It is 6:05 PM This is the meeting

of the Natick Select Board.

We're going to start an open session,

and then we're going to have a roll call vote

to enter into executive session.

This portion of the meeting would not be open to the public.

We expect to reconvene around 7:05 PM hopefully earlier.

This, that the exec session is not open to the public

and the reasons for voting are entering.

Yeah. Voting to enter exec session RA, pursuant to MGL L,

chapter 30 a, section 21, A two

to conduct strategy sessions in preparation for negotiations

with non-union personnel,

or to conduct collective bargaining sessions

or contract negotiations with non-union personnel,

town administrator B, pursuant to MGL Chapter 30 a,

section 21, A three to discuss strategy with respect

to collective bargaining

or litigation, where an open meeting will have a detrimental

effect on the bargaining

or litigating position of the public body and the chair.

So declares Andrew Watkins versus Town of nata.

Case number G two

dash 23 dash one 70, civil Service Commission C, pursuant

to MGL 30 a.

Section 21 A three to discuss strategy with respect

to litigation where an open meeting will have a detrimental

effect on the litigating position

of the public body and the chair.

So declares Linda Valenti, etal versus town of Natick etal.

Docket number 21 dash CV dash

1 0 8 3 0.

District Court, Massachusetts and D, pursuant

to MGL Chapter 30 a, section 21, A three to discuss strategy

with respect to collective bargaining

or litigation, where an open meeting will have a detrimental

effect on the bargaining of litigating position

of the public body and the chair.

So declares, supervisors

and administrators, association de co.

DPW, supervisors, public employees,

local union 1 1 1 16 DPW Laborers,

public employees, local union.

1 1 1 6. Clerical public employees.

Local union 1 1 1 16 Library.

New England Police Benevolent Association, Inc.

Local 1 8 2 dispatchers.

And do I have a motion to I So move. Okay. Move by Mr.

Sidney. Do I have a seconder? Second. Okay.

We have to do the voice. Ms.

Coughlin, is she

No, she's not.

Don't, don't count her.

Ms. Pope. Aye. Mr. Joseph? Yes. Mr. Sidney? Yes.

I a, yes. So four. Zero. Zero.

We should be back, hopefully right at seven o'clock.

So tune in about that time

and we'll be back in open session, I hope. Thank

You. Resume.

All right. So we're getting started again.

It's about 7 25 reconvening open session.

Went a little longer than we anticipated,

so I apologize for those in the room.

Could we please stand for a pledge of lead allegiance?

In a moment of silence,

I pledge allegiance, the flag of

of the United States of America

and to the republic for which it stands.

One nation under God, liberty and justice for all.

Thank you.

Okay. Announcements. Let's see.

I had a question actually,

and this is for Mr. Erickson, which is probably an easy one.

Do, do we have to establish a period for

how long we're gonna accept information on the

Contributory Retirement Program?

It's not really an announcement, it's a question.

Do you mean for the candidate? For the open position?

No, no. It's really up to the jurisdiction of the board.

I think a best practice at at least a minimum of two weeks,

but it could be a month or two or until filled.

So it's really, and it is currently open.

So hopefully folks watching who are interested in joining,

maybe with a finance background or an investment background

or management background, would love to join,

put their name into the half volunteer.

Yeah, if the board would like to,

what I would recommend though is seeing if the board would

be willing to say, we'd start doing interviews

by a certain time just to encourage those

who might be on the fence to get their stuff in.

And why don't we set it for, what is our meeting in March?

Is it March 7th?

So the first meeting in March would

be this, that Wednesday.

I think it's the seventh, correct.

Okay, so let's set that sixth,

Sorry.

March 6th. Okay. There's 29 days in February.

That's right. Thursday off this year. Okay. Okay.

That, that's excellent. Do I have any other announcements?

Well, and we're still, we're still looking for

one more member for the audit advisory committee.

So if you're interested in helping

us work through advising the select board on audit issues,

please volunteer for that.

Just

If I may, the Economic Development Committee does

have its regularly monthly scheduled meeting this Thursday

at eight 30 in the morning.

I know one of the topics they're gonna focus on is the Route

nine, route 27 interchange project that's going on.

And obviously there's been some discussions about

that in different forums,

but this will obviously talk about sort of the nature

of the project and its impact on local businesses there.

So I just wanted to make the community aware of that,

especially if you're a business owner in that part

of the community that might be affected

by the future construction.

Where is that meeting?

It's gonna be on Zoom

and it's in Nova's agenda.

Okay.

Thank you Mr. Jeff. Any others

You want take? Yeah,

Public.

Let's move on to public speak.

Any individual may raise an issue

that's not included on the agenda

and it will be taken under advisement by the board.

There's no opportunity for debate.

This section is limited to 15 minutes total

or five minutes for each individual.

Do we have anybody who wants to do public speak?

I don't see anyone here. We're online. Nobody here but us.

Chickens.

Announcement. We do have an announcement on the, yeah, I'm

Sorry, I didn't say that one.

On the Memorial Beach Seasonal rates. I'm sorry.

Thank you Richard.

Mr. Chair, I'll speak to this one.

Okay, so this is just information for the board.

The Memorial Beach passes will be going on place

will be going on sale starting in May.

This is just information for the board in terms

of the rates for the year ahead.

There's no plan

and changes to the dollar amount, just a little bit in terms

of how they're structured between weekday and weekend.

They're gonna go move to one rate as a whole.

So this is just information for the board, information

for the public that passes will be going on sale

and we hope to see residents

of Natick down at Memorial Beach this summer.

Thank you Mr. Marshall. And thank you Mr. Sidney.

I just zipped right over them. Excuse me.

Do you wanna discuss that?

Yeah.

Okay.

That's coming under select board updates.

Okay, good.

Alright. We did have no public speak.

So now let's go to select board updates.

One of which is the, we're changing

the date of the next meeting to February 26th.

It was February 21st,

and the reason for that is it's school vacation week

and we needed to accommodate

both members as well as the town administration.

So Monday, February 26th at 6:00 PM

Hopefully you can make it.

Yeah, you

Guys don't have to, right? Yeah, we were

Outta the room at the time. I'm sorry. I

Have a choice.

I got that little detail. Okay. Yeah,

This is not necessarily select board related,

but it seems like it's appropriate for us to share.

And it's about those who may wanna run for town meeting.

I think papers are due tomorrow.

So I just wanted to share that,

that if you are interested in running for town meeting,

there are, it seems like there's seats open

in every precinct.

You can go to the town clerk's office, go get papers,

go get your signatures, and the paperwork is due tomorrow

By 5:00 PM

By 5:00 PM at the,

By 5:00 PM Thank you.

Or at the town Clerk Clerk

Clark Town Clerk's office.

Yep. Right. Can I make one

quick announcement while we're on announce?

Absolutely Announce. Just a reminder,

the warrant closes on the February 22nd

at 5:00 PM It's a Thursday, the town for the town meeting

for the spring annual town meeting.

So for those watching from home,

or who would like to get town meeting warrant articles in,

please, preferably, well in advance of that deadline,

we do work hard to, with staff to try to make sure

that we get things prepared in the warrants

so the select board can determine and vote on the warrant.

Now, on the Monday evening, the 26th,

That was actually part of the impetus

for choosing the Monday because we were likely to meet.

Okay. That day. Anyway,

One consideration for the board is do you want

to have a meeting between now

and the warrant to discuss town meeting warranted articles?

But that can be separate from tonight's meeting.

Okay. Yeah, we should talk about that.

That's later. Yep. Not an announcement. Okay.

Okay. Any other, okay, I've got one,

which is February's Black History Month.

And Spark Kindness has a terrific summary

of all the events taking place

during February in celebration.

Some events include Nat Case, United's racial Justice

series, which is on Thursday nights from six 30

to 8:00 PM on Thursday, February 8th, February 22nd,

and March 7th, creeping into March

on Thursday, I'm sorry, on Tuesday, February 6th

or tomorrow at 4:30 PM Troy Smith will be speaking at

Fisk Meth Methodist Church at to the United Women in Faith

to talk about his work in the community.

And we'll be joined by our very own Kristin Pope.

So please attend one or more of those events. Okay.

We're on to discussion

and decision, if you don't mind, Mr. Townsend.

Let me please go to these guys first,

which is a public hearing on the Square dedication

for Gordon Chanel and Mr.

Sidney, would you read the

Yes.

The Select board will conduct a public hearing on Monday,

February 5th, 2024 at 6:30 PM in the Edward h Delo meeting

room, second floor of the Natick Town Hall,

13 East Central Street, Natick, mass, as well

as remotely via Zoom upon the request

to dedicate the square at the corner of Union Court

and Main Street for Gordon s Chanel.

Anyone wishing to be be heard can attend in

person or via Zoom.

Login instructions will be published on the February 5th,

24 select board agenda.

And I move to open the public hearing.

I a second. Second. Thank you, Mr. Joseph.

So moved by Mr. Sidney, seconded by Mr. Joseph.

All in favor, please say aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Four zero vote.

Okay. Mr.

Caru, please walk us through this.

Hello? Hello.

There we go. There you go. Thank you, Mr.

Chair, members of the Select Board

and Town Administration, I'm here tonight to request

a square dedication on behalf of

43 year NA police officer, Gordon s.

Channel to be held on February 17th, 2024

at noon at the intersection of corner of Union Court

and Main Street in downtown Natick.

I have with me Dr.

Dawn, Donna McKenzie, who brought this to my attention

and is word tirelessly with me under the square wording

of the resolution and so forth and,

and details of the square dedication.

He is a stickler for details. Does a great job.

And I also have Gordon's daughter, Lisa,

she's in from Bellingham.

She's a educator. Thank you for your service, Lisa.

So we have Lisa, not channel,

Channel Stanton,

Channel Stan, and talked to Mackenzie

and I've committed to them whatever order they wanna go in.

Thank you. While, while you're getting ready,

I just have one correction,

which is the square dedication is on the 24th, not the 17th.

So, oh, yeah,

We changed,

Sir.

Yep. Moving Target.

Good evening. I wanna thank you

for considering my father Gordon channel

for the Square deification.

He loved this town

and spent nearly half of his life protecting and serving it.

He moved to Natick in 1941 with his family from Fall River,

and he attended Natick Public Schools.

He was a graduate of Natick High School in 1946,

where he was an outstanding football player.

After graduation, like many,

he joined the United States Army.

He attended a parachute training course at the Infantry

school in Fort Benning, Georgia,

and became a qualified parachutist.

He served in the 11th Airborne during the occupation

of Japan in World War ii.

Upon his honorable discharge in 1948, he worked in various

positions in the Natick School Department.

Then in 1950, he joined the Natick Police Department

and served as an officer for 43 years.

