EDITED VERSION OF SELECT BOARD MEETING 4 17 24

001two one good evening everyone and welcome to the ashin select board meeting for April 17th I apologize for the delay we're having some technical difficulties hopefully everyone has been able to join us at this point remotely and we're ready to begin I will um we'll start with the citizens participation is there anyone here for Citizens participation uh either on remotely raise your hand uh anybody um I'm not seeing anyone here uh for Citizens participation we'll um we'll go to our first agenda item which is the Comcast ascertainment public hearing good thank you all right um I will you know that reminds me I will um this meeting is being recorded and broadcast live by waca TV and line stream on Facebook remote participant available using the zoom video conferencing platform any disruption with this platform

002will result in us uh either shutting down the platform or removing uh the offender from the meeting okay a meeting will be broadcast on waca TV and live streamed on Facebook Okay so the first um we're a little late with this um public uh hearing but I will read the uh legal notice uh the town of ashin Select board is cable television license issuing authority under under mgl 166a will hold a public cable license renewal ascertainment here on April 17th at uh will be at around 7:30 at Town Hall as part of the town's uh Comcast cable license renewal process interested persons May attend and directly participate remotely through um this link that I've talked about um the other thing I just want to do to introduce it um this is our hearing on Comcast

003as cable license renewal and federal and state law require the holding of a public hearing for the select board to consider approval and execution of the town's proposed Comcast renewal license this is uh the Public's opportunity to have an opportunity to comment on the renewal and provides an opportunity for select board to vote on the we will be voting on the proposed renewal all right so um I'm going to at this point turn it over to um um bill uh Bill August who's our representative in this and he will I think introduce the Comcast uh contact person who is also here I believe so uh Bill why don't you take it away thank you very much uh we this hearing by the way does follow a prior uh public hearing so it it is a

004second one and I just mention that because at the um uh first public hearing um there was very strong uh testimony um in in in favor of uh the license uh continuing to provide uh funding for the uh local uh uh television channels uh the public educational governmental access channels um as well as many other uh uh consumer protection uh needs and interests and license Administration interests um substantively I substantively the the license has met uh the needs of the town and and I'll just mention some of the the highlights that give us a very very high confidence level about this um and I I'll mention at the outset Katherine Maloney the representative of uh government relations representative of Comcast is here um and I would like to at the outset thank Comcast for being

005very fair negotiation Partners I also see that Barbara Chisum is here and I think that should be noted because Barbara is uh the experienced um uh executive director or manager of the three local channels and local studio and we also thank her uh we being the town for the public I'm the legal counsel to the the town of Ashland Selectmen the issuing authority and uh barbar uh con we consulted with Barbara in great detail about their equipment um and Technical needs and budget needs and we have a strong vote of I I want to speak for Barbara but I this is so important to the select board because I I know from representing Ashland for like 20 years and through about three or four licenses that the select board has consistently you valued having a

006vibrant local studio and the government meeting coverage and the sports coverage and we have Barbara's uh Barbara will speak for herself but I know that I have uh my recommendation is in part based on hearing directly from Barbara that uh we have uh uh you know a very strong package here and in terms of the the the facts and numbers the annual uh funding the maximum permitted under the federal cable Act is 5% of gross revenues and that's what we are negotiated we have that in the existing license so we're continuing at the 5% and we are grateful to Comcast for that we could not do better in that that category which is the uh primary source of funding the second major source of uh financial support for this you know very uh uh important

007local uh channels is the capital and Equipment fund and also in this license we did better than we have ever done previously the expiring current license had to uh uh funding uh allocations for this what's we call the capital budget separate from the 5% and uh this uh renewal license uh Capital funding is approximately 25% higher than the prior license despite some loss of subscribers due to cord cutting so you know we're very confident that those are good numbers in terms of the you know thousand And1 little terms and conditions and not so little covering everything from you know uh restoration of the street after Street Cuts uh RightWay management uh you know five different kinds of insurance coverage and performance bond and annual reporting on complaints and the whole non yards through everything we

008are using a uh a licensed document um which has it's not the Comcast boilerplate it's really the municipal draft that we started with and we're also grateful to Comcast for working off our draft it's also Comcast draft to the extent that although it is not the comast spoiler plate it is a municipal generated uh draft that we have vetted and have the uh the test of time we've used a very similar document in about 15 of the last renewals we've done with Comcast over the past two or three years so we have a certain uh experience level and comfort level with the document for the benefit of the public I'll mention a lot of people ask why don't we have more competition um it is a non-exclusive license just like the last license uh you

009know we do have competition from Verizon but there is no exclusive everyone assumes there's exclusivity why are there only two companies or why is there only one in some towns it's a totally uh an unequivocally uh a non-exclusive license and in in addition to the annual funding I I would like to and the equipment funding mention one other substantive Point that's very significant um um this license provides for the first ever uh Community Channel that will be in high definition the current three local channels are in uh standard definition and everything is evolving towards high definition including the Studio's equipment they have production equipment to cablecast in high definition they haven't been able to use it for high so this will have high definition I forget if it's in 24 months or 36 but it

010um and it's uh the town should this language about the town confirming uh that it wants the company to install that so there should be a uh uh a reminder to the company to proceed with that um so that that's where I stand I feel pretty comfortable with it going forward the you know there is cord cutting going on uh people are migrating to uh some of the new technologies that are coming down the pike and that does create some uncertainty for the future so in terms of like long-term thinking I know that Barbara and the town you know have to keep an eye on that because we're hearing about Studios that're getting creative as the cord cutting continues cable still is you huge I mean it has you know with cord cutting and loss

011of subscribers they still stand as the single biggest uh infrastructure so it's not like it doesn't take away the need to continue with the cable license it's still the biggest infrastructure going up and down your streets for telecommunications and Communications it's enormous but it's but it's decreasing in size and people and that means less revenues and Le less revenues to Comcast means the 5% of revenues you get for the operating budget is going to continue to uh e and slip there will be some slippage so that has to be looked at in terms of uh access corporations looking for uh grants and uh uh um you know uh underwriting sources and uh some towns are seeking you know to to slightly supplement the budget one way or but it's overall good and I congratulate the

012the uh the town for it the last thank you I want to say which is the most important to me is because I couldn't uh Michael Herbert Sue Roby Diane mornon uh at every Twist and Turn they're so they get back to you with uh suggestions and and the details and the support you know to keep on uh plotting through this kind of long-term process so they were fantastic and Mike even took you know and and Mike did some of the important heavy lifting like there were some basic uh uh infrastructure issues about undergrounding and getting things over uh railroad tracks or a bridge that had to be worked out and Mike handled a lot of that very proficiently with uh Kathy Maloney so I'm very grateful to them uh you know they're they're they're

013perfect team for this that's all I have really thanks Bill so um is there and this is a public hearing so we'll move to the public soon but I think Barbara did you want to say anything um thank you rob um I just want to say thank you to Bill August Michael Herbert and to Comcast for negotiating negotiating us a very um great package which will help us keep our operation moving forward and being able to continue to serve the town um for the next 10 years so we thank you all for that and um we look forward to uh working with you all with all of you thanks Barbara and I think we appreciate the efforts uh your efforts and everyone else uh associate with the studio um is there uh any anyone else

014uh who wishes to speak on this at this public hearing about the renewal of the light license uh if you if you can use the raised hand function I think we have everybody we can see everybody on the screen right now is that right so at this moment I'm not seeing any raised hands um and there's no one in the audience that wants to speak on this um so I guess I will I think um in the public hearing part of this I don't know if we have to close the public hearing before the board makes comments so I guess we'll need a motion to close the public hearing I'll second that motion's been made and seconded all those in favor of closing the public hearing say I I oppos None So the public hearing

015is closed so board discussion on this I have a motion to accept but any questions or discussions about this before we move to to the vote to renew the license uh Mr chair just as long as Barbara's happy with the uh contract and uh ACA can work within the boundaries of that contract and then I'm happy with it as well we okay with that Barbara yes uh okay great youand go ahead no I was just going to see if there's no one else then I would go and make a motion the only thing I would say is just um you know thank you to everyone who's been working hard on this um and thank you to Comcast for being such a good partner with the town um and you know waca TV is a great

016partner to us um and we rely heavily on on them to help us communicate to the public and um so we're we're looking forward to working with Comcast for the next 10 years so thank you thank you okay any further discussion ask for I'll ask for a motion I move that acting in its capacity as the statutory cable television license issuing authority pursuant to Mass General laws chapter 166a and finding that the cable license renewal proposal of Comcast cable communications Management LLC reasonably meets the license and cable related renewal needs and interest of the public and town and finding that the Comcast financial and Technical qualifications and Comcast support for the local programming Channel Studio facilities and services are reasonable to meet Town cable license needs and based on support for continuing Comcast as a

017licy serving the town that the Ashland select board approved the Comcast proposed non-exclusive renewal license effective July 13 2024 immediately following the expiration of the current license on July 12th 2024 great thank you is there a second to that motion I'll second that motion's been made and seconded all those in favor uh of renewing the license as stated say I I opposed none the license is passed unanimously thank you all right thank you Bill and thank you bar thanks thank you all thank you for being such a supportive town to the whole project thank you thank you for doing it thank you thank you B thank you everyone thanks bar Catherine thank you take care um the next item in agenda is the proclamation um um May is mental health awareness month so I'm going

018to I'm going to read the proclamation um it's ALS uh May is mental health month in Ashlin Massachusetts whereas mental health is an essential part of overall well-being impacting individuals families and communities across Ashland middlex County and Massachusetts whereas one in five American adults experiences a mental health condition each year and everyone faces challenges in life that can impact their mental health uh whereas despite its prevalence me mental health remains shrouded in stigma preventing many from seeking help whereas early intervention and access to Quality Care are crucial for managing mental health conditions and improving quality of life whereas May is recognized nationally as mental health awareness month provided an opportunity to raise awareness combat stigma and pro and promote Mental Health Resources therefore we the select Board of the town of Ashen do hereby Proclaim

019May 2024's mental health month in ashin Massachusetts uh we encourage all residents of ashin Massachusetts to educate themselves and others about mental health conditions treatment options and available resources challenge stigma by speaking respectfully and inclusively about mental health seek help if they are struggling with their mental health encourage others to do the same support organizations that provide Mental Health Services and advocacy create safe and supportive environments for open conversations about mental health together we can create a community where everyone feels empowered to prioritize their mental well-being and seek help when needed um signed Robert chair chair Ashlin select board um any comments or um thoughts on that I think we're all proud to issue this Proclamation and understand the importance of it so all right all right thank you well all right so the um

020all right the next is um public discussion about the sanctuary at Ashen Mills um the 40b project located at 1060 Main Street and as I think um as most of us are aware we started our process what about two weeks ago about putting together uh the public process in in uh discussing with the the uh the developer and Mass housing uh and our local boards uh about this project and um this is a discussion of that um just kind of a a touchbased discussion about that process and an update I think we have some more information to impart that uh I'm not sure what's already been uh put out on the town manager's newsletter I I understand we've gotten a number of um uh comments already and Michael do you want to just update and

021talk about the process that was discussed uh by this board on Friday about the um the for and things like that sure I mean do you want me to just kind of give a overview of the process probably makes sense in general review things um so okay as Rob mentioned uh the town was notified a couple of weeks ago by Mass housing which is a subsidizing agency that they had received an application from SLV development uh that they for a site eligibility letter uh for a development at the Mill site which is at 10 to 50 Main Street um Ashlin Mills uh that development was uh a mixed use development that consisted of 250 units uh 25% of which is Affordable um in basically a a building that can reach up to five stories tall

022if you look at it from the street it's actually six stories tall from know the the sunken um section of the U of the property and so what and Mass housing let us know that that we had received that and that's important because that is the first step of what they call a 40b process um and a 40b process it's also known as a comprehensive permit process and that is a law 40b is a law that's been on the books since 1969 and what it does is it promotes affordable housing by allowing developers to override local zoning and local bylaws to build developments that have at least 25% of their units designated as affordable so that mean when I say supersede or override local zoning what that means is that if the town has a

023zoning in downtown which it does that limits height to three stories a 40b application a developer doesn't need to abide by that they can go up to like in this case five stories and not have to necessarily worry about obtaining uh local approval to do that um again it's super preds the zoning so all the rules that a community puts in place um to help regulate growth and regulate development is basically for all intents and purposes null and void uh in the case of a 40b process um that's that's a very very simplified way way of putting it and so what happens now is Mass housing has asked us to provide comments as the community towards this on this application and uh they've graciously given us a 30-day extension so those comments are due on

024May 29th and so what happens is Mass housing reviews those comments they review the site physically which they've already done a site walk and uh so after reviewing that they will make a decision whether or not to issue what's known as a site eligibility letter uh and in almost all cases they do issue that and that is the green light for the developer to go ahead and submit to the town specifically the town zba an application for 40b so like I said that's a long way of of saying that we're in the process right now of determining basically our comments to Mass housing as part of the site eligibility process so what we've done is we've put the materials online and we have provided a comment form that residents can utilize to Prov provide comments

