Select Board: May 14, 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.

0:00 Okay, good evening. I’m going to call us to order. It is Wednesday, May 14th at 7:00 PM and I will start, as we always do with public comment.

0:15 Albert Jordan, 64 Roosevelt Avenue. Um, I hope in the future at town meeting, uh, we can move it to the new high school. Um, it was much more comfortable in that building. Um, much easier for people that have mobi mobility issues. No slanting, uh, actually those cheap seats. Were gonna spend, I think, 130 to reupholstery the seats at the, the old, uh, the old high school. Those seats were more comfortable than sitting where I sat anyway, in the main auditorium. Um, just so much easier. It’s handicapped more, you know, it’s a newer building. Much better ventilation, much safer, many more exits and entrances to get out afterwards. Um, if you’re in the parking lot, you have to wait

1:01 for the traffic, but I didn’t park in the parking lot, so I just hope in the future, I don’t care if there’s a hundred people or 50 people or 2000 people. It just makes sense in the future to try to have it there, make it more comfortable for everyone. Um, I went the other place an hour and a half early and I couldn’t get a seat. And, um, I didn’t realize when we used to use the gym in the old high school, um, you can’t, you don’t hear what’s going on and everything. So it’s my, I mean, if we, we, if we have the means to have it all in one room, it’s a no-brainer to me. So, just a suggestion. Thank you. Um, number two is I hope that now you took into the coffin school. I hope it’s not gonna sit there two years. I hope. Um, maybe when you have your meeting in June and the new boards here, you can get right to work on it

1:48 and probably maybe within three to six months decide what you’re gonna do. It, it shouldn’t take a year or two. Um, I just saw a person that passed away on Evans Road a month ago, and there’s a for sale sign in front of the house today. People, I don’t know what they do in the public sector, but people in the private sector don’t let a piece of property sit for years vacant. It’s an eyesore over there. Windows are broken. It looks like a junkyard over there. The grass needs to be cut, the parking lot’s, all buckled. Um, let’s be nice to the neighbors. I don’t live across the street from it, but let’s let, let’s hear and decide what we’re gonna do and not wait two and a half years. Okay. And the last thing is, um, I said sit at town meeting. Um, I’m gonna wait till there’s a new board about an idea of maybe changing the color

2:33 of the police cars from all black for more visibility. Um, Danvers Peabody, uh, swamp Skit and Salem all went to black and white cars. Um, Boston, I like even better. White and blue cars, New York, white and blue cars, the mark cars. I’m talking about, um, Worcester White and blue cars. The visibility of the public, if you want, if you see a police car and it’s all in black and it has writing on it, that half of ‘em you can’t even see. It looks like it’s faded to be some type of undercover squat environment. That’s not what we need. This is a friendly town, I thought. So. I’m gonna meet with the town administrator. I talked to the police chief last year. He wasn’t interested. Um,

3:19 and the only thing why I’m bringing it up tonight is that we put in for two new police cars this year. I hope before you signed a contract, at least I can meet with some people. If any of you select men or the town administrator, I’m gonna go to him first. But like I say, I wanna wait till there’s new, uh, person on the board. And if the police chiefs will come to come to the meeting too, uh, you know what I mean? I’m not trying to do anything about any behind anyone’s back, but, um, times have changed. And, um, you know, I live in Marblehead. I’m tax, I’m one of the taxpayers for those things. So, um, you know, and the other thing that needs to be done, we need to have a policy on these town vehicles that they’re taken home every night. I saw another one at three o’clock this afternoon. Some of these department heads have good jobs.

