001Good evening and welcome to Around the Clocks live candidates debate slashforum. I'm your host Yolanda Greavves. I've been here on Around the Clock for 10 plus years and it's always a pleasure to be able to share with our residents about the candidates that are running for different town offices here in Ashland. Tonight's forum is in two parts. The first is with our three select board candidates who are going to have an opening statement, then answer some questions and have some discussion and then we'll close the first part of the show with them giving a closing statement and that'll be about an hour. So till about 8:00. Uh we are going out live on the cable station as well as out through YouTube. So however you're watching it, thank you for being here and let's get
002this party started. So, our three candidates that are here tonight for select board are Brandy Kinsman, Joe Manyani, and Carlton Phelps. Good evening. I want to thank you all for being here. And I am going to apologize ahead of time to our audience and to you. Uh I don't expect to have a coughing fit, but if my throat goes crazy, I'll be taking some water just so that you can I can make sure you can hear me and that our audience can hear me. Wonderful. We're going to start with opening statements, and we're doing it uh alphabetical by last name. So Brandy, you get to start for us. Okay. Thank you. Um and first of all, just thank you to um WACA and Around the Clock for putting this together. It's always a good opportunity
003to be able to uh talk about Ashland and also uh talk to my fellow candidates for select board. So thank you for that. Um I'm Brandy Kinsman. I am running for my third term on the select board. It's funny how fast nine years or six years goes by. Um, so just a little background on on me. I have lived in Ashlin for about 19 years, uh, with my husband Dave, and we have one son who's going to be graduating from Ashlin High School in just a few short weeks, which is crazy. Um, I first started getting involved in Ashland about nine years ago, uh, as part of the Ashlin Redevelopment Authority. Um and then uh I became part of the um group that brought the Corner Spot um to Ashland and that was a fun
004fun project. Um and so and professionally like my day job my actual day job I am a national account manager for an asset management firm in Boston where I've been for about 20 years and uh I have about 25 years of experience in communication and marketing and sales. Um and so my six years uh as a member of the select board, we've done a ton. Um we have invested quite a bit into our community. We've had major capital projects, our uh public safety building, our new Mendes school, uh the re the revitalization of our downtown, and uh the Route 126 project, which is almost done. Um, we've also added some amenities to Ashland, including the um Oh, man. Okay. Um, including the um the riverw walk and the trolley brook trail and added some parcels
005for open space um onto the town forest. So, I you have I know you have a lot more you probably have more to say, but we are in our 90 seconds. Okay. Um and we are going to have an opportunity to have conversation about these things as well. So, okay. Um, your six years have been very full, so we know we have some time to talk about that. Okay. Uh, our next candidate who's going to give their opening statement is Joe Manyani. Thank you, Yolanda. Uh, that's kind of hard to to follow up with with with Brandy, but I'll do my very best. Uh, hi, I'm Joe Manyani. I am running for reelection. Uh I will be completing my fifth term uh as a select board member which means I've been here for 15 years
006and hopefully for another three if I'm lucky enough to get reelected. Um I feel that I'm qualified with the years of experience that I that I have on the board uh working with Brandy, working with Yolanda and working with all the other uh select men and select board members over over these 15 years. Yeah, we've uh we faced a lot of uh adversity over those 15 years, but we had we had a lot of accomplishments as well, like Brandy said. Um and just like to add that u land preservation and land uh is very important to me in open space. So during my tenure, there's been over 404 acres of land that have been purchased and provided uh to the town town forest and to open space and uh most recently a 54 acre apostle
007of land uh from UC which is uh the United Christ Church in Frammingham uh was purchased by Ashland for just a little over a million dollars. 54 acres for a million dollars isn't a bad deal and that's going to be part of the new uh the addition to the Ashland Town Forest. So, I'm very proud of that as well. Um again, I've been here for 15 years. Uh I'm a retired police sergeant. Um service for 34 years in town here. I've been married for 44 years and I have three grown children, nine great grand uh uh nine grandchildren. No great grandchildren yet. Hopefully not. Um but um and I will continue uh over the conversations that we have with some of the other accomplishments that we have experienced over the years. But great, that's me.
008Thank you, Joe. The same. We're going to have an opportunity to discuss the accomplishments that you've had and what we're looking forward to as a community. Um so our last candidate is Carlton Phelps. Carlton. Well, first of all, I want to thank Waka TV. Uh thank you, Madam Chair, for having me. to the candidates. Brandon, Brandy, excuse me, and uh Joe, I appreciate uh having this debate. Again, my name is Carlton Phelps. Hello, Ashlin. Um I've been a resident for about eight years now in Metro West and I'm running for select board because I feel like I have solutions. I actually go out and talk to the residents of Ashlin and one of the things that comes up is not only do we need new blood, but we need new ideas towards a difficult future.
009Um, last week we had a town meeting and it was very apparent that Ashland is going to be in some financial uh, difficulties in the upcoming future unless we make some tough decisions. My background is that I've been in finance and sales for over 20 years. Most recently, I worked for the Federal Home Loan Bank of Boston as a bank auditor, and I can really take a look at what we're actually doing from a financial perspective as well as um infusing from a social perspective what we're doing. Um, a little bit also about me is that I'm, you know, college basketball player. I played sports. I still very active in the community. I volunteer at the YMCA. And I would say my platform is more going to be built around affordability, but also education and
010transportation and the things that are important to day-to-day to residents of Ashlin. So, thank you for listening to me today. Okay, great. You didn't get the cut off. Just about though. Just about. I tal I talked too fast. No, that's fine. Good. Well, thank you all for those opening statements and as I said, this is really a discussion. I'll answer I'll ask a question. Um either if someone really wants to answer first, we'll do that. But I think it's the opportunity for each of you to talk about some of the issues that are certainly facing Ashland. Uh so Carlton, you mentioned financial issues. So this is a question I have and it's a little bit there's a little bit of information before the actual question. Okay. Um and Carlton, I'll start with you for an
011answer. So balancing growth and preservation are key. Ashland is a town with a strong community identity, historic charm as in as in and is in need of economic opportunities. As development continues, how would you ensure that new investments, businesses, and infrastructure projects enhance economic vitality while preserving the aspects that make Ashland unique? So, that's the first question. And as you answer, think about this. what specific policies or strategies would you implement to maintain or create this balance? Thank you. So, in terms of our economic growth, I think the biggest thing is that we have to continue to increase commercial business right now. Ashlin is not robust with commercial business um in terms of excuse me commercial revenue. We need to increase that. I think the best idea and the best solution is we have to
012look at like communities. We have communities under 40,000 residents right next to us such as NATIC for example. What are some of these other communities doing that is increasing their commercial revenue and what is Ashlin not doing? Now to say that also last week at the town meeting there was a big discussion about making a historical district. I think we can do both. I think we can preserve Ashlin. we can support our historical district and you know a historical committee as well and also invite commercial business. We have to incentivize um businesses, small business owners, developers and work with them. I have a background in uh real estate development also in auditing real estate. So I know a little bit about incentivizing it whether it's through tax working with the uh finance committee. We have
013to figure out ways to incentivize and I think that would be probably the starting point from day one if uh Ashlin residents um choose to elect me. Okay, great. Joe, your thoughts on that question? Thank you, Colin. Great answer. Um it's not an easy answer. There's really the solution to this is is uh is very difficult. Um like you said, commercial growth is Ashelon wasn't built for commercial growth over the years. um few former uh select select men committees uh prior to me getting involved in in in politics uh said Ashlin was always going to be a bedroom community and that's all it was ever going to be. So when they started the foundation of this town when Farford started building and changing the landscape of Ashland um there was no commercial growth even thought
014of. As a matter of fact, it was put in obeyance. I don't know if too many people realize this, but Ashland's uh workman circle area uh Captain A's Elonquin Trail, that was going to be a brewery. And the town said no because they didn't want to provide water andor sewer at the time for that growth. Can you imagine what that type of what that building or that business would have done for Ashland if it came into town? Not only would it have provided growth, it would provided jobs and some of these people would have stayed on, you know, long for a long time. So, we have we have you have to change the mindset of of a lot of people in in town. So now we have a a de demographic change where we have
