October 21, 2025 – Recreation Commission – Video & Transcript
October 21, 2025 - Recreation Commission
I call the Recreation Commission meeting on Tuesday, October 21st, 2025 at 1045,
according to order. This is a hybrid in-person Zoom meeting at the Wayland Community Center,
room E, 8 Andrews Avenue, Wayland, Massachusetts, at 01778.
Okay. Pursuant to Chapter 2 of the Acts of 2025, this meeting will be conducted in person
and by a remote means in accordance with applicable law. This meeting will be recorded,
which will be made available to the public on WACAM as soon after the meeting, as is practicable.
Practicable, yeah. When required by law or allowed by the chair, persons wishing to provide public
comment or otherwise participate in the meeting, may do so by in-person attendance or by accessing
the meeting remotely, as noted above. We will press public comment to be limited to two minutes
per person. Times are approximate. Items may not be discussed in the order listed or at a specified
time estimated. Excuse me. All listed topics may be subject to deliberation and vote. The agenda,
call the meeting order, review the agenda for the public, which is public comment. Minutes review
and approved minutes if available September 16th, 2025. Review correspondence, if any,
commissioner announcements, reports and concerns, the Route 20 landfill, Route 20 South landfill
vision committee, community presentation committee, the creation directors department reports and
follow-up questions and comments. We have a festival and other events, budgets and capital projects,
review and discussion of recreation commission, the creation department, we have initiatives
and budget requests, including the CPA fund application requests with possible vote to approve or adopt or
support. Schedule the next meeting date and potential agenda items and topics not reasonably anticipated by the
share 48 hours in the price of the meeting, if any, and last adjournment. So,
all of the meeting order, is there a public comment? There is somebody with their hand raised, so we're going to go there.
Catherine, that person's gone. I don't see any attendees in here anymore. Okay. Thanks. So, public comment is completed. The minutes review and approved minutes is available September 16th, 2025, 2025. Michael Grant provided the minutes, so we can review those for a couple of minutes, and then vote to approve them or amend them. We had an opportunity to repeat. Would someone make a motion to accept the minutes as presented? All those in favor? We have to do this. Roll call. We can have Mike as remote. Okay. Roll call on Leslie. Yes. Yes.
Mike. Yes. Asa. Yes. I think the lines and everything are perfect. Very good. Well done, Michael. Thank you very much. I'm still very grateful. Thank you very much. Yes.
View correspondence, if any. Asa. Do you have any correspondence that you need to address? We did. Leslie made note of some correspondence from the CPC, but it's also on the agenda, so we could just hit that. And I don't, I did not receive correspondence. Usually, if somebody corresponds with the entire commission, I get a copy of it. Yep. And I don't, boom. There was some Sherman's Bridge stuff that came in. Okay. Do you want to address that now?
From my perspective, it's probably fine. Yeah. And for you all to discuss that project and that email that came in is perfectly acceptable under correspondence. Okay. So, Leslie, did you receive any credit funds? If so, would you please enlighten us? So, I mean, there was a few emails that went to the commissioners along with the select board to Whalen and Sudbury regarding the public works effort for the bridge. There's some concerns that the MassDOT funding is creating a motor-centric bridge that will be detrimental to residents who want to ride their bike and walk past there and use the landing strip. And just some comments in support of reviewing whether it should be a glue-land bridge with asphalt surface because it will create high speeds where a lot of residents, not all of them. I'm not sure how to properly relay this, but some people are worried that the asphalt surface will encourage higher weight vehicles and higher speeds and make it less safe. And others are interested in maintaining the wood surface so that it reduces and have a call for reduced speeds, also more signage in the area. And, but there are other residents who are disturbed by the sound of the wood and just want a safer surface and not to hear cars going over the surface. So, what's the closest residential house to the bridge? I mean, there's… Yeah, I mean, do you know? I mean, it has to be near to, what is it, 47 Sherman Bridge? Is that where that we, there's 62 Sherman Bridge Road and somebody from there reach out? There was a neighbor that submitted some correspondence about two meetings ago about the importance of recreation initiatives in the Sherman Bridge area, if you remember that. And I think that came up at the forum that they held as well. That has to do with, I think, one of the things with that is the boat launch, correct? And the CPC is involved in the potential funding of said boat launch. Right. Yeah. I attended that meeting. I'm checking her for it on separately. Power. Of course. Never in the trunk. So, is this a power issue for us? We need to… No, it's still going. It's just going to dwell. Oh, okay. So, when you attended the meeting, what were the parameters of that? I mean, why was I there in my capacity? Well, mostly to figure out what was going to happen to the boat launch. But I didn't really find that I really learned what they were going to do to change it. There was a lot about how… There was a lot of public comment that went on for a while, but… Is this a CPC meeting or is this a forum for the… This is a forum. For the bridge. It was a public works forum. Okay. It was a community feedback event. Okay. They have designs prepared. And, you know, there seemed to be an organized response present to a lot of people from Sherman Bridge and around the area. You know, people who ride their bikes on the bridges now have said the surface is dangerous because their tires could get poked. And so, some people do want an asphalt surface for that reason. But, you know, other people ride their bikes and like the wood surface because it's just… It's beautiful. It's stunning. And there's a lot of bird watching in the area. Some people are concerned that higher speeds will, you know, reduce the number of birds that are in the area. But, you know, a lot of people in New England at that meeting were talking about how the continuity of conservation lands through multiple towns is an important thing to preserve. And if we're creating something that's more of a motor-centric viewpoint, it might be disruptive to the wildlife. But I didn't really learn how they were going to change the boat launch and if they're going to make more spaces. Because if people are going to be going faster over this road… I mean, I did take a look at the similar bridge. At Minuteman Park is the Goulin bridge with an asphalt cover. And it just looks like a road. It doesn't look like a bridge at all. So, if they follow that model, it's going to be a fast road. People are going to be going to 45 miles per hour over this. This is a picture of a current bridge. Yeah. Over this bridge with no problem. So, I think we'll have to… I don't know what our opinion is on the boat launch if we have any sort of jurisdiction over what it's supposed to look like and if it's ours. So, I didn't really… Would it be something that would fall under our prison? So, there's potential there. If it was a boat… It's not technically rec land. I believe it's masked off land and it's shared custody between Sudbury and Williams. Okay. Okay. But, there are neighbors who have petitioned the rec commission via these correspondence, you know, both before the form that they held and after regarding the value of recreation in this area. So, yeah. So, we do offer recreation services on property that isn't rec property at every school. Right. It's technically school property. Right. The rail trail is state property as well, but it's a recreation resource. Right. So, it wouldn't be out of the ordinary to offer recreation services on a property that's not technically recreation. But those services would entail a boat lodge. Yeah. There were some other remarks from the folks sending letters about, you know, walking trails and fishing areas and just general access to nature as a recreation resource. But that was all in the email that was sent. What's the current status in terms of the repair of the bridge? Because I just read a comment from Tom that the bridge, if it's not addressed, will be unsafe within a year. I don't know. I mean, I do know that there's no signage as to what the speed limit is and what the weight limit is. And some people are saying that those sort of just basic criteria would help people self-navigate whether they should be taking the bridge or not and, like, make the bridge itself safer by not using it if it's unsafe for them. But I don't know how long this bridge has in its current state. I do know that there is an opportunity to get a significant amount of money using these, you know, treated wood frame. This is what I don't know. Do we get the money from the state? They'll just give us the wood and kind. They'll just give us the materials. State? Yeah. They pay for those? Yeah. I don't know. I don't know. My sense is it's MassDOT, that it's not DPW. But I don't know. I don't know. I don't know enough about this other than the correspondence that I was CC'd on that went to York. And I couldn't go to the forum that night because we had a different brick thing going on. Yeah. Okay. So we're sort of... I don't feel like there's a huge influence that we can provide. I mean, outside of, like, the opportunity to be able to have a whole bunch or anything, it seems like this is like a Public Works and MassDOT concern that, like, we obviously have an insight on, but I don't think there's anything that we can add or subtract from the authority process. From my perspective, we're supportive of recreation activities, supporting the recreation activities that they would like to have. And I think from your perspective, we would approach the CPC with some funding needs, which they would probably support. Yeah. I mean, I went to Sherman's Bridge the other day and spent 10 minutes there. And that amount of time, 3K first came and went. And, you know, used the boat launch effectively. There was a fisherman there. You know, there was a lot of activity in a very short amount of time that it was a very... It was like 12 o'clock on a Friday. You know, it wasn't peak Saturday. That I think this was getting a lot of space and just having our opinion that, you know, that they'd be mindful of what's appropriate for the recreation users would be a good note to add. Now, would you address this with the CPC at your upcoming meeting? They would want to know our opinion. You know, I don't know who the applicant would be or what exactly the ask is and who's the... Unless they're asking recreation to put through an application on behalf to establish a boat launch. I don't know. Okay, Kevin, if you're looking at this as part of the Department of Transportation and what other department would be engaged... Well, like we've got some correspondence that came in was from several residents that live in that area. So in terms of CPC applications, anybody in town can submit an application. So I wouldn't be surprised if there's a group in that neighborhood that would step forward and say, you know, this is what we want to see happen in this area. And it might be funded by the CPA, but it might be funded by MassDOT or even the town of Sudbury. I don't know enough about it to say, but I think there's an ask for it to be preserved as a current recreation resource, but also that it is useful as a form of transportation between the two towns. So there's a balance, and I think that the town needs to partner with Sudbury to strike that balance. Yeah, I think from my perspective, an applicant would have to come and present what their proposal is, and then we could weigh in in terms of whether we were supported or not supported, you know, based on what they present. But I don't think it's, I don't think it's, it's our position that we should instigate this, that we should be in the petitioner. Anybody else has a different opinion, perfectly willing to listen. Do we ever as a commission send like letters to whoever's in charge of, you know, in this case, it'd be MassDOT, a site saying, you know, here's what we're in favor of and why? I don't know that we've ever done that, but I think generally speaking, it would be the petitioner's responsibility to present that to the state, as well as present it to us, so we could weigh in in terms of whether we would be supportive of the proposals that they're making. Okay. That's my sense. Okay. You're correct. What, what, what, what would a, a petition from, you know, a Wayland resident look like, like a petition for what? That's a good question. I mean, I don't know if they would be petitioning for like construction or of a, of a boat ramp or, you know, group signage or spaces allotted maintenance. Um, but it's usually, you know, a specific dollar amount they want with the, you know, finite project. I, I don't, I can't anticipate what they'll be asking for in this project. But I think that, that, that, that the initiation of that has to come from neighbors or, or groups that might be concerned about what's going to happen with Sherman Bridge. Yeah. I think that is a likely avenue that it would come through, but it could be, I don't know. I think they need the, I think it's a public safety issue. Like they're going to need to have the police chiefs or whatever the jurisdiction is comment on, you know, speed and surface and motor access versus pedestrian access. I mean, it's like, um, but my sense is it would be, it would be a combined effort from both Sudbury and Weyland in terms of doing this. And the DPW, I think, I think Tom Holder weighed in, in terms of, to the extent saying that in a year's time, if nothing's done, the bridge would be unsafe to use. So does, um, cause mass dot there, eventually they're just going to, you know, in response to it being a safety