025on the proposed development um I have asked boards and committees uh to evaluate the um the project and provide comments to the select board uh by May 8th um and then we have also decided that we are going to hold a public forum on May 7th to talk about the project itself and collect further public comment um and that will be right now the the details are to be determined but we anticipate having that in this room starting at 700 p.m. again on May 7th and so I've invited the developer to attend to give a presentation on the project uh the developer has agreed to do that we've also invited Mass Housing partnership not Mass Housing Finance but Mass Housing Partnership to attend as well and provide the public an overview of the 40b process

026and and what's reviewable and what's allowable or not um so that is basically the public process that we have outlined um I want to reiterate that while a lot of us I think all of us um understand the importance of redeveloping that site um what is being proposed by this developer I feel confident in saying this after discussions none of us agree to um I think just to summarize we feel like the impacts are too much it's too big too many units um that being said as it's a 40b project we are limited in what we're able to do and what we're able to to limit Michael can you speak to as briefly as possible how we got into the situation where a 40b is able to come forward because I think we've spoken a

027lot about working on ways to not let that happen and now it's happening that a 40b is coming forward and we don't have a lot of ways to I mean we can work with them but we can't necessarily stop it can you speak briefly to briefly that okay you know couple of minutes at least and I and I expect we'll go into a little bit more on May 7th but if people can't get to that why now are we having a 40b come forward whereas we haven't in the past okay so to basically uh put yourself in a position to deny a 40b project you have to get what is known as Safe Harbor okay and there's two ways you get into Safe Harbor so first you have 10% of your housing stock deemed affordable

028by the Department of Housing and Community Development unfortunately Ashland is a little under 6% right now so we don't meet that qualification the second way is to have an approved housing production plan uh the town have have an approved housing production plan when I say approved approved by the state and if you're making progress towards that each year or every two years you get to basically uh be in Safe Harbor in that case and so that is the approach that the town has taken over the last several years to try to get into Safe Harbor so in 20 20 um 2021 I don't remember exactly the zoning board of appeals issued a comprehensive permit for ugc well development proposed by a company called ugc off of Memorial Drive that was issued that was 180 units

029those would have been counted on our affordable housing inventory and were for a period of time um which gave us safe harbor but but that project is actually in litigation right now between the landowner and the developer so that has not moved forward and so those units dropped off our affordable housing inventory so unfortunately we weren't able to count that the planning board issued a permit not too long ago a a little over a year ago for 120 units at 501 Pawn Street and they approved uh 25% affordable at that project which would have allowed us to count 120 units towards um our subsidized housing inventory that would have given us safe harbor as well unfortunately that uh has not moved forward yet so due to concerns between the developer and the land owner the

030person who permitted the project so there have been attempts at trying to get us into Safe Harbor good faith attempts were just not there I I just wanted the public I mean I wanted the public to understand how we got here and I think it's very important that we that they realize it's not that we haven't been trying it's that different things have come up we have a question from the public I don't know if you want to take that or first the board yep yeah I just had a couple of questions um you know Mike I just um what regulations are 40 BS subject to they're not reg not subject to any of our local zoning but are they what sorts of things are they subject to that's question one and question two um

031when you said almost all cases that that go before Mass housing ultimately they proceed that that communities even with feedback um could could you elaborate I think that I heard that there may be six out projects that have been successful um when the communities had offered a testimony to Mass housing that out of how many might that have been so you know to answer answer your first question so local zoning and local bylaws so those that are passed at town meeting so those um a developer does not have to abide by those right um they can get waivers what they call waivers the specific process they are subject to state laws like the wetlands protection act okay so they'd have to go before the con Conservation Commission not under the local wet bylaw but under

032the wetlands protection act so that's number one uh number two I don't have the exact figure Claudia uh of of how many projects have been basically not issued site eligibility letters uh the ones that I looked at and reviewed over over the weekend I didn't see any that had actually been um been denied what you might be referring to is as part of the process and it's further down the road um the there is basically if the zba does deny a project or issues conditions on a project that make it uneconomical in the case of the developer they have the opportunity to appeal it to what's known as a housing appeals committee which in that case and that has happened there have been appeals and in very few cases do the housing appeals committee uphold

033the decision of the local community they usually find in favor of the developer not all the time but but a large majority of the time okay so then um in in terms of the the state laws and regulations that might um still um you know have some kind of authority over the building process or project um anything besides Wetlands that comes to mind or is well like the building code um State still more like safety items right yeah as opposed to anything that would be how it looks or whether or not it fits in our Community those kinds of things there there's nothing else correct and and I should point out also um so nothing that I've said precludes us as a community from engaging with the developer and trying to negotiate a better project

034um it's just we don't necessarily have leverage the way we would under the standard permitting process right and I think you know in our discussions with the with the developer he at least sounded um like he was interested in discussing things with us and happy to do that but of course they have their economics that they're going to be going with but he seemed like someone that could discuss things with so yeah and uh so that wasn't I will admittedly that wasn't the best explanation that I just gave that there's a um again it's very complicated it's extremely complicated and I'm trying to give like a you know F minute overview of it there's so many bits and pieces I've left out and that it didn't cover fully other yeah sure go ahead so um

035you know people might be familiar with the with this project that had come before the planning board and was before the planning board for probably what a couple years um and I know that you know basically it was a much smaller version of this project it was I think um was down to what 186 units or something like that with 30 ,000 squ ft commercial this is that's being proposed is 250 units with 10,000 commercial 10,000 square feet of commercial um and I think like the um the idea of the planning board is like the negotiation of design and give and take and things like that as far as that process goes with the zba is that something that they have the ability to do is it is it a negotiation similar to what the

036planning board would go through um yeah um so yeah the zoning board or you know representatives of the Town yes can engage with the developer and try to negotiate something better it's just like I said you don't necessarily have the leverage of a that you had before and we no longer have um the ability because we currently have a sewer and water moratorium in place but that's a local that's a local initiative so this would bypass that as well so there wouldn't be a okay thank you other I just want to um we are willing to um entertain comments from the public just use the raise hand function if you're uh if you're Remote turn the camera on and uh we do like to have people turn their cameras on so we can um as

037part of being a public meeting process that's our preference um any discussions or questions from the board before we entertain comments go ahead you um Claudia um Michael when people there's a feedback form on our website and currently I know that you've pointed to it um link to it from your newsletter um it it is under the planning board current projects before the planning board on the on the website um where people can give feedback um you know what it would you say um I don't want to discourage anybody from giving any type of General feedback right for example one of the things that strikes me and probably anybody that drives through town is the idea of putting 250 Apartments there and all the cars and then I mean I had a conversation with you

038about parking and how many parking spaces um there would be for 250 apartments and it's it's only 1.5 um per unit so um I mean in my Common Sense tells me there's probably going to be 500 cars that come out of there and where do they even Park and now they're parking up Pleasant Street or they're parking in any private uh business owners Lots all around the town in our public parking spots so um and never mind the traffic itself right Beyond just vehicle storage um pieces but are there some areas in particular um that you would suggest that people might offer comment about yeah I mean I would um I would encourage everybody to to be open and submit everything that they think are going to be issues what is going to be reviewable

039is very limited and I would focus on Water and Sewer issues I would focus on traffic um everybody is making every comment that I've seen uh references the schools and school capacity which is important unfortunately the state doesn't care about that um but still I I think you put that in um and also I would point out how many units the town of Ashland has already built and or permitted as well and make that point as well and then also I think the design the the way the the project as it's presented fits within downtown could I make one quick request um just to Claudia Point like to find to find the the um the feed back form um if you're not knowing where to go it's kind of tough to find could we put

040something under our news thing on our do maybe a banner yeah I looked at I looked at trying to do it under news flash and I think I messed kind of difficult so if we could do something just because it's a limited time frame that we're going to be collecting it is the town website not the Facebook page it's the website that people should go to okay sure go ahead Joe uh thank you Mr chair uh with respect to this this project I mean I think we're all a dead set against the size of it right as it as it stands um but I have some concerns and and Michael brought it up with the water and sewer uh capacities that the town currently has and uh there may be a lot of people that

041don't realize that asland has to pay Framingham uh an exorbitant amount of money to have our sewer go through their pipes for for the repairs and general uh use of their pipes to get that to uh the island yeah Deer Island so you know one of the things we could look at possibly potentially is to you know talk to the developer about providing you know um additional funding because of the increased number of units that go in there um and you know Framingham is going to definitely you know jack up our initial you know cost to to run that those pipes you know run that sewer through their pipes so whatever the difference is maybe they could offset that and maybe that could be part of the negotiation uh I mean like you said there

042many different ways TOA to work on this but that may be something to consider uh so that way the taxpayers don't have to uh end up you know flipping the bill for somebody that's going to build and then move out of town and collect all their their profits and leave us high and dry okay I I think I I think we have at least one person remotely Amanda W who would you like to speak on this matter um if so you can unmute yourself and go ahead Amanda would you mind identifying yourself hi yes of course um my name is Amanda Walsh and I live on Pine Hill Road in Ashland um I really appreciate the opportunity um I'm really glad we're having these conversations um I did fill out the survey and I really

043appreciate your response Michael um you know I think that if this almost always goes through then what's going to be key is can we get the developer to work with the town you know I know the developer was far along with the planning board and I was a part of those meetings and their previous application was great like um they're going to have tons of commercial space the units were much smaller um you know is there an option that the developer would ever reopen their last application and work with the town like is that an option I could I could address that from the discussions that or the point that the developer made he thought that last cuz we asked that exact question and he he he said that that was an expensive um design

044and that he he didn't find it economical to use that design and the other thing to make note is this is now a different developer this is not the same developer who came forward with the other proposal through the land owner yeah right yeah Amanda unfortunately I I think that ship has Saed U that doesn't mean that we can't try um like Rob said we did directly ask that question because it was a much better project but um you know unfortunately we had that opportunity and um well it didn't it didn't work we don't have that opportunity anymore no worries um you know I really like the idea of you know can we tax these types of projects more is there a benefit the town can get out of this if we know they're going

045to create all these units is that a potential option um and then my last point is you know I think for me the big things are going to be traffic you know looking at the application the front parking space is going to back up traffic onto the main road there's already issues with the current building doing that the entrances and exits also don't line up with Pleasant Street I don't know if there's a way they can reconfigure it so that way they can use the traffic light but if you have all these units trying to get out with no traffic light Crossing all those land of traffic it's going to be an absolute nightmare um the height of five stories like that's insane um I'm hoping that we can somehow reduce that height um to

046have it more in line with downtown and then finally in their last application they had a really nice River Walk that was going to go behind the building it'd be nice if there was a way the developer would be able to continue that as it would be a huge asset to the town so those are my thoughts thank you so much great thank you Amanda um any F further um public comment U I don't see any raised hands I don't see anyone in the in the real uh in the physical meeting room anything else can can I make a comment sure we have a little time so yeah and Amanda thank you for I did get your written comments as well but you know Amanda I want to thank you for providing thoughtful rational comments

047in this in this forum um I think there is such a tendency among some people uh in this town to really raise the vitriol um of the conversation and it what happens is that we end up fighting with each other and we end up expending a lot of energy um you know basically getting nowhere because we're fighting with each other but I just really wanted to thank you for your thoughtful comments and your your constructive comments on how we can help make this better and I think it's important that that tener of our conversation stays that way let's save the vitory all for the developer you know so other thoughts on from the board or discussion at this time I just want to remind everybody as as Michael announced we're going to have a public

048form on May 7th um time has not been finalized but it will be in this room it's probably be 6 or 7 o' so people should plan on that and get your comments in anyone else be before we move on do anyone else want to uh say anything you think we should try to um get an idea of how many people might attend so that we could determine whether or not this would be the best um you know location for that or you know maybe we should at least be prepared to have like a satellite space in the basement with um some kind of projection and the opportunity for people to participate from down there I know that I've been involved in previous meetings where you know there would be a satellite room kind of

049yeah I I I think because we have the online option I think we try to keep it as simple as possible I think we see I mean like we're seeing tonight and other other meetings that we've had even larger forums that we've had a lot of people show up in Via Zoom when we did the Valentine event we had some people here in the room but we had probably just as many online so yeah it's an interest I mean do we have I know the mindes school is a relatively new but we have any other good meeting space that's larger than this I don't High scho besides the the High School auditorium I think which isn't as and to B that's the place that's probably best equipped for right oh is can you do Zoom

050can you do hybrid from there yes yeah from the high school audition well I guess the only if we're of course you know so if we're serious about from the high school we can we can broadcast it over we can broadcast via cable don't know that we live stream from we want to do I mean it would be through the owl which wouldn't be a good place for that right because they don't just do I don't know that would be interesting to find out I don't think we've ever done hybrid from there I don't think we've been done hybrid but I know they live stream it like Facebook or something like that but whether people who are watching can participate that would be the question that would key be key and so I guess I

051think if we're seriously want to look at that alternative we need to have some mechanism to your point of saying saying who wants to come in person versus uh but otherwise we just kind of go with this plan is that where we're leaning at this point I think so yeah okay all right the the other thing we could do is at town meeting right because town meeting is before this meeting is see if there are people who attend that in person who would want to come to this in person and if we get a feel it's going to be too much then we could look for something else yeah but if there's no place that has the hybrid option other than here then it's kind of a good point right that's true yeah it works

