meeting for tuesday april seventh two thousand and fifteen the right to call items on the agenda out of the order of the times that are listed for items are approximate times and highlands may be reached earlier or later than the posted times the listing of items is those reasonably anticipated by the chair which may be discussed at the meeting at least forty eight hours prior to the meeting not all items listed may in fact be discussed and other items not listed may also be brought up for discussion to the extent from it a final seven pm the board will take a vote on the zoning board of appeals have a discussion and vote on the capital budget for fiscal year sixteen and at seven thirty five we will have a joint meeting with the board of water and sewer commissioners the advisory committee and planning board and we will be discussing warrant article twenty five chairman i would like to make note that at this time i'll have to recuse myself from this discussion both because one of the candidates is my campaign manager for reelection so the names that we considered w sorry that better yet ok ok so the four individuals who come forward include dave brown seventy american way kevin powers type interview i think i'm partial to david brock for that for the following reasons i like the fact that he's got a lot of institutional knowledge a lot of historic knowledge of the past projects he's been very involved with the boards with the zoning board in the past obviously but the other boards and committees and processes that kind of interact with the zoning board for instance the the route one resign he brought that to a certain level i think there's and he's rejoining for no particular reason other than he has some knowledge and wants to share it not to take away from any of the other candidates but i think at this time we have one forty b that has been submitted and he's got vast knowledge on that plus you'll find out that more forty b is coming something that can jump in there look at the numbers as well as the the past history i think it comes at a very good time and i think it fit in there very well came again i also want to thank all four individuals who came forward as potential candidates each one of you brought a very special skill set i think you know representing the range of high tech community focus experience as a board member in the past and also legal background so i think we were fortunate to have such a qualified group of individuals come forward so thank you i also selected dave brown as the alternate that i would that i would support i think dave brings a wealth of experience to the to the  this decision so again i just want to thank all four individuals who came forward so it looks like we have a three to one selection of david brown as our new alternate member for the zoning board of appeals and w congratulate david and again thank all the other individuals who came forward know we also have had some challenges with snow and ice as you would expect we do plan a quarter million dollar contingency for that as an all out deficit that comes up the top of next year's taxes but we didn't need fund that that deficit so we want to put in a position of either way having to put further downward pressure on on budgets which would have impact of services would be to something that the state is is allowing just this year and that is to roll forward that deficit over three years which i certainly would recommend that given that who knows what's going to happen next year and that happens again this isn't just about the problem so we saw that the snow and ice issue and the of the school department was gracious enough they've apparently just getting losing grant funding at this point in time for their  kindergarten program to the tune of about seventy seventy one seventy two thousand dollars and that is that is a part of their revenue base to support the program but they have agreed to you know absorb that within the other big moving item was health insurance and although the the rate hasn't quite settled out yet it looks like it's getting closer to being settled certainly sounds like the end of the month and it sounds like it's going to settle very the first first car turned over so to speak out of the seven that you see in this process and that was the governor's proposal and given that we have a new governor in the proposal wasn't announced until about a month ago and we w ill likely not see any other information on this between now and when we got to put this budget to bed but in we had a meeting with the representative there was today and he doesn't expect that much is going to change between now and then anyways at least on the key items that impact us which is the education and the general government aid so we feel comfortable with where we are using the governor's number we've done that fast so with all that said and some trimming  the town manager needed to do to budget requests we were able to come in on balance and so we have a balanced budget that's consistent with our range plan keeps us on track for some longer term  objectives that we've talked about before about some debt service that we will likely need to incorporate into the general fund in fiscal seventeen really related to the next building project so all in all it took to founts and some good into the process in pulling the numbers together and i have to tell you that he made all of our lives a lot easier by doing the work that he did and i really appreciate that that effort and also one thing the icon for all the hours that they put into the process was relatively it was a relatively smooth process and i'm appreciative of that and in everybody's efforts to to make that this my first budget and to be balanced and without a whole lot of changes in concern so there are some important items to be considered in the budget itself that we didn't we were successful in getting in the centralized maintenance program first of its kind here in the community something that we've been striving for for many many years so we were able to support that and to indicate to include that in  spending plan i'm very very pleased to be able to do that because i think in the in the long term it's going to pay us back to vns in many many ways and it also sets us on a track for for maintaining our most important assets in the in the buildings that the buildings themselves in the most expensive ass as they should the most important is our people but having the the buildings themselves be able to expensive assets we have to really take care of them and this actually puts on a regular plan to do that secondarily i ambulance receipts so it's not inside the the levy put levy quezon so as a result of that action we were able to increase the i was in the conservation office by two by some in a half hour to thirty five hours having said that there were a number of difficult concept had to make because i think everybody did a terrific job of advocating for their positions and they made some excellent case as to why we should have added additional positions but simply put we didn't have the   seventy thousand of something like that the challenge with these fema grants is that if we do get done they almost always come too late to provide you know the relief that we are before the end of this one year just this past fiscal year we received money on to fema grants from two fiscal years prior so it's it ultimately does come to the town and it flows into free cash  it ultimately nets out to where it would have anyways it's just that it's it doesn't it doesn't allow us to directly you know solve the problem you know with those dollars but we all try to get at the interest group that we did one piece of good news that we can report that we fourteen steps ago back in the beginning of november and in the process with the department heads but it's all it also kept popping out to the public whether it be the school committee or board selectman or joint meetings advisory committees these are all public processes in this five more steps to go to get to town meeting so that the i think the process was very open pulling out from the sheets that the overall expected budget in the receipts receivable in two thousand and sixteen is n commercial residential hot combined come by a combination of everything we have a grid that we review each year and we we look back historically at like what's come in and you know bill's very good at having  the best intelligence on what is likely to pop in time to make it out to work on to the tax rolls so last year the number we were estimated was over eight hundred thousand and it came in just over over that about eight hundred thirty two we've usually been very very close never been way off at least in you know my tenure here so we feel good about you know this this number here five hundred thirty five on the stage there really wasn't much of a of a bump there most of it came from  some oddities with the charter school formula and i just don't have a lot of confidence in that this point in time given that that's a moving target that there was think about a hundred seventy thousand or so from that and then on  the on the other sources believe we added in net net about three hundred thousand dollars from free cash and then as bill alluded to with regards to the new fire contracting of itself i'm hopeful that that should put