t chair is or is a right to call items on the agenda out of order the times that are listed for items are approximate times in items may be reached early or late in the post the times the listing of items is those reasonably anticipated by the chair which may be discussed at the meeting at least forty eight hours prior to the meeting not zero items listed may in fact be discussed and other items not listed may also be brought up for discussion to the extent permitted by law it's six thirty or roughly who are a little over a time to get a break for executive session meeting with bill key getting married beth bernard to conduct strategy sessions in preparation for negotiations with the union personnel want to conduct a collective bargaining sessions or contract negotiations with union personnel tonight is the dispatchers contract at seven o'clock will be citizens input at seven o five will be the select members update at seven ten we're going to meet with attorney franks blaine regarding the proposed forty b project on fisher stree seven thirty we're going to meet with attorney john mitchell more regarding our discussion and because of the number here tonight we may not be able to vote on a new set of directors and offices for fox for country club at seven forty who are going to be would randy scholars who's going to give us a fiscal year sixteen operating budget review and some fifty five the board selectman will discuss spring warmed articles and at eight o five approximately bill keegan will give his town manager update can you collective bargaining sessions of contract negotiations with union personnel specifically the dispatches contract second on favor and think oh yeah it will come out roughly about seven o'clock to go into public session yes yes yes ok welcome back it's just a little bit past seven o'clock and we'll proceed with the agenda next item is a citizen's input is there anyone in the episodes of this and also wanted to publicly thank the patriots for giving us a reprieve in the middle of this by giving us another super bowl victory so it's been a very interesting week ups and downs so thank you patients with the streets i was around town today and they look  some of the issues that have been discussed with regard to this project initially the gun locations on fisher street it's an undeveloped open wooded lot  it's approximately eighteen acres with approximately just under one acre of wetlands which is on the northeastern corner of the property the property of bots route ninety five northbound as well as the off ramp on to route one forty going north that's on the north side of the property and on the east side of the property is route one forty as west side is south high street with some residential homes the property is zoned partially on the highway business and partially in the r forty zone  plus feet of frontage on fisher street and just over five hundred feet of frontage on i'm sorry four hundred feet of frontage on south high street there's quite an elevation drop from the buildings each of them four stories high so the high will be just under sixty feet partially fifty nine a half feet high twenty five percent or sixty of the units will be affordable will intersect with fisher street on the north side as far down and scores as two are confident as possible the site will accommodate four hundred forty seven parking spaces forty two of those spaces will be in comfortable that more than enough parking space is required there again at the northeastern portion of the property there's about one acre just under one acre of we bedrooms and twenty four three bedrooms and again twenty five percent of each of those have to be affordable one of the differences between this project and foxboro large which no three bedrooms but now to do four to be a minimum of ten percent has to be three bedrooms so we're going to have twenty four three bedrooms six of those will be affordable there will be twelve handicapped accessible units two of those will be affordable the one bedrooms range in size from a partially seven hundred square feet to about seven hundred seventy square feet also be one bedrooms with a study they can get up over a thousand square feet the two bedrooms range from approximately eleven hundred square feet all over that to just under thirteen hundred square feet and the three bedrooms are  approximately just over six acres of the lot or just about thirty five percent of what will be covered the remaining portion about sixty five percent will be open space as you can see all around the  project itself the planning on leaving a lot of the trees in open space as much as possible and in the middle area they want to leave as much as open space as possible and they've already gone out there and started marking trees that they want to keep within that area so something very important to them that they want to maintain as many of the trees as they can take pride in that was the market rate units will be just over sixteen hundred dollars for one bedroom just under twenty five hundred for a two bedroom and possibly three thousand for a three bedroom right now the over twenty million dollars so it brings in just under half a million dollars in my calculations and we expect this project to be at least that same amount with regard to students the last five years one year you just didn't have the numbers for currently there are twenty nine students going there natasha years it's been twenty twenty four and twenty five students so the averages are twenty four and a half students when we did the initial for a large project we asked them a twenty six students so we were in the ballpark at this time we haven't done an estimation of the students traffic currently on what they call an average weekday there is seven hundred fifty five vehicle trips with a peak of eighty one vehicle trips in the morning and he to be able trips per hour in the morning  the project is expected to put on a average weekday just over sixteen hundred additional vehicle trips vehicle trip is one car leaving that's one one car comes in at the second one so during the peak hour using all of his estimations that the highest total of the traffic he could expect to go out on a cell street is most ten percent he's actually estimating three percent but you include individuals that would go up to foxboro sorry forbes boulevard to either east  west and assume they're going takes off high street which is not the same function but assuming that you could bring up to possibly number of ten percent at that that would at the peak hour in the morning it would at a total of thirteen be about travel to south high street again assuming all those things that would be one car every four minutes in the peak p m hour  any major renovations to any of the roadways because all of them are working at a level of service of b or better but they will be working on the lights to  get them phasing timing in phasing plans as appropriate and finally for as david just to speak briefly about the project and the end of the company  data we would expect that the town would be above the ten percent required from the state even through the two thousand and thirty census so the town would be good to two thousand and forty census was done frank and we've been here before the lodge of foxboro is built and we started that process in two thousand and four believe it or not and finished in zero nine and that happen to be one of our more successful projects around the country of that type of product so that's the reason we're back we're very pleased with the location and our relationship with the town and we think that project is also going well for the