015a lot more younger people in town, but there's still an older group that remembers that old way of doing things. And it's unfortunate that we have to, you know, pit the two against one another. Uh doing something in an homogeneous way to get we have an economic developer uh uh management team. Uh they're trying their best, but it's it's not easy. Nashville is not unique in this. All the surrounding towns are feeling the same thing. If you go down up and down Route 9, like you mentioned, Native, there are a lot of open spaces available that have commercial space open and in a commercial space right now is dirt cheap because they're trying to get those those places filled. So, um, we have to think of, you know, we have to think outside the box
016on that with respect to that. And it's not going to be an easy solution. It's going to be a slow progress process to get that to get that happening so that we can do things. One of the things that we did years ago back in 2010, we used the uh the site, the landfill site as a uh a site for a solar farm. Nobody ever thought about that, but I asked the question, why can't we put a solar farm up there? Well, they did some research and into it and because what we have, we have a solar farm generating in, you know, generating revenue to the town. So, there's there's there's other ways of looking at besides commercial growth uh in town. Um, and you're going to get an opposition with respect to that because
017there's so many just go down 126 and look at the spaces that are already open. Yeah. You know, so it's it's a difficult there's no easy answer to that question to be very honest with you. Okay, great. Thank you, Joe. Brandy. Um, so we've actually made a lot of progress with regards to our business community. I think it was about seven years ago that we introduced our business incentive program um to Ashland and our economic development director um proposed this as a home rule petition with the legislation legislators um and basically you know the meals tax funds um the business incentive program and we had some money that was set aside from um Senate President Karen Spilka to help start and fund this and basically the business incentive program provides um improvements for existing businesses
018like um like a sign and facade improvement program. Um and for new businesses that are looking to come to town, uh we offer an amenities option where we can help subsidize um whether it's equipment or rent for the first couple of months while a business kind of gets going. Um and then also in partnership with Needm Bank, we have a 0% financing option too, so that um businesses can take out loans and we've talked to so many new businesses that have come to Ashland and really the business incentive program was really one of the reasons they came to Ashland like Zeta Fencing. we were talking about NATIC um purposely moved to Ashlin partly because of the space because they were able to get space in the tele building um but mostly because our business incentive
019program gave them a reason and a mechanism to be able to fund that move and fund the buildout. So we're really super fortunate to to have that as sort of a a tool um in our toolkit. And then when we were talking about historic preservation, um you know the the once the public safety building was built, the um the town who owned the fire station and we had put out an RFP to the public. Actually, we put out a survey to the public before there was an RFP um to find out what the public wanted in that space. And you know, the the response from the public was really to bring uh either a restaurant or a brew pub into downtown Ashland and um and to keep the historical nature of that firehouse, which was
020super important. Um and so when we put out the RFP, that's what we were looking for. We were looking for those types of businesses to come. and Clover Road, who had been in Hudson and had um was looking to pop up at the corner spot actually, um talked to Beth Reynolds, our economic development director, and um saw the fire station and thought of this concept around Clover Road tap room that was um that was born. And so what they've done to that space is really not only revitalized the fire station and kept it in its complete historic nature and also paid homage to the to the firefighters that were there, but also it's it's literally changed the dynamic in our downtown because the the supporting businesses um are all benefiting from the fact that Clover
021Road doesn't do food. So, there's takeout options and delivery options from all of our downtown businesses. They're seeing more traffic. Um, even an a restaurant like Erica's is seeing a lot more traffic because people are going to and from the the brewery, take home. Absolutely. Yeah. And so it really is it really is like um you know this is this is why we invested in our downtown and we are able to still um save the historical nature of some of our buildings and the things that make actually Ashlin unique and still add the vitality and and to our businesses. So on that note because um I think I think there's still no one I mean you mentioned some of the policies that we've already done right specific policies or strategies that you would implement to
022maintain the balance and on top of that um how can we manage our population growth and again encourage those businesses right we keep hearing from different people we need more people in in the downtown to support the businesses that are there. Yes. But how do we find that balance um as a select board, right? It's it's it's where what policies can be discussed or implemented to find that balance between wanting more people to live downtown but also encouraging businesses um and having space for those businesses to be there. What What are some strategies? So, think on that a second and I'm going to have Joe start on this one. Thank you. Um this is not something new and and Calvin is part of our affordable housing trust committee. This is a a concept that we
023have discussed for a number of number of years and uh have brought up several times over this past year. Um the concern is getting getting people to wanting to live closer to town. Um you're not going to have families moving in closer to town. I have concerns with children in railroad tracks. I that's that's not a good formula. That's not a good mix. I'm sorry, that's me personally. Other people may like that. I just I just think it's a disaster waiting to happen. Um, but if you have senior citizens, which we have at 119 Main Street, and if we can develop that a partial area uh to continue providing housing for seniors in the downtown area, well, that they can walk. It makes it easier for them to if you have businesses that are associated
024downtown, they can easily walk to these locations. We've just done the revitalization downtown. The sidewalks are wider. Uh we have more pedestrian crosswalk signs available and um it makes it a little bit safer. I'm not saying completely safe, but it's a little bit safer for for them all. So I mean that's that's one way to look at you said respect to policies. Y um one of the things that I know that Michael was involved in when when monies were coming in and how to and how to generate additional monies and incomes, maybe we do a percentage like we did with the school and uh the the idea of us versus them has completely gone off the table. It's now us together at a 7030 split. Now maybe that's something we could do to uh to
025incent in incentives to come to downtown. Maybe we can like we used to do with the affordable housing trust is provide additional funding. If you provide this service, we can provide you some funding to help out that way. Maybe on the 7030 split like like the policy that we have for the schools. Okay, great. So, good. I'm going to go to Brandy and then Carlton. So, as far as policy goes, I know that we've we've made some slight changes to the business incentive program to really focus on um really like commercial corridors. So, we talk about downtown, we talk about um Route 126, and we talk about 135 as sort of like the three main um commercial areas in Ashlin. Um and as far as like density goes, you definitely need density in downtown. You
026need people walking. You need people to support the businesses. I've talked to um Lisa Churchill at Blush and Ed over at the Bagel Table and um to be honest, they're struggling. um you talked to Hana over at Raiki and I, you know, like the um they're they're struggling and so they need people to help support those businesses. Um and for as far as like the the development that um you know, balancing growth because we I'm sure we're probably going to get into more of the growth growth things, but you know, it having density downtown makes sense. redeveloping the parcel um the millu building parcel makes sense. Um does the project that's in front of ZBA with five stories and 250 units make sense? You know, I'm um I don't think that that's probably in the
027best interest of Ashlin, but I do feel like they are making an attempt to keep um commercial commercial as part of that project. the developer has never had commercial in any projects he's ever done before. He does purely housing and we've advocated for commercial space there. We've advocated for um keeping the historical nature of the mill buildings that are downtown. And so the the project that is before ZBA right now has two of the mill building the the old granite mill building um facad still intact and really does kind of still preserve some of that historical and bring that commercial aspect to downtown. Um, and then as far as um other policies that we can we can we can work on, it really is trying to make downtown a destination and that is, you know,
028part of what makes like summers in Ashland so amazing because people walk from Corner Spot to the farmers market and now to Clover Road and to our restaurants. And so it's really trying to um make make downtown Ashland a destination for us. Okay, Carl. Yeah. So for me, I'm going to be a little bit more macro. I actually don't think policies are the issue. Okay. So we've obviously in Ashlin done some good things and Bry's alluded to it and I'm on the affordable trust with Joe here and I think we have um we have to utilize our tools a little bit better. What I mean by that is we have 60% of the select board sitting here tonight. So I'd like to ask it, throw it back to you guys and make it more conversational.
