Select Board Wednesday, January 3, 2024

001all right thank you welcome everyone to the ashin select board meeting for January 3rd 2024 um we're live streaming with w CAC TV tonight so thank you so I'm going to call a meeting to order um and ask any anyone here for Citizens participation either has everyone been LED in yet to the meeting who's letting people in I see Joan here I see Joan is that it no one else on the in the waiting room no there's nobody in the waiting room okay thank you I think she said no Okay so so I see um so I see no one either virtually are in person here for Citizens participation so we'll move on to the first item on our public agenda which is the introduction of Kirsten qu our who uh K our clinician for

002the jail diversion program and I think Michael wants to do a little introduction and and so go ahead Michael sure and I Know Chief Rossi just joined us here in the physical meeting yeah so you know obviously the the jail diversion program has been an important component of our Public Safety strategy over many years and over the last couple years we've had uh difficulty finding in retaining a um JDP Clin so I'm pleased to say that we do not have that issue anymore we've contracted with Riverside um and we have Kirsten quern here who has accepted did that job and has already started and that being said I'll turn it over to the Chief and chief you can elaborate a little more thank you um this has always been a pet project of mine for

003decade plus um coming here to Ashland um we did not have a JDP clinician when I got here um funding has never been an issue this is all Grant funded so there's no direct cost to the town uh but it it is such a vital program for literally every aspect of our community from children to the elderly and everyone in between um Kirsten could not have been a better fit for ashin um she's a a clocker she has clocker children cler children well you are now clocker by asso you live here so um she just started last week she's already integrated herself into the department you've been on ride alongs um she hit the ground running I'm so happy and impressed with not only your um resume and your experience um but the person that

004you are so I will allow you to come and introduce yourself officially to the select board in the commun but uh we are delighted to have you on board Chief before you leave just give us for the lay person an example of way the jail diversion program might work or someone like Kirsten might intervene or what's a typical kind of so there's nothing typical okay in her um job description we just um ordered her a bulletproof vest because she may be going on on calls that could be that could turn into something more than we expect but on a a typical day um she'll call through the log and see what transpired the night before and what she could follow up with um so um there was a resident who was having issues um of

005domestic violence that came up last week that she followed through with um there's a lot of people suffering from substance use disorder um that cursed and well you went to a a home and and assisted with someone who is what we call a Joe you'll understand a magnet address someone we go to continuously the hope with Kirsten is that she will cut down on the amount of calls for service because we'll get people to the appropriate after care or services that they need so we don't keep being um called yeah just the society's janitor just coming in you know and cleaning up a mess we're trying to solve the problem so what Kirsten does she's got the time the bandwidth the knowledge the experience the training to follow up with these people so it's not

006going to be the same person who's intoxicated you know five times a month that we get called hopefully she'll get them to services that they need so that they're healthy they're thriving um if they've got children it's not going to impact children um great it's it's a mixed bag we had unfortunately a horrible incident you know about that involved a high school student I you know making that sort of um notification to a family is something that a public safety official will carry with them forever they don't have the same training that Kirsten has she could have intervened at that point um and and assisted in that way okay um it's just an endless list of what she is capable and qualified to assist with so great I hope every person in the community who

007needs any sort of assistant will assistance will reach out um and I'm sure they'll find Kiren capable and willing to help great well thank you for that is this an on call position or is there a set number of hour I mean I'm sure there's a set number of hours but it's is it the same every day or so the way that I crafted this position for our department was that um and this is obviously retention in this industry is difficult very difficult um Carson's a mom she's got obligations outside of just the Ashlin PD in Riverside so we work together to craft what works for her knowing that if something happened at 11:00 tonight night and she had someone to care for her children and we needed her mhm we can call her and

008she's available okay and she's close y but we made hours that are they're different they cover um basically two of the shifts the overnight shifts is going to be on an on call basis which is normal with any JDP program um but the way that Kirsten and I worked out her schedule she's available 5 days week for at least part of two shifts okay great so is the split shift not a direct not what you would understand as a split shift because it's not 7 to 3 3 to 11 yeah um it's various parts of each day that fit okay um and it's the understanding is that if we find a real need at a different time of the day that we'll talk about it and and change hours but so she got to flex

009schedule yeah and it a lot of what she does is not in the immediate it's the aftermath yeah um she's got the advantage of having all of what Riverside offers and bringing that to us nice that's a nice great I would like you introduce yourself hi hello I'm C I think I know everyone though this is for us but also for the community yes yeah yeah so um yeah it's been I I've been Riv with Riverside for over two months at this point um just preparing for the role um and then yeah day six was today um I feel like it's a really good um not only use of my skill set um but also just a wonderful program in general um jail diversion is a little bit of a misnomer in a way because

010it's really mobile crisis um oh and the ability to go to where the issues are happening and respond either in the moment or as the chief said um that follow-up piece of just making sure that we're checking in and getting people connected um because I know that the police officers don't have the time for that um and the police have been more than welcoming so it's been a good start that's great it seem to me you're sort of a social worker attached to the police department that is exactly what I am I'm a licensed social worker yes um with an office in the police department um and I have like the chief said the this consultation the resources from Riverside um which is it's actually a really awesome organization I worked there like over 10

011years ago um wow doing the mobile crisis I was in the emergency room at that time um I think a lot of what we're trying to avoid is that emergency room whenever possible um and I think in the last decade at least that I'm aware of um the Department of Mental Health um I think they've created more levels of care more options for people um so it's not just impatient impatient which can be a revolving door as well now this isn't replacing the juvenile uh diversion program is it no okay um so like Kirsten said jail diversion is you can stay up there Kirsten if it's a very unless you want to run it's a it's not really accurate to what this role um is intended for so to divert from the emergency room is

012really more of what we see in our community um which I mean if you're having a heart attack and we're tied up with an ambulance doing something that could be diverted through the assessment that you're going to get at the ER in the field with a licensed social worker I mean that's life saving for people it it it's also um you know cost savings for residents because every time someone gets transported to the emergency room via ambulance and they can't pay for the care I mean ultimately becomes a responsibility of other people this is diverting from that and as you know Joe particularly when someone is presenting with some sort of um issue that would require going to an ER to get an evaluation we can't make the assessment we don't have the skills we

013don't have the training um and in order to to indemnify for lack of a better word we're going to send to the ER which is going to tie up a bed in the ER it's going to tie up an ambulance it's going to tie tie up Ems Crews when Kirsten can make the same on assessment on site I mean it's just a win-win for everyone and the patient ultimately the person who's involved probably nine times out of 10 does not actually need to go to the emergency room they need followup care that Kiren can make sure that they get so this is where Riverside comes into play yep yeah so at section 12 you'll be there making the assessment on scene I could yes instead of going to the yes and taking it off of

014the officers who who and and the medical group as well they can but are they really trained to that level right most times not right thank you cool any other observations questions so um on a typical call first of all welcome like officially like we all know you like as part of our community but we're excited that you're you're here in this capacity um so for a typical call would would an officer and Kiren respond together or how how does that because I'm because I'm thinking you know you were talking about like the bull proof vest and safety and that's always like probably top concern she will never respond on her own okay she's embedded with us she's one of us um she's a you even have a police jacket I noticed does it say

015social worker in big letters across yeah yeah I so we we'll get you one we we're we're piecing it together as we go along but um so she'll ride along with officers just to go and check out I mean there's I've seen I read the log every day I see you've gone to check on some of our frequent flyers to just see what we can do more for people so she'll just ride along sort of awaiting something to happen uh part of her day is spent in the office which is directly across from mine um and she's doing followup she's on the phone she's you know she's only six days in but followup typ type of stuff she'll never respond on her own she'll never go without one of us or um you know she

016may work directly with Courtney or to be my services um without a police officer there um in that capacity but if she's responding as part of APD She'll always have one of us with with her okay and that was going to be my next question was how how closely are you going to be connected to to Courtney and our Human Services team at the at the community center because I'm sure that that the overlap is huge it really is I didn't realize until we met today um I met with Courtney our lead social worker and joy um our case manager and we just kind of were dividing up some follow-up work um because there is a lot of overlap between people seeking out services and and police responding to people um so I'm looking forward

