001e e e right good evening everyone and welcome to the Aston select board meeting of May 2024 uh this meeting is being live streamed live on waca TV and uh on Facebook as well and remote participation is Avail is available using the zoom video conferencing platform however any disruption with our platform result in the platform being shut down and the meeting continue after so I would just um caution anyone from any kind of uh we will we will act to shut down um disruptive and uh inappropriate speech immediately so thank you and welcome everyone to this meeting so as usual we will start with citizen participation do we have anyone for citizen participation of the usual kind of uh citizen participation the usual citizens participation just usual Mark is that you and I I don't
002see anyone online that I just notice my daughter's online how' you just notice yeah that's funny okay ah the have the family on Zoom though huh yeah Mark Sony 49 hathon Road as I Mass I would like to save my time and have what's going to happen after and then come up after okay thanks Mark we'll we'll we'll do that board amendable to that so I I wasn't prepared for this particular part so I'm going to turn it over to our you want me to do why don't you start cuz sure it's been that kind of day oh I know that feeling I just remind you I can shut down this meeting under the you can you did say you know you have to vote that we you know if we out vote you then
003no any Shenanigans you're going to you're going to shut us down so Rob um you know it's uh in a Bittersweet moment for a lot of people people including yourself this is going to be your last meeting as a select board me member at least this go around you know you've been known to take a break should you decide to come back next I'm not looking at Marsha as I'm saying so um but yeah so you know we've been able uh youve on this stent you've served on the select board for nine years and um you know I can just tell you personally um it's been a real real honor to to serve with you and work with you you're were you know one of the select board members that that hired me and gave
004me a chance and I really appreciate that and you know a couple of things really come to mind and and I'll try to keep my stuff brief because I know there's a lot of people that want to say a lot of things but um one of the things I've I was always really impressed um by you is you know you you always were able to kind of stick to your values um even if they were unpopular at the time you know you were you you stuck to them you held firm um you know you were always willing to listen and stuff but you know you didn't necessarily play politics a lot and uh I think that's kind of rare in today's society so I appreciate that um you always you know you and I you
005know have some disagreements um on things and we've always been able to work them out and we've always had good solid discussions that um you know didn't have any kind of animus attached to them or anything anything you know and you know that's something that I really appreciate and I think you're that way with with with everybody and I think everybody else um appreciates that and I could go on and on but one final thing I will say is a lot of people might not know this but you're like one of the funnier guys I think I you know way do you hear my speech I oh you know you you and it's not planned it it's sometimes I think you're trying to be funny and sometimes I don't it's just funny um but hey
006you know probably the one that that uh probably the one that kind of resonates the most is um gosh you and Carl were sitting together and Carl was talking about uh going to the cemetery and visiting the cemetery and how you know each time he goes up there he sees more and more names that he's familiar with and you just sit under your breath like well that's the way it works you know P alternative right so um again just uh thank you for for your service and uh and good luck in your next phase all right thank you Michael well I think that wraps it up right is that yeah no so we have some things for you but before we do that I'd like to open it up to the board first and then
007we're going to open it up to the audience but um you know I would like to also just Echo what Michael said about uh you sticking to your values that um that's something I've known you for a long time Rob um I actually remember when you served um in 97 I couldn't remember the years you told me 97 to 99 on the select board in those days um and and at that time I was on the school committee and I remember that um you know you did I've seen it you know through the years that that's something that you've always done well um that that's important to you you know another thing I feel like you know you are open to other ideas and that um you know you're you're willing always to provide a
008listening ear to people um and even G giving them a forum here sometimes and and you know I do respect that about you because I might not be as generous as as you are in that regard um and it's important in our world that that we do so listen to others in their um opinions and that and uh you know I I've only been serving with you for a year um you know I just appreciate what you've shown me in that that year um you know I am I'm grateful for that and uh I I really realized to I've learned so much this year too about the relationships that exist between members and other boards and how complex it all is um and so anyone who has spent the number of years that you have
009um giving your time your energy and you have passion about some very important things in our community right and uh you know I just have a lot of respect and admiration for you and thank you thank you ready um so I'm I've had five years um serving with you it's been 5 years already it's crazy how fast time flies um and you know Rob one of the things that I admire most is you always put the Community First in everything that you do so like cludia said you know you you do give a voice to you you you listen to everyone and you give everyone an opportunity you you stick to that like that that whole Democratic process D with a lower case D you know um uppercase D too but you know we're not
010going to go there yes um but I always appreciate that you that you really are you're always looking to to um make sure every voice in the community is heard and that's really important and you know um a lot of what we do up here is um you know it's it's a fraction of the work that goes into to to being on this board and to put in the the years of service um and the commitment you know I think of you and I think of you know open space always advocating for open space every single time we're going to talk about the upper Charles Trail I will think think of you like I will literally think of you every single time um and it's been an honor to serve with you I'm I'm like
011thankful for um for your leadership and um we will miss you and um and just you know I I wish you all the best in the the newest chapter and I'm sure you're going to be on the other side advocating still for the trail so we we won't uh we won't totally miss me yeah yeah we'll we'll still see and I have a recommendation for that so okay okay so but um but thank you very much thank you Brandy great Mr chair nine years wow yeah we've been together for nine years that's not bad it's pretty good put up with you for nine years you put up with me for nine years I mean you you double bell between Masa and me it's been uh it's been kind of hectic um but it was it
012was a it was a good experience I've known you for a lot longer I've known you for many years within the town your coaching abilities and and what you did on and off the field um you could tell that any of the kids that you had as a coach knew the true value of working hard and and and perseverance uh you may not know what the heck you were doing on the field but that's okay my son set me straight on that all I can say is you you persevered through through it all even look at he even agreed yeah exactly it's awesome um I've known you for a number of years I've known the reny family all my life and uh yeah you you were the little Maria back way back when way back
013when and um all I can say is your your professionalism has been a key key note in in my mind um your generosity of of time giving people time to speak is well noted by everybody here um your values have not changed and they will never change because that's the type of person you are and that's something we can all learn by and that's a great trait to continue to have uh it's been a pleasure and a privilege to be a board member with you a Community member as well and uh watch out Mas he's got a lot of free time yeah he already told me you've been working on a a a honeydew list for the last three years so God only knows what what you expected what I will miss the most is
014the jokes we had with respect to the upper child's trail trail it would never go back without a day without a meeting that there would be an underlining comment that that no one would hear thankfully and and you and I would just get that joke and we all would get the joke and it would just move on you would move forward so uh it's been a pleasure my friend and uh I wish you the very best in the in in your future endeavors thanks it's been a blast yeah Madam Vice chair Mr chair it has been a great nine years we haven't always seen eye to eye but I truly believe that is part of the lower D Democratic process that if you don't see eye to eye you can have a conversation and wind
015up with possibly a better product and a better end result um that's what we do here that's what we do here and I think that is beneficial to our community um Ashland has benefited from those discussions and your willingness to listen and allow other peoples to talk um I got to know your family when I was with Marsha on school committee and then we had children graduate from high school together which is still hard to believe that that's been 14 years now since they've graduated and one of them's online one of them's online one's another one's back there and uh I just think it was great that you came back and I I don't think we can let you go completely I think you're you're stepping off the board but and we have to vote
016this but you were a member of the upper Charles Trails committee before you became a select board member that's right yeah and you've been working very hard on that and life sentence and and and not at this meeting but I'm hoping that at another meeting we can keep you there to keep advocating for and keep working toward that because um I might not be on the trails committee but I know the real benefit that that could have for Ashland and the region and I really want us to continue working on it I think your advocacy for that will be beneficial great thank you so we'll we'll vote that and see where we get but um so uh I'm going to open it up to the public if there is anyone who'd like to come up
017and either speak just come line up at the podium Steve Rob whoever come please line up get to the podium and um I can still shut you off you know no no that's not happening she's a sered be already you can uh but uh you know I would when when I served on the board I always tried to look at our service as a link in the chain that goes back to 1846 and uh you know when I look at Rob's tenure his two tenures you alluded to that uh there's a a 20-year Gap basically in between and that's unique in the anals of Select board history there's a lot of folks that got elected voted off came back so on but 20 years is is unique and uh you're first you new sports that's
018what that's yeah and and you know so I went back and I looked at my notes for when we did our recognition um project and there was uh looking at the board you first served on and the names were bresnik Baker finegan galani Shear oh and Shear there too yeah and then you know fast forward to 2015 and the names are of course manani uh there was hackinson there was Mitchell sheer and Greaves where am I going with this that's I hope you realize Joe you're endangered species I have been told that already more way than one but uh you know I really didn't know you when we first served on the board um I got to to know you I think pretty well I think we've enjoyed each other's camaraderie developed uh and I
019have to Echo everything that's been said about your passion and your humor your compassion your empathy and so on and I started to think you know did we agree on how much did we agree on how much do we disagree on and you know I think for the most part we we agreed on things um you know it's interesting select board votes are typically pretty routine most of them are 0 maybe there's some 41 thing that's sticks in my head though is the uh we were on the short end of a 3-2 vote you recall for the host Community agreement the way back when and I was good with that vote but uh so tonight I salute my comrade in cannabis okay that was it thank you we got to get that on a plaque
020who's my comrade in the dog statue that's oh that's your that's [Laughter] hi sorry hi Dave hi everybody David Rosen blo 191 High Street I it's not my thing to come up here or a town meeting I finally got to say that oh boy well thank you for being willing to do it tonight yeah my pleasure literally uh uh I think most of you know but I am the chair of the Ashan Democratic town committee and I'm here representing the committee and myself and uh there are many members here a couple up there and over here and uh Rob of course is a lifetime member of the Ashlan Democratic town committee not meeting that you started when you were born but you been in 20 years yes 20 years of service and I I came
021in kind of in the middle of that actually and Rob was uh you were an officer then and you're an officer now in the committee and you help plan our events and it's really important to me and other people to have your input and your guidance and you say David do I really have to go to the meeting it's like yes you do frankly when there's a meeting and everything's settled and there a speaker if you want to come to that fine if you don't don't but we we need your input uh planning and you don't tell Marsh about the summer social yet it hasn't but that's been an annual event the last couple going happen thank you very [Laughter] much and uh but um so and Rob you uh my standing here as the
022chair it's your it's your it's your fault let me put it that way you you you're respons I actually were at a meeting I probably would have still been a member just doing my thing and we needed a secretary at the committee and you were sitting next to me you probably don't remember this and you said David why don't you do that cuz I didn't want to do it yes that was probably one yes and uh I said okay and uh that got me started and I really appreciate that and also it's a very good lesson I found you know if you want something to happen you have to ask something and I'm glad you did and uh people were I want to I have my notes I'm not I'm not going to use use
023them too much but I to to uh Echo a theme I have Rob says it like it is and brings his insights to the table okay then that's uh certainly very important part of who you are and we really appreciate it and you have uh officially and unofficially you're you're on our agendas as the town update and uh to fill us in on what's going on here in this room and in other committees and uh I'm I'm your friend privilege to do that appreciate that and uh we have we were on the upper Charles Trail committee too are on the upper Char committee and um see um and that's uh and we all really looking at the commit memb okay really appreciate it and you will uh uh and certainly look forward to that and
024to you continuing and uh Rob enjoy your extra time your extra time with Mara okay and your family and a wonderful little boy over there that's great and uh and but with a with an uppercase D I know you would devote a little bit of your time okay and more than usual to the the elections this year which are just so important yes and um and that's oh my last note everybody in Ashan vote Tuesday okay thanks and it's there's no uppercase D associated with that it's non it's nonpartisan election thanks David appreciate it and thanks for the committee members for coming it's great welcome hey Rob hi everybody a lot of familiar faces um so every everybody's heard a lot of this I'm a native and people might think that's why we settled in
025Ashland they would be wrong um actually we moved here originally to buy because my mother was a real estate agent and she convinced us to buy a condo in Ashland which now that I'm a mother with grown children I see the wisdom in that that was very smart of her and now I luckily have my kids in town um but when it was time to move from the condo to the house I was ready to look at other towns I love Ashlin but you know I was open by then he was already fully involved on the Conservation Commission and he's like no no we're going to stay in ashin so here we are almost 40 years later um Rob went from the Conservation Commission to the board of Selectmen he was elected as everybody said
026he was elected on Stephen our third Child's first birthday he was out celebrating that while I was home with the kids but um when that term was over we had the three kids all in school the older kids and we had a fourth on the way and um when he contemplated a second term at that time I said you know you go do that and I'll make the call to the divorce attorney that's fine that'll work not not really but you know we were busy and as it's been mentioned Rob then took on the next several years doing all the kidss stuff and that was great and then uh it was 2015 when I was I was finished with my gig and he started his yeah she talks big about me she was nine years
027on the school stop not in this not in this room where we're in double digits all over um no anyway um that is notable right I mean that as a family right it went from Rob and then you spent nine years and now he spent another nine years that's that's notable Mara right well and you know and in that Spirit um you know I am so glad I am so glad that the town has had the wisdom and all the great things people have said about him now um and I know that this is like often times people get gifts at this event and so I you know I brought one too and and I want to thank Joe for introducing this topic to me because what it is is Rob's very own clipboard funny
028d this is for you honey it's got plenty of pages we will fill them all up okay would you mind keeping that for me one more night I'll keep it you get it first thing in the morning but anyway um technically I'm on till Monday right okay we'll talk we can negotiate the election on the 21st you're good yeah we got you until the 21st anyway I'm so proud of my husband and I it's a I love seeing all of you I it's you know and thank you all for your service to be honest it's a great it's a great thing that the town has volunteers who are willing to put as much time as you do thank Masha Ju Just one quick thing Masha thank you for the community service that you and your
029family provided allowing allowing Rob to take time away from your family that's true to put it all we we all take time away but you know I familiar I know and to all your spouses I say the same so thank you for allowing that to happen thank you thank you Mara Rob S mayor 64 winter street that put your address in in all my communications with Rob I'm known as Rob to at any rate um one of the little things that I do is I'm the property steart for the kawasak the SVT sub Valley truste section of the Town Forest which Cuts deeply into the forest in fact without that pel of land the forest would not really be what it is today and there was a technical issue that recently um came up and
030so I was handed a a stack of papers like like that and to go through to see if I could find some Trace to answer the question lo and behold some more than 30 years ago Rob and Mara were deeply involved with the acquisition um and of that property we would not have it today so on behalf of you know my role of SVT and whatever thank you because it's I'm a lover of the as you know and that is a beautiful part of it so thank you and thank you for all your service thank you rob good hear thank you [Applause] Rob is that it we can move oh no we're not done yet we still got we still got 11 minutes before our hearing so we still oh you know what I do
031this hold on before I do this is there anybody online who would like to say anything I see Christine I see Makita I see Christine you want to say anything or are you just listening she may have wandered off oh right right okay oh the host Christine if you want to say something put your raise your hand do your raise hand thing there we go okay so I I would like to say that I'd like to unmute her as well as if we can can allow her to put her camera on if we can oh boy can we do that doesn't want to do we not finee go ahead Christine I'm kind of in a dark room okay you see me we can hear you hi um I just want to say go Dad congratulations
032thanks um and you know it's it's admirable I I admire all the work you do and you've done for this town uh it's really uh you have such such a uh good attitude about everything you're very patient like I like I just really admire that about you and I and I know that you've dedicated so much of your time to this so congratulations on a great nine years thanks Christine thanks for being here Christine she's she's this is she's in Brooklyn right now so very nice thank you well she's she's anyway so as we do we have a proclamation for you boy and I get to read it I won't stand up I can do it here okay I made my no I can I need my glasses sorry I can Su you tried I
033tried I tried you know it's it's been 12 years I start need to wearing glasses um anyway Proclamation select board proclamation of recognition whereas Rob moved to ashon with his wife Marsha and really grew to love this small town realizing that this would be a great place to call call home and raise a family and whereas Rob ran for the board of selectman in 1996 getting elected alongside Arnold Baker and filling the seats previously held by Teresa Evans and Gary gani and whereas Rob and other board members work tiously on a water quality issues inequities in state funding MW assessment selecting a location for the MBTA station silencing the train whistles and looking at ways to keep Ashlin affordable while funding capital project at the same time still need to work on that train silencing
