Select Board: September 10, 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 All right. I’m Ready’s. We will call the meeting of September 10th to order and to announce this meeting is being recorded. First item is, we’ll start with public comment. I would ask people to limit their public comments to around two minutes if you can. We’ve got a pretty long agenda. Is there anyone, Mike, to make a public comment when we start? If you come up to the microphone, it’d be great. Thank you.

0:22 Public comment, call us to order after public comment. You can do it after. Good evening. Uh, my name is Eileen Haley ou and I live at 44 Longview Drive. And I’m here to speak to you about Marblehead becoming a green community. Um, there are many advantages to Marblehead becoming a green community. 298 of 351 communities in the Commonwealth have already joined Green Community programs since 2009 and have received many grants from this program. Marblehead could access 150,000 the first year that were designated and up to 250,000 each subsequent grant cycle, which occurred twice a year. Therefore, in the first five year period, that would bring us to 1,000,100 25,000 to the town. And this money would be used to fund projects

1:09 that taxpayers would otherwise have had to pay for. But with green Communities funding, we will not, it will not have to be paid out of taxpayer dollars. It will bring funding from the state for projects that we already have on our municipal to-do list, or AKA capital plan. For example, green communities funds can be used to renovate and insulate Mary Alley, updating its antiquated heating system, getting new energy efficient heating cooling systems at the community center or the schools. These green community funds not only reduce the amount Marblehead taxpayers have to spend to modernize our town buildings, but also very importantly, by making our buildings more energy efficient, our costs will go down into the, in the future, saving the town money. Marblehead becoming a green community is at risk

1:55 because of us not being in compliance with three A. However, I want to ask the select board to take several steps now to help us continue to be ready to apply for Green Community status as soon as Marblehead does become compliant with three A, which I’m sure you’ll be actively working towards. There are several criterion that Marblehead has to meet to become a green community, and those require your support and action as select board. Um, the first is to adopt a policy that our town will be committed to purchasing low or zero emission vehicles wherever possible for our municipal fleet, starting with light duty vehicles, of course, because there are very few low emission heavy, uh, duty vehicles currently. Secondly, the town needs to adopt a policy that will be committed to energy reduction

2:41 of 20% over five years in our municipal energy use both our fleet and our buildings a total within the fleet and buildings. And this is an aspirational goal. There’s no penalty if you don’t reach it, but it does align really nicely with our net zero by 2040 roadmap that the select board adopted in 2023. And the third step that we request you consider is sending a letter of support to the municipal lightboard stating that you want and need the town to become a green community. You need the funds. And because of the benefits to the town and we, and that you request the lightboard take the steps needed now conditional on Marblehead becoming three A compliant. And that’ll allow and support MMLB to decide to move ahead with a renewable energy surcharge, which is another step in becoming green community.

3:28 So in conclusion, I urge you to take the above steps so that this process is complete. The application to become a green community is, is complete and teed up. And then as soon as we become three A compliant you, we can apply and start the money flowing our way. And we are confident that you’ll find a way to help us become three A compliant. So thank you very much. Thank You. And if you note, we have your step number one on our agenda tonight as far as the, uh, the zero emission vehicle policy. Oh. Just so you know. Oh, okay. I knew it was on, but thank You. Yep. Thank you. Albert Jordan Roosevelt Avenue. Um, when we’re gonna get all this free money for the electric light, I just wanna make the taxpayers aware that your bill is gonna reflect that because they’re gonna start an

4:14 as an assessment on your light bill to get all this free money from the state. So, I, I’m not in favor of this. I’m in favor of going green, but I’m not in favor of putting everyone’s light bill up. I I know it’s a minimal amount of money in the beginning. Uh, the rate hasn’t gone up for 15 years. So, uh, when we comply for it, they’re gonna be looking for more money and, um, there’s gonna be another surtax, um, to the rate payers. So it’s, it’s, it’s not all free money. So I hope you just take into consideration that the taxpayers have to fund this every year. And once we start accepting the money, if we want to get out of it, um, we have to give the money back on top of it. So it’s a, it’s a real gray area. We should go in this cautiously. I don’t care that everyone else is doing it.

4:59 Um, the Mary Alley, there was some statements made that, you know, we can make the Mary Alley more efficient. I just voted for an override at town Heaton to re update the heating system, um, at the Mary Alley, uh, the school department update the roof, um, at, at, you know, the schools to schools too. So I want, I’m trying, we’re already in the process of making these things, uh, energy efficient and more efficient. But we, we really have to look at the amount of money. Um, you know, we can’t make everyone’s light bill go up and say, this is free money. ‘cause we we’re burdening the people that already live here. So I hope you just take that into consideration. Um, the electric light people are supposedly the experts at this. I, I’ve talked to them. I’m very disappointed. I went down to their meeting.

5:45 Um, I, I’ve talked to two, two of them out of five. I’ve left messages for them to call me. They never called me back. It’s been three months. So, um, you know, I, I just hope before you recommend something, you know what you’re recommending. Thank You. Thank you, Mr. Jordan. Anybody else like that comment?

6:10 No comment. All right. Anyone on the line? I didn’t see any. Okay. At this point, we’ll close public comment. Do you guys wanna call your meeting’s order? Yeah, The school committee meeting will now come to Order. Okay, great. Thank you. Second, we have a joint meeting with the school committee. Thank you guys for coming tonight. Um, as I’m sure most of you know, we’re here to appoint someone to take the vacant seat left by Mr. Ota. Um, the way that we’re gonna do this is we will call one applicant to the table at a time. We’re gonna old school here and go in alphabetical order. I will ask that if you have not been interviewed yet, that you sit outside, um, there’s some chairs in front of our office want we take the first, once you have been interviewed, you’re welcome to stay. Um, I’m gonna ask again that if you can limit answers to questions for two minutes, since we do have a fair amount to do here.

6:56 Um, and then after that we can have some deliberation and nominations. So with that, I would like to call Melissa Lucas up, and if the other three could wait outside and Kyle can come and grab you, we’ll put you in the, the silent booth out there. Welcome, Alyssa. Thanks. Thanks for having me. Welcome. Thank you. I think we’re gonna, everyone nice to meet you too. I think we’re gonna do is jump right into questions. Sure. Let’s do it. If that’s okay with you. Uh, Henry, you’d like to start. Great. So, um, My question is, what made you decide to submit your name to be appointed to the school committee, and what would your priorities be with appointed? Um, so I decided to submit my name to the school committee because I’m a parent of three young children who just recently entered the Marblehead Public Schools for my professional life. Um, I’m a chief financial officer.

7:42 I’ve been working in finance and accounting for the last 18 years. And looking at some of the challenges that the town currently has and the school currently has, um, it’s clear that we need some expertise within the kind of budgeting and financial management aspect of, um, the school committee. So my top three priorities, um, around the school committee if I were to be appointed would be one really, um, financial management. And what I mean by that is transparency for taxpayers related to kind of where their money’s going. I think there’s a lot of, um, it’s not clear right now to folks exactly where their money’s going. So just being very clear with what’s going on there, number one. Number two, long term planning. We need to stop being so reactive to things that are going on and be looking more proactively as to

8:29 how we can address some of these, the structural kind of issues that are going on with the town. Um, and then my other two priorities would be restoring trust with the community. I think there, um, are a lot of bridges that need to be built, um, because of what happened last fall. Um, and I would love to work on that. And lastly, really just improving student outcomes. We have a declining enrollment, 6% down this year, it looks like, um, need to understand why, what’s going on, what can we do to really solve that, um, and get more information so that we can really improve student outcomes. Great. Thank you. Jen, ask, um, please share what you see as the current challenges of the school budget. What do you know about our reliance and outside funding, both grant based and private? And please identify what your involvement, if any, has been

9:14 to date with our budget process. Yeah, so I actually, um, I got through about 150 of the 300 slides in the school, the FY 26 budget deck, um, so far, so I know, um, there, obviously the budget is about $49 million. I, it’s increased 5% since last year. I know there’s a whole bunch of offsets related to, um, there’s obviously the revolving fund and then there’s offsets related to, um, some outside funding we get. But we also have to pay for kids that are going out of town for, um, special education services that we don’t have. Um, I don’t know the specifics of those things that you are asking about. That said, I’m someone that rolls up my sleeves and really digs in and finds answers. So I’m confident that I could very quickly learn

10:00 and understand all of those dynamics. Can I, I have a follow up question. Sure. Um, we had, um, some communication from you over the last year, um, particularly around overrides. Yep. Um, and really, you know, pushing strongly for us to consider an override. Yeah. Last year school committee turns out we didn’t need an override to meet our budget. So I’m just curious, you know, what your thoughts are in terms of, you know, you seem very strong about that. Um, but with declining enrollment, I think it’s a very, um, gonna be a challenging budget season. We have a pretty significant increase in our salary lines coming up. Yep. It was next with the contract next year, but declining enrollment we’re down, um, 21% in the last eight years. Yeah. So just maybe your thoughts on that. Yeah, it’s a great question. So I think I’ve done a lot more research

10:46 and work since I initially put that, like, made those comments initially. I’m not sitting here ready to say we definitively need an override. I would need to do the work, need to uncover every stone, make sure that we understand exactly what those ratios are, what we expect the forecast to be. Um, can we bring some of those out of tuition services back into Marblehead within the existing budget that we have. So some of that $3 million can come back within our budget. I would consider that a last resort. Um, but I would need to get in there and do the work and really make sure I overturned every stone before I committed to anything. Okay. In June, Marblehead voters overwhelmingly opted for change on the school committee, both in the committee’s makeup and in its operation. If appointed to the committee, how will you work to carry the will of Marblehead voters out

11:33 and move the committee and the district forward? Yeah, I mean, it’s really important to me that basically every decision I make is done with data transparently, but also in support of the broader vision. Um, so I, I read the school committee operating protocol, kind of number one is students are kind of at the forefront of all the decisions that we make. So making sure that I’m clear in my communication folks understand kind of my logic and rationale because I found that when there’s a disagreement or people, there’s an unpopular decision being made. Um, if people understand the logic of why you’re making that decision and really the pros and cons in weighing those things, while they may not agree with the unpopular decision, they understand the logic behind it and I think it’s easier to bring folks along.

12:20 So really just continuing to build those verges and work on, um, some of the positive changes that have already been made over the last few months. Good. Yeah. Alright. I think you started already to answer this question, but can you tell me about a time you had to deal with a difficult team member and how you specifically handled it? Yeah, I mean, so as A-C-F-O-I work with difficult team members every single day. I’m always trying to collectively get my chief marketing officer, my head of product, my head of engineering. We’re in the middle of our 26 budgeting cycle right now. Everybody has their own priorities. Um, but the way that I approach those situations is basically what I just talked about, facts and data kind of to support. So there’s not, um, there’s less opinions I guess in the mix. And then how do those facts and data support the North Star overarch overarching goal

13:08 that we are all working towards? Um, because I think when there is a disagreement, a lot of times it’s because people have a different understanding of the facts or just a different understanding of the situation. And so just making that, they’re making sure that there’s a level playing field with the amount of information and what the information is saying aligned with kind of the North Star priority, um, to kind of move the conversation forward. Okay. Thank you Ms. Aaron. Oh, Um, in a difficult budget year, some cuts may be unavoidable while the superintendent and principals propose the initial budget the school committee may accept, reject, or amend, uh, the proposals. And, um, I’m curious what principles would guide your decisions about where reductions should be made and how you would help to, uh,

13:55 explain those choices to the community? Yeah, that’s a good question. I think number one, I would lead with making sure, like I’ve looked at the contract, I know what the student teacher ratio should be. I would look at how do our current ratios compare to that, what do we expect that to be in future years? But then also really looking at the central admin function. Who do we have, in what roles does it make sense based on the total size of the school and district that we have? And really approach it, um, honestly through the lens of math, um, being kind of the number one thing. And then again, just making sure that folks understand the trade-offs there that we’re making, um, as an output of that. Thank you Mostly. Alright, welcome. So you’ve been foreshadowing, uh, my question on a number of your answers.

14:40 Um, but within the context of the school committee, uh, would you, are you familiar with and would you expect to discuss at school committees? The school committee meetings, a quarterly report of actual versus budgeted financial performance? Uh, so, you know, the, the, I would love to do that. Yes. The Vari variance analysis, right? Yes. Which you’re very familiar with, I’m sure. Yes. And would you expect to see and explain financial performance metrics such as those that Desi, uh, put, uh, requires to put out that’s part of their financial health dashboard. So for example, per pupil expenditure, administrative cost ratios, expenditures to cost ratio surplus deficit to revenue ratios and other things like that. Is that part of your concept of transparency?

15:26 Um, honestly, I would need to look at all the things that you just rattle off to see what would make sense for those meetings. At a high level, doing a a quarterly budget to variance analysis is like, I do that every month. Like, where were we above? Where were we behind, let’s explain and how do we wanna kind of reshift things around? I think doing that would be really important towards the public understanding, like what’s going on and where things are going. And I think that is a key piece towards starting to build those bridges that I’ve been alluding to. So on the specific points I’d have to research all the things you just rattled off to see maybe some of them. Um, but at a high kind of principle level, I’m aligned with what you just described. Well, they’re preexisting, uh, financial health dashboard, that concept. But yeah, having that discussion would be very helpful. Yeah.

16:11 Alexa? Yeah. Hi. Welcome. Thanks for coming. Um, so my question just relates around government by committee in general can be a tremendous challenge, right? And one of the things that can make it work is finding out how do you work together, pull off everyone’s strength and utilize that. So how do you see yourself as a person, you know, that adds balance to the group dynamic that already exists. Like, where do you see yourself fitting in? What experience in your background do you think would allow you to fulfill that role? Yeah, I think if you talk to any of my coworkers or folks that I’ve worked with in the past that would tell you, I’m a very like, level headed person. Um, I’m not someone that jumps to conclusions. I like to make sure I have all the information. So I think I’m a really good just balance to a group because I don’t, I don’t have a big personality.

16:59 I’m not someone that’s like looking for the spotlight. I’m just looking to kind of do the best thing in honestly the most efficient way possible. Um, so I think anybody that you would ask that I’ve worked with would say I’m like a great team player and a good partner. Great. Um, one more. So if you were appointed to this committee, what is it that you look forward to being on the school committee most? Like, what excites you about joining the school committee? Honestly, really impacting change and building those bridges in the community. I think there’s so, like, this is such an incredible town and it offers so many wonderful things. So really just turning the page to advance that forward and really, um, having a, an impact on that would be really meaningful for me. Great. Well, thank you. Um, I think we’re all set here.

