001Yes, I can hear you. All right. Thank you. I'm all set now. I went in and did the settings. Are you um are you taking questions? Yes. Just have to ask just have to ask to unmute. Okay. Okay. So, will you be run will you Excuse me. Would you be running that part? You want me to just let people in? Right. I'm going to let I'm going to let people in. Okay. We still wait. Go up there. Yeah. Hey, good evening everybody. Um, my name is Michael Herbert. town manager and uh with me here is assistant town manager Jim Ball and we're here to talk about the uh town meeting warrant coming up next Wednesday, a week away. Uh, our annual town meeting will be on May 7th, 2025 at Ashlin High School in the
002auditorium starting at 7 PM. Um, as is usually the case, I I'll give my my opening spiel just about how important town meeting is. Town Meeting is the legislative body here in the town of Ashland. And uh as we have an open town meeting format, any registered voter has the ability to come in and uh vote on items that are of general importance to the community. Um that includes everything from the budget to uh zoning articles to CPA articles. There's a whole gamut. And um so what we typically like to do and what we've tried to do ever since I started as town manager is use uh opportunities like tonight's forum to answer any questions people might have about the warrant. we do have some people in the audience and on Zoom and then that
003way you're a little bit more prepared hopefully when you walk into town meeting and again hopefully you do come to town meeting but you know hopefully you'll be a little bit more informed a little bit more educated about the issues and uh again I'm here to answer any questions that you might have uh along with Jen here um related to any of the items on the warrant and what we'll do is we'll just go through them one by one and uh This year we have what 20 20 actually that's a little bit more than what we what we have had recently. Um so a little bit longer warrant than what we typically have in May but uh that's okay. We got a lot of business to do. Um so that being said I won't waste
004any more time. Jen, you got anything you want to add? No, you good. Okay. Um and so again the way we'll do this is I'll go through each warrant article, describe it a little bit. um give you the details. Uh I'll open it up for questions and hopefully we'll have the answers. If not, we will find it and uh get that to you rather rather directly. So uh without further ado, I will start with article one which is town reports. Um this is an opportunity for different uh stakeholders within the town to just give an overall report. I should say an overall very brief report according to the moderator uh on issues that might be happening in town. Do anticipate to have two or three um reports this year. Uh I will be uh giving
005one just on the overall status of things in town and then I'll have a special budgetary message. Uh our comprehensive plan committee might uh have an update as well. So I think that's still to be determined. But um yes, that's article one. I would assume there's no questions about article one. Some shaking heads. Okay, great. Um, moving on to some of the more meteor articles. Uh, this article number two is a transfer from the general stabilization fund. Uh, in the amount of $2,256,000, a little bit more than that actually, but um big number. Um, and our general stabilization fund is what we also call our rainy day fund. We use this to basically the way our policies are set up is when we have reductions in revenue, we have the ability to access this fund
006to make up the gap and make up some of that missing revenue so we don't have to cut into services. So unfortunately, even though we don't have a reduction in revenue this year, what has happened is that we've seen an increase in expenses that exceeded the revenue that we're going to get by quite a bit. We'll take we'll talk a little bit more about the expenses when we get to the budget, but long story short, this is what is needed. This amount uh is what is needed to help balance the budget. Now, I do anticipate that this would all be replenished when free cash is appropriated in the fall. Um, but that being said, it's a pretty large number, which again, I I'll get to more of when we get to the budget, but um
007I'll explain a little bit more about just kind of the situation, the budgetary situation, but that is article two. Want to add JB? Any questions from the audience or uh here in the room or from Zoom? I will do that. So yeah, if you are on Zoom, I would just uh ask you to raise your hand so we know to unmute you. Um we'll call on you. All right, seeing no questions, uh we'll move on to article number three, which is a transfer from the special education stabilization fund uh to the general fund in the amount of $300,000. Again, this is uh money that is being transferred from the special education stabilization fund to help balance our FY26 budget. Part of the reason why our FY26 budget has such a deficit is because some of
008these special education costs or out of district special education costs that we are incurring as part of educating our children here in Ashland. So, um we have the special education stabilization fund set up to provide basically that type of support whenever we do encounter that. And so that's what this article is about. Questions? Again, I should point out that this will uh this actually should be replenished as well during the free cash appropriation the fall. All right, seeing no questions, um I'll move to article four, which is the fiscal year 2026 budget. Um the only reason I'm pausing is I'm really trying to think about the the best way to frame this because there is quite a bit of discussion um lead that has led up to this Warren article. Um and uh there will
009probably be discussion at town meeting and certainly there will be a lot of discussion within the community afterwards. Um and I'll explain why. Um so this year again we had a pretty substantial deficit meaning that the revenue that we had received outpaced our expenses to a pretty significant tune. Now this isn't the first year that this has happened. This is actually the second year in a row where we have faced this situation. So what we've chosen to do instead of making cuts and services which are already pretty lean um and our staff which is already pretty lean, we've chosen to supplement the revenue utilizing money from stabilization funds and and other resources, grant funds if they're available. Um ARPA funds which is American Rescue Plan Act funds. Um, essentially we have tried to uh do
