actually david really just discussed that to release some some minutes and it hasn't been it wasn't put on our agenda to do it in executive session so i'm not sure that we can this week but we certainly can fly we have a meeting on the thirty asked him if we could continue that to the end of our meeting so we could approve the minutes and he said we could so if he's still here and we can get him to confirm that then hopefully the board will indulge us and we'll whenever we finish we'll go to executive session just for the sole purpose of reviewing the four or five sets of minutes of whatever's in there and then what we can release will release what we can't we can't and on these minutes you see i understand i'm also interested in any notes rough draft or anything else that i am entitled to oh former advisory committee chairperson glad to see the environmental in this room have not changed are you doing well first off i just wanted to out thank you all i watch the entire three and a half hour interview session you all you all sat through last week and i commend you and thank you for your dedication to the search and to the job they do in their town so thanks very much i just want to make a comment a couple of things that i observed both in the interview process and in reading some of the articles that were and they are reporter and first i just want to offer that i see several differences between our two candidates i want to make sure that i bring those to the attention i'm sure you've thought of all of them but i wouldn't feel good that would go to sleep at night if i didn't make sure that i made myself heard so for example this has indicated that he would seek an assistant town manager position and is also offered how he would fund this without any additional expense mr pecos has also offered the same yet didn't acknowledge that he would be able to or even consider doing it in a cost neutral manner  so i really hope the board is considering how these two candidates approach these types of similar issues i myself wasn't convinced that i had the responses that i needed as a taxpayer and a citizen you know in both of these situations this is golf as well versed in our town infrastructure both financially and operationally he's built solid relationships with the most important organization in town that being the craft organization i venture to guess that would take mr pecos quite a bit of time the better part of the year as he's want to spend with us to be able to be able to establish those same relationships so don't let's undermine the relationships in the work that randy has done with respect to the operations in the infrastructure of the town though he served in a capacity under under andy i'm fully cognizant of the of his abilities to actually do to step up and do this type of work next i just want to make note of my own experience working with randy as a former chairman of the advisory committee i'm here to tell you the foxboro is a much better place because of rand think you all know that the suggestions and the solutions that were offered to us of the advisory committee and of the town really came from the creative thinking that randy randy randy provided for us so i know that we're looking at you know the level of expertise and the level of experience that our candidates of had but please do not underestimate iranis ability to shake things up to do the right thing and to make the hard choices because he's already done it and i'd like to see him given the opportunity to do it again laughs i just want to make note of a couple items that come to mind for you to consider prior to making your candidate selection the first ones around succession planning someone like randy who is completely qualified for the job which he's applied he's obviously not going to be challenged in a role and the role currently that he's in should he be looked over for this position so someone that doesn't see any growth potential this no new opportunity because there just isn't that next level of increase probably isn't going to stand the job that long so i just want to hope that you guys have considered or maybe you could share with us some of your what's going to happen to the brain drain when there's nobody left to do the you know the succession of these types of so i hope you've got a plan and hope you've thought that through because i think that's a highly likely scenario  lastly i worked for i worked as the head of the background of this to get action for a very large financial services firm which i will not name and i can't begin to express the importance of the vetting process for all employees i have no idea what you've done here i'm not looking to go dig up dirt but i hope that you have gone to the to the greatest level that you can because this is an important position for the town i know in my firm we vet right down to the hourly paid mail room representative and you know we put our faith in you we hope you're doing the right thing i hope you have done your job in vetting that will have it well you know randy's and his background but vetting both of these candidates so that you can represent to the town that you've done your homework and that's all i ask and i thank you for your time and for the work that you're doing th they also suggested to us and i'm not reading it verbatim but the basically we not use the c evenings session to tear any candidate down that we keep everything positive my experience on the board we've we we generally all come in doing our own homework we've done our own research we come with our own opinion and we don't necessarily convince each other to change our mind from what we have and we came in so it might help for instance if we started with a straw poll so that the board new kind of where as you know that the town the consultant who was hired suggested that if we could do a straw poll and find out where the board is that he would like to see the board graciously doing an unanimous whoever that candidate would be and the last thing we want to do is be tearing down a candidate that ends up being the select that the town manager and then we have to negotiate with someone and there's no need of doing that for the two of them so i might suggest that we start with what the straw poll whereby each member could share who they think is most qualified and they could include a minute or two or three if they felt as to why they came to that conclusion and see where w vote and i don't know how that's possible in a public process without going through the discussion my preference would be that we all participate in the discussion and then vote at the end of the vote if it's a four won or three two or if it's not unanimous i would and today making another motion afterwards to make it unanimous in other words there's going to be a winner there's going to be a not winner at the end selectman revote to show and that gives us the opportunity to say even though our candidate may not have been the chosen candidate i will support that person moving forward because i think that's paramount on a time in just position to get the support from the board was saying similar things but i i think i would rather have the discussion and hear other people's input before i make my final the but i want to avoid gym is i don't want to spend three hours debating something back and forth if we if people have done the research and they you know i certainly don't mind hearing people with their view and their thoughts but i also want to would like to keep it as positive as we can so if someone wants to speak in favor of their candidate that they do that without the reverse side by criticizing the other candidate so that we keep the conversation as positive as we can and i think that be helpful i would be interested in hearing people thoughts on both pros and cons i think where all adult because you know so there have been lots of phone calls gone you know across town on this issue and i think just to cheerily say ok we'll do five zero in someone without really you know show the public what i thinking is is unfair  i certainly want to ask questions about you know why this candidate why not that candidate and yeah i mean i think we go