Select Board: March 25, 2026

Transcript captured from MHTV’s Vimeo auto-captioning. No speaker labels; proper names and dollar figures occasionally misheard. Click any timecode to jump to that moment in the source video.

0:01 All right. I deem tonight’s meeting. The first order of business is to elect a chair under the law, though we can have participants remotely, and Dan Fox is remote for this meeting, but the person serving chair has to actually be in person. So, the first order of business is to entertain a motion to elect a chair for the town meeting. I nominate Alexa Singer. Is there a second? Second.

0:37 Any other nominations? Hearing none. All those in favor? Oh, roll call. Roll call. Mr. Fox? In favor. Mr. Simpson? In favor. Mr. Graydark. That’s me. I’m trying to- In favor. Ms. Noonan? In favor. And Ms. Singer. In favor. Okay. It is now yours. Okay. And I call the meeting of Wednesday, March 25th, 2026 to order. And this meeting is being recorded, and we have one member who’s participating remotely.

1:14 And so we’re going to start with the agenda item of public comment. We do ask that if you’re here for public comment, I know there’s not actually a microphone and a microphone stand, but it helps us know who’s speaking and who’s not. So we do ask that you come up to the mic and, if you can place yourself up there, that helps, and then we can hear everyone in the audience as well. Thank you.

1:45 Hi. Terri Toro, 113 Jersey Street. I’m here tonight not only as a concerned resident, but as the newly appointed layoff committee chair of the Marblehead Municipal Employees Union, IUVE CWA Local 1776. In my decades as a union president, I’ve encountered unnecessary delays putting us under pressure before town meeting many times, but I’ve never seen an issue this significant presented just 53 days in advance of the meeting, leaving little time to understand its consequences. The reason for this rush is unclear, and I hope it’s not intended to limit informed decision-making, especially since the town award has already closed. The MMEU supports all town employees in the community we

2:30 maintain, protect, and serve. Like the teachers, we have known for years that the town could no longer keep up with increases to everything from office supplies to health insurance. We support a general override and will stand with the Marblehead Education Association, police, and fire because one job loss is too many. I’m also here to put a human face on this mess. Many of you know the custodian who opened and prepared this building tonight. He will remain long after the vote to terminate his employment. He’ll secure the building and go home. When he gets home, he’ll not sleep. He’ll be worrying about how he will take care of his family. This has been his reality for three weeks and will continue until the last vote is cast on election day, and he’ll know one way or

3:16 another. He’s not the only employee facing this uncertainty. Another thing I would like to clarify to the board and to Marblehead residents are the unintentional consequences of this reduction in force. I’ve heard talk of outsourcing. However, the town is already in a contract with the IUVE CWA Local 1776 and the Marblehead Education Association. Most of these layoffs are employees under contract, either with the MMEU or the MMA, and those changes would require negotiation. For example, if you were to tell Republic not to pick up trash from certain streets, they’ll certainly comply, but you’ll still pay them because the town signed a legally binding contract. Union contracts are no different. Outsourcing is simply not cost-effective.

4:04 Parks and cemetery staff would be lost, shifting their work to already overburdened highway employees. Cemetery and parks department workers are also plow drivers in the winter, so you’re losing six to seven plow drivers. Meanwhile, outsourced contracts often require minimums, meaning the town pays even when services aren’t needed. All the while, companies charge high rates for lower-paid, unskilled workers. If it doesn’t snow, we still pay, eating up all the savings we’ve had in the last five years without significant snow. I want you to all ask yourselves why you chose to come to Marblehead or why you chose to stay here. It’s certainly not the cheapest place to live. It’s not the easiest to get to. If it was simply about low property tax

4:49 rates, which we already have, by the way, you may not agree with what I’m about to say. More likely, it’s because of the low crime rate, proximity to the ocean and Boston, the schools, the parks, the arts, or history. Personally, I cherish our strong sense of community here in Marblehead. Now, ask yourselves, has that changed? Are we willing to sacrifice these qualities to save on property taxes while the town closes its library, guts its council on aging, neglects its beautiful cemeteries and parks, when historic buildings like the one we’re in tonight with this beautiful painting can’t afford a custodian, and public trash barrels are removed because no one’s available to service them? What are we becoming?

5:34 The roles of the parks, cemetery, and highway are not interchangeable, nor are schools, library, or any of the other town departments you’re going to cut. It takes trained, skilled, and dedicated individuals who care deeply about this community. Senior union members will contractually be allowed to take positions of those with less tenure, adding another layer of uncertainty to an already untenable situation. These cuts would leave departments understaffed and in transition with new, inexperienced personnel, affecting our most vulnerable residents disproportionately.The library will be non-existent and the schools harmed forever. Judy Jacobi recognized this, and so do people like Bill Purdin, Tony Sasso, and John McGinn. I believe that many of you do as well.

6:20 We need to stop the finger-pointing for the time being, figure out a way to move forward that does not leave us with deep cuts to town services and working families losing their incomes. If you are in a position of stability in town and you can afford to pay private contractors to pick up your trash or whatever else to make your life comfortable, I ask you now to remember why you came here and why you stay. Marblehead residents and employees are more than a budget line item. We’re a community. We’ve got to do better. I’ve done a comparison for the union with jobs in 2022, list of total municipal jobs in 2026, wrote some notes on it, showed what all the new positions were, the upgraded positions and

7:08 that. But the spreadsheet, when I tried to square it down to give it as a handout, you couldn’t read it. It was like 95 plus. So I’m emailing it to everybody. All right? But I’d like that to be in the public record as well. Thank you. Thank you.

7:38 I’m Renee Ramirez Keeney to Beverly Avenue. And I want to start off by saying thank you to the board and to all of our departments, our chiefs, and our town workers. We really appreciate very much all that you’ve done in recent years to keep on keeping on doing more with less. We’ve known this structural deficit was growing for a number of years now, and I’ve seen the town try to address it by increasing revenues with the lodging and meals tax, by moving our money to greater interest-bearing accounts, by bringing in grant writers that are going after every

8:24 eligible grant we might be eligible for, bringing in millions of dollars, finding efficiencies in town departments, consolidating our schools. We’ve hit the financial brick wall, like many other towns, if you’ve been reading the Globe. And I honestly don’t care if I pay for trash pickup with fees or an override. But I do care that we have a realistic solution that funds our services, does not pit schools against town or library against the Council on Aging, like an à la carte menu. We are one community, and we should address our problems together.

9:09 And I don’t want to be back here again next year in the same situation, facing this again, and having our town workers worrying about whether they’re going to have a job and maybe even leaving because of the instability here. So I just want to say that I’d like to see us consider an override that funds our services and is a multi-year solution.

9:44 Jonathan Heller, 26 Rock Road, and I’m here as a community member, parent, teacher. I want to share a statement that I read at a school committee last Thursday as well. At the heart of our community is a shared responsibility to protect what we value about this town while ensuring that our children, our residents, and the services of our town depends on continues to thrive. Right now, our town faces a $7.7 million budget gap. The decisions in front of us will impact positions and services across our entire community, from our schools to our library and rec and parks, and could result in the loss of senior programming or other key town services. This is something we are all facing together.

10:32 We also know there are real concerns in our community. There are residents on fixed incomes and families feeling the pressure of rising costs, along with a strong desire to ensure that every dollar is used wisely. Those perspectives matter and are part of what makes this community thoughtful, engaged and responsible. As enrollment has decreased, staffing has adjusted alongside it. But student needs have grown more complex and require consistent support throughout the school day. And while those needs are increasing, we are not in a position to expand staffing to meet them. That means any additional reductions to classroom teachers, support staff or student services will be felt in very

11:19 real ways by our students. Communities across Massachusetts are facing these same challenges. This is not unique to Marblehead, and it’s not the result of any one decision. It is the reality of rising costs and limited revenue. It is times like this that leadership matters. I have confidence in our superintendent and our assistant superintendent of finance. They are working through incredibly complex challenges with care, professionalism and a clear focus on our students and our community. This is difficult work and it deserves our support and trust. So this moment calls on all of us as a community because we are one town and every part of our town matters.

12:05 Moving forward together began as a guiding vision in our schools at the start of the school year. In this moment, it becomes a shared responsibilityIt means choosing a path that supports our students, a path that sustains our town services, a path that reflects both care and responsibility. And it means coming together around one comprehensive solution that supports the needs of the entire town. Because when we invest in our schools and our town services together, we are not just getting through this moment, we are deciding who we are as a community, and we are protecting what makes Marblehead a place people are proud to call home. Let’s take this next step together as one town to

12:53 ensure we move forward stronger than ever. Thank you.

13:05 Lauren Geary, 24 Shepherd Street. Have you even thought about giving the town employees an incentive for early retirement? Like 10 years, they can do five to their age, five to their time, or the whole thing for eight years. They’re doing that with the state now, and they’re offering us $20,000 for early retirement.

13:30 So have you guys ever thought about doing the early retirement stuff for the Marblehead employees so we wouldn’t have to lose their jobs? It’s state mandated. The state would have to give us permission to do that, and they have not. What, early retirement? Yes. We cannot just- Well, can we ask for it? The state has to give us that permission. They’ve done it before in the past to all municipalities, but that is up to Massachusetts State. But we have to ask for it. Did we ask for it? That’s what I’m saying. Did these people say, “Hey, can we do early retirement for our town employees?” I’ve seen it in other municipalities I have worked at, and they’ve asked the same question, and the state has said no. The state- But it doesn’t hurt to ask. Right. They’ve asked, and the state has said no. Did they ask recently?

14:17 Not that I’m aware of. Okay, so ask recently if we can do an early retirement. There’s no hurt for asking. Might as well ask now, because my husband’s job is at risk to be lost, and we have two kids, and we’re paying college stuff, and we can’t live on my income alone. Thank you.

14:46 Hi, I’m Caroline Hawkins, 180 Green Street, and I’m here to speak in support of a long-term solution for Marblehead, not a temporary fix that only gets us through this year. The services in this town are not some line items in a budget. They are part of my family’s everyday life across generations. Until his recent passing, my grandfather relied on the Council on Aging. My parents, who are now in their 70s, still enjoy going to the library. My two young daughters have participated in parks and recreation programs like basketball and soccer, and this fall, my five-year-old will be entering kindergarten at the Brown School. These services matter deeply to my family and to so many others in this community, and they represent who we are as a town. We shouldn’t have to choose between them. We should not be put in a position where departments are competing against each

15:32 other for survival, or where residents feel forced to pick whichever services seem worth keeping. That’s why I support a multi-year override, one that doesn’t just stabilize things in the short term, but thoughtfully addresses the needs, services, and functions of our town for years to come. Marblehead deserves a sustainable long-term plan, one that reflects our shared values and supports residents at every stage of life. Thank you.

16:08 Oh, hi. Vlad Grinkov, 23 Cypress. Apologies for being uneducated. My wife and I moved here four years ago, and we’re just getting involved in local politics here.

16:21 And this probably will be addressed, but I would love to hear why this happened, because we passed what seemed to be a balanced budget at the last town meeting, and I believe there was also a refund on taxes that we all voted on. So I would love an exposition on what events happened that led to this.

16:46 Thank you. Can we speak together? Yeah, but first- You know what, we’re speaking together Yeah. You have to share the microphone then. Okay. Great. I’m Kate Thompson, 30 Bluebird Road. I’m Matt Hooks, 92 Nana Hatchken Street. We are the co-chairs of For Marblehead. Three weeks ago, we launched For Marblehead, which is a grassroots organization that is dedicated to strengthening our town’s municipal services, schools, and infrastructure through sustainable funding, responsible policies, and good governance. We support an override proposal that is comprehensive, long-term, and provides residents with the opportunity to invest in this community. Since we launched this three weeks ago, I can firsthand tell you that

17:34 the response has been extraordinary. There is real, palpable enthusiasm in this town to support an override campaign that delivers the services, schools, holistically across the community. And we’re here to talk For Marblehead, for our schools, our infrastructure, and our civic life. So I just want to add a little color to what Matt means by there’s energy behind this. I’ve been part of a few campaigns around these parts, and I have literally never seen anything like this. We have people stepping up by the hundred. I think last time we checked, we had 262 volunteers in less than a couple of weeks. We have launched our website, which is

18:21 formarblehead.org. Everybody knows that one. 2,200 page views in only three days from 1,000 unique visitors, which is phenomenal. And they’ve been joining Zoom. We had 86 people on a Zoom on Monday night. They want to know how to help. They’re asking us what they can do, and we have volunteers that are here in this room that have been amazing at getting them into roles quickly. We are poised and ready to run this thing with incredible energy as soon as you say go.

18:57 Let us go.

19:00 I will say, though, our support is conditional. This is not a rubber stamp for any override that is put forth. We are here, and I think you’ve probably heard from a lot of us on what we are looking for in an override campaign. As Kate said, we are ready to put all of our energy in behind that, but if what’s put forth is short-term, shortsighted, and doesn’t collectively support the town in a holistic way, that’s not something that we’ll be able to get behind. So our ask tonight is to please vote for something, at least a structure that is a multi-tier or multi-year override. Let all of us work together. We know it’s a short period of time, but people in the departments, in the finance committee, they’re ready to work. We’ve sort of kicked the can down the road on this for years.

