Select Board Meeting Wednesday, September 20, 2023

001foreign thank you foreign good evening everyone and welcome to the uh September 20th meeting of the Ashland select board we are returning from executive session um so I call this meeting to order and our first item is Citizens participation is there anyone here for Citizens participation either in person or on on Zoom you can use the raise hand function so I'm not seeing any citizens participation okay let everybody in yeah all right so I think our first item is uh Jason polish update on the 495 partnership and I think we can move ahead to him so welcome Jason yeah stand right up there and speak into the microphone excellent well thank you everyone for having me and I do have a slide deck sure which is visible on my screen but I'm not sure how

002it becomes visible to you yeah really interesting and there's no camera on him that's the thing usually the the laptop podium oh okay here where is the zoom on here that's weird oh the podium's not on here is he in the zone meeting no we never put the podium one on there it looks like you know maybe it got logged out I thought I logged it in before we um executive session that's all it is just not easy fix so I just have to let you in and then and then make him up for me sorry Jesus can people see me so we're just having some technical issues here with uh Jason's presentation we will be coming on as soon as we can come on it's dark blue by the way all right is that

003gonna is that gonna work for you Jason that should work fine okay as I can scroll and let's see if I can we can okay foreign go ahead Jason when when you're ready thank you everyone for having me so members of Select board uh residents watching my name is Jason palich I have the honor of serving as the executive director of the 495 Metro West partnership I want to thank you for taking the time uh to hear an update uh for those of you who are familiar with the partnership an update but for those of you who are not I'll give a little bit of background on what and who the 495 MetroWest partnership is uh so we you'll see from this very bright orange color which has been our theme color for 20 years

004now it's always a quick way to recognize us but the 495 MetroWest partnership is a regional Economic Development organization serving 36 cities and towns and the 495 Metro West Region our mission is to lead the advancement of the 495 Metro West Region as an exceptional location for people businesses and communities our vision is one where our region will enjoy sustainable economic growth well stewarded natural and build resources diverse transportation and housing choices as well together these assets make our region a desirable place for people to live and work so when I talk about 495 Metro West what am I talking about if you look at this uh the slide this this purple region to the right I like to describe it as a diamond to the west of Boston we are 36 of the Commonwealth's

005351 cities and towns uh we are about a tenth of the state's population if we are bounded to the north by Westford we come as far west as Shrewsbury and Grafton all the way down to Foxboro rent them in Plainville and on the East Wayland And Natick Ashland being relatively close to our geographic center we are a public-private collaboration a lot of our economic development organizations are Chambers of Commerce or member organizations primarily responsive to business obviously the business Community is heavily involved in leading the partnership but as opposed to being a business only organization we are a stakeholder Alliance we are an alliance of businesses municipalities higher education institutions regional transit authorities Chambers of Commerce and environmental organizations developers folks who do not always find sitting around the same table coming around the same

006table where their common interest is advancing the cause of our region we have a full-time staff of two myself and our manager of policy planning and policy excuse me and we are led by a large volunteer board of directors we have been in continuous operation for just over 20 years since February of 2003. and as I mentioned we're 36 cities and towns located along 495. uh our population and of course this is a region that has seen pretty explosive growth in the past two generations between 1970 and 2020 our region grew by 49 compared to 24 for the state as a whole so this region has seen tremendous growth in just the past two generations it is also a region that is becoming substantially more diverse uh over one decennial census period so between the

0072010 census and the 2020 census the percentage of residents who self-identify as white dropped by 10 percent it is an extremely Highly Educated region as compared to Massachusetts in Massachusetts as we probably all know is a very well-educated State 61 percent of the Region's Workforce have a bachelor's degree or higher that number is 45 percent for the state 29 percent of a graduate degree which is 20 for the state our region is a technology and Life Sciences Hub and I bring no news to folks here when I tell you that industry clusters that have a higher presence in 495 Metro West as compared with the state and the nation are I.T and analytics biopharmaceuticals as well as medical devices our Region's unemployment rate is consistently lower than the states and that has been the case