017to that it's nice to have a team that's great and and I know you also if I remember correctly you also have your law degree too so I have a law degree it's my I've been admitted to the bar but I am inactive and not practicing um but it's definitely wow it came in handy this I was say I was going to say like I see it all kind of coming together it sounds like it's a good fit for you so I think yes and I really appreciate the flexibility knowing that that's the hardest part trying to balance we're looking for balance and in this field I mean it is a it's a tricky field like people can get burnt out but I think the difference um I don't think I would have applied for

018this job two years ago um I feel like our Police Department is like Chief Rossy is pretty incredible um so I feel very supported bless you um in that regard the building good time you don't go outside to use the restroom exactly it's it's a nice working environment as a clinician we're used to like closets and basements and I have a window so it's a win-win awesome well welcome thank you anything else from the yeah I would also I mean as you said most of us here in the have known you as part of the community uh to hear that you're coming in with the background I didn't know about the law degree so it's nice to hear all the experience that you have and I think as a working mother to know that you

019can have that flexibility I think you you know when you talk about work life balance it's important to have that so I'm excited to hear more and of course my brain starts going oo interview sure but if you ever want to get in touch or you have someone oh I might call you tonight yeah that's what happens thank you Chris oh that's good you just pass just pass them around so that's good great well thank you congratulations and welcome aboard welcome we look forward to hearing how it goes just before you so maybe talk the grant this is Grant funded and how long is it funded and so every year we have to reapply with dmh um but it's 100% covered there's no cost to the town I mean they cover computer phone I remember

020Susan calling me does she need a phone nope Riverside has it so how the funding I know it's sometime unknown but what's the long-term funding look like is this likely to be I do not foresee having almost 31 years in this profession I do not foresee this ever being not funded this is where policing going in Massachusetts I think Nationwide is going towards um I wouldn't be surprised if funding increased for more than one I don't ever see it being pred do many jurisdictions are we unique in this is like is a lot of places doing this now in Massachusetts so Framingham and chief Davis our former Chief um really started this program with Dr Sarah Abbott in Framingham probably 15 16 years ago yeah it was a long time ago yeah long time ago

021long 20 and it is taken off um we we are not unique um in that we have the program I think we're really unique in that we have someone of Kirsten's um training education background experience I mean she's very modest but I mean she worked in the juvenile courts in Boston I mean how that can translate to what her knowledge and experience becomes here is invaluable she has got experience working in school systems in the area DOA Sherburn I mean she's got experience in every single one of the arms that we coordinate with so um and I know Michael I said how excited I was for this higher and Jen I told you as well um I think you'll see why and it she's six days in but I think next year if we have

022this conversation you'll see why I was so excited to get her on board great I have one last question so what's the relationship with Riverside so are they the employee employer for Kirsten not the out she works for Riverside she's embedded with us so she's they're contracted with us we signed um you know an agreement um they supervise um they trained she lives with us she's one of us um but she's not actually a town of Ashland Employee if that makes sense y yep okay mental health mhm yeah okay good great well thank you so certainly sounds great yeah thanks for coming in right thank you for thanks for coming in now I'm a res there you go you you took our thing off okay very good yeah it doesn't it doesn't always work that

023way when I get home yeah all right thank you so our next item on the agenda is 7:30 is a public hearing so yes thank you very much um congratulations Chief yeah congratulations Chief good I see that um Cindy is here uh a bit early shall we take her and deal with that in our 10 minutes can we do with that we have six minutes but I think we can I'm sorry I keep looking at that clock yeah we have six minutes I think we can should we go ahead and try that okay so cdy why don't you come up with this this this agenda item is um uh mail uh vote by mail uh and other various issues having to do with the election season coming up and I believe a a recommendation from

024Cindy the town clerk that we do not do the vote by mail for the municipal election so um I hope people um got a chance to look at that and Cindy if you wanted to make a short maybe presentation or if Michael you wanted to start the ball rolling on this uh uh no I mean I think the memo pretty much speaks for itself yeah I mean just really brief is it's the first year with vote by mail that it will fall before the municipal when they mail the postcards out so voters have the option to choose all elections for the year and I would like to see us opt out of the local which we have the option to as long as the the board and how clear does that I mean first of

025all I think it's ridiculous that you send out those cards but that's my personal opinion well we don't the state does no no I mean I know that but so would there be something on their card that lets them know that they're not eligible so the initial guidance I got from the state said they were going to say to check with your municipality okay they then they sent us out the sample of the card it does not say that but I have been speaking to the um the attorney for the elections Division and she recommends that when we mail out the ballots in March just to put a notice in there to all the voters that have requested one that they will not be getting one in May that if they want to vote if

026we take this vote that if they want to vote in the local election they'll have to apply for an abot or apply or come in person exactly okay so um just to kind of give a little bit more context anybody that might be watching um the the memo that you sent us that's in our packets um you know because it's there's going to be a national election there's okay multiple national elections but but it's it's a big it's a big election year yes um and then the and because the state is um sending out these postcards for mail and voting and it's a state decision to do that um what potentially could happen is you had put in here that um that we anticipate approximately 3,500 voters requesting the mail and um yeah that's very

027conservative too I think and that there's a cost associated with that for each election um that you know if we if we're able to opt basically you know 3,500 voters in ashin would receive a municipal postcard or a municipal ballot and may or may not you know that that may or may not send it in but there's still a cost in a in a Time Associated it's about 90 cents a ballot for um Postage and it's 25 cents to print each ballot so just there alone plus the time right each and I'm curious like you know know the state you know we talk sometimes about these unfunded mandates from the state um and I would assume this is another one of those unfunded mandates so we got three we may have you know 3,500 vote

028by mail um ballots going out for each election and is there any reimbursement that comes from the state does the state do anything yes so um within the next couple of months um for each election we fill out like what we anticipate like um for postage um detail officers at the election things like that it's not a lot I think last year I got back I'm sorry in 2022 it's now two years um about $5,000 okay all right but the presidential alone I mean we'll probably mail out 6,000 ballots for the November election so I I I'm fully in support of us opting out or the for municipal I am too other other questions or thoughts about this I just want to talk a little bit about absentee um voting and a little bit about

029how that works and do you anticipate because of the fact that now we've had the mail um mail in votes that now we might see an increase in people taking advantage of absentee voting yeah but like in the memo I wrote um in the last two locals we had 95 and I think 110 respectively for May and July um you know that's a lot less than 3500 so even if we had you know a 100 people apply absentee that's completely doable you know all right so I think it's just sort of quick yeah sure so quick summary for folks we've got um for those watching so in terms of the election season ahead we've got the the state Primary in March presidential primary in March then our municipal election in May then September the prime

030presidential primary November the final election so it's a big election um we're going to do mailin for three out of the four elections but your proposal is for the municipal that we don't do it and have our we're likely have early voting is that correct yeah I'd like to do iners early voting but um we won't have to vote on that until 45 days PRI okay so that's a decision to be made but it's quite possible we'll have that and you'll have absentee so so your your proposal do I have a motion here I move that we approve the opt out of vote by mail for the May 21st 2024 town election and any special local elections that may be called in 2024 good point and I'll second that all right so the motion's been

031made in seconded all those in favor of the motion say I I I oppose none so the motion carries so thank you thank you all thank you Cindy for coming to see us okay okay all right so yes happy New Year now we got to open the hearing yeah so um where's my little oh so um it being 7:30 I'm going to uh read this legal notice about a public hearing um considering an all alcohol liquor license for Clock Tower pickle ball so notice is hereby given that the select board will conduct a hearing regarding the application for an all alcohol liquor license the applicant is Clock Tower pickle ball LLC located at 200 Homer Avenue Ashland um a public hearing will be held on the matter on Wednesday January 3rd 2024 at 7:30 p.m.

