thank you welcome good evening everybody at today's february twenty sixth the foxboro boris likens meeting to go over the agenda and it's quite lengthy tonight at six thirty we actually at four thirty and at six thirty the select strong town manager act we have a panel of people coming in to help us with that at seven forty we have an advertised public airing for the application for the new england revolution two thousand and thirteen soccer schedule a stadium at eight o'clock we've invited the mass gaming commission into to discuss the gaming regulations with respect to the proposed development over in plainville and then we'll have a question and answer following that at eight thirty we have a continued public airing from a few weeks past regarding this is the application for jake in jos we had a meeting last week and then previously to try to finalize their their permit at eight forty five we're going to talk about a quick update on the post two thousand and thirteen storm and nine o'clock we're going to talk about the personal wage by lodging just proposed  so being seven o'clock is there anyone for citizens input see nobody give you a brief update on the chairman's update i just want to let you know i didn't meet with a few weeks ago with tom moderated frank's plane in several members of the advisory committee and we kicked off different suggestions and issues around the town meeting the war datta khel things that we can be doing doing better some os a town manager in probably another selectman just so it's a little more evenly balanced between advisory committee and the board of selectmen and there's a lot of good ideas shared back and forth and some of go back to some of the history for the time meeting i was changed and what you know maybe we can strive to bring some things back so if one of you guys want to add jump into that let me know some e mail and you know let you know when we can do that in just briefly and some of  items on the i can't in the next meeting we're going to be presented with a capital budget we're going to continue on with the ward articles that's going to start tonight in the fire department fees that were proposed to us of a few meetings ago we're going to revisit that and is going to be a good chunk of meeting time at the next meeting much fifth two we've invited the craft organization to come in to talk a little bit about the history some of the present stuff that they're doing in some of their future plans and i thought it was a good opportunity just have question and answer and probably a good hour of that so if you want to comment and ask any questions or just listen to some of the business plans and the  pluses and minuses it's a good opportunity to share some information so that's on march fifth and then as i said at the beginning we had met out of the town common to look at the proposed sign so we're going to have them on the agenda they're going to meet in discuss all of that and then come for fun ok i think some of them were there at the meeting at what they're in six thirty ok so hopefully on march fifth we'll have all the information on the unassigned we can make a decision so that's it for on the board had gotten a notice from the town of north out of long on the governor's proposal to consolidate public housing authorities all over the state and they're having a form on it which is more nights now we set this around last week i didn't hear back from anybody but they called today to see if anybody was going on i'm not going it's really not autonomy mr issue so it's a political issue but if any of you think you're going  either let me know tonight before we break up or call christmassy and in the morning and then we'll call an r s v p that you're going to be there ok so that's tomorrow night wednesday at seven and i done seven o'clock at the police facility and no federal police station just right next town hall if you don't know that is thank you ok so we have one one issue that came up because of the state primary there which is going to be on april thirtieth a lot of times are considering whether they want to combine the local elections which are ours in may into want to lection which is on april thirtieth so as bob color did you want to present and i'm going to recuse myself only because i did announce that i'm  did pull papers to run for selection and where whether it's in april or may if they're voting for selection i think i have conflicts and didn't because i am running against him so if you have questions always for those as you know typically our annual election is on the first monday in may and that's called by our town bylaws but because of the resignation of john kerry a special election so we have the primary which is april thirtieth and then june twenty fifth is the actual election so because of that the state decided to pass legislation that allows towns who have a town alexion within a thirty day period of either the primary or the special election it allows you to combine your town election with either one of those  and so since ours is six days after the primary we fall within that thirty day period so we would be allowed to combine the town election with the primary which is on april thirtieth of course our election would have to move to that date at that you know the primary doesn't move to the town election day so that legislation was passed on or about january thirty first now a bunch of towns have already voted to do that and a list has been going around and it up to a couple of weeks ago it was approximately twenty eight towns had already voted to do that the ones in the area or rent them and i know in speaking with the town clerk in easton yesterday they passed to combine them in east and yesterday so it's quite a few that have already decided to do that so i guess the real question is you know how does that affect foxboro in our issues here in town a question came up well because of this legislation does this affect our by law i know it does not  the statute actually is good through i believe july of this year july thirty first two thousand and thirteen expires so it doesn't have any long lasting effect on how you handle town meetings time elections and all those kind of things so it's just a one time deal unless of course in the future there's another special election and then they would have to pass legislation at that time so i kind of gone through a little bit in my own mind what are some of the pros and cons and so i'll give you my thoughts on those and then if you have questions on any of the others we can talk about those so if i was prose obviously funding all towns are concerned about how is this going to affect our funding and things like that we will have some additional costs that are separate and apart from what these the state election would be we have our own printing costs for ballots and things like that none of that is going to change there is also some discussion that the state will reimburse us as they have in the past when there is a special election we've had we've been reimbursed and since i've been here we had a special election for ted kennedy's seat so we were reimbursed for those two elections for our election costs associated with that any of these state elections the state pays for the ballots it pays for a lot of the processing of software and things like that associated with the election so they pay for that anyways so where we would save is if we were to have one election we wouldn't have to pay police for a second election we would have to pay setup and breakdown of the polls for more than one election that's the big area where we would say now there's been some discussion amongst town clerks in we're hearing that the state may not remember us funding if we combine elections  so we might not save as much as we thought we would initially but we still have savings because you don't have to pay those additional costs for more than one election so i think from that perspective it still would be it would still would make sense to combine the elections for savings of resources the other thing that it does for you is you have less disruption and we every time we have an election when we impose on the schools because they have to close down the gym they have to close at end of the school for access and things like that so they've been great for up to us and for us so we appreciate all they've done for us in the past they you know give us the janitors to help break down and they've been very supportive so if we have to do that twice in a week it may be a little bit cumbersome for them so that's another consideration and we know what kind of turnouts we get for typical local elections in even primaries illo i think the last time we had september we had maybe seventeen percent turnout so by combining you might have a better turnout because going to have the people who come out usually for the annual elections and then you have the people who come out for the state elections so maybe maybe it would be a bigger turnout some of the things that could be considered cons they may be a little bit of confusion because you don't have to set two separate sets of ballots you can have two separate sets of voting lists but we've talked to many clerks that have done it summary today she was and she's very workable you know proper planning in it worked out fine so i'm not as concerned about that as i was i also had some concern initially if there was election especially if there was only let's say there were only a race in the democratic side but not on the republican side you might have a skewed voter turnout but now it appears it's going to be a race on both sides so i'm not as concerned about that as i once was so you know i don't think you know it's obviously being be a little bit more of a set up and all of that but i think it can work in the thing and is selling me a little bit more now is that you're going to have two options within weeks period time so if it was spread out if it were three weeks i probably wouldn't even consider it but because it's so close together you know i think it makes more sense to probably do  cheney and think no actually the the response i've gotten from people it's actually evenly matched i mean the same number of people who didn't want to combine was equal to the to the number of people who did want to combine them and then there was some people who could care less you know they don't care when it is you know so i'm thinking if whatever where where bob you run the elections really i i would go with what you suggest and you know i haven't had much feedback from from people you know really strong feelings either way get more snow days they may be pushed into that so that could be a consideration and then you know saving the detail pay also is good i take it bob you like us to combine elections i think it makes sense at this point just because of that close proximity the two but that would be my recommendation and more motion to combine the primary and the town election for thirty april thirtieth two thousand and thirteen so more discussion on it just if you could explain that this is not going to affect the date of town meeting ok the next item and this is something that i brought up very early the strong tom images act in the reason i initiated it quite a while ago was it was right after we had negotiate a contract with kevin started hearing almost on day one is is why is kevin doing this it's he's not supposed to do this you know certain powers and abilities and responsibilities a strong time manager has and it wasn't always implemented with a different style than n d had so when i looked at these strong tom integers act and they looked at the board of recent board of selectmen responsibilities they're quite different in the some overlap at the time that the strong town managers act was implemented and i think the panelists are going to discuss that we changed government a little bit we want from three selectmen to five selectman so it's a continuing process and so i thought it was a good time to revisit it i'm not in favor of changing it not in favor of keeping it but i think it helps us and it helps kevan if people understand who has the responsibilities for contracts in negotiations and budgets and who doesn't and where we work together so i had asked for a slip and a step up the raid had put together a group they're also so at that i'll turn it over to through lorraine and she can introduce him take it from there would all the panels like to