001great welcome everyone to the ason select board meeting uh for January 17 2024 um call this meeting to order um is there we have um a number of uh events tonight but uh first I'll do a quick is there anyone here for Citizens participation see anyone I see uh so Mark do has raised his hand is there anyone who wants to come to the elect turn for Citizens participation okay go ahead Mark I think you're unmuted okay thank you good evening hope everybody got is safe and and healthy um volume I would like to thank the town itself for Mark hold on one second we need more volume in the room Mackie can you give us more volume y please thank you okay try again mark thank you tting one two three one two three
002all set yep okay okay Mark 249 roads I'm think second of the town for clearing out from this l s storm it did a good job on Al Street hathon Road and all throughout and um so seeing everything is is good and everything um happy New Year by the way you guys were on I think the first year but I wasn't I wasn't here and um is the town is ready for the town elections is this town set for that uh what happened yet yikes it was oh something appeared backs fun with technology I apologize it's okay us all freshes new year wishes what do you guys is it uh okay with this with the board if we move ahead with with the presentation for Lois since um I'm I'm done oh how come we
003can hear him again back go ahead uh go ahead back okay there you go we got you back I I thought maybe I got lost in the uh along the backseat board over over rice plane there um I'd like to thank the town for pling out the streets and doing a good job and I was just wondering is this town ready for for the state elections with the Voting is it all prepped up and ready to go what's this wondering well I think I can um my understanding Mark is that we're we're you know we're geared up and ready to go with all the um election preparation for the coming year and um that question came up um from last night State D committee that we had last night that virtual Zoom connections if they
004want me to help out because I can um I can be around for that here and if they need any any assistance and stuff like that i' be willing to help all right thank you Mark thanks Mark okay that's it for now all right thanks Mark okay so I'm going to proceed to the next item on our agenda genda which is to honor Lois mcalli on her retirement from the public library so with that I'll turn it over to our town manager to um yes so um yes it is a Bittersweet night as we celebrate SL bone um Lois's upcoming retirement um Lois has been a children's librarian since 1977 and has worked at the Ashland Public Public Library is the children's librarian for 23 years if I 2000 boy um so she's uh been
005here a while seen a lot seen the renovation of the library been through a lot of programs giv us on the Minuteman system um which is a huge accomplishment because that just opened up so many doors literally and figuratively for Ashley residents to you know borrow books and materials from other libraries across the region and Minuteman pretty big region but um Lois has has made the decision that she's going to retire at the end of the month and um we're here to again celebrate that that Milestone and you know a lot of people well I don't know I think quite a few people don't know this about Lois but she's actually an author and uh I am fortunate enough to have one of her books A's Journey um and uh I tell you it's she's
006very very creative very very thoughtful and um this is this is a prize possession of mine so because I think you autographed it too um so when you are you planning on writing more in thebly okay great I can't imagine not wanting to at some point awesome so um yeah I mean this point in time I don't know if you the board wants to say things yeah I think I'm sure people yeah um I'll I'll say my Lois survived all four of my children being involved in Ash you know the children stuff and it was those were great years I remember very well so um you know thank you for all your years of service doing that and the continued activities at you know the library is so vibrant and so much going on and
007you've been such a part of that over the years so thank you um for that and um why don't we just go in order here sure uh I would like to congratulate you I too have you know met her first when my girls were a little bit younger and have watched and I think your involvement with how the children's room evolved from when it was in the old library and then with the addition and the thought that you put into and help with creating such a wonderful children's room in the new library we hear so many great stories about what happens down there and we know that it is all due to your guidance and work as well as the board of the the you know the library trustees but someone has to have that
008vision and I think you've been been part of that so I want to say thank you you will be missed and when you write that book next book let us know cuz we'll talk about it thank you thank you Lois uh for all your service to the to the town of Ashland uh my oldest children didn't have the pleasure of uh having you as their librarian but my grandchildren do and um I can tell you that uh one of my grandsons Coleman uh was very apprehensive about the library when he first walked into that huge big building and went downstairs but you made it very simple for him you made it very easy for him and um I'll never forget when he came back he was she's really nice she's really nice and for you
009know for six-year-old to say that at the time when he was six that meant a lot so thank you very much for all your service and I wish you nothing but the best in your retirement thank you for you help so thank you Lois I have a lot of really great memories of Lait in the library with my now 16-year-old when he was little and I just want to thank you for providing such a resource to parents because I think um you know we've had so much more programming that's kind of been added on to the library but thinking back when my son was young like you know lapip was like I mean that was the excitement you know that the kids you know the kids would pile into that room um I remember Star
010Wars Day you know where you would show the Star Wars movie and dress up yeah so I remember one of my best one of my favorite pictures I got to dig it out is um you and Nate Nate dressed up as as Han Solo at the age of like three and um and so it was it's just it it it was such a special place and it was such a great resource for parents to be able to come on a cold or rainy day on a Saturday and just um play at the Train table and find some books and it was always just this hop in place in the library in the children's room and um and and and it was because kids love to come and see you and so um so just thank
011you for for um for your years of service to the town and for all that you did and and we will miss you and um we will we will we will think of you every day every every May the 4th um when it's when it's Star Wars day so thank you yes I too want to thank you for your service to the town and particularly um you know to library service is in a time when libraries really uh changed so dramatically from the time my children were young to the now um you know my grandchildren and how um you know you made still doing the cards when I came onard all right and and uh you know you really you're being able to stay with all that and and make it all happen and and
012certainly I think bring connecting us to the minute man system was so uh tremendous for our community um and you know I I certainly have a variety of memories um spent in that library from my now son-in-law asking our our permission to marry our daughter to um you know my grandchildren running running there and uh leaving a friend of mine's daughter there one afternoon after school um and and all of um really all that you've done to to connect to the mest school because of its um how closely located it it is to the library and some of the programming that you were able to offer families particularly on early release days and um and I know our our kids always felt like big shots when they were able to walk down from mindes um
013down to the library it's one of those special things that you remember your whole life so thank you for your service thank you Claudia so we have we're going to have a proclamation and a presentation but I wanted to um is there anyone who cares to come up to the Lector and and speak about Lois before we get into that anybody in the audience and Lois can use that time to think about her speech you know that kind of any takers all right we'll uh we'll present so I think we'll go up here to present it right so Lo us if you want to this is sorry this is a bit long we tend to you know there's a long record here so uh where is uh select board proclamation of recog nition whereas Lois
014MC has been moli has been a valued and dedicated employee of the town of Ashen for more than two years is that oh 23 years sorry serving as the Director of children's services as a and as acting Library director and uh Lois started in the library before the much needed Renovations were completed in 2006 Lois was instrumental with moving the library to the very tiny temporary location on Chestnut Street wow yes the space was definitely not ideal but everyone made the best of the challenging situation and whereas Lois played an important role providing input and guidance in creating the gorgeous 22,800 ft Library we have today Lois focused on the new children's space making sure it was welcoming and bright and whereas Lois focused on expanding programming and even offered virtual programming during covid Lois
015introduced many new programs including lapip uh R to a dog steam Thursdays Friday crafts and Mom mom's group little Crafters to name a few and whereas Lois worked tirelessly to bring Ashlin to a place where they could join the minan library Network which includes 61 libraries and a world of options and whereas in addition to all of her accomplishment Lois has written Illustrated and published two books one called Yugo story about a hippopotamus the other called aees Journey about a lost arbark and whereas Lois has been a constant Among The NeverEnding changes working for nine Town managers including Dexter boo I don't know Dexter blo I remember him Hector Rivera yes Dale Morris Dave Thomas John petran Mark purple James Purcell Anthony skava skav and Michael Herbert and three Library directors Beth Hopper Paula benetti
016and Mina Jane and now therefore we the select board do hereby Proclaim Wednesday January 31st 2024 is Lois mcalli day wow we we urge all residents and fellow employees to make known their appreciation for her devotion we wish you good health and good fortune congratulations Lo can take that and we have some [Applause] presentations step right up step right up random I do not have I do not have a speech well I've loved working here that's partly why I've stayed around so long is because this is a fabulous community and the people in the town have been so appreciative of the library and um the welcoming me but also showing appreciation to all the library staff and that's made it a joy to be working here and our library is such a gorgeous building that
017that's been a joy as well so thank you all I will be back to visit but thank you thank you and um I do want to mention that the library trustees are also here so thank you for coming who are you want to raise your hands all right good no good and all right thank you for all your work it's good to see you here all right thanks all right so that um brings us to our next item on the agenda yeah let's take a group oh yeah we should do that I'm sorry all right picture time so uh whoever wants to be in this picture feel free good can you get everybody thanks Lois all right and um there's a celebration next weekend right for for 27 27 y 27 so so where can
018people look at the details for that where's it post did we post it on the town website I think we did it's in the morning like 10 to yeah there's a public yeah to 2 10 to 10 to 12 this Saturday yeah Saturday the not the Saturday the next Saturday okay 10 to two for the okay yes all right thank you well um the next item in the agenda we're very pleased to inaugurate this new process this is a presentation uh from the ashon Council on Aging a new community hero award and so I believe we're going to have Steve Mitchell come up here and tell us a little bit about it and um then we'll have some other festivities on that but go ahead Steve sure Fran Blake is going to join me as
019well and uh did he know that Jerry he does now does now so so first of all happy happy New Year to everybody thank good to see you um so as Rob said we uh in two 2023 we started the conversation about creating this community hero award originally it was a senior hero award but as we discussed it more and more we realized that uh uh Community hero might be a better better name for it uh so we worked a a number of months and the the purpose of the award is to recognize and acknowledge Ashley and seniors who have demonstrated public service and volunteerism in support of the Ashland Community and individuals groups and organiz ations who have demonstrated support and advocacy for Ashley and seniors regardless of age or residency so it's pretty
020broad uh we hope that uh as this develops that uh you know we'll have a very vibrant group of acknowledgements so uh we plan to we have a document that we hope to have on the on the website town website as well as well as a nomination U form as as well so so on behalf of the Council on Aging we could not have two more appropriate and deserving recipients of the inaugural COA Community hero award we're going to do this alphabetically IIA Sano spent a lifetime of service and volunteerism Izzy served on the ashleen board of registrars for 24 years the Ashland Council on Aging for 17 years and the Ashland democra committee for 31 years he was a proud member of the Ashland Lions Club the Knights of Columbus and the friends of
