Select Board: March 26, 2025

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.

0:13 That we don’t allow all these big signs to be brought into the building. It’s very annoying to be standing there and having these signs being going back and forth. I, I don’t mind listening to people pluses and minuses, what way they wanna vote, but, um, someone’s gonna get hurt. And the other thing is, the doorway shouldn’t be blocked in public buildings. I just want to make it aware. It’s a very dangerous situation. We have codes in the state of Massachusetts, the public needs access to an emergency. There were older people there that couldn’t sit down. I understand. Um, you moved it up there because you thought it was gonna generate more, um, people coming, which it did. And that was good, the more the merrier. Um, but, um, Salem, we just missed out.

1:00 I get a million dollar grant, um, a week or two ago. Um, I don’t want to go in, I don’t know what way you’re gonna vote on the three A. Uh, I’m really just getting tired of it. Um, we’re gonna have town meet and we’ll make a decision that’s gonna be brought up again, but we can’t keep spending money to fight, um, for things. We’ve spent a lot of money at the police department on litigation. We gotta flag policy. We got serious things going on in this town, north Andover. Um, you know, they got a, a pay raise. The teachers and the kids are out there protesting. Again, we’re, we’re gonna have a big problem next year. Uh, I mean, we we’re the teachers. They’re gonna to get their raise this year. There’s not gonna be a problem. I don’t know what’s gonna happen next year. Um, and the other thing I wanna mention, um,

1:48 I heard at a finance committee meeting the other day, um, we’re gonna hire another person for contracts. We just hired a person for, um, grants, a coordinator. Um, Amesbury has around 10,000 people. Marblehead has around 20,000 people. Um, Becky Keran used to do a lot of works. I think we should look, maybe we can get some of these school teachers, uh, give them a stipend or the fire department, give them a stipend, and they can pick up on some of this administration work. They’re already getting health insurance and everything. We can’t continue to hire people and pay it 70, a hundred thousand dollars. Well, we don’t have any money. We don’t have money to pay the people that we have now. And I, like I say, I don’t, uh, this Thatcher, as far as I’m concerned, he’s been doing a lot more than your last

2:33 three town administrators. But every time we hire another person, it’s bankrupting me. Okay? I went over to Walmart today to save money, and they want to know at the end of my transaction, if I wanna give money to feed the hungry, I’m already paying taxes. I’m, my taxes are going sky high here. You talk about affordable housing in Marblehead. I I know a lot of the elderly people in Marble Head. Um, you know, I, I, I, I don’t, I really don’t know. This is gonna snowball. You know, the town employees want a big raise. They want what the teachers have. Okay. Um, you know, um, one thing leads to another. I’m not saying no one deserves this, but who’s gonna pay for it? I don’t have, how’s behind me? Sold for six or $700,000 last year. They’re renovating it.

3:20 It’s gonna be a million and a half or 2 million. It’s not affordable housing. Okay. It’s not for people that grew up in this town. Um, so I just wanna say that, um, you know, we cannot continue to hire more people until we get this thing under control. Thank you. Okay. Thanks for your comments. And, um, I thought somebody, I saw somebody raise their hand online. I don’t see any hands up. Madam Chair. Okay. No hands. Okay. Um, so that brings us to our, um, second item on our agenda, which is a, actually a joint meeting with our water and sewer commissioners. And to make an appointment to fill the vacancy, uh, on the commission.

4:05 So I’ll invite members of the water and sewer commission to come to the table.

4:12 We’ll be interviewing three candidates. We take them by, uh, last name alphabetical order. We have three great, uh, applications and letters of interest here with their resumes. We’ve all had a chance to, um, to review them, and well

4:35 Have You all called your meeting to order already. Okay. Yes. So, um, we’re gonna start with, um, James Ma Mar, and then we’ll have, uh, Tim Meyer. And then we’ll go to, uh, Tom Val. And I’ll ask that, uh, if you haven’t been interviewed, you step outside. We have the board members are gonna a ask a number of questions related to the position. And, uh, then once you’ve interviewed, you can stay in the audience. You, you’re welcome to stay, and then we can deliberate and vote to appoint. So I’ll ask, um, James Mar to come to the table. Hi. Just sit here, There, it’s fine. Yeah, you’re good. Thanks. Okay. Thank you.

5:22 And then if the other candidates could just step outside, here’s

5:30 Welcome. Thank you. Thank you very much.

5:34 Okay. Well, thank you so much for stepping forward. And you def obviously you have a great extensive experience, and we, um, uh, saw your letter and application, but I just wanted to give you the opportunity to tell us a little bit about yourself, just personally while we’re all here. Uh, anything you wanted to, um, say about, you know, your interest in the position. Well, thank you. Well, thank you very much, um, appreciate the opportunity to interview for the vacancy on the water and sewed commission. Again, my name is Jim Marr. It’s M-A-H-E-R, and I live at 21 Rockaway Avenue, and I’ve lived there for over the last 30 years. Um, I was saddened to hear of Mr. Siegel’s passing. I’m very impressed with what he accomplished in the town. And, uh, he’s got some big shoes to try to fill.

6:22 I don’t know that any of the three of us can fill those shoes, but I’d like the opportunity. I volunteered for the commissioner’s position because I believe I have to knowledge and experience and water and wastewater that could be benefit, uh, benefit to the commission and to the town. Uh, prior to my retirement in 2000 and 2022, I worked for 30 years in the private sector for Camp Dresser McKees, CBM Smith, where I, uh, where I retired as a technical delivery manager, which may not mean much, but basically I ran the Department for Construction Services, and I retired as a Vice president with CDM Smith. One of my, one of my, uh, protest accomplishment was the work I

7:07 did early in my career. And I think there’s a relevancy here at the South Esic Sewage District. I was the engineer of record onsite project manager when they built the secondary treatment plant from 1993 to 1998. And then all of the issues during construction, I was on onsite for those five years, and all of the issues came through me during construction. I was there from the site prep contract right through the commissioning and the turnover to the South Essex Sewage District. I also have extensive experience with the Mass Water Resource Authority during my career with CDM Smith. Um, I know those are both relevant because the wastewater, uh, goes to South Essex, as you all know. And our water supply comes from, uh, the MWRA. Okay.

7:55 I get an, I’ll just, I’ll be quick. So I got, I got an opportunity to attend the Water and Sewer Commission meeting on March the fourth. Um, I found out about the open position through the Flow and Go newsletter, and I, uh, reached out to the Water and Sewer Commission and found out about the opening. So I went to the March 4th meeting just to get a feel for how things operated, whether or not I thought I could be a, uh, a good fit within, within the Water and Sewer Commission. And, uh, it was a very relevant meeting to go to because they were approving the, uh, appro approving the budget for fiscal 2026. So I got a nice feel for exactly how things are going and how they operate. Um, I’d, uh, I appreciate the opportunity.

8:41 Uh, I think I have the relevant experience. Um, I have a relevant knowledge. I have an engineering degree, so I kind of think of it as, as an engineer. I know Mr. Siegel was an engineer. Um, so if, if you folks think that I might be, uh, of benefit to the town and to the Water and Sewer Commission, I’d love to volunteer my time. Thanks, James. Do you use James or do you go by You? Uh, you can call me Jim. Okay. Thanks, Jim. Thank you. And, um, I’ll, uh, open it up to the commissioners here, um, for some questions that they may have of you.

9:19 Correct. Oh, um, give me one second. I, so I have an off the wall question to ask you. Sure. What would you do if you had a resident who was unhappy with the rate increase? How would you deal with the resident? How would I deal with the resident? Yeah. If there was a rate increase. Yep. So I, the first thing I would do is I would take the time to, to speak with the, speak with the resident and explain to them, uh, explain to the, the reasons behind the rate increase. I would, uh, I would explain to them if, if the, if the, uh, if the reason behind it was increased cost from South Sewage District or whatever it might be, I would go through and explain to them line by line exactly why,

10:06 why the rates were going up. Thank you. Okay. How about, um, do you have any volunteer or elected experience in the town prior to this? So, um, I did some coaching, uh, during, during, during, um, the years. I, I have two children that are now in their thirties, and they grew up here in town. I was involved with the youth program. I took a team to Cooperstown all those years ago. Um, this one living, living in the dormitory with 12, 12-year-old boys. Oh, good. So I, I was very active, uh, uh, at that time. Um, that’s good. In, in volunteer work at, uh, with, with, uh, coaching, et cetera. Perfect. Thank you. If, If appointed, how would you, uh, familiarize yourself, uh, with the role as a member of the Water and Sewer Commission?

10:53 And are you familiar with the, uh, commitment? So, um, I did some research into the role, um, roles and responsibilities. Um, I, uh, I actually was, was surprised to see that, uh, there’s actually a, a mass general law that dictates what water and sewer boards can and cannot do. That. That surprised me. It’s for reference, it’s Mass General Law one 11 section, probably doesn’t matter what section. So I was surprised to, to, I was surprised to see that. And, and it had some nice things to say. So, uh, water quality is of the utmost importance. Um, uh, that is, that’s, that is the, uh, uh, uh, the most important thing that I see. Um, the water and sewer rates keeping, keeping the rates as, uh,

11:40 as reasonable as we can for the people who live here in town. Um, that, that’s, that’s the, that’s the, you know, just right there. One A and one B. Um, did I miss any further parts of your question? No. Perfect. Thank you. Yeah, you’re welcome. Okay. Um, when do you have a question, Alexa? Sure. Uh, so I know you mentioned that you’d been to the meeting. I’m just curious what other interactions you might have had with the Water and Sew department or the commission, or any other things to add. Yeah, So, um, I worked for, in the private sector for all those years. Um, uh, CBM Smith, uh, did, did work for the town on, on, on certain occasions. So I’ve always been observant of the, uh, commission from afar and always interested in volunteering

12:26 and, and, and participating. But there was always, in my mind, a thought that there could be a conflict of interest. ‘cause I was working for a consulting. Yeah. So I’ve, I’ve always observed a bit from afar, um, and been knowledgeable and, um, being a, an engineer, take plenty of time when there’s work in the streets to look down into the trench and, uh, just, just stay active with that. So. Good. That’s been my involvement with, with The commission. Thank you. I was wondering if you might be able to talk about a mentor of yours and what you learned from that individual, what you might be able to leverage into your role if you are appointed, you know, to serve on the, on the Water and Sewer Commission. Sure. Yeah. Um, I don’t know if you noticed, but, um, my degree in engineering is from the Maritime Academy from Massachusetts Maritime Academy.

13:12 Um, not your usual type of engineer who’s going to work, go to work in the civil engineering business. So, um, I leaned heavily on, um, uh, uh, uh, mentors was my first job. My first job was, was building the Lin Water treatment plant, and I was the resident engineer, uh, building the, the Lin Water treatment plant. And I, I didn’t know, uh, much about civil engineering, but I knew about mechanical systems, and I knew about, uh, electrical systems and, and learned quickly about construction or treatment plants. And there was a senior engineer who, uh, who I worked for, uh, took me under his wing. Um, and, um, and, uh, brought me along slowly, um, so that I learned more about, uh, construction. Um, uh, my, my job as CDM Smith also allowed me to,

14:01 um, turn that around and be a mentor. Um, I was a technical delivery manager. I was a lead practitioner. Um, I, I ran the department first in the Boston area, and then a nationwide, uh, responsibility and got a chance to remember how I had been mentored and made sure that I, I, I followed along and continued that by passing on the knowledge that I had. Thank you. You’re welcome. Moses, Jim? Uh, yes. Do you have familiarity with how the department is funded and kind of how the budgets work? I know you’ve had a lot of focus on the operations and the, the quality control side, but, you know, just curious. Yeah, so I, um, I learned a lot when I went to the March 4th meeting.

14:46 Um, uh, the commission did a very nice job. There were handouts that I was able to, uh, to have for reference during the time where they were looking at the budget. Um, I was very familiar with, um, with the, uh, the, the, uh, the costs that come from the South sic sewage district where they, where they, um, with where the costs come, uh, for total suspended solids that go to the treatment plan, as well as BOD, which for those who might not, or the, the biological oxygen demand, which is how much oxygen it needs to, to treat the wastewater that’s going to the South Desk Sewage District. So, um, I got to see, uh, the cost that come from the, from the Mass Water Resource Authority. So I’m very comfortable in my role with CDM Smith. I was responsible for budgets for all, all the staff, um,

15:33 that I worked with up in the millions of dollars, uh, up to including, you know, as many as 200 people that I managed at one point. Um, so I know budgets and, uh, every week there was a, uh, call to the carpet to make sure that you were maintaining your end of the bargain when it came to budget. So I understand the importance and, and relevancy. That’s Great, Jim. Thank you. You’re welcome. I Don’t, I don’t have any other questions. I’m actually afraid that if I ask a question, your knowledge about this is way more than mine. And I’m, I’m gonna, I’m gonna pass and say thank you for, for your explanation and your details, and thank you for volunteering. Great. Um, thank you. Thank you. Okay. So that, um, concludes, uh, our questions. And so, uh, if you’d like to, um, take a seat

16:20 or resume your seat, and no, you can stay in the audience. It’s more because, um, it’s in, just in fairness to the, to the questions, you know, people having time to prepare. So you’re welcome to take a seat in the audience since you’ve already been interviewed. Great. So, uh, just quickly thank you to the board and the Water and Sewer Commission for this opportunity. And, uh, um, if, if, uh, if indeed I, I look like a fit that might be able to help, I’d be gladed with. Thank you very much. Thank you for Voluntary, Jim. Uh, one last information. I have pulled, uh, um, I have pulled nomination papers for the three year term. So what I’d like to be in it for the long haul, if that’s, that’s great. Thank you. We don’t run away.

