Select Board - Hybrid Meeting

001mics are up stand bying up in two and live GNA start us off Rob yeah okay hello everyone welcome to the uh Ashland select board meeting for November 15 2023 I am remote doing due to a health issue U my the vice chair Yolanda Greaves will assist at various times that become uh necessary um so welcome everyone and um uh and the first item on the agenda is the um is the uh Dei task force presentation so Michael I'll turn that over to you uh for that participation is first yeah um oh we moved to afterwards sorry sorry Rob um we're all we're all getting can we participation okay uh I just had a question or just for the board this is a procedural thing we have just 10 minutes for the tax classification here

002and what's the plan for that are we just opening it and having a brief discussion yeah Rob we're doing the the um planning board joint meeting at 7:30 no I understand so but we've got 710 open the tax classification he correct so we'll have 20 minutes 10 minutes Rob i' I'd like to recommend we just do citizens participation now okay rather than after the planning board discussion just to clarify what my agenda has the the planning board at 7:20 did that did not get updated correctly all right so 7:30 and the planning board knows that and we expect okay they show up they show all right so and uh yes let's do if you guys need some more time that's fine let's do um citizen participation not is there anyone um and Yolanda tell me

003if there's anyone in have someone here in the room for Citizens participation okay I recognize uh um introduce yourself yeah uh Steve Morgan uh 136 conquer Street good evening um I have uh couple comments concerned this evening so I guess one comment is uh I was happy to see the fence behind my home get installed um disappointed that the whole fence wasn't installed apparently there's now a plan not to install the rest of the fence that's on the original plans but be that as it may the wooden fence is now installed uh the fence is installed approximately 8 in on the town side of where the prior boundary was and the prior fence was so I'm certainly appreciative of the town's decision to put the fence 8 in on its on its property right that's

004where it is now based on my pictures and the prior landmarks um I am not happy and I've asked you to get Mr Kendall under control because I just received an email from him telling me that he's going to install bounds markers along my property line there are no bounds markers there on the plans he has no authority to install any bounds markers I don't consent to that that's a disputed boundary so I'm willing to let it settle with the fence I am not willing to have the project go over there and decide to put bounds markers on that property and wherever they feel like putting them so having him add bounds markers that are not in the plan and are not required by T by law is not acceptable and I need you to

005put a stop to it I would also tell you and this is a public documents request I'm now requesting documents and all work notes of the surveyor there has been no meeting with the surveyor this has been brought up repeatedly um surveyors are required by their legal standards for the state of Massachusetts to research calculate produce notes and talk with um other sources of information and historical records to resolve boundary disputes so if the surveyor is in good faith trying to do that he would obviously talk to the neighbors myself included and produces information and have a meeting there's been no meeting of any kind with the surveyor no offer for a meeting it's very clear that the existing fence was on the pre-established boundary on the original deed as we have discussed before so

006if somebody wants to quiet that boundary and agree to a new boundary I'm certainly happy to go to a meeting and have that discussion but until that happens or somebody produces an order from the land Court leave it alone it's very simple it's where it was don't be going over there trying to install any new bounds markers to try and dispute my property I don't consent to that and I can put my signs back up but as this board has already been informed the no trespass that was sent not withstanding Mr Town manager's removal of my signs is a one-year notice you're on notice self-help I mean I'm ruling to ignore the self-help you know because the fence is an acceptable place and we can kind of all move on but I'm not willing to

007have Mr Kendall go over there on Friday and start putting in permanent bounds markers where he feels they need to be so I don't know if anybody has a question I don't know if you're aware that he's trying to do this but apparently he sent an email earlier today claiming on Friday he's going to put in permanent bounce markers at the corners of my lot which were never in the plan not required by the bylaw and are obviously there um to cause negative will so I think the best course here is to just either sit down and settle it go to court or just agree to leave it alone where it sits on the fence that's that's my opinion I don't know if the board has any thoughts right thank you Mr Morgan um Michael

008do you have any response you want to make or any other the members of the committee no I do know that um Paul Kendall was talking to leis me today about this um and Paul had reached out to me to talk about it I didn't have a chance to talk to him today so I I know there was some conversation about that 3:58 this evening telling me they're going to put bounce markers so I don't consent I don't care what Town Council thinks if she wants to go to land court and get an order we can have a land court case if she doesn't have a court order she needs to stay off the property and leave it alone in Massachusetts one once bounds markers are located it's a crime to remove them or modify

009them and so them adding bounds markers is clearly adverse to my property and I am not in consent of them going out there and putting in bounds markers maybe that's why Town Council wants to put them there to improve her case but I'm not interested in that I think it needs to be left alone and you know we can go to court or not at your discretion I don't want to be in court I don't want to waste the time or money offense looks great so I would hope that people will stay off my property and not try and put permanent markers and then file it at the registry of deeds and all this other nonsense that apparently they're now planning to do um um I just have one question so you did you are

010recognizing that the fence is 8 Ines off your property line based on the photos I'm not a surveyor but based on the photos the prior markers the fence posts that were there before which seem to align with the original deed from the 50s the fence is currently little less than a foot on the town side so it's not exactly where it was it's a little on the town side okay they're now trying to put the marker 10 ft onto my property oh which is where they claim the original boundary is which it never was so they're now trying to Mark the town's property 10 ft onto my property okay okay so they're no longer at the fence line they're now 10t onto my property which is what we were disputing before and we've had this

011whole conversation about so okay there's there's no Town bylaw for markers in the middle of a straight line it's not on the books in this town it's not required by any of the plans and he's just doing this cuz he's cooked it up with apparently Town Council now that I know there's a conversation so maybe they like to improve their case but not interested in that it's it's clearly adverse and it is not helpful so I can go get my signs from the police station which I've left them over there not Tred to aggravate the situation and I can put them back up and we can all start this again but The Simple Solution is to leave it alone that's my opinion um Michael I just my question is is that something that you and

012Town Council are involved in I mean I guess I'm a little leery about Paul doing things on his own as a private citizen this should be well like I said before I know that Paul and Lisa Town Council was they were having a conversation about it today and Paul reached out to me to have a conversation but I didn't have a chance to talk to him all right about it so I'm not I'm not sure what was said you know Council hasn't talked to me nor has the surveyor and now I'd like all the documents because i' like to know how they resolved the 10t dispute I've got my pictures and my documents I know where the fence was if they did their due diligence they can show me their work because at this point

013if they want to permanently make a change I'd like all of those documents before anybody does any of those changes but we do have a surveyor on this hired by the town is that right Michael correct yeah and it's o the point I'm trying to make um is that he has an obligation under his U work ethics as a registered surveyor to do that work and I am therefore able to get a copy of that work and he should have already reached out to me and he hasn't so he's either not being told as a dispute and therefore he hasn't even looked at it or he was told and he's tried to resolve it in his own mind and he has work notes so at this point I like to see what he's got and

014you know I can put this in the portal too but a verbal request is sufficient for public records I'd like to to see all that work if we're going to go down this path if we're going to leave it alone I don't need to work okay thank you all right thank you I appreciate the time thank you all right and I would just leave it that uh Michael and his staff will follow up with whatever's needed here okay any from board members or nope okay good all right so that's uh anyone else for Citizens participation I don't see anyone on the screen with a raised hand in person okay all right so I think we can go to our next item on the agenda um the first is the Dei task force presentation and Michael

015were you going to start this off yeah I'll just I'll start it off um just uh on behalf of the task force we're we're happy to be here and to give an update to you um we're uh we're pleased to have let's see Makita Keegan here and MOA from uh the Dei task force as well um in addition to those two members uh kg and Ariana Karen waldstein Roger Shri go and Rabbi Eric gerbis are part of the Dei task force and um and ciny uh as well um as well as Jen and myself um so what we have been doing uh over the course of I think before since the last update before the select board is we had a meeting uh or basically a public forum about Public Safety at the at the

016new Public Safety building which was um a great success uh good opportunity to have an open dialogue with our police Chiefs and police chief and Fire Chief and some of their personnel as well as Makita um to talk about some of those issues um in addition to that we've been working on uh developing a strategic plan and so the first components of that were to secure the funding which we were able to do through the generous help of Senate President Karen spilka then we went through an RFP process where we got yeah 22 um different proposals um in response to that and through that process we selected I suuccess Consulting and so I'm pleased to introduce T Rene Smith um who is here to help us who has been helping us with this um a

017strategic plan process and at this point um I would first ask if any of the uh Dei task force members wanted to add anything before we turn it over to T Renee so people are shaking their heads no so so T Renee um I've teed it up for you how about that for a pun thank you that was great that was great and I'll take it good evening everyone I am super excited to be here with you the Dei task force and I have been working diligently over the last couple of months in preparation for our Dei strategic plan and we wanted to just provide you an overview with our scope of work and then also to give you an update so in developing the Strategic plan we develop it in four different steps so

018the first step is an alignment phase and we went through that phase starting in June of this year to September and there were several different things that we covered first we reviewed all of the Dei ad hoc projects that had been done by the town both in the community as well as with the workplace we looked at the deliverables and created our project checklist we established a business case for Dei within the community as well as the workplace because it is a a collective um strategy of doing both the community and the workplace so that we can have holistic Dei efforts and when we say Dei we are discussing Dei for all and we looked at the Dei governance um which we outlined the responsibility for the task force and then governance after this project

019is complete and then we did a stakeholder analysis we wanted to look at who was who would be the stakeholders both internal and external during this project and once the project was over one of the things that we wanted to make sure was that everybody's voice was heard everybody felt seen and everybody was included in this process and one of the things that we did in the alignment phase which will continue into the assessment phase is really just identifying there's any resistance or any push back or is there any type of training that needs to be done about what Dei is and why is it beneficial and so we focus on the benefits from a personal perspective as well as from an organizational perspective so step two is the phase that we're in which is

020the assessment phase which goes from October uh to February 2024 and so in this phase will be our data Gathering and data analysis phase so in the month of November we've already launched the employee and the leadership survey which was launched last week and this is an assessment of the workplace of the culture of uh past Dei efforts current Dei efforts and future Dei efforts the surveys are anonymous because we want to make sure that we get honest and transparent feedback so today we have 36 uh leaders that have excuse me we have 36 employees that have responded and we have eight leaders that have responded and so the survey will be open until next week and so our goal is to have 80% participation from the employees as well as the leaders and so

021this is the first phase because we wanted to really get feedback from the workplace and then we will launch a survey to the community and also elected and appointed officials and during the um survey time we'll also do qualitative analysis so we'll be doing uh focus groups one-on-one interviews so that we can tell a collective pict with the data and so we can have personal stories lived experience and we want to touch as many people as possible and so in January we will do the interviews with the community and elected officials and then in February we will do our data analysis and we'll do a report out and our findings one thing that is extremely important is to take everybody with us on the Dei Journey so that they understand what we are doing and

022so we will report out all of our data and step three is our connection phase and that's from December to April of 2024 and this is where we're really aligning our Dei vision mission and values with the town and with the Strategic plan or the Strategic objectives of the town I know that um doing the revamp of the Strategic plan will be underway but we want to make sure that we give guidance on Dei initiatives included in the Strategic plan and what we do is we embed Dei within the workplace and within the community so we don't look at it as a separate initiative we look at embedding it in into the workplace and the community we'll Define what Dei is diversity what Equity what inclusion and what belonging is and what it means to

023the town of Ashlin then we'll create a policy and then have a state a Dei statement and so the Dei policy is really more so for the community and for the the workplace and then we will have a forward-facing Dei statement one very important part throughout this entire process is ensuring that we have open communication with all Stak ERS both internal and external so we launched a full communication strategy for the leadership and the employee surveys and we will do the same thing for the community and elected officials and then we will also have a community strategy of how a communication strategy of how to communicate this um the work when we finish the Dei plan and then the last step in the connection phase is making sure that we have a Dei feedback loop

024so that we can have constant communication with the community and the workf phace step four which is our transformational phase which will take place in January through March of 2024 and that's where we are delivering the Dei plan making sure that it's embedded into strategic goal we will have metrics with actual actionist action uh steps with accountability who's responsible for what tasks budget requirements and then we also will make sure that we're reviewing our processes and projects through a Dei Equity lands and this will be a tool that we will leave with the City so that any major projects and processes that you can ensure that is from a Dei lens and so the foundation of this work is built on Building Bridges driving change and sustaining impact in both the community and the workplace

025so this has been a phenomenal experience and really getting to know the task force getting to understand the concerns and the opportunities within the community and the workplace and we're super excited to be a part thank you and then we can open it up for any questions that anyone may have thank you um yeah go ahead is anybody else from and Michael or Yolanda feel free to jump in does anyone else from the task force wish to say anything um I and actually I was gonna say I did I did not go through the next slot which is the benefits and the delivery but I can do that when you finish I just got excited from going through the project plan oh that's okay um I don't want to interrupt the flow of the uh

026presid so please proceed okay all right give me one second sorry about that I got so excited and presenting the project plan because we're making great progress that I didn't continue all right so why is Dei important and so we always like to start with a A leadership case study that Michael presented to the leadership team Ashley has an amazing opportunity to cultivate a workplace and a community that celebrates diversity equity and inclusion where every individual experience is a profound sense of belonging so that is every individual while progress has been made there is recognized need to address um some challenges and so our approach is to really develop and Implement a comprehensive Dei strategic plan that serves as a road mapap for creating lasting and cultural change for both current and future Generations so

027everything that we're doing is absolutely forward looking and in the leadership uh brief we always like to align what are our success out comes what are we expecting to achieve during this process and how will we know we're successful so our very first thing which is our deliverable within this project scope is a detailed and comprehensive Dei strategic plan that has specific goals objectives and actionable steps so that we're able to measure the progress that we're making and then we're able to see if there areas that we're falling short in and if there gaps and what we need to do to correct them number two is a heightened sense of awareness a lot of people don't understand what is they may have fear about it and they may just don't understand how they fit into

028it and so we're very clear in making sure that we do training and that we do awareness about Dei and how it impacts the community but also how it impacts you personally number three is making sure that we have participation and engagement and that was one of the key things in how we wanted to roll out our surveys and then also how we want to do our interviews because we want everybody to understand that their voice matters and that they are important regardless of what their position is or even if they're a Community member or official number four is that we're going to have access to data we ask very robust questions in our surveys to make sure that we get data so that we can make informed decisions based on what the data says

029number five establishing what our principles are moving forward of how to incorporate Dei into our policies our practices and our procedures number six is creating a blueprint and laying the foundation for an inclusive work work workplace and we'll make sure that we Define what inclusive means to the town of ashin community engagement is extremely important we are looking to use this as a springboard to enhance our community cohesion and to really strengthen our reputation as a Dei Community number eight is making sure that we have performance metrics so that we can track our progress and then number nine is ensuring that we establish a foundation for a longterm impact of continued growth M I'm done now thank you thanks T actually I yeah yeah I I don't want to I I want to make sure

030I want to head it back to Michael just in case the select board members have uh questions for say anything if I say anything we'll get to them don't worry so no I I think uh TR Rene presented a a very good presentation it's really exciting to be able to to do this work um you know there's always always uh whenever you have uh movements like this there's always you know that initial burst of energy and you know we've been able to maintain this and maintain you know what we're trying to do through you know an academic study essentially and then also through this and really want to thank T Renee uh for all of her help as well as the task force members they've been great at uh making sure we we stay on

031track and keeping us all in line so I just I have a couple of um questions the first is uh when you're talking about leadership was that leadership just the general government people or was this were the schools involved in the leadership surveys and the discussion it's more the department heads not the not the not the schools although we're going to extend that invitation okay because I I would think that this discussion I know sort of started somewhat in our schools like with area and how you know some of the things that they were saying and that brought it to the general community and that's one of the one of the impacts and things that sort of got us going with this um my other thing was um how can we take the work that's

032being done on this plan and make sure and this is a broader discussion and make sure it gets included when we do our larger comprehensive plan strategic plans that when we're making those goals and what we're looking for as a community that we make sure that this is part of the discussion does anybody want to take that or I can I can certainly field it so it's actually going to be um one of our strategic objectives in our Dei plan and so everything that we're doing when we're anal analyzing policies procedures we're using best practices and we're going to give recommendations based on the feedback that we get the opportunities that the community that the workplace sees and we'll give recommendations to guide what we feel should be included within the Dei strategic plan and

033again we're looking to incorporate the incorporate the Dei principles and establish policies and procedures so for instance if we're talking about workplace we're looking at how do we incorporate a Dei element within how we interview how we recruit how we hire um How We Do advancement so and within Community how are we doing in community engagement what type of resources are we providing for small businesses so we will actually help to guide and to lead the discussion but one of our strategic objectives will be in reference to incorporating these within the Strategic plan so it is definitely at the Forefront of our mind perfect and I think I think a key piece of this is that Equity lens from which we can review processes and different projects and the way this is lining up that

034should be done around the January March time frame so it should time in you know basically tie in nicely with our comprehensive plan project that we're doing great thank you other questions or thoughts from board or uh our members of um the Dei task force yeah I had a couple questions Rob I was just um you know I I would think that one of the most critical pieces of this right is is engagement and um the the people that you interview and reaching out to um parts of our community they're sometimes underrepresented um and I just wondered how you go about making sure that that those people are included in um helping to develop our goals so in our December meeting we are actually have a comprehensive plan of reaching out to the community everything

035from incentives to um having leaders to reach out Community leaders to reach out so it's probably about 12 to 15 best practices for engaging uh community members that are often overlooked and so that is a one of the primary things that we will be discussing in December and we have a we will have a full plan of action action for that and I guess a little bit to you know Yolanda's point I know the schools have done some Dei work um and and so I think it's critical in any change that we're trying to make in in society in the world that we are um including our schools and and the children because they're the ones that are going to going to grow up and create the New World um and you know it's easier

036to sometimes um it's it's easier to come through with uh the proper outlook on things than it is to try to change people's Outlook sometimes when we when we're older um so you know I I just think it might be a critical piece to make sure that we are connecting with the schools um and helping them uh you know reach their goals in this area because they do have significant um goals in this area you are absolutely right and so they are included within the community surveys that we do we wanted to do a phase uh approach and so the first one was for the leaders and the employees the second phase is for the community so it includes the police department it includes how the services that we provide it includes the reg residents

037it includes education so they absolutely are included in phase two rolling out and just one last question um so far the the um the leadership group that you have um sent out the survey to and your your goal is 80% um how are you doing at reaching that goal we just launched the survey and right now we have 36 leader we have 36 employees and we have eight we have eight leaders so it was a very great start to the survey so we still have a week we still have a week left and we have followup percentage you know on that I'm just wondering what the percentage is I okay I leave 100% on the leaders um and then the um like the department heads and then the uh the employees I I don't have

038that that exact percentage Claudia okay 30 fine 3650 maybe maybe this we need some incentives here yeah know everybody's ears perked up when that happen that came out thank you um so I have a couple things um so first of all just thank you for for the update um it you guys are are are definitely um doing a lot of work that um absolutely needs to be done and and so I just wanted to to um thank the task force for the work that they're doing because I think you know like Michael said like sometimes you start off really strong and then things kind of um Peter out a little bit and I think that that this is um a very like comprehensive uh way to look at this and I think I think that

039the community is going to be much stronger because of it um I did want to ask a question about you know um we had commissioned an equity study um several years ago that kind of like led to the Dei task force um I was just curious like from a data collection like is the is the study like part of the data is it going to be incorporated are you looking at different sort of like different things that that were um asked I'm just curious I know this is going to be much more comprehensive when you talk when you talk about like employees and and um staff and things like that but I'm just curious about sort of the the community aspect of it so we use uh we look at all of the data um

040that has been presented before and then we also look at all activities all Dei ad hoc activities so we're looking at everything that we can get our hands on that has already been done to inform our decisions of how to move forward it actually informed our decisions too and the questions that we wanted to ask because we needed to understand a baseline of where we are so even though we're asking more comprehensive type questions we still are ask asking some of the similar questions to just be able to see what the perspectives are have the sentiments change and so we do use it to inform our decisions yes okay okay thank you um and I look forward to more updates as we kind of go through this process so thank you thank you great and

041do anyone else want to uh comment or um questions from Members or public input we have a few minutes just one uh quick one uh Rob TR thank you for all the work that you've been uh that you've done so far with the DEA Dei DEA yeah I'm all right uh past history is coming back to me yeah uh just want to thank you for that extra work uh in your presentation and and even on this this the screen presentation as well um I hope you're including and and not um not forgetting there's another group of folks that are in that are in this town uh the senior citizens and hopefully uh they'll be part of that survey as well uh because I'm sure they have a lot that they could provide to you to