021the Council on Aging so you know for the folks at home that don't necessarily know who Izzy is this is a man who spent his life in volunteerism and it's it's really a pleasure to see so many of the groups that that Izzy was involved with uh and as well as you know we see firemen here as well as he was a uh his his his real work was was as a fireman as we know so so if we could have asked marine and any family members to come up come on up folks yeah so why don't you why don't you present that it's a little token about our appreciation as Cel and agent Community hero award Indigo Izzy as Enola in recognition of public service and advocacy for Ashlin seniors 2023 thank you maren
022oh very nice well stay up there we're going to do a proclamation I think right if the time is right you want to do just give me goad okay why don't you do yeah Mak sense to do yeah where don't you C over here yeah okay how you doing okay good to see thanks all right um all right uh this is a select board proclamation of recognition whereas on January 17th 2024 we the ashon select board in the as Rob can you adjust yourself yeah maybe I'll just can pick you up rather than there you go is that good thank you uh on January 17 2024 we the ashin select board and the ashin Council on a are honored to present the First Community hero award and whereas aidio Izzy aseno is being recognized for
023his public service and advocacy for ashin seniors and whereas the Council on Aging Community her award was created to recognize and acknowledge ashin seniors who have demonstrated public service and volunteerism in support of the ashin community recipients can be individuals groups and organizations who have demonstrated support and advocacy for as seniors regardless of age or residency and where zizzy was a longtime Ashlin resident known for his community service and Leadership and whereas Izzy served on the Ashen Board of registrars for 24 years the ashin Council on Aging for 17 years and the ashin Democratic uh Town committee for 31 years and whereas Izzy served as a member of the ashon Lions Club the Knights of Columbus and the friends of the Council on Aging and whereas Izzy also served most recently on the town manager's
024police chief selection committee and therefore we the select board and the Council on Aging do hereby Proclaim Thursday January 18th 2024 is izy aenco day we urge all residents employees to make known their appreciation for Izzy's devotion we know he has inspired others to follow his lead and serve the community so thank you very much for that thank you [Applause] are and if you guys if you care to say anything or you know what no I'm a little overwhelmed had no idea about this very just very grateful for everyone to acknowledge my dad here speak yeah I don't know what else to say really I just want to say thank you to everyone I know very grateful on the on behalf of the asano family yeah certainly appreciate Izzy's contribution and friendship over all these
025years it meant a lot to him everyone here meant a lot to him truly thank you thank you very much thanks thank you thank oh yeah don't anyone leave until we take a picture we'll get a picture with everybody oh okay after we do the next uh so before I I start with our next recipient I just want to acknowledge the uh folks in the audience from the Council on Aging uh and for the from the friends as well so and we have our director of Elder Services here as well Candy Wilson so so our next recipient uh Joanne Duffy served the town of Ashland for 25 years including 20 years as the Director of the Ashland Community Center Joanne's office door was always open and she always had a smile that included everyone including
026former select board members and her door her door literally was always open and uh you know my I have just got fond memories of of going into the center and walking into our office and we would just gossip and it was it was good we had a lot of fun but uh so Joanne uh is our second recipient if uh members of Joanne's family could come up with the kids oh [Laughter] boy Ashlin Council on Aging Community hero award bestowed upon your grandmother Joanne Duffy in recognition for public service and advocacy for Ashley seniors 2023 you hold it you think you can hold it sure it heavy no he's got very nice hold on hold we got a proclamation now the ashin select board in the Council of agent have a proclamation to make so
027um whereas on January 17th 2024 we the ashin select board in the ashin Council on Aging are honored to present the First Community hero award and whereas Joanne Duffy is being recognized for her public service and advocacy for Ashlin seniors and whereas the Council on Aging community herward award was created to recognize and acknowledge ashin seniors who have demonstrated public service and volunteerism in support of the Ashen Community recipients can be the individuals groups and organizations who demonstrating support and advocacy for ashin seniors regardless of age and residency and whereas Joanne served the town of Ashen for more than 20 years as a senior center and Community programs director and whereas Joanne assembled a fabulous team that was passionate about making sure that the senior center was in inviting they also focused on having something
028for everyone to enjoy and whereas Joanne would greet everyone with a smile even Steve Mitchell and was always looking for someone or something to celebrate and now therefore we the select board and the Council on agent do hereby Proclaim Friday January 19th 2024 as Joanne Duffy day we urge all residents employees to make known their appreciation for Joanne's devotion we know she has inspired others to follow her lead and serve the Comm community so thank you so much to Joanne so so we actually we didn't just gossip what we did was we talked about grandkids a lot we talked about dogs so thank you we have one more one more uh award to not award but a plaque so if candy can come up please oh yes so what we have here is our community
029hero award plaque that's going to be hung at the community center we'd like to present from the council and agent to the director of Elder Services thank you great thank you very nice thank you that's our tune great thank you so we should everyone involved let's have a big picture and of the your fault coming cand one more good thank you thank you yeah these are the good hi Bonnie nice see you turn turn your camera off okay sure you want to take a we can wait a few minutes yeah sure there folks here from does he have a presentation or hey do you have something as part of your presentation you want to show to people or we can talk about how to show well this is the thing this is the map so
030you want to show the map yeah you get where do you want me to put it I guess um I don't know like anywhere is there any way I could do it so they can see it as well camera yeah if you if you go to the right side or even like the center of the table I can I can set that up so good okay so just tell me what to do that facing this way yeah yeah facing towards the back facing towards the back [Music] hey h Helen's probably going to want to speak to Okay this is left over for my daughter's another hand yeah let me just put this down you can proba end up speaking from right there's perfect right here yep facing Which Way facing towards me so you see
031it y uh I got you guys ready for me yet or no oh yeah okay back session here we're back in session that's good yeah so um go ahead uh Jim when you're yeah introduce yourself good I will good evening everybody I'm Jim neelson of 35 Ramblewood Drive and I am the chairperson of the ashon historical commission and I'm here tonight uh thank you for having us uh Helen Nicole is also probably going to want to speak hien in a couple of minutes but uh I'll just briefly go over why I'm here I've said to a couple of you um in person and Michael has been in on a couple of our meetings so he knows all about it what we've been working on for the past two years probably since one of the first
032things we started doing when once um the commission got reconstituted I think it was in 2020 was um all we were hit with a slew of demolition delays and I was I was thinking I you know there's nothing really to prevent anybody from taking anything down if they really want to the demolition delay is for a set person period of time and things like that and I looked around at what other towns did for conservation and preservation of what our mission is which is the preservation of historic and cultural artifacts buildings in the town of Ashlin and and one of the things we don't have even though if you come down from either side on Main Street welcome to historic district of ashin those signs are just science we do not have a local historic
033district so I then decided to go do some research I sat in on a few uh meetings with the mess um I forget what they're called but they're the they're the state group that that puts on these historical best historical commission who puts on these um seminars on how to go ahead and create that so for the past two years we've talked about it back and forth and we were able to actually hire uh a professional conservation historical preservationist um she would be here tonight she's my expert she's on vacation in Arizona so it was like bad timing so if I can't answer a question tonight um I'll definitely get it and we'll we'll we'll get an answer to you at you know as soon as possible um now you should have uh a few
034things we have a timeline of what's been going on what the historical district is going to look like and I didn't I sent this along in the original package you don't have this but if anybody wants it this is the state publication for establishing a historic district great so if you'd like that I could send that to you to with 64 Pages which is why we don't want to we didn't want to overwhelm anybody with information at the up the top um letters have already gone out to the business owners and property owners and I'll just give you a brief description of where it's going to be as you can see from the map that we had done the proposed District literally starts at the ash Historical Society the Ocean House and it continues along
035Main Street to the mill buildings which I'll get to in a minute um then down to The Corner Spot the building next to the the the church down that side of the street all the way down and around to where Eric's is right now the restaurant that includes the library that includes all those buildings on on Front Street right there and across the street it goes from The Corner Spot all the way down to the post office which includes the Town Hall John Stones the fire station um and around the corner to the post office across the street to the old Pharmacy the building next to it then across the street to the railroad station and back around so the thing about a historic district it has to be contiguous you can't split it up
036um and there can't be any gaps in it because what the process is as you do the research all these properties have been surveyed for historical content not all of them are historical you some of them are just Place markers I mean I wouldn't say Main Street Wine and Liquors is historical but within the district if that was ever to go away someone wanted to rip it down the districts created they'll have to go by the guidelines of the proposed bylaw that will be basically to control what's being put there um architecturally there's nothing about use uh or anything like that people can do whatever they want with their buildings and properties what this is strictly is for what you can see from the street so if there's something behind the building or backyard or
037something like that that wouldn't be historically you know whatever um relevant it doesn't matter it's what you can see from the street um I'm trying to think of what other points I'm not I'm going to ask you can ask me questions but I'm just trying to cover it first because we went through a lot of this the reason why we picked the downtown district a lot of ashlin's significant historical houses are spread out all over town and there's no way to I mean if you had a city um the Town Council could city council could vote on it and establish individual districts for different um buildings for example Somerville does that all the time you have a question one yeah can you clarify what you can see from the street what is that when you
038say what you can see from the street does that mean what you can see from the street needs to be saved or yes yes so cuz I would think about Main Street Wine and Liquor yeah that I mean it's not as old as say Jon stones but it's certainly been there since the 40s or 50s right well that that's included but there's nothing I mean there's nothing what I'm saying is that's what the guideline is from the state in other words if there's I I forget what they said if there's hedges in the backyard or something like there's Stone if there some kind of outbuilding like an addition in the back that that would be fine if it's not visible from the street oh okay so they can add something they can add something as
039long okay it's just what what classifies as being his is in the district okay okay sorry I just want to kind of follow on to that no that's fine so for instance like luners where lunkers is yes if somebody were to ever purchase that that that commercial space and want to renovate it to look better they couldn't do that they could they could they could okay as long as they keep the building's exterior intact now the bylaw will be put together um with with specific okay um restrictions and stuff like that we're not going to they don't recommend like paint color or anything like that you know so that'll be still up to the individual but that the bylaw we haven't got to yet that's down the road let me just give you a little
