Select Board: August 14, 2024

Transcript captured from MHTV’s Vimeo auto-captioning. No speaker labels; proper names and dollar figures occasionally misheard. Click any timecode to jump to that moment in the source video.

0:03 Okay. Um, I’m going to call us to order. It’s seven oh five, uh, Wednesday, August 14th, 2024. This meeting is being recorded via Zoom and I do wanna make a little announcement about the format, uh, that we are holding the meeting tonight in a hot webinar platform. And this will be our plan moving forward. You’ll still be able to see and hear the board as usual, but you will not see your video or the videos of others who are attending the meeting. And when I call for public comment on the agenda, I just ask that you would like, if you would like to make public comment, please raise your hand and you’ll be asked to unmute yourself when I call on you. Thank you. So our first, um, item on the agenda is public comment.

0:49 Um, as I just said, if anybody online would like to make public comment, just raise your hand and um, uh, Kyle will let us, will let me know. And also, if you’re in the audience and you’d like to make public comment, please feel free to step forward to the mic. Mr. Jordan,

1:08 Since we have the police chief here, I’m a little concerned over, Over the past couple months to see that we had a high speed chase in town, and then an incident where someone got tased in the back. If it’s true what I’m reading in the paper and, um, you know, there’s a lot of people that walk around town. There’s a lot of pedestrians. Um, high speed chase was during the day where, uh, a hot, hot day by a beach or where people go to a beach. Um, and we knew both these people, uh, they were residents of the town. And, um, you know, I understand according to the paper that a police officer has been suspended for the incident of the taser. Um, I, I’d like to know if he’s gonna be retrained on the taser

1:53 before he is given a taser again. ‘cause, ‘cause it’s opened the town to a lot of liability. And, um, you know, we have the fire chief come up here and tell me about a fire in the dumpster and the fireworks and stuff. Like I say, the police department, we need to know what’s going on down there, not just a press release. Um, we don’t want people to get injured. Um, the, uh, incident of the high speed chase two, I don’t know all the details. I’ve heard some things, I don’t know if they’re rumor or not, but apparently someone called from that house, um, and may know who the person was that left the house. The person’s gonna have to come back to the house at some point. So I don’t even think there’s a need of a high speed chase in Marblehead, and I just don’t wanna see it again. Uh, I don’t want someone to get hurt in this town, so I’d like to find out what’s going on

2:41 and what your people plan to do about it. Thank you. Okay. Thank You Mr. Jordan. Um, does anybody else for public comment? Do we have anybody online?

2:52 I do not see any chance.

2:56 Okay. Um, then I will bring us to, um, I’m gonna take things out of order because we have a joint meeting here with the task force against discrimination. And, um, we’ll do, we’ll take our town administrator update after that on the agenda. So, um, welcome. Um, and Helen? Yeah, please have a seat.

3:20 Um, so we have, um, it’s great to see you guys here. I wanted to do this for a while, uh, and get our, um, the, the task force and the, and the select board together and just to exchange ideas and to hear from you. It’s, I wanted to give you all the opportunity to speak with the board. Uh, two of our members are out of town this week, um, for summer vacation. And, um, but I, I just wanted to make sure that, um, you were able to, you know, we were able to have an exchange. So It’s a perfect time because we’re celebratory mood. Yes. And, um, Act for everyone. I’m Helene Hayslett. Uh, is that okay? Yep. Yeah. Uh, I’m Helene Hayslett, co-chair of the Task Force Against Discrimination.

4:06 And I’m Diane Gora, also a co-chair. And we are very privileged to have our committee behind us because, uh, we we’re gonna be having our first in, in-person meeting since Covid. And we’re going to have after this, uh, meeting you, uh, kindly, uh, allowed us to go upstairs to the auditorium and meet. Alright. So, um, thank you. And for Thank you for taking us out of order. Um, the task force against discrimination has come before you tonight to report that this month we are observing 35 years. We are observing 35 years of Selectmen appointing us to the original task force against discrimination. To give you a little background, in the summer of 1989, a series of hate crimes horrified our town and resulted in community outrage and combination.

4:52 To be specific, the JCC and Temple Emanuel were desecrated with swastika and hateful graffiti. Some of you may remember this. I was president of the JCC at the time and came before the then select, uh, board of Selectmen. Not that’s what they were at that time. And, uh, the task force asked for, uh, we asked to, uh, have the task force put in place, uh, as a result on August 2nd, 1989, just about a y uh, 35 years. And two weeks ago, the Marblehead task force against discrimination was established. Deacon Joe Whipple, who’s here tonight, uh, was a selectman at the time, and he stepped up and joined the task force. And today he’s still a member of the task force.

5:38 And we appreciate all the work that he’s done over these years. We would like to thank the Select board for continuing to support the task force over the past three plus decades. And we hope we have made a difference in our community by being true to our mission statement of being, commit, committed to ensuring that Marblehead is inclusive and that we have many diverse citizens and visitors here that we want to support. And welcome at all times. An observance of its founding Task Force Against Discrimination will hold several events over the weekend of Saturday, September 7th and Sunday, September 8th. And we will be, uh, talking about that, that this evening. And we will, um, get back to everyone with the publicity

6:24 to tell you what we’re gonna be doing. But we will be at the Farmer’s Market on September 7th, in the morning, nine to 12, and watch for the announcement of a film that we’ll be showing, uh, that will be appropriate for the task force at the Warwick Cinema, that they’re giving us the space, donating the space for us on a Sunday, September 8th at one o’clock. And we will have a fun, interactive cultural event that even my committee doesn’t know about yet, because I’ve been working on it. So I can’t talk about it yet. So, um, I’m gonna turn this over to Diane now, and she will tell you a bit about what we’ve been doing this past year and Perfect. The, uh, other members will be joining in to, uh, support what we’ve been doing.

7:09 Great. Thanks so much. Well, um, every month we have a meeting and, um, we always begin with Chief King who keeps us abreast of, um, any incidents that are happening in the, uh, community and what they’re doing about it. And he also, um, lets us know about the professional development that he and Hi, um, and the police force are undergoing to, um, help us with these incidents. Um, as Helene talked about, um, last year we had a booth at the Farmer’s Market where we distribute leaflets and let people know, um, what we are, uh, what our group is and, um, what they should do if they see any hateful incidents.

7:54 There’s, um, information on the leaflet for phone numbers and, um, who to call. Um, we distributed No Place For Hate Stickers and also the Marblehead Pride stickers that Reese created. Um, and we always have a craft project for children. And, um, it was, um, sponsored by the Racial where there you are, the Racial Justice team. Um, and it was called Walk In My Shoes. So, um, to let children know how everyone is different, they colored in, um, different shoes and, um, we put them up. We had a photo taken that was, um, in the newspaper,

8:42 um, in October. We celebrated, uh, indigenous People’s Day and we’re grateful that the Select Board, um, gives a proclamation on that day. Um, in December, this past year, uh, we, at one of our meetings, we invited, uh, the high school METCO director, well, the Marble Head Public Schools METCO director and different METCO family members, uh, for a discussion about their experiences. So, um, that was a very lively, um, discussion. Um, in January, um, we observed the second annual inter International Holocaust Remembrance Day. And there are two programs. One, um, is for, uh, students, um,

9:28 and the other is for the Public, which was held at Temple Bathel this year. Right. Temple Sinai. Oh, it was Temple Sinai. Yeah. Okay. Temp, I’m sorry. Temple Sinai. I’m only correcting ‘cause Beth El always doesn’t even exist. That’s right, that’s right. Sorry. Um, Reese, are you gonna talk about Black Sure. History Month? Sure. Hi, I’m Reese Alberg. Okay. You’ve gotta come up to the mic. Yep. Here, do you want me to talk about that? You can pull the chair over too. Yeah. Oh, you can. Here, I’ll come over here. There, I’ll do this for you. Okay.

10:05 Hi, my name is Reese Alberg. I live at Field Brook Road. I have been on the task force against Discrimination for about three years. Um, my two roles for the most part, um, I help, I’ll talk about Pride too, since I’m up here. Um, in February, I usually help the task force facilitate our Black History Month reading. So it started a few years before I joined the task force where we partner with Marblehead Public Schools and we, um, as a group get together and talk about different books and do a family read. And we encourage, uh, children’s and families to read during February vacation. Uh, different book. Um, typically it’s been about different age, uh, grade levels. It’s been for, for a few years. It was mainly grades six through 12. This year we did an elementary level book,

10:52 and, um, we’ve been, the public schools has been very generous. They have helped and they’ve donated, um, a lot of copies so that books that kids are interested to participate can pick up their books, sign up with a librarian, and then we usually do a, um, craft project. So there’s something that goes along with it to lead discussion. Then, um, our meeting in one of the months following up, we invite students and their families to join us at our task Force Against Discrimination meeting, um, online. And we have robust discussions. Some years we’ve had, um, Natalie Bella, who’s a teacher in the sixth grade, she’s partnered with us some years and had some class kids in her class join us and have great discussions. Um, so it’s always great. They’re, they blow us away with their, um, incredible perspective.

11:40 Um, and then my other role is typically I’m a liaison between Task Force Against Discrimination and the Town’s Pride Committee. In June, we organized the flag raising and the ceremony. Um, and so the task force against discrimination supports and, um, some, some years financially, some years we have speakers and just really support, um, that facet of Marblehead community. So appreciate the town support on that. Great. Thank you. Talk about

12:12 Good evening everyone. I’m Gene Gustafer. I’m the newest member of the Task Force against Discrimination. I’ve been sitting on the, uh, committee for less than six months. Um, I wanna thank the, uh, board for reappointing me to the task force, uh, and to do this very important work that we’re involved in. Um, I had the pleasure of attending, um, my first event that the task force put on in the spring, which was an event, um, to celebrate the Asian American Pacific Island community. And it was an amazingly inspirational event held at the high school, uh, that had a number of performances by various, um, members of different Asian communities in the area. And it was tremendous. There were drummers, there was a lion dance. Um, there was wonderful music, there was a martial arts performance,

12:58 and there was even a food truck that was serving, um, um, Asian American food. So it was a lovely event and it was, um, I don’t have prepared remarks, so I’m not, I’m not gonna say much, but it was a wonderful, um, introduction to, to the committee and I was very happy to be there and share it with everyone. So I thank you all and I hope that, uh, you’ll hope continue to support us in the important work we’re doing. Thank You. Thank you. It’s great. Um, one last event, um, that we coordinated is the Juneteenth celebration in June. And, um, our former task force member, Candace Slimy still, um, organized the entire celebration. Um, we had, uh, Greg Cole, um, come and do some, uh, drumming and storytelling. Um, she, Candace gets, um,

13:46 recruits high school students, oh, sorry. Oh, sorry. My bad. Thank you. Sure. Um, recruits high school students, um, to, um, give their vision of justice and, um, we always bring back poet, uh, student poet who reads her poem. Um, that’s it. I think that I’d like to, if you would love this to say something, especially Joe and Chris Mm-Hmm. And the chief, anything to say. Sure. Hello, Chris Brew 2 2 12 West Shore Drive. Um, the thing that I wanna kind of note is, uh, you know, as, as we discussed the different events that we host, is that we attempt to be more proactive here in town. Uh, I joined the committee seven years ago, I think, uh,

14:32 task force seven years ago, um, at a time I think when many of, uh, much of what was taking place was reactive. Mm-Hmm. Uh, so something would take place in town and, and, uh, the task force would, you know, hold a, a conference or, uh, we’d have a a a sit in or, uh, you know, work with clergy to have something public. Uh, but I think what we’ve attempted to do more recently is, is be more proactive in terms of programming and, uh, informational, uh, educational, um, you know, projects, uh, just to, um, you know, make people in town and, and, and others just aware that, you know, it’s, uh, there are differences among us. Um, and, you know, I’m always surprised, but yet not surprised when people say, oh,

15:18 we have a task force against discrimination in town. The town’s 92% white. Why do we need a task force against discrimination? And, uh, my response is typically, that’s exactly why we need it. Mm-Hmm. Um, and so we, I think we’ve worked pretty hard to also try and get our name out there and also still very surprised at how many individuals don’t know that we exist. Um, and, and so, you know, allowing us to sit here, um, and, and present kind of what we do and, uh, in that, uh, in this form, I think is really useful. Okay. Thanks Joe.

15:53 There’s a drum roll for him now.

16:01 Yep. So, Joe Whipple, and I’ve, as has already been mentioned, I’ve been on the task force since its inception. And I definitely wanna thank the board for their continuing confidence and, uh, allowing me to, uh, to participate, uh, in this work.

16:29 It’s, um, there are kind of two facets in my mind. One is that, uh, although we do

16:42 what we can to overcome discrimination, to overcome bigotry, to overcome prejudice, um, we’re under no illusion that, uh, it’s ever going to be entirely eradicated. And that in fact is, uh, one of the reasons that it’s necessary to keep having a task force against discrimination to make it clear that the town officially does not, uh, support does not, uh, tolerate, uh, acts of, uh, bigotry, acts of discrimination,

17:30 uh, acts of, uh, hostility based on, uh, religion, ethnicity, uh, sexuality, or any of the other factors, which, uh, sometimes, uh, unfortunately lead to bigotry, lead to hatred, lead to those kinds of acts. And, and, uh, the hope is that through what we do, our proactive programs that, uh, Chris mentioned, as well as our, uh, reactions that, uh, we will

18:20 encourage people to let go of any prejudices which they might feel to be

18:32 as open to others as

18:37 we strive to be, so that we can be a town which is truly

18:47 for all of its citizens among all of its citizens, no place for hate, a welcoming, uh, and diverse community. So thank you again for, uh, supporting us, and we look forward to continuing to support, uh, Marblehead as an open and inclusive community. Thank you, chair. Thank you. I’d just like to close with a few remarks. Sure. Thank you everyone for, for joining. They were just asked as they walked in. And, uh, the chief, uh, we are very fortunate to have the chief on our committee. Mm-Hmm. Uh, and, uh, if you have anything to say, I would love you to, I’ll, I’ll be very brief because I think that it’s, uh, much has been sent said about

19:32 how I feel about being part of, uh, the task force against discrimination as a, as a chief of police that is, uh, charged with ensuring people feel safe and are safe that live visit here. Um, you need all of the help that you can get and community stakeholders that are on this task force, um, go above and beyond, um, uh, for their community, uh, to make a difference. And I just add to that, uh, for whatever, um, I can do that. But I would say that the reassurance that I have as a police chief to know that I have the backing of a group that is willing to handle and talk about tough issues, um, is really special.

20:18 And I, I think another part that’s important about this task force is that it represents the town, as does the select board and the denouncement of hate and hateful incidents. Um, and I think as an official act, um, for a town to be outward like that, uh, is important. And so I’m just lucky to be part of this group. They do all the work. We’re very, very happy to have him with us because he’s part of the team. Jay Morrison is also part of the team. He is, uh, on the, uh, racial justice team. Right. And he comes to our meetings and we are, he’s the liaison and we keep abreast of each other and we support each other. Do you have anything you’d like to say, Jay?

21:03 I will just say something simple. Um, I went to kindergarten in this town, grew up in the town, wound up living in the town. And I can’t express enough gratitude to all of you who have contributed to the creation of the hope for acceptance of the town of Marblehead for a difference. And, um, it was a little bit scarce when I was growing up. Hopefully, I think my in, in present times, it really has shifted much due in part

21:50 to TFAD. Okay. Thank you for that. I, I just wanna say that as, even though we started out because of an anti-Semitic incident of a real horrific one, you can see that we’ve broadened our work to most of the communities in town. If there are people that we are not addressing, I’d love to hear them from them. I’d like them to apply. ‘cause there are two openings now on our committee. Okay. And not specifically that I’d like people to apply, but if there are people that feel that we’re not representing them, I would welcome them to come before you. And, uh, I think that the fact that we are more proactive than reactive now is a wonderful feeling. Even though this past year we had to do a few things that

22:38 unpleasant, but would that were helpful. And, um, I think that we are gonna move on. But one other thing that, I spoke to the group last year, and I’m looking at, uh, Thatcher for this one. I asked for to be in the budget. And I know that, but we, I said, you told you last year, it’s Only August, I told you last year, that I’m tired of doing the streets. And, um, I think that it’s time that I stop doing that. And, um, we, we now are gonna have a program this coming, uh, month, next month. And it’s a $500 program that we’re gonna be running, and we’re gonna have to go ask the community to support it.