17:44 If you wanna have a seat, you’re welcome to stay and listen. Thank you so much for coming. Thank you.

17:58 Uh,

18:04 May I have the big kids Seat? You the big kids seat. Welcome.

18:08 Thanks. Thank you. I’m a little jealous of the coffee, to be honest with you. Um, it Make you feel better. It’s the first one I’ve had today is So is it if I have one afternoon, I don’t fall asleep. It’s DAC too, so you might really Feel that. Alright, that’s then I’m not, I’m just gonna jump right into questions. We’re gonna go for start with that, with Henry. Hi Sarah. Hey. Um, what made you decide to submit your name to be appointed to the school committee and what would your priorities be if appointed? So I know the uphill battle we are in for this year. I also know the battle that, um, is faced when someone is onboarded mid-year, not for a full term. Um, you really don’t have a runway. So I, I saw that I had that experience also. Um, I know we we’re gonna need someone that really knows this budget inside and out.

18:54 Um, particularly with where we landed with collective bargaining. We’re gonna be running at about a $3 million deficit next year with the productions as they are. Um, which is hard. Um, and hard decisions will need to be made and a good push will need to be made. And my concern going, the final tipping point, quite frankly, was I feel like it with such a new committee, um, it really writes itself for any opposition to an override. They very easily can say, we don’t have experience, we haven’t seen the outcome. I’m not saying that’s true by any means. I’ve just lived through enough of these to know what the, um, flyer will say. And, and I think it’s written itself at this point.

19:41 Um, by, by throwing my hat in the ring, um, I would hope to bring that historical knowledge, particularly of the budget. I’ve worked tremendously hard to bring us from a point where there was very little transparency to, to now where we have fin com for the last two years and our budget cycle, holding the schools up as the example for other departments to strive for with our transparency by listing all of our, our elements, which I’m gonna guess we’ll get into later on. There’s always a budget question. Thank you. So Trying, go ahead. So, um, dovetailing on that, um, please share with us what your current, what the current, what you see as the current challenges of the school budget. Uh, what do you know about our reliance on outside funding, both grant-based and private and maybe, um,

20:29 and finally identify your involvement in what it’s been to date with the budget process. Okay. So budget process. Um, as I started in my previous question, um, I would venture to say I probably have more experience in the school budget than anybody here. Um, I’ve been on the budget subcommittee for five years. Um, many of those I had chaired. Um, I, I know that it took us a long time to get to the point where we are showing our grants, our evolving funds. ‘cause very rightfully so, the Townside and FinCon and Select board was asking, they wanted to see this. Citizens were asking, which is the thing they should be asking. So I was instrumental in driving the demand that we include this in our budget book, which is where we’ve gotten to now we do do that.

21:16 Um, we last year laid heavier on our revolving funds to try to bridge that, that gap. ‘cause we wanted to make sure we kept ourselves whole as far as staffing, and we were able to successfully do that. But there’s still, uh, a bit of liquidity in our revolving funds, which obviously have to be used for very specific reasons. Um, and we’re very, we’ve always been very diligent in that grants. Thankfully, a lot of our grants are entitlement grants, not discretionary. Um, but we also very thankfully have had an administration we onboarded last year that has started to attack some of the discretionary grants that are on the table that we weren’t going at previously. Um, Lisa Marie Elito has been very successful in achieving some of those grants to stabilize some of our, um, areas in the various title grants.

22:03 And, um, we need someone that knows what’s going on with all that can help facilitate that, ask those questions, and also be able to track where, where we’re going. So, you know, that, that $3 million deficit is really our biggest challenge. Tell why it’s gonna be, you guys have your own on your side where we make up and it, it jockeys a few percentage points each year, but roughly 60, give or take a point percent of the town wide budget. But still, you know, everyone town wide is facing an uphill battle. Thank you. Thank you, Kate. Oh, can I just like, can I, I just forgot one important thing. Go for it. We’re gonna have one question that’s continually been asked is declining enrollment. This year we’ve had an unprecedented declining enrollment. We’ve seen, we started off the school year at 6.3%. We’re at six. We’ve exceeded 6.5% in the last week.

22:51 Um, this is unprecedented, unprecedented in previous years in one in one year. And, um, we really, I’ve been pushing for years. I know some of you guys have been too. For a zero based budget, there has to be no other option. There has to be a zero based budget. If we have any hope, um, of getting everything under control. We need people who understand what a true zero based budget is and that it can’t be a rollover. We have to justify every single person to the taxpayers to get them to have, um, faith in what we’re doing.

23:22 Okay. In June, Marblehead voters overwhelmingly opted for change on the school committee, both in the committee’s makeup and in its operation. If appointed to the school committee, how will you work to carry out the will of Marblehead voters and move the committee and the district forward? Um, so yes, you’re absolutely right. And we’ve seen that in just my short, you know, six years in the committee. We’ve seen various, some, some significant turnovers. You know, I can remember Jen, yourself, you were, you, you were outed and then, you know, came back two years later to a resounding win after you had a resounding loss. So we do see that the electorate moves and changes, particularly with, you know, the news cycle, if you will. Um, that being said, it’s not about, this is vastly different than an election.

24:08 An election is a three year seat. You have some time to onboard. Um, this is not, this is not even a year seat. There is no runway here in a fiscal year that we are, are gonna be in a crisis in our schools if we don’t get money. So I think what we need now is someone who can start on day one, who has all the historical knowledge, um, has all the, the certifications and queries and all that up to date, and also is able to answer the concerns that people have always have had whenever we’ve had an override. This idea of sticking our fingers in our ear and saying, those, those people that are saying no to overrides, we’re not gonna listen to them. That doesn’t work. They have valid points, they should be answered. And I have worked very hard in the last few years to have open communication

24:54 so we can make sure in our budget books, in our budgeting process and the budget we’re bringing forward, what it represents, that we are doing something that all of our voters can get behind because our children deserve no less. Like we’re, we’re gonna gut our schools if we can’t get people behind something. Thank you. Al, Can you tell us about a time you had to deal with a, a difficulty member and how you specifically handled it? I’ve never worked with difficulty. No, actually I’ve had some situations here. Um, yeah, no, I mean, the same way I deal with everything in my life. Like, I, I’ve joked with friends before that I’ll cold call anyone. Like, I don’t believe in announcing a problem without giving a solution. So I’ve been up against that a lot in the last year where people have taken up, you know,

25:40 letter writing campaigns and things like that, but they haven’t given, uh, but let’s see this. Or, or thoughts. So I always try to pick up the phone, call someone, say, what are you thinking? Because truly, I I, I follow this woman, Monica Guzman. She, she talks about, um, our world and kind of where we are now politically and how if we all stay in our little trenches, we’re never gonna get anywhere. And quite honestly, I believe that very deeply if you go into a room and only talk to the person you’re aligned with, nothing’s ever gonna get better. So I try to have hard conversations. And I think every single one of you at this convers at this table can attest that I have never shied away from a hard conversation. Um, and I don’t engage in personal politics. I mean, I don’t have to like you personally. I don’t have to wanna ha go out and have a cup of coffee with you.

26:26 I have to be able to be respectful, hear your thoughts and, and move through that. Okay. Thank you Aaron? Uh, yes. So I think, uh, we recognize that it’s gonna be a difficult budget year and, um, likely that some cuts will be unavoidable when the superintendent proposes, uh, an initial budget. What guiding principles will you use and use in terms of determining what decision or does help you just make your decisions around, um, where reduction should be made and how you would explain them to the community? I think everything has to be tied to what students need. We need to take what we established this year with the staff accountability study and take it the next step further. We need to make sure that we’re not just doing a rollover budget

27:12 because the town isn’t going to embrace that. And that type of funding is not going to make us whole. Um, we have to acknowledge we’ve had a steep decline in enrollment. We have to staff accordingly, but we also have to make sure that we’re being proactive in how we look at special education. Because it’s pay now or pay later. It, the right thing morally to do for students is to invest in special education, but it’s the right thing financially too. So I would make sure that we’re staffing appropriately for what we have, that we’re providing to meet all the needs of our IEPs. ‘cause if we don’t, then we’ve bought our ourself a very costly outplacement. Um, so basically it’s a zero based budget, a true zero based budget where everything is tied back to it’s need.

27:58 Was this, uh, Sarah, what do you, uh, what do you think about augmenting, uh, fact-based discussions at the school committee meetings? And I’m thinking specifically about a quarterly report of actual versus budgeted financial performance, otherwise known as variance analysis or, uh, using the DESI financial health dashboard, which has a number of, uh, ratios in it, especially the surplus, uh, deficit to revenue ratio, administrative cost ratio, and presenting those in a, in a historical continuum. So, absolutely. Um, the DESI dashboard is a little tough because at any given time, it’s not, it’s about 18 months to 24 months in arrears, which is not accurate as you can see when you’re having wide swings in enrollment.

28:44 So you have to do something a little more accurate. Um, I would take the quarterly reports a step further. What I’ve always asked for is not just budgeted and expended, but also encumbered our biggest, you know, part of our budget is staffing and that shouldn’t be a swing. So we should be able to look at what we’re encumbered for as well throughout the year. So we can look at those long-term projections. If we were to look at our first quarter and not take in account encumbered, we would look like we’re way under because we start teach paying teachers halfway through the first quarter, not on July one. So you have to really look at all those data points and keep a tight watch on it. Um, I, again, taking it a step further, one of the most successful trends we’ve had is when I pushed

29:30 for, um, our projections for our out district placement for a while, we were carrying not just what is out, but um, our proposed out things that look like they’re under negotiation now, but it’s likely to be an out because we can’t have another, you know, January, 2018, which fed into the crisis of 2019, when all of a sudden we’re running at a $2.9 million deficit that supposedly no one knew about. We have done a much, much better job of, of getting ahead of that by tracking those. ‘cause truly the most volatile part of our budget is special education. And unless we’re looking at what is wrong in our programs and what might be on its way out, we’re never gonna get ahold of the budget. Thank you. Thanks. Yeah.

30:16 Hi. Thanks for being here. Um, so working in a committee can be, um, challenging any government by committee and everyone brings different experiences, different skills. And one of the things that makes it successful is that when we place people on a committee, how do they work within the remainder of the group? So, you know, I know you’re pretty familiar with this group specifically, where do you see your strengths falling in line, you know, and the rest of the group? Um, well again, like personalities are personalities. I’ve been at all the meetings and, um, in fact, I was, you know, I, I called after a facilities meeting to Henry to congratulate him on how wonderful and collegial the, the meeting went. That meeting was a prime example. I mean, I think you’d agree. I you did agree in the phone

31:02 call that we really were able to harness my experience and knowledge in the past. I’ll give you an example. We were talking about putting in, uh, finally putting in the EV chargers at Brown. And, and our finance director said, you know, we’re gonna be purchasing those. And I said, well, we have the historical knowledge to know the light department committed to paying for those. He made a phone call, it saved us money. The light department is a, um, I, my mind is the, the, the type of fund, you know, my mind’s frozen right now. But, um, and so that saved taxpayers money by doing it that way. But in the same meeting, Henry had a great, uh, PA news perspective on things. And so I called them afterwards to thank him and say, you know, I really feel like this is a great example of me bringing historical knowledge and experience.

31:48 You bringing new insight and us working together and, you know, I truly feel like that opportunity could exist here with this mix. Great. Thanks. It’s sort of a layup. Um, if you were reappointed or if you’re appointed to this committee, um, what would excite you most about joining the school board? Honestly, all of it does. I get really excited about budget. Like, I think that’s pretty clear. Um, I love numbers, I love trends, but there’s a lot going on outside of numbers. We have a lot of serious things happening in our schools that we need to, to look into. But, um, the idea that we have a town that supposedly right now is going to embrace funding our schools as they see fit. I really truly believe if we can have a tight,

32:34 tight budget process that brings forth airtight numbers, um, that we might get something we’ve been, we’ve been trying to do, which is appropriately funding school. Okay. All right. Thanks Sarah. Thank you guys. All right. Am I allowed to stay? You are. Absolutely. You don’t have to go back to the silent booth. In the spirit of transparency, We might wanna address why Jim isn’t Part of this. I’m sorry, I thought I, I did up front. Did I forget it? Nope. Why don’t, I’ll do it at the end. Thank you. One, one until four candidates here. This one. I’ll do it. Yep. Thank you. I actually have that written down. It’s on my notes. Yep. Thank you.

33:16 It really should be his really should be his role. You want to Good evening. Ah, right here. Hi. Right here. Yep. Come on up. You’re the star right now. Welcome. Thank you. We’re gonna jump right into questions. We’re gonna start with Henry. Okay. Welcome. Good to see you again. Good To see you too. What Made you decide to submit your name to be appointed to the school committee, and what would your priorities be if appointed? Um, the school committee is one of the most important committees that we have in our district. It basically decides on procedures, policies, um, contracts, budgets, everything, everything that has to do with the education of our children. I have three children in public schools.