029Does the finance committee have a budgeting tool, a capital budgeting tool? And if they do have a capital budgeting tool, how are they utilizing that capital budgeting tool? My treasurer lives in Arlington and they're not in any financial issue, but they also have a capital budgeting tool that they use, which is a five-year tool that is able to see when it comes to prosperity, we only have two choices. We've got to either increase revenue or we've got to decrease revenue somewhere, right? So, what is our tool? What are the tools that we're using? because these policies, let me just uh remind people, we just in our last budget borrowed $2.7 million from our reserve fund, we have $5.5 million left. Not sustainable. Correct. So, unless we're going to borrow $2.7 million from our reserve fund
030every single year, I think we've got to look beyond just policies and really figure out what tools are we using and who who's using those tools. Are they you are they utilizing those tools in the correct way? And that's one of the reasons why I'm running. Okay, Joe or Brandy, would either of you like to respond or Yeah, if I may. Brandy, if you want to go first, but I'd be happy to. Colin, you're not wrong. Um, we would lose our AAA rating if we continue that that source of uh funding our budget year after year and taking that money out of our reserve funds. Uh, we would lose our AAA rating completely. standards and poor has already made a a slight comment to to Mike Mike Herbert about the fact that you're taking money
031out of the stabilization account when you know you should look at other matters. Mike Herbert the town manager town manager right so um so with respect to that I would I would say that we need to make sure that what we do it is it's it's a mindset and we're probably going to talk about this later on but I'll start that discussion right now. It's a mindset as to what the town's people want. What do they want a lifestyle? I mean, they're accustomed to certain things that they have for services right now. And these services cost X. If you want to continue those services, you're going to have to provide funding. Now, we have no idea what we're going to be getting from the state and or the federal government at this at this state
032at this at this point in time. So, we're all apprehensive as to what we're going to do. So, we're being very conservative in that approach. Um, and that has helped us. That reserve fund was only a million dollars when Mike took over, Tomok over. It was now over $8 million that he's over the years, you know, made that made that initial funding uh much greater than it than it ever has been. So, that conservative approach works, but to what extent? People are happy with the services that they currently have. our tax rate is not the highest, but it's not the lowest. We're in between. Um, so we have to ask the town's people, what do you really want? Do you want these same level services? Because I'm looking in a year or two and we
033may not have the level services. We may have to cut people. We may have to cut services. And that to me is not a way of keeping a lifestyle that people are accustomed to. Uh, they pay taxes. Their their assessments in their homes have gone up. So the value of their homes have gone up as have their taxes as a result of that. So they want to make sure that they get their best bang for their buck right now and we have to make sure as a board and with the finance committee uh you ask for what tools. I don't know what they have available to them. I really don't. Uh they're their own separate entity. We they do what they have to do. Uh I know Mike is in contact with them with respect
034to that. Uh we don't have a representative uh to the to the finance committee. Maybe that's something that we should entertain down the road is putting a a board member uh as a representative to see, you know, what they can do or be part of that discussion from from the get-go and not, you know, Johnny come lately, you know, at that, you know. So, that that's where I'm at. Okay, Brandy. Um so part of part of the reason that our budget was running at such a deficit this year was um as people may be aware property taxes the tax levy can go up 2 and a half% legally every year. Um the majority of that 2 and a half% this past year was really um actually in fixed costs and so little of the budget
035is actually discretionary. Um in fact I think our um health insurance went up 12 or 14% this year. So that almost that entire two and a half percent was was was towards was towards our health insurance. So um so part of it is part of it is increase in costs. So we'd have inflation and we've had you know that in in all aspects including things on the school side. Um we had three no two two tri board meetings and then additional budget meetings um that we talked about all of this but um where you know the schools are seeing a much higher um budget need because of a couple major things. One is out of district placements um where we are sending school uh you know school age children to other other schools that are
036specialty schools um that we can't service those kids here in Ashlin and that there's a cost associated with that. Um the other part is the increase in transportation costs. And so you know that is part of it and you know Joe alluded to the to the financial policy that we have with um with the school committee with the schools um where there is a 7030% split on any revenue that comes in. 70% goes to the schools 30% goes to the municipal side. The problem is is like that 30% on the municipal side is a it's a big umbrella. It's a really big umbrella. So the schools are really kind of packaged in a very concrete way. You have certain amount of teachers, you have a certain amount of curriculum, you have certain amount of students
037and it's you get a certain amount of um funding from the state and chapter 70 money um which kind of goes which goes towards the education and you know the revenue on the revenue side goes towards the schools. Um, on the municipal side, this covers like a big swath of everything else, which basically is our public safety, our services at the community center, our library, our town hall staff, our our um health department, our um all of our elder services. Like, it's it's a it's a big umbrella. So when we talk about what we can cut, there's really nowhere to trim easily and without the community seeing a real reduction in services. So you know, Joe had talked about, you know, we need to figure out what the community wants. And we have to do
038as a select board a better job of really communicating what those services are, what it would mean to cut. So if we were to cut say on the public safety side and we needed to cut say two firefighters that might be a difference of how many firefighters can go out on a call when there's an emergency. And most of our firefighters all of our firefighters are also um EMTs. So, it's not about fires, it's about people having heart attacks and people needing um needing people to uh help them in s certain situations. So, you know, the the the thing about it is it's it's um it's incredibly complex and it's incredibly hard to communicate all the nuances in it. And we as a select board have to that that's our charge. that that is what
039we need to do is um talk about the value of the services that we provide because the town really does uh rely heavily on the services and and likes the high level of service we provide. So that's going to be a that's going to be a conversation for the future. M madam chair, are we are we able to discuss or Okay, but you don't I'm I'm not Madam Chair tonight. Yolanda Yolanda Yolanda, are we Yolanda? Sure. If you want to respond that would be Yolanda, are we able to respond? Yes, please go ahead. Um, so I want to be clear. So those fixed costs you bring up, Brandy, those costs aren't going away, right? So the 12% increase on health care, I believe. Also, I think it's debt service coverage possibly on people's pensions. Yep.