19:47 Now give us the opportunity to get this done. And whether you’re sitting at the table tonight or you’re here in the room or you’re watching at home, whether you’re a parent or student or a teacher or community member or one of our town employees, we would like to send an invite to our kickoff party, which will be at The Landing on the 8th. And everyone is welcome because this thing is about all of us, and we’re going to do it together. Thank you. Thank you.

20:23 Alan Joiner, 64 Roosevelt Avenue. I walk around town. Tomorrow I’m going to a funeral, someone here, 90 years old, passed on. And now the daughter’s going to take over the house, aren’t going to be able to afford, can’t afford the 250 to have the trash picked up. Just the start of that fiasco. And I just want to say, a lot of people that see me say, “I don’t need to go to the Selectmen’s meeting. We see you there most of the time. We see that you take an interest in the town.” I appreciate all these people coming out. This didn’t happen overnight, but all of a sudden, few weeks or a month or so before a town meeting, everyone’s coming in here saying, “Let’s just get more and more money, another supersize.” I’m

21:09 within something that’s favorable, that’s reasonable. I will not vote for a supersize override. There’s people in this town that you’re pricing out of this town that live alone. You talk about affordable, hardly getting any services now. So these people care about everything that they can get for themselves, but not for the elderly people, apparently, that live in this town. I’ve already said at the last meeting that the senior center, that there’s a lot of older people living in this town. They’re utilizing the service. I think you did that as a scare tactic. The library, we just spent $10 million. That would be ludicrous to spend $10 million on an override and then close the library down. I just don’t understand that we don’t have a common sense

21:57 approach. We’ve still been giving raises. Now on the trash, I found out last night we’re going to hire another clerk up there for $70,000 with the benefits, 100,000, to collect this new trash fee. There’s going to be other expenses. It goes up every year, 5% on top. This is just the start of it. And then they’re going to have extra money, and then eventually we’ll give some back to the town. We’re going to take trash from out of town. This town was supposedly going green, so we’re going to bring people in from out of town to use… I spent on my taxes the last several years, like all the other taxpayers, to cap that dump, millions of dollars, put in all this new stuff, and now they want to run it as a business. I thought it was for the residents of Marblehead.

22:44 I didn’t know we were running a business here. I went over to three communities, Beverly, Danvers, and Swampscott, to find out about the trash. It’s all under the public works. The Board of Health is making a monopoly up there, and they’re going to have… It almost sounds like they’ve enterprise funding and all this stuff, revolving accounts that they could use the money back without coming to town meeting. But this is ludicrous. We’re hiring more. Every other community is picking up the trash. I found out we don’t have any, as far as I’m aware of, I can’t find them, any municipal. We did away with the trash municipal collection in this town years ago that I fought for to keep the town employees doing. And now we’re going and telling

23:33 people to come in from out of town and Marblehead, and they’re going to pay the same rate to dump in Marblehead that I have to pay. And it just does not make any sense. The equipment up there is going to last a shorter life period, and I don’t know if the people that are aware that we spent all this money on the dump, that we’re going to be a host community for other communities to come in here, and they didn’t pay nothing to cap it off and put in this equipment. The taxpayers of Marblehead paid it. So I think this is just really, really ludicrous that this is coming up. We should be having, especially the Board of Health, before we go into this new trash thing, we should have a subcommittee to analyze this.

24:18 We have new people on that board concentrating on the medical, a three-member board, and two of them are doctors that haven’t lived in this community that much, and they’re deciding on, I’ve lived here all my life. They’re deciding on things that they hardly have any knowledge of themselves.Medical field, they have a lot more knowledge. I’m very pleased with that committee. They work together. They don’t fight. I go to the meetings regularly. But we just can’t throw a lot of money because this is just the start. We’ve already gone up on not just the restaurant fees in this town and the bed and breakfast money that we’re taking into here. We might be getting a little more state money than we’ve got in the past. We went up on all the inspectional fees last year and stuff. So we’ve been going up on other

25:06 fees in this town and stuff. But we really need to think of all the people in the town, not just the people that use all the services. We have to think of the people that are living here now that hardly use any of these services. The Council on Aging, their budget is peanuts compared to anything else. Thank you. Thank you.

25:34 Sarah Fox, 46 Beach Street. I want to talk to actual numbers because I think people have the other avenues covered here.

25:42 I don’t think there’s a huge debate that the levy needs to be risen in some capacity. People have different views on what that mechanism is. People have different views on what should be encompassed in that, but it’s a simple math problem. The levy is not, at least in my opinion, the levy is not at the capacity, nor has it grown at the capacity that has matched with what our expenses have. So, it’s a simple math problem. We’ve over-relied on free cash for years and years and years. That’s exactly how we got here. Moses has said last week, we know how we got into this conundrum. We know how we get out. Over-reliance on free cash that started about 15 to 17 years ago, it’s exactly, we did a steady death march to this point, and here we are.

26:29 But when you look at override options, which is your agenda item for tonight, I’m concerned because the numbers you’re working off of aren’t, in my analysis, reflective of necessarily all of our large increases. I’m going to zero in on Essex Tech, because I spoke to this about four or five weeks ago about how that number is going to balloon. For anyone that wasn’t listening then, Jesse has completely changed their model of how we send kids to the tech. We used to be capped between nine and 11 new students each year. They have changed that. They are taking 39 new students each year from Marblehead. People may think, so what, 39 students? The way we get charged on the cherry sheets, that’s a double hit.

27:17 Not only does that reduce our Chapter 70 money by 39 students, which our Chapter 70 money isn’t that great, so that’s not that big of a hit, but our assessment that we get hit on for a tech is huge. I’ve spoken to multiple people at the tech in the last two days to find out we’re going from an enrollment this year of 35 students, which is what we were carrying on your projections for next year, and we’re going to 55. The tech in their budget book, which is a great document if you’re looking to dig through that, originally was saying they’re estimating our contribution at 750. That was before the state changed that new formula to 39. We carried it at 115 less than that.

28:05 That 750 ballooned after the new model to $1.1 million. The reason why I’m saying this is we’re not going to see that until our assessments hit in the fall, and you can’t bring a comprehensive or even a limited override forward, get the town to trust you, and then say in the fall, “Whoops, we missed 500 to 600 grand, and now we’re going to have to cut again.” You’ll never get anything across the finish line. So I’m begging you, please dig into your numbers as you look at what you’re going to include in a comprehensive override, because the projections are it’s going to be a 5 to 6 or $700,000 increase each year for the next four years to top off in the two-plus million dollar range compared to what we’re carrying right now. That is a really big number difference, and if you’re looking at an

28:52 override to stabilize, that is not a number you can leave on the table. That is, again, that would put you right back to the position next year of, oh, no, we have to start slashing. So I’m just asking you, I’ve run enough of these campaigns. There’s not an override in the last 10 years that I wasn’t the speaker that went to the Council on Aging or the preschools and talked about. People will hammer your numbers. If your numbers are not airtight, you might as well disband yourself with Swiss cheese. You have to dig into these numbers more as you build this override, because right now they’re not withstanding scrutiny. They’re just not. The next one.

29:45 Rebecca Bennett, 11 Cottage Street.

29:49 I know some older people who are living in their family home, and they don’t have much income at all. And I’m worried about their taxes going up. I’m not worried about my taxes going up, and I’m not worried about all the rich people’s taxes going up. Yeah. I’m worried about the people who are living in their family home that’s been in their family forever, and they’re… Anyway, you get what I’m saying. So I was wondering if when we do the raise in taxes, there could be a consideration for income. If people have very little income, maybe they could get a break on their taxes.

30:37 That’s all. Thank you.

30:51 Kyle, do we have anyone online? You want to ask if anybody wants to raise their hand? Nobody’s hand is up. Okay. Yeah. If anyone is online and would like to speak…

31:04 I don’t see anything else, Madam Chair. Okay. Okay. So next item is our town administrator update. Sure. I have just two items. I’ll be very brief. One I put in the memo. The next class of the Citizens Police Academy is now open, so any residents that are interested in registering to reach out to the police department. The course is going to run from April 23rd to June 11th, and it’s going to be done on Thursday evenings from 6:00 to 9:00 PM.

31:46 So I had the pleasure of participating and providing a session in this last class, and it was a grilling. Great participation, but everyone that attends these programs come out with a far better understanding of the police department, how they operate, what their challenges are, and the residents come out much more informed as to how those things run. So I encourage residents to register and check it out. The second item, it’s not in the memo. I just want to make some editorial comment, if I may. I’ve been in this industry 35 plus years,

32:35 seeing a lot of tough budgets, a lot of tough negotiations, a lot of public discourse that goes on, and it gets heated, emotional. There are lots of moving parts. There’s a lot of decisions to be made. And what I want to address is that what’s really important that as we have to do decision-making in the public,

33:07 that all of us who operate and speak in the public needs to be very mindful of the words we choose to use. And I want to talk about the fact that in some meetings, in the way it was reported, I wasn’t at the meetings, I don’t know the whole context, but the implication that comes out of the whole event is questioning and challenging the numbers, and the integrity of our chief financial officer, Alicia Benjamin. And, I think it’s unfortunate that I think the concern over the changing in policy decisions that policy makers make somehow gets interpreting

33:54 as to the legitimacy of the numbers that are being presented, or if people have disagreements as to the outcome of the numbers, that it’s not a reflection on the competency of our professional staff. And in regard to our chief financial officer, I’ve operated in a number of municipalities, at roles as mayor, as chief operating officer, and other such roles. I’ve been fortunate to have worked with a lot of very outstanding chief financial officers. I will say that Alicia Benjamin is the top in her competency, her work ethic. If I was to share a complaint about her, she has to stop doing

34:43 all-nighters to produce things. I mean, she last night left, I don’t know, 5:00 in the morning because she was double, triple-checking her work for all the work that she does for all of us. So I just want to say I would be happy to stand toe to toe with anyone who would challenge her competency, her numbers, her work ethic. I just wanted in a public forum to counter things that said in other public forums,

35:18 that I stand with Alicia Benjamin, her competency and her work ethic and her numbers any day.

35:28 Madam Chair, if I could just…

35:34 Can you hear me? Yeah. Thanks. Yeah, I just want to thank you for saying that, Thad, I think I was having similar type thoughts when I’m reading some things out there. I’ve been in many of these meetings, and clearly, as you mentioned, a lot of these new policies and changes are hurtful for all of us, and I think people have been attacking the numbers behind that. I know that these numbers have been gone through by multiple people, and time and time again, we come back and Alicia’s numbers were correct. Everyone’s going to be off a little bit, but at the end of the day, Alicia’s number’s been correct, and I think we do need to rely on that as a board and as a town because that’s the only way to move forward. So thank you for pointing that out.

36:15 Madam Chair, if I could also– Yeah, I’d just like to corroborate what’s been said. Alicia is the most conscientious, hardworking, focused CFO that we’ve had the pleasure to work with, bar none. And we have complete confidence in the way the numbers are scrubbed, presented, reconciled over and over again. And we are running into some challenges because we have a perfect storm going on right now. So we have big Big deficits to make up, and that creates an emotional situation. And we just have to stay very focused, as Alicia does On the numbers and figuring out what we need to do to first develop a balanced budget, and then find a way forward to expand

37:02 if we want additional services in the town, a multi-year projection. That’s all part of the number crunching. But number crunching, first and foremost, what she’s focused on, I appreciate a great deal, and it allows me to stay calm knowing that Alicia is marshaling the numbers and corroborating them and presenting it to us in a coherent, consistent way. So, thank you, Alicia. They’re here.

37:29 So that concludes my update. Great. So, just maybe a little bit of a deviation from the agenda. I just was wondering, we have the tree hearing. I know a lot of people are here to listen to the budget discussion. I might propose that we move that to after the budget discussion, if we don’t have any objections.

37:55 I don’t. Okay. No. Perfect. So. All right. So next item on the agenda, we have the licensing of Spooky Donuts. So, Jason, are you in the audience? Yes. Ah. Do you want me to get the mic? Yes, sir. That would be- I’ll start anywhere. Yeah. Right here. Thank you. Hi. Hey, everybody. Welcome. You got a big audience. You know what? It happened. Thanks. Yeah. No one came for me. I’ll be… Free donuts, right? Yeah. All right. Yeah. Exciting. So- How are you? Pretty. So let us know what’s going on. Okay, so a little while ago, I purchased some Dunkin’ locations. I’m a Dunkin’ franchisee. I live in Manchester-by-the-Sea. I have several locations.

38:42 I’m a second-gen franchisee. I’ve been in the business since I was born. My family bought a store when I was seven. I worked in that store, worked through the business. I’ve now run the company for 16 years.

38:57 Basically, recently I bought four stores, three in Salem and a Marblehead location. And I just came to get my common vic license. I had hired a company to take care of it, and they dropped the ball. And I found out when I was renewing and renewing, and I didn’t find out until I went to go… We remodeled the location and everything. It didn’t come up, and so I just came to basically go through the process, so to get my CV, yeah. Awesome. Okay. Any questions, discussions from the board? You did the remodel? Yeah. So I- Yeah. Yeah, I did the remodel in that location. And I also own Canal Street in Salem. I did just finish that remodel. I’m working on Highland Avenue as well in Salem. These were tired locations that

39:44 had been kind of neglected, and I bought them and took on the project, which- My daughter and I watched it. It happened very fast. Yeah. It was actually pretty big. I did not anticipate it was going to be as big as it was, but it was big. Hopefully everybody likes it. If you’re a customer- … I mean, please, I hope you like it. Give us a chance. Yeah. So. Okay. Fantastic. Any other questions? Okay. So I’d like to call for a motion to approve the application from Spooky Donuts LLC for a common victualler license at 161 Pleasant Street. Manager, Jason Pino, subject to receipt of all the required forms, fees, and applicable department sign-offs. Hours of operation, Sunday through Saturday, 4:30 a.m.

