001good evening and welcome to the select board meeting for Wednesday July 17th hopefully everyone is staying cool we apologize for a few minute late start we were in exec session uh that we needed to wrap up before we came here I'm calling our July 17th 2024 select board meeting to order at 7:05 this meeting is being recorded and broadcast live by waca TV and live streamed on Facebook remote participation is available using the zoom video conferencing platform any disruption of the video conferencing platform will result in the platform being shut down in the event of disruption broadcasting will continue on waca TV and live streamed on Facebook so welcome all we're going to go right into citizens participation if you are here to participate I see you online Helen and we'll take you after Mark
002goes go ahead Mark okay thank you Mark Sony for hon rad I let me stand back so I can see myself oh no um I just want want to um want to ask all these boards and comprehensive plan and everything else with the zoning board has not really been heard from can the um oh thank you then the um zoning updates needs to be done before everything else in the future of this town I would like to ask if I can say it in the way if a committee subcommittee of a Zone in update committee can happen to work on everything that's going be for this town working forward can that happen so I believe any zoning committees or subcommittees would have to come through our planning board because they manage zoning I do know
003there's also been discussion through the comprehensive plan that we may need to look at some zoning updates but I don't believe that the comprehensive plan is at a place where we can do that yet and if not yet but if it can be heard in I think I mean I would say I'm I'm hearing that you're suggesting and that you'd like to participate in that Mark and like I said it it would be a planning board decision to create a zoning subcommittee it's not the purview of the select board at this point okay and let is end it with this the you this board and the planning board are planning to have a joint meeting we so we have a couple things coming up with the planning board we're doing one that we called a
004get to know you uh so that is going to be an in-person event get to know you and then we will be having a joint meeting I believe right now it's scheduled for September 4th where it's really our consultant from the comprehensive plan committee that will be presenting to the two boards so again public is welcome to come and listen to that and then that will help determine what next steps may be and can Z me an idea of what could be talked about then well again I think there will will be zoning discussion coming out of the comprehensive plan process so zoning will be discussed but again it's an appointment it would be something from the planning board to determine based on the comprehensive plan goals that are created what needs to be done
005and with the plan board and select board and being in a joint meeting that' be the best again you can certainly you can certainly we can put citizens participation at the beginning of that but a a discussion about what will happen specifically for a zoning subcommittee I think we're still a little bit premature in that right now okay thank you okay thank you okay Helen go ahead and unmute yourself or we have to unmute her I forget there we go I think I think I'm unmuted you are and we can see you okay good hi so um I came tonight just to do a quick um update on the uh burial ground and the process uh the progress that we've made I I sent a letter to all of the select board with you know
006an outline of all of our progress and you all to ask me if I'd like to come in person so here I am and I thought I would just sort of run through all our goals and next steps uh so our goals for 2024 were to remove brush debris invasive plants and trees and uncover uh buried or partially buried gravestones treating invasive plants with water safe herbicide to reduce the need for further cleaning and we have made great progress on this uh we are planning some additional fall brush removal events uh we still do have work down there that uh needs to be done so we we'll be planning some additional events in the fall for that and also Kathy Rooney will be doing additional REM remediation of the invasive plants including poison ivy over
007the summer and fall uh we weren't able to get rid of all of the poison ivy uh before she injured her her leg so she'll still be working on that as soon as she's feeling a little better our another one of our goals was our cleanup training weekend in June uh June 22nd and 23rd uh this was cleaning headstones using D2 with a conservator oversight which we uh did accomplish as well as our training uh which was done that weekend for our volunteers and those volunteers now have a small group of people who are trained and some of them are actually seeking out addition training through uh the conservator TNT who offered to let them come to offsite locations uh to volunteer and for that they get additional training which is very nice for us
008to have them have that training and as a result of all of that training we had 15 gravestones that were restored and repaired and uh they are going to be planning to have uh some additional work days again over the summer and into the fall of 2024 and in the spring of 2025 documentation another goal uh that we had for the for the property which is that every uh gravestone at the Village burial ground will be um documented what hopefully we'll be able to figure out exactly who is there and isn't there and we have volunteers working on this project and we're going to be mapping it out uh so that we know where each individual gravestone is located as well as having a book with all the information of before and after of what
009uh the condition of the stone was in what the condition of the stone is now and then our um next steps are additional organized brush removal dates like I had I had said we are we are trying to coordinate with the Boy Scouts and we've talked with them and we're trying to see if we can get them to come in in the fall to do some additional brush clean up and we have additional work days again by the train volunteers we're planning to do a further fundraising for our assessment and applying for CPC funding after the assessment and exploring financial resources available through the VA for Civil War veterans we do have a number of Civil War veterans uh gravestones that are located in the village burial ground and an assessment for repairs that which
010will require professional assessment we uh hope um you know we'll be coming sometime uh after we get the rest of the um property cleaned up because there are more Stones now we're finding each time we go in we're finding additional headstones that are buried and covered over by brush which we really want to have an accounting for all of those before we have the assessment done so we're hoping to get that done this fall and early spring and then we'll have an assessment for the ones that require professional level of work we're also planning on planting low growing grasses and Native plantings and working with the DPW to fa facilitate uh some signage and um possibly if if it's uh you know possible some stone stone wall repair uh we plan on having some ongoing
011publicity and uh public information for uh you know to promote this and to have people come down and see what's going on and maybe we were thinking something fun and educational with the Historical Society and also a civil war Remembrance in the spring uh the war started in 18 April of 1861 and ended in 1865 so a small talk or remembrance ceremony to honor the veterans that are buried there we were thinking um which would be a nice way to also keep it in the public eye and then our also part of our next steps are permanent uh signage which would include signs for no dogs being allowed on the property and uh two historical information kiosk there has has been some preliminary work done on this and at some point we will um you
012know be looking more into that also some publicity signage to uh seek maybe a temporary sign at the church that would announce to people how they can participate and then um if time if finances allow eventually we'd also like to have some grave location services to tell us exactly how many people are insured um at the site of the village burial ground and so that's uh basically where we are right now and I wanted to let you know and see if you had any question questions any questions on the update or Joe I I just have one quick question uh Helen thank you for all the work that you and the committee is doing it looks very very nice um I know it's a lot of hard work and greatly appreciate it I I hope
013it uh when this is completed that at some point there will be some sort of map uh designating the locations of the grave site so that we don't lose them like we've we've had over over this past you know eons so yes we're working on that right now in fact I was I was at Town Hall today uh trying to get the plot map that we have of the people who originally bought the plots at the Village um burial ground we're going to have those enlarged so that we have can have some volunteers go in and we're going to create a system to map out the stones that are there and who's there buried in them and then we're going to put together a book like I had said documenting all the information about each
014um um you know each Stone who's there what the condition was what the condition is but the map will be there so that you can find the find the stone as well right thank you great any other questions or yeah go ahead Michael turn y yeah hel and actually everybody who worked on it I I I just have to point out I think I went over there I've been over there a couple of times and you all have just done amazing work it's it is really remarkable how far that that has come and I will have to say it's you know a lot of times volunteers you know they come up with some ideas and and do you know a little bit of work and everything and a lot of it kind of falls on
015staff that has not been the case with us it's it's really been a volunteer driven event uh you know with you know obviously some light support especially from DPW but I mean just from the fundraising to like getting the right people and everything and to the execution of it it's really been volunteer driven I just have to congratulate you so far it's just been a real remarkable transformation it's really cool well thank you and and I have to thank everyone I mean even you know just everyone's been involved everyone at the Town Hall that's really helped us the selectboard giving us you know the go-ahead with the whole thing and all the volunteers who showed up on all the volunteer days and who are also continuing to do research and work and and and there's
016also like I said some site work going on with some of these volunteers so it's truly a community project and that was you know that was how we wanted it to be we wanted our goal was to get everyone involved and we're really happy with that and thank you because you everyone was a part of this and everyone will continue to be because there's like I said there's more work involved so we will um we will be ongoing down there and we really hope to see it through to the end in another year or two and and it's been it's been very spiring to see the community come out and to see how much engagement we've been able to to to Garner so thank you well Helen thank you for coming and speaking with us
017and I too want to thank you and all the volunteers what was interesting is I did have the opportunity to speak with a couple of the volunteers on your volunteer day and speak with the people coming from TNT the cleaning company and they were very supportive and amazed and surprised and thankful he said that a lot of times communities will start with this kind of project but then they don't follow through and the follow through that they saw here in Ashland to actually make it happen was they thought it was the best they had seen he said a lot of people will get the funding but that not follow through with it so thank you we know it's going to be continued work and we appreciate that and make sure you let us know when
018the dates are that you have so we can talk about them here and help you publicize that and continue to get volunteers to participate thank you yes we absolutely will do that we we more than welcome you to all come and involved as you'd like to love to see you down there thank you great thank you uh is there anyone else for Citizens participation okay seeing none we're going to move into our first scheduled appearance so thank you for those of you who are here for this first one for your patience uh so we are going to discuss and appoint members to the local historical to Historic study committee and I believe um I believe most of you who are in the house are here for that but John if you just want to remind
019people not John Dudley the other right is Jim I apologize Jim if you could just well remind our people who are watching exactly what we're doing here because I think you can state it better I mean I could certainly read and summarize but I think um you could do better at that with us for us good evening everybody um Jim neelson 35 Ramblewood Drive Ashland um with this local his back up a second the historical commission a couple years ago decided to look into creating a local historic district downtown and we've gone through many um parts of the process already um one thing that we we have to do still do is appoint a historic district study committee um we've kind of put the cart before the horse uh the the the uh report which
020I think I gave to everybody last time around is is to be submitted to the state but before we can do that we have to finalize it so we have to get the committee together um it's going to be three to seven people it's going to meet one or two times and it's my hope that the people that join the committee will also stick around and become involved if we get this through town meeting in November um to become part of the local historic district commission which will be a separate commission from the historical commission that will just regulate what goes on in the downtown area for example if somebody has some work they need to do or something like that has to you has to happen they'll have to go in front of the
