001Brea two one and we good afternoon everybody um my name is Michael Herbert I'm the town manager and I'm here with our assistant Town manager Jen ball and we're here today to review the town meeting warrant for the special town meeting that's going to be happening this Wednesday November 29th 2023 at uh ashin high school starting at 7 p.m. um those of you that are familiar with uh with uh this process and what we do in this program we basically go through each of the Warren articles um give some general background about them and then open it up to any questions that people may have uh and that we can hopefully answer um and it's an opportunity for people to get informed about town meeting in the different Warren articles before you actually get to
002town meeting so um oftentimes it's it's hard for residents when they're just showing up at town meeting cold and and they don't know exactly what's on the warrant or any of the background related to it so we really came up with this process to hopefully alleviate some of that and uh have an opportunity to give you information that uh you find you hopefully will find is helpful so uh and I do notice that we have a few people here on um on Zoom so that's great so uh and what we'll do is I will just go through each warrant article and after each article after I give background I'll just open it up to any questions on that AR article so that being said Jen do you have anything you want to add okay you
003good um all right so we'll start off with uh the first article for special town meeting which is the appropriation of free cash now free cash is essentially the balance at the end of the year uh in the town's accounts that uh after you take all the revenue that we got in and you take what we expended um you come up with a free cash number just a essentially the balance in your checkbook um this year we have a free cash of number of 1.7 million uh specifically 1, 74364 and several years ago uh the select board the school committee the finance committee as well as the town manager and superintendent of schools agreed on a financial policy that determined how free cash numbers were going to be appropriated and split and really it's uh
004spread between a few different buckets namely our general rainy day stabilization fund um also our sped which is special education stabilization fund to handle any out of District uh expenditures that were unaccounted for at the beginning of the budgetary season um our opep trust fund which is other post-employment benefits which is the liability that we maintain to pay for retirees health insurance um and then we also utilize uh some of the money for capital and other one-time expenses um this year we're actually going to have an additional category which is somewhat unique um which is a distribution of opioid settlement funds now the reason we're doing this through free cash is that the Department of Revenue at the state um is not allowing us or municipalities to distribute this in a way that we normally
005would distribute it which is through its own special account so it's part of the free cash appropriation this year but um General stabilization fund is going to be funded at at $25,000 or an additional 25,000 will be put into that and that's so that we maintain a 10% balance of our expenditures in that rainy day fund so that's you know if the bottom falls out of the economy uh we have this back stop to help support operations and expenditures um opep trust uh this year it's going to be an additional 515,000 uh that will be going to the opep trust that should bring actually our funded ratio which is the amount that we have funded related to our liability up around 10% which we've when we started this 2013 in 2013 we were at like
006zero um so we've made quite a few strides with that um sped stabilization fund we're going to fund that or we're going to add I should say add to that uh to the tune of 200 $100,000 uh this year we had to use some of that money out of that uh stabilization fund to fund uh out of District expenditures this year so this is replenishing that um the opioid settlement funds which I discussed earlier so we will be funding those at 71,3 64 and then finally um our capital and other onetime expenditures will be funded at 9316832866 so uh there's a list of capital expend expenditures that uh we'll present at town meeting so people can see exactly what that is or what that will be spent on Jen do you have anything you wanted
007to add on this okay so that's that's basically the uh gist of our article one free crash transfer anybody out on Zoom world have any questions oh mark I see you have your hand raised yes goodly afternoon Mark sorry for9 Road last um I was just wondering with with any of this levels can't any of this levels help out with the economic growth and help out with a uh I finance boost to the comprehensive plan no um the short answer is no um we actually used free cash last year mark to fund $250,000 for the comprehensive plan that fell under that one-time expenditure Capital uh item can the okay and the and the sped cost um can that be possibly used as a uh a nonprofit economical thing to get into the town to help
008the schools no it there's there's very I guess you could say well-defined constraints Mark in how we can use that special education stabilization fund and what expenditures it can support and something like General and forward thinking like what you're talking about we wouldn't be able to use it for that that's it for now okay thanks Mark anybody else going once going twice all right um we will move on now to um property tax exemptions so um this is an elderly exemption program that allows certain qualifying seniors to uh basically exempt a certain amount off of their property taxes and so that amount is established uh through the board of assessors based on some guidance myself and the and the finance director provides in terms of what we can afford and this year I'm actually pretty
