put proceeded to put the fence up and his suggestion to keep the animals out of the river previous to that the animals had been tethered so they could drink out of the river they were never kept there on a full time basis part of the pasture rotation so i put the fence up and on july twenty sixth two thousand and seven i received this letter from several people let's see i've been told by   agriculture all resources i requested numerous times from an r c s fun plan i was also told by conservation that  are available to me and then last week i was reading a letter in the newspaper by mr hickey and it said somebody on the conservation  commission was actually a former employee and i see this and also in just in this letter from  conservation to d p you'll read in there and they seem to allude to the fact that my fencing is been the cause of a deer to be killed and a fish is a police report mansfield sent a cruiser out there was killed there before my fence front up sort of seems deep he's getting all kinds  it a little discouraging to that none of these letters that i use any of these letters i received from conservation assigned so some phantom seem to be sending them out  the river crap and i think you should you shouldn't believe what i say i think you should get in touch with the and find out what they have to say this is a lot of department of agriculture resources to the border to help although pertain to the filing this is a photo of the street being graded off and there are no hay bales along the side of the road there's quite a bit of asphalt and it up in the river and this letter is the town is listed in there as participating with federal grants for agricultural related should be giving bad information to d p that is just wrong mean they were right there when i was told i could remove the debris from the river you'll read in that report that's part of zone it just makes no sense to me the neighbors throw stuff in the river i'm responsible for removing it that i have to deal with i just don't get it is that you're i think  mortenson at our last week expressed his concern his disappointment maybe that's not the word he used but a disappointment with the direction of the conservation commission over the last year yeah i think it's important that we meet with boards and committees with the appointment to understand strategy goals objectives and talk through issues there to make sure that we're aligned so that as an example if we were to meet soon and set objectives and then a year from today we can look for reappointment so we're able to evaluate whether we think the conservation commission has moved in the direction that we've talked about we've we've agreed to several this may be one point the boards if we're going to be in the premier criticize the board and the direction they took but we didn't get involved in dialogue relative to direction then we're just as guilty as they are so i'd like to see us on set the joint meetings fairly quickly with commission with boards like the conservation commission so that you can talk through what the board what the two boards think where the two boards think they're going and kind of maybe have a video of the bottles and some of these issues could be included in that as chronicled in the reporter so i don't think it's a mystery you know i didn't find it necessary to get into that at that meeting so i think that that's i just don't agree with you on that but it's you know that you know i'm just sitting here at the last minute criticizing because if that were the case i think you know just in the context of you know if you have an employee review and the employee surprised at the review that's just not right you know but i don't think that's the case and right now i know that you know but but you know there's nothing to do with the comment so i don't i don't appreciate comments like the problem is i don't i just don't belong in town anymore you know that that really riles me up  different fact what i said was true it would probably go my way and by paying not responding i feel like it is going my way yet they keep hammering at the how interesting that the gentleman before me is really talking about what i came to talk about but from the other point of view because i live my backyard abuts mr valma has a working mom and when i moved in fifteen years ago there was no fun however in the past few years mr roma has a quiet does and chickens and goats and now there's a pig and i have to tell you have a funny pic story last week of his last a week ago wednesday my neighbor's garage was opened and my husband went to tell her because we're very friendly that's the zaki and so have come here many times and so he knocked on her door and before he knocked on her door he looked in her garage  lo and behold a pig about two hundred fifty pounds was in her garage he told her she went out into the garage and the pig didn't get along with her and he rake and he started to threaten him and he chased him into the woods back into where mr on his property is and this is our can call the police and the police well we had to leave my husband had a doctor's appointment spyros i know they didn't show up the next day my husband went to the police to pack it to talk about us and you know what here's a funny story and the but i don't want to pick in my garage and i don't want to go what's eating my fly was either and we been to town meeting last year my husband's been to the police mr roma has received several i think it i don't know how many warnings because he went to the board of health and they said well we'll issue another warning well i personally don't think a warning doesn't i think you have to even know the gentleman he's probably a very nice man why doesn't he build a bigger fancy's building a two car garage or is doing something on his property what's the excuse for these animals to get loose enjoy you know our lifestyle we pay you know our parks row taxes we don't ask anything from the town we have our private rubbish and after private you know we move will so i don't know i feel the town and i would like to invite this board to maintain or strengthen the content of the minutes please do not dilute minimized or weaken the value of the minutes by reducing them to a skeleton i am here to plead that you do not abandon your current system of producing meeting minutes we have heard the expressions of wisdom the devil is in the details make sure you read the small print and excellence is paying attention to details and working harder than anybody else for these reasons i would encourage you to maintain rich and detailed minutes so much say that video recordings are available and that is true however not everyone who is interested has access to the video of the meetings on cable or over the internet there are those that are not computer savvy and those having been raised in years gone by have not acquired the comfort of working with technology some of