021local historic district commission not the historic commission so that's kind of the point of why we have we're going through this uh the historic tonight the people that we hope to get appointed is there should be more than three well it should be 3 to seven um and just uh I I just like to remind everybody if we could just meet down the end of the hall after this so that I can get everybody together and find out a good time for everyone to meet and uh maybe like I said we'll have one one or two meetings and then we'll submit the report to the state and uh I don't think we'll be back here for you guys at all but thank you great thank you so we have a list of people I'm just
022going to read your name as I read your name I mean we've read your talent Bank forms but I think if you just come up to the podium and tell us some some of you some of us know some of you some of you know some of us so this is really a way for you to introduce yourself to our um Community if you don't know people and okay so the first person on my list is John Dudley how you doing uh John Dudley 561 Chestnut Street and I was attracted at being able to help in a way where it wasn't a super long-term [Laughter] commitment but I will see where that goes um married been in town since 02 three sons all through the school system now they're in couple them in college and
023I was a planning board five years did a term zoning Review Committee um like almost forgot about some of these other committees was like the comprehensive uh there another one you guys mentioned a while ago CPA was a committee so anyways did a bunch of that his historical sounded interesting and then there was another one a naming committee tonight right yeah all right and it would be helpful um from the select board perspective is there like a charter or a goal of this or is this a historical bringing it to you guys I mean there's probably something you guys are like we would like to see it do this well there is actually very established guidelines for what this committee is going to do and I believe Jim will when you get the committee together
024we can make sure those documents come to everybody okay you guys have seen it and approve of it okay y okay y all right thank good thank you okay zophia laowa did I say that right is Sophia here oh we'll have to unmute her she's online she was the student I believe right no Anna is the student okay I mean we didn't require people to come but okay so no no Sophia okay Anna is our the student is Anna she's she's online okay Anna go ahead and unmute yourself and can they turn on the camera now or not because of our security so Anna just introduce yourself and um why you like to there you go yeah I'm sorry I couldn't be there in person that's okay but my name is Anna mixus 63 blue
025jay Lane Ashland um I'm a rising senior at Colgate University I'm pursuing a bachelor's degree in history with a minor in museum studies uh I feel like my education has provided me with a pretty firm understanding of like public history so I see this the this committee as like an opportunity to apply some of this academic training to be a part of um historic preservation something I care about because I'm my mom's family has lived in Ashland for three generations so I'm a fourth generation resident of the town and I think growing up in Ashland has really nurtured my curiosity about history my sense of the past my sense of place a feeling of a HomeTown and um I like the idea of being able to be a part of uh this process that will
026hopefully protect or somehow contribute to the continuity of Ashland as like a historical place for future Generations um yeah great yeah when I read through your information I was like ah perfect get to get to use your education right away anybody else any comments for Anna no okay well thank you Anna thank you Jen parator if I said that correctly yes thank you hi Jen hi everybody Jen parator 164 Caville Road I'm the broker owner of cville realy here in town and I'm also a former member of the historical commission so I served on the historical commission for two and a half years I was there when this idea to bring the historical district um to life was conceived and I believe in um the the mission wholeheartedly and I think Jim and the rest
027of the historical commission has done a great job getting everything to where we are now and when I was offered the opportunity to put my name into the talent bank for this I said absolutely this is definitely something that I would love to serve on so that's why I'm here well thank you thank you okay any question no okay sorry uh now we have to have recommendations from our historical and from the a realtor and we do have someone here Karen yes how do you say hi there Karen like car in the garage I made that up in third grade and here I am many many years later and I'm still using it my mother was an artist is what I usually say uh I live at 56 Hardwick I've been here in town for
028about 10 years uh with my two kids I was approached by the Boston Realtor Association um seeing if this is something I'd be interested in and absolutely is I love being a part of town I've been uh you know youth sponsors for basketball and baseball and uh the AI for a long long time um when I'm talking with folks who are thinking about moving or coming to the area uh in particular I've been doing a lot of transplants or people coming in from different parts of the country what they're looking for is that quaint New England downtown while also a thriving community with businesses and uh lots of resources for the community so being part of this committee is something that I'm very interested in to be able to balance those two things great great
029well thank you for for being willing to do that sure thank you okay um now we've heard from Jim and then we have two recommendations from the Historical Society from Cliff Wilson and our SEC first one is Jim and then Joan G Friday Joan jungan Friday W Shaw Road Ashland um I've lived in Ashland for close to 40 years now and um I have to say that I've been on the historical commission for two for almost two years and um it's been very enlightening and I think that um I'm very concerned about losing our downtown and I would just I'm I think it's very important that we put something in place to be able to to preserve it um I'm honestly I see I've seen Ashland I grew up in Framingham but I've seen Ashland
030through my husband's eyes and it really just I really do love the town and I just want to keep it so great that's pretty much where I'm at thank you thank you thank you um so we are fortunate we can do three to seven members so our plan I believe unless someone has has is to appoint all of you who are here today and and who came before us um as well as even though Z zophia isn't here I believe she you know through her Talent Bank form uh we wanted to add any comments or com just uh just a clarification just because on our agenda we had another person Peter wil he has pulled himself off I just wanted he will not be joining us yeah or joining the committee so um any questions
031or comments Okay then if I can get a motion to appoint John Dudley zophia lowski Anna mixus Jen parator Karen mury Joan G Friday and JY neelson to the local historic study committee with no um with an end at the end of the project so there's no time frame but it's just the end of the project project right I'll I'll make that motion I'll second okay any other discussion or comments I think we're good seeing none all those in favor oh uh yeah we have Claudia online Claudia did you have any comments or input I don't know if you're at a point where you can respond there we go I have a little trouble with my mute button but I no I just wanted to say thank you to everyone who's uh offer step forward
032for this and I must have some uh folks who have some history on the in the commission themselves so thank you all okay great and I'm prepared to vote okay I'll um Okay so because we have Claudia remote we do have to do a roll call vote um Makita Keegan I Joe manani manani I Kinsman I Bennett I and gavves I that passes 5- Z thank you all for stepping up and being willing to participate in this I love the variety of backgrounds and experiences that are going to be coming to have the discussion regarding this so thank you for for stepping forward and good luck you have any questions or concerns I think Jim has a good handle on this but you can also reach out to any of us as well so and
033Jim I know Anna's online I know you're going to try to get the group together but you'll connect with her the tal okay yes you have all the talent Bank forms perfect great thank you guys okay thank you thanks for stepping up everyone y um are we expecting Alex to oh Alex is here perfect perfect there he is actually John do we want to right I know but we're GNA jump into this yeah let's let's have a discussion real quick um so now the other one is appoint someone to our Public Safety naming committee uh we have two people we have John Dudley and we have Alex Chief um Alex if you wanted to would you want to have John go first and then yeah John why don't you y same thing I don't think
034you need to share with us your but you know what what made you interested in the naming committee and if it was to just step up to help because you haven't done for John 561 Chestnut um yeah excited to do again another short-term project that we can help and I'm involved quite a bit in marketing and sales in the companies that I have so hoping to l a hand to whoever is running this and okay make it make it good great okay thanks John thanks yep Alex hi good evening um my name is Alex Keef live over on pin Hill Road uh I've been a part of the town for roughly 17 years so I I got roped in in 2007 to the fire Explorer program in town with the fire department and uh when
035I aged out chief Billy key at the time said you're not going anywhere and I was appointed as a firefighter from 2010 to 2013 uh a different perspective I took a different approach dropped out of the fire department and went and joined the Ashen Police Department for seven and a half years before I moved on to another Police Department uh but during my time on both the fire and police sides I took on a mission to make sure that those who have either died in the line of duty or those who have had a huge impact on either Department were uh remembered so the September 11th memorial for Charlie karat uh that was something that I organized when I was on the police department as well as pushing for uh Louis fips who we lost
036contact with not knowing that he had died in the line of duty with the police department in the 40s getting his name with another member on the department on the wall uh for the Fallen police officers so my whole goal in participating or hoping to participate on such a committee is when we combined the police and fire departments in both respective buildings they had memorials hanging for the Fallen firefighters who died in the cold storage fire as well as at the police station for Charlie catara uh I would like to see that those names now with a new building can be proposed and looked at for naming parts of the uh new public safety building so my mission is not to let anyone who has passed in the line of duty for Ashlin to be
037forgotten but to be memorialized over at the new public safety building so that's kind of why I wanted to volunteer and be a part of this great great any comments or questions or I also I I also know that we have I believe we have a recommendation in front of us already or a community a Community member has put a request in which is why we've had to put this in place absolutely it's one of those things but I think from your background and experience we could possibly expand this a little bit if you want to present to us a couple of ideas rather than just following up on the one or two that we've had requested of course yeah okay Michael yeah I was just going to say Al Alex left off I mean
038he was kind of like the department historian and was really kind of in charge of developing what that what the new Memorial site at the public safety building look like and and put together so he's okay definitely some experience with that great sorry um that's okay um and again this is one of those committees where we can sort of determine we have the minimum is three and it includes our police chief and our five Chief and then members of the community and I certainly if we have the opportunity to accept both people that have put their names forward um I think if people are up for that I would like to Mo um if I can get a motion to appoint both John Dudley and Alex Keefe to the public safety naming committee I'll make
039that motion okay I'll second okay um any other discussion Claudia any discussion do you have to unmute her yeah okay hold on Jen's working on unmuting you so what I know I'm good I'm good okay okay good so before thank you again for you know people stepping forward yeah okay so we have a motion and a second uh again we need to do roll call vote Bennett I Keegan I bani hi Kinsman I and Grieves ey so thank you Alex and again this is one of those committees that has bless you bless excuse me that's okay um one of those committees that won't have an end date so I think like I said we have a few uh requests in front of the committee and then if there's other things that you can recommend I
040think you review it and then bring it back to us for approval and then we can go from there perfect sounds like great quick question um has has Alex and John seen we have a policy that we had put together about the naming like this committee have they seen that policy I I I have seen you have I just yeah we should make sure that John gets a copy of that and then I would think yeah send it out to both of them and copy the two chiefs because I would think probably one of the Chiefs would lead this to if NE you know yeah I would recommend one of the Chiefs start you know lead it or unless Alex really wants to step up and Lead this committee that's great too but I think
041the four of you can have a discussion and go from there and then my only other question is do we need to formally appoint the Chiefs to this committee or are they they're named I think they're named in the I just wanted to make sure we didn't have to formally do anything with that well I think what I what we can do is double check and if we need to we can always do it at our next meeting okay but that doesn't stop them from moving forward gotcha it's actually part policy yeah okay great thank you you're all set thank you so much for stepping up we really appreciate it and you can as you pass by John you can give him the good news okay I will plus he'll get an email great okay
