Select Board: July 22, 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.

0:02 Call the meeting to order of July 22nd at 7:05 PM 2026. This meeting is being recorded. Apologize for keeping you guys waiting. Our executive session went a little long. Yeah. We will open up the agenda a little backwards here. We’ll do public comment second. We’re going to do number first on our agenda is to appointment of Jacinta Williams. If you want to come on up. Good evening. Thank you for waiting. Thank you. How are you? You did not- Welcome. You get to sit in here. Thank you. Yeah. So this is our new town planner. Welcome. Thank you. Heard great things about you already. I hope so. Yeah. So if you just– I don’t know if you just want to tell us a little bit about your background- Sure … and, and how you ended up here in our lovely town. Yeah. So hi, everyone. I am your new town planner. My name is Jacinta Williams. I previously studied planning and at UCLA as a Mellon Foundation scholar. Oh, should I talk into the mic? No. No. You can– They said that you’re- Right here … mic advance- Oh. Yeah. I’m so sorry. Yeah. I’m so sorry, guys. You don’t, you don’t have to start over. You have to do a public presentation. Yeah. Okay. It’s okay. Um, and yeah, I’ve been practicing planning in Western Mass since 2021, so just really excited to be here, and thank you for having me. Great. Delighted to have you. Thank you. Yeah, absolutely. All right. We made you, uh, wait for this, but if I could have a motion to approve Jacinta Williams, town planner, with a term to expire in June 2027.

1:36 So moved. Second. All in favor? Welcome. Thank you. Thank you. All right.

1:46 All right. Next, we will open up public comment. If you want to speak, you can stand on up. Al Rich joining Oakdale Avenue. The CFO is leaving. Very disappointed. Um, I hope in the next contract, if we give anyone else more contracts, um, that we have more than a 30-day clause because we just had this override. We gave a lot of money. I, I don’t know if we’re going to find someone of the caliber that we had, um, you know, in a short period of time. I, I really think there needs to be a clause in these contracts that people make a commitment. And I do understand, too, the contract expired, and I don’t know how the contract expired without having it refilled before it expired, so we would’ve had some warning this was coming. Um, I, I really think, you know, w-we need to change that. It has to be more than 30 days, um, we’re, we’re paying elected department heads, elected, like, staff a year’s salary. They have that in the contract if they’re not going to renew and stuff. I, I think these– a lot of these jobs are paying quite a bit of money, and, uh, we need to have really, really qualified people. Again, you’re not just going to put someone over there overnight. Takes several years just to learn what goes on in Marblehead. So I really hope that we extend it to more than 30 days notice in the future. Thank you. Thank you. We will be discussing the CFO search. Motion. On number 11.

3:19 Bonnie Carey, Shuttle Street. Last meeting, Moses, it sounded like you wanted to just sell the coffin school and just get rid of it. That’s what it seemed like to me wh-the way you were talking, and I don’t think that’s right because I think the older people that live here should be the first in there because they paid for the new school. They paid for everything for years and years. So I don’t think– That’s what I thought when we were talking, just get rid of the coffin school and just take the money. That’s what I took out from when we were talking yester– last week or- Just a point of clarification. That’s not really– that was not my case. The case was is that there could be a portion of that land that could be reserved for public use. That’s the only thing that I was really talking about. Right? It sounded like you wanted to sell the land, all the land, not even the public part or the top part. Yeah. It’s all- That’s what it seemed like to me. I thought– No, I think I, I mentioned, uh, I was responding directly to Aaron’s point that we wanted to really keep the affordability component, right? Of, of the– whatever we choose. However we– If we choose the parcel of land between a public use and a pr- and a development use, I emphasize that I thought the development should be for local housing. But, like, if you put 40 apartments there, that’s going to increase the traffic, and a lot of people don’t stop at that four-way sh- um- So I suggest we go to- To merit, so I, I think that- Yeah, but I just- Clarify. I, I just, I just clarified that that-

4:49 Yeah … that was not what I was saying. Yeah. I was actually saying probably the opposite. Yeah. Thank you. Thank you. Anybody else want to make comment? Uh, is there anyone online, Kyle? Hands up, I think. I don’t see any hands up. Okay. All right. We are going to move on to town administrator update. Patrick? Thank you, Mr. Chair. Um, I had in the packet, uh, my, my written updates with photos this time. So majority. Um, what I want to hit upon is some of the, um, capital improvements we’re making in our facilities, and I think we’ve– I think have a number of really good success stories of, of picking away, uh, at our facilities. For one, it’s amazing, I forget the number, how many facilities we have, like 20-some odd facilities that are owned by the town of Marblehead. Um, there are a lot, and, and to maintain them. So one, Mary Alley Building, the, the, the big takeaway there is, uh, as we’re doing the major HVAC and, and other related renovations to Mary Alley, um, we’re working with the contractor to, uh, get a very specific Um, construction schedule. The reason for that is the building’s going to be done in phases. We’re going to continue operations in the building. So we’re going to try to set it up so that the contractor has the most efficient access to the building to

6:21 work through quickly while we’re also having our ongoing operations in other parts of the buildings. It’s going to start with the lower-level wing, as we’ve talked about before. Right now, the expectation is for it to start in either late August or early September is when construction will start. But in the meantime, we’re doing things like we’ve cleaned out more storage spaces of documents that the town has maintained. So we moved those down to the Everus School. We’ve got some secured, uh, rooms down there as a, I call it, a medium-term solution to storage of our documents. It’s not there forever because someday something will happen to that building. But, for the foreseeable future. As well as our building inspections department has started the process to digitize all of their records, all the property records, all the permanent records that we have. One, when that project is done, having that information digitized will make it more accessible for people who need access to it- Mm-hmm … the public and planners and attorneys that are doing projects as well as our own staff, as well as it’ll create more space utilization in the building. So that’s Marianne. The Pickett House.

7:51 Basically, we’ve completed all of the projects, engage in order to redo the exterior, all the fascia, the soffits, the corner boards, the window trims. All new windows and we’re using sort of modern materials, but maintaining the historic look of the building, complete painting of that building. So we’re looking at the Pickett House as far as the– that building is sort of completing all the tasks that we need to preserve that building and make it presentable. So, kudos to Steve Cummings and his folks that have been involved. Chief Gillan plays a big role in these efforts too. Franklin Street Fire Station, same thing. We’ve completed all of the windows, the exterior, the repainting. They removed all the old cedar off of it and gone with its vinyl, but it looks like the original clapboards of the buildings with the colors and such, as well as spray foaming all up in the attic. It has a hayloft in the upper floors with direct access all the way down to the lower floors.

9:24 Okay? And that’s how- Pretty cool … this building is. There was a fire station with horses . That’s how they fed. So all of that was insulated, right? The- Mm … all the heat escaping. So all that’s been done, as well as the hot water system, the heating system. And I even included a little picture of the plumbing work that was done. That work was done in-house by our own teams, and they did an outstanding job and saved a boatload of money by having done that project in-house with our staff. Right. Again, kudos to that. So Franklin Street Fire Station, there’s still some interior things to be done. That’s building yet to show it up. Next, Department of Public Works facility. If you’re not familiar with the sort of the working part of the building, it has an upper level they go in, and that’s where they do the maintenance. And then if you go around the other side, they have the lower level in which you go in. So you have two levels, one sitting on top of the other. The flooring on that upper level, especially where the doorways are, cement floor is all degraded, falling apart. The concern was that floor was going to join the bottom floor. We didn’t address it. It’s been an open project for, I’ll just say, far too many years. There was some architecture engineers that looked at the project, had come up with how

10:57 we need to do it. The problem is the floor holds up the walls. To repair the floors, the walls are going to collapse. It was going to be a big ticket item. Steve Cummings walks in there, says, “I got a better plan.” And so what they’re doing right now, and he had an engineer review and sign off on his plan, so it meets all the requirements, is that five or eight feet from the back wall on the lower level, building cement wall, cement wall, backfilling with fill, and then that will support the whole floor way and allow the degraded parts to be dug up, stone put underneath, new cement put in. Solution solved, work done primarily in-house, saving us probably $800,000 in saving by making it done so. Once again- Revolutionary … our own staff- Revolutionary … helping with the projects. Mm-hmm. So those are the highlights of the building projects. Last update, Crocker Park dock update We’re in the middle of summer, a lot of interest. So going to the harbormaster, so we had the dock pulled out of the water. The dock is damaged beyond repair. We’re not going to be able to use it. We’re not going to be able to build a new dock in time because it’s the harbormaster’s crew that do all that work off-season.

12:28 They’re busy on the water. So the harbormaster is now reaching out to other harbors, other communities, and marinas, looking for a temporary dock that we can secure, bring in, put it in for the remainder of this boat season, and then address constructing, building, whatever they need to do in the off-season when they do the repairs. Now sort of separately but related, we are out to bid for the marina services to have a contract for the installing and removing of all the docks and such at each end of the season. So, we are bidding those services out. We needed to renew those agreements. So those are out to bid. That’s really not going to change the status of the dock. That’s a isolated project right now. Like I said, we’re looking for a temporary or a borrowed dock to put in there, get us through the season, and then their normal winter construction work will solve that dock permanently. Patrick, do you know if the fee changes reflected the prospect of bringing on a marina services company that is an additional cost associated with the marina service? Well, the bids are open till August 13th. Yeah. So we’ll know then. Right.

13:59 I think what will happen is, it’s been an ongoing service. Okay. So based on the bids, there may be some cost increase from what they’ve been paying in the past. Okay. I don’t think it’ll be– It’s not something new- Mm-hmm … as far as cost. It’s just maybe some inflation costs- Okay … compared to past years. Yeah. Other questions? Thank you. Appreciate that. Next off, if I could have Joan Schaffnacker. Schaffnacker. Schaffnacker, sorry. If you’ve come to some of these meetings, you don’t even have to have a complicated name for me to mispronounce it. You will see that this is- Nothing … why don’t you come on up here? Oh. You are here for a lot. This is a great story. Have a seat. Mm-hmm. So this has to do with our sister city, Grasse, France. Why don’t you tell us? This is a great story, and I know you’re pleased- It’s fun … to come in and present it. Fun. I think it’s a great story. Okay. Go ahead. Thanks for coming. So here I was at Mattie’s Sail Loft. And the bartender was a little overwhelmed because they do the tables and the bar, and she’s from Roxbury. And these gentlemen were asking her where the mayor of Marblehead was. And it’s a Saturday. She was like, “Can you just take care of this?”