052pretty well we should definitely make an announcement at town meeting definitely yeah yeah good point okay okay so uh we do have another meeting scheduled um at 7 um 8 I'm sorry 8:15 um do we want to do anything cons set agenda before that we have a little bit of time um Susan did you had any response on regular session minutes or are they all good they good okay I move that we approve the consent agenda as presented second um motion's been made and seconded to uh approve the consent agenda all those in favor say I I oppos None So the consent agenda is accepted okay I think we can uh why don't we move to uh cce's presentation I see that she's here um and um so we put aside 30 minutes for that

053and CCE communicated to me that she will speak for 10 minutes as and there'll be a presentation from uh Dr Brown is he on this is he it great and for another 10 minutes then we'll have 10 minutes for Q&A if um that's what the board likes and uh or potentially you know that's up to the board at that point so um just a little intro CC has has requested that she have a little time to speak uh to the board about her um her concerns about Wireless radiation so we've scheduled her and your your colleague Dr Brown is all right so um so CeCe if you're ready I think you've got all the technology ready in the presentation at this point so um go ahead uh okay well thank you so much I'm once

054again so grateful that our select board has been supportive of looking into technology safety over the years and and many of you know that we became sort of a pilot program here in the United States where we became the first Public Library to put a radio frequency radiation detection meter on loan and I just got word today that centerland public library in centerland Mass has just done the same thing Welsley and Bedford have done the same so thank you guys for listening I'd like to introduce Dr Rob Brown who is a radiologist and he has additional information about his credentials uh Susan are we able to give him screen sharing privileges should okay Rob if you are able to do screen sharing then we'll listen to your presentation for the next 10 minutes and then

055I'll come back great okay thank you okay hold on one second please let me just uh okay can you see that yes yes great CC thank you for inviting me to speak with you today uh yes I am a diagnostic radiologist I work for a group called Radiology Partners in Phoenix Arizona and I'm also the vice president for the Environmental Health Trust uh for scientific research and clinical Affairs so this is a passion of mine uh I deal with ionizing radi ration at my day job and in my spare time I'm concerned about the wireless the effects of wireless communication radiation which is becoming all too prevalent now this is considered a fringe science to some and I think the reason for that is because it does border on the intersection of four different scientific

056disciplines they include medicine biology physics and Engineering with my education and career I have some background in three the four my experience with engineering is not great but I do have the Good Fortune of working with some excellent engineers at the Environmental Health Trust now first to for you to understand what radiation is radiation is actually a word that means radiating from a central point and radiation travels in waves and those waves have a frequency the frequency of x-rays is so powerful that can cause ionization and we know that that's dangerous but the one thing that I want you to understand is that the radiation actually travels through the body we think that we're solid we look at our bodies and we think that we're solid because we only see the surface but when we're

057exposed to radiation that radiation does not respect our skin surface except there is some reflection off the skin but the radiation penetrates into the body so what we're looking at here in an x-ray the darker areas are those areas where the x-rays have an easier time penetrating through the body and the lighter areas are those where some of the x-rays are being absorbed now light is also a form of electromagnetic radiation and again we're used to seeing light reflect off of the surfaces of of things such as this finger on the left but if you shine a bright light on the fingertip as the image on the right shows you can actually see that the light is transmitting through the skin and you can do a simple test at home go into a dark dark

058room close your eyelids turn on the light and you will see light come through your eyelids even though your uh even though they're closed MRI is a technology that uses radio frequency radiation and magnetic fields if radio frequency radiation didn't penetrate into the body and magnetic fields didn't penetrate into the body we would not be able to get images like this MRI uh of a shoulder now radio frequency radiation is also being emitted by our devices and here's a a short list uh at this point there's probably many many more but each one of these devices is a source of radio frequency radiation and many of these are found in our homes and what happens is you have this source of radiation which is demarcated by this uh Ed figure with the spikes on the

059left of this uh room the radiation uh projects waves of energy that reflect off the services penetrates and becomes absorbed and you can see that the figure in the middle is being bombarded with radiation from all sides but this isn't really accurate what actually happens is that radiation travels in waves that that scatter and so we end up with really more of a cloud effect and that cloud effect uh reflects and refracts and does all the other things that waves do and we can consider this a form of Electro pollution I mentioned that radiation travels in frequencies the the range of frequencies can is represented on this electromagnetic spectrum and I put the three images that I showed you previously where they are where they belong respectively on this uh Spectrum 5G is in this

060area right here now if you will remember uh old style radios the AM radio had a dial on it and you can see up here with this Arrow the AM radio is around 600 khz to about 1.6 megahertz on the dial and you could turn that dial about five or six times to uh go through all of the stations on the AM radio from one end of the bandwidth to the other and each time you would hit a station it would go from a static to you'd hear the sound clearly 5G is encompassed by this oval here you would have to turn a dial about 275,000 times to go from one end of the 5G Spectrum to the other that's how many frequencies are in 5G now we I'm sure you've seen these antennas in

061your in your town or if not in your town then in nearby towns these are 5G antennas the longer antenna are transmitting the lower and mid bands of the of the uh Network and these Square uh antennas which are really comprised of a n of a grid of small very small antennas are the high Band frequencies these uh high-band uh frequency antennas are also being installed on poles and here's one uh in front of this house now you may walk by this pole and you don't hear any anything you don't feel anything and you don't see anything but if you have the right kind of detector you can actually measure the radiation coming from it and I'm going to show you a simulation so this is a detector that I have and you can see

062that it measures from 20 to 40 GHz which is in the range of the high bands if I aim it towards this uh antenna I'm getting values up to 10,000 microwatts per meter squar which is very high and background should be zero this is not a natural form of radiation now the second thing I want you to understand from tonight's talk is that non-ionizing radiation can cause damage to yourselves it does so in the form of of cellular oxidative stress what does that mean stress is like any kind of stress if you stress a bone you can end up with a stress fracture if you don't take care to me to rest the stress fracture you can end up with a complete fracture when cells undergo oxidative stress they are not functioning normally and what

063happens is you end up with too many ions and those ions can then look to steal electrons from other atoms and you can end up with damage to cell membranes to proteins and enzymes to the DNA itself and to mitochondria which are the powerhouses of the cell now the the P the parts of the body that are at risk is Up For Debate and it really depends on the frequency that you're being uh exposed to the lower frequency bands penetrate deeper into the body and the higher bands penetrate less so but all the superficial structures including the thyroid gland the testes the elements of the skin including blood the immune system neurons your eyes and even the brain and heart can be affected by these bands of radiation the PID gland is particularly radiosensitive there

064was a study done at the bottom of this uh this uh description here in which medical students were study they use cell phones for one hour a day and after two months they had hypers stimulation of their thyroid glands now that might not sound like such a big deal except that the thyroid emits thyroid hormone and thyroid hormone has remote uh actions on different parts of the body including the immune system system so if you're hyperthyroid or your hypothyroid it can cause a depletion of your immunity it can also affect your heart and people with uh thyroid abnormalities can end up with arrhythmias this type of radiation can also affect sperm Studies have been done on animal models including rats and mice as well as on humans and the sperm can lose their motility they

065can have abnormal morphology and they can actually lose their survival their survivability and this may be one of the reasons why we're having a problem with male fertility in this country particularly for men who place a cell phone in their pocket the radiation is traveling very close from that pocket through just a very thin barrier of skin to affect the test itself I mentioned that if the thyroid is abnormal you can have immune effects well the thyroid uh the uh radio frequency radiation can affect the behavior of the immune cells themselves it can affect natural killer cells macres all different types of cells immune system and this can uh predispose you to develop viral infections this is a particularly concerning effect that has been shown on the blood uh this is done by a technique

066called live blood cell analysis on the left is a smear of blood that is considered normal the same patient was exposed osed to 10 minutes from a Wi-Fi router and her blood was re resampled and you can see that the blood cells are all clumped together this is called rof formation it's a reversible phenomenon but the problem is when you're in this state of of aggregation you're predisposed to develop blood clots it also en hampers the ability of the blood cells to deliver oxygen and for them to remove carbon dioxide from your tissues now all the things I mentioned don't cause symptoms so you wouldn't have any clue that they were happening to your body until it was perhaps causing a disorder but there are people who are having symptoms from these forms of radiation

067and the the ones that probably will ring uh familiar to many of you are insomnia difficulty sleeping idus ringing in the ears and a short-term memory loss and anomy or thought block not remembering what you're going to say now these are all non-specific symptoms except they're incre ining in frequency and I do believe they're being caused by this wireless communication so what can we do well some people talk about you know jokingly uh or disparagingly they talk about this the tinf foil hat of course now that you know uh that this can affect your entire body that would certainly have no effect at all on protecting yourself but what you can do is you can increase your distance from antennas radiation follows something called the inverse Square law so when you double your distance from

068the source of radiation you're actually diminishing your exposure by 3/4s you can also turn off devices when they're not in use I don't even own a Wi-Fi router anymore but when I did I turned it off and I wasn't using it you can also hardwire devices like your computer your laptop your TV your peripherals all things that are now available with wireless options but you really don't you know what's the problem with having a wire from your mouse for example to your computer it's you can spare yourself the radiation when possible and finally I recommend increasing your intake of antioxidants because antioxidents help uh restore the balance that gets Disturbed from the presence of radiation so it's a very brief uh talk but I hope that uh gives you some information I want to thank

069you again for the opportunity to talk and CC I'll hand it over to you all right thank you doctor now just before CC starts is there any uh should we wait hold our questions to the end of the presentation or is that the okay go ahead uh CCE and doctors please stay on online okay thank you Susan do you want to help me pull this up what you need to do just as a note I I think you know we should have some time for U discussion and question and answer including um some folks from the audience are physically here so um yes I will um I will ask for that when we get to that point if you're if you're on uh remotely and want to use the raise hand function um if you'd

070like to speak okay so are you all set CeCe I think I am let me go into presentation mode okay so um when the video from this is available I will go ahead and um put this on my YouTube channel and include our slides from both Dr Brown and myself so what we want to do um I won't go through how I got all involved in this but I'll leave this for you anybody is welcome to look at the uh links that'll be included in my slides and um what I want to talk about is the solutions so as Dr Brown alluded to it's not rocket science to fix this simply run ethernet cables from the back of your router you can get something called a switch that allows you to hook many different devices

071up at once even in a classroom you could hook up 20 or 30 devices at the same time and then you just need to get separate ethernet cables for each of the devices like your cell phone or your laptop with a little adapter and then that's step one for hardwiring the second step is to go into the settings of each one and turn off the wireless the Bluetooth the hotspot the locator and any 5G antennas that you might have in your devices today and then the third is to measure because the industry is forecasting that we will have 200 wireless devices in our homes in the coming years that's 5G in The Internet of Things So as Dr Brown said that is a whole lot of electrolution that we are going to be immersed in

072and we're already well on our way so let's look to see what our exposures are here in Ashland that we don't have control over 247 with your personal devices you get to choose how you want to use those but these Wireless utility smart meters for electric gas solar water propane they're putting these radio frequency radiation transmitters as part of that we always paid employees to walk the neighborhood and get our readings industry came in and said hey we can save you some money let's just hook it up electronically and then you don't have to pay those guys well when we did that we started doing a big trade-off with our health and then the other area is the cell towers and macro the big antennas and then the smaller antennas for 5G for those small

073cells and then the wireless access points in our schools and our public buildings that transmit this radiation 24/7 and we know that children are especially vulnerable their DNA is still developing their immune system is under construction their central nervous system is under construction their skulls have a thinner bone and their brains have a higher water content so inch per inch our children are absorbing more of this radiation than you and I and it's not good for you and I and then we have to acknowledge that risk is cumulative with dose as with any toxin so the longer we leave ourselves immersed in electrolution the more we can anticipate that we're going to hit that Tipping Point and if we're not already seeing it that we will be seeing the Fallout that Dr Brown mentioned uh

074the Centers for Disease Control has something called the allara principle and the goal with radiation is to get to as low as reasonably achievable and it's not rocket science to fix we know how to do it okay one of the missing pieces to my puzzle when I fell down the rabbit hole back in 2013 is as I'm reading all the signs that Dr Brown highlighted I kept thinking surely somebody's got to have our backs on this and then in 2015 Harvard Law School Center for ethics came out with this free 59 page report called captured agency how the Federal Communications Commission is dominated by the industries it presumably regulates so we have captured agencies with the FCC the FDA the CDC and more and sadly it goes all the way up to the World Health

075Organization if you do a quick search on electromagnetic radiation you'll see something that makes it look inconclusive you'll be hardpressed to find this link that shows you that when our government completed a $30 million study that showed clear evidence of cancer and DNA damage and the ramazan in Institute in Italy concluded another one on cell towers found the same thing they have reopened their investigation at the who but it's not easy to find so Dr Martin Luther King Jr talked us that when we have important changes in our society it comes through three channels first the public becomes informed which is what we're hoping to inspire here and then gets engaged because there's no Cavalry coming we have to fix this at the local level the courts do their rulings and eventually public policy gets