During his tenure with the police department,

he was also elected president of the Patrolman's Union

and served for such for 10 years.

Upon his retirement, he moved to Cape Cod,

where he proudly flew the American

flag in front of his home.

Each day he kept in touch with Native, a colleagues

and friends to stay informed of the happenings in Natick.

I feel that the site you're considering

for the dedication Union Court in Main Street seems

extremely appropriate since during his, his years

as a police officer on the police force,

my father was often assigned the duty of maintaining law

and order on the main streets of Natick.

He could be seen directing traffic,

changing the lights in the Natick box on the common,

and helping pedestrians across the street

and maintaining a police presence at the Natick Trust

Company and the Natick Federal savings.

So on behalf of my father and my family

and myself, thank you for this consideration,

Dr.

Mackenzie.

It's hard to go after those lovely words.

I just wanna say that I knew Gordon Tll since I was

16 years old.

He was the father of a high school friend,

and we kept intermittently in contact with each other,

but it would've been hard not to know him,

because when somebody directs traffic on that crosswalk

for 10 years, you know them.

And he knew everyone he helped across that street.

And he often said to me, he just was freezing.

He was like freezing when he did that.

But he also had just a wonderful sense of community policing

before community policing was really in vogue.

He knew a lot of the kids,

and when they came outta school, he was known

to reach in his pockets

and get them, give them money for a hotdog at Casey's.

And that was important.

In fact, he sometimes wondered in his later years,

why we had police officers in schools when

he was out in the corner.

And he met kids that way and really appreciated it.

But different era, different time.

He really was kind of the stuff

that this community was built of, the town of Natick.

He was a salt of the earth, a good hardworking person.

And if you talk to him,

he would actually say he began his career

actually cleaning toilets.

And for the Natick schools, he,

he worked himself up by the boots stops to do what he did.

And he also, with respect to his parachute days in the Army,

I jokingly asked him in later years,

do you think you wanna go jump outta a

plane for your birthday?

Like the one of the, like President Bush did?

And he said, absolutely not.

I'm terrified to jump outta planes.

I did that because I wanted the extra pay,

and a lot of people didn't make it through,

but I wanted the extra pay.

I knew I was gonna get married

to his high school sweetheart when he returned home,

and he wanted the extra pay to be able

to save up for a home.

And they did. They bought a house on Pleasant Street,

which is now North Pleasant Street.

And he would've stayed in Natick, except

that his father-in-law demanded round the clock care.

And he was not gonna go in a nursing home.

So they had to buy a home that would accommodate

his beloved father-in-Law.

So he was just, I thank you for this consideration.

He really was a remarkable person.

Nick Maor, he used to call him the governor,

and he still called him that every time he talked to him.

Like, how are you doing today?

The governor, he was also kind of self-effacing,

and he thought people in Natick probably didn't like him

much because he sued the town.

And I'm like, no, no, they're okay.

And one day I think he took me out for lunch

and he gave me this binder this big,

and I'm like, what is that?

I want you to read that. I saved every document from the

lawsuit, and then you'll understand,

you'll understand a little bit more about Natick.

But the suit was righteous actually.

And he won that suit

and enlisted the help of Archibald Cox, one

of the Watergate prosecutors.

And it was that the Nat Patrolmen weren't being paid

for all of the hours that they worked,

and they weren't being paid for the time

that they checked in.

I once ran into somebody who knew him,

who was on the police force.

His father was also on the police force,

and he said that was the first vacation his family ever got

to take, was from that settlement money.

And they went to Disney World.

And he talked about how much that meant to him.

Now, I think Gordon, on the other hand, took the money

and paid off his kids' student loans

because that's just the kind of person he was.

He just was, family was so important to him.

His children were so important to him.

And I, I just think it, it's so fitting.

He's, he's the kind of person that this town is made of,

his integrity, his hard work.

And again, I thank you

for your consideration of this request.

Thank you, Ms. Mackenzie. I want to thank Mr.

Caru, and especially Ms. Mackenzie.

This is above and beyond the, the, the amount of

family information that we have.

And, and it really gives us a great flavor of the type

of person that he was.

And, and we are going to read the resolution and,

and I'm sure we'll have no problem approving it.

So thank you for all the research that you all have done.

And it is, it is definitely an honor to, to learn of, of,

I I, I'm a carpet bagger relatively speaking.

So I've, I've only been in Natick since 1987, so

I unfortunately didn't cross paths with him,

but I think I get along with him really well.

So without any further ado, Mr.

Sidney, would you please read the resolution?

Whereas on February 24th, 2024, the corner of Union Court

and Main Street will be dedicated to the Gordon

s Channel Square in honor of Gordon s Channel,

who served in the Army from 1946 through 1948,

reaching the rank of corporal.

And whereas Gordon was qualified in parachute training

and made di nine jumps at Fort Benning, Georgia,

where he became a member of the famed

11th Airborne Division, which served in the reconstruction

of occupied Japan.

And whereas Gordon completed the transport

transportability course while stationed in occupied Japan,

which enabled him to work on flight crews.

And whereas Gordon was awarded the World War II Victory ME

Medal and Army of Occupation medal for Japan,

good Conduct Medal.

And whereas Gordon graduated from Natick High School class

of 1946 and was a varsity football player.

And whereas Gordon worked

for the Natick School Department upon discharge

and went on to work for the Natick Police Department

as a patrolman for 43 years, serving as president

of the Natick Patrolman's Union.

And whereas Gordon,

as Natick Police Department Union President,

by enlisting the help of famed Watergate prosecutor

Archibald Cox successfully pursued a class action suit on

behalf of Natick patrolmen to ensure they received payment

for all hours worked.

And whereas Gordon, having spent much

of his work day on patrol in the downtown area,

was well known in the town.

And whereas Gordon was born in Fall River Mass on

October 7th, 1928, and passed on October 11th, 2023.

And now therefore be it resolved

that the Natick Massachusetts Select Board hereby honor the

channel family at the dedication

of the Gordon S Channel Square.

And that a copy of this resolution shall be transmitted

forth with by the Natick Select Board to the family

of Gordon s Channel.

And I so move.

I have a second here. Second. Thank you, Ms. Pope.

All in favor, please say aye. Aye. Aye. Aye.

Actually, does anybody want to comment?

Thank you. Sorry about that. Yeah, no,

I was just gonna say, I, I, I just wanted

to second what the chair had said.

That was such a great context for the presentation.

Complicated. A resolution that celebrates someone

who brought a lawsuit against the town, I think.

And that, to me, speaks volumes to the complexity sometimes

of what it means to be an engaged citizen.

And frankly, we're imperfect institutions

in an imperfect world.

I, I think your comments about, you know, his

impact in the community from, from children all the way

through retirement, spoke volumes about the character

of this community as a fellow carpet bagger.

You know, I, I'm constantly hearing about the way Natick was

and what made Natick what it was.

I firmly believe a lot of what made Natick

what it was still exists today.

But it, it exists through a different lens.

But I think it's through the character of individuals

like Gordon, who I did not have the luxury to know.

But I celebrate a little bit.

And through these square dedications,

I'm really grateful to Mr.

Caru and the work he continues to do.

Because when people come to Natick

and see them everywhere, start asking those questions.

You know, we, we memorialize people when they pass

through cemeteries, and those are, those are peaceful places

to celebrate the life of somebody.

But I think you celebrate the life of a community

through these square dedication.

They're in vibrant places

and they, they provoke these questions.

So really honored to support this one. Thank you.

Thank Mr. Di. Anybody else? Dito.

Dito. Dito. All right. So all in favor, please say aye.

Aye. Aye. Alright. Four zero. Zero. Thank you so much.

And we'll see you on the 24th.

Move to close the public hearing. Second. All in favor?

Please say hi. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye.

Thank you members, the board. Thank you.

Thank you Mr. Marshall.

Thank you. Thank you for bringing

this stuff forward. Thank you.

Yes. And I drive around. See you folks.

Thank you Bears.

Thank you Mr. Townsend for waiting.

You are gonna walk us through the changes to Ope.

We're not going to go through an exhaustive

expose on Opep.

This is just to update the board on

what's happened with Opep.

So please walk us through this. Thank you, Mr. Townsend.

Thank you Mr. Chair.

Members of the board, John Townsend,

deputy town administrator and director of finance,

and always amazes me my ability to clear a room with my,

There weren't that many people,

Wonderfully interesting topics.

But today, Ashley, I'm sort of excited about this.

This has been a couple years in the making to sort

of update our opep trust.

Just very quickly, this is an irrevocable trust

for the town of Natick

that operates basically our EP trust fund,

which you're probably familiar with.

If at any time you have any questions about it,

please feel free to gimme a call

or I'm happy to come back at a later time

and provide with more detail on it.

But the basic thing we want

to accomplish today is if you were a call in the fall

town meeting, voted to approve the use

of the prudent investor rule chapter 2 0 3 C

in this particular document,

that is an option available under section 30, chapter 30 B,

section 20, and the town meeting decided to appropriate,

appropriate that into this particular agreement.

So that's the summon substance of

what we're doing this evening.

I'm asking you for two particular votes.

First of all, a vote to approve the OPI Declaration

of Trust and Agreement.

And then secondly, pursuant to the terms

of this trust agreement, a vote to designate the treasurer

of the town of Natick as the trustee, who will then sort

of take care of the general s and goings of the trust.

Happy to answer any questions you might have.

Okay. Thank you Mr. Townsend.

There are any questions? That's fairly straightforward. So,

And what's that first motion, Mr. Townsend?

The first one is to, first one is

to vote to approve the Opab Declaration

of Trust in agreement.

I move to approve the OPE

Declaration of Trust and Agreement.

And do I have a second one? I'll second.

All in favor, please say aye. Aye. Aye. Aye.

For zero vote. And the next one is de designated.

Designate the treasurer as the trustee

of the trust motion,

Still making notes.

Move to establish the town treasurer

as the trustee of the trust.

Okay. Do I, well, second. Second. Can I,

Can I get that motion one more time?

Sure. Move to designate the treasurer as the trustee

of the trust that we just established. Okay.

Yeah. Thank you.

Is it beneficial to say,

as outlined in the trust documents

or in the agreement? Yeah,

That'd be good.

Just 'cause there's a lot in here about the powers

and the limitations of the powers. And thank

You as, as outlined in

the Declaration of trust in agreement

As, as we say that again,

As defined as

Provided for, or defined in in the dec, sorry.

In the declaration of trust and Agreement.

Trust and agreement.

There's just a lot in here about powers.

Yeah, they do have powers they don't have, it was

Presumption filled, but that's, yeah, that's,

I agree. Let's make it explicit.

It's just, that's definitely appropriate.