17:01 Okay. Mr. Meyer, Good evening.

17:11 Welcome, Tim. Thank you, Madam Chair. Select board. Mr. Chair. Commissioners. Good evening. My pleasure to be here this evening. Um, yeah, I just wanted to give you the opportunity to, to just in a brief, like a couple minutes about, you know, highlight something that maybe we didn’t, didn’t jump out with us from your, uh, resume and letter about, uh, your interest in this position. Okay. The, um, as many of you know, be I, I was in am in the ministry, but I also ran our Family Stone Quarry, um, for a number of years in New Jersey, and got it. Got to do a lot of hands-on work with the local departments and building departments, sew and water commissions and whatnot. Um, helped lay a lot of pipe, helped develop a lot

17:58 of plans, worked, uh, myself in a very highly regulated industry, mine industry. Um, but really worked with the department and department leaders in, in putting their plans together as to what their projects would be. Um, for the past four or five years now, I’ve been on the finance committee here in town, and my first year I actually asked to be, to go on the water and sewer com, um, subcommittee of the liaison committee of the finance committee to work with the Water and Sewer Commission, because I was more of a hands-on thing that I was used to and that I understood and, uh, have had the pleasure of being the finance, uh,

18:44 liaison committee of the water and sewer for the past four years. And just in that, as, as all of you know, with finance, we get a real good tour of the town. And particularly with the Water Commission being an Enterprise Committee commission, it’s a little bit, as you all know, it’s a little bit different than the other departments. And really getting that deep dive for the past four years has given me a very good understanding of how the commission works, what’s going on, how they’re coming up with the budgets, what’s going into the budgets. I’ve also had the privilege of, um, went out last year on a field trip or two years ago out to the South Essex Sewer District where they began to, having been in development

19:31 for a little while, I could tell it was the beginning of a development pitch for a campaign. And earlier this year, I was on for a meeting in which the South Essex Sewer District people came in and made it rather obvious they were going into a capital plan, and that their expenses are gonna be going up and that will be directly affecting us and in budgets that go, are put together in the future. Um, that was a great night, gave me a lot of understanding as to what’s going on at different end. That’s kind of a passive experience. But for over 25 years, my father has been at the, uh, north Jersey Water and Sewage, that Water Authority, which is the equivalent of New Jersey of the MWRA and being in a family business, um, while he was chair.

20:20 I mean, there, you know, I mean, it got discussed and I actually interned up there for two summers, um, in college and got to experience, uh, the insides of the water commission. And just for my father having served for 20 years as the chair under multiple administrations in the state on a regular basis, talking things out with him about what was going on. ‘cause we were a family business, and he would just, that way we would talk things out for the business. He would talk things out from the commission. And that helped to give a real good understanding of things. Great. Thank you. Um, and, uh, turn it over to the commissioners for some questions. Um, I guess I’m first again, um, just one quick thing.

21:09 You realize you have to step down from the finance committee, and that’s right before town meeting. I, I meant to say that I do fully understand I need to, uh, step down from finance committee. I do, I have hold papers and do plan on running a robust campaign. Um, if I should be appointed, what I would like to do, if it works out, would be to attend the finance committee meeting on Monday night. At the end of the meeting, tender my resignation, come in Tuesday morning, see Robin, get sworn in, and then attend the fi uh, the water and sewer committee meeting that evening. The work of the liaison committee to the water and sewer department has been completed.

21:55 The finance committee has already voted on their budget and has approved their budget. If I’m not on the finance committee, I’ve talked to our chair, Alex Goolsby. Um, it does not affect Quorum for the committee. It does not affect the work that’s already been done for the Water and Sewer Commission. Um, there really shouldn’t be any issues moving forward. Okay. Okay. And now my question is which, um, so if you ran into a resident, which we typically do, and they say, how come the rate’s going up? How come it’s so expensive? How come this, what would you do to speak with them if they were irate or whatever? And calm ‘em down. And well Fir first of all, if they’re, if they, they’re in a, uh, temperamental mood.

22:42 Uh, I could say that having been a ordained minister for about 25 years now, we get some good training in dealing with people in different moods. So I, I would, I would first try to get everybody on a level playing field and talk to them responsibly. And if it’s something that I couldn’t answer the question to, I would of course pass it along to Amy. But if it’s something that’s in general or something like that, that I could give an answer that’s not shooting off the hip, I would try to do so. But, um, you know, I mean, there’s a lot of things that go into why the, why the water bills are higher after the, after the covid incident when all the offices in the city were buttoned up,

23:27 the water bills went up. So there’s a lot that can go into it. Okay. Thank you. How about, uh, can you explain the relationship between the MWRA and the town of Marblehead? Yes. Um, we are a contributing community to, I don’t want to, I don’t want to pull an intelligence committee from yesterday. Uh, we are, we are a contributing committee to our community, to the MWRA. They provide our water services on the wholesale level. We provide them to our community at the retail level. Um, they provide the water services, the filtration systems, and the pipelines until it gets to the community, um,

24:14 in which we take control for things. But we are a, um, we are the, the customer of the MWRA. Okay. If appointed, how would you, uh, familiarize yourself with the role as a member of the Water and Soil Commission, and how you familiar with, uh, the commitment that you would have? I’ll start with the last one. Uh, yes, I am familiar with the commitment. Um, having served on FinCon for a number of years now, I understand what it’s like for EZ all, you know, to have a significant time commitment with the town. Um, thankfully in some ways I am on permanent

25:00 disability, so time is something I have too much of. Um, how would I get to know the commission i’d? I’d, as I said, I think from a outside perspective, I’ve seen a lot of the numbers end of things. I would like to do more of a deep dive and, uh, the, the physical plant end of things, see what’s going on, get a better understanding of the piping system, of the water system, of the sewer system. You know, what are these pipes like, what are, what are we talking about when things are going on? Um, I’d like to speak to the men and women that work in the department. Uh, that’s an important thing for me, having been a manager that ran my own business, is keeping up morale amongst the,

25:47 the men and women that are in the employment. Um, that’s a particularly, I really think that’s a particularly key thing. We’re, we’re, they’re, they’re serving our communities. They’re our front end people quite often that the public are having the public face with. If they’re not happy, if they’re in a situation or whatnot, that’s a direct representation on all Marblehead. So I would want to get in and spend time with them, uh, get to know them and their jobs and what’s, what’s going on. Um, as I’ve said, I, I’ve been to, been online for all the com meetings, this so far this year, the commission. And, uh, I’d be, I, I, I

26:35 honestly feel I’d be ready to jump in with my feet head first with already a pretty good understanding of things as a jumping off point. Thank you.

26:48 Hi. Thanks for being here. Um, so, um, I would say, I mean, I, my question originally was just in regards to volunteering experience, you know, in the town, which I already know what your other time and like dedications are, so thank You. Good. I was wondering if you might be able to tell us a little bit about, uh, maybe a mentor you had and what you learned from that individual and how you could bring this to this role if you were appointed. Uh, I would have to say my father, um, growing up in a family business where there really weren’t many lines between the family and the business, um, I learned what it was to give you all, and that’s where I learned to take care of the men

27:35 and women that work for you to make sure everyone gets treated well. You might not always be able to pay the highest salaries, but there are certain, uh, intangible ways to make people know they’re appreciated and their work is appreciated. Um, they were all lessons I learned from my father staying within a budget. Um, you know, I mean, it, it’s learned, learned to fill in wherever I needed, you know, I mean, at the Stone Quarry where I ran, we ran a tight ship. There was only eight or nine of us, and I was the spare worker. And there were, I mean, I, right now, the water and sewer commission is without a dedicated mechanic. I know what it’s like running a business without a dedicated mechanic.

28:20 I had to fill in, as we talk about, I had to fill in as a mechanic often, so I understand those stresses and trade, but they were all lessons I learned from my father. Great. Thank you. Okay, Moses, do you have any questions? Yeah, I mean, I’ve got, I was gonna ask you questions on budgets, uh, and so forth. I know in exquisite detail what you do and, and what you’ve done for several years. So I, you know, uh, what has been your, you know, your interaction outside of that with, with the commission at all? And I know you’ve been to, you know, you’ve perhaps been to meetings or, oh, Yeah. Um, I, I ran a, ran a small write in campaign a number of years ago for an open spot. Okay. Um, I would say primarily through the finance committee. Yeah. That’s gotten me over there. Yeah.

29:07 A lot, a lot of times, you know what I mean? 2, 3, 4 meetings a year, so. Okay. Well, thanks for stepping up, Tim. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you, mark. Thanks, Danny. Questions? Yeah. Um, what do you see as the biggest challenges facing the water and Sewer commission right now? I think that, you know, I mean, a lot of the, of piping projects to realign them and get that under control, so we know that our hardware is under control, upgrading of the pump stations where need be. Um, I think that the commission will need to do some serious thought and preparation for what might be coming down the pipeline from the, uh, south ASIC sewer district about how that is gonna affect us,

29:52 what sort of articles we might have to put up in the future about that for overrides. And, um, just in general how, I mean, our state, our nation, our world and such flux right now. I don’t think we can take any funding for granted at this point, honestly. Who, who knows what might come down the bike.

30:24 I see. So it’s, it’s, I mean, I’ve always been a, I mean, I believe the best offense is a good defense and to be prepared as an Eagle Scout. Yeah. Be prepared. Okay. And that concludes our questions for you tonight. Tim, thank you so much again for No problem being here and, and stepping forward again and your volunteers and appreciate Thank you. Appreciate the time. Appreciate Thank, Thank you. Thank Tim.

30:49 Kyle’s gonna bring in Tom ou Question.

31:01 You don’t wanna run and sit at the table with your dad every Friday. No kidding. This is kind of cool.

31:11 I know. We gotta go to concert. Hi Tom, how are you? Good, how are you? Good, good. Thank you for stepping forward, um, and help serve the town. Yep. Uh, I want, I just have given, uh, the other candidates an opportunity to briefly summarize, you know, we, obviously, we have your Yep. Your materials here, but if there’s anything you wanted to personalize or explain about your interest in the role, and then we keep in mind, we will have about, you know, depending on how the answers go, maybe five to seven questions. Yeah. Okay. So, uh, there, I grew, I moved here five years ago. I grew up in New York, Maine, so I’m a New Englander from way past, but in the interim, which brought me here tonight, I worked for 10 years for what was called the Metropolitan Council. And I was in charge of a group of guys who took care of all the control systems for sewage and water.

31:58 And so sewerage and water, I really know, well, I didn’t do any work, but I oversaw, we had the second largest sewage treatment plant in the country, 92 million gallons a day. We, we treated, and we also had 144 pumping stations. So we, we did basically the control systems for those. So the SCADA system, which the technicians do. And we also did any new upgrades and updates and any repairs and emergency repairs. So that’s kind of the practical area that brought me to this. But on the administrative side, I also took care of budgets and I also took care of contractual obligations. And even in my role now, I work for Interstate Electric, I think their second largest

32:44 electrical contractor in New England. I oversee the industrial controls department. I have like 25 guys working for me. So from a budgetary standpoint and a, uh, sort of how to keep things moving in a team working environment, I sort of excel at that and enjoy that role. That’s kind of why I work at interstate. They offer that environment. I really like it. So that’s what brings me here tonight. And what interests me in helping the town in this position. I know it’s short term, knowing how to speak that language, I think would be a big plus to, to the people on the board. And so I could ramp up really quickly so they wouldn’t be speaking outta my league in pretty much

33:30 any, any part of that genre. So that’s kind of really the background of why I’m here. Alright. Thank you so much. Yeah. Um, uh, commissioner Bart Height might, has a question for you. Yep. Hi. Good evening. Good Evening. Um, so question, what interactions have you had with the water and sewer department and the commission? So, in Minnesota, it’s very unique. They have what’s called the Metropolitan Council. We’re talking about this one here, This one here. I just watch the reports every day, pay my bill on time. I know, I know where there’s a pumping station behind my house. There’s a few around town. I know where they are. I recognize ‘em, I see the guys working on ‘em. That’s about the only interaction I’ve had. And I’ve looked at your budget, you know, briefly.

