Select Board: September 11, 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.

0:01 Out, um, rev two 50. I’d be happy to, uh, first of all for the meeting, Dawn Dahlberg seven Westminster Road. Uh, pleasure to be here tonight. Um, I wear a different hat tonight. I’m one of the co-chairs for Marblehead two 50, and I have the opportunity tonight to come before you to formally invite you to attend the headers in the Revolution. I have one copy, I’ll leave it. The ink is still drying on the other copies, but, um, I extend the invitation to the board and to all the citizens of the town of Marblehead. This, uh, activity is going to happen on September 21st

0:48 and 22nd from 11 o’clock to three. Thank you. And it’s open for seven different areas throughout the town. Now we’re celebrating our town’s involvement in the path to independence. This is a seven year celebration, so we’re starting early. And this event is in fact, um, sponsored, uh, by a grant from the Essex National Heritage. The logo, which includes the spirit of 76, was designed and, uh, donated by, um,

1:32 flat Rock Creative, and we thank them for their support. The committee celebrating the spirit of 76 presently has 15 volunteers coming from the different town organizations. And our purpose is to share the history of Marblehead and its involvement, and it covers male female in terms of the revolution and active these seven different events at the old townhouse where I’m gonna run a town meeting of 1774, a critical town meeting. Jeremiah Lee Manchin open to present the revolutionary

2:18 aspect of, uh, the, uh, the involvement, the King Hooper Manchin Open to represent the Tory approach, the Masonic Lodge showing the revolutionary activities, St. Michael’s Church showing the Tory involvement Abbott Hall with the spirit of 76 and finally Fort sto. And again, it is free admission. 250 books have been printed, and they will be collectible items. They will be available next week here at Abbott Hall and at the Marblehead Museum. And I encourage you to look at our Facebook, and I tried to make this as short as possible, so thank you.

3:06 And again, invitation to you. Any questions that I can answer for you? The name is the name of the Facebook group. Just, um, rev two 50. Yeah, our Marblehead, uh, two 50 Marble Head two 50. Okay. Yep. Great. Don, thank you for your leadership on this. It’s, it’s the lifeblood of our town.

3:30 Thank you. Okay. There’s One seat here.

3:43 Okay. Uh, next on our agenda is, um, uh, a discussion on the MBT Community Act, and we have, um, our dedicated, hardworking staff members who’ve put together a presentation for us. And, um, then, uh, Dan and I can share some updates from conversations that we’ve had with the state, um, officials, and then, uh, we can open it up and discuss. Does that sound good? Okay. Yeah. So Madam Esso. Logan Casey. Yeah. Um, so as you know, we’ve created a, uh, the new department this year, the, uh, community development planning department that we’re staffing up to deal with issues of development, housing, transportation, all, all of the those, um,

4:32 community, um, sort of planning, coordinating, development, uh, uh, issues. Um, we are still staffing up, uh, Logan, who is our sustainability coordinator, but he’s multi-talented. And so he deals with a lot of grants. He, uh, his background working as a staff member of the, the NPO of the Metropolitan Planning Organization, which does all the transportation planning. So utilizing his skills and knowledge, um, took the lead to, to work with us to, to put this together. Our intent is, is to, uh, one, sort of do a refresh of what is the issue that, that we’re, we’re dealing with, uh, and then get into sort of the, the, the, the finances

5:21 and implications of, of decisions. We also have Alicia Benjamin, our Chief financial officer, should there be, um, any, any detailed financial questions that may come up. Um, she’s willing to jump in and, and assist. So with that, I’ll hand it off to Logan and Great. Well, thank you, Thatcher. Um, yeah, as Thatcher said, my name is Logan. I am the sustainability coordinator for the town. Um, I have been kind of, uh, part of the interim planning department as Thatcher mentioned. So I’ve been helping out with grants, um, and, uh, with this, uh, M-M-B-T-A communities question as well too. I know the select board at your last meeting you had, um, some questions. Yes. Yeah, I’ll, I’ll try to speak as loud as I can. I’m sorry, microphone.

6:08 So the, just everybody knows, the microphones here don’t amplify, so we have to talk loud. They’re, they’re only used for the folks that are online to be able to hear us. So yeah, we all have to kind of, I, I’ll, I apologize. I’ll try to self amplify as much as I possibly can. Um, so as Thatcher mentioned, um, today, if I could just click into the presentation. Um, so I have, uh, a couple of slides, um, first as Thatcher mentioned, to kind of review the MBTA proposal. Um, and then I’ll be talking kind of about the questions that you guys brought up at the last meeting regarding grants, um, and the compliance deadline as well too, and kind of talk about the ramifications of where we’re kind of at.

6:54 So, um, with that, I’ll kind of just jump right in to the review of the MBTA communities proposal. Um, so what is the MBTA communities law? Um, just as a reminder, it was adopted in 2021, uh, by Governor Baker. It was passed, uh, with broad bipartisan majorities in the legislature. Um, this law requires that 177 communities, which are shown in color here, um, in the Commonwealth Zone, uh, must zone for at least one district of regional size, in which a multi-family housing is permitted. As of right under this law, uh, marble High Marblehead was classified as an adjacent community. Um, and what that means is adjacent communities are those

7:39 that are adjacent to municipalities that contain, uh, MBTA stations like the commuter rail or Rapid transit.

7:47 So the parameters of the law, um, and what we were kind of given as we were developing our compliance plan are as follows. So the zoning overlay that we create must be equal to at least 1% of the total towns land area, um, which is 27 acres. Uh, as I mentioned earlier, multifamily, uh, zoning must be allowed as a matter of right. Uh, and that means without the need for a special permit variance, a zoning amendment, a waiver or other, um, approval, the law requires that the minimum density be zoned at 15 units an acre. Um, which I’ll get into a little bit more and kind of, uh, elaborate on that. Um, the district is allowed to be located anywhere within our town. Um, it can be more than one area, um,

8:33 but no less than five acres. And it must be one, if we’re splitting it up into multiple sections, at least one of them has to be 50% of the total size. Um, and another aspect of the law is as an adjacent community, um, we are required to zone these overlay areas for at least 10% of the total number of housing units in Marblehead. Uh, marble Head’s current housing units stand at 8,965, uh, which means that we have 897 units theoretically, uh, to, uh, to zone capacity for, um, so zoning and marblehead. Just to give a quick background on kind of what we’re talking about here in terms of policy, um, zoning is a type of code that regulates how we can use land,

9:19 um, and it can regulate the shape and height of buildings. It can regulate the distance between buildings and other land uses, um, as well as kind of what that land is allowed to be used for. So generally, residential, commercial, um, industrial, uh, that’s not a complete list of what zoning can offer. Um, but it’s a basic introduction. Marblehead, as it stands today, we have 15 different zoning districts, um, and two smart growth overlay districts. Um, and these districts allow, um, you know, landowners who are in these various districts to do various things on their property. Um, the first zoning bylaw was adopted by the town in the 1920s. Um, kind of, you know, notably Marblehead iss very old. It was way after the establishment of the town. Um, and it is something that is regularly amended.

10:06 Um, I do want to note here, because there is some misinformation occasionally about what zoning is. Um, it isn’t a mandate for production, but rather it is a policy that shows what you are potentially allowed to build. Um, it doesn’t mandate that the landowners who are, you know, in these particular zones build something, um, or build it to a certain, you know, guideline. Um, but it is allowing for that.

10:34 So, to get into a little bit of how this development process worked, of this actual plan that we put together, um, the planning board as well as the town planner, um, we’re responsible for kind of putting together this engagement and development effort. Um, they were supported by the Bowler design group, um, which is a consultant firm that helped us, um, analyze and collate all of the engagement activities we did. Um, all the data we analyzed, um, and overall helped us draft basically what the compliance plan that was put forward at May was. Um, this was, uh, two grants that were awarded by the state to kind of help us develop this plan, um, as part of, you know, passing the MCA communities law. Um, and this plan was developed roughly over a year.

11:22 Um, it unfortunately predates me, so I can’t speak to too much about how the engagement worked. Um, but I was, uh, chatting with Becky, uh, our former, uh, town planner who was here for 35 years, and led the eng uh, the engagement effort of this plan. Um, and she kind of filled me in on, you know, what the major engagement events were and kind of how it fill filled out. So, um, the engagement process. Um, so there was a lot of different public engagement, um, as well as focus groups that were kind of established to get input on this plan. Um, some focus groups, uh, can inc included architects, developers, landowners, um, town committees, uh, department heads, as well as the Chamber of Commerce and other businesses. Um, there were multiple public forums as well as in-person workshops

12:08 and meetings, um, to kind of go about developing this plan. Um, and the graphic you see pictured here on the right, um, is from one of those public feedback sections. Um, and the question was kind of, you know, we have the zoning mandate, um, so where do you kind of wanna see this additional density? And this was some of the public feedback we received. So, um, also considered as part of the plan development was the existing zoning of the town. Um, so Marblehead currently allows for developments that are similar to the requirements within MBCA communities. Um, the most recent one, uh, the town is approved, uh, is something called a Smart growth district, um, which was approved by town meeting in 2009.

12:53 Um, and it made, um, two specific sections of Marblehead, um, available to Del develop for higher densities. Um, this is also, uh, similar in our incentive zoning initiative that was, uh, put forward in the 1990s. Um, and then another one that is constantly brought up is chapter 40 B, um, which is, uh, the state’s affordable housing law. And, and basically says that if, uh, if a certain municipality has less than 10% of their housing units that are affordable, they are subject to 40 B, um, in which developers can come in and develop more dense units than would be typically allowed by law. Um, with the smart growth and the incentive zoning, um, we’ve only had one application

13:39 for each program since their inception. Um, and with the chapter 40 B, we’ve had three developments in town completed so far under that law. Um, and chapter 40 B was approved in 1969, just, uh, if I didn’t note that yet. Um, our current zoning also allows, um, for some of this multifamily that we’re kind of considering as part of the overlay. Um, so certain districts, um, within our zoning allow for row houses, which is a type of multifamily, um, bi special permits. Um, and then there’s other districts as well within our community that allows mixed use commercial, um, with residential above the commercial, um, as a matter of rights in one district, so they don’t have to get any special permission to kind of build that.

14:26 Um, and then by special permit in, uh, a couple other districts.

14:31 Um, and then the last kind of point, main point that I had in this development was the existing density of the town. Um, and this was also kind of a factor that came into consideration while developing, um, this overlay plan. So existing density was considered as part of this development, um, marblehead. And if you are able to look at the screen, and I’m sorry it’s a little bit small, um, but we do have some of the density that, you know, the ta uh, the state is asking of us. Um, most of this is located in our downtown, um, and our old and historic district areas. Um, and then the rest of our, rest of our, you know, community is mostly based with single family zoning, um, currently. Um, and then once I jump into kind of an overview

15:19 of the subdistricts in the overlay plan, um, you’ll kind of see that there are parcels within our overlay that already include the density that the laws requiring. Um, so it, it’s kind of a good example of reusing the density we already have to comply with this.

15:36 Um, and the last part is, as part of the plan development, um, town infrastructure was also considered as, it’s a really big factor in, you know, whether development can happen or not. Um, there was a focus group with department heads that was put on, um, our electric department water and sewer drainage and engineering were represented. Um, the end of that conversation concluded that the town has sufficient capacity for development at this time, um, and there are no significant, um, you know, needs in terms of our infrastructure if we were going to increase the amount of housing. Um, and then, you know, another point is schools that, you know, there is a genuine concern with. Um, but to that point, over the last 10 years,

16:22 school enrollment in Marblehead has declined by 676 pupils. Um, which again, um, you know, even if this overlay was approved, the zoning isn’t gonna happen tomorrow. Um, so we wouldn’t really see a huge increase in, in pupils right away. Um, so with that, I’m gonna get into the actual compliance plan and go through the three different overlay zones quickly. Um, and then we’ll move on to kind of the, the financial and the potential legal ramifications. So I am just going to quickly flash up each individual overlay, and then I’m gonna jump into a slide where I’m gonna explain kind of why they were kind of selected. So this is the first, uh, subdistrict Subdistrict number one out of three.

17:08 Um, this district has been kind of colloquially called Tioga Way because it’s centered around Tioga Way. Um, this subdistrict is a selection of our existing sub, uh, unrestricted district, um, which our unrestricted district presently allows multifamily by special permits. Um, it includes this overlay area includes underutilized office buildings. Um, and then as circled on this slide, you can see, um, that five developments within this overlay actually meet the density requirements that MBTA communities is asking for. Um, and you can see them listed up there, but, uh, they are mostly 40 B developments and incentive zoning develop the one incentive zoning

17:54 development that I mentioned earlier. Um, this is the second district, uh, in the color purple here. Um, and it has been colloquially called the Pleasant Street District as it kind of centers around Pleasant Street, um, and our downtown more generally. Um, so this Pleasant Street, um, district was envisioned as an expansion of the smart growth dis district that was already existing on Pleasant Street. Um, that smart growth district was originally adopted by town meeting in 2009. Um, and there’s been one application for the Pleasant Street District so far. Um, but there’s nothing been built. Um, some additional considerations for why this area was selected. Um, it, the additional density would add

18:40 to the already walkable neighborhoods. Um, it’s a continuation. It would be a continuation of the integrated, uh, mixed land uses that presently exist in that area. Um, and if we are talking about, you know, putting this, uh, density in, in certain areas in, um, areas that make sense for the town, it makes sense to put this more compact building design in where this already exists, um, rather than far out conventional where, um, you know, single family houses and more consumptive land development exists. Um, this is also near public transportation to encourage the use of mass transit, um, and ideally reducing the impact of car congestion. And finally, uh, the Bron Road District, uh, so this is the third overlay.

19:25 Um, so Bron Road, um, this is an existing family housing project that is owned and operated by the Marblehead Housing Authority. Um, this housing project was initially constructed in the 1950s, um, and then it was expanded upon in the early eighties. Um, you may have heard, you know, in, in the news recently, the Marblehead Housing Authority is exploring redevelopments of certain properties, um, in this development area already, um, which are happening kind of outside of the conversation of three A. Um, and again, kind of go to show that, you know, this density can be developed with laws that already exist. Um, so again, that’s just kind of a point that there is kind

20:10 of, you know, other conversations going around here, but it’s not necessarily, um, related to this conversation.