042your group as well yes they are in the second phase under the Community yes thank you yes you're welcome great anything further on this I'll thank the Dei task force for your work and uh Michael for coordinating this um and and uh we wish you the best and look forward to our the next uh part of the uh of the uh the de initiative all right thank you all for that all right so we have thanks everybody y um thank you thank you and you're welcome to hang around with us for the rest of the night we' a lot of exciting stuff going on here so we have about 5 minutes to the tax classification uh hearing which has to start at 7 again uh items do should we do the consent agenda anybody I

043move that we approve the consent agenda as presented does anybody want to um take any items out for discussion nope nope do I have a second yep Claudia seconded okay all those in favor of accepting the conset agenda say I I I I so conset agenda is passed thank you so Rob I've seen a few people pop on at our usual 7:00 time that might be here for Citizens participation that didn't realize we were starting at 6:30 wondering if we want to allow them to do citizens participation now before we have our our tax classification hearing at 710 we have a few minutes is anyone I see anyone here for Citizens participation Helen's clapping but I'm not sure if that means she wants to talk if you're if you're on zoom and want to speak

044for citizen citizens participation please use the raiseed hand function okay thought I did okay was that your raise hand Helen yeah there we go all right hel go ahead we have a few minutes okay I I'll try to be quick um so I actually am here I wanted to do two things the first is I'm requesting and I'll write a letter but I wanted to come in in person and request this um the historic uh commission is actually planning to um have a warrant on the spring is uh the town meeting the spring for the historic district and we would uh really like it if we could get on to the select board's agenda in in possibly in January so that we could come and discuss this with you okay that seems reasonable okay first

045first meeting in January or the second meeting Helen um so we're we really didn't um have one we just said January so I think wherever you have time to put us in where we could come and discuss that would be great yeah why don't you send in a agenda item request uh you could send it to the entire select board or just the Yolanda myself Michael and uh Susan Jen when we put together the agenda okay and um yeah that would be great I you know we want to kind of just let everyone know what we're doing and answer any questions and uh any issues anyone might might have so we can address those and uh see what everybody else uh thinks about the whole plan so that would be nice to be able to

046come and and get everyone uh involved um the second thing I just and I sent you all a letter and I did hear back from uh Brandy and Michael but I just want to reiterate my invitation for this Sunday at the right historic Cemetery we're having a speaking event and I think it's going to be very interesting and I just want to come shine invite you again just to make sure that you know you know and and if you could come that would be great R if you can't we'll we'll miss you but we would love to have you there great well thank you Ellen and thanks for the invitation Helen is that rain a shine it's rain or shine and if it's rain which it doesn't look like it should be I've been watching

047um it will be at the Ocean House at 2 o'cl okay thank you all right thank you anyone else quickly for Citizens participation I don't see any so we'll move on to get ready for the um classification hearing and um Yolanda could I impose upon you to read the legal notice when the time comes sure I can do that great thank you so much here um okay so I have it is pretty close close enough to 710 so if you want it's 710 close enough go ahead okay in accordance with the requirements of Massachusetts General Lodge chapter 40 section 56 the select board will hold a public hearing on fiscal 2024 for property tax classification on Wednesday November 15th 2023 at 7:10 p.m. at the Town Hall 101 Main Street Ashland the purpose of the

048public hearing is to consider the percentages of the fiscal year 2024 tax levy to be borne by each class of taxable real and personal property meeting information will be posted on the agenda which can be found on the town website www.ashlandmath.com persons wishing to be heard on this matter are invited to to attend the public Hearing in person or by logging into the zoom meeting interested parties who are unable to attend the hearing May submit written comments to the select board's office Town Hall 101 Main Street ashin Mast 01721 or by emailing Susan Roby sroy Asin mass.com thank you and I think now we now need to open the hearing we get a motion to open do we have by reading that that opens it yeah okay I think we're good let's let's proceed then

049so Michael do you have a presentation or someone I have extra I don't but our friend Rich ball does y rich is here is here okay I think we all have it we we have it rich we're good thanks Rich we got you and so just so you know the camera I believe is in the top of that laptop there you go yes oh okay there it is there you go okay right where be yeah okay um here we are once again uh I don't know how many annual classification hearings I've been doing but anyway um it's nice to be here thank you for introducing me um I am the director of assessing rich Ball um so the purpose of tonight's classification hearing is um let basically it's it's for the select board to um

050end up taking a vote whether they want to remain with the single tax rate or introduce a split rate could I ask you just to hold on one minute just um it'd be great if you could show the slides up on the screen as well and I'm going to help you do that oh oh does he have the presentation Got Loaded there okay okay so I'm just going to slide down for each page yeah but um yeah that's the first page want to make it's not showing on the screen Michael did you click share I'm good good okay perfect there you go wonderful okay okay all right so the the people at home can see the full page uh I I can't but um I have a copy in front of me so we'll work

051with that I can't see the far right uh call but that's that's okay you're good um again the purpose of tonight's uh classif classification hearing is is um just to present the material I have and the select board will end up deciding whether to remain with the single tax rate or uh go with a a split rate so uh let me just Begin by a quick recap of uh uh what transpired this past fiscal year here um the assessor's office was mandated by the Department of Revenue like all other cities and towns uh for recertification so basically that's like a year-long audit um that the Department of Revenue does uh will come into to each community and um just spend a lot of time um I I I spent a lot of time uh running

052reports giving them spreadsheets giving them all kinds of documents this is what they do uh um and then at at the end of the process they certifi the town which we became certified so it's all good um so this past year um total assessments were up in town at as it continues to keep increasing um um I feel like a one out record because I think each and every classification hearing I'm saying the same thing uh but it is what it is you know the real estate market is still uh running High um Ashlin is no exception um so um what we do is we spend a lot of time analyzing a lot of the sales and Property Data uh so um at the end we're able to uh finalize assessments that are fair and

053fair and Equitable um across the board for the residents in town so uh um real quick the the um I'll go through the property classes the single family uh single family homes is by Lodge the largest property class um in town and and probably in most communities as well but um the single family homes um here in Ashland uh for assessment purposes they've increased uh roughly 133% from last year to this year um again the the sales that came through uh for this past year and the sales that that predicate these uh the assessments that we work with um happening in calendar year uh 2022 so it's there kind of a lag time involved but that's the way it is that's the way it's set up uh through legislation um so the single family homes

054uh increased roughly 133% from last year to this year Condominiums uh about 11% uh and these are just averages uh multifamilies which are two and three families uh about 133% um vacant buildable Lots um not not much change they did increase um somewhat uh we don't get many sales for vacant Lots uh we haven't in a long time um but we have other methods uh in order to to derive some some um good fear assessments uh the large apartment complexes increased about 6% this past year the uh mixed use Pils about 8% commercial and Industrial about 9% and the personal property the the total class increased uh about 15% uh which was a lot and and within that 15% uh a lot of growth was provided to the town through the personal property and that

055falls back on the recertification that we did this year um generally in recertification years we pick up a lot of new growth uh in personal property so that's good good for the town um I just want to uh speak uh real quick about average tax bills um you can see last year we had a tax rate of 1377 the average uh single family home last year was 595,000 uh it translated into $ 8,193 that was your average tax bill for single family homes last year this year um you can see where the assessment has has bumped up uh to 6748 that's your average assessment for single family homes the estimated tax bill that we're looking at right now A projected tax bill uh tax rate excuse me 1307 that's that's just um that's a projection

056right now hasn't been approved by the Department of Revenue that probably won't get approved um you know maybe for another month sometime in December uh when a lot of the the numbers are put together for the recap sheet so uh just keep in mind that that's only an estimate it's a good estimate but uh it's subject to change um so on the the the far right the column on the far right you can see that the average tax bill um is is increasing uh about $626 over last year and um Condominiums um you can see where of course the U the uh average assessment is up from last year um and that that of course translates into a higher tax um so from last year to this year the average condominium tax bill is up

057uh $336 multifamilies um again valuation is up um that projects out to about $472 increase from last year to this year any questions so far so I have a question um so with with the average assessment going up on a single family home of 13% and you know I know we have to work within the tax levy and you know when people look at like an average tax increase of $626 you know trying to think of it like you know inverse so you know the assessment value goes up the rate goes down but it's you know we're still working within the the the tax levy the 2 and a half% thank you and and so I'm curious like how like I'm curious how that that 1307 kind of and I I don't want to like

058get into like a ton of numbers and Actuarial things cuz that's not where I'm going with it but I'm just I'm kind of curious how you know I was I was like okay well if it if the average assessment increased 133% how do we get to um a rate that's definitely not 133% lower than what it was you know what I mean like the the actual well it's kind of two different things so the rate basically has two components it's got your uh your valuation your assess assessment side of it and then you have your tax levy uh which are all your financials and and and um so the two of those work together basically to produce a tax rate okay so um I work on the assess assess M side so um at the

059end of the process I have uh all of the values in each class and I come up with a uh evaluation um for the town the other side of it that I mentioned was the levy um that's a lot of the spending in any given year um that that so basically the the higher the spending it's going to bring that tax rate up um the the the bigger the levy okay um the smaller the levy uh the tax rate's going to okay go down um I I don't think I explained that very well but if we can maybe simplify it so you have your expenditures so basically you have those you subtract out what is being paid for by non tax get what needs to be financ tax you take the total value ofion is

060that yes essentially it's your it's your tax levy divided by the total value in the town with the understanding that as of right now we always increase our tax levy by the max of the 2 and a half% which is why even though values went up by 13% the tax rate doesn't go down by 13% because you got to add the two and two and a half% increase of the yeah okay I just wanted to make sure it's like clear for people watching this kind of how the rate oh I'm sure I'm sure yeah I think I told that's why we have Rich confused them at this point but thank you no I'm good um let's oh um at at the bottom of each U each frame um you can see where the uh Board

061of assessors recommends a single tax right they've already made that decision at their last meeting if we go to the uh the next screen I need to pull that down uh yeah you can just scroll down I can scroll down I I it's is it frozen Rich no it's not frozen can see that you just can't yeah I should have minimize that okay perfect there you go perfect okay so on this next next screen um you you can see on on the leand side uh this year's total valuation um uh 4 b315 m386 15 that's about a 12% increase over last year's total valuation um and then uh in the middle of the the page I break it out residential open space commercial industrial personal property um and then at the bottom you can see

062the split between um basically residential and commercial industrial personal property um this year for uh fiscal year 2024 uh we're looking at uh 91. 34% residential and commercial industrial person personal property is uh 8.66% so um you can see compared to last year um the two numbers are are going in in different directions uh it just means that the U the residential side of it has increased uh a little bit more um that's that's really been the trend uh the last few years uh the residential side of it is growing in terms of value in the uh commercial industrial personal property uh it's in terms of a percent is getting smaller so um I guess what I'm getting at is is when you look at those numbers and those percentages um my opinion is um

063it doesn't really uh justify a split rate um because you're you're looking at a single rate that that's um really very um um you very competitive um in terms of rates as it is and and as a single rate um and I'll show you in a minute that that um what it would look like if you did uh split the rate what would happen on the residential side and on the commercial side um any questions all right let's move to so rich as you bring up the next one because I've been sitting here for a while as as Joe and all right all right um Brandy and and Claud I know are you know have been aware of this my question is what what percentage shift would you need to see how much commercial would

064we need to have in town to even consider recommending a a split tax rate well the general rule is is 8515 okay um once you get under that 15% for the commercial and Industrial uh it it really doesn't make a lot of sense at that point uh there may be exceptions to that rule but uh most communities look at that and um and ashin is in you know over 90% residential right um yeah because I mean I I I look at I look at this next one that you give us every year and I go yeah it doesn't make sense cuz there's not enough of a right there's not enough a relief for residential and then we're trying to build our our businesses and we're trying to build commercials so exactly to put the impact

065on them doesn't make much sense so no okay thank you I have a a question just about the commercial industrial and the and the change the yes and you said that that's kind of a pattern at this point and is that a pattern in all communities or is that just our personal patter pattern which um I don't know about other communities uh for Ashland uh you know there's a lot of U residential apartment complexes uh in the past couple of years you know that that side of it has just exploded yeah so that has to do with the number of residential units and also their their increase in value as compared to the commercial industrial um not in Num numbers not increasing yes but um if you could look at just if you were just

066looking at the commercial industrial valuations themselves are they increasing but it's just that the numbers aren't going up they are increasing um just not keeping Pace with the residential side right um and that may change um over the years it it it it does fluctuate because there's two components to that right there's actual the number of business we generally call it and that what they're valued at right those are the two components that would make up um not so much businesses or commercial Parcels maybe is what you're you're okay um yeah we have a certain number of commercial Parcels um but we have a lot more residential Parcels but then also there's the the valuation of of each yes right yeah yeah and again um coming out of covid it's the large commerci uh residential

067apartment complexes just took off um in all of Metro West right right yeah yeah yeah okay yeah thank you how we doing folks in terms of questions I want to note this is Claudia's first exposure to our tax classification hearing so she an expert now she's yeah she's lived the tax class ific she knows all about it okay it was followed very closely when we were on school committee too so yes no I think Yolanda summed up I think our rationale pretty well about this uh is there any other further questions or thoughts I I believe the is the motion just a simple motion to uh do a single tax rate yeah that's what the board votes on yeah I move that we support the single tax rate as presented I'll second that MO has

068been made in seconded all those in favor say I I I hear no nay so passes unanimously Thank you Rich one last thing can I quickly show the viewers at home the last two pages it's just two graphs that I put together okay um real quick so the the the first graph that we're looking at uh it shows shows the last 11 fiscal years you can see where the tax rate uh has been trending down down each year and of course what what makes that happen is that the valuations trend up all right um this last page you'll like this one um now this is last year's tax rates because um right now some of the communities haven't set their tax rate yet but you can see um where Ashlin sits with its surrounding neighbors

069and the tax rat uh well below all of the other surrounding towns so bow well for for ashin certainly yeah Rob one quick question with respect to that sure uh the valuation of the homes in in the surrounding towns they've gone up basically the same percentage as Ashland or has Ashan gone up yeah I I don't know Joe because that would be interesting seeing that we have you know one of the lowest tax rates when I look at that that that graph I just think that um they they're spending a little bit more I mean they're they Levy is larger y exactly gotcha thank you okay all right thank you good point all right anything else on this I believe we're done thank you rich thank Youk much um yolan is the planning board are

070they planning board out in the outside huddled okay well should we invite them in and you guys can come in we're all set for you a want to hear about tax classification geez for a seconding in they we listen so we're going to sit here so do we have can we do the broad uh picture I mean the yeah that's good yeah thank you you guys bring extra so when everybody's settled we'll we'll get started um Welcome to our uh meeting um and this is the the agenda item here's uh joint meeting with the planning board uh the first is to review the NBTA Community zoning recommendations and the second is to review the comprehensive plan document um voted by the select board planning board so I want to thank you you all for coming

071here and you know it's um uh I just want to note the the work that you've all been doing on these important projects is uh very much appreciated uh so without further Ado we'll get started with the um with the MBTA Community zoning and do we have a oh oh and Trisha do you need to call your folks to order yeah I think um we just officially need to call our meeting to order at 7:35 um and Rob I think what we're going to do is that Alo is at the podium he's going to work the slide presentation and I'm going to present those slides when I get stuck on any information Joe will help no Peter Alo and and Joe obviously will will jump in and um just to note that um we don't

072we don't have any fi final like that this is our final recommendation tonight we want to show you our path we want to show you what we've learned and we want to show you where we have landed but then obviously it's a greater discussion with the board if you agree with our approach um pluses and minuses and then we see where we go from there so there's not a golden answer at the end of this presentation that you're waiting in suspense for so okay thank you and just a note about I'm operating uh remotely here because uh I'm relatively sick I don't want to spread anything so I certainly appreciate your Indulgence and Yolanda's Vice chair will be assisting In Crowd management should you all get unruly so say that understood go ahead all right

073so so we're just going to go through um just to quickly review um what's required to refresh your memb is the zoning District that we're being asked to form has to be at least uh 50 acres it can obviously be more than that a minimum of 25 acres needs to be within that 05 miles of the train station um individual districts if you don't have your 50 acres all in one all in one area um needs to be at least 5 Acres or greater and the minimum gross density for each of those partials that you're putting together has to have 15 units an acre now just as a means of comparison um Cirrus is correct me if I'm wrong Peter is right about 14 units an acre corre so um to get to get a

074sense of that density sarus does have a lot of extra land around it a lot of buffer land parking but just to get your head around that number a little bit um these are areas where multif family with no age restriction is allowed by right um and of course that they need access to the train station so those that's kind of our Basic Ground workor so added into all that is the number of units that we need to that we need to have that we need to accommodate in the zoning District so for us we're taking our 2020 Cent Census Data um as how many housing units we have which is 7,495 housing units in Ashland we have to multiply that by 15% and gets us to 1124 units which is our ultimate goal and

075what we have created so the first thing we did as a committee is to look at kind of these two high density option and a low density option so option one says we want to go as low as density as we can ashon doesn't maybe like high density maybe maybe we don't want to do that that kind of thing so how many acres would we need if we stick with the minimum we can can do which is 15 units an acre and that puts us at 75 Acres so and again that it's approximately serus they're at 14 then we said okay high density option what if we said that we want to use as little land as possible with this MBA zoning we don't want to change our zoning too much we're going to make

076it the tightest we can 50 acres that means we need to do 23 units an acre which is with the approximate density what the last round of 10 to 60 Main Street was the planning board might be a little bit more familiar with that than the than the select board but it kind of gives us a sense of of that level of density all right now to kind of go off just a little bit we wanted to go over the um the information that was provided by the state these are in terms of the gis layers um that were made available to all Ash communities and they start to tell us a little bit about the land within Ashland borders so th this excluded land land marked in yellow are things that cannot be used

077in our MBTA zoning that includes all town-owned property all state-owned property things with use restrictions like if we had CPA land that had use restrictions you can't use that and then there's some hydrological Wetlands type of things that are that you just can't you you can't use so all the all the land in yellow is just out of the picture can't use it yeah it's a lot um I haven't run the number yeah a lot a lot so um so no Town Forest no right no no exactly not that that would be our ideal location I would think um okay so then um then we look at uh one of the other layers um was sensitive land so sensitive land as you can see on the list there includes flood zones active farmlands primary habitat

078surface water Wellhead areas these don't seem like the type of land you want to use but you can and as elro described it's kind of just a red flag it's like okay can use this land but you might want to be careful in doing so you might want to think twice right so those are also given to us um through GIS this third category is a little trickier um Alro were you able to confirm yeah was our it was our assumption was right all right so we had a little trouble like figuring out what this was um a density dens density denominator and we're not going to get too far into it because it really doesn't have a lot of effect on what we're doing but basically these are areas with the kind of that

079fit into one of the categories listed there um that basically if you have one of these areas say you have a 50 acre land that you're going to use and you have some uh you know a water protection Zone that's 10 acres within that right you can still count the 10 the 50 acres but when you because it's right in the middle of your space but when you go to calculate the density you have to take that area out in calculating your density so it's a little bit about the how the math is calculated less we need to concern ourselves less with it because unless you're looking at one of those areas where this red is it's it's not really an issue okay so here's where we get and it's probably in the packet this

080one's a little hard to read this one's better here's where we get to actually looking at where we started to zero in and with these properties so as you can see here we're looking the circle obviously is our 0.5 uh from the train station that is given to us you can also see that we also have some land in hopkington so we actually have two well on the border for the hopkington uh train station so we can also uh use that it's not really useful to us over there so we're obviously we're focusing on the train station um oh Southboro sorry Southboro I was thinking of the state park over there thank you um so our train station is like dead center the one in the middle okay yeah the one in the middle so

081um that's the circle that they're giving to US versus the the ones that we had before we don't get to wing it um So within that excuse me I just want to make sure I understand so you're saying that circle around the Southboro train station is potentially something we can do potentially yes I mean that we can consider that Circle because that 05 at least a quarter of that circle is an Ashland now as you see most of it is yellow which means fled we can't use that a little bit of it is oh I see so yellow's unusable and there's a little white spot there that maybe is usable but you know we don't have to rule it out right all right thank you yeah so there's not there's not a whole lot there

082to grab so anyway we obviously started focusing on the circled areas um and the Really the land that's available in the rail transic District especially things that are actually already built um so the green area um labeled area a here is Cirrus and that is already 44.7 One Acres uh remember that density is 14 units an acre already it just needs to go to 15 um the area B is where the um ucg um what did I say ugc um which would be the over 50 the planned over 55 community which is currently in litigation and the small band next to that c is currently part of the same property but that was established as a buffer zone um for if if and when that gets developed so um in our discussions we decided to