15:30 So I went and chatted with these two lovely men with their two young adults, and they said, “We are from Grasse, from France, your sister city, and we’re here to deliver a letter and a gift to you. And we’re off to Portland, so we can’t be here when you all are here.” So they trusted me to give it to the town of Marblehead, and it’s lovely. The letter that they wrote, I won’t read the whole thing because that’s incredibly long standing, as they said. “A long-standing relationship between Grasse and Marblehead reflects a shared value of openness, dialogue, and mutual understanding. I see this symbolic milestone as an opportunity to give new momentum to our cooperation.” Love that line. So they go on with their people and all of you. They gave me the email of all of everybody they thought was important, being all of you. And they said, “I am convinced that there are many opportunities for collaboration between our two cities,

17:04 particularly in the fields of culture, heritage, tourism, as well as through exchanges between our communities.” Love that. And if you don’t know, Grasse is the capital of perfume, literally in the world. So they have given you… Thank you. I accept this bag from Mattie’s. All the way from France. Well, I have to tell you that I had to take it out of my car because I thought it was going to melt.

17:44 That’s very- That’s very- Yes. Thank you … beautiful. Do you want to- If anybody else wants to smell it. Anybody want to smell that? What about it? I am telling you, it is- … really, really- I think you won’t. No. The tradition is the five of you have to wear it. Yes. Absolutely. No, it’s a decant. Well, it- Decant … it’s a candle … of perfume. No, but they are the capital. She’s already- She put it in a Ziploc- You guys want a gift? -for him not to smell it. Okay. That- yes, you can smell it after the meeting? Okay. All right. Great. It is available. Okay. So that’s it. Okay. So thank you for being our representative. I’m now the mayor of Thras. Congratulations. Thank you. Thank you. We appreciate you coming and doing that and coming down here. I didn’t even have to vote for me. I just got- Perfect. Thank you … a maddy. Goodbye. Thank– I will- A maddy … thank you very much, and we will- And we will send that along. And we– So I think that we need a– Uh, did we used to have a liaison, correct? I think so. I think I’m it. Yeah, we did. We did. So, I mean, it seems like you might be the perfect person. We’ll probably have to work through their official, but it feels like you are the, uh, the ad hoc- Well, I- … uh … and so here’s my final request. So I think in order to reciprocate- Sure. We should send you there. Mm-hmm. Yeah, you can have it. So we’ll have to check our budget from last year- Okay … and see if town meeting will approve that. But we will definitely put that through. What I’d like to do- Yes … what I’d like to do is make a motion to,

19:17 uh, reciprocate and, uh, draft and send a letter of appreciation and thanks to them for their well wishes. And what are we going to send them? Well, we’ve got stuff in Marblehead. A lot. We’ve got bling in Marblehead that’s pretty- Okay … pretty good. Yeah. Really? Like-‘cause I was considering- And maybe even come up with some ideas … about the bling that we were going to send back. Great. So we have a motion. Do I have a second? Second. Don’t think so. All right. Thank you. Thank you so much. That’s it. We appreciate your bling. Yep. Do you speak French? I do not. Okay. Okay. But they still- Get the man for you to do- They still speak bling … write the letter. Perfect. JJ. Thank you. But anyway, can I entertain that motion? Yep. Do we have a second here? All in favor? All right. Thank you very much. Definitely a highlight of our meeting. Yep. I appreciate that. Thank you very much. Yeah. Thank you. All right. So next let’s go to… Sorry, Molly, this is a tough one to beat. Yeah. Uh, we’re going to go finance committee. Molly Teets is going to present on the senior tax exemption. Thank you, Molly. Do you have a gift for us? I don’t. You don’t? Oh. This should be a new tradition. Good evening. So, um, do you want to put up the slide? Are they- Sure. Or… Thank you. And then I think you guys all got them. Yeah, before you start, I just want to thank you for all your hard work on this. I don’t think people know how much time. I’ve seen your notes. I’ve seen spreadsheets, and I love spreadsheets. You have a lot of spreadsheets. Um, looking at this and really diving in deep, I mean, you basically wrote this whole law. Which, so, so kudos to you.

20:47 And I know that Marblehead was one. We did a, a pretty unique one that was means tested, and we didn’t just follow other people. We made… You did a great job of making sure that when people do receive their exemption, that it doesn’t take away money from the state, so that they’re maximizing state and local. And, and you made more phone calls to different people around the state. So, thank you. I know we spent a lot of time on it, but like, it– you drove this, so thank you for doing that. No, I mean, in reality- Thank you … we all, we all supported you, but you did a great job, so thank you. It was a– No, thank you. And with that, let’s, let’s see it. So, um, I thought, I know some of you know this very well, but it might be new to others, so that it would make sense to do a brief overview. I’ll try to keep it brief. It is kind of a lot, though. But, um, I’ll try to keep it brief and then maybe ask if you could save your questions for the end. Sure. Um, so… And I want to also spend some time on what your role will be in this every year. So the Marblehead means-tested senior citizen property tax exemption is a mouthful, and it was built just for Marblehead. It is designed to step in, as what Dan said, when state-funded tax relief is not enough to protect our seniors from rising property taxes. Um, the program will be managed by the assessor’s office, and Todd Laramie, our assessor, unfortunately could not be here tonight, but he and his team, Lee and Victoria, have already made a lot of progress in rolling the program out. And I also just have to say that when

22:20 we originally brought this idea to him, it’s almost three years ago, he and his team were so supportive, so helpful, so enthusiastic, even knowing how much additional work this was going to be for his office. So I just wanted to bring that to everyone’s attention, how lucky we are to have him in our town. Um, the program will be rolled out for fiscal year ‘27, and it’s already included in the fiscal ‘27 budget in the tax overlay, which is the same account that funds tax abatements. Um, the next slide, Kyle. Um, I want to spend a, just a minute on how the program was built. As Dan alluded to, it is grounded in extensive research. I benchmarked 20 other communities that have similar programs and spoke to assessors in seven of those communities, and then we tailored our program based on their feedback and lessons learned. And it has been fully vetted. So it was reviewed by the House, the Senate, and the Department of Revenue, and ultimately, it was approved without a single change and signed into law by Governor Healey in April of this year. The next slide, please, Kyle. Okay. Um, on this side, so I wanted to touch on what the goal of this exemption is and sort of how it relates to other forms of tax relief that’s already available for our seniors. So the biggest, most broad state-funded tax relief available to seniors is the Senior Circuit Breaker

23:53 Income Tax Credit. This is a fantastic program, and really, it’s the first line of support for seniors. It is an income tax credit up to $2,820 intended to bring eligible seniors’ income Or I’m sorry, to bring their taxes, their property taxes, plus 50% of their water and sewer bills to no more than 10% of their income. Marblehead’s exemption kicks in only when that target is not met. So again, Marblehead’s exemption, it’s very targeted. It’s really meant to help the seniors who need it the most. When the circuit breaker, which is that first line, when it doesn’t cover it, that’s when the Marblehead exemption kicks in. Next slide, please, Kyle. Thanks. So it was designed as much as possible to be tailored to our town’s unique needs and demographics. Certain adjustments can be made each year based on what we learn, and we will be learning a lot in the first year. So when I spoke with assessors, almost across the board, they all said how difficult it is to know how many people will apply and be eligible. And so because of this, we set two limits that are controlled by the select board. So that is the total cap of the amount of the

25:26 full program, and also the maximum exemption per participant. So based on my research of comparable towns, we estimate that roughly 100 Marblehead residents or seniors who apply will be eligible. This is my best guess based on the best data that I could find. The actual number of participants will depend on a lot of other factors. A big piece of it will be how many apply. So we’ve already started an effort to try to get information on this new program out to the public. Todd and I already participated in an information session hosted by the COA in May, and we are planning to do, in the next couple of months, other information sessions or maybe more workshop type structure in collaboration with the COA. The select board will also be setting guidance on asset limits and income limits each year, and I’ll talk about those in a future slide in more depth. Next slide, please, Kyle. So there are six eligibility requirements to be a participant in this program, and applicants need to meet all six of those requirements. Applicants must be at least 65. If their home is co-owned, the co-owner must be at least 60. Applicants must have owned a home in Marblehead as their primary residence for at least 10 years. So this is aimed at long-time residents.

27:00 Their assessed home value must be at or below Marblehead’s average assessed home value, which is around $1.3 million. This figure will be adjusted annually. Income and assets, again, the select board will be setting guidance on those two criteria, which I will again cover in a future slide. And finally, applicants must apply for the state senior circuit breaker income tax credit if they are eligible. So again, these two programs are designed to work together. Next slide, please, Kyle. So I wanted to give you in this slide an example of how the exemption is calculated so you can see how it works. So again, the goal of this formula is to bring an eligible senior’s property taxes plus half of their annual water and sewer bill down to 10% of their total income after all other forms of tax relief have been applied. So again, we’re trying to catch those people who live in a situation where the state tax relief is not enough. In this example, the homeowner pays annual property taxes of $8,500. And we add to that half of their water and sewer bill, $1,200. And then subtract 10% of their total income, which is $6,000 in this example. And then we subtract out the state relief they’ve received already, which in this case is $2,820, the maximum on the circuit breaker.

