briefing monday may twenty second at seven thirty p m at the beach street center which is the opportunity to ask questions about the financial and budgetary worn articles at the beginning at the june fifth town in your town meeting the section b about the budget the town officials and department heads will provide information and roi epstein chair of the work committee will be presiding as co sponsored by the war committee in the belmont league of women voters education fund also memorial day parade may twenty ninth you get to see us and others march if you or your community organization are interested in participating in the parade and being a sponsor of the parade or participating in the parade please call the belmont veteran service officer bob upton six one seven nine nine three two seven two five parade starts eleven a m in cushing square there is the health department and the mount auburn hospital community health department present the prep improbable players theater troupe and of the line real people real stories confronting the opioid epidemic may thirty first one to two thirty p m at the belmont studio cinema three seventy six propeller road in belmont this is prevent us funded by a grant from the mount auburn hospital community health department and is open to the public pizza will be provided at one p m and of course belmont town day may twentieth on saturday food animals kitty carnival rides dog show classic cars live music dunk tank and thousands of residents on leonard street can only mean one thing the twenty seventh annual belmont town day is saturday may twentieth from nine a m to four p m i also like to just thank the belmont high school jazz collective which won the gold medal at the states for the first time for in belmont history and they were awarded by having a concert the hatch shell yesterday in the lousy weather but they sounded great a lot of people stood out there in the rain and got wet but it was a good time t thank you adam we know have we're opening for questions from town residents in a real lambert has a message to deliver i  the town green at wellington station i should visit you joining these hours to ask your permission or vote to accept a donation of ally like bush and that the d p w would be happy to take care of it so that's why i'm here this was part of our two thousand and sixteen ask if anyone here or the fifty pm convention of the board of survey market street matter the one seventy eight mar street is to accept the withdraw and then close the borders survey you may not want to stay until he fifty to hear that well we don't know we don't know whether he really but tonight's action would just be that so welcome to stay for the rest of the the meeting however have you so now we move right on to the presentation of a certificate of recognition to eagle scout edward freeman stafford edward do they call you woodward what do they call you have a seat ok have a seat say who you are so they know you are on been an eagle scout or you've just been recognized as an eagle scout yes i was a i was officially certified as an eagle scout and january and had the kind of recognition ceremony last month in april so great congratulations well we have a proclamation here for you i'm going to read this it's a certificate of recognition edward freeman stafford eagle organization it's an acronym for children affected by hiv aids it's a non non governmental organization organization operating believe well the branch that i worked with was in rwanda ok so to to go on in honor of your exemplary work in partnership with the organization chapa in rwanda gathering cleaning transporting and distributing soccer equipment to children affected by hiv aids with praise and appreciation for your efforts and best wishes and all your future in devers james are william's mark polow and adam day so we wish to offer congratulations moving along we're now going to vote to accept a gift in the amount of two hundred fifty dollars from star market to the fire department to fund an department received a gift card from star market and we thought it would be a good thing to have a plea appreciation cookout we're having a lot of employees who are retiring and we have employees and we just don't recognize all the good work that our employees do so using that money and putting some of my own funds together our plan is to have at the end of june before summer sets in as an employee appreciation cookouts so we need to town green for their annual picnic on sunday june eleventh from eleven a m to three p m is anyone here from now so we don't require someone now to be here and all of the departments have checked the the request and everything's in good order no one had can cern's and they've done this this is a new event in the town green is that way right next to the one next to the well there's only one town green  favorite thank you very much all right moving along our next is an approval of a one day liquor license application from the powers music school to serve wine and malt at a retirement party held at the first church in belmont on june fourteenth from six p m to seven thirty p m phyllis is their application is complete and no one has department concerns what we're talking about these i mean this one in the next i might be worth at some point talking about to save time on our part whether these one day liquor licenses could just be delegated to the town administr provided all the boxes have been checked because there's really nothing discretionary for us to do it takes a lot of time at the meet i couldn't agree more and we've tried it before and the answer has been no as i understand it the bylaws requires to do this no approval of a one day liquor license application from belmont after school enrichment collaborative now it's my glasses it's a two sixty six school street belmont to serve wine and malt at an  arts gala held at st joseph parish in belmont one thirty common street on june second two thousand and seventeen from six p m to nine p m is anyone here from the  belmont after school enrichment collaborative seeing no one phyllis you can report that all of the permit all of the conditions have been met for the the issu just please you know you can't stated publicly like a no hitter kind of thing you can't say i'm sorry i didn't know the protocol well i think one of the reasons it's going so well is that i'm the chairman this time because when i sa in that seat i delayed everything by asking too many questions in mark and mark doesn't do that you remember that right i do but you don't hold it against me do not all know that we switch roles  years came in below the engineers estimate the engineers estimate was one point nine seven million the big came in at one point eight six six two twenty five there are two components to the bid there is a portion that is somewhat work in that a portion that is roadway work the roadway piece is funded by jack to ninety funds as well as capital budget override funds that we've had since two thousand and one and then a fortune from the override a year or two ago the sewer money is coming from the sewer enterprise fund where you explain to the public why the road pavement contract includes sewer work sure know one of the things that we do is we make sure that the utilities under the road are in adequate shape before we fix the road and so typically in by way of sequence the gas company and public works is water division will with their utility work a year in advance if the scheduling goes well but certainly at least six months in advance of us fixing the roadway and the sewer drain repairs that are often required on the roads we can roll that into the pavement management project because the contractors who are doing road work can also either themselves or through a sub contractor do that type of work so it's cost effective for us to include it we do it because we want to make sure that we don't have to dig that road up again and certainly not for the reasons of gas water or sewer drain if we can help it you know that seems like a good policy to me would you also explain to the public how long accepted the road at that point reverts back to the town for responsibility and that means the department of public works department of public works and forces the street opening permit rules and regulations in belmont and it is within the rules and regulations moratorium is recognized however there are often times when there are circumstances beyond anyone's control that requires at least the town to consider whether the not they want to allow a road to be ex within that five year period a common reason for that is somebody buys a property they tear it down and want to reconstruct and they have utility work that's necessary for the new construction it doesn't seem appropriate for the town to deny an individual an opportunity to develop that property and so the street opening rules and regulations and force by political works has provisions that require restoration that is commensurate with the condition of the road so if this is a ro that was reconstructed two years ago and someone needs to dig it up they are going to do a level of restoration above and beyond just the normal patching of the road and it's also my understanding that there's a difference between patching the road and  what do you call it you know it from one side of the road to another side of the road repair you have a word for that yeah so so if a road older than five years typically the restoration of would be a trench patch if the gas company comes in for example and it puts a new main in the requirement most times would be a trench patch over where they've done their work but if the road is in good condition then public works has the latitude to require in some cases a curb to curb resurface what i'm referring to you know it's curb to curb the contractor would be required to command and actually mill a portion of the roadway that encompasses where the utility worker occurred and then do an overlay in that section and then glen finally for me i wonder if you'll explain to the public the the the the real the the list of streets that you have and why your were only able to do a certain number of streets could you explain that to the public please sure so when you talk less them i'm assuming you want me to divulge sort of some of the inside baseball of how i choose the streets they can fix every year is that where you have you have a condition of each roadway there's not a lot of mystery to what i do i mean i'm looking at the condition of a road and i am trying my best to fix the roads that are in the worst shape first sometimes there are extenuating circumstances for example they'll be roads that are that will be done in eighteen and nineteen that are going to be driven by the department and