032persons wishing to be heard in this matter invited to attend the public Hearing in person are by logging into the zoom meeting interested parties are unable to attend the hearing May submit written comments to the select board's office Town Hall 101 Main Street ashin mass 01721 or by emailing Susan Roby sroy Asin mass.com sign Robert share chair select board so a motion to open the hearing so move second all those in favor of opening this hearing say I I close none so hearing is open so do we have anyone here I think Steve pritsky is up there uh Steve oh he just activated his cell so Steve I think you can talk if you want so do you have a presentation to make us on this uh on this license there he is hey Steve

033how's everyone doing good good certainly missed the town of Ashen but I'm happy I'm back uh now and again a little bit more than I used to be so great how's your neighbor Mitchell is is he behaving himself as far as I gather I think he's dealing with all the grandkids now I'm thinking but um so yeah just a a quick overview of what we're doing um the second floor at 200 home RAV on the 135 Route 135 side has been vacant for many years now as you know we used to own uh own the building and sold it a little bit ago uh we still retain the management of it and as we as pickle ball continues to get more and more um you know exposure more people playing it everyone wants to be

034inside and and play I looked at it and the actual specs of how the beams and everything works perfectly good so we're able to put in four pickle ball courts those are going to be in a separate area where the then where the bar and the restaurant will be there'll be a garage door that will go into the uh the bar uh it'll have an opening and then um it'll be able to be locked when when no one's there um there'll be opening through the kitchen as well to get in back you know back into the uh the bar as well but that'll be locked um our intent is to have a restaurant which will be a gastro pub which is high-end com comfort food I'm learning not really a foodie but um we're excited

035about that we're working on the menu now the uh the bar uh we plan on having it be you know really a Social bar after people play pickle ball or come watch people play pickle ball um which we're very excited about the uh the pickle ball portion is probably going to be open before the end of January or early February um and we're in the designs phase of Designing the kitchen and the bar excuse me no no that was sorry go ahead oh no problem so we're in thei design phase of of the bar and the restaurant but we have that pretty well understood how we're going to how we're going to create that and what we're going to do um the bar the the bar is not going to be open from 10 to

03610 the pickle ball will be open from 10 to 10 and the hours will be different for when the bar and the restaurant are open just based on when people will come um when there'll be actual crowds there or more people there it'll be based on that but our plan is never to be open after 10: and never to have the bar open obviously before 10 I don't know what the rules are but we would obviously conformed any of the rules Marissa Kenny is the bar manager and general manager for Clock Tower pickle ball she is she has been in the past the bar manager and head of the front um head of the front manager for uh Jon stones in ashin so she's very familiar with all the um Ashland people and she um

037is is doing a great job for us and we're looking forward to having her run it and the uh ownership structure just quickly is there's a lot of um ashin people that are part of this ownership structure I would have the full say of as the manager of bmd realy which is the name of one of my companies that will be the the actual owner of it but the investors are mostly from the Metro West area so everyone's very excited to get this going um we look forward to having great pickle ball and having everyone play so great I don't know if that was what you wanted but that's that's good well just before we get into details Susan um is the application complete any issues with the application or the application is complete great

038all right thank you did we we I was looking in our packet Susan you we usually have like a cover page I thought for liquor licenses about like with the times and the and the days of the week and there wasn't we didn't receive anything in our packets so I'm not sure what I was asking I was going to ask that what are what are the hours for the for the bar restaurant area yep so the hours for the bar restaurant um we right now it's probably going to be or is going to be mostly in the afternoon from 2: till 10: uh for the bar and our current plan is not to be open on Mondays just to have pickle ball so Tuesday through Sunday 2 to 10 is what you're looking for from

039a liquor license approval from us um I think if I had to amend that I would say we're probably going to be definitely on the you know Thursday Friday Saturday Sunday open at 11:00 if possible for the for the uh bar open until 11: open no open at 11: 11 oh so 2 to 10 Tuesday and Wednesday and then 11 to 10 Thursday through Sunday Y and and Susan how many if we use this all if we use an all out alcohol oh where does that leave us at five she told me to tell everybody five left five left yes we have six currently and there'll be five left okay good um can I ask a question about the the hours sure um so be stating those hours is that is that changeable or should

040I try to change it now if it's going to change because you know as this thing continues to unfold and uh the amount of people that we have that may come or may not come is unknown to us because it hasn't opened yet um and if we get a bunch of people that want to have the bar and restaurant open on Tuesdays and Wednesdays is that changeable or is that something I should do well it is changeable but I think Steve you should maybe ask for what you want now right if you think you're going to want longer hours on other days it's easier to for us to say okay these are your full hours then if you decide not to do it as much if you say okay I'm just going to do 2

041to 10 if you think 11 if you think 11 to 10 Tuesday through Sunday might be where you'll get to but you decide not to do that it would certainly be to your advantage to ask us for that now I would go then 11 to uh 10: um actually every day because we don't know what's going to happen on Monday because but right now our plan is to be closed on Monday and just have members there okay so 11 11 to 10 s days a week to 10 p.m. Sunday sorry about that Saturday and is there anyone else here to speak in favor of the license is it uh anyone else here no just just me just you you're just you Steve how about anyone uh who wants to have questions about the license in

042the general public or has uh any other questions about thisse support or against this speaking in in support or against anyone else I don't no one else is physically here anyone else online there raise your hand or I can't read everybody up there but Susan have we gotten any emails or anything regarding this no you have not okay does the board have any other questions or before we close the public hearing and proceed to a vote or no I just have I just have a pickleball question I'm not sure that qualifies go ahead so so I know that um the I've heard and I've never played pickle ball so I'm really excited to to to come check out the pickle ball but um I've heard that pickle ball can get kind of loud and I

043was curious about because you're going to be on the second floor with um you know businesses below you I was curious if like there was soundproofing I'm just you know I'm more like I said more on the Curious side so so um the Telecom building as you may know has some of the has the thickest floors because of the live loads they needed with when they were making what they were making so the the the the cement between the first and the second floor is about 8 in thick at this point and as well as what's underneath it is just a storage it's worth Imports and they just store um you know chachis just little stuff that they sell at different stores so they're not active there if you look on the outside um into

044the hallway there's a storage for Mass medical next to us which is just a storage of medical supplies and then you have a machine shop tapler which is next to us um and that they're just making machine parts um we will have sound proofing on that the fact that it's on the second floor is beneficial because the sound will go through the roof but we'll also have sound proofing up there um so yeah we're not anticipating issues with our neighbors um and if we did we would mediate you know what needed to happen to make sure it didn't bother them as still the the manager of the building sounds good so go ahead so 200 home or where is the entrance to that thank you that was my question so the entrance to that is

045well there's C there's an entrance on 135 and you can walk up the stairs that way that is not the ideal entrance because you walk kind of into courts so the entrance is going to be where you walk into Dr greens if you've ever been there which is on the back side towards the parking lot you'll go up the hall you'll go up the stairs and there'll be a brand new hallway that we just created that goes into directly into our space wonderful great great all right any other questions I think we're ready to a motion to close the hearing motion to close the hearing I'll second all those in favor of closing the hearing say I I I oppose none hearing is closed all right uh deliberations any other discussion motion I I think

046it's a great use of this space and and as as Steve said pickle ball has become one of the most popular sports for everybody so to have this coming to Ashland and bringing people to Ashland is a very positive thing for us absolutely and is there a select board discount night is that we've already worked that into the uh to the oh actually that is a question will it be a membership or will you be able to just come in and play once in a while but what we have is there's two forms one is there will be a membership and that will be people will be able to play um come in when there's no one there through a fob system and sign in we'll have an enormous amount of camera situations there to

047make sure everything's done and they'll be able to play and and get charged I believe it's going to be $25 an hour and you own the court for the hour so from 5 to 10 o'clock if you're a member you can sign you can pre-sign up pay pay your fee come on in and play and you bring as many guests as you want and they're all it's just $25 and then after that from 10: till 10: it's open Play meaning anyone can come play the benefit of the members is they get to sign up earlier than the other people as well as they get a reduced price for the for the hour cool very nice and there's other membership benefits I think we need a r Retreat yeah Retreat Retreat all right so where so