28:31 And what’s left, $880 in this example, is the Marblehead property tax exemption. So that is the gap that the town is stepping in to fill. So Molly, just to clarify. Yeah. I know you said no questions but- I said no questions, but it’s okay. You’re the chair … just to make sure I’m clear. Amen. So in this example, the person made $60,000. Yes. Correct? Their total tax is, it was about $9,700, and they received about $3,600, a little over $3,600 total between the two. Yeah. So they received close to 30, 40% of the total taxes. Yeah. Okay. Good math. So on the next slide, please, Kyle. So, this is just a timeline on how this will roll out for fiscal ‘27. So the application window will be in November, and the due date November 30th. Applicants will be notified in the spring, and their fourth quarter property tax bills will be reduced by their exemption amount. Next slide, please, Kyle. So tonight’s business is to set the four criteria that I previously mentioned. The maximum exemption per participant of $2,000 and the total program cap of $200,000 were both presented at the 2025 town meeting as part of Article 28, which established the home rule petition that eventually became the legislation that made this law. So $200,000 is also what is included in the tax

30:04 overlay for fiscal ‘27. These numbers are based on the estimate that we will have around 100 eligible applicants. If we have fewer and/or the exemption amounts are lower, and we don’t use the full 200,000, then the unused portion will just stay in the overlay account as a surplus and eventually become free cash. If we end up having more than 100 participants and awarded exemptions exceed $200,000, then all the exemptions will be reduced pro rata to meet that $200,000 limit, and that is laid out in the legislation. And also in that scenario, we’ve learned something really valuable, and now in fiscal ‘28, we can change those metrics to better reflect what the actual needs in our town are. Number three, the third criteria, which is the excessive assets. This one, it’s not tricky, but I’ll read you the exact wording in the legislation, is that applicants should not have excessive assets that fall outside the intended recipients of this exemption. So this language is very broad by design. There is a range in terms of how towns approach assets and excessive assets. Some have no limits at all. Others set very specific dollar amount limits.

31:37 From my discussions with assessors, setting specific dollar amount limits has some drawbacks. The first is that it increases the workload and the amount of time for both applicants to have to put together and compile all the documents, and also the assessors who will be reviewing all the documents. And then the other complication that I heard a couple of times is that more recent retirees may have more assets because they have not been spending them down over a longer period of time than perhaps older applicants. And so for those reasons, in the first year, I recommend that we only set an asset limit requirement being not owning a second home. This is what most of the other towns that have an asset limit, this is what they have. We had initial discussions, that seems reasonable. So that’s my recommendation. But again, this is up to you to set that guideline. And again, this is something that can be changed every year. So it is something that, as we learn, this can be adjusted. And then finally, number four is the income limits. So I recommend that in the first year, we keep this in line with the income limits for the senior circuit breaker, the state program. Again, this is what most towns with these programs set

33:10 it at, and this is another area that we can adjust in the future based on what we learn. And it’s something that, again, we can tailor to our town, but to start, I think I would recommend setting it in line with the senior circuit breaker. So, the last point, just that kind of moving forward, I recommend that you have this annual meeting to set these four criteria in the spring. We’re a little bit late this year because, to be fair, this only became law in late April and we’ve been busy getting it ready. But I think even in the early spring, it would make sense to have the assessors come, they can present to you what actually happened, what the numbers were, what their recommendations are based on what they’ve learned. And it also would be helpful because then we can set the overlay amount for the fiscal 28 budget. So, that’s all that I have for you. I got two questions. So people give a bunch of data to the circuit breaker. Would we be able to tie into that data at all? So that will be one of the… I only have this one copy. But for our application, we’ll have at the front, these are the requirements. And then below we have what is the documentation that is needed. And so they will need to submit their income taxes and the circuit breaker, which is an appendix.

34:40 So the income tax will be based on the 1040? Based on what they submit to the state, the full package. So some will be a 1040. And again, I should say upfront, I’m not a tax person, and so I should not be advising on this. No, it’s not as much taxes, but I’m just thinking of the asset portion of things. Oh. So I could have a lot of people in retirement will have a low income, if it’s just, say, social security with no pension. But if you have significant assets, that might show up on your 1040 if you have millions of dollars in cash sitting, say, again, in interest or securities, et cetera. So in that case, if that is your concern, then that would be a reason to try to set asset limits as part of the requirements. But again, we’re not going to be asking our assessors to look through, unless the select board were to give specific asset limits. Yeah. That will not be part of their approval process. Because they are looking at income that was reported to the state on their income tax return. Okay. That’s good. And that’s it. And that definition of total income that’s been calculated. That’s good. And so they’d have to apply and show us that they’ve applied for the state circuit breaker first, right? Yes. Okay, good. If, for whatever reason, they might have missed that, first of all,

36:12 that would be a huge win because we just introduced to them a fabulous- Tax exemption, or I’m sorry, tax credit that might be available to them, which is a huge win. You can file an amendment or to your tax return, so they’ll have time, if they are learning about this program, to file that amendment and then still potentially be able to participate in our program. You have up to three years.

36:42 Any other questions? Comments? Could you explain the math in a way that would allow people to understand clearly how that is set? On the one hand, it sounds like you’re paying a tax exemption beyond 10% of income, but that’s not exactly the way it’s calculated. So in this formula, perhaps you could just restate how the math is done, if you don’t mind. So we’re taking their property taxes and their- And 50% … 50% of the water and sewer bill, right? And we don’t want those two numbers when added together to equal more- Than 10% … than 10% of their income. Got it. Okay. Yeah. So you’re right, the math on there is a little different, but- It’s a little– Okay. Yeah So that makes sense. Totally. So there can be an instance in which the circuit breaker credit, the max circuit breaker credit, is above the 10% of income number, in theory. Yes. Okay. So in which case- Or no. Actually, not even in theory, because then they wouldn’t have received the max credit, right? Okay. Because the state would have achieved that 10% hurdle first. Yes, got it. Right. So. Got it. Okay. Molly, if I understand it- That’s fine … then what you’re giving them will not disqualify them for receiving that max amount the next year from the state.

38:12 Right. So in other words, we’re not giving them more. That hurts them the further year- Right … resulting in us having to pay more. Yeah. So they still get the same amount of money, but more is coming from the state. Yes. Does that make sense? Yeah, we don’t have the same resources, obviously, as the state, so we want them to maximize that benefit first, and then to step in after that. So Molly, tonight you want us to consider your recommendation on the parameters? Yes, and to set those so that we can move forward with the rollout of the program. And so again, we want to be able to clearly communicate what the exact eligibility requirements are, and we can’t do that until it’s been set by the select board. I feel like we already know. We have in the budget the $200,000. The overlay was increased by $200,000 as approved by town meeting. Yes. And based on your projection that you think it’ll be, I think I saw your number was like a 98, about 100. Yeah. And then two, so that 2,000 clearly makes sense, and it’s something we’ll find out this first year. And everything else seems pretty straightforward following the state’s guidelines to me. Yeah. I mean, I’m comfortable. Again, we’ll learn from the first year. Yes. I’ll say that. Yeah, great program. Great- Yeah. Great presentation. Thank you. So I think we’ve got three different things that we have to vote on. For one, if I could have a motion to move to establish the maximum annual means-tested senior property tax exemption at

39:45 2,000 per qualifying participant. So moved. Second. All in favor? If I could have a motion to move to establish an annual program funding cap of $200,000 for the means-tested senior property tax exemption program. Don’t it’s mouthful . It is a mouthful. Second. Favor? Third motion. To adopt the following eligibility guidelines for the means-tested senior property tax exemption program. One, applicants shall not own a second home. Two, applicants should meet the annual income eligibility requirements established by the Commonwealth Senior Circuit Breaker tax credit as follows: $75,000 for a single individual who’s not the head of household, $94,000 for head of household, and 112,000 for married couples filing a joint return. So moved. Second. All in favor? All right, good job, Molly. Thank you. Thank you. That’s exciting. Awesome. And thank you. I know you have some helpers who are helping you get the word out there, so please thank them for us. And congratulations on becoming the chair of the finance committee. Yeah. Lucky you. All right, moving on. Online, we were talking a couple weeks ago, we talked about Flash Vote. We do have that presentation. Oh. We had some questions about it, and so we have online, I think we have Jeff Cerini from Flash Vote. And Kevin. And Kevin.

41:17 Just coming into the- Okay. This is something that we have a one-year subscription for that renews year after year. Yeah. For times. Perfect. Thank you. Good conference. Good morning, or good morning. Good afternoon, select board. Long day, sorry. Morning for me. Can you hear me? Oh, it’s morning. We can hear you. Can you hear us? Yeah, I know. Yeah. I actually just came from another town meeting, so back to back for me. Oh. My personal town meeting, so. Perfect. Thanks for- Well, thank you for coming this evening. We appreciate you showing up. And do you want to give us a quick overview? I know that Aaron and myself, you spent some time talking to us at one point about it, and I think it’d be great for the rest of the board to hear about it and the town. Yeah, great. Thank you. So my name’s Jeff Cerini. I’m with Flash Vote. We conduct scientific surveying so you all can get a better sense of actually what the community thinks, to help with your decision-making and sentiment analysis. I brought in our co-founder and- … CEO Kevin to help also walk through what we do. So I’ll pass it over to Kevin. Great. Yeah. Thanks everyone. Excited to be working with you. And here, as you said, mostly to answer questions. Don’t have any gifts, unfortunately, to give you from online.

42:47 But, yeah, excited about the opportunity to help you figure out three big buckets. You can improve services with better data on what the community wants, needs, thinks, prefers, update plans, and also address hot topics, whether it’s housing. In the last week, we’ve done data centers, e-bikes, golf carts on roads, all kinds of things around the country. We do work in about 35 something states and provinces, couple in Canada now, and excited to work with you. One of our first customers was actually a town just slightly older than you, Sudbury, Massachusetts, but with some similar demographics. So, a lot of great examples I can show you as well. Any questions out of the gate, by the way? Happy to jump in with that, and I can give you a little overview of the why of FlashVote if you want. Let’s jump into the why. All right. Let’s jump into the why. We’ve got a little interactive quiz here for you. Hopefully it’s fun. Let me grab the screen, and I think I’ve got it.