34:03 Um, I have, David is junior in high school. He’s on the soccer team as well. Um, Eve is a freshman. Um, she’s a cheerleader. She’s just thriving and loving it. Um, and Leia, she’s the newest to the public school system and she’s in fourth grade and village. And so of course, having great schools, um, quality education, um, is really important to me. Um, one of the things that I have been fighting for for the past probably couple years, especially in the school committee, in fact the school committee has saw me quite a lot, um, really is fighting against discrimination and antisemitism. Um, we have a problem with that, and not only with discrimination and antisemitism,

34:51 but globally with consequences. Um, I feel that often kids do not have enough consequences. We saw that, um, in the past couple years where kids did bring up either discriminatory or antisemitic or racist issues, and there really wasn’t a overall policy or procedure on how to deal with it. Every school dealt with it differently. Every, um, principal and teacher dealt with it differently. And that should not be the case. We should have an overall policy on how we deal with these things. And one of the problems that we do have today is that often we don’t, kids do not take responsibility, or we don’t make kids take responsibility. In fact, we allow them to have excuses such as, um,

35:39 something triggered them or they couldn’t control it, or they didn’t know. Now, do we have people that do have emotional problems that cannot control themselves, of course. But let’s be honest, let kids push the envelope. Kids try to get and do whatever they can as much as they can. And we have a problem. We have teachers sometimes that can control classes. Um, we have, I mean, my kids today, my, my kid last week heard, you know, you mm, Jew, um, these things are happening and we have to take action. I have a lot of knowledge in that area. Um, I have a lot of passion in that area. Um, I have always fought for social justice no matter

36:25 what it was for no matter what minority. And I think it will bring a lot to the table. Um, we also had a very tragic accident, um, a few weeks ago with Savannah. This isn’t the first time that we had that in our town. About 2, 2, 2 and a half years ago, we had, again, a fatality with drunk driving. We have a problem in our town and we need to deal with it. And the best way is you have to come together with the administration, the school committee, the administration, the teachers, and the parents. Um, and these are really the main, the main issues that I would like to focus on. Of course, budget is always a problem no matter what committee, no matter what board you’re on, um,

37:11 we have a roof at the high school that we need to decide whether we’re gonna restore it or renovate it. I mean, these are things that we really need to come together and see what is the best thing for Marblehead, not in one or two years, but in 5, 10, 15 years, how do we do it in the best economic way? Also, how do we basically move forward? How do we adjust technology? How do we deal with ai? You know, how do we utilize it? And so these are really issues that we are going to have to focus on in the school committee and with, um, with the parents in the next few years. Alright, thank you. Thank you. I’m going to my question’s on budget, but before that, I just wanna thank you for all the work that you’ve done, particularly around the antisemitism. You very important to me, you know, that we, we’ve talked about it and you really, um, were, you know,

37:57 one of the real motivating factors for me in that. So I want to just thank you and tell you. I appreciate that. Thank you. Um, so if you could we’ll switch to budget though. Could, could you please share with us, um, what you see as the current challenges of our school budget. What do you know about our reliance on outside funding, both grant-based and private, and me, and please identify what involvement, if any, you’ve had to date in the, um, in our budget. Yeah. So I haven’t had a lot of, um, involvement specifically in budget. I do have a lot of experience in involvement in budget in various committees and various boards. I see that the biggest problem that we have really is infrastructure. Um, we have failing infrastructure, outdated infrastructure, both building both academic, both, um, technology. And these are really the things that we need.

38:42 Um, we need to focus on. Um, we need to of course, apply to as many grants as we can. Um, we need to always, of course, think outside the box and see where we can find more grants, um, federal, um, state level, even nonprofit. I mean, even for things for like even antisemitism or discrim, you know, discrimination. There are nonprofits that we can apply to in order to help us deal with, such as curriculum, um, deal with policies and procedures. Um, so really to go and venture and see where we can find the grants. What what grants have we not utilized, although I’m sure that, you know, most of them have been utilized and have been found. But there’s always more things that we can, we can look for.

39:28 And, and that is really a focus to, to see where we can find more money from places that we haven’t looked yet. Okay. In June, Marblehead voters overwhelmingly opted for change on the school committee, both in the committee’s makeup and in its operation. If appointed to the school committee, how will you work to carry out the will of Marblehead voters and move the committee and the district Forward? Yeah. Um, the, the, the district spoke and they wanted change. Um, we have had problems at the school committee. We have had a few years of very difficult educational problems. I mean, we had the strike. I was a mother of kids that had the strike. And it was, it was extremely difficult.

40:14 I do see myself as a representative of Marblehead resonance. I feel that a lot of people agree with me on several issues and a lot of grief. People agree with me on other issues. As you know, I ran for select board. Um, I think it was a very vicious election. I was called a Nazi. I was called a baby killer. I was called racist. I was called things that, if my mother and her grave heard that that was her, her daughter was being called, that she would say, how, how is that possible? And the biggest challenge that we have right now, and that I see really is bringing the town together, this discourse, this violent discourse. I mean, we just, what happened today with

41:01 the late Charlie Kirk, it doesn’t matter if you liked him or didn’t like him, there were things that I completely disagreed with him, he would say, and I was, what are you talking about? No, there were things that I agreed with him, but no matter what he, he stood up for discourse for, for, for negotiation, for talking with people, not for violence. And, and we have to stop this discourse of one person against another. Or if you believe in one thing, then that means that it makes you this horrible person. I mean, we neighbors stop talking to neighbors, family members stop talking to family members. And so I actually view myself as in addition to the school committee, really as bringing the town together.

41:47 You know, bringing people from always of life, whatever, everybody has different interests and, and different thinking and, and, and moving forward, because our town and our state and our country is in a very difficult position right now. And it is our job as a school committee, as a society, to really show, show the town and our residents that we can work together. That we might disagree and we might agree probably on most of the things, but when we do disagree, we will talk, we will negotiate, and we will come to some, some kind of an agreement. Thank you. Yeah. Uh, can you tell us about a time you had to deal with a difficult team member and specifically how you handled that?

42:32 Um, yes. Um, I had a time when I was, um, working on actually a legal case. Um, and I had an assistant that was helping. Um, and her work just wasn’t working. She wasn’t able to get things done on time. She wasn’t able to bring quality work like I thought she should have brought. Um, and it was delaying things, and it was very hard. It was hard on me. It was hard on on the other team. And people came and complained. And what I really find is the, the best thing to do, not to cancel a person, not to fire a person, but really to talk and to sit down with a person and show them, okay, this is what we expect you to do.

43:22 This is what you’re not doing. And really help them understand what steps they need to take in order to achieve the goal. Because sometimes people just don’t know, or people just don’t understand, or something is even blocked, right? I mean, all of us took algebra or geometry, and we just couldn’t get it. And then one day it just clicked, like, oh, that’s what they meant. So I really feel that when somebody is having a hard time or is doing some kind, putting some kind of obstacles on a team, it doesn’t necessarily mean that they’re not good at their job or they’re doing something outta spite. Sometimes they just don’t have the tools or the knowledge to, to, to do the best of their ability. So that is what I did, and it worked out.

44:09 Okay. Thank you. Thank You. Um, I have next question. And, uh, and so in a diff it will likely be a difficult budget here, um, this year. And some cuts were likely be unavoidable. So while the superintendent, um, makes the initial proposal for the budget, um, it’s up to the school committee to accept it, reject it, or amend it. Mm-hmm. What guiding principles would you use to help, um, guide your decisions around reductions, uh, where reductions should be made and how would you communicate those Out? Yeah, so I think, again, I, I have not explored the budget all the way. Um, um, of course there are things that once you get in, you have more knowledge about. But, um, academics I think is, is really

44:55 how I view a school is academics, is number one, emotional wellbeing of children, um, is number two. Um, and then, and then infrastructure. Infrastructure is extremely important, of course, and we have to have things functioning. Um, but really having, um, having that, um, um, hierarchy of things I think is extremely important. Um, like I said, we are in a very difficult, as you said, a very difficult budget, um, time this year. We did have an override. We just have a not override, um, um, for an educational budget. Um, we’re thinking we might have to do it again. Um, I’m hoping we won’t, and hopefully that we will be able to work within our budget

45:41 and again, find if it’s building our infrastructure, find the right contractors, find the right bidding, um, make sure that it falls within the parameters that we want, and also have, um, short term goals and long term goals. I think that is extremely important when you do a budget, is to decide what are your short term goals and what are your long term goals. And then you can basically allocate according to that and the way that I will, um, communicate that to others. I think that was your second question, really, is just to be open, to be open with the public, to be open with people that come and ask questions. And if you need to sit until 2:00 AM sometimes and explain line, line item after line item, then that is what we can, that is what we’ll do.

46:27 Thanks. Hi, Yale. Hi. Um, what do you think about the importance of in, of augmenting increasing fact-based discussions at, uh, school committee meetings? And for example, if you look at, um, uh, quarterly, uh, actual versus budgeted, uh, uh, financial performance, uh, you know, it’s typically called variance analysis, or perhaps using, uh, what you would find in a DSI dashboard for the financial health of the schools. So you’ve got, you know, a number of ratios that can be promulgated, uh, you know, surplus to deficit ratios, uh, administrative cost ratios and so forth. And using those to kind of present, uh, a more fact-based discussion around the health, the financial health of the schools.

47:14 Well, I’m an attorney, so I go by fax and facts are extremely important. Um, and having the right facts, having the right calculations, having, um, the right software, having everything that, that we need in order to calculate what we need to do is extremely important. Um, I also view that sometimes different types of budgeting, different types of accounting can also yield, um, different, different results. And so really, um, going with fact-based, um, um, knowledge, going with fact-based budgets, going with fact-based, um, um, formula, um, and seeing again, what we need short term

47:59 and long term, um, um, goals, I think is extremely important. And the more knowledge we have, um, I think is, is is better for, for making decisions. Thank you. Thank you. Hi, welcome. Thank you. Uh, so government by committee, you know, I’m sure that you’ve seen through your work experience, it can be, you know, a big challenge. And one of the things that makes it work well is if we can take, you know, the experience and use and value that, and then use everyone’s skills. So I think my question is really around like, how do you see yourself as adding balance to, you know, this particular group that you know has existed or, you know, functioning as an appointment. What in your skills or your background, you know, would really be the thing

48:47 that you’re bringing forward to help balance the remainder of the group? Um, yeah, excellent question. Um, I think there’s several things. One is really my knowledge and experience and expertise as an attorney even, and even as a municipality attorney. Um, I am a municipality attorney. I do advise school committees and select boards and other people and, you know, basically, um, um, anybody who works in the town how to do their job legally. Um, and I think that would be a very good asset to the school committee. Not that I’m giving a legal opinion that is for the attorney, right? But my expertise and my knowledge can really help in facilitating, um, judgment or, you know, bringing facts, bringing, um,

49:33 legal cases and, and whatnot. I also think, like I said, is that I will be a really good representative of the town. I, I am very fact-based and very irrational person, rational, but I’m also very compassionate and empathetic and loving and caring. And, um, and really I promote discourse. That is the number one thing I think I’ve always talked about is the importance of discourse. Love thy neighbor. Um, and I think I would be actually a great addition to the school committee because it, I would bring some balance and I think some people would be happy to, to see me there as well, representing, you know, representing their interests.

50:19 Great. Thank You. Thank you. Hi again. Um, first of all, I wanna say it, it saddens me to hear what you went through during, during your, your bid for the select board, um, that, that you were called some of those names. I think a lot of us up here have, can empathize being in public, so I wanna commend you for putting yourself back out there. I know it’s not easy, so thank you for, for putting yourself back out there and, and being here tonight. Um, if you were appointed to the committee, what is it that you would work on that would excite you the most? Anti-discrimination? That would definitely, um, I had a feeling, yeah. Excite me the most. I think that, um, we do have a problem. We do have an, I mean, again, I don’t wanna only go to that, but we do have an anti-Semitic problem. Um, I mean, country-wise, world wise, we have a problem with our curriculum, um, with incidences.

51:07 Um, again, I think, you know, bringing consequences is, is important. I mean, when my kids do something wrong, they actually have to tell me what they did wrong, why they did it wrong, and what are they, and how are they gonna do it better and apologize and change their behaviors. And these are something that I think we need to implement in the schools so we can have a society, a functioning society, because what we have now, something is lacking. Like you said, you, you know, we’re sorry you went through that. I don’t think we would’ve gone, somebody would’ve gone through that five or 10 years ago, but we’re going through these things, you know, I don’t think you went through that probably, right? I don’t, we never, we never saw that, that type of discourse and it brings to what happened today and,

51:52 and to other, you know, with Charlie Kirk and what happened to other people. So really, I, Humanity and, and responsibility and being a functioning member of society is, is what’s important, I think, especially in the school committee, because that’s all we wanna do as, as an administration, as teachers, as parents. We just wanna bring up our kids to be the best, um, version that they can be and, um, contribute to society and in a democratic and free and free country. Great. Thank you. Thank you. I’ll say You can have a Seat. Thank you.

52:45 Good evening. Mark. Mark, Thank you for being here tonight. Sorry to keep you waiting so long. Nope. So, uh, last but not least, we’re gonna, we’ll start with Henry down here. Hi. Hey, Henry. Thank you. Um, what made you Decide to submit your name to be appointed to school committee, and what would your priorities be if you appointed? Sure. Um, so I want to thank the school committee and the select board, uh, for the opportunity to be here, um, and to thank each one of you for the time you give, um, not only in your roles and service to our community, but in the time that, um, nearly all of you took to speak with me. Um, it’s, it’s significant. Um, I’m running for school committee ‘cause I believe that, um, Marblehead must provide every student not only

53:33 with academic excellence, but with safety support and the opportunity that they need to survive, uh, to thrive. Excuse me. Um, I grew up down the road in Swamp, Scott. I’m raising my family here. My oldest is set to enter kindergarten next year. Um, the North Shore has always been home. Um, I care deeply about the success of our schools and the wellbeing of our students. Um, I have over 15 years of classroom teaching experience. Um, I know how essential it is that both students and teachers, uh, students and teachers, uh, feel safe, supported and empowered. Um, when educators thrive, their students do. And after the recent strike, uh, rebuilding trust amongst teachers, administrators, families, and the community is really critical.

54:18 Um, I think that I can help lead that healing. Um, the, the motto I saw of the, of the schools for this year is moving forward together. And, um, I really, I really buy into that, that as a community, as a committee, we need to move forward together. Um, I’ve spent my career in education and leadership roles that require building trust, managing resources, fostering innovations. Um, I’ve taught in classrooms, I’ve built curricula, I’ve managed programs, I’ve managed budgets. I’ve managed strategic initiatives that require collaboration and accountability. Um, that background has really, uh, shaped my commitment to making sure that every student and every teacher in Marblehead feels supported and able to thrive. Um, there may be candidates with skills different than mine,

55:05 um, but none who understand the awesome responsibility better than I do of educating our students, educating our children, none who work harder to represent our schools in the community, and to serve as a positive bridge between the schools, uh, and the people of Marblehead. And now is the time. That’s why. Thank you. Chair. Hi. Um, thank you for your time today as well. Um, can you please share what you see as the current challenges of the school budget? What do you know about our reliance on outside funding, uh, both grant based and private? And please identify what your involvement, if any, has been to date, um, in, in the budget, reviewing the budget. Sure. Um, I’ve certainly reviewed the budget. Um, I haven’t, um, been involved in creating,

55:51 in creating the, the Marblehead schools budget recently. Um, I was involved, um, in Swamp Scout. We, for a time, we had a, a really collaborative process, and I was involved, um, with that, and that was, um, that was really difficult. Um, and really, um, gave me an understanding of of, of how this can work or should work, um, when cuts are gonna happen. Um, and I know we’re looking at about a $2 million shortfall. Um, it’s gonna be hard, um, and I understand what that impact can mean in the classroom. Um, I’ve looked at some possibilities at, at ways that we can look at it, um, to start looking at non-classroom options outside of the classroom.