040brief timeline of how this is going our final report back from the the the uh St her name is Stacy spies from U hopkington she's the pro and her final report is going to be back to us the beginning of February that'll have all the stuff put together in the report for the state once that's together I've already sent out letters to the individual owners alerting them that this is going on um then there will be uh we'll have another meeting so we have to submit this report to the state to the mass historic Council commission and once they get it they typically have to review it and timeline timelines I'm told it's couple months we're not sure exactly um and then they'll ask they'll ask for other material if we're missing things and that
041that sort of thing once that comes back from the uh State then um we'll go to the Town Council with proposed ordinance to make sure that it is legal um when we we craft the ordinance and I'll do that with with the help of Town Council because we're not just going to make something up out a whole cloth we're going to base it on something that's already been done in other towns and I would say also once we do that we'll notify the property owners there'll be a public hearing um about it and there'll be more meetings we're also planning on meeting with the different boards in town like the planning board the sustainability committee um the comprehensive plan committee etc etc just to just to generate interest and see what's going on we originally
042had a timeline of this for this Spring's meeting we're not going to meet that because it's just not enough time we don't know how long the state's going to take with it or anything else so we're shooting for the fall special town meeting because this has to be approved by 2/3 of the town meeting um so by the time we get there we also like to do a little promotion we've been to two different years of farmers markets which some of you may have seen me there um and we were going to be at Ashland day we were going to have a booth but unfortunately that was you know that's what I made that's what the map was for you'll have one next year yes and we'll be we'll like I actually I yeah y
043we'll be we'll be there at next year yep it's next fall so that's hopefully a way to spread the word to Residents um with talking about other ways to do that too because we'd like to gain public support for this obviously this isn't something that uh you know we the reason why we sended it on the downtown district is because that's where the most that's where the most contiguous buildings are and a lot of them are public buildings already for example the town hall the library you know the U yeah the fire station you know go ahead Joe thanks Jim um I'm sorry to interrupt you but I'm looking at your map I don't see 119 Main Street on this map so which is 119 119 Main Street which is Ashland house yes it should
044be I it's labeled as Ash it looks like Ash police department it's next to the police department right it's labeled as ashin police department but it's there okay that spot yeah see the number no it is too because that's contiguous with the whole with the whole okay and if whatever happens to the old police building you know I that doesn't really matter and because whatever goes up there if we have the district it will it will there'll be some guidelines of what they can do I can't build a three-story condominium complex there you know just like a block or anything like that we'll have to have some specific guidelines but if it needs to be taken down it that's not a problem okay cuz that'll be grandfather then thank if they take things down that's
045I mean if it if it's on the historic that's not a historic building that was built in 78 I believe so that wouldn't even have to go through the the process of the demolition delay permit and all that it's a town owned property anyway so I don't think we'll have any okay you know issue with that at all so is it is determining it it to be a historic building based on the year built well in our wait now we just changed the bylaw is 1950 um and anything before that but uh yeah basically uh but that's why I say some of these and they're not architecturally significant like the dry cleaner you know or or um I mean with talvis and sunny side is that kind of counts because that's mid-century um whereas you'd
046see obviously the new condo on the corner there it just has to be in the district but it's grandfathered in there's nothing we can do about that it's just it has to be there for con continuous reasons so like where the old days TV building his that would Beal yeah each one of these which I can get to you guys when we get them back each is going to have its own macis sheet which gives you the history um the age what it was used for um and some of those were done already in 2010 in a study yeah um by the prior historical commission and some of those we had to have done to fit into question yeah if you don't mind so I'm looking at the map across the street from the post
047office you have the building that that has now the dentist right and the building next to it is that building part of no the plan for the Redevelopment that goes around it's not that's why it's there because and the two build see that's that's there and then we cross the street to the railroad station yes cuz Believe It or Not nothing's on the national register of anything except the town hall all those things really not even the train station no no and even if it was the two and there's like two dams and stuff like that that are on there that but none of this is none of this is protected even if it was on the national register it doesn't protect it from being U ripped down at some point okay the only thing
048that prevents that is this a local historic district okay which is why we've been working on this because this is the only guaranteed way to have some say over what goes in in the downtown which I think also dob tales with what I've heard from conversations about the comprehensive Planning Commission and we've just Revitalize the whole downtown with the repairs and the new streets and the lights and all that stuff so I think this was be you know complimentary at the very least yeah definitely so how would that work with the mill building this is the thing i' I don't know what's going on with the mill building maybe you folks have a better idea than I do but they originally said their grandfather didn't because they've already gone through their de demo delay thing
049and that's expired and that's another issue for another day about Sunset Clauses in the law because we've had a lot of demo delays that they get it they don't do anything and you know year goes by bang we're off and and running kind of thing that's not this issue for tonight but they can they have said in the past that they were going to keep two out of the three Granite buildings I'm hoping that's still part of the plan I don't know we we currently don't there is no plan drawn their plans as of right now yeah so I'm not sure you know if if wor if that didn't for some reason if if we can't include that the only thing that would be left out then would be the Ocean House which is where
050the historical society is because that's the only outlier that need to get to from from them to the Granite to the you know the rest of it because that corner coming coming from the ocean house that's all relatively new construction isn't it where the where the cond where Bagel table is next to that I don't think any of that qualifies as as being in in the district so we'd have to you know leave that which would be kind of ridiculous because it is like you know the Historical Society but that's why I'm saying I've Been Told that that would even if they do go through their plans it's not going to matter they'll be just in there as a grandfa like the building on the corner yeah the condo building that's not historical but we
051have to keep it in there because 128 main yes one next to the Federated Church okay so did you I'm sorry Jim I no I'm looking at the map and I saw um I'm following the Blue Line uh going down Front Street um you mentioned Erica's but that is not in the blue line area it is no it isn't if I'm looking if I'm yeah it isz this say it says asham Public Library this is this is the library and then this is Erica's oh okay I'm sorry these are the actual I don't know if you can pass these around I have I didn't include this we're going to includ it these are the list property listings what they were to store that you know what that would be a little helpful thank you put
052that in originally and it was cut for time kind of thing so no no thank you I'm just looking at the map and the way the map is showing it okay no that's good cuz I know the Eerie Castle uh means a lot to some people that uh would remember it yeah so if some if a business was on this list and they wanted to um opt out opt out they can't they can't if if it becomes if it becomes a bylaw of the town okay okay that's why that's why it's yeah that's why we're notifying them we want to work with them yeah you know and there are all kinds the benefits to being in a historical district um sustainability is one uh because obviously preserving these things uh is more sustainable than ripping
053them down and putting new buildings in you know um and there's also econ there have been studies shown that Economic Development um goes along with creating these kind of things because it it helps coh here the C The Village Center um I don't know we there's names for name there is Elliot John Elliots you know and we could name it whatever we want Unionville Village Center Ashland Village Center um like the Federate the cemetery behind the Federated church is included and that's a whole separate conversation we're going to have because we're also working on fixing that up there's a whole different subgroup of the historical commission that's working on that um and I'll just say makebe this a good time Helen do you want to add anything here go ahead Helen I think you have
054to unmute yourself mute yeah I know it took me a minute to find the unmute even though I don't know why um so yeah I mean I just want I did write down a few things I wanted to say and um you know you you actually covered a lot of what I had written down you know we are currently working towards getting uh community support and and I believe we really have a good amount of that now but we're working towards getting more and I've written letters um to all the Committees and Bo a lot of the Committees and Boards in town and I'm hoping to be able to um have you know our group go and speak to them and then also I think we're planning I don't know if you mentioned it I
055didn't hear you two Community public Community forums about this where people can come and find out and ask questions um but the the the formation of the local of a local historic district um you know in addition to having signs that say we have one um but we don't really is really a big benefit to the town and one of the reasons that it's also a big benefit is is um one thing we learned while we're trying to look at different ways to fund the cemetery restoration is that if that Cemetery which would be part of the downtown historic district were to be in a local historic there's three ways to get funding from Mass historic uh commission and and they're matching grants and and and you have your your property has to be either
056on the national register the state Register or in a historic district um so if we were actually in one it it would already have qualified this year for some money we're hoping to get that for next year so that's a big benefit but that same benefit would also go to profit making businesses so from time to time if if there were a profit this could not be like a an individual resident homeowner this would be a building in that District that was used to for someone to make it can still be privately owned but if they want to make profit if they have a business in that building they can also get I believe state and federal money uh when they want to do work uh to upgrade or to you know to to restore
057the building as long as the outside stays in the historic um character uh there's money available and and and some of that is tax credits as well some of that isn't necessarily like a like a grant but it could be tax credits that they can apply because um they are in that historic district so that's another big big plus and um like I said that we are we are working with a a large uh you know Community volunteer uh group right now and hoping to grow that group by the spring to restore the to restore the Ashland burial grounds which is the historic Cemetery behind the Federated church and we will be coming back uh to speak to you about that I I know we weren't in time to get on for tonight uh but
058we do want to install all in the community community itself a sense of of of the history and and a sense of place that that it you have when you belong in a community and when you have the history of the community sitting right there so that you have you know what what is the downtown historic district or the downtown Village area it's very important for it to remain in character and and this will this will greatly help uh towards that end so I think that's all I had to say but thank you and if you have any questions I can yeah and I I'll be back um as we get further along in the process to like fill you in on what's going on what we really would like is some kind of uh
059letter from the select board saying that they approve uh a support what we're doing um I don't know if you need to take a vote on that or not but it's something that we have to include in the package when we send the stuff into the state we're trying to get one from the planning board too and all the different committees because the more more Town officials to support it the better it looks now we're not just we're doing it I mean there's these things can take a long time but I want to meet if we're going to bring it to town meeting I want to see if we can get as much support as we can beforehand which is why I'm not for rushing it and trying to get it on in the spring