40:31 to 7:00 p.m., and… So moved. Second? Second. Okay, and we need a poll vote. Mr. Zisson? In favor. Ms. Mooney? In favor. Mr. Grady? In favor. Mr. Fox? In favor. In favor. Congratulations, Jason. Thank you. Thank you. I appreciate you helping with this. Good luck. Thank you. Yes. All right, good luck with the budget. It’s not easy. Sure. Thank you. Okay. So, moving along. So, next item on our agenda is the budget override discussion. I know, Thatcher, you have a presentation that you’ve put together. So, unless there’s any objections from the board, my recommendation is you can start

41:18 with your presentation. We’d like to hear from you, and then we’ll move forward from there. Through the chair, can I say one thing? Before you start reading, we all got a lot of emails we’ve read. It may be worth maybe the 60-second elevator speech just to give the overview of what a potential override would look like. In other words, there’s two warrant articles, how they get voted, and then how they would go to a vote. And you’re going to be talking about, I believe, just Article 29 tonight. Is that correct? So what I was tasked to do was to present an override framework- Yeah … based on numerous conversations and deliberations over the last many weeks, to have a framework

42:06 on what appears to be a majority consensus. There are different variations out there.

42:13 And to put that up there as the starting point as to how we go forward with an override. Yeah. So, there’s no intent to enumerate it at this point. But actually just what I meant is- Yes … you are going to be focusing on Article 29 for the town- So this is the- … departments, not other departments, which is the school committee, Article 28. So there are two warrant articles. Yeah. One is specific to having a school override, one that says town override. What has traditionally happened is thatIf the schools, this is the last study, if the schools are going to go alone on an override, we have the warrant article as a placeholder

42:59 for the schools. For the town override, again, it’s up to the selectboard to define all of the departments and functions that would be in it to include the schools, if that’s so chosen. So, that warrant article is the one that can capture all of the town’s, functions. I think that’s what you were referring to. Yeah. Yes. Okay, great. So that’s the vehicle that would put an override on the ballot. Yeah. And again, this is based on putting a construct together. It is not intended to specifically identify and to enumerate the

43:47 numbers. That’ll be the next step. But to put a signmark for your discussion in order to basically put forth a specific strategy that you intend to put on the ballot. So I’m going to share my screen. Put my glasses on so I can pick the right chart.

44:17 Awesome. I picked the wrong one. All right.

44:22 So I’ve titled it, Providing Clear Choices for Our Community, because I think, and I heard it tonight, that’s the ask of putting something together, and I try to make it clear and out of all the conversations, having choices.

44:39 As I presented at the last selectboard meeting, that there are various variations of overrides. The one that has been predominant over the years, and really all municipalities, are sort of the casino one. You put all your chips on one number, spin the dial, and it’s either up or down. And again, it was referenced, there’s a number of articles recently in The Boston Globe about the significant increase in the number of overrides in Massachusetts that are being proposed because we’re all facing the same challenges. And the trend seems to be moving towards a multiple choice and some variation override to give voters in the ballot box more choices as to what they

45:25 want to fund. So that’s what this is to address. So first of all, the challenges that we’re trying to face, as we all know, we have a significant budget gap that didn’t spring up all at once. We knew this was coming. We’ve talked about that on numerous occasions. We have rising costs and limited revenue. That’s the boiled down, the basic challenge.

45:56 We have to provide to town meeting a balanced budget. And so, the process we’ve done, and we’re almost at the very end of, is developing a balanced budget based on the revenues that we have available to them. And that is what has to be presented at town meeting.

46:20 And the approach for an override is to provide an opportunity to add in, after a balanced budget is put in place, those things that have been cut out this year, and we’ll talk about, and things that may be in the past that have been cut out. But the override is the opportunity to raise the tax levy in order to fund the expenditure of those things that are not included in the balanced budget.

46:54 So building that balanced budget, we’ve made significant cuts on services, and we also, in part in a lot of the conversation,

47:06 that this isn’t the first year we’ve had to make cuts. This town, like many others, have been making cuts over a number of years. So there are unmet needs from prior year cuts. And so part of the conversation is how do we address that? So the basic construct, again, the consensus of it is that we would have two override questions.

47:36 And one question would allow us, and allow the voters to define the level of services that they’re willing to fund on a tiered system. And I’ll get more into it as we go in. Question two will address the other issue in that this board is asking the Board of Health to initiate trash fees of something slightly over $2 million,

48:09 in order to fund the new contracts for trash and recycling services. In order to provide that additional revenue, which then allows the $2 million in the tax levy to be used to support the other services that otherwise would be eliminated. We weren’t talking about cutting and trimming, we’re talking about closing the door on a number of services. So, as an outcome of that proposal, folks have said, “We want the option that if you implement the trash fee, to put it back on the tax levy.” And so the second question would give residents the opportunityTo raise the tax levy by the two

48:57 million and change to replace or repeal the trash fee. So those are the two questions to address level of services, how do you want to fund trash and recycling?

49:16 How do I get this to go forward? So let’s focus on question number one, the multi-tier. And basically what Prop 2.5 allows is to construct the override question such that in this example, that we would have three parts or three tiers. I’ve labeled them question 1A, 1B, 1C to make it easy to understand, and that each tier builds on the other. So in this example, question 1A would provide the revenues in order to do a partial restore of the items cut in the

50:03 proposed budget. And I say partial restore because we have to be mindful as to how far can we go as far as the dollar amount. But to ensure that we build this restore option sufficiently to make sure that we can fully fund all of the critical services and the quality of life services that this town currently receives and enjoys.

50:31 The next question, 1B, would give voters the option that in addition to the restore level, question B would add above that, the ability to stabilize and build our revenues sufficiently to accomplish some of the things that we’ve not been able to accomplish, at least in the recent years. For example, we’ve talked about the challenges of maintaining these historic buildings. There is very little money in the budget, and this one even less, to maintain these buildings, to do the maintenance, filter changes in HVAC,

51:18 fixing the doors. We were happy to get a grant, but replacing the doors in the front, making the repairs, doing those things that help us maintain these buildings. This is not the same as a major capital debt exclusion, complete overhaul. This is just your annual regular maintenance to keep the buildings up and running. That’s just one example. To stabilize, an example of that, and I’ll go into the other slides, for example, is our staffing levels, to bring back positions that have been cut over the last several years so that we have a full workforce that can actually get all the tasks to be done, to be

52:03 done. Right? The number of potholes that come in from the winter do not decrease because we have less people to fill them, right? The potholes are going to keep coming. We need the bodies to be able to be there to repair them. Question 1C is to look at where we can invest in this community and improve it. An example of that, of adding revenues for some of the larger capital, again, not as big as the big debt exclusions, but our walls and fences that we fund in the Warren article. The sort of the larger cost investments, and I have examples later on.

52:49 The basic concept for everyone to understand is that each tier builds on the other. So question 1A as a partial restore will have a dollar value to it. Question 1B will be everything in that plus the items to stabilize and build. And question three will be invest and improve. So it gives voters the decision as to how much they want to fund the town and have choices, how much they want to commit to increasing the funding for those services.

53:27 What gets passed and what determines is the increase in levy is the highest value tier that passes with a majority yes vote. So residents going into the voting booth, they can vote yes or no on any combination they choose on these options. So they can vote yes on 1A, the lowest value. They can go, “1B, all right, I think I can handle that. 1C, that’s too much. I vote no.” Right? At the end of the day, when it’s all tallied,

54:04 which the options that have a majority yes, whichever one is the highest dollar value, that is what is the increase in the levy. So as an extreme example, if everybody voted against 1A, the smallest one, everybody voted against 1B, the middle one, but everybody, for some reason, voted for 1C, 1C, the highest dollar value is the levy increase because that is the highest dollar value with the majority yes vote. Hope that’s clear. And I’m sure we’ll have more conversation about that. But that’s basically the concept of a tiered override to deal with the choosing what level of services you want to fund.

54:54 What does tier one do?We store a significant portion of cuts. What we’ve discussed is including town and school services. The question that was discussed at this table, and I know there’s some advocacy in regard to this, do we do it as a one-year solution? Do we do it as a three-year solution? Meaning, we have pretty much the numbers based on what’s been cut out of the current budget proposals. So we usually have those numbers. If we want to make it a three-year solution, what we would need to do is project sort of what’s the cost for years two and three of those services that we’re putting in the override, cost those out, and set that as the value of the

55:43 override. Part of the reason why that’s even a question is we want to get a sense of what’s the relative size of those two options to make a judgment as to if you try to do a three-year, does that number become so big that folks will be resistant? That’s to be determined as we do that analysis.

56:08 Some examples, and I’ve stamped this as example, as we work with our departments, and there’s more inputs to be gotten for this. But an example of partial restore would be, I listed, I’m not going to name them all up, but the departments, as far as restoring the items that have been proposed cut in our current budget, such as a firefighter position, the SRO officer in the police department,

56:38 restore hot top funding. That’s the money for the major patching that goes on, and on down the list. Library, full restore of all libraries and services. What was referenced earlier tonight, further down the list, public buildings, restoring our special labor, our custodians.

57:02 Folks that maintain our buildings and open and close after hours, before hours for us. So these are the examples based on the current budget cuts that we have in place that would be part of a restore. Again, we would get more input and flesh this out more. Tier two, to stabilize and build. It would include everything in tier one, plus the remaining of restoration of cuts based on, again, our budget. We build the budget. We ask the department heads, “Tell us what your needs are to provide.” We generally look for level services, meaning providing the services that we currently provide.

57:48 Tell us what you need to meet all those obligations.

57:53 Building maintenance, which I had mentioned. Adding additional funding to maintain our builds. The poster child right now is the old town house. I’m the ADA coordinator, so you can blame me, but we have closed that building for any public events because it is not ADA compliant for accessibility because the elevator’s not working. I’m sorry, the lift. It’s not even classified as an elevator. It’s a lift. It’s at the end of its life cycle. The size of the lift motors, the hydraulics, if that lift gets used in short succession, it overheats, shuts down. That’s the reason why we’ve had to close that build.

58:40 There’s a number of other significant maintenance items for that build. We don’t have a budget for it. In the past, it’s been capital budget, but that’s just fixing it at one point and then letting it degrade for a number of years and doing another capital. We want to build the maintenance budget to maintain the buildings. It’s much more cost-effective. Public safety and DPW staffing, bringing them back from cuts over the many years. Salary study recommendations. We’ve talked about this, where Marblehead salary, we have a HR consultant that’s analyzed. It’s in our bylaws requiring us to do this every three years. We have a consultant that’s

59:27 analyzed our employee salaries compared to the comparable communities. We are behind. It makes us less competitive for retention and recruitment. We need to adjust our salaries to stay competitive. And I mean competitive in that we have to compensate for the fact that Marblehead is a peninsula at the end of the road. If we’re competing with towns closer where people live, we actually have to pay a little bit more to get the employees we want. To add, the salary study takes that all into consideration. So there is a dollar value as to what it would cost to get our salaries to benchmark off of what other communities have. Can you move the slide forward?

1:00:14 There we go. All right. So there’s some more detail. Adding additional firefighters, which we’ve talked about addressing overtime. Adding additional officer, again, to get the police to be being able to not just do response, but to do other police functions.

1:00:37 Those are the examples. Tier three, invest and improve. So it’s all the items in tier one, tier two. Additional money for small capital investments. So every year in the Warren articles, the best examples is repairing some of our sea walls, our fences, our roadways, our equipment, our large equipmentAmy McCube talks about the average age of all her heavy equipment, and it’s long in the tooth. So it would allow us to do the investments, so allow us to do long-term improvements. If we have dedicated revenues toward those things, we can do a better job of long-range planning of our capital needs. So more examples of that,

1:01:24 of items that we would put it in a tier three, the highest tier rating. So again, three tiers, partial restore, stabilize and build, invest, improvement. Voters get a choice of how far they want to go. Question number two, trash funding. That’s a simple binary question. Do you prefer to have our trash paid for, to continue having trash paid for in fees? That’s presuming the board of health still have to take their actions in the coming weeks, to establish a trash fee. But do we continue our curbside recycling and trash recycling pickup through a fee? Do you want to put it on the tax levy? But we have to raise the levy to be able to offset in order to

1:02:13 take away the fees. Binary question. Some of the things to consider on that, do we calculate a three-year consistent with question one, where we’re going to do a three-year analysis? Or because the new trash and recycling contract is a five-year contract, we’ll have pretty good numbers as to what that will be over the five years. Do we build in and make it a five-year solution to cover the life cycle of the current contract? That’s to be discussed. So, in summary, the construct is designed, one, to get voters to decide what level of services they want to support. Two, decide the funding approach towards the trash and recycling. And in this construct, to

1:03:02 help voters understand the tax impact of those choices. Next steps, is finalize the posture question based on what the decisions are as to how exactly to do this.

1:03:18 Put the information out to the public, as to what these numbers equate to, what’s in the different options, what’s the dollar value of it, so they make informed choices. It would then be town meeting to vote to put the overrides on the ballot. And in June, voters get to make the choice.

1:03:40 And that concludes.