008since 1990. we are not without our challenges our housing vacancy rate is 4.1 percent which is pretty well below the state's vacancy rate of 9.1 percent uh and just about a quarter of homeowners and 45 percent of renters are cost burden housing costs are present as a significant economic issue facing 495 Metro West however when it comes to residential excuse me when it comes to Commercial and Industrial real estate uh the pricing for commercial and Industrial real estate in 495 Metro West is substantially more affordable than Boston or the Cambridge markets inside of 128. so how did the partnership come about and I won't spend too much time on organizational history tonight but as I mentioned for about two generations this region has been experiencing pretty explosive growth uh in the 1980s and 1990s in

009particular the region uh experienced substantial uh residential development substantial residential growth however by the time the early 21st century at dawn it was certainly arguable whether or not 495 Metro West or even Metro West had established much of a regional identity Middlesex news changing its name to the Metro West Daily News as some of you know is an event that only dates to 1983 and of course not all of our 36 cities and towns regard themselves as Metro West communities we do go all the way down to Foxboro rent and Plainville all the way up to Westford so certainly there's been some some questioning of identity and and cultural shift in terms of what region folks are part of but uh by the early portion of this Century there was a consensus feeling among business

010leaders and members of the Region's legislative delegation uh that we needed to have a vehicle to properly communicate the voice of this region cities have Mayors to speak for them there were some very well established Chambers of Commerce that were speaking for larger regions but these 36 at the time 32 when we were first founded 32 cities and towns had a lot in common demographically and economically but are otherwise split up by any jurisdictional boundary you can think of are 36 cities and towns sink or swim together but they are split up by County they're split up by congressional district they're split by Metropolitan planning organization served by five different regional transit authorities different chambers of Commerce different River watersheds any boundary you can think of where resources are allocated or decisions are made this

011region was split up and a lot of our communities were on the distant edge of other regions sometimes not really having their voice heard and having to clamor for resources so that was a huge part of the impetus to create the 495 Metro West partnership Ship by the time the late 1990s rolled around there were three distinct smaller entities that had roughly similar missions and in 2002 a feasibility study was conducted to explore combining them all and in 2003 they were formally combined into the 495 MetroWest partnership as I mentioned we are a stakeholder Alliance so my board of directors is uh as I'm pleased to be served by 52 voting directors and about 30 folks who serve in an advisory capacity were quite a substantial board as well as participating though non-voting members of

012the Region's legislative delegation former Senator Dave mignani and current Senate President spilko were instrumental in the founding of this organization in 2003 our board of directors as I mentioned earlier we are a stakeholder Alliance and our board of directors is carefully balanced to make sure each of those stakeholder groups is represented on the board so we have seats for Business Leaders seats for municipal leaders Town managers and administrators we have some of the planning and economic development officers for our cities and towns represented on the board higher education seats Chamber of Commerce Siege Regional Transit Authority representation so our board is deliberately conducted to make sure that all of our stakeholder entities have a voice in governing and leading the partnership so what are our values uh in in last year our board of directors

013voted to adopt a new five-year strategic plan for the organization uh 2022-2027 strategic plan looking out uh as I've talked about we're two full-time staff were a relatively small organization as far as advocacy and offer profits and economic development not for profits go and when the mission is big but the resources are small it's important to be as strategic as possible with how we use our time and where we focus so in developing our new strategic plan we sort of crystallize what areas we focus on but we also made a point of setting what our values are and just to go through those briefly a collaboration in Innovation we draw strength from that diverse group of stakeholders that we bring together you know we're not just a a business interest group we're not just another

014group for municipal government we are a voice for all of these different stakeholder entities where they're collected around the common interest of our region economic development is the focus of what we do we are an economic development organization but as opposed to just doing traditional Economic Development work and I'll go into a little bit more detail what I mean by that shortly we also make sure to advocate for the Region's needs when it comes to a few key issues including Transportation Water Resources housing and Workforce Development equity and inclusion our Region's growing diversity is an asset and we envision a 495 Metro West where everybody has a seat at the table we also know when we talk about complementary growth that a lot of things have to happen in tandem to support sustainable economic growth

015we need affordable housing we need effective transportation we need water resources that are capable of meeting 21st century needs and of course we need to make sure we're making wise use of our natural resources in the region if we don't take care of our water land uh you know this is not going to continue to be to be a place where people want to live in in quick spoiler alert the people who choose to live in 495 Metro West are what are the Region's real Advantage this needs to continue to be a desirable place for people to live if we want to continue to enjoy sustainable economic growth so as I mentioned we adopted last year a new strategic plan we crystallized the planet of five goals the first of which is largely administrative operational