060so I want to get we want to have the public forums we want to have the you know the open air markets again and and hopefully ashin day you know because I thought that would have been a great place cuz people would have seen it and ask questions you know so hopefully the weather cooperates this year right hope so Jim I I wonder um so how do you decide where to end it in other words I apparently because for example you said you include 128 main just so you can keep it contiguous why wouldn't you keep it contiguous and go down Homer ra and and grab the well Homer is a problem because of the the construction plan that's going in there the um the uh I forget what it's called but there's a jump
061right there that where they where they want to put the the apartment buildings in that part particular parel was not historic so and then the two houses on the end before you get to Alden Street those were but they really they're not in any kind of list yet and so it was kind of we could have gone we could have kept going down Main Street um and and put in the houses and stuff on either side of Main Street some of them are some of them aren't they've been rebuilt um but we wanted to keep it kind of small to begin with and I did this I did this kind of we did this kind of because um the example of hopkington you can expand it later let's we want to get it we want
062to get it in place people can see that this is a good thing and then you can add to it later and there's there's not as many private property owners in the downtown section to be honest with you that we we're not we're not trying to seize anybody's property or tell them what to do with it okay other than the exterior uh for historical purposes only and that's I'm something I'm very sensitive about um it's it's it's important I mean I feel I feel bad that we've we've had a lot of demolition delay permits with people that can't afford to fix up their houses um and there's really no programs in the state to help them you know they want to keep it historical but it needs too much work you know we've seen that
063time and time again this is something that like Helen said if we get this put together then there might be some money available for Grants and things like that for the historic district that can be put to that purpose at some point down the line I don't know you know but it it helps to have it in there so if there was a bylaw uh and a business was looking to make changes to to their footprint of some sort they would come they would have to put in an application through the historic commission and there would be a hearing or are they not like because I because I guess my question is like how how strict and what the determination process will look like because because if um for instance if like the mill building
064is allowed to to be a part of this um and the exterior has to be as is but may not sust but may not be as we saw when they went through the planning board there needed to be a housing component to basically um basically Finance the project if if if you know whether it's the mill building or another building and there and there does need to be some sort of housing opponent to it right you know I'm I'm just trying to think through what the process would the bylaw itself is going to mainly be concerned with things like sign signage like how big the sence can be that kind of thing it's not going to be concerned with usage okay like if there's a 40b situation or anything like that it shouldn't affect this
065at all okay you know because it's going to be um I think we had this didn't didn't we have this yeah my what was your recollection of that I didn't think it was going to matter so my understanding is if a 40b project would Trump would Trump this would Trump the bylaw interesting would Trump the bylaw but not the not the the external well the the the district itself yeah and that that's just based on my research I don't know if St yeah you're probably right but but the 40 beat is but where we're focusing this I mean I don't think there's any maybe at the Mill building I don't know yeah you never I mean I've seen I've seen one house 40 BS you know happen before and I I'm not saying that that
066should deter a local historic if it happens it happens actually it's just more of a good incentive to go ahead and get our 10% so we don't have to worry about um right you know 40b projects period so if I misspoke I you know it's I'm not I'm I've been doing this for two years but that was always going to trip me up because I kept saying what about the 40b I can't remember what they said yeah I remember bringing that up yeah but that Michael has sat in on on quite a few meetings with us so he's been he's been a priz of this as we going along yeah Yolanda so you're looking to submit something to the state this this winter have them then approve your recommended that would then come back to
067the town and then the town would vote on it is that what I'm understanding right we would have public hearings there's there's a timeline there's from when it comes back from the state uh we have 46 days to send out notification of the property owners again in the district okay then from there there's also 60 days to have public hearing ings about it okay and then um you pay then when you get to town meeting and this is why we're going to promote it well before we get to town meeting we're going to have handouts to give people at the town meeting both before the town meeting okay and at the town meeting um yeah that's then you have to get a two-third majority and then so part of the bylaw is creating the historic
068district but also then the guidelines for buildings in the historic district will be part of the bylaws but what I did mention it's going to be a separate sub committee commission for this because it's got to be distinct from the historical commission so we're going to need to create it's in it's in the guidelines which I can send to everybody if you you want if you leave because this is it basically what it requires is that you have optimally if you could get like a real estate person an attorney an an architect somebody who lives in the district um not just people on the commission you know so that but they it doesn't have to be and a lot of times you can't get volunteers to do anything or you couldn't get enough but this
069is is going to be a separate historic district local historic district commission separate from the historic commission that would be doing heing they would be doing well okay once they're established what now so you have to establish a historic once it's established and voted on then they'll do their own hearings okay in the future and determining if this fits or that doesn't fit so it has to pass at town meeting and then you create the bylaw no the bylaw is created beforehand it's got to be vetted by Town Council and all of a stuff and it's got to it's got to be okay it's got to be legal okay so in terms of um people that you've contacted businesses in that have you had any responses or not yet not yet it ran out relatively
070recently so it should have gone out a while ago but it was my fault because I was getting the addresses for everybody and I do work that's so if you can um maybe if we just take an example property let's just say that dry cleaner building so let's just say the owner wants to demo that and build something and a historic district has already been created mhm would they be able to would they be able to demo that building I believe so as long as what's rebuilt I mean I know in Hoppington there was a fire and down that their district is pretty small the fire in in the house there um the guy would volunteered on his own to rebuild that within District uh specifications which is why it's taking so long you know
071the how you know a house I'm talking about right next to St John's there in the back yeah and that that's an example I have from hington um it's a what if um but they can't like say if they want to put it down they can't put like something that's not going to be in the spirit or in within the um what's the word I'm looking for the aesthetic of of the of the of the historic district so they wouldn't be able to add a second story oh no no no no just it it that's that's irrelevant but it's where is that's a non-conforming I don't know when that was built um if you could put there was any historic value in that I'm not sure if that would be voted on but something would
072replace it but would stay in the character of the historic district that would be up for the local historic district commission I see to determine okay all right um yeah go ahead go ahe you got I just have one additional question Mr chair um sorry about that um using Michael's example if they wanted to refurbish the building is it the entire building or is it the facade that looks that you see when you pull up into it you drive by yeah cuz I know like in Washington DC I mean all the facades have to be that's exactly right okay the facades they can do whatever they want to the Interiors if you can't see it from the street it doesn't matter the back you know that whatever if they want to extend it to the
073back but what you can see from the roadway what you can see from the road okay thank you but does it have to be that cinder block if the real that cinder block stucko okay okay okay no no it has to be be something else within the district within the district and that could be written into the bylaws so it could be brick like the post office and the build and the the pharmacy or it could be or something like the if if it could like match Stones you know in that kind of you know that style that's interesting you know because I I think like the idea of preserving the actual historical buildings is important to all of us it's the it's the nonoral Stu because to be to be honest some of these
074facades are not like what we want in a downtown that we've just spent millions of dollars to renovate so right so if so that's where my concern is and and also the businesses that are currently there if if it becomes a problematic process for them to make changes to their own businesses that's well I don't think that I can't think of an example off the top of my head how it would be somewhere that they would change their business with the business is there now like so like if blush bouquets wants to change to whatever I'm just making that up yeah yeah yeah um and you know that's considered a midcentury building how problematic is that for the owner of blush who probably wants to add different signage or change the way the parking lot
075looks or any you know like I'm I'm just trying to think of like I you know and I don't think it's going to be that stickery um as far as I mean I can't speak for a future committee that's not even created yet but but it's it's it's I don't think that the spirit of it is to keep it kind of cohesive you know as long as it's not outside of the bylaw then they should be fine and I'm sure there'd be you know they would have to work with the new commission yeah you know and the planning board obviously so I know you said that you you wanted a vote from us what I would suggest is if the board is if if this sounds good to the board is to wait until you
076get the report from Stacy spies so we can review that because I think that we need something physical to that's fine um before I send anything to the state I will send you when I get the report I'll forward it and you guys um can you can you know read it over and ask me any questions it will be a report of what we're sending to the state and this is the letter of support you're yeah I'm just looking for a letter of support okay yep does that work which is why I wasn't looking for a vote tonight I was throwing it I think once we have the report and we can review it we can maybe we'll invite you back to it like maybe the second meeting in February the first one in March
077as you're getting ready to send it to the state and then we can you know we only meet once a month so these things tend to get yeah you're not going you're not going to Springtown meeting so that kind of that lets a lot okay great so anything El anybody is there anyone Helen okay and is there anybody else uh online that wants to say anything about the histor commission I see Joel's there but just ra you raise your hand if you do use the raise your hand feature in Zoom yes and Helen go ahead um yeah I just wanted to answer the questions I I don't even remember who we asked but someone had asked if any of the groups had contacted us and I have heard from two groups actually um and one
078was Joel AR Bon so that's the upper Charles uh I see Joel has his hand raised here yeah and then um he uh does I think plan to have us at a future meeting uh they haven't had one scheduled yet and I did hear from Lori tosy on the school committee who did want a little bit more um information about how this actually kind of would affect the schools and why we want to come to a school you know committee to talk to them so I'm gonna I I I have to write her back for that but we we actually have heard from a couple so far so I just I just wanted to answer that because great didn't know that thank you thanks uh Joel I think you can unmute yourself I believe and
079talk did you have a question yeah a couple quick questions uh one uh do I understand that this only applies to the facade of buildings in other words let's say the town wanted to widen sidewalks or put up no parking signs or make other changes to the streetcape does any of this cover that I don't believe so with signs from the town whereas we already have put in the the the historic looking street lights and and that kind of thing um that would all be in the bylaw and I don't think that I'd have to do more research on that but I don't think that that is something that they concern themselves with okay one other quick question um on things like uh if if you're working or doing a project in a in a