4:06 The, um, you know, and I’m gonna talk to the town administrator about it to find out what’s going on. But I don’t like paying the gas for these cars, um, that are going out of town every night. And, um, the state, if we used it to go back and forth, we had to fill out a slip and pay taxes on it. I don’t know if Marblehead is doing that. Um, I’m gonna get the forms off the state and bring ‘em down to the town administrator. Maybe you can look into that and the state can collect some revenue off these people. Um, these people are making good money. They should be paying for their own gas, and the cars belong to the town of Marblehead and should be available 24 hours if there’s an emergency in Marblehead for any person that works for those departments to use ‘em, not just exclusive for one person. Thank you. Okay. Thank you Mr. Jordan. Appreciate your feedback on the town meeting. Thank you.

4:51 For sure. We hope others would, will weigh in. We’re certainly, I think we’re pleased with the venue change as well, so it was really nice. And then I, we do share your, um, your thoughts on getting our reuse, uh, visioning going for that property. Thank you for sure. Is there anybody online?

5:11 Okay. So, uh, town administrator updates, Mr. Keer? Sure. Uh, thank you. Uh, I’ll start. Number one. I concur in regard to town meeting at the high school field house. That worked well in my conversations, uh, with all the sort of key stakeholders in, in, in the process and decision. Uh, I’ve not heard any objections of designating that. Um, it, it, as was pointed out, uh, it provides very flexible space so it can be accommodated for the anticipated size of town meeting, and it can instantly grow larger if more, more come than anticipated. Um, it was a simpler setup up for the technology.

5:59 Um, especially the, the clickers, uh, despite the impression that the clickers were not working at the beginning. They, they were, it’s just that the, um, the number of people in the room and all the other wifi signals, everything that was going on, um, it slowed down the transfer of data. So folks were thinking it was instantaneous response and, and clicking the button, and every time you click the button, it’s transmitting another message into the system. Uh, and it just, it was a matter of patience. And, and, and we had to figure that out. Plus, uh, Frank Perez, who was handling the technology at some point, realized that the system basically had a traffic jam shut down the wifi and, and,

6:45 and booted it back up, and it cleared the system out. And that was the point that everything flowed. In fact, he, he has written up sort of technical instructions for that situation and supplied it back to Meridian, the vendor to make available to other towns using the system that run into the same problem. So, um, when you’re transmitting a lot of signals, the server that’s trying to process it will get jammed up and sometimes a quick reboot clears it out and the traffic flows again. And that’s, that’s what happened. So, so it it, it did work, it worked well once we kind of cleared out the, the system. So, um, uh,

7:32 Thatcher, yes, I think the sound system made a drastic improvement, you know, on the last night. I’m just wondering if there’s any way to kind of even make it better. Yes. And I was, I’m not sure how people heard, you know, whether people heard well in the back. We, I mean, we heard Well ‘cause it emanated from a speaker in front. Yeah. But, you know, maybe we can get that projection out there. So There were adjustments made for each night and, and it seemed to improve each night. Yeah. And again, the setup was done literally from Monday night once the meeting was postponed. You know, while we were waiting for the, the, the folks came in, I, I, I went over to the superintendent and said, how’s the field house looking for tomorrow? I mean, that, that started the process. And then the first thing in the morning, everybody showed up

8:17 and put together the field house. So, so that first night, yes, the audio was, was challenging. The second night they made some changes. Um, and so part of the plan is in anticipation of that being designated, you know, for, for, for next time, uh, looking at what equipment upgrades we need to make it a, a better experience. So one will be the screen, uh, the screen that was used was something they purchased during COVID for the need. Then it fit the bill for what we needed on the fly for, for time meeting. But there are larger screens and, and probably, uh, a little bit more powerful projectors to, to enlarge and brighten up the, the visual presentations.