some downward pressure on overtime just by the way that structured and that's you'll see that in the first year you know how much and when they would be able to build off of done so much to change the plan and you know redesign things to put downward pressure on cost the boards made some important i mean important decision to help with that and so we've we've seen a downward trend in health insurance it's because line in the budget and and now it's starting to go up again because now we're starting to experience the natural trend medical cost inflation you know the way everybody else is but i  believe that you know there's it's on the town manager's radar it's if we look at this again and maybe and we look at you know the next initiative to how we can try to you know stop the escalation in that budget so some of the some of the pressures if i could just add a few points  plan to a point where hopefully they'll it'll bring the cost down it's the the challenge we face particularly here in massachusetts is that we have some of the best health care in the world and so as a result it also plays into the many many teaching hospitals as well as a lot of research facilities here that provide some of the best health care providers and services in the country in the world for that matter so that plays into that equation but  be actually having a lot of say about actual some of the redesign issues that were that are being discussed now in the new issue new directions to looking at so will have direct input into some into some of those discussions so let's put some of the other things that you asked for was some of things on the horizon actually quite exciting in the sense that we were looking at i know roger hill was is here tonight and you can talk about the the issue of purchasing our street lights will be able to buy all our street lights we hope for there in the in the next second there the third thing that i like to point out is that by simply owning those lights we also have the ability to look at that time my wife i capabilities which is something that hasn't been discussed but it's something that certainly direction so the other item i would i would add him is on the debt service side as you know we haven't been adding adding debt the last couple of years as we absorbed the debt from  the last major bill building projects this year the debt service is down about one hundred fifty thousand excluded debt so that's obviously a direct sadness to the to the taxpayer and as i i know you recall the intent of assuming that the town hall project goes forward is that because of the savings that has been generated in in the budgets over the last four years in terms of spending well within the limits of the of the town's you know revenue capacity that we should be able to absorb the debt service for the tao within the general fund budget which means you know avoiding a debt that exclusion that's been a long term goal and we're on track for that that was part of the the financial engineering to this year's budget to make sure we stayed on plan that we maintain that bandwidth to to absorb that so i  we were still right on track and then the last piece that i think that's really important to mention is a fact that we do think that this year we should be able to come online with the new solar solar capabilities with a new solar farm which will go help to reduce our energy costs on how can that impact not only open obligation but these are going to allow us to spend a little bit more on roads and in fixing some of the some of the damages that that occurred over this winter surely it can you know the good news is that our chapter ninety allotment you know will likely still be at up at the minimum that we received this year the six hundred ninety thousand before receiving the additional three hundred thousand and  year that we from meals tax that we did not appropriate because if it's dollars it came in you know ahead of plan so it's now off channeled through our financials into free cash so that's why you see another line of a capital budget putting i think it's forty three thousand from free cash towards roads because it was generated from meals tax and that was the intent as you put it towards open roads and i did want to comment on again another thing that's  development and you know may or may not result in a kind of discussion by this board about the use of the all stacks at the end of this fiscal year in june we'll update the actuarial analysis  know required contribution but again that's when we had a lot of things going in our favor in terms of downward pressure on cost so i'm very anxious to see what this actuarial report will say because if we are able to demonstrate that we're still at the ark and i'm not saying that we will be but if we were to be then i think that opens up you know another discussion for the board you know so you know the plateau the opeth funding out of meal stacks and therefore you could shift more towards roads although i think you know roger hill the deep every director should be part of that discussion because i think that a million dollars a year i think you saying that's that's about all they can handle at this point in time and so if we were fortunate enough where our roads funding is is currently at a at a nice level so that we can make an impact on the roads and if our open liability could be addressed at the arc annually then there's an opportunity for the board to discuss something like i'll just throw one idea out there and it's not mine it's actually you know there's bills idea and that was a building maintenance fund as a possibility but again that's a policy decision that you know that this board would take up but so we're hoping that that with everything that's been done to date that maybe these two programs might be reaching the level of funding that supports them and there might be an smooth budget process that was given take but i think everything was done feeling and thanks also to the advisory committee who reviewed the budget they ask good questions and i wonder can virtually the the advisory committee would you like to make any comments thank you i just wanted to kind of share the process i know you often join our meetings which i thank you all for and just want to acknowledge the work that randy does to help our our whole process go as smoothly as it does every year and to bill for and beth for the work that they did since january we vetted all the budgets that's involved that's involved the liaison's from the advisory committee of which there is a lead and then other members meeting with each of the department heads they in turn came  and the department heads presented their budgets to the board we did bring three budgets back for additional questions and information they were recreation conservation in the schools and those follow up discussions went very well and we did we have completed our voting on the budget items and all of them will not unanimous will be recommended by the advisory committee at the town meeting thanks very much to thank you thank you so balanced budget it pretty much means that we're spending as much as we receive correct so for maximizing our revenue increase by forty percent which was a max there's that's one of the secrets to foxborough his financial success without having a general override says that we do not spend all of the revenue that we receive you know we consciously  design the financing of the budget to generate at least two million dollars of free cash and that's done in the following ways we under as we under fun the local receipts dollars that we take in that's all the fines fees permits payment of taxes motor vehicle excise to the tune of a million a half dollars every year based on our estimates about sixty lines and you can usually come pretty close and then there's another of the half million that will trickle in from unspent budgets because they cannot be spent it cannot be overspent so they have to be there understand a spat at all that the level their budget and then changes on our balance sheet and this year  we actually went further below our revenue by one million nine hundred fifty thousand local receipts so we've estimated local receives to grow to a certain level but we've only thought your point was is that we spend everything that we have my point is we increase the revenue by three million dollars and we spent an extra three million dollars as acar no i mean right revenues could support an incremental  two million dollars in spending ok but we but we don't we choose not to spend that so that the real reason we do that is in order to provide the financial flexibility to the town so that when times are hard meaning like sta declines or other other receipts decline that we count on that we're able to maintain what has consistently been a policy direction from both the boards like and school committee to maintain services i operating budgets and cut back on capital to defer those those purchases in order to maintain maintain services so we don't we don't fluctuate you know revenues drop by a million dollars and therefore we have five million dollars cut we maintain a reserve just by under budgeting of revenues that we have so that we can maintain some consistency of services case there i'm just i haven't heard the number yet so the fourth have percent increase in revenue was how much