town and we haven't heard otherwise so we're pleased to be back before you and one of the best things to say about the project is it's how similar it is going to be to the to the lodge or if there's any mystery about what this might feel like or look like doesn't have to be because you can go over and look at it it's very similar to what we had done before if you don't remember the about they had overcome and i could be a brief summary very the companies based in houston texas were national company building strictly apartment buildings totally focused on one product type and don't stray from that we have offices in projects in most major us cities boston happens to be our biggest market in this in the country we have an office at the seaport in the seaport district and we've done well over five thousand apartment homes in the eastern part of the state i think it's fifteen separate projects seven of which are under construction right now so i mention the lodge there's projects in two separate two in braintree two in cambridge one in boston i could rattle off a bunch of cities and towns and the point being again if there's any question or inquiry into another project we've got to be happy to get information conduct tours arrange discussions with other town leaders we pride ourselves on having good relationships with the towns in which we in which we do business  we strive to build the highest end luxury units we can possibly build within the market so we take great care with things like landscaping and things like high end amenities and quality finishes  this is this is a quality project as well as the lodge begin to point out some of the differences with the lodge and i think i'll stress a couple of those similar sized sites this is a little smaller but we're condensing the project in a much smaller footprint so the disturbance area i think you said six acres but it's really that whole area that you see you know colored for the project is about ten acres the disturbance area at the lodge was about fourteen or fifteen acres so by then these are four storey buildings the larger is three story building so by going to four stories we're able to condense on a much smaller footprint we think it's good for our residents because those buildings have elevators but it's much better for the town in the community because there's so much buffer those wooded areas are really substantial in size and i think the distance the distance and the  ness of that of that tree cover is is exceptional we made an effort to move the site and the entrance to the site as far toward route one forty as we possibly could and away from the neighborhood the entrance as i said we could have entered really anywhere along fisher street but we pushed it can see how it's just not all the way down toward the hotel and the ninety nine ninety nine restaurant  we put together a rendered snapshot of the project somewhat from a bird's eye view in the second board you see here it's very similar to the lodge in the look and feel with those stone accent pieces hardy plant paneling pitched residential style roofs we're going to do to make it different is different coloration we want to distinguish it from the lodge and not look like we stamped out another copy so these are great tones and kind of different colors of the earth tones of the lodge the amenity building is quite different in design and so a little larger than the lodge but a similar mix of amenities as frank said a great outdoor pool door barbecue areas a lot of places for residents to congregate and enjoy the outdoors and then a fitness center a movie screening room a great a great room recreation room and that kind of thing within the project forward with respect to the not the site not the site plan for saving the density where did that come up with the number of thirteen point seven units per acre with respect to the eligibility letter was that was the finance dictating the density was the site plan dictating the density there is i'm asking because that ten percent number how does this all fit together when you go to the state look at the finances of this i'm not sure if i understand the question jim but the sharks burros population dictates how large a forty b project can can be allowed and that's to fifty so a lot larger factor was limited to fifty we a requirement by d c d that that requires a ten percent three bedroom unit so you can exceed the cap of two fifty and we want to go right up to it and that was just a planning decision to stop at two forty eight if it's beautifully on the site though it's by no means over developing the site provided the traffic works exciter exciter i think it's a one and it's a better location even if you can you can argue it's a better location than the lodge it's right at one forty and the highway  information at this point what we're proposing is some signal timing improvements out along one forty as was mentioned in the initial look at everything is the most of the traffic is actually going to be coming up to the signal at fisher street in one forty and turning left or right most of it heading towards the interchange so there's some there's some need at the signalized intersections to adjust to a comp with those added to means of traffic flow but the intersections themselves are not operating very efficiently for we have found but there is capacity there and so we're using the available capacity and adjusting the signal timing to process the additional traffic demands is that the signal timing just at one forty in fisher or is going up and down one going up and down the course it'll be the next intersection as well as at forbes but i believe that there are those two signals are tied together they work together in concert if they're not they need to be so we're actually going to be working on both of those signalized intersections and is a steady go as far  as the next intersection walnut street doesn't go that far it basically right now the initial study looks at the interchange and then goes down to forbes so those intersections then along fisher street don't want to sell three days while down that intersection of haitian left on south and then yeah which is where the majority the traffic once it gets outside of that area that boy was actually dropped off significantly to a point where it really wouldn't affect traffic operations per se and that anticipates right in right out fall turning a so the so the size of fish street the width of it you believe is adequate it's adequate to accommodate the traffic volumes that we're talking about a very somewhere between twenty five twenty to twenty four feet and with that it's variable along its alignment so we did know  think we're there kind of the obvious things which are there are no sidewalks and that with does not allow for bicycle accommodations on the street itself fisher street in particular the only thing that really was of note in our analysis there wasn't a significant crash history anything like that if you're talking about public health safety and welfare but we did note the speeds of the traffic on that roadway it's has a thirty mile an hour posted speed limit and i think in conjunction with the volume measurements that frank it mentioned  the speeds in particular predominance probably around forty so they brought ten miles an hour higher than what the post speed limit is in that area there which was important to us as we look at the driveway to make sure that you have adequate sight lines for that but i think of anything that pointed out that jumped out at us there's plenty of capacity on the roadway but that was the only thing that was kind of a typical in that the town