9:05 So we’ll work to improve that. We’ll work on the audio, um, and we’re gonna look at, for the location of all the, the receivers to probably find, you know, more permanent mounting and higher up in the air so that the, the signals are not blocked by, by bodies. Um, so it was, it, it worked, it worked well and there were improvements to be made. So our intent is to sit down and kind of go through some of the technical issues to, and, and, and purchase any additional equipment we think we would need to enhance the situation. So. Awesome. Um, but I, um, so, you know, I, um, the superintendent and I did a letter, um, thanking

9:52 what we call the unsung heroes, the IT folks, the school custodians, the, the town’s public works folks who on the fly jumped in and, and made that work. Um, I, I also want to add a few more. One, Meridian, the vendor that, that provides the clickers. Um, so we, we purchased 1500 clickers. ‘cause we’re never gonna hit that number, right? And so after Monday night, um, it, you know, exceeded the number of clickers and then exceeded the, the capacity of the rooms. So that next morning, well, that night started working the phones. Um, so through Meridian, Peter Babel, who’s the principal of Meridian, reached out to him.

10:39 One, he was in route with the, to, with a receiver, to, to, to replace the receiver that had faulted that Monday night. And then we were able to get 800 additional clickers that were rented by the town of Hopkinton through Meridian. So, so Peter brought 800 more clickers, and then I made deals. And, and this is, I’m saying this to thank the communities, uh, the town of Westford provided 300 additional clickers, and the town of Hamilton provided 300. So we had 2,900 clickers on hand ready to go for voting. And so both Hamilton and, and Westford in particular, and, and then those that were rented by Hopkinton, but they were Meridian clickers supplemented our clickers.

11:26 So the, the collaboration between the towns helping each other out to meet, you know, uh, additional capacity. So I wanted to publicly thank those, the town manager, administrators, and those towns. That’s awesome. Yeah. Well done. Well done. Yeah. Yeah. Well done. It was great. Um, so, uh, that, and then the, the one other shout out and some of you were able to attend this morning, uh, chief King received a community leadership award, um, from the, uh, the Essex County Law and Education Day, hosted by the A DL New England. So the work that Chief King, along with, uh, chief Rubin Casda of Swamp Scott, working together on dealing with the

12:14 anti-Semitic issues and challenges and, and responding to the community, um, uh, making the community feel safe after the events of October 7th, a year and a half ago now. Uh, those events, uh, that they were both recognized for their outstanding work, uh, in response to, to those issues, um, we get to enjoy, uh, the award breakfast, um, and comments by, by each. And, um, so I wanted to publicly, uh, again, congratulate Chief King for his recognition. Well deserved. Um, congratulations To him. I think, you know, his, uh, his comments were also, you know, brilliant. They were really great. Yeah. Yeah. They were well done. So, um, that’s all I have for my, my update pending.

13:01 Any questions you might have. Any Questions? Okay. I’m gonna take a little creative license as the chair, because you’ve touched on it, because, but I wanted to acknowledge the tremendous effort that went into the unexpected, um, you know, relocation of town meeting and being there on Tuesday at 10:00 AM and people kind of struggling with, you know, challenges and, and working things out and, and seeing where we were. I mean, it was all hands on deck. I think almost every department was involved. I, I think we, we, from Janie Block and Dan to coordinating childcare for that evening with the massive turnout. I mean, she had within hours found sitters for I think 40, uh, 40 children.

13:47 40. Yeah. And then, uh, I, I mean, I saw bus drivers, moving chairs, and the athletic director was involved. And one point, you know, we were reaching out to Star of the Sea and, and, and Stevens, um, is it St. Stephens? St. Stephens, yeah. St. Stephens Church. Were so, you know, quick to respond to our need and, and ask for help. And, you know, from obviously the emergency, um, our, our, both of our chiefs, our fire chief, by the way. Happy birthday. Happy birthday today. And, um, and Dennis, and, uh, like you said, the custodian crew and Frank Perez, I mean, what an asset to this town. Yes. He has helped us out so many times. He works for the school department, and he has been such a tremendous value add for us in our times of need,