into it all with the with the approach that we  are professionals and respect the two candidates have that have been brought forward to us and i think we've all done our own research so i think it is fair that we share it in a respectful manner and  t i also agree i think you know there are pros and cons which is what goes into our decision making process and that that does need to come out you know so i just we'd be very cautious  were you know we were told by counsel to you know be careful about any negatives that we're going up and how we bring them up so i know that  put them under the steamroller you know good luck to the process after that if i could i put down some ideas that i don't mind sharing and i can start it off and after the work goes normally i don't read from prepared statements but i has been a lot of a lot of e mails a lot of phone calls a lot of work the management selection can top manager selection committee has done a lot of work and i don't want to come in here tonight and just go off the cuff so it's a pager so bear with me a little bit i believe mr scholars in this debate goes are both qualified candidates and i appreciate the hard work and professionalism of our search committee for bringing them forward with confidence and i think  that's an important piece because they both came across that either one could fill the position and then they were confident with that i would like to share a few thoughts about each candidates and their positive attributes mr p addition to the two hour interview in the feedback from our selection committee i was able to discuss his abilities directly with kevin pecos as well as several of his peers that i know through my profession and i also spoke to credible people that know him personally before this process i had not heard of or met mr pecos his resume in history indicates to me that he is very sound time management skills his interview references and my personal time discussing the position with him indicate to me he has also he also has very positive personal and professional skills and is a man of integrity i believe he has demonstrated very strong and positive leadership skills throughout his career with respect to  very impressive financial personal and professional skills i've i agree and i've heard it said that he is a man of conviction and has and works for the best interests of the town and there's no doubt in my mind that he does do that his capabilities as finance director in town accounting has undoubtedly been a reason that we are in the financial shape we are in today and we have the ability to quantify and qualify qualify our financial position with confidence today similar to what you had said during your opening my personal experience experience with randy has been extremely positive i have worked with him over the past three years on the advisory committee i have first knowledge of his ability to combine his personal and professional abilities to work effectively randy also provides strong leadership skills and indeed this is a very difficult to skid decision my decision will be based in part on their qualifications that i just mentioned in addition i spend considerable time cross referencing what they call the powers and duties that we afford the town manager in the town manager and town manager act in foxborough which is the foundation of our town government here in other words there are twenty six requirements that the people of foxborough expect from the town manager according to our by laws that we voted in i also cross referenced each candidate to the list of qualities in qualifications that this board the board of selectmen gave to our town meeting town manager selection committee in other words what each of us at this table wanted to see in a town manager at the start of the process regardless of who came forward i also listen to many people that have called or emailed me continuously over the past month offering their insight for from their perspective and i appreciate that lastly i considered how this particular person would not just fit into the current setting we have in town hall but be able to bring in these accomplishments to the next level working with the various boards committees and departments to manage the town on a broad level with the tools staff and opportunities that are here right now after much thought in consideration my recommendation through the board of selectmen is to enter into new contract negotiations with negotiations with kevin pecos for fox person x town manager it is my hope that the strong town management of mr pecos combined with the strong financial leadership of mr scholars will provide foxborough a great combination with independent leadership in each of the fields so i preceded those those are my thoughts thanks jim levey since i'd like to also thank the search committee for the work they did you know thank you for bringing forward both kevin randy obviously two very intelligent and qualified individuals for the position i view the process as the screening of the selection committee being the equivalent of human resources screening candidates checking references bringing them forward in my professional life when i interview managers for positions i take those candidates conduct the interview as we did last week and then as i'm interviewing determine look at are they discussing theory or substance with me as we are going through our interview process in addition to that i would always talk to either their peers or their managers if i had access and subordinates and if possible so for this process i called references for both candidates for well i called references on randy and spoke to board members in towns documented and the types of exchanges that went on i watched their versions of local news broadcasts say the equivalent to our cable access d v d s i studied my notes from the interviews characteristics forward they're both very intelligent vote both strong financially obviously it's the reason why the search committee brought them both forward based on the information that i have reviewed i'm recommending randy scones for the position of town manager in foxboro the reasons are that having worked with him for four years on at com i recognize his work product is timely open  thorough obviously he has great organizational skills and knowledge of the issues facing our town he district he disagrees respectfully and moves on and i found i found his answers to our questions to be factually based and not foxborough stylistically he's done it without fanfare or without making the newspaper and i think that's a very important characteristic of a successful executive he's reorganized the finance department addressing performance issues effectively and work through difficult budget problems and when needed he has stepped into the role of town manager in a seamless manner i think a really key positive that sets randy out in my mind is his  executive level background with staples i think foxboro is unique obviously to all of us you know we're small town we have two large corporations with complex issues facing our town and i think his multiple successes in staples and continued movement to positions of greater responsibility underscore that he has strong executive management skills randy's references were superior board members chairs former board of selectmen staples p s the words to describe were very intelligent remarkably diligent follow through impeccable always passionate about his work not bureaucratic a strong negotiator demonstrates incredible ethics and values he brought business and thought leadership to projects but most importantly people leadership skills which were vision related process oriented dedicated to the community aware of our community priorities he would never back away from a project complex or mundine he welcomes questions and patiently addresses any and all increase has an open door policy one can always drop in there and there have been downsides encountered you know that i've encountered in terms of randy style know i will share these i think in particular there was the announcement of a condition of employment that there be an assistant town manager and i think there