Select Board: February 19th, 2025

001e e e good evening and welcome to the select board meeting for Wednesday February 19th uh I know it's February school vacation week here in Massachusetts so maybe some of you are off having fun as is one of our board members so we are a quorum of four um and all women no Joe all women anyway um we are gonna we have a couple of meetings and appointments that we're going to be doing today we have the Board of Health going to be joining us we have members of the planning board that's going to be joining us but before we jump into any of that I'd like to open it up for Citizens participation if there's anyone here in the meeting room that would like to do anything if not raise your hand oh you

002can you come to the podium please so they can hear you oh oh oh hi do you have to introduce yourself where live I'm Jay Burns um and I just want to from the Board of Health I want to let everyone know that we are accepting nominations for the mary mortensson public health award um for outstanding Public Health Service so just um that's been um in Mike's newsletter and elsewhere so great so Jay remind us when those nominations are due is there a due date March 1st okay okay okay thank you thank you okay if there's anyone oh Mark I see your hand raised so you can go ahead and unmute yourself thank you Mary 119 Main Street um to through the chair chairperson chairwoman I'd like to ask assistant Jen ball that at the

003zba meeting oh actually day of the mean I was in the town hall and I made copies of my question my questions to the CBA that one night and um Pete manck made copies and gave gave her one I asked um if she can give one to the for her and to and to our tell manager is this going to ask her if she did hey Mark yes I did and was it read and talked about be be between the both of you we didn't didn't have a chance to talk about it um you know did have a chance to kind of relay some of those concerns with that that you had expressed Mark with uh Pete you know in advance of the zba meeting okay just I was one wondering they got two of

004me up there oh my God I was one in Halloween but I want a trick or treat um no I say um one to know what you thought of of those I tried to speak that meeting and they got me um pinpointed only on traffic so I couldn't say everything yeah and and Mark I I think you know in your in your comments you did have something about traffic and then you know something more about the zoning and stuff I think I think we should probably touch base on the zoning because um I think I think you would essentially duplicated something so that that already exists so want to make sure you're aware of that do you do you want me to come into the office yeah Mark you know it's been a while since

005we've chatted so we can do that do you want to say a certain time day or whatever um why don't you reach out tomorrow we'll set up a time how's that through email or phone call through Diane mortensson to Diane so that's got to be email yeah be fine Diane runs my life pretty much Diane and Susan actually I know now speaking of Susan she's on the phone but didn't know Beth rold was working in the select's office you see your name in the lower left corner yeah I know you got a long mean so that that's all there is okay great well thank you Mark appreciate it hey it is just a few minutes before 7:15 so uh I'm going to invite this the Board of Health if you look at that clock we're

006at 17 if you guys want to come up here and we have um maybe share some of these microphones and then you guys can oh we all like come on at the same time it's it's like synchronized almost then if you pull that one in the middle you guys can if you're okay sharing there we go wonderful good um so still don't see our candidates online um so let's see I'm going to do this while we wait for our candidates to show up um if I could get a motion to accept the consent agenda as presented with a thank you to math Mar Matt marquest for his time on sustainability so moved all those in favor I I okay the consent agenda passes or zero okay well we can only start the discussion so if

007you guys want to call the Board of Health to order um good evening so I'd like to call the February 19th meeting of the Board of Health to order okay La is back there taking note so you're good perfect um so we have um we've received two Talent Bank forms um one from Maurice crasner and one from Nancy Lynch um so we we've all met Maurice in the past Maurice did run for a seat um at the last election um the pharmacist um we have not met Nancy in the past that I know of okay um I thought that they be is that microphone on yeah just it's green there you go just wondering if we can confirm that we yeah n uh we did okay Susan said that she did communicate and that they

008were going to be here um okay okay oh okay okay so be a little bit quicker discussion but you really need more e here um yeah so if Nancy has withdrawn well if he's on his way I I would hate for him to you know show up and then not that you made it okay um so that's going to be quicker than we thought and this is always interesting could be could be that things are going to go quicker than we thought so um well while we would you like to share with us some of the um things that that people who are have received the Mary Morton award have have done in town that the types of things that you look for or I would need help with that um I know that my

009good friend Ed Hart had received the award for his work um it was um some of his environmental efforts around insecticides I received it last year for the remote Area Medical Clinic um you have received I received it um yes um what was that for again let's see it's all Mike Herbert's a fault um I that a lot um no so um uh we um we we took covid head on and um we were basically the showpiece for almost the entire State we're watching what we were doing we were able to assist other towns um we joined a collaborative when the vaccine came out and in a six week period we were able to vaccinate 16,000 people a collaborative was pretty amazing yeah I that can't be overstated really what you did almost single-handedly and

010in terms of organizing everything I know that at the time having been working in the schools um I know how often we sent teachers over to have them you know tested and and how many times it kept a teacher in the school um and sometimes not but but uh it certainly was huge you know for the schools and the kids there were many a morning where I would get the results from the test from the night before because I would be in my office at 5:00 a.m. and I would be chasing a school bus to get a kid off of the bus that had tested we and Claudia and I were in a Claudia I'm going after this bus W so other my question was going to be what is the Board of Health working

011on right now what are the issues that you're dealing with so that as you know as a new member member steps on what are the kinds of things they're going to have to step into so we right now we're seeing a lot of um septic variance approvals we're doing um we're working with some um hoarding situations um we're working with some trash issues um some of our apartment complexes that we're working with um some restaurant issues um as we get the inection reports from restaurants feel free to try yeah and some of those things have been lingering for for quite a while so on the ongoing issues same sites what the next member will I think learn pretty quickly when I started a few years there was a lot of septic it's not the most

012exciting stuff I think um how much of town is on septic still any idea wow still that much and we get the variances when someone's system is failing right and so we'll hear from the contractor and they'll show us their plans and explain what they're would you ever consider um putting out some kind of material regarding the science behind vac vaccines thinking that it might be a bad thing these days I think our health and human services U secretary has already said that he's going to uh do actually the opposite of what he said he was going to do during the hearings to appoint him I guess that's actually a question for you guys and for you as well um one of the things we started talking about and is how we are going to

013be hit potentially by federal funding right what what's going to impact what might not come through what might we have to change and look at at the local level and then what's coming down from the state level I would think as Board of Health you also have grants and funding for things that are coming from the federal level through you know from federal to state to you to to Board of Health any thoughts on how that's going to impact you or what you do or so we get our vaccines through the state um you know we get all of our childhood vaccines and who vaccine um I'm curi that again I I it's a little on the unknown right now how that how it's going to affect dph and um what what's going to happen

014with their funding and how we're going to be able get those vaccines because you know this is how we get kids into schools you know you know and that's why we've had such success with our childhood vaccine program we're able to get kids in school in instead of them sitting at home right and I I just can just add to Mr Chief Burman right so the vaccines we are getting they are through federal grants you know so we are worried uh in past three and a half years we have administered close to 5,000 vaccines in Ashland right right especially to to our schoolgoing children right so that can get very well affected because they are through a Federal grant that comes to dph and they come come to us all free you know so we

015We Get It Free We administer it free you know so and those those vaccines are pretty costly you know some of them of one single single shot is like $200 $250 you know so wow that we are definitely worried about that childhood vaccine program that we are supporting at least 8 nine towns that are in collaborative that are in our shared services so we we give it to all of those towns too you know right so that that's definitely a concern thank you thank you thank you and I know it's a discussion we've had but also in Regional and you know and you work with regional stuff all the time that how can we work together not only within our town but within our region to make sure that what we're seeing negative coming down

016from the federal from the federal level how can we make sure our towns are staying positive and supporting our residents not only within Ashland but within our region so I don't know how closely you work with other boards of Health um but certainly whatever we can do to help support and work together to work across the region I think is going to be so important moving forward [Music] just as a thought um just to kind of best use of time do you want to talk about the budget and then I think you know with the Board of Health here they kind of hear sure yeah let's yeah so we can jump down to town manager now is this the no this is the 26 the 26 budget okay sure just Rec budget Workshop that sure

017Gage yeah let's let's jump down to that so um no I I think so we had the opportunity uh this past Friday for department heads including Raj um to uh to come and and basically discuss their budget requests and and what they needed and why you know why they felt it was appropriate what the what the need was within the community and uh so we were fortunate we had several members of the select board and the finance committee were there and ask questions and I think um here's Aaron um I think uh so just in general for everybody for all of you to know in case you're not aware of this I mean we have a pretty significant budget deficit that's going to need oh here's morce um that you know we need to make

018a decision I think collectively um we'll be having a meeting in March to discuss this are we going to use like one-time funds to fix this budget deficit or are we going to move more in the direction of making cuts um so I know what I'm probably going to recommend doesn't necessarily mean that that's what's going to happen but um you know we're in a pretty precarious financial position it shouldn't be a surprise to anybody you know I've talked about this for years now especially you know as we you know move towards this process of like acquiring open space and making those expenditure I'm not saying that that's the only reason um please don't take it that way but like when um when you buy open space like not only are you expending money to

019acquire that that property so you have a a cost on on that side of the Ledger you're also taking that property off the tax roles from it being able to be developed and the additional tax revenue that would be generated through that as well so it's kind of like a double double hit financially again I don't want people to walk away thinking that that is the reason why we have a budget deficit that we have it does contribute though yeah and one of the things we talked about was like the new growth numbers which measure basically how much new development happens in town and just the the financial impact that that has um so that's kind of where we are in general um I think you know the board members had an opportunity to ask

020you know questions of specific budgets I think it was more geared towards specific budgets as opposed to things as a whole but yeah I thought it was very hopefully you found it beneficial I'd like to ask questions but I I want to be respectful so Maurice is here now hi Maurice how are you good we're gonna invite you up to the table usually we make you go to the podium but since we're all sitting here we can have a nice conversation um and I will let you know that there was someone else who was also vying for the seat and they have decided to not run for the seat so this should be a very easy conversation for you no pressure now it's all off considering you've done a lot of work to get here

021so um so we have the select board and the Board of Health I think you might know maybe let's do some real quick introductions we'll start there with Board of Health uh David Kinsman I've been on the two years y yeah two [Laughter] years um Barbara on the board four four or five yeah yeah hi Maurice I'm J Burns and I've been on the board for going into my fourth year running again in May I I'm Ed bman I don't know on the board it's been a while um it's a it's been a while keep going around I'm sure hi Ms I'm Makita Keegan uh slug board uh actually coming up on a year in May actually yeah I believe it's February already and the end of February marri Claudia been at your former principal

022or maybe I might I may have only been your assistant principal yeah but uh welcome Brandy Kinsman s board I've been on the board six years now almost six years almost six years yeah yeah and Yolanda Greaves um know your family know your parents um and I am in finishing up my 13th year around the select and then Joe manani who is our fifth member is off on vacation and he's finishing up his 15th year yeah so he he went to Florida um hopefully it was warm I've been I was I was chatting with some people who live in Florida now and they were like oh yeah it's going to be chilly it's going to be in the 50s and I said okay it was 13 and they're like it's all relative I said okay

023I get that but still anyway Maurice just give us a quick overview for the and this is more for the people who are watching weave Hall had the opportunity to read your resume and many of us chatted with you a year ago when you ran and also we got to know you when you ran for the for the seat so just for the people that are watching um give us a quick background of yourself and why you'd like to have this seat um so just pull the microphone here closer so my name is Maurice ker I'm a 25 year resident of Ashland I was raised here by my parents went to school here um moved away for school for a while came back with my wife we bought a house here last couple years um

024I'm a pharmacist I work Milford Pharmacy um I was really looking for an opportunity to get involved with the town um back to community that afforded me a lot of opportunities so far um and I figure I saw that the uh last year that there was spot open Board of Health and I figur with my background my education I might be a good fit to uh help out in that way out here we are now well that's why they say keep trying if at first you don't succeed try try again exactly um does anybody have any questions for Maurice but I'll just make I have no questions morce I just I appreciate you coming back for assistance um I think it'd be great to have some of your background I'm I'm pharmacologist so good to

025have a fellow Pharma person so uh thank you yeah in a legal way in a legal way yeah yeah we'll we'll be making our own vaccine right there we go things are going oh there you go there you go there you go um I guess my one question is have you pulled papers or are you planning on pull pulling papers for the election this may if if we appoint you I have not yet but I okay that's for me that's something if we're if you get appointed it makes sense to you know if you're willing to to then pull papers and I think I myself would be more than happy to support that so um okay so any other questions concerns okay do you guys want to make the motion and I I just wanted

026to say that it's just fantastic to see it see someone like just raised here and coming back here to raise their family and to contribute to the community I think this is just the best case scenario all around it's just wonderful to see I just wanted to look I just wanted to say that Maurice that's all yeah so my wife and I met at ashin high school and uh that's awesome yeah we uh we stayed together through we went to separate colleges but uh yeah once I finally the best place for us we both loved Ashland our families are here so sense you got married it was like last April right in May last May right before the election just a little bit of stress all at once but geez well that's great okay so

027I would like to make a motion that we appoint Maurice ker to the Board of Health to fill our vacant seat second it it's okay yep okay all those in favor I that passes 88 Z you are officially appointed to the Board of Health make sure you go down to the town clerk's office before their next meeting so you can get sworn in and at the same time if you want you can pull your papers and make it really official thank you yeah thank you great congrat thank you so much like I as as was you know John said that you know thank you for coming back and thank you for being diligent and um I I too love the fact that you were born and raised here and you're back here raising your family

028and now you're giving back to the I think that's just fabulous and your parents are really invested you know yeah yeah we please give them my best I was gonna say we should thank your parents as well so anyway congratulations thanks for coming in um so if you guys want you can adjourn I'll make a motion that the Board of Health adjourn second second I favor I great thank you very much you're welcome thank you thank you thanks again thanks Maurice oh yeah oh yeah yeah that's good that's good good seeing you all talk to John about his chickens okay it is 7:35 we expecting planning board at um 7:45 so we have about 10 minutes um let's go back if I think we can do it in the 10 minutes the budget Workshop I

029just want to I unfortunately was not able to attend sometimes work does that gets in the way of my volunteer um if I could just get thoughts questions comments that the three of you had because you attended and um followup thoughts on what we need to do or what you see Makita why you go ahead yeah um I you know this is the first time that I've participated in this exercise and I have to say just personally it was extremely helpful to hear from uh Department chairs and folks to explicitly talk about what you know what they what they were asking for what they thought they needed why um and that context was was immensely immensely helpful um so uh and I also just want to say that it was I really did appreciate the