our interest that citizens are terrified of programming the v c r which is old technology yet and let along working with the tivo so we have been we have even public officials that do not use e mail to communicate and have a general disregard for technology they should not be left without the information that is now available in the minutes it is reasonable to expect leniency for minutes that are marginal in quality and content when those are record that is rich in detail and information for the benefit of the public now and for the benefit of those that will look back at these times with a historic perspective i see that the  minimum requirements to meet the letter of the law however i ask you you content to meet the minimum or do you seek to do your best are you seeking excellence or m into certain policy regarding elected officials and and how they treat members of the audience come forward i believe was the crux of it lorraine i believe is kind of taking the ball over the last few days and  from time to time a project does come up in foxborough but we don't do too much work in foxborough i currently have one project that i'm working on fox four which is going to involve the conservation commission in the would it help that if there is any reason to believe that you could be compromising yourself or the board or the community you step aside the last one of the last i think in terms of conflict of interest the idea is to gets get out into a life of my company unfortunately in my profession has to come first i'm still employed i work forty hours a week if i have a conflict on  you know i'm expected to do a presentation which i do before a board in the not a community i have to go off and i have to do that and talked with my owner about this if there is a client that i've served with in the past couple of years who comes before the board i would i would recuse myself if there's somebody that i know as an acquaintance in the industry i would make a statement to that effect i feel  comfortable being with the board i think i can offer some insights i'm used to making public used to making public presentations and it's time for me to give something back to the community previously is only because in coming you know from my perspective you know what the player does is my weakness i mean it look at what your strengths and weaknesses there is an official and you know what these guys do his eyes something that i haven't fully wrap my head around so engineer i said as a member we see engineers in front of us all the time so i think it's it would be really good if we had someone with a background like joe johns who can bring perspective to certain things that professionally that we may or may not see from from years of experience but think you know mr rosa seeing those different waivers granted and they should be handed out for same types of consistency and you could bring that perspective because you're going to avoid you present you say you know those previous were you know granted for the same reasons i mean i'd like to see a british case of fended i think i would look at the idea that you know what is this waiver and it will be fairly implementing it and if you can bring that up right away to us because we don't always have it we just deal with our own board our own vote on a project so that so even if we're doing something that he's not going to be voting on the fact that he's going to be part of the process with his his expertise and his background it certainly is going to be a benefit to bunch of paperwork to get the money reimbursed from the every year i come up with a list of projects i try to look at all the different areas around town and pick a street and in each one we really do average almost about the same length every year it's right around one in a quarter of miles of road way that we actually put some new black pavement on this year one point two miles the cost of asphalt really want up a lot last year it hasn't come down much this year the winter was just fine in a way the worst i have ever seen in my life i never had that experience with that much ice like we had thankfully our rice was only on the ground and not in the trees like the downtown area that that road has seen a lot of trenches dug in it we've dug drainage trench in it the gas companies put a trench in it all the new housing down at the end by chestnut green has had a number of trenches in it it's really not in very good condition at all the police of complained about it a number of times and so from chestnut street up to road the asphalt berm that's there now actually goes down separately and it doesn't hold up well the few look around town every spring has a bunch of it and we're in the process of getting ready to replace a bunch that got pulled out over the winter think that'll save us a lot also on baker street from glenwood up to garfield i think we need to do some drainage work there right now we don't have any drainage in that section of the street  got a couple catch basins at garfield garfield actually dumps right on to the street now and so we collect that water in between that section from glenwood to garfield  think we'll also install up to five sump pump connections for people if you've ever driven up that street and went to see that there's at least one if not more people pumping water on it i've got another section of this report that deals with some pumps but that section of town the baker street area and garfield all the way over the union really really suffers from high ground water so whenever we put drainage  if there's potential that people are going to want to use some pumps will run a lateral from a drain over to the edge of their property and then it's their duty to connect from their cell or house into that we don't get involved with the green street from wilkerson which is part of the which pond estates to the town line that wasn't don and postponed while we waited for the witch pond a well site to be permitted and also built they crossed one off six with their new water main there was some talk of putting the water main in the street and having the water department contribute to this project but the water department had them put the water to me down the end of the property of the street i mean i'm sorry and so they're not going to be contributing at all to this to this project the other one that i recommend out on the other section of town is wall street more streets one of the worst of roads in town mainly because it had a sewer main installed in it and  that's always an issue the thing it's in the normally sue was installed in the middle of the road and it settles so now you lose your crown and you end up with water in the middle of the street it's a long road it's about one point four miles long you're looking at some serious money to do that whole area however for this year i'm only proposing to do from co cassatt up to the driveway of the barrel school which is about a