083keep that um we would recommend to keep area C out because even if number one if the if the project goes forward as it is it has to be kept with as a buffer anyway it returns to town land and it cannot be used if we if that project doesn't go forward we feel like we would still want a buffer for those neighbors that that discussion has already happened it was already agreed upon and it makes sense to in good faith to continue with that buffer and not make it available for development and the other part as we tried to reach our um I think we were trying to reach our 75 low density solution nearby the train station we looked at the area of um I think it's add um which is basically you

084know where my office is um along that in the blue strip of D which is a commercial industrial zone now um but gives us another 11.65 acres and together those get us to about 78 Acres we only need 75 and so that would be our that would be our low density solution right there so that was kind of the first thing we looked at a yeah ab and D lab not yes yes yeah with all the letters it gets a little confusing okay is that good so far so that's kind of option one if we low density sticking close to the train station all right but we also wanted to kind of make it understood yeah so so that that is that just what I said there so that puts set over the over the

085amount of units that we need and there's the high density approach the high density approach uses only areas A and B right so we don't use D at all we just allow the density to get greater in those it which you know in the in the case of Cirrus you know maybe they could maybe they have space to add more units you know in the case of B maybe it would get maybe the density would work with the landscape maybe it wouldn't in a sense it's not our problem but um but that's what it would look if we' went to the high density approach okay so next we looked at we were just kind of then looking at some options it's important to understand that you don't have to go high density and low density

086it doesn't have to be the same for everything so we said what if we mix densities right what if area a which is Sir Cirrus it's at 14 now what if we call it 15 they could add a little bit but not a whole lot and we would reach we have to change the zoning obviously it'd have to be for actually I don't know if we would have to change we would have to change a little bit a few tweaks a few tweaks in the zoning um to allow that to fit um area B though would have to be very high density so area B to accommodate the rest of the units would have to be a density of 27 which is approximately 100 trest nut now the Land There is fairly steep hard to

087build um Joe came in very handy on this committee because he seems to have a personal knowledge of every single piece of property in Ashland um and so that might be given some of the things we've seen in other areas of town that were built on steep slopes maybe even if it's allowed maybe it's not something we would want to do so so next we looked at an option four and this is just kind of reducing or reversing it what if we said that area B was the 15 units do we figure out what the what the proposed project is density wise approximately I don't know if we just that just for comparison but we said what if area area B is low density and then we make area a whatever density it needs to

088be to fulfill our units that puts area a at 20 units an acre you know right now they're at 14 but it's already built so maybe they would add some more maybe they never would right we thought you know we tried to look at all the different properties kind of um in good faith I guess I would say things that were realistic um but we also decided that especially in areas like Cirrus and this was a case that the town had made early in this process that Ashland has already made a serious um move toward providing a lot of units through in recent years and we think that using a um just shows that we have done that and so we we felt that was okay any questions yet okay just just to clarify because

089I know we've got members of the public listening as well that we're not talking about actual building we're talking about creating zoning to make building possible that's right that's important for everyone listening to understand that this is not about actually building anything it's about creating the zoning that could allow a proposal to happen so which is right I just think that's important because if people are kind of jumping in and listening it it's not that we're saying we're going to force someone to come in and actually build this Des we're saying hey we've done such a great job already in area a to have high density maybe if we tweak that zoning a little bit to maybe that developer in the future could improve the space or choose to make it more dense um right

090right we're giving them that ability not that we're forcing them make it more it's not it's not about anything that's being forced it's not that we're asking anyone to come in um it's it's just that we have to set up the zoning to allow the possibility in the future so um and then five this is kind of where we landed at our last meeting um so we started to look at the areas that we already had um area a keeping or you know having a certain density there that gives I don't know how we arrived at 18 units there um I think it was just kind of to like make the math work to make the math yeah like a low density kind of on area B and then look at the actual density that

091is happening in a 100 Chestnut which is actually 29 units yeah so what we did is um in area B that's right my thought process is coming back here an area B with a steep slope project going in there we decided that let's keep that at 15 low density because we're a little leery about that the steep slopes relative to we have other things we have going on with steep slopes um then we looked at area e which is um 100 Chestnut Street and we looked at the density um the acreage we already have there um and the density we already have there so if we include in if we include 100 Chestnut Street what we have left is the density for area a which then puts it from 14 to 18 and that covers

092all our bases 18 or 17 because area a says density of 18 units but then area a has your acreage times 17 units okay so it's in there somewhere okay it's one of believe me the math will figure out ma correct the formula it's correct I think it's just a typ on it okay so 29 17 and then 15 okay and TR just so I understand or people understand that area e 100 Chestnut U can be outside this circle of the commuter rail that's right as long as 40% of the number of units are inside the circle which they would be by far we can use um we can use areas outside the circle so we looked at 100 Chestnut Street because it's it's already in process right it's already happening but we also in

093our discussion started to talk about about other areas of town that um that where nothing is happening now but where we feel might be good areas for housing potent potential housing areas if um if this wasn't maybe quite the right solution so or if we wanted to do something differently um what is the next slide Alo um this seing side by side but I also have an slide showing the other potential AR C if you want me to show that one um how's the E what's the easiest way to show them do you think just in the I can show that and then come back to these on so we see this coming at the end I think we're almost we're almost to the end of the presentation here but some of the other we

094started to look at different just different Parcels in town they remember they had to be over five acres um that might be suitable for housing now one of those was area D which we already talked about in downtown we thought that might be a good opportunity for mixed use which is also can be part of the formula where you have businesses and housing so um a little hard to see here do you have the little light thing yes yeah okay I think with the light really work right there there we go so Joe what can I'm going to put you on the spot area F what did you call that space up there the area is currently known as tur building is is your mic on no I think we're having trouble here and I'm

095sorry I didn't have my mic on it's the uh old roachford arena uh ice skating rink which is now turo and they since sold their building uh then down in North Carolina so that building is not now under agreement with pson so that's that piece of property is available and it's in between the subury river and the train station and it's smack in the middle of a residential area but it's like it's an island to itself Ty a deal I think Claudia you know the area that I'm talking about yeah it's right at the corner of how in cille roads and it's down almost under the right under the railroad or next to the railroad but under the lower than the bridge so it is like an island jum how how close is that to

096the half mile from the Southboro I don't think quite so it's out outside of the half out it's outside of the half a mile okay but still close to it close enough to it it could be the 40% outside or yeah and then the other um area marked is area G over there that's the kitty fenwall building site oh um that we were looking at as flat site easy access to schools easy access to downtown and you know just as a potential site for housing if we say wanted if we wanted to say lower the density that were that we're assigning within the rail t Transit District right if we wanted to make sure those stayed low and we needed more we needed our 75 Acres what else might we consider so we we had

097a few other ones too but they got eliminated based on the when we learned all the qualifications we had to next a few of those so and that's the already developed part of kitty Fen wall is that what you're where they have their building and um yes that's the that's not the kind of a joining side lot it's kind of where the building and the parking already are what are the acreages of FNG um I I kind of out the top of my head I know that G's around 19 Acres uh we will have to run some numbers to see how much of that is sensitive in the the density denominator to take that one um if I believe it was like around six seven just a reminder to speak into your microphone Peter I

098can't hear you I'm sorry uh I'm sorry G was about excuse me f the Tammer xite was about a little over seven acres yeah and that's the same situation that we'll have to look at how much of that is uh sensitive and with the density denominator but it should be around five acres as a whole District it could be counted yeah so if you want to there and there's one side of that area is AB buts the suburb River as it as it flows so that that part of that area would be unusable uh even though it's part of the S Acres you would have to we take that off so I think what we determined at some point was was just shy six yes I think when we when we took that piece of

099prop uh off the uh this sub River part of it so that's what we're looking at I mean g go back to the slide so um just to just to wrap up this part of things so is there anything else on that slide Al BR cuz that one's no this one is just the stoning side by side okay um and then it was just kind of like a last uh sorry a last step of like what are next steps and where we're kind of finalizing Yeah so basically um once we I guess even as part of the process we need to finalize the compliance model and I think by compliance model this is this Al can show it this crazy spreadsheet worksheet thing um that makes what we're doing in our working group seem juvenile

100right when you look at this the spreadsheet that El that Alo has to and I'm sure Peter working on it as well has to keep track of and put together so that's the actual compliance model um and then we need to identify the actual zoning changes that we would need within those zones for instance it can't be an over 55 community uh you know what what do we have to take off of it um there was a mention about can we this the state allows a 10% affordability requirement we talked about raising that Peter do you want to report on where that stuff is yeah so thank you so I can just state that um so we appli for a grant through our Mass Housing Partnership um MHP and we received the Grant and so

101we've been in contact with um uh rkg and actually rkg was assigned to us rkg may be familiar to some because they're actually the economic Consultants on the master plan they also did the economic tool that was developed uh uh I would say back in 2016 when cus went in and so obviously astion has a long history with rkg they know the town and so um Alvaro and myself have a meeting set up on Tuesday to start looking at a scope will work and so we applied for a grant we got the funding um and then the next step will'll just have a meeting uh in addition uh we also were put in contact with a consultant uh because I did check the box to look at um housing not just like the zoning changes

102and another consulting firm who I have a working relationship with um in Consulting was also will be on the call so hopefully we can you know move that process forward next Tuesday and start to scope out um uh uh some some obviously processes looking at the affordability component uh I think we all landed that we definitely want this in at a minimum of 10% which was allowed by the state and what the state is allowing but anything north of 10% needs to go through an economic analysis study to make sure that there's not a burden on the housing and so we're going through the next steps and we're taking it obviously step by step um uh not to sound like Bill Bell check but week by week and uh we're just kind of going going

103through the process uh yeah I don't want to go to uh but no we're taking a step by step and I think every every around every corner we've really received some good feedback from everybody so and uh Alvaro has done a great job you know leading the away with the gis and it's been a pleasure to work with Joe and Trisha on the on the on the on the committee right um I have a question so with either that consultant or our own forces or another consultant can we look at because they fairly recently added a possibility of mixed use and I'm thinking it we all like the transit oriented development hopefully people are on the train less cars but if we're allowing mixed use like maybe there's a little store there and that's even

104less cars so I I don't know what's practical but I think we should at least look into that yeah that was something we actually talked about uh just this we have been talking about but we've talked about just this week and we intended to to put a bullet on here about the mixed use because we have been talking about that as well and that's one of the things I mentioned about area D which is the one at the industrial zone right now in downtown that we were thinking about that if we want to go that route that might be a great place for mixed use because it is connecting to downtown it is businesses right now it's it might be something we want to think about right um in a way more than a little

105shop right to provide opportunities for more for more businesses so I don't know if um do those calculations require a consultant Peter or I don't think they do I think it's just a matter of applying the calculation that the state is kind of given us and so the state is allowing for it the state this is the way I read it right is the state is allowing for mixed use to be um to be by right and and because they got a lot of push back from towns because obviously everybody wants a vibrant downtown a vibrant economic area uh and so mixed use and commercial land excuse me commercial space is obviously um a want right and so um that is allowed uh to to be able to mandate a obviously a mixed use development

106but the the way I read it is that the square footage the commercial square footage cannot be included in the housing total when you're doing the overall math of the density of the density of the land area so they're saying you can do it but you're not going to count it towards any units per se so then if we that's sort of an aside then you can just say met the density and for allowing mix use they're allowed to add more building commercial yeah commercial space you know we want to see it's almost like saying yes want to see this we want but however we want to see commercial space included within this development in this location but we can put limits on like the commercial can only be so many percentage or like do

107a far Ratio or something or not do we know that yet I'm not going to give any I I don't I'm sure I have to dig a little bit deeper into that you know I I've just kind of looked kind of skim the surface just to make sure that we can do it and we are allowed to do it but to give you a direct answer answer on F and with the ratios that are allowed or not allowed you know I'm happy to get back I'm happy to look deeper into it and you we are allowed to do it but I think uh economically it'll probably take care of itself at the end of the day Peter just to follow up on a little bit about mixed juice so if do I understand that if

108you allow mixed use you don't you don't get we wouldn't get to decrease the housing units right you still have to have the same amount of housing that's correct okay yeah yeah yeah so oh go ahead I just had a question about uh Pawn Street and whether that was part of the analysis you know we didn't look well we looked at Pawn Street but Pawn Street is under the five acres and so um too small well and and we could Zone that together well together with the um Memory Care Facility next door but it was one of those things that we kind of felt tiny was in bad faith right I guess you know 501 stre it's about 4.4 4.1.4 Acres right so it's under the 5 acre minimum so you still like Trisha said

109you have to glue a couple Parcels together to get over the five acres so to me the state is allowing kind of this Glu gluing together model because in some ways it it's absolutely in good faith in the sense that ashin has gone above and beyond to develop right much more so than other communities so I think it's important to think of PA street kind of in the background um but I think this is excellent work I just wanted to reinforce how much I appreciate the hard work that you guys did because I think this is exactly what we needed to kind of understand what our options are yeah so that's what I mean we like I said we we looked at that partial but we didn't need it so um we have other bigger

110chunks yeah yeah and others felt better to us than that one I should say when we looked at we we it was a better fit than some of the others yeah it was a better fit felt better um kind of thing our last oh sorry no I'm sorry we we also looked at the properties off of uh James James Street down off of uh Pawn Street as well uh and again that fell under the the 5 acre area uh almost but just just shy of it so if we had the piece that would be an area that we could use as a piece so you're saying listen we've got good pieces of it already already yeah we can definitely revisit if it seems like no I was just curious what I was just curious how

111you guys got to it um I mean I think this is really excellent work and I think it gives us a lot of Direction um are you envisioning us giving some feedback today as to where we are with with what option like are we do we have room today for that discussion what are we I think it would be good to have some feedback because I think the next steps are bless you is to go down a certain Road and um the only other point I have on there is that obviously we'll have meet need to work with Town Council to for any proposed zoning changes but over I why don't you just briefly bring up the um compliance model MH so I think if we have a general direction about where we want to

112go then elro can continue to develop the compliance model because remember even our bubbles here are it gets a little detailed from his point of view right and we can't go through all that here um but um we also wanted to be sensitive to the comprehensive plan process and so we were looking at choices that in a in a sense we felt good about but we're also loow hanging fruit where we weren't making a big decision for the town that should rest with the comprehensive plan so that's kind of where we those are the factors we had and that's where we landed how we did so so Trisha before we get into I just had a a basic question um the the land U by the by the commuter rail station that's currently burnhams and

113the and the Church um where where do those fit into this uh your recommendations I saw it before the the church is in area D um which is on the map is burnhams included I think burnhams is included on there too yes um they seem to be kind of logical commuter rail housing areas should that ever happen but so yeah so that was that was in that that zone D um which is currently zoned industrial um but again it it's looking at um going from what it is to a minimum of 15 units an acre and so um so that's why we started to look at areas to um that's why we started to look at 100 chestnuts streight to be able to take out area D in case that wasn't the decision we wanted

114to make at this time so I think that's a wise choice because I I think about D and I think out you know you say okay well one side is currently industrial but the other side are single family small homes and it would really change the the flavor of that area if all of a sudden you go from industrial that's somewhat spread out to then allowing potentially very dense housing even if it's mixed use there I think it would just change the whole flavor of that street yeah and and we also forgot to mention that you you notice that 10 to 60 main also hasn't been part of this discussion right and obviously that that proposal has been withdrawn the one that we had has been withdrawn from the plan board but we just didn't

115think we wanted to go down that road with the complexities of that site to include it in here so it's intention it's a possibility it's still in front of the boards right but it's one that we decided to take off our plate for now for those reasons partly based on what you're showing us we don't need that we don't need it the the zoning that the MBTA is requiring and Rob's question about like like burnhams and and and section D it doesn't necessarily mean that there won't ever be housing built there it's just not part of this with a specific density by right correct so we have more control over those types of projects you know from like our regular zoning right yeah just just a note and I think and it's a great point

116is that yes it's zoned industrial I call the south side of Pleasant Street right but that's also within our add overlay District going all the way down um just to make a note about Burnham so Burnham is a little over 2 acres and it's 100% surrounded by the MBTA site uh so what you will see on some of these Maps when you kind of zoom in is that the MBTA zoning site excuse me the MBTA parking lot is actually in the zoning District now that's because that's to make a contiguous District of District d right so it doesn't stop at the MBTA property and then move forward through boms but just to make a note and this is kind of a good example is where you can't the the the land area that's owned by

117the MBTA which is the MBTA parking lot that land area whatever it is call it 500 square feet just for the sake of this conversation that 500 square feet is pulled out of the denominator so that can that land area can't count but the burnhams you but burnhams can be if that's a decision that the town makes Trish Trisha is the the option um that you're recommending option five at this point it's option five or a variation thereof right we feel that this tries to it takes it uses a 100 Chestnut straight which is already in play it uses Cirrus which is already in play and it keeps the lowest density allowed for the I keep going to say ucg is that good ugc um for that site um which is which may go forward

118or may not at this at this point yeah if you pull it up um because it's it's interesting though isn't there an issue because the ugc project is over 55 but it's just zoning so you would just res as long as the zoning is just there but then whatever they build okay just just verify they can build whatever they want to build but it's owned for them to later sell and res rebuild but I do like that concept because I think like from from a community standpoint when we talk about like how we're going to for lack of a better word pitch this to the community that impact you're like okay you know the impact is very not very minimal but relatively minimal and so it's not going to add 1,00 units so like the

119reality of it is is you know obviously it's a zoning exercise but but but it kind of like seeing this is really really helpful because it's it's saying okay this is what the impact could potentially be and so I I kind of agree with you guys on the on the option five I think that's kind of a good same here minimal impact to the community which yeah using Chestnut streets like it's already so so to that point I I think this is a great approach couple things just to be aware of so um you know we're talking about the ugc pro uh project and we're also talking about Cirrus so the zoning doesn't exactly line up with the parcels so you look at at rtda that encompasses part of the ugc um project as well

120and B kind of that project kind of wraps around part of a so it kind of Blends in that's right so there's um there's two development agreements associated with both of those parcels and also a covenant and I think you just want to see if there's any restri restrictions associated with that um you mean the Covenant would prevent us from resoning that could that potentially I'm not saying it would that would potentially prevent us from rezoning it or disqualify it and then I think you also want to look at potential unattended consequences with the ugc parcel because um I'm sorry which area is that well it's kind of like B it's yeah um yeah just because that is in litigation and I think um probably the best way to put it is that it would

121be I think in people's interest for that litigation to be resolved and you know if we look at changing the Zone it might incentivize one of the parties to pull back and put in an application for something even more dense than what is already planned there got it so but no I think the approach is great I think it's just a couple things you got to like the little detail stuff p and I didn't have a chance to to talk about no I think it's you know I think it's that's that's part of the next step is to okay we we've highlighted the locations that's a big part of it we've we've we're running the numbers to the comp the compliance model okay what's the next step well the next step is to do a

122couple things now we got to look at the zoning to say okay how's this zoning going to match up and what what what changes we need what changes do we need to make to make sure we're compliance and if we need to kind of draw a little circle around that project legally I'm sure we can find a few Acres somewhere else like at Pawn Street so to me it doesn't seem like a big deal like I think we just look at the Covenant we we identify the acres and we find them um but I for one thing thing option five is perfect because it gives Ashlin credit for all the hard work we've already done I feel like the MBTA law is like catching up to us we we've been ahead of the curve Ashland

123has done the work already and option five just kind of says we already did this it's a small little tweak um I think the public will be really pleased because we're not forcing density down anyone's throats it's right here it's already in Ashland already and it gives the comprehensive plan process to take a look at all the other space that's not dense yet maybe industrial areas will become fully protected forest for all I know because of global warming whatever the comprehensive plan decides to do they'll do with the spaces we haven't yet veloped so option five seems like a winner to me oh um I do want to be conscious of the time couple so are there other members who have questions or want to give feedback to this uh proposal or this presentation I

124do have just uh a couple of thoughts go ahead thank you the I I agree with just following up with what Anna was saying and and a little bit of what yoland said before the the approach of flexibility makes a lot of sense to me especially especially on uh reinforcing the areas that have been developed because the infrastructure has already been been been developed for for potentially more you know roads and Sewer all kind of infrastructure that would be disruptive somewhere else I I just was thinking when we talked about Pleasant Street and that Industrial Area um I I'm not that sure that would be um a detriment of potentially being open-minded to to a to to a really Redevelopment of the other side of the street knowing that yeah there's single family housing on

125one side so I wouldn't I wouldn't throw that out yet because the the I see it more on the big picture sense the the objective of this resoning is to comply with with this new approach for the MBTA communities but I think it should it should it should be it should Encompass what really will happen to the downtown and I think density makes sense to make the downtown more more vibr and and zones like that I think would help that so I think taking advantage of what we've done is great and I think maybe even pwn Street like and I was saying and I don't know if that you you looked at that but I don't know if if the area including all Shaws and all that all that Industrial Area could be another kind