034and whereas during Rob's tenure the board also approved the proposal for building a water treatment plant which was estimated to cost $7 million and whereas Rob has also been very involved in the community with land Acquisitions sustainability efforts and he has dedicated more than 10 years on the upper Charles Trails project and he's not going away yet and whereas Rob was also inst instrumental in securing $2 million American Rescue plan act funds for this project and work with private landowners on the importance of their role in establishing the route and whereas Bob is also a lifetime member of the Democratic town committee and whereas Rob has served on the select board formerly known as the board of Selectmen for 12 years he has served with Barry bresnik Sean finegan David teller Arnold Baker Gary galani
035John Ellsworth Yolanda Greaves Carl hackinson Joseph manani Jr Steve Mitchell Randy Kinsman and Claudia Bennett and whereas Rob whereas while Rob has been on the board he has worked with three different town managers including Dexter blo Anthony skav and Michael Herbert and now therefore we Robert's friends family current and former board members gather to thank you for all you have done to make Ashland a better place we hereby Proclaim Saturday May 18th 2024 as Rob Shar day we urge all residents and employees to make known their appreciation for Rob's Devotion to the town of Ashland and we wish him good health and good fortune well thank you oh thank you we have three more gifts okay oh wow so we we'll make them quick so you know Rob uh we wanted to to give you
036a token a clock figure um with the town of ashin you on it um I'll just put it over here great thank you and then two other real gems here so we did find one last a BS coin so otherwise known as a board of selectman coin or select board coin so um I'm I'm sure the board is is okay with presenting this definitely all right and then uh finally uh here's your stamp your signature no one will dare use it now so I guess I can't use use it to like stamp payroll records or anything um but uh but yes you know it's kind of silly but well that's good that even looks like my sign I was about to say it's probably hopefully it's your that's good look at that well thank you
037you well thank you all that's um you know I kind of um I wasn't expecting much to happen tonight I was just going to do a short I know but then yes but our first thing wasn't until 7:40 this is when I started this to catch on you know I'm the chair I'm in charge here I can figure things out it up till till Tuesday now you know I look at the agenda the last what the heck happened here we had our agenda meeting so um I really do appreciate this um and um you know I do want to Echo the thanks to my family my um you know and Joe I think you made a great point that we all do this at the expense of our families really and me and with their
038forbearance um and so I'd be a Miss if of course we didn't thank Marsha and my and and little Mason and the children too Christine's here and they've all you know they've been around when I've left for meetings uh and I'm not there for various uh family events so so it certainly is I want to thank them and then you know I'm very touched by my fellow members on the select board and and working with you folks and it really um I have to say um you know it really is a growth experience to get involved in your community and get it and be on something like the select board but any committee you really have to change your attitude I can't imagine looking back if I hadn't been doing this and all the people
039I wouldn't have met you know I mean and the people I worked with and it really is something you've got to that's great to experience you know because working together with people to do something that people you don't agree with like Diane always had these C crazy ideas and I had to you know the of health and stuff yeah and uh you know so but to move forward and get something done constructively is a real growth experience and I think I'm better for that and for my involvement with all of you and you know thank you Michael and the and the and and the team that youve put together and uh Jen and Diane and Susan up there um and uh working with all the the people over the years it's great and uh Michael
040you know I really appreciate your remarks we've gone back and forth on a number of things and you know you've really been invaluable in terms of your willingness to work on things identify issues and work on things so I wanted to point that out that's um that's great and so you know um you know and you know why have I been do doing this and why have we all been doing this because we want we want to have an impact on on our community we're looking Beyond ourselves and that's that's something we all share including most of you out there are doing your own efforts at various levels you're thinking about someone other than yourselves and you want to have a positive impact on your community I think that's what brings us all together and
041what I appreciate about you and I think what you've appreciated about my efforts and you know I I expect to continue to be involved not at this level I think you know things change it's time for change uh but as as people said I I will be continuing and maybe in a little different aspect and something that maybe won't take quite as much time as it does as this does um and you know you picked on some of the you know we've done some while I've been on the board there's been great things that have happened big projects and I have to say I've been supportive of those but I haven't been the key person on those that's a bunch of other people we know these big projects but I I think you picked up
042on my my um concern for quality of life that's what I ran on originally like what's the quality of life here what are we doing about open space the environment affordable housing you know traffic walkability sustainability all the things that we think about what are we going to leave to our children and our grandchildren um and that's why we're here and those are the things I'd like to focus on and I I appreciate that people understand and have noted that and have made some impact on that um and um so the you know some of the things I do want to just not to take but you know one of the things I look back with pride is the ever sourced gas pipeline and that's you know that's something that um when they came in
043it was a routine expansion of the gas pipeline through town major disruption had all sorts of sustainability issues and basically this little town banded together and said no you're not doing that you this kind of stuff should be on the uh Ash heap of history and that's what we did here um so I'm especially proud of that um so anyway you know I am I wasn't expecting all this so I'm sorry but um but uh one thing I I do want to um if I give a little chance to give a little advice that we all get caught up in in day-to-day things and we spend a lot of time doing things we'll do an important thing a license transfer later tonight we'll talk about the 40b um but you know one of the things
044I think I I would say be proactive that's why I think this comprehensive plan and thank you guys are doing it is so important like try to get out ahead of issues and you know when we talk about impact Our Community Helping shape the community Through planning and it's not just up to developers to develop our community it's up to us as Citizens to get involved in that process and that's what we're we're all doing and that would be my major advice and that's why I you know I think this comprehensive plan is so uh important and I think and also this 40b process I'm you know I'm about to bow out of it or I'll still be involved but you guys are going to carry on especially with Michael and I'm I'm cautiously optimistic
045about it I think we've had some uh Michaels put together a very effective response I've seen the response from the other Town boards um you know so I'm I'm confident we we can have a good impact on that so are I guess cautiously optimistic on that and I want to you know thank uh thank people for that so I will want to I do um want to close with something and um I was just at um the JFK Library last week for a conference and um one of the things if you recall in the early 60s that's when uh and um my son's going to shake his head when he hears this so JFK made a commitment to uh go to the moon and back before the decade was out and people remember that and
046and this is what he said and I think this's particularly appropriate to everything we do um we we intend to go to the moon and to do the other things not because they are easy but because they are hard and that's that's impr my goodness but because they been for the last night you do that at home they don't let me they don't let me but so remember that some things especially things we do they're high you know people don't do this because they're easy they do it because they're hard and that's the most important things that we do so I will leave you with that thought but not everything's hard this was easy so anyway so thank you all I appreciate the good wishes thank you all right all right all right thanks all
047right so we have to officially open the hearing but then I'd like to pause it and do a group picture cuz I think thank you we have cake oh my gosh cake too you hear that everybody so let's open the hearing like we need to and then um have some cake or do we want to do cake at the end of the meeting yeah we'll do cake at be cake you know what let's let's open the hearing take a picture and I think we might if you want to wait there'll be there'll be cake at the end because we have a full agenda yes okay so go ahead you have to hearing oh God you wanted me to be prepared what did I do with it it's right here all right all right notice is
048here hereby giving that the select board will conduct a hearing uh regarding a transfer of liquor license and an alteration of license premises the transfer is an all alcoholic beverage license held by Caesar Moreno DBA Cabos Mexican grill and cantina um a public hearing will be held on this matter at Ashen Town Hall 101 Main Street Ashen Mass on Wednesday May 15 2024 at 7:40 p.m. persons wishing to be heard in this matter should appear at the time and place indicated above interested parties who are unable to attend the hearing May submit written comments to select board's office Town Hall 101 Main Street ashon master 11721 or by emailing Susan Robi sroy ason mass.com signed Robert Sher shair of his last legal notice all right thank you so the meeting's open do I have a
049I move that we uh pause the hearing until we take pictures second all those in favor of pausing the hearing say I I I oppose no okay so we'll take a picture and uh then go back to hearing thank you all see if I get my family stay around e e e so this is my first time to Ashley thank you for having me and I can tell by what's happened already with a Lely this is the meting goes my way tonight I'll have to come back for margar che out this upper Charles Trail oh definitely on both accounts also you know congratulations my brother my law partner was a member of the S board at Chumps for 12 years so I know the work that goes into it and it's mostly a thankless job
050I think the average citizen who isn't involved in the Committees and such may not know all the thank you behind the scenes uh work so it's lovely to see you get some recognition tonight so best of luck okay so I am here tonight to present to you the application for an on premises uh transfer of an all alcoholic license for a restaurant um located at 300 uh Elliot Street in Ashland Mass uh doing business as Los Cabos Mexican Grill in Cantina as well of the alteration of premises to include outdoor seating and also before you should be an application uh for a permit to operate a food establishment so I'll introduce you to uh who is with me tonight I'm joined by the applicant Roberto uh Diaz Carrera who is the sole member of the
051app of the applicant Roberto DDC Los Cabos LLC and future owner of the restaurant I'm also joined by James bazaz James is a manager uh of the LLC a managing partner of the restaurant also a captain firefighter and a resident of Ashland and also joined by uh Brian Armando Aras buendia who's the proposed manager of the license of the new license um and a future family member of Roberto Roberto this restaurant will be very much a family run restaurant believe three of his five uh children work at the restaurant um as well as uh Brian so uh that is always a good thing to have a family run restaurant or family run business so I'm sure the board is familiar with the restaurant itself Los Cabos prized itself on serving authentic Mexican Food and Spirits
052within a comfortable friendly atmosphere and certainly that the new owners will continue to operate in that same manner after the transfer so Roberto will be purchasing the restaurant he's been working at the restaurant for 10 years at least um and he's under agreement to purchase the restaurant as soon as the the transfer of the license is approved by uh this board and of course by the abcc Brian's also been the assistant manager at Los Cabos uh for the last year and both he and Roberto will be there fulltime full fulltime um and they both completed their Tam certifications and all other certifications that are required by the town and the abcc to the best of their knowledge at no time during their uh long tenure there have there ever been any complaints filed by the
053uh abcc or the town any incidents of underage drinking or DUIs or anything of that nature so they're working uh with a clean record and intent to continue that way so you have the complete application in front of you along with all of the supporting documentation along with the transfer to the new owner we're asking that the license be extended to out seating so that when weather permits uh outdoor seating will open per the attached plans that you have in the application and they will close the required number of indoor seating so that they will never exceed the allowed capacity outdoor seating will be completely enclosed with concrete barriers and decorative fencing you'll be able to see from the plan that it's contiguous to the restaurant with a clear view from the inside and of
054course food will be served out there along with um with the alcohol and there'll be no negative impact on the neighborhood so I believe you have all the other information that you need the hours are in there I'm happy to read those out for you if you'd like of course we're happy to answer any questions that the board may have otherwise I'll respectfully request that this board approve the application for the transfer of the all uh on premises all alcohol license for the restaurant and alteration of premises for the restaurant located at 300 Elliot Street great thank you um Susan are there any administrative issues or unfilled parts of the um application is complete and it did go out to all the Departments asking if they had any concerns and nobody has any okay great
055thank you so questions or discussion from the board before we close the hearing and move to deliberations I have um one question for the outdoor seating how many how many proposed tables are you looking to so if you don't mind I can pull up the plan or they you might know off the top of your head but you can invite them up to yeah if you give me a moment I can eight I can look eight total yep thank you you're I saw the pictures and then I wasn't sure if there was actually uh the okay thank you very much thank you yeah so it looks like a majority of them are on the sidewalk under the overhang and then there's two tables that jut out a little bit which is what has happened before
056in that same area when they had their outdoor seating through Co so they're not extending that that area it's going to be the same as it was correct thank you appreciate that that's it for me thank you and Tam is uh replacing the tip certification that's correct for those that didn't catch along the side okay yep other questions or I mean I'll just say um we've been there many times and um seems like these folks are did you say they already worked there or they're already managing there Roberto's been there 10 years I think oh yeah you look familiar you work the bar right he's ready to he's ready to proceed great yeah so it's been well run and hopefully it'll continue to be so other questions or thoughts on that no it's nice to
057see uh motion to close the here um unless there's anyone who wants to speak for or against oh I forgot to ask that anybody we didn't get anything from right there's nobody Susan said everything no online cool okay motion to close the hearing second all those in favor of closing the hearing say I I I all those opposed none so the hearing's closed and now we'll go to the deliberation and our discussion I have no discussion I think this is a a great thing for the restaurant it's a great thing for our community I think any of us who have been to Las Cabos have seen Roberto there he runs a great ship seeing you know as you said it's going to be a family run his family is already there um so I think
058for this to officially happen is a nice thing to be able to support and approve thank you I just one one quick question you have you're going to have family members that are going to be working there what how old are they and what will they be doing they 20 18 okay will they be serving alcohol okay and they all have their certifications as well they've been provided with the application okay y just wanted to make sure and they've been one of them has been doing it so okay have to ask I move that we approve the all alcohol license for and the change of premise uh for Les Cabos as presented I'll second that motion's been made in second all those in favor say I I I I oppos okay license been granted congratul
059congratulations ask one question the um the permit for the operating of a food license is that automatic along with it or is that is that voted on separately so we don't don't got it okay just checking thank you so much great thank you thank you and congratulations nice to see long if they hadn't already really all right let me go check the agenda is there anything else got a few things yeah congratulations thank you good luck nice see you good night all right so old new business well Mark wait a minute you do you want to do citizens participation Mark or anybody else as long as it doesn't involve me that's good again Mark 749 AR on road and yes a little okay we first I and you first met down at the H Street
060little leag field that's right I was on the same team helping and all of a sudden my brother John came run he was a complete boss yes yes so I I wanted to make sure that that tree it doesn't have the same copy of Limbs and it didn't you were a person that first saw me and said you got you you got to stay calm you got to understand what the game is help the kids it's not you here I am now remember years later and we're still and we're still face to face yeah and you're leaving the board I have Outlast another one that's right sorry okay and um I wanted to make sure that Joe didn't take any of my thunder of that same Trail no okay now that's there this is different
061goes on it's on the agenda it's about the 40 BS okay I was at the planning board meeting last week and I'm sure that I got around a little bit that I kind of bled the the plans the documents of what they were talking how they want to work together before zoning board had a chance to get some sort of say they said that they were they were making a comment letter through through the town through all the Committees I wanted to know if the state hasn't heard anything yet from anybody and the comment letter comes out and then the Zone board hasn't been notified how is this going to get going without all those steps yeah please sure sure so Mark so we're we're essentially in the first phase which is uh the site
062eligibility phase so the developer sent a application to Mass housing which is basically a financing arm right and so as part of their review process what they do is they notify the town and so we put together a comment letter that basically talks about our concerns you know things that we support Etc and we send that to Mass Housing and so we have a deadline in May 29th to do that at that point they'll review our comment letter and they will make a decision whether or not to issue the site eligibility letter to the developer or not and if they choose to issue that letter that gives the developer the green light to submit an application to the zoning board of appeals for a conference of for 40b project okay so I I'm just going
063to condense what I said to the board what I'm going to say here I did some of that zoning bylaws The Zone base the form based the uh what it is now I do know a little bit about zoning I would like to help out the boards get me involved I can set you have my email I told the plan I think four emails yeah sometimes I go ear as um and I just communicate s send me messages any anybody that has to do with this and we I can communicate with anybody to be and I also have I have tried this with the comprehensive plan too of being a Forward Thinking person I would like to have this town go in this straight understanding but not get mixed up in anything that could happen
064and get the state saying well why can you answer these questions and why did it happen this way if everybody gets involved including a person like myself that has understanding the citizens are going to be living in this town living for the Gen SE behind us and they got to be saying well if it's going good now knock on would nothing messes up and we have to think back of what happened then thank you thanks thanks Mark okay I I don't see anyone else for um citizen participation at this time so we'll move on to the next item on the agenda which is the vote to approve uh the purchase of 8.55 acres of land identified as 12 to6 Union Street for purchase price of $1,550,000 this vote is to authorize the chair the vice
065chair to execute and enter into any and all documents necessary to effectuate said transaction and I just want to say this is something that Michael and the board's been working on for quite a while and I'm very happy we can take this vote um before I leave the board so with that I'll turn it over to Michael for discussion and background on this yeah not too much more information than uh than what you what we've discussed and what you know um uh attorney me has worked with uh the attorneys for the faford corporation to develop the purchase and sale agreement um and the the vote the board would be taking tonight technically would be authorizing the chair to enter to approve the or the vi chair Vice chair to um to basically enter into any