010everything we can and basically utilize any tool that we have in order to not make cuts uh to staff and services here in town. Um, that being said, what we're doing is not a sustainable practice. Um, this is again when we're when you're talking about deficits of, you know, two 300,000, those are generally manageable. But when you start talking about deficits that are in the millions, two millions, um you have a structural issue that needs to be addressed. Um and so again, that is the way we chose to handle it this year was by using one-time funds like the stabilization funds to help bridge that gap. But moving forward, we're going to need to have a more robust conversation about how to fix that structural deficit. And that is going to be accomplished either by
011finding more revenue and there's a couple of different ways that uh we do that or we will have to look at making cuts in services. So uh that's just kind of like my general overall preface to discussion about the overall line items here in the budget. Um, and what I'll do is I'll go through just kind of some of the highlights on the budget in terms of uh larger items and then I'll open it up for questions. Um, so if you have an opportunity to look through the warrant uh the latest warrant, you'll see some of the more the the detail associated with the budget. Um, and just looking at some of the larger items that you see here. Um, one you'll see a pretty large increase on a percentage basis uh with the assessor's
012office and that is essentially to change over the software that we use for assessing. What we currently have is only used by about 10 out of 351 communities in the Commonwealth. It's not very well supported. It's uh has quite a few issues uh bridging with some of our other software systems. And again a lot of municipalities are facing the same issue which is why they have moved away from the system um that we currently have like we are now looking at moving towards an additional system or a new system I should say and so that's what accounts for the increase in that budget um moving forward um looking at a significant increase in um health insurance uh which I think is really kind of the primary driver of uh one of our budget deficits. So
013when we first moved to the group insurance commission uh which is the statewide conglomerate that purchases health insurance uh we moved from a smaller uh group uh purchasing group. uh we saw significant savings not just at the outset but the rate of increase was significantly less than what we were experiencing with the consortium that we were with before. However, over the last several years that has changed and we are seeing significant increases in health insurance through the group insurance commission the GIC. Um this year we're looking at an increase of uh almost 13%. Um which total of $1 million. So you can see that's a pretty significant amount. Um and a big primary factor in driving the budget deficit. Additionally, even though it's a small amount from a dollar perspective, on a percentage basis, our
014unemployment comp compensation insurance is going up. Um, employee retirement is actually going up 6%. Again, that's an obligation that we must pay. So, I think, you know, one way to think about these is when we think about the budget, we think about things called fixed costs and we think about things called discretionary costs. And when we talk about, you know, if we are in a place where we have to make cuts, what can we cut? Well, unfortunately, we can't cut the fixed costs, the obligations that we are um required to pay. And those make up about 85% of the budget. So, we don't really have that much discretionary things in the budget from which to cut. So that's just kind of more of an aside about our our whole budgetary picture in of itself, but
015trying to think of trying to look to see if there's anything else people might be interested in on the general fund side. If not, I'll move on to the enterprise funds. And really the one I want to highlight is the water enterprise fund which is actually going up um almost $600,000. So the good news is is that that is directly attributable to infrastructure improvements that we're planning to make including uh a replacement of our ozone filter which is a critical component of our water filtration system. Uh what keeps our water clean, what keeps our water pure, what keeps our water healthy. Um, also uh included in this are replacement of water manes which uh many of which have not been replaced since they were first put in the ground. Um, and if you follow the
016town's social media pages, you will see uh very frequent references to water mane breaks and those can cause all kinds of issues. Not the least of which for our staff who basically it's like all hands on deck and you know some of these fixes can take you know over 12 hours sometimes you know I've seen them when it's a hard time finding the breaks sometimes it can even take upwards of 24 hours to fix. But just a long story short we need to we need to make a lot of replacements in our water main infrastructure. So, we've placed some money in the budget there. I could spend a lot of time going through each and every one of these, but in the essence of time, I will not. And I will open it up to
017questions. Mark, please come to the microphone at the podium. No, we tried to we tried to throw a curveball at you, Mark. But you can have that. That's my gift to you right there. There you go. You got What do you think the trade in value of this is, Mark? Yeah, it's basically full of numbers. That was only Yeah, that's all. Oh, okay. That was easy. Anything else? And anybody on Zoom who has a question again, please raise your hand. If I had known there were no questions, I would have gone on and on and on and on. Yes, Joan Jungen Friday one shore road. Yeah, the historical commission speaking as a resident. Um so we seem to be on a water ban most of the year. So does any of this help with that?