34:17 Okay. How would you prepare yourself to serve on the Water and Sewer Commission? And you ever have, obviously you have not attended a water and sewer meeting? No, I have not. Okay. No. So I think the first thing I would do is look at meeting minutes, and then I would look at, uh, familiarize myself with the budgets and the issues you’re looking at now, since it is pretty short term. Yeah. Yeah. So that’s what I would do. Okay. Commissioner Murray, Which one I Know Commissioner, if Who were appointed, how would you familiarize yourself as that role, as a, uh, member of the Water and Soil Commission? And are you familiar with the, the volunteer commitment? I think I’m familiar with the volunteer commitment from the description, and I would just use public records to familiarize myself with what you’re looking at now.

35:05 That would be a very good indicator, but I would need to know from you. That’s all. Thank You. Yep, go ahead. Hi, thanks for being here. Nice to meet you. Welcome. Um, my question tonight is just in regards to, um, do you have any other volunteer electric experience or anything else in the, um, town prior that you’d wanna Share? Was there a president of my association in Minnesota? My, uh, my, uh, neighborhood association for five years. I was actually on that board for seven years. And then I was also the vice president of the lake board. I was lived on a lake, and in that lake board we tackled, I don’t know if you know anything about the Midwest, but nitrogen is a huge problem out there. And we tackled nitrogen infiltration into our lake.

35:51 And I volunteered and went after grants, me and another woman partnered up and got these all very stodgy farmers to part with their money to save their lake. Nice. Thank you. So volunteer for that. Yeah. Thank you. Okay, Brett, good evening. I was wondering if you might be able to talk about a mentor that you had and what you learned from that individual, what you might be able to, uh, bring to this position if you were, you know, appointed this evening. Oh. Uh, I’ve had a couple of really good mentors. First one was my dad who turned me into an electrician from very young. He was an electrical contractor. So, and he taught me a lot of things from paper, from, he never taught me voice. He always wrote things down. And then another good mentor I had was a, was a guy named Jim Miller.

36:37 And he was a, uh, guy I worked for at an industrial company. And I worked for him for five years. And he was just guy who had, he actually, one of the things he did was he got me into the stock market. He said to me, you’re a young guy. Gimme a hundred dollars. He gave, I gave him a hundred dollars, and three months later I got four shares of Coca-Cola, and he put it into a stock buyback fund. And he said, if you pay that, like an electric bill for the rest of your life, and you’ll have tons of Coca-Cola stock. And he was Right. I’ve done that. But he was a very good mentor, a very good guy to know. So that’s one that’s was my best mentor outside of my dad. Thank you. You’re welcome. All right, Mr. Grader. Uh, Tom, if you could, uh, highlight some of your,

37:24 uh, budgeting experience and, and if you have any experience with kind of the enterprise fund structure that, uh, Uh, I, I’m, I’m not familiar with the enterprise function, but I would have to like, take a contract and figure out the budget man hours, materials overhead every, for every project that I did. And I also had to take my man hours for my guys, ‘cause I was the head of my department and figure that out and present that to my boss, who would tell me, you’re over budget every year. So I had my own personal budget. So that’s what I did for Minnesota. And now in my current position, I do contracting. So I have to estimate, I have to assign the guys,

38:14 I have to figure out the budget. And I also have to, uh, figure out how much I’m gonna spend in the next month in a budgetary basis now. So, and I run about two and a half million dollars worth of work a year, so. Excellent. I’m always working budget numbers. Just a quick follow up. You intend to take out papers to run for the, uh, for the Position? I, yeah, that’s the, that’s that’s the intention. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. Struck my question. Thank, thanks for coming. That’s great. I just wrote it down and you looked at my sheet. I appreciate it. I’m good. I’m good. Thank you. Done a great job answering, so thank you. Okay. Thank you so much. Alright. And, um, we can return to your seat here. Thank You. Thank You, Tom. Thanks to, so we, we’ll put, uh,

39:02 all three names into, um, nominate into nomination, uh, to serve. And then, um, we’ll take a roll call vote. But if there’s anything you wanted to say about your decision, um, go right ahead and we’ll, we’ll start with, um, we’ll start with the water and Sewer commission when we vote. So I need a motion to place all the names into nomination to serve on the Water and Sewer commission with the term to expire in June, 2025. So Moved. I have a second. Second. All in favor? Okay.

39:35 And, um, so now all the names are in and what’s That? Alexis? Oh, she’ll be back. Yeah. So what we’ve done in the past is I do a roll call around and you name off your, your person you So desire based on the, the count here, you need at least five votes to win. If for some reason after the first round, no candidate gets the five votes, we drop the lowest vote getter, and then we do the round again until we have a select E.

40:14 So whenever you’re ready, I can call the names, go right ahead. Discuss. Okay. Should we wait for, should we wait for, yeah,

40:26 she can be back for fip, so you should Oh, she’ll be out for bit. Okay.

40:32 Okay. I didn’t wanna be rude.

40:36 So there would be four votes to win. Okay. So, okay. So I’ll, um, Mr. Burr, who do you select? Uh, James Maher. Mr. Hay, I, sorry. Um, I select, uh, Mr. Maher, I just want to say that we have three good candidates, but after reading Mr. Mar’s resume and listening to him, I would equate him to being the professor. So that’s what made up my mind. Mr. Murray. Tom, I echo, I echo with, uh, uh, Mr. Murray. Okay. Mr. Murray. Brett, how, how dare I go against my father?

41:23 Um, no, I, I all three were, had great resumes and, and great backgrounds, but, um, but James Mar is who I’m gonna vote for. Okay. Mr. Grader? Yes, I will, I will follow suit. I just think he had the most, uh, you know, the most comprehensive, uh, resume and responses and, uh, I wanna thank the other two for stepping up again. We had a, you know, spoils to, to, uh, we’re very fortunate to have strong volunteers stepping up, Mr. Fox. Uh, I also will go, Mr. Ma, I think I’ll be able to step in and get sort of hit the ground running as well. But I’m excited to see this, this next, next election as well. So, carried all on Ms. Moon. Okay. So we have six votes for, um, Mr. Maher. I’m happy to go along with, um, uh, be making

42:09 that unanimous. Um, and just wanted to say on behalf of everybody, thank you to the candidates for their time and interest in this position and, um, and stepping forward. And obviously, um, we appreciate your, your time and energy in that respect and great candidates all around. This is always so difficult, but, um, so congratulations Mr. Mar. Thank you very much. Thank you for the board. Yep. I appreciate that very much. Looking forward to being part of Any that needs to get sworn in. Yes. And then, um, sometime if you could stop by Wednesday next meeting. Tuesday. Tuesday. Today’s Wednesday. So Tuesday’s the would be your first meeting. It’s a Tuesday. And, um, sometime before between now and then if you could just stop in the office.

42:55 Week Tuesday, I believe. Oh, April 1st. Alright, Great. Thank You. Thank you, Tom. Thank you. Appreciate it. Thank, Okay. Do you have to adjourn at the clerk’s office? Yes, I It to the clerk’s office. And just get sworn in. Do you know where they meet? See, see on the campaign trail Too valuable at income meeting. I’ll make a motion to adjourn. Okay. I, I make a motion to adjourn the water and sew a meeting of March 26th. I second. Okay. On, on the vote. Vote. Call the vote. Both elected. Alright. Yes, Rick and myself, uh, meeting adjourned at, uh, seven 50.

43:40 Thank you guys. Thank you Gentlemen. Thank you. Thank You.

43:54 No, you’re good. You’re good. Take care now. Thank you guys. Take care. And also, thank you for putting those first. Of course. I assume you’re going home to watch this.

44:09 Did you have time to do a town administrator update? Yeah. Do you have I have some highlights. Okay. Alright. It’s not in final written form, but it’s, it’s okay. I’ll give it verbally.

44:20 Okay. Um, we’ll move on to town Administrator updates. Uh, thank you Madam Chair. Some highlights of things that are going on, uh, to be aware of, uh, our digita digitization. Wow, I don’t even have my visible braces in. We’re digitizing all of our documents project, so it’s headed up by Maggie Wheeler, our town engineer. Um, we have, uh, shipped out 84 bankers boxes to the vendor, um, from the engineering department. That’s the first area we’re starting to scan. Um, and, and it includes 3,120 Folio files. So these are, these are engineering files

45:07 that are being scanned. Um, the, um, and we will continue after the engineering documents. We’re gonna do all the planning documents, and that’s what we have currently budgeted. And then next fiscal budget we’re, we will keep the process going to digitize. A fun fact, um, provided by Maggie is, uh, taking a look at the documents. The oldest document that was shipped out to be scanned was from 1845. And that, uh, it looks like, um, the, the system that, that we’re relying on, uh, was established around 1922. So the documents, the, the majority of the documents had started from a hundred years ago that all engineering documents that are now,

45:54 they’re being digitized, they’re not being destroyed, they’re being brought back and, and put in appropriate storage. Um, but going forward, any access from the staff or the public, uh, and our system will have full access to, to these documents electronically. Um, the other, uh, good news is our new assistant engineer is starting on March 31st. So the assistant engineer, which was previously the staff engineer, I think was the title. This was the position held by Maggie who now was promoted to town engineer. So we filled, uh, and changed the title assistant engineer. Um, so, uh, Caroline Dalton will be starting on, um,

46:39 on March 31st. And, uh, we’ll be working with Maggie on projects as well as be the sort of the engineer out in the, out in the field, um, working the projects. So it strengthens the team, um, for, for public works to really get projects, projects done and done right. So we welcome that on the community development and planning board side. Um, we have, um, we’ve submitted a grant for a hundred thousand to restore, um, the historic windows, the Franklin Street Fire Station. So this is an ongoing, you’ll hear Franklin Street Fire Station, uh, multiple grants and, and piece by piece getting that, getting that building restored into its historic, uh, amount.

47:28 So the, um, um, effort of our community development and planning and, and our grant coordinator in those efforts, uh, the department, uh, is also engaged in multiple public engagement meetings regarding the MBTA three A zoning issue. The effort there is to get as much information, as much engagement as possible out in the public. Different forms, different means, different audiences, and, and just continuously being out there. So, um, currently they have, uh, an event on March 31st here at Abbott Hall on April 15th at the Council on Aging and April 16th at a sustainable moral head meeting.

48:15 And they’re looking to schedule one or two more events before town meeting. So there’s, I think, on average at least one event every week between now and town meeting. So a concerted effort by, by the staff to, to fully engage the, the public on that issue. Um, next, um, the department is, is overseeing and working with the friends of the park on Elm. Um, the former Gary School Playground Project, or as we referred to it, uh, they, um, they’re kicking off phase two. Phase two includes the design purchase of site amenities, construction of the former Gary Playground, and I believe this is from the raised funds from the,

49:00 from the raised fund, from the raise fund. So we’ve, we’ve, we’ve front loaded with opera and then the, the neighbors and the residents have done fundraising in order to keep the project, uh, continuing forward. So excellent community effort by all and having the community development plan department to actually oversee and and manage that is very helpful. Finally, um, um, if you recall a town meeting, there was an article in regard to the State Street bathroom down by the wharfs. Um, and, and the residents pushing to get that open year round, um, took a lot of effort to convert that facility into a capable year round facility.

49:47 Uh, we have an HVAC contractor McKay Plumbing and Heating, completing the installation for a new air source heat pump system to the building. It’ll both heat and cool, uh, the restrooms and enable their, uh, year on access. And as you know, in the budget, select borders also budgeted funding for a fence in the next fiscal year to visually screen the equipment. So it’s in the, all the historic area. So it needs the appropriate screening. We expect that this project to be completed this summer, which will make that facility capable to be open year round, which was the long time desire and effort of the neighbors in that area. Correct. Uh, Logan, Logan, Casey was the driver behind getting that done.

50:34 Not only kind of managing the project to get it done, but also to identify energy efficient methods, uh, to, to install in that building, uh, while doing so. That’s great. So with that, great. Those are my updates. Thank you. Pending any further questions? Any, any questions? Okay, thanks a lot for that. I know you had a very busy week, a lot of meetings this week. Yep. So thanks for pulling that together. Um, uh, we are going to next proceed to up our public hearing and I’ll ask attorney William Solomon and the chair of the cable television Bob Peck to join us at the table.

51:15 Oh, is Bill online? Bill Bill’s online. Hello? Yes. Can you hear me? Yes. Yes, we can. Great. Thank you, Roger. That loud and clear Can always hear Bill loud and clear. That’s good. I thought you, uh, bill. So I, I’m here, uh, uh, Bob Peck, chairman of the Cable Television Advisory Committee, along with, uh, Ruth Ferguson. We are a two person committee, but, uh, we’ve worked very well together along with Attorney Solomon. Uh, and we’re, we’re happy to present to the board, uh, tonight, uh, for approval. The, uh, renewal license with Verizon. Uh, as you all know, Verizon and Comcast both provide cable service to Marblehead, have been for many years. Uh, and the Verizon contract had, uh, come up for renewal.