issue, they're just going to, you know, make improvements to the bridge. Right. I would think that that would be. Case. Case. So do we know if they have any kind of, um, formalized process? Cause it sounds like there was a, a forum with the department of public works, but does mass dot have any of the like formalized, uh, process for input from, you know, constituents and affected parties. Um, you know, to kind of say that this is what we'd like to see happen or no. I think, I mean, am I wrong that it's either we accept their materials or we don't, we go our own way or, or we go with what mass dot is offering us. And this is where are the two town managers to determine. To determine. Probably correct. I think that would be. Probably. I just don't know enough about this to. I don't either. And Catherine, you, do you expect that to be the case? So mass dot was a participant in the, jointly with Sudbury and Wayland in the public forum that was held on October 9th. So there, I think that that was part of the process is to solicit feedback from residents and residents did attend and voice their concerns. And some of those same concerns are the ones that were in the emails that were sent to you all. Um, I think the, the initial plea, which came back in August, um, from Doug was that there's recreational assets there and that potentially the rec commission could help support those, you know, by voicing the importance of recreation in that area. That's what I read. It seems like the, the concerns were more that the plans were further along than they expected from a discussion or like a public forum or reaction. So it's like, I don't think we have anything that we can really impact right now until maybe it's done. And then we can turn around and say, you know, all right, great. Like, as this is getting the final stages, is there a boat launch opportunity? Is there this offering? Like, can we make, but other than that, I don't think we can impact the plans right now. Yeah. What are the, what are your proposals? Yeah. Can we endorse or support those? Yeah. Can you say that's accurate? Yeah. Yeah. I would say that. I mean, I think potentially folks that sent in some letters to the rec commission should, potentially there's a need for a response or acknowledgement or conversation, uh, with those residents just to understand what they were expecting from the rec commission. Okay. Well, if that's the case, then perhaps some representative from that particular group would come and speak to us as an agenda item, you know, next day. Well, and potentially like with open meeting law, it wouldn't be, have been appropriate at that time to, for any one commissioner to respond to that email and respond on the rec commission's app. I think that's the point that he just made is like, or is the rec commission in a position to nominate one of you all to formulate a response based on this discussion. I think that might be the next step, but I don't. I like ACE's idea of inviting people that submitted letters, if they want on adding an agenda item, if they want to come talk so we can better understand, you know, what anybody's looking for from the rec commission in particular. And then we take that. And then based on our own assessment, whether it makes any sense to put forth any kind of, you know, like written support, whether that goes to the, uh, select board or, you know, whoever is going to be liaising with mass dot, um, on the details of this project. We would not think that that would be the town manager at Wayland and town manager from, from, uh, certainly. I, I, I would think that those would be the, those would be the primary contacts. Yeah. So we could say we, you know, we invited folks that have expressed, you know, interest in the project one way or another, um, to talk at, at a rec commission meeting. And, you know, based on that here, here's what we think. Yeah. Yep. Yep. I think we could, that would be a, a good avenue to pursue. So we can put that, Catherine, on our, on our agenda for our next meeting. Thanks. Thanks. There's, um, also public, what is it? Public works meeting tonight. But I think a lot of people. Mm-hmm. So we'll probably learn something. All right. Two minutes. Yeah. Um, okay. Is there anything else that we need to review in terms of correspondence is concerned? None. We'll move on to item number five, which is commission announcements, reports and concerns. Uh, Mark, would you give us an update in terms of what happened with the Route 20? Yeah. So there's not a ton of movement, uh, necessarily to report back on. Um, the meeting was primarily focused on the study of the soils and, uh, capacity of the site to support multi-family housing. Um, there was a lot of talk around, you know, what uses could be applied there. Um, there's going to be continued testing, which was supported to fund, uh, as a model and all about. Um, and they said the engineers will continue testing at the site. Um. Where's that? Where's the, who, whose budget does that come from? Uh, that is a great question. Um, I'm not quite sure. Um, I'm not quite sure. I mean, it was the tune of $2,500. Oh. No, no, no. Yeah, no. Yeah. I assume that, that, that, that would come out of the, uh, sort of like board's budget or. Yeah. Should that come out of ours? No, no, no, no, no. Actually. Yes. Yeah. Uh, so they're continuing down the path. Um, from a recreation perspective, the, um, the opportunity for additional fields there is, um, I mean, actually it's not a large site. Um, but I think at this point, we need to really fully investigate where multifamily could be supported there. If at all, the costs to, um, you know, remedy the, the trash, candidly, um, is, you know, potentially prohibitive. So we need to understand kind of the scope of, um, the coverage area there. And then the costs associated, but yeah, it could be multiple. Potential. Do they, do they, um, do they still feel that there's a possibility of putting housing in? They, they are still working down that path. Okay. To investigate. Okay. Is it, the old landfill stuff is the, is part of the issue, correct? Yeah. Um, not an expert in landfills, but from what I was observing is, um, the, the, there's pretty good coverage of the landfill and cracking into it and removing the, you know, could be a pretty costly proposition. So, um, I think they really want to just complete that investigation to understand what the scope of both like family housing there would look like. Yeah. Um, and then once we have those studies complete, um, pick a path forward. Okay. Do they have a, do they have, um, their committee schedule? Uh, they are scheduling it right now. Okay. Do we have a recommendation to the committee, uh, as to our field needs and if, if they're inquiring to recreation as to what we're hoping that they, uh, not that I'm aware of right now. Um, I think it's premature. Yeah. They're waiting for the consultants to come forward and see what could happen there. And I think if the olds are homeless, then we'd probably be in position to say, this is what we'd like to see that. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. You, you know, my, my sense also is that, that, um, the budgetary constraints that this town faces going forward are enormous. And, uh, feels, uh, unfortunately, from my perspective, I'm not at the top of the risk. And I think next year, probably not going to happen. But maybe better possibility or something happened in 2027. But I think that, uh, well, yeah, but I think that the, uh, the proposals that this town has in front of it, uh, and obligations that the town has in front of it, uh, are enormous. And I think they're avoiding a, avoid an override this coming year. But after that, a lot of money. That's the, that's the best of my knowledge. I would say, let the work continue. And then we'll probably get in position. Yeah. At least, uh, at least have one. Want me to CPC? Yes, please. All right. So, yeah. So for, okay. Okay. So we met a couple weeks ago. Um, the CPC application date has been set for November 13th. So anybody who wants to submit an application for the funds has to do so by that date. Um. 11-13? Yes. Um, they, so there's three things. Um, unused CPC funds. Um, there are some funds and, and, and it's, I don't know that really, but it's anything for us to do. These things are in project, in process, but there's 1.25 million CPC funds allocated to recreation that has still not been used, but they may be in some point of being used. Um, the big one was the children's way playground. Um, a lot of money, I think 400,000 or so was it a lot allotted, but, um, it hasn't been used yet. But of course I think we have to, is it right that you have to pay the expense and then request reimbursement? That's right. So we're not there yet. And I have an update on that project when we get there. How could. Um, the other unfinished items are the constituent fields. Um, the whaling community pool hasn't, um, submitted their reimbursements, but I hear some reimbursements are going in, um, the beach fencing, and then the Heath Dudley woods, uh, fiscal year 2022 project is something that, uh, there's still funds up there for. Um, so they're also the next items they're interested in recreation's response to the EDC plan for town center. Um, that was the playground splash pad amphitheater pollinator garden and reading benches. Um, uh, that was sent to us a couple of weeks ago. Um, that, that item. So that's, that's one item that they'd like us to talk about. If you want to take a minute on that. Um, and then the last item is, um, if we have priorities that we anticipate submitting for, uh, the funds. So if they want to hear from us. Did we start with? EDC. Yeah. Just going to catch back up on it. Um, so that's a, on the low range, they said it was about 175,000 to the high range of 575,000. Um, the pavilion amphitheater stage seating, um, near to the space where recently they had the town. Weyland day celebration. Mm-hmm. Um, in some parts of it are developing the raw, rawish land. So there's a more established pavilion in the amphitheater. Um, there's pictures of it here, but, um, I don't know if I've done a lot to show them. But, um, this, this is what they're envisioning. Um, and there's a little theater there. I guess they're hoping to make natural ramping and then to have, um, um, splash pad options, uh, some sort of playground, uh, playground picture. Who, who would construct these, the splash pad and, and, uh, playground? The examples they've provided are, um, Beaverbrook and Belmont, uh. Do you mean who, like the contractor? Yeah, would he, would he be a point in place type of, a ground? Um, could be, yeah. So it would, it would have to go through procurement if it's on town property. So we couldn't say who's doing the project. Yeah, no, no, but, but, but it would be similar to what we've done. Yeah, it has to, we'd have to meet all the accessibility standards. Correct. But is there a, is there a, uh, is there a dollar value that we would request? I don't think that $170,000 budget included the playground, because that's not going to get you very far in the playground. The playground splash pad, they had $100,000 to $500,000 estimate. Um, the pavilion was $50,000 and the amphitheater seating is $25,000. Now is that all, would that all be related to quote unquote recreation or would it be? So it's proposed to go in the town center green, which is town owned land within the town center property. There are, I know there's conversations, the town center property development just changed hands. Yeah. There is talk about potentially the town center taking on an initiative like this to, you know, make it a more attractive place for shoppers. Yeah. Um, I don't know where that stands. I haven't talked to the new owners. Um, I think they're very anxious to make, make that, that town center work. Mm-hmm. I mean, as though, I don't think they would, they would have invested their capital, they invested in that, uh, to, to not be aggressively pursuing things that would help that whole complex thrive. Yeah. In my head, man. In front of you, or? No, I think, um, I think you're right. Um, you know, the amount of dollars that would need to be invested in that space are going to be a lot easier to receive from the developer than it is from tail. Yeah. So, I mean, I think it's a tremendous idea. Um, I think it makes sense for somebody to present to us on this. I mean, typically that's the process where if you want recreation or you want any board support for CPC, you put together your plan and you present it and we talk about it. Um, so I, I do agree though. I mean, from a, from a scale of town center, the amount of investment we're talking about is minimal, but to the scale of our town, the scale of that investment is simple. Mm-hmm. Uh, this was also the spot where you talked about the dog, uh, like one of the potential allocations for a dog park. Is that part of like, is that something that we would be able to go to them and then say like, you know, we also have this, can we include this into the design? I did connect those two different groups just so that they could potentially see if both are achievable in that area. I will say the EDC is an advisory board to the select board and they made this presentation, the one that you all received to the select board recently, I would say in the last two meetings or so. And I think the next move would be for the select board to either buy into this idea or not. And then I think the directive would come from that way to the recognition that would say, uh, start looking at this. This is what we want to do or hand it off to town center. We know what, what have you. So I think, again, it's probably premature for us to, uh, say campaign or, you know, advocate for this. I, like I said, it's a good idea. It's, you know, I, I would never say no more recreation. Right. You're right. But there's, there's channels to go through. And I think it's something like this because it rises to the level of capital would filter through the new capital planning and improvement. Improvement. Yeah. Now let me go back for, go back to the South landfill. Was that anything brought up with respect to Doug right there? Yep. They, they, yep. Um, what was the, what was the, what was the response? Uh, you know, consideration as we continue our work. So, I mean, I think