hearing this evening and will be joining us later in the evening in between all this will be doing action items we begin with the pledge of allegiance i'll ask linda to lead us start citizens input i've been asked to read this from the planning apartment save the date the planning board in the metro area planning council will hold a listening session on march twenty ninth two thousand and twelve for the town's first ever housing production plan the forum will include preliminary findings of the m a p c staff that are assisting the town in an opportunity for townspeople devoiced their needs concerns and ideas for affordable elderly and disabled housing the meeting is thursday march twenty ninth two thousand and twelve from seven o'clock to eight thirty at the mcguinty room in the public safety building a chestnut street and refreshments will be served ok citizens input and if you go over the microphone and give your name and self serving on the part of the craft group and i have given to each copy of my hand written friends i work late and i didn't have time to write but i just would like to make some comments on this quickly i think they talk about the group in the town of foxborough and about the third paragraph down under the same way they comment about all the things that they helped well i've lived here longer than the craft group has been here take care of ourselves and these organizations and groups were funded well and functioning well before the craft group ever came to town i would also like to add that what the craft group claims they've given was not particularly saw it but was should have been given without strings attached so that as a large business in town of course their gifts are welcome but now at a point where maybe the residents as a whole do not agree with the craft group wants we need to step back and say thank you for your gibbs but not what i have that held over the other thing is that this whole complaint and i know things changed today with the lawsuit and i'm not following that closely is that the citizens and boy it was just for that for citizens and normally businesses get themselves on the agenda and have a meeting a proper meeting and a proper time most of this as i say is a self serving pamphlet and i would also add that it's gotten to a point that there are other businesses in town besides the craft craft group and there are a significant number of people who do not necessarily appreciate all of the changes that have come to the town because of so called improvements and i really only in the in the long run will like to thank you for taking and the town manager for taking a stand to put the businesses back where they belong which is at a proper agenda place thank you thank you we appreciate your comments any other ok oh i'm sorry any other comments all right go ahead  misconstrued as progress you know i want to say up front that i'm not getting anything from wind or craft that my wife and i make our money outside of foxborough we bring it back here and we invest in this town in our property local businesses and schools foxborough i care that our local government operate in the best interest of protecting the investments we have made i want to discuss strategy tactics in the law not advocate for to kill or side in this debate my personal vote is no one the casino explained in my first letter but that single vote won't help anyone when i wrote the first letter to mr kraft to mr when i explained that i felt the casino project would rip the town apart and that we are ill equipped to handle a proposal of that size  magnitude this is a really nice community and i would ask that they did not see overwhelming support to please move on the board of selectmen in my opinion did the right thing and voted to say that foxboro did not want to be a host community since then something has changed craft and wind organization have engaged to tell the town people directly why does this change things foxboro is not a city it's a town a town structure where the town people retain the power this is significant it has been argued that if the board of selectmen vote against an agreement that the deal will be stopped and never get the town to never get to the town for a vote so we do not need to negotiate or even prepare with experts the board of selectmen cannot stop this from happening because the new state law requires to casino applicant to sign an agreement with the host community municipality in my opinion that's simply not true i believe the craft when came out he knows this it is true the state law house thirty eight  seven sections fifteen clauses eight and thirteen require an agreement signed with the host community before taking the next step but a majority town vote could require the selectmen to move the deal forward over personal objections of the select written in our town by laws article two section two and article one section one the town vote supersedes the selections authority the town vote can happen on all town issues and can be called by two hundred registered voters this power is not limited to just zoning issues as i've heard but any by law and any action the town citizens wish to engage within the law even if the selectmen are five zero against a proposal two hundred voters can can call a town vote and the town majority can force a deal to be negotiated and this would be consistent and in line with the new state law from my understanding and i'm not of turning but this is why i believe things have changed when the craft when team began negotiating directly with the town people the real power of the town town what we want but we're afraid of addressing the issues and polling to see the results what they are doing is all legal and both under our bylaws and to the letter of the law of the new state law the selectmen are not waiting for a proposal from kraft when you will waiting for the proposal that results from these direct negotiations with the town people the proposal will come when they have at least two thirds vote support validated through polling in these direct negotiations the proposal will come  timing of their choosing to maximize the pressure on the town to act that is why i believe the selectmen who are charged with protecting the town first above all need to discuss and consider the situation and what is best for the town not what is best for any one position the situation is dynamic it's not static adjustments need to be made given the position timing and events unfolding now i believe the best defense for the town is to unify and agree to one  either the answer's no or if it's yes it had better be the best deal ever no she gave it between a community and a casino project for families property owners business owners and everyone in town either one of those two outcomes represents the minimum exposure for the town and protects the town no matter how the vote goes if the kraft win team can convince the town or create a timing issue that influences the town before we can take action we will not get anywhere close to that best deal property owners cannot take the risk of taking another hit and property values this is the main point of my second letter i suggest that the board of selectmen establish an independent committee of experts begin contract talks on how the negotiations will occur and enter into negotiations with crafting when to board a select when you can get a contract outlining how the negotiation will happen get the time we need to put our experts together the money to pay for it set expectations for the town people limit any liability to the town for future lawsuits etc negotiating is not supporting the casino it's a legal mechanism for us to protect our interests the yes no vote will come separately negotiations have already started but they're happening directly with the people the people are hanging out there with no government air cover they have no expertise no advisors no signed contract to outlaw outline the rules of engage the negotiations it's just craft and when testing which trinkets and how many it will take to get this deal done and they've only just started are we going to leave it to every private citizen to go she ate the stuff that is best for them is that the direction the board selectmen has set if so please let me know so we can get in line clearly we need to be negotiating as a unified town this is the single largest event that the town has ever seen much bigger it it's a bad to mediocre deal because we didn't get the proper structure to protect the town until it was too late then shame on us and watch the property values then our town government has to get this under control protect our interests not the next town government not wait and see what the voters temperature is protect our interests now the risks are too great we need to recognize who we are what our skill set is and what the risks are we need to come together as a community we are running out of time and excuses why not to get back for our side and set up a special committee to protect to protect the town the town needs it the selectmen need it to craft when t needs it everybody has rights we need to work through this business correctly with a vote and proper protection with the proper knowledge if you were arrested for murder what's the first thing you do you go find the best lawyer you can find you wouldn't sit in your cell and say i'm innocent i'm innocent i'm innocent you would find that best lawyer waiting for after may then june before getting our expert set up maybe pushing it too late timing is difficult to estimate but doing nothing while the situation develops is very risky the gaming commission has finished its appointments of five commissioners just the other day hounds like milford already in the goshi ations with casino applicants by the fall the pressure will intensify and we've seen this movie before during the stadium deal when the patriots all of a sudden we're moving to hartford we cannot afford to lose leverage we cannot afford to negotiate this by ourselves with local attorneys and this will not go away without a town vote if the no vote has the numbers i suggest you call a town vote and vote either on the zoning or vote that we won't be a host community for a number of years and put an end to it if you do not have the numbers we cannot sit out here we need to protect the town and all involved all involved with the proper business approach some say the perception is reality and we should not negotiate because then the perception is that casino will happen i say that the reality should shape the perception if the reality is this will ultimately go to the town for a vote then we be simple the answer is no but if it's yes this deal will have to be the best deal ever cut between a community and a casino and we will know the difference because our experts will know what the top deals have been and educate us lastly i hope you  my goal and motivation is really truly to protect the value of our town with a realistic assessment of our situation i hope both sides can see that i do not envy you select me i know you all to be advocates for the time i know this is tough i know it's moving fast complex and everyone's beating you up i know you all have constituencies to attend to and positions you have publicly taken with with them as well one of those does is one of those times where you have to re evaluate the situation and lead we cannot continually react to events and let them drive us i hope you can find the strength to do what is best for the town and minimize our risk exposure no matter which way the town votes if you need more help or recognize you right now i'm doing the patriots next at our last board of selectmen meeting on march thirteenth representatives of f x p l l c an affiliate of the kraft group began to make a statement during citizens input to the town's contract for advertising services since we had a public hearing scheduled just after they began speaking any topic item on the met on the agenda later in the evening i asked them to come back in the meeting before the agenda topic on water and sewer as they started to speak at that time the town manager was also our chief acumen officer strongly objected to my allowing them to speak stating we are right in the middle often about to embark again on a bidding process he said i have to protest this discussion in the strongest possible terms is absolutely injurious to the town's interest this discussion in the subject matter if this discussion continues publicly is absolutely harmful to the town's interest if it goes forward mr chairman i don't take any responsibility for what happens but i am telling you implications could be extremely serious the town manager further stated veiling this discussion under citizen input is ridiculous this is not citizens input it's an attempt to use the selections meaning to subvert a public bidding process because one of the bid is disagrees with the town's legal position and quote as a result of the t strong protest i asked the craft organization representatives to see speaking until i had a chance to seek town councils opinion by a letter to the board of selectmen dated march twenty first f x p requested to make a statement at tonight's meeting regarding the bid process in the proposed warrant article related to it f x p also stated would no longer be a bitter in the process yesterday afternoon a lawyer for f x p contacted the town's lawyers and stated that f x p would be filing a lawsuit in federal court against the town seeking a court order to permit f x b to make a statement at tonight's meeting based on the letter of the twenty first the town agreed that f x p representatives could make such a statement this morning f x p's attorneys were informed of this decision and as the lawyers from the town and f x p were resolving the details a judge ended an order that f x be permitted to print make its statement on the topics later this described in this letter the town cannot further comment on this matter because of the litigation that is now pending i believe the representative x x x p are here to make the public statement so i'll turn it over to you mr chairman fire with the kraft group one patriot place with me tonight also with the gra first i need to say that what transpired at the meeting here two weeks ago was very sad and disappointing to us for twenty five years we've worked very hard to be good and productive day bers and citizens and it has been a mutually beneficial relationship we've invested close to a billion dollars of capital we've become the town's largest taxpayer we've employed thousands of people and we've provided significant financial and other resources to the community through our charitable efforts it is truly shameful that mr pecos and at least one board member who was complicit with them took the extraordinary steps that they did to deny us our constitutional right to speak publicly to the point where we had to file a lawsuit to come and be heard as you may recall when we were here two weeks ago we were asked to hold our comments until later in the agenda as the chairman mentioned and then during a break a particular board member conferred with mr pecos what happened when we came back to the table to speak and you can watch the video shows that they collaborated to prevent us from speaking we happen to have the resources to defend ourselves against this intimidation and bullying tactics that were on display here at the last meeting what about those citizens who may not have those resources people like deb stewart and a j dooley who were also bullied at the last meeting we've seen mr pecos shout everyone down the board included using the threat of supposedly eagle advice and other information he had in his control and look where it's brought us how much is the town already spent on legal fees where was legal advice really being given and what interpretations from the inspector general's office were really issued the town manager and members of this board should never again feel empowered to treat citizens this way some people are going to say this is all politically motivated but you all know this is been going on for well over two years on the billboards this has nothing to do with politics and everything to do with our right to speak in public and with the threatened eminent domain taking of our land now that we finally can speak