Select Board: December 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.

0:00 Um, okay. I’ll call our meeting to order. It’s 6 0 5 and, uh, Wednesday, December 11th, 2024. And our first item on the agenda is our joint meeting with the Water and Sewer Commission. And, um, if you, I’d like to invite you all to, to come to the table and call your meeting to order. Don’t hit my stand. I think we’re saving this for the applicant. Okay.

0:33 Welcome. Thank you. Good, thanks. Good, Good evening. Good. Called their meeting. Oh, you did? Okay. Alright then. Um, everything. Okay. So, um, let’s see. Is, um, Mr. Bur here. Oh, hi, Mr. Bur, do you wanna come up to the table?

0:56 Thank you so much for, um, putting your name in for this. Okay. Stepping forward with You’re Welcome. Vacancy. We really appreciate it. Um, okay. So, uh, we will ask you, we have one question, and then we’ll turn it over to the water and sewer commissioners to ask questions. Um, and then, uh, we’ll just take a vote. Um, okay. So do you wanna tell us a little bit about yourself and, um Okay. Why you’d like to fill the vacancy? Well, I’ve, I’ve worked there for 33 plus years, and I came up through the sewer department right up the ladder, sewer, water, and eventually assistant superintendent for three years. I retired in 19. Um, and I live here, been here, born here,

1:44 been here for ever forever since I was born all my 70 years. So, lived right downtown, same house, just kind of scary, but, and, um, married two kids, five, six grandchildren. What else you need? What else? No, that’s, that’s great. Yeah, it was clearly, uh, your background spoke for itself in the resume, so I, I misspoke. We have two questions then, so, Right. Good to see. Good to see you again. I guess my only question is how do you, you know, after a long, uh, storied career at, uh, at, at this, how would you transition onto the board and kind of what Well, how are you thinking about That? I tell you that I have found out that you can, there’s a thing on the mask gov website through, if you want to become a commissioner, how to go about it.

2:29 I mean, being on the board, I mean, being a assistant superintendent for three plus years, being in all those meetings, watching the rate study, you know, having complaints come in and doing all that stuff, I just think it’s getting back up to speed. Um, I go up there, I’m up there four times a year. Okay. My water bill and I usually, I usually stop in just to say hi and, uh, good. It’s, it was a great place to work and it’s probably gonna be a good place to continue if that is the way, the way it goes. Outstanding. Thank you. Okay, I’ll turn it over to you, gentlemen. Do you have any questions for our applicant? Oh, uh, no. I, I appreciate, uh, you putting in name in and your client read your, uh, resume

3:15 and your qualifications and I, uh, speaking for the board, I believe. But, uh, I like them and you’re very good. Well, thank you. Yeah, I, I’m not really sure if I can ask him a question that he is not gonna ask satisfactorily. I’ve known Greg, uh, there You go. Then for, for a lot of years when I came, you know, I came onto the board because there was an, an opening and Carl Siegel approached me to do it. And then I started running, you know, for office after that. And, um, I mean, everything I’ve seen from Greg’s operation down there that there, there’s no reason that we wouldn’t, you know, have him involved in it. It’s a tremendous asset to have somebody

4:01 with that amount of time. I mean, are you gonna ask like, what’s the thickness of, uh, Ford Schedule 40 Pipe? I’d like to hear the answer. Excellent. I mean, I was gonna ask a question, but there’s really nothing I can ask either. I mean, to ask you if you understand the budget and the line item budget, I’m sure you help write it and process it. You’ll do some of that. Yeah. So that’s probably just getting up to speed on all that stuff too, but I know, I, I think, uh, it’s very doable. Yeah. Well, thank you so much for stepping forward and to You’re welcome us fill this vacancy and, um, I think we’re ready to vote. And I have a motion to appoint, um, Mr. Greg Burt to the water

4:47 and Sewer commission with a term to expire this June, 2025. So, so moved. Second. All in favor? Okay. Welcome Unanim. Thank you. Thank you very much. Thank you.

5:02 Thank you, Greg. We appreciate it. You’re welcome, Aaron. It’s nice when we have one, I have one qualified person. Sure. Yeah, that’s great. I’ll figure it out. Um, okay, next we have our interviews and appointment for, um, the, uh, one vacancy for an alternate position on our fair housing. We have three applicants and, um, I’ll just, um, call each the table. Typically we ask the other applicants to step out of the room when they’re being interviewed. Um, and then we’ll just go in alphabetical order by last name. So if, um, I believe actually Nisha Austin May online Yes. She’s just now coming in the room. That’s Right. Okay. Hi,

5:48 Nisha. Hi. Okay. Um, oh, there you are. Um, so could you just please tell us, we, we do have, uh, are in receipt of your letter, but if you just like, we’d like to add anything in terms of your interest in serving on the Fair Housing Committee, I’d just like to give you that opportunity and then we have some questions also from the board. Okay, great. Um, thank you for this opportunity to interview and also for your flexibility in having me join remote. I appreciate that. Um, yeah, so I’ve been a Marblehead resident for a few years now. Um, I have a background in operations, project management and architecture. Um, this includes managing multimillion dollar development

6:34 projects and leading a lot of cross-functional teams. Um, my experience has given me a strong understanding of balancing diverse stakeholder needs, which I think is a key need of this role. But then also I have a lot of familiarity with housing development and community planning as well. Based on my background, um, I feel really committed to promoting housing accessibility and ensuring that growth in our town aligns with our community values. And I think serving on the Fair Housing community would allow me to bring my expertise, um, to support equitable housing solutions in our town. Thank you. So I’ll just turn it over to, uh, board members for questions. Uh, Nisha, thank you very much for volunteering. Uh, could you tell us a little bit about your background and experience and, uh, and, you know, for this role?

7:23 Absolutely, yes. So, as I mentioned, I have a background in architecture, um, and business leadership, a lot of entrepreneurship and operations, which I think gives me a strong foundation for understanding housing design and also community dynamics. Mm-hmm. Um, I’ve also been a volunteer board member on the, uh, cultural council up until this spring. Um, in my professional roles, I’ve led complicated, uh, projects and navigated competing stakeholder agendas. Um, I’ve also built and managed a number of teams and organizations from the ground up. Um, optimizing a lot of pro processes that include things like scope and,

8:05 and budgets and timelines com compliance, resource management, ranging tasks. Um, I think all of these experiences have honed my ability to bring people together to solve complex challenges, which I think would be a valuable asset to the committee. Great. Thank you.

8:23 Hi. Welcome. Can you hear me okay? I can. Okay, great. Um, just wanted to know, how would you prepare yourself, um, to serve on the board? Like what, do you have anything that you would do just to get yourself ready?

8:40 Yeah, I mean, I think that a big part of, um, of joining a board like this and understanding a new scope of work is, um, talking to people. And so I would want to talk to members on the current board and understand what the needs are, what the challenges are, um, to the extent that it would be appropriate. I’d also want to understand from the community what their concerns are. Um, I think that I could probably do some of the community based stuff based in research initially, and then once I was more active on the board, hopefully there’d be opportunities to actually engage with community members. Um, but mainly I would listen and try to learn and research as much as I could initially to understand, um, how I could serve, serve the committee and best plug in with my skills. Great. Thank you. Good evening.

9:29 Uh, you said you’ve served in various, you know, volunteer and, uh, and or elected experience. Can you just explain, or can you, um, let us know, like, what if if we asked one of those other, you know, another individual that served on that committee, you know, with you, what would they say about you and, and your involvement and how you, you know, acted in that committee?

9:51 Yeah. So, um, I, so in terms of my volunteer positions in town, uh, the one position that I’ve been involved with is on the cultural council. And I think my colleagues on the council would say that I, um, came to our committee with a really positive attitude and energy, um, ask good questions, um, brought a lot of insight from my background in arts and architecture in terms of how we evaluated grantees. Um, I think that they would say that I, uh, was a pleasant person to work with and, and brought also business knowledge in terms of project management and, and ways to get to quick decision making. ‘cause that was always a challenge for us. We had to get through a lot of grant applications in a pretty short amount of time.

10:37 And, um, I think that I was able to like, organize a lot of information pretty quickly for those meetings, um, and help, help them move along really quickly, um, and efficiently. Um, and then I also have had a number of things prior to that, um, including one experience that I had, um, where I worked with a cross-functional team. This was a, a few years ago when I was in graduate school. Um, but we worked, um, to build a school in the, in the remote wetlands of Brazil. And this included students, it included local, uh, community members. It, it included the local government as well. We had to work with a lot of different, um, people in that process. And I would say that I served the role that I served on

11:23 that was really being the connective tissue between a lot of different people and, um, language barriers. I didn’t actually speak Portuguese, but I was able to be a translator just in terms of how I pulled information together from different folks. And so I would say that that’s another consistent thread is just being like the connective tissue between a lot of different types of, um, organizations and people. Thank you. Hey, Naisha, I’ve got one quick one for you. First of all, go blue. Yeah. So what do you see as the biggest challenging challenges facing Marble height in regards to fair housing right now? I mean, with, with, I mean, I think that a key challenge is, um, balancing the demand for affordable housing with limited space and preserving our town’s unique character.

12:10 Um, I think in the past, in my roles, I’ve dealt with similar constraints by focusing on creative problem solving and also on listening as I mentioned before. Um, one example is when I ran my own design and consulting business, um, I helped scale operations for projects for, uh, number of pretty large tech companies with tight parameters, tight scopes, um, tight, uh, budgets and timelines. And, um, had to really tap into like design thinking, creative problem solving, pulling together, um, a lot of different people to get things like that done. I think addressing marble heads housing needs may require a lot of different creative approaches as well. Um, whether that’s repurposing underused spaces,

12:57 leveraging grants and partnerships, fostering more open dialogues with the community. I’m not really sure what this scale of possibilities here. I think that, uh, a big part of this is just a curiosity to learn more about what can be possible in marblehead. Great. Thank you. Thank you. Um, okay. I think that, uh, that ends our, our, that’s I think our, our interview for now. And, um, thank you so much for con uh, putting your name in forward and, um, also vol your volunteerism on the cultural council too. So, um, you’re welcome to stay on it. Thank you all for your time. Yeah. We have two more interviews, So I’ll put it back in the attendees.

13:42 Um, sure. Yeah, that makes sense. Yeah. Welcome. Good Evening. Good evening. Hi, how are you? I’m doing Well, thank you, Mr. Garcia. Okay. So we have four questions for you. Sure. And, um, I’ll just turn it over to, um, Mr. Grader here, Ramon, we’ve, uh, read your letter and looked at your extensive background, and I’m just wondering if you could kind of, uh, tease out a little bit from your background, uh, you know, your kind of, your experience that could prepare you for this role, uh, on the committee? Uh, absolutely. So, uh, good afternoon, good evening. Uh, I want to thank everybody actually for the opportunity. Um, in regards to my experience, I, I went to Salem State.

14:27 I started in Salem State. Um, my, from my, my experience, my base education was accounting. And for the purposes of the CPAI ended up in, in the information management systems and also data analytics. And basically the reason is because I’m actually currently starting to sit down for the CPA and congratulations. Thank you so much. I, I, that’s great. Appreciate it. Yep. I believe my, the, my education, um, helps me in, in regards to all of this because not only I have the accounting background, but I also have the information management systems and the data analytics. I deal with data. And also my career, which

15:16 I started out at EY, was my first internship. Then I transitioned to one of the local firms here, which is CS and warnick in Beverly went to Link Community Health. And lastly, PWC in the now Catalent, where I actually work as a senior accountant, um, I had seen a lot and I had been involved with anything from foreign governments to, uh, local governments in different stakeholders in, I’ve actually able to kind of hone the skills of actually learning different things that can assist. Thank you.

16:01 That’s really, sorry. Oh, no problem. Um, so how would you prepare yourself just to be a part of this board? And also, you know, have you had an opportunity to go to any meetings yet? Just if you could speak to that a little bit. I have not had an opportunity to actually go to the meetings. Um, however, I will say, I will say this, and if you guys don’t mind, I can share a little bit of, of my story. The reason why I’m passionate, um, about joining, um, divorce is because when my parents divorced, um, my mother ended up becoming a single mother, uh, with three children. Um, she ended up actually, you know, doing, just doing the best that she could, and she ended up actually in the system receiving assistance. We ended up, you know, um, section eight, all of that.

16:50 But by the grace of God, um, I was able to lace up my bootstrap, uh, put my best foot forward. And I’m happy to say that I transcended to just be fully pay my taxes, do my duty for, for my country, and being able to contribute and get out of that. And I believe that anybody can do it if you put your best foot forward and you will live in the promises that this country has given to everybody. Thank you. Appreciate that. Good evening. Thank you for coming. Absolutely. Uh, the question I have is, if we were to ask somebody that you work with or somebody that you served on another board, or if you were an elected official in your past, how would they describe you?

17:37 They would actually describe me as a person who’s, doesn’t feel that any job is too big or too small. I believe that regardless of the situation, sometimes you gotta roll up your sleeve. And, and most, most importantly, you actually gotta be able to actually, uh, serve the people, get back. And that’s one of the things that I actually, um, I’m very proud because when I was actually working at one of my local accounting firms here at CH Warren in Beverly, um, we used to partner with, uh, this organization, it’s called Haiti Forward, helping, um, Haitian people. And that was actually the owners. They actually, they actually, uh, engraved that on us that we needed to actually get back. And that once a month we would go there

18:22 and help and, and, and assist. So to me, I just feel like, you know, it, it’s, it’s, we have a duty to actually give back, especially when we happen to be blessed. It, it, it’s our duty to actually get back and, and go back and help. Thank you. Great. You’re welcome. Just one more. Yes, sir. Appreciate your time, and thank you. Your answer so far agrees. Um, what do you see as the biggest challenges facing Marble in regards to fair housing?

18:55 What I, what I would say I would see the biggest challenge is probably, I would say information. Um, it, I will say that probably that’s, that’s something that is not, um, readily available, um, for a lot of people to actually even know what, what are the things. And also I believe in, in, in, this is actually my mission. If I were elected, my main priority would be actually to focus on the veterans. Um, and I believe they are the people that we actually should put first over, over ev everybody else, and the elderly. And that, I think the challenge is, is that we don’t have, I would say that we don’t have a program that a lot

19:42 of the residents know, uh, of the services that are available to them. And I’m hoping that I can help to change that. Great. Great. Okay. Thank you. That concludes our, uh, questions and interview. Thank you. Yeah. You’re welcome to take a seat. And you, um, thank you. We have one More. Good luck with the CPA. Yeah. Thank you. Appreciate, thank you for volunteering Vermont. Absolutely. We have Hello? Hi. Hi, Caroline. Caroline. Hi. Nice to meet you all. Nice, Nice to meet you. Welcome. You too. Thank you so much for your interest in course volunteering. Yeah. I know you said, you mentioned that you’re interested in, you know, cultural council and fair housing. A Few different things, to be honest. Yeah, that’s Great. Um, I am just, would love to be able to get involved. Um, and I saw that this was an open vacancy. Um, my husband

20:27 and I just moved to town, um, a few years ago. I actually grew up here. Um, but we were living in Boston for a while and then moved back here. Um, we’re now raising our two daughters here. Um, so we don’t plan to leave. Um, and, uh, so I just would love to be able to get involved in, in any way possible. And I know that, um, this is, uh, a, a great way to get started. Excellent. So we have four questions. Okay. I’ll turn over Mr. Reer and Welcome. Thank you for coming here. Of course. Uh, you’ve got a very interesting and, and, and, and broad background. How would you, uh, pick out from your experiences, those, those experiences in job related stuff that you’ve done that would prepare you for this role? Yeah, of course. So, um, my background a lot has been in, um, what I like to call consumer experience. Um, so the way I see it is the role, this is a role

21:15 where you’re, the consumer is gonna be people in Marblehead, getting people to get on board with whatever programs, um, the housing, um, the committee wants to do. So, um, to me it just comes back to knowing your consumer and knowing how to sell, sell to that to, yeah. To your consumer and your, your client base. Mm-hmm. Thank you. Hi. Hi Alexa. Thank you for being here. Of course. Um, so how would you prepare yourself to serve on the board? And have you had any opportunities to go to any of the meetings or speak with anybody who’s, you know, on the committee already? Um, so truthfully, I have not, um, but I have already started to, um, after I put my kids to bed, I tend to go down a rabbit hole of looking through PowerPoints

22:02 and spreadsheets and things like that. Um, so I am definitely someone who wants to do my homework, um, ahead of time. So whether that’s researching, um, projects that go, you know, projects that we have done or have not done or why they didn’t get approved and all of that. Like, I’m a believer in doing my research before, um, you know, spouting any, anything out or speaking to, to anyone without researching. So, um, I think that’s the best way would be to, I’m happy to talk to anyone who currently sits on the committee, um, as well. Okay. Awesome. Thanks. Good evening. Good evening. If we were to ask, you know, people you work with or people you served on a, on another committee, volunteer activity, how would they describe you? Mm-hmm. Um, I think a lot of people would describe me

22:48 as having a positive attitude. Mm-hmm. Um, a team player as well as a strong attention to detail. I, um, um, the person who, uh, always makes every deadline. I never have, um, even back in college, like never pulled the all-nighter to try to get everything in. Like, I do everything ahead of time. Um, so I would say that, um, people I work with and all of my performance reviews have always been about like, paying attention to detail and hitting deadlines on time and all of that. Thank you. Thank you. Evening, I’m Dan. Hi, Dan. Nice To meet you. What do you see as the biggest challenges facing Marwood as far as fair housing is concerned? Um, I think that you’re seeing a major influx of young families coming into town. I think that the pandemic helped with that in the sense

23:34 that now families did not need to, you know, I, I, my office is in Boston, so I have to commute in three days a week. Um, three days a week is not as bad as five days a week, depending on, you know, what you have to do. So I think there’s, um, there’s an influx of young families that are trying to come back here or wanting to move back here to raise, raise their families here because we have great schools. Um, and then on top of that, you also have, um, an older generation who, there’s, where are they gonna go, um, and what’s gonna happen with those homes? So I, I think that it’s not necessarily a, I don’t wanna use shortage or, or in, in that sense, but I think that it’s a different, different types of families are moving back here. So people used to buy their first

24:19 starter home when they were in their twenties. Um, and now families are, people are having kids later. So now they don’t have time to do their starter home. Like they’re moving back and they’re like, my baby’s due tomorrow. I need a home right now, type of thing. So I think there’s just, um, the consumer has changed of who’s coming to Marblehead to buy a home, and I think that we need to figure out how do we address those changes. Agreed. Thank you. Great. Thank you so much. Yeah, of course. Thank you guys. Questions. Um, and like I said, I’m just interested in getting involved, Um, In the town. I think I can be a voice of a younger generation that has moved into town, so thank You. That’s great. Thank you. Thank you for volunteering. Of course. Okay. It’s so hard Indeed. Doesn’t have to leave. What’s that?