the point is the work needs to be completed. Yeah. Oh, okay. Okay. Yeah. But is it, it's, it's potential. They present, they present it to us same way. Yep. Okay. That they present it to this body. And then, and then if we have, if we anticipate any CPC fund requests from immigration? For at the department level, probably not. What happened? The channel is that I submit a capital plan. It goes to the capital planning folks and they would earmark some projects if eligible to be funded by the CPC. And then it would turn into an application and we haven't reached that juncture yet. Um, I'm going to get to it when I talk to about it, but I think the width, the capital planning process is working that we don't actually have anything slated to go before the CPC this year, which I'm full disclosure pretty relieved about because we, like you said, there are, there's unspent mongues and those projects aren't done. And so I would love to have a year finish where we start. Yeah. Yeah. It's in 25 days too. So I'd be interested, be surprised if something came out. Yeah. Our capital budgets are due to the 10 minutes left on this project. Great. Catherine, would you give us a- Update. Update. Well, since our last meeting, I'm going to try to be brief. There's a lot to cover. Um, we started our early fall session with the school year. Um, our programs are a little lighter than usual this fall, but we anticipated that to some degree because we had established the rec pass program, which was a pseudo after school program to accommodate the wait list of the base program. The base program has since hired a new director and no longer suffers from long wait lists. Um, which I don't want to say it killed our rec pass program, but it's, it severely impacted our rec pass program, which is fine. Um, like we invented it to solve the problem and the problem is gone. So we're fine with that, but we had to kind of pivot and change the way that we operate and go back to a new system. So like our rec pass program used to run a busload of kids to town building, run three classes a day, five days a week. It slowly went to four days and now we're down to just one day a week, which is fine. We're happy to do that. Um, like I said, there's, there's not a need to do it. So, uh, one of the things we did this fall is kind of ramped up on events, which I would say prior to the rec pass program was a neglected area for the rec department. And so since September, we've run, um, two middle school fun nights where we set up, um, you know, sixth grade events at Wayland middle school. We, this past week took two busloads of seventh and eighth graders to which is woods. Uh, and that was a partnership with the youth and family services department, the Wayland police department and the middle school PTO. And that was also just intended to be one bus. You know, the second bus was due to high demand. Yep. They filled the whole second bus, which is really great. Right. Um, our field hockey program had some events, color wars, and they took a trip to the Harvard field hockey game, which is ranked second or third in the nation. We've got about 50 girls to go to that event. Um, that was all volunteer driven from the coaches, which was awesome. Um, we, you may have heard that we had our first annual Wayland festival. It is estimated that 5,500 people attended the event. It was a great weather day. Yeah. Um, we don't know the exact number and I don't know if we'll ever know the exact number, but that that's what the police chief estimated. Um, we had touch a truck. We had a parade. Yours truly drove the golf cart, uh, to lead the parade because it had to be an employee and there were no other employees around on Saturdays. Um, no, it was fun. It was fun. Um, they set up a pretty impressive stage performance that had 68 different musicians, uh, including Wayland high school students, the marching band, uh, and some big names like Dwayne Hagans over the course of six hours of, um, entertainment. Um, there was an arts pavilion and a multicultural festival. It was really cool. Um, well, we had a family set science night here that the community center in October. That was pretty well attended. We have another one expected November that we think will have better tenants because everyone from the October one is signing up for the November one. Um, we have our annual Halloween parade at town building on Monday, which is why I bought 90 pounds of candy. Um, that's an, that event has been going on for something like 40 years in this town. It's about 90 minutes, kids zero to seven walk through town building at this town building staff dress and costume and hand out candy. It's cute. Um, the community pool is having a ribbon cutting event on Sunday, which we've been invited to. Um, and then just looking ahead to some of the events that are coming in the spring that, um, have a little bit of attention from the rec department. Uh, the fishing derby, which ran for 26 years in this town was, um, run by a volunteer named Tom Antonellis, who is retiring from his role as the fishing derby captain. And we are looking at ways to kind of keep that alive, uh, without his support. Um, he did a lot and he worked around on that project. So, um, we'll see. It happens at Mill Pond every year in April. It's very popular too. Yep. Similarly, the, the Waco league, uh, has been in existence for about 18. I think there's going on their 19th year and the organizers of that program are working also to retire. And so we're looking at ways to keep that going potentially, uh, through the rec department. Uh, we're working with the red two 50 group, which is a group established to celebrate the 250th anniversary of America. And we're planning a vintage baseball game at constituent ballpark where they were old style uniforms, the old style rules. Um, and then we're in the painting. Yeah. And then we're also in the thick of planning for summer 2026. So that's basically our events. I've talked a little bit of our programs. Um, our winter brochure will go to the printer this, not this Friday. Uh, maybe this Friday, early next week. It should be in people's homes before Thanksgiving. Registration opens at the end of November and that's for all of our winter programs, which is our smallest offering just cause there's not a lot of outdoor activities. Um, but it includes the 50th annual learn to ski program with land and back. Um, which we're kind of excited about. Um, all 50 years I've been in the show of a valley ski area, which is cool. Um, Now the learning ski program, is that something that's available to. Okay. It's for kids grade three to eight. We usually take about two bus loads. It previously was on Wednesday afternoons and we've got more buses then. Um, but given the school start time changes, it has to be on Saturdays now. Um, but we do expect another two bus loads again this year. Um, and that'll start in January. Um, we're working on closing up, winterizing the beach house and that property for the winter. Um, you know, on top of all of our normal administrative tasks, uh, we're migrating to a new, same provider, but a new version of their website. Um, which is going to keep me pretty busy in December. Um, new version of the town beach website. No, or the rec department website, like the registration portal that we have. Um, they've kind of upgraded on there and, and we're ready to kind of migrate over. So it'll look and feel different when you go on to register for a rec program. Um, Is that going to be, um, more user-friendly? Yes. Okay. That's the goal. And it will all be web based too, which will help right now. We have a kind of a hybrid system between web and apps that we use. And it's, I'm excited about it. Um, well, we recently applied for a grant application, which we have gotten for the last five years to fund a summer park series at the Hannah Williams playground. And we'll find out about whether we got that grant this year in December. Um, How much? Uh, I applied for 5,000. We got 5,000 last year too. Uh, and that's about what we need for that. Um, we meet regularly with the mass park and rec association. Um, and when they're girl golf tournaments, but that's a shameless plug. Um, Um, I don't know. We have this new community center. We are programming classes in here. We have chess classes in this room on Thursday nights. Like I said, we have the family science nights. Now we have rec commission meetings here. Um, we're trying to gently roll out, um, participation in this building. We are finding that some people's GPSs don't get them to this building. And so we're finding a lot of people are late for classes. And I don't know what GPS people are using, but it brings them, uh, to Sperry's Liquors sometimes. Yeah. It's like going to church. You know, it was like. You can actually draw more people there. What's the possibility of having this building available, uh, after five o'clock? It is. So like our chess lessons are after five o'clock. Our family science nights were, it requires a little bit of extra coordination between the rec department and the COA department just to allow access. And that there is a plan at one point. There was a night custodian budgeted for this building and it got cut, but I believe it just got put back in the budget that would allow us to use this building more freely. Um, but like I said, that's why we're kind of rolling out a gentle usage of this building just with that, that consideration. So like chess classes don't really make a mess. And so I can, with confidence, put them in here knowing there's no custodian. Um, but it's not our classes or cooking classes. So there's that, um, the rest of my department update has to do with capital. So I don't know if we want to go to the next thing, which is kind of a very broad agenda item to talk about all capital. Um, and we talked at the last meeting, I think Jeff was saying that he wanted to see kind of what the capital plan is and what the requests are and what the future down the line would be for properties. Um, the process in Wayland has been challenging. Typically the, the capital planning in this town has been on a year to year basis and not multi-year basis. This colorful one is my crazy, not all of it would sit on the page. It actually goes out to like FY 66, but I just stopped at 36. Um, and this is what I submit as a capital plan every year. So if you look at this in chunks, like the first 10 lines are our playgrounds. And as you know, we have 12 playgrounds in town and I have them on every other year cycle. So that every other year we would go hopefully to the CPA, ask for a little bit of money and we have a playground. And then when we are done on a two year cycle with 12 playgrounds, we're back to playground number one at year 24. And that's about how long playgrounds take. Um, and so similarly, the second batch is, um, with parks that aren't necessarily playgrounds or fields. So like the tennis courts and the, uh, track and parks that have basketball hoops and stuff like that. The next group are diamonds, baseball diamonds. Where? I'm sorry. I've lost you. Oh, playgrounds, parks. Okay. Then there's diamonds and then there's fields which are typically the rectangular fields. And then I would say everything below fields is just kind of things that aren't fully fleshed out yet. But, um, so I tried to prioritize each of these. The 12 playgrounds are prioritized after an inspection based on their condition and their age and things like that. And so similarly, um, with the parks, the diamonds and the fields, um, there is, I know this is a lot and crazy, but the green ones are in progress, which means they've already had funding or design services of some kind. Um, and the gray ones are completed. And so my process is like we completed the town beach playground in FY 24 is when it was funded and that we would reapply for town beach in FY 50, again, 25 years down the line. So anytime that we make a repair, it, it comes up again in the plat, the capital plan at the end of its useful life. Um, I'm sorry, Mike doesn't have a copy of this. I can, I can try to send it to you, Mike. I just realized he was not saying, um, so this particular chart that we're looking at starts at FY 23. And you can see local was funded in FY 23 and completed. And then FY 24, there's a handful of things. So what I do is I take this monster spreadsheet every year, and I whittle it down into the few lines that are pertinent to to the people making the five-year capital plan. Um, then I can send this document to you as well. Um, and then here's the ticker and this is where it's, I don't get mad, but I have feelings about this. This is the town's approved capital plan that got approved at the last town meeting. And on the bottom of the second page, you can see the department's capital plan on the inside. It's, oh, it's well, and so there was a school of thought during the capital planning process that the rec department wouldn't oversee capital and that the indoor capital would be fall under the facilities department and outdoor capital would fall under the DPW. Um, but if you look at both the facilities department's capital or the DPW's capital, they don't actually include anything that I submitted. And so this year, for one, the town as a reference has some pretty significant financial challenges and capital. They're requesting that is only critical needs. Um, which like also what Lisa said is that recreation doesn't always, uh, rise to the level of critical needs. But, um, the, what we're being told is FY 27 to FY 31, which is the first five columns here, uh, or FY 30 are kind of locked in. And that we would just fill in the out year, which is now FY 31. Um, so my goal for the FY 31 budget is to put everything that was not included in the last four year capital plan there, and then continue on with my crazy chart there. I am hopeful that this new capital improvement planning committee will, um, recognize the need for capital maintenance on our facilities and include them in the plan. I do have updates on some of the open projects too. Yeah. Um, in the primary funding for your projects, CP, CPA. It has been in the 10 years that I've been here. Some projects are funded just through the general town's capital plan through the capital budget. Um, and the town manager did work in a hundred thousand dollars annually for field