52:05 It’s a five year renewal. Their last license also was five years. There is, uh, an option after three years for them to opt out. I think this is what’s coming in terms of cable tv, but for now, uh, we’ve got them locked in for at least three years. Uh, and, uh, hopefully they’ll do the entire five years, provided there’s enough residents that are interested in not cutting the, uh, the cable. I’m happy to say that the funding for, uh, the, um, MHTV, uh, which, uh, as everybody knows is our local, and, uh, they’re, they’re filming us right now, uh, is a, uh, 5% of gross revenues, which is what has been in play now for quite some time.

52:52 Both Comcast and Verizon, uh, are making those payments to keep our public access station going. Uh, I’m happy to, uh, announce that. In addition to that, uh, there’s a capital grant of, uh, $210,000, which is actually more for this five year cycle than we received from Verizon, uh, in our expired, uh, license. And there was a bit of a trade off, and, and I’m sure if there are any questions that Attorney Solomon can explain that, but there was an additional small increment that we were getting under the old contract that’s gone, but they bolstered it by giving more money, uh, for capital,

53:37 which is, uh, which is terrific, uh, for that, uh, they are continuing to provide three standard definition channels and one high definition channel. Uh, so both Comcast and Verizon now give Marblehead residents the option of having high definition. There’s language in the, in the license that, uh, creates the possibility of an electronic guide and on demand, but there has to be something going already somewhere else in the commonwealth before that even kicks in. So that’s, that’s probably more wish language than reality. But all in all, uh, this is a, a very opinion of, of our committee, uh,

54:23 a very good, uh, contract. I, I want to, I, I want to thank Ruth Ferguson for her work on this. She’s just brings a wealth of knowledge, uh, from her years in cable as well as her other volunteer commitments. Bill Solomon, he’s been helping the town for years. And, and kudos to you, bill, uh, because you do a great job on this and you’ve been representing the town for many, many years. I also want to thank Verizon because they’ve made this a very seamless project. We’ve worked with their attorney, Paul Train, who’s a great guy. He’s done a great job of facilitating this as well as the underlying Verizon personnel. So we’re very happy to present this to you for your consideration, and we recommend, uh, that this license be approved

55:10 and I certainly would turn it over to, uh, attorney Solomon for anything that I may have missed.

55:19 Thank you, Bob. Uh, you know, really everything was said and, and, and said, well, uh, I would just just reiterate what Bob said, which is that Verizon, uh, came to the table, uh, through Paul tr attorney Paul train, uh, the, he and they recognize the importance of Peg Access Community television in Marvel Head and, uh, the excellent job that MHTV does. And because they got to know the community over, uh, many years now, uh, they, uh, were able to, uh, get to a funding level, uh, that, that I think will meet the needs going forward. Now, I thank Attorney Trane, uh, for engaging in that and,

56:04 and thank frankly Verizon for recognizing the importance and that Verizon and the town, our partners in this so, so fully support the license also. And thank you. Okay, well, thank you. It was a ringing endorsement. I’ll open up to the board if they have any questions or comments. Uh, I have one question. Bob, you mentioned that there’s a, a higher potential for the three year opt-out. Uh, what’s, what’s kind of driving that Possibility? Uh, subscriptions keep going down. Gotcha. Yep. That’s, that’s the primary issue. So I think that, uh, I think the cable industry is becoming increasingly nervous. And in addition to that, Uh, I, I believe that there, there always lurks the possibility that at the federal level, uh, there will be deregulation.

56:52 Uh, and should that happen, the whole landscape could change. Yeah. Okay. Thank you. Alright. Thank you, um, for bringing it to that, forward to us tonight and, um, explaining it. So, so well, um, I’ll just ask the board for a motion to grant a cable television renewal license with an effective date of March 26th, 2025 to Verizon, new England Incorporated all terms and conditions contained in the renewal license, having been agreed to by Verizon, Verizon buy, and through its authorized representative will execute the renewal license as set out on the signature page of the license as signed by the board herewith. So moved second. Okay. All in favor? Okay. Thank you. Thank you. Your work. Appreciate it. Thank you very much.

57:38 Thank you, Madam Chair. If I just, I’ll speak to Kyle tomorrow, but I just wanna say, uh, uh, she’s been amazing, uh, as you know, probably better than I throughout this process, keeping on track, uh, the le the legal ads, the notices, the meetings, I want to thank, uh, the board and her particularly for that help. And I’ll speak tomorrow on the processing of the license. So thank you. Thank you for that. And I want to thank you on behalf of Ruth and me for having the confidence in us to, you know, to do this work. Now that we have both Comcast and Verizon locked up, this happens, this committee sort of disappears. What, what’s happened in the past is I’ve been like the one year appointee year after year, just in case something happens,

58:23 but it won’t be now for a few years before we have to come together again. Or some group has to come together again to keep the process going. Hybrid needs. Thank You. Thank you, thank you. Okay. Moving along to, um, item number five. It’s a change of manager, um, request for, um, Lori Moore. Is Lori here? Hi Lori. If you just join us at the table, um, uh, just a sim simple change of manager request. Um, do you, do you want me to just, um, introduce myself shortly? I’m some general manager at the Boston Yacht Club. Um, I’ve been there three years. Just kind of took over at the last

59:09 Great. Any questions from the board? Alright. Um, okay. So I’ll just need a motion to approve this application from the Boston Yacht Club as presented for the change of manager to Lori Moore. Subject to receipt of the required fees and documents and approval from the Alcoholic Beverage Control Commission. So Moved. Second. Mr. Murray? In favor, Mr. Grader? In favor, Mr. Fox? In favor, Ms. Newton In favor. Great, thank you. All set? Yes. That’s it. Sorry to keep you waiting.

59:41 Okay. Um, and now, um, a request from Local Noon for licensing for, um, uh, several different requests for sign signage and, um, hello secondhand dealing. Hi. Hi. How are you? Good, How are you? Good. Um, yeah, so do you wanna just, um, present your application or just tell us about your Sure. What You’re looking to do? Yeah. My name is Amy Conney. I’m a resident in town and I’m looking to open up a, um, beach store, uh, where the old fat face was on Washington Street. Um, it’s gonna be pretty much a straightforward retail shop, selling beach products, swimsuits, uh, towels, beach chairs. Um, but I’m also looking to make it sort of a mixed used space, so like rotating, um, popups, um, artists to come in.

1:00:27 Um, and then making it like a destination for kids. So some arcade games and, uh, things like that. Okay. Awesome. Awesome. So, um, there’s three or Sorry, four requests, um, for licenses that we need to approve. Um, we’ll take them one at a time. I need a motion to approve the application from Local Noon at 92 Washington Street for a secondhand dealer’s license, subject to receipt of all fees, forms, and Cory approval. So moved. Second. Second. All in favor? Okay, Unanimous. Uh, next I will ask the board for a motion to approve the request from Local No, 92 Washington Street to erect a sign at 92 Washington Street as presented here in our packet. There’s pictures of it, um, uh, subject to receipt of all fees, forms signed permit from the building

1:01:14 department, and a certificate of liability naming the town as additionally insured for a sign overhanging the public way. So moved. Second. All in favor? Okay. And I need a motion to approve the request from Local Noon at 92 Washington Street for an annual and Sunday entertainment license for Acoustical Music. Mondays through Sundays 10:00 AM to 6:00 PM subject to receipt of all fees, forms, and approval from the Department of Public Safety for Entertainment on Sundays. Music is not to be heard from the street. So moved. Second. Okay. All those in favor? Right. And lastly, we need a motion to approve the request from local noon of 92 Washington Street for three automatic amusement device licenses, subject to receipt of all fees, $100 each form and device information. So Moved. Second. All those in favor? Okay,

1:01:59 Great. Congratulations. Congratulations. And good luck to you. Thanks a lot. You open. Thanks. Um, okay. Awesome. Okay. Uh, we have, um, an interview for our potential appointment on the task force against discrimination. Hello? Hi.

1:02:20 Hi, Mora. Welcome back. How are you? Hi. Welcome, Mora. Hi. Hi. Thank you. Well, just tell us a little bit about yourself and your interest in, um, joining the task force. Okay. So, um, I don’t know if you read my letter of interest, but I have sort of been a defacto member of the task force. Um, I was asked to join a couple of meetings by Reese Stalberg, and, um, I quite agree with their mission. It aligns with my own personal beliefs, my professional, um, concerns. And I’m a health educator working at Veterans Middle School. I was here in August joining the, um, disabilities Commission. And I think that those, uh, there’s some crossover there with the, with the two committees. And, um, discrimination does actually come into my field professionally within the comprehensive health

1:03:08 education standards for Massachusetts as well as the, um, national health standards. We just, in seventh grade, finished an advocacy project, um, for reduction of stigma against people with mental health issues. So, um, this is what I live, and I think being part of the committee will, um, be evidence of my walking the talk. Okay. That’s great. Does anybody from the board have any questions for Maura? I think you answered ‘em all in August for me. Yeah. Come back. Thank you for volunteering. Of course. Thank You for coming back. The longer I live here, the more I join. That’s right. Be careful. I know. Can we have a motion to appoint Maura Darley Rocco to the task force against discrimination with a term

1:03:54 to expire in June of 2025? So moved. Second. All those in favor? Great. Thank you so much. Thank you. Congratulations. We’ll see you in a couple months. Yes. Perfect. Another One? No, I’ll be back. Thank you. Okay. And let’s see. Oh, this is the number. Um, so, uh, now I had put on this, um, on the agenda. I just, uh, Dan and I kind of spontaneously came about in a, in a, in a way that Alicia, um, Benjamin was at our, uh, conference with the state auditor and, um, had asked had, you know, there was some questions around, uh, actually Alec Wilby, our chair

1:04:39 of the finance committee was on, um, the, was on the phone with Alicia and added a question about MBTA three, and the auditor volunteered to, to interject and, and took on, got on the phone with him and said that she was willing to speak to, uh, any member of the board. So, um, we took it up and decided to reach out to her. And she was very forthcoming. It was a little surprised since there’s litigation going on that she was so willing to, um, to, to speak with us. And we just wanted to get some background from her and her understanding of, uh, the, her determination and, uh, the role of the state auditor vis-a-vis, uh, E-E-H-O-L-C.

1:05:27 And, um, you know, just kind of wanted to highlight some things that she had said. It’s detailed in the memo. But, um, one of the things that I thought was interesting that she had said was shared with us was, uh, that the, well, the unfunded mandate statute only covers direct costs, not indirect costs. That’s in the, in the statute. And, um, that the reasoning behind that triggered that, uh, let those, that determination by, um, by their office was what she felt was, uh, ineff in inefficient, uh, substandard financial impact statement filed by

1:06:12 the E-O-H-L-C, in which they claimed that there was zero impact direct costs to, uh, to communities for complying with the law. And, you know, the auditor said, well, obviously we know that the Commonwealth has, um, expended millions of dollars to municipalities for, uh, technical assistance to adopt, um, to create zoning plans. So it was internally inconsistent in her view to say that there was no direct fiscal costs to, um, to the mandate, but then also supplying municipalities with discretionary grants to, to comply with all the technical assistance. So, um, so that was one thing, and,

1:06:59 and she did say that the, um, it’s, it’s not for the state auditor to determine what our direct costs, but it is actually E-O-H-L-C that determines what is the direct cost of compliance. And she, you know, just opined, you know, just, it’s not her in her, it’s not her hers to say, but her opinion was just that the, um, that they, anything related outside of technical assistance that, that they would consider indirect costs. Um, you wanna, is there anything you wanna add? Yeah, I mean, I think a few takeaways that sort of high level takeaways that I took, um, from that conversation on what you said with the direct first and direct costs was how easily she

1:07:44 thought this could be remedied. Yeah. Um, that if there was a judgment, or that even if they went before that it could be remedied basically from her direct cost determination, that, that she had determined that it was not a, um, that it wasn’t being funded because the grants were discretionary. So the grants that we received for planning and consultation Yeah. Wasn’t given to everyone. It was what she said uniformly across. Right, exactly. So she said that if, if that she thought it could be easily remedied by switching that to a budget line item and that that would, that, and that she would not have come up with this determination. Um, she did say that clearly infrastructure, those types of things, as, as Ms. Newton said, she, she deemed as indirect. And she said, you know, if if people disagreed with the E-O-H-L-C, they could, they could sue, but that’s not what this is about right now. And one, she gave an example of something else

1:08:31 that has been determined unfunded mandate in the past, which I found, um, I found helpful. She referenced the early voting where the DLM had, um, determined early voting was an unfunded mandate in the past as well. And that when they did that, then the, um, beacon Hill basically stepped in and, and gives us money for it. She said, now is how it was remedied. And she thought this is something that this could be remedied for, for taking care of the unfunded mandate for the direct costs here. I think part of the question though is how does it get remedied Right. In some ways. So, you know, Depending on the determination from the courts Yeah. And kind of, yeah, two, two major issues, right? One, one or Howard direct cost to determined, and what’s the scope of potential direct costs. I think this is where the, the suits are coming from in the other towns. And, you know, at the end of the day, I think she also,