25:05 I was gonna say. Oh, she doesn’t have to leave. Can stay. Yeah. Yeah, you can stay if you want. You guys can stay. Sorry, now that we’ve all interviewed everybody. So, um, I’ll take a, a, like a motion to place all the names and nomination to serve on the Fair Housing Committee, um, in the position of alternate member with a term to expire in June 26th. So moved second. Okay. Um, and so now we need to do a roll call. And I guess if you wanted to, we could discuss first, or we could just kind of give our vote and, and, and if you wanted to say anything, then we could do it that way too. Can we put the names in the hat and just pull one out? You have a discussion? Yes. Yeah, I’ll link the discussion

25:50 if you guys are okay with me. Sorry. Sure. I, I think comments as well beforehand. That’s Fine. So first of all, it’s amazing to have three super qualified and passionate people apply. Like, I think that says a lot that people want to do that. Um, I think that all three of these candidates are qualified. The question is, who best fits this position in my mind? We also do have a vacancy at large in the housing production implementation committee. Mm-hmm. So it might be useful to think about maybe if one of these three would be interested in that. I would love to see all three of, of these applicants on some committee board. Yeah. Because they all have great different assets and, and strengths.

26:32 I would we, can we make a recommendation on who? Is that a good discussion or Yeah. Would you want To make, so I would say that, I think that, go Ahead. Or, or do you want to just take the, Uh, Does Anybody else wanna have any, any comments before we kind of go along and explain our votes? Um, no. I mean, I appreciate what, just, what Dan’s point is, is obviously that when we have, and, you know, you guys are all great and have qualified candidates, um, thinking about how do we utilize their skills and expertise. And so, you know, I think if we let them think about those other things that are open, I think that’s a great way to, to utilize this, the skillset that we’re looking at would be great. Yeah. Well, we’re blessed with, uh,

27:17 with a surface of, of talent. So it’s really, it’s, it’s really great and, and a very tough decision to make, obviously. But yeah, there are are other roles, you know, in, in town that, Uh, and I think, like you said, Dan, we have an opening on the housing production. Um, Yeah, I mean, I think The implementation implementation, I have a, like, I have a personal opinion on who I think would be best for that. Okay. And then we also always are seeking nominations openly for the cultural council. ‘cause we can, we can put, we can load that, that there’s plenty, there’s plenty of room on that committee. So, ‘cause I would like to see all three of these people part of this town, people, all three of these citizens part of this town. Like part of, part of a board of committee. Yep. Personally. Yep. Okay. Um, do you wanna

28:05 Make, I mean, I have a recommendation on who I, I, who I personally, I don’t know how you guys, do you Wanna down the line? Do you wanna go down the line? Sure. Um, we go ahead. We’ll start with you. So I’m gonna say that I think that based on this position, I think that Ramon’s history and, and, and what he grew up in and what he could bring would be the best for this position. I, and maybe this is outside of this, but I’m not with saying the confines. I would love to see Nisha consider the housing production implementation plan. Mm-hmm. And I have in mind, I would love to be able to use Caroline’s ability to go down a rabbit hole. Um, and I want to figure out what that rabbit hole is. I think there’s actually personally a better use for you. Okay. Based on your background. And it’s, that’s fine.

28:50 And I wanna learn a little more about wine from you as well. But I think that I would like, I would say I’m gonna make it a goal to figure out something for you. But that’s, that, that would be my view of this. That’s Excellent. Yeah. Well, I say I, uh, I concur with you. I think, uh, Ramon, you bring a kind of unique perspective on the accounting side. I think that’s kind of a skillset that we don’t often see. But I’m also super impressed by your personal experience and your personal passion around this. And I think, uh, you know, the combination of caring and, uh, you know, particular type of expertise on this board would be super additive. So, uh, okay. So a vote for Ramon? A vote for Ramon. Oh, These are Votes. Oh. Oh, Sorry. I was, it said roll call, but you’re right. We just kind of Go ahead, Brett.

29:37 Yeah. I hate to keep the it going, but Yeah, I agree. I think, I think Ramon, you know, Garcia would be the best fit for this. And I also agree with Mr. Fox, you know, about, you know, positions, you know, for Austin and, uh, Ms. Austin and Ms. Morrissey on, on other committees and boards. Okay. Because there’s just, unfortunately there’s just limited amount of seats, but we have a lot of great people. And, um, so sometimes it does take two or three times. So please don’t give up if this is, if you’re not the one chosen.

30:06 And I will, um, I will agree with bringing the accounting side of that. I think that gives a different perspective. Um, I really, uh, I think Caroline has a great presence as well as Nisha. And I think there is the ability to, if they can take that and communicate and what, uh, rang true to me was thinking about the ability to speak to all different demographics and having a voice in those different demographics and also being able to take that information I’m bringing out, um, to, you know, I think that representation is great. So if, uh, we can not leave this just here, but then loop into keeping them in the mix in regards to, um, finding a great fit,

30:51 because I think they’re very, all three very talented people that’ll benefit the town. Great. So I’m hearing four votes, Ramon? Yes, sir. Oh, is that okay? And with myself, um, it’ll be five, it’ll be unanimous votes for Ramon and we will be reaching out to, uh, Nisha and Caroline. So I would Yeah. I love that. And Nisha, I would, I think that your experience, if you’re still out there on your project management and some of the things you talk about are actually better suited to the housing implement implementation. Implementation, I think it’s a little broader. Yeah. And Caroline call all of us, or me, or someone like, let’s figure out the best place for you because you, you’re coming off question. Alright. So Thank you all. Congratulations. Congratulations Ramon Garcia, appreciate all Your time. Congratulations, Ramon.

31:36 Thank you. Thank you so much. Thank you all for volunteering. Thank you. All course. I don’t need to leave, but I do have To go pick up. Yeah, no, you, you, they all, you may all leave unless you wanna stay. Yes. Thank You, Caroline. Thank You. And we need to remind Ramon to get sworn in at the Clerk’s office. Oh, yes. Right across the hall here is the clerk’s office. So, um, sometime in the next couple weeks, if you could just stop by and, and get sworn in. Sure. I’ll, I’ll send you, I’ll send you a letter. I appreciate that. Thank you. Great. Congratulations. Thank you so much. Thank you. Look forward to working with you. Thank you. All Right. Excellent. Okay. Um, so next we have the MBTA advisory, uh, appointment. We have two applicants, Judith Black and Tracy Lawrence. Um, and this is for a liaison position.

32:25 So, uh, I guess I’ll ask, uh, Judith to come forward first and we ask, um, Ms. Lawrence Yeah. If you don’t Yes, thanks.

32:37 Hello? Hi. Hi, Judith. Okay. So, um, we read your letter and um, I just wanted to give you an opportunity to tell us a little bit, you know, anything you want us to tell about why you’re more, why you’re interested in this. Being the select board liaison, um, to the MBTA. I’m Passionate about mass transit. Um, and I use it a lot. I use commuter rail and the bus. So I think that’s kind of a bottom line qualification. Yes. Um, two, I think making mass transit more attractive to people is a very important part of our climate issues. So I, I would love to be able to do that. To say, yeah. And also to create lateral transit on the north. On the north shore, we have no, you can always get

33:23 to Lynn in Boston, but you can’t get to Danvers. You can’t get to Peabody. And this is when I was the, uh, the chair of our transportation working group with, um, sustainable marblehead just before the plague hit. We were contacting them about that. Is there a way that we could get a bus to really create that lateral transit? Because a lot of our elders who don’t have cars could use it anyway. It, they and, and they were interesting to deal with and it’s something I think I could do. Well, what you don’t know from reading this, and I kept looking is what is the commitment? I think they have Monthly meeting, Monthly meetings, Boston. And, um, so if, you know,

34:09 if you could maybe quarterly report I think has kind of been how we’ve been doing it or as need like report. So I come to you every quarter and say this Or just even send an email to myself and, um, Kyle Wiley and we’ll, we can mm-hmm. Share it just to kind of updates about, um, you know, updates on with meetings, how they’re, how they’re going and Right. And three 50, an organization I work with also is a very active transportation working group that’s been looking, and it’s not local, but you know, they’ve been looking a lot at what’s going on around Alston. And So if I, I’ll add, so it’s an advisory board to the MBTA. Right. So all the communities get to a point of representative. So it’s not even a marblehead committee. Oh. It is a committee.

34:54 The state created to advise the MBTA system. So you’re just our representative To them. Okay. To the, so I would need to know what our issues are to bring to them what interview, what are our issues.

35:13 I’ll send you my resume. Okay. Thank you.

35:17 Um, anybody have any questions? Other questions? No, I comments or, Yeah, so I just, just with that clarification, um, do you have any thoughts on, just for you from, from Marblehead, bringing them to the MBTA? Like, is there anything that jumps out that comes to mind? Well, one, I would love to see the buses become electric because it’s, they spew a lot of pollution and ground level, low zone is one of the biggest drivers of asthma. So I, I think that is a way to represent the town. That would be lovely. Um, also what’s ironic, if you ever take the bus, no, almost no one rides it from Marble Land. Mm-hmm. A couple people get on from swamps,

36:02 you get into Lynn and suddenly it is packed. So I keep wondering if there’s not maybe another model that would work, like a smaller bus coming from this area so that they’re not spending as much money and, um, engineering prowess to go through a town that doesn’t use them as much as other towns. And just to bring that forth and see if, if there are other options, then the giant bus that has two people on it every day. Um, but also to make it more attractive to marble headers to use the bus and the commuter rail. How to do that. Okay. Thank you so much. Yeah, thank you. So you both gonna just take a seat since you’ve already interviewed and we’ll, um, bring in Lucy Lawrence.

36:59 Hello. Hello. Hi, Tracy. Nice to meet you all or Nice to meet you Too. And I, I knew Thatcher before I had gray hair.

37:09 It’s been a long time. And why isn’t yours? What?

37:15 Um, Something genetic or something. Alright, interview over. Thank you for coming.

37:20 So we’ve seen your resume and your, and your letter of interest. Um, but I just wanted to give you the opportunity to speak to us about, um, you know, generally your interest in the position and Sure. Well, you know, when I saw that it was open, thought about it for a long while, or, you know, didn’t, didn’t really make a decision. And then I started to look at the MB TA Advisory Board website and I noticed that the committee, um, that Marblehead is on is the Climate and Clean Energy Committee. And I have a particular interest in that area. So it was very appealing to me. I mean, I have a lot of transportation background, transportation, policy, transportation, finance, you name it.

38:06 I’ve pretty much done it all In the beginning. I was also a liaison to the MBTA, uh, first job I had, I worked for Secretary of Transportation. I ended up working for two, then I went to work at the Metropolitan Area Planning Council. I know you’re all familiar with that. And they’ve been a, a big help, you know, working on sustainability issues. I’ve read about that. Uh, it’s a great organization. They just do a lot. And they’ve grown a lot since I’ve been there. Just, uh, tremendously I think in what they can do for communities. So after, um, after that, I went to work at the Mass Development Finance Agency, so that was fascinating. Got to work at Devon’s. Got to work on a lot of, uh, federal initiatives. Um, it was very interesting. So a lot of, you know, real estate, Dan can relate to that.

38:54 Um, mass development does a lot of really good work, especially in gateway cities. So, uh, after that, um, had a family in and out through all of this three kids. But I went to work. Um, the last, um, job, government job I had was at DCR. And that was a, a job I got through a friend of mine who was made commissioner, he’d been an attorney at Conservational Law Foundation, Steve Barrington. Really amazing guy. So he happened to be appointed commissioner. And so he asked me to come on board. And so I was the director of external affairs

39:40 for DCR and that was fascinating. I also got to work on, I I love environmental issues, as I said, and sustainability and net zero and all of that, I, I really study. That’s one of my, um, sweet spots in terms of the things that, you know, I’m passionate about. So I also, in that role, I got to work under the environmental secretary. So I got to work on a, a lot of environmental regulation. Um, you know, work with all of those things. And also a lot of infrastructure. So I do have a lot of transportation and infrastructure background. So at that time I was working, uh, on the Harbor Islands. You can tell, look at my resume. I was mm-hmm. Um, I worked on a lot of infrastructure at one point. You know, I I was in charge of an event,

40:26 if you can believe it, when, um, the state floated in a piece of the Ted Williams tunnel, which we called the Third Harbor Tunnel back then. And it was quite an interesting, uh, situation because we had the cardinal, we had the mayor of Boston, we had a couple congressmen. And so, you know, what you do in those cases, it’s very, it’s very political and there are a lot of egos and there’s a lot of organization and it’s stressful and everything has to go right. So with respect to transportation, um, a lot of experience. I really understand the MBTA been involved in the MBTA for a long time. I understand the challenges, uh, that the T’S facing right now. A lot of them are budgetary. So right now the MBT is looking at a $700 million annual

41:15 operating deficit. And what’s even probably as trouble or troubling or more troubling is the $3 billion annual infrastructure and maintenance deficit. Mm-hmm. So that’s why it’s hard for them to keep everything. I would say they might, they’d probably never say this publicly, but it’s very expensive to maintain the system, to maintain all of the infrastructure, uh, to, you know, buy new commuter rail cars. It’s, it’s really costly. And so they’re really looking at, you know, they’re looking at a tough situation, just keeping the system safe. I would say it’s pretty critical Now, the, um, the governor has appointed a transportation finance

42:01 committee, which is a good thing. Um, it’s a tough job, but they’re looking at ways to fund the transportation system. It’s a tough job. Mm-hmm. So I don’t know what they’ll come back with, but, you know, there’s been some controversy about it, and it’s, they have to find a way. There has to be a way, because we can’t just continue with the T deficit the way it is. And honestly, I think the fed the federal government, even

42:28 during all these administrations, we got a lot of federal funding during the big dig construction. And I think after that they kind of said, you know, you guys got a lot, so we’re moving elsewhere. You know, um, so hopefully we can, you know, we can continue to get some kind of federal funding to help, um, with that. So, you know, I’ve also, uh, looked at all of the, sort of the plans that relate to the committee that, well, actually, you are, you’re on the committee, right? You’re the designee. Mm-hmm. Um, so the T does have net zero planning. You know, they have, um, sustainability planning. And I, I read that plan very carefully to see, um, you know, what they’re actually doing. And it, it, it needs to be strengthened a lot.

43:15 It really does. I mean, one of the things I know that, um, Marblehead was looking at, um, in terms of the planning here would be shuttles to the train stations, for example. Uh, you know, there’s, there are things that we can do that are sort of high leverage, uh, investments. Everything’s an investment pretty much. So you always have to remember that. But shuttles to the, to the swamps, got train station, because now you can’t get there on the bus. We have 4 41 and 4 42. Um, and neither one of them goes directly to the swamps gut train station on Burl Street. So that would be great if we could get some kind of adjustment there. Um, I think in general also, it’d great to try to increase the ridership on our buses 4 41 and 4 42,

44:03 because we’re all thinking about how to get more cars off the road because of carbon and also just because of congestion. And so I’ve noticed, you know, since I’ve been in Marblehead, it’s been quite a while. So I, I have some reference points. The congestion, I was talking to Thatcher about this congestion’s just unbelievable. Um, and how roads are backed up now, just, it’s everywhere. When the students, when everybody’s home and out of school, um, and with the tourists, it’s just everywhere. You know, guys notice that it’s backed up everywhere. I’m like, wow. So we really have to do some thinking and planning. I haven’t seen any of the, any of the transportation studies that were done probably before you got here. Maybe so, right.

44:48 Yeah. I don’t know. Yeah, there’s, there’s just something. We have some studies around the new school Yeah. Um, that was being built. So it’s overall looking at, you know, I know it’s all, it costs money. Everything costs money, but looking at the overall transportation, um, plan for the town, it’s all connected, you know, and Pleasant Street is really congested. I mean, all the ma ‘cause there are only limited major roads in and out of Marblehead. It’s, you know, it’s pretty small with respect to the landmass. So it’s really gonna take some thinking. And I think getting more people on the bus, maybe marketing more, uh, the 4 41 goes right to Vin Square. Mm-hmm. So just think about that. It’s usually empty, you know, I write it from time to time.

45:35 So, uh, I think it’s important marketing, using the buses more, 4 42 goes, uh, right to Wonderland. And so you could hop on the, the blue line and go downtown. So I think, um, more thinking about that, how to use the buses better. I know that the, some of the stops are being upgraded, so I think Pleasant Spring and some of the others, so that’s really good. Yeah. So I think having people appreciate that we have that kind, we have buses, we have transit, it’s valuable. And people that don’t use it don’t think of it that way. They think, oh, well, we’ll just get rid of that. No, because whatever comes with it, um, some people feel is a burden. But it’s important, you know, it’s really important to have a way to get in and out.