thousand linear feet and again that's like baker further for at least request to you to do that we also need to do a little drainage work a little further up on morris street so there are there is no way i would want to actually keep the paving going the same on v street normally our process involves putting drainage in and letting it settle for a year even though to be honest with you i don't think i'm trying to settle that much but they do subtle enough we wouldn't want to put a top coat on them until the end of the year  the following year after it's had a chance to settle over the winter another project we want to do this year is winter street that is one where we put a drain in last year that had a lot of drainage problems we had a number of complaints for a fourteen inches wide and if this was the road surface here all of a sudden the cape cod berm in the gutter line coming along here the cape cod berm comes up and takes up about a foot of space and is that it's a gradual slope and it keeps the water in the gutter versus what's there now on the baker and the other street i mentioned is we call it a loaf berm it's a vertical asphalt berm it's made out of asphalt but it's put down after you pave the road you put some mulch in down which is a real sticky substance and then you have a berm machine come along and you pour the asphalt in and it it actually this year we have a problem there that section those two roads together rad up to about one point two miles so you can see that you know that could consume a huge amount of water or chapter nineteen money  up on those roads we have a significant problem where there's a lot of cracking this winter if you are up there at all you maybe even saw some very light brown soil coming right up through the paving and what occurred up there was that the road was just simply not built on adequate gravel base the problem is not the asphalt it's a little thin but it's not bad the the it's not the asphalt the problem is the underlying gravel foundation is nonexistent and the road was built mainly on clay in our panel when clay and hyde pee and get wet in the winter it swells and freezes swells even more and that kept  happening when we got into the later stages of the winter especially in february what would happen is the top layer of that frozen material would soften during the day and you could actually see cars as they drove down that road sink that road down by an inch as they went over it and it would pop right back up but as it went over there that clay and silt together i mean it just became all soft more she almost like quicksand it would actually just force itself right out of the material so what we actually started this year already was in the middle of it which road using highway department budget money excavated out about two and a half  because the material it is so deep normally on a lot of the frost heaves we've fixed around town we've been able to actually break through the bad material and find gravel up there right the dug down seven feet and i couldn't break through the really bad material so what we did was we took out two and a half to three feet and then put a french drain in along side with the houses are by number sixteen the even side of the road the north side and those those drains are connected into the existing catch basins that are there so the intent of that is to collect the water as it flows underground along the soil strat and it will get rid of it that way and hopefully that way we won't see that heaving up the or that we saw in the past but but it's a huge huge task to look at that entire roadway system from young so we dug down there another seven feet we found stumps and logs and peat moss it's just awful awful material if you drive along that section from beach you can see near the gutter maybe a foot or two away from the gutter you can see where the pavements actually sheared away by like an inch and a half and that's just from that poor on the lying soil you never see that on on a well constructed roadway so that section of it is going to be another really expensive  do because that material is going to have to be dug out on young road near north street that material wasn't good but i think we can solve it by reclaiming it and part of this  process is to reclaim the first two hundred fifty feet of it which is the worst section and up at the top of the hill right where young comes in to ed which we had another bad section in excavated out there and right underneath there we found some really pretty pretty big boulders that were the frost was actually pushing right up into the pavement causing the pavement to break up on the section that we dug up if you do happen to go down there on the side of the road and roll down into the woods there's a giant boulder that the excavator that we use to do the work couldn't even lift up we couldn't even get it in the truck the ball that was so large but we did get to roll it to the side of the properly i think for that whole roadway to be done you know looking at somewhere from half a million up to six hundred thousand and i put in here that i think that should be face to to save some money i think we should decrease the with of it right now that roach thirty four feet wide if it was built when the regulations required thirty four feet we have a number subdivisions that are that why i've always sa the best way to look at these is soft of route one else six where a number of the subdivisions in route one hundred six thirty four feet wide yet one o six is only twenty eight feet so the subdivisions a wider than the number of rudy they don't need to be that wide to work on cost more when we get a significant snowstorm the people that live in those subdivisions just cannot deal with the amount of snow we push into th driveways because the roads are just so why i recommend that we narrow that road up by three feet on each side and bring it from thirty four feet to twenty eight feet but one thing i want to mention as part of this link if you agree to do the narrowing i think what we're more or less saying is that over the course of of the of a number of years we're going to do the whole road because i wouldn't say let's just do the sections and narrow them and not do the whole road and narrow it if if there was any concern that you didn't want to spend that much money on this roadway over the course of a number of years i think we should leave it at that with but but my recommendation would be sense it's it's really in bad shape we redo that road and narrow it up and and that would help but that's the situation up there on the young edwards unfortunately and that's the total program all those streets added up come up to one point two miles minus the drainage work on baker street there's four hundred fifty feet of drainage work on big a street that would not include any paving because we would want to see that memo whenever we do any drainage work if there's the slightest