14:33 including when we were at the library for that big meeting Yep. At the planning board, had a meeting at the pack, and it’s, you know, we’re always, you know, really nervous about how we’re gonna pull it off. And, and, and Frank seems to find the way to just, you know, step in and, and, and, and just make it happen. So, And I’ll add Gretchen, I, I don’t know her last name from the school. It, I don’t know. She was the one working the laptop, had to, had to train on it, download the software, all that to actually run the system of all the votes. And, and what’s key about that, you can preload all the warrant articles and such, but when people are making procedures on the floor, on the fly, she has to hand type ‘em in,

15:22 put ‘em in, put ‘em up. And so I, I, yeah, she did a great job in, in a critical, critical Position. Mm-hmm. And it was such a, I’m not gonna lie, I mean, there was a lot of ugliness going into in the community and, and getting, and, and, and that there was a bad energy around this town, this year’s town meeting. And there was a lot of division around it. And when I came back at two o’clock and saw to pick up my kids, and I just checked in on it, and it, it looked like we had spent weeks setting it up. And I, I mean, it almost brought tears to my eyes. And I sent a picture to, uh, Jack Ridge, and he had the same reaction. It was just completely extraordinary and remarkable. And so I just wanna, I really ha uh, like round of applause for everybody that was involved in that effort.

16:11 Gretchen. Gretchen Langton. Langton. Okay. Langton. Okay. Yes. Okay. Um, oh, and now we have, um, uh, Amy Drinker is our chair. Is Rosana here too? Just Amy, for our, um, town charter committee update.

16:33 Welcome, Amy. Hi. Good evening. Oh, lemme just put this on here. Oh, are we still, is it the owl or is it this? It’s This, this is down. Yeah. Oh, yeah. Okay. Good evening. Nice to see you. I’m here to give you a brief update on what the charter committee is up to. Since January, we have been reviewing draft a of the charter language, which has been drafted by Sean Casey, one of our members with assistance from Mr. Ssen in the audience, and also Victor Wild, who’s an attorney. And we go through article by article, different section by section. And tomorrow night we are meeting because we couldn’t meet last Thursday night

17:20 because town meeting was still going on. And tomorrow night our review starts with Article 7.5, which is recall, which is a different kind of article within our charter, because it’s something that doesn’t exist in Marblehead operations right now. So there will be two tiers to the conversation tomorrow. Ninth. First is the, the topic of recall, and then the actual language, which is drafted. And then we will go on through articles eight through 11, and that will finish our review of draft A Sean is tracking conversations that the charter committee has had, and there will be a draft B, and then I’m sure there will be a draft C. And as we work through the next 10 months, we will be

18:05 fine tuning it until it gets to the point that it’s presented to the select board for review. And then depending on the vote of the select board, it would go to town meeting next May for review by the voters. In preparation for this next 10 months, we’re having three forms at the end of May to give the public an opportunity to tell us what they think about the charter. The charter has been online on the Marblehead math.gov website since January. So we welcome people’s interest in it to read it and see what they think to come to the forums. That first forum is on. Oh, I bought, brought you guys, um, this is kind of old fashioned. I brought you handouts, but I also sent the two of you a digital copy

18:54 of this today. Yes, we have, Can we have it in our packet? Okay, perfect. So we’ll keep Those for, um, it’s also advertised in the COA for this month because one of the forums will be hosted by them at the Jacobi Center on Thursday at lunchtime. So we tried to pick three different venues so the people, depending on their availability and what they were most comfortable with, could come and, and listen to a brief conversation and then ask questions on the first meeting, which is Tuesday night during our regularly scheduled meeting, Sean Casey will give a more comprehensive overview because the charter deserves that attention. It’s not kind of a 10 minute conversation, it’s

19:40 quite, it’s more involved in that. So we welcome people’s attention to that presentation, and that will also be online, in case they couldn’t see it when we deliver it on the first of those three forms, which is May 27th. Anyway, we are making a point to go out to different, um, media sources. Here. I am talking to you guys, the Council on Aging have done at the current MHTV, Marblehead News League of Women Voters, um, and a few social media points. We’ll be letting everyone know about the scheduling of those forms. And I’m happy to answer any questions that you may have.

