001e e e good evening and welcome to the select board meeting for Wednesday January 15th uh we had a little bit of a delay we were in exec session so thank you for your patience whether you're in here in person with us on Zoom or watching uh via waca TV I am calling the January 15th meeting of the select board to order at 78 p.m this meeting is being recorded and broadcast live by waca TV and live streamed on Facebook remote participation is available using the zoom video conference platform any disruption with the video conferencing platform will result in the platform being shut down in the am in event of A disruption broadcasting will continue on waca TV and live streamed on Facebook so welcome all I'm going to open it to Citizens participation if
002you have something to say either uh about what we're talking about later or just now please step up to the podium or raise your hand and we will recognize you name and address please hey Mar Sony 119 Main Street I um want to speak on I was I was here last night for the historical meeting and I my um understanding that it's to worked to make this town better historically wise so I want to skip that because it's still a long way to go I want to talk about the mill building and there was the public for for it I I understand that that they're going to be just going through a lot of paperwork and meetings board meetings and stuff like that I spoke up on it and said why couldn't it be a
003mix with the stories five five stories why can't it not be a mixed apartment residential business Commercial offices involved I want to ask whoever can answer what gets that involved for that to be put on their agenda through the select board and what boards have the better answer than here about the M build and have mixed residential and Commercial I can well Mark first of all thank you I know you're you know going to a lot of meetings and and giving your input and and I think that's great I think at this point any discussion regarding this is happening through the zoning board of appeals I think the developer has presented their current plans in regards to residential with some commercial space and that has been what they've been hearing back from the residents through
004the whole Mass housing process through you know previous discussions with the owner of the property and this developer I think to change what they're offering I think the developer would have to see a financial benefit and I think that's a discussion that's going to be happening through the zba process okay um I think again it's the idea is now as the public and as a community we show up to these meetings and we give our feedback where we can but it is now a a true zba process and they said through at that being there's got to be few a lot more meetings than this than what they had I believe they're expecting probably about a 5 to six month process I think they have to have it completed in 180 days oh is a
005clock there is a clock because it's a 40b uh which is why we were very thankful when the developer allowed us to push the first hearings to January so that the holidays would were not taken into that 180 day time frame and one more thing would be the MBTA trans Transit housing the are you talking about the NBTA zoning yes okay yep yes because in the newspaper and on TV the state appro thank you approved their their their well regulations laws whatever it was that y they they approved the MBTA side of things what does it that do for ashon if they can appeal that I think it's not going to affect us at this point because we have passed our MBTA zoning uh thanks to Joe and Trisha Kendall and Peter machic they did
006a lot of work to create the zoning that would work for Ashland that matches the requirements of the state so I think Ashland at this this point we're in a good position we've done what we've needed to do I have heard that the state is allowing communities who have not passed it yet because they couldn't come to agreement within their own communities they have given them a six-month window so that for those communities who didn't have the work or couldn't get it done or couldn't get it passed they're not going to be as strict about some of the funding and some of the grant work they're going to give people another six months but I think the decision for Milton Milt no Millis is not impacting us because we've done the work we have a
007good zoning bylaw now and I think we can watch what's going on but we're okay and we don't have to worry about that other the other peripheral stuff that's going on okay so the town the zone and everything they going by what state did the state house did what I want to bring it that because there's still two towns in the Commonwealth in in the area Milton and now need them they're y stepping up I'm I've been reading about the people those chanels that step up and try to go against it for their own town character reasons why wasn't it for an Ashland character reasons that we could step up against that I think because discussions between planning board and select board we had multiple group meetings as well as what the committee did Joe
008maybe you can answer that better because you were in part of that in much more detail thank you madam chair yeah Mike MK the concern that we had as as a group uh the MBTA committee uh we held a lot of meetings we had uh public forums uh we got the input from the people as to what you know what they were looking for what we what we explained to them what we needed to do what was asked of us to do uh there there was a lot of work done uh Alvaro uh put a lot of time and effort into uh design and site plans of the current areas that were in question so we were able to provide detailed information to the to the town's people so when it came time for the
009town meeting special town meeting and that uh warrant article came up there were a few questions uh just to reiterate what had already been said at these public meetings and public forums so when it came time for a vote people had a better understanding of what was going on and I can't answer why these other towns didn't do what we did uh they're their own animal so um and every situation is different every town is different every city is different and they their bylaws and and their zoning is different as well we were fortunate enough to have that half mile uh radius in an area where we had already some buildings that we were uh building area that we were able to utilize and that helped make a uh process a little easier so um
010again every town is different sellpro is going probably going through the same thing right now um whether they uh voted past I'm not sure I haven't heard anything yet with respect to them so I mean every town is unique and we would just we just put the time and effort into it and we were thankful that the residents understood what we were trying to do and they they they agreed with us and very last thing is um if any of the towns if we went up against the two the negative part of it is taking away Grant right which is what we didn't want to have happen so Mark I know I don't know if you have any other questions but we do need to move on because we do have a hearing that's supposed
011to be starting right now so thank you again for your questions and for your input and keep asking them okay I will thank you I was just going to suggest kind of as a followup to Mark's um first question is maybe just to um provide a brief outline of what the process looks now before the zoning board we're going to be discussing um in our agenda right let's see it's on our agenda to review okay we can the building the 10 to 60 Main Street with the hearing that happened and so we can talk through the time frame at that point you're welcome okay great thank you so uh 7:15 it is time for a public hearing I'm going to read the notice notice is hereby given that the select board will conduct a public
012hearing to review the entertainment license application submitted by Eric Salgado for Nix Pizza and Grill Nix Pizza and Grill at 87 Main Street as ashon Mass 01721 a public hearing will be held on the matter at the Ashton Town Hall 101 Main Street Ashton Mass on Wednesday January 15 2025 at 7:15 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 interest parties who are unable to attend the hearing May submit WR written comments to the select Sport's office Town Hall 101 Main Street ashin mass 01721 or by emailing Susan Roby sroy Ashland mass.com sign Yanda greeves chair of the Ashland select board so I officially open the public hearing for an entertainment license and I would ask that um
013is Eric here yeah motion on the dots there you gotion open the hearing as usual so moved all those in favor of opening the public hearing hi hi perfect so the public hearing is now open so uh welcome um if you could take us through what you'd like to do and I'm sure we will have plenty of questions for you absolutely my my main thought was in Nick's Pizza and Grill we have half of our building lot of seating but it's severely underused it's not you know be most of our business is either delivery or takeaway so really what I want to do is be able to draw people in to stay and really what it is is to bring people in for free not charging anybody have events bring people in will they buy
014something while they're there great but really it's more to kind of build a sense of community around that that particular area so some of the ideas that I've had throwing around in my mind is being able to do open mic Nights movie Nights things like that which requires the entertainment license and really what I'm thinking of is focusing it more towards families middle school kids high school kids you know some place where the kids can go that isn't Starbucks my daughter who is in the sixth grade at ashin Middle School loves going to Starbucks after school but giving them someplace else to go that you know could offer something some sort of entertainment that is hopefully close by you know is is kind of my goal and especially with Clover Road opening up I can
015also Envision some parents going like well I want to go get a beer but my kids don't and they might want to go do something else so maybe come down to Nicks grab a slice of pizza watch a movie play some games uh you know I'm thinking of having board game nights which again doesn't need the entertainment license but it allows me to get a schedule going of different events that we could do so board games movies music uh um doing karaoke nights for kids which a lot of people when I say that just kind of have an image in their head of a group of 11 and 12 year olds screeching and it sounds great to me on one hand on the other hand I also understand as again the father of a 12-year-old
016girl how loud that can get but I'm willing to bring that into that environment to try to Foster you know that type of interaction between kids and the town and just again give give them some place new to go we we certainly have been hearing from many people and families that they need something for their teenagers exactly and and you know again as my daughter is that age you know she especially we live right on Alden Street so I could have walked here and then I could have gotten around the train faster but so she's within walking distance she walks to the shop all the time and there's a number of other families in the area where the kids could just walk down but we don't have a space like that currently and so being
017able to do something again not not on the scale of an indoor playhouse or something you know but but something where you can come and and hang out with everybody and some food and you know then go home and and hopefully have a good night great that's kind of what I'm envisioning okay I'm going to open it up to questions who wants to jump in or start show thank you madam chair Eric that sounds like a great idea one of the concerns that I have is that I know like when there's half days uh a lot of the uh uh businesses downtown cringe when they realize there's a half day because you have a herd of Youth coming toward their you know their locations and stuff and sometimes you know when you're with a group
018of individuals you you lose your individual uh identities and become the group and sometimes people act a little differently absolutely and so I guess my question would be how would you keep that from happening and having to call uh the authorities to to calm the situation down that's a good question I'm obviously group mentality is something that is just always going to happen and if if I were to assume that's going to happen with every group of kids that comes by I would close the doors and not let any of them in I would prefer to assume they're going to come and have fun and have I had a couple of kids who tried to flush down three full rolls of toilet paper into the the toilet yes yes that did happen but I'm not
019going to hold it against every kid um it it is what it is um obviously not having any alcohol on our premises don't have a liquor license and I don't intend to pursue one specifically for the reason of making it more familyfriendly more kid-friendly that will definitely help that a little bit we're not open extremely late you know during during the day most people aren't going to cause that much trouble because it's daylight You Can't Hide anywhere so I'm less worried about that type of instance and can it happen sure but adults do that stuff all the time too so I I'm going into it knowing that it could happen but hoping for the best right I wasn't aware that you did not re up your beer on wine license yeah and that was after
020thinking about it for a while I just thought it's it's another expense but also again with overover Road opening we have Stones right down the street why do I want to compete with two other businesses that are one's established and one is more Niche but is going to be dominant in that particular market right why why fight that but if I can gear this business towards a different subset of Ashland one that is again underserved then hopefully that will actually serve me and the town a little bit better that's that's kind of what I'm thinking probably help out Subzero too the same the same manner the have two you know family locations absolutely yeah and uh we've talked about trying to do some things together birthday parties and and whatnot idea especially you know they
021have kind of the the the show part right that you get to watch the ice cream being made um and then I've been thinking about kind of having kids make their own pizzas on our end and in both case cases Subzero being um you know based on science and I actually have a very strong science background you know I could see it also being an a learning type of event so it's a birthday party it's fun it's learning but all of those things are are things that I think we could develop a little bit more if we have a little bit more flexibility in what we can do with the space you know and and just entertain kids because deep down I know a lot of kids right now are you know being held to
022this little box where they're they have short attention spans but I know somewhere there's that art nerd who loves watching movies and I want to bring those kids in and and kind of to your point about the individuality having different nights brings those kids who you know when I was in high school I had one other friend we both like movies but we hung out with 15 kids and when we were in that big group yes we may have been a little Troublesome but when we were when uh myself and my friend Justin were off on our own we watched movies and you know we listen to music and being able to have the flexibility in the event allows you to break off from your group do something that you like to do and then
023you come back and cause trouble later okay Makita then Claudia um yes uh this uh whole situation is giving me sort of like Peach Pit 90210 Vibes I just dated myself here um in a good way but I did I just as a point of clarification um you know you're talking about having uh groups of teens and pre-teens you know in the establishment what range of hours are you proposing to have these these events during yeah I know on on my application I kind of left them very wide because it's it's it's one of those things where you could imagine let's say Saturday morning you could do uh you could do a kids movie you know and families could come in and do something more breakfasty and then Saturday night you would have you know
024the artsy movie for the older kids and adults I I will admit part of it is just a reason for me to be able to go and watch a movie that I haven't been able to watch yet I will freely admit that um but even now we don't stay open later till 9 UM than nine currently and just even then I've been closing a little bit earlier on a lot of days because when you really look at Ashland there's a a lot of families and young families don't stay up till 11: so why be open until 11: right um and I know a lot of kids won't be allowed to be out that late so why do that U but you could imagine having you know a a open mic night let's say 600 p.m.
