tonight we're going to meet with three law firms and as we pursue naming a new town council at seven fifteen we're going to meet with the firm of lewis and costco and faff attorney patrick costello  anticipated by the chair which may be discussed at the meeting at least forty eight hours prior to the meeting not all items listed may in fact be discussed and other items not listed may also be brought up for discussion to the extent permitted by law to do w  approximately twelve questions with an introduction as well and based on the board of selectmen submit all of the questions below and i have created this interview script and will be assigning the questions to each of you based on the ones that you selected so it will work that they'll do a five minute opening statement below open it up welcome them to a statement allow them to do a five minute opening statement and then you'll each one twenty one twenty two right across the hall that's the sign few years back and it was great to be here then and it's great to be back here again now and we're pleased that the board had given us a level of consideration that you have let me tell you about our firm with me tonight as as mr kagan not worked for the city of boston corporation counsel's office back in the mid one nine hundred eighty s right out of law school and since that period of time which is thirty years ago now sad to say but true  primary focus that's the area of law that we have practiced from then up to the present time and i can tell you that as of this day our firm practices approximately ninety percent in the field of municipal law him on to become a spirit court judge in the commonwealth and doug and i spoke at that point time about perhaps teaming up to consolidate our practices both with somewhat distinct areas of expertise and practice but it was a nice behalf of cities and towns their offices and employees whether directly for the city or town or through one of the insurance companies that provided coverage on liability policies for cities and towns i brought with time our practices of merging nicely we have continued to focus on the high quality personalized level of legal representation that we feel is appropriate and that clients like yourselves expect other communities in various capacities i'm pleased to say i have had the pleasure of working with foxborough recently i have worked on a couple of the towns capital projects most recently the boyd library project i worked with and his committee in that matter to bring that project to final closure when near the tail end contractor gave us some issues and i'm pleased to say i think the project was brought to a very successful closure due to the great work of your committee and the dedication that they they exhibited in that project so we know foxboro doug is currently representing the town and a high level litigation matter that i believe you he has met with you folks on in the past and so we know what type of a community foxborough is one of the things i emphasize whenever i interview for a town council position is that it's not my objective or our objective to be council for as many communities as we possibly can we have nine experienced lawyers working in our office seven out of the nine have fifteen or more years of relevant experience working in municipal law six of the nine have over twenty years of experience and they've worked with us throughout that period of time with doug and his predecessor firm we pride ourselves on the level of experience we provide to our clients and we pride ourselves on the personalized attention we give our clients if and when we are appointed time counsel for foxborough the people sitting at the table here today are the people you folks can expect to have handle your legal fees as ninety ninety five percent of the time when we commit to representing your community we want to commit the level of experience and expertise that we set forth for you when our proposal down the road our goal is to establish long term relationships with communities again not it's more the quality of practice rather than the quantity of misspell is that we represent that's been our driving principle we're perfectly comfortable with we we don't need to go around pronouncing the fact that we interview at every town council slot that opens up we don't we don't need to be telling everyone we represent twenty five cities and towns that come with nine lawyers we don't want that type of a burden a workload a partner so if we don't think we could deliver the type of product that you folks are entitled to under those circumstances we believe that we have a very nice niche in the municipal law market right now i provide now with kate who's a great new addition to our firm as of just a month ago we provide the level of expertise in every relevant area of law that you folks are going to need and doug's experience and his reputation as a litigator on behalf of cities and towns is in my view on parallel if we are town council you don't have to hire us as special counsel for the various types of subnet use of practice that we currently work with the town we would be providing that to you is in and of packages town council noted cade's recently been affiliated with us in fact when we submitted our initial proposal to the issue she and i had spoken but we had not made final arrangements she is one of the foremost experts in the commonwealth and the areas of point where she wanted to do more communicable work and then the firm was willing to allow her to do or that the firm had she thus reached out to several folks she had worked with in the past myself included we talked about what my objectives were going forward what her objectives where we thought this would be an ideal fit and it is an ideal fit because although i have multiple hats i can honestly say the one area that i didn't feel i had the highest level of experience in the past was in the environmental area the conservation law she supplements and augments our expertise our professional staff ideally in that area and we are so glad to have her on board so that we can make a presentation like this to you folks and tell you  lly that we feel we can provide the level of service and attention personalized attention that you folks expect from a council that you deserve quite frankly so that being said we're here where it will answer perceive what this reform is propose a primary target a service to counsel what special qualities and experiences does this individual individual possess to differentiate them from the other finalist firms under consideration tonight and i'll be happy to answer that question i would be your primary attorney and i can tell you that the quality i feel best qualifies me to serve in that role is thirty years of experience representing cities and towns as i noted initially for the first five years of my legal practice i worked for the city of boston as an assistant corporation counsel during that period of time i was introduced to a pretty broad spectrum of municipal law areas we i did all of the work for the zoning board of appeals in terms of drafting its decisions i ultimately became the city conveyancer i was in charge of all of boston's rail statements actions negotiated the deals drew up the agreements in that regard and every one of us as doug will attest were schooled in tort law we learned all about the tort claims act potholes defects in public roadways we we all handle our share of those cases most significant in my view about that experience was the fact that i was hired two months after passing the bar exam and i think for the first six months of my career there i became an expert in drafting motions to continue trials because i was and the disk a slowed of trials that were coming fast and furious page for nine years again fabulous training for me it exposed me to all aspects of municipal law i can tell you want to quickly that i seen more town meeting issues than i can recount and it never surprises me there's always something new it comes up but while i was a came he as i said i was the principal attorney for nine towns i was their primary town council i coordinated all the work for those communities whenever work down to other associates and not do more management myself rather than the actual law work and i was i believe thirty nine or forty years old without time and i felt i was too young to be doing that i want to continue practicing law so i  my partnership with doug and since that time i've continued to be very active not only in the feel of general town council special town council special council for communities and assessing tax collection issues i represent several communities on all of the capital improvement projects such as i do here in foxboro for your building needs i work with the sharon standing building committee and all of their projects marblehead i'm going to system town council in marblehead i work with that town on capital projects and on school are not education but school legal matters so i think that thirty years of experience in the trenches were hands on involvement in all ever worked with communities would qualify me to be an exceptional town council and if i can add as patrick back up when i was a complement of page i was a partner there as well i was there for a total of almost sixteen years so i'm not a new attorney although i am new to this f i left because my opposing counsel i do a lot of litigation as well as general land use municipal municipal finance and opposing counsel asked me to join martha kalina i did but they weaned off of the municipal work and when i was a couple of paid i had seven towns that i was fully responsible for another sixty that i did land use for and pretty much every other town that we were presented i did the conservation work because amongst land use attorneys even those who do a lot of zoning conservation is not one of their areas and that's one of my specialty areas so i could supplement any anything that pat might be busy it can't handle by handling that whether it's land use or something else because of my general municipal background know as you know the tar foxboro is a unique community among small towns in massachusetts in that it's a thriving residential community the few highly concentrated and dominant business interests  very good question and the answer is yes we would feel very comfortable representing a town in that capacity and we have done so in the past as time consul for the town of mashpee i first became council there ten years ago and at that time  a sleepy cape cod community and since that time the development down there was burgeoning i don't know how familiar you are there my parents live there matthew commons i'll say no more than that i mean that is a an economic development project that has really put the town in a completely different level in terms of its tax base and its economic development plan as you know it's a multiple a multi use development but it has provided stability in the towns tax base to allow it to grow and raise revenues without placing an undue burden on the residential property owners within the town mashpee also has very secluded and very affluent provide a unique situation for that town and what we have been able to do internationally is balance the revenues that are derived from these unique niche neighborhoods or the centralised mashpee commons development i also did a lot of work over the years for the town of build which has a very concentrated high tech area along the route three corridor i still work for the assessors and build regard to all of their work and we  also the community development advisor for the town his role is to draw high tech industries into town and it's difficult i mean building has a very high has a split tax rate so the  commercial tax rate was thirty three dollars from two thousand which was very high but nonetheless because of its unique location much as you folks here with route one corridor it has been able to attract businesses and we've worked hard on strategies policies to maintain the attractiveness of the town to keep the economic economic development alive while at the same time trying to maintain that balance between commercial and residential tax rate so i think it's it's a daunting challenge but i think you folks have a great skill sets that out for would be able to bring to foxborough in the city of product and there was a massive international internationally owned project to