come up here to the table law through pure recognition of his professional achievements he was named a super lawyer from two thousand and six to two thousand and twelve in his field and often presents information on the topic of town charters and town manager act town administrator worked in that capacity from one thousand nine hundred forty two thousand and ten responsible for a two hundred thirty million dollar operating budget and one hundred seventy eight million dollars capital improvement budget i'm jealous  currently a professor at suffolk university center for public management that's being generous ok john mitchell moore johnson resident foxborough as chairman of our housing authority john was a member of the government study task force that brought forward the town manager act and it was cast by town meeting voters in two thousand and four and george bell is also a resident of foxboro and has served for many years another hundred years also as chairman three hundred sixty three ok as chairman of the stadium advisory committee george also participated with john on that task force that brought forward the recommendations to improve our government structure so what i thought i wanted to ask if we could do was to have john and george give us some background as to the process that your government study committee went through as there was a review of the study that had been performed by consulting and you know how you finance operation they remember that prior to that the town treasurer was a lectern and that took a lot that was a very politically trying and difficult time i think it actually failed the first time through to do that and so that could that committee initial committee in one thousand nine hundred ninety one or whatever that was the only thing that they wanted to put forward and they finally did get it through then the report kind of lay dormant for been made in there quite a bit it happened over that period of time one of the things was that the quote trying to administrative role within the state i think there was a quote within the  and more more towns are doing it for you know some of the same obvious reasons that we had one of the biggest things that we had to face was that the town administrator at the time was not it was there was no bylaw description changed everything and that that became a problem and there were there were some historically there was a very strong boards of selectmen and historically  so that became a problem that was not continuity it was not consistency and that was one of the things we had to look at along with the fact that there was no really no statutory authority  what we were doing there was stuff that had been delegated to indy that really dislike when you did not have the authority to do and that was beginning to get a little scary i think once we consolidated them the finance and of it lots of th stuff came to light that really was being done really should have been so it was really more of a i thing that we really had to do one of the toughest things we had to do in a committee was to depersonalize what we're looking become the more we used term that's we had to look at and so that's what i think we we focused on was to try to to try to implement those recommendations the nature of the board of selectmen depending on you know what else was happening in sound that the town manager would have been debility to continuously and consistently run the town obviously will i saying that the board of selectmen sign the bill and that they have the authority to control what the town manager is doing i don't believe that the time energy has any independent authority to do something contrary to what the board of select would tell them to do or i think that one of the other examples is the is the end of the education reform act super tentative schools has significantly more authority than would probably be wise for the superintendent to actual size and but that's just but again it's the role is the communication between the the executive board which is the board of selectmen of the school committee and there who are trained to do it people there's of experience level where people are turning over and moving along so that was we felt that the town manager was a better term than a town administrator and the other thing we knew is again trying to depersonalize it but we knew that indy wasn't going to be here forever and that some point we were going to have to grow and compete for a person who had ability and experience and that person with abil experience was going to want to have the same kind of authority that they would have in a in any kind of similar situation so we thought that that again giving that the town manager the broader authority rather than the narrow authority and with the idea that the says you sent in the there are some things that overlap with realizing that the selectmen were not going to give up everything this was in a contentious was going from the three to five or so on but you had to we also saw how that was going to kind of work together with a with a town manager we had  for i thought that was a very interesting insight and i think that that was so we we kind of were felt that the having the strong tongue or the tonnage or with broad powers was going to be kind of there was get the check and balance of that was going to be the five person board of selectmen and that you weren't going to have one or two people that the town manager could essentially patrol run or the reverse that one of two people who is going to the management of the town and looking at the town and looking at its growth looking at from to manage a town the size of foxboro is to look at having the border select then focus more on goal setting and as well as policy policy leadership and as as john said it did it really dug tail so that they would more and they still have that had the ability to deal with overriding i mean the majority of select men say that what is the town manager is doing is not what they would want to solve the ability to override that but from a day to day administrative running of a town of the significant size of foxborough we felt that that that role to the board selectman in this case so that they would in essence oversee in a global sense but a strong town manager would handle the day to day administrative functions i wanted to ask if ritchie might comment you were just a strong town manager for the town for the city of brooklyn correct well my my career path in this business was a little different than  most i've worked in both cities for strong mayors i had worked for kevin white worked most closely with the head man when he was the mayor of newton for twenty two years and then made the switch to the town administrative position  brooklyn brookline where i finished up for after fifteen years there and i've seen the broad range of the mix of possibilities and just to put it out on the table with you ask me probably contrary to some of my colleagues here what the best form of local government would be depending upon the size and the build out of the community actually strong mayor from my perspective in terms of the executive and political responsibilities being blended  in a way that the entire community can focus on that's not happening for foxboro nor for any other community the size of this town but has been mentioned the change that was made here a few years ago is on the side of history in terms of the evolution that's going on statewide if not the the broad trend indeed in terms of cities and towns to there's been probably more and more transition from towns to the city forming l communities particularly in the self assured yourself of boston exact reflecting this this desire in this need to move to a stronger executive function and and local governments and i'll just pick up on a couple things and board in the town administration from time to time in those kinds of things i think i'm retired i can speak frankly now used to drive me crazy but unions would have the actual conversations with with members of the board of selectmen individually and no matter how much i was a well you know it's just a cup of coffee when i concede anything you just get complicated things for the bargaining table and we were constantly back feeling on that type of thing because as a matter of policy the board in the town historically had delegated to a negotiating team the responsibility for for collective bargaining but from my perspective that was somewhat of a fact of life and it's not a if i'm sure it's not going on here in foxboro but if it were something that would be a little bit of an itch to scratch from time to time during the collective bargaining cycle it's no surprise that it's taking place commitment to the c i p the boys from their elected position can play to play a huge policy and cheerleading role in that regard it's not easy to sort of turn the ship of state so to speak to allocate resources to the capital improvement program i'll just close by noting that in reality in brookline i was not in a strong time form i was in actually a very weak blackletter position visa v my visa v the actual authority of the board in the finance committee and in town meeting but what happened there over time going back to my predecessors and i think we nurtured this along is that the culture and the politics and the expectations of the community were that there was going to be a strong executive it was in the best interest of the town to do that even though people who understood that interface intellectually from time to time actually fight it on occasion you know so at the end of the day in terms of the form of moving to a stronger executive i think is in the best interest of most any community will be extend kane's along the  way but it's as was mentioned earlier by some of the previous speakers it's a matter of the communication in the interrelationships that really make it work as a cohesive executive we'd like to come that but i do agree that the trend in government and so much i think for massachusetts of players in government is to enhance the executive function because of the complexity of collective bargaining environmental issues issues dealing with diversity so there's a lot of significant complicated technical matters today that need to be a handle professionally and unless you have a strong   historically there's been three levels of there's no statutory definition but there's a practice we've levels of of type of a form of ministration the first one is the executive secretary and it's out of chapter forty one which provided for the town meeting to authorize a selectman to appoint an executive secretary and that person was the agent of the board the board of selectmen will conduct a public hearing on thursday february on tuesday february twenty sixth two thousand and thirteen at seven forty p m to review the application submitted by m p s l l c for the new england revolution games including potential international matches and double stadium for selection acting as a local licensing authority pursuant to mass general law chapter one forty section one hundred one in section one eighty three a in chapter one thirty six section four town of facts were revised  articles five section six and also stadium rules and regulations will conduct a public hearing on tuesday february twenty sixth two thousand and thirteen beginning at seven forty p m in the andr gala junior meeting room forty south street to review the application submitted elsie for the new england revolution games including potential international matches and double headers all events are proposed for gillette stadium all applications for these events are on file at the office of select and all interested parties are welcome to attend thank you so continue that till after this discussion so we'll you've now been with us through all of this transition could you comment  e've seen bumps along the way though i think that's what you describe in this kind of growing pains i think having worked with both candy and kevin to be fair and he was used to a different role you know the actor came in but he did all the sudden roaring here one day and changes changes style you know he was and he was looking to you know to be able to be that way over time you know we gravitated into that into that role kevin i think anybody that works in one of these positions for any length of time would prefer to be in a strong position in a weak position i mean that's a lot of people