23:23 And, um, they may get tired of us too. So if we wanna continue, we, we not only need your personal support, but we really need the support of the budget. We need funding. Thank you very much. And we thank you. We are even late for our meeting now, so I don’t know. Oh, okay. I don’t know what, uh, How big of a budget Do you guys usually use? Well, last year I asked for a thousand dollars, but I think with something like a special event like this, we might be even 1500 to 2000. I mean, if, Would that, would you be able to, is that for like one event or a speaker or that would be just like helping bring in speakers in the film screenings? Well, we, I think we gave about three or $400 for, um, program

24:09 that Joe supported actually financially. Then several of us supported the, um, the books that the, the PTA did give some money, the school department also, but then we had to raise for that somebody’s ophthalmologist gave money that they were talking about in the, he got ha pleased about that. I, it could even be 2,500 if I have to go back. But last year I asked for a thousand. I think if we doubled it, we would be happy. And last year’s Juneteenth, uh, ceremony, not this past one. Um, I had written a grant and we received a thousand dollars from the Marblehead, um, cultural Council, um, this year for the A API celebration, Kim Goleman, who’s, um, who’s no longer a member,

24:56 but she worked very, very hard. She received a grant, what was it, like $6,000? Yeah. She, it was amazing. And she used it all for all those performers. Yeah. So if you could, I’m way off base now. No, I mean, I, I, it’s, um, obviously last year was, and we’ve had two really difficult budget years. Um, and we are working with this, you know, long-term planning. And I, you know, I just, I think it’s an ent an an enormously reasonable request. Um, I personally would like to see it as part of a longer term plan. Uh, I, I don’t see why we couldn’t, it seems like a very eminently reasonable amount of money

25:43 and it’s something that we are, you know, value and, um, the work, I think you’ve put in the, the proof is in the pudding and the, the amount of programming that you’ve been able to do, um, with no, no budget. And, uh, you know, I just wonder, you know Yeah. Like I, if there’s some type of proposal or something that you could, um, get something a little bit more concrete about how that, that could be, Well, we can do that used, That would be wonderful. You know, you know, ‘cause I know just to do a film screening, you have to pro sometimes that’s, that’s an upfront cost to have a, maybe there’s like a great speaker or lecturer that could come. Um, but if there was maybe something more of like a, like a proposal, then we could get more,

26:30 talk more seriously about it. Um, ‘cause I mean, for me, I think it’s, it’s kind of a no brainer. We, Well, we did write a, a brief proposal last year, but we, we are on way off now with those numbers. I think I better write something down. We’ll do it together. Yeah. The other thing I was just Have The number, press it out. Yeah. How it would enhance what you’re current already doing and could it reach more people in town. Um, you know, uh, what, what, what kind of value add would it bring? Um, yeah. And I, I just, I was also interested, I know it’s been 35 years. Congratulations. And I mean, especially Helene is like one of the original founders. If you all have ideas or, you know, you reviewing your mission statement

27:18 and you feel like, you know, is it Scott and Stale? You know, if, if we would like to hear from you, I, I’m speaking for my, like myself, but I would very much like to hear from you all your suggestions and recommendations to us. If there’s things you would like to change about your charge or your mission, or there’s other ways, um, that we can support the work. ‘cause you’re doing it. Um, and, uh, I think, um, that would be great. The mission statement is in the town report. Mm-Hmm. That’s why I brought it. And, um, it was written for the 30th anniversary. It is five years old, but it’s not Okay. 35 Years old. Okay. Okay. Yeah. So I would just echo, I think, um, what I’m hearing is one of the biggest things, how,

28:04 how we can support you is obviously discussing funding and what programs you wanna bring. So I would definitely welcome you as a group to talk about what, you know, what are the things that we’re currently doing, what are the things that we perhaps would like to do in addition, but are limited by fiscal resources. So, you know, we may or may not be able to, you know, throw everything out there. But I think the first point is, I would love to just hear what, what are the ideas? What is the program? What is the things that, um, you would like to bring to the table? And obviously maybe just like everything, you know, you gotta end up looking at like, what items do we prioritize? But I would definitely ask you as a group, as this is always a fluid process. There might be things that we might have looked at four

28:50 or five years ago that now as a group you might say, you know, what, this is, this area might be really what the community needs and what, you know, what are you guys hearing? What are the things, you know, when you’re at the farmer’s market? Or those types of things. You know, what, what is the community looking for for you guys to bring forward? So, um, I would definitely say, and I guess my second question is, other than, um, that, you know, just the need for a budget and a fiscal, what else can we do to support you guys as a group? Like, what other things can we do for you? How can we help support you? And maybe you have an answer, maybe you don’t. But if there’s anything else that you think of, like, please email or reach out or through chair nunan, but, you know, how can we support you guys as an organization and allow you to, you know,

29:36 as Helene said, the mission was updated five years ago, but, you know, create that fluid process where, what are we looking at now and how do we as a commun community allow you guys to do the work out there? So we’re bettering everyone as a whole. So I’d love to hear from you guys. It would be like a line item underneath our budget. Mm-Hmm. Because you’re under our budget. We are. And so now when you’re doing printings and publicity and all of that, does it come through our office? Nope. No. I, I usually, um, well, we do it in house, we design it and, um, we volunteer to pay for it ourselves. So Maybe just keep track of that. Yeah. Probably a great work student budget, right? Yeah. It’s, the budget will grow. But thank you for, for, you know,

30:22 talking about this seriously, because we can’t continue, uh, to raise, raise the funds and keep having new programming. And you heard what we did just last one year. Kyle’s very good. If somebody calls and has a problem, um, she’ll re refer them to one of us and we’ll talk with them, invite them to a meeting. So if people do have their own personal issues, um, my phone number is available to anybody, but, um, but she happy to refer them to, to me. Okay. Can I just add one more thing as well? Um, and, and I can’t say that I speak for the entire task force, but I, I think, you know, as Alexa was saying that, uh, you know, we are charged by the select board.

31:08 Yep. Um, and so I think it’d be interesting to have the conversation or throw the question back to you, like, what do you see as our role here in town and what types of events or programming, um, do you think are necessary as well? Well, uh, one of the things that you mentioned, sorry, through the chair, um, it was just, I loved, you know, you said we’re looking at our current programming, but then what are our opportunities for proactive programming as well? So, you know, we can be reactive and proactive. That definitely resonated with me as well as, and I think that goes in line with this is something that’s continuously evolving and changing and staying on top of it. And, you know, and you guys are definitely holding the pulse of what that is. And, you know, as things kind of ebb

31:55 and flow in the community and statewide, nationwide, how do we get on top of that? How do we educate people? How do we bring people in? And um, you know, I think really, uh, my,

32:08 for me personally, it would be really for you if, um, you know, whatever opportunities that you have to have that outreach where, uh, you know, you’re getting the people that may or may not immediately, you know, tune into a program or something of that nature. How do you know, how do we pull those people in? Uh, and that’s just been my experience, you know, over the many years of being here in Marblehead. And not just specific for the task force, but yeah, it’s any whatever, whether it’s sports, whether it’s a right. How do we pull in and really reach out to the people that, that we really, you know, we want to really get that message to them. Sure. I wish I had an answer to all of those solutions and, you know, I had something better to offer you, but that would be for me, one of the things that you guys brought up. And one of the things like I would love to see us do

32:54 holistically is find ways that we could execute that. So I will defer to the board. Yeah. I understand that the budget season is earlier this year. Yeah. Do you want us to get, get you something by then? Yeah. I mean, what are your costs for doing, for running the promotional? Um, uh, it’s not an expectation. It’s not my expectation that as a volunteer on one of our boards, that you’re, you should be self-funding, um, handouts and flyers for the town Marblehead. So I’ll just ask, um, maybe our town administrators to speak with Alicia to see if we can find something to work out with regarding, um, printing the, the printing needs and, and things like that.

33:39 Um, going forward for this year, that would be wonderful. Um, but then let’s, um, maybe Helene and I can, um, work together about, like, once you guys have, can kind of get together, put some, um, concrete or just give us some examples that we can kind of chew on and, and have something to, to weigh. Thank you. Great. Thank you. Thank very much. Thank you. Should we recess while we walk upstairs or can we just Yeah, I would just keep your meeting open and open. Convene. Thank you very much. That’s another, uh, adjustment on the schedule. Sure. So we have the chief who’s part of that group, but he’s here on the agenda to present a candidate for conditional employment. Okay. Yes. We can take, um, is it Tanya, I think, And that way we can let them go in their way. Yeah. Yeah.

34:25 Okay. Thank you Taylor. So thank you for coming. We appreciate it. Thank you so much. Thank you.

34:37 Okay. So we will, um, also then, um, move to agenda item number 10, which is, um, uh, request from, uh, chief King for a conditional offer of employment to Taylor and Alaska.

34:54 Welcome. Thank you. Alright. Um, thank you Madam Chair. So I’m just, I’m respectfully requesting that the select board offer a conditional offer of employment, uh, to Taylor and Alaska as a permanent full-time police officer for the town of Marblehead. Um, just briefly on Taylor, and you can get it straight from her. Um, but Taylor’s been a resident, uh, Marblehead for about 14 years. Graduated of Marblehead High, uh, has her bachelor’s and master’s from Endicott College. Um, and is dutifully employed in security right now. Um, and as always, I’ll just point out that, um, a thorough background check, oral board interviews, um, are conducted and, um, you know, I have to make this recommendation. And so in my opinion, uh, she possesses all the qualities

35:41 that we’re looking for for the police officers in the town of Marblehead. Great. Congratulations. Thank You. Any Questions or comments? I don’t think so. No. Do you have anything else you wanna share with us or? I’m very excited for this opportunity. I’m happy that I will be working in the town that I grew up in. So, um, that’s a very happy feeling that I have. So I’m just kind of excited and ready to get the ball rolling. You’ll be joining a great group. We earlier just at six o’clock, um, uh, chief King had run a, a commendation, um, and promotion ceremony for, um, um, so it, I, um, I guess if there’s no other comments,

36:27 I’ll just make a motion to approve, uh, a conditional offer of employment to Taylor Nolasco as permanent full-time police officer for the town of Marblehead, conditioned on her successful completion of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts Physical abilities test, a complete physical exam and psychological exam to be conducted by the town’s physician and a psychiatrist, psychologist of the town’s choosing effective September 9th, 2024, or the first date in of an eligible police academy. So, motions. I need a second. Second. All in favor. Great. Congratulations. Thank you. Look forward to seeing you out there.

37:08 Thank You so much. Thank you. Thank you for taking this. Yes, good suggestion. Town administrator updates. Okay. Yes. Um, so let’s, uh, go back to town administrator, uh, updates, which we have under, um, tab two. So I just have three items, I’ll be brief. Um, and I provided a, a memo with, with the information. Um, first of all, there was, uh, the state legislature passed house 4 9 7 7, um, which was signed in law by the governor, which affects zoning and housing of municipalities. So it’s got a, a whole number of provisions. Uh, one for example, it provides for, uh, more options for low-income veteran housing in communities.

37:56 Um, so, so there’s, there’s a whole number of provisions. Uh, a bunch of us are reading our way through, uh, the different components. But the one I’m highlighting for tonight, because it was a, a major issue, uh, last year town meeting, as well as this board, uh, has an effect on, um, acce, uh, accessory dwelling units, which, um, through the planning board, through the select board through town meeting, um, adopted, uh, new zoning, which allows for, uh, ADUs as so-called on on certain properties. This legislation, uh, that’s passed now, opens up all communities, um, have to allow ADU

38:43 by right now, there’s limitations as to, uh, how that can be employed, but they’re, they’re considered, you know, three a Dover amendment rights to ADUs. Um, so that any single family property that has, uh, uh, an accessory structure, whether attached or not attached, um, so long, it’s, um, um, I think it has to be within, uh,

39:12 no more than 900 square feet and no more than half the size of the primary dwelling, um, is eligible on only allowed one by Right. The town to, to a special permit process could allow additional, but, uh, the BuyRight only affects one. Um, there are, uh, setback requirements, design review requirements, all of those type of zoning requirements still in place. But again, this is part of the effort of the state to really push to increase housing. MA Massachusetts is in a housing crisis. Um, and as I said, in different forms, they are, they’re pushing the panic button. But, you know, the feedback that the state’s getting, your,

39:58 our major industries that support the economy here in Massachusetts are telling the leaders in the Commonwealth, we can’t bring in, we can’t hire people ‘cause they can’t find any place to live. And if that happens, we need to move our industries elsewhere. And so there is a real priority, a real urgency to create additional housing opportunities. So as we deal with this, so anyways, the significant change, uh, this takes effect, um, in 180 days after the passing. So February 2nd, two of 2025 is when, uh, this section of that, of that law would come into effect. So we’re, we’re, we’re learning more, um, information.

40:45 Charlie Quigley, who’s currently acting the head of the, um, community development planning department, has been looking at this and working with the planning board, um, and figuring out how to adjust our processes for applications. We have applications that have come in, uh, under our current bylaw, um, that requires a public hearing under the state law, as best we can tell does not require public hearing. So there are gonna be changes in the processes. We implement this. Yep. So if our bylaw is more restrictive than what was just passed by the Commonwealth, um, then that would su they that this is actual supersede. This

41:31 Was Supersede and Yes. Um, I don’t rem I mean, I don’t really remember. So there’s a public hearing requirement that obviously that will. Yep. And then what about, um, I can’t remember honestly if we required parking spaces or not. So, um, no. More than one. And we think, again, trying to, trying to read through it that if you’re within a half mile of a bus or train station, um, you don’t even have that requirement. And we’re, we’re trying to figure out what’s the definition of a bus station? Is a bus stop Mm-Hmm. A bus station or does it have to be a physical complex designated? Those are the things we, we need to find out. But those are some of the,

42:17 So does our current a DU bylaw require one parking space? Um, I, I don’t remember. I have to check whether it’s one or whatever the zoning requires. We Don’t, you don’t need to, Right. Um, I’d have to, I, yeah, I don’t, I I have a deep dive into that’s a planning board question, but, But the biggest, uh, it’s also, you don’t even have to be owner occupied now, correct? Correct. Oh, yeah. That’s another one. Doesn’t have to be Fa in fact, cannot restricted to Family. Family. Alright. So, okay. Alright. Um, the other items, um, some activities from our planning community development department, uh, they’re working on staffing, um, are, uh, as you know,

43:03 we get a grant for the Marblehead Sustainability Heritage Project, uh, in conjunction with Salem. So it’s, uh, Marblehead and Salem, uh, looking at, um, so there are goals and initiatives to increase energy efficiencies in our homes. So we have the Green Marblehead com committee, their sustainable marblehead, lots of other groups that are pushing our own municipal light, pushing for more efficiencies. Then we have our cherished historic districts and the dwellings in that district with all the restrictions as to what you can do, um, you know, to those buildings that are visible from the street and so forth.