capital field maintenance this year. That's being spent on JBE and varsity baseball and a little bit of that line. Um, and DPW is working on a plan to spend a hundred thousand dollars over the next five years. A hundred thousand doesn't go very far in the, in the rec world. Um, and you can see some of these items on our, on my crazy chart here. Um, you know, some years it's millions, you know, like when, when it comes time to do the middle school backfields, which are in disrepair, it's going to be a multimillion dollar project. Um, but again, is it a critical, critical? And then the other part of that too, is that the town is really looking at a building. So if there, it is in the longterm capital plan to replace any of these school buildings. To me, it makes sense to dovetail the outdoor amenities of a school building with the school building. And so oftentimes towns will put the new building on the field and then demolish the old building. And that's where the fields go. Um, so we, we're not doing this in a vacuum. Like we have to work with the DPW, the facilities department, the school department to make some of these projects happen. Um, we have been successful on this chart. The green ones are mostly properties that are just recreation. So town beach and continual ballpark, town building field, um, that are not school properties, which we've done a lot over the last few years. So yeah, but CPA is, has been a favorite, uh, funding source when the budget folks are allocating funds for it. Yeah. So I, we can talk about the children's way playground this past year. I went to town meeting and got funds, $400,000 through the CPA to redo the children's way playground. And this is again, a kind of a function of the lack of central control over the capital budgets. Um, the DPW has been for several years working on something they call the MS4, uh, permit, which manages stormwater in a town-wide scale. And recently they made a recommendation to the town to remove the children's way playground from its current location. Um, and obviously that came in after we secured the money for the children's way playground. So there is talk right now. That's, it's not a, it's a, it's an idea on how to manage some of the town's overall stormwater situation. Um, so it's not that it's not a project killer, but it's something that you need to go have a conversation with, with, uh, the stormwater folks, the town engineer, and potentially the children's way. Um, so I wouldn't be surprised if that potentially gets turned back to the CPA. Um, it is a playground that is in disrepair and needs to be renovated. Um, but there's talk about also just picking up and moving it to some, another town building property. So that's why some of these projects that the CPA say we fund them and they're, you know, the money hasn't been spent yet. What, what the problem, what is the problem? And there's just, it was my opinion, unforeseeable that that request was coming in. Yeah. Then we try to get the funds used within three years or so, or at least some sort of. Yeah. So I do feel like I still have more time, but we were about to go to bid on it. It's designed and ready to go. We were about to go to bid on it. Um, probably the day after we learned this news about this. Where would it work? I think on the other side of the road, like in the courtyard, possibly. Oh, I'm actually surprised. They didn't make the, that wasn't an original thing only because I remember all of my kids going to the children's way and the amount of times the playground was closed because of turtles nesting. Yes. Like all the time. So I was sort of actually surprised that I'm, I guess I'm sort of surprised that they didn't decide to try to move it. We looked at it. Um, when I went to the CPA and asked for 400,000, the choice was to ask the CPA for 400,000 to renovate the property. And where it sits now or eight 50 to move it across the road. And so, um, right. But if, if there is a benefit other than the turtles to move it across the road, which is like a stormwater benefit for the town, then I could see that that might be. We, you know, you have to weigh the costs and benefits, but we could end up there. It was a lot more to move across the way. And conservation would be thrilled because it is currently in the wetlands. The hundred foot buffer for the wetlands. I didn't put it there. Um, the CPA funded town beach entry project, a bulk of that work is done. The fence is up. Um, some of, there are some other amenities that didn't get done this spring just because of work that was happening in the facilities department that we do hope to do this coming spring. So there should be a little bit more spending there, but I do expect, expect a sizable turn back to the CPA on that. Um, just cause the fence bids came in way lower than they were quoted. Um, Alpine is currently under construction is being done in house by DPW. It will hopefully be done this fall rest next spring and then open for play next fall. Um, what are the, what are the component parts of that? So, um, new irrigation, better drainage and expanding the current footprint. There was one 11 v 11 soccer field there. And then like a small T ball field that DPW hasn't used in 10 years. And so I think they're pulling the backstops and that area. It was all overgrown anyway. I'm trying to squeeze in either a 77 soccer field or even just a practice area for folks waiting to get on the 11 v 11 in Alpine. They are constrained by limited parking up in that area. Um, if you didn't hear the, the select board voted not to purchase 14 West Plain street. So that project's over really quick on Alpine. Is there a way where they can actually take them, like where the parking ends and just extend. And I mean, if they're getting rid of that table, if they're removing that table field, like extend that further. So that way there's like a full line of parking to go to the woods. It's possible if it's still town land, I think the property line is close there. I can look at that. Um, cause that is a parking nightmare. And I'm sure the neighbors hate everybody turning around, like going all the way down, realizing there's no parking, turning around on their driveways or in that circle, but being able to extend that. And then still being able to have. Yeah. The town actually owns a small parcel across the street from Alpine field that they talked about potentially having informal parking there, whether it was gravel and, you know, unpaved surfaces. That's where the story ends. Yep. They're gone for 10 years, but it's gone. Um, I can talk to DPDW that we did talk about expanding parking when we were there. I did, it's just not fresh in my brain. Um, we are working with Marinian associates still. I owe them an email, um, on constituent ballpark site plan to just different amenities there, but also, um, refurbishing the backstops and adding walking trails and things like that. The current estimates are in the millions. Um, but potentially CPA funding to obviously CPA wouldn't be able to give us the full amount. Yeah. And depending on the status, presenting the CPA this year might make sense too with some other funding that's coming in. Um, we should talk. I'll look into that. Yeah. And I own Nick from Meridian email probably about two weeks now and I just haven't had a chance to get to it, but I plan on it. Um, which is our feedback from our last week. Where'd you say those walking trails are? Sorry. So the idea is to, um, there were some sidewalks existing on the constituent property, but to formalize it so that you could do a loop around the whole park. So parents watching games could walk in. It's pretty cool. Uh, I have the plans and I can send them to you guys if you want to. Um, uh, Dudley Woods walking trails does have some CPA funds. I want to say it's $6,200. That amount was reserved for historical signage when we did that project. And the historical commission was going to spend it and still hasn't. Um, so I would leave it up to the CPA to decide whether they want to claw that back. Um, yeah, they're, they're working on the, on the signage. I guess there's some sort of issue with, um, um, I guess state organization that controls how many sides are in locations, I guess. Okay. They wanted to reduce the numbers. Okay. Um, I think that's what I have on capital at this point. I do have like a more formalized plan that I intend to prepare for this meeting, but by Friday I will have a formal submission submitted to the town manager's office on our capital plan, which at this point is just FY 31 because six through 30 or FY 26 through FY 30 are locked in on, which as you know, are blank. Okay. Well, I think we're just in number eight. We can schedule our next meeting. Uh, and credential agenda items. Well, what works for people in terms of November? I am pretty restricted in November. You are? But I, as I remind you every time, you do not need me to meet. Oh, yes. I like that. I am not on the right commission. But an integral part of it. Great. Let's start meeting without Katherine. Yeah. Do it. That won't be too much. The AV might be a little better if I wouldn't. The 18th maybe? What are the CPA in November? Submissions. Oh, that's on the 13th. 13th. Thursday. So what the 18th of November? CPA applications are due on the 13th. Yeah. So this commission, like I said, I don't anticipate any coming from the rec department, but potentially, would it be EJM that submits it, or would it be rec? It has been EJM. Okay. I think it will, I mean, just to help with the lift, continue to be, but obviously, it's collaboration. Yeah. Yeah. And I think like the CPA applications usually come before this. Yeah. Yeah. So this commission, like I said, I don't anticipate any coming from the rec department, but potentially, would it be EJM that submits it, or would it be rec? Do you think? It has been EJM. Okay. I think it will, I mean, just to help with the lift, continue to be. Yeah. But obviously, it's in collaboration. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah. Oh, and I think like the CPA applications usually come before this board for some kind of input or support board. Yeah. Otherwise, for all Recreate and Tag CPA applications. Yeah. Which means you'd want to meet before the 13th. Mm-hmm. The 11th. The 11th. I don't understand. You guys are all over this. I don't know. Give us another one. Oh my goodness. This one, if it's before November 13th, it's without me. Oh. Which is fun. You guys can do it. You can do it. It's been 10 years, but you can do it. What about the 7th? I mean, if we have to meet before the CPA meeting, I imagine this would be a very short meeting. Yeah. Do we want to? I mean, we can still meet on meetings? No. No. No. Unless we met here. I wouldn't do it. No. Okay. All right. 12th or 7th? I could probably zoom in on the 7th or the 12th. I'm unavailable on the 7th. Okay. The 12th works. The 13th. Because their meetings at night, right? Yeah. Wait a minute. Well, that's just the submission date, the next actual meeting. Oh, you're right. Because they usually ask us for our opinion on the 4th of December meeting. Yeah. The next CPC meeting is the 20th, but yeah, submissions need to be on the 13th. So, I think it's the 12th, you were saying? Yeah. Yeah. And I mean, it can be edited in the event that we, you know, elect not to, but it's the same. I don't know if you would need action from the recommendation to submit a ss. I don't think it's the same. Yeah. But then what's the submission date, the next actual meeting? Oh, you're right. Because they usually ask us for our opinion on it before the December meeting. Yeah. The next CPC meeting is the 20th. But yeah, submissions need to be on the 13th. So, I think it's the 12th, you were saying? Yeah. Is it the right day? Yeah. And I mean, it can be edited in the event that we, you know, elect not to. Well, that's right. I don't know if you would need action from the recommendation to submit a ss. I don't think. Because unless it was like co-sponsored or submitted by. Yeah. Right. But you've gone without us before. So. Yeah. And eventually it comes back. So. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. All right. If we're booked in this building, I'll make sure that we have the proper AV technology set up so Mike can participate fully. I should be able to be in person next time. I just got jammed up with a meeting this morning. Okay. Okay. But the 12th works for you, Mike. Yeah. Yep. Thanks. 1030. And in terms of agenda items. I know we mentioned the Sharon Bridge committee folks coming to talk with us. And we, I think that's the case. I think we probably want to limit that to no more than 15. no more than 15 to 10 years. Because if you don't put a limitation on it, it'll take the entire hour and a half. Generally speaking, that happens.
Is there anything else that comes to mind in terms of 10 hours? I would say, if there are any CPS solutions, we'd review them.
And then you're at the Sherman Bridge.
Do we have an update on 195 Maine? It's been very, very quiet. So there's an LSP that's been retained by the town that is doing this study to figure out where the PFAS is coming, and they are getting closer to figuring that out. There are some budgetary challenges that are being presented by that cleanup. I believe that two- or three-year clock from Mass DEP has started taking on that. And I think by next November, they need to have come to a permanent solution or temporary solution. But the potential development of that property probably wouldn't happen before that stuff. But I don't know. That's under the jurisdiction of the select board as well. But the reason, I think that the money it would cost to rehab that property is greater.
The numbers are high for $10,000,000. Hello? Yeah. Ouch. So. It's just a check. It could be vulcanized.
Catherine, the other issue that I don't want to raise it today because it's not an offense. But the amount of money that we spend, that we're charged by indirect costs to this town out of Jordan over $80,000. And what do we get to the $80,000 a year? And how is that, how is the $80,000 determined? And if it's a per employee situation, we're paying $20,000 a year per employee for the recreation indirects. Now, I would have to hazard a guess that anybody else in this town who has 50 employees paying $10,000 to $25,000 about the school account.