based on the posted speed limit seems the desired speeds around thirty and what the actual speeds are closer to forty just saying that there are places to do it at the very top of south high street or another entrance onto fisher street can see where the parking lots get closest to be a place to do even a dirt road with a fence and emergency only vehicles but we think we can arrange this i think the concern for public safety would be a tree falls across the one entrance you have and you can't get in or out but we can of red change we can mitigate that the mentioned this is something i saw you worked on but the width of that is a boulevard entry with a median and properly cutting back major trees that could conceivably fall is a way to do that so if th in discussion for the neighbors feel that one entrance in and out is sufficient we can do it such that it's highly unlikely that to be a tree could fall and blocking both entrances  but you won't you won't find us being hard against that concept it's easy to do we do it and many other sites where we think this is a safe site at show so we thought we'd leave it like this you get for the c p a have the discussion concern would be that in the event of a major fire or whatever the case would be really for people to access to private x escape from the property off the property for workers to personnel to use the property it seems like to me that you can look at possibly a ccess onto the hotel property as emergency access not so much for the two the coming of age of a tree falling cross but more than two more to the why with traffic coming off the property at one point maybe you'll izing out that spaces emergency access to i would suggest to you that i think you're most of my colleagues in my business now they say that we're a unique environmental change here going on the world we ought to be people be planning for additional snow capacity obviously the storms issue and will find play show and find places on the on the side to strike with you mr keegan that's an important consideration we do always have the option of tracking it off and i'm sure that at our properties today there was a trucking operation going on because you just can't find no one no one can find enough room to put it all but you're right now our land for the way you have to have planted absolutely ok no one wants that problem the residents of the project would townspeople be able to walk through the woods or you know make make use of the area for the past you know passive recreation or was it would it be like well our plan is to it wouldn't be gated at the entrance we've tried that and it just it becomes an inconvenience for the for the residents but we do propose essentially fencing the entire property and we find neighbors in this sort of situation who want a fence they don't want our folks cutting through the woods and walking through their neighborhood and they the fence can provide additional screening which we always find residents want so i think the answer question is no it's private property and it wouldn't be a walking area for residents and we think that's mutual that the neighborhood generally does not want that kind of cross traffic pedestrian wise we were going to put some walking trails the best we can to make use of those words but we didn't plan on the general public having having access to it fence we're not saying we have to have a fence but i i think i can predict that they're going to want it and we're happy to put up any of the bush doctrine i think i mean are  section through the site the building depicted to the right would be that the first apartment building actually which apartment building is that john and you know that number three it's four it's been a building for thank you on the khaled plan you and we did this to show two things one the as as frank mentioned the site does it in a hole it's you can see between two forty into fifty six elevation or about six were sixteen feet below the elevation of south high street so if anyone's concerned about the height the height of the buildings are made it is mitigated by this drop in elevation and the thickness and size of those trees as you can see creates a great great screen  to those homes and the width of that screen is consistent with how much forested area we show between building four and the home so we hadn't shown this earlier and i wanted to make sure the board and the audience  n front but you could lose it i think that's i know what you mean yeah yeah you know we have looked at that yeah stage so some of these numbers will change slightly but this is what they're expecting now the building five would be approximately ovation to forty eight so again a few more of these types of depictions so as process as an application to the town been submitted it is just if you could walk us through the process from this point forward right from well right now it's with  layout you know where water sewer all those types of things going in and giving them a list of the type of waivers we would need from the foxboro zoning bylaws just as if you could put that in some reference to a timeline when will all that depending on when mass housing gets back to us best case now is pie and the february best case scenario i don't his engineering plans come along we'll have to go through and look at all of waivers shipped over comprehensive list of all the waivers you need so basically the best case scenario will be in front of them in april ok now the last time we talked about this bill the residents were going to get questions organized concerns organized was the method for them to deliver them to the school was it can be in a meeting next week or is it some other method that i mean get people in and out and just as a point of reference in case anyone is going to jump into the car and see where this is where the entrance is i believe on fisher street it would be where that hydrant is right after the ninety nine recap clear of what the next process is and how we are involved in that and what we should be doing a meeting next wednesday never heard about it so i just want everyone to be clear and everyone understand what's happening next maybe you could you just we when the meeting is and we are what time is coming yeah we're supposed to have a neighborhood meeting on monday last night  i made oh probably they contacted about a dozen people but voicemail messages for another dozen and try to track down another half dozen or so people but reviewing this in our eyes and ears are a lot to do with the department heads so the town manager is reaching out to other department heads fire police conservation board of health planning board and then they're going to get their comments back to us and we're going to convene again on the seventeenth and then we're going to write a formal letter to the state in our jurisdiction is if we seeing anything on this that it is a go nogo if there is something that is a public safety issue from this concept we're obligated to tell the state what it is for instance you know it could be a number of things from that point we kind of have to stay out of it unless it's a big public safety issue then it's a zoning board issue not a plane board issue the planning board is kind of they're exempt from that planning board can give their input through us or to the zoning board but i would suggest that you go to the zoning board meetings those are public meetings and that's where the concern is if you like don't like whatever you want to change and you have issues they're the ones that hear it and then asked the applicant to consider x y and z on your behalf  any other comments you s are on that parcel