44:07 All right. When you confirm you have a screen. There it is. There it is. All right, cool. So the basic idea behind FlashVote is this challenge with public input in general and some of the challenges that that creates for trust when potentially you’re hearing something about what the community wants or needs, but it’s not representative. So, how often do you think– Feel free to just throw out a guess. This is the fun part. How often do you think public input sentiment, like what you hear at meetings, online chat, social media, online surveys, if you’ve done those in the past, is a good match for what the whole community thinks? Anyone want to throw out a guess? I’ll say- You want to put what percentage? Is that what you’re asking? Yeah. What percentage, high, low, whatever your reaction is. 12. 12%. All right. Solid. On the lower side. Yeah, on the skeptical lower side, too. Lower side. Very good. Well, yeah, you guys are good. That’s basically when we looked at our first 300, then 400, then 500 surveys, we just passed 1,000 a couple of weeks ago, we saw that about 5% of the time you had a match. That means the same side and the same amount.

45:37 So that’s hard to do, but that gives you an idea. Then when you look at an exaggeration, so still the same side, but maybe a 5% group feels like a 30% group. That’s another 25% of the time of those surveys that we had a match, and then that leaves 70% of the time, so you were both right, that the public input sentiment actually is the opposite of what the public as a whole sentiment is. And that’s for reasons that I can jump into. Just to keep it quick, I’m going to skip a case study we did with Harvard. You’ve heard of them, they’re accredited, they do good work. I’ll give you the summary. Traditional methods of community input are biased. Thanks to the grad students. It was a great little study with Bill Rica. So if you think of the community overall and all ages, all stages of life, retired, busy, kids, no kids, and so on. If you think about who you’re going to usually hear from on an issue,

46:53 that’s who you’re usually going to hear from. They’re more motivated. Right? Turns out this is about three times as many people as this end usually. Unfortunately, also. Like Jeff, I’ve also been a public official for about 12 years, get yelled at once a month. It’s fun. But the problem when you get this is because we’re human and we care about other people, and we’re also wired to pay really good attention from having evolved in tribes, honestly. This little group of people can feel like this. It feels like that’s your universe, and so you extrapolate it to the whole community, even though it can also just be this. You just heard from the only small group of people who don’t like something, but they’re well-organized. And this is a challenge all governments all across the country, and so especially because of this emotional reaction that we tend to have, it’s really hard to overcome that. And so you need to hear from the many instead of just this end. You need to sample from regular people, busy people, as much as possible. And that’s what FlashVote was designed to solve. And in a nutshell, what you guys now have and what was being set up is a tool that’s able to get statistically valid community input in 48 hours. So once it’s set up, we can do surveys very quickly. You can set them up months ahead of time if you want, but also when an issue comes

48:26 up, we can act on that and get some data … when you need it. And when I say scientific surveys, so there’s your traditional random phone calls that a lot of us are familiar with, used to be able to get a 60 to 70% response rate on that. Today, that’s like 1%. So we actually pioneered the idea of a local survey panel. People didn’t think you could do this below a few hundred thousand people. That was a year before Pew Research, one of the national firms, created their first national survey panel. So we were ahead of the curve on this, and within four years they were using their panel for most data, and you’ll see if you look at any national survey firm now, they’re using panels. So they have people, get regular people first before you do a survey instead of calling them and hoping they respond at a high rate, because they don’t. And now today, as I mentioned, we’ve got these panels in all over North America right now. So what happens is right now where we are is giving you some content to push out, neutral messaging. Do you have a minute a month to help make Marblehead better? We’re going to also send some SMS messaging. You can do print, you can do anything that you want to do. Any channel that you have, we can give you the messaging to push out there that’s going to be neutral, left brain, right brain, and so on. And you have a signup page it would direct people to in those messages. We capture demographics, we capture an address from like 90% of people,

49:56 geocode it, and once that’s all in place, we are there as the professional survey consultant to make sure you have really good questions. Because if you have a perfect sample and bad questions, you’re not going to get the data out of people’s heads. It’s really critical we target what’s in their heads and make sure that what comes out is going to be the most valuable information for whatever topic or decision or service is on the table. I had to look up xeriscaping after I first heard it, but yeah, sometimes you see surveys with words people don’t understand or without trade-offs. Do you want this cool thing? Duh, yeah. Do you want to pay more taxes? No, right? Because you’ve got to combine them. A lot of that goes into our quality control. And the other thing is we’ve made it inclusive so people can participate by email. Most people do. We also have text-only users or phone call users as well. So in a nutshell, you’ve got a tool now where we can, once the panel’s set up, you can go to a request, do a scientific survey in one to two weeks to have results. We work with you on the design, drafting, editing, quality control, everything, and just 48 hours after that launch, you have the full interactive results page, and we share it with the residents, which they love you for more than anything else that we do, honestly. It was the number one thing in figuring out how to get them to take surveys. And of course, to set you up for success, actionable and defensible data for decisions. This is an example of-

51:28 Yeah, so- Yes, go ahead. Great. Oh, I was going to say, yeah, so the phase that we’re in right now is building your panel. So Erin and the team, we’ve equipped her with some of that content and some of that language. So I believe if you go on the website today, there might be a banner asking for people to sign up. So we’re asking the community to sign up to provide feedback, to take surveys, as Kevin mentioned, without that topic. They don’t know if it’s going to be about short-term rentals or the budget. So that’s the key there. That’s our special sauce, is we’re getting people who are civic-mindedly enough, just how people sign up for emergency alerts or email notifications, they’re signing up with Flashvote to provide feedback. And we do all the heavy lifting on the drafting of the surveys, and then our technology launches it to that group, and then we see quite a high participation rate because these are people who signed up to provide feedback. So when you send them a survey, they’re delighted, and the survey’s well thought out. We don’t have to capture any of the demographic information because they’ve already entered that when creating their account. And then as Kevin just mentioned, when the survey closes within 48 hours, and we only need to keep it open for 48 hours, right? Because we have that group already established. We don’t need to promote our survey. We already promoted the panel. We did that one-time lift, and the panel’s also open to enrollment, so people can opt in at any point, and also if they were

52:59 to move away, can opt out. And then when that survey closes, everybody’s looking at the same data on an interactive survey results page. So it’s a really kind of great way to close the loop. Transparency, as Kevin mentioned, this word trust, right? I mean, it’s powerful when we’re asking the community for feedback in a constructive way and then sharing those results back with them. Sorry, Kevin, I just wanted to highlight that. Yeah, no problem. And at the end of the day, it’s all about making good decisions, better decisions, the best you can. That was it, yeah. So I was just going to jump into some Q&A and can show you examples, but I mentioned these earlier. These are just some categories that are popular. Having done 1,000 of these now, it’s getting harder and harder to find something we haven’t done, but they’re still coming up. So, these are our most popular ones, communications, community priorities, parks and rec, and of course, whatever hot topics you have. Jeff’s email is here, jeff@flashvote.com. Can always reach out to him. He leads our customer support, and I’m here too. So questions, kevin@flashvote. Yes, I actually have one. Terrific. So how do you determine the necessary sample size that will make the data representative for what we’re asking and to be significant? Awesome, yeah. So,

54:29 data nerd, you got my heart here. So that’s one of the most Counterintuitive things, because it seems like it should be impossible that even 100 people can give you a good sense of what the whole community thinks. And it turns out that if you have 96 people in a scientific sample, a sample without the correlation to the topic, that’s a plus or minus 10% estimate of what the whole population percentage is. And you’ve probably heard 400 is kind of a gold standard. That’s the plus or minus 5%. It’s actually 384 people, and that’s at what you would call a 95% confidence interval, which basically just means 19 out of 20 times you do that sample, you will be within that estimate of the plus or minus five or plus or minus 10. So at a community your size, this is the crazy part, the size doesn’t actually matter unless you get to be really small, like under a few thousand people. At your population size, think of it as 100 people is plus or minus 10, 200 people is plus or minus seven, 250 is plus or minus six, 400 is plus or minus five. And so as a rule of thumb, if we can get the panel double that, then if 50% of people respond, you’ll have roughly that kind of margin of error on the estimates. So is there anything that you’re doing behind the scenes

55:59 to, I don’t want to say validate that it’s representative, because I get it, it’s not necessarily just the number. Yeah. But to know that it’s really a cross-section of the community and not just maybe one part or one specific- Yeah … concentrated opinion. Yeah. So that’s a great question. So that’s essentially step two is– Step one is getting enough people, and then step two, we have the demographics, so we can see men versus women. From the open invitations, typically more women will participate than men, but we have them as separate samples. Similarly with age groups, you’ll see more older than younger, especially in an older community. You’ll also see differences by part of town, potentially, as you mentioned, right? So maybe you want to make sure that 90% of the people are from this one precinct. So we actually have that data as built-in filters in a survey. We do have weighting and re-averaging to get to your initial instinct, but that’s more of a political polling technique where you’re trying to fudge factor your way to one number. For decision support and for local government, you want to know, “Hey, are we serving our community equitably? Do men and women both like our parks? Are all parts of town happy with the trash service?” Right? So that’s where we give you those sub-samples to look at directly, actually, as well. Does that make sense? Kind of a- Yeah. No. Yeah. Yeah.