048do we have a motion I move that we approve the all alcohol call liquor license for Clock Tower pickle ball with the hours of Saturday Sunday through Saturday 11 a.m. to 10 p.m. I'll second that all those motions been made in second all those in favor granted us license say I hi opposed none congratulations you have a license thank you guys very much thank you Happy New Year to you MB to thank you yes for sure nice to have you back doing some things in Town St we look forward to it take have a good one all right so that's good so our next item on the agenda is um discuss the mass Trails grant program and Ashlin award to support the creation upkeep of Municipal own trail so this was a notice that we

049received or Michael received um from uh press conference from um the state Administration and so I don't know Michael and we've all um received several pages on it and Michael I don't know if you had any anything to add to it this was a general Statewide press release that we were named in but I believe other than that we don't have any any specific information and no one here applied for this grant or but it's funding that seems to be available and U yeah it's um you know as as you mentioned Rob we did get a um press release from DCR Department of Conservation and Recreation announcing uh $24 million uh for trail projects across Massachusetts and specifically uh as it relates to Ashlin they had $6 million uh to support the creation and upkeep

050of municipally owned trails in a number of communities Ashland being one of them um as you mentioned though we didn't apply for a mass Trails Grant so we're left a little bit scratching our heads what this is in regards to uh I had reached out to DCR couple of times I actually heard back from them today um basically I asked them again for some more information and I got an email saying what's the best number to call you so um so we've been playing phone tag uh today so I don't have I don't have an update on that but I'm really interested to hear what he has to say so so based on the press release and the detail it sounds like we can use this for anything we we need to create an update

051our Trail and I mean it's that sounds like Prett General yes if it's if it's that broad yes usually you know what they have is they have supplementary information that is like a matrix that shows each of the communities and and what it's specifically for uh we've received nothing and there's nothing on the website about but and we do we know what the number is for us there I don't think there's a specific number I think there's this pool yeah that's my impression from reading this and the pool well that's a good question 15 commun for $6 million for 15 communities or 9 million there's another place where they talk about the difference so it is a little confusing I'm trying to find that section I I read it and it said that 15 would

052go to DCR and of the 24 so mine that that leaves 9 million so like 3 million will be used for the upkeep of oh maybe that's okay so that's the difference okay but because we're looking to partner with DCR for their section of our Trail through the State Park ideally we could then use their portion and our portion separately that's good point we we would love that leverage uh leverage their air FES as well yeah yeah they probably hopefully they yeah so as you talk to them and maybe you I'm sure you already have some questions some questions I would have is what is the timing of this and do they have people that we can work with for the engineering and the actual design and working with with our Conservation Commission in regards

053to getting this permanent and things like that I mean those are the questions yeah I'm really first I'm I'm hoping it's not a mistake and U well it says environmental justice communities and the only thing I can think is we are one because of the whole nanza issue true well there's other issues too we have some demographics that qualify us yeah that's the demographics are are really kind of the key to that but yes I I will ask those questions okay hopefully get some more concrete information but good news out of the out of the blue and one thing I want to add that right now Joel arbitman is is putting together a mass Trails Grant working with Michael and hopefully Jen uh which I'm not totally but it's the same department so I'm not

054sure if that's part of this but he's in kind of a separate process he was contacted by them um or made that connection is actually applying it's through February 1st I don't know that it's the same pool of money or it's a whole different pool but uh he's applying for that for a particular purpose to acquire some land for easement so that's good news um and um they actually use the when they're discussing with them they use the term environmental justice community that we were well qualified so good good news so okay Co all right very nice thank you forward you hearing more all right lost the agenda okay we did vote by mail so the next item is potential dates for a joint meeting with the school committee to fill the vacancy on the

055school committee so says your appointment due date of 229 but I believe we've determined that it is really required by February 5th that's my latest understanding under the charter so we have it's 45 days from the date of resignation we're supposed to make an appointment so I'm using that February 5th as the date around which we're planning and right now uh Lori you know the string of emails about two or three weeks ago between Lori myself Michael and Cindy the um the the is there okay um we just kind of laid out the parameters um to have the the application for the school committee vacancy was posted on the town website I think a week more than a week ago I believe yes it's been a while it's been up there for a little while

056um and so right now the due date for applications is still January 18th which gives us a little time to make the appointment by February 5th and then based on all those kind of demographics Lori suggested that we attend the school committee uh meeting of um U what's the date is it the 24th January 24th so that's what I asked you folks to kind of look at if that would be workable I think that's pretty much our option given the kind of parameters here is that I may actually not be available I I'll be out of town but you know I may come in I'm not out of town but I don't know that I'll be available oh okay at 7 what about other people what are people thinking so I'm trying to think what

057about other dates that week Yolanda is any would it be different or I me we try to I'm just trying to nothing else that week would work for me nothing that we no so do we have any other options if we're trying to we could do it on the if we do something on the 31st no one has a meeting but I mean I don't think it would take very long No it should well well depending depends on the number of applications and you know we we like to interview people and discuss things with them so it could take a while uh so what's the date you're we're looking at here 31st when are we having our Forum 28th 29th 29th gosh I do that every time the Valen 29th is the Valentine I see

058for so Wednesday the 31st don't I'm trying to think what did Lori say about her availability do you remember no I can I can find out there was an um she said something about she wouldn't be available after that but could come in um but she did say she could come in Via video but she'd prefer to be in person so she suggested the 24th so I think she Lor's going to be away the 31st okay I wonder if she's available by video and you're not available by video that day no no I have another I have a conflict so what are we thinking well I I I could um suggest the 31st how about other dates that week is there any earlier that would work we're Valentine form on Monday I suppose we could

059look at the 30th don't forget we're not the only board so yeah we got to go back to the school committee so that gets a little sticky yeah Wednesday the Wednesday she suggested as a regular meeting day I mean I I I you know it's I think it's important enough that the more of the the more of us that can be there but if the 21st the you know the 2 4 it's a school committee meeting if at least three of us can be there we'll have Quorum so all right so why don't I um how about this I we could I could suggest that the third the 30th does the 30th work for us because the 17th is too early right is that the issue I think so because right now the due date

060is the 18th and it's been posted that way okay um so our options are a bit limited yep um right in the seventh is too late yeah so all right so so I could we could ask about the 30th um that seems to be a good date the third are the 31st is good for us yeah but it's it's not good for Lori you're you're sure of that how about the 30th U I don't know about the 30th so we could have Commit oh you oh you're not available to 30th actually actually I think I do because I think Lori said that after the 24th she's away until March but right but she said she could be available by video but would prefer it in person that's why I went with the 24th so we

061could so who which on of us can't be here the 24th Rob and I okay but I may be available I yeah probably if I right if you're available by video that's that that would be four of us yeah I'm not available all right should we well so why don't I okay I guess I can ask about the 31st and if if if it's still an issue for l we can go with the 24th is that just okay I think that makes sense okay so what date are you resist so we're probably going to end up at the 24th but I am going to ask her about the 31st just texted me and see the 31st no good she's watching us wait she has to come online here and talk to us all right so

062all right so I guess we'll go with C all right we'll go with the 24th then Lori did you hear that okay um all right all right so we'll we'll go with the 24th um and and um that'll be our plan for now hope we be the first on the agenda Lori are we first on the agenda but um Pro I would think probably 7 o'clock um and the only other thing I wanted to add about this is we do have short timelines um if I if I may Rob what's that our meetings start at 6 oh okay is any issues with six for people we can go Lori whatever you know whatever works six or seven six to Seven's great so um so we can schedule at any particular point in time if if