So let's see. This is Sidney Evans,

Right?

The second one is Paul.

Is Joseph. Joseph.

Alright. All in favor, please say aye. Aye. Aye. Aye.

All right. Thank you Mr. Townsend.

Now you've really cleared the room

And if I can just bother you for a

Signature.

Yes. We got a sign.

I have a question for you.

I, as a standard, and I've shared this,

I use my middle, this is not included.

Alright. You want me to sign this? Sign it later. Or

can we pencil in if you'd like

or wish I can redo the signature page later.

Can you come up just like in like a half hour?

Let's do that.

We'll do that.

Richard, do you use yours?

I do not. Okay. I, if I initial things I use, use it,

but I do not use it when signed.

Bruce T. Evans.

Catherine's not here tonight as well. So

What is Catherine's?

Catherine? MM,

That's

Right, it says it on here already for Catherine.

Okay.

I didn't have that open in front. Sorry.

Yeah, I only use it when I initial.

Yeah,

The same here. I don't use mine. Yeah,

I don't either. Okay.

Middle initial people.

Yeah, it doesn't, it doesn't make a day. Yeah.

Yeah, it's fine. All right.

I have three first names. It's really annoying. Next

You do just have myriad problems. I think that's

Annoying.

My middle name's Richard.

Alright, here we go. This is very confusing.

Okay, rich.

Okay, rich, now you're really confused.

Alright, now we're on to item C, which is continuation

of public hearing from January 10th, 2024.

We're at the location Summer Street.

Before we even say anything on that, this will be continued

to the February 26th meeting per the request.

I think we have to move that. Move we, you didn't have

to go vote.

Move that we continue the public hearing

to February 26th at six 30.

Okay, we'll have a second. I'll second.

Okay. All in favor, please say aye.

In discussion.

I'm sorry.

Chairman Evans, why, who prompted the continuous,

This was at the request of Eversource.

They have been unable to do two things to get out

to the site and do all the answer,

address all the questions we had about

where the pole was cited in relation

to other buildings and sidewalks.

They also need to discuss,

there was another issue on Summer Street that was called

to our attention in the earlier meeting

that we raised to them.

And they're trying to accommodate both

of those requests. But they needed another,

Well they would, they would've been able

to be here Wednesday, but nobody was available tonight.

I think that was another reason.

No, that was something else. Yeah.

Yeah, I think, yeah, yeah. Alright.

It was their, it was their request. Okay.

Yeah, it

Is not our request.

Oh, thank you. Yeah, I think that that's correct.

It is because we changed our meeting to tonight.

They couldn't be here.

So it's we There's a self-inflicted one there. Thank you.

Okay. Okay. Updated water.

And we vote that, yeah, we didn't.

All in favor, please say aye. Aye. Aye. All right.

Four zero. Zero. All right.

Now updated water and sewer policy over to Mr. Marsh.

Thank you Mr. Chair. Members of the board.

So in the Novus agenda this evening is a draft

of an updated water

and sewer bill abatement adjustment policy.

This was something that, following a number

of the meetings recently

and some of the abatement requests that have come through

administration thought it would be helpful

to take a look at the policy.

It's been about three or four years since this was created.

I actually think Mr. Erickson created it when he was in the

deputy town administrator's role.

So we felt it was time to take another look at this

and to dust it off

and see if there are anythings worth updating

and changing within the policy.

So if you start at the beginning, there's really nothing

different from section one A through C

that's consistent.

Those are basically issues

that might happen on the town's end, an issue

with the meter malfunction, something along those lines.

The real changes in this policy are when we get to section D

and one of the things we're recommending for the board

for your consideration is looking at those situations where

the water does go into the, the sewer.

With most of the abatement authority we've had in the past,

it's really been tied to if there's an issue

and it can be proven that the water does not go into the

sewer, then abating the sewer portion.

I think what we've been seeing is there's some issues

that have been happening with failures of the system

where the water does go into the sewer system

and then there's no action that administration can take.

So what we are proposing in this abatement adjustment policy

is to, in these situations where there's an elevated use

look at reducing the, I call it the excess

use and reducing it down to the lowest tier, whether

that be the water or sewer portion.

So for instance, say someone came in with an elevated issue,

they were able to prove that there was a, a failure

or a break, it would have to hit that criteria first.

So you know, for instance, they had a break

and there was within their bathroom

and there was, you know, water pouring

and some of it went into the sewer, right?

In those instances, we wouldn't be able to bait it.

But in this instance what I would propose is, yes,

there was an issue, yes, there was a failure,

the resident made the repair

and what we are gonna do is look at that excess

and reduce that down to the lowest tier.

The way we would calculate that as we would look back at

that same period of time, so say this is quarter two

and that was July through July,

September, July, August and September.

So it was that three month period.

And I'm probably saying that wrong

'cause we probably don't even have it broken up that way.

But just for purposes of examples

and their historic use during that period of time was, say

we look back at three years, say it was 31, 33 and 42

and for this specific usage they were up over a hundred.

What we would do is we would look at those

previous three periods of time

and we would say, okay, the highest

of those times was the, the 40 plus.

We are going to take the difference

between the hundred which was used and the 40

and we are gonna reduce that excess down to tier one.

Again, if they meet that criteria, if they can prove

that there was a failure in the system and they can repo

and they can prove that it was remediated and fixed

and then we would be able to abate that portion,

basically reduce their bill and move forward from there.

Okay. Questions? Mr. Sidney coming?

Yeah, I noticed you don't list toilets.

I don't know if it's important, but I would say

they're a common leak.

That's probably worth that.

The second, the second thing that concerns me here is

there's no discussion about timeliness of repair.

Yeah, that's a question.

So for example, I've got a water leak,

but I repaired a year later.

I don't wanna abate a whole year's

when they could have repaired it

after, you know, maybe during the second quarter.

Right? So I would suggest that an ab I think that,

you know, some kind of a clause that says, and,

and I don't know the perfect language here,

but something that says,

if I may, in the procedures document,

Which is page two, bullet one says, completed applications

for water and sewer abatements inclusive, all materials

must be filed within 60 days of the billing statement.

That is a subject to the request.

So we'll know at that point within 60 days

of the billing statement if the repair has been completed.

'cause only need to show proof of the, of the repair. Right?

Right. But if they, so, okay, so we're not gonna update

that, but I, you know, I is,

Let me play out a scenario, right?

If you wait, I got a quarterly bill, right?

And, and I, we'll take John's example.

I, I realize that I have a leak.

My normal use over the past three years has been

between 35 and 40.

And I then, you know, get my bill

within 60 days come out, come to you

and say, Hey, I had a water leak, I fixed it and

therefore I'm entitled to this sort of abatement.

I think if, is there a way to limit it to that quarter?

So what I don't want is somebody to, to say, come here

with a pile of bills six months later

and say, Hey, I want the abatement on this one and this one

because I was asleep at the wheel.

So, so I guess two, two things

to call the board's attention to one under the procedures,

we do try to have this within a certain period of time.

And the second thing that we put in place so that

there aren't repeat situations coming to the,

the town administrator, the deputy town administrator,

whoever the designee is from the town administrator

is we also put in something

where any future crest would be denied

by the deputy town administrator, the town administrator.

So say someone came

and they got something abated, they wouldn't then be able

to come back for the same instance

that we would automatically deny that

and then that would have to go in front of the board.

What we want to do is we want to try

to have some controls in place so

that an abatement is truly, there was an issue,

there was a failure, there was a break,

you were able to prove it.

You kind of have this, you know, one opportunity

and then beyond that, if you come back,

it has to go to the board.

We will have to deny that going forward.

Could, could we? That makes sense.

I I, you know, I, I see that this is gonna cover most of

what I was concerned about, but I I'm still concerned about

the timeliness of repair thing, right?

If they start to see multiple bills

and they're not even looking for the leak. Right.

But

It's only part of Sorry, sorry.

If I could just as, as part of our review process, just

so the, and the board probably doesn't have this depth

of knowledge of, of what we look at.

So when something is brought in front of,

or there's an abatement request that comes in front of us,

what we do is we, the town administrator's office follows up

with the water and sewer department.

We have a conversation, we look at this specific

location and we look at their usage.

So we can actually go and take a look

and see if that spike is still high

or if that spike has gone down based on a period of time.

There are some meters that we have in place

that calculate a little bit quicker

than some of the old ones.

But as kind of we're converting over, we have the ability

to look at that in a little bit more real time.

So typically we're able to see if there is an issue

and if that issue has remediated itself.

So if someone comes in

and says, Hey, I had a break, we're able to do a little bit

of research on that to determine

if that was the case or not.

And if we aren't able to look at that in water smart,

we are able to have one of our water

and sewer employees go out

and take a look at the meter to make sure it's not spinning

and still doing that I, I've actually gone on a couple

of home visits to look at the situation.

So I understand it better

so I can convey it better to the board

Itself.

Yeah. And I suppose if they don't fix it

for a year at their average usage a year ago,

it's gonna be still just, it's high

and there'll be nothing to abate

Or based on the policy,

it would only be the last bill in front of us.

So anything prior to that, unfortunately they're outta luck.

And in that situation,

the town administrator's office would not have the ability

to do anything other than

that one bill that's in front of us.

And then all of the prior bills,

they could certainly request coming in front of the board

for the board's consideration.

But that would be outside of our authority.

Okay. Basically any bill that's more than 60 days old

automatically gets denied.

Yeah. So if somebody sits on it

for more than one billing cycle,

they can certainly request an abatement.

We won't process it that

Have to

60 days.

So that's why it's important to read the procedures as well.

'cause that just shows that timeline. Yeah. And

I think that, yeah, that covers it.

Is, is toilets important enough to list separately

or do you think No, I think they get the idea.

I mean we do have the term

Faucet,

A facility necessary for habitation.

I would argue that that includes toilets.

We, we kind of set an outside faucet

or a burst heating pipe or something along those

lines. But yeah.

Yeah, I just asking the question,

I think you're probably okay there.

Alright. Those are my questions. Okay.

Any other questions or

In essence, in brief, this is really intended to try to,

as we learn more about how the, the policy works along

with the board, just continue to do a few more

of these things administratively just to keep 'em,

you're clearly giving us sort of the direction as to

where you're willing to to do things

and rather than just bringing those back to the board,

if we can handle those administratively,

it just can streamline what the work that you do, the work

that we do, it actually is additional work for us to do the,

the stuff in front of the board to then go back.

If we can streamline the abatement, it'll just be

that much quicker for all it.

It is also important to note, we just did some wordsmithing

as well, John and the team to make it

with the town administrator.

I think the prior draft noted deputy town administrator,

this one says town administrator or designee.

Okay. So we just did a couple cleanups there as well just

to try to make it a little more consistent

with our other policies.