57:29 I always question surveys in terms of- Yeah … how they’re really representing. Well, yeah. So, that is the challenge. If you think of a SurveyMonkey, for example, you’re basically taking a link, putting it out in the wild, and people who are following the issue are going to find it. They’re going to take it at a higher rate, and then this is the killer one. Well, they might take it multiple times, but that’s pretty small compared to sharing it with their friends on one side of an issue. They told two friends and so on, and that’s how you can very quickly get a very skewed sample. And most cities, towns, they still do that, and they use that data as if that’s a representation of the community as opposed to a representation of whoever happened to be interested and find that survey topic. So that’s exactly the right skepticism you should have in general towards things that call themselves surveys when in a way they’re really just more like online petitions. And one more note is in our panel building process, when we conduct our SMS, our text messaging campaign, at the end, we do look at the demographics, male versus female, age, part of town as well, and then we will over-target to help rebalance the panel to the census data. So that also occurs before your first survey as well. Yep. That’s kind of like the final step of panel building is you guys get it to a certain number, and then when we do the text messaging, we’re

59:03 over-targeting the groups that we’re like… It’s not that we’re not targeting women, but we’re targeting men at a higher rate than women to balance it. Mm-hmm. So would it be correct if, and it did go live on the website today to sign up. Mm-hmm. But if 1,000 people- Awesome … signed up, then you would actually somehow try to match a demographic, and maybe only 300 people would get the survey, or is that correct? Great question. Yeah, so we actually take the approach of being inclusive on taking the survey- Okay … and then having dozen filters to actually get to the data you need from that sample of people. So to give you an extreme example, people who are not in the panel can still take the survey, but they are recorded as not in the panel. So if there’s more women than men, all the women can still take the survey, and all the men can still take the survey, but we’ll show you each group on its own. So you’ll see X%, 38% of women like this, 37% of men like this, and the only difference will just be essentially the margin of error for each of those subgroups. But you’ll see differences, basically. Yeah. We do have a weighting normalization nerd word as well that we will be sharing for different surveys as well. Every survey does go out to the complete panel, though.

1:00:36 If there’s 1,000- Yeah, that’s right … people in the survey, it will go out to every one of them via email, text, or- Okay … an actual phone call, however they chose to sign, whatever method they chose during sign-up. By the way, I’ll jump if you want to. I just have one quick question. Oh, go ahead. Have you found that a certain optimal length of the survey, like it only takes two minutes or one minute, or just to make sure people are participating or encourage them to participate? Absolutely. That ended up being a huge part of what we learned from testing with people and trying to figure out how we get them to take surveys and complete them. So there’s research, I mean, the research is kind of will point you around five questions, and we confirm that. So we do target one minute, so you can get through the survey in one minute if you want. And this is actually the neat thing. When we say, “Do you have a minute a month or a minute every few months?” People expect a long, crappy survey, to be blunt, right? That doesn’t respect their time, and they’re surprised when they get to the end of the survey and they’re like, “Oh, that’s it? Oh, that was great.” And they’re excited to take the next one. And so we always want to make sure they have a great experience so that they stay in the panel, they keep taking surveys, and ultimately your panel grows over time, which is what we see normally. So, yeah, that’s a critical question, and five question max, one-minute survey, easy to read, eighth-grade readability, ideally, no acronyms, all that stuff,

1:02:07 is how you get it into their head and back out. Very good. Great. Kevin and Jeff, great presentation by the way. Thanks. Random sampling overcomes the self-selection bias on both ends of the great and hate distribution, right? Mm-hmm. That makes a ton of sense, and you present it beautifully to do that. But I’m wondering about maintaining that random sampling through the panel selection process, whether there’s any selection bias in standing up the panels. Yeah. How do you adjust for that? It totally makes sense, but I’m just- Mm-hmm … wondering how to adjust for that. Yeah, another excellent question. So, it’s interesting. With the random sample, this goes back to like George Gallup even. He would randomly select addresses and send people to that address until they got them to take the survey. So you get a really high response rate. You have a random sample, and then the, call it the sample of your sample, is actually really good. And then with random digit dialing, until about 25 years ago, you could get a 60, six zero, percent response rate. And so you’re randomly dialing people, and then your sample of your sample is good. It’s going to be a good representation of your randomness. And then today, that percentage is about 1% apples to apples. So what happens is, and we still do these by the way, we have one going right now in California. You’re still going out to the people,

1:03:39 but you’re introducing a higher risk that they might take the survey or not take the survey depending on the topic. So the reason everyone switched to the panel is because you can get people ahead of time, make it easy for them to participate- Right … and take the survey no matter what it is. Now you’ve just flipped the two things, which are now more visible, so that you can go, “Okay, well, we need to get regular people to take this. We can randomly pick them, or we can get them another way.” And then when the topic comes in, they’re going to take the survey. And so because they participate at a high rate, 50, 60%, 40 to 70 really is our range, we know that those people are telling us what they think about this topic, not because they’re interested in that topic. So you’re right. So the panel’s really optimized. As we say, if I had to bet my mother’s life on data, I’d go with the panel data over the random sample today. Right. Right? I hope I don’t have to, but there is always a bias in any sample. And so the bias you’ve kind of put a finger on a little bit is how you do the invitations. And just to give you an example, if you only had email, and we only invited people by emails with a link, and then we did a survey question later on, and we said, “Hey, do you use email?” That would be a case where the way the panel was built does have a correlation to the topic. So it’s not self-selection, it’s kind of-

1:05:11 Oh … bias by design. And so you would not want to put a lot of weight on that. “Oh, gosh, 100% of people use email. Look at that.” Right? So that’s the one thing you’re looking for. The other thing you’ll notice is there’s a, we call it the give a crap bias, basically. So you are asking for one minute of people’s time a month. That is one less cat video, and cat videos are pretty good these days. So getting over even that tiny, absurdly small hump is not nothing. And so what you’ll see is there is a bias where people on the panel tend to look like voters who also have that civic thing they do once every two years. So those are the two main things. It can be technology, which we minimize by having the multiple channels, print, they can call to sign up, and so on. But always aware of it, right? Right. Depending on what the topic is. And also to get a little bit to Rosanne’s question earlier, do you do any back testing to ensure that the panel is fairly representative against a sample of sample or representative of the town? Mm-hmm. Would you have random testing or random sampling? So we actually do look at– This is how we know some of these biases, is by comparing early on, like comparing some of our samples to voting data, just census data in general, right? Yeah. So we do have, for every

1:06:42 US customer, we have the US Census data as a comparison that we can look at. And it always, again, skews just like voting. You get more old people relative to the number of old people. You get a lot- Right … fewer young people compare. And then that’s where we can do a re-weighting- Where each individual older person vote counts less than each younger person, if you want to get to that one number thing. Got it. But in general, it’s really more like, hey, all ages actually like email, which is a surprising finding we often see, but it’s reliable. And yeah, older people are more into TikTok and Instagram than Facebook or Nextdoor. So- Got it. Yeah. So the takeaway is it skews like voting, generally speaking, on the panels. Which makes sense. A little bit. Yeah. Yeah. But it’s easier. So we do get people who don’t vote. And we don’t restrict it to voters, of course. Yeah. Of course. Thank you. That’s a very great question. The last question I have. I think this is a free trial, is that correct? No, it was something that Alicia procured last year. Oh, she did? Mm-hmm. Yeah. And we haven’t used it, is it? We’re cohorting the panel now. Okay. Yeah. And so the idea is that you get enough people into the– So we have to promote. This is the real only heavy lifting that we do, is to just get it out there, spread the word. I think it took

1:08:16 less than 30 seconds for me to sign up. So I put my phone number in, so I’ll get a text, and then you’ll get the survey, and it’ll be like three questions. You can answer it in under a minute. But the big piece now is to get the opt-ins from the residents so that we have the panel to ask the questions so we could have the data around different issues. Great. All right. Well, thank you, gentlemen, for taking the time out of your night. Look forward to getting going with you, and I appreciate your responsiveness so far. Thank you. Thank you, all. Have a good rest of your meeting. Thank you. All right. Thank you, folks. Thanks for having us. Good. All right, take care. All right, next up, John Blair from MMLV to talk about some temporary parking requests. Good evening. Good evening. Thanks for waiting. Good evening. I think I’ve met most of you individually before, but I don’t believe I’ve been here in an official capacity in front of the board. So thank you very much for having me tonight. Glad to have you. Again, John Blair, General Manager of Marblehead Municipal Light Department. Pretty basic order of business for your consideration tonight. Interested in getting your endorsement for a parking ban for next Tuesday and Wednesday, July 28th and 29th, for the Bessom Street side of Roundhouse Road. What we’ve proposed is about 30 parking spaces, 15 on each side, similar to what was done when we had some of the early construction activity at the Village 13 substation site, which is just down the adjacent utility

1:09:47 corridor rail trail. What we’re doing next week is bringing the crane back in to relocate the two transformers that are currently staged within the fence line, just moving them a few feet onto their permanent foundations, where they’ll subsequently be connected and energized. So this operation is expected to take two days between mobilization, the actual on-site work, and then demobilization. The crane, and potentially some supporting equipment that’s coming in with it, is most safely and easily accessed onto the rail trail by doing a three-point turn, which would require backing into that area on Roundhouse Road. So we want to keep residents and their vehicles safe, avoid any conflict between the equipment and vehicles that might be parked there. So best way to do that is to grant the parking ban for those two days. Obviously, if we get through the work sooner, then we can remove the signs and open up that parking as soon as the crane is out of there and on its way. Awesome. Great. Finally coming to conclusion. Yes, hopefully. Hopefully. No problem. Heavy stuff. Yeah, exactly. Great. Anything else? All right. If I can have a motion to approve the request from Jonathan Blair, General Manager of Marblehead Municipal Light Department, to block parking on Roundhouse Road and Bessom Street on July 28th, 2026, and July 29th, 2026, to allow for maneuverability of heavy

1:11:20 equipment transiting to the Village Substation via Bessom Street. So moved. Second. All right, all in favor? All right, thank you. Appreciate it. Thank you. Thank you. Good luck with it. Thank you for your time. All right, next up, we have licensing of Panying. So if you want to come on up, Panying. Good evening. Let me just do this official here. I’ll open the public hearing on the application from Panying Restaurant liquor license number 0001-R5-0656 for change of location, 10 School Street. This hearing has been legally advertised and published, and owners notified. So good evening. Good evening. Thank you for coming. I’m finally ready. That was great. Congratulations. Thank you. Great. So if you just want to present your application, maybe tell us a little bit about what you’re looking for and what you’re doing. So we’ve been in town for over 20 years. I managed the business since my dad retired, almost 10 years now. So I always want to have my own real estate property in Marblehead because I want to do a long-term business in Marblehead with my restaurant. Which my dad, he’s a great support. That’s how I finally bought the building on 10 School Street. So our lease is also coming up, so that’s why I just filed the application for transfer of the liquor license. So at the end of this month.