56:38 Non-essential PD travels, dues, trim overtime, um, technology and device deferment, um, uh, deferral, excuse me, and replacement deferral, um, curriculum freezing, supply freezing. Um, there’s a lot of stuff you can do to sort of start to make the dent. Um, I know that we are spending a, a lot of money, um, on out of district placement. Um, I know that we get, um, some reimbursement for that. Um, but it’s not a hundred percent reimbursement. Um, I wanna say it’s somewhere in the 50 to 60% range, but I don’t quote me on that. Um, and we need to look at, at using that money as efficiently as we can. Um, there are lots of things to look at

57:24 before we look in the classrooms. That being said, 80% of our budget is, um, is personnel and, and cuts will have to be made. Um, I think we can, um, we can look at, um, holding back, um, uh, back filling positions. Um, we can look at, uh, consolidating, uh, classrooms where we can, or consolidating low enrollment things. Um, and just getting really creative about, um, what we’re looking at.

57:55 Okay. All Set. Kate, In June, Marblehead voters overwhelmingly opted for change on the school committee, both in the committee’s makeup and in its operation. If appointed to the school committee, how will you work to carry out the will of Marblehead voters and move the committee and the district forward? Um, it’s a good question. Um, I, I like the direction of, of the committee. I think, I think the town said we need a change and, and we wanna see more positivity. And I, I think one of the things that I really bring is, is a, a positive, um, attitude towards this, um, and towards, um, the town and our schools. Um, I, I think the school committee can, can do a better job.

58:40 And that’s not to say the current one isn’t, but I think overall, and I, and I would say this in Swamp Squad in Winthrop and wherever you were, that, um, that the school committee needs to do a better job of being a bridge to the community and, um, being more transparent with the community, um, in terms of what we’re doing. Um, one of the things I was looking at, um, admittedly didn’t know a whole lot or didn’t see this a whole lot before I started this process, but I, I was on the website and looking at, um, the lack of, of agendas and minutes and things like that. And that’s, that’s one thing, it’s hard to get all that together, but also a lot of people don’t want to go through the minutes of a school committee meeting or a select board meeting. So I was thinking about something like a simple blog

59:29 that talks about like, what, what we do, this is what we’re doing, this is what we’ve done, this is why we’ve come to these decisions. Just summarize some things like, let’s, let’s make communication more transparent and easier. Um, somebody said to me that, um, marble headers aren’t interested in the process, they’re interested in, in the outcomes. And I think that that’s true to a point. Um, but I think the process is important, and I think the more transparent we can be about that, and the more simple we can explain that to people, um, and the more we can get that out there, the, the better, the better our communication will be, the better people will understand what, what it is that we’re doing, um, and that we’re trying to accomplish. Okay. Yeah. Thanks Al. Can you tell us about a time, excuse me,

1:00:14 that you had to deal with a difficult team member and how you specifically handled that Difficult team member? Sure. Um, I don’t how much time you’ve spent in schools,

1:00:28 um, Dealing with difficult team members is it’s part of the deal. Um, and I think if you can disagree cordially, um, understand where they’re coming from and, and get them to understand where you’re coming from, um, I, I think that open communication is the key to that. Um, my wife is sitting at home listening, going, boy, I really hope you’re following what you’re saying. Um, but I, but I, I, I believe that I, I think open communication is, is really, um, is really the key to that. You, you can, um, e everybody’s coming at something with their, with their point of view for a reason. They’re, they’re not arguing with you just to argue with you.

1:01:14 They’re arguing with you because they’re passionate about the thing. Um, I could tell you about 4,000 different times that happened in, um, in staff meetings, uh, after school, um, or with parents. Um, I’ve had hundreds of parent meetings where, I don’t know if you consider it a team member, but, but I would consider parents and teachers on the same team. And, um, we didn’t always agree on, on the best way to move forward. But, um, I think if you listened to each other and come to a compromise that that’s sort of the way to handle it. Um, um, I think that’s generally how we, we, we being me and whatever team I was a part of, always tried to do that.

1:02:00 Okay. Alright. Thank you. Yes. I have the next question. Um, uh, so I think as you alluded to, it’ll be a difficult budget year, and the superintendent will make an initial proposal around, um, for the budget in consultation with the administration and his principal building leaders. Um, but ultimately the school committee decides whether to accept, reject, or make some amendments to the budget. And what guiding principles would you use, um, in making the decisions around, um, where reductions you think should be made and how would you communicate those? Sure. Um, those are difficult decisions no matter what. Um, and the guiding principle, I I, I’m sure I’m gonna repeat what other people have said,

1:02:45 but it, it has to be the students and, and what is the impact on our students. Um, nobody wants bigger class sizes, but if you’re class sizes are going up at an average of maybe one or two students in some classes, then that’s not the worst thing in the world. Um, if you’re consolidating low enrolled programs, that’s not necessarily the worst thing in the world. Um, we have laws that we have to follow, we have, um, restrictions on, on what cuts we can make. Um, I’m sure the superintendent, and I’ve heard great things about, um, the finance director in the schools. I’m, I’m sure they get as creative as they can. Um, and I’ll listen and just make sure that the impact on, on our kids is as minimal as possible.

1:03:31 Um, I think to, to the second part of your question, I think transparency is, is then the key is like, let’s talk about why we’re making these decisions. We’re not, we’re not just throwing darts against the wall and saying, we’re gonna cut this person and this person and this person. Like, let’s talk about why we’re we are making these decisions and understand that as a committee, we’re gonna stand behind the superintendent and, and the, um, finance people and say, we’re all on the same team on this one. And it hurts all of us, but this is where we are. Hi, mark. Hi. Um, you mentioned, uh, building bridges to the town and transparency. Um, as a part of that, what do you think, uh, about the importance of augmenting fact-based discussions,

1:04:16 uh, at, at the school committee meetings in particular? And I’m thinking around such things as, uh, having, uh, a quarterly report of actual versus budgeted financial performance that you go over and explain carefully to the town, you know, commonly known as variance analysis. Mm-hmm. There’s also a number of ratios and they’re good for what they are, but I think for a lot of people, they’re useful for, uh, you know, understanding the financial health of the schools, uh, in a consistent way. Yeah. And I’m more wondering what you think about that. Yeah. Uh, um, I mean, that sort of goes along the lines of the transparency that I was talking about. And the more transparent we can be, the better. And if, if that’s quarterly great. If it’s monthly better, if it’s, you know, if it’s biweekly, great. Um, I’ve worked at companies where we did

1:05:03 that every three weeks, and we did it every another one. We did it every month, and most that we do every quarter. Um, I’m, I’m all in favor, um, with the understanding that sometimes that data’s a little bit fuzzy in schools. Um, I know that, that getting, even just getting a number of FTEs is, you, you can, we might get of a different number of FTEs in June than we do in May, and no one’s really sure why. And, um, or not always really sure why. And, and we need to dig into the, into that a little bit. Um, so I’m all for whatever sort of reporting, um, that we can do, that we can report, that we can be transparent about, that we can let people know. Um, you know, I know override can be a dirty word

1:05:48 and we don’t wanna look for an override if, if people aren’t confident that we’ve been, um, staying on top of the finances from day one. And, and quarterly reports are a great way to do it. Great. Thank you. Yeah. Hi. Thank you so much for being here. So, government by committee can be a tremendous challenge. You are working to make sure that you’re utilizing the experience of, you know, people on the committee and also using the ideas and making everyone feel that they’re, what they bring to the table really benefits the idea of rule making and policy making. So, um, my question is really around how do you see yourself as a person that adds balance to a group or committee and just brings, you know, what, what do you, what would you bring to this?

1:06:33 ‘cause this is an appointment, right? To this particular group of people that we know are set. You would be, if you were a chosen, would be the new person coming into that mix. So what about your background would allow you to be successful or to allow, most importantly, the committee to be able to do their work most effectively? Sure. Um, I don’t know if you’ve ever spent time in a room of 30 12 year olds, But if you can get them on the same page, if you can get them to think that poetry’s important for like three days, you can get anybody on the same page about anything. Um, I think I’m really good at listening. I think, um, I think career in the classroom really taught me how to listen, um, and, and to really look at, uh, and think about what people’s motivations are.

1:07:21 Um, when kids get angry in a classroom, they’re not really angry at you. They’re really angry at something else. Um, and, and what is that motivation? Um, and then trying to work through that. Um, I think I’m a really good listener. Um, I like finding what people’s strengths are and getting them to play to those strengths. I think that is so important. Um, uh, in my most recent position, uh, in marketing in a tech firm, um, I was essentially a project manager and it’s essentially what I was doing. Um, and it’s, it’s doing just that. It’s getting everybody on the same page and saying, Hey, you’re really good at this and you’re really good at this, and we don’t all have to do everything. I think that leads to so much inefficiency. Um, and I think just getting people to focus on the thing

1:08:08 that they’re really good at and, and getting everybody to feel like they’ve had input that matters, um, is, is really the key to that one. Great. Thank you. Hey, mark. Um, if you were to be appointed, what is the one thing that you would work on the school committee that excites you the most? Um, you know, it’s funny. It’s, it’s, it’s a lot of it. Um, part of it is, is is being able to, to help with the vision of the schools, um, and to see where we can go, um, and how good we can be. Um, I know that’s sort of a, um, an ambiguous answer. Um, you know, the mental health and wellbeing of our students is something that is really,

1:08:54 really important to me, um, on a personal level, on, on a level that I, I worked on in my career. Um, and, and clearly, um, health and and wellbeing of our students is something that’s quite literally front page news right now. Um, and I’d be really excited to, to see what we can do with that. Um, I know Henry’s done some outreach with the Board of Health. Um, I’d look forward to working with that, to working with, uh, the Board of Health, the police, um, um, helping to, to learn more about what peer programs are in the, in the schools now and, and what we can do, um, to, to strengthen peer programs, peer mentoring programs,

1:09:41 family programs where we get more families involved in the schools. Um, sometimes it feels like parents get angry when, when something bad happens, but we don’t see ‘em the rest of the year. And I’d love to see more involvement. Um, but also the, the minutia of, of the really hard work, the, the hard work is, is the budget and, and figuring out where we’re gonna make cuts. And I don’t want anybody to lose a job. I, I really don’t, but, but I’m really interested in what, what are the, what are the decisions and why we’re, why are we making them, why are we saying that this cut’s okay, and that one’s not? And, um, just sort of getting everybody on the same page. I’m, I’m excited to help move the committee forward. Going to one of the earlier questions, like, um,

1:10:28 I think I’ve said this to a number of people, but if, if you ask people outside of, of Marblehead what they thought about Marblehead schools, they’d say, oh, it’s one of the best school systems in the state. And if you ask parents in Marblehead what they thought about Marblehead schools, they wouldn’t give you the same answer. And, um, I, I really look forward to changing that perception, um, and to letting people know, like being, being a bridge to the community and letting people know, like, we’re here, we are working hard. We, we do have your best interest in mind. We have your students’ best interest in mind. Um, and we wanna make this the best school system we can with whatever we’re given. Great. Thank you very much. Thank you. All set. Thank you. You can have a seat. Um, at this time I would like to explain, which I figure out to do,

1:11:14 why we have eight instead of nine sitting up here. Uh, Jim Sison did recuse himself tonight, so we do have eight, uh, voting members tonight instead of nine. Um, moving forward now, thank you all. I think we have four great applicants. Thank you all for putting yourself out there and coming in tonight. I know we all do appreciate it and know what all in that seat, uh, we can, if people wanna take a little time to look at their notes, we could open this up to deliberation, we can discuss, or if people would like to, we can move. I’m open to moving straight and to voting. Uh, people feel about that. Like to have conversations move straight into voting. Why don’t I, while we think about that, explain how the voting will work first. And what we will do is, uh, we will do,

1:12:01 we will basically do a roll call, vote, go around, and everyone can nominate one person at a time. If we get a majority, which takes five, that person will then be appointed. If we do not get a majority, we will then drop the person with the lowest number of votes and go to another round and so forth until we have a majority of, of five. Any questions about that process? No. Okay. You guys wanna go to voting? I, Well, I just wanna make one comment first. I wanna thank all the, the four candidates that came forward ‘cause, or applicants or whatever you want. Um, because it’s Right, this is, you know, clunky at best. And it’s, I I really appreciate it. We have four great candidates here. Um, and I would encourage whatever the outcome is that, um,

1:12:47 you know, several or all of you, um, you know, consider running. ‘cause I think, you know, next, next spring, because I think we’ve got, you know, some great, some great folks here. Um, you know, we’re here tonight to appoint, this is not an election. Elections are political by nature, but this is an appointment process. And I just encourage both committees to consider the fact that we are tasked, I believe, with appointing, um, the person who has the best skills and most likely to, um, be able to step on into this role. It’s a nine month position, basically in a nine month position, um, to jump in mid, you know, midyear, um, and be prepared to hit the ground running and to get us through what’s probably going to be, um, a challenging budget cycle.

1:13:34 Um, as well as the other, you know, responsibilities we have. Um, school committee can be a lightning rod. It can be a whole bunch of different things. But the bottom line is we are here to make the right decisions, um, for our students, um, for our staff, and for our town and our taxpayers. And that’s not easy. Um, so that’s all I’m gonna ask. Thank you. Anybody else have anything they’d like to say? No. Okay. Great. Vote. Yeah. Could we have a motion to enter all candidates for nomination? So moved. Second. Okay. All all in favor to total way. All right. We will, Thatcher, if you don’t mind going through and doing a roll call, and as, as I said, you can name the person that you would like to nominate. Okay. So, um, you vote by naming your, your person.