030time and preparation that the staff went through to to make those presentations as well you could definitely tell that that was uh that that that effort was made so um yeah just just really appreciative of uh being able to hear that information and to have have gone through that um very informative extremely informative so good yeah okay thank you yeah yeah I I would second all of that I think it's um it really is so important for us to have a better understanding of what the dollars actually go for um what our needs are um things that we haven't been able to fund um I think it's important to think about um how long some of these requests have been you know reappearing every year and how that we they get pushed down the road

031and sooner or later I think that typically catches up with you but um you know so it it's very informative and I do appreciate um hearing from the Department department heads and you know meeting them getting to know a little bit more about them or or them personally um not that it's not really a social Gathering so you don't get that kind of but um but it's nice to see and hear um how really dedicated they are and their and their staff um are to to our community and uh it is definitely one of those group settings that we don't get very often as select board because we don't get involved in the day-to-day right but to sit with with the the heads of the Departments who do so much for the community it's a

032great opportunity so again I I I'm sorry I missed it but I'm glad the three of you were able to do it and and as you said Claudia getting to know them a little bit better because you're with them in person and and having that conversation yeah great okay and then I would just add that you know it's interesting in going through the budget and realizing just how little is sort of the discretionary amount that we have to work with because there's so much that goes toward things like medical insurance and and benefits that are already allocated that we really don't have any control over that costs keep escalating so you know you know sometimes people um think that that you know everything is spent on Staffing and it's not all spent on Staffing really

033spent on a lot of things that are kind of non-negotiable baked in things that we have to do by state law um and it's it's it's it's interesting because like our as our town has evolved the needs have definitely changed and it's and what strikes me is that we're just the the budget is so tight that we're not able to really respond in the way that we really need to for the for for what's best for Ashlin so like the the requests that came in from the Departments are not there's nothing that's like pie in the sky there's I mean there I remember like um in human services they're they're asking for someone else to help with things like the food pantry things that you would think are like non-starter requests like we could fund

034that but finding that money in the budget is really really tough so our staff continues to um try to provide a level of service um that you know is is at a level that is really tough to sustain given given the the demands of the community so it's just it it always puts it in context this the department meeting and I just thank you Michael for you know including us in that discussion because um and there were a couple fincom members there too and so it really was a um kind of a robust discussion and it will help inform us as we go into to our tri board meeting um and then also just you know as we start really looking not just for this budget year but kind of years down the road and

035how we how we want to position ourselves and and what the community expects from us and how do we either manage those expectations or figure out a solution that's that's a better solution for a so that's all but it was it was good and just to to add to your point about the nondiscretionary funds and that and it not being about staff it certainly isn't about staff salaries because one of the most shocking things I would say for me since becoming a board member was seeing some of the salaries of our staff and I I'd like to second that that was that was shocking and and I think I I I I hope folks understand that and and I I just wanted to piggy back on that like you know it's not to bry's point

036there are certain regulatory constraints like we are mandated to have to do certain things and these are not they're non-negotiable like but we have to do that and then you know confounding that with you know just the the other constraints and and what what folks are are making who work for Town um I I think that there's a impression in the greater public that public employees are making uh you know Zorb amounts of money they're making bank that is categorically false I could say and and I think the struggle you know it in some ways this exercise was great because it it does humanize things and it makes us think about the town and like the people that we're serving and the people who are helping Ashlin residents that's that's in some ways it's great

037to have been able to experience that and other ways it's going to make it even more challenging to know that we can't do everything and that that's tough sorry no it's true it's true yeah so just to you know for the public to you know watching so that was a what a budget Workshop that was you know public meeting it was here um uh the next step of the budget process is what's called a tri board meeting and that is the the select board the school committee and finance committee will be meeting on Saturday March 1st right here in town hall um it's it'll be a posted meeting because I expect full boards um I don't know that it'll be televised I don't know that we've worked that out only because of if it's not

038going to be televised it's going to be it will be recorded some way sh form um maybe F I don't know so we have to work out the logistics but when it gets posted if it's if there is a hybrid possibility that will be posted with the meeting posting but that's happening on Saturday March 1st um and then there'll be a second one if necessary in April so the budget process is ongoing uh if you have questions reach out to any of us reach out to to Michael or Jen uh and we can you know give you information on that okay if could I just add a couple things so of you just first off thank you for attending you know I know um Claudia I know you're retired but I know you're very busy

039um and you know yeah and Brandy and I appreciate uh oh I appreciate uh you know I know how busy you are during your job so I appreciate you taking the time to do that and I think um um you know Brandy I think it was you that said I think we got to think about our financial our budget cycle I think almost in a two-year format here not just 26 but 27 and um if we take that approach that would be sound but you know I do want to say I appreciate the comments just about the you know the staff and you know how hard they work I really hope you know what came through it sounds like it did is their dedication just kind of the the feeling of the team and being

040being a part of it yeah I mean there are some people who um who work here that you know their motivation is you know a steady paycheck and everything and that's totally fine took me a while to get to that point but like not everybody is going to be Barn bur don't need Barn bur reorganization but they all have a dedication to that is really kind of a source of of their working okay thanks so we will keep you updated on the process uh next at 7:45 we have a joint meeting with the planning board to review the talent Bank form for Amanda Hayes who is the current associate member and she is seeking to fill the vacancy of Maurice who has just stepped down I see we have three members of the planning board

041online and we have Amanda online so uh Trisha why don't you go ahead and uh unmute and let's let you do what you need to do to get your um meeting open yeah all I think I need to do is to call the planning board meeting to order right on time at 7:45 but um we do expect um I think an Anna's traveling right now but I she's going to try to get on as well but we we do have a a quorum for us so that we can we can just go ahead okay great so um we Amanda has put her her name in and many of us know Amanda because we went through this process when we appointed her as associate member uh but Amanda why don't you go ahead and introduce yourself

042to those who may not know you and let us know why you want to continue and move up to a full position on the planning board sure thank you all so much can you hear me okay y yes okay great um hi I'm Amanda Hayes I have um been the associate member on the planning board um for almost a year and a half now um and I um I've lived in Ashland for about five and a half years um I got involved um and and wanted to be on the planning board originally um through the comprehensive Clan process and through applying um to be a Precinct rep for the comprehensive plan and then uh the associate member seat on the planning board came up after um sort of that process had closed and I have

043so loved being a member of the planning board I um you know I find that uh you know engagement in serving my community is just is is so fulfilling and um for me you know I serving with my other board members has been such a privilege um with this seat opening up it's important to me to sort of seek that vacancy as a full voting member um I I'm really really proud of our work as a board um and I'm really honored like I said to be a member of this planning board and um I I just um didn't feel right for me for that for the vacancy to come up and not seek it um so I I uh just a little bit of additional background I have pulled papers to run for the

044seat um for uh election in may as well um because I know this is a temporary appointment just through the election but I have pulled paper in in the signature Gathering process for that as well any questions from the select board for a any planning board members any questions or comments or don't I don't have a a question obviously we've been getting to know Amanda over the last Actually I don't even know how long it's been um been there forever it feels it feels like forever but um I I just wanted to um comment and I think people know this already but from my point of view I think uh emed has been a great member of our team she really brings um a great um logical um rational kind of viewpoint into things but

045also can um can explain things or from a a lay perspective I I I have to imagine that her profession you know she's always um working on complex problems and I think sometimes she's able to really to um talk about and explain complex problems and complex answers so that everyone um who maybe watching the planning board can understand um I think she brings a different kind of perspective um to our board not only with her profession but um as being relatively new to Ashland and um um and having young kids which is you know different you know on our board so um so yeah we appreciate um having her on and um I just open up to any other planning board comments I'll Echo exactly the same sentiments as Trisha um Amanda you have been

046an amazing ad to the team and um just like Trisha said I think I've cherished and hear your Clarity in a lot of the things that you break it down so simple and I think that helps a lot um so thank you for being an amazing team member and I love that you rais your hand for a lot of those tough times when we really hesitate to put those documents together so thank you for all that you've done so far for the team thank you both um I'm super excited to have you as a member of the board and my only question is do you have someone to fill your shoes as the associate member I will definitely uh start chatting for folks if that if that a vacancy comes up yep well I think

047um I I think we probably will want to fill it in the way the past two candidates have really been from my perspective you've been considered a full board member I know it's not voting but obviously we value your input very much as Kevin before and and um you get to be part of the debates and all of that so so I think that might be a selling point to recruit um an associate member too um but I'm super excited I think we might be the uh um assuming this gets passed tonight the first time in an elected Board of all women in Ashland and I think that's kind of cool I I I would agree with you on that Kate I think that's pretty cool that that that it's our planning board one of

048the more technical boards that's going to have that that's very cool okay I I do want to say that Anna um has been trying to get on but like I said she's she's traveling and is having troubles I did tell her that we had um we had three members of the planning board here so she just just wanted to acknowledge her effort to try to participate so good good okay um would someone from the planning board like to make the motion to make the appointment I will make a motion that um we appoint Amanda Hayes as the fifth planning board member which um term will run into until the election in May second we have a motion in a second all those in favor we all vote together I I Hi I hi uh we

049actually should do a remote Kate uh jic hi Deepa I Kendall I okay that carries uh 70 so welcome Amanda thank you playing board members for for being here thank you Amanda for being here and just a reminder Amanda make sure you go get sworn in before the next planning board meeting so you can be an official member thank you for running which is a week from tomorrow so yes yep you're on Dy now thank you so much congratulations Amanda congratulations conrat Amanda thank you thank you bye good good night good night Amanda then you guys just need to close your meeting and yes I see Anna just getting on actually she's trying to get on um let let me just see if she uh okay Anna did you make it on I am I

050see her name I see her name I'm not sure she's um getting a full connection but um I've also been texting with her as well to as she has been trying to to get on so I will let her know the the results if she's unable to hear us hey I'm able to hear you guys there she is okay yeah I just uh I'm listening in as I'm driving so I apologize it wasn't the safest to just uh unmute you but I am listening in oh yeah so Anna we if if you did not hear we did um just vote and we Amanda Hayes um is will be filling that seat um until the election in May wonderful congratulations Amanda thanks so much and then you spectacular and on that note we are going to

051um I will um take a motion to close the planning board meeting moved and um so that the select board can get on with their work is there a second second Anna roll call vote Katherine jerseyy and Trisha Kendall I so we will um see everybody next week great thank you thank you conratulations Amanda thank you all for for dropping in appreciate it thank you guys good night everybody okay good night congrats Amanda thank you um that leads us to our next appointment it's a little bit early but I see Aaron here so Aaron if you don't mind we'll take you at 7:55 versus 8 o'clock and yeah good thanks that's okay just yeah have that make sure that's turned on there you go so I didn't prepare any formal presentation but I forwarded along

052spreadsheets and answers to questions and those so you tell me I would say if you want to go through that information I think that was just um what are you working on what you know what I think there was discussion about some of the CPC funds and where things are at and projects that are under CPC things like that so uh I've been chair of the CPC for about five years now I've been on the board for about eight um the previous chair I think was chair for 23 years so there's been two in the history of Ashlin wow um we are one of the original CPC Founders going back about 25 years years now for CPC um so looking at the history you can look at all the projects including literally this space as

053a CPC project um so there was questions about what we're currently working on what we worked on in the past um I think kind of the key takeaways are is you asked about vacancies we have two vacancies on our committee um All About ongoing projects there are some things like the fire Tru that's not listed there because they've allocated their funds but the Project's not complete um so there's things like that the Library recently did a painting project they're complete so they'll close that out at some point um the dog park we've allocated funds they're going through planning board process um there's things like the Riverwalk project which are ongoing in discussion um so that's kind of the status of projects and then um a status of kind of the funding is uh our spend

054versus replacement is increasing budget meaning uh I'm trying to raise that you know in the next five to six years we will have upwards of $10 million available for the various buckets so CPC is not um flush fund per se it's a appointment of affordable housing open space and Recreation um and I'm going to miss one because thank you historic preservation um so it has to fall within those guidelines uh for funding wise just a reminder that some of the money comes from the state directly as a grant or a matching percentage um those are about estate sale or sales right like when you sell property real estate charge so there was questions about how that fund is doing but it has matched every Grant possible the last few years so we're matching with the

055state money and our own coffers are a match of what we spend annually as well as paying off bonds we have four current bonds um two of those expire in the next three years I believe um so those again will take off our our balance sheet um and so that's where we are so it's anybody remember the movie Brewsters Millions yes wow so some people do Michael obviously laughed the premise of the movie is um a gentleman uh has a deceased relative and the deceased relative plays a game on him and he says I'll give you $30 million today but if you spend every dollar of it I will give you $300 million if you don't spend all $30 million of it you get nothing so and he has to do it in 30 days

056so he has like this contest basically to try to spend $30 million in 30 days not I was wondering where you're going with it it's not as easy as you might think to spend money right so even though we have money available it takes resources to spend money of project management staff oversight political will timeline Etc so that's where I'm getting with the bruers millions of like yes there's funds available but it requires staff and people to do it um by the way it's a fun movie of he spends he spends every dollar oh you've never seen it oh you got to watch it yeah oh there's a remake oh I REM I'm taking the REM realize the80s realiz pry oh but I use it as example of again our pot of money is growing

057but it's a challenge to figure out you know who can who could spend the money who can do it who can allocate it um so it's just good to see you know where we're at in the next couple years for projects um you ask for quick overview perhaps that's a quick overview of where we are so does that raise questions comments concerns is there a limit on how much you can spend or does it and does this have to maintain a certain level or anything like that I mean if there was some project that um you have annual revenue and you can't spend beyond that when we have had had certain projects we've decided whether to bond or pay cash so like the most recent large project for us was the Valentine State we bonded

058that so I think it was 20 year bond 30 either way we bonded it so you know like like any type of purchase you could decide whether you want to bond it or pay cash can't go negative you can't right can't borrow against future earnings but otherwise that there are four separate accounts so you can't transfer between accounts so you can't can't really spend you can't spend all of it on a affordable housing project because some of it is open space Recreation funds some of it is um historic preservation so can't spend it all in one area what what has been the hardest account to work off like I'm looking at the amount sitting in in community housing and that's affordable housing so community housing is the title for it yeah there's been discussion Statewide