20:22 Does anybody have any questions? No. Thank you for doing all the forums. It’s great. Appreciate the time. Yeah, we, we hope that people Are respectful of the process and that we’re, we’re interested in hearing what people have to say. Amy, thank you very much for your leadership. You’ve been persistent and you’ve really raised kind of the, the bar in terms of getting the due diligence, informing the committee members. I think you have an amazing drafting process, quite frankly, that works. That works really well. Um, so keep going. It’s, it’s really, I really love the fact that you’re, you know, making a real effort to socialize this and get this in front of as, as many people as possible. It’s, It’s an important part of the, we don’t want anyone at town meeting next year to say, I’ve never heard of this.

21:09 Where did this come from? Right, Of Course. So we we’re hoping, Yeah. And to that end, I think I had, um, mentioned to Amy that I was going to ask and encourage all five of us to help promote this public outreach effort. We don’t have a communications department, obviously. We all have our networks of, you know, supporters and voters and, and, and different community, uh, organizations that we’re involved in. So it’s really important if all each one of us can help spread, um, this press release out, you know, in addition to all the other efforts we’ll make to publicize it.

21:43 So thank you. I think there’s one And as many eyeballs on It as possible. There’s one little thing here that we might need to, I think that’s a 30, so we’ll fix that. Just a little typo on the date, but we’ll fix it. Yeah. Um, thank you. Yeah, no problem. Um, yeah, I’ll let you continue unless you have any more questions for me. No. Where do you see, uh, so, you know, now we’re in, um, may you’re doing the public outreach. Can you just kind, if you know, can you just give us a little bit of like a, you know, a three month lookout of where things are going? So the charter committee, tomorrow night, we’ll be discussing its schedule for the upcoming months, um, because we’ve been working pretty hard people.

22:30 I don’t know what people are, people’s summer schedules are like, right. But next September we’re going to be meeting with Jenny Armini so that she can walk through the process that the charter takes if it gets to the state level. Mm-hmm. Which is about a year. We allow a year almost for it to come back to the state, to the town from the state. They have a very prescribed way that they look at home rule petitions, and this will follow that procedure. Um, so next fall, this summer and next fall, we will continue to just revisit parts of the charter that we’re still talking about. We are still meeting with a few committees that we haven’t met with yet that are elected or have statutory obligations that we just wanna make sure that we’ve touched base with all of them.

23:17 Um, the compensation committee is one that we haven’t met with. I think we’ll probably just look to Thatcher to speak to that. So we’re still following up on things like that. And then the public feedback is really important too. And so we’ll continue working, but anytime we have a meeting, it’s posted, it’s always open, and we share online all documents that we’re reviewing so that people know exactly what we’re talking about. And then I was just gonna ask you, I meant to ask you earlier, but where are we with our MAPC consultants? You know, what’s their level of involvement? Because I, The Collin Center, I’m sorry, the callin Center Thought you were pulling one. I was like, I don’t know about those. I Confused them. That’s okay. We had a lot Of work with both the Collin Center has been, they always know what we’re up to.

24:06 I send them copies of things that we’re talking about. They will come, they will be very important in addition to town council to review the charter. When we get it to a place where we think, okay, this has now been through Charter Committee review has been through public. We wanna know, we might have certain questions that we wanna ask them about. What’s your experience with this versus that presentation of the charter? Should it be all one package or should it be in a few different components so that voters understand different options that they have in terms of what they wanna accept. So we’ll be doing that kind of work with the Collins Center where it is a contract that the select board has with them. So we’re aware of how much time we have left. So we’re saving it for what we think is the most important component of their work.

24:52 Okay. Good. Thanks. Okay. I think that’s all. Thank you. Coming tonight. Thank you, Amy. You’re welcome. Amy, do you want me to leave this on or? Uh, we can turn it off actually. Thanks. Um, okay.