we want to express to you the importance to us of decisions that are in front of the board right now namely the effort to place on the town warrant an article to take our land by eminent domain and the fatally flawed bid process for the billboard advertising the key points you need to consider especially tonight as you debate the eminent domain article we've been trying to tell the town politely the bid process is flawed the town does not own the land on which the billboards sit you're out there encouraging third parties to bid which exposes the town and the winning bidder to liability we did not bid and we will not b because if we win the bid we're exposed to that liability yet on the way over here tonight i'm told mr picco says on channel seven telling the reporter we couldn't speak at the last meeting because we were a bitter during an active bit we could not have made it more clear in our march fifth letter to mr pecos and again sitting here two weeks ago right at this table that we were not and are not a better so now instead of calmly and professionally trying to resolve the flaw in the process and in all likelihood generating a financial outcome that is far superior to the track that you're currently on we're being threatened with an eminent domain taking of our land something really wrong with this picture it's not how we've done business together over so many years how close and here's what we want people to understand we have a right to be heard the town should take steps to avoid any future violations of our or any citizen constitutional right to speech the board is about to take action on a warrant article an eminent domain taking of our land this approach is an ill conceived solution to a fatally flawed process we're here to ask that you really consider what's in the town's best interests to the right thing on the warrant article and on the bid effort we want to get back to a productive cooperative relationship with the town and we are hopeful that we can thank you thank you very much all right all you want to be recognized alger road i just simply wanted to comment i don't know if he's still here mark or not i think i don't know if you heard him say just talked about it for a second is that the casino certain that that's correct i would guess in reading the statute that the statute casino statute would control over any cow by law on that point so you know my apologies if i misunderstood his point but i would think it's like me who controlled this three or four years trying to understand what was going on i am not an expert on all the legalities of what happened but what caught my attention was that i received a letter that you were going to read through the last meeting and out of the point that you had you had a nice concentration of burbidge complaining about the like woman when you're male or you did the same thing tonight you mentioned that it's not political motivated my concern is that how do we make sure that we're elected officials do the best thing for the town without the fear of these kind of appraisals that every vote that happens in participant in our group decides to pursue an avenue that can create more revenue for the town why should that person be vilified how do we feel confortable now that we have the strongest labor one of the three votes that were against the casino we're trying to get away with one vote that can hurt us with the science is the money that important that we're willing to threaten our officials with southeastern regional representation we have a public hearing scheduled at seven thirty would you mind if i did that on time and then came right back to you i apologize no no no that's fine i just we need to try to c citizens input off so we have a public hearing scheduled at seven thirty two thousand and twelve n c a a men's lacrosse championships at gillette stadium i'll ask mister sullivan to read the the notification or  camera folks can leave and we can not be distracted during that during that section so dan if you and your team want to come up on this and get ready we'll try to keep this thing moving sixth is the biggest of the three days it's the division one and two semifinals about forty forty five thousand people and dissipated to games on division two thirty and five p m on sunday is the division two and three championship game for but with about twenty twenty five thousand people and then on monday it's of a division one championship at one p m they get about twenty twenty three thousand people selling a series tickets now we're a little ahead of where we were in two thousand and nine a little behind two thousand and eight so i think our estimated numbers are pretty accurate well know that we won't know the teams told us seven to ten days prior to the event and then that's when there are those schools with the sales pick up  anticipate he'll bring three hundred level we can reach that capacity in the one hundred two hundred level in our clubs our west club will be the fan fest area as it was in last year with hospitality interactive games sampling except through we will allow fans to scan out into the festival area and scan back in as we did as we did in two thousand and eight in two thousand and nine one traffic parking is there's no parking fee for this event no toll collection  at this event we do get a lot of new people coming first time to gillette so we communicate with them with e mails and newsletters and we also flyer specifically on monday with people going home on monday we have heavy heavy traffic to the south so our traffic plan working with the chief and lieutenant will be head have a lot of traffic if they're going south and they're on the p six the p tend to go left onto route one otherwise they'll go north and route on your back sorry now so i'm just concerned about i owe you nothing in the town here and you know do you think that there will be a lot of guys coming in early because we have  ok now will go right into the southeast in regional school budget if you'd like to come up forward p so quickly if you're going to first box about half way down foxboro are roman ratios one point eight percent with a minimum contribution of two hundred seventy five thousand five ninety two net transportation costs nine thousand four hundred eighty dollars capital cost of three thousand four hundred ninety four dollars give you enough why thirteen assessment of two hundred eighty eight thousand five sixty six compared to last year that's a decrease of thirty one thousand and three sixty four so enrollment at the charter school was dropped and one of the reasons why that dropped is the strategy by foxboro to implement the full day kindergarten because once we when we didn't have it they would they had a charter school and once your child was in there then they must stay there through and and we implemented that in foxborough we were able to to win some of those back so we've won back some students from that from there but we've overall had a decline in the number of students in the system and you  now i don't know if that translates directly into a shift in population but the general trend is the school age population is declining i was one of the conclusions and i'm f with the questions right i just want to ask superintendent how did you accomplish the thirty one thousand dollars reduction to us because typically goes in the other direction again due to loss of students  increases in overall costs we stayed in the schools money correct right and so if you look at your overall budget not the foxboro piece but your overall budget from twelve to thirteen increased by two percent i'm told that one point seven percent and that's a one point seven ok and i  just call on paid for it you get i called the attention of the public you folks have traditionally as you've come before us with the school didn't really done an excellent job squeezing the nicholas tight as you can to provide a quality education for reservations so you heard this question why don't you answer the question or just restated for those at home if you know impact to the town or all we would call that a softball about it other words you've had  capability and really do a lot of the work themselves that other school systems have to farm out they do their own carpentry with their in house program they do their own bus repair with their in house program and alicia's goes on and on and when you get an opportunity to tour the school it is absolutely astounding how maculata and well kept up the facility is they do tremendous work as you say would squeezing every penny out of that budget and keeping the assessments of the member communities at a very reasonable level and provide kids with an outstanding education so you know i'm a great fan as you are mr chairman of what the regime occasional school does really excellent excellent programming over there and the kids i've had the opportunity to be associated with some of the graduates over the years is taking the lead finding a candidate that they can bring forward to the joint boards to fill the vacancy that you have or again we go knowledged with great sadness dn having to step down from your board with his illness and he's done agree did a great job for us we're very proud of the work he did and we're very proud of your teachers as well as kevin mentioned they do a really fabulous job so we'd like you to take a message back to your school community at the town of foxborough very proud of the work you do  so what i was going to do is take and start to be the town manager has on here discussion billboards to a contract i know there's still a lot of folks in the audience that have some questions potentially about that and i know that some board members  indicated they had questions so let me just turn it to the town manager to begin and then we'll go from there and anything ok we'll start with  think it's important and i know the town council is here it's important but to kili with the the news that broke today lots of people have lots of questions and so i think it's helpful to share with people a little bit of history and i see philip in the back of philip served twelve years in the water and sewer commission and and philip was here last week and he talked to the community about the fact that they've had a longstanding arrangement with the kraft group starting in one thousand nine hundred ninety nine and and in one nine hundred ninety nine they agreed to donate land so we could build a sewer plant and over the time they continued to amend an amended amend that relationship and in two thousand and seven and  correct me if i stayed anything wrong you indicated that you wanted to take advantage of the patriot place situation and so you went into negotiations with the with the patriots the result of those negotiations were  contract and you know like most things in life nothing is very simple and so philip is shared with us over the last couple years as we've worked together between a board of selectmen in the water and sewer that that his committee negotiated independently of any mitigation and they came up with an agreement whereby the patriots would agree to provide the land build a sewer treatment plant at no cost to the town that they would build two billboards the town would share half the revenue which we would use  in the water department to mitigate water costs and the patriots would use the other their half to fund the capital necessary to build the plant we're gets confusing i think for some people is that at town meeting there was a power point that was put together and it talked in general terms about all the things that patriot place was going to bring to the community and all the things that the town was going to provide as a result of patriot place and so there were some people who felt that the mitigation which included like a license and other kinds of things also included the separate contract with water and sewer that the difficult part folks is the contract which is the legal document does not make reference to that in the document as is fairly clear  that you know we're going to do this and you're going to do that and here's what the agreement is what as we talked about this over a couple years there's a lot of gray and a lot of what people thought was intended and wasn't intended and the in the board of selectmen in the water and sewer folks made a significant f it starting actually almost three years ago right after loraine and i got on the board the board created goals and objectives in that first year part of the goals and objectives w work in partnership with water and sewer to address the longstanding sewer issues and that started with this negotiation with the patriots because it was clear at that time that we were not going to go in the direction of using that sewage treatment plant we were going to probably go to mansfield who was going to expand the plant so then folks you know frankly the minutes reflect this but we sat there and we said so we have a contract and the contract says i'll build you a plant it doesn't say how you i'll give you cash instead and while people criticized the contract even at the time that it was signed for not having a cash option the bottom line is the contract was created out of nothing in the water and sewer folks did a marvelous job of creating an opportunity of getting a sewage treatment plant at no cost for the town in generating some revenue out of nothing i e the billboards and over that time frame the town in fact receive some five hundred thousand or so and billboard revenue and the patriots received a similar amount of money  worked very hard to try to negotiate with the patriots so that in lieu of the sewage treatment plant they would give us cash and again like most things things aren't as clear and simple and so we heard repeatedly from town council and again it's in the minutes that town council it indicated that the although the contract was drafted by a former town council and executed by a former town manager that not every i and every every i was  crossed but we have in the minutes reflected the town council said that despite that there was no need of blowing up the whole agreement but that in fact we could take out the paragraph that said we'll build you a plant and we'll put in a paragraph that said we'll give you ten million dollars instead over the same period of time unfortunately there were lots of discussions back and forth about whether the flaws that were done regionally tainted the entire process and the entire process had a rebid or where the town council was correct in fact that you could take out the paragraph on building a plant replace it with cash there was a good faith effort on everybody's part for a couple of years we thought we had a deal the minutes reflect that and then the deal fell apart and we thought we had to deal with the patriots w would pay us the equivalent of roughly ten million dollars over thirty years plus we continue to share the billboards fifty fifty so it is it has been a long standing process there's been a lot of dialogue a lot of effort on everybody's part and that culminated with when we couldn't reach an agreement the decision by the two boards that the only alternative was to put the bill boards out to bid and and that process happened there were lots of comments around that process in the newspaper etc maybe those comments tainted the process maybe they didn't taint the process but the bottom line is nobody bit and at our meeting last week you heard a lot of discussion around the decision not to let the patriots respond or to comment on that and you heard them they filed a federal lawsuit and they made their statement tonight so that gives the community a little bit of history the board of selectmen the water and sewer commission have spent the better part of almost three years reviewing the contract working through the contract trying to renegotiate the contract and doing everything we could to do something that we thought was in the best interest of the community along with following all the laws of the commonwealth and  we just we have not been successful in doing that and i think the tell me energy has indicated that it is now out to bid again and we're hoping that they'll be bids received and we'll be able to work through that process any comments or just to clarify in the agreement the memorandum of understanding