start out in the business in the weaker  position and in kind of a learning curve there and then go into a stronger position and once you've gone into a stronger position you certainly don't want to go backwards you want to go in the other direction i think it's always to kind of become accustomed to but you know i think here in and there were a lot of things for example in your in your personal byelaw that have been had been dormant anyways for a long period of time but i think one of the one of the problems here i know you are in the process of resolving that is that the by a lot kind of sat there with a lot of provisions in there that really are no longer  repeals those provisions that are inconsistent with the time manager reckon that that's where you've run into some of the issues i know there's an effort now to kind of clean up the by a lot for consistency purposes  but i think in any community where you have controversial decisions to be made particularly when it comes to personal matters and the like you know there's always going to be some some level of disagreement and i think you know over time i've seen that it has evolved here so that the communication kind of small is over those those rough edges just because a tom ridge is a strong tom it doesn't mean that that he doesn't tell the board what's going on and what he's doing what he's intending to do and i think you know that's that's been kind of a learning process with the with someone with a different personality than than than your prior town manager not saying one's a good some of it but there are the processes that are in place within that personal waged by law are potentially still could be useful it could have been clearer but ultimately section six says all by compensation could go to the wage personnel board in and get the wage and personnel board to make that decision so that's one of those issues that i described earlier with is the inconsistency is is continued to be on paper that are consistent with the by law terms of due process and things like that i think that's what the act was intended to  seventeen thousand right there cut off we're tough thousand is the minimum you have to be for me or for city for city so i mean it just seems to be the way things are going the way i've observed it up here it seems that a mayor form of government might work better in the future fox maybe not right now or coming up in the future because you always get like and it said i think john you said it every year i get a different job title before the and i could see that happening but i just think in the future because it's becoming more and more overwhelming to be on the board of selectmen and basically it's a voluntary role in the community and i don't think you need get the justification the town deserves out of it in the future without employing men think some kind of salary or something in the future it would be something to be more i think it's changing arise cause more and more it's compound and i think that and i agree with you i think it's the best form of government for the future for fox but i think it's the way i would like to see the tell move forward let me just make a quick  be movement among communities that that that point in the municipal landscape moving to mayoral form but the trend has been there for logic communities particularly those recently in the forty to fifty thousand range and i know d and i do have different opinions about it but my key point about that is that at the end of the day you're talking about executive authority and how do you make that best work and if  city is not in the long in near term intermediate term horizon for a community like foxboro then how does executive authority really get played out and i'll just close my rhetorical question there by observing that i find myself in some situations where i was actually able to accomplish more in my role as a weak town administrator because its people expected me to exercise leadership for the community  some of the mayors i had worked with in similar situations in the past were able to accomplish in areas like relationships with the schools in the school budget and in that type of thing so there are tradeoffs either way but i think for a community this and what he would do is you need he would work all day in boston and come out and he'd come in to town all night and then he would spend his whole day on saturday at the town hall you know doing select duty so you know the cycle you know increases and you know when he was elected he probably didn't have to do that but by the end of the time you this is what he was doing a lot of stuff he was doing was really in the history of you know but there was no because there was no executive secretary to take care of any of that stuff that's why that that process and then you know that the whole cycle were down so the select weren't doing that you know and then built up again on the one down again to build up again and i think you more difficult and more complex and that was one of the things that we did deal with worse yet but then again one of the ideas of going to a five person board was that you were going to have an opportunity to have people more people with different skills different outlooks different constituencies and hopefully bringing all of that to the table as opposed to you know having a you know a three person board which again historically was very often a one person so i think that that's you know kind of where we're going and you're right it's not it's a thankless job but i'm not saying it's thankless at all i appreciate that but what i've really i've seen change in the last eight nine years now and it's very difficult and you have one of thirty two entities in the whole world in your town which really makes it even more difficult because it's causing situations you're dealing with with you know games and everything else board they just want to make it they want to say and just to kind of direct it up a little bit i get a lot of benefit reading that nine hundred eighty nine report that and thank you for doing that look back then it just reminds us that you know the government does change circumstances to change some of the recommendations you know going from a finance director that's elected vers appointed in under contract you made recommendations back in one thousand nine hundred ninety merge all the different departments into the  it took us a while but you know i think there was some insight back then and i think would be remiss if we didn't have these discussions and i just wanted to remind everyone out having it because we're not happy with our strong time manager atomic energy i think we just have to look to the future and you know i  heard the public hearing that we just opened was for the the two thousand and thirteen new in the revolution home games seventeen of them so they know we know you're going to introduce yourself for the record last year you know there are no significant changes from last year at the standard seventeen game season parking lots are set to open at the same time for parking and still free the only changes that section one forty three through one forty one have always been ga sections now are also going to open section one forty four hour a college season ticket package so that often be a ga section but that is really the only change this year also we're going into the third season of close being told through councils that done a lot of good work going on and everybody is very very confident that it's going to get pulled together we just need a little bit more time so my recommendation on this is just make it the more discussion was in favor motion passes five zero hearings closed we have a motion in motion to approve the application for the new england revolution games including potential international matches and double headers that's what stadium contingent upon the state advisory committee requirements and public safety i don't know how we did a pretty close back to schedule this next item and there's a couple parts to it i had reached out to the mass gaming commission for the purpose of having them come in present to us the gaming regulations as it relates to being in a budding community to a host community the plane which had several discussions plainville i don't think they have the full application but really to hear from the state gaming commission the mass gaming commission on what the rights and responsibilities obligations in general overall process  the second part to this i also want to question and answer if there's people that had questions from the audience with respect to the process that they're free to ask them and then really the third component i see joe fernandez say spoken to asked some representation of complaint plainville really to kind of bring us up to speed on where they are with the application what studies they're doing and hopefully at the end of this exercise we have some good communication we have a good understanding we've already reached out and  joe i talk to you about this to see if there's a committee if there's any people in foxborough that would want to kind of put it all together and study it for the selectmen to come back to us looking at some of the reports that you're doing or maybe do it on our own and hopefully at the end we have a good understanding of what's going to happen in plain ridge i have not heard from my perspective anyone here trying to stop playing ridge but just really better understanding it and i think this is the first step  so at that point i think if you want to introduce yourself kind of thinking through your process thank you thank you for coming great thank you mr mr chairman and members of what i have a power point for your consideration i'm not going to really stick to this i know that we have a limited communities and i'm also point to contact for applicants as they navigate their way through state government and with the commission so so i'm going to give you some of the highlights of what the commission is it has been doing  will be doing over the next couple of months but i will point you to our website which is a tremendous amount of mation w w mass gaming dot dot com we broadcast every one of our meetings on the internet ther detailed transcripts available that every meeting and we summarize basically every every policy that we have we put out many many documents for extended public comment it's a really really open process and i would recommend that if you have any if you have any questions please take a look at that website and i'm always available for questions as well you may not have the time to go to watch the three to four hour marathons that are the gaming commission meetings so i guess you know i would recommend that but please take a look at it so perhaps it would be good for me to explain just where we are at this point in time and what's expected in the weeks and the months ahead we're in the process of developing the second phase of our regulations we just recently had a deadline for submission of applications which was part of the first phase of of our licensing process by way of information we have a two page to page licensing process the first phase of basically a background review of all the applicants of their financial stability of their of their general background and their character and then in the weeks in the months ahead we are we are going to be entering into the second phase the application process which is  the nuts and bolts of everything that is the gaming site the composition of the development what has been the outreach plan to communities to surrounding communities you know what is that if we work with the economic development plans for the region there's a tremendous number of things included in that in the statute that gaming applicants have to take into account when they're submitting their application so i know that you probably i've been following some of the details of what has been submitted to the commission by way of background gaming active stablish three different gaming regions and the gaming commission can award a casino in even one in each one of those  regions currently region c is on hold pending further discussion regarding the indian gaming proposal but in addition to the three major casino licenses there is also one slots license that is under consideration so as i mentioned we have the january fifteenth deadline and in that in the first phase of the application we received eleven applications and