46:20 And for people that come here to work, they, that’s the only way they can get here. Mm-hmm. Really, if they’re coming here from outside of Marblehead and you know, they don’t have a car, I ride the bus. So. Great. That’s my spiel. Thank You so much. That was really thorough. Um, If you have any questions, Anybody else have any questions? I feel like we touched on a Lot. Tracy, I was just gonna ask you how you advise how you would advise the MBTA on Marblehead needs. And you’ve already, you know, you’ve covered that, uh, pretty, pretty well in terms of shuttles, ridership, marketing. Yeah. There’s more we could do. You’ve got, you know, you’ve got great fluency around what the MBTA is doing, so yeah. Thanks. I, This woman is way more qualified. Judith, come on. I feel like you guys would get along great. Oh, yeah.

47:07 Hear? I’m sorry. That’s Judith for you. Well, this makes it a real tough decision. Yeah. Yeah. Um, okay, well, um,

47:22 thank you. Let’s move forward. Okay. So, um, I guess, guess we have one withdrawal, so we’ll just, I’ll have a, um, I guess a notion to a point. Um, uh, Ms. Uh,

47:42 are you withdrawing? Huh? Are you withdrawing? Right. She, she would be better about it. I appreciate that. You seem so lot. Thank you so much for putting your name forward. Juda really Judi, thank you for volunteering. Really appreciate very much. Thank you. Great. I guess that was a mic drop type of, yeah, that was great. Yeah. Well, you got Judas vote, so, um, thank her later. Okay. So I’ll just take a motion to appoint, uh, Tracy Lawrence to as our MBTA at Advisory Liaison. So moved second. All in favor. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. So thank you Tracy. I don’t even know if we need to swear her in because it’s not really a Marblehead committee does, she’s still swo survey. So, um, yeah, we get sworn in across

48:30 with the town clerk’s office. You can just give the call and Sure. During business hours. Yeah, during business hours. Okay. Great. Thanks, Tracy. Great. Thank you. You probably already know Patrick for volunteering. Thank you. Okay. And next we have, um, the Harris Street Cemetery Oversight Committee. We have one vacancy for an out large member and two applicants. Mr. Peter Kent. Mr. Christopher Hardy. Um, so I think we’ll take, um, uh, Mr. Kent first is he, are you here? Oh, okay. Yes. Thank you. Chris. Yeah.

49:07 Wait, do we know he’s here? Is he online? Maybe you say his name again? Peter Kent. Oh. Oh, okay. There you are. Have a seat. Welcome. Good evening. Thank you so much for your interest in, in the, in the Harris Street oversight. And, um, just wanted to give you a chance to tell your, tell us about yourself. I mean, we do have your, your resume and, and letter, but just wanted to give you a chance to speak to the board about it. Um, I, I was not born in Marblehead, unfortunately for me. Um, I moved to Mechanic Street when I was two years old in the company of my mother and father and my infant brother. Um, I’m not gonna go into the story of

49:56 how I wound up at the Unitarian Church as a member, but suffice to say that I attended that church, school and church and became president of the church, uh, for seven, seven different terms. Uh, treasurer for three terms, three terms, assistant treasurer for three terms. Um, and on the board of directors for I don’t know how many terms. Uh, I was there a long time. I’ve had lots of experience on boards. I’ve been president, a member of the board and president of the family planning of the North Shore. I’ve been president, uh, of

50:37 oh yeah, the chairman of the board of the Mary Alley Hospital. I forgot that one. Um, for five years on a, on a 10 year tour of mine when we were closing the hospital. Um, I have been on, uh, the board of Salem Hospital. Um mm-hmm. If I should to say I’m experienced, I’m board work, but of any of the detail, like, you know, how do you put together a budget? I know I don’t do that. There’s people that do that, but I can read a budget and see whether it makes any sense or not. Um, I’ve been in practice of law for, since 1967, exclusively in the healthcare field, um, dealing with

51:25 rules and regulations for Medicare, Medicaid, blue Cross, um, contract compliance. Um, and I’m about to hand the ranges of the office after my daughter, who’s also model head resident. Great. Okay. Thank you. Um, does anybody have any questions? No. I went to school with a relative of Mr. Grader. And you and you survived the, the experience. You survived the experience.

51:56 I’m sorry, John Whipple, who was Yeah, Yeah, also. Okay. Was a classmate of mine in high school. Yep. It’s a good class out, obviously. It Really, yeah, it really was. Did you play football at all? I know, uh, that was Buck’s life at the, at the time. Did you play football? I did not. You did not? Yeah, I was five feet tall when I graduated from high school. All of this height in college, and now it’s shrunk down, but that’s probably the old age. Yeah. Just quick. Thank you for coming Mr. Ken. Uh, luckily playing football is not a requisite for this board, so that’s good. You talked a lot about your board experience. Why are you interested in this board in particular? Um, I understood that the, uh, select board was looking for somebody from the Unitarian Universalist Church,

52:42 of which I’m still a member of since 19 65, 66, something like that. Um, and, uh, the minister, uh, asked me if I’d be willing to serve, and I said, well, sure, I guess I can do one more tour of duty for somebody. I, I’m not interested in a long term commitment. I, I see this as, you know, overseeing a project and doing it. It’s over. I’m over.

53:13 Awesome. Well, thank you so much and, um, you’re welcome to have a seat. We’ll bring Mr. Hardy in for an interview. Okay. Thank you. Thanks. Thanks for volunteering. Thank you.

53:30 Hi, Chris. Good to see you. Good to see you. Hi, Chris. Hello. Hello. Thank you so much for your letter and interest in the position. Um, is there anything you wanna talk to us, tell us about specifically, uh, why you’re interested in the Harris Street Cemetery? Sure. You’ve gotta have a story for this one. Uh, and I, and I do have a story. So the story is I was cleaning out my attic and in a box, I had a bunch of old frames and pictures and stuff, and I was flipping through, like childhood stuff, came across this really old mirror, and it was like, it’s kind of weird. I pop it open and al pops up the back this card from my great aunt to my parents saying, uh, congratulations on your 10th anniversary, blah, blah, blah. All a bunch of personal stuff.

54:15 And then this mirror came from, uh, Brad, who was her husband, my great uncle’s, um, mother who lived in Marblehead. So it caught my interest. So I did some research, actually contacted the Marley Museum, found out that the mirror was built in 1870. Uh, and that my great, uh, uncle’s mother, uh, was a Martin, uh, Val, Susan Martin. And she resided along Harris Street, uh, as did most of the Martin family. Uh, and, uh, you know, most of the family is buried at the old burial ground, uh, the Green Street Cemetery, Harris Street itself, uh, and the Harbor view. So I’ve seen her gravestone. Uh, but what really prompted me is I, I wanted, I did some research. I said in his grandmother, this is the story that sort of,

55:03 sort of just compelled me to want to get involved in the preservation of, uh, the tombstones and, and the graveside and sort of the memories and the stories of the families. ‘cause there’s stuff like, you just see this tombstone at Harborview and it’s just like any other tombstone, like any other Marblehead family. And you go, wow. But you actually research and you read the, the newspaper obituary. This is the passage. So on Wednesday morning, Mrs. Do was performing the household tasks as usual and left for work. Uh, about a half hour later, uh, Mrs. EP Martin, whose house is in the same yard, heard an outcry and hurried out of doors, found the elder Mrs. Martin. So this is Susan Holloway Proctor Martin, um, my, my great uncle’s great-grandmother, uh, lying in the snow with her clothing scorched and burned. There was a quick gathering of friends

55:48 and neighbors in the vicinity. And Mrs. Walkie, Mrs. Evans, Mrs. Sweeney, William Stone, Elmer Cox, Joseph Martin, John Dunn, and the driver of the passing coal team rendered such assistance as they could. The men carried Mrs. Martin into the house and medical aid was summoned. She was conscious when carried in and said that her apron caught fire from the stove. The doctors who were sent for early realized that nothing could be done and proceeded to make her last hours as comfortable as possible. The fire had burned her flesh to such an extent that she did not suffer a great deal as the nerves were paralyzed. Uh, and it turns out that, um, the Hearth, which was the center of all these old homes and everything we remember is like the number one killer of women in the old days, including Mrs. Proctor. And I found out through this research

56:35 that this was like a common, um, form of death for a lot of the old women in that era. So that is sort of the story that when I came across this, I went, wow, it just kind of weird how it all came Together. Yeah, perfect. But by way of background, um, you know, I, I’ve been sort of a project development manager. I work on large scale capital intensive energy projects. Um, so I’m involved in the kind of planning, uh, involved in those kinds of construction projects. And then in community life, I’m, uh, on the board of the Glover Landing Condominium Trust, where kind of oversee the capital planning there. I’m the youngest unit owner. Uh, and so I got picked because I’m gonna be there the longest. And so I look after the sea wall and the other building maintenance. So I have all this just an eye for sort

57:21 of facility maintenance. Uh, and then I have sort of this kind of strange, uh, personal connection. That’s Great. So that’s, that’s why I’m here. Thank you so much. Thank you. Does anybody have any questions? No, thank you Chris. Thanks for sharing. Alright. Um, yeah, I, you’ll just have a seat. Thank, thank you. Thanks Chris. Um, I’d like a motion to place both, um, Peter Kent and Christopher Hardy’s names into, um, nomination, uh, to serve on the Harris Street Cemetery Oversight Committee with the term to expire June, 2025. So Moved Second. Okay. Um,

58:01 go to, uh, a roll call vote. And people can, they want to wanna say something about your vote? Feel free.

58:10 Who’s gonna Call? Uh, yeah, I mean, I have mind. Dan, Go ahead. I, or you want me to keep calling On me? Yeah, I can Go ahead and look stuff if you’re ready. Okay. I’m fine. Uh, so I’d like to just say thanks to both the applicants for coming tonight. I appreciate your story and your willingness to serve. And I think that obviously looking at your experience, your passion and well as well as your qualifications, but for me, um, just putting all of the things together, I’m going to put a vote in for Chris Hardy.

58:45 Okay. Go next. Sure. You know, same. I mean, it’s just both, which I like about both of them is that both have a personal connection, you know, to it. One, literally a personal one and the other one, you know, Mr. Kent, you know, with unit attorney universalist. So I think, I think it’s just wonderful that you have two people that have, uh, just a proximity and, and want give back to, you know, to the area, um, that they, like I say, they have that connection with, um,

59:14 again, it’s a, it’s a coin toss for me, but I’m, I’m gonna, my boat’s gonna go with Mr. Hardy.

59:21 Okay. Mr. Air. Well, I hate to say it’s also kind of a coin toss for me as well, and I think, uh, what prevails in my mind is the, is the proximity, uh, and connection to the, you know, to the cemetery itself. So, I’ll, I’ll, uh, I’ll vote for, for Peter on this one, but, uh, Chris, it’s really, you know, great to see you again and you’re always, you know, just an amazing, an amazing candidate. So, again, it’s just, for me personally, it’s, it’s proximity and, uh, and kind of, and likely engagement to the, you know, to the, to the cemetery itself.

59:56 Mr. Fox. Thank you. Um, again, I don’t hate to repeat everyone else, but this is going for great two great candidates. Uh, I think that tiebreaker for me is a project management and some of the understanding project development there. So my vote for request, Mr. Hardy. Okay. Um,

1:00:18 when we just recently committed, made this committee, and I think we had three, it’s, it’s consists of three in total. Forget the total number. Yeah. Two members of the historic commission. Three, two members of the historic commission. Three. Three at large, three At lodge. So we, she was filled. We just had one. Okay. Seat unfilled. I’m wondering if there’s any reason we couldn’t just add another seat. If we have interest in it, You’d have an even number. Yeah, yeah. That would be, yeah. Issue. We have what? Fine. You wanna do an alternate? Can we, did we commit, did we create that through the select board or was it created through Here? We did it here. I just Wanna make sure On, I guess it would create an even number,

1:01:04 but Brad had the idea Of an alternate. We could do an alternate. Yeah. If as long as there’s interest in it, how do folks feel about It’s power of the board? Yeah. You created it, conform. Make a motion. We create an alternate for this Position, I mean, for this commission. Um, okay. Does it, does it need to be in, uh, in written format or is It, I would suggest, but we might wanna go back to that first vote first. So you can do the final vote for this, for the appointment, and then you make a separate motion relative. Yeah. I just wanted to get people’s ideas before I voted on it To create and to appoint an alternate position. I Guess. I think one plus one is three in this instance, and I think it’s a good idea. Okay. So, um, I will vote for, um,

1:01:52 my vote is for Chris Hardy for the, um, at large member. Um, so that is, uh, four, four votes for Mr. Hardy and, um, one for Mr. Kent. And, um, I, we could have a, um, motion to Do we want to ask if he’s interested? Alternate? Yeah. Would you be interested in serving as an alternate member on the c on the committee?

1:02:22 You could not really. Yeah. Okay. I’ll be Drawing my, uh, application and Chris will do a great job on This. Okay. Thank you. Thank you. Okay. So Congratulations Chris, and thank you, um, Peter.

1:02:40 Great. Okay. Um, we have a licensing public hearing for the Riptide. Um, this is a transfer of license and, um, I would like to invite our applicant up for, um, on behalf of Riptide. I think we have John Kaler. Kate. Yes. Welcome. How you doing? Thanks.

1:03:08 Hi. Um, okay. Would you just wanna present your application to us? I mean, we have all the paperwork and everything, but just Absolutely. If you wanted to just Introduce Yourself. And So me and my wife just recently got under agreement the purchase and sale for both the property and the business. Um, so we’re really excited for it. Um, I owned Mercy TAVR for four years in Salem. No issues. I’ve been involved in the restaurant industry for over 15 years. Um, really excited to try and, uh, bring it back to what it was and get my blood, uh, a nice low key dive bar. All right. Great. So I guess I need to formally open the hearing Sure. And state that this has been legally advertised in the paper. Um, thank you for that. And is there anyone who would like to speak, um, in opposition to the application?

1:03:54 Okay. Is there anybody who would like to speak in support of the application?

1:04:01 Okay. So I will close the public hearing and we’ll have any questions from the board.

1:04:08 Well, I just wanna say congratulations and welcome to Marblehead. Appreciate you went to the Mercy Tavern as a, as a matter of routine. It always Oh, good. It was always a really great spot. Thank you. And, uh, well really well run business, so thank you very much. Yeah. Okay. Congratulations on that acquisition. Thank You so much. Alright, So we’ll have two motions. One’s for the Common Vic and one is for, um, the transfer of the alcohol license. So a first need a motion to approve the application from Riptide RG Inc. As presented for a Common Vic license at one 16 Pleasant Street with manager John tz Ketzer, subject to receipt of the required forms, fees, and receipt of the required certificate of assurance. Hours of operation will be Monday through Saturday, 9:00 AM to midnight, and Sundays 11:00 AM to midnight. So Moved. Second. Okay. This is a full vote.

1:04:53 Yeah. So, Mr. Fox, in favor, Ms. Singer? In favor, Mr. Murray? In favor, Mr. Grader? In favor, Ms. Nun in favor. And the next I need a motion to approve the application from Riptide RG Inc. Is presented for the transfer of the all alcoholic beverage license at one 16 Pleasant Street Manager. Um, John Ketzer, subject to receipt of the required forms fees, A, B, C, C, and Cory approval and receipt of the required certificate of insurance. Hours of operation will be Monday through Saturday, 9:00 AM to midnight, and Sundays 11:00 AM to midnight. So moved. Second, Mr. Grader. In favor, Mr. Fox? In favor, Ms. Singer? In favor, Mr. Murray In favor, Ms. Noon In favor. Okay. Congratulations. Thank you. Good laughing. Appreciate congratulations. Good luck. Bring that burger over from sound, please.

1:05:43 Tuesday night, half price.

1:05:49 Congratulations. Um, next we have a, a licensing request, um, an annual entertainment license request from Elia Verna. And, um, we have our applicant, Angelo Bato. Hello? Yep. Hello. How are you? Welcome. Good, Good. Um, you know, just, you just wanted to tell us about your, your interest in the application. Yeah, it’s like, um, little life music. Uh, customers are asking for it and, you know, we try to put it, but we need some, uh, you know Yep. From the city to give us an, um mm-hmm. Approval for it. Okay. That’s great. So from, um, six to nine on Thursdays, you’re thinking that’s All for now? Yeah. Yeah, For now, yeah. Great idea. Great idea. Okay. Any questions from the board? Alright.

1:06:36 Only need a motion to approve this request as presented from Elia Verna 2 61 Washington Street for an annual entertainment license. Thursday, six to 9:00 PM subject to receipt of the required fees and that no music is heard from the street. Yep. So moved. Second. Okay. All in favor? Okay. Congratulations. Thank, congratulations. Good luck. Thank. And we have another, uh, licensing, a Common Vic license, uh, from Java Sun at 35 Atlantic A.

1:07:09 How’s it going? Good. Good. Thank you. Good here with him. He is my dad. I’m just translating for him. Oh, okay. You’re Mr. Ramirez? Yes. Perfect. Perfect. Excellent. Okay. Welcome. Thank you. Thank you. Um, great. So this is just a standard Common Vic license. Does anybody have any questions for Mr. Ramirez? Thank you So much. No. Um, I hope she looks, looks pretty standard. Yeah. We love Javas Sun. Yeah. Yeah. Great. Thank you. I just need a motion to approve the application from Javas Sun Incorporated 35 Atlantic A for a Common Vic license Manager, uh, German Ramirez, hours of operation, Monday through Sunday, 5:00 AM to 7:00 PM subject to receipt of the required forms, fees, and department signoffs. So moved. Second. All in favor. Great. Thank you. Have a good night. Thanks for waiting.