025to 8:00 p.m. that gives us an hour where we can shut everything down and by that I mean gives me time to clean because it might be a lot of cleaning um and and still not be too late that's kind of what I'm thinking yeah but again that that flexibility in those times mainly for the weekends just being able to do things earlier in the day later middle of the day later in the day but also a variety of activities cludia yeah thank you it does sound like a great idea it has a little flavor of a maybe a winter Corner Spot I think um but um you know I was thinking in terms of kids that I would say you know start small be organized right so that you have uh something that you
026they're really GNA be focused on when they arrive um you know I think mindus has a few half days coming up in March probably that might not include lunch so you could offer some kind of a little you know five doll and they get a piece of pizza and a drink and then they're there and because they're looking to do something for them absolutely on those days you know those kids are they're feeling like big shots so uh and I am the person who wants them to come in yeah I I I'm not afraid of those roving bands of CHS yeah and I think the idea of partner partnering um with Subzero would be very nice too you know that would be uh touching a lot of or and having a little science class and
027pizza making all fun stuff um so I wish you the best of luck um I do wonder is are there any do you have to get any additional insurances for this or you already have what you need I should have everything that I need um all it is is some equipment and like you say organizing things um shouldn't be that big of a deal we've already done um we've done one crafting session uh right before Christmas so my mom kept a bunch of stuff and then it's came in and made these little little uh hanging gnome guys so I know we can do stuff like and you know like to your point it was structured so when they came in yeah my just brought them over and said all right this is what we're doing
028and structur they got it done so Eric and everyone I just need to um we need to if I can get a motion to pause this hearing so moved second and a second all those in favor of pausing this hearing I I great uh on we have to we need to open the next one and put it on pause before we finish this so give me one second uh notice is hereby given that the select board will conduct a public hearing to review the entertainment license application submitted by ashon Brewing LLC DB ba Clover Road Brewing Company ashon Brewing Company LLC DBA Clover Brewing Company 151 Main Street ashon Mass a public hearing will be held on the matter at the ashon Town Hall 101 Main Street Ashton Mass on Wednesday January 15 2025 at
0297:30 p.m. persons wishing to be heard on this matter are invited to attend the public Hearing in person or by logging onto 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 or by emailing Susan at sroy as.com motion to open the hearing so moved second all those in favor I uh motion to pause the Clover Road bre Brewing hearing moved great all those in favor I Okay so we've opened that paused it uh motion to reopen the move next second all those in favor I I okay I'll try to keep my answer shorter sorry we're very choc and Bor uh Brandon so um just just one question first of all I think it's a good ide
030I think it's a great idea so um I'm fully supportive of of um of you doing this um how long have you been the owner of Nyx six months that's that's what I thought so I just wanted to I just I I I just wanted to say welcome to Ashland um and we're glad you're here so um that's really all I wanted to say so one question I have is what is your occupancy for that that entertainment area the entertainment area I will have to double check that number I know our total occupancy is 85 I believe it will be much lower than that my or about half of that okay um because it is about half my floor space right um and part of kind of controlling those activities as you mentioned before would
031be that it's a smaller space but we don't need a rave right no no I just I just want to be be conscious of that and have you be conscious of that absolutely okay yeah yeah it's I mean again as as a father of a middle schooler in Ashland like I'm I'm conscious of the the type of safety things and what we have to worry about in that case especially when there's a you know two open friers and a pizza oven in that building run on gas I get that right okay I I just want to say as well first of all welcome and congratulations on getting on purchasing the the the the business I think this is a great idea I think to your point you do have a middle schooler you understand that
032these kids are looking for something to do so good any other questions or comments Nicks used to be open on Friday nights for dinner yes for a relatively short period of time but I know when my kids were young we went in there for dinner a few oh yeah and and I'd love to bring that back and and that's what it is if especially in this time where if you try to take two adults and two kids to a movie it's expensive but if it's right in downtown Ashland and it's free and all you have to do is buy a pizza and a couple of sodas oh yeah seems attractive to me yeah y Joe another question I just have a quick question Eric um the requested I was For Your Entertainment you have one
033to eight uh Sunday through Saturday but you would talk um uh except on Friday which is uh 1: to9 I guess one of my concerns was that um you had mentioned you possibly want to do some things on a Saturday morning and I don't want you to limit yourself with the hours that you have provided us so is there is there something that we could do to expand those hours for him yeah I think I can I think you know what time do you open on Saturday 11 I would and what time on Sunday 11 okay 11 every do you open is it 11: to 8 every day except Friday right now we're uh staying open that extra hour um and that really is again coming down to the trends that we're seeing pretty much
034after 8:00 on every day except Friday nobody's really calling in but Friday sometimes it goes that late and sometimes we just need that extra hour to clean gotcha okay so I would recommend and we can do this when we do the motion um is that we allow Your Entertainment to be your business hours yeah right especially if you think you want to do something on Saturday morning let's let's expand that I did have one other question for you one of the other options is a entertainment device like a pinball machine or something like that are you considering that or not at this time currently okay um partly because of the question of space yep um I I can be very creative in terms of using space but I haven't quite figured out how I could
035fit a pinball table in there and really okay I just wanted to you know I'm looking at reviewing and seeing okay yeah absolutely that's why I was I was thinking more of especially the the movie projector a projector in a screen takes almost no space um a small stage with a small uh a small amplifier and an acoustic guitar takes virtually no space right um until I bring all of the rest of my instruments from my parents house that that doesn't have to happen now so this is for you to the opportunity to I think we've all figured that out by now yes it's for for me to play guitar what it is on my own dime that's there you go um any other uh questions or comments from the board okay is there anyone
036here who wants to either speak in favor of this or anyone who wants to just speak against or comment if you're on Zoom please raise your hand and we will recognize you I give another 30 seconds as we do that Susan is there anything else from you that we need to be aware of nope I'm all set everything has been submitted I think the plans make sense okay I'm not seeing any hands or anyone rushing up so any other comments or conversation that we feel we need to have as a board see all kinds of okay good if I can get a motion to close the public hearing so mov second all those in favor I I uh if I can have a motion to approve the enter payment license for Nicks Pizza and Grill
037with the hours of 11 to8 Saturday through Thursday and 11: to9 on Friday so moved so moved second second okay all those in favor I I okay we've closed the hearing we've taken our vote you are good to go great and best of luck good luck good luck keep those wings the way they are because we love those wings extra extra crispy great thank you and good luck um my one recommendation is reach out to Beth Reynolds our economic development director she can help you out and she can also help connect you with the schools once you have some plans in place to get this publicized and she'll also get it in the town manager's newsletter as you have events coming up and to the recreation department as well and the library and the library
038and yeah so we are willing to share this information and and help you get this going great you are very welcome good luck of luck thank you okay moving forward if I can have a motion to reopen the public hearing for the entertainment Li liquor entertainment license for Ashlin Brewing uh I moved thank you second second all those in favor the hearing is reopened we're all fun tonight aren't we yeah that's a good thing let's let's keep these things moving more stuff coming to downtown okay I believe they were going to attend Thea Zoom but I am not seeing them on okay then what we're going to do is if I can have a motion to pause the hearing for Ashlin Brewing so moved okay great a second all those in favor I perfect uh
039our next appointment is our next scheduled meeting was to discuss the appointment of Daniel May Daniel has joined us Jo Daniel if you would come up to the podium this will be very painless I promise she says that to everybody um Daniel has put in to be appointed to the zba with one of their members stepping down it's good to have more people um Daniel want you to tell us a little bit about yourself why you want to do this and we'll go from there sure uh first great to meet everyone um so I grew up in uh ducksbury in the South Shore south of Boston uh and following that I uh went to college in Boston at Wentworth in stute of technology and uh I've been living in or was living in the city
040uh for about 15 years and then I just recently decided to move to Ashland uh as I'm working in Worcester at Kell Sadowski as a commercial real estate broker so I do have a background in commercial real estate um when I was living in Boston my first job was at Liberty Mutual in their corporate real estate department uh following that I was at kushman Wakefield as Fidelity's uh Master broker for their retail investment centers actually did the deal in Shrewsbury on Route n that just opened uh recently and uh now that I am in uh Ashland I'm uh learning my way around I I really didn't leave Boston much uh when I was there so uh this is all kind of new to me and I thought you know I got to move out here
041and learn it and get familiarized with you know the people and the the communities so uh part of the reason why you know I want to join and feel like my background uh could be you know good use for uh the the zba great we have John Tran from the zba John if you want to just let us talk you know talk to us about how your review process went with Daniel and then we'll open it up to the board for questions it went it went very well he attended our uh last meeting which is when we opened the uh 4B hearing uh so we sat through a couple of hours of the hearing and then came forward and we talked to him about about his interests his qualifications um everybody on the board the
042two members and the two associate members that were there uh strongly support his uh appointment by the select board he's uh certainly professionally qualified uh has the enthusiasm that we would look for and frankly he would significantly lower the average age of zba members and that's a good thing love that love that so I would I would definitely urge his uh appointment by the board with the the 40b hearings that we have facing us this year uh it's important I think to have as many uh members and Associate members available uh so that the hearing process can be lengthy and we need to have U at least three people who are going to be able to participate in the vote so we would welcome him great thank you John uh any questions or comments from
043the board for Daniel no thank you madam chair John great um resume by the way and welcome to Ashan I look forward that uh you'll be uh an incal part to this uh new age group of uh zoning board members seeing that John is Young himself right John's not old John's a young man we're all young he's listening but I don't think he understands anyway I'm sorry if that was addressed to me I didn't hear it I'm sorry I I was just saying you're still okay John it's okay John you're still a young man even even though the uh medium age has has gone down quite quite a bit since uh we have a new uh very kind of you to say great thank you anyone else comments or questions no thank you I uh
044I'm excited that we're able to appoint someone so swiftly um especially with what we have before us um and certainly you know the first as you saw the other evening um you know a significant project um will have a significant impact on this community and and for the future of the community so um it's it's good to have uh someone in town who is uh invested in its future so thank you thank you okay anything else Brandy um so just first of all the whole comment about the age thing I got the same thing too so believe it or not I did too when I stepped on the board so um but uh so first of all welcome welcome to Ashland uh our zba is a it's a as as you probably um have seen
045it's it's going to be a really big this is this is going to be the most the The Mill Street uh the M the mill building project is going to be the most consequential um development project to hit Ashland as long as I've been here in Ashen for 19 years um and it's going to completely reshape how our downtown looks zba is um you know we we like to interview um candidates for for these regulatory boards because they're really important um so first of all just thank you so much for for wanting to be a part of this and you will learn so much um probably more than you ever wanted to know about some of this stuff um but but it it it should it it should be a very good exper experience and
046you're in good hands with John John is uh an amazing chair and he will he will um run this hearing very very very effectively so you're in good hands so thank you yeah I see it as a win-win and to be honest with you I when I reached out to join I had no idea there was a 40b project going on and I show up two weeks ago and might oh we're right in the middle of this huh yeah jumping right in yeah no I'm I'm looking forward to it he if there are no other questions or comment go ahead Makita hi Daniel um welcome to Ashland uh so uh I I I'll Echo everything that my colleagues have said so far but um I am relatively new to the select board myself so I
047have a question for you and possibly the chair of zba um you said that you have a background in commercial real estate um as we mentioned we've got some 40b coming up we've got a lot of projects town this is very uh intense work very important regulatory board here in town um do you foresee any sort of conflict of interests uh with your your professional uh going on or previous previous or current professional dealings and what you're proposing to uh do here uh on the zba for as yeah I definitely think that's a possibility that could come up in the future and that's I think something I would just bring to John's attention um if I felt if there's any possibility of it being a conflict of interest uh and then just kind of take
048it from there but just you know making him aware would be with any any position or any board someone yeah okay great thank you okay um if there are no other questions if I can have a motion to appoint Daniel May to the Zoning Board of an appeals as an associate member with a term that will expire on 831 2025 so moved second okay all those in favor I great Daniel you are now officially appointed to to the zba sure you can reach out to John and he'll get you up to speed though you were there at that first meeting so the one thing you do need to do before you attend your first meeting is stop in at the town clerk's office here at Town Hall and get sworn in because you can't vote
049or anything until you're sworn in as a member okay all right thank you nice meeting you all nice meeting you welcome to Ashland and we appreciate you volunteering thank you hey uh I'm still still not seeing anyone okay well we can move on that's fine okay so that meeting that hearing is paused so we are good to keep going we are going to move into uh the next item on our agenda old and new business uh vote to authorize the chair to execute and enter into a purchase and sale agreement deed conservation restriction any and all documents is necessary to effectual the acquisition of the property that consist of approximately 52 plus or minus Acres um in the registry of deed book we have Rob St Germaine Rob want you to come on up and