059that that has become a problem I think there was a cover story in the globe maybe a year ago talking about how CPC sort of competes with itself that many towns have used afford have used open space money to acquire land to Pro to protect it from affordable housing um and I would agree that we have as far as I've been here we have not had a single project that has done affordable housing um there are opportunities that some towns are doing of what affordable housing can mean it can mean building it but it can also mean buying the rights to it right so let's say you have a 100 unit development and they're proposing 10% affordable housing you can buy 10% credits to get to a number to a 20% or 25% or you

060could buy 10 more to get the 30% or whatever you want to do so some towns do that of they don't build it per se but they buy affordability they buy affordability or they buy the credits from the developer that's obviously a negotiating tactic with the planning board and staff of like what the develop ER wants right but that's what one way they use the money other places are again literally buying land and building building it different towns have different organizations that can do it better or easier meaning they might have a nonprofit they can literally do nonprofit affordable housing in that town but that's probably the hardest and it's been historically the hardest um at least as long as I've been on the board but it's also a Statewide yeah now we I know

061that Habitat for Humanity is coming in are they looking for any funding from us to help them out from our affordability you know I thought they were but I don't remember have initially when we were talking I thought I know when we were initially chatting with them and we've approved them and and they're getting ready to break ground they're they get I think they were getting money from the trust a for Housing Trust and historically that's that has that is what has happened here so um CPC in town meeting through their votes have transferred money from that CPC of you know community housing bucket to the trust right um trust can be a little bit more Nimble a little bit more they don't have to wait for town meeting Vote or exact but that that

062hasn't um we haven't had a vote like that in a long time to transfer money from CPC community housing to the trust 2007 and 2009 wow oh wow so that's you could move money from CPC to the affordable trust so that you could use it more right because the trust once they have the funds can be a little bit more Nimble because the only vote that you'll take is at town meeting to say okay we're going to transfer you know 500,000 from CPC to the affordable housing trust and then the trust has the money available and they and then the trust could can the trust then buy land and and developer and yeah I mean it's it's they've tried tried that they we have there's a partial on Oak Street that they've tried that with

063um they we have used some they tried Cherry Street when the Cherry Street that's right with the freden right they actually yeah right right right that's the one I hear about most often so there's Olive Street um there's The Corner Spot which is an example that farmers market too or no that's I think that's not the either but so just and then they have done some funding with the units on Route 126 there's 20 units um the so 16 unit street at the 12 Street so it was a 20 unit development they were only going to do two affordable we helped buy two more units so four of them are affordable which made them 25% made it 25% yes the old Marone right so we did that so we could get it up to 25%

064affordable allowed us to count all the so um I noticed on the the vacancies on CPC that there's a vacancy that's normally a seat for affordable housing trust how long has that been vacant four to five years okay oh all right so I would say we should make sure that the trust conversation with the trust yeah Joe's not here tonight obviously and Jo's our affable Housing Trust guy but you know um you have you're supposed to have what nine members yeah we are nine members uh four are at large and five are State mandated so meaning planning board has a rep open space has a rep regardless what town you're in right um so that is a mandated one to be there could you talk a little bit about what the process is for like

065if if we had a project or another group had a project and wanted to look into CPC funding what you know sort of the lead time to come to CPC town meeting what that process looks like the funding mechanism how long how long the the project before it gets sunsetted and all that just sort of like Logistics around the fun Logistics my favorite word um uh what we do and what I'd like to do are two different things of uh I would prefer to have a multi year you know timeline of here are the list of projects coming and here's what can get funded one year and whatnot trying to avoid last minute uh applications um it has functioned in a six we've been trying to keep projects relevant um for both Town meetings because

066I think it's important for CPC to be present in the community to show that money is getting spent and projects are Areno so we've done small projects as you noticed the last couple years to try to keep in front and we've tried to had those back up within the timelines of you know you're applying by January for Springtime meeting you're applying by September for fall time meeting so that we're following the CPC finance committee you know review template to meet on Town morning articles we hold a public hearing for any you know review of formal applications and need the timeline to do that we used to meet honestly monthly um I pulled that back a little bit to probably B monthly or cancel summer meeting to try to help our members be more engaged versus

067just have meetings at meetings so we're trying to make our meetings efficient of really reviewing applications so I've answered your question maybe in a little bit of a long about way but uh the general consensus is we have to follow within your timeline of when articles are posted the second half of that is once we have an article we've made every um every warrant article have a three-year shot clock for projects um I thought that was important so that we weren't just giving money to applicant with a no Sunset date um it doesn't mean they can't continue it um like the Riverwalk project they got at the end of three years and then came back so all projects we've given a roughly threee shot clock meaning if it's September we usually say December 31st and

068then add three years but it's helped projects not just take the money and sit on it um I haven't been in a uh Housing Trust one because that's a little different but every project project one has been a three-year shot clock one um because you want to make sure the money gets spent um or like we had a project that we approve $100,000 for if they only spend $90,000 the Project's done it goes back to the Town based on the bylaw then as opposed to just sitting in an account for three five 10 years or whatever and no mechanism return it so we've gone by the three-year shot clock with if you get towards the end of the three years you just ask for an extension but that way it has to go before town

069meeting to approve that extension or not so that it's relevant so I have one more question so you know we were talking about um the Housing Trust and how we could to meeting could transfer money um CPC funds into the affordable housing trust bucket or from the from the affordable housing bucket to the trust um could we do that with like the historical stuff too like I'm thinking if there was um funding mechanism for like some sort of historical I don't want to call it a grant project but that's kind of what I'm thinking where if the historical commission say you know say out of that historic bucket has $100,000 transferred to the to the historic commission could we do something like that where they would have a process for doing that out as yeah

070so the note about that is kind of who you're giving the money to yeah and they either need to be the landowner so in the case of like Housing Trust right like they own property so because they own the property the deed restriction you know like it has CPC restrictions on the land okay or it's a nonprofit at 501c3 entity type of thing so think sbur Valley trustees right like you know they could apply for a open space and Recreation application and the money would go to them and they would oversee the land so it's either one of those two so actually the third is like internal of like we give it to ourselves basically of like like the River Walk yeah yeah we're basically giving it to ourselves or the dog park otherwise it

071fits into those categories of you know who owns the land or who is the nonprofit entity to manage that type of property could could it be so sorry no no keep going keep going I'm sorry I didn't disrup I didn't answer your question hisorical question because I don't know what they are I don't know if they're a not profit or a town organization or what they are but I pause when I'm like okay who we giving the money to specifically I don't know that the historic commission is an entity that can take funds and Dole them out yeah I think it would have to be a CPC project right I don't I don't think we can say okay here historic commission yeah here's $100,000 to do stuff historic renovation or something like that I don't

072think it's that I don't whereas Michael you you know where I'm going with this right like if like if they if the historic commission for instance like if the Federated Church needed $25,000 for repairs could instead of like taking the going asking for the $25,000 from CPC if there could be a if there could be money already allocated that we could tap into where we could utilize that to help to help preserve historic buildings I'm just trying to think of like yeah I so CPC you know I think the law um is really you know can be a little a little bit confusing in terms of using CPC money for private projects so it's certainly been done before like I mean we've used CPC funds for the telecon building um there was like a real

073specific purpose for that building and like a real you know specific Nexus with you know historical stuff so in terms of of being able to like fund basically put money in a bank essentially use as a grant program I you know I'm not sure um it's something that I think you know we can look into so you're trying to get to like the affordable housing trust right so we take money from CPC we give it to the affordable housing trust and they work on affordable stuff right can we do similar to with historic I think the difference is the affordable housing trust has a like they have they're an entity an entity their own entity like it's very clear they're separate from what their focuses um could you create an entity that was the historic

074yes I mean I grew up in Lexington and so that historical had that ability and you go to their CPC and they have a entity within themselves that can get money spend money now that it's probably 300 years old but um so some towns have those organizations in the same kind of fashion that like to be honest ashon doesn't have um a Conservation Commission that can take money so again other towns you can give money the Conservation Commission because they are its own entity type of thing uh open space sometimes is its own thing so ashin doesn't quite have the groups to set up like that like I said before with like who could spend the money that's one of the problems we run into is we don't have enough stakeholders that can spend money

075to do projects yeah and unfortunately Jen ends up being project manager for many of them as opposed to like a great project we're doing is the fir truck is a great example right we have we have a stakeholder we have group of employees we have everything there that can do it and they can run with it right you know we just don't have a ton of those where right you know they can literally run with that type of project yeah Aaron Aon made you know the point earlier I was really glad to hear it um you know our biggest limitation is having the staff to implement some of these things right so that that's kind of tough yeah but you could actually could you hire a staff person and pay them from if you had

076these different entities set up then could you have a like sort of I guess the way Jen currently does it right you could do it two ways CPC funds can actually be used to hire staff are some towns that do that um I don't quite know the specifics of like do you have to approve it every year or you get you put in a fund but you can hire staff and you can also hire for what I think is the more important thing I wish we did more of which is says hire for planning money so I'll take we know we lots of people are talking about doing things in the Middle School Fields you can't you can't build Turf but there's missing tennis courts and there's missing lights there's a lot of things there

077happening there and we don't know if it's a million dollar project or a $4 million doll project and what's involved and you can approve $100,000 to go do an engineering study right so can you could spend money to no money right so you can spend $100,000 if figure out how much is it going to be we did that with the trolley book Trail project so we initially approved $50,000 to engineer it then that told us all right it's a half a million dollar project we'll get half of that money from CPC half from other places so there is opportunity to spend money to you know use it later type of thing yeah part of portion of ringham project but they're doing a feasibility study just how they can restore that P so the hope is

078that then if we find out that there is a solution that's feasible implementation is this something we could do to move the upper Charles Trail along like do we I mean I know one of the restrictions there is having someone to manage the project in regards to the engineering of it and the mapping of it and the parcel discussion it I mean could we we do something with CPC funds we have I know we've done some so we did part of it right because there there are certain things that we want to move the project along certainly looking at potential change in federal funding coming down the road do we want to move some things along is this a possibility I think something that you know we'd have to look into and see number one

079if that's feasible what that would look like if CPC would be on board um I mean I have seen CPC funds used for like housing planners to fund ongoing housing planners um potentially maybe you could do a transportation planner I I'm not sure okay um I think you know we would want to make sure that we could fund that position for a while right because it's still going to take a lot of like current staff time just to bring that person to bring that person right which is one of the things we've talked about before right people say oh we'll just hire some bring consult to do this hire a consultant okay well you still need to take some staff time to get that consultant up to speed before they can actually be doing some

080real work so I mean looking at our fund balance do we know how much of this will go away like of each of these projects right you know so the high school Fields no no not the not the projects but the bond payments right because that's something we always you know I know I know we see that at town meeting how much requ that afterwards but like so the high school project is like $400,000 a year annually what else is on the list you got Oak Street Oak stre Oak Street is about $200,000 annually and it does it have the fiscal year on there yeah it does yeah um Warwood Bond now you're going to test my brain War Woods I think is a mixture of different ones right I know it's how much the

081annual Bond just the annual Bond payment I know it comes out of different buckets I'll look it up if I can okay and then the Valentine property CPA portion yeah Brandy saying it to me there I remember the largest one and then that's fine we can we can get that so so in in in even if we look at this right so you know the high school Fields that's going to be another it was getting at what I was trying to describe which was uh here here we go uh Oak Street Bond payment is uh 131,000 the high school Fields is 292,000 the Warren Woods is 148,000 and the Valentine is 45,000 annually annually so what I was trying to describe was when those other ones come off the books in three years in addition

082to adding approximately half a million to a million dollars annually we' be adding another uh 400,000 that will not be used as I said in three years if we continue our current spend we would have in excess of $10 million right in addition to roughly about a million dollars a year and and have has CPC on its own sort of looked at or received from the Committees that are sitting there any discussion about what could be done or looking at what's going on you know we have an open space plan that we've been working on based on that input or in I mean have you have as a committee have you had a discussion saying okay we know we're going to have all these funds what are some things that we're hearing people want to

083have done that we could do yeah that's really our number one task right now is to try to kind of solicit that we're getting some from town we have school committee we have different groups of what's out there um I guess if you had at least my multi-year thing the big ones that are coming up are that for Charles tril which is do you spend all of it at once do you spend it portional or how do you compete for for Grants meaning the tips process is a you do it all at once or do you do segments and so that's a big thing there there are um planning board will bring up for any type of big projects they'll discuss that there is the Town Forest who is at least identified all right here

084the five or six Parcels that you know they came available we' purchase we literally just did one of those and didn't need to use CPC phone for that but there are another five or six that they ever became available CPC or you could have a batch of money in a pile to use to acquire those properties right but there's that I mentioned athletic fields is one that comes up all the time right there are restrictions for Turf and stuff and other things yeah um you mentioned the church earlier uh can't use it for religious reason per areas so okay yeah there's all these little asteris things that come up that I think it's come up of we're doing a comprehensive plan to try to help us identify what are the priorities right and hopefully that

085identifies it like here's where we should do I think the biggest balance we will have in the next few years is is it worth doing one or two really really big projects that are really impactful and one area or is it a little bit here a little bit there piece here piece there because you [Music] know think of that that's what we don't know is is it worth going to pick on the Middle School fields for a sec going there and saying all right here's $5 million let's redo the whole thing and get it right right like let's get it right for the next 30 Years or is it a playground here an arborium here a little bit of forest here a little bit of Trail here that um I have a friend who is

086a chair of the hopkington um Comm preservation committee and he was kind of raising like hey we have money to spend we money to spend and then at one town meeting they had four multi-million dollar projects all come at once and they had to turn down school and an open space request because it literally came at the same time right and it was like you know the school was crushed the open space was crushed it was like all came at once like they yeah um so that's a couple a couple things you know I would just encourage um CPC to consider so you know number one yeah I think you know if you got a $10 million War chess that's pretty sizable um there could be some potential sizable purchases I'll just label it purchas

087I don't know what what that looks like but there could be some substantial problems SL opportunities that reveal themselves in the coming years that we're we're not aware of right now you know I think we know of a couple places that are in somewhat precarious positions and I think they have an important cultural value to the town so we might you know maybe you want to ask CPC to kind of think about that and keep some in the background the other thing CPC might want to consider I think is like a policy moving forward where like okay you know you're getting this much coming in and maybe your policy is like okay we'll spend kind of the taxpayer portion um you know right away but anything we get from the state would be banked you