063seven only works for oh was that Paul oh I'm sorry I didn't real I thought that was okay thanks Paul okay that's Paul Paul's communicating okay very good really bad cold yeah all right so I don't know yeah whatever 6:30 or so is that kind of good for people all right so thank you Paul yeah that should work um so 6:30 you want you want us to schedule yeah around there I mean I don't think it has to be exact right so that'd be good thanks okay um or does it have to be ex you guys want to put it down okay have it on your count all right 6:30 thank you um and the only thing I wanted to add is that uh given the short timelines people should feel free to advertise and

064recruit for this right um and uh I would suggest if I'm not sure I know the town's had it on the website for a while if we should maybe put it in the Town manager's newsletter or maybe you know a link maybe on the community bulletin I don't know if it's already been on has anyone seen it posted we should probably try that I website um but I meant the Ashland um community board Facebook yeah or if or on the Ashlin Ashlin Facebook page right there that'd be good because it is the holiday season and we have a short timeline to make sure people get the word and then we'll think the newsletter is a great way to get the word out yes yeah okay all right anything else on that just just to thank

065Aaron for her service cuz oh right sure I don't know how many Paul do you know how many years Aon was on school committee was it like nine I believe it's I believe it was eight maybe okay uh she she came on filling a vacancy the year before I did and we're on the same cycle and okay we're up in the uh I'm up on the 20 uh in 2025 so it's my third term so I think so great okay so yeah just thank Aaron Williams for for years of service on the school committee so I know it's a lot of work that you guys all do so thank you some very difficult times yes co co is like d oh right sure and the building of a new school yes yeah yeah go great

066all right thank you and thank you Paul anything else you want to add or no thanks for being being flexible and uh working with us on the 24th so great all right thank you okay happy New Year Paul yeah happy New Year you as well okay so the next item is discuss MBTA station reopening so I don't know if anyone had any specific I've been there I've been there a couple two or three times um so you know the station looks a lot like it used to look only better I mean it's it's like well the rust is all gone it's painted a nice gray the pigeons have mooved back in um but it it basically it's nice uh you know the concrete's in good shape uh they're still working on the lighting they've got

067construction lighting there uh the the parking lot's been redone and repainted um it's just kind of cleaner this the rust is gone it's um nothing's loose anymore um so you know the stairs are better so the stairs the CR crumbling concrete stairs have been replaced by metal stairs metal grids very similar to what is at Framingham um they seem to work better yeah they yeah so they can get slippery it I'm sure when there's snow on them yeah so I mean you know I I I've talked to some folks who were like oh this was all the the work that they did and I'm like well you know I I think of it as sort of like deferred maintenance it is it's preventive yeah it's good they got it so it's not going to collapse

068on you so which is good and obviously they weren't going to be able to to do the work on the stairs with people with the station open people have to go up and over so you know and the fact that they were able to do it in four months like they said they were going to is a minor miracle so and they have some more work in January that they have to finish up on too correct correct and guys do you have any other specifics Michael has anyone been in touch with you about no no I think they were going to work do some more work on the lighting that was that was my understanding but um yeah I mean I I took a visit or took a drive over there looked at it over

069the weekend would concur with all of your um observations it's safer yeah might not be that much more attractive right driving by it doesn't look any different May our expectations weren't in line with what was ever intended well they painted it the the usual gray which is nice I guess if we want to paint it a different color bhip gray Battleship Gray um col a blue yeah get the one side of it the um when I as I said I think I told you they they did talk about the npta did talk to me about having some sort of ceremony whether that's actually going to happen or they're waiting or you know I just haven't hurt anything um but uh so that's about it anything else anybody want to add on that no it's good

070to have it back and working so that's good that's the best thing yeah all right next is MBTA zoning update and um you know Joe was uh working is that on that subcommittee and told me they're moving along and so I just um asked him if he wanted to give us an update on how things are going with that we of course met I don't know was it a month ago about this and um talked about things so go ahead Joe you want to update us B thank you Mr chair uh there's not much to uh provide additional information other than what we uh presented at our last meeting uh we did receive a letter from a business owner on on Pleasant Street uh Mr and Mrs jari with with some concerns and some ideas

071unfortunately we as a committee have not met since that time frame so um I don't want to speculate and comment on on the letter until the three of us have a have have a sit down with uh you know Trish and uh and Peter to go over that over some of the concerns that they they they' brought up so uh other than that that that's about it but uh and you guys have you guys met since we met and and is that like I think you told me that you got you think you're zeroing in on a solution we're about 90% at a location as to where we where we want to go with this and we're looking at a uh a low a low impact uh mhm percentage of uh housing which makes it

072makes it a lot easier and we can use other lands in and around that area and right just the things we discussed in PR in the ash area yeah okay any other questions or thoughts since I know it's so the information was put in our package just as a reminder yes she said that Peter this doesn't look different from pet put that in that's exactly what we talked about put just to give you a ref pressure that that's exactly what we have exactly uh then we just got this letter so we wanted to uh yeah and I would just you know Danny's letter I you know I I think he makes some good points it's something we should look at closely it's kind of what I was kind of thinking when you know when I

073looked at that those plots those Parcels right there so anyway we'll see how it goes but well and so is the idea that this will be ready to go to town meeting that's that's our attempt to do that and with that whatever we finalize we'll bring to the board so we can set up a forum a public forum so it'll be you know available for the public to question right prior to time meeting this tells me though that even before the Forum it might be good as you thinking about what you're going to do to reach out to the businesses along Pleasant Street right because here you have a business owner who has said you didn't even include my lot when you were talking about the potential zoning changes on Pleasant Street and some of

074the discussion that we had about Pleasant Street so I think it might be good to have a discussion with the business owners the reason why I'm holding back comment because that's not totally accurate so I just wanted to oh interesting okay has anyone talked to the church I mean what do they care one way or the other the church is a separate entity we we're not going near there okay I mean they can do whatever they want but I just wonder if they had any feelings one way or the other right all right well thanks Joe if there's nothing else we'll move on to the next one um okay these are reminders I was asked to put in uh complete and return to town sensus and dog license registrations right what's this so they're now

075available okay and then uh the next one is so we'll be doing uh Christmas tree collection uh starting on Monday January 8th and then the next one will be next and final will be January 15th and the town census gets mailed to people we should but for a dog license you need to apply for it or reapply if you already have one okay very good all right thank you for those reminders okay and the next is uh an item that Yolanda um suggested and that we she did send out something about this is discussion of committee updates and schedule so you know we had talked before about having a regular appearance maybe once for each of our meetings from a committee so fig Yanda want to have a discussion about how to set that up

076and schedule it yes so we've always you know through since I've been sitting here it's always like you know we appoint these boards but we don't know what necessarily what they're up to I remember one time we like created this whole elaborate thing that we were going to before you were on the board Brandy uh that we were going to have them fill out and we tried it and they're like this is just a lot of information so I just think it would be good for us to think about of the boards we appoint and I gave Claudia a potential list I haven't heard from Susan there's no list that says what the select board appoints so I'm going to I plan on working with Susan so that we have that list and if we

077could on our website put a little asterisk next to the one that we appoint so people understand that uh anyway so the idea is that we look at the boards that we appoint and ask them one a month to come and give us an update what are they working on what are they what do they need help with where where are they with things so the list that I gave to Claudia was and the and again I'm not 100% sure but I believe these are ones that we do affordable housing ashin cultural Council some of the members of CPC conservation Council of Aging historical commission open space and Recreation roadway Traffic Safety again one or two of the members not everyone storm water advisory sustainability Town Forest committee upper Charles Trail and the zoning board

078of appeals does that sound right Susan did I miss anybody yes and what I do is every year in August when you guys reappoint I have the list so I can resend you that list that you guys use in August when you do your reappointments that'd be great so I think I mean off offand I think sustainability is one that we've talked about because of some of the Net Zero stuff that they're working on and they did come present to us last spring before before spring the one thing to keep in mind with them they are I think proposing that tree bylaw and they're working with the planning board for the Maytown meeting so might be we'll probably I would think see them anyway before to meeting so yeah and I know that tree bylaw