076enacted so I'll spend just a moment going through some really amazing inroads that are happening in all three of these areas but we won't hear about it in mainstream media because it's owned by the industries that promote these toxic products so here in Massachusetts in all of our towns everywhere the industry rolls into town and says here's our applications we want to put cell towers we want to give you you know better service what they're really doing is building out capacity for their next Revenue stream by law we only have to be sure you can make a phone call we don't have to allow them to put Clos range cell towers next to our homes for all these other services that they're spinning up with streaming and iot and all of that that's not what

077the law provides for that's their revenue Stream So they come into town and say oh if anyone says anything about environmental health concerns those are just the nimes not my backyard folks well that's not true there's more than 150 groups across the United States working on this and here uh we can see that with um just local towns you can see that people are working on this throughout the Commonwealth okay okay so these are all cell tower actions and then towns themselves are stepping up and protecting themselves the city of Boston has filed with the FCC to say we know this is not safe they sued the FC C along with Mayors for many other um towns across the country they didn't win but it's showing that people are paying attention to this Burlington came

078up with a small cell policy that had the industry withdrawing their small cell applications and I can teach you more about that later but it became part of a national example with a group called Americans for responsible technology that has a whole toolkit to help our towns get to Safe technology we did a presentation out um at the hansam Maria Town select board with these towns and others have started adopting these policy changes that I've been asking Ashlin to take a look at for years and then look others are doing this all throughout the Commonwealth and uh Dr Brown was actually part of a panel that I was invited to participate in in Stanford Connecticut but I was on vacation but after presenting the facts Stanford rejected the governor's plan which had been cooked up

079with industry to put 5G small cells right outside of people's homes in the public access way so with education there's a lot that we can do and these kinds of actions are happening all over the world now legal Solutions there was a docket open with the Federal Communications Commission for six years there were thousands of pages of scientific and medical evidence of harm along with citizens who have been harmed the FCC completely ignored it the FCC got sued and lost the courts found that the FCC was arbitrary and capricious meaning they didn't do their homework they just said we're going to stick with these 1996 radiation limits which have nothing to do with the way radiation is exposing us today the face school here right in Southboro there was a little 10-year-old boy who kept

080getting all these symptoms that Dr Brown mentioned or many of them and it turned out it was the wireless r radiation in the schools and there was a federal lawsuit that for the first time us courts recognized yes there are biological effects and it has nothing to do with heat it's these low-level non-ionizing non-thermal radiation exposures that are causing great harm and did you know that the Massachusetts Board of Health at the state level has legal guidelines that now has four pages in it about Wireless radiation and there's a big lawsuit happening out in Pittsfield right now where Verizon put a cell tower right on top of a neighborhood where everybody got so sick they had to abandon their home so there's so much happening but we won't know about it until somebody like me

081presents you with the facts and then as a town we can decide how to use technology but without the harm so the third area is public policy and we have six bills right now that first one Senate resolve 155 has been voted re uh voted out favorably by the consumer protection committee to do a commission like New Hampshire did which is that report that I shared with all of you a few weeks ago the smart meter bill is still out there too with an emergency Preamble because we should not allow these industries to roll in and tell our towns it's mandatory it is not mandatory and everybody should have the right to choose an analog meter that doesn't radiate into our homes and there are bills all over the country as well and you can

082look at other things there in my slides so School actions the New York Times did an expose on what Silicon Valley executives are doing they're sending their children to schools with no technology not hardwired not wireless and they're going so far as to have their nanni sign contracts that there will be no screens around their children yeah they know Claudia they know the Netherlands and F no they won't report on the radiation in the article they have too much conflict of interest with their advertising Revenue C wrapping up because we did talk about 10 minutes so yeah okay so there are so many tools and resources to help us the Massachusetts breast cancer Coalition has already built kindergarten through grade 12 prevention curriculum so we have everything we need to start protecting the children um

083and so next steps we need to have an opt out here in Ashland on all of these utility meters we should not voice these toxic exposures we should continue to educate the public and I would love to partner with you as our town leaders to conduct forums and please invite the industry they generally don't show up but go ahead and invite them um there's some examples of where we've done this in other towns and let's see if we can protect our kids as soon as possible when when you flip those Ruckus wireless access points over you see that there are two ethernet ports all you got to do is drop a cable down at desk level use a switch and plug all the devices in and then just turn off the antennas and you have

084not only safer technology but your signal is far faster more reliable you're not Buckshot the children's data out into the air for privacy and data security issues so aside from convenience hardwire technology Beats wireless hands down every time and then um when I was talking with our planning board Lisa me our town attorney was there and she I asked her if she's a specialist in Telecom law and she is not in Burlington they hired Donna Brewer who came in and helped them to write their policy on small sales Andrew Campanelli is used all over the country he used to work for industry so he knows the Playbook when he figured out what they were doing he switched team so it's not long money to get an expert in here and get our town as protected

085as we can be so thank you and we'd be honored to answer any questions I'll go ahead and all right thank you um so I I believe the board does have some questions um both for you and Dr Brown but uh is there um did we have anyone who wants to question I think one of the the things that we're dealing with is the strength of these uh the research studies and the connection to uh health effects which we have at least I have not experienced it as a conclusive study so I I know you've made certain representations and I think is there anyone either you know online that could address some of these research studies or fill out some information on broad-based epidemiological studies that show these kind of connections I'm i' see um

086yeah that would that could be Dr Brown do you want to point them toward the Environmental Health Trust where you can actually sit and read the science it's also on my website at Massachusetts for safe technology the epid I'll tell you yeah there are tens of thousands of studies that have shown these effects tens of thousands and if you talk to anybody who uh is is in this area they recognize that the science is conclusive there's no question about this you don't know about it because you're not taught it and it's certainly not being covered in the media but the science is done it's it's full baked um the problem is politics so if you want to look you if you want to do some research and go to like one site where you're going

087to find you know a hundred papers to look at and and study the uh the group that I'm of the VP of is called the Environmental Health Trust their website is eh trust.org they have a lot of science there um tons to look at and of course every study that you look at will have tons of references and citations so it's a great place to start all right well thank you um so I will I believe does the board members have questions um that they want to and then we'll see is there I see my husband online who's member of the Board of Health all right I see David up there and I it's hard for me to actually see him but he can unmute himself and uh David Kinsman is a member of the

088ashin Board of Health and I think he had something he wants to say so go ahead uh David are you yep he there he is good go ahead yeah thanks Rob uh yeah David Kinsman 6 Lucy frenchway um member of the ashin Board of Health um I have a few questions for Dr Brown um I apologize doctor I didn't get to see your entire presentation from the beginning um but my first question is uh so you're you're a doctor of radiology a radiologist is that correct yes okay so um so what is what are the effects of um this radiation look like in the body like what are the if if somebody comes in and they're complaining of headaches or so forth um from the effects of uh this radiation what does that look like

089um in your radiological Imaging but there is no there's no specific finding because you're not talking about uh an an an anatomical insult to the body you're talking about something that is is so uh it's it's Atomic we're talking about the generation of uh we're talking about what happens actually to the cells is the cell membrane has ion channels in it and the ion channels open and the the interior of the cell floods with calcium and that causes o oxidative stress and then the oxidative stress causes cellular damage so that's the mechanism of injury okay and so it's not it's kind of like well you're it's like if you're exposing somebody to radiation uh and you don't see any physical damage had you know that any damage has occurred we wouldn't know that ionizing radiation

090caused damage either except for what happened in uh the bombs of Hiroshima and Nagasaki where we actually could figure out while people were so far away from the blast site that they were had a certain risk for developing cancer but if we didn't have that data we probably still wouldn't have regulation for ionizing radiation either right but I I guess I'm confused then because your specialty is in medical imaging and you're saying that you can't see these effects with medical imaging so I'm not so you want to know how I got involved not necessarily um so the next question I had was um in your presentation which of course was kind of all over the place um in that it doesn't really seem to deal with science so much as it seems intended to scare

091if you if you pardon my characterization um so on your slide there we have the radio frequency radiation emitting devices I noticed that everything there is something that's come about in say the last 20 or so Years yet electromagnetic radiation has been around us for much longer than that from from any device that uses electricity of course generates electromagnetic radiation right the the range of devices that you that you list here are all ones that deal with communication radiation but of course for some reason television is excluded and as well as shortwave and longwave uh radios so um I find it interesting that you've selectively identified things that are relatively new and somewhat less familiar than um other parts of our of our modern day existence would you care to comment on that sure well

092you know I I had 10 minutes to talk so I can't be too exhaustive I've spoken six hours on this topic and you're right electricity emits electro magnetic fields very low frequencies extremely low frequencies it's you know 50 or 60 hertz and they have health effects too um there have been tons of studies done on what's called ellf EMF and television stations and radio broadcasting stations people that live near those have had health effects too and there have been effects on Wildlife as well so the reason why this is so important now is because these antennas aren't on hilltops miles away from our cities they're on the street right across from your house or perhaps right on the corner next to your house so we' brought these emitters of radio frequency radiation right into our

093neighborhoods and people are walking right next to them people are trying to sleep in their room which might be 10 15 ft away from an antenna the game's changed yeah no I'm well aware of that because I live uh less than a quarter of a mile from one of those Towers it's at the top of the hill within uh sight of the front my front window and behind me I have um power lines and um my wife and I have lived in this house for um getting close to 10 years now and we have not noticed any any effects such as the ones that you've described um it's interesting people you know people have a different tolerance for it and it may be that um you know people have a different uh setup with their

094immune system some people have more antioxidants on board some people have other stressors that are reducing their their levels of glutathione which is the master antioxidant in the body so you know everybody's kind of an individual and they have individual responses to this radiation it's like some people go out in the sun and they'll get a sunburn somebody else won't some people get skin cancer other people don't right and they're both some forms of radiation so getting back to your presentation there was you had some interesting you were you were trying to draw connections that didn't really seem to exist so in your um I don't you don't have numbers on your slides I apologize so on the one about the thyroid you refer to a study that that that caused thyroid hypers stimulation in

095students and then the very next slide of course is full of all kinds of scary things that have to do with hypothyroidism and hyper thyroidism neither of which is thyroid stimulation so would you care comment on that yeah there were three studies that I mentioned on that th I didn't I didn't go into each of them on you know in detail again because of the limited amount of time but there have been a lot of studies to show that the that the radiation can cause hyper thyroidism and it can cause hypothyroidism and they don't they're not quite sure what you know what the difference is except it may be chronicity of exposure so it could be kind of a learned helplessness response when you when you are first exposed to the radiation your thyroid lets

096out too much hormone and then over time it becomes depleted and you end up with hypothyroidism so it more research needs to be done but there have been uh there there are definitely many studies many more studies that I've included on that on that slide that have documented uh thyroid um activity or lack of activity from exposure right sorry Dave could you hold on just a second please I just want to kind of pull the board we've got a a bit over our time we' put aside half an hour I I find this an interesting conversation I but I do want to get a sense from the board if you want to spend a bit more time with this or are we ready to move on or what are what are people thinking here well

097the thing of it is I you know I I would so my husband is a chemist he he's a researcher um he's done a lot of digging into the Articles and things that you have provided um so my personal perspective is if you know if um you know hopefully this conversation is sort of the I don't want to say the last one for a while but the last one for a while um on this topic um if there's questions that people have if Dave has questions and you know I'm I'm happy to to do that but I know we do have a full agenda tonight so Claudia did you I just I would like to just make a couple of brief comments um you know CC I know that you had asked me a few

098weeks ago if I had read what the material you had supplied no but I've done extensive reading through the years back from 2013 you know in part because of my position um in the schools and um there's never been any conclusive um and and over and over again you will read that it isn't just the FCC that that um oversees the and sets standards for the devices in our homes it's the Food and Drug Administration it's um there's all kinds of medical use companies that provide standards for medical use uh nuclear power FEMA um the US Customs and Border Patrol actually provide some health and safety Authority United States health and safety author there's many many um you know organizations and agencies that provide standards in terms of what we put into our homes a

099lot of the research that's been done is on animals and if anybody delves into it they'll see that sometimes it cannot be extrapolated to um humans um many of your links CC in your presentation actually take us to um discussions about screen time and and students using and children using screen time time and their time and and I think you know we could all have a conversation just about generally right the use of of um screens and and that with our kids regardless of radiation um aspect of it um and and over and and I you know worked hard to find articles um that are in particular uh Health healthline.com had several articles um one you know that I thought was both very open to all the the ideas and all the different studies um

100and and provided some suggestions um about but the other thing is like cell phone radiation is often one of one of your articles too I think in reference to um this the Southboro family um the that that's really more about probably cell phone uh radiation than it is about Wi-Fi again and I know Dr Brown mentioned about as soon as you move away from these devices from the uh Wi-Fi uh access points as soon as you move away it's dramatically drop in the radiation so all those things um are true um and I I think that one comparison I see is that you know when we came out with a covid vaccine several years ago there was a lot of misinformation that was used to to frighten people and I feel that there's a taste