This also shows the new format.

We try to separate procedures from policy. That's great.

Just to try to get a little bit more consistent between all

of our policies as we update the other, I don't know, 60

or so select board policies that we're working through.

Some of which might not get updated but be removed.

But we'll talk about that at a future, future meetings.

Okay. Sounds great. It's great work. Thank you. Thank you.

You need us to move

To approve questions still.

I was, I'm sorry, did you have a question before? Okay.

I wasn't sure. So just very quickly, so refresh my memory.

So you have a three year look back in terms

of the average use, if there's a recent change in property

ownership, do you still look back on the previous owner?

Like it's it's property specific

or is it ownership specific?

A little bit of adjustment

There. Yeah,

I mean we've had it,

it's harder when there's not the history there,

but we do try

to make the best call based on what we can see.

Usually there's a little bit of history within it.

We specifically call out the quarters

because typically in certain periods

of time you might have more water use

than other periods of time.

So it's a good standard for us to have.

But there might be situations where we just don't have

that history and, and,

and that situation, if we're, we feel we're able

to make a decision, we might be able to do it

or we might have to deny it

and have it come in front of the board in that

Situation.

interpret it. Look, I like, I like

To the family five was gonna use more water than

a family of two is your point.

Exactly. And vice versa. Exactly.

So it creates some complexity just as long

as people are aware of that

and you know it's, you know,

it's probably in certain cases more expedient

to deny it, just bring it right to the board.

But, but the policy I think is perfect. So nicely done.

And I foresee situations where we deny it

and it comes in front of the board

and the board might say, why didn't you approve it?

This kind of meets a lot of those criteria,

but we really want to put the, the onus,

I think on the resident to be able to prove

to our satisfaction that it was a failure

and that it was addressed and that it was fixed.

And if certain criteria doesn't meet, it could be denied

and it could come in front of the board.

And, and I just want the board to be aware of that.

If you see something coming down the road, you know,

we do wanna make sure that there's clear proof in terms that

that was fixed and addressed and,

and we don't want to be in any type of gray area with this.

So yeah, definitely appreciate the clarity and the layout.

It does jump out. It's nice. Yeah, it's

Much better, much clearer.

The next adjustment will probably be just the font.

We won't bring that back for the

board when we change the font though.

You have a policy about that. I don't know. There is now

A policy about what fonts guidelines easy to use,

move approval of the, of the policy update.

November. Mr. Sidney is seconded by Ms. Pope.

All in favor please say aye. Aye. Aye, aye.

And before we move on, I'm gonna do my infomercial

for water Smart yet again.

Please sign up for water Smart.

It is the greatest free application you have.

Much better than TikTok cost less costly.

All right, bye. That was my editorial for

It was just, sorry.

Look at TikTok. More people look at their water Smart. We're

Doing TikTok, water whatever video.

Alright, to like sound.

Moving on. Let's now go on to

spring annual town meeting warrant articles.

So one of them, okay TikTok,

one of them is that we received,

and Jamie, I'll, I'll talk,

I'll kick this off about the civil service extension

and our conversation this afternoon,

but we will get more specificity on it.

So Catherine Chief Hicks,

Mr. Erickson and I met this afternoon to talk about

the possible extension, our sponsoring

of an civil service extension request to

extend to age 67.

And we, we discussed it at length,

what the pros and cons were in each approach.

And what we ended

up, where we ended up was

understanding we need to, we debated about, you know,

what should be the duration of the period.

Mr. Erickson suggested that we do up to five years

with an annual approval of extension at the sole discretion

of the appointing authority, the select board with no option

for civil service or arbitration

and then subject to passing a mental

and physical health test for each year.

So we would've the option each year

to decide whether this a,

an individual person could be eligible

for this extension.

Did I get most of that right or

Yeah.

So I guess taking a step sort of

back, it's common at the state legislative level

for, for requests to come in according to Chief X

for request to come in regarding the extension of

the, the time of required retirement

for public safety officials.

So under state law,

public safety officials must retire at 65 no matter what

towns or communities have.

Frequently, frequently I'd have to defer

to chief access to what that means.

But frequently might for an individual, you know,

firefighter Jane Smith or

or police officer whomever request

to allow that to be extended for a certain period of time.

1, 2, 3, 5 years. Typically it's not more than that.

And that can be for a chief down to a firefighter

or a chief down to a patrol person

or whatever the, the highest in all levels of, of,

of a public safety organization.

The board received a request from a detective in the police

department and that just generated a larger discussion

around, well is this something that's good for the entirety

of the department or just for this individual?

'cause it might be good for just this individual,

but it also might be good for the entirety

of the department given just the general aging

of the workforce and the structure of the department.

Like there's various reasons why this might be worth

considering for the entirety of the town.

So in that dialogue,

my opinion was if we're extending it to the entirety

of the department, rather than just having a blanket up

to five years with no checks

and balances, even 65 seems arbitrary

but an additional five years also seems arbitrary.

Maybe just have it be whereby there's an annual requirement

for the appointing authority to say Yep,

we want to extend this for end of the year.

Yep. It's kind of like how one might do a contract.

So if you might do a contract with an employee

who might be at that time of potential retirement,

maybe there's a, we want to do a one year contract

with two one year extensions for a total of three years

or four one year extensions.

The thinking there was that there's a requirement

of an annual review after

that state mandated retirement age just to provide a level

of check for the appointing authority. Yeah,

Well it's an out in case something goes wrong.

Yeah. Or, or I mean somebody gets,

or you know, somebody suddenly gets early

onset dementia or something.

Well it's also something that, you know, it may be

that the candidate for

that once one year

and maybe that person wants two or three years.

So this gives you the flexibility to it each

year re-up basically.

So it, it was just more designed

to build some flexibility into the process if this is an

approach that the board even wants to consider.

And if you do, then there's at least some checks

and balances there for the board

and some security for the board.

'cause right now people you do have

to retire at 65 if you're in a public safety field.

I don't believe we have anybody currently on the force

that's over 65.

But it has been a topic of conversation in the past

and it's currently a topic of conversation.

'cause the request came into the board,

it would require bringing it to,

through a home rule repetition process.

It's not something that we can just do unilaterally.

So that's also a factor here, even

with the individual requests.

'cause if they don't come in timely then it might be, even

if the board's interested in advancing this one

or a future one that still needs to go through that process

to get it to the state legislature

and onto some type of bill for adoption by the legislative,

by the, by the legislature.

So

Yeah, I actually driving back from

something with Repinski, I actually discussed this topic

and he's very familiar with these home rule petitions

and is, you know,

very interested if we want to put pursue it and,

and make sure it gets through.

Okay. So thank you for that.

So I'll follow up with him.

The one thing Chief Hicks was also gonna look into,

I apologize just for more context, is he has, he's not aware

of any communities that have asked for this sort

of blanket approach that can apply

to the entirety of the department.

So we don't know the receptiveness or the history of that.

And so it, until we have that information

or that research, I'm not sure there's a firm

recommendation from me or, or the chief Yeah.

On that approach. It's just, I think if,

if the board's gonna consider that approach,

I think it makes sense to have some type

of annual check. And my

My recollection was that chief was going to look into

That.

He was gonna look into that. Correct. Yep.

Also, you know, one of the things that he said,

what Catherine asked, what I thought was a great question,

which is what is the uniqueness of this

person's position?

And, and Chief Hicks said that he's a, he's a

detective and he is very dedicated

to his craft has excellent, excellent communication skills

and a knack for getting people to open up to him,

which is kind of critical for a detective.

He also has a great statewide network that he,

that he is built up and,

and Chief Hicks noted that these are hard to teach skills

that, that really the town benefits from having

somebody like that available

and potentially as a, as a mentor to some

of the younger guys.

This Sidney,

I just, I was thinking about this given the tightness of,

of our schedule before the warrant closes,

I wonder if it might be worth putting

both home rule petitions on the warrant.

One for the individual and one

for the global just in case we find out

that the global situation wouldn't work.

Yeah, I was, I'm not sure we'll need to do that,

but that's certainly a good idea,

which is considerate what it is.

I think we'll have the information.

Chief Hicks seemed to indicate

that he could find that out pretty quickly. Well

Some some of it's about what

rep Linsky iss gonna tell us too about

what Right. Things so,

And that, that's my homework to get with him to do that

and Chief Hicks will be able to get back to us quickly.

So I think we'll know before that

and we, we can make a decision do one or two or both rather.

Well I personally am supportive, so

Sorry.

Yeah,

No, that's okay. When you first started

summarizing your previous conversation, you said up

to five years with annual approval.

What was the clause about civil service?

Yeah, what we didn't want to have is if there

for whatever reason is a question about the contract

or behavior during that year period, there's no capability

of making a claim in civil service

or making a claim for arbitration.

So they waive that, those privileges.

So the other piece that, that I didn't put

talk about earlier, which is important is

the pension, their calculation

for their pension is ends at age 65

so they're not accruing further

onto their retirement.

So at age 65 it, it terminates, right?

So they're not, you know, staying on let's say two,

three years and bumping that up.

The three years would, would bring them

to their higher, much higher level.

So they go back to, to

what they were earning at 65 for their pension.

Well they can still get their own contributions back

after 65 if they continue to contribute, right?

Well they still contribute into it.

It's just the pensions based on their highest three years at

the age of 65 3, not 66, 67, 68.

Right, right. On the civil service

and arbitration front, it's also ensuring that,

'cause if it's a patrol officer

or somebody in the union, they'd be in civil service

or they'd be protected by the union.

Let's say one year the, the board says yes,

but then the next year the board says no.

The thinking there is, it's gotta be

at the full discretion of the board.

So they can't appeal that.

There's also a concern that if the board says yes

to one person,

but says no to another person,

that could also be viewed and appealed.

So the idea there, and maybe this is why it's always been on

the individual basis and not on the, the broad spectrum, is

that it's so hard to to account for those.

'cause there could be people in,

there could be departments out there

that are looking forward to some people retiring

and departments out there that are really wanting

to keep certain people on board as long as possible.

If it's broad stroke to the entire department, it's,

it's hard to blockade to say yes to one

and say no to another, which could be why

it's on the individual basis.

That's some of the research that Chief

Wix was gonna be looking into.

We also, because we just wanna open ourselves up to

that type of potential scrutiny

litigation. Right. What have

You.

No, I totally understand it. Thank you for that explanation.

I think it all makes perfect sense.

I I'm, I have to be honest though, I'm torn, I,

I I support the idea of, you know, given the individuals

and it was nice to hear some feedback about this specific

individual that sounded supportive

and I agree in terms of some history there.

But I also really applaud the idea

of looking at this more broadly in saying, look, let's,

let's allow us to do this.