has been a negative reaction by some people to that statement because i've been going at com for four years prior to coming to the board i've heard repeatedly the need for an assistant town manager role to do not find that statement or view it negatively but more so as a realistic statement of expectation by a very strong candidate mr pecos has the same proposal to the board of selectmen and hang him which is just temporarily on hold assuming you know depending on the outcome of this process i understand but in any case i take the statement by randy is reasonable to insure the effective running of the town long range and just as a note other towns have followed suit norfork isn't it another example of a leader with this dual role so again i recommend randy i've i've mentioned the strange that i did find kevin  pecos he is strong financially very intelligent his recommendation stated good family person patriotic individual obviously his downsides shoots from the hip occasionally polarizing personality and  not consistently open with information were just a few of the downsides but overall kevin brings i think a very strong background obviously experience flies so but putting it all together i along since i've worked with randy going back i guess about five years now i think he's done a great job i think he's a very thorough individual very ethical fair open minded person patient i really  should have been taking more advantage of his open door policy because when you do go in you always get a you know nice lesson from him and i think importantly i think you'll find his own voice when he if he were to become time manager and it's always you know probably difficult position for him because he probably will not probably he definitely has his own ideas and you know how do you go from saying up and he did everything the best because you know it's been a big love fest for the last you know short while  long while with andy in them to go sam to do things differently will be difficult so i think he's kind of on a you know difficult position there but i think it will find his voice and style with with class  one of the things that and i'm going to paraphrase that we got from our consultant or maybe it was tony la chapelle i can't remember is that we should love you know i this candidate because this is such an important job and i won't confess to loving randy other than to say you know boy i think he's a great candidate so you know i would be comfortable using randi for that for this position and that's the way i'm going to go tonight in terms of kemp akos you know one thing we did forget that you alluded to at the patriotism is it's always nice to say to a veteran or you know someone is currently serving thank you for your service to the country i think we slipped on that one i think that if he were to get the job i think he would do it  i don't have reservations about that going to be you know do do i love him as a candidate i have reservations i look at you know how late he was in the process of applying which shouldn't be you know a total blackball but i question that you know in then furthermore i question the how long he's been in him where i think you know he was quoted as saying this  so far i agree with most of what everyone has said i think randy is as i spoke at last at the interview i said that randy is reputation at staples was stellar and i credited him for his leadership at staples i also stated that his relationship with the school committee with the superintendent the business manager there was outstanding as well he certainly has the ethics and all the things that everybody talked about but one of the things that concerns me is and i went back and i also watched the tape and i actually typed i don't have a computer system like some people where they can put the video in and then get it all typed i had to kind of take it stop it take it stop it but what randy did is he talked about his proposal and then what he said here is so my proposal is to add this at a net zero incremental cost actually a savings to the town if i am hired by not filling the finance director position and having the town manager retain both the finance director responsibilities and the direct reports the net result would be the town manager in essence being the chief administrative officer and the chief financial officer the assistant ta manager would need to be promoted to a town account to unburden the town manager knows day to day responsibilities and to maintain and that's just that's part of it is a whole page that i had typed and the concern i have is that the bylaws are very clear about separating the finance directors position from the town manager's position and there's a reason for that a proper segregation of duties is important it's important to the audit committee it's important to the outside auditors it's important to the board of selectmen the finance director according to the bylaws is appointed by the board of selectmen as well as the town manager  the day to day activities of the finance director are under the direction of the town manager so in one sense randy would be the as using his words the finance director reporting to the town manager because both people so he's setting goals from self and evaluating himself and really while randy is one of them is probably the most ethical person i've ever met in my life and i have no doubts about that at all but the by law in the town of foxborough as well as elsewhere separates those positions just like it doesn't every corporation for legitimate reasons so you separate the powers and so randy said to us in fairness don't offer me the position this is not an ultimatum it's just that i have no interest in the job unless i can raise the bar and he was very clear what he meant by raise the bar i cannot support having one person be the finance director and the town manager and two to break the spirit of the the bylaw i as i said i think randy is an excellent person on the other hand in speaking about kevin pecos as many of you said he has lots of experience he has lots of integrity i know i've hired a town manager another town i've hired a superintendent of schools i know it's difficult and i know that anybody coming in here who wants to change anything and paul mentioned it you know and he can't if randy wanted to change something that he and he had done for the last twenty years someone's going to complain that oh here's this guy trying to change everything and so whatever comes in is going to put their own stamp on things they're going to want to do things differently and i think it's important whether it would be randy or it would be kevin that they have the ability to come in and put their stamp on things to look at everything we do ask questions why is the health insurance what it is why is the liability insurance what it is why do we do this why do we do that and i think kevin off is the experience as a town manager he's been through a lot of difficult times he's come out of those sometimes ahead and sometimes not so far ahead the reason why i think he talked about four or five years is because if you look across the state of massachusetts when you look over the last thirty or forty  years as i said here if you just look at the board of selectmen how many members of the board of selectmen in the last three to four years were not reelected were defeated in reelection you look at those that stepped down but would change and when boards change so don't the politics and i think the other thing that if you look at the history in some towns and i don't think foxboro is that different but you know when you have a town administrator and then you go to a strong form of town manager some members of board of selectmen believe that it's still like the old days that they ought to run everything and they don't run everything and so you run conflicts at times because a strong professional town manager may want to do something that the politicians don't want to do and therefore they run a file so i think they're both outstanding candidates i certainly can't say enough about either one of them but i would be supporting tonight kevin  and down into the two contestants i don't i also