25:10 Uh, we are moving on to agenda item number four, which is the 2025 annual town election polling locations. As we discussed at maybe our last meeting before town meeting, we discussed the, um, inaccessibility issues with the old townhouse and some challenges also with even just the community center and disruption of schedule. Uh, so we, uh, you know, as we discussed, are going to, um, uh, move the locations to the field house, which did a great job for us at town meeting. So let’s fingers crossed. Um, it should be a great, uh, place to vote. So, um, we do need to take the vote. I ask for a motion to move that the select board pursuant to Mass General Law and in accordance with the requirements

25:56 of the Secretary of the Commonwealth, approve the following changes to the polling locations for the town of Marblehead, effective for the annual town election scheduled for June 10th, 2025. Precincts, um, one and two will be at Abbott Hall here at 180 8 Washington Street, precincts 3, 4, 5, and six will be at the Marblehead High School Field House, which is at two Humphrey Street. And these polling locations shall remain in effect until we further vote of the, until further vote of the board, and may also be used for any subsequent special or referendum election, including any referendum election duly scheduled by the Select Board upon certification of a referendum petition by the town clerk, unless otherwise determined by the board. Further, the town clerk is hereby directed to take all necessary steps to notify the Secretary of the Commonwealth, the public, and affected voters

26:42 of these changes in accordance with applicable law. So moved. Second. All those in favor? Okay.

26:50 And now we have a couple, we, our two homeroom rule petitions that we need to, um, send off. So I need a motion that the select board adopt the Home rule petition as approved at the May 7th, 2020 fifth, 20 20 25 town meeting. Article 28 established means tested senior citizens property tax exemption and submit. Same to the General Court. So moved. Second. Okay. So, poll vote, uh, Mr. Fox. In favor, Ms. Singer? In favor, Mr. Murray? In favor, Mr. Grader? In favor, Ms. Nunan In favor. Okay. And in the same vein, we need a, um, this is for the Article 44 Home Rule Petition. We need a motion that the select board petition for the General Court to amend chapter 37 of the Acts of 2004 as voted in Article 44 of the May 8th,

27:37 23, 5 town meeting. So moved. Second, Ms. Singer, Mr. Murray? In favor, Mr. Grader? In favor, Mr. Fox? In favor, Ms. Nunan In favor.

27:50 Okay. And, um, now our, um, our veterans agent is away, but is, uh, has prepared, uh, or would like us to obviously publicize our Memorial Day weekend, uh, plans and activities. So I will just go through the schedule for those in the public. And the record. Friday, May 23rd is the Veteran’s Breakfast at nine o’clock at the Council on Aging. This is sponsored by the Masons, and then there is grave flagging at Star of the Sea Cemetery. And then following on Saturday, May 24th at 9:00 AM there’s grave flagging at the Waterside Cemetery, um, meeting at the Bell Tower and all are welcome to attend and participate. Sunday at one o’clock Is the VFW Veteran Service at the

28:36 Star of the Sea Cemetery. All welcome. Monday, May 26th, 8:00 AM Clark’s Landing for the Memorial service. 8:30 AM Memorial Day Parade Muster begins at the old townhouse and the 9:00 AM our main parade. Parade begins with our usual stop at Memorial Park and the usual parade. Route up Pleasant Street to Memorial Park for ceremony at Memorial Park. After the ceremony, we, um, proceed from spring to Elm and then down through Cressey left on Turner Road to the Waterside Cemetery. And, um, there will be a trolley available for, for rides. And we, um, not it’s to be determined yet, who will be the honorary Grand Marshall and principal speakers. And we, um, at, uh, we have Marine

29:25 and Selectman Moses Grader at Memorial Park, uh, speaking. And there’s a, um, student essay at the waterside that will be delivered.