101of that or flavor to this um and so you know I just feel as though it's something we need to be continue to observe um and certainly study but to date there there is nothing that that survives um really close scrutiny and so I would just uh Rob can I respond to yeah just a quick response to CL thank you for doing your research um when you were serving on school committee when you were the principal at the what is now our new beautiful David Mendes School building that was back in 2013 in 2018 the US national toxicology program which is arguably the gold standard on Research in the world they concluded a $30 million study that found clear evidence of cancerous tumors and DNA damage from cell phones clear evidence is the highest of

102five categories they can assign the FDA commissioned that study the gentleman who is in charge of the FDA today isn't the one who started this 20 years ago they're all long since passed away or retired Dr Jeffrey shuran Even though three days unpe unprecedented peerreview at the National Institutes of Health concluded clear evidence of cancerous tumors in DNA damage Dr Jeffrey shuran went over to the FCC and said ah we don't believe that let's just keep doing doing what we're doing and you have to do the Deep dive when you looked into uh Jeffrey sher's background you see that he's married to a partner in a law firm that represents the wireless industry so we have these captured agencies up and down the chain and we have a huge regulatory Gap because not one single

103agency has done the top to bottom research that New Hampshire did with their legislative report um and if you're just doing cursory searches that's all mainstream messaging from industry they they intentionally impose doubt you need to talk to the scientists whose life's work is microwave radiation and we are fortunate to be able to put you in touch directly with them so it sounds Claudia that you've been drinking the Kool-Aid a little bit well let me just inter so but I want to comment on those wireless access points if you look at the communic I sent out today there's one in one of our class class rooms at Mendes there is no safe level of man-made radiation in the scientific literature I was getting readings in the tens of thousands and hundreds of thousands at desk

104level in the Mendes School in our sleeping areas the science recommends we be at 10 microwatts per square meter or less literally thousands and hundred of thousands in those classrooms and there weren't even any children in there during the open house so it is a very very very toxic environment and I hope that we will keep this conversation going and as far as the articles that I did send on what Silicon Valley experts are doing with their children when I was brought down to the National Institutes of Health to run the technology panel for the health and buildings Roundtable conference Ronnie Raven is a New York Times Reporter and she was working on a story to talk about the wireless radiation effects and it got killed and this is what's happening in mainstream so I

105I do want to I think Dr Brown did mention that eh trust.org as a as a clearance so I suggest that people look at that um I do want to I do want to make a comment because you were talking about like research and I also had done some research as well I looked at the New Hampshire um document that you had sent I had done quite a bit of digging in some of the links and I also okay so what else the only thing I wanted to just mention was that you were you were saying that um get my CA you know I was looking at I was looking at some research including a a journal of American Medical Association article on um that looked at radio frequency radiation and cancer and the um

106and just I just want to read the conclusion in relevance it says the evidence from these combined strands strongly indicates that claims of an rfr cancer link are not supported by the current evidence base much of the research to date however has been undetermined by uh methodological shortcomings and there's a need for higher quality future research Endeavors which I think is needed finally the role of fringe science and unsubstantiated claims in patient and public perception on this topic is highly relevant and must be carefully considered so I would suggest that you know I I was looking because I I figured if if there was all this data which I actually didn't see like causational data in anything that I looked at something that came out 2022 and who was the author on that um I

107would have to there's a lot of Industry plants even with our most trusted areas that used to be very trusted sources there's heavy industry influence so and I and I I I I just I just find it very troubling that if there is all this evidence it has not risen to the point of publication in mainstream wellknown um Publications like the Journal of American medal Medical Association or the New England um or the New England Journal of Medicine like there like where is the research being done you know we we look at things like lead paint in the80s and what had happened with that and there were clear there there was clear studies cause and effect of things this is not a clear cause and effect the symptoms that are described are literally every symptom

108known to man and if you can if if there is evidence that is clear that actually shows the the the causation canc tumna so so I hear you I hear you but I'm saying I cannot see any evidence that that that shows me that we should take action on something that to me is not clear science I so that no nope that I'm I'm just gonna I'm just going to say that like that that's my that's my personal St on it so we have one person with a hand up all right but let's um Joe or good thank all right so let CeCe know that I did read that that report took me a while to get through it because I don't have the uh the knowledge that everybody else has when it comes to

109you know that scientific uh report but I did read it uh I have some sort of understanding to it but again I'm I'm trying to to learn yeah basically and that's what we're asking for Community B all right thank you Joe and I see there is one person with their hand up uh virtual so if you can unmute yourself and maybe identify by yourself and your relationship to this hearing yes thank you my name is Janet Fitzgerald I don't live in ashin however I am one of many people who are part of Massachusetts for safe technology and I would like to speak up on behalf of people Millions really of us who are sensitive to electrolution and to let those who are doubting the science what's the science there's a lot of Science and there's

110tons and tons of signs that the FDA refused to look at for 27 years this is a follow the money story now I'm going to tell you a personal story I happen to have come up close to a 5G antenna in January while on vacation uh but like Placid anyway within about 50 ft I didn't even know it was there but all of a sudden I was in a stairwell on my way up you know touring and I became very faint and I had what I now know is picardia I also had a massive migraine I went back home here to Massachusetts and saw a cardiologist explain what happened I had to have testing and he told me yes we are seeing a lot of this okay yes they're seeing it this is for real

111and I'm telling you you whoever wants to doubt this why don't you go up close to a 5G antenna and sit there for a while and see how you feel because it is not fun it is scary and by the way I'm the cancer Survivor and I don't want this anywhere near me I'm hiding out in a smaller town in Massachusetts right now my husband has a cellphone brain tumor right here where we hold our cell phone okay um as did many of some celebrities that we know John McCain uh Ted Kennedy Bo Biden can we swear they were by cell phone we don't know but pretty coincidental it's right here anyone who wants to say there's doubt or that someone's trying to scare them that's a judgment call not based on science and by

112the way speaking of science um Mr Kinsman you said you missed some of of Dr Brown's presentation it might have included the part about the ruo effect you were saying well what what can we see that shows that something happened to someone's body go inside the body and that's what Dr Brown was trying to tell you and on the slide about the low effect matter of fact on this call right now there's a very famous scientist named uh Dr Magda Havis and she's in this audience I saw her and I happen to have witnessed a live demonstration that did of this relo effect before and after the exposure to RF radiation than and it's blood clumping blood clumping serious and Dr Brown can tell you thank you I think you know our time is I

113appreciate your your testimony this is life in depth stuff I'm telling please do not cut this whole topic short and cut me short but please listen to CCE duet she's a nationally recognized expert she can lead you to all the experts in the world and Dr Brown also and mon Dr M I certainly appreciate I think we appreciate your passion no it's not passion it's it's I'm I've been affected but Tel has is the largest and most powerful and most evil okay thank you I appreciate that we just um we are a small town select board I I think we appreciate people taking the time and effort to educate us and bring these efforts to us uh I don't think we have the resources and the capability to spend a lot of time on this

114um I for one felt it was important enough to have this hearing and that you've given us some um good information I appreciate Dr Brown and the others testifying and CCE I think we all acknowledge your passion and concern on this we've dealt with you uh for many years on this um I think you've given us some information that perhaps the board members will feel that they will continue to consider as we go through this um I I think our you know ability to um act individually is somewhat limited but I think you know we've been given some tools and some awareness and uh you know if that's how the science keeps moving in that direction perhaps that's something that could be um that could um you know affect how we make decisions I would

115you know I appreciate Dr Brown's um um you know website with the with the information and that's something I'm going to try to take to look at um and uh were there any other other concerns or or thoughts from the board I think um so with that I think I will conclude this portion of the meeting but uh you know CCE thank you again for coming um and perhaps we've started you know a longer dialogue but we can continue on this and I do want to um thank you for the concrete you know things we're talking about that things affect us such as being able to use um wired devices for versus Wireless and you know how we handle our cell phones and things like that so hopefully there's kind of more certainty to come

116on this that will uh help us make decisions in this but so thank you yeah and I appreciate you continuing to do your research because I think once you get away from mainstream and look at the actual credible peer J Journal articles you will find the answers because they're all right there in front of you so right thank you and I hope we will partner to bring further education to the community because tonight children could be sleeping better parents could be sleeping better headaches behavior issues could start calming way down with just a little education so thank you thank you and uh David Kinsman thank you um and the other folks that Dr Brown thank you and the other people that came on okay so with that we'll move on to our next item on

117the agenda um which is we old new business but we're pulling item a which is the agreement between the town of ashin and ashin cable access so the next item would be the FY 25 budget to be brought to town meeting so go ahead Michael okay you sure um so obviously we're kind of like at the 11th hour here um with the fy2 budget uh the board uh needs to take a vote on uh the budgets and preparation for town meeting on May 1st um so we've had considerable discussion at previous meetings about not only the general fund budget but also uh several of the Enterprise fund budgets um and so those have been presented to you um just to summarize uh the general fund budget is 82,9 1,066 uh the Water budget is 3,733

118555 sewer budget being 6,446 55 trash budget being 1,864 668 the fields Enterprise fund at 13,956 and the storm marer budget at 500,000 and then we also have I'm sorry it's not included on here3 yes correct I was about to say I think we missed the cable fund but it was got them confused y Michael just before if if you don't mind Mr chair um just before we vote this I mean we've we've talked about this for a little bit and we've heard from the schools um and I mentioned this to you a little earlier today can you just chat a little bit about the change in our budget from the last two years and how um how we're where we're at in regards to how we're using some of the funds and some of

119the funds that have increased our budget the way it has yeah so specifically this year um I I'll go to specific um specifically FY 25 I'm sorry I should say next year next year's budget yeah um so there's an increase of almost $5.1 million so it's important to note that um almost $3 million of that is related to arpa funds so um I'll try to explain this as clearly and as succinctly as I can so we are if if you recall when arpo was first coming out uh we worked together and the board determined um what projects those arpa funds would be used for and so unfortunately because of the budget deficit this year we need to use some of those funds for Revenue replacement but what we're going to do is we're actually going

120to use all of the remaining arpa funds for Revenue replacement and have a corresponding line item on the expenses for Capital and that is going to include the capital projects that you agreed to as part of um the original arpa plan so if you subtract that out that's you know you're looking at more of an an increase along the lines of you know a little over $2 million so follow-up question for that is those funds then won't carry over to next year's budget which means our tax levy is not going up by that it's just we're seeing that in this year's budget but knowing that when we go into fiscal year 26 budget we won't have those funds available correct thank you other questions on the budget or discussions I mean it hasn't I think

121it hasn't changed no no Michael when do we anticipate getting some solid figures with the state to return to the i' say I know that's a I ask it every year I'd say probably August yeah and I'm I'm I'm I'm serious um um I mean we won't have a finalized budget till August uh so the house Ways and Means did release their budget they actually had a little bit better state aid numbers than the governor's but as you know it still has to be voted on by the full house senate has to go through their process then they'll meet together in conference and come up uh with a compromise so using your conservative style approach that you always have um I'm assuming you're to those same type of figures conservatively again this year as you

122know for 2025 as you have in the past so correct maybe some of the shortfalls may not be as bad as we anticipate if the money's come in from the state potentially yeah but again that's all hypothetical and so we know what the after figes exactly yeah I mean my suggestion would be if we have state aid numbers that come in over what we had anticipated once they're finalized we don't take as much out of arpa on the revenue end so there's no other questions I'm willing to take them up to present a motion okay you good I'm good I move that we approve the budget as presented for the general fund water sewer trash Fields storm water and cable I'll second that motion's been made and seconded all those in favor of approving the

123full FY 25 budget that's right you name right y um say I I I oppose none so the budget's passed so thank you Michael right thank you thank you Michael thank you thank you to Michael and Britney and the staff for pulling this together so the next item is um the vote sign and post the annual town meeting warrant which um you know so has there big any big changes last time I think we probably I don't know if the upper Charles Trail design thing was on it but that's been dropped I presume right um correct um what what we did include in your packet this time was um just a map with those Parcels that uh we're proposing to accept as gifts of land so that should be in your packet um both those

124boes four actually well technically it's the hopkington area land trust okay and the same as the voice SC property correct okay I just want to make people be aware of that because if you look at the math it's kind of confusing I can understand that yeah kind of the same area so um in the warrant that you presented it has article seven appropriate funds for preserving the library interior painting and then oh never mind I read it wrong I apologize never mind okay I I pull back my question it's like oh it's the next page we're good I had the same thing then read as yep now I so I don't know if we are you going to go through each of these or I can if you want me to or I had a

125I had a I think we should touch based on the nbk communities act and we think that's at in terms of town meeting because I know there's been some discussion about it stat and article 14 yeah the last one which I when I printed this out I only printed one first paragraph the rest is just goes on and on but I don't know do we have any updates on that or thoughts Joe or Michael or I I know that out the last discussion that we had um we were contemplating pulling the article but we wanted to meet with the planning board and the select board together before we made that decision time to do that before town meeting it's like AR we meeting next week okay so you might the comprehensive plan meeting that's tomorrow

