project would, the scope of the project would be. And I say that because there is no stringer underneath that walking path. Uh, there's just one on either edge of it and to cantilever it, we would have to do some substructure work. It would also require work, uh, at the wing walls at either abutment. Uh, and for those reasons, it may not be able to be included in the scope of the project that we currently have. And, um, so we'll make that determination and be able to identify the outcome of that in the revised update, but that was heard. We understand it. And when you say cantilevering, is that moving outside of the bridge? Is that what it is? Extending it away from? Yeah, it would, it would give you the ability. It would, it would give you the ability to support that platform, um, further out than it is right now. And it just, the, the, the substructure of the bridge may not allow for that. And the scope of the project does not include, uh, adjusting the substructure. There are repairs down at the water's surface, but it does not include, um, making an adjustment to the substructure. If that was a separate project, could that be funded by, uh, uh, some other group other than the town, just to put that extension as a separate project, even if it's only on one side? Yeah, I, it's, it's, what it does is it, it, uh, causes the project to expand dramatically. This is, this is a repair to the bridge deck. Uh, when we touch the bridge deck, we have to touch the rails, uh, both along the edge of the bridge and also, uh, between the, the, the platform and the, and the driving surface. Um, so could it be done? Yes, but this is, uh, a project that's really just a deck repair and what would be required, what may be required. We'll be able to finalize this in a week or so is that the, the, the substructure of the bridge currently could not accommodate a cantilever. Right. I'm just wondering outside of, let's say we do the repair. If we could, there could be another project per se, not funded by the town, but by environmental groups or whoever to run a sidewalk along the bridge. As a separate walk, even if it's only on one side, so people could get some of the things that they're asking for. Yeah. I, I think it would be difficult if not impossible, because what we're in planning on doing is making a significant investment, um, to the top of the bridge. And you would have to pull that off to get to the underneath. Um, I don't, I don't think those kinds of accommodations could be made from underneath, but it's something we can, we can certainly look toward and, and, and consider for a future project. Yeah. Okay. Mike, you had a question? Go ahead. Go ahead. Go ahead, Tom. Did you have something else? I just think, you know, it is, you know, I've, I've walked on that platform many times during the course of preparing, you know, for this project and, um, you know, seeing what the five foot to a four foot. It does. And, you know, it is a, it is a reduction, but I do not see it as a deal breaker. It still provides plenty of room for people walking for people that are, uh, setting up camera tripods for people that are setting up, you know, painting easels if that's what they're doing. And still allowing people to, you know, to, to, to get by. Okay. Michael. Sure. Um, so I, I did attend the forum in Sudbury and Tom did a great job, a very professional job of presenting all of the comments and answering the questions. So I appreciate that, Tom. Um, one, one suggestion I would make, and I, I don't know if you considered this early on, but when we have, uh, a project such as this with, uh, valued asset in town. Um, and this is for Carol too, I guess, um, maybe establishing a working group that includes the, you know, some key, uh, residents in the decision-making process. Um, it would probably help us later on, uh, and come back to us. Um, and, and, uh, you know, in terms of folks supporting and helping their neighbors to understand why we chose different options. Um, it, it came across a little bit as a reveal and not that it was, and I'm not saying it was, but a lot of work went on. And then, um, then we had the forum and a forum attended by 41 people. We know from our town meeting and we've seen the attendance lately. That's a significant attendance, especially a meeting that, uh, was mostly Wayland residents and it was in Sudbury. Um, so I wonder if there's a way, I know you're going through a revision. Right now, Tom, and you're probably making decisions as you're going through that. Um, is there some way that we can include some appointees from the neighbors to weigh in on different options? So, yeah, I think they'd like that. I don't think they'd like that. Is, is there any way we could do this? And I think we heard one, uh, neighbor who's an architect and might have, um, some ideas on how to, uh, although we. Have a very structurally sound and safe solution. It also still appears as a, uh, uh, historic looking bridge. So your point of having a working group or a task force, it was mentioned, you know, in a number of the, the emailed remarks that we received, it was mentioned at the workshop. Uh, it's been mentioned here tonight. I, I, what I would like to. Talk about is. The timeline and why it appears to be so fast paced is that. You know, we received these reports on an annual basis from MassDOT and we received earlier in the summer, um, the most recent report that identified the characteristic as being severe and repaired ASAP. And we know what it takes to repair that bridge, the, the level of effort. And we know that we can't sustain that. So we know, we knew at that point in time, we needed to, to do something different. MassDOT very quickly, um, said. We're willing to help. We're willing to purchase, uh, the material. Uh, they have verbally told us, um, that. It's quite likely that they would be able to include the actual. Construction work within their area contract. Uh, they did that for us on the route 27 bridge two years ago. They actually brought in their area contractor and repair the deck, uh, themselves on MassDOT. On MassDOT's dime. So we, we do know, um, it's within their car character to do that. Um, and it's because of the, they have a particular timeline. I know I've been asked, we've had several, uh, freedom of information, uh, act requests, FOIA requests come in asking for me to provide written, um, documentation that MassDOT is making these statements. That they have made all of these to us verbally, you know, so we'll reply back to those FOIA requests. And that's what I'm going to say is that we meet with them regularly over this and they are providing these, this information to us verbally. So a task force, um, although I understand it, I've been a part of a number of them throughout the years. Um, they would certainly cause this process to, um, the process would be extended. And what MassDOT is telling us, asking us as even a month ago, they were looking to, um, get affirmation from both Sudbury and Wayland that we were a go on this project. Because they need to order this material and they won't order the material until we affirm that we are indeed ready to go. Um, so we have a meeting with them later this week. They're again asking, I'm honest, I'll say we had a, we have a forum. We still have some opposition. These are the changes, the revisions that we're prepared to make. I think that they will be satisfactory to the folks that are making these remarks. Um, they provide a significant change from what we were proposing two weeks ago. So although a task force is nice when you've got the time, it does take a lot of time. And, um, you know, we're talking about a bridge repair. It's not a bridge reconstruction. What we're proposing. I'm confident we'll meet the desire to preserve the historic appearance of the bridge. And, um, yeah, that's, that's my thoughts on a task force, not against it, but just in these circumstances, we are a little bit pressed for time. Um, I guess I'll ask Carol, is there any way that we can allow, uh, citizens to provide input, um, and, and discussion, uh, maybe more directly. As some appointees, just, just so that we, we don't wait three weeks and then the design comes out and it's not at, um, with a lot of enthusiasm. Are there any mechanism we can use? Yeah. Mr. Chair, are you going to recognize? Yes, please. Thank you. Carol Martin. Uh, for those who are listening and may not know, I'm actually here as a liaison from the select board to the board of public works. I've been, they've been stuck with me for a few years. And so I've been through some of these. First, I want to say that I, I hear what everybody has said. The select board is also receiving all the emails and more than you are receiving as, as the board of public works. Um, I want to say upfront, I couldn't be more proud of Tom Holder. He has represented the town of Whalen beyond phenomenally and professionally as Mike, as you mentioned earlier at the forum, but he has graciously taken all of these emails. He's met with, he's met with residents. He's working on the task force. He's working with the town manager. He's even talking to me as a liaison. I think that we have a really collaborative approach in place. I think that I, who am not making this final decision, I'm very clear on the concerns that the residents have because we have received, like I said, several, several emails. So I also am very, very concerned about, you know, waiting. I liked, you know, when someone says to me, I've heard what you said, Carol, and I'm going to get back to you in a couple of weeks. I like to let them have the couple of weeks to get back to me before I decide they're not going to work with me. And so I am going to unfortunately say that I respectfully ask everybody to wait for Tom and his task group from the forum to come back. I think it's about two weeks now or 10 days or whatever it is and tell us what thoughts they have come up with. They're very creative. They're very professional. They're very focused on doing the very best job for us. So I really am going to say that and probably not going to be too popular to everyone for saying it, but I, I really think we should just wait and see what comes out of the task force from the forum. I mean, we had a public forum to gather information and we have. Thank you, Carol. Yeah, I think, thank you, Carol. I think my question was, is there a mechanism to allow a little more iterative decision making because I know from the software development side, there's a lot of iteration in these decisions. And when you wait three weeks and then come out with a, not that it's a final product. Um, but a lot of decisions have gone into that, that if you're sharing with the folks that have the concerns along the way might be changed along the way. So I was just thinking in the ideal world, there'd be a way for them to provide input along the way, maybe a couple of representatives. And I didn't know if there was a way to do that without establishing a formal task force. No, I hear you. I hear you a lot. I hear everybody. I hear everyone who calls me and speaks to me and writes me emails. Unfortunately, my personal opinion is that we pay folks like Tom Holder for the skill set that they bring to the town to do the job we need done. And I have incredible confidence. He's going to come back with something that's going to probably be pretty close to what we want or near what we want. We'll have listened. I should rephrase that. I don't want to commit you anything, Tom. He will show he has listened and taken in the feedback. So. Okay. So my question was about the mechanism, I guess. Yeah, the mechanism I think has worked. They've used public comment. We've held a forum. To me, those are the mechanisms for the residents to participate and provide info. So I feel that we've done those things. Yeah. And I do. You're asking if we can, we can do so. I really would like to personally, again, I would, I would like to wait to see what the group comes back from, from the response from the forum meeting. Yeah. And then have this conversation. And they haven't been shy in their comments. That's for sure. Which they shouldn't be. That's their right. Right. Yeah. It's just the ability to collaborate in the moment. Sometimes leads to things that are a little bit different versus going back and then coming back with a new model. And I, I understand your, your opinion, Carol. And I do believe Tom, Tom is probably one of the most collaborative folks and, and does, he does his utmost to listen to comments and to come back and address them. I'm just saying there's a lot of value often in having those interim decisions and questions answered that can often lead to a better outcome. So if there's not a way to do that, that's fine. Tom, didn't you tell me that you've met with some of these people in your office? Yes, I have. Yes, I have. Great. Yeah. So Matt, and I'll forget, we have a third party here. We're partners with Sudbury. We have a third party, which is the state. They are also at the table. So, and I have to tell you, we cannot afford to lose that money and get this. I'm not sure where we would find the funds to repair it if we don't keep our partnership in place. So we have a bunch of pressures on us, but we're also listening. And I do think that Tom has, like I said, go up and beyond. And I've taken more time than I'm entitled to. Sorry, George. That's okay. Anything else, Mike? Yeah, I just wanted to mention that there are some neighbors who are not opposed to the project. They're in favor of the project of paving because of the noise levels in the area. I think that was the main concern of neighbors that were not in favor of not paving. They're supportive of the design. They're supportive of paving. I think they'd be, and Tom, just for your thought process, I think they'd also be in favor of continued boards on the bridge if there was a way to ensure that they weren't noisy. And we go through, there's a wood bridge on Merriam in Weston, and that isn't very noisy when you go over it. It's a shorter bridge, and it's curved over the train tracks, but just a thought there. I think the main concern for removing the boards was the noise if there's a way to accommodate that just for the looks and eliminate the noise, not eliminate, but significantly reduce. I think that would be helpful too. Yeah, I mean, to that point, the number of speakers opposing asphalt, opposing some of the design aspects, far outnumbered those that support, but there were that supported having a new deck installed. Having something smoother, having something quieter. Many of them, you know, were cyclists, you know, as we've all been talking about, even those in opposition have been saying that it's not just for vehicles. It's for people walking, for people cycling. And that bridge, if you've ever been there, those boards, you know, they are rough. It's by nature. That's the way the boards are cut. We have to special order them. So it provides a very rough riding surface for both cars and more pointedly for cyclists. They talked about accidents falling off the bikes, blowing tires, bending rims, you know, trying to kind of navigate the bridge around and amongst cars. We've got lag bolts that are popping up that they have to kind of navigate around. So it is, it's a real safety concern. You know, one of the speakers earlier in the night talked about alternatives to lag bolts. And of course there's alternatives. Right now we use lag bolts because that's what we have in house, the ability to install. The new proposed design will be using a glue lamp technology. It's got a different fastener. Those fasteners are actually installed from beneath the deck. You know, so that's obviously, you know, especially trained and equipped contractor that has the ability to, you know, to mobilize a barge underneath that bridge, much like we did at Route 27. And that's how the fasteners in the future will have to be installed. We will no longer be able to just simply, you know, screw in lag bolts. Those, those stringers won't accept those any longer. They, they just, well, there's nothing to bite into. So I wanted to also mention, you know, kind of in response to that one speaker's remarks that we are intending on using different fasteners. But in house, both Sudbury and Wayland Public Works employees do not have the ability, are not equipped to make an installation from beneath the deck. So I think those comments mainly came from a group of bicyclists out of Weston who use that bridge regularly, who were concerned about the safety. And we heard from a lot of bicyclists who live nearby and they didn't have those same concerns. You just want to make it clear that it seemed like that those comments came from one group. They, I, I got a, I got an email from a couple, live on Oxbow Road. I think it was just over this weekend that, that were saying the remarks about, you know, the cycling issues or whatever. So there are those that I'm aware of that are local that are, that are making that point known as well. Okay. And last, just last comment, the rendering. We had one comment about the rendering and I fully agreed. The rendering does not sell this well