notably we received  resorts that are also slots licenses but they have not indicated where they are going to finally find a place to reside they obviously will need to do that part to the second phase of the application but they didn't have to do that for the the phase one process which was entirely based on their financial character background etc so there was no site location requirement is part of the for us so as i mentioned the second phase that is where we get into the specific components of the of the projects each application has to include a lot of detail but it also has the include a host community agreement unless there is a host community agreement exit q did for the host community it never reaches the commission so that is the first phase in the process after a community negotiates a host community agreement it then has to put that agreement up for a referendum by the by the community and again if it doesn't pass the referendum it never  ends up at the gaming commission and we are left with the remaining applications that have been able to succeed in the in the local approvals the application also includes that the statute says that it shall include surrounding community agreements and i'm sure that that's what you're probably a little bit more interested in talking about tonight just a point of notice now surrounding communities of very important rights that are guaranteed to them by the statute but  that that those rights they do not rise to the level of a veto power such as the host community is granted under legislation for either the referendum or the host community agreement as i just reference so after the application is submitted to us to the commission there will be a public hearing process it is in vision that it would be in the host community but surrounding communities would be notified of that hearing process and invited to attend and participate in addition we will receive whatever comments we receive on each of the applications and the commission will take that into account during its evaluation so  the there are as i mentioned there are a number of different things they'll need to be included in the phase two but each of the applicants will be required to do extensive studies and one of those is required to show the regional impact and the economic effect of the project the each of the applicants is required to certify that they are in compliance with state and local laws in regard to some of the license criteria by which will evaluate these these proposals  assessments such as things such as do they maximize economic development promote local small businesses in the tourism industry maximize job generation in protecting existing jobs maximize capital investment promote diversity in the workforce the monk suppliers coordinate with regional economic development plants and then notably mitigate compulsive gambling in other negative consequences in a host and surrounding communities so it's to a why we're here tonight  the legislation details what are host communities as you can imagine host communities are communities in which the proposed development will be situated but surrounding communities are defined as in the statute they're defined as municipalities that are in proximity to a host community which the commission determines will experience or are likely to experience impacts from the development or operation of the gaming  establishment in making the determination the commission must consider the detailed plan of construction submitted by the applicant information received from the public and factors which will include but not be limited to population infrastructure and distance from the gaming establishment and political boundaries so those of a statutory back or so or so when the when is it decided what is surround a community is there really basically two different process any time that a community and the developer agree to a surrounding community agreement and that is put forward in the application they are automatically deemed us around the community for the purposes of the gaming commission which leads to the rights commission is required to evaluate the impacts on those surrounding communities so the first way a community is a surrounding community is when the community and the developer agree that you are surrounding community and a surround community agreement is speech we in both of both of the parties the second a way that a community can be deemed to surround a community it's determined by the commission so for example if an applicant and a community do not see eye to eye on whether or not that community is a surrounding community that meets the definition that is put forth in the statute and further refinement that we have put forward and regulation then the community lied to the commission to be determined to be a surrounding community pursuant to the statute the commission cannot make that decision on whether or not a community is a surrounding community until after as i mentioned in the statute until after we have received the application the details of all of the infrastructure of the the complete details about the project and then the commission shall make that determination based on those facts and facts that are presented by the surrounding community  one thing i will know is that there is another situation where perhaps a community and a an applicant it may be designated as a surrounding community may be perceived as a surrounding community by the applicant but they have not been able to reach an agreement prior to the submission of the of the application to the commission so the law provides for the commission to have a procedure to help resolve that impasse so once a community is designated as a surrounding community so after the application is filed the community can petition the commission to be designated as a surrounding community if the commission then designates that community as a surrounding community it can then order a thirty day period of negotiations if the community and the applicant cannot resolve their differences within that thirty days then the commission is required under the law to establish protocols and procedures for resolving that impasse we have not developed those protocols and procedures yet we're in the process of developing those for the regulations that i mentioned that hopefully in the first phase will be available within basically a month and promulgated in final fashion by june but it is anticipated that you'll have a negotiation period and hopefully the parties will be able to reach an agreement by that thirty days if they cannot reach an agreement within that thirty days then some protocols and procedures such as arbitration such a could be utilized to schedule it's been up for a period of months but the commission on thursday is going to take another look at the schedule for a couple different reasons one reason is that there is a potential that we may be able to conduct our and complete our background investigations sooner than him than we thought for the for the slots licensees but the second thing that we need to take a look at for the schedule is what i just mentioned the protocols and procedures  counsel for the commission on thursday is going to present some ideas on how those protocols and procedures could work and they involve a good number of days to resolve some of the issues so the schedule that we have here is subject to some some substantial modification you know by the end of this week and within the next month i've told the commission numerous times that it really makes sense for us to get some very concrete dates as soon as we think that we  can and that's part of what the commission is trying to do this week and over the next couple of weeks even though you know it's still very early in the year these deadlines are going to rapidly approach and people need time to understand the impacts not only of the host communities but in the surrounding comment on that were in the process of looking at the comments that have been received on that definition one of the one of the components of that draft definition is that we defined a surrounding community such that if an applicant decides to provide dollars to a community for the purposes of a valuating impacts that community would not automatically be deemed a surround community for the purposes of the application in the fall and the reason why we did that is because applicants if they weren't exactly sure whether or not a community is a surrounding community and they felt that it might disadvantage them later in the in the process to label a community around a community early in the process they may not want to be as forthcoming with with dollars to provide the technical assistance necessary so we clarified in our regulations that just because an applicant provides dollars for technical assistance funding to in a community that doesn't mean that a community is a surrounding community for the purposes of the application so hopefully this will you know free up at least that hurdle to potentially providing assistance to communities so i won't go into too much depth on this timeline just because it is subject to change but what we have here is january fifteenth not qualified they would have the ability to appeal that disqualification before the commission so we've built in a couple of months time for those of those appeals before we notify folks that that they are qualified or disqualified but in reality that may never occur we may not have any of those fields or we may have many of those we don't know all but the may date that i am referencing here may two thousand and thirteen there is a potential that we might be able to complete our reviews before made two thousand and thirteen shifting things a little bit earlier we have here and surrounding community agreements can be executed they could be executed as early as today but we would imagine that unity's both host communities and surrounding communities need time to evaluate the true impacts of what the development will comprise right now through of the commonwealth many different host communities are in the process of either procuring consultants themselves or in the process of reviewing impacts themselves it's sort of a multi stage process whereby applicants first have to develop their own studies get their studies ready for for public dissemination then they have conversations with communities about those impacts those communities will take a look at those impacts the term and on their own on whether or not that is in keeping with their their desires and their goals for the community and then hopefully as a result of the studies that are provided by the by the applicant and the host community they're all be a store of information that that others can take a look at including surrounding communities that is are and to spatial and how hopefully it should work i noted a little bit earlier that we have four applicants for a four slots licenses and to surrounding communities that that is good news it's good news because in the commission's belief competition breeds better applications and since  all applicants will be evaluated based on how they are doing their outreach to surrounding communities how they're taking care of impacts we think that it's a good idea that we think we're very happy that there's competition around the state because we think that applicants will be in a better position to help address some of the local issues that the commission will have in turn have to take a look at when it when it ends up at the commission's desk so right now  an applicant for a referendum and then the actual conduction of the referendum but surrounding community agreements can occur during that six hundred ninety day period because there is in the referendum required so they can be likely be pushed forward in some of the details regarding the surrounding communities will be added after that day i mentioned funding for technical reviews under the under the gaming act fifty thousand of the applicants four hundred thousand dollars application fee is reserved for host and surrounding communities for any folks who actually conducted some of these studies that ha especially if you're taking a look at many many different communities fifty thousand is probably not anticipated to us to take care of all of the studies that would be necessary even at the host community level so in applicants if an applicant agrees to mount in excess of that fifty thousand for a host community