1:09:17 I think, made the case that having a discretionary basis instead of a legislative basis, having said that, a a legislative basis of funding the mandate could be cured pretty quickly in her view. So, you know, it’s still a matter to be resolved. And I guess there’s a case running through, uh, you know, running through the courts right now that Sure. That I, what’s the, what’s the date on April 2nd? It’s April 2nd, is when, when we’re supposed to have a, a judgment on that. Right. Uh, it’s, It’s Hearing hearing. It’s a hearing. Oh, it’s just a hearing. You Don’t know if that Judge, I think it’s interesting to sort of parlay on what Erin said, though, that it is up to the Executive Office of Housing and livable communities E-O-H-L-C to determine that, uh, direct versus indirect. No, that’s indirect. That’s right. So that she,

1:10:02 in her opinion, she, she thought that they, you know, they could have easily just called these cost act and it would’ve been direct. Yeah. And that she believed, um, she was also a supporter. So she was very, uh, cognizant and, and, and kept telling us that she was a supporter of three A, which is not relevant to this, but she kept sort of pounding that home that she saw this as easily remedied and that it would be ultimately up to E-O-H-L-C to make those determinations. Is is one of the big takeaways I took. Yeah. Well, well, I would Find out. I think that’s right. Well, I, I would say that we’ve gotten a lot of information since the last town meeting. Right. And one of them is a, a, a ruling by the Supreme Judicial Court, and the other is this unfunded mandate deliberation for, or, uh, deliberation from the auditor. And I think this memo is very, is very important and well done for on both of you,

1:10:47 for getting the information, talking, reaching out to the auditor, putting it in a memo. I think it’s more information than the town needs. And that’s what we really, you know, need to do to, to keep people informed. So, and we’ll find out more information on, uh, you know, as, as the appeal process goes through starting April two. So not the appeals process, the actual, the the injunction process. The injunction process, the appeals process is gone with SJC, correct? That’s right. I think we’re, yeah, that’s, that’s, I think it was, it was interesting to just really understand the, the differences between the two that clearly she stated in, in, in the news and to us, yeah. That she believes that the law is a law that, that, that her un that her determination of this doesn’t take it away from that. Um, and also about, about that, her definition

1:11:35 of direct versus indirect. Yeah. And one other thing that she wanted to clarify, that it’s the, the state auditor’s office only determines whether the law has been funded, not the amount of funding. Um, so Right. That was pretty cool. Anyway, I just added to some Could be clear to her. It was purely ‘cause it was discretionary. Excuse me, because it was cost. Well, that’s right. That’s right. So Yeah, to be clear, so there’s, there’s sort of two components of what’s, if we determine unfunded, one is the cost of the municipality in order to become compliant, right. Versus the cost of construction, roads, water, sewer, all those things.

1:12:22 Because it sounds to me that the battle line is only in the lane of the costs relevant to becoming compliant is the only, which are the direct, is the question, which are the so-called direct costs. The direct costs could be the direct costs, and some say is the direct costs, and I may say not, but as far as the impact of any future development, once it’s in place, pretty much set that that’s indirect would not fall under unfunded mandates. Is that sort of the, Um, y well, yes, but that’s pre presumably because it’s, it’s not the state auditor’s determination, again, for the direct cost

1:13:08 or whether it’s a direct or indirect cost. She def they defer, that office would defer to E-H-O-L-C, who presumably would say, okay, if there is direct, if there is direct cost, it’s only technical assistance. But her Challenge, And her C it sounds like, is only on the work to become compliant. Right. The technical assistance Needs not about when they, the, the future costs of everything else after that, it’s only relevant to the cost to becoming compliant. Oh, was a determination. She, and which she expressed Some communities paid out of their own pocket communities like Marblehead, we did receive grants to, to, to cover the costs. And so part of her resolve is those communities who had to pay outta their own pocket, the legislature owes you some money.

1:13:53 My, I I think my understanding too is that even because they were grants and discretionary, It just kind, Even if everyone got it, it’s unfunded, right. Because it’s not guaranteed And it’s just a definition issue. That was her definition. Yeah. I mean, the money’s already there because it was funded as in as a grant. She’s just saying they just need to submit it back for the next year’s budget and, um, as a, as a funded line item versus a discretionary grant. And, um, that was really what triggered her determination was when the fiscal impact, when once the SJC determined it to be a mandate that had to trigger, that had to happen first. So when it was determined to be a mandate, uh, that triggered them to review the financial impact statement. And when they took offense to E-H-L-L-C replying

1:14:38 that there was zero impact when, you know, complying was obviously there were millions of dollars out there. So, um, you know, it was, it was interesting to hear her position on it. I mean, yeah. I mean, and, and then I guess she also said, I mean, towns individually can, that’s, that’s her view on it. I mean, towns can argue otherwise, they can say no, you know, they could challenge it and they could say that’s, that’s not indirect, that is direct, but that’s not where her letter stemmed from. But that is, you know, available to some of those towns. And, um, And the grant we received paid for everything. There was no out OFP pockets Correct. Expense from Marblehead. Yeah.

1:15:24 Yeah. We, I mean the, the, the actual work was the work that bowler did, um, to do the analysis, you know, the planning board and the planner generally figuring out the best options. And then they did the analysis to ensure that based on the density, based on the acreage, uh, that it actually complied with the intent of the law. That yeah, that was the effort. I think that there are, you know, this, this impacts towns different towns differently. Yeah. You know, there’s certainly towns out there who can on their own, you know, argue that there’s the direct costs with infrastructure needs because, you know, there’s towns that have overlay over,

1:16:10 um, vacant land. Undeveloped vacant land. So, um, you know, it, that they can absolutely go and, you know, it’s a legitimate case to be made that, you know, that at some point we’re gonna have to run sewer here, we’re gonna have to run, and that would be on the town. Although, you know, there is some of that bargaining negotiation that typically goes on around that with the developers. So, um, but The auditors after it was not towards that, it was towards the company, correct. Right. Period. Right. Um, yeah, I think like a town like Raleigh had acres and acres of, uh, overlay over open, undeveloped land. And so they’re, they’re able to say, we, we would have no infrastructure here if a

1:16:56 developer did come upright. Um, so that’s, you know, each town’s kind of different. Obviously, our overlay district is very developed, um, you know, in terms of water and sewer needs. Um, so just wanted to add, add that to the, to the, um, information And chair. If I could just add, I mean, I think it’s great. I don’t think we should, uh, you know, jump to conclusions on this. Um, you know, I think we gotta keep an open mind about it. Um, you know, I think our role is to advance information if there’s an opportunity to make this a, uh, uh, you know, if this is an opportunity to make this a, a mandate, uh, with a, with a stick

1:17:42 and a carrot, we gotta look for the carrot. Uh, and because, you know, there, there may be an opportunity to find, uh, you know, some sources of funding. And I think if we’re gonna be focused very much on, on what the town needs, I think keeping an eye open for that, you know, for that potentiality, uh, down the road to, you know, to make a petition that may, that may still be an option for us. I think it’s important that we keep an open mind about it and, um, you know, it, it, it, it may be a, a reasonable option before or after town meeting. And I think that’s a determination that we’ll have to make. I’m sorry, you’re talking about, about the, about the filing for an in junction, Potentially potentially making a petition. Sure. I think it’s something we ought to keep an open mind. Yeah. I mean, I think that’s why

1:18:27 after that long meeting that we had two weeks ago that we made this call to get more information where I agree. No, and I think that’s great. I that’s great. It’s a great memo, by the way. And, Uh, I mean, I think you inform about that, just so you know, there are, you know, something that came out last week is you speak of carrots, is, is sale got a pretty good carrot of a million dollars and, and a grant for infrastructure. No, that’s right. So it’s, it’s, I agree. Listen, we need to weigh the cost benefits of all these one. Yep. If, if not us doesn’t have anything to do with us if the town passes three a, what that opens up and if, and if we decide to go the other way with the top cost over that. Well, I think that’s right. It’s, it’s gonna come down to, you know, the mechanism, uh, probably, but I think you can be four three A and you can also be for a, a petition pretty, uh, pretty easily. Um, I don’t think they’re mutually exclusive. And I think, uh, you know, that’s a good posture to,

1:19:13 to keep in mind in my view. So, So Keep it, keep, but thank you very much for this memo, guys. It’s really good. Okay.

1:19:27 Um, let’s see.

1:19:35 And let’s see, What do we got next here? Um, what do we have next? Oh, operational, operational review. Oh, operations. Oh, right, okay. Operation review. Okay. So, um, I just wanted to bring to the board, I’ve had some informal conversations with other elected officials in town about, you know, just casually about how we can better collaborate, um, across our boards and, um, have more, more cohesion around, um, projects and, and departments. And, uh, and you know, we have all the pieces now of, um, from the financial standpoint, from the GFAO to, um, to clear gov to the MUNICHS integration, like the financial data pieces there that, you know,

1:20:22 it might seem to be that, would there be an interest in working with other elected officials in town, um, to just kind of check in and see, you know, are there ways in which we could be, um, more efficient in terms of operationally? Are there, um, are there better ways we could align the structure and, you know, enhance, um, service delivery, uh, you know, where, and just kind of like review where, you know, review operationally. And, um, I think that that comes from elected officials first, and there’s definitely an interest in that. And speaking with, um, uh, cemetery commissioners and rec

1:21:08 and Park is very interested in just kind of like exploring and having a conversation about, about that. Um, and you’ve talked to Yeah, But we’ve been involved in similar conversations. I mean, I think the, the key here that you touch on is, is collaborate. Mm-hmm. I think this needs to be collaborative a across all leaders of town. This is not to try to take away any power, any duties, any budgeting from anybody. Um, we’re also not looking to reduce workforce here. Um, I think it’s just about looking about using our current resources to be more efficient. Um, there are, you know, a lot of things that aren’t happening that way. Like, to me, one of the most, since being on this board, one of the most glaring, um, places that we can prove is, is on our facilities and possibly grounds, uh, you know, and so, but working with everyone

1:21:54 to figure out if there is a way we can do that, I think makes complete sense. Yeah. There was, there was definitely interest there and, and some ideas and maybe, maybe, maybe we come back with, okay, it seems everything seems to be working. Like don’t fix what, not, not broken, but there were definitely some ideas around, you know, um, ways we could possibly, um, coordinate some operations side stuff. Yeah. And so I guess I just put it on the agenda to see if you know the board and if members on our board are interested in kind of more formally having that conversation with other elected, uh, boards about that. And Well, yeah. I mean, if I could, uh, jump in.

1:22:39 I mean, I think the charter committee is, uh, is doing some of this thought pro thought process right now. Yeah. And I think that, uh, you know, a couple of years ago, Thatcher was mandated with improving the resource management, the, the cross town resource management functions of the town. And I think one of the key discussions we, we should have with other elected boards and, and commissions is an understanding that we would like to begin to, uh, have them use the centralized resources of the town rather than using resources specifically for functions that can be centralized. Okay. So, a classic example of that is hr. We didn’t have an hr, everybody had their own kind of capability within each of the, uh, departments.