43:50 Um, those issues are a natural conflict. How do you preserve the, the, the, the character of the, the, the historic and old districts, but also trying to improve energy efficiencies, lowering carbon footprint? So the purpose of this grant is jointly with Salem is to look at ways that we can, uh, connect those two agendas and find opportunities where they can work together, where we can implement energy efficiencies, carbon reducing, you know, implementation of technologies while also preserving the old and historic districts and the characters they’re in. And as I’ve said in, in, in committee meetings such, it’s,

44:40 it’s, it’s known, it is a conflict, right, of two goals clashing together. And so I, there are concerns on both sides of what is it we’re trying to do here? Um, we’re trying to find where is that common ground, where can we make it work for both, um, moving forward. That’s the purpose. So we did a walk through, uh, about 30 participants. I participated in the Marblehead part, uh, at least most of it, walking through the historic districts and looking at different properties that have already implemented certain technologies and what were their methodologies, what were their challenges. And it was more of a joint education process for those involved. As well as, um, you know, just interested residents from both communities that went through that.

45:27 Um, so Logan, Logan, Casey, our, our sustainability coordinator, did a great job coordinating and organizing that effort. Okay. And then, and then finally, uh, Logan, once again, community development planning department, once again held, uh, an engagement workshop on developing a comprehensive bicycle plan. So it’s one of our several plans that we’re doing. The key point is, uh, as, as part of developing the comprehensive bicycle plan is, uh, community outreach, engagement, feedback, and input. So it was held upstairs, uh, in this building. There were about 30 participants. Very active, very informative, um, and there’s more information on our websites.

46:15 But the key takeaway as we develop these plans that have community impact, community infrastructure, that a, a major part of the effort is the outreach to the community, to the public, getting input, incorporating what the community’s looking for. But then we also have to incorporate sort of the, the engineering and design and all the other, uh, limitations that we have in order to come up with a, uh, an optimum plan that, that gets the project done. Great. Um, I, I remember be, uh, I think it was about a year ago, uh, I had sat down with, um, resident about who we had first brought it

47:00 to my attention that, that with the goal of net zero, like you said, it’s internal, it’s inconsistent, um, competing forces at play. I think they had an experience where they’re trying to put on, put in the mini split, you know, in an historic district. And we have all these rules and regulations about what can and cannot be, um, used about the windows that they can use and, um, and everything. And I think, um, our former town planner, Becky Cutting was going, thought we could apply for a grant. So, um, to, uh, to seek help and advice in updating OHDC rules and regulations. So maybe we could just, when our town planner gets their feet on the ground

47:46 and running, um, have them take a look at, uh, him take a look at that. So, Yeah. And this is, I mean, the effort on that grant is to, um, have more information, um, get ideas from what other communities are doing, get share more information on newer technology that can meet the codes of the historic districts, as well as provide the benefits. So that’s a goal of this whole effort. Great. Okay. Any other questions from board members?

48:22 All right. Uh, so that brings us to, uh, item number four, which is, uh, a client engagement letter. If we could have Chris Musette come to the table. Hi. Thank you. So if I start, go ahead and, Yeah, I, so Chris Musette and then Antonio Martini is here also from Hinkley Allen. We, we actually started a conversation, um, not long after I got here. Um, and, and you know, Hinkley, Allen’s well known and, uh, the, the, um, partners or whatever your titles or whatever, uh, there are relationships or people in, in, in the industry. ‘cause as some of us have moved around, municipality,

49:07 municipality have been able to develop really good relationships with the organizations. But I wanted for the board also point out, this is part of the, well, we started the conversation, but I had to put ‘em off because I said, I don’t even have a chief financial officer to help make these decisions. So if you could wait till I hire one and let them get their feet on the ground. So, um, that was part of the, the long process. So finally we brought Alicia on board and things are moving forward. The main point is, um, what we’re doing here is a continuing effort of our finance department to really comb through all of our engagements, all of our relationships, all of our processes, and really

49:53 kick the tires on every component of what we’re doing to make sure that we’re, we’re maximizing our benefit, we’re getting the, the best services we can. Uh, we’re generating cost savings at every opportunity, um, improvement in services. So this, uh, conversation is another result of the finance department really going through and saying, okay, let’s look at the bond council relationship and, and let’s kick some tires. And here we are to have a conversation with, Uh, uh, Hinckley Allen. Thank you. Great. Well, thank you for, um, uh, having us tonight. I have here just a hand, it has our contact information on here, and also there’s a chart here that I’ll, I’ll get you,

50:40 um, thank you to show you the savings. There’s one there for the, um, person taking notes if that’s helpful for, for your record. Um, so again, thank you for having us here. Um, we’re really excited for the opportunity to serve as bond council to the, to the town. We are a Boston based team. Um, we have a New England footprint as a firm. Um, and we have decades just, uh, Tony and myself have, we both have decades of experience in municipal finance, and we’re super excited about collaborating with the town. Um, on your, um, financing, we’ve already met with the town administrator, your treasurer, collector, treasurer collector, and the CFO. And, um, they recommend using our services based on our, uh,

51:28 cost saving and our expertise. Um, uh, the, our fixed fee arrangement that we have with the town allows you to have predictability and your, the cost of your financing. And it also, it means that you’re not gonna get a bill from us until you issue your bonds or your notes. Mm-Hmm. And you can pay our fee out of proceeds of those bonds or your notes. So, okay. It provides a lot of predictability and stability for the town. Um, we actually, um, I had a conversation with Alicia and we went through and to see just how much savings you would’ve had Mm-Hmm. Um, based on our, um, our fee structure and over the course of five Bond issuances, our fees would’ve come in $38,000 less than what you actually paid.

52:14 Um, and that’s on average about 20% savings. Um, most notably, uh, and most recently, the, the note issue that you had this past May, our fee would’ve been 60% less than what you actually paid. So, um, and you’ll, you can see that in the, the chart that, um, that I provided to you. So, you know, we’re, we’re, um, we’re very excited to work with you and if you have any questions, you know, we’re happy to, to help. Great. Any questions you Guys?

52:49 What type of, I’m not super familiar with this business, but in Munis, what type of motivation do you guys have to get us the best rate? Um, well, we’re not, um, we don’t sell your bonds. Okay. So we’re not, we’re the legal side of things. Legal side where we actually draft the documents and we make sure that you conducted all of the proceedings in order for us to Gotcha. Um, opine on the issuance of your bonds. But you have a financial advisor, the town has a financial advisor. Hilltop Secur. We’ve worked with Hilltop for many years. They’re, um, we’re not looking to replace them. Um, we’re looking to, um, work, um, with them to help you. Okay. So in this, where does the savings come from? Just, Um, our, our rate structure’s lower than your existing, um,

53:37 the council that you’ve used. Okay. We have a, um, Hinkley Allen is a firm, has, um, very, very well managed. We have very low overhead, um, and we’re very efficient and, um, because of our expertise and, um, the team that we have. Okay. Great.

54:01 Okay. And Alicia would be here to make back it up. She’s got bond school comments. She’s at Yeah, she’s at, It’s literally what it’s called, bond school. Her cameo away Sounds a lot more exciting than it probably Is. Getting smarter. Okay. Um, alright, so I just, uh, need a motion to, um, I have one more question. Is this just one year engagement? Is that It’s until you, um, don’t want us to Okay. So there’s no go. You, we are terminable at will. Right. Gotcha. Whenever You I’m an attorney and I always go to that part.

54:41 What’s the get out of? Yeah. Um, so is this something that we would just need the chair to sign, right? Yeah. Okay. Yeah. So I just need a motion, um, to allow the chair to sign a letter of engagement on behalf of the town of Marblehead, between or between town, the town of Marblehead and Hinkley Allen for Bond Council services. So moved. Second. All in favor. Thank you. And thank you for coming tonight and, uh, introducing yourselves. Thank You so much. Thanks for Waiting.

55:13 Yes. You don’t have to stay for the rest of the meeting. You welcome. You’re welcome to move to Guide. Get back. I heard enough. We promised no bond talk after you leave. Thank. Okay. And that brings us to two, uh, wonderful, uh, uh, uh, candidates for our Council on Aging. Um, we have two vacancies. These are three year terms that will expire in 2027. And we have wonderful applicant’s, Lisa Palmer and Meredith Rearden. I will just ask, um, I guess I’ll just go, I’ll ask, uh, first Lisa to come up and just, uh, introduce yourself

55:59 A seat here.

56:03 So, hello, hello everyone. I’m Lisa Connor. Thanks for the opportunity to interview for the, the opening on the COA board. Um, just a quick overview about myself, then I can get into details. Um, I’ve lived in Marblehead for over 25 years and I moved away for a few years when I was working at Boston, um, to avoid the unpleasant commute. But Miss Marble had so much I’m back. Um, I wrapped up my diverse career a couple of years ago and now enjoy pursuing my own interest of graphic design, community service, and volunteer work mixed in with some travel. Um, I’m interested becoming a member of the COA board ‘cause I think I bring unique skills

56:49 and a really diverse professional background. So, um, I, first of all, I’m already very familiar with the COA. I’ve been serving there in a volunteer role for the past several years. Um, a lunch server, the weekly program with, um, Doug. And it’s a joy to be a part of the lunch team to try to make that a special social event for the seniors on Tuesdays. Um, the COA Triad Committee, I’m also on that we meet monthly to plan speaker and educational programs, um, to enhance the quality and safety, safety of senior community. Also provide graphic design support, um,

57:35 for Triad in the Marblehead Police Academy. I have a big background in graphic design. Um, and I’ve used, I’ve used these skills at the COA to create, um, police Academy Flyer and Triad Flyer. They’ve been very well received and I’m, we’d like to continue to have the COA tap these skills for the COA board if I think they’d be valuable. Um, my graphic design background is in consulting, and then I started my own graphic design business after that. And from my professional connections, I bring like, reliable vendors, like a print vendor for quality printing, be great, uh, good prices

58:21 and who does, they’re very reliable. So it’s kind of a, a unique feature that, um, that I bring. Um, my background I have other than, uh, in addition to graphic design, I have a lot of, I have a big background in medical and, and higher ed. Um, in the medical field, I held positions in both clinical and administration. Uh, I started as a certified medical assistant and then became a research administrator and then, um, ended my career as an office and program manager at Mass General. One of the biggest research centers there. So it’s, um, it’s been a pretty cool career that I’ve had. Um, I’ve also done marketing,

59:08 managing trade show management, and then, um, was in higher ed as a publications director too. So there’s a lot of things, a lot of perspectives and whatnot that I can bring to the board. Um, forgive the notes because this is a bit intimidating, so, oh, I wanna make sure I cover the points, um, that you should know about me. So, um, I think professional skills worth mentioning are like managing high level projects, uh, business communications, writing and editing events, organizing, and then financial skills from running my own graphic design business like invoices, budgets, spreadsheets, all that kind of fun stuff. Um, personal strengths, also relevant,

59:55 strong interpersonal skills, attention to quality detail and follow through. And as well being, as well as being highly organized, reliable team member and team player. So I think it’s important that for board position. Um, so I wanted to know if you had other questions of, um, Does anybody have any questions? No, that was great, Lisa. Thank you for sharing all of that. That’s Great. Details. Yeah. Appreciate you applying. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Yeah, thank you for stepping forward for the role and I know you’re already, you know, well involved there, so you’ll, um, get off and running real, real easy. Thanks. Yeah. Being honored to serve and, um, great. Contribute how I can. Awesome.

1:00:41 That’s wonderful. Yeah. Okay. Appreciate you taking the time. Thank you. Thank You. Thank you. Um, and next we have, um, Meredith Rearden. Hi Meredith. How you doing? Good Evening. We have, um, we have all seen your, uh, experience and your letter, but just wanted to give you also the opportunity to speak to your interest in, uh, serving on the Council on Aging. Sure. Well, um, I was born in Marblehead and I grew up here raised, um, I was raised here. I was educated here. I raised my kids here. And, um, I was in work. Well, you saw my resume. Mm-Hmm. That I worked in the Marblehead Public Schools for 13 years as a school counselor. Um, when I, uh, retired in 21, I joined the COA

1:01:27 and I learned what a vibrant community it was. I was used to working with teenagers and then I flipped to a whole nother group of people. And that is a Different Demographic. It’s just a wonderful place. So, um, you know, I do exercise there regularly. I, um, another former teacher and I started the book group there and I’ve just, uh, participated in the Marville Police Academy and a multi-generational movie club and all kinds of, um, you know, what activities that they have there. So I’m just, my interest is just that I would like to make a positive contribution to the Council on Aging. So that’s, That’s Great. That’s why I’m here. Great. Thanks. Thank you.

1:02:15 Um, okay. Any discussion? I, we have, um, a nice position of having two great candidates for two great slots. So, so I will, um, just go ahead and ask for a motion to appoint, uh, Lisa Palmer and Meredith Rearden to the Council in Aging with the term to expire in June, 2027. So moved. Second. All in favor. Thank you so much. Thank you. Welcome. Thank you for serving. It’s, it’s a great word.

1:02:49 If you’re wondering the name Lisa was only around from what, 1962 to 72. Yeah. Something. So we’re all around the same.

1:03:01 Thank you. Yeah. Marcy’s texted.

1:03:06 Thank you. Good night. Thank you. Thanks for coming. Thank you so much for, it’s nice to meet you. Yeah. The clerk’s office. Yes. Oh, um, just, I just wanted to let you know about the swearing in. Do they need, did they get sworn in for that? Yes, I’ll send them a message. Okay. Alright. I’ll send you a message. Okay. Thank you. Thanks again. Okay. Um, and next we have, um, Ronnie Knight, who’s the post commander at the VFW. Welcome. Good evening, everyone. Yes. You’re gonna print some coins? No, I feel like, I feel right now, like I’m going to the principal’s office at Marvin.

1:03:42 Hang on one second. Just get little organized here. So, which one’s the principal here, one feels like, who’s the most principal? It seems to be committee as well, so without Alright. Be The color printer. Will they be in color? Yes, they will. Oh, great.

1:04:05 Put everything out.

1:04:13 Saw Moses greatest fault. I just wanna, I just wanna share that with everyone. Well, he’s not here. You can totally say That. That’s why I can blame him. Yeah. Alright. Okay. Um, good evening. My name is Ronnie Knight, 36 Amherst Road, Marblehead Commander Chaplain Lyman Rollins, veterans of Foreign Wars. Post 2005 3 21 West Shore Drive, Marblehead, mass. Not to be confused with Marblehead, Ohio. Right. Uh, When we had that. I appreciate your time this evening. Uh, I’m appearing before you tonight to seek rule and waiving of any fees for utilizing the spirit of 76 on a challenge coin that the Post would like to utilize to recognize people who have donated their time and services to the Post. Along with providing challenge coin to be made available to our veteran membership.

1:05:00 We’d also like to have these challenge coins available to sell to the public, to utilize as a gift or keepsake item from the post. Uh, the funds raised by the sale of these coins will roll over into future printings and charitable donations. Once the program established grows to a self-sustaining level, the significance of a challenge coin for those of us that have served is all encompassing. It shows pride in the units and the conflicts that we’ve served and our relationship with other units and branches of service. But the best definition of a challenge coin is membership, belonging, comradery, and appreciation. One very good example of how this coin will be utilized is at a recent funeral we attended at Waterside Cemetery for a Navy veteran for Marblehead, the Navy Honor guard President were from the

1:05:47 USS Constitution to render honors as we were from the VFW Post from 2005 Comrad Tim Donahue, who joins me here this evening, uh, along with, uh, a couple other friends Came up with the idea and he commented to me at the cemetery, what would it mean to this honor guard from the USS constitution to present them each with a challenge coin from our VFW, the, with the spirit of 76 on it, from the birthplace of the American Navy Marine Corps aviation. I must admit I was stunned.