088know for future you know just something like that just kind of where you're yeah got a little structure to it are there any regulations around having to um have you know not the CPC not being able to fund something in its entirety that there has to be um another like the town has to partake in some way no um we've done full we've done the dog park you know is Stanton Grant Town Money CPC money um so it can be a mix it could be everything there's no we have definitely we have definitely used it as a match for Grants though and so often times so for the river walk we needed to have a match and so having a town meeting vote allocating you know a certain portion was made our case a lot

089stronger um done that on a number of projects um yeah that's why we don't have to do with I mean I think we use it the other way as opposed to them requiring us a lot of Grant organizations will like will will like to see that as a town you're putting some money toward it and you're not expecting all of it to come through from the grant that and the more you can match sometimes the higher Grant reward that you get right yeah but it's not that it's not that the CPC couldn't fully fund something if the town was the partner in so the the um the parcel the UC the partiel that we just purchased right there was a grant opportunity and we we could have not gone for the grant and said okay

090we're g to we certainly could have funded it completely from from our CPC funds but the question was why do that if we can get other tax dollars back to our community let's do that and save our CPC funds for either longer term projects or bigger projects where either there's no Grant available or we're less likely to get the grant for whatever right I'm not suggesting that we would I know you're not I'm just and although that Grant might not happen is that true because it's one of the well we did get I was going to update everybody later but um I can update them now no we we're we're getting it we're getting that that money so we'll be okay I know we're running late but could I ask yeah just one question um

091Aaron I know you've got you know a mixture of kind of newer members and longtime members but like how long has Devon been on I think Devon's kind of your most senior member uh I can't speak to before me because they didn't tell me when they started but uh Devon and Gretchen were on when I started um so they would be the most I would say so you I I think they've been here before I started so you said you have two vacancies one is the affordable housing trust is the other one an at large member so that is for us to appoint correct okay is that Donna's old SE correct gotcha okay um I know I'm overtime but I'd be remiss if I didn't at least mentioned when we we talked about closing out

092projects and sunsetting them yeah I'd be remiss if we don't at least mention of when a project gets closed out it has a deed restriction against it um and The Corner Spot and The Farmers Market are stillar precarious CR what are they without their CRS or without CR okay um The Corner Spot was acquired with affordable housing money you understand the precariousness of that and the uh Farmers Market uh does not have a in that case it's an example of who acquired the property um if we had a nonprofit organization that that could hold the CR or run it right so those two are examples of not just where the money is going but who's it going to and how is it getting managed so I just be remissed that those are two outstanding ones

093that I personally have struggled with that like I just don't know how to resolve it um but just raise that it's one that we will continue to follow and both of those are related to Affordable Aren't They isn't the the yeah there I mean I know Corner Spot was was PCH I mean the affordable the affordable housing trust owns The Corner Spot right now right so I know that's been an issue so okay we have to follow up with affordable on that and then wasn't it similar to the farmers market Market's a little different oh that was open space open space and Community yeah community and that was done to the um AR when that was in and we don't have the AR has been disbanded so for as Revel so AR was ashon Redevelopment

094Authority and we had that and then it got disbanded because they weren't forget exactly why but you might know there was a lot of there was a lot of things so that was how I got sucked into the town stuff um no we didn't have I don't think we had like um full members and then we also the a lot of the projects that we had worked on was really kind of absorbed more into the town side and right it wasn't really needed anymore right I think that was part of it that the you know the the Redevelopment wasn't really so the AR um owned the the farmers market parcel and then that transferred back to the town when so um but I know like now that we're talking about it it was probably what

095a couple years years ago that I came to a CPC meeting and we were talking about the conservation restriction on that parcel and I thought I I thought you guys were going to start that process of working I know I looked over my shoulder just because um TR Trisha was on yeah so Trisha Kendall is Our member of our planning board um and she's your appointee to the CPC for correct and and she has discussed researching that more again I think we're just struggling with with where to start not where to start but who who's who's going to do it who's going to step forward right you know what group is going to step forward to say yeah us like for on and off since I've been sitting here we've had a CR working group

096a conservation restriction working group and they've looked at different Parcels talking about making sure the correct CRS are on certain Parcels so we don't have that so we don't have a c no we don't have an active group and I think that we had discussed seeing if CPC was going to be willing to take take that on and I think they I think they said that they would but I think it's just sort of unclear how to proceed notar it's uh it's just finding the time to be honest I don't think it's finding the time it's uh who do I identify right like you know we can knock on 10,000 doors but I'm not sure there's a door to knock on that would do it um so there really has to be a group or

097an entity that is worth knocking on the door of so I don't think it's a time thing I don't think it's a resource thing I think it's literally a group needs a step forward to say we're GNA take this on and work through this and like with Valentine there's somebody stepping forward to say we're going to hold the CR right right because there's an entity willing to do that it's done right that group isn't going to do it for the farmers market so right unless we're going to start nonprofit like unless somebody steps forward and says I'm going to start a 501c3 that's going to be the ashin farmers market well so the Ashland Farmers Market is1 they hold it but but I'm just saying I don't know if that's like something that they would

098be willing to do that's interesting it might be an idea might be a question for them so I merely wanted to raise that it's an outstanding item absolutely you mentioned and I and I know I'm pretty sure the affordable housing trust is aware of the issue with the Corner Spot they are because of the the conversation has been you know do they give the money back to CPC but how does that work um so I know that's been in their discussions as well so I will I will take on the task of talking to affordable housing okay regarding their not having someone coming to CPC and how we're going to handle Corner Spot so okay and Michael what do you think about the whole Farmers Market thing like is that something that that it it's

099it's something I certainly think we could approach to them uh that CR is going to be very very yeah just you know because you do have this combo of affordable and open space right you know Aon you mentioned it earlier um I don't know somebody mentioned it earlier um ashin had a really really unique strategy maybe it wasn't that unique sounded like maybe some other communi doing it where they would use affordable housing money they would combine affordable housing CPC funds with open space to purchase basically to leverage more money to put towards open space acquisition reservation and um you know I'm not necessarily sure how much of an intent to actually build affordable housing was there um but in any case uh those are the two uh buckets related to the farmers parel it's

100just going to be going to be a little complex right do you think do you think like we should reach out to the farmers market do you think that you I'm happy to do it you know just to see if that's something that they'd be interested in so when the money I've already got it on it done list here the money from the affordable housing section when that was used in par for Corner Spot then didn't that Sunset so that it needed to be returned well it was already so it was already spent Claudia so um so but then did it but it was already spent but then it wasn't didn't serve its purpose spent to acire SP to acquire the property right with the hope that something could have been done with the building

101that was there to turn it into affordable housing we did like RF they did all kinds of things and they tried and it just didn't make sense to build affordable housing there because I don't think they could get anybody to do it no we got one proposal and just wasn't that great it and it wasn't and this was year financially feasible right like the the the amount of money to create the to make it into something affordable was it just didn't make sense but like Aeron was talking about like when CPC funds are used for a project there's a feed restrict so that's why I'm that's why we need a CR on the on the parcel but it's complicated or a financial transfer right right okay so the in that case then the that those

102funds were used in part to do the RFP basically so the the when when the funds were transferred to affordable housing to purchase that parcel Cherry Street parel the again the idea was they were going to build affordable so that's why it's owned by the trust but it didn't that didn't work out but what I don't understand is how do you should should it have been in including in it anyways engineering or some kind of a uh you know a proposal for it it was one of those things where it's like okay we have the opportunity to purchase this property we could potentially use it for affordable there was also a a a a larger plan for affordable so it wasn't just going to be the corner it was potentially going to be some other

103lots and then things have you know as time changed and things didn't happen so I know there's now a question as to does the does the trust have to give money back to CPC right so that it can stay as open space I don't even know if they could do a SWAT you know I don't know so there's there's some work that needs to be done to figure out what needs to happen with that parcel but it's so okay good thing I started early sorry for taking over my no no no Jim thank you for your patience but it's been a good discussion yeah Erin thank you this has thanks helpful very helpful we uh we'll maybe have a few things that swn meeting in the spring but be updated on those thank you for

104your time sounds great no thank you I think it's been a great discussion for us and hopefully people who are watching and as always it's good to know what's going on with with taxpayer dollar so that people can understand where it's going so well thank you all thank you very much okay moving on Jim come on up hello everybody have copy probably somewhere of the report I I have hard cop okay there's like 300 of them downstairs yeah well you know I've been handing them out like okay hey you got to get the word out somehow right that's exactly right well good evening everybody I'm Jim neelson uh for those of who don't know I'm the chairman of the Asal historical commission and also on the local historic district study committee um which is just

105about wrapped up um what you have in front of you is the final report U I don't remember the last time I was here before the select board but I think this was in a very early draft stages and now this has been uh vetted by the state uh by the massachusett historical commission and it's also been um run by the Town Council and she had no objections with it we're in the process we're actually gone through all the steps let me just I have a quick presentation just to give you a brief outline of what what it is and what it isn't uh just to remind everybody I know I've talked to a few of you individually over the past few months and uh just to get get a sense of where we are

106now how do I do this I just hit the slide thing yep yep down the bottom yeah did that work no oh maybe the keyboard okay there we go all right why create a local historic district well this backs up to when the uh the historic commission was reconstituted back 5 years ago um we had a a little bit of time getting together uh and getting our feet underneath us but as we were doing this uh one of the big issues that came up besides demolition delays was the was the mill building issue and it came to everybody's attention that there's no there's no vehicle in this town to prevent the destruction of um of historical buildings uh a local historic district is the only mechanism available to preserve historic buildings did a lot of

107research there's things um that people think of like the National Historic register um it doesn't protect things uh local demolition delays as which we have are only good for a year we when we've got the bylaw change to a year um and basically this is to maintain the character of our downtown Ashland's quickly losing its historic buildings and demo delays and National Registry of historic buildings are not quite oops that's not quite fitting in the whole thing uh they don't quite cut it now this is the map and that's on page 24 I believe in front of you the proposed District goes from up the top you have on the upper left in the north is the ashon Historical Society down Main Street it includes the mill building site even though we're fully aware that

108the mill buildings are really kind of off the table for this discussion because they're 40b project and we have no control over that but it keeps going to those buildings by the church the it used to be an old General Store next to the church uh all the way down taking a corner on front street down to the library um and then across the street which is the farmers market area and across the tracks to over the old historical railroad station and there's a little jog across the street from that on hom RAV to the building that houses uh which now Zen dental and the pizza place and the Chris's Barber the post office and back on Main Street going up past John Stones lunkers which is the old Ash General Store uh the fire

109station Town Hall the Ashton Housing Authority red brick building out front and the plaza that's next to this building which is and uh and then also the purple house and The Corner Spot the purple house is actually uh the only residential house in this in this whole dis proposed District everything else commercial or town owned um the reason we kept it to this is because we thought we didn't want to um go overboard on this we could have kept going up Main Street towards like mates all those houses on Main Street some of them could qualify under this too but we wanted to keep it downtown and make it more of a local Historic downtown district okay I'll just a couple of pictures of some of the buildings 48 to 54 Front Street which is

110also known as the uh the Masons building that was constructed in 1882 the historic name is the Abner Greenwood Block it's now called the ashon Masonic Lodge they've been there since 1884 and it's h variety businesses on the first floor but it's been there I think there was a brief interruption in the 20s but they've been there ever since and of course the public library which has been renovated but it was renovated in the style of the old library we just they built out on the back and that was an original and Andrew Carnegie Library that the town match funds for when he was back giving out money for for libraries in 1903 historic name of this of course is the railroad house Captain John Stones Hotel built in 1834 it's commonly known now as

111John Stone as Stones public house also one of the oldest buildings in ashin and it's been continuously in operation since probably 1834 uh at various periods it's been different establishments over the years it's no longer a hotel of course but it's still a restaurant and when people say where do you live and I say ashle they say oh you know Stones you've been to Stones I'm like yeah yeah it's like the local Landmark for people who don't know where ashin is and they but they've been to Stones probably uh the central fire station and this brings up a point um when people ask us well we don't have like a downtown like say like downtown Lexington or downtown conquer or or or Falmouth or something like that where it's all kind of in the same

112period style we have more of a mix an Eclectic mix of different houses or different buildings um from different time periods this is a good example Stones is from 1830 this is from 1923 and it's a good example of what's going on with this building is what we propose because in a historic district we're not looking to change all we're looking to protect is the facade the outside of the building what you can see from the street and this is a good example of it it's being repurposed as a restaurant uh beer garden what have you but the outside of the building is staying the same and the police station next to it I understand that's going to be torn down or something like that we're not including that it's not old enough to be

113historic anyways it was only built in 1978 so that's not in the inventory each of these properties has an appendix in the back um and there's more I can I can send them over to they're all in the macis database which is the Massachusetts listing of historical properties there's been an inventory done of all these properties that have gives the history the architectural style and anything any some of the owners of the properties so just to be clear so some of the properties might fall within the map but they're excluded because but they're not historic they're not excluded but they're not historic because the the thing is with the historic district it has to be contiguous right you can't go hop scotch or cross that's why they have you have to kind of draw a

114line around it and that that's the district okay um and so some of them are non-conforming and that's going to be like best example I give is the liquor store you know that that's not a historic building and but if that was to be if this passes and and it and it he wants to tear it down and build a new building it would have to be reviewed um the exterior of it would have to be reviewed not only by the planning board and the town but by the historic the local historic district commission which will be established just to review it which there's three I think I'm coming up to it in the slides but there's three things a certificate of appropriateness um a certificate of uh now I'm I'm blanking on what it

115is there's three different things hardship it's a real hardship to do something and uh I forget what the third one is right now off the top of my head but yeah no the the exterior plans the whole the whole goal is not to overbuild in downtown ashin and not to go um stuff that's not quite fits with the general theme of the downtown area I mean it's it's it's an amorphous it's subjective which which just to to follow up on that we don't have a specific theme right each building has its own Char right so so you know okay so if so if you wanted to put up say something that's I'll give the best example the building that went up at 128 Maine which a lot of people in town I mean I'm getting

116used to it but a lot of people in town were horrified that it was like out of place too big for the space not enough not enough setback all kinds of different things I've heard but that's the kind of example that the it would give actually more local control to the citizens of Ashlin and just one more layer of having something to say on what gets built downtown because the the local historic district commission is going to be appointed by the select board much in the same way that you appointed the study committee I don't know if you remember that we had to have like we had to have people from different walks of life it's the same thing yeah the people on the study committee now that committee ends when this goes to the