126I mean tomorrow that's right yeah what's it's not on the agenda I thought we're meeting AGA tomorrow we're meeting on the existing conditions conditions yes it's a comprehensive plan steering committee where JM goldson's presenting the existing condition but we're not necessarily talking about no we're not talking about it's we could I was I always thought it was be discussion okay my bad so we're tell means May 1st which is two weeks right y crazy so I don't so it's we'll keep it on for now but potentially it could get pulled is that it could get pulled at town meeting yes yeah oh all right okay there was a lot of information under that no there certainly is but is that something that we would vote to um say that we would support it or or

127not or an interesting question if we're not ready there may be some changes with respect I know I agree I think so I think typically Michael or people correct me I think once we vote the the warrant at least I see it that's we're approving everything that's on it like we may be approving this subject to final resolution I suppose but we can at town meeting decide to pull it if we feel that it's not ready which it sounds like from the subcommittee's perspective and even some of our thoughts there's still some questions on it we can always post a meeting before town meeting too to make sure that we so whether or not like as a board we decide that's a would we if we were going to withdraw we would have to have

128a meeting before town meeting well a motion can be made on the floor of town meeting to withdraw it but if we as a board want to discuss that ex yeah I mean we typically a meeting anyway for night town meeting okay yeah yeah because there's things in it that I'm like really that has to be part of it but yeah unfortunately we didn't add that we the subcommittee didn't add no no there's certain things that have to be in it be based on yeah right all right so other questions or points from about any of the others I think um when will this I'm sorry Rob I didn't mean to interrupt you when will the U recommendations the finance committee be added to to this we're scheduled for April 23rd okay thank you I

129found it interesting that the rail Transit District language had to be changed because of the overlay yes like so I know it's yeah okay all right and then the other thing the go ahead you're um and then Michael are you planning on having some kind of forum yeah it would probably be the Thursday before um so the to finalize that 6th 25th if that's the Thursday before it's either the 25th or 26th okay I believe the 25th a week from tomorrow yeah Thursday before the 25th yeah yeah okay and we had um you know this the specialized stretch code I was at another meeting um I think oh sustainability had has had two I went to the first one um and it was an interesting discussion but I think they're ready to move ahead with

130that um and I don't know did anyone else did want they're having another Forum Monday night I thought it Builders and yeah for more detail for Builders and things yeah that's Monday night VI Zoom for the so they're putting in a good effort to uh get the word out and talk to people so that's good yep um anything else on the warrant I think we're being asked to uh approve it tonight vote to close and post it I move that we close sign and post the town meeting warrant for the annual meeting that's happening on May 1st 2024 is there a second for second motion's been made in second all those in favor say I I oppose none so Mo uh motion passes the warrant is closed and posted all right thank you all for

131that um okay the next thing is the votes act to propos early voting for the May 1st uh local election and early voting no can't be May uh May 1st uh May 21st May 21st and uh so the early voting would include Wednesday May 15th um 8:00 a.m. to 7:00 p.m. and Friday May 17th uh um 7 a.m. to noon okay and we do did have something in here to look at yeah we something from Cindy so my understanding and I chatted with Cindy quickly on my way in is we don't have to do early voting um we that's why we're having to vote on this but in my conversation with her my feeling was since we've been allowing early voting why not allow it for this election uh I think this is one of

132those local elections that's not going to bring a lot of interest unfortunately because I hate to say this there are no contested races I mean we've seen that before but not with a seat for select board that was open and only one person pulled paper so it's rare but I think it's I think because we've allowed early voting before I would support this for these two days they're not extra days it's not on a Saturday but it allows people to get in and vote if they're not available on the 21st do we know what percentage of um of our vote happens in the early voting days I don't have that in front of me Claudia Sor we talked about it in the past I thought we had some pretty good had good participation I think

133so too it would be interesting you know we'll need to look at that to decide going forward if we want to do early vot I think for local elections it would be to your point Claudia good to sort of look at that and this might give us an indication it's tough though a post as a yeah it's pretty convenient yeah yeah absolutely what's the sense of the board we're going to continue with early voting I I think it's a good idea I move that we opt in to inperson inperson early voting to happen on May 15th 8:00 a.m. to 7:00 p.m. and Friday May 17th from 7: a.m. to 12:00 p.m. again it's just during the week There's no Saturday day but I think that's fine and then um and that's in town hall it's

134in town hall correct so L 11 yeah y I will second that all right motions been made second about adopting the votes act all those in favor say I I oppose none so we'll do early voting this year in person um vote to sign and post the the election warrant which I think was in there any further discussion just just one note again um I was noticing this that uh on the what we got in our package was uh in inaccurate in that it said school committee vote for two for one year and it's actually vote for one for one year and I know Cindy has updated that and given us an updated one but just that we know when we're voting it where it's really just one confirm any other questions on the uh

135on the the election warrant all right I move that we vote to sign and post the May 21st 24 election warrant as amended I'll second motion's been made in second all those in favor uh say I I oppose none so the uh election warrant is is sign and like do we actually physically sign it do I have it here somewhere you've got a lot of signatures tonight oh you're going to do it at the end okay and and just one note for people to know that there's Board of Health vote for two for three years but only one person has pulled papers so it's it's a wide it's going to be a wide open seat so if no one doesn't you know a write in or something then we'll have to be we'll have to

136be um appointing somebody and did you say the um it's too late for nomination papers it's too late to do papers yeah those were due beginning of April you could do a wrin campaign could a right in candidate win with one W in technically this is why it's good to have candidates that take out nomination papers a minimum yeah there probably should be right yeah all right um okay the next is discuss and vote on the renewal the intermunicipal water supply agreement uh between the town of Ashton and the town of hopkington actually I printed that out made don't look at people had a chance to look at it um yeah I meant to but didn't get to it but is there any it's pretty straightforward right yeah Michael do you have anyone to say

137about it no I mean we did delay this from the last time because I didn't really have a chance to to kind of go through it but I did uh since that time and I feel comfortable with this and as you can see Hawkinson signed it yeah yes yep yeah all right well glad we got this back in place um two years right I believe it's three years two yeah two think three yeah two years with two additional terms right and that's good CU I I know there was some issue about them changing their water supply it's good to we continue if you look at this they still have the right to terminate early but okay yes so they're actually in the process of potential um pursuing an MW connection themselves through Southboro so directly

138y yeah so but that's um as we know that's a long Hall um I believe our town meeting vote to approved the hookup was in 2017 and uh that didn't get approved through all the state procedes processes and everything till 2022 so takes a while I mean it took us a year to get it done and that's yes for us it's emergency back why hkin in doing that they geographically they have a lot of land you think they'd have a water supply that they well they have plenty of Wells but they have a real issue with pasas yeah um and a real issue with it okay that that makes sense okay y all right uh I move that we uh vote uh the approval and the renewal of the intermunicipal water supply agreement between the

139town of Ash land and the T town of hopkington with an expiration date of June 20th 2026 I'll second that motion's been made in second all those in favor of the motion say I I oppos None motion passes unanimously thank you okay next one is review and vote to authorize the chair to execute the Covenant for payment of road maintenance with Boston MSA known as Memorial Drive which we touched on last meeting I believe and yeah um so this is yeah this is this is interesting um this is a blast from the past if you will uh so if you recall it was in 2015 that the board signed a development agreement um with Bob Gainer for the entirety of the RTD and one of the things that was part of that was a $75,000

140payment annually to the town imp perpetuity for the maintenance of the NBTA access road now known as Memorial Drive so but the the mechanics of actually getting that money were never spelled out so when we were discussing with um ugc their development agreement one of the things that we did is we were able to get as part of that development agreement a $25,000 payment annually um from them um and so that left $50,000 to that we still needed to find a way to do to get and so we've been working with Cirrus um in trying to basically effectuate that and so we we're successful so so they're going to do the full 75 the 50 the the balance the 50 oh okay so is it always 75,000 every year or so 75 total every year

141and so when ugc when that goes online I don't remember the exact date after it goes online but they'll pay us 25,000 a year and Sirus pays us uh 50,000 a year but it never increases based on no inflation or that no but it's um Lisa's never seen an agreement in perpetuity so um all right okay and perpetu would be worth like five bucks crazy um I hereby move that the select board authorize the chair to execute the Covenant for payment of road maintenance with Boston MSA multif family DST the owners of lot 1A known as Sirrus Apartments pursuant to that certain development agreement dated September 24th 2015 oh oh good so I don't have to read this that's the bond Joe that's the second I'll second okay the motion uh on the um the

142Covenant for uh road maintenance has been made in second and all those in favor say I oppose none so that's believe you have to read that whole thing oh boy we have a clerk review and vote on the sale of the should we take a break we can take a break while well that's so Joe I I believe all you have to vote or read to is basically the end of the second paragraph where it ends foregoing vote Claud are you serious about want to take a break because we can take five minutes well the next is the um the subcommittee all right okay go ahead Joe all right I won't read the whole thing but you want me to read from where what did you say uh how about you start at the top

143and I'll I'll tell you stop all right and just to just to introduce this is start at the beginning I'm at the beginning this is we're reviewing and voting on the sale of the MW sewer bond in the amount of 2 $227,200 with an effective date May 15 2024 and so this is for inii work and I believe Dan and Becca when they were here previously they gave you an overview of of what that work in reminder okay so with respect to that I the col of the select Board of the town of ashon Massachusetts certified that at a meeting of the board held on April 17th 2024 of which meeting all members were of the board were duly notified and at which a quorum was present we're there we're there the following votes were

144announ we passed all of which appear upon the official record of the board in my codyy voted that the sale of $227,200 subor of the Town dated May 15 2024 the Massachusetts Water Resource Authority or the authority is hereby approved and the town treasurer other appropriate Town official is authorized to execute on behalf of the Town a loan agreement and a financial assistance agreement with the authority with respect to the bond the bond shall be payable without interest on May 15th of the years and in principal amount as follows and it starts at 2025 to 2020 uh 2034 in the amount of $2,720 annually for the next 10 years further noted that each of the select board the Town Clerk and the town Treasurer be hereby authorized to take any and all such actions and

145execute deliver certificates receipts and other documents as may be determined by them or any of them to necessary or be convenient to carry the effective provisions of the foro vote there you go and that's it very good oh look we're back perfect timing look at this they were waiting outside okay okay waai do we have AUM you a so I think this is a simple motion right to uhct approve the the sale of the MW sewer Bond someone want to make that motion I move that we do the sale of the MW sewer Bond as presented second all right motion's been made in second all those in favor say I I oppose none so the um motion's been approved okay the next is review the recommendation from subcommittee and vote on the baa and Community

146grants and we did get a spreadsheet who's doing this presentation uh I'm going to kick it off and then Claudia will uh thank you for all your efforts by the way Claudia will will join in um so we had opened up our spring baa Grant round and um Susan did a lot of work on this so thank you Susan for for all your help um and so we had received um 20 applications for well we received a total of 24 applications 20 under the baa Grant which is um 501c3 organizations and four under the select board um Community Grant which is which comes out of our gift account um and so if folks remember um let's see fall was our first cycle under this new policy but we had we had made some changes to

147um to the grant program basically allowing 501c3 organizations to apply for up to $4,000 or if they apply backtack um uh Grant Cycles uh a total of $6,000 and um bless you sorry bless you and for the select board Community Grant um folks could apply up to $1,000 or 1,500 in backtack Grant cycles and the purpose of this is really to um you know our Runners we had um um 15 Runners that ran on behalf of our town plus our partnership with Nord um so we had I think probably I don't know how many how much we we raised this past year I mean Susan you might kind of know ballpark how much we raised this year 25 * three right well some of them raise more yeah yeah and the money's still coming in

148so I would say we'll have a better number come this week okay I'm just just to break in do the runners in your experience they find that they're able to raise the the money fairly consistently or I think it depends upon who you ask and how creative they get because not everybody wants to ask their family and friends especially if they've already done it before Oh interesting but people are able to do it sorry I interrupt no worries no um so what we do is we put out the application we ask organizations to to apply Claudia and I take all the information that um Susan puts together for us on all the applications and we review them and um and then we uh what you have in front of you is the recommendations I want

149to make one small change because we were going back and forth with emails and there was one number that didn't get included in that which is on the second page the top the energize Ashland um the 500 for the grant needed to go under the 5 like it got swapped so just it just didn't get included in the final calculation but um we are supporting um all the organizations that have come to us which is which is amazing and it's all the organizations from the clocker club and the Cub Scouts the Ashen emergency fund for the food pantry Garden Club uh ashin Music Association the PTO ashack um Youth Baseball lacrosse soccer um energize Ashland the um Ram Clinic that we're putting on um llusion Greenup Metro YMCA for Camp um Stone Park music festival

150sportify which is a um a local sporting event um the friends of the public library the friends of the Council on Aging Veterinary chapy Services which provides um support for those who have pet um either um with diagn with diagnosed U with an illness or has passed away um and we are thrilled to say that the 20 grants for the baa um we are recommending to the select board that we fund those Grant requests at a total of $69,500 um this leaves our runner's account um still very very um uh robust at uh 107,000 in change after these grants um these Grant calculations so we will have plenty for the next go around and I'm thrilled just that that we're able to um utilize These funds at sort of a higher rate and be able