042okay so we have the upper Charles Trail scheduled for 8:00 so we are going to go on to different things on our agenda until 8 o'clock so um no let's start with just old and new business so the first thing is discuss the Valentine estate Brandy asked that we put this on to sort of see where things are at what we want to do moving forward and I'm going to hand it over to Michael to review sure so um I mean I I will say there hasn't been much activity happening there we did uh go over there in MO not too not too long ago which is a little bit more of an involved Endeavor now that we have to deal with the um the mean and and orary spotted Lantern fly okay um so
043we have to you know do some inspections and things like that and so Becca has been working with Mass Department of agricultural resources on that um you know unfortunately we' we've had some incidents of vandalism and everything I think people have noticed where the windows at least on the house have had to be boarded up uh but other than that everything has been uh pretty much secured we were able to um we had a couple of touch-up things that we needed to do with the barn uh including installing the granite steps which has been completed and so that's pretty much finished um you know moving forward uh I think it's something that we should talk about as part of our Retreat coming up in August and you know what what uh if anything we're going
044to be able to do with that in the short term moving forward just given the availability of resources just as a reminder one of the things that we did for this year's budget or the FY 25 budget I should say which is this year's budget um is when we needed to close the deficit we took some money that we had earmarked for the Valentine property and used that to help close that uh budget deficit so we don't have as much in there as as as we had before um I think over the course of the next month especially after we get the bids in for the downtown Phase 2 project you know if we have some money left over there we might have to do some reconfiguration but there might be some money back into
045Valentine we we just have to do some maneuvering with that I have to see if that's possible but um in any case that's kind of the long and short of where things are right now okay questions comments sorry so the conservation restriction so just so you know um we did have an agreement with um halt which is the Hopkinson area land trust to hold that conservation restriction and if you recall the board reviewed A draft copy and approved A draft copy that we then to the sent to the state last July and we have they have not even looked at it yet uh because they are talking about their shortage of resources as well so they have one person that um is reviewing the conservation restrictions she was out on maternity leave for a bit
046um and uh the the last time I checked with her with which is not too long ago they haven't even really had a chance to look at it yet wow so when she went out on maternity leave they had no one backfilled to do the work they exactly exactly okay um it doesn't the not having the conservation restriction approved by the state does not stop us from moving forward if we need to and want to correct correct okay okay and halt is still working with us in Partnership so correct okay uh what's interesting is I had a conversation with someone who does ADA compliance reviews and he had driven by the the Valentine house and was concerned about seeing the boarded up Windows and he said what's the plan for that I said right now
047there's still a couple things in Play No final decision has been made but I said a lot of what we decide to do can be impacted by ada8 compliance so I've mentioned this to Michael and during our Retreat I think we can have a discussion if we want to spend a little money to sort of look at what it would take to make that building ADA Compliant it depends on what you decide to do with it because certain things are either State mandates or federal depending on what we need to do so that's part that'll be part of our discussion at The Retreat because I think the community certainly wants to see something happen at the Valentine property unfort for we as a community still have not come together as to what that exactly is
048we have ideas floating around so I I see foree another followup based on the Forum that we had a couple months ago yeah and I appreciate you guys putting it on the agenda because I think you know we had the Forum I think it was like the end of January a while ago it's been a while so I'm glad that we're you know talking about it because um you know I I don't want the public to think that that we've forgotten about it it's kind of fallen off of our radar and I think talking about it at the retreat makes a ton of sense um because obviously we know that anything more that we do with the property is going to involve a lot more funding and we have to figure out what that looks
049like yeah so I one thing I did forgot for one thing I forgot is that at the at Forum um young lady Luba you know came up and brought a proposal and actually Luba and I met met with uh with Courtney um who was running the the lack of a better term farm camp for a while but um I think she's actually working with Pilgrim day camp now I saw but um anyway we had a good discussion about you know what that could potentially look like you know some kind of education related event and you know Courtney had some good ideas too but anyway we did good great so you know from a public perspective we it is still on our radar it's just trying to fit it all in good okay next thing on
050our agenda is just to review the schedule the meeting schedule for the remainder of the calendar year Susan did put in our current meeting dates unfortunately October 2nd is holiday is a Jewish holiday so we have to decide if we want to adjust our schedule in October or do we feel we can be without that meeting um [Music] so we we have two meetings in September we have the 4th and the 18th we then would have done the second but that's the holiday we do have uh then selectman meetings on the N I'm sorry the 16th somewhere in there will be a special town meeting probably sometime in November um and I don't I don't know that we have to make a decision today but we may want to look at what you know do
051we add an extra one in October October is a month of five weeks um do we do two back to back from the 30th to the 6th of November but the sixth could potentially be a a special town meeting so just be flexible and if you know you're going to be a way let get that to us as we're looking at things um any thoughts on actually changing finding a different date for October 2nd now the last week in October makes sense especially if you have a fall P meeting and we need to keep things up on that well let me ask a question because a couple things one we're going to need to have a joint meeting with the the the planning board again to do MBTA communities right so we're going to have
052that probably September are we thinking September um okay I haven't so you know just kind of like mapping it all out and right may want to save that date in October for a joint meeting with the planning board is what you're saying yeah maybe um I do think like we I think depending on when town meeting Falls do we know when we're going to have the date for town meeting just just talking about that I think um you know maybe the the 20th might be a good day we have to look a little bit of November yeah so obviously the election the election so it's so the election we want to give um the town clerk's office a little bit of time to sort of move gears from the the election oh to town meeting
053to town meeting and so I definitely want to give I'd love to have a week in between if we can I just have to see if that okay because the election's November 5th yeah and Thanksgiving is the 28th this year so the 20th could potentially work from a a town meeting perspective which means we wouldn't have a select board meeting so potentially doing one on October 30th even though it then as tight week after week but it would be good leading into town meeting okay yeah I mean I think we're going to need two meetings in October my guess you know yeah the other thing is we did send out the um doodle Poll for the The Joint get to know you meeting with the planning board that people had requested and I believe EV
054almost everyone has responded if you have not please do right now they're the the best date so far is Monday September 23rd everyone who has responded has responded that they can do Monday September 23rd so hopefully those of you who haven't responded can also do Monday September 23rd um so please take a look and respond to that we will be doing a joint meeting with the planning board or the planning board will be joining our meeting on September 4th to do an update from Goldson from our Consultants from the comp ensive plan and then to bry's point we're going to have to do something for MBTA zoning that'll have to happen probably in September as well at some point okay okay um okay so yeah it's GNA be a fun fall busy yep but that's
055okay there might be a get to know youta communi well except that we want the community we want that to be public yeah I mean I'm sorry it's all public but we would want that to be televised so we'd have to do that up here and the get to know you is really I think right now it's planned for BC to you know get to know each other so but we can see if we have to we can shift gears and post do different things okay any other questions or comments on our calendar okay perfect timing leading to update on comprehensive plan who wants to start with that Brandy you want to start I like how Michael and I look at each other it's like rock paper scissors yeah um um so we are meeting
056tomorrow night to do the second of our um our visioning Workshop uh our last meeting was towards the end of June and we we um kind of broke up into groups at the community center and and Makita was there Mark was there um and we started taking the feedback that the community had given us um and the committee had done some pre-work um to basically be able to break out a visioning statement into sections which is what we worked on in groups and then each group came up with a visioning statement which we're going to review sort of a h a Consolidated version that goldson's um been working on for us plus working working on our goals tomorrow night so um you know I think that the the the format of the last meeting was
057really great because I think the small groups um I think it was a very effective way to to come up with our with our potential vision statement um so I know that um you know tomorrow night we're meeting all in person again 6 to8 at the community center I would say that just um for anyone from the public that's looking to possibly join us it it is a working session for the committee so like we are kind of um coming up with our goals based on the data that we've received so and the pre- homework that we did yeah so um so I'm looking forward to round number two and so the the plan is that we're going to take the vision statement that we've worked on we're going to take these goals that we
058are going to come up with and we're going to be presenting that back to the public so there's going to be an engagement period starting mid August probably into of September that we're going to um get feedback from the community on what the vision and the goals and there's going to be like a questionnaire on the website plus um the comprehensive plan will be at the farmers market getting some additional feedback from folks too what is the date that the comprehensive plan will be at the farmers market in August come on you should have known I was going to ask you're right you're you're right you you you are a th% correct that mean is it like August 4 so so the problem is there's so many dates for the farmers market going on in
059my head right now it's either it's not going to be August 10th it's the 17th August 17th and September hold on September 14th I know it's August September 14th so okay August 17th September 14th okay so if if you want to give feedback once some of this information gets put up on the website stop by at the Farmers Market on either August 14th or September 17th to talk to members of the comprehensive plan committee who are going to be there uh and give us your feedback Y and then like Yolanda said um there's going to be a joint meeting with the planning board on the 4th of September gson will be basically presenting to the groups and then um that's phase two of the so that's all the engagement information so we talk about like
060what the what the findings have been that's that's and if you're not getting the comprehensive plan email make sure you reach go to the website and sign up for that it's always great information plus giving you information about the members of the committee okay any other comments or questions about the comprehensive plan process or where we're at okay a few reminders we have vacancies on various boards and committees affordable housing Trust trust has one vacancy for an associate member conservation committee has a vacancy open space and Recreation committee has two vacancies uh the committee has had some people come to their meetings and hopefully they'll be giving us some recommendations storm water advisory committee has a vacancy sustainability committee has a vacancy and the Town Forest has a vacancy for an associate member so if
061you are interested in volunteering for any of those committees please fill out a talent Bank form that's available on the website you will then be forwarded to the chair of those different committees and we will be doing our new appointments and reappointments at our second meeting in August which is the 20 Wednesday the 21st so if you're interested try to sign try to fill out your talent Bank form and go to a meeting before that date another reminder free covid tests available at Town Hall first Saturday of each month is drop off recycling at DPW from 9 to noon so that is waste motor waste motor oil thermometers thermostats fluorescent light bulbs so that will be August 2nd this this for the next one on August 3r okay so it's August 3rd that the next