Because when I first heard about this inquiry, you know, it,

to me it it, it addressed this issue

that we're constantly having, which is what do we do

with the lack of applicants lack of applicant pool.

If we have good quality people,

if we have institutional knowledge, you know,

especially later, I saw this in the private sector too.

I think we underestimate the value

of older workers and experienced workers.

The idea of mentorship, all of

that I think is really important personally speaking,

if we're getting that level of value and we do value that

and we have a compensation structure

that provides a pension, I don't understand the arbitrary

stoppage of that at 65.

That said, I do understand it from a fiscal

management perspective.

So that, that's where I'm torn.

You know, there's an element of this that says, look,

if you're doing everything right

and we're supportive of you being here,

there's value of continuing that.

On the other hand, you know, I, I get

that we're also going into what I'll consider over time,

given the institution of that job.

And it's not an unreasonable request to cap that

for predictability and for precedents as well.

So I just, I I like, I like the nature

of the conversation you had, but generally supportive of it.

Definitely wanna see the details of what we come up with,

but I think there's a lot of hard thinking behind this

to make it apply as a blanket application.

But I I, I applaud us trying to do that.

'cause I think that's the right thing to do

for the department moving forward.

I think it, it honors the request of the individual,

but with the whole town in mind moving forward.

So thank you.

And it is also something that we to, to get back to Mr.

Sidney's point, we could do the individual now

with a view towards longer term doing something else.

It's not that there, it's all or nothing. Right.

This also speaks back to the chief brought this up

and we were talking about this,

there was a request a handful of years ago for an individual

who was over the minimum, the maximum h

to even come onto the force.

And at that time, the chief similarly said,

rather than looking at that at the individual,

what about the entirety of the department?

Yeah. Now we haven't advanced that conversation as much,

but maybe these two can be advanced around the same with

with the same sort of mindset. Yeah.

Yeah.

I like that. Yeah.

Thank you.

Okay. Alright.

Outta curiosity, is there a thinking of the board as

to a preference at this point?

Just so that we can prepare for a potential sponsor?

'cause Springtown meeting with the shift of the current

next meeting to after the warrant closing,

I'm wondering if there's, and maybe we can line up just a

very brief meeting just for the board

to consider which ones you want to sponsor

and maybe by the end

of next week it can, that meeting can happen.

It can be a well zoom meeting just

to say we wanna sponsor these three things.

I'm just wondering what best to prepare.

I know research needs to happen,

but if we are unsuccessful at completing the research, just

'cause we're still trying to gather it with the board.

Be interested in moving the individual

Forward.

I put both of them on the, on the warrant personally

with an explanation that, you know, and

because it may take time for rep Linsky to come back

and say, yeah, I can get the broad one through.

So if we don't have the individual one,

which he can absolutely get through, but,

but he can't get the broad one through.

Well, you know, it gives us,

Let me ask you a question.

Can't, this is a sort of hypothetical,

the you rich since Europe town meeting parliamentarian,

would it not make sense for us to say, to keep it sort

of broad brush at the warrant level

but then come through with motions?

Let's say one is for the individual

and the other is system wide.

Yeah. Right.

Where you, where if we then come to a stage where,

where rep Linsky says, no, we can't do the full one,

we just say, sorry, no option B.

No motion B. It depends. Yeah.

So it's gonna depend on the warrant.

You know, if we can make a single warrant article

that allows for either, that would be great.

Yeah. And then bring the right motion forward.

If we can't come up with a warrant article that does both

put 'em both on and then ask a no action on

the one that's not gonna fly. We

Can do either,

You know,

Knowing that you're interested in both.

Well, I'm inter, I'm interested in making sure

that we we're covered.

We, we cover this particular officer.

Understood. That's what I mean for this town meeting. Yep.

And I also know that there's at least one other person on

the force that's gonna be interested if we can get

the broad brush one through.

So I want to make sure that, that, you know,

that if we have the option that we can, we can use it,

but it's gonna de there's so many moving parts

before that we might not have a good answer

before the warrant closes.

Okay. Right.

But I, I'm willing to support both

of those article, adding both of those warrants.

I mean, do we want to, do you want to vote on that tonight

to kind of put that in motion? Or do you want do,

Is it, is this conversation, this direction's enough?

Yeah, this direction's enough.

Assuming that there can be an opportunity for you

to vote on something before the warrant closes.

Right. I just wanted to make sure I gave proper direction

to the chief and to probably Carris, just

because we're to draft, we're gonna to probably get her her

guidance on the drafting so that when you do meet, we have,

here's the warrant article that covers both Right.

Or just one. But it sounds like you're willing to have a,

or article or two orange article or two,

However it's best on

Yeah,

I mean it can be explained to town meeting,

town meeting if they, you know,

and the finance committee can understand, you know,

we didn't quite know what we were getting into

Just given our time.

I just wanna make sure I'm covering what need is needed so

that the next meeting we're

not having this conversation again. It's more,

Well in worst

Case, you could,

here's the language, vote on it. And,

And worst case you could put it on the warrant if,

if we can't get that meeting together. Okay.

I prep. Yeah. Given the, you're the

appointing authority, I think it makes sense. Yeah, of

Course.

So

Too

Much.

You have a question

Sneeze.

Is there anything economic development related

that we wanna put on the warrant?

Well, I, and I have one to bring up as well. Okay. Well

Let, let's go to the, we wanna put

On, I mean, I would assume Ms.

Loomis is bringing some zoning updates forward.

I know she's given updates on those.

So I guess that we're gonna get an update at the

EDC meeting on Thursday.

So I don't know where those stand,

but I know she was wanted to make progress on,

we did some language cleanup in the fall

and she's gonna continue to make progress directionally on

what she had kind of laid the groundwork for.

Correct. And the

board has already referred a lot of those.

There's even one, another one

on here tonight, later tonight.

The planning board is also looking to sponsor another zoning

map amendment on North Main Street for a property

to be extended into the DMU Zone, which is part

and parcel with economic development.

We're not quite there yet with the MBTA communities zoning

for the West Native community rail station.

But we're still doing the community engagement for that.

That'll probably be a fall art item Okay. To bring forward.

But all ears, if there's other things that, that

maybe come from the EDC meeting

or if you have specific thoughts Ms. Pope that,

that I can bring to Amanda.

We can prepare for the next meeting or,

or if you just have been thinking about something I'm more

than happy to, to explore.

Well I think I, I would love to hear

what comes outta that meeting.

I think my, my mind,

my wills have been turning since we came outta

that joint session meeting

and what we may be looking at as a town

and what we should maybe be in parallel, you know,

making adjustments for in town that would then

benefit us down. The

Revenue generation you mean?

Yeah, basically that, that would be impartial with what Ms.

Loomis is currently doing. Okay.

Especially in the MBTA communities.

I think some of those, if we can do some really key

targeted, but also compliant

with the MBTA Communities Act in West Natick

around the community rail station, that will be new growth.

That's several years down the road though,

before some of those properties would come on board.

We have done in the last couple town meetings,

some targeted zoning for things like the MathWorks expansion

that they're gonna be moving forward

with the exponent expansion

that hopefully they're gonna be moving

forward with in the coming years.

That will add to new growth as well.

It's just so hard to, you know, you put in place zoning

or you put in place secondary development tools

and sometimes it takes several years Right.

To realize those revenues

And keeping that in mind.

That's, that's partly why I was bringing it up.

We are also working soon and,

and we do have grant funding

to support this some targeted work in the

Golden Triangle area as well.

So we, we have done some internal discussions around that.

It's more just rebuilding

that from an external conversation perspective.

But I know they've been very active working with MathWorks

to make sure we accommodate their project, working with

the mall to try to ensure that they continue

to redevelop some of their spaces

and working through the planning board process.

And we've been very lucky to have a very proactive

micro life science market

with some local key investors that have really helped on,

on our micro NAIC level to continue that advancement.

In fact, there's some work

that's happening at the S Sherwood Plaza area around that,

which is amazing 'cause it doesn't, it's not to the scale

of necessarily like what you see in Cambridge or,

or the Seaport, but for our level it's,

it's still really exciting to see

'cause that could lead to the

long-term economic development.

So we've been really trying

to hammer those projects and getting those going.

Yeah. But great ideas.

I would love to hear them all and,

and obviously looking at the transitional zone

that's starting to redevelop a little bit down the road here

at Union Street that's happening.

So we, we, I think we're,

I think we're advancing a lot going on quite a bit. Yeah.

Yeah.

Thank you. I will say, I mean, just to con sort

of build on what you said about the life sciences

stuff up at Sherwood Plaza.

Years ago when we first started with EDC,

I remember BJ's Wholesale Clubs

corporate headquarters was back there.

And what is now AB A BI labs, the FIR a BI labs, two

of the three that they're going to have when they closed.

I remember the economic impact that was shared

with us was in excess of a million dollars in impact on

local restaurants and retailers in that area just

because of the employees

that would not be frequenting those shops.

So the fact that those laboratories have actually brought in

dozens of businesses, including their investors,

including the sort of infrastructure for them, it's,

it's been a great sort of continuation

and evolution of business up there for sure.

I think, you know, one of the questions that we are going

to be discussing at the EDC under other businesses,

the local options taxes that are coming up.

So we did hear about that at the MMA

and the governor's budget, the idea that

what would provide some latitude to the municipalities

to expand what they collect in terms of hotels

and meals, taxes of excise tax, vehicle taxes and the like.

So I think that may, maybe that was one question

that will those be at a point at the state level

that we can take action on that at this town meeting?

Or is that gonna have to wait till the fall

and it might, my understanding is it's probably the fall,

Probably more fall.

Yeah. Given, given that as in the governor's proposal right,

it still needs to get through the

rest of the Senate and the House.

So it's more likely that that's a end of the fiscal year,

beginning of next fiscal year if,

if we're lucky type timing.

Right. My my my hope is that we can get those tools just

'cause I think it's great to have those tools even

and then let the local jurisdictions vote on them.

And I know the TDMD legislation

or adoption was another item on the agenda,

which is the tourist destination marketing district,

which if we can get adoption from local hotels to buy into

that would provide local money that can be invested in

targeted economic development for Natick,

specifically if Natick becomes one of the lead towns in

that TDMD zone.

So that's, that's another area where we're looking to,

to improve on some of that.

So I think there, I think of the programs we're looking at,

those are all kind of in play.

We'll talk about where they stand,

but I think, I think we're looking at all those options

for revenue enhancement

that are like in the near term at least, right.

That are there. And to, to Mr.

Erickson's point, I think we are kind

of putting the seeds in the ground

for the future evolution as well.

We've also been fortunate to see a lot of very strong,

and there'll be even be an update tomorrow on this front

infrastructure investment from the state and local level.