percent and the reason i think that it passed was because we said it is a tax and nobody likes tax but if it was going to be a tax it was going to go to our future the opap it was going to go to our roads and now it seems like we're  getting you know the state continues to be level with their money that comes in for this for the roads plus we have all this revenue for the meals tax plus it's more than we thought if we make a change in his apologies to change that and we're changing it from opap which is paying the retirement for the people that are here today at town hall plus the generations before before we take it away from that and take it away from roads and put it towards other thing i think it has to be a robust discussion at this entertaining me now that the discussion but i don't want to be just able put it out there and discuss it because it's a new idea but i'm all right you know i think i just i think just to be clear about that i think what really is point is that if we're able to address those items adequately have money left over the question is what do you want to do with the reserve and i think that's the core conversation we want to have with everyone here i mean i don't think we're not going to we're going to just take on that decision in him do that without without it with discussion with everyone because it's an important policy discussion and those so the only thing that we've introduced to for consideration which we have when i even there yet because we haven't even we don't have all of the information for all the pieces but if we end up in a place where we do have some done you know by the end of the calendar year and i just want to clarify i have a vague sense of incorrect messages i don't see us moving away from the seven hundred thousand a year funding very currently for hope of items from a variety of different departments i know you have a copy of of the article but there are some good there was a real significant give and take and i think in particular i year which doesn't usually happen so i think the thing is it was a great process really appreciate everybody's effort to try and get to that final moment and know that as is tradition with funding our non building capital needs i just want to say that i thought the process was really great one we had again tracey the silly from the advisory committee bill branding myself and roger and spinelli from the school and the outcome i think it's terrific that we again thank you roger for your innovation and likes ability for making this happen so anybody have any questions on any particular ok the next item on our agenda is the joint meeting board of selectmen with water and sewer commissioners and advisory committee and planning board water and sewer commissioners do you want to come up water water and sewer commission which just to get a little bit of history apparently was altered in june two thousand and thirteen through a change in the in the charter i was i wasn't here during that period of time so i can't really speak to the specifics of what happened but all i know is that the capacity that the town now has as part of being part of the regional so a program with no one in mansfield and so therefore a lot of the town to have some additional capacity in it that will allow us to to address many of the economic development issues that the town has been looking to try to address for many many years so with that in mind there's been some discussion about the possibility of selling some capacity outside the borders of the time which for for really well intended reasons i understand why the the in the discussion is taking place obviously to address some of the finances associated with this with the with the the with participation the new plant and the debt service that goes along with with so with that in mind i think the there are three important issues that we really need to try try and discuss and try to bring some resolution to tonight and that is the issue of finances and i've asked many scholars to be here tonight to actually address some of the issues of the finances so we're clear on what the finances actually mean when the payments are do how much debt service is involved here so we can actually have the ability to to explain that to everyone so everybody's fully on board about what that truly means and into the issue of the long and short term capacity if it goes outside the borders of the town and perhaps and then if that is in fact true it should if there is a need to do that what should that mechanism be so there isn't anybody here tonight that i know of that really has a set  solution to this and i think really what we have to talk about is first of all is there an issue number one in two if there is how we address it so i doze or three bullet points i think that we really need to try to address tonight so to understand the it's it's really in the forefront of their minds that it has to be addressed and we don't result in a situation i could get expensive for the rate payers and we're all on the what about that the question is what's the right way to address that and i'd like to turn over three  on the financing obligation that we're looking at in summary is leave the number that we will likely our share of the number that will likely need to pay the debt service on that proximately five and a half million dollars five and a quarter of that is the town's share of all of the enhancements and expansion to the plant and then there are some other costs in addition to that that nance field is issued in approximately fiscal two thousand and eighteen and about another quarter million dollars rough and tough should bring the total principal debt service that will be responsible for for about five and a half million dollars and again the understanding is and the over the next five years if you look out five years our total debt service assuming you know two point four percent interest rate which could be even better depending upon the financing that the regionals is able to get  would be just less than a million dollars over the next five years zero over the next two and about a million dollars over the following three so but a million dollars roughly just under that over the next five years and what i've done on this on the stand out is just try to equate that to how much capacity would would need to be sold in order to just handle the debt service and that would be approximately twenty three thousand  gallons at that the price that's been discussed by the water and sewer commissioners and as you can see i chalked out the schedule and you know five year increment so you could see how much of the hundred seventy thousand gallons that is being a here i would need to be sold over time just to handle the debt service and as you can see it's currently it's at twenty seven year schedule that can change depending upon how the the regional of me wants an issue the debt would be a thirty year schedule to be twenty five years schedule or probably something close to this so i feel it's a pretty good proxy so it's not that we have to it's sell one hundred seventy thousand gallons right out of a gate or come up with five and a half million dollars out of the gate you certainly have to come up with that that money plus the interest about seven point four million dollars over twenty seven years but as you can see it's something that we would need to find over time first off any questions from anyone from randy at this point is hundred seventy thousand of capacity that is the entirety of what's being purchased in the experience over the next twenty seven years you have broken it down intervals of five years twenty two thousand thirty six thousand basically around thirty thousand gallons of this money certainly on the we certainly wouldn't want to put this burden on the existing sewer rate payers i know that's a that's a feeling that the waters are commissioners are guarding against religiously from the from the beginning here but what i wanted to show is that at least over the next five years if this is the debt service that would be looking at it for whatever reason there was an inability to sell those twenty three thousand gallons over the next five years that the town treasury certainly has the capacity within its cash balances in order to could loan you know that million dollars to the the water  of the sewer enterprise so that that's a possibility i just want to i don't want the policy boards here to be making decisions without knowing that you know we do have ways to do the short term fund within our own treasury the treasury has in any given day anywhere from fifteen to thirty million dollars that we have and were allowed by law to to mingle you know those funds they're all accounted for separately in our ledgers but you can mingle them and so we are allowed to to offer you know this relatively short term amount of money and until the in also related but not knowing what's on the books a potential development in or out of town if developments came on housing developments or retailer supermarkets or whatever and also and in four years they wanted to bring eighty thousand gallons into the town or into his field and beyond that it's almost like paying your mortgage off early you could bill for that and get that added revenue early and pay off it early right now and i think the commissions are probably