050take us through this and uh this is the property that we that the town allowed us approved to purchase so Rob why don't you to take this take us through this and we'll do what we need to do well thank you um thank you for the support you have been showing to this project um it's not an easy project to it's an interesting project it's a complex project but not necessarily an easy project um the land was conveyed in five aples to the to the current owner five in ashon that is and a number in Framingham and some of these aples go back to Colonial times so the title search was interesting the survey has been interesting um it was acquired by the church um and the church um changed its name in 2021 but
051neglected to file with the Secretary of State's office so right now we're in the middle of trying to clarify who we're buying it from so that is a work in process which will hopefully um be finished between now and next Friday which is the closer date um of course we have a grant we have a purchase of a CR from the SVT and we have the the funding uh that the town is putting in so that makes it interesting and to just make it a little more interesting uh Michael asked the SVT if they could come forward with the money uh way ahead of time and be used as part of the uh the close so that's why you have an additional purchase and sale agreement in front of you to uh to vote on
052and sign tonight um and then lastly the time frame um is fairly tight um so we have to quick come up with some signage we were able luckily um able to find a surveyor which um kept to the due date Miracle upon Miracles and delivered a plan on not on the 15th deadline but on the 13th thank you Jen for introducing me to GCC and um and today they delivered to Our Town Council um the myar so that the uh thing could be recorded in in advance so we we are moving along and making progress as you know it's a 52 plus almost 53 just under 53 acres of land it's beautiful property um you'll be voting on the acceptance of the deed as as yolander read in the motion um both ps's um and
053um and the request is that you that you sign uh completely both documents even though your motion is is to empower your Lander if one of you was not here at a certain time uh to sign on your behalf okay um so what else do I want to say um there are a couple of encroachment areas um there's an encroachment area behind the homes on Woodridge Lane um the home going to cut some trees down and and and buil some kids play structures uh once we own the property we will you know notify all of the ab but is actually that the town now owns the property and we will address these encroachments there's also a debris area and back of the last house in Ashton on Myrtle Street uh that needs to get cleaned
054up a lot of pipes back there some cable and things um so we're going to do a moderate clean we're not going to do any digging or anything like that in disturbance of the land just getting the junk out of there um and there is an old abandoned Road there and the question is who owns it that was outside the scope of of this immediate project so the surveyors uh did not come up with a definitive answer uh they weren't able to find anything that clearly jumped out so the town May own it or the town may not own it um but the boundary is the boundary and and if the if the road has indeed been abandoned then the boundary will extend at some point in time when we're able to resolve there Joe
055you look like you get a question I I do um is that on the uh dead end side of Winter Street yeah it's just beyond the Winter Street gate it's referred to as the old road to the Bigalow Paper Mill and at first we said oh no paper mill we got to look for chemical uh pollution in the soil it turns out that the Big L pipul was down at the end of Oak Street right and it was called Bigalow Paper Mill Road before it became Winter Street so this a better history lesson too okay thank you so that's an interesting aspect of it um the CR of course is an in perpetuity document and so um I drafted it along with Tony from the SVT um I CR conservation restri conservation restriction thank you
056for that you're welcome just clarify um I had some sympathy for the four fathers writing the constitution in terms of trying to anticipate all of the possible situations that we needed to have present in the document I really do believe in my heart that this is a very fair document Fair both to the holder of the CR and and the town very workable document uh the ashon toown forest approved it last week so they're comfortable with it with the exception that because of the grant restrictions uh there's no bicycle uh use on that property you know it's just the way life goes and um lastly I'd like to point out that um we have provided um in the CR for an ADA Trail uh that was one thing that that Karen spilker in her letter
057of recommendation to the grant office um mentioned and we were able to pursue it um it is the only place in the forest where the topography lends itself and at the end of this Trail is the caves so there's a historical attraction that would be on this so stay tuned for coming attractions if you will on that so um lastly the the town farest is going to have a bit of work with the cleanup we'll have a bridge to build we got some signs to erect uh a couple of the signs have to be up in order to get reimbursed they have to acknowledge the granter and the SVT but we'll we'll be taking care of that uh in the next 120 days um after the the closing so we're we're rolling and I'm here
058to answer any questions you have thank you questions or comments from [Music] [Laughter] anybody anybody have any questions on the document hopefully everyone had an opportunity to read through them they're very detailed good okay it's it's amazing the kind of I mean you step onto the select board and you go oh the documents that we get to read are so fun just one no no no no no okay just just as a quick question so when we were talking we kind of glossed over it but the funding mechanism for for this I think it's kind of important that we kind of talk about it because the SB Valley trustees is is um you know we're receiving a grant from them and we're also receiving a grant from the state um so the the parcel coming
059from the basically our contribution to this parcel is 700 what was the what was the final number 605 750 is the grant 6 okay 250,000 from the SVT um it leaves the town with about 550 of contribution toward the purchase there have been also some ancillary expenses uh in terms of uh the survey cost and there'll be closing costs and things like that no I think so just thank you it's been it's been all it the this project would have never happened without you Rob so at all and about that but thank you no no absolutely true so the fact that that we're able to secure almost 53 Acres of open space added on to the town forest for generations of people in Ashland to be able to enjoy is just phenomenal so it really
060can't be overstated really remarkable we will be having um every other week hikes in the springtime six or eight of them uh for the town and any of you who didn't manage to come on that cold wintry day so thank you great thank you rob thank you um so if I can get a motion to a vote to authorize me so we are signing the documents now but there as then the actual closing that I'll be attending on behalf so but we do need a motion to allow me to execute and enter into the purchase and sale and other documents that are required so I can get a motion moved and a second second okay those in favor I I so we'll sign some stuff tonight um and then I'll be at the closing to
061make sure if anything else needs to be signed I can do that on our behalf and Rob I would also just like to add my voice to saying thank you um you this was identified you identified a way for us to get grant funding to help pay for it and I think it it is going to be a very nice addition to Our Town Forest and believe it or not about a year or two ago I was speaking with someone and they're like Ashland has a Town Forest so those of you who are watching if you do not know go to Google Maps find Winter Street and you will see the how many acres right now is the a 700 acre Town Forest that is a gem uh thanks to the town Forest committee as
062well as multiple Boy Scouts and other groups our public works department who have done so many improvements to make this a true treasure for the town of ashy so thank you Jamie is on perfect so Jamie and John wonderful so we are now going to move back to our public hearing for the entertainment license for Ashlin Brewing if I can get a motion to unpause the hearing so moved second all those in favor I I great so John Andor Jamie go ahead tell us it it's John and I just want to interject on the Ashton Town Force I discovered that and it's one of my favorite places to go trail running uh I didn't know that was on the agenda so that's a nice surprise but it is like it is a beautiful place to
063go running I really enjoy it great great to hear as long as you don't get I know there's also bike riding and parts of it so I have run into that okay just be careful or they ran into or they ran into you wonderful so we you are here to talk to us about an entertainment license people are waited with stand you know baited breath for when you're going to open um go ahead and tell us what your plans are what you're looking for and we'll go from there yep so we uh sort of mixed juice entertainment uh comedy night probably roughly every four to six weeks uh music uh every week uh trivia night probably every week we're hoping to have um oh geez what are they open mic night geez open mic night
064uh once a month and things like that that just require um permit yep okay good uh questions from the board Joe thank you madam chair um I do have a quick question I noticed that you uh crushed out Sunday because it was Monday through Sunday uh 12:00 p.m. to 1 p.m. but apparently um someone had changed it to um no Sunday uh entertainment is that correct for Jamie yeah Sundays Sundays we don't typically have um anything going on so uh that that's been our experience in Hudson that's not to say that it won't change um in the future but okay and um where you're um open till 11:00 I would say your last call is at 10 10:30 yeah 10:30 uh you know okay we have the we tend to die down at like 8:30
065frankly um so it's last call 10:30 is pretty pretty reasonable at that point you're kind of looking around going like all right time to wrap things up okay and I also noticed that in the diagram that you provided us uh the music area um you have an outside music area and I'm I'm a little concerned with that because that's actually downtown um I don't know if we have any other establish ments that have Outside Music Entertainment uh available um there are residents that uh new apartments across the street from you folks at 128 main uh there are Apartments uh off of uh conet Street off of conquet Street uh right behind um sunyside Cafe there there are a group of apartments that are there uh and then we also have a 119 Main Street and
066during the summer months or nice months where music does travel a little bit further than than normal and especially where some people don't have AC they keep their windows open so I'm a little concerned about that that aspect with the outdoor entertainment so if you could try to convince me that uh your music is going to go you know too far before he tries to convince you Mai when they were open had outdoor entertain they had music on their patio Mazy okay that's 126 and okay but this I'm just saying you know currently we don't have anybody but we do have I understand but this also changes a little bit of the downtown character we've we've had um music at the corner spot right so I guess what time in the summer do we know
067like what was the latest that we had music they didn't have lighting so you know run till like 8 but yeah yeah but there there they stand till 11: so is the entertainment going to be till 11 I'm I'm a little concern about that I would say no but I mean that's most of the time our entertainment stops at 9: uh has it run till 10: like yes it has uh but typically that's indoors in Hudson are pretty cognizant of our neighbors it's a similar situation we have 500 condos that share a parking lot with us um we've had zero complaints from them and we have single family houses that share a parking lot with us there and again complaints from them uh so it's just a matter of being respectful for your to your
068neighbors and letting them know if you have something going on that's out of the ordinary but ordinary for us is you know we're talking like two guys with a guitar um not not a full band in the stage or anything like that I don't know how you put acoustical that are you suggesting it'll be acoustic uh music and not electric uh I mean I don't know it's tough for me to forecast out you know five years but uh generally speaking when you think about what we've experienced is it's usually one to two people and they might bring something that has an amplifier something along that line to play but it's not like a concert venue or anything like that you're looking at background music um frankly and I appreciate that I just don't want to
069have a situation develop uh where we had a previous uh restaurant in town uh in Ashland Square uh where they had entertainment and they had bands playing there uh and they were inside they weren't outside but the music traveled so far that residents on Metropolitan a were complaining that they weren't able to get sleep because they're you know they were playing up until 11 o'clock so that's a concern because I don't want to have that repeat itself well my yeah I mean I can't oh sorry go ahead no that's okay my reaction would be let's give them you know let's give the entertainment license and and my feeling is let's see what happens because of where it is where I mean they're in downtown yes there is some residents around them but we don't know
070exactly and I don't want to restrict right now to just acoustic music because that's very specific I mean but that's my feeling so we we can discuss it as a board that's fine okay that's fine okay other Makita yes hi um just a point of clarification on the application and the materials that were uh provided so the says that like no Sunday entertainment but then there's an email that follows and says no Sunday music so I just want to get an idea of like what is what does that mean does that mean there's no entertainment on Sundays or there's no music on Sundays because entertainment could be and what what do we mean by music like no live bands so just a little clarification on that just and I took a quick look at the
071materials but it's not clear what that what the intent of that um no Sunday entertainment line on the applications uh I guess in that regard we're sort of a classic uh New England Puritans where Sunday is a day of rest uh we really don't typically do much on Sundays and it's it is like families friends hang out kind of day you know uh and we really have not done anything on Sundays and it's been a good vibe um you know background music nice weather that type of thing really yeah um yeah it's a fair question okay anything else Makita no thanks for the clarification so I'm just going to take that as like no entertainment no comedy no nothing music no yeah Sunday is kind of relaxed day like anybody who's come in it's kind
072of go sit and have a drink yeah and just relax all right thanks for the clarification appreciate it Claudia yeah yeah I'm just curious how similar um is this to your Hudson establishment in which regards in terms of um the types of entertainment the types of food are there many similarities or none at all because it seems you know like some of these things are you're a little bit uncertain about so I feel like maybe you haven't had don't have a history of some of these in Hudson but I'm not sure uh which things do I seem uncertain about um in terms of what the entertainment looks like what times it might end well no I mean these are all things we do in Hudson but it is there's variability in there like have we
073had a band that was scheduled to 9:30 play till 10:30 yeah because we've had you know 100 people in there having a good time asking for an encore so it's kind of like there's times you have to close you know what you're permitted to do but you know if you're asking very specific questions if we're going to close end everything at nine o'clock I you know I I don't know that for certain because will end when you tell me that so is it similar is it a similar type of venue as to the Hudson one in terms of what you do yeah yeah the I mean the we laid out the so uh from a practical standpoint just operationally we laid out the bar the same way so that way bartenders would have to go
074bartenders who are going from one place to the other would experience the same thing on their end and deliver the same service the square footage of the serving area uh in Ashland is about I think it's like 150 square F feet smaller uh but everything else is structured the same and we don't intend to do too much different uh nothing's the same 100% we can do slightly bigger things because we have a larger parking lot in Hudson but we intend to run them fairly similar okay and so are there is there anything that from your Hudson experience that you learned that you're kind of has helped you make some decisions here or that's a good question I mean uh I'm sure you know not there's definitely things that were um yeah we intend to do