chance people need to pump their cellars and we give them a lateral had no cost if somebody just coincidentally has a catch basin in front of their house or on their edge of their property wherever they might be we would go out there and put a little connection from the back of the catch basin to there so they could tie it in it's it's a very cheap thing to do however we have never installed any drainage for the sole purpose so that people could pump this cellar so but we are at that point i think right now like i said that's what that section of town from baker street over to union street has really high ground water a lot of the houses pomp it's a hassle for us in the winter the one on union street is far and away the worst of the one on bakeries it's bad too but the one on union street flows down to the intersection of union and rock hill the residents up there called all winter for icing problems the police went up there and told them not to we use sent letters to them they can be find  that project material wise is about one thousand dollars that's if we dig it and then if we dig it the cost of that is small that's included but we might need to have a private contractor get for us underneath our exhibition services bid and that would be about another twenty five hundred dollars so you're looking at thirty five hundred dollars for that project i would do it out of the highway project and not the actual chapter ninety dollars  but i thought that it was something that that should be presented because i had some concerns that if if we installed drainage in a street with the sole purpose of someone could connect their sump pump to it in other words solving a problem i had some concerns that maybe some people would raise some concern about misappropriation of funds there so i don't know how you feel about that i think a number of things can happen we can just go ahead with it  i can talk to these people and ask them if they would be willing to contribute some funds to to maybe buy the cereals or or something or if you want the whole thing but i just wanted to make you aware of it that that we definitely have  problems in that area town we've given out a lot of free sump pump laterals to people all over town we've never charged anybody for anything but we've never put drainage in a street either just for the sole purpose so someone could connect  they would pay the fine or would have to go to court to collect the fine so this might be the easiest way to know is it guaranteed though if we go ahead and get that set up that this home would connect to it or is that well there right now he's got like maybe one and a quarter inch by now and it's it comes right out to the to the back edge of where the sidewalk is where the property line is and we would just little come right up to it folks you know didn't realize that the road was being paved and they wanted to get gas in right away so i'm doing it in the letters to these folks and let them know that hey you know we're going to be repeated this road and if you have any i'm utility needs to get done we should do that people will be able that how does that this well this year i have plans and it will go on the website yeah hopefully frankl put a nice article in the paper about it and in lieu of mailing yet we will initially do hand delivered notices ok i will also if i when i have a chance i will try to take a look at the assess up our way you know we would have thought of that or we could use several million dollars for work and you see that's why as i said last week i think we need to put it together to work to identify all ninety miles  here it is each road what the condition of that road has you know a scale of one to three maybe three is in terrible shape one is in really good shape on it and we need to identify i mean when you look at this he says here based on all this money i'm going to spend i have no program that allows them to earn some money off of their taxes but we are that we ought to have a program that identifies every road in a phase the condition of those roads and then we could have a public discussion around how might we deal with that obviously we can sit here and say well we've got five hundred thousand dollars a year as you said or we're never going to keep up with the roads and they got to get worse and worse and worse but maybe there's other ways to look at it maybe for instance there are certain neighbors certain neighborhoods where we have to look at  betterments or other kinds of things to save people money because ultimately when you run out of your money the roads can't be fixed and if you have a young road or another road like that or two or three roads open up then then what are you go you're going to you're going to have progeny you know what so rather than deal with the year to year penny to penny i think we need to to make it a real effort to identify the roads the conditions and then start a public dialogue with how we might handle  the biggest problems and so here i think bob can point to ok i know that these roads are find these roads are you know the worst shape we have the worship you know that i just described i think the magic for us would be i mean do we want to push for taking could look at over a twenty year plan what would it take on a year to year basis to address those those roads or maybe it's a ten year maybe i don't know what the life it would be but you look at a road today that is in good condition but twelve years from today is going to require a major maintenance if we look at it over that window we can look at a program that says what's the average life of a road let's say it's twenty years i don't know we would then be able to say what would we need to come up with on an annual basis in order to maintain roads in and out of a condition whether it's the timing and the one million dollars a year but we'd be able to factor that in over a twenty year plan by knowing what the cost is projecting what you think the cost increases would be based on whatever data we have and by knowing to condition of each road we would know when approximately give or take a few years we would need to make that kind of investment so give us an overall long range plan and how much funding we need i mean you'll basis and then we can then sit down collectively public meeting to talk about if we were to need to take a number of three million five million dollars a year how would you do that and is the alternative doing nothing and letting the roads get further and further in fact shape or do you have to do something and if you do something what would it be and what's the input you get from the public in order to come up with something that's viable in excess the bill to the to the taxpayer to then and inevitably were always happens after you come in on the tuesday night wednesday i that if a resident calls do they call you or they call indy you know how do they get their neighborhood moved up the list