1:03:44 Thank you. Thank you, Phil.

1:03:53 Open it up for discussion. Any discussions? Sam gets back in June. Did we lose Dan? No. I’m here. Good. Okay.

1:04:12 So I guess there’s several things to kind of– Several decision points, I guess. And so I think what comes to mind first is

1:04:27 whether we, I think it’s been mentioned, interested in sort of like a one-year

1:04:40 kind of safety net opportunity or choice to voters or putting forward these as multi-year something. It would at least carry us, say three years. So personally, for me, I feel like our board should be putting out solutions to the voters and that to me is something that carries us for a period of three years, hopefully five. I don’t feel that a one-year kind of punt on getting us to next year offers is really a solution, but more of a

1:05:25 band-aid. And I also think that’s really hard to put on our department heads. It’s really hard to manage that way. It’s hard right now to attract, hire, train, and retain good employees in municipal sector. And I think it puts our department heads and our employees in a really tough situation if they don’t have job security beyond a one-year outlook. So I think that’s kind of the first place I’d like us to start, is to kind of zone in and get some agreement around a multi-year framework for what we’re putting

1:06:10 forward.

1:06:13 So…

1:06:17 I’d like to speak on that as well. I’m in favor of multi-year approach as well. I think part of doing that, though… Can you hear me? I see you guys smiling at me. A multi-year approach, I think that we need to make a commitment, and I would like to see at some point, whether it’s some kind of a pledge to the town on how we deal with the raising the tax levy each year. We’re not looking for, in that number, that number goes into effect on year one, but what we will use in year one and then also what we will use, and I think it’s something we should vote on and make a pledge to the community on that before we move forward with it.

1:06:56 Madam Chair, yeah. I think that this batch of this presentation really accommodates the concerns that we’re facing It does not hurt at all, and I think we should be thinking about three-year projections. We should be talking about what stabilizes the budgets over the long term. And I think what we’re doing here is identifying the potential cost drivers that make up those multi-year projections. So I think Marbleheaders historically will support overrides. And you can see that on the debt exclusion side of the business. If there’s a pretty well-defined set of drivers that are

1:07:41 determining why they should take out their paycheck. So with that, my posture is that Marbleheaders are generous if you’re clear with them, and you show them what’s at stake here. So I really like this multi-tiered approach because I think it allows us to accommodate a short-term restore decision along with what some people might consider aspirational, but I don’t think they are. As long as you identify good cost drivers that you can put out there for Marbleheaders to get their heads around, I think you get the yes decision. So

1:08:28 I do want to focus down, however, on the restore aspect of the budget, right? Because we’re here, somebody asked recently, just tonight, “How the heck did we get into this situation?” And it’s a perfect storm of revenue shocks and cost shocks that we’re having to face. So we didn’t really know that benefits would be up substantially over last year. We lost a lot. We have $2 million of free cash that we don’t have this year that we had last year. Okay? So that’s a big hole. And our local receipts are down about a million compared to last year. And that’s largely because the favorable interest

1:09:16 rate tailwind disappeared on us, and we’re in a situation where we have to face these deficits. So, that’s the situation we’re in. I have to say that we’re identifying on the town side, and I know that we’ve been in discussions with the schools on the respective deficits that we have to cover. And I think we developed a methodology for going forward on an annual basis where the select board at least can articulate a pretty decent split on the school number and the municipal number. We are one. One of the things that I want to emphasize, we are one town. And the schools, both my kids went to Marblehead High School. They both did extremely well.

1:10:04 We love the schools. But I think around, we have to bring more visibility into the financial accountability of the town in general. This is a lead up to saying… And then I’ll stop talking. This is a lead up to saying that on the restore function, I am in favor of being more menu-driven,

1:10:27 so that we can identify those aspects of the restoration that we actually need. And I’ll tell you why. Because in the past, we’ve never sat down with our legislative body and said, “Hey, you need to vote in favor of this. Otherwise, it’s going away.” Right? There’s an ultimate accountability with that when you can put a reasonably structured series of menus that identify where

1:11:02 individual department heads need to speak to what they do. Now, I know it has to be within reason. We can’t get everybody standing up and defending very discrete line items. However, I think it’s very important in this year for us as a select board and the town administrator and the finance director, our CFO, to talk about where the costs are likely to be cut and why they need to be reinstated and restored. Given the numbers that we’ve been working, I am in favor of a complete restoration. Okay? I’m in favor of the restoration override because I think that our town has been lean for

1:11:47 many, many years, and I think the schools are at a place right now where they’re reasonably efficient. They’re right at the mean of spend per student, right at the mean of

1:11:59 FTE per student. On a whole series of metrics, the schools stack up really well. I think the schools are in a great place and need to talk to the town about how good they’ve been in bringing and managing the declining enrollments, along with the increasing costs that they’re facing. So this is a long way of me saying that the town, we should be conveying the real stress associated with these potential cuts, and people need to pay attention to that. I don’t think we pit departments against each other. I really don’t. When we kind of lay it out there honestly, and we put ourselves in front of our legislative body, and we say, “Hey, this is real pain, no kidding. And if you don’t vote for it, it’s bye-bye.

1:12:47 Donezo.” And I think we have not had that level of credibility in the past. I think we need to bring it up.

1:12:56 So I’m making a real pitch for that tier one to be more nuanced, notwithstanding the multi-year stabilization, which is a great idea, and the more, the future cost drivers that we’re envisioning for this. So that’s my argument. It’s just on that tier oneTo kind of get down and select a menu approach, a more detailed menu approach. Can you clarify, with Al had, are you looking for a multi-year type of solution? Well, I think that first nut that the rest of the people expect is that, hey, we have to make all these cuts. No kidding. We need to restore those up to where we can continue to fund our services and take a vote on that. Now, I believe, Thatcher, we can talk about

1:13:44 what a partial restore is versus a full restore. I think on the question one, we ought to be doing a full restore. So just basically restoring everything, but doing it in a manual approach where people can really understand, hey, these are real needs here, and no kidding, we need to really contemplate them, otherwise they’re gone in the wind. So- Madam Chair, if I can? Yeah, please. So I would just like to keep it short. I disagree. I think that it does pit people against each other. I think that we have asked people to make cuts across the board. I believe that we are the executive board. We were elected to make some decisions, and if the town wants to do it differently at a town meeting, they can. I think that we get united together and that we get the full force of all departments, of all different groups

1:14:30 together, and that we get a lot more momentum to get this passed. I think that it complicates things, in my opinion, and I’m against a tiered approach. I think that we work together with the departments to figure out what they need. We present it, and we go through with that. Now, I think that we can have some tiers. I think we do have a tier with the trash separate. But to break it down, I honestly don’t believe that that’s the way to do it. I think that we swim as a town, and so we sink as a town. And that’s how I feel.

1:15:15 So realizing this is a notional approach, you said you’re going to finalize cost limits. I’m going to need to see numbers before making any decision or vote. I think that should be clear. One thing on the multi-year, there’s going to have to be a lot of decision-making and hard numbers, is actually on the other general government items that are large, recurring, and unpredictable. And I didn’t see anything in here about that. But if you’re trying to do– It’s easy to make a three-year budget prediction, but knowing municipalities operate on a strict one-year budget, which is very unusual.

1:16:00 As far as you don’t know where healthcare and pension are going to be going, so you’ve got to make some predictions for those out years, and you could be wrong on the upside or downside. So for instance, Alicia used 15%, which I think she did the right thing as a CFO. You have to have a conservative number. But year three, you don’t know. So there’s a couple things. If you’re under, you’re in trouble. In other words, if you say 15 and it’s 18, you’ve got an issue on your hands. But then if, like in 2012, costs went down dramatically, you have to have

1:16:41 the voters and taxpayers are going to look for some sort of control on that, and that’s something that we would have to spend a lot of time on a multi-year approach. That’s why I am aligned with Moses on that I feel, for starters, you have to give town meeting a one-year choice, and then there can be multi-year as well. The multi-year is going to take a lot of work to nail down that number. If someone wants to go five years with healthcare, that’s

1:17:15 1.15 to the fifth power. Just someone will plug it in. That’s a lot of money. But there’s an assumption that has to be made, so there’s got to be some real hard numbers in there. We have to think about that. And I mentioned this before. So what an override technically does, it authorizes or raises the authorized levy. Doesn’t mean you have to go and raise the taxes to that authorization. I understand that. So with a multi-year approach and with a lot of variables,

1:17:49 we would have the ability to the best projections that you can is if it’s a three-year auth. You hit a number that covers you for three years. The way that we talked about approaching it in year one would only raise the levy to meet that year’s needs, and the rest would remain as levy capacity so that the following year you can use more of the levy capacity, third year use the rest of the capacity. So you manage the amount you’re raising taxes from year to year. So the override is an authorization of a new levy limit that you’re allowed to go to. It doesn’t mean we have to use it in the first year.

1:18:35 But what would control it? To manage, yeah. 100%. What would control it to a specific- Policy decisions. Yeah. So can I just– I think that’s a really good point, Jim, and that to raise, and it reminded me that I had this conversation with our CFO a while back, and I had mentioned a few meetings ago about a multi-year override. And a couple people after the meeting I think didn’t quite understand. And I think what was explained to me is so your override ask, and I just literally don’t– There’s nothing to this number. I’m just throwing it out there. But say-Say your ask list is some other town, let’s say it’s $5 million. You don’t need to go and get $5 million in year one. You’re just asking the voters for what you need

1:19:20 that year, and then it allows for that flexibility, like you said, because we don’t know, and there could be the situation where we don’t actually need to raise it. We don’t need to go for it and call on it all in that second year. So it’s an ask of, an example of $5 million, but you’re not calling for it all in year one. It’s you’re spreading it out and tapping it as you need it, is that it kind of allows some flexibility to your point on the variabilities that we see.

1:19:56 That’s what I liked about the multi-year solution as well too. It kind of provides that security measure and that responsibility of that you’re building it out over three years and not calling it all year one. True. Yeah. Yeah. I would just like to add to that just to say, I think we really increase our chances for success on an override on a multi-year basis if you tie it to a specific cost driver. So I understand the idea of the kind of flexibility and being able to move cash for money wherever, but I think generally speaking, if you can identify the cost drivers, I think the chances of a multi-year override increase significantly.

1:20:42 Okay. Did you, William, want to add anything to that? No, I’m fine with the tiered approach, although I agree with Moses. I think one of the tiers, for Tommy, it has to be one year. It can be other tiers. That detail can be multi-year, but I think that’s something that a level of decision and choice people- So- … will be looking for So I’m trying to visualize this. Yes. So my visualization on the three tiers, you got three boxes stacked up. Yeah. Tier one, tier two, tier three. I think what you’re saying is within tier one box, you got a bunch of little boxes all lined up side by side that people get to pick. And I’m trying to figure out how do you construct that in the language of an override question.

1:21:27 That’s a bit challenging, I think. And then having two versions of the same thing where one’s one year and one’s three-year, that could be confusing. Well, I don’t think that’s what was proposed. Oh, okay. Well, I think there’s a distinction between tier and menu, right? I think within one of the tiers, I think what we’re proposing is you actually can have several questions that just represent basically a choice statement. Right. But involving a deeper analysis of each of the- 1A.1, 1A.2, 1A.3. Look, I mean, look, I-

1:22:06 I don’t think it’d be that- But you think it’s not- I don’t think it’d be that complicated. Yeah. I don’t think it’s that complicated. I don’t think it needs to be. No, not at all. Okay. Not at all. It’s necessary. I just have to say, I still think of a few years ago, there was a school override that in year two had some undefined money, which was a real tough thing people can get over. And having a chunk of money sitting out there undefined is something you have to really be careful with because people don’t get particularly on board with that. But I’m proposing that we make a pledge to the town, and we break down how much we use each year from that levy so that we don’t have to go back to town meeting three years in a row for an override. We come with, to use Erin’s example, and again, please don’t anyone

1:22:54 think this is a real number, but use Erin’s example of $5 million over three years. That we say that we need $2 million in year one. We make a pledge to the town, and we could vote on it, and say that we take $2 million in year one. We raise that to three in year two and five in year three. And that we make that commitment so that we don’t have to have everyone in town putting out their effort, and we look at what those numbers are on our side and the school side and what we need over three years, would be my proposal. Dan, if I could just add to that. I think the

1:23:30 pledge is in identifying what we’re going to be spending it on, right? Mm-hmm. For sure. Kind of like they’re one and the same. I think we have a pledge to use the taxpayers’ money efficiently anyway. I think what we can really make a bigger effort is just identifying the cost drivers and really being specific about it, which, to Jim’s point, that takes a lot of work. Yeah.

1:23:58 Well, I would argue that Alicia and Thatcher have put together those cost drivers. I think we know what those are, and we can project them out, and that we need to move forward with that. It seems like we have some disagreement or some different opinions here, which is great. I believe that with Thatcher and Alicia is, I think that we need to vote tonight on which approach we’re taking so you can come back to us, whether it’s a menued approach or not a menued approach, and on the different levels of years, because we keep putting this off. And I think that for people to move forward knowing where we’re going, for people to feel comfortable in their jobs, and also if people want to be for or against the override, that they need to know where we stand on what we’re going to be presenting.