there actually is a specific mention of the liquor licenses that ties it to that agreement it's in section eight b so  just wanted to point out that there is a tie to the exchange you know or there is a tie to that mitigation to the granting of those twelve liquor licenses by the  voters i think that's something that we've been discussing for a long time that they were not connected but in fact right in the agreement it does connect them so there was just one fine point i wanted to put out there i agree that in good faith these negotiations went forward it is unfortunate that the agreement that was reached at one point did not go through was pulled back we thought we were in a good place and it didn't work out i think that  the important issue to consider here is the thirty b requirement that we are required to work under so that you know people understand that the members of both boards who decided to go out for bid you know who voted to go up for bid were doing this to bring the town in compliance with thirty b and certainly that's something that the town council should be speaking to more than i but i just want to make sure that that's clear that that wasn't we didn't have an option to not go out to bid you know that's really all i'm going to say for now thank you the only thing i would disagree with lorraine is we do have in the minutes from town council  early on in the dialogue that he's here to speak for himself but that is the minutes reflect that once the contract was executed the flaws were moot and that he was recommending we work to take the paragraph out on the plan to put a paragraph in i certainly acknowledge that there was a heated discussion throughout the timeframe and different people interpret in different cases different members of the border and reading the legal cases and having a different opinion than town council but i agree with you that we all work very hard we thought we had a situation and fell apart and and unfortunately we are where we are today but i i thought it was important because a lot of people have been asking a lot of questions particularly about the lawsuit today while we can't get into the details of the lawsuit it is important to note how much time in effet both the board of selectmen on the board of water and sewer commission has put into this not just over the last three years on this but philip will certainly share the amount of time that the water and sewer have put in historically with what the craft organization everyone in the low water low pressure district and all that other kinds of things in the right linda do you want any comments just i would ask trying to to just make this very clear for the public because there's so much chatter out there right now and people are asking me why would you go out for an r f p on something that you've you know you had such a great deal with that said and i can explain it to them the way that you can you know so if you wouldn't mind just educating i know that larry just you know gave his speech about it but i would like you as i counsel to inform the folks good process so that you know what you want to have informational and i just want it clear to everyone at the public of you know almost like the history of how this came to be because the questions that are coming to me i can't answer them which was done before my time had to go out to bed it did not go out to bed so the question arose what is the remedy for it not going out t bit we determined through consultation with the inspector general that we could let the contract go its term any rino or extension would have to go out the bit so we are at the end of that contract in may of two thousand and twelve now we cannot extend it without doing the this thing up and go out to build two three years ago and the conclusion of that without the consultation with the inspector general was we could let this thing play out it had already been partially performed the parties had been working on it for some years and the end was in sight so with the advice of the state we knew it we also found that i needed a town meeting about and so separately we had gone to the board and say look there's a problem here needed a town meeting about we prepared a warrant article you all supported that warrant article went to town meeting i believe the town voted to authorize you to hedge into a long term contract for these billboards so that you now have the authority criticism of how the arrangement was working it's all driven by the law right i just wanted to do what the law said we had to do right and did you read up reach out to counsel at any point by the craft organization because i thought at one point sewer not with the board of selectmen water and sewer had reached out or vice versa to work together and so we worked collaboratively over this and we worked literally over three years so early on we tried to to work some things that would make it work for everybody the difficult part and i know we can't get into this but you know when when citizens hear that you know so they hear about a contract and then the contract is not right and then it wasn't done and did the lawyer write it right to the town manager executed right and then you put the billboards but you put them on the wrong spot you put them on the wrong land and you know you think that the folks watch this is home and then they wonder why they wonder you know who the heck is in charge of all and and it's not as simple as it sounds you know when you decide to cite a billboard sometimes where you cited it will add value or take value away depending on the exposure in there was lots of discussion back and forth between the town and them and and so all of this will be will work itself out and hopefully we'll get the relationship back on track and we'll work through this kind of stuff we thought it was important since the board of selectmen we're getting lots of phone calls today and lots of e mails i don't know if the water and so commissioners were getting as many as we were but i don't know if your superintendent was on four five seven and twenty five but our our town manager was on lots of t v tonight and up so we were getting lots of exposure and we it was important to to make sure people know that there was a lot of effort there was a lot of legal advice there was a lot of counsel going in and we're all trying to do the very best we could under a difficult situation so  thing i had just met with the patriots lawyer and suggested that since they believe one set of facts apply and we believe another set of facts apply that we would like an opportunity to exchange information see if we can't get the common ground for example they have alleged that the billboards aren't on the easement land that they are close to but not on it on the other hand the water sewer commission had a survey done and they say that survey came back and said it is on the easement well they seem to think it's off re seem to think it's on i suggested perhaps we said they give us what they have we give them what we have and we figure out where are the billboards and why is there a disagreement over what should be not in dispute where the billboards are is easily narrow some of these issues and get on the same page well i'm glad you mentioned that paul because some of the feedback that the border selectman got today was critical in the sense that it made they thought that the void of selectmen had done nothing to kind of work through the issues and that the board of selectmen to allow a lawsuit like this to happen and now it's you know they're spending a fortune we're going to spend a fortune if they win we have to pay their legal fees and and how do we how do we get to this situation and what do we do to improve the relationship going forward so hopefully this kind of an outreach also helps us try to get the relationship back on track we're not interested i'm not interested in running up legal fees on anybody's part and if we can sit down and work through these things it's so much better for everybody and you know we all were made aware early this morning about filing and i'm sure it was a was a shock to to members of the board and when we get served at our homes today with with legal papers and things it was you know it's not something happens every day in your life so you know we desperately want to make sure that everybody's treated professionally and that the town knows that the board of selectmen is working hard to get to work through all relationships with everybody and sometimes you have disagreements but hopefully as we've said before we can disagree without being disagreeable and unfortunately you know two weeks ago we got a little disagreeable and it and took a course of action board about questions of people a vast above bid process in the history of it i had declined to do that when we started because of the events of the last twenty four hours because speaking with consulate afternoon he had cautioned that there is still a lawsuit we are hoping that that will be extinguished by virtue of the fact that we had an opportunity for the graphic of the speech tonight but it is not extinguished yet so i want to be very cautionary and very circumspect in any comments that i make but  i did want to offer just this one comment i couldn't agree with that you're more i really i mean i'm still trying to figure out and sort out exactly how we got to the point where we are at but i believe  it's it's fair to say that it's reflective of the fact that because we have a law that we have to deal with thirty b and we have an open meeting law that we work within certain narrow confines in terms of conversations we can have when we can have them wh we can have them with everything that the water sewer commission the board of selectmen and the town manager acting is that you procurement officer has done in the last two weeks has been in constant concert with town council and with furthe discussion to the inspector general's office and we have all of our actions have been motivated by two single purposes and concerns one is the best benefit to the taxpayers in the ra areas of the community of foxborough and secondly consistent with the law as we've been advised that it what it provides and no time during any of what we've been engaged in the last two weeks was there ever any intent or hope that we would result in a situation where we currently find ourselves and we are very hopeful that we can open some dialogue in house and discussions but just as a cautionary note to all of us i believe those discussions now will have to go through town councils hands and i believe and hope that those who will be very productive conversations and will allow us to you know have some very good things happen one  final comment is that we do have a bid out there right now and those that was advertised today right i believe are central register tomorrow and bidders will be coming hopefully the pick up the bid package in the are some issues that we most assuredly have to sort through we are do everything we can to represent the taxpayers interests in the town and the craft company is representing their interests and we have some disagreements right now but those are not insoluble disagreements hopefully and there are disagreements that we will address in a professional and respectful manner and try to work through them we're trying to reach very hard and all these two gentlemen is going to test to you know having you scare me again you know what i can say what i can say i think like you know what i think i don't think i want to be scared anymore let's put it that way i i think that my question again to was last week when those folks were here to speak we didn't know what they were going to speak about we didn't have any you know any idea what they were going to do but calving kind i thought and said no he can't they can't speak that consulate already informed him that it would be that there was just something that was said tonight that is it you know bad for the town or  bad for this r f p or anything i just i mean and if you can answer you can answer but i i just want to know if there was something that was said that i should be aware of i want to have a size that that two weeks ago i was under the impression i think the town manager was under the impression that the craft organization was a better they had registered when they took out papers when we did our first round they had signed the papers as a prospective better and that they were prospective better i heard them say earlier that they were not but what i understood was on march twenty one they sent a letter dated that day i don't know when it was well received i don't know whether you're open for i think we got it on the twenty second of the twenty third of that last week wednesday thursday friday i don't know which data was good but they made it clear that they were withdrawing from the bidding process and that puts them in this thing because category of being ordinary citizens was the the the the general advice than now that they're not a better we can actually have a dialogue with them in fact we're looking forward to reopening a dialogue with them with the normal procedure and i want to have some discussions with the town council over the next couple days is that we submit the claim to the insurance company they assign special counsel and special coun handles the defense typically in cooperation with town council now once things get to a certain point a special council may take it over completely in town council is involved in this case i think there's an opportunity for a lot of cost avoidance by everybody if we allow the town council to continue the dialogue with the craft company representatives in the hope that we can resolve this and i'd like to give that a couple of days a see if it can play out if it can't then we will file this claim with the insurance company they will assign special counsel under certain very limited circumstances they will sometimes all allow the town to request th town council handle it rather than have an additional expense where the special counsel has to get up to speed with the issues where we're dealing with a lengthy history that's gone over some period of two or three years i think that there's strategy yes they can but can i say something else or the dialogue i want to have with the patriots i want to go way beyond the particular lawsuit i mean they they are raging raising a whole series of issues on a ship of land historical events to all kinds of them and a lot of these are factual disagreements and i think the time would be better off if we can sort this these are negotiations at the summit i'll leave that to the the powers that be but let's get an what they're contentions are what the facts are what are all the details can be a lot of a lengthy cost of taxpayer dollars to already you know expanding account of just you know paying for attorney fees so i would like the board to have a discussion on how we want to because i just don't think it's a kneejerk reaction we're dealing with here we need to you know we could easily inter quite a cost here and this is not covered by any agreement with the kraft group so and discussed what the doctor  right i understand right obviously the case was just i don't know if kevin's even had time to call the insurance company and tell him that it was filed and i think that at least my personal view is to take the next two days and try to resolve some things and if necessary say to the insurance company we've been able to potentially settle it and we want you to reimburse us to be a lot cheaper than going through the whole thing i think that you know we could certainly put a dollar limit on on trying to resolve the issue but one of the things that mark that is that is concerning to me at least is they can't maybe it's factual but we hear that  march fifth saying we're not a bit or i didn't get to you so you're being asked for advice you don't have all the information to make the advice to do it so i'd like to i'd like to i'd like to i like our town council to factual report back to  us when you receive this march fifth letter from the town so we know we have we have some facts we we certainly know the date that it was supposedly written we know the date that it was probably time stamp to tell meeting would like to know would like to get a time stamp it was