1:23:27 Uh, but with a centralized HR function, you can just, you know, the departments can rely on that service. And it’s important so that we have a uniform liability management, uniform treatment of employees, et cetera, et cetera. You know, contractual contracts and so forth. So I think that’s in my mind is how do we get the department boards to support Thatcher’s strategy around operational resources management. Okay. Because that’s what he’s rolling out right now. Yeah. Actually, that came up with one of the commissioners, it might have been, might have been Shelly, that they had started to create their own policies because they do a lot of hiring That’s right. For programmatic, um, summer camps and whatnot. And, and I actually remember at the charter commission,

1:24:12 I happened to be here when they, when, um, Jamie was here and Jamie hadn’t really met Tom. Right. So just like that simple connection of just being at the charter commission at the same time and, and then talking to Shelly and they, you know, it’s like, well, please don’t like reinvent the wheel. We, you know, this is a town resource, even though it’s housed under under us. You know, we’d like to have a uniform policies around that hr. So that exact, um, example came up that they had actually started doing that themselves, like creating their own policies. Oh. Hundred percent. And it’s a big undertaking. So, um, But I think we need to go away. I mean, I think that yeah, clearly as a starting point, I think we need to look at, you know, way beyond those barriers as well from every, every, to talk about what

1:24:58 everyone thinks needs to happen this summer. I’ve heard a lot of good input from different, um, from different elected officials, different leaders, different from citizens. I think that, you know, I think we start with all these, with, with the elected officials and, and talk about that. Again, I think facilities and grounds is a good place to start to look at. I know the charter’s doing it, but I think as town leaders, I don’t think the charter’s gonna take care of that necessarily. So I Think we can do this as well. Yeah. I think that’s a positive thing. And I think we just have to, we can’t be remiss. We have to say that the union will have to be part of these negotiations and processes too. Yeah. I mean, we get Not, but it has to start somewhere before the, this is gonna be a top down, but we’re, I just wanna make clear that this, we’re not doing this cartilage. No, I think everyone’s gonna be involved. I think it’s starting with high level and then there’ll probably be public

1:25:43 hearings if we determine things. We’ll be talking to everyone. I mean, it’s looking at everything here. Right. Well, the only thing and all the effects. Right. The only caveat I would add to that mm-hmm. Is that, uh, Thatcher’s restructuring mm-hmm. Is a long process. It’s, it’s, it’s, I mean, just, and, and I think that we ought to take our cues from Thatcher in terms of what his operational strategy is in terms of improving the communications between the boards a hundred percent with you. ‘cause I think that’s where we can, you know, help facilitate cover for what Thatcher needs to do on the operational side. I think there’s a difference between operational and, and, and, and policy. So without question, Thatcher needs to be overseeing the operational, I think we’re looking at some higher level things here, which stature is gonna be involved in. ‘cause you know, it’s a lot more, but I think this is about

1:26:30 talking about some of the things that, uh, we’re really gonna need leadership throughout this town, outside of the select board. And Thatcher is our representative to talk to as well. And I think, I think these Are mutually together. I mean, they go Together, but I, they’re Independent, but they’re also together. But I agree that we have, I think getting a retreat together with the boards would be, I, I think we’re, we’re maybe a Slack group. Yeah. If, if it’s just too many. We do, I think with Core and all type of stuff. Yeah. So, but I, I do think is something to spitball, let’s start, because, you know,

1:27:04 there’s, there’s a lot of room for improvement. But I think part of the idea, I think what the Charter Commission was to try and get us a little bit together, and I think this is complimentary of it separate, but complimentary of it to also say, what can we do? And, and also short citizens, we, we boards work together, because we’ve said that time and time again. But when’s the last time besides, like tonight when we haven really had joint meetings with other boards mm-hmm. Unless somebody leaves. We really haven’t had a lot of that. Yeah. So this, we, we gotta, we gotta start that process. And I think the whole, you know, exploring, you know, what, what, you know, are there better ways? You know, are there areas that you know are working great? Are there, um, areas where we maybe are kind of duplicating efforts or we, you know, we’re maybe too siloed

1:27:52 and it, we could combine efforts ‘cause you know, to just kind of, um, share the resources in a better way. ‘cause it is so tight financially. But a lot of it will come from the, you know, advice and counsel of the department heads and the employees who are their ones. Sure. Really the subject matter expertise. You know, I would totally defer to, you know, I think that’s the most important. That’s a like, critical, crucial piece, you know, in kind of picking their brains in a way that, um, hasn’t been done before. You know, around, you know, um, different aspects of, you know, one thing that came up obviously was facilities. Uh, we’re kind of an anomaly in town here in Marblehead in terms of not having a facilities department. And, um, you know, we’ve tried to troubleshoot it

1:28:40 and plug a little hole, um, the best we can right now with our, um, with Steve, our, um, building inspector, our commissioner, and a stipend that we’ve allowed for him to oversee some of the maintenance of buildings. But we have, you know, probably seven buildings, not including even the school buildings that, um, you know, these are town assets that we don’t really have, uh, like proper oversight in my opinion. Uh, or, or a place to go that can kind of prioritize those needs and help maintain our buildings. Um, and it is a standard, um, kind of department that exists in other towns. And so I’d be interested in researching

1:29:25 and reaching out to other towns that have facilities departments to see, you know, what their budget looks like, what the organ, like, what the, you know, the talent is and, and what’s the staffing needs of that and, and what, uh, their, how, like, what their functions are. Um, because that, that to me stands out as something that is deficient in town that, um, would be an easy thing to talk about. How can we remedy that, um, and have better man maintenance and management over the building so that we don’t have, you know, uh, like, you know, like council on aging director tr you know, trying to figure out the roof leaking and you know, that there’s like kind of a common, um, subject matter in-house place for all of these many, many maintenance needs for the buildings.

1:30:14 Yeah. That was just one example of something that stood out as Yeah. I mean, worth exploring. Yeah. A hundred percent. I just would, uh, enter a caveat into that. You know, I mean, I think that, you know, the central repository of knowledge for all the nuts and bolts of the town, the personalities, the structure resides in Thatcher and his department heads. And I would just say that, you know, Thatcher has put in place a strategy, has squeezed out costs. We’ve done a lot of integration around technology, finances we’ve made actually, and it takes a long time to squeeze out these benefits. It takes a long time to change people’s behavior. Uh, not to say, you know, and, and I think, I think the biggest part of our collaboration, as you’re suggesting Madam Chair, is that we get the, we, we, we help the other mandated boards

1:31:03 to have a discussion with our operating centralized resource strategy. Right. ‘cause we’re, we’re really controlling that. We’re designating Thatcher to do our reorg. And we need, I think, to convince the other, uh, you know, silos, uh, elected silos to cooperate with us, to, you know, to, to find savings and so forth. See, But, but I think that you’re talking, I’m just hitting on this. No, I’m just saying though though, you’re talking about, you just mentioned silos and Thatcher’s in one silo. He’s not in One silo. Well, no, no, you know. No, no, but no, he’s not. By, by, by, by, by elected. He reports to us as a select board. Correct. Right. So that, that’s, we’re talking about reaching

1:31:49 through these silos and not convincing anybody, but working with people on a collaborative basis. So I think that that’s the difference, is not trying to take power or anything, but to collaborate. Thatcher technically reports to us a hundred percent. That’s correct. So he does, he cannot step, hold on one second. He can’t step into those silos by, he can talk to ‘em, but there are a lot of things that they control schools control their, their buildings. Okay. Um, the other, you know, cemetery controls that we’re talking about that Thatcher does not have the power to do that. Of course, he can talk, we’re talking about trying to work together to discuss these things that fall in different silos. So I think that Yes, no question. We should all be using the same resources that Thatcher’s done a great job in reorganizing and bringing more efficient, talking about being going beyond that. Because Thatcher is on silo.

1:32:34 I mean, technically he works for us, right? He, he’s, his foot is in every silo town, and sometimes he’s kicking up against it or not. Right. But, so, but, so, so, but that’s the difference. I think that’s why we’re talking about things that Thatcher, we can give Thatcher certain powers. There are certain things that we can’t Yeah, I look, I, but, so, but I think that’s, but that’s the, the difference that I see in this. We’re talking to leaders. Yes. I, well, the only thing I’m trying to emphasize mm-hmm. Is that there’s a number of cross-functional resources mm-hmm. That Thatcher has built up organizationally that serve all the Silos. Without question. I was trying to pass that with that question, right. Hr. Yeah. But, but, but I think that process of, of, of implementing and finalizing the use of those central resources is not complete yet.

1:33:19 Okay. That’s what, that’s what I wanna say. I don’t think we’re trying to stop though. Ones we’re trying to do. No, we’re trying to expand. I mean, I look at, I look at Amy’s area as being Right. As a microcosm of, of a, of a great area. Because what she did is she had a lean budget, and now people in the tree department can do work on the DPW and vice versa. Sure, sure. And that’s what Dan, I think is, is getting to that. We need to take a look at that. But we can’t do that without talking to the cemetery. We can’t do that without talking to the park and rec because of the fact that that’s where, you know, Thatcher’s, you know, scope ends. Right. You know, and even, even the, the dump gets cut, you know, he has its grass cut. So what that’s what Dan’s looking at is how can we communicate with all these people to look at what we can do to centralize, to maybe use Amy’s as a little bit of an example, but then we have to go back to those department heads to get their buy-in.

1:34:05 And we have to go back to the unions and make sure there’s no issues with that. So that, so I think, and your area is more like HR and, and, and, and again, things that hit it from a different perspective. Well, but now we gotta start kind of going down and say, what does Park and Rec do that other areas do that we, and doesn’t make sense to be with Park and Rec should be over here? Should be there. And that’s what we have To do. Because we don’t have the power to change that. We Don’t have the power to change that. The other boards gonna have to see things just like when the school has a building they wanna give back. They have to give it back to the town, goes to the town meeting, we vote on it. And this is part of the process. So I don’t disagree that that should continue to do his plan, but this is a little separate. And I, I think you’re getting a little, I Think they run parallel. They run parallel’s. There’s overlaps, but they’re parallel. But they’re, they’re different purposes. And I think that, you know, just, I mean that the health director

1:34:52 and, um, you know, uh, Jamie Block or, or Peter James, you know, they I’m sure have ideas of things that are difficult for them to execute on. Or they, I’m sure there’s like a lot of strong, you know, opinions that based on all their experiences of what’s, what could be better. Mm-hmm. Um, and how can we, how can we, um, kind of combine resources and, and just in the interest of basically streamlining, um, services and, and, uh, and coordinating, um, coordinating the operational side of things a bit more, um, cohesively. And next year we’re gonna have to go back to town meeting

1:35:40 for an overrun and we’re gonna have to go back saying, we have done everything we can to make it as efficient, as lean and productive. And, and Thatcher has done yeoman’s work in a lot of those areas. And, but now we gotta get to that next level. And, and I think this is appropriate that we start that now because we don’t wanna be behind the eight ball anymore than we already are. And so I think this is a wonder. That’s a great point. I think it’s unfair to ask the town to give money if we haven’t done everything. If we haven’t done everything. I agree. Yeah. Well, that’s why Thatcher was brought in, and that was to think anyone’s, and he’s executed Beautifully. No one’s questioning that. Right? Right. He’s executed beautifully against it. And we need to let him, you know, have, have the time to implement what he’s, Again, I think we’re, we’re, we’re, we’re, we’re. I don’t think no one’s stopping you. Um, continue, keep going. Trust me, I’m not telling you

1:36:27 Tomorrow. We wanted to continue to that. We want to supplement it. I think that’s all we’re looking at. It’s All, it’s all good. It’s all Communication is always good. What I hope it will be all good. That’s what we’re looking for. Absolutely. I think we’ve already made great strides, but that’s okay. So keep going. If there is consensus about, you know, that this being a valuable conversation and endeavor, um, to continue, and I know that there is, there is interest from other elected officials to participate in it. Um, there’s a couple different ways we could, um, go about it. And one way is that, you know, um, asking for, um, the allowing, um, of a moderator’s committee to form a town meeting, and you could have, you know, the moderator put together a committee or like a working group.

1:37:13 The other method would be, you know, our board is, as the chief executive board put together like a working group of that encompasses all the other elected boards and designated, um, designees to kind of work together. I mean, we can think about the details of it more. I just kind of wanted to put it out there and people think on it. And, um, and, and how, uh, how they wanna go about next Steps. Yeah. I would say the moderator is a, is a, you know, separate, uh, you know, separate part of the government. Right. Moderat is more the legislative branch and we’re the, we’re, we’re the executive. And yeah, there’s a big distinction there. And, you know, the moderator in, in a sense Should not be No, I think it should come from, from, from from her. Okay. Yep. Okay. I agree with that. Yep. Yep.

1:38:01 I don’t think San, I, you know what most I agree with you shocked Kyle. Make sure that minutes. Make sure that’s in the minutes, please. Alright, So we can Said select board members. Agreed. Right. Okay. So that’s good. I just wanted to, um, bring it to the table as an idea and, um, I like it Kind of. So next, so next steps, we will continue conversations. Yeah. And we can, I can put it on for future agenda and we can kind of talk about more. Um, but you know how to proceed Sooner the better. Been Done a long time. Looks like we got a leader all this time before we Got a supporter. Thank you Madam Chair. Okay. Um, Megan Sweeney is here to do a presentation for us

1:38:50 on, um, women, uh, honoring women in Marblehead history. Thank you for hanging on. Oh my gosh. We’ve had, it’s a very full night. I Feel like I’m gonna be livening things up here. Well, that’s good. We, sorry. And could be like, you’re welcome. Yeah, I was, I don’t know why you’re, sorry. Second Act. And that camera’s super close. So thanks for that too. So, hi. Good Evening. I’m Megan Iver. Hi, Megan. Hi. How you doing? I’m Dan. Good. Nice to see you. You Too.

1:39:28 Can I get something? Thanks, buddy. Coming. I wasn’t nervous. And then about 15 minutes ago, What, what made you nervous? What part God was it was, it may or Yeah, it was you. Okay. Makes sense. You, we, we can ask leave. We, we can, but there’s three of us here. We can Yeah, just please. I’ll it right here. Well, that, and seriously the camera. I know I had the same reaction. I don’t, it feels Move it over to close to Moses. Moses. It feels extra close to, to me. I don’t know why. It feels like it’s in a different place, but that’s All right. All right. Okay. So take it away. All right. So total change of subject for all of you. Um, uh, my name is Megan Sweeney. I’ll make it official. I am here as a mother of three daughters,

1:40:14 uh, a soon to be grandmother. Very excited. Congratulations. Um, a community organizer and a survivor of gender violence. Um, is it working work here that I can go? So here tonight to, uh, so during women’s history month, of course, but Hold on one second. Yes. I just don’t think you’re up here. You Want push Here? Is your document here? Oh, I forgot that part. Yeah. Okay. Hold that thought. Start the whole thing over Down here? Yep. Okay. Here. And so you want, um, where am I? I want share presentation. That one. Do that one. I can’t see everything. And share. Now we’re good. All right.