or agrees to for example fifty thousand for the host community and some some for a surrounding community it is required to submit the additional dollars to the gam scan can fund directly to a host in surrounding communities as long as it's in conformity with the local laws that there is appropriations for those funding we have the process whereby can applicants can afford the money to us and then we in turn grant those monies out to the south to the communities but there are a couple other potential ways that communities can get assistance with reviews the commission is very mindful of the fact that many communities are just and reliance on volunteer help there's you know a constant strain on resources so they've commissioned me they've asked me to try to find out how regional planning agencies could play a role in helping communities of value a local  impacts obviously even if you went forward with the or within a consultant of your own there's the would be a strain on time and resources such as procurement of consultants and the like so and especially with many different ceramic potential surrounding communities that may have the same needs the commission thought it would be good idea for us to explore whether or not the expertise at the regional planning agencies could could help surrounding communities evaluate these impacts and that the applicants could engage in a relationship with the mitigation money far the community disbursements grant is on our web site right now it does require the signature of both the applicant and the community of the host or the surrounding community so that could be done at any time  we are encouraging is that could potential surrounding communities have a lot of dialogue with applicants so that they can determine where they are in their own studies determine where they are in the host community studies and determine how the needs would be addressed for these reviews he there are you know potentially there are regional planning agency there are direct studies there just a review of the data that will be provided or if folks have input regarding any of those studies as they're as they're being developed that might also be a way of getting some of these issues taken a look at but what we're heard is that all potential surrounding communities just stay in touch with applicants to try to determine the best way that they can get the resources  either true dollar resources or or other resources other technical assistance resources to it to evaluate those impacts so we should probably have representatives in any of the meetings that playing ridge is having with the town in plan submitted if the commission then has to decide on whether the committee is to surround a community and if orders negotiations at that point you know there is a potential that funding for technical assistance might also be required at that point because that becomes a compulsory process versus the voluntary process that we're trying to stress we're we are hoping that communities and applicants will be engaged in a you know high level of dialogue before the application because if it hits to the if it if it probably going over a little bit but one thing i will mention is that while we sort of my other hat on working with state agencies the commission is trying to determine how applicants work their way through state permanents in reality it is it is not likely that state promoting will be completed to any substantial degree by the time it reaches the commission's desk and as you can imagine there is you know substantial back and forth between the state agencies and the developers of any major project of this size so in recognition that that permanent will not be complete what the commission has done is that is  advisory program for host and surrounding communities so at the time that it hosts community is ready to execute a community agreement or a surrounding community is about to execute a surrounding community agreement folks should be in contact with me and i will arrange for the state agencies to provide their best snapshot of what their thoughts are about this potential development at this point in time and that will give you a good feel loved do they do they like of for example transportation plan do they not like a transportation plan what are their thoughts about it i do know that because the processes or the processes it is likely that state agencies well you know i have different thoughts as they go through the process but this is decided to give everybody the benefit of the best not a snapshot in time at the current moment community mitigation fund so there's the obviously there's been a lot  assist the host community and the surrounding communities in our setting costs related to construction and operation of the gaming establishment including things such as water sore education transportation infrastructure housing environmental issues and public safety a substantial amount of dollars will be put into that that fund each year it's six point five percent of the revenue from the category one licensees i don't have a figure for you right now but as you've heard if you were talking in the hundreds of millions of there's also a subset of the application fees that have to be submitted to the commission that also goes the community mitigation fine but there will be substantial funds available to communities to take a look at that fine now  as i mentioned there are benefits to being surrounded community as and the community mitigation fine is designed to help surrounding communities and host communities with impacts that they may determine to find after the fact after casino or slots still it is up and communities can apply to the commission by february first that we each year the the legislation establishes a process by which there's a communicate a community mitigation subcommittee that advises the commission and how funds should surrounding communities one other thing i will mention in regard to that regulation that we put forward we noted that just because a particular community does not she surrounding community status in the event it petitions the commission that does not necessarily mean that you would not be able to take advantage of the community mitigation fund because the impacts will be felt by many different entities not only those communities and surrounding communities but  communities within you know a nearby area the commission pursuant to that definition just because you don't pass the threshold test with the commission at this point that does not mean that you would not be able to take advantage of the community mitigation fun at a future date a lot of information i know the gaming commission website i really would urge you to take a look at it we just put out a new website we just put public notice of it out today it's ok so this is so there's a public hearing that was continued for the application for alteration of premises for alcohol restaurant license that chicken joe's located twenty five basically the one that had been in and in existence they built something substantially different that required them to come in some time prior to want to have their opening and file a change of p they didn't know they needed to do that and we only discovered it when the building inspector went down for a routine i can see permit inspection with a plan looked and said what the difference we heard a lot of jim actually town i went down that really expedite it but we've been through this at the last hearing of it with everyone in the whatever that radar online was while we were getting the paperwork processed to do the change of premises hearing we discover that we also had a new participant in the funding which had been a partner who had initially declined but then during the process decided that they did want to commend the family said great people with whom they've had a long term relationship so both needed to get refile both required notifications and all that so last week you postpone the chamfer promised change promises to tonight so you could do both everything is in order outstanding businesses john i did probably still your thunder but i hope i made this a lot simpler i try to make th ownership is with the in equity partner who was also an equity partner in two other of their facilities including reagan joe's in norwich so he's a it's a solid financial it's better than they feel it was better world council for filling this stuff out and he really dug into this quickly and got it all done with we've gone through it anyways but frankly if every tourney did it like this we have a lot less application and the x in the paperwork that's been fixed any questions on it yeah i fernandez is a town play the time in a straight up to come for the benefit of fox foxborough to help us understand where they're at in maybe we could ask some questions i think it's beneficial for everyone to be on the same page especially with these  an overview of where you are in a little bit about your r v process consultant those were do january thirty first i gave them to an evaluation team primarily consisting of department heads who may or may not be impacted by the presence of a gaming facility they did their evaluations and we tabulated them on monday and literally last night came to a ranking we have tentatively selected someone i will tell you not that it's your consideration but there were some some good and very strong proposals this one was the best of the cost however was twice is going to be more than twice of the next most competitive proposal but we're still going ahead with it because we think and want to thorough analysis of certainly what this is going to do for two playing well i can get into a little bit of the detail public both interest and participation we are in the process of doing some due diligence in advance checking with supplied references and looking at some of the work they've done and seeing whether in fact the recipients of that work are satisfied with the with the of the work that was in fact done again the consultant is this coupled with at least five other folks and one of the one of the concerns i had was that you know this is this is somewhat unique it's pretty comprehensive in terms of what the impact of something like this is so there is a traffic there are social issues there are financial issues and clearly there are gam backwards and if i could just only because as you can imagine them a little sensitive and a little concern that people get the wrong impression two things that have been sent said tonight mr chairman you mentioned something in your packet about a traffic analysis that's been done by plain bill plainville has done nothing what you may have would be a traffic study by the applicant correct correct so we have done nothing with the way we're approaching traffic i'm no engineer but my understanding is that typically one hundred thousand square feet of retail space is proposed a traffic engineer goes to the manual and knows that that's going to generate x number of trips and then they figure out what the impact know how to mitigate that as far as i know there's no such manual certainly in massachusetts for a traffic generation to study impact zone so we have purposely divided the traffic piece into this gaming consultant will be charged with determining what the the numbers of customers will be on a daily hourly basis where they're likely to come from and then turn that information over the traffic engineer so he or she can look at intersections that may or may not be impacted road capabilities and in the like so i just want make sure that we're not did you know we're not giving people the wrong impression and something else was that i had never forgotten so i hope to get back to that working back all that was that the timeline again the timeline that i think you made reference to in the packet is something  that was put together by playing ridge in terms of analyzing act i don't disagree with that but i think the operative date is in fact when the gaming commission will schedule a decision on the on the class two license and then we need to work backwards in plainville to make sure we're prepared for having done our our homework so that you know that the process can go over or forward of the gaming commission on a couple weeks ago that the commission put forward is sort of an aspirational deadline that it's been taking a look at of value waiting whether or not they could meet that deadline i'm not certain that it would