1:06:23 I know as Commander of the Post and a veteran that would recognize their, their duty and honor and sacrifice, and that our town recognizes respects and values their service, the country. As the new commander of the marble hood, VFWI fully realize I have some very big shoes to fill with the retirement of our former commander, David Rogers. It was former Commander Rogers, uh, who established a tradition in this town, unlike any other veteran’s agent in this state, along with members of the Post joining him and participating in scores of funeral services for veterans here in Marblehead. This ceremony has been very much appreciated and recognized by both family and friends of the departed. I would only hope that the new ve um, veteran’s Agent, Ms, and I know I’m gonna butcher her name, Maza Kelly, hired

1:07:08 by this board recently would continue that tradition with your encouragement and your direction. The challenge coin is one part of a five point plan for the VFW for this year to assist in rejuvenating and reenergizing our post and connecting us better with the community at large with fundraising and entertainment events. I would like to recognize 10 tonight. Our, uh, state representative Jenny Armini and her staff, uh, for their time and assistance in navigating the application process with us for becoming a Massachusetts lottery agent. Something that both our staff and customers have asked for. I wanna thank her and her staff for their time, uh, in navigating what can only be called a challenging process. While I have this opportunity, I would like to make an appeal to all veterans from the town of Marble,

1:07:55 from Marblehead, either from a foreign war and Cold War veterans as well, to come out and support the Post. We are working on a plan to include Cold War veterans into the ranks of our post on a different, but by no means lesser respected level because we all put our hands up and took an oath To defend this country at one time or another. And I also wanna make an appeal to the townspeople of Marblehead. The VFW Post is just not for veterans. We are open to the public and not just for fundraising and special events. So please come and show your support. I also would like to thank this board for recently, uh, approving a permit for the company to Heroes Road, race Walk, and Ruck Sack March. Moses Greater is gonna have to do the ruck sack, by the way,

1:08:42 because he’s not here. Perfect. Uh, on, uh, on um, 14, uh, September, very good friend of mine, Kate Van Oen, who you can see here tonight, has got hers, uh, service Dog with her. She was the one who started this charity. Uh, this program provides service dogs for veterans with PTSD. We have a full day and evening of events planned with the guy Ford Band performing at the Post that night. So, the Townspeople in Marblehead, please come off for this incredible charity for veterans who suffer from PTSD. You can make a world of difference in a veteran’s life with your presence and support. I want to thank you again for allowing me the time to appear you for you this evening. As nervous as I am, uh, but I’d be happy to answer any questions that you might have. I do want to share with you the, the flyer for the, um, um,

1:09:29 for the walk, also for the car show that we have coming up tomorrow night. Our first one was extremely successful, and I will leave you with a couple of these from Company to Heroes. These are two brochures that explains about the program a little bit more. Are there any questions that I could answer for you? Well, I think you’re off to great start as thank you as Commander of VFW 2005. Um, and I, I am, I, I am amazed that you, you know, you’d be nervous about here with Oh, totally. With your service and background in, um, uh, in engagement in war. So, um, I, I, I think

1:10:17 that this is a beautiful coin. I think it’s a great use of the spirit of 76. Um, and thank you for giving us the update and inviting and, and know and reminding people about, about the VFW. The More we do this, the more we, it’s a, it’s a groundswell. We have some nice things planned website. Yes. Uh, some, some upgrades to the post. Um, but we gotta get the word out there. Yeah. That’s The whole thing. So there is a, there’s a, the car, the classic car show, uh, is tomorrow night. Five First one was. The first one was a huge success. Five To Dusk. I heard about it. Yeah. Yeah. People were talking about it. So if you’re listening and you’re into classic cars, Thursday, August 15th, five to Dusk, and we did Author and the Patriot Spirit, um, walk, run Ruck, $30 early entries, uh, get a free T-shirt, um,

1:11:06 Patriot Spirit, September 14th, 2025. It’s a 5K, right? We, uh, yes. Yeah. We also have, uh, one of the sponsors for this is East Regiment Beer Company over in Salem. Company’s owned by a former Navy Seal. Oh, Wow. So he took a lot of pride in when he heard about this program. So, uh, that’s great. He’s, he’s donating quite a bit of, uh, let’s say beer. Well, that All the motivation to get out and walk, that’s an the three miles. Um, and then what else did you bring here? Uh, just Some brochures from company to heroes. Okay. Kate Van and who is here tonight, she’s, uh, uh, somebody who I’ve worked with up at Hanscomb Air Force Base. She’s a retired army, um, bronze star for Valor, uh, who actually started this program on her own. It takes a number of years. Uh, I was diagnosed with PTSD as well,

1:11:52 and it takes a number of years to get a dog from the va. She took it upon herself to start this program. Oh, well, thank you so much for doing that. Great work and both of you for your service to our country. I Can get those two flyers back. Yes, of course. Can get onto that stuff right there, because I’ll get yelled at if I don’t bring those two back. Yes. So are we good with using it? Is that all right? Um, does anybody have any questions? You’re pretty close. Anything else? Can I take, take a picture of those just so I can share the information? I’ll still, It’s on Facebook. It’s on the internet, but please go right ahead. Yeah. Let people know. Uh, so you’re almost there. I need a motion to, uh, approve the request from Ronnie Knight, um, of, uh, VFW post 2005 Commander, to use an image of the spirit of 76

1:12:37 as a challenge point to recognize townspeople and other outside the community who have gone above and beyond. So, motion. You have a second. Second. All in favor. Thank you. Thank you very much. You very much you. Excellent job. Thank you so much.

1:12:53 Keep them if you want, keep one of these. I don’t want you to get in trouble your time. No, No. I won’t get it. Kate will beat me up outside. But other than that, thank You all for coming. Thank you. Thank You. Thank you. Okay. Great job. Thank you.

1:13:08 Okay. Um, and that brings us to, um, a request from John Kelly to appear at our meeting. Um, John, please feel free to come up. Jonathan’s here as well.

1:13:22 We know who you are, but just for the public, certainly introduce yourselves. Okay. I’m John Kelly, chairman of the Board of Assessors. I’m Jonathan Otterman, member of Board Assessors. Okay. Uh, bill Willis. Yeah, I will. Sure. Bill Willis could not make it this evening. Uh, he had a conflict and I had thought this would be a good time with this transfer for our board to meet with your board. Mm-Hmm. So we could post a meeting for this evening at Abbott Hall. So I’m going to, uh, call our meeting to water. Great. Okay. And we’re gonna cheat a little bit and we’ll use you a minutes Okay. Instead Of asking Jonathan to write. Um, okay. So tell, just tell us about the request. Okay. Um, a little background, every five years we go

1:14:09 through a al and the next scheduled one is for fiscal year 26. And in order to restore people’s faith in the assessing process, we thought we would front load it all to fiscal year 25, our current year. And, um, in essence do all the work for fiscal 26. So we can just carry it over into fiscal 26. And when we do this work, what we want to do is probably late fall, whatever. Definitely. Absolutely. Before the bills go out, uh, have notices go out to taxpayers and we would have it online. And also probably hide copies, three or four places in town here, Mary Alley and so forth, library, and

1:14:56 where you could look at the proposed values for your property. Now this would not, uh, constitute the point where you would start the abatement process. Mm-Hmm. But it would be the point where if you had concerns, you could contact the board and we would take a look at those concerns. The primary thing, or I think one of the principle benefits would be if we got a lot of concerns from one area, you’d say, okay, we better look at this area again. And, uh, so it’s $62,000. And so that would be all that would actually have been spent in fiscal 26. So we’ll spend it in this year, fiscal 25,

1:15:41 and then next year’s budget will revert to a normal budget. Okay. And it’s And who would be the consultant? Uh, it’s Catalyst. Yes. It’s a branch of Patriot product. Oh, okay. So it’s Patriot. Okay. Can you explain, go ahead. Can you, can you explain the process of the reval versus the normal? What’s The Sure. Uh, Reval is the department of everyone does a deep dive. So when we have all the values, the numbers ready, the Department of Revenue sends the team to Marblehead and they’ll probably spend a week, you know, possibly more Mm-Hmm. And they’ll go over everything before they certify our values. Every five years. This is every five years used to be three, right?

1:16:27 Um, yes. Now it’s five. The state every five years. Mm-Hmm. Okay. And technically ours is the 20 FY 26 26. You’re saying you wanna just do all the work In take it in earlier and then we can, you know, just do a little bit of bringing it up to date in 26 and Mm-Hmm. Invite the Department of Revenue in. Right. Okay. Well, the, the idea is not that it would be a full reval this year, but the work for the vet Val would be on now. So we could utilize the work that they’re doing for the reval that needs to be done anyway the following year now to fix the database. Okay. That has the issues that we’ve all learned about. Do we think there’s still issues in the database?

1:17:10 Yes. And they Have to come in with all new land values. Okay. All, all new base rates for the buildings. Uh, they should look closely at the condos. They’re gonna look at everything. And is, is it, is Patriots, the, the Patriot Properties, the one we who’s, who is the data who holds the database? Yes. Okay. And if you go to the website, you know, if you wanna look up values and go online, But it’s maintained by staff in Marvel. Right. So, but they support Yes. The database or do they just feed into it? They host it. Host it, okay. And Also consult. Okay. Um, in terms of its operation and, you know, their ongoing support roles for them. Mm-Hmm. But the input, the data, the land values,

1:17:57 the thing is that we’re, I think you probably all see in the copy of the report that was done by the outside, uh, firm. And those problems that were found in the database need to be resolved. Mm-Hmm. So bringing the full reval work a year earlier will allow the assessor, assistant assessor to be able to fix the problems that were created this last fiscal year, so that people will have, um, so the new values for next year will be correct. And what I think John explained earlier about publishing these printed documents is that people will be able to say, see a preview of what their property valuations will be before they’re actually released. So

1:18:42 When would that be available? The preview? Late fall. I mean, the bills, it’s hard to believe, you know, this weather, especially tonight and here, four months from now, we’ve got textbooks going out. Mm-Hmm. It’s hard to believe. Um, Patriots actually, informally, they started already on this, um, late fall. Because Aren’t they on a con on right now as a consulting? Well, right now they’re doing the building permits. They have a contract For that. Okay. And is that to fill, um, like a little bit of the gap between like, well, they do the department head leaving and, well, They always do the building permits. Oh, okay. Okay. Alright. You mean they take the building permits and add Yes. Yeah. Our, our department gets the permits and we hand it to Patriot. They have a contract, they’ll do up to 500. We do the rest.

1:19:30 But a lot of them are so simple, like a new roof doesn’t add value. We keep those for the office. Okay. And get them out in the field. And when I’ve, and I’ve heard that we haven’t done a great job of capturing new growth in the past, looking at some other things, would that be because it hasn’t been transferred from the building department? ‘cause I mean, I look, I’ve seen graphs of other towns and the new growth, especially during Covid, which we haven’t captured. So my question is, where, where do you see that fault now that this has been opened up? Where do you see that fall? Well, we get the, we start with what the building department gives us. Okay. Because we, we, we don’t just, I’m not, I’m, I’m just trying to understand the process. Yeah. Building depart gives you every permit that’s, they give all The permits. Mm-Hmm. To Us. Okay.

1:20:16 Now you say new growth. Um, we’re a built up community Additions. Right. But a lot of communities get growth from land splits. We don’t Hundred percent understand. Yeah. Uh, But There’s some change of use. You got a three family, you change it in the condos, you get growth. Very familiar. That’s been, that’s, you know, that’s been done. Mm-Hmm. Um, yeah. I had mentioned to somebody before, 10% of the houses in this town are, uh, in the historic district. Mm-Hmm. You look sideways, you need a permit. But it’s, you know, maybe I hear you. Primarily it’s maintenance. We’re Not talking about switching a switch or something like that. So do you think that we’ve captured most of the growth? I think, I think, yeah. We’ve done a pretty good job now. We’re gonna have a nice number this year. ‘cause we all know, uh, you know, last fiscal year,

1:21:02 just driving through town, that construction has been really impressive. Um, so I think yet this year’s number will be, you know, quite strong. And will this be a process moving forward of making these pre these assessments or values, um, public before they, before they give an out? Or is this just gonna be a one time reset? I think it’s so one time to try to get people back into believing that, as they say, in assessing fair and equitable, I mean, that’s what we want, right? Mm-Hmm. You know, But, but I think that it, it’s, and I would say, and we accept different perspectives on this, but I think the sooner we can get out in any given year the value so that people are familiar with the process, um, even in the event of a, an actual tax bill that goes out,

1:21:49 people should be aware of the abatement process and have staff that welcome people coming in looking at their record cards, understand the process, um, and then should know that they’re, they have confidence that they’ll be treated fairly. Because at the end of the day, the most important thing is that everyone in town feel that their property is fairly assessed. Mm-Hmm. Because it, you know, I think a lot of people don’t understand that it’s a, that total tax valuable, all taxable properties is what is, is the base. Right. So if, if someone is higher and someone is correct and high and, and then there are other people who are low where they should be higher, it shifts the burden onto the people who are assessed properly from the

1:22:35 people who are assessed low. So to be fair, the right way to do it doesn’t increase the amount of taxes collected. It only affects the shift in who’s paying it. So the, the key is that everybody should feel when they look at their property value that it’s that. Correct. Yeah. And that’s the big, that’s sort of the heavy lift that has to happen right now before Taxables go out. Yeah. I think that recognizing the education that needs to go on Mm-Hmm. Um, for people is, is first step I think. I think think you actually have done a, a nice job from the get go with, um, you know, in like the summary of the, of the report, uh, with that and, and kind of making that something digestible to your taxpayer, your normal taxpayer. Um, my my,

1:23:21 I’m concerned we’re getting a little heavy into Patriot Properties with this. Did you guys bid this out or did you consider using another consultant services? They have the system. They know the town. Um, no, But that’s, but you say they know the town if they missed, right. Shouldn’t they have some red flags to go up to see what happened last year? I have a hard time understanding where the town You weren’t Involved. Don’t they have some things that that should, that should highlight when there are mistakes? I would, If you read the report, John, I please, I did read the report. No, No, I’m not, I’m not saying, But the way you said that, I didn’t mean It that way. Okay. Um,

1:24:01 It, apparently the assessor did not even look at current to previous assessments. You’re gonna printed those out and see neighborhoods this and neighborhoods this and said something’s wrong. So where did they consult? And, and that case, I mean, so they have nothing to do with our assessments. Where is our consultant come into play? So I can understand that They Do, they do the building permits, they do personal property. Um, So they don’t look at any overall trends or anything like that. They’re not responsible for looking at that and seeing if we’ve made any mistakes. Not, they’re not, unless they’re asked. And as I understand it, they were not asked for help. Okay. Well, we have a contract with them. Right.

1:24:48 There’s a contract for them. And as part of that, they, they review, um, don’t they review this data like as a secondary line of kind of in insurance that what goes out is Correct. Traditionally what they do, they do get involved with the communities they work with. It’s like, okay, what help would you like? This is dealing with the assistant assessor. Mm-Hmm. Professional assessor. Okay. You know, what do you need? What do you want? Um, someone decided to say, I don’t want any help.

1:25:28 So, and, but my also, I’ve heard that the software that Patriot runs is, um, not optimal from, I think our treasure collectors had, has found it problematic. Um, I, I don’t know about, I honestly, I don’t know about that. I’m not a tech guy. I know that, I know that a lot of communities have migrated over to what’s called vision Mm-Hmm. And I just wondering if you guys have ever considered that or have you ever looked at another company in a, like, when was the last time we considered anybody to be Patriot Properties?

1:26:02 We haven’t, they, they actually have well over half of the state.

1:26:09 Okay. Probably 60%, something like that. But I Think it’s a market leader. I’m hearing vis this vision. I think it is, you’ll have to find out. I’ve heard The name, but you know, I don’t know if they’re a leader, but I think it’s a fair point. Yeah. I mean, we should be using the best possible system we possibly can. There’s no question about that. I think right now we have, you know, a fire to put out Mm-Hmm. And I think that, that right now what we need is as much possible help as we can and getting the fire out and putting things back together. And once we have a, the valuations and a confidence in the public that the valuations are fair, improving the usability. I spend a lot of time doing software in my real job. And I think that having the best software is absolutely essential.