016efficiency and Effectiveness sort of an internal look of okay we're a two-person organization that benefits from the services of a co-op student at Northeastern University with a large volunteer board of directors how do we make sure our internal processes are as effective as possible to make sure we're making the most of Staff time and resources but sort of the four key buckets that we put our work into Transportation natural and built resources housing Workforce Development these are the broad categories in which we conceptualize and envision the work that we do as necessary to support businesses and economic growth in 495 Metro West and I'm going to go into a little bit more detail on each in our 20 years we've managed to achieve quite a bit uh the 495 metric West partnership is a is

017a huge uh part of the reason that 495 is recognized as a region we are not only the we were one of the first organizations to come to combine 495 and Metro West and to use the highway 495 Metro West as sort of a moniker and identifying ourselves there are now a few other organizations that make use of that term we were along with now Senate President spilka instrumental in 2006 uh in the creation of the Metro West Regional Transit Authority uh which has been a huge benefit to the region we do a lot of advocacy as I'll talk about a little bit more in depth around major transportation projects some of you who commute or drive to the West may know that the interchange between the Pike and 495 is finally being replaced uh

018we were the ones we were the this the squeaky uh wheel that needed the grease to make sure that got the attention there we also do a lot of advocacy around the need to improve commuter rail service we conduct an annual employer survey and we serve as the official Regional Economic Development Organization for our 36 City in town region that is a designation by the Commonwealth that's actually a competitive grant program we compete for every year there are up to 11 Regional economic development organizations across the state uh some State funding comes with that uh and we compete for that every year to make sure that we're doing everything we can to support the business community in the region but we are the official Redo for our 36 Community region what are some of the

019work product that we put out uh each year and these are all available to members of the public if you go to 495partnership.org under reports and data you can access all of this but every year we put out a report we call strength and numbers this is a pretty brief overview of making the economic case for 495 Metro West for those who are interested in talking points about the advantages of locating your business or doing business in 495 Metro West and you know just to walk you through briefly what some of those talking points are as I mentioned earlier this is a region with a very highly skilled Workforce it is a region with very affordable commercial and Industrial real estate as compared with Points East and those things taken together mean that if you're

020located as a business in 495 Metro West you can enjoy all of the advantages of Massachusetts or the Boston Market while having substantially more affordable commercial and Industrial real estate we have access to the ads in the meds we have access to the transportation resources I described our region earlier as a diamond and if you think of it as a diamond Logan Manchester tea of green Wool Street you've got an airport at the end of each in addition to access to Port facilities in Boston you can have all of the advantages economically of being located in the Boston metropolitan area but with a substantially more affordable commercial and Industrial real estate not to mention 36 wonderful communities that people want to live in as Massachusetts is grappling with some population drain over the last few

021months what we are seeing is of our 36 cities and towns most are still experiencing population growth that does contribute to the high cost of housing here which is an economic threat but part of the reason we are experiencing that growth is that these remain communities where people want to live and make a life and that is a huge economic asset other work product we put out each year we put out economic and demographic profiles of each of our 36 cities and towns and I did switch for the presentation I switched it was Hudson but I switched it to Ashland for you guys but there's a second page but this is just some basic information we put out on each of our cities and towns every year it contains information on population educational attainment commuting

022patterns where do people in the community live excuse me what are the people who live in the community commute out for work where do people who don't live in the community but commute in for work commute from occupations and industries that employ people in the region and more and you can again access all of these on our website for each of our 36 cities and towns we work with Framingham State's Metro West economic research center Merck each year to conduct an employer survey which helps to gauge the opinions and temperature of employer leaders in the region and help to communicate those concerns to policy makers and all of this is publicly available information we're not a membership organization uh so most of what we do is available to the general public and is available online

023at 495partnership.org just to walk through a little bit more specifically so some of the work that we do Transportation has always sort of been a first among equal uh equals when we consider issues that are essential for economic growth where we do advocacy uh Transportation sort of asserted itself very early in the history of the 495 MetroWest partnership as an issue needing Regional advocacy and when you stop and think about it it does make a lot of sense Transportation especially major transportation infrastructure needs are issues where it just doesn't make sense for individual stakeholders to go It Alone it doesn't make sense for individual cities and towns or individual businesses to speak up when it comes to Highway interchange or they need to improve RTA or communal rail service it has always made more sense