1:24:42 So I’m just going to share some thoughts. So I think the first thing it’s important to note, and you spoke about this as well, is that we’re not unique in communities that are facing this right now, and everyone else is facing the same challenges that we are in regards to the communication to the public and how we explain those things. So I think that’s our responsibilities to get those cost drivers, get that information out, share with our community. And I think it’s our responsibility to ensure that the whole town operates successfully. We’re tasked, like as our responsibility as the select board for long-term goals and financial planning. So-I think over the last several weeks, I’ve looked at a bunch of these different options and thought

1:25:28 through what our past has been, what our future options are. I think for looking at pulling out, we talked about the trash contract as well, and I’ll speak to that separately, but I think that a menu tile style type option, it sounds flexible, but it also has flagged in my mind a lot of concerns. So the first thing that came to me was it breaks up coordinated budgeting. So our town budgets are built on integrated systems, integrated departments. So when you’re doing that, there’s not isolated pieces. So, each department is depending on other departments to help. Meaning, the library is depending on finance to run their payroll and those types of things that might not be as forward-facing or glamorous, but

1:26:17 also essential and important in those roles that the community might not see. And so I think that’s one of my concerns there. And I think the other issue is just from fiscal responsibility. Underfunding one area, it’s going to create that hidden cost in other areas. So now you have this imbalance, so where you get the popular services funded, but then your essential services, your invisible services might not be funded, and that is actually going to end up costing you more in the long run. I think it creates fragmented voting, and so basically, you don’t end up with a stable financial plan. It doesn’t allow for any long-term financial planning. It doesn’t allow us to do… There’s mechanisms that are now in place for

1:27:02 municipalities that allow us to create these stabilizations and capital stabilization, where we could really plan in a way that we could utilize that funding. But if we don’t have that, we can’t move those things forward. I think it also can undermine just that planning in general. So, I think also we’re responsible for public safety, and that’s one of our big roles, and so the concern for underfunding critical services, that was one of my concerns. Basically, if you look and you redo your entire kitchen, but then you don’t do the roof, now you’re going to be cooking dinner in the pouring rain. So I just have some concerns about that. And then obviously when you have partial

1:27:47 approvals, you’re not really, which is kind of what we’re tasked with here, is you’re not solving the structural deficit. So we’re still going to face service cuts. We’re still going to face basically initial override in 12 months. So you’re not actually solving, you’re just pushing it forward, and it’s a short-term fix. So for me personally, I would like our board to look at our true financial needs, communicating it clearly to the public as best as we possibly can, and really trying to articulate some of these behind-the-scenes type jobs and responsibilities that from all the service workers that Ms. Furrow spoke about this evening and all these other jobs that are out here. And I think also really allowing for long-term planning and then clear accountability and

1:28:35 also promoting some of the programs that we do have to offset costs for any of our town citizens that are struggling. And, I think, just doing some back research, there’s the quote that those who do not learn from history are destined to repeat it. The town itself in 2005 put out a menu-typed approach to the town. Some of the items where it was broken down into several different departments, some of the departments passed, some of the departments did not pass in that situation where, for example, the schools had passed, the police didn’t. Trash passed, library did pass, the veniance department did not pass.

1:29:21 So, it created a situation where 12 months later, that we were back at to the coming back to the town of Marblehead in the second time, presented a comprehensive package that did in fact pass and has sustained us for a number of years. So I’m quite sure that, essentially 20 years prior to me sitting here tonight, there was a lot of these same conversations. So as I look at and speak to other individuals that perhaps sat in the position of being in the town when those things were coming up and asking what were those conversations and what were those things that were looked at and decided these were some of the

1:30:06 questions that were brought forward and some reasons that were brought to me of like, “Hey, these are the problems that were created, and here are some options of moving forward.” Madam Chair. Yeah. If we could. Yeah. All set. The

1:30:21 discussion has switched to menu, which is fine, but I would ask if I have submitted four slides that I asked to present two weeks ago that I haven’t. I think could I do that now? And then we can continue the menu discussion, because this menu discussion that I’ve done some research on, because we didn’t… It’s nothing like was done before. That was a department by department. So whenever you’re ready, I’ve got four slides, and then if I would like to go into the menu discussions. Do you guys have the- I kind of assumed that we would, before talking about the formatting of the override, we would talk about what we want in it and what it- He says- It switched. I was waiting, but- Next. So … Dan and Alexa jumped into it. Yeah. No, I think, yeah.

1:31:06 This is why I wanted to talk about it two weeks ago. Uh-huh. So if, okay. So this is menu override, and this is a marathon. Thatcher last week brought up all sorts of different ways you could do an override. In one of them, was the tiered approach, which we’ve been talking about. The other one is what Alexa was talking about. Every single time, boom, boom, boom.This is not that. Okay. And just tall. So the menu approach is two or more questions- … definitely 12, for different funding. And generally, doing the research in different towns, I think like Easton, where my sister lives, they have one. You don’t do it by departments because you will have pitting. You will have the potential.

1:31:54 But instead of police first, fire, you do public safety. And instead you do cultural and recreation, we’re going to talk about. The goal is, as Thatcher said, just like with the tiered approach, it gives town meeting voters and taxpayers some level of choice and control. That’s all it is. So if you could just go to the next slide. Tiered versus menu approach. We have talked about tiered. We are talking about a restorative intermediate talk tier. The two approaches are not mutually exclusive. You can have them both. In other words, a given menu item can have tiers, particularly when you don’t have a whole lot of menu items, then you group them. And you do need to group them

1:32:41 carefully, to keep it manageable. And if you do use a hybrid menu, a number of menu items may not even need tiers, like waste collection may not need a tier if you have that. I briefly touched on other general government, which is something that’s going to be a real driver for this. That would probably not need a tier. We’d get some sort of assumptions from our financial department. So, before we go to the next slide, I just want to say, I just sketched something out in a vacuum with open meeting while being such what it is. You can’t get in a back room at someone’s kitchen table. So again, just like what Thatcher did, their example room. So if you can go to the next slide.

1:33:28 This is something you might see. Public safety is typically in towns that do it, a group, police and fire. Public health might be in there because public health has a medical and mental health component to it, but that would be a discussion point. Then there’s a public infrastructure and maintenance. Not DPW department per se, that’s part of it. But the other part is the building department, and that runs Abbott Hall and Widget Road. Park and Rec could be in there, because that is maintaining our parks, Seaside, Gatchell’s. Same with cemetery. And even COA could be in there because as

1:34:16 Thatcher mentioned, COA has I think 1.5 heads or so that are involved in maintenance of the Jacobi building. And, so that is a discussion point. We’ve talked about waste collections in both things. It’s a singular item. I don’t think you want waste collection lumped in with other things. I don’t think anyone is thinking that. Okay. So that’s just one. Culture and recreation, library, COA, Park and Rec, those are common things. This gets back to the you don’t want to be pitting departments against each other. We had all the department heads in for what, three and a half hours. Jason and Lisa Hooper weren’t going after each other.

1:35:02 They work together. They actually have a common problem, that they were all short. So I did not. Maybe people did. I did not see any, that’s pitting. And then there’s various core departments, finance, assessor, building inspector, planning, HR, public health is repeated there, public waste, town clerk, legal, veterans agent, and the select board office. And again, this is just an example of how you could group. You could make smaller groups if you wanted. And then the other one that’s really going to take a lot of work is the other general government number. Particularly for, that’s covered for this year, but for out years, if you’re going to have a multi, that’s going to take a lot of things.

1:35:49 And as to what Moses had said, people would want to see that off on its own, controlled, to make sure almost like it had a stabilization, sort of like special ed is done, so that it’s an uncontrollable, so there’s different financial levers that are dedicated to it. I don’t know what the answers are. But, this is just an example. And in the last slide, I’ll just say a few things were concerns I heard from people. If you group functions together, and that really is to avoid this pitting, because that’s not going to be helpful, I really don’t think, to anyone.

1:36:35 And it also allows meaningful decision at town meetings without being overwhelming or confusing. It adds choice. It does not eliminate choice. A person can come in and vote all yes or all no, or a combination. And when combined with a tier, a person can make choices on those mega groups. And it can be used with a multi-option. It does not

1:37:03 eliminate anything Thatcher or anyone has talked about. And, it does separate unique and possibly divisive issues. You can separate those out, like waste, I can’t imagine that would not be a separate. And it does give town meeting an ability to send leadership clear direction going forward. And, it’s not uncommon. We didn’t invent that, and that’s just, really, I think it’s important that we got this because two weeks ago we did not have a discussion about it.And I think it’s just something to think about. My suggestion is,

1:37:46 which I’ll call it Thatcher’s plan. Alicia, Thatcher, and the team have to finalize bus anyhow. I would say go ahead and do this. This menu at a high level is just sorting things into a few groups. I don’t think it adds any work at the moment. I would just say go ahead with what you plan to do, and then once you get… I can’t vote without hard numbers. I just can’t. I’m not prepared to vote tonight on anything. I have to see numbers. So, I don’t think you’re adding work by just keeping this under consideration at this point. I would be happy to do some hard numbers and obviously for the health insurance with the different health plans we’ve seen at several- Oh, yeah … different meetings and heard that double digits, which I’ve seen now the past

1:38:34 two years. Right. So what I would do is do a friend analysis and also for economic, and obviously when forecasting that, nothing’s ever going to be accurate. It’s all going to be off of a best estimate. But I would have a methodology to that to go with it. I feel a little bit of a concern with this in that I do feel like it is a little bit of pitting departments because I’ve been in a meeting and different departments have been advocating, and I’ve said, “We’re all one team, we’re all one town. Can we please have one voice together?” And I really want to have that.

1:39:21 So I’m going to start with what I agree with. I agree with the waste article. I think that’s unique. Yeah, sure. I think it’s unique, and I think there’s an alternative structure, and we’re going to continue to face these escalating costs. And I do think that is an example of something that, to me, naturally stands alone. And people can make that choice. I’m not in favor of this menu idea because I think, for one, just to start… And I think Jim’s hearing a lot of this. We’re all hearing a lot of people asking for this. So,

1:40:07 it’s good for you to just bring it up, and people are talking about it. It hasn’t come up in comment today. My concern with it is it’s fundamentally an alien to how we actually budget and govern. So we do not look at a general fund year to year and look at silos of dedicated funds. This is for the schools. They wanted that year three, but we have this new emergent need over here. It’s completely anathema to actually how we budget. Is that fair? Yeah, I think it’s fair. I think one of the things that’s very challenging, especially in Marblehead, is that there’s several different boards, and each department guides itself, and

1:40:54 one thing I’ve seen is a lot of divisiveness, and I’ve worked really, really hard in trying to build trust between departments in the community to come together and bring up instead of just saying, “Oh, mine’s focused, but we’re going to ignore your needs.” And I think that’s what’s really important because I’ve seen the past few years since I came in here, reduce budget, find a way to cut it. Reduce budget, find another way to cut it. Reduce budget, find another way to cut it. And we’re at the point now we hit the wall, and it’s so lean, and there’s nowhere else to cut, and now everybody’s competing with one another for the very little resources that we do have. So it’s op- I- Well, number one, it’s operationally dysfunctional to how I see it. It just is. And number two, I also think that it’s

1:41:42 misleading for voters because I think that voters will go and say, “Oh, I voted for the library,” so when we had the override, and three years later, we’re in trouble, and we have to close the library because the problem isn’t that the library’s too expensive. The problem isn’t that the fire department is too expensive. The problem isn’t that the schools are too expensive. It’s all these other costs which conveniently on that slide were bucketed into one bucket of employee health insurance. And I can’t imagine anybody going to choose that bucket. But we have these collective bargaining agreements in place. We’re not going to be able to pivot and move to some defined pension benefit agreement situation, which I would love to do.

1:42:27 I think that’s someplace where that’s a real conversation to be had, but we have contractual obligations. It’s not a choice. To put it before the voters as though we can pick and choose whether we pay future health benefits and whatnot is misleading. Actually, that was not- Oh … meant to be an independent bucket like that. Oh, okay. It was meant to point out that you have to account for that somewhere. Yeah. I wanted to point that out because Thatcher did not mention you have to. You can’t expect people to get a multi-year thing if not somewhere account for that. So that’s all. Okay. I- Can I just say something? I– Oh. Dan, it’s so hard when you’re not here. Dan, go ahead.

1:43:14 Thank you. So Jim, thank you for presenting it. I think it’s good to see all these options. I feel that the tiered, or sorry, your menued, I keep saying the wrong word here. The menued item is a little disingenuous because in year one, that’s where it goes, but in year two, it goes back to the general fund. So if somebody votes for a menu, I think what Aaron was saying on the library, and our health insurance goes up, that’s back into the general fund from year one. It’s not staying in that category. Only in year one does it stay in that category. Otherwise-

1:43:47 Oh, no. Oh, no. Did I cut it? You’re back. You’re back. Oh, God, sorry. It was beautiful.

1:43:58 Did you hear anything? That- We heard through disingenuous. Yeah, you said it was disingenuous because after year one, it’s going back into the general fund, and then we lost you. Yeah. I guess that was the general point. I spoke a little bit too much, which I’m usually speeding through things, but that I think that year one, the voters get to decide if you do menu item, but in year two, it goes back to the general funds. So that can go to anything. So I think that keeping it on, and it’s a general override is a better way to go. And I do believe it’s confusing looking at those different… I think it really confuses the voters on all these. They have so much more work to do on learning about each individual budget item, and it dilutes the message. Just something to think about, and obviously, Mr.