1:26:55 So, and I think that there has to be a confidence in the statistics. I think that these, in, in an ideal world, we’ll know before something happens. But this also goes hand in hand with having the absolute best possible full-time professional in that office, which is the second piece of all of this that needs to happen very quickly. Because as John said, we’re, you know, the, the time is short to get this done. So yeah, we are moving as fast as humanly possible to make that happen. Well, I think there through the chair, I think there definitely is some overlap through, you know, clearly there’s been some data discrepancies. So there’s been some overlap with Patriot’s property and the, you know, prior process. And so I think there’s, there’s a couple things that rise

1:27:44 to a level of concern and one of them in regards to, I mean, we have not discussed the, the fiscal impact to the rest of the town of taking that, you know, proactively taking the finances, which we have to hear what you have to say, but also take into account what is a bigger, larger term impact holistically. So both of those things are part of what we have to consider as they’re making this request, especially a request that’s, um, coming in a way that we would be doing it in a, in a year that it wasn’t required. So obviously that, you know, brings us to a different level of discussion on this if we’re bringing this a year forward and how does that impact other departments. But, uh, I think that’s part of this. But I also have a concern on doing

1:28:31 a re-eval prematurely. When you are in the process of replacing staff, you’re in the process of, um, you know, having that staff person coming on board to look at, you know, as chair Nuna has suggested, you know, what were the overlaps? What were the discrepancies? What were some of these things? And, uh, would we be better suited to be in a position where we’re, you know, um, so I guess that would be, you have a Department head in place. Yeah. And that would be one of my concerns is, uh, because perhaps that would bring a level of expertise, maybe that department head has worked with this organization, maybe they haven’t, maybe they’re bringing something in. And if we’re doing this every five years, and when if we do it one year early, then we’ve lost that window.

1:29:16 And so those are some of the concerns that are rising. And then, like I said, my secondary concern is the fiscal impact holistically in a year that, you know, let’s be honest, things are tight. Well, we’ve got two things going on at once. We, we need to get an assistant assessor and we also need to get values that people have faith in. Correct. And we can’t say one’s gonna wait on the other. We have to So are you saying, sorry, through the chair, are you saying that you’re not capable or you guys aren’t able to give appropriate values without doing the reval? Yes. And, and, and I think it’s important to say this is not a full reval. This is essentially the work involved in the subsequent year’s. Reval being done now

1:30:02 and using that information for the following. Val, so so You you’re paying for it twice? No, No. So, so front Loading and we, we go back to a normal budget. So, so the cost the Fiscal year, Yeah. The cost in the future fiscal year and this fiscal year, or the next two when we swap them, will the, the aggregate will be the same. So there will be more money spent now to fix the problem. But that work that’s being done to fix the problem will be heavily utilized. And the following year when we actually do the reval with the state, we’ll have a quality data set. But we’re gonna do that work now. So the quality data set will essentially will just increment the following year. So the new values for the following year will be more, a lot less work because we’re not going through the entire database, but you’re

1:30:49 Still using the same foundation that potentially has data discrepancies. And so that to me, so I says, I don’t know that you’re solving the problem and now we’re spending a lot of money to not solve the problem. So it’s an excellent point. And what I would say is that having, I spent some time doing a deep dive into the data set and looking at statistics for all of the properties sorted in a whole bunch of different dimensions. And essentially, uh, we’ll see what, what their approach is to this reel. But if it were me, I would roll back the previous data set that was known to be good, and then make the corrections, or at a bare minimum, undo the errors that were made last year by the assistant assessor to, to where they should have been. So the starting point becomes, you don’t wanna take all

1:31:34 of these adjustments that have been made to fix the situation and make them permanent. You want to go and say, okay, what went wrong on land values? Let’s fix those to what they should have been, and then adjust for where to bring the properties online. Help ‘em describing that. That’s not, that’s, that’s not fair. We have, I think 29 neighborhoods. So they’re gonna take all the sales and start over and come in with new land values and also new building rates, you know, if for capes, ranches, you know, things Like that. So if you think about every single property in town, number of bedrooms, the neighborhood, the style of the home, all of these are parameters. Square footage of land square footage of the house. But the process isn’t changing. They’re not going into people’s houses. No, they’re, they’re just is outside. Yeah. Like assessment. Which really is not different than what they were doing prior as far as, you know,

1:32:23 I have been looking in this to this for several, several months. So my understanding is that there’s no difference in the process. So then that leads me to the nice same concern When You’re saying, it’s like, how are you getting different Data? So, so what got the data wrong in the first place is those land value parameters, if you looked at the report were wrong. They’re just fund, you know, like the wrong numbers were put into the system. So suddenly August head became 41% higher than it was, you know, and then there were sections of town, rainbow Road, um, uh, road went, They went down 2%. It was completely inexplicable. And so you look at those multipliers in the, in the tables, they’re just wrong. So that’s like the starting point as you fix those. But you want to go back to make sure that you, that work

1:33:11 to go through and look at everywhere. Because these aren’t the only places. I mean these are, we picked the high and the low to talk about right now, but there needs to be a really deep dive into all of the neighborhoods to make sure it’s right. Because you can catch the things that are the outliers really easily. But if you wanna look everywhere to figure out were there other mistakes that were made, it’s more than a typical year. You like to start with a data set, assume that your foundation is good, and then you make adjustments based on permits, property variations, you know, house to house. But it really is important to that heavy lift that would be done in a, in a revalue year. Doing that work now allows that deep dive into all of the properties at once. And then that work is in force for the following year.

1:33:58 So it becomes a very, that the reval year becomes a typical year in terms of expense. That’s the proposal. Yep. No, I totally agree that a credibility reset, um, I is needed. I that, which brings me to kind of, um, you know, you’re out if posted a position for a new as head assessor, correct? Because that’s an assessor is that’s an assessor. Okay. That’s what we call it. But do most towns call it a chief assessor? I don’t know. The law says assistant assessor. Well, The bylaw or the law and the Commonwealth Commonwealth talk about, Sorry, I brought copies of the law. I just, I don’t know if you guys have seen this. Our Town calls an assistant assessor payroll.

1:34:44 Send the back page of the SAR reports in the front. Well That’s ‘cause we’ve given it to him. Alright. That, do you have any input on, on the difference between chief assessor And assess? Yeah, most communities are moving to assessor Or chief assessor. Um, I think it’ll be a challenge advertising for an assistant assessor because in most other communities, that’s the number two person in the department. Um, so again, despite what the law, however old it is, the current model is you have a chief assessor, um, that is highly qualified, certified in, you know, doing the task of the database,

1:35:30 uh, doing the field work. Um, typically you would have a chief assessor overall the department, you would have, um, a number two. That’s the mostly the field person that’s out there going into the homes, doing the measurements, doing the evaluation of any improvements and making sure the database, uh, is correct. And then when you get abatement requests and residents are asked to provide, you know, comps, they go out in the field to validate both, you know, the residents comps as well as the cities or towns own comps to make sure that the basis of the value is, is accurate. So that’s, that’s the current model.

1:36:16 Um, Marblehead has not updated its approach or terminology. And I mean, I would just, I think the role is, the role is the same. I mean, what you’re saying is right, It’s just so purpose, the posting or you know, what your, It’s been posted on the town website, which it has a lot of hits, but most of ‘em are, you know, I think people probably on unemployment, you gotta have so many applications, you know, and all this and that. Um, I would consider it because it’s in just modern day workplace, you know, you see assistant assistant anything you, and if you’re at a level, we wanna hire somebody who has experience in other towns. Being a head assessor, we need somebody. Oh, I know that. I, it’s, I posted, it’s been posted on the Essex County assessors,

1:37:01 but posted on the Mass Assessors Association, those two websites, that’s where you’re gonna get people seeing it. Okay. And I’ve already had a couple sessions Call me. Did we consult h Sorry, did we con, was there, like, did hr, was HR involved? And Um, did You guys connect with Hr? Not the posting that, that’s gone out. ‘cause um, we’ve been working on the job description after the one you provided to us and that you’ve already posted. That’s Right. I have. So I took it off of Manchester and did some variations. It was straightforward. Did you Connect with Hr? What’d you say? Did You connect with human resources? No. Why not? I looked at postings online. I asked people I knew at the Department of Revenue, send me some postings that some towns are using. And I picked the one that seemed, uh, John,

1:37:48 I I have a problem with that. And the fact that we just lost an assessor and we, and, and we might have a, a problem moving forward with the way that it was happened. Um, I don’t think we will have a problem. I’m Actually, well just, lemme finish. Uh, well actually, John, you were quoted and if you’re quoted wrong in the papers saying, we’ll let the courts decide that. So, and then that, and now we’re not reaching out to our hr. So I, I know that you guys are s separate elected board. I think we need to work as one town here and we have an HR and we have legal for you to say that you just took up. Hold on one sec, please. I’m speaking. I appreciate that. I’m interrupting. Well just tried to, so just gimme a second and I’ll speak and then you can speak as much as you want. I’ve listened to you for a while and have a bunch comments. So, uh, it it, it it’s a little frustrating to hear from us

1:38:33 for us that you’re not taking advice and now you’re coming in asking us for something where right in your statement here, it says that we’re gonna, where we have lost, we’ve lost a lot of faith. You’ve said that. No question. Yes, absolutely. I don’t care who’s to blame. But when we talk about not fixing the, not having an assessor on board, we’re hiring right here. And you’re thing the same outside firm. We’re not making any changes except to say, go back and we’re gonna reevaluate, Go back and What, I’m sorry that we’re gonna go back and get a new base. Right. So the only change is, is is that we’re spending money this year versus next year. It’s, it’s Good values and we’ll have a From the same outside firm. That’s, that’s concerning to me when we’ve lost faith. The perception here is why aren’t we making changes?

1:39:19 I would like to see if you’re asking like for the, this represents half of fin comm’s reserve fund for something that doesn’t need to happen, right? What do you mean it doesn’t need to happen? What do you mean? I mean, we are not, this is something that we don’t have to do until 2026. What, How, what do you propose for values for tax bills in four months? Well, that’s what brings me to my question about where you are at with your job requirements for the department head position and who will who We, I think most people need to feel confident that there’s a strong department head and a strong chief assessor overseeing that process and holding who is to hold the consultant accountable and manage that. And who are they reporting to?

1:40:06 Um, I guess so what are the qualifications or that we’re looking for in the job posting?

1:40:13 So line, I mean, I didn’t bring it with me. What are We asking for bachelor’s degree or You can’t give us a a brief overview. I mean, my, well, I mean, I would you like us to look it up? I mean Sure. Can you just tell us Can now listen, when you, when you talk about, uh, you didn’t follow advice, I’m happy to comment on that. Yeah, you will. In a second. If we had followed advice, we’d be months without a assistant assessor. And then what? Actually, I don’t know. This is your, this is a, I mean, then what this, this happened in March 19th and it happened in July, so I don’t, so if we followed advice, you could have given 40, 48 hours notice. Let, he just asked me a question, John, so please stop interrupt. Let’s, let’s all so, but no.

1:40:58 Oh, no, no. That was not, that was not the advice. It was three stages the last time we had advice and, and it would’ve taken weeks and months. Okay. Well, and then the board said, I board said to Mr. Letterman, would you talk to town council? You will be our go-to person. And he explored with town council different options and I’ll let you talk now. I’d Love to hear it. So as, as John just said, the board, we’re a three member board, so we can’t Right. Even communicate with each other. Difficult right outside. So in public session, the board voted to ask me to interact with town council. I called town council, had a phone conversation. And I don’t wanna, I’m not gonna break privilege, but let me just say that I laid out all of the possible options with end points and costs

1:41:46 and based on the communication I had back, which was privileged, and I’m not gonna share that Now I can share it. One-on-one mm-Hmm. With Aaron, if you’d like, I’d be glad to. We looked at the number one priority being, getting someone into the office and being able to do the job. First. It is not correct to say we ignored the advice of town council. Their job is to tell you, here’s a situation, here are your options. This is what you can do. Now they may prefer one path, but they might say, look, you have two different paths. These are the consequences of one path. These are the consequences of other path. And it’s our job as an elected board to decide the path that gets us to what serves the taxpayer’s interest the best. And we collectively decided that

1:42:32 what served the best interest of the taxpayers, because there’s a lot of money at stake. We had five, over $500,000 worth of abatements that went out last year. So the idea of having a long drawn out process where we could not get a new person into the seat, to me doesn’t make sense. I don’t think anyone I’ve heard from in the community thinks it makes sense not to have that person in the position. So in my view and in the view of the board, one, there was only one possible pathway forward. And that was the path to it. I’m happy to go offline and into details of what that looks like in a, in the conversation that was privileged. I don’t, I think that we are moving as quickly as possible to solve the problem. Now we came here with a, with a request to transfer a future year’s budget to this year’s.

1:43:20 That’s the actual agenda item. Mm-Hmm. So I think it, I’ll stay here all night if you want and answer as many questions. I’m new to the board. I think John will answer as many questions about the history and what, what the path is. But the idea that a serious mistake in the database that was made by a staff member that’s in house can’t be reviewed by a firm that whose expertise is in maintaining and recommending and doing contract work in the same realm. In this particular case, it may be that maybe they aren’t the right company long term to be using. But again, you know, there’s a fire and we need to put the fire out. And they have experience with the system. They have experience with Marble. Have they been with us?

1:44:06 We’ve been with them since the beginning. This isn’t the time to be changing horses. I don’t have any problem with going out and personally, I’m just speaking for myself. We have another member who’s not here. I think that that’s a great idea. You know, and the best system should be the system we should use. There’s clearly, I don’t like the fact that, that it’s not, you know, that people go to the website and you type in an address and it’s not in real time. So the property record cards that may have had abatements or changes, you can’t see them in real time. I’d love to see that change. And maybe it’s an implementation of a new version of Patriot Properties. I mean, all of those things need to be explored. But right now we have something we have to fix. And I think that the presentation about what we’re asking from you is we’re looking

1:44:51 to spend money in a future year now and then spend less in that future year. And the net total will be the same. Right? Understood. But the work will be done now and we can benefit from that work now. And I think that that in terms of where it comes from and the finance committee’s reserve, there are, there are different, uh, areas of the budget that, you know, for example, there’s an overlay fund for abatements that is typically over, uh, reserved for this year. We spent more, other years we didn’t. I think that the idea that there isn’t enough money to pay for something that is this important and it’s, this is an incredibly important task because we don’t wanna see people filing for abatements. ‘cause that’s funny. That goes back. So when I look at it in the context of the exposure

1:45:38 that the town has, whether it’s personnel matters or whether it’s not getting the database that’s very small compared to the risk of getting it wrong. We have to get these numbers right. Otherwise, people reasonably under the law can come back to the board of assessors and say, you all, you have to make an abatement. And we don’t wanna be doing that. We wanna get it right. And whatever it takes to get that done now is I think what we need to do. That’s why we’re asking you to support this work to be done. Now. Is Patriots property helping us? Now you said like if we ask for it, if a community asks for help from Patriots, they step in and it wasn’t asked for Have we asked for their help since then? Well, that’s what this is. So We, we be meaning even just bef even like, like last month, will they do, because we’re still, we are hearing a lot

1:46:25 of residents complaining in the Old town district now downtown. Yes. So I Can’t, I can’t say that word anymore. And that’s a new Visa said this is a new group that I guess saw their last quarter, like their last tax bill. And, um, so you’ve you’ve heard the the I lived there. Yeah. Okay. Okay. So what I mean, I don’t know what happened there. Is that something that Patriot has been helping and manage us or, or That was a mistake by one of the two office staff

1:46:58 and somehow they, You’re talking about the tax bills? Yeah. Just to be clear, it’s not right. It’s not the values, but Yes. Estimated. But they were using their software, Right? Somehow they got in, somebody was in at the historic district and didn’t touch the land, but somehow by mistake put in a factor of 1.52 for the building.