the water departments want to mean replacement program they have an amount of funding that's going to allow them to do a good amount of water work in the next two years and there at the work is done mostly on roads that require reconstruction so i'm juggling my scheduling a little bit to a con eight the work that's being done by the water department but by and large i'm going off of a list and i'm picking the worst conditions roads and trying to fix them first so why can't we fix them all at once in one year well i mean i know the answer to that yes so don't tell them but what i think you know based on that based on the bit english i'm even had a third factor to that so so we know that there is a break point in terms of the resources that we have in community development that allow us to oversee the work that's being done and then also because we're a four square mile community i'm sure it feels for a lot of people because i pay management program is spread out throughout the town i'm short feel sometimes where you just can't go more than two blocks without encountering some kind of a construction project somewhere so there really is a tipping point where you can only do so much in a calendar year because of the resources of within the department of the ability to inspect and oversee the work and then also how much work a contractor can take on in a given year this year was that we were where we got one bid most of the contractors in the business is doing very well in terms of work that they have to do so that tied up in other communities our contract value which is somewhere between one point eight and two million dollars the smaller contract is can't really touch that level in the larger contractors i tend to be on larger more more large scale projects that involve curbing sidewalk the whole nine yards of a roadway project color row type of project so we have we've kind of been a little nation terms of the contractors that we i'm happy to do that you know one of the things that i have been giving consideration to is actually reevaluating the roadways to get in fresh data it's been a few years since we've looked at that the entire town  i try to be a little judicial i guess and how i do that and when i do that because there's an expense to that in really you know you can pay you can pay as much to have the roadway system reevaluated and that same amount of money you can actually put towards fixing a road you know so i try to make that judgment call but i do feel like about a point where it's about i'm getting close to having data that may be a little outdated and we do we do some a valuation in house to look to looking to sort of get comparative grading between a group of roads twenty or thirty roads just so as we're picking these roads in the near future two or three years out we feel like we have a good point of reference but it might not be a bad idea to get an evaluation town wide and  and i'm not suggesting that the approach and strategy that you're in for in any way needs to be change of the it might be helpful with a new member of the board to be reinforcing to what the plan is going forward over the next several years and you know it isn't just resources that's funding segment b of town meeting so we'll mention that to mike and adam i mean obviously we've had this conversation of the war committee every year at the public service the subcommittee about the streets and how it's done it's not and but to the general public you are correct it's been a while one other thing we received a letter to the selectmen mailbox which you and i were able to respond very positively to which street was that  recall was clifton street clifton street yes i'm in clifton street was in terrible condition right in clifton street had been dug up the year before for water and sewage yes right on schedule and then you were able to list and then when you hit that year of the utility work just makes it all the worse it was and it's all coming out of the winter you know the people in clifton that didn't realize it you know we're the ones saying hey what's going on here we were as much as it may not have appeared to be so we were well into it was all of it was nice to write that response some of the you agree and then i made the mistake of of this saying that we had a lot more private ways than we actually have so could you repeat for the public how what does the mileage of our normal job friends and what is the mileage of the private waste ok so my recollection is it's approximately seventy eight miles of public in about eight miles of private right that's what that's what we concluded so and then the difference is the public streets were responsible for this right in the private ways are owned by the houses on both sides it's really the event in the into the middle of the road right so just for the record  thousand for the fiscal year two thousand two thousand seven hundred gave it a new program to the age perkins construction in the amount of one million eight hundred sixty six thousand two hundred two hundred twenty five dollars a second the motion ok moving right along thanks glenn moving right along we're going to have a discussion on the library building committee request and mark i think you know more about this than i do so i'm going to ask you to  funds you know privately and i think that you've been very gracious about understand full well that the the high school is something that needs to come before any sort of library building project we surely have discussed that with the first i think although we are from different groups at least i'm i'm from the from the library first fact i think we are united in our desire to advance the building program and the challenge is how do we do that and we w would not be doing our job if we didn't tell you that there are some very significant need and in the library facility it will not last forever we have six months on a six month window for the elevator so every six months we have to get reinspected and we have done i think in through the fuse ability study it is clear we provided the structural engineering report that and that the option that we wish to pursue when we think is the best option is new construction we are looking at public private partnership in a way that we have never considered in this community and that is not something that happens quickly it's not a bake sale it's not something  decide to get a permit and hold on a saturday it's something that takes thoughtful planning cultivation analysis of potential donors and working through that over a multi year program or timeline so i think that's really where we're faced with with that we two years ago we sat in this very table talking to the financial task force about the very same war path forward from the library so two years later we don't have a defined plan in spite of good action and further analysis but i think it's critical that we have a plan and a path forward in time that's what we're asking for is to allow us to move forward to develop schematic design that we have a vision that we can share with people so that people can get behind it and that people can then determine how they want to support us from from a from a capital fund raising standpoint i just want to say first of all that we're we're really excited to be here at this stage having completed the feasibility study having had three a community sessions where we got great ideas from from the public about our new library which is going to be new construction on the existing site that is situated and clear for feasibility study drawings at that stage there are often three or four options that get looked at the driver is to look at the plans and see how much you can pack into the building to make the most efficient building for schematic design level drawings there's one option that's being focused on and this is why this is one of the critical reasons for i we want to move forward to schematic design because not only do the plans get resolved and developed but also the appearance of the building so that people can really visualize and we know we really are our working we recognize the four major projects that need to happen in this that you are well aware of and we want to work with the town on this and have this private public partnership which means unprecedented fundraising and we feel we right and so our intention is to work with the town and with whatever process is best and if it doesn't seem to make a lot of sense necessarily to establish a building committee and then put them on absolutely needs to be first in my mind that the extent that we can raise significant amounts of money to feel little y b can do as well as hopefully convince the state there were more serious this time to mov c there is there is no money left in the current grant and they would be to go back to the legislature and float a bond and to see if they could get additional funding for a future grant round if they were to do  that it would be two thousand and twenty two two thousand and twenty three and you know kind of double on the ground twenty six twenty seven potential five years so the time there is be there is a you know there's just an e mail that's gone through the state has reduced funding to existing library programs so i think in today's environment everything is at risk from from a funding camp point having me i don't know whether we can actually the funds of the candle flame but if we're going to do this project at some point in time it has to be done right i mean we can't just continue to ignore that building plus other buildings in town or our group has been working very diligently in try enthusiasm and their desire to go forward and kathy and i have had a conversation and i said to her father in her shoes i'd be doing the same thing however i did these shoes and in these shoes i am really asking the board selectmen to defer a decision on this until the major capital projects working group can report out to town meeting in the fall and a special town meeting in the fall the reason is that the capital budget committee has been concerned about these major capital projects what we keep calling the big four and then underneath that is the incinerator site the ring other things bubble up and down the community power community bad mamas i'm there a little bit money we came up with a tool to use for prioritizing these projects which we presented to the board of selectmen in two thousand and thirteen that's cool did not have the library at the top of the list and we then under the financial taskforce capital projects subgroup we once again analyzed and once again library did not come up to the top of the list now we have major capital projects working gro because we're saying look the police station and the d p w doesn't have a cheerleading