build a large power plant the due to problems and politics that had caught on for broad city's lawyers needed experts in the area hyatt us to initially spoken pat about negotiating with them then when it collapsed we were hired to fight the fight in federal court then again the politics changed and a new mayor came in who wanted to see the case resolved and so we went from fighting and i think this is what this board in this this town needs is the ability to say we're going to push back when we need to push back but we can also negotiate when we can negotiate but we're not you know we can fight the fight when necessary and so we were i had to fight the fight and then we transitioned into negotiating and with so i can't get too deep in the details because it's they'll be negotiated but we went from the fighting  and pushing back to this international company that has on a range of you know downtown boston firms and we fought the fight and now we're negotiating a very attractive resolution for the city and so that's an example where we were hired to do just that sort of work that you talk about and we bought we brought to the table which we would be able to bring for this town is both that we'll fight but we'll negotiate and you know from a position to borrow from international war politics of negotiate with from so welcome thank you thank you thank you for applying for the position please describe any experiences you have firm has had with regard to representing our presenting to any of the represented the standing building committee as i said i have gotten calls of various times from bill and others in the committee when issues would come up whether it's with initially drafting a contract for a project there was a public safety project t years ago that went very smoothly because i didn't hear much from any folks on the committee after we got the contracts done which is great and quite frankly with regard to the the board library project i worked with the committee up front putting together the contracts and then things went off and running and it was well over a year two years i didn't hear anything until the bitter end and that's good i mean i mean the non need if you will to call lawyers is a good thing for the town generally because it means things are going smoothly but i have worked with that committee in foxborough and i know doug has met with the board on some of the geisha matters of the time which we really your initial five minutes but in an effort to eliminate the perception of divided loyalties we feel compelled to ask if you affirm has ever or been associated with any major business entity located in  no i can i think we can say unequivocally that we have not represented any businesses within town are any residents for that matter in town i don't fall ever representing anyone regarding the matter and fox for  a special counsel i have as i indicated i have done a lot of work full time sharing on their building projects school projects i have represented a very interesting case recently with one  nearby bridgewater had a little political feud going on about a year or so ago and i was retained by the town to sort that mess in court and we were very successful on behalf of the town there other than that i can think of through our insurance representation we are appointed counsel from many communities in all parts states as claims arise but i can't off the top of my head think of any cases in the general area i did do some work for a period of time from mansfield economic development committee that was just it was an advisory committee that did have the right retained counsel and its task was to review potential economic development initiatives and to advise the board of we're back to you ok the board of selectmen has spent a significant amount of time dealing with the prince for a liquor license is adjudicating violations and evaluating the perceived need for additional licenses as a catalyst for economic development within the appeal beyond that we haven't had any particular role in drafting legit specific legislation a special axe relative to liquor licenses i have represented private parties in the city of boston relative to some salt licensing issues that they had both common victual or sand liquor license issues and that i represented these parties before the a b c see after city of boston  commission decision but i can't say we have very comfortable with the a b c c i know the ropes know the way things work and dealing with liquor licenses generally is something that is part and parcel of being a town council here you're always going to have three or four issues a year per town come up our objective is to to advise communities to make the proper decisions up front and work with them up front so that we of a board did not agree with a legal decision and wanted to dispute appeal or litigate the decision even though in your professional opinion it would not be in the best interests of the town how would you respond very pertinent questions something that arises far more frequently than selectman may think as doug alluded to earlier here i think in the final analysis our position will always be based on what we feel is in the best interest of the town as a whole you folks are a policy making board you establish the policies of the town you're not going to agree on everything you probably don't very few boards do with any degree of unanimity however it's town councils are all not to side with any particular position or viewpoint that the selectmen or other board members may have it's our role to carry out policies that the majority of the board dubs and that's what we will endeavor to do should we render opinions  our opinions are based on our experience and our knowledge of the law that is not something that is certainly something that can be shaded if it's a grey area by the the needs are concerns of the town however on a pure legal analysis basis i feel an obligation ethically and otherwise to adhere to my position on legal issues advise the board accordingly then work with the board to try to find the most appropriate way to implement a proper policy position regarding that legal opinion and that being said i mean and as that says it comes up because one you know a great and not every every use you certainly is black and white with the right answer or wrong years of working in local government i have found without doubt that the old saying you can't please all the people all the time as is true and it's kind of come to play in this business but as i said our objective is always to make sure of the t comes out ahead of the game at the end of the day howard others characterize your firm for example when they described you as an aggressive litigator would you describe you as being a solid advisor keeps the town out of litigation or a combination of both that often leads to an equitable cost effective solution please provid example to guys i don't know and i think that's we've already somewhat touched on that situation but you know i think you have to weigh each circumstance the the pros and cons of the facts involved in each circumstance and we i can assure you we have a stellar reputation as a hard litigating firm i think doug's reputation as a litigator is paramount the attorneys we have working under us in our league asian specialty have over twenty years of experience they're very seasoned re now litigators when we charge with litigating case we will go to full bore and go to all ends to achieve the result we want yet on the other hand i do think the board needs to have sound practical advice on matters that could preclude litigation much of what during gaijin is for lack of a better term business oriented involves money it involves permits and involves development rights to private property owners private individuals in your community have a stake in you folks in the ultimate arbiters or your boards within the town planning so in conservation they are the ultimate arbiters as to whether or not those projects get to go forward we have to weigh the the legal ramifications of all the issues we have to weigh the financial ramifications of issues when we ultimately advise boards on what course of action and the financial ramifications boards or the insurance companies is to say we're specialize we're small we don't have the huge overhead that bigger firms have and so we can do the fight officially and we understand whether it's insurance carrier or  madison projects with the towns and we've never had a building problem you know but we've always had good results or as good as we can given the cases presented to us so we recognize and i think that to answer the question finally what  say they'd say that forever knows what it's doing his life has a very good reputation for the niche we don't do a lot of other things in the in the world of law but what we do we're known as being very effective in getting it done and i m yeah i do i feel very strongly is the town council that it's very useful for me to meet with your town boards and officers on a regular basis just to get a sense as to what's going on with them in mashpee for example i have a practice of going down there once a month to town hall and however long it may take i just charge them for the actual time in the building and the town manager will schedule meetings with me amongst various town offices boards in the courtroom obviously  provides a vehicle whereby the town officers and employees can sit down with an attorney ask the questions they have on the table right now to get answers that will hopefully lead them into the right direction to avoid major complications and maybe major litigation expense later on i would recommend an approach like that for force what i think would work very well in this community it's been a big success and it's a you get that face time with a lawyer and be able to discussion issues before they become bigger problems not every time wants it but the towns that do it really enjoy it and get a lot out of it and we like to be able to provide that kind of information to them i've done that with some of the towns that i represent as well judy what level of involvement does your firm typically have with respect to the preparation of town meeting warrant and of calls by law changes in the process of preparing for a town meeting it varies by community however i will say that invariably the manager autonomy in a straight or in his staff or her staff will take the first crack at drafting a warrant and they will send them to us in some instances such as just last week i was on a mashpee for my monthly meeting i met with two offices the assessors and the economic development edi i see that they have down there both of which wanted to have warrants drafted for the upcoming in your town meeting we discussed the subject matter of the warrants and that they were looking at drafting i get back to my office two days later i have warrants drafted up sent them to them they will then submit them to the town manager or she will incorporate them into the draft warrant it will go from there other communities will draft warrants entirely on their own and send them to me and say pout review as to legal content and form i will do that i will comment i will we will typically exchange maybe one or two red line versions back and forth with my comments on it refine the warrants to the point where they are ready for publication we will absolutely play a role in drafting bylaws or charter amendments to the extent of their required for inclusion in a warrant many times the communities will defer to us to provide an initial draft of such articles but i can tell you that everything from the budget to a local option adoption statutes zoning conservation commission by alarm emmons all run through the office and we provide input on it will vary though depending on the community as to what what level they want us to provide that in the end the initial phase i just have it as one of president clarification before they even go to the advisory committee on are you saying after it's been vetted by the advisory committee as i said communities vary in terms of their approach i personally think it might be advisable to run them through coun first not for policy or content per se but to make sure that the language is an appropriate legal form before it when's its way through your advisory committee process and so forth making changes based on substance or legal form after it's