079is causing some Ruckus um but I think about historical commission they have some stuff that they're working on WE appointed them three years ago now four years ago it was during Co I think it was three yeah it was the first so 2020 maybe the first year of Co um R roadway Traffic Safety Committee again they're I mean I know we have Joe as an appointee good and we get some of but it would be great to hear there's some issues that have been going on what are they working on so and I would say we'll get the list the official list from Susan and rank them one through however many there are and whoever whatever one gets the first one in terms of Tim in of okay so I was going to say like

080I have like my priorities of like what I would you know well that's what I'm saying so when we get the list from Susan the official one yeah then if everyone can say Okay I want in in order these are the ones that I'd want to see and get those to me and I'll compile it and you know if there's one that pops up that'll be the first one we do otherwise I'll based on so how we hand so is it one per meeting that we're talking about either one per meeting or one per month I think if we have depend on you know which group it is some might be a little bit longer and need a little more time right and others might be able to do a couple right yeah right but

081I would think we do want to do at least one a meeting right right I think it's going to depend on the meeting and what else we have on the agenda and okay that might be a time to do one that might be less time right right yeah right well the other things some are going to be on a schedule like sustainability is a good example do we really want to have them in for a general meeting if we're going to then meet with them at some point soon to talk about the well no I think that would be their that would be their time in right if they're coming in to talk about the tree law bylaw we would also then ask them to give us an update on what else have you been

082working on so and I know we only appoint like part of CPC but I think I think like seen them for years we've been talking about like having them come in front of us too just to kind of do a much more overview of what right for people who might not understand what is CPC and what can we do with that and what does that really mean I mean for all of these yeah I I think it's to help the public understand what these committees are doing and how they're impacting or working toward the betterment of the Town yeah and also for us to get feedback from them and for us to give them there something that we can help them with what do you guys been up to what are you doing yeah no

083I think it's a great idea to start that up okay great so all right we have a plan here you'll come back with a list that we'll rank we'll get the list from Susan that'll go out to everybody everyone will rank them get them back to me and then I will try to I will reach out to whoever is first and then yeah thanks for doing that to our ideally hopefully we can have someone at the first meeting in January we a second meeting in January yeah okay all right so the next one is the open meeting law complaint result which we received um in our packet kind of the letter from the AG's office and I don't know Michael did you want to just do a presentation on that yeah I mean just I

084I can just as an overview um we did receive correspondence from the AG that um they had after reviewing uh some of the materials that had been provided they did find that the board had violated the open meeting law by failing to timely approve five sets of minutes the complaint uh referenced seven sets of minutes they thought two had been done in a timely manner and uh you know five had not been um they did determined that this was an intentional violation um only in the sense that they had talked to us about this before and so it was a repeat violation um they did acknowledge the fact that what we were trying to do is we were trying to you know reconcile some some older meeting minutes that we were trying to clean up

085um and so therefore they did not issue a civil complaint so part of their Direction was to that the board would need to go to a webinar on open meeting law train and I do have uh some dates here that I can pass out to you after the meeting and okay um okay so I I don't think the board has to take it all like as a board you have to take it all together um is this a live webinar or is it a tape one that you just kind of tune in on I I'm assuming it's live Rob because they provided four dates um who's they the AG the AG's office th Cindy through the AG's office right yeah so anyway there's that I just find it interesting that they're saying it's intentional when

086it's not intentional it wasn't intentional we didn't purposely forget we didn't but but I do know that through the years we've had sometimes difficulty getting our meeting meeting minutes done and updated and approved so I think now we're on a better schedule we're getting them done on a timely basis and and I think that our goal has to be to maintain that schedule and the the issue always tends to be like these joint meetings that we have that kind of fall through the cracks a little bit and that we like trying to figure out like you know where the meeting is and getting the minutes together and you know I know this was something that we kind of looked at like before Rob took over his chair because I wanted to like you had really

087were yeah I was trying to clean all these up so you know I mean I I I I get that you know via the attorney general that that's you know but my my personal perspective is I would rather have the meetings the minutes completed and out there then have that not happen so to me like that that I will I will absolutely fall on the sword for that anytime and I also would also um you know I know Mr Morgan had put together this um open meeting law complaint and I would always um you know I know he said something about you know interested in like what the solution is and um I would always encourage him if he wants to help out I'm sure we would be able to help you know put him

088to work and remind us right because sometimes we get busy with things and if he's seeing that there's minutes that't there reach out to us and say hey these minutes aren't there you can always come to our meetings and take our minutes for us and that would that would I don't think anybody anybody should be expected to remind us that our minutes aren't there I think you know that's something we can certainly but he does seem to have some time he does do that that I mean I think I like the idea of having I would love for him to do our minutes in fact if the board wants we can always extend that invitation to them and and uh so but I'm just saying it's always good to be constructive rather than true absolutely

089yep I I I would be surprised if you ever take us up okay so you have dates for us that we need to go and sit okay yeah all right thank you um all right and we'll make sure we're continuing to get our minutes done on time okay uh the next item is that correspondence from the um the review of the Grant from the executive office of Economic Development and Michael you have some followup or resolution on that yeah so um where did I okay um yes so everybody recalls the correspondence that we got from um executive office of Housing and liable communities and at that time when we reviewed it I said that I would provide you a draft letter that U Rob actually needs to send uh on behalf of the board so

090uh Beth and I worked on this to uh put this together uh and it Beth has done a lot of um taken a lot of her time um and reached out to these 15 businesses these individual businesses and um you know some she was able to get some information from um others she found out had gone out of business so you know unfortunately the goals for that program were not achieved I wouldn't say just because of that program um but anyway if you've had a chance to review it and you feel comfortable with it I can put it on letterhead and have um the chair sign it yes let see F no it was good I'm curious like was there any any sanctions or anything um against mgcc because they were working on our behalf

091on a lot of this yeah we did um so we did have well there are several meetings and conversations with mgcc since we got this correspondence it sounds like they received very very similar um similar correspondents had similar issues but specifically I don't know if you recall in their letter the executive office of housing Li communities they said you could not work with mgcc again until they meaning the executive office was satisfied that they would be able to to keep so they sanctioned themselves they were sanctioned by them not by exactly yeah okay so so there's that one okay all right thanks we'll follow up on that one um okay and the consent agenda boy I think this is the first time we have not done the consent agenda when we got to it so

092so you know we put it up anybody want to pull anything from the consent agenda or make any remarks about anything on it so um I I've given the the edits to Susan but I I gave it to her really really late on the the meeting minutes so I'd like to pull out um the regular uh session minutes from December 6th to 2023 um the only and the only I just want to you know happy to have it's great to have Curtis Hoffman on the historical Commission and of course we we talked about Aaron's resignation earlier and um anybody want a pull a parade permit for the for the Boston Marathon that's on this list so people should be aware of that this is our approval of the Boston Marathon running through Ashlin and there's

093another big Grant uh the police department uh is that the one that's the jail diversion 100,000 so that's great all right so we're pulling out a so I move that we approve the consent agenda minus item a regular session minutes for December 6th second uh motion's been made in second to accept consent agenda except for item a all those in favor say I I I oppose none uh consent agenda's passed okay item a on the consent agenda regular session minutes from December 6th 2023 so I just have two really small edits um so um under the scheduled appearances where we talk about the public hearing for the Warren Conference Center in the paragraph at the bottom where it talks about um Kim on behalf of the Warren Conference Center noted that they are a a

094a group driven property um I added group event driven property because I think it kind of clarified driven yes so that just added event to that um and then on under the um consent agenda um number five where we talk about um B where we're looking at the Town Forest Comm committee to reduce the committee size from Seven members to five voting members and one or more associate members there's a um the first sentence that says Miss Kinsman inquired as to how many members of the Town Forest committee there are currently I asked how many associate members there are currently because okay we knew how many members of the committee so um so just adding associate members to that so that's to really small oh when those changes were made the the meetings that are