066documents or sign any documents associated with this um the date of the closing date is no later than June 14th 2024 um and uh so that'll give us a little time to assemble funding and uh have that ready to go and um yeah that's about it for those uh you know people watching that aren't familiar with this parcel this is the parcel that essentially surrounds the public safety building and it's been identified as a key parcel for a number of different reasons uh namely parking the two main things I would say are parking and then and um as a part of the route for the upper Charles Trail but it also has some ancillary or potential ancillary uses as well thank you any other comments or thoughts on this yeah so one of the things
067that um that we have talked about is the fact that the um faford estate has had gone in front of the planning board and had been approved as a sub like a it was divided as a sub created a subdivision they they pulled that essentially yeah they they essentially pulled that yes oh okay because the thought was initially the thought that was that the bafford company was going to to develop that into a certain amount of units yeah 72 units so this is one of the ways that we can C you know we can minimize the the impact to that to that parcel so sure and and to piggy back what Brandy just said we could also utilize that additional property for uh the expansion to Wildwood cemetery and the the potential expansion of Wildwood
068Cemetery as well as um uh the eper child's Trail uh location which I know is uh very near and dear to uh to rub so uh it's it's it's working and trying to fix you know multiple multiple issues in town to make it a little bit easier for the the town's people to enjoy and um so we thought it was a good good purchase in and of itself can you talk a little bit about the funding mechanism sorry sorry same question because of the email that we got exactly sure yeah so so it's made up of a few pieces um so first is actually Capital stabilization funds that were approved and appropriated um wow back in uh gosh I think it was the special town meeting that authorized the um the P the the public
069safety building the four the four acres in front yeah yeah or maybe you know one shortly after bottom line it's been approved and sitting there for a while um also we received $1,000 per unit um from the Cirrus development uh for Public Safety purposes so that will be going to this and then we'll make up the balance um either using some some money from like open space that you know part of our funding buckets or part of the repurpose of the um the public safety bonds which we just did at town meeting so that's the combination so we're not we're not raising taxes or anything for this and and none of those are impacted by going waiting to go to fiscal year 25 right which was questioned in the email correct right all of those
070are funds that are currently available have been available to us and they don't impact fiscal year 25 um correct okay correct thank you okay great any other question so yeah I will just second to point out that this is this is one of those I think flexible and um proactive uh things that we're doing to um you know make sure that we have the resources for the things we're interested in doing as a community so want to thank Michael and everyone else who was involved in putting this together and I think it will be an important segment of the upper Charles Trail and gives us some flexibility uh for a number of reasons so thank you for that so we do need to take a boat Rob I just have a quick question um so
071how how long is how long have you been working on this and um and is there a reason why we didn't do it when we purchased the or took the other land for Public Safety yeah that's an interesting that's a good question um yeah I think um well we we didn't we had identified all of the uses that it could be used for at that point in time I don't think we realized or had had a sense of you know how tight the parking would be on the public safety parcel we knew it was going to be tight um but you know actually seeing it you know built and and kind of practicality that's um you know that that really kind of made the difference um yeah that's and I thought there was always go
072ahead yeah I also think that when we first initially looked at this parcel for the public safety building and then we looked at that back parcel we called it the front parcel and the back parcel and we were working with faford um there was some other understanding about how we might get this property and unfortunately with the passing of Howard faford different things changed and discussions changed and things like that so it's a parcel it's one of those Parcels that we identified many years ago that would be beneficial to have as part part of for our community um so it's nice that we've been able to work this out and and move this forward for our community thank you I appreciate that information all right so I think I will ask for a motion sure
073I move that we vote to approve the purchase of 8.55 acres of land identified as 12 to6 Union Street for the purchase price of 1.5 $1,550,000 and authorized either the chair or vice chair to execute and enter into all agreements necessary to effectuate said transaction second motion's been made and seconded all those in favor say I I I opposed none motion carries unanimously vvo thank you thank you very good and congratulations Michael and staff for getting this uh getting this in place yes thank you yes oh the next is the town manager evaluation we can skip skip over that and oh no oh I think we we you get to do that all right one of your last yeah one of my last acts we'll take care of this all right so I did send
074um send out so just to recap for the um for those watching um every year at about this time uh we have a standard form uh that the select board members use to evaluate the town manager that's a public document online um and we all meet with Michael separately we fill out the form discuss it with him and then hand it into to the chair uh who who was the responsibility chair is to get all the the scores and uh there's a number of questions and they're weighted and um put together the scores and also look at the board members comments for every question and try to summarize it um and that's the the public part of the evaluation is what I'm about to go through uh as part of that I send it out
075to the board members as a draft to see if there's any comments or changes is there any um any other questions or comments in the summary that I sent out before I get into it the other thing I was going to offer if there's things that people want feel that should be added that they want their comments added I could still I think add that as part of this document later on maybe this week or anything but was there anything else that people it's you know part of the challenge is going through comments from five members and try to include all the different perspectives and um uh uh you know and thoughts that people had uh so and so I did this and this this evaluation is part of the I think the um the
076documents which I believe are available online now is that right that will be part of yeah so people can look at that so um I will go through and just try to summarize um uh what I said as part of this uh so there are something like 40 questions that we evaluated on a 1 to five scale five being um you know what what is the word we used exceeds expectations I think was the highest or there was for was the highest then there was na as well but so uh just to summarize these and these were multiple questions that go to personal characteristics professionalism public relations communication board support relations Community leadership organizational leadership personnel management financial management Town operations and infrastructure planning and organization then an overall rating and these this was an
077attempt that and this this form goes back at least 10 years I think um it's attempt to get all aspects of the many responsibilities that the town manager has and have the board evaluate and comment on it so I think I will just spend some time going through each section briefly summarizing the comments and then the overall rating at the end um so personal characteristics so the town manager received high ratings for creativity excellent management honesty um some concerned about burnout given the um demanding nature of the job um um advice on avoiding conflict to F focus on providing information and recommendations so those were and this was um on a scale of one to five was uh rated very high I should say I won't go into it but just you know the overall
078rating was very high and I'll get to that at the end uh I'm just going to highlight any you know just kind of General summaries uh professionalism uh the board noted a high degree of professionalism and management skills uh encouragement of staff development and um the town manager does use a professional coach to assist him in his work uh noted Improvement this year on the part of some members encouraged to enhance his skills even though there are time constraints of course that's always a difficulty to um work on self-development and training even though you've got very heavy day-to-day uh things that have to be done public relations communication uh strong support for the new Weekly Newsletter that that to managers put together with board support I think we started it last year um that was
079seen as very effective communication support for the Citizens Academy there were some other you know various kinds of pieces of advice about that um support for handling traditional media and Facebook um so that was seen as a string board support and relations um some uh concern about uh board materials which is always an ongoing thing like how to get them out and uh publish them and um uh provide information um web some maybe some website issues um a suggestion to implement a new select board member process uh but noted Improvement in sharing information and communication with the board and relationship with the board um success and policy consensus among the town manager and the board was noted as well um Community leadership uh viewed as a very strong Community leader visible at town events this
080is appreciated strong relationship with elected officials noted um suggestion to coordinate the town meeting uh Town manager Office hours with select board members um again High rating in all these uh all these um attributes organizational leadership uh a consensus that the town managers created a strong team this is um you know within the town staff provide strong and effective leadership noted success of the police chief search and the resolution of the recent resolution was uh challenges of retention and delegation to staff noted this is ongoing of course retention is always an issue um and some other um things were noted about future directions uh personnel management this is related um oh the police department leaving civil service was noted as a major success improvements to uh Police Department recruiting and retention successive Union negotiations another
081some notes need to delegate uh suggestions about effective delegation um uh noted both on the town managers and some members part the the um the desire to focus on operations in the coming year as opposed to like big projects so much much um financial management this has been a tra traditional strength area this is really where Michael came from and he continue uh with the help of his staff um continues uh as a strength area and we've had recent um um you know noted robust budget budget discussion and past successes and but noted uncoming challenges we able to balance the budget this year through some funding but oncoming challenges um suggestion to develop a policy and retained earnings in the Enterprise funds Town operations and infrastructure uh of course we noted the many successful infrastructure
082projects completed ongoing we've talked about that on many occasions and then challenges how to maintain capacity without increasing uh taxes and fees um Capital noted success of capital plan process and uh uh noting uh Jen balls work is the assistant town manager in this area um a desire to include the ucct and ongoing operations rather than ad hoc I don't know who made that comment I'm not sure where that came from yeah but um and some support V uh voice for focus on operational and organizational efforts kind of more I think the internal versus the external project I think if I got that right um planning organization um consistent theme of too many projects and demands and how to man manage competing priorities um concern about you know can make realistic commitments to things um
083a number of of members noted the importance of the board retreat to prioritize items um some discussion how to handle time needs of the comprehensive plan um support of all the projects comprehensive plan downtime revitalization uh and need for overall planning um oh in general agreement with the town manager's approach the planning perspective of joint discussion with select boarded Town manager on the process um so the overall rating so on a scale of um I think 1 to five uh the overall rating average was 4.3 which is what was the actual term does anybody have it exceeds expectations or exceed High exceeds so which is traditional what Michael's always been and congratulations for that Michael uh so overall a very high um um there's always you know various bits of advice or issues that people
084address and try to um you know bring out in this process but the overall was very positive um some diversity of responses on some items but much agreement amongst board members you know the themes were much accomplished over this year that's the select board and town manager have worked well together on many tasks and challenges and we can all think of the different things that have happened um and uh um comments Michael continues to grow as Town manager has strong commitment to the town strengths Budget Finance operations willingness to explore Solutions uh collaboration dedication areas for improvement distribution materials for meetings town website came out um better flow of communication with select board although also a recognition that that's improved uh suggestion to delegate more task institutionalize the upper Charles Trail again that keeps coming
085up I don't know set realistic goals to said realistic goals to minimize burnout so that was that so uh all in all that's um you know I'm very uh pleased to have worked with Michael over the years and he's a high performer and does a lot of um uh finds a lot of solutions to things which we depend on and coordinate things I just want to you know I'm impressed with this latest coordination project of the 40 BS and how that's going along so um so congratulations on that and I will turn over to my member fellow members to talk and I don't know any particular order Claudia you want to start say anything yeah I just uh you know it's my first year obviously on the board working with Michael and his team Jen
086and um you know I I really appreciate the fact that you've always been there whenever I have come to you with questions or concerns or um just been very available has it been very clear to me that you are certainly high functioning in terms of the financial end of things and really um in your commitment to the community overall so uh that's you know really you know that's a really significant um aspect I think of who you are is your commitment to this community so um and um so I enjoyed working with you and I still feel kind of a little bit uh like a rookie and you figur it out it's been a whole year I know it doesn't it takes a while and U you know so there were at times U when
087I was doing your evaluation I felt like geez I really don't know if I have a good handle on that so um you know but certainly the the feedback that you provided was very helpful to me as well so um but I certainly appreciate um what you've done in the community and um and look forward to working with you and continuing to develop a relationship thank you thank you Claudia go ahead Brandy I think um so I think it's been a really good year um we've accomplished a lot like one of the really great things about this whole process is just literally thinking about you know what we've done as a community and and we've made huge progress on a lot of major major capital capital projects that that like we've been working on for
088years and so um you know that it it's we've had some some big successes this year um when I think of just of the progression over the years I feel like we're improving on a lot of fronts the communication obviously the finance is a big thing um especially going into what has been challenging budget times and will continue to probably be challenging budget times um and so we are very fortunate to to have you as our town manager I I um appreciate the the working relationship you have with all of us um I you know I I I consider it a very um productive relationship we all have so I think that it's um we're we're fortunate to have you as our town manager and I think it's been a good year so that's all
089for me thanks Brandy Joe thank you Mr chair uh Michael just to Pig you back what Claudia and Brandy has already um have already said about uh the efforts that you put forward uh for this past year a lot of work a lot of time a lot of effort a lot of frustration too and trying to get things done and I can only say that and I and I put this in in your review is that you were able to get a lot of this accomplished because you hired people around you that supported you in more ways than than any of us would ever have thought of um your assistant Town manager your financial manager uh have have come through your your office staff you know within the select board uh office area uh Diane
090and and Susan have been able to allow you to do the things and get things done in a timely fashion uh which makes it a lot easier um that doesn't mean that the frustration is not there just makes it a little less than tense at some at some point so uh you're right it's been a very good year uh there is some storm clouds facing us coming you know coming forward sooner than later uh but hopefully uh with your conservative approach that you have taken since you've taken this position I think that the town will be in good shape to be able to handle what what's coming down the road um both financially and uh with respect to the the changes that Ashland has faced ing so thank you for all your work and thank
091you for uh selecting those folks that uh back you up to the hilt appreciate that thank you thanks Jo go ahead you want thank you so um I I always think this is a an important process this is one of the things that's important for us to do as a board to recognize your strengths recognize your weaknesses and and I Michael and I have always had this little bit of a tussle my feeling is I want you to have room for adjustment and for growth and I believe I put this in my in my review that the maturity that you are showing certainly this year and the last couple of years has really led to our town being in a much better place and I remember when we decided to make you our permanent Town
092manager and and watching you grow into this position and I really think you have grown into this position and this last year as everyone else has said there's been a lot of challenges we've accomplished a lot there's still a lot that we're working on and that as a community we still want to do there's still so many projects that um I look forward to moving forward and trying to decipher what's the most important for our community so we can maybe slow down a little bit and really take the time to work on some of these projects that we've sort of been doing a little bit at a time but haven't been able to get over the finish line but I just want to thank you I I agree with Joe that you have a great
093staff but to have a great staff there has to be great leadership and management and you provide that and I continue looking forward to working with you um in your role and in my role and thank you for all that you've done you great thank you and the only thing I'll just um you know just to remind people that the board members do meet with Michael individually and there's a lot of back and forth about um a discussion of his role and a lot of advice given and sometimes it's contradictory advice but uh and I the only thing I I want to add I think Michael I observed you're you're at your best when you're bringing people together and creating solutions to problems and that's that's what I really want to encourage you to do
094to look at all sides and and how do we bring this together and I think this 40b process is probably one of the biggest challenges you'll face yet so anyway so thank you and I want to turn that over to you if there's any remarks you care to say you got about 10 seconds oh okay um can we do this every week um no uh thank you so much um you know for the kind words and um you know your appreciation is definitely noted and I appreciate it too and I appreciate this process um that we have um I always enjoy our conversations I get a lot out of them um you know both like in terms of reviewing what we did in the past but then also thinking about the future and how we
095can do things better and um you know I do love this community and you know in in many cases I feel like this is probably more my home than you know where my physical location is um and uh you know it's it's interesting you know seeing it change um you know from the 11 years since I've been here it's it's it's very very different and some of it has been um deliberate in things that that we have chosen to do and some of it have been things that have kind of been put upon us and uh you know I think those are present challenges in the future um I want to thank the board um just for you being you and uh the dedication and the work that you put in um people will I
096don't think unless they sit in the seat they'll never understand how many hours um goes into this not just you know in the select board meetings but just in doing everything you do uh reviewing materials going to events talking to Citizens you're always working um I appreciate the way that that you work together um frankly it makes a part of my job a lot easier um knowing that even when you have differences you have you respect each other enough to um you know work them out civil and and come to I think come to a better conclusion and um you know thank you for your guidance and advice uh for me uh continually um it's something I rely on and depend on and um it's uh I've always found it good good and and useful