117town meeting and if it passes then it then they'll have to be created a new new Comm create a committee that a commission to like oversee that separate from the separate from the as guidelines as well as the bylaw to make decisions by yes yes and I'll get to that so so it becomes another layer so in other words like 128 main had the they had to go before the planning right this will go before the planning board too but it also goes before the historical commission but I mean yeah okay so the planning board could have added to the setback yeah so it doesn't does it I mean I guess it I'm not say I mean I'm it's that's not neither here nor there at this point yeah you know the other thing is

118in terms of it being contiguous another option would be to choose individual properties right unfortunately to do that you have to have individual uh local historic commissions right you can do it but you have to have you have to have a separate commission for each one okay and a question I had because I I think this was when I I sat in on your meet meeting there a while ago um could could the same group be the the commission for each of those right because one of the issue one of the things that somebody mentioned was well you know we we couldn't possibly have enough people to I think might have been your consultant right yeah to to be able to for individual it's kind of it's kind of unwieldy I mean the city of

119Somerville does it and I honestly don't know um I have somebody on Stacy is our she was your consultant Stacy do you want to weigh in on this what the problem is with the individual commissions Hi how are you Hi hi Stacy hi um it would be fairly burdensome the way the district is written is to just um with making them contiguous is so it's kind of an Al together sort of thing it kind of maintains the streetcape so everything's a similar you know the same sort of size and scale and setback that's it's historically had um you could do the individual ones um if would just be I that's a good qu it's a good question whether you could do it separately and have um the same commission serve all of the different um

120uh individual landmarks um I suppose it's possible I know hopkington has um I used to be the chair of the hopkington historic district commission and we've got the Local District um you know just around the common there is one bill building uh that is a single building historic district um and that one is overseen by the hopkington historic district commission um the downtown one um I think you would need to do um to get to that point you would need to do have a study committee like like the one Jim uh chaired up you'd have to do that and have a study report for each of the individual buildings so it's um it's it's doable but it would be unwieldly to get to that point and each each individual building would have to go um

121to town meeting just like this District would so I I think it's possible um but I do I think it would just be um it would be a lot to to take over to undertake that word because like my my concern is that this is encompassing 44 Parcels which is a huge swath of land like Yolanda said it's not there's not a set style where we're trying to keep things in the same style and so but that's unique for Ashlin too right but you know my concern is that um you know I'm looking at some of these some of these things in the in the listing and you know you do have you do have the police department listed in yeah but it's not applicable but so I'm saying like if so if if NOP

122what is the non applicable please it just says ma inventory number for the police station na yeah if I can add the reason um uh for them to be considered uh it's included because it's a contiguous parcel um but it's wasn't uh 50 years of age so uh that's usually the threshold that the National Park Service holds for these um regulations um and Massachusetts adopted so yeah it's not 50 years old yet but it falls into the same category of say one of the banks like the Santander Bank or the um the need them Community Bank so if one of those Banks left and they wanted somebody wanted to redevelop that parcel then then would in being inside the historical district it would fall under the the general rubric of it had to get a

123little bit of an approval from them as well as the planning board okay so it's the same it's the same concept for the liquor store for the dry cleaners they're not all gems to be kept forever you know well and and to that point like there are some parcels in here that I would also consider not gems either that like you know like we like lunkers it says the year was built 1835 I wouldn't necessarily categorize that as something that we would want to retain as a facade and I would say there are definitely Parcels in downtown that we should work to preserve I absolutely agree like I think the Federated Church and Jon stones and the old train station are really unique to Ashland and I think that is something that we want to

124make sure we preserve I I feel that like sort of the blanket approach to everything is is possibly a bit of an overreach and you know we've we've invested over $15 million into our downtown and there's some parcels in here in this list that I just I I wouldn't I wouldn't necessarily call them like historic to be preserved I would just call it kind of old um so there is there is a a considerable historic history to that building though that is the old J ashon general store and it was the news agent where everybody got their newspaper and back in the days before you know TV and the internet and radio and people would have to go physically to the news store to get it that was what when when I first moved to

125ashin it was still a functioning General Store I don't know if you people remember it but you know it's only become lunkers in the last yeah so many years I mean it's going to be something else down the line yeah you know but I'm saying and the actual brick building itself the front part it's an addition you know and that's not you know that's not anything um to write home about but the back if you look at from the side it is it's one of those ashin downtown brick buildings which is very similar to the one that's in front of the ashon housing authority and it's also very similar to the house next to the church which also used to be a store but from but from the street you would be looking at the

126facade which would be the front of that right but what I'm saying is an is ashin Brick it's it's an example of ashin brick construction that they don't do anymore and it's it's not it's something that is historically significant whether it doesn't look like it is or not that's a matter of you know that's your personal opinion right I got I got I'm gonna recommend if it's okay with the rest of board that we let him go through this sure yep y get through this then if we have I mean you you could go over every one of those I don't think I don't think everything's worth saving either believe me we've had a lot of demolition but this but this is this is the vehicle that we're trying to establish to preserve the most

127amount we can yeah um if possible right you know what I'm saying so there not going to be everything's not it's not a perfect solution to the problem of preservation um for example I've got up here at the church now right now it's a church it's been a church since 1835 uh John Stone actually sold a land to that church um so the bit of history there who knows if it's forever going to be a church you know with the congregation you know attendance and whether they can afford to keep it so s somebody the congregation wants to sell it to a developer that's the last downtown church we have in Ashland there used to be I think three and theyve did disappeared Through Fire and everything else um that's the quintessential New England Downtown

128Church you know when you go to Every New England Square Village across the state across the across New England is's the town Church in the middle of it um so anyway that's that's just what I'm saying but to preserve that you you could do an individual thing on each one and then you get back to the argument individual versus the whole thing we're trying to we've coupled this together because we wanted to try to save as many as possible in one swoop um because this is a lot of work I've been working on this for four years so it's not something that's easy to accomplish and you know some people say you can do it and it's going to encroach it's like a mold that's going to spread you know across and start taking around

129it no because each historic district has to go through the whole process all over again and it has to be vetted once it goes through town meeting and if it's got to pass by 2third it'll then go if it passes it then goes to the Attorney General's office and they have the final say the legality of it I'll get to the the bylaws and stuff like that but um it it's been a whole process okay and that's kind of what we're doing this for this is another example somebody looked at this building and said well this is ugly look at it's like a vinyl siding on it and blah blah blah blah blah that's actually one of the whole oldest buildings in in ashin it's the 1850 Wiggins block and that's held numerous historical uh

130things it's the first the site of the first ashon Library back in the 1880s it was the Ashen public library and it was an agricultural Library um before the other one was built and it's had numerous um in incarnations over the years all right see what yeah I just said it might be too late for it yeah maybe historically this one is called ibris Pharmacy or Eis pharmacy now Zen Dental it's a different example of a different kind of architecture of of uh the drugstore in the in the in 1933 architecture of the bricks and lastly I think that's it what is a local historic district uh local historic district contiguous area we've already been through this approval 2third U the district is going to be made up of the commission be made up local

131residents will be created to oversee the district and what does it do preserves the exterior of historically and architecturally significant buildings protects the value and character of the downtown revitalization main streets and econom revitalization program it's more cost effective program of economic development of any kind in the US today there's been studies done rather than than and of course when it comes to um ecological uh energy and all the cost that rehabbing all buildings um by far out strips uh new construction as far as uh making it quote unquote echo-friendly what does it not you it doesn't say what you can do with the property so we have no control or it would have no control of what goes on inside what kind of business uh it doesn't prevent new construction like I said let's

132say something happened to one of those old buildings and it burned down a good example is what happened in Hoppington I don't know if you folks are familiar with the with the white building across the street from the town hall that burned yeah you know and Stacy's very familiar with it too they built that rebuilt it it was the owner's idea to rebuild it in the same style but not everything's quite historically accurate and there was a give and take and they allowed him to move way back in the property and build additional space and stuff like that because you know he he was it was an agreement and that's what this was going to be it's an agreement between the town and the and the developer the owner to to make it so it

133kind of fits in the thing but we don't have to be like like period everything has to be done like according to like how it was done in the 1850s kind of thing um also there's been studies shown that it does not decrease property values and this is it it also applies only to portions of the building that can be seen from the street so behind the building it's not the concern of the commiss Miss just what you can see from the street and that doesn't include inside the building like somebody looking through the window and see something that's not that's I've had people say well what if I have something going on in my my business that's no concern of the commission um that's just it's basically the facade and the outside okay okay

134the district commission made up a local residence like I said it's responsible for seeing overseeing the bylaw and the commission is also responsible for establishing a non-binding set of guidelines we've already the study committee put together a set of B uh guidelines which is separate from the bylaw and the reason for that uh according to the state is basically we're not creating this out a whole cloth we we've used other towns uh bylaws and other towns uh guidelines the guidelines are to give up anybody who's doing anything in the district like some some idea what they they can do or what the committee will be favorable to look out what they're doing um and it can be changed um much more easily than a bylaw can be changed um the other thing is too the

135one we have up it's up on the website along with the bylaws in this report uh it's not final the final by guidelines will be done by the new commission if once they're created this is just a guide to go by it and like I said it's been kind of put together from surrounding towns Sherborn hington I think Holliston and Framingham Medfield definitely all right uh in summary historic district creates a thoughtful community- based review process that protects historically significant buildings from Demolition and inappropriate alteration to retra retain the unique character of downtown Ashlin um I have not much I I'm just trying to think I just did this for the planning board last Thursday so it's kind of I'm kind of having vu all over again here but I'll take I'll take any questions

136and if anybody from the historical commission Who's online wants to say a few things too by all means please jump in um what we're looking for tonight um it would be nice to have a vote of uh confidence or a vote of approval from the select board I've asked the planning board they're thinking about it I'm not asking for a vote tonight but I would ask that you would you know consider approving this and giving us a vote of confidence so that when we go and I'm I'm promoting this all over town and different things and say well the select board has has approved it the planning board has approved it we don't need it we don't need it per se to go forward but it would be nice to have um a lot of

137people have spent a lot of time working on this and I mean some might say it's overreach I don't think so we could have done a lot more it's not really taking we we try to limit it as much as possible we could have kept going down the street or kept going the problem with Ashlin which I've said many times is there just a lot of buildings uh that are historic and we're losing them every every time I every couple months there's another one that comes up for demolition um we're losing them but you can't really do that much with them because they're all spread out this is an Old Farm town so they're in this part of town that part of town this part of town we T we picked the downtown area because

138it was the most contiguously historic buildings together in one spot rather than try to you know we could do individual the Valentine estate's a good example that's that's by itself you know that's an Island by itself you couldn't include that but and also I try to keep it we you try to keep it non-residential the one person who is the resident is uh I don't know if you're familiar with naen yeah nen's all for of this and that's the other thing people ask me say well you're going to tell us what colors to paint the house and stuff like that no we're not that's not part of the the whole thing is the col there's a whole list of things that they will look at in the bylaws but color of the house color of

139the roof solar panels all that stuff is not reviewable color of the house is not reviewable said we already have a purple house you know and you know what are you gonna say it's part of the downtown Ash now so anybody have any questions any comments questions yeah I I have a couple of questions um so first of all I just want to say that I have noticed how much work and energy has been put into this and uh I just want to say thank you all for that uh it it it's been apparent to me the uh the tremendous amount of work that you've done um so in terms of to kind of go back to that kind of cherry picking if if you can't if it if it doesn't make sense to cherry

140pick then could you in say in the list articulate which ones would wouldn't you wouldn't necessarily consider to be um you know historic for example the police W the police station that says na well that's yeah that's it's not it was built in 1978 yeah so I was told it's being ripped down anyway I mean if that's still being is that still true are we still ripping down the police station anybody have any idea seems like it might happen but might not potential we don't know yet we don't know right so that's why it's kind of it's there in limbo but I'll give you a better example say the um the uh what you say what something that's not anything that's over from 1950 in before is revie reviewable for a demolition delay um whether

141it's historical or not is another question so if it comes before the the historic commission the local historic district commission um they can decide that no that's not worth saving or if they come to it and say this building has got so many problems there's no way we can save it economically you know and that would be a hardship kind of case and' be like okay and you know hopefully rational people can work together so that the new design for something that would replace it it would fit in with the general Vibe of the downtown district you know what I'm saying yeah so then there would be oversight on if say there was a fire of a building there's oversight on new construction right but it's only if it's it's a it's called a certificate

142of appropriateness and that's what they would be issuing so you could today have a building that has no historic value like the police station but if you were going to go to put something there then it would come under if it's in the district yeah okay all right um and then uh and so so you can't really cherry pick I mean you can't say these buildings anything that's in the district has oversight right okay um and then have you talked to there are some business owners obviously involved here yeah have you gotten any feedback from them I've gotten couple positive feedbacks the gentleman who runs the real estate for the for the Masons was was positive um I've heard like I said from naen people have been really silent there's been opposition but it's not

143from people that actually own things in the business in in the area um one person I think was was Bill who owns Ashton lickers he was not for this you know and that's fine I mean that's his you know he's like I we should he wasn't he wasn't into the concept period you know and that's F we had a public hearing and people got up and expressed their opinions and you know and that's fine and you know some people just don't want government telling them what to do you know period you know and that's that's that's what you're going to get too however it's been there's been two different rounds of letters that have gone out by the procedure that we had to follow it's mandated by the state and honestly I've never I've gotten

144like one call actually the gentleman that now runs Zen Dental he called because he was worried about the solar panels that the town said he could put on there if he ever feels like it on top of the building I said yeah that wouldn't be affected you know and that that that's so and he's the only one that called me I mean he actually you know but other than that I'm surprised but then again we also have government buildings in this um so I'm not going to have anybody from the town call me the church nobody's spoken mean we have me we have the historian of the um the church history whatever on the commission and nobody's you know said anything of course the ash Historical Society is all for this and you know the

145general public you say oh cool that sounds good you know and they're not you know as long as it's not their house we're telling them what to do they're fine with it you know but it's you know it's that's and there's a reason for that nobody wants to be told what to do with their house but whereas these are these are more commercial buildings and there's a lot of town own properties yeah and that's kind of why we kind of focused on the downtown area so not to you know ruffle too many feathers but I was surprised by the lack of um response to tell you the truth question from board the only thing I I I had watched your your hearing as well and um I think Mike Kane had a really good good