040These aren't these aren't going away. So I think we need to really focus, and this is why I'm running, on increasing commercial revenue. These services are fixed. Nobody's pension is getting reduced. No one's health um insurance is going to be reduced. I do think we have to focus now. There are services and I agree we have to um talk about service cuts here and there that that may come to the table, but I think the focus really would have to go to what ways can we incentivize commercial business to increase revenue because I think if we get away from that I think that we're kind of we're losing we're losing the trees for the forest and I just want to say that. So what is what is your idea for doing that? in incentivize. We
041have to figure out whether it's tax, whether it's whatever whatever it is that we do. The the people that are incentivizing have to know what they they're doing. They have to have relationships. They have to have the experience. I personally have worked with developers. Okay? I've worked with small business owners. I have small business owners in this this community that are endorsing me and I know that I work well with them to have the conversation. I would go to just for example to be a little bit more specific, we can go to uh restaurants, right? We can go to Erica, speak to Erica and actually figure out what is it going to take to increase your revenue. What what what are some of the things that incentivize your business, right, as a as a community?
042Same thing with developers. The big uh buzzword that we hear is 40B, right? Developers can come in and kind of bypass zoning. and me and Joe are on the affordable uh housing trust, so we talk about it all the time. Um, but the question is who's speaking to these developers? Who's speaking to the people that potentially can help to increase revenues in some way, some some form or fashion, right? Um, and when I say that, developers have a big opportunity in our community. They have a big opportunity to grow our community, right? With uh maybe even a younger base. Joe Joe talked about maybe our community as getting a potentially younger a younger base of um families and and people that can bring revenue right around downtown. There's a lot of opportunities, but this is
043all going to come back to relationships. What are our relationships and what are the people on the select boards experience with those relationships and how does that uh impact us financially? Okay, I'm gonna actually before you I'm I'm gonna take that one off the table because um I think listening to the conversation I I want to ask and I'm going to ask each of you this question. What is your understanding of the role of a select board member? Think about that for a second as you as as you're running for this position and Brandy and Joe, you've been sitting there. Carlton, you're looking to step in. What is your understanding of what the role of a volunteer member of the select board means and who wants to go first? Well, I'd like Carlton to go
044first actually because I would love to hear what you think we do. Go ahead, Carl. Yeah. No, abs. Absolutely. And obviously I' I've been to meetings and I've read minutes and I' I've you know, so some of the policies that are obviously in town are agreed upon by the select board, right? So that's that's the big deal of you know the policies that we agree that come down from you talked about the municipality the town manager they have a separate entity the town runs you know through the town manager and their staff but the select board agrees on the policies that affect the town and the businesses and going forward the reason why I'm so financially heavy is that they're intertwined at this point when you can continue to go down a road of insolveny
045the select board is not going to matter as much. So that's why it's it's crucial. It's it's important to talk about both. It's it's it's important to talk about you talked about the tri board. You got you got to at this point talk about both because we can talk about open space. We can talk about um funding and grant money. And I can't remember who who said it. I think it was might have been you Joe, but we don't know where the federal government is going. We don't know how that trickles down with the state in terms of grant money. I'll throw a question back to you, Brandy. Talk to us. Talk to me a little bit about grant money. Where are we? Have you had any communications with state officials, our reps, our state
046senators? Are we are we are we on board of getting the same aotted amount of money that have been promised? Is it gray area? Can you speak to a little bit about that? Yep. So, and that's for both of you. Yeah. No. So, so why don't you start with the response though to what you've considered your role and then you can answer Carl about the grants. Sure. Okay. So um the select board you know you talk about the policy and what does that mean? So um we we direct the um the priority projects of the town. So we work with the town manager, we supervise the town manager. Um we also hire and fire our town council. Um but we set the the strategic umbrella for what the town is going to focus on. um
047that is also in conjunction with the public. So it is it is um it's a public process. Our work is a public process. Um but we do we do a little bit of everything. So we are the licensing board for um for our liquor uh licenses in town. We are the licensing board for um entertainment at establishments. Um even class 2 licenses for for auto sales. Um and we are the the designated um uh people that listen to um dog hearings when there's a dangerous dog. So, you know, there is kind of a lot. We also um work on the warrant for town meeting and uh approve the budget and we have many many meetings about the budget. We also set um the rates for for water and sewer. Um we we talk about the
048um the tax rate in our town. We have um lots of discussions about our revolving funds and trash and snow removal and all the things that kind of go into making the town um making the town run. Um the town manager is responsible from an operational standpoint of the day-to-day operations of the town. um and his role is to keep the select board as much in the loop on everything as as possible. Um so there is you know when I tell you that there that there is um that what you see at a meeting is about 10% of what we are collectively all working on because not only that but the select board members all have other responsibilities. Um, I was on the housing production plan, which we finished in 2021. Um, I've been a
049member of the comprehensive plan steering committee for the last two years. So, we're planning for Ashlin's future. Um, so the, um, you know, the select board is a, um, it is it is a volunteer role, but it is very much a serious um, time commitment. and I am an all-in kind of person. And when I decided to run for select board six years ago, I did my due diligence and understood all the committees that basically that the select board appoints because we appoint um I think it's something like 25 or 30 committees. Um so everything from sustainability and the ZBA to conservation and um affordable housing trust and the affordable housing trust. Yep. So, so the breadth is is is big and every meeting we have is different because we handle different things at every
050single meeting. But at the at the at the top level, we are setting setting the direction for um the focus of the town and and but we couldn't do that without the public. And so all of us are um really a part of public conversation and that's a a good chunk of what we do. We get all get emails, we all get calls and um it's being being a part of this community which is which is an awesome part because it just gives back so much. Answer um the grant. I'm actually gonna let Joe answer about the select board role and then you can start with the granting. That's right. All right. Um, thank you. Sorry, I was talking. That's okay. Brandy hit it on the head with uh everything that she mentioned um with
051respect to what we do as a as a board and the members of the board. Um it's not a two-hour meeting that we have on Wednesday nights that it's all we do. Cton knows that I'm part of the affordable housing trust, but I'm also a member of the uh uh road rate safety traffic committee. Um takes up time. We hit complaints from the residents in town about traffic issues from speeding to to having signs put up for uh you know watching out for children and things of that nature in in different neighborhoods and every neighborhood is different. Um one of the uh committees of one of the other uh departments that Brandy uh didn't mention but I would like to add is that uh the DPW and the the the maintenance of the roads every
052development there are new roadways coming in. So there's an additional work add workload added to the the DPW and the only time they get their kudos is during the winter time when people want their their streets plowed. During the summer time when everything is nice and everything is great. You don't hear from them. You know people don't say what are they doing? They're not doing it. Oh no no they're doing things throughout the day uh and throughout throughout the months. They also do things with respect to uh the cemetery, park trees and cemeteries. Who maintains the parks? Who maintains the fields in town right now? Well, the town is taking care of that and that's the DPW. A lot of people don't realize that. Oh, the school doesn't maintain that. No, the the town does.