aren't a whole lot of evergreens please for the thousand times that i've gone by i'm very curious that i'm looking forward to the opportunity to have a longer discussion about your logic around a smaller parcel that has a higher number of units this is a residential neighborhood the law is not there were no not aware of any parcels any residential parcels that of but the laws but here you know we're looking at a neighborhood and you know all of the folks who will look through opec's enables in january will be looking at a four story structure and not really nice evergreens we would like to work with you but we want to be realistic about where you're locating this project on this is a neighborhood of sixty seventy families and we understand that you know the property will be developed but we want it in the context of the neighborhood so we would just appreciate that you know any other illustrations reflect january in the snow know given that i was going to be only two of us you know that i'm a member of the foster country but i have to recuse myself from this discussion right now so we won't have a quorum right by which to decide so this is rescheduling the possibility that that's fine i was going to raise the same thing and this is change of manager and he transmittal letter was signed by the president of the club and as you know that the president well is different every year treasuring the clerk of in there forever right and normally the treasurer signs of it for he was away the president signed it that was not the person it was a record at the a b c so they kicked that back and said the manager is fine but we need someone we need evidence that the person signing this is the time the president and we'd like and therefore we have to do all of that to corey's in our civil silliness and i think the issue is that there were even though there's a member own club and there isn't a financial interest of the members i think the issue is that they are having problems with some of these clubs that there is a level of abuse in some of the club licenses were in fact that the offices have a financial interest in the work a license and so that's what i think that's what paper the next is in regard to the recreation department it's the acceptance of a donation from voy a foundation to match volunteer funds for events held between august first and fourteen and september thirtieth two thousand and fourteen i move that the board of selectmen approve the acceptance of a five hundred dollars donation from voyeur foundation to the recreation department and thank the boy foundation for its donation and the final one actually to vote we're going to combine on its acceptance of a fifty dollar donation with twenty five dollars to the fire department and twenty five dollars to the police department from mr i'll second that i just want to read the note that they put along with it because i hear this more often than not with respect to the police and fire when they show up with much gratitude to foxborough police and ambulance for helping save our son on january fifteen is to give you provide everyone an overview as to some of the main main components of the budget and how we plan to balance it for the next next year and so i'm a components and put it together so i every time i put together a fiscal year budget i was given sort of a theme and this one of course being the first one is charting the course for a new future and that's and i say that because not because there's been a bad practice here but because it because because of it's a future that was i've sort of put together since i've been here that the relatively short period of time and certainly it's open for discussion and so we're open for the bait but some of the thoughts that are put together in the short period of time of the venue so w that i'll just begin the presentation by by by saying if you shoot a few brief introductory statements about the taking office in april two thousand and fourteen i made it my first order of business to assess the general condition of the town's organization sixteen budget for the time of foxborough the short term goals that identify was that the there was the it was that we needed to initiate a process to value the town hall and to develop options for repair process that identified several key players in the in the in the community some so most of the key state stakeholders need to have a conversation about how we can actually start that process of identifying how the project will go forward will stablished a set of facility made its program which is something that has been discussed for many many years and but yet it was something that i had experience doing another community and therefore i wanted to try and take a take on that world here and sort of bring all the parties together that would that would make for doing that as well and the next was two two parters to play relations and work toward a place of clip the by agreements with up and set up as well and we were able to do that in a relatively short period of time and also to move forward on some new fronts on those lines and then the next thing is to prioritize technology is a central approval for the entire organization it's been my observation is that because i've been here that we were behind that ins in several areas and we need to really sense we spent some time focusing on that and to really bring us into the twenty first century  i have to tell you that i'm very very impressed by the progress we made just a short period of time erin the high has been a terrific additions disorganization and i'm really very impressed what he's done so far and we look for some great things and then before and after pictures that will be able to share with you tonight but at some point in the future we will go through a process a billion talk about you still paper records are you talking a movement towards electronic right yes yes and that's all part of the of the technology piece as because we have we have way too much pain to me and it's and this is certain policies and procedures that we need to have in place as to how many copies we should be voting for things and how we can also take a look at how we actually run meetings you'll see in the budget store information now in a year it's going to be different twenty years it's going to be different one hundred years i mean we have people come to town doing research going back you know a lot hundred years and we have all that on paper but what do we have for the future that would guarantee that we will still have records that someone can access we we actually the expert who's managing this project for the town king systems they've actually determined and they've been in this business for i think forty years that microfilm microphone is still the the most the easiest technology to use it's the most efficient and now they have readers that you can just plug into year into your p c laptop or electronic device you know like a you know like a of a smart drive and and get a an image of it of the microfiche on your on your computer and print it off so there's saying that that is ultimately the at the at this point time the the most trusted long lasting type of technology we've been working with scanning technology in the finance department for the last six years and the states record records retention center has been very slow to change the time requirements for which they will allow you to store or you're your images on an electronic scanning technology like that because it's still even though we've been using it for a long time and many people using it for the last maybe go in and you're right here the technology changes