feel a lot more comfortable having that cushion in the bank because at the end of the day they still would have to come up with you know the seven roughly seven point four million my opinion is minimized in the next five years given that the town certainly can and work with the with the commissioners to make sure that you know there is no unfortunate rate raising that's a worst case scenario that's if there's no new customers coming to make some comments or the only thing i'd like to say is i think we're doing a disservice to the voting public by taking two very important issues and confusing them they warrant an article is to clean up legislation that was misrepresented has nothing to do with the sale at so capacity whether it be in town out of town and i've personally wrestled over the past few meetings with the fact that we've had this issue of the authority of the water and sewer commission and we seem to find ourselves talking about the sale of sewer capacity this issue needs to be addressed and cleaned up and whatever conversations need to be had about the sale so a capacity should be had and i think the opinion of this board at least myself is i'd be more than happy to have that conversation with anybody and everybody but we need to stop somewhat confused if the public needs to understand one has nothing to do with the other there is an issue with authority whether a legal opinion that this board has the authority to ever really do nothing now if there is perceived to be the intention when i was put into place back in december of two thousand and twelve i don't think anybody's of that opinion that it was ever set out to completely strip the water and sewer commission of all authority and at least from our perspective the only way to clean that up is to go back in and not add anything to it not mess with it but make it right and that's the way we presented the war an article and hope that everybody will support it and any issues as far as who's buying sewer aware should be sold  than happy to have that conversation but let's let's get this resolved just in terms of the master plan we just we are only concern is that all of us view that this new sewer capacity as a town asset and that you know the town spent a lot of years and a lot of money on a comprehensive wastewater treatment plan probably needs to be relooked at some point once we know that we have the the the full flow from from the i m f the good news is that once we once we you know signed the i am a you know we're now longer going to be dealing with household uses based on title five it's going to be actual flow which is going to be a big benefit to homeowners and so it's going to be a big benefit to any potential growth in the town so just from a planning perspective we just want to make sure that everybody in the town who is in the critical needs areas or is in an economic development area gets taken care of befor deal with any future sales to any entity that's outside of our borders and that's that's that's our only that's not only dog in the fight which really isn't a dog in the fight we just want to make sure that you know the town comes first if there is you know additional flow at some point in the future that we all feel as a community is going to be a benefit in the war so we're commissioners you know want to deal with that and the board of selectmen is a part of that decision and i'm sure we would support that  that that's really that's really our perspective on it we want to make sure that all that that will the time we're putting into this new master planning and the other state you know planning issues that are going to come to for you know get paid attention did nice job just explaining what the real there really is two issues of play here one is the authority that goes through the commission and i haven't heard anyone really say that that's really a question that they that they want to return the authority to that to the commission i guess the real question remains though what mechanism would be in place to assure that a further discussion will be held relative to the sale of capacity also the tao if in fact there were to occur and there's no guarantee that they could address that propose something i don't think were opposed to anything only contention is that it doesn't belong in this legislation this needs this this was missed misconstrued and needs to be cleaned up so let's clean it up the way it should be and well and didn't want to taint anything we said at least from my personal perspective came in front of the board of selectmen at least four times and advance of signing the i am me and i don't see why we would go about in any other way or anybody else for that matter in oppositions again you know i think i said it earlier i'm not a plow i have the special counsel before i turn to the managers the question that he posed if i could just frame put this in context perhaps it may be helpful i was brought in when those water and sewer commissioners were negotiating on the district agreement for the new sore district and that legislation and was somewhat surprised to learn of all the special acts that foxboro has relative to soar operations but the history that i'm sure hundred eighty six and he gave to the water and sewer commissioners all the authority previously held by the select board to operate the swore operations in town and that's how it's operated ever since  the town manager act in two thousand and four may have cast some doubt about the authority of the commission but then there was a subsequent special act in two thousand  that confirmed their authority as originally established in the one nine hundred eighty six act and so that's how we were proceeding on least since i've been around working on the district agreement and then i became aware of this tweak if you will to the town manager act in december of two thousand and thirteen which specifically cited the one thousand nine hundred six enabling authority of the commission and and it seemed to almost know of  all the authority of the commission with this new two thousand and thirteen act and when i mentioned it to the director roger hill that i was surprised about of this recent amendment and that i thought it now clouded  authority that the commission had he said no that's not what it was supposed to do it was supposed to just confirm at the time at the time managers authority relative to personnel and collective bargaining powers or on behalf of the town relative to water and sewer commission employees and i said well because i was reviewing this in anticipation of that the commission may be entertaining because that's always been the proposal relative to funding or  holding current rate payers harmless from the cost of the treatment plant improvements that are coming down the pike if you will that we would gain this asset that we could sell and so i was expecting anticipating that i would probably have to issue an opinion or the commission would have to warrant represent in any transaction that they are doing authorized to enter such a transaction and i and so when i saw this two thousand and thirteen amendment i said wait a minute this  not so certain and as i said mr hill inform me that that was never the intention and so with that i simply drafted what i thought was a relatively brief and non controversial clean up if you well to just confirm that what was adopted in two thousand and thirteen did not intend to strip the commissioners of their authority relative to all sewer operations and ability to sell capacity that they certainly had from the eighty six act and the two thousand and ten act  and then it with a new town council very collegial entertaining that i understood the board of selectmen were concerned about some they wanted some oversight now learning perhaps that they may have gained some authority that they didn't have previously with the thirteen  not i don't know if that's a fair characterization of it but the commissioners strong opinion back to me was there was never any intention for the commission to give up its authority and that the thirteen act should be clarified so as i have with town council tried to broach the topic is there somewhere we could go and the answer has been pretty resoundingly no was never intended we never intended to give anything up and therefore they prefer my original proposal to restore the status quo if you will so that's that's my kind of background as to why we're here with relative to that article but between the parties if there's if there's anything that would be entertained of course i'd have to leave it to the there is a legal way to do either of these of four to clarify the authority either way or for the one way the board's both concluded you want to go and we've come up with several different proposals but it comes down to a policy decision that's that's not a legal decision we can help you which you know with whatever language needs to go into one article to clarify and we agree with his legal opinion previously that there was some marking of the waters if you were with respect to the authority of the water and sewer commission by that twenty thirteen amendment so i think the boards do need to decide how they want to handle this and then we can make the proper language exceptions to clarify the previous special legislation for twenty thirteen through new special