1:44:46 Hoff could speak to this more specifically, but I think one of the other issues when you’re talking about that type of funding, you do have the contractual obligations and bringing in negotiations and some of the things of one position replacing another position if there were a layoff and those types of things. And so I think that might make things even more difficult with trying to accurately allocate how the funding is and where it would be going in that sort of situation. Because you have contractual obligations, you have union contracts that you have in these different positions, and how you’re funding that, and I don’t know how you’d split that. To me, it just seems like a straight path to underfunding, and it’s a failed

1:45:34 experience from the past. I don’t look forward to repeating it. And so,

1:45:40 I’m against it. Well, I just want to clarify, too. Jim, you had mentioned something, and I think I was summarizing some of the votes that were done in 2005, but some of the articles that did pass versus fail were some things that were combined. There was equipment combined, there was different elements of different things that were combined when they did the menu option in 2004.

1:46:07 So- Well, I guess I’ll try to address the elephant in the room, and I think that we have had our most recent overrides were principally driven by the schools or by the districts, right? And they went down pretty hard.

1:46:27 One of the concerns the town has always had is that the schools are

1:46:36 reasonably well-funded and that there’s not a lot of backing behind why they wanted to request more money. Rightly or wrongly, that’s what Marbleheaders, when they shot down those two overrides, concluded.

1:46:55 I think we’re at an inflection point where the schools are running efficiently as the fiscal year 20 sets, right? So I think it’s a unique opportunity for the schools to have to present their budget, and I’ll tell you why. Because we have no idea what’s going on. You can say you can cooperate. Until we’ve installed these new chart of accounts, this new system, we had no idea what the schools were spending on what, okay? That was a problem. And compounding that is the fact that statutorily, these are two discrete budgets. So one has no influence over the other, except to the extent the big town provides one budget number to the schools, and the schools have to live within that, right?

1:47:42 So I think we spent a lot of time this year trying to figure out what that appropriate number is and to boil it down into a basic guideline and policy which FinCon has gone over and over on. So I think it’s pretty well understood, and I think that’s a major achievement. However, when do the schools who represent 63% of our actual budget, when do they need to talk about what they need in a

1:48:17 context, right? And we’re at the point right now where the schools have made cuts. We’re asking for another 1.5 million from the schools. It’s up to them to figure out whether they want to do it through an override or whether they want to absorb those cuts, right? And so part of this is if we roll the override into one

1:48:39 thing, and we include a $1.5 million school override,

1:48:45 what is the impact of that? At the very least, if we roll, if we have a single restoration question, we at least need to get the chairs and the people responsible for those budgets to explain to the taxpayers why the money’s getting paid that way. We have not done that well. It was a disaster a few years ago. We had an override, no numbers were presented. People are like, “What the heck?” And I think the way we gain credibility as a town, I think, is to embrace this idea that we should be communicating openly, even though I take your point that it gets more complex, Thad. It does. It gets a little bit more complex, but well laid out, I think it

1:49:31 actually can be very clarifying.

1:49:35 Okay. So-

1:49:40 Yeah … I’m hearing that we’re looking at, the board’s looking at a multi-year solution. Whether it’s- In whatever format. Yeah. I just want to clarify that. I don’t think that’s an issue. Okay. That’s not really an issue. So then- I think it’s more on the restoration. Okay. So I am in favor of a three-tiered solution similar to as presented. I think the partial restore makes sense. I think that what goes into these buckets will require a lot of heads together and some numbers crunching, and then some grappling with what will be politically palatable to voters. And I think I just want to address for a second, I think the three-tier

1:50:27 approach, I think that recognizes that we are recognizing different people at different stages in life, and that we want to provide that opportunity for choice. And I’m very sensitive to the many people who speak for the people who are in fixed incomes and getting by. And I hear that, and I think we want to acknowledge that. But I also think though, we also want to acknowledge that we need to make the future of Marblehead, we need to make sure that there is a future here for the younger generations who are coming, and the ones that are coming and investing what is $1 million for a median family home.

1:51:16 And they’re coming to this town, and they’re expecting a level of services that the generations before them came to enjoy. So it’s hard to strike that balance. And I think why we’re seeing towns put forward these tiered approaches is because it’s acknowledging we need to allow for that choice and meet people where they’re at. And so, I’m in favor of a multi-tier approach similar to this, a multi-year approach. And I think that the

1:51:49 question needs to be framed as what does it cost for the town of Marblehead to function? There’s a lot of behind-the-scenes that goes on into running a town. It’s not just the wonderful men and women who work at the DPW that you see on the streets, or the police officers. There’s an assessors department. There’s an HR department. There are a lot of back office functions that there’s the behind the scenes that’s our job is to protect that and know what goes into the cake, right? There’s a lot of ingredients. And so we just want, voters need to know what does it cost to run the town. And so,

1:52:34 I’m going to make a motion that the board directs the town administrator to move forward in the path and pursue a multi-year

1:52:50 solution to these budget challenges. Not a one-year

1:52:55 patch. And that we take an approach that models on the presentation today. And I also

1:53:08 would like… Well, let’s start with that. And that the question be framed in a general, comprehensive, simple question about what it costs to run the government at partial restore. One question for what it costs to run at stabilize and some type of invest.

1:53:29 Second.

1:53:36 There’s a slight amendment to that. Well, so we have a motion- We have a motion … on the floor first, so we need a second before we could- Second. What’s your amendment? That in question 1A, we do a full restoration of cuts as opposed to a partial restoration, meaning that we will have identified cuts to make a balanced budget this year, and that in that question 1A, we vote to restore all of those cuts, that we’ve identified.

1:54:12 Discussion? I get- Then you need to second. No. I’ll second for discussion. So- My concern with that is that there are some things that we are taking out of the budget that we don’t want to restore. So I think we would need a lot of… I think that there were some efficiencies that came in, and so I think before I would support that, I would like to know the details of exactly what is coming back. I think of some of the cuts we made over time, I think that they actually are some good savings. I’m not talking about workers, but there are some other savings that we found in different line items. So I guess I would want just a little more clarity on that, Moses. That’s fair, Dan. Yeah. And I did a couple hours with Alicia today talking about the

1:55:00 total cuts that we need to balance and then what we would propose as a restore override for those cuts, and they’re basically even. The restore override request is a little bit higher, but your point is well taken. There’s some shifting of costs around, but the basic numbers are the same, as of now. So. I guess I would want to see those before, just because I, just to say full restore. So- Right … what I see based on the work that Alicia’s done, we would have the ability as we itemize the different tiers, you’d have the option of, let’s move this one from one to two or two to one.

1:55:46 We- I understand … can kind of tweak that way because we’re going to want to be able to do that because you’re going to want to see what are the total dollars for each tier coming to, and making a judgment as to The palatability of that. Yeah, I guess I’m just trying to link the actual cuts that you- Yeah … deemed we need to make, which already establishes the leadership priority of what’s going to get cut, where, and how much. Yeah. With an opportunity to restore them. So I think that’s a clarifying concept in people’s minds, I think, to have a full restoration question on the cuts that we have. So that’s just a minor tweak. It’s a minor amendment to what you were saying. Yeah. No, I’d love to restore. I’d like to do a full restore, but at the same time, I’m concerned if we vote that language, we box

1:56:33 ourselves in where we want to see what and how the number is, because we want to be sensitive to making sure that there’s a safety number that you’re hoping the majority of people can feel comfortable pushing that button. And I just worry if we commit to a full restoration here, and we have to follow that rule. That’s what I’m kind of a little bit… I want that to be the goal. I don’t want us to say, “We have to do that.” Isn’t the motion, I didn’t lift, but to direct the actual commission to create the numbers, and then we would… I’m fine with asking them to create the numbers and voting. Oh, yeah.

1:57:19 But I need to see the numbers. If they come out wacky, then, we’re going to have to rethink it, I believe. Right. Can I just suggest, let’s just take it qualitative off the word restore. Let’s just call it restore and/or. Sure. And we can define it in the process of items. I think that’s what we’re going to find. Don’t prejudge restore. Yeah. The partial, we could do it. Yeah. Yeah, just take restore out. So, okay.

1:57:47 So what is on the table right now? I’m having a little trouble following from afar here. We do vote the amendment first, so we have to vote. Can you just give me that language of what Aaron said and Moses sort of– Aaron, it was your original one, the word partial? Yeah. Dan, I think the… Well, I think we’re somewhere. Did I say partial restore? You said partial, you said full, and I said full. I suggest to slice that baby right in half. Okay. Just say restore. Okay. So we need to vote on the amendment. So if you don’t vote, second, remake the motion. We didn’t have a second. Yeah. Yeah. Second it. So are we going to vote down the amendment and put a new

1:58:35 amendment in place that just uses the word restore? Basically. Just further modify the committee. Yes. Yeah, further modify. Okay. So Jim and Moses agreed to further modify the motion to be simply restore. We can vote on that, and then you can vote on the main motion. Okay. But it has to be a full vote because of someone. Oh, all right. Madam Chair, are you ready for a poll vote on the word restore? All right. Ms. Noonan. In favor. Mr. Gray. In favor. Mr. Fox. In favor. Ms. Zisson. In favor. Ms. Singer. In favor. Okay. Okay. Now the main motion, which is what Aaron and Susan presented. Yes. So I have multi-tier, multi-year.

1:59:23 Mm-hmm. This is the draft here. Yeah. Multi-year, not year. Multi-tier, multi-year, with the second question being the trash. There’s your menu. Yeah. That’s your menu option. No. Probably. I don’t think I included the trash, so let’s just go with that. The trash was not in the original. Okay. So in my original motion, we’ll take that up next. Can we- As a separate … and this is part of the discussion. Can we keep the option open to explore,

1:59:55 what Jim and I are talking about with question A, preserve a potential menu option and not vote for it as a unified question necessarily at this point? I know a lot of people are- It’s not in my motion. It’s not.

2:00:17 So what we need is one number with it, one vote. No, three options, one number. There’s your menu. That’s how I see it.

2:00:26 Don’t quote me. Want one?

2:00:35 Oh, okay. That’s what you were saying. Sorry. All right. Yeah. Mr. Gray. Not in favor. Mr. Fox. In favor. Ms. Zisson. In favor. Ms. Noonan. In favor. Ms. Singer. In favor. Okay. Four in favor. Thank you.

2:01:00 I think we’re all on the same page with the trash item. So I’ll just make a motion that we authorize Patrick Keezer to implement a curbside trash, the standalone option on the override. Not a fee, an override. An override, yep. An option for curbside pickups, general override at the request of the Board of Health- Thanks … and place it alongside on the ballot as well.

2:01:43 So moved. Second. And did you say the timing side? Why don’t you work with- I mean- … the Board of Health on that, and they’ll come to the contract? Yeah, let us first have- We’ll bring it back to us at our April 8th meeting. Okay. I just wanted to clarify where- Yeah. Well- And I just say that’s a three or a five as my suggested option. So we have a second. Any other discussion? No. I’m just wondering, will these numbers going to be available on city policy? I hope not too late. No, we have a lot of item. I know health is all known. They’ve got their numbers close. Are you talking about- Yeah … for the board of health or somebody- Yes … said the fashion on therapist? All of the above.

2:02:28 Yeah. I think there’s a lot of work that they have at the fingertips to crunch the numbers as I’ve asked about this question, and it just seems like before they did that work, they really wanted to clarify what we want to do. So, because it’s a lot of work to do that and without real clarification and direction from us. Yeah. We have a lot of the numbers- And I think that’s what we’re trying to get tonight … well, if we’re guys, what bucket are we putting them into so we can present it back? Well, and I think just the clarification, I think, in regards to why, to me, in my mind, why this is a separate entity is because we have removed the trash from the general government. So that’s why this gives it its standalone option, whereas one option is to provide the fee, but the other request was, okay, could we

2:03:14 also have this as an option that would go as an override? So it lets the public decide- Okay … which one they would rather do. But it’s already been removed, so it’s a separate entity. I think just to clarify that as you’re discussing. Do we have a motion? Yes. If we have it. All right. Mr. Fox. In favor. Mr. Zisson. Entainment. Ms. Union. In favor. Mr. Grado. In favor. Ms. Singer. In favor.

2:03:41 Can I say one– I think it would make sense for Thatcher to put together some kind of a working group with the schools so that we can look at working together, if that’s for an override, a working group between yourself, leadership, and the boards, so that we can put together the numbers together to bring forward to the town. Yeah. We would include health because they have their piece, too. Correct. Maybe it’s two different working groups. Yeah. Andrew.

2:04:15 I agree. I think I’d like to see us take a unified approach. I know that

2:04:21 they are still working out their budget. But,

2:04:28 I think that I’d like to see us go forward in that. I would be happy to make a motion that this board supports the unified approach to an override question that will include the town and school in a single article. And to pursue that end, we would appoint our town administrator to create an advisory committee from elected officials of our board, the school committee, and work with finance committee- Advising … to advise. A work group to advise me. Yeah. And then you can report and bring that back to us and report us with numbers, like Jim said. Yep. And I’m hoping that that work can start next week. Yep. Maybe the other week. The point of clarification, is it a unified approach, you mean, just in general? Well, we have to vote it. So I think the idea is to work

2:05:14 together for next week, get in a room, work together, and bring us something to look at and present. Sure. Maybe it’s a joint meeting, but

2:05:25 to Jim’s point, that’s where we take a look at what these numbers are, and then we’re going to say, “Ooh, are we comfortable with that? Is that too risky? Is this fair?” That kind of thing. And we’ll see what it looks like. And I’m assuming that, again, I don’t want to make assumptions for the school committee. I know they still have some decisions to make, but the invitation is there, and we can get to work if we make it now. So that’s why I just wanted to move the motion. Well, it really should be a given, in my view, but if we need to make a motion. I think- I suppose. We have a second? Second. Good. Again, discussion. Sorry, go ahead. I just have to be very careful. What was the language on that again?

