001hello and welcome to the select board update for the meeting that happened on Wednesday March 5th I am Yolanda Greaves the host of Around the Clock as well as the current chair of the ashin select board for thanks so thanks for listening to this update we started our meeting a little bit late after 7 o'clock after having had an executive session we jumped in to Citizens participation we had Donna rower who is currently on the Council on Aging she is the vice chair she came in to request that we reduce that committee from 9 to 7 which we then did later in our meeting during our consent agenda but they are also looking for volunteers so if you are a senior or not quite yet a senior but want to help out and participate they
002have a meeting the first Thursday of the month from 10:00 at the Ashen Senior Center if you're looking to participate you can fill out a talent Bank form and then take it from there we also had then a legal update from Lisa me our lead legal uh Town Council she talked to us a little bit about NSTAR the eversource project case that hap that started probably about five or six years ago still ongoing nothing there Burnham circle is a section of town where road work was done the developer didn't finish things and we as a town were brought into that we also had an update on the ugc and Gainer property that is two different uh pieces of litigation that it's going on for about the property that is up on Memorial Drive and neither
003has been concluded yet from there we then had an update from Rob Sher former member of the select select board he is the town representative to the MBTA advisory committee uh there was certain committees that you don't need to be a select Bard or planning board member but you can be appointed to that so he came to give us an update on some of the budget issues that's going on with that as well as the expectations for some increased Regional Rail which may mean some e increased trains coming through town some increased train traffic and then the other discussion was a little bit about the quiet Zone that we're still looking for but we're not sure if it's going to happen and do we want it to happen so be tuned uh in for more
004updates on that we then went into our old new business we had an update about the recent tri board meeting so the tri board meeting is Select board school committee and finance committee as well as superintendent and town manager assistant Town manager uh they had their Finance person from the school as well as our town Treasurer and basically talking about the fiscal year 26 tax uh budget process so fiscal year 26 starts on July 1st of 2025 and looking at what our expected revenue is and what our expected uh expenses are and the fact that the two do not match and what are we going to do to either try to make them match either by increasing revenue or using one-time funds or reducing services and bringing that EXP expense expectation down so be tuned
005and paying attention for more conversation on that we then discussed uh a little bit about a communication plan so we have Beth Reynolds who is our economic development director as well as Communications and she has uh Jordan working with her who they do a lot of the events at the corner spot as well as put out newsletters and information about what's going on in town and we will be getting an update that will actually be pushed out to our next meeting we had an update on the dog park yes the dog park is still going forward it's been quite a process we just had bids opened where we are looking to uh actually start construction sometime this spring so we had some our bids we're now working with an organization called the Stanton Foundation who
006does dog parks uh getting grants from them as well as some CPC funds so keep tuned because most likely there will be shovel in the ground sometime this spring for an Ashland dog park and the location for that is going to be off of Memorial Drive just past trolley Brook Trail we then had a discussion about an open meeting law complaint that was filed against the select board uh there's a member of the public who um filed a complaint we had probably five uh executive session sets of minutes from 2024 that had not been released yet and as volunteers it's the process process sometimes to make sure that happens we work with our town staff so those were reviewed in executive session on Wednesday so now once they get finalized by legal team we will
007then be able to release them out uh at after our next meeting we talked about the town meeting warrant uh it will be it has closed yep uh so intent it's not closed intentions were due if you have articles for Town Meeting those were due by February 28th remember town meeting is always the first Wednesday in may we then talked about the baa Grant and select board grant program so if you would like to participate and submit a grant request if you are a nonprofit you can go into our baa grant program where you can request up to $4,000 in one cycle in in one period and 2,000 in the next if you are not a nonprofit and would still like to apply there is the ability to apply for a small amount from our
008account we also discussed the select board scholarship we offer two one we offer two $2,000 scholarships to two seniors that are graduating that live in Ashland if you're a high school graduate you don't have to go to Ashland Public Schools but you do have to be graduating high school and live in Ashland and those applications are available on the town website or possibly through your school from there we talked about some REM some volunteer opportunities that are going on we approved our consent agenda and then we received an update from this uh Town manager on uh some Town manager some other projects um we we looked at he T talked us to us about the downtown project and we signed and approved a memorandum of understanding so that the building where NYX is in there's
009there was no good place for them to attach and go underground to do their utilities so they're going to be coming right next door to the sidewalk and'll be going through the town Town Hall parking lot and going to the back of the building so that we can really get rid of all the wires that are going on that are currently in downtown and we're hoping for that project to be finished sometime in October we finished our meeting at about 20 of 10 so we were done in a timely manner uh and that was the meeting for March 1st from the select board if you have any questions make sure you reach out to select board members or Town manager for any questions and of course you can go watch the full meeting if you
010want to see the full detailed discussion on each of these items