024for us to speak as a regional voice on those issues and that's sort of why the transportation issues has always been front and center with the partnership so what do we do on Transportation issues we do a lot of direct Outreach and advocacy to massdot and other policy makers we engage very actively with the Metropolitan planning organization planning processes which as I'm sure you all know but for our viewers um it is through the Metropolitan planning organization that a lot of state and federal transportation dollars are allocated we make sure during any public comment process that the 495 MetroWest partnership gets official comment in in support of any projects that would impact any of our 36 cities and towns we maintained a transportation committee which in spite of the use of the word committee making

025you think there's some sort of formal membership actually it's open to any interested stakeholder in the region where we often invite representatives from massdot or other Transportation entities to provide updates on critical projects or work that is happening and we are currently engaging a working group uh and I'm actually going to going to jump ahead a little bit but uh this year in 2023 as part of our new strategic plan uh we decided that you know in the post-pandemic world we wanted to refresh and Revitalize what are our vision and priorities for transportation in three key buckets when we talk about Transportation our three key buckets roadway projects commuter rail and regional transit authorities of our 36 cities and towns none are served by MBTA bus or Subway none of these communities even when you

026go far east are have access to the subway uh none our MBTA bus service community so when we talk about public transportation in 495 Metro West it's commuter rail and Regional Transit Authority so we convened three different working groups this year of any interested stakeholder to to refresh and Revitalize when we talk about improved commuter rail service when we talk about improved RTA service and we identify roadway needs what are we talking about in a post-pandemic world I mean roadway working group is is the last project the last working group of the three to complete its work it has a draft listing of some serious major regional roadway needs that are going to be highlighted but part of that is going to be crystallizing the partnership's long-standing advocacy for increased support to the chapter 90

027program and our policy belief that that program needs to make sure that it's keeping Pace with costs and hasn't kept pace with costs for many years much less with inflation that we've seen in the last few years making sure we're supporting our cities and towns and addressing their local roadway needs but also some major regional transportation projects I talked a minute ago about The 495.90 Interchange but spoiler alert The Interchange of Route 9 and 495 is likely going to make that list the spine Street Route 30 Mass Pike interchange at the Framingham Natick border is going to make that list Regional Transportation issues of significant consequence I won't talk too too much in detail about this but this is just sort of an example of our work on The 495.90 Interchange uh was a just

028uh something that really needed to be redone for a very long time it has been a high crash location for a long time not only is it operationally unsafe for commuters uh but also for Freight uh most freight truck Freight coming into New England that is not going into the city of Boston itself passes through this interchange and after they removed the toll plaza I don't know if anyone actually drives through this interchange but you know you do a lot of complex weaving just across other cars going in the other direction and when this project is so the 405 Metro West partnership made this project kind of a number one priority for many years and got to celebrate that work uh formally began in the fall of last year I keep getting asked when the

029work is going to be finished it's not going to be finished until 2027 but when it's gonna when it's done you're gonna see a much safer uh more cloverleaf-like Highway interchange that looks like a highway interchange you might see anywhere else and just to put that into context right now if you're headed on the Pike West with the intention of going to 495 North so for example if you were going to go from Ashland to perhaps Hudson you would go on the Pike West and then you would weave all the way around through two Loops before you get to 495 North when this project is done you will simply take a ramp that connects you from Pike West to 495 North so we're very excited about that but that is an example of something the

030partnership has advocated for for many years and we'll touch briefly on one big Transportation project we pay a lot of attention to that is not within our service area but has a huge potential to impact Points West and that is the Alston multimodal project very briefly for those who do not know the Alston multimodal project refers to a transportation project plan for within the city of Boston to replace the viaduct that carries I-90 the Massachusetts Turnpike through the Alston neighborhood along the Charles River this project is going to take about 10 years it will likely be the most expensive infrastructure project in State history this project will not just impact roadway traffic but the uh the rail line that carries the Framingham Worcester commuter rail will also pass right through that region uh so the

