001get good evening everyone and welcome to the ashelin select board meeting for March 6 2024 um this uh this meeting is being recorded and broadcast live by waca TV and live streamed on Facebook remote participation is available using the zoom video conferencing platform any Interruption with our video conferencing platform will result in the platform being shut down uh me me will be continue to be broadcast on waca TV and live streamed on Facebook um so with that is there anyone else recording this meeting um that we should know about just to make the public aware that they're being recorded I'm seeing none okay um so with that I will start with our uh agenda which is um public citizen participation and in in line with our recent uh policy we will limit um each participant
002to three minutes so do I have anybody for citizen participation yes uh CC come up to the mic is there anyone else either here or online could you raise your hand using the raiseed hand function there he ises okay so he does okay go ahead CeCe hi CeCe duet fatama drive thank you again for helping to tune in to the biological risks of today's Wireless technology uh two meetings ago I loaned you all a radio frequency detection meter and I wondered if I could see a show of hands as to who actually took that home or used it in some capacity I did not get to take it home it was who who where is it now do we know uh I think I was I was on vacation last week okay so no nobody
003took advantage of that is my understanding okay um May I bring it back next time because seeing is believing this is an invisible toxin of radio frequency microwave radiation that we're exposing especially our children to in all of our scho bring it back CC I'll I'll attempt to take it home assuming and then thank you I see that you've returned the I have to I have a confession I left mine at home so I will make arrangements with you to return it that's fine um can I see a show of hands if the others actually looked at the New Hampshire commission report I looked through it but not in you know not in detail unfortunately so basically nobody has looked at it the reason why this is important is the Massachusetts joint committee on consumer
004protection has advanced a bill out of committee favorably to do what New Hampshire did and that's to investigate the wireless radiation issue and when you look at that report you'll see that one of their recommendations is to get wireless technology out of our schools it is a neurotoxin it causes all sorts of biological effects and most people simply have no idea because the wireless industry and our mainstream media have major conflicts of interest so you only get their benefits of Wireless technology and we don't want to take anybody's toys away all you have to do is run an ethernet cable with an adapter you will have safe technology that's much faster far more reliable all of the data and privacy concerns are far better protected with a wireless connection so again my ask is that
005we continue to learn together and Rob you suggested at an earlier meeting that maybe a first step is to do a formal presentation to you guys so we can teach you live and then give you the resources to go do your own deep died I'll take that under I think some part of the discussion was how to do something like that and have all scientific sides represented so and by all means one of things we're bring the industry invite them and past experiences they don't come to the table MH so invite them and let's just go for it um and we have other experts we can bring in as well Dr Kent Chamberlain is the uh chair ameritus of the University of New Hampshire's computer and electrical engineering he would be here with me in
006a heartbeat well thank you CeCe so we'll think about that okay so what I'm going to leave you with tonight is the bill that has been Advanced out of committee but we can't wait for higher authorities we've had bills for 10 years in Massachusetts and meanwhile we've just built a beautiful school and put a wireless access point in the ceiling of every classroom in mes what's the bill number that way you don't have to give us the paper and we can just go find it online the bill number is Senate resolve 155 and it is called res is there one from the house as well or is just from the Senate no this one's from the Senate and there's another one out there on Smart Meters okay that's Senate 2152 and we're waiting to see
007whether that will come out thanks C I think we've gone over three minutes so I appreciate your again I do free public education webinars every month I'll leave you each with a copy and seriously I hope you'll join us because we could be helping our kids today okay thanks CeCe great thank you thank you Cece right um Mark do you want to unmute yourself and I think I think somebody already did can you hear me barely you need to increase your volume a little Mark increase the volume how's that there you go now we can hear you okay uh good evening back 249 haon Road and um CeCe introduced me to what she had up there and I'm GNA just say quickly that um even though you're saying you will look at it you will
008see it half the board didn't take the meter home and stuff like that it's a serious problem that's going to need serious taken and the the select B the select on the State House bill is an important read yeah I think so that's basic what that I'm on her side still and she she's doing a great job getting and if you don't keep up with her she's going to put the town behind Okay Mark point9 haon Road as as the tell manager how'd the election go yesterday hi Mark um it went very very smoothly Cindy and her team um including Chris Sullivan and Jean delery and and all the pole workers they did a marvelous job because I tried looking up on the on the town website it said unofficial results and I Tred to
009look up on it and it didn't give any um any fol numbers yeah it should be fixed by now Mark we did have some technical difficulties but that should be good can you say out loud now what what what could have been I'm sorry can you say were oh she said that's 1% yeah Che is oh you asking the percentage I'm asking each each Precinct and and percentage of ashan's Voters that came out yeah I don't have that Mark I can get that to you though about 13 our total was about Mark on my way in I asked and it was about 133% turnout that included the mailin as well as the people who showed up at the ballot and we then whole state uh was was by byid and Trump and uh how was
010the town for that um Mark I'll have to pull it up for the exact exact answers okay you can do that you you have my email right I do have your email I think I've got a couple emails for you yeah yeah it should be it should all be up there by now Mark on the website so you should have all of your all of your answers but we'll send it to you as well how's that appreciate that and I'm all set thank you all right thank you Mark anyone else for uh citizen participation I don't see any okay um so we have about um six minutes before we start the dangerous dog hearing or or resume it I should say is there suggestion to do the consent agenda y I move that we approve
011the consent agenda as presented second any uh questions or discussion on the consent agenda all right so I'll um motion's been made and seconded to accept the consent agenda all those in favor say I I oppos no okay the consent agenda has been passed you want to run through the reminders nice to welcome Max performance back for their Triathlon oh yeah what's that want to go through the reminders oh yeah that's a good idea we uh know you have a few minutes we'll do the reminders uh that's okay with everyone so um the um select board Grant cycle is open and submissions are due by March 31st um nomination papers are available in town clerk's office anybody uh know offand how long they're available and when they're all due I believe they're due by April
012April 2nd is when they're due is when they're due okay so you need enough time to yep get them filled out before then right and um free covid tests are available at Town Hall and our wonderful volunteer breakfast has been scheduled for Saturday March 23rd at 9 to 11:00 a.m. at the community center and Susan is there anything you want to update us on the response or I know there's you've been sending out the invitations how's it looking so I called in the head count on Monday we have about 60 people in attendance we didn't get everybody to respond back but I'm hoping that planning for 60 is a good number you blond is going to take care of opening the building and anyone that shows up and helps her set up tables I'm sure
013she will appreciate that all right and what time um N9 so what time should we show I would say 8:15 8:30 okay that we can get the table set up and table and table cloths and stuff down all right and yard was collection begins Monday April 1st and continues until Monday June 3D no no collection on April 15th which is Patriots Day right or May 26 7th which I guess is Labor Day Memorial sorry I'm moving ahead a few months okay time's moving too fast don't do that please so if you read the hearing notes yeah why don't I do that so I'm I'm going to given that we have a few extra minutes uh for the dangerous dog hearing you'll recall that we continued this from our um February 7th meeting so I'm just
014going to reread the notice that went out that's this letter correct to the to the Ros roscs yeah so this is um uh Ashton select board will conduct a hearing which will be held in person and Via Zoom the meeting will take place at ashin Town Hall uh if you wish to attend virtually use the zoom link uh the hearing is is held pursuant to General art chapter 140 section 157 and section 87-116 the town's General bylaws to determine whether um and and this letter this is addressed to roskam's uh determine whether your dog identified as Cooper an American Bulldog is a dangerous dog as defined by General Law chapter 140 uh section 136a in the event that the board finds Cooper to be a dangerous dog it will also determine what measures are to
015be taken to protect the public in accordance with General Law chapter 140 157 C and uh just a reminder these measures U these include a number of measures including um uh uh euthanasia uh but also a number of other protective measures that could be taken so um I'm not going to reread everything I read at the last one but think given the time I will declare that we are reopening the dog hearing that's suspended at the February 7th meeting uh to make a determination on if Cooper shall be DED deemed a dangerous dog uh based on the incident that occurred on January 13th uh and any measures the board wishes to take uh regarding that um so uh anyone uh speaking or testifying this matter must be sworn in I'll be asking you to do
016that shortly I also um um we will go in order of uh animal control officer Donna Walsh will uh give a presentation and then um um uh would be Kelly and Peter lacass or anyone Pres during the attack on Lincoln will uh will will be given the opportunity to speak and then we will speak with the roskams if they are here and are if they're if they have an attorney other roscam here okay great okay thank you um and I'm advised that um you or you do you have an attorney or is it just you folks okay so you will have you have the opportunity my understanding to ask questions of anyone speaking right into oh this I should introduce this is our uh Town Council uh Steve Chaplan uh who's going to make sure
017we do everything legally and is here to advise us so that's the goal anyway all right all right thank you so I I believe I also have to at least um I should at least generally list the documents that we're going to be presenting here today yes should list the documents and give a brief description of each perhaps just a date in the title yeah so I have um in front of me the a copy of the dog license from the city of framing need a mo motion to open the hearing or reopen the hearing oh okay I'm sorry sorry let's do I have a motion to reopen the hearing yep motion made I'll second okay motion's been made and seconded all those in favor reopening the hearing say I I okay sorry I was
018thinking about the list of documents so I will list of I will talk about the list of documents so I have a see if Framingham dog license uh number of uh violations supplied by the Animal control officer Donna Walsh Donna's recommendation to the select board um and the some other matters that we have oh the an assessment of Cooper which I'm not sure everyone's got we just got this recently um the there's a letter from the lassas about the incident and let's see what else I had in my little pile here viations is that about is there anything else we have um the incident report from Donna Walsh her recommendations um one two 3 four five violation notices which I believe she describes and the uh letter from uh Kelly and Peter laass is that
019a have we received any other written or other documents that anyone's aware of oh I'm sorry and the photographs of the dog Lincoln and the injuries that uh Lincoln sustained okay uh that was for people who couldn't hear um it was pointed out that uh we received letters from some folks and um we not sure we have them do Susan have them were they emailed before the last hearing might have been before the yeah I may Mr chair since it is an evidentiary proceeding if those people are here to testify I don't know that that the absence of the documents would materially affect the proceedings okay all right so let me um so who is who is um considering testifying uh today if you could just stand and raise your right hand or if you're
020on um okay um want see to we sure yeah go ahead so anybody on Zoom they need to put their camera on is anybody on Zoom I see Michael Mike's on there Trisha do if you guys just show yourselves if you can and raise your right hand if you're here to to deal if you want say anything right if you're going to give testimony on the dog hearing it could be the other mik Kane no that's your that's your mic okay I can't I am not going to be um saying anything during the meeting thank you okay and Michael we take your word for if you raise your right if you want to speak all right Mike's not saying anything okay go ahead do you all solemly swear to tell the truth the whole truth
021and nothing but the truth in the matter now in hearing thank you all right thank you okay so we're gonna ask our Animal control officer Donna Walsh to come up to the microphone and just a note um for you folks that are here in person you really need to come up to the microphone and speak into the microphone so everyone can hear you so go ahead uh Donna Donna Walsh Animal control officer for the town of Ashland so on January 13th I was called to full Woodland Road for a dog bite the police were dispatched as well Lieutenant Briggs and officer muy were on scene upon my arrival they explained there were three dogss living next door that broke out of the fenced area and the dog Cooper attacked the a silver lab named Lincoln
022they described the bite wound as severe the injured dog and dog owner had left the scene to rush the dog to an emergency care facility uh that dog spent several days um a good part of a week in emergency care if I'm not mistaken in and out Kelly just keep in mind that people can't hear you that are remote so anyway it the dog spent several days during a week's time in an emergency care facility for to take care of the wounds um I spoke to both Claire and uh Chris rosum and um at that time I uh found that the dog had not been vaccinated for rabies or licensed um I told them that they needed to take care of that I um issued citations for failure to license um I issued another one
023to restrain and muzzle at all times uh I issued I have them here I can probably go back and look at them um but several anyway um so that we had all of the you know the citations in order that we needed um failure to uh vaccinate failure to license complaint of nuisance um so those are the citations that we issued and a quarantine order um I later found after talking to um Mary Beth that also Quinn was also involved in the attack so it was more than one dog um during that week um Quinn was euthanized for her part in the attack that dog belonging to Chris rosam um he felt that was the best the right thing to do considering the severity um Cooper is now living in Framingham with Claire and her
024boyfriend and uh your parents I believe yes so um they live in a close neighborhood um the houses are close together so it's a concern um about what we do okay even though the dog not yeah sorry sorry to interrupt you procedurally is it best for us to ask questions of each witness as they testify like if if um rather been waiting for everybody to be done and I'm also looking at the board is that what people prefer to like we'll ask questions of Donna I think so okay yeah no hard fast Rule and your me go ahead Donna so even though the dog is not no longer living in the town of Ashland um it is a concern that at any time that dog could come back here go to our future dog park
025that's coming up uh anywhere uh go to visit somebody and there's no restriction if we don't um put restrictions on put a restriction on it and is there any um so this has come up is there any kind of legal issues with the dog living in Framingham and US issuing orders that control and framing it no it's good throughout the state anything any decision is good throughout the state y that's correct says that in the statute okay great I interrupt is each City or Community um is it their responsibility to enforce any decisions that we make is that how it work correct correct that gives them um the ability to enforce anything that we deem necessary to keep the dog safe from the public and from other animals uh it wouldn't be our job to
026go to Framingham and enforce it that would be framingham's job but and is the statute is that a state statute so that it would be the same um remedies there that as here yes yeah that's right it's still it's the law throughout the state generaliz chapter 140 section 157 falls under licensing Like Liquor licensing Donna um do you have you you're going to talk about your recommendations as well at this point is there anything else you wanted to add so the recommendation that we have um I spoke to framingham's Animal control officer and um we came up with a u recommendations to um that all that are allowed in the dangerous dog um one would be that Cooper may not be chained tethered or otherwise tied to an inanimate object including but not limited to
027a tree post or building um that just kind of falls under the tethering law um to make sure that the dog isn't left out there for you know an unlimited amount of time that the dog Cooper be confined to premises of The Keeper of the dog provided however that confined shall mean securely confined indoors or confined outdoors in a s securely enclosed locked pen or dog run area upon premises of the owner or keeper and within the confines of such pen or dog run such pen or dog run shall have secure roof and if such enclosure has no floor secured to the sides thereof sides shall be embedded into the ground for not less than 2 feet a dog house or proper shelter from the elements shall be provided to protect the dog three the
028dog that the dog Cooper shall be securely and humanely restrained with a chain or a tethering device having a minimum tensile strength of 300 lb and not exceeding 3 feet in length while being walked outside that the dog Cooper shall be securely and humanely muzzled when Outdoors excuse me that as a dangerous dog Cooper you that as a dangerous dog Cooper shall not permit a child under the age of 17 excuse me to own possess or have the care or custody of such dog that the owner Claire rosam or Keeper of the dog Cooper shall provide proof of insurance in an amount not less than $100,000 insuring the owner or keeper against any claim loss damage or injury to persons domestic animals or property resulting from The Acts whether intentional or unintentional of the dog
029or proof that reasonable efforts were made to obtain such insurance if a policy has not been issued provided however that if the polic if if a policy of insurance has been issued the owner or keeper shall produce such polic upon request of the hearing Authority or a Justice of the district court and provided further that if a policy has not been issued the owner or keeper shall produce proof of efforts to obtain such insurance and that the dog Cooper or Keeper of the dog CLA rosam microchip the dog Cooper for permanent identification and provide information to the Animal control officer of which should should be the town that the dog resides in Li of the listed restrictions the other alternative would be to humanely usize the dog and and Donna you you don't make any
030specific recommendation as to excuse do you um do you want some water you want to take a break get some water um but you you don't make a specific recommendation for uh euthanizing the dog you're you just as possibility right if we don't do that then there's all of these okay any other questions or for uh officer Walsh um I just have a question in terms of um whatever you know uh Remedy or remedy but it's a word here um whatever stipulations we place on on the the dog here how does that follow the dog is is there um uh is there you know do you all have a list where there shows dangerous dogs or or some kind of the dog were to move from one to another we well by law well I
031don't know if it's by law but we would like if we have a dog that we've deemed dangerous here and it moves to another town I believe it is part of the law that we're supposed to [Music] notify excuse me say do you have so the statute is not that spe specific I will say in practice uh police departments do cooperate and share information and you know dangerous dog situations are not unlike that um can go both ways If U one Community knows that they've made an order and the dog's going someplace else they might noty that Community um if the community gets wind of um there's a dog in town they might do a little bit of homework on where that dog came from and reach out to the community that made the order
032and ask for a copy so as a as the dog officer or the animal control officer Donner do you have a list of any animals that have been deemed either dangerous or um you know anything else do you do you have such a list that you for we don't have a list but we know what dogs we have that have been deemed dangerous yes interesting okay well and there is some kind of record of it because we have a family here in town who were they were going to be foster family and their dog had been deemed dangerous and they had to come before us to change the notification of the do of the the status of the dog so they could become a foster family that was that from another town yeah it just
033seems to me like there should be something formal right that there should be something that I mean nowadays right probably not our well there's records I mean there's records there's a paper trail because you you don't want to think that if there were that these heightened concerns that no matter where the dog went that right some people would be aware right oh yeah yeah if there's um and we can call Donna back if we if other questions come up so Donna if thank you and um stay and get some water okay I think Jen's getting right so I think next I'll call ask Kelly and Peter lacass if they care to come up and you can come up both together if you like and um we have your uh letter from uh dated Wednesday Jan
034jary 17th to us I'm not sure that I have a lot to add to what I wrote in my letter um I will say that I am so sorry for the situation that you guys are in they've been super Cooperative I know CLA is working really hard um to to train Cooper and to have him change his way I in my heart of hearts don't believe that can happen I saw his face um he the the attack was completely unprovoked the dog was walking through the yard the other three dogs came like out from under their fence um in a in a it was so fast and they circled once around and Koopa just latched onto his back and Quinn followed and Chris I'm sorry that you put Quinn down I know this is really
035hard for everybody I can't imagine I can't imagine we had to put a dog down but I will say my dog did this to another dog he would not be here today I love my dog and I know that CLA loves her dog too but I have to have it on record that I believe in my heart that all you're putting your dog through right now is all well intended but I don't believe that he can be reformed and I honestly feel that it will happen again and I want it on record that it's not going to be because I didn't put up a fight to have that dog euthanized I know that breaks people's hearts and it seems like a mean thing to say but if you saw what happened that day you would
036probably think the same Mary and Mary breth can speak for herself but I I was screaming and she dove in like she was jumping into third base and tried to grab those dogs and she could not pull them off my dog and my two brothers Tim Kane and my Kane were kicking that dog in the head and he would not release his latch on him and his face was cruel mean I I I I can't think of a word for it but it was traumatizing and I am so sorry I know this is hurting Claire a lot um anyway I okay thank you I don't believe he can be restrained and I also think that muzzling a dog and keeping him on a leash for the rest of his life is inhumane and I don't
037believe that like a sex offender unless you register the dog in the town you move to nobody's going to know he's there I don't believe that's going to get followed up on so I pray it's not another child if it happens again thank you thank you thank you um any questions for them I guess so okay is there anyone else um that wants to speak um on behalf of the complaintants um anybody remotely or here and then go ahead Mary Beth okay go ahead Mike yeah can you hear me I'm sorry I'm I'm at the airport I'm traveling so I'm not prepared to speak tonight I'll just back what Kelly said uh that I was there that afternoon and it was horrifying to see uh I have never and sorry Claire again like Kelly said