20:19 So after the development, um, the draft compliance plan that I just presented was presented to multiple groups for feedback and commentary. Um, there was a week long virtual house, um, held in December, um, multiple presentations to committees like the Fair Housing Committee, the housing production plan, the planning board, and the select board. Um, there was newspaper articles, um, there was an email distribution list. Um, there had been meetings played on Marblehead TV several times. Um, and prior to the town meeting, the planning board did hold a public comment session on the, the whole plan and received public feedback.

20:58 Um, so in summary, um, after a year of development engagement, um, this draft plan has been developed. Um, overall it does preserve the character Marblehead, it proposes, um, a continual, you know, incremental step approach to this development. Um, it’s zoning in areas that already have, um, or already allow multifamily zoning or units by special permit. Um, and notably part of this conversation was keeping everything in our beloved historic district out of it, um, which our overlay plan achieves. Um, and again, as I mentioned earlier, it does take into consideration the existing multi-family housing, um, that we already have. Um, so as I highlighted in kind of the overlay, um, a lot

21:44 of these, you know, overlay areas already have some of the density that the plan is calling for, uh, or the law is calling for, excuse me. Um, but it also helps contribute to that theoretical unit requirement that we have. Um, and again, just to reiterate, we do have the sufficient infrastructure capacity to accept this additional development at this time.

22:06 So, with that, I’m going to move on to kind of what the select board had requested from me at the last meeting, which is Kind of the financial and legal considerations while we’re in compliance, um, or for compliance. So why is the Select board even considering this? Um, so we have an upcoming compliance deadline, um, December 31st, 2024, um, is Marble Head’s deadline as an adjacent community to comply with the MBTA, um, uh, zoning law. Um, if we want to meet this compliance deadline at this point, a special town meeting would be required to adopt a compliance plan. Um, the select board is the only body

22:53 that can actually call a special town meeting. Um, and to note on terms of engagement and notice, you know, there are some considerations of timing. So, you know, the board must announce this at least two weeks in advance. Um, and then there’s also the additional consideration that the planning board must hold their own public meeting. Uh, and again, consider a draft plan. Um, if, you know, the plan is to move forward with the may, um, plan that was submitted, uh, it would have to go forward and have another round of public comment. Um, ultimately though, uh, to actually get into compliance, uh, this is a decision that town meeting makes. Um, so again, like we’re not making any final decisions today.

23:38 So

23:45 audience quiet,

23:56 respect the floor as well. You guys will have plenty of time to speak.

24:10 Cannot meeting this way, cannot,

24:27 please. Thank you. Thank you. Excuse me, I’m sorry.

24:35 Um, yeah, I, I have a couple more slides to get through. I know there’s a lot of comments and I know public comments right after this, so I will try to kind of speed through this and, and get to the rest of the select board’s discussion here. Um, so I, I do wanna bring up the point of why does Marblehead have to comply? Um, and this information is directly from the advisory concerning enforcement of the MBTA communities law that Attorney General Andrea Joy Cambell put forward in March 15th, 2023. Um, the big three parts, uh, are, are as follows, communities that failed to comply with the law may subject to civil enforcement action. Non-compliant communities are also subject to the administration administrative consequences

25:21 of being rendered ineligible to receive certain forms of state funding. And then importantly, to note, uh, MBTA communities cannot avoid the obligations under the law by foregoing any of this grant funding. Um, the law requires that MBTA communities, quote unquote, shall have a compliant zoning district and does not provide any me, uh, any mechanism by which a town or city may opt out of this requirement. Um, and at the bottom of the slides, I’ve kind of noted, uh, where the Attorney General has noted, um, where she’s referencing the law.

26:00 Um, so what happens if Marblehead fails to comply by December 31st? Um, so there are two things here. Um, the first is the grants conversation, and then the second is kind of the legal conversation, the ramifications of that. Um, so Marblehead, if we are non-compliant, we would lose access to specific grants, um, and then lose competitiveness in other grants. And I’ll kind of explain this in two examples that I have in a second. Um, the state has outlined 13 specific grants, um, that they are positive that if we are non-compliance, they will not let us access. Um, the town has applied for two of these grants recently,

26:45 although it’s not necessarily part of today’s conversation, um, because they’re just applications and we haven’t gotten back whether award we’ve been awarded or not. Um, and then again, um, this is another quote from the Attorney General. Um, in addition, intentional or persistent non-compliance may result in enforcement action against the municipality by the Attorney General. Any such action would seek a court order requiring the community to comply with the law. Um, and as you know, has been noted in the last, uh, select board meeting as well too. Um, this is the, this is kind of the, uh, topic being debated in the town of Milton case versus the Attorney General. Um, and that has moved to the Supreme Court currently. Um, so that is something that is, uh, kind of actively being debated.

27:32 Um, so I was, I, uh, with the help of our finance director, Alicia Benjamin, um, and our town’s legal counsel, um, we were able to get some basic cost estimates on what would be the potential outcomes if the town entered non-compliance, um, and then was, uh, sued by the Attorney General. Um, so, and these are both related to kind of the Milton case because it is dependent on kind of the outcome of that case. Um, so in the case, uh, in the, in the case that all the issues within the, uh, current argument are addressed, um, and we are, uh, made to comply with the law, um, the, our legal counsel estimates, uh, the legal costs involved would be about $25,000.

28:20 Um, if the Supreme Court, uh, does not answer all the questions in the current lawsuit, that is with, with forward them, um, we can anticipate a little bit more, um, around 50,000 to $75,000 in additional legal costs.

28:40 Um, and so with that, with the legal covered, I just want to go into some grant examples to kind of talk about some more near term, excuse me, sorry. Uh, some near term projects that are kind of being considered, um, and how compliance might affect us in the future.

28:58 Um, so the first kind of grant program that I’d like to talk about that’s not part of the 13 that the state is specifically listing, um, is the Coastal Resilience Grant Program. Um, this is a program to do, um, design and engagement and occasionally construction, um, on coastal projects. Um, and of course we have the Marblehead Harbor. So it’s an important grant for us. Um, we’ve received over $900,000, um, from this grant program in the last four years. Um, a current project that we’ve been working on is the Municipal Shipyards Resiliency Project, um, which has been a project that’s been ongoing for three years. Um, it includes, uh, uh, uh, structures

29:45 by the light department. Um, this is advanced to what, you know, most people would call a 75% design or nearing completion in design and getting ready for construction. Um, we have a cost estimate, uh, for three seawall structures at about $15.8 million, um, in, in construction costs. Um, the way we have been kind of talking about it internally, as the planning department is looking at shifting some of that cost off onto states and federal grants, um, that are available to help cover the cost of construction. Um, although if we were in non-compliance, that would potentially be in jeopardy, um, we, I did, uh,

30:30 discuss with Alicia, our finance director as well too, and we were able to kind of run the numbers on what the cost of these, uh, projects would be, uh, if we were funding them, you know, by a local borrowing. Um, and it would be 15.8 million plus approximately $7.7 million in additional interest that the town would’ve to carry over 25 years if we did it ourself. Um, and then kind of a project that we’re applying for today, and will definitely be affected by the kind of outcome of compliance, um, is our next climate resiliency area that the town has chosen to focus on. Um, this is the State Street Landing and Harbor Masters office area. Um, this is additional two sea walls.

31:17 Um, we have just applied for the initial engagement process, um, as well as the conceptual design, um, process to work with consultants on actually figuring out what the needs of this area are and working with the public to develop solutions. Um, this was a $240,000 request. Um, and one of the aspects of applying for this grant was that they did note that META communities compliance would be considered as part of their awards process. Um, those are two kind of concrete projects I mentioned, but I just wanna also talk about the future of what we have to funder fund under, you know, our, our Harbor infrastructure. Um, Marblehead has 24 total municipally owned, um,

32:06 structures within the harbor. Um, and we have already identified some climate risk areas, including Front Street, Fort Beach, little Harbor, um, as well as Devereux Beach, the gold waste reservation, ocean Avenue, um, and the Causeway. So we kind of know that these are issues that we will have to address in the future. Um, and this grant program is kind of one of the ways to address the, uh, address these different issues without, um, expending local revenue. Uh, this second and last grant example I have today, um, is the Transportation Improvement Program. Um, and this is a program of six different investment programs, um, run by the Boston Region Metropolitan Planning Organization.

32:53 If you’re unfamiliar with the organization. Um, it is our regional transportation body for the Boston area. Um, and our area specifically, um, you can kind of consider it as everything inside of 4 95. Um, we are competing with, it’s about 97 different communities, including us. Um, this body allocates roughly $150 million in federal funding every single year. Um, and these projects, um, can be from transportation, like roads, um, new sidewalks, pedestrian infrastructure, um, bicycle infrastructure, um, you know, shared use paths, um, major infrastructure. Um, this is a board that is made up of 22 elected members.

33:39 Um, that includes state agencies, um, municipalities like the City of Boston, Cambridge, Somerville, um, and other suburban, uh, municipalities like in, uh, up here from the North Shore Task Force were represented by the city of Beverly, um, uh, and as well as transit authorities. Um, one project that we have completed in the past is the Pleasant Street, uh, vine Village and Cross Intersections project. Um, this was recently completed in 2021, um, and it was completed for roughly $675,000. Um, this was completely funded through the MPO funding, um, which is 80% federal funding, and then 20% state funding. Um, the next project that we have to kind of consider, um,

34:26 is the Village Street Bridge Replacement Project. Um, the town is currently working with consultants, um, on an initial design and working through the MAOP process. Um, we have gotten to the point where we know, um, that roughly this project has been, uh, at an initial estimate, uh, is going to be $3 million. Um, this can increase as years go on, so it should kind of be expected to go up from here as the project is, um, more fully designed. Um, again, Alicia did help me out here and kind of gave a little more context to what it would be if we were completely local borrowing this instead of, um, asking for federal and state funding to construct this. Um, and it would be about $1.7 million in additional

35:15 interest to pay for this project in additional, in addition to the cost of the project. Um, the reason why I bring up these two projects is because the Transportation improvement program now considers MBTA compliance as part of their scoring process. Um, generally projects are awarded a total of 100 points, um, and they’re scored on various, like six different categories. Um, MBTA communities is one of those considerations, and for most projects, it’s, you know, something about like five to 10 points. Um, so it’s not necessarily going to tank the project, but, um, when you are fighting with 97 other municipalities in the region, um, for this, uh, you know, $150 million a year, um, the competitiveness

36:03 of those scores really matters. Um, and the fact that it is a regional body as well too, um, with other, you know, municipalities that have already APLU approved a compliance measure, um, it will make it difficult for, um, the town marblehead to actually, um, actualize and get onto the tip, um, for something like the Village Street Replacement Project. Um, so with all of that in summary, um, the kind of main points and takeaways, um, that I have is that the compliance deadline is by December 31st, um, a town meeting would be required to adopt a compliance plan, um, to get and to meet that deadline. Um, and if we do not meet compliance, it,

36:49 it would have a negative effect on the town’s ability to capture certain state funds, um, and it would bring legal risks and costs that we might not be fully anticipating yet. Um, so with that, um, I thank you for your time. I know it’s been a long, tedious presentation, um, but I welcome your questions and yeah, thank you. Thank you so much for putting this together. I know you spent a lot of time on this and worked very hard on it.

37:23 Um, you always, uh, exceed expectations. You always are, um, very, we’re always impressed with what you brought to Marblehead in just the short time that you’ve been here. And really thank you for putting the hard work into this and, um, getting the answers to some of our questions. Um, okay. Questions for about the presentation? Any information? Comments? Yeah, I’m just curious, uh, to what extent, uh, how many grants have you got targeted at this point against the 15? Can you speak up? Sorry about that. I’m asking how many grants are currently targeted against the 15.8 million estimated construction costs for the, uh, ship shipyard resiliency? Yeah, so I mean, roughly, ‘cause that’s a total co project cost Mm-Hmm. But, you know, kind of what’s the available grant for that?

38:08 Um, uh, not to split hairs too finely on this, but there are some state grants, um, assistance available. So, um, the, uh, environmental affairs office, uh, for the state, they do have a sea wall repair and construction grants, um, that we did apply for in this round. Um, that was a total ask of $2 million. Um, and then we recently asked for $2 million additionally, um, from our federal delegation, um, from the House and the Senate. Um, and we asked them to be included as part of, uh, the con Congressionally designated spending program, um, which in layman’s terms is what they now call earmarks in the federal government.

38:55 Um, great, great. Yeah, so we were at the very beginning stages of funding that project, but we don’t necessarily have the full 15 million identified for funding yet. Okay. Great. Thank you. I have a question. Um, anybody else from the board?