legislation thank you bill you mention one other aspect for us to discuss as we're working on this recurring long and short term strategy  with respect to the long or short term strategy i mean i was referring i think a lot of that was clarified the other evening at least to my mind from the mini with the with the master plan discussion that occurred just last week that there is  a lot of capacity potentially here in the in that the question is when is that they're going to come on line because at the end of the day they the water so commission are primarily concerned with making sure that that they're selling capacity and that capacity is going to be able to pay for the for the for the new plant as it comes online and is roger hill and i have discussed too that you know what he'd like to have some money that could actually help bolster the fund the revolving fun do some additional i and i work in the end to help pay for some of the other expenses associated with with providing additional capacity into the system so having said that the question that then comes into mind are we going to what's the best mechanism that we can have in place where the both would feel comfortable that we're taking the right steps i think it's very clear that there is that the goal of the little waters with which you want the status quo retained but i think the remaining right within our own borders and is what is that dubai is by selling their capacity outside our borders those that in fact somehow jeopardize the future development of our community that we go so that's really the question that we have to wrest larry thomas six norton street private citizen i'm just wondering why so currently the way it is is anything outside the district but in the town goes to town meeting why not have it so that anything outside the steward district goes to town meeting whether it's at a town or in town and that that is the check and balance i think that everybody is looking for so it doesn't come to the select and but it goes to the town whether it's you pretty sure that's what we that's what we passed in the fall of two thousand and thirteen with that in anything outside the sewer district whether it was a business or whether it was a private residence had to go to town meeting so i mean at that to tell you the truth at the time you know as an outcome or when i voted for this i really thought that that also pertained to out of town i didn't know that out of town was yet a third category you know we have in district a mean you know the discussions that we had was that this was such a valuable asset to the town that the town really should speak on how it's used thank you thank you  deserves the ability to develop commercially and to help residential residents who with failed such a septic system but i think the main goal in my mind was for our economic development because right went to i was at a meeting and i and i there were two other board members of another board were there and when sharon can sound to sharon clements as a possibility you know to sell flow the three of us said you can't do that that's going out of town you're selling an asset i've attempted before anybody in town has had the ability to purchase it so when these one articles came up i was assigned to do the to look into it for from the boys like men because i'd been going to the waters were meeting so i was familiar with it and as i read it i realize that they what was housekeeping tweaking it to give the water and sewer authority to do contracts you know executive authority situation to change all of it i mean that's one problem but then you have the idea here that the possibility of selling an asset of the town sewage to it to another town to help them develop economically and for the  housing and i said to myself wait wait a minute this is this is something that should be that should be looked at not because it's an asset not just by the water and sewer could look into the sewer system unless they got to town meeting approval and that was very important because i don't believe that the thing would have passed without that proviso that town meeting approval had to be given in are the authority to do a contract to sell sewage outside the town without anybody's approval town meetings or going without anybody's approval and i went wait a minute that's that's a little different i think i think we have to say it's take a step back and say what are we doing with this very important asset of this town are we going to allow it to go out with to be sold outside of town without somebody else saying yes that's ok or i don't think so we don't want to do that so yes there are two issues there are two issues and i think in order i think both of the issues have to be have to we have to have a solution to both the issues before we go to town meeting because i won't support that one out of vote unless there is some mechanism that gives a check another check on some possible sale of flow outside of town you have town meeting history prove inside towns well i think this should be something  larry said he the town meeting our sound check for selling it outside town because it's an asset to the town it's been characterized as a liability at five point five million dollars liability well yes we own five point five million dollars but we don't know what on thursday we don't start paying it for a few years and randy has explained that it is doable even if we don't so all the flow right away it is doable town can handle it i think i'm afraid that that the the impetus to sell flown in order to protect the town and i understand water and sewer is concerned about about the money i understand that the one place if we if we have one hundred seventy five thousand gallons that we have we have purchased from mansfield and you deduct that hundred twenty five thousand gallons from that you have fifty thousand gallons my concern is is we should have a check as we have a check and balance for for adding for going into the system inside town but then we should have a check and balance of the product possibility of selling fall outside  town so this is two different issues in the end i understand that but i would but like i said i would not support that the war in iraq and tweaking unless we have like a side letter or an life of forty three grants really just to in order to address some of the lowry said first of all just as an aside here that the two potential forty b that are on the docket now one that's already been filed and the second one which was just filed today those alone will be the large one if it was to pass the c b s authority at fisher street is just slightly under forty eight thousand gallons it's about a million a right has about thirty five hundred gallons so between the two of them it's over two million dollars you know right off right off the bat to address any concerns about how do we begin to make payments i don't think andy any town today as if the f a project of any size wants to come to your town they want to know want to advance what their potential is they don't want to know that it could be hanging in the balance of town meeting which we all know can be a very it's a great form of government but it can be a very fickle form of government as well it's very difficult to get two or three or five hundred people to all agree that that plaza is a terrific idea or that new biological buildings going to be a great idea wherever i so you know i'd be more inclined i just as a citizen i'd be a lot happier if i knew that there was an arrangement in that particular kind of case between the wars commissioners and the executive branch or whatever where it's more finite group that can make a decision about the economic future of our town instead of you know just laying it out there and waiting for an annual meeting or i september or november or january me whenever it's going to come because i think that you may miss opportunities for economic development if we if we work on that basis thank of foxboro why we should be entering into the i am a all of the explanations given involve dealing with issues in town none of them involve selling flow out of town  i would say that i agree with this cupolas point that the there should be some checks and balances regarding the sale of flow outside of town but i would say that should also include a sale a flow outside of the district gentleman from the planning board just said that people want to know ahead of coming in to make a bid on building something in town whether or not they're going to get that flow i would say that the the handover group already knew well before we'd even entered into the i am a from the water and sewer commissioner and from the d p w chief that they were going to get that flow it was a parcel of land that was excluded so you're not going to lie you seem to do an awful lot well i we don't we don't want to we want to break this not we'll get will you leave it up to respond but i will be going to i don't know how they would think that they were going to build five four storey buildings in that development without the knowledge of being able to get flow seeing as the  extended stay was limited to ten thousand gallons of septic and flow wasn't even a possibility there because that wasn't part of the district it seems possibly that the i am a map has been altered to change it so that it says that if it's