126of uh node of development just to not just pick and choose some some areas but just to make it have a purpose to revitalize or or improve downtown or create another node of mixed use somewhere else and maybe that flexibility on this option almost helps us in the directions right it's leading you towards that direction right which I think is good yeah we thought the same way um I have a comment I I kind of support the because I think the way this is it is taking advantage of basically our current zoning with tweaks and then the comprehensive plan is fair game for all that stuff and that's a longer term more thoughtful a lot of people already engaged hoping to get more people engaged process which we need for this too which brings me

127to um this isn't a surprise I've said Springtown meeting which gives a chance for so I want to talk about timelines and process to um get to the next steps yeah yeah I I think that's kind of where our last slide was like um Peter will be working with the consultant on on the possible upping from 10 to some other percentage of affordable housing in those in those areas in in whatever areas so that we have permission kind of as a town yeah I guess to rise it up right to to go from if we all like option five with telling the consultant to focus their analysis on option five make their process a little faster so we could get to town meeting the analysis is town is townwide I don't think it s pafic

128it's townwide it's townwide so obviously uh I I think I'll we'll have a better perspective on that next week okay regarding kind of how long you know what what the analysis prioritize option five first in their analysis so that we could have I don't think they just take the the option they look at the town from a from economical standpoint right you know we do not have inclusionary zoning uh however but to continue on to develop affordable housing we want to include it within this this I just wouldn't want that analysis to stop us from taking this to tell me in the spring no I I don't think that's I mean Peter will need will be looking into this more deeply but I think that analysis is about it's about not raising our affordable um

129affordable comp component so high that we're actually pushing away housing maybe you know and and which is obviously what the state doesn't want so the consultant is about helping us find what our number is for our town that's appropriate correct we get 10 but in order to do any more than 10 we have to have but I don't think it's and maybe we'll be corrected but I don't think it's specific to yeah and I think that what Trisha is saying exactly correct is that we can do with 10 a lot of tal are saying let's do 10 but the state saying well if you do if you want 12 back it up and we need to back it up with a report in a study that rkg that we got funding for the grant is

130going to help us out right I guess what I'm saying is if we know we like option five and 10 is what's required then in theory we can start drafting the Zoning for option five with 10 present at a town meeting in the spring and whatever the consultant work that's happening to see if we can do more to me is a very separate issue that may be in the background and if it's ready it's ready if it's not ready it might be ready for the comprehensive plan because it's more about inclusionary zoning and wider UND townwide so I just don't want that effort to slow what I would say is that the effort our effort and from from Alvaro and myself and I and I'll I'll speak for Trish and Joe is that I think

131we're going to continue to meet and move this forward and continue to press on and let the consultant do the economic analysis and move forward with the and acknowledge that we want to include 10% affordable housing and we and and but also have the and move forward to understand the zoning and what changes need to be made at along the same path so both so both items can be done right we can have a zoning article hopefully you know ready and present be able to presented and at the same time an economic analysis will be done your goal is to have both for spring meeting I think our goal is in the town of Ashland is is to press on and to hopefully to work with a consultant to make sure that we have our

132zoning covered now if a if our economic analysis can be on the same time time frame and that we can and and that comes back to say yes you know you have the ab you you're there's the economic health of Ashland can you can mandate 12% affordable housing we would obviously put that into the bylaw right but if it and if that's not done yet I think we are on the path to say we're going to mandate 10% because we know all the other communities are doing it but I think we have AIT better time frame on that after next week and the other thing to understand that the thing will be happening also simultaneously is as I've said that alvro and Peter will be working through the actual documents that you need to submission

133and the actual calculations in which case we expect there'll be some little tweaks along the way and if something comes up that we can't address in this plan then we'll obviously bring it back to the boards to it sounds like the Covenant needs to be reviewed identifi the other thing that could be helpful to this discussion is the next meeting of the Metro West Regional collaborative on Thursday the 30th is all about the NBTA zoning and it's going to be a discussion amongst the communities what are people doing how are they doing it so it could be helpful to hear what other people are doing and I would ask that I don't know if you know Peter you can be there if not Alvaro can maybe not present the slides but certainly give a few

134minute conversation about what we looked at and how we did it so that if other people are not at that level yet they can understand how we did it and what they can do yeah no totally I can you know Alvaro and I do you know plan to attend all the Metro West and and I think uh you know another Kudo is Alvaro because Alvaro has great GIS skills right and so we wouldn't have been able to done do this without Alvaro and Alvaro is GIS skills and so in the gis license which we did which I helped out on I'm not going to lie software licenses is good it's a good thing and and and and we're going through it talk about just next steps here so uh what I want to confir are

135we still aiming for Springtown meeting with something is that the objective or I think at this point I think you you still get to go for spring and and see where it goes and and and continue to press on think about um is what's going to be the public information and input process on this what do what do you folks think you know I think we're still I don't know Trish you can answer that I think the first thing and correct me if I'm wrong but I think the first thing is that we have to run through the numbers and make sure it can be approved by the state because I don't think we want to put something forward at town meeting that actually doesn't work right no I I meant before town meeting talk

136you know reaching out to the public getting input from the public yeah yep so first we want to do is like work through our numbers right work through the the the small scale numbers then I think obviously I don't think we're going to have any forums like before the holidays but to look look for whatever forums that we need to have you know in in the new year but but with the timing so that we can plan on being on the docket for Springtown meeting yeah and and and and Rob I'll say this I think you know about a year ago maybe a year and a half ago um our former Town planner run a great Zoom seminar um on zoning and so I think you know to be able to you know for myself

137and Alvaro to to you know we can develop a kind of a a zoom a zoom night on MBTA zoning and to give this presentation to allow public to kind of have comments and ask questions or submit comments prior to I think we I'm happy to set that up you know as as is through the planning office and indor have a you know uh have a meet you know just have a you know hour with the town planner here in town hall for anybody wants to come in or or ask any questions or or meet at the community center um you know tag along with Michael for coffee with SE I mean if I could information sessions are great but I think the public should weigh in like we seem to all like option five

138that's great um I mean maybe we can have public common today I think there's some value in hearing from the public if they're if they're agreeing with us if they agree with our philosophy if you will to sort of take the density we have and work with what we have was I was going to ask what the sense of the boards are in terms of um you know getting public comment tonight I see we have some people here whether they want to comment or not I'm not sure but are people okay to spend a few minutes getting public comment here tonight or I for me for me it's up to for me it's up to you Rob and your board since uh you have a longer agenda than what we're here for yeah this is

139true so I'm looking at at our members anybody uh maybe we could spend like five minutes getting public comment if there is any I think if we limit it to five minutes I also like the idea that Trisha said that we may all agree on on on option five but if it's not something the state will support no matter how much public input we get that people say oh this is a great idea if the state tells us it's not doable then we may have to come back with information we can do both so I think if we if we allow about five minutes of comment for tonight because we still have another agenda item with the planning board let's raised hands folks out there stop sharing so Joel had his hand Joel our bment

140anyone else right so it could be just Joel all right Joel two minutes if you if that's oh and uh Mark okay two minutes a piece gentlemen two minutes a piece okay are you able to hear me are you able to hear me hear you go ahead all right fantastic a few quick comments first of all I really like a lot of the planning that I've seen going on here so I think you're on a very good track I can't thank Rob enough for calling that we really need a very public process here this could have a very Major Impact on the town and the town residents really need to have an opportunity to be heard uh as far as the presentation I saw so far maybe I missed it but I didn't see option

141one two 3 four five maybe that was in there I just didn't scroll through or something but I don't know what you're talking about when you talk about option five additionally I'm begging you to to change the maps you know you guys all know zoning area A and B and all these letters it would be great if the map showed street names or at least the major streets so that we understand better where we're talking about I was a little bit lost one other comment uh I'll speak the only comment I'm making on behalf of the upper Charles Trail committee we have a route that the select board has seen that goes through either the ugc property or the cus property or around it with some of the negotiations about open space that are going

142on uh please don't leave us out of the discussion if if added housing is going to happen and cus or ugc and it lays over where we need the trail to go we're going to be in big trouble so it would be hopeful if we could be consulted on this early one last really crazy comment and I don't know if this is feasible or out in left field we're all talking about having the Y come in and build a really nice facility right on the MBTA Road pretty near the train station Is it feasible to give them a little extra height and put a layer of hous on top of it or two I have no idea but maybe somebody could take a look at that I can tell you that right now that housing

143would not be a feasibility on top of of the why from a funding perspective and what how they work okay oh and one last very quick question uh if we if we get we do all this analysis we get approval from the state to go to 12% or 20% or whatever number it is does that preclude somebody coming in with a 40b and saying well you Zone them and I'm going to ignore that I don't want to put in all that additional affordable I want to just build what I want to build so I'll do it as a 40b do are we able to protect from that yeah let Peter answer yeah with a 40b Joel so it has to be 25% affordable so it's not like they can come in and do a 40b

144and do no affordable like it has to be 25% okay all right thank you Mark hey thank you Mark 49 WR Mas first first I'm going to say great presentation a lot of hard work has gone into doing this especially for the on the remapping and zoning and the uh the properties the condenses and densities and all that you're trying to work this up to be a understanding of what the MBTA is looking for and what the state's looking for but to understand all this is going to be is going to be the zoning and to be good with it it's got It's going to be uh a little little more tweened so my my question my question is all call what however it comes out is um will will this be if it's going

145to be 20 present for Springtown being yes but will it also be for the town downtown add zodan is that going to be got to be Edge in stone with this hey Mark this is Peter on the town the town planner uh no add all the work that you got that you put in a couple years ago will not be changed uh that would remain the same and that also will go with the uh the the stretch code and the and the other form base and all that stuff yep it it works hand in hand but that stuff still stays the same Arc all right again I I put that R in there in the form base in the form base got P to meeting but attorney general signed off so hope at least I'm

146going hand inand with something that's coming down the road thank you great thank you Mark okay I think that and thank you uh committee uh for your work here it looks really uh very uh good potential so looks like a very doable process I wanted to briefly state that um you know in terms of a formula trying to have discussions about tweaking the formula I'll continue that discussion that leads us to the like the 1100 units or whatever but it it looks like we have a very U doable uh Road even uh without any changes to that so um so that's good so um I'm looking forward to this process continuing so uh and thank thank you all again so the next item with the planning board is the um uh review of the comprehensive

147plan document voted by the select board and planning board and I think this had to do with I mean basically the question of um the role and duties of the project management team and if that was still being done and some questions arose to that and then uh there's been a we have a number of opinions on that so um I understand there was a meeting the planning board and this is a request from the planning board to have this discussion um and so we did forward or did forward the some of the basic documents about the role of the planning board uh the project manager team versus the steering committee and there was U also another document that Anna had submitted about the potential changes to that um so we can get into that

148if if the majority of people want to uh review that but um so so I thought it would just be useful to have that discussion to bring out the different points and see if we could resolve things I understand there was a meeting of the of the project management team earlier today um and also of course the meeting with the planning board so I'm going to turn uh this over to I think Trisha to do a little intro what the planning board uh met about what their concerns uh are in this and then if um you know if there's any update from the uh project management team meeting today we could get into that so Trisha are you uh want to discuss that um sure I can just introduce it briefly um so at our

149meeting um on um October 26th uh Kate and Anna who are are the planning board's representatives to the um not only the project management team but also to the steering committee um sent sent a memo um to the board which which we discussed and there concerns um as part of the comprehensive plan process was feeling that um their role on the um and and they can step in in in a minute to if I don't express this correctly that their role in the comprehensive plan process and as representatives of the planning board um maybe wasn't following the um the agreement that or the document that we had put together as far as what the role of the project management team would be and so um after looking at after hearing their concerns and looking at

150the um the the document the the agreed the the approved document from the select board and the planning board which is in I think October of last year we decided that obviously this was something that the two boards decided on together what the role was and what we had written in the approved document and thus that was something that should be discussed together and not just um not just as the planning board so um so the the new document obviously was not discussed in in front of the planning board um and and so that's that's new the um I believe the meeting um for the um project management group did happen at 4 o' and um I think before we go into that would you mind I mean it might be help people just read

151the relevant section from the original document that talks about the duties of project management team I think I think that's what's sure that's the that's what's under discussion here is that what we're doing or do we want to change it or you no I mean I think that's the primary thing under con under discussion I think when when the comprehensive plan process was formed we obviously I think we all remember it well had a series of quite long discussions um and meetings about this process and we came to an agreement on this document and um it has not been changed since so that document to me would still be um in force as The Guiding document on the role of the group um and relationship to the um the larger comprehensive plan process so I

152do have that in front of me um uh so it describes the project management team um who those members are which is the um two members of the planning board two members of the select board the town manager and the town planner to be selected by their respective boards responsibilities the project management team will be responsible for developing and issuing a request for proposals for consultant services for the plan after an initial round of screening the top three proposals will be reviewed by both the planning board and the select board for discussion and final decision obviously that did happen and a consultant um was uh was um engaged to work on the comprehensive plan with us it continues that the project management team will become a part of the steering committee and will be a

153subcommittee within that larger group as such the project management team will work with Town department heads and staff to collect data and other required information necessary for the work of the steering committee as a part of the steering committee the project management team will also contribute to the responsibilities and tasks of the larger group so that is that is what the the responsibilities we we approved all right and so that the key phrase is about collecting data I guess working with Town staff to collect data that's the only thing that seems to be left in terms of what they're doing uh other than being part of the steering committee is that pretty much that that would be my assessment yes all right so um presume you know hopefully there was a good discussion this afternoon

154so if there's some folks from project management that want to kind of talk a little bit about uh what happened or any resolution uh my understanding is that some of the members uh there a specific example I think was the selection of uh experts and that was done outside of the project management team that's my understanding if that's correct if not I mean I can summize it very briefly we we did meet I think we had an hour a good one hour conversation okay um we certainly were not able to resolve it um the Crux of it I think is that is that sentence Rob that you that you read that begins with as such the project management team will work with Town departments to collect data Etc um and so the interpretation of that

155sentence and whether that sentence maybe should be removed to make it a little bit more cleaner so I think there's some folks on the project management team who who are viewing the project management team as no longer necessary um I think Kate and myself are taking the position that that sentence is why the planning board in part voted for that sentence together with the second sentence and so I think we're at a point of uh we we can't reach a resolution outside of this conversation so um I think it's appropriate to have that discussion in this context The Wider context because we were not able to resolve that right thank you is someone I want to talk about uh I guess the the other I won't say the other side of that but um someone

156in the project management team has an another proposal or a thought on that that we should consider or so I can kind of there's also one other section of that document that we didn't kind of talk about which is sure um under the steering committee when we talk about the responsibilities so the responsibilities of the steering committee it says the steering committee will drive the process by working closely with the consultant cultivating civil Civic engagement liasing with boards and committees receiving reports guiding the project management team and ultimately refining public input and existing data into drafts of the plan so you know I think I think the question is how does this project management team still function we have 29 members of the steering committee um we have two co-chairs um one is on Zoom

157one is here with us today um we have multiple people from um the steering committee also on Zoom as well and you know the committee has um you know I I think the thought of the steering committee the the steering committee is the entity that's responsible for this project and um in in my mind you know the project management team was set up to hire the consultant to um bless you to put together the steering committee and then as a subcommittee of the steering committee to do whatever the steering committee needed us to do um and so but it's always sort of the the project control the project perview was always under the steering committee because I think if you have another group that's doing work that's separate from the steering committee that it it

158undermines the work that the whole steering committee is doing so unless the steering committee says hey you know what project management team we need you to do XYZ I don't feel comfortable thinking that that's someone else's purview versus the steering committee I don't think that I think we have the I think we have the expertise I think one of the issues that we discussed today and what came up was that there was an issue with um identification of uh expert experts right in different areas of the steering committee exactly I think that's I'm hold on just just yep um and I think you know we discussed it and I think that that could have been handled differently I think that that um I think more communication probably would have helped the situation a lot I

159think if the steering committee would have been brought into that decision and given a chance to respond like say if Michael sent an email and said hey these are the people that we've identified as potential JM Goldson came to us asked for experts I've identified these people if anyone has any feedback let me know and I think like that was sort of a missing component of this whole thing and like I will be the first to say it like it wasn't the best way to handle it like how it currently like it could have been handled better um absolutely but we've also had like we're we're hosting this public forum on the second and we have a working group that's been established from the steering committee to work on the the the public forum and

160I think it's worked out really great in fact I've heard like I'm not on the I'm not on the the the working group but I know Kate's done a tremendous amount of work on it I know that there's definitely planning board input within the steering committee um and I think that model can be used for pretty much anything that needs to be done in between steering committee meetings this consultant of ours this is not their first rodeo if we say to them um you know what because we only meet once a month and so it's really it's realistic to think that there has to be work done between meetings because once a month is not going to be is not going to be enough but if we say to Goldson tomorrow because we're meeting tomorrow

161hey you know what is what are what do we need to plan for in the next month to be able to set up working groups like what we did with the the public forum to be able to handle those kinds of requests and come back to the steering committee because I think I think like we we have the mechanism in place to be able to to handle that and and I think to be very transparent to be um to be as Equitable as possible to everyone that's involved in this in this steering committee I think the best way to do it is to be able to have all of those people be have the ability to be involved in things like that so it shouldn't be this one project management group that's responsible for data

162Gathering and doing all the because because what the signal it sends is that there's another group making decisions on behalf of the steering committee so and I don't want to undermine the work that the steering committe is doing because there it's like we're we're really like getting into a really good Groove and I think we have two co-chairs that are working with the consultant that work with um Michael and Peter to set agendas for the steering committee like we have sort of a a a good process in place could that thing with the experts be handled better absolutely like was that a kind of a like oops like we should have done better yeah like but I also think like we have to be we have to want and work collaboratively in this and I

163think and I think like that's that's something that that that could provide is really um so my my personal so my personal thing I think we either edit the document to make sure that the project management team as it stands is kind of at the discretion of the steering committee like explicitly or I actually don't think we need the project management team at this point I don't think that it's I think when we develop this document and I went back and I looked at this and this document doesn't even say the project management team puts together the steering committee like if you read it it doesn't even actually say that and so like and it says 18 to 24 members of the community we're 29 so I think when we put this together we had

164this sort of idea of maybe what it was going to look like um and it's shifted and I think that the project management team has done its job um and I think we need to turn it over to the to the full story Comm committee is my is my take on it so just to try to summarize Brandy you um yeah you're asking for a change to the current document uh given given the page and things like data Gathering you're saying that would come up in the steering committee and they would assign or take part in that kind of decision process is that what uh is that what you're saying there would be a working group established that so if gold son says I need I need people to talk to 25 people on Transportation

165MH there's a working group established four or five members of the steering committee would say I can do that I can interview a few people or I can talk to a bunch of people and then that data comes back to the steering committee all right thank you other other points of view or people that would um want to discuss why they want to keep things the way they are if they are they have a different interpretation of events so one thing I wanted to say in response to Brandy is how much I appreciate um her comment that certain things could have been handled differently as far as the surveys I think that really is great to acknowledge and to say so I appreciate that very much I I will say that the background of this

166is somewhat cloudy for some of us in the room but the planning board on its own had voted for this particular document and and I do believe in Trisha correct me that there was some consensus or consensus at the last planning board meeting that we had that we do remember our vote as a planning board and I I believe confidently that the select board had a separate discussion about the documents so there may be very different interpretations of what happened a year ago um I believe there's consensus on the planning board consistent with the planning board member perspective mine and katees as far as the memo is concerned which is that the way it was looked upon back then is listen we've got three very unique entities we have the select board with its op

167executive uh function in our town we have a separate board entirely that is not connected to the select board called the planning board which plans and has jurisdiction over the comprehensive plan we have our staff who work very closely you know obviously the town manager works extremely closely with the select board um and manages our town in our resources and our budget and these three entities have unique sometimes conflicting views on planning right and what I recall from a year ago was that we we recognized those differences and we knew that we would not always agree but that it would be helpful to put those three views together in a collaborative way to lead some of those decisions that will have to be made on a micro level between each steering committee meeting so that

168ultimately we could deliver to the steering committee for their ultimate decision whatever has to happen between the consultant and the town in between right and even back then we were like wow such a large steering committee is going to have challenges and it's going to be hard to make those decisions in that month between meetings and the whole concept of the project management team was to recognize that division of expertise and and Authority but also support the ultimate mechanism which is the steering committee so I take issue with this idea that the memo Kate and myself prepared is somehow not Equitable um or that it somehow threatens the authority of the steering committee it's meant to support and strengthen the steering committee's Decisions by giving them frankly recommended decisions on behalf of town staff select