075bigger events in Hudson uh frankly like we intend to treat Ashlin more as a uh a smaller Tap Room uh so in Hudson we have an 80 person 80 spot parking lot and the whole facility there is 5,000 squ F feet so on just an operational basis week to week month-to month you know we have some fair Fairly large scale events that we're going to do out of the Hudson location uh we're doing a a boxing tournament we're doing outdoor wrestling we're doing a food truck festival uh and we really do well when we do those big events and we we're putting more emphasis on doing those out of Hudson and then treating Ash more as the day-to-day uh uh smaller scale stuff we just don't have the parking or square footage to do anything
076like huge right all right I I you know I very much want see you succeed here um I think it's going to be a great space for our residents um and I I want it to be successful so I I just want you to you know um some of Joe's concerns I just want you to think carefully and and and maybe um step slowly in the in the early in the beginning to see you know so you don't get into a a problem where you have everybody all up in arms um yeah so we have an event we have an event schedule for Hudson for the year uh and we have not done that there so we could live in the space and find out what it's like uh I mean we have some small
077scale stuff planned have comedy nights and stuff like that um but nothing I'd like to do larger events there and I'd like to you know work with our neighbors to make sure that happens but until you're there you you know we just don't know what we don't know so I agree thank you Brandy questions no I I'm um we're just like Yolanda said we're we're looking forward to having you guys open and and uh you know officially cutting the ribbon and and welcoming yeah do you do you have a can we put you can we put you on on the spot and say when do you think it's going to be open no I've been saying uh I've been saying two to three weeks for about four months so know it doesn't feel great it
078doesn't feel I could be dying a by now but yeah yeah we keep diligently plotting away there's not too much on the construction side that's left for us um you know the furniture we ran into some unexpected Furniture hiccups but we got new chairs in tables are in so we're we're close we're close and excited uh the community has been incredibly supportive uh you know and I share thir everybody's frustration yeah for sure nobody's more frustrated than we've been waiting um I know I know it's uh but we're we're everybody's been great and I appreciate the town it really has been wonderful um across the board so thank you so much good okay if there is anyone either in person or online who wants to either speak in support of or against this project Mark
079yes both both sides quickly on and for can Mark St 119 Main Street I was against it because I wanted that that fire station to be more of a senior helper than a senior drug drug druger so I'm taking that opinion back this with the entertain music when I'm four I live at 119 right next door right up past the Y police station I got the window next to that looks overlooks it I do always like free [Laughter] entertainment I also know that when the when we had a Saturday weekend open shop open business that everybody was crowling around listening to the music at the edge of the sidewalk I was up in the window saying yes I can save my radio electricity so I'm I'm I'm saying I'm on the fans about the whole
080business but I like the entertainment and it's worth the time to say variety and if you can hit the 6070 80s you be all set thank you thank you thank you for that input Mark any I'm not seeing any any other hands online any other comments or deliberation from the board regarding this Joe and looking at the design um will you be opening up the garage doors at some point oh God I hope so well if you do then you probably won't need to have the outside entertainment because if you have the garage doors open IM mus uh yeah there's some V flexibility and variability in there so um again that's going to come as a function of living in the space yeah uh I I initially I I initially would have disagreed with you
081but uh so where we're putting the music with the three garage doors open I kind I think that will be a great Vibe if there's music in The Tap Room going out into the front and with the with the fire pits out there will'll be really uh uh it'll be really great hopefully and so I you I suspect you're right but you know I don't want to box myself into a space that I don't know yet you may want to try it first see if it works yeah oh we're going to yeah yeah okay I agree yeah all right any other deliberation if not if I can have a motion to close the public hearing second second all those in favor of closing the public hearing I and the public hearing is closed if I
082can have a motion to approve the entertainment license for Clover Road brewing for Mondays through Saturdays from noon to 11 p.m. second have a motion in a second all those in favor I great thank you you have your entertainment license good luck thank you I appreciate it we we look forward to when it opens uh it's been nice seeing the progress from the outside it'll be nice to see the progress on the inside side and get it there as soon as possible well I hope um I hope everybody is see in a few happy thank you thank you Jamie take care okay wonderful so we passed those we're in old to new business uh the next item is to open the May 7th 2025 town meeting warrant which is still hard for me to believe
083that we have to do that uh Jen I believe this is you okay so we are opening it a little bit early um and what that will allow us to do um is to provide some time between when people have to notify our office that they have uh intent to submit an article actually build out the warrant so will give us uh several meetings to go over the warrant which I think helpful um and also just to make sure that um warrant is organized um so what I'm hoping um is that we able to close and post the warrant um on April 2nd which would be really early I mean we tried to we always try to do it um at least before the annual we're required to do it seven days before and so
084there is a typo the packet earlier um the no later date is April 30th correction hope is that we can oppose it a full month that we enough time to work the and further um and just to clarify we can vote to close and post the warrant even while the public hearings are happening for potential warrant items yes especially for the bylaws so obviously I need the language so if there is a zoning bylaw I need the exact Lang anguage um before we close it um but they can hold a hearing any other questions or comments regarding this if I can have a motion to uh open the May 7th town meeting warrant second all those in favor I and we can go ahead and start that okay next is discuss a potential tri board
085meeting we have been talking about this for a while um and it's amazing how difficult it is to get a meeting going uh Michael has the last we all received an email about potentially doing one on Thursday February 13th um sometime early evening later in the day uh and I think you were saying that even that's causing problem yeah it's not looking like that's going to work out after getting some feedback look again and and Michael and I had a conversation I think it's important that we do a tri board meeting I think last year we closed our budget Gap with some one-time funds um and I don't think we want to I mean we may we may need to do that again this year but not without a more thorough discussion between school committee
086finance committee and select board so that's why we're really trying to get this meeting going um I'm going to maybe ask Susan um if we can send out some dates that work for all of us and we're going to keep working to get this as soon as possible because the longer we wait the shorter our discussion time and we know to have a budget by may we potentially this point unfortunately yeah and I don't want people to think it's like a like a one one meeting thing I mean we are going to talk about 26 but you know we'll have limited options in terms of how we address I think you know the other thing that we do need to talk about is also 27 and Beyond you know the problem's difficult it's not complex
087there's more expenses than there is revenue so um you know like I said it's it's it's it's uh not complex but it's it's definitely hard um so there's just going to be some choices that need to be made uh ultimately by the boards and committees U then most likely it's probably going to be up to the voters what's your timeline I know you usually do your budget Workshop um What's the timing on that like when are you feeling like you're going to have all your yeah so um uh so all the Departments got their budgets in Us by the 20th UHC so um Britney sent to me today just kind of the first overview draft after she's pluged everything it's not pretty uh but I do anticipate either uh I I would say probably at
088some point in February we will have like that meeting on Friday where like just come here from department heads and requests are here overall spiel about that and then we haven't um I don't think we've set a date with fincom for their hearing that'll probably be so should we try to have a tri board meeting for that hearing definitely oh um yeah before we before we hear from the boards and the the not the boards and committees but the um the fincom the fincom yeah I think so no no usually so before we've had the fincom hearing usually late January sometime no so we so the Departments had their um budgets in to us for 20 for the 20th 20th so that that's what we have so far in terms of the okay we were
089originally hoping for that that first Fe Saturday in February then that you know some not everyone was available for that and then we looked at you know so it's getting tight I I I the other thing is I think we need to pick a date or two that says if the majority of members can be there from the three boards then we need to have the meeting I think that's going to be the next thing um I know there's a couple of school committee members that are gone for all of February I mean I um so I mean what what's the feel from people would you prefer an evening or would you prefer a Saturday morning Claudia Joe when are you gone Joe Randy Saturday morning it's probably better it it's I think it's just
090um I think it I think it's going to be nearly impossible to get everybody everybody agree so um I know the school committee is having their second budget workshop on the 25th um I know that there was talk about like you know trying to to do a a tri board meeting after that I know Yolanda's at MMA is there other people at MMA are you guys going yeah I'll I'll be at MMA you'll be at MMA too okay so um I know the school committees will all be obviously I mean I would suggest if there are people who can go and sit and listen to the school school budget discussion because from what I'm hearing they're having a large ask this year it would be good to understand that um but for me I really
091I'm I'm not willing to not be at a tri board meeting for finances so I think it's something that I pushed for a lot so I do want to be there so having it that Saturday and if Michael's not a you know Michael's at MMA as well is it sat when did you say it um the 2 Saturday the 25th January 25th so a week from Saturday y I think I don't know I don't have the time um my guess is probably 9:00 but I can I can check no no no for the the school committee budget Workshop I can I can find that out and send that out so it sounds like we're kind of up against it right now like Saturday's probably not gonna be a thing because like didn't you mentioned that
092um a lot of folks on school committee just aren't going to be around in February I don't think a lot of people but I know when we were looking at either the February we were looking at February 2nd and we could do there was that was a possibility but then one or two people from school committee weren't going to be there for February 2nd yeah that's a Sunday right is no no pretty sure the second is a Saturday I thought the first was a Saturday or maybe the first yeah um you know the other thing is if we think that the February 1 would work yes you're right February 1 is the Saturday um I mean yeah just just know if if we are going to focus our discussion the 26 budget just as opposed
093to just kind of finances in general direction where you go so there's still going to be a lot of information that's outstanding you know if we meet in February so um I don't know we should have I would hope that we'd have the governor's budget by that point yeah she has to do it I think she has to do it typically it's done before MMA right I think they're expecting it like the 20th of January is when the governor budget number out so there would be that and then a little bit more Fidelity on the GIC even though we got some preliminary guidance Kei Tech they probably they they won't have their number for a while so yeah um yeah probably I just think that the longer you know and as you and you had
094said Michael and you and I chatted it's going to be a multiple meeting it's not going to be a one meeting discussion and then we resolve everything I think the first meeting is going to be information gathering seeing where things are at seeing what the needs are and then a discussion of how are we going to meet these needs financially would like a a late Friday afternoon like the 31st or something would that be something that we could look at maybe maybe like two on or something two to whatever how long we want to go but yeah I think it has to be run by Jim first of all Mike and Jim have to review it and then send it out to all the boards start talking 17 people who have to which is why
095part of me is thinking that if we can't if we can at least get the majority of those 17 people we have to pick that and just do it I mean I think certainly you know Jim and and Michael three of the school committee members right represent the school committee quite well right right probably be Jim and Mike so right do we want to could we go back to the first of of [Music] February that Saturday I'm okay to look at that I thought Jim couldn't make Jim was gone as of the second was my understanding he was gone from the 2 to the 9th I'm I'm happy look at that let's February 1 that's Saturday because you don't you're still here and let's toss that back to them and finance and school committee and
096it's you know this is the first step in the conversation knowing that we you know we won't have 100% of the information but we should have more of the information especially because it'll be after the second budget workshop for the schools so they should be in a better position yeah they should know what's yeah what's what okay makes sense so we'll start with February 1 and then go from there okay great thank you you all uh next item something that Joe asked us to discuss discuss nips and the best way to mitigate litter uh Susan was kind enough to give us a list of communities that have banned um band nips when it went into effect and um some of the background on them and then Joe what are what are you thinking well we
097did have um a resident come in to and meet with us twice and um who was quite concerned about the fact that um he patrols or he Poli um Route 135 and he was nice enough to bring in three three large trash bags full of nips that he's picked up along the Route on 135 and that's just just that's just him we've had we've experienced nip uh dispersals all over all over town kid spot the Pavilion next to it um it's it's not an appropriate location for kids to be playing and you know picking up these plastic bottles and throw throwing them around and and whatever they may do with them and you know parents came to us uh while we were at the Pavilion and as you know is there something we can do
098with this this is this is crazy you know they're throwing the they throwing the knck bottles into the defense in area and the unfortunate thing is there are four trash barrels along the walkway I mean if they're that lazy they can't throw them in know maybe they're intoxicated that they don't even know that those are receptacles but I mean is there something we can talk to the uh the liquor establishments in town that sell these items you know because I'm not trying to take away their revenue sources in any way shape or form that's not it but at the same token uh they're they're providing the opportunity for these uh nips to be thrown Here There and Everywhere uh once they leave the store so maybe they put a 5cent you know recycling uh thing
099on them I don't know if that that's possible or not I I believe some other towns have done that that uh have banned them uh so I just I just I I just just want to bring it up for discussion right now and and just lay some Foundation to see that you know maybe sit down and talk individually with the uh the Licor store establishments and and get their opinion as to how they can help us resolve this problem so I don't know how you folks feel about that but I mean it com concerns or or how you want to move forward with this I mean Joe I just I I share your concern I mean I think that those of us and I think a lot most of us here volunteered for green up