038I have never kicked anything so hard in my life that dog was not releasing um but other than that everything Kelly said is accurate and clear uh and I've got nothing further because I don't have my notes with me I'm I'm about to get on a plane so I apologize for that that's all right thank you Mike Michael anyone else Mary Beth did you want to so I also don't have much more to say than my sister um and I feel horrible Claire I can't even look at you CU I'm feeling horrible about the whole thing and for your Dad too the good neighbors um but I was beyond traumatized I did dive in and I did grab both of them by their collars and stayed on the ground till my brothers came and did
039what they needed to do but they weren't letting go of Lincoln and to see my sister screaming and to hear the dog crying will stay with me forever um I feel traumatized um I'm not comfortable still letting my dog out I we have a big fencon area for my dog I am grateful that my sisters I mean I'm grateful that my dog my brother Tim's dog and my brother Mike's Dog were already back in their cars heading getting ready to go home and my dog was back in my house because if it was 5 minutes earlier they would be dead they would not have survived that Lincoln's a big dog and that's how Lincoln survived that I love dogs and I have put my dogs down when they were sick and I never want to
040see people have to put their dogs down but the only thing I can keep thinking of is I can't imagine Cooper's life being led the way Don had just described he would have to live his life and that's no way way for a dog to live and I am sorry I really am sorry and thank you thank you Mary Beth okay anyone else uh um sure which is unusual actually the this injury occurred between mine and Mar best home we live next door to each other and the only thing I have to add to that is if the police the two policemen had arrived 2 minutes earlier Cooper would have been [Music] dead okay thank you so I understand um the roskams are here um are Claire do you want to come up and make
041a statement um talk to us a little bit um you guys kind of know everything that happened I felt really awful for a very long time and I still feel really awful for everything that happened um I've been trying as quick as I can as we can to pay back their family um for the money that they had to spend bringing Lincoln to the vet um my dog has never done something like this before and it kind of confused us all um he lives with two dogs my boyfriend's family has a dog as well and he gets along with all of them um we would bring him out all the time and I it was almost as shocking to me as I guessed them cuz they were actually outside I was inside I was in
042the shower I heard my dogs barking I had gotten out of the shower I'm in my towel and I look out the window and I see that they had a dog that I've never never seen before um that was kind of near our fence but on their in their yard and my dogs were just barking and I tried to in that moment I'm watching and I start putting my clothes on and I just see the fence break Cooper jumped on the fence and broke it one of the wooden panels and I couldn't even move fast enough I just went outside and I called for my dad um he was napping it was Saturday and he got out there before I did I was still getting dressed and oh my God she was trying to separate
043the dogs and by the time I physically got over there she had done it she separated them and we were trying to bring our dogs back inside um that day I emailed 10 places even a behavioral therapist in Boston just to see what is going to be best for him I got two physical opinions two physical cont consultations on Cooper who both believe that he can be fixed um and that they think that they can work with him and that he lacked basic training like sit and because of that his mind was just stupid essentially and I just believe that my dog deserves a chance at life to get better and I guess that's all I really have to say other than I'm trying everything I can to help them in every way but there's
044really nothing I can do cuz it was traumatic but I do believe that my dog deserves a chance at life um one more piece I wanted to add as well is when my do when my dad took his dog to be euthanized he did actually take both dogs to be euthanized um Donna helped him schedule that and when my boyfriend found out he actually called the hospital to find where he was um cuz we didn't consent to that um I I believe that if it's up to anybody it's up to you guys um but that's all I have to say and thank you for your time and I'm sorry that any of us have to be here today hold I think why don't you stay is Richard here as well he's right there he wasn't
045was he involved at all there or he wasn't there that day no um so one thing we received this uh Claire this Boston doctor are you prepared to speak I brought just a few um I don't know if you have anything else but I brought receipts we went to Home Depot the next day and bought a ton of Fencing Equipment um to get started immediately we actually got a panel in but it started snowing that week so we could is in framing him he's no he's in framing him under some sort of restraint right yeah no we have well no right now he's in southb right there but when he was with us he was in framing I don't if it makes sense to summarize what we have has everyone else seen this um yeah
046um have you folks aware of this so I I don't know I guess I it makes sense for me to kind of summarize this evaluation or assessment sure sure um who is this person that's this is Georg o and this is um an organization called Boston dog dog dog tour yeah um he's he has a license um he's licensed I he's insured he has a three-year um guarantee on Cooper that if anything were to ever happen he'll take him back um and retrain him so he's Cooper's with him now being trained and he is he's is this he's saying that this is an assessment of Cooper yes um so I don't is there anything you care to say about this do you I mean is he making some sort of um commitments or representations that
047there's going to be particular results with Cooper is that um yeah I I don't have it in front of me but I believe it does say on there that um that so far is doing very well um and getting along with all of the other dogs there and he believes Cooper is making great progress and that he's going to be a new dog when he gets home so can I ask a question on this please um I think this is great that you're doing this um this is always dog dog hearings are always the hardest and certainly um many of us have been or still are dog owners so we understand in regards to this it talks about how Richard will be trained to work with the dog will you you will both be trained
048to work with the dog if we okay he's just been kind of the main contact with the guy so yeah okay mean um and then I did have other other question you said this is the first time that you've seen this behavior in Cooper yeah um he there was um he has been attacked at a dog park before I used to take him to dog parks all the time but he actually a dog attack him so he had been attacked previously how how long ago a year and a half ago okay I haven't I haven't taken you haven't taken him to a dog park since then well that can certainly indicate um right if a dog has been attacked it makes him a little more likely to totally okay that's all the questions I have
049right now okay thank you other questions for Claire or are about this present this material yeah I guess I have a couple of questions um go ahead you know I wondered what the data for success is for this company um and what sort of you know I did go online and try to review all the reviews on um the business and they were all very positive but there wasn't a lot of detail in terms of what sort of um dogs he had um you know it seemed like there was a big range sometimes it was just sort of your typical training and sometimes it was something U much more significant type of training like in this case would be so I kind of wondered um about you know what sort of data that this individual
050would have about the types of dogs that he's had success with um and what what the long range time you know what did it look like three years out or and me he does talk about three years and and what sorts of I I just felt like I needed more information from him um um can I just ask you a quick question um didn't you Donna if you say feel free to go up to the mic or Richard or Donna who she I was on the day so I that's okay it's this is not regarding the day now this is regarding this program and the and and its success I just didn't you tell me that he actually knew Donna at all yeah and that you guys kind of work together sometimes um yeah um
051his name is like very hard to pronounce it's on the back I don't want to o g e v o r g he says he does like some volunteer work with sboro Boston dog d o subber some volunteer work there maybe um but anyway um you had a friend whose dog I believe got trained by him and he recommended him to us I had visit he came to our house to see Cooper and before that I had broughten Cooper um I forget the name of the town but up near Lawrence to check out another training facility um and we we're going to go with that one until he found this guy um I liked how he came to our house I like how he doesn't use any sort of like intense therapy like shot callers
052he does um he monitors the dogs with clo social interaction to safely reintroduce Cooper to dogs and kind of see what his triggers are and what is going on in his head so that he can show him that it's okay um it's a two twomon program so it's not just like two weeks he actually stays and then we have to go there and then he comes to our house and he shows us everything in all different sorts of ways um but I just felt really confident and comfortable with he has seven dogs of his own his dog hopped out of the car and he said pee and his dog peed on the floor it's just I'm not saying that that guarantees anything aggression wise because my dog has a problem clearly um but he specializes
053in aggression training um I believe he has college degrees in dog in dog science or animal science um and he does have several licenses that um I should have broughten them with me today I'm sorry I didn't but I do believe that they're public record um if we did want to look them up at all um I just just a so your your intention is to have Cooper finish this eight-week training program and then and then what come back to live with us in Framingham and did you are you aware of the recommendations that the dog officers in framing him and you're aware the the recommendations that Don has made yes visiting so I'm I'm just so was your dog visiting Ashlin so your dog was visiting my dog lives there her dog was visiting
054her she do Lincoln doesn't live in Ashlin Lincoln lives in no but but your dog is now in framing him my dog's in Framingham well except when they're at this okay yeah and then your dog is going to go back to framing him yeah uh sir if you want to say something I can kind of clear that up if you could come to the microphone yeah just identify yourself um and how old is Cooper four four so but Cooper's you're GNA have a secure you listen to Donna's recommendation and yeah you're going to your intention would be to have Cooper go to Framingham with those kinds of conditions should we discuss that yeah as of now until we figure out uh where we're going to move forward okay and Sir if you want to come
055up and identify yourself and what your I'm uh my name is Chris rosam I'm the owner of the property okay you're the Chris in okay the CLA and Richard were living with me at the time that's why Cooper was there right um I didn't see the incident I was upstairs I'd been sick I woke up to the barking and a level of barking that is unacceptable to me so I was on my way downstairs not in a big hurry The Barking stopped and then I heard like screaming so at that point I sprinted down my stairs out the front door over around the corner to the where the dogs were and I saw on the way down that my back fence the corner had been split open uh so I didn't see the event I
056was just there for the aftermath um I tried to secure my two dogs Quinn and Cooper I guess Lucy was back there I didn't really see her um I when CLA came out I handed Quinn off to Claire to get her inside because Cooper was still fighting at me trying to get back and um got them both inside secured my dog door that takes a piece of wood and some screws um and then at that point um the police had shown up once I'd gotten that all done so I went back to talk to them find out what happened in their eyes so there were three dogs involved in this well only two we have three and Lucy at some point came through the breach Luc Luc my my other dog but was not involved
057in the attack to my understanding had no part in okay so it was just Quinn and Cooper right that were actually attacking Lincoln so what did you want to clear up you said you wanted to clear something just that that clar and Richard were living with me and that's why Cooper was there and then yeah and now they're living in Framingham yes okay well the Southboro is a residential program for the dog is that true so he's there for two months and no it's okay right just want to be clear and then does the trainer know that the intent would be that well first of all I mean the dog if if these are stipulations that we put in place that the dog would need to be following those stipulations in South borrow too and
058that then when the dog was released from that program in two months he would come out and be living with under those same um requirements and and what does that do to the dog psyche I mean I'm not a dog psychologist I don't know but if the dog it just on some level it seems like we're trying to do two things that don't align um and I'm not sure how to get around it um well I mean I the only thing I have to say about that is I know we don't have a much of a yard in framing him so I actually have to walk him um but he has this muzzle that barely touches his nose he doesn't mind it they actually train the dog to get up and like want to put
059the muscle on they wait and they adapt to it and it becomes yeah a new way of life um but they are trained to adapt to that and walking him I mean he won't be in any sort of CH like Runner or fence or anything like that um so I mean that's well I have to say on that so the training then in part might be to get him used to this new way of life for him wearing a muzzle always being Tethered to a person yeah so he actually doesn't leave the property or hasn't left the property yet but when he does there he is muzzled and he's kind of currently getting him really adjusted to it so interesting other questions yeah I just I just a quick clarification you're saying that the Y
060uh where you're living right now now doesn't have a yard big enough for uh Cooper to be Tethered on an outside Runner or anything like that is that correct I mean it's big enough it's just we there's no fence there's no it's it's open it's completely open well there there's a fence on two sides and then a shed so the back isn't fenced okay but like there's some chicken wire like it's not really a fence it's not anything that's going to secure that dog in that area so there's like a p there where like a pool area so that part is fenced in cuz so you're not going to be letting loose in this backyard is what you're tell basically that's what you're saying okay it's just not the whole thing that's open it's just
061a section of it whereas like the pool is just a note you have to speak into the microphone otherwise people can't hear you that's okay the pool just yeah so the pool basically is like the fenced in place by law pool has to be fenced in so that's thank you other questions um for these folks I just have one more question the dog that your dog was attacked by at one point mhm do you were you did you see that attack M and what kind of dog was there with my buddy you weren't there on that day oh no I wasn't there I'm sorry I wasn't there it was it was him yeah he was a little bit younger it was um I told her the story that's why I she a little bit nervous
062but um it was he was like right around like becoming a teenager so essentially step up a little to the microphone so essentially he was like a bit of a scaredest dog so anything you kind of just get her off um and this other dog no no it was a little bit bigger than him so essentially he just kind of barked at him and then he like ran over to me and kind of like bit like try almost tried to bite him you know what I'm saying like going towards him he just kind of tucked his tail ran to me I picked him up the dog owner kind of took his dog and after that day like we were kind of like oh you know and then from there it was kind of like he
063was a little bit skittish about other dogs you know so we kind of like separated him a little bit but he's always good with other dogs you know we take him like to he sees my my mom's dog maybe once a year sees him he's good you know okay other questions for these folks or we I have question you can come up come up to the microphone and um probably you can address address your questions to us uh Kelly well I I just actually had a question for Claire because she said that this was a first event that he had never done anything like that before but in conversation and text messages since the date of this incident I thought there was a time where he did bite somebody and harm a cat no okay
064so indicting uh the response is no to your question is that correct um that does is there is there anyone here that knows any any uh time when this dog has evinced aggression towards people or children do we have any indication of that I know that was something Kelly you indicated interest in anyone yes sir any so uh I had let Donna know this but um Cooper did bite me at one time um I'm not a professional but I've worked with a lot of dogs I've been bitten a good number of times not by my own generally but at least six times I've been bit uh the last time before that well pull got a hold of my lip and did some serious damage I haven't shaved my mustache since then was there something that
065happened that you think made Cooper bite so I listen I I I'm going to be honest I I blame that event on myself when they came to live um Cooper and Lucy my pitbull were having a rough time with each other and he was a little hard on her in my opinion um Luc Lucy was overly defensive you know she'd kind of become Alpha and then Cooper came in and he wanted to be Alpha and they were having some confusion and trouble with food and one night I was feeding them both bacon in close proximity and a piece dropped and they got into it and I reached in to pull them apart okay and he got me um it was very quick um he probably thought I don't think it was intentional and the reason
066I say that is he showed extreme remorse for three days after that I came home the next day and I said Cooper what's that and he tucked his head down tail between the legs outside he didn't look at me for three days so listen I'm going to say this um I care about everybody here right um in my opinion I'd to put them down that's me and history shows that that's what I try to do um my dog's down for her part yeah but that's me you know if we Liv south of the Mason Dixon I'd have Tak him out backing it have been done you know but he's not my dog but when I was told that it was going to be all on me that's what I was going to do they were
067both going to go down period that was it my view I'm not the owner they prove they are um but that's the truth okay you know not too many people know about that I didn't report it it's not the first time I've been bit I didn't think he deserve to go down for it it was kind of my fault in a way being kind of stupid but unless you have questions that's all I have okay thank you Sor that was thank you all right um is there any other information we should um consider does anybody have anything else that they want to tell us about this before we go into comments and deliberations okay so I will so this is the comment and deliberation portion on our uh on our part um and then you
068know following deliberation uh which I think we'll discuss our actions we will close the public hearing and take a vote so there's anybody questions deliberations thoughts go ahead Claudia yeah so I have a couple I guess kind of procedural questions so um if if we were to put certain orders in place um is it for specific period of time and then it could be reviewed or how how does that work we play put orders in place and and nothing happens unless there's another incident or um we it's actually been too in different ways for some dogs based on their activity or what has happened we have said you need to do these certain things and then we'll review it in 6 months or 3 months depending on what it is and others we just make
069the determination and it stays in place um unless something changes along the way so it's been it we've done both we've had both issues so so potentially we could we could put some some orders in place and then ask to hear from the trainer at some point or and that's something that that's within our purview and your experience Steve I've seen boards Do It um you know the statute doesn't explicitly say that you get to revisit at a certain point so typically what I advise boards is that if you know you put a condition in place and somebody comes back and they ask for you to modify it uh you are the hearing Authority so that um that you know that would be another hearing like this one a formal hearing with the same rules
070and procedures um not not really it's a be a different posture because the the posture here is there's been an incident you're an investigatory uh body at this point essentially invest you know taking testimony so if um you know if the owner comes to you later and says you know hey circumstances have changed X Y and Z it's a whole different ball game now we'd like you to relax you know condition a or something like that you the law doesn't preclude that it doesn't expressly allow for it and um you know this is a little bit of a um lesser traveled area of law in the court system so there's not a robust you know body of case law out there telling us that you can do that one way or the other you know
071what I what I wouldn't do and what I'd caution you again say I I wouldn't put an order in now that you think needs to be made more severe later that's really my question because you the statute does not permit you to do that and I I would not want to defend that case if that's so in other words not choose to hear from the trainer in 3 months and and have him say that it's not effective or he's has concerns and then choose to say euthanize you'd say no don't I I would I would not advise the board to do that yeah you want to go severe and then if you can lessen it up we can lessen it up but yep others uh speak up if you have thoughts or proposals to make
072um go ahead I I'll go um as always as I said early these are tough and having watched as a young child not young but my own dogs attack each other seeing dogs get attacked is traumatic and hard um but I'm also the kind of person who feels that if there is a way to allow this dog to continue living who am I to decide I'm not its owner um if a life with a muzzle is appropriate or not I think the restrictions that Donna has recommended to us in regards to if it leaves its property it has to have a muzzle on it can has to be a short leash um I would rather go that way and certainly the fact that they have already sent it and are working to try and train
073the dog I have seen some dogs be retrained um and it's certainly the fact that I mean I know we've sat here and required owners to send their dogs to training so the fact that they've already made that decision and they're investing in that for their dog I think that shows that there are owners who are are trying to do the right thing for their dog so my personal recommendation and I don't know where the rest of the board stands would be um to not force it being euthanized I I think the fact that you know your dad tried to do that that was his way of handling it I would say it needs to finish the training but then the requirements that Donna put in place of um you know it has to have
074be have a muzzle and it can't just be tied outside I think that's appropriate um that it needs to stay confined you know if you were to put want to put it outside you'd have to create some kind of enclosed kennel um and you know maybe he it does not come back to Ashland I mean so you're living in Framingham now oh we can't say it can't come back to ashin okay then I that's fine but I would say that um you know putting a microchip on them would make sense the insurance I think everything that Donna stated makes sense in regards to uh um muzzled humanely restrained um chipped and the insurance I think if we if we do those can I just make a quick comment too sure um regardless of anything that
075happens anything I will not ever bring my dog back to my dad's house near Woodland Road ever just for the sake of how I care for my neighbor and I know how she feels now about him regardless of if he is changed or not that's a positive thing to hear I just wanted to confirm that as the owner of 292 he'll never be there again okay okay thank you um I I have a procedural question so yep Claudia brought this up earlier so this dog is now at a training facility in south barl Y and I we don't know how that dog's being kept there but it sounds like it's doesn't have this sort of thing so how would that the dog is going to be there for the next two months well I think
076I I would think it would be when the upon completion of the program and when it gets returned back to its owners these are the restrictions when it gets returned to its owners after the training I think the the orders we can also certainly give these order to the person who's doing the training yeah I think but and it sounds like some of that's being done anyway in regards to a muzzle and stuff like that so I would think that we would want the trainer think we want the trainer to start working with the dog with those restrictions in mind because who's already ready for this okay a couple cases that's kind EXA so why don't you come up here again because I want so is is this person is your trainer aware of these