39:12 I just have a question, just, um, and I don’t know if this, that, or I just, um, sorry. Yeah, speak loud. Uh, one of the things you identified was the federal and state, like one of the grants that you identified was like the 80 20 split. Mm-Hmm. Um, do you know, or can you speak to that, you know, in a situation such as this where there’s two different entities funding that, would the assumption be, um, if we did qualify for something that you would be eliminated altogether or that the state part would be eliminated? I’m just curious, I know that’s not all of them, but just in this particular situation, has there been any discussion on how that would impact this? Just we’re looking at the holistic cost of all this. That’s completely fair, and I can expand on that a little bit. So, um, a as Thatcher mentioned,

39:58 I actually previously worked at the Boston region, MPO, the regional, um, planning organization for this area before I came to Marblehead. Um, and at the time while I was working there, I was actually tasked by that elected board, um, to develop scoring criteria for MBTA communities. Um, so the, the board, uh, as I mentioned earlier, it is a regional representation made up of state actors, uh, you know, transportation authorities like the MBTA and other RTAs. Um, it’s made up of, um, several municipalities, many from the inner core, the greater Boston area. Um, and then we have representation in all the suburbs as well too. Um, so when the MPO is kind of making these considerations,

40:45 the first step is the scoring process. And as I mentioned earlier, um, you know, it’s about out of 100 points for each project and, um, you know, six different categories of scoring. MBTA communities is included as, you know, one of those points criteria. Um, and depending on the investment program, um, there is a different weight to how much it, uh, kind of negates off your total score if you’re noncompliance. Um, this scoring alone does not disqualify us from getting this funding. In fact, we still could be in a situation where we go into noncompliance and we still ask anyways, and maybe they give it to us. Um, but the problem we kind of face and what is kind of unmeasured right now is what happens when a non-compliant community applies for this

41:34 regional funding, um, that is coming from the federal government and then is supposed to be distributed kind of equally out. Um, this elected board, you know, goes home to their own constituents and they had to pass their own compliance plans as well too. So, um, I, I’m, I, I don’t know because I’m not on that board of what that conversation would turn out to be. Um, but compliance within MBTA communities, especially in the context of the Boston region, MPO, um, where all of our communities are included as part of the MBTA compliance law, um, it will definitely be a topic for discussion at that board meeting. Um, and, uh, generally, uh, you know, this money is, we only get $150 million

42:19 to spread across 97 municipalities. And it may seem a lot, but, um, it really gets spread pretty thin. So, um, you know, there can be competitive years, um, that a couple of points might really matter for us and whether or not we’re gonna get a project funded or not. So I can tell, and I, um, if I understand the question, um, let me answer this way. So a lot of your bigger projects that municipalities engage in, what you end up doing is you put a whole package together that has some local funding, some state programs, some federal programs. And when you’re applying for the state programs, federal programs, they’re asking, you know, if it’s a $15 million project and if they’re gonna kick in 8 million,

43:04 they’re gonna ask you, where’s the rest of the money coming from? Right? And so, acceptance by each of the different levels of government are contingent upon that you’re securing the other sources of funding. And so the strategy is you invest just enough of your own funds to meet your match. And, and a lot of times you can get away with it with in kind. So if it, if there’s some infrastructure work, it could be conducted by public works. And so even though you’re not outlaying the dollars, you, you allocate the resources used and apply to it. So the concern I think is if, especially for the big projects where there’s federal money, uh, and there’s a lot of federal infrastructure money, is that

43:54 we would be missing the state piece of that and, and not allow us to kind of close the gaps that the feds would want in order to approve their source of the funding. So they’re all, they’re all interrelated, uh, and, and would have sort of a, um, compounding effect on, on our eligibility. I just Want to add on Thatcher that just because I’m more federal, um, federal money sometimes are awarded trade to the state agencies, and that’s known as a, uh, federal pass through. So if it is federal pass through money through the state, the state controls whether we’re gonna get that federal pass through, whereas federal direct funds where we’re getting it directly from the federal government,

44:40 that’s a whole different story than if we were going through the state. I just wanna make that distinction. That’s a really good point. ‘cause that’s like the CARES Act money and, um, your, your, you know, generally, like your federal relief money all goes to the state for doling out. Mm-Hmm. And then just a follow up question, sorry through the chair, if that’s okay. Uh, and does this work in the same way, you know, which obviously you’re pretty experienced with this, that I know, you know, from years ago working with the schools in the facilities and those types of things that when you would put a project through, if you passed it through town meeting and then you were using, you know, asking the state to, to help with the funding on that, that, you know, that percentage, you know, you had to put a certain percentage and they had to put a certain percentage, but if it wasn’t, yeah. Sorry, if the money didn’t go through, then, um,

45:27 is the assumption that, that then you are eliminated, you were put to the very bottom of the list again? Um, so, and, and, uh, you know, this might be splitting hairs from what the original conversation of this topic was, but I’ll, I’ll answer it. Um, uh, so with, in respect to funding on the transportation improvement program, um, the way it is typically worked in Massachusetts is, as Alicia mentioned, we are given federal money as a pass through. Um, and then the state, the Mass Department of Transportation, MAs Dot, and the Boston MPO, um, kind of take that money and decide how to distribute it. Um, the current game, the way it’s kind

46:13 of played in Massachusetts is for large transportation projects like this, um, the state typically is looking for the municipalities to pony up the design money and do the whole design. Um, which is typically, you know, about 10% of the total cost of whatever a construction project is, just as a rough number Mm-Hmm. Um, then for these large transportation projects that you want to go, you know, fund with federal and state money, you go and put yourself on the tip. Um, when you are on the tip, uh, the state then takes over the construction cost of it. So as I mentioned earlier, um, that funding split works about to, so 80% of that federal pass through is coming to pay for whatever project we apply for. And then mas.is also chipping in another 20%

47:00 as their local match. Um, so, you know, in Matos perspective, they want us, they want the communities to kind of, uh, you know, come with their own designs and their own plans, and then they want us to ask for construction funding on the, the larger federal document. Um, that’s generally how it works. There are some fringe cases, which I really won’t get into, but, um, you know, so if we say we have something like the Village Street Bridge right now, which we’re, uh, moving through design and once we are at a 25% design stage, so we have some basic concepts worked out and we’ve done some initial public engagements, um, then we can go to the regional body and ask to be placed on the construction, um, program.

47:49 What is that? I just, an alarm I think. Sounds like somebody pulled in alarm. Oh, no, it’s probably the CO two sensors,

48:01 So I, Logan, I guess I’ll make sure people can hear, so, okay. Thank, Yeah, so basically what that means for us is that we’re working through this design right now, um, but if we become non-compliant, we reduce our chances of actually getting that construction money in the future. And that is something that we’ll have to kind of take into consideration if we want to look at, you know, other ways of funding it, like local revenue or other projects or other funding. Okay. When were you anticipating, um, asking for the funding for the bridge, or that’s actually not even something that you, I should ask that to you February. Sorry, Is that something like, we would be applying for this fall So we could, I, I spoke with the tip manager, my former colleague yesterday, um, about this whole meeting

48:49 and NBCA compliance, just to confirm, you know what I’m repeating tonight. Um, he did let us know that it, it’s something that we could potentially apply for this year, um, if we wanted to. Um, we still have to have some, I think, internal conversations with town staff on exactly which kind of projects we wanna put on the tip, because as I mentioned, there’s six different investment programs. So, um, there is kind of a, a way to kind of arrange the chairs to it. Um, but we are considering it imminently with within this year or the next year to apply for construction funding. Okay. I’m sorry. Anybody else? Next year? Did you say next, you said next year or this year? Next year, this year, this year or next year? Undetermined This year or next year? Absolutely. Yeah, the schedule changes. So we’re, we have a project number,

49:35 it’s going through the process. I think I saw an email that the schedule is like February timeframe. Mm-Hmm. So, And that’s the initial review, correct? Right. Yeah. And, and then they do it in the, in the fall or in the, in the summer June, Yeah. So in that range Yeah. It, it you’re going through a series of gates. Yep. And so the next gate we suspected, I think it’s February, if I recall the, the email on it. Yep. And then that timeline would depend on many factors.

50:07 Um, thank you both. A lot of hard work, a lot of phone calls, a lot of hunting down information that was not easy to find. Yeah. Just lemme know if, uh, Madam Chair, if I could, I would like to ask one more question. Of course. It seems like our, it seems like our window of visibility is on roughly, you know, I dunno, 5 million to, to more, you know, in, in some way that we’re gonna, that we’re, yeah. I, the, the, the, the visibility on potential projects that we might miss out on is probably, you know, north of five within our window of visibility. Right. So to my mind that’s a, that’s a number we can just chew on. Okay. The other big question I have, and I don’t know whether we have a ready answer right now, is, is how benign is this project actually, right?

50:54 Because we have 897 units that are, that fall under the, under under three A here, we got about 300 that already existing, you know, compliant pretty much. So you’re looking at closer to, you know, a lower number, uh, you know, five, 600 roughly. Okay. I’ve been, I’ve been doing my own due diligence around town talking to developers. Right. And at least in the short term, you can’t tell in the long term. In the short term, there’s not a huge incentive to, to do development. I don’t know what the answer is with that, but I think that that’s, that’s an area of due, that’s an, that’s an area of due diligence that we should look into. Okay. So,

51:36 Um, anybody else? Okay. Well thank you, um, for the presentation and the information. Yeah. Um, I appreciate it then. Yeah. So, um, Dan and I have talked to the state, um, a few times. I’m sorry, is there, can we have some quiet in the audience so we can have our discussion? Um, Dan and I have made several, uh, had several phone calls. Um, Thatcher has had phone calls with the lieutenant governor, Lieutenant Governor’s chief of staff, um, just to get some of our information, um, our questions answered and, and, and try to understand the ramifications and the consequences of non-compliance.

52:23 Um, so, uh, um, we did speak with, uh, them today we have $285,000 pending in FY 25 grants through MathWorks in livable communities right now. And it’s still to be determined what would happen, um, if to a community that received those funds and then falls out of compliance. So he was looking for a better answer from his legal department. Um, on that, on that question. Um, I do you wanna speak to, uh, the conversation with, um, Lieutenant Governor? Lieutenant Governor? Yeah, sure. So as a follow up to last week, over the last couple weeks, can you guys hear me?

53:09 Hopefully, if not o yell. Um, it was questions to get some more information. We clearly need some more information. So I did talk to lieutenant Governor a couple nights ago. Uh, we did ask for a reprieve, an extension, just ‘cause we should, we needed to ask it. The answer was no. Um, she was clear that she, you know, she didn’t wanna be punitive, but that this was the law that they were gonna follow through on this. Uh, as well as the fact, as, as Ms. Newnan mentioned, that we actually, I think those, that 285 or 2 65, well actually they couldn’t promise us that we were getting that, but that we were in, in strong contention with the words to be granted that this year.

53:52 Nope. Um, and that also any of the grants that we go for next year, actually a little further than what Logan had heard in talking today with the chief of staff, lieutenant governor, and some of their people that we won’t even get through that first gate. They’re not gonna allow us through those gates is what we heard. So we also cut, please as, as far as, there was also some questions about some other towns have gotten a reduction in the number, uh, specifically Topsfield. We are talking to Topsfield town manager tomorrow to find out what process they did. So we can have a little insight on that. We did ask the lieutenant governor as well as her staff, they didn’t have much insight, so we’ll find out how they went through on that. I guess the sort of big picture here is the last two weeks

54:39 I can tell you I, and I think everyone on this board have been talking to a lot of people. More importantly, listening, appreciate everyone’s emails. Hopefully you got responses. I can speak for myself if you didn’t email me or call me. Um, I’ve heard from a lot from both sides. And I, I’m, I’m gonna be honest with you, I’m conflicted here. I’m conflicted on conversations I have with the state. I’m conflicted on conversations I’ve had with people who are sitting in this room as well as throughout town. Uh, on one side I hear that people want the to respect the vote and this, and I, and I do hear that on. Yep. Yep. So I I did say that. Thank you for repeating it. Um, I am also here, I do have concerns about the unknown financial consequences,

55:24 implications for our town, but there is some of that is unknown. We do know, um, we do know what we’re not gonna get. We are likely gonna lose at $265,000. If you guys don’t mind, you’re gonna have a chance to comment. If you don’t mind just letting me speak and then I listen to you. I would appreciate you listening to us as well. I appreciate that. Thank you. Um, and that, you know, we do have some, some long-term financial issues in this town. So that’s where I am conflicted. However, I do know that a lot of people here and throughout the town and throughout the state do wanna hear from the SJC. I don’t think, I am not a legal expert. I do read some books once in a while about enlist some podcasts. I’m not a legal expert. It does not sound likely based on

56:10 past results from the court that we will have an answer this year. Um, again, I can’t project that. So we are continuing to do our due diligence. Uh, Ms. Nunan and I have talked to stuff, apparently you have I or people’s not stuff. I know everyone on this board has had different conversations. Um, and there is some ambiguity. I think that we are in unknown territory as well because the state has never been here before. Mm-Hmm. So that’s, I think, I don’t know, Aaron, if I covered a lot of our Yeah. Summary here, we talked to, yeah, I just had a couple notes. Um, two things that were not on that were not ambiguous, um, were that going forward after non-compliance. The, that it was clear from the governor, uh, um, lieutenant governor, uh,

56:56 that we marblehead would not be eligible for any discretionary grant funding with, um, beyond the enumerated list. There’s the enumerated list, but just to be clear, that’s their intention. And, um, the other thing that I wanted, uh, to relay to board members as well is that, uh, was made clear that if this commonwealth prevails in the decision at the, um, SJC, they will, um, the Attorney general will, uh, swiftly move to file lawsuit against non-compliant towns. Um, we are one of less than a dozen, uh, less than 10, I think the number was seven was thrown out,

57:44 um, that are in this situation. Two are in non-compliance. Now, like I said, we are one of seven to 10 in this situation. The, all the other re of the 177 communities have, um, passed a plan.

58:02 Okay. Um, so, uh, comments from the board.

58:13 Well, Madam Chair, I’m gonna, I’m gonna go ahead here. Um, yeah, I think this is really a process. It’s, it’s a deliberation and a discussion. I know personally I was complacent at the town meeting in terms of what I thought would be, uh, a pretty easy vote yes. On this. All right. A lot. No, listen, listen, listen, listen, that No, no, no. Listen, listen. I know, I know, I know. Listen, we had Becky, listen, listen. I’m just telling you what my perspective is. That’s why, that’s why. And I wanna let you know where I’ve come to, okay? So everybody’s gotta, you know, listen to us. I hope you, I hope you don’t mind. Um, you know, so we did not, we did not socialize the plan very well. We did not have large, you know, big discussions about it.

59:01 I don’t think the state made its case other than the presumptive exercise of power and its authority, you know, through the, through the legal process. Hear me out through the legal process to kind of, to impose a mandate, a zoning mandate on the town. Okay? Um, I totally respect, you know, the vote of the town, right? And I don’t, and I, and given the, Hey, hey guys, guys, hold on.

