Select Board: February 5th, 2025

001e e e you e e e good evening and welcome to the Ashlin select board for Wednesday February 5th 2025 and I'm just pausing because we have not switched yet on cable Mackie okay well then well it went to something else but that's okay yeah okay okay well we're GNA we're going to continue um first perfect nope that's still last meeting again if you're if you're catching us on Zoom just give us a second there we go thank you now we're now we're live on cable again welcome uh to the select board meeting for February 5th uh 2025 I apologize for the late start we were in exec committee meeting uh before we have a couple of scheduled appointments and then and citizens participation before we open that up I just want to make a

002a brief statement uh I was at MMA last weekend which is the mass Municipal Municipal Association and I had a number of conversations with different colleagues there and I've mentioned this to the board we at the local level we see everything that that's going on from the federal level the executive orders that are being put out that are making people concerned and worried had a conversation with Jack Lewis he's hearing things many of our members here have been getting concerns we saw a statement go out from Jim Adams our superintendent of schools and I want the residents of Ashlin to know that our Focus as we hear these things come down is going to be working with what we can do locally to keep our residents safe help to try to keep them calm and

003do what we can from a local level to support our residents in anything and everything that they are dealing with we are later in our meeting going to have a discussion about some of the potential Financial impacts that we are aware of and who knows those might not come to fruition but we'll have that discussion but just know that we are going to work locally and hopefully regionally and across the state of Massachusetts I think Massachusetts in is is in a different position than some other states but we are going to work to make sure that our residents are feeling safe that our students that are elderly that every resident is feeling as safe in whatever we we way we can here locally so if you have questions if you have concerns reach out to

004any of us reach out to Michael reach out to the superintendent of schools reach out to your school committee members um if you have questions or concerns specifically for you and your family so thank you uh on that note we're going to go to Citizens participation anything that anyone has give us your name and address and Mackie we can't see the full Zoom screen so if there's anyone on Zoom that needs wants to raise their hand to um talk to us as well if but you can go ahead perfect okay Mark y okay good evening Mark the Sony 119 Main Street that was as part reason why I came up here was was that but through the chairperson through the town manager all that was put on your latest management post is that other half

005of what is what is being said the freezes and stuff like that that you put in a big Mr Town manager what I'm saying to um understand that the what the federal government did the freezes on you put on your header heading part of the manager report online and um it was basically everything from the schools to uh business to the AR ARA funds and stuff like that right so so mark As I said we do have it later in our agenda so some of it was addressed in Michael's newsletter and we're going to be discussing it later in the meeting under Town manager reports some of those Federal funding things and other potential impacts that we're seeing so if you could hang out until then we can go into further discussion rather than just

006address your one question okay I'll flip I'll flip around quickly on this part um on February 11th Zone board has another public hearing on on 1060 Main Street I'm I've been thinking I have almost all the zoning codes at home and trying to work it up I'm trying I'm going to try and see if I can get a paragraph or so I upgrade in the zoning codes just for the just for 1060 there to understand that it can mix in housing and business and to understand better what the town can see forward in case the zoning board cannot do anything either because of the freeze I want to stay ahead of the curve thank you you mark appreciate that there is no one else is there anyone online for Citizens participation I'm not seeing any

007hands or waving of anybody okay we're going to go into our first scheduled pres presentation and this is on the hazard mitigation plan it's being presented by mapc metropolitan area planning Council you want to come up introduce and yes we can get that slide back up if we can get the slide up on this on the screen above us that'd be great Mackie and also shared online thank you very much for having me before the board tonight my name is Martin Pillsbury I'm the director of the environmental planning department at the metropolitan area planning Council mapc and if you don't know we are the regional planning agency to which Ashland and a 100 other towns and cities in Greater Boston belongs to uh and we provide a range of planning Services um for communities from

008transportation to economic development housing land use and what we're talking about here tonight um Hazard mitigation planning which is a program that will discuss a little bit more detail here um just to give a broad context this presentation tonight is for public information we're not at there's nothing we're asking for the board to take action on tonight uh but when we come back with a fully drafted out plan in a few months uh there will be a point when the the plan will be uh approved by FEMA and will be asked to just to adopt the plan that will be the very end of the process we're in the middle of the process now and we want to make sure that a broader audience in the community is aware of this plan and has an

009opportunity to ask questions and give us comments so I'm assuming I can advance this here so this is a brief overview of what we're going to talk about introdu we already I gave an introduction background talk about the planning process talk about what information we've heard and gathered already and then what the next steps in the process will be so I mentioned mapc the regional planning Council from you can see on this map here uh that it is 101 cities and towns and we're working with a number of towns to do similar projects like this um and Ashland as you can see is part of the Metro West group as you well know uh we've worked with some of the other communities around this area in these kinds of similar plans as well a little

010bit of background about Hazard mitigation plans I think you know many people are familiar with Comprehensive plans Master plans open space plans Hazard mitigation plans aren't exactly a household term that everyone's very familiar with it's part of what I like to and because it's kind of a specialized plan but in today's world where we have more threats of of different kinds of of um weather events storms floods winter events um it's becoming an increasingly important program so we want more people to be aware of it and have an opportunity to even comment on it and have some input into it as we do the plan so this whole process is is actually um a arises out of a federal law that was passed in the year 2000 called the disaster mitigation Act of 2000 uh

011which essentially charged FEMA the Federal Emergency Management agency with developing a program that would help communities plan in advance of disasters happening FEMA had already and always had been there after it happened responding recovery after the disaster but they wanted F to be able to and the nation to States towns and cities to be able to take stock of what your hazards are and take actions before they happen in order to maybe make your community more resilient and less vulnerable so that's the philosophy behind it uh under this law FEMA set up a planning process which has a goal that every city in town and the whole country do a plan like this and a good number of them did not every but a good number of them done in Massachusetts probably 90 plus perc

012of our communities have these plans in the metro area for mapc all of us do um the planning process is set up that assumes that you know data changes over time you do a plan it gets out of date and so there's a five-year renewal cycle that female likes to encourage communities to do to re revisit the plan up refresh it with new data there's new technology between plans things change quickly these days so there's better computer technology to assess things uh there's better mitigation measures that can be thought about for what the community might do so the for that reason actually Ashland is in the middle here of doing a plan update from an existing plan you have already uh in fact if you can see on the right side of the screen um

013your last plan which MBC helped you do at that time as well was approved by fem in 2017 uh and there was a plan before that in around 2011 or so 10 I can't remember exactly right now going back this is actually your third plan in the series of going back to one this program got started so this is Hazzard mitigation 3.0 for the town of H hler the other thing I'll mention the last bullet on the left side uh one of the benefits of having a plan is that it makes a community eligible to apply for some pretty significant grants to do projects on the ground to actually mitigate drainage and flooding problems and other sorts of things um so you have to have an approved plan by FEMA before that fem will then

014turn around and give you a grant for a project that's the prerequisite it makes it a prerequisite So the plan having a plan is not a requirement there's no penalty for not having a plan there's no fine or anything like that but the you don't get Garner the benefit there's kind of a carrot not a stick here you don't Garner the benefit of being able to get some of these grants if you don't have any plan so when we're done with this plan update in the middle of this year 2025 you'll get a five-year plan that will take you to 2030 sounds very futuristic I know uh and the town will be eligible in each of those next five years to be able to apply for these grants many communities have taken advantage of this

015grant program you can get six figure grants and plus depending on the kind of project you're looking at and what the needs are so back up for a minute to talk about what do we mean by Hazard mitigation like I say even the term is not something that is in common in vocabulary necessar so first of all we're dealing with natural Hazard which you see on the right side of the screen FEMA has a lot of programs some of them might have to do with man-made hazards chemical spills radiation of course Homeland Security terrorism all that this is a whole corner of FEMA that's just focused on natural hazards but it's focused on every category of natural Hazard that a community might experience from those that are common and frequent like flooding to those that

016are pretty infrequent and not very likely to happen like earthquakes but still if there if it's more than a 0% chance it'll it'll have some role in the plant the ones that are more common and more experienced in any Community will have more Focus there will be more of a focus on those but all in there um on the left side of the screen you see here kind of a def just a working simple definition what we mean by Hazard mitigation reducing impacts from natural hazards through strategies that include policies programs and projects so those drainage projects that I talked about that's part of the picture but that's not the whole picture there's other things that you'll see can fit into mitigation such as different kinds of local regulations on how development occurs and where

017it occurs and that sort um and the lower left side of this seren is sort of like the starting questions we start out with when we do a plan uh we say what are the preventative actions that the community is already taking because you've been living with these houses for decades it's not like this is a new thing it's just like we want to get take stock of what you have in place already from there we can say where are the gaps where are the things that could be improved where are the things that could be modernized and that will lead us to the second question what additional actions can be taken and the answer to that question becomes the core of this plan a set of recommended actions that you can map out over

018the next 5 years some of them will be longterm and won't happen immediately some of them may be lower lower hanging fruit whole combination of those M so this graphic is intended to show what the FEMA program is designed to do is to time to interrupt this cycle uh to slow this cycle down we could probably never completely stop this cycle uh as long as there are storms out there but to sort of like interrupt this cycle that has often been experienced in many communities of you know having a disaster causing damage rebuilding and then you know rinse wash repeat do the whole thing all over again time and time again so that's kind of like the idea is to get is to get in place measures that will reduce the Comm the damage that's

019occur you can't stop the storms from happening or the other natural events from happening but can you get a little more out of Harm's Way in your community to reduce the damages that they would cause and another thing to think about is looking ahead to the the future uh these Hazard mitigation plans when they started back in the year 2000 they mostly were based upon assessing a communities hazards and what's their what's your vulnerability based on the record of the past events and you we don't we still do that that's still very important like how many floods where have they been how many blizzards nor easers Etc were there earthquakes whatever in some communities that's more important than others uh but like that only gives you the picture of what the past was what we

020now have is the ability to look forward a little bit more because we have tools and models that have been brought to brought about in the last decade or so that give us some idea of where future patterns of precipitation may be where future patterns of temperature may be due to the climate change where things are not really just static but or they're Dynamic so the curve is like going up like this in some cases and we can when you look at the future you're not looking at measured empirical information it is a model so it's you don't want to say that's exactly what's going to happen but you see the trend you see the tendency that you if we've had these many floods before we might likely have more of them more frequently in

021the future so let's it just informs what you want to be prepared for and what you want to think about when you do your hazard so Hazard mitigation is not one technique or one method of of dealing it's actually a broad umbrella term and we'd like to break that down into some components that you see here on this list um a few of them are prevention uh so if you could can prevent the Haz the damage from occurring in the first place that's always the best thing right that will extent uh that old expression about you know an ounce of prevention it's worth a pound of cure um and so to the extent that you can think about how how and where the development occurs with respect to where the hazard areas are like flood