080sensitive Wetland area there are times that you can have certain mitigations that occur in other words there are sort of workarounds you you have to be sensitive to the to the law but there are some accommodations that are made is there any flexibility here like let's say that the residents really wanted to take the uh I don't know the the old fire station downtown and turn it into a a movie theater with a different facade uh is there any vote of the residents that could in some way override the restrictions that might be put in place no I don't think so once it once it's our once it's in place um that would be it um for the I mean for the fire station uh but again there is flexibility within you know individual projects
081so I can't say for sure you know it's a kind of okay one last real quick one just a comment I would love to see the select board uh you were talking about having like public forums and going out to lots of committees I think that's just fantastic I like what where you're headed here uh but I would love to see the select board wait for feedback from the community before they uh represent the community they don't know where the community stands on this yet okay um that's fine I'm just trying to get a lot of support in general not that 100% because I have to send that into the state in order to get the ball rolling here it's pretty non-specific is my understanding yeah yeah yeah so unless we're opposed to the concept
082as a whole I would think all right well and then I would say in response to Joel and anyone else watching in this was on our agenda so when we go to put it on our agenda again we could purposely potentially through the town manager newsletter say this is going to be discussed and voted on at a at a select board meeting if you have thoughts for or against the creation of a historical district and put the map on there or a link to the map please come either contact us before the meeting or come to the meeting and let us know it's a good idea we'll we'll allow a little extra time for public comment and you know one thing I did want to mention too is we're also in conjunction with with this
083um getting together walking tours of this area of this District we put together um some of the other members have put together like brochures um like self-guided walking tours and some were working on the um the Q I always get this wrong the Q Q QR code sorry keep calling it The QC code um my kids correct me uh it's a QR code and U so that you can like look at the and you could just point to the you know on the and see this is the history of stones or the history of da TV was CU that has quite a history you know interesting or or the or the um or the Mason's building oh yeah that's a that's a cool one I I see um um Mark has his hand up Mark
084do you have a question or comment uh yes I yes I do it's both question and comment puted into one I I was at the Historical Community I think it was last night and I asked this question I wanted to ask this question through the uh select board and see if there's an answer with the State Historical setup for this for the for the um districts there are State amendments involved yes or no state I'm sorry what state what state amendments State um vo points to uh get this get the ball rolling State you that's why we have to submit all this paperwork to the state because there there are guidelines that they go by and we're if we're missing something from our package they're going to ask me to send it in you know
085it's it has to be in a certain um protocol in order for it to get approval from the state and eventually what this will do at the end of it is it'll get approved by the Attorney General's office and then it'll be recorded in the registry of deeds um as a local historic district so anybody that buys into it will be it'll be it'll be part of their title uh so you you know I I don't know if you folks know I'm a real estate title examiner and I run into the one in Boston all the time it's like 80 Pages you know of different parts of the Back Bay and south end and you know you just automatically know it's in the it's in the historic district you know Beacon Hill great and I
086I did ask this question last night and I'm GNA ask it again here how can the state coincide with Ashland's bylaw to put together so it can fit in together to have this going I asked that question last night I mean last week last week yeah uh Mark I think I said that then was that uh we work with the state the bylaw is is under State Direction too because they're going to be approving that as well as the Town Council so there's not going to be anything in the bylaw that would violate state law so the state and so and so the state will have an understanding what what ashon is going to be putting on and you can can you compare that and work work it all as one together I'm not sure
087I understand the question yeah I think I think that's how it'll work Mark will be uh in line with the state requirements so that should work that's it thank you all right thank you thank you all right so anything else I know um that you guys are you're working on the cemetery um cleanup and is that and so that's we're going to put that on a future that's going to be a future agenda we've already had a discussion I mean a presentation on how to clean the stuff and we're getting volunteers together and we have a group that wants to clean up the brush and all that stuff so so you'll let us know when you want to come in and we'll there's going to be specific questions or things we're going to have to
088decide at that point is that uh I don't think so Helen yes there is yes Helen Helen would speak better to this than go ahead Helen Yes actually um so the letter that I wrote you um kind of explaining the project and the timeline and the funding so that you would have an idea of everything that that um is going on uh with that and and and uh hopefully potentially what will go on with that um but what we were looking for and I believe probably would require you to all vote on it um was permission actually since it's a town property uh for permission for us to actually uh go in and do the work okay and I would like to have that sooner than later because we're waiting on an RDA um from
089the the um Conservation Commission um and we would like to get some of our Volunteers in over the winter to remove some small brush and trees and invasive plants because the winter time when the growth is sort of um stunted or or in however it is sleeping over the winter and it's not all there it's an easier time to do that so I I don't think we could take formal action but is that needed for them to do some basic work is it maybe the town man well Michael Herbert told me that was something that we should we should do was to ask for the select board's opinion so that's why we'll put you on a future uh the first agenda in February yeah that would be wonderful would people be ready by then the
090first oh yeah we would have been ready tonight ready to go now we could I think we needed to do something right Michael yeah and just Helen you can move forward with the RDA application in in fact like said I think it would be helpful for the select board once you get that yeah I I did see that that we could move forward with it but I think what we also want is permission so that once it's approved and once we go through the 14-day advertising period the volunteers can come in sign their waivers and then go in and do some of that work we want to get that started okay we'll plan on we'll plan on having you on our first agenda in February then that would great I would appreciate that thank you
091great thanks all right Jim anything else that's it for me yeah thanks if you have any other questions and if you have you know you have my email um just send them along I will leave this here and I'll send them out yeah all right great thank you thanks Jim appreciate all your work on this you guys you guys are really moving so that's great it's a while yeah you get the momentum going it's wonderful abely that's great and you got a good membership that's wonderful good grp all right too fast nice eag scull project too all right all right so moving on to Old thanks Jim thank you moving on to old new business um first item is discuss the reduction in the mass Trails Grant from 125,000 to 62,500 and this is representative
092Lewis's earmark they work very hard uh to um to benefit the upper Charles Trail and um as as part of the governor's n9c Cuts she basically cut a lot of the municipal grants in half and that's what happened with this one so um I think we just thought it was a good idea to put it on the agenda just to note it and discuss it so Michael I don't know if you had anything specific you want to talk about that yeah well I think just in general upper Charles Trail just to kind of update everybody we've had a couple meetings I think since we reported to the select board and um so at the last meeting like our little working uh slash implementation group um came to the realization that the the western part of
093the the trail or we'll call it phase two um there's actually an understanding now that parts of that at least for now will probably need to be on road um so so that's that will make things a little bit easier but and it also gives us the opportunity to focus on the eastern part which is uh phase one and to that end we're looking at uh pursuing a mass Trails Grant to look at acquire a couple of parcels um owned by an entity known as as Enzo realy um Joe you've had some conversations with uh with Derek who's the the owner of those parcels and that's where the part of the trail goes through and then also looking at engineering um the Dyke Trail section of the of the property so we're like really kind
094of squarely focused on phase one now and making tangible progress on on some of that it's great very exciting I see Joel's here and um Joel do you care to add anything Joel's Joel myself Michael and U Peter and Tony uh are on the implementation Joel do you have any brief updates or additions to that uh uh well I just want to let everybody know that the town is uh planning to submit a mass Trails Grant application and it's due uh two weeks from tomorrow it's a lot of work I've been writing and writing and uh one of the things I did uh yesterday was send out solicitations for support letters that are that are a required element that need to be submitted with the application and uh the uh the the list of people
095I have emailed I haven't I've gotten a few of them back today uh it reads like a who's who in the in the uh bicycle infrastructure world so we're going to have some very strong representation and support uh last quick thing I've also had uh great conversations with Pete Sutton who's the state's massot uh pedestrian and bicycle advisory commissioner or whatever his title is and also with uh Amanda Lewis Who's Who uh is the director of the mass Trails program and I've just been really encouraged to have Ashlin pursue this uh it seems like uh they're bending over backwards to try to work with us so as long as we have all our ducks lined up here we we're we will hopefully be in very good shape to get some pretty good funding would it
096be beneficial Joel if you have a a formal letter of support from the board of Selectmen I'm sorry for the select board absolutely uh I have corresponded I think to Rob about this and possibly Michael uh the last time the town received funding uh was for the trolley Brook Trail in 2020 and the board wrote a letter at that time that I could provide a copy of uh you know as a template uh it would probably need to be updated a little bit but uh okay uh absolutely that that's very important to show uh support from the the town's governing board okay then yeah if you would forward that to Rob and then Rob if you can send it out and then we could vote on that in our first meeting in February well would
097that work is that timing right good or is that too late that will not work so can we just okay I'm um then I I'm going to make a motion that we allow Rob to update the letter from the previous and that we submit a Bo a a select board letter of support for the trails Grant second motion's been made in second to send a letter of support for the um um Mass Trails Grant all those in uh favor say I I I oppose none so great motion passes thank youc y all right Joel any Joel I just FYI I just I just fought a um an email to you from Karen Adelman Foster of Senator spilka's office uh asking for some more information for the letter of support so you should be getting that
098now actually with any luck so and then just a follow-up Joel when you say you've reached out to a who's who are you including uh people from Holliston and Framingham in the letter of support for our grant to connect uh I've been thinking about Holliston I have uh the people I've reached out to I'll give you a short list uh I I I thought it was more important to talk to the uh to get support from the adjacent town so I've reached out to hopkington Framingham there's some new developments with Framingham I won't go into right now but they're very positive and um also to storn I would I would recommend Holliston as well to someone someone from their Trails group I would recommend that as well WID neck the uh the committee chair very
099well I would ask him for a letter of support I think that'd be great great idea okay all right thanks and Michael thank you for um putting that update on the is there anything you wanted to add for this yeah just just one last thing I thought i' had updated the board about this before but after conversing with Rob um I did not but do you recall when we received that letter from DCR that said we AED F because we were an economic Justice Community it was a mistake so so um actually what's going to happen is money's going to ashin State Park to help kind of refurbish some of those Trails so would that include the new Trail as part of the uh no I think it's already the existing well so it's not