146suggestion was to do more more of a carrot versus a stick approach um well you know what I I agree I know what you're going to say go ahead Sor I I don't want to jump in so you know like we were just talking to CPC exactly um and my brain was thinking along those lines like what kind of carrot could we do to help preserve some of those really special buildings downtown rather than put more restrictions on the build like the the the business owners that are downtown because I I worry that like so my my fear is that so say the building owner for lunkers like they go out of business or not the building owner though well you know what I'm saying I'm just saying so and the and the building owner

147wants to sell that property and nobody wants to buy that property because they can't make they can't make any facade changes to that property so we have potentially vacant Parcels well they they can make some changes and they can make they can make a they it all go up for review um so that yeah if you're saying you can't but that's also it's also part of the whole another example I can think of I haven't seen the final report for the comprehensive plan people right but a lot of a lot of the stuff a lot of the stuff I've seen lately from that is about the historical preservation of Ashlin and and people are like answering questions about that and the feedback I've gotten from that just informally it's not scientific or anything is that

148yes we'd like to preserve the character of Ashlin um and keep it like small town ashin not like downtown Framingham you know I grew up I grew up in walpool um and if you ever have you gone on 27 into wo Center lately you see that big huge condo development that's right there that used to be fails uh machine shop back when I was a kid huh and it was you can see it here too it's huge you know it's totally out of place downtown Walpole and that's you know I used to walk from Junior High past that all the time but not when it was a condo thing and that's what we're really trying to get a uh not say we can't prevent that kind of thing from happening especially they come in with

14940b like it's happening with the mill buildings but that's why that's the thought behind this so let me ask a question um so because like the mill building is 40b yeah what would prevent another developer from deciding to just go around all the local regulation and to do a 40b at or something along those lines well hopefully we'll get the affordable housing number up so that we can we we can you know avoid that from Absolut absolutely but I'm just I'm yeah I know like I'm we're I'm trying to wrap my brain around how how we can do this in a way that is not detrimental to our businesses downtown correct and reflects like the investment we've made into our downtown it's just I I feel like if we partnered with like so say say

150the Federated church was looking to sell I would hope that there would be a discussion with the town about what might happen with that parcel because I guarantee you the folks at the Federated Church know what an important parcel that is to the community so I would rather have sort of the carrot approach on how we work with Parcels specific Parcels downtown and maybe maybe it's doing a historic district for the church and for stones and for the five or six really important buildings that we want to make sure we preserve I just feel like I I and I and I get all the work that's gone into this I I and and like Claudia I appreciate all the work that you've done and all the work that the the commission has done it's just

151I feel like this is it's it's I I I think there's going to be unintended consequences from this and I'm worried about that so um well they've been in existence in massachus since 1972 um there's all kinds of historic every town around here has a local historic district and I don't know what the unintended consequences are for those business districts in the downtown I mean sometimes a historic district will attract business not necessarily repel it the other thing I agree with you about like K's suggestion um and that's why I was listening with all years when the CPC guy was going we would love to have a fund to get people to be able to apply to it to fix up their house so they don't have to tear it down and start all over

152again or something like that and there have been people who have spent the money to fix their houses but not everybody can afford that and you're lucky if they do it the right way you know as opposed I mean that's that's basically trust yeah and somebody new comes in I mean it's happened in Hoppington somebody waited out a demo delay because they didn't want to live in an old house well what did you buy an old house for to basically to sell to to you know rip it down and use the the lot but like we have a business incentive program and I know we've done a lot of work with that in downtown and I'm thinking like I'm trying to think of ways that maybe we could supplement the funds for the business incentive

153program to be able to specifically handle downtown historic projects to help so if if if for for reason like if the folks at luners wanted to do a project to make the facade improved maybe we could use money from the business incentive program to supplement that so it stays more in character with the town vers and and work with them versus I just I just feel like that's a more I don't think the two are mutually exclusive though I think you can do both and I think I think also with the with the funding and stuff like that um you can have what was the example I just it just went out of my head a minute ago um you can have the businesses that we're losing because of the mill building Fiasco is is

154incredible the amount of businesses that are in there and that's going to housing so on the one hand we want to attract businesses and we just lost the whole space for a bunch of businesses so so one of the things with the with the mill building you don't think so Michael so one of the things with the mill building and just to you know we we have we have a choice with the mill building and we've heard from the town from people that it is very important to preserve the historic character of those Mill buildings the developer has said that if they didn't if if they wouldn't preserve those buildings that they could do four four stories of just housing we would lose our any commercial and we're going to have commercial there and we

155would lose the historical the character of those buildings which we've heard is important to our community so we have been fighting to keep that as part of the project yeah so so so you know like would would I prefer a different project there absolutely absolutely I would prefer the project that was in front of the planning board that didn't go through but we can't go back and and I and I get that you want to preserve like special places in Ashland and I think I just feel like this approach may not I I think I think it's G to have problems at town meeting this is what I'm this is what I'm telling you this is why I'm here trying to promote it because as we all know only a certain number of people register

156voters in this town go to town meeting right you know and that's why I'm trying to promote it so these people to sit at home and say hey it's not the town I grew up in no town is the town you grew up in but if you sit at home and just don't do anything about it then you have nobody to comp complain to but yourself right and that's kind of why I'm doing this in front of the select board the planning board the Lions this that you know my two two ladies down the street um because this is it's going to be up to the people at the town meeting absolutely completely you know and I think it should go to and it's hard to get two-thirds to vote on anything we know that

157so it's it's an uphill battle but it's worth trying you know and that's the whole thing about this whole project is because I mean I I I I'm not married to any of this you know I I'll live my life one way or the other you know I'm not going to live and die on this but um it's kind of like the ash historic mission is charged with preserving the architectural and historical features of the town of Ashlin we came up with a plan try to preserve as many as we could in one fall Fell Swoop because we're sick of getting these demolition delays and just watching houses go bye bye we have an inventory list it's like this one's gone that one's gone this one's gone you know and I just worry you know

158there's unintended consequences for everything I don't know I don't have a future you I don't have a crystal ball to predict the future nobody does right you know but I think this is a personally I think this is a good way to get the ball rolling you know um to get PR preservation um in everybody's mind and you know possibly save some of these structures before they you know go the way of the wrecking ball um you know there's no there's no and nothing in what you say is going to prevent businesses from coming to Ashland or or taking up a space that's already existing you know they're not changing anything about the usage of this you know it's I mean are we Crea business blocks and stuff like that downtown I I don't know

159neither does anybody right so it's it's all kind of up in the air but this is a way we're trying to fulfill our mission as a a town commission and that's kind of what this is all about does anybody else want to talk from my commission while I'm here before any other questions any other question okay so we're gonna let had a question yeah we're gonna let the the two committee me and then you can close us out Michael sure so either Helen or Joan don't you probably had your hand up first so go ahead I'll go first yeah um I just wanted to say that um I think these there I'm hearing some really good ideas um I also heard um I Heard s um Mr lad um speak and that was very exciting

160um I think that there's I think when you talk about the carrot and the stick yes there's there's both I mean I think if you don't have if you don't have a reason for somebody to go that extra mile and look for the look for the help and look for preserving the buildings then they're probably not going to um but if you have both and you have the have them have the commission who is going to guide them to get that help then I think um then I think it's a win-win um with both the um the historic district preserving the character of the town and I think um I don't know about you guys but I mean I I love to drive through the town and look it's it's just it's Ashlin to me

161and um I want to keep it that way to a certain extent I mean nobody wants it to be observe you know every brick and water but we need to we need to have the uh um am I trying to say New England downtowns I think are going by the wayside and I think that we can do what we can to preserve what we have um but I also think that we're going to be needing your help to um get the um the help that we need or that the people that are voted onto the onto a commission if this goes through to get the help that they need to help these folks to um to preserve their properties so that's basically where I'm at thank you thank you John Helen go ahead and unmute

162hi Helen Nicole um yeah I you know I really have to say that I do agree with the carrot and the stick I I I think that's a great thing we've discussed that it would be wonderful to have incentives um and and everyone um that's prev previously mentioned that incentives would go hand inand with this um is correct and I'm going to tell you why um when you talk about unintended consequences I feel like there's unintended consequences more if you don't have this protection um I don't really see this as a detriment to businesses if a business came in into lunkers and and wanted to make changes they just have to be reviewed there there maybe some things that um they might have to work work on but it's not it's not an exclusion of

163those changes it's just a discussion and you know and working to keep things in character but without these protections and and some of those buildings may not apply but to the ones that do and it's important to have it contiguous because of the amount of work and the amount of effort that goes into creating the district but the loss of that little tiny bit of protection that we're going to get could potentially save that church potentially save Jon stones and some of those other buildings and I think that's the unintended consequence of not having this and if we could put those incentives in place along with this I think it's a win-win and um you know and and I just I really feel that that's very important um and I really would like to stress

164that there are as as was mentioned there's historic districts in all of these other towns around us and there's a lot of businesses in those towns and and they haven't been affected by this either um and and I know that these do these do create um areas that are New England I mean you're keeping the history you're keeping the the look um not all of it some of it you're still going to lose um but you're keeping as much of it as you can and that's the intended consequence which is really important especially at town in ashin because the whole rest of the town is changing and and to be able to come to that downtown area and that historic village area and which is going to be walkable which is going to be a

165place where you want people to come um you know it's going to be a place where people will congregate hopefully this all ties into all of that and it's a and it's a big positive as far as I'm concerned and that's all I have to say thank you great thank you thanks I just like to add one more thing too um I did a a a lot of research into the downtown area too because I I did a walking tour um I don't know if anybody was aware of that back in October and I had about 30 people which was a lot for that kind of thing and we walked to all the different sites on this and I had I have information on every single one of those buildings that's in there um you

166know even the liquor store but and the interest was it it was it was pretty good you know we've also put together a whole rure I I don't know if you've seen those I don't have them with me tonight um with with the Q the QC I always call them q q car codes that um that you can put your phone up to and you'll get the little blurb history of it um of the building while you're walking the walking self-guided walking tour so the historical commission is trying to promote generally that and the one thing that Helen just said too reminds me it might be easier to preserve something if there's already something there and saying okay you got to work with us to preserve this we just can't come in and say we're

167going to R it down you know whether that happens or whatever happens um it's just one more it's one more uh s citizen control over the development process in the downtown district that's all in the downtown district that's it we don't nothing else is concerned so I mean there's pluses and minuses and everybody's got their opinions Michael did you have a question go ahead yeah actually just a couple couple of things I think first of all um I think other people have recogn I that the work that you've put into this you know as the commission and and I would just add my voice to that I mean folks have been working long and hard on this and just preservation in general and uh I think it's appreciated I think um and I think you

168know the intent is certainly Noble and and probably supported um the discussion about like the businesses in the mill building that's probably a separate discussion that we could have um the ship has sailed on that one anyway so yeah I I think there's some important points though that that could be kind of fleshed out there um so I think a couple of things like the whole carrot and the stick idea I think that's that's great I think you know the carrot approach has some legal hurdles to get through as well as some operational hurdles um and I think you know that's something that have would have to be contemplated right certainly not impossible something that you know we'd have to kind of think through but um one question I had is you I was just

169thinking about this if you think about what you're trying to accomplish could you potentially do it just through traditional zoning and just you don't think so no no I've checked with the state on that this is the this is the only traditional zoning doesn't prevent that because things can be overridden um we we've looked into that in the study committee and I've Stacy can you you Stacy you might have some you might have some more information Stacy's excellent by the way Stacy has been doing this for years and years and years and she's currently working in the town of denam right now and they're our first district to sort out that hole I don't know if you've seen the first district of dam it's all behind where the court houses are it's all the old

170original it's a that's a Dam's a whole other level yeah Dam's a whole other level than level this is uh what um uh the study committee here in Ashland has been proposing and talking about is you know several levels below the there's far far more control in Dum um one of the things um yeah zoning can handle some of the setback issues and kind of the size and the streetcape um what it won't do is kind of preserve the historic fabric so you could still have something um that's the same size and setback but it you know and look historic is but you won't have the actual um buildings uh because I know like you said it gets a little sticky because you get spot zoning and that's um you know it gets a little

171weird with that but um Goa yeah yeah yeah because I was thinking you know so we have a form based code right now that kind of has for you know the the downtown areas which it affect they have design standards um pretty spe specific but there are options like you know mansard roof versus gable roof I mean you can choose one of the two but it has to be one of the two um and I was just wondering if you could accomplish the same thing with zoning the thing is like so currently like our form based code is um it's not required so it's a it's an option that a developer could utilize um they wanted to and they get they get some incentives for that you know for meeting that form based code um

172but yeah I just didn't know if you could you know maybe in this potential itial District instead of doing a local historic district do like an overlay Zone that had different requirements for looks but the but to your point I think it wouldn't stop somebody from going in and tearing it down and then rebuilding it using the same standards so I just answered my question thanks for helping me walk through that yeah there's also um there was something called um uh it's called like a NE neighborhood Conservation Area um that some towns that have had um I know a was looking at one you know a lot of their they have a very historic downtown and but at the same time it's also got a lot of vinyl sighting it's got a lot of things

173that have changed but the scale the buildings themselves are all still there they've just altered over time um and the state uh in talking with the Massachusetts historical commission that um neighborhood conservation districts like that which are less they're kind I see them kind of as kind of the midpoint between what you're saying with the zoning and local local historic district those are right now are kind of working themselves through the courts so um as to the I guess legality how it all applies so um the state Massachusetts historical commission has not been recommending those just because it's um it's not sorted out already where the local the local historic districts have had decades uh to get themselves sorted out okay um one other thing I would just add to I'm sorry is that it

174Michael no that was it thanks thanks again for all your work on it yeah just one quick thing though um we I would no matter what happens a separate issue is the car issue and we'd love to like talk about the CPC funds because we we're looking into that too for the cemetery which would be part the cemetery behind the Federated Church which is a whole separate issue which we're fixing up Helen's point and Jonah point on that um that's we could start a separate group for that or we could do like someone said we a a a entity within the the historic commission to be able to administer funds to people who want to fix up their properties and that's that's always been a stumbling block with some of these people that come into

175me i' like I'd like to preserve this I don't have any money um there's a guy on Olive Street I've told this story before bought the house it's he's got five acres he loves it it's an old Colonial it's but it's leaky as a Civ and he can't afford to keep the thermostat up high in the winter and his girlfriend won't live there with him but he doesn't want to sell it and it's like you know it's like he's like you know I got his trucks parked there he'd love to fix it up you know he'd love and I don't have I didn't have anywhere to send him to get grants or something like that to um you know to help him fix up his house so we'd like to get back to that too