022planes Etc the more you can direct development away from the areas that are great a greater Hazard the more you will be reducing future hazards in future damages then there's property protection because we have an awful lot of property that has been developed over the past many years decades even centuries in New England that got built in what we now know to be flood planes in other areas I mean it's not un it's it's it's not unusual our communities were often started out as Mills right along the rivers and built out from there and now we look at that and go oh that's the low spot that's where it floods that's exactly where we built that's exactly where it floods and so we have to have a way to coexist continue to to coexist with

023having development in areas that we now know to be have some Hazard risk associated with them so different kinds of property protection for what's there already uh is another component of this potential public education is important because it's not just about the physical structures we build in the infrastructure but it's make making folks who live in the community who own property homeowners small businesses Etc uh aware of what the risks are for different kinds of Hazards and what kind of meth methods that they can use themselves or their own property management and what is available from the town from the state that may help in certain circumstances so that this is part of that effort just to get the word out about this kind of planning the late a broader public know about it natural

024resources protection um thinking about the functions that wetlands and watersheds and flood planes serve Us in terms of absorbing the flood water um I like to call this one just letting Mother Nature do the best for for us that we can and staying out of the way uh so that's where some of your Wetlands regulations and flood planes and open space protection come in as like on the side of the Ledger that's trying to prevent more damage structural projects are the ones that are addressed at trying to deal with the damage that's already happening infrastructure that's old or outdated or the town has grown and it's under size now uh a lot of this is often drainage infrastructure culverts and that sort of thing and these are the kinds of projects if you identify the

025need for some of them in certain places in a community that could potentially be funded by those immigrants or some of other kinds and finally Emergency Services protection the idea here is that your emergency services have various facilities and and vehicles and Equipment communication systems and you want to make sure those are really hardened and protected or located in safe areas because you want them to be able to function so that when the rest of the community may be having damages they're still operable they can provide that service and that Aid if they go out they can't help anybody else and there were examples there was a a police department up in the to think was North Reading that used to flood and they had their communication systems at the lower level and they would

026go out and they got a fig Grant and put in a solution around the drainage area so that's an example I also like this to to draw the analogy when you're on an airplane they say if the masks come down put put the mask on first and then help everyone around around you it's like keep the Emergency Services intact so prioritize that so that's really where that comes from so how do we do go about doing a plan like this well um we've we've laid out a road map of holding a number of um meetings with a Town's uh Hazard mitigation team and I'll talk about the members of the team in a minute um Chief Robie is here tonight and he's been leading the the team um we we hold a series of meetings

027Where We Gather local information we put it into a format that we know is the format of the plan that FEMA requires there's a certain very prescriptive way that these plans have to be designed uh but the content the local information we don't know that at MC that has to come from local officials from fire department from planners conservation uh Health Etc all of the different boards so we have a multi departmental team that's been meeting um we've actually held three meetings of it so far in the last few months starting last July uh and in this little timeline here uh we're at this where we are the what we call the first public meeting um what were be doing after this is holding a final meeting of the team where they'll actually come up

028with the recommended actions for the plan for what will be the mitigation steps they would recommend the town to pursue in the next five years once we put the whole plan together and have an actual draft plan just a few months from now in the spring we'll actually release that plan for public to be able to see it put it up on the website and we'll hold another public meeting where there can be comments and questions about the plan itself when people actually see the plan give it you know a more detailed picture of what's actually in there and and give us any comments they know once we had a public review and the draft plan is ready to be submitted it'll go to MIMA and fima who will then review the plan and make

029sure it meets all of their their criteria they have a lot of very specific checklists they go through uh and once they're done with it they'll approve the plan and that's when it would come back to this board for a vote of adoptions fairly simple vote of adoption but it only comes at the very end of the process when we know we have an approved plan from FEMA so the local team I want to really give kudos to the local team you see on the right side here different members different boards and commissions committees that are represented on the local team um and the team has been helping us over the course of these four meetings we've had three of the four already to establish goals to provide data and local expertise and to then

030what they will do at the next next meeting is finalize the priority actions for the plan on behalf of the town so they really are the eyes and ears on the town of putting the local important local data into the plan that makes it very specific to to ashy so the data we've gathered already and what the team has shared with us already we can begin to talk about just a few examples um the plan includes within it a number of sites that have been identified as where there are existing known flood flooding and drainage problem areas just a few examples here there's a longer list in the whole plan and every one of these sites is also mapped um and we're also looking at some other kinds of Hazards besides flooding like for instance

031areas that might be subject to Wildfire you know more of the forested and vegetated larger areas you know and interesting think these things go in Cycles three or four years ago we talked about Wildfire people go yeah yeah right and then last year we had 6,000 acres in Massachusetts burn the dry year we've had right so it's a wake up call every once in a while yes we do get these things no we're not California but these can be these you know there were some pretty serious wildfires in linnn Salem and around different places around here so and you have a lot of open land here which is a good thing but it's one of the things you want to think about so we map all this information all where all these sites are the

032areas that might be subject to fire to flooding Etc I know you can't see it at this scale but there's a GIS computer-based map that has all this information in so when you actually have the plan you can take a much closer look at it just to a few examples of some of the flooding sites are are listed on the left here uh that are each one of them is mapped so if you see an item on the map there'll be a little number next to it that would be referenced in a in a database you could look that site up and get the details on similarly this next map looks the same excuse me but it's actually another set of data that we mapped which is critical facilities and critical infrastructure uh and so

033there's a good 70 or 80 of those sites have I remember correctly uh and it includes things like your own Municipal facilities that you rely upon uh it also includes facilities in the community that might require assistance so facilities that provide assistance and Facilities that might require assistance both sides of that coin are listed on here that's why you see things like schools senior centers Etc and then of course you know resources like dams Etc you got as you know quite a few dams in this um flooding has been front and center in most of these plans but the plans do cover the other categories of natural hazards you see a few examples here extreme heat wildfires um earthquakes you know we've had three earthquakes in the last week they're they're they're small you know

034but you know it was a reminder yeah we get these uh drought we've had lots of droughts you know 2016 a really big one a couple more not so small ones and since then so all of a sudden drought is back on the table again in a ways that for a number of years before that we hadn't had a drought in 20 20 something years so all of a sudden now we've had three or four of them just since 2016 uh in extreme precipitation just a few examples of some of the other hazards that the plan will cover and of course we can't leave without talking about nor easers our beloved New England nor easers uh these are just a few examples of some of the bigger ones we've had in the last decade um

035and those affect Coastal communities but they really can affect Inland communities with high winds and snow as well so the other thing we looked at is what are some of the the mitigation measures that you have in place already this is that first question on the first slide what's the town doing already well we go into actually taking stock under each Hazard category of different kinds of measures you have in place already whether they're actual physical infrastructure measures or whether they're things like zoning and bylaw and regulations that help manage risks Etc so we we take stock of where all those are so that we can then say what else can the community do and that will be pivoting to what the next and final step of the plan will be this spring is to

036exate what else can the Comm do that would strengthen the plan and um to get to us there and to help have an opportunity for a broader public input um we've launched a a CommunityWide survey that's an online platform uh so that people can go online using that link or even using that QR code and this will be put up on the town website and sent around through social media this but this is the first time we're putting it out publicly here uh and it's fairly simple userfriendly survey that only has four or five questions questions it probably takes less than 10 minutes to complete it uh but it tries to ask people what are your concerns about which kinds of Hazards is something going on in your neighborhood or any of these that you're

037concerned about that you want to make the town aware of what do you think the town could be doing or should be doing to help address that's kind of the the general level to be able to solicit some ideas from people where that where we should go with this plan so we'll use the input from this survey as we finalize the plan as well so it's going to be out there uh we encourage folks to take it it's easy to take and um that's that's almost the end of it except for if you have time we we're willing to we have willing to answer question end of April yes just because we'll be wrapping up the plan probably in May and so so we're holding it open as long as until we're actually starting to

038pull everything sorry thank you uh so the survey will be open till the end of April thank you I will open it up to questions from the board Joe go ahead Jump Right In thank you madam chair thank you for the presentation very very informative and very detailed I appreciate that um I don't know how this relates to you know natural disasters um I noticed that you didn't mention well it says conservation and under the conservation title would beavers be something that would be considered a disaster thing because in our neighborhood and I and I know someone's already been out in take taking a look at a 14 acre area that has been completely devastated by flooding and along with that there is a railroad trussle that runs right by there and it's been undermined

039severely right and we keep letting the railroad company know that you know you better go out there and keep checking that because they're back and they're doing you know exactly what they're doing so any Grant monies that would be considered available maybe to help restore or replace some of that Trestle that's been eroded because of the uh the flooding is that something that may be available well first of all the big question are items like beavers a hazard in this plant absolutely yes okay you know the flooding doesn't just have to be my natural causes or whatever we've see in almost every town we talk to Beavers or problem somewhere in the town with that you know it's an unintended side effect of their activity yeah uh and so yes absolutely and in any anywhere

040it's known that there's a beaver flooding problem that will be actually documented in the plan put on the map described and that's part already in the list we have there's a few cases where beavers are part of the picture one of the causes great thank you whether there could be a grant to then resolve the problem if some piece of infrastructure is threatened possibly yes yes now if it's a railroad under the question becomes like whose infrastructure is it if it's the railroad's infrastructure the town isn't going to be applying for a grant but they could maybe they should or somehow just do the work whether they get a grant for it or not so it's great that you I think you should keep making them aware of it because these things can fall on

041death ears sometimes there's so many other things are dealing with uh it's good to be aware of that for sure uh conservation agent is on top of it and and I greatly appreciate all the effort that she's been doing for us so thank you for the presentation appreciate the answer Randy go ahead um so thank you for the presentation this was something that I wasn't aware of that we've done before so um in fact like I'm like making notes and I'm curious if and this might be more of a question for us is the 2017 plan out there somewhere where people a look at it I'm curious like what the recommendations were in 2017 and it's a it's a good start to look at that it should be on your website usually I'm sure at

042some place whether it's easily toin it might be good to make sure it is I mean we're starting by looking at that plan every time you do a Plan Renewal you start with the last plan and in fact especially with the list of recommended actions um the first thing we do not the first thing but one of the things we do along the way is what's the status of all these things we recommended in 2017 have some of them been implemented right have some of them been partially implemented because they're just long term and they take a long time to do and some of them not been implemented which you're going to find these are long difficult problems now we're doing a new plan for the next 5 years does the town want to carry

043over any unfinished projects from the last plan into the new plan as a starting point and in most cases most case that's that's what we'll do there could be a few measures that on second thought seven years later nah that our priorities have changed we won't carry it over but that's exactly what the team will decide on BS of the town okay and then we want to build into the plan for 2025 new measures beyond what might have been in the last one things that have come up since then right so maybe there's a beaver area that wasn't a problem in 2017 but we now know it is that could go or or a dam that's a little bit older and things and we know we know climate change has accelerated and things have that's

