001e 5 Four 3 2 1 good afternoon it is Monday April 29th um 2:30 p.m. and uh my name is Michael Herbert I am the Ashland Town manager I'm joined here with our assistant Town manager Jen ball and we're here to discuss the town meeting warrant scheduled for May 1st um Wednesday May 1st 7 p.m at Ashland High School um annual town meeting you should say um this is a town meeting that we're required to have every year by Statute and by Charter um it's a meeting where we handle a lot of the I guess you could say routine things that need to happen in the operations of a town uh most notably the budget and again other operational warrant War article items um that we go through each year and so our purpose here
002is to run through those um and give you a little bit more background information on them we have some people in the audience and people online so we'll open it up the questions after each warrant article after we describe each warrant article and again the purpose is to really uh give you the the resident and taxpayer a little more information so you can come to town meeting a little bit more informed um and again we do this as a service to the community and uh hopefully you find it helpful Jen do you have anything you want to add okay all right so we'll just jump right into everything so um so article one is Town reports uh this is going to be an opportunity for uh myself just to give a basically an overview of
003some of the bigger projects that were authorized by town meeting and the status of those and where they stand um I anticipate also seeing a um a presentation from the school committee regarding the fy2 budget so pretty routine thing um we'll try to keep it brief so we can get on to uh the real business of the evening if you will and with that being said we'll go to article two which is the fiscal year 2025 budget um so this is my 10th budget uh since I've been here uh I started as the assistant Town manager and finance director and sub subsequently moved to town manager and I will say this has probably been the most challenging budget uh since I've been here um and there are a number of reasons for that notably we're
004basically Limited in how we can raise revenue plus just like everybody at home we're seeing their cost increase we're seeing our cost increase here in the municipal budget and so the bottom line is that when we put everything together and we put all the requests together and we made cuts and cut back on on different uh requests looked at our fixed costs and look at what we're getting into Revenue um we actually were faced with a $1.2 million deficit that we needed to uh make up and so this this year we're using what's uh what we call one-time revenues um to help make up that deficit and onetime revenues are not a sustainable way to fund a budget an ongoing operating budget because again it's one-time revenues so we we had to get creative this
005year and uh to make up that deficit we dipped into arpa Funds American Rescue plan act funds that we had designated to help fix up the uh Valentine property um we also utilized uh what we call our overlay Surplus accounts to um to help make up that deficit um plus we're also using the special education stabilization fund again this year which is something that we did last year um but just to you know give you an overview of how we get to this point um I think probably the the simplest quickest and most illustrative example I can give is um each year our property taxes are allowed to go up 2 and a half% not individual homeowners property taxes but the tax levy itself so 2 and a half% plus whatever we have in New
006Growth um New Growth are things like new developments that happen if you do an addition on your home that usually increases the assessed value that's classified as new growth and historically what uh the town has done and this goes back to the 80s is relied on new developments um to basically increase the tax base for the town um and of course you know new developments they bring in more Revenue but they also have costs associated with it and they impact our quality of life uh but again traditionally this town um as opposed to some of our surrounding towns have chosen to utilize new growth and new developments to essentially help subsidize the budget but over the last 5 six years what we have done is we have proactively taken a slow growth approach so one
007of the things that we've done probably remember is we've bought a lot of property over the years and so not only do we basically incur the expense for acquiring that property but we also take it off the tax roles so it's kind of a double Financial impact again you get the benefits of increased quality of life open space Etc but there is a cost to it um and so this year we actually have less New Growth than we had last year and if you look at it all we're probably about $800,000 less this year in New Growth than we were at our Peak a few years ago um and so just again that's kind of a circular way of getting to my point but um our 25% increase is $1.3 million this year so 1,
008328,000 so against that just our health insurance expenses and our building and liability expenses went up $1.1 million so before we even start looking at programs Services Etc out of that $1.3 million2 and a half increase 1.1 million is already spoken for right off the bat just to pay for fixed costs like our insurance um so that is kind of an example um a quick example of the the financial squeeze that that we find ourselves in and this is something that we're going to have to have a discussion about over the next year anytime you have a budget situation just like at home it's the same way for an organization or a company same way for a municipality when you have a budget deficit there's two ways to fix it you either increase your revenues