1:47:26 And then the estimated taxes were built off of that era. And I, when I got my estimated tax bills, I looked and I says, gee, it’s a little high, but hey, it comes out at the end when you, these are estimated when you get the actual bills. So you, but then two or three people spoke to me. That’s when I, uh, actually I did call Mark Harrell from Patriot, and I said, do me a favor, mark, you gotta figure out, you know, something happened in the historic district. And he spent the morning in the office and then he called me. He said, somehow somebody working in The, I mean, I know there’s a longstanding relationship with Patriot. I know that they were started, a Marblehead company started a long time ago. I, you know, I know that Mike Topple Tea really appreciated

1:48:15 that that vendor, I would just encourage you To Oh yeah, for sure. But, but at least it’s a relationship that I could call him and say, Hey, would you come in and figure this out? But in terms of the service that they’re providing, right? Like let’s just, it’s, let’s try to look around and see, I, I would be, what I would think would make sense at This point if I couldn’t say my understanding. And I, again, I’m new for two months now, but it does seem like that that’s already happening. We talk with them regularly to get help, particularly with this situation. So I don’t think, you know, I think the difference is giving them a big project versus saying, Hey, we have a problem as part of the regular contractual services that they’re delivering for the town. I mean, I, from everything I’ve heard, they’ve been incredibly helpful in terms of trying to help us figure this out. Now they have an interest in us staying with their program.

1:49:02 So I’m not gonna be naive to say, but I also want to comment about this personnel matter and the title of assistant assessor. Um, again, I’m new to this, but I’ve spent a, you know, I tend to do a deeper, deeper dive as well. And it’s a very small community of, of assessors. And if you think about the North Shore or Essex County, I think every single assessor in Essex County knows about this position. So anyone who’s interested in qualified will and wants to come to Marblehead will be probably applying for this. So whether the title is assistant assessor or the title is Chief Assessor or whatever, I don’t, I think the obstacle will be the salary. And I think that one of the things that we need to get out there as quickly as possible is the salary range.

1:49:49 I know that there is a committee that that does that. And I think that the key is when someone inquires, okay, how much does this pay? Am I gonna make more money? Am I gonna, I mean I think that that really is more important than the title. Now do you give someone a title? You know, I think we may need to revisit titles, but right now, at the end of the day, this is a position that is the lead full-time administrator in the assessing department. I think that people who are applying for it understand that Yeah, there’s also, but to that point, I, there is no salary range posted with the posting that went out. And there’s, I would like to have an assurance of minimum requirements of otherwise you’re gonna get people, we’re gonna be in a similar situation where maybe people

1:50:36 who, you know, are taking a step up, you know, that don’t have that minimum, like, you know, have been an assessor before, um, are gonna come up. So I don’t know what the minimum requirements are. It’s, you know, it’s your posting, it’s your hire, it’s your job. But if we’re talking about, you know, the money piece that we, I mean on our end, I just wanna have insurances that there’s somebody coming in that is going to be able to, to get on the ground running who’s worked, who’s been an assessor before in at least another town who’s done this Exactly. Um, who, you know, who just a, a an assessor. And I think, um, that’s really important and to restore the credibility. So I just, you know, I’d just encourage you

1:51:23 to review the posting and the requirements and the salary we have to post a range. Um, it’s otherwise, uh, there’s a, the whole compensation commission, like you, me, you mentioned, uh, to the, um, let’s talk about the, the money for a second. What savings, if any, will you realize now that you have a gap in a department head? Um, you know, you’re asking for the full cost of it, right? Won’t you guys realize some savings now that Accrued savings for all of August, for example, if it’s in presumably. So could you contribute anywhere from your budget to the cost?

1:52:05 Well, it’s in the salary we see no reason not to. Okay. I think, I mean, the position that is now vacant pays an annual rate of $102,000. Mm-Hmm. Um, as you know, the benefits line in, in our budget is not really part of our budget. Right. So, you know, we, we certainly are receptive to sitting down with the finance committee and saying, look at how much we accrue and we’ll apply that to the, to the cost. Just bear in mind that we are talking about a net zero over a two year period savings. So, and I, and it doesn’t really matter. I mean, at the end of the day, we gotta have to get the work done. So this is not a huge department with, you know, I think that the intent is that anything that doesn’t get spent comes back to the town anyway. It’s not like it just sits in our, you know,

1:52:51 it doesn’t, it doesn’t roll over. So of course we would want to spend whatever resources we have. This is why there was so much urgency to getting this posted now. Mm-Hmm. Um, I will say, and again, this is just my own personal opinion, I think things could have moved even faster than we did had we had better, uh, cooperation from hr. So the idea that we are just, you know, ignoring hr I and just no, and this is, you know, I, I had, I spoke with Tom, we wanted to get this done weeks ago, and this has been dragging out. So sometimes getting something done faster because the town needs this done right, is really, really important. And in this case, we, we got it posted. It would’ve been really nice to have been to have posted

1:53:37 that salary range out of the gate. But that’s, you know, we live in an electronic age and we can update the posting. So let’s do that tomorrow. So through The chair. Mm-Hmm. I just, with all due respect, I think that’s why we have people that are expertise in their field because I would, um, counter that, that uh, you know, as a professional, if I’ve looked at something and I’ve seen it once my, uh, human nature, I’m probably not gonna go back and re and re-look at it again. So sometimes you do only have one shot when people are looking at things. And I think titles do matter. I’m not saying that it might be someone’s highest priority, but I do think that holistically from a human resources perspective and from a job hunting perspective, people are concerned about what is my title? You know, um, what the, sometimes that matters significantly depending on

1:54:23 what their career trajectory is. And I think that’s why I don’t claim to be human resources expert. It’s not my education. So therefore, that’s why I think you put that out there because there is a variable that is real, that if someone has seen something, looks at it and moves on, and yes, it might be corrected, but it doesn’t mean that someone that had already seen it would take the time to go back and look at that amend. So I think that’s an excellent point. I really do. And I will say that I, you know, our original agenda item is to talk about this transfer, but I’m glad we’re talking about the position because I think that this is really front and center of what needs to be done. I don’t have a copy of the job description in front of us. Should have, that’s a mistake. I think we should have had a copy of that, anticipating that this might have come up. My recollection of the position is that it’s very clear that they would, that position described someone

1:55:10 who is heading the assessing department and has clerks working for them. So I don’t think, while we may not have posted in the initial posting the salary range, I think it’s very clear that this is a position as Thatcher described as a chief assessor, however you wanna describe it. You know, for example, Lisa, me is the assistant town council. I don’t think that she thinks that, you know, she’s a volunteer like Jeff Fridman who is actually the town council. So when I look at this position of assistant assessor, I say we’re the assessors, the three of us. And there’s an assistant assessor. And the assistant assessor is the full-time professional under state law. Just like Lisa Mead is the assistant town council, and Jeff Fridman is the this town council. So I completely take your point. I think it’s a great point. And I think that if anything we want

1:55:55 to talk even more strongly in the job description about this is the lead full-time administrator in the, in assessing. I think we got pretty close to that. I can’t remember off the top of my, I mean, that was the intent. And I think it’s, you know, to your point about getting the most qualified person, every single one of us, and, you know, Bill’s not here, but we want the app. Someone who has experienced who’s done it before, this is not a, you know, this isn’t a Yeah. Learn on the job kind of position. They have to have had more experience doing this before they came here. So to, you know, if I look at it again from a hiring perspective, it’s the salary range and them understanding the job responsibilities and wanting to come here, making this a place where, you know, they’re gonna come in and they’re gonna have to do some not so fun work.

1:56:42 And you know, it’s a position already. It’s a very public facing. So I’d add a second point that they should have a really nice demeanor when people come in and say, look, I don’t think my house is valued the right way. Let’s help you. What can we do to make your life easier as a taxpayer, as a valued member of the community? And I think that, you know, when I, we’ve all heard about this. We’ve all talked to friends and been around, and the feedback we get informs the kind of qualifications we want in this role. So they have to be smart, they have to know the topic, but they really have to have a good customer service. Kind of, I don’t think there were years of experience mentioned in the posting. I think it was a bachelor’s degree. It was, it was simple. So I think you’re gonna get some folks, and you’re just, I think you’re gonna get some people that, you know, maybe aren’t qualified.

1:57:28 I think if you do go back and update a salary range, consider putting in some range of level of experience within the posting so people can vet themselves out or in. So that’s a, that’s a for sure. It makes sense to do that. I will say that, and it’s not just for being optimistic. I think that the people who are looking for this position are probably a, a set of people that are not, we’re not talking on route, we’re not talking 20, I mean, it’s a small community. I think people who are the right candidate, who, who is looking for this job will understand what they’re applying for. I absolutely agree we should have more detail. But I don’t think that this is a national search because it’s a very narrow, you know, you have to understand Massachusetts assessing law.

1:58:13 Then I came on board, I had to take a course. There’s a much deeper set of experience that an assessor has to have. So I don’t think, I think we’re all on the same page with what we need. And to the extent that someone might have, you know, to, to Alexis’s comment that you see something the first time and then you don’t look at it again. I, I agree. And that’s, that often happens in Advertising. I just think it’s about that. I’m meant to cut you off. I just, I, we just wanna clarify that, that point with that is throwing that wide net to get the greatest level of expertise. And then also that’s concerns me from the perspective of saying that you guys had reached out perhaps to Tom, but it wasn’t solidified. And I hear the sense of urgency, but I think that’s concerns me from the perspective of we are one unit, right? That, that fund, that that funding that you wanna use

1:59:00 for your program, that it’s not, you know, it’s not that, it’s not gonna potentially be something that’s needed elsewhere. So this is a holistic conversation. So if it seems that, you know, those steps weren’t taken that perhaps would hinder us in a way that doesn’t allow us to, you know, maybe we, someone looked at it or didn’t. And I know, like for myself as a chief pilot, an assistant chief pilot is very different than a chief pilot. Maybe I’m someone that does not wanna work underneath someone else. And so when I look at that description, I’m going, and I, and like I said, I’m not claiming to have a name and resource level of expertise. What I do know is that in order for this to be successful from the municipality standpoint, we have to be leaning on everyone’s expertise, even in those levels of urgency.

1:59:45 So we’re not, you know, we’re able to move things forward, including advice of counsel. Yeah. And advice of counsel, which we sought, Well, a little bit in our defense, we wanted to get this out quickly. I asked the, uh, senior clerk, could you get in touch with Alicia and get the range? And he said he reached her, but she wasn’t in the office. And it, uh, I believe Tom would have it on Monday, and I called Tom on Monday. Well, I’m not in, I’m taking the day off, so I don’t have it. Yeah. And we wanted, that’s, wanted to get this thing out. Right. Can I, can I ask a couple questions to get back to the actual Yeah. To the mon to the money. The money Part. Yep. Um, how long, so you said that the, the land value, I understand that, and you had talked about going back a few years to start, I mean, it would, before the data was,

2:00:33 How long do we think that is? Oh, it would be the previous, that would be the previous set. So can we use that and just build off in the, in the first year? Or, I, I guess I’m, I’m, I’m having a hard time understanding ‘cause I’m not an assessor why we can’t go. If, if this year the mistake was made, why we can’t go back and take last year’s and start from that internally. So versus having a higher, so now You’ve got two years of sales you gotta deal with. Gotcha. ‘cause you use, it’s not just an increase. Yeah. Okay. And can, and on that 1.52 that you talked, that they put in. So just again, ‘cause I’ve had these questions Mm-Hmm. Why are they touching the assessments again when they’re sending out a bill? Am I misunderstanding that? I believe the bills came off of the, uh, in-house values.

2:01:21 Okay. ‘cause it was, it was after it was changed, right? Yeah. Yes, I can explain that. Okay. Yeah. I was gonna ask if little Yeah. Contribute anything on have the finance, Because I thought the assessments already been set at that point and abatements were passed when it was set out. Misunderstand the mistake. So, so I Let have that. Gotcha. So the bills that just went out are preliminary bills and they’re based on, or should be based on last year’s values, last year’s tax rate. And in fact, when you, I believe when you get your preliminary bill, it should be the same as your last actual bills. Right. So you shouldn’t really see an adjustment.

2:02:08 Um, there may be some exceptions.

2:02:11 The way it’s been described to me, what happened is the current, the fiscal 25 values and applying the fiscal 25 rates were loaded for the tax bills rather than the prior year values at the prior year rate. And therefore when the preliminary bills went out, there were changes in value and changes in rate and residents. ‘cause they came to my office and sat down and showed their bills could not tie in the change from the prior bills. So the error was using the current values, current tax rate, uh, being uploaded.

2:02:57 Um, and, and so their bills shouldn’t happen now, which to correct that problem, if that was the only issue, you just, when you do the next actual bills and you do the current year rates, you, you know, you do the calculations, it should wash out. One of the concerns of going in and changing values midstream in this process is that you’re not gonna be able to wash it out. That’s what I have a concern of. Not being able to wash out that set of errors By doing, by the reclass early Making changes before you put out your next actual bills.

2:03:43 I just Wanna make sure. So you’re gonna have multiple changes when you should only have one set of changes. There are sort of three topics that are going around here. Yep. And I just wanna make sure, so there was an issue with the bills where they had to be reissued. And I don’t know if that’s what you were bringing up because I think it was the next thing with just the downtown, there Were multiple, there were multiple errors. There were the errors that occurred that were captured in the report by the consultant. Right. That was the basis of their personnel actions. Mm-Hmm. Subsequent to her removal, there were additional errors to the bills. Correct. Which we had to then, so that Was outhouse out of our, Out the department. So that’s what I described as

2:04:31 the wrong files are uploaded. So what happens, the assessors provide the data to the treasure collector. Okay. So the treasure collector, their, their role in the process is to print, is to collect the data, print the bills, and get ‘em in the mail. Yeah. All the data that goes in it is based on the assessor department. Mm-Hmm. So, so we’ve gotta get a handle on the processes and procedures and training and, and those issues to avoid the human error problems. We also have some technology problems. And I don’t know how well attuned as far as Espro and Collect Pro, that’s the accompanying software that talks to the database, that talks

2:05:17 to the treasurer’s office, so forth. What’s happening is, um, that software is not up to date and we’re making upgrades to our servers and our whole network systems. And what I think is happening is the older software is not playing well with our upgraded systems. And I know Patriot’s working on it. I just know our treasure collector is spending a lot of nights and weekends trying to figure out first there’s something wrong, figuring it out. And then everybody in the, in the officers are, are scrambling and patriots scrambling to fix it. So we, we absolutely need to look at the software. And, and I have to say, we had these conversations

2:06:05 with Cameron way back when as we, when I rolled in the door, we knew our IT systems, right? Yeah. We’re upgrading all our systems. The assessing office is not, it needs to, and, and part of the effort of the the town meeting, of moving the assessing department as part of the finance department is to make sure that the assessing department is part of and a player in all of these upgrades, all of these changes, we, we, we all need to be working together. Yep. And, and as of right now, that’s not happening. So, so there’s some real issues.

2:06:52 Um, my issues on the request. It’s a reasonable request to say, let’s take Nick year’s action. Let’s do it this year. Requests of $62,000 in hitting, I think you’ve already raised it. Um, if we’re doing the normal path, we would be looking for additional 62,000 in the town share of a $50 million budget. We would program it in the budget. Yeah. Obviously not anticipating this is not programmed. So the request is to hit our reserve fund. Our reserve fund is 144,000. So, so instead of a 62,000 request on 50 million, it’s a $62,000 request on 144,002 months into the fiscal year. Right? Now, what I would, uh,

2:07:40 all the department heads know this, if you have financial issues and requests and changes, first place you go is sit down with the chief financial officer and say, I have an unanticipated request, where do I go? Mm-Hmm. Alicia was not part of this conversation. My last emails, she doesn’t, doesn’t even know what the request is. So our CFO has yet to be in the conversation to be able to sit down and say, okay, before we go to the reserve fund, let me go into the system. Let me look at what your spending rate, what’s available, and we’ll come up with a plan. Mm-Hmm. They didn’t go to the CFO for this

2:08:27 and they should before they go to the, the fcon. Yeah. Um, well, we did the other two times. Yeah. And you got to the fcon, what, whatever, 15 Alicia was in the room. 15,000 for the 15,000 for the, uh, all the abatements 5,000. The report we didn’t go to, But the thing is, our finance director could have some year end transfer money that would be better used for it, you know, from a health insurance line. So before we would, you know, really that should be a last resort or reserve fund. And I get like, as that we, that we all understand that this is like a net wash. We pay it next year, but it is of a reserve fund. And, um, I don’t, do we have a pro, like I, I haven’t seen a proposal or anything from Carly.