009happy um we're actually going to be able to fund this exemption amount um to it's going to be estimated around $970 which is you know significantly more than last year's exemption amount which was $854 so and it's actually quite quite a big almost double what we had in fy7 which was 516 th000 so as costs have gone up we've tried to steadily increase this amount as well um good news is that we're also increasing the income eligibility amount from 62,000 to 64,000 and generally we have over the last few years I would say approximately one 130 to 140 people take advantage of this so it's a big help to those seniors that qualify uh again and you're saving $1,000 on your taxes essentially and um it's a it's a valuable program that uh we've put
010in place I think back in fy12 and uh again excited that we're going to be able to to fund it at this amount this year so does anybody have any questions okay moving right along so we will go to article number excuse me one minute here get back to my place um which is the senior tax workof program article and uh Jen if you don't mind I'm going to pass this over to you since you've been working on this sure so article three is to um affirm our acceptance of the M General law that allows municipalities to create a a senior tax workof program so this is a bit different than the previous article which is an exemption um this is for seniors um who do a certain number of service um volunteer hours and
011earn um a reduction from their taxes and so this will allow the select board to come up with a little bit uh broader of a program so we'll be able to increase the number of hours up to 125 hours rather than having a cap of a certain amount of money it will also allow us if there is somebody who has a disability or uh uh mobility issues um somebody within the home may be able to also um to do the hours for that person to receive the benefit and that's really it is there any questions on that one awesome oh Mark does oh Mark sorry yeah I said I said for now not here the now um this was working for the for seniors and volunteering is this going to be a exempt for fixed
012income seniors exempt from what meaning they wouldn't be allowed disability Social Security that they already acue is this going to help or not help in fix in the fix income that they they're getting if they want to forer you know Mark I'll have to look into that I don't think I don't believe it would have an impact I think that if that person did additional um volunteer service hours within the town so it's placed in you know lots of folks do it at the senior center we had a couple of seniors that worked at Town Hall um I think we had a couple of seniors that worked at the library and so if you did a number of hours that's sort of how it works but I can certainly look into that very specific question
013mar Just yes no so are you asking if there are any income limitations associated with this and would social security and disability be counted towards that income um um yes because I know that the AO before has nothing to do with it so I'm wondering if this has anything to do this doesn't have any income there is some parameters but it's not as strict yeah yeah Mark there are some parameters but we'll need to we'll need to get that information get those specifics and have that ready for you at town meeting again that's it's for now okay great um so seeing no more questions on that we'll move on to article four which is the acceptance of uh donation of land um and the specific address is zero Fountain Street although this property is not
014uh technically on Fountain Street it's actually um property that is in the middle of a subdivision and this is a donation from Bill and Carolyn Bell and property that they own and uh you know we we obviously any anytime somebody wants to talk about donating property um we have a conversation with them and see if it makes sense um in this case it made a lot of sense especially after a conservation agent and assistant conservation agent um back in Sophia it took a look at this particular parcel and realize the ecological benefits that it would have for the community and that neighborhood in particular so this land would be just kept as open space um or forested Woodland as it is right now and again provides quite a bit of ecological value for the for
015the town in the neighborhood so it makes sense to accept this uh piece of property and this is this is a donation it wouldn't require you know there's no money uh changing hands for this so but uh as it is an interest in land we do have to take it to town meeting it has to be supported by a two-thirds vote so um I'll pause there and see if anybody has any questions related to that Mark I'm having fun now um echon econic how much is the comcom and how much how much is the uh the town bylaws and Zoning is going to have a say in this so mark this piece of property does fall in you know in one of the particular zones for the town it's really it's unbuildable because there's no
016access to it from from any of the streets um so people wouldn't have to be worried about that again the primary value of this is going to be ecological and keeping it in its current state is it going to be open space yes thank you okay any other questions I saw something maybe pop up I think it was Aaron asking about a map which we'll show at town meeting okay yes we will have a map that we'll be able to show at town meeting uh for those of you that are wondering um so moving to Article 5 which is accepting an easement on 107 High Street so this easement is to Grant access to a piece of land that was donated to the town in the '90s believe it or not and uh this piece
017of property was to remain as open space and also had the condition upon its donation that it be maintained by our Department of Public Works two times a year and so essentially what that means is they go in and mow it um we've had access before um to the property and uh so when that house and prop the property that we were using for Access once that sold and changed owners the current owners didn't um you know weren't too keen on allowing the the current arrangement to um to continue um so we looked at an alternative here and this is what we came up with and it's um again an easement for 107 High Street and so there's a cost associated with bu or gaining this access to this easement um which is $2,000 so