100going to improve the trail that's over over the dam to make it part of I think it could I mean I'm not sure what to your point you know I was been thinking about this they're getting they're getting some Grant funds to do Trails Improvement in Ashland State Park so they probably have some flexibility as to how they can use it right we could certainly ask if we have any say or any discussion and I know the gentleman I forget his name from at from DCR Kevin Kevin from the Ashland State Park he has always been very supportive of our Trail so if we can get a meeting with him to say okay as you're improving the trails in ashin State Park can you include doing the work that would then be part of the
101our section of the upper upper Charles Trail in the ash State Park or at least have some input maybe not just the Uppa Charles Trail but other Trails like well how are they going to use this money so you know maybe it's you know I was thinking of getting touch with him or you know like you know maybe we could get a plan from them that we could look at and maybe do some feedback whether it's the upper Charles Trail or even how are they choosing to use this money you know that those trails are some of them are really bad shape so anyway but is that something that seems realistic to follow up with him I mean I'd be happy to try to do it or we could I'd be happy to do that
102as well yeah so let's let's put that on our list of things to try to follow up because it's a great thought that you know they're getting this money and how are they using it in our town so maybe we could talk to them about and like I said Kevin has always been very vocally supportive of us creating the upper Charles Trail and including the Ashen State Park as part of that trail yeah well good discussion can you CL can you clarify the the money that you were talking about that seems to be channeled toward uh DCR is that the money that we had previously talked about that would be would have been available for the engineering of our Trail no no no this was this kind of came out of the blue Joel where
103we got a there was a press release that Michael was sent saying that there's uh Mass Trail funds allocated to different communities in the state for uh that were what was it economic no uh environmental jce justice community and ashon was one of them and in following up we found out it was kind of a an allocation of funds to State the state park in ashin yeah not not the town of Ashland yes but it it is good to know that they now have these resources and the question would be how are they going to use them y all right well thank you everybody so uh let's move on I think to the next one and thanks for bringing that up Michael uh next one is discuss and vote on delegating the authority to the
104town clerk with consolid uh with consolidation from the police chief regarding police details This was um I think this was an um a request to us to approve that um that um the police would provide constables or other security for does anyone have the motion my uh do we need a motion or um I just lost it the motion uh there was a letter in the backup yeah I move that we the board authorize the town clerk in coordination with the police chief or her design the assignment of police officers conable details as they deem necessary for all elections in 2024 in accordance with the state law second that the motion's been made in second all those in favor say I I I oppose none I'm presuming there's no discussion sorry I kind of went
105through that one okay all right the next one is the vote on the home rule petition approved at the special town meeting requested additional liquor licenses and we do we do have um I have an act here is this um what do we have to do with this Michael I'm getting because I know we've gone we've approved this at various times is this the actual petition now that we're going to approve that's the actual petition that you would approve after if and when you do approve that then we send it off to representative Lewis um and so this is something that we're going to sign tonight so so what we're asking cuz Susan gave us something as well article six home rule petition to increase the number of premises of on premises liquor licenses so
106are we making the motion here this this motion that's on here um because I thought we've done that already yeah this is just like some language this is the warrant tic or the okay this is the warrant article so we're just now looking to reauthorize reiz I guess I should read this home rule rule petition that we is that is that necessary I I don't think it's necessary that you read the exact language I think what you can say is you vote to um file a home rule petition to increase the number of alcohol licenses I move that we approve the request of a home rule petition to increase our alcohol on premise licenses by 16 presented motion's been made in second any discussion or other okay all those in favor uh say I I
107those opposed no okay so the uh the home rule petition has been approved um and so we can now send it to the legislature do you need this do we need to sign this I need you to sign that and then I'll we'll have Cindy certify it and can send it off all right I'm going to send it around to everybody to sign great thank you okay uh this is I guess oh well we do need to discuss this a little bit ashin business associates holding a public form in FA February 13th the plan is to discuss development and econom economic development they would like a select board member to participate on the panel I think uh and perhaps we're also well anyway so let's discuss that um is there are people aware of this
108and pretty much know what it's about and are is someone interested in being on the panel is there more than one or Yolanda how did it turn out you were gonna I had mentioned that I was interested um I haven't had the opportunity to follow up with them to see if they'd like me to moderate like I did last year I haven't had a chance to because if I moderate then I don't need to be on it um and I know Claudia had mentioned she was interested in being on it as well so I mean I don't know how people feel part of me it's like until I know if I can moderate I don't want to remove myself as being on it so well I don't think a decision has to be made tonight
109tonight okay so okay I think we could certainly let them know that there's interest in I'm sure we'll have somebody who's man because last year it was Peter weissberger that was sort of running this who's doing it this year that's a good question I actually the request came through Beth so um my understanding is just the Ashlin Business Association leadership okay I'll reach out to Beth and go from there because you said you haven't had a chance to talk and um I had done this last year and it's a really great opportunity because the questions that come in are very business focused um and I think that it gives us an opportunity to talk about you know a lot of the support that that we give businesses but also just sort of like larger picture
110what's happening in town and the question you get to see the questions beforehand so that was good it's good and it's you know interesting thing probably if I'm around I'll try to maybe is it going to be um virtual at all yeah that's nice um I think it was filmed and put out there I don't think it was I don't think it was live kind of thing okay so it's a good thing I don't to just for interest uh y okay well thank you so we'll deal with that uh at our next meeting probably right okay okay the next one's reminder of the joint school committee meeting on January 24th 2024 to fill a vacancy on the school committee and review the process I saw Paul Kendall up there ear is he still there so
111Paul just let us know if you want to talk or say anything about this if this is what you're here for um the um so I had sent an email so we met we had a discussion uh God it seems so long ago now but I think it was Michael and Jim and Lori and I talk about this process I sent an email out to you folks and I know there's been a lot going on I think I asked you for I asked you for questions so did anyone okay Joe Joe has questions very good okay hand delivered hand delivered um so let me just review what I said and this is my memory of what we more or less decided not a problem um what I did one thing I do want to repeat
112uh what's the time it's it's um next week 6 o' or six it's some yeah so everybody should just note that and right now I'm I may try to come in virtually Yolanda is not available so it'll be you three and perhaps me i' talked to Joe about chairing on behalf of the select board um and here's the process that we had discussed um basically um Lor's going to kind of chair the overall process we're scheduled 6:30 on Wednesday January 24th at the school committee meeting so we'll be guests at their meeting um Lori just sent me an email saying um Jim neelson has dropped out just informationally he's withdrawn his cidy so when so when you people look at it I guess um he's he's withdrawn um we agreed to a 92 opening statement
113from each three of the same questions for each candidate would limited some time for followup questions from Members being members being select board and school committee members um and um there'll be some members or alternate asking a questions so um after the last candidate there'll be General discussion at some point um the chair will call for nominations the first nomination seconded that receives a majority of V uh votes pres will be appointed um the we talked about these three questions and kind of informly decided that two would come from school committee one from select board um and I think Lor's envisioning that that be a select board question and the select board would take turns asking it you know basically I think so um and the and I'm supposed to like coordinate with lorri over
114the next few days and I don't know um if is there any other questions besides Joe's anybody else have questions in mind yeah well thank you for putting this in um maybe I'll just read um uh Joe these are Joe's questions Jo all you all have comprehensive resumes Indica involvement in current multiple activities how will you find time to dedicate uh and put forth the effort towards a me being a a school Committee Member uh there was much time meet twice a month will each of you have the time without sacrificing time towards your other activities so that's Joe's first question about time what is the strongest to assist you as a member of the school committee and what makes you the best qualified candidate from the list of current oh I'm sorry um candidates
115to fill his vacancy which is I'm pretty sure very similar to one uh Lor's putting together but you know thank you for that so um I guess you know one thing I'm a little um Yolanda what's your schedule like over the next few days or are you very cuz well I'm thinking of asking to hand this off this task hand off to you to deal with decide with Lori about the questions M on Friday and Saturday oh that's right this weekend is that yeah and then I have another so to Wednesday I have like a full afternoon on Sunday all right so I I'll get in touch with Lori and we'll try to iron out whatever we can and maybe there's someone else in the committee who well that's true yes sure if you're going
116to have me represent the have to me instead of cutting the middle man I just come to me directly what do people think of that I'll delegate this to Joe on the question decision everybody good with that yeah so Paul I don't know if you're listening to us or if Lor's uh listen to this we're gonna I'll I'll send I'll send an email and include you and say uh so Joe has given us some questions I'm going to kind of delegate it to Joe to uh speak with Lori and finalize the three questions okay does that work Paul yeah and uh speaking with Lori you know I think based on the number of people and and and what we get from there there might be some fluctuation that might might throw one another question or
117something like that based on uh based on the numbers I mean right now we got 10 um uh 10 people fill out forms uh she just sent out an email today two of the people have withdrawn uh from from cacey uh I'm not going to mention their names I don't I just don't want to throw that out there to them sure oh I just did one of them Paul sorry we we'll we'll definitely let you know if you want uh what I've done for our committee and I can share it with you uh I took all the the the talent Bank forms and I put them in a Google sheet on a template um so that way what I can do is I can share the template with you you all won't be able to
118modify the template and I won't use the template but what you can do is you can uh you can create your own copy and then take notes and have all the things right there in a in kind of a more easily usable fashion you can take notes right on the uh right on the Google sheet and things like that to keep track because as I said now we're down to eight but we had uh 10 10 submissions uh so it's a a lot to look at so yeah certainly is that that actually is a good good good suggestion Paul I was going to ask if somebody could put together like a final list with all the talent Bank forms cuz we've seen them kind of come in here and there and there's a lot of
119them which I guess is really great for the school committee because there's a lot of really interested people looking to to serve school committe it's great it's great and very gonna be very very very difficult to so Paul how did you how are you Distributing this uh list or so so what I did to to our uh for our committee so far is is all I did is I took all the the information from well the relevant information I took out the contact information I don't think it was relevant for for this but uh I took took that and I put it into a Google sheet uh so each tab in the Google sheet is one of the candidates it has all of the all the information and then it has um places for keeping