018Is there any way to increase our water or is this part of this this is just maintenance right now? Yeah, this this piece is just maintenance, Joan. Okay. Um I will say that uh over the last couple years, we were able to connect to the MWR and complete that connection um which uh right now can only be used as a supplemental connection and the rules say that it's only when it gets down the water level gets down to a certain level that we can turn that on. Now, um that the way the structure is set up, the way it is right now is that it wouldn't help any of our water or things like water bands or issues like that. U town meeting could in the future um I'm sure after some analysis could vote
019on changing those rules to where we could turn that that water on uh more frequently or have uh less restrictive practices in place before we turn it on. Um, and so that might help with the water ban issue, but again, that would need to be a vote at town meeting, but there's no new um um like a new well or a new anything in town that can be brought online that that would help. No, not that I'm aware of right now. Okay. Thank you. Thank you. All right, Mark. See, Joan, you just you inspired people to I can say on this side, Do it this way. Now with the numbers four for the economic development special revenue funds of 338,593 or available meals tax. Is there anything that can inspire any sort of economical growth
020in this? Um, so part of that, so part of that budget includes the business incentive program. Is that the Ashton business association and those people? No. No. So the business incentive program, Mark, so that includes a number of programs like our amenities financing program, signing facade. So it's a way again to help incentivize businesses to come here. And so what happens is when a business wants to move here but you know for whatever reason the expenses to move here whether it's out you know tenant fit out costs or rental costs or anything make it prohibitive from them to move here we have that tool available to help bridge that gap and so we've used it very successfully with things like uh Subzero Ice Cream I'm just thinking about downtown right now but Subzero Ice Cream
021I believe Crossroads did crossroads take advantage of it crossroads took advantage of it. Clover Road. Um, so you're seeing a lot of economic growth happening in town and a lot of it is being facilitated with that fund. You're not going to be surprised with my answer to that. Okay. The profits and nonprofits that is here at downtown may not help each future growth of Gen Zers coming up in businesses that can have future endeavors. Okay. The that's an interesting perspective. the stronger committees together. Sustainability is one. I had a good talk with them last night. We had a good meeting about that last night. And um the planning board, which is um losing two plans by the end of the summer. We already lost one. And and Jen's leaving to go going to her future
022spot. Yeah. You don't have to remind me, Mark. I know. I know. But I know I won't have this much time with our moderator, patient moderator we have. So I'm just gonna This is why I'm here tonight, okay, to still give a push and saying that the state could help Asha a lot more than it's not doing now. And that includes the representatives and send Jack and Karen since they both live one of them lives here. Karen does that he she can actually make this town a little more her speed and I know that the community center I have read a lot about the community center lately and this this we are an Asian community and we could use the help for that and for other reasons down the road. That's it for now. All
023right. Thanks Mark. All right. I don't see any other questions. So, uh, I'll move on to article five, um, which is a transfer to our OPE trust. OPE being other post-employment benefits, um, essentially retirey health insurance. And, uh, this is part of our plan that we utilize to um, basically address this long-term obligation that we now have to uh, maintain on the books. Um, so what this aspect of the of our OPED plan is is that so for every new municipal employee we bring on, we pay their what's called the annual required contribution, basically their OPE contribution amount. We've got a budget for it. Um, and so we maintain um, we go ahead and budget for that and then we move that money to what's known as an OPED trust. It's a special account uh,
024set aside specifically for OPED benefits and can only be used for OPED benefits as well. And I'll have to say the plan that we have just as an aside is working. Um, so one of the the best metric that you can use to determine how well you are um catching up on your long-term obligation is something called funded ratio, which is okay, how much of your obligation do you have set aside in funds. When we started this process about uh 10 years ago, we had zero. Um we're now over 10%. I believe we're closer to 12%. So we're making uh slow and steady progress which is uh something that we like to see. It's something that our bond rating agencies like to see uh which are bond rating agencies are very very important uh to
025communities in terms of basically what's the best evaluating and providing an analysis or an assessment of our financial condition. And uh it's essentially the right thing to do. Uh and I think the plan the way that we have it set up is is pretty pretty well designed. And I think again the proof is in the pudding just seeing where we started and where we are. We are making slow but steady uh we're catching up slowly but steadily um on our obligation. So, any uh any questions related to that? Oh, wow. Okay. Um gosh, we're 25% of the way through. Um I've been the one talking mostly, so yeah, we got a while. So um article six uh annual consent article uh standard article that we do every year uh and it basically is some housekeeping
026items in terms of grant program authorization contracts and these purchase agreements. Um but probably the most substantive piece of this article are what uh what what we call revolving funds and the authorization of certain revolving funds. Um which allow us to take in money and spend money uh on certain services. Uh so and basically those are outlined in the warrant what those revolving funds are, what they're used for and also what the caps and limitations are as well. Any questions related to article six? Okay, moving on to article seven, which is another annual consent article, but this time it's uh specifically for community preservation act funds. Uh again, this is something that we have to do every year, which uh basically um says, okay, this is the amount of money that we're anticipating bringing in
027from the Community Preservation Act um sir charge that goes on taxes as well as uh from the state. And then it also at the same time authorizes specific bond payments that had been previously authorized from town meeting um for specific things like um construction of the ball fields, purchases of properties such as Warren Woods. Specifically, there are four items that we have for um Yes. So, one being the Oak Street bond payment um which actually should be coming up that should be ending in a couple years. Um the athletic fields um which should actually be coming up in a few years as well. Um then the Warren Woods bond payment and uh we still have we've got about five more years to go on that one as well. Oh, and excuse me, the Valentine estate