59:31 And you know, time out, time

59:37 You respect us enough to waste our time. So we’re here again, right? Respect. Can you please hold on guys. There’s a lot of respect. There’s a lot of respect. And, and hey, all I’m saying, and given the, given the ambiguity right now, you know, I’m not in favor of rushing to a special town meeting. Okay? And, and look, I mean, and, and, and part of it, I’m, I’m to blame for this as well. And I think the board has some accountability in terms of having, uh, not not done the how not done our homework. So on the one hand, I respect, uh, the vote and even the sentiment behind it. Okay? Pushing back on presumptive authority of power in this town is in our DNA, right?

1:00:24 It is, it just, look, it’s, I have a direct descendant who was part of Glover’s regiment, right? And they were un unbelievable contrarians to take over the English, you know, to, to kind of push back and tell the English crown to go pound sand. Okay? I get that. I get that. Um, and a lot of people think it’s laughable to continue to be skeptical of, of power, right? I don’t think so. I think it’s a precursor to, to fundamental debate, right? Um, on the other hand, I’m looking at, and I’ve looked at the, the financial need for the town. I just want everybody to understand what’s, you know, what we’re paying, what, what the cost of this is. And that’s perfectly fine if the, if the decision of the,

1:01:12 of the town is to not go ahead and, and, and, and implement three A, you just gotta know what the cost is. And you know, as I said before, we’re, we’re kind of a show me town and there’s gonna be holes in our capital budgeting plan. So we just have to, you, you have to know that that’s the truth, okay? And that’s what we’re trying to discover right now. And the question is also, is it really worth it? I happen to think this plan is benign. You, you know, many people don’t. We haven’t, you know, I think there’s more explana exploration around that. All right. So, you know, I guess another question I have is that if our bylaws have to comply, comply with the state zoning act, you know, which is passed by our legislature, you know, re it’s not,

1:01:59 it’s not the crown of England, it’s the legislature of the state. Hear me out, hear me out. You know, what is the legal challenge that we can potentially mount? Right? I wanna know what that is. I don’t know what it, listen. Alright. I mean, that’s legit. If, if you think there’s a, a legit path forward to a legal challenge, you know, then maybe we need to hear arguments about it. I think it’s gonna, you know, if we do not, you know, and, and that’s, it’s gonna cost us a lot as we’ve, you know, to, to kind of make that case. I’m not convinced that there is a legal challenge yet, but I think that’s part of the debate. I think that’s what’s gonna resolve questions. You know, I’m on the horns of a de dilemma, just kinda like Dan said. On the one hand, I respect the vote. That goes without saying, all right.

1:02:45 But on the other hand, there’s a cost to it. And, you know, I’m hoping that, uh, you know, we can find a way forward, you know, through a deliberation, at least enhance the quality of our deliberation. So, uh, you know, if we come back to town meeting next year, you know, after this type of de deliberation, you know, hopefully we can, you know, we can, we can kind of come to an agreement as to whether, you know, what kind of costs we’re willing to assume or what kind of potentiality we have to, you know, you know, if this is enforced by the state, you know, that that’s a, you know, we don’t have much option but to comply ultimately, or take them on legally, which I think, who knows what that outcome is.

1:03:30 Um, anyway, I just wanna say I, I respect the vote. I think the board respects the vote. I think our impulse to go to a special town meeting was born of our concern that we’re leaving a lot of, lot of dough, a lot of cash on the table. So, you know, and, and, and there is a fair amount of cash we’re leaving on the table if that’s the case. So that’s all I have to say.

1:03:55 Others? No, no, go ahead. I’ll, I’ll go. Yeah, no, I mean, just quickly, um, thanks to Logan and Alicia for their presentation, please. Thank you too, Alicia and, uh, Logan for their presentation and also, and I think there’s still several unknown factors and variables. Uh, you know, I’m not in favor of special town meeting at this point. Uh, and I do think that we do need to continue to analyze and discuss what the financial impact is of being out of compliance with the state law. And I think we need to still work through what are the financial impacts, what are the ramification of the legal issues on all levels coming out through current cases, new cases, and, you know, some of the issues that Moses brought up as well.

1:04:42 So, uh, you know, I think this is something that I need to continue to

1:04:49 Yeah, and, and I agree with the previous two. I, I’m, I’m not at this point not in favor of town, a special town meeting. And, and like I said last week,

1:05:05 you know, I said I needed to hear more and I did hear a lot, but I still didn’t see enough because, you know, I look at this like an appeal process. You’ve gotta find either a lot of new information, something that really wasn’t presented, you know, know at TA meeting that we didn’t have at that juncture. And, and I’m just not seeing that. And, and I have to respect the vote that the Tao meeting spoke in 2014 and the news won.

1:05:40 And as we, and, and as we, nobody has a crystal ball. We don’t know when the SJC is gonna rule. It’s likely gonna be in January thereafter. And then we can revisit this at town meeting again if we need to, you know, next year. Not a special one. So right now, unless I hear something else, I’m, I’m not in favor of special time.

1:06:08 No, no. Um, Madam Chair, can I say one more thing? Sure. I think, um, I am conflicted too. It’s not that I’m conflicted on whether or not, which have a tell I’m conflicted on the results on, on where we stand right now. I’m concerned about our structural deficit that we have moving forward. I’m concerned about the potential for a debt override that will have to come in front of this town potentially if we don’t get this money. Those are my concerns. Um, and our job is to, to, to run to, to do that. So that’s, that’s where I am conflicted. I will say, I did run campaign on not seeing this town divided, and this town is divided, and I don’t like that. I don’t think any of us would,

1:06:58 We’re gonna have to agree to disagree if you, if, uh, with all the people. So that’s fine. I’m telling you my opinion. So I, I, I’m, I trying, I’m respecting yours. I think this town is very divided on that. Um, and so I think at this point that we should continue to gather more information. Could you speak up? I think we should continue to gather more information as, as it comes out, the SJC further information from the lieutenant governor or whatever office it is, and, and that we can be flexible as we move forward. But I, I think at this point it sounds pretty clear that, that at, at we, we, we’ve heard people, we’ve heard people from the, the, from the town. I, I, I really feel for the town workers who work their, their hides off to this point

1:07:46 and have come here with certain promises on what they are gonna do. And, and, and now there isn’t some work for them to do, um, because grants and all that. So I, I, this is why I keep saying I’m conflicted. I think there are many, many facets to this, but at this point, I think that we do not have full information to move forward as well. Adam, chair? Mm-Hmm. I just wanna, I’ll try to speak loudly. Uh, I just wanna, um, echo some of the things that Dan was saying. And I also wanted, um, for anyone, you know, I spoke to a lot of people this week and last week, and I also wanna thank anyone who reached out directly, um, and had conversations and shared your viewpoint and what your thoughts were, and took your time to do that and let us know what your thoughts were for, you know,

1:08:33 any of us individually. And also, I hope that all of you that are here and whatever, um, your stance is in regarding the zoning issue, that as we look into what are the financial impacts that you understand and continue to stay engaged, that you’re a part of state of the town, that you come and say, okay, this is where we are, marblehead, this is the financial impact of this decision. You know, we are tasked with the job of running the financial impact of this town. And I’m concerned, I’m very concerned holistically, and I hope that all of you will continue to stay engaged as what does that cost? Does that mean at the end of the day come May, this is the amount of a debt exclusion, override,

1:09:20 or whatever that factor is. Um, I hope you’re continue to stay engaged in, in what we look at. And some of this, as we said, is information that we won’t know for quite some time. Okay? So I just wanted to put that out there that I hope to continue to see your participation, to have you reach out to engage, because we are five, but we are working to help be your voice to represent you, to hear what you have to say. So please keep engaged in this process and it that, you know, I, we appreciate that you’re coming here to, to be with us moving forward with the financial planning, sir. Um, okay. Madam Jeff, I could just, you know, to, uh, to you, Thatcher, I hope that you

1:10:06 and Logan will continue to pursue, uh, grants and available monies, though as we go along and, and, and as we kind of continue through this process, right? Because I think at the end of the day, you know, we, we, we don’t know what ultimately will the outcome will be. So I would encourage you to not lose faith in that and keep, keep, keep prosecuting those, uh, those grants. Yeah. I mean, our, our efforts in a lot of the restructuring that we’ve been doing is to really up our game of being able to go out and get more state and federal funding to pay for the things that we need to get done, right? Takes pressure off of our, our tax base here. Um, not all grant programs are affected by this,

1:10:52 so we will continue to pursue all options, um, and we will continue the ones that the state says we’re not qualified for. And we’ll let them send us the letter saying, great, great package, but you don’t comply. Yep. That’s alright. That’s it. Alright. Okay. Um, all I was gonna say, I think Alexa, you articulated, um, beautifully. I, uh, enjoy talking to folks about Marblehead and issues going on in Marblehead. The feedback is welcome. Um, you know, we all have email addresses. It’s our last name, first initial marblehead.org. Something that, um, you know, we take very seriously.

1:11:38 I, I, I do, I love talking to people whether they’re, you know, just on one side of it, on a policy issue, then, then, then I am, and finding that common ground. It’s kind of why I wanted to be here. So, um, the, like I said, I mean the, the discussion around the special town meeting was born out of what, you know, several of us heard from last town meeting around, um, you know, like a lack of information. And so trying to address and make sure the community and the residents and the voters had the full information that they needed to, to make the decision was important to us. These obviously have big financial consequences to our town

1:12:23 and, uh, so we take it very seriously. So, um, it sounds as though the decision, um, that there’s, I know, um, there’s no interest in taking any action on this, um, at the time, so, Okay. Alright. Alright. The vote. There’s no vote, So it’s not gonna vote on. So just as I’ll take that as a point of order, we, um, would not vote no to not do something. We’re not gonna, the only vote would be taken to take action. There’d be a motion to take the action. Um, we wouldn’t vote to not take an action that we weren’t going to take, I dunno how to explain it.

1:13:10 Um, so if We choose to leave, we’re not gonna revisit it.

1:13:25 Not tonight. So vote to take the action and then everybody, They don’t wanna have, like, we, the the, the decision was they don’t wanna take an action. All right? All right. The Not have people on the record, the not scheduling the special town meeting. Yep. Right? That would be your takeaway. Aaron, uh, madam chair, this point of order that it’s the, there is no vote on the agenda either from an open meeting Yes. Discussion only. That’s why I scheduled it as discuss. No, discuss. That’s what I’m just to give you to also do that. Yep. Okay. Question. So we’ll see how it goes.

1:14:09 Yes. Have a Comment.

1:14:12 We got overtake, comment, comment, but that’s what people believe. Gonna make a comment. Okay. Didn’t you guys aren’t interested in the rest of what we do? No, we do. We gonna ask some questions. Question.

1:14:29 So that Logan, great job tonight. Seriously, great job. We’ll have public comment. We have public comment moving on a public comment. Yeah. I’ll just let some people leave so people Can hear, Hey, gimme a call. Absolutely. I don’t have time, but, um, I mean, yeah. Good job to talk to. I don’t disagree.

1:14:49 No, we’re good. Actually, I’ll be remote tomorrow for the meeting, but I’ll be, it’s a waste of time. I voted no, it should have been done. Right, right, right. Unbelievable. Thanks Jack. That’s okay. Right said none of us are getting this vote again. That’s all. Yeah.

1:15:12 Hey, got a light. I don’t think I had a tape. You speak. I love you gonna have deliberation. Right on. It’s, you make public comments. Great. Great. Okay, folks, we still are in the meeting. So I was plowing some amount of time for people to leave.

1:15:46 All Right. I’d like to proceed to the next session of our meeting, which is public comment, but it’s hard to do, so if no one can hear.

1:15:58 Yeah. Yeah, I’ll a second. So.

1:16:03 Alright.

1:16:08 Okay. So next we move on to the public comment section of the meeting. And so how this works is, um, as the chair I control the meeting and during this section I’ll, you’ll recognize anybody who would like to speak, we’d like to hear from anybody and everybody who would like to speak. I’m gonna ask that you try to keep your comments to Two To three minutes, um, because there’s clearly a lot of other people that would like to speak and we do wanna hear everybody. Um, and it, it’s not an opportunity for us to engage in any type of a question and answer period. It’s just a time for you to be heard by your elected officials. And so if, if, um, if I do need to take back the floor,

1:16:57 if you know, for time management purposes of the meeting, I will gavel and then that will be, um, it’ll, that’s asking you to wrap it up. Okay. Um, so, um, if you have public comment and you would like to, uh, just go to the mic, um, and state your name and the street on which you live for the record. And if you’re online and you know the drill, you raise your hand and Kyle will let me know and maybe we can go back and forth. There’s four people with their hands up. Okay. Um, and we will get through this. Okay. So Yes. Okay. My name is, can you hear? Yeah. Uh, yes. We, uh, No. Is it not on? So the,

1:17:43 The microphones for The, they’re not to amplify sound here. Oh, it’s for the audio. So just like us, you have to, I have to amplify. Okay. Um, I live at 33 Pond Street and perhaps I do have a question. My concern is that one of the developments, or even two of them will allow for two called parking per unit, which represents 1200 additional cars, which to me is an environmental nightmare. And I am interested that the state is withholding environmental money when in fact if we’re gonna be having 1200 more cars, they’re creating an environmental nightmare for the town. And I think that that’s kind of a legal challenge that we have that is different from the one that Milton is presenting to the Supreme Court

1:18:30 with the state Supreme Court, which is that we have an environmental challenge. 1200 cars is a, is a strain on this community in addition to the lack of open space that we have. And this would take away that space. We can’t get down West Shore Drive now and we can’t get down Atlantic Avenue. Marblehead has very unique geographic situation here, and I think the increase in cars is very concerning. I just want to confirm that this would allow for an additional 1200 cars. Do you know, can you answer that question? It’s not something I, I can answer to a specific claim. Okay. Okay. But I, I don’t want the, I don’t want the community to know that we are looking at an additional, possible 1200 cars. Think about that. And, and possibly more