1:08:00 Okay. And, Um, next we will have, um, entertain public comment if there’s any public comment tonight, and I don’t see anybody left real in the audience, I’d like to make public comment if there’s anybody online. Nobody, nobody raising hands. Not yet. Okay. Um, seeing no public comment, I’ll proceed to our Town administer update. All right. Thank you Madam Chair. Um, some, uh, uh, I’ll call ‘em related updates. One. Um, as you’re aware, we’ve had an agreement with the Thomas Wanka for sharing a building commissioner services. Um, um, the, the arrangement has changed is that the, um,

1:08:47 Steve Cummings, the Building Commissioner, is now a full-time employee of the Town of Marblehead. So, um, as of right now, we’re not in a shared arrangement with Swamp Scott. Uh, I’m not sure what, what their plans will be going forward, that there are some personnel changes going on there. So, um, we’re pleased to have them here full-time, full focus. There’s a lot of, uh, of activity as well as having the building commissioner and, and be in a department head role of organizing that department. As you know, we’re putting a lot of focus on that to beef it up. Um, um, uh, get caught up in a lot of the inspections, but also that’s part of what I call the food chain

1:09:33 to getting new growth revenue, uh, starts in that area. So I think we’re, we’ll be better positioned for that. Um, so in addition to, uh, the staffing requirements, uh, one of the other issues we’re addressing is creating more space at Mary Alley for people. We, uh, I think we use, utilize more space for document storage than people. Um, we keep growing the amount of documents that we store, and at some point, uh, you know, the lines will cross where we’ll have more documents than there is floor space. So in that effort, we’re one doing some renovations in the building. So we’re literally taking down walls, reconfiguring,

1:10:20 expanding space, one of which is in the building department or inspection building department area where we’re blowing out walls and creating a single large office space so that all of the inspection inspectors, electrical, plumbing, building, and the commissioner are all in a shared space, shared information, um, you know, really sort of that team build that team concept on the opposite side, um, of the, the other wing, um, the assessor sits across the hall from the rest of his staff. Um, so what we’ve done is we’re converting a storage space, cleaning it out, blowing out some walls, and creating an expanded office for the assessor

1:11:09 with enough space to continue holding their assessor meetings in his office, but also connecting the, as the assistant assessor by title with the rest of his staff so that they are closely working together. Um, that’s really important, especially with the, just the customer service issues of, of, you know, the, the, the department head, you know, backing up the staff and dealing with issues and such as, as well as creating space. This will allow us to move our HR director, who we wanna put on that side of the hall to be connected with the staff that he’s continuously working with, uh, the payroll staff and the, and the benefits staff and, and the rest of the finance staff because they all work together.

1:11:56 Um, so, so there’s some construction going on, some renovation going on. It seems to me these are the first changes, significant changes since forever, since, since we’ve moved into the building for municipal use. Um, there are still shower curtains in the showers from when it was a hospital. So we’re making an effort to really reconfigure to meet the needs for today. Um, as part of that effort, and as I mentioned about creating space, office space, we’re making a significant effort to one, uh, go through every nook and cranny and remove all of the store documents that we can out of Mary Alley. We made an, an agreement with the schools for two classrooms at the Evolla school.

1:12:43 We’re making improvements, uh, putting in some, um, um, splitters or heat pumps to, to maintain the, the, the air, the conditioning and temperature in, in those rooms to preserve the documents and moving everything there and organizing it by department. Um, with the idea that we’re also setting up scanning stations, workstations there, that for the documents we need to keep start scanning and digitizing them. Uh, in addition to that effort, we’re actually out to bid. And this is part of a, uh, an r project that we’re gonna need to do a follow up to, to finalize opera, uh, opera funding is, um, we’re look waiting for bids to come in for, uh, an outside firm to come in

1:13:32 and do wholesale digitizing of our documentation. The way the bid’s structured it, it, depending on how much it’s gonna cost, um, you know, the first effort is all of the engineering documents and maps, and if the bid’s low enough, add on additional, uh, departments to digitize based on, you know, the bids and how much money we have allocated. So, so the, the takeaway, they’re all, all this is all related. Um, you know, uh, having, having the leadership in-house full-time, you know, special services, reconfiguring Mary Alley, where we can to, to really better utilize the space for the, the services and the function of the department and cleaning out and, and digitizing our documentation so that one, we have space,

1:14:21 but two for record requests or information that we need to readily have our fingers on it. Um, accident that information. So a lot going on. All good for our productivity. I just think the way you’re rethinking the use of Mary Alley, it’s a herculean, uh, heroic, courageous effort, but it is absolutely brilliant. I think it’s really, really great to, to, you know, the way you’re trying to, you know, optimize kind of team environment, common spaces and, and kind of improve the utilization of the building. So that’s a big deal. Yeah. And, uh, very creative. And, uh, So this is impressive, As they always say, how do you eat an elephant? One bite at a time? So this is the first bites at the elephant. That’s right. That’s, we have some, you know,

1:15:08 HVAC system is done. Yep. We’re, we’re cooling with window air conditioners and heating with space heaters because the main system is barely working. So there are more efforts, bigger projects to, you know, redo the, the whole HVAC system, but also our sustainability coordinator is in the mix saying, okay, here’s the best way we’re gonna do it for sustainability and efficiency reasons. So it’s very much a team effort. So there’ll be more information coming in in regard to those F grant. Great. Okay. Thank you so much. Um, great update. And that brings us to our, uh, financial forecast

1:15:55 of the town and our finance director Alicia Benjamin, our finance committee chair, Alec Goolsby and FinCon member Molly Teaks. Hey, Molly. Alec. Hey, how are you? How you doing? Good, good. Welcome. Welcome. Any of you sharing screens? I might have to share the microphone too. Oh, here you go. Yeah. Are you gonna do a, uh, screen share Evening? Yes. Yeah, just gimme, so I need to let you, are you logged in? I’m going to do that right Now. Okay. We need you in and we’ll put you in the room.

1:17:21 Did you make it in? Yeah, I’m In. Okay, There you go. You’re in the room. Okay.

1:17:47 Is my screen up? That’s it, yes. Okay. In Presentation mode. You’re good. Good evening. Honorable select board members. I honored to be here tonight with FinCon chair, a Goby and Vice Chair Molly Teets, who have spent endless hours with me and on their own helping with, uh, the budget and the financial forecast. Early in budget preparation, the finance committee met early in the summer to assist the CFO with a long-term plan. The finance committee has held early budget liaison meetings with extensive salary analysis with templates that they developed an expense growth. These were held in October and November. The chair and vice-chair, as I said, of the finance committee, has spent many hours with the CFO.

1:18:34 Now on this slide for the general fund budget, I’m outlining the largest cost drivers, which is between 77 and 78% of the budget. This includes salaries, insurance benefits, pension utilities, and trash fees.

1:18:53 I’m also showing how much we’re estimating for fiscal year 26, 27, and 2028 by each category. And I’m also showing the estimated growth. So salaries and wages, 4.18 to 4.41% when we’re on prop two point a half and we can’t grow more than two point a half percent. That’s good. Insurance and benefits 6%. I’ve noticed I put two asterisk there because the GIC Medicare retiree supplement plans, they’ve announced they’re going to rise between 12 and 30%. I don’t know which plans are gonna rise, how much yet? So this estimate may change. Okay. Um, pension is a set 8.6 based on the per rec actuarial schedule. Utilities were estimating a 4% increase year over year.

1:19:42 And trash collection disposal between seven to 38%. You can see the big jump from 2026 for trash from 2.2 million to 3.1 in fiscal year 2027.

1:19:56 And when we get to the later slides, we’re gonna go through like all revenue lines and all of these expense lines that we’ve broken out. Um, these are the ones, when I came to you with Alicia back in, I wanna say it was late August. These were the ones we identified as kind of the biggest challenges. Um, and then the rest of it, if you add up all those percentages, what are we at? 58, 60, 73, 75. The, the rest of the, the budget is, you know, everything else that still will go up slightly, but not as big of cost drivers. So The next slide, we go over our largest revenues with property tax accounting for 72% of general fund revenue and debt exclusion. Property taxes at 8% for total property taxes of 80% funding

1:20:44 of our general fund budget. State aid at 8% of the budget state aid is both, uh, schools and town. So the chapter 70 funding for the schools comes right outta state aid, and that’s 7.2 million. And then 1.6 to the town with the biggest being unrestricted general government aid. And then local receipts comes in at 7% with the majority of local receipts being funded by motor vehicle excise tax. And as we know at the last, uh, Maytown meeting, we adopted the rooms and meals tax. Mm-hmm. So that’s also within our local receipts. Now to help boost that, here’s just a visual. So people can see the 80% property taxes

1:21:31 and the 8% state aid, the 7% local receipts, 5% is free cash. Our light pilot is only 0.31% and that hasn’t been growing at all. Other available funds is 0.37%. So as you can see, the town heavily relies on property taxes to fund the budget. And this is where we’re going to get into the most detail with the revenue lines. And I’m gonna let Alex speak to this and I’ll add in as necessary. Yeah. And Molly will jump in as, as well. Yeah. And before, um, we start, I’ll revisit what I said when I came before you all in August, that, um, the key titles here is preliminary. Um, I’m kind of viewing this as phase one. We’re in December here.

1:22:17 Um, I view state of the town almost as phase two. So there’s time between now and state of the town to digest this information, dig at it more, probably get more information from GIC and things like that between now and then. Um, and then I view like the phase three being between state of town and town meeting, um, as to finalizing whatever’s gonna happen on warrant and, and things like that. Um, so again, we’ll start, I’d like to go through every one of these lines. Some of them will be 30 seconds, some of them might be five to 10 minutes. Take your time. Um, property tax levy, um, Alicia, it’s two and a half percent of the prior levy. This is two and a half percent of the prior levy without the debt exclusion. Correct. Um, plus an estimate of new growth is in there at 300 per year, which is kind

1:23:04 of the average over the last, what, five, six years? Correct. So the key here, the purpose of these red percentages is 80% of our revenue grows at, you know, just under 3% per year. Mm-hmm. Um, debt exclusion, property taxes. Um, Alicia’s put together some great slides even after this to talk about debt, which is kind of something you analyze off to the side. It impacts taxpayers, but you’ll see a debt exclusion, property taxes expense line that equals the same amount. Mm-hmm. So it’s not something I’m concerned about in terms of any structural challenges to the budget, but it’s certainly something that, um, Alicia wanted to at least get in front of you tonight. Um, so you’ll see that again on the, uh, on the, the expense side and, and what the numbers right here represent,

1:23:51 which you’ll see in, in a bit, is the actual issued debt and what it will cost over the next four years. There’s still some authorized debt from town meeting that hasn’t been issued that will go into these, it’s uncertain at this time. And then of course you could always potentially go for new debt as well. Mm-hmm. Um, and I think the biggest thing rolling off there is probably the school rolling off. Correct. So that’s why you see a drop from 11 to nine before any new new debt is issued. The, the Glover school, was it high school debt? High school. High school, yeah. Yeah. Um, overlay, don’t wanna spend too much time here, but e effectively you get your property tax revenue and you have to set up an overlay for potential abatements and Oh, exemptions. Exemptions. So not all of that overlay gets used every year,

1:24:39 but I think we probably used a fair amount last year with mm-hmm. Yes. With things that went on. Um, so that’s probably a standard, um, estimate based on your professional judgment while working with the assessor. Correct. Exactly. Um, state aid, we break it into two lines because like debt exclusion override or debt exclusion, property taxes, piece of state aid is offset on the expense side. That second line there about the 2 million, the 2.1 that’s going up, that’s just an in and out. So really the state aid that we get in net revenue is that six. And, and you know, I’ve been on the finance committee for seven years. I’ve seen it go down year over year. I’ve seen it go up, I’ve never seen it really go up significantly. Correct. So I think 1% per year is probably a fair estimate for purposes of this.

1:25:25 Yeah. Um, local receipts is one. Uh, let me just pull this up. We want talk about this one a little bit because this one we’ve had actually some good news in the most recent year. Um, I’m, I think some of you all know this, um, but our estimate for, um, interest income, the actual verse estimate, closing 6 30, 24, there was I think $2 million gap there. Yeah. Which was a windfall. So, um, that’s, that’ll drop to free cash. So that’s something that when we talk about free cash and in here, like that’s something that’s key that I’d like to present to you all. So you understand that there’s decisions to be made as, as we build this year’s budget.

1:26:10 Um, local receipt, I’m just trying to get this thing to open Up. So another one that came in that’s variable is our permits. So building permits that changes year over year, it’s variable. Mm-hmm. So we always make a conservative estimate and that one came in much higher than I had estimated, which was nice as another windfall to help us out in mm-hmm. The local receipts, Is that just better tracking, do you think? Or what’s the, what’s the source of that increase? A part of that yes. Is better tracking the new fee structure. They’re more focused, so Yes, that’s right. Yep. Just like, um, the treasurer being very actively managing the finance with the banks. Yeah. So when you look at the actual fiscal year, 24 local receipts, it actually came in around 10 million. But we know that that was inflated and there’s kind of this one year windfall.

1:26:58 My personal opinion is that this could be anywhere between eight and 9 million. Um, and as Alicia has educated me, and I’ve known for years on the fin comm, um, this is really a line that you probably don’t wanna be too aggressive with when you’re building a budget. Um, you don’t wanna overestimate your revenues. Um, I think policy has said, we’ve probably brought up the, when building budgets since I’ve been on the fin com, I think, um, a certain percentage of your estimated actual, it was a lot lower in in previous years and now it’s up to, you know, 80 to 90%. I would consider this at about 85 to 90% of where things may land. We’ve adjusted the interest income, but we haven’t adjusted to 2.4 million. The interest rates have dropped.

1:27:43 There’s certain ARPA funds invested that have to be spent over the next year. Um, but we’ve adjusted it so it’s not at a hundred thousand. We, we, we believe that it could be closer to a million. Um, the hotels and meals tax. Just a, a preliminary update. Again, this whole thing is preliminary, but, um, what was it? DOR said maybe 800,000, 2 million, correct. Yeah, max, right? Mm-hmm. We put 400, 400 into last year’s budget. We’ve only seen one quarter of this. Right. From my perspective, there could be non-compliance, there could be people are just not up to speed all the restaurants and, and hotels and whatnot. So we’ve, we’ve kind of put a, an estimate of going from 400 to 500 to 600 to 700. The hope is that we can get it to where DOR estimated. Um, but it might take a few years to do that.

1:28:30 Um, and this is a forecast. So, you know, the, we, we have to be fairly conservative and I think it’s important to illustrate in the fiscal year 2025 clear gov budget, you can go straight to local receipts and you can see in the prior years how low the estimate was and how high the receipts were to how over the last two years I’ve been there, how the estimates and the receipts are close to one another. Yeah. Yeah. And then another really large one here as, as Alicia mentioned, is the motor vehicle excise. That’s, um, that came in fiscal year 24, just north of 4 million. But from my perspective, you know, a lot of people were buying new cars when stimulus checks were going out and interest rates were low. Right. So the question is, should we have over 4 million in the budget?

1:29:16 We have three and a half in the budget per year. Um, and I think that’s something that you see go up and go down. Correct. Annually, because as new guards get older, you pay less proper or excise tax as you know. So that’s the moral of the story here, is we, we did a deep dive into this and we’re trying to, we’re trying to not be too conservative here, but this is a line where you have to be a bit conservative, if that makes sense. And I have to justify it to DOR ‘cause even DOR was all over me on what did I come up with for, and what was I, what was my mentality? How much have we collected? So DOR Does, and that’s when she built fiscal year 25. And then Molly and I sat down with Alicia and, and decided what we wanted to do for 26, 27, 28 as well. Okay. Um, alright. So free cash.

1:30:01 So this one is interesting because the assumption in this off the free cash train as you say. Right. But that’s a decision that needs to be made every year as you build a budget. Right? Um, our free cash certified last year was 8.7 million. Right. We used 5.5 in the budget. We used one for capital and I believe over 2 million was just not appropriated. Correct. So when we, when we go to get it certified the next few months here, we’re starting right away with 2.2, which is 1.2 better than the year before when we only didn’t appropriate 1 million. Right. We just talked about a windfall north of $2 million with respect to interest income. Mm-hmm. That is effectively a bit of a one time thing.

1:30:47 Mm-hmm. So I guess what I’m saying is before knowing what it’s certified at, if last year was 8.7, and we already know we have kind of these, we put a bunch to the side, which was great financial practice, and we have this windfall, it could come in north of 8.7, right? Let’s say it comes in at 10. Let’s say it comes in at 11 using only five of it. That gives you six of flexibility what you want to do with it. Um, if you wanna just flip to the next slide for one second, I’m gonna come back. You’ll see the way bottom of this, again, this is a preliminary forecast, but it’s only a, it’s only a gap of 1.8 million. Right? So that’s where the flexibility is from our perspective in fiscal year 26, as you can see, 27 and 28,

1:31:32 and we’ll get to the expenses here in a minute. What’s driving that? That’s gonna be where we believe is the biggest challenge. Um, so I just wanted to mention that because as much as I’ve been communicating structural deficit, I do believe it exists. You can see the expense side and whatnot, but things happen and, and there could be some flexibility there could be in this, this preliminary forecast as we enter this year’s e season, from my perspective, can either you or you should, should just give a, just with people at home or maybe tuning in at a later date, just a little bit about free cash. We all quite, you know, we all know about it. We all talk about it. But yeah, people at home might not have a little bit of an understanding Okay. Of What it’s, so free cash is not free, it’s not cash, it’s un-designated general fund balance. And how it is generated is if revenues come in more than we

1:32:21 estimated or if expenses are spent less than we thought we were going to. So that is what really drives free cash. And one of the things that I’ve been in discussions with, with the town administrator, with the finance committee is the GIC health insurance line and how we use that, we reduced it greatly. It was 2.4 million the year before of a cushion. Way bigger than that. The year before. I brought it down to 1 million for this year. Is taking a piece of that ‘cause I, there’s still variability in that line and the average plan’s of 28,000, so 10 people change, it could be $280,000. So you have to have some cushion in there. But instead taking that allocation and putting it in the finance committee reserve mm-hmm.