053Joe, I'm going to ask you to pull it back to your understanding of So, my understanding is what do I do? What do I do? Um I don't sit there just to look pretty. Um I sit there to get myself involved. Uh when I started this uh 2010, one of the concerns I had is that the the board that was sitting at uh sitting on at the time um did not want to hear from the the residents in town. They actually there was a room full of people and the select select men at that time called the meeting and adjourned the meeting. Well, there was a full room of residents that wanted to speak. And at that point, when you when you sty residents from being being heard, that's not democracy. Far from it. It's
054a total opposite. So, that made me think about, okay, we need to make this change. So that's why I got involved in the politics aspect and that had a lot to do with uh the Warren Woods aspect of it and maintaining the uh the beautiful area up there off of Chestnut Street and and keeping an historic area which is rightfully so uh the Warren Warren uh legend and and its uh legacy up there and it's maintained as a result of that. if not that board at the time did not want to purchase Warren Warren Woods and there was a big there was a big hassle over that. For me personally, besides the policies and and over overseeing some of the things that are being done through town, like Brandy said, we have two we have
055two positions that we hire and fire, town manager and and uh town council, but we also provide an agenda for the town manager to provide um to follow through. and we have these meetings and we sit down and we discuss what we would like to see happen and we make sure that it's followed to, you know, to the tea as to what we would like to see uh go on and Michael will come back and report as to what he has done or what he hasn't done or what he will continue to do down the road. Um, and right now there's, you know, we're watching very diligently with a new change of in in uh positions and his management staff. Uh, they're all fairly new. uh they're not new to the town, but they're new
056in this in these positions. There's going to be a learning curve. So, we have to make sure that we watch over that and make sure that uh everything is done the way the way people want it to be done. So, things doesn't fall things don't fall through the cracks with respect to that. So, we're like we're like watch gods at the same token, but we also want to make sure that the agenda that we set forth is an agenda that is done at that the request through through the town manager. Uh answer the grant question and or less or one minute or less and then we we have a we have a few more minutes and I have a couple more questions that so super quick. Um so Senate President Karen Spila and Representative Jack
057Lewis were at our meeting last month. Um and did sort of a an update of what's happening on the state level. Um we meet with them we meet with their their teams um once a quarter in general. Um so we are very much connected to what's happening on the state level. As far as the grants go, um, when the funding on a federal level first started to kind of look shaky, we were worried the on the municipal side, we were worried about two major grants. One was funding that we had um used for the purchase of the UCCC property um for the town forest. And the second was money that we were supposed to be getting back in a grant form from um on the Mendes school for um like this green initiative basically. Do
058you have the totals, Brand? The totals, Brandy, it was it was 3.2 million on the Mendes um on the Mendes grant and I believe the the um the UCCC grant was probably I I don't know I don't have the exact amount, but I think it was like $600,000. Um and so we've we had that's on the the municipal side. And we did hear that both of those grants are safe and that we did receive the funding for both of those grants, which is good because otherwise we would have had to figure out the the property, especially because we had already purchased the property. Um and on the school side it's going to be a little complicated too because there are grant-f funded teacher positions and um they rely heavily on um what's called the circuit
059breaker which um funds um in a year year in in a rears um the special education budget. So they are hoping that um those positions come through. they haven't there's there's no guarantee on anything which is also part of the problem. So we are as a community um we had to pass a budget. We had to pass a balanced budget and that's what we did. Um and if the state and the federal government if things change we will have to change as well. So that that that is what we're doing, but we are staying in close contact with our state representatives because they are fighting for us and keeping us in the loop on anything that they're seeing on their end. If I could real quick, real quick, piggyback real quick because it is important
060and the town's people need to hear this is that federally the Department of Education is possibly could could possibly be eliminated and as a result of that any and all funding when it comes to special education is is gone is gone federally. That will definitely put many of us, I would say not just Ashland, but every single municipality in the country in some dire straits because we were looking forward for that money to help spe to help you know with special ed uh programs and and transportation which are the two major issues right now. And I know that uh I know Mr. Adams, who is the superintendent of schools, is very concerned about that right now, especially through our tribal meetings that we've had. Yep. Good. We have about 12 minutes. So, I'm going to
061ask you to think about this when I ask the question and try to be brief and concise with your answers. I know that's sometimes hard for some of us. What specific initiatives would you prioritize to strengthen community engagement and ensure residents feel heard in town decisionmaking? It's a lot. It's discussed been discussed a lot. So, think about it. And Joe, would you like to go first on that? Sure. Why not answers? I might limit you to a few minutes. Okay. Difficult question. uh and not an easy answer, but I would say that having gone through this process once before, I would say that making sure the initiatives that we have previously worked on continue and we follow through with completing them and not just leaving them in obeyance and holding off on things like we've
062done in the past. Um we still have other projects that are still on on on books. Valentine Property, Warren Bond. Um, these would be great to have these things complete. Had the funding to do it. We have one-time funding that we helped this year uh have a a balanced budget. Not the right thing to do, but we voted to get to do that. And that was the Apple money and had nothing to do with the stabilization. I'm going to I'm going to stop you because I want you to talk specifically about strengthening community engagement as we make these decisions. And if you want to think a little bit or Brandy, do you want to jump in? I'll jump in. Go ahead. Um, I agree with a lot what of what Joe's saying. Um, one of
063the things that I think that I would do from day one would get involved with any type of uh technological dashboard. I think that we have to recognize more people and I'm using my hands a lot, right? But more people have phones nowadays. And I think that's a difference that um you called it a a bedroom community or smaller communities or whatever you want to label Ashlin. Ashlin is a cohesive community. Ashlin's a lot of people that get along. But the one thing we don't have, even though Michael Herbert does a great job with the newsletter. I read the newsletter every week. I'm sure everyone at the table reads the newsletter. He does a great job. We don't have I feel like a a robust dashboard whether it's an app or I know we're developing
064a couple of different things on the website but I don't feel like we have a lot of when I'm in town and I'm speaking to people or you know I'm at your local pub or whatever I'm wherever I'm at. I don't feel a lot of people engaged technologically with what we have going. I don't think people are on necessarily like an Ashlin app or they're going to the website. And I think we have to really reook at or re-engineer um how we're doing technology in terms of apps and engagement. Most people are nowadays engaged on our apps. There's people right now that are watching this that are going back and forth on an app. So, we just have to be honest about our community. as it gets younger hopefully and we um have more revenue
065coming in, these residents are probably gonna um be benefit from engagement through either an app or some type of technology that would be more like a dashboard. Okay, Brandy. Um so, you know, we need to hit on the community engagement and kind um part of it is the newsletter which has like a huge reach. it actually I think it's um 6,000 people that that goes out to and the the open rate is is um tremendous on a on a weekly basis. So that is one definite mechanism that we're using for community engagement. Um the other is the select board has done office hours which has been very popular especially like in the summer we're at the farmers market quite a bit. Um and that has given residents an opportunity to come to us and talk.
066Um and also just in general, you know, um Yolanda and I sit on this comprehensive plan steering committee. That group has done a tremendous job at community engagement. Um partly because that is what this this task is is really getting community buy in. And so, you know, we've surpassed sort of our community engagement goals. have you you know if you will for for that project and I think some of the lessons that we've learned during that process which is again multiple ways of reaching people whether it's um through surveys whether it is um through in-person meetings we generally have um a public forum whenever there's a big thing that we are working on and that um we take lots and lots of public comment on that and Um, you know, I I think that the
067the community engagement piece as we go through say the growth and the development and possibly these budget issues that we're going to discuss, it is our job to really bring the community along with us. Um, and that is something that is been my strong suit. I'm probably out of our whole board, I am probably the most active on social media and um and I sent out a ton of emails. When I ran for office initially, I sent out weekly newsletters to people um just as where I was and what I was learning and what I was doing because it's a good way to interact with people. Um and you know, the community gets to know you and um feels like they can trust you and that's that's part of it too is really being somebody
068that they can trust and that they know that you'll work hard for them and that's um that is that is really like what this job is about. Joe, do you want to add anything else about the community engagement? Well, sure. Getting our community along with us. Yeah, the and then we're going to have to wrap up for closing. The other the other the other concern is that you know you have we have Facebook and I know a lot of people are on Facebook. There are a lot of Ashland groups that are on Facebook, whether it be the community uh group that uh instills Ashland or Ashland complaint department. Um they're they're always, you know, adding something to to to the mix, which is it's freedom of speech, and it's it's a democracy at its best.