169board and planning board I also think this recent event that we all feel bad about is exactly what we were trying to void I think we were trying to void a situation where only one of those entities and only today I learned that perhaps the um the chairs of the steering committee were part of that and that's great um but that was never open or transparent to the steering committee I learned about it at 4 o'clock today right um so to sort of create its own process without transparency is exactly why we had this conversation here go um and so here we are and now we have this conversation of hey this is working the way it is but whatever this new thing is was not what we voted on it was not out in

170the open um and that leaves us with a whole new world right like how do we go from the past to the present and so I prepared a proposed recommended responsibility kind of breakdown based upon Michael's in uh explanation at the planning board meeting that listen there is this administrative group that needs to make decisions between meetings so I kind of reworked our document from a year ago to include the administrative group that Michael indicated was necessary so I'm recognizing that things don't they cannot remain the same we have a new reality on the ground we have an administrative group that Michael's working with I believe uh the chairs are now part of that group and so I am recognizing our new reality even though I don't agree with it I'm because it should have

171happen in a more transparent fashion and I'm saying with this proposed document let's rework what we did from a year ago let's recognize our new reality let's honor the fact that the steering committee should have the ultimate decision and the ultimate authority over any decision let's allow the administrative group The Town manager perhaps the chairs to make those administrative decisions that they need to make quickly such as setting an agenda etc etc um and then let's honor the project Management Group as a resource for the steering committee between meetings and maybe the chair should be on the project management team now maybe that is an appropriate edit um so this is kind of my proposal that recognizes both the past and our current reality can I add some comments Rob just commentary so um I

172appreciate what everybody said and actually went back and and looked at um you know reviewed the pl planning board meeting and I think I think probably what Disturbed me the most um well before I go there I I everybody understands how important the playing board's role is into this whole this whole process this whole plan myself included like it's got to have your mark on it it's got to be part of that and I think where I was the most disappointed was that you were taken you were given one example with which are these interviews and it was like blown up in a way like all of this stuff is happening in the background all of these decisions are being made all of these things are happening and it's simply not the case it's the

173case of interviews which as Briny said and and I will say definitely should have been communicated better but there have been so many other opportunities where everybody including the planning board members have been have given input provided data um Goldson did a survey collecting people's uh hopes and concerns and the thoughts about the plan planning board was part of that Goldson collected data on everybody's affiliations and their connections to people and groups within the community the project M management team was part of that um Goldson did an exercise collecting data on special places like what are your special places here in Ashland the project management team was sitting at that table too they also collected data on opportunity areas I mean these are separate exercises separate opportunities and the project management team was part of

174that also looking at challenges related to com the elements of the comprehensive plan project management team steering committee all people have been a part of that and then focus groups even on the challenges related to elements of the comprehensive plan um you know I think you know we've all had a part in that including the planning board and the project management team so I just I don't I think the planning board might have walked away from that with the with the conception that multiple decisions were being made behind the scenes when we're really talking about a case of a set of interviews and deciding experts who would be who would be interviewed as part of focus groups and making it sound like that was happening in other areas throughout the plan so I just wanted

175to add my comment about that and just maybe reframe that all right thank you Michael um if I if I if I may yeah who's that I can't see marel Marcelo Marcelo go ahead yeah yeah thank you I was at the last meeting and and and I remember I was trying to to listen because I I I read the memo and and I'm not going to look at the document that is new today but of course we came to that meeting with with a concern because uh the idea that that Kate and Anna were being sidelined of course understand didn't sound right and I and I listened to to your presentation and to Brand this and I listen today and I'm I think my my my understanding of the problem has not really changed I

176think we we we we think that has been um expressed maybe maybe there's a discrepancy between what happened and the interpretations of what happened and I I I have to say I I I'm I'm concluding that that that the the the item that could have been handled better is is is uh is has been recognized and can be uh I think the group I'm sure can make sure that doesn't repeat or likely will not repeat reading the document that that that was approved I I truly don't see what needs to be changed if if the streaming committee is going to retain The Authority which is clear here and the project management group is going to be accessory to it and helping on whatever tasks the steering committee needs I I I I wonder if if

177if there's that if that one case is is is is kind of sidelining the the task of the two or the two groups to really help the consultant do the job because I agree I mean the the work is not done with just this you know all these Authority uh kind of situations where who says what and I I I just I'm I'm coming out of this meeting just not not seeing really what the problem is maybe I'm just being too simplistic I think that as groups if there's something that was handled poorly and that can be improved let's do it and if if I mean there's so much work to be done I I truly I I'm a little lost on the need to to expand a problem that seemed to be more accidental

178than substantial and I I I think the substance really hasn't changed on this document or the new one for that matter so I think um I I think if someone took that as like a big problem that was just a very good illustration so I want to be clear that I did not try to make it I think it was just a good example but the reality is when I personally voted for this and I am sure you all remember that I made sure it was voted because this was very important and some of those language was very important so what I recall that I when I voted for this was we had worked hard with several meetings with the groups to say three groups are collaborative and the groups were the planning board the

179select board and town staff and that was to be collaborative and transparent so what what I learned today of having um steering committee members part of that was I'm on the steering commit I've been to every meeting and I really didn't know that and that's that's sort of inan keeping so what what I understand is work has to happen in between there's no way it can't it doesn't have to happen I think we all know when we voted for this that 29 people were not going to be available to make decisions in between so there's essentially decisions making in between for a group that's not represented in this document let's let's acknowledge that I think that's sort of what you're saying and what Ann was explaining is we can get there by recognizing that but

180personally not having the planning board as part of the interim group that's managing decisions and they the decisions ultimately should be always going to the steering committee that didn't happen in this case so we'll improve that but I I don't have confidence of some of the conversations that we're going to get to that's what I want that's what I voted for I think that's what the planning V voted for so we just have to figure out what's the mechanism the new group is it the leison group and who's in it TR can I add a very brief comment in response to to Kate's it just prompted me to asked question so to me it's also like okay decisions have to be made in between that ultimately need to go back to the steering committee communicated

181the steering committee can make the ultimate decision why is it that Kate or Anna cannot be part of that is there something that went off the rails there where someone decided in the process that that was no longer necessary and I do ask at some point and I don't need the answer today but what went wrong where that was no longer a trusted step but see I don't know so sorry an I like to say something to at some point yeah I I I'm just I'm not sure if that's necessarily accurate because we've got a good template we've got that shows that you are part of it I mean we have a working right no I think you decided that an and Kate as planning board members could just be on the steering committee and

182that it would be better to have kind of a more efficient decision making in between without us as the second chair I'm gonna I'm going to jump in here because this this and I'm sure Rob agrees with me that this is not going to be a back and forth between anyone so I I have one thing to say and then I'm going to turn it over to to Claudia um and Rob feel PR no I think that's good let's let's hear from people we haven't heard from okay um my view on this is that I am going to keep going back to the document we agreed on and in that document the the project management team has basically fulfilled its duties I do think there is a strong case to be made that in the

183case of the of the experts um that that should have been done differently and still can be right there is no reason whatsoever that we can't add 20 more experts to that list that are chosen through the steering committee you don't think that's true we can talk to his I assume no so so Goldson does the focus groups and the interviews and they have like a set number of people I can certainly go and ask them hey can we do redo the list again I I think that would be a valid question I think uh you know so I think there there can be certainly has to be flexibility in their process right um before just saying it can't be done um so that might need to be something that be some that can be

184tweaked or corrected that other people can have a voice as well which I think is the point of the comprehensive plan process right so so that's one thing I think there's a valid point there the second thing is that I think this particular working group the tip the the current membership of the um project management team I'm going to say this bluntly simply does not work it is not a cohesive group it is not productive I don't think it adds to the comprehensive plan process if this was a different group if this group was cohesive collaborative easily worked together that might be a very that might be an asset to the comprehensive plan plan process right now I don't looking at what I know about these meetings over the past year I do not think

185that has been the case and I fear for the health of the comprehensive plan process if if that continues that said I also agree that there's going to have to be there has to be things that are going to have to happen between um between steering committee meetings and that process can yet be worked out I mean if I'm correct me if I'm wrong but I believe believe the consultant came on board in September and the co-chairs came on right about the same time so really we've there's been a total of maybe two or three meetings so certainly there's going to be bumps in the road and other things that need to be worked out okay so here's a question we have stuff that needs to happen between meetings oops didn't think about that so

186let the steering committee figure it out I don't think Anna and Kate have been left out if they have been left out Brandy and Yolanda seem to have been left out of this expert process as well as far as I know right so everyone is left out um so let's just start start a little bit the Comm the steering committee is already fresh we we're still starting fresh here and just to summarize a few things that came at the during the um planning board discussion on this from from our from our members was that from Marcelo assume good intentions right assume good intentions and it's really hard to do day after day hour after hour to do that it's very hard but we have to keep working on it number two came from Deepa communication

187communication communication right that everything is clear and transparent through communication and that needs to be perfected as well and I think for me was about get all the information have all the conversations make all the phone calls ask all the questions before assumptions are made about something read all the data and then come to a conclusion and I think if we put these three basic things which should be basic workings for any group as a priority I think the steering committee and all its members which include six members at this table can be very successful uccessful Claudia their thoughts yeah Claudia go ahead thanks Trisha that uh that was uh helpful so you know I just want to say a couple of things based on you know I came on after all this was in

188place and so I feel like sometimes I have a real Community member perspective um and as a community member my perspective is really that we have a steering committee of 29 people and I want to make sure that they're there and that they are making the decisions that they're the ones who have stepped forward who you know we we want um they're good representatives of our community and we want to make sure I don't want any members of the select board any members of the planning board sort of filtering any any decisions that the steering committee ultimately makes and I know Kate you and I have talked about right how important Community input is and how strongly we believe in that that was the overwhelming um aspect of of in the whole hiring process that

189everybody was looking for was was this group was looked like they were the best at at Community engagement and so and then so I mean does the management team could it function the way we have maybe the way it was intended to function um but I guess you know really as Trisha said it's not doing that and so I I'm really concerned about everything moving forward and I think okay why not have have the a working group from within the steering committee that goes off and and does some of these things if there's a there's things that need to be done in between um is isn't that something that that Michael could work with and if if we needed if it needed to go back to the steering committee and pull some people or to

190the chairs of the steering committee and pull some people as a working group at that point wouldn't would that that be uh a possible idea but um you know the thing that I don't want to see as a member of the slick board as a citizen I don't want to see this whole process get derailed because you know we can't you know work collaboratively and that's not anybody in particular or anything else it's you know we all sometimes struggle in different roles and uh and and we don't always function at our best or can't make it work with other people so I I just want to move this forward and um in a positive fashion and certainly I value the time and the energy and the um members of the steering committee and and what

191they bring to the table and you know I sure wouldn't want to lose any any one of them so I I agree I mean that's exactly the issue to me is the collaborative and the transparent and what I can say it's nice to say that but like the four the agenda is for the four meetings that we've had are Michael and Brandy Michael and brandy or town staff and like there wasn't a decision to get rid of the project management team there wasn't a decision to I was never asked about if we had things to present in fact I did have things to present that it they either get voted on or not that's okay but like we we didn't like it's not what you're saying is great and to from my perspective it's absolutely

192not happening and I know it can happen but to make it um to minimize that is not going to solve this and so that that's that's where we're at right like what you're saying is true and I would love to see that happen and I do not see that currently happening but I just um other there other members uh that haven't spoken that have um that want to speak about this um then we can kind of raise out what we have issues to decide any who want and then just before I mean I know Joe has his light on that we have to decide how much do we want to allow the public to speak because there's a few people on Zoom that um have raised their hands to participate oh they have okay I

193I'm not seeing them but they haven't used the raised hand function they've just literally rais oh there's Roberta okay so planning border yeah hold on Rober just we're we're gonna do members of the boards First of and then we'll go to the steering committee members um I'll just jump in here um after hear during kind of the conversations here it feels like at least going back to reading all these papers um to me in my head I think back then the project Management's main goal was to recruit the Consultants kind of look at through the RFP process and then they become part of the steering committee and if the 28 29 people how many you have in your steering committee are at a point where there's a roadblock that that they don't know how to

194go forward then they reach out to the project management group as a guidance because as planning board as folks have wearing planning board hat or select board you have that expertise that you can probably help navigate the 28 28 people from that roadblock and get them out I think that's how I saw the project management role it feels like we're complicating this a little Beyond and I'm kind of torn between what Brandy said and what Anna said because I somehow agree with what Brandy said because if the project management team is making all the decisions what is the steering committee's work right we recruited these 28 people saying we want the voice of the community we want that widespread we don't want that to be a town hall decision we want the community to participate

195but if project management team is starting to control even data collection it's it's like I I'm just surprised why we yes we want to be part of the data collection but we shouldn't be the group the project management team should not be the group for data collection because it doesn't make sense of the 28 people like for example this sentence here says steering committee needs data that's what they are there for they are the ones who are going to collect data and then if they have a roadblock the project management irrespective how many members you are are going to guide them if if there is a challenge in that but it doesn't make sense to have a separate agenda going on for the project management team which feels like it's very counter in it doesn't

196make sense at all because Ste I ask just to just to clarify what you're saying though I think one of the things that came up was about administrative or other data collection decisions that occur between meetings of the steering committee and and then how is that being handled so I think that you know so Brandy for example suggested that that be replaced with talk discussing things at this at this steering committee so how would you handle you know that kind of change if you're saying there's no longer a project management team what would be the mechanism because I think that's that's what the issue as far as I could tell became like what about these administrative are somewhat uh data you know certain tasks were being done um outside of this you know between the

197steering committee so that's the question I'm surprised that there are intermediate Milestones between the steering committee that they need guidance every now and then which feels like the steering committee is the one which should be drawing the data from the project management it seems like it's not supposed to be the other way around and if it is happening that way where steering committee is doing work for 15 days and then comes back to project management says can we go forward and then it goes back it feels like something is not making sense sense to me I'm not sure there has been no project management committee with planning board so just to be clear there has been just so we're clear the original document has a sentence that the project management team will work with Town

198heads and staff to collect data and other required information necessary for the work of the steering committee it doesn't say the original document does not say that the project management team makes decisions right so I agree with you the ultimate decision is going to be with the steering committee per original document the thing is when you're Gathering data you have to decide how to do it right so there's a micro decision that has to be made hey the consultant says you got to pick two experts per category that's a micro decision right so who makes that decision you can't just throw another meeting of the steering committee onto an agenda because that happens once a month you have a limited amount of time you're the consultant you've got three four months to to gather all

199of your data you got to do it quick in between meetings who's going to make that call the consultant calls staff right needs that data logically someone has to actually decide who those experts are that's a micro decision that someone makes so realistically who's going to do it the way this was noted was that the project management team would help make that happen and deliver it back to the steering committee the steering committee is the ultimate deciding Force so this idea that the project management team somehow takes over decision- making I don't see it in here I really don't okay other um we there's some folks we haven't heard I have I have something quick to say and I'm not part of this process which is unfortunate um but I was part of a larger

200process as was uh Rua sulman and we're on the charter Review Committee it took us 5 years to get this project done I don't see how this entire group of 30 some odd group of individuals will get this comprehensive a plan done short of 5 Years it'll be done if if there's in if there's internal issues right now that are bogging down this process we have we have to put our big boy pants on and we have to swallow our pride we have to look for the community because that's why you folks got all involved in this because it's a town project we want to see our town be better and this this project is going to help make that happen so you don't put me first put the town first as far as I'm

201concerned that's what I got involved in 12 years ago when I said I want to make it make the town better um we started out with one meeting a month we ended up with 574 meetings we've had in 5 years it was more than one month a meeting and I think that's something you folks need to consider as well because if you're Gathering all this data and you made a comment about micro decisions you take that micro decision process away because you have more meetings and you provide that and with respect to the agenda not having we ourselves when when I when our chairperson sets a an agenda setting meeting we all have the ability to put something down in an email and send it off to them so that becomes part of the agenda

202is that not happening with you folks that then that's damn I'm I'm asking a question cuz if it isn't it should be from perspective I can say that hasn't been happening when we had some meetings early we actually left the room with the 29 people had made an agenda and then somehow that sort of got morphed away and we I mean I I'll be honest some of these things just have to get like you said bumps in the road right we had a process that got blown up and we didn't reestablish a new process okay but I think Joe I I'm with you this is standing up for the most transparent possible process with the public right that's where I'm at so I think I think probably everyone wants the same thing it has different

203perspectives and we haven't solved it but for me to have a limited group of people who isn't transparent making decisions between isn't what I signed up for and I think that the result that I think you need to have more meetings and I know nobody wants to hear that but unfortunately I think that's the only solution to this issue meetings in my mind in my mind and that's that's all I have to say Rob so yeah what were those meetings who would be doing the meeting do you mean the project manager team the steering committee I don't know rob you actually have the chair one of the chairs two chairs both well I know but one's actually raising her hand to I'll that in a moment but I just had a question yeah we'll get

204we'll get to them Michael don't worry um so but I just wanted to ask Joe to CL when you say more meetings he means the steering committee the steering committee rather than once a month it could potentially mean twice a month but can we do she had what's that Yolanda can we do Roberta had her hand up as we were having part of this discussion let's her let her speak and then we can have registry speak yeah is that who is that is that all the speakers from outside the Committees and I just wanted to make sure everybody on the planning board and the select board said what they wanted to say so I see Joel's raising his hand as well all right well we'll get started with the public comment if people could just

205and I think Mark as well so before we get into that I just want to propose a process or to have people think about a process it seems like we've heard like three different courses of action today one is um uh you know like Marcelo said leave the document as is and pay a little more attention to it and you know be be more careful about communication uh the other one was an and Kate wrote a new document trying to clarify and make things different which we have to spend sometime either now or later looking into that and the other was bry's suggestion is that we kind change what's going on with the uh project management team completely and move basically those functions sounds like to the steering committee with the steering committee then taking

206on those functions so those are the three things I choices tonight we can either do nothing or in start the process of instituting changes in One Direction or another so I'm just going to throw that out is my thinking as we get into this public comment um because we've got to try to resolve what the heck we're doing here tonight so um so uh Yolanda who was the first do you want to recognize someone Roberta please okay go ahead thank you thank you very much I'll try to be brief and I want to thank Joe for bringing up the charter review um memories that I had long [Laughter] since um just a peon on the steering committee but I just want to say what it looks like from my view of the bridge as somebody

207who just goes to the monthly meetings and isn't a part of the project management team or setting any agenda or whatever um it's not feeling very good and I have to say that there are other people from the committee and members of the public who come up to me unsolicited and said that they're not feeling so great about it either right now um it feels like people are working across purposes it feels like groups are pushing their own special their own particular interest um it feels like the project management team was there one minute now it's all of a sudden not needed anymore so who is indeed making decisions in between the steering committee's monthly meetings and not involving the steering committee not involving project management it appears to be Town staff and and it

208appears that to be and I'm not trying to be insulting or start any kind of problem here but what it looks like is that it's the town staff particularly the town manager working with the two Representatives on the select board and that that it's morphed into being primarily a planning board purview project project to having moved into the corner office and being um a process and a project that's being driven in that way and steering committee members right now as as one who's who's waiting for something to do I'm feeling very Superfluous and a lot of people are sitting there at those meetings and when we walk out to the parking lot they're going what did we just spend two hours doing we're not getting anywhere we're not moving along we don't have a lot

209of time to do this so that's really frustrating and I think if communication is constantly a problem in projects that we do in town and I think it's one thing to keep saying we can do better but if we can do better why aren't we doing better let's just do better so we can stop apologizing for not doing better and I understand an occasional glitch everyone makes a mistake I get that but it seems like we're spending more time explaining habitual problems that keep occurring over and over and over again and just frustrate people and my final comment is I can say a couple of things that I've experienced directly that make me feel like the steering committee is at this point Superfluous um manager a discussion of the vision statement wound up being put

210on the being discussed at an agenda meeting and one of the steering committee members had to remind the person bringing it up that it was a violation of open meeting law because it was not on the agenda and and that person bringing it up wanted to have a vote on the vision statement and was pushing for a vote I drafted a mission statement that I circulated to people and the next thing I knew the next time we were discussing a mission statement mine wasn't even really there the way I had I had presented it it had been changed and not changed by the steering committee changed in between meetings by somebody and then presented as Roberta's mission statement the whole idea of having co-chairs we we agreed by consensus to have rotating co-chairs for the

211first couple of meetings until we all got to know each other and then all of a sudden at the next meeting it was okay we we're going to decide on co-chairs today like at our second meeting when we didn't even know each other or it might have even been our first meeting the survey is yet another example so it's not just the survey it's been repeatedly happening people are getting frustrated and are not um feeling productive and something's got to change so with having the project management group reactivated meeting in between the regular big meetings of the whole steering committee to help make these decisions and then make sure the steering committee all knows about them will prevent that from continuing to happen then I don't what the problem is with getting that group back