maybe well they should just call the highway department because we're the ones that are going to deploy some you know some complaints i know always quite as legitimate as others to be on it with you sure but one of the big things i think i put on how to know where we need to do work is is also not only will do we get the most complaints and we actually do i do a lot of checking of the roads especially mid to late winter in fact icing i sent some of my supervisors out to ride every road in town to see where the potholes are but i do tend to have roads on this list where i've spent the most over time and the most time during the winter patching cold patching if we take care of these roads here it'll significantly reduce the amount of time we spend on these roads all winter almost all but two or three times a week we're on one of six once or twice probably twice a week we're on young edwards because i know we've got problems out there bacon street has has significant problems you know with street has significant problems there's a lot of others too last year we did a little piece of coke cassatt from pleasant to somerville i'll be honest with you i really would have liked to have done from somerville to the highway overpass by chestnut street but there's just not enough money so that section doesn't take up as much time patching as the ones you see on this list but hopefully that he answers your question a little bit information what it would cost to address our roads on an annual basis in order to maintain a whatever level the community thought was an example of streets and might spend more first five years in the next years but you know you should have a long range planning to be able to identify and people could certainly come up and look on the web or a place they want and they'd see where their street kind of falls in the in the list of things and recognizing that from time to time that that nine a lot of towns to be very little engineering i tried to do some when i didn't see the drainage projects thing getting taken care of i think it was three or four years ago now i took it and a step further and we started the excavation services bid where we bring in an excavator but they work with our employees i buy all the materials there's no risk to them i think it's really reasonably priced i  materials whereas if it's just a project the company still think they've got to take on all that responsibility of buying all the materials every single catch basin and manhole has to be sized specifically for  the depth of the drainage and where the pipes are heading in takes time but but that that's one thing i've changed to see if we can get a little more drainage work down there or you could contact any engineering company and day would do if you miss reporting for us you're probably looking at somewhere around sixty to seventy thousand dollars you would be taking a street off this list to to start it and to be honest with you i've always looked at it from the standpoint of i'd rather do the street while an engineering company i think could could could do a good job for us it would just take too much money away though it would lessen you know the burden on my preparing everything for all this but i agree we need a plan i think the plan would i think it be really eye opening how much money it would show we did what it costs to get it back and you know if we continue to allow the roads to get worse and worse at some point we're going to have to fix them and we have to deal with it so it just seems to me that the sooner we we deal with it collectively with the public the sooner we can educate people what the real shocking cost would be to maintain those roads i just think about it but what's an average road last in twenty years twenty five years you know after that you're going to have to do some work on it so you think oh you buy a house in a new subdivision everything's all set you move in twenty five years later that loads got it redone you know that's an expense on someone's part and you know if we're not planning that long term then it to you in so it sounds like maybe at least that would help the process rolling for you if you can actually implement that some guy actually have a you know a civil engineering student working for me for the summer  aren't you just a couple questions for you are you comfortable that the current requirements would prohibit a road being developed like this road do so poorly constructed well unfortunately i think what when this road was constructed that the contractors you know wanted to get the job done he could have done a better job or it's the nature of the beast unfortunately a lot of the time and i do everybody kind of realizes that on all kinds of very blunt talk still today going forward that a new subdivision going in tomorrow next week or the a road that's going to be put in for a future subdivision is going to meet the requirements that you think would be necessary for that road to last eight and a natural life yes i do but mainly because i know in addition to the inspector you i mean the contractor you have an inspector and i think there were some issues there and i think at this point in time the planning board has the best inspector they've ever had and he's really good so i think a lot of these issues have gone away i think i think the roads being built now a really up to snuff very well the other question is that them i think before the flood of selectmen it would would take a vote to reduce the street i think it would be important to have a public hearing in all the people that they're there on that street in that particular street part of the issue is if the streets one point two miles and you're doing point two miles how you shrink once the point to a little over time shrink the rest but you know when do you want a decision on the with of the road just how would you narrow just one part of the street not the rest of the street i think people are then going to be concerned with ok so now if there's three extra feet on either side is that grassed is that is that town to town have to maintain it's a wide range will be a lot of questions then i think we'll need to make sure that that the public is aware of it and we discussed i agree with some we could schedule soon here to give to the public and we have to notify all the residents obviously  or so ocean made by linda seconded by paul any discussion just a discussion on the one for a niche project that deals with just one homeowner i guess i'm conflicted with  i understand the need for doing it because of the joint liability but on the other hand that particular homeowner it is has been notified by the town that they can't do what they're doing we cannot find them but we have notified them and before we would go out and commit three thousand dollars of tax dollars you know i'd like to see maybe the germ of the border selectman or the town manager or someone to meet with that individual