29:35 Alright, consent agenda items. Uh, these, uh, we have no minutes, so I will ask for a motion to approve the following consent agenda items, except those put on hold, the use of Abbott Hall Friday, June 13th, 2025 for the Juneteenth Committee at 5:00 PM subject to the usual rules, regulations, and fees paid to the town and Abbott Hall Care. Sergeant Lodge number two 17, November 7th through eighth, 2025, subject to the usual rules, regulations, fees paid to the town and coordination and final sign off by town administrator. So moved. Second. All those in favor? Great. Now consent agenda contracts. So these are, um, funded through a lot of, uh, article

30:21 11 from the Capital Improvements Abbott Hall Article Council on Aging Donations. Do you have it? Are we on shop? Yeah. Do you have over here, do we? Oh yeah. I, I’m, I did we, um, oh, we might have jumped over, uh, something there. Chair Lisa. I just, okay. She, I have Lisa Hooper with her hand up. I don’t know if she wants to Oh, okay. Discuss b bocce court or whatever. Oh, right. The bocce court is on Here. I don’t know, is that anywhere in your back? I don’t know. Oh yeah, This is the letter from, it’s the concert that I have. Yeah. And her hand done. I have eight, I dunno what Hands up, hands down Goes with this. Alright. Goes with, so what I’m gonna, um,

31:10 so Lisa Hooper has her hand up. I I’m gonna presume it’s comment on this. Let allow her to talk. Yes, go ahead, Lisa. Sorry. Hi. Um, so sorry. I had, can you hear me? Yes. Yeah. Okay. So I had raised my hand up earlier just because, um, for town meeting. Mm-hmm. We were called at the last minute and I had one driver work 15 and a half hours that day. I’m sorry, yes. At eight the next morning. And then I had another person who was on vacation come in to work that night. And we were happy to help and we’re happy to help next year, but I just wanna give, um, you know, some notice to the people that came in and worked from the COA Thank you, Lisa. Absolutely. I do remember that.

31:56 Um, my, I’m sorry about the oversight. Yes. That, um, I’m glad you raised your hand. That was wonderful. And it was well, um, it was well used. In fact, my husband ended up on the, on the shuttle bus as well. He said, I’m on the Council on Aging bus. Uh, that was a tremendous, uh, asset to that night too, I think, um, that, that worked out really well. Well, listen, I just wanted to mention thank You. Yeah, thank you Lisa. And, um, okay. So just these are the, uh, contracts. Is there anything you wanted that stands out, Thatcher, that you wanted to speak to? It’s, is it pretty self-explanatory? Yeah, pretty self-explanatory. Um, I’ll just, the, the Purvis System Fire Station, just for clarification, it’s just a change in the contract

32:43 where within the contract, uh, they were gonna provide service to run the software decision, working with our IT folks that our own service will host it. So there’s a bit of a savings, but we’re gonna leave the funding as is in case there’s any other contingencies to the contract. So I just wanted to clarify what the changes on that particular contract. The, the rest are pre self-explanatory is listed in the, in your book. Okay. Thanks. So I need a motion to approve the following consent agenda items, contracts with the town, um, accept any put on hold and authorize the chair to sign on behalf of the board change order number one to amend the contract 20 24 0 6 4 Council on Aging Recreation Bocce facility project between the town

33:30 and Price Landscaping in the amount of $6,450. Amend the contract of 2024 dash zero two Abbott Hall Brick Rentals with Raphael Construction by increasing the amount by $3,600 and extend the contract time to September 30th of this year. Award the contract of 2025 dash 0 1 4 to achieve renewable energy LLC of Salem Mass for geothermal evaluation for Abbott Hall System in, in amount not to exceed $7,010. And an award of a contract 2025 dash 0 1 3 to Gorman Richardson Lewis Architects of Hopton Mass for the roof design of the Mary Alley and Jacoby Community Center buildings in the amount of $28,900.

34:15 Amend the contract of 2024 dash 0 4 4 with Purvis Systems Fire Station alerting system by amending language, uh, and renew the annual license agreement with new error technology for Office 360 5G 3G CC in the amount of $46,920. And that’s from the IT budget. It wasn’t listed there. So that’s our, that’s our office product license for the employees. Right. Okay. So moved second. All in favor? Okay.