at all. So hopefully we can get a more realistic or lifelike looking rendering that, that will sell this a little bit better. Not that I'm trying to sell it, but that, that was an immediate turnoff. I would say way it, the way it was set up looked very industrial. Yeah. To improve the understanding of what's going on. Yeah. Yeah. So that, that message was received and you'll see something different. Sounds good. All right. Mr. Spellman, anything? No, I agree. Both with Mike and Judy, they've explained things really well. Um, so I can't really add anything onto that. Okay. Ed, anything? Ed, we can't hear you. Ed, we, you're not coming through at all. I'm sorry, Ed. I don't think he can hear us either. Can you hear us? You may not have turned his audio on. Okay. I, just a couple of real quick questions. I'm, I'm not as smart as you guys are, but just a couple of real dummy questions. I know that, uh, there's some roads that the state will set speed limits on or weight limits on and others that the town can do. Does the town have the ability to set speed limits and weight limits on this road? Or is it controlled by the state? We have the ability to recommend a speed limit, which we're willing to facilitate that. There was talk right now. It's set at 25 miles per hour. Um, what I would like to do is to perform the project. Let's see the resulting speeds and obligate ourselves that should the speeds not be satisfied through enforcement, through some traffic calming measures that we, uh, we have thoughts on that we would then facilitate, uh, and work with the state to perhaps lower that. With regard to the weight restriction, that is a mass dot jurisdictional item. And because the bridge itself is structurally capable of handling the truck traffic that it currently experiences, they are not open to issuing a weight restriction. Now, could we campaign to have that changed? Certainly. But that's what we're hearing every time I bring up the subject. So it's not a pure town call is what you're saying. Correct. Okay. Uh, just. We had talked about speed bumps or things that may impact the speed coming up to the bridge. Did you just want to touch on that briefly for the people that are listening? So neither Sudbury nor Wayland are supportive of speed bumps. Um, we have a number of them in town and on the Wayland side, uh, though they were installed for a whole host of, uh, reasons and we've experienced some real breakdown in the roadway, uh, adjacent to and amongst the speed humps, the public safety department is not supportive of having them because of the damage that it does to the emergency apparatus, uh, the impact that it has to response times. So Sudbury was quite clear on that aspect as well. We are not supportive of speed humps. We are supportive of, you know, Gretchen Shuler was talking about, uh, rumble strips. That might be an option. Um, also pavement markings on either end, the approaches of the bridge, uh, saying slow, uh, those types of things. We also have been successful in town of installing solar powered speed limit signs that actually show the speed that you are going at versus what the regulatory speed limit is. Those have been pretty effective. Um, so that would also be something that we could install that would, uh, provide at least more awareness of the speeds. Yeah. You may want to, when we come up with the final design, talk about those as options. that we would like to put in it to address the needs of the people. Can I add a comment on that? Go ahead. So I spoke with Kevin Dandrade at the meeting and we, uh, we did, um, conduct, um, a survey of the speed, uh, traffic, uh, calming survey on that road in the past. So we have what I consider to be a baseline based on the, um, uh, the traffic, uh, traffic counts taken and the speeds taken. Um, so I, I suggested to him that once we get through with this repair, that perhaps we look into has this actually increased the speeds. I don't know if we, uh, conducted those at, at the bridge or if they were further down. I think they were a little further down the road, but, um, we kind of have a baseline that we might be able to measure against. That's good. Thanks. Okay. Okay. Uh, last one. And it goes to Carol's comment that people need to understand that while we may come up with a design or a recommendation, we are subject to the budgetary concerns of the town. Uh, and the, what the town is going to be willing to the select board to put into the budget. And so that, that is another, especially if, uh, we're going to forego, let's do an extreme, the eight 50 and have to pay for that ourselves. Obviously that's going to be something that we can't make unilaterally. It's gotta be included in discussion with the, the select board and the budgeting process. And whether that be the capital or the operating budget. So that, again, it's not just so people understand, it's not solely our decision to make. Okay. Anybody have anything else before we move on? I would just like to say, um, thank you for the kind remarks. I do appreciate it. The, the, the DPW team works very hard. Um, I know there's been some things said and written in some recent correspondence that would, uh, counter that, but, um, I, I, I do, do appreciate the, uh, the, the professional and kind remarks. Thank you. You deserve them. Okay. Uh, we are now what about a half hour behind, uh, a little bit more than that. So, uh, let's talk about where we are year to date in terms of the, uh, financial financials of where we are. Um, you're going to do this one start. Yes, I can. And my, my intent, if I had my laptop working would be to share, um, my screen, which would have shown the year to date, you know, it's got some green, green highlights on it. I'm not, I'm not sure if anybody has the ability to do that. Um, if not, I could certainly talk through it. There, there are some things that, uh, um, I can remark on without having a visual. Does anybody have that handy? Mike's a suggestion. He'll do it. I'm sorry. You know, so what you have, what you have before you in the packet, um, is, uh, a report that we put together, um, every two weeks. And, um, it gives us staff an idea on all of the programs. We have this sheet, uh, and you've seen these before in, in past years, uh, a year to date glance at how we are, uh, financially, you know, within each budget. So what we have tonight is the water because that's the focus of the discussion tonight. And Don can talk a little bit about the causal factors of, uh, of some of the increases that we're seeing presently. And I, I would point out the most significant one is equipment repairs and maintenance. Now we're 29% through the year, through the fiscal year. And that, um, line, including a conference is, is about 58%. And the primary cause of that is over the course of this first quarter in the fiscal year, the water division has experienced, uh, a dramatic increase in equipment failures. And, you know, Don is prepared if you're interested in hearing, you know, what these are, um, you all know that, you know, we had to, uh, uh, to take Baldwin Pond offline for a number of days, a couple of weeks where we were reliant on the emergency connection. Uh, there's a number of equipment that failed. This equipment is now 15 years old, um, at or beyond its useful design life. Uh, it's outdated much of it. You can't even replace in kind you have to purchase new and the equipment itself is actually, you know, configured differently. So that just by purchasing one new part causes us to change up and downstream, you know, uh, fixtures as well. So aside from that, we are in fairly good shape. We're right on target with the point of the fiscal year that we're currently at. Uh, we are a little bit behind lagging in the revenue side of things. You'll see at the bottom of the sheet, um, it shows all of the revenue stream that we experience on any given year. And you, you'll see what we actually, you know, need to raise and what we're currently at. And we're, you know, in essence about 23% versus the 29% through the year. That said, we just issued a commitment that was, um, it exceeded over $400,000. Um, you know, that doesn't even, that doesn't quite fit into this, the sheet. It was done after the sheet was prepared. So, um, that will change that 23%. That's there's your sheet. Here's the sheet. Yes. Thank you. On my phone. It looks really small. Um, but that, that's the sheet that I was referring to. And you'll see, um, about a third of the way down in the expense line, you'll see equipment repairs and maintenance. Um, we have a, a budget of a hundred grand. We've spent 44, 601 to date. We've encumbered over 13 grand, uh, shows the balance, shows the percent year to date. And then the percent, including the encumbrances of 58. That was what I was referring to. So it's that line. And then the other, um, aspect. And I had mentioned that we had actually, um, Tom, before you move on, can I ask what, what do you mean by a commitment? Do you mean by a commitment of 400,000? Oh, a commitment. So it's, it's the, uh, the finance, um, terminology. So when we get a bill run, uh, send out a bill run, the value of that bill run, should we collect all of the revenue from that is what they call a commitment. And we send that to the finance department. So the, a bill run that just went out had a value of over $400,000. Okay. Yeah. Like accounts receivable. Right. Yep. Got it. Exactly. Um, when we. Activated the emergency connection, uh, we used, uh, a little over 11 million gallons a day, uh, pardon me, 11 million gallons. And in working with the MWRA, since this is our second time that we've actually, uh, activated this, uh, there's a different pricing structure. Every time we activate it, the cost, uh, the, uh, the rate increases. So in essence, this last activation equates to about $70,000. So that's not shown on this sheet and we'll likely receive that invoice within the next month. You know, so when we, when this occurred a year ago, uh, we actually activated it for 52 days and it was about 110,000. Um, we utilize the contingency fund for that. As that's really what that's intended for on anticipated, um, expenses. So it's likely that that's, that that line will be used to fund. The purchase of the MWRA water. Couple of. Couple observations that I make as I look at this. One obviously is the expenses are high, especially in terms of things like the, uh, contracted services, uh, where we have a high percentage. In terms of what we're looking at, uh, professional services and equipment repairs. As Tom said, electricity and chemicals are all running very high. We do not see the, uh, increase from the meters that we are hoping for. Uh, so obviously that's a second concern, uh, in terms of where we're going to end up. Tom talked about the MWRA. The other thing that we've, I found out as we're working through some of these analysis and talking to Brian about the debt, uh, that is being, uh, issued, uh, this week or next week. Uh, to finance the, uh, 2025, 26, uh, calendar, uh, or physical 26, uh, spending. The water tower is that we were going to have a debt, an interest payment due in May that we have not budgeted for. It was not in our budget because of the way we were looking at it. Uh, and that'll be about $160,000. Uh, that is going to be a problem for us because it is not in our expense estimates. So in terms of where we think we're going to end up for the year, that's going to be a significant variance. That we have to look at. Now we do have one upside and we'll talk about it when we get to the billings. And that is going to be the possible revenue. We can pull in early, uh, if we can get to quarterly billing in the first quarter of calendar 26. So that's just a thought in terms of, uh, where we are and what we're looking at in terms of our spending levels in P and L on the water department. Any questions? No. Okay. Now, unfortunately, I'm going to have a bit of a problem because as I was trying to set that up, I wiped out all my, uh, slides I was going to pull forward. All right. Next one is the, uh, if we can, the cash flow analysis and hold on for a minute. Tom, do we have any update on the, uh, funds from the, uh, lawsuits, PFS lawsuits? Yes. Um, so we have received, uh, two, well, we've received one payment and are anticipating receiving a second payment. Uh, it equates to about $800,000. Um, over the course of coming years, um, the, the DuPont, um, damages equate to about 1.3 million. And the way that the payout schedule was established, you get a, a, a large portion of that, of, you know, uh, early. Uh, so we had a, we have a 200,000 that we've received and another 600,000 that we're going to receive, uh, this coming month. Uh, then it, it's, it's dwindles off a little bit, uh, with each payment received. And then we, then we still have the, the 3M that is likely going to be equivalent to that, that has yet to be settled. You know, so in essence, we'll be looking at in excess of, of $2 million in, in PFAS claim damages. And are those, were those in your report, the, uh, analysis? So those are not captured or identified in the year to date, certainly. Um, and I, I'm not sure, um, George would know better than I, whether those are actually identified or, uh, at least itemized someplace in some of these, uh, these financial reports that we're going to go through in, in moments. No, and I'll, I'll leave it to Carol, but my understanding is that there's no decision that that's actually going to come to, uh, the water fund versus the town. And one of the, if we, when you go to, we get to the recommendation, one of the things that we're suggesting is that all that money that's going to come from these lawsuits. Come in and reduce the borrowings that we're going to have to do and reduce our, uh, debt service, uh, from all these projects. So right now, I don't know that it's actually even going to, it is planned to come. Carol, do you know? I recognize Carol. Thank you. Um, the select board has still, is undertaking. There's still another executive session. Um, we, we are participating in, I think it's the two lawsuits for, you know, the town. Um, and we are waiting to hear and receive funds and we've made no decision to date that I'm aware as to how those funds will be utilized. Um, so that's what the board has done. I think it's wise for the board of pop this personally, this is myself, not the board speaking, um, makes sense for the, the board of public works to recommend that those funds be applied against the MWRA project. Because as we know, the happy hollow, um, issue is, has arisen because of PFAS. So Carol, it does sound like, uh, according to Tom, we've already received 200,000. It's, has that come in as a water fund received, um, or. It's, it's sitting in its own, uh, individual accounts awaiting some direction. From the select board. Okay. Mike, Mike, the money goes to the town. I understand what the board will recommend a disbursement. Yeah. I heard you say you were waiting for the payments to come in and I just want to make it clear. It sounds like some have come in already. Well, I should say we have not visited that for some time. If I remember right, in one of the analysis that we did, the, uh, town did give us almost $200,000, uh, pay for some professional fees. And that's one of the reasons our expenses were lower. I'll try and find that as we talk, but I remember seeing that. I think we received about a million in terms of the, uh, infrastructure grants. Right, Tom? Uh, 1.3, maybe. The ARPA funds? ARPA funds, yeah. Yeah. That was 1.4. Uh, it actually wound up being a little bit less than a million at the end of the project for the emergency connection. And then we also had a million, uh, that was, um, preserved and issued to us for the permanent connection side of things. That's ARPA funds. That's different than. Yep. Yep. Yes. Yep. Just, you know what, um, Mr. Chair, excuse me, Mike, I just made myself another note. Maybe the next time we have executive session, I'll put that on the agenda. Wow. Cool. Thank you. I'm not going to go through this in detail, but if anybody has any questions, I'll be happy to. Just wanted to have you understand the general, uh, focus of this analysis. And one of the things that dawned on me as we were going through the analysis with, uh, Matt and Brian and Tom is that we have an issue in terms of cash flow. Uh, because of how we have built, uh, the budget for this year and next year. We have all the, uh, debt service on the new debt, other coming in, uh, to the budget next year. We have nothing in this year. And the timing of when that will be collected versus when we have to make payments is an issue. We have to have sufficient cash on hand. That would be our cash balance to cover the debt service. Uh, it hasn't been an issue to date because the, we had the existing debt has been within the realm of, uh, what we have as a cash balance, but we have to be very careful not to drop that balance below what we need for debt service. Uh, why is this? Because we borrow money at the start of the project to fund the work. Uh, the first debt service, uh, part of the town borrowings is normally, uh, principal payment in November, interest