009or you reduce your expenses and so we need to have a conversation over the next year about how we're going to address this are we going to look at cutting expenses and I would say given our expenditures and some of the common metrics that we utilize across the state to measure basically efficiency uh of our spending we're really very very efficient if you look at if you look at those statistics so um you know obviously if we make Cuts it's going to have an impact to Services uh significant impact to services so then if you're not going to go in that direction then you have to look at increasing your Revenue base and again there's two ways really that municipalities have control over that the first is to basically authorize or approve new developments uh
010again which increases your new growth which add to your tax base and like I said before there are tradeoffs associated with that um you know I I'll just uh um basically quantify it as as quality of life issues or you look at a vote which is called an override boote which would basically allow you to go over the 2 and a half% increase and at this point in time I'm not advocating for any one of these approaches but we do have to have the conver ation as a community um over the next year or else we're going to be in a in a a whole world of hurt next year so that's kind of the overall budget situation um there is one uh little unique thing about this year's budget compared to previous budgets is
011this year um basically we're required um basically so I I mentioned the arpa funds American Rescue plan act funds and so the select board had chosen a number of projects to spend that money on um but we have some deadlines that we have to uh basically um deal with and address and so the way we're doing it this year is we're actually taking that arpa Revenue the remainder of that arpa revenue and using it as a revenue Source again partially to pay for the operating budget but then on the expenditure side you're going to see under capital projects a list of the projects that we plan on funding with those arpa funds so it's really more of an accounting U mechanism uh as opposed to a policy change but it is something different that we're
012doing with this budget uh compared to previous budgets um so before I get into the detail or any questions related to um what I've said so far Mr Don see see you there okay be gentle Mark I'll be I'll be gentle but my my camera is not being on because a host doesn't want it on okay so I'm gonna be talking into the dock here okay um the growth of the minus growth of housing in this in the town is a negative but you know and I I I agree with not doing an override but I would also like to see if any of the uh housing reasons how zoned reasons to change the bylaws to bring in newer personalities of of growth that's that's my comment so Mark when you say personalities of growth
013are you talking about things other than residential so like businesses mix science climate okay yes yeah so I think you know you so the question is um we're talking about residential growth but is there an opportunity to bring in businesses and not um just residential and is zoning a part of that um I would say yes um our economic development director uh is always looking at opportunities to bring in businesses and we have some unique programs and she's been uh pretty successful at bringing those in and we we're always taking a look at our zoning and seeing if it makes sense and seeing if it incentivizes businesses to come in but whether or not businesses come in is more of a function of Economics than it is of zoning and for a business to come
014in a number of things have to line up so it has to if you're talking about like a retail store it has to be financially feasible meaning that the business owner has to feel that if they make this investment in the community into a brick and mortar store into Personnel they have to feel comfortable that they're going to get that money back and make a profit that's just common sense um and B also as an extension of that if they are looking at getting financing to help uh open their business or make Renovations the bank essentially or the lender has to feel comfortable that that business is going to generate enough money to pay back the interest in in the principle on that uh on that loan essentially so again you know a business has
015to feel like they're going to make money um especially for a retail situ situation and um I will just you know my personal opinion is that ashin likes to talk a lot about having shops you hear that a lot in retail here but when we do have it here they get very little support um and I think you see that with some of these downtown businesses so we can't necessarily say on the front end that we want to have businesses but then when they come in here not support them uh financially uh so that's one thing if you're looking at uh businesses like biotech and stuff like that you know there's ALS there's obviously the financial component associated with it and they have to you know meet those requirements but then there's other things that
016they have to look at as well one of the things they look at is is their adequate housing in the region to um basically support support that businesses that business and bring in workers there's other infrastructure things that they um they look for so like with biotech they're looking at water right so they're looking to have adequate water to basically do their operations so um it pretty long answer Mark so I wasn't successful in making it succinct but hopefully that was helpful and I know that town had a uh and this town and States having a hard time with the MBA housing community can that be involved in in the um zoning too um Mark can we hold that one off until we get to the end where we just talk briefly about MBTA zoning