34:51 Okay. And, uh, we have a, um, uh, letter here from, um, Logan Casey, our sustainable Sustainability coordinator, who has drafted, uh, a letter of support in, um, for the department’s, uh, um, port infrastructure development program to build the Towns Municipal Shipyard Resiliency Project. Uh, the, so, um, he’s asking us to just authorize, um, that’s great. The letter. So if I could have a motion to send a letter support for the towns port Infrastructure development program application to build the Town’s Municipal Shipyard Resiliency project and authorize the chair to sign on behalf of the board. So moved. Second. All in favor? Okay, Great. So this is for $11,250,000 from the feds?

35:38 Yeah, 11 million. Okay. Wow. Yeah, we received a grant. Um, which one is it? I think the 523,000. So the state has a program to, to apply for federal grants, you have to have matching funds, you have to have a portion of the cost of the project in the state has a grant program to help municipalities pay for that portion of it. So we’ve received acceptance from the state for the grant for that portion in order to be eligible and competitive at the federal level for the grants. And I know things at the federal level has been on, again, off again, uh, our understanding it would, they, these grants were pulled off, put back on for the next fiscal year.

36:25 So as of right now, they’re on, we’re gonna go for it and hope that, hope for the best, but $11,250,000 for our Harbor Resiliency Project. This is, this would be a home run. A hundred percent. It looks like we, we got in just under the wire, right? With a deadline extension. Yep. Yep. So again, great work by our community development and planning folks Yep. To pull this together. A hundred percent. I mean, that’s why they, that’s why they’re there. Mm-hmm. I think most of the design work’s all been done through grant funding as well. Yep. Mm-hmm. That project. Um, so people know it’s about 75% Design? Design. Yep. Yeah. Amazing. Awesome.

37:10 Okay. And, um, temporary outdoor dining applications from the Barrowman and Five Corner’s Kitchen. They’re in the packets. They, um, uh, we need a motion to approve those applications for 2025. Temporary outdoor dining in accordance with the town’s policy on temporary outdoor dining, the barman of 257 Washington Street and five Quarters Kitchen of two School Street, and subject to receipt of the required forms, fees, insurance, and approval from police, fire building commissioner and town administrator. So Both. Second, Mr. Murray In favor, Mr. Grader? In favor, Mr. Fox? In favor, Ms. Singer? In favor, Ms. Nunan

37:58 In favor.

38:01 Okay. And then that brings us to two, I think just in a blood drive announcement, uh, which, uh, is from Janet brings, she runs the Marblehead blood drive all the time, and it’s at the usual location of Gary Five, uh, it’s two 10 Beacon Street, Thursday, June 5th. It’s all day from 9:00 AM to 7:00 PM And they do make really good cheese steaks. I’ve had one after. Wonderful. And it’s a nice time actually. It’s really, it’s easier than you think so, and very important.

38:39 And gosh, that was, uh, that, that went by really fast. Um, so does anybody have any select board announcements?

38:51 I would just like to, um, uh, acknowledge our community development and planning department and the exceptional effort put into the presentations at town. Meeting Brendan is, uh, was really, um, involved. And I know that that took a lot of time away from other, you know, that was definitely, you made that a priority and it was really, uh, important. And thank you for doing that. Alex, our town planner did a phenomenal job, uh, in, um, in, in walking p people through very complex, uh, very complex issues regarding the EDU and the zoning and the floodplains. And, and I just received personally so much positive feedback around, you know, um, our new town planner and,

39:36 and how well the presentation went. So just wanted to thank, um, that department and that those efforts, uh, as well. So I second that. Yeah, they did a great job. Completely. Yep. Absolutely. Okay. So we just need a motion to adjourn, So motions seconded. Okay. All in favor.