176in a separate issue with you folks and also with the his with the cemetery um if it does become if this does become part of of the district um it would qualify for matching grants for for different um groups as as being included within a historic district so so there's all of that so I think that's it for me thank you very much for listening sure I might have missed this um how would you so say it passes how do you interact with the planning board process like so right now if you have to go to site plan you're you're often going to design review which is aesthetic so do you I believe it goes to the historic district first but then still design review then Stacy can you elucidate thank you yeah it still

177will go through design review um at least when I was uh I I did check on this um whether there was a prescribed kind of order of operations of who gets to see what first you know what designs first and unfortunately Massachusetts there is not I know um when I I used to be the chair of his in Hopkinton and the way we would work it is um oftentimes there was a a kind of a middle ground where someone would have something that would meet the you know the design review standards that also kind you know especially signage that was something that we saw a lot of overlap with and uh we found it was actually fairly easy um you know if they were designing something that fit um you know no back lit illuminated

178signs similar sorts of uh issues would uh would were typically asked you know the were typical concerns of the historic district commission as they were of the local signage and that but yet there's no prescribed order of operations so thank you and what we're doing is getting you the um the U warrant together it'll be it's taken out of this the bylaw is in this this document um and that that's basically boiler plate that's been Court tested kind of thing um that's going to be on the warrant as as well as the appendix which shows the actual properties so that should be in before 28 I know Joan asked you for a place as you said Jim I don't think we're in a position to vote we don't no and I'm not asking you to

179tonight so if you want to discuss it later or whatever it's fine um I I'm going to be um doing my thing trying to promote this as much as possible so if anybody has any suggestions to who I could speak to um I I I have no life so I can go anywhere and speak and you know my kids are all grown so it's you know one other quick question super quick you had mentioned that other other towns have downtown historic districts um we were talking about hoofington what other towns locally ni na has many Sherborn Medfield Framingham uh Holliston doesn't quite have historic districts they have his those are more unofficial there there's I I believe Stacy are those more like the sign we have already you're entering the historic district of Ashlin yeah

180it's more a it's more unofficial unofficial yeah it's unofficial so but but there's there's a whole listing you could just go go historic districts in Massachusetts there's quite a few I mean the city of Boston city of Boston has whole neighborhoods we not like is a number they're all vary in um levels of par details you know for example uh downtown denam I think even does paint color like they're all in do are there bylaws and their guidelines online to take a look at oh ours are online I know are but these other communities yes that's what we got they do and towns have different approaches and actually and I I um if if things like um paint color or that sort of thing that needs to be in the bylaws actually in the bylaw

181that uh uh We've written up uh for to go on the warrant it ex it lists the things that are excluded and that's paint um replacing you know asphalt shingles with asphalt shingles they don't care what color asphalt shingles um that sort of thing um but yeah different and guidelines will keep evolving that's why they're not a part of the warrant um guidelines are starting to include things like heat pumps and um electric vehicle Chargers things that were not thought of in 1972 so um that's why the guidelines are separate because they continue to evolve you don't want to have to go through the whole process again as as technology comes and finds US great okay well Jim thank you for your work thank you to thank everybody have a good night hope you're not

182here all night app Sor that's okay no thank you very much okay thank you okay wonderful uh moving on reviewing the renderings for the Warren Barn have pictures of what it used to look like and then there's pictures of the renderings I think nice to see they were pretty close yep those are the pictures of it y these are the photos that we took um 2019 uh before um the barn had to come down soort of the best we have there I there's some pretty that are but this has kind of all of the angles that I want to just sort of make sure um showing here um then I can show you I think um obviously we're working with the uh Bingham State University and the Warren Conference Center who um reconstruct the barn

183uh initially we had hoped we were working just to have shell reconstructed in partnership with uh firmingham State they would like to be able to use the barn and so it's a bit it's a little bit different um talked about this previously and so this they're really at the beginning stages of um designing the barn um but as we've learned through our construction processes you know once you get past design development there's not a whole He L you can change and so I just wanted to have this conversation one more time before we sort of start going down there start to do more programming and delve into the real design um of the building making sure if anyone has any concerns that this isn't meeting sort of our objective well that it's not replicating the

184barn as best we can and still making that I mean what I real quick what I see is certainly this is a more enclosed building if you look at the pictures from the actual Barn if you look at the back there's that whole level that was open to the back so I think that for me some of the the elevations that I looked at was this side elevation that showed that sort of matches number the old picture three so I think that is a good depiction of the side elevation and what the side elevation look like I think the other side elevation is a little bit different because it looks flat versus oh no maybe that's the back yeah yeah that's it's like we have the back and then we have the the left side

185but we don't have the right side right so that or depending on how you're thinking about so as as you look at The Silo in the barn right we have a pretty good picture of the side and the back what about the other side what does that look like does it match this side because that's not what it was am I making I don't know no you are making right so that's from the back I think again it's a little bit different but that's because it was open and it was an old barn I think this looks pretty close to it um it has another set of Sliders looks a little bit like this side yeah looks a okay right so like the other so it's the other side of the building that I'm you

186know wondering what that looks like and how it in how it hits the Silo and and things like that that we're not seeing and we don't have a rendering of I mean I think they're going in the right direction what one of the ones that you had sent me right had did show yeah I'm G to see if I can CU it had the sliding doors open remember that that was in the presentation when they had like the three I think we presented it that one at last that part as you look at the picture that you can see the left hand part that kind of is built into the hillside there which really replicates very much the previous um structure um that also is where the um bathroom facilities would be to be that

187would be utilized um by the skating people at the skating ring right um and then on this side of it too is where Henry's place is so it's very close to Henry's place right right um you know the one thing that I had raised to Jen when she forwarded me the um the photos and that was just that I wanted to be careful to have all those sliding doors because we do want it to be useful now correct not not necessarily Four Seasons at this point in time but that um you know we don't want to those order doors um if that's all you have to use seems to me to be like it might really limit any future um oops and then the other thing um is I wonder too what sort of wear

188and tear those you know it feels to me like I when I was growing up barns that I saw the slider was always open or partially open probably because you couldn't close it now I mean obviously this is 2025 and different um but I just wanted to and I did relay that actually to the group already they were going to look at it he was going to send that to the designer sort of think about in terms of durability and you know we're talking about the least functionality and how long G to have to maintain it so I did find this is from this one isn't as quite as clean this is of the initial iteration that we discussed but so this is um elevation and then I think but that doesn't have the slider

189on one it the wouldn't it maybe be that yeah because Silo is going to see it's like yeah vaguely yeah okay I see yeah yeah so this project obviously Silo's existing and so they're designing and that's just an existing okay so I see what you're saying Claudia so instead of having so the only real door that we're seeing in this is a little tiny one one door on the one side right so there's no doors at the front right right and so there's one and then we see multiple sliders all the way around the building which even in the initial right there was if you look at picture two the barn extended past The Silo and there was a single door that you could access the building from um and it looks like there was

190also one maybe on the yeah so I think to to Claudia's point I think sliding doors are are in some barns but that's not all the doors they have in the barn so yeah and there is that one on that other side that is a a door but I just thought maybe another door or something a little bit you know I'm not saying get rid of the sliding doors because I think it isn't they are important saying I think we might want to just make sure we had some additional ways of getting in the in the building yeah that might be more useful that you would use right you know for if you were trying to maintain you know say you did have a function there and it was fall and theoretically it should be

19170 degrees outside but it's not right then maybe you you want to be able to clo keep those closed as opposed to open but you know again I I just um didn't want to right derail the project by any stretch of the imagination because I really appreciate the partnership with FR States and the other thing but ultimately we want it to be a useful well and and I mean I'm looking at the size of these sliding doors especially at the very back of the building those are big doors yeah well they're sliding barn doors right I mean those are you got to think about there's a horse going through there no I I understand that but I'm like you have those big big doors and then you have another sliding door on the side and

192another sliding door on the other side I mean unless they're thinking something's going to go through it from side to side I don't you know well I think they I think they've sort of uh thought about sort of this open air kind of right where they would open all the doors and so and then use the patio I think that you have for the um ice that you could have an event that was or maybe you're G to have a movie night and some okay you know so they I think that's one of the reasons they're trying to make the it's a pretty small space in terms of like what the I think I think they're just trying to make I think again I think this won't be a full when they use it in

193the winter it's really bathrooms the actual function never at least for now it's not going to be used they trying to get the the I would recommend that they look at the fair house right cuz they have the house and the it's not really a barn but it's sort of a barn um I don't know that might be an idea now granted they have more glass all the way around so it's a little bit different but yeah from a footprint size like it it's it's the same basic yeah okay I just wanted it pretty close as much as we I mean as much as we can they're making it yes stay gotta and I I think it's really a nice design nice replica of yes of the I like I like the design I think

194it's great yeah that was my only input was the thinking about it no I think I mean like I said you know looking at it it looks like it's going to fit in based you know the the vision that people had of replicating the barn so that's the important thing but just from a functionality and cost perspective I would just say double you know just take another look at the the the not have that only having one regular door y I will be an issue okay I can but otherwise nice thank you thanks thanks Jen appreciate that okay who knows we Barn okay uh next is to discuss and open the ba Grant and select board Grant applications process with submission due by March 28th 2025 any discussion on that otherwise if I could get

195a motion to open the ba Grant select board Grant application submission due by March 28 2025 so moved and a second uh all those in favor I um the other process of this is determining who's going to review the grants I don't know Claudia and Brandy are you open to doing that again or I'm good okay we don't have to add that to the motion but if if you guys want to be our subcommittee that'd be great thank you very much town meeting warrant is open and notice of intent for a warrant article is due by February 28th 2025 so if you would like to do a warrant um that is due by February 28th which is a week from Friday believe it or not um know yes yeah yeah okay um moving on discuss

196the ba Runners breakfast and funding so um typically we do the baa Runners breakfast this Saturday of weekend of Patriots weekend and the marathon is Monday and we typically do it Saturday it has been brought up that it is Easter weekend but I'm thinking we really can't do much different I mean people who are running are going to be in town they're going to be here anyway right so you know so I I mean if you're running because you've got to pick up your stuff right so I don't really see the point in moving it unless other folks feel differently but even still I think logistically it's probably the date that makes sense right right I mean I I would I would think the same so um I know it is the beginning of April

197school vacation but it's always been the weekend it always starts April school vacation because it's Patriots Day so um so the day we are looking at is April Saturday April 19th so if that's good with people and then we need to discuss and vote funding we typically do Susan up to th up to 1500 up to a thousand is fine up to a thousand from the select men's gift account that's good if I get a motion to do the runners breakfast on April 19th with funding uh not to exceed $1,000 doll from the select board gift account so moved second okay all those in favor I I so Susan will get that sent out for us it'll be at tjs it'll be at tjs we typically start at 9ine it you know goes from like

1989 to 10:30 and yeah okay celebrating my anniversary with all of you over some eggs and grits well I won't have the Grits but anyway the next one is discussing uh we usually have an annual volunteer breakfast we're looking at a tentative date of March 22nd and we've already started discussing it with Susan um again just a reminder this is for all boards and committees that we appoint as well as other volunteer boards in town it's an opportunity to bring everybody together we typically do it at the community center it's typically um catered by tjs they do a really nice job we as the select board are the sponsors and the supporters so typically we have to get there a little bit early make sure things get set up stuff like that and there was

199discuss there's been discussion about how we can increase our volunteers right we have a number of committees that need people for it so one of the things I suggested to Susan and chatting with a few people is two things one is have Susan invite people who have submitted Talent Bank forms in the last 6 to eight months who have not been appointed to a committee invite them to come and as part of the breakfast and celebration it would be to also talk about what it means to volunteer we could ask people from different committees to talk about what their committee does and the the the this sense of good and pride that you get from volunteering the other possibility was if you are attending as a volunteer and you know someone who maybe hasn't filled

200out a talent Bank form but would like to know what it like is to volunteer allow them to you know bring a potential volunteer with them so those are two options that I'm offering as sort of increasing who we invite um to sort of increase our volunteer pool it seems to me last year it was pretty full MH oh is do we have space I think the capacity for that room is over a hundred and we've never I mean okay we've never had that at least I think that's the case yeah so I think we could certainly have more people we we typically get about 60 or so people I don't know that we'll get a lot more who you know we typically not all the volunteers who are on boards can come um so

201I think so it's a nice idea yeah so if people are okay with that um Susan is willing to get invitations out and also out to people who have submitted Talent Bank forms okay so we're going to go with the March 22nd date and then we should also discuss funding for that that also typically comes from the select board gift account I think we probably want to do a little bit more maybe up to, 1500 and then as long as our numbers don't rise too much and we typically ask for people to RSVP so that sound right Susan about, 1500 for the breakfast yeah last year it was 700 so I think okay definitely won't go over 1500 so if I can get a motion to disc to have the volunteer breakfast on the 22nd

202with those two additional invites and with funding from the select board gift account not to exceed 1500 hey hey that that's the point that's the point if they want to come and have some food with us and understand yeah we we gladly take get a motion uh so moved and a second second okay all those in favor I I okay and on the note of volunteers if those of you that are still hanging out here we are looking for two seats on our community preservation committee um one is the Housing Authority member so I'll talk to affordable housing the other is a select board attend appointment because that's an atlarge seat Conservation Commission has an open seat Council on Aging has three seats but we're going to invite them I had a request I think

203we might have all been copied I'm not sure to reduce their number they currently have a committee of nine for Council on Aging and they'd like to be reduced down to seven so I've been um I'm going to be inviting I believe it's now Donna who is the vice chair since Fran Blake has stepped down it's between Donna and Steve Mitchell to sort of come and talk to us about why they want to do that I think we've had that from other commissions where nine people on a committee is sometimes tough to you throwing things at me or okay okay Madam chair I'd like to find I I'd just like to hear like why yes and so I'm going to invite her to our first meeting in March to to do that and she's open

204to that uh open space and wreck has a seat stormw advisory has a seat sustainability committee has a seat and design review has a seat but that that is a planning board appointee so we you know again if you're interested but we don't do that couple other reminders March 1st the electronics can be dropped off at DPW from 9:00 a.m. to noon for nominal fee uh winter parking ban no on street parking from 2: a.m. to 6:00 a.m. that continues through March 31st textile clothing recycling you have to schedule it yourself with simple recycling simpler recycling.com and another it's not on here but uh papers are available if you'd like to run for an open seat here in town you can go to the town clerk's office or check it out on the website are