like to thank all the residents that have been made the calls over the past few days to my house i'm thankful for those folks because it shows me that folks are paying attention to what's going on yeah and they want to have their voices heard it said john and i did take all those cars into consideration i have spent the past week reviewing our interviews and my notes this was a tough decision probably one of the hardest this board will be faced although i spent many hours on this it simply came down to what's best i have great respect for all the accomplishments of both candidates and that's why that's what it came down to i simply want and i believe that adding kevin pecos to this well established gene we have a town hall will be the best for foxboro i look forward to randy and kevin working together i feel that they will be a dynamic team discussion yeah absolutely because i do want to tease out some of the reasoning we were ready about six seven months ago to go for andy the the last board and i think you were at that time linda so is it something that you changed your mind to randy as i something different or do you think that it's kevin that's like he's a thin arm and we need cabin like i just said i believe that this will make a dynamic team and yes  at that time i thought that you know maybe at least i felt my vote i jumped the gun by doing that i am a huge supporter of randy and i always will be he is fantastic at what he does i just think that right now it's time for someone to come in and look at things and i think that these two put them side by side honestly i didn't make the statement just to make the statement i meant it i really think that this could be a great team you know randy isn't going to be gone when he is going to be here and when he's going to continue to do the fantastic work he's done i mean he has taken this time it really saved them a lot of money and put us in the financial state that we are in and my lucky form and i appreciate him every day and i just feel that kevin and his experience and his way with i mean regionalization is the way to go pile and we've spoken about this for for at least two years that i've been on board wrong and and kevin is heavy with that and i think that he can bring that to the town and help push some of this through and that's that's my thought now in terms of no because i think you explained that i think he said that you know he thought the commute would be ok and he thought that perhaps that they could relocate there i mean hang on is a totally different town than foxboro as he took the time he came in he looked around the town he actually went to the commons and spoke to fogs and i think that bringing his wife you have i think he he sincere that he would like to relocate yeah yeah and i think that that has had a lot to do that that there is something to be said for someone who takes some time and i am not going to put you i'm not going to go down this road with you if you got if you going to try to diminish my my judgment but i'm sorry that was flipping me  but but but i must say well i said my reservations and i think that you know two weeks is too quick for me appreciate that it isn't for you to others so that that's part and i just said something to you kind of plays off the question you had i did a lot of checking i was very uncomfortable with that in the first go round we didn't get a lot of resumes because of the issues that happened in the past the second one i was pleased that we got so many resumes and then at the end we came down with two and i said je two out of eighty when you've got a third and i poked and prodded a little bit and i think people are still were up to the last minute hesitant about putting the resume right the first time i started questioning about m pecos was not specifically about him but after the interview if you're memoranda and submitted a cover letter that says i've got a great year and i reading it it didn't take too long to figure out he's going to look right combine the financial with the time management which struck me as you know two arms of the government coming together just as not in my mind from my experience in all the other towns that i work and something you see often and there's reasons for it so i made some phone calls to town administrator is in town managers to see how they did and i could not find one town that said they thought it was a good idea it was successful no if it came up during the interview but the accountability of having the decisions to manage unions and manage contracts in the entire town hand in hand with the finance just doesn't happen and as larry said there's reasons for that so i started without asking and you know telling names that they said were exploring i mentioned it to two people who managers and they knew of kevin from his work years ago and what if it gives you a comfort level what they were saying was a man of honesty and integrity and from the discussions i've had with him and all the other people i'm comfortable with that so it's i have been doing the digging in because i if it has if it wasn't asked of someone at the board it was going to be asked from the microphone how can you hire somebody that's you haven't really met talk decision and there's a lot that went into it i certainly am not going to question his you know honesty integrity that sort of stuff i will agree that i think you know the guy can be a time manager not disagreeing with that but just a couple of items i would think this idea about wearing two hats larry did you talk to randy about that and how it might be flawed or you know weight that you know just kind of put a finer point on it that this is what i want and he said if you're not going to do this don't even bother to talk to me and so i take him at his word when he said that and i'm a certified public accountant in the state of massachusetts i've been in internal water for many years and i just don't not believe in that and so i talked to a number of people i saw if i went back through the the bylaws i looked at the bylaws i went through and read those and i came to my conclusion and to me there was no sense talking to to randy it because he's a man of his convictions i i have a lot of i give him a lot of credit for being up front some people that call me felt it you know how could someone give you an ultimatum in the interview it doesn't bother me that it was an ultimatum or it was ultimatum thing as if you know randi he is the most transparent person in the world and he tells you what he thinks and he's very clear about his thinking and when he repeats something twice he really believes it and so i really believe that in his heart he felt a couple of things he felt that we need an assistant tommy energy even though he has been against it for a number of years and not adding any new positions because of the financial position and so i think in deep down in his heart he felt that the way to do that would be if i did both jobs so you don't have to pay me you take the money you would have paid me and you move it to the assistant manager and he was even very clear that it wasn't it was interesting i want to be the town manager i'll keep all the finance duties and then i'll hire an assistant town manager and i'll give them like three of the direct reports but it was very clear there was direct reports that might be on the town side as opposed to the finance side and so he's very clear i didn't feel there was a need to debate it with them i wasn't that i didn't feel there was a need to argue with them that's his view and that's my view and i left it at that the i guess my thought on that is that if he proposed something that would have  by laws or is an obvious internal control problem he'd have to be fantastically out of it and you know the man's not stupid so i would think that to you know point that a reason one of the reasons why i know is is just surprising because you know again he's not he's not a dumb guy and i would think he would have a pretty cogent answer answer as to to why i wouldn't have this internal control problem well i'm not dumb you know and and i would tell you that you can take almost any accounting problem and you can have