be able to meet that deadline and that's part of know what it is that required in the act in any resulting regulations reviewing of existing gaining studies and research within the legislation itself and i don't know where the gaming commission those but the legislation that legislative tours realize that there is kind of a a lack of solid science in terms of what gaming does to a state a community or a country so  they recognize that there needs to be more work on that cited a canadian study of over four hundred studies and the gaming commission was in the process of hiring a consultant to do nothing but analysis of existing studies and then take it take it pursuant to the legislative mandate to the next level to see what if other impacts there may be we've required our consultant to review existing gaming studies and this particular consultant has committed to reviewing the top fifty studies and seeing if there are any parallels potentially to the plain dealer or the surrounding communities market trends in the gaming industry is this a dying industry is that a growing industry has going to be impacted by competition in and thereby states and the potential for additional competition both obviously within massachusetts and beyond massachusetts  clearly analysis of the applicants to middle to the gaming commission including financials and pro forma traffic generation analysis as i talked about earlier predictable demands on public services and then infrastructure predictable the demands on local citizens predictable impacts on regional economy which obviously you would be interested in that shows that were predictable because there's a lot of  speculation but people have taken positions on both sides of the gaming fence and say things with authority i was hoping that as a result of this endeavor that we'd have a little more concrete evidence for whatever conclusions people s time to timetable making sure that this as a one year run out so that should in fact there be slots at play ridge we want the consultants to on a periodic basis throughout the the first year operations make sure that there is compliance with both the the promises and commitments in those communities agreement so the extent that the two phases that i think may be important when i talk about predictable impacts on local citizens citizen realize i have given these examples local property values both residential and commercial and the geographic range of any impact you know is there an impact next door within a quarter mile half mile of five mile radius crime rates again based on having expanded gaming in the community incidences of dui as as a result of contemplated act costs directly related to proximity of a gaming facility i can tell you the proposal is very strong and has some faculty members from a number of schools to look at that very topic the propensity of gambling addiction as young people mature to adulthood in close proximity and we all know that if someone wants to spend money on gaming there are opportunities but is that opportunity enhanced by the proximity of it and the we're going to a particularly in the immediate region that is going to suffer any type of adverse impact because people are more tempted as they grow up in close proximity to a gaming facility proximity of  impacts on other town businesses impacts on commercial residential and auto insurance rates and packed on housing these impact on local seniors particularly as a result of potential marketing efforts of the gaming facility tax is ended identifying the regional economic costs and benefits associated with hosting an expanded gaming facility and in addition to reviewing the analysis to become attained within the anticipated playing ridge out application the select vendor will be capable of examining the regional economy in terms of unemployment tourism transportation housing marketing planning and more doing to predict the impacts of expanded gaming additionally the selective vendor will define those surrounding communities  i want to know that in fact if there are impacts how far they extend if in fact there are no impacts i want to know that as well and i think one of the are no impacts and i'm fearful that people and i'm not suggesting that that's the motive here but i'm fearful that people will seize on an opportunity to gain something that they otherwise might not have the previous opportunity to do and generally other circumstances the the thing that was useful for me because i'm not an engineer or someone tells me ten traffic trips per day or one hundred traffic trips per day i have no idea what that means  so although this is plain ridges i've only cite the ones that i've personally verified based on their original environmental impact report and to put it in perspective and this is clearly a number that needs to be verified burke consultant the plan ridge is estimating six thousand five hundred thirty four trips per day currently they do about sixteen hundred there anticipated an additional forty one hundred and not here to say that's an accurate number and i don't know  but if in fact just let's for argument's sake say that it isn't an accurate number the lows across the street excuse me down the street is seven thousand eight hundred fifty six playable crossing which is across the street that has home goods stop and shop for their bread and the like that's fifteen excuse me that's seventeen thousand six hundred ten so again i think it's important before people get particularly concerned with what the impact is going to be at least as it pertains to traffic that it's placed in perspective just an editorial comment my view of what the of what the legislation that dissipated as it applies to category to it's category two is somewhat the orphaned son of the legislation i think the real focus that and it's pretty likely bill that the real focus of what the gaming commission  in terms of impact i think the legislation wasn't visioning a much larger impact with the casino but again time will tell that's why we've hired a consultant the process although the probably the most important peace anticipated requires a four meeting process a kick off meeting that basically allows people say we're concerned about this we're concerned about that should it be in the scope of services and based on whether it's already included and not we have the the right to say to the consultant hey we did think about that include that in the in the proposal in the the work there are a work because they report to the community in terms of these of the anticipated impacts that you found there is then a follow up meeting pre negotiation meeting that talks about this is what we are anticipating to be contained beneficial to the town so that the consultant will now take on him a lack of a better word a salesman's posture of the he or she will attempt to say these are the benefits we foresee these are the impacts will be  obligation obviously is to foxborough and our residents we're in the midst of this residence that have come to us they want to be on a committee with some council representation as well if and when that comes to fruition we move forward to try to understand your studies and maybe do out on our own and work with the gaming commission would you be that contact person over in plainville that we would reach out to or would we go right to the applicant in in terms of  i'm certainly not empowered as john described i'm certainly not empowered to say to you that you qualify as a as a surrounding community that's that's an agreement that has to be with the applicants again by the  in the process anyone who as i said anyone who needs information that we've gathered and even at the outset if there is something that the are a few dozen envision being  one of things i can assure you it's not going to be that we are i and you and that that we brought into this process as is stonewalling anyone in terms of information decisions are going to be or across the board or informal fair enough perceived it could open up to the board but the there may be some residents and it's probably unfair and i don't think it's going to few to answer questions for residents but can you stick around get into some questions and the surrounding community agreement is renewable anyway you said in february that you just joined no actually that is what i was referencing for february that is the community fund which is a it's a separate creature creature from the agreement so you could have both an agreement and then communities could apply to the community mitigation fund the community mitigation fund is is populated by gaming revenues that's basically after the casinos are up and casinos and slots facilities are up and running and number two would be is there any ramifications for an applicant if they do not enter into a surrounding community agreement  yet every applicant will be evaluated on how significant their outreach program has been to two communities and to the degree that if it's determined that it was deficient by the commission that those are points against that in the in the competition thank you thank you everybody else  tracy longer thirty four barton road i actually just have a quick question for joe i'm just curious why you're concerned about the surrounding communities maybe trying  to benefit from that a little more than they should when the funds come from the medication fund it shouldn't really affect plainville i'm just curious why that's a concern of yours well unless i'm confusing  you know whoever needs to make a case and can make a case with the state gaming commission again it is frankly not a concern of mine my concern and i'll be candid is that we will be negotiating  should it come to pass that it seems to make sense to host a slot license and point will be negotiating a host community agreement and this should and i know it comes as no surprise to the applicant we're going to look at making sure that we cover our costs if in fact there is identified impacts be a public safety issue the whole host of things that i talked about but beyond that this is our our shining economic benefit the town above and beyond any mitigation like anything else funds are finite whether it's a private sector public sector and if a community is as the surrounding community is looking  question i know there's a mitigation fund is there a certain allotted for each casino and the slot house or is it a large fund that is distributed between all of them because that  war inevitably be developed after the details we developed after the casinos are opened because you know since last so these are over and we haven't come to any determinations and how things would be a lot of different regions but that's that's part of what the will after the sermon over time so right now the funds that are put in by plane will don't necessarily all i'm playing bridge sorry don't necessarily all go just to that as with the other casinos all the mitigation funds they put in right now it's not strictly just for that area it actually if that area doesn't need as much some of those funds can go over to another area that may need the funds yeah the commission hasn't made obviously separate and distinct things from the community improvements are executed now and then the community mitigation fund once it's once its details are developed with the advice of the subcommittees have visor committees and local community advisory committees which could be you know very much put in some of those type of recommendations on how to split up the fund that is available later after after revenues start coming into the into the ok i guess that a family confuses me a bit sorry so when you create a host community agreement and there are funds agreed to that doesn't come out of the mitigation fund i mean i know the taxes and things like that but if they come to a traffic agreement or the impact on traffic or road construction then they have x amount of dollars they need that is from the developer separate from the  those are based on funds that would be available from the applicant or measures that the applicant determines are necessary to mitigate those actual impacts and then separately indistinctly there's a community mitigation fund that is populated with dollars from the revenues of the facilities where by that those funds are available for communities that apply separate and distinct from the agreements ok so if they have to reconstruct the highway right there the money used for that would come