069And and I wouldn't want it any other way. Um, I just wish that people would be more when you have this type of initiative, you have to make sure that there's truth that comes out and not falsehoods that are portrayed as truth. So, you have to be careful with that. And and and I'm a true believer in making sure that, you know, if I'm going to talk to people, I'm going to talk to them in person because if they don't hear it from my mouth, then they say, "Oh, you said no, I didn't say that. Did you hear me say that?" because if I didn't if I did then there's something wrong or if I didn't then you're listening to the wrong people. So just make sure that we don't get all wrapped up in
070this initiative of spreading out all this information but make sure the information one is li reliable, truthful and uh transparent because I haven't heard that word yet tonight. Y transparency and I think that's a big issue. It always has been and always will be. Great. Well, thank you all and believe it or not, but it is just about 8:00 that hour flu. I love the conversation and the discussion that was had and I look forward to uh after the election for all of us to continue these conversations. Um because to our residents, it doesn't matter who I mean it it will matter to you depending on your your preference who is sitting on the select board, but I think as residents of this community, uh I hope that whatever happens, we all decide to move
071forward to support our community. Uh we're going to go into 90 second closing statements and Carlton, you get to go first. Well, thank you Yolanda. Thank you for Waka TV having me. Um both candidates, Brandy, Joe, I appreciate the conversation tonight. I think it was very uh engaging and I hope uh the community feels the same. Um my again, my name is Carlton Phelps and I'm asking for your vote on Tuesday, May 20th at Ashlin High School. The reason is I think that I do have solutions because I go out into the community and I speak to people and I listen. I don't just say I have solutions. I listen to what people in the community of Ashlin are saying. I love this community. I'm on the Ashlin Affordable Housing Trust. I'm on the Ashlin
072uh Democratic Town Committee. And the biggest thing going forward that I hear people are concerned with is affordability and cost of living. Right? So not just affordability but cost of living. two kind of separate things that are intertwined as uh Brandy and Joe have spoken about here earlier. We have infl we're living in inflationary times and in these inflationary times I believe my experience um with finance as it meets public policy is going to be very helpful. I do recognize the select board is bigger than financial as well. There's a lot of things in terms of community engagement that I want to bring to the table. I talked about technology um engaging people um through newsletters and apps as well as the biggest thing that we can do is go out again and listen to
073make sure that whatever we do as a select board it resonates with the community and everyone could be happy. Again, I'm Carlton Felson. I hope everyone has a great night. Carlton, thank you much. Oh, I apologize. I almost made it through the hour. You almost You almost did. You almost did. You did a great job. I'm good. I'm good. take some more water. Uh Joe, your closing statement, please. Thank you. Uh being a lifelong resident here uh of 69 years, I can say that uh I bleed blue. I'm a true clocker right through thick and thin. And uh anybody that went to Ashlin High School like Nate knows that what what being a clocker is all about. Um I love this town. I always will. Um and I would will fight for this town in
074every way, shape, and form. One of the concerns that I have is the 40B initiatives that um that we have to follow through the state legislation. And one of the things that I uh will continue to strive for is to to bring developers that are willing to build affordable units in town. Um but pleasing to the town's landscape that uh without a threat of 40B, hopefully they could be a friendly 40B if if and we've had that before. and I will campaign to revise the state legislation on 40bs needing to adhere to the ZBA and planning bylaws of each town because right now they're not being they're not being utilized at all. If anything, they have currently being ignored and ignored completely. Over the past 15 years, I think I have proven to the residents
075of Ashlan my leadership skills, the experience, the vision, and the integrity to hold as a select board member. I will continue to work for the town of Ashland and I will continue to work for all residents no matter who they are, what they are, or how old they are. Um, I am a member of the traffic study safety committee, affordable housing trust and an original member of the Ashland day committee and the charter review committee which was needs to be redone again. So I ask for your vote and I want to thank WACA Yolanda for hosting the show and I would appreciate your continued support on May 20th and I ask for your humble support and vote. Thank you and let's wrap it up. Okay. Um so thank you again to to WACA for for
076hosting this and Yolanda. Um this was a great conversation with the two of you. Um, you know, we can see that Ashlin is going to have some major challenges in the next couple of years. Um, you know, we're going to be balancing the growth that we're going to see, which is coming coming to us all at once, with how to preserve the character of the town that we love. And we're going to have to do some real long-term planning um on the needs and the services of and the infrastructure that is going to need to support that that growth in town. and how do we how do we do that with the budget constraints that we're going to face? Um and so I think you know the the town really needs um serious people who
077are going to dig in and um look for some real um you know understand the issues, understand what's what um the problems that that that the town will be facing um and you know bring the community along with it because I think that is part of the process. Um, and that is really what what I bring to the table is really that's my skill set. Um, and there's a lot to look forward to in Ashland. We've got kind of a really great year coming up actually. Um, we're looking forward to the the Metro West YMCA coming to Ashland, the uh Ashlin Arboritum. Um, we've been making some great strides on the Upper Dale, which we didn't even get a chance to talk to uh tonight. And then, you know, the long- awaited dog park, you
078know, um will hopefully break ground this year as well. So, um you know, if if if I'm reelected, I will promise to work hard for the community um as I always do and I'm so grateful for for our amazing town and um I'm proud of the accomplishments that we've made in the last six years and it's been a real privilege to to serve this community. And so, thank you for your support. Um, and I ask for your vote next Tuesday on May 20th. Thank you. Great. Well, thank you all so very much for being here to our residents. I would say you could do early voting, but that was actually today. We only had one day of early voting. So, if you didn't do early voting or if you didn't do a mail-in ballot, uh
079the election is next Tuesday, the 20th at the Ashen High School from 8:00 a.m. to 700 p.m. Uh so, make sure you get out and vote because as they say, what happens locally is more important sometimes than what's going on federally. So, again, thank you all for being here. Thank you. Go clockers. There you go. and Celtics. We're sharing We're sharing it with Great. Okay. Uh here at Around the Clock, we're going to take a short brief uh break um while we allow these candidates to step away and we have some other candidates for you to meet tonight uh for some of the other uncontested races that are happening on the ballot next Tuesday at our election. We'll be right back. Hello and welcome back to the Around the Clock discussion with candidates. We just
080had a very lively discussion with our three select board candidates who are going to be on the ballot who are on the ballot for the May election here in Ashland. And we can't really talk about early voting anymore because that was today, May 14th. But you can talk about we can talk about the ballot and the election that is coming up on Tuesday, May 20th, happening at the Ashlin High School. To that point, we now have two candidates for the planning board, but they are here for two different seats. So, uh, we have Scott and Camilo. Um, Camilo, why don't you go first? Tell us a little bit about yourself. and Camilo is running for the five-year seat that um Kate Jerzik, who is currently on our planning board, has decided not to run for
081reelection. Camilo has decided to run for that. Tell us a little bit about yourself first. Sure. Thank you uh WACA for having me here. Uh my name is Camilia. I live on three Treasure Way. Um that's about uh almost exactly at the 5 kilometer marker of the Boston Marathon. So, it's something we enjoy doing with our neighbors and our friends. Uh we've been doing it for the past six years, which is the time I've been uh here in Ashland. I previously lived in the Boston area and then prior to that in New York. Um I'm a planner. I've been uh working in the planning world for almost a decade and before that as an architect for almost two and I'm excited to call Ashland home and I hope to call it home for the next