received in your office and if you could check that tomorrow notify the chair on the to fire the rest of the board but those things are important to us because frankly as as linda indicated and as i read earlier this evening the quotes from the town manager at the last meeting  he was quite forceful in his opinion and quite threatening as to if we allowed them to speak what would harm it would do to the town and as i said that evening to the patriots into the people in the audience that not being an attorney and not having town council here i've got a chief procurement officer saying that the world's going to fall down on the world's going to collapse if i let these people speak and i really have no choice at that point to say you know i just can't have you speak i'm between a rock and a hard place and i'm not an attorney so i asked them respectfully if they would allow me th e next day to call rod i talk to kevin i talk to rod and you know this when this march fifth letter got to who was pretty important in understanding your opinion and your recommendation to us and so i think it's important we know that whole series of letter there was one then there was one on march twenty first or twentieth or thereabouts there was a great deal of confusion and it was perhaps confusion between rod and i an inspector general and we didn't actually sort it out until this morning any discussion publicly about the active bid by anybody was not allowed bit or a no and in fact i asked rod this morning on a conference call with the chair and larry to ask the i g the very specific question the advice that they had given that we not allow public discussion did that matter whether the party with whom we were having the discussion was a bitter or wasn't a bitter and he made that inquiry and just this morning we received a clear indication and if i misspeak please correct me that the inspector general indicated that  the inability to have a public discussion was only limited to people who were bidders that's all it was limited to now we didn't know that till this morning we didn't have absolute clarification until this morning at ten ten thirty there so all prior representations whether somebody said they were better wrote they weren't a bit or didn't frankly matter because the presumption ones you couldn't have a public discussion with anybody and we thought that's what i thought that's what the i g had advised so whether a letter came out on march first or whatever the day was and said there was one bidding didn't matter to me until this morning and that's when the i g said doesn't matter if they're if they're not a bitter and they clearly are not a bitter and somebody wants to have a discussion with the board that's ok you know i think defining stretched out his hand raised would you come no microphone the place in that round but there's a second round all week i know the letter that's being referenced i have it here you may not have it because i haven't seen it either looks like mr colbert has it in his hand i think the consultant pr right in your question my point of order is i've heard the chair and the town council repeatedly refer to the patriots in our discussion over the last half hour can we identify the entities who were the better or not the better who owns the land two thousand on the land and who filed the lawsuit correctly or is it the patriots now we have that information town council do you want to respond to that craft organization that owns all of these companies together so that those at home know who we're talking about we've generally used the phrase craft organization where the patriots organization so people know someone tuning us in not having the background has no idea who f x p is so we will also be discussing later this evening and you will tell meeting war which will include an article on there as to whether or not the board of selectmen will include an article to allow town meeting to vote on eminent domain or not and so those of you that are interested in that you may want to stay for that piece on the next item on the agenda then is the pay plan and so i'd like to ask our consultant to join us again i want to i'm sorry are you going to be discussing the litigation in executive sessions well it's it wasn't on the agenda obviously it happened within the last forty eight hours and it was on and on and anticipated from that sense we do not have a full board here so i think we'll wait till we have a full board if jim were to arrive later tonight from his hearing paul even though it's not on the agenda since the lawsuit was just filed can we discuss that an executive session or not yes that was a slow yes well the the idea is to get public notice of events that occur so that they can participate the cop participate in  that's unforseen of at the attorney general allows you to take action on things that were not known what eight hours in advance to make it on the agenda so i take it this is not something that was known before forty eight hours because it just got filed so it fits that category the public's not prejudiced because they weren't wouldn't be entitle to participate anyway so that's how i got to yes i just had to think it through a link but when you asked me the question so i could get to the think it is very useful as well if you could consider avoiding one of the select better sort of women to be participant of that discussion as attorney dreads as mentioned earlier we have a number of issues before us but the issues that were the subject of to make sense to take to take a couple of days and try to do that notify our insurance council indicate to them we're trying to resolve this in hopes that if we can resolve it they would reimburse us lesser deductible for any cost that we incur i think that's we talked about going in if we're going executive session we'll talk some more about accounting you know mr chairman members were just a reminder that in the strong manager our so called charter there is a provision above the sun one of lawsuits and i don't happen to have it memorized but fight suffice to say there's language in here somewhere i know there is because this is come up before repetitively during a certain amount of claims against the town and i don't know where it is in here at the time i had but i know it involves consultation  between the time manager and the board of selectmen that of necessity would have to happen in executive session because it is a settlement of a lawsuit obviously with presumably the participation of tunnel council and if it's the board's pleasure to do that tonight we can certainly do it right i just wanted to affect you i just want to jump in no i don't know if this specific request can be structured that way or not because we've got to abide by the charter right well maybe after we finish the pay plan maybe while we talk about the town warrant one of your associates might pull that section of the town manager act so we can have that if we can get into executive session on the other issue that the most important point is if you could stepchild and i'm president of human resources services we are a private consulting firm that provides technical assistance to cities and towns in all areas of human resource management and also general management of the company has been in existence for more than fifteen years i personally have over twenty five years of experience and has provided technical assistance to cities and towns probably about two hundred two hundred fifty in massachusetts and we have done over five hundred assignments compensation classification is a big part of the company's services and i'd say it's about seventy five percent of our work that we do so we were delighted to be selected to do the study it's been a very comprehensive process with the town we were charged with  overall goal was to come up with a new plan that was not only externally equitable but internally equitable as well and to develop something that had a longer life span than what you currently have and to also develop something that was more in tune with the realities of the market so the current system it was a little bit disjointed and having a separate classification plan for management and then a separate for nine union and we consolidated the the two of them the percentages between steps were extensive so we made it more reasonable in line with the economy and other realities of what it is today and it also allows some growth for employees within the pay range so the one specific objective was to look at and analyze the labor market from comparable municipalities and compare fact fox mark to those communities we collected and analyzed data from about twelve or fifteen communities in the region that we thought were comparable to fox borrow in terms of a number of specific criteria and factors and they included not only population and location and income per capita but also the equalize valu per capita your form of government in your structure how you how you are you know structured the number of positions that you have and also the size of your budget and you know of course as we know that foxboro is a little bit unique having having the stadium and that has a direct impact on many municipal positions in the town which the communities  don't don't have to deal with that is unique to this community so anyway part of the process involved interviewing the employees and the supervisors and they were a wonderful  questionnaires and job descriptions were looked at and updated as needed and we have a ranking system that we used for the study that you know helps to develop the classification  plan the new salary schedule is going to allow some room for growth while ensuring affordability to the town that's really important to know because in your old plan the percentages  e a little bit generous between between the steps which now are more in line with what other communities are giving their there is in the final report also the  methodology for maintaining and updating this plan and also guidelines and you know regular economic issues they have to deal with from from one year to the next but this pay plan i believe would be good as long as it's maintained and updated with the cost of living it should last the town seven to ten years it is a very good system in place we initially placed employees we had to place them on the new pay plan and we have to transition them and we had to come up with a methodology to do that that was fair and equitable and cost effective for the town so the best way to do that was to place employees on the step closest to but not less than little bit but really you have to subtract from their cost what you would have given anyway for a cost of living so it's not an exorbitant amount of money to to implement this and in the next fiscal year we're recommending that the classification plan and the salary schedule be implemented for f y thirteen and i think you should all have copies of the plan right now but we did have copies ok good and one of the things that we recommend is sort of a phase two perhaps is to tie this to a performance system and that would be really important i've talked to kevin about it in fact i have a system that i typically use in a lot of communities and i always now recommend when i do these studies to tie it to performance so that you know you don't have to get a step increase or any movement within the range there has to be some some measurement some performance metric rather than having a longevity system which really is an old fashioned system and you know communities are getting away from that now and would recommend sort of a system we have goals and objectives for the management in the supervisory and then maybe like a uniform performance system you know basic criteria for the lower level jobs but really having benchmarks and countability you know in order to get that next step in your in your pay increase now there that having said one of the things i want to differentiate is how people move between the step you know for the steps for a minimum to maximum has to do more with the employee such as performance but the overall salary schedule should be updated to reflect the cola if not every year at least every other year and i know in the last few years  negligible you know one percent if that are very very small but you know i think in the coming years it's going to change i think the economy is starting to get a little bit better for the  so the classification plan they haven't in front of you has the grades and the groupings by grade indicate that there was a decision made either externally because of the market or internally that they should be grouped together in a particular grade and the then the sale reschedule shows the the hourly and then the annual and the weekly in one of the things that we recommend because this seems to be discrepancy as to the number of hours that a full time employee work some work thirty five some work forty and we're recommending that that that be standardized we're also recommending that any increases in pay be standardised as well on the annual basis probably july one everybody instead of anniversary dates and then that  way you can prepare better for the budget and that's not a constant administrative nightmare you know with was so many employees and so many different admin anniversary dates and so forth the i met with all the employees and we did you know have a meeting with them and we presented it to them and they had enough for today to review the plan and to offer some comment on employed and based on their input we went ahead and we made some some minor adjustments  again and we also met with you know the department heads and the supervisor in the same thing and we also met with the wage personnel board members and everybody seemed somewhat you know in my opinion they were very receptive to this to this plan and you know i think i haven't can talk a little bit about the cost owed for this you know if you want to year i had had a conversation with the town manager some members of the board of selectmen received phone calls from elected boards and those elected boards felt neglected that nobody talked to them and the employees  work with them in a very close way and kevin responded to me that the strong town manager act requires him to recommend the plan and the board of selectmen to approve it up or down so can you share what conversations you had with other boards and committees in the town that are elected by the citizens to get their input on their view of what their employees do in the value their employees provide and and how you include them in the dialogue sure well first of all everybody was we had an and i'm just trying to sure all of you know those boards and committees who are elected right some of them called individual board members that we myself right to register their complaint that they didn't feel respected in the process that nobody sought their input or she had the output with them right and so i'm just trying to understand how can i mean his view but you work with short two hundred towns sure well yeah we're in a town when you work with multiple elected boards and committees do you normally include them in your dialogue  when you have a strong town manager form of government like like you have it's really the department heads and the town manager that i'm dealing with in communities that do not have a town manager that might have a do want to say though that employees had an opportunity to fill out questionnaires and i think in some instances they did have maybe their elected boards review the question ears so that was an opportunity for them to have  is well but our job was to have a group interviews and we set it at the orientation and our proposal with the department has in the employees and the project manager for the study would be  and also i just want to say i worked closely with kevin and sandra herman chris christina in his office and also randy your finance director was  tremendous throughout this whole process and also lisa i think in so that was really the group there was sort of like a group of people that i worked with but every every employee in every supervisor department whe pay points have been done unfortunate a last time when it was done it was prior to the strong manager x l what was done is the pay plan was done it was presented to the wage board