1:41:01 Do over, do that here. It’s all Thank you. And go into full presentation. Right. You know, my palms are sweaty. Just a minute. That chair.

1:41:14 Now we’re good. All right, I’ll start again. So, Megan Sweeney here for Women’s History Month, and it’s no surprise for those of you who do know me, that as much as I love women, I absolutely love defiant women. So that’s sort of where the focus is gonna be tonight. Um, this is an invitation to celebrate and acknowledge the deep, rich history of Marblehead and which centers women an opportunity to consider context and deepen our appreciation for all the contributions that women have had to marblehead. Hopefully create some opportunities to address the areas where we are not quite equitably represented in public spaces. Because history has a tendency to stifle our significance, if not omit us altogether.

1:42:00 Luckily, it’s never too late. And we have a wonderful board and a wonderful community in 2025, which I know will honor. Thank you. Our indelible impact. I wanted to start with an advertisement, which I’m not sure if you have seen that the Ford Motor Company put out. And I thought it was really perfect and sort of how, um, a visual to what I experienced trying to track down women’s history.

1:42:30 Hold On. I think I have to turn up the volume. I think I have to un do I have to unmute or was It would be o volume off the laptop. All right. I try this, try this again.

1:42:45 Introducing the men’s only forward explorer with no windshield wipers, no heater, no turn signals. Wait, no rear view mirror.

1:43:00 No GBS. Uh, it’s missing all the parts created by women. Wow. It’s a great idea with that. This women’s Women, I just loved that. Is that, is that new this year? Is that a new one? Yeah, that’s a new, it just came out and it actually came out while I was preparing for this, uh, presentation and because a lot of the reading that I did on women was through, uh, the newspapers, you know, the Marvel head messenger back in 17, 18 hundreds and so forth. And it was not a flattering picture that they painted about us in the newspaper. So anyway, tonight’s subjective, um, to invite a collective reflection on Marblehead women as warriors to proclaim Marblehead, or excuse me, to acknowledge women past, present,

1:43:48 and future to proclaim Marblehead as a violence free community and to consider equitable representation in public spaces.

1:43:58 Let’s begin with a reflection

1:44:03 Context, I think is really important when we look through history in 2025. Um, because to discuss history without acknowledging the multiple ways that we are suppressed is inauthentic. It prevents learning. It distorts the raw power of being a woman who defies society’s norms, who goes to war for a country who survives and thrives most egregiously. I think by only celebrating our the gendered norms, we limit the dreams and potential of our next generation. For all of us as women have experienced violence, inequity, injustice, exclusion, erasure, and of course all of the isms, all of these impact our potential.

1:44:46 We have to understand that women’s collective accomplishments against these battles of everyday life. I believe it’s important that we do that to fully honor our stories, or we, we take a chance on forgetting our strength as women and our courage and our power as a community as a whole.

1:45:08 Marblehead women’s contributions are powerful enough to shine through all of those battles and the stifled significance assigned to us. We ran for office despite being omitted from the rights and privileges guaranteed in the US Constitution amendments and how we were excluded from town governance, bylaws, budgets and priorities. We served in the military first in supportive roles because we weren’t allowed to enlist. And then on the front lines, despite the limited trauma informed resources available to us once we were home, we created care networks. And that is something that Marvel head definitely has a theme for, that the women in Marvel head created unbelievable care networks to take care of each other. We delivered babies and dispensed healing despite being

1:45:55 trapped in poverty and hunted and hung as witches. We lifted our voices for abolition, education, temperance, rights, and liberation. Despite the inevitable retaliation from our bedrooms to the streets, and now even sadly, online, we menstruated despite misplaced shame, the absence of hygienic menstrual products, and even today, the absence of products in public buildings. We reproduced despite the absence of autonomy, healthcare, pain management, clean water and sanitation, without the right to consent at any stage of that, we founded liberation, abolition, and climate change movements to, despite being taught by the medical profession, educational curriculum’s, media and advertising that we were genetically predisposed

1:46:42 to being overly emotional, submissive weak, and in general less than a man. We embraced our creativity, spirituality, queer identities and sexual freedom. Despite being othered by our families, archaic laws, conversion therapy, lobotomies and incarceration, Lord knows I would’ve been incarcerated back then. We, we did it all. Despite gender violence being a key locus of control to assert power and dominance, especially over indigenous, black, and queer women, we are or tend to be, I believe, omitted, um, because I think our collective power is frightening.

1:47:26 But Marblehead women are amazing. These are just a few of the people that I researched and found out about. This truly is just the beginning. But this came through through multiple searches, crowdsourcing social media, media archives, online conversations, scheduled and rescheduled meetings in the generosity of a ton of marble headers who share the same passion as I do about history. To find the information was quite complicated and was a, I think, overly complicated path to find all the stories. And even still, the stories weren’t complete women’s stories or those unknown and critical linkages to history

1:48:08 as the Ford ad showed us. They are rarely visible as our absence is sometimes normalized. But knowing our contributions is crucial because knowing and learning offers the potential to expand our social consciousness, to be more celebratory of women as equals. When it is normal to value and acknowledge our existence worth and agency, there are fewer battles to fight. We can contribute back to the community as a whole, The safer we are personally, professionally, and politically as elected leaders. When equitable representation is the norm, our contributions are well documented, easy to find, and our stories are fully recorded. Hopefully in our own voices. Our influences, accomplishments,

1:48:55 and accomplishments become the foundation for more our perspectives and priorities. Solicit solu solution-oriented outcomes, which benefit everyone. Our bodies become our own, no matter the age outfit, identity or levels of alcohol. We chose to dis to consume and respect for personal safety. Safety becomes intrinsic. Knowing the raw power of these and many other women should ignite and hopefully ignites a spark which will inspire the next generation of leaders, visionaries and revolutionaries to dream and to reach their potential, knowing they have our communities full support. Alternatively, omission, omissions, minimize women’s power,

1:49:40 influence existence, and waters down, quite frankly, waters down. Marble head’s, comprehensive and committed role in, in shaping America’s history. I believe we can do better.

1:49:56 The first phase is tonight. It’s a dialogue. It’s developing a community-based, um, approach and response and, and sort of starting from there. If we document a commitment tonight, I hope we can document a commitment to Ford’s new endeavors. Grounded not in battles rooted in suppression, but in the complexities of our existence and the differences that we share. And the flourishing of a community-wide ecosystem where each and every single person is liberated from archaic beliefs, cycles of violence, and is safe to be their full safe, denounce gender violence more tangibly. I’m asking for the select board in the town to embrace the, um, proclamations of gender-based violence

1:50:42 that we are against violence. That we are both sexual assault awareness as well as domestic violence. Both the proclamations, I think you guys received, commit to an ongoing education dialogue. Collaboration with the intent to equitably represent women in public spaces more tangibly a women’s veterans monument and support. What I was, I couldn’t think of a clever name. So I called it Ms. Rums. It’s my favorite children’s book. I think I’ve got Grandma on the Brain. Ms. Rums campaign is to just to make the town more beautiful, to have public gardens, to plant flowers and have whoever wants to be involved in involved, but just to create something beautiful in our town. Designate space for portraits. If you look around this room alone, all these men are really, really, probably mad at me.

1:51:28 But we need more women’s portraits in Abbott Hall. We need to know that. I know there was one, was it Joyce Mafei? Am I pronouncing her name correctly? Mm-hmm. Ma. And she had, um, I think Marblehead forever presented to the select board way back when, um, a portrait or a picture of her. And I would love to see that and celebrate and find out who’s, I couldn’t find a picture of her. And it was driving me crazy. ‘cause she’s our first select board, uh, as a woman, um, display, easily searchable online resources to meet the insatiable curiosity and contagious enthusiasm of this amazing community. Again, more tangibly, find ways to record our contributions and omissions and keep it in one place when searchable scanning all those documents.

1:52:14 I can appreciate how much effort this would take. But if there was one source, and we have the amazing dedicated volunteers in Marblehead forever, and the Marblehead Commission, uh, uh, sorry, the historic commission, the town historian. We’ve got the Marblehead Museum. I talk to so many amazing people and the energy is there to make this happen and establish some guidelines on how to make sure that we not only do it now, we establish some sort of baseline that we keep ourselves accountable in the future.

1:52:46 These projects that I just listed have so much support in the State House. We have, um, we have Representative Armini, very excited. We have two senators, really excited. We have the Women’s Veterans Network. I’m not sure if you’ve ever worked with them before. Amazing organization. I talked to Jessica Frost, um, our own RO who is over there in the back. We’re all very excited about the potential of a women’s veterans monument, the Essex County Commission on the status of women. Um, I meant to send that to you, Kyle, but I’ll send you the beautiful letter that they wrote in support of this effort. Um, I just think the energy is there and I, and I think we could make this happen. And I’m not trying to pass off work. I’d be happily involved in whatever capacity Thatcher needs more to do. I was gonna say, let’s put that on him. I think

1:53:31 it’s only fair Thatcher. I saw him volunteer. It’s only right. A Patient said it’s more of a voluntold. It is. But yeah. So I think this is something that we could make happen. I think it’s a wonderful and beautiful thing that we could all rally around. Um, so thank you for the time. But most importantly, I wanna thank the warriors who defied the norms, challenged the power, who weren’t believed, and who were still healing to the, to the warriors who media history and society deemed worthy of vilification, exclusion or erasure to the veterans. And those currently bravely serving the military today to the innovators and supporters of new norms in community care, governance, justice, and equity. And I thank you stole very much for the opportunity. Thank you. Thank you. You did not seem nervous. Just so you know, those Really, my palms are so sweaty,

1:54:17 so I’m not sure you wanna shake hands.

1:54:21 Thank you. So, um, thank you. Thank you for Yeah, you can stay for a minute. Oh, Stay. You, stay You, um, thank you for bringing that to us in this second meeting in Women’s History Month in March. Um, occurred to me that maybe not everybody, not everybody made that connection. Um, and, uh, so, you know, I think I, I was able to run into, um, Pam from the historical commission and, and, um, and she said that they were, she was excited to kind of explore this idea and, you know, digging more into it. That’s quite an exhaustive, that’s quite a list of, um, names that you’d pulled together. I don’t know. Was That, was, that was a, a group effort and there’s more besides, so. Yeah. Yeah. So is that something like, we’re working with the town historian? You’ve got some of those names or just No, Actually, there’s a, a gentleman who is writing a book

1:55:08 and he has given me incredible, it’s, I, it’s, it’s great. His name is Sean Casey. He has been fantastic. And he gave me all of the names. And that’s just for, I believe that’s World War ii, and then a few others from social media I added in as well. Um, but he’s got a whole chapter on the Red Cross and the role that they played here in Marblehead, another amazing organization that really, I mean, they were literally rolling bandages. Um, the teachers that were here, you gave 6% of their salary towards the war effort. There was just a, a really amazing level of support. So there’s so much more to dig into. That’s Great. Yeah. Thank you so much for bringing that, bringing that to us. Um, and yeah, so, um,

1:55:55 and we also have you here for our a proclamation, which you’ve brought, uh, forward a request for proclamation four. Um, ‘cause April is sexual Assault awareness month. And, um, so I do have a pro, we have a proclamation in our, um, packet. It’s in the book, in our packet. And if we got you a copy of it here, Should we have a town seal on top of it, I think? Yeah. Um, and we can get you like a, the actual once we sign all signs, Once you signed. Oh, good. Thank You. Um, okay. Would some, does somebody wanna read the proclamation?