from directly from the developer in the community post community agreement it is it is up to the applicant and the communities to determine what those impacts would be and how they would be addressed right and that's part of the application process until it agreed that that particular impact is not fully addressed in impact agreements it could be addressed at a later point through the community mitigation fund  ok but again that is upon application to the commission so not it's not a guarantee that everything would be mitigated at that point it's personal to and application process where the commission about what's a number of different needs that it tr to follow in the neemo two thousand and thirteen storm just to give us an update and in our packet there was kind of a summary of some of the good things and some of the law lessons learned have you want to go over that couple of quick points some first that generally i think is the border is where the preparations that were made were excellent will go in all the details but it was extensive planning five of the storm and it worked out very well we did not have a single down wire while in all candor the bulk of out is due to the weather we got lucky we were right on the line where it could have gone either way white south of us towns were losing power so we were very fortunate but i also don't want to minimize all the work that took place this past year with treat clearing and the so called double feed to the  farm police didn't have too many calls at all most of the work was on d p w crews and they did a fantastic job i will tell you they were out there in conditions that were unimaginable really dangerous and they worked all through the night the the driving  ban was very helpful on a couple lesson learnt lessons learned we made a lot of strides with media communication still getting it down but did a lot of work this time of media communication and the outreach of the community was it was really very substantially improved we used t v print media internet texting we used all the assets available to us the media was very cooperative with us they did a fantastic job and we really get the message out a reverse nine one one extensively as well conference call it was something new we tried and work great you folks around some of those conference calls and it worked really well  really there's a whole bunch of things are put in the report for you about the about the shelter a lot of refineries we need to do need to get a generator don see a way because we can have a small shelter there we need to get girls school over head very successful effort and fox poll is really getting to be a community that has an outstanding reputation for disaster preparation and for conduct of emergency preparedness we are really getting lots of calls from other communities during how we do it because we've now gone through for them in a year and a half and thank goodness they're getting a little listen tense for us now that's my report and questions from the board that includes france and rental of our trucks and things like that so if you do the math what you're going to is that we're going to get back at a seventy five percent reimbursement rate about what we actually were on a park it doesn't cover depreciation on vehicles cars are actually out of pocket so that'll be good job ok all right the reason i brought this up was i've been attending the advisory committee meetings every wednesday and especially when they were discussing the budget and at one is they were going through the budget line by line there was one request for tuition reimbursement far one thousand nine hundred seventy five dollars and this was under the personal wage by law for a new employee and i question the appropriateness of this since the situation is neither for courses required by the town for continuing employment nor is this degree requirement far far employment in my mind it was used for resume enhancement i was as a probation period of employment a cap on reimbursement our requirement to remain an employee of the town once the degree is earned i was told that the employee read the by law inside to take advantage of it and requested an reimbursement for a master's program i thought that almost ten thousand dollars in tuition reimport reimbursement for courses not required by the town for hiring or far this person according to you only one of the time to action has been to issue me in person has been granted my big problem is is in my mind tuition reimbursement should be far if the town is requiring an employee to in order to do the job to take a few extra courses are for research vacation or something in this case i don't believe that was the case as this person was hired the amount of educated the level of education was known when she was hired and all this to me this master's program is just the padding of of a resume and so i was very happy to see that the request was polled but i'm just concerned that we don't have the personal wage by ally does not have any conditions set upon  it in regard to twist in reimbursement and i was under the impression that this was going to be taken care of at the annual town meeting but apparently because there would be so much involved in this that it wouldn't be ready for the for this town this town meeting it would have to be done and other town meetings i just think it should be revised and that was my concern going to bore discussion but do you have a response to that or do you want to just let him just tell at the board no that there's no misconceptions here the nonunion personal bylaws essentially the document that lays out the benefits for nonunion personnel it's that the unionized employers have their collective bargaining agreement and this is the nonunion counterpart to was in the original package which has been in there since the eighty's or something like that has been around a long time it has only really been accessed by employees but it has been accessed more than twice over the years it is a right of the employee is not a discretionary act on the part of the town i only have two decisions to make one is a job related degree and two was it requested timely meaning was it requested by the sum of thirty first of the year of the fiscal year proceeding when it will be used if those two conditions are met then i must grant that it is not a discretionary act it is right of the employee and it's not a it's not a request it's more in the way of a directive from the employer i am taking this i'm notifying you is this approved and those two the two conditions so i just one of the border don't understand it it's not a matter of my approving disapproving of the employer request that meets the guidelines it's approved in the union contracts these kinds of benefits are very common on the union contracts are rich with educational benefits that are vastly in courses are expensive these days and i believe this i believe this request was for two or three courses there are a lot of money grad school so that's all i can report t it to put some controls on it because you know frankly it's a ritz right it's not a preserve right so of ten employees made this request we could be paying out one hundred thousand dollars and frankly i don't know why this hasn't been more widely used over the years but we don't we've got two people using it right now and i think one last year so i think we probably want to put some modifications on it however as i  have cautioned this document is to the nonunion employees what a collective bargaining agreement is to the unionized employees i would urge the board caution in terms of taking away  on modifying them without engaging in a respectful conversation with the people that it covers reason being i have in fact seen one instance of actual formation of the union which occurred specifically because a town took a nonunion employee by law rights away and a result was the formation of two unions a middle management one and upper management one and i saw another attempt which got the railed by some intervention and we were able to have off now i'm not saying employees here will do that i am saying that if we take things away from them that they've had for a long time without a respectful conversation i believe i'm making a mistake and so my suggestion to the board is if it's the will of the board for majority of you feel that modifications are merited here and again i certainly agree then my suggestion is that we you give me some ideas which you got in mind and then i want to work with the wage personnel board and with the h r director and with a group of nonunion employees to kind of talk about this and there may be other changes in that by law that would be good to make because they're not waffle provisions anymore but we didn't change any benefits or anything frankly i had some ideas and i was very nicely and very tactfully by some nonunion employees asked to back off until i had a chance to have dialogue with them and i said absolutely no problem so going which i have read through the by law and it seems like the whole thing needs revision because it was created before we had a human resources director and so there are places where it references the town manager when it's probably in the directors role now the bylaws been around twenty or thirty years my manager out there's been around i think seven or eight so by law his needs very inconsistent and needs a lot of work right and we actually need each other and i actually separately because we wanted to concur did that work identified all the changes and then i said ok this can't go forward and so we had again a respectful dialogue with the ways and personnel board but you're quite right that it's in need of major revisions no doubt about it and you know i think just you know example this one particular issue just shows how outdated it is because when you look out in an industry what industries offer for tuition reimbursement you know certainly there are caps and minimum employment we know length of time as an employee before you have access to that so you know i think it will make a lot of sense to have that kind of discussion and do you think it's something that could be completed by the fall tao meaning oh sure i don't i don't see that as an impediment i think it's i think it's something you have a conversation about tonight on this one because his decision is come up and should shout about it what he had concluded tonight he do it another night it's up to you but i'd like to get the board's feedback on that working with the use you know poised to make some changes i think we need to contemporize the nonunion benefits as well but again it needs as with the unions it's done in a very respectful negotiated way i think them was wise to follow the same format and i think you'll find the nonunion employees to be very willing partners you know to reasonable changes they're very willing to do you know given what what really bothered me about this was  it was the newly hired person who requested this one thousand nine hundred seventy five dollar tuition reimbursement because it was noted that there were no restrictions in the personal wage by law i would think myself that if i were an h r person reading the personal wage by law i would have said when i got to section zero zero zero there are no restrictions on this this this has to be fixed rather than saying you know what i'm going to get myself a degree for ten thousand dollars and that's and and and also you proved i just you know i mr chairman dollar you suggest that we not talk about it an individual employee this is you know if a board member wants to be critical of autonomy poorly you have every right to do so but not at this meeting and not in this manner this is entirely inappropriate and let me just say i haven't read it entirely but you're saying there's no cap on this it's not have a decision it is c grade maintain a c grade it has to be approved by the supervisor it has to be requested before december that if you get the benefit of this degree or these classes you have to stay for a certain was no cap on that there's no there's no requirement that you have to stay in town employ for certain number time there's no cap on the reimbursement and there is no requirement that you have been an employee for any month the time there's no probationary period you have to have a problem there's a probationary period when you get vacation time sickly and personal time  off and you say there's no