017is that okay okay all right I can hold on to that thank you thanks um okay that that was actually a really good question um so I gave you again just the general budget overview um and I'll give you some uh basically some particulars um another thing that we did with this budget in order to address the deficit is uh We've shifted a lot more onto things uh that we call revolving funds um these are thing these are funds that are really Department specific and help fund operations um they're kind of used as a supplement to uh general fund which is what you vote on um but again we're leaning on them a little bit more heavily this year than we were in previous years um so that being said I'll just go through the
018general categories that that um town meeting will be voting on so um under Administration which includes things like the town manager's office purchasing Town Council clerk uh Human Resources so in total all of those departments that's going up uh $93,900 which uh include the town accountant the assessor's office the treasur office that's actually going down uh $7,000 or a little over 1% um going to development services which include departments such as the Conservation Commission the planning board and inspectional services that's going down 20,000 uh a little over $20,000 or 4% that is a good example within those departments is a good example of Shifting more towards our revolving funds um going to our Public Safety departments um that is going up a total of 191,000 or 2.76% um you'll see a big increase uh in
019the police department budget but not necessarily a huge increase in the fire department budget again that's because we have a revolving Fund in the fire department that we are shifting more of our expens ensus to I think uh 150,000 150,000 more than in previous years uh moving on to Health and Human Services um which includes the health department Council on Aging Recreation veteran services uh prevention and Human Services in the public library so that is going up a total of uh almost $75,000 or 6% um and then getting to Public Works which includes obviously Administration the highway um Cemetery parks and trees um are public facilities so that's actually going up $68,000 um or a little over 3% and a good I'd say a good chunk of that is an increase in our facilities maintenance
020budget to um basically help take care of some of these new buildings that we brought online so going to education um so that is going up a total of 1.5 million um or 3.8% School Department's going up by 1.6 um Keith Tech our assessment to ke Tech is going down 62,000 um you know I I I spit out these numbers I get to the school department you hear 1.6 million when you're hearing other numbers like like going up 70,000 and stuff like that and obviously that's going to jump out um first of all that is not an an anomaly with any Massachusetts cities and towns School departments generally take up you know roughly half Municipal budgets um and I again this this isn't strange um I will say that the school department does a very
021good job of creating value for the town if you look at some of their objective metrics um like expenditures per student uh we're actually I think below the state average um and I think you know those of you that have kids in the school system or have had kids in the school system I I think and I hope you would agree that we provide a pretty good value for for what um what is spent next is debt which includes um what we call non-excluded debt and then also excluded debt an excluded debt is that debt that has been authorized to go above that 25% uh tax levy limit um and so basically those come in the form of what we call debt exclusions uh our most recent two being the new um School the new
022mes school and then also the new public safety building so between those two that's actually going down uh almost $700,000 or almost 9% so we got a little bit of relief there um and and and that's based on basically the amortization schedule and everything so um again a little good news there um we get to the capital projects so traditionally this has been funded four years ago it was funded at 750,000 um over the years because of budget squeezes that got whittel down to zero but again this year we're using that arpa funding uh scenario which I described red earlier uh to fund those projects um and that total is about $2.7 million um and that includes uh basically uh 430,000 for the Valentine project 700,000 that we've put in for uh land acquisition $465,000
023for sidewalks a million for turf field replacement and then also $95,000 for small business assistance um so that's capital projects and then we get to uh basically benefits and insurance which I described a little bit before but you know that includes our retirement assessment uh health insurance workers comp unemployment that is going up a total of $1.1 million uh almost 99.5% so again that's um a pretty significant increase so overall uh in our general fund uh that is going up up $5.1 million 6.75% that's a little bit misleading because you've got an additional basically $2.7 million in capital through the arpa funds that again is an anomally that's not necessarily included each year so um I think your real increase is about half of that so 2.5 million bucks so that's the general fund um