I just would like to have a definitive understanding of how we are being charged that what we're paying $80,000 a legitimate, I think it's a legitimate question. I have something from the finance degree that kind of outlines where those totals come from. We can talk about it at the next meeting, but it is a function of the revolving account. But from what I understand not all revolving accounts are being charged. That's my point.
Okay. Anything else today? One one one I think you've answered. Oh yeah, here we go. We're trying to make a motion to adjourn. I'll make a motion to adjourn. I hate being second reading in a row but I'm saying the first one in my answer. second. I will second. Okay.
Roll call. Okay. Roll call. Mike? Yes. Leslie? Yep. Yep. Yep. Mark? Yes. You have hands. I'm going to go.
all of the meeting order, is there a public comment? There is somebody with their hand raised, so we're going to go there.
Catherine, that person's gone. I don't see any attendees in here anymore. Okay. Thanks. So, public comment is completed. The minutes review and approved minutes is available September 16th, 2025, 2025. Michael Grant provided the minutes, so we can review those for a couple of minutes, and then vote to approve them or amend them. We had an opportunity to repeat. Would someone make a motion to accept the minutes as presented? All those in favor? We have to do this. Roll call. We can have Mike as remote. Okay. Roll call on Leslie. Yes. Yes.
Mike. Yes. Asa. Yes. I think the lines and everything are perfect. Very good. Well done, Michael. Thank you very much. I'm still very grateful. Thank you very much. Yes.
View correspondence, if any. Asa. Do you have any correspondence that you need to address? We did. Leslie made note of some correspondence from the CPC, but it's also on the agenda, so we could just hit that. And I don't, I did not receive correspondence. Usually, if somebody corresponds with the entire commission, I get a copy of it. Yep. And I don't, boom. There was some Sherman's Bridge stuff that came in. Okay. Do you want to address that now?
From my perspective, it's probably fine. Yeah. And for you all to discuss that project and that email that came in is perfectly acceptable under correspondence. Okay. So, Leslie, did you receive any credit funds? If so, would you please enlighten us? So, I mean, there was a few emails that went to the commissioners along with the select board to Whalen and Sudbury regarding the public works effort for the bridge. There's some concerns that the MassDOT funding is creating a motor-centric bridge that will be detrimental to residents who want to ride their bike and walk past there and use the landing strip. And just some comments in support of reviewing whether it should be a glue-land bridge with asphalt surface because it will create high speeds where a lot of residents, not all of them. I'm not sure how to properly relay this, but some people are worried that the asphalt surface will encourage higher weight vehicles and higher speeds and make it less safe. And others are interested in maintaining the wood surface so that it reduces and have a call for reduced speeds, also more signage in the area. And, but there are other residents who are disturbed by the sound of the wood and just want a safer surface and not to hear cars going over the surface. So, what's the closest residential house to the bridge? I mean, there's… Yeah, I mean, do you know? I mean, it has to be near to, what is it, 47 Sherman Bridge? Is that where that we, there's 62 Sherman Bridge Road and somebody from there reach out? There was a neighbor that submitted some correspondence about two meetings ago about the importance of recreation initiatives in the Sherman Bridge area, if you remember that. And I think that came up at the forum that they held as well. That has to do with, I think, one of the things with that is the boat launch, correct? And the CPC is involved in the potential funding of said boat launch. Right. Yeah. I attended that meeting. I'm checking her for it on separately. Power. Of course. Never in the trunk. So, is this a power issue for us? We need to… No, it's still going. It's just going to dwell. Oh, okay. So, when you attended the meeting, what were the parameters of that? I mean, why was I there in my capacity? Well, mostly to figure out what was going to happen to the boat launch. But I didn't really find that I really learned what they were going to do to change it. There was a lot about how… There was a lot of public comment that went on for a while, but… Is this a CPC meeting or is this a forum for the… This is a forum. For the bridge. It was a public works forum. Okay. It was a community feedback event. Okay. They have designs prepared. And, you know, there seemed to be an organized response present to a lot of people from Sherman Bridge and around the area. You know, people who ride their bikes on the bridges now have said the surface is dangerous because their tires could get poked. And so, some people do want an asphalt surface for that reason. But, you know, other people ride their bikes and like the wood surface because it's just… It's beautiful. It's stunning. And there's a lot of bird watching in the area. Some people are concerned that higher speeds will, you know, reduce the number of birds that are in the area. But, you know, a lot of people in New England at that meeting were talking about how the continuity of conservation lands through multiple towns is an important thing to preserve. And if we're creating something that's more of a motor-centric viewpoint, it might be disruptive to the wildlife. But I didn't really learn how they were going to change the boat launch and if they're going to make more spaces. Because if people are going to be going faster over this road… I mean, I did take a look at the similar bridge. At Minuteman Park is the Goulin bridge with an asphalt cover. And it just looks like a road. It doesn't look like a bridge at all. So, if they follow that model, it's going to be a fast road. People are going to be going to 45 miles per hour over this. This is a picture of a current bridge. Yeah. Over this bridge with no problem. So, I think we'll have to… I don't know what our opinion is on the boat launch if we have any sort of jurisdiction over what it's supposed to look like and if it's ours. So, I didn't really… Would it be something that would fall under our prison? So, there's potential there. If it was a boat… It's not technically rec land. I believe it's masked off land and it's shared custody between Sudbury and Williams. Okay. Okay. But, there are neighbors who have petitioned the rec commission via these correspondence, you know, both before the form that they held and after regarding the value of recreation in this area. So, yeah. So, we do offer recreation services on property that isn't rec property at every school. Right. It's technically school property. Right. The rail trail is state property as well, but it's a recreation resource. Right. So, it wouldn't be out of the ordinary to offer recreation services on a property that's not technically recreation. But those services would entail a boat lodge. Yeah. There were some other remarks from the folks sending letters about, you know, walking trails and fishing areas and just general access to nature as a recreation resource. But that was all in the email that was sent. What's the current status in terms of the repair of the bridge? Because I just read a comment from Tom that the bridge, if it's not addressed, will be unsafe within a year. I don't know. I mean, I do know that there's no signage as to what the speed limit is and what the weight limit is. And some people are saying that those sort of just basic criteria would help people self-navigate whether they should be taking the bridge or not and, like, make the bridge itself safer by not using it if it's unsafe for them. But I don't know how long this bridge has in its current state. I do know that there is an opportunity to get a significant amount of money using these, you know, treated wood frame. This is what I don't know. Do we get the money from the state? They'll just give us the wood and kind. They'll just give us the materials. State? Yeah. They pay for those? Yeah. I don't know. I don't know. My sense is it's MassDOT, that it's not DPW. But I don't know. I don't know. I don't know enough about this other than the correspondence that I was CC'd on that went to York. And I couldn't go to the forum that night because we had a different brick thing going on. Yeah. Okay. So we're sort of... I don't feel like there's a huge influence that we can provide. I mean, outside of, like, the opportunity to be able to have a whole bunch or anything, it seems like this is like a Public Works and MassDOT concern that, like, we obviously have an insight on, but I don't think there's anything that we can add or subtract from the authority process. From my perspective, we're supportive of recreation activities, supporting the recreation activities that they would like to have. And I think from your perspective, we would approach the CPC with some funding needs, which they would probably support. Yeah. I mean, I went to Sherman's Bridge the other day and spent 10 minutes there. And that amount of time, 3K first came and went. And, you know, used the boat launch effectively. There was a fisherman there. You know, there was a lot of activity in a very short amount of time that it was a very... It was like 12 o'clock on a Friday. You know, it wasn't peak Saturday. That I think this was getting a lot of space and just having our opinion that, you know, that they'd be mindful of what's appropriate for the recreation users would be a good note to add. Now, would you address this with the CPC at your upcoming meeting? They would want to know our opinion. You know, I don't know who the applicant would be or what exactly the ask is and who's the... Unless they're asking recreation to put through an application on behalf to establish a boat launch. I don't know. Okay, Kevin, if you're looking at this as part of the Department of Transportation and what other department would be engaged... Well, like we've got some correspondence that came in was from several residents that live in that area. So in terms of CPC applications, anybody in town can submit an application. So I wouldn't be surprised if there's a group in that neighborhood that would step forward and say, you know, this is what we want to see happen in this area. And it might be funded by the CPA, but it might be funded by MassDOT or even the town of Sudbury. I don't know enough about it to say, but I think there's an ask for it to be preserved as a current recreation resource, but also that it is useful as a form of transportation between the two towns. So there's a balance, and I think that the town needs to partner with Sudbury to strike that balance. Yeah, I think from my perspective, an applicant would have to come and present what their proposal is, and then we could weigh in in terms of whether we were supported or not supported, you know, based on what they present. But I don't think it's, I don't think it's, it's our position that we should instigate this, that we should be in the petitioner. Anybody else has a different opinion, perfectly willing to listen. Do we ever as a commission send like letters to whoever's in charge of, you know, in this case, it'd be MassDOT, a site saying, you know, here's what we're in favor of and why? I don't know that we've ever done that, but I think generally speaking, it would be the petitioner's responsibility to present that to the state, as well as present it to us, so we could weigh in in terms of whether we would be supportive of the proposals that they're making. Okay. That's my sense. Okay. You're correct. What, what, what, what would a, a petition from, you know, a Wayland resident look like, like a petition for what? That's a good question. I mean, I don't know if they would be petitioning for like construction or of a, of a boat ramp or, you know, group signage or spaces allotted maintenance. Um, but it's usually, you know, a specific dollar amount they want with the, you know, finite project. I, I don't, I can't anticipate what they'll be asking for in this project. But I think that, that, that, that the initiation of that has to come from neighbors or, or groups that might be concerned about what's going to happen with Sherman Bridge. Yeah. I think that is a likely avenue that it would come through, but it could be, I don't know. I think they need the, I think it's a public safety issue. Like they're going to need to have the police chiefs or whatever the jurisdiction is comment on, you know, speed and surface and motor access versus pedestrian access. I mean, it's like, um, but my sense is it would be, it would be a combined effort from both Sudbury and Weyland in terms of doing this. And the DPW, I think, I think Tom Holder weighed in, in terms of, to the extent saying that in a year's time, if nothing's done, the bridge would be unsafe to use. So does, um, cause mass dot there, eventually they're just going to, you know, in response to it being a safety issue, they're just going to, you know, make improvements to the bridge. Right. I would think that that would be. Case. Case. So do we know if they have any kind of, um, formalized process? Cause it sounds like there was a, a forum with the department of public works, but does mass dot have any of the like formalized, uh, process for input from, you know, constituents and affected parties. Um, you know, to kind of say that this is what we'd like to see happen or no. I think, I mean, am I wrong that it's either we accept their materials or we don't, we go our own way or, or we go with what mass dot is offering us. And this is where are the two town managers to determine. To determine. Probably correct. I think that would be. Probably. I just don't know enough about this to. I don't either. And Catherine, you, do you expect that to be the case? So mass dot was a participant in the, jointly with Sudbury and Wayland in the public forum that was held on October 9th. So there, I think that that was part of the process is to solicit feedback from residents and residents did