the wage board in turn presented it directly to town meeting and i think it along the way there was a recommendation for mad common the board of selectmen pro the norm for town meeting articles in this case we are now in a strong manager act which provides that the manager  proposes a paypal and in this case the pay plan is the one saying he prepared and then the board of selectmen adopts or not so we didn't really frankly think to go to the other boys who just wasn't it wasn't a disrespect it's just just wasn't even thought of it had never been done before and we didn't think to do it this time excuse me but i'm happy to do it and in fact set in motion today asking department heads to talk to their boards and tomorrow circle back with some of the others and ask them to talk to them so we're happy to include them there was no intent to slight anybody it's just frankly we didn't think of it i am so on to the the money side of this so the a couple the intent of this plan was to accomplish a number of goals first to be sure that our pay plan for and i knew pulleys is competitive compared to the other communities that were selected from the department of revenue databases comparable to us and that they have some a number of different statistics they use to determine comp ability and the reason you do that is because frankly the whole point of a wage plan is to keep good employees from leaving and basically the other towns are our competition and when we have a vacancy to be able to competitively recruit skilled people and again those other towns are our competition so that's what we compared to then the other part of the goal is to ensure internal fairness so that each position in it is paid you know according to the degree of responsibility and other traits that the job has compared other jobs inside the organization so we hire a professional to do that and the reason we hire an outside professional frankly is because no one in the organization specifically in a can do it without bias creeping in it's just not possible so we hire an outsider who's got no bias is completely objective and we have not i have not altered her recommendation in any way now there are some very distinct advantages to this new plan i want to make you aware of first it accomplishes all the goals that i just said secondly it replaces the current six step plan with six percent between steps with a ten step plan with two and a half percent between steps now the reason we did that is very specifically for the purpose for the following purpose currently the there is no merit system employees get a step for me a year basically on their anniversary date until they have hit step s which is somewhere around the sixtieth percentile or sold compared to other so our target communities we're not sure exactly what is those around there so the maximum that any of our employees can get paid is somewhere around the average for the target communities now what does that mean that means that really high speed employees that we have who have been with us for a while that we are very in very great danger of losing them because we're only paying the top they can earn is average second thing that we've noticed is that when we've done recruitments in the last couple years at least the ones that i've done for you we have been orderly unable to attract qualified candidates under the old pay plan and  fact i have come to you on three occasions with the deep you know redirect to the water superintendent he shouted director and asked you a very specific permission to use the new pay plan in order to recruit them and consequently we've had very good success i attracting very qualified candidates but only zero point zero plan we've had to refer problems in the lower ranks below the department head level what we found is that we cannot attract anybody at the opening wages invariably in order to get the person that we decided we want and we get to the point where we're negotiating salary we end up having to negotiate to give them a salary much higher on our pay scale of not even at the max just to match what they're currently getting getting were ever else they're working the base year we found as are our current pay plan is almost it's not competitive in a word the second problem with the current pay plan is it's an automatic pain creases no merit so let's say  two years ago we offered a three percent call so an employee who was not maxed out on step six got a three percent cola and they got a six percent step on top of that they get a nine percent raise that  step to the higher step completely and soley dependent upon a merit plan which will now be developed following hopeful adoption of this plan so what we've done is we've taken an automatic excessive pay increase step increase plan and replace that with a more modest plan where the employee can strive for a higher end goal ultimately the tenth which is a much better pay compared to our current piers but they've got to get there by completing a merit you know and it will gold plan in america reviewing all that's what's going to take a while to get there but the employees can strive the excellent employees can strive for better pay at the higher skilled so this is a very purposeful design that we've created known as incentive to simple is that pay for performance so what do we do about implementation to other notes this was presented to the employees and i don't want to speak for them but i will say that the large majority of the employees indorsed the plan and they are here and can certainly speak for themselves and say whatever it is they like to say to the board the wage and personnel board was also presented with the plan the one fortunately the meeting that their meeting had not been posted so they could not formally vote but they took a consensus of unanimous support for one of the ways implement and i'll tell you about that and i don't know if there's a wage board representative here or not there are a couple different ways that this could be implemented one way the normal way is that is sandy has already indicated we move everybody from the old plan to the new plan to the step that they now to the grade that they're supposed to be on and the step that they're close to but not less than the idea being nobody gets a pay cut to move on to the new plan but nobody necessarily gets a pay raise although then the coincident amount that it takes to move them on to the new plan and then what the hope is is that everybody falls in those first three four five steps so they've got room for professional growth over the next four five or six years as they go up the stepchild according to merit and indeed what we found is that by and large was the experience now there is a cost associated with just taking all the current employees and putting them on a new plan and the cost in this case is one hundred and thirty five thousand dollars now that is not giving any  to pay raise that is just moving on from the old plan to the new plan when we realized that the cost was one hundred thirty five thousand i didn't feel comfortable saying to the employees or to the board or to the town let's implement the plan right now in the current fiscal year at a cost of one hundred thirty five and on july first give it to the employees covered by a one one one call which is scheduled in a step that would have otherwise been due because the cost of out would have been another hundred six thousand dollars on top of the one thirty five and frankly that was excessive and i think we all knew that god would not meet with the reproval and even if it meant with the board's approval it would be unlikely to move the outcomes approval and ultimately town meeting approval because was what if everybody was placed on the new plan and in return for this plan which offers you know future professional growth everybody gave up their step that would have otherwise instead of the town spending one hundred six plus one hundred thirty five it's been just one hundred thirty five so the difference is the cost of the town is approximately twenty four thousand dollars to implement the stamp plan versus what we were going to do anyway as i've already budgeted everybody with me for k so i presented that to the employees and the employees were pretty enthusiastic i think is fair to say about doing at except there were twenty three about a quarter of the employees covered by this plan who are due to get a step next year and it's already budget so all they know is they look at the fiscal thirteen budget dad hopefully later tonight you're going to consider they know they were going to get a one one split and a six percent step or twenty three people they were about to have that they felt kind of bad because if you take the amount of money that they were going to get in july one the one was split and the six percent step that they were going to get on their anniversary date sometime during the fiscal year that adds up to a certain amount of money and when you compare just going on to the step plan instead there were twenty three people who lost collectively twenty nine thousand dollars approximately between them and so they felt pretty bad about that and so they put  right out there and said hey wait a minute we were going to get this so now you want us to take the good news of the paper land and take a heck of a pay cut and already implemented we don't think that's fair and i and i said to them look had it had the budget had we been had we done this earlier in the year been able to get it done we would never have written the budget and people wouldn't have the expectation of getting that six percent step in the new fiscal year and maybe the expectation would have been there but is there not because it's pretty tough when an employee see what they're going to get next year and it's in the budget and they know it's all said and it's budgeted it's balanced and they're ready to get it and then you say to them hey great news we got a new pay plan for you it's wonderful and you're going to love it and someday you're going to be able to get a lot more money but by the way it's going to cost you a lot of bill that you want to amend it and it's probably going to take you two or three years to catch up to where you would have been under the old plan that doesn't go over thought so what we did is i put that out there to the employees and i said look i can ask we can identify what the cost is to give everyone who was going to get a stamp under the old plan at six percent and give them a step on the new plan a one time step one step at two and a half under the new plan and then effective july one two thousand and thirteen everyone is on the merit plan and the only way they get a step is if they qualify under  will calculate what that costs a report that to the board and the board can look at implementation in one of two ways either implemented without that step are implemented with the steps so i put  that to the employees and the employees of the unit the majority of the employees felt that giving that two and a half step was the fair thing to do under the circumstances because now those people who were going to get a one one call plus a six percent step compared to implementation of the plan in a two and a half are still going to lose money there's no doubt about it they're still going to lose money but if they qualify for another two and a half on and on their anniversary and two thousand and thirteen due to merit then they will be approximately back where they would have been and that is a look for the fourteen and fifteen and sixteen you know if their performance is good they can grow professionally and get more pay so everybody felt that was a fairly reasonable compromise the cost to give that step to those twenty three people is twenty nine thousand dollars i get that number at twenty nine cost the town one hundred six thousand dollars if we implement the new plan it's going to cost the town one hundred thirty five thousand dollars if we implement the new plan and then you grant to those twenty three people who were going to get a stick six percent presented that to the wage and personnel board they also felt that the fair thing to do was to give that one time to and have percent step at the higher cost and while they can't formally recommend it because they're meeting wasn't posted that was the unit i can so are there any employees that would like to come forward and make a statement heard back on what the new job descriptions were and prior to the meeting where the results were put out nobody really knew what was in their job description where they fit and in our case where our people fell or fell with no real reorganization of the d p w with the water and highway department so they don't know what the fact that had what their descriptions looked like were the descriptions correct and their duties and where they fell so there was some consternation on that part and like i say there was no no feedback when it was finally the submitted he adopted by would have to look at it or consult with the people or to solicit information to see if it correct they did say at the meeting if you've got a question you can kind of see where you fall and where your description is and that's the kind that i have to say on the part of my people i former people i thank you i'll just do it answered liz question for the board's edification employees were asked to complete a questionnaire or job on it they were asked to comment on the draft job description but it is not the case that employees finalize their own job description that is the job of management and so the final job descriptions did not go back to the individual employees for their approval because that's entirely inappropriate they were proved finalized by the consult and will be available soon as they're delivered you know for for use in the future but it was never the intention that the final job description would go back to the employees who he or she can approve their own job i don't think i heard leo say that they needed to approve it i think what it indicated is that a closed loop process so that people understood where it was going and give any additional feedback it really reflect what they have what it is the important point was right there  it is not only a responsible thing for us to participate in the discussion on where their wages fall in their duties and how they are compensated we would certainly expect in the meet your two employees did you have comments on where that you thought they were properly that their job descriptions were probably where they vetted on the scale was proper were you satisfied with how the consultant placed them issues but consternation and what we saw where our health plan or landed and also we were concerned because gabby is one of the infamous twenty three or twenty four whatever and we certainly would have eight to go with the conversation that would reduce the amount that she was going to lose i can i can tell through the share bill and can tell you that those concerns were relayed to us it did a review of the plan to position and her placement on a higher grade than had been originally contemplated because of the comments that were made and that was that is reflected in this final draft that you have the may not have been reflected in the draft you saw earlier right now some of the employees did talk to their boards and i know the plan or talk to you guys i know other employees have talked to their boys but i have to admit we did not make a universal outreach to each elected board or reach a point of board but i know employees were going back to their boards because board members were participating in job description editing and you know we did that together and so it wasn't as perfect an effort  it is it could have been i'm happy to fix that there was no slight intended but we did fix that we did hear that concern so officially we would we would lobby for you folks to adopt this special conversation for those twenty three or  whatever to soften the impact and there's a great idea that we standardize the process because it is something so confusing you have to bring in a consultant to figure out what the hell is going on this is a problem with whatever you graydon great from the planning board i hear that you did make a change it may have made a position that we felt quite an equitable war so