028is also part of that CPA portion. Um any questions on CPA? The consent article on CPA article 7. Okay, moving on. Um, article eight, um, is to appropriate community preservation act funds for the creation of the Ashland Arboritum. Um, Ashland Arboritum is formerly known as Cadillac Paint. Uh, those of you that have been in town for a while are and especially if you live over on the eastern side of town, 126 Elliot Street, are probably very familiar with the Cadillac Paint property. For many years, it sat abandoned, overgrown with some dilapidated buildings. uh over the course of decades uh a lot of work uh has been done to start cleaning up that property, cleaning up some contamination. And ultimately in 2017 uh we made a real uh basically a fullcourt press, if you will, on
029basically getting that that property to a place where it could become a park. And so that meant at that time taking acquisition of the property um which we took by imminent domain and also as part of that we were able to negotiate the forgiveness of an almost $400,000 lean from the Mass Department of Environmental Protection for cleanup efforts that they had done. Um, additionally, we got some more grant funds as well as a town meeting appropriation to clean up the property and take down those uh really ugly eyesore of buildings that they were. But uh since that time, a lot of work has gone into the planning and uh you know creation of this arboritum concept. And those of you that aren't familiar with arboritums, they're really, I guess you could say, parks that are
030really designed to highlight vegetation, things like trees, uh, shrubs, ground cover that is typically it's native to the region. I've seen some that are deal with more exotic and non-native, uh, type of plants, but this, uh, would be specifically for native plants. Um, we worked with a uh a young lady who graduated from Ashland High recently um and is a student at Cal Berkeley, um, Erica Grassburgger who did a design for this project um, and working with our staff including um, Alro Esparza and uh, Becca Solomon, uh, Sophia Beth, they've all they've all contributed to, you know, working on this project and designing this project as well as Ed Hart. I can't forget Ed Hart who u whose passion has been uh Cadillac paint. But uh anyway, this is uh for up to $500,000 to
031basically finish that project and bring it to life. Uh which I anticipate will be done this year and uh next year. So, we're really looking forward to that. Once it's going to be done, it's going to it's a nice park with walking trails again, different types of vegetation. People will be able it's really kind of an educational um area as well where people can learn about the different plants and species uh that are there. So I mean you know when you look I think of things in terms of storylines a lot and so when you think of the story of Cadillac paint and where it was a few years ago and where it's going to be next year um it really is a remarkable story. You're going from a place that was deeply contaminated, heavily
032contaminated, uh, to being cleaned up and to now being a site of ecological preservation and really a celebration of, um, of, like I said, vegetation that's, uh, native to the region. So, really looking forward to that. Wow. Yeah, we got some uh, we got some young young visitors here. So, it's awesome. Um, any questions related to that? atmosphere questions it won't be negative again 19 minutes you very bored of me well I guess yes before Ed that place would have never moved an inch off the danger list but Ed would his distinguish and neighborhood proudness and pride did bring it to fruition to get it worked on to where it is now. We thank the EPA for their help and thank and thank the um government that is pushing forward still this. Yeah. Can't forget
033about You can't forget that the original the building was cracked, broken down fence, a lot of discoloration on the on the ground. It was that nice green color. Remember that Mark? Yeah. it gave the rival to to U Nansa and um now now that it's where it is now to this to this Warren article Ed the main source bringing this forward was the positive influence to where it is now to where it's going to be going and it should be voted up and down with no problem. Thank you for your support Mark. Um, article nine is an appropriation of CPA funds for digit dig Oh boy, I knew I was going to have a hard time with this one. Digitization had to say it very very slowly of documents um again for historic preservation. Um
034this was brought forward by our town clerk Cindy Livingstone. Jen, would you like to talk a little bit about this project? I know you love talking about it. Um, so this project is um for up to $110,000 and it will be um bringing a vendor that will come in and help us archive. So go through all of the documentation that we have in our vault. Um they'll help us organize and then also um put that on um electronic. So hopefully we're going to actually move it some of the uh information to our website so it' be searchable. Um and then also preserving on microfich I think is the right word. So that that's actually how you have to reserve some of the um documents that were required to keep um but there'll be um old
035you know there's some birth certificates um for for obviously we have um death certificates so people can do some research and so the goal is that we'll be bring some of that that's been living um in the archives and we have to sort of sift through all of the information and make it actually um usable and accessible to the town. Can you say digitization to microfich? No. Come on try. No, I intentionally skipped that word. I was like electronic. [Laughter] You did that really well. You sure you want to leave? Come on. Um, all right. Any questions related to this one? Oh, Mark, I could have guessed. Yep. Real quick and short. From microfilm to digital artication, we're in the bright time of century to do this. Thank you. There you go, Mark. That should
036go on a t-shirt, my friend. Um, so article 10, it's another appropriation of CPA funds for um additional money for dog park site improvements um sponsored by the community preservation committee. Jen, you have been working so hard on this project for a long time, so I think it's only right that you speak to it. Um, so this is for additional funds up to $60,000. Um, prior to um, preparing for town meeting, we actually went out to bid for the dog park, the construction of the dog park. Um, and that came in uh, significantly higher than anticipated. And part of that really has to do with a lot of the storm water um, upgrades. and our initial conceptual design didn't really take into consideration the permit that we would need for storm water. Um and then