payments in May and November because interest is paid twice. So when the town will borrow in 25, the, uh, schedule, uh, at the, I'm sorry, it's scheduled to be closed at the act in October of 25. The first payment will be May of 26 principal and interest in November of 26. Problem is we won't have collected enough money at those dates to pay that increase because we've only got a couple of months going on. So that's what this section is calculating. Okay. It's taking a look at the principal and the interest payments. And again, remember that that interest is based on the amount that's borrowed. It's not necessarily relationship to your principal payments. And so if we take a look at that, we can see that, uh, basically it requires about 1.4 million there. Uh, concern is how much we'll have, uh, in terms of the losses that we may have. Uh, through lower revenue and through, uh, higher expenses that might eat into some of that carryover. Uh, so we have to be very careful in terms of where we are. Uh, the upside on that. And then. So George, what happens if we can't pay? We are, we have a problem. We have a default. Now I assume that the town will have to step in and help, but you know, it is our obligation to pay. Absolutely. But doesn't the town pay anyway? It's a, it's not like we have a separate bank account for water. Yeah, we do. That we're going to run out of funding for. We have, we have the cash balance. That's what your cash balance is. That's your bank account. We have an accounting that's different from an actual bank account, a physical bank account. We're not going to run out of money in default. No, I don't think so. Mike, because remember we are an interest on that. So yeah. Is it technically combined with other things in the investment pool? Yes. But again, you can't go negative. I don't think that's what I'm told. I'm told if we're negative, the town general fund has to pay it, which would not put us in good steed. Yeah, Carol, maybe you can weigh in on that. My understanding is that it's all one big pot of cash the town has. At the end of the year, we get allocated the interest that we're owed for the portion of cash, free cash that we had invested. But when payments come in, they don't go out from the water fund or from the highway department or from, we don't have separate bank accounts. It's an accounting practice. Well, they track our balance fund because Brian sent me a schedule that shows the month by month balance changing every month in terms of our cash balance. So they post it in and out. Now, you're right. It's your percentage of a shared investment pool. But they track the amount of cash balance that we have. It's an internal accounting. We're not going to default. That's my understanding. Well, I don't know. Carol, do you have any thoughts on that? Okay. Mr. Chair. Yes. You're recognized. Thank you. So I'm going to give you my famous line, Mike. I'm not a CFO and I'm not the finance director. He's heard this from me like a zillion times. He knew I was going to say it. This is definitely probably above my pay grade and maybe Tom knows, but I would check with Brian Kemeny. This is probably a case where everybody is technically right, but I do believe, and please let's confirm with, let's get this confirmed with Brian. Okay. I believe that if you, you are a default, if you don't, if you're not able to meet your obligations. So I do think that's, that, so this would be a good question for him to ask, answer. Brian just basically said you don't want to do that, but there is an upside. First of all, understand that I have not, there's no modeling of the actual cash expenses and other things. One of the benefits is that some of the items, I'm trying to remember what it was. One of the fees that are charged is not charged until the end of the year. It's in the narrative there somewhere. But the, there is an upside that reduces some of that risk. If, and we'll talk about it when we get to the AMI, if we get those billings done and started to do quarterly billings, that'll bring in additional revenue that will reduce the shortfall. But the real key is that if we happen to have some big expenses that aren't budgeted in this time period or in this year, it's a risk. So the real message here is, as we look at the cash balance that we want to carry over, we need to keep these in mind. And when we get to 29, it becomes an even bigger issue. Now, the amount and timing is whether it's 28, 29 or 30. If you remember the discussion with Greg in September, there's different funding mechanisms that can be done. So as we look at the 28 and 29 budgets, we've got to look at that as the message and make sure we understand when those are coming in, in terms of the cost to be paid. And compare that to our budget and billings and cash flow becomes, it becomes a much bigger number because of the MWRA debt and the Happy Hollow debt service. George, this is Judy. I have a question. Sure, Judy. So I see the numbers as principles 3.2 million, interest of 789, almost 790, which is approximately 30%. Yeah. Why is our interest so high? Well, because remember, these are payments. These aren't the borrowings. So your interest is based on the 35 million you borrowed. It's like 1%. Yeah, but... 30... Okay. So it's based on the 35 million you're borrowing, we're paying twice a year. So I would think that it's six months worth of interest that we're paying at a time. Is that correct? Yes. But this is an annual. This is annual on this chart. But still, at an annual interest rate, that still seems awfully hot. Doesn't it look off to you? 30... What's 1% of 35 million? Uh... 35,000? 350,000. 350,000. 350,000? Yeah. And that's what you've got there. A little less. But this is not just the MWRA stuff, right? This is existing debt, new debt, other debt. Right. But these two, the 35 million is the bottom two. That's the interest on your 35 million. Right. And even on the top line, existing debt, 560,000, 134, that's almost 25%. No, but these... No, you can't compare the percentages. This is your principal payment. This is your interest payment. That's your total payment. Just like your mortgage, okay? You have a principal portion of your mortgage and an interest portion of your mortgage. Those two aren't related. It's related to how much you borrowed on your house. These are payments, not balances of debt. Judy, the 789 is the interest on the 35 million. It's not the interest on the 3.2. Okay. Thank you, Mike. And it's based on the fact we're paying twice a year, so it's six months worth of payment of 35. No, this is your debt service for the year. So on the right-hand side where it says interest November and May, so each November and May we're making a payment and that will be half of the 789 or would it be 789 in November and other 789 in May? No, neither. Neither. Neither. The principal payment, let's just take your existing debt. Okay. Okay. Okay. The 560 principal payment is in November. Uh-huh. Your interest of 134, half of that will be paid in November and half will be paid in May. Okay. Okay. So that's the amount that you split into two and pay half of it in November and half of it. Right. So in a fiscal year, you're talking 694. Yes. Okay. And what I'm just trying to show here, again, the only thing you know about these numbers is it will change. Okay. Okay. Right. Because we might do a 30-year instead of a 20-year at the less than 1%. Well, even more than that, you don't know where interest rates are going to be when we actually borrow. You don't know where we're actually going to end up in terms of the amount that we'll spend on the dual source. Right. And the type of loan, whether it could be the term, it could be that they said he's got several different types. If you remember in the discussion of loans that are available, the board and the select board are going to have to make that decision when we get down to the actual application of the loan, which is a year or so out. Okay. But again, the message here is think in terms of the cash flow that we're going to have to have to have to cover these amounts because, again, you will be collecting during the year, but you're going to have payments early in the year, November, okay, and May where you have not collected at all. So, you've got to have a buffer in terms of your cash balance to cover your liability here for payment. So, we could maybe petition the select board to provide us with some of those lawsuit funds to cover that shortfall for the short period in between. Well, it happens every year, Mike. So, you know. Well, we can plan for it next year. We're into the year this year, and we've already set the rate. So, it's good to be aware of. Well, this year, I don't think we have a problem. We just have to watch it. It's going to be more next year when we're going to set the rates for, because we'll talk about the, if we bill the first quarter, quarterly, that's going to cover any shortfall. Okay. Okay. And in the years I've been on the board, we've never talked about cash flow before. You've never had 35 million of debt. But we've had some big expenses. Expenses are different. Okay. Okay. Because you know when those are and when you're going to pay them. This is set based on the town borrowing. That's the difference. And then when you take a look, this is your debt service, and this is split. Remember, we're going to get the recommendation. We're going to talk about the interest in principle. This just shows your split if we decide that, for example, Happy Hollow will be paid by rates. MWRA will be paid by taxes. This is a split on that payment. So that's the message we're trying to get to here. And so the bottom line is that there's some significant dollars in there. Excuse me, Mr. Chair. Excuse me. Yes. You're recognized. Thank you. This is based on the 20 year term, right? Yes. Okay. And so what you're saying is, I just saw it flipped away. The one that was there before. What you're saying is the year one, once we're constructed, the MWRA. Oh, it keeps moving, George. What's it about? It's 1-2. Principal and interest is 1-2. It's right there. Okay. Great. And then, of course, the next year would be slightly less. Right. Or would it be constant? No, it'll be less because in the first year you have a higher interest rate than you will going forward because you have the origination fee. One of the reasons that that number is high is because of the origination fees. Oh. Yeah. Okay. Just think of it like points on your mortgage. Yeah. I'd be interested to know from when we have this presentation what the second year cost would be then. It's in there. It goes down to 70,000. Down by 70? No, it goes to 70. The whole principle and interest goes to 70? No, no. Interest. We're only talking about the interest. Oh, okay. So we save about 130. Yeah. Okay. 130. Okay. Got it. Okay. Yep. Anybody have any other questions on this? And I know there's a lot of information here. I don't want to lose everybody by trying to go through line by line. But if you haven't, take a look at it. Understand that the question is how we need to look at the cash balance as we go forward. And when do we need to set rates? And where do we come out on some of these? If you have any questions, there's a lot of meat in here. It took a number of meetings with different people to go through it. Can I stop sharing this? Yep. Oops. Sorry. Okay. Be back with you in just one second. Okay. We're now looking at the next section, which is the impact on the water rates. And again, this was, and we've seen this before. This is a request by the town manager. I recall, wanted to see the impact of what we have. And there's a lot of detail in here, but the bottom line is that, and we'll just deal with averages first, and then we'll look at some of the pieces. Now the average for residents is 623. Other debt service is going to add $200, which is 32%. Happy Hollow will add 107. And MWRA will add 153. Take your average to about 1100. The highest users will grow from the 4100 over to 7124. That's a 3000 increase. Your lowest will go from 271 to 471, which is about $200 increase. And your town costs will go from 69 to 120,000. That's this sheet. So again, and we'll talk about when we get to the recommendation. But depending on what we do, this is laid out so that you can see the impact of the rate increases in terms of other debt service, Happy Hollow, MWRA in total. And we have it for residential, commercial, and municipal. And you can see that the majority of the dollars are in residential. George, this is Judy. Yep. It's 88% is the residential impact. Yes, Judy. Hi. Thank you. I was just going to say. This is your schedule, by the way. I know. I like this one. I was just going to say that I was really impressed to see that, you know, the less than 500 to 500 to $1,000 ones. That is, you know, 86% of the accounts. Let's just say, put it that way. And for those folks, the impact is on the low side, which one would hope that the smaller households that theoretically represent lower income would also not bear the brunt of the increases. So, this was a very nice and useful way to look at things, George. Thank you very much. Well, Tom's people did all the work. They did all the heavy lifting. Thank you, Tom. One of the things I do watch is that second group is going from $700 to $1,200. That's a $500 increase. And, you know, again, depending on the fixed income that they have, those two groups are the ones I'm most worried about. Now, this still has the municipal at the low dollar amount in terms of their usage. And Tom has told me he's checked everything and thinks it's correct, but I have some real concerns. You know, only $50,000 for all the school buildings, for example, or, you know, $11,000 for municipal buildings. I'm sorry, $7,600 now for municipal buildings and $34,000 for the schools. That seems very low to me, but Tom's researching it and we'll see what happens. But somewhere just doesn't pass my smell test, but it could be right. Do these assume that all of the debt will be in water rates or, I'm sorry, is the assumption that this will be split? No, there's no assumption. What it shows you is the impact of each of the pieces. So, you can go through here and say, okay, this is the impact of other new debt. This is the impact of Happy Hollow. This is the impact of MWRA. And so, that's my total increase. So, you can pick and choose what you want. And then, you can't see it now because of the pieces, but you have the last columns give you the projected water rate bill after each of those. So, you can see what the impact is. When you said the second group's moving from $700 to $1,200, that's if all debt. If everything was in the water rates. Yes. In the water rate. Okay. Yep. And if you have your copy of what went out, that's the ending column. Yep. I see it. Thank you. Yep. The other concern, let me close this off. This is the little analysis that I put together and I was surprised. Basically, I wanted just to see and I used the document that was in the town in terms of their projections for debt. And looked at 26, 27, 28, and 29. Debt service paid for the town and projected. The water fund, again, this is assuming that everything is paid by rates, but it really doesn't matter. It's the amount of debt we have outstanding. So, the combined debt, for example, in 29 will be 100 million. The water fund debt will be 44 million. And the town will be 56. So, we're getting close. We're at 44% of the total town debt will be water rate, water related. And so, that's a high piece. And my concern, especially if we build too much into the rates, is we've got a number of other projects that will be coming down the line in this area, like your water mains, your lead pipe timing, et cetera, because this will go out 20 years. That's a significant debt load that we have to look at as we do capital items going forward. It's a very sobering list. Yeah, I think we may want to take a look at our water main replacement plan in light of the debt that we're amassing because of this emergency project. Yeah. And other things also. You know, what can we do? What can we change around? And even, you know, you and I always have a disagreement about some of the smaller dollar items in terms of capitalizing them. Again, we may also have to take a look at some of those. And do we want to start to pay some of those out of water rates rather than continue to add to debt? Because if it's got a five year life after five years, it's no longer an increase because it's the same as you would be getting for debt service, except you're not paying the interest. So, I mean, there's a lot of things that have to be looked at when you think about the type of debt level, especially if the town decides select board decides that they want to have it all paid by water rates. Can I get a reminder on the timeline on the retail water tank project? So that project, Mike, is going to start in the spring and be completed by the fall. Okay, where's the where's the payment? Where's the money for that coming from? So the the there's a number of appropriations that go towards that. The most recent was this past town meeting, which then is included in this November's