already received some substantive review by committee such as the advisory committee often gets hairy sometimes people why you changing this now well council told us we should he advised us to  that your firm provides ongoing training programs for tom boards there's an additional charge for this service was included in your service proposal if included how many training programs are included we do all kinds of training programs  we don't have any set rule we would provide routine training proposals our projects are programs for you as the town and manager of the board would request i don't see that being an issue  have we present on a routine basis programs on subject matter such as the open meeting law public records statute ethics many communities can get those programs as well from state agencies that provide them and they opt to do that but i would be more than happy to consider providing those types of programs for you folks at no cost if if if it's reasonable and we can do it and kate is carli president conservation commissions she presents educational programs on a regular basis on environmental land use issues we want our clients to benefit from knowledge and we would be willing to provide you with those programs and some of them do our conflicts open meeting law  municipal finance i write articles on them as well but i've often suggested to client towns that i represent that i think about and just rather than you come to the annual environmental conference i'll come to you once you get a couple of other towns in the area the last time i did this was all the got together in one of the of the four towns and i went out and talked to this huge auditorium of people about municipal finance and how to draft an effective by law and then we also one of the other principals and the offices that we also come  out to meet with you regina ryan has does a great deal of color risk risk management of going out to boards and towns to talk about employment discrimination practices and to check to see that yeah that that is also in it and it's helpful because the law changes all the time and you know despite your best efforts to stay on top of it and it's a it's a it's like a lot of what we're talking about doing is spending a little time up front and can avoid problems do saying you know you really need to change this current employment practice whatever it is and by doing that you avoid stepping into a problem with ends up being a suit or some other cla m thank you legal costs legal costs are a major concern for all communities would type of cost savings initiatives have you used in other towns to manage legal costs will not sacrifice in the quad the work well i can tell you unequivocally that for every town of ticket we've taken over it's town council and its legal costs have gone down the full year i think there are a couple things that can be done that should be done to contain legal costs number one this should be a direct communication between town council and town offices such as the town manager to authorize the use of town council one of the situations that can certainly lead to runaway legal costs is when you have town boards and offices at their whim calling council up and saying do this for me do that advise me on this often times it can be competing interests to which it's not pleasant from my perspective but i certainly think a gatekeeper approach whereby the town manager or another  designee of the board would would authorize pre authorized the use of town council and no one should be able to go to your town council for opinions are other tasks without getting authorization from the board as noted earlier i do i am a firm believer after doing this for twenty five years that that one day a month for a long it takes two hours some months six hours eight hours another month coming down  meeting face to face with a myriad of town offices is very helpful i find you can accomplish a lot more and if and a half hour face to face meeting then you can in five or six email or phone exchanges going back and forth and i think that has resulted in great savings for the communities i've worked with that have utilize that approach and as i said to right from the outset i mean our goal and objective is to establish a long term relationship with the time we want to be your counsel we want to do the job for you do it well we want to do a cost effectively because we understand the stress the towns around financially and i cannot as i said i can honestly say if you check with the town managers and i've noticed  ask him to compare their legal rights with us from where they were before and you're going to hear unanimously that they were they were reduced and it's just the way we do business there are a lot of things we can do and you folks of the policy establish board i'll listen to whatever you're suggesting to and certainly follow them through but i think a couple simple steps like you know proper management of and access to counsel trying to nip things in the bottom front rather than allow them to drag on and become major issues are probably of the most significant preventative measures you can adopt so just just heard you correctly all of the towns that you firm has gone into they've all all the legal bills have gone down town council to now yes absolutely and saying you're  on the board before we before you before us well we have done our basic research we understand the nature and the types of issues that the town is facing many of them and come up in questions on the board tonight so i think we have a clear understanding of that  we know what foxboro is all about i consider to be a very challenging community to work for as i'm sure you folks do given as was noted earlier the mix between the commercial industrial developments that are on your  exist right now and the residential core that you have i find that always presents challenges in a unique way and in a positive way i think it gives you options that a lot of communities don't have we would be very to serve as town council for foxborough we as i said we have had the pleasure of the honor of working with you in a special council capacity we would certainly look forward to continuing that in the future if we could but if we were time council we could do it located in the same off with you know yes we have one office and let me say this if you're going to see different models come before you we are a firm one firm with lawyers all working under the same leadership doing the same thing i live is twenty five minutes of the road douglas in brooklyn kate lives in hopkinton so when we all work in boston but where local and we have no problem coming one of the key factors i do like sort of give you the the the roundabout response understand the process tonight we're going to allow you five minutes to go forward to give an opening statement and then the board will ask you a series of questions and then we'll all you know  just give you a little bit of an overview of my firm and how we operate we're a general practice firm with thirty eight thirty attorneys about forty sixty percent of our practice is in the public sector that consists of we represent over one hundred school committee surat the state we have a major practice and special education and we also service town council and now in communities we also do a fair amount of responsible attorney and so to speak the town council who works with the community we also have a backup person or persons in this case it would be warren and david who would be available if vacations sickness someone's involved in a trial or something like that and the idea is that we have someone who is dedicated to the town who you are familiar with who is familiar with the issues in the town and the people in the town it is not a revolving door and there is a commitment to work in a partnership as as counsel that provides individual attention and commitment there is that back up so that you're sure there's always someone there to answer a call of if someone is tied up somehow and at the same time we have that individual connection we also have the backing of the firm and the way that works is we have eleven attorneys who are a substantial part of their practices in the town council municipal area that group meets once a month and reviews what's going on in the various towns what are the upcoming issues what kinds of things are happening so we hope to stay ahead of the curve in terms of the municipal law practice knowing what's going on and being able  to to stay ahead of head of issues year was on from one community to another in that approach from time to time we might have someone who worked on in special areas i mean an example is for instance dave is someone who works in the liquor licensing area so we may have people who would come in and handles specific areas like that or if we had a specific project that someone had spent a lot of time on rather than to reinvent the wheel we might you might see that person you're going to see one or two people we're going to get to know who we're going to get to know the town and we think that provides the best service to the town and while still providing the background and the resources of the of the whole f the one of the things we try an episode is service if we understand how the town government works we understand that if you've got a meeting tonight and issue was arises at two o'clock in the afternoon many times in and the answer on  what's the legal structure of that we provide we have you all have smartphones we all have cell phones we all have e mail but we get back and get getting answers to questions if for some reason i mean an example is have might have time when we get a call in the evening from someone who something's come up in a meeting where you know it's a choice of moving in one direction or another direction we're able to respond to that and in the event that  is open from eight to eight at least every day so in the event something would happen that you know if we're at a meeting with a cell phone turned off or something there's always someone who can get an answer and gets to get some resources for you so  we make sure that we we provide that kind of service so i said we understand you know the kinds of things that are going to come up i think we cover the gamut if you look at the resumes of the group of lawyers  who do this work there is i think as much experience as there isn't any firm varying from different kinds of communities with all kinds of different issues and we bring all of that to beer when we represent a town we're a big believer in for venit of work getting out ahead of an issue so it doesn't get away from us our approach is to provide options when  s questions we greatly respect the fact that we're not decision makers we don't make policy but we think we have a what our approach is is to make sure that we provide a range of  options and we're able to lay out because we've had the experience with a lot of these things that seldom that we run into something that we have had some contact with before where we can kind of give a reasonable prediction of how things might go and look ahead and give you an idea of how things what unfold in different different areas we think that's important we also think with our experience we bring some judgment to that so we when we provide pros and cons that comes with a lot of experience and and judgment and allows for better decisions to be made on legal issues and hopefully to avoid getting into difficulties down the road we try to find solutions and the problem solvers we don't look for fights but on the other hand if it's necessary to take a firm position on an issue we know how to do that you'll see that we've been involved in litigation and all of the courts up and down the appellate ladder and we think we have the capability to handle those those kinds of issues and to represent the town well and get good results when it's necessary to go to the mat  issue so we don't look for those kinds of things but we're able to handle them when and if they come up and it's necessary to deal with those kinds of issues so i don't know where i am in my five minutes but hopefully have given you an overview and a little bit of an idea of how we approach these things so you can get a feel for it just like to lean in for a second and also on for size our experience with the the commercial residential dichotomy that exists in any town you see from the resume of towns