1:12:50 Great. Yeah. Great. That’s wonderful. Okay. Yeah, you want to- Thank you. So anyone in the public like to speak against this application? Anyone that would like to speak in favor of this application? I’m going to close the public hearing. The board has any questions that they would like to ask? I’m just curious, how is this going to change your footprint and seating? It’s going to be a smaller restaurant, obviously, at New Kent School Street. But we do mostly of the takeout business a lot huge, especially after COVID. Mm-hmm. But I’m passing, as Kyle said, we can’t transfer the entertainment license, but that’s why I want to reapply for the entertainment license because when we move over to School Street, I kind of want to have a band in there, so we can bring more dine-in seatings down. Because we’ve been always doing about 80% mostly takeout business, I would say. Okay. Yeah. Okay. Anybody else? No. All right. Sounds like a good plan. Good luck. Yeah. Good luck. That’s going to go well. I’ll get a motion to approve the application for a common Victorian license from Fen Yang House, 10 School Street, Manager Ling Shin Shen, subject to receipt of required fees, forms, and certificate of insurance, hours of operation, and a seating capacity of 92. So moved. Second. All in favor. Roll call. Roll

1:14:21 call for the application for the . This is the liquor license, right? No. No. Oh, it was just- No … approving the application, then. All right, all in favor? Yep, and a roll call. All right. All good. Motion to approve the application from Fen Yang House, Manager Ling Shin Shen, to change the location of liquor license number 0001-R5-0656 to 10 School Street, subject to receipt of all required fees, forms, and department sign-offs. Can I have a motion? So moved. Second. This would be a poll vote. Now? Yeah. We do the poll. Let’s do the poll vote here. Ms. Francis. In favor. Mr. Zisson. In favor. Ms. Newman. In favor. Mr. Gray. In favor. Mr. Glass. In favor. Now we have the annual entertainment license by the motion approved request from Fen Yang House, 10 School Street, for an annual entertainment license for live bands and karaoke on Thursdays from 5:00 PM to 10:00 PM, subject to the receipt of required fee and that no noise is heard from the streets. So moved. Second. All in favor? Congratulations. Thanks so much. Look forward to it. Good luck. Good luck with your final stages there. All right. Next up, we have interviews and appointment for appointing a board associate member. We do have two people. What we usually do here is we ask that one person sits out while we do an interview, and outside, and then comes in so that you don’t hear the answers to the other one. Once you’ve been interviewed, you can stay. Let’s just go in alphabetical order.

1:15:53 We’re not going to go by first names. We looked at S. Why don’t we start with you, Susan? So if you want to come up. Steve, if you don’t mind just going into the isolation booth. If you can take a seat out there, appreciate it. Just shut the doors. Yeah, you can shut it behind him. Thanks. I’ll track these. Johnny Doc will take care of it. Good evening. Hey, how are you? Good. How you feeling? Good. Thank you for waiting. Thank you. If you just want to tell us a little bit about yourself and why you are interested in joining. I’m excited about this. Thanks for the opportunity. I’m an architect, licensed architect. I’ve been practicing for 20 years now. The past 10 years, I’ve worked on my own firm in town. The first 10 years, I worked at a few different firms. One doing major park planning projects, residential projects. Another firm doing large scale affordable housing in Mattapan, affordable healthcare in Boston, and then working at a firm doing high-end corporate interiors. So the full spectrum before coming off on my own. And now I’m primarily doing small commercial projects and residential projects. And I love this town. I’ve been here since 2013. I live in the Ocean Park neighborhood, and I try to volunteer and participate however I can, especially with my children’s school currently,

1:17:25 Brown School. And I would just love to help out however I can. I’m always impressed with all the community members taking time to be on the boards. And I haven’t had an interest in going against anyone who is incumbent. And I’d like to see this as an opportunity to start on the board. And potentially, if there is an open position, I would be interested in taking that position or running for that position. Great. Okay. Anybody have any questions? Do you have any concerns about the time commitment? Not about the time commitment. Mm-hmm. I was wondering how much of your business do you do in Marblehead with the issues of conflicts that might come up or? That was one initial concern that I had. However, majority of my projects go through the zoning board. Mm-hmm. Once in a while. It’s just me and occasionally someone to help me draft. So there’s only so often that I would have a large enough scale project or waterfront home that would probably need to have approval. And in that case, I would just recuse myself. But I think I have been before the planning board maybe once on one of my projects. Dozens of times on the zoning board. But I’m not sure which project it was with planning board here. More often in Swampscott, I think it’s required more commonly. Yeah. It sounds like you can easily avoid the appearance of conflict for sure,

1:18:58 and yeah, and manage that. Yeah. Great. I think you mentioned that you were interested in, I think what I heard was that you’re interested in learning on this board and potentially running in the future- Yeah … using this as a stepping stone. That’d definitely be a huge interest- Great … moving forward. Great. Any other questions? Yeah. All right. We made you wait all that time for this. Thank you for waiting. Thank you for coming. Yeah, your resume speaks for itself as well as your presence here. Yeah, it really does. For sure. It’s a great step out. You can sit here because- You can if you’ve already heard him. Yeah, you’ve already heard him. Okay. Yeah. Absolutely. Yeah. Thank you, Susan.

1:19:41 Can you hear me?

1:19:54 Hey, Steve. Hello. Where do you guys want me? Right here. Right here. Right here. The hot– Yeah, exactly. The same seat that’s been warmed up for you. Great. So, good evening. Good evening. I think you’ve been here before. Maybe just, I know you’ve– Tell us a little bit about your experience. Well, I mean, not to jump out of order, but I could’ve made this really easy. I’ve decided not to stand for reappointment- Okay … associate member. Okay. I wanted to come here in person. I thought it was important to come here in person for two reasons. One, out of respect for the board, and specifically at a request for my dear friend and a friend of many, Judy Jacobi, who originally appointed me. Thought it was important to not just send an email, but to come here in person. And also to thank the members of the board, planning board, and the select board. Planning board specifically, present and past members. I learned a lot. Learned a lot about how this town works. I enjoyed the opportunity to contribute in some small way to two thorny issues, 3A and ADU. Which I think they’re continuing to– It’s like the gift that keeps giving. But I learned a lot and enjoyed the time. But my external obligations, give someone else a chance. Okay. Well, thank you. I appreciate that, and appreciate you coming and doing that in person. Sure. You know? And I have to introduce myself. Scott Baxter. Thank you for coming. Thank you both. I appreciate that. Very good to see you. Very much. Thank you. Well, hey, well, thank you for your service to the town as well. Yeah. Sure. Enjoyed it. Yeah. All right.

1:21:24 A lot. Thank you. That’s awesome. Okay. Sarah? Steve? I hope we’re still going to see you around and- Okay … keep involved in some way. Yep. I hope so. All right. Thank you so much. Anna? Yeah. No problem. Well, this feels like a tough decision, man. If I could have a motion. Now, this is three years, right? Yeah. This is a three-year term. So this will be expiring, 2029? Okay. So can I have a motion to approve, to appoint Susan Cole as, to the planning board associate member, thank you, with a term to expire in 2029. So moved. Second. All in favor? Congratulations. Thank you. That’s all I’m good for. Yeah. So Susie, you just need to go and get sworn in- Okay … before you go to your first meeting, and you can do it right over here. Great. Not right here. Not here, no. We don’t have that ability, trust me. We would love to do that. But the town- Before your first meeting. The town clerk. I’ll swear you in some other time. It just won’t be official. Yep. All right, great. So next, we’re moving on to the PEC contracts. So this is what we were discussing in executive session. And for those who don’t know what the PEC stands for, this is Public Employee Committee. And it’s a group that is made up of

1:22:57 union members. And it’s basically about health insurance and benefits. And retirees. And retirees, sorry. And retirees. And we have our agreement, our memorandum of agreement, which expired in June 30th of 2026. And we have been negotiating with them. Thatcher’s been negotiating with them. And we have come up with a new memorandum of agreement, which is all the same as the last one, except we have added one section, which is a health insurance opt-out incentive program. Under this, employees who have been with the town for two years on health insurance can opt out. If you are on a single member program, you’ll get a $4,000 payout on an annual basis. If you’ve been on a family, it is an $8,000 payout. Again, you have to have been enrolled for two years. And this is a great benefit for both the employees. Obviously, they will opt out if it’s financially beneficial to them. And for the town, it’s also a huge savings. To give you one example, the Harvard Pilgrim Explorer, which is our- Most popular … it’s the most popular program. The town’s contribution to that right now is $31,900. So if somebody opted out on a family, we would pay them $8,000, giving the town a savings of almost $24,000. So this is something that we’ve talked about, and I think we’re very happy with the

1:24:28 work between you and the unions. And I think there’s one other thing in there that is changed as well, under there, where the retirees who fall in sort of this loophole for Medicare will also, there’s about, don’t know the exact number, but- 14 to 16 … 14 to 16. They will be awarded $2,000 lump sum payment each year as well. These are people who have to come onto our program because they didn’t qualify for Medicare, correct? So that was something to help them out as well, and we see this as just being a net positive, although we don’t know the true impacts until we go through the first year. But I feel like this is a win-win for both the town and the employees. So it’s a great first step in looking at some of these efficiencies we’ve talked about, hopefully cutting some costs, and also helping out our employees And Dan, the timing The timing. So this will go into effect as of July 1st. Thank you for asking that. The first opt-out will not be until the following year because of the open enrollment. So the open enrollment opens up in April, and then they can opt out for that following year. There is a whole schedule, which we will share with the public, on depending on when they opt-out. It’s prorated as well. Great. All right. So, we were just discussing this. In the past, we have voted on contracts in executive session and done it in public. That’s how we have done the last few.