borrow. And that's what George was referring to. We have an interest payment in May and a principal payment next November. All right. Thank you for the reminder. Sure. Sure. And what I had forgotten about, to be honest, is that they we borrow the money at the beginning of the project. So we've borrowed that that loan is actually happening this week or next week. And so the first interest payment is due in May of 26 versus we normally think in terms, well, that's a 27 item. So it doesn't have to be in that. We didn't put in the 26 budget, but we missed that. We missed that. And as we get to the MWRAs, that's something we have to pay much more attention to in terms of either having the cash or building into the rates a year ahead. If you have the cash available, you don't have to build it into the rates a year ahead. Okay. Any questions on that before we go to the recommendation? I lost everybody. Still here. Okay. So if you remember, we had a recommendation in September, and that's in your package. And basically, at that point, what we requested is that the dual source debt service be funded by real estate taxes. We got pushback on that. And so we took a step back and remember, let's start again. There's three options, all real estate taxes, all water rates, or a combination. Those are the three options that we have. If we want one or two, I'm sorry, if we want the real estate taxes or the split, we have to have a recommendation to the board to select. If it's in water rates, there's no recommendation required because we're not asking them to do something. So that kind of frames it. Okay. September recommendation was that it was all real estate taxes. Feedback was that's too much in the current environment. The issue is the prop two and a half override timing. They've got additional funding surprises from pensions. And select board, see how we say, was not overly enthused in our meeting with them in terms of 100%. So in October, hold on. So I put this together in terms of the recommendation for October, not saying that this is what we should do, but I wanted to get the three alternatives. First, all real estate taxes, second split, and third, all water rates. And so this one has a recommendation of splitting the debt service between the MWR connection and the Happy Hollow. And this is where Mike was talking about the proceeds. And this recommendation is that all those proceeds from the PFAS litigation with DuPont and 3M come to pay down that debt service. Second is that we have property at Campbell Chamberlain that can be sold. And those proceeds, to the extent there are any, because I don't know what it's going to take to tear down those facilities. And there's also a house that we own that can be sold in the Baldwin Pond. At some point, those proceeds would be used to pay down the debt service in our proposal. Now, that can be taken added, taken out, whatever you guys want. But I was just trying to find out ways to reduce the impact in terms of the water rate by doing the split. And remind the board that they also have the ability, at some point, as we talked about in our last meeting with the select board, they can, after the fact, decide that they want to cover some of that of our share with real estate taxes later without going to the town board to get a vote. That was the 21C versus whatever the other one was. One is the tax exempt, two and a half exempt funding initially, and this is something that you could do annually. So, that is basically what we put together, trying to address both the debt service requirement in terms of water rates and the debt level. So, questions, thoughts? I agree with the dual source funding for the dual source water project, as I mentioned to Carol when we spoke. My thought was that it might make sense to have the happy hollow portion be part of the water rates just because that's a town, it's more of a town owned system than the MWRA connection, which is a supportive connection. So, you're saying the October recommendation? Well, you have some other bullets in there that I'm not sure I'd... Okay. ...certain fundings. So, I think any dual source I think I'd be fine with. I don't know about committing the income from the lawsuits to lower the debt if we're getting a zero interest debt. I'd rather have that in cash to pay off the debt. Just one other consideration, the MWRA connection consists of two portions. One is the water main replacement, which is what we were just talking about, which we have a program in place to do that. So, I consider that kind of a town asset too. So, that's about 11 million of that 22 million, what we're calling the MWRA connection. So, there's almost three components. When I spoke with the folks at the town paper, I mentioned as an idea 22 million being paid by taxes and 13 million for happy hollow being paid by water rates. But I think I'm kind of open to how we split it, but I think it should be split. Okay. I'm sure whatever we come up with this recommendation, we'll have some horse trading to do. So, I tried to put some things in there that we could give up looking like the good guys. So, George, this is Judy. Yes, Judy. Question. So, when I attended the select board meetings, it sounded like there were certain hurdles or certain procedures that have to be followed in order for something to be paid through real estate taxes. And I think that's the ballot. It has to get on the ballot, right? So, if we split it like this, whether it's MWRA or happy hollow, but that's just to say that part of it goes on real estate taxes and part of it is paid by water rates. Does that complicate the process? Because if you put some of it on ballot and then go to town meeting for the final, I think it's two-thirds approval versus, right? Well, they both have to go to town approval because they're both borrowing. Right. But only one of them would have to go through the ballot. Is that correct? Yes. Right? Yes. Okay. So, that to me seems more complicated, whereas if everything is in the water rates, then it doesn't do the ballot. You still have to go to town meeting to get approval for a big project, right? Mm-hmm. So, I guess the benefit. So, just to finish up, my thought is the easier or the less complicated, the better, because if you split it, it might be hard to explain to people why we're splitting it, even though I can say, hey, this one's MWRA and that one's happy to follow. Then it follows two tracks, and I worry the two tracks complicates things, and the accounting of it hopefully is not that hard to do, but would that be problematic if later on in the project some equipment or something is used for both? I agree with you that this is a little more complicated. I think the real question that Tom keeps talking about that I agree with is the key is to get these approved, and I have a real concern about getting the town to approve a 74% water rate increase. And so, I think you'd be better in terms of the MWRA being real estate taxes being, let's say, 1% increase in the real estate taxes, and the happy hollow being rates, and I don't remember what it was, 32% increase in the rates or something less. So, I mean, there is no right or wrong on this stuff. It all depends on how we want to structure it for our own future water rates and flexibility, and where we're going to come out, and what we think is going to pass. So, Judy, I agree that it's going to be more complicated. It might be more complicated to explain to folks. The benefit of putting a portion in taxes clearly is for those who are writing off and itemizing on taxes, they'll have a write-off for that portion of it. So, that's the main reason for putting a portion in taxes from my standpoint. You know, George mentions the water rate increase, but I think they're going to see that increase one way or the other, whether it's split or in all taxes or in all water rates. The same people are going to pay. Yep. Yep. And, you know, we talk about in the board, select board talked about, you know, the people that use a lot of the water, well, chances are that they're probably in houses that have a higher value and will bear a higher percentage of the real estate taxes, even though I haven't got any response in terms of how that would break out. But my guess is that somebody is spending that kind of money on irrigation, probably does not have a small house like I do. So, I mean, the real question is, you know, what do you want to do, how do you want to change this, and what do we want to recommend, because Carol will opine that they are looking to have us come in with a recommendation. Also, I think I sent out to everybody late, I got it late from Carl Barnes, that they haven't made a decision yet on theirs, but they're looking at some kind of a split. So this, go ahead. Sorry, so if I were to think about this, I mean, I like clean, so whether it's all in water or all in real estate, that would be my first choice. But if we had to split, I would put a higher amount, like if it's 40 million total, put 30 of it into real estate and the lesser amount in the water. The only reason for that is, as you mentioned, for those who do itemize, they at least could get some kind of benefit out of it, whereas if it's all in water, you can't itemize it. There's no deduction for your water usage. Correct. Yeah. I would agree. I think I find that interesting, Judy, because I think it was your initial suggestion to split in a prior meeting, or at least it was an idea that you had mentioned. She is wise as can be. Yeah, so this would be swapped, right? So the higher cost is the MWRA connection at approximately 22 million. It's 20.5 and 14.2. Okay. So far. It's on the sheet. That's the only reason I said that. Yep. I think we have some padding in those, but. We hope. Yeah. Yeah, for the safety and security of the finances of the project. Right. But yeah, so it sounds like maybe swapping this. I don't know that we should commit any proceeds or property to either one of these. I think that would be a decision we, we'd come to later in coordination with the select board. You can do that. I think that having it as a recommendation. They can, we can then talk about it with them, but otherwise you're not going to bring it up. I want it. I will put it in there so we could talk about it and at least get, get that thought process. And it doesn't, they may say, okay, we'll split it, but you know, we'll talk about the others later. I just think we should get it out on the page. And I think this makes sense a little bit in this split because the MWRA connection is a new source, whereas Happy Hollow is a replacement of an existing facility. So for the users, it makes a little bit more sense. I think, you know, basically people, especially with what you hear going on with the water these days and the PFAS will be happy that they'll still have turn the faucet on and get water. So this, George, this is Judy. I was at someone's house party where there were a couple of Whelan couples there. And the question I got from them was, given the dismantling of the EPA, is the pressure still on to lower the PFAS from the current 20 down to 4? I thought is, I certainly would be more comfortable if we go with the more stringent recommendation and not worry too much about whether or not EPA is still in existence. But I just wanted people to know there was that sentiment out there. Yeah. And it's a good question. But by the time this project gets finished, there'll be a new administration. I'm not saying what party, but hopefully it'll be an election before that. I hope so, too. So my recommendation would be, as I mentioned, just to swap these. So MWRA connection would be paid for by tax. Happy Hollow, which is kind of our own facility, would be paid by the water rates. And I would eliminate or remove the discussion of proceeds external to this. They may be related, but I don't think we should be discussing the proceeds at this point. Okay. Well, first of all, in terms of the real estate versus rates, that's how this is laid out. The MWRA is real estate taxes. It doesn't say that. I read will be paid for by water rate revenue at the bottom of MWRA connection and Happy Hollow says funded by SRF debt. So it's the opposite of what's stated in this. That's because debt service costs would be paid by real estate taxes. While operating costs would be paid for water revenue. Got to read the whole line. Oh, so that's the purchase of the water rates will be paid for by water rate revenue. Yeah, the actual operating costs in the water that you might use. Right. Right. Gotcha. Okay. And I kind of get it. That's a little confusing. Down below it says Happy Hollow be funded by SRF debt. Right. The cost of which will be paid by water revenue, i.e. an increase in water rates. Because we're borrowing the low cost debt to do both. The question is, how will you service that debt? Where will you pay it from? Real estate taxes, water rates. Got it. Okay. Okay. Mike would like to take these two out. I would prefer to leave it. Mr. Spellman, what's your dither? You're talking about saying it's better to get it out there on the table to discuss. What's your reasoning behind that? If they want to have a victory of some type, okay, they can take these out. Okay, fair. I've negotiated many a deal, and it's always nice to have something you can give up without killing yourself. If you don't have anything, you've got your back against the wall. I get you. I'm not sure what we're giving up here. Well, this could be $3 or $4 million. Yeah. Do we know what the cost of the demolition of the Campbell and Chamberlain facilities are going to be? No. And we don't know whether we'll sell it as is or have to demolish it and do it. I have no idea. And that's a long way out, but I know that somebody's going to decide that maybe conservation is going to want to say, well, we want that land for conservation land. Birdwatching. Birdwatching, yeah. Birdwatching, yeah. And that's fine, but I think we should all recognize that there's value there that our property that's owned by the DPW and the proceeds from that property could be used or should be used to fund the programs. And in Mike's case is an example of maybe we use that to do the water main work. I agree, but that's a future process, and we can use that as a bargaining chip further down the line. Maybe, or maybe say, why didn't you bring that up before? I don't know. It's up to you guys. Yeah. Yeah. And you too. So I would leave the proceeds from the PFAS litigation and take out the property. Leave the first bullet, but take out the one about selling the land, because the first one seems more directly related. The second one would be contentious for, you know, property owners next to it and all that kind of stuff. I would just, for future reference. Carol, how do you think the Board of Selectmen would react to this? I thought you would ask Mr. Holder what he thought first. And the Board of Selectmen, the Select Board, has had a number of preliminary conversations about this. And it's interesting that Carl has written you from your finance committee liaison, because when I spoke to the chair, I said, even though we're not required to, we were going to ask the finance committee for a recommendation on the financing of this project. And they had asked for a written proposal. So then I reached out to George and said, could you put that on your agenda for the meeting on the 21st so that you can send it to us so we can start discussing this really digging in, I should say, our two meetings in November and hopefully with the thoughts of having a decision to by December 1st so we can all prepare for the article that was due on January 15th. Okay. The Select Board has had some preliminary high-level discussions. And if you watched our meetings, you will see there's, as you've noted here, two ways to fund the debt exclusion. And one is through the traditional debt exclusion where we go to the ballot and then we vote it again at the time meeting through the article. This gives the, this is then becomes what the traditional bank loan, the principal and the interests are set, the term is set, and that's what happens. With the other provision, which I think is CN on the same chapter is, that is the one that allows a Select Board 5 residents to make that decision on behalf of all the residents that we're going to have a debt exclusion. And then there's also provides them with the flexibility to change that formula of what they're willing, you know, what percent they're willing to take on the debt whenever they feel like taking such a vote. I mean, it's really casual or very casual, I should say. There seems to me, we've taken no position yet, but there seems to be some concern that that, that other approach is not really one that we're attracted to again, because we feel that if it's a large debt, the residents should have the opportunity to vote at the, both at the meeting and at the polls. So, I don't know if that answers your question on that. Well, and I was more talking about the proceeds discussion. Well, see, the proceeds is an interesting thing. As I stated earlier, it is the Select Board that will make the decision how those are going to be