and see if there's a way to resolve it so that there is no impact on the other taxpayers it's different you know if he has no other place to put the water that's one thing if there are other places around the want other than right there on to the street you know it's hard to tell because we don't have that information but i'd be hesitant to support that piece of the project everything else seems fine to me but when you want to benefit one individual that requires i whatever before spending that money probably very would you like me to talk to more about potential contribution i would i mean if you're doing it i mean there's two ways you do it cost with which your cost is much lower than having someone else i certainly think in a good benefit all parties if we could do it at the lowest possible price and if it helps that person it helps the town and it helps me with driving through the neighborhood so i think it's worth at least having that dialogue e mail list if you come to my attention in the past the board of selectmen is had and one of the members of the scientists leads on to fox fox procurable access and that might be a good thing  and bad is actually the only proposal who'll be involved as you move forward through what peter is going to describe what i want to do is a print tell you where we are now in the to go she asians and then turn it over to peter to explain the process because the board will then be in your court and not necessarily my committees and then perhaps at some point we could go into an executive session so that we could s with you insights and experience of the past year and a half or so ago she did it with comcast as to why we are where we are and where we want to go with it that might not happening after here meeting next the knowledge and perceptions and understanding of what has transpired since the ball is now shifting in your court so that you can act appropriately understand that i am totally honoring transparency  sessions frankly have been public meetings have been posted because it's the people's money it's their subscribers gone yeah let me just say i think if the discussion really on the administrative proceeding in a certain direction you may want to consider executive session because it's really litigation i mean that letter that was sent to me and copied to the board on may twenty first is requesting acquires a jew to kotori percy it's clearly litigation and there may be questions or issues that i think would be appropriate for executive session if that's the direction you want to go but that that would be the discussion it would be on that legal process if you if you went frankly just so that we don't jeopardize any negotiation posture that we might have relative to the company yes so let me just state that where we are now back in may of last year comcast essentially said we want to reduce the revenue to the town we want to give no capital investment want to have a senior discount and they did not want to commit to keeping the service center in fox world now we've had numerous meetings with them over the past year the most recent one was about three weeks ago and we think we're pretty close we're now isn't where we've come a negotiation this is they now have said well ok we won't reduce the revenue for them to buy out of the i net the institutional that work because the town has its own fiber going and we said ok that's fine actually we prefer not to maintain the archaic thing that we have have particularly said are the real people really want to pursue this litigation process oh i'm so that being said we feel we're close there is another flying the only because the f c a knows they have to move out they have to live there god knows how many properties in two years they now have one that is very close to what they need  close to resolution which is going to cost them roughly a million bucks i think bought they need a commitment of revenue stream before the bank will participate which is understandable i've given them some insights they could use of the bank but will see it that will work but the reality is on top of all of this there is a time frame wednesday the seventeenth and whether my intention is that we go back to count cast with another counter proposal because we're not that really that far apart to see if somehow we be david greene their representative in myself a bill said we don't want to get into this administrative process if we can avoid it because of the expensive and not it's negative so  we come to a fork in the road my committee will continue to try and resolve but the a forced they've hired washington a series the first issue and a more formal process which involves you folks more and that's why we're here so if you have no question as a media let people display the process in then we need to questions and then if if you want to know some of where we why are insights into why were you are here that might help you because you're the licensing authority in the jugular really of this process then we can discuss stated it correctly you know comcast just thinks they have enough pretty much to do everything and you know i think the committee has admitted that they have some cash we're just saying we don't agree that it's necessarily enough you know to buy a place to renovate a place to buy equipment and remember they're looking for ten years so you know we knowledge the fact that they have it and i've said to comcast and  said this to miss well they said we said you know we can we can disagree on component issues but that doesn't mean we can't come to an agreement we just say oh well we don't agree with that but you know what it's a never but a centrist to reach an agreement i was just trying to find out be more comfortable discussing that yes of course are just because of your of the of the problems we're having a negotiated the reality is they didn't even want to initially  prefer connecting the student whatever the studio where it was to be located to the area then and really no no because whatever we do with you is the threshold for whatever we do with rice and anybody else and by the way we haven't heard back from   pretty soon when i want to pray god then seriously the matter came exactly that that is after two days after but be that as it may you know i did communicate with mr scott and i told him that i had just gotten back and i was going to meet with you and then i would respond in writing and i you know i i've you know we've had one process that has really gone through the whole thing  you know i can send a response to mr scott and i can you know but basically i you know i have to refute some of the things he said because there are just inaccuracy here so i can certainly say well you know i'm getting back to  met with my client you know we're still hopeful that we can reach agreement but notwithstanding that i'll respond to the points you made and i really have to do that and all i can say to you and the