pricewaterhouse coopers look at it and give you one opinion you could have a look at have a different opinion so that they're not everything is black and white and internal control sins can sometimes not be so black and white i think that in my view there's a reason why most of the three hundred sixty five cities and towns in massachusetts separate and segregate the duties and i think there's a very clear reason why the it's not clear to me in terms you diligence whether or not you know you talk to other folks in you know references and that sort of thing and i think just a two hour interview you know for whose interview threw his hat in the ring two or three weeks two or three weeks prior why you're hammer that me instead of others but you know it was a difficult decision and i agree with everything that was stated like i said i have the utmost faith in randy and what he's doing and i just think it's time to add another body to the mix up here and to the gene i mean the you know we do have a great team up here and they will be you know welcoming to this to calvin and kevin will will fit in and i think it's i think it's a good thing i think it's a win when we've got the best of both worlds and when he will be right there beside him and work in the same way as with with the ending you know and that's just know i just want to point out larry that you know kevin has proposed the same configuration for the town of him in terms of making that type of reorganization so i think it's not it it's not an unusual reason to discount randy from the process is that recommendation and that's what i'm hearing you say that's one of my reasons either one of my reasons and we can can we consider question each other's rationale all night long ok differentiation between kevin and randy is what i'm trying to do in my view kevin didn't come here in the interview and say that i'm only going to take the job if you do this randy came here and said clearly if you're not going to take my idea don't talk to me about the job i took i'm serious  i'm not talking to him about the job ok in him there's a similar similar situation kevin is stating that you know if they should have a different structure if they don't want to have that type of reorganization so it's really a similar you have strong individuals making recommendations for what they think is the best way to approach the management of the town to different locations same thought same actions so again i don't think that that's a differentiation between the two of them i think that again you know we have all done our homework and i have  i have i really found in my homework a difference in the responses that i that i've been getting in terms of level of recommendation both are good one is superior and that's really where i'm going with this i think that given the importance of this i think you know as trish mentioned i think perhaps a background check is a thorough background check on both candidates whatever happens should be done because i think it's only fair we don't know kevin we have known randi for six years and i think that's only fair that's what my organization does when i was hired discussed in the group that was working with the with the candidates had talked about that and you know that hasn't been done yet but tony made it clear that they've done enough and best a geisha on both candidates were there were three candidates  ten minutes before they came one candidate texted a message to the search consultant saying i talked to town department heads today and they told me the vote is three to two in favor of randy therefore i am withdrawing so then they came in with the two they came in with the two and they said to us we have done the background check we've done the investigation and we believe both candidates have passed the screening and both candidates are qualified and both candidates can do the job  anyone to you here who we didn't think was ready to step in and do the job we're talking about different types of background checks right i mean we can do you know i think we need to do an in depth background check as one would for a corporation and then was satisfied right and when when when my company makes an offer it's subject to the background check or act so i have no problem with that with spending a few dollars of the background check but i'd like to see us at least as a board make a decision th and begin the negotiations and while we're doing those negotiations the background check to be done fairly quickly doesn't take very long we my corporation does not make the offer until the background check is clear so you know i knowledge  asians not at all from the job that's correct we believe in the contract end of and the board can't let's say it's a committee of two people that negotiate with kevin they can't sign the deal as be signed by the board of selectmen so they have to bring it back to the board and obviously board has to give some parameters as to what those negotiating parameters would be and you know that that committee could come back and say we couldn't come we couldn't close the term it's not unheard of that you can't close the term for instance you know could sit there and say i'm not interested in a board that's three to two i don't want to start already if i've got two strikes against me so we don't know what that'll be but time is moving and we're you know right and he would love to be able to go full time on vacation so if we could go forward tonight with a selection and start the negotiation we can at the same time do a background check this is a man who's in the military who has had two tours of duty over to the middle east with a potential third deployment at some  point i am sure that the u s military has done an extensive background check as well he has secret clearances the kinds of things so that i don't think it will take very long to do that and i think we can i think you can do that quickly and then move to that step that's what i'm saying typically in an organization part of the interview process is the complete background check when you think you're coming close to making the final selection and you know you want you invest in that background check to amend the motion to wait until after the background check i don't accept the moment of second discussion and so the amendment is not to vote this evening until we have a background check right to the both candidates  discussion to discuss salary and the meantime it can be done nobody's disagreeing that a background check should be done but there's no one not making him an offer but you know this is just another delay tactic and we ways and i just want to move this forward this is not a delay tactic this is how in organization that is responsibly hiring right i've been a vice president of human resources at a company the size of aetna and i understand about background checks and i understand office can be subject to background checks and i have no problem with us saying to him we'd like to enter into a discussion it's also subject to a background check in the background check is being done while we're having a discussion with him regarding salary car allowance or all those things that he might have in his in his in his in his mind as to what should be negotiated i think this is we need to more people to sit and not take the time wait a week to complete the background check initiate that have it in and nothing's going to be signed we're not signing a contract in the week we're not signing a contract let's go forward  negotiations let's say for instance we can't successfully negotiate with him then we have to decide as a board do we go out to a new search and make sure that people know that the board really is open minded do we go back to the second candidate and offer the job to randy or do we as the search committee recommended if we can't negotiate with the person we want that we got and hire an interim town manager for twelve months i was there was a lot of you know that you know retort it's a bit but let me just throw this out there you know we we've been through this process with the school superintendent other departments for to come up tonight it's on the table it's not a deal breaker that