1:14:24 So, uh, Mr. Quata, Melissa Lucas, Ms. Schaffner, Sarah Fox, Ms. Schmick, pepper, Melissa Lucas, Mr. Williams, Melissa Lucas, Mr. Greater, We can tell from my question that I think Melissa Lucas will be the one who can really take it to the next level, uh, in terms of our discussion. So, Melissa, Ms. Nunan, Um, I will, um, no, uh, vote for Melissa as well. Ms. Singer, That’s agree. Think we Done, I think we should allow everyone too Yeah. To do it. Go ahead. Oh, I didn’t know. Go ahead. Um, I’ll vote for Mark Schwartz

1:15:12 And Mr. Fox. I will vote for Melissa. Okay. So if I could have a motion to appoint Melissa Lucas to, uh, school committee. So I’ll move A second, Second present to be, Nope, we’re, we’re working together. Great. All in favor? Okay. Looks like it’s unanimous. Welcome. Thank you. Thank you all for, for coming tonight. Thank you, Melissa. Um, Melissa, you tomorrow? I would thank, can you go and get sworn in and you can, uh, contact Kyle, Mr. Chair? I’d just like to, uh, really thank those that came before us this evening to, and, and stood up and put their, their hand up to, to volunteer for this. It’s, it’s challenging, it’s difficult, uh, but, uh, we, we really appreciate it.

1:15:59 Excellent. Do you guys wanna close anything? Yeah. So I’m looking for a motion to adjourn the school committee. So moved. Second. Okay. Um, all in favor. Thank you. All right. The school committee meeting is Now adjourned. Great. Thank you all for coming and participating. We’re gonna take a five minute recess so that we can rearrange here. I’d like to talk about accomplishments of, of our staff. Um, we have two recent accomplishments within our finance department regarding professional development. Uh, our Treasure Collective, Kami Elli. Kami Elli has successfully passed the Massachusetts Collectors and Treasurers Association Collector Exam. So she is now a fully certified Massachusetts certified collector. Outstanding for Her. And

1:16:45 as I learned from the, the finance team, that is not an easy feat to do. Uh, she passed her test on the first try, which I guess is an accomplishment in its own right. Um, I get various lawyers in the, in the room. Yeah, it’s like passing the bar. Um, so very significant. And, uh, from the town’s perspective, having, uh, folks like Camie certified trained, it just, uh, helps us to get the business done of the town better not to be outdone. Um, Victoria, uh, Boca rate,

1:17:29 um, I, I, I’m probably chopping her name up, um, but she is the assistant assessor in our assessing office. And so she has completed the Mass Association of Assessing Officers Annual Summer School, um, uh, getting through the principals of assessing procedures. And again, uh, assessing functions is not simple. It’s extensive training, um, not simple stuff. So, again, a great accomplishment, uh, Victoria in our assessing office for their work, both of which really helps to enhance our, our financial functions. Next, um, our police department pleased to report

1:18:14 that we have been notified that we have been issued a re-accreditation. So again, police department accreditation is going through a very intense process of being evaluated on all your policies, procedures, record keeping, all, all, you know, uh, maintaining professional standards, all of those functions. And, um, uh, so Marblehead, um, and I think it’s every three years, I believe, is the cycle. So, uh, we’ve been notified there will be a formal recognition in October. So, again, congratulations to the, the project officers who actually had do the detail work, but the department as a whole, uh, to, to meet those standards. Uh, secondly, in the police department, um, pleased to

1:19:03 to say we received the grant, um, um, in the amount of $121,300 to support the work of our mental health clinician, Gina Rabbit. Um, what we’re very pleased about on this grant is that, um, the grant program to, to support mental health clinicians that are affiliated with police departments. Um, this was a budget cut, um, at the state, state level. And, uh, representative Armenian and Senator Creighton, uh, chief gave him a phone call and said, we need your help. And they, they went up and got the funding for us. So we’re very pleased with the work of our local legislators, um, uh,

1:19:49 to continue the good work in our police department, um, dealing with the mental health issues, uh, challenges that the police, the police department will encounter as part of their part of their work. Um, next item, which is, uh, the chair requested, and I think others asking for an update in regard to our street utility projects. And that’s one of the, the, I’m just gonna put up a slide as I give a summary. Um, what’s that? The camera. Oh, does that camera need to be turned back on? Look, it’s, Yeah, something, I think when we moved this One. Okay. What? Okay. I could work in the IT department, apparently. Yeah. Yeah.

1:20:38 Say that’s my screen. Im pretty good because multi, I Was gonna bang it next. Just don’t move anything else. Oh, I won’t touch it. So, uh, the four categories, and, and Amy is, uh, there’s Amy, who, who, who’s here to fill in, fill in details. So, uh, there’s a lot of projects going on, which is a good thing. That’s, that’s making improvements. Um, it’s painful while it’s in progress, but when it’s done, uh, it’s highly beneficial for the community. So we are doing, uh, one of the major categories is pedestrian, a DA ramp improvements. And as the a DA coordinator, uh, it’s important to me, but important to the community to address. If, if you go around the community,

1:21:24 and you’ll see crosswalks that go to curbs, obviously not compliant if you’re, if you’re someone in a wheelchair, um, and, you know, that is a significant challenge. We have far too many of those. So what we’re doing is, is, again, picking away at that, that list of projects. So, Atlanta, Gav, west Shore Drive, pleasant Street, Tadesco, and Humphrey Streets, um, and Lafayette Street are some of the areas, uh, of this work that’s being done. And, and the work I’m identifying is only some of the work being done. It’s the highlights of the work. There’s a lot going on. Uh, the next category is paving projects. So, um, coming, uh, September 15th, starting September 15th, full depth reclamation paving

1:22:12 for West Street, miss Street, and Florence Street, um, full depth reclamation is basically taking out the entirety of the road under structure, everything, building it back new. And, and what’s, uh, critical in road construction is you can pave over the top all you want. And if the underlying, uh, base is compromise, you’re, you’re wasting your money. And so the idea is the, the lifecycle of roads, uh, full reclamation reconstruction, um, puts the road at, at a, uh, top category. And then you wanna maintain it that way by keeping the surface sealed, uh, on a regular basis. So, uh, those streets are gonna benefit from those projects.

1:22:59 Uh, next water system upgrades, um, big one’s on Pleasant Street and Gary Street. Um, so this is the water, water utility improvements in, in multiple areas. Um, the project schedule to be completed by early October. Um, work will shift to Gary Street, where water system upgrades are planned to take place from October through December. So, um, and, and what I always say on road improvements, and again, uh, uh, the public sees the surface. You never wanna put a brand new road on top of old pipes, right? ‘cause you’re wasting your money, uh, again. So, uh, the cycle has to be putting in improvements in the infrastructure below the ground before you make the

1:23:45 improvements on top of the ground. So, uh, you’ll see on Pleasant Street and the involve Gary Street. And finally, gas utility upgrades, uh, Conant, Winthrop, prospect Atlantic, Gary Streets all have projects in the, in, uh, coming in for gas utility upgrades. So again, that’s infrastructure that’s under the ground that needs to be improved, uh, and to be followed by, by public works. So, okay. For that, that’s the request. So after, like, for instance on Pleasant Street, and I think Washington Street was just done, when will that paving be done?

1:24:27 Like, so all the work that’s being done on Pleasant Street right now, just so that the, these are questions that I get that, and again, we’ve got, you’ve got the new water upgrades going on. Pleasant. Thank you, Amy. Super fast. Yep. So what, what’s, what’s the, the normal timeline for them that we could see Pleasant Street be paved. So, um, And that’s just one example. Everything Ties together. Pleasant Street’s, one of the harder one stands. So, um, we’ll look at Mystic. So Mystic has really been a project for about three years, right? Gas company came down. Uh, we videoed the sewers once gas was finished, water came down, then we waited for a season after water, so that we have that freeze thaw and everything kind of settles. And now you’re gonna see, um, the reclamation

1:25:15 and the new sidewalk on one. So, and we’ve also, uh, had to do some tree work so that we could get an a DA compliant sidewalk in. Um, so it’s usually on the fast track. We’re at three years, Three years from the time you do the street work From the time we start. Okay. And, uh, we see, so let’s Say everybody stop seeing the streets being ripped up a year after for it to make sure it settles right. That we wait like a year, I’m sure use the wrong word. So it’s about, about a year after you’re done doing the Work. Yeah. We wanna go through a, a freeze thought to Make sure that you don’t, so you don’t have to rip it up again. Right. And that we don’t have a lot of imperfections. Um, this is the first reclamation that Marble Head’s done since I’ve been around in 2010. So I don’t know when the one was before that. So I think it’s gonna be an interesting learning curve. Um, you’re gonna end up with a solid road

1:26:02 and a finished road at the end, right? So it’s not gonna be like chip ceiling where it might continue until it cures it, it’s gonna cure and uh, you know, like a regular road. But it’s gonna be dirty for a couple of weeks as we go through. Right. You’re actually gonna be driving down a dirt road. So, sorry, what road are we talking about? Mystic. Mystic, okay. That’s West, mystic and Florence. Okay. Okay. And these, uh, these got road rating very poorly when they did it in 2021. Yeah. Um, so that’s how we started, right? We went with the worst roads, then we reached out to the utilities to work on their portion before we came down. Um, but these roads are also pretty thin, right? So ESCO’s a thick road, I mean, it, it has a great base. So, you know, that’s gonna be a me overlay type work.

1:26:47 But when we get to these side streets, sometimes we encounter roads that are really too thin. So we have to go, we’re trying to see how this works. Hopefully it works, as everyone says it doesn’t, hasn’t worked in Overtown, uh, other towns, but, um, pleasant Street now we have the Pleasant Street corridor that we’re looking at. So that could be, uh, you know, a large train change with, uh, sidewalks and utilities. Uh, I mean, um, shared streets on one side, so, um, and different intersection, uh, improvements. So that is now like we have all the water done there. Mm-hmm. Gas has been requested to do things, so they still have gas to upgrade ‘cause there’s a lot of cast iron, gas and Marblehead too. Uh, we have cast iron pipe for water too. So those are the things we wanna address before we pave. So, um, gas might be coming back to do something there.

1:27:36 Um, we’re really trying to do work. Water work has to be done in the summer. Gas can go all year. We’re trying to work through schools or businesses. That’s why you saw Pleasant Street start down by the businesses. So we’d be done before, um, well around 4th of July, I think that ditch finished right up before that. And then schools we’re working around schools, like they’ll be working on Sunday to do the school connection for veterans so that we don’t interrupt the farmer’s market and we don’t interrupt the schools. When we go to do the sidewalk improvements, we’re gonna try to do ‘em during school holidays. ‘cause we have Jersey at West Shore Drive that we’re putting ramps in. So, um, and as far as the water project goes, hopefully the water, uh, the line’s been flushed. It has been chlorinated and flushed. The line that we just worked on, we’re waiting for those, uh, water quality results to come back. Uh, we’ll take two rounds. So the second round has to pass.

1:28:23 We’ll know that by Friday, by Saturday, excuse me, Saturday, if it passes, the school will be back on regular water. And then, uh, we have two more connections and then they’ll be, um, filling in all of the plates where they are and slowly connecting. We’ll have one more down at the Mariner too. The Mariner has a new connection going in, but we’ll be away from the schools. So we’re trying to get away from the schools. Um, and then we’ll move on to Gary Street, which you might see the gas company move off of Gary Street so the water can get finished before the water, before the temperature goes down too far, and then they might be coming back. So, um, you know, weather plays a lot into all this planning. Sure. So, but we are really trying to plan and trying to get off main streets as much as we can. We will, you know, as we look at paving, we’re trying to look at bike improvements and sidewalk improvements too.

1:29:11 And that then becomes with a, a big design part. Washington Street. Um, gas has been up. Washington Street water is done on Washington, but gas has to finish Washington down towards Hooper. They haven’t finished, they still have cast iron there. Uh, so, and we are really looking at, the sidewalks are gonna be really difficult on Washington Street right here. So did You do the sidewalk for some total novice? You do the sidewalks before you do the street? Yep. Is the Play okay? We try to do ‘em, we, we’d like to do ‘em in unison. I mean, that would be, ‘cause we do have a contractor who does the streets together, but we also have another contract out that’s just for sidewalks so that we can get a lot of these ramps done. And the ramps are gonna be done at the easy ones. Right. They don’t have a tree, they don’t have a strange intersection going on there,

1:29:57 but we will try to get all the low hanging fruit this Sure. Time through, so, okay, great. Um, but you will see them all the way along. That’s helpful. You can definitely call, um, there is, if anybody wants a list, there is a list of the streets we’ve done so far with the Article 11 money. Mm-hmm. So, and it’s a big list. Do you have the other picture? So where do they find, where would the pub, where does the public find that? I, I, I will give it to you guys. I to Okay. Put it out. But we can Absolutely. Okay, great. Put it out on The website so they can see it. It just says what the streets are. I had that up. I took it down so they could see you. Okay. So the first picture is just what we’re doing right now. Yeah. Right. The gas company has three, uh, three crews out. Water has, uh, one crew and we’ll be moving in different areas and then we’ll have, uh, the contractor coming in

1:30:44 to do the paving on the 15th. And then by the end of the month, we’re gonna have the sidewalk contractor come in and start, and he’ll work. He’ll work as long as he can till the weather goes. I’m sending he’ll break and he’ll come right back. Um, there you go. But that is what we’ve really done since 2020. So this is why you’re getting a lot of these questions, right? Yeah. But Article 11 gave us a book, a big push to start to get things paved. Um, we did as many streets as we could that have all the utilities upgraded that had bad ratings, but there weren’t that many until we hit a roadblock with utilities. And um, I will say the gas company has worked well with us and they have, we’ve allowed them to work in the winter, but they’ve given us three crews to try to get ahead of our paving so they’re not slowing us down. So, but good, good. We have touched a lot of places. Well, if you drive around town,

1:31:30 you know, you’re working hard. Yeah, they’re busy. We like summer. We like summer. That’s what people should say. Look, look at them working instead of complaining with that. Right. So, um, thank you for that update. I think it’s helpful. And if we could get that list so we can share it. Yeah. Just because we do get Yeah, I sent you just a quick one there. Okay. Thank you Amy. Thank you, Maggie. Thank you Amy. I have one more item. Okay. Um, as you know, you know anybody who owns a car, you have to rotate your tires every so often, so they wear evenly. But we have a, i I’ll call it a historic rotation. And I’m gonna let the, the fire chief explain if you would, About rotating our tires and our cars. So That exactly Right. Uh, you need a microphone? Yeah. This is a public service announcement on how to No, this

1:32:15 Is a request of the slick Board. Oh, thank you. Okay. Thank you for clarifying. Thank You for clarifying. The board has to grant permission. Okay. So the bell that sits in the clock tower gets struck every single day on the hour by a brass hammer in the same location over many, many years. It can’t continue to do that because it’s gonna fatigue the bell lose the to and it possibly cracked. So if you read the history of the bell, it is supposed to be rotated. So one of the cranks, very welder, is a steeple jack, his background. And he has a familiarity to do that. But he cannot rotate that unless you guys say yes. Okay. Is this like turning old iron sides every other? So you gotta, You gotta, you gotta loosen the nut, which he’s been spraying for the last few months,

1:33:01 the big retaining nut, and then rotate it and tighten it back up. And So she wants to approve rotating of the bell, Giving them permission to do that. I don’t, has a problem. I don’t think we Have enough time to debate This. Huge, It’s been 140 years, so It may take a roll call though. It’s, it’s, It’s never been rotated. Uh, if you look at it not for a while, it’s, it’s take got some serious dings in it. Yeah. It’s never been rotated. Not for, since I’ve been around. If it changes the tone, you’ll be responding. I’m not gonna change the tone. I’m not gonna Change. All right. Could I have a, a motion to give permission to rotate the bell and the taco clock tower? So, so moved. Second. Second. All in favor? The crank should be very happy. Go rotate those tires, as Thatcher was saying. Appreciate it. Is, is that, that concludes it.