1:19:17 and possibly more. And I also think, you know, I, I don’t like being held hostage by, and I’m a, as I said, a lifelong liberal Democrat, but I don’t like being held hostage by the state on this. And I, and I really feel as if, you know, the town has the right to make the determination about how it wants to live and how it wants to grow. And I think that that is

1:19:41 Absolutely, I-I-I-I-I-I Feel that that is a fundamental American, right? I really do. And I, and I feel that, you know, this is being imposed upon us as some kind of social experiment. And its social engineering at its worst. It reminds me of the busing crisis in Boston. Uh, there was such a failure and I, I just feel that this is, has not been carefully considered and is full of contradictions. And I’ve said my peace. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

1:20:15 Mic the mic’s for at home. It’s, it’s, if you yell into the mic, they can’t add It’s too loud at home. It, yeah, it’s talking loud Here. Blow out the speakers. Yeah, sure, Sure. Um, hi, good evening, Nick Ward. I, I live on Rolleston Road. Uh, look, I’m a supporter of three A zoning and, and the pro-growth approach to the town’s future that, that I think it represents. I, you know, I think most people sitting here, uh, uh, know that can’t hear You. I’m just trying to avoid, you know, causing problems for folks back at home. They, they can you though? We can hear you step back from the mic. Okay. And then turn up the volume. Terrific. Yeah. Okay. Uh, and, and you know, look, you have laid out clarity for the town in terms of what we can expect with respect to three A between now and the end of the year,

1:21:00 which I appreciate both on behalf of the supporters of of three A as well as the opponents as well. You know, both sides deserve that clarity. So I’d just like to speak a little bit about why I think three a zoning would be good for Marblehead. So the single family zoning that we have that covers most of the residential, uh, parcels here in town came into being in October, 1972, a little bit ironically at a special town meeting. But the, what what the, the town’s homeowners decided at that time in effect was to surrender some of their property rights back to the town in return for limiting to the extent that they could change here in Marblehead with respect to the kinds of people that could live here, as well as the kinds of housing that they could live in. And one of the consequences of that decision was to create a situation where, rather than our housing

1:21:46 changing to fit the community, the community has had to change to fit the housing that it’s allowed to have. And that’s created all kinds of challenges. But I really wanna focus on one challenge that would be at the forefront of my mind if I occupied one of the seats that, that you all do. And that’s the state of the town’s finances, which have been alluded to a little bit here. Now, our long range financial plan, the town’s long range financial plan projects, a $10 million operating deficit going into 2029. But the town already rejected a $2.4 million override in 2023. And so I think with additional time having passed, you’re going to have to bring either a larger override next year or, or in subsequent years or smaller overrides over multiple years. Now, it may be the case that the towns voters have warmed

1:22:32 to the idea of higher property taxes. I don’t know you all would be able to, to gauge that much better than I would. But I point all of this out to to point out that we do have other levers here to get the town on a sustainable financial footing. And obviously I’m referring to pro-growth policies like three a zoning. Now, I recognize there is enormous skepticism about the idea that allowing more housing construction in Marblehead could ever have a positive contribution to the budget. But somewhat fortuitously for us, there is a town that we all know very well, which grappled with this exact same problem when they were considering their own three a zoning proposal. So what they did, because it’s a, it’s a well-funded town, they hired at their own expense, a planning firm to do an assessment on their budget

1:23:18 of their three a zoning proposal. And what that planning firm found was a positive contribution to the budget of anywhere between 350,000 to $1 million annually. And I think that’s probably a contributing factor in why this town at its town meeting voted by a margin of two to one to adopt its three a zoning proposal. Now, the town that I’m referring to is Milton, as we all know. Ultimately, the residents of Milton’s proposed three a district decided that the improvement in the town’s finances wasn’t worth it to them. And that’s obviously a story that as we’ve heard, is still to play out. But I raise all of this because I do think that the curiosity of, of our town Marblehead with respect to pro-growth policies and changing our land use regulation may change if we get

1:24:06 into the teeth of a very difficult override debate next year or, or in subsequent years. So the last thing that I wanna say before I, I surrender the mic and I appreciate everyone bearing with me, is wherever you stand on this issue and however you feel about it, I think it’s really, really important that we get some of the vitriol and some of the bile out of the conversation that from my standpoint, has come to sort of poison the, well, I I think it’s both unhelpful as we discuss three a zoning specifically, and I think it’s corrosive to our civic discourse generally. So my request is that no matter what you think, no matter what you feel, please, like, let’s try to focus on the issues at hand and how we make sure that this is a great town, not just today, but in the future and for our children. And let’s try to refrain from character assassination,

1:24:52 ad hominem attacks, so on and so forth. So I appreciate you all for bearing with me as well as, uh, attendees. So thank you. Thanks So much. Thanks Nick. Online. How’s online? How many do we have online? We have four. Um, let’s do, let’s kind of alternate just so they don’t feel left in the cold. Matthew Barrett. Matthew Barrett.

1:25:18 Hi. Good evening. I’m just amazed that the, what someone on the liberal left, I can relate to her statement of the, the Commonwealth trying to hold a sausage. And that’s exactly what they’re trying to do. They, they can’t compartmentalize marblehead with all the other towns. And even though I’m in favor of what Milton is doing, the border that Milton has to deal with is Route 1 28. They don’t have an ocean out there, there aren’t, there are alternatives for them. Uh, every town is different. Winthrop is, is grappling with us as well. And that would probably be a better comp for us.

1:26:05 Um, I just can’t, it’s, it really, and I don’t wanna over exaggerate. This is really like tyranny. The town is putting a gun to our head saying it’s highway or the highway. And, and this is after they, you know, messed up, I don’t know how many miles of, uh, track when they were rebuilding the green line after hiring a Chinese national company to rebuild the green line. And so we are paying for their mistakes. And did we have any say in how, um, how we awarded any of those contracts? And you know, we have one bus that goes through our town

1:26:52 and I know that, that the law requires us to take into consideration the bordering towns that use the MBTA, but we really should look to swim on our own on this if, if the town is really trying to put a gun to our head. And that’s really, really how I feel about it. And I think there’s a lot of other people that feel the same way. Thank you. Okay, thank you. Um, next here at the mic, I’m Bill Keeny to Beverly AVEs. First of all, I, I want to just take a minute to thank the select board, uh, for engaging us in a constructive process and including us in it to make a very difficult decision. And I know how many hours you each put in. I know how you balanced and listened to every position

1:27:39 and this was a very difficult decision. So I just wanted to thank you for that. Now, I was in favor of the three zoning plan. I was in favor of it and I was in favor of a special meeting this November. But I do understand your decision and I do respect it. And by the way, I think it’s the right decision. I also want to congratulate the opposition, my opposition, the many of you here. I want to congratulate you for your organization and your dedication. Alright? Now, I also am concerned about this theme of Dan talked about, others are concerned about, about divisiveness. We have a very complex situation in our hands.

1:28:24 We may be going broke, I might be overstay that, but I do know we have a structural deficit. Alright? And I do know we have to find ways to raise revenue through economic and housing development. We have to find ways to secure grants for infrastructure, for housing, for climate con control and climate, uh, remedy. And we have to compete with other communities. I don’t know how big this price is gonna be to say no to this. And I’m open to join with you to find better answers. Alright? But to do that, to handle this very complex situation, I think it’s really important that we take, take the, the division out of this, that we take the temperature down. Alright? I respect and regard your commitment deeply.

1:29:14 And I’m willing to sit down with anyone, enjoy with anyone to come up with a better answer. Alright? I think it’s important that we do that. And I think that we have to do that. And I think the most important thing is that really to make democracy work, we have to each try to listen to each other better and to speak to each other with regard and respect. Alright? This is what democracy needs and this is what good neighbors do. So let’s be good neighbors. Thank you. Thank you, Thank you.

1:29:54 Somebody online. So Malone, what’s the name? Paul Malone. Who? Paul who? Malone Maloney. Dr. Paul Maloney. Dr. Paul Malone. Yes.

1:30:14 You like to make comment? Did you raise your hand? Come on. Are you reading a bell or something? I think No, no. Re I think maybe your hand is Oh. Oh, okay.

1:30:29 Okay. Next, next. Um, who do we have up? Lori Barn. Uh, Lori Barnum.

1:30:39 You have the floor.

1:30:45 Hi, we can’t hear you. Hi. Okay, there you go. Hi, Can you hear me Now? Yes, I can. Lori Barnum. I live on West Shore Drive. First and foremost, thank you for respecting the vote of town meeting. Um, I think there’s an opportunity to slow down and consider the concerns of existing residents. Um, many were stated, one of the primary ones was traffic living on West Shore Drive. That is 100% of my opposition to three a. I did not see that there was a plan for mitigating what has already become a dangerous situation

1:31:32 on West Shore Drive. I have lived here for 28 years. When I moved here, I could cross the street. I could have a conversation in the front yard with the neighbor. I can’t do either of those things now because of the traffic on West Shore. Um, each time there has been a new development school community center, there’s been a traffic study that has looked at incremental change and has determined that that was not going to be great. I have seen great change after each of those developments and the cumulative change has been devastating. So thinking about the largest of the developments being on Tioga Way

1:32:19 and dumping considerably more traffic on the road, I, I just, I can’t contemplate it. So I would like you to slow down and think about mitigation strategies for the traffic ways to make it more livable for the people who are already here as well as anyone who may come. Thank you. Thank you.

1:32:50 Um, Claudette Mason eight, Susan Road. Um, I also am going to talk about the traffic situation and I was hoping Logan was still here. Uh, he had mentioned a feasibility study that he did for, you can’t hear, sorry, I was asking about the feasibility studies that he mentioned. Are you going to allow access for people to see those studies? Um, ‘cause it pertains to traffic, electrical. All of our resources are going to be drained. So where are those studies? I’m not sure. I, I don’t remember the comment about the feasibility study, but I, if it’s a public document, we can make it available. Yeah, I was gonna ask you if you can put in the website, if you Just would email, um, uh, Kyle Wiley here. Wiley k@marblehead.org. Okay. Um, we can help you get what you’re looking for.

1:33:36 Thank you. And Chair, just for the floor’s benefit. So typically when plans are being developed, like these, these studies, they also include a public input component. So we try to build in any of the plans we’re developing to include public input as part of the process of building the plan. No. Okay. Um, I think she was talking about the infrastructure, the ability of, of our infrastructure. If I’m not wrong, you’re talking about the ability of our infrastructure to support that. Correct. I just wanna make a correct as well As the traffic. I Mean, usually you need Part of it Sure. Survey, There’s lines that you drive over. Yep. Gotcha. None of those. No, I just wanted to make sure we understood. Yeah. Okay. Um, uh, anybody else on the line? Yes, I Have Patricia’s phone. Okay. Patricia, Just

1:34:23 Keep going back and forth. Hold, um,

1:34:32 Patricia online. Um, you have the floor? Yes.

1:34:37 We can’t hear you if we can come back. Okay. Sorry. Sorry.

1:34:50 Is she unmuted On our end? Oh, you need to unmute Patricia.

1:35:01 Okay. All right. Um, well, why don’t we, um, come back. Well, let’s take, um, uh, Mr. Dip Pano. I don’t need to introduce myself. Uh, John Dip Pano, um, Trager Road. Um, what the board did tonight is tell an overreaching, authoritative state government that our democracy will not be threatened and that it’s not for sale. And I want to thank you for that.

1:35:39 Having said that, um, this is a very contentious issue and I wanna recognize, um, the board as a whole, but specific members of the board for working now in partnership with the majority block on this issue. Select board member Dan Fox, virtually pounced on me after the last meeting. And, uh, we had a conversation, um, that was spirited, but the exchange of information, I think was vital for both of us to understand. One another’s position, select board chair Eric Newan reached out to me personally. We spent many, many minutes, probably hours, uh, discussing this issue. Um, Ms. Newan didn’t know until I gave her some slides from Tops Field.

1:36:25 That tops field, which has almost 12 land miles compared to our just over four land miles, had an original requirement of 750 units that they negotiated down with the state to 118

1:36:39 as opposed to our 850 something. Right? And with that information, this board has opened a dialogue with the chief of staff of Lieutenant Governor, um, the Lieutenant Governor’s office. Kim Driscoll was spearheading this, um, to try to open a dialogue and has reached out to the town of Topsfield to find out how they did it. So thank you for that. Alexis singer talked to me until she sounded like she was gonna fall asleep the other day. Uh, and, um, I had to make her stop. Uh, I wasn’t keeping her on the phone, so she was keeping me on the phone. But we exchanged a lot of information with one another. We’re neighbors. We may not be all in the same boat, but we’re all in the same storm, and we can approach this in partnership with one another.

1:37:24 Um, just a couple of quick statistics. Um, these are unofficial, but last time I checked, they were very accurate. Um, three A has failed so far in 16 communities. It’s been postponed in six and it’s pending in 82. What we do here will impact what they do there. They’re, they’re watching us. They’re watching us. I am adding my name to an amicus brief in favor of Milton’s position because the Healy Driscoll administration has turned three A, which was a relatively balanced stick and carrot statute with only four grants, of which we’ve never received any money, ever at all moderate grants into a Frankenstein’s monster.

1:38:12 I’m not surprised they wouldn’t give us an extension because they do not respect the rule of law, and they wanna force this down our throats before the Supreme Judicial Court can make its ruling. And today we said, no,

1:38:37 You’ve restored my faith in the fact that that spirit of 1776 hangs in this room. And for that I thank you. Thank

1:38:52 Okay. Back to anybody online? Yes. We could try Patricia again. Okay. We’ll try Patricia again.

1:39:02 Do you wanna speak? I have Madeline. Madeline? I’m Madeline. Oh, Madeline.

1:39:13 Madeline.