squad they're not sexy they're not exciting but they are in horrendous shape and they have to be addressed and so this major capital projects group is doing a fast track look at all of these projects we're working through a consultant i'm going to give an interim report on the fifth the first night of the june town meeting we will have a final report in time to give to the fall town meeting having already received from feedback from a consultant and done at least one hopefully two or three community meetings to get feedback desperately trying to form a plan to address all four of those buildings in a timely fashion but to get some remediation at d v d and police station a s a p on some of the more problematic pieces there we also aren't stream really cognizant of the tax impact of these four projects the high school project alone is going to be people's tax rates so we're very grateful that the library is so willing and asked you to do was significant amount of fundraising that helps a lot but it doesn't negate the serious needs in those other two buildings so i am just asking that everybody wait a little bit to we can complete our work come to town meeting in the fall with a recommendation here's the order here's how we think they should appear pro choice here's how we think the financing should work and men we all roll up our sleeves and start to make this happen instead of always tabling oh yeah nice report oh yeah nice ideas oh yeah nice priority list and then nothing happens until i get frustrated the rest of my committee gets frustrated again and we come back with yet another conversation i mean regardless of whether you need a building committee or not you're still going to have to go to town meeting to take the money out of the candle fund or over it's coming from so it's going to be an articled some level we could find out whether we need to go in committee or not it would be nice yes i just wanted to mention that  h i didn't ask the direct question about whether we need a building committee i did look out of stock in the past and building committee was requested in two thousand and seven i believe and  in the event that we want to move forward with that i did prepare a draft of a warrant for a special time and i use the language from the previous motion and warren are able to do that and i can i can certainly ask but i don't know i didn't ask the direct question about whether building committee is needed because of the way this is worded  is the way it was structured all right well to be accurate and those were times when we had grants we do not have a grant this time we do not have the prospect of a grant for a long time producing theoretically let's say it's because the draft motion has two parts to it one is to take the money out of the campbell fund write the other half of the money and the other one is to appoint the building committee if you don't need the building committee and let's say you need the candle fund money would you need to be here at all i guess right point is that we were the problem in belmont is that a building committee is attached to this process whether we need it or not that's some and it's a question of the it's not a question of the project and going the project it's a question timing right now i understand that what your point is but but the timing on our side is important in so far as we can start raising funds i understand going forward we'll miss the summer time to do that  prepared to fundraise over the next two to three years as we prepare to move forward whatever the plan is and i understand that you know there are some short term solutions on d p w and rightly station which i support emory you know we would talk about that  understand where the high school was having this ability to meet we're moving forward there but what is the key what is the staging of this all of these projects right but this is a little bit different in so far as we're looking at a longer term fundraising period while we wait in line for the projects however it's decided it's clear we want you first and we don't want to be first because we agree with the singer assessment because that's not the point i think that the point i'm trying to make is that there is this this old way of doing things of building committee has to be attached to the schematic and what we're suggesting is maybe it's time to rethink that given the uniqueness of our situation we have this ability to raise money to get t to start the ball rolling to say and acquire and also we can apply for other people's grants to not just the deal cities but we have a long way ahead of us and the more time we have to raise that money with a  raising that's important because this building eventually has to get done and you know not suggesting that it's come to be for deep police were some of the things we have to do there i'm just saying that if there's a way to over the next several years to allow through some design that people can look at to fundraise for at least get pledges and remain at the cash with you know pledges that we may need a time frame to support a library and we have a successful vote at the ballot box number one right so at least we know the library the high school is number one so high school is going to be on the inside track with the shortest route they'll start in the back and you would start in the front but you have the longest way to go and the only way to give them that sort of front start is to get them going because they're the only one of the so the if you look at it like this then they have to they have to get a bit of a lead in order because of the only one that's being asked to fundraise so it is a different animal from the others if this five hundred fifty thousand or whatever it is from the kind of fund which is half of the cost of the matic design we're going to be paying at some point now five months from now a year from now the schematic design has to get done if we're committed doing this project at some point so you could do it now and they can leverage that into more money in fund raising over a longer period of time or you could do it later and it'll still get done but they'll have less time to fund raise the money because when they get to the end of the race they'll of they'll be behind so because of the nature of their project as they are in the longer lap the longer lay on the outside  so the question i also worry is if they come out with say the the major capital committee working group comes out at the end in ember and they're at the bottom of the list i'm not saying you will be bill is that you are right that you know if they're the absolute bottom of the list then what happens with the fund raising this schematic design to me that that seems to be almost like they're in a worse position than they'd be genetic right now as far as a message that the community be sending the one i was thinking was because i hate to complain about things that offering some solution so whether it works or not i don't know i mean it's not really a building committee that we're looking for because they're not building the building we're looking for like a schematic design committee it could be you know legally you could make it into the same chapter and verse of the law if you had to but it be called something different five be very the warren article be very focused we drafted it would be for fundraising purposes only to get it designed then there's like a sunset clause of a year and they go all ways there's no building committee sitting around and you know they're limited in the cash and then they do that that that one bit and it's not a permanent sitting building committee it's a schematic design committee this is i don't know and i want to make it very clear in there that this does not endorse the library project over the other projects i do not endorse the library been to all the buildings and while for there must be a top list that is clear this it's not an endorsement of where in the ranking you go it is just two because it's an investment to fundraise and if we can put in one hundred fifty and they can turn it into two or three million in a couple of years it's seems a decent  turnaround i just want to my only concern is that it looks like we're somehow favoring the library over the others and that is not what i was suggesting at all it's just that they're the only one being asked to fundraise and they are in that outside lap so they need to start sooner up to end up in the same place as everybody else but those have been my thoughts over the last couple days so i think that for me i mean i support that actually so i make it clear that this is purely for fund raising purposes that we would invest one hundred fifty thousand dollars but we have to understand whether in fact we could do this with town council but the point of a schematic design is the beginning of a building so the schematic design is not just something that can be changed later it's the start of the building so i think that the answer is going to be that all building committees are required for a building even if it's just the schematic part of that building as it was for the high school as it was for the underwood pool as it was for every building that's why we have a permanent building committee and the town moderator appoints those but i will confirm this by no and you can put it on the agenda for the money second for  in emory's leadership on this and adam's idea i support discussing problems providing solutions i think that's a great thing to me but in terms of this i think of these things in terms of ten years not you know i know we're going to have to do something about the police station we're going to have to do something about the d p w and have to do something about the library something about the high school in the incinerator site those would be the ones that that i am sure just as i'm unsure whether i'll be sitting here ten years from now i am i am absolutely positive that the town of belmar has to do something about those projects that there's no rule that if you have five major capital praja it's that you know have to be done in the next ten years but they have to be done in series meaning one two you know there's no rule that they can all be done in parallel and i believe that the financial environment we know we're going to have to finance them and i believe that the financial environment is still favorable for debt issuance so one question i have  is who is advising you on the financial aspects of this and how are they even linking the capital required to the town's capabilities floyd sits on our committee and so he's a financial person and if he doesn't know the answer to our questions and you know where to find the answer ok no this is been an issue for me you know since my campaign in that is that