082decades or so. Great. Thank you so much, Camilo. Scott, tell us a little bit about yourself. Yeah. So, my name is Scott Pelitier. I've lived in Ashland with my family since uh 2017. Uh my oldest son graduated Ashlin High School last year. My youngest son is a senior this year, so he's graduating in a couple weeks. Uh my wife works in Boston. I've done a plethora of jobs over kind of my career. Ran big box retail for a really long time. Uh ran Amazon for about five years. I was at a sort center, then did Amazon manufacturing, then a couple years went into couple years ago went into business for myself, did a little bit of consulting, and now I've just opened up a property management company. Uh, we focus on residential property management in
083the area. Um, I've been a real estate agent kind of part-time for about seven years and I'm excited to be here. I'm a member of the Ashlin Business Association and I've been on site council for the last two years for the high school. Uh, so I wanted another way to give back to the community and this seems like a great opportunity for it. Great. Well, thank you both for being here and for taking the opportunity and the time to come speak with us. Uh, planning board can be very technical, very detailed. Uh, you've talked a little bit about some of your experiences. What do you hope to bring to the Ashlin Planning Board? Um, I won't say if you're going to be elected because you I expect you both to be sitting in the planning
084board as of next week, but um actually Scott, why don't you start? What what do you hope to bring to the planning board with your experience? Sure. So, I kind of look at it in two different ways. Um, one, a strong logistical background, right? So, working in manufacturing, working with large corporations and large operations, you need a lot of attention to detail. You need to make sure you're following through with everything. a lot of planning, a lot of dates that you have to hit to have things ready to go um for the market. And then the flip side is a business mind. Um I'm coming in here as a business owner. I really have the point of view of a small business owner. How can we how can Ashlin be better for business is kind
085of one thing that's kind of always on my mind. Um and then also and so maybe two and a half things also uh housing, right? So, you know, as somebody who's been in real estate, as somebody who does property management, you know, my my thoughts are always on how can our community have more housing, like how can we be affordable housing for people? And I'm really I love Ashland. To me, moving into Ashland was probably one of the best things my family's done. And if we can have that for more opportunities for more people in our neighboring communities or want to get into our community, I think that makes us better. Um, so those are really kind of the the thought process of how I think I can contribute to the planning, both logistical piece
086and then um, you know, through that business mindset. Okay, Camilo, same question for you. What what can you bring to the planning board to help with with the issues that that they're going to be looking at? Sure. I'll first mention why I'm running to the board and and and and um that'll bring me to the the qualifications and what I can bring to the table. I think the first reason is as being uh the excitement of being part of the team that shapes uh the character of the town that shapes um and improves the quality of life of uh the people in Ashland. I see it as an opportunity just as Scott mentioned before as an opportunity to serve uh the community and do my my public service for a community that I love. Now
087um I see it as an opportunity to bring my expertise uh to the table. I'm the director the uh deputy director of the department of planning and development for the city of l. I've been uh working in the planning department for the past four and a half years. Um I think that expertise is fundamental to some of the things that we'll be discussing when it comes to development especially now that we are in the transition of uh trying to replace our town planner. U but I also see it as an opportunity to learn from the community and grow with them um through collaboration. I see it as an opportunity to engage with the community uh with developers, with the business community, with the town officials in open conversations about how through planning we are actually
088achieving the goals that we set ourselves in the ambition um Ashland master plan. Um and ultimately for the future, right? Whatever we plan today is not only just for today is for the future of Ashland, is for the kids who live here now and deserve the right to remain in this community. making it affordable for them to stay within the community that they grew up in, staying within the friends that they grew up with, uh, within their families. And so there's, um, there's multiple opportunities to make sure that we shape that future for Ashland through today and the actions that we take today, making it more affordable, working for the business community as well. Um, and my planning background is something fundamental for this. Are you looking for a new job or No, we'll we'll
089keep you for planning board now and then we'll go from there. Uh you mentioned comprehensive plan. So the town, I don't know how much you're aware of, has been working on a comprehensive plan for about two years now. We're getting close to wrapping it up. Kate Jerzik, who is currently on the planning board, has decided not to run, was one of the planning board representatives to this comprehensive plan. Have either of you thought about would you be interested uh in participating in closing out this comprehensive plan project? And whoever wants to go first. Uh yeah, I've actually have been already part of the conver some of the conversations that we've had uh for the master plan. Um I worked in master plans for other communities myself for the one for the city of Lola as
090well. I I'm familiar with what the process has been so far for our town's process and I'll be more than happy to um step in in some of the conversations that we need to. Okay. Yeah, absolutely. I mean, I remember voting like when they had the polls went out and we we got the vote on that and it's obviously it's the voice of the community and then filtered through the leadership of the town. So, like absolutely like we have to jump in on that and drive it to um to its final state and then and then execute, right? And it's not just executing in a couple years, it's a long-term plan. So, we really got to take the wishes of the town and move those forward. So, absolutely be part of our job. Okay. So,
091um, as you're aware, there's 40 B's in front, which aren't in front of a planning board, but, uh, as you think about becoming a planning board member, what do you think could be done as a board to either help drive or determine what housing looks like here in Ashland or what business space looks like here in Ashland? Um in terms of development itself, I think we took the very first steps which is uh passing our MBTA communities uh overlays or or spots that we have now. And I think that is the first opportunity to think about large case de large scarcale development um and thinking about how we can develop housing through those places um as a way to protect our open spaces and as a way to protect the smaller scale uh character that
092we have in other parts of the town. um the 40 visa right now in the zoning board of appeals sort of out of the hands of the planning board. But I do think there are ways to have these conversations prior to getting to that level of of intensity and where it's out of the hands of the planning board. I think there's ways to have conversations on how this type of development can be complimentary to the scale that we uh have right now. I think the biggest exercise will be balancing out the need for affordable housing and and preserving that smaller scale that people are used to and the smaller scale that we have in our downtown and how to how to negotiate and and measure the trade-offs. And in those trade-offs is which we'll find
093the gains for both sides. There will be opportunities for affordable housing, but maybe there will there will be opportunities for better open space, uh for mitigating traffic, for mitigating uh parking, for mitigating uh the infrastructure that will be needed uh for serving this additional development, but at the same time see it as an opportunity to maybe uh spread the fiscal load, right? It's an opportunity to have different people now helping us with our tax base or our residential tax base. But also, it's an opportunity for the business community to have more people go into their businesses because it will be hard to think about businesses if there's no people uh going into them or if there's no traffic for them. And so that's the balance that we would have to play out. Um, and we
094have already some zoning stipulations that would uh that we would have to abide for, but also serve the for the foundation for how we have these conversations and and do what's best for Ashland. Great, Scott. Yeah. Some of the things I think that make like downtown area so vibrant is the businesses that are there. And if all a sudden you put an extra 250 families in that walking distance to it and you know, think of how popular Subzero Ice Cream is going to be, right? Like, you know, you're going to have a line, right? Maybe she's going to need a bigger place. That'd be awesome. Right. Next is going to be slammed. That'd be awesome. Like I would love there to be uh the line at the food truck at Clover Road, right? Those are