only thing i'll say in public session is i would not put a time frame on that i said look you know you want to reach agreement and you know the committee is still meeting with comcast but i respond to things especially because just wrong and you know he's saying well you know you should do this you should do that well it i understand you may think you don't have to respond to that but when you get a letter like this i think it has to go on the record that you're saying that that's your opinion that you know when there is some precedent but that's not you know the layout creates this very loose outline of what you do  and hopefully you know we can come to an agreement and the best i can say is that i can draft a response and i can certainly circulated if folks would like to see it but i really feel he's saying no no i think they they they you know i don't think it's a secret i think they would like to continue to talk yet and to try to reach an agreement i think is len said i think they've got they've got this negotiation close enough to bring it home yeah i mean i think that we've always understood that the committee has always understood that the object here was to get a fair deal right to to  f c a move and do well and do so at at the least amount of cost to the subscriber and certainly not to get involved in litigation and alling tell you and i think you know we didn't bring this out and we had encouraged them not to do this they chose to do it and you can't but that's their right because it's really like that but i would i wouldn't talk about the specifics other than that no i don't and that's why i said know the reason we thought about an executive position was that there are certain things that we feel after year sitting with these people that we understand about what's happening and why would like the board to understand that the reason we came one of the main reasons we came here is that we've reached this point where they are in fact pursuing the left fork in the road and is an adviser to you it is important for me to tell you that you need to be aware of it and you will be compelled to take action and i pray i suggest that you use peter as the representative is and i'm going to because that's where the specialty is there is a response required because he did file back on december twenty third merry christmas the notification that they wanted to go this route and we kind of downplayed that  know we didn't pursue it would it make sense to have an executive session scheduled for our next meeting where we hear what their final what what the offer is at that point from them then we can decide whether to if we're so close just by let's go well i mean goes with len i will respond to this person and then i thing q you can decide your meeting is what in two weeks yeah yeah i mean the problem is of course i just you know without saying too much i wouldn't set deadlines here now i just say you know we've been trying to resolve this so that we don't have to go down this road because you're right it's expensive and i've said to contrast you know you don't know what what's going to happen if if if you make us go down that road and i'd rather not stand it because when she started who knows right and you may get people upset enough that but my point is if we have an really are doing everything we can to try to get to an agreement and not to get so sidetracked because you know you go down this road and you know you just you sidetracked and that's  strong manager form of government have a strong police chief it would seem to me that requests for signs should be something the town manager could certainly approve along with the police chief i don't know that they need to come here on a regular basis the land asked for and i spoke to the town manager earlier he indicated that it's a voice of more pleasure that workers certainly delegate to that to him it seems to need that if we're going to have a strong else i think it's kind of important that it gets discussed publicly whether that's just indie you know stating that these things are happening but i think it's important to stay in the forefront it just seems this is the year two thousand and nine we have a strong town manager we've got all the rules around that we ought to let him do the things that he can do and i think if we have if we trust his judgment and he's going to make the right judgment this case he went to the police chief you got the police chief's recommendation you know to spend you know three minutes five minutes here seems when you think of all strategic things we have to focus on as a board and you subtract all the things that we do want to day to day basis it's no wonder why we can't get to the strategic issues and it just seems to me that whether it's a adding us a slow sign or adding a speed sign is certainly something that the town manager is capable of doing and if in fact it turns out we get a lot of complaints we could science would maybe have to approach someone like a star sign but other signs i don't need to provide i would just i would like you to look at the things we do day in and day out and determine which ones could come off of our plate go on your plate we should be setting your in your goals and objectives we should be doing your annual valuation and if you're not able to adequately carry out those duties then you would be so noted but i think that it's probably a host of things that the board of selectmen does on a routine basis  done for a hundred years and then we now have a strong town manager forgot what he didn't have until a few years ago and we ought to be looking at how can we alleviate some of the i don't want to use the word minutia i don't mean it in that sense but take some of the things off the agenda that the child manager is capable of doing so that we have the time to do strategic planning on the streets we have a chance to set goals and objectives we have a chance to discuss evaluation of public whatever it might be that we find the time to do the things that are important we take off some consistent we need to be proactive it is better i think mr feeney to review them all at the same time so we might want to proactively reach out to those folks and say you know you know the home games start in september august and so before then if you have a request please come so we can look at them all the same time just so that it is consistent i hate to see as approving some of the not approving on isn't half so i think the calls question is is where is that what is kind of thinking at this point so that there is some consistency and seemed to discussion of the contract also clearly states that we should be setting his goals and objectives annually we should be reviewing it manually when i've talked to andy it's been quite a while since you've had an evaluation so i think we ought to talk about how do we get back on track setting as goals how do we get back in compliance with this contract