attend and voice their concerns. And some of those same concerns are the ones that were in the emails that were sent to you all. Um, I think the, the initial plea, which came back in August, um, from Doug was that there's recreational assets there and that potentially the rec commission could help support those, you know, by voicing the importance of recreation in that area. That's what I read. It seems like the, the concerns were more that the plans were further along than they expected from a discussion or like a public forum or reaction. So it's like, I don't think we have anything that we can really impact right now until maybe it's done. And then we can turn around and say, you know, all right, great. Like, as this is getting the final stages, is there a boat launch opportunity? Is there this offering? Like, can we make, but other than that, I don't think we can impact the plans right now. Yeah. What are the, what are your proposals? Yeah. Can we endorse or support those? Yeah. Can you say that's accurate? Yeah. Yeah. I would say that. I mean, I think potentially folks that sent in some letters to the rec commission should, potentially there's a need for a response or acknowledgement or conversation, uh, with those residents just to understand what they were expecting from the rec commission. Okay. Well, if that's the case, then perhaps some representative from that particular group would come and speak to us as an agenda item, you know, next day. Well, and potentially like with open meeting law, it wouldn't be, have been appropriate at that time to, for any one commissioner to respond to that email and respond on the rec commission's app. I think that's the point that he just made is like, or is the rec commission in a position to nominate one of you all to formulate a response based on this discussion. I think that might be the next step, but I don't. I like ACE's idea of inviting people that submitted letters, if they want on adding an agenda item, if they want to come talk so we can better understand, you know, what anybody's looking for from the rec commission in particular. And then we take that. And then based on our own assessment, whether it makes any sense to put forth any kind of, you know, like written support, whether that goes to the, uh, select board or, you know, whoever is going to be liaising with mass dot, um, on the details of this project. We would not think that that would be the town manager at Wayland and town manager from, from, uh, certainly. I, I, I would think that those would be the, those would be the primary contacts. Yeah. So we could say we, you know, we invited folks that have expressed, you know, interest in the project one way or another, um, to talk at, at a rec commission meeting. And, you know, based on that here, here's what we think. Yeah. Yep. Yep. I think we could, that would be a, a good avenue to pursue. So we can put that, Catherine, on our, on our agenda for our next meeting. Thanks. Thanks. There's, um, also public, what is it? Public works meeting tonight. But I think a lot of people. Mm-hmm. So we'll probably learn something. All right. Two minutes. Yeah. Um, okay. Is there anything else that we need to review in terms of correspondence is concerned? None. We'll move on to item number five, which is commission announcements, reports and concerns. Uh, Mark, would you give us an update in terms of what happened with the Route 20? Yeah. So there's not a ton of movement, uh, necessarily to report back on. Um, the meeting was primarily focused on the study of the soils and, uh, capacity of the site to support multi-family housing. Um, there was a lot of talk around, you know, what uses could be applied there. Um, there's going to be continued testing, which was supported to fund, uh, as a model and all about. Um, and they said the engineers will continue testing at the site. Um. Where's that? Where's the, who, whose budget does that come from? Uh, that is a great question. Um, I'm not quite sure. Um, I'm not quite sure. I mean, it was the tune of $2,500. Oh. No, no, no. Yeah, no. Yeah. I assume that, that, that, that would come out of the, uh, sort of like board's budget or. Yeah. Should that come out of ours? No, no, no, no, no. Actually. Yes. Yeah. Uh, so they're continuing down the path. Um, from a recreation perspective, the, um, the opportunity for additional fields there is, um, I mean, actually it's not a large site. Um, but I think at this point, we need to really fully investigate where multifamily could be supported there. If at all, the costs to, um, you know, remedy the, the trash, candidly, um, is, you know, potentially prohibitive. So we need to understand kind of the scope of, um, the coverage area there. And then the costs associated, but yeah, it could be multiple. Potential. Do they, do they, um, do they still feel that there's a possibility of putting housing in? They, they are still working down that path. Okay. To investigate. Okay. Is it, the old landfill stuff is the, is part of the issue, correct? Yeah. Um, not an expert in landfills, but from what I was observing is, um, the, the, there's pretty good coverage of the landfill and cracking into it and removing the, you know, could be a pretty costly proposition. So, um, I think they really want to just complete that investigation to understand what the scope of both like family housing there would look like. Yeah. Um, and then once we have those studies complete, um, pick a path forward. Okay. Do they have a, do they have, um, their committee schedule? Uh, they are scheduling it right now. Okay. Do we have a recommendation to the committee, uh, as to our field needs and if, if they're inquiring to recreation as to what we're hoping that they, uh, not that I'm aware of right now. Um, I think it's premature. Yeah. They're waiting for the consultants to come forward and see what could happen there. And I think if the olds are homeless, then we'd probably be in position to say, this is what we'd like to see that. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. You, you know, my, my sense also is that, that, um, the budgetary constraints that this town faces going forward are enormous. And, uh, feels, uh, unfortunately, from my perspective, I'm not at the top of the risk. And I think next year, probably not going to happen. But maybe better possibility or something happened in 2027. But I think that, uh, well, yeah, but I think that the, uh, the proposals that this town has in front of it, uh, and obligations that the town has in front of it, uh, are enormous. And I think they're avoiding a, avoid an override this coming year. But after that, a lot of money. That's the, that's the best of my knowledge. I would say, let the work continue. And then we'll probably get in position. Yeah. At least, uh, at least have one. Want me to CPC? Yes, please. All right. So, yeah. So for, okay. Okay. So we met a couple weeks ago. Um, the CPC application date has been set for November 13th. So anybody who wants to submit an application for the funds has to do so by that date. Um. 11-13? Yes. Um, they, so there's three things. Um, unused CPC funds. Um, there are some funds and, and, and it's, I don't know that really, but it's anything for us to do. These things are in project, in process, but there's 1.25 million CPC funds allocated to recreation that has still not been used, but they may be in some point of being used. Um, the big one was the children's way playground. Um, a lot of money, I think 400,000 or so was it a lot allotted, but, um, it hasn't been used yet. But of course I think we have to, is it right that you have to pay the expense and then request reimbursement? That's right. So we're not there yet. And I have an update on that project when we get there. How could. Um, the other unfinished items are the constituent fields. Um, the whaling community pool hasn't, um, submitted their reimbursements, but I hear some reimbursements are going in, um, the beach fencing, and then the Heath Dudley woods, uh, fiscal year 2022 project is something that, uh, there's still funds up there for. Um, so they're also the next items they're interested in recreation's response to the EDC plan for town center. Um, that was the playground splash pad amphitheater pollinator garden and reading benches. Um, uh, that was sent to us a couple of weeks ago. Um, that, that item. So that's, that's one item that they'd like us to talk about. If you want to take a minute on that. Um, and then the last item is, um, if we have priorities that we anticipate submitting for, uh, the funds. So if they want to hear from us. Did we start with? EDC. Yeah. Just going to catch back up on it. Um, so that's a, on the low range, they said it was about 175,000 to the high range of 575,000. Um, the pavilion amphitheater stage seating, um, near to the space where recently they had the town. Weyland day celebration. Mm-hmm. Um, in some parts of it are developing the raw, rawish land. So there's a more established pavilion in the amphitheater. Um, there's pictures of it here, but, um, I don't know if I've done a lot to show them. But, um, this, this is what they're envisioning. Um, and there's a little theater there. I guess they're hoping to make natural ramping and then to have, um, um, splash pad options, uh, some sort of playground, uh, playground picture. Who, who would construct these, the splash pad and, and, uh, playground? The examples they've provided are, um, Beaverbrook and Belmont, uh. Do you mean who, like the contractor? Yeah, would he, would he be a point in place type of, a ground? Um, could be, yeah. So it would, it would have to go through procurement if it's on town property. So we couldn't say who's doing the project. Yeah, no, no, but, but, but it would be similar to what we've done. Yeah, it has to, we'd have to meet all the accessibility standards. Correct. But is there a, is there a, uh, is there a dollar value that we would request? I don't think that $170,000 budget included the playground, because that's not going to get you very far in the playground. The playground splash pad, they had $100,000 to $500,000 estimate. Um, the pavilion was $50,000 and the amphitheater seating is $25,000. Now is that all, would that all be related to quote unquote recreation or would it be? So it's proposed to go in the town center green, which is town owned land within the town center property. There are, I know there's conversations, the town center property development just changed hands. Yeah. There is talk about potentially the town center taking on an initiative like this to, you know, make it a more attractive place for shoppers. Yeah. Um, I don't know where that stands. I haven't talked to the new owners. Um, I think they're very anxious to make, make that, that town center work. Mm-hmm. I mean, as though, I don't think they would, they would have invested their capital, they invested in that, uh, to, to not be aggressively pursuing things that would help that whole complex thrive. Yeah. In my head, man. In front of you, or? No, I think, um, I think you're right. Um, you know, the amount of dollars that would need to be invested in that space are going to be a lot easier to receive from the developer than it is from tail. Yeah. So, I mean, I think it's a tremendous idea. Um, I think it makes sense for somebody to present to us on this. I mean, typically that's the process where if you want recreation or you want any board support for CPC, you put together your plan and you present it and we talk about it. Um, so I, I do agree though. I mean, from a, from a scale of town center, the amount of investment we're talking about is minimal, but to the scale of our town, the scale of that investment is simple. Mm-hmm. Uh, this was also the spot where you talked about the dog, uh, like one of the potential allocations for a dog park. Is that part of like, is that something that we would be able to go to them and then say like, you know, we also have this, can we include this into the design? I did connect those two different groups just so that they could potentially see if both are achievable in that area. I will say the EDC is an advisory board to the select board and they made this presentation, the one that you all received to the select board recently, I would say in the last two meetings or so. And I think the next move would be for the select board to either buy into this idea or not. And then I think the directive would come from that way to the recognition that would say, uh, start looking at this. This is what we want to do or hand it off to town center. We know what, what have you. So I think, again, it's probably premature for us to, uh, say campaign or, you know, advocate for this. I, like I said, it's a good idea. It's, you know, I, I would never say no more recreation. Right. You're right. But there's, there's channels to go through. And I think it's something like this because it rises to the level of capital would filter through the new capital planning and improvement. Improvement. Yeah. Now let me go back for, go back to the South landfill. Was that anything brought up with respect to Doug right there? Yep. They, they, yep. Um, what was the, what was the, what was the response? Uh, you know, consideration as we continue our work. So, I mean, I think the point is the work needs to be completed. Yeah. Oh, okay. Okay. Yeah. But is it, it's, it's potential. They present, they present it to us same way. Yep. Okay. That they present it to this body. And then, and then if we have, if we anticipate any CPC fund requests from immigration? For at the department level, probably not. What happened? The channel is that I submit a capital plan. It goes to the capital planning folks and they would earmark some projects if eligible to be funded by the CPC. And then it would turn into an application and we haven't reached that juncture yet. Um, I'm going to get to it when I talk to about it, but I think the width, the capital planning process is working that we don't actually have anything slated to go before the CPC this year, which I'm full disclosure pretty relieved about because we, like you said, there are, there's unspent mongues and those projects aren't done. And so I would love to have a year finish where we start. Yeah. Yeah. It's