1:39:18 Can everybody hear me? Yes. Hi. Um, I just wanted to quickly speak. I mean, I I was in favor of three A, um, and I do understand why, you know, the, the special meeting will not occur. So I just wanted to highlight that it’s very difficult to vote at the town meetings in the current format. The multi-hour, multi-day is very difficult for a large portion of the town to, to go to. Um, I’ve got two young kids at home. I work full-time. Sorry, I’m kind of nervous. I don’t usually talk at these things, but, um, it would just be nice to have an easier way to have my voice heard at, um, in this town. And I just feel like I have not had a chance to speak or vote on this properly because it is very, very difficult to attend these full-time meetings.

1:40:05 So maybe just something to consider in the future, if we could have this on a ballot, I think that would be wonderful. I think we would get a much bigger cross section of the people who actually live in this town and, and how they feel about this. Thank You. Thank you Madeline. Um, anybody, uh, Alice in the audience? You wanna come to the mic? Sure. Good evening. Uh, Trevor Moore, Redstone Lane. Um, I wanna state, like right up front that as a matter of principle, uh, I support the thoughtful and deliberate creation of housing options for people in Marblehead. I think it’s a benefit to families, to elderly people, uh, looking to downsize or rightsize.

1:40:51 I think it’s benefit for workers, whether they’re in the public or private sector. And, uh, I thought that the plan that the planning board presented in May, um, was modest, reasonable, and unfortunately it didn’t pass. So, uh, I know there’s a lot of celebration in this room based on that fact. And I do respect that. Um, what does still occur to me as an issue is the tens of millions of dollars that Logan, uh, outlined that we will have to spend in the coming years to keep our infrastructure modern and safe. Uh, I think there hasn’t been quite enough discussion about what happens when we don’t get the grants.

1:41:38 That is our money that we have paid to the state and federal government that should be coming back to us, but is instead gonna go to Revere and Lynn and Swamps, GETT and Salem and everyone but us. Uh, so I think that’s an issue. Um, and it actually gets worse because if we don’t get that money, well, we all know what happens. We’re gonna pay that in taxes. The grants that, that the projects that Logan outlined don’t just go away just because the grants due. And I think that there has been a lot of discussion and I think that the, uh, I respect the board’s decision to, uh, not hold a special town meeting in the fall. However, I, I don’t think that there’s been enough thought and consideration about

1:42:24 what happens if we don’t adopt this measure going forward. And the fact that this money is gonna come out of all of our pockets, uh, when the time comes to actually, bill, thank you. Thank You, thank you.

1:42:41 Okay. No one’s online. Okay. So we’re just in the audience now. Hi. Thank you. Uh, Brian Lucas, Nashua Avenue. Can you speak a little louder? Sorry. It’s so Right here. Uh, Brian Lucas, Nashville Avenue. Um, I’d like to kind of continue with John’s thought about the negotiation when I read the proposal. Finally got around to it. And I have to admit it took a long time. What I did read in there was we already have a lot of this density of housing. We have it all over the place. And if you think about the state law, they’re looking for us to create a certain density to create more housing. And in my thought, we already do that. The only part that we violate is the fact that we haven’t grouped it in certain areas. And if you think about grandfathering by matter of, right,

1:43:29 those houses exist, they exist. I could show up tomorrow if I own one of ‘em and do something with them. So I question, is it not that we don’t go to the state and say, we already comply, we just haven’t created a side of the tracks where we’re gonna put these people. That’s really all I wanted to say. So in the thought of negotiation, we kind of are already there. Thank you. Thank you.

1:43:56 Hi. Oh, I forgot Emily DeJoy seven Riverside Drive. Um, first and foremost, as previously stated, thank you for respecting the vote and not complying today. I also just wanna put on the radar that with 900 plus units, um, the amount of children in our neighborhoods would also increase. So what would we need to do school-wise? Would we need to add another school? What would the fees be associated with that? That would add additional water charges, sewer charges, policing, fire. I think the people need to know. Thank you. Thank You.

1:44:37 Hi, good evening. My name’s Jack Nicholas. I live on Park Lane off of West Shore Drive, which sees a lot of traffic these days. Incredible amount of traffic. I have two young children. I also own a four family here downtown in Marblehead. And I can tell you that as a, a former finance committee, chairman, school committee person, uh, chair of a town, charter review committee, and a another community in southeast Massachusetts. I have a fair amount of experience and I feel for feel for all of you here. And especially for the town manager. Very difficult position, uh, looking at finances, looking at the future. I will tell you though, that having clients who are public sector clients, the funding mechanisms at the state are very strange. First off, the governor doesn’t give you the money. The Lieutenant Governor doesn’t give you the money. So you can have conversations. They might veto a budget, but it’s a big budget.

1:45:25 It’s not a single line item. We need to pay attention to all these small details and realize that politics reign Supreme. It comes out of a committee, it’s a block of money, it’s given to you. I’m gonna give you a hundred thousand dollars, you’ll figure out where to spend it. That might put you at ease. Have a good night. Good luck.

1:45:47 Uh, hi Jims this in Two Mile Road. I just have a piece of information that something Dan and John mentioned about Topsfield that came on my radar about six weeks ago. ‘cause it sticks out like a sore thumb. So I talked to some people, did some research. I haven’t got a final answer, but I, I think actually the state misclassified their number, their number was seven 50. Okay? They are an adjacent community because if you know Topsfield and next to Hamilton IPPs, which both have, um, but they’re an adjacent small community, which is a different number. We’re a adjacent community. Our number is 10% of the households. There is 5% of the households. Topsfield has 6,000 people. We have, you know, 21,000, they’ve got about,

1:46:35 my guess is about 2200 households up there. 5% of that’s one 18 run it to ground, but you know, it sticks out. So sore. And what is actually interesting, when these criteria first came out in 2022, if, you know, know Tufts Field, there’s a lot of space in the select board in the planning department says we can’t do this. Tofield said that. So if Tofield was saying that, you know, marble Head, we don’t have the space. So anyhow, that’s just a little detail and I, I think you’re gonna find that out that they were probably misclassified. Um, but it’s still worth running to on, I would say. Okay. Thank you. Thank You.

1:47:15 Hi, uh, Jonathan Klain, three, two Peach Islands. Um, it, everything was been spoken over, I think tonight was mostly, uh, the carrot and the stick with pretty much all stick. Uh, I’ve thought about this a lot and, and it comes down to, it seems to me an essential decision between belief and trust. There are a lot of proponents that just have belief. They believe that the carrot is there. They believe for some outrageous reason, that this is good for the town. And they don’t need the proof. They didn’t need the proof at town meeting. They were voting for it. And that’s fine. We were looking for the actual proof for the numbers. All the numbers, all the stick numbers that are discussed tonight should have been brought up at town meeting.

1:48:01 And the numbers discussed tonight we’re still speculative. So I remember that, that that, um, spreadsheet that we were shown of like $14 million completely fabricated, which comes down to the trust thing. A lot of the people who are against this measure just don’t trust it. They don’t trust Ma Healy and they don’t trust the information they’re given. And finally, when it comes down to, you know, Mr no decorum present, there are a lot of people are here because they’re furious and they have a right to be furious. Not at you personally, but furious at this process. The idea that this should be

1:48:47 a court in Wimbledon is ridiculous. People are b**t. They have a right to be, they grew up here. I’ve been here for 50 years and they shouldn’t have to listen to some 28-year-old kid with a degree in planning. It goes on for close to an hour and on fantasy. So in any case, I won’t just have a round for all the people that came today. Thank you.

1:49:23 Kurt James Norman Street. Um, you can’t hear me.

1:49:30 Um, so we’ve heard a lot of talk about the tax issues and the budget issues. I just wanted to mention, um, just for a moment about the housing issues because, um, I, I appreciate all the emotion in the room and the interest in not bowing to the state, um, mandate. But we actually do have a housing issue here in town. We’ve had it for decades. Um, and so we really do need to address it. So if we can try to take out the emotion about the state issue and just focus on the substance. Um, we do have a housing committee in town. Um, Mr. Fox chairs it. Um, we meet monthly. I think it would be great if we had half the number of people that were this meeting attend, share your ideas about some solutions that would be really good.

1:50:16 We have a housing plan, um, which does anticipate the need for additional housing. Um, but we are lacking strategies to get there. So I’d love to see all you at another meeting coming up. Thank you. Thank you.

1:50:34 Hi, Sarah Fox Beach Street. Um, I’m actually not gonna speak on three A at all. I think, you know, we can all go back to Gary in realize it’s mostly all been said. But what I am gonna speak about is our finances in town. Um, I have been intricately involved in the fiscal process in developing budgets in this town for, you know, more than six years now, every year at the table. And what I’ll say is we’ve gone through the iterations and what we were given, the directive last year was exhaust. Every option we’ve heard from the voters, they don’t want any higher taxes. That’s what we were told. Exhaust every option. Look at your evolving funds, exhaust them.

1:51:20 We have, look at every grant you can give. We’re trying do anything you can before we raise taxes, which I get, I don’t think anybody is lining up to pay higher taxes. The issue here is we have a crumbling infrastructure. We have rising costs, and we have multiple unions town wide that are negotiating and asking for money that quite frankly, a lot of them work very, if not all of them, work very, very hard and deserve additional reaches. What I am having a hard time with is the disconnect of shutting down additional discretionary funding.

1:52:07 If, if, if what we’re hearing is true. So we’re saying no more taxes, we’re saying no to discretionary funding. We’re saying a lot of the same faces in this room. I’m, I am, I’m seeing the people saying pay our employees more. I don’t disagree. It’s a math problem folks. If you have a set pot of money and you have no way to grow it and you wanna give the individuals in that pot of money, more money each, which I’m not saying they just don’t deserve, they deserve it. They work hard. There’s only one variable. It doesn’t take an algebraic genius to figure it out. You cut bodies to pay for more.

1:52:55 We have to find another funding source. If we as a town are saying no more taxes, and we as a town are saying no more, we don’t want the state’s money either. And because the pass through of the federal money is the state. Take that and screw if that is what we are saying as a community. And you have a right to vote that way. You have a right to say that. And what we’re hearing is that you wanna be respected for that. And I don’t disagree respect it. What you’re saying at the same time is we have to cut something else because it is a fixed pot of money. And quite frankly, as the person who sits at that table weekly Looking at the numbers,

1:53:42 we’re we’re right for all the folks here. I hope you keep showing up. ‘cause we’re in the middle of budget season. Our chiefs are being asked to pro produce a budget months before they typically would so that we have all of our ducks in a row so that we can tell the people in a very transparent way what it costs to run this town. I hope people keep showing up. I hope you keep paying attention and you are vocal about what you value because it’s a fixed pot of money folks, and we have to get it from somewhere. Or we cut services and we cut humans. So that is up to us. We vote on that. We vote on if we increase the pot of money, if we take someone else’s money, whether that be state

1:54:29 or federal money, or we cut services and we cut humans. So it’s an algebraic equation. As a community, we have the right to make that choice, but we also have the duty to own that choice. So that’s all I’m asking. Thank you

1:54:53 Aaron. Someone mine. Oh, okay. We have somebody online. Um, Catherine

1:55:00 From Chamber. Catherine Katherine from Chamber. Yeah, I was gonna do online. Oh, um, Catherine. Hi. Hi everyone. I just wanted to remember that, uh, or remind everyone that this is a, it’s about zoning, it’s not about building immediately. These are, these are terms to reconsider areas in the event that they need to be built upon. Um, so it’s just, it’s a, it’s, I really don’t wanna jeopardize losing the potential grant money that we’ve been relying on for so long, especially when you consider budgets and how important it is to keep all of that fiscal information in mind. Again, we’re talking about zoning not building tomorrow, So just wanted to throw that in there.

1:55:45 Thank you. Um, yes sir. Phillip Mancuso Mohawk Road. Uh, I wanna continue to talk about the town’s finances. This town has a very good reputation of not managing the money it has now. We’re running around looking for grants to somebody to bail us out. We have the town dump, we have the town library. And today the newspaper says teachers didn’t get their raises.

1:56:20 What is going on? You know, you have to have systems and procedures in place. I know I’ve spent 35 years in accounting. My first job was at Hood Yacht at 19 as an accounts payable clerk. I’ve grown that to be a CFO in other companies. We, we have a new accounting system. Great. If you don’t have the systems and procedures and controls in place and people being responsible for the money they’re given completely above board. We’re gonna fail. We’re gonna be Chelsea in the eighties. The state will come in and we’ll be in receiver ship. I’m gonna tell you now, we don’t want to be this town.

1:57:08 I grew up in the North Shore. I wasn’t born in Mary Alley, I was born at Sau, August General. And every, everybody I knew growing up respected Marblehead for its history and the people that lived there. And it was a wealthy community. We still are a wealthy community, but we abused that wealth. Yes. You know, this past year, property taxes, what happened with that? Somebody was fired over that. It should have never happened. Where’s the oversight? This board has the final oversight for all the town departments. I know some of you are new, some

1:57:53 of you have been here for a long time. Some of you have been, you know, residents for a long time. Step up, step up your gain. That’s it. Thank you. Thank you.

1:58:09 Okay. So seeing no other hands online or folks ready to jump towards the mic? Um, I guess this will conclude our public, uh, participation part of the meeting. Did you, did you wanna, were you getting up to speak? I think

1:58:29 I’m Peter Hammond. I live here on Washington Street and of course I have, my question is, if we get this thing forced down our throats, when I look at the plans, you know, of like Pleasant Street, it’s Yoga way and all that, it’s already built up. Where’s the land?

1:58:51 Thank you.

1:58:58 Hi all. Uh, so you wanna take a five minute recess? Yes. Um, uh, can we have a motion for a five minute recess to use the facilities? So motion second. All in favor?