100Ashland and you know picking up these things they're they're they're a menace I mean you know they're everywhere uh the question is what's the best what's the best from a policy perspective what's the best way for us to to handle that I think this does warrant some investigation and um I think this list of towns that have have banned the nips is a good good list we should find out you know we should find out how things are going in those municipalities like did it really reduce the waight the the the nips waste did it not um I know that I think New Bedford tried to get abandoned effect and think that got caught up in the courts or whatever like to find out like why why why and how they got challenged so I
101we've had a few residents you know talk about this Stu so I think it's something we should investigate and try to figure out what can be done about it Claudia or brandy or yeah I mean it you know certainly it it was uh little eye opening to when that gentleman came in with the number of nips and that he's collected um it's interesting to me to try to think about you know who's drinking nips and who's throwing nips and that that might be something to kind of explore a little bit for at least I'm sure that our liquor EST establishment owners have a sense of who those who that is um and that might help us figure out how to approach it right I mean is it kids getting their hands on nips uh I
102don't know it would seem to me it would be diff challenging is it someone that you know wants to just get a little quick drink I don't know probably but then maybe our establishments could offer them something to bring the nip the empty nip back I don't know but I think it'd be worth talking to some of the establish I mean um I I seem to remember that they were doing something on the state level with this too right that because I the the issue is you know we like I live so close to the Framingham line that it wouldn't matter so you know you think about it I feel like it we need to work more regionally with this I don't know I feel like I feel like a one-town solution is not necessarily
103going to make as big of an impact like I'm looking at this list of all these um all not that many but most of them are on the cape like so more of them I mean Newton's one of them they're not on the cape but but uh but I I think to your point Brandy like that's what that's the kind of like investigation that we have to do and I do recall uh hearing something about being done at the state level like I don't even I'm not very well versed in this issue I mean what if there's a deposit you know policy you could put with nips because you know on nips that would if not prevent the litter it might actually encourage more people to pick them up and and take care of them
104I don't know again like I agree with you we have to look at any and all policy angles strategies around this from a policy standpoint to figure out what can be done find out about I mean it's on the internet so so I know we I mean we've this has been an issue on and off since you know since I've been on the board and certainly as a community we've been dealing with this um and true when you when you go through and do Greenup jhin there's certainly I mean I was walking the other day and I found at least you know I saw three I didn't have anything with me so I couldn't pick them up um what I would you know it sounds like if if we want to talk to the establishments
105in town see who they're selling the nips to maybe they can give us an insight into who who is buying these um and I can work regionally we have a uh Metro West Regional collaborative meeting coming up at the end of January I can ask the question uh beforehand sort of get it out there what are people doing about nips are they seeing similar things uh my other concern similar to Brandy is we're close to Framingham we're close to hopkington right so especially on 135 it could be someone they've picked up their nip in Framingham they're driving through they're going someplace they have their nip and they throw it out the window or the other way from hackington so from a perspective of our businesses I wouldn't want to take their business away if if
106it's not going to make a change so I guess the other thing would be is talk to these you know I mean it's seven communities out of 300 151 that have this in place right the other ones that are on here they tried but it didn't pass so it's a very teeny percentage of people who have done this that I'm not saying we shouldn't try but I would I would look to have more data and information um to move forward with anything so I I just I I have no problem you know sitting down and and speaking with all the the establishments in town you you folks all have you know jobs you know I have I have a lot of time on my hands you know so I'd be more than happy to sit
107down with with all of them and explain to them the issues that we uh are dealing with uh residents have have Express concerns and I'm not happy with it and uh see what they would uh recommend sure and follow up on their recommendations and and and and you're right it's a very small portion but that doesn't mean it's not right you mean it's it's incredible you you walk around clean up as how much how much trash over the years have you seen uh a diminished amount of trash that you folks are picking up on a yearly basis has it gone down over the years because people are more attuned to you know littering and you know Greening up the the the area and and trying to stay green and trying trying to keep the environment
108you know clean you know I littering has been an issue for for years I mean I can't remember the commercials with the uh right okay so it's for years The Owl and whatever so C can can I just say before we close this out um first start talking about vintage PSAs um go for it but um no um I think this does provide an opportunity for us to take a look at the overall problem of littering in this town um so I I live on a main thoroughfare and you know yes people drive through town they throw their Starbucks or they throw their I don't want to single out any businesses but they throw their waste like or their dunkeys or whatever I had to throw that in they just to even things out but
109um you know they throw their stuff around you know what are we doing from a proactive standpoint to try to prevent littering in our community and regionally generally because I have noticed that there's a little bit of an increase over the past few years in that so perhaps this ni nips issue will lead us into some other Solutions yeah exactly to address this overall problem Ling overall yeah yeah you know the other thing that I actually noticed this week was um and I look like people's recycling but coming down Pleasant Street it was so windy and people's trash was blowing all over the place and I was thinking because I've cleaned Pleasant Street and but oh damn this place is going to be loaded yeah yeah so I think people have to be conscientious about
110their absolutely Recycling and maybe they don't recycle that week if if it's really windy or something I don't know but it it C I don't know again it's a it's a broader broader scope well thank you for allowing oh no discuss these types of discussions they have to get started and brought out so um I would say you know do some let's get some research done whoever wants to do what they can and then when we have some further information bring it back let us know and we can put it on a on a future agenda perfect thank you you're welcome okay next is discuss board's concern to be discussed at the legislative meeting scheduled for January 17th so um once a quarter uh Brandy and myself and Michael uh meet with the Le with
111Jack Lewis our our state rep as well as someone from Karen spilka's office to to sort of discuss what we're dealing with to hear from them um stuff that is going on at the state level and the question the con conversation here tonight is do you have any questions or concerns that you would like us to relay to our legislative team well we that you haven't done already we just disc that could be we could certainly bring that yep okay anything else nips and littering that's uh generally okay um I know you're going to talk about the 40 BS and right just housing in general I I did meet with Jack this week and um we had a good conversation and actually to some of Mark's questions about the MBTA You Know Jack did point
112out that it was the way that law was written was to allow communities to take advantage of what they'd already done which as did a very good job of um wait but I know was the insinuation that that was done intentionally on the state's part yeah listen yeah no I let him I gave him that I gave him that I know oh you're too kind I know wow I this is that's kind of um you know water under the bridge and I said well Jack to myself can't wait to see him on Friday no I I yeah okay I had too much to say about the 40 B thing so I kind of let that one go but I I understood that I understood in part because of the way he jumped in so quickly
113on it right so even if I hadn't known um I knew that he was a little self little self-defense there yeah he took a very defensive anything else or and if you're not sure now shoot shoot me an email or shoot Brandy an email and we can bring it up at the at the meeting on Friday I mean I just can't say enough about the whole the whole 40b thing and the whole process and how um you know powerless people are in the local front it doesn't matter what a community has done what it hasn't done um what there's only it's it's it's to me it's just an example of what drives is driving people um away from being more Progressive and forcing them to some very crazy things in terms of who they might
114vote for um because you know it's just an example of of you know it just it doesn't even do what it's supposed to do well and and it changes the quality of life it it's not I'm not against building housing and providing housing for the workforce and for um you know it I'm not against that at all but when it's going to impact a community the way this 40b at Main Street is going to impact this community and change the quality of life that's what I'm against oh just just a kind of a a different angle on the affordable housing front I would be curious to hear from our uh Beacon Hill friends about what what if any sort of real policy discussions um that folks have had around really looking at a actual affordable
115housing uh in the region um you know we talk about the 40b process and you know the formulas as we know I mean that at the end of the day that doesn't seem very affordable I'm just curious to find out what other Mis what other what other sort of things municipalities have been doing around this issue to provide truly affordable housing for for residents and you know I'm just from a regional standpoint very curious find out about those Sol I can tell you as part of our regional collaborative we've we've had many conversations about affordable housing and and meeting that 10% and how can we potentially work together regionally to meet that uh and there U many communities are dealing with similar issues not too many have had 40 BS but you know look at
116Framingham right they built that that building downtown that took over the fabric price right they have that housing right in their right on 126 they have the other housing that's on 13 five right right in their downtown so they it's it's it doesn't impact them quite in the same way different I understand I understand but I I think many communities are dealing with this unfortunately what I have been hearing is that some communities have their 10% and they're they're okay um I've heard rumors that this the legislature could and Senate potentially looking at increasing the perent percentage of affordable housing communities may need to have I've heard that too but again I would like to see more work or discussion or some sort of uh understanding of when we talking about affordable housing like you
117know the formuls that we use are not obviously you know you look at the the pricing oh yeah it's it's just not affordable right so I'm just curious what's going on in Beacon Hill if someone's if there are actual conversations or if there's any kind of legislation that's addressing that right now I think they're right now they're just pushing housing and any housing yeah that's very right they need more housing one thing that should be a little bit different in this scenario too is that the pandemic impacted what our community was was going to be doing in terms of providing affordable housing it it directly had an impact and so to just ignore that never mind all the additional units that have been built in this community in the last 10 12 years is just
118not right and go ahead let them go for 15% and none of them will be reelected because I don't think I'm the only person in this state that feels this way oh no no no no you're not there's there's quite a few that feel the same way and and if I could add if you're going to speak with the legislative uh Representatives I would suggest that if they're going to do anything with respect to the 40b that they add to the to the the 40b criteria that not just 80% a percentile why don't they start it at 60% Ami because that makes it a little bit more affordable if that's what people if you know they cry affordability then make it 60% put that in writing and make it part of the 40b formula none
119of this 80% crap because it it's nuts Ashland's Ami is $125,000 come on I mean we are we're pulled with brain tree Cambridge Welsley where did that come from it came from the insurance company that pulled us all together with that group so our Ami went up with them we're not anywhere near that well I I I I I'm G to I'm going to push back a little I think our Ami is high right you look at the types of Housing and the type of people and the the workforce that is currently living in Ashland and our Ami is pretty high I think what it is is is the gap AAP we have a we have a very we have very wide range so I mean so if it's even higher right if RMI is
120120 right and we know what some of our the lower income is making we know that it's a very broad range unfortunately because they take that that median income it's but I would like to see it at least 60% of yeah yeah 60% whatever so um just to just to continue makita's Point too I think so I went to this 495 partnership um event on on on housing and my struggle with it is like it it's a lot of policy advocacy but it's not a whole lot of like nuts and bolts on how to get the stuff done it's a lot of talk it's a lot of talk exactly um but one of the things that was really interesting and I have it in my notes and I haven't had a chance to look through
121it but I think maybe we discuss it with with um you know on Friday is that there's two billion dollarars that the State put aside in an affordable homes act and I don't know what that implementation looks like because how can communities start accessing those funds to be able to do more affordable housing you know maybe we could do something where if we had access to it we you know I mean we've talked about I know it's kind of down the road further but we've talked about you know these small h homes on Olive Street that we've wanted to that would be affordable housing we've we know we have a habitat house coming we know that we've got these bigger projects that we'd love to be able to give more like you know lower that
122Ami to 60% so maybe there's a way we can tap into some of that money I don't know I I haven't had so they didn't talk about the plan yet as to how they're dispersing that no they just talked about how there's oh well there's you know this housing Bond bill that you know there's but but I wrote in my notes two billion in affordable housing like that's what I this this is this is this is the kind of solutioning I'm look I'm looking for solutioning here you know so I mean these are the sort of questions so I yeah I mean if we could get get some sort of answers out of our folks around that that would be great and like anything else that's coming down the pike that we're not aware of
123that you know that might help okay great that input next discuss the zba public hearing on 10 to 60 Main Street the sanctuary at Ashland Mills um I believe three of us were sitting there in the audience Joe I saw you on Zoom Makita you said you watched it on yeah okay um let's start with Claudia's comment of um let's go through a timeline of what Michael and we have John here as well from the zba maybe we can include him in this discussion when we're looking at this process for the public and I know John talked about some of this at the zba meeting what are we looking at as a timeline and what can the public expect in regards to this process we talked about it has to be completed in 180 days
124but what does that really mean if you can answer that or we can ask John to so yeah so 180 days you have to close the hearing within 180 days and then I believe the decision has to be rendered within 40 days after that now um that date can be extended by agreement both parties 40 days after after that's closed sorry I I'll speak up a little bit um but yes so you know 40 days after the hearing's closed to issue a decision unless so and the hearing period is 180 days unless both parties agree to extend it which um I don't think um that's ever been an issue here before I think when we've needed to extend it uh you know there's the applicant has been willing to do that um that being said