120track of your notes on each of the questions and their responses and the general notes taking place um so that way so what I did I I created a created a Google sheet I shared it read only to my committee which doesn't allow them to modify it but what they can do is they can create a copy in Google um that you can then take your private notes on so there's no if you could share that with our committee Paul yeah great again you know same read only and then people can print it out or do it what they want that's great yeah I'll I'll do the same share and then I'll I'll just forward you the same email that I sent our committee great that good with everybody sounds great all right thanks Paul
121all right anything further on this one I would I would just say um again I apologize that I won't be able to be there but one of the things at the end and I'm sure some of you will think of this and do this is to encourage whoever is not appointed to consider running because it's going to be an open seat even though someone's going to be appointed to it from February till May it's always good to have choices and even though you don't get appointed doesn't mean you might not be able to get the votes to be put onto the the school committee at the election that's right and it's a one-year term I believe right yes one year remaining it's a one-year term and then there's two school committee seats up for re-election
122as well right so yeah and one of the points I made at our meeting uh just to I want to make sure everyone is aware uh because of the the cycle that this particular seats on it will be uh two back-to-back elections so so uh disappointments to the next election but then um that seat one more year left on that cycle so not that that should be a big deal but I know it matters to people that right if they have it means they're GNA if they want to run and they get appointed they'll have to run and they and they win the election they'd have to run again next year great yeah nothing the other the other component that uh because as we got more and more uh just Lori and I talked about
123this um just if if we if we are talking to eight people and we're going through a lot and um we were kicking around the idea and she was going to reach out to you rob uh and Yolanda about is there a potential appetite for if we're if we're long time into it we have some really great candidates right so it's going to be a very robust and and and difficult decision that we get to a point where do we want to have maybe a virtual meeting for a vote uh if if we're if we're struggling if if we're two hours into it and we're we're struggling to narrow it down uh maybe there maybe there's a possibility of uh you know having a second meeting just to just to reconvene on on the topic
124well let's let's get a sense of the board now I would say take a PL take a I I have a feeling Paul like I know that that you have eight candidates but I think my guess is is when you start talking to folks there will be people that that are yeah and it'll be less less top candidates than you went I I also you know just it just occurred to me because we were talking about the election in May I would say that one of the questions that we absolutely need to ask is ensure that they're planning to run in May because there really is no time to try this out before they'd have to pull papers and run so if they're not serious about running in May then I wouldn't even consider them
125for for a SE that's a question that I always consider ask it's like if someone's getting appointed are they considering running as you said papers papers will are going to be available they only have a couple of meetings they'll only have a couple of meetings before they'll need to submit papers papers are going to be available in uh at the end of the month but they're due in March so yeah yeah so one thing I would suggest if if the majority really feels that's an important question then you know when you talk to Lori that's that would be our qu or maybe she that might be an additional that might be like a fourth question though right that those aren't real content yeah there's discuss Oh you mean in not one of the three right
126have if you you know to find out how people are thinking you'd have your three main dis things but to bry's point would you know whether you're appointed or not are you considering running and pulling papers for I'll leave that to you guys for so doing that and maybe it's a screening question the possibility of something like that too is uh perhaps when we have them do their introduction uh ask them to that's a brief yes no kind of thing have that as part of their introduction yeah that's a great then then it doesn't get into the three questions so that's good okay that's good thanks for coming Paul because this is like a good way of working this stuff out anything else on this one good thank you all all right next one is
127discuss the senior tax workof program so Jen go ahead Jen um I think uh about a month back I had um Candy and I had presented just sort of the updated program rules um for the TA the senior tax workof program so obviously just a reminder um at the last um town meeting we had voted to increase the number of the number of hours um and the and and the hourly rate um and sort of expand the program a little bit so you know this program um seniors who are who are 60 or older or a veteran because we also have a veterans um workof program and that has been an Ashlin resident for 5 years can reach out to Candy well at the senior center and um and apply basically to do a part-time
128uh position um many of those positions that we have uh they're usually at Town Hall at the senior center at the food pantry um and and at the library we're looking at so but we have at Max 10 positions um and so this basically what's in the packet just outlines um the guidelines of the program and then some of the minimum requirements that sort of physical requirements that we need and some of the information that we collect um each year and so um seniors are able to work up to 100 hours it basically gives them a tax um relief of $1,500 at the end of the year um and we're trying to get this program we already have some interested um seniors who have done it previously because this is not a new program it's
129just we we changed it a bit um and it takes a long time to actually work a 100 hours throughout the year so um I was just looking for sort of we talked about it more broadly in concept last time and just looking for sort of the formal approval on on we didn't have the actual write up complete for the last time great thank you Jen um so this is that's just that's an update on um on the program and so we're moving ahead with it great thanks you don't need us to vote on this information or do you to approve I think it doesn't hurt to just have a a vote that accepts the new the new guidelines all right so is there any any questions or anything else on on this we've gone
130through this a bit so pretty straight forward a motion sure I move that we approve the updated property tax workof program as presented I'll motion's been made and seconded all those in favor say I I I I and thank you to candy thank you yes thanks C thanks and J thanks for putting this together that's good all right so now just some reminder um complete and return to town census and dog license registrations that are now available and I I did drop off my town census today uh you know maybe it would be worth just commenting quickly about um when people fill out the town census that it translates to dollars for the community yeah yeah does it well that's interesting so yeah so a lot of our formula based allocations are dependent on the
131census so that's why it's um the town the town census a lot more so with the desal census but the town census as well helps U good reminder us she must have running that in the schools oh yeah yeah oh that I'm remembering that now yeah and then Michael maybe yeah I'm sure you'll probably include something like that in your newsletter this I can yeah just say maybe a couple lines that please take a minute and and this is you know that it's helpful to us yeah finally was that an issue that some people weren't on the census and that affected they were like in school and not on the census is that no but um no I sometimes the thing that mostly in the schools that we struggle with more are people of certain
132income level that um app you know really definitely brings dollars to the yeah um District um in terms of census we go by how many kids are in their seats yeah on October one so I'm not sure whether or not they're if they're not on the town's uh how that works grants for school lunch programs and breakfast programs that that Ava okay um next reminder is you know we have Town elections coming up in May I believe it's May 1st um nomination papers will be available in Town's clerk office on January 30th um and there's if you go to the towns clerk town clerk's uh site in in the um in the town website there's a whole list of what offices are are available and open um another reminder hazardous waste collection is the first
133satday of their month at the DPW also mattress and box springs drop off DPW every Friday from 6:30 to 2:30 in the first Saturday of each month so every Friday that's pretty uh pretty convenient very good um and then another the Valentine public forum which we've been putting together and with I mean Michael I should say Michael's been putting together but we've been pushing it is the at Town Hall on Monday January 29th at 6:30 did we want to say anything about that or well we had a request for some information to be either put up on the website or made available um are have we done that or no I don't think we we have um I'll have to look look for that okay because I know they're looking for the CR for the
134Valentine property any potential you have a plan that you want to present at that Forum so if that could be made available to the public can do that the CR is not back from the state so oh it's still not it is still at the state okay so we can present it but as a draft a draft just yeah we could put a watermark on it I think yeah yes okay yeah just I mean and you know hopefully the state will not yeah we give an update I know that there was some work happening like with you know potential holders stuff like that can I mean I don't know if that's I we may be waiting from for the the CR from the state before we kind of announce that but I think it's important
135to note that we do have a partner that we worked with to help draft the CR yeah um and so this time they're will at The Forum yeah yeah we can get some clarification it's it's a it's a big it's a big deal once we oh yeah to get a older and everything will they be attending will they have a representative there or you know I haven't specifically invited them but um it's it might remember if we put something in local Town Pages no it'd be too late no um yeah I think those are the we should get a PDF or something up on like a flyer that we could put in uh onto waca TV and are we asking them to film and do a hybrid Zoom um we're asking them to record at
136the at the least okay so but it will it may or may not be hybrid what do we pick a place for this oh Town Hall are we are we making it hybrid are we allowing people to participate via Zoom um we can you know we find hybrid can sometimes be a lot of trouble so but they do it does provide access to well yeah there are people if people are interested and I think this is certainly something a lot of people would like to participate in and we do have limited seating so I think if we can make it a hybrid meeting I think that would be good and I would say if we think that the majority of us are going to be there maybe even posted as a select board meeting yeah
137so I thought I saw it posted or maybe it was just as an event posted as an event what the seating arrangements we're not going to be up front no no no we're not going to be up front but I think um like at the planning board meeting recently even though we were all there as individual citizens I think there was at least four of us in attendance of that meeting and because this forum is basically one of our forums I think it would be good for us to post as a select board meeting yeah sure in the last the last Valentine Forum we did which was probably what a year and year and a half ago something a while we did it hybrid and we had a lot of people join we people on
138if we can like if we're doing it here in this room and we have the capability to do it I would yeah I would like to recommend that we do it hybrid all right although it's never perfect no but again one of the reasons we support hybrid is it allows greater participation from the community and this is certainly a project that we want Community participation and input from yeah y absolutely okay so that go that route anything else on the on the Forum no I mean just other you know a couple of you had an opportunity to look at the barn and I got to see the work there and um it's pretty cool it is pretty cool um especially seeing the dates um on the post of when they were moved that's that's pretty
139cool so yeah very cool um great okay okay next um so that brings us into the consent agenda um any anything are we ready to approve the consent agenda any anything you want to discuss or see we have Amanda I think it's files right the sustainability committee um I move that we uh approve the consent agenda as presented second that uh motion has been made to approve the consent agenda as presented all those in favor say I I I I oppose none so consent agenda is passed and uh thank you for all congratulations question sure that because I didn't want to pull it out because I just I was just kind of curious um whether we have a new uh full-time patrol officer was he a lateral transfer or was he a new hire um