044puts another spin on it that's exactly right so you know when we talk about droughts and when we talk about flooding and we've talked about I mean we know that we've seen many more frequent issues than we used to see you know back in 2017 so I think it's really great that in the world of hydrology in general what we're seeing is more of the extremes we're seeing more extreme rainstorms two or three inches of rain in a short time and then we're seeing more droughts in between it used to be more even out right yeah we're getting less average and more highs on both ends right and the highs on both ends are the ones that cause stress on the community that cause problems right and cause C expose costs Etc so and that's

045what this plan is helping to hopefully identify thank you and thank you to Chief Roby and everyone that's been involved in kind of working on this yeah the team has done a great job absolutely so we're we're I think you know hopefully we can be as well positioned as possible y that's the idea yep thank you Makita yeah I was I was just going to um ask a couple questions it would be interesting I think to look at what if we've applied for grants in the past and maybe that would be part of um what's posted and then what what um when you say that we're we'd be eligible for Grants with this in place um are they all are the grants all based on some sort of mitigation that you that would be the

046gr this category of Grants are there are other grants out there you could get as a community but this is focusing on what you could do for mitigation all right and uh if all that Federal money remains right that's the big if of course this even the plan itself is being funded by federal money so hello but it's through mepc right so the federal funds come through MPC has these funds available to reach out actually it's Mima has the funds FEA Mima FEA the funds go from FEMA to MIMA Mima and then Mima writes contracts with the communities and then the communities hire us right so it's it's down the chain But ultimately if you trace back it's Federal dollar now these are federal dollars that were allocated over a year ago and their contracts

047are in place so I don't think we're going to stop the middle of this plan but like the towns that are a year behind you that are just applying for a new Grant now and if fact there's a grant round available right now for application into till next week I'm worried about those towns maybe those next round of Grants will they come through it's a big question I think you just answered my question [Laughter] so right no we don't we don't have a crystal ball we're worried about it though for sure well Martin thank you for the presentation thank you to all the members of our local team I know the first time that it was done we had a very large team we had I know one of our select board members at the

048time and it's a pretty good sized team this time too very robust absolutely good well thank you thank you so much and if you're watching I ask recommend that you go to the town website we'll get it up so that we can people can take the survey I know there's a lot of surveys and stuff going on with different things but please a survey page there you go all the surveys on one page that's a great idea there you go okay great well thank you very much and we look forward to seeing the final plan and again thank you Martin for coming in and I know one of your colleagues was online so thank you all I was thinking we probably should have introduced everybody for being here too yeah they're gone thank you all

049I didn't even see you there great okay so uh we have our next public hearing but not until 8:30 so we're going to jump into old and new business we're going to start with a discussion and vote to accept the gifted four Parcels of land from hopkington area land trust including parcel known as map 18 I'm not going to read the whole thing um do I need to read the whole thing okay and the discussion and vote is to authorize me as chair to execute and enter into any and all documents necessary to effectuate the acquisition of said property uh little bit of background and I know there's some information in our packet so these are Parcels that were owned by an organization called halt which is the hopkington area land trust and when we

050started having discussions with them to become our CR holder for the Valentine property they mentioned that they had these parcels and because they're in hopkington they really s were like you know can we can we donate them to Ashlin none of them are large Parcels they're V small Parcels that are attached to different open space that they have but it's small Parcels but we're willing to take them we've already taken the vote at town meeting we just have to do a final vote and then sign any documents um any questions or comments just one quick question question Madam chair uh the Fawn Ridge Road uh property um having Drive driven up in that area um there is there's a an open piece of property at the lower end of f Ridge which is on as

051as you turn into F Ridge from Cross it's on the Le hand side is that the piece of property that we're talking about or is it the one is it the piece of property that if you drive all the way up in Fawn Ridge because it's it's it's on a hill there are actually two houses up there so that's not the property where we're talking about we're talking about the law and property none of these part I don't know exactly I on the map I know none of the parcels that they're looking to donate that we're looking to get have any buildings on them okay I know one of the parcels is somewhere on cross street that's in hopkington so there's open space and then as part of that it goes into Ashland so they're

052giving us the portion that's in Ash and actually I was having a discussion with Carl hackins who who has helped with this discussion and halt is asking if they can keep that parcel on their map but donate you know denote that it's in Ashland because they have some walking trails but their walking trails don't come into Ashland so got you it's all open space there's no buildings on it and they just yeah you know they want to just have property that's in hopkington I just for my sake of mind I just want to make sure we weren't right it would have been nice to get those two nice houses up there because they're they're over a million each so you know that' be nice to put on our tax levies we're not we're not taking

053anything out of hopkington right we're not getting any property that's in hopkington just property that they own that's in Ashland over the line because they've had other small you know because at some point it was probably part of hackington and then when they you know so if I can get a motion to move that the select board accept as a gift four Parcels of land from hopkington area land trust Inc said Parcels known as assessor map 18 lot 0067 map 18 lot 0074 and map 27 lot 010 for General Municipal purposes and assessor map 18 lot 0142 for conservation purposes as authorized pursuant to article 8 of the May 1st 2024 annual town meeting and Article 4 of the November 19th 2024 special town meeting and further to authorize the chair Yolanda Greaves to execute

054and enter into any and all documents necessary to effectuate the acquisition of said property so moved second have a motion in a second any other discussion all those in favor I I that carries 5 Z second uh brand you made the second right I made the motion okay Joe made the second second okay good so I'm going to sign this and then pass it down signature thank you to Halt for working with us and done next town meeting warrant is open notice of intent for a warrant warrant article is due by February 28th 2025 live uh Jen any else okay okay so if you're interested in seeing the calendar the calendar is up on the town website uh so if you have something you'd like to do we need to have notice by February 28th

0552025 so as you're talking to people let them know that uh article guidelines okay next discuss the process to fill the vacancies On The Board of Health and the planning board I don't think there's anything in our packet about this but I know we've been approached from the town clerk's perspective as well as from the Board of Health and the planning board both of these need to be done by a joint meeting and vote of the select board and planning board I believe we're looking at trying to do joint meetings with one or both of them for our second meeting in February might we need to go to one of their meetings or are we going to try and have them both come to us um you know it would be great if uh if

056they could both come here on the 19th okay and um that taken care of okay great so we we've already received some resumés for the Board of Health position and I've heard that possibility someone for the planning board if you are listening to this and you would like to be appointed please get your uh information in or has that closed already someone remind me Susan did the request for people already close or is it still open if they want to be appointed still open it's still open so if you're interested in Board of Health or planning board still submit any other questions thoughts discussions go ahead I just wanted to point out that the way it it works which you know something that I've learned learned is when there's a vacancy um the person's appointed

057until the following election correct and then they must you know if they're interested they run for the position at in that election and it's only for whatever period of time is remains in that in that term in that term correct correct good thing to point out I just think it's important for everybody to know that right correct and papers were available last as of February last Tuesday yeah yeah so good point if you're looking to be appointed part of I know for myself one of one of the questions I routinely ask someone if they're willing if they're appointed is will they then be willing to run because if someone's taken the time to start learning it would be good then to know that they're going to run but so good anything else questions comments okay

058wonderful moving on update on the tri board meeting um so we had a questionnaire go out out and we didn't find a good day during the week um so now we're asking if people are available Saturday March 1 and then April Saturday April 5th the first Saturday of March and the first Saturday of April um I know a doodle poll went out Susan what was the response to that doodle poll I think pretty good okay yes it was pretty good I still have three people that I'm waiting for responses from okay so if there's anything specific you have questions about let Michael know I'm actually going to do a one-on-one town finance 101 with Makita if anyone wants to sit in with us and yeah I might sit be part of that discussion um yeah

059I would also just like to say that I think in the future because we've had such a problem trying to schedule this meeting that maybe this needs to be something that we schedule you know very early on on in September or um you know so so my my first request was back in the fall I reached out to the chairs of the school committee and finance committee and partly because of things going on it was like there was the excuse me cofin the response I got was well let's wait until January when we have more information and then when I reached reached out in January initially that's different than than scheduling a meeting right because I remember when we too talked about it right we and so what I'm saying is maybe we should have

060scheduled a meeting and had some meetings on the on everybody's schedule and then then decide okay well we let's wait till the January time one that we've scheduled because just so that I mean because now we're we're going to this is late to be talking oh believe me I and I would and I would say that after you know as we finish up this budget cycle we start planning for next year right and I me just get some dates on the calendars yeah that's that would be that's a great recommendation that we look at when we get into the fall let's you know and maybe it's a standing budget meeting right for the three boards and if people can be there great and if not but we're having a discussion I like that idea a

061standard a standing a standing budget meeting budget meeting right not that we all want more meetings but you know the time and energy it took to book this great suggestion yep yeah yeah okay great so March 1st and April 5th put them on your calendars and we'll figure out location and you know March 1 will be the most important you know depending on how March 1 goes we might not need the April meeting but it's good to have it on the books better have it on the books and yeah or we may really need that ail meeting yeah you never know no no okay no we don't have a location yet starting at 9: um I think probably nine either is fine whatever I don't know whatever's easiest for you all 9 o'clock 8 o'clock

062either either way yeah I mean eight or nine is better the earlier we start the earlier theoretically we we finish so yeah it doesn't matter to me well let's maybe put a no well 8 o'clock or nine o'clock 8 o'clock 8 o'clock Joe Randy you go I would say let's talk we should check with br I was going to say let's let's check with Britney and and the other two committees and and if it should be you know yeah I mean yeah check check with Britney what's gonna work for her because we need to make sure she's okay she's the one who's got the longest drive too right right okay and I just want to make sure that okay we're still good okay moving on report on MMA annual conference uh I believe Michael and

063I were the only ones who attended and it it's always interesting they had it at a new location this year they've had it at the hindes in the past which made it sort of easy we all got our steps in they held it at the they held it at the Boston conen was there for part of it as well they held it they held it at the Boston Convention Center manino airport minino airport and if you've ever been to the Boston it was a beautiful facility it's gorgeous but unfortunately they had the trade show floor at the furthest end so if you're if you've ever been there you you you you can come to the entrance you have the Weston Hotel the Omni Hotels across the street the trade show was all the way at

064the end it was so far they actually had golf carts for people to take so that you didn't have to walk it all the time the timing was changed they used to have the trade show from on Friday all day and half of the day on Saturday and now what they found was people would leave early on Saturday so you'd go to try and do something on the trade show floor at at noon on Saturday and a lot of the vendors would be gone so they shifted that and they opened the event on Thursday they had a women's event an interview with a mayor from Texas it was supposed to be a great event but it was at 3:00 on Thursday and then they had an opening reception starting at 4:30 again on this trade