037doing some a little bit uh additional work to the site. Um and then also we are receiving $250,000 grant from the Stanton grant and they have some requirements like shade structures um water bubblers and all of that has really increased over the number of years that we've been working on with with um the estimate that we've been using. And so we have a solid number now. This would allow us to have a proper contingency for the construction, then also purchase the structure uh directly um to make sure that people who are using um this park will also have the ability to um you know be shaded when it's in most use in the summertime. Any questions? Oh, Rob, you tricked me. I thought Rob was going to get up close. Um seeing none, I I'll
038move on to the next one. uh which is ex article 11 which is except section 40 of chapter 653 of the acts of 1989 very specific legislation um and what this legislation would allow us to do by accepting it is it would allow the assessor's office to adjust their um basically when they capture new growth instead of having to wait till the following year would allow us to capture it in the current uh fiscal year. many many reasons uh for doing that. Um very very technical, very very I guess you could even say bureaucratic. Um but it would allow any new construction or improvements that qualifies new growth to be added to to the value in the first six months of the year. Um it also reduces the lag time uh that occurs between the
039construction of um these improvements and then also the taxation. Um like I said, otherwise we have to wait until the following year actually benefits residents as well. Um because if there's any kind of damage that would decrease the property value, um it would also be captured during that time period as opposed to the resident having to wait until the following year. So, um obviously we would hope that that wouldn't, you know, necessarily happen to um for somebody to take advantage of it, but um but uh yeah, that would be a benefit for residents as well. Any questions? Great. Okay. Uh moving on to article 12 uh which is to authorize a water treatment or water treatment capital project um which is again the previously mentioned um ozone uh filtration system. A lot of sorry there's
040a lot of movement going on around here in town hall. Gotcha. Um, sorry for that aside. But, uh, anyway, for uh, those of you that are wondering, we had approved $4 million previously uh, to do this project. Uh, once a certain level of engineering was done and we got revised cost estimates, we saw that it was going to be significantly more expensive. And so, that is what uh, this authorization for. It's is for, it's to adjust that appropriation. Like I mentioned uh during the budget article, this has been factored into the budget that's reflected in the increase that you see in the water in the uh water fund, the water appropriation. And um we do think that as of now the rates can handle that. So wouldn't necessarily see an increase in rates associated with
041this this year. Hey Claudia. Um any questions? How old in this town are the aqua filters in this town? Oh, let me see if I have that right off the top of your head. Um, [Music] Don't know right off the top of my head. Mark, I was just seeing if I had my backup material. Um, yeah, I don't have that with me, Mark, but I'll have it at town meeting. The reason why I'm asking that is the upgrade. There has not been an upgrade for those ocra filters at all throughout the town. It's just been there to help distribute water lines. How about the um we got do we still have any wells in this town? I'm sorry, say that again. Wells. Wo ls. Yeah, we still use the wells. And how old are them?
042Um, so, so you know, I believe those were built when the water treatment plant was built. So, you're talking around 2000, so 25 years. So, and if the ozone system had not, you know, if there hasn't been any replacement of them since that time, they'd be 25 years old as well. That's all for now. Thank you. Hey, Carlson. Hello, Michael. Hello, Jen. How are you? I'm Carlton Phelps, 161 America Boulevard. Um, so I just want a little bit more information about the transfer from the general stabilization fund. You probably are doing this speech over and over and over again, different meetings, but just a little bit more clarity on on those monies. Um, also I believe um it was there was a transfer last year that was similar. if you could just talk about that
043and kind of the moving forward plan of um why those funds are are being um transferred. Sure. Sure. I actually went over it previously, but I'm happy to kind of and sorry I I came in a little late today, so I just wanted to, you know, just briefly go over that. Yeah. So cover that. Um so you're correct. So looking at that, just going back to article two again, um which uh Mr. Phelps was uh referencing which is again that $2.2 million transfer from the stabilization fund. Yes. Again that is being used because right now the revenue that we have is not the recurring revenue that we have is not enough to sustain the increase in operating experiences operating exper expenses that we are experiencing. Um, and some of those that I detailed uh in
044a couple articles later when we were talking about the budget related to things like health insurance which is going up 12% uh unemployment unemployment insurance which is going up 60%. Um, you are correct in that this that's the second this is the second year in a row we've had to do uh a similar treatment for the budget to make sure that we were able to go ahead and fund services at their current level and uh not necess not have to make any kind of cuts. Unfortunately, we're not able to make any kind of ads either. So, that's one thing I didn't um I really didn't hammer home when I talked about this earlier. This is just to sustain our existing services. There's no um additional ads uh really associated with this. The school department um
045they have some strategic ads associated with their budget. At the same time, they've got some decreases as well, which uh help offset that. And Superintendent Adams, I'm sure, would uh be able to answer a lot of those questions in a lot more detail than I am um over at town meeting or even if you reached out to him before town meeting. uh your question about what the plan is moving forward um is I think that is you know I don't mean to deflect it but that is going to be a community conversation that needs to happen. We need to make a decision as a town whether or not we want to sustain the services that we currently offer, maybe even enhance those services, and are we willing to pay the price associated with uh maintaining
046those services or increasing those services, or are we going to make a conscious decision to cut what we currently have? Um, I think as that conversation evolves, um, and that conversation will probably happen over the next year, I think because we will need to find a solution in anticipation of the FY27 budget. I think you will hear a lot of conversation about what we have done as a community to reduce expenses, to be efficient, uh, to find efficiencies in different departments as well as overall within the town. And I think at that point it's going to be the uh you know the taxpayers's decision as to whether or not they want to again um uh you know pass an override essentially to maintain or increase services or if they would rather uh cut services. Welcome.