that we represent their their their towns and they're very much approach the same position that the foxboro is in there are good blend of suburban towns that have a vibrant growth opportunity while maintaining good residential standards so we we want to be assure you that we're well aware of that having the experience that we had   and things that are unique to each of those towns so when you put that together i think that's a solid experience in addition to that i'm very committed and when i sit here today and make the commitment to you that i will do my pass for the town be responsive you can expect me to be responsible responsible and to do my best to provide the best services towns it's been my career something i take a great deal of pride in we don't run out and file applications at every opportunity for towns and when we look at a town like foxboro we're serious about making a commitment to that town and developing a relationship with them that will be long term and something that we hope both the town and i for him can be proud of th town is also home to a logical tronics business that is based in europe and who is expanding its operation here in foxboro with that understanding as your firm have a representative municipality with similar economic considerations if not how would you envision representing the in the vision of elected town officials in the go shooting and economic development strategy that balances the quality of life of our residents well adding to the tax base of the community but let me if i could just continue with the thought  i had earlier and if i could digress for a moment it was many years ago i worked in a youth organization and he sponsored and if one point became clear that you know he's boston was known for the airport and we had t shirts that were drafted up east boston is not an airport fox bar was not a stadium foxborough it's a good doing one town that happens to host a large commercial interest that we know has a special relationship here  in foxboro and so we would expect to be able to to help manage that or at least give advice on one sensible management of that relationship we have in the town of nor planning issues related to that the important aspect of all of this is a relationship that's based on our respect it's based on the progress of and can be based on mutual benefit we want to see a win win situation i would expect us like would like to see that so i think that our experience in all of those towns whether again in the town of danvers hang  as an example the shipyard project and which i did the legal work when you know we brought together a residential development we had the state with the ferry terminal and the transportation center that was there we had some retail development and we were able to bring all that together a big portion of the land was owned by the state we had to negotiate with the region of capital planning in order to do some land swaps to make is it has to be planned out there has to be cooperation between the parties he has to be recognition not only of the opportunities that the project presents for the individual developers but also the impacts it has on the town and what the long term combination is to to make that work you know we've been able to manage those kind of projects you know a lot of the towns that we  improvements contributions to the towns you know the demands on the fire department as an example of the police department so those are things we've dealt with every one of them is different and all of them bring together different components but  direct experience very recently with your board but i don't know that we have had other newspaper his behavior now maybe four or five years ago we had to view her work with the school committee which i didn't get it but i think that's the your proposal in an effort to eliminate the perception of divided loyalties we feel compelled to ask if your firm has ever represented have been associated with any major business entity located in foxboro or if you represent any of the trying to think i think it was a small company we consider a part of our private practice is a big portion of that is employment warren i think you may have been a couple of companies are moving one that we've done some employment cases for break in the couldn't think of the names of them at the moment  my partner bought manager adi represented the town of mansour field for quite a few years he does not work we don't represent mansfield now i think probably it's been four or five years since we did that  you may know the board of selectmen has spent a significant amount of time dealing with the transfer of a little licenses adjudicating violations and evaluating the perceived need for additional license says that a towel as a catalyst for economic development in the town please piece as part of the hingham shipyard development the town hit its cap on liquor licenses which believe it or not there was always an available local licensing board and at that point we had to do special legislation that was not only the special legislation but it had to be tailored so that it fit the needs there so it was specific to the area we were able to control you know the number of figured out how many of them should be for pouring licenses how many of them should be a beer and wine license we were able to work that through one of the components so that is before you can your local representative can get that through and really move it through the legislative process you have to get the a b c c b s you know they won't object to it second kill it so we work through that process  and we're able to tailor that so that we got the licenses we needed in the areas where we needed them there was also at the same time the hingham you know if you're familiar with the derby shops there were four restaurants  opened there all of which were above the limit we managed to get a package of licenses that fit there were specific to that area so that the whole issue was did not become a free for all for a little licenses if it met the  to review the town manager act that you have here in foxboro just from two thousand and four that gives broad powers to town manager but what's clear from the act is that the sly can retain a good deal of authority and most importantly the authority over licensing and it is in anytown one of the most critical functions of the selectmen story in supervising the licensing function and in particular liquor licens manage the process because you don't have to go through that to go through a town meeting first of all because we got a press for home rule legislation and then that was was really tailored is a process of the planning board was involved in select more evolved in and the developer was involved and so we had a sense of what that would look like and it was really an issue of kind of had an idea what kind of establishment you're going to have and you didn't you know end up with a ho place where you were looking for a high end restaurant so it was a matter of kind of working that through and making sure you had the all right you know it obviously a little license a selectman issue them and they determine whether it's a public need  they have that control but in addition of that with the numbers figured out and the variety of licenses that it worked out pretty well in terms of there wasn't a scratch scramble for licenses where the board was in a position of you know having to settle disputes over who got the new licenses and and so forth because of the planning i must say as well mr gray that in my the course of my my experience here became quite familiar with the foxboro alcohol rules and regulations could it be improved sure i think that we can probably help refine some aspects to it but i think all in all it's very clear that here in fargo you're out front on being able to least nice to meet both of you if post with a situation where members of a board did not agree with a legal decision and wanted to dispute appeal or litigate the decision even though in your professional opinion it would not be in the best interests of the town how would you respond i could take this on having taken on an ok ok well of course we'd always it would always tell you what we think and what we think the obstacles are going forward legally and fill you in completely on on where we think the case was going but at the end of the day you are in charge and you're the bosses and if you wanted to appeal something we would be happy to take it to court for you and fight as hard as we could to win it for you and get there is all you are looking for know you would never not know what we could foresee in terms of again we wouldn't step across the wind of pushing for one decision all of it would be well aware of the options costs i mean we try and lay all of that out however it's going to i think the only time you know we would not go in a direction like that if there was an ethical issue involved then we we might have to step back but sometimes it's necessary to take positions that are long shots but you you have to do that and i drop this to make sure you understand it's a large truck and then you have to make the call that's that's the way we see it yeah i think i can echo that in that when when you come into conflict  there is there is a lots of moving parts i think the experience that you want in your town council is to be able to look in a crystal ball and try to tell you where you know what the end game is here now the are still nevertheless might be other motives in play and other reasons why rationales for for the for the conflict of the litigation to continue and that may serve the purposes of itself but so long as you  know what the cost benefit is of continuing that conflict then we're comfortable in being able to give you that advice and to be able to you know restively defend the board's position in the event that the decision  how would other up how would others characterize your firm for example would they describe us an aggressive litigator or would they describe you as being a solid advisor who keeps the talent out of litigation or a combination of both that often leads to an ad it will cost well no one would describe us as a bit aggressive litigator all by itself but that's for sure i think we would be described as and i think they try to describe to you and our way of our process and i think this is a way we're viewed as problem solvers and when we can't solve a problem by working with people and it has to get to litigation we're able to put our heels down on the ground in and fight the fight that needs to be fought and do a good job at it and i think that's the way we're perceived in the community in terms of developers attorneys that we we've worked with them and that if we get to a point where i think recognize that being reasonable trying to solve a problem but we're it's also recognize if we get to the point where we're going to have a fight over something we're going to be able to bring the power of the skill that's necessary to the to the table in order to do that and achieve results and i think you know we've in our materials as you can see some of the litigation that we've had and more of what was necessary we feel that we can obtain the results i a i have a real time example and there is very recently i'm representing the town of danvers who put on a very expensive addition on to the high school which included a high end field house floor  that was of the the latest and greatest quality of material well don't you know that it turned out that the this tree this the bleacher stands that they had planned for that floor did not match the w capability of the material used in the floor there was an obvious error that had occurred among the architects contractors and supplier's each of them pointing the finger at one another leaving the town a danvers with a mismatched floor it took two years no less than three separate mediations involving fifteen parties to expert firms all of which you know  engaged in our office at various times in order to try to figure this out and with a little bit of arm twisting a little bit of a little bit of pressuring and pleading we managed to get the town is a brand new gym field house floor that is of the right quality and substance that was necessary to complete this project it was a half a million dollar success story that's a good example of the work that we do the persistence that we have and the just never say