065show floor um and you so you could spend time at the trade show and and stuff like that and then on Friday they had their sessions so were there were some great sessions they had two great speakers there was a gentleman that just talked about energy and things like that and then then on Saturday they had Matt lurman who at some point I'm going to put stuff together to present to all of you because he talked about something called courageous conversations in how to get your community to be involved and have conversations so um so it was different because of where it was and so part of what they have is they have what's called a weimo the weimo luncheon which is women elected Municipal officials well you're on the trade show floor they had

066the General Sessions next door then they had the weimo luncheon across the street at the Omni Hotel so you had to get there um great interview with secretary Walsh it was a great event and then sessions were starting and you had to get back it was just I'm hoping they could try to consolidate it a little bit better next year maybe have it at the beginning of the con Convention Center something like that so maybe um I mean overall I had I had a good weekend I met a lot of my colleagues there got to speak to a lot of different people we had a good update on third on Friday from the governor and lieutenant governor lieutenant governor came back on Saturday as well and gave some more information the beacon is out for

067February and it has some great articles and stories about some of the information that they presented and some of the awards and things like that so get a chance go ahead and check that out because that will give you some information as well but uh she mean she talked about exp expanding excuse me chapter 90 um they talked about supporting fully funding the schools child I forget the exact name equal opportunity the Equal opport Opportunity Act so doing full funding there and just from a federal level thank you supporting the cities and towns and and how things might get impacted and yeah Michael your thoughts Jen your thoughts on what you saw and heard and yeah you know it's a change in venue as you mentioned and uh that changed a lot of the Dynamics

068I thought yes um terms of attendance it was weird um said that there was a you know almost like a record attendance I didn't see I didn't see that um there were a lot of elected officials there uh not as many I think like senior appointed officials or staff members as there usually were but um yeah I mean I didn't necessarily take advantage of any of the sessions or anything because you know what typically happens I'll roll in and see somebody it's like oh I haven't seen you in a year so uh so that's kind of that's kind of what happened but um it was it was an interesting Vibe yeah definitely yeah it was it was definitely had a different feel to it and I think part of it was the space and how

069spread out it was yeah because usually you know at the Hinds it's a big building but it's kind of stacked and the way it's situated is you know you could kind of position yourself in certain places and see your colleagues and talk to them and interact with them in between sessions and everything you didn't get that opportunity in this venue um and they are you know I talked to Adam there and he said they're going to So Adam chapain oh sorry is the executive director of the mass Municipal Association and um so they will be having it there again next year as the hindes is undergoing Renovations and you know I do hope look I mean you got to try things and try to mix it up and see what works see what doesn't um

070but uh from what I know right now I'll be happy to move back to the Hinds yeah if they can make it more compact in the convention because what happened was the trade show was all the way at the end you had to go all the way across the street and then even they have some meeting rooms there but there was one meet there was one breakout session that I went to I was on the trade show floor had to go up had to go all the way back to the other end of the convention center on the other side so they need to they need to cons if they want I know they're going to stay there next year they need to try and consolidate it oh but should we talk about the highlight

071of the weekend guys know the Highlight no I won a Lego set oh that was a highlight I never win anything yeah like the Highlight let's see what was the highlight it was a nice Lego set Lego it was the downtown City one um yeah I had to get so it was at the trade show super New York City is it is it New York City no teph had double po Joe double poles but uh yeah you had to guess the number of Lego oh this was funny you had to guess the number of Legos in this jar and I guessed a number you know I get my text oh you know you won so I please go pick it up and I'm picking it up and the lady's packing it up and I was

072like yeah so it's great I she heard me say I never win anything before so I'm like so you know how many were in there and she was you know kind of like flipping through and then she like changed the subject and I brought like I really want to know and I was like so how many were in there and um I don't think she really knew or counted I think I really think she just felt bad for me could not you out of a hat oh that's too funny raffle it was really a raffle ask you question what was 1301 yeah Price is Right rules whoever's the closest without going over of course you couldn't tell me but uh it was great it was uh it was the highlight of Jen you wanted to

073add no the only thing I sort of I would have liked to add is that if they consolida sort of the space it's also I would love for them to consolidate the um the program because I think having they had some really good ones on Saturday which I couldn't make um but also I would have liked to send some of our senior staff to like maybe one or two but it's really hard to ask somebody to go in on a Saturday at two o'clock for a sort of this professional if you're not doing the whole training but there was you know there's a couple that I think some of our staff would have driven in in an afternoon taking an afternoon it's not a huge time commitment days and then not your weekend so I

074think they might get a bigger crowd of sort of staff that would be going and partial or if they shift it to THS the Thursday full day Thursday and full day Friday yeah it would be nice and get rid of the Saturday well they could do all their other like they have their meetings and breakfasts and all of that but I feel like in terms of getting more people to participate because there were a few that were looked really good and they were on the last session make sure you fill out the survey I was going to say is there a mechan they always have yeah they have a survey so I do think that I do think that would be helpful there were some good ones on Saturday there was one or two that

075I said a little disappointed yeah yeah great okay any other comments or questions um the other thing to remember is they also you should all be getting emails about upcoming virtual sessions that they have they do their new select board event in the summer that is still informative even if you haven't yeah okay okay moving on to vote the accept proposed change to the ba grants and select board community Grant programs hold on a second were you waiting for us Rob to do something or oh okay okay no we're GNA do that at a I should have emailed you back um we're GNA do that at a separate time but I'll get back to you okay okay you're wel good to see you rob good to seeing you take care okay moving on vote to

076accept we time yes 15 minutes vote to accept the proposed changes to the ba Grant and select board Community Grant programs Randy please hi so I get to follow the Lego Story okay tough act to follow tough act to follow so um back in December you guys might remember even though it feels like forever ago at this point we had talked about some some minor cleanup changes um and edits to our baa um Grant and our our community Grant policy um so what we had looked at back in December was sort of a Redline diversion um the two main changes that we were making one was that um we wanted the community Grant to specify that it's for uh nonprofit groups because we did have a um for-profit business that had applied for it back

077um at our last Grant round and we had never really addressed that in our policy so we we added that to our policy and then the other part of it was um to specify that the programs and the groups that are applying for these grants should either be Ashland residents or benefiting the Ashland Community at large so um specifically so we're not looking for outside groups to come in and ask for grant money for things that don't benefit the Ashen community and then the rest of the redline changes were really just more just clean up because the first time we had proposed these changes it was a whole new kind of way of structure to look at it so I kind of Consolidated a lot of those changes um so the only thing I was

078looking at so Susan thank you for giving everyone sort of a clean version and the Redlin version um the only thing that I saw like in the clean version we still had something in there on the on the the third paragraph under background that just had the balance of the gift account I think we should probably just take that out because it's Old St stale information so that balance and gift account um number as of 831234 [Music] and then that's really only the only change that I had in this I just wanted to see if there was any other questions or things this way this way when we go to open up the grant cycle the next Grant cycle we have uh a clean a clean policy you have anything you want no I just

079no I want to just say thank you for doing that because you know I when we worked on the grant Awards um in the fall you know these issues came up and I appreciate your it you know we tried to do what we felt was the intent of the committee but it certainly is some good thing to have it written into the policy so thank you yeah well it's always good to be updating these things considering yeah what it was 12 years ago right yes yeah well we need to vote the policy because we discussed it at our last one so if I can get a motion to accept the baa marathon runners and grant program policy with the one update made so moved motion and a second all those in favor I I carries

080five Z and a thank you to Brandy and to Claudia for the work on that we greatly appreciate it um and I would say at our next meeting we'll vote to open the grant round as of March 1st right okay so perfect okay moving on okay this is a discussion and then this will get moved to our next meeting for an actual vote even though it's a pretty straightforward one I like to keep it so that if people are hearing this discussion they hear our discussion and know that at the next meeting we'll vote it so this is uh disposal of surplus property Jen is this something you want to take us to that'd be great so just as part of the procurement law um you know that usually um really when we're talking about

081procurement it's about us purchasing you know equipment or services and we have to follow certain set of rules um depending on what type of service or construction we're following um under 30b when we have property that we no longer need or can use um know that so that could be vehicles that could be Furniture um we really need to have a policy on how we dispose it so this sort of outlines what we would do um for things under you know if we're determining things are under 10,000 we would this just sort of lays out that we would reach out to other departments to potentially reach out um and if there's no use for it then there's there's a process that we would follow so we can sell it we can auction it we can

082it allows us to still do trade for vehicles um and that is really it so and then obviously for higher higher um estimated amounts which frankly I I can't think of ones that we would have when we start to dispose of equipment and Furniture it's usually pretty well used um so to like sort of exceed $110,000 feels like a stretch um there's you process take the highest risk um we are able to possibly donate to nonprofits and we would just I would write a memo to the board and they that's this just allows us to follow the process with with any auction items um as a result of this this policy does that money go back into the general fund so if it was a pickup truck from the DPW and it was auctioned off

083it wouldn't go to the DPW line item it would go directly into the okay but if they quoted if they were going to get a vehicle they could quote a trade as part of that and the sort of this formalize our ability to do okay so you can still do that use that as a trade-off yeah and so it doesn't requ ired us just because that's option y okay thank you I have I have a question about the policy I'm sorry did I um yeah and I don't know if this is housed here or somewhere else but when you're talking about Surplus uh s Surplus uh Surplus property uh if there's anything that may have held pii or um any other sort of data are there any sort of policies and procedure that P that

084dictate that that information is wiped or certified IED in some way that um that that that that's not available because if not I think that needs to be added here uh if you're talking about computer hardware software uh phones uh those sort of things I think it's just important to have that provision if we're not I don't know if it's somewhere else but I just didn't see Pi personally identifiable information and any other kind of sensitive information from the town that we would obviously would not want um distributed bad yeah I think I think there are some policies that hous within our it that might speak to that I know the thing we have computers we go through right anything before it comes to us but we could certainly I will definitely have a conversation

085so we can confirm it and sort of determine whether we just want to reference they have an actual policy if it's just practice um and then if not we can sort of add it if we need to like image it is that I'm sorry I think they would I think they called it Imaging image it Oh Oh you mean the process of of wiping it yeah so re reimaging you know like you know basically just resetting the OS or whatever you know they are different terms but um but yeah and I think also just uh if it's if it may not even be a specific it item I'm even thinking about any sort of any sort of place where data may be hous that you may not want out whether it's like a vehicle because

086you know their computers and everything now so it's not just you know a desktop or a laptop or anything like the GPS GPS exactly it extends Beyond exactly it extends Beyond just like computer equipment so I think if we could specifically address that that would be a good thing to do that's a great idea and if not if it's not in another policy we should probably create it another policy and then reference it yep any other see that's why we discussed before we vote good okay great so you'll let us know what you find out and if there's changes and then we can do that and vote it at our next meeting wonderful okay still not at 8:30 okay so we've discussed that couple of reminders the winter parking band no on street parking from