1:33:48 That’s, that’s awesome. So glad we could be part of that. Um, next we have an update on the Marblehead Rev two 50 committee. Don, if Don Dahlberg to give us an update. Good evening, Don. Good evening. Thank you for waiting. Sorry to keep you waiting. Thank you. So Patient. Thank you Mr. Dahler. No problem. I hope you learned a lot about the Bell. My dad, Donald, a doer Senior seven Westminster Road. My dad taught me something. The mind can absorb only with the seat can endure. So I’m glad you Took a break.

1:34:27 So thank you, uh, for allowing me to speak to you. Uh, again, I give you the update on Arm Head two 50 last year we had an outstanding, uh, number of people show up to the event. Now remember, the revolution goes seven to eight years. So we’re into the second year of planning. It will take place. And let me hand this. Thank you, sir to you, you on, um, September 20th and the 21st. The rough time period is 10 to four. There is an exception. So again, this is the booklet that’s now

1:35:14 in print and it will be available at the Jeremiah Lee Mansion. And it will give the different locations and, uh, the events that are going to happen. We have added a few events Set. September, 1775, significant time for Marblehead. The HNO was commissioned by General George Washington. Therefore we are celebrating that 250 years of the birthplace of American Navy and let it be known it was Marblehead. We can debate that all we want. We don’t need to.

1:36:00 We thank you. No. But on, uh, Saturday and Sunday between nine and 10 15 at the landing, the fame will be brought in so people can go on board the fame, see what it was like. The fame is very close to the construction of the Hanna, a heel tapper schooner. There would be crew members and BLS regiment to describe that. And then if somebody would like to do it, there are tickets available for $50 each with the proceeds going to, uh, fund future marble head, uh,

1:36:47 headers in revolution. And that’s, um, from 10 15 to 1145. And they would have to make advance reservations with the fame. Um, and right now the fame is sponsored by the Marblehead Historic Commission and the Shaddock Fund. So we’re working on limited budget, but that’s okay. They did that in the revolution. We’ll do it again. Um, I can answer any questions for you, but we have added one other item. Our involvement of school kids is important. And so we know kids have to go out and get service hours.

1:37:35 So any student who comes to see us on those two days gets a slip and it will be signed and the student will receive credit if the teacher so gives it. So that’s the movement that we’re doing and we’re starting the planning for 2020, uh, six. And I have to keep track of everything going on. That seems like you’re doing a great job. Thank you. Well, the committee is a great committee and they’re outstanding. I’m happy to be, uh, co-chair. Well, thank you for coming. And I see here too, if anybody wants to get information, they can go to www dot marble exam slash mhd two 50.

1:38:22 Thank you. And that has that, I’m assuming that has all the events on there and the times. Exactly. Absolutely. So, And I do have to share one thing, different hat. Okay. Found a historian. He had the opportunity on Monday at nine 30 in the morning to go to Fort Seoul where the WBC reporter, uh, was there. And, um, he was fascinated by Fort Soul at Tanaka. Yeah. And Larry Sands was there. So we had the Glover’s regiment represented, we talked filmed, and tomorrow between five and 7:00 AM it should be on WBZ.

1:39:08 And then later on Okay. Uh, on the excellent, outstanding, uh, channel. So you’re getting advanced notice and, um, Set your alarm. Absolutely. Without question. Let’s Finish this meeting so we all can go to sleep to wake up at five and watch that. Absolutely. Most because I Have a really quick question. Just a question of clarification, Don. You said between nine and 10 is when the we go on board for the fame? Or is it between 11, 10, 15? The fame is a different time period. Okay. Nine to 10 for any person for free to go on onboard the vessel. Gotcha, gotcha. And then, but Then 10, uh, 15 begins the 90 minute cruises. Thank you. Paid. Got it. Thank you very much. Where Are they going on the cruise? Sorry. Yeah, no, you’re Good. Excuse me. Where Do they go on the cruise?

1:39:54 Out and back? That’s the best answer. I could say Five hour tour away And back. I think when the Hannah went, they did the same thing out.

1:40:06 That’s all they did. So thank you. Thank you. Appreciate, thank for waiting. Thanks lot, Don. Appreciate outstanding. Appreciate it. Excellent. Um, I don’t know how we top that next on our agenda. We have an overhang sign for free. And if, uh, Susanna, and I’m gonna blow this nordine there. Hi. Did I pronounce your name right? I’m horrible at that. Um, Noden. Noden. Thank you. There should be an E at the end if there’s no DI apologize. Oh, that’s okay. Have a seat. I, It’s been said many different ways, believe me. Welcome. And again, thank you for waiting. Thank you. Thank you. Um, do you wanna tell us a little bit about your application? Yes. Um, my name is Suzanne Noden. I’m the graphic designer and sign designer for my client. And this is the, um, the new bakery in town, 1 64, um, on Washington Street, right on the corner of, of Darling Street.

1:40:52 I think most of you have been there by now to enjoy the bakery. Yeah. And wait in line. Sure have, sure Have. So this is the proposed sign. I’m really looking for permission and approval and a go ahead to actually get it fabricated, built and, and hung. So the measurements are 22 inches wide and 23 inches high. And this is what it looks like. And it will be made out of wood and, um, locally and it would be, um, hung, um, with a bracket. The lowest part from the lowest part here to the ground would be eight feet. So a lot of clearance. Nothing to worry about in that regard. Um, it’s two-sided and it’s a perpendicular hanging sign, um, that, um, is perpendicular to the building itself on the, um,

1:41:38 using a rot iron bracket. Um, it’s, it’s gonna be the colors as you see a, a deep red and a yellow and a cream color. Um, and I, I really just looking for approval. I have what you need very badly though, is the, um, actual information here on the, um, liability that’s important for all of you. Uh, the liability of 1 million and aggregate of two to 2 million, which I think is important for everyone. Yeah. That can go to Kyle’s coming to take it. Okay. This is what it looks like if you were standing there. See a little bit of a simulated design of what it would be. So, um, I think it’d be very appealing. Okay, cool. It has a historic value to it. Mm-hmm. Um, and this is what it looks like if you were

1:42:25 to walk into the building. Great. Nice design. Thank you. I like the shape. Thank. Yeah. Oh, and this is the business Part. Yeah. What, what inspired the shape? I’m curious. It’s A, well actually it came from them, uh, Laurent. Um, he is from France. Yeah. And the region that he is from, where the, the bread is made, um, it really, it’s indicative of that time period of the middle ages. Yeah. So that’s kind of what, where the whole symbolism came from. And this is the business card I started working on last year for the design of it. Oh, the Business card for, Yeah. There we go. Business card. Yeah. So did you bring us any bread? I will, I will next time if you, if you approve this. We do. Yeah. I, I guess, I guess conditions it’s less than $50. I dunno. Enough. That feels like a bribe. Alright. Right. Lemme withdraw that. Okay. Anybody have any questions on this? No. I, I saw the building

1:43:11 department signed. Yeah, I saw the whole thing building. Oh, were you in That room? No, we’ve got it all in our packet. Oh. Oh, good. Good, good. And I was saying earlier, I don’t want to be the person that denies the sign the fare, so No, you’ll be, you’ll be shut off. Absolutely. So, all right. Could I have a motion to approve the application from freeing artisanal French bread, 1 46 Washington Street for an overhanging sign, subject to approval from OHDC, signed permit and receipt of required insurance, which we have. So moved. No. Second. Thank. All in favor. Thank you. Thank you. Appreciate you waiting. Great, great job on the time. You Know, I actually didn’t mind being here for the entire Well you’re welcome. Every other week I might do That. Absolutely. I might do that. Thank you so much. We look forward to seeing you. Many boards you can volunteer on. Yeah. Yep. There you go. Next up we have Brothers consignment.

1:43:58 Um, Kathleen Doyle. I can’t blow that name. One up. I think we have two. Welcome all. I thank you for waiting as well. I Didn’t bring any papers. Sorry. Have You can hold one of mine if you want, if it makes you feel Okay. Um, we have a, you’re here for a second hearing dealer’s license as well as an overhang sign. I dunno if you wanna tell us a little bit about your application. Um, I would like to open up a men’s consignment store. Great. I need some clothes. Yeah. So I said one That 80 Ronnie. Oh, there you go. Okay. 80 R. Great. And the sign, we have a picture of the sign as well. It’s round. It’s okay. So it’s 24. Yep. Okay. Um, any questions? That’s great. No. All right. We made you wait all this time for that. It’s

1:44:44 My bed time. Yeah. I, perfect. No, I just want, uh, Was the sign, did it need to be reviewed by the, uh, the town or the building department? I, I was told no, The vote is subject To the subject to that. Oh, okay. I’m sorry. Okay. Yeah, we, we C building. So they had done that before. This will be subject to doing that. Okay. Yep, yep. Absolutely. So if I, oh, go ahead. Sorry. Clearance. Just clearance. Do, do you know the clearance? Um, I, I figured when the woman came to hang up the sign, we would measure it there. There’s already some holes in there, but, um, definitely would be high enough that no one bumps into it. Oh yeah, no. So just follow through and that would be, yeah. So we would need a, the building department to approve that. This is the Building commission and the building commission will approve that. They’ll help you out with that. Okay.

1:45:30 Alright. Motion to approve the application from Brothers consignment, A DB Washington Street for a secondhand dealer’s license. Subject to receipt of the required documents, fees, and Cory approval. So moved. Have a second. Second. All in favor, but I also have a motion to approve the application from brothers consignment, A DB Washington Street for an overhang sign sub subject to approval from OHDC, signed permit and receipt of required insurance. Moved. Second. All in favor. Thank you. Thank you. Good luck. Thank you. I will be in, uh, next up If we could have Steve McClure. Hey, good evening. Welcome. Yeah, absolutely waiting. Yeah, that was, that was good. Yeah. Perfect.

1:46:19 Just for summary of the night. Not actually, it was good. That’s sure. What you were expecting, but it turned out good. I love that. Yeah. I thought it was gonna be short. Isn’t that today? Yeah. No, it’s, no, you were wrong. It was like a, It was like a, like a great movie. Exactly. Hard Night, hard night Reality tv. Right in the ring. Thank you for waiting though. It’s Good. Fine. So Steve, you’re here for the cultural council. Just so you guys know, we do have multiple vacancies. This is an at large committee and it’s a term of three years. Um, you wanna tell us a little bit about yourself and why you’re applying? Uh, Sure. Uh, I am am an artist. Okay. I, I run the Willie Shaker Gallery in town. Uh, we, I show my work there and other people’s work there. We do some kids programming there too. Mm-hmm. Um, and I do some classes at the library and do some arts and involved in the arts and elevating the arts in, in the area.

1:47:06 Uh, that’s, that’s what I do. Great. Yeah. Does anybody have any questions for Steve? No, that’s great. Steve. No, I think Great. Yeah. You Thank you for volunteering. Yeah. Thank you for working with kids down there and by the gallery lot. Um, could I have a motion to approve appoint Steve McClure to the cultural counsel with the term to expire in June of 2028? So, second in favor. Unanimous. Thank you for waiting. Thank you. Thank you. Appreciate you. Thank you. All right. We are on to the OHCC reappointment and interview. Um, a little background to this first one to reappoint, um, Duncan Facie. This was administrative, it should have been done in June. We appointed him as, um, alternate and we’re just moving him up to full-time.

1:47:52 I don’t know if, uh, he was here before with us. So if I could have a motion to reappoint Duncan Facies, the Old and Historic District’s Commission full member with a term to expire in June of 2026. So moved second. All in favor? All right. And Michael Hall, are you here? Hey, I thought I saw you back there before. Um, this is also for the old Historic Districts Commission. This is, um, for an alternate member. Yes. And this is a term of one year. Um, again, thank you for waiting. I’m getting repetitive here. No Problem. Um, you wanna tell us a little bit about yourself and why you’re applying? Um, sure. Um, so, uh, historic architecture has always been something that’s really interested me. Um, I actually studied it.

1:48:38 I, I have my master’s in Historic Preservation from the University of Edinburgh. Um, I’ve served on a number of, uh, historic district boards. I actually helped lobby and found, uh, the one in Augusta, Maine, uh, where I lived before. Um, I, uh, while, while I worked for Waterville, um, I served as staff and wrote the bylaws and used to process all the applications when they came through, uh, for the Waterville Historic Preservation Commission as well. So, um, this is something I really love to do and it’s part of the reason which, um, brought me here to Marblehead. I love the historic architecture and I live right in Old Town, so very excited to, uh, be a part of it. Excellent. Thank you. Wonderful. Any questions? No, no. We’ve read your, your cover letter, um, or your email.