1:25:58 I’ll just fact-check that for us. I got that through secret ESP from Kyle. From secret channel. Secret channel. So if I could have a motion to approve the memorandum agreement between the town and the Public Employee Committee, the PEC, as presented and prepared by Town Council for the period of time beginning on July 1st, 2026 to June 30th, 2028. So moved. Second. Second. All in favor? And present. So we have four in favor, and Ms. Rezistion voted present. Great. Moving on to a CFO search discussion update. Mr. Kezer, if you could just provide an update. Sure. So, doing some preparatory work for moving forward to find a new chief financial officer, the announcement of Alicia Benjamin moving to the island, earning an exposition. And given chief financial officer positions, it is very sort of the top of the pyramid of municipal financial knowledge and experience and such. And so it’s going to be– There’s not a huge supply. So, in that regard, looking to use a recruiting

1:27:31 service in order to reach out and find applicants for that position to apply. One of the benefits of having a recruiter is there will be people who will respond to the advertisements because they’re looking. The benefit of the recruiters that we’ve worked with in the municipal world is that they will help find applicants who are not looking for the job. And those are usually your best candidates. So, one, this coincides obviously with the search for town administrator, which also communities benefit by having a recruiting service for the same reasons I mentioned with CFO. There are a number of recruiting firms out there. The one firm that is by far, when you look at the numbers that’s involved in this is the Collins Center. The Collins Center, people are familiar with and we’ve had interactions with. They do a number of different services for municipalities. So they were involved with us as far as the charter. They do other consulting work. I would say their biggest portion of work is doing personnel

1:29:04 study and recruitments. So, I looked up the recruiting services that I’m most familiar with in Massachusetts and sort of just counted up the number of clients, and the call center is by far, as far as recruiting services, they are by far. One of the issues or benefits of engaging with the call center is they are actually government. They are a public entity that provides services to municipalities. They were created under the Deval Patrick administration, funded and created, and then housed through the UMass Boston, basically just to have a roof over their housing, in order to provide services for municipalities. So, with all that, I had Allison Jenkins, our chief procurement officer, to reach out and ask for proposals for both town administrator and chief procurement officer. And we have gotten a response from them. And again, because they’re government, we don’t have to do the procurement process. We can just engage and ask them for quotes and scope of services, which we’ve done. They’ve responded to both. For a town administrator search, $16,000

1:30:36 for that service. And by bundling chief financial officer, we sort of get a two-for-one discount. So that proposal is 10,000. So, that’s the pricing that’s in for the town administrator. As I’ve inquired out, that’s about the going price out there. There are others who do that, but that’s the Collins Center proposals there. Again, the Collins Center was the firm that did the search four years ago, in which I was the result of that search. I know everyone was on that search committee at that time and very much involved in the process. So- What I’m offering is the proposal to go with the Collins Center for both town administrator and chief financial officer. They arrange the two-for-one deal. And by engaging with the Collins Center, we can engage in the contract for services and start the process immediately by going out for proposals and waiting for responses. Yeah. I think there’s a general consensus, as there was, when we were doing your search, that they had the biggest municipal bench- Mm-hmm … and probably the best network out there. And since they’re so dedicated to a broad range of services

1:32:08 and they’re staffed with real-time expertise, um, so I think it’s a good choice. Yeah. Mm-hmm. What budget line item does hired search firms come out of? Professional services, consulting. So we have professional consulting services- Okay … line items that we would- Okay … draw from. Okay. The only comment I would make is, having been on the charter and having the experience we had with Collins Center at the beginning, right? And Thatcher, you know- Yep … we were not– They did not give us their best people at the beginning, and it took some time. I would just say that we would have to be very cognizant of that with Collins Center, that we do have the best people working for us. Right. So it would be Mary Carty, who I’ve personally worked with and known, is probably the best recruiter out there. And she was the one who was engaged four years ago in the process for Marblehead. Okay. I’m just saying we learned a lesson with Charter, right? Yeah. So I just want to make sure we- Yeah … do better. I agree with Rosanna, and my vote may have Sean Casey haunting me, but yeah. I’ll say Mary was really easy to work with, provided a lot of color, and she just knew the candidates well, so she knew everybody. And she knew their strengths, she knew their weaknesses, kind of their interest level, what would make a move.

1:33:42 I was impressed with her network and how deep it was, so. So from personal experience, this is how these things go. When you have someone like Mary Carty, who is that well-connected and knows everyone. When I got the call from Mary encouraging me to look at Marblehead, and there was some salary adjustments that made it worth looking at. That was a key component to attract people. Because I was in a position where I didn’t need to look for the job. But she, in the phone call with her, “This is what Marblehead’s doing. It’d be a great opportunity. Can you apply as a personal favor for me?” “All right, I’ll do it for you.” And once I got into the process and looked at it, then again, ended up being selected. But that’s who you’re looking for in a recruiter that can actually reach out to potential candidates, like I said, that are not necessarily looking, and encourage the best candidates to apply, and that’s what you want. And at the end of the day, they’re coming up with a roster. It’s our decision to- Yeah … figure out who to hire. If they bring- Shaking the trees. And she won’t forget. Did we do one or two screening

1:35:15 interviews? Or do we do two passes? I have the screening- Or three more? We had three interviews. Well, no, I did the screening committee. Yeah. And then I did the selecting. Yeah. And then she would only put forward for screening, obviously, candidates that she thought would be a good fit, personalities that she thought would match her understanding of the board’s priorities and, um, so. So part of the process is doing a community profile and having conversations to update what Marblehead is looking for in a candidate and a profile of the community, and that’s what gets pushed out to applicants. So the applicants that are applying know exactly what they’re applying for as far as a community and so forth. And then Mary does a good job of screening, who are the candidates that are a good fit. So she just needs to update her old community profile, is basically it, where someone else would have to come in from scratch. Yeah. Yeah. That makes sense. Can you talk a little bit, or can we discuss a little bit? Obviously, we have time to replace you. We’ll never be able to replace you, but have someone come in into your seat. But as far as Alicia, I think she’s gone at the end of August. Yeah. So clearly, it feels like we’re not going to have somebody to come in there. So how do we soft gap that and make sure that we have

1:36:47 continuity, reporting, accounting, people getting paid? So what we’ve been working on, Alicia and I- Mm … preparing for this, is that there are two focus areas that we want to make sure there’s continuity. One is all of our required reporting to the state, because there are a number of deadlines that are going to occur between now and whenever we can bring someone outside. And so, we’ve been working with CLA, CliftonLarsonAllen. Is that the A? They’ve been- Working with Alicia and the finance department helping us. They were the ones who were really helping us through the calculations for the override, for the budget, the sort of a deep analysis. So, the recommendation from Alicia to me, which I recommend to the board that we pursue, is a member of CLA is willing, on a consultant basis, however, remotely, though, because that is not from the areas on the other side of Boston, to basically ensure all of our compliance reporting and needs are being accomplished. And the individual in mind is, I’ll use the word guru, of capability of doing that. So the recommendation is we engage

1:38:18 with that. And then we have our newer staff in the accounting office, right? And we have our treasurer’s office and assessor’s office such that have ongoing questions, needs, and the employee training. So I’ve reached out, and I actually have a meeting in a week or so of a retired former DOR member, having a conversation of coming in on a consultant basis to be physically here however many days a week that we think is appropriate, as well as being available on the phone whenever needed to basically deal with the staff, continue the training of our newer staff, and to be that person on call, troubleshoot, got problems, basically work with the staff to keep continuity. One of the things that’s important to Alicia and I in this process, especially with our newer accounting staff, we want them to stay focused in their lane on their function and not have to worry about backfilling anything that Alicia was going to have to do, right? We want them to stay focused on their progress and coming up to speed and not be stressed out. So, basically two consultants, two different focuses.

1:39:51 Financially, again, we won’t be paying the CFO salary. We have consulting funds that would cover these costs. The cost would probably be less than what we would be paying the CFO anyway, so. Patrick, that sounds like a really robust- Yeah … stopgap measure. Yeah. And I’d like to follow it up with a question. How important do you think it is for the town administrator to have a say or have some visibility on who the CFO might be and who he or she might be working with? There’ll be– Given the turnover, right, I think the bigger threat is you want to work to get a CFO in place before we start the next budget cycle. Right. So a new town administrator’s not going to start till January. You’re already- So you don’t think that works? No. So I would say, if under normal circumstances, somebody’s applying to be a town administrator coming into in place, they’re probably going to be already a CFO that they’re going to have to adapt to anyways, right? So- Okay. Yeah. Just- Right. Yeah. It’s a good thought but at the end of the day, if Alicia was not leaving, the town administrator would have Alicia. Right. The new town administrator’s going to come in, and we’ll have Jason, whether the town administrator likes it or not. Well, it’s just for something- Yeah. No, I know … timing thing.