0872: am to 6:00 am. is in place from November 1st to March 31st so be aware of that and certainly it is more strictly enforced when there are weather incidents so if there's overnight snow or ice and the roads need to be done so but you know I did notice that last time the snow that we had there must have been Vehicles well there was obviously vehicles that were parked out in front of town hall along this street here hopefully they receive tickets yeah and you know we've we've actually talked to the chief recently just about ticketing in general downtown um and stepping that up so yeah I mean it's I think Outreach is important first step right right I would also I mean I think one of the some things that needs to be

088addressed is you know as we said one of the issues that's going on is we have a couple of buildings that might have extra people there with vehicles that are not parking in their buildings that's exactly what's happening so now there's no overnight parking in town hall correct correct is that something that needs to be looked at so that they're not on the streets or in the public parking lot across um on Front Street can they Park overnight there because I'm I'm all for ticketing people you know and and if they're used to parking but if we are not able to give them someplace else to park is that something we need to I mean yeah I mean it are we looking at actually this is it's a great question because as we're looking at

089certain things we may want to look at permit resident permit parking parking and making you know those public lots available you know for those snow emergencies for residents right um yeah I'm sorry I didn't mean to that's okay that's that makes sense I think you know so so at a practical level I think allowing people to park in the parking lot is okay like I said from a practice practical level because in the morning Theory being that they leave right right the thing just like with a mixed use building right so like I said in practice I think it's okay in principle I think kind of what frustrates a lot of people um is that a lot of residents to who observe this is that you know when these multif family buildings are parking or

090are permitted with a limited amount of parking right um you know it's it it's not it shouldn't then be I don't think up to the municipality unless there's an explicit discussion about it to provide overflow parking right um and the theory again is is that the market should dictate what happens so if at 128 Main Street if you've only got 1.5 parking spaces per a unit somebody has two cars like right guess what they might not want to rent there and so the rental you know amount could you know potentially come down to make it more attractive or marketable for one person to live that right you know so I mean another possibility is you know generating revenue for the town by renting those parking spaces to people who to Residents who potentially you know

091that's another potential thing to look at if that's what it comes to but you know just getting cars off the street when we need to do snow clearing and for public saf purposes is important so and I think from a perspective of right if there's there's no on street parking from 2 to 6: a.m. and we want to have them cleared so if there's a snow emergency is it the kind of thing where we say Okay during a snow emergency in particular we can open the Lots or not you know and that might be a discussion with the police chief with Traffic Safety Committee to say okay and planning because so you know we're thinking about things in the here and now right and kind of the demand but 10 10 to 60 man comes

092online you'll have a similar incident yeah with a l larger scale and even if you open up a lot I mean and this is true I think of lots of apartment buildings in that too they tell you you got to have your car out by a certain time because you need to the lot right well and that was another point I wanted to bring up sorry for interrupting Claudia is you know Doug will tell you I mean sometimes we'll delay opening Town Hall so Doug and his guys can get in and clear the L right right right people parked here then there's an issue get okay a question a question and a comment before we leave uh so uh the question I have is for state roads like 135 and 126 they there's not supposed

093to be theoretically there not there's not supposed to be parking on those anyway but like if there is like are we responsible for ticketing or Towing those or is the state uh okay yeah yeah even for towing Joe can we do I mean I know we can TI itth think anywhere on either road that there is on street parking oh it happens I I will well I will tell you that happen parking right there's no parking spots or anything like that so okay and you're also right Joe I'm sorry Makita 135 is actually for the most part a local Road 135 there's pieces of it that are State okay get me started just like Road C road is actually maintained by the state okay right and so is the is the 1.54 parking spaces per

094unit something that we need to consider changing I think with some of the current stuff that's going on at the state level and housing they're actually looking at not either they're either looking at reducing the number of parking spaces per year unit or saying things like you can't not permit something there's a lot going on with the discussion of parking in regards to well discussion going on but in the meantime we're living it right right so is that perhaps we can take a look at what other cities and towns are doing around this issue and come back and discuss it later because I think instead of trying to reinvent the wheel that might be the best called tag and toe yeah the two T's right and I think I I think to Makita point I

095think we we're going to need to we're going to need to talk about some solution because for downtown for downtown and and you know maybe maybe there's like an alternative site somewhere where we can have people Park whether it's I mean you know like we were just talking about 135 you know the lot that's across from Seasons you know maybe there's a way that we can but maybe there's some sort of arrangement that we can you know strike I I'm I'm just trying I think certainly something we'll need to discuss it is 8:30 so we need to open but just quickly maybe in terms of around here too can we make some kind of an agreement with the state in the MBTA lot and and be be able to move cars there that's an idea

096as well that's good perfect okay moving on hearings before the board notice is hereby given that the select board will conduct a hearing regarding a change of manager at Clock Tower pickle Lac the proposed new manager is Steve pinsk mhm Clock Tower pickle LLC 200 Homer AV ashon Mass 01721 a public hearing will be held on the matter on Wednesday February 20 uh February 5th 2025 at 8:30 p.m. persons wishing to be heard on this matter are invited to attend the public Hearing in person or by logging into the zoom meeting interested parties who are unable to attend the hearing May submit written comments to the select board's office Town Hall 101 Main Street ashon mass 01721 or by emailing Susan at sroy Asin mass.com uh I move that we open the public hearing so

097moved second Perfect all those in favor of opening the hearing I I perfect Susan do we have anyone from perfect uh I'm here Steve brazinski great thank you Steve good I would say good to see you we can't see you but thank you for being here I know I don't know why I need to apologize my voice I have uh Strep throat and laryngitis yes I apologize for my voice that's okay okay so uh who is so Steve you and Macy are here to talk about in favor of this change we have information in our packet about the change of management uh Steve why don't you take us through this please or Macy if that's easier for you Steve no that's fine I'm happy to do it great so um had a change of uh

098of our manager of the uh liquor license as well as the manager of Clock Tower pickle ball where Marissa is no longer with us uh in a very amicable uh uh transition and I felt it was best for me as the primary owner of the clock tower PAB ball to take over as the manager I am there uh uh almost not every day but a lot of times and Macy is our manager now and she's there at least 40 hours a week and um I just felt that was the best way to go about this as we continue to uh go through what we're doing at at Clock Tower pickall okay okay Susan anything else that we need to know from you it looks like we have everything no everything is in order and we

099did not get any comments from anybody thank you I was just going to ask that thank you sue um have you all been inside clocktown pickle ball no yes if you have the opportunity you should go check it out it's a great space um so okay uh the foot we love to we we would love to host all of you to clock tower me ball so you can bring your friends and play pickle ball I think we need to have a board a board pickle ball game pickle ball Retreat oh that I have several friends that are members but yeah oh okay I hope they enjoy it they love it actually they do have to look that look into that okay so this is just a straightforward change of management um y if you don't

100know Steve he's been he used to be a member here in the community very you know was involved in a lot and what they're doing at clock toown pickle pickle ball is is a is a is a great thing um how goes it on the kitchen Steve it goes good we um so we're going to slow playay the kitchen quite a bit because we're trying to figure out you know how many people are going to be there so the important part is to open up the bar which is actually going to be done within the next week okay and um what we're finding is there's so many people from the town and from the surrounding areas that come there and play and they just want to hang out afterwards yeah and I know we have

101our liquor license right now but it's just going to be a better environment yep and it's uh we have 170 members now which is great um just getting everyone there and the town loves it and the one so again excuse me for my voice no need to apologize the one thing that we are really doing with this whole operation is making a community we do not want to be you know what's on route nine on on those guys we want it to be a community and that's what we're that's what we're doing so we're very excited about our our our our our our path where we're going and uh we're just very excited about it so it's cool great great well that's great to hear so uh if there is is there any other deliberation

102by the select board on the approving of this change of management we're not changing anything on their license or anything they're doing Footprints the same it's just a change of management any other no now that the bars open I'll be down okay I can't wait and Steve I just wanted to say so my my my son is is a senior over at the high school and he was there last weekend for um oh for great the fundraiser that you guys were doing for on behalf of like the class of 2026 so when you talk about Community I'm glad you've you've you're like that that's that's really important and my son is a big pickle ball fan so he he no they they had a great showing and I will tell you one thing we're doing

103with everybody that wants like a donation or uh anything that is the fabric of what we're doing is to bring people in community give them stuff and just just because you got to understand just this this what we've created is so exciting and people love it MH that's great I got to tell you people love it love to hear that love to hear that good heard nothing but good stuff yep okay if there's nothing else uh to deliberate if I can get a motion to close the public hearing so moved second second I have a motion in a second all those in favor of closing the public hearing I I if I can get a motion to approve the change of management as presented so moved second have a motion in a second all those

104in favor say I great so Steve you are all set we have approved that change of membership and Brandy I like your thinking I think we need to get a uh a p a select board pickle night going um only if there's a possibility to get taught how to do it Steve so we do have uh Macy is actually a teacher and she's very good at it and uh we would love to have you guys up there and we we'd uh entertain uh inviting you guys on our on our Tab and uh we' love it great well thank you so much Steve good luck and continue doing the great work that you're doing there at clock toown pickle ball great stuff Steve yeah good job Steve feel better buddy nice to have you still in

105town have a great night I'm back back we'll see you guys okay thank you Steve thank you Macy okay um moving on to our next one the class 2 liquor license uh notice is hereby given that the public hearing will be held on Wednesday February 5th 2025 at 8:45 PM oops hold on I I can't do that one yet uh moving on we have another reminder hold on uh textile clothing recycling the pickup must be scheduled with simple recycling at 1866 835 5068 or simpler recycling.com or if you are are a compost uh customer you can go to their website and purchase stickers for textile Recycling and you just have to buy white plastic bags to put your textiles in you take one of your stickers and when you put your green compost out you

106can put it with your compost and they do they recycle it either they pass it on if it's still in good condition or they actually recycle the textile so yeah you just go to their website and buy the the stickers yeah and if you need some white trash bags let me know okay moving on we have our unfortunately those don't work for the re those don't work for the uh textile recycling I was thinking about it Claudia excuse me okay no no uh motion to accept the consent agenda as presented so moved and a second Al those in favor I I and with that a thank you to Marcela Arjona and kg nariana Marcelo had to step off of our planning board and kg had to step off of our Board of Health and so

107if you're interested those are the two seats that we spoke about earlier in the agenda we're looking for people to fill those okay Michael F you have five minutes YMCA update maybe or yeah actually yeah that's that would be a great thing go ahead so uh the YMC actually came before the planning board uh for an informal discussion before uh submitting a formal application and uh it was I think they got really good feedback I thought it was a good good meeting um you know obviously there's some questions YMCA is not at the place yet where they're ready sub to submit an application um but they're getting there um I think they still need to do some assessments uh test for a little bit more ledge uh things of that nature but U yeah all