all the time so it's going to be a hobby sponsibility to so keep pace with that to a degree when you know government is not always the pacesetter when it comes to these things these kind of changes but certainly we want to be we keep looking back and looking at these things what will be able to say ok we've checked out are we checked out of that what what we're going to add to that because at the end of day people you want to be in a situation where people say ok what do you really achieve and what i'm saying longer term i'm talking you know of ten fifteen twenty twenty five years from now what's you know what's up plans for replacing buildings taking care of our capital needs and how going to pay for those taking on a much broader perspective much much broader look at public finances so that one not just looking at things on a one to three of four year perspective but a much wider perspective so we can actually you know speak strategically about how we where we want to be over the next several years and then in establishing in a comprehensive economic development strategy and program we need to be part of that we need to be the ones that sort of drive that we can't let the world drive that drive that for us we have to be of the ones that we have to be the ones to say this is what's good for our community this is what will help us balance our economic development needs as well as our quality of life so that way if we if we have if if we can't understand what other people want to do for us do they do in their plans and we should be the ones to take take charge of the process and say this is what we think will be good for our community over the course of this many many years so is that we should start which means a method for entertaining improving the thousand space properties we have a lot of but we but there's no plan a place where we're going to take care of and you know something i think that's really important because that's what's going to be that's a that's a very important quality of life and part of the community that we really didn't need to take hold of that and say look it's great on us probably what what how we're going to make changes so so that's something that with that many generations will be able to enjoy those properties the next is a step was a cop is a geographic information system this is not as long term as one would think because there's already work afoot to try to make this happen but you know for the sake of this discussion today it is a little bit longer term because got take several years before we get all the components pulled together so but i think if i were the next three years it's realistic to assume that we'll have a good program place thence and then for the next  regional service opportunities we want to continuously look at this as an opportunity so you know we're looking at things such as you know the regional dispatch as it has an opportunity of looking at regional services that in bridge in every virtually every part of our organization that can actually help us do our jobs better but in a much more economic in this and probably more cohesive manner than that we're doing it right now the problem with doing government in the wind is that we're very parochial we tend to be we always think about what goes on within that within our own existing borders and we need to really take a harder look at that and really really think twice about how we how we perform without merit because it's not economical number one in information to people as much as we can because we you know this is an opportunity where we can really cross over those various lines and sort of blur those lines so i wanted to make them much more to make a much more cohesive organization and that's i think so far as we're very beginning with a new executive assistant in the town manager's office and then we've also has it opened an open dialogue between the town of schools on top is really into central means an i t i think it's vitally important to him to maintain a good relationship with the school about it with the two of them to pieces two important piece of a local community is is the town government and the school school part was by having those two components work closely allied closely aligned and working together so with that in mind these are some of the budget priorities that we've that we set for this upcoming fiscal two thousand and sixteen budget versus the staffing for centralize made his program i made that commitment early on that we would provide funding for that and that this budget does provide sold so well and that we need to get back to that as well and with a very very successful program that we have with out of it will support them fully at this point in time because of all the things that all the competing needs that we have but to the extent that we can provide some additional can tell you just from what from my own experience and in doing so for really long time that without the support of the employees in to make sure that they they were on the say they're aligned with our goals and objectives of the community that want to be successful so we have t which is not actually nothing to be concerned with i think that given the fact it's about a sixty five billion dollar budget roughly two hundred thirty six thousand dollars out of balance this is really nothing to be concerned with will find a way to close that gap it's just that right now we still don't have enough information to make that happen it's still relatively early in the budget process in terms of we certainly have seen the stated figures the but the budget from the government has not been released as we have a new government government in place at the state level fiscal year in terms of the budget process but i'm actually sort of on the now the the maya vote at the health care trust house so i've been following these costs very cold closely i'm more concerned over the longer period of time that this is going to be a cost factor that's why i continue to be the impact of budget over the longer term just because of the fact that we live in a very progressive part of the country here in massachusetts where where we are we tend to be on the bleeding edge of most new technology  medical resources as a result of health care costs in this part of country is much more expensive than that of the others and so even when you have a national policy in place the national policy is driven not by usually by what's going on in masters but what's going on in other actually very supportive but it all comes down to dollars and cents and whether or not we can actually continue to to to support those also for not going to consideration that they may not find their way into this year's budget exactly right yet it's still a consideration and i've i think people have done a summarizes our budget picture and in essence as has said we are on two hundred thirty six thousand out of balance which in the scheme of our of our budget just in the general fund alone sixty one point six million as it stands at this point i'm certainly a balance of all number not without its challenges but certainly balance of them but i was just going to explain what's changed since the request of command because not much has changed but  it's actually brought us down from the initial requests that came in budget requests we had about a five hundred sixty four thousand dollar deficit now down three hundred twenty eight thousand from that to two thirty six and i was just going to describe what changed the big pieces sections not in this in the slides in the news in your in the package so what's changed on the revenue side is we picked up about two hundred