we can't go forward in my mind simultaneously it we're not going to sign the contract unless the report comes in speaking to him over the last week my concern was it's been in the papers and he offered it to me that he was talking about it deployment to the special services in the military if we make him the offer the next day he goes over to the military and says i'm not going to deploy i don't want to push this off for another week or two weeks he didn't have that opportunity go by if this was something that was brought up a week ago you know you've all done your due diligence we've fine i'm happy that you're bringing it up because if there is something i there's nobody more that would want to know that than someone at this table but to stop the process process on a what if situation let's go forward come together and start the negotiat when the report comes in and if it if the what if if the what if shows up that it's a big thing and we put our hands up and get back together again but to stop the process at the last minute for for this and you know if you've done your due diligence and you found something will show up there and that if it if it's credible and i've you know talked to a lot of people that you know there are negative things for any town manager because they've gone through the process of so many years i got a call the other day and they said you positive vote for kevin paper if there's a no vote to that then we go to the original motion which is to arise the board of selectmen to begin contract negotiations calmer subject to a background check with mr kevin take us right ok i would move that we authorize the chairman of the board and a member to her liking to enter into those discussions with the with the town with the new candidate with the idea that they would have an initial discussion to find out what his requirements are and then they come back to the board of selectmen they share those requirements with the board and then hopefully at that point go back and finalize the negotiations and bring a contract back for the discussion i look back and say i cannot remember that we handled that hiring that way just the nearest off i think it was three of us me probably this into somebodies recommendation that we hire and be on the spot so thank you all madam the next year the year after and down the road that somebody comes in with unanimous and if it happens tonight great if it doesn't so be it but i wanted to make a motion that we revote if you've had time to think about it i know you're concerned about the the background check i don't know if you're concerned about the back check or you have a different issue but make a motion to revote and if we can get a unanimous i think it's in the long run works well if not then  first i'm willing to temporarily withdraw my motion and we can do jim's them do mine if you want you know so i'm the holdout jim thank you for give me that opportunity and it's not it's not a i'm not putting you under pressure but i'm looking to like i said the future on somebody that's coming in i preach at that usually i'm very adamant about you know i'm right or wrong on something and whether or not to make it  conflicted to be quite honest with the i don't have a gut feel for it again i think this is the most important decision that i make in my three years a selectman and if you know i go on for another three probably even that one as well  what i do know strongly is i think that randy is the right guy for this and i'm not in love with candidacy of kevin and i think for that reason i'm going to take a pass and your very gracious offer i and i trust you that if i kept the ones i'm sitting in the chair of is town manager that he won't it will not take my vote on how we feel about ten o'clock openings and we had said you know it's not on him but we had said last week last last meeting that before we make a decision on the brunch that we should all dis on our feelings about ten o'clock openings floor for alcohol so we should yes i would support allowing skipjack to have that ten o'clock ten o'clock opening time because of the presence of the brunch has and the aspect of their business and i think if that will enhance the brunch business i would be in favor of that i wouldn't be in favor of just an alcohol  know bar service at ten o'clock without like a brunch associated with this is just for sundays and  so i think that for this particular case where they have a history of having this as part of their business i think it would be good to support it yes we've already got another request that came in on the heels of that one now at c b s scene you know i don't know that there's a brunch associated with that right so that's really my differentiation my i mean i look we're just having this discussion right now and my only fear is that you know how do you do for want and not the other you know and how i do  you know that's a constant battle you know but i think that's each each one would be individually decided so if we decided that muffins were an adequate privilege to go with your beer then you know i think that's up to us to decide that that's the case you know we have that ability to do that with the regulation as it's written so i think the way it was presented i'm not sure the exact wording but they said they wanted to enhance the experience you know there's a lot of the plate in foxborough with all the alcohol and things going on too many you know i don't personally see the need to enhance something an hour earlier on a sunday on the big picture i just said hard times supporting it but at ten o'clock opening on a sunday to get that extra drinking when you've got six other days you can do it i mean we're pretty pretty generous with the licenses and the process folks and they already said that they're doing well without the alcohol and that there's those few people that aren't happy because they can't have the alcohol that they were trying to accommodate and as we said we can certainly appreciate their wanting to satisfy their customers but my concern is as linda pointed out you do for one then there's three then there's seven and there's nine and it makes it makes it difficult i think we have been fairly generous and allowing the openings consistently across all of patriot place and across the community itself to open early on the patriots games now mr brown i don't see here but he brought up a flaw in our reasoning over the last year or two and that was that is it for all sundays or was it only for the day games the day of games and if you do it for the day of the games why not do it for the so if it has opened up some additional questions for now what we've done is we've agreed on game days at the at the apple patriot place to allow them to open earlier we've just we've agreed to four function halls and have a wedding to see if the wedding started early to do that at eleven o'clock so i think i feel like we've done a lot to help the businesses be successful and those that the only one that i know  that has the brunch would be skip jacks in the restaurant the restaurant hasn't come yet but they'll be pretty put behind if skipjack does go to the hotel and the other i'm sorry the hotel so you have the hotel and then we got to get jacks and then you know you get the city place saying what they want to try to do something it before you know it on game days we'll have people up there at the at ten o'clock and for a one o'clock game that's a long time we saw what happened sometimes when people are responsible when you have sixty thousand people you're going to find some people that did abuse it and i think we've been we've been pretty generous so far so i'm not in favor of moving it rolling it back to ten o'clock thought i'd actually supported again i've done it when one eighty on this i previously would have said no eleven o'clock openings either but i think these are all responsible establishments i think that we have tools available to us if there are problems  so again i think we have the tools to take care of it so i would support it and then some like you know would have a majority on that and i would even support eleven o'clock all every every sunday at this point you know the