062one will be we'll be electronic disposal as well there is a nominal fee to cover that registration deadline for the September 3rd 2024 straight State primary is 5:00 pm Saturday August 24th reminder the state primary in-person early voting happening at Town Hall Hall Saturday the 24th from 8: to 2 Monday the 26th from 8: to 3:30 Tuesday the 27th from 8 to 3:30 Wednesday the 28th from 8 to 7: Thursday the 29th from 8 to 3:30 and then Friday the 30th from 9 to noon and then of course the primary itself is on Tuesday September 3rd the day after uh Labor Day vote by mail application postcard the application is to the application deadline is Monday August 26 so if you want to get your V your your ballot by mail that's the date to
063request it by if you want to change your political parties the deadline for that is Saturday August 24th um some fun things to think about summer concerts at Stone Park uh July 23rd Deep River acoustic project July 30th father and sunband those are both starting at 7 and then the three dates in August start at 6 Gary bernich lights out blues band Mason Tyler Duo on the 13th and then the last one is August 30th the day Breakers there's a break there is that is there really a break there or did we just not get it listed oh okay okay great okay those are all the reminders um consent agenda if I can get a motion to approve the consent agenda as presented so move and a second a second any questions all those in
064favor of the consent agenda as presented I I I I okay Claudia hold on we're getting you unmuted I I perfect thank you so the consent agenda passes as presented just one quick thing just as a a side I know the last meeting and I don't have the date from the meeting minutes that we had removed from the consent agenda because we didn't have them before the meeting can we make sure that those meeting minutes are on our next agenda next agenda yeah you know what I'm talking about yeah okay okay thank you okay good uh it I can give a quick update on your okay I was going to say I think you can so do that and then we'll uh welcome hopefully the I know the trails committee is downstairs meeting so hopefully
065they'll be up here soon but go ahead Michael why don't you start in your board uh your town manager reports sure so uh so just to let the board know and the community know um rich Ball our longtime assessor uh has uh said that he is going to retire at the end of the month um certainly had has a had a great career in public service and is getting ready for the next chapter in his career so uh many thanks to Rich for everything that he's done he does some incredible data work and you know it it is I want to say it's kind of a shame but it's been interesting uh rich is very low-key and very quiet but you know over the last year he's kind of come out of a shell a
066little bit maybe he knew he was going to retire he counting down to retirement but you know I recall like in the Citizens Academy you know when we were doing the finance section he was you know GNA do his presentation and you know we're we're used to Rich's presentation on the tax hearing so we're kind of um you know expecting something similar but he you know he um it was a very different presentation uh than than what we're used to and you know he he was having a good time he uh he had some jokes and it was um it was pretty good so you know uh thank you Rich for everything that you've done uh we're currently advertising for that position you know we'll just you know let uh let everybody know just based
067on a comparison we did need to adjust the salary a bit and um you know unfortunately so far we we've only got three applications so um when did you post last last week or maybe even a couple weeks ago last um so U and hopefully we'll we'll start interviewing soon so okay anyway uh thank you Rich yeah thank you I'll miss I'll miss his his presentation his annual presentation to us where where we talk about the split tax rate no split tax rate and all the details around that so um so thank you to Rich uh just quick question so when Rich retires if there's a gap um is there someone that's going to be like the point person for yeah we're we're we're working on that we're figuring that out whether or not we
068need to you know kind of like bring in like a consultant type of figure who who could do that but hopefully um you know there won't be too much of a gap okay and the board of assessors kind of knows that he's retiring okay yeah because it's not like there's an assistant assessor available correct okay and you'll let us know what you plan on doing to fill that Gap if it's necessary okay great oh my gosh hello wow okay Bobby couldn't stay [Music] away well perfect timing before we go into the other Town manager reports we're going to have you guys Jump Right In in and who's presenting if you could come to the podium and uh hopefully from the select board side you had the opportunity to review Joel's draft that he sent us
069and so I I we invited the upper Charles Trail here for two reasons one to congratulate them on the grant that they received for the uh purchase of some land in regards to the trail and two for all of you and especially I think for Claudia and Makita as new to find out where things are at what the you know what things are um how things are moving forward and um I know from our Trails committee they want to have this have happened yesterday and I think a lot of people who support the trails want that to happen as well and I'm going to repeat something that I know Joel has heard me say a number of times that to remind our committee and the public watching this is a the this is a great
070project I support it 100% but if we look to Holliston it took them 20 years to create their Trail and they had an empty Trail bed so that puts into perspective our six to eight years of work that we've been doing has it been 10 now I don't know where the presentation is it 10 10 yep um yeah we are he emailed it in is the presentation on here I don't know where it is though um has it been 10 years Marty really be 10 in December 10 in dece is that when we like appointed the committee and then we brought in the consult and stuff [Laughter] so so so we're halfway we're halfway compared to Holliston so I think we're doing okay uh the one thing that we're seeing as a community and just
071in trails in general is there's a lot of state and federal support to create these Trails right now as an alternative for transportation from for people to get around in their Community to get from one Community to another and then and I'm hoping I'm not stepping I don't think I'm stepping on anything from Joel the really exciting part and this this I've had the opportunity to see as part of the Metro West Regional collaborative is there's the north south Greenway and it is a multi-use trail that it's going to go from Maine to Florida and when they were first designing it it was going to go through more western part of the state either Springfield or Worcester because of the work that this region with the help of mapc and David lenheim from their organization
072as well as a few a bunch of other people that Greenway is now going to be coming through the upper Charles Trail so from Framingham and if we can have Ashlin set up that we are a Spur that they can do a loop of and come into Ashland for all kinds of fun and exciting things um I think is exciting I know these things take a long time and that's why I always bring the 20year thing up for Holliston but okay are you all set Joel yeah okay okay and again this is an overview um certainly if there's any members of the committee that want to jump in and then before you start Joel if you would introduce the members of your committee I would be happy to do that okay but even before I
073do that I want to introduce a special member of our committee okay who is sitting right over there Rob sheerer just just steep down from the select board he's been an absolutely invaluable asset to our Trail committee helping make this with the board's approval a priority project last year uh arpa funding which we had tremendous support from Senator spilka and representative Lewis uh Jack Lewis actually got us a separate allocation of funds that we haven't spent it yet but we're we're eager to um and also building and and pushing for the creation of an implementation team with Mike Herbert and the the planning department and members of our committee so it's been just invaluable so thank you Rob it's been just invaluable uh we also have here with us most of our members we have
074Tony Lewis and David Rosenblum and Marty ring uh and Tim Henderson and then not with us today is Preston Crow and Judy rosenfall and Doug Costello they're out of town and wherever they are um Yolanda has repeated this uh statement about you you need to be patient I'm not patient and it takes 20 years to build a trail it took them that long with really good people in Holliston I mean those guys were really topof the top their their team that they had there 20 years that was in 1990 though today the state is throwing money at this the federal government is throwing money at this there's no excuse anymore we can do this and we feel like we're right on the brink of having a trail not just part of a trail but a
075trail that actually would run from the Sherborn line we'll get into some maps in a little bit all the way across through downtown Ashland all the way to Hoppington State Park where we're hoping to tie in with the hopkington section of the trail this Trail ultimately will be the plan is to have roughly a 30 to 35 mile Loop big circle through five towns Milford and Holliston were the first two then Sherborn Ashland hopkington and back to Milford I mean it's it was the people who started this had just an amazing vision and we came along where where the Johnny come lately here um what gives us optimism at this point is that we just received a $300,000 Grant you know that's really a substantial amount of funding to acquire a couple of parcels that
076we need along the trail route that has been planned um Mike Herbert I just love that you said this in the last board meeting you said and I quote I didn't think we had a snowballs chance in hell that was an absolutely that was an absolutely astute observation and the reason is because we were asking for a ridiculous amount of money much more than the average Grant we were asking for land acquisition Yolanda was that the uh MetroWest Regional group that had the thing at uh the skating rink yes so I we Yolanda invited our committee to that and uh uh Pete Sutton who works for Mass DOT as a trail planning guy uh got up and made a speech that the now he said you can use these funds also for land acquisition I
077had never heard that before and we were really up against it trying to even with that approval of land acquisition not easy because we didn't have basically a sign purchase and sale we didn't have a price you know what are we we're giving you this money but what's what's the deal here you know so uh anyway they came through and uh we're we're sitting pretty right now you know hopefully we can finalize all the details there um I wanted to highlight just a couple of other quick things before I get to the core presentation here the comprehensive plan committee and you you guys can speak to this far better than I can but I saw some some statistics that were generated about what do the residents in Ashland want I can't tell you how often
078people come up to me I've been doing this a long I've been doing this before we even had a committee and they say what's going on and residents want more open space more natural space where they can be in the woods or along lakes or something away from the cars it's not just Ashland we're also autoc Centric what do we do we build sidewalks you get get to walk down Pond streets great that we have a sidewalk certainly safer than what we used to have it's great but cars are zooming by it's not exactly uh aesthetic you know and pleasing to do it so it's important to have that but uh this Trail we're trying to make as much as we can that's the ultimate goal an off-road Trail where you're out there in the
079woods looking over marshes and reservoirs and going through Ashlin State Park eventually really trying to get away from the auto traffic and and it it provides a place for families to to meet to have uh teach their kids how to ride a bicycle uh it gives them the opportunity to uh you know a parents walking kids in a stroller this is what we see I mean I'm on bike paths all all over the state all the time and there's a lot of people out there and I want to emphasize this is really an important point you know people know what I do I run a large bike club this isn't just about bicycling this is about people who go out and walk if you can walk or even be pushed in a wheelchair you can
080get out into nature and enjoy these Trails I mean it's really a a great thing so let's get to the document here what I've done here is I've divided the project into three phases resourcefully referred to as phase one two and three and I have been for a long time very resistant to chop this project up into little people say well just get a little done maybe people will like that and we'll then we'll do a little more next year and the problem is that that's what we did with the trolley Brook Trail and we didn't do anything the next year or the next year or the next year I don't think that's a good way to do these projects so what has been designed here is is just an unbelievable win win strategy and
081how the project is structured phase one of this project has an off-road Trail and again we'll look at the maps but it goes from the Sherborn line over the Dyke trail that comes over to 126 just south of Market Basket across 126 and basically up behind the high school without getting into the ultra details um and all the way down to Chestnut Street 95% whatever the percentage is of that is Offroad natural scenery beautiful areas lots of trees and no cars that's what we're shooting for when we get to Chestnut Street though phase one compromises it says well what we can have here is a fully operational Trail phase one doesn't mean doing a little piece it means doing the whole Trail but it it's only an operational Trail and what does that mean it
082means that we get to Chestnut Street and then we continue on the roads this was part of the original vision for the trail we go on the roads through downtown Ashland some people aren't going to do that they're not going to want to ride up a chest AG some safety markings you know whatever if we can get bike Lanes or whatever safety features we can Implement uh that's already there the cost is almost nothing you know the the trail is there because the roads are there that's phase one phase two whenever we get to it now we've got a completed Trail and the benefit of that is that we can get on all the state apps we can say come to ashin here's the ashin trail and why did we route the trail through downtown