024then we have what's known as our Enterprise funds so these are separate funds for individual uh services that are provided for the town and they're based on user fees so um the water Enterprise fund sewer Enterprise fund trash collection field management uh cable access stations storm water all of those are individual Enterprise funds and so uh that is going so the water Enterprise fund is going up $237,000 and that's mainly to pay for some Capital EXP expenses some large Capital expenses uh for our infrastructure sewer Enterprise this year is going down uh 154,000 and that's uh essentially because we're using one-time Revenue that's available in the sewer Enterprise fund we call it retained earnings um uh to decrease that trash collection is going up 79,000 um field management is basically level funded cable access is
025going down 45 5,000 and storm water is going up 51,000 so when you take the general fund and you add in the increases and the decreases in the Enterprise funds that total comes out to five that's an increase of $5.3 million or just a little under 6% um and if you just go through the warrant you'll see um also basically some of the revolving accounts that we're utilizing to offset things um and then we also have the Economic Development Special Revenue fund that you'd be voting on which um total is 306,000 and that is funded through the local options meals tax so yeah does anybody have any questions mark you got your hand raised yes yes I do you mentioned infrastructure MH is there any chance that this town could get some monies to fix
026some of the roads and bridges oh that's a really good question mark that's a really good question um so so you can fund roads and bridges through basically local funding right so appropriation through the general fund or you could get State funding um whether through what we call formula based funds or um grants and I can tell you it's we you know I've described the financial situation I think fairly adequately so you can see the opportunity to fund it with local funds is very limited um roads are there's a state funding program called chapter 90 which again is a formula based uh funding system from the state we had about $450,000 each year in chapter 90 um it's something that we have advocated at the local level a group of local officials have advocated for
027doubling that over the years and we just haven't been successful so $450,000 might sound like a lot but to fully reconstruct a mile of road just a mile is about about $900,000 and that's to fully reconstruct it so you can do things like fully reconstruct it which is basically removing all the pavment all the all the subbase redoing all of that again or you can do something called Bill and overlay which is basically scrape off the top and put a new layer of asphalt on it um if you do Mill and overlay it's a little bit less than full depth what we call full depth reconstruction um and then also Bridges we don't have formula grants but there's also compe of Grants out there so um there is State money out there just not enough
028of it Mark how's that is there is there a CH a way of a chance that you can take out from the uh monies for buildings or municipals to build up the funds for at least for the bridges to be more solid so that the buildings can have B may have businesses municipal fire department public safety building whatever but you got to need strong roads and bridges to trans transport through to get get the vehicles emergency extras and stuff like that to have it but if you don't have a strong sturdy structure of bridge or roads it's going to be a it's going to be a problem later down on down the road pardon the pun right Mark well down the road or there'll be a dead end there you go so yeah Mark you
029can always change how you appropriate funds but so you're talking about taking money out of the faciliity budget to fund roads and bridges so but if you take that money out of the facilities budget you're not keeping you're not maintaining your buildings so you're basically you got to pick your poison in some way you you know when you get in situations like this you know where you're basically robbing Peter to to pay Paul you know those are judgment decisions so the short answer is yes we could always divert funds from facilities to help pay for roads and bridges but that means that the buildings are not going to get maintained and so that's going to lead to higher costs in the future okay so I'm try to do my two away Street cup my understand
030um the buildings the public safety building the new Mendez building they're all done and ready and and and separate from everything else so they don't have to be funded quickly right away why can't that money go to the bridges yeah so Mark I you know you're always doing maintenance I think even from the very from the very beginning uh obviously not that much but so there's repairs and then there's also preventive maintenance so um you want to fund preventive maintenance because it's BAS basically a lot less expensive to basically do that preventive work than it is to let things go let them break and then do repairs so you know the preventive maintenance making sure that your HVAC systems are doing great um you know things like that that's that's a good investment um and
031that being said even if we said okay we're not going to fund that I I think you know the amount that we're talking about um is probably not really going to make a dent in the road repairs or the the bridges I mean you're talking 00k maybe okay my and my last couple parts for this for this before before I put myself on mute is uh one the Corville Road Ridge was worked on mhm and that was money that was put aside from how that how was that money put aside for that okay that's a good question because before we funded $150,000 I believe for cville Road the so the civo road bridge so um actually the repair of the bridge itself is going to be paid for by the state um but the money