125we haven't dealt with this developer before so might have a different philosophy um and so and John please correct me if I'm wrong on any of this so uh I do believe right now that zba is planning on having um one meeting a month devoted to this and each meeting is going going to be devoted to a certain subject area and the first one is going to be traffic so um and the way the process is working is so our peer reviewers uh the zba when they had their hearing the other night approved the peer reviewers for the project um and so they're reviewing the applicants materials um and they will provide their own reports to that so um the peer reviewer will provide a report to zba and other interested parties prior to the
126next zba meeting um and at that zba meeting the discussion will be based on or focused on traffic what the peer reviewer found and basically if there's any adjustments that need to be made if there's any more information that needs to be collected Etc that'll be discussed yes believe so yeah they they did the other night John anything you'd like to add or comment or do that um no I think Michael summarized it very very well um in the past the one where the large 40b project that I was involved in on the board was the Valentine estate project and that went on for I think the better part of two years uh many many of the continuances were at the request of the developer because they didn't have certain plans ready Etc um I
127think that if we do need to have extensions of time I would anticipate that uh the developer would would agree to that um they were kind enough to agree to extend the time in which we had to open the hearing uh because uh if they had not we would have had to have opened it a few days before Christmas um and they agreed to extend it there was a written uh agreement to extend it signed by both the town and uh the developer and filed with the uh town clerk um so unless things get quite contentious um I would anticipate their cooperation if extensions of time are needed uh and at this point it's I think too early uh in the game to know whether we would have to do extend time or not uh
128but we've got a a pro process sort of set up of doing one area of sort of expertise at a time traffic will be at our next meeting in uh second week in February uh and going after that we have water and sewer at some point we have our Civ engineer peer review coming up um there may be an issue with the conservation issues and what the developer is requesting waivers of um so you know we're at the beginning of what will be a multimon process at the least so I just have a couple of questions um so you know one thing I had some questions and comments after the um meeting the other evening that I had forwarded um to a few people and so um will some of them were around traffic will
129those questions be responded to at this traffic Focus meeting say that again um I certainly think I would expect that they would be addressed at some point um I would anticipate the developers traffic engineer who made a a presentation at the meeting last week um will'll address some of those issues um I'm sure those issues have been brought to the attention of our peer reviewer to address um and we will get you know answers or we will go back and ask for for more information and more answers and what kinds of things um Drive extensions in in this process well I mean again just based on my my past experience um it could be that new plans have to be drawn up and for whatever reason um they weren't able to be obtained um there
130may need to be a new study or something done uh that couldn't be couldn't be done within the month a gap between um hearing dates uh you know basically that it could be the unavailability of somebody if they were scheduled to be the prime witness as it were at the hearing but for some reason suddenly became unavailable it may need to continue the hearing um it could be any number of things and in terms of the the the intersection um and the impact the current plan the way it you doesn't it really is very similar to the way traffic enters and exits the current site except now we're talking about many more vehicles um so what I mean what sort of um position are we in in terms of trying to force some changes to
131be made with that intersection do we have any stand legal standing in terms of that or you know I'm I'm uncomfortable in going into specifics because the okay the zba sort of acts as a a quas Judicial body in this and any comments I make should really be within the confines of a meeting uh but you know ultimately the the zba can make a decision we can make place we can deny the project outright legally um whether that would be upheld or not is a totally different issue uh on appeal um we can allow the project but Place conditions on the project um so there are you know things that can be can be done within our somewhat limited um Powers uh on this I mean one thing we've always been told by uh council
132is that the um as you were talking about the you know affordable housing and what not of the need for it and uh in the Commonwealth that the agency that oversees this the housing agency um is designed to encourage the building of housing in Massachusetts and that's there that's what they're in line to do so that that when they're consider ing an appeal if there's an appeal Say by a developer or even if there's an appeal by by the town their mindset is to support housing understood okay any other questions or comments regarding this process I would say you know all be as as involved as we can I know I took some notes not just regarding traffic because that's the first thing that they're going to be doing that um I'm going to see
133what we could do about that one thing that I found interesting was supposedly in their traffic study they mentioned that the timing of the lighting the lights in downtown could be different and that could potentially improve track traffic flow I mean is that something we could take a look I mean you know is it something that we should be looking at is there something with our traffic lights that you know not necessarily related to this project but just in general the traffic lights that are that are functioning right now are related to the train traffic that come through town on a daily basis so we're we are receiving more train traffic which causes those delays there's nothing wrong with the cycling of the lights right now okay actually it works better thank you yeah thank
134you and and that's some of the matters that we are going to bring up at so I'm Wonder Tuesday you know the other question I had was when did they do their traffic study because I think that is so I had same questions it needs to be done during school session it needs to be done Tuesday Wednesday Thursday which are higher traffic days and the other thing that I thought was kind of a glaring thing was that they really there was not much conversation regarding Pleasant Street which I mean the focus was how many vehicles are going out of town via Myrtle Street and that's a lower impact area than going through town um towards hollison so but what about all the traffic that's on Pleasant Street yeah and I did ask that question and
135there there was very minimal response and I also asked there was no response I just made comments and they didn't respond yeah I don't think they were answering stuff because the next meeting is traffic so yeah okay any other um again I think you know we're all very in tune to this I say we continue that if you have questions or concerns let's um you know work work to support our zba okay thank you John John thank you for being here any other thoughts you want to share with us or tell us to keep our notes out I'm just you know I I think all of us on the zba appreciate the uh the attention that the select board is given to this matter and your encouragement it was it was encouraging to have three
136people in person and one person on Zoom uh on a time when you know scheduling is not always easy uh for people and uh you know I would encourage each of you as Citizens send in written comments certainly you can speak at the meetings but written comments submitted to Peter magic they go into the record and it considered by the board um as far as dates or traffic studies and that were done um one of the items online is the rather lengthy traffic study done by the applicants traffic engineer uh and they list they have page after page after page of traffic study documentation and they're dated so that that would be the date of yeah I mean I year years ago um when I was not on the board uh but there was a
137neighborhood project that I was U opposing um the developer presented a traffic study uh and the engineer conducted the study on it was a traffic study of on Pawn Street the engineer conducted the traffic study on uh school vacation week and during two days where we had about five or six inches of snow so that that is something to uh to look at pay attention to statistics either way great well again John thank you very much thank you very much thanks John good luck and thank you for being the chair of our zba and moving this process through thank you byebye bye okay great um moving forward update on the board and committee review process Makita want you start and then oh uh let's see uh we we had a we I can't remember the
138date of the previous meeting but we had a meeting with was December 7th um so we we ended up meeting with a committee chairs to talk through some of the current um their current processes uh for appointment selection and and such uh we had a good discussion about that and also about the committee handbook that we're definitely going to have to make some updates to right now we're sort of as I put it in the period of Discovery trying to just uh make sure that we understand the current process before we start making recommendations about uh going forward with a a different process I I think we we're trying to get another meeting uh uh scheduled pretty soon um I think we heard so our our next meeting we're going to try and um so
139be M and I with Susan yeah so to get her perspective so Susan uh Sue you've uh been uh definitely you've been you've been very consistent and um uh you know uh on this process and I we're just very curious to find out like how how this is working from your standpoint how it's not working what you've seen um again just to get an idea of like what that the what is actually happening during the current process before we can even go on and and start talking about process Improvement so like I said we're in Discovery right now so uh that's what we'll be doing at our next meeting and it was I feel a very fruitful discussion with the chairs and some weren't chairs but they were asked to go by their committees as
140to how they're doing things so was very informative great Habitat for Humanity project at 487 Main Street local Initiative Program has been approved we received the letter so uh that's great they'll be getting to move forward on that uh and that is the parcel the empty little empty lot as you head up Main Street AC almost across from the entrance to Kitty Fen wall so it's great um habitat from Human for Humanity is a great organization and it'll be nice to see that coming through okay next are just a few reminders for everybody so reminder the winter parking ban is in place no on street parking from 2: am. to 6:00 a. November 1st through March 31st another reminder drop off recycling will take place on Saturday February 1st 2025 at the DPW 20 Ponderosa
141Road from 9:00 a.m. to noon and that's for oil Mercury and oilbased paint nikad batteries fluorescent tubes and fluorescent light bulbs and a third reminder textile clothing recycling pickup must be scheduled with simple recycling at 1866 83550 68 or little easy remember simpler recycling.com and they will work with you I noticed one of my neighbors had a bunch of bags out that I'm sure are being picked up uh next is our consent agend um if I can have a motion to accept the con the consent ENT agenda with a thank you to Kevin Maat a thank you to Leia Lester and Fran Blake and a second second all those in favor I now with a consent agenda we we have so those are we're approving resignations that means we have some new openings on our
142Council on Aging our design Review Committee and our storm waterer advisory committee so if you're looking for something to do and you have interest in any of those fill out a talent Bank form and we'll get the process started okay moving on to town manager report Michael priority project update sure just really quickly Claudia I think that traffic study was done in August of 24 but but I'll I'll double check to me August the 24 would not be an appropriate time to do it yeah I don't know when do school start I thought school started in August so it dep it would depend right it starts the very latest you know very late in September I mean August you know yeah I don't uh think we started full Labor Day for three days it might
143be like August 28th or something like that I mean I could yes that's correct of Mendes yeah um yes so just on the priority project update so uh I'll start off with 126 I don't know if you've been by there but I don't know if there's been too many changes since the last time I updated everybody but um they did get the lights working over at algon everything already received quite a quite a lot of positive feedback about it made yeah been stu um it does work and allows everybody to move forward so that's great um downtown so 102 Property Maintenance um the the contractor that's doing the uh digging for the conduit and everything they they've actually um haven't worked on site the last couple weeks because of the temperatures but uh they've got
144to got to start get mov um we did get the bids in for the electrical connections uh which actually came in a little bit less than what we had anticipated doesn't mean the Project's going to end up you know that aspect is going to end up costing less than what we' anticipated but at least we're starting in the right direction so uh that's good um you know my main goal is to just make sure that there's really no lag time between when 102 Property Maintenance gets their stuff done when the new contractor which is deel electric they start so um so that uh the Warren Barn um J actually hold on in regards to downtown so we know that once all the connections are down then the polls can come down how do we work
145with uh the utilities to say okay everything's connected take the polls down what's the process there and what would the timing be yeah we'll have to do um I mean there's there's a whole like application process you have to go through everything we're actually uh before we meet with well before dagel starts their work we're have what's known as a preconstruction meeting MH um and we actually going to have the utilities have Representatives okay because as we know there's for Verizon anyway there's only certain Crews that can move polls or change polls or things like that and as we saw with 126 it sort of delayed the project because we were waiting for the crew that did certain things to come and be able to do our polls uh are we would we be dealing
146with that issue kind of thing again okay yeah yeah hopefully um hopefully won't the same okay same outcome thank you um but yeah so you know just for those of you that don't know you know all those lines that are on the polls they have to be taken down in a certain sequence which is what makes it difficult so um if like Verizon's the next one up and they can't get to it it's not like you can move on to Comcast and have take theirs down wait till Verizon it's it's I have no idea why the rule is the way it is but yeah um so in any case uh so that's that's the situation with the HS um the Warren Barn J was working through some of the the documents with that they did
147they do have the rink up obviously um I've had several people reach out to me I don't know if you have and just let me know how great an amenity is my daughters partici went and skated while they well my oldest my youngest was home for the holidays and they it was they said it was very nicely done and yeah so I think it's a great thing great great amenity for the community for sure he said what worked against them a little bit this year is that it's been so cold that people are skating on ponds in town yeah right otherwise they would have been headed there the ponds aren't you know they're they're they're saying be careful because the of the fle temperature I watch them shoveling them off but in any case rain
148like all year and when they start when they're trying to install this ring there's like a delu yep anyway so there's that um just moving on to the amorisco 7year oh wait but before we do that and um just to talk about the upper Charles Trail a little bit so we haven't really been able to to just Pete working on 40b stuff and everything it's been difficult to put some attention on that project but we are getting to a point where um we have not heard back from the property owner on6 so uh if we do want to look at taking the next step of acquiring that property at the next town meeting um I'm we probably need to start signaling our intentions pretty soon so um if you don't mind I'm going to send