077yeah so specific and he said that he could work with this is that so he he told me that he's already dealt with a bunch of cases where he's already like saved dogs in this type of man right but these are very specific specific ways of handling the dog yeah well he's on a muzzle now he already has one and the one the CH the thing that he uses is specifically for that type of breed of dog so the equipment that he needs to so do you what so we actually have two Hoops that we have to jump through the the first one is there's a statutory definition of a dangerous dog stat defition answer that one I think so that someone would need to make motion for a fin right I have the notes
078right so we need to vote whether he's a dangerous dog take that vote but we have to do that after we close the hearing correct that's that's right yeah okay and then we need to decide what restrictions we're going to apply to this dog and the timing of them that's after we CL close the step one close the evidence step two dangerous Doug nuisance Doug neither all the possibilities and then step three remedial measures if there's a fining so yeah go ahead I have a question for for Richard and Claire so given all of this given given what could potentially be Cooper's future um do you feel like a you can control the dog like re like because you know the training is the training is one thing and then the the other part is
079when the dog comes home how how that dog is going to be reintroduced and I know that there's a whole program here and that's but at the end of the day it's going to the two of you controlling this dog um so you know we want to make sure that if we do put conditions on Cooper that it is something that not only can be followed but that is is something that is um doable for both you guys and the dog because because I think that's part of it too it's it's it is it is very restrictive what we would put as far as conditions on this dog and I and I I know like it's it's hard like these you know like Yolanda said these are this is this is part of a family
080I mean I'm a dog owner and I'm listening to the story and you know you know my dog I can't let off leash because she has anxiety issues and things like that too and you know it's almost like one incident can ruin families MH um and it's heartbreaking and it's heartbreaking for everyone um so my heart goes out to all of you guys it's it's but it's it's you know I I feel like you know I'm I'm an eight-week program is an is what I would think a pretty intensive program for this dog um so I mean I'm I'm torn because I do feel like the life for Cooper is going to be very restrictive um but I I I feel I feel like Yolanda does I feel like that that if you are willing
081to commit to the program if the dog is willing to commit to the program um that that you know potentially that you know Cooper can have you know have a life so um and I I don't I don't know if I I don't for a first incident I know it was a it was a horrible traumatic incident for everyone I don't know if I'm if I'm willing to to to put the dog down at this point um but like I I I it's it's but it's it's it's a hard situation because I do feel like this the life for the dog is going to be extraordinarily restrictive and it has to be because if there's another incident if somebody else gets hurt if another dog gets hurt like well we are no I I think
082we're it's our deliberation now and we we've gotten your input and so I would say if you have something new to add if you're ready to close the evidentiary hearing and have a deliberation you would need there something we the opportunity to speak you have any questions I do okay uh counselor I just there was a question and I I I don't think I heard it correctly but any decisions that we make tonight especially when it comes to Banning the dog are you telling us that we don't have the ability to ban the dog from the town that's correct the statute specifically precludes an order banishing the dog from your town okay does it preclude the fact that we need to be aware that the dog is in town and if the dog has a
083chip will we be able to decipher where that dog is constantly constant surveillance so what one of the orders that you can make if you find that the dog is dangerous is that the dog uh be uh able to be identified and one of the ways you could order that is with a chip right okay which is in the information that we're thinking of adding okay the other the other thing that I want to add to uh CLA and Richard the program that your dog is in right now is only as good as what you do when that dog gets out of this program so the support and structure that that dog is getting right now will will only be as good if you support that program if you don't then it's a waste of
084time and that's actually one of the reasons why I chose not to go to the first place we went to because they are shot callers and they don't really call us to go in it's kind of he stays there for a month it's only half as long and it's just like more money honestly and I didn't see that the same to us okay I just want to make sure that you folks both realize that you know the success of that training is is going to be on your shoulders once that dog leaves that facility all right all right any so I will you know I will Kelly if you want to have some if you want to add something new to your previous statement I will let you come up did you still want to
085say something so part of my question was what Joe just brought up so that it's you're taking awesome steps to take care of your dog which you probably should have done when he was a puppy right so the followup after this training is going to be rigid for you and if you didn't do it 3 years ago when you got the dog how can we be sure that you're going to do it now it's it's going to restrict you you you're not going to be able to leave the dog with someone else your daughter is not seventh there was a comment about leaving the dog with nobody under the age of 17 you've got a young daughter in the house um what about when she wants to have friends come play at the house you
086know it's I I understand you love your dog but things you have to think about moving forward if there're if if you're not going to vote to euthanize the dog you guys have a lot of growing up to do to be responsible dog owners and not let him do this to God forbid a child my dog is fine I'm over it his his wounds are healing and he's running and he's fet and he's good but as soon as I take him for a walk and we come up with another dog I'm the one that's shaking not my dog so they the dog was not secure at the house that he was in he was getting out a lot I mean I Mary Beth told me several times she had to bring them home so is
087that all going to turn around in two months and all of the sudden you're going to be these like hero go dog owners that aren't going to allow this to happen again again that's my concern cuz if it's a child I know you couldn't live with it and I could not live with that because a child in that backyard that day would be dead thank you and uh did you want to respond to that or say or um I guess just I mean I definitely could have done more with my dog when he was little um that's totally on us I just had well I think part of Kelly was asking about your future and how you will handle these situations so if you could maybe address that cuz I think the board um I
088mean I am as you guys can tell I love my dog um I think we're committed if that means that my daughter can't have her friends around if that means that I can't have him around young kids we'll build him a kennel outside and that's where he'll stay when she has friends over I mean the links that we have to go are the links that we will go and if that's what we have to do I mean when I had him when Cooper was born I had my daughter two months later 3 months later I just wasn't thinking on training him I just had so much going on and clearly that was probably the biggest mistake I mean not only that but okay I guess yeah anything else all right I miss all right I
089think if there's nothing further we're I think we're ready to close the evidentiary portion of this hearing I that we close the hearing on the dangerous dog motion's been made in second to close the hearing all those in favor say I I hearing is closed so I move that we vote to uh deem Cooper as a dangerous dog I'll second that motion's been made U to deem Cooper a dangerous dog has been made and seconded all those in any further discussion on that I don't think that all those in favor say I I oppose none so Cooper unanimous vote Cooper has been deemed a dangerous dog so now this we get into the measures we will take as a result of that finding so I move that we take the recommendations from our Animal control
090officer and impose items one items two items three item four item six and item seven uh what was the items you left out I only left out five which is that as a dangerous dog Cooper will not be permitted to have it with that he will not be permitted to be owned possess or have the care or custody by someone who is 18 I mean 17 um I mean hearing that the dog grew up with the child um I would think that they take precautions should they have friends come over it would either be restrict Cooper the other thing is hopefully with the training that Cooper forgets I mean dogs can be trained I had a dog who we trained him to stay and he would sit in one spot we would have a party
091in the house and he would stay there now because of what has happened maybe that's not the case I don't know but um I would say that yeah so that we the restrictions that we put on him are 1 2 3 4 6 and other thoughts on that um discussion I guess um I guess there a second well any further discussion on this on this any discussion or question about this particular motion well I guess we do need a second a second to discuss it is there a second I'll second that okay so so the Motions been made in seconded discussion questions um yeah go ahead you know no I just wanted first of all you know thank everybody um you know first of all how kind um and heartfelt you are to one another
092even though um you're coming from different perspectives and how civil um you've all been to one another and and uh you know we live in a world now where people when they don't agree they're not very civil and I just really appreciate that discuss hear you know and and I just want to add in terms of um the commitment this is this is just such a huge commitment right I'm um you know when I think about even having a child and and there are times when you kind of might screw up because you're let up a little bit and it's so easy to do that in life and uh so this this commitment on your part is truly massive um and I hope that if at some point you know that you feel that you
093can't live up to that commitment that you think about um finding you know a special home or wherever they would take a dog with this kind of History um rather than just going about and and let letting up on what you've committed to probably here tonight um so I just you know want to say that that if you feel that you can't go forward at some point that you do the right thing then for everybody because you don't ever want to have to live with you know anything that could happen um that this dog could do and especially if it was because you weren't as committed that day right um and and and too I just want to thank your your dad for his honesty and uh I think a lot of us understand uh
094you know uh uh I just hope that you appreciate him and and how he's trying to do the right thing too and and again I just really appreciate everybody's uh cilty uh to one another here tonight and uh this is certainly a uh you know really just a difficult thing so those are just my comments thank you thank you um I I will have to unfortunately interrupt this uh we we're required to open another legal um uh hearing and then we will uh susp I guess that we'll suspend that hearing and finish this one but um since it's um we've made a public notice that 820 will start a hearing we need to do that so if you'll just bear with me um notice is hereby given that the select board will conduct a public
095hearing regarding a class two license New Beginning Auto Service currently operating at 72 Nickerson Road is request to open a second location at 73 Waverly Street currently middle SE mes operating a Class 2 licens uh this is not a request for additional license and would replace the current um this would replace the current license so public will hearing will be held at ashon Town Hall 101 Main Street Wednesday March 6th at 8:20 p.m. you may attend in person or via Zoom parties wishing to be heard this matter should appear at the time and place indicated above so uh I would ask for a motion motion to open the public hearing for the class two license I'll second that uh motion is made in second all those in favor say I I and motion to suspend
096until we finish this discussion I'll second that motion's been made in second to suspend until we finish this one all those in favor say I I I okay so gentlemen I think you're here for the other hearing we're suspending it for some time but we'll we'll get to you so I would just say to sustainability Committee just hold on these things sometimes take longer than expected so we'll have to take you after we do the class two license yes I'm going to drop off and back okay sure oh good good thinking okay all right thank you Claudia so um and I again I also appreciate every um all the you know this is a difficult decision um so you know my own feeling of this is that I I do agree that we can take
097these measures rather than euthanizing the dog um which I'm certainly cognizant of the the trauma that this is involved um and you know I'm sorry that it all happened um these are not an easy decisions so um is there so we've made the only thing I do have questions about not having the child I thought that was kind of an important um how do you see getting around that in the future if there's if say there's the dog is there with just a young child and that would seem to be kind of important I would see that they if you know if they're the respons responsble dog owners that they seem to be showing us that they are regarding the you know the the retraining of this dog and the willingness to put in a
098a muzzle that if they already have a small child in their home they're going to be cautious with that so that if other children come they would continue that cautiousness um and if we were to say that it you know it I mean the the the the actual thing is that as a dangerous dog Cooper shall not permit a child under the age of 17 to own or have the care or custody of such dog so obviously the dog the child is never you know not someone under 17 is not going to own the dog these are the dog owners and that um again that they would not leave the dog in the custody of or care of their young child but the way this is stated first of all it's not relevant because the
099dog they the dog is owned by these two adults so okay all right any other one didn't seem to make sense to me any other further discussion on this before we yes go ahead I just have one comment sure and Claire it's for your dad you're a victim here too you know you put you put I but you put your dog down you put your dog down man okay that goes that goes a long way okay I just want that on the record thank you okay all right are we are we uh ready to vote and motion's been made in second all right so others in favor of the motion as stated say I we don't need a roll call vote this is just I yeah uh any opposed I all right so we have
100one person opposed so the motion carries 41 All right so I believe that can I just make one only because I'm the one who made the motion um I want to thank you for your honesty and I can again I can relate to how difficult this is um on both sides certainly you know with Quinn being put down and Cooper almost did but didn't and the last thing I would say is to you Claire and Richard you have some serious responsibility here but I also think you have people who are going to support you um and and help you through this and just continue to support your neighbors and and I wish you the best of luck and as Claudia said should you no longer be able to do or keep Cooper the way we've
101expected you to that you'll know the right thing to do um it's never easy having to make that decision to let a dog go or let a pet go um but good luck with it thank you all right that concludes uh our hearing on this matter thank you all for coming yeah thanks okay thank you oh boy okay all right thank you guys thank you all right so um thank you Donna thanks Donna um so we need to unsuspend a hearing motion to unsuspend the public hearing for the class two license in favor unsuspending say I I I oppose that okay so gentlemen you can come up you're here for the class two license I presume and just a reminder everybody anyone who wants to speak come up to the microphone is there anyone is
102there anyone remote that is wants to speak on this matter raise their hand or make themselves known okay I think I've opened the hear hearing's been open so do we have a presentation by any the staff on this uh review or anything I don't think so um typically it's the do you guys have a pres a brief presentation you want to so this is a license transfer so we have the new owner here who's the new owner and who's the old owner I think and you're the old you come to the microphone yeah so why don't you come up here and yeah over here yeah right speak into into that microphone so Folks at home can hear you my name is Hector ibera I'm Jose padil uh we've been been we've been Partners here in
103Ashlin since um we started back in 2007 with JC Auto Sales we left there um we started New Beginnings on Nickerson Road about 11 12 years ago uh around 2010 2010 uh we've been leasing that place we been we've been up and running um and the opportunity came in the table we've been great friends with Ronney ree here for many years I I don't know the count but many years and um yeah the opportunity came on the table and we're looking to continue to grow the same way you guys gave us an opportunity when he was 20 and I was 30 not knowing what we were doing I think we got our feet on the ground now as young kids after following good steps you know and we just need to clean up the place
104and keep it going under the same pretty much Legacy that what have they done for 40 50 years we're trying to take over and keep it in good hands and keep setting cars okay questions thoughts any issues with the paperwork Susan it's all complete she's nodding yes um everything is complete but just for clarification this is not a transfer of a license this is a new license the current license for Middle sex Motors is going to be turned in and this will be a new license that'll be issued to them there it is he has he has it this is one of the hottest things I've ever done in my life 37 years right with you guys all you as you know you've been with me the whole time okay so it's so it's so
105we're we're closing a license and oh that's funny yes so we're closing we're we're canceling one license and and looking to create and offer a new license yes we're not cancelling Nickerson Road though right so you're going to have two Li thank yes please you're still standing that sense now you're looking to stay at that is correct on Main Street yeah on W Street good for you guys thank you thank you that's that's the idea to be on a main road back on a main road cuz for many years a lot of people said oh it doesn't matter where you are with the internet but um I feel like people are going back to the old school days stopping by the shop as long as it looks good looks presentable with the nice inventory I
106think we're going to be all right okay all right so yeah you just question I know all the paperwork is in I sawry everything I I don't see anything uh out of line with that you're looking to have a total of 18 vehicles on that site yes okay and I saw the map and how you had it all out there Ron how many cars did you have out there so I had 18 cars yeah when I got the 18 car license there was two businesses there okay so I only had the the east side of the lot which is that exact same drum y that was 18 cars and then DFC Auto Repair was in the garage and they had the remainder of the building okay and on the back on the back side there's
107a whole lot more room so now it's an opportunity now that I'm there's only going to be one person in there now it's going to be these guys okay okay so there's an opportunity for them to expand okay and and do what they're doing and he's they're doing they power washed the building they've done the office over it's on the bathrooms over I mean he's going to town yeah we he's really doing a great job it's going to look really good over there yeah nice I'm and he's letting me be a little bit involved with a little which keeps keep you engaged yeah we are he's let me hang around a little bit this that's making me happy too so it's making it easier for me you know what I mean yeah now I know
108on Nickerson Road uh you had somebody that was going to be doing the um mechanical work offsite what's what is there an an understanding that you'll be doing a mechanical work there or no I'm doing the whole shebang is theirs I'm done okay he's going to have the garage and everything's legit everything y everything so you be doing mechanical work on site so so pretty much I mean like the idea right now we we have is um to have more like like a showroom type of place you know I mean like um the the building I mean like it's right on Main Street you know so what we would like to do is pretty much I mean like instead of doing mechanic have more as a showroom nice Vehicles inside you know I mean like
109that people can actually go and see and vehicles ready to go pretty much because if we already have a facility that can do mechanic you know I mean like we're 5 minutes away from each location you know so we can just pretty much right get the whole cars ready on Nickerson Road and when it's ready bring it to uh Main Street we we're going after the the nicer stuff we're we're kind of done with the oil changes more mechanical stuff so we're we're planning on really cleaning up that location as far as you know even even some of the stuff around just clean it up make it look nice and see what we can kind of stay on the retail side nice clean not have to wear the boots anymore I remember how old I
110was when I kind of moved from that old stuff that needed a lot of work yeah you mean the duct tape yeah uh so it's very it's going to be similar to the uh setup that's on Route 126 right now uh used to be the old at uh no no this is the one further down that has a showroom itself okay JC yes be similar to that idea okay Mar yeah it used to be TR is Marina for us all folks yeah that's that's where we started so I do remember the marina yeah uh any further questions I know we're having a fun time here all right uh do I have a motion motion to close the hearing second all those in favor of closing the hearing say I I I oppos None hearing's closed
111uh motion to approve the new class last two license for a new beginning auto service at 73 Waverly Street with the hours so uh with the hours listed in your application yes cor second motion's been made in second to Grant the new license all those in favor say I I I oppos None okay congratulations you have a new license congratulations good luck thank you for thank you again these are positive things we like to be able to support you can give to be able to support and see a business grow like this in town that's great I got a copy of it we really thankful we my son took my science down do anything and he put a post on Facebook that I still can't read I still can't read it was it when was
112it in 2012 do you remember was it this time of year or was it later in the year janary okay then the only one sitting here would have been Joe it was me in January 2012 I remember going down there looking at the second going said fa very young that yeah yeah thank you very much good luck thank you the best of luck bye all right so we have um the next item is the um uh report from the sustainability committee did Ash make it back Ash has not made it back yet okay you ready Sam so we will um well I expect him back I expect him any minute should we discuss the town manager's evaluation process yeah I think that's a good of course I didn't I well don't we have a subcommittee
113working on it aren't they going to present or are you um I I thought you wanted to go through okay sorry go ahead this is this year's process oh we're just reviewing the just reviewing what we're going to do from now before before May yeah that's all go ahead okay got a lot of paper here today but I think it's it's the same one so what is it we want to discuss about this so I put together a proposed timeline oh for the board and I think it's just really kind of reviewing that and making sure that you're okay with it this is before the uh yeah so this uh we would still be using the evaluation form that we've currently been using the email um so you know what I'm proposing is that on
114March 22nd or by March second I provide the board with self evaluation um in between March 25th and March 29th um the board members would complete the individual evaluations uh sent to the town manager and then we'll take the week of April 1st through April 5th to um to meet individually and to go over those EV individual uh evaluations that would leave uh April 7th through April 10th time for the board to send their evaluation to the chair for compilation and then it gives the chair a little more than a week um ending on April 17th uh the chair gives him an opportunity to develop a composite evaluation and statement um which would then be released at the April 17th meeting so this uh keeps things in time for the current board um before there's
115any change over and again it would be the last meeting in April so um typically we don't have a first meeting in May it's typically done before town meeting yeah um so hopefully uh if you're okay with this um we move forward with that I think so okay I think so I'll make my my compilation Swift and So currently does is the evaluation all handwritten so in the past Susan has sent it to us so we can do it electronically yeah you should you should have received a copy with with the packet yeah but Susan in has been able to send it to us so we can do it all so it's a fillable PDF that you can then print out and save and send back yeah okay and then that's good so we could