1:33:07 Which is highly scrutinized. ‘cause first it has to come to me when they’re doing a, a finance committee reserve, then it has to go to your board and then it gets, goes to the finance. The bottom line is you need flexibility in a $100 million budget for year end transfers for things that, you know, unforeseen things you, you know, having a million dollars of flexibility is not crazy. 1%. Right. Um, but should we continue the practice of having this very large, um, cushion in health insurance or should it just be in a, a more of a reserve fund? But either way it’s in there either way. Right? Yep. Um, but just to get back to free cash, um, I think about it like, pretty simply, as Alicia said, for for this year, we’re starting with 2.2 right away,

1:33:54 maybe a little bit more than that actually. And then like she said, you know, if we under budgeted revenues, they come in over top and then we over budgeted expenses. Those are the three things that are the biggest pieces of it. Right. Um, and the history is, you know, when we built the 21 budget, there was $10.2 million of free cash. When he built the 22 budget, there was 11.5 million. When we built 23 there was 10.7. When we built 24, there was nine built 25 there was 8.7. It it, it goes up and it comes down. Right. So it’s not crazy to think that if even if it came in at 10 or 11, that’s, that’s not too much. Right. So the DOR says you should have is it eight to 10% Molly in free cash plus eight to, of the

1:34:41 overall budget of the overall budget. So up to 12 you, if we, we only have 500 in stabilization, so free cash is the most of it. Um, so up to 12 they actually say. So, um, you know, the free cash is kinda, you know, we will see where it lands. But just given those two kind of unforeseen things we discussed, I I would say that it could come in higher than than last year. And, and it’s something to think about as we enter January, enter budget season, um, you know, there’s a little bit of flexibility there, but it’s not a long term solution to a structural deficit. Mm-hmm. A can I add a couple points just for color in terms of the history? If you look at sort of that free cash balance as a percentage of our operating budget, which is important ‘cause our operating budget has grown. And so I think that’s the right way to look at it,

1:35:27 to gauge is it appropriate or not? It has gone from, in 2010 it was as low as 7% of the operating budget and it peaked out in around the 2017 area when it hit 13 million, that was 17% of the budget. So very high. Um, and the lowest, it’s declined since then last year and for fiscal 24 it was about 8% of the budget. And if it ends, you know, a just guess at like around 10, it’d still be around that nine ish percent of our operating budget. So it’s just another way to to think about it and, you know, within the range of what the targets are for the DOR, because we don’t have very much right now in a stabilization fund right now we have $500,000 that’s at 0.5%

1:36:15 of the operating budget. So, and then I also feel like as a, you know, finance committee member, we would be remiss not to mention sort of the, the guidelines that the DOR gives us in terms of what to do with free cash. So we have been using it as Alex said, as a percentage of our operating budget, but if I could just read this as a non-recurring revenue source, free cash, it should be restricted to paying one-time expenditures, funding capital projects, or replenishing other reserves. So that’s the DOR recommendation. And so that is something to keep in mind, you know, at as we think about this sort of windfall that we’ve heard of this year, you know, what some of the best uses are for it. That’s, that’s really, it’s really great. Oh, sorry. No, no, no, no, go ahead. You. That’s a really great point Molly. And I think that’s one of the things I think in terms

1:37:01 of getting unhooked for free cash, the idea is to keep it stable more or less and to kind of, uh, you know, use it for one time use only. And I think part of that transition is getting kind of our reserve funds built up and getting into the habit of doing that rather than using, using free cash. So to your point, your point’s well taken though. I mean, we may have a windfall, right? Yeah. And so, you know, then the question, I think we did talk when we were trying to establish policy kind of, you know, do we, do we put a lump sum into a reserve or you know, how do we kind of make use of that freak cash, uh, and kind of, you know, bring the discipline of of having a reserve, you know, uh, reserve fund as opposed to free cash. So, but anyway, yeah, your point,

1:37:47 your point’s really well taken I think stabilizing it, you know, whatever, you know, And that’s what I meant by that. I’m not suggesting you do anything with it. I’m just saying when there’s good news, we’re not gonna hide the good news. Right? Of course. So of course there, there is flexibility there when you make your decision as to what you want to do with it. Mm-hmm. Right? I don’t think that there’s as much flexibility as we get into 27 28 as we’ll see here. Right. And as Molly said, we were using that, I mean, as we all know, proposition two and a half and as part of the reason why we’ve gone almost two decades without a general override is because we are tapping into that on a regular basis, which we probably shouldn’t have been doing. And then we also have to look out for the fact that a best rates you on, you know, your financial rating and also your reserves. Right? And I know best practices is what,

1:38:33 5%, is that correct? Is that correct? And so if we don’t have that 5%, we might lose, potentially lose that bond rating. And that means we were borrowing at more money. Right. And I think the other point, just always remember this is always disclosed in the materials at town meeting and always voted on town meeting. So it’s not like this is kind of hidden and, and under the rug. I mean, this is out there so the citizens know about this. They, you know, you make the recommendation how that money is going to be spent and used and ultimately the citizens decide. So I just think it’s important to understand that. ‘cause I we just say free cash all the time. Yeah. But I, I just think some people just need to hear that. And I, yeah, when you come front, the number used, the number used might be just tuning in to balance the budget is in a warrant article every year that gets voted on. You’re right. Yeah. So, And there will be years where free cash

1:39:18 that will be significantly lower too. Right. So there, this was nice to have a positive, you know, if something good happened, but the bad things happen too. I mean, the guidance is, you know, don’t use it for operating purposes. I mean that’s basically, you know, to the extent that we can, But I do, I do think, you know, Thatcher, that you would agree that towns do use it of course for operating purposes. Well, we have, as a Matter of course, we obviously have, but we’re not the only town doing it. And, and it depends on years and, and situations and whatnot. So as I said, often when I want to take a quick look at a city of towns finances and get, get an assessment of how healthy it is, there’s two data points I look at. One, how much free cash they’re using to support the budget. And two, what’s their new growth revenues.

1:40:05 That gives me about 80% of the picture of the health, financial health of a community. And, and when I was looking at Marblehead, uh, coming here, you know, I would say neither one looked good. This is looking, you know, I think all the, all the work, all the decisions being done are putting Marblehead on the right path to manage it. Right. Um, So yes.

1:40:33 Cia Wouldn’t you say that now though, with having the ability to have the reserve accounts, like with the revitalization act from 2016, like tax practices that would’ve been effect prior to 2016 that allowed for these mechanisms for us to now take for example, any of this, you know, if we have a situation where we ended up with more than necessary to then go and fund like those stabilization funds and things like that, that didn’t exist prior? Absolutely. Because free cash is just an unrestricted reserve. Your stabilization is a restricted reserve. So if you put it in there, it’s, it’s the town that then says this is how we wanna spend it. Right. Which I think is a good place to put it and to show the town, like we’re Serious. Yeah. And when that was set up, it was set up to be funded at two 50 per year.

1:41:18 We’ve had four years, we’ve funded it twice. So we’re behind right away. I would say let’s, let’s, let’s catch up that at least. But then, then it’s that decision I’m talking about do you want to get it all the way to 3% or do you wanna figure out what you want to do over the next three years? There’s just some flexibility. There is my point. Yeah. Correct me if I’m wrong. The, the, um, best practice recommendation for, you know, a municipality for us would be 5% of your operating budget. That’s a recommendation for a stabilization fund. Correct. Is that correct? And we put a financial policy in for that, which is great. And we can even go and amend our financial policies if we are, you know, gaining momentum with our free cash and saying, okay, once you reach 5%, we wanna dedicate anything above to X, Y, and Z. Right. Based on what your body thinks. And if you got that at 5%, then your free cash

1:42:05 would only have to be 5% to be at DOR guidelines. Correct. ‘cause then you Actually have it, the the two together are 10 and that’s right in the eight to 12. Yeah. So I mean, I think that’s some of the transition of that, like past practices and then the mechanisms that were put in play that allowed municipalities to change their behavior. And now we have to look at how do we fund the behavior We do have among the, one of the lowest reserve balances, stabilization reserve balances in the entire state. I will say when you rank them, I wanna, we are not last, but we’re, yeah, we’re in the bottom 10, I would say. Yeah. I mean that’s definitely a concern We’ve had. We’ve had free cash at 10 million, give or take. Well, I mean it, I think one of the catch 20 twos, and it’s kind of an unspoken thing when you think about how free cash is generated, right?

1:42:51 It kind of warps a little bit the budgeting process, you know, where there is this concerted effort to, you know, to overestimate expenditures and underestimate revenues. And that’s just not a, that’s not a great metric. You should be getting to the point where your, where your projections are kind of dead to nuts and you’re like, you know, you’re, you’re really not moving the free cash needle all that much. So I’ve seen that in the past. That’s really one of the downsides of course, of kind of balancing, you know, using free cash for your, you know, to to, to, you know, balance your operating budget is that it kind of distorts the, you know, the incentives around the Projection. So yeah, you want this, You wanna be careful and, and, and obviously it’s, you gotta be careful not to kind of overreach on that practice, but I know in the past we’ve kind of done that. So

1:43:37 Are you saying, And it’s not a good thing, Are you saying maybe that if our stabilization fund is higher, Actually well that’s what we, Then we can start to tighten that up. Like you don’t have, you can be more conservative About that and because a stabilization fund, I think, you know, Alicia has mentioned this before, stabilization fund is like real cash. It’s like, okay, it’s, it’s, it’s restricted. It’s, it’s overseen by the town when you put money in there. That is kind of like having money in the bank account that’s not subject to kind of the, you know, kind of the vicissitudes of, of, of budgeting. Mm-hmm. You know, so I think that’s the goal. And, and I would be interested to know, and I know, I know we’ve talked about this before of taking free cash and kind of accelerating the funding of the stabilization fund. And I think too, I mean there is the mechanisms, correct me if I’m wrong

1:44:22 and with, you know, there’s the overall but then individual stabilizations as well, like you can have an allocation specifically for capital planning. You know, those types of things where then if we have those bigger expenditures that we know are coming, that allows us to plan for it and then also, you know, educate the taxpayers as well and then say, okay, this is, this is where this money is going, this is where we’re allocating these to the projects we, we know are coming up. Yeah. You could have multiple stabilization accounts so you could have a capital stabilization knowing that you wanna, you know, keep down that ex that debt exclusion right. From the residents. So you, you’re building up some of that to help with capital plan. Yeah. It helps with the borrowing too, so. Yep. Yeah, I just wanted to address that. Like obviously we have to get through, you know, far this, but just a little bit longer term planning, looking at

1:45:09 what are all those resources that obviously, and that cuts down the borrowing that cuts down on the overall Yeah. And I know when I came on board that was one of the big things that brought up was the stabilization fund and free cash utilization and what we should be looking at and how we should do it. So I sit down with him every year. Well The current stabilization fund is for operations, so that, that’s for sure. And I think then, you know, adding additional, you know, types of funds like this could only be to our benefit Is, is there any concerns with the constraints of putting into a restricted fund like that? Like in a pure stabilization fund versus leaving some of that So saying like It’s restricted where you don’t have as much flexibility with it? No, I think it’s good to put it in the restricted to start building it up. I think the two 50 intent was great,

1:45:56 but the fact that we didn’t fund it for a couple years, we need, we’re gonna have to do catch up payments and I think we should put some money dedicated there. We don’t want to be in the bottom 10 of municipalities not really showing a dedication to the stabilization fund. Think you’re still gonna generate free cash. So I think the issue is how much do you wanna put the stabilization, how much to free cash? And I would work with a ton administrator on that. And I think as, as we

1:46:22 do a better job as we have been to zero in, I one of you made that comment about really zeroing in on the numbers, then we can better manage that relationship between the stabilization fund balances and the free cash balances and really actively manage those to meet objectives. So we’re the through this effort has really helped to, to sort of really zero in on, on that. And then we can make rather, rather than being thrown to the winds of the, you know, the financial winds of good years and bad years, we are actually controlling our destiny both as far as maintaining our balance sheets as well as having the resources to, to,

1:47:08 to do the things we need to do as a, as a town. So, and great job by the treasurer to take advantage might be the word, but capitalize on money that we had that we were sitting there from Harpa, for instance. I think it’s what, 6 million? Yeah. To, to take advantage of that actually to help us Yeah. Get to these points. Yeah, She did great. She even put some money in a CD knowing the rate cut was coming. ‘cause now we’re down to 4%. So she put money in a CD at 5% before the rate cuts. So Awesome. And we will have some of that money to that, our money to capitalize on interest rates throughout the year. Correct. I mean, is that all spent by the end of 26? It has to be ended by Yeah. Spent next year. Correct. And usually federal grants usually retain their interest, but in this instance, American Rescue Plan Act allowed us to keep that interest. So by, yeah, by investing that it’s almost like getting a local receipts,

1:47:55 new local receipt tax. You’re getting a couple hundred grand every year, you know, as long as you cannot spend it, it’s eventually you’re gonna have to spend it all. So it’s good. I think the tre the new treasurer did a really good job. You’re right. Yep. Um, all right, so these last four, we don’t have to spend too much time on municipal light surplus has been that same number since I joined the committee, so I think Alicia has some thoughts about that. Yeah, I’ve asked What is the municipal light Surplus? Um, it’s, uh, a light pilot payment that they, they give us, so we do their, okay. Yeah. So we do do their administrative for them. Uh, it’s interesting because I’ve never seen an increase, I don’t see any type of agreement. I did meet with the light manager who said it was based on personal property,

1:48:42 so he said he believes some new personal property is coming online next year, so I need to meet with him to see if it’s going to increase the allocation that the town is getting. Mm-hmm. Uh, I also looked at our rates and the way the rates are working. So they hadn’t raised rates from 2011 till 23, but it was a, it was a huge increase when they hit that and then they increased it again in 24. And when we did further analysis and looked at the school’s budget, they’re getting hit with these huge demand fees and the demand fees are so high that they’re almost offsetting our pilot that we’re getting from the light department. So it, it, it’s, it’s something we’re really, uh, looking at that we wanna work with the light department to kinda help the town out on that. Yeah. Alicia, is the light department the only payment in lieu of taxes pilot Program? Uh, we have, we have one more small, a very small one.

1:49:28 I think it’s about 12, $12,000. It’s small. Okay.

1:49:34 Um, perpetual Care fund and con com fund are not too material. So I don’t know that we spend any time there. Water sewer harbor as part of that pilot. Um, that’s an, those are indirect costs. So the indirect cost allocation is that for the water, sewer and Harbor general government. So we have a calculation formula that calculates their indirect cost based on legal administrative, my time of staff’s time, keep that as a percentage against them, and then they pay that percentage to us. And that’s completely legal. And that’s, Yep. And that’s also showing no growth. You just made that as sense. Um, for this, just for this exercise, I have a different version that does have growth, But probably not, but it, it’s not a long money. It’s not significant. No.

1:50:20 So then we total up the revenues and then I get rid of kind of that debt and those state assessments that offset one another to, to show you and, and, and just for everybody watching at home that ties things out. The 1 0 5 6 2 1 8 4 8 in the fiscal 20 that’s in the FinCon handbook from last year, it doesn’t include the enterprise funds that also offset each other. I just left those to the side for now. So when you remove that, that kind of gives you the, the revenue projection for the three to four year, three years, uh, um, to fund expenses that are not just offset by one another effectively. And as you can see, the the point is that it’s going up 2.5% and then just south of 2%. Now, some of that drop is the reduction in use of free cash.

1:51:08 So if that policy is gonna be followed, if you’re only, if you’re increasing your, just like the biggest revenue is the property tax, you’re increasing that by like 2.2 or 2.3, but then you’re immediately taking $500,000 off the top. That’s why you’re under two. Mm-hmm. If that makes sense. Yeah. There, there’s other fluctuations up and down that we just went through, but that, those are the big things. Um, but there’s, there’s flexibility there, like we said. All right, so now we’ll get to, we spent time with Alicia on the revenue. We spent time with the departments on, on these other items, um, through liaison meetings and things like that. Salaries is the hardest thing, right? It’s the, it’s the largest expense line. Um, I received a preliminary estimate from Mike at the schools

1:51:54 for the contract that was just signed. As Thatcher knows, there’s two other contracts being negotiated and I think after next year, the, the fire is up as well. So there’s a lot of uncertainty when you forecast salaries and wages. There’s confidential union meetings going on. Um, but when we put our estimates in, based on what we got from the schools, again, it’s probably not perfect what we got from the schools, but it’s probably pretty, pretty good. I know that they had a whole chart when they were doing their negotiations to, to estimate it as they were negotiating. Um, Alicia met with Thatcher and, and these are the total town wide. Key point here is there’s flexibility to address these going up. Right. Um, it’s not as simple as saying, oh,

1:52:42 the salaries are going up higher than the revenue. We need an override. Mm-hmm. Um, we really should be looking and annually at rosters of all departments and making sure it’s right. Um, we’ve talked a lot about, uh, that with the schools, um, the new administration has acknowledged it and I think that’s something that they’re gonna be focused on as we build this year’s budget, next year’s budget and forward. Um, I think there’s probably efficiencies that any town can create on the town side too. Um, again, that’s not up to us to, to determine, but there’s probably something that could be looked at over the next three years, whether that’s revisiting structures of departments. I know you’ve already done some of that over the past few years. So, um, this is a forecast that assumes all funded positions

1:53:27 stay funded for three years. Um, and that’s not necessarily going to be the case, right? There’s flexibility there as well. Um, but it’s, it’s, as you can see, it’s going up by, you know, over $2 million. So it, salaries alone are kind of eating up the, the revenue right away. Right. And that’s, those are the two biggest revenue expenses, uh, line items, property taxes and salaries insurance. We did a deep dive on this, thank you to Molly. Uh, for the, for the draft one. Um, and then us kind of working with her to finalize it. There’s historically been a cushion in that we, we got rid of most of it in fiscal year 25. So that 15.7 number, we, we, we thought maybe like a million was in there for cushion

1:54:13 as we revisited it. Again, with actuals coming out for 24, you only see a 2% jump because we revisited that cushion again. We, but for now, we’ve kept it at about a million. So, said differently. We’re expecting to only spend, you know, 15, 15.9 and, and, uh, 16.9 over the next three years per this. Um, and that’s a 6% increase based on actual fiscal year 24 and the history, um, based on, you know, published reports from EY and others that Alicia pulled for us. Um, and keeping that reserve in there. Um, I’ll let Alicia talk, but there should be some sort of reserve in there because you have mid-year enrollments and things like that. But does it need to be a million? You know, it was at, like 3 million years ago, so, um,

1:55:01 but does it need to be a million? She brought it up earlier, but that’s just geography in a budget, whether it’s there or in a FinCon reserve or whatever you wanna call it. So is that all, did I cover that pretty good? No, I think that’s, yeah. You know, so we’re not, yeah, we’re not just like the revenue, we’re not, we’re not being overly aggressive, but we’re also trying to remove some of the conservativeness that we’ve had in the past as well when we’re doing this exercise. But yeah, We typically fund, you know, year in transfers come almost entirely out of the health insurance line item. So it’s just, you know, how do we want to display it? Do we wanna pull it out separate so that it’s more clear or keep it here? But for a budget of this size, you know, our collective view was about a million dollars. Seems reasonable.