212back to a regular meeting schedule all right thanks Roberta who do you have next to um I'd like to ask Raja Shri one of the co-chairs and I just want to make one statement back to Roberta regarding the co-chairs and the rotating co-chairs so I missed the first meeting where it was decided and it was at least three or four meetings in where we kept asking other people if they wanted to be co-chairs and no one else stepped up and then finally at I think it was our August meeting or even our I think our August meeting was when we finally decided because no one else had stepped up to be a rotating co-chair and we knew the consultant was coming on a majority of the members of the steering committee supported making registry and

213Stacy their permanent co-chairs but absolutely right Yolanda no one else wanted to do it but it was several meetings before that that someone was trying to undo that I understand that but it didn't happen so even though it was brought up it did not happen we kept asking for new co-chairs and then finally no one wanted to do it and rry and Stacy were finally appointed at like meeting four or five so anyway rry so um for those of you who I'm meeting the first time I'm rajashri and I've lived in Ashland for about 17 years and I've been in the community for 10 years um so there's that history about me um and I walked into the comprehensive plan because you chose me so uh and also I was interested in doing something good

214for the town and I'm not the only one in in our team we have several people with extreme amounts of talent who want to do good about this town um and I sincerely disagree with what Roberta said about mission statement about the processes um people have been collaborative people have talked in different ways everybody needs to have a voice and not just two people on the project project management team Stacy and I have worked really really hard on this team so that everybody gets a voice some people are not able to speak up because two voices are louder than most and so not just twatting offensive comments but also to do the work that we came here to do and so we've kept the focus on the work when the consultant is asking for data

215I'm not the one who has the data we have to go back to the town I don't have data on traffic I don't have data on on uh say police force something I would have to ask the staff what kind of data do I have I can help coordinate and and that's the case with most people on the on the uh comprehensive steering committee that they can contribute in different ways to the better of the Town um we've participated in various group sessions that gosen has organized for us um which make us get to know each other more and more uh because many many of us have not been in the same circles in um in in in the in town but we're getting to know each other for instance Roberta was in my group

216and I got to know so much of her um when when we were in a group last time so our Focus has been how to take this plan forward um and so if if you're having a meeting we're ensuring between steering meetings that the agenda is set that the documents are sent out um that everybody knows what to do um and so working groups we've just developed the working group in the last uh meeting about um you know about the town forum and Kate is part of it and she she sent a wonderful report which is going to be discussed tomorrow so I don't understand why this can can't be sorted so that we can look forward um we really need to focus on this and keep these extraneous power politics outside of the planning

217process thank you all right thanks Roger you got somebody next y so Mark please keep it brief into the point mark thank you okay thank you Dr Sony am planning going to meeting tomorrow night as an observer and as a as a meeting veteran and being involved communication two-way street compromise understanding is all that needs to be getting going to make a committee and a group work the St the the plan board the select board the staff is that is that um two-way street to make Communications and understanding going for the rest of the group excuse me and if the communication breaks down there's going to be a clog a big p up in the two-way street and negotiation goes on for ever and ever and no understanding then this is how what happens people

218working together especially in a big group like this I I I'll come down to the very at the very beginnings of this and be very brief when you had the interviews and you voted for people to be there uh who's going to be in the who's who's going to represent East board for this I I was saying to myself you got two select boards two two plan boards and it's going to be 20 plus different mindsets that's going to be doing that's going to be in one big group and they're all going to be thinking differently because it's because they're not all doing ESP and not knowing what everybody else is thinking so that's part that's part of my two-way street part of the theory is all that understanding and the big Power when negotiation

219compromise and everything and this is for a town yes and I applaud um Joe there about the with the Childer example that it's it takes takes small than whatever the pointed years is going to be there for to be to be understanding and going with this is you got to understand people you got to work with people and you have to have people work with you so the discussion that was before the public was open for the back and forth and everything bury that to the into the background before it gets to one of these open public steering meetings and give the steering committee and everybody went as the meeting goes before gets gorized have them all equipped with everything they need for information and things that staff can give to all the members not

220just the chairman and all but every single one so they can follow and understand everything thank you thank you Mark Joel would it be possible to defer to Stacy because she's a a co-chair and I could if you would like to do that we would appreciate it thank you Joel I I would love that thank you thank you Joel um I'm Stacy Grant Lewis I'm a co-chair with Regester on the steering committee I've lived here for going on six years so I realize in comparison to many of you I'm still a newbie here um what the beauty of being a newbie here is that I don't have a lot of the history that many of you have with each other I'm hearing some of these situations for the very first time and I can only

221tell you from my perspective from day meeting one I'd say meeting two it became clear that there is an innate mistrust TR between certain members of our committee um and those people happen to be the most vocal on our committee uh I think that there is an assumption or many assumptions being made that are negative that we are somehow working behind the towns back um that we are not uh transparent or participatory or just very negative assumptions that honestly have taken tell her she M you hit mute you got to unmute yourself Stacy we lost Sor about that I I'm sorry about that but I was just saying that personally and I know I can speak forestery that we're very taken aback by the assumptions that we're uh doing anything on to for against the

222against the town against the the steering committee when that's not true our only goal has been forward progress much of our work is clerical um it's making sure that everybody has all the information that they need and as most of you stated it was 29 people and so many documents floating around there are going to be hiccups um we're just getting into the meat and potatoes of the the the work with JM Goldson so they're going to be um issues that we can work through however I don't think that we have to reinvent the wheel each time something happens that's um unpleasant or um not pleasing to certain members of the committee I do think that there are ways to be flexible and more collaborative because we really have a fixed number of meetings we

223really do and we're trying to make this happen in less than five years right so um that's that's all I want to say I I I I do disagree with this idea that uh we are not transparent that we are doing things behind people's back or any of that kind of Imaging is not true it's not true and I think that it's a simp Le if if if more communication is needed willing to do that willing to do what's best for Ashland and when I can tell you that we talk to each other as steering committee members and small groups everybody wants to be there there are people there with small infants there are people there with sick uh spouses we are there because we want to work and help Ashlin and be collaborative um

224we also have people there who are very quiet because they feel drowned out they don't have a voice and they don't agree with some of the things happening and they come up to R and I and say we are being basically B uh bulldozed because you know we're just hemmed up in this process and it's ridiculous that we can't move forward and we need help from the select board just to organize so I I I just I that's all I have to say thank you for your time thank you Stacy Joel and then Michael well let's let's comment on a few things that have been said uh I just heard Stacy use the word that some members feel bulldozed and then she also said that they're trying to be as transparent as they can be

225well people who feel bulos don't feel that the process is working the way they would like to see it and they have concerns that's what they're expressing uh we need to do better uh we also have uh situations that uh it's not I I just want to be very clear about this this is not mistrust and accusatory and somebody has a bad agenda that's going to harm the residents of ashlet let's get rid of that kind of nonsense I don't think anybody is saying that what we're saying is what some what I've heard is that there are concerns that the process whether people have an agenda or they don't have an agenda whether they're dedicated it to benefiting the town or they're not the problem is that the that what we're discussing Rob laid out

226the the alternatives for this discussion are we going to be more inclusive or less inclusive what we're hearing is and I don't have the data I'm not sitting in any of these meetings but uh someone made the statement that that uh Mike Herbert and staff and Brandy to some degree and it's not a question of saying that they're doing anything that's har ful to Ashland but that that may some are raising the issue that the process has not been as inclusive as it might be and I just want to emphasize something we voted for the planning board we being a I I'm not on the steering committee or on the comprehensive plan committee at all many feel that's a good thing uh so we voted for planning board members it was a democratic process we

227voted for the select board members as a resident I didn't vote for anybody as a steering committee member or as a comprehensive plan Committee Member it was not a public vote so now uh we we had as I thought it was originally defined uh some definition that our representative board members from the planning board from the select board would play a key role not the ultimate deciding the steering committee uh would have the ultimate Authority but that elected boards would play a very key role in ensuring the greatest possible inclusiveness and transparency and I worry and I'll be very specific about this uh uh this is the point that I think Anna and perhaps Kate were making you start choosing data collection experts I worked for 30 years in systems analysis and data that's what

228I did for work and if you get certain people with certain certain views not views that are necessarily bad views or harmful views but they have their own biases and you limit your data collection process to those people you are going to get skewed data you're not going to get a democratic representation of the information you collect and toward that end I guess this I'll make this my last Quick comment I really don't like I I I would like to know very explicitly who picked all of these so-called experts you know I I understand they were interviews who did the interviews where were the interviews qu questions generated from who in the community was aware that these interviews were taking place could I have applied to be interviewed could could I have recommended somebody to

229be interviewed or what did somebody make that decision and who made the decision and so I would really appreciate it if we could get rid of the term expert which connotes or denotes to the public that these people have more knowledge and skill than the general public and maybe just call them a data collection facilitator they're not experts they're not better than any Community member they're just helping the data collection process and that's a nice thing bottom line to this I don't understand why uh if as Anna and Kate have stated repeatedly they had they should have had more input to the process not to make a final decision but rather simply to be able to share their thoughts I don't understand why there is so much contention here and an an effort to silence

230their voices as an El as elected board members in the process thank you very much thank you Joel Michael sure um thank you um Roberta first of all thank you for your candid feedback and I appreciate um I of course I did disagree with a lot of it but I appreciate uh appreciate what you said but I'm curious like what decisions do you think are being made behind the scenes because I think rry and even Stacy will tell you even like in agenda settings I try to be pretty hands off because I'm worried about this perception that I that myself or Pete or together were like running this whole thing but I'm interested to know what kind of question or what kind of decisions you think are happening in the background I think he's looking

231for an answer Roberta so just well I G I gave some examples of things that didn't seem quite part participatory to Me Kate and Anna gave other examples I don't know if you want to take everyone's time to go through all of it now I could tell you like I really had very little to do with the vision statement and the mission statement um I Michael there's so many like small examples like the one I'll give you is how we're going to set the agenda so I think the steering committee early on there was consensus I recall either the first or second meeting that it would be the steering committee itself that would directly set the agenda there was some discussion that maybe it should be Town staff or yourself there was disagreement about that

232issue and then it just kind of disappeared and it it appears today we're learning for the first time at least I am because I actually did not know until about 4:30 this afternoon that the I knew from one of the chairs of the steering committee that they were involved in some administrative tasks yeah but I did not know until 4:30 that they may have been involved in some of those survey type of decisions so that is example number two so those are two direct examples where the steering committee did not decide that you would be setting the agenda behind the scenes or or that anyone would be setting the agenda that was never discussed at the steering committee um or that um or the second example I shared I I I don't either to the

233microphone do we have who else has left to speak can I can I make a suggestion hold on hold on I I appreciate everyone's input I appreciate the discussion um Rob made a point he's right there there's three possible courses of action I don't know that as a group we're going to get to one of those points at this time at a reasonable hour so my current recommendation is we put the I don't know go ahead talk I just wanted so you know I I agree with Rob that there's three kind of taxs to take with this um and I think that we at least need to I think if we if we punt this completely off we're going to have this exact same discussion again next time and I'm like the circular arguments are

234exhausting okay so like and I get everybody's perspective and I appreciate everybody's comments um I do think we need to see if we can come to a Consensus These two boards created the project management team these two boards can make the decision to change the role of the project management team or to um or to to dissolve it and so I am going to go out on a limb and whether I have support or not Rob and then okay Rob what did you want to add well I just wanted to so um let's hold so Brandy it sounds like you're preparing to make a motion is that true yes okay so hold on a second so um you know I just I just I do want to say that you know I I uh know

235and respect every every single person in here and there's a lot of good intentions here and a lot of hard work and I I have uh appreciated some of the Frank discussions and I think you know there's a you know we can all learn from this um and hopefully you know move on with this kind of Consciousness I think some legitimate issues were raised and has been recognized on different aspects of this so before we go into the decision Mak yeah I do want to just review that we one of our options is to do nothing and to agree that folks would agree to pay a little more attention to the source docum and being more sensitive to the issues that have raised to me that's a kind of a straightforward way to go um

236Anna's and Kate's uh proposal is also I think has Merit but is you know something we as as Yolanda said would take some time to review and I think bry's going to ask for a pretty strong change here so we just have to keep that in mind so I will um uh in terms of is there any more further discussion before before we go on to trying to resolve what we're doing here amongst the board members questions or thoughts all right I'm I'm not seeing any um so uh among the the board members here I guess we'll all vote together if that's appropriate Trisha any issues with that issues I need I guess Yolanda to count the votes but so I would suggest if there's a motion uh does anyone have a motion to resolve

237this amongst I think those three Alternatives or thoughts on I think Brandy was about to make a motion before I go ahead so so my motion is going to be that at this juncture given the work that the steering committee is doing and um with the with the understanding that the steering committee will work to resolve the issues between meetings and um come up with a solution to be able to have these working groups to be able to handle the the interim issues that possibly come up with the help of the consultant who is a expert in doing comprehensive plans um I think that the work that the project management team has done has been great I think we did what we were charged to do and I think that um to be as Equitable

238and as transparent to the steering committee as possible which I think is our um our goal I'm going to make a motion to dissolve the project management team um and I'm going to start with that hey is the motion's been made is there a second second okay so Claudia seconded so I guess um we're gonna have to raise hands or Yolanda will you do the counting for both is there isn't there usually opportunity for discuss now that we had a motion in a second we should allow discussion okay sure go ahead any discussion or in or thoughts BR my sorry sorry you sure make sure you're speak in a microphone my only this one is before we think about dissolving I think it's really critical to understand the consultant's Viewpoint to understand how the different

239teams are going to help them get to the final goal post right it's one thing is what the town wants but I think it's really critical because they are kind of shaping this whole process for us to really understand what support they need it feels like we should have that informal conversation with the Consultants to really check does it make sense to dissolve it or is it just improving communication that we could give it one more try before dissolve it but that's my okay other thoughts marel and then Anna oh Trisha then Marcel then Anna um I think that's an interesting thought that that Deepa had because um as I as I stated before I I also think that the the project Management's role is basically complete except as Guided by the steering committee to

240take other actions or to take on other test that's what the approved document said that said as I said earlier I'm just I do not have confidence that the current project management team can act effectively in any tasks or or problems they are given to work out I don't think there's a history of that so that's my dilemma so I also like what uh DEA just just said but the I I think what what what I'm hearing kind of reinforces the my thought that the the the original document I think it's still a good guide and I think the consultant definitely should opine on on on the process moving forward but if at every juncture let's say next month or the month after we're going to have to start voting for modifying documents to because

241a new situation arises this is a circle that is is never going to close I think it's easier to these document has a steuding committee that can make a decision for for all the big big items and has a a a part of its working groups the project management team what is wrong with that if if there is a role for the project management team that the studing committee has then assign that task just like this says is is is it completed a task but now it becomes just another of its arms of its tools the the the the the idea that that start changing documents or or or or and and I I personally don't don't second the idea of just simply say oh let's dissolve it the idea that is there as as

242a tool for the sharing committee is not harmful if the sharing committee decides that there's some use for it so dis solving up just just because doesn't seem to make sense to me I I I think we we are going in a circular circular argument that that is just going to create another storm in a glass of water I I I just don't see the the the use for it so Marcel to your point my question is that is I I I think if the steering committee is in charge and they're saying okay I I need a working group or I need to go to the ask we need to go to ask the project management team to work on this that's fine it's but to me it seems as though it's been the project

243management team that's been then making a decision and then it's coming down the other way so um you know and and to Trisha's point you know I'm concerned too about how it moves forward um and and functions without ultimately having a very negative impact because I'm in the community and I hear things from people who were on the steering committee as well and it has not been a process that um right now that they're wanting to be a part of Anna so um you know I've been thinking a lot about this listening to everyone and what I'll say is you know as someone who went to all the project management team meetings I will say that we had many disagreements um but I disagree with the notion that we were not productive or that somehow

244we cannot do the work in fact I think our disagreements led to really good decisions and we got probably one of the best consultants in the state as a result of that hard work so I strongly disagree with that idea that this particular project management team failed in some way I think we are actually Sur perbly strong team and our disagreements make us that strong that's how we got this incredible consultant that's number one number two is we have an associate member who attended many of those meetings and had a lot of positive things to say about them at our last planning board meet planning board meeting and so I think Amanda our new associate member should be part of this conversation at some point because she is a an objective I think witness who

245was there and who spoke very highly of our work um and the last thing I'll say is it's not uh typical for this town to have such an active planning board and I understand that that makes certain people uncomfortable because Kate and myself absolutely have very very strong views of planning and we do have certain expertise to bring to the table so for example the notion of who is an expert in our community on land use absolutely planning board has very strong views about that because we deal with with those kinds of issues every single planning board meeting um so we have a very very vital role to play the last comment I'll make is that the more vigorous the process the more we disagree the better our decisions are and if we can work

246through this we will be very proud of at the end of an excellent comprehensive plan thank you uh Yolanda can I is there anybody left can I say something I was just about to ask any other comment or discussion Joe no go ahead Rob um yeah just to you know before we go to this vote you know I I do want to support the kind of idea of working with what we've done I we did identify there was a project management team it would have certain role that role has been a little vague I think we've had a lot of good discussion tonight about people's concerns I heard a lot about um the steering committee but that's not really what we came here to discuss although I guess it's related but the question before is

247the role of the project management team and how that would should change or not change and I would just suggest that we've gone through a lot with that and I think people have recognized uh like I said various aspects of things that could have been done better and I'd hope that people could continue in good faith which I think everybody here has good faith to kind of make it work and just be a bit more sensitive to some of the issues that have been raised if there's now continuing issues with what's going on at the steering committee I think that's a different issue that the steering committee should deal with um and get back to us if if necessary if the project management team isn't a good vehicle so that would be my thoughts on

248that and having said that yolan there's anybody else that's uh wants to speak that you could tell uh yeah I haven't said anything yet oh I'm sorry go ahead that's okay I like to wait until the end sure um I thought that was me geeez so go ahead I don't hear anywhere where people say that the project management team failed that was not s said what was said was that the current project management team has a difficulty working together and to your point Anna yes we have gotten to some good points but it has been very difficult I mean our meeting today I think was a good example of that um the fact that you know we met for an hour and we got our meetings pass our meeting minutes passed and that's only because

249I had to push it because I made sure we did it before we ended at 5:00 talk I I am torn about dissolving the project management team I think there are certain things that it would be good to have it as in case we need something or you know as Trisha said or even Claudia is like if there's things that the steering committee needs assistance with I also agree that there needs to be a better discussion as to how the chairs are working with the Consultants how Town management is working with the Consultants I think it's not realistic for the project project management team to be involved in every single decision or discussion with the consultants and I said this at a public meeting at the steering committee that's partly why we have chairs right

250the chairs are the leaders of the steering committee they're not the final decision makers but they lead it and that's my philosophy in a select board or a planning board or any committee it's not the chair's decision or it shouldn't be what the chair wants they help facilitate what happens in the meeting and I think our co-chairs that were you know again as I said you know in my in my response to Roberta we talked about having a new Co set of co-chairs every meeting and anyone who sit who has been sitting here in those in our steering committee meetings no one else stepped up right the first meeting was in may they stepped up for June at the end of the June meeting it was asked if anyone else wanted to do it no

251one did they stepped up for July same thing happened in July they stepped up for August and finally it was said no one else is showing interest and if there are other steering committee members who recall that differently then maybe we weren't sitting in the same meeting but does anyone else recall that that no one else stepped up to be the co-chairs now let me take back to the project management and our decision and our vote here again I think there are benefits to keeping the project management team in my in my feeling that original document again I feel like the project management team has done most of what they need to do they are going to be there in support of the steering committee and if there is stuff that the steering committee feels

252like they need some additional Guidance the idea that people think that I have been involved in the expertise thing I was not Brandy wasn't either Brandy stepped up to help with the marketing newslet with the newsletter right so she helped up with the newsletter group I think I think Kate and I as part of the working group for the Forum that worked well it might have been pulling teeth at times and certainly a lot of questions had to be asked but I feel we have a good product and we're now going to present that back to the steering committee um so again I think there is a benefit but if the majority of people think we should dissolve the project management team I'd be fine with that um but I do need I do think

253further discussion needs to be had with the co-chairs potentially with the consultant see what they think you know what what have they seen in the past is there this extra team on the side or is it the steering committee and I think Town staff plays a very large role Town staff helps get the data and we've already said okay this issue with who who the experts were that could have been handled differently and better and now we learn from that and we move forward learning from that all right thanks Yanda and just be clear um well I'm not sure what is it you're proposing I'm just I'm just commenting that's the propos we still have a motion that brandy made to dissolve the project project management team and Claudia has seconded that Joe you wanted