149a letter to uh property owner just saying hey we've reached out to you several times we haven't heard back we're looking at taking the next steps and that would be potentially eminent domain because we have the grant money they had indicated that they were interested before so okay any questions or concerns on that no it's you know where the flash there's a um a crosswalk on Route 126 it's going into that parcel so you have Market Basket then you have the Higgins property and then the property next to it that's has a a fair amount of wetlands but it's on the same side as the Market Basket Pro yeah parcel yeah yeah because that's where the trail is intended to go into and then connect yes yeah um do that um so the other thing
150I have on the agenda I do have a couple of things that I don't have on the agenda here but I did provide a rather substantive report um that we get every year from emesco uh detailing our solar projects and some of what we have realized there versus what they promis and then as well as the performance contract so if you recall I mean we did the performance contract we did that town meeting almost 10 years ago and a lot of times you know when we're presenting things at town meeting and trying to get approvals and stuff we'll talk about like the the benefits right especially the financial benefits and sometimes we talk about them in the fact that they're going to acrew over uh a couple of decades um so I think it's important
151that we follow up over the next couple of decades just to let you know how we're doing um and so just to remind everybody of what a performance contract is um performance contract is when you uh work with a company in our case amesco uh they come in they identify Energy Efficiency improvements that they can make within your town and school buildings um they estimate how much energy you'll save they estimate how much money that you'll save by doing these projects and so of course you pay them to do it but they guarantee the savings and so the savings should actually be more than what you spend on the the program itself and uh basically a performance contract is set up to where if you don't realize the savings that the company promises you they
152in turn write you a check the difference so if amesco said that we were going to save $100,000 one year and we only save $80,000 um they write us a check for 20 so um but fortunately uh we have not had that experience in fact it's been just the opposite and so I'm sorry no we have actually realized more savings than what they had um guaranteed so uh this past year they had guaranteed a little over 300,000 in savings for the year and so um what we measured was almost 332,000 so um it was Surplus Savings of uh $28,000 almost 10% the whole amount so in total over the seven-year management or uh measurement period that we've incurred so far we've saved um 2 million 2,130 th000 dollar so that's over seven years and that's
153180,000 almost $181,000 more than what they had promised us so um yeah it's turned out to be a really good good program for it I mean I always go to the street lights I mean when I came here the street light budget was $85,000 we did the performance contract actually we did that piece through a grant so we didn't pay for anything and our budget still like $35,000 now you know so it's been it's been a good program for us but anyway so we'll uh again some of you don't even remember this when we did this and uh I remember it yeah that was that was like a big that was a big deal for the town it was um but it's shown that it has been worth it yes for sure um and the
154Solar projects so so those have been good any questions related to to that oh come on Joe it's only like 100 Pages I'm not sure Joe I mean when Amores looked at this they looked at every building um for solar and U basically the ones where they could do solar they did so the so they did look at that too and so part of that was the high school solar canopy so at that point in time they didn't see any other building where canopies made sense now technology has changed quite a bit could be yeah yeah yeah it could be I mean maybe one day when we um you know have wrapped up some of these other projects that's something that we can gaug the other thing I forgot to mention is that we actually
155Finance these through those competitive qualified energy conservation bonds which saved us a million dollarars in interest non anyway any other questions besides okay um and so the other things I did not have um so this past Friday we did have our um unconscious bias training we had about say 40 40 employees uh participate so it was good um the consultant that we worked with the Dei task force work with TR Renee she um she was on zoom and provided it and was her uh she was on as we can always expect T Renee to be but she she provided a good training actually we got really good feedback um I was people found it very very enlightening um we looked at uh you know like I said it was unconscious bias or um implicit bias
156you know and just some of the examples that she utilized to help demonstrate that is just she did a good job she did a little bit she gave us one test case I think I remember during one of our Dei task force meetings where they showed the young you know the young guy and then the older experience and it's like so what do you you know if you're like hiring a CEO or something you know what would you think so you know you're looking at like the the guy with the white hair and everything oh much more experienced and that but you know just things that you don't you don't know these people but you're taking away these thoughts so yeah that was good um so one thing we always talk about projects and then
157Jen and I always talk about the fact that we do have daily tasks that we have um and sometimes those become a little bit more complicated uh than than usual and we had a really um important case of that happened just with this last round of tax bills um and so tax bills for the third quarter they have to be out on December 31st otherwise if you don't get them out you can't send that tax bill out and you have to double up for the fourth quarter and so you can imagine how wonderful it is for a taxpayer because I guarantee you they don't notice it when they don't get the bill right when they do get the bill and it's twice as much as what they're expecting um needless to say it can uh
158lead to a few phone calls but in any case um we had a really really hard time with munus this year uh just getting the right file having it converted correctly but I really want to give a shout out to um Cindy Scot and her office and um Don and Britney help you know quite a few people help they worked um like all through Christmas week missed like our boy get together and everything just so they could kind of make this work and so they did so uh just want to give them a shout out for that that was really really good um it is kind of funny thinking the town's people should thank them for getting their bills out right but you're so right yeah it is it would be really hardship to have
159to double up on you yeah um so last week um we also had our First Citizens Academy of the second session and uh so we have 18 people really interesting crew very different than last year much more interactive this should be fun oh gosh um we didn't ask their ages but it runs pretty wide how long they've lived here yeah it's very evenly right and but hadn't been aware of what town meet government really does I had a who have not I I would I would just ask and I mentioned this I remember at the last one is that um having them come to a select board meeting for one for us to intro to to meet them I think either we had talked about maybe the last one or whatever perfect great which so
160which meeting in June do you know is it June so the fourth okay I have a couple of questions about Citizens Academy and and maybe a suggestion um I think a couple meetings back we were talking about uh how we're going to how we could possibly evaluate like the or Define the effectiveness and evaluate Citizens Academy so um I guess um I'm just curious to find out like what kind of demographic information are you collecting from applicants and what can you get uh and second I'm just wondering for the first cohor is there any are there any plans to maybe follow up with them you know um maybe like a year out or whatever to find out like what their level of activity in the town has been um you know just so we could
161get like a get an idea of of how the program may may have impacted their uh not just their awareness and knowledge but their activity and their activism in town um I I hope I didn't dream about that I think we did just talk about that we did talk about that that's okay good we did talk about that and so your first question I think was sort of effectiveness of program what we're collecting as we move forward we have revised the feedback so our feedback was really open-ended you know three very high level questions last year um so I did a little bit more you know one through five how effective how effective were the materials you know and then still have the openend questions what you learn great um in the application process we
162really only collect sort of um you know your your name where you live how long you've lived here whether know what you to get out of it um of the program and then if you've ever been on a board not really demographics described their you know when they're our Icebreaker we getting some information they're sharing not necessarily certainly could add it to the sheet um yeah maybe not as part of the application but like as they progress in the program like to collect that data as part of their participation in the program that might be helpful so that we can you know be interesting to see like who's actually availing themselves of of the Citizens Academy and you know etc etc because we want to we want to make sure that what we're doing right
163we want to keep doing and what's not working you want sort of informally talk a little more into your mic thank you so um your second question sort of informally we have seen already the I have for sure um members that have come to through the academy at events participating like the Holiday Drive so I think that we certainly could reach out to them I still have all their emails um I think we've had a couple look look into volunteering at the food pantry and participating a lot more in the library programs so we certainly can know ask questions about you know what what have they done post Academy getting involved and you may want to give it a certain interval of time before you issue you know that to find out maybe even like
164six months from end date or a year from mate to find out what they've been up to just so you can get a a more complete picture but um but yeah that's really good to hear and and you know I think there's one other suggestion maybe that the board may want to consider as well like I think Citizens Academy is awesome um but I'm wondering if there are any opportunities to maybe do like a like a one- day kind of Crash Course situation that you know the the board could actually help um put on you know and like how does the town work how does your town government work it be kind of like the cliffnotes I am really dating myself tonight on the cliffnotes version of suan Academy um just so you know folks
165might get an idea of like basic just basic information if they want to deepen their knowledge they can go through Citizens Academy when when applications open but you know something that we may want to take a look at doing at some point this year um you know maybe even the summertime on The Corner Spot I don't know I'm just thinking make it fun you know I don't know just a thought one other thing just um it just kind of triggered it for me with with what Makita just said so I know we're going to have some vacancies on some boards and committees um and also Cindy had popped into um before we went into executive session this you know this evening people will be able to pull papers for running for office for May soon
166in a couple weeks um so it may not so maybe it's a good opportunity to reach out to last year's Citizens Academy and let them know of these vacancies oh um and also if they were interested in running for office I know that you know anyone that's interested is absolutely can come and talk to any of us about any you know kind of get a feel for whatever yeah the boards and stuff like that yeah because I know last year during the academy two people had expressed interest in running for office specifically Ally for the planning and um and like anec anecdotally I mean the participation afterwards has been pretty amazing so so you met Peter and yeah that's the thing yeah yeah and actually we had another participant there Stephanie was was there yeah
167and and I had not seen them at the manora lighting before um but even like Bob Romar was at the coffee this morning had like 12 or 15 people there and he was at the C and he was um it was his first time there but it's all I could talk about was the Citizens Academy that's awesome and that's why we want to capture we want to like cify that we want to capture that make sure that we're document because all we got is like all yeah we got like stories but we don't have data so we want to make sure that we've got we're capturing that that activity because it's important yeah um so and then our next session is next Wednesday and we're doing finance and HR HR and capital and so uh
168just two more things um so we're going through the process of uh implementing that open gov system so this is that permitting system um and so we're uncovering a lot during this implementation just how outdated some of our systems are so um you know this is stuff you're not going to see right most people are not going to see but the amount of overhauling of our like administrative systems going on right now is pretty pretty significant so there are we looking at fee changes at all as we do this or not really you take not on the we've really talked about for open go definitely not um so like our time like our payroll I mean we still do sheets where we sign oh yeah yeah so we're actually moving all of that online Catherine's
169spearhead and that good that's happening and most of the school or I don't know if most but a good chunk of the schools that to but uh open go we're working on something with the assessor's office it's it's a lot um so just wanted to give you an up just heads up on that and then uh oh Michael I'm sorry yeah I I think it's great this is right up your alley I know that's why I got to ask so I I'm I'm hardened to hear about the digital transformation that's happening here in town for a lot of our processes I don't know about digital I don't know if we can get into digital transform I'm trying well no that's what it's called that's technically what it's called right so like you know taking old
170pipe paper systems putting them online that's part of a digital transfer give yourself some credit okay um so we call it getting into the 20th century the 20th century exactly so 21st we're we're getting there um just as we're overhauling we're making these processes more digital um you know obviously uh security concerns around municipalities data is always something that um you know people you know you read in the newspaper and people do have concerns about in a couple FKS have approached me about you know hey what are we doing in town about that so um I don't know if at some point like you know you know just let us know like how what kind not I mean obviously we don't want to say exactly what we're doing specific so we can you know but
171um just kind of give a broad overview of maybe our Topline like processes around evaluation and making sure that you know data is kept as securely as possible so many horror stories about municipalities and other large like healthare organizations getting their data basically ransomed so um just wanted to know what we were doing on that front yeah and I mean Paul would probably be the best one to talk about this in specifics I do want to say like one of the things that he's talked about when I brought this up a lot of our a lot of our vendors now host data up on on the cloud so um that adds an element of sec security and redundancy I believe but also yeah an exposure pathway an exposure pathway it depends yeah the the I
172mean um yeah I mean obviously like on on Prem versus Cloud there are different advantages and disadvantages to both and you know a little you know a lot about that y as well um but but yeah I mean I just uh I just wanted I you know and we can talk about this more later but I just wanted to kind of ask that question and because I know it's probably been top of line for it folks here in in town but I've also been had some questions about too yeah yeah that and then finally um you know I've mentioned this some of you were just kind of restructuring DPW bit so Dan Mau is moved into deputy director role uh that Roy had had occupied um and we're actually we actually changed some things around