2:09:14 Is that something we have in hand? Or is this, You know, some, some of this particular topic is new to me in terms of coming to the select board for this. My understanding is the FinCon doesn’t technically need your approval. This is a discussion we have to get your recommendation on this. Mm-Hmm. Is, am I correct in saying it that way or is this, and I’m not saying that from an authority perspective, I thought, I think the more people that are aware and less the program we’re on, the better because it creates, you know, everyone understands we’re all talking to each other and we’re all, we’re in the same direction. So it sort of doesn’t matter what, where we going, you know, if you have a, a meeting that we can get into first. Now I, I do want to address the issue with regard to Alicia.

2:10:01 Um, when the report came back from the, um, outside firm that had figured out what went wrong, we got a copy of it. One of the first things I requested when I got elected is I’d like to see a copy of it. I was provided a copy of it. I know Thatcher was sent a copy of it. Um, one of the first things we wanted to do was get this out to the public. Now because the report had some comments about personnel. We asked that legal counsel review it for any redactions. It was a Freedom of Information Act request from the current we sent to them. We said, we want to get this out as soon as possible. Look at it, tell us if we can release it. The moment we heard from legal counsel that there were no redactions necessary, we released it. Thacher already had a copy of it. Now, Alicia came to one of our meetings where she said,

2:10:47 you know, we need to talk about what the relationship is between town and the, the board of assessors, the select board. And I said, this is great. We all wanna work together. But have you seen a copy of the report? She hadn’t. So I don’t know why she never got a copy of the outside report. It was available to the select board. It was sent to Thatcher. I’m not, that may have been an oversight, but No, not an oversight. I, because if I may, when that report was done and issued, because it had potential impact on the personnel issues, based on conversations, um, again, uh, uh, earlier in the process of dealing with the errors that you described in the database,

2:11:34 what’s gonna be done about it? Um, the, the original intent was to simply terminate the employee. And it was our conversation that said, you just can’t terminate an employee without just cause you gotta have the information. That was the basis of somebody’s gotta go and, and do an investigation and look at what were the errors, describe it, and then make a determination as to what action. So that document, um, basically at that time was considered, uh, dealing with a personnel matter. Therefore it was privileged, um, as we worked our way through it and as we got the, the information request, we went through legal based on where we were in the process.

2:12:23 And based on the request, it was determined, yes, it can be released. So, so for a while that document was kept as, as privileged. Are You saying that Alicia would not have been able to see that document while it was privileged? Oh, she would. She would’ve. But she, I was handling the situation. Her, her, her workload is overwhelming. So she and I exchange information about things we’re working on when we need to exchange information to deal with it. So, so it was a personnel matter at that time. I understand it Wasn’t yet a financial matter. So town meeting had two articles. Article 35 and Article 38. Article 35 was to put the assessing department and the assessor under the select board, or under Alicia Mm-Hmm. Rather the finance director, article 38 was

2:13:10 to make the assessors, uh, an appointed board, which failed. Mm-Hmm. Um, one of the first things that happened in our very first meeting, and I think you joined us at the end of the meetings, I said, look, we really need to reconcile what is a, you know, there’s either a drafting error, there’s a problem with the way the article passed, what the roles and responsibilities are. And ultimately we all wanna work together. So everyone, yes, there’s no dispute about all being, you know, we’re all on the same team. We need to get this done. And so the more information, information sharing that can happen as early as possible, the better it is for everybody. And I think that this idea that there is a, you know, conflict, I think from our point of view as elected board of elected assessors, and again, I don’t wanna speak for John, you’re welcome to express your point

2:13:55 of view is the most important thing we need to do is get the property database fixed. Because we don’t want to be in a situation next year where we have to, if it’s done right, there won’t be any abatements. Mm-Hmm. And it was $500,000 last year. So all of these costs are really very small compared to the risk of not getting it right. And that includes having someone in that seat right now, the most qualified person. None of us want to take someone. So, you know, if we have to go through, and again, it’s a process that we have to do properly because of, we need to make sure that people know this is a confidential search. So if people are applying and they don’t want to put other positions at risk. So we are absolutely making sure that we’re doing it properly from a confidentiality perspective. And then when I, I think that it’s very clear to John

2:14:42 and we authorize as a board, John, to lead that role. Mm-Hmm. To make sure that we get the absolute most qualified people. So I understand your points about the description that can be improved, but time is of the essence here. There really is not a lot, you know, we, this is just too important to, so have there been some missteps in terms of communication? Probably are, do we need to move ahead? And the more we share, I mean now that the personnel matter is not front and center, I think that at all communications should be shared with any interested parties on the board. So through the chair. Sure. Yeah. So I think coming back to the task at hand, I think some of the things, um, and Mr. Kelly, you noted that, you know, at some points, perhaps in certain issues, maybe you had took, you know, connected with the cfo.

2:15:30 Sometimes you haven’t. I think where we are now in the process is, uh, and I think that was really what I’m pulling from this whole conversation, is that’s, uh, just as speaking to human resources, just as speaking to the, you know, to Alicia and speaking to the finance department, that’s how we do work together. That’s how we say, okay, is this the be here’s the need. Is this a realistic need? Or you know, is this something that we have to do now we can wait. And then what is the mechanism for funding? And what’s the best way to do that? And so for me, that, that to me, it seems like we’ve just skipped a step in having that conversation or not having that conversation to say, you know, there’s two, to me, very distinct conversations here. One, what is the need? And if we fund that need,

2:16:17 whatever the mechanism is, is it actually going to do what you are hoping it will do? That’s question one. Um, question two is, are we finding the best source of funding we can possibly get? And without, you know, any of us operating in a vacuum, how do we know? Like I said, not just as like human resources is not my expertise. Neither is knowing the intricacies of all of the possible financing sources, but I know Alicia does. So that, and I’ll just add, that’s my concern. I’ll just add like my, and just my other point was just, and I understand that times of the essence, but I just, you know, my, I question, I’m, I’m glad that you’re receptive to it, is just, are we doubling down on a problematic like relationship?

2:17:03 You know, is there, is there somebody, should we be at a different vendor? Should we explore other options at the stage Of the game? As Jonathan said, you know, when this is settled Just because of the software issue, Let’s look, you know, Okay, so I did speak with the chair of the finance committee today ‘cause I wanted to get his opinion on this. And um, you know, he, he’s actually served as liaison for the assessors for a while. So he has understands the role, understands the need, you know, is generally supportive of it. Question was, um, well what does Alicia say where, you know, ‘cause this is, I mean, have, like, you know, where else can we get it down to 30? You know, can we get it down to, to 40? What about the salary head position?

2:17:49 You know, because it is a reserve fund. You know, we know that it would’ve been given to you next year anyway, but it’s the first month of the fiscal year and it’s a big ask and we have an exhausted other opportunities. Um, and potentially maybe, um, you know, a more a a competitive process with a different, uh, vendor. Uh, you know, that’s for you to decide. I just think that that’s, that’s the feedback that I got from the chair, the finance committee. So I think the next step is naturally to talk to the finance director to see how else can we fund this? How can we get the number down and um, and, and, and then take it from there. Well, so I, I just wanna understand the timeline because obviously time is of the essence.

2:18:35 We’re Yeah. Looking to fill this position. We’re recruiting about $8,000 a month in direct salary, um, from the position that’s now vacant. So that can certainly apply to reducing the cost. So just out of the gate, right. You know, um, we could probably accrue what we, what would’ve been what,

2:18:56 I don’t know for this fiscal year, how much would we have spent in a regular, I mean, if it was 20 something is a typical year for, well, I’m sort of sitting here thinking I think we have an overlay surplus, but That’s Right. It’s, That’s always been the role of the finance director to say, the assessors, do you have an overlay surplus? And what can you give us? Because then it goes into free cash. Okay. But we do, We have an overlay surplus. And, and, and really, you know, under state law, we can’t just spend that overlay surplus without getting finance committee approval. So if the answer to your question is, where’s it gonna come from and there’s an overlay surplus sitting there, I don’t think, I mean, I’d be more than happy to make a motion right now to, you know, the two of us are here and say, we’ll take it outta overlay surplus. We’re looking to solve problems here. Yeah.

2:19:44 And make a decision so we can move on and get this database fixed so that taxpayers will have confidence in the integrity of, Do you have a scope of work and a whole co have you seen a scope of work and a proposal in a contract? No, it was just a one sheet, you know? Okay. Okay. So it sounds like there’s More to what we’ll do. And then if we say, okay, proceed, then they draw up A contract. Okay, is it exempt 30 B exempt? Is it, what is it exempt from 30 B for the services that you’re procuring?

2:20:13 So it’s 69 60 $2,000. Right? So it’s over 50,000. So there’s a procurement process, right? You have to go question whether that particular service exempt exempt. If it’s not, and it’s more than 25% of your current contract, you would have to do a separate bid for that. Have we put, when we’ve done been ahead of reval year, have we had to put it out to bid? Yes. And Patriot’s the only one who over bids, But you still have to go through that process. So if I may, here’s here’s the journal theme that keeps coming up in this whole conversation, right. My concerns about the CFO not being, that’s where the whole conversation of overlay versus reserve versus something else

2:21:01 should first happen with the CFO. And there should be a a, a unified agreement that yeah, that works for everybody. And that’s what we come, we, part of my job of serving the select board is making sure anything that comes to the board is fully baked. Right? And, and part of that is including all the departments that have a role or a say in whatever it is that, that we’re coming forth with. And so, again, my concern is the CFO needs to be part of this conversation. I also have to defend the human resources director in, in, in, in, you know, how that was portrayed. Again, the human resources officer, the, the HR director was available, was trying

2:21:49 to provide input, but again, wasn’t followed. And I have to take what was offense to, I have to, let me finish, let me finish. What was his input? So here’s how we do it. We, we handle any vacancies, especially department head levels. Anytime we have a vacancy, we take the job description, we sit down and we review it to update it, to make it current. It’s easier to change a job, uh, description when it’s vacant, not when it’s filled. Then, uh, any changes to job descriptions, we take it to the compensation committee. Right. Which, which this is required by the town meeting, right? The, the legislative branch controls the classification of positions and we run it

2:22:36 through a review using the gov HR procedures that we’ve been following, where we score based on the updated job description. We evaluate and score the position to see if there’s any grade changes. There’s your opportunity to make a position more competitive in the marketplace. And lemme tell you, the marketplace is tough. So we score and then we provide that to the HR director and the HR director does his thing of putting it on the street, putting it in the right places to advertise to go out and find the best candidates we can. Right? That’s how we do it. But that wasn’t done here.

2:23:22 And so, and, and then finally, I, I have an issue of the description with the legal counsel. ‘cause I was privileged to, to all of what’s going on as far as the delays in timing of following our legal counsel. Right. This process started back March. March the 19th. Yeah. I personally, along with our, our labor council, have been providing exactly the steps, the letter notice, everything. I laid this out in the email, we laid it all out. Right. And to say, you know, that over several months of this playing out, and then we rush it by ignoring it is putting us in jeopardy. I don’t think so. So the

2:24:08 common theme, sorry, I don’t think so. The common theme, we we’re not talking to the CFO, we’re not working with hr. We’re not following legal. Everybody’s given input, but we’re not following. And, and what we’re trying to do here, Marblehead, is avoid these disasters by one professionalizing following policies and procedures, updating our information as we go. And, and so we absolutely have to pull this in and, and work together and run it professionally so we can avoid all the problems that, that we’re facing. Can I ask you a question? Are you aware of Marble Head’s, uh, personnel policy manual that we have? Yes. What year was that produced?

2:24:55 Oh, it’s old. How old? 1995. So with some updates. So I requested a Copy of my personnel policy. Yeah, I know. I provided it. And clearly it, it, there’s, it’s pretty pretty old Yep. And does not provide contingencies for this exact situation. Yep. So you then have to go back to say, okay, what are the proper procedures to do this? Now I’ve been on since June 11th was the election. Mm-Hmm. So, but, you know, started, I think we had a meeting the day after, or two days after the election and started looking into this. And I can say that from the time that I got on till the time that, uh, we made the decision to dismiss the position, there was very little answers

2:25:43 to some of the basic questions. Like reconcile Article 35 and 38, very first meeting to reconcile the fact that there was a problem with the way Article 35 was written. The roles and responsibilities. Alicia came to, I think our second, my second or third meeting. And I asked her point blank, who makes this hire? What’s your understanding of who makes this hire? Because there could be a difference of opinion. And she said, you guys do. Right. And since we understood that to be the case, and she understood that to be the case, now it falls under the copy, you know, chapter, uh, you know, section chapter 41 25 A. And once it was under those set of rules, we looked at, I looked at what the process is now, it would’ve been extremely valuable to have more assistance with this.

2:26:28 But I have to say that, and and I’ll tell you, I think all of us spend time in the community, we’re all, you know, from Marblehead, there is a, a recurring theme in this town that whenever something goes wrong, we put people on paid leave and we take our time figuring it out. This is a time sensitive project that needs to be dealt with to, to, to solve right away. And so, with all due respect, I appreciate your opinion. I appreciated the point of view of legal counsel. But when you deal with an attorney, they often will have several options that they lay out. One could be risk averse, one could be more risky, but at the end of the day, you have to put risks, costs, and all those things and weigh those multiple choices. So I consulted with them

2:27:14 and a lot of that conversation with our attorney was on the phone, um, because I wanted to lay out all the situations. So they may have had their risk averse recommendation, but they wouldn’t, if you say, well we want, we need to not put the tax base of Marblehead at risk. How do you value that? Well, that’s not their role. Their role is to figure out how to deal with strict HR risk mitigation. Right. So I think we did as much as was humanly possible to do with the idea that there was time sensitivity in this matter. Now, you know, again, I keep coming back where the money comes from, from this project. You know, we’re gonna fill this position and we’re gonna fill it as quickly as possible with someone who is experienced, and I a hundred percent agree with you. They have to have, they had to been

2:28:00 to be an assess the lead person in, they have to be an assessor, but they have to have been from a community that has the same kind of parameters that Marblehead does in terms of real estate. There’s no doubt about that. Well, the Problem is the job description you provided has downgraded the qualifications. So you don’t need to be already an assessor because it says you hire somebody with general experience and can get certified in two years. Someone from the Department of Revenue recommended that to me. Right. And that’s, that’s a viable, so there’s people out there, but that conflicts with, right. So, so it, it’s downgraded. And again, if you’re competing in the marketplace, um,

2:28:45 how you describe what you’re looking for matters as to who you’re gonna attract. And I would say that that is a generally true statement in this particular case. There is a small body of people who are very much aware of this position and the vacancy alone needed to be posted so that, you know, we could even reach out to people and who may be recommended and say, Hey, guess what? The position is vacant. Wow. That position is not have, as has less requirements. I have a, you know, more significant skillset. Is there salary range to be able to allow Marette to hire someone who’s experienced? That’s where we needed help quickly to get that salary range. ‘cause at the end of the day, it really is about how much we can offer to the position. So I understand your points about job descriptions. I don’t even disagree,

2:29:31 but the, you know, there, there’re you, you’re balancing speed position vacant with the understanding that all three of us on the board of assessors want someone experienced who’s gonna fix, we’re not gonna hire someone who has the minimal level of requirements. We put a floor and said, this is the floor of the requirements. If we didn’t say this is what we expect the typical applicant to be, Then what if nobody applies? And then you get that has the what you want in your head, but it’s not, and we Keep searching. Right. You can do that. Yeah. But I mean, it, you also potentially cost yourself more time. Right. I mean, I don’t, don’t think that like a week’s delay worth of a job posting, um, you know, is gonna make a material difference in,

2:30:17 in the applicant pool. But when you, I think the, when you do It in four months, it does. I think just, you know, for what it’s worth, the advice is to probably sit down with Tom and work on updating a posting and obviously talking to Alicia, where can we knock this number down, um, and get a full scope of work, um, and potentially go out to bid on it per a statute Through the chair. Mm-Hmm. I think for me, when I’m hearing all of this, you know, just described, I think it really comes down to, and I think, you know, um, with there are, what, what are the regulatory requirements? You know, who’s wearing what hat, right?