097so thank you to the board and and uh you know look forward to working with you in the future um now I'll I'll I'll switch over to you know really kind of you know what leads me to good reviews and and that's actually my staff you know they are just um absolute absolute rock stars it's such a mixture of you know people who are from Ashlin people who are not from Ash people who've been here a long time and newcomers and um it's just great to see the group come together and continue to come together and um you know be who they are and hopefully I give them the freedom to be who they are and and run and I I just can't say enough about them and I I I really hope I know
098you do but I really hope the community grows to appreciate them uh for everything that they do there's a lot of members of our staff who are not nine-o FS um they put in a lot of time outside of you know the traditional working hours and um they do it because they care about this community and um you know I'll certainly say you know I I'll highlight you know the ones in my office just because you know I deal with them on a constant basis and they well it's probably more accurate to say they deal with me um but Susan and Diane you know they yeah I can't I can't even look at Jen right now to see what kind of eye roll she's making but um you know Susan and Diane they really keep
099me on track they they remind me of things they they do a lot of of work themselves and they do a lot of things that just automatically that um you know people just don't understand like the the licensing and the renewals and stuff like that um and watching them grow um and develop has been awesome similar to you know you watching watching me grow and you know I just can't say enough about uh you know Jen who um you know brought on shortly after I got hired April 19th it April 19th um and uh you know she's just been a godson in so many different ways and um you know it's uh you know she's grown a lot I mean in in in ways I I didn't think we we're going to happen but um
100you know people I don't think people understand just like how much she does because she does like to stay behind the scenes and um and she relishes that like even finding sneaky ways to get out of pictures like we did earlier today yeah um and um you know I it just you know I don't think people have an appreciation for everything that she does so I am truly blessed to have a great team and um I've you know I do a lot of things wrong but you know one of the things I do feel like I do well is do I kind of like put people together and a team together that balances each other out so um thanks to them thanks to you and and thank you to to everybody I appreciate it great
101thank you Michael thank you great all right so um we'll move on to the next item which is it looks like just a notification of final Paving did you want to talk about that um no we we don't necessarily need to but now I'm noticing that it's nighttime Paving yes don't we need to approve or review that so for our Pro like our projects our projects no um but because so this is considered our project versus a state project yes okay yeah so um but yes they will be doing night Paving obviously to keep the traffic impacts down the traffic impacts are already pretty significant um so 800 p.m. to 500 a.m. um again for three I believe it's three nights finally got it yeah three nights um so yeah that's that's yeah that's a
102stretch around like Market Basket with the raay structures yeah it'll be like Market Basket over to it's nothing like going down there and have somebody tailgating you cuz you're not going fast enough over the ra structures I that was me Rob what do you got an SUV so so just reviewing so May 20th to May 23rd so next Monday night through Wednesday Thursday night correct okay from 8:00 p.m. until 5 a.m. correct from the Framingham Town line all the way to Route 126 Self Storage could we just go over um a little about the the final steps and when this project uh when 26 is going to be done done um Claudia how about we we talk about that at a at a future meeting so I can get some more clarification on some things
103and uh you know we were waiting basically right now they're doing a lot of storm water work um they're doing utility work as well and so the different utilities we're getting the lines moved toward L transferred over yep and then we got to do you know obviously some final Paving and some concrete work it'll be nice to finally get those poles moved and yeah so are you are we and if you don't know it's fine but are we looking at months I I think we're looking at optimistically late 2024 um and probably more realistically spring of 25 in terms of like buttoning up things and finalizing okay thank you so quick question about about the paving so if they are closing from 8:00 p.m. to 5:00 a.m. is is that are they are both lanes
104going to be closed is it okay so because I'm I was just concerned about the businesses that are over there you know like Ashland Dale house etc etc that are open later than 8:00 pm so I just wanted my understanding is they'll do Lane by Lane okay and all those business are those businesses aware of the the paving dates um they should be aware um I can double check on that and make sure that they they've been you know contacted and aware and I think this was in your newsletter last week so you'll do it again this week correct to remind people correct okay okay thank you and uh I see we have some members for the store Commissioners wonder if we could move item I up to do that next before we can do
105the town meeting recap so I will recognize well I don't know Michael did you have did anyone have a um intro on this is a review the request from the historical commission to create a historic district study committee and solicit members except you know Jim you were here before I I was here in Jim neelson um 35 Ramblewood Drive I'm the chair of the ashon historical commission um yeah we I was here in January to explain what the concept was God it feels like it was yeah it feels like it was yesterday doesn't it yeah but it was January and since then we have done a lot of work on the study um which you should all have a copy of it was in one of Susan's emails I do not think they have they
106don't have it yet I think it was in the packet was it it was in a packet but what I have tonight cuz we've seen just pass these around this is the this is what I'm here just to what I need tonight and this is the general timeline of the whole project okay oh you got a flowchart here this is great I sent these all to Susan this afternoon so I don't think she had a chance to get them to yeah that's yeah too late to get includ well what ended up happening is this just came to my attention at the end of last week we seems to have skipped over a step um that the state requires and that's the appointment of a study committee and what I need well what what the historical
107commission needs is a select board to appoint a historical uh a local historic district study committee and the what they require is that they send out solicit uh nominations from three organizations the local Historical Society our ashin Historical Society the Greater Boston real estate board and the Boston Society of Architects now I have copies of the letters that can go out with the addresses of the latter two and we know where the Ashland Historical Society is um it's basically a request what the state requires is informing this committee is that you reach out to these three distinct uh organizations and ask if they want to submit anybody to be on the study committee a lot of I'm told the Architects never get back never get back to anybody the real estate board might okay and
108then the um Historical Society definitely will with names to appoint to this Committee in 30 days so that's another month away from now at the end of that 30 days if you haven't heard back from anybody but you will hear from the Historical Society um you can appoint anybody you want to the historical commission study Comm committee excuse me and the study committee is really just to approve the study report we've already pretty much done the preliminary study report which you'll have somewhere if you don't have it I'll get it out to you it's almost done it's in the final revisions right now we've hired a consultant and and uh you know it looks pretty good but in order to submit it to the state we have to go through this step which I was
109not informed Med we had skipped until the consultant realized it when she was talking to the state to submit this so they this is for them to just basically cross the eyes and do the do the tease kind of thing um and after that you can see on the chart the uh what what happens next is it once the committee meets the sworn in um and approves or not approves the report then what'll happen is it'll go to the state mass mass historical commission for their further revision and reviews and that kind of thing and then it comes back to us eventually now in the meantime we're going to be having like public events we're going to be at the farmers market we're going to be at Ashland day we're going to have a we
110we have to have a public hearing before Town hopefully this gets the town meeting in the fall but it's got to go through all these steps mandated by the state in order for this to uh to happen just to review uh the historic district is loc local historic district is just basically the downtown area um you have the map somewhere I didn't bring it with me tonight I was here with the big one before but it starts at the Ocean House and it goes down crosses the street down by the mill buildings which we can't do anything about uh because it's 40b now but that's another story and down along the church around the corner down to Erica's restaurant cross the street up around again to the railroad station it's got to be all contiguous
111crossing the street again to where the brick buildings are in that 9 to 49 project that's going on that's staying I think that was the drugstore and in the in the supermarket way back when up to the post office crossing the street all the way back up that side of the street to The Corner Spot so it's one small area in the downtown and what the local historic district does is it creates a subcommittee subcommission which will be staffed not necessarily by the historic commission but by different people uh in the community to approve or disapprove changes to any of those buildings um for their historic architectural features and I like I said the whole report will tell you what was going to be looked for there'll be bylaws written about it what you can
112change what you can't change but basically as I said in January it's anything you can see from the street you know anything from behind or anything like that doesn't matter just to get to but the business at hand tonight so what's this is it have you decided how many members it says three or okay is the State mandates three to seven yeah okay but that's it could be three okay because really all this study committee is going to do is approve the the study um so is that a decision we need to make tonight like how no you need tonight what we need to do is for you folks to decide to send out the letters soliciting um nominations that's it okay and then like I said I've got copies to I've gave to Susan
113this afternoon of who to send the letters to um and then when they if if they don't come back in 30 days then the board's free to make whoever they want to be on but you guys still gonna decide do you have email addresses as well for those same people believe so there's an email address on The Architects I would think that we might want to just email it rather than sending a hard letter at this point there's emails EMA communicate okay y okay and and then you know and this isn't for discussion tonight but certainly something to think about I know when the tree bylaw and a couple of other things came forward there was discussion of why are we doing this now why not wait until the comprehensive plan is completed and see
114how this ties in so again not for discussion to what how does this creating a historic district now tie into or should it tie into the discussion about a comp with our comprehensive plan I I've talked to them it fits it fits right in with a comprehensive who have you spoken with uh Kate jerich jik and Anna okay so those are two members of a 29 committee okay well I haven't spoken to the whole commission we will go before I'm just saying that um you know it's a it's a full committee that needs to talk about this and we have a representative on that right so I mean so it's not it's not something they're not aware of okay everybody I've spoken to in the other committees I've been before the planning board I've been
115before the um oh I've been before a bunch of a bunch of different groups okay um and I've just got nothing but positive feedback because it's very select um there's very few local home is mostly government buildings and and businesses right and I and I know there's been some slight push back slight push back from some businesses so from some of the businesses yeah okay well we I haven't heard that yet okay um there might be you know but like I said we have to bring this go through the stages have forums have listening things and and you know figure out what nothing's written in stone as far as what's in the actual bylaw what they can change and what they can't right you know so you're saying you're going to try and do this
116before the special town meeting in the fall yes I would say Let There be some further discussion with the comprehensive plan committee as well through the summer to to determine how this can that's why that's that's what we plan to do all summer is to keep keep I've been working on this for over two years oh I know we've been seeing it different ways and hearing about it you know and it's just it's just getting the word out there you know it's a slow process but and we've done farmers markets in the past yeah you know and like I we were going to be at Ash Day last year un you know all right so that going to be there to but just before we go into so but at some point we have to
117decide you guys all have to decide how we can decide to I think you know if what he's looking for tonight is for us to say okay we're willing to send out letters to solicit members um to the historic Historic Society Boston Society for Architects and the greater B Boston real estate board but I would also say to other open members here in the town right well that that that's those three have to be notified by law okay and if they don't if they if they submit two people with they're asked for two nominations if they submit two you have to pick one okay of those three you have to Y um other than that if they don't submit anything you can be anybody all right so 30 30-day it's a 30-day waiting period so
118I'm just the larger process receiving the notification I don't know if it's receiving or where the letters are sent out you'd have to I'd have to check the the actual because that is important yeah it's well well I yeah I mean because I I was then looking at this you know 30 days from when the letters go out and when we might receive something and when we then as a board might do something um we have a meeting on June 5th and then our next meeting the third Wednesday in June is actually June 19th which is a Federal holiday so we won't be having a meeting that day so we're going to have to determine when our next meeting will be and look at what we get for submittals yeah from each of these as
119well as from the public the public hearing is not less than not less than 60 days right so we have to fit that in and so are you guys are you are you then at that time going to decide how many members in this committee and others other recruiting that might or might not happen so I wasn't sure um in terms of the membership if so uh do does the select board decide how many members does the select board uh fill if there's only two um you the select board can pick anywhere between three to seven okay Seven's the max you said only one so so one from each of those three groups if they submit two if they submit two and both I'll tell you right now I'm going to be on the historical
120commission I mean the Historical Society one along with somebody else probably from the historical commission you know and I have I don't know if you guys remember Jen um paratore who used to be on the um the commission she's a real estate broker and she's like volunteered to be on the commission too that was going to be SP to her my question do you have to send I mean if you know people locally that might be a good fit and are members of these organizations can could the solicit them directly or do you have send it I'll talk to them I'll talk to them directly and say and it and submit their names after the 30-day period I don't think if you don't get somebody so like if Greater Boston real estate board they ignore
121the letter does not send anything we know someone who's on there that we can then but we have to wait for the 30 days the 30day period okay got once that's that's over we can s select whoever you want up to seven people and then we we will we'll swear them in and then we meet once at least uh with with with the chairman and the whole rig moral to basically establish the uh the commission committee and then we we'll look at the study report which like I said is almost done and I'll you know we'll go through the concept and what we what the vision is and then you know tweaks here and there and then they'll be ready to once that is approved then it can go to the state and that takes
12260 days with them so that's why we want to get this going that's why I asked to be on tonight's meeting that's fine I want to get this a motion just to and just a question about the committee so the the committee is going to be shepherding this through the whole process correct no the study committee yes uh yes okay yes with the study committee that's why people who've been doing this for while will be on the study committee okay I'm just making sure like as we kind of look to see who's kind of doing what we're not going to start all over with new people no no no I'm not saying to start over with new people but I'm saying like what is it just needs to be kind of clear what this committee
123is going to do versus the historical commission versus like I it just needs because it can't be one big group it can't be like it can't be the entire historical commission working on this because no and that's not the point this is going to be this is going to be a split off group from the historical commission which eventually will be the local historic district it sounds like you guys are are going to do that at whatever meeting gets scheduled to approve these at that time it sounds like you're going to then determine the size of this group whether it's three to seven right and who else is going to be on it but it would be good to be able to put out a call to the community to be able you could put
124out um I think Susan said they were going to put out Talent Bank okay that was going to be my next question she was do that too that's how we pull the people yes but this but this letter thing has to go out in this form for the state my question I mean I think we're going to approve this letter thing to go out right but I think do you what's the s do you want to decide tonight about this committee you want to put it off till you meet I think part of me wants to wait until so we see what we get as a response okay right because if we get if you know we only get three people then it'll be three people but if we get a few more people interested
125who either have been participating or have an interest to review this then I'd say we can appoint a few more up to seven people and these are people General Talent bank right they would have right so and it says in in the in the the guide which I have sent you also so um okay it say it gives you a list of people who they like to have on the state the mix of people the mix they want they want a mix of people the if you can get them you know if you can get them and I would also say it may not be a bad idea to have one of our board members on that on that committee as well because you know just from a bad idea if if there's anyone on
126our board that wants to throw their hat in the ring for that but I'm just you just like don't look at me interes well if you've got the you know but don't look at me for that either but I also think this is this is one of those committees that it sounds like a lot of the work has already been completed in regards to the study so I mean whereas it might be nice if one of us are sitting there I don't know that that's necessary if we can at least be kept up to date it sounds like we already have you know as long as the report gets distributed to us as long as everything gets distributed to us and we can be aware if we want to sit in on the meeting rather
127than be appointed to the committee chance it's in one of the packets it's a whole it's a whole it's a big right thanks I just want I see Jones on if she Jan's on the commission with me I know does she want to say anything John do you want to chime in or just she doesn't have to if she's I think I I think we're good I personally I'm ready to make it you have a motion yeah I have a motion I move that we approve the sending of the letters or emails necessary for the three entities that are listed and also then uh to put out a call for Talent Bank forms if there are people who are interested in being part of the study committee and that at a future date we will
128determine the number of members on the committee okay uh motion's been made in second all those in favor say I I oppose none okay so congratulations Jim than congratulations Rob on a a long career yeah thank you these is one of those things that we forgot to check with Michael and Jen if they have the bandwidth oh didn't do that and we forgot to ask thank you um okay so the next is town meeting recap I'll be right back okay okay if we move ahead you on yeah so sorry go ahead yeah me recap um absolutely so um town meeting was held uh May 1st right was May 1 um and seems they just all Blended seems like a long time ago now um and uh you know we had a great town meeting um
129you know there wasn't a whole lot of discussion on all the items there were some that generated some discussion but um you know I thought uh I thought uh you know everything passed um that doesn't make it a good town meeting per se but um I think you know we did a lot of prep work work ahead of time and and Tred to get the information out to people um we ended up having 146 right 146 people at town meeting which um quite frankly was a little more than um what I had anticipated and I saw a lot of new faces I don't know if there was a particular um warrant article that Drew them out um noticed a couple people from our Citizens Academy went to their first town meeting so that was that