018again $2,000 in exchange for us being able to go in and maintain a donated piece of property um that uh that we've been maintaining for for decades now so any questions related to that nothing Mark okay all right article six um article six is the authorize a home rule petition to increase uh the number of liquor licenses that we have in town so this would increase uh increase the amount of liquor licenses by 16 and that's for on premises consumption so with liquor licenses you have off- premises like retail like uh you know Sunnyside Liquors or or you know one of those establishments where you go in and take it out um on premises is for restaurants and and things of that nature where you're actually consuming alcohol on on site um this is a
019good Economic Development tool um that cities and towns are utilizing to help bring in Commerce and Business Development into their communities um we're limited right now in how many that we can get based on the population and so what we're doing here and what a lot of communities have done before us is actually petition the legislature through what we call a home rule petition to allow us to get more liquor licenses and um so the advice that we were given is that you want to make we really only get one shot at this um and so you know we want to make sure that we're asking for enough to make it worthy of a homeo petition and also enough so we don't have to worry about going back to the legislature in five or six
020or seven years and asking for additional ones if these run out or if if a smaller number ran out and um trying to think if there's any do you have anything else associated with this um I'll open it up to questions hey Amy you had to know I'd be here Amy I I figured I figured you probably if you were going to ask a question about something it might be this you got it um can you tell me how many available um and I'm assuming that's 16 all alcohol licenses um well they're on premises consumption so so I think they're broken down into like is there a separate I just don't know is there a separate kind of wine and malt liquor or I I believe there is um I want to say that was
021a I think there is two and so I'm just confirming that that's 16 all beverage so all alcohol beverage correct correct and how many available licenses are there currently do you know I mean I did do a a public records request so I'm I'm just making sure what I have is what you're thinking so I don't have that right in front of me Amy but I believe it's four okay say I I have six so okay so I'm assuming that would be 16 plus the six that are available so that would be 22 um license is available that would be correct whatever we have currently left plus the additional 16 okay so can I just ask is there something that's driving this uh motivation to ask for 16 and to ask for 16 now yes
022so you know we're looking at you know the Redevelopment of the 126 uh quor um also downtown um I think we're going to start seeing more private investment into both of those areas in town um because of the public Investments that we have made and so in turn uh this is another tool that that municipalities utilize to help attract more private Commerce and private business so we feel kind of like Ashland's in a position right now to where we are going to start seeing some of that private investment coming in we want to be prepared for it um in terms of the 16 licenses you know why is it that number number uh you know compared to less you know I I don't know if we have a specific formula uh involved in that just
023the the guidance that we were given um from our legislative delegation was since you are really going to have only one shot at the app app uh one shot at this then you want to aim On The Higher Side than than the Lower Side um because I the reason I'm ask and my last question is in terms of census numbers are we looking at like 19,000 residents currently currently yes yeah I think I think technically it's like 18,800 is some change yeah okay that's what I saw so from a and and from a public health perspective I mean one per one license per 1,000 residents is considered to be a lot and it looks like right now we have more than one license per 1,000 residents and if you you know add the additional 16
024um then it you know we're we're getting closer to one per 500 residents and that's looking at the 19,000 overall in total and we've got I think approximately 3800 that are 18 or that are under 18 so you know those are where my questions are coming from you know from a public health perspective um you know increasing alcohol licenses is never good Economic Development policy so um just wanted to kind of have that um that conversation and and get a little more information so thanks for that no I I can certainly I can certainly respect that Amy and I think you're right I mean I think we have 22 licenses currently you know used and and and available so if you had 16 on that yeah that would probably equate to around five one per
025500 so I think your math is is pretty accurate on that one okay okay thanks okay you're welcome any other questions oh mark thank you Amy for doing that I'm in that same bar Park as you I'm going to be a little bit more hopefully direct and saying this is why why is it more economical Fe Fe feasible to get 16 liquor license where there is no future business yet coming into town so Mark you want to be in a position you don't want to be in a position where like a restaurant wants to come to town and you don't have you know the available liquor license to give them so you do it before restaurants come into town because it's a long process so you know the home rule petition process is going to