disbursed. They're not automatically going to your fund. So, I do think it makes sense, personally, to leave that in there and say we would like that to be used to pay down the debt that at least gives the board a discussion point. Okay. Yeah, I'm fine with that because I, George, I thought the, I thought the funding was swapped on these as I, I made a mistake that in reading these. So, I thought you were giving away the proceeds. But I, I still think it may complicate things. We're, we're just trying to figure out, can we split these? Will the, the Select Board approve of splitting these? I, I don't know if that complicates things a little bit by talking about future proceeds. So, I do like your change though and put in there or fund future capital items so that we don't have the, we could fund some of the other things without incurring additional debt in here. Add that. Yeah, I just don't know if getting into future proceeds complicates the matter even further. We're just trying to figure out if they'll go for a split or they want to throw it all on water rates. Yeah. You know, adding in a discussion about proceeds kind of, that's a future discussion, I think. Well, it also can give them a place where they can point to the users and say, well, as we get these funds for PFAS, we'll be using it to subsidize your water rates. Because by paying for debt or reducing your debt or using it to fund other capital items, you're going to reduce the rate that they'll have to pay. Right. I think it gives them some ammunition with the, with the public taxpayers. Should we leave the one and take out the second? Ed, can you talk yet or are you still? Can't hear you. Ed, your hand is up, but I can't hear anything. He doesn't have his audio button up. Ed, you're not coming through. I think I'm in favor of keeping the one and taking away the second one. Okay. Thank you, Michael. Judy. Keep the proceeds from PFAS litigation, remove the property at Campbell and Chamberlain. Okay. We can do that. Any other changes to that language? All right. So if we change, we'll, we'll fix that up and we'll send that to the select board. Can I have a motion to do, to do that? So moved. Judy moves. Second. Seconded. Mike Spelman seconds. Roll call vote. Mike Spelman. Yes. Judy. Yes. Weigenbauer. Yes. Ed. Can you just give us a thumbs up if you agree, since we can't hear you? All right. The, let the minute show that we got a thumbs up from Ed. And I vote yes. Okay. Tom, anything that you want to add? Nope. Good discussion. I have nothing to add. Okay. Mr. Chair. Yes. Carol is recognized. Thank you. I think what I'm going to have this on the November 3rd, obviously agenda. Did you want to come and speak to this? Uh. We're going to have a full night, but you could come and speak. I've got to check my schedule, but we. You'll let me know. I will let you know. Thank you. Okay. Okay. The next, uh, topic is the, uh, financial planning policies and procedures. And I'm not looking for a discussion of this today. Just wanted to make sure that people are aware that it's out there. It was, uh, presented and adopted by the select board on September 29th. Uh, my understanding and Carol can correct me is that, uh, this was the investment bankers request, uh, or documentation, uh, to help us maintain our triple a rating. Uh, and Carol has asked us for input in terms of some of the levels. So at a future meeting, we should go through, but basically there's three sections on page 13, 14, 18, and 21, and nine, I'm sorry, four and 19, uh, attached, uh, to your present, the packet is the information behind this. Uh, so if you would take a look at it, at your convenience and at it, get Tom, your comments, uh, that he can put together. Uh, and then we can review those at the next meeting and give back to, uh, Carol where we think, cause some of these are, uh, significantly different than what we have in mind, uh, in terms of debt service and, uh, maintain of the, uh, minimum of, uh, was it 25% of, uh, minimum reserve amount of the operating current budget. So, uh, but we can talk about that when we go through. So please just take a look at that and get Tom older your comments. Can I ask a question? Sure. So it says page 13, retire at least 50% of principal within 10 years. Does that mean we're obligated to take the 20 year SRF and not a 30 year then? Not necessarily because it would depend on when your other debt is retired. Ah, okay. So you'd have to take a look at it, but I think the real key to this is that they want to, uh, be careful and Carol can comment in terms of how long out you're going on debt. Gotcha. Okay. Um, the other thing that you just mentioned that 25% are, are Abrams group recommended something between, I forget, is it 15 to 25? So 25 would be at the high end. We voted in 20. So what this is saying is going forward, we have to do 25. Is that what that means? Well, we don't have to do anything. Okay. Okay. Okay. Because as Mike keeps saying correctly, you know, it's ours to set the rates, but this is their recommendation in terms of what appropriate levels would be. Gotcha. So I think we have to take a look at this. Uh, and the other part of that is, you know, just looking at the operation current budget that includes debt service of such a high percentage, we could argue that we should be looking at a percentage of the operating budget, ignoring the capital. But we have to remember that it's looking not only at your, uh, risk in terms of expenses, but also shortfall in revenue. Uh, and you know, other things that may come up in terms of capital or operating requirements like we're going through today with the, uh, all the contract work that's being done. So, you know, none of these are cast in the, they've cast it in stone, but we haven't accepted it. That's why she's asking for our comments. Mr. Chapman, let me clarify. I didn't ask. I just said you should review them. Okay. Let it, let it, let it say that, uh, that review will, I'm sure result in some comments coming back to you. How's that? That sounds lovely. Okay. I stand corrected. And the policies were voted and George is correct. They were voted because we didn't have them. We had policies. We just didn't have them formalized. And it was noted several times by Moody's that this was the best practice. We are a AAA community and we, we should really do this. It was a lot of work. Um, and the intent, the select board will do is we'll look at these and we'll look at, I can actually knock on wood. I shouldn't say this. Haven't gotten in. I've gotten one comment, I think from one group, but unless something's really egregious, we will probably look at all the comments and make an annual review and adjustments, but we'll see what you come up with. And this was done by the, uh, not done solely by the town. It was the division of local services, financial management resource bureau. So it was done by, by that group. The town manager got a grant that came out. The woman does this. These are pretty, a lot of this is very standard language. And then they plop in your individual idiosyncrasies of how you operate. Um, for the most part, these dovetails with the policies the town already had in place. And as George said, they are in the select board packet from September 29. If you know, I, I, I, somebody else had difficulty doing this. So I'll tell you, you go to the, the town website, you go to the select board page, you go to the agenda from September 29. And when you click on it, it should show you a packet and it'll be in the supplemental packet. And the whole hundreds of pages will be right there. If you can have a ball reading them all. But I've attached to you in your packet where the pages that relate to this. Right. So you don't have to go through all hundred pages. Okay. Any questions on this? We've set. Okay. Next section is the, uh, water fun motions. Mike, it's yours. Okay. Um, let's see. And share my screen. So this is essentially what's in the packet. Um, the motions that I put together. Um, I've, I've taken some input and adjust them, uh, to some degree to accommodate that input. Um, both of these motions are designed simply to allow us when it comes to setting water rates, to have the freedom to do that without restriction. Um, it doesn't dictate water rates. It does not dictate that we'll use borrowing for all capital items. It just in, uh, that's the second motion. Um, it's just intended to ensure that the board of public works weighs in on these decisions. Um, the first has to do with designating retained earnings as a funding source for the water enterprise fund. Uh, in certain amounts. This is a mechanism that Tom, Louise, and I put in place. Uh, not I, uh, the board put in place. Um, in 2019, uh, we took out all of the excess. Um, uh, padding in the individual line line items in the budget. And we put those into an expense line called the contingency expense, something that we didn't plan to expand. But Tom wanted to make sure that if we, if he went over the budget that he expected to spend, that we would have access to that without having to go back to town meeting. Now we, we know that we, we really don't have to go back to town meeting in those cases as we've found, um, over time, but it's still nice to have that in place. So we put that contingency expense in place and match that with a funding in the budget article in, in the warrant, um, uh, designating funding from retained earnings. So retained earnings is our rainy day fund. The idea was we would make sure we have a portion of that rainy day fund available above board to, to spend if we go over our expected expenses. So in, uh, fiscal year 20, it was listed in the warrant at 50,000 and matched by a contingency, contingency expense in the budget, the expense budget for 50,000. That was article six. It was approved in fiscal year 21. We were over our target in the retained earnings budget or retained earnings, certified retained earnings account. So we voted to use some of the retained earnings to bring us back down closer to our target. And so that's why the retained earnings noted in that, um, and that warrant was greater than the contingency expense. And that's because the annual town meeting because of the pandemic was held after we had set water rates. So we knew exactly what we were planning to use. In most cases, we're setting water rates after annual town meeting. And so we went back in fiscal year 22, because we went back to the normal schedule, uh, ATM first and water rates being set second. And we increased the contingency expense and the matching, uh, funding from retained earnings. And that occurred again in fiscal year 23. So this is a standard practice that was board and staff coordinated with the town administrator and the DPW director. A few years ago, um, that clause in the budget was removed, um, not by the board. Um, and so all this is, uh, doing is ensuring that that clause gets back into the warrant. So I'm trying to put it simply, uh, as I can, um, and again, it doesn't, um, it doesn't require us to use retained earnings when it comes to setting water rates. It just allows them to be available if we want to use them when we do set the water rates. Not including that drives us to increase rates, whether or not we need to increase rates, uh, to match what's in the warrant. Now the DOR had no problem with our, uh, retained earnings balance. Their main concern is that we bring in the revenue from water revenue that we say we're going to bring in, in the warrant. Now, if we lower that revenue by the 200,000 that we have as the contingency expense, then that's a lower target for us to hit. And the DOR, um, would, there would be less concern that we would hit that target and less concern than by the DOR. So, uh, well, why don't I make the motion and then we'll see if we get a second and then we can discuss any questions. Um, so the motion is to designate retained earnings as a funding source for the water enterprise fund operating budget in the annual town meeting warrant in an amount equal to the contingency expense dollar amount stated in the expense budget for the same fiscal year. Plus any amount by which staff projects the retained earnings balance will exceed the beginning of year target set by the board. So, uh, the second point is if we expect to be 500,000 over the target we set for retained earnings. Then we want, uh, this is saying we want to be able to use some of that so that we don't increase rates. When we've just had a, uh, uh, uh, great windfall and, uh, profit in that year, we want the access to some of those increases to offset the rate increases. Mike, can I ask a question before we vote? Yep. So, sorry. There'll be a whole discussion period on this after the motion is made and seconded. Oh, okay. All right. Sorry. All right. So moved. Thank you. Thank you. Go ahead. So if you move the, um, paper down a little, so we can look at the warrant. Okay. Stop there, please. Yep. Um, so what, what's caught my eyes when you look at this and it says water revenue, wastewater revenue, wastewater certified retained earnings, and then transfer stations certified retained earnings. So it seemed to me that what we're adding is a line between one and two that says water revenue certified retained earnings. And, and the numbers we've been discussing is $200,000 and therefore the 4.1 million goes down to 3.9 or something. So that we would actually be consistent with the other, uh, groupings here. Is there another one that has, uh, Transversation. I don't think so. No. Okay. Maybe that one then. So basically we'll look like that. We'll look like water revenue. It'll look like this. Yeah. And then I, so the, so the, so the, so the 200,000 is money. We were, we, we don't think we're going to touch, but we'd like to be able to access it without having to go back to town needing. Correct. Correct. Um, all right. It's different than me saying, oh, I need a new roof. I need to put money away to, to start paying for that. That would be the reserved amount of 25% of operating for your budget. This is, this is different. This is like disaster happened meteorite hit our water treatment facility. Nobody expected it, but hey, here's $200,000. We thought we could use. Correct. Yeah. That might even exceed the 200,000, but the idea is that we, you know, if we go over, we, uh, on our regular expense items that we don't, uh, that it's reasonably over and, and we'll have that covered by our rainy day fund, the emergency fund. So it's just access to the fund. Okay. Thank you. Yep. And in this year, it was not put into the budget. Um, and so the select board voted to add it back into the budget. Once they, uh, I believe there was a conversation with, uh, one of the board of public works representatives, and they put it back into the budget. So they had to vote on, uh, they had to put this in the errata for the warrant. So the original, um, warrant looked like this up here, one, two, three, four, five. Right. And the revised warrant and the motion that was voted, um, and presented by Adam, uh, included the water certified retained earnings. So that's all we're asking is to get this back in there as it had been in, uh, each year prior. And it also, uh, lowers the goal that we're supposed to hit according to the department of revenue. Exactly. Gotcha. Okay. Judy, anything else? Nope. Mike? Spellman? Nope. Okay. Pretty clear. All right. Ed, you have any, uh, yeah, can't get them. I'm sorry. Okay. I got a couple of things. Uh, first of all, just to be clear, we cannot spend any more than, uh, what we, the town has approved in terms of our spending. So, and that doesn't matter where it's coming from, but we have a spending limit and that is the amount that we can spend anything over and above that. We have to find others. Uh, for example, the town has a fund that's used to cover if somebody goes over their budget, but that, that amount is the maximum that we can spend. Uh, second, uh, we already have that ability. This doesn't give you anything you don't currently have. So it's, it's kind of sends a mixed message, but the bigger issue is where we have historically been. And remember that if you put this in as a contingency in retained earnings use and you spend it, then you're going to have to either replace it or you reduce the amount of cash balance that you have. We just went through a long conversation about what we need to do to cover, uh, the cash flow that's coming in. Remember that this fund balance he's talking about is not just contingencies. Okay. Cause he's using the, the, the retained earnings or cash balance, uh, for part of this, but it's also to cover revenue shortfalls that we've had about every year. It's to cover a replacement costs for equipment that may be over budget. Uh, and if you go back to the original setup of the enterprise fund, one of the comments was they wanted enough money in there to replace or cover any item that, uh, might have to be replaced, uh, which is a little bit of a, uh, increase. Uh, we have to be careful because a rate jump if funding issues arise in the current year and that we have to then make up in the next year, if you set the target. Uh, if we take a look at history, if