031the potential to impact Points West is significant the 495 Metro West partnership is advocating aggressively for a MetroWest specific mitigation strategy to be in place before work begins our sort of number one concern for this is we do you know this project is invariably going to involve some disruption to roadway travel on the Pike it's going to invariably involve some disruption to commuter rail service we want to make sure that these are properly properly staggered so we're not simply robbing folks in our region of their ability to get in and out of the city of Boston if you were to pull up the Ashland 495 Metro West annual profile to look at what is the number one community that Ashland residents commute out to it is Boston so we are obviously keeping our eye on

032that as I mentioned commuter rail is also very very important to us we re our working group on commuter rail completing its work earlier in the year and these are just some bullet points that give you an example of what we talk about when we Advocate on commuter rail but what are our priorities when it comes to commuter rail if you look at that lime green map our region is served by three Commuter Rail lines obviously the Framingham Worcester line has a station stop here in Ashland we advocate for safe reliable service that includes all-day bi-directional service and what that means is all day staggered scheduling that is actually a minor success that we achieve with MBTA during the pandemic is that pre-pandemic the schedule made a lot less sense and MBTA is being a

033lot better about scheduling trains that they're departing and leaving on a somewhat regular and predictable basis we know that a barrier to more folks using the commuter rail was the sense that there weren't a lot of midday trains so if you took the train in in the morning you had some sort of emergency in the middle of the day and needed to get home you might be prevented from getting back and so we do consider that a success with MBTA is better scheduling but also enhanced opportunities for employers to support employees using the commuter rail including incentive advising employers providing benefits to their employees to utilize commuter rail support for expanded parking infrastructure on commuter rail making sure that all of our stations have adequate parking that are ADA Compliant even though our region has

034a very small percentage of Commuter Rail stations disproportionate percentage of our stations are ones that are not currently ADA Compliant so this is a brief overview of what we fight for when we Advocate on commuter rail regional transit authorities are also tremendously important to public transportation in the region if you look at this fun map in the lower right hand side you will see MBTA service versus a Regional Transit Authority service our 36 Community region is supported by five different regional transit authorities we are huge Advocates of innovation in rtas and trying to to sort of back away from the old Hub and spoke model which to put that into simple terms the old RTA model was you had a central city bus routes that would carry Suburban commuters in and out or around certain

035and well-populated neighborhoods in a city at fixed intervals and the reality is that commuting and employment patterns are changing as such that those predictable fixed route Services just aren't meeting demand the way they used to we are big supporters of the state supporting rtas finding more demand response service which are app programs similar to Uber and Lyft but a lot more affordable we are very very excited we've always had a great working relationship with mwrta which as I mentioned the partnership was involved in founding very very excited to work with Jim knee and his team as I like to say if you're to look at our map I call it the uh the Hopkinton to Hudson connection if you lived in uh Hudson and wanted to get a job in Hopkinton or vice versa could

036you use public transportation to do it most people say no the truth is actually yes you could go into downtown Milford get a bus to Framingham switch buses over to Marlboro then switch onto a shuttle we have a transportation system that's that was very much designed to me 20th century needs and it requires a lot of innovation to meet 21st century needs we know that commuting patterns are changing so to make a long story short the 495 mentors partnership is a big advocate for financial resources for rtas to explore better ways to connect commuters to their destinations I'm looking at the clock and realizing I'm abusing my time a little bit so I'll try to go a little faster other areas where the partnership does a lot of advocacy water resources water resources are essential

037for economic development especially in a region that has a lot of Life Sciences and businesses associated with the medical community I bring you no news when I tell you that life sciences facilities Labs r d facilities have much higher water and needs than a typical Class A office space for example New England has very old water infrastructure and I bring you no news as select board members when I tell you that maintaining and updating Water and Sewer infrastructure is not cheap so we are we always make a point of advocating for increased investment in the Massachusetts clean water trust we are supporters of What's called the invest in water ma initiative which is a coalition of business advocacy organizations that are fighting to see a lot of federal more Federal infrastructure dollars used to support

038upgrading water infrastructure and we are also very much engaged with the epa's process on residual designation Authority in the Charles River Watershed I believe most of Ashland is in the sowasco but you do have a tiny little corner uh in the Charles River Watershed so some of your businesses may be very interested in that uh we are there's a section on our web page that uh where they can access some information on that and we would be happy to engage with them housing as I mentioned um is also something that's emerging as a substantial economic threat to our region this is a very affordable place in terms of commercial and Industrial real estate but it is a very expensive place to live that is a direct economic threat to the region because the substantial economic