one thousand from a couple of different areas fifty thousand in an increased veterans benefits assumption from the state as you know we get reimbursed seventy five percent of veterans benefits through our cherry sheet and given the run rate of cases that the veterans director has and in the us including the estimated lag time that it takes for the benefits to ultimately make it into our cherry she'd  fifty thousand dollars increase is warranted it's not the full amount of the increase that we're expected to go out the door for a full seventy five percent of the increase expected to go out the door in f y sixteen but it's on the run rate that we've been that the state veterans agency has been catching up to us so fifty available funds two or three one is the revised enterprise and revolving account allocated indirect costs as you know the water and sewer enterprise and the recreation  revolving accounts are charged by the statutes under which they operate overhead costs from the town insurances administrative support etc so i revisited that whole calculation based on the current state of the budget  including you know where we stand with all the big items like pension and health in our insurances and that added just under eighty three thousand dollars in increased in direct cost allocation to water sewer and recreation and then there are two other areas other billable funds that we increase one was thirty eight thousand from the police apparatus revolving account as you know we charge rentals for vehicles down vehicles that are used in third party details and this will cover the replacement cost of one of the cruisers that is requested in the in the budget that's the intent of this account is to cover things like that so that's outside revenue coming in discussing with the board so the net is a two hundred one thousand on proven to the revenue our fixed costs really didn't change much disk up one hundred dollars because the pension assessment came in and we we within two hundred seventy eight dollars and it was little bit less but it's a longer topic maybe for another day hopefully we might be able to make some progress with that but it is dictated to us what that assessment is and then on the expense side what changed on the school side they initially had come in with a number that was slightly less than what they had preliminarily estimated and then after they went through their multi month review that position as you know was extraordinary this past year and they're into supporting it will not be as high as it's been in net net i believe that only brought the this total positions on the school side less than a town manager in the department heads today there's been one hundred fifty nine thousand dollars in reductions from the various requests that have come in and the result of that is is where we stand now is that two hundred thirty six out of balance as a town manager said there are several requests that are still out there that are under consideration and depending upon what else changes with our picture you know the time measure make his recommendation the major things as the time i just stated that may change obviously be stayed we don't have that number yet we have our estimates by march fourth we're told we should get that and that will be the next big piece that will move  when we do get the health insurance number from my of the premium increase that will change what is the biggest number in our budget so if we get a one percent improvement over the seven habits and increase that  that's gotten us to this point and maybe that will change maybe not we'll see and that's our second biggest item in the budget three point three million dollars and then again there's the budget possible other budget reductions well so net this is certainly a very manageable you know budget to ultimately bring it into balance all things considered and the only other note that it makes of it when you look at the progression of this and when you see it next in about a month month and a as we track where we stand in each given point in time you'll notice that the total revenues really don't move all heck of a lot as a percentage same of the fixed costs same with the expenses that we're really focused on the margins it's all of these what i call nickels and dimes but they all add up and that's what allows us to alter my balance in the last week in the enemy so we can do  illustrate we actually when times are oh i'm going to baker and he actually made a statement which was refreshing he said that the they're going to try to balance the state budget but they're not going to balance it on the backs of the cities and towns this year this year right but it is refreshing to hear that hopefully our state  becomes more predictable well that's that would be great but with what they estimated a three quarter of a billion dollar deficit it's hard to imagine how that's ultimately going to translate into substantial increases for a municipal a neighborhood sake resisted more predictable like one other thing is you know through the course of managing a town and was wondering do we have a track the adoption of best practices and i know we do use best practices we learn from other towns municipalities and they do generate the savings or efficiencies do we track any of that you know sort of you know i'll call continuous improvement of processes but if you're looking for you know just the budget but is there anything in the budget that said by the way in a particular area we did x and therefore we saved the taxpayer some money do we have a track any of those projects i think we do that one where putting a putting a major project forward like i'll just pick on the financial system you know the fact that we've moved to electronic processing distributed input you know it saves paper a lot of back and forth saves time on retrieval if you ask me to print out you know or to give you a listing of every invoice for a particular expense that you're interested in you know it's at our finger tip's now so you know we've quantified those those things when we've brought them forward but probably haven't done you know kept a good track or given other the the fiber network that we put in that's about you know reap some even more benefits and it has as the new phone system ultimate gets put into place discounter year will two hundred twenty thousand to put in and there's fifty thousand a year right there that will start to realize the reason i ask is this you know someone who doesn't know the budgets the woman to say hey it's an organism that keeps on moving right but in fact behind the scenes there are there are a lot of projects that are actually saving the tax payer tax dollars one of the things that we want to think that i've learned over the years is that he said susan tells don't do a very good job of talking about their improvements and it's one of things that we want to try and do a better job of this is some of the the biggest savings are bigger problems but there are incremental savings and different things the way we do things just the way we we handle sort of our major expenses and how we how we do our go about doing our business  these little laid him so that the d p w director requests is creating incredible labor efficiencies with whether it's how to cut open you know open a manhole or you know cut cut pipes etc or even with the police chief with you know with his system that he wants to put in smart nine one one one just just the way that this that the philosophical approach that the public works department has is that we their approach is that we want to buy good fishing equipment for the for the for the people that