you remember the, the schedule that we had, uh, we've historically spent, uh, the amount, our retained earnings, our cashflow had been fairly flat. Uh, we have to make sure that we look at the escrow and liabilities at the end of the year, but basically we've had, uh, fairly flat net results and retained earnings, uh, have been fairly flat. Your, uh, revenue budget is where the shortfalls of income. And this, uh, contingency covers part of that. So don't kid yourself that this is only expense related because it's not. And I think that if you put this in, you've made a terrible mistake, but that's just my opinion. And Mike and I have had this discussion more than once. Yeah. Yeah. And it is fairly flat because we set a target and that target is designed to cover the shortfalls, the fluctuations, because we can never predict year to year, uh, where we'll end up with expenses nor with revenue. So that's why we take our consultants recommendation on the target for the retained earnings balance. And as Judy mentioned, his recommendation is between, between 10 to 25% of operating plus, um, well, operating and including debt service. And we have set our targets at 20%, which is fairly conservative based on that range. And we are above that target currently. So all of that has been taken into consideration. And the fact that we're flat and remaining close to our target year after year, that's a testament to the fact that we've, we've done a pretty good job of setting rates to hit those targets. Well, it also is. Mr. Holder does a great job in terms of shutting off the spigot on expenses when he sees a shortfall to get us there. And let's not kid ourselves. That's one of the ways we get there. But again, if you start to use some of that money in terms of retained earnings against revenue, you're going to start to decrease that retained earnings fund balance. That you're going to have to replace the next year by raising rates. Correct. Or go down. So, I mean, you're really moving money between years, which I think is silly. We've been doing a good job of it. And Tom can only push it off a year or two. It's been pretty on target for the past 10 years. What has? We've been on target with hitting our reserve balance. We've kept it close to almost on exact target to the targets we've set. So, for quite some time now, George. And so, give some credit to the boards that have preceded you. Oh, I give a lot of credit to them. That's not the problem. The issue is, again, you know, we maintain that retained earnings without using the contingency against retained earnings. If we had done that, we wouldn't have been flat. Or we would have had higher rates the next year. You're just moving money between years. All right. Anybody have any other comments? Tom, do you want to add anything? Yeah. Thank you. So, the creation of the contingency with the use of retained earnings was, you know, it was created precisely as Mike described. I guess one of the concerns I have or one thing that we should consider and maybe talk about tonight is the fact that we are now regularly using the retained earnings. I think it was pretty much established. I think it was pretty much known that, you know, they were rarely used. But over the course of several years, there was 176,000 for membrane replacement. Last year was $110,000 for MWRA water. We're now only in October and we're going to spend $70,000 against the contingency. I guess what I'm concerned about is with this anticipated increase in debt service and needing to have the proper funds to keep pace with that, in knowing that the equipment that we currently operate is not going to get any better and we're going to be spending money like I demonstrated and showed earlier in the meeting. I'm concerned that if each year that we're setting rates to only achieve revenue, which is budget minus 200, and I keep using that 200 contingency, we're going to have a trend whereby we're always bringing in less money than is necessary. So that's, I'm not sure if anybody wants to comment. That is a concern that I have as we kind of, we're moving into a new kind of financial situation, different, far different than we were in 2019. Yeah, and that is true there. That's, but each year we get to look at that and reset rates. If you're seeing a trend and there's something you want to, you want to increase the budget in one line item for a particular year, that's going to be covered. I don't think we want to budget based on emergencies. And if we do, that's exactly what the retained earnings fund is for. That's our rainy day fund for emergencies. And this is just allowing us access to that. If we fall below our target, then we'll have to increase rates. But so far, we haven't been falling below our target. In fact, we're above our target. I think what we're at 22, 23% this past year. So in reality, I don't, I haven't seen evidence that we're falling below. But Mike, your target has got to be re-looked at because of debt service. We will. Yeah, every year we have to look at the target. Every year when we go to water rates, this is just to allow us to have that flexibility as water commissioners to set rates. And that's what we're elected to do. Not if we're forced to accommodate per DOR the budget, including, you know, kind of a false expense line item. That's all if we keep spending it. If we keep spending it, then it should be in the budget. It should be an actual line item that we're putting in the budget. Not something that's simply a mechanism allowed to access retained earnings, which is what it was put there for. You have too many unknowns to do that. And you have that right today by statute. Statue says that we set the rates. Now, just because at one year, Cliff agreed with the Board of Selectmen to take that out, doesn't mean that he had to do it. That's the one you're talking about, but all right. No, no, no. That happened years before. It happens multiple years in a row. One year, Mike Lowry raised it and they put it back in. So it's something that's happened year after year, George. I don't think we want to get into that. This is allowing us freedom. We haven't fallen below our targets, have we? I don't see that we've fallen below our targets. And in fact, we're above our target. But instead, we've been getting pressure from the finance director stating that the DOR has concerns and pressuring us to increase rates to cover that contingency expense line item. And I don't think that puts the board in a good position, especially new board members who don't understand where that's coming from. Mike, in 2022, we're 357,000 short of our target of break even. Retained earnings. George, retained earnings target. I'm talking about just versus break even with that in there. In 23, we're down by 185. We came back in 24 up by 161. But 193,000 of our costs were paid by ARPA funds. So we actually would have been down lower. And then in 25, we basically broke even. And our expenses were below every year. And we ended up with our retained earnings target right where we targeted it. Mike, you can't look just at the target or above. You keep ignoring the escrow and liabilities at the end of the year that never flow through the P&L. You can't just look at the expense line. It's not complete. I don't need to. I can look exactly at the retained earnings certified, retained earnings certified by the state, George. And we've been at or above our target every year. So that is black and white. Let's not talk about the accounting mechanisms or items that you're discussing. That gets shady. We're talking black and white. We've come in above our certified retained earnings target. Well, you've decided what that target should be. No, no, no. The board has. The board voted it. Let's move right on. Did not the board vote that, George? The board voted the target. No, the board votes the budget. The board voted the target earlier this year, George. Back to the minutes. I know what you slid in there, but that was something you had said was not binding at the time was to get a feeling. It doesn't bind the water rates. All right. Anybody have anything else? Yeah, George. Yeah. This is all extraordinarily confusing. How can. How is Mike's motion detrimental to the to the citizens of. Well, it's not necessarily detrimental. It does send a I think a wrong message, but more importantly, you don't need it. Because you've got this you've got this authority at all. But it is setting a thought process, which I have a problem with in terms of taking your whatever we have in contingency and saying that's going to come out of retained earnings instead of rates. So that whole thought process, I think, is is a significant error that I have a real problem with. All right, Mike. Same question. Why is it good for the community? Because it allows us to set water rates on the expenses we expect to cover that year. And when we have that additional expense, not including that forces us or or pressures us, I should say, it doesn't force us, but it pressures us to increase the rates, even though we don't need to to cover expenses. And that ends up in increasing the amount of money we're socking away in that rainy day fund. And I don't think people in the town want us taking the money out of their wallet, throwing it in the town coffers where we get such low interest rates anyway. Thank you. Thank you. All right. Anybody have anything else? Mikey, stop screen sharing, please. Yep. So we can see people. Okay. Let's go around. Yes. Yes or no on it. You know where I'm going to stand. You know where Mike stands. So, Mike Spelman? Yes. Judy? I vote yes. Ed? Okay. I vote no. And Mike, I assume you vote yes. Yes. So it's 4-1. And the second motion. So we've discussed this with, we've discussed this in the past. In the past, the board, any capital expenses, we've received CIP forms and we have. But in recent years, those CIP forms haven't had the box selected as to how they were going to be funded. And typically, the board voted to fund capital items with longer term expected life and larger purchases. We had selected borrowing as the option for those items. And in recent years, and I included some examples here, we didn't get these CIP forms with the funding identified. Right. And instead of borrowing, for example, we purchased a truck here for I think 200,000 or maybe this was it. Yeah, utility truck for 200,000. And we didn't borrow for it. So I think the expected life on this, Tom, was maybe 10, 15 years. It would be that, yes. Yeah. So it was a 10 to 15 year expected life. And instead of borrowing, I'm not sure if it was FinCom or the finance director, they designated water revenue. So what that meant is it put pressure on the board to in. So ATM happens and then water rates get set. It put pressure on the board. They put 300,000 in capital acquisitions. One was water mains, which have maybe a 30 to 50 year life. So 300,000 was designated to be funded by water revenue, meaning we had to increase water rates that year to accommodate these long term capital purchases. And that's OK if the board decides that. But the board didn't. And it is a board decision. So this this motion is to designate water debt borrowing in the annual town meeting capital budget warrant article as the funding source for capital acquisitions greater than or equal to 50,000, which have a greater than five year useful life unless the board is consulted and approves otherwise. So the intent here is to ensure that capital equipment over a certain dollar amount and over, you know, with an expected longer term life use borrowing as the funding unless we're consulted. And and, you know, whoever is making or has an idea that they want to use different funding sources for these capital purchases comes to the board and requests approval. That's as simply as I can put that one. So I guess I would need a second because I made a motion and then we can discuss. Second. Thank you. Mike made the motion and Judy second for the minutes. Comments? Anybody? None here. Okay. The other thing I want to point out is this is inconsistent with the hundred thousand dollar recommendation from the select board in their policy. All right. Let's take a vote. Spellman. Yes. You want to quit screen stops screen sharing, please. Yeah. So I'm sorry. Mike, you said yes. Spellman. Yes. Judy. Yes. Ed. Yes or no. Or abstain. You can give a thumbs up at if you agree or thumbs down or. Or safe signal if you want to say. Right. Ed, can you hear us? We'll count that as an abstain. I say, Mike, you say yes? I think he just gave a thumbs up. Oh, he gave a thumbs up. Okay. Judy, do you have a hand? It's not that okay. And so we got four one. Four in favor, one negative. Thank you. Okay. AMI is the next section. Making sure that I'm off mute. You are. Yes. Thanks very much. So we are at a point right now, and I apologize for not getting that typical report. And I do have it. But with all the background material, that one didn't make it into the packet. But in essence, we are at the 92% mark. I am going to access some statistics that I want to offer up. So there remain about 120 accounts that are considered non-responsive. They have not responded to the first, second, and third notice. We've gone by when the crews are in the neighborhoods to see if we can cold call, to see if we can get somebody's attention to make an appointment. So at this point in time, what we are planning to do is to issue certified return receipt letters to these 120 accounts, notifying them. Of some particular points, there is mass general law that states that the municipality does indeed own the meter, has the right to inspect, remove, replace, and that we have that right. And it'll be written to be firm, not abusive. But my point will be that we need to get into these remaining accounts. There are a number that the town is working on replacing curb stops. There's about 52 accounts that the town is on the hook for, is trying to make the service line able to be isolated so that the meter can be replaced. But the remaining ones are non-responsive. So that's where we're at right now. So I'll be crafting a letter to be sent out with hopes of gaining access to these 120 households. Tom, this is Judy. Yes. Can we, as board members, see the list? Maybe we know some of these people and can help convince them. Yeah, I don't, I mean, it is, it's actually a matter, all this stuff is actually a matter of public record. So, of course, yes, I can, I can provide the board with this list of folks. Yeah, because I know like down the street from me, there's a house that looks abandoned. So maybe that's one of them. So you're never going to hear from them. So, yeah, we've got, we've got 93 accounts that are actually fit that category. But, I mean, your point is, is well made that, you know, if, if somebody happens to know this person. Funny story is that a past town administrator, when we first embarked on this project, relayed to me that she made the town that they lived in contact them six times. And I said, really? I mean, why was that? And it was, I don't know, there was really no logic. But anyway, this was somebody that was in municipal government that still made the town that they lived in contact them six times before they were able to replace the meter. But anyway, very strange, but so, and this happens everywhere. I was, I was anticipating a small percentage of households. This happens in every community that I've done a meter replacement program. So not unanticipated, but it just, it makes for a very awkward situation. We don't, within our water regulations, we don't allow for the shutoff of service in these types of situations. So that is not a tool that I have in the toolbox that we can assess, we can assess, you know, fees that will raise attention because there's added costs to staff and staffing time to accommodate, you know, this particular situation. So that will likely be mentioned. It won't, it'll be very generalized, but so the intent will be to, to, to, to gain access to these, these accounts. But I, I will certainly issue you the list, uh, in a, in an email to the, to the membership. Dom, do you know how many of these actually have water usage for the last six months? Cause these are, these are occupied. Um, the ones that, you know, like Judy was describing abandoned homes or whatever, uh, um, you know, inactive, uh, there's 93 accounts that we're working through. But those 93 are not part of the one 12. No, uh, no, no, no. You have a total of like 200 then. That are, yeah. 12 meters. Yep. Okay. So this one 12 are people that actually are using water. So we know they're there. They just fail to respond. Correct. Okay. Yep. Um, yeah, so we are working towards, as it was mentioned earlier in the meeting, um, we are working towards transitioning to quarterly billing. In the packets under this heading, you will actually see a sheet, uh, that was developed, uh, by staff. Uh, and it's, it, it takes into accommodation, a lot of factors. And you'll actually see for every district, uh, the six districts that we have, you'll actually see the bill dates. And this, this schedule was developed, um, in striving to have equal billing dates, um, equal days between