i'm wondering if the town had a financial advisor and in fact the town does not have a financial advisor i've asked to see the contract there is no contract for what floyd does and he's a pillar of the town government thank goodness we have him in the position that he's and when he issues a bond he goes to first southwest and they tell him how to petition the bond issue but that but the rest of it we're not really advise by anyone on how to analysis short term and long term considerations for the buildings and with the recognition that it's short term versus long term i don't the approach into short term and long term solutions realizing that we did not have the money unfortunately to do parallel projects and i'd like to speak to that the rest of that in a minute but so therefore we started asking questions about what short term solutions we could provide for minimal money that would alleviate some of the worst situations in both of those facilities to digress for one minute on your parallel projects i would resource out of the town offices and so in order to do parallel projects you would have to staff up many of the offices here and that's an operating spencer and that can be done that absolutely can be done but understand that it's an operating cost that goes along hand in hand with the execution of these projects if we start doing too many on a single track well and i'm not thinking of it in terms of too many i'm thinking of it in terms of need and for me i would have to have someone a done a five the cost of staffing up whatever is required to do them i think and that pretty easily ok done a number of large building projects in this town in the last few years so we can look forward to that this being included in your report not the town meeting in the fall now ma back up just a moment in addition those costs are all the ones as we all know in addition to the impact on the taxpayer for funding new buildings and five buildings at on pretty ambitious part of the reason for looking to a firm that could give measure and value and timing to some to being able to implement choices before the town short term solutions that would mitigate some of the major concerns right now and not be wasted money and be cost effective in terms of a longer term solution for building replacement which we are able to look at right now for any of these choices hence the plan to do fund raising and begin moving forward isn't one against the other it's folks what will the short term solutions be that are reasonable cost that we can manage them perhaps within the capital budget or perhaps within some other resources and then in addition to that is we've talked about the possibility of financing that well it's in a bigger program than not just a high school then the police station i mean look at the room and i think i think we need we need help  you know maybe in maybe at our level not but that's not exalted but you know maybe we need somebody to take a look at the town financials look at the report that the capital budget comes up with we actually hire somebody to do it rather than saying we can get somebody to do it for free because for me that doesn't count you know we need a serious serious evaluation of how we're going to finance these five buildings in the next ten years and fluting and so that's different than what you all are repugnant but so what i do so you know i'd like for you guys to think about that because we need help in my opinion but with regard to what cathy in her colleagues are right and look at the bylaws and starman whether there's an option or not i think that i guess i'm not clear even if it's not i'm not not clear th five and i agree with you the community may not agree with us either so i mean by building private opposition i mean we all work for the voters and know that right so that when you know that i mean i can we can say we want to do all five together one of the things that we're trying to understand and perhaps i don't know how we do this through some public session is that we have the media kept project working group will be conducting over the summer months or early fall is what is the support for all of these buildings likely because ultimately we have to go to the voters to support that this is this is the combination of several months of work that we've done working with e p a on dropping this particular document you may recall in the fall that there was a executive session that was held before the board to discuss what was happening with the town of belmonte ph we met with some two or three occasions a lot of color it's via email and over the phone and the document that you had in your packet is the final document that we've negotiated which is aimed at sort of formalizing the program that we've already begun and we've been actually been involved with for fifteen years maybe some give or take it is the ongoing effort to clean our storm water which is impacting the better grid watershed so this water on consent is an agreement between the town and united states environmental protection agency to formalize the tasks and the responsibilities of order to achieve the goal of cleaning house no more ok no we met on this several times in the past which is part of the public record so we're talking about the outflows on the mystic river side but that's correct and we're not twelve and then two thousand and fourteen and then two thousand and fifteen and then i also noticed that some of the outflows there were there was a high eco rye contamination and i know that the way you manage this is that you have to test and then go find where that contamination is coming from because it could come from any any different source in a given neighborhood yes that's correct so it's project to find those things that you're mentioning listen discharged locations and to address them it also provides a method for if the lissa discharges on private property a method for reaching out to that private property requesting that that be remediated stepping it up involving the e p a if necessary a testing protocol it also includes a g p s protocol g p s system creation sickly a map of the storm water system  and that has an impact when the street is dirty it goes into the storm does that affects the phosphorus level doesn't it does so street sweeping is a best management practice that the town of  do which under the permit that the town is covered under which is the permit the federal government gives to the town of belmont that allows us to discharge i was storm water into receiving the waters there are it is it is the permit the newest permit will become effective july first the schedule is twice annually i don't believe that's what the street sweeping schedule is ok absolutely right you know street sweeping addresses the surface issues you know any pollutants that would be on the roadway surface that are captured in the first flush of  event street sweeping helps to be to mitigate that by removing those what we're talking about here this evening with the piano storm water quality is a little bit of a different animal because we're talking about a sanitary sewer system that is impacting the storm water quality it's source of the impact on storm water is different even though for the public we have two different just complete of a storm water system in there so it's just we do and that's one of the reasons why it is so difficult for us to chase down the of the problem so how does the sewage get into this water there's a couple of different ways that can happen the senate terry sewer system itself is breaking down because it's it is aging and it's deteriorating you could have a situation where you've identified a sanitary sewer main that has degraded and you need to repair that and you may have identified that that location is the source of pollution into your storm water you go in you fix that pipe and it was a was a fix that was necessary and feel you made that repair and now you feel like you've addressed the source of the problem but that could have been masking another problem than that and that you know him neighborhood that's right so i think because we've done this i believe this is off fourth investigation now under this program over the years where about eight and a half million dollars into this effort today what we what i try to explain to people is it's like peeling an onion you peel off a layer you you make the corrections on that layer and you may or may not get to the source of the problem and if you don't get to that source now you're to the next layer so mean it they they have they've agreed to waive penalties for us because of the work that we've been doing that and and the work going forward is not onerous it's something that we can do in the inside the planned project is that fair to say so you know i was my question was there a lot of very i read through this is a lot of very tight deadlines within five years you're going to eliminate all discharges some wiggle room in there but it's a lot of very tight timelines i'm glad that we've come a long way on it so it's not as bad do you think with the current staffing you can complete us i thought i i think that we have to i think that that is the answer belmont is one of several communities that have been dealing with illicit discharge issues for many years the new giftes permit in july first will impact communities that have never had to deal with an illicit discharge problem before they've never been asked to investigate on mitigate or mediate and elicit just chalk problems ok so this at all so they're starting from square one the nip what's the niftiest permit timelines for that type of a community gives you the first eighteen to twenty four months to do year to come up with your plan do your investigation identify your issues and then the next five years years three four five six and seven they give you to remediate what you've discovered so there's that five year time period the difference between a community getting an ip these permits in july versus the town of belmont under an order on consent is e t a recognized this with with full agreement from the town of belmont that that eighteen to twenty four month effort that these communities are going to be doing for the first time we've been doing that for years so we've already got a jump on the timeline in that sense where ahead of the curve because we're behind the curve yeah yeah so that five year period is consistent with is looking at for all communities no i think that when you say we're ahead of the curve because we're we were behind the curve this all of this was was new yes i mean in other words belmont great situation because unlike cambridge we didn't have to rebuild a separate storm water and a separate sewage system i don't know is as somerville in that situation to where