173that job description a lot more um there's a lot more responsibility with the deputy director role so we'll be doing a few other shifts as well just administratively number of goals that we're trying to accomplish with this um and I I think you know we're already starting to see some of that happen I wouldn't say that we've achieved everything that we wanted to achieve um but like I think Doug has definitely been able to kind of step back and do a little bit more strategic thinking as opposed to kind of like just being in in the mix good for him uh yeah it's uh it's it's tough when you're so used to doing something but uh yeah it's uh it's good so we're you know combining that kind of with our city stat meetings really
174it's been really good but yeah I'm not expecting like any board doesn't need to take any action but I just want to give you to give us updates and as to what's happening so that if people hear things were aware did you have anything so that's okay great let's move to board reports ideally to be done before we have to ask for an extension Yanda says keep it snap okay yes Madam chair yes yes Madam chair a couple of things uh well uh December was uh really wonderful to be able to take place or rather to take part in the uh employee recognition here in Ashley first time is just really wonderful to see that and see all of our dedicated employees and staff folks here in town again a hearty thank you to all
175of y'all that make this this town go go go uh wonderful beautiful manur wrting on uh 1229 I think uh just really just lovely to see the community out and see the congregation out it was wonderful um lurked around the on cable but not on zoom on the uh most recent zba meeting and uh and actually a planning board meeting but Yolanda could probably talk a little bit more about that I mean um Madam CH could talk more a little bit about that um and then of course um uh we've been working on the committee selection process together uh so that's pretty much it thanks yeah well first I I I too just want to uh I don't want to just say ditto to your remarks about the people that make this community run and
176it was a a great event the recognition uh luncheon and I'm very grateful that um for all of you you know both of you as well as so many people um in in this community to make it great place place to live I uh in fact you know last weekend I guess it was last weekend that we had a little snow there yeah Saturday right it snowed kind of all day you know more than we were supposed to I have to say these roads I was here these roads when you came into Ashland it changed all of a sudden um you know I saw coming from out of town I saw two accidents and then I got to Ashlin and the roads had been taken care of and so um I meant to send Doug
177Small a quick note but I just want to say that here as well I haven't got the bill yet but yeah no I I know I did think of that too but but it was nice to to see it Well Done um and then you know I I did attend the uh zoning meeting last week and it was very informative and um you know helpful to to be there and uh I think uh it's important that people participate as much as possible um and last night the historic um commission and you know I had actually a question about that kind of brings the two together if we had had a a historic district in place would that have impacted 40b I I didn't think so but I just wanted to be clear on that um
178and so um you know the town's very busy with a lot of people doing great things and certainly um the work that rub has done to for us to purchase um and increase our Mound Forest by such a substantial amount is really remark remble amount of work and he is um I know he was what was he for Ashlin day Town citizen year I mean he should be citizen year for at least five years we yeah if well it's all right we needed the rain all right thank you very much Joe thank you madam chair uh yes Kudos the all the uh employees at lunch in uh and you know you're doing something right when you hire people who are being acknowledged for 30 plus years 40 years you know 25 plus 30 it's incredible
179so hudos to all of those who uh have worked through all those years it's been greatly appreciated and I enjoy uh being part of that celebration as well and um uh I will be uh attending a ribbon cutting ceremony uh 25 West Union Street tomorrow uh the benett assessment and Behavioral Center at 8:30 to 9:30 tomorrow uh kudos to them and we look forward to their their new uh ventures in town and um just to provide informational uh background on the 21st of uh January next Tuesday at 10: a.m. the road traffic uh Safety Committee will be holding their uh monthly meeting what we will be discussing uh projects such as the 40b 1060 Main Street project and the traffic impact and the potential detours concerning new road projects that will be starting in the
180spring and uh from what I understand there will be some uh major uh changes with the codal road bridge possibility working on that project with detouring traffic in that area I got that information from Dei small this afternoon so uh that's going to be very interesting yeah yeah High Street yeah High Street yeah so um and the potential detours there and uh with that uh if you can make that meeting that'd be great if not provide emails and i' be we'd be happy to uh provide all that information to you all and I would like to wish everybody a happy and healthy New Year and next Monday we celebrate M Luther King day and I would like to quote the good doctor relating to equality because that's what Ashan is all about being equal being
181fair and I quote Dr King by saying we must learn to live together as brothers or perish together as so having that said I I wish everybody yeah it's been a while it's been a while yeah so yeah thank you okay I am not going to even go but you went out Tuesday instead so you know oh man I got to follow that huh okay um it has been a while since we met so um you know we've all we all did quite a bit around the holidays and um we've been we've been going to um a few meetings related to you know the and everything else too um I did I was kind of talking about a little bit before I went to the 495 partnership meeting when was that like that's okay December
182it's de was like December it was mid December it was following our last meeting but before yeah I remember looking at that and I just yeah could fit it in my calendar it it the thing of it is like they didn't take any questions from the audience oh interesting which was really disappointing is that the one that was a Gillette yeah it was a Gillette okay yeah um so it could have I I I think if you know I was giving some feedback to to Beth a little bit because she's she's on their board yep um because I think that could have been a lot more robust but they were fitting it all into like basically an hour yeah I looked at the calendar and I looked at that schedule and I'm like there's no
183yeah where's the meat it was brief it was a brief uh conference yeah so um but I did you know like I I have't like I said I haven't had a chance to go into the to the housing Bond bill but I think that was my biggest takeaway is maybe there's something that we can do with affordable housing but um so to be determined I'm GNA see if I can get into that and look at that before we meet sure on Friday Friday um a comprehensive plan group is back in Action next week um just wanted to say thank you to everyone who completed our surveys um we had quite a bit of particip a which was good yeah it was nice to see um and so we'll see what the results are and the
184next steps but I think at this point we're to be next Wednesday the 22nd at the library at 7 7 p.m. yep um and so you know we're going to start drafting this thing so like you know the whole plan is to get it to a point where we can take it to fall town meeting so like heat mod so um guys on I just want to I just want to follow up on that because there were some comments that they felt like the survey didn't have like the information in the survey they felt wasn't well thought out and didn't have input from the community but the survey was based on all the feedback that was received through the different events the meetings in a box and and then we worked with the Consultants to
185come up with those goals and strategies so there's been a lot of input from the community on that survey and that will now help dra help us draft the language to set our goals and the action items related to them and if you are interested if you felt that the survey wasn't full or didn't reflect the community come to a comprehensive plan meeting look at the information and help us draft that because this is for the community so next meeting is uh Wednesday January 22nd at 7 p.m. and come and listen and give us your feedback we had we um the committee hosted these technical working groups right before the holidays right so we had these groups of 15 people 10 15 depending on the session where it was more like focus groups and we
186were going through some of these strategies and talking about them um and then the survey kind of Flushed it out a little bit more and then the group my understanding is that the comprehensive plan committee will now kind of sift through all of those and kind of come up with a actual working list that's doable so more to come y so um and then we were talking about the budget before I had attended the school committee's first budget Workshop um right before the holidays 14th 15th whatever that Friday whatever that Saturday was yeah um and it was good so you know the thing that stood out for me um so superintendent Jim Adams had said this is his most challenging budget he's had to deal in I think 11 years um in the district so
187there's certain things that are driving those high high costs but they basically have one of the things that I found really interesting so they have revolving accounts as well and their revolving accounts are pretty much depleted so one of their big challenges is going to be how do they fund the things that they need to fund outside of like putting it into their to their General budget so um transportation costs have gone way up their out of District costs have gone way up um Sports have become very expensive like the user fees that that you know like it's it's hard it's really hard so well and some of that we know that we know that the bus fee that they collect does not cover the transportation cost of our of our community right I would
188the user fees that they for athletics do not cover all the expenses for athlet I mean it's you know they they're they're getting money in but it's not covering their costs and that's the issue oh or one of them yep and and those are things you know that those fees didn't even exist we went to right yeah well and some of the sports you know have you know one of the things that they did was they broke down the the cost per Sport and you can just see just how expensive some of these sports are so there's there's labor in there's like you know um rental fees for things like ice time and um golf is an extraordinarily expensive sport because they have to have practice time and they need green fees and it's a
189small group of kids but the per the per fees like per per Fe is very high so um so they're having three three sessions of of budget workshops and their next one is on the 25th so I will probably try to get get there for that um I think it'll help because it's just I I think the more the more we're aware of what's happening on that side the better the discussions are when we get together get together so I assume it's over at the mes school but I will confirm in the music room the last couple of times it's it's it's good yeah I'm sorry we we sort of got last minute notice last time and oh yeah yeah yeah yeah so um I was able to like I had that morning for you
190and I was like I as well that's great thank you for going um and that is I think that's it for me couple things so let's see first of all as Joe said Happy New Year uh we did not I did not recognize that at the top of the meeting I just sort of jumped right in and here it is already January 15th so we are happy to be back uh a couple updates the dog park thanks to Jen's diligent work has finally received its approvals from the planning board and conservation and design review so our next process is to write up the documents to out forbid to get the park actually built and then apply officially to the Stanton foundation for the grant and most likely we're going to be one of the last
191dog parks getting a grant from them so again I want to thank you all for your support Michael I know a year ago you had hope you had wanted to put it on a bank burner um I'm glad we were able to keep pushing it forward so that we can get this built with the Stanton foundations's help um so more on that let's see uh library reading program is going on if you are as an adult enjoy reading you can sign up it's on beanstack and you can track your minutes and have some fun there uh let's see I will be attending MMA uh it starts on Thursday this year they're starting earlier but it's still going through Saturday on Friday at the weimo luncheon I will be the moderator for the fireside chat with
192secretary Walsh our health and human services secretary uh on Saturday uh because I am chair of the MMA one of their policy committees I'll actually pres be presenting a resolution at the annual business meeting um and let's see and then uh Metro West Regional collaborative we have our meeting on uh January 30th 8 9:30 it's virtual if you'd like to attend I would like to recognize we here at the select board meeting have some new technology if you notice behind us it is no longer a big screen with projection it is a nice television and then we have two other televisions though I I don't know that I like the picture on that new one over there we like stretch but anyway um and I want to thank uh Paul Carpenter and Paul Bowden from
193waca TV for the work to get this done and run the cables and be able to make this happen we also have a new TV on the on the other wall for people who are in the in the meeting room to be able to see things a little bit better so there's some flexibility as to how these TVs can sit and turn so thank you to all of them for helping out with that uh as Joe said Thursday morning tomorrow tomorrow is a ribbon cutting I'll be attending that as well and I believe that is all I have our next meeting will be February unless someone has it quickly it's the first first Wednesday in February so it'll be February 5th is our next select board meeting so please hopefully we'll see you around town
194at different um events and things that are going on on otherwise we will back be back here on February 5th for our next SE select board meeting again Happy New Year I hope everyone had a wonderful holiday season I can I jump in and say one more thing about the holiday season that I neglected to say sure I just want to say that the town its annual gift um program and and just the the amount of work um you know Courtney Laughlin um did a tendous amount of work it's a it's a such a big job you don't even realize what a big job it is and she worked short-handed um stayed late so many times and worked you know at home um and it's just such a significant program in terms of helping uh
195families and families with children who who might otherwise um not experience you know the the joy of receiving gifts in the holiday season and um and and the number of volunteers that came in and helped distribute collect and distribute I mean such a huge undertaking so I just um realized that thank you for bringing that up Claudia I I think it was a great it I mean it's always been a great program um and I think this year they even were able to help more families Joe real quick yeah real quick uh with this Cole snap uh being neighborly it would be nice to check on your seniors if you have seniors living in your in your neighborhood just I'm fine thank you I was going to ask you the same so but uh no
196just just check on make sure they're okay make sure they have their heat and everything is working well for them and if not help them uh get the uh the needed uh services that are that are desired and required and and the open space committee uh survey yes needs to be there needs to be complet space completed so if you haven't done that you need to do that to help support uh they need for Grants and and other matters as well to complete our open space plan y um before before I asked for a motion I also just want to do one other thank you uh I received a number of compliments of people who live in town as well as people who drive through Ashland on the wonderful holiday lighting that happened in downtown
197between the trees and the Garland on the polls and I want to give a shout out to Beth Reynolds who from our economic depart de Development Department who coordinates all that she doesn't go out and do it but she coordinates it and it's it did you see her on a poll know knowing her um it's what's nice is she keeps talking about how we keep adding and we keep expanding year over year and it has just been such a nice thing and again like I said we received a lot of um Kudos on that so thank you Beth um I hope you all enjoyed the holiday lighting as well um I was sorry to have missed the manora lighting um but family sometimes has to come first aough yeah it was yeah yeah yeah yeah
198Christmas Christmas was the first tonight and anyway okay on that note again we will see you back here on uh February 5th have stay safe stay warm we are potentially expecting more more snow so drive safe and we will see you soon if I can have a motion to adjourn second second all those in favor I thank for