108in all it was uh was a pretty productive meeting J did Pete relay anything to you didn't relay to me okay um so yeah looking forward to getting that thing going uh moving forward so my understanding is that you know from a fundraising perspective got close to 10 y they're at so the the YCA they're at 10 million committed based on some grants as well as some true funding from different organizations they're looking to do the next 10 million to get to the 20 million which is about half of what they're expecting the base area of the YMCA to be depending on what they decide to do when will'll determine the full cost and so that second half that other 10 million is where they're at now they're trying to talk to and some higher

109level donors as well as some different corporations um and then potentially come to the planning board for site review starting in sometime middle of the spring so April May March April uh with moving that forward and then potential shovel in the ground sometime in September or October yeah depending on where the fundraising goes so 2025 yeah so one thing I want to point out is that as Yolanda mentioned they're thinking about it you know in phases so constructing the the first phase which is like the gym and the essentially the community center The Early Education Center um and I think they're proposing potentially two more phases which involve swimming pools pools are one of the more expensive items yeah unfortunately um but what they're going to do is they're actually going to go to the

110planing board and actually get the whole thing permitted right so they don't have to come back for each phase so that as they get the funding or as they start the first phase so that they have the the the the permits for everything as they get the first phase done if the fundraising then catches up to be able to do the second phase they can just flow right into it without having to get more more permits and approvals and just have it all done so yeah so that's good yeah um okay I mean we're gonna they're not here anyway right we're pushing okay we're gonna we're gonna jump it oh that's yeah we're gonna continue this so um notice is hereby given that a public hearing will be held on Wednesday February 5th 2025 at

1118:45 P.M to review a Class 2 license modification the current Class 2 license allows for the sale of used cars at 73 Waverly Street Ash uh Ashlin mass and they are requesting to increase the number of cars allowed at that location this is New Beginning Auto Services Inc Jose padila 73 waver Waverly Street ashin Mass persons wishing to be heard in this matter are invited to attend the public Hearing in person or by logging into the zoom meeting interested parties who are unable to attend a hearing May submit written comments to the select board's office Town Hall 101 Main Street ashin mass or by SE uh or by emailing Susan Roby at sroy ashin mass.com I can get a motion to open the hearing so moved and a second enthusiastic okay um so here is

112a statement I've been asked to read it has come to our attention that the applicant potentially requir zoning relief for what is proposed and the fire and police building department have a number of comments related to Public Safety which need to be addressed before the board can take up the matter therefore I will retain we've opened the meeting we've opened the um hearing I entertain a motion for the board to continue this matter to April 16th 20125 at 7:15 p.m. so moved so moved okay so we are now um we have so moved in a second all those in favor of moving this uh ail April 16th 2025 at that meeting I I okay so we have now postpone this till April 16th is that all you need from us Susan did we do that

113right okay thank you um so I mean we have the information in our packet already but I guess there's questions about the parking lot and how they want it to be configured so okay great so that will be moved to April 16th wonderful okay all for that okay going back to town manager report fiscal year 26 budget update Michael please yeah I I you know I don't have too much information or too much new information um I will say though that the governor's budget did come out and uh did not do us any favors so fact actually looks like in total when you look at the State uh State a looks like we might actually lose a little bit or if we do have a gain increase in that they've said it's very but by

114the time it gets through the legislature we'll probably typically you know you know typically what happens is the house will add a little bit more to it the Senate will add a little bit more to it and generally they go with the Senate numbers but you know they do they do usually key off of the governor's figures um so if your start low I know um so yeah that was a little bit um unfortunate so we'll we'll see how that you know that process at the state level evolves um Britney and I are just trying to you know kind of get together she's really kind of been swamped with a couple other things but um just trying to just look at the budget in general and you know you know we got the department head

115submissions and everything we're looking at that and I think having the tri board meeting is uh set is really good it's it's going to be you know tough I think for us to kind of move forward until then until we have a sense you know how do you want to address the deficit that we have you know do we want to look at Cuts do we want to look at you been able to reset reschedule the um Department Department heads meeting because ideally if it could happen do do we think it'll ideally it would happen before the March 1st yeah I'm hoping for February 14th right but I'm just I didn't want to put that out there okay so um just if if when when you know like I If the sooner the better just

116take some arranging for me to if it's during the day I have to give enough notice I to provide coverage for the other thing I do that's not here you mean the things that pay for you to be able to do this there you go let's put it right out there Makita come on it's legit so um we could do it Joe I don't yeah so I actually that that option if there is an option for that that might be something that I'm depending yeah it might be a little easier swing depending I don't yeah you know it might be a little clunky um but yeah yeah Al could be a little funky yeah oh yeah but um yeah we'll have to talk talk about yeah okay but yeah I mean I think you until

117we have that tri board meeting get a sense where everybody wants to go um in terms of how to handle the deficit we're kind of you know a little bit at a at a stand still right which is okay the next week is school vacation week yeah yeah the calendar calendar thing is to do it the day before the March 1st meeting but if there's input or stuff like that it could be tight to it could be tight but like even next week is tight oh yeah so um yeah as soon as we know um that would very helpful yeah and I'm just m I'm just trying to think of an alternative like if you know you can't make it or you can't hop on Zoom or something like that um you know another thing

118that you had mentioned is kind of um tangental to the budget itself but you talked about the 300 million in chapter 90 yes that the governor filed so uh this is actually a pretty significant win been a little critical of our governor um but I will have to say that for two decades now um there has been advocacy to try to bump that that chapter 90 money from 200 million to 300 million always gotten resistance so to the fact that you know she actually filed that bill I think is great now just needs to get through the legisl because we've had a couple of other Governors I want to say Baker at least once or twice filed a 300 million for chapter 90 early on maybe and it I mean I I remember sitting at

119an MMA conference and and hearing that before so and I do remember like they would sometimes issue supplemental like rra rap funding WP trying to remember what that stood for but it was kind of supplemental Road fund what I've been finding interesting at the state level is you're hearing two things right they're saying that the fair share amendment has received more funding but regular taxes has been short yeah um and so what I what I always get concerned about when that happens is fair share amendment is supposed to be for transportation and education and because the other side is short are they going to well take you know say Okay since we have all this money over here rather than adding to our funding what it's supposed to be doing are they going to take

120stuff on the general side and say okay we're going to move stuff over here and then just pull it from the fair from the I don't think it's instead of stopping the tolls after the pike is paid for they divert it towards the big dig yeah they would not do that yeah you know and and allowing the auditor to do what the people of the state wanted her to do oh and and they all got their raises this year by the way so yeah um and uh so yes that uh that that's a huge win so hopefully that will be supported y I just you know what that means for us we'll see so we get about 400 50,000 in chapter 90 a now so just take 50% of that and add it on the

121top we could that'd be great 00 and uh just for reference uh to fully reconstruct a mile road at least a few years ago it was like a million a mile so full reconstruction so you can tell it ain't it ain't going that far which is why sometimes people in the community go why have we not seen any work done on any roads and it's because sometimes we wait a couple years to accumulate funds under the chapter 90 funds to actually then do some of the major reconstruction so we have some accumulated funds rather than trying to do it all in one year yeah well it's a it's a timely subject because spring is is coming spring is pothole season as in New England as we all know yeah it is coming so um so

122yeah that's good news uh and we cover the YMCA update before I get to the federal grants update I'll leave that uh for last but um I did send you all a note about the municipal empowerment act yes um and so you know if you could if you have a moment you know take a look at that and just I think you send me your three most important points Michael I have a question about that so um my impression and it could be incorrect from the email was that previously our legislators had supported it and the legislature was uh in general was was pretty lukewarm towards it yeah and they didn't move it forward okay was there something in particular or not that I'm aware of okay Claudia um it was just not a priority

123for them okay um yeah so I wouldn't want to speculate but it yeah I did I did talk to Jack um yesterday just about this and just kind of you know take his temperature on it and uh you know at this point in time he didn't necessarily see too many issues with it but he hadn't studied it too much but the the one of the things we do have to remind them about is the current what the language is so right now we can do virtual meetings right and that expires I believe it's March 15th 31st I it's either the 15th or the 31st of March so they need to either they need to pass another for you know kick it down the can you know kick it down the down the road or they

124need to do the municipal empowerment because that makes it permanent that we can do virtual meetings without making it a mandate so that each Community can handle it themselves and I saw that Madam chair and that is the number one thing that concerned me the most about I mean if they don't of act I would hope that before whenever whether it's the 15th or the 31st they at least extend it um and in enough time that people who have meetings like there are people who have town meeting in March that they need to know can they do it virtually can they not do it virtually um but on that note we passed a remote policy where would I I need a copy of that I have to send it to somebody we we can get

125it to you okay if you could shoot that to me um so no I don't think that either of you so we voted a remote policy that allows us whether it gets passed at the state level or not to do to allow remote participation by people who are on boards and committees and then also continue doing Zoom for participation by residents so you know Joe's going on vacation and he wants to participate he could do it via Zoom um we don't necessarily care because we have that but from a perspective of some of these other meetings that we participate in the ability to have virtual makes sense the but if I remember correctly there's one there's one thing in that policy you have to have Quorum here to have like you can't you can't be

126100% you can't be 100% remote but you have so you have to have Quorum remote so you know if two of us are traveling as long as three of us are meeting here I think that was the only major um and I think it used to be that the chair couldn't be remote but I think we did something that allows the chair to be remote I believe [Music] so right yeah that's true yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah so okay so but yeah if you can get that uh if you can take a look and and get that info to me what your what your thoughts are yep I think I said next Friday if that's possible okay and then what I can do I think I indicated you know symbol everything you know like a

127position paper if you will that we could put forward to the legislature um okay w have to do this next one federal grants update um well um you know I I think uh I think it's fair to say everything is fluid um right now I think that's probably the most optimistic way of staying it um so just as background all of you know um president Trump Trum signed an executive order that froze all federal grants and Loans which didn't necessarily clarify anything um I think you know Office of Management and budget issued a very like cryptic is probably the best uh best way to describe it uh memo obviously put everybody a bit in a panic um because just at a local level example we are depending upon a number of different funding sources not

128just for one time opportunities that we taken advantage of like the uccc property that we just purchased which was going to be partially funded with a $65,000 Grant which was a federal government pass through but then we also have funds and Grant funds that um flow through to help with operating expenses and salaries and things like that and so we did not know if those were in Jeopardy as well um so obviously there was quite a bit of consternation as that went forward um I think uh you know fortunately the courts intervened and at this point in time that looks to they have intervened and put essentially a halt or restraining order on that order um so right now it looks like that money should be flowing uh my understanding though is that all of