130was great um and uh just I I have to thank everybody who worked on this um you know from the boards and committees all the way to the staff in the moderator you know he he plays a key role but you know Jen Cindy Chris you know Paul you know I'm going to I'm going to miss people if I start you know naming names um but uh you know there's a lot of work that goes into you know putting on town meeting and um the the only problem we had was the guy operating the PowerPoint and behind um you know he he was having a really hard time because he was thinking that things were up on the screen and then somebody would text him say hey can you put that up on the screen
131and like oh so we'll have to fire him and get a new person so I'll find a new location for him so he can see the screen doing yeah maybe maybe and it's funny no one in the select board told this guy that he we're like oh yeah who cares yeah so anyway so I thought it was really good and hopefully you thought so as well and I thought you know I I glad we we passed that stretch code and you know some of the other things that we trying to remember what else we did the the budget of course that went through and the capital plan and um what was the other item that we did that was God seem so long ago now so we did the stretch code yeah the stretch code
132that's what I said yeah was there something else uh we pulled the the demolition yeah the demolition delay that was another important thing all right anything else on the town meeting recap um is there any appetite to do the consent agenda just to get it done do you want to give me a motion to approve the consent agenda as presented all those in favor of the consent agenda say I I I oppose none okay consider agend is passed I will note Carlton uh congratulations on being the affordable housing trust you're here you're here sitting through the meeting so have fun good luck with that well I didn't did you want to introduce yourself or sure take a few minutes and we've already approved it but you've been sitting here and though it can get you
133if you sit at a meeting long enough it'll it'll be surprising what you get involved with well thank you give me some talk time well thank you guys for approving I appreciate it and to the affordable housing trust um all those guys I appreciate that as well congratulations to you rob your service and uh I like your JFK thing earlier you know don't do not ask what Ashlin can do for you but what you can do for Ashlin I love it that's very good um and you too as well Michael congratulations and nice to meet you Mark and everybody and yeah and thank you and I just looking forward to you know doing what I can do my part I'm uh I just a little bit about me I'm an underwriter in terms of like
134my background and I'm very excited I've worked um towards public policy and housing this this microphone seems short I'm a little taller you can move it up with the uh Federal Home Loan Bank working directly with Mass housing the ahp program a little bit about it just so you know and I know you've done a really great job Michael I've seen some of your your information educating people and that's I mean it's excellent you know so people can know a little bit more but what happens is about 5% I have to go back to the bylaws but 5% of what the revenue is from the federal Home Loan Bank and those that don't know the federal Home Loan Bank is the biggest um mortgage institution in the United States of America about a trillion dollars
135and I was on the credit collateral team of that about eight guys and all the banks in America belong to it and they take 5% of that Revenue goes to affordable housing and that money and those monies get allocated in conjunction with Mass housing to affordable housing like the down payment assistance program so this is my wheelhouse this is something that I know and I hope I can bring that kind of skill set here to Ashlin that's great well thank you thank you we got a I just want to say we have the big project going on with the Simpson property so yeah yeah all right thank you and thanks for that suggestion Yolanda it's always good to hear from people okay so tell me okay so this is now recap of the 40b public
136forum and the comment letter to Mass housing outline the concerns and comments from the community and we'll also at some point clarify the difference between 40 B projects in the MBTA communities I just want to say yeah we had a great Forum um and Michaels and his staff have been overseeing a process that we talked about about how to respond to this 40b application and the next one so hopefully we've set up a good model um we had a lot of material in our packet uh hopefully people had chance to at least uh skim over it um I couldn't read the public comments I think section which was kind of small yeah I think so but um there's a ton of public comments so we should talk about the best way to package those as
137well but I just want to say it looks like a very important and thorough process um and um so I think with with that introduction I'll turn over to Michael if you want to talk a little bit about it and of course we can get into a discussion sure with the members so go ahead yeah I mean I I I agree with you I thought the The Forum was good um you know we had a 40b expert attorney who came and just provided some education the the developer was willing to come here um answer some questions present an overview of their project and then you know open things up to questions and and I really appreciate the community you know um they they really asked some really good questions and um it was it was
138calm and it was professional so um the process so as I explained earlier um you know we're in basically this uh site eligibility letter phase and so so um Mass housing has asked the select board to provide comment on the proposed project at the Mill site and so we developed a process whereby we distributed the materials to different boards and committees um that would play a role in this and so and ask them to provide comments by uh May 8th uh which we subsequently moved to to May 10th and and uh we we got a lot of feedback um I I do anticipate we'll probably get a couple a couple of other comments from board uh board me or other boards I should say and um so in addition to that we we did do
139a unique step in terms of putting this out to the public and putting the materials online and then instituting a form to gather public comment and public feedback of which we got you know over 150 responses um so what I've been doing is I've been trying to take the board and committee input um as well as some of the things that we have talked about uh there's some overlap there there's some things that Wen unique and put together a comment letter that um I think gives us the best or at least a the outline right now of one that gives us the best um the best chance of you know either having Mass housing deny this project which is highly unlikely but it has been possible or at least um scaling it down quite a
140bit and um you know rob you mentioned being a a you know more hopeful about this I I'm a little more optimistic um you know now given where we are and some of the things that we've collected I think our argument is going to be pretty strong and I talked to attorney me about this a bit and uh she thinks you know our our two best best arguments are first of all how much affordable housing or housing we've produced over the last uh last decade and a half and um it's really been tremendous actually uh the amount we're not your typical suburban community that you know tries to block 40 BS or you know affordable housing you know in many cases we in invite it and have approved it there have been a couple of
141situations where um a project didn't didn't make sense for the community overall and we've taken steps to you know go in a different direction um but by and large uh we we're not the poster child for um for nism um so that and then also when you look at the scale and the architecture of the proposed building and you look at what we're trying to accomplish with um form based code and um you know some of the the zoning that we do have in terms of keeping things in scale uh you know there's a dramatic difference between what we have as a community said that we would like and what this proposal exhibits so uh those are really the two main things would you like me to go into some some of the others or
142you want to pause there or how do you want to handle this question well I yeah I just had a a couple of questions what about um you don't think it's a really the infrastructure arguments aren't good arguments Oh I thought it put infrastructure it's on there I'm just saying you said the you said the top two were oh yeah yeah the the top two you know having a conversation with attorney me um you know just her thoughts you know going through this she thought the two I mentioned were were probably the most I'm surprised the scale one I guess would rise above the the um infrastructure concerns well it it's basically what gives you the best chance of of of putting things uh pushing things back or scaling things down and infrastructure can you
143know for all intents and purposes be addressed it can be expensive it can be you know very very difficult but it can be addressed you know things like the architecture of multiple buildings and and of an area and the scale of an area is something that you know you can't really change or or fix unless you're doing wholesale demolition no but you can you can adjust the project right right so doesn't I don't know I just feel like that that's can be changed yeah it's it's interesting I mean we just came across a decision from Medfield um in 2017 where Mass housing actually denied a project because it didn't fit in with the scale in architecture um I I didn't get to read all of that so they denied it was the project then read
144designed and approved or did it never get built um it got redesigned and approved so it went from 200 units um to 36 Town Homes yeah that was talk I didn't send it to you guys but something Kate sent me that people have been doing some research about um and that was very hopeful I thought because it wasn't like let him build whatever he wants it's affordable housing it's like oh this doesn't really fit with some of the measures you folks have taken so we want you to change it that was like so you know one of the things that is has been on my mind about this you know is just that and and I'm not sure it's an argument that can be used because it not sure it it it you know that
145it actually addresses the law right which is always a problem but but in reality how does this really improve affordability for a family you know somebody maybe the the rent is less but it it's not as if it's a something that you buy at a at a discount and you have the opportunity to build equity and perhaps then you know like like all the condos in town where people have come bought a condo rob you being one of them have lived there and then Yolanda right and then eventually we're able to buy into the the town in a in a single family home um so I that's one of something that really troubles me is that it doesn't feel as though this law has ever done what it was intended to do so is that
146is that worth what I'm well that's just it that's my point I'm not sure it's an argument worth making in this if it's it's not something that addresses the actual law what way law we gain anything by saying hey why don't you have of course we were never thinking about condos there anyway I don't think we were looking at always looking at rental but yeah I I mean I just you know I I maybe there's a section of the argument that is doesn't necessarily address the law but rather discusses some of these other points right right because I I think if you look there have been projects that are 40b either just straight 40b or friendly 40 BS maybe not here in Ashland but in other communities that then did allow for more affordable units
147and giving places for people to live and things like that so but I agree that we need to look at what it means for this community and certainly hearing about a project being denied and actually being reworked I think is is something we can hang our hat on to say how can we work and reach let Mass housing know that th this project is too big for our downtown because of some of our infrastructure things and I think for a lot of people there's still the issues of the EPA in the D right the the where it sits and how it sits and things like that yeah except that if if it's all built above right which seems to be what their strategy is is that does it really although although there was air quality
148issues too raised right and some of that yeah um and those are kind of technical engineering which I think are kind of I mean we definitely should make those comments because they're challenges but they're either going to be resolved or they're not you know regarding less of whether how many units are built I mean and I think and I think the state's perspective is there's a Hing housing shortage and so rents have continued to climb hous housing prices have continued to climb and from their perspective they want to just create more units of housing which eventually will hopefully drive down the the overall cost because it's not sustainable like the rents that are you know they're not sustainable the housing prices are you know it's not affordable for for someone to to buy their first
149home it's you know it's it's hard so but but what is the the you know the root to buying your first home so is it living in something that's a 40b unit where it's I mean $2500 a month this is the biggest nut to crack like real affordable housing and how to get it and it's it's it's there's no easy solution because it's really a societ you so how do we um so I guess um so I think the best conversation for us to have tonight is like I think like advising Michael on what how we think this response should go and and it's going to be due before the 28th which we we don't have any meetings scheduled so one question would be if we think the board should meet again before the final
150thing to review it that's really up to people's sense or Michael's recommendation so it's one thing I think to just at least think about or if this is going to be it and we'll leave it to Michael and the staff to put together response um um and my my own kind of Impressions about I think we got some great Concepts here I I was very impressed with a lot of the responses uh especially the planning board is the is the intention just to include attach all those to your major letter and then I think we we should all should talk about what are we going to do about the public comment and how to handle that but is that you're thinking you're going to have a long kind of and then attach all this other
151stuff maybe highlight some of it right so so the letter from the select board um will basically extract some things you want my signature stamp back sure I gu before Monday if you do it yeah it's uh is to you know extract you know important pieces from the different boards and committees memo put that in also mix kind of our own thoughts in so yes it's the the comment letter from the select board and I was thinking that we would attach um the memos from the other boards and committees as as as an attachment and then um you know the comments it's an interesting it's an interesting thing um I'm not necessarily sure if it's going to help us potentially could hurt us um but we did make a commitment to you know basically attach
152those word for word and send those well and I think it's appropriate to allow Mass housing to see the comments from our community you know whether they read them all or not you know as you go through them sure there's certain ones you go okay that's not quite applicable or and there is a couple that actually support it but I think we asked for The public's opinion I think we've been we've used that you've used that to start drafting our letter um I think it's important to share that with with Mass housing to show the input and involvement of our community yeah I wasn't disagreeing with that I'm just saying it's a dilemma you to think about it yeah thought well some of them are very thoughtful and some of them are very thoughtful some
153of them are hyperbolic and yes some of them are but but that's what you're going to get when you ask for public comment but but so the question I think the Board needs to ask whenever you're thinking when you're thinking about putting this together and if there's things you want to put in you want to you know public comments or the public comments because like you know we did make that commitment and include as an appendix you know something you know I think you know the two things you got to think about when you're thinking about a topic is will this help the argument that's number one and number two and it's just as important is it going to hurt our credibility uh and then basically if if we say something that hurts our credibility
154is that going to then diminish the impact of our credible arguments right so that's a well I I think that like you know first of all the I think the approach you know the having a comments letter a summary thing because going through a lot of the comments first of all you know thank you to the boards and committees that put so much effort behind um giving giving feedback um some some were extremely extensive and I know the planning board is still working on theirs it's not final um but you know it's it's the the feedback and and the techn tech technical expertise of the comments I think are really helpful impressive impressive so I think you know pulling from that into a you know a summary cover page I think is really important because
155I think we have to be pretty I would say that the the cover comments need to be as succinct as humanly possible because I think there's so much behind it and I don't my concern is that if we don't if we don't um if we don't clearly articulate our position on certain things it's people it's it's just it's going to be just a blur the rest of it's going to be a blur so you know I was looking through the this the your outline that you had put together and I think think it's really good I think you know my my take on it is I would probably reorder some of these because from from like level of you know importance or and or level of feedback we've received or certain things that are more
156important than others like I wouldn't put I know that um we have like um parking concerns is like number four and I honestly I would you know parking they weren't done in like any order of that's not going to it's not really uh you know that's not going to be one of those things that that Mass housing is like yep you know what like that's you know so from my perspective I I I feel like you know that needs to the the order of the stuff needs to be kind of reworked a bit it might be even able to create like well I mean do as you please but create categories right so these are safety issues these are um architectural or scale issues these are and then group group them together something like that
157and then even just link to the documents that would be attached and I also think we need to look at that letter the you know the the the community that got the project denied and what their strategy was and how we can use that because I think there's a lot of similarities right in regards to size and scale and traffic and infrastructure impacts because that's what we're looking at here right to bry's point Point yes parking could be a concern considering some of the stuff we're seeing at other projects here downtown but I don't think Mass housing is going to say oh because they have potential parking issues I think there's no but would that be something that you might consider in putting in like a community of life I mean you know quality of
158life thank you quality of life category or that right it just isn't the top issues as to why yeah exactly that something that or is that something that Mass housing would even aine on right is that more parking is a but you have to have enough parking so it's one of those it's one of those direct factual things there's standards for parking right there are there are standards for parking and so I think so look the way we got some of our parking minimums right in our zoning and you know how we got to 1.54 cars or parking spaces per unit right so so the theory the planning theory is that you know you basically if you have less parking spaces people will be forced to get less cars because they will be forced to
159use um you know public transportation or walking biking so here's the thing we've gone beyond the theory we've actually built projects using that theory and we see it doesn't work um because that's an important point you know and I think that that's how we structure that argument I mean unfortunately we've only got anecdotal data but I'll go ahead at at the end of tonight and just take a picture going down Main Street and see all it's not like there's a supermarket this is in Cambridge they can't walk to a supermarket ex what are they walking to that's right exactly right so you can maybe walk to the train station or town hall but that's limited that's not everything else that people have to do right when you make the argument about the you know the
160last decade was it was it 2010 to 2020 that you were looking at for the the housing that we built well so yeah so we have hard data on that when and we went from 6,000 units B yeah basically it was 6,500 units to 7450 or something but then if you look beyond that as at what has been permitted and what has built five projects I think it's probably more Claudia okay I think it's probably so and and how many units are we looking at there um it was I'll have to look at the table again but it's it's like 500 I think over 500 yeah I think I think the planning board thing and so what everybody needs to know I mean is that those are permitted so they can happen even what's in
161right now there's one project that's been pulled because they're looking for better financing or whatever and then there's another project that's in the courts those are already permitted and once they settle up those come online yeah and and one of those projects I mean the interesting thing and it's I I think I put it here in the outline and we'll make this point is that so the developer that was permitting the project once the permitting was done he closed on that project and took ownership of it and that was in December of 2022 so he decided he wanted to flip it to another developer but he didn't want to pay capital gains taxes which was what would happen if he sold it within the year so he wanted to wait a year and and basically