151to use to use use them um more in the community so um thank you Claudia and I are like good partners in crime in this and Susan is like our our Sherpa so so couple of questions so the Veterinary chapy Service they're in Ashland yep company it's an ashin it's an ashin resident it's actually been in existence I talked to I actually talked to the um talked to the person that had uh submitted the application and they've been in existence for about 5 years but they became an official 501 C3 about a year ago and they're getting started and so um I offered to connect um connect her to like our senior center because there's certain populations that are would be more um needing that connection and being able to to offer assistance what they're

152doing is um wanting to establish what she calls a warm line so people can call in with um with needs and get there's graduate students that are kind of like going to to um um man those lines and services and that's what this this funding would be for so and and then my other question is we had talked about also requiring company you know people who received Awards if when they come back potentially for other Wards to really show us what they've been using it for um were there any in this group that we had that because they had received Awards before we had gotten a lot of so Susan that was all Susan so Susan had to go back to a lot of these um organizations and require that documentation okay so okay um

153and so so we did wind up getting it and we able you guys were able to review and Y so when we were kind of going through all of this um we wanted to make sure that that that that we had received all the the the information about the previous um previous Grant and also just all the documentation that Susan requires to make sure there are 501c3 one last question so when I'm looking at account balance I see two different balances here so one is the baa funds and the other one is the the select board gift account y that's correct the the lower one the 36 is the select board gift account that's correct okay so so I think the good thing about the gift account is we're able to still Grant those those

154requests um and you know we use that account for quite a bit so um in fact we just used it for the runner's breakfast and we'll use it for we used it for the volunteer breakfast and things like that so um so I think I think it's I think it's a I think I think the program has kind of worked I don't know how Cloud yeah no I think it's a you know the program itself is a great program it it really um you know it helps Runners who want to get in and and it's a little bit less money then they have to raise other wise um gives them an opportunity and it really comes back to the community um and you know ultimately it's really a nice connection um that you see because

155all of a sudden you hear stories um about why people run and and how it supports um sometimes their their personal lives and um but ultimately in this way them supporting their personal lives is really another way for them to give back to the community M and I think um it it really was you know great to read a little bit about different um the types of organizations that we're supporting um you know I you know I have a special place in my heart the the supporting some of the kids things the kids uh the camps um in particular the kids that might you know I I've seen firsthand what it's like when summer rolls around for some of our kids who who don't have a lot of opportunities and and um when they're out

156of school they're really at a loss so to see that some of these kids will be able to go to summer camp um and then the link clusion which is a new 501c3 um you know that actually will support students to go to camp with special needs because frequently they might need a oneon-one it's actually uh 501 C32 again an Ashlin uh family and um former School athletic director who who kicked this off so um just some really great stories it's it you know if you need to have a feel-good moment um go on at line and and read a little bit about these so and how many Runners did we actually have was it 20 25 total and that's how many we can have right right so we have a minimum of 75,000 that

157comes in as a result of that right and did did did we have to turn anybody away this year we did but you never know like where you're going to get the probably the last four or five that I had to fill I went through probably eight people to fill those spots right so this time of year everybody wants to run ask them in October and one one other question regarding the budget the account balance that we're seeing here of the baa Grant does that include any funds from this year a lot of the funds from this year are are in there not all of them because they still coming in okay so yes you won't so even though we're saying we know we're going to get 75,000 some of that's already in here so

158it's not additional to what we're see already okay that's okay that's important to know Susan just to follow the did did you end ever did you um did you were all of them from Ashland did you ever get to the point so so it's really to do this you really should be an Ashlin resident seems realistically because everybody else puts in gets put on our list but unless we go through which has happened before unless we go through all of our Ashlin Runners we don't to so we typically get enough Ashlin residen this year we did I think this is probably the first year I was going to say I think it's been some of them has have been like employees but who didn't live in town and then I remember a couple years where

159the runner was associated with someone who either lived in town or worked in town but they did not so yeah it was nice to hear that they were all Ashlin residents and I think um Susan you had put together like a like a a thing about like cumulative grants that that this program has provided and I think didn't if I remember correctly it was over it was a million dollars or just shy of a million dollars so you know over the years this has really made a difference and I know that these organizations you know I've heard from people that just that that this this this makes a huge difference for them yeah so um so anyway I I'm I'm I said it's it's it's like the holiday is only better yeah so I move

160that we I just want to add I appreciate all the work that you guys did it's very appreciative um we get shut out of our 5013c because we were inactive and I'm talking about the Ashland Day committee um we we we crested some monies we we got $500 out of the because because of the new policy which is great um I'm a little I got a little concerned when I saw U Ashland uh music festival I don't know if that person comes from Ash or not but I know they're they're doing at Stone Park um and they they received a good sizable amount of money they were 513c I get it I understand it but are they I I guess my question is do they have to be from Ashland or this the location or

161the venue is located in Ashland does that make it okay to use that funding so I think the way that we've looked at it is that it either has to be an Ashland organization or benefiting the Ashland Community okay so something that is located in Ashland is okay so and Joe I I do believe like the the organizer of that event that you referring to I think she does live in as I think so too she does okay yeah how she found out about the grants yeah okay not a problem I'm just yeah little sensitive to me right now that's all so Joe I would encourage you know we'll put put on the agenda for the next meeting then please yes thank you I would appreciate that okay okay let's remember make a note for

162the May 17th meeting does anybody else have any questions on anything specific on or anything no okay I would like to make a motion that we accept the recommendation from our subcommittee with our thanks to the subcommittee for the work they did in reviewing these and approving them and of course to Mrs as well yeah uh do we have a second second all right motion's been made in second all those in favor say I I oppose none so the motion passes congratulations and thank you for these recommendations and um Good Luck to all the groups getting the getting the funds okay uh the next was discussed accepting the crosswalk uh located on cival road so Joe you're going to have a presentation on that well I we we've had a couple of presentations already uh

163but if you go down cille Road uh you'll see the work that's already being uh done and it's not completed yet but uh as you take that 25 mph corner by Johnson Street um and cille Road you'll see the crosswalk that's already been put there they actually Mill the road area there uh to repave it and resurface it so it'll be nice and smooth around that corner um the only thing that we as a board need to do is to approve the fact that we will maintain the Lights I've already talked to dougy small this was at a traffic safety uh committee meeting and it was it figured it's about 12 cents a day to monitor the uh the electricity to use the because it's not solar powered unfortunately thought they would be but they're

164not are the lights up no no not yet the B the Bas is there the bases are there uh was because you said they weren't going to that's a St turn them on until we approved it at our last meeting I'm like well there's nothing to turn on in other words they they're not going to do anything until we move out tuition so well all right so um a motion and I know that Evan is waiting very patiently for that answer really oh my gosh would do have anything to add yeah anything you want to add Evan maybe give us an update on the timing uh yeah sure I um I I just uh spoke with uh my contact from the state last week about this um they're basically on hold with the contractor until

165we accept it um Ju Just to be clear the what we're accepting um is is the maintenance of the unit itself going forward the state's paying for the install they're paying for the unit um I think we just have to be on the hook for the electric to it which is very minimal and um and the maintenance uh this was something that from what I understand from the state that um the uh residents uh that live in that area had asked them for um to install that to put a crosswalk there with the buttons uh and they obliged them and now they're just asking the town to um accept that in the future if if we do need to do any maintenance to the um crosswalk signals that we would we would take ownership of

166that so just to be clear it's just the one crosswalk right as you take the left off to Oak Street and it's right there because they're also they're also they also updated the crosswalk um a little further down by Winter Street right they put in some handicap but there's no uh there's no blinking there's no crosswalk there okay so correct we voting to accept the the maintenance y of the electronic of the light yes okay so I move that we accept the electronic crosswalk that will be put in on uh near on cville road I'll second okay motion's been made in second and all those in favor say I I oppose none so the motion carries thank you for the update Evan yeah good thank you Tuesday all right all right just have some reminders

167here May 10th is the deadline to register to vote for the annual Town election which will be held on May 21st 2024 um a um reminder that April 18th at 5:00 p.m. Thursday is the last day that was a correction um is the last day to withdraw nomination paper so that's the April 18th which is tomorrow right um reminder town meeting May 1st at Ashland high school that's in 2 weeks from today basically or roughly um free covid tests still available town hall and um collection Monday April 22nd this is um yard waste right uh oh no um from April 22nd through June 3rd no no collection on May 27th okay and we did the consent agenda so that brings us down to town manager report yeah so I'll just start off uh as everybody

168knows the marathon was Monday um so I want to give a um big round of applause to a number of people first of all our police fire and DPW and everybody who is involved in the logistics and making sure the marathon ran smoothly uh people don't understand how much work goes into the marathon and how long that work happens I mean it it starts you know months prior with the planning uh people have no idea just how involved the security apparatus is and and everything that's that's involved um so many thanks to uh all the all the town employees that um you know contributed and made the U made the marathon a success uh speaking of employees we actually had two run uh Rebecca nvar from DPW and then detective Frank masiello uh Becca actually

169ran on behalf of Ashland and Frank ran for uh cops kids with cancer uh both finished um so congratulations to them and then congratulations to everybody that ran on behalf of Ashland as as you all pointed out it was um you know it's a great program and they're um it's it's nice to hear all the stories and and the reasons why people run so as I was watching I actually saw someone who had on their back the Nord yeah I'm like yeah that's the first time I had seen that that i' been able to other than when we met them at the breakfast but they actually had the Nord on their back I'm like oh that's cool help them out um and so so next on here I just have priority project updates and I'll

170just give you two um so just want to up update everybody on downtown so we are still in the process of putting bid documents together to do the undergrounding work in with buildings um it is taking a little while longer but what we're doing is we're going through each property and making sure that we have detail in terms of what needs to happen uh for each specific property for each specific utility um only because we want to minimize the potential for change orders uh in the future so we're trying to get everything um put in place um so question on that so how long before they are actually completed and because the longer we wait to do to get the bid Out means the longer we wait to do the to do the undergrounding connections

171the longer we have to wait to get the polls down yes so we'll be sending our final comments to um to in order to incorporate it into the final bid documents this week okay so I'd say probably two weeks to put it uh to get it out there so what does that then do to the removal of the polls cuz I'm getting lots of questions of when are the polls going away um yeah I would say you know best case scenario end of the year it it depends on how how quickly um how it it really depends honestly on how quickly eversource can a get a couple pieces of equipment and all the utilities get their wires taken off okay so as that piece and then um just upper Charles Trail update so um we

172uh initially there was uh going to be some funding from CPC for uh the the Dyke Trail portion of the upper Charles Trail um and so what we did is we actually went and looked at getting some engineering quotes and some engineering estimates we only were able to get one but it was significantly more expensive than what we had anticipated so we're kind of I don't want to say we're back to the drawing board but we'll probably present something at the fall town meeting for that motion to go past 10 o'cl all those in favor going past 10 o'clock say I we go past uh last but not least a comprehensive plan it's been mentioned before earlier so we'll be meeting tomorrow night uh to hear from JM Golds and go through the existing conditions

173plan and so essentially that is just kind of a a state of the Town type of uh report where things are now and it looks like you know demographic information different initiatives and stuffff so should be interesting it's a real Milestone and that's we'll be basically joining the planning board is that the logistics of this planning board no it's not the planning it's not a planning board meeting oh it's not it's a steering Comm compehensive steering committee sorry it's a comprehensive plan steering committee and they've invited the select board and the planning board to be part of that and that will be here correct okay like I said that's a that's a big milestone for the rep great and I'm sorry did you say the time is it seven seven okay a little different okay

174um and materials have been sent out so if you wanted to it would I would recommend you take a look at them because there's a lot of detailed information because it's existing conditions and it's was it sent to us uh directly yes it was okay yeah um and are people is this a hybrid are people thinking about being here remote or in person as a select board do we care one way or the other um I have two meetings that so I have to be yeah okay so that's I'm planning on being in person but that's because of steering committee so are we meeting I think brand bry's not able to make it so and we're invited as a board so we'll actually be in called to order okay and you're posted just okay very

175good all right Michael um anything else on that that's it okay that brings us to board report we'll start with our usual and Claudia did you that was quick um no I just wanted to comment um you know on the marathon that that it you know was it's always a very special day for Ashland and uh that you know indeed Mike I did have an opportunity to talk to a couple police officers somebody from DBW and I do appreciate um you know I think uh it the uh police officer said they'd been in training for it for N9 months um and so pretty remarkable stuff um and one other thing just in terms of the police I've noticed I feel like there there's been an effort um on their part to to be you know

176friends in the community and um you know just the other day I I saw a police officer in front of me he stopped to let somebody come out of uh Tilton a you know which is always a challenge to get out onto Pleasant Street and and so it there's been a couple instances like that where I've thought that they are making an effort to be uh friends in in the community and do be kind and and that so that's nice to see um you know I think we we were all all attended and at our sponsored uh breakfast for the marathon runners again like I mentioned when we were talking about grants it was um really really uh moving to to hear different personal stories and uh sometimes it's easy when there's such you know

177so such a massive event going on to to think about the real personal things uh that are going on in people's lives so you know really that was a great event and uh my first time as a select board member so I really appreciated that thank you and then I did um have the opportunity to attend um the planning board meeting or most of it last Thursday evening in which there was conversation um you know two points of particular interest for me was the was the sustainability committee there was a a stretch code presentation that they made um you know I I think um it was good to hear some of that again um you know I I have concerns about the costs associated with it for for building homes it feels like here we