116also do it as a I set it up as a Google form and we could do it and then it would apps you could tabulate it automatically and everything so who does maybe I could sit with I think it did no yeah we did have one we did have I remember doing it manually one I remember tabulating automatically really we last time I did it as chair I did it manually last year yeah so I mean the only thing is is it's going to change the whole thing is going to change again yeah I know so you know already if you were able to put it into the it's already there oh it's already there CLA you've already done it oh so how does that how would that work then Claudius so we would so
117here so you this is a a sharable document yeah so what I do is send it to you right and then it forces you for each of the categories right you choose one through five or na um and then it then it gives you a place to add comments and then you go down and it moves on to the next category same M right and then the very end and then it feeds into a um it feeds into a spreadsheet so you can tabulate I don't know if you did score by just total number if you did it by some kind of point value assigned to each no each it was total number and total number it looked like that when I looked at them and then it was be total and then divided so
118that you you know either doing an Aver an average so we can set it up to do that easily I mean I just thought great it looked like a lot of work for the chair thank you for being so consider I think I think in the past I thought I thought that Susan did the averaging but you you actually I did it three years ago whatever okay well I don't think Susan needs to do any extra work either right very good I think that's a great idea I so can Michael like Michael will need a copy of each of our evaluations before it goes to Rob right that's how it'll right but we should we should each be able to save our own yeah evaluation and then yeah how does that so is this one
119a single sharable like we're all like access in the same Google doc is that it's a form so everybody gets a copy of the form and fills it out and then um I can take that and create we can automate the creation of a a document that would be for each of us and how we responded great um with each respondent and then Michael could have those so that's great wonderful great thank you for doing that yeah I actually printed one to show all everybody but I forgot it at home oh jeez well that helps us yeah helpful right I do that a lot I print stuff and leave it leave it in the printer as chair I especially thank you so all right umh is here Ash Ash Ash is here yes all right
120sorry hi Ash come on up well us schedule yes um my daughter wanted to be part of the Civic process and then she decided she didn't yeah she she had enough of that she was she's saw part of it she absolutely enjoyed she got a good taste got the fun part so Ash what I know are you going to do a presentation are you set to do that that's available to you yes or I can hook up and I can make it available and just to kind of review and yoland you could add the my understanding of this is there's kind of a twofold purpose here one we have our program to interview uh committees and I think this is sustainability but also they are very active and are proposing uh a warrant article for
121town meeting so I think we also thought this was a good opportunity to yeah get into that so as we said we we want to have committees to start coming before us and a number of people thought sustainability was a good one to start with and then with the discussion of the tree bylaw and um there was another one that they're looking to have before town meeting I felt that it was good to bring them before us today I know my understanding is the tree law tree bylaw is not going to be coming before Springtown meeting it's not but I want to give you I think an update on what's going on and oh thank you so terms of pretty much it I think we're talking so we'll see how things go and um Ash
122has a long pres has a a lot of slides but I don't think he intends to spend much time I don't think it was that many slides 15 minutes that's why 15 15 minutes then we can get into discussion you uh already sh at all them right some of it's history so oh okay I but I think he understands it we I looked at yeah I looked at a first the first few I guess I was more interested in some of the other stuff in no no I I was a there's more content there more for your own reading than than anything else yeah okay for for you know nighttime reading there I promise you I'll try and make it as painless as possible it's all good stuff Micha okay we good yeah we're good
123chani chair of the sustainability committee attend to speak fast so tell me to slow down if I'm going too fast for you okay all right so uh the intent behind giving you this update was was uh twofold one there's been a lot of conversation about the trade bylaw um some of it was understood some of them there was a little bit of misinformation um there have been a lot of development so we wanted to give you a quick update on to where that stands there was a lot of interest in town around the tree BW um so uh we'll talk about that we also have as part of that we realized that there was still a little bit of a misunderstanding as to what the sustainability committee has been focused on and what the priorities
124of the sustainability committee are and why we even focused on a tree bylaw so as a starting point where I'd like to maybe start is you know just reminding folks that um our our focus is to achieve Net Zero by 2040 which is a chter that was given to us by by the town uh and since our last update we've given you a couple of updates on it um you know we've had Sam join us obviously uh she wasn't here when I when I last spoke to you uh which we're thrilled about um but you know Sam's been working with the MC to track progress we're not on track uh not even close uh but uh we also have helded a lot of open houses we participate with uh uh in in a lot of
125town forums um you know whether it's uh we don't do ashon day but but we do do like farmers markets and I think Brandy I've spoken to you a few times at at farmers markets we've we've been part of other events at Town um so that's that's part of our agenda to really educate people uh on the topic of sustainability and why it's important to Net Zero uh but we also have continue to engage you know whether it's in participating on Town Projects um you know we sponsored a number of Articles uh we have started run into a few challenges so I wanted you guys as as the board that's nominated each of us we are a volunteer board uh we've had a lot of churn um we've had a lot of people resign so
126a large portion of last year for me at least has been trying to rebuild the pace of the Comm committee and sort of pick back up on our agenda uh we've been slowed down on it a little bit uh and uh we do have we we have started uh reaching a point where we we might be needing a little bit more professional guidance since all of us are volunteers we all passionate about the topic we've educated oursel on the topic quite a bit but there are certain areas like when we start getting into building codes and things like that that we starting to feel that maybe having some engagement with an outside consultant might be useful so starting to think about that um but there are a few things that uh we wanted you as
127a select board to be conscious of uh that that there are actions that you can take so I'm just going to hit those up front just in case we run out of time a lot of the presentation then is going to be supporting this uh but um just in setting Direction and focus I think we've tried to engage on a regular basis I think we need to do better with engaging you as well with more forums like this uh but um this is what I was talking about getting some you explore ways to find some funds to get some subject matter expertise for example on the tree BW um Margie did an enormous amount of work to get it to a certain stage uh we worked with the planning board Our Hope was that between
128those engagements we'd be able to get the expertise but obviously we run into issues with how should we measure a tree or how should we cost something out where having input from someone who's done work in that space would have been probably better suited earlier on in the project uh and and that's something I'd like to maybe bring back in as we rethink what we ought to do with the tree bylaw that's going to require funding uh as a committee we've never really come to you for funding requests so I'm going to work with Michael and maybe Rob just to try and figure out what that should look like and maybe come back to you with a few proposals I'm not quite sure I'm ready to make that ask yet but that's something I'm going
129to start exploring ing um second we are going to put the opt-in code which did not pass down meeting last time there have been some material changes there a lot of updates there so I'm going to spend a few minutes today just talking about that but we are going to bring that warrant article back uh and then you as a select board have the ability to take action on something called the PACE program which allows businesses in Ashland to effectively get loans um that will allow them to make Energy Efficiency improvements but then pay for those loans uh out of the savings that they get get right out of the energy efficiencies they make so um how that works is by basically putting a lan on the on the business and for that the town
130has to one time opt in to the program itself Massachusetts runs it uh to the PACE program us as a select board and then the business owner then has the ability to even apply for a for a BCE loan um so I've got a little bit of detail about that in the presentation I'm not going to cover that or drain that a lot but that's more one of the reading material things that I left for you happy to come back and talk to you about that uh and then we uh have been talking about Brandy one of the suggestions you had made at the town for at the open Forum we held for the tree B was around education and maybe looking for ways to find um ways to expand you know the the tree
131canopy um so we've been investigating DCR has an urban forestry Grant uh in support of that though we'd like to maybe have the town formally apply for and get uh a Tre City USA certification from the Auber day it has a a basic level of requirement that that we can spend a little bit of time on what it does do is opens up funding opportunities with either Partnerships with corporate partners that Arbor has or with the state for example this DCR program around urban forestry does give preference to fre City USA designated cities so these are just some things that we've already sort of come back with as being constructive things that we can do that don't cost the town anything uh in a material and I believe we actually kind of already meeting some
132of those bars so we'll speak a little bit about that before we do though just remember why we're doing it this is you know for that goal of 2040 and we had done the the foundation of the plan really was focused on where do we get emissions from right in the town and so this was the survey we had done it's been reborn out by the mapc survey that was done after after the fact as well and the major thing to take away from here is the vast majority of our emissions come from transportation and from buildings uh and so when you think about Net Zero it as a concept is about one reducing the emissions that we have as a town from those buildings from Transportation um being the major sectors and then it's
133about expanding the absorption of carbon away from the atmosphere and which is why we talk about the tree BW for example because the only way we we know for sure to remove carbon is through ecosystems from trees wetlands and protecting those and expanding those right so as a town we're never going to get to a point where we can basically make our emissions zero that's not practical so what we have to do is find the balance between reducing emissions and then increasing the way that we capture carbon and that's why we kind of focus on both of those as being really important aspects of achieving n zero so the efforts that we take then are really focused on where can we reduce emissions how can we encourage people train them educate them have programs around
134it and then how do we have uh programs that will effectively absorb carbon away from our atmosphere so we can achieve that balance um so for now just in the next 12 to 24 months our major Focus areas again are going to be focused on one energy Supply so Michael you've done work around making our aggregation contract for example 100% renewable right and we've been having a conversation about how can we make that that's a great first step how can we move that to more local options you know um whether it's part of the aggregation program or it's expanding solar uh options within town right um so that basically allows us to Green up our energy Supply itself and then when you take that essential component of now you have a green energy Supply how
135can we switch the usage of energy then towards that Supply Source right so when we look at buildings and transportation then a big priority becomes electrification right so it's around expanding the use of heat pumps for example so we've done for example a a solar pump challenge in the past uh we now have a group called energized ashin so um I I'd say they're removed from the sustainability committee with a lot of support from the sustainability committee they'll probably want to come to you and and sort of Proclaim themselves a little bit uh but but the main goal there was to create a Grassroots effort to actually talk about uh Energy Efficiency create energy Champions folks that are not necessarily focused on a committee level but rather our you know residents that are sort of
136doing things at a Grassroots level and then this is where the adoption of the specialized code really becomes important because it basically allows that new buildings really start switching to Electric uh and and without that you know we'll never really achieve Net Zero at all right so so that becomes an important aspect of our of our next 12 to 24 months uh getting access then to a PACE program I think is an easy way for us to open up funding for businesses to start switching over to electrification and and doing Energy Efficiency again doesn't cost the down anything uh Michael it does require effort from town staff because you now have leans that you have to manage so there's a management component to it but you get a lot of support from the state um
137on both education as well as setting up that program right so once you opt into it uh you know you actually unlock a lot of support from the state to to to kind of set up the program properly in this in in the town uh and then we continue to do work around establishing uh whether it's newsletters whether it's the talks that we do around rebates that are available incentives that are available and we continue to do that I think Sam's doing an ex excellent job in in just doing a lot of Outreach there on the Sam do you want to come up here and because I think we all like to see you a little closer and if you have anything to add to um we're very happy that you're here and if you
138have anything to add a comment to this feel free okay yes I will I was gonna say I will let Ash finish his presentation and then I can sort of that's great great thank you use to change thought yeah uh so then if you go from buildings then Transportation you know again our focus is again on the specialized stretch code because it has aspects of it so my very next slide is just going to spend a little bit of time on the specialized stretch code uh but uh it's really around expanding EV charging infrastructure and then pushing for the greater use of EVS in the municipal Fleet which again I think some you've been doing a lot of work on so you can talk about it when we get to you and then the ecosystem
139side is where we focused on drafting and adopting a tree bylaw uh we are pausing it we're not going to bring it for this down meeting but I have a set of steps that I want to talk to you about uh that that we'll take you know in in in trying to sort of achieve that and what we've done so far um but also we're going to start looking at uh how we introduce uh and pursue sustainable development practices so when you're doing construction how can that be made more sustainable you know um so that we are effectively reducing the impact of the environment during that construction period itself um and as much as possible our goal is going to be that we try and follow the state on this I think we' made the
140statement at a town meeting as well that we don't believe as a as a town we necessarily have always the infrastructure to kind of go It Alone um but there's a lot of Engagement and lobbying at the state level to make sure that the right things get passed but then it's on us once those bylaws are passed or once uh an opt-in code becomes available for us to adopt it because if you don't then it's kind of wasted all right so in terms of this stretch code um last time when we spoke about it at town meeting uh there was a lot of confusion as to what it was that that the opt-in code included and what was the difference between between the stretch code and the opt-in code uh I presented this light then
141uh and I'd actually gotten confused myself uh candidly right uh so one of the first things that I want to kind of point out is we already have the stretch code and this is super important because as of July 2024 a lot of the efficiency gains and the requirements that were were a part of the opt-in code if you had adopted it then are now actually going to be part of the stretch code automatically so they already apply right um and and the second thing that I had confused people on was that uh and actually I'd done that at the select board meeting when I presented was I I suggested incorrectly that Renovations were were were under the aises of the oped code and they're actually part of the stretch code so candidly the state
142really really messed up how they rolled this out it was super confusing even for people who had actually gone through this line by line fortunately over time now that's been clarified quite a bit we've spent a lot of time with Doug uh we spent a lot of time with Trisha just trying to sort of take this thing apart and some of the important things that have happened one there are now 31 communities that have adopted this um unfortunately because ashin decided not to adopt it uh a few of our neighborhood towns used the justification that if ashin didn't find it good enough then we shouldn't find it good enough and really for no other reason basically rejected the optin court for just that reason so I'd like to correct that record we've been leaders usually
143I'd like not to be a leader in in not adopting something like this that's funny um but uh we have worked with the planning board the building inspector to clarify a lot of the confusion I think we've got a much better handle on sort of what this thing is well we've worked with Trisha not not technically a planning board right Trish has been representing that's right um uh there is better cost data and studies well I would be careful about that so make sure if you think you want to hear you should probably appear before the planning board yeah um there's also better cost data and studies that that are starting to emerge because obviously now with 31 States uh 31 cities you know adopting it uh about 25% of the state's population is already
144covered by uh you know and then as I said the most important change is that as of July 2024 um the stretch code and the specializ could really have a lot of parity on the performanc and efficiency standards with one exception of multif family houses that are greater than 15,000 squ feet uh where they have to go passive home which was that there are two Pathways in the in the stretch code one is me a higher rating and if you are going to be mixed fuel then you have to have an even higher efficiency rating in the case of buildings that are over 15,000 ft and they're multif family you really don't have the ability to use uh mix fuels you basically have to go down the passive home pathway um but apart from that
145one one uh change really the only thing that gets left out then what we effectively would be requiring by adopting the specialized code would be one pre-wiring for all buildings so whether you're if you're all electric you already are pre-wired but if you are choosing to go down the path of uh you know a fossil fuel based heating system um for a new building then the Builder has to pre-wire the building up front and the and the rational behind that is obviously while the buildings being built putting the wiring in is way cheaper than it is to try and do that as a retrofit so that's number one number two is if you're using mixed fuels then you have to account for a certain amount of solar PV capacity so if you think about the
146priorities that I laid out for you up front right expand solar local sonar electrif five buildings and then the third one is effectively a requirement for electric wage charging you know those the the specialized code really hits at all of those three things that we really have to do and State's already kind of done this we are already getting hit by or the builders here have to already adopt the stretch code because we already are part of it so all the efficiency standards are there you know addition of the specialized Cod just gets us these three additional things that I believe are are super critical and really are rightly done for new buildings um first and foremost um so I'll pause there that one was actually a a a big thing so this is what
147we'll be bringing to town meeting uh and I have presented this to the ABA as well um I think Michael you met with them today I I met with them a couple of weeks back it's they posted that on YouTube we had a great conversation I think they were expecting me to talk about the tree bog we ended up talking about this but we spent almost an hour talking about it uh and it was basically a Consortium of Builders real estate agents uh we got great questions and you know not sure I I've sold it to all of them but I didn't really get push back from all of them either so yeah I think it's helpful to have that kind of done so we'll hopefully save time and confusion at town meeting uh in
148the interest of time I've posted this uh cost and savings data you know this is again from the state um I've given you the link but you know with the incentives that are in place and if you take into account the sort of annual savings what this is showing is that you know the addition cost imposed by the by the requirements of the stretch code really are now you know at part they really make a $100 $200 difference right uh in in terms of um in in terms of the impact you know that that's created it's no longer in the hundreds of thousands of dollars right but again I won't Rin this just in the interest of time um happy to post these slides I think Sam we can probably post it post these slides
149up on our on our website all right as far as the tree bylaw is concerned we we we had a rationale that you know when you drive around town Ashland as a town obviously feels very green we've got Ashland State Park we've got hopin State cart we've got a great Town Forest um we've got we've got a pretty rich history of doing conservation but the reality is and I've got a little picture that that maybe brings this this was um this was a heat island survey I think uh Sam this was Framingham State did this and MPC had done this right so this is towns of ashin and and and uh Framingham and what you can start seeing is you know the urban effect you don't we don't think of our ourselves as a particularly
150urban town at least if you look at like downtown and you look at that Elliot Ste treat area you can start seeing that heat island effect starting to show up and this is really a result of a lot of development that's happened in town and and because we starting to lose that tree canopy um so our goal first and foremost was to start to preserve some of that tree canopy and then uh it's not just about trees it's about the ecosystem those trees live in right so whether it's Wetlands whether it's soil you know those are all carbon stores so if you think about the two-legged stool of net zero right we've got to sort of protect the things that actually take carbon out and if we if we keep getting rid of those ecosystems
151then then we really don't have a hope and heck uh to try and Achieve our goals uh in addition to that there is a pretty significant economic cost losing trees so we we heard a lot of feedback you know that oh my God this is going to make the cost of building so much more expensive guess what we're paying for it anyway it's just a social cost this is classic tragedy of Commons right where the cost is born by society which isn't particularly obvious but when it becomes obvious in a in a specific area now suddenly everybody's sort of worried about it uh whether it's because you know we have a loss of wetlands or or drainage issues or Wastewater issues right somewhere someone is paying for this anyway so it's it then becomes a
152question of balancing out how we we equitably introduce protections that don't necessarily penalize one or the other group but still provide those protections and and sort of bring bring back the character that the Town had uh and our goal always was really to try and sort of take that broader view not necessarily go after protecting one tree at a time you know from a net zero perspective you know yeah we we'd love to protect the historic trees but but that doesn't necessarily achieve the goal right it is about protecting the larger tracks of land that that are still sort of composite together I remember Michael um two years back you and me had a conversation where you were like ash don't go after the individual trees like look at those those un undeveloped tracks of