032that we put in locally is we have to basically um we have to set up like a temporary um temporary Bridge structure while those repairs are going on so that's the I think that's the money you're referring to and my my last somewhat knowing this answer already DPW Personnel is not exactly Citywide mended because of people the number of people that's in the DPW how would that how would they be affected by the um Capital plan [Music] um so how are our our DPW Personnel affected by the capital plan basically they they they work for the town they have all the they work 20 they work all throughout the year MH and this town is not exactly granted City bonds we're a small town so we don't get bonds right no we we have we
033have bonds Y and that help expand the Personnel in the DPW for their work loads no so bonds you don't use for personnel or like operating expenses bonds help you finance capital projects okay I'm sound to lose myself and I'll just be quiet for a little while oh you're fine Mark these are good questions um anybody else have any questions regarding the budget if not I'll move on to article three um okay so article three is a transfer to our opep trust opep stands for other post-employment benefits and it's a fancy way of saying retiree health insurance so this is a liability that um we're now accounting for and we're now planning for um whereas 10 years ago we didn't um but uh we started doing that because it's good long-term Financial planning and so
034each year what we do is we basically take um a portion of money for each new employee that we bring on and basically allocate it to this opep trust and so that is what this um this appropriation is so any questions okay okay so Article 4 it's a transfer from special education stabilization fund to the general fund I referenced this before when I was talking about the budget overall so this is the second year where we're taking $250,000 out of this fund which is designed to pay for out of what we call out of District special education costs um taking 250 out of that and basically using it to pay for those costs that are within the budget um so we have a a cap of 600,000 on this fund um I believe it is
035still at its maximum because even though we took money out last year we have a way to replenish it whenever we get our free cash amounts and so I believe we replenished it I have to look um at the full amount so we uh still have 600,000 in there so this would be taking 250,000 out of that and again when we get our free cash number in the fall um there will be a percentage of that free cash cash that basically replenishes that fund any questions okay um so Article Five it's uh an annual consent article um so this basically has a number of different things within one article uh they're really routine that's why they're bundled up is um as what we call a consent article it includes uh grant program authorization Road contracts
036uh other types of contracts lease purchase agreements and then also revolving funds uh I mentioned revolving funds before when we were talking about the budget some of those revolving funds have to be authorized each year and so that is what um that's what this portion of the consent article does um and again it's usually very routine this year is a little bit different um Jen do you want to explain a little bit why what we're doing differently this year sure so if you um so the only change we're really making um is that we previously had a revolving account um that collected fees or rental fees from our community center so um there's a large room there that Community U members will rent for parties or other things um and so we're just expanding that
037revolving account to include all Town buildings um partially this is an anticipation that will start to receive rent from the old fire station um that will be a brewery and will be receiving monthly rent and then also down the road if we're able to uh rent potentially Valentine or other properties we'll have one place that will collect the funds and that way if we do have a maintenance um issue we'll be able to utilize that funds okay any questions regarding the consent article all right CN none um then we move to our second consent article which is actually uh related to the community preservation act and following that uh we do have a CPA Standalone article and Jen I'm going to turn it over to you so you can um discuss those okay and give
038my voice a break sure um so each year we have a consent article for um CPC and that really is just ping out the Appropriations each year and then um the um payments for previously authorized bonds so if you go through there's previously authorized bonds for um Oak Street um as well as the purchasing of the High School athletic fields um waren woods and then lastly our Valentine estate um and so those are pretty routine we've already authorized the uh purchase and these are just the payments any questions on that that one so we can move on to article seven so that's appropriating um CPC funds so each year um at both annual and sometimes also at our special town meeting um in November CPC will um recommend uh funding applications to town meeting and