1:49:25 So thank you. Um, could I have a motion to approve Michael Hall’s the old and historic Districts commission alternate member with the term to expire in June, 2026? So moved. Second. All in favor? Your unanimous. Thank you. Thank you for waiting for waiting. Yeah. We’ll see you around. Thank you. All right, Brendan, we have an update on the coffin School reuse project. I’m all thanking you for waiting ‘cause you’re on the payroll. It’s, it’s, it’s not, it’s not a major, it’s, it’s not a major update or anything like that. Okay. You know, we’re on track of, you know, I’ve briefed you Guy. We’ve discussed the schedule in the past. It’s, it’s still the same schedule. Uh, we did issue the expression of, um, interest in municipal departments the end of August. They’re, those are due September 26th,

1:50:10 uh, from the departments. Um, we are, um, I’ve got a draft letter to the, the next step is to do the, um, sort of the abutter, the ABUTTER meeting, uh, with the property abutters, the direct abutters to the property to meet with them and just kind of let them know that this is gonna be the process. Kind of get their input before we do any sort of like, major public engagement. No. Um, that I’m hoping like, uh, send out that letter before the end of the week. Try to schedule that before the end of the month. Um, and then, uh, we are in the process of drafting a request for information. So that one, we will, um, you know, post on what we actually did create a website. So we do have a website or a page on our website. There’s not much material on it right now, but it, it is up. And that that is where we will post the information.

1:50:57 Uh, but we are gonna issue an RFP, or I’m sorry, an RFI, uh, just to kind of gather, uh, input from potential developers, um, nonprofits, you know, anybody who’s got an interest in the property, um, that likely will go out before the end of the month. That’ll probably be on the street for 30 days for the most part. Um, while the RFIs on the street. Then. And following our direct ofbut, uh, discussion or meeting, we’ll have our first public meeting. Uh, we’ll do a first public meeting, um, you know, TBD to where, where it’ll be located or anything like that, and time or date. But that will be, um, following, you know, in the early October, um, while shortly

1:51:42 after the public meeting, first public meeting, we’ll get the responses from the expressions of interest, uh, as well as the RFIs. And we’ll start, you know, kind of seeing what the interest is, not only from municipal standpoint, but other, you know, outside, uh, developers, um, and what sort of, what, what they’re thinking, just to kind of, again, to gauge sort of the interest. Um, after that we’ll have one more kind of, sort of public, public meeting, um, to kind of get one last bit of fee input as well as maybe start, well, at that point we might start going in a direction of what we’re gonna be doing with the site. Obviously there’s no determination at this point. Uh, and then shortly after the public engagement, um, the second meeting in November, uh, I think it will,

1:52:29 you know, hopefully at that point the select board will kind of have, uh, make a decision on how they want to proceed. Um, I think, you know, a few factors, I, in an ideal world, we maybe could I, uh, RFP, the pro the property in January, but you still, there’s still other things to take into consideration if that, if we can make that, uh, happen or not. Is there a distinct, sorry, go for it, Mr. Chair. Uh, is there a distinct abutters meeting distinct separate from the October and November Yes. Public meeting? Yep. We got, we want to meet with them, uh, in advance of kind of the general community. Um, and so, um, we, we’ve got the list of abutters already. The letter is drafted. Uh, I just need to just nail down the date and, uh, just mail the letter to the, it’s like, again,

1:53:14 I think, we’ll, we’re gonna give them over two weeks to kind of, you know, respond and we’re gonna ask ‘em to RSVP so we know who will be here or who can attend. Um, I think it’s gonna be an option of hybrid, just in case. Um, but, you know, it’s, it’s, the goal is to be in person, but we’re gonna have the hybrid option for people that can’t attend. Um, Go ahead, sir. I can Follow up. Yeah. Any, any facilitation in those meetings, uh, you know, outside the, the professional staff. Uh, I know you’re, you’re driving the whole process, but Yes. Just in terms of kind of structuring the meetings, making sure that people, you know, that that’ll, there’s facilitation. It’ll Fall all in the department. Okay. Yep. Okay. And is the first public meeting, I, I remember going to like, for the Gary School

1:54:00 and people were there putting out ideas, and I think, you know, you had dots if you liked him. Is it that type of meeting to We, we haven’t quite, you know, figured out the format of that meeting? Don’t details Because it, to find out what the community’s interested in. Yeah, it Would, it definitely be to hear their interest. I mean, they, I know they went through this process a few years ago and it was focused on housing. Uh, and it most likely will be focused on housing again. But, um, we do wanna, uh, you know, get, get the input. I mean, I think it’d be worth taking a, you know, uh, taking a look at that a little bit because I think there was a set of criteria that were set up, and I think that was viewed as, you know, highly objective now, you know, however you gather that, I mean, that’s part of the process. But there was a, there was a, I think a very good process with the, with the Gary School that we could take notes from. Mm-hmm.

1:54:46 Yeah. Yeah. We have that reuse Study that was done for the coffin school. I assume that’ll be up on the website. Yep, Yep. So that we had That done previously. Yeah. Yeah. So we, If It’s not there, it not there. We’ll, But the MAPC didn’t really, yeah, they, we didn’t really, broadly, I think one of the challenges, no, we’ll take it off further, obviously. Yeah. One of the challenges was it didn’t we do, we didn’t broadly kind of socialize it, let’s say, And that was already presupposed at a specific thing. It didn’t start at Right. The Gary started at ground zero. People were saying, you know, I’d like to keep it, I’d like to do this, I’d like to do that. I’d like to turn it into a park. And what happened with the other coffin school study? I think it was a grant that targeted one thing. Yep. And I think that upset the apple cart with a lot of people. Yeah. I think we need to have as much public input as possible, obviously, and look at all possibilities starting

1:55:32 with the town, um, which you already talked about that you’ve put out from municipal expression of interest. Mm-hmm. Clearly we will start from there and Spread out. Well, I think that’s right. I mean, I think it’s taking broad, I think setting up the criteria is useful because you can put a financial fiscal criteria in there, which kind of, you know, gets people talking about that reality in addition to the, all the other options. So, you know, it’s helpful to have a structured conversation like that. So that’s the only thing I would encourage. Okay. You know, putting, putting some cycles into that, And I think that’s part, tell me if I’m wrong, but that’s where we will get, you’re saying in December, putting that into conversation with how we want to go, looking at all the options that you’ve gathered, all the input that you’ve had, and then make a decision if we put out an RFP or which way to move at that point. But I think Yeah, I, I am saying that’s correct. You are. I think we’re saying the same thing. I think we’re saying the same thing, but I think also we would like,

1:56:18 we would like, I think it’s helpful to, to ensure that we have a, a decent outreach mm-hmm. And socialization of the consensus. I think that helps us a great deal because, you know, that’s Ultimately one thing, thing I, one thing I was, you know, hoping to focus our work on over the next couple weeks is kind of put together a work plan, um, and so that you, you know, that will lead this whole process a little bit more. You know, we haven’t sat down and done that, but that’s, that’s the idea. No, that’s good. That’s what I’d like to do. That’s my Suggestion and we’ll probably have you come back and go through that. Thank, thank you for waiting tonight. Oh, no Problem. Thanks. And he was joking about the, the payroll? No, I wasn’t. Absolutely. Yeah, go ahead. Um, I just wonder what the board thinks about sending, um, one

1:57:03 of our, one of us to the ABUTTERS meeting, um, with, to go along with Brendan and depending on people’s schedules and when you set the date, I just think we should think about that and maybe let us know the date and maybe we can circulate it if somebody wants to. I think it’ll be helpful for us to be able to hear firsthand some of it. Right. I mean, and I think that it will, you know, it’s the first meeting. It’s with the people most impacted. Is there, you know, the select board? We probably should. Somebody should be there. Yep. I agree. I’ll let you Guys decide. Yeah, we can decide when we get there. We’ll go for our schedules. And do you Need me to take A vote? Nope. Okay. Nope, you’re good. No. Anybody wanna make a motion? No, We already already turned be. Thank you, man. It’s a lucky one. Thank you. So next up we have the zero emissions vehicle policy. Um, Logan, thank you for waiting.

1:57:49 Um, we went through this at our last meeting. We did. We went through it. Um, and I think that Logan is here in case we had any specific questions. Yep. Correct. So the only changes to this have been some grammatical error spelling errors. Thank you, Kyle, for pointing them out. Um, so yeah, just to recap, you know, we have brought this policy through our town department heads, um, had them review it, uh, brought it up to, you know, Thatcher’s level, our CFO review it as well too. Um, so, uh, you know, it is kind of in its ready state ready to go. Um, this does support the net zero plan. This was a specific goal kind of outlined as that 2023 plan. Um, and it also kind of helps us to, uh, you know, eventually apply for the green community’s destination,

1:58:35 which we heard from the public comment tonight. People are excited about. So, So this is, this is step one. Mm-hmm. Excellent. Uh, anybody have any questions? I know we spent a lot of time on it last time. Yeah, I, I, I just wanted to say from the, the last meeting, it’s important to note that, um, you know, uh, emergency vehicles and heavy equipment are excluded. Mm-hmm. They, they get an exception because a, there’s not really those vehicles out there, and it’s not functionally and it’s really geared towards, um, light vehicles, which is good. And even then it says we are feasible. So it doesn’t lock, um, us into buying something that’s, um, functionally or financially inappropriate. But if, if it is, then you go in that direction. So I thought it was well written from that standpoint. Yeah. It allows a lot of flexibility. Yeah. Yeah. I agree.

1:59:21 I agree. Yep. Excellent. I can take all the credit for it. The town of Concord copied heavily from don’t, don’t. Great job writing it from, from scratch and they copied it from, so Yeah. I’m sure somebody, could I get a motion to adopt the town of Marvel at zero emissions vehicles first procurement policy as presented? So moved. Alright. Second. Second. Second. All in favor? Good job, Logan. Very much. Thanks for your hard work. Could you send the water down, please? Yep, absolutely. Next we have a continuation of a public hearing, the licensing of Shin Dynasty. Um, Alexander, welcome back. Thank you. Do you want to give us, um, actually I need to announce that this is a public hearing continued from

2:00:07 November 13th, 2024 on the revocation of the Wine Malt beverage license. How about Shin Dynasty at One Atlantic Ave. Now you can go ahead. Thank you. So you can give us an update from last time. I know we had an email. Our landlord is here as well. Okay, Great. Um, okay. So I’ve been in there several times a week just to make sure that work’s being done. And I’ve been happy to find that people are in there, people are doing work. Um, I was just there this afternoon, um, and there’s all the material to put in the walls. Um, they have material to put in the ceilings, so I’m, I’m seeing a lot of progress. Um, right. Just trying to, you talk about the fireproofing between the units. So the firewall’s been put in, um, on the floor level.

2:00:55 Mm-hmm. And I saw the material to put it in, in the basement level, and I believe they’ve already completed all the way through the, to the roof. So, um, the firewall portion’s almost complete. Um, the door has been installed and framed out. Um, the, it’s been framed out and installed. The electrician is supposed to come in this week. Um, I know that he pulled the electric permit last week, so hopefully the door will be electrified, um, either by the end of this week or next week. Uh, so I’m just trying to be as proactive as I can with, you know, our contractor and, um, get this place done and open. Any estimate on completion? Um, he hasn’t really given me a, a hard time. He thinks maybe like two to three months. Um, Two to three. So that’s for the common,

2:01:42 the common area work or for the finish? For The, to complete all the work. Okay. Yeah. Um, so the work that the landlord is responsible for, uh, should be done in the next few weeks. Um, I know that we we’re already starting to get some inspections done and get those out of the way. Um, so whatever we can do, we’re, we’re trying to do. Okay. Any, any questions? If, if you talked to Steve at the Yeah. Yeah. So discuss, so they were down and looking. I, I’ll just say this to be mindful, there’s, there’s two clocks that are running. One, obviously for the purpose of the hearing as far as, um, getting the, the building in place for the license

2:02:28 that you have and have had. But there’s also a clock in regard to the renewal of licenses. And the inspection cycle is, it has to be in an inspection, I’ll call it inspection order in the November timeframe, I think by the end of November is the, is the deadline. And so if, if it’s not able to be fully inspected by that timeframe, and I believe under the A BCC requirements, it can’t be issued. Mm-hmm. The, the new license, so there’s, there’s two clocks here. One that the select board is mindful of to, to move forward, but the annual clock for the annual liquor in inspections. Okay. And the A, B, C C’S pretty tight on it’s

2:03:14 November 30th. 30th, I think the by November. By November 30th. So is that inspection actually going through and making sure they’re ready to open, or is it In order for you to vote to renew the license? They have to be, have to have passed the inspection by the end of final Inspection. Yeah. Okay. By the building department fire. And this is true for all, all the liquor establishments. Okay. So I think that query, will, your deadline if we agree to continue, is November 30th outside of our control, is what I’m hearing. Well, Would it be earlier than that because when we would have to vote to renew the license by, we have to vote by November 30th, right? No, they, What’s the cycle Slip would go in December. The License is. Okay. Alright. I just wanna make sure that You go in December, but the,

2:04:00 because all the inspections should have been completed by November 30th, now we’ll have the results of all the inspections by November 30th in order to inform the board in December as to what licenses are ready for approval for the new year. Okay. Got it. Okay. Alright. Um, I mean, I think that that’s the answer. Alright. That seem Reasonable, Alexander. Yeah, I mean, it’s outside of us from what I’ve seen. I am very much hopeful that, that we’ll be done with all that and ready for inspections and all that other way. Um, like I said, I’ve seen people working there almost every single day that I’ve gone by, so. Okay. Um, I don’t have any other questions. Anybody else?