billings, uh, very consistent with what currently exists. Breaking them in half from semi-annual to annual. We also need to, uh, to consider that there is a proration when we change rates. It won't apply now because our rates were the same as last year. And, uh, but when should we re, um, review the rates and set new rates for FY 27, there's a proration to be taken into consideration. There's also the tier thresholds have to be, um, taken into consideration. So those will be broken in half. We have two districts, five and six that are currently already quarterly billed. So those will remain the same and you'll see that on this spreadsheet. But, um, yeah, so that is what we are working towards currently. Okay. A couple of things I'd like to add to that, just so everybody remembers. Uh, dependent, the going to quarterly billing is dependent on getting the software up and installed and running correctly and people classified correctly. A lot of work on Tom's, uh, people's half. Uh, if we can get it done in like January of 26 per se, we will have the advantage of the pull in of revenue that otherwise would be in the next year. So that will give us some cash and funds that we can be used in case we have a shortfall on the debt. But as we go and look at the rates that are set based on the motion that was passed, you'll have to figure out what you're going to do with that extra cash. If you're going to use it to pay down because remember it's a one time to some of the rate increase or put it in retained earnings or cash balance in order to fund some of that debt service coming up. Remember it's a one time benefit. Uh, and so it needs to be looked at as you look at the 27 rates. It also provides some cushion if we get a build for the, uh, interest and principal payments that are coming up. And it could be as much as a half a million dollars. I mean, did I miss anything? Nope. Good addition. Any questions? Okay. Transfer station. So I'm going to hand this over to, to Joe, who is becoming our, uh, transfer station aficionado. Yeah. The one thing that, uh, that, uh, Joe, if you want, if you wanted to share the screen, uh, did not get into the packet, but we have for your review is the same type of sheet that we had earlier in the meeting for water. We have it for the transfer station as well. Uh, let me pull it up real quick. Okay. Okay. Are you seeing the right thing? Cause I can't. So yeah. Yeah. That looks like it. Yep. That looks like it. So in essence, you know, this is, you know, 29% of the year complete, uh, report was created on October 15th shows our expenses. It also shows our revenue stream in the box at the bottom. Um, you know, so we actually did a comparison of the revenue, uh, this time last year, and it's relatively consistent, the revenue side. The one thing that we. Don't have this year is the years prior. We had a $75,000 in essence, a general fund subsidy. Um, this year, um, it was agreed that that would become 50,000, but the understanding that it would be spent towards the evaluation that Joe is going to talk about shortly. So you don't, you're not going to see that in blue at the bottom revenue. Screen where in years past, you would have had that benefit. And you can see the expense lines. Um, you know, nothing, nothing, it's overly concerning. The one thing that, uh, we did get notified of, um, we hit a record high for the cost for us to process single stream recycling. It, uh, was $101 per ton. It's never been that high ever. Uh, so that will, that will impact. The tipping fees moving forward. We, that gets adjusted every month based upon market. That's the way our contract is written. That's the way really all contracts are written. So that fluctuates monthly. So it's just, it's a, it's at a level I've never seen before, which means that the market is awful. Um, likely tied to, um, perhaps tariffs that, uh, because a lot of the recycling interaction actually occurs with China. So, uh, if things sour with them, the market, you know, kind of is impacted by that. But anyway, that's really the only significant, you know, difference that we're experiencing right now. But then I know Joe can also talk about, you know, sticker sales in comparison, talk a little bit about the RFQ that went out the schedule for that. And then, um, it would be good to, I know we've discussed it in the past and we want to talk about the, the, the membership, uh, of our, of our, you know, kind of a, a working group that's going to evaluate the, the RFQ submittals. And then, you know, work with us as we kind of work through the evaluation once we get it underway. So Joe, this is Judy. A question that I have is, um, do we have a list of people who have bought tickets? Do we know their names? Yes. I mean, we have their addresses, their names, most likely phone numbers. Um, we haven't collected all their emails. We have gotten quite a few, uh, in the process this year. Um, I can tell you our full sticker sales right now. Sticker sales right now are not awful. I mean, uh, as of today, our full stickers were 1340, uh, last year, end of year, it was a total of 1505 for full stickers. We're only down 165, uh, total. And we do see a pickup usually in January, um, because that's when people are allowed to buy a half, you know, a half year sticker at half the price. So we do usually see an increase, um, in that timeframe. So, you know, um, surprisingly, I think the sticker sales are not as bad, uh, bad off as I would have expected. And there is, there is a benefit of the fact that while the sales are down, we did put a price increase in. So our revenue from, uh, sticker sales is fairly flat versus last year. Yeah. Um, and as far as request for qualifications, the RFQ, um, it did go out. It's currently, uh, we'll be opening the bids, uh, on the 29th. So a week from tomorrow, um, and then we can decide at that point, or we can decide prior, uh, who we want on a, uh, a working group to, uh, evaluate that. And that's pretty much it. If there's any other questions regarding transfer station, who on the board would like to be on that evaluation committee. I would. Okay, good. Here's your member. Thank you, Mike. Sure. And Tom is going to solicit, uh, other people who have expressed an interest to get a committee to, to deal with it. So I, um, I think some of the men, uh, pardon me, some of the names that were mentioned, uh, in the past, I know Klaus, um, he's on the, um, I think the audit committee, uh, he was on finance committee when I first arrived in Wayland. And I know that he's had an interest in trash and recycling program. So I was going to suggest him, it would probably be good to have somebody from the finance committee, um, and maybe a likely candidate. I'm not sure if I can't see who's on this call, but, uh, uh, Carl Barnes is our liaison, whether or not he would be interested in joining. And then we would have, we would have staff, obviously, uh, participating as well. Myself, Joe. Can we just have interested citizens in joining or not? I mean, you, I think you want to keep the membership manageable. I don't think any more than, you know, five would, would be necessary. And it seems like we're kind of at that point, but certainly, uh, you know, you, your decision. But I think, you know, five, five is a nice number. But if, if you think you want to have seven and, um, something along those lines. I think the thought process when Tom and I talked is probably a committee of five plus, uh, Tom and one of his, one of his people. Yeah, I was just thinking like, uh, earlier mentioned, it'd be nice to have, um, you know, for the Sherman Bridge, if we had people who actually are butters who wanted to help out or something. Yeah. That's why I'm asking. And, and what I'm hearing you say is that you want an odd number so you can vote. So, and maybe, maybe if, if that's the concern and you can only find one other person who wants to join, then that person doesn't have voting rights or something. So they, you don't have the problem with the, not having a majority vote. I don't think that's, that's, it'd be a real issue because they'll, they'll report, the vote will be by this committee. Oh, I see. Okay. This board. So they'll, they'll come back with an evaluation and a recommendation. I see. All right. Yeah. So that said, we, you know, we could have six, we could have an even number. I see. All right. That's good to know. I think it's at least worth asking. Yep. Does it, do you have anybody in mind, Judy? I mean, is there. Yeah, I do, but I don't want to say who until I ask. Okay. Okay. That's fine. So what I'll, you know, I'll, I'll reach out to Klaus. I'll reach out to either through the FinCom chair or directly to Carl, Mike Wegerbauer and staff. And then Judy, if there's somebody that, that you think would be interested. Judy can twist arms. No, I break kneecaps. Okay. I'm not even going to go there. All right. Can I, can I just ask Tom, do you know if these are sticker holders, Klaus and, and Carl and others? I think we should have a mix of folks that are current sticker holders and, and those maybe that have pickup. Yep. Yeah. It's a good question. I, I, I don't know the answer, but I don't, I don't. I don't recall seeing Klaus or, or Carl down there, but I will find out. So that's a good point. So if those two gentlemen are not, obviously, Mike, I know you're a sticker holder. Judy, do you know whether the person you're considering is? Yes. Okay. All right. So that's good. So we're, so we've got sweet. We'd be, if that person came on board, that would be two, two with stickers, two without. And staff. Sounds good. Okay. But I would, I would go to the chairman of FinCom rather than Carl. Okay. Yeah. That, that seems like a better protocol. Yeah. And you can ask him if one of his people that you could appoint would be a sticker holder. Right. Yep. We can, not required, but it's good to know. Yeah. Yep. Yep. Any questions on the transfer station? If you get stuck, I'm happy to hop in. I'm a big, Mike and I a hundred percent on agree on this transfer station. And I'm, I'm been a sticker holder for. 75 years. Oh, at least. All right. And you have plenty of free time. Yeah. I know. But it's up to, it's up to Tom, but just if you need someone. All right. Yeah. Okay. One, one question, Joe, how many, how many firms did the proposal go out to? Oh, I honestly don't know. I, uh, Kelsey sent it out. She put on the central registry. So we'll, we'll have a better idea next week. Okay. All right. Anything else on transfer station? Okay. South 20 landfill update. Right. Um, so we met a couple of weeks ago, um, virtually and online. Um, first 45 minutes of the meeting, uh, we're spent discussing, uh, dog park. Um, which was one of the, one of the intended uses, uh, that the committee came up with, uh, a couple of years ago. But the committee has not met since March of 2024. So it's been a bit, um, if you didn't know the, the, uh, the dog park people are only slightly less passionate than the Sherman bridge people. Um, but they are very interested in, in using some of that space for a dog park. Their first goal is to get one into town center, which I think is a great idea. It brings more foot traffic to the, to that area and those storefronts. Uh, but if not, they'd like to throw their hat in the ring for, uh, for putting it in the landfill area. Um, another part of landfills, which is right on top of the huge part of the cap where the trash is the deepest. Um, that they really, we really can't build anything on because it's too squishy. The ground levels are too, too unstable. Um, was going to be an athletic field, a mixed sport athletic field. Uh, some walking paths and some maybe benches and bird watching and things like that. Um, and then the further over, when you get over the hill closer to the, to the Sudbury end of things. Um, there was a lot of discussion for putting some town homes there. Now it hadn't been decided what the best use of that was to be. It was to be leasing the land or selling the land or developing ourselves. But either way, it was going to be a source of revenue for the, for the town, uh, especially if you get lower income, uh, and there would be very, very beneficial. Unfortunately, uh, in the year and a half since we've met, um, Weston and Sampson's been over there and done a lot of test borings, a lot of drilling, and they've discovered trash even on that far side of the hill. Um, so there's a lot of trash. It's not just in the peak part of the place where it's deepest. There's between even over, even over the, over the hill where things start heading towards Sudbury. There's still five to seven feet worth of trash there. The DEP is very concerned about us putting any kind of, um, housing over there because of, let me get this, uh, methane migration from the, from the trash coming in and creating a toxic atmosphere for any homeowners that could possibly be there. So it's not looking like we can develop it as is. Um, so now we're looking at remediation or removal. So the current, um, costs are around five to $7 million. They don't know that. They don't know specifically what are getting any closer to that because we don't know exactly what's down there. So far the test borings and the drilling, it's just recovered regular landfill trash. A lot of it ash. Cause it goes back to a day when we used to burn trash, but they have encountered rare, you know, the rare, you know, fire engine that comes up or something like that. So there, there could, who knows what's down there. So they can only say five to $7 million could be the cost of removing this and trucking it offsite. If it's just ash and regular trash, that's your bottom lower level five, $5 million cost. Once you start getting the stuff that's more toxic stuff, that's not recyclable, things like that, it could, could drive the cost up quite a bit, but that would have to be done before we could develop anything for any type of housing that could be put there. There is some money left over from, from the money that was spent to Weston Sampson to do more testing. So we can find out, explore, so we can get a better idea exactly where things are and what's down there. So they're going to push forward with providing us with more information. Right now we're still in the informational gathering area. Do we have any risk in terms of doing the testing, finding something that requires removal and a lot of money being spent that if it was just left alone, we wouldn't? I'm sure there's, I'm sure there's, that's a great question. That's my biggest concern. Yeah, all of a sudden we dig up something and it's an archeological dig. Yeah. Or we find out, you know, a whole bunch of asbestos or things like that. There's, there's definitely that risk, I'm sure. That's what we had with the, the one area that we redid. Ended up being a lot of asbestos and police firing range. Oh, geez. Yeah. And then you're dealing with a lot of lead. Yep. Mike, was there talk of a solar farm on, in any of this area? There, there hasn't been, there is talk of doing that, but currently I think there's something about ground-based solar that isn't allowed. So it's not like we can just throw up a bunch of solar on the hill. I think that discussion would be if, you know, cause one of the other uses could be down closer to the Sudbury river area. We could do something similar to what's at the town building right now. Puts put, you know, elevated solar panels. We could put our school buses there. And as you know, we start transitioning to hybrid or all electric buses. Now all of a sudden, this is a nice thing for the town, but I think we're a little farther away from that right now. Are you, is this border of the Sudbury river? Yeah. Yeah. So the discussion, I'm sure I was thinking Sherman bridge discussion about both launches and stuff. I don't know if that would be a part of there, but. Well, there's the actual, the boat launches is, is over on the other side, uh, closer to the council on aging building. Um, so they have a launch there, but I suppose you could, we could possibly put it in there, but I'm not sure if that end of the Sudbury river is accessible if they want people in there because that's also a national wildlife preserve. Okay. I don't know. I'm just, just trying to draw between the two. Yeah. Just enough to be dangerous. Oh yeah. No. Sounds like it. Uh, we are meeting in a couple of weeks, uh, to discuss further, uh, movement and see what, what else, uh, what other ideas we can come up with. Okay. Anybody have questions? Good update. Thank you. Thanks, Mike. That's about the most you'll ever hear me talk. No, no, no. We're gonna, you're gonna be chairman next year. Oh, stop it. Okay. Uh, board member concerns. Any? Then here. I'm still concerned about, uh, the Sherman bridge situation where there's such a strong. Outpouring of support for a. Scenic wood bridge. And, and I, and I know that based on the timeline and, you know, DOT offering, you know, as much help as they are, that that's, um, doesn't seem very likely, but it would still be nice. I think to let them know. What that would entail just in case. Um, so, so you don't, so we don't come off as. Fate complete. This is what we're doing. You