254to as part of that motion was also described how the process would work I believe I I hope somebody wrote that down think so no think um I think it's the assumption that we are going to work with the steering committee to be able to to resolve the issues that potentially not having a project management team and I need to stick this in there this is for the select board motion to go past 10 o' oh God those in favor going past 10 o' yeah it's it's 102 yeah should have noticed select board I I I so 10 that's okay all right so I think Joe has one more comment and then I go ahead I just have a question and I'm not trying to put a wrench in the works here with respect to

255this but with the motion that's been seconded would it be feasible to I know there was some suggestions about meeting with your um sure I'm having a senior moment consultant thank you um and here what she has to say before we before we make that vote is that something that we could do at our next meeting to take that vote is that something that need that's perative that has to be done right now because if you have a consultant that you haven't you haven't spoken to or asked this questions to I mean how do you I mean that's like putting the cop before the horse I'm sorry in my mind anyway um but if it's something that's imperative that needs to get done right now then then I'll just withdraw my suggestion but I I

256just I think if cooler heads prevail and and we do this I I just want to make sure that the consultant is not you know blindsided by this action steering committee for that we have a steering committee meeting tomorrow okay um I would also say just as a as a second aside we had talked in our project management team meeting today I had told the group that I was going to propose two things one was to either dissolve the the project management team or or second was to make some um changes to the U language that was in the document and Kate had said absolutely not like that was like off the table so I'm going with what I think is the cleaner solution because I respect what Kate had said about she felt that

257that was the important part of that document and I think you know to marcelo's point like you know either the you know if if the document can stand the document can stand my perspective is just I think it's I think it's a much cleaner more inclusive way to include the the steering committee in everything we do and that the that there's no message that the steering committee is not driving this process because that's the message whether it's whether it is actual or whether it's perceived it's it's still the message that gets translated to to the steering committee so and that's all I'm going to say all right anyone else want say there's still there's still ongoing things so that is the issue right of who those people are how those decisions are made and how

258they're working with the steing commit that really is the issue right who's in the room who's making decisions how are they communicated the interim thing so so that that's the elephant in the room we haven't solved we can we can table it we can make this thing I mean I like Joe's thing and I think that makes the most sense but I I yet but I mean the elephant in the room hasn't been solved with what you're saying okay just to clarify a vote for an I vote will mean that we would dissolve the uh well the the other the other you know I can either call the vote and we can see what happens or I'll I'll call a vot Yolanda okay well hold on or does the motion want to be removed I

259stand behind you stand behind your motion I'm okay with that okay yeah so just to clarify before we vote you know this would be affirmative vote so people who have issues who maybe want to wait and get um feedback from the consultant that wouldn't happen we would just end the project management team with this vote so uh the motion's been made in seconded does anyone need to have the motion confirmed or reviewed it's uh I think we're fairly clear on my moot the what I wrote was the motion was to dissolve the project management team okay all right so I will uh all those in and yoland if you could uh please count the votes I think we'll do this by raised hand uh all those in favor of dissolving the project management team uh

260raise your hand and say I I I I all right uh yolan do you have that count three I do all those in uh all those opposed to uh ending the to the motion raise their hand and say I I those are do you have a count Yolanda seven three seven what seven NOS to the motion okay okay so and how many not pass and three yes okay so thank you the project management team is not dissolved okay so can I thank you all for that so we're left with the status quo um I don't know if anyone else has any other wanted say something well I go ahead Marcel well maybe you were concluding uh what I was going to say uh Rob the but the um should unless that's not the case I

261would make a motion to maintain the document as or as originally drafted and um which in my view as I said seems clear enough that these differences can be resolved you know between amicable parties yeah and and and basically spend all this energy into working on that for the benefit of the town uh so if a motion is needed to retain the document then I'll make a motion to retain the document as originally I don't think such a motion is needed do does I would suggest we should vote because I actually could not find any record of the select board ever voting for that specific document so I'll make a motion officially to retain the document that we all have in our hands as the as the driving guiding document to resp solve any current

262and future a passes I'll second that motion has been made is there a second I'll second it okay so Yolanda again if you could be so kind as to any discussion brief brief discussion I would just like to say that note that this that the original document does not mention meeting between steering committee meetings it not says that the project management team is Guided by the steering committee and it gives no policymaking authority to the project management team we're only voting on what is in the document yep so to add to that there's a key sentence that Kate refused to get rid of which remains which is the project management team will work with Town department heads and staff to collect data and other required information necessary for the work of the steering committee when

263a consultant says we need to have surveys that is covered by that sentence Y and so it's in the so that sentence has not disappeared the planning board should have been part of that discussion I think that's already been recognized I don't think that has ever actually been said it was been recognized during this meeting the only thing that was recognized is that the information should have been passed on to the steering committee no one has actually recognized that the planning board should have been part of that survey that has not yet been said uh according to that sentence it was said that it was recognized that the that the process that they used should have included going to the steering committee and by the way two planning board members are on the steering committee

264that's a different thing from what I'm saying that that's very different from what I'm saying so again semantics an interpretation of that sentence and so we're back to square one which is we just reconfirm this document and that sentence and there's still continued disagreement over it that's important to say because essentially we're reconfirming circularly that we're back to square one well I I I I would not completely agree with that and I I I agree with that sentence and I think it's important that's why we put it there the the the fact that it it says that the group will work with the steing committee is not specific it is it is declarative that there will be a a working relationship but the the there is a sentences on responsibility saying that the streaming committee

265will drive the process that is more declarative to me and you guys all speak English much better than I do than the other so I I I would say those two phrases combin I don't see where the issue is I think yeah adults can figure it out all right so are we ready to call a question here folks again so the motion is to maintain the document as originally written made by Marcella and seconded by Anna okay any other discussion okay all right all those in favor hi hi I one two seven and opposed abstaining okay and one exstension so look like the motion passed Madame Vice chair I don't know why my hand is up anyway so the motion passed right yes very good okay so I think that concludes our business with the

266planning board um thank you all for your this has been a long discussion but I think also hopefully I think it's been a useful discussion and I just want to again thank and extend my appreciation to all the folks involved here I think you're involved in a in a a very important project and I actually think it's going very well I mean there's some bumps we see here but and I I hope and I have confidence that people will continue and put aside their differences and continue the great progress you've made so hopefully that's that'll what'll that's what'll happen so thank you all I'm making a motion making a motion for the planning board to adjourn at 10:15 is there a second a second roll call vote Anna I Catherine dur a guide and Trisha

267Kendall ey thank you thank you and before you I want to thank Yanda for you know helping run this meeting I'm not sure I'd do do this again this way it's but Yolanda you've made it all possible so thank you with that I think I'm going to turn the chair chairing of this meeting what's left of it over to Yanda with my thanks go ahead Madam Vice chair if that's all right with you did you guys hear me okay okay not sure y did you hear what I said before I'm sorry Rob what was that did you hear what I said I did not I'm so I thank you for your efforts in this meeting and I'm I'd like to turn the chairing of this particular meeting over to you okay that's okay so thank

268you for that yep unfortunately my iPad died so I don't have some of the backup okay um thank you all um it was a difficult discussion and there's more discussions that'll need to be had moving on to old new business review the special town meeting warrant with the finance committee Direct recommendations Jen please and thank you to the public that was here to participate we appreciate your input and obviously more discussion will need to be had um so we met last week um with the with the finance committee to go over all of the um articles and the Motions to get their recommendations really they're pretty straightforward I don't know if it's given the time if we want to go through them all again but the only one that they have a little bit of

269a um sort of I would say condition is article 7 which was the CPC funding to authorize the funding for the dog park um so they had a few questions about sort of the maintenance plan um and how you know what kind of cost would that be going forward and so um they conditionally recommended um that article with the sort of that condition of having uh an agreed upon maintenance plan that's um accepted by the town just to make sure that we can um manage that moving for so my understand so I met with the members other members of the dog park committee they said that they have submitted a maintenance plan to you and they're waiting for a discussion with DPW about that maintenance plan yeah so i y I had spoke to um

270Cara Terrell so she gave me sort of a concept plan it's really sort of high level would be um a future friends of of the dog like of the dog Park and maybe that's some members of this committee but maybe it's others would do some fundraising they'd be able to fundraise to maybe purchase mulch that would have to be changed over that the changing over of The Mulch on the inside would be a DPW function they're thinking that plowing um at least the parking lot um not necessarily the walking path would be a DPW function um and then trash removal so obviously they would you know volunteers would help make sure that the inside of the park was clean but like obviously trash receptacles there an issue with that or well it's certainly a it's

271a we're just sort of making sure we can do the things that need to be done particularly around the mulch so it would happen probably every year You' have to probably take out the mulch and then put new so it is a it's a bigger lift than I think when at least my understanding when when they presented to us in terms of like what that friend group was going to do so I just want to make sure that if we're going to do it that DPW can actually meet those expectations okay so so where is that discussion at so I just spoke to Cara on Monday and and Doug is on vacation I've had a couple of conversations with other members but Doug I needed to talk to Doug Small okay just seeing the plan

272and knowing what DPW has on its plate it's not it's not acceptable not conducive to No it's it's it's not it leans too much on DPW in its current state like the way it's configured now there's too much okay I mean I not saying like it needs to be a wholesale change I'm just saying it's um is there any other materials that can be used other than something that has to be replaced yeah so that's my other yes certainly I would assume so what the group when we when we were working with the designer they were trying to keep it as natural as possible and so mulch is what they would use we have yet to go to conservation and so conservation may say you can't actually use mulch because I don't know whatever reason

273um and so I'm still trying to get a designer to come on and get us from where we are in the concept with the feasibility study to then be able to help get the permits um for whatever reason for the five people I've reached you know I wonder about um you know that lots of uh playgrounds in that now use like a rubber mulch yeah that's not very popular that's not with dogs they chew on it and it's hard to clean pee and I would think it would would be easier to clean than mulch but I think you actually remove the mulch so every so you basically pull it out and then you put new mulch in I think Framingham is different every year oh yeah but I'm saying talking about in between that right

274yeah in between that it it has to be really pretty gross well in no in between people are picking up the poop after of their dogs that doesn't they're not picking up what it touched around it and but but we know the likelihood of people picking up after their dog is going to be yeah that's minimal too right I don't know I think most dog park should go in and people are you know people police it themselves and they say you you got to Pick Up After Your Dog so I guess my question is you know the the idea that finance committee is saying well it's dependent on the maintenance plan um in regards to their support um I mean we know this is still you know construction is potentially still a year out so

275can we be tweaking the maintenance plan as we work on the project I mean we we know we're going to need to look at DPW and their ability to do stuff right I mean we have a new Mendes we have a new public you know there other things we have potentially new parks so and I I mean the the the group has they've already done some fundraising they're looking to do more fundraising you know and and the the idea to if this doesn't happen now we potentially could not have a dog park because of the funding with because of the Stanton Grant right if we have to wait until the Springtown meeting and then we have to you know wait on construction and depending on timing it could be into 2025 the Stanton grants Sunset

276so I think we could go ahead and have the Warren article I just think no I think I mean I I mean it's on the article I just I'm concerned when things are like well we need a maintenance plan to to feel like we can approve this when there is been discussion about a maintenance plan that's the only thing for me so well no I'm saying you go ahead and have the get the funding involved and then we can work on that well that's what I'm saying as well right let's you know so for that comment to be on there from the finance committee that we need to have a maintenance plan before we'll approve this I mean I agree we need to have a maintenance plan but to say that we need that before

277we can approve this funding is is of the conversation was not necess I mean they're putting it as a condition of their recommendation but I don't think it was necessarily have all these answers by the 29th I think it was don't spend the money unless you have these things in place so we could be moving forward still work toward that okay that was my understanding was that yours Michael that it's it was not necessarily by the 29th but they want the condition that they didn't they wouldn't be supportive if we didn't have it to spend the money okay um any other no comments or questions any other comments or questions on the town meeting warrant and are we presenting yeah one speakers is the board presenting articles y just one um so I I mean

278I can go ahead and do the free cash appropriation Joe you usually do property tax exemption I do the senior uh the senior the property tax exemption oh yeah property tax yes thank you okay and then um senior workof program does anybody want to take that on I can take that okay that's for volunteers for the dog park well um CPC and the dog park committee is planning on they've given they've shown you I couldn't get the size but I I let Adam know okay and I know they're going to run it by um CPC as well so I think Aon from CPC okay do you want me to do the donation of land um sure you know the property you know yeah you know that one okay um what about the easeman on High

279Street anybody I mean I'll do something I might have to sit with you before yeah sure and then I guess I can do that one if we we think's already stepped up oh okay and the last one's authorize a home rule petition to increase liquor licenses oh that's my favorite do you want to do do you want to do that one Rob or I can do that one and you can take I understand why it's I understand why it sounds so bad so that's good oh yes say Rob Rob taking that do you want me to take that or are you taking that Rob sure I'll take it if that's all right okay so Rob will take lior licenses yeah yeah and we're gonna we're going to actually have uh Susan's going to do the

280presentation on that one oh good okay so Rob will do the the expert yeah so you don't have to do a lot Rob just how much I want I think we need 16 liquor licenses because we need more good luck with that okay yeah if we get 125,000 for for license that would be great anything else on the town meeting warrant no okay it's actually better I'm not any review and vote on the subcommittee recommendations for the baa Grant and select board Community grants all right here we go there we go uh so Brandy and I met last Thursday to go over um the applicants for both the community grants and the baa Grant and just to kind of briefly talk a little bit about those so the B baa Grant is uh program is

281funded through uh our the entry Runners that we have in the community uh to the tune of 3,000 they raise x amount of dollars I think it's $6,000 $3,000 comes to the community um which is then used for this grants this year we've had they've increased the number of Runners we can run um from ashin it from 22 to 25 um so potentially 25 times $3,000 would be $75,000 in Grant monies those uh Grant monies are used are um you have to be a 501c to be eligible for um the baa grants all right then we have the um Community Grant which is funded through uh an agreement with well it's framing it's Warren Conference Center so Framingham State at this point um and those uh so those those uh that that's where that money

282comes from it varies a little bit from year to year would that be true um this year we also changed the um allowable um funds for each Grant so we changed it from uh so in dur over the course of two Grant so there's one in the fall and one in the spring um baa uh Grant proposals can be up to $4,000 um in two cycles and 2500 Max in in the in one of those two cycles and if they wanted the full four they'd have to go 1,500 in the second cycle but it can be split out in any way maxing it 2500 is the maximum for a single um we change that so it's not 2500 it's 4,000 for total for this cyle yes and then 6,000 I'm sorry right yeah yeah I'm

283sorry I'm I'm reading um from an old thing here all right and so then so it's $6,000 total $4,000 um it Max for each for one of the two um applications that you put forward so totaling six um and then 1,500 total for the community grants over over the over the two cycles and that would be with a Max of 1,000 that's the highest that can go in in the uh in one of them all right okay um and that that does not have to be a 501c that can be yeah so Commission the only thing I wanted to just kind of add to that is that um we changed the program one to to to basically better utilize the funds in our runner's account because we had quite a large balance in our runers

284account and so we wanted to increase the amount that we gave from the baa Runners account um and then like Claudia said we have the other the community Grant which is funded from the Warren Conference Center which is the part of the um select board gift account which is a much smaller um account balance and is also used for a bunch of other things that we do like our um Employee Appreciation lunch that's coming up um the nyanza um healing Garden um Restorations that we will probably talk about later on today um tonight maybe tomorrow morning at this rate um but so we had we had to you know we change we changed the amounts to to be to be a little bit more fiscally prudent on how we use those funds so um but

285you know do you want to go through sort of the sure um so for the baa grants we had um 10 applicants um and thank you to to Susan um Roby who really ran this uh in the background and uh compiled everything and helped people uh some people you know applied for one Grant but they really weren't eligible and so she directed them to the appropriate Grant um and so we had uh for for example ashin High School boys hockey um and that's to cost the to help with the cost of ice time uh and Captain practices um the the PTO K to2 uh looking for funding for a program at the Warren school uh the PTO the preschool PTO uh they are supporting programming that works on gross motor skills uh area Ashan residents

286for equity and action there's their funding was for promoting programming expenses Outreach and celebrations ashin youth basketball funding uh used to be to offset the cost of uh the the rising cost and to keep it affordable for uh students you know sometimes uh it actually 100% it pays for students to uh participate ashin Youth Soccer uh basically to offset costs of operational expenses and some equipment uh culture time times Community uh used to bring culture School onsite in the spring of 2024 it's a 2-hour Workshop featuring local Artisans the demons Youth Hockey Association uh funding used to cover some of the expenses for participants um and keeping it affordable for families friends of ashin Public Library uh uh they were looking for cost running the fundraiser called putts for pages and to to offset those

287costs for their fundraiser uh the TOS YMCA uh funding that will support living in Ashland people who living in Ashland who want to take advantage of of of the YMCA services and programs uh so those were the 10 uh applicants that we had and there the total uh requested amount was $25,500 and we did recommend U that that they all be fully funded um so that was the baa then do we do we need to vote separately on the different no we're good no we can once okay I just okay do I want to vote on this before I go on or do you want do it all one okay okay all right so then we had 16 Community grants um let me try to go through these quickly the Board of Health um why

288don't I just read them off and if there's somebody wants me to elaborate a little bit I'd be happy to do so the am fora Health Bu The Business Association Cub Scouts Ashlin cultural Council the as Day committee uh High School robotics Club Ashlin is United the public library the Ashland Senior Center special education parent advisory Council energize Ashland U Greenup a Ashland illuminate downtown Ashland uh New England Tong tongen Community Stone Park music festival and The Corner Spot and so these were not all um fully funded in some instances people actually requested more money than our policy allows um so in those cases we move them to the maximum of 1,000 in this grant cycle um we we did not fund um a program called the New England tongen Community while it certainly seems

289like a um you know a a a worthy cause um it does not really isn't located in ashin it doesn't necessarily benefit ashon residence so we felt that it didn't really meet that criteria um and so you know for now we did we did not fund that uh so the total for those funds uh came to $4,750 and uh just to go over to the account balances we started with a balance of in this the community grant money $ 48,4 554 leaving us with 33,6 5454 if we if we vote to affirm these um and then for the baa grants we started with um a a kitty of 121,000 4249 and we are left with 95,9 249 so you can see that the decision I think to um increase um those are you know the

290amounts that we would allocate it was a good decision based on the amounts of money that we we have so and there is a cap too or a percentage um I don't have it right here but uh in terms of to kind of protect that there will continue to be some money in those accounts to make sure we go going forward so we can't bleed them out completely we were talking at one point Sorry nice job by the way thank you for doing all of that thank you on being behalf of the uh the ad committee that was very nice of you guys um we were talking about raising the uh the fees for the baa bibs did we take a vote on that or is that we have not we haven't we're we're certainly

291not going to do it for this cycle okay I think we're going to leave it at the 3,000 but I think next spring we should have a discussion as to you know whether you know for for ours and also for the company that we give y um a number of our bibs to who they then you know fund raise so right okay no just but what was the amount for the baa Grant total that we Don ba Grant toal the baa Grant total um for recommended is $225,500 even okay I make a motion that we support the funding of from the baa grant for the 25,000 $225,500 as recommended and then for the gift account the 14 ,750 as recommended second um I discuss that Madam chair sure um so we talked about uh I'd

292like to uh handle the Ashen cultural Council application um separately if we can um and so I I go with your judgment Madam chair about the best way to handle this I I think I'd like to take this vote and then we can have a discussion about addition potential additional funds okay outside of our policy that we've just created okay I hate to you know we just created a new policy and then to just blow it out of the water so I get it I'd like to take I recommend taking this vote and then we can discuss cultural Council great thank you I did also want to just um because moa's here and moala was um had applied for the um the New England tongen um events mentioned that so I want to make sure

293like it I did want to talk talk about that right before we vote because I think I think it's um you know I hadn't seen a request come in from someone on behalf of an a regional Organization for an event that was outside of Ashland so um I I had a conversation with moala today because I wanted to just kind of talk to her and and she had said that at the time when she applied it was not a 501c3 it has since gone through that process and has been approved so I I said to moala I said you know I you know I want to bring it to the board to see what the board's thoughts are on it because I feel like these programs are really designed for Ashlin organizations for things to

294benefit our Ashlin Community but I also don't want to make that decision in a vacuum because I've never seen this type of request before so I did feel like we did not recommend to give the funding but I also wanted to just bring that to the board as well so again I my recommendation is we take a vote on what you guys have have recommended okay and then I think we can certainly have a discussion but i' recommend we yep take the vote and then continue do that make sense Rob yes okay all those in favor of the motion and second as presented say I I I I okay that passes 5 z um I I would I would say that you know I appreciate certainly I'm very much a supporter of regional um and