a forty b somehow it's now in the district even though the i may maps that it was not part of the district representative barrows knew about this proposal two years ago before we entered into the i may or even discuss the i there's been at least three different explanations on different occasions by water and sewer and d p w as to what the flow capacity in the source of the flow are meetings that i've attended it seems to me that this this development on fisher street is very much a big part of the concern here i'm sure my stand said in a personal conversation with one of our neighbors and i'm paraphrasing here why are you people fighting this it's a done deal emailed on january twenty first in response to visitation to meet in the january twenty seventh meeting held to clarify the water and sewer issues at town hall and i'm quoting directly here this is a group of aggrieved to butters using every irrelevant argument they can come up with to stop a forty b housing project i'm not playing this useless and unproductive game thank you let me give you all a nickel's worth of advice can see that this is going to be built so i would say that it sure does seem like people already do know what they're going to be given here and that's deeply concerning to me and still wants to test yet he is you know just like this i appreciate your comments but this is really not relevant to this particular discussion i think it is because i think as a resident of the community i understand i would like to see some checks and balances oids the ok that's that's a fair point ok but i think and this is what i would like when we joke but we don't want to get into a discussion about a forty b prog specific as that's a different forum for different discussion on that night so i'm bringing that up didn't take it away in it didn't interfere with it it's consistent with the authority they had it was the two thousand and thirteen amendment that put the cloud over all of the authority the sort of measures and then relative to votes in the two thousand and ten special act that they are not subject to the district requirement so it came with the legislation that those uses didn't work required to be in a store district as approved by town meeting to be entitled to store service so it wasn't something in the i m a or the district agreement that exempted those it was in the legislation thank something going back to what jenny had said and again everything i listen to and at the expense of sounding like a broken record the warrant in the issue at hand is authority over all authority of the water and sewer commission in which we just keep very away from that and in to what jenny said about she would not support the article if something isn't done about it which we're taking one instance which i don't necessarily agree or disagree with every comment that's made here you know it's it's a good conversation that should be had personally i think it's the wrong time  introducing that as if it's part of this article to the general public we have people talking about sewer and forty b the article was about the authority of the water and sewer commission and you know you had mentioned you wouldn't support it so essentially if that doesn't get done you're you're not supporting you're telling the public you not supporting the water and sewer commission having authority to do any basically do what we were voted to sit in and do i think if you listen to bill's opening statement i think we are not trying to do that try ok but when but when she says that she won't support it and that's that's that's my issue with it is is it's the the public probably has a right we were trying to get to but what with all the conversation that's been had here i don't know that the public at home is truly understanding what's at stake and when it said that we won't support it over s to sewer capacity who has the authority to sell so a capacity i think most people are understanding that as that's what it pertains to one ever really doesn't pertain to all authority and that's why you know personally you know these these two issues really need to be separated and people need to prop up you know be a bit of vote properly understand one is complete authority and the other is who has authority to do you know one particular thing on manage particular is i think is i heard this i heard it was compose comments and she said that she couldn't support without a mechanism ok so i think that's the key key language here is that they have that you could support it provided there's a mechanism for a check and balance and so the question really is what's the level of comfort that everyone has here tonight as to what that mechanism is and i don't know what the mechanism is and i think i really have to to turn to the legal minds here to figure that out because i don't know what that legally can be done if there is there a binding mechanism that can be a site separate it aside from the the action that's it here that gives people a level of comfort that we can go forward from here but doesn't that doesn't the public have a right to weigh in on that as well and b side letter could be that mechanism of whatever the terms would be whether it be notice to the board of selectmen of a proposal and the dates that the commissioners would be considering that and then members of this like board could attend just that's one form of means for would that be with that type of agreement be binding in terms of the fact that there would be any type of proposal like that sell outside of the town would involve the opinion of both boards working together to come with a majority but a proof that time was that see that so that that's the crux of it isn't it i mean what what this proposal christian with that is that just giving notice of a possible sale outside town has no would have a say in how the sewage was sold in you and that was one in that i believe that was the only reason that town meeting approved it and so why would you think that town neighboring community develop economically and develop the housing why would why would you think the average person but growth would think that was ok i don't think that's ok and so what i would what i would say and what i will say is work out work out something when there is a check and check and balance on the scale outside just the same way and it would have to be that would have to be worked out before town meeting so that there is a guarantee that that process is in place or that your wiring is considered a town that's  inside town we need anything approval by the way if we want to sell it to another town we can do it we don't need anybody over there anybody i don't think so well i know in the den as to you know we've got this unique special act that allows the town to the most times when you have a public works department or water and sewer the entire geography of the town is the district we've got a unique act that allows us to create districts within the town to it makes sense to me that to make expand or al those districts within the time you can bring you bring it to tommy but the just outside center was always available under the legislation from eighty six excuse me  it wouldn't be before excuse me i just want our attorney to speak well if you have a specific question i'm happy to answer that but the comment i wanted to make was just that again this comes back to a policy decision the both both of these boards and whoever else wants to be involved i think it's just these two have to come to an agreement we can certainly come up with any language that meets your desires the most recent proposal i just heard was notice and an opportunity to be to participate in the hearings which that's fine but that's not going to address approval of already that's just an opportunity to be involved in the discussion somehow and if that may not be enough for the board of selectmen another opportunity that you might want to consider maybe opportunity isn't the right word but another potential language change if this is acceptable to the board of selectmen might be acceptable to the water and sewer commissioners as the language that in the article that's proposing to give the board of selectmen final approval eighty or whatever terminology you want to be use that involves something more more than just directory you know something that's mandatory what about considering a capacity limit whereby the board of selectmen gets the final approval authority if the amount of water and sewer that sold outside of town is over a certain capacity i have no idea what that capacity would be but that's something that you might want to consider amongst the two bo approved it with the expectation that this was going to be used for the development of the town the economic not the economic development of the neighboring community which would boost their economic in town in tights people bring why should we give them water so the ability to see to sell that asset that we have been waiting for you is to have if i may go through you madam chair that's why i drafted a war an there's total support that all already should be read all three should be returned as was originally intended i think what we have here is we're in a new place we have like a master plan that has evolved over the past couple of years that  the citizens are saying that they want their commercial tax base