businesses want it and they're responsible i don't see a compelling you know why not just don't times about the eleven like openings and i think that the eleven o'clock opening help and i have always been in favor of you know if they want to open up at eleven o'clock and every sunday that's my my me  i mean i feel that eleven o'clock is is some question but you know we've we've just started to begin to see people come come finalists so i mean they're obviously they're not yet tonight so they would probably come back i would but assume that if if they felt that we would support that so it was somewhat of a compromise of saying if the board is saying no to ten o'clock for us to eleven o'clock on non game days  you know what's on the table i was eleven only on game days right it's a little bit of a compromise right that supports the businesses but also i mean it's only an hour but it's just there's something about ten o'clock one you know going to charge and you know and i understand dr jay i do understand but but i also understand that you know folks that don't have brunch right now are going to say well i'm going to put out a little but pay for brunch so that folks come in no time i'm just i mean i don't i don't feel ready for that i i take on itself so it's good checks in front of us but they're not they're not here this evening so do we need to leave the hearing open for them to come back so that we can i guess because highly ok so i'd make a motion to approve skip jacks request for a ten o'clock opening with food service d the number of complaints received about on cats have been minimal is it to two complaints over the years i think they have been to the majority cat bites would be owners being bitten by their own past two did i know or not and but they were single cats free roam not free roaming that implies feral someone's cat that cats but in terms of controlling numbers it's wouldn't be down if you spoke to the there's two people involved there's the resident that's complaining and the rest of this being complained if you talk to both of them yes and i did and i did go to the animal owner's home and saw the animals and they were i believe there were eight possibly ten they were in good health all indoors no no no two are maintained in the house and go in and out of the house and the complaints that the that the neighbor had were you able to substantiate any of those complaints or not talk to other neighbors for instance they allege other neighbors feel the same way and they've had issues in the p yes well i've heard from a somewhat not living in that that is the case that others do feel the same way i did talk to someone yes yes so you feel that box which he did so that there would be soft ground for the animals to body and hoping that they would be less inclined to go to the neighbour's garden  more than that making sure that animals are spayed neutered which they are felines of foxborough became involved several years ago and went and  helped with them in this particular case here and i want to just i think just for the fact that the fifteen cats intrigue me just to see what it was like and i did look there is a state regulation but that pertains only to the rabies there and then but it gives you the ability to go in to make sure they have their tags and their licensed with the rabies but most of the towns focus on dogs and ones that do focus on cats for some reason have five or more and i think you found it out but there are some towns that have a pretty heart of there by law that says if you have an issue with your neighbor with this specific issue then documented notarize and bring it to the  selectmen and they deal with it even though it's not part of the by law to have x amount of cats so there is ways to do i think i have a problem thinking you do a blanket regulation for the entire town over what's one isolated incident so maybe if you wanted to look into that and drop something at lease it's more of a health nuisance issue than a regulatory law i'm also thinking of the costs of regulating it if you do pick up the cats were going to do we have to i think they make a recommendation and i don't know what the teeth are on it if it's part of the dialogue but there are and it didn't take me long to go through the googling and figure out if it's a it's a big problem in some towns or with cows and i think there's more anxiety out there that there's no laws and people are complaining and they're turning to the stores to find you know trap and shooting moving something because towns on addressing it but for some reason most towns are not making it into the buy look as it's not that big of well obviously any by law would have to be before town meetings so we've got plenty of time for that but when you're not talking something in the form of a by law yeah you can i'll email you i apologize for you don't have a place to share of these in with if we are doing so there's nothing in the by a lot of not supporting a biologic but you've got a resident that has big issues it's probably more of a civil issue if it's not a board of health safety board a health so why don't we ask you to take the material that jim is going to send you give it some thought come back you know this is not it if it takes the form of a by law or what happened to that to the next that you're working through what might be a solution and that will come back on the agenda in the fall and ask them to be there that night so that they can share directly their view their concerns so that they when they recognize that we're you know we're trying to represent everybody but even if they want to as a subcommittee i was not on that i was lorraine and jim only asking us to update us on both of those issues as to whether or not they were satisfactory resolve and how we resolve them so that's not anything that minutes or so minutes a fine but i do i think that when there's an action item in there that you know that he would normally update us as to where it stands i sense he's not coming to meetings yeah i thought all board members would be want to be updated so maybe if we can just ask him to send a note to everybody grow the consultant explained that a major problem with this process is that everybody had already read the premature newspaper release of randi's columns interest i don't think it was the premature newspaper release that created the issue i think it was the the the decision of the board of selectmen that caused the using the n word poisoning the well i don't think the newspaper prematurely released anything i think it was the going back before jim was on the dress well i don't know that it was even i mean i would blame randy was that he was premature i mean he expressed as interested what was premature was that the board decided to not have a process and go right to interviewing randy so that that's what caused the whole issue not it wasn't right yeah yeah yeah and on the last page the open session the staffing at the country music festival i would like the minutes just to reflect that both the police chief in the fire chief said in response to a question that they had all the resources they needed for the concert that would be an added paragraph and i would also like the minutes to reflect that a member of the audience challenge to the request to go into executive session and ask ms bru to state  questions publicly and that if the chiefs felt that they couldn't answer it publically then it would go into executive session and she chose not to i think those are important pieces of nation that should be in the m larry you say that because you think it was violet of the open meeting law or just as an editorial no i think that i think that mr brown made a very important statement enough that he came back this evening to make another statement so i think that's important and i think it's important that i asked the chiefs three separate times if they had enough resources and each case both the police chief in the fire chief said they had what they needed in terms of resources etc you know wanted to handle the concert and i would like the minutes to  that they had adequate resources to handle the concert and then i'd like a separate paragraph