they they have to rebuild together thank god  they can avoid it because of the nature of this system the the level of enforcement if that's the right word for a community receiving an order on consent is much less severe than a community that would have an administrative order or consent decree which comes from a federal court there are different sort of stages or different degrees of enforcement that he can use we're better off than a lot of the communities what what do you have to say i  as mr dash mentioned earlier there are a lot of places within the document that recognize reasonable bases for adjusting timelines for instance you pursue a private party that is causing some of the  would like to understand is that what from your point of view what is the next if we don't meet the standard for what what additional penalties are in place number one of so that would be nice to see on the outside we need to be aware of that and then in order to meet these timeframe then what you know what what do you need to do so and outline a plan and what you've executed upon we understand that but as you as you also look at the  that goes into effect july first we talked about this before what is going to what is the funding requirements as you understand your need to comply with that new carmen and one of the funding requirements and plan to  of july first so there are significant additional investments i believe we need to make not just you know what we've already made over the next several years and we need that sort of framework that was needed that is in order and i talked about just briefly speaking to the order and the next step in that process should we not meet our target and i believe the next enforcement level for e p a is an administrative order ok the difference between then administrative order in an order i consent is an order on consensus just what it sounds like it is we would be susceptible to something like that if not something worse i think what benefits us in this case though because we have an order on consent we have all it's almost a partnership with the e p a and so they are they've reviewed our testing protocols before we did our last round of sampling they are going to review and approve our illicit just charge detection and elimination plan ok so they we are very much walking step by step with them and so if we get to if we get to five years and we haven't met our goal the one thing that i am confident in is that he is going to know why and they're going to they're going to know that there was a reason why we didn't we're not going to surprise them with failure after five years because they will have been with us one of the resources you need to or to comply ok so going into this budget season for f y e teen i knew what the nifty i knew was on the horizon for the newbie's permit effective july first seventeen i obviously knew that we had not necessarily an order on consent but i was aware that we had to embark on our next round of clean water sample and mitigation so the budget that has that is will be approved in june by town meeting has capacity in there for us to do everything that we will need to do in f y e t ok so that whether that is hiring consultants whether that is the work that i have to do myself working with public works working with the health department we are in in the shape that we need to be in for f y e t but the most challenging aspect of this whether it is the order on consent or whether it is the nip these permit is the construction end of it ok the investigation the engineering the analysis the upfront stuff that's the relatively short money ok it's when you start talking about construction mitigation that gets into the one to three million dollar range that's when we have to that's when we're looking outside for funding sources but but the stuff that gets us to that point that's relatively simple to get a handle on ok they understand the timelines the niftiest permit the timelines are very clear you need to do this by then it's very clear on what this is that they're asking you to do it's very easy for me to determine whether or not a consultant's going to be required to do that or whether that's something i'm going to do with public works in the health department of some comet combination thereof but mark i can tell you that for f y e a team where we're ok so we so we have made we've done the preparation financially to get us that could to do the f y r e teen beyond that i think it's a fluid situation and we'll know as we go into the budget preface why nineteen what that year look at i mean i appreciate that and thank you for that you know you're always very careful about planning in addressing these issues but look you know to nineteen and look you know to twenty we'll have a discussion momentarily on a citizen's petition we in twenty things start financial needs to the extent possible that you can identify with next several years we have to take that into consideration because we're under any you know c one hundred a zero but we could get there if we don't sort of address the a receipt and you know it's a partnership i appreciate government requirement you know that as well and so we have no sense of what that is we need to know from a financial point of view as we broaden our discussion of often you can completely agree but do we need that and we do not but i right which i mean i think this is the i mean what we're hearing is from councils that this is the best deal that we're going to get and it's actually not a bad deal in that there are no penalties and there could have been one of the timelines or something that one feels they can work with although they're kind of a bit draconian leigh short but we've been doing them all along so we're not starting from now right away well you know i think we've we've discussed this in the two years that i've been here  have been trying to shut this pollution off if we can i don't think any taxpayer in belmont is happy that we have sewage flowing downstream into the mystic river watershed i personally would like to know what's happening on the charles river side too which is on the other side of town but we haven't been able to address that yet so i think it's not the kind of thing where we can say you know we haven't been we haven't been good citizens because we have been but this this requires a tricky implementation i think is the way to put it because we have a separate water storm water system and we have a separate sewage system but we still have events because you know so obviously something is going on you know in that water in that outflow area so they could begin to turn out that the that a lot of this is on the private land and then we just go after the private landowners what is in here that we have to do you can find them and then the other part of is a could all be on town land in which case we have a very large from a dollar figure to fix that but again i don't there's no other solution because this is if you don't sign this like lakeland said then you're going to get ordered to do it probably anyway know i it does not mean it's easy work we all acknowledge it's a lot of work but it's feasible in terms of your question the next steps here are for this board to authorize entry into this it's set up to be signed by the interim dot administrator so you don't have to physically sign it but authorize her signature of that and e p a will do the same and then it will go into and into the process has gone sad we're already doing the things required here in fact while motions that are before you and the only so we can sort of go through those one that's the one with the numbers on it yes you guys on that page you know there's no need to necessarily vote on every article because you'll have more time to do that going forward but i want to walk through them  all right and then  right and just for reference and previous years we've had separate articles one for appropriation one for transfer the processes are very  related and last year as it had in a few previous years the question came up why are they separate articles the transfers usually if someone says no on a transfer then you get an adjustment in the appropriations so george worked with us with similar articles from other communities and appropriation and the transfer is one big article with subsection similar to the way the capital budget is ready for a town meeting when we talk about bob that is the last article ok i will talk school budget hadn't been approved by the school committee and so are we going to approve their budget before they approve it here myself thank you we're not voting it tonight but this is all of this is going to be released tomorrow to the town meeting isn't that correct i thought that the article that the email was with regard to the reserve fund the spat reserve fund and appropriation for  create a reserve fund that would be used for special educationally mr camels and representing a concern to also have it be an appropriation  get there ok ok let's do that but so what is there any controversy about article thirteen and i would just like to go through the motions under the transfers because the budget that has been before you has been one that was the result of an appropriation from the stabilization fund of the general stabilization fund and there was some concern about our interest and no longer using that but instead having free cash to be used in its place ok so should we have to go to that article then to discuss th numbers represent ok this this article thirteen represents the appropriation by budget that has been submit it with one change with a couple of changes that we discussed last on the fifth with three car the eight got with the warrant committee with regard to additional state a proposed in the house budget and additional funding for the tent just under ten thousand for the library and some reductions in some other aid so the offset of that is reflected in this budget motions here so what these numbers represent  which reflects a difference from the budget book prior to additional state aid and reductions in the state assessment and the adjustment of the ten thousand dollars for the library staffing two thousand eight hundred fifty dollars and reserve fund balance free cash two million three twenty two eight fifty reserve was the previous amount fills the previous amount was the one million three twenty we had man that all along there's also money in a later on in motion with regard to our path which also funds uses free cash so that would be shown on article sixteen which shows three hundred fifty four dollars and three hundred fifty four yes thank you three fifty four three fourteen so if you look at page three  so those are the total uses of cash in this budget previous budget showed nine thirty three