i would like to request that the board  implementation i to we have a chance to say what it is and so we concur with it i think it's very important that we are the aleck that board we went out and we hired the talent we came up with the criteria that we wanted we've got a capability i want to make sure that it's equitably traded thank you thank you going to i see any other hands  think one of the back you want to come up front please not true and so we had a number of employees who question where the grade was and so we have those employees talk directly to sandy because again you know we want an independent objective look at that not the town manager or anyone else so any review those requests and i believe three of them resulted out of probably some fifteen or sixteen requests three of them resulted in an adjustment all of the others it's just like we were just talking about that that was all circle didn't didn't didn't finish up so just to say well some people got it some people didn't that doesn't answer her question and maybe some others out there that you know took the time and went and  spoke with sandy and asked the questions and then between you two i guess or whoever came up with yeah we can bump this or we can't bump this but certainly circle back with the individual that took the time to reach out to you and you can see who can act i think that we we did i mean we did do that i mean we we had the questionnaires we had the interviews this was the the job description that you currently have are about four or five years old they're not they're not really super old job descriptions so the change is not sweeping and gigantic for a lot of the positions what was really the problem with this pay plan was you're comparing your salary schedule to the market that was the main issue that really needed to be corrected here and what we did was you know and then in the end we did have the meetings with the employees to to review the draft of the classification plan and the compensation plan if anybody had any comments they could contact me i'm not sure i i  got any other from the meeting that we just had i'm not sure i got a phone call or email to talk to you after the meeting and use that you will consider it but i never heard back so that's so when was that right you had that conversation we had you had a meeting  but we're not there but basically the way that we would take the input from the employees but it's ultimately our decision and our professional judgment in the end as to what the final will be and then that or the other thing and what happened is some when the communication didn't get back to for example one person and maybe several others out there that there might have been some confusion on that the intent was not to go back to the employee the intent was to take the information the consultant to decide if it was merited if so to make an adjustment and if not then the she would not make the judgment i think there was some confusion that the consultant would go back to each individual employee and give them an individual answer and that was never the intention well put up but let's let's look at this if you ask someone for feedback and you don't get back to them shame on you if you're asking people to give you feedback and you don't close the loop with something why would they keep giving you feedback and all shang lady is asking is i raised a question you told me to ask my questions my i raise my question don't go back to me you could have said you're wrong we're not going to change it you're you don't understand all the facts all she was asking for was a close look discussion but but she did ask me to call her call her back she just wanted to tell me her her input which i which i went back and i looked at in our feedback to the town is our final report that's ultimately our final feedback is our recommendation we did our analysis we did our thorough review of of the study and our you know it every the town received a draft report and then they received a final report we don't sit down with every single employee and go through print appeals process if you want to have an appeals process that's a whole different that's a whole different game you know it's a whole different process in that case it has to be a structure set in place that's uniform and they has to be  have jobs you know each other and people are intimidated supervisor sitting here sitting right here i just don't think it's fair i think the board should probably take this on the consideration have any of the thing is i feel some it's confrontational here all right and to avoid any intimidation they should be able to a two weeks not much type of people to be able to reach out to their board or our board or elected whatever board you  in my the question was how long do the employees have to plan to review the plan how much time and and the other question i mean you know while who's turned over in the town other we need to have specifics not just general comments so what is a lot i think town wide in the last year is probably four or five out of how many out of about eighty well  sixty something full time that are covered by the plan because the plan also covers some or seasonal workers and part timers and folks like that where obviously that's one hundred percent turnover so of the permanent employees that are covered by the sixty odd probably four or property i think it i think mark in answer the question you're talking about people who leave town service not to retirement but leave to go to another job well that's that's my next question is that as for if you really and this is directed to me and you just think you've lost a people  the last eight eight people last two years i mean i know a lot of people do actually call interviews did you do any of those with these people so yes i am just trying to give him some i i did with all of them some say in if i fire them there's no point in my asking why you're leaving so if it was for some other reason then yes i did an exit interview and there was a variety of reasons and i'm not going to represent to the board you know that people leaving to go to other towns for better pay than epidemic that's not the case but we have had it happen and you know a few instances i would say three or four years something like that not a not a big problem one of the comment that i just want to make  think mark is a valid point for you folks to adopt this plan you need to have some level the sure that the people who are covered by it want you to do so so if you haven't heard from people  this is one of the very few occasions when i will ask employees to talk to board members directly instead of going through the chain of command that they're supposed to and tell you frankly do they do they like this adult now one cautionary no it is not possible to build a paypal land and have one hundred percent of the people covered by it happy because if we gave you a paper plan were one hundred percent of the people covered by it were happy because they were all getting a big raise then i would be giving you a skewed pay plan which is not what i intend to do and it's not what this consultant was instructed to do so it is likely you will hear from people who are unhappy disproportionately to the people who are happy and hearing the happy ones go i just i just mention that mark because i think it is perfectly reasonable for the board to want some level of assurance that the people covered by this embrace it you know because why would you adopt it if the people covered by i don't have a by think that's appropriate but i and i would encourage employers to you know to contact you in do that i don't think is anything wrong with that in this one limited instance or voice their concerns but just be prepared for that reality that not everyone got what they thought i deserved and there's no way we can do that because we had a fair number of appeals and they were very very thoroughly scrubbed and they were not merited and at the end of the day the report is and must be the consultants independent report to me in to you it is not my report grayson adopted but it has to be the consultants work back to us as her professional effort and so some people are going to be happy with it you know as an employer i understand that there's no doubt about it but i still i understand this place last week i was on the edge and i like i like to do a little my interviewing mark let me just comment that is that if we were doing this at a company as opposed to a municipality you know you're not going to go back to all the employees but what bothers me is the you know this process took way too long we were talking about this at a prior town meeting we never got into the town meeting it's extended over a period of time when we when we don't close the loop when employees raise questions and we don't meet with the elected boards and commissions and take their input the process seems flawed and so i need extra time so that those boards and committees those elected folks are able to give us their input as some of them did over the last week by calling us and giving their view like to ask that you that you and us reach out to those boards and  committees and make sure that their their opinions are heard it isn't a popularity contest so you can't put it out in you know in every way employed as well it's just not going to work that way and it's our responsibility to have comfort that the that the consultant is done the process properly she's done the analysis properly and the from a theory standpoint you know it's difficult when someone throws out well we've had lots of turnover and we want we want most people to be on step air hopefully everyone fits into steps one through five well i don't want hopefully i want ok one hundred percent fit in steps through foot one through whatever it might be i don't want to talk general our general comments and so we get in a habit here sometimes with the with the with discussions where people throw things and maybe it sticks to the wall of maybe a dozen or so when someone says to me we have lots of turnover and hopefully everyone falls into steps one through five i want to i want data i want i want to make sure that's correct and i want to know what the philosophy is do we want to be in the fiftieth prince percentile with the communities around us were do we think because of the unique need to fox perhaps we need to be bed in the fiftieth percentile and where do our employees fit today in that scale of things and so to me i'm more interested in understanding the theory behind it and making sure that the lives we're close with employees that raise questions and that we met with the elected boards and commissions and i want to have individual conversation with employees because i'm not sure that there's anybody on the board but i'll speak for myself that understands that just but to kill a job of any of the sixty employees that are in the study so if you don't understand what they do and you haven't seen the job description is the feedback makes it kind of difficult that's why we hired you you had those discussions you looked at the job they did you look at the job descriptions you compare them to fifteen other towns you know you're in a much better position to make that evaluation than way what i have to be comfortable for as a board member is that you were not unduly influenced by anybody and that those that had a chance to speak were spotted too and those who should have had a chance to speak were asked and i think we need to do some work there before i'd be prepared to do approve it but i'm not i'll say to the employees here you know you can reach out but i don't know that i can have a very intelligent conversation about your job because i don't know what you do day in and day out that's not my job as a board member to know what you do day in and day out that's why we have supervisors and managers and directors and a town manager everyone else i just want to answer a couple of the concerns clearly i think the you know i didn't come here tonight expecting that the board is going to take a lot frankly like spec but you would want some time to prove this so a couple things will do over the next couple weeks first we'll reach out to those other boards that have not been dialogue with because i don't i know many were but i don't know which ones so we'll redo that we'll let the employees speak as they choose to speak we'll answer a couple questions i i can tell you that one hundred percent of the employees landed on step one through six no one is higher than a six the other thing i can tell you that the top step is that the ninetieth percentile now not for every single job because it's a target for the overall results so what we want is that if an employee years from now through the merest system ends up at that top step ten the theory is that that's somebody that we've kept a long time they're very valuable they' higher step they're not being paid the highest in the target area and probably not the second but they'd be around the third of the fourth highest out of the fifteen towns we surveyed that's the theory and the idea is if this person has done that well in our system for many years this is  person we want to hang on to the idea is if we payment at ninetieth percentile they won't leave they'll essential if we trap them with good pay that's the whole idea all their employees who aren't don't perform frankly at the high level won't get to that point and you know average performance is ok there's nothing wrong with that but what the system says is that you perform on average and you stay probably about where you are and you get your koehler every year but you don't move up in the steps so those answers we can give you because those were features of design and seen and i weren't sure how much depth you want to get into but one thing i would give the board i have this chart that shows everybody where they fall where they were w a goal and it's confusing and i apologize that that's the way it is but it's got names on it so i'll take the names off because that's not fair to the people involved but the positions will still be on here so you'll be able to g with it in some cases you know who it is but but that's the best i can do is to take the names off but you see where everybody was and where they fell and what the pay just man is let me ask you do you want this because i was really reluctant just go through the bull more time then we'll come back to you with any questions you know but i'm just glad that we're not going to vote on anything tonight i think or you know i wanted to go with gordon suggestion that you know we we give the other boards the opportunity to get direct feedback from their department heads and make sure that they have the ability to comment because i know we did get something back from the planning board i don't haven't seen anything from any other elected board so that was one thing i am curious about the percentile and how you know just i guess our average salary i guess where are we following the is it really do you look at the bottom of the range to see where that falls in the percentile as a starting point as opposed to the top do you have a look at that or we'll look at the data or an order always and basically comes down to the policy decision town manager of how he wants to have it structured what i think he wants to do is have a very competitive pay play and where the average falls in the middle but the ninetieth percentile is at the top so that way those people who are very high performers have the opportunity to reach that ninety ninety eight percent time what we tried was to create a system where steps three four five six the middle of the right or about average for the target any specific position with a so the top is not average the whole plan in general compared to those fifteen town that's worst of three four five six are those are about the fiftieth percentile and then and that's why everybody is now so everybody is basically nobody's above six so everybody is basically at average for the so now for our workforce to move above average for the communities we surveyed it's going to have to be on merit from here on out except for the potential for that one time two and a half step if you choose to implement implement that way so in a given year for example with a two and a half percent