we have so we don't have to add more people which is actually a much more expensive proposition over the long term so by good equipment so they can actually do the job but it's breaking away from a parochial thinking exactly right so actually it's nice that we have goals and objectives that we can follow and test to and those as just a beginning i think we need to do more of that and we have them we have more of a conversation about what's the what's important these are things that i just observed and in so far nobody disagree with those those things but i think we should add to that list because i think there's more things out there that people you know thinking in their own minds but that haven't really put them out there and i i think we have to do more than to not scare my sense and we have a roadmap right and if you haven't sat through a c i p the present budget proposal is not balanced at this time but that's just to this lack of information and it's a it may seem more of a timing timing situation expand your sources may be possible in some cases but we're largely depend upon available revenues to make that happen and  i think you know by a large i think there's a lot of the case of the made about why we should be doing things a little bit differently i'm also be believable than you and you'll find us over time is that i like to work with an existing organization if i can possible making a positive list i don't want to lose fact that there's a lot of things that we do in the negative side in those kind of get lost like you talking about for instance people like to be parochial but let's think outside of the box and reach out we did that even internally when we're putting the different apartments together into the d p w that you know it's rather than having individual departments the highway in the water and sewer put it all together but we've taken steps to try to reach out for staff what i'd like to see maybe maybe we can do it in two thousand and fifteen if not the beginning of two thousand and sixteen if you look at the way government is structured in foxborough we've got the paid staff in all the different things that make up your budget and there's expensive in this revenue from from what we bring in but what's missing in this i think is well over one hundred people the selectmen which are volunteers the planning board the conservation commission the board of health the school committee the council on aging of the not comes on aging but the drug store in the trustees well over one hundred to two hundred people that there is no unity in that group and there's not to say because we're all elected or appointed you look at the someone i brought up the com ok appointed group which is a powerful group in town but that ability for the ad com to talk to the c i p which spends money the selectmen which is a policymaker for instance the planning board come for to be comes in that's one group that they're that it's a private group come in two different departments but we need to understand the planning board zoning board the conservation of water health a little bit better so we're not all segmented so what i would like to see is we can do it once a year or once every year the his kind of a forum where all the volunteers get together ok because in effect where the policy makers we change every couple years and there's no interaction between the different groups so from a town manager perspective i think it would be beneficial  hours a night through you to reach out to other places and so i think if we could put that in there as a line item and hopefully it's an apartment next year that we've had our first meeting in it and i think i would suggest having a consultant come in and run it short where you know it's not that you know the typical one we fall back and someone catches you get a feel good meeting where you can kind of relax meeting with the planning board and one of the warrant articles that are coming up is the deals with open space take a residential development and you have small lots and you get this open space that's left over so maintains it to you know all that stuff that's coming up we're going into a town meeting we're going to vote on it in the question is you know what do we do with that what we do with the other open space how do we maintain and it's all the stuff coming together so you know the sooner the better love to help you put that together  big benefit and i think it's also beneficial when different the members of different boards attend different meetings just to get to see what's going on just to get a perspective and then when something comes before you go and wait a right so you should have in your pocket i want to start so we have fourteen here but i don't know if you know they're all going to make it we can do a quick little summary of each one the the first one is revising general bylaws article one section two paragraph three publishing of time all right what that is is that our current language requires us to publish the entire warrant in the newspaper and given the last experience that we had with a really comprehensive by law article that ended up being an exorbitant cost to publish that so with technology being what it is worth perhaps suggesting that we publish notification of a link to our website or other places where the document might be posted and publish that in the newspaper so we also we also provide i mean not everybody not everybody has a computer i mean most people do but at town meeting you usually the warrant is printed  know right now it's just available the night of town meeting at that big table when people walk in could we if they have to be printed up could they be printed up and then have the town hall the library counseling agen attested copy of the warrant this is the language you're looking to change to be published in a local paper prior to the meeting so we could change that might make available print copies on line copy notification of we had lost sight of it there's no dollars associated with it it's more of a technicality of all of the participating communities that use these regional that allows them to establish a stabilization communities to get concurrent so they're just looking for concurrence to be able to do that and there's no additional cost to the town to do that actually allowing them to plan for their long term capital needs will they provide us with the language for that use some sorts is the same across all the communities ye dialogue language we're looking at the tuition policy relooking at a couple of policies but john you were at that meeting where we ended up with a big philosophy discussion similar to what other towns have looking at having a personnel policy document or an employee  and just not having it all spelled out in the bylaws so the bylaw would a stablish you know the policy would be in concurrence with the town manager act it would define the personnel wage board w drafting a new tuition policy one that clarifies the current policy that we have giving a limit to what the amount is what the employee needs to do you know take a course pay for it get a b or better if an employee leaves after they've received tuition is there pay that period so we're working on a very well defined tuition policy we brought up some other policies that might be a little that might need a little more discussion and leftism policy ca those kind of policies so although we're being really aggressive about meeting in defining policies maybe we'll truth by law for this year and next year go with a big overhaul thing because the certainly isn't enough time to make a comprehensive change and since it covers just nine