162flip it and so he waited that year and now the financing is such that you know it can't happen so the original developer has decided he wants to do it thing is he waited a year if if that project had pulled building permits within that year we'd be in Safe Harbor right you know we wouldn't have to worry about this along with ugc you know right uh one thing I want to so in terms of the public comments I'm thinking about how best to use it is uh you would at one time you would had that kind of trend like these are the issues right yeah these are comments and then Anna had that comment about trying to put them into some sort of planning issues uh but I'm just wondering so you know we're
163going to attach them all somewhere so they can be read I guess but is there some way of using them in part of our letter or your introduction letter about talking about public concerns that are useful and help guided our response I mean is there some way of summarizing the Public's concerns that are helpful to the process I mean I I imagine they reflect the same things we're going to be talking about yeah um and maybe there's just ways of you you make an illusion to that many of the public we had X number of comments and they were concerned about this people understand housing we built a lot of housing they think this is too big in scale or more than we we'd only wanted 180 downtown this is 250 you know that kind
164of thing or or reflecting somehow summarizing and reflecting the public comments then you can refer back to them but you know for them to Wade through all the comments is probably not necessarily going to happen how do we make it useful for them to consider our public comments you know I was I was thinking about structuring it and basically saying that these comments that that we're putting together have been echoed by the boards and committees and citizens at you know different public and we had this kind of Outreach and here's the comments and maybe if we could summarize them as a way of the public concern well see I think these are I mean what we've got here is in your outline yeah so maybe talking about it that way and and also didn't Jen
165as these comments came in sort of track what people were commenting on that's what she that was the bar graph show right so I would think that is something you know if I'm Mass housing I'm probably not going to you know zoom in and read all of these but if there's the summary for people's concerns as to what people that might sending that along with these comments I think would be helpful so maybe look at keywords that would be maybe the easiest way to to pull together like I I would caution doing that because some of those some of those items on that list are things that would basically uh diminish our credibility in terms of yeah why why do you say diminish our credibility if we're if we're sharing with hous Mass housing the
166concerns of our residents how does that diminish our credibility so let's take schools and school enrollment right we can't use School enrollment we can't use School enrollment I don't think we want to necessarily say something about crime increase crime and transient um yeah I I you know some of those things um yeah there's certainly some comments on here that were not realistic related to this construction I see what you're saying okay so I would but I would suggest and I go back to Anna's kind of suggestion with this conceptual kind of so the bar graph was good but it was very segmented and maybe you could we should attach that as well but maybe kind of summarize a lot of the concerns were about these kind of planning processes which is goes to our strings
167yeah ex exactly exactly okay other thoughts or advice or concerns about the process oh I had a question is it what's the significance of the meepa process with the with this yeah so somebody made a comment about meepa meepa was one of the first things Kate's yeah but I mean meepa is meepa I suppose this comes under meepa but meepa lets you do things as long as you meet certain requirements yeah you have to go through studies and everything this mea was one of the first things I looked at this doesn't qualify under oh it doesn't okay um so under meepa you have like different triggers and site alteration triggers that you know one of them have to be met and then you have to meet another standard which um the project has to be
168receiving State funding uh basically a transfer of state land or needs to get a permit from a state agency not not require state agency action needs a permit from a state agency all right I'm just presuming that all these kind of I there are some technical challenges the whole plume the flood plane the environmental stuff storm water at some point they're either these are technical they either going to meet them or they're not and it may be that if the size is too big they have to down downsize it to meet some of these requirements so hopefully that I mean we know that process will happen regardless storm water you know if they're planning on using underground storm water systems um you know those are required to Main contain 2T separation from groundwater and you
169know where that is it's already sunk a little bit low and we you know there's already groundwater it's a high water T it's it has its issue surprised the MW hasn't at that project in some way shap because of the sub right there the MW it wouldn't be the MW Mass Water Resource Authority because it's they're they're like Quin and they're not quality I think DCR Joe DCR okay that's okay DCR yeah um yeah they I don't know if they'll look at that I mean the thing is that those storm water regulations um they you know they're they're pretty it's an engineering thing right so they're going to make it or not I mean I presume we're going to engineer I mean the engineers you know we had a good strong letter from them in
170the concom yeah you know would it make sense for us to have um to include sort of a plan how what we envision would be you know something that that site could become well what was what what did the planning board attach to there I did I looked I saw these pictures yeah planning board had you know basically a cou so one of the pictures that they had attached was the final rendering and it just was that elevation that the working group uh yes came up with worked with the developer con Street oh the from oh yeah yeah I was looking at that going that looks famili I mean not quite that detailed but that idea of the Riverwalk going in back of the property and things like that I'm talking about there there was
171an elevation view from the front and you know there was you know the architecture was much more in line with what we're right what we're used to um and that was that was a rendering that was shared right before uh the owner decided to basically leave that process and submit in front of the plan because they were yeah it's uh so Claudia it's interesting because I've always said I think you know we're going to get Universal agreement that what's proposed is not there is is not good um I think where there's going to be some disagreement and you know can we've seen can really kind of side rail things is coming to an agreement on what is acceptable if you feel that the planning board the last planning board iteration was an acceptable plan um
172maybe we make reference to that and um you know basically those qualities and suggest that that would be a more appropriate project for you know that location um because you've already got a little a little bit of cons you got some consensus at the planning board level I think um I don't know it it it what do you guys thought so I think that um you know that version was a much better version than this I think the more you know it had more commercial it had less units my concern is like if I were a Mass Housing person and I'm not a Mass Housing person but if I was looking at this whole application and I and I saw okay so this guy went before the planning board this was all the plans and
173all the stuff that's not what I'm looking at that's not what they're reviewing so it's almost like I don't this is going to come off kind of weird but it's almost like well so what you know like I would I think it's good to reference it but like I think if if you thought that was such a good project why did you not approve it correct yeah I wasn't really that example that we would they would have approved it they so they so the planning board had had continuously gotten feedback that it needed to be smaller and smaller and smaller and my understanding and I had not watched the last planning board meeting where the developer had come before them but my understanding was that it was a frustrating process that basically what what happened
174was is it became not financially feasible and that you know what was being asked of the developer wasn't possible so the developer withdrew the application I yeah but he might have got well I don't know that is in the Mass housing application that the developer submitted to to to Mass housing is you know it does talk about has this project been before like the planning board gone through other planning processes and you know what happened there and it does say that yes it was before the plan board for a special permit but the I'm paraphrasing here but like the municipal ass became too much or something this is what the developer said well I don't know yeah I wasn't thinking about using that as what we would plan for it I was really thinking you
175know more dramatically different than that well I think it it it's still worth saying that we were having discussions no one had said no he just you know for whatever reason walked away from it I mean if we had a proposal that we liked it might be I mean I don't know how muched maybe not a completely implied no to that project but certainly well I'll tell you what I'll tell you what the developer told me during was it the site visit or pre- meeting that this that his this design oh I'm sorry what's that Jo no no I saying there was just a negative connotation about the entire project right what did the new developer told me was that the plan was not realistically constructed in terms of cost he didn't specifically address saying
176you know I mean obviously he's proposed more meaning not not created in regards to the cost to build it or that it was it was not going to be an economical it was not but it was the kind of design in the proposed construction method yeah the way the the buildings the way that was designed is you know to build that would be um astronomically expensive yeah and so it wasn't feasible but he didn't directly I mean and he wouldn't be in a place to do that but that it just seemed like the whole method of construction he thought was off and it needed to be done a different way yeah but so but he to be you know to be fair he was looking at basically the financial structure that you know he had
177in place you know if there is an idea to maybe find a way for the town to help make that plan a little more palatable from a financial perspective you know we didn't explore any of that no with them and I don't know if it would work but so I don't know I guess it's kind of a tactical thing does it make sense to say look we were in Earnest negotiations and we had a plan like this with aund I don't even know it was an 180 or 200 units that we thought was viable but it's changed so I don't can and I don't I I read your letter quickly can we talk to Mass housing at all about the the business component and the commercial real estate component did I because well like I
178said I read your letter quickly can we to them say this is a downtown that need that we've been talking about for many years I mean as long as I've been sitting here on the select board and previously when I've been involved in and listening to conversation that we want to have more commercial downtown and you're not going to allow people to park then you got to give them someplace to go are you talking about the economic development letter or a different one no no I mean no just in general as we prep as we draft our letter to Mass housing is that something that we can speak to the fact that as a community we've always talked that we need more business downtown we need more people to come down town to come and
179and come to our businesses and here we have a mill building that is now all commercial and we're getting a very small percent back so that's number six right under his outline oh okay like I said I only looked at it after getting maybe maybe to Yolanda's point it needs to have some some of that too because we were talking about just you know the the you know talking about commercial space in our downtown I think is is sort of like the missing link to them right but I think I think like I'm just trying to think of how we're going to move this forward you know do we want to like you know so so are you are is your plan to draft something and then send it to us to look at like
180so I'm I guess I guess that's yeah let's talk about the process I mean I I could certainly do that um I mean if if you feel the problem is the whole open meeting La serial communication which we just have to be sensitive about I think yeah so I think if you send it just to me it'd be okay so my problem if is if I get five different versions versions how are you going to reconcile that and yeah how to reconcile that well can we take a can we look at your letter now and sort of what's the letter you prioritize the letter to M it's an outline but it's talk it's speaking to right so like claudus Point Park parking is number four should that be a lower concern and loss of commercial
181space should that be something higher on um you know more important um well the other thing the size of it right I think that's definitely important um certainly based on the decision we heard um previously uh you know so do we do we look at this outline and understanding what worked for another Community do we draft or or or you know massage and prioritize related to that possibil to those things that help them get it get it stopped right and revised but I think it's a good idea for us to see like a full draft of what goes out so let's think about this is due um May 27 20 27th or 29th 27th the 27th is Memorial day isn't it yes yeah so it must be the 28th or 29th I think June 27th
182is for the is for the second one yeah so so um I guess the there's no meeting scheduled next week for the select board one things I guess for you guys to think about is there do you want to meet with Michael this wouldn't include me unless you do it like by Monday but do you want to meet with Michael to review a different a later draft or just could we do a retreat like that kind of format when would you look to do that though if we were going to do it next week because it would be have to be next week right yeah I I don't I don't know given a lot of stuff going on and then I think I think you know the stuff that we would talk about at a
183retreat we can kind of get done tonight I mean which is basically the substance like the topic points that you want to put through um because again like this will be you know the outline and it's kind of here um you know I I you know I would hope we would get it to a place and we would be on the same page coming out of tonight to where basically you know the things that we wouldn't necessarily be word smithing you know right right yeah I don't think we I don't think we need to Wordsmith a document for you you can go through the minutes like the planning board um so are we thinking you know the other thing is to to Michael's Point can we come to some agreement tonight as to what we
184think priorities are and then is it a subcommittee is it one or two people who wants Michael you know Michael can send it to all of us but to Michael's point if he gets then depending on when we send it four or five responses back how does he handle that um but could it be with a subcomittee right so I don't know how you feel about that Michael right if just there's two people that can work with you to finalize it I don't know what people think about that so have each individual we can each respond back to Michael sub but if we have a subcommittee then we have to post a meeting like yeah so yeah I mean we definitely would we no I'm just saying like from a from a timing standpoint yeah
185right well if it's later in the week next week time to yeah it's going to be next week is going to be tough um to meet I mean what you what you got about finishing is when do you think you'll have it largely completed and you still got probably end next week yeah yeah why don't we what if we posted something for next Friday you know a week from Friday and then thinking everybody or just well you could just post it for the you just post it for the whole board and if whoever can make it makes it yeah and then you can always withdraw it does that work for you Michael that you could get something us for us to look at and then again not that we would be word smithing but just
186just affirming you know the order or the importance well why don't we why don't we try to take a stab at trying to prioritize the order of this okay so I kind of dur this discussion so I'm happy because I kind of went through it and I kind of started ordering things so I'm happy to like throw something out there and get the reaction from everyone so I I think number one when we talk about Safe Harbor is is how we should lead off y um given the the feedback from attorney me I would say keep number two as number two with with um scale and um what the you know and that includes the historical buildings as well um I would say the next thing for me would be infrastructure concerns which is number
187five before you we go get off that is that one likely to is that one likely to be good to reduce the size of the project cuz I think that's what we ma our major concern right so infrastructure con is is talking about water sewer the mil Pond bridge and storm water issues so so so that's my question and it's kind of infrastructure and safety right that would be rolled in there I would I would add that because if you're starting to look at that it's going to cause an issue yeah I think I think safety is a would be a way to right right safety as part of the so or traffic con and then and then the next thing I was going to say was do traffic concerns so number three is as
188yeah as the next so infrastructure going into traffic and but but B I just want to so and Michael you can respond is the infrastructure is this something that possibly There's issues with 250 units but there'd be less issues if there was 180 or 200 units I guess that's you know that's going to be it's going to be hard to say say um you know the like the Framingham IMA um not necessarily sure we could calculate it out to that type of granular level um I mean what what what we do know is right now you know at certain times we go above the peak flow uh that's allowed and certainly if we have 250 units it's could you could make that case so I mean if we can put some language like that and
189I think it's worth pushing it yeah like Brandy's suggesting but so we could say look you want 250 units these are the potential issues right yeah help us Downs is do you want me to if everybody's in agreement with that I'll go ahead and make some changes now okay to that with respect to what Claudia just said with with respect to safety with with the the three uh components that Brandy just mentioned um there is going to be a major design change God bless you excuse me there's going to be a major change down there by the intersection that intersection is going to have to be redesigned to getting that traffic out of the ramp that's coming up onto Main Street and that's going to that's going to create a design change at that intersection
190which means you're going to be taking property of of pieces of property of town property and what's going to create a design change for that intersection the ramp with those people coming out onto Main Street that's just traffic flow that's traffic that you're talking about that's traffic FL so that's that should be part of the traffic concerns right that should be part of safety because that is a safety issue for those people who are traveling that road or walking or or going to and from uh work if they're going to utilize that yeah because there's there's a pedestrian crosswalk there uh believe me I saw it again this afternoon MH where a guy almost got T-boned because she couldn't get out a traffic at 4:30 this is coming out like the office coming out coming
191out no coming out from the ramp oh the ramp to take left or something yeah right and they're not allowing that individual to get out so you're Crossing two traffic lanes and then the third lane to get onto the L yeah I I agree 100% And that's going to be that's going to be a design change in that intersection yeah I don't see how you can build this project without totally changing that inter absolutely and he didn't think that he he didn't he said no absolutely not CU we asked them that at right but and that maybe I'm thinking of things that will downsize the project and is this one of well that could that could be that could be an issue to downsides the project so he doesn't have to pay the the redesigning
192of that inter I think I would throw it while I'm you know in John featherson I mean I think an internal bus stop is good we should have that somewhere because we don't want buses stopping we want buses yeah but we don't want them stopping on the street and that includes school buses too yeah you know there will be there I mean there will be a school bus stop that has to the current design the way with the current design with the design that we saw there is an interior Courtyard where the the bus could go in could go in right they approval to do thatta could but maybe not a school bus that's the thing to think about so yeah so you incorporate you know under tra I'll do it under traffic incorporate bus
193stops to get more cars off the road the other thing about uh traffic would be the number of feet it is from the the Train the railroad crossing right I mean that's dramatically changes the traffic in town at multiple day times a day I mean I think that's kind of a big piece in terms of the traffic that yeah yeah right that that that that would be something Brandy did you want to finish your order and then if other people want to do similar maybe that's helpful for Michael so I went from infrastructure to traffic traffic to Niza which is number seven hold on one second I had I'm down I'm right down okay to Niza to nanza 2537 and nanza to commercial space which is six yep and then ending with parking you think