that reflects mr brown's protest of the board of selectmen going into executive session and that he requested the board state their question publicly and if the chiefs felt it was inappropriate to answer publicly then the then in his view the executive session would be appropriate but the board member refused to state the question probably you can add that i think at the time of the discussion if i recall it that i felt it would not be appropriate for me to ask the questions in public that i wanted to discuss in executive session i'm ok with that l in under stop sign request this is the one and south high street now that maybe you guys can help me with this i thought on the under stop sign requested the second paragraph after that it says a brief discussion was held but bob swanson explained that additional stop signs on a couple meetings do you just kind of put band aids when someone calls or do you look at the time in a broad brush and say here's a master plan to move forward and i met with bob swanson on that as we started looking towards our goals and objectives and the question was do you need help putting a master plan together to address getting funding so a resident calls and says i want you know road be paved we can look at something and say well be isn't road be is in this category and his schedule for three years or something like that he wants to go ahead and do that it's not we're far from that but i think that's what we need to do in this town to so when this comes up we have a master plan with my budget hams and women that i think what bob road is in disrepair right now i've got to say there's no money to do and there's no plan but we've got to move forward so there is a plan and i think that's what we're going to work towards so that's where last year we had talked about in our goals and objectives finding a student  to work part time with the town and kevin brought that up as an example of that that he felt that might be one of his goals and objectives if we were to do that i think it's important the infant we already have a lot of basic information on each of the roads we generally have an idea of the condition whether it's an a b or c so to speak and bob already has what you know what it cost to replace an a versus a b versus c and in addition to that he also has the experience to identify what kind of preventative maintenance we should be doing on a regular basis and last year when we started talking about it we talked about what bob is in just ballpark figures he felt we would need about two million dollars a year if i remember correctly to start making a dent on the roads and repairing on a timely basis and over a twenty year period the road would then be in very good shape with that with an ongoing repair program what we what we didn't really spend a lot of time discussing is how we define that two million dollars and obviously you could do it through an override you could do it through assessment on each street but that's where we're going to have to get into further discussions this year as we go through our goals and objectives and i would hope that the new town manager that would be one of the goals and objectives we set for him which then he passes down to some of his folks and we really start to make some progress on that this year versus last year on this and i agree with all that and this particular request was very blair and i the information gets back to it but what he's saying is they've already repaid the section of it fema money comes in they can do two hundred feet of it i don't know if that two hundred feet is where the concern is so it's a process and it's on its way i guess and bob is in discussions dated august twelfth three thousand and six forty eight ten second just under discussion with any gone what's the process who's reviewing these and putting them in a package they within the not doing it to someone reviewing these the finance director will be reviewing that he does their expenditure and with the baker at all versus the board of selectmen hopefully with the decision that came down last week that was in the paper that hopefully we're going to those legal costs were now  had been so i hadn't looked at the contract i did go back and looked at it and one of the other concerns well my first one wasn't a science fact i just hadn't seen it yet my concern was the this attorney in the firm just got hired in mansfield and i just wanted to make sure there was some parity with what they're paying them versus us and i think what they're doing in mansfield is a retainer similar to ours and there's one hundred eighty five dollars hourly rate that covers pretty much the same things that we have right now we're at one hundred eighty yeah he said he did ask but i firing at anything that i wanted to go to one eighty five yet i'm sure this is i mean this isn't the time to talk about it it's a negotiation i guess but you know the three percent increase at this time when everyone else is toeing the line where i know we've given this firm plenty of work it's just seems it's a little i guess my preference would be to hold off for a year considering the so much going on however to come in and say you're not going to get the five dollars rather than that's just a tough time and i don't know if we want to discuss that at all but you'd be willing to really point them for another year i would yeah i think it's a challenge to change attorneys at this point a you know town manager change there's nothing that they have done that if it is of concern that i don't think they're doing a good job itself i guess i would move then jim as i did last week the last meeting that we moved to reappoint town council for a period of one year with the maybe the chair will if you have a chance you can call him and tell him that we did approve it because he was here we did approve it and we approved it without an increase we understand his request but due to the economic conditions that everybody is experiencing we ask him to bear with us for another year and then we'll revisit it the meeting a few meetings ago i'm sorry i'm reading this is to one day licenses and we have a license for the twenty first here but not for the twentieth twenty fourth so i think we're missing a set well unless there are two separate i think one has it's the same license number so i think we're missing one and it's just missing one page yeah well see it's interesting because it says it expires on the twenty first which is the second day it's the first day that's missing detail and we want to make sure we have that deposit so that we're not chasing of the money and it may be all said it's just it was an updated in the right yeah so if they've done everything that they were got that they said they would do two weeks ago it would be a mute point gentleman anthony escape is actually the one making the donation it's through at no for danimal but he's the one that won the five hundred dollars for the cow chip and he graciously gave it back to the so it's through the well thank you anthony turn the water into or issues we discussed earlier on advice of town council that was part of the discussion that's ongoing and should not be released i would oppose that he did not say that he said that we didn't have to do  let's ask him for an opinion then we'll do it are we not able to release anything in anything we want i would just prefer to be able to discuss it one more time an executive was ok because i don't quite understand the separation yet so should we ask if we can discuss it in executive session because again i mean i think we know that i think you'll be meeting a lot here that we can have an open session on anything we want that's crowd was so we could release anything we want so he couldn't have said well if he did say he was clearly be wrong we can release almost anything we want i think what he was saying in that during executive session it was it met the requirements of being protected under executive session and until then i never quite finished the discussion because it was seven o'clock and this meeting was started so if we can finish this and go back into executive session it sounds like you're uncomfortable about talking it well i