Thank you. Um so there's a lot of different factors that go into scheduling the bus routes. Obviously number one being the number of students we have. Um, and so right now we plan for transporting every one of our Brookfield students to and from school every day. Um, so that's number one, but that's not the only factor that's considered. Um, the geography is also considered and not just like the amount of miles of that that Brookfield covers, but the roads that um are throughout Brookfield. There are and I I think it's Route Seven and another main artery that the buses will not go across. So that sort of limits also the number of routes. Um and so so so there's all those things to to consider. Um I I have asked um every which way and sideways the bus company is tell me how we eliminate any number any number of buses.
Um, it is also the intent to support the downtown businesses within the proposed district. We want they want we all want to see business succeed in downtown Ashlin and it is not an us versus them situation. I'm highly in favor of this district and to suggest that this would in any way rob Ashlin of business opportunities is just a fallacy. All you have to do is drive through Hudson and look at what has gone down gone down on in downtown Hudson. You will see restaurants, apothecaries, cremaries, all kinds of new businesses that have been established within the confines of their historic district. Thank you. Thank you. Here we go again. Um I'm Brandy Ken, Brandy Kinsman from the select board. I'm at six lucy French way, but I'm here speaking on my own behalf. I'm not here representing the board tonight. Um first of all, I just want to thank the historical commission for all the work that they've done on this and acknowledge that it has been um a long process for you.
Um and and maintaining two tiers. Um they have come back every every time very strongly that that is unless we want to decide unless unless you folks want to decide as a board that um we don't need to transport you know we don't we will take a gamble and not ensure that we have to transport every student now are is every bus at capacity is not right it's it's not when we start the school year planning for every student and I have all those numbers from allstar um a lot of buses are over. Some buses are over capacity, but um you know they're they're generally all full. Whiskanir buses aren't quite at capacity. Um but um that's that's with three students to every seat. So um once September starts that does drop, right? We have high school students that um that will drive themselves to school.
Um I know this started initially with the genesis was the the mill building which um unfortunately with 40B uh circumvents local zoning. Um and the intention of this bylaw is really good. Um my concern really is um just how it would be implemented. Um, I I do have some concerns. So, we all know that there are unique um buildings in downtown Ashlin that we all love. Um, Jim talked about the Federated Church stones. Those buildings should absolutely be preserved. Um, it adds to the character and the uniqueness of Ashland. But there are many parcels that are on this list that would not necessarily be those that we would want to preserve the facades. Um, the young lady in front of me had talked about lunkers. That is a an an old building. It is a historical building, but I am not sure that as a community we want to ensure that that building facade never changes.
We have um if you've seen the drop off line at CLS, there's a lot of parents, right? Yep. There's a lot of parents that drive their school. So those numbers do come down. Um but at any given time um we we need to ensure that we can transport all of our students to school. Um if the board wanted to direct the superintendent to say that we don't we don't want to you know weiskis we we want to take a risk and say you know we're not going to require that. Um I think that would have to come from the board um because it is a legal requirement that we are able to provide transportation to all the students and so I wouldn't want that to um so but to to answer your question you know so more time between the two buses the two routes does not create a situation where they can provide I think what it what it what it will end up doing is creating a situation where we're going to have a much longer um bus runs right like routes are going to be longer longer.
Um, and so when we look at how this would be implemented, um, a better approach I believe would have been to establish individual building local historic districts and other towns have had a lot of success with this. Um Welssley has five individual um local historic districts. Needam has one in front of the attorney general. Um the city of Somerville has over 200 individual um local historic districts. It is something that could be targeted and would be much more I think applicable to our downtown rather than blanket approach. We have um we have invested millions of dollars in revitalizing our downtown and we have seen private investment come in to support that. We saw that with um we've had new businesses come in Crossroads PT. We've had Subzero Ice Cream and most recently Clover Road and that has added to the vitality of town. And I'm just concerned that this particular bylaw would um would would would not serve the community in the way that that um the community intends it to.
Um, so pickup times at a 710 start time are now going to, you know, you're going to you're going to start like um coming into the benefit of that earlier start of that later start time by having to pick up earlier. So, um there's there's just a lot to and and I don't know if the and I I'm not sure if the start time um the impetus for the start time conversation was was purely budget driven. I think budget was actually a very was a the it was a yeah it certainly because that does that does impact it obviously um so and and in the scenario we were just discussing the the the challenge there is and first I have to compliment Allstar they've been very giving other time and working with Casey and and you know they have a contract and they've been great I I find Allstar has been fantastic for us they do live up to their name and um Deb Jones the actual depot manager has been fantastic and jumps right in there and drives the buses.