129it hasn't necessarily started flowing yet it's extremely scary because we have uh somebody it sounds like at the till literally um you know deciding where the payments go or who gets paid and when who is essentially not an employee although I think he's been designated as a special employee and really has no government experience whatsoever although he is a very very wealthy man his name is Elon Musk um and so the fact that he actually has access to Treasury and um has the ability to impact payments and my understanding is that um the intent is to bring in a lot of Silicone Valley Silicon Valley not Silicone Valley um although although um and you know basically uh AI is going to be the efficiency savior of the federal government hey hey Michael before we uh

130we we go down that path I just want to roll back to what you what you started with because I think that uh our residents want I think they probably want to get an idea of the scope of if if this injunction for some reason you know doesn't stay or if some other mechanism is used so that these funds uh there may be a delay in these funds etc etc um just for clarity purposes what you said that there are a number of Staff positions that would be impacted What specifically do do we know specifically what those impacts like we can even just say departmentally and how that might impact resident services to the town I think that would that would be helpful to we we're collecting all of that Makita because you know I

131do know like human services u i I am sure the school department has a number of positions do you remember if position the dmh grant is pass through like from federal funds um okay so like our you know our um our uh social yeah jail diversion uh person MH yeah so I mean it sounds like you're on the on the case and trying to uh to compile that information right now I think you know no matter what happens I think it would be a good idea to make sure that we have a clear idea of what what could be impacted and it may be like maybe partial impact depending on what happens in the courts depending on what happens there may be partial impact no impact etc etc but I I feel like we as

132a community need to be ready to communicate uh specifically if something comes down what what that means right and what if anything we can do about it in the short mid and long term yeah so So the plan is you know we can you know we'll assemble that list of everything and then that way as things move forward like you said if it's partial we'll just you know we can highlight those right these are the ones that are going to move forward that we know of right now but it's just it's um it's uh it's it's it's kind of it's kind of tough uh just just in general well it's a bit of a moving Target right it's a moving Target you know what was the the original executive orders and then the injunctions and

133what injunctions I did receive an interesting email today that actually had some of the executive orders in it if people haven't received that I'd be happy to pass them along and I can forward that email to to you I started looking at it I didn't get the time to look at it in detail I think so we can understand right what are some of the things they're talking about but also understanding that there are states and different municipalities and different places that are pushing back on this are we getting anything from the state like are they providing any guidance as to like what that's an excellent question Brandy have we heard anything think everybody I mean I know that programmatic your so I think some of our programmatic grants we've reached up to our grant

134managers so sometimes um Michael's point was sometimes we we're getting the Grant from a state agency but it's really a federal pass through and so right we're calling our state Grant um pro project manager looking for guidance and they're also sort of trying to figure out what all this means and they're looking from guidance from the federal government and so it's a little bit of a trickle down and that we're not getting a ton not because they don't want to provide it but I don't think because they know so it feels like everybody's like in the same vote of trying to figure out like what exactly yeah does this mean but I know that the staff that I have working on grants they've been out outly reaching out that first day sort of lots of

135things were kind of locked up systems kind of weren't working and so um you know they they were just trying to figure that out because I would hope I would hope as Things become a little bit less chaotic maybe um that we would get some sort of higher level guidance from the state down to municipality to say okay this is this is how it's going to affect this level and that level and because I mean even when we were talking to mapc and they were talking about the the grant use do the project for for that it's you know we're not probably affected by that but there is a lot of there's a lot of things that are in the mix like you know if there's other grants that we've applied for but we haven't

136gotten funding for I me we talk about the land grant MH but the fund coming to the school to the well the school that's the biggest one I mean we were anticipating millions of dollars yeah so specifically right we we're getting $600,000 to put towards a purchase that we are already under agreement with correct I mean we have a contract that we have to come up with that $600,000 there was no contingency that said there no contingency that said oh by the way if the president decides to say sorry right and then and additionally $3.2 million in tax credits from the government from the Energy savings um y things that were put into place in for both the mes and the public safety building $3.2 million $600,000 just those are two right so almost $4

137million right there just a start just a start just a start so and then there's also just to follow up on your point in terms of people to think about people coming to work now wondering if they're how long they're going to be paid for and whether I've seen a person be laid off mid year because the grant was pulled or whatever and just it's amazing that we're not and we're not talking about one person we're talking about many people in this town and probably there hundreds of thousands across this country who are in this position it's wide ranging systemic impacts that will directly affect the quality of life for our residents so that's why I think first off thank you for um you know getting this information together the more that we understand it

138the better that we can go back to our constituents when we're being contacted and I am being contacted about this um can explain the situation and you know we can do what we need to plan for whatever we need to plan for yeah it's um I was just going to say you know to that point like could we make sure it is a standing item on our agenda for the next I think that's a very approprate idea Trump Administration update well just well no federal funding Federal fund just and impacts on on Ashland I mean have like a Administration up I mean we're talking about like a hazard mitigation thing we're talking about grants I don't even know if FEMA is going to be around that was actually on my list to ask him like

139what happens if disappears but honestly you know Martin from the mapc is like you know he has zero he can't answer that question because nobody knows but but I think I think if we have it as a standing item on our agenda and we're addressing it like even if even if because we know it's going to be fluid and we know it's going to change and you know it's um we have to let con contextually and this is not a political thing this is an operational thing we owe it to our constituents and our fellow citizens to let them know what we know and and let them know how we're you know trying to you know put any sort of mitigation planning in place or at least make sure that we are a source of

140as well as we know accurate and upto-date information about local impacts uh on these issues because there's going to be there's also going to be a lot of mistake I'm going to say I'm going to give people the benefit of the doubt there's going to be a lot of like mistaken information transmitted there's going to be a lot of you know speculation I would like our residents to be able to depend on us to provide accurate information as we know it I I would I would just say right I mean even between when we heard this and even today we keep hearing changes so what I would say to Residents is what I would say to Residents is we will keep discussing this we'll work with with staff and and to get the best information

141as we're sitting there knowing that within a day or within a week or within a couple of months some of this could change and I think we just need to be very aware of not only this stuff that's happening but other stuff that's happening and work locally to ensure that we do not lose our connection with our residents and with what democracy looks like in our country we'll say you know we talked a little bit about you know State officials I will say our our federal delegation has been very engaged um yes I have I did H I was on a call with Mary's office um you know you know letting them know what we did know at the time in terms of what what was impacted and of course they've um you know they've

142committed to working you know they say all the politician things that they say and um you know so we'll see if it actually does anything but um you know at the and so you know it's very clear kind of like the operations going forward uh we do have a president who feels this is the way to operate issue an executive order see what sticks that's exactly it see what sticks um and so we're dependent upon the courts in many cases to corre identify you know where he is potentially overstepping and basically taking steps to do that where I get worried you know what's that old saying possession is nine10 of the law so you know if a court does decide to issue an injunction they don't have operational control right so you can still have

143somebody who is not pressing the submit button on the payment and what does that mean and yep you know you do have and I don't mean this from any kind of political standpoint but you do have a president who is probably the most well-versed in criminal law than any other president we've had before and you know knows those boundaries to push you know I I think just kind of rolling back to what you had said the one thing that's going to make this uh a very kind of destabilizing situation is that in a very real and practical sense the courts can issue injunctions etc etc but at this point we don't know if that button will actually be pushed or not and I think it's important again this is a Communications issue because people will

144be like well the court said this so where's the money and we have to be clear with them and say yes we know that but the button has not been pushed right the funds have no federal employees there right because if we're hearing all kinds of things about federal employees either losing their jobs or early retirements or I mean we've we've seen it here in the state when they did early retirement for people working in certain departments at the state level where then design review few things instead of taking six months to to nine months took a year and a half when they did it for mass for do yeah yeah back in 1314 when we were working on getting Route 126 approved by the tip we had our 25% design we were working with

145people at the state level and because that was it was around that time when they said okay we're doing early retirements and they laid off you know they had a number of people retire and all of a sudden they were telling us well now we don't have enough staff to keep this on track and we lost a year or there about and pushed our whole project back so I I have a fear that we have to be conscious that this could happen at the federal level at well as well the other thing too is it isn't just a matter of the courts issue this and then it's a matter of the confusion that it creates oh definitely that nobody really knows does that mean I should push the button or no that's not me that's

146exactly the confusion is crazy that's why the communication is important so like you know I think what we can do is just try to you know keep in touch with our state and federal officials um make sure that uh we understand we understand what the situation is so that we can provide that you know or Echo that information and make sure that you know our our neighbors here in Ashland um have the information that we have and so that they understand what's going on because at the end of the day you know folks are going to be like well I depend on the food pantry or like what's going on with the daycare with the with the kindergarten situation or like what's going on with the roads or what's going on with my water or

147what's going on with this we need to make sure that people understand what's happening how it's happening and what we're doing if anything and what we're doing about it and what we can and what exactly and we have to just be very clear about that so people understand um but I I hope that folks understand that no matter what happens that we'll be working very hard uh for the residents of ashin uh regardless what whatever comes up like that's what we're here for that's what we're going to do and we're going to do our darnest to uh make sure that we continue to serve this town and its residents to the exactly so so and I know like I know you know so far like I know you've been contacted uh by people I have

148received over 30 like w correspondents Co phone calls from residents you know about before or after your your letter went out this weekend um so some of it was before which kind of prompted yeah what I put out there but then you know they're just they're trying to figure it out and you know right now everybody it's so still kind of new so everybody's being kind of gracious and you know patient yeah I think but um you know at some point that tensions are going to fray and oh yeah that's why that's why I'm suggesting and and you know I think we've talked about communication here in the past there's there is a very strong uh possibility of a lot of in misinformation and disinformation around these issues and we have to get ahead of

149that because anything what than that is going to be a disservice to the folks of the town so I think at some point maybe in a future meeting like we need to pick up that conversation talk about how we're going to work to mitigate that especially given light of current events um because it's critical that our our Town's folk know what's up yeah it's that's a good point and I just want to you know we've been working on like a Communications yeah plan so Jordan and Beth and I and so um I think we're meeting to review it next week and then we'll talk about it a select board meeting probably won't be ready for February 19th but probably one of the ones in March so it'll be a good time for it's kind of

150all coming together it's converging can I can I recommend that once before you bring it to the select board if you have a you know draft right maybe send it out so we can take a look at it and give you feedback and then you Beth and Jordan can sort of review our feedback and see oh that that would actually be ideal if we that way you're not bring to us yeah right if you if you get you know if within the if by the end of the week you think you'll have a draft send it out to us let us take a look at it you know and then we can all reply separately to you and then you can look at that information and see if there's changes or tweaks or whatever that

151you want to you know can either maybe talk to the whoever sends you the information and then you can present it to us and then that way I think it might be a little bit better process it would be great to have like a first round of that kind of done before before you come to us in a meeting because it's tough sometimes so yeah it might not we may not have enough time to so that's a fantastic if you email it out to us we can do it on our own time and and review it yeah okay and you can talk to you know me about it we can have questions or comments or discussions does that make sense to people it makes sense and I will just say this before you've even distributed