295I would say it's the kind of thing that if in the future we see that it's an event that will attract a large number of Ashlin residents that we could support it but right now my feeling is we need to see that we need to see that there's you know maybe Ashlin residents have gone to it and they can show you know but to your point I mean our goal is to support events organizations that are benefiting Ashlin residents so that's my I mean certainly anything Arts I love to support but I prefer stuff that actually impacts and happens in Ashland or a large number of Ashland residents can participate okay I didn't see uh Julie didn't put a an application in this time no no because your program is gone very well good I

296think she's able to get yeah I think I was just I was just kind of curious because y okay okay um then rob you wanted to bring up the cultural Council yes um so first of all thank you guys for doing this um uh it's great uh and you know it's really a lot of uh very great organ very good organizations but looking down that list of the community grants very impressive um so I did want to just ask the boards uh consideration of making an exception the case of the Ashen cultural Council Grant application for the uh Starbucks mural and um uh the reason I'm asking and I and I suggested to Stacy that she could come and maybe make a brief discuss uh address to you folks about why they should get a

297little more than $1,000 um the you know it's just I I feel this is a kind of a one-time or U project and that and we we have uh supported these kind of projects in the past as you mentioned the the the staff event and also the U uh the healing Garden you know things like that so I would put this this is a a one-time uh process and I think it'd be good to help the cultural Council in this um you know kind of a unique exciting Community project which they've taken on you know at rbest or or request and so I felt it was important to support them a bit more than than usual uh so with that I'd like with your Indulgence turn it over to Stacy to uh talk a little

298bit about their application and why they could use a bit more funds go ahead Stacy I think thank you rob thank you committee uh I also have moal here for moral support who also uh sits on the council with me um yes so first of all thank you for even considering to give us any money at all thank you for that uh we have had some great applications come in 12 to be exact um of very talented artists who are interested in participating in this very exciting project that we've been talking about for a few years now so uh what we are facing though is the budget so what we did in our marketing when we invited participation was to say you set the budget as the artist give us a range please keep in

299mind that you know we are a state funded organization we don't have unlimited funds and so they've definitely been kind enough to give us a low end and a highend and the highend is of course we're not even going to go there um that's you know a a five figure deal uh high five figures but we're finding that a lot of the more season applicants they're starting at around $110,000 um for a multi-month project that because it would include their equipment and any additional help that they would need to paint the mural we do have around $6,500 in our account for this project and so what we're asking is for additional funding to supplement that amount we've applied for another grant that we were declined for cuz we didn't fit the 501c3 um category for

300that Grant either it was a cultural uh basically a Metro West Grant for arts and culture um and of course we don't fit the baa Grant and so when this this gift fund came up we are very grateful to be included but as you can see there's going to be a gap um because we do want to be fair to the artists selected and and not lowall them and you know because it will take some time and some work so we think that we will need in excess of $1,000 to make up that Gap m is there anything you'd like to add no I think you pretty much covered it um yeah so I think that's where we're hoping our expectation is is to have about 8 to $10,000 to work with um as we

301try to determine which artists would be best for Ashley and that could paint something that is more representative of who we are um versus what we can afford um that obviously will be one of our criteria but uh we don't want that to be the only criteria that determines you know a certain amount of artist um I will say like as we think about the future in terms of Maintenance of the work um some of the applications that I've seen have said that some of the varnishes that maybe an an extra price will last about maybe uh six to 10 years depending H uh which ones that they use um we haven't we haven't discussed the cost of that yet but we do plan on trying to determine how to absorb that cost with our

302committee as we dis as we start working through this process with with the artist that is uh selected and chosen any questions comments now the the uh the depiction is going to be of the Boston Marathon is that correct uh of the what you mean what will the image be on the wall correct so we did uh a survey for the of the community and we've done it also at the farmers market where we invited people to to tell us what they'd like to see on the wall we wanted people to participate in that and so the artist will take those keywords and integrate you know basically ashlin's past present and future and that might include uh the uh the runners and the Boston Marathon some clocker imagery uh things like that okay then because

303at the last meeting that that the owner of um the building they were talking about putting a mural for representing the Boston Marathon as part of the part of the key thing because it was on the route itself so I guess that whole philosophy has changed because I this is the first I was made aware that it was going to be something totally different oh we didn't know that either I don't think Mo and I were prided that that that was a discussion well that was a discussion during the planning board matter of fact the planning board was the they brought that up so that's why I'm kind of curious as to why all of a sudden why is this all changed oh but Joe wasn't that kind of just some ideas being thrown around

304no it was not an idea that's it was so did did the planning planning board in all this have a funding mechanism for this or a caretaking mechanism they hold on they were talking about having the uh during the discussion and it had taken so long that the the owner of the building was willing to put $5,000 into it 500 oh 5 I'm sorry 500 into it they wanted 5,000 he said 500 uh um and they still accepted that well and required the and required the mural so the planning board required this and they they got the agreement to be $500 from the owner right and there's also no there's nothing going forward and who's how to care for it how to or any guidelines with what it has to the only thing it was

305was the topic of the uh the design itself and what it would uh what the picture would be of and was supposed to be of the Boston Marathon as Runners going by or depict some sort of uh portion of of of the marathon in and of itself that's in writing some place Joe I I remember seeing the the planning board phrase it maybe uh Stacy or MAA you have it but it was set forth I don't recall them specifying any particular image or I don't think it was I I don't know I'll ask one of the attorneys that was involv it was the planning board yeah it was like we turned it over to the ACC to decide how they could do it and this is what they're doing which I think is good so

306I have brandy or Claudia any questions or comments so um you know I I I keep thinking like there might be another funding mechanism other than the select board for this and I don't know I am not on CPC but I'm curious if there might be a way to have fund and I think it's worth a question certainly ask like I think it's I think I think it's worth reaching out to CPC and see if they have the the funding well they have the funding if if they have the mechanism to be able to fund this is the question so you know I keep thinking like this would be a great project for CPC because it's community-based it's like I I just think of it as a as a as a good project and they

307you know they would have maybe not I'm not they would be they might be willing they might be willing to to give $55,000 to a project yeah but only if Technic only if they can by law if they can by so I'm so I'm I'm not guaranteeing anything I'm definitely not on CPC but and anything that gets gets a you know there's a there's a whole process in place with CPC you have to go and you know talk to talk to CPC and then it you know any funds have to get approved by Town meetings so it wouldn't be until May meeting anyway so I'm like I said I'm just I'm throwing it out there that there might be another option so um and and and I and I kind of you know I I

308I I feel your pain guys because I I know that this is you know when you get these quotes in and it's just way way over and above what you expected to be able to um that you thought you would be able to fund it's it's it's it's a lot so I I and so but but you don't have a you don't have like a decision made so it's kind of hard for us to make a decision about an amount um I have I have two yeah questions SL comments did you guys apply for your own Mass cultural Council Grant to do this no not cultural Council what I agree with Stacy we didn't apply for the Ashlin cultural Council Grant um I guess it was more of um conflict of interest I think I

309was worried about for us because Stacy and I had both also applied personally to the Grant in which we had to step out for voting purposes so I couldn't imagine having to put that through our Ashlin Grant cycle and having our members vote due to implicit biases um but could you apply directly to the state could you apply the mass cultural Council for this either as Ash as Ashlin cultural council could you apply to the state for funding for this art we could actually I don't see any reason why the application's due in two days um to me it's a perfect it's a perfect thing is to reach out to mass cultural Council to support an artist working in Massachusetts you know so I know that there's a mechanism where we are allowed to take

310about 20% of our total Grant allotment to use towards specific programming by% 5% right but to moa's point we felt that it may have been a conflict of interest at the time especially the take away from anybody else who was getting funding or could have gotten funding did you have other did you have have other Grant did you have other applications that would have competed against this to use up your funds yes there's 39 applications this year which is our highest amount of applications that we've had over the years that Stacy and I have been board members 39 applications for art and culture yes it's the highest we've ever seen wow that's great congratulations on all that thank you thank you just a a thought um that I need to ask a question you you

311have 6,500 raised so far yes and what is that consist that's including the 500 from the landlord um and waa what's the rest amount yes so Michael the town had gifted the cultural Council and this is prior to the both of us starting as board members had gifted the cultural Council $5,000 for an art piece and so we had plan on using that money for a logo but um had never come around to it and so now that this project has come up we are putting that 5,000 from the town to the r piece 500 from Starbucks and then the remainder of the amount is coming from our cultural Council money that we've saved up from the um Mass cultural Council where Stacy had mentioned we are allowed to take 5% of the funding from

312the total amount granted each year to use for administrative SL operating cost so I'm I'm wondering I mean we'd have to get Starbucks to be the one to spearhead this in a way because uh they're the the owner but I'm wondering if we can use our sign and facade grant program to but they said they can apply to mass cultural Council okay let let's start there that I mean that's my recommendation right that I mean that that's a perfect going to the mass cultural Council two days and yeah I think it's like a couple of days is that she said I mean you you wrote a grant for us I would think I mean You' have to use their forms but the information that you supplied to us would go to them is that something

313you guys could do and then if that falls through then we can look at the facade and sign or we could look at going back to I'm I'm asking Stacy and Walla is that something we could look into that yoland okay great and then you know if that fall if you can't then we can look at the sign and facade and we can have Starbucks or the land owner of the building apply does that make sense you know what I'm saying yes that does make sense so we will look at M cultural Council and then also on the recommendation from Brandy earlier uh the CPC CPC great all right thank you guys how short are you than for hanging in there thank you for hanging in there with us I know you really after being

314here all night long you really deserve something more than we can give you a clarification how much more funding do you guys need to raise you said it but I think I missed it 10,000 is the total that we're aiming for we're at 6500 oh so you're okay plus so here here's a recommendation I I don't know if you can do this with mass cultural but if you can give them a range right because if you can get more then you can pay your artist more that you select right potentially and if I may who has the final decision as to the design that's going to go up on the they do they do yeah the cultural council is making that will we get a copy of that so we can take a look at

315it so we can see what it is yes and we've Enlisted the help of a couple experts who this is what they do um to help us review the portfolios we invited uh experts from Keith teac and from ashle in high school however they weren't able to participate so we've invited uh an art consultant from the Ashton public library and from the Hopkinson Art Center oh perfect just one just one other question I'm sorry I just I probably repeated myself a few times I apologize it's getting late and I'm old um the um Bill uh Goldberg who owns Main Street Wine and Spirits had very similar experience that the side of his building was uh it looked like an old photograph of of a Down of the downtown Ashland and it was done by an

316artist have you had an opportunity to talk to Bill gold uh Goldberg to see who that artist was because a lot of people love that design no no we haven't but we have had an applicant uh benini signs who's local as well um so uh we have I've never met Mr Goldman or Goldberg I'm sorry Goldberg Goldberg yes yeah because a lot it was right directly across the street from the town uh from the post office and it uh it was it was really really uh it was very fitting in into that area has kind of a Southwestern theme now yeah right Montana Montana yeah yeah Montana and downtown Ash I know you know it's really exciting that the town that what theyve uh the keyword that they've shared with us believe it or not

317yes clockers yes the marathon but they really dove deep into people and community and that's what they want to see like Ashlin of the past Ashlin currently and what we could be in the future so interestingly enough they they had some really great things to say say that I think the artists will will really find valuable oh good I hope they I hope they look around and talk to people about it because we have you know the memorial up off Memorial Drive that's something that could be part of that that program I mean so whoever you talk to somebody will always give you an idea what to to add to that design soath well I yeah you can watch me doing run the marathon I'll be just standing there but yeah that's all I'm going

318to be doing anyway and it's a multi-step process we won't be doing it in a vacuum um we aim to have the decision made by February but we want to do this in a multi-step process and invite the public to participate so thank you that's great thank you for your effort thank you for doing it I know one of it's one of those things it's like oh my gosh what are we doing here but thank you thank you guys take care um just one quick thing right before we get off of the whole like um Grant cycle stuff um just a shout out to Susan because Susan did so much with this it was such a confusing process with um the change in process and the change in in um the different types of Grants

319and all the stuff so I just wanted to to to say thank you to Susan for for um all your patience with us cuz I think the combination of like a new policy plus new people doing this um equals um a little chaos a little chaos so Susan great job yes thank you so thank you but um but I just I just wanted to get props to Susan and also just ask um a favor to Susan too is when you when you let folks know that they've um received these grants can you also um remind them that like part of our new policy is that we will need to kind of documentation from them going forward if they apply for new grants because I just don't want people to be blindsided by it and not

320know that they're yeah maybe in the next application there needs to be a line about that and then you know just on I wonder if we don't create a submitt form right just like we have the application please fill this out on how you use the funds that way it'll be consistent m by each person I thought there was a it's more of a like an attachment like just attach you know but maybe but if it's a form then when Susan sends them out they're here you go thank you very much ow and by the way please complete this form when you finished and submit it to us okay it's a good idea yeah that's a good idea okay all right okay I also want to second third a thank you to Susan she is

321The Quiet Storm she makes a lot of stuff happen thank Susan a quiet storm thank you Stacy thanks okay moving on and we thought this was going to be a late night um Town manager reports yeah um if you don't mind I'm going to keep this really brief yes you okay with that so um thank you very much so yes so on Saturday um this coming Saturday at 11:00 a.m. we're going to be unveiling if you will the uh refreshed and restored Niza healing Garden um off of Memorial Drive and um a lot of people have been busy over the last few months um taking care of and fixing vandalism that you know not just happened over the summer but vandalism that happened years ago with the pl panels that were broken and things like

322that and so they've been beautifully restored um ke Tech DPW and Eric Peterson have I'm probably forgetting a couple people have done a lot of work with the land landscaping around there and making sure that um you know the walkway leading up is is nice and ADA Compliant um so anyway there'll be a number number of people there most importantly Mrs Kane um and uh time is that again 11 o' and obviously you're all you know invited and I think Rob's going to give some remarks hopefully you'll you'll feel well enough to do that Rob on behalf of the board um so that's uh that's that hope to see you there um FY 25 budget calendar and instructions so we did meet with fincom and go through that um just from a calendar perspective I

323will say we are going to look at doing what we did last year and have a um like a department head meeting invite the fincom and the select board to be a part of that and that'll be in January very productive yeah I thought it was very good department heads thought it was very good as well um I have just a few other things on here um so EP EPA and the de P speaking of Niza so they're in the midst of completing their 5-year report their annual maintenance report um so that should be coming out uh at some point soon um actually Helen Nicole was here earlier she'd let you know about the historical Mission commission and be sending out a letter to businesses just letting him know that they'll be talking about the

324um the historic district putting something together and uh so thank you for those who came to to the veterans lunch on Monday I thought it was really really well done um and uh you know police and fire thanks to them for for serving and and sponsoring it and thanks to candy and and all of her staff for making that thing go so that was really really nice um speaking of the community center uh we un we unfortunately uh had another issue uh last Thursday where we had a water main break or not a water main break but a main pipe in was uh unfortunately it uh literally blew a gasket and and so thanks to the quick work of of some of our staff um Marley Jeff Bell Doug Scott Jen got involved Beth was

325involved uh they were able to contain that pretty pretty well and uh keep uh keep too much damage from happening so it's all been isolated to the bottom it looks like some of the the walls might might have been damaged as well kind of soaked up in there but that being said the holiday program is still going so and still plans on running as normal and then uh finally um we made an offer to um an assistant Recreation director and he accepted um his name is Tyler strange and he's got a pretty interesting background but he seems to be a really really good fit strange background a little odd L um interviewed him oh my gosh I know if you don't think he has gone through this all I'm sure he has poor kid but

326um it would be great if he could start on the 29th so I would just need a waiver of the 15-day waiting Peri that's okay um okay wasn't part of the no but we look through the charter and it it's just a notification okay so so motion to um motion to wave the 15-day waiting period for the new assistant Rec person okay I all those in favor I I okay and that passes 5 Z all right and that's congratulations report good nicely done board reports um can I start I'm starting with Claudia oh sorry let's see I think two weeks ago almost we attended the Ashlin Indians uh event yeah that was uh that's that's right celebrating was that your first time I I've actually attended other ones that was my first time at the

327high school one um it was very nice and uh it it really was it was a tremendous number of people there I'd say five or 600 people and uh you know it was uh it was just a lot of I was surprised at how uh there were a lot of kids performing lots of differ performances by the kids so it was very nice um and then yes I went to the the Veterans Day celebration that was uh was very well done and um and then uh and Joe L us everybody in the Pledge of Allegiance I have to say I'm pretty good at the Pledge of Allegiance from saying it in school every day um and then uh you know just to Mike's Point about uh the holiday celebration so this Friday at the community

328center um I they are still looking for volunteers um any basically anytime between 8:30 in the morning and 12 or something last email we got so in the early part of the day maybe 8 to 10 it was kind of unloading um food and getting it ready for distribution and then distribution from 10 to 12 so anybody who um wants to help out with that that is a great opportunity and something you know you can walk away feeling pretty good about so uh that's it for me Brandy I'm I'm going to keep mine really short tomorrow we have our comprehensive plan steering committee meeting um virtually so if anyone wants to come and join more the marrier um and uh we're having our public forum um which is sort of like a pop in pop

329out kind of thing um as part of the Holiday Stroll or at the same time as the Holiday Stroll from 12:00 to 4: in the basement of town hall on Saturday uh December 2nd and thank you to Yolanda and uh Kate and Beth and Michael Michael um for working all the logistics out on that and I can't wait to hear all about it tomorrow um the Holiday Stroll is um the place to be on the second um Yolanda's like holding down town hall I'll be over at the bagel table and um we are we are Beth's favorite helpers favorite elves favorite elves um so come shop local on the second um I predict the weather will be gorgeous and um we will have a great day and so um followed by the tree lighting with

330Santa um so uh is Santa doing a driveby in the town or are we not doing Drive Sunday night it's going to start Santa good job okay um sorry I'm a little Punchy I'm a little tired so um and that's really all I got oh oh oh far Farmers Market this weekend too so Saturday is the pre- Thanksgiving Farmers take that off my list okay and that's all for me so come come uh there's lots of stuff going on this weekend so um come and support him Joe thank you madam Vice chair um Qui quickly uh we uh just talked about the uh Holiday Stroll which is great we hope to see everybody there uh the Ashan uh affordable housing Trust met uh this past week and uh we have uh three projects that we're

331looking to to get going and and and move on and I know that Steve was going to get a hold of uh Jen to go over an RFP process that we would like that so Steve uh Greenberg will be getting a hold of you about some of the things that we would like to do and it pertains to allive streets so uh and potentially uh a project that Habitat for Humanity will be working on uh Main Street on on a vacant lot that's that's uh they're in negotiations with right now so hopefully that'll be another yeah M yeah oh 387 main I think 487 Main Street uh directly across from carrier yeah oh okay which is uh which is nice so job on that J little house there I'm sorry nice job on moving ahead

332with that yeah thank you we're working on it and then lastly um we had a traffic study advisory committee meeting and uh you know I would love to be able to do what everybody would like to see done but uh again it goes to funding and it goes to having police presence you know 24 hours wherever they want to be and it's it's it's it would be great in the real world but uh in reality we uh they can't be there everywhere at at all at all times so anyway we're working on it I just hope people have uh an understanding and just be patient that we're working on everything and uh the East Union project is going to be a that's something we need to follow up on and get done so we're working

333on that as well and then uh I'll see you all well you won't see me on Saturday but uh you guys have a good time okay so that's it Rob yeah just uh briefly well first thank thank you Yolanda for um running the Mee and assisting me with running it so problem appreciate that and thanks for the everyone's Indulgence on that um the um oh just just a reminder we just have one meeting in December which I think everybody knows so when accordingly uh looks like we have we're already lining up some items uh we did get that email from uh the mother with a Boy Scout asking if anyone wanted to uh uh talk meet with him regarding pollution so I don't know if um anyone cares to volunteer now or we can I've

334I've been in touch with her so I I think we're just scheduling it but great thank you great thank you all right so that's it for me thanks okay couple real uh quick things first um let's see reminder that uh town meeting is Wednesday November 29th at the Ashland high school starting at 7 p.m. then let's see Ashland Lions will start selling their trees at the farmers market location the Friday after Thanksgiving on Thanksgiving it is a home football game here in Ashland I don't know the start time but 10:00 thank you 10: a.m. you can come watch the clockers I don't know what their how their season's going but always a fun Thanksgiving tradition and then last thing I have is Metro West Regional collaborative we'll be having our remote meeting on Thursday November

33530th and then I would just like to wish everyone a wonderful happy thanks giving wherever you are spending it with friends family however enjoy hopefully people can get some time off um and those who do need to work thank you for working and with that motion to adjourn so moved second all those in favor I I thank you all good night thank you all we'll see you at town meeting