1:55:47 And including, you know, if there’s, this year, I think we’re expecting could be a couple hundred thousand in changes within that, just the health insurance line. So then it’s really, we’re thinking it’s more like 800 or so. When do you, um, when do we, they give us the final rates for the GIC April. April. Okay. It’s real close. Yeah. And it’s, it’s very difficult for communities to budget. It’s a huge spread spread. 12 To 30. Yeah. It’s terrible. And they volatile. And then for them to tell us our Medicare plans are going up 12 to 30%, not tell us which plans. It makes it that much More, well, it’s not just The Medicare isn’t as much as the health insurance. Right. It’s not just the timing when the GIC sets their new rates. So we get that late in the process, and then you start open enrollment where the employees can migrate from plan to plan.

1:56:34 Mm-hmm. And so you have to wait for that to really nail down the actual numbers. Yeah, because they could have kids. They could, I mean, there’s a lot of things that, that change going from a single to a family. Definitely you need some sort of cushion in there. It’s just how much. Right. Okay. So we’ve got that pretty well looked at. Um, pension is really easy. We get a report from parrack and they just tell us. Now, I think there’s flexibility in what you do, but that’s what we used for this exercise. It was just populating the cells. Really, it’s 8.6%. That’s, you know, we’re getting towards a half a million dollars by the end of this. So again, we’re talking about $2 million in revenue and a quarter of it’s going right to pension. So Right. You’re, you’re as,

1:57:20 as you look at these big ticket items, they’re dwindling that increase in revenue annually, absent to anything else that windfalls or things like that. Um, utilities. Molly did another very deep dive there, so thank you. Um, it’s not as big of a line item as, as the others, but it’s a town wide line item that all departments have expenses for. This includes schools as well. Um, and I think the history has suggested about an average 4% increase, some larger increases recently, but on average four. So not too much, but it is a pressure to the revenue. And I’d like to quickly call out, um, clear gov on this because I was able to do a detailed historical analysis going back eight years by taking, by department, by energy types.

1:58:05 So natural gas, electricity, diesel, gas, and then consolidated and, and to be able to find compounded growth rate, you know, by energy type per, you know, as, as you know, across all the departments. And so that’s not something that I ever would’ve been able to do without Yeah. Before that without clear go. So, I mean, it was like, love this stuff on That, on that, that smile on that point. So nice to be able to do that. Now I togged Alicia on my ride home from Boston last night, and we were talking about, you know, projected free cash and things like that, and she’s like, lemme just pull up clear gov. And I’m like, imagine five years ago we’d be looking at like, that email I sent three years ago. Yeah. That Excel file. So kudos to Thatcher and Alicia for getting that implemented. I know it’s been a few years, but, um, it’s only gonna get better as we do

1:58:51 newness and everything like that. So, um, out of district, district tuitions a very challenging line item for the schools. We had Mike, look at this in depth. He has a fresh set of eyes. That all being said, it’s a challenging item to address in a budget because there’s a number of ways it gets paid for. Um, the schools have had some surpluses in recent years and been able to prepay special ed legally, um, to the tune of 800 to a million dollars at times. Um, which is not a bad practice. Right. Um, because it’s such a line item that’s increasing so much. But you’ll see that jump from 25 to 26.

1:59:38 I don’t know that Mike has an estimated prepayment yet for this year. Mm-hmm. So that budget amount for 3.8 last year, that was, they already kind of knew what, they had an estimate for what they prepaid. So that’s the actual cost of, of, of, um, out of district tuition and transportation costs, um, was probably a lot higher than 3.7 from the general fund, if you included the prepayment. Mm-hmm. Um, on top of the prepayments, there’s a circuit breaker account that they carry at a 100% reserve, which is very good best PR financial practice, but there’s flexibility there. The other towns do it at 80%, 50%, 0%. Um, there’s an IDEA fund that

2:00:26 of transportation helps them pay for these transportation costs that every time you have an increase of amount of students that go out of district, the transportation costs are going up just with inflation as well as more students have to be transported. Um, so there’s, I guess my point is this is a real challenge for the town of Marblehead. Um, but it’s not the easiest thing to budget for because there’s a number of ways to address it and there’s a lot of moving pieces. That’s my takeaway for the last three years looking at it. And Molly’s done a pretty good dive on that as well. So, um, it’s a forecast. We got the number from Mike. It, it’s a preliminary forecast that needs to be refined, but it’s definitely an item that will cause us challenges over the next three years, if that makes sense. Could

2:01:12 Why the big, sorry. Why the big jump of 17 plus percent for 26 and then level That up moving forward. ‘cause that 3.7, when they built that budget, they had 800, you were talking, they had the 800. It’s less of a jump. Yeah. So presumably when he builds this year’s budget, if there’s any surplus on other lines, like the salaries we’ve seen the last three years, they will have the opportunity to prepay again. So maybe 4.4 comes down. Um, but you know, as this new contract plays out, I don’t know that that surplus on salaries will continue to exist as the back loaded contract. But I hope everybody’s taking away that this isn’t a perfect science and it’s hard to do. So, um, just want to be as transparent as possible.

2:01:59 And it could very well be that those costs have gone up that much Yes. This year. And or, and they, they have a very detailed way of trying to project it based on, you know, kids they see coming through the pipeline. And so it could very well be that, that that is driving it as well. Sorry, I didn’t mean No, no, Not at all. Not at all. No. Um, I guess I have two questions. You know, number one, do we have a sense of kind of what the state offset is for, you know, for that particular program and kind of how reliable it is? And the next question is, you know, does it, Alicia, in your experience, has there been reserves set asides for, you know, for these particular programs to handle the, the volatility? You know, ‘cause it, there’s a tendency to go up and down and, um, and you’re talking about, and Yeah, I’m talking about, uh, out the strike. So I Would go to Mike To speak to the school.

2:02:47 He’s the expert. I’ll to Mike, I guess. Thank you, Mike. Um, Mike, assistant superintendent of finance and operations for the public schools. Um, it’s a great question. One of the things that we have is we have a circuit breaker reimbursement. It’s a reserve. Um, that really gets us through the volatiles process is when, when we have a student that goes out of district that we weren’t anticipating or hadn’t budgeted for, we usually rely on circuit breaker, um, reimbursement. It’s always a year, a year, a year. So last year’s expenses, we are getting reimbursed for this year. We get four payments for equal payments throughout the year. Okay. That’s right. So we have done historic, I think we built it up two more recently. A full year of reserve. You’re allowed to keep one year in reserve, um, of

2:03:33 that circuit breaker amount money. And I believe it’s about 1.5 million in our claim this year for our reimbursement this year. That’s right. So we’re gonna, you know, our target is always to keep that 1.5. The other option is that, am I not on Start from the beginning? Great. Awesome. The other option is to set up a special education stabilization fund. The, the problem with that is that

2:03:57 we can’t get the funds until town meeting votes it. And if you only have a town meeting in May, it’s the damage is done. Uh, you know, if, if it were to Fail, we have a number in that. I think it’s, If, if the vote it time anywhere to fail to withdraw the money from the stabilization fund, we’re in May. I don’t know what we do. I I, I’m not even sure. So having the circuit breaker is a better alternative, in my opinion. Others more Responsive, right? Yeah. Right. I can, right. We can respond to things in an immediate timeframe and, and I’m not sure that we can even tell a family, I’m sorry. You have to wait for your child to get outplaced until we get to town meeting in May to get money to the additional funds. I, I don’t think this, I don’t think the state would, would appreciate that. That, and we’d probably be in a lot of trouble. Can A stabilization fund be more of a kind of a multi-year type, you know, buffer?

2:04:43 Uh, and I know we’ve, you know, we have set aside some, you know, some outta district funding as a matter of a vote every year. And I think we’ve got probably, what, a half a million in it or So something like that. Yeah. At least two 50, but it might be half a million. Yeah. I mean, I didn’t know. I didn’t even know it existed. And again, I’ve only been here for five Months. Yeah. We haven’t funded it for a Few. It it gets, it gets voted on every, every year. Right. Well, I guess That there’s a, there’s a warrant article for it. We’ve indefinitely postponed it a few years where we haven’t actually funded it or even asked town meeting to do it. Two 50. Is that just a regular reserve? That’s not a stabilization. I think it requires a vote though. It does. Especially Special stabilization would require It is a stabilization, Right? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

2:05:28 I can see why it’s not really practical for the purposes of which you’re, these things are coming up mid-year and It’d be a different story if we had two time. Not that I’m recommending one, but if there were two time meetings a year, a fall in the spring, and you could anticipate that your fall is gonna be a little bit mm-hmm. You know, by fall that you’re gonna have a problem. Uh, and usually by sometime before you know the holidays, you usually know whether you’re gonna have a problem in special education.

2:05:53 The good thing is, is when you have families move in from out of town, um, if they move in prior to April 1st, you have to assume them for the following fiscal year. If they move in after April 1st at any time after April 1st, uh, the former district basically owns them for that entire next fiscal year. So it, it helps districts, you know, the, the idea is you’ve already planned for them and budgeted for them. Yeah. They moved outta your town, but you had already planned for them. It’s not fair to the other town that they’re moving into to, to now scramble to figure out how they’re gonna pay the bill.

2:06:28 Thank you. You’re welcome. Thanks.

2:06:32 Um, trash collection disposal. Um, I was in the hall with Andrew before I came in here, and I joked that he’s been talking about this contract expiring since I joined the FinCon. So if anyone deserves a line in this forecast, it’s Andrew because it’s expiring in fiscal year 27. So Andrew, if you want to just give a quick overview of, um, you know, how you came up with your estimate and, and the contract expiring. So. Sure. Good evening. Andrew Petty, director of Public Health. Uh, so what I did was I reviewed contracts across the state. Um, we looked at everything that’s existing. I chose six of the most comparable communities to Marblehead, looked at their curbside rates. Um, we break it down to cost per household for collection. Uh, then we use our disposal rates.

2:07:18 Um, and then obviously, so we have 8,000 homes and Marblehead, and we just take the per household rate and multiply that out. Um, so, you know, pretty basics, but I was able to capture six, uh, communities very similar to Marblehead average those out. So currently, uh, we’re at $127 approximately per household, uh, for the year to collect at each house for trash and recycling, which is pretty unbelievable. Um, but unfortunately, yeah, it’s gonna jump considerably. Uh, so we’re looking at 2 0 3 and potentially up. Um, so that’s a big jump in cost and stuff like that. What’s, what’s driving the cost? Is it, is it labor? It’s multiple issues that are driving the cost between labor and equipment. Um, fuel, all that stuff.

2:08:04 Insurance is a big one for all these big companies that’s really driving those costs. Um, as far as the waste disposal side, there’s two big pieces that are, that are gonna be driving that cost. Currently, we do not have to pay for the disposal of all our recycling. Uh, we will have to do that in the future. So you’re going from zero cost to dispose up to 109, $119 a ton. We do about 3000 tons a year. And so that’s a large increase for that. Um, so those are the main drivers of everything. Um, so that’s kind of where we are at this point. And That’s built into the current contract too, right? Yep. So the current contract we have, the company that we’re contracting with is disposing of that on their cost, but common contracts don’t get signed like that anymore. So

2:08:50 The, the current contractor is losing approximately $300,000 a year on our contract on The 10 year that’s, that’s Expired, uh, today. Yeah, today. Right. Will the next contract be 10 years as well, or is that a thing of, so Obviously the, the larger the con the, you know, the, the more years you do, the better the rates you get. Um, so you look at our current contract, the increase per year is 2.5%. Uh, when you shorten that down, you’re looking at three to 4% increase per year. Um, it, it also is, you know, gives you a great way to project for the future. I would love to do another 10 year contract. Companies would love to do another 10 year contract. Um, generally we look at, uh, equipment. Uh, so the truck that’s driving around and Marblehead is dedicated to Marblehead. We like those vehicles to last 10 years. Um, so if you, you were paying

2:09:36 for this vehicle under the contract, that’s gonna lock it in for that whole contract, and that’s gonna give you some benefits as well.

2:09:44 Okay. Makes sense. That’s great. Thank you, Andrew. Thank you. Of Course. Thank you. So that is one of the drivers of this second year in this forecast really becoming more challenging than even this year. Um, along with schools contract recently settled. It has some back load to it along with other things that we’ve already been over. Um, so annually there’s tax, uh, or warrant articles that we use a portion of our tax levy to fund. And they’ve come in at about a million. Um, That’s the North Shore Essex Tax. That’s the L four 500,000 right. Storm water capital article. Mm-hmm. And your walls and fences. Okay. So we had to put that in there. Yeah.

2:10:30 Um, that service we already talked about, um, Alicia, we’ll get into it in a minute here, but it, it is offset up top. So it doesn’t really impact a gap in this forecasting. Same thing with state aid, state assessments and then miscellaneous other expenses. That’s everything else. Um, it’s only, I mean, not it’s only, but it’s $8 million. So 2% of that on average is what we saw historically. It could be a little higher, a little lower, but it’s not a huge driver of, we don’t foresee that those expenses being that challenging to predict and, um, be able to fund, it’s not, the increase is about 150,000 per year. 160,000 per year, assuming a 2% increase.

2:11:16 So way down the bottom, you’ll see the amounts in parentheses. Um, again, this is a preliminary forecast that we just went through in very big detail line by line, but the gap in forecasted revenues versus expenses. Mm-hmm. Um, when you pull out the debt service and things that kind of offset one another per this conservative preliminary forecast mm-hmm. Is about $1.9 million. Mm-hmm. But it gets a lot more challenging in 27 and 28. Yeah. And we’ve talked about how we got there. Um, I think when we did this with Steve Polo on a five year, we were kind of like this, these were the years as well. So it wasn’t too shocking to me to see it accelerating like that.

2:12:02 Um, although there were a lot of assumptions in there that have probably changed a little bit since we did this again. Okay. I think it does illustrate sort of the value in doing an exercise like this, because it gives us a chance to see how this plays out, see what the big drivers are. We are a hundred percent sure that this will not be the actual numbers that as they play out, but directionally it, you know, it lets us plan. Mm-hmm. This is really detailed.

2:12:30 Yeah. I guess, uh, I guess before we go into debt service, I love these, these charts. I mean, obviously the, you know, the key driver here, you know, of 73% of the entire budget is related to, you know, to headcount scaling essentially. Right? So it’s gonna be salaries, insurance, and benefits and pensions. So, you know, this is kind of a discussion. I think that it’s kind of long overdue for the town across all the departments. And that is, hey, you know, what have we done historically? Kind of what is, what is kind of a sustainable service level, you know, across all the salaries. And then Okay. You know, given kind of a little historical narrative, I know, and I know you’ve been digging into kind of the, the headcount issue, given the historical narrative of

2:13:18 how we’ve gotten to where we are, how do we compare to our other communities? And, you know, again, I’m not sure how else you kind of have a conversation with the town without kind of positioning yourself, you know, like, like similar to what, uh, Andrew Petty just did. Right. He basically said, I looked, I looked at the communities, it’s a certain rate and you know, this is, this is the basis of my analysis. I think that’s kind of, you know, I think the discussion that the, that the town is probably gonna be looking for as we come up on the, you know, in next 10 meetings. So, and, uh, you know, the, the, the hardest thing to do ever, of course, is to, is to, you know, pass a balance budget, uh, you know, without an override. And that’s usually the acid test. But I think if we do a good job asking for an override and we make sense that marble headers are absolutely willing

2:14:05 to fund it, we just, I don’t think we’ve had that kind of conversation ever. I think we have around, uh, capital expenditures, certainly with the schools, right? If you, you know, you show marble headers, Hey, here’s, here’s the, you know, here’s what we’re gonna get for it. And oh, by the way, the MSB, you know, the m the M-S-B-C-A as a, as a kind of co-investor and kind of a, a vater marble headers are like, yeah, we’re all then and we’ll spend $85 million for $140 million worth of schools. So, you know, we obviously, uh, you know, that’s, again, I know I’m, I’m saying the obvious, but in some ways we have to start thinking for each of the departments what, what headcount looks like. Um, you know, kind of at least, and we may, we may have too few people, we may have too many, you know, but,

2:14:50 but I think the conversation has to be richer and data driven. So, uh, you know, and I think that’s something that, uh, I know Alec has been, well, I would add highlighting, I would add another element to the personnel look is what’s the productivity per person? Right? Well, that’s, That’s what, that’s what real businesses do. Yeah. Right? So if it’s, if, okay, you know, we need, we need to re reduce our costs, and you eliminate people, the other people remaining are less productive because now they’re having to cover more functions. So it’s not necessarily a, you know, one for one, the issue is of all the positions we have and how they do their functions, is there a more

2:15:35 productive, meaning effective way to do it? So I keep talking about, you know, changing from people being processors, let the, let the software process things and let our people manage and the people bring higher value per person and, and make it worthwhile. So there’s, there’s another element to the calculation of people. Well, I think, sorry. We alright. You alright? Well, I think, I think at the table, Thatcher, this has been the essence of your strategic plan vis-a-vis the town is to get the resource management of the town squared away. So those are the force multipliers that really make the headcount more productive.