140it came up through he's a lateral I was going to get into it a little bit more in town manager reports just kind of like and stuff but yeah he's a lateral okay thank um and then just note just I noticed that this is that we are appointing a traffic officer which I guess is the replacement for the auxiliary police but with a higher level of training I guess this is Billy Foster so retire years ago okay great um all right so that so that brings us over to the town manager report um and Michael it says discuss nine c Cuts do you have a list or well I do so um we we got it just not too long ago um and we talked about the n9c cut for the um Trail for the
141trail but we did find out that there are other two ear marks um one for the economic development Pro incentive program and then the other for the ReUse of the police and fire station so both of those were cut in half as well so they had both been funded at 100,000 each now they're funded at 50,000 so so what impact will that have on our plans um well the economic development program is pretty pretty self-explanatory we won't be able to fund as as much assistance as as we had hoped through that um nothing really in stone yet for the police and fire station so we haven't really finalized anything yet so it really doesn't impact too much we still should be able to do like some preliminary work that we need to do but um
142yeah I mean it's it's unfortunate um but you know it's funny as I was looking through the list of of ear marks that got cut today I was just looking at what towns got and like you know a lot of towns got a bunch of $50,000 line items that got cut 25 so we started from a higher level better place so thanks to um our delegation so we've worked a little bit better than some of the other Town yeah we fared we fared pretty well yeah okay can't complain there's that all right Citizens Academy um we had our First Citizens Academy last Wednesday um which uh first of all we've got a great group of 16 people that were engaged um and asked really really thoughtful questions this first session we covered municipal government in
143Massachusetts and also you know dug in deeper to Ashland's uh particular structure so you know we talked about representative Town meetings City forms of government things like that um Katherine our HR Director she gave a great overview of our HR department and HR functions and some of the the challenges that we have um in all m IP municipalities have um in terms of attracting and retaining people um did a great job with that and then we segwayed into strategic goals and objectives in the projects that we're doing and uh had a good discussion about that and um then we ended with a couple trivia questions so cool I had six but you know guess who talked a little bit overtime and um I only had time for two so would it be possible to would
144it be possible to find out who the residents are that are participating I think that'd be great to know so if we see them and we can ask about them or yeah yeah and so big thanks to um to Katherine and Jen um you know Katherine for talking about HR and being there and Jen just kind of setting the whole thing up so and the plan is to meet every two weeks roughly we're going to take a little bit of a break um yeah we're doing this um Finance is the next one we're doing opposite of our schedule okay so the second second and fourth okay so what is the total number of weeks that the academy actually eight eight eight weeks yeah and it ends right after town meeting and so the schedule really
145kind of aligns kind of nicely we tried to line it up that way um so next week we talk about Finance so just planting the seed might we want to do some kind of recognition at town meeting well I think we're going to have them at the at a select after I'm sure the moderator would you know I mean I think we could maybe do it as an overview and so about maybe take a photo so we could at least recognize the first class I I just think that the more visibility it has at different places the more the higher possibility that more people will want to do it I mean I know you had a pretty good number of applicants and you sort of had to pick and choose but I'm just thinking better
146visibility and then discussion as to could you increase the number the next time that's all okay yeah I mean so finan is next week and so that's timed to where the you know they can have that before the televised finance committee hearing yeah so we'll ask them if they have time to watch that just to sort of get get a deer dive and they'll have at least some baselines so um Britney will speak uh at the next one sort of giving an overview and then also Cindy sakata um nice and Rich ball and then I'll give a quick overview on rich rich doing the cessor stuff that's that's really yeah that's always that's always an interesting exercise but it's it's yeah it's good like I said it's really engaged group too great nice um let's
147see and the last item that I have is regarding the police department and lateral transfers um so we did get out of civil service which was a big wind for um our police department and our community um but we have had some departures for I'm just going to classify it as personal reasons um so we're we're down on Staffing again which is having a a a tough effect or tough impact on our existing officers so um we met with the Union uh talked with them and batted around a couple of ideas and one of the things we came up with is a signing bonus for lateral transfers um and then also the chief has worked really hard with uh some of the colleges that have that graduate um you know people who have Academy who
148are then Academy trained and post certified so both of those are we're seeing fruitful results so you noted just we just appointed one um police lateral police officer who came in through the signing bonus program we have about three or four additional ones in our get bad system which is the system that we're utilizing now that we moved out of civil service get badg I like get badged yeah Oh I thought it was like get a badge which is like stealing other police officers well I mean that poaching is poaching is what it is there's the word yeah so um but hopefully we'll get our staffing level back uh you know back to where our officers are not having to pull doubles all the time and and just kind of working their tails off because
149it really does have an impact on them and their family so most of these will be already Academy of chain yeah so the signing bonus is just for laterals okay so and then the the colleges you know looking at the ones or the Chiefs looking at the ones that have um have the programs yeah marac in fitur program where you graduate CJ as a trained as as a trained you know but they also put you through the academy yeah and I think I you know I don't want to be premature or presumptive I should say but um you know Chief Ross's already identified one potential candidate for marac um that could be available I think graduates in the spring and um after a 12we field training program will be um we'll be able to um
150you know be on the street so and in terms of the laterals are they um have to match up with a position that we have available or yeah so they're coming over as Patrol officers yeah so that that's really where we're depleted yeah um but no the police department there's you know they're not skipping a beat as you know they can be victims of their own success and so sometimes you don't realize just how um how short staff they can be just because they keep going and going and going but they really are um at at a at a at a bad level so so hopefully this program will continue uh to to bear fruit all right thank you that's what I have all right thank you Michael um so that brings us to board
151reports so we'll just go I think if it's okay in the usual order we'll start with Claudia and go ahead yeah I think I've been inside all month um I was trying to think of where I'd been but um yeah so I don't really think I have much to say except that you know I appreciate the work the DPW done this week and uh getting the roads ready and um after a really tough storm so yeah got our first winter storm out out of the way all right thank you uh Brandy um so just a couple of things um one our comprehensive plan steering committee meets tomorrow um at the ashin public library at 7 o'clock um I I would like to request that we put a formal line item on the agenda next meeting
152to give a real update because I think that this meeting will kind of have some good feedback from our consultant plus I think we'll have some interesting um uh tools that we're going to be be sharing out um also just to let this board know we are talking about the project management team the the much aligned project management team um tomorrow as well so that will be a good discussion I am sure so um so that's all on comprehensive plan and then I just wanted to um um Joe and I were just chatting about it there's we have a new Eagle Scout in Ashland Tommy king um and so he's gone through his um uh his Eagle board of review and they're going to do a they're going to do a court of honor I've
153been talking to his mom he's a classmate of my son so I've I've known him um for years and he's overcome a lot of challenges and he's a really good kid so and a new Eagle so um to come on when is the she hasn't have a DAT yet okay so but she's going to keep me posted and I said cuz I said I cuz I had the same same thought that you did and just to make sure that either because I said to her I said if you know we'd love to be able to be a part of it to celebrate Tommy or at least bring in here for for celebration W doing who is is there a person now coordinating them because I know merly used to do that I'll have to get
154a hold of uh the scul master to see if there's somebody he would recomend to follow up with us on those programs I think there'll be a there might be a um I don't know where in the process but I assume there's going to be at least one more from Nate's class not not Nate's Nate's not a scout but right but part of the the grp Merl being gone is a real loss for them she was such a coordinator of all that real you know I was at the reservoir last weekend and a lot of those bridges that are there were done we're Eagle you can actually see some name plates are on them so it reminds you know these these guys do a lot of work a lot of projects Town Forest grew too
155yeah well even more in the Town Forest but also the res I mean Tommy's project was Stone Park was it really really good job what did he do at Stone Park so he cleaned out all the trails thanks cleaned out all the trails and built um a couple new benches oh nice um so yeah he check him out so he's good kid dangling pine tree branches that's oh gosh or Fallen pine tree branches yep all right um okay Joe thank you Mr chair um I don't have much other than the fact that I did report at our last meeting that the uh traffic study Safety Committee were was going to be meeting on the 30th uh but because of uh scheduling issues that is going to be on the 23rd which is uh next Tuesday
156so if anybody needs to uh it's posted and the agenda is there would like to come it be at the uh substation at U Market Basket uh starting at 10 10:00 till 11:30 and uh we have a lot to discuss a lot of things need to get done so um and again we uh we appreciate all the effort again remind everybody there is a uh parking band overnight parking band from from 2 to 2 to 6 especially where the weather's kind kind of crappy out you never know when you're going to get a Squall so make sure you keep the roads clear a vehicle so that the flowers can do what they need to do and watch for children walking to school especially now that the roads are a little more narrow with the uh
157the snow banks on on the sides of the road and I I I agree with your your comment uh to us the other day about 135 is a little bit narrower and uh but the cars aren't going any slower so we need to uh make people be aware of that make sure we get things done but I know we're in the process of uh doing potential work on it cross great good just can't see him now because right right so but that's all I have and um thank you all right thanks go ahead uh so just a reminder I've only gotten a potential list of what committee you want to see first from two members I still need it from two other members uh that's all I'll say about that I'd like to I'd like
158to be able to invite somebody to our first meeting in febru so yes I I might do that I actually I actually support that suggestion and I'm one of the what a great idea yeah I I just made you that we'll see the other thing is I am going to be sorry reminder so we're not giving you the whole list we're giving you I want your top three that you would like to have come to one of our meetings and what was Claudia's top three I I'm telling you that anyway uh I'm going to be at Ma MMA on Friday and Saturday um it was interesting a couple people have said oh there's not that many good sessions but I found a couple that I think could be interesting so hopefully I'll be able to
159bring stuff back also I have been I applied for and I have been I will be officially appointed as the vice chair of wio which is women elected Municipal officers and then I'm going to be part of the luncheon presentation we're doing a fireside chat with our Chief climate officer here in Massachusetts so I'm going to get to interview her nice so that'll be fun and then next Thursday the Metro West Regional collaborative has our online Zoom meeting starting at 8 and we are going to be getting an update from David luten Heimer regarding the trails project so he'll be on for like 20 minutes talking us through stuff as well as the collaborative will be talking about May projects and the work plan for the next year when is that uh next Thursday from
1608:00 to 9:30 online be around there but okay so and that's all I got great thank you um I don't have any special announcements or things that so um I guess I will take a motion to adjourn second so moved all those in favor say I all right we are adjourned thank you all thank you all thank you wow