083because we felt that this was a way of bringing traffic to our ashin businesses the whole Market Basket Plaza downtown itself not much beyond that the train station possibly people could commute if they wanted to do it you can actually just get to the train station on a bicycle so that's the advantage of having the onroad route but phase two of the project which were I'm not planning to go into great detail about it tonight but phase two of the project at Chestnut Street there would be a branch so one route would come out of the cemetery or near the cemetery and go to the light by the Shell station and go up Homer ra through downtown Stone Park the trolley Brook Trail and and onto Memorial Drive and phas the the other route the
084branch part would go to Ashland State Park there's a few different options of how we could connect there and it would go to ashin state park over the dam and eventually up to Memorial Drive where it would link up with the trolley Brook Trail on Memorial Drive so this is a much more attractive Trail it's an off-road Trail I mean it has all kinds of advantages but let's not start there well those issues I want to emphasize all of these phases it doesn't mean we Scurry Along on phase one until we're all done and then we start phase two and then we do that and then we start phase we can be talking to DCR about what it would take to implement a trail in the state park right now we could call them up
085tomorrow or in a week you know so we shouldn't just view this as pushing off to the Future when we talk about subsequent phases but the main target should be getting from Sherborn to Chestnut Street and then on the roads to hopkington um phase three is even more vague at this point we come up from the train station or around cus apartments or however that's all going to work I want to emphasize that nobody on our committee is an engineer we came up with the best planning we could do we hire an engineering company to do f is one and we say can I borrow you for a minute come on over here I want you to look at this what what should we do here we're looking for guidance I mean we're not experts
086on this stuff we have an opinion we've looked at it for 10 years we've gotten pretty good and knowing the the pros and cons but you know to have professionals looking at this would be a major plus I mean again that's not what we do we're bike riders and enthusiasts and Advocates um let's see what else I have here oh there you go he does the things he does fly over he can launch rockets at at at Trail users engineering though I mean that's it's engineering to some right engineering is [Laughter] engineering oh okay so yeah you were software though oh you did well I was software that's okay we got three engine so um so Joel why don't you take us through the maps and then let people ask some questions that would be
087great okay I don't want to throw you off what your plan was but no no no no I I'm always glad a lot of people like visuals there's one last thing I want to say well we'll look I think doing it with the map it even be better let's do that okay let's do that all right so I'm scrolling up except this thing doesn't scroll the way my computer does there we go okay somewhere here there's a map all right come on you can get there who wrote this thing I'm not used to this ah here we go this is tough though all right I'm sorry these I don't know if is there a way to turn this sideways try right click right click didn't do it oh this spin around this should be a
088rotate not that one oh okay should no that's share how do I get rid of that what a mess okay that's okay why you you know just try to talk as through best you can I think okay I would scroll up just a little so that the red circle is more in the middle of the screen well I just wanted to show where it begins at the Sherborn line so okay that's so in Sherborn over the line into Sherborn this is not Ashland all right and I'm not going to go into a whole lot of detail about this right now there's the CSX train tracks in Sherborn okay once we hit the Ashland Town Line which is right here see that horizontal line going across that's the Dyke Trail it comes over here all the
089way to 126 the red dots all right which brings us to the next topic here as we scroll up and look at this there are several Parcels that are in various states of town control two of the parcels that happen right here at 126 are called the Enzo parcels and for the most part uh the the owner of the parcels is very aware that the town is interested in this for the most part I really don't want to get into uh land and owner discussions here I think more just the route and but some of the stuff is known to the people already so I thought that was okay so it would go across it would cross 126 Mass DOT has gracious ious ly installed or is about to install a crosswalk there and a
090lot more work needs to be done like for example if you cross 126 in the crosswalk now you're on the other side there's a guard rail there unless you're a good jumper you're not you're going to be in the marsh anyway but but uh so um we'll we'll work with them on that Joel don't worry right now it's good to have the guard rail there exactly so i' I've been working with the uh Mass DOT official in charge of all this and it's just a permitting process he's very supportive of doing this the next property is called it's I don't think it's labeled here the Sudbury Valley trustees par well that is but the what they call it is not it's it's they actually call that the for some reason the Roco parcel R CCO
091um I've met with their land acquisition director and he did more than I could ever have done I mean he's an engineer he was able to map out where how this Trail would work coming from 126 and going west uh we will need his estimate I mean this is subject to engineering review but we will need a couple of things to make this Sudbury Valley trustees parcel work one is that we're going to need them to approve it so we we're looking to have one of our action items is to have the town meet with the director of SVT to get an approval I think that's like almost a done deal but we still need to have a formal meeting formalize it yep he this guy that I met with there uh and walk he
092walked the trail with me uh said that he thinks we're going to need about 240t long Boardwalk coming off of 126 it's all Marsh when it starts off the good news is after 240 ft it appears that we're on Solid Ground the rest of the way except there'll be one other little section of a a much shorter I think it's 65t Boardwalk anyway all all of that without getting into pain staking details gets us up to mohall drive there's a little kind of a I guess we call it a paper Road or a little road stub that never was used that connects up to mohal drive and that comes out to uh Cedar Street from Cedar Street we want to turn I guess it's Southbound on Cedar Street toward the fire station and then turn
093up the power lines like actually go up the power l lines and that brings us all the way to the back of Ashland High School we've met with the school committee and a bunch of their key people and they are very supportive of this as long as we make sure it's safe for the kids and we have you know they they like what we're doing um from there we would come basically in between the high school where there's some of the fields up there and the cemetery we go across the very top of the the fields or the edge of the cemeter however it would work and that gets us over to what we used to call I don't know what the name of it is anymore but we used to call it the faford
094parcel now now we call it the Ashlin parcel I like that so the town for people who don't know the town has recently acquired that land Y and there's one more piece that we think we'll need and that is owned by DCR so if you go all the way across the faford parcel heading toward Chestnut Street there's a little tiny undeveloped piece of land there that DCR owns and and I think before I'm not sure where that is Joe so it's before the bridge it's before the bridge that's behind the water pumping station are we in the right that's right yes so I have been working with a guy at DCR who's been very supportive but they have a formal process that we have to go through so I have paperwork work to do that
095I have to submit to them um map two [Laughter] okay okay do you know which button it is I don't Mouse around your mouse like up here or something there was there oh look at that try look at that sound engineer this is he's not as he's not as sound as you would [Laughter] think sorry um so what this is showing here this we've kind of covered this a little bit but this shows uh coming off of mohall Drive uh going up the power lines along here on this eversource right of way area here Ashland actually owns the upper part of the land from Grover Road up to the high school come through the back of the high school around the top of the cemetery or the top of the ball fields whatever we can
096work out with the town as what do the residents want us to do there across the faford land across the DCR parcel and then down the Very extreme Northwest side mostly off the road in the cemetery this is not near any current grave sites these are really old Graves that are up in there um but we can work with the town on on finding a way to get down to Chestnut Street we'll either work our way over to the cemetery exit or maybe we need to cut through the fence and have access through there by the the pumping station you know we're open you know let's let's hear from you and see what you think is the best way to do it um okay and that is all right so this just this last piece
097just shows the onroad part so we we get to Chestnut Street near the cemetery we'd go across the light by the Shell station across 135 up hom RAV to downtown across Main Street Summer Street Park Road past Stone Park a right on Cherry left on munko and then we would take the trolley Brook Trail this is an existing Trail if you haven't if people at home are watching this and they've never been on on the trolley Brook Trail it's really a it's beautiful pretty it's a pretty Trail um and that brings you over to the MBTA access road and that is what we're envisioning as phase one um well that's not quite true is it let's go to last map here if I can figure out how Marty did that oh there we go due
098to more flips so it's not upside down you don't like it like that yeah com okay there we go there we go all right so oh excuse me um all right so this gets us to the MBTA Road and the trolley Brook Trail and right now it's a bit of an issue uh what we do is we go there there's a part of the upper Charles Trail in Ashland exists already it runs all the way the length of Memorial drive all the way to the train station most people probably probably think of it as a sidewalk but it's a really good sidewalk it's 10 and 1/2 ft wide for almost its entire length and it brings you all the way down to the train station Ashlin bike club uses that I mean it's a perfectly
099good bike path um there's a bit of an issue and I know Rob indicated he's on the MBTA committee or something advisory Bo Advisory board so we're I'm I'm looking to have you give them some advice uh what we're hoping to do as part of this phase to get to Hoppington is to cut through the train station again this isn't the my favorite Trail cut through the train station go up to High Street up that little back exit ramp up High Street to whittimore over toward uh the back of hopkington state park off house Street um so the problem there is that uh I don't it's going to have require a conversation with them I don't think that they necessarily view that EX ex as an operational exit so we need to sit down and
100say look you know humor Us here for a couple of years while we build the rest of this thing and and see what we can work out we'll see what we can do um anyway that basically is it it gets you all the way over to house Street and the back entrance there's a couple of different places to go into hopkington State Park one is right at the corner of cross and how and the other one is a little bit farther up um how Street yeah emergency G right so we'll work that out just as a complete aside here and I mean I find this like a really interesting thing I watch a lot of videos of people doing these National Trails not just biking they're hiking and biking all kinds of stuff and uh
101one of the things that you quickly learn is that especially longdistance bike riders where do they stay at night you know you don't you don't just ride up and put your bike up on the front porch of the Hotel Ashland you know we we ain't got one so you know I was thinking wouldn't it be unbelievable a lore for to have them take this branch of the root because there are other branches that go to Holliston if we could get them to agree to having a small number you don't need you're not turning it into a campground with aund tent sites you might need five tent sites something like that where people would have a place to stay and my argument that I would like us as a town to present to DCR is that
102state parks all over Massachusetts provide camping but not in Metro West I'm not I'm not aware of any maybe somebody is but I'm sure not they just don't do it and I don't know why that is but if we have reason to say there would be a benefit to it now that we are building these Trails maybe it's time to rethink that you know and I don't know you know there's obvious costs and administrative issues and all kinds of things so um that is pretty much phase one and now that I left it to the end these guys said make it the first item we kind of would like to talk about two things um Yolanda approached me we had a meeting on Friday last week and she said uh that she was hoping Rob
103could be the Lea Zone to the board so we want to talk about that for a second and uh nobody wanted him but I insisted so this one pretty well and um um the other thing that we really just need to do we are so close on this project right the we have a designed trail with a couple of key missing pieces that are going really well that we can get in the near term we could engineer the whole off-road part from the Sherborn line to Chestnut Street and have a completed Trail like magic and there's all kinds of reasons I'm not going to go into but getting a completed Trail is like gold there's a lot of maps that we can get on there's a lot of organizations that you publish with and if