2:16:23 So in theory, you know, you’re investing heavily on upgrading jobs, making it, making people more productive, happier, by the way, you know, and, and si you know, and simultaneously, but you have to make an investment on the, you know, the technology side and things like that. So mm-hmm. Yeah. Okay. No, I just, uh, just, it’s pretty clear that we just have really three big drivers. And so that’s gonna, I think, necessitate a conversation, you know, prior to town meeting. Yeah. And, and like, you know, that was saying, you, you know, you get to a point where, you know, they could become unproductive. I mean, I think of, uh, our last meeting with Amy Mish, I think was an amazing thing that she tried to, you know, move these people around and say, how can I get the most outta these people by losing people? But you can only get so much efficiency till you get to the point where you can’t get any

2:17:09 more efficient, you know? And like, and like you say, now you’re gonna push these people potentially out because now they’re overtaxed and they just, you know, come on, I, you know, I’m doing my job and now I gotta do two other people’s jobs. Well, that’s, that’s the balance. Get to that point. And like, Andrew, again, we’re not in the board of health, but, you know, in addition to, you know, this, the board of health is gonna have to even potentially, you know, again, get creative. And I remember a time when Marblehead had its own trash trucks driving around and we outsourced them. So the communities you looked at, I’m assuming were all people that outsourced, but what about communities that have an in-house? And is that something a more efficient way, or do we need to outsource? So I mean, that’s what we need to also do is, is again, get more creative to go back to say, we’ve squeezed, we’ve done the analysis, and this is why we need the money we get. Because things cost more than they did before.

2:17:55 And that’s the other reason why I wanted you to speak to the, um, you know, to the free cash issue, is because that was what helped us kick down the road for so many years. And I think people just need to keep hearing that over and over again. That, that prevented us for so many years. But now we’ve hit that wall and we hit that wall years ago, and it’s, and it’s, and it’s a shame that now we have to, you know, we’ve gone from a kind of a subsidized housing rate to a real market, you know, rate. And that’s, and that’s a tough pill for anybody here to swallow. But we need to show that evidence and that we’re doing the best we can as stewards of this Thing. Well, yeah. Yeah. I mean, I, yeah, I don’t, you know, I wouldn’t present free cash as kind of the thing that made it all possible for us. I mean, right. Because there’s a lot of discipline around kind of keeping budgets pretty tight, and there’s a careful balance between how much we, you know, the town kept versus what we kind of shunted over to the,

2:18:43 you know, to the schools, right. Because of ‘cause of their needs. And, you know, frankly, their spend per student was relatively low back, you know, 10 years ago. But that’s been, that’s changed dramatically since that time. But having said that, I mean, I think there had, there was some discipline, um, it wasn’t as transparent or as efficient, that’s for sure. So, you know, I think it was a, like this environment of extreme conservatism. And we’ve also paid for that because we didn’t invest in technology, right. We didn’t do this stuff. So it was extreme conservatism and, and you know, and, you know, and it, and it kind of rung us, well, you know, we hit three speed bumps, right? We had covid, we had people leave mm-hmm. And we had, you know, uh, a finance department that, that ended up, you know, having, facing some difficulties. So we had a real issue right after Covid.

2:19:30 But anyway, can Just before we move on from this, the few things that jump out at me is that minus 1.85 projected, I know this is preliminary. So the question is how is that, how do we look at making that up before the next meeting or where we move forward? You know, is that free cash? Is that working on this more? ‘cause that’s, I mean, that’s, that’s showing that we need money. Mm-hmm. Correct. And then the big, the big jump is, is going forward. Like this is Mason, C 27, 28, like that, those are significant numbers, you know, from 26 to 27 and 28 and what everyone just said, I think, and we said this in August and, and I’ll continue to say it again when I see even this, if this was a perfect science and you see this crazy three year deficit of 14 million,

2:20:17 I don’t think the solution is just to go for an override. There’s a, a number of ways you have to address that challenge. Hopefully it’s conservative and hopefully it’s lesser than that. Um, I’ve never been a part of, you know, a very detailed override campaign, but I have to imagine if you go for one earlier, you could probably ask for less than if you wait until you like absolutely need it, right? Because there’s investment ways and, and things like that. So, um, I don’t know what the solution is. Um, I do see some flexibility in decision making in 26, but like Dan just said, I think That’s a big Jump. We get tight in 27, 28 because of a number of things that we discussed tonight. Um, so, Well, I think it’s also, we’ve talked about this too. It’s, it’s gonna be part on at some point in override and part on fixing it more on this side where we can,

2:21:06 it’s a, it’s a combination between yes, Marblehead as a government or our, our boards and committees working to, to get those efficiencies, transparencies, whatever you want to, but also asking the assistance participate, and I think we need to do it together. Yeah. Yep. I think we have to make the case, right? Mm-hmm. I think it’s up to, you know, ultimately the, you know, the two key silos on the, you know, town administrator side and on the school side. So the two discretionary components of the, of the budget. And you have to understand, I think people have to understand before they’re gonna vote for an override, I’m convinced they need to understand that we’ve really tried pretty hard to kind of, you know, get into a, get into a right size situation. I do believe, I don’t know if I mentioned this last time, but Alicia, you’ve had early talks of engagements with

2:21:52 A CPA that mm-hmm. Is a government in Massachusetts specialist who advises towns on stuff like this too. Interesting. So, um, it’s a limited scope because we’re not asking him to do everything from scratch. We’ve done a lot of work. Yeah. Um, but I think, like, you know, when we went for the roads, we had a road specialist come in and sign off on it, I think that helps with credibility. Um, What would they advise on if they they’re moving forward or looking at these numbers? Looking at our numbers. Okay. For three years. For three years. Okay. I mean, he, he might, he wanted to go out further, but I think our feedback is, I them in our feedback from our citizens is let’s look at three years. Well, I mean, three years is enough to look at Yeah. And beyond that is almost a little overwhelming Right. In some ways. So I think it’ll be good to have, you know,

2:22:37 an independent, not that fin comm’s not independent, but another independent specialist that does this work. Absolutely. Yeah. Advises towns in Massachusetts on both override, um, analysis or forecasting analysis as well as, you know, helping them with their audits and stuff. Right. Um, just, Alicia has a lot of work, work on her plate as is. She’s been doing a really good job, but it’s only so many hours in the day. Hundred percent. We all have our own jobs. That guy actually does that for a and she’s using every one of ‘em. That’s the problem. Yeah. I’m pretty good. When would we ideally if, uh, to like retain the specialist to kind of help us structure something to present, if that’s what we do? Yep. Um, when would we need to kind of bring that person in To I would work with the town administrator on

2:23:23 that probably in the beginning of January. Yep. And how long do they spend? How long do they, Like how long will they spend to give us a report back? Is this a month, two month? They’ve been working with me all along. Okay. So we could, that would be Great. Yeah. They’ve been working on building a report, so we we’re meeting weekly. So you’re saying we might have a report from them or? Possibly, but I’d like to Wait. Okay. Yes. No, I, I’m trying to Discuss that with the town administrator. Well before, let’s back up. Yeah. Well before town meeting. Yes. Okay. Thank you. So does this person kind of specialize in, uh, you know, kind of, you know, restructuring scenarios? Yes. That basically look at the whole pan, you know, from basically no override scenario to, you know, x, y, Z scenario, uh, you know, override scenario As a directive I get every year from Thatchers, I have

2:24:09 to build a budget as if there was no Override. That’s a given. We just took It off of you. The fact then you Have yes and yes. So the person will look into different scenarios and, and your board’s been amazing looking and, and asking questions and asking questions of, you know, what’s going on with the debt, what’s going on with expenses, what’s going on with the budget. And I take all that feedback. I work with the town administrator and we try to come up with the best financial solutions to address your concerns. You guys have been amazing. Mm-hmm. At least for me recently and responding to these questions and it’s been helping to build those and taking input. It’s, it’s been a great back and forth. I’m sure we’ve all been doing that percent.

2:24:54 So I’ve never had a finance committee work so closely and help me so much where, I mean, the amount of time and research they have spent and the hours coming in and meeting with me, I can’t thank them enough. Yeah. This would’ve been a big undertaking if I had to do it all alone. Plus everything else I have. So I can’t thank Alec and Molly not for helping with this. Thank you guys. That’s Problem’s. A debt Service. Yeah. Debt service. We’re still going.

2:25:24 I am getting, was just getting going. This is exciting. The less controversial part though. This is, this is pretty good. Yeah. So here is, um, a graph of our fiscal, uh, debt service all the way out to 2044 as it currently is without showing any authorized debt. Just what we’ve actually borrowed. So with the high school debt falling off, that’s about one 1 million 8 75 9 34, if that had fallen in fiscal year 25 instead of 26. So I had to use this tax rate data that would’ve reduced the rate by 20 cents. So it would’ve went from 9 0 5 to 8 85, which is significant. Mm-hmm. So our, I then decided to look at our upcoming authorizations that we have to borrow. So in May I did do a short term bond

2:26:10 anticipation note mm-hmm. For 2.3 million, I borrowed a million for the Abbott Public Library. I borrowed a million for a road and sidewalk repair and I borrowed 312,000 for IT equipment and software upgrades. And then the Fed cut the rates in the fall and we’re anticipating two more rates in 2025. So the town has the falling outstanding amounts to borrow 9,980,000 in road and sidewalk. That doesn’t include the 1 million I already borrowed. Okay. So if you included that, that would be 8,000,009 80 that we can borrow over 15 years, 480,000 from Marriott alley building roof replacement. I don’t anticipate doing that soon, but I have that for 30 years if, when we do go out that way. And that is included in this debt service. Uh, objection.

2:26:57 Uh, not in that one. This Is current. This, this is, this is just our authorized. I have not borrowed these. Got it, got it, got it, got it, got It, got it. So 130,598 is at Franklin Street Fire Station. Roof and gutters. I’ve spoken to the chief and he actually needs the money for windows and gutters. So I will be reprogramming that money at maytown meeting from roof to windows and gutters. Uh, 1 million 619 6 27 for the brown schools. So we’re awaiting that final MSBA closeout. Mm-hmm. And when they do that, they tell us what’s eligible and ineligible. So we assume everything is eligible. If everything then came back ineligible, we’d have to borrow that total 1.69627. So that’s a worst case scenario. That’s a worst case scenario. Best

2:27:42 case scenario zero. Yeah. Yep. On the exchange best case scenario, this is a surplus. And I can actually, as we get down to the borrowing, the estimating 7.4 million for the school roof, hvac, um, replacement, I could reprogram that 1.6 down there to help reduce that borrowing. And the reason for that ask is because if they were to take the HVAC units off and do the new roof, it would void their warranty, which would make any sense. All right. Whatsoever, um, um, to do, and they’re having, that’s on Top of the 4 million that they have that’s on top of the 4 million that they have? Yes. That’s on top of the 5.6, correct. On top of five six. Okay. Gotcha. Um, so right now it’s more likely I’m gonna do a short term ban again.

2:28:28 Mm-hmm. Because I know there’s gonna be two rate cuts. So I don’t wanna bond long term before the rate cuts, um, so that we can get the best long term rate for the rate payers. And so the next slide is showing if we added in everything that’s outstanding into our debt service, assuming debt service begins in the year 2027, it would bring our debt service up. But no, it still would not go back up to the 11 million that was there before.

2:29:00 So I’m estimating 10.4, 10.3, 10.2, and then the $9 million decline. And instead of it ending in 2044, it would go out to 2056 because this would be 30 year, some of these are 30 year borrowings. Uh, this is just an estimate and I used, uh, 2% knowing that the first we had five, then they cut it to four. And if they do two more re cutts, I’m saying two. So this estimate model similar to what we just did with the forecast only for further years, like very difficult exercise to do, you could have a lot of debt exclusion overrides that aren’t considered here between 2034 and 2044. Right. So, So Alicia, if I understand this graph right mm-hmm. Even if you borrowed all that money on the previous page Correct. And added that to our debt service. Correct.

2:29:46 We would still be at a lower level than where we are today. Correct. Okay. So in other, that’s flexible. So in other words, that 20 cents you talked about Yes, mm-hmm. Would be, some of it would be added back, but we’re not going from a debt service coverage any higher, even with everything that’s been authorized. And you went a hundred percent correct. Great. And when you talk about that Actually including, sorry, but that’s actually, I said what’s approved, but that actually includes even if you added in the money for the schools. Correct. Even with the 7.4, Even if we passed another debt exclusion in May and added that 7.4, we would still be in better shape than we are today. Yeah. And I’m hopefully anticipating that 1.6 I can reprogram back towards That. Yeah. Which would make this graph even better. Yes. It

2:30:32 Gets back to that whole, once we see where free cash comes in, I mean, there’s flexibility, right? You don’t have to ask for 7.4, you could ask for 6.4 or six or whatever it is. So, and This is a great chart that is gonna help us or taxpayers understand what we’re gonna be asking for. And if we go for not override, the effect of debt doesn’t work, In an ideal world, we’d see that fall off and then stay falling off. So then if you ask for an override, it’s lessening the burden of the override. But yeah. You know, there’s capital needs of the House, but it’s not adding onto it is point.

2:31:06 That’s, thank you. That’s, that’s an amazing, Well, I mean, you know, this is obviously, I think the shape of this curve is really gonna be driven by our, you know, our capital planning process, right. At the end of the day. So, you know, I think there’s obviously, you know, the, the next big effort, the next big push is gonna be around municipal buildings, right? And kind of getting that, repairing these very, very fully depreciated assets, you know, so that, but it is interesting that, uh, you know, that, that it’s flatlined and I would almost, you know, it depends what you, you know, what you think debt capacity, what, what level it should be at, right? I mean, I think traditionally we’ve looked at, we’ve looked at 10 to 12%, you know, basically of the levy or the, or the, or the budget. Um, and that, you know, in, in theory we could keep it up at a percentage level and,

2:31:52 and kind of sustain that. So that would imply that this, you know, this curve could actually, you could actually go up, but, uh, you know, that is fully dependent on kind of the capital expenditure plan, But you can also look at further out and where you can put that is a great thing as well by, well, That’s right, a hundred percent. Right. So, so this debt service decline represents a significant, uh, you know, kind of outstanding bond funding, you know, for projects that we need opportunity that we need to get done. The, the largest borrowings, I don’t have all the history, but are, are the schools, right? And you know, obviously there’s maintenance of the schools, we’re talking about roof, but you’re not, you’re presumably not doing another one of those for a long, long time. Right. So there’s, yeah. What are the other big, big items? You know, I mean,

2:32:38 Our oldest school now is 20 years old, right? Well, the Mary Alley, you know, or, or it’s alternative Mary Alley would be, yeah. Mary Alley would be a challenge, right? PW Shower gardens DW has been done. Mary Alley and DPW facility I are the biggest challenges I see. Yeah, yeah. On the town side. But ideally we build a facility capital plan that looks out 50 years and identifies all of our major facilities in a, puts ‘em on a schedule, right. Which You can overlay with this, right? And so Mary Alley and DPW are the most urgent, but right behind them, we need to look at the fire station, we need to look at the police station. You know, there’s the, the, the difference,

2:33:24 Right? And really managing that debt service so that it’s a reasonably, it’s a reasonable and consistent level, you know, as a, Yeah. The goal is that you, you, you do an investment in a facility and you put the debt service in place as that debt service is maturing you, you add on to the next one. And so you, you level off as best you can. The, the financial commitment, You sequence it. So it’s Exactly. So it’s a steady debt service. Yeah. Right. That’s The goal. But this also ties back in the conversation you had before about what to do with free cash. Like you can try to level or lower this if you do a capital Exactly. Reserve. So it’s, it all ties in together to finish. Yeah. Because previous years we’ve done a lot of debt exclusions. So when I was meeting with Cap, um, Thatcher last year on the budget, he wanted to use, uh,

2:34:11 free cash for capital’s one time cost versus asking for money from the taxpayers. So we wanted to, you know, start doing that trend more than, So in effect, we saved, we saved the tax, the, the future taxpayers a million dollars. I mean the, the past, ‘cause we collected it in the past, but that’s the idea that we’ll have options for capital between our reserves or debt service. And so we can manage the two levels back and forth if we’re, if we do the job right. Would it make sense to ever do, to put some of the free cash into the a capital maintenance, A capital stabilization? Yes. That’s What you’re saying? Yeah.

2:34:57 Yep. Because then you’re not, then you can’t, then you’re taking it out of using it for the operating budget so you’re not deferring maintenance for your operational needs. Yeah. And the town decide side, the citizens, because that has to be voted to town meeting. So some of that, And presumably it can be invested and grow, it Can be invested grow As well, right, exactly. Like, oh, we need a new elevator. So Right. Think of it as a series of buckets. Yeah. You fill the first one up to a certain level and then that overflows into the next bucket and when that hits its level to the next, so you define what the buckets are for. Yeah. You’re using free cash for capital and no longer the budget you may be in an override situation. Right. So it’s like, its a balancing act. It feels like a poor over will. It just, but that’s actually, I think as Molly recited the dors

2:35:43 recommendation, that’s what you’re supposed to do. Well, you know, You know, part, you know, part of this kind of old discipline Yeah. That the town practiced was to really keep capital expenditures tied to debt exclusion overrides, right? So you basically had kind of that clear relationship between how you’re funding and look and, and in one and 2% interest rate environments, that made a ton of sense. It’s, you know, kind of, kind of a no brainer, right? Yeah. So, um, yeah. I mean I think that’s been, you know, so, so you’re not confusing it with either operating or another slush fund. You’re basically saying to the people of Mar ed, ed, look, you know, this is, this is the debt exclusion is gonna fund the whole thing and you’re gonna pay for it over 30 years. I think that’s a, you know, that’s an easy trade, I think for people to make. And

2:36:29 That also helps with, um, marble head’s, um, bond rating. The bond rating agencies really favor Marblehead because we passed that exclusion showing that we’re very serious about funding our debt instead of just leaving it within the budget saying, oh, cut stuff outta the budget to fund your debt service. So that’s, that’s really Good. That’s pretty huge. Yeah. And the, the, the negative impacts of loaning that upon pretty significant interest that we would have to pay, I think is, you mentioned that a lot, but a lot people don’t understand that dropping one level or two levels is, is a big impact. It’s huge. Not only capacity, but ability to pay it. Yeah. It was interesting. I did an exercise just based on 10 basis points and if we had a huge borrowing, I’m just saying 50 or 60 million, 10 basis points, point 10% of 1%, it’s 1.5 million extra interest costs.