153and try and focus on on on trying to protect those right so that's been the goal um it was also never our goal to try and shut down development we were conscious of the F fact that the town in and of itself can't really uh afford that right so the challenges that we had and the feedback that we got really you know one we we' done a survey in 2023 that that did show overwhelming you know support for the program but you know getting support on do you want to protect trees is relatively easy actually turning that into a bylaw a little bit harder um but we we knew that it was important to do and we heard this pretty clearly right even on the open forums that we did including the much publicized uh
154one that we did in collaboration with the planning board we heard people come in very much in support of protecting trees and fighting climate change I had a number of people who came up and said we're not doing enough um I also had members of the planning board tell me that the that the current set of rules do not pro provide Clarity so while the planning board does do a standup job of trying to figure out how best to mitigate impact of development you know they don't feel like they have the right set of rules uh or or the right structure in place to to always achieve that goal um and you know if you don't do it now you know there aren't that many contigous areas of trees I I had John Ellsworth tell
155me that there's not that much left well to me that's actually why we should do it because there ain't that much left right um so uh but on the on the other side right there were some really important parts to this right uh one you know how much unnecessary regulation do we put in there uh the fact that the cost would be unfairly put on a small minor minority of developers I'm just trying to channel the actual feedback this is not in any way sort of my opinion uh but you know we tried to be as um impartial on the feedback that we received and sort of just projected as it was right um and so so given all of this feedback it was clear that we needed to continue to have a little bit
156of conversation we weren't quite ready you know uh on on this topic um so some of the things that we we are planning to do um April 6th we're going to have another open Forum uh which will talk both about actually this structure you know why we're doing what we're doing but have a really open conversation with residents on what it is that they would like to see uh from sustainability and and where they they want to focus what are their priorities uh but then specific to the tree bylaw you know really think about whether it is an individual tree bylaw do we want to consider what should be the area of impact uh should we maybe focus on low impact development rather than just a tree bylaw uh you know consider so the nuances
157behind specific Provisions uh you know and the kind of cost that that that might incur I have invited as many of the folks that are in the building Community to to come and join that that Forum as well and I'll I'll make that invitation to all of you as well as any residents that might be listening we will be posting more details on it I'm trying to work through the the logistics with Susan but we plan to do at least two more of these forums uh where we'll try and gather this additional data in addition to that um you know we we did hear loud in career that we need to find ways not just to protect what's left but also expand tree cover so this is where I'd like us to start thinking about
158the a recognition some of the programming from DCR for example you know is a 50/50 funding match right so if if we if we put your put a proposal together the town would have to actually agree to fund 50% of it but then we get 50% of the funds from DCR so so you know are we willing to do that do we have the budget to do it I think those are things that we have to sort of work through um that's the bulk of what I wanted to share with you I've got a little bit of detail which I've sent to this leport you know on what the PACE program is um including the links to mass development Michael again I'm happy to work with anyone on your staff on this um Tri City
159USA the the main requirements that that we need I think we kind of already meet this but but Becca would be able to guide us better we have a Town Forest committee so I think that qualifies uh we also have Becca you know U that that sort of represents the department um we do have again uh an urban forestry program I think we probably hit the two $2 per capita budget number on that uh and then you know you guys would have to basically say yep we're going to observe obser our day and and and do a proclamation Claudia I believe margu is already working on an unofficial Pro uh our Day celebration for this year which will be a little smaller uh but but we're hoping that next year we'll actually formally be able
160to do it then then that also then sets us up you know to really start looking at additional funding sources all the education we want to do our also gets a support on that education so you know it'll sort of help us hit some of those things that that weren't coming through in the tree by lot of talking in a lot of fast pace so I'll pause here see if you guys have questions and I'll also let you join me sure yeah Sam did you want to say anything well we're considering our question or thoughts about and certainly um happy to have you here happy to be here um I think Ash really went in depth with everything so nothing I will say I believe we already cover an Arbor Day celebration because the library
161does one and they hand out saplings because I know Becca has done a lot of work in looking to get us to Tree City so the Lions um and I I can't remember um I'm embarrassed that I can't remember her name right now who passed away and every year she would bring saplings um for the entire fourth grade class Ellie Ellie thank you yes oh greater that's why yep and she every year she brought a sapling per student now you know the one way to kind of expand upon that right is some of the things that Margie and I have talked a tiny bit about um but it it certainly you know is I think an important um role in that and I'm not suggesting that there we shouldn't be doing things now but you
162know the way to change the world is through our kids and and through mothers right and um so I you know I think that's really um important part of what we should be doing is trying to work with finding ways to um engage students with kids with that information right I fully agree yes I think you you've been having some great conversations with the school as well and you were trying to put together an art project with them as well on on on this yes I don't know if we're going to make my goal of um Earth month April but I've been working with the high school I've been working with all the principles at the schools but mainly at the high school um I recently learned through an Eagle Scout project that's going on
163that at the high school they go through about a thousand plastic water bottles a month which gave me nightmares um so trying to work with the environmental action Club to sort of I had an idea for an art installation out of water bottles to show like this is the impact um to educate because I think the youth is the ones to really capture yeah I would agree I know the high school a couple of years ago I forget which group was giving out birch trees so but that was at least that was a couple of years ago you could reach out to them that you know was in their announcements you can get a birch tree planted in your yard and so I think it's important for us to do as a town want to
164get a little closer sorry as a town to sort of make that Proclamation and and actually make it a a little bit more formal right so I'm I'm thrilled that we have a lot of Grassroots sort of observation but um you know I I think whenever we step up as a town uh and as Town leadership to to sort of formally recognize you know things like this I I think it has an impact right and I think we' we've started celebrating Earth Day now in a much more consistent format I think that makes a difference uh green up ashin makes a difference right um things like these actually matter so one of the things I wondered about um to is you know we have our select board uh grants coming up and I wondered if
165like the sustainability committee might be able to apply for one um in which then you could use those monies maybe for some education in the schools and and perhaps we could purchase um you know some prizes because one of the things that Margie had brought to me was um you know a contest I think a poster contest um you know so maybe they could be you all could be an applicant for one of our grants um candidly Claudia we have applied for for for one that that that we couldn't really get through and and the goal was education and I think this is where we run into the there's it's it's a fully much like any other Town group right it's a fully volunteer group and uh you know there there are there's a lot
166of passion around around different topics but when it gets to you know actually doing things like this it it requires a slightly different effort and mentality I'm great at doing this not that great at at setting setting things up so having now Sam here I think we we've managed to get get a little bit more progress there but I think this is where we also need to sort of maybe look at is the sustainability committee the right group or or you know places like energ ason are are are as a group I think we're good at ideation and maybe the the Strategic think on things not always the best executors right so so yeah just in response to that what I what I think we found with some groups is we have the upper Charles
167Trail committee but they also have the friends of the upper Charles Trails who is a 5013c who is doing some of the fundraising is doing some of the things like that because to Claudia point about a grant if we wanted to give money to the sustainability committee it wouldn't go through it if it goes through the baa Grant it couldn't be from our runnner money have to be from our select board gift account because they're not a 501 rece no I was referencing if you have another group that is looking to become a nonprofit to support what you're doing that's a different story and I think that's that's the goal with energized ashin is as a group I I I don't think they've they're quite at the stage where they've applied for things but they
168they're putting together Rob Mullen beak and and that team has done a ton of work so I'm not going to try and take credit for it right um that that's where the credit really lies right for now I was thinking the gift account because I didn't think that you'd be able to pull up in a 501c in time so but there's still what is it a thousand we could also make an exception if we want right so I'm I'm thrilled that like first of all thank you for your presentation tonight because this is this is great to have sort of a real kind of like formal update because obviously we've been kind of talking here and there and it's good to kind of see holistically what you guys have been working on so thank you
169for for that first um and thank you to Sam for all her work too um you know I had a question you know in my when I was like prepping for the meeting tonight I was like you know what does energize Ashlin do what are its goals um I'm glad to hear sort of like this education component because um I remember a few years ago we did like our citizen survey and sustainability was like I think our number two like priority that residents had but I think like I don't know if I've said this to you or if I said this to Margie or who I've said this to but I think sustainability is like one of those things that everyone kind of wants but people don't know how to get there MH and I
170think like for for a Net Zero goal you have to like build it has to be Grassroots it has to it has to be because you have to change Behavior you have to educate people and I'm a marketing and salesperson and I'm going to be the first to tell you it takes like six times to get a message across before people change Behavior like it's it's um it takes a while and so you know really to make a difference you know you were talking about like buildings and transportation for to make changes the the education component is has to be huge because like for instance like one of my neighbors who I adore cut all their trees down in their front yard I think because they didn't yeah I know the fa I know I
171that's like my face too um because they didn't want to deal with the leaves but it's like how do you educate people now you have to deal with the lawn right so so you know it's um like you know how how do you tell people about getting programmable thermostats so and what the what the rebates might be so people are more likely to change their behavior right so like that Grassroots stuff I think is going to be key because like I I love I love what you guys are doing but like if if you focus only on top down it's not going to be it's it's not going to be successful couldn't agree with you more so you know I I I feel like you know the you know I'm hopeful that the work that
172energized ashon is going to do in conjunction with the sustain like I I like I'm like hopefully that creates that that that sort of Grassroots effort and and you're right Brandy I think we consistently hear that it's a high priority but the the reality also is with the problem that we're facing it needs to be a marriage off the top Dr down and the grph trps right because something like making changes to uh to to building codes or or doing sustainable development that's not a Grassroots thing that has to be driven by by something like the sustainability committee which which is I think where we are best positioned to to make an impact right or whether it's a public safety building Joe when we work with you right that that's the stuff that has to
173be done in the ages of something like a Community Committee because you can of have to have that depth of knowledge and and and the time and the effort and you know you also are spending a lot of time you know with with sort of the legislative side of things right um because it sort of has to be done either at the state level or at the Town level but the Grassroots stuff is where I think we've been semi engaged right um you know I'm I'm consistently at at things like farmers markets and and earthy events and all that where I I I absolutely adore speaking to kids and and I get very excited but that takes you only so far right so that's where I do think that having a Grassroots organization like like
174energized as will will make a lot of difference but again i' I'd rather have them com talk about what their Char is and they should get and like CLA was talking about like they should get plugged into what's happening in our schools and and really I mean honestly like I keep thinking about like the the um the environmental action Club at the high school like those kids should be a huge part of what energized Ashland is and if they're not then it's a m opportunity and maybe like task them or another group or find a science teacher who would want to you know help us become a tree city right um that's an idea well the tree City thing again is something that we have to do as you you would have to do something
175with it PACE program something you would have to do something with it right but once you get that then actually putting the program together I just when you started talking about administrative help and town resources I mean you have Sam and yeah Becca's our tree Warden I mean and you know I'm looking at kind of Michael here but we do have staff that can help with this kind of I think starting to leverage that uh a little bit more the the kind of support that I was talking about early on is like when you were doing the comprehensive plan for example we actually do have a consultant for example helping you with that with the syain with the with the uh Net Zero plan we really didn't engage you know at that time with with
176with the with the consultant we have hindsight 2020 right maybe that would have been a good idea we spent a lot of time a whole year doing our own research and putting together the plan now we've now brought that plan and and mapc look at that plan in fact fram's actually been learning from us like we did okay but it took us a year plus to get there we probably could have shortened that I guess my point is so we we are undergoing there's a lot of budget issues I don't know how so I would say one of the things to look at you know what resources you have now and what you can do with it and maybe there's grants or things like that but I would just be careful about you know if
177if you need a additional administrative support or cost that that's going to be difficult I I appreciate that Rob which is why we haven't come back to we've actually been super conscious about it so as as a committee I don't think we've really come back to you with we need XYZ right if I come back to you this is just me being a little bit uh as as the chair of the committee being a little bit uh reflective on sort of where I think we have successes and where I think we have challenges you know again I'm just speaking truth to you I think that's an area that that we need to do something about if if you ask me right this second where would you want money I'm not ready for that conversation because
178I want to be a lot more thoughtful about that just quickly add another thing I'd say make sure you're reviewing the The Net Zero plan and and looking at the really significant things and I know that trees are important and I support that whole concept but are we are we doing the other stepbystep things um that are that we went through and have in the net zero plan so that I would just kind of the the the 12 to 24 thing that I showed you those are things that are coming right out of the Net Zero plan and in fact the activities that I showed you are a combination of things that we need to do you know across each one of these elements exist on the net zero plan so I just pulled out
179the things that are now newterm priority Focus versus things like you know um and I had just excuse me one other question occurred I read the newsletter uh and I remember whenever Source came out with this pilot program for heat pumps and neighborhood networks and we didn't get it the they were supposedly doing the framing are you saying now we actually have an ongoing project to do that yeah so I'm can talk to you yeah that'd be great I mean so we don't have which is the neighborhood I don't so that's the whole question when I applied for it a firm was like Main Street would be great I said don't touch Main Street we're not digging up Main Street for a network Z geothermal anytime soon um but I had just applied for uh
180feasibility study to see where in Ashland if we did a network geothermal where it could happen we unfortunately didn't get that but we received funding just to do community outreach and education about it um oh which we we just received so I haven't fully thought of how we're going to do how we're going to leverage that but um I think getting just community outreach and education towards it well that's an exciting possibility I think you know definitely and it allows people who can't afford it to have access to it which I think is huge thanks definitely work across departments because if you're looking to get education out obviously Michael puts out his Weekly Newsletter Beth Reynolds through the economic development department puts something out on a regular basis so this is one of those places
181where we don't want sustainability to work in a silo we want you to work across departments in especially if you're looking to do education it would be a recommendation uh question for one of you and and again this is just me so regarding the tree bylaw it's been discussed that okay it's great that you're looking at this but should we look at working on it as part of the comprehensive plan yeah right so rather than saying okay we're going to create this tree py law we're going to bring it to the town meeting in the fall obviously you've decided not to put it in the spring but as we're having the discussion with the public regarding the comprehensive plan and we'll then have an implementation phase of the comprehensive plan is part of that sust
182could that be partly sustainability and say okay as as part of our comprehensive plan we're looking at sustainability across all the factors of the comprehensive plan would then a tree bylaw or some other the electrification or things like that be part of the discussion and part of the implementation plan of the comprehensive plan rather than trying to do it now before the comprehensive plan is compl it's it's a it's an excellent question you learn and and and you know Chuck Chuck uh is is on on the comprehensive plan in fact we've got we've got actually a couple of members because Cara who's representing the forest committee also is a member of of my committee so so kind of feel like we've got some representation there um I think there are certain aspects that especially on
183our longer term road map that are absolutely have to be part of the comprehensive plan so when we think about green zones for example so when when we get into that zoning type of conversation you know I think there was an email today from Michael Kan as well suggesting about you know how should we develop the the rail Transit District right um talking about uh the kind of development that we want whether it's more cluster development or or you know whether it's you know situated around Main Street and and what does that nature look like I think all of those have heavy sustainability implications and I think sort of belong there the reason why the tree bylaw sort of went the direction that it did and I think probably there is some element of it
184that probably should still happen is um again because of timing more so than anything else we've got maybe we've got some very narrow Parcels left um one of our challenges Brandy very honestly is going to be I think one of our biggest Parcels is that rail Transit District right where where we're going to put the Y and this thing so there's a conversation that needs to happen as to what's more important and then how can we ensure that when we build the Y we reduce and I think aspirationally all of us are going to kind of aim at that and say when we build that thing it should be built in a very sustainable manner so that we reduce the impact right uh of of whether it's the trees or you know building in energy
185features into it right um frankly part of the goal of doing things like the bylaw is to ensure that that conversation keeps happening right so yes there's a Grassroots conversation that needs to happen sometimes having these conversations whether they go to town meeting or not the fact that we're having the conversation actually puts it back into your minds my mind someone else's mind that this is something important so sometimes we we you know we're going to make that call and kind of say yes this is an important enough discussion to have whether it makes the whether it makes it to the level of yes we have enough support the town meeting or not sometimes it's almost a you know side effect of of that conversation to me the conversation we having is worth it in
186and of itself right and certainly uh and then then whether we position it as part of the comprehensive plan when we do it I think those are all things that we can we can figure out okay all right good thank you sorry long winded answer but it's good yeah it's good and thanks for bringing them in I think that's timely and so hopefully got I certainly hope that I've answered questions on uh the opt-in code uh and and that that that we'll have an easier time with that yeah just do we anticipate um bringing them back again for the optin code specifically are we think we're probably good with that my my suggestion is like I know last year I think you were here about the same time last year when we had this discussion
187about the opt-in code and I think I know that there was confusion from our board I know that there was obviously confusion at town meeting um and I know you mentioned you're going to have a public public forum and you're going to just ask for General feedback on stuff but I would be very very clear like how you present that and make sure I think if I remember correctly Steve Mitchell a year ago basically said present like what it means to your average homeowner because because people need to actually get their brain around what that means so if there is no impact to your average homeowner be very clear about that because I think if the more clear you are in a public forum um before you go into town meeting and you hear the
188the questions that come from that public forum the better equipped you're going to be to to handle town meeting and I would just you know to follow up on that you laid out a very ambitious agenda for your public forums I I think you might want to think about focusing it a bit because you've got only so much time with people and opportunities so it's fair yeah I think but when it comes to the opt-in code this time around at least I don't have to sit there and been passive home and F and hers ratings which which I had to deal with the last time right even even ourselves trying to understand it 45 what 40 doesn't matter it it already applies to us there there three things that we get from the specializ code
189right now is those three things it's it's three points that's it right okay it's it's as clean as that great well thank you but I would to to be to to bry's point when you do your session on April 6 if you're going to talk about this be very and maybe have two different forms right it looks like you're doing one on a Saturday morning maybe offer one on an evening that's via Zoom that again work with Susan in regards to a zoom account and what you can do because there are a lot of people who might be interested but who may not either have the time or energy or willingness to come to a meeting on a Saturday morning that's good feedback I'll also say the ABA ABA was very kind enough to actually