to grow from route one it's kind of a different direction from you know the concept of selling outside of town and i think that's where you know this is coming from it's  i really believe one hundred percent that involving the board of selectmen in a joint decision making process with the water and sewer commissioners is just a different way of doing business in because of this evolution and so i think it it's a sensible approach it doesn't step it does put the board of selectmen in a place that they never were before i understand that but i think that we're in a different place and this is an opportunity that if we just do a slight adjustment of our course in the same way that the master plan has adjusted its course you know the course of what people are asking for in the town  i think it can all be addressed in one fell swoop you know it's really i know it's not simple but it's just it's a change that's happened over time in a very short time and i think we're positioned right now to do the right thing for everybody by you know having this type of consensus between the two boards for such an important asset i don't think we disagree i think our issue is it doesn't belong in this war an article but if it can and i think the attorneys i believe then if we really can't both here then we'll both elected boards and the general public as much as us has a right to weigh in on this but we're asking him to weigh in on it now by the way this this caviar that old if you if you don't decide to go along with it it's going to relinquish all the authority so don't we owe them  to clean this up put it back to where it was meant to be and then write a war not a co op or get together unilaterally and devise something where the public can weigh in on in states soley on the merit of selling was never meant to be where it is let's put it back to where it was originally intended to go and then get together and figure out how to clean up the other issue because we don't disagree that that's more you know warrants conversation and definitely wants i think if i just say it's a couple whites i i think we're just all a cop in this discussion we don't need this and i don't think anybody here is doing it intentionally i think but it's clearly quite simple it's come down to one piece of this authority that's it it's that it's the question of whether or not any capacity should be sold outside the borders of this community should that have a secondary approval process and that's it and the only opportunity to really do that is with this amendment back in two to restore the authority because right now the authority rests we think rests with this one so the question then becomes this is i understand this was willing to relinquish all authority back to your boy without question except for that already still rest back with fully rest back with the boy but what the waters will commission so that's what the end of the day i think that's really where the level of comfort has to be resolved is is that something that that everyone here  comfortable with and so far i haven't heard that this full agreement so i think we need to come to some resolution of that and i don't think anybody here is willing to take is we as expressed any interest in taking the authority away from it from the commission i think they're actually f know wing right now scuse me a few years back i said i support the water and so a commission i always have they they always did an excellent job in this town and they had many many different awards and everything else over the last few years i got upset with the vote that was taking by the water and s relinquish power and now i'm hearing that they want it back maybe i'm wrong in understanding what's going on here i went to a meeting and i told them they were foolish in doing th few of the gentlemen here tonight were on that committe they still voted unanimously to do it they should get it back that power belongs in their pocket they still present their budget to you like any other department in the town and then it's talked over it's gone through the advisory committee comes in that they should do the same thing always they need that control as far as giving it away to other towns absolutely not and you will never get that passed with time and i am sure every citizen in this town would come down here and say no when wanted to tie in and they couldn't any sewer system that comes into this town and it goes by a residence or a business that th should be put in period it should be put in i don't care who's paying for it i don't care if and if development is paying for it if it goes by a town home a business the teacher should be put in in case someone system fails the board of health is going to tell them to tie in and they should of things that you have done in the town that they people that are having the sewers in when they're paying for the tell you the truth every citizen in this town should be paying for it in some minute amount you would have a system and when it goes by your street regardless of who's putting it in you can tie into it and that's how it should be i mean in the past like i say gentlemen i'm sorry but you voted against that and you didn't want to keep your power and it was a few years back i went to your meeting and told you you were crazy please give it back to them i think they can do than i think any time we issue a sore extension permit that they require the wiles to be stopped by the property so as that but the district agreement has a provision that allows  for sale of capacity among the member towns if a member times inclined and were a little concerned about what not knowing what the proposal would be how does that comply or conflict with the terms of the agreement so we'd have to look at that selectmen all the time meetings the discussion about taking big chunks and selling it to other towns just was not a discussion you know in the end rich i understand we're kind of muddying it but this is a third meeting that we've had in the last two meetings we've been giving charging graphs of the different sewer rates i'm sorry sewer allowances for different properties and so we're given that information over the last two meetings so whether we wanted to or not where you know we're in the sewer business over the last couple months i don't want to take anyone's authority out of any other elected boards or compiler or commissions rights and powers and valves and pipes however selling big chunks to a different town we're kind of brought into that because we're in somewhat responsible for the economic development in our town so we're not so when that the planning board goes out and does their exercise with master plans and invites people and we've got this vision that's growing in moving but we don't have sewer for it because we needed to pay a bill this would have been a topic of discussion at the town meeting that we need to sell a big chunk to sue or to sharon or a lot all over ever but it was just never discussed so the reason that we're doing it now is because it's come up through a process so i'm often given all your power back except if you want to sell it if an entity from out of town wants to purchase it i think it needs to be a checks and balance whether it was thought about before or not we're in the situation and we were given all this stuff and you know i did spend a lot of time looking at the analysis of the different properties in time out and who has sewer and what gallonage in some of it just doesn't make sense and i asked you know for a joint meeting with the planning board and so our commission and that didn't happen over the last couple months so i don't have the answers to feel comfortable the say take everything back and then tomorrow there's a sale to sharon and his it ten gallons or one hundred ten thousand gallons i don't know and i'm not getting straight answers and i said i read all the memos ever read all the numbers and it's not making any sense if you came back with a program that says all right over the next two years we've got thirty thousand gallons extra because we've taken all the allocated flows and adjusted but i'm not seeing it and rightfully so if we're not given that information i'm not comfortable the save run with it he sell it to sharon because we get stuck holding the bag if you can't pay the bill but the other the water and sewer enterprise if they can see the bill it falls back on the the taxpayers because a default and you guys own that not us but we're here because we were asked to kind of participate and it's a little bit of a quagmire so you know it's probably said five different ways to take all the power back on for that but not selling it to another town votes so concerned in the residents of bucks for oh i don't know that it's a no and no but but but yeah but i don't think that's a good argument that person has been set just because something was done one time doesn't mean it was good for the gordon grain i think that this is a discussion that probably should have been how'd six months ago it's not a discussion for a month before town meeting it's my opinion that it does i don't quote go to the floor of time meeting it would be defeated but it's an article that needs to be addressed i believe that the town watch to keep the authority for some water and so with water and sewer the only issue that comes up is just going out of