026take at least a year I'd say more likely 18 to 24 months um and you know a business is not going to wait around 18 to 24 months you know while a town goes and secures more licenses why must we wait for businesses to look have um liquor license why is it that we're betting that more liquor people be coming in why is that a future vision for the town well I think the town has been pretty adamant in fact in that they would like to have more businesses in town um especially related to residences I think a lot of people would like to see more commercial growth commercial growth is is lot more than just restaurants it's can it should be expanded to a marketable rate not drinking rates so the town is enough
027to to usually we did have um the nickname for asht on trash Camp because that was one of the reasons but we we looked at it and it doesn't seem and from I'm seeing Aaron lad's the brewery and that's what that's what I'm going Afters that old fire station place is going be doing we this town looks looks more for a scientific bi olical expense to the Future than just sit down and get drunk why is that looking for the town I I would agree and I'm not necessarily sure I hear a question there but I you know I guess I liken it to building a house okay when you're going to build a house you don't just take a hammer right you need a lot of other tools in in your in your tool
028bag and in your kit to build a home so think of this not as the only strategy but as part of a more comprehensive strategy and the comprehensive plan has something to do with that too that will definitely have something to do with that so comprehensive plan with the 29 people and and the and the the project management and all that has not brought liquor license is up yet not yet and uh so Mark that's actually a really good opportunity for me to plug the fact that we're going to have an open house the comprehensive plan committee is going to be having an open house on Saturday from 12: to 4: here at Town Hall where you can come and learn more about that but more importantly provide feedback on what you think is important
029what's your Economic Development vision for the town I could say here because I may not be able to make an impos on my dad is what I'm saying right now okay thank you and I did sign up for the um the citizen um Academy yes oh good I did I signed up on that Mark you could probably teach a lot of the the Citizens Academy stuff give me the chance give me the confidence and show and and then we all can do the two-way street and compromise and understand and then work all together it all works together you're right gotta close that Gap you got it okay that's it for now thanks Mark um our last two articles are CPC um or CPA related funding articles and um I can just briefly cover them I
030see the chair of our comprehensive excuse me our community preservation committee is on Zoom as well so I want to give him an opportunity to add to this but um the first article related to CPA is article 7 and it's to vote to appropriate $215,000 to enable the creation of uh a dog park on Town property along Memorial Drive and um this 215,000 is not the total amount that it would take to build this dog park but there is a grant that is available that uh would hopefully account for the rest of it um eron before I ask you if you wanted to add anything Jen do you have anything you want to add okay Aaron did you have something you wanted to to speak to about this he said he doesn't need to speak
031on the okay um all right so Michael there was a question in the chat related to the last article it wasn't from me but sorry I I didn't see does the brewery does the brewery in downtown at the old fire station need this to pass in order to exist what are the other comparable Town ratios of license so Aaron I don't have that second answer but the first answer is no the brewery is not dependent upon this passing to to open up in town okay um so article 8 our final fin article which is to extend Uh current CPA appropriation uh for the Riverwalk project and Jen you've done so much work on this project I'll turn it over to you okay so this article is pretty straightforward um it's really just to extend a
032previously authorized um project that has an end date of December 31st of this year um three years out to December 31st 2026 and so that's we have not um were able to finish the first phase of this project which is the large bridge that goes across at mil Pond um we had always hoped to cross one more time um and connect to um either Marathon park or to uh Pleasant Street and so we need to do some design work and rep permitting and uh then construction so this would give us some time to do that exploration and hopefully Construction in in that time frame okay any questions nothing okay all right well folks that is the last warn article uh so again just only eight articles for this special town meeting uh which is probably
033an appropriate amount for a special town meeting but um that concludes our review of this uh this is actually very helpful for us too because we can see what questions are going to be asked and so we can prepare and have the the information um at town meeting so it definitely helps I want to appreciate those who are watching and uh either on Zoom or uh through YouTube or Facebook um your engagement is definitely needed to to make this community and this town meeting successful and uh with that just a reminder that town meeting is this Wednesday at 7 pm at the ashin high school in the auditorium and I do want to put one final plugin for the comprehensive plan visioning openhouse uh this Saturday at at from 12: to 4: at the um
034at Town Hall the lower level of town hall doesn't mean you have to stay from 12: to 4: uh literally you can spend 10 15 minutes there and provide all the input that you want um and you know we'll make sure that we capture that through various methods um and then like it really this comprehensive plan needs to be your plan it doesn't need to be my plan it doesn't need to be the committee's plan um so it really is depent upon your feedback so um just want to put a final plug in for that so anyway that uh concludes our session this afternoon I hope you all had a great Thanksgiving and um hopefully I'll see you on Wednesday thank you