194J is yeah it's definitely part of the issue but it's not it's nottin anyone else have thoughts on an order or no I think that that's a that's a good order I mean is a good Michael thoughts on that no I I think it's are we missing anything else in the letter that I mean I mean is there anything missing that we I mean I mean I think one thing you should just as we get the final comments and just make sure that everything's Incorporated but I leave that up to your judgment but the outline the general outline we think is the right direction I think and we've got a lot of material from the other boards how did we decide to leave the the public comments will probably be an appendix and you'll reference
195them at some times here to try to make them I mean to try to include them as part of I think we're going to have a good package put together actually okay all right so the so the next step is you're you'll draft this you'll send it to all of us just to just to review may not be for a while or Friday okay do you week Thursday or Friday or like tomorrow or Friday next week tomorrow I think right no no no so then do we want to schedule a meeting on that 24th a you know I would ask that we do it as a zoom meeting he might not have it ready for the 24th well well considering it's Memorial Day weekend and it's due on Tuesday the 28th I would or maybe
196Wednesday but I my suggestion for you guys is just to schedule it and you can cancel it next week yeah we we need to do it in the afternoon so oh uh me before like 1 o'clock or two o'clock well 1 o'clock would that work that would work so May 24th at 1:00 in the afternoon okay y it's a it's a public meeting maybe I will show up go for it I have a hard stop at two yes so do I yeah but okay so if we can get that posted and and the only item would be um this letter to Mass housing right it's the only item so this is the zoom meeting not zoom yeah I think Zoom makes it simple Zoom makes simple yeah yeah all right um I just have could
197I just these are kind of related questions but not specifically related to this letter um and would you send us the Medfield um yeah yeah thank you and then I'm sorry what was your question to send out the Medfield no that was that was just a popped in my head um oh jeez where is it here oh um could you explain a little bit to me about the financing end of this that is it Mass housing that that provides F I know it might not be possible is it Mass housing that that provides some additional financing to the developer based on the number of units I don't know if it's based on the number of units called um but yes mass mass housing plays a role and it's not to the best of my knowledge
198it's not Mass housing that provides the financing I think it it's like they have something called the New England fund or something which this is to make the 25% no this is just to finance the project generally CA it's 25% it would be eligible for this okay he's and it's subsidized to some extent I I didn't real I guess I didn't realize that there there is um to yeah to a certain extent um interesting yeah and what's the here's another impossible question what's the criteria for for getting that that funding um I do not know I'm sure they have just you know I always I always hesitate to draw comparisons to like a traditional mortgage because there are so many differences but um you know in this case just like when you go to a
199bank for a loan you know you have to meet you know income criteria you know all this good kind of stuff um I'm I know that they have criteria that they have to meet I just don't know what it is okay CU I was just thinking in terms of kind of what I was saying in terms of you know what would we Invision there if you know I'm not sure that I would or that the community probably would think that 180 units was a great idea either right so um you know what he was going to get that what could be envisioned there that that would maybe still qualify for some kind of assistance to make it attractive to some developer yeah I mean so that's that's interesting um you know that's that's going to
200be a tough one because if you get it to you know too low a density it's just not financeable and so your choice would be either keeping it the way it is or you know going somewhere else you know you know it might be worth reviewing we do have a bit a strategy to the extent that you feel it's okay to talk about it is later in the in the process the the economic analysis about the justification for the number of units so the fact that they are subsidized could help us because at some point right we can and correct me if I'm wrong but we have kind of a thinking about at some point when you could challenge he he may say I need to build 250 units to make this economical right we
201may be in a position to push back and say no according to our analysis you can build 190 units and it's fine right I mean and how would that play into and the fact that he's getting subsidized to build affordable units I think help I mean I just want to be careful with using the term subsidize I don't know if it is like what we're thinking about in terms of subsidies and and what that is so we can't bring up the economic argument unless the zoning board issues a decision right with conditions and the developer then appeals it to the housing appeals court saying that those conditions make it uneconomic once they make that claim that opens the door for us to to review that right I remember I remember the lawyer saying that's where
202this comes in and that's later in the process I expect I expect that the the zoning board is going to issue I mean most likely they're going to issue a decision with conditions right assuming there's not 100% agreement um I I would assume so I mean I don't want to speak speak for right I mean we we I I think we have to be careful about saying what we think is going to happen in the future because okay two years ago some of us were thinking that there was already going to be a project underway right based on previous discussions um Michael I just want to point out if you could check with the planning board M on their me Mo because under section one materials reviewed and referenced they have two future dates on
203it so it could be a typo that's possib possibility but I'd hate for us to send this memo the way it is I think it's we can't send it the way it's a draft it is rough okay so they need to we they're still working on that okay and that'll be part of this not say I just I actually pushed for Michael to include the draft because I I thought it' be good to get a sense where they were going with it cuz I'm not seeing the word draft in our in our package that's all right yeah I mean it still references people's names like that people are working on things LS is Peter doing the final like kind of and did he give you a date for it or um I don't think Peter's
204doing the final um who is like one of the volunteers is writing this all upe well actually the way it's hard that's why he said it's hard it looks like each of the groups each each member has split up what theyve what they've done so yeah I think well okay respect to the do you want to do that way the comment I think pardon me no no no I was thinking no I was thinking all these folks are writing their own sections which is great but at some point like somebody like Peter puts the whole thing together and oh this is all you know yeah I would hope that at some point our planning director would read through their full memo to make sure that things like that don't happen yeah I would a planning
205director would be allow to okay like there's a typo in there they reference Shi and they call it shared housing inventory and it subsidized yeah there's stuff that needs to subsidized housing inventory you subsidized housing it goes by I don't think sending the I don't think sending the old plan no to Mass housing makes sense but I mean it's the planning board's letter but yeah okay so oh I should you oh no no not yet the chair well you know there's no I there's never a guarantee in the vote happens anyway um do you feel like you have what you need Michael from our input in discussion yeah do you see do you see anything missing in here gu that you think should be in here that I don't I didn't see anything talk a
206lot about stuff I think you're going in the right direction I think the one thing just to add is on the traffic is the whole train situ I think that's a good okay what's the train situation TR proximity and the amount of traffic and I was thinking about the station yeah yeah okay and that's something like you can't time you know with lights or anything it's got to get busier too they're not it's not like there's going to be less trains a lot of ambitious thoughts about commuter rail oh I meant to do that in board reports all right are we good we all good okay it's almost 10:00 where are we all right so did you want to talk about the other related thing about clarification 40b versus NBTA communities anybody want to take
207that on I just quickly I I'll repeat what I said at The Forum um so 40b Massachusetts general laws chapter 40b is different than what the NBTA community's law is so I'll start with the NBTA communities law so that was recently signed in the law um a couple years ago and it requires communities that have a you know a commun rail or or mass transit station or adjacent to it to Zone um within a certain area and radius for the most part um the the community needs to Zone oh shoot I'm not on sorry U needs to Zone to allow multif family housing to be built as of right so it requires the communities to change their zoning to allow multif family units to be built as of right which means uh very Li limited
208review there's not much discretion you know um allowed so Massachusetts General Law chapter 40b which has been around for about five decades now so 1969 so that is that is designed to allow a developer to go into a community and if that Community does not have 10% of its housing stock deemed affordable by the state it allows that developer to override the zoning um in order to um build something as long as 25% of the units are affordable and uh when I say you know override zoning that zoning controls things like density height setbacks um just just a number of things um and use um and and so basically 40b allows a developer to override that your zoning says you can only go three stories tall well we're going to do a project that's five
209stories talk and we can do it because we got 25% affordable right six stories right it just happens one is yeah so it's it's five stories from um from grade from street level which is way the way I think it's measured in zoning so hey that reminds me Michael um in your I think you ought to Echo the concom request to not Grant a waiver on the local this goes back but oh they had in their letter they said we don't there's two things where we have local concom control bylaw and we don't think a waver should be granted I don't know if you want to reference that just that would be more the zba yeah so so maybe it's not something you wanted but I thought it was worth and yeah so they wouldn't
210make a yeah okay um all right so thank you for that explanation um so the next thing is um this request in process of naming for the public safety building and request interested parties to complete a talent Bank form so if I understand the process we did get a request for naming some rooms at the public safety building and we do have a a policy that we we did last year and I think it includes that the fire chief and the police chief and I'm looking at Susan or Jen if you want to interject or correct me they're already on this but I think we need to name one more person and then you guys at a future meeting can entertain so can entertain a request we did receive a specific request involving specific people
211having rooms name for them I believe so I think Susan all we need to do tonight is say put out a talent Bank form request to get one more member for that and then that's my we can get the process started is that it that's correct you just need to solicit just open up that your soliciting names okay and do we need to vote on that or can we just tell you to do it we can just ask her so go ahead and do it right anybody else have questions or thoughts just to clarify if you're interested in serving on the committee to uh make to have naming of the public safety building our police chief and fire chief or their designes are already part of it and then we're looking for a c a
212volunteer from the community to participate in that discussion because we already have two requests for that process and it's not the building itself and when would you like submissions duai I think there's a part of our policy right we have to do it in a certain number of days uh by the June 5th meeting so by June 1st is that too soon Thoughts by yeah so if you're interested in participating in that submit a talent Bank form by June 1st and just to to Joe's Point like it's not the public safety building it's it's benches it's rooms it's trees it's you know it's not is not changing its name putting a plaque in memory of so and so at a certain tree or something like that or planting a tree or bricks right uh interrupt
213U sure Mr chair make motion to oh go past 10 o' second all those in favor going past 10 o'clock I I my last 10 Post 10 o'clock meeting okay so we go past 10 so I think we're done with that item uh the next one is vote to designate Town manager Michael Herbert as ashlin's representative to the Metro West veteran services District I guess we have to do this what every year or something anyway is that just a simple motion yeah I move that we designate Town manager Michael Herbert as ashlin's representative to the Metro West veteran service District I'll second that motion's been made in second all those in favor say I I I oppose none motion passes thank you we did that one oh discuss additional funding for Stone Park summer concerts
214Joe yeah I'm going to withdraw that request um the committee decided that we are going to resurrect um and put our paperwork in for uh 50133 status again so uh good we'll have that hopefully we'll have it ready for the summer and do the fall uh status you can always come back if you need to so that's what we're doing awesome great okay thanks Joe um reminder annual Town election May 21st which is next Tuesday right and early voting still on Friday there was some today and then Friday as well 7 to noon on Friday yeah all right very good uh free covid tests are still available Town Hall I actually availed myself of them last week very helpful I was negative okay so that's good um job yeah that's a positive thing they come
215here positive but who cares it was negative but it was positive y um reminder collection ail no that's passed um yard continues until Monday Monday June 3rd what is this yard waste collection col okay we lost some words there okay correct which is Memorial Day Memorial Day is coming up so that's good I presume we'll have our usual or do we have um are we sponsoring some kind of a memorial day trade or event up at the cemetery or yeah it's usually the VFW that helps put it together um I have not heard anything from Fred I imagine actually asked me that so certainly downtowns in a state that we could do something you know start at Wildwood and come downtown MH so I can't imagine they won't do it but I suppose it's possible
216so U yeah Claud you should dep um plan on being invited to go to Memorial Day at 10 o'clock usually right 9 o' Susan have you heard anything yeah about Memorial Day I have not heard anything oh yeah but I'm happy to reach out to the VFW yeah thank you do their usual so I have somebody that tells me that the uh VFW and the American Legion do not have anything planned oh wow really well the legion's closed so I yeah right I mean yeah that's interesting same just read yeah they're still they still exist someone's reaching out and letting you know that's interesting whoever yeah but hopefully we put something together okay we did the consent agenda that brings us to town managers report yeah I I really don't have much folks um that's
217fine PRI project updates anything yeah I really don't I really don't have much on priority project other than we talk I mean we're still in that phase you know working with some of the businesses to basically come up with a plan to um you know how we can least impact them the least when we're doing the um building connction actions but um yeah and I missed the Mendes meeting so I'm not sure oh I will yeah I will say um you know we did sign the some paperwork to move forward the tax rebate issue so that's uh that's good yeah I can give you a quick update on Mendes or I can do it during board reports um well CLA was there too so goe yeah sorry CLA that's okay uh so things are moving
218forward with the fields they're closing out certain areas they're doing some other things inside uh one of the things that was concerning to me was apparently there has been concerns coming from a member of our concom and they're pushing for resources to be used to do some extra testing that may not actually be necessary and again it's a little disappointing that we could be using resources unnecessarily to do testing for things that really shouldn't be tested um and those are funds that could be used for other things for the project so but things are moving forward okay and just moving on to comprehensive Plan update I mean we' we've finished the public input session and you know we got got close to our goal 15% participation so and we still have some time to go
219but uh we do have a meeting this week um and the agenda's pretty much you know we we've had a couple members who wanted to talk about certain things at previous meetings and um so this will be an opportunity for them to to going to be at the meeting no they will not be at the meeting and then we have like our visioning s sessions um scheduled for uh late mid late June one in June ju in July what are visioning sessions um so basically essentially coming up with a Community Vision based on the input that we received through the surveys and the meetings in the boxes and the crowdsourcing and that's what the steering committee is going be doing it's not right with Goldson so the the consultant is going to come back with
220all this input and help us draft the vision and goals yeah and it's a two-step it's a two-step meeting so we're doing three nights one night wow taking that information and then coming back and doing three hours that strikes me it's kind of the heart of the plan being put together there you know I I think I kind of asked this the night of the um joint meeting but I'm just concerned that the the results of this don't are probably not going to align with the fact that we're looking at two 40b projects to the tune of uh what 400 units yeah round it up and that on some level it feels um you know just disingenuous almost that we're putting you know this time and effort into coming up with that plan and yet
221there are so many things out of our hands that we have absolutely no control over and in terms of the future of this community well one thing I hopeful I mean these projects at some point will be over the 10% and will be back yeah yeah so I mean that's a good point um you know we're we're essentially already at our 10% um not technically but we've got enough units in the pipeline to B basically do that um you know if these two projects go through and let's just say at the unit count that they're proposed I'm not saying that that's going to happen or that should happen but essentially what happens is each sensus that's when they they basically get the housing units from each census and that's what they base their 10% off
222of so this would be 2020 already 2030 yeah so we're looking at 2020 numbers right now yeah so um 2030 they'll do a census and then you'll probably get the new numbers in 2031 2032 but my point being is that let's just say the 240b projects go through um you know we might be able to save off 40 BS for a couple of decades two or three decades um so I don't know if that's a silver line even no because I feel as though if these two projects go through that this community is drastically altered in the relatively near future and and forever and that who cares if you're in Safe Harbor in two for two decades if the you know the damage is done I mean that's that's what I'm saying and and I
223know you know that people put a lot of time and effort into the comprehensive plan and uh you know this is I don't want to make it sound or not be sensitive to that but it's just very frustrating I think to think that we're doing all this work to put forth a plan for this community that might not be attainable I think that's part of our job too is to to make sure that we're putting something together for 10 years we're not going to be able to like this plan is not just a snapshot in history like this is so we're looking to prioritize certain things whether it's you know the community comes back and tells us we need more sidewalks or we need to we need to preserve more open space that's more it's
224it's you know there's going to be more visioning like bigger picture things and then there will be smaller tactical things that we that we do and so there's going to be a couple levels of things and I think Direction Ally we're going to get the feedback from from all the Outreach that we've done and say okay you know the town because it's not going to be feasible for us to say the town if if the feedback is the town shouldn't grow you know yes that's not going to be aligned with what with what's what the reality on the ground is going to look like but we can start planning for okay how do we best utilize the resources that we have to create an environment that the the community is proud of for the next
22510 years so it's it's not it's not a perfect it's so not a perfect fit and you know we've been talking about this since the very beginning that when we come up with these goals they have to be realistic in nature enough that we can Implement stuff because the worst thing that we can do honest to God the worst thing that we could do because we've been working on this for what seems like 10 years and feels like it sometimes like 10 years um the worst thing we can do is come up with a plan that looks great on paper and has zero applicability to what we're doing like that's the worst thing and so that's that's what we're that's what we're we're trying to to I and I think to just sort of piggy
226back on what Brandy said yes it may seem like why are we doing this plan and now we have these 4bs potentially coming in and impacting our community but I think there are still things we can generate from the comprehensive plan based on the feedback that we've gotten already from the forums and the surveys and the the crowd mapping and all that that we can still work to implement for the community even if we grow by these two projects to bry's point right there's open space that we can look at creating and working on the importance of creating the trail and how that impacts our community and once we have the plan create an implementation process as well so it's not just sitting on the shelf and even though we might be impacted in regards