1:59:22 Okay. Okay, so it’s nine 10. We’ll be back. We’re, um, thank you for taking care, man. I appreciate this. I’m here for both, uh, your wife’s not here. So back in our session, in our meeting here, um, Thatcher, do you, um, wanna share any town administrative updates this week? Yep. Um, so I, and I put I, uh, a memo in your Oh, right there in your package. So, um, at the last, as last meeting, I reported about one, a lot of the success stories in the treasurer collector’s office as they’re going through, uh, with the new staff and updating systems and, and fixing problems that have been long happening. Um, so, and,

2:00:07 and the, the open item last, uh, meeting was about the, um, uh, dealing with the IRS as far as our inaccurate reporting on our tax quarterly tax, which caused the IRS to, to send us a notice that we owe them a lot of money, uh, over 1.3 million, which, which accounted for, um, what was deemed not paid that should have been paid plus penalties and interest. Uh, the good news story, just two weeks later, we sat down with the IRS, um, we generated a report with the help of our, uh, forensic auditors. Um, and we were able to identify that,

2:00:55 you know, the vast majority of that was reporting errors, uh, not actual, not making payments. Um, we’ve reconciled down to an amount of about 237,000 rather, 1.3 million that represents what appears to be a remaining outstanding liability. So there were quarters where it was underpaid. Um, and then there’s penalties and interest. Um, a lot of the corrections that were made and we filed, uh, the, the corrected reports, and I, I stated last time, the big number that that made most of it was one particular quarter where we reported an error of, of owing 2.8 million, and then the typical payment of a quarter was 2.2 million.

2:01:43 So they flagged that as a liability and started charging interest. We were able to document that that was a reporting error, not a payment error. Um, that 237,000 number, which we’ve made payment for, wipes out a liability with the IRS. However, the numbers are still gonna be reconciled with the IRS. They, they’ve taken our information, we, we sat down and met with ‘em, agreed to make a payment for that amount, um, to clear the liabilities. And what, uh, will happen is there are a number of credits for overpayments that are actually gonna reduce that amount down. So it will be less than we hope and expect down until we get the certified at the end, um,

2:02:31 that it’ll be less than that, uh, down to an normal amount. And like I’ve said before, we typically have to withhold somewhere around $10 million a year in federal tax withholdings. Mm-hmm. So getting sort of the era over a number of five or six years to something less than 200,000, um, is a great success story. I, I, I have to give credit to, to our treasure collector, Kami Elli, who’s worked a gazillion hours on this and with all the stress that went with it while maintaining all the other operations. And of course Alicia who’s been in there and Lisa Mead, uh, was a big help to us. A little Over 2% of the, of the overall Yeah. Right. Holding. Yep.

2:03:17 And so what we’ve also done is made sure that looking at our procedures, uh, reporting with, you know, training so that we don’t fall back into that, this has been an issue going back years and years. And it was, it came to our attention, those of us here when we got a notice from the IRS with the standing bill. And when we looked into it, unbeknownst to us, this had been an open item with the IRS in the past, but would turn over of staff and people. It just never got resolved, If I may. Sure. Is is this a, is this a process issue or kind of a technology issue, uh, at this point? Both. Okay. So part of it is, again, our finance software. We’re, we’re doing the migration to the new system.

2:04:02 That’s a year long process at least. And This is Munis that’s gonna handle this. Yeah. Yeah. Munis. So what Munis does is gonna take over the, the whole payroll system, which, uh, allows for, uh, don’t ask me to go into detail, but the way Alicia explains it, there are accounting limitations in the current software that doesn’t allow us to easily account for the withholdings and reconcile whether we’re over or unders. It’s a legacy of the old software that we’re trying to get off of. Yeah. The new software, it’ll correct all that. And then it’s about training with the IRS reporting system. It’s all done online. The simple error that had been made from quite some time in the past

2:04:49 is there’s a difference between, uh, the states quarter one, quarter two, quarter three, quarter four. And the federal IRS is federal in their quarters. So this happens to a lot of municipalities. People unknow will post it to quarter three payment when it should have been a quarter two because it’s federal quarter two, and state or, or vice versa. So it’s, it’s training, um, as well as, uh, better systems. Okay. Thank you so where, where does that money come from? Any, any shortfall that we have? No. So it, it’s, it just, we just paid, we had, yeah. It’s, So we have that in a, in a and on our books and Theoretically Yep. That we collected it, we, We’ve collected and not paid whatever the,

2:05:34 the normal amount is. So it’s bookkeeping versus cash. It, It, it’s bookkeeping. Yeah. Thanks. Yep. So anyways, I, I, um, uh, I brought it, you know, brought it to you Mm-Hmm. Two weeks ago. Big concern. Yeah. I basically we’re, it’s great. There’s, they’re validating the final numbers, but we’re closing it out. It’s Just a balance sheet, not an income. Yep. Yep. Great. Um, the other couple things, uh, one the police recruit that you appointed with a conditional appointment, um, uh, Taylor Naco, um, is currently in the academy and, um, with a, um, mid-March expected graduation date. Um, and, and to just, to get to the academy, you have to pass a pretty intensive physical exam to get in.

2:06:20 So she, she passed, uh, did training, got ready, and, and she’s at the academy. We’re looking forward to having her come back and being on the fourth. Um, and then, uh, on the vein of public safety. So we, we applied for a burn grant, uh, for $43,000, uh, the police department and have a new solar powered mobile surveillance camera. And if you go to shopping malls, you know, around there, you’ll see them. So it’s a mobile cart, it’s got a pole cameras, it can be deployed anywhere. Um, and it’s used to enhance safety. Um, um, so it’ll go into areas where there’s been issues. It’ll provide some deterrents. Um, and so, for example, areas where there’s vandalism

2:07:07 and such, deploy it up and, um, either deter or to, or capture, uh, folks doing things that they shouldn’t be doing. Um, it, you know, it’s all, it’s all in the public areas. It’s all very visible when they’re there. Um, so we have deployed that. Okay. Uh, the final two items, um, we have two recent retirements of longtime employees. Um, uh, Bobby Cody, who was our health inspector, recently retired from the Health department, so congratulations. And Charlie Charles Quigley. Mm-Hmm. Our town engineer, uh, is officially a retiree of the town, so we wish them both, both well in their

2:07:54 next adventure, um, post Marblehead municipal employee. And that concludes my, Well, could we, uh, I can make a motion to, to send them a letter of, of congratulations. Sure. And, and Goodwill, if we could you Do a second, second, second. All in favor? Okay. Great. Okay. Um, and next, um, I’ll ask, um, Roseanne, tri ma Elli, come on. Uh, come up to the table please. And, um, Roseanne made her public debut in town this morning. Please have A seat. Have a Seat at the, um, nine 11 Memorial Services party. Just press that button right in front of you. Turn to turn it green. Yeah. Thank you. People didn’t hear

2:08:41 It. We call her robe because Okay. My last name Need More practice on pronouncing the last,

2:08:48 Um, well, it’s so great to, it was, it was so great to, to see you today and really, um, nice words that you spoke this morning. And, um, I’m glad that you have a chance to, uh, get to, um, introduce yourself to the board. And, um, is there anything you’d like us to say, us to know or say? It was my honor to speak this morning. I actually spoke last week or the week before at the purple hot ceremony. That’s right. So, yeah. So I was the Veteran service officer in Winthrop for nine years. I went over to Melrose for a few years, decided I need to be back on this side of the ocean. And when my friend Dave Rogers decided to retire, I jumped. And I, I said, I, we, it, it was a joke around veteran service officers on who was gonna jump into his spot. So, I’m glad I got it.

2:09:35 And, uh, I hope to serve you all well, so, Yeah. Excellent. Well, your, your arrival has been much anticipated, and thank you for the, for the wonderful words this morning and made, made the ceremony special. Thank You. I appreciate that. I appreciate that. It’s near and dear to my heart because of my brothers that I have lost, so Miami Brothers. Yeah. Yeah. Thank you for your service As well. Thank you. Yeah, thank You. Okay. So I just need a motion to appoint Roseanne Roe, uh, tr Trian fee Elli as Veterans agent and director of Veteran Services veterans Graves Officer, flag Officer Sealer, awais, and measures all with a term to expire in June, 2025. So moved. Second. Second. All in favor. Thank you very much. I appreciate welcome. Thank you.

2:10:22 Thank you. Welcome. All right. And, uh, so we’ll move on to, uh, bring, um, I’ll ask Maggie Wheeler, our town in, um, well, um, soon to be town engineer, uh, up to the table. Hi Maggie. Thank you so much for your patience and, and waiting. No problem. Hello. This hour. Hi. Okay. Um, Thatcher, did you wanna, I said there’s a description, so We almost sort of like no introduction needed. I know, ‘cause Maggie’s been with us, or I don’t, longer than I’ve been here, which is more than two years. Uh, and she has been an incredible contributor to the team at DPW in, in the role of staff engineer. Um, and again, what we’ve done is with the retirement

2:11:09 of Charlie Quigley, who is the town engineer, we’re moving the town engineer duties over to DPW and Maggie is filling that role. She has her stamp, which is huge in the engineering world. And, um, so she’s gonna be stepping in that role and, and is already been a huge contributor to, uh, the Marblehead team. So we’re pleased to have her step up in this bigger role. Thank you. Yeah, That’s great. That’s great, man. People speak very highly of you. Thank You. I did have a couple things to say. Of course. Yeah. I have to read from my computer. Sorry. Why is it Short of Logan? Yeah, it’s definitely shorter than Logan. He did a great job, but it great job. Um, so in late 2020, I went to the town’s website originally looking

2:11:54 for volunteer positions with the town. Um, this was really deep in COI approaching the holiday season, and I was working fully remote in consulting and wanted to connect back with my community. Um, I was really excited to see the engineering position for staff engineer in public works. Um, since being hired, I’ve been fortunate to work in this town that we all call home, supporting projects that enhance our community and working with the team of professionals with incredible institutional knowledge and experience. As an engineer, my paramount goal is to maintain the health, safety, and welfare of the public. Um, in Marblehead, I look forward to continuing the work of preserving, maintaining and enhancing the community and protecting our coastal community and its resources. Marblehead is where my husband and I call home, and I personally feel each bump in the sidewalk when I push my two kids on a roller.

2:12:42 Um, over the past 10 years working in industry, I’ve served in a mix of public and private sector roles and projects in Massachusetts and across the country. Um, and there’s nowhere, nowhere more unique and special than Marblehead. I have chills thinking of that. Um, as an engineer, I have a passion for my community and I really appreciate this opportunity to cont continue to contribute, contribute here at Marble Hu. Awesome. Thank you. Awesome. Excellent. We’re fortunate to have You, Maggie. Thank you. Thank you so much. Um, so with that, I’ll ask for a motion to appoint Maggie Wheeler as town engineer, effective September 16th, 2024 as a grade 11 step one on the administrative pay scale commencing on July 1st, 2024, with a term to expire June, 2025. So moved. Second. All in favor. Great. Thank you.

2:13:28 Congratulations.

2:13:35 Okay. Um, historical commission. We have a request, um, from the Historical Commission Oh, yes. To, um, appoint, uh, an oversight committee for the Harris Street Cemeteries. Um, so, uh, you know, um, is, is this, is this part of the cemetery’s commission also? Yeah. So this Concerned about the jurisdiction and Yeah. I asked the same question. Yeah. So generally, yes. So this is, uh, sort of a, uh, a committee specific to the cemetery based on the old Burial Hill oversight committee. Right. So, um, at the Harris Street Cemetery, they had a whole, there’s a whole wall that has collapsed and fallen over. Correct. Yeah. So that cemetery

2:14:21 needs a lot of particular work. It’s very historic. Yeah. The stones are historic, so that wall needs to be reassembled in a proper way and such. So this committee is, is an additional committee to the general oversight of the cemetery commission to specifically work, um, the issues, the, the project that needs to be done for this cemetery. Mm-Hmm. So it’s modeled out, like I said, modeled after the old barrier Hill. Yeah. Oversight committee. That’s right. Okay. Any discussion or thoughts on this? It’s great. Great idea. It’s good to have. I agree. Um, do we have a motion to establish the Harris Street Cemeteries Oversight Committee for the purpose of supervising the restoration of the Harris Street Cemeteries,

2:15:07 including Harris Street Cemetery, the Hooper Tomb, and Captain Martin Tomb? Um, the committee shall consist of five members, two historical commission members, and three at large, Shall That’s the suggestion. Yep. Second, can I just ask one question? I Sure, yeah. Before, of course. So this committee will, will they fall under another board of committee or are we adding one to our organizational chart? I think we’re creating another box, but Okay. I, the cemetery commission. And again, I I had to ask the same question. Cemetery Commission owns all the cemeteries. So this is sort of a, a volunteer committee, ad hoc group, ad hoc to address sort of the projects into fundraise and do those things above and beyond what the normal Cemetery Commission does. That’s right. So,

2:15:53 So will they sit under the cemetery commission or they’ll report directly to this? I’m just trying to picture our charter commission Yeah. With the work they’re doing. And, and these 50 something boxes where that sits on your organizational charity. Yeah. What color is it? It’s Green. It’s Green. It’s one of the green one. Okay. Alright. I’ve got, it’s green. So it’ll be green reporting to the select board, or is it, You’re opining I mean, it’ll work with the cemetery commissioner. In fact, it’s a, yeah. Now former Cemetery, cemetery commissioner who’s putting the request in. Right. Um, Well, the historical commission is gonna, you know, gonna be the predominant driver of it, right? Yeah. They’re gonna have two members on it and three at large. So it won’t take any staffing on, from the away from no other duties

2:16:38 Volunteer group to work the issues that need to be done to restore that cemetery. And again, part of the reason for this is they’ll also do fundraising and those type of activities Oh, yeah. Specifically for that. Okay. Yeah. Thanks. That clarification? Yeah. Any other comments or, Yeah, do we want to, I presumably, we’ll, we’ll advertise as soon as, right. So the next step create it and then Yeah. Advertise to fill it. Yep. Okay. So all in favor of the motion.

2:17:12 Um, and that brings us to the consent agenda. Um, so we, I’ll ask for, um, first of all, is there anything in the consent agenda that anybody would like to pull out for discussion? Can I make one note? Sure. On nine F, the, the expiration should be June, 2025. Okay. I Only have an E. What’s that? There’s a nine f In, um, a may be different on the, um, page. Uh, yeah. Tab nine, tab. Tab tab nine. No, I just have nine A through. It’s one here. Look at your tab. Oh, okay. Gotcha. You gotta Go. You gotta go in. Okay. Okay. There’s another one. Okay. It’s just different from that. Yeah.