town the vote the town meeting previously had and i would strongly recommend that you advise that water and sewer withdraw the article and hold it until the special town meeting in september and get dusting resolved so we can all go to town meeting  i think all these discussions have brought up a very curious point and that is excess capacity is access capacity really an asset is an asset if you don't have the infrastructure to have a flow do we have the infrastructure in place to flow what our capacity is today and we have infrastructure in place to flow future capacity excess capacity we don't know that we have we have we have charts and excess capacity and what what we expect to be excess capacity but how we're going to get from point a to point b of the capacity that was allocated for that line and had to be examined at that time was never sold so that we get seventy two thousand gallons sitting up at the end of that that's not coming through the pipe right now that's the way it is the town's capacity that is the that the towns area around the common and and all the way down county street you know with all the other entity is that we have on sort of with the exception of c is the states in green view is overcapacity right now but it's primarily because of inflow and infiltration i'm speaking to this you all happen but what that does is that pays off the plant unfortunately the sewer enterprise account does not have enough money for us that even if we discover through an i and i that we've got problems in the common area we can't fix it because we don't have the cash to do it and merely doing this does not bring anything into that enterprise account that allows us to do things like that to fix problems in the system or to address new new entities for example you know we said that these entities that come in that are big commercial i think he's need to provide their own infrastructure because we don't have the means to do it and if they provide their own infrastructure and you know pay for them for that the gallons per day they can get into the system so the answer is part of our system has available capacity to transport sewer to mansfield and to the plant part of a thousand that's it and we still have the issue with the master plan with some of those other economic development areas getting flow across town so i think there's a there's a bigger discussion that needs to happen specifically with silica pasty and what is  that these two committees would get together and mutually decide if that was a good idea is two committees would take equal number of members and put them on a joint committee that would meet solely for the purpose of the l and i think that's where  one articles about authorization for such legislation so i think you can do a joint committee on your own at town council agrees but like you don't need it i mean vote to establish a joint committee to study this issue and see if you can come to terms right that might be slightly outside the scope of the article in the warrants already closed so it's possible we could have a motion from town meeting for that does something with respect to the authority part of it but we can't create a separate committee and i think that's a good idea it sounds like that's getting towards a solution but i don't think it would be within the scope of the war in article to make that change separately it may be possible that we without the town meeting  create an ad hoc committee and and then give it however many you know if you want all eight of you five so on the three of you if you just want to take a majority of each of those members on then have equal approval farty if that's something you all agree on there's a way we can make that work can i just ask a question the the urgency between rushing it and getting it on may first extending it to have it on a special time meeting i'm missing something is our contract waiting to be signed that we had those extra months we've been given the opinion that anything we do or act on as one of those will commissioners could be in question so you're that's what i understand that's what i'm saying are you guys working on something that  and in that with the exception that any sale capacity outside the borders would be subject to further review by a joint committee joint committee so you single you can carve that topic out of that motion there's some uncertainty in it and then we dance that to the legislature would they accept it as a local approval or town meeting depends on what your language was that might make it so i suspect if if it said it's something to be a player to be named later and then we do that no legislation council at the house might say right that's not my approval and i don't know that's just i think what i was suggesting is that the motion at our meeting on the article you can make the motion narrower to be something within the article and you can't explain you can't broaden it at all and make something more specific with respect to another committee or whatever the approval it already is going to be but you can  this is the article that's in there now so we haven't changed anything that's been filed as soon as they submitted so the question is can we can we send them or not and can we put together a warrant a motion that will address  article which i wrote in my opinion it could be considered to be within the scope because it's one exception to the power that you're getting back to that right now that the paralyzed from the selectmen whether that was intended or not that's where this and so the article the purpose of the article was to try to give the power back to the water and sewer commission with those two exceptions the one that's in there and then the additional one regarding the sale of capacity outside of town since that one didn't make it in there in my opinion that would be within the scope because the scope was broader but that would be a call for the moderator i'm sorry but what do you think of that language he added language you know it ends up and it ends up being those two exceptions it's the employees and then a joint decision a joint authority i think it if it's joint and we agree to it if if it's sold to the selectmen then that's what we initially had an issue with  review it with everybody the last thing we want to end up what is sitting here two months two years from now exact mind out that it could be construed in a way that it wasn't represented to be and we wan general laws except for those executive powers granted to the town manager and except for those executive powers granted to the boards i'm sorry the town's board of water and sewer commissioners by chapter forty six of the acts of one nine hundred eighty six and provided further however that all personal and collective bargaining powers of the town and sewer commissioner shall be vested with the town manager and this is where and they play messy notes provided further however that all sale of water and sewer capacity outside of town shall be subject to joint approval of the board of selectmen and water and sewer commission  out just a quick question i think of that he answered but i just want to clarify a couple weeks ago when we having this discussion you folks are having this discussion it came up about the board is like men having  a say in the billboards funding and everything and revenue that's gone away then that's back to the water and so are correct there was always with it was a mission there was always with right but you had made a was so high street the town councils original amendment to the warrant was all sale of sewer and then you just add it outside of town so where does that leave us in terms of outside of the sewer district sales of sewer capacity outside of the sewer district that there remains unchanged earth or is the same as it was a car is always was so that authority is as it will go back to the saw with this tracey tracey the silly chair the advisory committee we are having our last meeting tomorrow which i know all you where because i think i've met with you all many times over the past couple weeks so we're going to need this wording just from a timing perspective you know the expectation to that it and to vote on it in one evening is it's going to be kind of difficult you've got a couple of topics we need to discuss tomorrow so i just want to put it out there that we're up against crunch time we've also got to get things to the paper in the write ups done so if you can just be aware that i know we're twenty four hours away but we are dealing with some tough time things from stinking thinking so i'm rich can we come a consensus here that this is the language will bring forward we'll have a typed and ready for advisory committee tomorrow and we can all agree that we support this larry and somebody will get it over to the moderator executive power of town water and sewer commissioners second second any discussion all those in favor i too so that was the provided they're provided further however that any sale of sewer capacity outside of town shall be subject to the joint approval of the board of selectmen and water and sewer commission  diabetes road race i moved at the board of selectmen approved the donation of one hundred dollars to the boys in the library from the teach shows that miniature club in thank them for their donation so all those in favor of it like