047Okay. Um I think uh said we were article 12 and now we're at article 13 which is um to authorize borrowing for a water mane replacement. Again I had uh gone through this a little bit more at um during the article 4 discussion. But, uh, this would, uh, basically approve an additional $3 million, uh, to the $1 million already authorized, uh, to, uh, do water main replacement work, uh, in various locations of the town. Um, and I I know we do I know one of the locations that we were looking at specifically in doing first would be the Union Street, Fountain Street intersection. Um, we did put that work out to bid. It was extremely expensive, a lot more than what we had uh set aside for the project. So, uh this would help fund
048that project as well as some additional ones as well. Any questions related to this? Okay. Infrastructure work is unfortunately expensive, necessary. Um, article 14 is funding for our um, what we call our INI program, our inflow and infiltration program. Um, now this is an appropriation of $1.2 million through the MWR and that's the Massachusetts Water Resources Authority um, ini local financial assistance program. Um, and so what that is, uh, that program provides funding for municipalities through both a grant and a no interest loan. Uh, trying to remember if it's 7525 for grant. Yeah, 7525 grant versus loan. Um but anyway, we are looking to take advantage of that this year to uh make some inflow and infiltration improvements um into our town sewer system. That reminds me, some people might not know what inflow and
049infiltration is. So I'll try to give as succinct an explanation as possible. So the way our sewer pipes are put together or all sewer pipes are put together. Basically, it can allow groundwater to seep into those pipes. And since we pay for the amount of effluent that is flowing through those pipes, it's more expensive for us uh when additional groundwater seeps in uh through those pipes and gets transported through Framingham and then gets treated at Deer Island. Again, these are costs that we have to pay. So, by finding where these leaks are and sealing them up, uh we're not only helping our environment because we're keeping more of our groundwater here in our current basin, but we're also saving money as well. So, because we're not paying for essentially uh effluent that is not effluent.
050So, hopefully that makes sense to everybody. Any questions? Mark again 119 Main Street this I and I working I don't know how to question this so I'm going have to go real slow and formulate if it's a state road does the state does the state helped to pay for it? No. Well, wait. I should say I I shouldn't say that so quickly. As this is a grant program and a loan no interest loan program through the MWR, the state is essentially subsidizing that work. Yes. And if it's a town owned road, does that grant still get it from the state? Yes. something from the state. Wow. Amazing. So to on the SS finance committee recommendations in exact unlaymented terms, what does phase 14 and 16 mean? Um means we've already done phases uh for 1
051through 13 and phase 15. And what will be 14 and what would 146 actually be in name? What would they out of the projects that's 14 through 16? Um, do we have that? Yeah, I mean there is a whole list of projects of of places where we would be doing work. Um, oh that's not but you have um it's a lot of streets, Mark. It's a lot. Um, I'm not going to go through all of them because it's literally a page and a half of type eight font. Okay, then I'll break it down for you. Is it on this side of town or on the western part of town? Oh, it's it's uh all across town. Yeah. Different. Yeah. I don't think there's any part of town that is not represented. So if was a
052due pass and once the state helps with that grant, the people that live in any part of the town that has this, they want to know what are they working on and where. Yes. So we will we will communicate um what that work when that work's going to happen and and which neighborhoods are going to be affected. Okay. All right, moving on to article 15. We're starting to get into bylaws and zoning laws. Um, article 15 is a bylaw to establish a new local historic district. Um, Joan G Friday is here from the historical commission. And Joan, if if you don't mind, I'll just kind of take a shot at summarizing this and I'll I'll give you an opportunity to say, you know, a few words if you want to on behalf of the commission.
053Um, so Oh, yeah. Jim Nielson's there, too. Yeah. Um, so the local historic district, uh, if this were to pass, it would establish a boundary around downtown, uh, certain properties. I believe it's 35 properties. Um that would then encompass what's known as a local historic district. Uh and there's a prescribed process by which an a local historic district is established in Massachusetts and uh town meeting is one of those steps. Prior to that, you have to have essentially a study committee which has been formed, made the recommendation I believe and the historical commission is sponsoring this. Um, I'm keeping it very very generic right now. Joan, just to let you actually, if you want to come on up or Jim, if you want to say anything uh about some more details, I think it' probably
054more be more appropriate for you two to say something than me try to kind of articulate your position on it. I don't see Jim raising his hand, Joan. So I think he's really putting you I was going to say I'll defer to Jim but Jungen Freddy Jungan Friday historic commission. Um so um the historic commission's been working on this for two years. Um what happens is as you said we created there was a study committee created who um looked at the town and said the most practical area to look at for um a historical district is the downtown area. Um so we outlined that area and um went to the state and the state asks you to do in a contiguous area um so that it goes from basically from the ocean house down to
055the um post office and back um some part of um down a little bit on um Homera, a little bit on to the railroad station, down a little bit on Front Street. Um, and it it encompasses a lot of the um really older buildings in the town. The only way to preserve history, historical buildings, is a historical district. Um, people think that the national um national register does that. It does not, unfortunately. It's it's a list, but it does not, you know, it's it's an honorary list. Um, the only way to preserve the buildings is with this local historic district. And it will allow a commission to be formed out of um people from the town um an architect, a realtor, some of the people that live in the area in the in the district
056um some of the business owners. Um it'll be um they will be appointed by the select board and um they will oversee the district. So if someone wants to make major changes to a building, they would go to the commission just like they go to a planning board or to any other board in town for for um approval and they would go to the com the this commission that was formed and they would um work with the with the owner or the um the developer whoever whoever comes to them and um to try to keep the character of the area and the character of the building. It doesn't mean you can't sell your building. It doesn't mean you can't do anything you want inside the building. This is only for the facade from the front