and give him an evaluation it's difficult when you i have a three year contract with someone they don't have goals they don't know how your met how you think about them and then you've got a year in advance decide if you going to redo would it not so i think that the next meeting that would be in the porton item i would also mention that in looking at the contract for the finance director it runs from july sixth of two thousand and seven to july sixth of two thousand and ten that's an appointment by the board of selectmen although the contract is written so that the evaluation the annual evaluation is only written by the town manager and not input from the board of selectmen it would just seem to me that if we appoint the finance director that we ought to be talking to andy about making sure that enew that contract that the board of selectmen in the language of the contract specifically be required to provide that feedback as well since he has an appointment of ours and he's such an important job i think it's important for us to work on his goals and  for us to work on his evaluation so i'd like both of those items added to the agenda at the next meeting so we can address the contractual issues with the town manager before the expiration date and then even though there's not a requirement on the part of the finance direct base i know people are busy but we are you want to valuation we owe him an evaluation i think as part of our own self evaluation we need to do the things that are right from a personnel standpoint i think there are a number of issues that the board has to go  straight nothing fly straight on the i would say though that one person is a valuation you know could be served if you were what is an evaluation would be different from another so in other words it windy and rainy both answer that is no so my only point is that we can give them informal feedback but the contract that was written by the board of selectmen specifically states what our obligations are and we have not for all those obligations i don't think it's fair to andy to separately the chairman would do a composite evaluation of the five of us and then we would discuss it hopefully in a public session so that the town manager clearly has the opportunity individually meet with each one of us to discuss our thoughts or ideas on a performance and collectively that the board chairman puts a composite together which is shared with the town manager in a public session some of the public knows as well i think you know if we're going to write a contract i think we ought to oblige and you know follow it in the items that you'd like to add on to hear what this is is taking the process that's used to ranking its live in items on the capital improvement program approach so he rank  compile a complete list send it back out rank them send me your brains i can do the calculation and bring it to the next to you should we actually do that a becomes part of a public record what i thought thought on it i think it's important rather than do it on a tuesday night and squeeze it in for forty five minutes or an hour that we set a higher night just to do this whether we do it on a saturday or we do it on the  night i think that you know there's a lot of time that has to go into this dialogue this discussion which ones are going to reach you who's going to take the lead on it except i don't see how we can fit it into a regular selections meaning i was going to answer next tuesday  to bring forward for discussion because as i review did you know there is the section that entered highlighted for reappointment and three minutes i think the language is adequate it gives the order total building in how they want to  deal with the appointments and so personally i'm comfortable with the wording as it stands i think the code of conduct aspect of it you know there's a separate document that's handed out these the state budget hasn't been finalized yet we have three budgets now we have the state budget we have the house budget we have the governor's budget state budget being the worst for cities and towns i think it would also be appropriate at our next meeting to have an update we board more than than us talk about the budget where the revenue numbers are as we're getting close to finishing the current fiscal year i think we ought to get an idea of where we're going to be what do we think the free cash is going to be at the end of the year what do we think  the budgets going to be what numbers we're using and how close do we think we're getting but i think we owe it to the public to have an update and since you've talked about that in the past i would think that the next meeting might be an appropriate time to put that back on the agenda for an update you know we can in there would also be worthwhile i've had a conversation with their state rep i've not had a conversation with their state senator but you know the legislature has talked about a twenty five percent increase in the sales tax the sales it on their federal tax returns then the impact of the massachusetts photo would be would be even less and i just when i talked to jay i said i don't hear much in the legislature other than raising revenue but how do you raise revenue in a way that has the most minimal impact on the average taxpayer and so i sent a letter to j and i'm just wondering whether or not the board might want to consider as this is starting to get finalized their thinking about the option on the meals tax cetera whether the board wanted to take a formal position shared with him is that from my perspective i'm not efficient in going back to two thousand and six in arguing about what happened then but i do think going forward we do have to have a ministry we do have to determine  dollars worth of furniture and fixtures are miscellaneous things and dick's point is why would you pour on that for twenty years one just pay for that separately and he mentions in his letter the tv's that we got for the so i think he brings up some issues of that our current th just two thousand and six and i think there are issues that we should be talking about as a board we should be talking with the planning committee usually type of school committee because we want to make sure in this particular project things are well documented and that we're not funding certain things for twenty years that have a five or six year life it just that that's the case by doing on the school there was a small dollar amount it seemed pretty small but dick's point wasn't made a lot of sense right would you borrow against that for twenty years that that equipment want to be around at that point and so i challenge the school committee to take that money out  spend it in that part of the twenty million dollars plus school budget as opposed to the project itself so i think it i think he brings up some valuable points that we should be discussing but i don't want to go back and revisit two thousand and six