039resource we bring to bear is our very talented people this is a place where businesses want to be insured because this is a place where people want to live we have a very low housing vacancy rate it is very important for this region not only to create more market rate housing but also to diversify its housing stock it's not just an issue of affordability it's also an issue of making sure that folks who might want to work here have options other than detach single-family dwellings we are our housing committee is actually something that launched just in 2021 and we were at the early phases of identifying a set of policy priorities uh that we think are are good consensus priorities that all of our stakeholders can be on board with to advance the creation of

040more diverse types of housing that more folks are able to access as I mentioned we are the regional Economic Development Organization for the area everything we do has Economic Development as its ultimate goal but we also do some of what I call traditional Economic Development work uh we support uh businesses in locating sites in the region so if there's a business that's in the region that's looking to grow a business not in the region looking to come to the region we would help them identify a site that might make sense to them we work with our cities and towns to help them identify priority uh development areas that they're interested in seeing developing we never promote one of our municipalities at the expense of another we will offer an interest in business everything that's available

041and it certainly explained to them uh you know what what goes into coming into a particular community help make introductions to Municipal officials as necessary we support regionally significant industry clusters we provide technical assistance to businesses and that can be everything from I heard about this grant program from the state how do I apply to you know we need we have a regulatory question and I'm not sure who gets this question answered for us that's really everything under the sun kind of trying to to help folks navigate municipal government and state government to the extent that we possibly can we obviously work very closely with all 36 cities and towns but I like to think we have a special partnership with Ashland Ashland is a rare community that actually has two members on our board

042of directors right now it is not the case that all 36 cities and towns get a seat there's only about 10 seats for municipalities but obviously Mr Herbert is currently serving in a municipal seat uh but your director of Economic Development and community outreach Beth Reynolds is also serving in an economic development seat last year we launched uh what we call the planning and economic development working group mouthful of a name but it is essentially a monthly informal Gathering of the planning and economic development officers from our 36 cities and towns uh it's a one-hour Gathering each month there's always a program topic but there's an open section of the agenda for folks to bring up anything they want the idea being our planning and economic development officers for the region we wanted to create

043a formal setting for them to collaborate in I'm pleased to say that Miss Reynolds is actually one of the co-chairs for that working group and helped to lead its development and of course in FY 22 we were as part of our redo Grant we had a one time quick turnaround opportunity where we were able to attach projects to our Grant application for FY 22 they had to be quick turnaround one-time Economic Development projects we were pleased to help secure funding for the town of Ashland to support a Montenegro Square seventy five thousand dollars for improvements including the seating and Landscaping you see the photo there that Beth sent me of the the finished work product and I do just want to pause here and and note why Ashland was able to take advantage of this

044opportunity as soon as we got word of the opportunity we put it out to all 36 of our cities and towns it was a really quick turnaround it was I needed all of the information within I'm going to say a couple of weeks it honestly might have been a couple of days not all of our cities and towns were in a position to take advantage of that opportunity not every all of our municipalities structure their planning and economic development role is different not all of them have an economic development focused person some of them you know all municipalities uh the work versus the staff uh is is substantial right now Ashland in the way that you have have conceptually thought about supporting businesses and economic development and having Beth in that role Ashland was ready

045and that's why you were able to have an application in and take advantage of that so that was an opportunity that went to all 36 of our cities and towns but when all is said and done I want to say nine of our communities were able to actually successfully take advantage of that opportunity so I'll just close by noting how are we supported uh so about a third of our funding each year comes from that competitive redo Grant from the Commonwealth but we are primarily funded by support uh from private businesses we call them investors I have here up on the screen just some of the companies that financially support us uh cities and towns also participate as well each City in town is annually asked to contribute 500 uh which uh of course is

046is uh very helpful in supporting all of our operations and so that is I could do this for about 45 minutes if left unchecked but I know you have other items on your agenda uh as a form and let me just close by saying you know as I mentioned we really enjoy our partnership with the town of Ashland but a few months ago I finished I stepped off after my third term as a member of the Shrewsbury school committee I know that this is a very um difficult time to be a municipal official in my day job I get to work with a lot of Municipal officials and I just want to say thank you all for the work that you do because this has been a difficult moment in the history of leading a