227to additional residents I mean we're going to get additional residence whether it's through those projects or single family housing that gets built or things like that because there is still buildable land besides those two areas and those two projects if they happen certainly will impact our numbers more quickly but we haven't stopped growing as a community right our buildout that if you took number one thing in this community if we went out and talked to people in this community I I believe and I could be wrong would be density don't make this community denser than I would agree with you not just not prohibit you know um right there are people who say we don't want any more building in town right and we know that's not feasible right right that's I mean and between
228that and you know the type of density that we're talking about but that doesn't mean right isn't bad and that doesn't mean what we're doing with the comprehensive plan isn't still a positive thing for the community because there are other things besides housing that are going to be addressed right open space uh Recreation Fields things like that are sidewalks are all going to be part of this discussion you're going to have to walk because you're not yeah because you're not going to be able you're not going to be Drive you're going to take your bike on the trail that will get you through yes we do anyway so I I I I hear your your concern Claudia but I think the we need to continue the process for the comprehensive plan I'm not suggesting be
229aborted I'm suggesting that that the framework in my mind has changed from there has certainly been some things that will be changing but I think the process itself is still positive and how we can use it to continue to craft a community that we all still want to live in right because I know for myself it you know I I look at yes will these things change the community if they get built yes will that mean I won't want to stay in town I think because of the comprehensive plan and the potential of that and what it means for the community we still it'll still be a community that I want to be in it'll just be a little bit bigger and and the other thing is that you know our comprehensive plan deals with
230Ashland and you know we have we don't have any control over the other communities and like you know all the traffic that comes downtown during rush hour I I would say a majority of that is not Ash tra it's through traff yeah it's it's communities to the South and and stuff coming up to try to get to take a look what's going on at 135 in the morning hton coming in from coming in from the West units 900 un so I have a I have a question uh and and I know I I brought this up at the last uh joint planning board and select board meeting with a comprehensive plan group um it would have been nice to have uh an exclusionary zoning bylaw by now and I know that's on the agenda to
231to work on with you folks but the question that I want to ask is if the zoning board was willing to do some serious work and Zing board or planning board zoning board because inclusion zoning is under zba not under the planning board well it would it would be a zoning article that would go through the planning Bo so they would have to go okay all right so let me ask you that if there if there was wording for an inclusionary zoning bylaw we follow the process and have open Forum public forum the whole n it needs to be done Could That Could That become an article on the fall warrant this fall this fall I think you're going to get similar push back with some of these other things that are being proposed let's
232finish the comp let's finish the comprehensive the only reason why I say that is hear you well I it's not being heard it's being able to do something that gives a tool to our zba to to not restrict but at least provide some I'm going to even say the word safe haror but that's not even the right word I want right phrase I want to use but it's at least it gives them an opportunity to look at these developers and say okay we currently have a zoning we have an inclusionary zoning bylaw 25% you have to meet that 25% MH Y and if you can't do that pack up and leave yeah and I think as long as you're over your 10% um you know we can do that it can have a real meaningful
233impact yeah but can't you have inclusionary zoning even if you're not at your 10% I mean if anything includ zoning will help you get to your 10% I guess I guess what I'm saying is if you have it at like a 25% right your inclusion are zoning then basically a developer if you're not at your 10% your developer is more likely going to say look at that zoning and say I'm going to do a 40 B if I'm going to have to do 25% anyway and do something a lot more dense because because what we had when we were going through the process of developing an inclusionary zoning bylaw when we after we finished our housing production plan um one of the things that that was was clear was like you have to if if
234you're going to do inclusion Ariz zoning you have to allow for heavier density right so there's a tradeoff so if if I was a developer just like Michael said and if if you know if there's an inclusionary zoning bylaw that is 25% but doesn't quite meet the numbers that the town is willing to to go I would circumvent that and do a 4 be you know so and the other thing and we haven't talked about this but at the state level they're talking about auxiliary dwelling units and making them by right so right now we do not allow auxiliary dwelling units so let's say you have a house do it by Special by special permit okay by special perit because we have one I know that right so it's by special permit so what the
235state is looking for at is making it a bu right so that you know you have a house so like Joe right he has a house with a a we were looking at we were actually looking at that under the house production plan that was one of the recommendations that was thought we had that so is it going to be part of the comprehensive plan that's going to be the future I don't know that it hasn't been spoken we haven't discussed that detail comprehensive I thought that was kind of lwh hanging fruit that we were looking at so I think like one of the things that we're going to be doing is um you know going forward is looking at those sort of like Focus areas within the comprehensive plan so we haven't gotten we
236haven't drilled down to housing yet we haven't drilled down we're kind of we're going to get like our um like sort of the visioning you know we're going to kind of come up with sort of the vision for the community correct is we're looking at it and then we're GNA and then we're going to drill down to those specific topics so I think when we get to when we get to housing I guarantee you inclusionary zoning is going to come up probably an Adu bylaw like those things are like tactics that you can Implement and get you know if the if the if the Community Vision says we want more affordable housing those are ways to get more affordable housing so anyway I'm I'm done with my my no that's fine I just so I
237so I think I I hear you when when you say you want to get inclusionary zoning done as quickly as possible but I don't think we're going to be there yet with Comprehensive plan this started this discussion started when we were doing the charter review oh yeah oh I was Ser I was at the I was at the planning board like I was at the planning board meeting with an actual bylaw in hand to go to town meeting so I I want talk yeah during our first housing production plan so 2014 I think so here's my suggestion and I will but you guys are going to have this some sort of um you're going to have a retreat coming up sometime soon I would Joe I would go back to developing the Simpson property that
238we put off last year as a you know make that into a priority and build some housing it's already being worked on yeah well that's great so let's already being worked on yes that's great so that's I you know that's what we could anyway uh anything else on this one where are we think so that was comprehensive plan comprehensive Plan update so that gets us to board reports so uh Claudia we'll start with you as usual if that's all right I I think I've said plenty tonight um anything on Memorial Day you want to talk about oh there apparently there is nothing planned for Memorial Day but there will be I think anyone wants to plan something um yeah well I guess yeah okay so anyways um yeah I went to the uh had was
239participated in the school building minda School building meeting last night and they are are working as Michael mentioned too on the um some tax incentives based on um some of the energy saving sustainability features of the building so it's looks uh very exciting and we might know more about that by fall it sounded like so really good stuff um that's that's it for me thank you Brandy um so I just have a couple things so on um it was April 28th it feels like it was like six six years ago at this point but um uh Michael and I were at um Tommy King's uh Eagle Scout court of honor oh yeah um which was really great and it was actually you know he's he's such a good kid he's actually a classmate and friend
240of my son so my son actually came along and it's so rare that um I get my 17-year-old to do anything related to my my my Civic engagement um responsibility so it was really good to have him there but Tommy um his uh his Eagle Scout project was was work in um in Stone Park so built a bench and did some work on the trails and did some cleanup and um as always troop 232 um puts out some amazing Eagle Scouts and um we actually have another Eagle Scout um in June 1st which is coming up up I cannot make it so I was you'll be there okay all right um I think Susan did a proclamation so I think I don't know if Rob had signed it or anything yet but um I said
241happy to if yeah little yeah so he did he did a great job I'll be around till Monday I'll be in office until Monday okay so but um but as always thank you to to troop 232 for all the work that they do and for our Eagle Scouts all the the benefit to our community it's amazing um The Corner Spot is having their culture Fest this uh upcoming Saturday from 3:00 to 7: um it's always a good event there's a whole um schedule of performers and there's going to be food and Beverages and hopefully some sunshine and um that should be a good thing so people should definitely try to come out for that um and then I am volunteering I think Yolanda and maybe Michael as well at the reality Fair which is coming
242up on the 31st um over at the high school which is one of my favorite things that we do because um I love talking to the kids about what their next plans are after after high school but um Crush their dreams Crush their dreams so I get to talk to them so I so I get to talk to them about um charitable giving and community service which is like a really it's it's it's great because they get to us at the very end and usually um they go through this whole budget process so the whole reality fair is that the students um have a salary and then they go through all the the the booths so they have to learn how about to pay for rent and cars and insurance and dental and all those
243things that life skills and it scares the beesus out of them which is awesome because I think I think our speaking of of a parent of a teenager I think a little bit of a reality check is not a bad thing so I I love it that so they get a Sal a monthly salary based on the career that they've picked but their credit score and what they can do with it is based on their attendance so I think that's pretty funny that's that's very it is it's good so um looking forward to that um student council puts out a it's a they're the the sponsors of it and they do a they do a great job and there's lots of great volunteers that come out too so and um that is it for me
244thanks Joe thank you Mr chair that's the last time I can say that yeah to me anyway for you anyway right um I just want to give a recognition to uh a high school senior who uh a local senior who uh won the Daughters of the American revolution essay award and um Emily mholtz was uh elected uh selected as a seven uh seven area good citizen winner award so congratulations to uh Emily uh that's quite the honor and uh how to make Ashan uh be proud and put ashin back on the map again with the daughters of American Revolution um we've had a couple of uh traffic study safety committee meetings and though we would like to be able to resolve all the issues that residents are are providing telling us about uh we can't
245have uh pedestrian crosswalks at every corner it's just it's just impossible to do um so we ask just to be you know be aware of it but what I did see today uh coming back from um Gillette Stadium in Mass General Brigham's Hospital down there by Gillette Stadium when we went through this uh town of Norton I don't know why we don't have it they have three signs no horns on the tracks have you seen them no but they're massive and I'm saying to myself wait a minute why can't we have those the railroad ra tracks me they have a quiet Zone they have a quiet Zone well they right smack in the middle of the town and and that's all they have they don't have the bars up I think I I think I
246because I had the same question so I I think I can maybe is it because it's only one tra one track I I think it's because they have the same thing in in Acton South act and there's a warning no horn will be sounded at this something like that at the gate right yeah so I think it's because it's just the NBTA that's my recollection when I asked about it so if you're on a federal Freight Line like we are yeah it's a an AM track okay it's a different set of rules we're a major some of these are kind of not wait did you say Norton or Norwood Norton right downtown Norton there's a there's a ra there's a railroad station right there they're not even a quiet Zone it's just right they're not
247even a quiet zone I'm not sure so what what has happened um is that communities that had established quiet zones before these new federal rate regulations came in were grandfathered in oh okay and it could be what you said Rob I I I hadn't heard that but I do know that there's a lot of communities in the Commonwealth with with quiet zones that didn't have to do any of like this the infrastructure upgrades because they were grandfathers which is what we had what are the issues that we have and I found all that paperwork I found that the graphic designs of the redesigning of that that whole intersection found it all I had it in a file on I got find our quiet Zone quiet Zone and um I saw the traffic Island I went
248all the way up to m road so that eliminated truck traffic turning from Park Road down to munko Road it I mean I'm looking at the design I'm going wow I got to bring this back up so at some point no well but but our quiet zone is still being looked at but it's been pushed the funding for it has been pushed out because of the tip process so our quiet Zone hasn't gone away that we know of but there's issues because of the number of incidents we've had on our tracks you would think that that would that that might change they might then to say you know what we're not going to let you do a quiet zone right isn't that one of the we're still researching it and we haven't found out for
249sure that's a concern I was going to talk about a little bit my board but it is um yeah so that they don't have to they don't have to go along with a quiet Zone that was the astonishing thing right they don't and lastly uh uh one of our finest citizens in town uh said celebrated her I'll say 93rd birthday Marie Kane so happy birthday Marie it was a couple of weeks ago yeah it's happy birthday thank you and that's all I have Mr chair and again thank you for your service to our community apprciate both on the field and and off the field thank you y a couple of things so back on May 3rd I had the the honor of interviewing our Senate President Karen spilka as part of the weimo event which
250is women elected Municipal officers that we had about 30 or 35 people on the zoom call so that was fun to do then on May 4th we had Greenup Ashland we missed you Brandy uh Greenup Ashland is always a fun day they had a really nice turnout they send out a great email to sort of summarize the amount of trash and it was quite a bit and on that same day we have to thank Mina our uh director at the public at our library she had the first Ashland mini renaissance fair and again it was just a great event the number of people that came in there was a vendor from upstate New York that came in so a lot of people were brought in and it's nice to see events like this because it
251just brings more people to Ashland and that was nice in strange costumes in strange costumes in interesting costumes right it's the Renaissance Fair uh we talked about early voting is still happening this Friday and then the election is the 21st uh the YMCA little bit upd update there they have hired a firm to start looking at the architecture and the design and moving that project forward they're getting ready to hire an attorney and potentially start filing some forms with the town of Ashland in regards to building that they're looking at potentially doing a phased process based on the funding so we have $5 million from the Federal ederal government to do a Early Learning Center as part of the project and then we also have $2.5 million already from math works so the the first
252goal is about 40 million with 20 million being raised and then they'll fund the rest uh so there'll be a small there'll be a smaller footprint and then the Aquatic Center is potentially going to be in phase two um but the new design and the orientation of it looks really good uh then as Brandy said the reality fair I'm looking forward to a slightly different role I've usually been in the budget I've usually been those the last person one of the last people that they see to review it and this year a new table has been created for public service government so not necessarily Civic and but talking about the role of a town manager in the select board and Jack Lewis will be there and someone from Senator spilka's office talking about engagement how
253you can part participate and be part of public government uh and then the last thing not really Town related but if you're not doing anything on Saturday May 25th it is the um Saturday Memorial Day weekend if you want to go see a local company do the ballet capellia at the Norwood Theater there's a performance at 2 and 7:30 should be lots of fun and just seeing some live local dancers great and that's all I got thank you y um just a a few quick things in my last address uh last board report um one thing I I did I did want to give a shout out to Makita Keegan who is still smiling at us there you know it it does it's it makes me good feel good that she'll be coming in uh
254to this board and I think that's great that she came forward so I want to thank her for for doing that um you're still smiling Makita so that's good all right um and I just a quick uh you know I am I'm still on the MBT thumbs up I'm still on the MBTA Advisory Board until up and less until you folks yank me off it um and um went to um just in terms of your your future planning we saw uh we got a presentation on the future Capital plan which involved a lot of electrification um and new new battery what they call uh electric battery um engines that won't need overhead catary lines which are very that's like Amtrak so and so there's a bit of that they can do but this line is
255not really slated for a ton of that but it is slated for an increase over the few year over the next few years I don't know how long it'll take them to their goal is 30 minute service so clockfaces every 30 minutes which is great great if you use commuter rail if you got local traffic conditions you know it's it's it means 30 minutes through that uh every 30 minutes we'll see a yeah um and plus the freight plus Amtrak so something to keep in mind you know so maybe that's something M can use to when he talk traffic it's important yeah yeah it is it is a major and important rail Crossing it's not just us it's Freight it's Amtrak you know so anyway so I thought and I just did want to note
256that recent natic tragedy on the tracks which did everybody you were one of just horrible on the train not on the train that that unfortunately I wasn't on the train the sorry um I wasn't on the train I was on a train behind it yeah um so I had a three-hour commute home until they were able to pull us into NAC Center and then we were able to get off at nix Center and then I convinced my husband to come pick me up so but um but it's but two two people lost their lives and it's always just such a tragedy and it just um so and I did want to as that as well being on a train and our train didn't hit it but then someone else and oh you were as well
257not this time but probably about four or five years ago so I mean one thing as we think about as you folks think about the quiet Zone these are all complicated factors so we have yet apparently accidental deaths again so we've got some and I've asked for um you know safety information and safety analysis but have not really received any so I'm going to go back again and say what do you guys what are you folks doing on a systemwide basis to look at these things so something to think about um but I told you they did get I got a very negative response about a quiet Zone especially they're starting to feel the pressure the heat when these when people are getting killed you know quiet zones reced in priority to them so anyway
258think about slowing the trains down instead of going as fast as they had and they don't slow down they don't slow down through our Center but I'm sure na did was all anyway but anyway so um I just wanted to update you on that and so I think that's it as I come to an end here so thank you all again very nice ceremony it's great to be recognized and appreciated um so many of us do so much of this and don't take the time to kind of uh uh have that little discussion or are just appreciation I certainly appreciate and appreciate all you folks uh working with you all these years so anyway I I'll speak for another 20 minutes and then we can go home motion to adjourn we want we want to
259hear it like Jack Kennedy though motion to adjourn okay move I'll second that all those in favor say I I thank you rob thank you