So um so I would my personal view is that um this particular bylaw as it's written should not be passed. Thank you Jim. If if a question is asked you you can certainly answer it. The concern is her opinion. So there's really no response to her opinion. Let's get through. That's not really a question. We've heard from both. We've heard from the presentation that there aren't. She's saying there are. If we want to get legal counsel involved, we certainly can. But we're not going to go back and forth every time someone says something that might be if you think it's wrong, we're not going to start going back and forth. We'll be here all night. Hi, uh, Lisa Churchill. I live at Sierra Drive. I'm also the property owner of 20 Street and the business owner of Lush Bouquet. My property is one of the many private properties that's going to be included in the historic district, but is designated as non-historic.
So, we don't see the shortage like some of the other driver shortage. So, I just need to say that um but in in the impetus as I recall from the committee was to really look at this if budget was something that was a byproduct. Wonderful. But and and now you know comes to fruition with some of the cuts we have to deal with. But it was the concern about kids getting out of school early to make those four mainly a lot of four:00 times for away games. If in that scenario, Steph, that you just put forward. If we were to go to 7:50 instead of 7:30, now our that's 20 minutes. So now we're at 2:30. And the problem with 2:30 is not only have the the bus traffic at the school 2:30, 2:35 is the time now you have less time to get through all of our local traffic, get kids to uh a competition in advance enough to properly stretch, warm up, and you know, get ready for a competition.
When I bought Tal six years ago, I knew I wanted to bring something new to Ashland. It was maybe somewhat of a romantic dream to buy a downtown flower and gift shop um like we see in the movies, but we've done it for the last six years. Um and I'd like to think that my business represents the new vision for downtown and all that it can become handinhand with the improvements that the town has been making in downtown. Um at least once a week a customer will tell me how happy they are that Blush is here in Ashland and they wish there was more of the same. They want to see a thriving downtown with stores, restaurants, events, and more. and it's starting to happen with my business, with my friends at Subzero, our new friends at Clover Road. Um, but the the proposed historic district will slow or stop any further development of that kind.
So that's where all this problematic piece comes in. So that's why in looking with the athletic director was that 215 210 window was like the latest if we're going to eliminate the majority of kids with the exception of the golf situation which you can't help. Um but we did also talk about when we when we voted on this before and it failed it the fact that like that's one portion of the student population. It's not the entirety and a lot of the survey results like were very clear that they didn't have a problem completing their work. It wasn't an issue to leave early. So, right, that's another component of that data. Sports early time is just one factor in this big giant picture of cascading, you know, sort of Yeah. overlapping uh concerns and No, those are that was the survey. Speaking of surveys, are we allowed to survey the parents to see who needs the bus and who doesn't?
Um, there's nothing I want more than an adorable downtown. This proposed historic district will not create that. It will not encourage us to update our buildings. It will not provide grant money for us to pay for the increased standards they're imposing. It will not promote growth or new business. It will simply tie us up in paperwork restrictions and increase costs while freezing our downtown in time. There are currently no storefronts or buildings available for rent or purchase. So where can new businesses go without some level of development required? Um and the 60 plus day process of paperwork, public hearings, and imposed restrictions which is in addition to existing town processes will discourage any new developers or business owners. Now, during this, I've been repeatedly assured that as a non-historic property, none of the restrictions apply to my building, but that seems to be currently there's no guarantee that it would continue to be the case.
You said that it's legally are we legally are we allowed to ask them? The the law is that we have to have a seat for every student who's within the the qualifying distance uh which I think is over a mile to you know uh have a bus uh for us and so that's the situation we have. You can decide to do the things you would like to do. That is actually the conversation that's actually the conversation that I would like to have. Um because you know I just think that if you are if we're looking at a cut of this size to take it from one source which is we're going to get rid of start times. We're going from two tiers to three tiers. that sort of hamstrings us in the future for options that we could have, right? I mean, if we really want to look at transportation and and this being an area where we can squeeze and cut because to be honest, I don't like any of these changes.