178are we're looking at 40b and then we're looking at this other um end of the was not homes though right stretch code stretch code yeah any new homes yeah yeah new construction new construction yeah in any case interesting yeah I'm sorry to interrupt yeah so so I was just sitting there thinking about you know here we are looking at this and then we're looking at it seems like we're at two um opposing end years ago too and they withw it a because it was just I think it was last spring yeah it was last spring I I remember Joe yeah I remember so in any case um and then then again we talked about the MBTA plan um and again on that you know I share some concerns with some of the changes some of

179the new information we have regarding um you know the Main Street issue and that um that being a 40b and about whether or not it would be wise to go forward this time or to take a deep breath and and uh wait and maybe look at it in December so um so that's all I have thank you thank you U Brandy thank you um just a couple things one um I'm wanted to ask for all of your help so our comprehensive plan uh public engagement period ends on the 26th we are at it's what 70% of goal it's that 80 no I don't think we were at 80 70 a little over 70% okay we're we're getting there but not there yet so we're running out of time um so my ask to everyone here

180and everyone that's still listening is um share this with your friends if you haven't if you haven't done the comprehensive plan survey yet um please do the survey ask the other members of your household to do the survey um and then send an email to um like 50 of your closest friends in Ashland and ask them to do the survey um we want to try to get as much of much participation as possible possible in this and we're running out of time so um the survey is really our best tool to kind of get as much participation as possibley much sell with the meetings in the Box pretty much we're still we're still doing meetings in a box I have one next Wednesday right we're actually doing we're actually doing a few at the high

181school next week so um with kids which is good our high school our high school student hini is um running running with that which is awesome um so kind of into that we are going to be at um the comprehensive plan steering committee is going to be at Earth day which is this Saturday at Corner Spot from 12 to3 and um I saw Yolanda on there I'm going to fill into we were trying to get uh get some more people to to kind of step up and I can now take that off of my board report but um I encourage everyone to come to Earth Day anyway because it's going to be a great a great event at Corner Spot um but come say hi to us over at the at at the comprehensive plan

182steering committee table um and then the one last thing I wanted to just talk about um because the um the Board of Health is doing the ram Clinic again this this next summer um August 10th through the 11th at ke Tech um and they are putting together their volunteers so um they are looking for medical personnel they're looking for dentists they are looking for um most importantly translators because they realized last year that they were um under they didn't have nearly as many translators as they needed so um they're looking for Spanish for Portuguese um because this is really um going to be a a a regional a regional event and again the dates are August 10th and 11th at ke Tech if um if you want to volunteer or know somebody who could volunteer

183um there's a website it's ramusa.org and there's a um a a link on there to to sign up so what does RAM stand for remote access medical so um they come in they set up and they have all the equipment and they have all the the staff so it's free free that yeah absolutely free medical free medical and dental and vision I believe for um for as many people as they can see and fit in in the course of two days which is um not nearly enough because the need is huge so um so anyway looking for volunteers there too so that's it for me thank you right thanks Joe thank you Mr chair um I'd like to uh piggyback what um Claudia said about uh marathon and and Mike about the great job that

184uh everybody did um it was a lot of fun I spoke with u Joe tomz this this afternoon and I asked him how his event went up there he saw a major change up there he said it's family with children he said it's not the old biker crowd he said all of a sudden it's like at tjs at tjs he says it's um it was a great time he said families brought their kids he says now he said we loved it it went there was no issues there was absolutely nothing it was a family event and uh now they're going to start having games and stuff for the kids now from this point on where they saw that it was family orientated and they were very very pleased as the weight staff was too because

185it was capacity and there was not an incident at all so thankful to them and and Joe just wanted me to say you know make that make that a point so which was very nice uh the DPW did a great job getting the roads ready even though uh WCVB made a point to saying that the dot did a great job getting the roads ready for I saw that and I really you didn't you didn't you didn't come by and see what the guys were doing down here from each individual town really no thank you guys you did a great job under staff and you did a super job um I do have a concern real quick um there was some vandalism over at uh The Pavilion at Stone Park and and and I don't know

186why it needs to be done that way but uh we had some windows that were broken uh that they're they're kind of high Ed the thick glass windows uh just to let light through and three or four of them were knocked out uh we went into look for the the bins for green up a land and uh they weren't there but long story short we saw this vandalism and glass was all over the place so we have to go clean it all up um but everything will be ready for uh next week we'll be opening up the bathrooms and uh at the Pavilion cameras up there yeah we do but uh Unfortunately they uh they moved the camera head so it's uh you just wasn't pointing in the correct direction yeah it was pointed in

187the wrong direction unfortunately so you know I just don't know why so I know the police will be doing extra checks as well uh the other thing is that U kidspot needs to be really take Tak taking a look at uh just my observations uh briefly uh that it's it's kind of R run down uh some of the rides uh some of the kids rides and and swings need to be replaced uh General pickup and that location is for kids to have fun it's not a dumping spot for broken toys uh we took 10 of them out the other day and they're broken they're no good so people are just taking their toys or their kids toys and if they're no good they bring them down and they throw them up over the fence no

188that's not it's not it's not a location to get rid of your junk you know if you want to to drop off some nice toys for the kids to ride along that would be great but don't don't throw you know broken toys and stuff over there it's just it's not conducive to uh the environment nor is it conducive for the kids to have a good time that's not what that's for so um hopefully that will uh make an impact to everybody else so with that uh the only other thing I have to say is that we won't be meeting until uh a after May after this one so I just want to uh wish Michael a happy birthday because I know his birthday is coming up on the 21th and you thought I wasn't going

189to mention it did you oh boy oh yeah oh yeah for I forgotten about it no you have not you the 21st the 21st of April April y so one day after 4:20 anyway exactly I wonder if there's a yeah I know there isn't there isn't anyway that that's all I have to say Mr chair thank you and again thank you too for that the work that you did and you know didn't mean to take it out of you just it it's it's near and dear to me we've been doing it for over 30 years and uh for us to get shut down because of the state not because of anything that you guys did just if we can get that funding that we can get that 5013c back that would be awesome so God

190bless you great so thank you and make sure you put it on the agenda for next I've been warned okay go ahead you'll not warn just been ADV so a couple different things so I too want to thank our DPW and First Responders for being out there on Marathon Monday it was amazing how quickly they cleaned up afterwards they came with the sweepers they picked up all the things it was it was great the roads the last Runners probably went through at about 10 after 12 that you know visible and the roads were available somewhat by about 1:5 and they had cleaned up so they did a nice job uh we had a mindes school building committee last night things are still moving forward there's still some parts of the project that are't completed there's

191some field work they're changing some of the parking lot to make some of the access in and out out a little bit easier so that work's being done and then there were some issues with our consom and that's being worked on as well uh let's see next Wednesday I'll be heading into the state house for the 495 Metro West partnership day at the State House oh it's been a while since one that they've done it or two that I've been able to go it's a fun way to meet with people who all the cities and towns that are under the 495 Metro West partnership you get to meet with the legislators and have a conversation uh Metro West regional collaboratives meeting is happening next Thursday 4:25 at 8:00 a.m. uh a couple things coming up

192and to Joe's point we're not meeting again in this kind of meeting until May 17th 15th something like that yeah and so a couple things to think about we've talked about Earth Day coming up on 420 we have Greenup Ashlin day coming up on May 4th it's a Saturday they're still looking for people people to either uh adopt a street or just let them know that you're going to be showing up to grab your yellow bag and clean up an area uh on April 27th is mini golf at the library hopefully you uh if you if you don't get the email from the asham public library or from the friends of the library talking about different events so 4:27 it's a Saturday at night it's the sort of adult version and then on Sunday uh

193428 is the family version and then the other thing I have is also on May 4th you can go to Greenup Ashland in the morning and then you can go to the mini renaissance fair that the library is having uh on that afternoon it's a new event um it was fun Mina our Li um Library director is so excited and they're going to have actually Renaissance dance and food and a lot of fun things that's going to be happening outside at the farmers market location some or I forget exactly we but um so that should be fun if you like Renaissance Fair it should be fun that's on May 4th and that is on Saturday May 4th so again will there be sword fighting uh there is fighting think it was jousting I don't think

194it's jousting but there is some there is some um sign me up fighting I do I get to pick the person I Jou I said I don't think it's jousting but it's it's showing how to do yes so we'll have to see about getting you there Michael no B there you go I don't any that's medieval right it's slightly different yeah little few hundred years later I think oh and one oh sorry one other thing um sorry so we have heard from the community restoration of ashlin's V Village burial grounds so they are looking for volunteers they have two events coming up the first is brush cleanup and treatment of invasives and that is April 27th and 28th from 9 to 2 uh the first day they're starting at the library to talk about what

195needs to be removed and then they're being trained uh volunteers will be trained on how to remove invasive plants then the other cleanup volunteer training weekend is June 22nd and 23rd from 9: to 5: with the rain date the following weekend and this is the big cleanup to learn how to clean headstones and other light cleanup of the cemetery uh and again if you're looking they're going to train people as well on how to do some of that if you are interested you can contact h Nicole and that's spelled n i c k l e at AOL.com that's Helen Nicole um they also have a bunch of stuff on Facebook so they're looking for volunteers to help and i' let them know that I would help promote this tonight so hopefully we can get it

196done um other places as well okay now I'm really done all right thank you I just had um you know we talked about all the upcoming dates and especially um town meeting uh May 1st in two two weeks uh which we may as usual we are reserving Time ahead of head of town meeting in case we need to meet briefly but um that's in two weeks um so the only other you know I had the um we had the pleasure of attending the Hop the celebration of hopton's 100th celebration of the marathon started in hopkington so I think Michael was there and Yolanda and Claudia um and we had a we worked on our attitude we wanted a posi of attitude so uh but they were very gracious and we did uh and um I

197don't who who uh was it Susan that who selected the the wonderful clock worked on the clock yes it was a great nice a lovely clock that was very appropriate that we gave to them uh and I think doesn't work ever yeah it slow always yeah it look nice so it was very nice and there was actually some you know um the you know Tim kilduff who's the I guess the executive director of the 26.2 Foundation which I think or originated in hopkington but is now spreading out and he made a very effective I think pitch to um um have Ashlin and Hopkin working together and Ashlin being part of that whole effort so you know I would think something we should keep them in mind and how we can work with this important foundation

198yeah they supported the the mindes uh Marathon run that the kids do at mind for for many years they've B you know t-shirts or or sometimes numbers or a variety Runners coming from to at some point oh yeah we had Runners from around the world come with with their help yeah um to come and speak to the kids so yeah and he told a heartwarming story of how we lost the start of the marathon due to the convenience of the British royal family I thought damn it they didn't want to walk a mile they didn't want to walk a mile from their their house to the finish line so they asked the runners who already running 25 miles oh can you just run another Mile and 285 yards and that's and that's they redid the

199marathon they had they wanted it to start in front of Windsor Castle and then end in front of their box yeah in the stadium right so anyway um but I did want the other thing I did want to mention uh connection with that um you know I I was chatting with Jack Fleming the head of the baa and um Jack did um indicate interest in coming to visit us at one of our meetings so I said great so I may call him and see if he's willing to come interested uh to come to our May me just to chat at the beginning of the meeting and say hi and stuff like that yeah he might be yeah so not not not now but that's in what three three or four weeks he'll get over it

200but that that sounded Jack so wait who are you he's he's the executive director of the baa oh okay he was there that night and yes yes and um I thought you said Jack leuk but no Jack we should invite Jack too yeah we'll have him come at the same time good suggestion and it was it was just a fun night we did give Muro Kramer as I said that the clock so that was uh very nice yeah what's that they gave Jack some nice the other day Channel 5 did a little oh that's nice yeah yeah that's great it was a nice yeah it was good to see Jack and Karen there that's great all right and I think that's all I have um we did get the invitation to Eagle Scout ceremony I

201think some people are going I may go too I'm not sure we got another one as well yeah so that's a little later I think but anyway it's always good to see that so people are able to go yeah and I may go as well I don't know who else will go sure we've got at the last minute Michael has something oh I'm so sorry folks you reminded me so just two things really quick uh yesterday we swore in our newest officer cam cassella um so congratulations to him but um it's public now so I feel like I can talk about it but um Roy karea one of our longtime employees uh was unfortunately diagnosed with with cancer and um so uh we're um not we as like a town but um people affiliated with

202the town and and really I think Doug is heading this up holding a fundraiser I believe it's on the 18th um over at the fishing game May or April May 18th I'm sorry okay at the fishing game that's great yeah so if you're so inclined um you know please please stop by love to come to that $20 yeah $20 ahead so uh Roy hope you get better and uh hang in there we're with you buddy yeah Roy he's such a good guy yeah thank you for bringing that up M yes thank you um is there like wait how do you get tickets can you forward stuff to us we can forward that' be great perfect 18 okay I think U going directly the right okay all right I guess I will entertain a motion to

203adjourn mer second and we'll see you at town meeting all right thank you all good night we have to vote I