047city or town but just throughout 195 Metro West we're blessed to have a lot of really thoughtful really caring leaders in Ashland is certainly among them so thank you and I'm happy to take any questions you might have sure Mike before did you want to say anything or add anything to that no I think you know this is you know we had wanted to bring um you know different organizations in that had a regional Focus because I think over the last few years we've really kind of become a little insular in kind of our thoughts and our Focus areas and so Jason and the 495 partnership was certainly um kind of first and foremost amongst those you know I'll just give compliments to Jason you know everybody remembers or I think most people remember Paul

048Matthews the the previous executive director and he did really really great work but Jason's really I think kind of taken the organization to the next level and I've always complimented you on your strategic planning work because you know it's not just like the goals and everything I mean he's got it broken down to metrics and and you know really really detailed but it's that nice balance between detailed and doable and so just have to commend you on that great so thank you thank you so questions we comments what you want to start with Claudia or anybody else oh thank you that was uh my first uh really in-depth look at the group and uh I really appreciated the information that you shared tonight I particularly like the thoughts about transportation in this area and how

049it really has changed in terms of what the needs are of people to to be able to come and go and uh so that that's that's very interesting it'll be uh you know I'd like to see how that develops over time and uh and the housing issue right I mean it's uh it's a huge problem in the area so and uh you know I appreciated some of the facts and figures too I might be going on your website to get to get those and look a little more closely so thank you very much I hope you will great and um Randy we just go in order here sure thank you Jason that was a good presentation there's a lot of ground you guys cover um in in a the breadth and depth is is is

050significant um it's funny because um you know having a sort of a regional perspective is really good we hear all the time in Ashland that Ashland's experienced a lot of growth and there's a there's too much growth and there's you know that we hear from the state that there's not enough housing and we grapple with trying to um how do we grow in a in a very thoughtful way um but it's also interesting when you start looking at it from a regional perspective and it's like you know we are not the only ones that are experiencing this growth and I think that that's that context is really important in fact um so uh Yolanda and I are on um working with Michael and and our town planning staff um on a comprehensive plan and we

051looked back 20 years at the last comprehensive plan and I was looking at it to see like what we've had accomplished and looking at population growths and and you we realized that Ashland's in line with the region like we are not growing at a at a crazy Pace um and I think that that's important to kind of have that context because I think people lose sight of that um my question for you I mean I have a couple questions but I'm gonna keep it short but like when you talk about housing do you see housing as sort of like the biggest challenge in the next five to ten years because how are we going to continue to to um allow people to to first of all you know that the housing to have as much

052cost burden on residents as we do and and you know there's really no end in sight that I can see as far as like the cost um to buy a house in in the Metro West area and Ashland in particular but do you see the the housing as sort of like the biggest challenge in the next five to ten years I would without a moment's hesitation say yes I started this job five or six weeks before the pandemic uh and when I started this job I would have said Transportation was the number one economic threat to the region we still have substantial Transportation challenges but it is now very clearly housing um to your point about growth you know I like to say you know that there's no such thing as a static population there's

053no municipality in the United States it has the same population today or as it did 50 years ago or if there is that's an astounding coincidence you're either a community where people want to come or a community where people feel like that they're going to leave there are challenges that come with growth I don't want to minimize them expensive housing traffic strains on Municipal resources there are challenges that come with growth but at the end of the day you you're a community that people look at and say I want to live there I want to be a part of that and that's that's a wonderful Advantage when it comes to housing you know we are as I mentioned at the early steps of trying to find some consensus priorities that all of our stakeholders can

054be on board with it can become a very controversial issue and one of the challenges to be quite candid from a from an organizational standpoint for the partnership we speak to stakeholders we speak to policy makers more than we speak to the general public we're a small organization you don't read about us in the newspaper all the time we don't buy advertising when we speak for the region we're speaking to federal and state policy makers on behalf of the region we don't typically speak to the general public and what is becoming clear is that when it comes to housing who is the missing stakeholder at the table it's the General Public local governments are saying we got to do something about this the business Community is saying we're going to do something about this and