So, why are we burdening the property owners and the businesses with additional red tape? To be clear, I understand the desire to protect meaningful and significant historic properties, but not at the expense of the property owners and definitely not at the expense of non-historic properties that are being swept up in the current district. I'd also like to note that no property owners or business owners were consulted during the entire process that the historical commission has gone through. We received letters in the mail, but there was no discussion that ever took place. Um, I was told recently by the commission that it was simply an oversight on their part, but it feels like a huge oversight. Um, the commission is claiming that they want to help us, but how can they help us without a true understanding of what downtown looks like from the inside? So, I think you know where I stand.
I don't want to I don't want to cut any of it, but this is the situation we're in, right? So, none of the options are good. But what I would like to do is diversify as much as possible the cuts that we have to make. And my rationale behind that is that in future budgets, maybe even if we get a great summer where you know budget fluctuations happen, there may be opportunities to work back in whether it be this summer or in future budgets the things that we lost um from this cut. But I can guarantee you if we cut $250,000 from ending school start times, that is never coming back because that's not something I doubt I I I don't I really highly doubt any future board is going to say, "Yeah, let's just go invest a quarter of a million dollars in this one initiative in this single year.
I oppose this district. Thank you for your time. Thank you. Marcia Renie, 41 Bay Colony Drive. Um, I was born in this town and I'm lived here most of my life. Um, and what I want to use, what I want to stress to this group tonight is that we are a community. I own a house, but I want to live in a community. And a community means that we we think about the needs of each other all the time. And yes, being a property owner gives us certain rights, but we all live under zoning laws. We live under other kind of restrictions because we want our quality of life as a group to matter. I have seen too many times in my life here where we have waited too long as a community and a property owner who's come in and has their single vision of what they want to do with a parcel or a building and then for literally for the rest of time we have to live with that single person's vision.
It's never going to happen." But if we take cuts from this area and that area and that area and it all is it all sucks. We all hate it, but those are things that are more easily worked back into the budget. So, I'm not just thinking about how do we save and reduce this budget, but how do we long term get everything we want, just not when we want it. I mean, that's really like sort of the decision I think we're faced with. So, I personally would like to, you know, I think it's a pretty safe thing to say that a good chunk of students regularly get driven to school. Um, and I think that's a pretty reliable pattern. And so I think that it would be just I don't want to say necessarily a gamble, but I would say a minor calculated risk on understanding that a good chunk of students are going to be driven to school.
This is wonderful to me this opportunity that we can have a group of people who are going to be appointed are going to have guidelines. They're going to be appointed by the elected board of select select board to represent the needs of the community. There's a lot of hysteria about what they're going to do, but we have seen in other towns that this works. It's a way for us to not let something happen without any kind of oversight that makes us lose something precious to our town. And I I'm really sad. I'm I'm so proud of Naen who wasn't here, but but sort of stepped up to say this is a good thing because yeah, maybe it's some restrictions on me, but I'm thinking about the larger community and this could be a really good thing. Let's think a hundred years from now and maybe if we do the right thing tonight, our children's children will be able to appreciate the history of our town.
Um, and so I would like to explore, you know, that that minor calculated risk of, you know, forcing the bus company to redesign routes, condense stops, make it more efficient with three less buses. And, you know, I'm I'm thinking, you know, if it turns out to be a disaster and we hate it, we can stepwise reduce that risk by adding, okay, now we're going to risk by negative two buses. Still bad. we can, you know, we can add those back in over time in the budget. So, it's not like a final final it's gone. Um, I I think that's for me that's where my comfort is in terms of just securing what we can when we can. Um, I think it's just dangerous to cut from such a major area just once and in one, you know, fell swoop. Jack as well. Is there any way we can get any kind of data of who gets dropped off?
And I'm sorry if I'm a little emotional, but I'm so tired of Ashland being a dollar short and a day late on these kinds of things. So, please let's have some vision. Let's think about a community and how we can work together through a group of citizens who care about our community and our history. And so I am strongly in favor of this. Thank you. Please. I I'm not going to tolerate outbursts. I promise I won't. Okay. It's John Ellsworth, 22 High Street Extension. I would like to talk a little bit about experiences that Marggo and I had when we moved into downtown. We moved into a place called 81 Main Street. Glam Beauty Parlor is there now. They own both both of the doors. We renovated a small space for four agents and an administrator, added heat, added added air conditioning, did the stuff to render it useful.