104you want to attract recreational users to your community and and stimulate your businesses this is how you do it what we're asking for is that we would really like we have uh two teams we have our committee and we have an implementation team and we really would love to have a formal scheduling document for the implementation team where we say here's here are the activities assuming we agree to all of them you know let's see what they are and go over that and then here's who needs to do this some of the things we talked about in our committee we may be able to take on or at least get the ball rolling on you know we don't always need Michael or town staff to get involved up front or maybe we want them to
105at least have some input to it up front depending on what the situation is um but I I think it's really important to not just say Yep this is great let's do this because there's not a there's no deliverable there's no deadline there's no it's it just becomes a very vague process so what we're hoping for is to build a project plan and we're going to try to put a more detailed project plan together and then you know whether it's Michael and Jen or however that would work try to try to get a buy into it uh you know estimate how long different tasks will take we have no idea I mean you know we're going to an engineering company and saying could you do all this neat stuff on this part of the trail
106is that going to take them two years or three months does it cost $5 million or $1 million we don't know I mean we just don't know so we're looking for help on stuff like that we're we if we we can get a little more structured and scheduled as a process to run it as a real project uh that would be very very helpful Rob did you have anything you wanted to say about the Lea Zone thing before I make fun of you some more Hello everybody um good to be back here again because it's temporary so that's part of the um so Joel I don't know if you you got 10 years Rob until complete that's better until completion which was the previous one did you uh but you're going to come talk more
107about next steps right well all right we'll see what the board want we'll see what the board wants to do so on the um uh you guys we had talked about me continuing as the Lea's on to the select board from the upper Charles Trail so uh we discussed it earlier and people um they kind of like me and think I'm okay you know but they actually were thinking um they would prefer a serving member of the select board to be the liais on which is not surprising I think so I'm happy to try to do that role continue that which is a kind of be an advocate for both sides which has its own kind of challenges but I think the first preference of a committee if there's someone on the select board he's
108willing to kind of commit to do that would be their preference so I'm not saying people need to decide that right now um think about it but and if there's someone who wants to step up and become that kind of closely involved I think that's their PR preference and otherwise I'm happy to try to continue to do that so I think that's pretty much a gist of it right so I received a vote of no confidence so you know but or little confidence there some confidence but all right well there's certainly a benefit right to having someone who an acting current board member as the liais are so yeah okay yeah okay so I be happy to open this up I I don't know where it is in I'm having all kinds of trouble with
109this document but somewhere here there action items is it above so before before you go to that any questions on what we've seen so far from the board I mean do you feel I'm going to say to Claudia and Makita do you feel like you're sort of up to speed on the you know where the trail is at and where they're looking to go okay okay um I would also real like I would I would love to meet with ke and Claudia anytime to walk part of the trail maybe you haven't seen or you just want to come out with us and get our perspective of what's what's real in the field and uh we we would be more than happy to we always love it when people come and visit us you know it's
110great okay so I was if if you have questions I would be happy to let's let do question got a couple I've got a couple questions just about what you presented great um first the the you were talking about going through the power lines yes what does that process look like because you know I assume over by the high school it's it's I have power lines behind my house and it's all you know eversource and vegetation and they maintain it and all that stuff so are we looking I assume we'd be looking to do like a paved trail through that probably that's again subject to engineering yeah so I'm just curious like what have you heard from other like um well let me give you a really good answer the last Ashlin bike club ride
111was on this past Sunday and the first I don't know three or four miles of the ride was on something called the mass Central rail trail and the mass Central rail trail is envisioned to run from somewhere east of 12895 like maybe walam or beyond all the way out to um Northampton and maybe to Albany and maybe to the West Coast okay and when we did the first three or four miles of that because we get off these trails and ride on the roads quite a bit um it was under power lines they were NE right the the trail was here and the power lines were here okay the trail was there pave Trail beautiful and it was eversource or some other power company's property the guy who really put that was really the the
112uh energy behind getting that to happen was a guy named sori who's the city planner for the town city of Framingham so we can get we can find that out SAR sarkeesian so he used to be in Wayland yeah this is in way he helped with and now he's in Framingham and he is very actively working to work on the sections so they have the Chris Walsh Trail and then also the connection from the Chris Walsh Trail South into Sherborn hollist and connecting with Ashland but yes sar's and he's he's very active so all of that is to be discussed to be negotiated are there legal constraints what does their easement look like yeah but you've seen it before so that's kind of like one of the things it exist okay CU I was curious
113I don't think there's any section of our trail that you can't find it having been done in another community so with power lines through Wetlands through backyards through through cemeteries I mean you it's been you go somewhere either in our state or another state and you'll see it have has been done okay okay y um one other question I know you were talking about the MBTA and using the the emergency exit yes out of there and I know we've had a lot of people come to us about safety concerns about cars coming in and out of there because the visibility is kind of hard so I think that's a you know something that as far as a safety issue that I can I can I can Envision like bikes coming out of there and not
114having cars have the visibility into it so so it sounds like um I hadn't really thought that through until Joel mentioned it today but certainly something I could start bringing up with the mvta people and see what kind of issues they raise um but that's a good yeah any kind of entrance from that Half Baked gate would have to be you know well signalized or on that stretch certainly okay so one of the things I read in some of the early comprehensive planning documents talked about people up I guess up in that neighborhood up way up high Street and Beyond cross street up that way wanting to be able to bicycle and leave their bikes at the train well you can do that but it's not always convenient depending on how you go I I
115couldn't agree more that I think that's a very dangerous egress there you know you'll never hear from me to to get a Trail built sacrificing saf we would never do that right right in just as a complete aside but it was so it was so horrible what happened I couldn't believe this I came to and I think it was a select board meeting I don't know like four or five years ago or something and they they had the MBTA people in here and I said you know bikes you may not want bikes but they are using it that's what's that's the reality you know and you it would be great if you could make it a little more a little safer I said when if you're going to keep that gate there partway up the
116road it's on a steep uphill there right if you could make kind of like a radius so we could go around the gate on a bicycle cars couldn't do it you know and they did they were really accom they I mean it was like a year later they actually did it I couldn't I was so pleased until I saw it and what they did was if you could imagine the the whole radius is about like two feet around the pole I mean there's no way you know even if you walk your bike you're up on the curb it's just terrible you know so but I think that's that's a very important and valid point there may ways of looking at the intersection to do something safer than it is it's also at a curve in
117the road I mean I really don't like that but you know I mean the other thing you know without going off on this but it's you know Ashland you know Yolanda always highlights that we don't have a rail bed here in Ashland and what this means is often times the property the the the land that remains is wetlands and ledge it's stuff that Builder new enough to stay away from and now there's nothing left and they're they're trying to make it work but the stuff we're stuck with is is sometimes not so good you know and we're just trying to we're trying to find a way through as long as it's safe that really has to be the bottom line and then I have one other question and I don't know if it's if you're
118going to cover it kind of after the fact but we talked about you know funding available uh state and federal level and um as far as phase one are you thinking because I know you're talking about like engineering so there's like the engineering component right and then from a funding standpoint we would apply for funding for the entire phase one or here's how I'm envisioning it I mean this is all to be discussed I this our implementation team really needs to know the details here and see how this can work if we can and we think we have sufficient funding we don't know for sure but we have quite a chunk to engineer all of the off-road stuff and maybe even the you know the on-road stuff is just some safety signage and bike Lanes
119or whatever that doesn't cost anything um after that Michael and I have talked about maybe getting on the tip you guys probably all know but just to explain it this is a a public process where if you I think you have to be at the 25% design with your engineering so we would hope the engineers would bring us to that point handle all the permitting and then we say we're ready put us in and that could take any place from three to 500 years of getting funding I mean you just don't know now you're exaggerating Joel it it'll take 20 years sort of yeah so so so uh you know um maybe we'll do that maybe there will be other sources of funding that we can explore okay uh let you know let's see how
120it goes but again the whole the whole Focus that we have right now is we think we're knocking on the door to make a big thing happen literally a completed cross town Trail we can do it and you know if we if we just schedule these things and hire the companies to do it we can make it happen um so that's what we're hoping for and then the other part and I I don't know if you're going to go over this Joel is that there is then a complete off-roads path as well that would take you um around different part Parcels through DCR I mean uh and there's there's people who are interested but it's a matter of just doing the work to get us there and and as Joel said now that as of
121last year we've made this a priority project I think when we have our retreat in August we can talk a little bit more about what that means and how we can move this project what does it mean to move this project forward uh working with the committee and and you know staff and things like that I have a question yep all right the new Kid the new kid yeah so um so uh I think we in the Dogman it mentions rewriting the BCT oh great question and so I noticed that the AMC is involved in uh you know uh overseeing the BCT I I'm not exactly sure what that means and I don't know what the implications are for for our trial so if you could explain that relationship uh a little bit and start
122with explain she was planted in the audience I can't thank you enough so so here's the deal there's something I know you guys know this but there's something called The Bay Circuit Trail it's unbelievable what Massachusetts did it's a trail that STS North of Boston and it goes comes Way Out West here and then goes back like in a u-shape south of Boston how long is it over 230 miles long it's a great hike it's unbelievable Tony have you done the whole thing not Tony and his wife did the whole thing unbelievable you know um so some years ago I I can't remember the exact time frame maybe five seven eight years ago maybe more even the train track people in Sherborn said we don't want you we don't want you people coming across our
123train tracks there's risk of vandalism there people could get hurt liability get out you cannot advertise the Bay Circuit Trail coming across our railroad tracks anymore get rid of it well the Bay Circuit Trail used to have all kinds of issues with with private property they had issues and it used to come out of the back of Market Basket and then to go south down to the Dyke Trail that's that's about 660 ft from Market Basket South towards Sha to the Dyke Trail and then you turn uh East on the Dyke Trail all right you had to walk in the street crazy on 126 I mean this really it was insane so um we included in the grant we really leaned on this heavily we don't have the train tracks yet but we're making some