1:56:32 Sure. I’ll read it. Well, you wanna do a Madam chair? You can do it. Yeah. Go ahead. No, it’s you. You sure? I’m a man? Absolutely. All Right. Well, let’s see. Okay. Uh, this is a proclamation from the select board, uh, to make, uh, the month of April sexual assault awareness month. Whereas sexual violence is a pervasive issue that affects individuals of all ages, backgrounds, and communities with lasting profound effects on survivors families and societies as a, as a whole. And whereas the month of April is nationally recognized as sexual assault awareness month, a time to raise awareness, educate communities, and promote prevention efforts to end sexual violence. And whereas according to national statistics, one in three women and one in six men experience some form of sexual violence in their lifetime,

1:57:17 highlighting the urgent need for awareness, support, and action. And whereas organization, organizations such as HAWC, healing, abuse, working for Change, the National Sexual Violence Resource Center and local crisis centers provide vital services, advocacy, and education to support survivors and prevent future incidents. And whereas every member of our community can play a role in preventing sexual violence by promoting a culture of respect, consent, and safety, and by standing in solidarity with survivors. And whereas the town of Marblehead joins advocates, survivors, and organizations across the nation in recognizing the importance of sexual assault awareness month

1:58:02 and reaffirms its commitment to supporting survivors and working toward a future free from sexual violence. Now, therefore, we, the select board do hereby proclaim April, 2025 as sexual assault awareness month in Marblehead and encourage all residents to participate in activities, educational programs and initiatives that raise awareness and foster a community dedicated to ending sexual violence. Okay. In witness thereof, uh, the undersigned, uh, the, the select board. So, um, thanks. Awesome. That’s great. Thank you. We, we need a, a motion to adopt the Ation being raised by and raised in an all woman house, including pets and having two daughters. There you go. So I would like to motion, um, to,

1:58:50 for this, for, for this whiteboard. Happy to second. You got me. I’m watching you. And so thank You. Okay. Second. And then, um, all those in favor of the proclamation. Okay, great. Thanks. Thank Megan, I’ll follow up you with you about your other request. Okay, good. Yeah. Um, if this was just very timely, so No, no, no. This is how this works. Thanks For all your Hard work. Thank you very much. Thank you. And I thank you. And Chief and I have plans too, for April, so we’ll keep you all in the And I, I, I, um, I heard that you were honored at a breakfast from Hawk as being, um, uh, advocate in the community in the fall. I did. I wanted to. ‘cause Chief King had filled me in on that. Yeah. Oh, thanks, Chief. Yes. It was the Dale, uh, Orlando Award who was the, uh, troublemaker like me. And she actually got, she got the hawk, you know,

1:59:36 she was the beginning or the origin of Hawk. It was, it was, it was an honor. I was not expecting hundreds of people in a room. Right. Well, congratulations. So Thank you very much. Doing good work. Thank you. Thank You. Major general, um, Megan, um, Quigley. I have a quigg on there. Yeah, that’s what I would Well, that’s what I’ve been told. I’m collecting. She Served with her for years. Did you really? When I was a squadron commander, she was acting as my Jag. She was awesome. I think she’s the I from so far. She’s the senior Jag in Washington, DC That’s how she got two Star General. From Marblehead. From Marblehead. We have, I mean, the list, and again, just beginning it is phenomenal. So yes, I can’t wait to share. Once we get, you know, a little bit more

2:00:22 information, we can share it. And Megan, I tell you, I’m, I’m excited about paying tribute to Marblehead women because I look on that list. I recognized a couple, particularly, uh, Flossie Amero who was, who was very close to our family. And, uh, you know, there is a tradition in Marblehead of really cherishing our women too. And they’re characterized by strength, resourcefulness, resilience, uh, an amazing trait in a very tough world. Right. Uh, and That’s the thing. That’s what came through in reading some of the history was really 16 hundreds and 17 hundreds were Right. Were difficult for sure, for everybody, but yeah. But anyway, I just wanted say that Thank you you very much. Thank You. Nice to see you. Okay. All right.

2:01:07 We are getting there. Um, both of the board, these are consent agenda items. Um, uh, ask for a motion to prove the following consent agenda items, except those put on hold the minutes of February 26th, 2025, uh, uh, to declare the following items as surplus and no longer needed for municipal purposes so that you can disposed of in accordance with the town’s policy on surplus equipment, historical commission’s display case, and a Kohler generator from the police station, Abbott Hall Rotary Club of Marblehead, request for the holiday pops December 12th through the 15th, 2025. And appointing Daniel Pool in accordance with general laws Chapter 1 29, section 15 and 16 as Inspector of Animals with the determin to expire in April 30th, 2026.

2:01:57 So move. Second. Second. Okay. All those in favor? Thank you. Okay. And we have a request from our tree warden to, um, recognize Arbor Day and, um, as, uh, let’s see, what does he have it here? We have 15th, um, yep. April 5th. April 25th, 2025, um, as Arbor Day for the town of Marblehead. And, um, he’s done a lot of work with Sustainable Marblehead and the MHS Green Honor Society. They’re, um, to, they’re planting 22 trees at Getches Playground, and this is the fifth year of the volunteer program. They’ve also purchased a hundred Holly Winterberry seedlings to be planted in conservation areas by the Marblehead Conservancy and other volunteers on Saturday, April 27th, as part

2:02:44 of the ABER Day celebration. Um, and these planned events help us to qualify for Tree City USA recognition once again. Um, and so John has, um, we have a, a draft proclamation that, uh, we could, if you’ve had a chance to review it, um, we could, um, uh, I’ll take a motion to proclaim April 25th, 2025 as Arbor Day for the town of Marblehead. So moved second. All those in favor? Okay. We’ll get that to our tree warden and we’ll Read, that’ll be read on the, On the 25th. I’ll do read on the date and yeah, that’ll be presented and with the conservancy and all that. Yep. Okay. Um, and now, uh, we have a, um, request from,

2:03:32 uh, for a handicap space on at one 18 Front Street. Um, uh, chief, did you wanna speak to this? I mean, we have a, your letter, but, um, you wanna, I guess, maybe come up in case they have any questions? Thank you. So he’s detailed the criteria To do something. Yes. Just to hit you off your phone, just to fill of support. Yeah. So he’s outlined the criteria. Um, do you wanna just endorse the space? I do. I mean, so, um, they come in a variety of ways sometimes, um, directly into the select board. Yeah. Sometimes directly to the select chair. Um, and there are criteria that have been established, um, by the town several years ago. And so we tried to be consistent with that.

2:04:18 I think that what’s important to note about any handicap space, um, therefore the public, right? So they don’t represent a individual space. Sometimes that’s confused by the individuals that are requesting them. Um, but in this particular case, in the area of one 18 Front Street, basically from the landing restaurant to the barnacle, there’s no spaces in between. And so it fits that criteria that there’s a need. There’s no other, um, parking that’s available. Um, it doesn’t create any other issue, um, as relates to parking and the like. And so I think it fits the criteria and, um, that’s why I think that the criteria that you all created many years ago. So, and then after this, um, the engineer does do a actual dive into the placement of it.

2:05:05 So we, um, make sure that it’s like specific to the numbers. So we’ll fill that data in after got it on the exact location. So does anybody have any questions on the request? No, not me. Trust the chief on this, So, so I’ll ask for a motion to establish a handicapped parking space on recommendation of the police chief and in accordance with the towns criteria for establishing a handicap parking space in the area of one 18 Front Street and post the parking regulation accordingly. So moved second. Okay. All those in favor? Great. Thank you. Alright, thanks chief. Thanks Chief. Um, and we have, um, uh, temporary parking restrictions.

2:05:53 Did you wanna, do you wanna speak to this or? Sure. It. Okay. I didn’t know if you wanted to publicize it. You No Pressure. But that was Enthusiasm. Don’t conceal your enthusiasm. Don’t conceal your enthusiasm.

2:06:07 I’ve been talking a lot even at This table today in A road trip. Yes. Another project we missed you. Uh, so this is a water project. We’re doing, uh, water main upgrades with cleaning and lining, which will be pits every 250 feet. Um, but in order to do that, we need to take the water main out service. And in order to take the water main outta service, we have to put temporary water up. So, uh, you’ll see temporary water lines already on Curtis and Roosevelt Street. Um, they’re usually like four inch pipes. They run along the side of the road hoses run from each place to, uh, from to each dwelling so that they can get their water there. Um, pleasant Street is one of the areas that we are doing. So from Washington to Spring Street, it’s relatively wide

2:06:52 until you get to Watson. Then it starts to get really narrow. Uh, we walked it with the contractor engineer and the fire chief. Um, and we are concerned about the restriction that will happen. It requires two four inch pipes down each side because of the density in that area. Um, they’re metal pipes with things that stick out and break tires, so please don’t park right next to them. They will break your tire and we don’t replace your tire. So, um, but we are worried about the bus and fire engines getting through once we put these four inch pipes down and then we put the barrels next to them. So it’ll be, um, shortened. Yeah. So, uh, they are doing four projects in town. This contractor, they have worked with us that they’ll put

2:07:38 that bypass down, the last bypass they put down. And if it passes all its tests, it’ll be the first one they start, uh, doing the cleaning and lining on. Um, there were two that we asked for. One was Roland Street. One was, uh, pleasant. They have actually installed the bypass on Roland Street, and they were able to install that on the back side of the public way. And the backside of the, um, one’s a smaller pipe since it’s not as dent dense and the backside of the sidewalk. So we actually did not need to have restricted parking on Roland. Uh, but we really need to make sure people don’t park on the sidewalk on Roland. ‘cause they’ll be hitting that pipe and popping tires. So hopefully they will not park on the sidewalk. The, the Popping tires message is getting through.

2:08:23 Yeah, it has to Because this is my eighth year of telling people that and my eighth of kind a phone call. So, um, uh, so we do hope to have it down and back up as fast as it can be. But it, it starts before the construction and it lasts till afters until we can pass the, uh, water main passes this water quality test. So even though if there’s not construction, those pipes will still be there for another two, three weeks. Okay. So we’re, you don’t, it might not be until June 5th. We’re just Right. And it will come up as soon as that was to cover. Yep. So that’s just to make sure that we have time because of course, weather and, you know, other emergencies and contractor conflicts can delay it. But Thank you. Great.

2:09:08 Thank you. Great. Thank you. Amy, Can I have a motion to approve the following temporary parking restrictions on request of our DPW director to facilitate water main upgrades as follows, 24 hour parking restriction for water main upgrades. March 27th, 2025 through June 5th, 2025 on either side of Pleasant Street from Rockaway Street, Watson Street to Washington Street, no parking on the right side of Roland Street. Even numbered house addresses from Cross Street to Prospect Street. So moved second. All those in favor? Right.

2:09:45 Okay. And I think we’re onto the cannabis control regulations. Um, Thatcher’s gonna give us an update on what’s going on with that. Oh, I was gonna, I was gonna say, Or do you wanna we’ll take Action next meeting. What, what it is, is we, we have to, um, update our policies to be compliant with some law changes. So, um, I just, with all the other items on the agenda, just didn’t get that one pulled, so we’ll Okay. Put that for the next meeting To be continued. Yep. Great. Thank you. Perfect. Okay. Uh, we have some, um, fairly simple, straightforward contracts. Uh, um, for on our consent agenda, items for contracts, I need a motion to approve the following consent agenda items, the contracts with the town, um, accept any put on hold

2:10:31 and authorize the chair to sign on behalf of the board change order. Number one, contract 24 20 24 dash zero 50 Cliff Street, boatyard underground storage tank between the town and Collins Engineers in the amount of $16,650. Uh, change order number one on contract 2024 dash 16 Gary Street Playground between the town and Crowley Trell to extend the time of completion on the contract to December 31st, 2025. Right. And no cost change.

2:11:08 So the con what are you reading from the Last one? Sending the com the contract. Yeah. Right. December is 2025. 2025. Um, with no cost change. Award contract 2025 dash 0 0 7 between the town and Crowley Catrell for Gary Playground phase two in the amount of $30,000. It says 24. So moved. Okay. Quick question. How on the, how is the Cliff Street being paid? So the Cliff Street boatyard, so that’s, uh, an environmental spill issue. It’s been forever. So we, we applied opera funding. Now the opera funding that we originally applied to the project was not Marblehead 6.3. It was what came through the state of 200,000. Gotcha. So that started the cleanup.

2:11:53 There was additional contaminants found and given that we’re past the window for, for opera. So actually the, um, harbors and Waters board have stepped up Gotcha. To, uh, add about the 16,000 additional funding, um, in order to, uh, complete that cleanup. That’s great. And I’ll second the motion. Um, all those in favor. Sorry. I No, It’s fine. I’m the, Um, I’ll Cover you. Don’t Worry. Thank God. Our last, um, real business item on the agenda is, uh, licensing, um, seasonal renewals. This is for the dolphin. Um, I need a motion

2:12:38 to renew the following all alcoholic seasonal club licenses, subject to all taxes and fees, the town being paid receipt of all applicable departmental court approvals, Cory, approval and compliance with chapter 3 0 4 of the acts of 2004. The Dolphin y Club at 17 Allerton Place, um, manager, Scott Kelly. So Moved. Or you Yep. No, go ahead. Second. Alright. And some poll votes. So, uh, Mr. Er in favor, Mr. Fox? In favor, Mr. Murray? In favor, Ms. Nunan In favor. And also they have a request. Um, we, for a vote, we need a motion, um, to renew the following local Sunday entertainment license subject to all taxes and fees for the town being paid and approval from the Commonwealth’s Department of Public Safety for Sunday Entertainment. Again for the Dolphin Yacht Club at 17 Allerton Place. Yes.

2:13:25 So moved. Okay. All those in favor? Great. Okay. Thanks everybody. This was a, a longer one. Um, that brings us to select board announcements if anybody has any announcements tonight this evening.

2:13:42 Okay. Well with that then we just need a motion to adjourn. So moved. Second. All in favor? Great. Turn us at 9 25. Thank you. Good job. Recording. Stopped.