1:41:21 Yeah. Okay. But it’s not going to work. Yeah, sure. But the overriding issue, I would say, is timing relative to the budget. Yeah. You want a person in place. Totally. For that point. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. So I’m a little concerned about the cash reconciliation process and certification. I think we’ve been trying to get to a place where we can certify in the fall. Who will be responsible for that? Is that going to be Clifton Larson, or is it the guy from the DOR? So- What’s the plan for that? What we are also doing is we’ve posted for a treasurer position. There’s some more reorganization in the finance. We’re bifurcating. We have treasurer collector position, so the individual is both the treasurer and the collector. Based on the experience over the last several years, we’ve realized we need to bifurcate those positions. Our current treasurer collector is a fully certified collector, right? Really strong, and is going through the certification process to be treasurer. That’s like a five-year training process, right? And with her working with Alicia hand in hand, right? And so it’s been a struggle, but now we’re

1:42:54 changing over CFO, so we don’t have that support. So in anticipation, we’re bifurcating. We posted for a treasurer position with the idea of bringing in an experienced treasurer, and it’s primarily the treasurer’s job to manage that piece so that basically we have more hands on the wheel to manage that. As a backup to that, we’ve been using CLA in certain instances to backstop that. So we still have CLA to backstop. Ideally, we’re out on the street looking for a treasurer position Ideally, we hope to be able to fill that, have an experienced person in place, and then we can backstop it, again, with the CLA and the individual I’m meeting with. That would be part of that role, would be to work with the staff to help us manage through that. And our revenue module for Munis is up and live as well now, correct? It is. We’re having a technical challenge that we’re working with Munis. Yeah. As you know, databases have tables, right? And so the challenges, the table that was loaded was a demo table, not our table. And so we are working with Munis to bring

1:44:25 in to get that corrected. And which means what’s happened is all the revenues that have been posted, loaded into the system were being tagged or assigned to the revenue accounts in a dummy table, right, that’s set up when you’re first setting up the system. So we have to go back, and we’re asking Munis, “You’re coming in, and you’re going to help us.” We have to back everything up and put it back in. So I’ll just say we’re still in transition on that piece of Munis of the revenue module. It’s a chart. It’s a chart- Chart of accounts … of accounts. Right, okay. Right. Everything was pointing to- Yeah … a chart of accounts. But in theory, once that is fixed- Yeah … you’re going to- Yes … different place than we are in the past as far as- Correct … reconciling cash receipts- Yes … through that program. That module is going to take, right, take a lot of the mechanical processing that has- Right … taken us the extra time. What’s the reasonable expectation on the timeline for that? Munis is getting back to us. These communications have been happening in the last few days. And basically, we’re saying, “This got screwed up on your end. You have to come in and fix it for us.”

1:45:57 And that’s where we’re engaged in. How long has it been screwed up? I mean, did it just happen? We’re just figuring it out. So Alicia’s looking at the information in the system saying, “Something’s not right. Something’s not balancing.” And then dug in and said, “You got the wrong tables.” So it’s- So the data’s there. The data’s there. It’s just putting it into the right chart. Yeah. So this is a, I’m going to say, not unusual. We don’t want it to happen- Mm-hmm … challenge of a transition as we were migrating in these modules. So it was a problem. We identified it. We’re working with Munis. They’re going to get back to us as far as the timeframe to get that fixed. So it’s a delay of our transition. Okay. Well, I like that that’s… Feels like we’re at a pretty good point here. And then, with the committee, we can discuss a screening, setting up screening/selection committees for those as well, for the two different positions, and go from there. All right? Let’s do it. Great. Thanks for that update. Thanks. All right. Moving on. Historical commission wasn’t ready, so we’ll hold item list number 13, agreement with Nahant. We do– This is similar agreement that we have with Salem and some other communities. Basically, what it allows is for us to, for our police officers

1:47:31 to do details in Nahant and also for them to be able to cover us when we need it. This is something that the police, the union has approved, and obviously the chief. It’s the same document we’ve used with other communities as well, and it’s just for the Nahant- Yeah, and there’s a section of Massachusetts law that sets this up and allows for this. Okay. So if there are no questions, I’d like a motion to approve hold harmless agreement between the town of Marblehead and the town of Nahant presented and prepared by Town Council to enable the Marblehead chief to augment and enhance the policing and law enforcement capabilities of the town of Marblehead Police Department in accordance with the provisions of Massachusetts General Laws Chapter 41, Section 99. So moved. Second, please. Second. All in favor? Quick question. Go ahead. When is this generally employed, Badger, or something? Bigger. So, it’s very both ways. So what happens is it’s covering the details. Right. So it’s- So- Just a surface, a demand issue? Yeah, and per the agreement- Yeah … so the call goes out for officers to cover details. Only when our own officers don’t fill the details, we then call out to the other communities and offer the details for out of town to come in. It’s a surge then that we have. Yeah. So what it is, is it just has more officers available that fill all the details. And there’s lots of construction going on. There are a lot of details, and it’s when our own officers, for whatever

1:49:04 reasons, don’t volunteer to fill the details, we can reach out to the neighboring communities that we have these agreements. And part of the nature of having an agreement is it deals with the liability issues. The owning community, meaning Nahant’s responsible for their officers, be they here. We’re responsible for our officers, be they in Nahant. But it’s on a secondary basis, so our- Yeah … police gets first dibs. Yeah. Our officers always have first- Dibs on all the details, and only when they’re filled do we go on site. Actually, a similar question to the chief, but the union wants this as well. Got it. Yeah. With all the world work going on- Oh, for sure … you’ll frequently see… I remember seeing a friend of mine, Rob Cunningham, years ago, working on marble details like, “What’s going on?” But, you’ve got to fill the details, and there’s only so many relatively small tours. Say all in favor. Thank you. Next up, Apex contract is not available. Number 15, licensing barrel men. Just had one get an update on the status of their liquor license. The former owner who holds the liquor license was unable to attend, Ben Newman, tonight for personal reasons. We do have a letter in our packet explaining that they just have to clean up a few things before they get the application in. He needs to get them a certificate of good standing, some DOR and DUA.

1:50:39 They did close on that property on June 2nd and sold to the Moran family, who own and operate Honeycomb. So it looks like they are in the process of getting certificate of good standing, and then they will come in front of us. We will continue to monitor that. What’s the update? So my understanding is Honeycomb will want the liquor license? Right. That was part of their- Okay … what Ben says here, is that was part of the transaction. Okay. That he was going to do that. So, yeah. Yeah. So it sounds like a different concept than the- Yeah … ambulance. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. I think it’s just similar with some expanded on. Understood. Yeah. Shanty application already onto consent agenda items. Executive motion to approve the following consent agenda items subject to the usual rules, regulations, fees, and receipt of required certificate insurance and minutes of what did I say? The minutes of June 24th, 2026, July 8th, 2026, the UCan 3rd Annual Half Marathon, Sunday, April 11th, 2026, subject to approval from police, fire, recreation, and parks school department. No permanent markings are allowed in the public way. All temporary markings shall be moved at the conclusion of events. DNS Fitness Wicked Half Marathon, Sunday, September 20th, subject to approval from police, fire, and recreation parks. No permanent markings are allowed in public way, and all temporary markings shall remove at the conclusion of event. Dollars for Scholars 11th Annual Run for the Fun 5K

1:52:10 Road Race on Sunday, October 4th. Subject to approval from police, fire, and rec and park. No permanent markings are allowed in a public way, and all temporary markings shall be removed at the conclusion of the event. Also, lease agreement for private drain connection between the town and the following as presented. REM Ignition LLC, 175 Pleasant Street. REM Ignition LLC, 171 R Pleasant Street. Eastman LLC, 171 Pleasant Street. And declare surplus the following items from DPW as no longer needed for municipal purposes, to be disposed of in accordance with town’s policy on surplus equipment. A 2005 John Deere Model 544J loader, a 2005 Chevy Blazer, 1973 Bombardier Snowtrac tractor, a roller, and 2006- Yep, we’re right up to date on that 1973. Can I get a hold of that? Nope. Not allowed in this. 2006 GMC C 7500 dump truck with sander. Could I have a motion? So moved. Second. No holds? No. Got it. All of it. Yes. So does DPW have– Have they reached out to Parks and Rec to make sure that they don’t have a use for these or the facilities department skills? That part of our policy, I can’t remember. Yeah. If it is a functional

1:53:41 equipment that they can use- That they can use, yeah. Yeah. That department. Yeah. We need to make it to this list. Okay. But these are- Yeah. These are- Corey, we need to check in on that 1970. Great. Yeah. Yeah. Right. Top of line. All in favor? Eight GM alone. All right. Five to zero. We have a one-day liquor license, Matty’s Anglers Club. We need this because it is on public land. If I could have a motion to approve the request for Matty’s Anglers Club for one-day liquor license, beer and wine only, on Saturday, July 25th, 2026, at Parker’s Boat Yard from 1:00 to 4:00 PM, subject to the following conditions. Delivery and receipt by the licensing authority of the required fee of $50. Delivery of and receipt by licensing authority of proof that the alcohol will be purchased from an authorized source. Proof that the applicant can receive proper delivery, provide proper storage, and dispose of all alcoholic beverages purchased all in accordance with requirements of GLC 138. Receipt of the required certificate of insurance, liquor liability. Alcohol is not allowed on the premises overnight. Alcohol will be purchased from Bent Water Brewing. So moved. Second. Vote. Is this in- In favor. This move. In favor. Mr. Granier? In favor. Ms. Fountain? In favor. Mr. Foster? In favor. We have also moved for Disabilities Commission. We’ve received a letter of interest. I think what we usually do is we open this up, set a deadline. Proposed we set a deadline for August 7th for Disabilities Commission, and with an August 12th interview.

1:55:11 Sound good? Awesome. And then the final on our agenda, we have received a letter from Jean-Jean over at the MMLD that in accordance with disposition of Chapter 41, Section 11, he is letting us know that they have a vacancy as of August 1st. They’ve received an enclosed resignation of Adam Smith, who has been on the board since 2022. So what we usually do here is we do the same type of thing, and then we hold a joint meeting to fill this. I know that they are anxious to get going over there, as they have some important issues to discuss on the 26th. Feels like we could do the same timeline that we are doing for disabilities if we set a deadline of August 7th with interviews on the 12th. That sound- Makes sense … amenable? Makes sense. Jean-Jean, does that sound good to you and your board? Yeah. All right. So if we could just po-post that. Kyle, you’ll take care of that as well? Great. And that is it. Any announcements? I just, actually, thought I could make a motion to recognize Steve LeBrone for his time served on the planning board. It’s been a- Yeah … pretty

1:56:42 significant amount of time now. So just a letter of appreciation. So moved. Second. All in favor? I think that I would like to also propose the same for Adam Smith from us as well. Thank him for his time on the marble life carbon. Okay. All right. A second? Second. All right. All in favor? Any other announcements? Could I have a motion to adjourn? So moved. Second. All in favor? Thank you. You sure you don’t want to take it? It’s not for Gary’s