no type of attitude when it comes to getting something done there was no need for litigation it was all done without a court so i'm very proud of changes in process of preparing for town meeting think we would have as much involvement is you would like us to have were happy to review one articles ahead of time and and byelaws whatever your looking for we've done it i mean i'm in the unique position where i work for all of the towns in the city about to borrow so i get different i get to see what the way different towns do different things in the city of out of growth so we have a lot to offer in terms of ways other towns are doing their bylaws if that's something you're looking for or if you have specific worn article we've probably done that type of thing for another city or town so we're happy to be as involved as you would like us to be board and you know that's obviously a big piece of the puzzle so what i think we would expect is that we would look at that warrant at the time that the selectmen is in the process of of issuing it so that if there's i mean you know sometimes you run into it someone intent something in the language doesn't quite do what they they thought or you have to have issues like that so all mean we understand town meetings of one or two times a year where you get to do some of this and it's very important that it be in the proper form that everyone understands it so we would expect before it gets to the advisory committee or before we would have one look at that old warrant i'm from top to bottom and didn't been able to comment on it edited your comments back to the to the board as a starting point for the war sometimes they might step you know if it's a zoning out of what might start with a planning board but when at all so that's the come together i think it's one the role of town council really should be to run that whole thing through and and make sure there are no  by the selectmen sometimes by the moderator those are all important parts of the process the last thing i world we want to see is anyone get to town meeting and be turning around saying just doesn't do what we thought it was going to do or  you know and that could happen with a warrant you have to be careful that it's always broad enough to handle the options that develop as you go through the various boards some when you get to the floor of town meeting when we understand that process and we  get less people in the world want to be surprised the town meeting by a question that turns out you can't do what you thought you want a worse yet the year or two later when the you know you're looking to accomplish the task and realizing that the authorization is not there to really make sure you're able to to look down the line as far as you want to go with that you know the intent of that article thank you there's your firm provide ongoing training programs for tom boards is an additional charge for this service isn't included in your service proposal if included how many training programs are included i would say we do as much as within reason is needed  generally right now i'm planning one for hanover where we're going to do an open meeting and ethics together that will be for be done for all of the volunteer board members and  staff we try and do those every two or three years so you make sure you catch the people you know as boards turn over a new people come in and sometimes special things come up you might have an issue with public records where you really need to sit down it tends to be more of a staff issue but where would come in of a morning and sit down for an hour with the head department heads to layout where things can go wrong and public records what is public what is and what your process is to produce them and that's something we would do as part of our services with no no charge to that thank you ok the next question is regarding legal costs where there are major legal costs are a major concern for our communities what type of cost saving initiatives have used in other towns to manage the legal costs while not sacrificing the quality of the work i think that we've laid out as a page in our thing that lays out all of the steps we take but i think that the kind of debate all of you with i think it's about communication we're happy to come in sometimes we come in quarterly and give a report not only of the status of things but what's looking like it's go be expensive to make the board aware of what costs might be involved in things that the biggest thing is having that communication you find out bills are very clear so you can see exactly what was going on for  what the billing was so this never a question of you know how come so much time or what was that time for and so it's really a matter of a good working relationship with the board in terms of understanding what the issues are and we're very aware of cost i think one of the things we bring to the table is we're very efficient because we've been through a lot of these things before where it's very seldom that we have to sit down and reinvent the wheel or look at an issue for the first time so we can get a lot of things running and be effective in that from a class standpoint that way but i think a good example of efficiency is i do a lot of ethics work in the office for all of the towns and now to borrow and so i could be kicking around three different i think there's two in india that are coming from the different partners so chip designer i might have looked at it for another town and it's going to save you just a lot of time and money in terms of they all know to come to me because i'm looking at the ethics issues for our great great we just we have probably just a little over five minutes left but then the questions  that a lot in the office so i don't think we have anything specific to ask in the way of this so again it's it's something that we don't look at every town and just send these in willy nilly we think we are good match foxborough we think would be an interesting place for us to represent in terms of what we do wouldn and and would make a major commitment to to do it right for correct yes ok so it's just it's one for and one well there we were up we i mean that's what they were were convenient to hear you know if we are in the traffic and there isn't a snowstorm and there isn't someone ok we're back for the last town council interview with your planning board and bill guest maybe two thousand and six or seven something in that range also had an office in town here believe it or not the remax building first and subsequently at the ambulance building next door so i know foxboro well i used to live in mansfield at that and i've been a doing a lender's practice now for about thirty years and work with communities all across the state from the berkshires to the islands and i'm lisa mead and i'm just going to make one correction our name is now platinum to cross comedian talent jay has been with us for about seven years and acting as a partner and we actually just finally did the legal work to have him be on the letterhead as well and that aim to try to provide a new kind of service which i think jail go into a little bit and my background beyond that was i was mayor of the city of new report and so i have served in the public some are on your side of the table and we try to make sure that we provide those kinds of services that really are helpful and not just straightly lancers to our clients my name's jay talisman i live in nearby norfolk neighboring norfolk i started my municipal  down on martha's vineyard morgan for the river firm of reynolds rappaport and kaplan we represented five of the six towns down there i then went to cope with him page in the year two thousand was a partner there until two thousand and six when i joined with mark and lisa and when i joined a firm we weren't town council in any towns although we did some general municipal work we were primarily a land use firm budden tween leases general municipal experience as mayor and city solicitor in somerville and my experience working for a number of towns and in general municipal as well as land use context we started to develop some things that we all started in our practices and that i was working on when i was at kopelman and page which was to develop a slightly more holistic set of services for municipalities like lisa and like mark who's had served on his planning board in town i also served on boards and  in other capacities in my hometown in norfolk i'm currently the moderator in norfolk and serve on the council on aging as well i've been on a few other boards over the years so we knew kind of what the expectation would be and we started to think about how we could be more available to towns to work with to train to explore concepts to help towns get with the policy rather than just being the people on the other end of the phone that you call a point when something goes bad  or that something might go bad and so we started to develop a set of services that would involve flat fees for example that would allow more or less unlimited access that would allow for office hours which we implemented many of our communities and not all of our towns use flat fees of it say about half of the fifteen towns where we're either town council or co town council we employ them but our whole plan was to be there for you we're not policymakers but we've seen enough in land use in general to help with our experience to be there are you willing to help you when you come up with issues whether it's your planning department the board of selectmen the zoning boards so we developed a set of serve says that would take the financial sting out of it and be there and to help avoid problems it's our first town council town was two thousand and eight in bellingham  ashland ashland yep two thousand and seven ashland then bellingham then kingston and now we're fifteen in two thousand and fifteen and we've grown the firm now has twelve attorneys and we are expanding still to make sure that we cover services for our founders we do have represent a few small select private clients but we're primarily a municipal law firm and again our approach is is one where we try and prevent where we try and work with you and where there's not a concern of picking up the phone so you can call us it's been great with respect to the either whether we do it by flat fee or an hourly rate when clients will call you up litigation has gone down in every single one of our towns where we've become town council because we like to get to problems beforehand that's somewhat counterintuitive if you're attorney i'm not sure if there's any attorneys on the on the board but attorneys generally make more money in litigation we're perfectly happy to see you not in litigation and we you know we do ok we do just fine with out of but more than that we help you devise policies and get to where you need to be however if it does come to litigation one of the features of our flat fee service is we're going to marshal flatty services is that if there is something where you're inured to principle then we give you the financial freedom to seek it out to seek out those principles and to fight for those principles on top of all of that veneer on on our basic format on on how we approach these services which are all from the partners down rather than the the associates up you're always going to see a partner we have associates and they'll do work for you but your con points of contact are always going to be a partner on top of all that is people like mark who's done a tremendous amount of development experience and lisa and our we have now a junior partner adam costa we are we think the best the top of the expansion into scituate lease are routinely works on very large inter ministerial agreements regarding land use and other assorted matters i'm working with the f a a on a major airport  affecting the town of chad i'm also working on the federal government's intrusion into monomoy down in chatham and so those are the kinds of things that we had over and above what a general town council firm would do expertise in land use  experiences this individual possess to differentiate them from the other finalist firms under consideration so we first of all we go with kind of a one a and a one b while most municipal firms do have a primary point of contact and we're no different and it would be  mostly i have an office in millis our main office is in concord but i keep a local