Natick center commuter rail station is finishing up in the

next year or so, a $40 million renovation project.

We'll be connecting the CRT in with that.

That's a 24 to million dollar investment.

North Main Street is another 12 to 15,

depending on how you calculate it.

A million dollar investment. West Commuter Rail station is

gonna be upgraded with accessibility requirements along

with Boin Lane Bridge.

That's gonna be replaced.

The state's also investing in Speed Street Bridge.

The 9 27 interchange, which is a topic

of the EDC meeting tomorrow currently is

projected at, I think 80 million.

It's 80, putting aside people's opinions on that project.

But that's an $80 million investment.

So there's a, a lot of infrastructure investments

that have been happening along with our own public water

sewer investments that we're

gonna be seeing coming down the pipeline. So

To be clear, that's 80 of the

state's money, not the town's money. Allstate

And Federal. Right.

With mass dot Right. And state. Right.

So just to be, nobody's choking

Stop

Breathing on what that said.

I think part of the discussion,

which is a robust one we expect tomorrow, which is,

you know, do we need the Taj Mahal

of an interchange over there?

Can we get due with something else?

And maybe shift the, that investment

to something else in the community,

which would be an interesting approach.

I will say one other topic

from an economic development perspective,

of course now I've lost my train of thought.

We're going from local oceans taxes.

I'll come back. Thank you

Mr.

Sidney. Yeah.

So I promised to do some research into the Noyce bylaw.

We tried to pass a few years ago

and I actually found it, the first attempt was in fall 2006.

And I, I don't remember if it was the second

or third attempt was in fall 2007.

I contacted the proponent who does not have

unfortunately a copy.

So I pulled him outta the town report,

which I'm having trouble reading.

I think if it's gonna,

I've gotta do some other research into other towns.

I think this, if this is gonna go, it'll probably be i'll,

I'll probably be asking the board to think about it

for the fall at this point.

So just an update on my research. Thank you.

Sorry.

Just we had talked about,

and this I think is part of Ms.

Loomis's changes, just the ability

to accommodate commercial kitchen

and some of the, you know, I think we've adopted the zoning

for it as of last fall.

We were looking at the potential for developing, you know,

shared commercial kitchen space.

I know this has been a conversation in the community.

So the, the EDC will be talking about that.

It's not necessarily directly related to anything

with town meeting other than the zoning has been put in

place to allow for it.

I think that's, that was the outstanding

concern from last fall.

The other question I had just regarding articles

I wrote raised it as the hypothetical.

I didn't raise it at the joint meeting the other night,

but I will raise it again March 1st, March 15th.

Is there a better budget deadline

and should we be really thinking about, you know, making

the time horizon for the budget presentation aligned with

where the real information is?

'cause again, I love that meeting that we had with FinCon

and with the school committee, but it still wasn't complete.

Right. We're still waiting for finishing the schools

to getting their budget tonight.

Right. If I understand the draft budget Yep.

With an interim superintendent.

So I just wanna make sure that as

the elected officials supporting the administrative process

and frankly out of respect for a dwindling number

of citizen volunteers sitting in these roles

that we make the most out of our meeting times,

I'm still a proponent of pushing

that date back in terms of budget deadline.

But I, I'd love to hear administration's feedback

and I understand the pains of the fin comms calendar,

but to me, let's do the right thing

and let the process be redefined as opposed

to wedge things into a process that's

maybe putting unreasonable pressure on us.

I, I'll just briefly note, the February one has been more

of a relief than I was initially.

I thought March 1st would be February one has been great.

Let me just say that it's been a, it's been a great relief.

It gives us that much more time to get more accurate,

to have the tough conversations with the school department

to, to, to really be prepared

for the, the season.

March one would be obviously

that much better later is just better.

But I also appreciate the compression

that they makes with town meeting.

The way our current system is devised

and the way the current composition

of the finance committee works, meaning

to get a 15 member board together

to review a budget is challenging in its own right.

I'm actually curious, given that there's a charter

or bylaw review committee

and there's discussions around town governance,

are there adjustments that can be made

that can make the finance committee more

nimble in their work?

I I, I'm a proponent of the finance committee,

but it's really challenging to have meaningful dialogue

with the finance committee when there's 15 of them when it's

outside of town meeting season.

Is there a smaller composition?

Is there a, a structure in place that has

appointments that can be handled a little bit more nimble?

I, I'm just trying to think of other ways. It is a bylaw.

The finance committee is, is a,

is a bylaw product of the bylaw.

So it doesn't require charter change.

But for example, if I can meet

with the finance committee on a, on a monthly basis

and then going to the town meeting,

it's not getting 15 people, that would be a lot easier.

I just know there's been difficulties in the past in the off

seasons to get a quorum of the finance community together

to talk about substantive topics.

It happens, but it's not on a, on a regular because,

because of the, the sheer numbers.

So I'm just curious if there's a way to maybe think about

that, which then can help the process even more.

Well, I, you know, I've actually thought about this.

If, if you, if you will,

I've actually thought about this having been on the CBRC

twice, and I, first of all,

I would get in front of the CBRC saying, this is a goal,

can you consider how to do it?

One of the thoughts I had at one point,

and I've heard both good and bad.

I've talked to a few people about it.

I've heard both good and bad feedback.

But if you split the finance committee

into two finance committees, you know, one that deals with

zoning and bylaws

and another deal is strictly with budget,

then you've got smaller groups

to meet with for different things. And

Essentially warrant review committee versus Yeah.

A finance committee. A traditional Yeah. Finance committee.

Yeah. So that's just one idea I've had, you know,

not being on the CBRC, it wasn't something I was pushing

for, you know, actually thinking about writing

any citizen's petition on.

But it might be worth talking with the CBRC

and perhaps with the moderator about how to, how to make,

you know, how to, how to work

that process a little differently.

Just for my, my confirmation. It is a bylaw change though.

There's no charter change at that point.

So in theory, anybody, any group can bring it forward.

The finance committee is, I,

I asked the question at one point if the finance committee

needed to be mentioned in the charter.

'cause it's not, and the reason it doesn't have to be is

because it's general law.

General law requires that towns, not cities,

towns have finance committees

Understood.

So, and they can be constructed any way the town wants,

but they have to be, they have to be there. Right.

But in theory, and I know this is extreme,

a finance committee could be three members,

one member appointed by the select board,

one member appointed by the school committee

and one member appointed by the moderator.

Right. I'm not suggesting that it's just in theory can,

it can be as simple as that,

which can then review the financial articles or Right.

It can be, there can be

so many different compositions of it. Right.

But I, by bylaw, I,

I forget whether it's the charter or the bylaw.

Something requires that the finance

committee review everything

That's in the bylaw. That's the

Bylaw.

That's the bylaw. So, and,

and I I've been getting them mixed up lately.

But if you split the finance committee

and made, you know, essentially dedicated committees Yeah.

For different purposes, it might, you, you and,

and then it would require administration to organize staff

so that they showed up only, you know, so

that they didn't have to show up for every, you know, right.

In front of all the committees.

You know, that, that, so, you know, but that's something

To your point though, it's, it,

it's interrelated moving parts that we, that we'd have

to coordinate on, whether it's with the CBRC

or a charter commission.

We, we would have to figure out what's,

what's gonna be the best mechanism to achieve

what town administration wants, which is flexibility

and less time consumed reviewing this in a more timely

or more desirable timeframe

to get the information required to put together a budget

and not have to go in fits and starts.

Charter commission wouldn't be involved. Right.

Yeah. In finance committee.

That's true. It's, yeah,

It's a bylaw.

If, if I may charter right.

So in, in light of the idea of this SPRINGTOWN meeting

and the proposal of a March 1st

or March 15th, I don't know

what the right date would be based on the school's

timing budget.

I understand the ripple effect of proposing that.

I think it's wise to have a conversation

with the moderator and the CBRC.

I know we're talking about a parallel special town meeting

to talk about charter issues.

But they're, they're also going to be coming forward

to town meeting with bylaw

recommendations is my understanding.

So now is the time to get in front of them.

If we want to talk about bylaw suggestions.

I'm sensitive to the politics of this, of, you know,

the executive branch suggesting ways

that the finance committee operates in

its guidance to town meetings.

So I definitely want to include them in the conversation.

However that said, as the executive branch

and seeing the implications of this on staff

and our ability to make the right decisions

for the community once or twice as opposed to three

or four times, I feel very strongly about it

because it does affect quality of life.

It affects quality of staff time

and their ability to do what we need them to do.

So whether we're having another joint meeting

or if we could do that in the form of a letter

or outreach to the CBRC, I'd suggest that.

But I do think, you know, this idea of, of a consideration

of a bylaw change to look at the, the fin com structure

that would need to change to accommodate a later date

to receive the budget.

If right now the discussion starts

with us putting a budget date down as an article,

I would like to propose we do that

because at the very least, it, it gives us an opportunity

to educate the community

and town meeting members as

to why we think that would be valuable.

And it might set the stage for the parallel

or subsequent special town meeting

to talk about a bylaw change.

Because the fact is, you know, if we get this done,

even if we come back in the fall with a bylaw change,

that gives us enough time given

that the year has passed. So I'm

Not feeling like

This has to be done yesterday.

But I do think the goal of the timing needs to be discussed.

And I think there's ample reasons to consider it, especially

with a new superintendent coming on board, especially

with consideration of an override coming forward.

We've got a lot of very serious financial

conversations to be had.

And the last thing we need to do is waste administration's

time on fictitious temporary budgets.

I was gonna say the fall is probably early enough

for a change in the dates because they're not charter and

I think that should be a target,

But get the CBRC involved and,

and they can decide whether to bring it for spring or fall

and get the moderator involved

to talk about the finance committee.

And as a former chair of the finance committee,

he's very familiar with how the finance committee works.

Yeah. Well, let's be realistic, right?

We're, we're sitting February 5th, right?

The warrant closes on February 22nd.

The chances of that all coming into place

by February 22nd is slim to none.

Right. So I think we realistically should be

targeting fall town meeting.

I, I would, I would respectfully suggest we put the

article for the budget on the SPRINGTOWN meeting

to start the discussion, how we execute on that,

making Abu a bylaw change.

We can come back later. There's no urgency in terms of the

how, but I think in establishing the what,

I think it's an important statement to make.

And I think we need to make it

with this fiscal hearing in the SPRINGTOWN meeting.

Okay.

That's another point of view. I understand. Alright.

So let's do some more thinking about that.

And let, let me talk to the CBRC and the moderator.

So two, two items based on what we know of

what we're gonna have to discuss financially.

I I do agree about targeting the spring for

that particular issue.

My, my, my question is why do we need

to get the CRBC involved?