step on merit it means that employees could get some range of one to four you just have to balance it within landing on whatever that dollar amount is for two two and a half percent for the entire employee base is that correct so that again ok so you've got ten employees and two and a half percent of their raises is one hundred thousand dollars you can give people those ten employees one can get one percent want to get five percent want to get zero percent as long as it comes within that hundred thousand to talk about specific employees but the broad picture of of the environment and where it went where the economy's been going down year after year for the last three or four years when this study came out with the idea to do the study my thought process was it was good to we found a percentage within there they tried to match everybody in there you saw if they were a little above it or a little below it yeah people that were below it because we wanted to bring them up right to be comparable the people that we in your report you called it a red line circle or red circle where they're not for fairness they're not penalize for making too much out of that from that percentage and they're not brought back down because nobody going on to the new plan is about as is above six so by definition nobody was put into a new grade where their current pe was above step ten because that would have been a red circle and we're a long ways from anything like that ok i don't want to be redundant but i did get a fair amount of calls some of the people termed it that you know we're  balancing the budget on the backs of the employees other people thought some departments were getting a big bump and they were getting nothing so the feedback was a little all over their head and you know this i think you had that meeting even before we got the report so i had nothing to base this on and i wasn't understanding it was presented to the people and saying we need to act quickly it's got to go to one committee then it's got to go to the selectmen and here's your options i was not prepared to come close to approving this because i think there's a lot of anxiety out there still granted there's some people that are going to probably not be happy and other people are going to be thrilled and you know that dialogue needs to happen between you guys to you know the department heads and them and hopefully that gets resolved but in the future when there's something this is new to people's livelihoods that's when our phones rings and i i'm surprised you know i know people are asked to come here tonight to support it which puts them in a precarious situation that people here that probably out so we're not embarrassing people we're not putting them in uncomfortable situations or and we get the information and all we asked for this information you know it has dragged we asked for it last week and we were said we were going to get it till it was final if this is the final and  presented with so many uncertainties i don't want to do this again this is the manner this is seeing details me her final report she will not be editing this and again it is the consultants report  i just want to just yeah i just i'm glad you mentioned that about employees being here because what i say the employees into supporting the very question that mark asked was if employees didn't speak to you and say one way or the other and you know i said i'm going to tell you what to say but i'm going to tell you should say something whether you like it or you don't because of you as a board don't hear from the people that are covered by this that they're that they supported it or they think it's flawed then it puts you in a heck of a position when i ask you to adopt it you have the benefit with unions of knowing that when you are asked to adopt a union contract they have ratified it it does not come to you until late have voted to ratify it so you know they support it they may not like and not done year after year after year right so to give this with a few weeks left knowing it has to you know i don't think the advisory committees looked at this i couldn't figure out what this is going to cost the town in fiscal year two thirteen to fourteen to fifteen if you're saying it's one hundred thirty five thousand where does that fit into the budget we haven't even got to that with the advisory committee you know that's a couple thousand dollars per sixty five employees yes to come in at and i think this is the last minute and probably no fault of yours because your contract was what it was but as a board in a process to bring this so close to the end and same do or die in that's what we're struggling with and i'm biting my tongue on a lot of stuff just so it's not embarrassing anybody i don't want to be put through this kind of a chicken or egg problem jim you know there's just so many things we can get done in a given volume of time and this is when it got done and i've got other things that are coming at you a very fast and furious understood but this is very personal to people's savings livelihoods town budget there's very few things that influence an employee other than their salary to this extent this quick that's all i'm saying what jim wasn't this going to be discussed at the december town meeting at one point  the rest of the question then you can clarify them what i want to say is we didn't waste any five ok we went through the same exact thing it was some of us that were unhappy with our grades there were some of us that i personally got a raise last we most of us went through this five years ago and most of us have as some of us have the same issues so it's nothing new for us that we've gone through this you know but we have to think big picture you know give up something now for the future and that's what that's what i'm doing that's why i voted you know the option because we  i understand that but and he said a very eloquently and a stand it but for what you're saying this five people saying they disagree with you that's all i'm saying it's coming at the last minute from the private sector it's not that easy we don't get steps you know the private sector don't doesn't get the opportunity to budget every year because it's been going down when times are good it's way up here so i'm trying to figure it out and listening to the people that it was presented to if they can't figure it out and they're telling us their problems something's missing either at the department level or department head level the town manager that's all i'm saying and we've got a few weeks to figure it out it's too late to do it comfortably and now it's going to have to go through very painfully with the advisory committee and because we can vote on it tonight and we've got two more meetings left right that's all i'm saying you know i'm a great with you or not but from what i'm hearing there's a lot of employees that disagree with her or are not on the same page but  know i guess what i'm saying is when people are calling me with steps and numbers i don't want to see that list it's not my job so the fact that they're calling us with concerns and questions something's broken and to try to figure out at this table is not the right place to do it that's all i'm saying and my point jim was you know we were going to review this in december it's now may and we're just getting it so we've been very frustrated it's taken this long but let's hear from the other employee and  ok sandy you want to make some comments just very quickly because i have to get going but what i'd like to tell you is that this study was done the same way that it's been done in hundreds of other places with a very solid methodology ok that has been tested in used in many communities so the methodology in the process is not flawed at all number two you're never going to make everybody happy in these studies you're never going to make everybody happy even even when you make everybody happy you still not going to make them happy because ten weeks later they'll forget about it and they'll be unhappy again ok tell me and i write you're not going to make them happy so so what i have to say is what my experience has been with these studies is a third are going to be very unhappy a third are going to be ecstatic and the other third falls right in the middle ok and with regard to the  lateness of this i apologize to the board and to the town completely kevin can verify this i had a horrible tragedy in my family my father died ok and it took months for me to catch up and kevin was such a gentleman and he came to my father's funeral and i really respect him for that the employees of this town a very good this is a good plan for them i would i would urge you to keep the politics out of it and to keep it a professional process you have a professional town manager with a professional town and i would i would go forward professionally you're not going to be able to make people happy a lot of times when employees do is they try to get as much as they can get the say gee you know i really i been here ten years i should have a couple or steps or you know my friend you know she works really hard you know you wanted an objective study this is my recommendation we did i do diligence we did our analysis this is my recommendation it is proposed you can adopt it one hundred percent you can adopt it eighty percent you can adopt it seventy percent but i am not going to be swayed or influenced to change it because it is a solid report ok part two things one on the job descriptions that were prepared no one has seen them to see if they are appropriate or not to on the question of two and a half percent do i understand that our department has got a lot of money that's two and a half percent gets allocated however they want or is it just two percent per person i got to give us the answer the question i got on that for two and a half percent there are twenty three people fit know their merit increase is a product of the merit system which is individually determined for each employee it's not a pool of money that we say here's how scale from one step to another step is a two and a half percent increment ok to get that two and a half percent increment the employee has to have a successful marriage evaluation i will let me just let me just clarify one thing for you so let's say that were it were a year from today and we're looking at the budget and let's just say for instance that tween the koehler adjustment this being proposed and twenty seven people moving up a step when you add all that up in the budget report it says we need a hundred twenty five thousand if the town can only afford one hundred thousand dollars then you're going to have to do a limit eight someone in order to promote someone or you're going to have to do because if you do the evaluations first and you say you know you're now entitle to a step increase and if when you add up all the dollars for the step increases in the cola if there's a not enough money in the budget to make that happen then the taliban is you've got to find a different way of funding that increase because ultimately tom meeting may say no we don't have that and then you got to work your way backwards again well you know you're right now you're right larry what you typically do for these systems is you establish an amount of money that you think will be sufficient based on past years with the realization that you never going to hit it exactly because at the time you're funding it in may you haven't done the reviews until two months later so it's always a little bit of an adjustment i had a comment not a question and that was that about a year ago i appeared in front of this board and with the discussion of fair pay for fair work and happy to be here today  knowing exactly where i fall as far as step but seeing that the grade that was really inappropriate for my position has at least been put i believe on the correct grade so i'm pleased that  professional who was here i think did a thorough and very analytical job of looking at it taking my input i haven't seen my job description back i don't know exactly where my page is but i believe that a fair process was followed i didn't get moved back with feedback and i'm not speaking for anyone else i'm speaking for myself and my position and interview that i had in my opportunity to say here are the things that my position now does that it didn't do twenty years ago or ten years ago whenever it was last looked at i feel like my position has been evaluated and i had a chance to give important whether everything i gave thank you very much what i'd like to suggest to the board is the town meeting warrant we have that we have the tommy warren and the discussion on the budget the town meeting more needs to get printed so it's important that tonight we go through and decide what's in and what's out so i'd like to do that next then we come back to if you recall that is the discussion we had at the ad com dealt with again it dealt with terminology so in some in some areas you hear we have afforded thousand dollar surplus in town and what should we do with it well that starts with the assumption that you're raising taxes to an after cent if you if you don't start with that assumption you had a deficit not a surplus so the discussion at the ad com was what what was the board's position on whether or not you would raise taxes would you raise it just enough to cover woods in the budget would you raise it the two and a half if you raise that two and a half what would you do with that extra four hundred thousand i don't think it's because of the late hour i think it's more important in less you disagree kevin to get through the warrant so that you can get that printed so i think this chairman of the board needs to go through the warrant and decide if any of these articles are owed i think it's easier rather than vot simply go through me because i suspect that's probably only going to be one controversial article in him the rest are probably all in and it just might make your life a little simpler to do it that way the second thing is i need to know tonight what your decision is on the budget you don't need to decide what to do with the four hundred forty thousand tax revenue that i propose we not raise you don't have to make any decisions on that tonight but there is a column in the warrant budget it can be a different budget it can be the pro proposed budget with some changes it can be zeroes to be you know to be announced that tom meeting but whatever it is you want you need to tell me down so because this has to get into the print can't article number two town reports no issues article number three reports of committees no issues no article number four is the operating budget so of course we'll put that all put that in there although we'll agree on an amount to get a little bit ok we then have after that article five which is a c i p budget obviously that will stay in their article six is a land taking the see if the hour and a half away i missed the discussion earlier and i don't know what you that guys had discussed but i do know i got a packet and it's a lawsuit and hesitant to talk about this at all so it puts me in a disadvantage because if i say yes or if i say against me or the town if it has a been lifted or if it's still there i don't want to say a word about this at all i don't think i should know you got to decide if it's in or out again i don't say anything but you have to make a vote whether it's in or out i don't know if i have to do that  question is one of the times that is three options vote to move forward vote to take it off or vote no action to give you a little time to work it out if it would take it off maybe that gives up some of our negotiating maybe it's a bad thing because it in and it's more i don't know that that's what i'm asking you from your legal perspective in the work that you're doing as of today as of yesterday has up until this time if the board makes a gesture of conciliation or right by removing this article then perhaps it will result in good things happening through your efforts correct i had a i will report to the board that i think there is no jeopardy on the town in taking that action because at any time if you decide the circumstances warrant it you can call a special put this article on it within thirty days affect th vote and so on and one other thing i