office in dallas i live nearby it's only natural that i would serve as the primary but it's more or less a one a and one b you get lisa to expertise in contracting so from a threshold matter you get both of us and we know what differentiates us and lisa can speak to this too is again that proactive approach whether or you choose to set up office hours in some of our towns doing some of them tone whether you choose to call us three times a day because you choose a flat fee and because it's cost effective to do it that's why where what sets us apart the access and quick response and the ability to have us by your side rather than being more dispassionate and just answering questions yeah i think that i would encourage a on that and i think one of the biggest issues is it's if you give us a call we're not going to it's not go it's not going to start at the associate level and come up it's going to come to us it's going to come to mark jr i depended on what the issue is and we're going to interact with you on that and if we need additional work in additional research obviously will employ one of our so c it's but you need to know that if if the town manager or anybody who is authorized to call us calls us they're going to get us and we're going to call you back and i think that our responsiveness and our turnaround time in efficiency is probably what really sets us apart as well i can emphasize the importance of calling town council and getting him or her involved early i'm representing right now a tenant in a different part of massachusetts in federal district court because they made a mistake involving  treatment of a protected institution under the federal disability and it's a hole that now has to be dug out of that didn't need to exist at all had there simply been a call in early involvement on the part of town council and so we like to be proactive in that regard we like the chairs the boards to know that they have access to us i'll give an example we're town council another town center a center part of the state and they recently got a new planner who is not actually from massachusetts and we've actually helped walk him through very basic things he probably reaches out to jay and i two or three times a day easily and that's ok because it prevents him from making a mistake and having having litigation result in the town it makes a thriving residential community with a few highly concentrated and dominant business interests foxborough hosts a highly successful n f l franchise and one of the largest stadium venues in all of new england because of that profile there are several associated commercial businesses and an interest to expand the commercial tax base of the series in addition the town is also home to a large electronics business is based in europe and who is expanding its operations here in foxboro with that understanding has your firm ever representative rodman's and your other industrial park just off of route one forty you have a unique profile we've represented a lot of communities that have a thriving commercial base i don't think any of one of which i would compare directly just because of the uniqueness of your commercial profile that said and i'm going to let mark speak to some of his experiences we've done development agreements that have netted a significant amount of mitigation whether it be physical mitigation or financial mitigation and many of our town council communities as well as our special counsel communities on that mark talk a little bit to his experience on how he goes about this and some of his successes well i think there were certainly bill you know my work and dead i'm with the legacy place in the hebrew senior living intergenerational campus these are novel ideas that came to dedham and dedham had to react to them and they did i thought in a very appropriate way so when that kind of opportunity presents itself there's a balance that has to take place between the economic growth that you surely want and need but also with the future of the community and it's that excess appearance traffic there are countless examples of people that have done this job badly and i think you have to look at it holistically i like that part of my work as much as the legal part of bringing in a planner who's very competent who can tell you what the corridor will look like or what the problems will be before they happen because if you leave this to the private sector to define in most cases you're going to get what they want not what you collectively decided as a community if you have somebody working for you with skin in the game that is they're go help you decide what the course or should look like how the traffic should knit from parking lot to parking lot the product is always that much better so i like to work with an interdisciplinary team involving a traffic engineer involving a civil engineer that can help me with the fit of the utilities but also very importantly a financial analyst who can take the deal apart and tell you whether it's a net win or a net loss for you and then a lawyer at the end of the day me to to put the deal together if you will both in the zoning and in the development agreement for those parts of the composed those components of the deal that don't belong in the zoning model and that has worked time and time again it worked a legacy place it's worked for the took spring mall although the federal highway administration has managed not to fund the intersection have done shopping centers major projects across the state that approach just generally tends to work and there's other unique examples i don't think again we have anything in our portfolio that is on par equal to what you guys go through with respect to annual semiannual or periodic negotiations with the kraft group regarding the stadium in the businesses around it but for example and this is somewhat near and dear to foxboro is hard i negotiate d for east and it didn't have eventually come to pass surrounding community agreement regarding the proposed slot parlor that was going to be at the old dog tract and that project wasn't perfect but i didn't know anything about the revenue stream for slot parlors i had no clue what had happened we researched it we brought in experts we combated their experts we do we sat around the table for months upon months with various bits of information and research and expertise and we came up with what i thought was a landmark agreement we took in town of the last day we got them to concede on almost every single point in gambling commission the gaming commission tin and up going with that particular facility but you put your team together as marc said you do your research and you develop we have so much expertise in land use in doing these big development agreements where you pull a winner for the town of east and if that project had gone  forward the key is always i think to have the planning board the board of selectmen in the finance committee stand up a town meeting and tell the voters not only have the answer the questions that you are likely don't want to hear the answers to in advance but that based upon what you've learned you think it's a project that benefits the community or not it and if it's not a good deal walk away from it because there's plenty of that out there thank you i mean please describe any experiences your firm has had with regard to representing are presenting to any of the boards or committees in the town of fox for you  i worked with planning my office it was as i said in town so there were infrequent occasions when i represented someone in front of your board of appeals if i recall correctly you know kevin penders is an alternate on th board now he's a student of mine at new england law many years ago and just to take you way back don schmitt and i were very good friends when he lived here in town and i think there were occasions when i did training sessions for your boards as well but  that would have gone back a considerable distance in the ninety's and i've never i've never appeared before a board here i'm obviously familiar with the day to day news coming out of foxborough because i live in the next town over but i've never appeared of the town that took place within the last ten years was driven by the planning board and bill there was a committee appointed with delegates from the board of appeals from the planning board and ultimately we took at the town meeting and it was a successful in an effort to eliminate the perception of divided loyalties we feel compelled to ask if your firm has ever represented or been associated with any of the major business entities who created in fox world war if you represented any of the surrounding communities where town council in easton right i've done work in norton a little bit a special council work recently but not nothing of major substance years ago i worked for was town council when i walpole obviously i live in norfolk so i did well i don't represent anyone there i'm obviously a municipal employee i think the only thing that would be of any i mean there's other area towns but nothing agreements and if one of those came up then we would certainly run that by both towns and see if there was anything that would conflict us and if so we'd be the first ones to tell you right i've been town council in east in four for five years now and i can't think of an instance where i'd done something in town where there'd be a conflict arising we are working right now on a forty b that's close to the mansfield town line we're working on an  agreement with mansfield right now which ultimately comes this way for sewer sometimes there can be dual representation in those sometimes not right we'd be the first ones to to let you know about that  out it's a project specific so i've worked for mansfield in the past but not within recent memory i did a lot of the forty hour work for the residential component up at the start of the shows market exit eight and south main street there is a forty hour proposed in there for sharon i helped the town i was the representative negotiating the residential side of it's got a commercial side too and i think i represented mansfield in their last five forty b projects but those are our past and spent a significant amount of time dealing with the transfer of liquor licenses to the king violations and evaluating the perceived need for additional licenses as a catalyst for economic development within town please discuss your firm's capabilities regarding a lack for addition of licenses above quotas and of all various shapes and sizes whether they're limited to a specific site or have other limited pieces to them as well as side agreements that go along with those done that in several towns bellingham east in kingston come to mind for those maynard i have significant experience before the a b c c in a variety of administrative proceedings and negotiations as has attorney cost more familiar with that with that administrative process in again various shapes and sizes and we have significant licensing experience with the licensing authority generally the board of selectmen as it applies to mentor or denial or approval of licenses in negotiations of conditions around those matters and several towns southbridge we've had some significant ones they have a liquor licen board done permits really can contested permits and permit issues in a variety of towns up and templeton when we were in town council there a few  east end we've run into a lot of sting issues where we've had to enforce and suspend and penalize and negotiate on a few and handle some subsequent a b c see matters in various shapes and sizes all kinds of liquor related issues and then just the day to day questions that we have with respect to can we give this is it a one day is it a special the new language the new guidance what rick what's required in various and items that jay has listed for most all of our communities  though in your profession pinion it would not be in the best interest of the town how would you respond go ahead and you know go ahead and well you know we give you the advice and then you make the decisions and then we we will defend you if that's a decision a board is made we will defend you like we would any other client to to accomplish what it is that you want to accomplish and be right up front with you about that that sa id into pens upon the particular relationships we have one of the things that we value when we're close comrades of