039town meeting has to approve those this year um they're recommending an interior painting project at our Li Library so as part of the in in the older section of the library we had some peeling um over the last year we did have a um preservationist come in and do an analysis on the type of paint to make sure that we maintain um the historical integrity and so they um gave us a quote for $40,000 to do uh painting and then also that includes having somebody from the preservation um somebody from historic preservation that will be able to do administrative oversight to make sure that the paint matches and it's being done in accordance to maintain the historical nature of that building um and typically CPC funds U run for two years and if it's not
040spent then it's given back to CPC any questions on that one okay um so we'll move on to the next article um which is to authorize the select board to accept uh a gift of land and and actually it's several pieces of land um and this is property that is being gifted to the town from the Hopkinson area land trust uh which owns these parcels and um they feel like it's in their best interest if the town takes over those Parcels uh they're relatively small about four of them and um yeah I mean that's that's about it um you know right now there there's there's no plan to do anything with these Parcels other than to keep them as open space and essentially this gives the select board the ability to do that um any
041questions it's always I I I think it's always good when a municipality has the opportunity to acquire land um obviously there's opportunity costs as I mentioned before associated with that but um again these are relatively small parcels so if no seeing no questions on that one I'll move to article 9 UM and this is reauthor reauthorizing a borrowing that was done at a previous town meeting um and essentially what happened here is there was a miscommunication between um the town and bond Council which is essentially the legal team that is associated with um signing off on borrowings um there's there's a lot of legal work that has to happen because you know some of these borrowings can be very very big and investors want to make sure that all of the the eyes are dotted
042and the t's are crossed and that you know they're going to get their money back um and again there's all types of um you know legal nuances that have to be met um so essentially uh what we're asking to do here is basically increase the authorization by 200,000 the way we had it written is is we thought we didn't have to do that uh when it was authorized when we went to bond Council uh they interpreted it a different way and so um essentially there's no new authorizations that are I mean no new projects that are being authorized here it's simply for uh the tower truck or what we call the ladder truck for the fire department and then also um a couple hundred thousand to do the um girls and boys locker rooms at
043the middle school um anything you want to add about that JB okay um any questions yeah Claudia what's the what's the B renovation at the um so that was the uh yes it was old Mendes school so this is basically what you're seeing in that chart is money that was borrowed to do those projects um and then after those projects were completed we had to some ofy money left over so um that's the amount of money that we have left over to be reauthorized probably it's a good question it's a good question um okay any others all right uh moving on to article 10 which is reauthorizing the public safety building Bond um so if you recall uh there were two authorizations um Bond authorizations related to the public safety building so one for engineering
044and then one for essentially construction costs and related expenses um one of the things that uh came I I think we realized as we were going through the process is that it was in the town's best interest to actually acquire the property owned by faford that was surrounding the property that the public safety building was built on and reasons are are multifold so the first is to really give more parking uh for the public safety building um you know increase the amount of parking there um there is also an interest by the Opera Charles Trail committee um in the town to in basically put a portion of the upper Charles Trail along that property um it fits in with the planning and and connecting to other uh points on the upper Charles Trail um potentially
045uh we could use it with a lot of site work for expanding a Wildwood Cemetery which is believe it or not running out of space but uh essentially in order to um use those funds to help um to help acquire that property we need to have a vote which enhances or expands the authorization to include land acquisition so I want to be very very clear that this is not increasing the amount that was authorized it's just change or expanding the purpose for which that money can be used I cover it pretty much okay any questions all right we're getting there folks um so article 11 it's another Bond related article um and this is to basically authorize improvements in our water treatment plan so specifically what we're looking at doing is replacing what we call
046our own ozone system which is our essentially our Primary in in filtration system and our essentially our first line of defense um so so the water treatment plant was built a little over 20 years ago so obviously some of the components are 20 years old um and there's wear and tear just like again you experience in your own homes with mechanical equipment um and so this is a request uh to borrow and appropriate um $4 million for the replacement of that ozone system um again it's it's a really really important um component of our water system and uh you know there's there's you know obviously some health uh and Public Safety um issues related to that if if we don't replace it but then there's also um I'll classify it as aesthetic issues so this