2:06:12 Does it take long? Just

2:06:18 for authorizing the town administrator to create a working group of members of both boards and the finance committee to work together and bring us back something, present something to us to consider. Okay. It’s pretty general. Okay. I think to agree with Moses in regards to, I think, the more information very specifically that we can communicate to the public, the numbers, the justification of what are our cuts, what is the restoration, what is that plan. And if there are efficiencies, let’s communicate that, but the sooner, the better in putting that information out there and being able to really, as much as we possibly can, dictate, obviously within reason,

2:07:05 but at a micro level. So my thought is next week is us convening and working with all the various boards and departments that are involved, pull it together, and it would be at the next meeting the following week, where if we could present that package. And as we normally do, we’re in communications anyways along the way, so it’s never really a surprise for folks because they’re sharing that information bluntly. Any other discussion? Do we have a motion on the table? We need a full vote. Okay. Mr. Zisson. Do you have a second? Okay. Mr. Zisson. In favor. Ms. Noonan. In favor. Mr. Grado. In favor. Mr. Fox. In favor. Singer.

2:07:50 In favor. Close. Mm. So we’re set. We’re good. Trash is good. This is good. Great.

2:08:03 Oh. Okay. So a big apology for our public tree share hearing. The only thing I would just ask, is it possible to just maybe take a three or four-minute quick recess so we can use the restroom, and then we’ll do our hearing? Yep. Okay. Thanks, guys. Madam Chair, I’m not going to be here when you guys come back. Thank you. ThanksI couldn’t hear you. Your Hawaiian shirt did. Not as nice as yours, buddy.

2:19:48 All right. So we did a public hearing on their first hearing, and so we are set to continue to review the discussion on application.

2:20:04 Right. So, we had the request to remove three trees next to Mary Alley.

2:20:13 Based on the condition of trees, based on the impact that they’re having on the building, on the roof, the brand new roof, as well as concern about

2:20:27 fiber wire that runs through one of the trees. Which is, again, Mary Alley is the main hub of our entire network, and the wire runs there. So based on those concerns, that was the presentation that Mr. Cummings had provided Requesting we take those down. What we also discussed too is the uninflated work coming, the renovation work in and around that part of Mary Alley, and the concern of being able to get in there and do the regrading and level them for ADA compliance and such.

2:21:08 I think that’s where we left off. Okay. Yeah. All right. Further discussions? Have there been any new things or have any new ideas around approaching it- Yes … since last met? So you guys, actually, you wanted a little more information since we met, so I’ve provided, they should be in your packets, two new pieces of information. One, I’m not a tree expert. I don’t even like the word expert. But with buildings, infrastructure, structural stuff, I feel I’m pretty well-knowledged in that. So for the tree part of it, I reached out to a master certified arborist.

2:21:54 The owner of Maya Tree met me out there the other morning at 6:00 in the morning to take an overall assessment of the trees and get his opinion of the trees. We discovered a couple more things that we didn’t really notice before because of the snow coverage around the trees, but I can give you a second to read through what his recommendation on the letter is. Mm-hmm.

2:22:22 And then after you’re done with that, if you flip to the last page, you asked me for the plan, somewhat of the plan on the new renovation. Yeah. That should be on the last page.

2:22:38 Yep, right there with the color. Yep. So- Yeah … basically, looking at the right side corner of the building, you’ll see that walkway does not exist currently. That is a part of the new renovation and ADA walkway. We will go down about four feet, three to four feet, to put that walkway in. That walkway will be pretty well into the roots of the tree next to it,

2:23:10 which would be about 5 to 6 feet off of that walkway. So we’re going to be way into the roots of that tree. One of the new discoveries that we’ve discovered is that we have a sewer line and a drain line that runs out and runs in between and very close to the other trees, and all the roots, as you can see in Dan Mayer’s letter- Right … are interfering with them. There’s not only the sewer lines, but there’s manholes, and there’s an open stormwater drain cover. Yeah. So, again, all the roof leaders come down into that storm drain. Now, one argument could be the sewer main gets some roots in it. Toilet doesn’t flush, you call somebody, they Rooter

2:23:59 it, no big deal. However, can you imagine it’s a 10,000 square foot flat roof with a two-foot parapet. If that stormwater plugged up during a two or three-inch rainstorm, how much two or three inches or four inches of rain would take– It would be a catastrophe if that happened. Hasn’t happened, doesn’t mean it can’t. Again, the trees have matured, the roots have matured. It is deeply interfering with both the stormwater and the sewer. So that’s basically handles those two trees. The one tree that stands alone, again, is

2:24:42 the fiber optic loop that runs through. It’s not even a loop, it’s the main line that comes out. Yeah. The brand-new fiber optic loop that we put in, that if that fiber loop goes down, that’s it. There’s no fire, there’s no police, there’s no nothing. It all comes out of Mary Alley. Over these last couple of storms, there is, might not be from that tree, but there is two or three significant, not ginormous branches that have come down in the last couple of storms. So I think it’s completely in the best interest of the town to eliminate these three trees. And as we do the

2:25:29 renovation, we’re putting a lot of money into the building. We look at putting better trees in better locations,

2:25:40 and try to- That’s right … make the whole property a little nicer and protect it.

2:25:49 Yeah. This is a different and enhanced story from the last one. It’s good. I have hand raised by an Amy McHugh. Amy? Hold on. Let me…

2:26:05 All right, Amy, you’re in to talk. Okay. See if I can talk. I just want to talk about the sewer line. So we have this question quite often. The sewer line is not impacted by a tree root unless it has an imperfection. And if it has an imperfection, then the town needs to address that sewer line. Stormwater, different. That accepts groundwater, that can be an issue with tree roots. But, I just want to make clear to everybody listening that trees are almost like warriors for the sewer department. They find when there is an imperfection in your sewer, and they let us know by blocking your sewer that you’ve been letting groundwater in and infiltration, and that’s something that we are under an administrative order to get rid of. SoPlease take that one off your

2:26:53 argument, but all the other ones stand. Storm water stands, and the fiber loop especially, I am concerned about that. Well, that’s why I touched only very so lightly on the sewer. It wasn’t my biggest concern. A lot of water on the roof and the fiber going down are my biggest concerns. Mr. Filbert, do you have anything to add? Yeah, I met with Steve today, actually, and showed me the revisions and the plans that do the ramp especially. Even the trees that are on the side of the building, based on a Tree Protection Zone, the TPZ as it’s called, is based off the size and the caliper of the tree and the diameter at breast height.

2:27:39 So for every

2:27:42 inch of diameter you have, you go out a foot from the tree. So say you have a 20-inch diameter tree, so I think these are what, 23 and 25, I think? I think they were closer to 28 and 30. Okay. So your tree protection zone would actually be 30 feet from the base of the tree coming off the tree based on that calculation. So even though these trees are far enough away, that root zone’s going to be affected as well. And the red pine that’s in question, too, I had a chance to look at it better, and there is some pine bark beetle that’s affecting the tree. It looks like woodpecker holes, but it’s not because they’re not concentric. They’re not in a straight line going up and down.

2:28:29 They’re actually all over the stem of the tree. So what happens there is that a pine bark beetle searches larva and starts mining out the cambium layer of the tree, and it causes the tree to decline. So not right now, but down the road, this tree is starting to decline, and you can tell the branches have died from the bottom up. There’s yellowing in the

2:28:55 needles, which could be a sign of diplodia tip blight as well. But it is showing signs of decline, and with the construction that’s projected, I think we recommend removing that one. And I think these trees were, as Dan there stated, were planted when the building was probably built as an ornamental tree next to the building. Mm-hmm. So it’s not an ornamental tree anymore. And- Where’s the red pine tree? Where is it? It’s the one directly in front of the door. So right in front. Yeah. So right here? Yeah, on the left side. Right. Looking at the building, yeah. This one? Yeah. This one. Okay. So, and I think I said last time too, that

2:29:42 these trees want to be a height of 70, 80 feet tall. Then they’re done. So five years from now, six years from now, you’re going to be revisiting. And I did have like three or four three-inch or four-inch branches that broke off in the snow storm, the blizzard we had. Yeah. So I did go out and observe that, too. I was checking the trees during the storm, and we lost some significant branches off it. So I understand the concern for the roof and especially the fiber optic. And if you remove one of the trees, say you remove the one that’s closest to the building, those trees work together, and- Together, yeah … it exposes it to wind throw from…

2:30:27 It’s not protected anymore by the other tree. So that section of the tree that was protected is gone now, so it’s going to affect the overall health of all of them. Makes sense. And just to sum it up, as John mentioned, with the roots going potentially 25 to 30 feet away,

2:30:51 the furthest tree from the building is about 15 to 20 feet. So all the roots are well within the foundation of the building as well. Could they affect it? Maybe, maybe not. Do we really want to take a chance, or do we want to put a better tree somewhere else that can guarantee that it’s not going to affect storm water, fiber optics, and the foundation and the roof and everything else that goes along with the

2:31:20 potential hazard of having the trees there?

2:31:25 Questions? Peter? No, I was just going to say my vote was generally in line with what the tree warden recommends, and I think the recommendation with the new information about the building- Yeah … should come up.

2:31:45 So how do we ensure that at the end of the project, there’s money left and set aside for the trees that we’re talking about replacing? If we’re going to take them out, a lot of tree advocates at our last meeting and a lot of people were really concerned about losing the shade.

2:32:10 Where’s the funding coming, and where would you relocate? In the same area? Would they go someplace else in town? If we take them down, how do we make right by- Different trees … different trees and a commitment to relocating what we have?

2:32:33 Yeah, so it’s

2:32:36 in a traditional tree rule hearing, if it does go through. It’s based on per inch caliper replacement. So for every two inches of caliper tree, you owe me a tree. So it’s based on that. So if it’s a20-inch tree, you owe me 10 trees planted somewhere in town. So we’d work within that in the new landscape plan to guarantee that the trees that were removed will be compensated in kind with a tree. We’re not obviously going to be able to replace a 20-inch tree with a 20-inch tree, but we do have a compensation where it’s based off of the overall DBH of the tree. It gets divided and then there’s a

2:33:23 formula that goes in. So it’s basically two inches per caliper, you owe me a two-inch caliper tree from the nursery. But I would work with them when we’re doing the final plan to make sure that we get close to that number and, I don’t know if there’s an opportunity to plant 30 or 40 trees there, but there are other places that we can plant. So

2:33:54 usually we ask the homeowner to bear that cost. This is a town property. Right. How are we funding that? Well, right now, the design phase is pretty much done for the project. We’re in the document phase of putting the documents together to prepare to go out to bid. Obviously, we hope the numbers come in really good. We want to stretch the project as far as we can. I am trying to hold aside

2:34:40 a significant sum of money for incidentals, such as moving furniture and stuff, which is, I don’t think we want to really get into that number, but it’s a significant number. And, I’m really not looking to bid this project all the way to the penny. I really want some incidentals in there that we can, if there’s money left over at the end, we’ll spend it on the building somewhere. But, yeah, I’m not looking to bid the whole project out to the penny. I’m looking to hold some money back for the town. But I don’t think that, correct me if I’m wrong, the expectation is the Mary Allen project is going to

2:35:25 account for all the trees that need to be replaced. It would be something we as a town as a whole work out over time. Right. Right. Part of the landscape for Mary Allen, to address some, because we’re going to want to replace something in that area anyway. So that’ll account for some of the accommodation, but then through other projects that we’re doing and such, collectively the town would account for other trees down the road to accommodate. When do you think really rough faculty estimate would it take to replace those trees? Well, I think the question is also, it is the town’s asset, is the town’s tree, and when a homeowner goes to remove it, he’s removing one of our assets.

2:36:11 That’s right. So it’s different. Yeah. I think it’s more based on doing the right thing. Right. So it’s not a per. When it’s the town doing the removal, I don’t think it’s the same as a homeowner doing the removal because they’re removing one of our assets, so they have to compensate us for our asset. But if it’s the town’s asset- Right … I think that falls under a different situation. It’s not a bad guideline though. No. But I think, we’ve taken some trees down for the light department and, under Massachusetts general laws, they’re not obligated to replace those trees, but

2:36:57 they do a good- A good faith effort … good faith effort to do that, to put some replacements in. And if we were a private entity, those trees, or at least some of the trees, would not even be in the public way. Correct. It’s just the fact that we are a public entity- Right … so that’s what makes them public. Right? Unlike a private homeowner, the tree they’re asking to remove is in the public way, and that’s what triggers this. Yeah. Yeah. You know, it is really important for me. We’re putting a lot of money into this building, and it is really personally important to me to give this building some curb appeal. And really the only way to give it curb

2:37:43 appeal without doing a lot of money is with landscaping. So I think that is a big part of the project, for me anyways. I think it’s important that we protect the roots that we’ve invested in. I think we’ve done really studying it extensively and made the case for why we do it in the cost analysis benefit with the trees, and protecting our assets in this town. It is a lot of our town offices there, and there’s a plan to move forward, and they’re in the way. I guess my only concern is that just knowing in

2:38:30 projects, that cost escalation, go through the contingency phase, things happen, and landscaping is the first thing that generally in projects can kind of, you’ve got to put the door on, and it becomes more expensive, and that’s just what happens. I don’t want us to be asking something of homeowners that… And I agree with you. I don’t think it’s apples to apples to expect the town to To cover the cost in the same way that we ask homeowners to. But at the same time, I want to model good behavior, and I want to model the expectations that we set of homeowners. So that’s my reservation about it. I would like to just

2:39:18 really protect that set-aside for the landscaping and the trees.