board of selectmen and town manager is that you gain the ability to talk frankly with people with the benefit of our experience again it's not our call and and as i said we fully endorse the notion of fighting on principle even when things are stacked against you forty b is again a good example or other land use matters where sometimes you just have to fight just for the principles of your constituency i was just in a town last week where i asked the board if i could speak frankly about something that they wanted to keep appealing and i did speak frankly and said you have virtually no chance of success and here's the ramifications if we appeal and lose who has it applied to various penalties and damages and costs going forward  they change their mind they did was on my call but i felt duty bound we don't sugarcoat it if in fact we see you wanting to go one way despite our legal advice to the contrary we're happy to go that way with you but it's not going to be with a lack of information on what the risks and benefits going forward are we're going to be up front with you about that we'll do it and in a respectful and way that still indicates that you guys are the boss but sometimes it's necessary and i think that that actually one of the benefits of the kind of practice that we have the relationships that we have with our clients is it you make the business decisions we tell you the pros and cons of that decision along the way you say i want to do x we don't say well you can't do x you say i want to do x we say ok if you do x if you do it this way here the rate of cations this way if you do it that way the ramifications are here you get to make the best business decision obviously but we hope that you're fully informed in making that business decision one where they are our job is not to say yes or no our job is to say here here the ramifications one way or the other and then you get to make the decision and we defend you or not or whatever it is in the way that you need to be de i think the question has another part to it sometimes there is a board other than this board that will go off and make a decision that is we would all sit here and scratch your head and i think on some occasions there needs to be a frank discussion with this board because you control legal  open meeting lawsuits in front of the cameras and and what point you have that dialogue and i know it's specific to different cases but executive session open board one on one through the town manager who it depends on depends on the situation obviously it's an easy call if some has filed a lawsuit right because then we get to go into executive session if not we have a conversation with the town manager to get kind of the temperature of what's going on and you know have the discussion in an appropriate manner and open session if you have to have it and in that way so you know it always depends on where we are this interesting there's some litigation going on right now but the s j c to talk about attorney client privilege in an executive so action of the new bedford case and whether or not advice of counsel not yet in litigation is a protected matter like it is everywhere else except for  it'll be interesting to see where that goes but is certainly a fine line in who we often come up against the issue how much of a suit has to be threatened in order to gain the exemption of executive session and some boards just don't like executive session and some boards like it know as council we're always trying to protect our communications with our clients so we're fans of executive session where it's appropriate we never force that because the complaints on the open meeting law are numerous out there and we're trying to avoid those kinds of hurdles for you so we'll have that discussion front it can be delicate sometimes you just can't find an exception to the open meeting law and sometimes you just have to have that frank talk and in public not always so we look at each one of those different and ultimately you guys get to make the call as to when we go into executive session how we can discuss it whether we're discussing with which just the manager or whether or not we get a whole board together before things really get kind of in that ugly zone i think i can remember an example just to mark was involved in where we were sitting with he was sitting with a zoning board that we represented and he had advised the chair in advance something he should do and should do and then despite that the board started to go in the direction against his advice and he was asked in open session what you should do and they still continued to go against his advice which  promptly led them to getting two federal lawsuits and two superior court lawsuits filed against them within a matter of days at which time we he was happy to go into executive session with the board of selectmen to have a frank discussion about what i was thinking somewhere a listened to good advice but at least we were there in the process so the right got to make those bits of advice to the board as it went through rather than them hunting in the dark for an answer and then having to fix the mess afterwards q how would others characterize your firm for example would they describe you as an aggressive litigator who they describe you as being a solid advisor who keeps the town out of litigation or a combination of both that often leads to an actual cost effective solution please provide an example ok so i would say that people would our clients would view us i don't know but other law firms we tend to be somewhat it's a small fraternity so it's hard to always pin that down i think our clients would view us as the folks that are trying to avoid litigation but that when litigation is thrust upon us that we can be as aggressive and as direct as as possible  around land use concepts without giving way too much and in the way of ongoing ongoing matters are for example hotly disputed again project under forty b or even chapter forty a over a special permit where we work with we work with we try to avoid hurdles we issue spot we work with our traffic experts and where there are meetings under our flat fee agreement you get three meetings a month where your develop king or you have the developer pay one or the other but you get that service with us so we'll work with will work with will combat woman go she ate well try and get you where you need to be and if the developer still doesn't like what you get and they want to appeal it then we have been marc has written the book literally on how you fight these things i'm known as an aggressive litigators when it comes to all kinds of forty a forty b wetlands projects and we will fight for as long as it takes to get you where you need to be or where you were where you want to settle at and we've been as successful i would say as any firm in the commonwealth especially when it comes to matters concerning development whether it be negotiation or combating developers who just simply don't want to take no or yes for an answer i think also not not just lynn use issues that you know you have there every town has them citizens who are citizens groups represented by pro bono attorneys who just really pepper somebody they don't like a town decision and they just try to take you to litigation and spend your money to try to get you to change your mind and we've got a pretty good track record i can specifically think of something that our junior partner adam costa did for a community where it was a really important matter for the community and they were just appealed and appealed and and to the extent that we were really aggressive with discovery that wasn't that the other side didn't participate and we were able to get costs and attorneys fees from the other side from a judge for the municipality reimbursed because of what happened so we let you know we're not going to lay down on the other hand you know we're a trust i think we trusted advisor to folks trying to avoid that if we can but once you're there we're going to defend you hard from my perspective it's it's the proactive side of things i've been winchesters land use lawyer for ten ten or twelve years now and it's a wealthy town with lots of really induce pressure winchester hospital expansion there's plenty of activity there and i've watched my caseload in litigation go from what i inherited ten or twelve years ago down to nothing so being involved in the day to day process with the planning board with the board of appeals with the building commissioner has made the decision making a little bit more predictable has certainly eliminated the surprises and i think if anything but certainly what my work is known for recently in the town of chatham entered into well i inherited them when we became town council lengthy negotiations with chatham bars in which is the biggest land holder down and in downtown chatham and they control a lot of land and there was negotiations predating me by ten years for the town's use of a vital parking lot serving the commercial fisherman that chatham bars and was waving over our head and when i became town council i worked with the town manager jill goldsmith to trying to go she ate we had negotiate with them we had parking lots in other parts of town that they were interested in or little pieces of zoning changes and we worked and we worked and we worked and that just seemed like they were always reaching into our pocket asking for something else so we decided as a group that enough was enough and we took the parking lot it was aggressive we have a history of litigation with them and they were very well funded and we took it and they sued and tried to stop the taking and we prevailed once twice three times in land court still ongoing but that you know we tried and we tried and we were creative and we were partying and it didn't work and so we did what we had to do to secure something for a vital part of the town's autonomy which was their commercial fishing flee so it was a desired result was an inexpensive but it was worth it to the town if you can reach that level of involvement does your firm typically have with respect to the preparation include attendance of all town meetings we generally promote our attendance at a pretty town meeting there are warrant articles that we will draft from the ground up at the request of clients hey we need something that does this or zoning by law or by law change or create a financial thing or a special act for for a new liquor license we review every warren article as part of our services if in fact that's what the town desires and we will issue spot for them we'll help rewrite revise we'll work with your moderator if need be on particular town meeting procedure issues so pretty much from stem to stern we were we are there for you town meeting it's the biggest event of the year it's what roughly sixty million dollars for you all we want to make sure it goes well so where there we try and be there every step of the way in our flat fee services and either proposal a or b it's all in there's no extra charges for any of those sets of services drafting attendance that's something that we take really seriously me as a town moderator i take it really seriously lisa's a mare mark is a former planning board member we know what those town meetings are like ready right before a town meeting to i prefer early the earlier the better earlier the better early and often in fact before and after i believe because you start shaping things early don't forget you set the warrant not the advisory board or the finance committee so decide from petition article so it's important that you get them in the shape that you want them to be in before they go into that recommendation phase the worst thing that can happen on town meeting floor for a controversial or complicated article is multiple or serial amendments can be the kiss of death for bylaws especially two thirds by laws life we will all seen that in our experience i'm sure you've seen that in your experience too so the more issues we can spot early on means the more likely that something's going to go smoothly at town meeting now there are some that we just won't see it's up to you as to when you want to see him but i think lisa and i both recommend as early as you want to get them to us we think that that's a great idea and if you want us to help craft early or if you want us just to review were early i think that that's a good idea and we'll base that