095really kind of where I'm thinking. So, when we bring in um housing and we do it correctly and we work with the developers well ahead, right? The the second they're coming and talking to us, we're trying to be out there, be in front of it. Then we can kind of help shape it um so we don't get our hands forced. Um hopefully after these couple of 40b projects come in, we should now qualify to not have them kind of forced on us. Um and then that allows us to work a lot more with them um to help build that community um and still save the green spaces and make sure we still feel like Ashland um which I think is very important at the same time. So one of the questions that was asked of
096the select board and and it's a little bit different for members of the planning board um but it's that balance, right? How could as a planning board member you help with the balance of bringing in the businesses but bringing in growth? You both talked about 40bs. Um I guess that's the question. How could you help balance or based on a planning board and again we know that planning board you have rules and regulations and you have zoning and stuff like that but how could you as members help the discussion about creating some better balance between some new businesses and some new residential? Well, the number one reason we got into the conversations of 40BS was because we're not compliant with the minimum percentage of affordable units. And so if there is a way through zoning
097to um include that conversation of affordability and maybe hopefully to Scott to Scott's point that maybe this development helps us get compliance and so that we can have these proactive conversations. I think that's the first point is getting to the point of not having to be forced development that's beyond our capacity and beyond our conversations and beyond our desires. Um so making sure that we comply with that with that uh requirement of the affordability. After that then it's easier because now we do have the power to have these conversations with developers. I think zoning is the ultimate regulatory powerful tool that we have to control development and not control it for the sake of preventing development but to do development the right way to do development that supports the businesses to do development that uh
098is complimentary to the services that as a town we need to provide for the the the people who will be living in these additional units um but also uh development that will help our business community and so I guess it will be on a case-by case bas But I think it's an opportunity to shape that before it goes to uh to a situation in which we have no more control of. Hopefully, we're at a point in which we can get to uh have those conversations proactively. That's good. And when we have conversations like that, it goes out to the developers and they understand like, oh, Ashlin is open for conversation and is willing to help us, you know, find the right places to put in the development that we want to do. Um, sending that
099signal out to the development community, whether it's for residential or for businesses, is a great signal to send out, right? We want other pe other developers to look at action and say, "Great town, great opportunity. They're willing to work with us within the right framework without changing the whole story of what the town is." Um, and I think that's important. Like, you know, we heard it recently at the town meeting about how people felt about how the town looks and feels. Um, but it's a balance between how do we be good for business, keep Ashland feeling the right way, but also allowing um people to move into our town without um being hindered necessarily by affordability. So, speaking I mean affordability is one of those it it's almost like a not a pretend word but
100when you talk about affordability certainly here in Ashland or in all of Massachusetts um talk a little bit about affordable housing and how you see that as a role I mean again not really a planning board purview but it is in the discussion of what's going on with development right how do we support affordable housing but how do we do it um in a way that's maybe not through a 40B Yeah, I think that the first thing we have to do is really understand what affordable means. Uh, affordable housing is not necessarily subsidized housing. Affordable housing at the standards of which we live today is uh affordable housing for teachers. It's affordable housings for for the police force, for for our firefighters. So, it's is is housing for people who have regular jobs, but it's
101still not enough to afford a home, especially in the market that we live in right now, I think. And and Ashton, if I'm not mistaken, the average medium household price is around $600,000, which is not a small number and and it's something that is only going to keep increasing because we're part of the metropolitan footprint of Boston. So we deal with the same issues at different scales and at different uh in different topics but uh and at different intensities but but the the the conversations of affordability are the same for the the whole Boston area. And so how we deal with them is is the question and and affordability again is not necessarily a scary word. I think it can be a a word for opportunity precisely to have people who have lived here for
102for a number of years to remain in the community and for the future generations to remain in this community. And so um hopefully we can remove the the the misconceptions about what affordable means and affordability is achieved by having a diversity of typologies of housing. Right? It's not only apartments but it's also not a single family homes. There's opportunity for town houses. there's now opportunities for ADUs, the accessory dwelling units. So different footprints and different uh square footages allow us to have a diversity of d uh of affordability that now we can have the conversation of what affordable is for our community without the fear of what it really means what we famously call in the planning world the capital A affordability and lowercase affordability where I think we are talking about regular affordability for
103the the the the middle income people of our town that deserve to remain here that are looking for a home and hopefully can remain here. Great. Scott, any thoughts on that? Yeah, you stole my thunder at the end, you know, with the ADUs and the and and things like town houses. Um, but it's also like you can think of development in like, you know, triplexes or quads, right? Oh, and even they don't have to be rentals necessarily. You can turn those into condos and that puts a, you know, one or two bedroom, you know, one bath into an affordable space for somebody to buy. Um, so yeah, I think more flexibility on that. So, like if you can talk with developers and maybe instead of putting up 20 single family homes, we're putting up, you
104know, 10 triplexes or something. You've now added um a little bit more affordability to get into the town. And then I also think of affordability. Um not the capital A affordable housing, but like you know what goods and services are in town? Um if you say, hey, I have to go 20 minutes or 30 minutes to get to this type of service because it doesn't exist in our town. that, you know, that causes, hey, now you need to have a car, you have to drive further, you can't just use um public transportation to get to that type of thing. If we bring in those type of businesses we may be missing, that also helps with that. Um, you know, just different opportunities that can help the town out um to become that affordable town that
105we we want to aim for. I didn't have a good word to go after that. That's okay. Well, gentlemen, first of all, I want to thank you both for running. I think it's it takes a real commitment to be willing to volunteer. Uh Camila, you're you're you're jumping right in with those five years, and I applaud that. Uh Scott, you're looking to do the two-year term. Uh Scott, remind people what they need to do to get you on as a writing candidate. What needs to happen so that you can get elected? Um so, you need to write my name in. Uh that's the the big thing right there. U preferably spelling it correctly and hopefully it's right here on the bottom of the of the screen. Um, but Scott Pelleter, P L E T I
106E R. Um, if you write it down, I think on the last, very last spot on the ballot. Um, and he's running unopposed. So, it's not like you have to choose one of us or the other, but you have to fill in the circle and write the name. Um, so please do both of those things. Yeah, because just writing the name doesn't count. Yes, you have to fill in the circle and write the name. Um, that's something I have to remember for myself. So, great. Uh well again gentlemen, thank you so much for coming and spending a little time with us. I greatly appreciate it. Uh to the residents of Ashland, I hope you've enjoyed this discussion with two people who are running both for planning board. Camilo is running for the 5-year term uh
107repling Kate Jerzik who has been a great member the last five years. And Scott is stepping up for a seat that was vacated for personal reasons. Um but Scott, thank you so much for stepping up. Uh again, this is Around the Clock. I'm your host, Yolanda Greavves. Thank you so much for watching. I hope either if you were via YouTube or live through WACA TV that everything was good for you to be able to watch this. We greatly appreciate your support and I hope that you all get out to vote on Tuesday, May 20th. The election is held at the Ashlin High School. All precincts vote there. So, show up even if you're not sure of your precinct, and the wonderful staff and volunteers that are there uh running the election will be more than
108happy to help you. Scott Camilillo, thank you so much. And that wraps up this coverage and this discussion for the local election happening here in Ashland. I'm your host, Yolanda Greavves. Thank you so much for watching this special episode of Around the Clock.