057of the building. Um, so as you're looking from the street, what you can see, um, you can add on to the back. You can do solar panels. You can do mini splits. You can It doesn't do um, uh, landscaping. It doesn't tell you what color you can paint it. Um, it's just trying to keep some sense of time and place in the town. um some sense of when you look around. I think Stacy Spice said it best to me to make me understand. And when you stand in the middle of town and you look around, what do you see? Do you see the history of the town or do you see these big huge buildings or do you see can you see what can you see from that area? From that area is what you're
058what you're talking about preserving basically. Um I'm going to defer to Jim to see if he wants to add anything. I'm not sure was a pretty good but we are we are looking obviously for support from not only the town boards from from the people we really hope that people feel as strongly as we do about preserving our history in town. So thank you. I believe this takes a simple majority. No it takes two. It's 2/3. Yes. Can you hear me? Yeah I can hear you now. There was there was no way to un raise my hand or or un unmute myself. Um so I'm sorry I would have come in earlier. Hi Jim Nielson. Um, still not showing me, but uh, we can hear you, Jim. You can hear me? Okay. Um, hi Jim
059Nielson, 35 Ramblewood Drive, Ashlin. I'm uh, the chairman of the historical commission, and Joan did a very good job of explaining this. So, I I would just add that um this doesn't cost the town anything and it's also something that we have to do if we want to preserve certain buildings downtown because even if you're on the National Historic Register, uh there's no guarantee that somebody can come in someday buy it and uh and take it down. And that includes John Stones, that includes the church, it includes the old railroad station. So, there's many many reasons for doing this. Ashlin's one of the only towns in the area that does not have a local historic district. People think we do because there's two signs on either end of the street saying you're entering a historical
060district, but you're really not. Um those are just signs. So, this is an official thing. The town votes for it um hopefully and we'll uh we'll have a little more say in what goes on in our downtown, the citizens of Ashlin will. So, thank you. If anybody has any questions, the bylaw, the guide book, and suggested um um guidances on what what would happen with the with the um the zone, the district um are up on our website and so is our email. So, if anybody has any questions, please uh by all means, please reach out and I'll try to do the best we can to answer before the town meeting. Thank you. Thanks, Jim. And Jim, you you weren't able to raise your hand. No, for some reason on Zoom, I don't think anybody
061can. There's no prompt. You try to do it, it says you're muted and it says you're you can't undo the mute. You can't undo the um the video either. So So when you go down to the menu where it says the react um that's on your says reactions and does nothing when you hit it. Oh, now it says race hand. Something just changed. When I was hitting it before, I couldn't get my hand to raise. Okay, there we go. There's a a big thumbs up. Yeah, thumbs up. So now it's working. Okay. Just me and technology again. That's okay. I just want to make sure though um you know I don't know if anybody else is having that problem. Yeah. So we have a number of people on Zoom and um so now that we're
062sure like the raise hand feature I'll just take a pause here and if anybody on Zoom had any questions related to some of the previous Warren articles, you know, feel free to raise your hand. Um, sorry we're having fun with technology here, but um, give you a few few seconds to There's always something. That's for sure. But I'm not seeing it. Okay. Thank you. Great synopsis. Thank you. Okay. So moving on to article 16 which is a land taking for multimmodal trail um sponsored by the select board. So, this is a warrant article to purchase, acquire, or take by imminent domain of property on Pond Street that has been identified by the Upper Charles Trail Committee as being important pieces of property to the facilitation of the construction of the Upper Charles Trail, which is
063a planned uh trail route that would essentially bisect the town and connect the towns of Hockin and the town, you know, going through Ashland and connecting with the towns of Sherburn and the city of Framingham. Uh that would create one large network of trails. So the Upper Charles Trail Committee was successful about a year ago actually in pursuing a grant and successfully did secure a grant for $300,000 to purchase this property. um at the time that we we had engaged with the property owner and he had encouraged us to continue the dialogue with him. Uh unfortunately, as you know, we received word that we were awarded the grant and were trying to make plans for this. Unfortunately, we weren't a although we made several attempts, we weren't able to continue our discussions with the property
064owner until very recently when um he realized that this would be on the town meeting warrant and so he has engaged the town again. That's probably the best the best way to say it. I believe the upper Charles Trail Committee is actually having a discussion with him tomorrow to talk about maybe some alternative measures as opposed to just doing a taking. So, uh we will see how that evolves between now and meeting. It's probably the best uh best we can do in terms of an explanation right now. So, a lot more will be determined tomorrow. Any questions related to article 16? Okay. Uh, moving on to article 17, which is a zoning bylaw that regulates accessory dwelling units um, in Ashland. So, accessory dwelling units, uh, things like in-law apartments, it's it's a fancy name,
065fancy way of saying in-law apartments. They were allowed in Ashland before by a special permit, but the state recently passed laws that required every community to allow ADUs as of right. So, in order to do that and to have some level of regulation on what those ADUs look like and what uh when they would be allowed and some of the parameters around the ADUs, um our town planner at the time, Peter Matchack, worked with the planning board to develop this zoning bylaw for accessory dwelling units. Um I don't anything you want to add to this? trying have the planning board had their hearing on it? Okay. You remember when that meeting? Last meeting, I believe. Um so they had their meeting. Um the building commissioner has also reviewed it and um had conversations with planning