employees right now what we decided is we still want a great bylaw that you know if situations were to change  contracts so that that's where the end result of all this may take us where there's a you know of a personal policy committee consistent policy that they can begin to build the level of these policies across contracts that's where i invision maybe they were now in my experience we've had contracts that are different back to the personnel policies in the personnel by law you know if they're silent on things like you know benefits like mine devotee and sick leave and all that everybody revert back to that policy direction so even with in a collective bargaining environment you still have a document that keeps everything fair but i do agree with you that's more of a long term goal on so regarding the planning the planning board they gave me four articles that they're going to be looking at so the jimmy or the contact person on the  the open space for residential development by lights is something that's already in there but they're looking to mend it for a couple reasons one was probably real life applications that came in that they looked at what they were looking to do and they could probably do it easier and better with an amendment to the open split space by law which provides a better way to situate houses with buffers things like that and then they had a consultant that also looked at it pretty well renowned environmental consultant that said you know if you've got a land that you can get three lots you still get three lots but if you can make that lots a little smaller keep open space be a little more friendly to the environment so i think it's ready to go you sign by law digital billboards lorraine's the champion of that and i think that one is going to be pushed to the fall my understanding is the process of constables was established in like eight hundred sixty six or something like that and the very first constables with the board of selectmen and that we still i don't think we could talk to the chief that you could fill out an application but what we're really looking to do is update a comprehensive constable policy we've created a policy but we again we don't want to make the policy by law we're just going to use the opening statement of the constable policy as the bylaw item and then refer to this policy and it would be an application made to the chief with his recommendation to the board of selectmen in the town manager about some candidates you know credentials and about the constable the requirements of a constable and then there are some reporting pieces that have to be done as well filing a report with the town clerk and reporting any fees collected to the treasurer so we're going to define all of that and create an application so all of that will be ready for next meeting it's it's in draft form right now so we're in good shape for that so so was this at the behest really of the police chief yes t it's to update we before i came a lot of research collected from other towns and chief and i went through a lot of the other towns policies and we're looking at kind of compiled the best of all the best and  something he's very comfortable with overlay district this is the center for i believe it's foxboro sandoval a district i think that one still ongoing but i can get a report on the next one was to amend the flood b law to include the new map references and again sharon sent me word that this one is still ongoing that's one of the articles they'll be submitting the next one is the amended sewer and water districts this is the one absolutely it's not really amending the districts isn't this the one that the commissioners are seeking a change in the way in the language regarding initially through john's recommendation to the point of those numbers for a three year period so we did that and then we never took that back so that's still active and town meeting way and made changes and then through a clerical error i think december thirty first we didn't sign them up so by law we couldn't do that because if it happened for three years solid and then we can deal with the later or have three of the members or two of the members not appointed because of a clerical a sheriff what i last wednesday's meeting and i met with them and basically said keep doing what you're doing a huge poster of people that can can do this you know just yeah right so clean it up and make an effective date of in the future where you start acis of three year overlapping times ok so there's a story to remain in the world i don't think that i don't see the urgency at the last meeting when we tried to fit it in the vote we were going to sign it but the byelaws says if you sign it after december thirty first that means you didn't appoint those people so they have to take a year off and it's my guess is at some point some board had an issue a new bo came in got rid of somebody they could have seen in other towns they get rid of somebody and then that select men are planning board leaves and then they come back in and they play that game so if you're off your off for a year they must've been a problem at some point with some board ok so this particular one i spoke to the planning board and they're adamantly opposed right down to the language that i have is they're not supporting accepting this right now so i think this is something that needs more research so they law number six number eight and number fourteen i think for more and more freight for more information our future but then they asked two point except mcnamara way and accept nickel or own as  days i was just checking online to see what the latest forecast is and with the more snow again on thursday and more snow again on sun what's on the in the money so you know more to come stay tuned you know so but needless to say  the d p w crews have done a terrific job of fire and police personnel have also been out there helping out whatever possible to keep people safe and very grateful to everybody's efforts to try and to the best job they been running short of salt and we're getting some shipments in but not a lot so we're you know running a little short on the tiriel which is knocking which is consistent with what other communities are enduring as well so we're going to figure it out we'll get there we're going to be ok but but it's it's a little bit concerning the way it's working out but just to let folks know that you know we have been declaring we had it clear of some of an emergency relative to the funding of this so we can spend beyond  mailbox unfortunately and we apologize if if we're plowing snow into mailboxes and and it's causing some damage to mailboxes we'll figure out later right now we're dealing with what we have and that's in that's so our snow and you know a lot of places we can put it get the water service to the house so make sure we keep those clean and also do yourself a favor people of oil try to make sure you leave a pathway for the oil line and for your in for your gas lines as well gas or propane if you have that so that people can have adequate actually have some sort of a celebration we'd like to talk of we're talking about what we can do when we're talking options and we're trying to figure out something that would like to celebrate that victory for them because actually it's foxboro it's not some pasta just remind everybody that you know said that th and so we're working on that piece right now but the but we're working closely with the confetti of the company to get all the details worked out we hope to see construction starting this this year on that so we'll start seeing the panels built out of the landfill and