2:17:57 Okay. Um, so I’ll need a motion to approve the following consent agenda items except, uh, unless any placed on hold minutes of August 28th, 2024, Marblehead little theater’s request to use Abbott Hall for Scarlet Pimpernel, April 6th to the 13th, 2024 parking restrictions at the Roundhouse rolled road for the annual cleanup, Marblehead High School, all Sports Booster annual scholarship drive on Sunday, October 20th, reappointment of Yemi Renos Renoso as constable to serve, um, till June, 2025. Um, all in favor, or I’m sorry. I need a motion. A motion second. Okay. All in favor.

2:18:43 Okay. And then, um, now we are on to consent agenda contracts. Um, is there, was there anything that anybody wanted to pull out for discussion? 10 a, it looks like we’re is probably out of that now. Um, oh, 10 A. Okay. Okay. So, um, let’s see. So we will, um, take 10 a first, I guess. Um, so we have, um, the lease, uh, the lease of the Porsche of the boatyard at Cliff Street and Commercial Street, formerly known as CL Clem’s Lane on the waterfront. Um, this is, uh, um, the lease, uh,

2:19:29 for, to Marblehead Trading Company after a bidding process. Um, it should be, it was, I was in a packet that, yeah, it’s right here in the mail, isn’t it? In the packet right here. Yes. So everyone’s had a chance to see it. Okay. Um, uh, I’ll discussion on this item. What’s that? The RFP. Okay. So it’s still in there. So this is on the RFP, not on the lease. So this would be the Contract lease. Okay. This is the actual contract? Yes. The actual lease On the RF. Yes. So we went through the whole RFP process. There was one submittal. Okay. And then the, the, that, um, submittal was run through the criteria to make sure that it met all the requirements of the cri of the criteria in the RFP, which it did.

2:20:15 Mm-Hmm. Um, so given that it’s being presented for, for approval, what is different in this lease, uh, from the previous 10 year lease is there is a language added to deal with the potential projects, the, the, the sea wall and, and the, uh, the resiliency projects for that site. So there was added language that, um, once we secure funding and, and, and go through the process, that, um, if, if the operations need to be suspended in order to deal with the construction project, there’s allowances in the agreement to address that With any part of Parker’s. It’s the exact same sections of Parker’s that they get

2:21:02 as well from the previous lease. Yeah. It’s, it’s, it’s, as I understand it, yes. Changed. Oh, I think I, I mean I had asked, um, Becky there were four because I didn’t see it in this, in this RFP, but there’s a parcel map that was referenced in the other lease. Yeah. And we had talked about one of the parcels being, um, like added to just ensure that summer access And the ability to possibly remove that from a lease. I thought For the summer months That would be in the full, yeah, I’m sorry. Yeah. I never, I don’t think I ever saw the fall. It’s, I mean, it def it says definitely for, um, certain sections. I know

2:21:48 The lease. Yeah. Miss, I’m just trying to get clarification. I’m, I’m a hundred percent my fault. I didn’t see using Certain spaces in the boat yard, um, year round in certain space in the cliffs boatyard. So I guess how are we incorporating what’s, what geo in space, like the geo the layout into this? So when the RFP, when the RFP was being developed, which determines what, what’s in the contract, um, again, we brought Becky back to, to manage this process. All, all I can answer is based on the inputs from the board as to what changes. Yep. It was reported to me that they were incorporated into the project. Yeah, I did. Asking me to articulate, I I can’t do that package. Yeah. I’m not asking, but it was to a, to address what’s this?

2:22:35 Did you see that? I, Because I know it was sort of a last to her About it, and I did ask for the, um, that there was that section B or Whatever it was to add it, you know, to be honest, I explicit, I could have followed up about it. It, but I Did that segment, I did express that was our, I did express That was ability to take that, to take that back and numerate them to give them renumeration for it if we did. Or I thought it was just kind of a seasonal, you know, for the summer to be able to kind of open up that space. That’s what it was to improve access. Yes. Yeah. On that little section above parking Is that makes, that makes sense. And it, it’s more of a, more of a, just an orderly, you know, it’s kind of ensuring that there’s order down there, right, yeah. To invite public Access. And I think it gave us some flexibility if we wanted to do more down there, right?

2:23:21 Yeah. Is is what we were trying to do. Which is the section when you drive down on the left. Right. But it’s still storage in the winter, right? Yeah. I mean, yeah, Yeah, yeah. Exactly. But it was a question of, it was part of the previous lease during the summer as well. I get the sense from Gary that that would be workable. So I, I just wanna make sure, hopefully it’s in the, I get the sense also that it’s, um, that it would just be, you know, I don’t think there’d be any difficulty with the lessee with that request if needed to, if we wanted to expand that certain area. It’s just a matter of shuffling, what do you call them? The the stands up and, and the, and the,

2:23:59 Okay. But this is all, yeah, sorry. No, sorry, sorry. A brain fog woman, uh, trailers and such. Um, which, you know, I don’t think it’s, it hasn’t been enforced like that aspect of it. I’ve, I mean I just, I’m not saying it’s just that I’ve seen in the summers there’s been some trailers and down there it’s not so much of an issue unless like they say, like we say, there’s a project, like there’s a proposal and a plan and somebody wants to, you know, down the road, you know, we wanna kind of access that in the summer. Right. And, and so, and again, discussing this with Becky, um, you know, the timeline of any potential changes for that Particular Part, given the timing of this project, uh, how long it would take to secure funding,

2:24:45 how long it would take to, um, actually complete the project if, uh, I, I think Gary uses the term, uh, speed of, of light in the system. If it was the speed of light, it’d be seven years into the 10 year contract. And so one of the things, you know, Becky shared is, um, it would be at the completion of this project, let’s say it got done in seven years, that would start the process of determine what are the other uses you would contemplate with this improved site. And it would give you the couple years to, to kind of go through that process. Right. And then you’d be at the point of bidding out the next Right.

2:25:31 You know, 10 years of the contract. So, um, it, it’s the, the sites baked in the way it is now and the changes that allow for other potential uses would be based on completion of the, the improvements in that, in that project. So that’s, I see. ‘cause you’re saying it’s about seven years. It’s like, it’s kind of, there’s like structural issues to even, like, I mean it’s open now. You can tie your, your boat up to it, um, in public, but to do really an operational, like some type of bigger use of it, more of organized use of it Or a different use Right. Challenge, high open use. Yeah. As the less he seen scene, the plans.

2:26:19 It’s the same. Yeah. Yeah. I mean they had to respond. They had to respond. They, they had to respond to well, to, to the actual Yeah. Plans that’s anticipated for the, yeah. So their bid was based on that was here’s the RP and that Yeah. Their response to it. Um, and we’re Talking about both Cliff and Parker by Parker’s Lane. Yeah. And the, what you’re talking about with the work, is it both or just at Cliff? Because I know Cliff Street’s first eventually, right? Yeah. That’s where they might have to vacate first And then we’ve done it. Parker’s first is the work. I think that the concern here was, or that’s The design work we did, right? That’s the design work. The actual construction first would be on Cliff, Which Right. Which is Where we were talking about them having to move from. And when we looked at it, I think we were talking about Parker’s in that one little area. Mm-Hmm. That one little area. Which would,

2:27:05 I just wanna make sure that that one area Has a map, some flexibility said, ‘cause I think it doesn’t reference the map in here, but it says certain parcels. So when I talked to Becky about those parcels that are currently are open, you know, we were just like, oh, it might be, have an, this section here. I forget the what enumeration was, but open just to expand. Right? So the, so this is the contract part. As part of the contract would be the actual RFP, which has all the other references Mm-Hmm. Which is then incorporated into the entirety of the agreement. Okay. So even if it refers to certain parcels that, and in this part, the fact that the RFP has the detailed layout and it’s part of the contract. Oh. So just put it in there. Okay. Yeah.

2:27:51 I personally would like to see, and again, that’s my fault for not looking at it before this, but I’d just like to ensure where we’re tying that up for 10 years, that that was called out. If other people don’t feel that way, we can vote. But I would like to just make sure that one section, we have that flexibility. Personally, Is there any consequences to tabling this? We allowed comment On This. Um, I don’t think so. It, um, in the sense that it’s, it’s the incumbent that’s there now. Mm-Hmm. And that’s the, I mean I think the intent is to approve this. I just wanna make sure that one parcel, I I’m, I’m not sure that the less fee is gonna object to that. Right. At all. At all. Yeah. And I think, you know, our main concern is having that 10 year stability for the enterprise funds. So I, I, I don’t know if you want to it,

2:28:37 The other question with the lease to is, I know one of the concerns I had was because of the fact that boats could be cleaned down there by the owners, not by a third party. I was worried about the environmental and I don’t know if that lease specifies anything it does to the lessees. Because if we’re the only, and Gary said to us, we’re the only place in town that does that and we’re charging the same rent as everybody else, I think we should charge either more rent or somehow not do that. Because that’s an environmental hazard that I don’t think the town Sure should. So I don’t have a, I think so you just want know, look at, I just want, I personally, ‘cause I think that RF P did just call that out. So I did see that, but it went pretty quickly based on the time constraints put on us. Well this goes back, yeah, this goes back to the bigger thing. Do we Thatcher, do we have a contract management system, A CMS? Because like this seemed to not yet. No. ‘cause this seemed to hit everybody by surprise.

2:29:24 And I like them because it’s there. Even Gary said he had trouble finding the record. You know, I use them in my job. They pop up, they say in six months your contract’s up because this came at the very last minute. Even Gary apologized and, and, and I take his apology sincerely, but that was an affront to me. ‘cause this is a 10 year lease. This isn’t just a, a two or three years and one person. There was no question it was only going to be that one. Yeah. We’re engaged with OpenGov. Okay. To, they have those modules. We’ve looked at it and it’s being worked through finance to to contract with it to Right. ‘cause they’re, for Those reasons you stayed Well, they’re wonderful for like, when your roof is about to expire, you know? Yep. You know, you, you put it in there and it sends you that reminder and no matter who’s on, and then as soon as whoever comes on the new procurement, they’re the ones that get that notification. So I just wanna avoid that to make sure that we are on top of all these

2:30:10 Things. It’s been my well stated objective to the department heads. Thank you. Every major function, there’s a software program that’s managing it for us. And that’s, I like it. No, Thank you. That’s one of them. Okay. We just, we’re just doing the contracting in to put it a Place. Do you feel you need to, uh, talk to lessee about the, the, the inclusion of that parcel? Um, Yeah, because I, I don’t, I don’t think it’s gonna derail anything. Right. I, I, it’s, I can’t answer the particulars because we, we let Becky, Dan, she had the experience and input. Um, and I, it sounds like there’s enough questions. I I don’t feel comfortable being able to answer ‘em. So to be able to get that information and come back, If there is a time constraint on this, we could always have a meeting to Go that we have a special meeting, Special meeting to do that next week or something. Not a town meeting. Exactly. No, I’m respecting the book.

2:31:00 Absolutely. Absolutely. So, Yeah. Yeah. Okay. So, um, so I’ll, I’ll be talking to Becky tomorrow. Got it. And maybe we could just, we On it now with the idea that we come back or just No, we can’t. We can’t. Alright. So we’re not taking action on that. Not, sorry. Closed the Public comment section of the meeting. And we’re actually not even taking action on this item right now. So, so you Asked, you asked about people staying to participate in the rest of meeting. Mm-Hmm. And yet say what you guys were doing. It’s, this is the rules of open meeting law. I have to post public comment so people can anticipate it, that it’s there. And so we’ve opened it and now we’ve closed it. And so people left and thinking it is closed. So it is closed. This is Subject, this is parks. Yeah. And it’s not. And I’m, and I’m, I’m explaining that we, this is something

2:31:45 that we’re not even voting on tonight. It’s, I allowed an hour of public comment earlier. We all have, if you’d like to send an email to us, what Call tomorrow morning to find out. You can call the office tonight. What you guys are Doing. You can call the office. I think Kyle two is, is the RFP is on, it was public, obviously it was put out. So we can get you a copy of that. Reach out, reach out to our office. Thank you. And we’ll, and talk, talk to Kyle. Sorry. Thanks for understanding. Okay. So, um, okay. So we’ll table that. Okay. So I’d like a motion to approve the following. Um, consent agenda items. Um, 10 B award, a contract between the town and Crowley Cotrell, LLC for final design bidding and construction management of the former Gary School Park. Change order number one between the town and Woodward

2:32:32 and Keran 2024 dash oh four two MS four, compliance assistance. Uh, 10 D memorandum of the standing for road salt 10 E, um, award Year two option. Year one for contract MDPW 24 0 1 for habit humus, concrete humus, Ous, I, no, I never say it right. Um, 10 F Revise the scope of the rail Trail ARPA funding. Um, Uh, And a change order, um, amending the contract between the town and Hansen Marine Engineering Incorporated.

2:33:09 And the motion. So motion second. All in favor. Okay. Great. Um, and then we have a one day liquor license for blah, blah, blah.

2:33:22 Um, Uh, I need a motion to prove the request from Bubble Bar Boston for one day liquor license for Saturday October 5th, 2024 from 11:00 AM to 4:00 PM at the Jeremiah Lee Mansion, subject to the follow conditions, delivery of and receipt by the licensing authority of the required fee delivery and receipt of the licensing authority of proof that the alcohol be purchased from unauthorized source. Proof that the applicant can receive proper delivery, provide proper storage and disposal of all alcoholic beverages purchased. All in accordance with the requirements of general laws. Chapter 1 38. The alcohol is to be purchased from Martin ing. So Moved. Second, Mr. Fox. In favor, Ms. Singer? In favor, Mr. Murray? In favor, Mr. Grader In favor, Ms. Moon In favor. Okay. So that brings us to select board announcements.

2:34:09 Um, would anybody like to, um, take any announcements?

2:34:17 Okay. Um, so, uh, we’ll need a motion to adjourn. So move second. All.