124progress we think um we're working with state agencies and stuff to try to get an accommodation of being able to use the train tracks to put a trail they call this rail with Trail they're side by side well you don't just want to do that you want to put up a big high fence in between the two I mean safety has got to be Numero Uno and vandalism too so in the grant that we wrote uh that we just received um we uh talked about that this could be a major benefit where now instead of coming through Market Basket and going down 126 which now should have a sidewalk which is a plus right you could be in the woods on beautiful Sudbury Valley trustees land really nice this is a a major upgrade to
125I mean they're looking for as much nature as they can get so that's the status of it you know our comment about the AMC this was just kind of like a little Tickler note to myself like we really should contact them and let them know where we're working on this it's not anything we have any control over I mean they can route the trail however they want okay but what we're doing is we'd like to encourage them to improve the Ashland section of the trail by taking advantage if we're able to make progress here of what we're doing you know that our Trail could become a major Plus for for their Trail one other thing I just want to point this out you know people I I just to put some scope on this today
126I looked up I had no idea I mean I couldn't have guessed with than a million how many people use the Appalachian Mountain what's it called the Appalachian Trail the at they call it right yep how many people a year do they get hiking on that not all the way through it goes main to Georgia yeah most people just do section hikes SE exactly how how many people a year do they get over three million yeah a lot of people so we're not talking about like 50,000 nutty longdistance hikers we're talking about a lot of people here there's another trail that goes from from Washington DC out to Pittsburgh uh and they get about 1.6 million Trail users a year there's another one last one I'll say is the U Eerie Canal Trail it gets
1271.6 million users a year so you know we're not envisioning that you're going to have 1.6 million bicyclists riding across pond street but we could if we do it right and we have the right Vision to try to attract a commercial thing you know I used to serve with Yolanda on the comprehensive planning committee and we always talk about you know what's happened to Ashland and what's happened to all the Suburban towns everybody moved their little shops the bookstores and the dress shops and whatever it was they all went to route nine because that's where the Bucks are and they all and you know we end up with not particularly uh job oriented or profitable businesses for to help with tax revenue so this could really be a thing you know if we do it
128right we got to have the right Vision yeah and I go ahead Claudia no I was just going to ask a couple of quick questions I think um how many miles would you say there are that are um off Offroad uh off Trail so they're on the road well now you got me I meant to look that up today I'm gonna say I'm GNA guess I I think it's just about 6/10 of a mile for the Dyke Trail the rest of it over to Chestnut Street I think is maybe a mile and a half to two miles so I'd say three three and a half okay and then how many miles of on road and yeah probably another five or so something like that and some of that's trolley Brook and and Memorial Drive Right
129and is the would the idea be to put like stone dust and or pave them in some places or or just to clear it and make a make a pen if you go ask a million Road cyclist like me all but one guy I can send you a picture of him all but one guy will say they want asphalt they don't like the stone dust that's what Holliston did however we met maybe roughly four or five years ago with DCR because we're talking about running over the dam there and through their trails and I was absolutely I mean sometimes you just know and I was sure they were going to go for a natural surface and they said if you want to have a trail in our Park it's got to be asphalt I couldn't
130believe it so you know go figure I don't know like you know what is the thinking I you know there's all kinds of issues that come in with maintenance and safety and and you know uh noise if you're going right by a bunch of houses right but all of that what the one thing you don't want to do is have a mishmash you don't want to go an eighth of a mile with gravel and then an eighth of a mile paav then an eighth you're constant because at that Ridge you're it's just not a good thing right you know so you you pick one and you go with it for for long stretches even if you have boat I think you'll attract different Riders right you you have people who will do the Milford portion
131of the trail because it's paved but then then once they hit Holliston they turn back around yeah because it's not as comfortable to drive or you know or their bike is not appropriate or they you know it's definitely one of those things um right I also think and and I could be wrong that I think a lot of the funding and engineering is they're they're going toward paved routes because it's more it's more durable and it allows I think for more commuting right and that's what they're trying to push as well can I just oh sure sure I I do want to add just one thing Joel talked earlier about the challenges we have in Ashland so you know we may be sometimes it may not we may not be have finding a good width
132you know the do type of width we may have to look at kind of in between Alternatives like a nice gravel path that's maybe not as wide as we would like I mean we do have some unique challenges I think the key is flexibility and adaptability depending on where we are and what we're trying to do so I just wanted and that's a discussion we have at the committee a lot so I wanted to add that any other questions or comments for Joel Joel oh go ahead Michael can you give your name and home address sure Joel Joel so great presentation I I just I want to thank you know Joel and the committee and you know Joel especially with this grant you know I think similar to what I was talking about with the
133the cemetery group um I mean a lot of that Grant was staff had very little to do with it so and I and I didn't I didn't think we had a chance not because you know Joel was working on it just because of the C no seriously just because of the circumstances no but Joel was in contact with Amanda you know writing a grant takes a lot um it was unbelievable Joel was in contact with Amanda uh Lewis over at Mass Trails quite a bit I just want to say I know sometimes it it it might seem like I'm resistant to this and really it's it's just a matter we just got so many things going on like we were making I think had a good Rhythm I think with the implementation team and then
134we got a couple 40 BS you know that came away but I will tell you like it is one of my goals like personal goals I love it to you know before I leave here or leave Earth um to to get this done help get this done for you guys so completion yeah it really it really is because I think you know this checks off so many boxes in so many ways I mean we've heard from the comprehensive plan committee or Community I should say how they look for more connectivity um you know like you said more open space and a lot of people think about this Trail is is like a bike trail but no it's a multimodal path like people can walk on yeah and um anyway I just wanted to add my
135comments I've been I've been uncharacteristically quiet tonight so so just to wrap this up from my point of view um I think we have and we have not we've been nowhere I mean we're we're just hoping that this will get moving and we had our little trolley Brook three years ago and that's nice but now we really feel like we're sitting right on the brink of this can really happen and it can happen quickly I mean it may take a certain amount of time with the the labor involved but we're really right there I mean it like the we have the funding we have almost complete root control and I think the only thing standing in our way at this point is the willpower to make it happen um just I don't want to go
136down the list at all but the the hot items here the first thing I think and I I'll leave number one off on this action item list but it would be great if we could get at least one uh for a starting point engineering estimate from Green engineering or whoever it would be so that's one thing we're hoping for it would be great if we could have uh contact it might be literally a five minute phone call with Sudbury Valley trustees that really moves you know that leaves open pieces it closes them um I think those are the key things if we could get that stuff moving and and work on more project team coordination that would be great so thank you well Eno yeah I I said I wasn't going to address that because
137I know that I think yeah we're looking at so yeah absolutely I I like Michael support this project and I I feel that I can support it in Ashland I can support it regionally uh I think when we have our retreat at the beginning of August I think we'll then be able to decide who of our board will become your liaison um and also help keep this moving forward forward and I I agree I think we're right at that point where we have this grant funding we have support regionally to help move this forward and you know and as other things move off you know Michael and I have had this conversation as well so um I don't think we can give you a response tonight but know that similar to Michael this is a
138project that I I I won't say that I'll be continuing to sit here until it's done um but it's certainly a project that while I'm on the board we I will help move forward well we appreciate that very much so anyway sure do you want to come up do you want say it to so yeah I just want to appre say that we I think I speak for everyone I appreciate the support that um that the board has continuing to show and and the town manager and his staff um and you know you guys know me so if any want to reach out for any details or questions or concerns i' be happy to answer it but great thanks it was great seeing you all you managed you're okay without me I I think we're
139okay we we've had a you know a a decent swap you know you know but we'll be okay and if if we need you we know where you are I want to thank Joel for the job he did definitely for the grant in January Not only was he working on the grant just working on this he he was doing all kinds of hats he was wearing y he really did excellent good thank and um on the implementation team it would be nice if we could set up a a a regular meeting and like a schedule so we can do it definitely I see that Happ thank you for your time and anybody wants to walk on the trail my wife and I show you the trail too okay thank you thank you all great again
140thank you Joel for the presentation and for your work on the grant thank you to the rest of you for your work on the trail please hang in there please keep your enthusiasm going and we will get back to you after our retreat in August to let you know other things moving forward thank you very much thank you thank you much you know it's really nice too is they're all really likable guys yeah yeah that's kind of a bonus right depends on which time of day they're calling you so or how how many times the the weather has changed so it's flattened out I think it has it has some humidity going on right now so it has flattened out some yeah yeah thank you good night thank you all Adit it you like her
141better I think somebody misses us I think so I think so great okay we're gonna move on in our agenda um was continuing with the town manager report priority project update you don't have to talk about the trail because I think we just covered it um clearly um let's see P for cheet but um so anyway I'll just start with the downtown project and um so I I think I told you that we were going to get bids in excuse me um that we were going to get bids in for um phase two on third or Friday I was mistaken it's actually the next Friday so um we had to make some adjustments based on the pre- biders conference we didn't have as much interest as we thought so um we did that and uh
142so I did get an email from ever Source I did tell you that through uh Karen's help you know so we got some Transformers shipped and I did get confirmation from ever source that um we were in line to to to get those um when when they come in right so I'm sorry they shipped and they're coming by roboat yeah well we'll see when when they get heref building exactly so um so so that's moving forward um uh you know we had a Mendes project team yesterday I I don't think there's too much of an update there um that I need to give we did talk about the upper Charles Trail um we talked about Valentine um so there was a Warren bar meeting tonight or earlier today um I unfortunately wasn't able to make
143it but uh both Claudia and Jen represented the town and you know got some good updates I believe and I think we'll talk about that later and just kind of see what that looks like so um so I don't have my spreadsheet in front of me okay so there's that um just eversource gas update now that is not I don't want to hearken raise any specters of uh the Big Gas project that we're talking about bless you um but they are looking at doing a couple smaller projects uh one on Chestnut Street um and then one on Fruit Street leading to Elliot Street uh the the Fruit Street project there probably going to look at doing next year uh Chestnut Street they'll look at doing this year and so this project is to basically correct
144a lot of the leaks that are happening oh good um they also have uh some redundancy issues that they're trying to take care of and so uh I've asked ever source for more data about that like the number of leaks that they were correct and everything so I can get that to to you and then also look at like a traffic management plan what that would look like um especially starting with Chestnut Street but just wanted to give you an update on that um as part of um the one on Fruit Street which again is probably not going to happen till next year we're looking at encouraging them let's put that way to do uh some more heavy Paving as part of the repair of that project as opposed to you know just doing the
145trench and everything can we encourage them to do it during the summer next year so it's not impacting the school to the extent that we can okay let's let's let's highly encourage that because to have construction of any kind on Fruit Street during the school year would be traffic around there is bad enough already yeah theid walk and yeah so yeah and so I had two more things one on um one on the agenda and just one actually one aside from the agenda y actually a couple more I apologize not um so update on Town Hall repair so we've completed doing the assessment of the building and used that to put together a spec and scope to go out to bid for these work for this work um it's pretty comprehensive um and pretty detailed