2:04:46 Scott, could I get one? We recommend continuing the hearing till October 8th, so two more meetings, get another update, see where you are. Is that seen appropriate? That’s a good idea. Got it. So, alright, so if you could come back, um, October 8th, and hopefully you’re gonna tell us that you’ve got your permit signed off on, on the, on the common area, which really seems to be slowing you down here. Um, and we can move forward from there. So moved. All right. So continue the hearing to, to October 8th. Perfect. So move, have second. So much second. All right. All in favor. Thank you. Thank you all. Thank you, Alex. Thanks for waiting. All right. We have a cannabis control commission’s update from Thatcher. Yeah. So, um, a requirement of the Cannabis Control Commission in, um,

2:05:34 in a lot of the past chapter 180, the acts of 2022, um, require the municipalities to establish a process, um, for, um, cannabis social equity. Uh, we can do it by bylaw or we can do it by policy here. We’re, we’re looking to do it by, by policy. Um, and, and so I’ve covered it in the memo. I have a draft policy as no vote for tonight. This is my, my practice of giving you the policy and one meeting and, and, and then bring it, give you time to review and such and, and taking a vote following. Um, it just requires us to establish certain processes for, uh, when we’re going back

2:06:20 to renewing host community agreements. So we have one that expires, uh, um, November of 26, and another one April of 27. Those, those are the, the two that we have that’ll be coming due. So we will have this policy. Um, and what it does is it, uh, addresses social equity issues giving, uh, certain advantages to, to certain classes of applicants. Uh, examples being, um, social equity, um, for folks, uh, for, for owners that come from disadvantaged communities, impacted communities, communities impacted by, um, um,

2:07:08 you know, disproportionately impacted, uh, by drugs and, and, and convictions and such. Um, it also has women owned, veteran owned criteria and such. So it’s the, uh, attempt, uh, for what’s a, a fairly new industry is to lower the barriers of entry for certain categories of folks to, rather than just the, the fully funded large corporation type applications. The re the ultimate requirement will be that we have to have at least one applicant or one host community agreement that meets this criteria in order to allow any others.

2:07:54 Uh, we only have two. Um, and if, if we don’t already have one when we come up for renewal, we’ll have to keep the application process open for six months for, uh, those that qualify into this program before we can then consider any and all other applicants. But we still will have to end up with one outta two. Um, I’ll have to do some checking. I think the transaction that we just did, seven Sisters to, I forget the name of the took over, uh, the initials K CC Ks. Was it K-S-S-K-S-S? Yeah. Um, they may based on, I remember reading, they may qualify in one of those categories. And if so, we’re

2:08:40 What about our other one? Do we know? Uh, I looked, uh, it doesn’t appear okay on my review of the Sure. The license, but, Okay. I can look more. So, anyways, that’s for your information. I, I have a full memo that gives the details and I have the draft policy in place. Great. Sounds pretty straightforward. So we’ll look at that probably in next meeting. Yeah. Or the meeting after. Great. Uh, consent agenda items. Um, could I have a motion to approve the following consent agenda items and minutes of August 28th, 2025 and Old Town House Marblehead Museum. October 18th, 2025 Subjects, what is Old Town House? Sorry.

2:09:24 The usual rules and Regulations. Gotcha, gotcha. Old townhouse, uh, Marblehead Museum, October 18th, 2025. Subject to the usual rules, regulation and fees page, the town and receipt of the required certificate of insurance. So moved. I have a second. Second. All all in favor? Next up, uh, that you want to talk about the DAMARA demo agreement lease? Yeah. Or Logan. Or Logan. Logan, come on back. Who did the hard on this? A Quick explanation. Oh, thank you. I have A Image of the vehicle as well too, for interest in For us. I love it. Yeah, so, So cute. Um, so the, this

2:10:10 Lease request, um, is for a deera ees, uh, mini bus, electric mini bus vehicle. Um, this has been a collaboration, um, that I’ve been working on with our council on Aging. Um, they have a fleet of four, um, currently, uh, gas fueled, uh, mini buses that, uh, operate the COAs various, uh, transportation services and meal services. Um, they are interested in electrics and, um, they have looked at electrics in the past. Um, we had, looking at various electrics out there, uh, we reached out to damara. Um, and, uh, speaking with their, um, sales staff, they offered us a one month lease, uh, to try out and demo their vehicle. Um, the lease is for $0.

2:10:58 Um, it would be for one month. Um, and, uh, the cost to us would be insuring it under the, the town’s insurance, um, during the duration of the period. Um, it will be used by the Council on Aging to, uh, kind of act as a replacement for the current vehicles we have. Um, it’ll be making trips in town. Um, it’ll be making trips out of town to doctor’s appointments, to grocery stores. Um, so it will be, you know, kind of, uh, a, hopefully a one-on-one drop in for the vehicles. We already have, um, some big benefits of this vehicle has about 130 miles of, of range on a battery charge, um, which will be plenty for, you know, four square miles we have here. Um, and it’s also, uh, you know, it it a special, you know, part of this particular vehicle is it’s a low floor vehicle.

2:11:46 Um, so particularly for people with disabilities, um, those in a wheelchair, those that might have difficulty stepping up steps, um, this vehicle is gonna be kind of an added, you know, benefit, kind of giving that extra level of comfort. So, um, yeah, that’s, uh, pretty much the pitch I have for it. Uh, we also will have a public engagement event, um, just kind of showing this vehicle off to the public. Um, hopefully getting a couple pictures so everybody can see it. Um, I don’t have a date to announce yet, but, um, I’ll let you guys know. I’m trying to plan for early October. So Do they have a charger over there or will they use the electric company? Great question. So we will be using the Mary Alley charger for the duration of this project. Um, it’s kind of similar to the, the school, the brown school vehicle. The electric van that they just got is using, um,

2:12:33 the Mary Alley Charger until they gonna get theirs installed. But, um, yeah, because it’s not permanent, uh, that’s where it’ll be charging. Perfect. Is is the, um, school of a van or a bus that, that they school? The, the school just purchased an electric Ford Eran. So it’s a, it’s a van. Okay. Are are they interested in looking at this while it’s here? This Thing? Um, yeah, I’ve offered it to them. So they might come look at it. Yeah. And, Uh, Lisa Hooper’s gonna have to determine which drivers, drivers, you know, Ann Martin’s gonna want to drive. I have talked to the, I have talked to the, the, uh, I, I’m forgetting his name off the top of my head, but the, the kind of, uh, driver coordinator, and he said that they’re very excited to No, I’m, so they’re, is that typical range sar most, is

2:13:18 that typical range for that size? 130? Um, yeah, about the, the 40 transit that the school department just purchased has about that same range. So it’s a capacity of 10. And it’s Replacing, what is it replacing? Uh, it’s just a trial. So it’s a trial run. No, I understand. It’s got a, it’s, so it’s, it’s 10 seats. It’s got a capacity of about 15 with all like the folded extra seats down. Um, the, the current shuttle buses, we have typically seat about 10 to 15 people. So, So it’s comparable size. Yeah. Okay, Great. So let’s go back. I just move forward. Could I have a motion to approve the lease agreement between the town and Demara bus U-S-A-L-L-C to lease Demara ees electric mini bus for period

2:14:04 of one month as presented in subject review by town council? So Moved. Second. All in favor? Thank you again, Logan. Thank you Guys. Thank you, Logan. You’re doing a terrific job. That’s great. Super exciting. Next up, we have the annual cleanup of the railroad right away, known as Roundhouse Road. Uh, it looks like we are looking for a no parking tow zone area for October 20th from seven to three with a rain date of October 21st. And this will help facilitate the annual cleanup and repair Uptown property in this area. We have questions, I’m sure Amy would love to answer them. Seems pretty straightforward. Do every year. So if we could have a motion to approve, approve the request from Amy McHugh Public Works director to temporarily make the entirety of the railroad right

2:14:52 of way known as Roundhouse Road from School Street through to Besim Street, as well as Upper Anderson Street from number 10 Anderson through to Besim Street and no parking tow zone area for the following dates October 20th, 2025 from the hours of 7:00 AM to 3:00 PM with a rain date of October 21st, 2025 from the hours of 7:00 AM to 3:00 PM And this is to facilitate the annual cleanup and repair of town property in this area. So, moved. Second. All in favor.

2:15:20 We have a one day liquor license from the bubble bar Boston, for the Lee Mansion. If I could have, uh, it looks like that is on, uh, October 4th from noon to three. If I could have a motion to approve the request from Bubble Bar Boston for one day liquor license on Saturday, October 4th, 2025 at lead Manchin 12 noon to 3:00 PM subject to the following conditions, delivery of and receipt by the licensing authority of the acquired fee of $50, delivery of and receipt by the licensing authority. Proof that the alcohol will be purchased from an authorized source, proof that the applicant can receive proper delivery, provide proper storage and disposal of all alcohol beverages purchased in accordance for the general requirements of GLC 1 38.

2:16:05 Alcohol will be purchased from Martini Liquors. This will be a poll vote.

2:16:11 I move. Motion? Yep. Thank you. Second. All right. Yep. Mr. Sen in favor, Ms. Singer? In favor, Mr. Grader? In favor, Ms. Nunan In favor, Mr. Fox In favor. And last but not least, uh, we have tomorrow the September 11th, um, commemoration of the terrorist attacks from 20 2001. Uh, Jason, if you want to give any details on that, it’ll be at Memorial Park at 10:00 AM to pay tribute to the Norway, 3000 lost lives of firefighters, police officers and civilians alike. And the public is warmly invited, um, by the Marwood Fire and Police Departments, um, local leaders. And we will be there for, uh, to join the community

2:17:00 and remembrance and reflection of this solemn event.

2:17:04 So that’ll be, that’s tomorrow. Tomorrow at 10:00 AM Tomorrow at 10:00 AM Excellent. So thank you for hosting that. Uh, select board announcements. Anybody have any announcements? I do, yes. Um, I just wanted to draw people’s attentions to the, um, the Lin Way, um, multimodal corridor project, which, um, is a $20 million, uh, grant funded project to, uh, improve the, the Lin Way. Um, and, and mainly the, like in large part, the bus pedestrian and biking experience. And, um, so they had a webinar session tonight. They had in person. I, I am expecting that they had a, a strong turnout from Swamp Scott

2:17:50 and Nahant, uh, residents. And, um, this is going to the, the idea I think that as is concerning to a lot of commuters from our Town and Swan, SWAT and ahan is around the removal of a lane on both sides for a dedicated bus lane. So, um, I mean, lived experience has shown when we take a a lane away on the lane way, it creates a quite a backlog and, um, bottleneck just earlier, um, before we get to Revere. So, uh, there is a, uh, information session on, at the Abbott Library next Wednesday. Um, unbelievably it’s for the times of 1230 to two,

2:18:35 which is really convenient for commuters at commute to Boston. But, um, anyway, I, I just think it’s going to be, I think, I think I just, you know, I’m seeing this kind of on the horizon as being a real, um, a real concern and importance, uh, to our residents. And I was thinking and wanted to see how people felt about, um, maybe if I con connected with, um, swamp Scott’s board and the Hans board just, and not in any way to be an obstructionist about the project, but just I think that, uh, to ensure we have, you know, leverage and advocacy for, uh, our commuters, um, that will really, um, be impacted by this.

2:19:20 And just make sure that, you know, we have voice, um, in the, in the project. Um, and they are actively seeking input. I think, um, it says, let’s see, there’s, um, it’s, they’re, it’s, they’re saying that they wanna take all people’s needs and minds, um, but they’re including safety upgrades, like, um, more frequent, uh, accessible pedestrian crossings, um, traffic coming measures to reduce speeding and, um, safer access to the waterfront. Obviously I spoke of the dedicated bus lane. Um, so it’s part of the, um, better bus project and, uh, a vision for, um, you know, just improving the area.

2:20:07 And it’s a great, um, you know, it’s, it’s definitely designed with Lynn in mind. Um, you know, and it will, you know, that that’s a big improve, will be improvement, um, to the area, like I said, safer. But, um, it will certainly have a, you know, an impact on, on three other towns. So, um, it’s a state highway, state taxes go to it. So, um, I just wanted to kind of bring it up and maybe kind of, we can, um, maybe talk about it the next meeting. But I, I will go to the meeting on Wednesday and, um, and you know, I, I definitely have concerns about it, I’m not gonna lie. Um, but I also don’t claim to have all the facts at all by any means, and, and I don’t understand what fully, what the plan is.

2:20:52 Um, so do folks okay. With me reaching out to Swamp Scott’s board and Han’s board just to ensure that we kind for sure to, To get more information and Perhaps together, maybe can, you know, and I’ll just see what they’re interested in is in it is, I’m sure that they’re hearing from folks about it. What’s the timeline for them? Is that projected timeline? I’m not sure. I was trying to, I was, I didn’t realize that the webinar wasn’t until six 30. I thought it started at five 30. So, um, I know people that are have that tuned into it, so I can ask. I support that. I mean, I think I talked to people already who have such a problem with that one lane shutting down on the bridge and how long it’s taken in to get into Boston. I think that this would be continuing that, and I, you know, to be able,

2:21:38 and I think it’s important for people to, in Marble to be able to commute into the city in a timely fashion for sure. So it does, I mean, I think it affects us a lot. Just Wanna make sure that our voices are Yeah. That the voices of our residents aren’t. No, Thank you for bringing that to our attention. So there are multiple projects through the, through the corridor. Yeah. We, We reached out to Jenny Jenny’s office this morning. Okay. Um, We got a copy of that flyer intended posted it on the website. Great. Great. Thank you. Great. And we be going next on Wednesday. Yeah, fair enough. Great. Okay. Okay, great. Yeah, maybe between the two of you, you can report back and I think that we should keep our citizens updated and, and see what we can do to help. Excellent. Any other announcements? I just want to say this is the, uh, first evening meeting since the 21st, and I want to congratulate Captain Greater

2:22:25 and the, uh, Marine Garrison at Fort Sewell. People were still talking about it, and it exceeded expectations, I would say, and, uh, really came off. Uh, I couldn’t imagine it going better. Yeah. That was great. So Thank you. Thank you for that, Jim. And, and I want to, on behalf of the Marines, I know they felt extremely welcome when they came to town. And, uh, they actually let their hair down afterwards with the Marine Rock band, but the, the cutting of the cake ceremony, the flyover, the silent drills platoon team, I mean, they were, they were world famous and they came and performed for us and they were just totally delighted to do it. Took some epic pictures and so forth. But I also want to thank, uh, town Administrator, Keer, uh, chief Gilland and, and Chief King in particular for kind of really pulling all this together really, really quickly in a, in a safe and effective way.

2:23:12 It was grabbing resources from everywhere, uh, quickly. It was Great. The turnout was amazing. Yeah. Given the two week or less lead time. Yeah. Thursday. It was, it was shocking to see that. And it was, it, it was Real. And it fit just right. It was, it was, I, I was worried that it wouldn’t really fit, but it just, it just, it worked out. It Exceeded, it was intimate, but, but also pretty, uh, it Was great. Intense. Thank you for working on that, both you. Absolutely. Alright. Would that, could I have a motion to adjourn? Second. Yes. In favor. All right. Good meeting. Thank you.