047ozone filter is what gets your water clear um basically filters out a lot of particles mainly manganese um and there's one other that escapes me right now um so we're looking at basically the cost is $4 million um but we also anticipate getting a million dollar from the town of Hopkinson to help pay for this so the amount we actually end up borrowing could be closer to $3 million um and the reason for that is that Hopkin Hopkinson actually gets a portion of their water from us roughly 25% is the superintendent going to be present to a little presentation on this or not so yes so Dan Mau uh who is our water sewer General Foreman will be there to answer questions on um on this article and Mark okay thank you 20 20 years
048old has been built that means 20 years old the pipes and the instruments to to regulate and get data out of the build to read Haron saying they're going to help pay for is there is har 10 going to help pay for because of their um the lmir property no so Hopkinson is looking at paying for it because they actually have a contract with us that says that they pay for a percentage of the cost associated with running the treatment PL so that includes operating costs so um it equates to roughly a quarter of the operating cost they help pay for that but then also Capital costs as well so okay what about the T ton Reservoir Ashland part of it that says that go with the cost of upgrading that say that again Mark
049I'm sorry the train Ashan Reservoir Harin Reservoir they're almost like borderline together mhm AR pend is going to help pay 25% is that going towards updating the reservoir input to the water tower to the water to the water treatment plant no what I'm referring to here Mark is hopkinson's portion would be there to help pay for the ozone uh filter and ozone is is the um if I'm wrong please say I am the EPA part of things um so I'm sure the EPA has something to do with it Mark but uh basically the ozone is the ozone filter is one of our primary primary treatment methods uh for the water so you take you know you take the W raw water out of the ground right um from the aquafer goes into your water treatment
050plant it gets treated and then it gets distributed out to the homes so is a purifier yes thank you cool all right um so that's it for our borrowing articles um next we'll move to uh to bylaw updates um and changes so uh article 12 is updating our demo delay bylaw for historically or architecturally significant buildings I saw Joan was Joan G Friday was on here but she left um but um essentially what this change does is it says So currently the way it sets is set up so if you own if you want to tear down a historical building it essentially has to go before the historical commission who has an opportunity to place a demo delay on that property now a couple years ago that demo delay was nine months um we went
051to town meeting um last year or the year before increased that to 12 months but the way the way it worked is that once that demo delay was put on basically um whether or not the property changed hands or um and came up with a new plan or changed um uh yeah essentially changed ownership um the new owner the new plan wouldn't have to go back and have another demo delay so you could theoretically have a property let's just say well I'll give the mill property as as an example so a few years ago the owner of the mill property T to 60 Main Street um was looking at redeveloping that property and submitted a demo application because they were looking at demoing a couple of the buildings so the historical commission heard that and
052put a demo delay on that building um and so the you know the owner had a plan I think it was it was around 200 units uh 34,000 ft of commercial space demo delay went on 9 months passed okay demo delay is done so what has subsequently happened is that the landowner has entered into an agreement with a new developer um to basically do a different plan uh which consists of 250 units um and significantly less uh commercial space and it's being done as a 40b project so that plan doesn't have to go through the demo delay process process again so because it's already gone through the demo DeLay So essentially these changes to the bylaw close that loophole and it basically says if the building of premises changes ownership the new owner must res
053uh resubmit a request for a demo permit and the demo delay process will be repeated and uh likewise after three years from the date of the determination so in the absence of an accepted plan by the planning board the demo delay process will again will have to be repeated um regardless of ownership so if an owner/ developer gets a plan um goes to the demo delay process or gets a plan approved I should say goes to the demo delay process in three years after that they haven't acted on that plan they'll have to go through the demo delay process again so that's uh essentially a summary of the changes uh that are being proposed anything any questions okay um Article 13 is again updating a bylaw to accept the specialized stretch code um so this
054was a an article that was brought before a previous town meeting um that either got voted down or it got tabled I don't remember exactly what but um the sustainability Comm committee uh went back and worked with a number of other stakeholders to basically revise this um basically revise the presentation and answer a lot of unanswered questions that basically existed and essentially what this does is um basically it imposes new requirements for Energy Efficiency on new construction uh moving forward so I don't have the exact um requirements but I believe that all buildings all new buildings if if this is successful and the town adopts it um all new buildings will need to be basically solar ready or electric ready I think Chargers you know EV charging stations will have to be incorporated as as