2:31:05 But then I also believe in any of these situations there is that just the old saying, two heads are better than one. Meaning even if it’s regulatory, this is our hire, but then getting additional feedback, expertise, those types of things. And I think that’s what has led to the situation where we’re in tonight. Because I, you know, without that additional feedback, don’t know if there are additional funding sources that would be more appropriate. And that, like I said, I mean, you know, hitting 62 out of 1 44 1 month in when there wasn’t a discussion. And I know from what you said, sometimes there was, sometimes there wasn’t. What I would like to hope is that we’re in a place where, you know, we’re trying to pull as a town moving forward that we proactively have these conversations

2:31:52 and that we do try to work together and try to solve these solutions. I understand there’s a lot of extenuating circumstances around wanting to push this through. And I, you know, we can’t go backwards. We can only move forwards. But I think moving forward from where we are right now, how do we get the best, you know, description, whatever those modifications are or suggestions and work together to get that out there and then, you know, have that moving forward. You know, as you pointed out, obviously there’s still a lot of other room for improvement holistically over things as we’re pulling this out. Right. The manual is definitely, Yeah. I mean, there’s so many things that, That’s something that we’ve been chipping away at that we have updated some of the stuff. But that’s a work in progress for sure. That’s a well point well taken. I do wanna move on.

2:32:38 Move us on. Yeah. Um, it’s 9 35. Um, I, you know, I think that we know where we’re at. Um, I think, oh yeah. Can I just, if you don’t mind, yeah. I just would like to ask you one of the questions we talked about when we looked to see when the finance committee and the select board had their meetings, the goal was to have to meet with both of you as quickly as possible. So, okay. Um, I know I reached out to Alec, um, to give him a heads up about this. I think he understands the challenge. And I don’t wanna say it doesn’t matter to me where the money comes from, but I do think because it does, but by the same token, there’s no overlay. There are other resources that may not be in the reserve.

2:33:24 And I think that, again, the, it’s the exposure that’s more important than the chair. I just wanna understand. Yeah. Well I think the other issue that got brought up too is the whole issue of 30 B if it’s exempt from 30 B. So now we’ve got a regulatory issue, which is, uh, you know, like that’s a showstopper for me. I’m Gonna ask you to make a decision now. I think we should, right? But I’m saying you’re, you’re referencing Alec, but that to me, now you’re taking it to a step that we have now brought up an issue that without a resolution, fin can’t fin com can’t make a decision without knowing that that process has been followed appropriately. And that we’re within that, you know, because then that starts a whole nother concern, right? So I think we need to make sure 100% that you guys have that coming forward. And I’m sure you would agree with that point too. Absolutely. You have to know, you know, if that, like,

2:34:11 whatever that, you know, if we’re over that threshold, then, you know, because you guys want this to work, we want want it to work, we want it to not then end up being something where we have to pull back and say, all right, well we didn’t catch that. So, you know, I think that needs to be addressed first and then obviously additional funding. But before, to me, before that even comes, we have now another question that’s been thrown in the mix of just making sure that you guys are clear on that. And we take care of that too. So I think we all wanna see the specs. Yeah. Clearly. Yep. We need to. Right. It’s our biggest, Well, these are, and I agree a hundred percent with what you’ve said. I think that these are things that can be determined very quickly. Yeah. And if that is the process that needs to go out to public bid or the for, for variety of reasons,

2:34:57 other changes need to be made in the procurement process. We need to fix this tomorrow and then come back immediately. Because time really is, there’s a lot of work there. Mm-Hmm. Over 8,000 properties that have to be looked at. Yes. Maybe not one by one, but certainly in aggregate to get this right. And I just think that there is a sense that things are not moving as quickly. Not because we are not moving them, but because sometimes, you know, the wheels of, of, of government move slowly. And I think we’re, you know, if there’s any takeaway, it’s that we will see you again soon with this request in some other form. ‘cause it’s gonna happen one way or another. The position’s gonna get filled, the work has to be done, and having an outside firm help with it

2:35:43 needs would be, has to be done. Has to be done. So, you know, it’s not a, it’s really just a question of when. And, you know, I hope that that directive is passed all around to the entire, all of the departments falling under the select board. And clearly, I mean, we have two clerks working in the department that are basically filling in for this full-time position is vacant. That isn’t Okay. And I think that we all understand this is a, you know, this is really an urgent Yeah. You guys are doing super important work. And they’ll, you know, we, it’s a, it’s a connected relationship, so for sure we are very interested in getting this holistically addressed as well. Well, it’s the next step for who, who can look in that 30 B? Yeah. We, we can, we can look into that. We can check on 30 B. Yep. Mm-Hmm.

2:36:29 We already have a compensation committee meeting scheduled for next Thursday That who’s our procurement officer. So Yeah. Right. Mm-Hmm. Alicia will be back Monday. Okay. Um, the department’s and Tom will be there to, to handle. We’ve all been there. Mm-Hmm. It’s just that Great. You gotta, so It sounds like we can let the professionals do their job to make sure that we get it done expeditiously. Right. There was an old saying, post it on a wall in another job if you don’t do it right. The f if you don’t have time to do it right the first time, where are you gonna find the time to do it the second time? So Do we wanna put some dates on that? We know we will have, you said your compensation committee Alicia’s coming back next week. I mean, we should be able to get all these answers

2:37:16 by your next meeting or not. You have another meeting next select board in two weeks on the 28th. Yep. So we should plan at the absolute very latest that that be the meeting where all of this has been done. Mm-Hmm. That’d be great. And that, you know, I, I appreciate your time and I know this is been, you know, And like the full scope, you know, those types of things would be great to see. Yeah. Great. Thank you. Thank you guys. Appreciate it. All right. Thank you for your time. Can I recommend another? Yes, I know we have, do we have Lauren on number nine? Yes. Lauren, are you, I’m sorry. Sorry, Lauren. Thank you. With our Marblehead museum. Um, that’s Okay. Can you all hear me? Um, Lauren is here on behalf of the Marblehead Museum.

2:38:02 Thank you. Lauren requesting a couple parking spaces, but we really wanna have be able to, for her to highlight, um, uh, what’s, what we’re, what’s being celebrated on August 31st. So Lauren, please have, um, you have the mic. Great. Thank you very much. Good evening, everybody. Apologies. I could not be there in person. Um, but thank you for having me online. So, yes, on Saturday, August 31st, it is actually to the day the, uh, 200th anniversary of the Revolutionary War hero, Marquita Lafayette coming to visit Marblehead. And when he came to Marblehead, he was greeted with a great affair and, uh, the militia. And he was brought to the Jeremiah Lee Manchin, which as you know, the Marblehead Museum owns and operates. And so we have been working with Lafayette 200, which is a,

2:38:49 a committee to, um, organize a event on the day, August 31st in the afternoon, starting at noon, going to about one o’clock. Um, and this will feature, um, a Lafayette Reenactor who will come in a horse and carriage no less, uh, just the way Lafayette himself did 200 years ago. He’ll be dropped off at the Lee Mansion. We’ll have some speeches and the public is invited. It’s a free event open to everybody. I hope the select board and all those present will participate. Um, and we’ll do a little bit of a commemoration and reenactment of that moment in time. And then have a nice reception on the lawn in the Lee Manchin Garden. And so, as you mentioned, our request is, uh, to block three spaces directly in front

2:39:34 of the Jeremiah Lee Manchin, which is 1 61 Washington Street, just for the time. Um, starting at 12, we’re saying 12 to one to allow a little lee time, Lee, uh, leeway because the reenactor himself, plus the horse and carriage are coming from an event previously. They’re re they’re reenacting the entire day that Lafayette had, which started in Chelsea and ends in, um, Beverly late at night. And they’re doing that again in reality here on August 31st. So there may be a little bit of a delay if he’s late getting there. But, uh, three spaces in front of the Lee Mansion to allow for the, um, horse and carriage, one horse and a small carriage to pull up in front, drop Lafayette off. And then immediately the horse and carriage will return to the Masonic Lodge’s parking lot,

2:40:23 which we have permission. We’ve been working with Chief King. So we have a plan in place and we have a detail, uh, that day that will help, uh, deal with any traffic, uh, issues that the police foresee. Um, but, and so that’s our request and that’s a little bit about the events and I’m happy to answer any questions. No, it’s, I think it sounds a really exciting event. Um, just put it in my calendar and, uh, it’s, um, really, I love a, everybody loves a reenactment, right? It’s marblehead. So, um, sounds like a very simple request. I’m sure we’ll be happy to fill it for you. Does anybody have Anything? I just wanna say, sorry I keep you Waiting so long. Apologize. Yes, thank you. A hang on for us. Apologize. Um, no problem. Okay. I will just need a motion to approve the request from Marblehead Museum to block free parking spaces directly in front

2:41:09 of the Jeremiah Lee mansion on Saturday, August 31st, 2024 from noon to one to facilitate the bicentennial celebration of the Marquis De Lafayette’s 1824 farewell tour, subject to approval from police, fire and DPW. So, motion, uh, second. All in favor. Great. Thank you Lauren. We’ll see You then. Thank you.

2:41:31 Alright, now let’s, um, move to, uh, the consent agenda items. Um, let’s see, just going back back a couple tabs to under eight mm-Hmm. Um, I will read, um, the consent agenda and, uh, unless anybody requests a hold on an item, we will just vote them all together. We are voting to approve the minutes of JU June 11th from 2024 and July 24th from 2024 and August 2nd, 2024. I have to Hold, I’m not, ‘cause I have to abstain, But you can vote them. You don’t have to have been here. Okay. Yeah, you can just vote. The vote is just making a matter of the record. Okay, that’s fine. Yep. Um, Marblehead Youth Hockey, um, is rev to approve

2:42:18 or a revision from a previously approved date for the 5K to October 26th. 2024 BNS Fitness to hold, approving them to hold their annual wicked half marathon on September 22nd, 2024, approval of the Rotary Club of Marblehead to host its annual 5K on November 3rd, 2024. Um, declare a list of surplus items in our packet and also, um, grant permission to the Marblehead Rotary to replace the current Marblehead rotary signs. So, motion. Okay. Can I have a motion to approve the following consent agenda items except, uh, uh, the following agenda, consent agenda items Second. All in favor? Okay. I think we’re onto contracts now.

2:43:05 Um, these are, has everybody had a chance to take a look at the contracts because, um, these, the three, yeah. Yeah. Um, new error technology, we can do em. Um, unless anybody has any questions for Thatcher about the contracts, I, um, we can vote ‘em, um, as a consent agenda item under contracts, um, 11 A is new ERA technology for a contract for $42,000 for the IT services, first American, a three year lease for the Explorer Police interceptor for $21,745 and 70 cents. And, um, Collins Engineering, uh, closeout support for the Marblehead Shipyard and Resiliency Project in the amount of $9,600.

2:43:52 So can I have a motion to approve the following contracts with the town and contracts related votes? So motion second. All in favor? Great. Okay. Moving all to, uh, one day liquor license, um, for Marblehead Arts Association. Um, this, these do appear in consent agenda items. We are, um, it’s just been a history of us to, to do the polled vote. We don’t need to do a polled vote, but I think as a board we should discuss if we want to continue doing a poll vote. Is that, I think part of it too was to try to determine why the board in the past started doing poll votes

2:44:38 and if there was some legal requirement or something that dictated. So until we can figure that out, it was suggested to continue the practice. Yep. Okay. So I need a, a motion to approve the one day liquor license from the Marblehead Arts Association. Eight Hooper Street for three one day liquor licenses on the following days and time. September 13th, October 18th, um, six 30 to 9:00 PM and October 19th, 2024, 1:00 PM to 5:00 PM subject to the usual conditions, delivery of and receipt by the licensing authority of the required fee of $50, delivery of and receipt by the licensing authority, proof that the alcohol will be purchased from an authorized source proof the applicant can receive proper delivery, provide proper storage and disposal of all alcoholic beverages purchased.

2:45:25 All in accordance with the requirements of general laws. Chapter 1 38 and alcohol is to be purchased by caps. Um, so I can, I have, um, similar, okay. Uh, second. Second. Okay. Mr. Fox in favor, Ms. Singer? In favor? Ms. Newton In favor? Okay. And then we’ll just, um, uh, formally receive, uh, two letters of interest. One from Chris Butler, they’re in your packet for the Historical commission and the other from Maura Darley Rocco for the dis, uh, applicant for the Disabilities Commission. So, um, maybe we could set a deadline for those, but we also are missing two members, so just, I mean, we could just go ahead and do it. I guess what, um, when’s our meeting in September? What about, um, for, so for Historical Commission

2:46:11 and Disabilities Commission, how many vacancies do we have? Um, On’s, one on historic and Two, two on disability. Right. The other Okay. Someone, so, um, do we wanna get those two moving, um, and set a deadline of like, we could possibly do interviews for these at our next meeting on the 28th? Or do you wanna go one, one more meeting just because it’s the end of summer,

2:46:41 how strongly you feel about that. Um, well, We did post them back. You Also, yeah, it’s been posted for a while and then, um, there’s two vacancies, so we can, if somebody else, we can still keep that vacancy open. That’s okay. Um, and there’s one, so maybe we could, um, submit a deadline to submit on the 23rd. Okay. And we could have the interviews on the 28th. Okay. Falling asleep. It’s past my bedtime. There’s gonna be a lot of things coming up. There’s gonna be a lot more coming. And then, um, do we want to, and then I think, um, we also have the applicants for the harb.

2:47:27 We have received two applicants and I think, um, we’ve reached out to, or are reaching out to another who had expressed interest recently in the past. Um, so perhaps we could do those interviews on the 28th. Okay. I have no objections to Dan. Okay. Works for me. Um, all right.

2:47:55 So let’s see. Is that everything? Think you’re out there. Um, there’s a ceremony. Yeah. My goodness. I thought, Oh, okay. Okay. Um, dear board members on September 11th, 2024, this is the fire and the police department will join in all public safety. It’s, oh, it’s the annual recognition of, um, the World Trade Center and the Pentagon Attacks and the, um, flight downing in Shanksville, Pennsylvania. Ceremonies at 10:00 AM Memorial Park, um, the Remembrance service will be part of a nationwide salute to fall on firefighters, police officers and civilians who selflessly responded to the tragic events that have changed all our lives forever. So, um, the Marblehead Fire

2:48:40 and Police Departments would like to extend an invitation to local leaders and members of the community to participate in this year’s ceremony as we pay tribute to 3000 lives lost on September 11th, 2001. Okay. Put that in your calendar. Um, and then select board announcements. Anybody have anything? I just would reiterate from where the BFW is here tonight? Yeah. Just for anybody that’s listening, that they have an event and, um, tomorrow Mm-Hmm. Afternoon. Great. Okay. So I think I just ask, looking for a motion to adjourn. So Moved. Second. All in favor? Great.