'cause we have to have a bylaw change.

We don't have to but it,

but they're given that they're, sorry, given

that they're most familiar with the bylaws

and what would need to be changed

and what the implications are.

We, we, as we select board,

need to be careful of, of introducing changes

and not understanding the, the ripple effect.

We don't know what we don't know.

I I'd also say we also don't want to end up

with competing articles on town meeting

where we're saying one thing in the CBRC is saying

something else and they conflict.

And that's a whole, that,

that gets into a whole headache in front

of the finance committee and,

and in front of everybody, me neither.

We'd rather have them cooperating

and us cooperating with them

and them cooperating with us so that we put together,

you know, one, just one proposal,

which is why, to get them involved now in terms of the date,

you know, we could put an article on to change the date.

That's not going to, that's not a change

that's gonna have a big ripple effect through the whole,

you know, by all the bylaws where a rewrite

of the finance committee article,

which I think is number 25, is potentially,

you know, we could be in conflict

and could have other ripple effects.

And, and I'm playing devil's advocate on this one,

which is, if our intention is to get the temperature

of town meeting to figure out, you know,

is this something that's desirable to this

and to be able to discuss moving the state,

would a resolution affect that?

I, if I may, I I have no intention

of this being a temperature check.

I think as the executive board supporting the town

administration being, you know,

delivering a responsible budget with collaboration

with the school department, with transparent information

and accurate information, this is an imperative.

It's not a temperature check. Right.

As far as the execution of it, the implementation, I defer

to the legislative branch as to how it wants

to adjust to that reality.

I don't think it's our place as the executive branch

to impose or suggest a specific way.

We could suggest it and collaborate.

But as we've learned in the CBRC select board process over

the last year, I'd rather legislative branch decide

how it wants to do business.

Let fin com let town meeting members

decide what makes sense.

But I want the broader message,

which I think is the urgent one,

is the administration needs this, the community needs this

to make sure we have the most accurate information

to make decisions around without wasting time on arbitrary

placeholders that we have to come back for.

To that note, I really want to,

I was gonna say it in the select board concerns,

but just a shout out to the administration.

You know, Mr. Erickson, superintendent,

interim superintendent and

and colleagues in the finance department put together a

wonderful presentation to the joint meeting last week

of the fin com of the school committee and the select board.

And there are relatively few gaps in terms of

what we still need to understand.

But again, the community is going to be going

through some very difficult decision making over the next

two years when it comes to financials.

Every little assumption that goes into a spreadsheet matters

and the time it takes to scrutinize that

and to make sort

of validate the assumptions that are being made.

I would much rather our professional staff focus on reality

than providing something for the theater

of making arbitrary deadlines for us as elected officials.

So I feel very strongly about supporting the, the,

the March 1st change as far as the implementation.

I, I respectfully defer to the legislative branch

to say how they wanna do it.

Thank you. And,

and that's why I was saying I was playing devil's advocate

'cause I wanted to elicit what you were just saying.

Okay. Well

Paul, are you making a motion?

Yeah. If we're ready to take action? Sure. I'd like to.

I'd like to. Is and I guess

before I make that motion, is the first

or the 15th, what is most prudent given the school

committee's reception

or the superintendent's re re receiving of state numbers?

Is it the 15th,

February 15th, I'm assuming year or March 14th.

March. I mean by March 1st. Typically we have most numbers.

What typically comes in, I I, I'd have to defer

to the superintendent on,

'cause they, the school budget process,

they hold their public hearing typically sometime in March,

not necessarily by the first.

Right. They are starting their presentation I think

even right now in front of them.

Yeah. They, so that's tonight.

And so they're still continues to work to, they continue

to work on that until they have their public hearing,

which required by Desi for the school committee to do.

Right. We typically don't do it until like

The week before town meeting starts. So you

Can't use when they finalize.

Right. This is unusual. Right. Unusual that date. You

Have to use context. Yeah.

And my understanding from previous conversations was they

get most of their state numbers by the first,

which then I would suggest you need a couple weeks

to digest them, incorporate them into the budget

and come back to the body. So

Yeah, it so much depends.

'cause we incorporate, a lot of the state numbers

that we get are, are in the governor's budget,

assuming the governor's budget comes out on time,

which it, it did this year.

And then from there it's really when updates happen,

which we won't get the final numbers from the state

typically even until the fall.

Yeah. I think this past year was almost September

by the time we got the final numbers,

after the legislative process.

Our other big driver is healthcare numbers,

which is usually mid-February.

So February, yeah.

We typically do get those in time for like a February one

submission, obviously.

I mean, I mean a March one submission

a later date is always preferable.

But I also want to be mindful of the balance. Sure.

Between that and the, the compression with town meeting so

that we can still try to work through and,

and do the budget presentation

and then work through that in March.

'cause it's usually the SEC by the, by the end

of the second week in April will be when we need

to have the finance committees have all the,

all their review completed.

So. Right. But, and I

agree and that's why, that's why I asked.

I I guess I'm just, I would be very clear if,

if we are talking about an operating override at some point

in fiscal 26, 27, 28, some of the factors

that community members will be asking you

and asking your counterpart in the school department about

is what about layoffs?

How's this gonna affect personnel?

How is this gonna affect quality

of service you're gonna make to have

to make hard decisions about

trade-offs in the next couple of years?

To me, the least we can do

as elected officials volunteering is make hard

trade offs about our calendar.

Yeah. Because that's easily fixable.

I think the harder decisions you need to make,

you need the clarity of real numbers.

And so if it's the fifth, if if 15th

or if it's the first, it sounds like the first

will suffice, the first

Should work on it.

Or would the 15th, I I don't want good enough.

I want ideal. Like you,

what will you get a

substantially different result than the 15th? The 15th is

March 15th.

substantially different result just the more,

more time is better at the same time.

I, I, I can't say that between the first

and the 15th is gonna be that much more, more improved. So

Why don't we do this?

And I think we can do this based on

how the, the warrant would work.

I, I would support placing, I would make a motion

that we put on the warrant an article that would

basically require

Change budget due dates, see what

Action.

Right, right. See, see what action the town will take to

require the budget from administration

at a later date in March.

Can we leave it vague and then get specific in the motion

language with a specific date

as we have these conversations over the next couple weeks?

Yeah, I think that's actually the original one that we,

there was, I think actually technically I sponsored as ta.

Yes. Was that broad? Was

It?

I would like the select board to

sponsor that back of the select

Board sponsor.

Okay. So with that, so let me, let me read that back.

So move to put an article on the warrant

to change the budget due date to a later date in March.

Yep. That's your motion

If, well I guess I would adopt the same language based

Adopting the same language used previously Right.

At town meeting. Right.

I mean, do we have, does our motion have

to specify the language, leave it up

to the TA to write the language? Right,

Right.

Yeah. So IIEI encourage us

to sponsor an article similarly worded to

what the administration had supported.

I think that was in spring of 2022 somewhere. Is that

Right? 22? Yeah.

I thought it was the fall. Fall of 21.

Was it fall of 21. Okay.

It was the fall. It was a fall motion. Okay.

The previous town meeting, which effectively

resulted in the February 1st date.

So let's use the same language. The

Attorney general approved it.

I think the Attorney General approved it before.

Well, they wouldn't approve the warrant

Language before we let 'em finish.

It was in the fall. So they had

to approve language within it because the change went in the

Motion.

Yeah. The change went into a, we had to wait

for the Attorney General because the change went in place

right before I started.

Yep. Submitting capital.

I remember it was a difference of a month in terms

of when I had to submit it shortly

after I had started and my role.

Right. So you, you sponsor it. I'll second it.

Okay. I noticed that Ms. Slager has her hand up.

Oh, I'm sorry. Thank you Ms. Slager.

Oh, yep. Yeah. Better. Okay. Hi.

Hi Ms. Ger.

Hi. So sorry I've got a new computer so I

don't have quite things set up so I'm not able

to turn the video on just yet.

But I just wanted to point out some of the things

that came up when we had this discussion,

which was fall 2021, about changing the dates.

And one of the things,

and I did an analysis

that basically said there was just no way

to get in all the total number of meetings

unless we pushed back the start date of town meeting

and that would be a charter change.

So I just wanted to let you know

that in case you wanted

to make your motion a little bit broader

to possibly include a charter change so that the start date

of town meeting is tied to the town election date.

Right. So that can only be done through a charter change.

Thank you. If I may, I mean, again,

Hold on.

Thank you Linda for that. Thank you for that reminder.

That was in the back of my mind

and didn't come forward. Thank you.

Yeah, no, I appreciate the reminder.

I think that's important to note.

I guess I would still contend we've got a special town

meeting that's dealing with charter changes coming up

and we'll have a new warrant to consider at this point.

So rather to the issue

that we've got limited time school vacation to get some

of this stuff down and I'd still

be inclined to place it there.

I don't know that we necessarily

need the charter change at this point.

And again, I feel strongly we should engage the

CBRC if we're gonna propose.

Could, could we put this, could we put this particular,

I'm just wondering if it's reasonable

to put this on the special instead of the main town meeting.

I was just

Wondering, to be honest with you,

I'd rather focus on this separately.

'cause I think it, it warrants its own platform

because it really speaks to the needs for us

for fiscal planning for the next few years.

I don't want it getting wrapped up in politics.

Yeah, that's the thing.

So are you saying special

Drank the last one?

Sorry. Pardon?

You did drink the last one. I did.

I haven't touched it yet. Ms. Wallace

Slugger your microphone's on.

Sorry.

So are you suggesting

to put it on the special? No,

IIII believe we should keep it on the spring.

Okay. As, as we've said. But, but duly noted what Ms.

Slager said. I mean the analysis

that was done was also presuming status quo in terms of

how the FIN com operated.

And I think just based on the couple

of convers comments I just heard tonight

is there are alternatives.

So let's, let's again, I I don't wanna be prescriptive about

what needs to change, but I'm also bold enough

to suggest if we're committed to making a change,

we should be committed to figuring out how,

and it's up to town meeting to decide to make that change.

So I just wanna put this out there and, and, and,

and have an opportunity to explain why.

Okay. So I will take, take up

that conversation with the CBRC and tam,

We'll still to vote this

Motion.

I understand that Rich. Yes.

Any other further discussion?

I I did look up the warrant article language

from the fall town meeting for this

and it's amend the bylaws, sorry

to see if the town will vote to amend the town

of Natick bylaws by modifying article one section one,

annual town election

and town meeting meetings

regarding the spring annual town meeting

and article 20 section two dates of submission

of fiscal documents regarding a date of submission

for the preliminary budget of the next fiscal

year or otherwise act thereon.

There were, as Ms.

Slager noted, potential also impacts in the charter,

but the impact

of these changes were limited to the bylaws. Yep.