2:37:16 That’s crazy. But you know, the thing is though, is that when you, when you do the debt exclusion and pass it at town meeting, everybody’s buying into the $300 or whatever it is, right? So that’s something that gets baked into the levee and goes forward and people, and you just kind of, okay, that’s done and you’re not, you’re taking it out of, you know, competing with other, you know, with other uses of cash. And I think that’s another reason why you haven’t had to do an override as well, is a lot of communities have the debt within and you have your capital outside. So it gives more capacity to help with the budget if you don’t have the debt in inside. Yeah, that’s Right. It really is it that, that was a good move early on. Yeah.

2:37:59 Um, If I could also, one other thing that we’ve been discussing as we’re talking about the debt overrides and um, just overrides in general is, um, the senior tax relief programs in town. Mm-hmm. We, um, if you remember last, uh, town meeting, Alicia increased some of our programs and they are consistent and we’re, we’re confirming they’re maxing out, they’re maxed out. These are programs reimbursed by the state. But, um, there are a number of towns in Massachusetts, quite a few that have incremental, they have programs for seniors on top of what the state offers. A lot of those piggyback on the senior circuit breaker program, which helps seniors whose property taxes exceed 10% of their income. And so it’s something that we’ve been discussing. Um, we’ve met with the assessor as well,

2:38:47 just to kind of get a sense. He came from Hamilton, which had a similar program in place and um, it’s just something that we’ve been sort of investigating and wanted to put on the radar as something that, um, we think would make sense for a town like Marble Marblehead. So Yeah, It’d be great to be a leader in that for sure. With our, with our aging population. Yeah, for sure. That’s, it all ties in. That’s great. Thank you. Good job guys. This is excellent. Yeah, this is really appreciate it. Thank you so much for your, for your effort. See, See you next week.

2:39:28 Hey Alec. Alec, Welcome. Alright. Left you hanging. Of course. Thank you. Thank Appreciate Thanks everyone. Thank you. Thank you. Yes. You, so we’ll just, we’re just gonna do the lost piece and we’ll do everything else. Another meeting. Yeah. They going above, above and down.

2:39:51 Okay. Um, we’ll move on to, uh, some year end update on our ARPA funds from, um, Alicia and Thatcher. We have in here a memo, um, as well detailed memo on kind of some closeout, uh, items. So I’ll just start and then, and Alicia will, will go into it. So arpa overall, we’re, we’re by the end of the year, we have to commit all of the opera dollars. Um, we were pushing hard to have a completed comprehensive list and then have contracts and everything in place.

2:40:37 Um, it’s still a work in progress, so, um, we’re obviously gonna need another meeting at some point before the end of this calendar year to nail down that list and, and have final authorization. But there, there was so many projects by so many departments that required so much documentation to be in place, confirmed, signed off, agreed to. Um, and then on top of, you know, Alicia’s workload to get this financial plan completed. So, so what we’re gonna do for tonight is just cover the, um, what was the title of these funds? The revenue loss, revenue loss Funds. Mm-hmm.

2:41:24 So if you recall, we do the time back machine on the APA process, there was a formula applied that allowed municipalities to calculate their revenue losses and allocate that dollar amount of APA funds to be allocated for that purpose. Um, and so

2:41:48 there was 500 some 1000. Alicia has 584,000. Yep. And then we had to decide how do we best use those funds? ‘cause for one, it was determined we can’t just leave it in the general fund and have it roll over to free cash. The feds said that’s not allowed. Yep. So we have to expend it. So we, you know, we, we applied some basic rules. Mm-hmm. So it’s primarily for other projects that were already authorized, expended, or in some cases absolute, um, urgent requirements that there was no other funding source or the timeline to get funding would exceed the funds. So what we have here is sort of the final list of

2:42:35 how we’ve allocated those funds. We, we received further guidance from the feds that we, we have to have a vote to authorize. Okay. And so that’s why we’re here. Whereas when the process started, there was, uh, not clarity as to whether that requirement existed. We didn’t know that that requirement existed or it probably didn’t exist at that time. I don’t think it did. And there were updated guidance from the feds on, on doing this. So, so that’s the context. So the big, the big picture is we have some more projects to come in. We have a whole bunch of contracts to be voted and approved. Um, we just weren’t ready to have it itemized to the final dollar.

2:43:21 So we’re gonna, we’re gonna come back on that piece, but take care of this piece. So if I understand the rest of the ARPA outside of this will be done at another meeting Yes. Before the End of the year. Before December 31st. Right Now, that remaining balance, Well, it was before we got into the closeout exercise, it was about 500 some more thousand dollars For this, but No, no. Over and above. Over. And so the balance, so right, so the votes leading up to the votes taken by the board of allocating all the opera funds. As of the last vote of the board, it was about a 500 some $1,000 balance. Mm-hmm. Okay. And so what we’ve had to do is allocate those last 500,000 so

2:44:08 that we don’t leave any money on the table. And that’s what we have to bring back here. As well as some of the APA funds that were already already allocated being sort of reallocated as, as we’ve talked about, there were some projects that we had allocated opera funds for, but the ability to contract those and do those within the deadline of apa, we, we determined we were not gonna be able to accomplish that. So we’re gonna shift the funds to another part of a project that we know we can get done in the timeframe for opera. And the deadline is the end of this year for contracts signed, correct? Right. Okay. So We to do a deep dive because even if you awarded some Yeah. So you wouldn’t have the time. Marblehead is very good about trying to bring it under.

2:44:55 So there’s quite a few that came under. So we have to reprogram that money ‘cause we don’t want to just leave it there because even though we allocated it, they’re not gonna spend that or their contract came under. We have to, it takes time to, We wait for more bids to come back for some of these other ones. Is that, is that the time? Yeah, There’s some, still some bids coming out. We had enough Meeting meetings to do. Well, We’ll just schedule something. We’ll just schedule just for this. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. So, so an example of reallocation is the, the lead mill portion of the trail. Mm-hmm. We had allocated money for the, the bridge part. Then it was determined the timeframe for the permitting process of that project exceeded the timeline of the opera funding. So, or reallocating those funds to another portion

2:45:41 of the other portions of the rail trail, and then we’ll get other funding to come in and, and do the mil yards. So it wasn’t a simple exercise. No, no, No. Nothing Is The goal that crunch time like this. Yeah. Right. The goal, I would say the, the goal that overtook everything was we’re not leaving a dollar on the table to turn back to the feds. That was the overriding goal. So do you want us to vote this list here? Yes. Okay. Yeah. So wanna go through it? Felicia can. Sure. Okay. So, um, we gave 202,890 to the schools for School Capital project shortfall. We used 1000 762 32 for the Hobbes Garage painting $20,003 and 5 cents to partially cover the Mary Alley HVAC Design

2:46:30 School, ELA curriculum a hundred twenty six eighteen upgrade traffic light sensors by the police department, 14,000 refurbished fire engine three for the fire department was 5,800 Hobbes. Roof repair was 3,800. A buildings assessment was done for 20,600. Codification of bylaws for 15,000 for the town clerk website redesign implementation. That was me for us to get a new, uh, website, 13,750, uh, Colin Center, municipal Charter technical assistance, 25,000, a consultant for the Muni implementation for the schools in town. 33 562 50 Ocos repair, $360 and 96 cents. Hobbs House painting 3,426 and 23 cents.

2:47:20 Regulatory support for CZM Harbor Shipyards, project 9,600. They, their signing of that contract is in the works right now. State Street restrooms, heat pump, 13,000 partial covering of the Health and Building inspection vehicles. 4,912, uh, Glover School, HVAC Capital Project, 60,000, uh, school purchase of truck for snow removal, 32,600 1691, police emergency generator, 35,000 937 50 Village School shed repair. 7,785 Mental Health Task force website, $561 25 cents. Mini splits for weatherized document storage, $3,450,

2:48:08 Building department renovations, $7,900. Police department tank removal, 20,333 and 60 cents. Assessor’s office renovations, $14,455 in school, two-way radios, 13,000 509 50, which is 5 84 1 42 with 54% going to the schools and 46% going to the town. Okay. Thank you. Can I, uh, follow up? Of course. Yeah. Yeah. What, what is the, uh, the capital project shortfall? Is that, is that a lump sum? That, So there were several projects that the schools identified as being short, and then, as you know, they had a lot of turnover. Mm-hmm. So I don’t know if they’re going to use it all for those demonstrated or for, as we’ve known, they actually have another one

2:48:54 that they’ve a shortfall on. So we did give it to them for capital and we’re letting the new, uh, school finance director, uh, Allocate, allocate allocated, basically. Yes. Okay. Okay. But at this point, they should know if they have to have the contracts signed. Yeah. Right. Yes. So he’s working on that right now. They’re, they’re gonna make sure I get copies of all the contracts. Yeah. Turnover and admin, administrative staff caused a bit of a scramble now because Okay. To, to get the commitments in place. Yeah. Okay. Any other questions? Okay. Um, a motion to approve the funding of, uh, the projects as identified in our packet

2:49:39 and, uh, read by our finance director under the revenue loss arpa. Money Shall move. Second. All in favor? Great. Okay. Thank you so much. Thank you, Alicia. Good work. Appreciate it. Good Night. This is probably will be the earliest. You’ve gone home in a long time. Yes. Go Before we ask you to say,

2:50:04 Okay. Next, we have our annual license renewals for all the businesses in town. And I, um, they’re here presented in our packet. I’m not gonna read through all of them, um, but we need a motion to renew all 2025 licenses for businesses in the town of Marblehead is posted and attached here in the select board meeting packet, subject to the following, all taxes and fees to the town being paid in receipt of all applicable departmental approvals, approval from the Commonwealth’s Department of Public Safety for Sunday Entertainment, a valid CER certification of inspection for 2024 through 2025. A certificate of occupancy as appropriate, and compliance with chapter 3 0 4 of the Acts of 2004. So moved Second. Okay. So, poll vote Ms. Singer In favor, Mr. Murray? In favor, Mr. Grader? In favor, Mr. Fox? In favor, Ms. Nunan

2:50:52 In favor. Okay. And now we are on to our consent agenda items. Um, does anybody, uh, this is, so we have, um, on here, let’s see. Oh, the minutes, um, are only ready for our meeting of November 13th, 2024 at six o’clock. That meeting, um, licensing for the New Year’s Eve, extended business hours for the restaurants, um, surplus equipment to declare, um, Copier, A copier surplus lease agreements for the private drain connection to the town drainage in our packet. Um, at 1 24 Front Street, 27 Prince Street and 2 57 Washington Street, black Cat 10 20 miler. That’s the fitness on March 23rd, 2025.

2:51:39 Let’s go. And, um, Abbott Hall’s, uh, the request from the task force against discrimination to use Abbott Hall for Remembrance Day on January 31st, 2025. Um, okay. So can I have a motion, um, to a, uh, accept, I’m sorry to approve all of the consent agenda items. I move Second. All in favor? Great. Myself. Uh, okay. And now we have some votes under contracts. Um, did any, uh, the sidewalk repair and 88 improvements, that was a big ticket one. Mm-hmm. Um, and is Thatcher is anything you wanted to, uh,

2:52:28 to Yeah, for us under here, Just quickly, the, uh, the swamps car branch crossing project, that’s out of the Opera rail trail allocation, and that’s what I just spoke about. Some of the reallocation of funds. Yep. Um, the, the, um, the, the flail mow mower. The trackless mower that’s coming out of the rail trail funds, that is a brush mower that’s gonna be dedicated to maintaining the rail trail and keeping back all the brush and growth. Yep. So that determin would be the most efficient way for us to, to, to maintain those trails. Um, also the, the Elm Street who will own A DPW or, uh, uh, yes. Okay. I think that’s Amy’s, um, um,

2:53:15 same Elm Street Park, uh, improvements. That’s the Gary School playground given, um, allocation to them, additional allocation to keep that project going. It’s a live active project, so we want to get that over the finish line for the scope of work that, that’s been discussed at that That’s all our pro as Well. Yeah, that’s right. Um, opera for the Hobbs House, windows and Porch Project, um, foster architect. So that’s to do design work that, that building has like 72 windows that are all needing replacement. So this will provide the design work and then the actual project will probably include in the capital improvement plan when we go to town meeting. Okay. To find it. But, we’ll, we’ll have pricing

2:54:02 and everything by the time we, we do that, uh, sidewalk repairs. That’s out of Article 11. Um, but it, uh, so that’s to make it basically kind of a unit price based on the number of, of a DA improvement sidewalks at a number of intersections to make us compliant. It, it’s for me as the a DA coordinator here and in other communities, it’s pain to see a sidewalk, crosswalks and a curb. It should be a ramp with a tactile plates and everything should blend together and be pointed in the right direction. So this contract is to make us more compliant in that, that regard.

2:54:50 Um, and then the McKay Plumbing Heating Heater for State Street. Um, that’s to get the State Street, um, bathroom to have the ability to be open year round, which I know some neighbors are anxious on that. Along with the heat pump, Right? Yeah. Along with the heat pump. So there’s, there’s a bunch of things that have to be done to make that possible, and this is one of those steps. Okay. All right. Good stuff. Um, so, um, can I have a motion to improve the following consent add agenda agenda items? Um, so Raphael Construction Corp. Swamp Scott Mass for Swamp Scott Branch Crossing project CN Wood and, and Verron LLC for a boom, flail mower,

2:55:37 the vi trackless MT seven, Rafael Construction Corp. Swamps got masks for the Elm Street Park improvement project. Foster architecture for the Hobbs house, windows and Porch Project. Richard D’Ambrosio incorporated Weymouth for the 24, um, to 2024 sidewalk repair and a DA improvements. And McKay Plumbing and Heating, uh, for the heater for State Street matter, If theres point of motion. Yeah, I think, Your Honor. Oh yeah, but there’s no, there’s no dollar value attached to it. Which one? Bills? It’s just a contract I think you to during Oh, okay. Oh, and Bill’s Auto, clinic of sale and mass. Yeah. Got it. I just, I thought that might have been a, like a mistake. Shall moved second. A all in favor. Okay. Um,

2:56:23 So this next one, no action because we were expecting bids due today. We had a very good price estimate and, uh, at deadline we bid wasn’t submitted, so we’re gonna have to repost it. Um, and this is to repair, uh, the elevators here at Abbott Hall. It’s the repairs are to meet a compliance, a state compliance issue. And if we don’t have it repaired by a certain date, which is coming up soon, basically we’d have to close the building for public access because we would not have access accessibility in this building. We Had 90 days.

2:57:09 And is that money, ARPA Money? Yes. So that’s gonna be tied? Yes. Okay. So we’ll postpone on that And It is what it is. Yep. Yeah. Um, We have a one day liquor license. Uh, I need a motion to approve the request from Temple Emanuel for one day liquor license for February 5th, 2020 5, 6 30 to 9:00 PM at 3 93 Atlantic Ave. Subject to the falling conditions delivery of and receipt by the licensing authority of the required fee of $50, delivery of and receipt by the licensing authority of proof. The alcohol will be purchased from an authorized source, proof that the applicant can receive property delivery, provide proper storage and disposal of all alcoholic beverages purchased, all in accordance with the requirements of general law. Chapter 1 38, alcohol will be purchased from Beachmont Liquors. Shall

2:57:55 Move? Second. Mr. Murray? In favor, Mr. Grader? In favor, Mr. Fox? In favor, Ms. Singer? In favor, Ms. Newan In favor. Okay. And then, um, we have, um, in our, for the record, a, um, uh, email from Theresa Collins to us regarding the third annual Wreaths Across America Day ceremony in Marblehead on Saturday, December 14th at noon at the Veterans Lot in Waterside Cemetery. Um, and each year veterans from each branch of service are invited to bring forward and present a wreath on behalf of their branch of service. This year, we will be featuring a lineup of all female veterans. Each has an amazing resume of service of our nation and I’m truly looking forward

2:58:41 to introducing them to our town. I’ve also enlisted Rabbi Jen Mangold to present the P-O-W-M-I-A Reef. And our state rep, Jenny Armini, will be reading the Proclamation issued by Governor Healy. An open invitation is extended to the entire board, as well as all townspeople to undertake to come and observe our ceremony and assist in the laying of wreaths upon veterans graves as we undertake our mission to remember the fallen, honor their service, and teach the value of freedom. Hope you can join us, um, from Amy Gilland and Theresa Collins. And what time is it at? No, it’s A great around. Okay. Martin at noon. Okay.

2:59:19 And, um, that brings us to, um, towards the end of our meeting, we have select board announcements. Does anybody have any announcements they’d like to make? No. Not from me. Madam Chair? Nope. Okay. Um, so we’ll just have to have another follow up meeting before the holidays and we can, we’ll figure that out after when you guys get it. Ready. Ready. You probably don’t know yet when you wanna do that, because you don’t have the information you need. Yeah, we just mostly done. Yep. We’re gonna scramble, we gotta figure out Okay. Like the elevator. So, great. Maybe Wednesday the 25th. I don’t know. Perfect. Just have to, I’ll be doing that remotely. Yeah. 23rd with the end.

3:00:05 Um, alright. So can I have a motion to adjourn? So Moved. Second. All in favor? Great. Thank.