205you dropping your phone because you had something to add to this discussion oh no oh complete different thing okay great papers are due April 1 April not until April 1 you sure not March 1st April 1 April 1 yeah okay great so so if you want to run there's you go to the town website to see all the seats that are open to you on the select board two on the school committee two on planning board Board of Health probably Library trustees I don't know all of them so check it out town on the town website and if you want to run go ahead and uh grab some papers and get some signatures more than merrier okay that is up to there their Town manager's report thank you and I'll be um relatively brief uh

206so fy2 budget update so that's our current fiscal year so um I did talk to Britney a little bit earlier and so she'll be sending out the quarterly uh Financial update to to everybody just so you can kind of see where we are budget to actuals um you know nothing uh that I've been alerted to you know any you know particular issues this year um it's going to be really interesting to see the snow and ice budget um douge does not uh he does not hold back um I mean the roads in Ashland are great um there is a cost Associated to that so that's okay um so we shall see how that goes um but you know the other thing is I just want to remind you um especially as we you know kind

207head into our we'll have one meeting right before our tri board meeting no actually we won't no um so just you know as you recall we did we were utilizing a pretty hefty amount of one-time funds to balance fy2 um and as the year went on we got um we ended up getting a lot more investment income and motor vehicle excise tax than what we had anticipated so just as a reminder when we're not having to use as much in onetime funds this year as we thought we would so um use that information as you feel appropriate okay um so federal grants update uh well Claudia you you kind of caused me to spill beans um so one thing is um so I've been trying to look at you know is there a way I

208can put like some Consolidated information like we talked about at our last last meeting you know just like a Consolidated list of different grants and stuff is there's uh there's so much confusion and um dysfunction I I think uh just kind of going on around different you know some of these different funding streams and different agencies um so it's really hard to do that I did get some good news that uh we did find out from the state that the $65,000 for the UCC property purchase was secured so the state does have those money that that funding so that would be good we have to do a few things just to satisfy some requirements in order to get the reimburse you know to be to get that 605,000 but so far I know it could

209be yeah we we shall see um 3.2 3.25 million significant amount of money that we weren't expecting and that's a good those are always good things when you're not expecting millions of dollars and it comes you know there's a thing so unfortunately um yeah that's there there's a consequence there um and then one thing I did not have on the agenda it just did want to make everybody watching aware I did send you folks an email late last night so we did get the application for the second 40b project on Waverly Street um the interesting thing is it's a different developer the design is different same amount of units the design is different I went back and looked a little bit more through the application I was like so wait how did we we heard

210nothing about this change in developer or the change in plans or how does that work with massing that was my question so they actually have a letter from Mass housing that's like an approval later like a transfer an approval um there was one thing in their Mass housing letter that you know said notifying the town you know about her Mass housing was notifying the town about it we this was that letter was dated December 10th we did not receive anything we didn't receive anything about change of I'm a little confused um so just uh just humor me for a moment so there's been a change of developer and a change of plans but that they weren't required to notify us of any of that as long as it just went through Mass housing I'm just

211unclear on the process yeah so Makita so if you're doing a 40b project um a developer first needs to submit an application to uh what they call a subsidizing agency in this case it's Mass housing right basically they submit their proforma and plans and everything I pause you I a motion to go past 10 o' seconded all those in favor I yeah sorry yeah no no that's okay um it's a it's a good it's like the two-minute warning you know kind of to let you know it's late but um no just because yeah I just didn't know if what what the procedure was if there is a change in develop or change in design there's no requirement to there's no requirement to Circle back to the town like there's no to notify the town I

212don't want to say that there isn't I do want to say that we weren't notified so I don't know if somebody dropped the ball I don't know that's that's what I'm trying to I wondering how how that works I mean yeah because is it a deal between the two developers or you know I think it's Mr hickey's property was he involved again how how does that all work yeah um you know we will upload the the information shortly up to the um up to the website I can actually forward it to you as well so you don't have and they've now submitted but you mentioned that they might be willing to PA you know like put a pause before we start the process because does the zba have the capacity to be doing two 40b

213projects at the same time we'll have to work with the chair and what we were hoping to do is sort of have these you know Focus month right have a monthly meeting we talked about as you get Clos meetings um need to open um project and then stagger them so because they did say that like they had one meeting in January but they're going to have I and they had one in February but as of March they were going to have to be doing two a month for just the mill project to be able to do it within the timeline that they have right because they have 180 days that they have to finish the process in yeah without without it without there being either you know penalty or or some kind of but they

214can applic yeah yeah if the applicant is willing okay so your bottom line is no we don't have the capacity to do it but it's a 40 project they don't care right that's I mean that's one thing I think there really doesn't that state level I'm not going to go off onent right now but um yeah but anyway I just want to let everybody know that that has been filed I certainly don't think they right let us push it maybe a little bit but not they're not going to wait until the other Project's done or even halfway okay well if we found find out that there should have been some sort of notification or I mean and even if we don't find that out or there wasn't supposed to have been some sort of notification

215can we still raise it with Mass housing that we don't have the capacity to be doing I mean come on this is volunteer board it's not you know I get it yeah I totally agree so frust ating Peter and Al had reached out several times to thought was the developer based on many times um you know we're sort of trying to think like how many times you GNA you don't want to encourage them you don't want to encourage it but you were trying to figure out a timeline so we were pretty uh back right show up without notice you know we sort of had Heards so were he in here was really out of nowhere yeah you would think that the developer that was receiving the notifications either could have said something to the new

216developer saying hey the town is wanting to know what's going on or they could have let us know and said hey we are no longer the developer so you'll be hearing from this other organization so that's disappointing well yeah that's the other thing right I'm sorry it's just like but like you would think that they'd be required to notify you know if there's it just doesn't I don't know this just seems very confused and yeah and I will say again like usually you know in my experience um developers do reach out to the town and just say hey you know this is kind of what we're playing this we're think I didn't even yeah I mean I had to look up who this developer was wow thank you for that update a little sure pointing

217but thank you okay let's go to board rep TS Makita uh yep so um let's see there was a boards and committee review subcomittee meeting uh we are still talking through the current process and speaking to different stakeholders about it um we are getting close to to documenting the Cur the current process and getting input and feedback we do have another meeting that will be planning and posting the agenda for shortly um but um after that we're hoping to um to to to get some more work done a little bit more quickly on this so uh updates for forthcoming I also had a chance to attend part of the open space uh and Recreation committee uh public forum uh meeting on Satur last Saturday I think it was um so that that was that was

218great I do have a question Madam chair we talked last time about uh SE possibly getting some more selectboard office hours on the calendar I know our calendar is getting pretty full but I was just wondering if that's something that we're still thinking that we could do um this spring I think it's something we need to look at I also would ask maybe Brandy if you want to reach out to the farmers market because I know they're going to start doing their Summer's schedule um yeah you know I one of the things that we have done is at the book sale at the library yeah it's the first Saturday of the month the next two first Saturdays we are in tri board meetings so that's not going to work yeah um so we might want

219to look at other days or other locations I think you know if people have ideas we can do scheduling via email so if people have ideas you know maybe there's an event or something that's going on and you say oh it might be good to do it at this time shoot that and see who's available like I said scheduling is allowed to be done via email okay from that perspective okay um so we can go from there and then we should probably start looking at our you know people's summer schedules and what we can do so we can go from there but yeah we do need to start looking at having office hours again thanks you're welcome oh one more thing thanks DPW for keeping our roads awesome I just want to shout that out

220because I had to drive do some driving around in this weather for the past few days and I gotta say like hitting Ashlin coming home it was smooth sailing like sadly I can't say that well I'm not going to drag other communities but I'm just gonna say how proud I am of of Ashlin and our dpw's efforts of keeping us uh safe so good yep great Claudia um so I have attended a few meetings of late so we did have the zba hearing for the traffic study uh information for uh 10 to 60 Maine and that was on February 11th I think and now March 11th will be the next one I think that's going to be the topic will be civil engineering um and and traffic again and a little bit of followup of

221traffic yeah I did ask actually request um I I had forwarded some questions after the first time first meeting and then again at this last meeting because I don't think my questions made it through to the um zba um around traffic and safety and then I did also attend um the traffic study Traffic Safety Committee thanks Jo Traffic Safety Committee um and did ask that they put a camera down Pleasant Street and get some of that information because that has been missing um so um I did talk to Alvaro tonight about following up about that because I think it it's you know should be part of the traffic study um and then um that the his well the we heard from the historical commission that was excellent meeting there was a lot of good feedback

222I too really actually um Brandy I was happy that you brought up Mike Kane's kind of carrot in the stick that was very um it was you know positive spin on how to maybe how to do things some things I did attend the school committee budget meeting um couple of Saturdays ago and uh the focus was really a couple of the schools and the special education budget um it you know very informative so I look forward to meeting as the tri boards um and I guess that's about it that we haven't already discussed tonight great thank you thank you um so I really don't have a lot of new news um I was also at the zba meeting on traffic um I thought that our peer reviewer did a really good job um um I

223I hope that you know like after the meeting I kind of had some questions and I'm debating on like whether to send my questions through to zba or to um ask those questions because I I was I was struck by how few questions the zba asked so um and so you know I have some additional questions so I might I might I might send some some stuff to zba yeah and you know even that night of the hearing um you know I I feel like do I stand up here or do I filter it through because I don't want to you know make any enemies out here but um you know I would say if you're sitting in a meeting like that and you have questions that are not getting answered go ahead and stand

224up and ask them because other people may have those same questions and right and you're just little more involved and that's okay same for you I mean if you if you're sitting there and you have questions that are not have not been answered by either that the the developer or the peer review I would say go ahead and stand ask you know yolander I know this is hard to believe but sometimes I have a little Edge and so I I just wait you want to stay away from that but but I think again if you have questions or comments I mean we are voting taxpaying residents so I think we're not speaking for the board you're not speaking for the board you're speaking for yourself they know well you're of course and and sometimes it's

225good to say you know I'm I'm on the select board but I'm not speaking as the select board I know I know I just think it's a just could I make a suggestion Ahad you know one of the things that you could do Claudia is you know send them into the zba but ask them to ask the applicant that question like explicitly ask right the zv to ask them that question yeah oh just a thought well I kind of you know thought that thought you did yeah and I and I thought that they would do that right but right okay in any case nothing else Brandy um and the only other thing was the the department budget meeting that um that Makita and Claudia don't you have a senior that just celebrated something senior celebrated

226something didn't he just finish cack or something oh yeah he finished his no no no I was like he could be we're we're cuz I was like we haven't celebrated anything yet CU he hasn't made a decision where he's going yet um yeah so so the track team um finished uh they had they had um D4 States this last weekend um and my son finished at tbls but it's been a great season they had over a hundred kids participating an indoor track thisas wow wow over a hundred kids yep that's so wonderful and I just I just you know want to give a plug to to um just sort of the culture that has been created there and just the how they've been able to um help develop these kids from freshmen to seniors and

227they it's it's such a great program because they it's so inclusive they don't cut students they everyone participates everyone Shar each other on and so to me it's been a very positive experience to be a part of it um um and so are the coaches uh Sharon Ames is the the head coach um Emily Riley and um uh John brineger the distance coaches Ethan okay that's okay I didn't mean yeah but the coaches are the the coaches are are are really great and they've given you know there's so few actual meets but they've gotten the kids to participate in invitation other ways um all season long so it's been it's been a very positive experience lots of times you know the a sport like track that doesn't get all the publicity and and that is

228so important um because it it is all about the camaraderie and the culture and it's really just a you know I'm grateful for we coaches like that winter sports have wound down now at the high school I saw someone I'm friends with on you know someone I'm friends with and through her Facebook posts the wrestling team has finished and I guess some of their St some of their athletes did very well at their last meet so congratulations to all the winter sports athletes and uh it's always fun to then see what they do in the spring y spring spring Sports start up um I think towards the end of March and uh God willing some of the snow and ice are gone we got time we got time so anyway but but that's you know

229yeah and I have a graduating senior this year so um we have been very focused on what is next so I will not say any more about that so okay that's it for me okay couple couple of quick things I was also at the zba traffic study report uh traffic study hearing so that was good to see I was also at the open space and wreck Forum um they had two forums one on Wednesday and one on Saturday it was the same thing but they just did it at different times to try and get different people and it's also available via Zoom they're next meetings are going to be March 26th and March 29th and Becca and Sam and Sophia some of our staff are working with the open space and Rec committee to be

230working on the plan and that's moving forward uh let's see Metro West Regional collaborative meeting is next Thursday on the 27th it's a virtual meeting we have our Tri meet tri board meeting on March 1st uh that will be here at Town Hall so again that's select board school committee and um finance committee uh anything goes at the Ashland High School I believe is the weekend of March 1st I think there's some signs around town if you like musicals what's interesting is I'm looking at that and they did that back in 2011 as well and I know that because my oldest was in it in her junior year so it's fun to see that come back uh a couple other things we've received a couple emails about the nip discussion I found it interesting that

231that's what The Local Pages picked up on at our last meeting was the nip discussion um we've received people who are like no you don't need to ban nips we've had other people say yes please ban nips so I have responded to people as we've received those emails uh we also received an email about our budget process I'm going to be responding back to that person um just to let them know that you know it's part of the process and I haven't had the opportunity to speak with Lisa yet about out right now what happens is if we get an email as the full board I as chair have been the one responding that's been historically how we've done it um Claudia had asked can we make it so that everyone can get copied on

232it I just have to check with Lisa because it could be an open meeting law violation if I respond back to the person and copy everybody so I will I'm going to follow up with that and and let you know at our next meeting that would be nice to be able to yep see you you know the other thing is we can can discuss how we want to handle emails that come in if it's something if it's not just the chair and not for tonight but you know think about it if it's not the chair some committees do it where it's the clerk that responds to emails if we can't respond all other committees do it where depending on what the subject is someone says you know what I really want to respond to this

233or I know you know something like that if we want to look at that so we once I get a ruling back from Lisa we can further discuss that how we want to handle that moving forward and with that our next meeting is Wednesday well we have the tri Bo meeting on Saturday March 1st and then our meeting after that is Wednesday March 5th anything else to add Michael or Jen anything else to add anyone on the board no if I can get a motion to adjourn and a second second all those in favor I that wraps up this meeting for the select board for the town of Ashland on February 19th thank you for being with us thank you for watching if you have questions please feel free to reach out to any of

234us on the board or all of us selectboard Asin mass.com thanks for being here and good night we'll see you in March e for