want the board we were i cannot speak for the want to sue a commission they requested this article and i can tell you that i spoke to the chairman earlier tonight i will go somewhat on a limb here commission if this were all to be worked out and this were to be unnecessary i think everyone would be shall i say overjoyed that so it is no further question no further comments i'd like to call the question so we can keep moving and the the motion on the table was to exclude article six from the towne warrant all those in favor motion carries five zero the next article and i won't use the numbers anymore because this would become six in a seven but is the personnel by law this is this is the study just for the study that's correct thirteen revolving funds fourteen fun qualified opap trust fifteen fund stabilization sixteen reduce borrowing from boyd library project this is the one that would be needed depending upon what decision you make on the on the money that we're recommending not be taxed you can take that into different you can give that if you decide you want to give that back to the taxpayers you can do it a few different ways right one of the ways is to reduce the amount that we would otherwise raise for example this would facilitate that so did you also say you had two accounts that had some excess money that you were the next article so you could use you could leave these in and that but there's not excess money in capital for the library project correct that would have to come from these right ok eighteen highway funds and your comments on that  night leasing of town property for the landfill site that's for the solar project ok grant of conservation restriction on town property so if and next one is public way discontinu an act relative to public employees serving the armed forces of the united states of america did you get an explanation of what this is when you're on your way gone why your way doing your military what i was doing was then the next one is the parking by law you know we've people get impatient at tom meeting with making amendments on the floor we don't have the final changes let's and he had no family here so i guess you're in agreement and way ok i'm happy i did you know i did you say you needed a printed i didn't yeah you need to know if you don't tell me tonight your column is going to be blank for what so the budget in the in the warrant because that you've got to go to the printer and i necessarily part of the budget i mean you could theoretically i get all that all you want to use it we can well you could you know there are lots of suggestions about ways to use that money for up for very valid purposes that doesn't happen to be something i'm recommending to you but that doesn't mean that there were lots of good ideas in that so you might decide you want to put something in this budget that's not presently in it and so the the only thing you need to do it out for thirty is if you wanted to perspective i think that we should be trying to minimize the taxes and we shouldn't be looking for ways to raise it up to two and a half percent then figure out how to spend the extra four hundred thousand i think it's important enough that we not go over what is in the in the ok that was my only question or any comments i'm just a question so we could be would need to make a decision tonight on the four forty surplus or would have you want to call it is if you wanted to spend some of it in the budget otherwise you don't have any decision we need to make on there saying i personally don't want to add any more now about you know here's what it would save the taxpayer on average if you do it by reducing debt here's what it would save if you did it in a one year lump sum and any other ideas that anybody has would like to give you those numbers those are not those a motion to approve the budget estimated by the t if there's a motion in a second for the tape recorder the motion was made by lorraine and seconded by linda any discussion just for the record is fifty nine million two hundred twenty six thousand three hundred fifty is what the top managers recommendation is six but if it's going to change where you are a number of them so close second you do need one other vote from the board and that is on the capital budget if you feel comfortable with concurring with the committee's recommendations and i would love to have a vote that we can print and want if you're not comfortable with it you can make down on the floor tom meeting and we can present something to you later it starts to limit jim and i and randy are all in the camp a budget committee i do know if the going person is here no there's john but we can certainly give you any information you want but i don't want to have you tied up for an hour if you want to go into it and let's deal with the most you can't really do mine because that's part of the war so i'm doing the wiring is a whole  what you're voting for inclusion of all the articles except that one yes but we want to make sure that we can do a separate vote on whether we endorse the capital plan on what your plan would still be so you jim do you want to give a sixty second update on the capital plan and see if the board's willing to approve it i will give my sixty seconds up to randy only because it was saturday morning and i had still spending from getting here so you could give us an the everybody after the media so you had all the that the data yes the the capital budget resents approximately three point two million dollars in capital for for several items million dollars in items for items in the in the fire department refurbishment of the a ladder truck which should get to say that ten years a replacement of engine twenty one the  these contained breathing apparatus replacements were at the end of end of life in fifteen years as well as replaceable squad one for items within the within the highway department of various equipment  just the acceptance of the chapter ninety state allocation based on the number that this year's number but it will be different and we found a get get the number from a mast apartment of transportation that's why you have specific article to accept at a highway funds there's one hundred  forty eight thousand dollars in additional roads money hundred thousand being funded for meals tax forty eight thousand dollars remainder from that mill street vote that you recall that came from neil sachs but there was a remainder when the final bills were paid because it was specifically voted for mill street it was appropriate to bring it back and then to allocate it in general for roads just to be consistent with with intent so in essence about three quarters million water enterprise had you know various infrastructure capital projects this year consistent with prior year four hundred sixty thousand in the sewer enterprise and used to appropriate their annual assessment to for the current upgrades to the current plan plant over man the fire department as you recall the intent given the increased revenue source that we're getting there because of the higher rates the intent is that all of that capital be funded from ambulance receipts and not out of the other funding sources that we traditionally bring to be receipts is a reserved account and you actually need the funds in the account to appropriate by the day of time meeting so they'll have a substantial amount of this in the account at that point in time but there's three hundred sixty one thousand that they won't have  account but they'll actually have it within three to four months afterwards so if you if you notice in the in the article if you if you got it this is a use of free cash that's cough term free cash loan and the intent of that is true is truly just to be a loan the intent is not to spend the free cash it's it's to ultimately use the ambulance receipts when they come in a few months later and the next special revote ambulance recedes as the funding source in the free cash drops out in the free cash will actually never be spent because the that funding is associated with the replacement of engine twenty one which has a ten month lead time so by the time the bidding is is completed in the vehicle is ready for delivery in march of april of two thousand and thirteen that's the only point we can actually make a payment you campaign advance so by that time we would have like we've had a special we would have changed the funding source so it's a loan that enables us to sign a contract because without the funding ok is there a motion to support the capital plan so there's a motion is there a second is a motion second then a discussion all those in favor i suppose motion carries five zero on the minutes with poly not being here there's a couple of changes if you may we can do that next meeting there's a request to accept exceptions of service incentive grant of two thousand dollars from the executive office of elder affairs to be used to fund a temporary position to help develop an to the motions because the motion was made by mark and seconded by linda thank you re new appointment of randy scholars and bill you can go to a five year term expiring on april first two thousand and seventeen to the industrial to the board of registrars for the term ending for four fifty motion by mark second second by linda any discussion all those in favor i posed the motion carries five zero we have committee him showing your age all those in favor oppose motion carriers there's a request for a class one auto license for seanie automotive doing business s and e yamaha to be located at fifty three washington street so moved as a motion by mark a second violin or a in any further discussion all in favor oppose motion carries five zero discussion all in favor i suppose motion carries five zero there's an invitation by eagle scout court of honor for george clip and ski for april fourteenth two thousand and twelve i'll be attending lorraine ill attend ok excellent there is a review of upcoming committee appointments for possible scheduling of interviews with the board of selectmen this is just an advisory to you to let you know that this is coming you know everything is coming like a freight train in the next month unfortunately is the way it is every year so we just wanted you folks to be aware if you've done different things in past years in terms of interview nine of you so if you if you're not going to do interviews no problem if you do want to do in my suggestion is circle the positions the people whatever tournaments do sandy and then we can get them scheduled ok each person to do that directly with  you don't need the executive session now for either of them for the real estate for the real property negotiations and the labor it just was an update and given the hour i can come back to you i will tell i sent you a quick note and i was driving in here was brought to my attention before the meeting closes that person came back and maybe we could recognize absent to come and speak whoever they want to speak sure go ahead oh and it was larry thomas six norton st i'm also vice chairman of the advisory committee and i got here about five seven tonight and there were a number of people including myself who were in the hall and we were denied access to the meeting and  i can't i can't think of anything more unthinkable than citizens showing up to an open meeting and being denied access to the meeting i mean it was my understanding that if that ever happen capacity at that moment you must adjourn the meeting and either move to a larger facility or convene at some other time when you can accommodate the people that are there right and we have the enforcement officer here who would continually talk to myself indicating that we were ok we asked people to leave if they if they were here if they were here for a later article and they wanted to step out because if we would have to shut the meeting down if that was the case a number of people left we had the police chief the fire chief and i was not told by the enforcement officer at any time that anyone was prohibited from entering the entry room in fact he continually told me that we were ok so i specifically told the enforcement officer he's only doing his job right i notify the police chief and i think you're executive secretary as they came in at this is a clear violation of the open meeting none of them related to the chairman larry so we made the announcement very quickly at seven o'clock you know it at least once tonight when people came into the room for the for the boys you actually counted people coming in we counted all evening larry mark was counting my doings i don't so how is it that at the beginning of the meeting when it was clearly jammed in here you never thought to look at all the people standing in the no we did little in which larry we did think to look leave the enforcement officer the police chief in the fire chief indicated they were going to allow an aha higher than capacity in the room because we had that door open for emergency purposes we had the police chief in the fire chief here so they allowed us to go over the legal limit i spoke to them and several times at one point linda handed me a note told anyone on the board that there were people waiting in the hall to and you know i'm running a meeting in here i can't see who's out in the hallway i have to rely on them at one point linda handed me and know that if we was over the capacity they should let you know and the media would come to know what i said to them was if i told what i said to them larry was that if they believe the room exceeds capacity and we need to shut the meeting down to notify me immediately will shut the meeting down that they did not do that and at one point if you watch the tape linda handed me a note i stepped out asked mark to run the meeting for a few minutes and i want to around the officer tomorrow because we had the police chief was it just me either it was a number of people so they wanted to commit we even knew and during that time at least one news photographer came into the room you know that's another thing that citizens waiting out there in the room is with i think we can we can only apologise i didn't know nobody told me nobody told the tommy you know and told myself we discussed it larry before the meeting started we talked about it during the meeting mark was keeping count linda was keeping count at one point lind asked me to go out and speak to the foresman office and i did and never did they tell us that they were prohibited people from entering the room if they had we would have done what we said before the meeting started and that is we would shut the meeting down and reschedule it for a different day so the town manager look into it and talk to the police chief the fire chief and the enforcement officer have a report for us at the next meeting people need to understand how serious it is i think the board does we heard clearly and it's a town manager to us we knew and we were prepared we had talked about of this afternoon right potentially having to shut the meeting down if we had a big enough crowd so it was teed up and you know we knew it might be a problem and we were waiting to hear if it was and we're never arrives so we just yeah that's yes that's a diversion of an issue i guess some people some people stepped outside in order to provide a seat for someone that was here on so not everybody has been so happy so when we look out this door and we saw people standing there i happen to know some of those folks who got up out of their seat to go stand there so that the room would be ok but there was  in i was asked why what are you here for you know i mean kevin when when you come to a meeting you don't you know come for just one agenda item and then be forced to leave and you know i shouldn't have to tower so we can have that discussion that we should also be in an executive session two weeks from time correct what was that again is that assuming that is going to be not is i don't think i don't even know what this means but i'll be happy i moved the schedule an executive session that i next meeting to discuss tragedy with respect to litigation to authorize c against the town so basically i'm asking for a meeting about the lawsuit so if it's settled we don't have to do with them right a second i there's a motion in a second disc of discussion ok so you know what