from the general stabilization fund but based on discussions that we had last week regarding the citizen petition and we it was discussed that we would propose to only use free cash and not use stabilization funds stay the same but that's because the money to balance the budget is coming from free that's the way this is structured there is no that's right it's all coming from free cash so if those are the motion that's the only difference in these motions from the previous budget the next article is for the station of up stabilization fund the allocation as mentioned previously is three fifty four three fourteen from free cash which was the estimated number that was planned to be fudged different be cash it was actually a rough know course the other amounts are budgeted from the enterprise fund for their cost towards ok as we have you ever hear the next article is article seventeen it's the authorization for receipts for programs and they are available under statute to be used for programs so under three hundred thousand dollars if you don't use them for the rams you don't get the money yes that's where they come a mechanism to create a reserve fund that is then available for use as voted by the school committee and by the board of selectmen for special education only same as the article and they were there was a presentation by the retirement lord in the spring if i read through what they are on this right yes they came before you and they talked about what the concern was article nineteen is them basically that there are some statutory changes and they're just trying to be current with them some of them are changes that were made sometime ago like the cole the a minimum survivor benefit but what about inc the retirement board pay i mean it's small money you know it is to me they're getting the same pittance we're getting for under their split and that it now with the point that was made at the time they presented is that it it's just because the statute allows them to be more and so they and there hasn't been a change for years the not terribly concerned about four thousand five hundred per year i'm not terribly concerned about the survivors of members number twenty one to fifty to five hundred  or the annual allowance payable to certain surviving spouses which is article twenty two but i am concerned about the coal base because the as as we saw which you'll see adam when you get the other information not to do this right but on the other hand we have the voters in the taxpayers on the other side in two thousand and sixteen the because of the changes that we made in the  because of changes that we made in the in the investment fund or the investment rate and because in fiscal two thousand and sixteen the  move was fifteen whatever as of june thirtieth two thousand and sixteen the financial statements show that the retirement obligation went up by twelve million dollars so it went from sixty one actually almost four million it went from sixty one to seventy five and a lot of that had to do with the return was below the seven point seven five percent  it was five million short we understand the risk always with the pension fund but i think that if we're going to do any of these i think we need to fund them but i would point out just to be cl and maybe you are clear but the current the color currently is only applied to the first twelve thousand and this is to move it up to fourteen but i know th the impact on the search from the obligation and it increases the obligation by million dollars on top of about a fourteen million dollar increase for fiscal year two thousand team so it's obviously heading in the wrong direction i i i don't you know i don't see that that as i said at the individual level for that one particular one that  really it increases the retirement pay by two hundred dollars a year or something so it's not material to us at the individual level although it's material to the retiree at the individual level but for the taxpayer it increases the pension obligation bit by over a million dollars and i think it's ok as long as we can find a way to pay for it but i think to the them increase the the pension obligation by a significant amount and it's over a million dollars that we should think about how we can fund them rather than add to it's just that how are we going to pay for it that's the question in my mind and should we do it at all well i don't mind doing it as long as we pay for something that's certainly something we need to discuss and i'm certain we will get those funds from but yeah i mean right now we're having a debate as to whether we should continue to increase our general stabilization fund to ensure that we get through fiscal twenty budget and we're going to put money aside to put in traditional funds into a pension trust fund then that's going to draw well i think i think you know we we need to have a longer and different discussion when you know how we're going to manage the budgets going forward because we have a three  the budget came out as a level of service budget you know and i asked to have a one percent task of three percent asking for five percent because i wanted to know what services could be cut or i would have to seven by the way or three percent which would maybe manage it flat or five percent which would be draconian and at least you would know what you would have to cut in order to achieve that in that then if you decide that it's not achievable then then you know where you're at but we don't we're not going to do i mean i don't see any any appetite for doing any of those things so other than exploring for the sake of the intellectual exercise why bother you could you you you have to manage in your seat is that the target is not three point seven percent the target is too low in that if we don't understand our budget enough to know what we would have to cut but what we would have to tell the public if we if that in the budget process i'm saying i don't know whether this you know and i'm also saying that when we get to to the fall you know the the modulars are not in this budget correct and you know i've seen memo saying well we're well i mean you know those are all things that need to be discussed in the fall in the proceeds from the cushing square parking lot you know capital of the capital i think that's ok but maybe if it cost one hundred thousand to increase the the pension fund we can we can use those funds to fuck over boy the increasing the pension liability this year can manage by looking at percent reductions i think that's significant you know to cut school resources plus because that's who we work for i know you know anything you know we have to tell them what the cost is of not managing to that no you know i mean back really when i think you have to give them the choice of whether or not they want to fund an override for that if we get than three million seven because only four million finding on how we finance the well if you guys are right we can use and we want to use the proceeds from would fall to pay for the modulars then you know there's no cash flow impact or b let's say we could we do the bond issue for that which for he doesn't want to do that but still we don't even know what the number is never and well i think two million i mean we can say it out loud it may not be two million but why not you know hypothesize that it's ok two million then then then what do you know then the question is ok how do you finance that two million if you issue a bond then the debt service at least the interest expense is going to go into the operating budget and so then the year over year increase is not going to be three point seven it's a more you know a ten thousand foot view and a little longer term rather than just going ok you know we've closed the cash budget this year and now you know we're going to manage to the next right i mean i think we need a much longer term plan in order to do that you have to know have to know what you what you're paying for what you want what you don't i would suggest that was the purpose of having them forecast regard to that came from the financial task force and that's what we've been doing and i think that i just want to point out that we don't have a bit yet for the modulars we don't know what they're going to be that's why there's  proposal for having a special town meeting in the fall because we can't know that until we know where they're going to be and that's something that's one thing i've learned in two years doing this is that you know governments don't work the way not a mission impossible nothing but we don't want to wait and we want to wait until the fall because we want the building community to try to make some decisions around the configuration of the new high school that's why we wait until the fall ok when i see the show  articles for i think mr santos here i'd like to hear from you know mine are going there are three articles article twenty three twenty four and twenty five all have to do with the authorization of previous appropriations for borrowings so i think the last article is twenty six that is the citizens petition for a general fund stabilization by mr started and so his motion was motion as as phyllis said i'm moving that we move one hundred one million dollars from free cash into the general stabilization fund right now as it was has told you the current budget does not touch the table it's stabilization fund it takes all of the reserves necessary to balance the budget from free cash this is very straightforward article one you've just been talking about a lot about the unknowns coming into the future and i don't have any better read on them  then one certainly sitting at this table but i've looked at the budget for a very long time and it seems to me that whatever if you try holds it's going to be best to hold on onto as much money as we can to cover future contingencies my purpose in submitting this article is the same as it was when i pursued minute a similar article to transfer one point one million into the stabilization fund last year the july certified the cash balance was over seven million dollars as i see that that's good news that was it was a significantly high budget not quite as large as the previous year but still very high and it was due for really for the same reasons  sixteen as it had been the case in fifteen revenues came in higher than had been forecast and actual expenses were lower than the budget amounts therefore leading to turn backs as i see it this type of three cash balance offers us an opportunity to set some money aside to fund future budget deficits reference has been made over during the course of this meeting to the forecast and what that forecast suggests is going to happen in next couple of years right now the forecasts the most recent