review in the depth of that review on the direction we take from from this board and the manager as to how much you want us to tinker with or just review as to form so i think that the coordination is really important because you know there are there are certain articles that will look at and will say you know i want bon counsel sign off i advance you know you don't want a financial article that has to do with borrowing or has to do with something you already have borrowing on not reviewed by baum council and find out afterwards you know we needed to add you know these last three words so i think that that kind of review ahead of time to issue spot particularly in the poll in other reviews is necessary sometimes you know there's something that we want to get dio arce feedback on and before we do it we've done special acts that provide for special funding mechanisms for special accounts that we always went to you are in advance because if it goes to the legislature the legislature is going to send it over to deal or for review prior to passing it and sending it off to the governor and so you always want that box checked so that when dealers call they say oh we've already reviewed it it's not a problem for us and it gets through faster for you so we try to do that stuff in advance and so the sooner that we can if it's suitable to you the better they do have a town that likes to give us the warrant after the board of selectmen has approved it as  being posted and i will tell you it always pop causes a problem a town meeting and i can't tell you how many times they've had to pull articles off because they just didn't pass muster at all and therefore whatever they wanted to do was delayed by you know six or eight months and  you just as important it causes problems after town meeting right because of the planning board writes an article in a vacuum and doesn't understand what the general bylaws say or the wetlands byelaw or the other laws that touch on that or even the the internal segue in the zoning document itself you might write a whole section but it counter acts with something over here that's in the same by law somebody needs to pick that up and you can expect a volunteer people to have that kind of a breath  familiarity with these bylaws that's that's really more of a legal job thank you does your firm provide ongoing training program for town boards has an additional charge for this service or is included in your service for land use boards and you know we have these limits in our proposal of what we do and what we don't do the three meetings a month the town meetings the two training seminars the offices hours no one is going to lose any sleep over on this side of the table if for some month it's for meetings or you need we you did an open meeting last seminar in a public record seminar and that was to training session you say cheese we need someone to give a tutorial a brand new planning  you come and do a third session that is the kind of stuff that we do that we thrive on so that is included we take it really seriously a ton of open meeting last seminars probably in almost all of our towns every year with refresher one thing that we like to do with our open meeting law on public record seminars we'll do an afternoon version first staff or people that don't work during the day and we'll do an evening session that same day for volunteer boards that they can which we like to have a kind of an all day of a fair that's been pretty successful we we are pretty frequently on these topics particularly that that one the two in one day is really helpful on the conflict of interest everybody has to take the test every two years you know you can actually take that as a group and i can i don't know if you knew that or not but you can actually i can have a room full of people and we can all do test together i can sign off on it the clerk can stamp on who was there and that can satisfy the requirement that everybody took the test so i've done that but a many of our communities where i do employees during the day and volunteer boards in the evening and everybody gets done all at one time so we try to do that to accommodate both groups of folks whatever's convenient for the community legal costs there are a major concern for all communities what type of cost saving initiatives have you got the time to manage legal costs while not sacrificing the quality of your work well the flat fee so we proposed two different flat fee arrangements that you could choose or we could do a hybrid of them the first is a flat fee were essentially you get almost everything there are some exceptions to a suit you get litigation plus advice plus the three meetings plus the two seminars all the things that we've been talking about for one flat rate call as much is as you need people thought when we started doing it that we were crazy that clients would take advantage of us it hasn't happened that is our biggest cost saver there are some towns that have very low litigation and they choose to go with the non litigation version of that which is slightly lower cost per month but essentially you still get the three meetings a month in the town meeting in the end the training seminar sounds yeah and  in the office hours and some of the towns of use that fairly successfully to it allows there are some exceptions for example extraordinary litigation that is not land use related and is not defense of your by laws or prosecution of your bylaws sometimes comes up we probably in the roughly seven or eight years that we've been doing this five cases total probably over all of our municipal clients have there been matters that are been accepted from the  fee so it was really kind of a rare event it does happen but not too frequently in those cases we charge an hourly rate but essentially you get everything for a flat fee now some some months the buried us and some months we  bear so if you don't if things are going smoothly there's not much going on in town larf ective hourly rate will be you know great and some months when we're in the throes of trial preparation for something our really rate won't be great but we get that money coming in and it's predictable for us it's predictable for you i guarantee you you won't see an article on the subsequent years town meeting warrant saying to pay bills of a prior fiscal for municipal council because if we do seven thousand dollars a month which  proposal is you're going to budget that amount plus maybe a little content and see if there's some outside council work and it's just stand pat like a town manager's best friend when it comes to the budgeting it's been incredibly successful for us it's been incredibly successful for municipalities that's our biggest cost saver i think other municipal firms do something similar i don't think any of them to my knowledge unless they've copied us have done anything so robust in terms of kind of an all in proposal and let me add a couple of things to that the also we encourage your land use boards to adopt to the process where the developer pays into an escrow account and compare your legal fees so we attend those hearings it doesn't come out of your pocket it comes out of the developer socket there's no reason for a developer to come into town and have their own attorney have their own you know engineer and all of their experts in your poor volunteer board sit there by themselves without any representation that's just it's not right and that's where you know we come in to help assist and not have to have the town pay for it and have them up to date on whatever needs to be you know provided for at that meeting and i think the relationship that you were boards get from us and your town manager get from us they they know they can call before a problem happens and that's a cost saver because everybody's not worried about you know if i pick up the phone a few process so that you're we're not wasting your money negotiating every time you go out to bid for something so every engineer that responds to an r f p you negotiate the engineers contract on behalf of the town know we have a contract that you put with an engineering bid that they have to accept as part of the town's contracts and that we believe that oprah tex you and most of my communities have employed that mechanism and it's very helpful it puts the town on a very good footing and it helps your finance department in the tell me energy because they know what they are going to have they know what the attaches are they know what they can sign off on and what's expected when it comes in and everybody is on the same page so when it from a book you're met point of view you're not renegotiating contracts every ten minutes i just want to follow up on something lisa said about the fees for land use boards chapter forty four section fifty three g says that your board is going to stab a fee which would allow for the developer to put money in the treasure office and that money is escrowed to pay for the lawyer for the civil engineer for the traffic engineer or anybody else you need legacy place we went as deep as acoustical engineers a lighting engineers parking specialists i hope that  works that's one thing i do hear about legacy places the parking but i think that the total peer review costs not not what the developer paid its own experts but the peer review costs that were paid on behalf of the town of denham's consultants was over four hundred thousand dollars so round with you guys and i'd be thrilled if i could if we could provide a set of services to you guys we thrive on this stuff it's important to us  nearby i think we would provide a unique set of services i think our services in terms of the flat fees and even in an hourly rate are so proactive that i think foxboro based upon the issues before you whether it be  the route one issues or just suburban growth issues i think you'll find that we're second to none and that we would be there right with you lisa and i be your primary contacts this is something that we take really seriously w we though it may be we really and enjoy this work it's something we've worked really hard to develop a unique niche so far i think you won't find dissatisfied client and i hope you call some of our references  some of our town managers and administrators who we work with are all and our materials are ready and able to serve in that and i think it's just kind of a close out you know we're not a firm that kind of parachutes and whenever you just kind of need us to protect to in it in addition to the partners the reality is we travel all over the state and marc and betty and live in concord i live in new report jay lives in norfolk it doesn't make sense for us in today's day and age to all drive to one central location and so that's where our offices are and so on in millis which would be the office where you'd be seeing me come out of i have a full time associate there who's of mainly a litigator and then some of our other associates travel between offices spend a few days here in a few days there are biggest office with the most number of retirees in the concert hall but our our our staff our partners are kind of a fluid bunch and actually to a kind of a more mundane point but not for you on that is that if you were to choose the hour of the billing or if you had litigation it was billed hourly in addition to the flat fee you're charged for travel from the closest office so if i come from to report i'm charging you f great interviews when you go through with your difficult choice so we're they all did very very well i thought and they all have sort of unique aspects to what they represent so so i my first to you is is tonight is to to you know just take that information if you have further follow up question is that you want us to research or if you want to just make some calls based upon some accusative actually work then i'd advise you to do that because i think it's safe and i i tell you the roads weren't correct credibly good condition even based on the difficult conditions that they can do it during the past twenty four to forty eight hours so thanks to everybody who did that and i think did a great great great job and hope the committee appreciate it world fully aware that when i work on that we we actually are in the midst of a major technology overhaul of the community so that's part of the how those improvements and so we hope to be able to provide a much better look to the to that website as well as the