in 25 days too. So I'd be interested, be surprised if something came out. Yeah. Our capital budgets are due to the 10 minutes left on this project. Great. Catherine, would you give us a- Update. Update. Well, since our last meeting, I'm going to try to be brief. There's a lot to cover. Um, we started our early fall session with the school year. Um, our programs are a little lighter than usual this fall, but we anticipated that to some degree because we had established the rec pass program, which was a pseudo after school program to accommodate the wait list of the base program. The base program has since hired a new director and no longer suffers from long wait lists. Um, which I don't want to say it killed our rec pass program, but it's, it severely impacted our rec pass program, which is fine. Um, like we invented it to solve the problem and the problem is gone. So we're fine with that, but we had to kind of pivot and change the way that we operate and go back to a new system. So like our rec pass program used to run a busload of kids to town building, run three classes a day, five days a week. It slowly went to four days and now we're down to just one day a week, which is fine. We're happy to do that. Um, like I said, there's, there's not a need to do it. So, uh, one of the things we did this fall is kind of ramped up on events, which I would say prior to the rec pass program was a neglected area for the rec department. And so since September, we've run, um, two middle school fun nights where we set up, um, you know, sixth grade events at Wayland middle school. We, this past week took two busloads of seventh and eighth graders to which is woods. Uh, and that was a partnership with the youth and family services department, the Wayland police department and the middle school PTO. And that was also just intended to be one bus. You know, the second bus was due to high demand. Yep. They filled the whole second bus, which is really great. Right. Um, our field hockey program had some events, color wars, and they took a trip to the Harvard field hockey game, which is ranked second or third in the nation. We've got about 50 girls to go to that event. Um, that was all volunteer driven from the coaches, which was awesome. Um, we, you may have heard that we had our first annual Wayland festival. It is estimated that 5,500 people attended the event. It was a great weather day. Yeah. Um, we don't know the exact number and I don't know if we'll ever know the exact number, but that that's what the police chief estimated. Um, we had touch a truck. We had a parade. Yours truly drove the golf cart, uh, to lead the parade because it had to be an employee and there were no other employees around on Saturdays. Um, no, it was fun. It was fun. Um, they set up a pretty impressive stage performance that had 68 different musicians, uh, including Wayland high school students, the marching band, uh, and some big names like Dwayne Hagans over the course of six hours of, um, entertainment. Um, there was an arts pavilion and a multicultural festival. It was really cool. Um, well, we had a family set science night here that the community center in October. That was pretty well attended. We have another one expected November that we think will have better tenants because everyone from the October one is signing up for the November one. Um, we have our annual Halloween parade at town building on Monday, which is why I bought 90 pounds of candy. Um, that's an, that event has been going on for something like 40 years in this town. It's about 90 minutes, kids zero to seven walk through town building at this town building staff dress and costume and hand out candy. It's cute. Um, the community pool is having a ribbon cutting event on Sunday, which we've been invited to. Um, and then just looking ahead to some of the events that are coming in the spring that, um, have a little bit of attention from the rec department. Uh, the fishing derby, which ran for 26 years in this town was, um, run by a volunteer named Tom Antonellis, who is retiring from his role as the fishing derby captain. And we are looking at ways to kind of keep that alive, uh, without his support. Um, he did a lot and he worked around on that project. So, um, we'll see. It happens at Mill Pond every year in April. It's very popular too. Yep. Similarly, the, the Waco league, uh, has been in existence for about 18. I think there's going on their 19th year and the organizers of that program are working also to retire. And so we're looking at ways to keep that going potentially, uh, through the rec department. Uh, we're working with the red two 50 group, which is a group established to celebrate the 250th anniversary of America. And we're planning a vintage baseball game at constituent ballpark where they were old style uniforms, the old style rules. Um, and then we're in the painting. Yeah. And then we're also in the thick of planning for summer 2026. So that's basically our events. I've talked a little bit of our programs. Um, our winter brochure will go to the printer this, not this Friday. Uh, maybe this Friday, early next week. It should be in people's homes before Thanksgiving. Registration opens at the end of November and that's for all of our winter programs, which is our smallest offering just cause there's not a lot of outdoor activities. Um, but it includes the 50th annual learn to ski program with land and back. Um, which we're kind of excited about. Um, all 50 years I've been in the show of a valley ski area, which is cool. Um, Now the learning ski program, is that something that's available to. Okay. It's for kids grade three to eight. We usually take about two bus loads. It previously was on Wednesday afternoons and we've got more buses then. Um, but given the school start time changes, it has to be on Saturdays now. Um, but we do expect another two bus loads again this year. Um, and that'll start in January. Um, we're working on closing up, winterizing the beach house and that property for the winter. Um, you know, on top of all of our normal administrative tasks, uh, we're migrating to a new, same provider, but a new version of their website. Um, which is going to keep me pretty busy in December. Um, new version of the town beach website. No, or the rec department website, like the registration portal that we have. Um, they've kind of upgraded on there and, and we're ready to kind of migrate over. So it'll look and feel different when you go on to register for a rec program. Um, Is that going to be, um, more user-friendly? Yes. Okay. That's the goal. And it will all be web based too, which will help right now. We have a kind of a hybrid system between web and apps that we use. And it's, I'm excited about it. Um, well, we recently applied for a grant application, which we have gotten for the last five years to fund a summer park series at the Hannah Williams playground. And we'll find out about whether we got that grant this year in December. Um, How much? Uh, I applied for 5,000. We got 5,000 last year too. Uh, and that's about what we need for that. Um, we meet regularly with the mass park and rec association. Um, and when they're girl golf tournaments, but that's a shameless plug. Um, Um, I don't know. We have this new community center. We are programming classes in here. We have chess classes in this room on Thursday nights. Like I said, we have the family science nights. Now we have rec commission meetings here. Um, we're trying to gently roll out, um, participation in this building. We are finding that some people's GPSs don't get them to this building. And so we're finding a lot of people are late for classes. And I don't know what GPS people are using, but it brings them, uh, to Sperry's Liquors sometimes. Yeah. It's like going to church. You know, it was like. You can actually draw more people there. What's the possibility of having this building available, uh, after five o'clock? It is. So like our chess lessons are after five o'clock. Our family science nights were, it requires a little bit of extra coordination between the rec department and the COA department just to allow access. And that there is a plan at one point. There was a night custodian budgeted for this building and it got cut, but I believe it just got put back in the budget that would allow us to use this building more freely. Um, but like I said, that's why we're kind of rolling out a gentle usage of this building just with that, that consideration. So like chess classes don't really make a mess. And so I can, with confidence, put them in here knowing there's no custodian. Um, but it's not our classes or cooking classes. So there's that, um, the rest of my department update has to do with capital. So I don't know if we want to go to the next thing, which is kind of a very broad agenda item to talk about all capital. Um, and we talked at the last meeting, I think Jeff was saying that he wanted to see kind of what the capital plan is and what the requests are and what the future down the line would be for properties. Um, the process in Wayland has been challenging. Typically the, the capital planning in this town has been on a year to year basis and not multi-year basis. This colorful one is my crazy, not all of it would sit on the page. It actually goes out to like FY 66, but I just stopped at 36. Um, and this is what I submit as a capital plan every year. So if you look at this in chunks, like the first 10 lines are our playgrounds. And as you know, we have 12 playgrounds in town and I have them on every other year cycle. So that every other year we would go hopefully to the CPA, ask for a little bit of money and we have a playground. And then when we are done on a two year cycle with 12 playgrounds, we're back to playground number one at year 24. And that's about how long playgrounds take. Um, and so similarly, the second batch is, um, with parks that aren't necessarily playgrounds or fields. So like the tennis courts and the, uh, track and parks that have basketball hoops and stuff like that. The next group are diamonds, baseball diamonds. Where? I'm sorry. I've lost you. Oh, playgrounds, parks. Okay. Then there's diamonds and then there's fields which are typically the rectangular fields. And then I would say everything below fields is just kind of things that aren't fully fleshed out yet. But, um, so I tried to prioritize each of these. The 12 playgrounds are prioritized after an inspection based on their condition and their age and things like that. And so similarly, um, with the parks, the diamonds and the fields, um, there is, I know this is a lot and crazy, but the green ones are in progress, which means they've already had funding or design services of some kind. Um, and the gray ones are completed. And so my process is like we completed the town beach playground in FY 24 is when it was funded and that we would reapply for town beach in FY 50, again, 25 years down the line. So anytime that we make a repair, it, it comes up again in the plat, the capital plan at the end of its useful life. Um, I'm sorry, Mike doesn't have a copy of this. I can, I can try to send it to you, Mike. I just realized he was not saying, um, so this particular chart that we're looking at starts at FY 23. And you can see local was funded in FY 23 and completed. And then FY 24, there's a handful of things. So what I do is I take this monster spreadsheet every year, and I whittle it down into the few lines that are pertinent to to the people making the five-year capital plan. Um, then I can send this document to you as well. Um, and then here's the ticker and this is where it's, I don't get mad, but I have feelings about this. This is the town's approved capital plan that got approved at the last town meeting. And on the bottom of the second page, you can see the department's capital plan on the inside. It's, oh, it's well, and so there was a school of thought during the capital planning process that the rec department wouldn't oversee capital and that the indoor capital would be fall under the facilities department and outdoor capital would fall under the DPW. Um, but if you look at both the facilities department's capital or the DPW's capital, they don't actually include anything that I submitted. And so this year, for one, the town as a reference has some pretty significant financial challenges and capital. They're requesting that is only critical needs. Um, which like also what Lisa said is that recreation doesn't always, uh, rise to the level of critical needs. But, um, the, what we're being told is FY 27 to FY 31, which is the first five columns here, uh, or FY 30 are kind of locked in. And that we would just fill in the out year, which is now FY 31. Um, so my goal for the FY 31 budget is to put everything that was not included in the last four year capital plan there, and then continue on with my crazy chart there. I am hopeful that this new capital improvement planning committee will, um, recognize the need for capital maintenance on our facilities and include them in the plan. I do have updates on some of the open projects too. Yeah. Um, in the primary funding for your projects, CP, CPA. It has been in the 10 years that I've been here. Some projects are funded just through the general town's capital plan through the capital budget. Um, and the town manager did work in a hundred thousand dollars annually for field capital field maintenance this year. That's being spent on JBE and varsity baseball and a little bit of that line. Um, and DPW is working on a plan to spend a hundred thousand dollars over the next five years. A hundred thousand doesn't go very far in the, in the rec world. Um, and you can see some of these items on our, on my crazy chart here. Um, you know, some years it's millions, you know, like when, when it comes time to do the middle school backfields, which are in disrepair, it's going to be a multimillion dollar project. Um, but again, is it a critical, critical? And then the other part of that too, is that the town is really looking at a building. So if there, it is in the longterm capital plan to replace any of these school buildings. To me, it makes sense to dovetail the outdoor amenities of a school building with the school building. And so oftentimes towns will put the new