190post the conversation I had with them on on YouTube as well so there's a recording available that's effectively talks a lot about this with the people that probably care the most about it so so with any luck I don't think we need to have them back yeah I'm telling you right now I intend to put this there I I we'll support it great all right Lely great thank you thank you everybody that's good of course all right so the next item on the agenda and I apologize this is running really we've been running late but this is I think we're putting these two together the Enterprise funds and the potential increase in the water sewer rates and I see Britney and Dan are here so if you folks just want to come up um when
191you're whenever you're ready clearing out um you guys wake upar so this is this is one of those things right you plan a certain amount of time for something and those dog hearings just are tricky yeah no I saw the dog hearing you were here for that so you knew I knew so yeah so um we're here to talk about the Enterprise funds and really I think focus on some of the infrastructure needs um associated with those Enterprise funds specifically Water and Sewer to a certain extent uh we're also here to talk about the trash uh Enterprise fund as well so as you know uh you're not unfamiliar with this um Ashland has had a history not just over the last few years but over Decades of really putting off Capital um expenditures Capital Improvements
192and unfortunately when you do that you have these situations where the bill eventually comes due and they all come due at once and so that is kind of partially some of the prospects that we're facing right now and uh so um Britney is you know taking into account some of those Capital needs has put together a a forecast and then also put together a rate suggestion um which looks at increasing rates um in some cases uh substantially just no shying away from it um so with that I would turn it over to Britney and and Dan Mau everybody I think everybody knows Britney but Dan Mau is our water sewer re Foreman from the DPW um just excellent uh excellent resource for us excellent a excellent member of our staff so right thank you I'm
193not sure if there's a particular fund you would like to start with or any one of them well maybe a pres I'm not sure you know I I personally am not didn't have much time to really review this and I don't know if people are specific but maybe kind of a general presentation to kind of prep us for uh you know further discussions about this does that make sense I would suggest the water fund because that is so um so comprehensive ensive and we have a tendency to lose steam as the night goes on so um I just I have a short memo to just pass out it's a revised memo just based upon revised from the February 16th one yes it's just based upon new information so okay oh yeah just give them all
194pass it be easier thanks look at our schedule here so I'm not sure if anyone had the time to read the original memo yes um so obviously in doing the forecast and the budgeting we take into account the usage over the last year we take into account Capital um inflation the developments as best as we can to forecast those in um we don't have the growth that we once had in the past and there's a few developments that are unpredictable we don't know when they're going to come online but we did the best we could with um those assumptions um so the the revised memo that I gave you the recommendation for water would be to increase the rate 21% and that would be a dollar increase to the tax bill of $50 for residents
195um we're looking at closing a deficit in water of around 4870 for FY 25 so that 21% increase in water would cover that deficit completely just for FY 25 now further on the first page of the memo you'll see that there are just a few options given as to if you increase the rate by 15% it will generate this much in Revenue we could tap into retained earnings this much and so forth there there's a host of different scenarios that we could look at um but just to give you an idea now a Big Driver of that increase is the fact that usage has been down over the last couple of years um we've had a few droughts in the last four or five years that I can remember major droughts um and then we've
196also had substantial rain in last year in the year before so either people couldn't use water because we had water bands or they didn't have to use water because it was raining so much um so I have noticed that usage has gone down over the last couple of years even with the developments that we've had come online so the usage is down and then also we have a big project that needs to get done which is the ozone project it is a $4 million project and the new information that was received is that hopkington would cover 25% of it probably over the next two years they were confident that they will get reimbursed by them and those two years so that would reduce the borrowing from 4 million to 3 million um then also we
197initially in the first um budget of water I tried lumping together the water main replacement so we just had to do maybe two big borrowings instead of a few borrowings but just for the rate sake and borrowing sake and timing and workload of the DPW it was best to to still phase them out um so if you have any information on the or questions on the ozone project the big project that's why I have my buddy Dan here to answer any questions you have on any of the capital projects that are in the original memo anyway so Brittney just a quick question I haven't had a chance to but your rate includes uh funding the capital project projects on some sort of schedule or or not yes so there are there are capital projects that
198are funded within the operating budget itself um on attachment a of the new memo on the FY 25 line the capital is funded at 375,000 and that covers multiple Capital items that's in the previous do cover the big one no so the big one would be a a borrowing so that would cover The Debt Service well that's what I mean so the rate includes the debt Serv yes it does yes that's what I that's what I was getting at yes so then The Debt Service would be factored into obviously the forecast okay and then so would the rate increase so I don't know what's this do do we want to hear from Dan now or do you guys want to talk more about I mean if you have questions on the ozone project I mean
199the information that we got was very detailed I would say that I wish we had seen the report when it came out in July I mean I think it was mentioned that you might have something um but now having to read that as well as all the other stuff as well as figure this out right um that's the only thing I would say is that had we seen it earlier it would have been good to be a little bit more aware I mean we've been discussing okay we might have to do these projects we might have to do these projects right and what I would say is look looking at your memo it does talk about the deficits going into the the the out years yes what I and I think I saw something about
200some capital outlay in the out years as well it would have been good to sort of see this again back in the summer as we were talking about last year's budget and even and then going into this year that's my only comment about that project but it looked very detailed about what was needed what the equipment was going to be how you were going to going to do it um I know it's been a while for me since I've been in the Water Treatment Plant part of me almost wants to say okay can we do another tour just to take a look and see and then I think that would be a better way for us to understand and then explain it to the public why this is needed right sure so my question interested
201in so my question to you is like reading your new attachment a um at the very bottom it's saying there's there's a deficit of 14,870 so that's so we're still running out of deficit that was fy20 I thought that's I thought that was what I was looking at was yeah that was F yeah that was FY 23 actual so we did run into a small deficit in 23 and that was where when usage was budgeted I thought usage was coming a lot more and unfortunately it just hasn't come in the way we thought usage is based so I run a bunch of reports consumption reports and it's based upon the previous year then I also look at a trend okay but it's hard to look at trends when you have droughts and substantial rain and
202you just have to do your best and hope that Revenue comes in okay so I'm looking at so I'm just a little confused because I'm looking at what was in our packet for Debt Service and there's a bar chart and yep um and I'm trying to reconcile what is for The Debt Service which I assume includes ozone and then the capital outlay is actually less so now for fy2 it's 375 is that so the capital outlay would be funded with cash so that wouldn't be included in The Debt Service chart okay and then also The Debt Service chart would have needed to be updated because that was the original okay Debt Service chart that I put together I didn't um redo the entire memo okay um I just redid it based upon the information that
203we got from hopkington okay that the IMA was going to be extended and and so because the because hopkinson's going to now be paying a million dollars that Debt Service would look different it would look different so it won't necessarily tie to yeah I just I didn't rerun all of the okay the graph and numbers and all that and just one other question so looking at sort of the trend of the the one was in our packet so obviously it would need to get redone but so is Ozone the only major Capital outl project that we're going to need to because it it's looking like The Debt Service goes up like new get Debt Service so you know I'm thinking you know I you know 21% this year but I'm trying to wrap my brain
204around like what right what is coming what is coming our way because any add yeah I just you know obviously if yes obviously we have we haven't invested in the in the infrastructure we you know we're also currently under like a um a sewer moratorium and I assume part of that is like looking at what the capacity is and all that other stuff and possibly making more recommendations down the road so I'm just trying to wrap my brain around like what's what's sort of like the immediate need and then what is what is like the longer term Outlook because so if you look at this last page of the new memo last page of new memo okay sorry I'm just it's okay no it's F it's a lot of data and late yeah okay all
205right so I'm looking at attachment attachment B okay so down below we've tried we were able to push out a few projects such as the um inspection and repainting of the seedar street tank at 1.7 million okay and 27 but that would be a major Capital project um The Pump Station upgrades at 500,000 okay the repainting of the Woodridge tank of 600,000 that we've pushed out for several years now okay um along with the CED distry tank okay the water mains we've been pushing out borrowing for yeah and the ozone is that just came up in the last year okay so the ozone is the priority that has to get done okay we don't have a choice the water mains they've been fixing as they come along yeah and we really should have a a
206plan a plan yeah and fund it so kind of going along those lines of planning you know kind of longer term more than just you know this year and I and this is great this is awesome like I'm glad like this is helpful um like I'm wondering you know the state and I know I know what the answer to this is going to be but you know the state knows that towns need to replace their infrastructure that we're probably not the only town that has to look at this stuff and I know massworks does like they do massworks grants for these types of projects correct um no Mass no Mass Works does fund infrastructure projects like this um for sure and one of the things that we talked about recently is you know combining some
207of these projects like water especially the water main Replacements or specifically the water main Replacements with Paving uh you know repaving roads sidewalks and putting it on the tip okay so the tip will not uh tip program that's great yeah it's not soon and it won't pay for the um all of the water stuff but it would pay for like the paving part of this component okay which uh would be a significant cost you know a couple hundred grand probably per if okay so okay I'm just trying to think of like ways that I think that there's grants out there DPW go for them they'll they'll go for for them um any funding source we can get our hands on we can will get okay um hopefully some of the developments move along a little
208bit faster and I can include them in the forecast okay uh so I don't have necessarily a three or fiveyear plan for the funds it's more so taking it a year at a time yeah kind of like a wait and see and and we are we are looking at different options so for example this ozone replacement we're throwing a Hail Mary pass and seeing if we can get that covered under some the P stuff yeah it's a POS yeah um but we're we've you know preparing that application we hear from Dan uh in terms of these questions I'm good thanks okay Dan I saw I saw I've seen the report and and I talked to Doug after some of the traffic meeting studies that we uh committee meetings we have and it's it's no different
209than the public safety building I'll compare it to that we've waited and waited and waited in time you you know Band-Aid it Band-Aid it and now it's time to be replaced you know if we did these things you know two or three years ago it wouldn't be half as half as expensive so the town people need to be aware of that it's no different than that public safety building you know so it's either pay me now or pay me later type of deal and I get and there's something that needs to be done we all need water and our ozone treatment uh facility is is vital so it it's it's is not something we can live without so um okay before we I just had some quick questions I'm just curious did you think that
210Hopkin and wouldn't pay for that for the like what what was that um so at first I was not that I was skeptical it's just that we didn't have I wasal I was pessimistic um we didn't have the I mean you're still using the water right yeah the agreement ended though literally in February of 24 okay and without a signed new agreement and something in writing but well and because they've talked about doing their own they talked about their own treatment you know or connecting with the so and then in their extension they do have um a provision where they can opt out with a six months notice but they have told Ashlin that they're not planning on doing that for about two to three years and this project would be done before then great
211okay that's good and so that agreement actually will come before this board okay um probably at your next meeting okay because Hopkinson has signed it and I believe Britney correct me if I'm wrong so Hopkinson is looking at going at their town meeting getting an appropriation to support their portion they are from what I know they're looking for to get authorization for um a $950,000 they would have to borrow the money the borrowing right yeah all right and just another quick question when was the last time we raised the water sewer fees I know we it was like two years ago was it last year I will tell you no it was last year but it's it's average over 1% uh a 1% increase over 7 years so you've only raised them twice in the
212last seven years and that's what it averages out to yeah the last seven years it averaged out to it was a 5% increase in 2023 and then uh so we 2 and a half% increase in 2017 so it averaged 1% over the last seven years and and I remember when we had the discussion last year there was discussion about well we really should be doing more because we have some Capital but we didn't have all the information that that obviously came out last summer we didn't have that last year to make some of these decisions so now having that information where we need to be doing these major capital projects and we just are not we're we're not we're not being being able to pay our bills based on what we're charging so we need
213to look at changing that you know what might be helpful just to hear from Dan what this ozone project is for people that are watching that haven't had all the the detail that we just I think it would be helpful no that's what I was if you wouldn't mind yeah thank you so so the ozone is is our like primary treatment process at the treatment plant that gets rid of all our iron and magines and it's our first line of defense against any you know bacterias or anything that's bad in the water so that starts the the process and it works very well we we have very clean water coming out of the plant which we didn't have years ago uh prior to the plant being here and the plants set at that 20e Mark
214where it's life expected is it it's it's reaching the end of its life expectancy and it's just kind of deteriorated um there is a backup process to it but it's not going to be as clean so uh we used to be able to shut the ozone off during the winter months we we could shut it down for a little bit but due to changes in the reservoir we can't do that I don't know if you remember a few years back right around Christmas time November we had a lot of water quality color complaints that was we'd shut the ozone system down for a couple of months like we typically did in the in the in the winter time um and just that little bit of color coming back in from you know the the iron
215and magines triggered all that because people are used to very clean clear water so our secondary system is a Ferro chloride um it's not as effective you know so so we do have a plan B if if the ozone was to fail completely we can still continue to run the treatment plant but it's not going to be to the level that we can run it with the ozone so and are there byproducts of the of the backup system that aren't there with the ozone system it's just not as effective as stripping everything out of the water that you know all the minerals and and the iron magnes that causes that color complain and iron magnes itself is um more of an aesthetic issue than it is a health issue right I I remember years ago
216when um when some would roll around and you'd fill your bathtub it would have definitely a very orange tint and at that time I had done research and so um it it it is more of an aesthetic issue than yeah it's required in everybody's diet to have iron and Magan it's not a harmful thing just you don't want it's just not you drink it when you fill up your tub and you get that I get it I remember what's going on yeah if you remember a couple years ago actually um when we actually needed to interject more ozone into the system um we had to turn the system back on we had to yeah excuse me turn the system on during like the winter time so typically in the winter time we were able to
217shut it off for two 3 months because the clarity because of the temperature right of in the winter time just the nature of the reservoir we didn't get as much iron magnes in our raw water so we were able we didn't have to strip it out but is that related to the temperature of that of the water it seems to me that I remember that it might be and that yes you know is that too a climate change thing there's been a lot of changes up by the treatment plant with you know the development that went up in there that that changed how the waters you know we've had a full reservoir for two years which the eight years that I've been here we haven't had right yeah right you know so a lot of
218things have changed up there so with that the chemical process we've seen change our raw water has changed we have a lot more iron and magnes in it um so we're going through a lot more chemicals to to get the water to the Quality that we had it before quick question with respect to that the projects that are being done now off of uh High Street house Street in hawton is that affecting uh water the the water supply with some of that runoff coming down into the reservoir okay is there any are you talking about Legacy Farms Legacy farmacy Farms so is there any way of trying to get some funding out of uh the owners of that property as a result of their runoff because yeah we we've looked at that it's you know
219we have we feel like there's a strong correlation between what's happened there and some of this but scientifically and legally proving that is is a little bit more difficult well in our conservation committee and our conservation agent has been working on this and we've done some orders of um you know conditions and entered into the board actually entered into a settlement agreement with hton with devel this the one over 55 development you're not talking about any others or well this is the the latest or last phase of which I think is I think that is over 5 my understanding from looking at it years ago there's one development right up Hill overlooking the pl the reservoir it's over 55 but there's not others I guess that's what I it's just this one that we're talking
220about whatever the ones are that are right the street that are right now there there's um some kind of water uh I don't know what you call it to absorb the water there now and redirect it well yes now they've made some run yeah like swes and and different well and those those green tubes that I think absorb water water that's that's just to catch the silk coming in but they've redesigned their detention basins up there to expand them to make them bigger so that they're capable of so the runoff isn't as bad in theory IDE in theory the other day I noticed when I drove down there it there's an area up there it looks like it's set up to just run right down to right I mean there's it's all rocked and everything
221it's gone from very small tributaries that we could get rain for a couple days and we didn't see anything we have a little tributary that runs underneath the driveway for the treatment plant and we could have rain for a few days we wouldn't see anything come through there now as soon as we get rainfall it it's it's running right well that's not how is that allowed um the the regulations are that you're not supposed to increase that kind of you're supposed to have detention and retention the way the D has has configured our our tier tiers of of uh protection um are are very interesting so they they kind of hug the the street line in one Direction and the other direction they go out like you would expect them to so how much of
222what we're talking about is due to this development I mean that's my are we are we increasing our rates or doing more capital investment because these guys built that thing there and we didn't control it properly the ozone effectively just in its nature it inherit nature it's eating itself up because it's it's doing its job so after 20 years of doing its job it's it's just we have a bunch of little pin holes and all the piping where the leaking out we've kind of put Band-Aid repairs on that's like a regular expected operations and maintenance it's just that's expected um though it though it sounds like what's going on in the winter where you can't turn the ozone off anymore correct that could be climate change additional water in this Reservoir things like that and
223like Michael had said that that's it's one thing we have our data that shows Everything's changed but try and prove that in a court I mean it's just well I think I think well at least for me I think it's important to know what we're considering that is potentially due to this development so we can at least understand and it's late now but I mean I've been concerned about this development and how it got allowed and how it's we're basically paying for it and asked the residents to pay for it and I think it'd be useful to know what of all this is potentially due to that and review our Avenues of action I I think we want to be careful though right I think the understanding that yes we're seeing some impact but my
224understanding is the ozone system is 20 years old well that's that's not part of that's not and that's the major part I mean I think in regards to I mean unless we're having to use more chemicals and that's why our price needs that's why that's why I think it'd be useful to have that in like what is what is potentially due to this and what is it I mean I think this is outrageous I think to your point Rob that the question really is longterm what's going to be the impact of that development and the runoff cuz we're asking people to pay for it I mean why are we in that position me the ozone we have to do anyways I think that's clear right but but in the long run what what is this
225runoff potentially going how it's going to impact our water all the capital work that we're proposing that's that has no effect this is this is stuff that has been getting kicked down the road for years this this is not a legacy Farm is so I just just to repeat I just think it'd be good to segregate what's kind of regular long-term capital and and what's cost potentially associated with this development well as Dan just said none of it none of thisone of these Capital see additional operations costs in chemicals and extended runtime with the filters and stuff like that so that'll creep up on us over a period of time but that's not the capital that we're okay well I'm not just talking I'm talking about costs in general that we're passing on and that's
226what I want want to see you know what what is the impact of this thing and what should action should we be taking that maybe we're not taking you know as a result of that because I think we have that responsibility so let me ask a question so are you like do you it sounds like this is something that's going to start in fy2 as soon as sort of the budget as soon as we get funding we're moving forward okay so from a timing perspective and a next steps for us um are we okay not voting on this tonight I think I would absolutely because because I think the conversation's good and I think but I'm I'm not comfortable yet like taking a vote yeah we're not asking for that not on the agenda but