So it's, it's like you were reading my mind. Yeah.

That's the exact motion I wanted to make. Okay.

And that was the exact motion that was used

in the fall of 2021. Alright,

I'm gonna just play devil's advocate again.

Alright. Say we go to town meeting

and we say, alright, let's move it to March 15th

and town and town meeting decides, yes, we support that

and, but then has to agree

to change the charter right at

that same time and

Not necessarily they could change FinCon

Fin income can have more meetings.

Fin com can Yeah. Split up the work,

Right?

Wait a minute, if town, no,

'cause town meeting has a start date, right?

It's a fixed start date, right? Yes.

You can change the composition of the committee,

but you still have that fixed date, right?

That you have to have the information there. Let me finish.

Yeah, right. You still have that fixed date where you have

to have all the information through the finance committee

to town meeting.

Right? Now if you do split up the finance committee,

that potentially could be there,

but you have to be, you can't leave it open-ended

and say, yeah, we're gonna do this change

without doing the other.

Right. You have to either

or in a combination change the charter

bad choice of terms, change the definition

and composition of the finance committee to tell, to save

to, to enable them to support the town made.

Yeah. Let me continue. Rich, come on. Yeah.

Okay. Go ahead. I I that's fine. I, no,

I just stop interrupting and just listen please.

Right. If you have the finance committee

that is an appointed committee by the moderator,

the moderator has to be on board with this change.

Right? That is something we have to work through.

I don't, I, and I don't see this as an overnight project.

Yes, I agree that it's a laudable objective

and I also agree that we do need changes

to the finance committee,

but we also have to have the discussion of will

that affect the town charter.

If those finance committee changes happen, will

that enable them to receive the budget,

the fi I'll call it the, the interim budget

on March 1st or 15th

and be prepared to go to the statutorily

specified town meeting thing?

We don't know that answer.

Well, I I, one of the things, you know,

I I was on the finance committee for a long time also,

and one of the things that could happen, you know,

without changing the town meeting start date without

changing the composition con con the composition

of the finance committee is, for example,

warrant articles that aren't staff based could be

heard on a Saturday.

There's no reason they can't hold a meeting on a Saturday.

Right. So they can't find enough Tuesday Thursdays

to hold meetings on the budget in time for town meeting.

But that doesn't mean they can't find times to hold meetings

for other things and take the load off the Tuesday Thursdays

and have time for the budget.

It's, it's possible to do it.

I'm not saying it's ideal,

believe me, I'm not saying it's ideal.

I hated the Saturday meetings I had. Okay.

But there are ways they,

the current composition could work if they didn't get the

budget until the 15th.

None of them are ideal, but I I wouldn't use

the fact that there are subsequent changes we ought

to make, to make things better.

Stop us from making a change. That makes sense. No,

That's not what I'm saying.

No, no, that's not what I'm saying at all.

I I'm saying that you, you you have to have an alignment of

of people that, that are, you know,

it's to Paul's earlier point, which is we do our piece

as the executive branch

and the legislative branch does their P piece,

which is the moderator and which is the bylaws

or charter and bylaws and the fin income

and FinCon subsuming

that under moderator.

If, if I may I I I mean I think we're overcomplicating

this, when you say we do our piece with regard

to the change, all we're doing is proposing an article.

Actually the legislature's doing their piece.

They have to decide we're just putting a

case in front of town meeting.

They're the ones that make,

they're the ultimate authority here.

All I'm proposing is we go to town meeting

and make the case in support of the administration

and the community, let them decide if they happen to agree

with us and pass that article,

then we have a special town meeting

and a fall town meeting that gives two opportunities

for the bylaws to be changed if we need to,

to consider a change to the fin com.

And it gives Fcom itself time to talk

amongst themselves about what they want to do.

Again, I, I don't wanna be prescriptive

'cause it's not our purview, but I do think

what is our purview is doing the right by the administration

and the community in terms of budgeting process.

Alright. It's that simple.

This is entirely a legislative process that's initiated

by an article that we're sponsoring.

That's it. We're not imposing anything.

Fair enough. I'm just trying to play it through.

So, so it's not a situation

where the emperor has no clothes.

When we go to try to explain this to town meeting,

It's up to the emperor and the emperor is the whole body

and the moderator himself, he, he defers to the body itself.

He's, he's the facilitator,

but it truly is the town meeting

members that will decide that.

Okay. So we did not vote yet, but let us do that

Robust discussion though.

We did have some robust,

Sorry, we were making such good time too.

It's okay. So all in favors of,

the only thing that we're, that we're talking about was the

warrant article similar 21 article to fall 2021.

And that was made by Paul and seconded by me.

All in favor, please say aye. Aye. Aye aye.

Okay. I'm gonna have some interesting conversations.

Yeah. All right. Next up we, is there anything else?

I'm sorry. Anything else on zoning articles

found meeting warrant articles?

Oh no,

Just a reminder that

at a previous meeting we spoke about a potential for

taking into account

or considering what action town meeting we'll take

regarding article 42, which is a section of the bylaw

that deals with fuel oils.

It's something that is really just following state law

and we have additional things in our bylaws that

kind of limit our, the ability of the town clerk

and the fire chief to really do meaningful work on fuel

oils, which is a pretty small part of their day,

but takes up more time than necessary.

So the request will likely be to completely remove

that article, although I think it was Mr.

Sidney that also said, rather than remove completely,

maybe just refer to MGL

and just sort of leave it at

that, that way it's a placeholder.

So it, it is something that is noted in the bylaws

as the purview of the select board.

So I, I'm, okay, my recommendation,

maybe the select board could sponsor that article

and the article would be more broad, something like to see

what action town meeting will take to amend, adjust or

otherwise remove article 42 from the bylaws or

otherwise act there on, and then we can come up

with a motion language, which will probably be simpler, like

for the purposes of this topic, fuel oils,

this town shall follow MGL blah blah blah.

Yeah. Yep.

I, I'll move to support that.

Awesome. Awesome. I'll give that to you.

Okay. All in favor, please say aye. Aye. Aye.

Thank you for bringing that up. Hold on.

I'm sorry, did you have a question?

Well, she didn't vote. She's, she's rolling.

We moved quickly, so just make sure you're comfortable.

Can you read the motion again?

Move to put an article on to repeal

or replace bylaw article 42

Fuel oils.

Let's just

I'm okay with that. So

Yes.

Okay.

I said yes. Yeah,

Yeah, yeah.

Awesome. Thank you.

Nothing else on warrant articles

on to the zoning articles?

Jeremy do want to give her that a run through there? Sure.

Lemme just pull it up.

Sorry, I'm just pulling up the agenda. Yeah,

so just my typical speech about zoning amendments.

This is part of the administrative process

outline in master law chapter 48, section five,

whereby within, I believe it's 10 days of submission

of a zoning amendment by,

and there's a list of qualified people within,

or applicants within MGL,

including the planning board, property owners and the like.

The so, and then need to be submitted first a select board

for referral to the planning board.

This is consistent with that

administrative process and, and master general law.

This one specifically is referring to

Primarily just one thing, but, well, one property,

but two proposed amendments

for consideration by the planning board.

They need to hold their public hearing still,

but the planning board is considering sponsoring a

map change for a north main street parcel or set of parcels.

You may recall past two town meetings.

There was an article from a citizen petition

regarding a parcel that's the former Natick appliance store.

It's zoned rg, which is a two-family

zone, does not allow for commercial.

The prior commercial use was abandoned

for more than two years, which under master law you lose

that protection of that use

that pre-existing non-conformity under master law.

So therefore they would like to bring back a commercial use,

but they can't unless we amend zoning.

That's my understanding from the property owners to debate

or discussion and dialogue at the FinCon

and other meetings with this board

and the planning board for various reasons.

It didn't, it it, it got to town meeting

because it was on the warrant, but it did not get passed

because there was a lack of zoning submitted to the

planning board and there's various state

laws around the process.

So in advance of this springtown meeting,

Amanda, the property owners

and property owner representation

and the planning board worked to understand better

what was being requested, got down to the nitty gritty

of it and actually said, okay, great.

Now the planning board is actually,

I think thinking about sponsoring this, moving this forward.

And the planning board did do a site visit on note to,

to go through this area. So that,

And it's understanding it,

it's two, two amendments.

One is in the zoning bylaw

and the other is to the map, right? Correct.

Yep, that's correct. That's very common for when a parcel

or set of parcels need

to be changed from one zone to another zone.

Do

We need to, oftentimes you need, it's,

sometimes it's typically one article to motions,

two motions because it's a map change

and corresponding language change in the zoning

bylaw. They do work hand in

Hand, but to the referral,

can we refer them both at the, in the same motion?

Yeah, just refer the entire thing

that's in front of you right now. Yep.

Okay. So I move to refer both

amendments to the planning board.

I have a second. Sure. I'll second it.

All in favor, please say A who seconded me.

Okay. All in favor, please say aye.

I'm sorry, did you say something? She seconded.

I'm sorry, I didn't, I think it was a tie.

So let's do Kristen for that one.

Yeah, I thought I trying to move us on here. I'm sorry.

Yep, no worries.

Okay. All right. On to the,

Did we vote? No, we

Had to vote.

No, I thought we just voted for it.

You asked and then

Interrupted you

all in favor, please say aye.

Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Now we voted.

Okay. Consent agenda.

Yes, please.

Okay. I'll read them out

and ask if anybody wants to remove anything.

Item may approve. Ann McCullough's request to hang a banner

for the Elizabeth Schickel Foundation run item B approval,

A one day alcohol license for exhibit A brewing company.

Item C, approve a live

and non-live entertainment license application for tack

item D, approve a change of offices, directors, change

of manager and change of hours

for an S 12 all alcohol license for Natick amp vets.

Item E, approve the transfer

of a common Victor licenser Baja Mexican restaurant.

Item F approve a junk dealer collector

license for pay more stores.

Item G, accept a donation from land,

use bicycles into the CRT revolving fund.

Item H Approve a request from the Charles River Rotary Club

to hang a banner from June 16th through 22nd

for Scpa Palooza.

Anybody wanna pull anything?

Yeah, I do. And it's, it's a question.

It's on item G,

except the donation from Landry's Bicycles into the

CRT revolving fund.

Did we get something on that?

Yeah, it's in the, it's in Novus and it's like 2000 bucks.

I missed that. Okay then. And I'm fine.

And Mr. Chair, I can just provide a little bit more in

information because I've been in conversation,

conversation with members from

Yep.

we're gonna talk about it though, right? Oh yeah.

Are we gonna pull it out and have this conversation? No.

Okay. So we're not gonna pull anything

you can tell us offline.

I just saw that when I looked last it was not there, so

That's why.