146in terms of you know things that need to be replaced and repaired like Sills I mean we're looking at doing a pretty comprehensive um repair job for the exterior of the building in preparation for painting um and so I think the estimate was around 2 250 to do that work we'll know more once we put it out the bid and see what that comes in but um I will forward you those those specs so you can see the work that's going to be done it is in fine print Joe so you should be able to read it not the painting just the carpentry work so um I will say we are looking so we'll be using like wood Clapper and everything like historical related materials one thing we are looking at doing is using like
147a PVC for like a a fascia board that's going to be hidden behind a gutter just because that just rots um consistently and you won't really be able to see it okay so look at doing that um I mean we've discovered all kinds of stuff I mean holes where birds are coming in you know birds and sparrows specifically apparently woodpeckers no I don't think mostly sparrows um so that's uh so that's moving along again another project uh that we'll get to talk about and uh then finally just uh to let you know M Makita and I recorded another podcast uh last week and so I think Paul has got that ready and that's going up it was a great discussion um and uh it was it was fun we got into a little little outside
148of town stuff start talking music and yeah and everything so yeah uh thanks for having me on Michael uh it was a great experience a lot of fun um and I think it's up now I think it's up now I've seen it on on a published to some wherever you get your podcast so so um so yeah uh had a good time just talking about the town you know selectboard why I ran what I how I hope to serve the community and how I hope to get out and uh meet some more folks yeah so great so in future episodes I'm looking forward to having each of you be on there and Joe I know we've had you um on the first one and uh yeah it be good good good yeah but I kind
149of like this talking mostly about town stuff but then kind of venturing off into some of the other stuff that's interest that you know that helps share who you are as people um so that's great sounds good okay that's it anything else no okay we will go to board reports Claudia you're at the end so you get to start so I'm waiting with anti oh so I'd like to announce that the uh 11U uh baseball Ashland baseball team is the championship of the torf tournament congratulations congratulations yes they are the champions so that's awesome it's an exciting game they've uh they've had quite a season they only lost one game and this is they are repeating repeating this year they won last year as 10 unders and um lost in the finals has nine on
150nine 's so um and you know the nice the really nice part is that they are really a really nice group of boys um and the coaches are great in the values and it really is um you know kind of what sports is really all about and learning and to be together and uh being respectful and I mean they're just uh you know working hard all those things so um so anyway so congratul ulations to them I was going to change my picture during um when I was on Zoom I said I should change and just show them but yeah in any case um so yeah so thank you for letting me step away for a little bit um last night we had a school building committee meeting am Mena School building committee meeting um
151uh next month I did ask that we put on the agenda I had noticed that um the there were no roofs on The Dugout uh over there um and that seems like a very um just something that slipped by during perhaps when we were doing some value engineering when the bids came back so high we and we uh got rid of the package um that we had purchased that we had for for dugouts knowing that we could do things you know ourselves um and unfortunately I I know that I didn't realize that um and I know others didn't realize that the roofs uh were not included in this new um so we're going to hopefully um take care of we've got the design teams going to look at basically um what it what it would
152take to add add roofs over there um and then Jen and I attended the um Warren Barn meeting today they're at about 50% yeah u in terms of the design and that and had some conversations about bathrooms um potential uses um it's it's very exciting it's nice to um have another organization kind of taking the lead and it's not just the you know us having to uh make all this happen and it's nice to know that when it when it does come to fruition um that they will have a um management company that will will run any activities that take up place um so firmingham state has really done a remarkable job up there and and certainly I think a lot of people I know there's been a lot of buzz in town about uh
153Henry's place and you know that's a great little spot to go and grab something to eat um and and they're just um really you know moving forward the um you know people might not realize that the barn that they're going to construct is sort of in place of the Henry's Barn that fell down so um after the town purchased it so in any case so they are um uh moving forward and still working through some details and that so great I guess that's it for me okay Makita yes so um fortunately I've had my wings clipped a little bit I fell ill there for a little while but one of the first things that I managed to do when I got up was to uh record that podcast the clock toown articles uh so couple
154things I'm looking forward to though uh especially select Board office hours happening this Saturday where uh I you know I will be joining uh I think this is my first one actually at the Farmers Market so very excited Yanda and Brandy uh to be out there um so uh so yeah that's that's what I'm looking forward to one other thing I'd just like to say um I know that well hopefully I think some of this heat is going to break a little bit but um I do want to acknowledge that first off that it's it's dangerous out there right now and I'm very glad that the town has been very uh proactive and letting folks know about cooling centers uh and opportunities around that I think it's very easy to get to have that heat
155sneak up on you no matter what age you are uh and and you know you think people are stubborn they don't want to put in their AC units you live in older houses like me you know it's like you know you don't want to do it but you know at some point you got to give in or get to someplace that's safe so um you know I think getting those those messages out on social and other means uh the town's been doing has been very helpful just keep each other safe out there make sure you're hydrating and all that good stuff good so that's all I've got right now okay great Joe thank you madam chair um congratulations again that's pretty cool brings back some great memories wonderful memories um footable Housing Trust we met
156last week uh we're still talking about the the plans that uh you all saw and uh seeing how that how that will go down the road uh if it goes down the road and do what we can to uh moving forward um other than that uh we have have a summer conc coming up next uh Tuesday on the 23rd and uh yander already made made that announcement and and a reminder so thank you for doing that and um I'm sorry I won't be here this weekend but uh we'll uh we'll do our best to come back with a a championship out of Rome New York we'll see what we can do 250 Bari teams I don't know how we're going to fear we 40 we came in 40th last time so nice we'll see how
157no fear there's no fear no not now I can see now watch out out I can see that's all the difference the ability to see is it's vit it's vital it's a key it's vital but that's it and by the way happy birthday oh my goodness yes thank you thank you and uh like I said earlier there's nobody else I'd rather be with on my birthday than you lovely people that is the line of the night although although I have to say I have to give props to my husband and some friends who um like had a pre-birthday thing for me yesterday so I I have to say like my husband was on top of of of the cake and so there's leftover cake at home but we had we had cake last night so
158in anticipation of a 5:30 you know start time start time tonight so um so thank you guys but um I don't have a whole lot I've been kind of um taking care of some personal things and so I haven't been quite as out into the community as I've I have been in the past I'm looking forward to office hours too um just as an aside because you guys would probably get a kick out of it I went to go do the comprehensive plan newsletter for for July um we've been doing it for a year now the comprehensive plan newsletter has hit a year time flies yeah certainly does so um I'm hoping that means we're halfway through I think so yeah um but looking forward to uh tomorrow night's visioning session and hopefully it's a
159good discussion and um and other than that you know trying to take a little bit of time this this summer to to um enjoy family and friends and a little bit of downtime so I hope everyone else does that too though I'm looking forward to like our Retreat and and kind of resetting for the year so that's really all I got so great thanks great I too want to wish you Happy Birthday and yes when you celebrate your birthday at a meeting like this or someplace else you know it's just part of what we do and um I mean I think I sat through at least one school committee meeting during for my during you know so it's it's what you do um but there's other ways to celebrate so just one up well two
160updates one is uh so I'm on the weimo board and we are getting ready to plan we are planning our fall session it is happening on Friday September 27th 7th up at devans and we're going to have a panel of women who are involved in municipal government we have the mayor of Newton we have the economic development director from Hopkin from Holliston and she's done some stuff in her town and I forget where the third person is from but we're doing a fireside chat kind of thing um so I recommend look out for it and if you can go it's it's a it's a great event it's a great day to just go and meet with other women who are dealing with the same things that we are and Joe you're welcome to go as
161well because it's beneficial to everybody but uh and then I too am trying to get a little family time getting to go to down to New York in a couple weeks but the one thing I want to let people know about is Hopkinson Center for the Arts they have their free concerts on Friday nights and and on Saturday they are sponsored by Dell and they have different communities so On th on Friday July 26th it is Ashlin night and it's um oh I forget who it is but it's someone that we all know some Beyond but [Laughter] what um but anyway it is uh Friday night it's Ashlin it's the Ashlin day so if you go as an Ashlin resident you get you get something special for coming from an Ashlen but they have some
162great concerts every Friday and Saturday night they have some great theater coming up toward the end of August their their teen College show is Pippen the the musical and then on August 25th and 26th they have this great event called a play a pint and a pie and it's short stories but with your admission you get a pint so you get to have a a drink and a a pie of some sort and they partner with Dolce for some of that so yeah it's like a like a meat pie it's a it's a you know it's a meat pie and then I think there's also a dessert pie it's still it it's great and again just supporting local theater and a local Arts Center who is really doing some great stuff so and that's all
163I got can I just add one thing I just you know because I wasn't here for the beginning of the meeting and um just listening to uh Helen and and Mike I thought you said it really well it it was amazing to me to listen to How much they've done um and just uh and then to listen to Joel and his group and um you know it's really really amazing what the volunteers in our community um do right and and the amount they they say that we're going to do they set goals we're going to do this this and this and pretty soon this this and this is accomplished so I just want to um wanted to mention that well Claudia I mean to your point and I think that a lot of folks may
164not be aware this town would not run without volunteers period it's the residents of the town that make the town happen you know so including us right includinga the select board the planning board the committee the the school committee the Board of Health I mean all the Committees they're all volunteers yeah um but I I I I agree with both of you I mean I I think about the farmers market oh yeah right it started because a number of people said we want to have a farmers market and they created it and now you know in that's right uh 11 or 12 more yeah yeah and and when they first started it was all volunteer after Co they then hired a market manager which I think has only improved what's going on there so yeah
165let's not forget like DPW who helps oh of oh yeah yeah I mean absolutely oh absolutely Michael right Michael I mean yes our volunteers do a lot but I also believe it's the hand inand with our town staff and the collaboration that happens so and if you want to volunteer we still have some openings so feel free to to to step up and help out and on that note our next meeting will be August 7th we're using it as a retreat it it will be a posted meeting we will not be televising it correct it's not a televised meeting if you want to come and listen listen you're more than welcome and then our next regular televised regular meeting is Wednesday August 21st lots of other meetings in between feel free to jump in go
166see them participate and participate in local government get involved and with that if I could have a motion to to adjourn and a second second thank you Joe thank you Makita all those in favor of adjourning I thank you all for watching that wraps up our meeting it's about 9:20 thanks for hanging in there if you did and uh if you have any questions make sure you reach out and yes stay cool and safe and that wraps our meeting for July 17th have a great day and rest of your evening e e e