227I just wanted to make sure like from from your perspective that that wasn't something that you guys it is a good point though what what is our kind of timeline for this so what do we thinking about in terms of future agendas and decision points I guess well um I I think you know what is the the pleasure of the board here I mean we could certainly 2026 no the first meeting in June Rob yeah that's a good so or second meeting in May um you know if you have your answers and everything and you feel I don't want to say comfortable because none of this is comfortable but feel like you're ready to make a decision we could do it as soon as the next meeting um I think we need to put out
228some I think we need to put out some some education Ed motion to go past 10 God yes second all those in favor of going past 10:00 is just a Grimace look all right so we're going past 10 yeah but um so Britney so you need to know before we send out the first you know the first bills for fy2 right and I mean we would I was need a decision before town meeting um yeah I I mean I think I think I think our next meeting we you know I what I would I mean I need to look at the updated memo that you've given us and if you could update some of the other attachments sure that you didn't get to do with this one and let us have those to look at
229and then to Rob's point if there's a way to look at what are the what are these long-term capital costs that are related to just general maintenance that we know we need to do and what are some of the other costs and expenses that we think could be attributed to the change in the input coming into the reservoir from Legacy Farms and how is that impact and then I mean I don't know where we're at with the the um IMA with Hopkinton but is there I don't know if we can go to them or to the developer and say our costs are increasing can we get additional funding or can you supplement something I don't know if that's possible something to work I'll have to go back and review it because uh Lisa did cover
230this extensively with the board a couple years ago when you entered into the settlement agreement right and um I'll to see what that covered I believe there was some chemical related costs associated with that Dan I'm not sure what the exact it would be good to but there was some mitigation that that they still haven't completed that correct if you could remind us what that was that we sure uh another final question for me anyway is Dan this ozone project Does it include updating the backup system I've already actually I've gone through the backup system this this past summer to make sure it's all up to Snuff it's everything's where exactly where it needs to be so if it has to go we're good going thank you appreciate that good so our next meet is
231March 20th in two weeks right um are we thinking going toil I think you're April 3rd maybe is that well as long as gives us enough time from a budget perspective and getting the budget out and approved oh you're right yeah pretty um I mean yeah March we're already a few weeks behind anyway so March 20th would probably be great if you need a little bit more time then April 3 I can hustle and get the document together um but April 3rd might be better but um if you need April 3rd if if you need April 3rd but we can give you we can work on getting the information I mean my my feeling is the sooner we can get this information and make this decision and talk to the public about it the better
232and then more information is the best educating the people they need to know how are you thinking of educating them well the other thing is if we just we can if we can have the new updated information for our next meeting and as part of that meeting have a little further discussion about what some of these costs mean to the public and then either not do a vote and wait to vote until April 3rd so we can talk about this and get some input from the public that might be a good way to handle it what do people think about that I think it's the right idea and Michael could put it in his newsletter about you know potential you know increases and he has the information to help you with and my other recommendation
233for you when you're working on the budget is plug in your recommendations and as as you're working on the budget that would be my you know yep yeah a couple just another thing I think actually would be helpful maybe for the board but certainly for the public at large is um you know put together a brief presentation with visuals like I noticed in some of the reports from Woodard and Curran and Weston Samson that they had some pictures of Our Own Zone um filter so you know a few pictures of that a few pictures of the water Ms I mean how many water main breaks do you average on a on a month you know got plenty of and a little history too about you know that there really has been a a um you
234know small very small minor increases in recent years I mean I do think when we talk about kicking the can down the road I mean that's on us and also you say it costs you more yeah it does well it's on but it's on us Joe I mean yeah we wait to do stuff but it's on it's on us if we're last just last year that was just last year but the years before that we didn't and and I would say too like not only like showing the um the increase in water rate which is you know obviously What the residents are paying but also what we've spent in Capital Improvements in the water infrastructure because it's needed it's needed yeah and drinking water you know you you don't you don't mess with you don't
235mess with drinking water you don't mess with public health so the other part that I found interesting in this there was a map that just showed and I'm I'm not finding it in the packet right now there was a map that showed I think sewage and stuff that had been worked on as well as water Ms and things that had been worked I mean the list was unbelievably detailed but yeah so there's these maps that were provided in our packets the sewer system map and I think it was the water sewer system map maybe they're all just sewer system Maps when you were talking about the sewer um and it I forget exactly what detail was on it but it's pretty intensive our sewer system and our water system and our pipes and and I
236think sometimes we don't consider that so I think to to Claudia's Point some history about how old some of our pipes are and why we're needing some of this capital and infrastructure and okay so for the next meeting do you want it more in like a presentation format this is this is a lot of data analysis that if you put in presentation it's not going to be it's going to be boring but maybe visuals and um some other stuff and give us and the public pictures as to to you know as as Brandy always says as a marketing person right you got to tell them the story okay and the fact that we did a a 5% increase last year but we hadn't done one before that for a a number of years and over
237the last seven years we've only been doing a 1% increase and as we know things have been going up and the the discussion that you had about we're not getting in as much because there's not as much usage and and development development SEL there's a lot there's a lot of factors so I think showing us and the public that picture is important I think there's a lot of research around pictures too and people M based on a picture versus yep one of and actually I think one of Britney's most impactful graphs is showing that the reason we've been able to keep rates so low and not raise them is because we've deferred our Capital expenses over the years um that would we've had a declining Debt Service we've had the developments over the past couple
238of years help us out so we've only had to it was on average that we increased rates 1% yeah I mean do you want to it all depends how you look at it do you want to raise rates 3% every year to pay for projects in the future that way it's not a massive jump like it is now or do do people want to wait and projects as they come do and I think that would be part of our discussion right that point too in terms of Enterprise funds um what do we have to we can only raise the amount that it costs to run whatever we're running via the Enterprise fund is that how that works no I mean you can raise you can raise rates more and generate more Revenue that so that
239at the end of the year you would have a balance that would then go back into what you call retained earnings so is there a cap on that or how's that what are you thinking about they recommend um they've changed it but they recommend to have at least 90 days worth of operating expenses in retained earnings but then say they also throw in well it also depends on your Capital plan right so they kind of protect themselves by saying cash for right if you have a lot of capital investment you need to do the more retain earnings you should have so they don't really tell you you know y wondering if if we have you know projects like the ozone right and you know that that that has to be done every 20 years and
240maybe that one's a little bit out there but you know maybe you know you start raising a little bit of money so that you know just like you save for something you want to buy right I mean you don't you're not always in the position to do that we've all probably known that from our personal Liv kind of kind of sneak up on your and and this doesn't seem like it would be the year to be looking to retain funds but maybe the future you know who know we may have a dry season this year and that means more people are going to use more water so mix you need a mix and then you need no water bands that's exactly it's like a no win up here you know either you're either in a
241water band or we have substantial rain damn if you do damn we still need to do trash too but this is this is just water there still sewer in trash all right you can thank you guys read I would say sewer can hold off as well maybe include it as part of the presentation okay next at our next meeting because I think they tie together to some extent okay now what do you want to do that make sense yeah I think we're I think trash trash you want pictures of trash talk trash we just did the trash bags that's how I know the unfortunate thing is that only covered one year and what I have noticed this year and obviously it hasn't been a full year is that the bag sales like I worried about
242are not coming in as expected so right now I'm projecting a $100,000 shortfall just in the bag sales now that could be due for a number of reasons we don't know if people hoarded the bags well thanks Dan apprciate you um yes what okay as long as okay so now I know that there'll be there'll be an influx of purchases the next year H right so there could be people could go out and buy a ton more bags next year and sales will be back up to where they should be I just don't have the data to analyze it yet right um so that's why I I did the hybrid approach again is to a flat fee and a um I'm not putting it solely on the flat fee what I would like to do
243it's reliable and we don't have hoarders that so I have a couple questions for you yes um so as we were looking at like the whole the whole trash um the way we we currently price it there's one fee for household another fee for seniors yes would it be possible because I know as I'm I'm like it pains me like literally pains me to raise the flat fee for everyone in the same manner yep and I get that the seniors are some of them are especially are on a fixed income but there are a lot of other people in our town that are also on fixed incomes and that are struggling it would it be possible instead of doing an age cut off for like levels payment to do something that's income based like is
244that like even a doable option because I feel like that that like a financial hardship it's a financial hardship I looked at I talked about that last year because again there are many seniors who can afford higher prices and I basically was shot down I just feel like if there's a way to do it where it's not necessarily to make seniors at the same rate as everyone else but to look at to look at some sort of income abatement versus Senior abatement I'm just I'm thinking it from a staffing level and into who would review all that who would obtain all the documentation I know I know that's why I'm asking that's why I'm asking I just what comes to mind what do you collect tax returns I mean I know that's no I know
245I know what do you collect know I just I just feel like certain things though right know I mean there are there are some of our programs that are financially related right some of the school stuff right you you get free and reduced or you get certain things because of your financial situation that that information is known by certain individuals and certain not not well free and reduced actually for families is is used for a lot of things in the schools it's used for um bus fees and other things as well so it might be something that you know what's the information Source um yeah but there's a you know significant staff I mean we have one staff person for it's a great idea there are standard ways of doing it but imp might a
246little bit I know that's why I'm asking the question might wind up being more expensive than we say or that we than you know and and the other thing then there is that means that how do you determine you know what's the income level that you give a discount to and then you have to figure out okay Above This income level we're going to be charging more and you got to figure that out and you have to have I mean I think there's I know it's it's it could be like opening up the most biggest can do you do it by assets you have yeah no I assets that are in there kids names now there's a whole I just can think about it I feel like there there may be other ways to kind
247of slice and dice it maybe but I don't I don't want it to be like this humongous project either where it yeah where it becomes like a nightmare to implement and a nightmare to manage but you know I'm looking at like the the discrepancy between what were potentially what the proposal was to like increase our trash fees for this next year for for like a standard household and then what it is for a senior and I'm like but I know there's lower income families that right you know that so there are argument last year was there's higher income seniors that can afford to pay it yeah right and they're getting the discount because of their age and yeah yeah there are different ways to generate the revenue that we need so I had um recommended
248the 15% for the I call them regular people and then a 10% for uh seniors yeah and then a 15% increase for the bag fee yeah but you could do 20% for the regular people and 5% for the seniors or there's so many different options to do it's Britney one of the things that I was thinking about when I was looking at it was um you know when we when we purchased bags right I I you know I actually do have somech them in bulk 30 33 cents know we don't B cases and we sell them at a little yeah um that's so my my children do come to our house get bags but they they get them for free the children now but um if if we um you know when we look at
249bags because there's a there's a cost associated with it right so every time I go out and buy a bag some of it does come back to the town so it's like 30 cents or 3 to see how much it is actually comes back to town it's the retailer keeps 33 so it's it's so that's a loss so you know part of me wondered if we're trying to make up $116,000 which is you know the number right that you were um for trash I think it for that was the bag number I think yeah I know it was it was it was $116 that would be yeah go ahead produced by yeah was 100,000 was the revenue for the bags okay the additional Revenue so that comes to like $19 in change if across 5,000
250households so at some point you know if I'm going to pay the additional 30 cents 40 cents for the bag then I might be better off paying depending upon how many bags I'm buying right I might be better off paying an additional $20 in the in the flat rate or not $ you know I just wondered where's the yeah from I mean from a financial standpoint purely a the flat fee is just a more reliable and stable source of income yeah that's just that's my that's my opinion um part of it doesn't incentivize people to recyc and things like that but just from a revenue standpoint it's just a it's a little bit more reliable and we are already incentivized to some degree this would be an additional incentive these these raises but I just
251wondered if maybe we should kind of look at what the Tipping Point is there in terms of um you know if we if we looked at just adding the additional $20 to the flat rate leaving the bag prices the way they are I would love to do that I would love to just increase the flat rate and but you should love it okay but you know if it so because if you figure if it's 75 bags and you know I I can't I did actually do it out in terms of how many you know um at that increase at what point does it would it just be better off to take the 20 bucks and give it right to the flap yeah I mean I don't know well I'm I'm interested and and like I
252remember last year when when Doug was here talking about the whole trash situation and um one of the things that he was talking about and correct me because I don't know these things that well but I think there's like two components of of the fees from waste management there's like I think like a tonnage I don't know so there's like the amount of trash that people are throwing away and then there's I think it's like a tipping charge or whatever it is to send out the the trucks to the to the so that's that's like your hauling charge okay and then what you're talking about in terms of the actual cost of disposing the rubbish that's called a tipping fee okay all right so I was sort of right yeah okay so so I'm curious
253like the like the the less bags does that mean that people are throwing away less trash because I'm trying to I'm trying to understand what the behavior is yes so I had I had a feeling that someone would ask that tonight and I I wasn't able to get the data in time um that's where I'm not sure if people were holding the bags okay but the tonage has stayed the same okay or if tonage has actually gone down okay so I can request the information from waste management and and see if that be the tonage has gone down if if not then because because I think that's going to also Drive some of our decisions because like when we raised both the flat fee and the bags last year it part of you like you
254said it's like it's it's not s like it's not a depend the bag fee is not a dependable so maybe people like I asked I asked Sam today last night I actually I sent her an email as I was going through all the trash stuff I said how many households do we have composting because ideally not from a revenue standpoint but like from a holistic sustainability world persec to s that composts a discount on their TR right because that incentivizes people to do the right thing yep um if like Waste Management would work with us and charge us less for the tonnage or tipping fee whatever it is I would love to be able to do that obviously that's doesn't solve the revenue issue yeah we could look to see if I don't know if
255it's if we have this many less bags what that correlates to in the tonnage is it a dollar dollar for match there's a bunch of different so like I asked Sam I said so how many households compost in Ashlin today versus a year through Black Earth compared to a year ago because when we raised the fee like did did that incentivize people to to compost to compost and the numberb she gave me so a year ago it was 208 families in Ashland and um now we're at 292 which doesn't sound like a huge number jump but when we're talking percentage it's a big percentage so like I'm thinking okay you know Behavior might be shifting you know and Sam was talking about oh you know I'd love to be able to offer grants and like
256all this other stuff but there's other things that are kind of taking priority on those grants that we had offered through through through the inial just I do want to note but that's that's just people compost through that program correct right so I use less bags because I compost we put out a bag every two weeks I don't I'm not in that program we've been composting for 30 years in your backyard yeah which there must I would think a lot of people I'm sure there are other people that I mean I know people who compost in their I'm just saying discount but black Earth takes a lot more out of the the food stream than than because you can put meat you could put bones Dairy I know but it's still a lot I mean
257it's definitely like the way to it's the way but you verif okay here's my invoice from Earth $10 off of my does the town get any revenue from Black Earth no so so there's no savings to no I mean what we were able to negotiate as part of a a program a a pilot program was a reduced rate for residents to to join and be a part of the Black Earth Pro program but no we don't get fin to meet a certain number and now we've met that amount so it's at the lowest rate possible yeah yeah if we made some kind of money off of it then un hit 900 900 households between the combined Community to to to lower the price more okay and we're not there I I thought it was just
258the 500 was the mark okay no so but you know like I'm wondering like would we be able to I don't know negotiate negotiate with with Waste Management based on like the fees like that they charge for for tonnage like I I'm just trying to I'm trying to figure out like ways that we can look at this and kind of have a better picture of what's going on yeah I I mean I think certainly when the contract comes up again that's an part of the discussions that we can have we did try to get we did look at townwide composting as part of the last contract and it was just prohibitively expensive yeah um and you're talking about like the doubling of the costs well presume we're saving because they charge us Less on the
259the tonnage right I mean the more we yeah but the hauling and the specialized you dispos that's you need that anyway one other thing that I know that we kind of mentioned the last time around with this and I would kind of like to take another look at it too is we had mentioned if we went to a a um bi-weekly recycling so it wasn't every week you fill up the big bin but every other week um what what that would translate into to as far as possibly like stabilizing the the that's a good the trash c talk about that and then you know obviously we'd want to like make sure like if we would make some sort of change like that you know maybe we do a survey out into the public and just
260say hey if we move to every other week on a scale of like easy to excruciatingly painful how bad would it be for you and see what people I don't know like I'm just trying to think of some creative ways that we may not be able to yeah these new compost bins are very large I think for most people they could gole bins yeah yeah so most people can go to I think you know well I think the trash contract's up in June 30th of 2027 so we'll probably start negotiating that in late 2026 so that's certainly something we can bring up I think what we want to be concerned what we should be concerned about is that if that is going to discourage people from Recycling and then they start putting more of their
261recycling into the waist stream which then we have to pay for and end up paying more for so like if somebody fills up their recycling bin within week one you know at week two what are they doing are they actually taking their Recycling and putting it into well that information we can get from the you know waste folks now is is how much you know how much do people recycle so that we can because then maybe we could figure out well how much room is there in you bin every week you know everybody's most people's bin full or they most people have full or something I would think they're tracking on a week toe basis what they're hauling for us right yeah it's usually the invoices are done on a monthly basis right but they
262should but to do that they're still tracking it week by week what they're hauling so I would expect we can get a report from them on a week by- week basis as to what they're taking for recycle and what they're taking for trash we can ask and look at that and say okay okay through the month it's consistent or I mean I know for ourselves sometimes either we forget to put it out or it's like okay we're busy too busy or whatever we don't even put out the recycle or we don't put out the trash and then the next week our recycle bin is a little bit Fuller but yeah maybe there are other people or it would be good to see I have a teenager responsible for taking out the trash so we occasionally
263miss it sometimes I don't have that excuse but suppose family size really I guess start times of the year too come Christmas and we got of Amazon being Del to our house every day those boxes add up just christas depends whether not you have somebody that cuts the boes up into the right right that's definit that is not me yes go as do we I step on them that's I I guess what I'm hearing and maybe you too is that if we could have some kind of understanding of what our usage is from a trash perspective y the T like the tonnage and and how is that impacting Us in the charging and stuff like that yep yeah I'll see if the since the bag Revenue did go down quite a bit yeah see if
264it's impacting tonnage to go to Claudia's house yeah if it's not yeah you we did buy a lot ourselves all right so two out of five that's my yeah okay all right so for me personally just you know like when I saw the trash fee proposal literally I like was like yikes because we just went to this like you know the the the the two payment thing which is okay except that the the second trash fee like came at the exact same time excise tax you know just got them yeah came out and and it's I just paid my water bill like so it's it's all kind of you're getting hit every yeah so not I mean I I get it from a revenue standpoint we need to balance our budget and we need to
265to be able to pay for things like trash the twice a year was really just to give people a break to not do it all at once I wouldn't mind if it was all at once just because it gives people longer to actually pay the bill cuz it kind of trickles in I'm I'm wondering then based on what bry's saying right the the second bill came around the same size as time is excise tax and what you know so and it also looked like in your report that we hadn't gotten as much payment like we're not our our receivables are off based on the two Bill process yeah so the flat fee I I obviously don't really have a trend to look at and when I looked at the previous years it took people about