152the plan um I'll say that you know I think we have to you know we'll have to think about like not just when um you know the mechanisms to to disseminate information but also um you know how not just select board but like how Town employees can handle information requests you know and make sure that you know how how do we keep everybody aligned with the same information in realist time so that we don't have conflicting information going out into the community just something to think about while you're putting together those plans and just to that point like just just hearing Makita say that like it kind of it for Me Maybe we need to approach this like we did covid and have like a task force I would Age with you that really um

153handled sort of like was the central of all the the information and I I don't know I feel like this might be that scope that we need specifically about the federal funding and how it's impacting it's not just our general marketing yeah I mean Communications plan right I'm just throwing that out there because um I think that's a very good point because because that might be the scale that we're talking about with this that we need to kind of think of it as I want I want to say a crisis because it pro it might I mean it might it could be but I mean I think we just want to make sure that we have that mechanism in place should we have to kick it into gear so only because again it's not not

154me it's somewhat our agend I mean it is on our agenda but more of a grant update so what I'd like to recommend is we're going to put this on our agenda again for this next meeting in February as you have thoughts and ideas certainly think about that um let's look at this Communications plan that we get from Michael Beth and and Jordan Jordan thank you um and give your feedback back to Michael think about a task force idea what would that look like maybe we can discuss that at our next board meeting to see how we want to handle that we can add that as an agenda item I think it's a great idea by doing that because now you have a central centrally located point of contact where all that information is funneled

155into that into that Center and then people can grab that information instead of Peace meiling Here There and Everywhere localized it's right where where it needs to be which is what we did with Co we had one point of contact person and all the that information was provided to that a person and it was disseminated out to everybody in that one way so yeah great idea because because also you know you think about it this will have impact on the schools oh this will like so wi ranging systemic impacts every every every Department in this community and not just Ashland but everywhere everywhere couldn't agree with you morej Jo and Brandy I think that was an incredible suggestion I think that's where a good place to start okay great okay anything else Micha Endor Jen

156okay it is time for board reports Makita hello um so um I would unfortunately like to share that I have been pretty sick over the past couple of weeks so I haven't been out and about but thank goodness I'm on the mend um the one thing I will share is that I we did have a uh committee uh subcommittee meeting uh to talk about the process uh the committee uh selection process process and and and um Recruitment and and and process and such so we've got another meeting that will be posted soon um right now what we're again we're just doing some Discovery as it were trying to make sure that we fully understand the business process or the process uh end to endend before we can make any kind of recommendations uh about Improvement

157and we're obviously talking about all the stakeholders in the process right now um so that work continues and we'll uh be able to provide provide an additional update because we'll have another meeting coming up soon so um yeah I'd also like to wish everyone here in Ashland and farfield a very happy Black History Month it's February um so uh it's a great opportunity to study study up about uh some of the cont contributions of African-Americans uh that have uh helped make this country great um African-American history is American history so there you go so great that's all I've got nice Claudia yes thank you um know just a couple of things I've had the occasion to go up and uh not personally skate on the Warren Conference Center rink but um my grandchildren and some

158friends and you know it's really nice it's um it's well lit they have lights all around it they have a fire pit um you know where you can get warm the um you know the restaurant Henry's Place happens to be right there so you could actually go inside and and have have a little drink or refreshment while the your children were skating so it it's really a nice spot it looks great and um appreciate it and you know we're the process for building the the new structures is coming along and I know Jen's been very involved with that um and then I did attend the uh school committee budget meeting two weeks ago I guess um and you know it was what we've really been hearing in terms of there are some challenges um a

159lot of you know costs of weely Skyrocket in it in terms of um you know inflation has hit everything and and um things like the out of District cost for students has been really skyrocketed um so and then there was a lot of discussion this was a this meeting in particular was focused on uh the preschool um special education and um mindes and the thing with the preschool was a big discussion really about whether or not that school should be servicing try to meet the uh need in the community um currently the building is too small to really do that it does meet the need of um allowing the school department to service students um with special needs that are very that that re require intervention at at three years old and then that allows

160us to U you know educate them in our in our state I mean in our state in our town um but then we have in terms of typical students we have many many many on a waiting list um every year so um you know there's a little little conversation about what the future might look like uh and I have to say that it brought back some sour memories for me in terms of um a preschool that was attached to the high school when uh we first lost that that votes first vote and um that we would have had a preschool very nice preschool U with a program for high school students to be involved with and in any case it's so 23 years time ago right so 23 years so in any case so the

161school department is working very hard to manage the challenges that they face like um the town fa faces in general and and our friends and neighbors face thank you thank you Claudia and thank you for for going to that meeting Joe thank you madam chair uh I signed up for a u an online Forum uh and discussion with respect to uh quiet Zone uh development and what cities what other cities and towns are dealing with when it comes to that um to that specific uh projects and one of the big issues and concerns and the discussion will be with the liability aspect of it which is what we discovered over the p over the years and trying to get our acquired Zone completed um so I'm I'm looking forward to do that it's going to

162be next it's next uh Tuesday I believe it's 1 to 2 it's online who's doing it oh you had to ask me I had it written down and I left the paper is it Mass do or no it's not Mass doot no okay it wasn't Mass the if you find it was it the well it could it could it could have if you find it if you could forward me I don't know if I can sit in on but I'd be interested in listening okay I'll anything else Joe uh yeah couple of quick things with respect to the uh Road uh road traffic study committee uh we've been um working very diligently on trying to assess the issues that are concerns with the 1060 Main Street um we have drafted a letter that went to

163the uh zba uh earlier today and I would be more than happy to forward that in that letter to you all I don't believe we have yet but I will forward it to you all with respect to that all the concerns um that you folks met with uh Jeff uh were discussed in this letter and hopefully uh he'll understand that uh some of the concerns that we had with their traffic study report um again statistics can be used to be you know be for or work against you so um we we were questioning some of the the information that was provided to us in in that report and uh we're doing our own at the same time so hopefully we can get uh a better handle on what what's going on and again the concern

164is with the the residual neighborhoods that will be affected by the traffic flow and those folks not wanting to come down here so cutting from Winter Street all the way back you know C of Road in winter you know cutting to strobis land all these side roads hildale strobus Lane coming so that they can get beyond that to get to their uh destination on Badger Road to get to Route n and the mass bike so we' been been dealing with that and um I'll be coming to the board and to um Lisa within the next next three week maybe two weeks uh when I get back back uh regarding putting a signage up on Myrtle Street with respect to uh weight limitations on on trucks because there is one right now on Badger Road so

165we would like to we would like to keep it you know similar and the same on both on both both aspects so we'll be coming back to you folks okay that's all I have thank you just to follow up on that so Tuesday February 11th the zba is having their next meeting regarding 10 to 60 Main Street and their discussion will be on traffic okay Brandy um so the major thing I have to report is that we uh the comprehensive plan group met um two weeks ago two weeks ago I think at this point 22 January we discussed some so you know we had gone out with a survey on specific strategies related to the goals um and we had these technical working groups right before the holidays so I'm told one second uh Mackie

166did we get bumped from cable we're no longer I just want to make sure we're still going out live via cable okay because we're seeing a channel guide and okay I mean we're almost done but still if we're still going it would be good for the public to be able to watch us if that's what they wanted to be doing on cable okay keep going okay so we met as a comprehensive plan group to talk about the strategies there was some strategies that um didn't rate very high in the survey where people weren't super supportive or the technical working group so we met as a group to kind of go through some of those strategies um our big meeting is going to be on March 20th we're no we're not going to meet in February

167um partly because of school vacation week partly because um our consultant is really going to be doing a lot of the real heavy lifting between now and March to give us a whole basically to to pull everything together so we're weighing in on all these strategies um that I think is sort of like the last big task before we start writing this thing and start drafting this comprehensive plan um and then of of course the goal is is really to um to finish it and sorry we'll get there Brandy we'll get there sorry I'm a little I'm like I'm you know it's been it's been a long haul the edit function in my brain didn't quite make it there um the uh so the goal is to to get this to to to fall Town

168meetings so um we are we are working on it so so there there will be more public input once we have some of these strategies pulled together and and the drafts and things like that so we have that um and the only other thing I wanted to to um remind people or let people know that um I think it was mentioned of Claudia mentioned it or Joe mentioned it but um in the town clerk's office nomination papers are available for folks thinking about running for um office this may anybody that is interested did to um to run for office needs to get nomination papers get get 50 signatures and turn them in to be on the ballot for May so um I always and all the offices that are up for election are on the

169town website y so you can look at that okay so and um just as the winter season is is um finishing up over at the high school I just want to wish the the the clockers uh those that are going off to States uh best of luck because uh winter the winter season is short and it is ending so um believe it's not even it's just February and the winter season's over and stay safe in the snow guys we're having we're going to get some weather this week tomorrow just take it slow that's it it's called it's go rail go rail okay yeah oh perect thank you okay couple different things so we received an email from Arthur the gentleman who came and talked to us about nips I did reply to him I've forwarded

170to you guys what some discussion that we can have I've started some discussion with Susan so I think we can either decide either next meeting or the meeting after to see is there things we can do based on his input uh let's see senior breakfast was missed in January over at the community center they are having one tomorrow it might be too late if you haven't already signed up um but otherwise I believe they are back now uh the first Thursday of the month we've already mentioned zba uh school vacation week is February 9 the week of February eight8 no six Monday is the 17th to that week so pres President's Day yep um our next board me meeting will be Wednesday February 19th so we'll see you then a couple of other events that

171I've been notified about ashon education casino night is happening somewhere in March um it's always a fun event I saw that they're now it's so it's at held at the Warren Conference Center in their Lodge I was there I think preco I don't know I was couple years ago it was a lot of fun they've expanded it to two floors it's it if you if you're not busy that it's a great fundraiser for AEI it's always been a fun event um also coming up I believe later in March is Library uh mini golf in the library also if you like mini mini golf they set the course up through the stacks and oops throwing things um f i was there last year that is a delightful it's a fun event it's a fun event so

172um uh and the not again not for tonight but just for discussion we should start talking about uh new select Board office hours um uh I was also thinking about that this week I saw that the library had their book sale on Saturday and I'm like oh we've done that so let's start thinking about that maybe next meeting we can sort of set a couple dates and um I have some ideas on that as well based on one of the sessions I attended at MMA uh I believe that's all I have so if there is nothing else motion to adjourn we have a move in a second thank you all if I can get a all in favor of adjourning I thank you all that ends this meeting again our next meeting is is Wednesday

173February 19th stay safe we are expecting some weather uh we don't need to go past 10 o'clock so thank you all who have sat in and remember if you have questions or comments don't hesitate to reach out to any of us and if not before then we will see you on Wednesday February 19th for the next select board meeting thank you and good night