subjectivity to it if somebody asks you as the town manager if they can take this benefit as long as it's before december thirty first it relates to their job is long as a job related and the request comes in but some of th first proceeding the july first fiscal year where they want to take advantage of it worked but there is no requirement that it actually depends on your job as you are if you're hired you are high with the idea you have to get this degree are noted to keep your job it at your own level you have to get a degree i mean tonight or we can just i think you're right it's something you've found you need to be changed and kevin i understand the union situations but i've never seen thing that lodge in my life in the kind of compensation for any union contract in my eight years here seven years whatever so they also have top caps on them and the union contract does when they do not we yes we have seen that they do and i'm not going to go on to say this is a little out of control it needs to be addressed needs to be fixed it's not anybody's fault it's something that has not been taken a knock being controlled now we need to be controlled and i think we should all just  right now move forward one last point the appreciate that it seems like every time we go in a direction of a nonunion issue we get reminded that be careful because they can unionize where were savvy enough we've sat through labor negotiations as much as you know selectman can do i don't want to keep hearing that it's a take away careful because they can unionize you know you get a little more respect to the board a little more respect to the people at town hall if this is going to tip the cart and we're going to be dealing with unions i just want to keep hearing it but we understand it you know and i agree with mark i mean i'm hearing this for the first time that it is a very advantageous benefit that wasn't taken advantage of was an exercise before it's been around for a long time it's come to light we'll address it i don't want to do it to the detriment of one a ploy that kind of took a took  benefit that is it she's entitled to or here she's entitled to but as as this panel said we went through a transition with the strong town manager the personnel board all that stuff  issues in our regulations and this is one of them so i'm going to be great if we can get this handled for the meg if i can put it i thought it was going to be in this article if not maybe in the fall but now that it's the cat's out of the bag there may be more year for july one two thousand and fourteen to fifteen that would be appropriate but that's that's one breaking mechanism that was put in it specific purpose of allowing you to appropriate the money well for the year in which you're going to have to do it on its own and by the way again we only know of two people that have taken advantage of this recently we don't have records without doing a lot of work and i don't think it would be justified there may have been many many other people who took care of took advantage of it over the years again this bhalo done around for well over twenty years and i'm pretty sure that other people probably took advantage of it but because of inflation depending what school you go to college courses a very expensive particular graduate schools and that's the reality is for so that the it just to get some direction from the board how do we get this process to look at not only this issue but other issues that are in influx or are needing of repair is that something that's ongoing within the president wait for i love i think it's something that you're committed to from the point of view of inconsistency is between the by laws in the manager act that's something we have to do because labor council has been it's been creating a lot of problems and frankly we've been spending a lot of money on labor council to resolve those problems when an employee exercises or an attorney representing an employee exercises a purported right in the bylaw and council says no you can't and then as a disputable kenya can't and so it's getting kind of expensive we need to get this resolved in terms of benefit changes be they increases or reductions we did a review two years ago brought a package to the board the board approved it went to town meeting in town meeting unanimously endorsed it we haven't done a review since i wasn't planning to do a review because two years is kind of a quick time frame but i'm happy to do that out of the board would like now again i do that in cooperation with a wish and personnel board h r director and probably a small group of nonunion employees but i don't know if that's what you have in mind you're going to give me some direction which i'm going to say other than this issue i'm not i don't navigate through the personal wage books and so i don't know if this is the tip of the iceberg of this is he an anomaly and the only thing i don't know you know from when i read through it it just looks like the whole thing needs revision so it really is a huge process that has to happen and it's not a short document and it's so intertwined with the town manager act and you know that those changes we're going to do and we're going to bring them forward but i want to dialogue with the wage and personnel board first changes in benefits is a whole different question because you have not taken away any union benefits whole thing has to be reviewed but for this may to meeting could we have a quick war now to go because we know i mean there's we've discussed it i mean i've discussed it with gary  you know that the personal wage by law committee this should be a cap there should be a probationary period there should be there should be a time when the person has to stay an employee those are things that that can easily be put in a war not a goal and when i brought it up before randy had said he came up to the microphone said oh yes there is going to be a war an article in regard to the personal waged by what law that we can easily that we can easily do that so even if it's not a complete review of the personal waged by law at least handle this because i'd really don't want another person asking for almost ten thousand dollars in tuition reimbursement to ensure the board's question  a by law can be prepared one quickly takes me a matter of a few hours you need to tell me what you want done and it basically needs to happen tonight or at the next meeting because the war problem that at your next meeting on march fifth you are scheduled to vote the one the final one and send it to the add on the reason being that if you voted by march fifth and you send it to the outcome they have sufficient time to consider all the articles were you to take another couple weeks and not finalize that one when the ad com has extremely little time and you will most assuredly icon's not here right now but i pretty sure if we're already way past that we're two weeks past that so frankly going to the fifth they were ok on the condition i gave in the draft this is a this is an internal argument risen above all the other ones let's do this jennie work with ridge director director do a comparison of other towns i think you've already started she was a reasonable cap she was a reasonable duration that just to stay employment we give the money back something that doesn't offend the nonunion people that it's reasonable put it in the draft or border on it on march fifth that or next meeting that makes sense yeah i can guarantee you want this all done by next tuesday night changes to the personnel by law in there does just for the record after you know there are quite a few changes including tuition but the nonunion staff has always been engaged so to change this without talking to them and having what they want to say about it maybe maybe you don't care maybe it's a non issue but to do it without asking them because i'll tell you i get feedback from employees who say you know i'm looking they just hear me that i'm looking at th because there's a lot of changes at you need to happen eventually and you're not going to change that without talking to us i mean i've heard from probably half a dozen employees who just heard i was looking at this so they want to reassurance that they will be included in the process that's the only concern i have they need to you know they need their opportunity as well ok and i understand that and look at you know the new hires versa people that have been working here for quite a while and if i'm hearing that it's been around for twenty years nobody's taken advantage you know that one person recently took advantage it was a new hire i don't see the yanks and the anxiety if i'm wrong you know between now and march for a fifth i'm sure you've talked to the people the nonunion in town hall if it explodes we'll find out on march fifth but i don't want to miss the opportunity in set the advisory committee as we're saying back we're missing deadlines this is you know it was brought up on mark on february fifth and i anticipated it in this draft from the discussion that and i move with the assent of the licensee n p s l l c that the time within which the licensee must comply with conditions number one and two to the event licenses granted by the board on january fifteenth two thousand and thirteen to hold the kenny ch country fest concerts or to let stadium on august twenty third and twenty fourth two thousand and thirteen and the taylor swift concert such a what stadium on july twenty sixth and twenty seventh two thousand and thirteen be extended until thirty days from today up to earlier the negotiations are going very well looks very propitious that we're going to come to an agreement on the indemnity graham and insurance it's not quite there yet probably going to need another we could too but it's getting pretty close council town council yet and the council for the craft organization my involvement is on working the insurance angle of it with our shores company to try to get the insurance buttoned up to cover the gaps  a couple action items we've got a meeting with it's from february fifth and february nineteenth actually in the next line says this is covered under adequate six of the town meeting warrant in ri and he had said that well it really isn't now but randy at the time said that there would be a warren article six and that could probably be done that was that was when randy said you know we could do it and he mentioned warren article six that's the compensation right now isn't it yeah but he did meant to just said one one sentence no action no further action needed to disclose that  because there's only board itself proposes the change through dialogue with other people or the planner or whatever and but the law requires them to report it to you you must then reported back to them for study and a recommendation to the timing so it's kind of an odd process but that's why i have the votes to send it back to them we ask questions you know about the interim regulations piece of it and be honest with you i don't know anybody any of this because right now it's just going back to them we don't even know exactly how it's all going up on the ridge when it comes back ok so this is going back yeah so i don't really study a lot until i know what really finally come back i took the liberty of scheduling the public hearings figuring that you would probably send back to me post haste and the public hearings are scheduled for this thursday evening starting at eight o'clock i belie been trading some of those because you know they say the only two times you have on a board is like when point of one and that's not been the tradition usually what happens is it's for somebody or it's a slash with somebody because in the ad com brought planning board not only because that's been the tradition on the others like the stretch energy code if you approved out of probably say selectman slash building commission of swash like an article that's brought by somebody else by saying selectman it looks like we support it ok for instance if a plane a board comes through and they have zoning they'll put their name on it yeah but if it says plain it looks like we endorse it will endorse it being on the just want to let you know that we took a look at it conferred with counsel today he did say it's a public record and we called invensys to be sure even though it's public we just want to circle back make sure they understand we have to release it they were actually very fine with it they