095in our packet have those changes okay okay right because I'm looking at to them did she print I'm looking at the meet the minutes that are in our packet and it says final agenda okay yeah final agenda okay I didn't see that I'm sure Susan probably sent out another version kinman noted the Warren Conference Center is Event Event driven and well controlled got so I move that we approve the regular session minutes from December 6th as in our packet yeah and we have a second uh all those in favor of accepting the regular session minutes in the packet say I I oppose none so the M uh minutes are accepted thank you okay that gets us to town manager report and the first item is the fy2 budget update so go ahead Michael yeah so

096um you know first off I just want to let everybody know the department head budgets are in and so we'll be taking that information and and plugging that all in and then um we will schedule very very soon a date um for the department heads to talk about their budgets um with the select board and the finance committee probably look at a Friday like we did last last year if that works for everybody um we're already starting a little bit behind the eightball just because the GIC came out with their preliminary rates and they are predicting an overall 9 and a half% increase um whereas we were carrying around a 6% increase so Jesus I mean you know it all depends you know what our true increase ends up being depends on who enrolls in

097what in what plan um so that's something that we have to keep our eye on so that's good um if you don't mind I'll just kind of skip around I'll stay with budgetary themes so um opioid settlement receipts so it was pretty ironic as you remember or May recall at the special town meeting we had to appropriate those out of free cash because do had not issued regulations regarding the treatment of these funds I think probably a week after we did that do came out with regulations and said that we can now treat those as a special Revenue funds so just wanted to give you an update on that and remind me just how much is it and what are we doing what did we decide um is this an annual thing or is it

098one time yeah it's annual for a few years um um I want to say it's this Pro is 70k 65 70k and our Human Services team will be using that as to to help with their efforts in line with that yeah okay M just ask a quick question um I wasn't sure probably didn't hear it right but the GIC help cost in negotiations or that that's a fixed cost right now at 9 and a half they must so right so what they do um so first they kind of look at the information they'll put together a preliminary rate increase like a comprehensive you know basically number that Inc July 1 July 1 yeah and so that's 9% so what they do at that point is they go and they look at the plan designs for

099each of the offerings and look if there's any changes that need to be made there and some of those changes may result in a lower increase in the premium cost okay you know depending on you know they might go with a higher deductible or they might you know increase co-pays and therefore they wouldn't have to raise the premiums as much so that's the next step they probably won't have everything finalized until March or April okay so all right so it's still in a time frame where you're working on your budget you'll have those figures available at some point okay yeah I mean we will probably carry you know until we hear otherwise the 9% figure yeah okay so there's that um and just uh moving on to the next one that deals with money um

100this is a little bit more good news as opposed to GIC increase um but uh the town and Paul Carpenter um specifically were awarded $150,000 as far as part of a community compact it Grant um to help us establish and um start a new permitting system a new holistic permitting system that is going to basically uh Encompass all of our permitting and connect everything together we also be able to pay online um which is a big deal too so um so congrats to Paul and and his team and um we've started a working group you know to figure out how to you know best Implement that it'll probably take a little while but um but yes this um this grant should cover so a training program for the the employees that right cool and will

101this 150 give us the funds to create it set it up and get software or what what is this 150 going to cover for us it will cover the setup The Establishment the setup and and then also um the first year I don't know if we're going to be able to do two years I think also help us um import our dat oh nice trans yeah trans as part of the setup yeah cool very nice the I love that you know the community compact program we were the 10th Community initially yeah yoland I think you're the one who I help push because I I remember I had gone to a meeting and the baker administration had pushed this out there and it's nice to see that it's still being continued as a way for communities

102to get additional funding by being initi you know creating initiatives and for issues that they really have so it's nice to see that it's still working and we'll have to see I mean we've taken advantage of this grant quite a few times quite a few times we'll have to get that be good to see how much yeah great so that I'll move up to item J which is uh citizen education and awareness initiatives um first I I'll start with the Citizens Academy we talked about that actually we talked in our retreat in June about uh July about about ways to um not just explain what the decisions are but how the you know why the decisions are made the way they are and really educate the public on some of the more inner workings of

103of town government and so the Citizens Academy is a way to do that um and I'll let Jen kind of get into a little bit more of the programs but the programming aspect of it but um we had a good response we had about 30 people express interest in implying and being a part of it we um did select 15 um the people that we didn't select were they had either been a part of a boorder committee before or they had not gotten their application in on time and then the others were selected randomly but uh so we've got a good good class A good diverse class um it's pretty interesting and the program is uh it's pretty pretty great eight weeks Jen do you want to talk a littleit little bit about it because

104you've been working on the programming aspect so eight weeks um we did some polling just to sort of see you know what kind of time commitment um residents could um really commit to and so what we're doing is basically on our off schedule um so every other week we'll be meeting um from January until May and so we'll really wrap up our program piece right before Maytown meeting which actually I think will work out nicely in terms of hopefully um people who may not have been engaged in in the process will attend town meeting and sort of go in a little bit more educated um than they may have been previously and so the way we sort of split it is try to like group departments so we'll initially start with an overview um then

105we'll move into budgeting finance and then um hopefully um we'll have folks that are participating also watch the fincom um meetings where we're talking about budgets so that they get a better understanding and they'll get a better understanding before they actually meet many of the department heads um and then we'll go into um Public Safety and Public Works um land use Economic Development health and sustainability will be another one um Human Services and programs and then ending with town meeting clerk's office and sort of it and how that's incorporated into all the various um um departments also sort of reached out to the schools and that would have been a nice segue to see if that works for them in terms of like it is one of our departments our only Department that works across

106together the two so sort of that um and then we'll have a wrap up and hopefully we can have the class here um for like a wrap up presentation that' be cool in this in this room or we like come we're going to actually be changing locations so you know as part of the public safety it'll be you know they'll be getting a tour I'm kind of hoping that DPW does sort of like touch a truck for adults so that it's like interesting sort of see some of the equipment when we're um like talking about Capital Improvements and um needs that we have they'll be able to sort of have an opportunity to actually see some of it we'll have at the library and the community center again so that people can see um Recreation

107the food pantry if you if you haven't been over there just to sort of see our other facilities great yeah very cool good did any of the high school students sign up for it no so we did that was a re um a requirement was the 18 and old older 18 and over okay and so and then again it's going to be in the evening so from 6: to 8 just for for working okay people is that in physical somewh in the whole CL yeah so that was that was um we wanted to make sure that we could do it in person because much of it will be sort of like hopefully we'll be touring places and may not be sitting doing presentations so you couldn't really do virtual um and then also um because

108we had a bigger than expected sort of response rate we made sure that people could actually attend you know almost all of I was just thinking if that's a big commitment yeah teens I'm not talking younger teens I se iors or you may maybe first year freshman in a college that may be interested in you know going into the municipal you know Vector that may be that may be a step a learning care for them to learn you know what's going on maybe sparing interest type of deal so maybe next Academy maybe maybe um and then next um we're starting a podcast to talk a little bit about um you know just Ashland and Ashland Town government um uh we were looking at recording the first one yesterday but one of our guests uh was

109not going to be able to make it just cuz he's uh taking care of some people so um so hopefully we'll reschedule that soon and uh but yeah looking forward to that and then my final item I don't have it here on the agenda but uh if you recall milpond rest home they had they had they had talked about closing down um I had received correspondents that they actually in the process of selling the business and another you know essentially nursing home facility business is going to um is going to to buy it and continue uh continue that service so what do we yeah so that's I guess we like the idea that they're going to be able to continue operating I presume course yeah so because it's such a shortage I actually what kind

110of uh level of care do they provide it's I believe it's nursing home like skilled facil yeah interesting okay anything else Michael that no that's it all right so that I think brings us to board reports and I guess we'll just start our usual way Claudia from the end you go ahead and much report that's all right but for the big weekend events but I would like to just comment about how wonderful downtown looks and U you know I've heard that yeah yeah I even had younger member of our community who mentioned it to me and so really the lights the just everything was the town hall I police station Public Safety station was a separate uh Venture but uh just it really looked very very nice know feel and so I just wanted to