know, DOT offered us money. So we really don't want to hear, uh, anything about the wood bridge anymore. I think it just, um, presentation wise might go over well. Yeah. I guess if, if you don't mind, you know, we are really aware of what people concerns are. And, and a lot of people have spoken up. A lot of their concerns are very similar to one another's. Um, you know, some of these things, I think we're going to have the ability to find a solution to satisfy those desires. Um, some we're not going to be because of, uh, you know, transportation, um, standards that have to be met. You know, when you do this type of work nowadays that you didn't have to do 40, 50, a hundred years ago. Um, I feel comfortable with how we've gone about, you know, holding a work, you know, working session with the folks. And I, I think that the, the revisions that we're going to make, I think are going to go a long way to making accommodations. And what I said, what I said, you know, when you said you listened, uh, Judy is at the end of it is that, you know, we have. Contact information for every one of those 41 people that attended. So they will be personally notified of the update where to find it and offered some suggestions to be able to, to provide continued feedback. So it won't be a fade to complete. Um, but at some point, I think the decision will need to be made that the proper accommodations were made. And that we need to move forward with, with securing the funding for it and, and ordering the materials and working towards contracting the work and getting it done in calendar year 26. You should check that 41 list against your 112 to see if there's any overlap. And leverage it somehow. Tom, why, why, why do we need that guard rail? Like when we repave a road, we don't have to put in a new guard rail for a sidewalk, for example. But that, that seems odd that that would be required. Yeah. I mean, there's been a lot of points made on other bridges that, that don't, that do not have that. And there's the American association of state highway transportation officials, AASHTO. And there are a series of regulations and standards that are associated with that. And much of what we've included with that design are AASHTO requirements. And so in, and the terminology that's used and what needs to be built when you start to touch things is that these things need to be crash tested. They need to be crash tested on the bridge. They need to be crash tested on the approaches to the bridge. And one of the things that has been, you know, spoken, we didn't talk about it earlier in the meeting, but I'd like to bring it up now. And I, there has been, you know, some, some misinformation that's been disseminated relative to some of these approach guardrails. You know, and we'll identify all of this in the updates, but we have to install features and fixtures on the bridge that meet and are compliant with those AASHTO regulations. And why aren't they on other bridges that were just redone? I don't know the answer to that offhand. Yeah. Yeah. It just seems odd that it looks very industrial, at least the rendering I saw. Yeah. And that adds to it. Tom, is it because the normal bridge is just repaved and this is rebuilding of the whole bridge? I don't think so. I mean, this is, this in essence is a deck repair. And it's much like I liken it to, you know, when, when we touch a sidewalk, even if it's only a small portion or whatever, then you are required, you know, to maintain particular standards with that. And you have to make changes and, and have particular slopes and truncated domes installed and all of those types of things. And this is a situation that's very similar. I know that Kevin Dandrade with tech at the, at the forum, at the workshop, spent a fair amount of time at the podium describing the need, you know, for this, for this crash tested rail that separates the walking platform from the vehicle platform. So one last question on the, on that guardrail, can we get an exemption based on the historic or scenic blah, blah, blah. So, no, I mean, it's the thing about the bridge, you know, and it was mentioned at a CPA meeting a week ago is it's, it's not, it's not an historic bridge. It was built in 1992. It was built to look historic. It was built, you know, to, to fit in with, you know, the look and feel of that neighborhood of that area. And I fully appreciate that. And what we're striving to do is to be able to repair the deck, build the deck with something that provides modern safety features, but also accommodates that the preservation of that historic look. And I think we'll be able to achieve that. Mike, just a quick question. Do you have an example of one that does not have a guardrail with a walkway? I haven't searched for one. I was just researching it myself and I'm not finding it. So I just was asking. Someone mentioned the Sudbury one that was just built up Route 27 or redone up Route 27 on Route 27. So I think one thing that might help clarify this is that any bridge has to have a crash tested rail. Most bridges have that at the edge, you know, at the edge of the backside of the bridge, the backside of the sidewalk. The way that the Sherman's Bridge understructure is built, the way that it's established currently, is that that crash tested rail can't be located on the outside, that furthest thing, the furthest away from the driving surface. So to be able to have a crash tested rail, the other location to have it, is that the separation between the walkway and the drive. So that is the, you know, so right now, you know, tech is working towards seeing whether or not we would be able to install a fortified rail that separates somebody standing there from going over the bridge. If we can do that, that would help alleviate this issue. But if the understructure of the bridge will not accommodate, won't support that, that, you know, fortified rail, then it's got to go in the other location. Yeah. So that, that would differentiate what you see when you, when you're driving on a bridge like Pelham Island Road, there's, there is no separation between the walkway and the paved surface. That's because the fortified crash tested structure is on the outside. Got it. Okay. I did look that up. It, it technically does not have a sidewalk. Pelham Island? No. The one on 27. Oh, great bridge. Old subway road bridge. So Tom, just to clarify, so what you're saying is that because the crash tested railing is, is for cars to not run off the bridge. It's not for cars to not run into the pedestrian. That's my understanding. Yes. Yes. It's gotta be there someplace. Okay. Anybody, anything else? I have one. Uh, once we get the software far enough along, so we know the January or February date, whatever it's going to be for the implementation of quarterly billing. Uh, can you, uh, provide us with a communication program you're going to use to, uh, get this information out to people explaining what we're doing, why we're doing it and how it's going to impact them. The answer is yes. Um, yes. What we're, what we're planning to do is, uh, create, develop an oversized postcard. Uh, much like we did with the lead and copper, uh, program that we had, those will go out to every account holder. We'll be, uh, putting, uh, all kinds of, um, uh, advertisements, uh, outreach going up on social media, all of those types of things. So that is our plan and we'll get the board, all of that. So you'll, you'll be able to see it and, uh, and be able to provide feedback. Right. Okay. I assume until we know that we're actually going to be going in January or February, whatever the date is that anything is premature until that we can start to develop some of it, but you don't know when you're going to pull the trigger. Yeah. And, and, and part of that message, a good part of that message will be the implementation, uh, implementation of the customer portal. Yep. Um, you know, and the alarm packages and all of that, uh, those are pretty strong, solid features that we all know were, were, uh, a major part of our decision. To go in this direction. So that, that'll also be a part of the outreach as well. People will be able to, they'll be offered instructions on how to create an account, sign up for account and, and utilize it. You set up a YouTube demonstration. What I would do is I would suggest that I bring you in and you can be our model. Yeah. Yeah. I do not fit the model role. All right. Anybody have anything else? Can I just retract what I said? I'm looking at a Google earth and I, I don't know what to call it. It says it's not a sidewalk, but there is a granite berm that runs along and there's like maybe a four foot, I guess, walkway just over this bridge. And that's it. You can't access it from either side really, unless you're in the woods. But, so I just don't want to, you know, be called out as, uh, lying. So. No. And a lot of these bridges, they don't, they don't have, they don't have walkways or they don't hook up to sidewalks. I think that's true on Sherman's bridge road, right? There's no sidewalk that you hook up to. Right. You just cross the bridge on this sidewalk or this area, but there, it's kind of weird because. Aren't you typically not, not allowed to have that where you can have a sidewalk that leads to nowhere where you're dumped out on the road. At least we can't have crosswalks that, that. I think that's crosswalks. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. And this is, you know, I think people regularly refer to it as a sidewalk. It really is kind of a walking platform. You know, it's just, it's a feature of the bridge that separates the cars from, and there's, you know, a safe zone for people to stand and, you know, paint, take photographs, gaze, you know, all those types of things. So it's more of a walking platform. Yep. Cool. Yeah. Carol, anything that you want to add before we go to the last couple items? I'm good. Thank you. Unless you have any more questions for me. Yep. Okay. Uh, comment on minutes. Anybody have questions on the minutes? Can I get a motion to approve the minutes? So moved. Michael Weyerbar moved. Second. By Judy. All in favor say roll call vote, Mike Spelman. Mike Spelman. Mike. Judy. Hi. Michael Bauer. Hi. Ed. Thumbs up. Ed gives a thumbs up. And George is a yes. Okay. Uh, meeting, uh, upcoming meeting. Tom, you want to cover that? Yeah. So on Thursday evening, um, I know we've discussed as part of the permitting process for the MWRA project, uh, and knowing that, um, much of the infrastructure is actually located within the city of Framingham. Um, the city of Framingham is a, an environmental justice community. So therefore we're required per, uh, protocol to hold a community meeting. And that meeting will be, um, uh, held, uh, and offered in a number of different languages. So it will provide information that you've all seen. The town of Wayland has, has seen via, you know, our board of public works meetings, our forums that we've held prior to town meeting. But this one is particularly scheduled to meet that environmental justice, um, requirement. So that is this Thursday at six o'clock. It is completely virtual. Um, we have, the link is up on the town's main webpage. So folks can access it there. Uh, we have translators that are scheduled, uh, to be in attendance. That will be providing, uh, translation services for other languages. So that's Thursday. Is that posted as a meeting for us? So I did not do that only because, um, you, you, you're, you're able to attend. Um, and I thought that that was fine. You know, attending would be, would be adequate. So I did not post that meeting for the board of public works. So if any of us attend that meeting, I would suggest you don't participate. Because if you get more than three people and you're participating, then we haven't posted the meeting. Mr. Chair. Yes, ma'am. I believe you can participate, but you cannot deliberate. So therefore you cannot share your opinion on any questions that get asked. If the board was asked a question, you would have to defer to another meeting. If you had a quorum present. What's the difference between participating and speaking in terms of a position? Nevermind. That's fine. Be careful. That's the message. Is that okay? Don't deliberate on. Oh yeah. We think that's a great thing. And, you know, we'll, uh, we support that, you know, whatever. Generally speaking, if you don't have a, if you have a quorum present, it's best to not speak or just let the chair speak. That's it. Then there's no deliberation. Okay. We have meetings on November 18th and December 16th. Now the question I've raised with Tom is the timing of the, uh, financial, uh, expense and income budget and the, uh, capital plan. So I think that especially the budget part with the information we now have in terms of the cash flow for the debt. Think you need to work with Matt to make sure he's got that adjusted because the expense level has to be correct because we can't spend more than that. Mm hmm. Yeah. So at one of those meetings, well, you have to make, you guys have to make a decision on the use of retained earnings. So the first budget is the capital budget. Um, so I am submitting the DPW capital budget on Thursday to the finance team. Um, so I would be prepared at any point after that to bring it to the board of public works. And I, I think that November 18th would be, would be fine. You know, if we find that we've got a jammed agenda and, uh, there is a room for it, you know, we, we could carve out a, uh, you know, uh, um, a particular night just for the, the capital budget. But at this point in time, my recommendation would be just to, for me to present it then it's, it's not all that complicated. Um, and then later on in the calendar year, we, we have not yet, um, um, got a, a, a schedule, uh, relative to the submittal of the, the operating budget. And when that's, I know George, you were talking about a schedule relative to, you know, town meeting, you know, warrant being opened up. And when warrant articles were going to be discussed and all of that, I'm speaking with Jalen today. I think the select board is working towards developing that, that calendar, but as, as yet to be, um, advertised. So all that being said, um, I, I don't see a reason sitting here tonight to schedule anything other than the November 18th. Okay. I just want to, again, I agree with Mike. And one thing I know probably surprises Mike, but I want to make sure that we go through and we have an understanding of what is in both the capital budget. And the operating budget before it's signed off by the town, because at that point it's too late. So we should be seeing what's going to the town. And remember that the 27 budget, depending on the timing of the borrowing of the SRF funds and the first interest or payments, we need to make sure we have that in the proper year. Right. Right. And then back towards the capital side of things, I will be using the motion that was just approved tonight relative to the CIPs. And I think in essence, I can't think of an item that we have that's less than 50 grand and less than a five year life. So I think every single one of them will on the CIP will have the box checked borrow. Right. But I have a feeling you will get pushback and anything that's between the 50 and $100,000 level, because it doesn't meet the, uh, what the select board is adopted. So we need to just to see how many of those we have and how, how big of a push we want to make on that. If at all, especially if we get some of the, uh, extra money from the quarterly billings. It might give us an opportunity not to raise the rates, but that's going to be up to the discussion. But I want to make sure we have that before, not after the fact. Understood. Okay. Anybody have anything else in terms of the, uh, meeting schedules, pre hearings? Do we have any coming up? Any what? Actually, sorry. I, um, I spoke with the chair of the planning board, um, actually last week. And it looks like they are booked solid until maybe the end of December, early January. They suggested I send the list out, uh, sometime next week. So at least they have it, can look at it, question any issues, problems, et cetera. Uh, meeting with the tree warden Monday morning, we're going to go over that. Um, so that's where we stand on that. So we wouldn't meet till January. Maybe. Um, I would think, uh, yeah, I, I'm waiting for her to get back to me, but, uh, she wanted the list first and then was going to get back to me with the open dates. Sounds good. Good question. Anything else? Mr. Chair. Yes. I recognize Carol. Thank you. Mr. Holder. Thank you for the reminder. I'll get, um, the ATM calendar. Jalen's a waiting for it. I'm sorry. Jalen's a waiting. Carol needs the file. Okay. Topics not reasonably anticipated. Staff have none. Anybody? Nope. Can I have a motion to adjourn? Moved. Mr. Spellman moved. Can I get a second? Second. Second from Judy. All in favor. Mike Spelman. Yes. Judy. Yes. Ed gives a thumbs up. Mike. Yes. George. Yes. Yes. ödm Jiangu. Yes. Dale. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. necessary necessary necessaryだから done. There we go in, from the ring left the ring left the ring mace.