266six months or seven months to to pay the bill the first three to four months we collected everything right but people know they have all year to pay or they they take a little bit longer right so now that it's in two installments I don't know if people going to pay now in July or August which will throw off our cash flow now for that fiscal year and I just I don't have the data to to look at so that might be something to check with the public right okay we did two bills because we increased the amount was that helpful or not or should we even if we know we're going to increase a little bit again this year I'm expecting does it make more sense to just keep it as one bill yeah
267it's right I mean we can ask that question maybe that's a town manager yeah Pi a month of hits yeah I think it was it was summertime so people usually in a good mood in the summertime anyway so that's usually that's a good I mean I think people just look at the bill and pay it I mean you know yeah right right but okay it may be better to yeah okay anything else we need to cover at this time are we ready to move on I think we can move on if you want to unless you want to just endure keep talking about it yeah yeah so we're going to discuss some more next meeting and potentially take action the meeting after okay well thank you Britney and thank you Britney thanks thank you Dan
268thanks for hanging in there all right and so thanks for the water yes thanks for the water yeah all right the next is the uh discuss the MBTA zoning which I think we we do have a date for the um meeting with the planning board is uh and what's the time on that 8:30 8:30 we do because the consultant's coming in later or something all right Joe do you want to talk to us about it yes I guess I shouldn't have asked okay yeah actually nothing has changed yeah um the figures are there and the figures are is it in our packet I didn't see no no I the figures of what we presented at our last our last one okay at the same they they haven't changed so that that's basically it great so
269thank you for that work questions or thoughts on that um oh I was I have not had a chance to either watch The Forum or review the information so I'm hoping we'll because we haven't been sent anything formally yet right no regarding that okay but we will before Hope a week from we will before Thursday I would hope so okay okay and um yeah and we did have a discussion of that not too long ago and I don't know wpp up some stuff yeah is 8: or 830 80 8:30 so but the public forum was great like I just wanted to to to thank you guys for putting putting together a couple Forums on this because I think part of the part of the issue is really educating people um it's funny I listened just
270as an FYI I listened to an NP um broadcast um they were interviewing the person that was from Milton that was the head of the no for h no for a no for Milton um and you know just as an FYI for anyone that that is listening um the the no for Milton folks had always intended to comply with MBTA communities but it was the way that it was presented and put together that was the issue which is how it ended up a ballot issue so the other thing the other thing that I heard on so I was on mapc winter Council today and they were talking about housing and the MBTA zoning yeah and someone from Milton was on it and they said the issue is not necessarily the housing but the fact that
271we are being impacted by this but the transportation the trains that we're having to house for are not consistent and they're not providing the transportation that our community needs so people are still having to drive in from Milton so you're requiring us to do this Transit MBTA Zone Zing because of the trains but the trains do not provide they have two really old they're like we that's what the person said you know what but I just wanted to put that out there because I know some of the feedback that had happened at the Forum yeah and in general why they said no people are using it as sort of this rally and cry like oh we should be like Milton and we should say no and it's like well it's actually first of all it's
272complicated like everything else is um but you know I just wanted to say thank you to all the work that you guys have been doing because I think that what from what I saw at your last Forum um The Proposal really has minimal when I say minimal like zero additional impact from whatever has been currently built or currently permitted and so the impact that we are well like so you know being able to control what we can control I think is there and I think that the the public work that you guys have been doing has been great so I just want to say thank you well on behalf of uh trishan L and Peter you're welcome it's a it's it's been an experience and um you know we're just waiting for ugc to see
273what the heck's going to happen with that piece of property you know we put it in it's in the it's in the plan but do we have to take it out yeah we that's actually something I I want to take a little bit of a closer look at um and because if we're going to change the density of that lot I don't know if Peter brought this up my concern up to you but um at your last meeting but you know if we increase the dens the density outside of what is allowed in the development agreement does that basically Al derail at the rail Transit District um that ugc project okay so that's something I think we've got to be careful about the other the other thing is we got an some of us not
274all of us got an email from Mike Kane um after the ABA Forum that happened and he said if we're looking to create new housing and and different things let's try to work with the MBTA he said the parking lot at the MBTA could be a potential area for building right you put garage underneath you do so I I think part of what we need to do is get creative with this as well where Did We End well I wasn't I didn't see the form but I'm going to try where is it on wacka like you can just look it up so I'm going to try to look at it but I always like the idea of zoning around the TR close to the train station so that's not a bad idea the other the
275other thing too is that um if people uh aren't part of that resoning District we in on the Pleasant Street area they can always use the uh downtown uh overlay dist uh District as part of that because that allows commercial building and housing and housing so that's already there so we don't need to reinvent the wheel through special permit right through a special permit correct well the zoning though the MBTA zoning has to be by right exactly yes EXA okay all right so certain age too so if you don't have the acor that's that's important okay well thanks Joe and thanks all the other folks so next Thursday you know Michael I'm thinking maybe um in your newsletter send a link to those two forums they were very informative we did I would do it
276again's put them out there because they were very good forums and people could fast forward through actually yeah just at this next meeting we're going to actually vote right and finalize this or finalize is it going to town meeting right yes I I think you're going to get a recommendation so we're going to make a recommendation or clearance for and then and then the planning board probably has to hold a separate hearing anyway for because it's a bylaw change so they would have to go through the whole town meeting Z yeah zoning hearing process that's yeah I mean you might they have that laid out I mean you may choose to push that to um you know push this vote to the fall I mean that's a decision that you know you could certainly make
277as well I don't see yeah right that's the that's the other option what that that it's if we can do it in the spring and if for some reason it doesn't pass at Springtown meeting it would give us the opportunity to revisit it in Fall town meeting to make it happen I think we're a good position to go for spring yeah okay all right thank you um the next item I have is discuss and vote on determination of the useful life of the fire department Town truck and authorizing a clerk to sign on behalf of the board so is there anything we need to discuss here you have to have some so so so typically typically uh you know fire trucks you're only allowed to borrow over a period of five years and so what
278this does is would change that to be 20 years it has to be done by a vote of the board though and what is it but this is something we voted on two years ago at town meeting to purchase the truck correct have we not borrowed for it yet um it's under no we have not borrowed for it yet it's still under construction it takes about 2 years for them to okay to be built so they're building a truck and we haven't paid we haven't paid anything on it yet correct oh we're good for it you think so by taking by taking this vote we'll then uh we'll do borrowing for it but by allowing us to do this we can borrow for 20 years 20 years so we increase the depreciation in effect yeah
279in 20 years is a realistic time I guess 20 years is a very realistic time frame and so you just need well it would be Joe but you need to actually take a motion okay so I'm going to read read the whole thing no just that you can you want to read this make the motion okay um I move that we authorize that the maximum useful life of the first to the fire tower truck to be financed with the proceeds of the 1,435 N8 borrowing authorized by the vote of town meeting passed May 4th 2022 is hereby determined pursuant to General Law chapter 44 sub7 uh one to be 20 years I'll second that the motion's been made and second it all those in favor say I I oppos None motion passes unanimously the clerk
280will sign it very good you all right um okay so believe it or not we're just getting a town manager report oh yeah I got a long list tonight I know I see that you do so um so first I I'll start off with an update on the FY 25 budget I I don't have too much of an update except I did have an opportunity to sit down with superintendent Adams and just kind of talk about kind of the situation that we're facing with the deficit and just kind of get a feel of where the school committee and the superintendent is uh on their budget because they're also in negotiations at this point in time um with the number of their unions and uh so it was a good discussion they're planning on holding their
281um budget Workshop that believe' on the 16th um so they'll have more information after that and then once we have that figure from them we can really start working on whittling down that deficit um so that's the update on fy2 so if they're doing their budget workshop on March 16th then you and Jim will work stuff out and then we'll have a tri board meeting to discuss and review or I will suggest that we have a tri board meeting okay so for sure um but yeah I mean whether it's at a tri board meeting or whether you folks are reviewing it as individual boards and committees we'll have a plan you know that we would put together for you to review um the next item on the agenda is at technology efficiencies so if you
282recall um not to too long ago Paul Carpenter was able to secure a grant through the community compact program for $150,000 to pay for a new permitting system now this is going to be a comprehensive permitting system that we're going to be able to utilize across all different departments so not just building but also planning Health um even our liquor licenses and the licenses that happen out of our office DPW the clerk's office so we'll be able to um to do that we'll also be able to accept payments online as part of this which is something that we've been looking to do to increase the convenience for um for people permit for permits and stuff um so we uh we made a decision to go with a company called open gov and uh you've probably
283you might have seen advertisements for them around they're certainly expanding and and capturing market share here in Massachusetts um but um we're in the process of working out an implementation plan with with them and that should be done and completed by July 1st so looking forward to that and then also um we're looking at making some uh efficiency upgrades in our internal um internal technology if you will uh utilizing some of the HR mod modules available in munus so one is a time and attendance model employee um I forgot what they call the second one do you remember what the second one it's some Tyler cont Tyler content management that's what it is um so Katherine's been working with Paul and munus on that so um we're going to be making making some that was
284something that you reviewed during the budget Workshop that Katherine talked about so are we trying to implement it before the end of this year because we have some funds to do that or are you putting it into the budget for fiscal year 25 we'll put it into the budget for 25 and it'll be an ongoing cost as well right I knew that so okay so that'll have to be part of the budget okay correct um but it should save us um you know if it doesn't save US Dollars it should make us a lot more efficient in terms of the usage usage of our time okay um so there's that um next is a comprehensive Plan update so first I want to just you know let everybody know out there that there are three specific
285ways that you can provide input um one is a survey and another is a crowd map uh both of which you can find on The Envision Ashland website it's part of the the website has a pretty extensive address uh I did find if you just Google inv Vision Ashland it comes up as the first uh first one on Google um so that should help you uh we have our next meeting tomorrow uh tomorrow night the library it is at the library starting at 7 p.m. and we'll review kind of our community engagement process or progress I should say to date um and I know several of us have hosted meetings in a box and have been able to get some input so it's pretty U um pretty pretty good Outreach effort um also so just
286moving on to the next one the Dei update so there has been a community survey that's been put out um and so we're continuing to advertise that um in fact tonight I sent something out or I scheduled something um that went out that had the survey link to both the comprehensive plan and the Dei survey um and both of those were in both um English and Portuguese so is that like via constant contact via Constant Contact so so what would be good is at our next meeting if you can go back and see how many how many you know what was the open rate and what was the clickthrough rate so we can see potentially how many people are actually looking at it yeah we should we should get the number of surveys completed and
287see if there's a a spike that happens with that too um so that's the Dei update we also have we have a meeting tomorrow um to go through that um to that work so next is an update on 2024 goals now you know I have a spreadsheet that I that I usually distribute um it didn't get updated by everybody in time so will be able to send that to you I'll send it to you in between me maybe we'll have more time next meeting to go over it yeah well and we can look at that as we're doing your review correct yeah correct so let's let's think about it as next meeting agenda so funny Joe I I think in April when could I mean as we're each doing our review of him then right
288that first week in April we're going to be meeting with him so yeah and then I don't have too much on priority project update from the last meeting so um except uh you know the upper Charles well I did give a pretty pretty comprehensive overview of where we are with the last upper Charles Trail group so yeah we need to have another meeting but yeah yeah and so uh that's what I have for this evening great I think that's enough yeah yeah so that gets us to board report so we we're star in the usual way Claudia if you're ready to go uh yeah I don't have too much I did attend attend the uh planning board uh MBTA Forum which was very informative and uh recommend uh people take a look at those videos
289okay thank you Randy I also don't have very much um and I can't think of anything because it's really late so I'm gonna I'm gonna take a pass on tonight but yeah I know I don't have anything else to say I'm done Joe go ahead he's got a whole sheet of stuff stuff yeah well don't forget wasn't there for the last meeting so so he's making up for last real quick that helps uh Public Safety uh we met at the public safety building uh with our roadway Traffic Safety Committee on the 27th a lot of items were discussed as a matter of fact I'll I'll pass around the fact that Evan White uh was uh spoke uh had conversation with Mass DOT and they plan on uh putting in two pedestrian crosswalk signs uh AC
290not Sol even though this is a Soler powered uh design but on on codal road which is a state roadway um so oh yeah I've been seeing the work yeah so at some point we're going to need to accept that those those two uh signs and uh at some point we'll be responsible for the maintenance I talked with Doug Small about that and uh to run those two signs uh when needed because it's it's one of those push buts like we have downtown uh he is like about 12 cents a day it averages out to 12 cents a day he says and I can cover that into my budget so that's not a real big deal so uh that would be uh that would be suggested but seeing this not on the agenda hopefully we
291can put it on the next one yeah get make sure you remind us make sure you remind us well she's going on way vacation she should be in bid by now because she's traveling Oh is [Laughter] she yeah right yeah all nighter Joe this is great work I think we should put spend some time on it we can do that and and the other thing is too I I it's running real quick Mertle Street by Winter Street there's a gate we have no idea who authorized that gate to be put up I know that it was there because because of uh when those houses went in when the houses went in well prior to the houses when people were dumping trash and stuff in that area yeah then the houses would in and became like
292a a crazy you know cut through but if we to make that a one way and that would be people coming in from Framingham to utilize that and not coming out because you got a blind spot there so we're looking at that and changing that around and open up the gate for that so that would keep the traffic from uh strob SL from so maybe since you have something for us to vote we invite the road set Traffic Safety Committee to our oh be either next meeting or our first meeting in April to just give us an update and then also vote that we can actually do that that that would be great make a note make make a note of that and tomorrow night uh at 5:00 with the affordable housing trust uh will
293be meeting and again I want to thank the board for supporting the uh habitat for uh uh Society uh for that affordable housing uh program and uh lastly my condolences to the families of uh Marie oliv and Beverly Kenny uh very wonderful people who uh starts uh supporters of the uh Council on Aging they were always there on activities and stuff and I miss their smiling faces and they were the only two that could still call me Joey uh but uh they were wonderful people and lastly Ben Montenegro who was a stellar figure in in Ashland for many many years his son Peter just passed away uh he had a battle he had a battle with cancer 8 years and uh God bless him and his family and I just wanted send out my condolences
294to them all we lost a lot of good people recently so uh keep them in your prayers and thoughts and that's all I have great thank you I just jump back in um I just wanted to mention that and I meant to send you Michael a picture but uh last week I saw them working on um uh a some new um crosswalks on 135 um and they were out there uh risking their lives painting as I was coming out of one of the streets and uh so I did take a little picture and I just want to say it was uh you know great to see that work happening and uh how much I appreciate the DPW and uh friends we're working on it and hopefully the sidewalk plans are still go for it and
295March 10th pancake breakfast VFW with the Boy Scouts true starts at 8 o' March 10th March 10th it's a Sunday yeah yeah typically clocker breakfast the next the next week the next week that's right clock all right thanks Joe Yolanda okay a couple couple different things first uh on Tuesday so yesterday morning we had the ab ABA event it was uh what they they put it out as an update on Ashlin projects and it was Michael and Peter machic and Beth Reynolds Claudia was supposed to join us we missed you uh and I moderated it was great we got questions ahead of time so we could prepare and people that that were here were very appreciative of the discussion and it was it was well well done they they filmed it so it'll be available
296to watch as well uh I this morning was on a call for mepc I'm the town representative to the Mac so this is their winter council meeting via Zoom you got a 100 plus people on a zoom meeting and voting different things and a lot of the discussion was on housing and climate impact and some of the the stuff that our sustainability committee was talking about was brought into this discussion so that was good uh there's some bills either being passed or about to be passed to make permanent too drinks and outdoor dining so that'll definitely be solidified before April 1st because it runs out April 1st and then they've also done an extension again for Zoom meetings I thought they were going to make it permanent but it's going to be pushed out to
29741 202 so another year of well being able to zoom and I someone commented that why don't they just make it permanent because that's what we thought they were going to be doing everyone it's appreciative it allows us it allows people to sit in and watch our meetings and not have to sit here and still participate yep tomorrow morning is the lion senior breakfast first Thursday of the month on Saturday the Garden Club is having a presentation at the library at 10: a.m. one of our members turned her backyard from just a grassy lawn into what is being touted as an Italian resort with b and Gardens and uh so the presentation is tomorrow you do have to register I think you can do it through the L tomorrow I'm sorry it's on it's on
298Saturday at 10: a.m. at the library in person should be a great event and then just I'm going to plug one more time a weekend there's one more weekend of songs for grown-ups at Hopkinson Center for the Arts on Friday and Saturday night but if you're you're interested get your ticket soon we sold out last Saturday and they're expecting to sell out again that's great Friday it was not quite sold out Friday they had they had some tickets they had some tickets still available for Friday but Friday Saturday night right Friday and Saturday night at hopkington Center for the Arts wonderful all right thank you um just it was fun just a few quick updates I just wanted to note and thank Ashwin CH chavas uh who resigned from the finance committee so I think
299most of us know Ash Winnie or she so thank you Ash Winnie for your efforts on that um and um you know so she got a a new new job so she's in good shape I think so um uh the MBTA reduced Fair initiative which I've talked about is moving ahead I think the board's going to see it soon and it's likely to be approved um and to go to remind they're Outsourcing their elig ability and using some very basic this goes to I think the thing you brought up uh it's 200% of federal poverty level which uh so there's a lot of sources that certify that one is like um uh Mass heal Medicaid Eligibility um and the big one you're using is SNAP benefits so if you're eligible for SNAP you're eligible for
300this so it's something to think about and they they are they are Contracting with third parties to uh certify people's eligibility but it's kind of a hopefully a simple process so so it's something for us to think about there are sources out there where you don't have to yourself verify people's identity um uh income um and um I I did that oml training I think has everyone else done it now that I'm scheduled for the 26 very good it's actually pretty enjoyable it's like we spent an hour and a half one thing I I did take away from it um in terms of U meet controlling meetings they did say that under the open meeting law if someone's being disruptive and this um and this had to do with physical uh disruption the um you
301need to give people a clear warning that they're being disruptive and must stop but if they don't you can then eject them either physically using a constable or via Zoom so that's something to think about if someone is really being disruptive I give them or the chair gives them a clear War warning that in my view you're being disruptive and you need to stop they don't stop that's under open meeting law you're allowed to do that so I thought that was interesting um and I think that's all I had so I actually have one other announcement I'd be remiss if I didn't talk about this next Thursday the 14th the YMCA has their community breakfast at the Sheran it's a free event it's an opportunity to go and meet their marathon runners it's just a
302Feelgood they'll also going to give be giving an update on on the YMCA that's coming here to Ashland so if you're interested let me know I can forward you the invitation or it's probably on their website as well Thursday a.m. Thursday 7: to 9:00 a.m. next week next week have we breakfast for the oh god oh we have not next meeting we need to do that let's let's put on the it's typically the Saturday before but we have to vote it so at our our first meeting in April we'll vote that good point so let's put on the agenda right oh yeah it's only the 6th of March so our next meeting I'm like I'm I'm I'm about a month ahead of myself let's put let see put on the agenda for the 20th R's
303breakfast very good all right like brain is way ahead all right well it's 11 o' what is that is that really almost right I'll second that all those in favor say I good night thank you all every bye Susan I can't believe TR