066in terms of implementation. Okay. And legal counsel has reviewed it it meets the four corners of the law. Um, so yeah, if you want to look at the last planning board with the hearing, I'm sure you know, but any questions related to the ADU bylaw, article 17? Yes, Mark. And the first part is no there's no plan about being twilight the state with their understanding of not every community in the commonwealth has the same ideas that they do. This town is [Music] being processally screwed. can't say different way the state wants to get involved with housings mass the house mass housing committee themselves is saying that this state is in a housing crisis can't be in a housing crisis if they don't stop housing for every diversity of people. So, I'm kind of looking at
067it that I'm I'm being careful on my words, too, because I I been fighting this for 20s something years. Zoning by laws are being chewed up and spit out by the state for not respecting them at all. When your last select board meeting was here, the representatives were here. I was not mixing words. I still feel the same way that they just not looking at this town is the same as part of the Commonwealth and we have three, five, 50 towns that we can one rough shot on and action is a small little dot and not being respected. There's two more articles. I'll continue from there. Well, Mark, did you have a question? I I have I'm been not saying the question, but I'm I'm in in the idea of an opinion that if we
068do question this, the mass housing is just going to beat it down and it's going to pass. Thank you. All right. Any other uh questions on article 17? So, article 18 is an update to our flood plane bylaw. Um, and recently there were changes, I think, made to the FEMA flood plane maps. And so, this is to make sure that we're in compliance with that. Keep that pretty short and sweet. Any uh questions or a comment, Mark? It's going to be a question mix comment. And this is this is because you know where I'm going to go next, right? Go ahead. I'm breathing the knee in. I'm bringing it in deep. Okay. The state in the way. This is the comment again of the bylaw. this way in say get in the way of the
069conservation by purposes and the flood plane is conservation rules themselves and we had nothing that has gone wrong and it's been working together. My question is why would the state dare to dip their toes in the flood plane when they consist of drowning everywhere else? Thanks Mark. Any other uh questions, creatively asked questions like Mark uh is getting so good at. Um so article 19 is um another update uh from our planning board just to update some of the site plan reviews um site plan review uh procedures and Jen do you think I mean this is really it's a really small change right just to clean it up it's really just to align the um number of days um with the MGL 4A it's really just aligning I think previously we had 30 days and
070it's just changed 65. It's a real it's a clean up. Okay. So, um any uh any questions? No comments. Any questions? Thank you. Thank you for framing it that way. I'll try my best. People are going to know me by now that I always been a bylaw worker since I got the the um u what's it called the based code. Thank you. Yeah. Ever since that feels good. We talked about in subsability a little bit couple for a couple of seconds last night. The question is the planning board is having having the discussion about it. Why is the state trying to get [Music] involved in it in this by notification shall be provided in compliance with Mass General 40A? That's housing, isn't it? Well, it's planning. That's planning for houses. If the state wants to
071get involved in in zone bylaw, let them get economically brain twisted and maybe they can understand that Asha needs to get off the property tax. Thanks, Mark. Um, all right, last but not least, uh, the dog kennel bylaw. Um actually again this is one uh sponsored by our town clerk. So Jen would you like to um so this is really just to come in compliance again with a a new state law um called Ali's law that is really um in response to um a dog that uh passed away in the care of kennel. So, just sort of tightening up our um inspections and also how we permit dogs um k licenses versus um individual dog licenses. And so, we already had a bylaw just the changes made are just really to come into compiance with
072the state law. Okay, any questions? Take us home, Mark. I'll take you home. My first question is on the Zoom screen right in the middle. I'm looking at that little purple icon. If you turn around, you can see it. I can see it right there. Yeah. You got to see one thing. Got an idea that might be doing advertising. You wouldn't tell me itself next week. I I said my questions. He had my comments tonight. I'm gonna be sitting quietly and let the other people speak for me, speak for the rest of the town because I have done it for the years. It's time for me to take a little vacation. Thanks, Mark. Well, we appreciate your advocacy, Mark. Um, all right. Well, folks, that wraps it up for the warrant for the uh May
0737th, 2025 annual town meeting again at Ashland High School at 700 p.m. Um 20 articles. I expect some robust discussion. Um, as people might have mentioned, um, or you might have heard, uh, this is actually Jen's, it's it's her last town manager forum here, and it's going to be, uh, her last town meeting after, uh, serving the town for nine years. Um, Jen will be departing the day the day after town meeting. And, um, but Jen, it's been a pleasure over the last nine years doing these with you. And, um, you know, I think uh, we couldn't have done done these without you. and couldn't do town meeting without you. Those that don't know, Jen, I mean, prepares the warrant. She basically handles all the logistics. She does a lot of stuff on the on
074the backends that people don't see, but are just extremely critical to democracy and the running of a local government. So, I hope it's been as much fun for you as it has been for me. Awesome. So, so again everybody, please exercise your right uh to participate in your local government. This these are decisions that are yours uh not just staffs, not just boards. Uh they're yours as registered voters in the community. Um you have the ability to shape what this town is um and will be. And that is something that I think a lot of people still don't understand and don't know. I'd say about six or seven years ago, we really tried to kind of educate people on their power uh and the power that they have as individuals in an open town meeting
075form of government and we saw a good response. Unfortunately, COVID put a damper on that just like a lot of things. But um it didn't erase uh the the rights of people uh here in Ashland to come and participate in democracy and again make decisions that are important for the future of the town. So uh that's my spiel uh for people to come to town meeting again. Uh hope to see you next Wednesday 7 o'clock at um at Ashlin High School in the auditorium for so without further ado uh hope everybody has a good night. Enjoy this beautiful evening.