forecasts suggest that even with using all existing reserves not all existing but the proposed existing reserves some free cash and all of the stabilization fund money we're going to be about seven hundred thousand dollars short next year now honestly i think that can be made up i think i think there will be enough reserves especially once we know the certified amount in july that w be able to make that up the following year when you when in the spring or fifth fiscal nineteen you're budgeting for twenty it's a little more dotting right now it looks to be about four point one million dollars deficit but shortfall and at that time it least as being forecasted at this time there's not going to be a lot of free cash to devote to it i forget the exact amount i think it might be something like eight hundred nine hundred thousand dollars in the forecast that could be devoted to closing the gap in twenty but that still leaves the four point one million dollars deficit right i think it's important whatever set of circumstances person itself in the future in terms of additional spending needs i think it it be town to put as much money aside as possible now i want to just share with you just a real simple context for for this  apologize that i put it into context both in terms of the budget allocations this year which i've learned from phyllis this evening are not quite right because some of the free cash number is a little bit different as i had it i got t just two quick points about what this shows you in my view it shows you that this transfer will leave a free cash balance equal to between three and a quarter in three and a half percent it looks to be three and a quarter right now the suggested that maybe two hundred fifty thousand is not a bad estimate right now that might come from what we don't know we don't know we don't know so right now it looks to be leave about three and three point two five percent increase cash could be as high as three point five i think two point one is three and a quarter percent is within the guidelines that were adopted several years ago that free cash should be between had need to be between three and five with a target certainly of four but but three  five between three my words also is consistent with the past couple of years in fiscal fifteen when we appropriated money for the belmont center of reconstruction and for snow and ice it left us with about three point six three point five seven three point six percent free cash after the appropriations last year following the purchase of the modulars as as an extraordinary event and the transfer of one point one million to the stabilization fund we were left just over three percent five percent is what's being proposed here just to sort of close quickly and i'll ask asked if you have any questions i'll be happy to address them as you know back in two thousand and fifteen we passed the override one of the commitments made to tax page which would we do everything we could to sort of marshal these funds to save them to forestall future overwriting valid questions it's looking like right now if all things remain the same would look like it's not that's not an unlikely occurrence in the spring of nineteen when we're trying to fund twenty twenty budget but the point is that we should do everything we can to either delay that override or mitigate the amount of i b s from taxpayers i think transferring the money the additional million dollars into the stabilization fund putting it aside if you will for stay for see if keeping is an important thing that we should do i think it's i think it's important to do i think from a financial point of view which a prudent thing to do and i think it's the right thing to do in terms of commitment made to taxpayers and i hope you support it i'm happy to answer any questions you have well you've talked to floyd about this yes i have flipped as opposed to this yes i know in florida as opposed to this because he is telling us that last year we used four percent as a guideline for the free cash number for yes  be in the audience by the way to see what two thousand seven hundred free cash position looks like now we understand at least i understand my colleagues previously did that in fiscal two thousand and sixteen it was november to approve appropriation of funds for the modular project looks like the modular is driving the town my approach is not change consistent with conservative approach always keeping in mind to make decisions when you have the best information available the open question how to pay for the modular still needs more discussion once we have the final number so i think his argument basically is that he doesn't want to  and the superintendent of schools and the assistant town ministre are in the town treasurer but basically the letter indicated that the proceeds from the sale of the cushing square parking lot which was one point three million a fund that is reserved for c it's available for another capital expenditure that would be up to five year borrowing i mean a minimum five year borrowing which would be the modulus would qualify for that expenditure and then there would be and an expectation that the families could be funded from free cash and that's the mated number of about five hundred thousand because we don't have the beds and we don't know what the project an additional two million dollars that was added into the general stabilization either by not drawing down nine hundred ninety thousand doctoring or adding two million after the georgetown didn't make sense to do that so we agreed in principle to not write down nine hundred ninety three thousand so the way i look at the discussion on friday was that we sort of met halfway on the point with a commitment and i asked this of those attendants that we would revisit this in the fall to me i think it's it's in the stabilization fund it's more clear no i don't oppose putting money in the stabilization fund what i want to hear that is for us to want to tie our hands when we don't have the modular numbers and if you did five hundred now and five hundred in the fall or revisit the fall of look at the other saying and then to the one thirty three so mark's point was that instead of putting to them the motion that was submitted by mr sano was that a million safe and by putting another million and for the right yes so so that i think that's really what we're talking yeah i addressed the issue about what might happen in the in the fall and why i think it's still the best course to put this money into the stabilization  floyd's approach i know he's he's he works with the rating agencies we have to you have to you know consider their opinions on it he has suggested in the past and i think he's right that you know sometimes and he's told told me this in past contacts that you know it's good to go a kind of a fifty lloyd about that last year when i was doing my business petition and i said you know because i i was pushing for more of course and i said ok at your bond the one point four fifty five million for the march of the he said no he says i like the balanced approach i want to use free cash this year we'll look at bonding next year so it at that point in time and i'm not saying he's going back was were but i mean at that point he was thinking of it like a two year sort of phase one phase two of this now it seems to me there's three possibilities for funding modulars ok the first is you could all decide to bomb them entirely in which case clearly it is not additional free cash or very little free cash going to be needed in the fall during the course of f y eighteen tomorrow to fund the modulars that's number one number two would be maybe we're doing the you know the two year arc and we're going to go or maybe we're not going to go the two year are just here say let's go fifty percent broadly speaking this year let's fund half with cash fund the other half without if that is the case now i know we don't know what they're going to cost early on i heard david kill suggest it might be two million let's call it two and a half because i know that is logistical problems the proper way the properties are laid out at the elementary schools it's not going to be as simple as it was at the chinnery but even call it i think two and a half years but for a high end house i don't think that would be that high let's say you work if you're going to fifty fifty there's more than enough money in the parking lot account to do fifty percent cash the only place that i think there might be a conflict in terms of that you want more cash available would be if it's decided understand that it is the argument is we need one want some flexibility i guess my thinking is this if the other thing is i'm leaving out of this conversation is i don't know what free cash is going to look like come july one what a month going to be certified w that's not on the table you know we simply don't know right ok that could that could solve everyone's issues but let's say we don't know what this in time so we're going to take kind of a a minimalist approach meaning ok worst case scenario we don't really have much in the way turn backs or exercise revenues and so precast doesn't jump up like it has the last few years which which is a plausible one possible outcome i know that the expense management and the forecasts are a little tighter now they're a little closer to what you think reality is going to be if it's that i would submit to you that you really don't want to spend the cash on the modulars because things aren't good and you're going to want that money for for the future budget deficit which is you know not really you know you've got that much less money with respect to flexibility i guess i look at it this way i remember when i proposed it last year out of you supported it but  remember you also said it's kind of like a savings account checking account and indeed it doesn't make that much different the money is there it is a reserve and if a legitimate purpose country for a town meeting i have very little doubt the time meeting would approve of what i want to tell meeting to consider when they do it in the two thirds vote of operationalize is this the future majority is answering the question is this important is an important expenditure does it have merit is it important is it more important than keeping this money just to solve a budget deficit that we know is coming and i think that is the question that ought to be asked when this additional million dollars is is proposed to be spent i don't mean that the proposal won't pass muster and get and get voted on but i think that's really the issue in front of us were sufficient harry was really facing some real serious deficits not too long into the future i think i believe in people may that you really do need