055part of the building there are a number of things and the sustainability committee will have um essentially a um a presentation at town meeting that describes those uh more specifically you think there are any big ones I missed JB on that one okay that's about that Mark you have a question sustainability my extra little what what I want this town to have through and through for the future this this bylaw that trying to put up first town me was a misunderstanding of the information was the first time that the regular people did not understand it and other and other community people said it was just not made for this town or ready for this town that was the first town meeting this one has like you said it's got been worked on been brought around
056to public forums and talk other other C of peoples and everything this is new construction yes electricity part of the construction of the new buildings and to um to go with what already the state has working we're just going to try to we want to add into what they have set to understand what's going on on new construction and this will also help the new developers with new construction to understand what ashon is going to be asking for and the two-way street talk through compromise and understand together for what it is so substainability is working on this this new construction it should be voted almost 2third but I'm I'm going to vote for it as as it goes through but that's basic what it is thank you thank you Mark appreciate that any other questions
057okay oh Julie you have one will this app to just like buildings I believe it's all buildings cool all right all right the last article um is related to the MBTA communities act that was passed a couple years ago by the legislature um and it was going to be a zoning change that put us in compliance with the NBTA communities law um so this is on the warrant however ever at the April 25th planning board meeting the planning board meet the planning board made a decision to keep that hearing open um which is a fancy way of saying that this is not going to be taken up at this town meeting so um it's still in the warrant however I believe the moderator and correct me if I'm wrong Jen plans on after the budget
058after the financial article yeah after the financial articles basically moving this up and explaining to everybody that's not going to be voted on so if you're there specifically just to vote on that you don't have to wait all night um now according to the law we have to have um basically compliant zoning in place by the end of this calendar year we normally have a town meeting in the fall we can also have a special town meeting basically any time of year that we want and so it's anticipated that um basically this would be coming back at the at the fall town meeting the reason this is being done is severalfold um I think you know the town feels like it's probably prudent to see how some things play out at the Statewide level um
059before moving forward with this but I think more locally um what has happened since this was originally proposed is we've had two 40b projects which are large multif family development projects that basically are outside of our zoning 240b projects have been proposed and um again it's it's prudent to [Music] see basically how those shape out for a little bit before making a decision on this really important um and critical zoning moving forward so hopefully I didn't make that more cryptic it is okay anybody have any questions yes Mark I was at that planet board meeting when this came when this came up I said I said at the time they gave me time to speak is uh it's just going around in circles and the two words that stuck out to me was maybe and
060if if the state could look can look and be uh helping us to recognize what it meant to be and maybe the town can fix things for for the 40b housing for the housing itself I myself like to see the 40b housing not be 40b hous but to be a mixed use buildings so the tea the tea can bring people in so they can work in this town and then you and then use the turny to get back so it could be working both ways for business economic and for the te workings but right now the planning board is hoping for for the fall to meeting to bring this up so I'm Sten that they were going around circles and with the maybe is and ifs they got a lot of questions they haven't got
061a lot of answers thank you that's actually a pretty good summary Mark a lot of questions not a lot of answers out there so um okay so anybody have any questions about the Articles town meeting in general um if not uh that uh concludes our special pre town meeting Forum um again town meeting is this Wednesday May 1st starting at 700 p.m. um the uh warrant can be found on the website uh the warrant includes the warrant articles themselves as well as the fincom finance committee recommendations um again that the moderator is pretty strict on starting on time as has been that's been his practice I I don't see him changing that um this year so if you want to get there for the first article um make sure you get there on time but
062but again town meeting it's an opportunity for you as a citizen to come and actually participate and be a part of major decisions that affect the town not just now but in the future so I hope to see you there and um everybody have a good afternoon you