111say thank you to be I know that she really driver of that and and like I told her I I made a point sometimes going through down looks very nice Chistmas definitely beautiful um I also don't have very much to report so so um I pretty much spent the last week and a half with my family so um as I'm sure hopefully everyone else enjoyed some time the holidays with their families and friends as well um the only thing I have to report is that right before um right right before the holidays uh on the 21st of December we did meet with the comprehensive plan steering committee and um it was a relatively short meeting we met at the high school library we're um trying out a couple different you know we we tried out

112a new venue um to see if that would work and we actually had really good turnout which I was yeah we had like almost a I think there was only a few people that that didn't make it to our steering committee which that this a surprise it was it was great yeah so um but um so you know we met in groups and just talked about um you know different areas of the we broke into groups that had some interest or expertise from all all of us um on the committee and whether it was Economic Development or um I did housing and demographics and um Yolanda was part of the economic development discussion so um we had some good discussions and that goes back to JM Goldson our consultant who will compile it with um

113some of the other interviews that have been happening or had happened um with department heads and other um within town so um but we're moving along and and Goldson was thrilled with the with the turnout of our um Community visioning Forum um I think the the statement was that they've never seen anything quite like that for our first Forum so um thank you to the community that came out and supported that basement of town hall you know I think we need to I think we need to have uh all of our forums be part of a bigger Community event I yeah that's a great idea I think that's a good idea because people were already out and about they didn't have to go out a special night y it was easy and it was easy

114yeah and people felt like they were connected and I think that was great we could do that so um so yeah so we're moving along on the comprehensive plan and um our next meeting we're going to be talking about a lot more Community engagement opportunities and um so for anyone that is looking to get involved in giving some some feedback to us on the steering committee um stay tuned because there'll be a lot more coming up what's the date on that in your next our next meeting January 18th the third Thursday of the month y just to the point about uh having those sorts of forums when there maybe is something else going on in the town um will they have a table or something set up for when the night for the Valentine estate

115for Forum I don't know if we'll be ready yet at that point yeah I'm not sure we will be but that's a good idea that like stuff we did we we did schedule it right or the 29th yeah y so what are we thinking about so well since you brought it up do we need to publicize or do any other work or what a more yeah okay and um that's all for me so yeah thanks yeah thanks go ahead Joe Joe thank you Mr chair uh first and foremost Happy New Year to everybody out there uh may it be safe prosperous and most of all healthy for everybody um just want to remind everybody we are having a uh roadway traffic study committee next well it's Tuesday um we're looking at probably the 28th I

116don't have it written down probably but I know it's the last Tuesday in January uh from 10: to 11:30 and that's at the uh sub substation at mck basket so um we'll be following up on some questions and concerns that uh several residents have uh asked for and update um so we'll be presenting that so if you have any concerns or anything you can can uh email me if you have a question or concern about uh to be addressed regarding U roadway safety or uh the traffic issue and we'll be happy to look into it and get back to you in a timely fashion Jo before sure can I just ask a general question about so I've heard and maybe Michael or Jen know about this so Massachusetts has recently adopted the ability to have

117traffic cameras issue finds is that right is that what or or to have they're in discussion with that yeah because there's a there's a liability issue that uh that they're they're questioning right now with respect to that so and there's no there's no definitive answer so we did look into that and uh actually this was before Eddie Burman uh took the position uh temporary position in whan and um he said it probably won't pass because there's so much really because things that need to get done because I know like New York City uses it and the reason I know it firsthand is I keep getting speeding tickets from 400 miles away cuz certain relatives are down there with my car but anyway so so you know it works it does work I have to pay

118and it's not even a human there's a camera that said I was speeding down the BQE at you know in a in a school zone whatever well the other thing I have to pay 50 bucks but it's it's effective I know I what is my problem but you know that gets to our we we don't like Myrtle Street is an example we can't have somebody there all the time but if you had a traffic camera there and you know so anyway just the thought no that's okay we're also looking at the potential use of uh drones really wow yeah interesting something that somebody brought up to me recently was um uh traffic lights you know that I can't remember the the terminology but they basically turn green for automatically for police and fire yes for

119non-standing yes non-standing vehicles I know there's some towns that have that I think subur is one of them yeah it's they're pretty expensive yeah and the uh the the the mechanism of the design that has to be followed is uh well it's elaborate and um and you need the proper equipment so uh I know Eddie was thinking about doing that and I don't know if uh Chief Rossy wants to follow through on that but you know we'll we'll we'll ask yeah it might to look into especially as we change and add street lights you know them oh yeah yeah sounds like a candidate for the top priority committee to see top priority committee well that we'd be ready to uh be the first on to come in front of you we'd be happy to do

120it um I just had one question but that was already answered so uh The Forum is going to be the 29th on the uh Valentine property which still looks pretty cool uh 7 P.M I don't have a date on that 6:30 don't okay all right CU thank you I actually have six on my calendar but six but that's okay okay if it's 6:30 that's here or no what are we doing no 6:30 on January 29th 24 but where but where uh we haven't got the location okay to be determined okay all right now that answers that and uh lastly I just want to thank the folks out there who uh emailed and uh texted Donna uh on her uh successful surgery and uh she she's back to normal she's been ordering me around ever since

121she get home so she's uh she's doing well so she' be oh I just bought more bags of ice talk to me after the meeting I got something for you I will a nice machine that would that would work great but other than that thank you very much and happy New Year to my uh yeah thank you colleagues here in the board thank you also happy happy New Year uh tomorrow is the lion senior breakfast starting at they start serving at 9:00 a.m. Steve's not here to do it so now I get to do it uh starting at 9:00 a.m. apparently it's going to be a simple breakfast but it's fun to go that because you're doing yeah we won't go there we will not go there um oh that's funny there's a story there

122but don't worry about it anyway so the other thing is uh MMA is coming up on the 19th and 20th I am registered to go uh I also interviewed for and got reappointed to the weimo board oh and I'm going to be Vice chair this year and I just got an email today that they're asking me for the weimo luncheon to do the interview of their keynote so it's not going to be a straight keynote it's going to be a sort of fireside chat and I've been asked to do that so I'm looking forward to that and then on the 25th is our Metro West Regional collaborative uh board meeting at 8: a.m. and that's all I got great thank you um yeah just to follow up on so the MMA conference are other people

123thinking about going to it it's in in person and we do need to let Susan know I think soon right if we're interested yeah you need to register sooner but but Yolanda is going as it stands now and you know it's some it's it's a nice event especially somebody who's new and you know I don't know if you have time to go to it so if not I will make sure on our first meeting in February to give updates and let you know yeah good what sessions were good and I know some of them they sometimes record so yeah and was it last year the year before it was all um remote and boy was that convenient and and good that was a couple years ago yeah you just missed the the networking aspect of

124it yeah but something to think about um the um the only other thing I had was uh a couple weeks ago I sat in on the joint planning board and sustainability committee um discussion on the uh tree bylaw which is under development by sustainability has been and most of us seen it draft so my under my impression or my understanding came away from that meeting they didn't spend a lot of time the details but agreed that it was important to have a uh Forum to get ideas or issues or concerns about the tree bylaw and I at that time they scheduled it for January 11th U next Thursday I I'm not sure if that's still that was their thinking at the time I haven't looked at the schedule lately or heard anything I believe it

125was going to start at 6 before their regular board meeting is that yeah okay that was my sounds right and whether it's so I just don't know if I haven't you know heard anything since that meeting but you know it sounded like a good thing to do so I just you know just let getting a word out for that um especially if there's business owners or developers cuz I think that's who they wanted to to talk to um and the only I I understand we have some snow maybe forecast this week do we need to is it potentially substantial and we're ready to go I presume as usual okay Doug love snow don't let him tell you so anyway okay he's a snowater and that's all I had so I guess I will entertain a

126motion to adjourn if there's nothing further second all is in favor of adjourning say I I we are adjourned thank you all good night good night good night night all right