it we don't have a lot more free cash certified come july or you know this july effective july that the that you choose to buy cash paid totally for cash for the the one point three million then would not be enough we all agree it's going to be more than that for the modulars tom meeting could vote that money how mean you could say you know we really wanted to hold a cell but boy this is necessary and we can understand it's got to be done i don't think the additional flexibility is a good thing i think that having some constraint there the say ok is it really a better use of the money not is it a good use of the money is it a better use of the money is what i'd like what i'd like to be the question i think six months of waiting isn't going to i mean we're not going to blow through all the free cash in the six months between now and november and i mean it's a fix a matter fluff like sport and you don't know what interest rates are going to do by the fall i mean if they skyrocketed we made the bonding may be too expensive i think just discussion is exactly the kind of discussion we should have on the budget in general i think the concern about whether the much of those are going to be a million five or two million or two million five it's a total wag the dog you know two million is a good number to think about it again and to think about it in terms of strategy there's no reason not to use two million dollars i believe that there's should be some rules about how we manage the town in the expenditures and i certainly respect for its traditional fifty fifty approach there's no question about that would for wouldn't do it i would announce it in so i favor the idea of locking this money up in a two thirds fund rather than leaving it in free cash so that you know we can all say well it's ok to finance a couple or not only pay for a capital asset to pay for a capital asset with fifty percent in free cash i don't think it's a good idea given our current financial situation so i support what you're talking about and i think it's exactly the kind of financial management that the three of us need thinking about when when we hit you know when we're talking about ok what are we going to do about next year because the budget you know the budget cycle is coming requirements for free cash in the fall that hasn't been discussed if the proposed special ed reserve fund is not funded now but is funded in the fall that actually might make the most sense to fund it out of free cash which would know that still has to be discussed but that could be a significant additional draw on free cash that is another reason to i think exercise some caution actually that for you to get is whether is the transfer that we described at the beginning whether you want it because right now it's proposed to be used for free cash as opposed to the stabilization fund if you agree that's the only thing that's to change now depends on whether it's a citizen position passes a tell me then that has to change but we have that now that minute it's my understanding that the citizens petition can dash has has talked with me about some concerns that we look at in terms of the process for committee reports and maybe inviting more people to get clear procedures like concord had i thought those were excellent like exactly how committee appointments are done to remove favoritism to try to move politics from a to just be very clear to be a good fairy clear about it into also the compered ones for instance  you do today you do like two terms on and then you have to come off you can't be a more than one committee at a time to try to spread it all out and we can do more outreach of a committee fairer things that outreach to the community to get more on the solicit more of a lot of talented people were just honestly not tapping into them and they don't know how to get involved and right now the committees are up for reappointment and it would be a nice billet be for us to go out and seek people out rather than just wait for  here introduce this idea about term limits he was yelling about i think he would cry from all of the chairs of the various committees and other members doesn't make it a bad idea i'm not suggesting it was out i'm just telling you that what the reaction that you're going to get and i favor a gop in a more i think our committee prices come a long way since i've gotten on the board to see how we go about it you know but i think that's right i think that there are a lot of younger families in his or me folks that are moving this community that just i'm not looking to reinvent the wheel there but i'm sure there are other examples but that mean there are other towns that have these things as rep it often change the name i mean there's really nothing terribly revolutionary about what the proposed what they're not going to post or there are different processes and we can go if we can put out the information about which committees have openings and solicit people to submit their interest i think that we can add to our web page that indicates if you think you may have an interest please contact someone who's on the committee and ask them what they doing what their commitment is and then we can get those and i think that a general outreach might be well received and that it would be helpful to just give people an avenue to look at making contacts with members of committees and seeing what they you know you could have a committee for the committee first tables in the room with different committees the tables invite the public and  around and sign up and just be there a lot of skilled people here and who goes on the cable t v committee there might be an expert in town right they just don't you know they don't go on the town website or not a town meeting member they never get the notices if we did more outreach we i think we get a lot more people greet  what you're going to lose and short term limits enough to get into the discussion now is there is a lot of institutional knowledge in some of these committees that you would lose so that was sort of that's that was a lot of the feedback we had gotten but there are exceptions for the term limits for people of exceptional want to share so there's no way we can do between now and monday but i know i agree with you as much as i would love to do this quickly i don't want to do it i think a lot of the other examples and so we have a debate and discussion about this adopt a policy that we think is in draft form and then share it with the community here they feel the need to do that we don't have to share which by waiting till june to weigh what we normally do you know you know it's been that process in the past where i actually had of the schedule in terms of notifying committees so we're ahead of last year so we'll continue to see that we'll get some other examples and i think what you're one better than the year before because the year before we had some late appointments you know october things like that but in the past you scheduled working sessions to try and focus on that what you did for the budget so we can set those up that we have to get people in for ok so mark what are you asking for you're asking for other perceived i think i think we really need to think about what a pulse is going to be if we're going to adopt a policy in dr form and we need to see other examples and discuss it and have a draft policy we can decide whether we want to share with committee chairs i would suggest we do that and then drop the policy prior to appointments we send out of the letter now someone ask us earlier does that mean that he can't resubmit the application the answer is no and in the other practical impact of this is that if that form or application had continued then adam wouldn't be able to vote on it because he was a selectman because there were previous hearings yeah exactly so now the practical effect of this is that you're on board with this decision that you can't be on this we have to to have an executive session with regard to collective bargaining and on monday yes on the may may twenty second half an hour we have ok that's fine i'm just that that's human resource director is the value with the proposals and make a recommendation to you on the twenty second what we do all this in an hour and a half and be ready for an opening the other item is accepting a gift we select they're not they're just they're going to vet them and then give them so we're all going to be recommended to watch one so we're going to see the other of they're going to give us all the rights well they normally the processes that you die away proposals you rate the first because that was structured differently you know but they made a recommendation and then we met with the right it was the structure of the proposal you have to outline in the request for proposal how you're going to narrow it down and then who makes the  proposing that you vote that night but she's trying to make a recommendation so that you can have a dialogue about it and keep it moving that's the intent when when are we going to meet again after the  you have to do that on the twenty second because it has to be for the like for a two week notice if we do it for a special town meeting any special town meeting you have to have a two week notice that the last date is selection of a consultant on monday you know not be prepared i mean i appreciate the fact that she was happy to sort of news here i mean the one article that i think needs to be for me to think about a little bit more is the service article the rest i'm fin rightly so my point is if you elect on the twenty second to defer it until the fall then you don't have to but that's the last date you have to make it so you know the first two will be the library civil let's let's just approve the agenda now ok so executive session on the collective bargaining then we can have a library people come in at six thirty right this is two and then we'll be binder provide a memo and then also their request for proposal and i'll send you an email that i think because the process i didn't read it so i will go and read it again but it outlines how it's thing we need to do as a board to hire the right forum it is and very important i trust just secure in the team that's going to be evaluated but i want to see them all i'm not disagreeing here but on the other hand if i third we discussed the shortfall in snow and ice and that amount on april third was three hundred twenty thousand to forty nine we discussed the fact that we would submit that to the war committee for our reserve fund transfer i just wanted to let you know that the number as of me eight is two thousand and twenty two dollars more so the number we will be performing to the more committee is three permits that are available for purchase nor for for town