building on the field and then demolish the old building. And that's where the fields go. Um, so we, we're not doing this in a vacuum. Like we have to work with the DPW, the facilities department, the school department to make some of these projects happen. Um, we have been successful on this chart. The green ones are mostly properties that are just recreation. So town beach and continual ballpark, town building field, um, that are not school properties, which we've done a lot over the last few years. So yeah, but CPA is, has been a favorite, uh, funding source when the budget folks are allocating funds for it. Yeah. So I, we can talk about the children's way playground this past year. I went to town meeting and got funds, $400,000 through the CPA to redo the children's way playground. And this is again, a kind of a function of the lack of central control over the capital budgets. Um, the DPW has been for several years working on something they call the MS4, uh, permit, which manages stormwater in a town-wide scale. And recently they made a recommendation to the town to remove the children's way playground from its current location. Um, and obviously that came in after we secured the money for the children's way playground. So there is talk right now. That's, it's not a, it's a, it's an idea on how to manage some of the town's overall stormwater situation. Um, so it's not that it's not a project killer, but it's something that you need to go have a conversation with, with, uh, the stormwater folks, the town engineer, and potentially the children's way. Um, so I wouldn't be surprised if that potentially gets turned back to the CPA. Um, it is a playground that is in disrepair and needs to be renovated. Um, but there's talk about also just picking up and moving it to some, another town building property. So that's why some of these projects that the CPA say we fund them and they're, you know, the money hasn't been spent yet. What, what the problem, what is the problem? And there's just, it was my opinion, unforeseeable that that request was coming in. Yeah. Then we try to get the funds used within three years or so, or at least some sort of. Yeah. So I do feel like I still have more time, but we were about to go to bid on it. It's designed and ready to go. We were about to go to bid on it. Um, probably the day after we learned this news about this. Where would it work? I think on the other side of the road, like in the courtyard, possibly. Oh, I'm actually surprised. They didn't make the, that wasn't an original thing only because I remember all of my kids going to the children's way and the amount of times the playground was closed because of turtles nesting. Yes. Like all the time. So I was sort of actually surprised that I'm, I guess I'm sort of surprised that they didn't decide to try to move it. We looked at it. Um, when I went to the CPA and asked for 400,000, the choice was to ask the CPA for 400,000 to renovate the property. And where it sits now or eight 50 to move it across the road. And so, um, right. But if, if there is a benefit other than the turtles to move it across the road, which is like a stormwater benefit for the town, then I could see that that might be. We, you know, you have to weigh the costs and benefits, but we could end up there. It was a lot more to move across the way. And conservation would be thrilled because it is currently in the wetlands. The hundred foot buffer for the wetlands. I didn't put it there. Um, the CPA funded town beach entry project, a bulk of that work is done. The fence is up. Um, some of, there are some other amenities that didn't get done this spring just because of work that was happening in the facilities department that we do hope to do this coming spring. So there should be a little bit more spending there, but I do expect, expect a sizable turn back to the CPA on that. Um, just cause the fence bids came in way lower than they were quoted. Um, Alpine is currently under construction is being done in house by DPW. It will hopefully be done this fall rest next spring and then open for play next fall. Um, what are the, what are the component parts of that? So, um, new irrigation, better drainage and expanding the current footprint. There was one 11 v 11 soccer field there. And then like a small T ball field that DPW hasn't used in 10 years. And so I think they're pulling the backstops and that area. It was all overgrown anyway. I'm trying to squeeze in either a 77 soccer field or even just a practice area for folks waiting to get on the 11 v 11 in Alpine. They are constrained by limited parking up in that area. Um, if you didn't hear the, the select board voted not to purchase 14 West Plain street. So that project's over really quick on Alpine. Is there a way where they can actually take them, like where the parking ends and just extend. And I mean, if they're getting rid of that table, if they're removing that table field, like extend that further. So that way there's like a full line of parking to go to the woods. It's possible if it's still town land, I think the property line is close there. I can look at that. Um, cause that is a parking nightmare. And I'm sure the neighbors hate everybody turning around, like going all the way down, realizing there's no parking, turning around on their driveways or in that circle, but being able to extend that. And then still being able to have. Yeah. The town actually owns a small parcel across the street from Alpine field that they talked about potentially having informal parking there, whether it was gravel and, you know, unpaved surfaces. That's where the story ends. Yep. They're gone for 10 years, but it's gone. Um, I can talk to DPDW that we did talk about expanding parking when we were there. I did, it's just not fresh in my brain. Um, we are working with Marinian associates still. I owe them an email, um, on constituent ballpark site plan to just different amenities there, but also, um, refurbishing the backstops and adding walking trails and things like that. The current estimates are in the millions. Um, but potentially CPA funding to obviously CPA wouldn't be able to give us the full amount. Yeah. And depending on the status, presenting the CPA this year might make sense too with some other funding that's coming in. Um, we should talk. I'll look into that. Yeah. And I own Nick from Meridian email probably about two weeks now and I just haven't had a chance to get to it, but I plan on it. Um, which is our feedback from our last week. Where'd you say those walking trails are? Sorry. So the idea is to, um, there were some sidewalks existing on the constituent property, but to formalize it so that you could do a loop around the whole park. So parents watching games could walk in. It's pretty cool. Uh, I have the plans and I can send them to you guys if you want to. Um, uh, Dudley Woods walking trails does have some CPA funds. I want to say it's $6,200. That amount was reserved for historical signage when we did that project. And the historical commission was going to spend it and still hasn't. Um, so I would leave it up to the CPA to decide whether they want to claw that back. Um, yeah, they're, they're working on the, on the signage. I guess there's some sort of issue with, um, um, I guess state organization that controls how many sides are in locations, I guess. Okay. They wanted to reduce the numbers. Okay. Um, I think that's what I have on capital at this point. I do have like a more formalized plan that I intend to prepare for this meeting, but by Friday I will have a formal submission submitted to the town manager's office on our capital plan, which at this point is just FY 31 because six through 30 or FY 26 through FY 30 are locked in on, which as you know, are blank. Okay. Well, I think we're just in number eight. We can schedule our next meeting. Uh, and credential agenda items. Well, what works for people in terms of November? I am pretty restricted in November. You are? But I, as I remind you every time, you do not need me to meet. Oh, yes. I like that. I am not on the right commission. But an integral part of it. Great. Let's start meeting without Katherine. Yeah. Do it. That won't be too much. The AV might be a little better if I wouldn't. The 18th maybe? What are the CPA in November? Submissions. Oh, that's on the 13th. 13th. Thursday. So what the 18th of November? CPA applications are due on the 13th. Yeah. So this commission, like I said, I don't anticipate any coming from the rec department, but potentially, would it be EJM that submits it, or would it be rec? It has been EJM. Okay. I think it will, I mean, just to help with the lift, continue to be, but obviously, it's collaboration. Yeah. Yeah. And I think like the CPA applications usually come before this. Yeah. Yeah. So this commission, like I said, I don't anticipate any coming from the rec department, but potentially, would it be EJM that submits it, or would it be rec? Do you think? It has been EJM. Okay. I think it will, I mean, just to help with the lift, continue to be. Yeah. But obviously, it's in collaboration. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah. Oh, and I think like the CPA applications usually come before this board for some kind of input or support board. Yeah. Otherwise, for all Recreate and Tag CPA applications. Yeah. Which means you'd want to meet before the 13th. Mm-hmm. The 11th. The 11th. I don't understand. You guys are all over this. I don't know. Give us another one. Oh my goodness. This one, if it's before November 13th, it's without me. Oh. Which is fun. You guys can do it. You can do it. It's been 10 years, but you can do it. What about the 7th? I mean, if we have to meet before the CPA meeting, I imagine this would be a very short meeting. Yeah. Do we want to? I mean, we can still meet on meetings? No. No. No. Unless we met here. I wouldn't do it. No. Okay. All right. 12th or 7th? I could probably zoom in on the 7th or the 12th. I'm unavailable on the 7th. Okay. The 12th works. The 13th. Because their meetings at night, right? Yeah. Wait a minute. Well, that's just the submission date, the next actual meeting. Oh, you're right. Because they usually ask us for our opinion on the 4th of December meeting. Yeah. The next CPC meeting is the 20th, but yeah, submissions need to be on the 13th. So, I think it's the 12th, you were saying? Yeah. Yeah. And I mean, it can be edited in the event that we, you know, elect not to, but it's the same. I don't know if you would need action from the recommendation to submit a ss. I don't think it's the same. Yeah. But then what's the submission date, the next actual meeting? Oh, you're right. Because they usually ask us for our opinion on it before the December meeting. Yeah. The next CPC meeting is the 20th. But yeah, submissions need to be on the 13th. So, I think it's the 12th, you were saying? Yeah. Is it the right day? Yeah. And I mean, it can be edited in the event that we, you know, elect not to. Well, that's right. I don't know if you would need action from the recommendation to submit a ss. I don't think. Because unless it was like co-sponsored or submitted by. Yeah. Right. But you've gone without us before. So. Yeah. And eventually it comes back. So. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. All right. If we're booked in this building, I'll make sure that we have the proper AV technology set up so Mike can participate fully. I should be able to be in person next time. I just got jammed up with a meeting this morning. Okay. Okay. But the 12th works for you, Mike. Yeah. Yep. Thanks. 1030. And in terms of agenda items. I know we mentioned the Sharon Bridge committee folks coming to talk with us. And we, I think that's the case. I think we probably want to limit that to no more than 15. no more than 15 to 10 years. Because if you don't put a limitation on it, it'll take the entire hour and a half. Generally speaking, that happens.
Is there anything else that comes to mind in terms of 10 hours? I would say, if there are any CPS solutions, we'd review them.
And then you're at the Sherman Bridge.
Do we have an update on 195 Maine? It's been very, very quiet. So there's an LSP that's been retained by the town that is doing this study to figure out where the PFAS is coming, and they are getting closer to figuring that out. There are some budgetary challenges that are being presented by that cleanup. I believe that two- or three-year clock from Mass DEP has started taking on that. And I think by next November, they need to have come to a permanent solution or temporary solution. But the potential development of that property probably wouldn't happen before that stuff. But I don't know. That's under the jurisdiction of the select board as well. But the reason, I think that the money it would cost to rehab that property is greater.
The numbers are high for $10,000,000. Hello? Yeah. Ouch. So. It's just a check. It could be vulcanized.
Catherine, the other issue that I don't want to raise it today because it's not an offense. But the amount of money that we spend, that we're charged by indirect costs to this town out of Jordan over $80,000. And what do we get to the $80,000 a year? And how is that, how is the $80,000 determined? And if it's a per employee situation, we're paying $20,000 a year per employee for the recreation indirects. Now, I would have to hazard a guess that anybody else in this town who has 50 employees paying $10,000 to $25,000 about the school account.
I just would like to have a definitive understanding of how we are being charged that what we're paying $80,000 a legitimate, I think it's a legitimate question. I have something from the finance degree that kind of outlines where those totals come from. We can talk about it at the next meeting, but it is a function of the revolving account. But from what I understand not all revolving accounts are being charged. That's my point.
Okay. Anything else today? One one one I think you've answered. Oh yeah, here we go. We're trying to make a motion to adjourn. I'll make a motion to adjourn. I hate being second reading in a row but I'm saying the first one in my answer. second. I will second. Okay.
Roll call. Okay. Roll call. Mike? Yes. Leslie? Yep. Yep. Yep. Mark? Yes. You have hands. I'm going to go.