2:39:26 In a perfect world, if we were going to guarantee me a great maintenance budget, which we don’t know about, I would guarantee you a portion of money out of my maintenance budget for five years. But we’re not there yet. But again, I’m really going to focus in on the numbers. We have a lot of money to spend there. In fact,

2:39:56 I have grown the project to what we originally thought because we’ve estimated the numbers coming back better. So there are other things that we’re able to do to the building, like take the bridge down between the two, which we’re going to be able to clean up a lot of the dead trees over in that area. That was not part of the original project. Repaired some stairs on the side, that was not part of the original project.

2:40:25 They replaced the rest of the windows in the building. That was not part of the other. So we’ve already done a pretty good cost estimate and come in, adding more to the project that needs to go into the project, and trying to keep that reserve, which I need that reserve. We can’t go in this without having contingencies. So I do need that buffer. So I’m going to be watching the numbers very closely, and if we have to cut something out, we have to cut something out, Dara. But we’re going to try to stretch a buck as far as we can on this one.

2:41:15 Any other discussion? Yeah. I’d like to ask for a motion to approve the request to remove the features at 7 Woodrow Road in accordance with the Town of Marblehead Shade Tree Policy. So moved.

2:41:38 Second? Second.

2:41:41 Dan’s no longer online, so we no longer have to do roll call. Yes, sir. That is fair. So all in favor?

2:41:51 Thank you. Thank you. Thank you very much. Appreciate it. Thanks for working with- Sitting through it … for that. That affects me, too. We appreciate it. All right. Okay. We are at the reappointment for the inspector of animals.

2:42:16 Hi. We still have business to do. Thank you.

2:42:25 So this is an appointment on a state schedule, so it’s a little different than the date in our normal cycle. That’s why it’s coming up right now. It’s from the Department of Agriculture. Their terms runs on May 1st, so that’s why the calendar’s a little bit off. So it’s to reappoint Emily Grande as the inspector of animals. Moved. Yeah. Thank you. So a motion to reappoint Emily Grande as inspector of animals with the term to expire April 30th, 2027. And do I have a second? Second. Thank you. Any discussion, questions?

2:43:08 Okay. All in favor?

2:43:13 Thank you. Okay. All right. That is passed. And now we are on to number seven, our consent agenda items. You want to take a look at that? I’d like to ask for a motion to approve the following consent agenda items subject to the usual rules, regulations, fees, and receipt of the required certificate of insurance. We have the minutes of March 4th, 2026. Abbot Hall Festival of the Arts July 4th events, Abbot Hall, Fort Sewall, Old Town House, if the occupancy is approved as presented within your packet, subject to the usual rules, regulations, fees, and receipt of the required certificate of insurance. And declare April 24th, 2026, Arbor Day in the town of Marblehead and prepare a proclamation in honor

2:44:02 of. So moved. Second. Thank you. All in favor? Okay, that passes. Number eight, request to use the image of the Spirit of ‘76. So I don’t know if you guys have had a chance to go through the letter. A couple things to highlight. This is not

2:44:24 for a non-profit. This is for a for-profit operation, so a little bit different than some of the things that we typically take a look at that I wanted to highlight. It’s

2:44:38 basically like a marketing campaign. They have some pictures of some of the things that they’re looking for. So we can open up for discussion.

2:45:05 Not sure. Historically, we’ve approved things that haven’t been non-profit campaigns. This is a for-profit? No. Yeah.

2:45:23 I, myself, had some concerns, but yeah, could you go right into that stuff? I didn’t bring hot dogs. Well, then it’s a hotdog company, Tiny. Oh. Requesting this for their marketing campaign. Huh. We can go right in and check it. You can show. I can probably…

2:45:50 I don’t know. Oh, it’s the 250th anniversary digital campaign. So-

2:45:58 So they’re requesting to use that image as part of their marketing campaign to have the individuals in the painting holding hot dogs. Not sure. It’s a gray area, so no pun intended. Yeah. I said, “No.” Why don’t we go to Ohio and do that? Not kind enough about this.

2:46:23 With the example they showed. Yeah, I just look for this. It’s no. May I see? Put a little ketchup or relish on it, and I’m fine with it. Absolutely. They throw one flat one day sometimes. Yeah. I mean, if it was the bust of Elbridge Gerry up there or something, but no, this is, I think, still… It- I mean, give or take. That’s Sean. You don’t like the Federalists, huh? No, no, I love Elbridge, but I’m saying, I mean- Yeah. You could have someone lying on the ground wounded. Yeah, I know. No, that’s- I don’t think so. That’s a kind of a sacrilege right there. Yeah. I think that’s the closest- I love it … Paul Revere, even that guy.

2:47:08 Okay, so this one would be the one with your dog- Right … with the thing of smart people, sexy, so probably me. Okay.

2:47:17 That’s what they’re proposing to do with that image. Mm. So that’s the only image we have. Is that the only image? That’s their advertising during the 250th. We also have this one, though, don’t we? Which one? I think- Pardon me for the- Don’t we have- Where is it? Are they requesting permission for all of them or just the- I think the- The Spirit of ‘76 is the one in which you have control over. Oh, okay. Fair. Yeah. Yeah. Not that it’s going to change my opinion, but was there remuneration on this? Well, I mean, the other one, yeah. Like $7.70. No. I don’t know what the other means. It says they’re partnering with Museum of Fine Arts to showcase some of their own artwork and potentially include an activation within the museum. So I guess,

2:48:02 the knee-jerk is this is sacred to the town. I kind of just put another idea out there, is that if, kind of like content, but the Museum of Fine Arts, I’m imagining if this is true, and I would want to validate, maybe get more clarification from

2:48:27 this applicant around clarification that the MFA is also moving forward on this campaign. I think probably I’m imagining that there’d be some reasoning around promoting arts and putting these pieces in front of audiences that wouldn’t otherwise see them, younger audiences, and there

2:48:51 would be some good in that, getting some kind of pop culture exposure to images that other people might typically not see. So- That’s why I would imagine if it is true that the Museum of Fine Arts is also sharing their collection, that might be some mentality around it. They have a deadline of March 27, two days from now. Oh, okay. So it’s either yay or nay at this point. Without knowing, I mean, there’s probably some good reason to do it that I can’t think of, but I don’t know that… I mean, that’s what I could think of, is that you could expose people to an image that they otherwise might not see that is part of the 250th anniversary.

2:49:36 I don’t have a strong opinion. I just want to make sure that what I see here, a wounded or dying soldier is depicted lying on the ground in the bottom right foreground, and they have that person, soldier, holding a hot dog. I am voting no. Yeah. I’m sorry. I think for me, it’s a hard no. Just- Yeah. Yeah. Right? I mean, I- I don’t think they even understand what this means. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I mean-

2:50:05 Tell me if we’re- … they can use it without– They can send the same message without using this version. We could be standing in the way of this. I don’t know. No, that’s all right. I don’t mind. All right. So, I’m asking for a motion to deny the request from Tiny Foods to use an image of the Spirit of ‘76 in a digital media campaign. So moved. Second. Okay. Okay, moving along.

2:50:36 The request from Marblehead Little Theatre. Okay. So, you guys can take a look at this in your packet. Kyle, did we give any further response or communication in regards to the- Just the response of saying April 21st. So I- But we still don’t know. Okay. So one of the things that’s still a little bit- She could now the- Yeah, and waiting to hear back, I assume. Would now be in. So this is a little ambiguous because we don’t know if it is– In the letter, it said April 10th. If she, Lisa, had responded that it was April 21st- So one of the open-ended questions was, is this something that they’re looking to do, sidewalk chalk, on a public way for

2:51:22 one day, like as a promotional thing? It’s a washable- Similar that you would have for, like when you do a race, where you have race markings and stuff, and then all the race markings and everything has to be removed, by the end of the day. Or is this subject to limited one day, or is this something that they’re trying to do? Because she said- Well, she said the 21st, but then the letter said the 10th, so that’s 11 days. So I think that’s part of the conversation for clarification. I don’t have that for you, if this is limited to one day or not, and that may or may not influence your opinion. So I think that it would be if there’s a duration of time not open-ended for this, and she just responded April 21st.

2:52:07 Okay. But I don’t know if that means April 10th to the 21st or just April 21st. Okay. So we could put some language in there if that it suits the board in regards to if we want to say, if it’s a one-day allocation, if we don’t want to approve it, but if we could limit that to similar to what we would do with a race, where any markings need to be removed at the end of the event. That sort of thing, where if it’s washable chalk, but then they’re responsible for washing it away. Well, how big are these rabbit’s feet? Are they- Good question. I have no idea. It’s a six-foot-tall rabbit. Oh, okay. Based on it, so that’d be some big feet. And the rabbit comes off every four and a half feet there. Some good feet. I see. At least- So do we need to vote on it now or is it-

2:52:54 Yeah, I think so. Well. Yeah. Where is it? Marblehead Little Theatre. Okay. So the footprint’s telling me this. It said opening night’s the 10th, so when do they want to put it down? Day before? I’m going to guess that they- Couple days before? It’s probably going to need a few days, one, to put them in place, one, to grab attention. Right. Some people are like, “What’s this?” Right. And that’s their advertising. It’s chalk, it’ll- It’s chalk. Yeah, it’s chalk. That’s it. Absolutely. It’s all good. I think she’s looking at two weeks. They might have two weekends or something. The show runs for two weekends.

2:53:37 Chalk. If they’re very loud. Chalk for weeks. Good. Chair, any discussion, questions, concerns? No. Okay.

2:53:50 So I guess I’m looking for a motion to approve the request from Lisa Fenla from Marblehead Little Theatre to stencil rabbit feet in washable white chalk on the public way on Pleasant School Street and Atlantic Avenue to promote the play, “Harvey,” on April 10th, 2026. And subject to, I would say, any markings need to be removed at the end of the event. And do we want to put a closure date on it? We’ve opened it to April 10th, but we don’t have a closure date. Well, I’m not sure why it is. Yeah, I’m thinking what the director’s saying, maybe one- Two weeks? Two weeks

2:54:35 … until it’s clear. Okay. Yeah. All right. Two- For the play, “Harvey,” on April 10th for a period of two weeks, subject to limited restrictions, and the markings need to be removed at the end of the event. So moved. And no cost to the town. And no cost to the town. Thank you. So moved. Do I have a second? Second. All in favor? Opposed? No. Okay. Motion passes. Next item we have is a contract, the change order. Dr. Chair, would you like to speak to this? Yeah. So this is part of the Ann Street Park project. As you know, there was a whole bunch of granite and stuff put in. At some point in the project, some of the granite that was in the ground is in some kind of high traffic

2:55:22 area, creating a tripping hazard. So the organizers of the project insist that we need to get the curb out, so that’s a change order for $5,000 have a contractor pull. It’s not a small curb, it’s- Curb blocks, or is it one of the bigger blocks? Blocks. Yeah, I think it’s one of the larger… So it’s not like your traditional road curb, the bigger block. I think it’s circular. But anyways, they figured out that it’s a tripping hazard, and we’d like to have it removed. Okay.

2:55:55 Great.

2:56:01 We lost it. There we go. It’s at the bottom of the mouse. Got it. Okay. I’d like to ask for a motion to approve change order number 08 for contract 2024-077 between the town and Rockhill Construction, and authorize the chair to sign the contract on behalf of the board. So moved. Second. All in favor? All right. Thank you. Motion passes. Number 11, one-day liquor license. This is for the Marblehead Festival of the Arts, Port and Soul, June 27th, 2026. I am looking for a motion to approve the request for the following one-day liquor license. This is for 5:00 PM to 7:00 PM for beer and wine only, subject to the following conditions: delivery of and receipt by the licensing authority of the required fee, $50 each, delivery of and receipt by the licensing authority

2:56:49 of 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, all in accordance with the requirements of internal 138, liquor liability insurance. No alcohol is allowed to be stored on premises overnight, and alcohol will be purchased from Martignetti’s Distributors.

2:57:17 So moved. Do I have a second? Second. Second. Okay. Mr. Listen. In favor. In favor. Mr. Granillo. In favor. Ms. Mooney. In favor. Ms. Simon. In favor. Okay. Next item, we have a letter of interest in regards to the Cultural Council, if you want to take a look at that, and let me know if you have any questions. We should talk about setting a deadline for that in interviews. We have a large member capacity, so there’s multiple openings. We could look at April 3rd, interview on April 8th, or I’m open to other suggestions.

2:58:01 Sounds good. Yeah, generally. Okay. That sounds good to me. All right. So make a note of that. And we have moved on to select board announcements.

2:58:18 Nothing here?

2:58:25 No. Going to do nothing?

2:58:30 All right.

2:58:32 We’re ready to- Motion to adjourn. Motion to adjourn. Second. All right. So moved. All in favor? All right. All right.