055you can talk to talk to folks in the community about that in the sort of a broad understanding that housing is important but when it comes down to specific proposals projects or developments that's where the rubber is is kind of not meeting the road so that's going to be a challenge for us is is really is is who is who is the stakeholder that that needs to be brought on board with the housing conversation it is the general public and organizations like that's that hasn't been typically where we've operated that's going to be a challenge thank you Jason for your uh your presentation there we go I want to piggyback with um with what Brandi had mentioned housing is very important to me I'm on the affordable housing trust Committee in town and I'd like

056to call it as we have a favorite saying called Workforce housing um it's a little bit different than affordable housing but um we feel that it's it's it's a necessary it's it's necessary at this time all the folks they want to downsize they want to stay in the area they can't afford to you know even though they're getting top dollar for their home what they're looking at what's available in the market is not appropriate for them or so they either have to move out or they rent and it's just not it's not a good scenario so you know Workforce housing and affordable housing there were almost mirror images of one another but there's some extreme differences and and hopefully your organization that you're working with and and run hopefully will help out with this and

057and give us as municipalities you know some some insight and clear paths too because right now Builders are making money and they don't want to leave anything on the table you know so when it comes to affordability they that's that's not in their scheme of things at all so we're not seeing those starter homes like you might have seen a few Generations pass when those starter homes come on the market because they're so much in demand the price at the end of the day not a starter home price absolutely absolutely and so Ashland is is far from along of our cities and towns facing that thank you Jason so I'm fortunate Jason often attends our metroless regional collaborative meeting so since he's been at the partnership I've gotten to know him a little bit through

058our meetings and in person but this was a great presentation I think certainly for for Claudia who's new but also for other people to really understand how you work with the municipalities and I know your partnership with the regional collaborative has always been very positive and very supportive and I know I've always looked forward to your day on the hill that you that you guys support so um thank you for this presentation and hopefully our public now understands a little bit more about what you do and can use your resources as well and as a business owner I also fill out your survey so thank you on both counts yeah thank you Jason for coming this is it's it's very helpful to meet with you you know get another review of what's going on with

059the 495 partnership um one of the things so one of the things I think could you talk about there's a ton of things of importance to us that you went over today and so I guess what I'm Nate or be aware of our efforts here you know are are um so for example I'm on the the MBTA Advisory board for commuter rail on the commuter rail committee and so you know we advocate for a number of things with with Team Management but I I haven't come in contact with any of the things you described at 495 partnership did I um and I you know I realized when we talked about the MBTA schedule and they started talking about clock facing which I think is is the another term for what you were advocating for I

060just didn't hear that that term so it would have been I didn't hear about you guys and what you're doing there so I think that would have been kind of um you know useful to kind of coordinate what we're pushing for our advocating for and so you know so in terms I know there's a ton of different things going on here and we have representation so I'm just thinking about how we can coordinate like you know Joe's interested in housing and maybe getting resources for that I'm involved a number of us are involved with the MBT commuter rail and I was glad to hear that you're really looking at mass transit because you know when think people think of 495 they think of 495 in all the cars and and that kind of issue so

061I'm glad to hear that but so that I guess that would be my thought of thinking about coordination or uh and it sounds like Yolanda's you know mapc is in the Metro was collaborative is in touch with you guys so that's great but just think about how we can work together or maybe close some of those communication gaps I think you know certainly and you know when I think of our role when it comes to commuter rail and rtas and roadway projects in particular um We're The Advocate on the outside as opposed to the decision maker on the inside uh and so while we do a lot of work directly with MBTA with massdot and and you know we create relationships with all those staff um folks on the inside have sort of their priorities

062and what they'll what they'll talk about and we have that sort of Outsider perspective of pushing so for example uh you know about two weeks ago we had a convening of our roadway projects working group the purpose of which is to identify the next 10 years worth of major regional roadway projects and three different Mass DOT staffers all signed up and I told them all we'd love to have you on but you're listening only this is not for massdot to tell our region what they think needs to happen we we know we can access that information this is for our regional stakeholders to communicate back um and so you know certainly when it comes to our role with them we do a lot of work with them but as opposed to being the one on

063the inside calling the shots We Are The Voice pushing for our region and always try to be I will say that of communities as I alluded to a little bit Ashland is is definitely on the more engaged side of our 36 cities and towns they're all engaged at different levels and a lot of that comes to capacity we do have of our 36 Ashland is the 13th floor just by population we do have some pretty small communities that have pretty limited staff resources and it in those cases it does tend to be sometimes us reaching out to the community a little bit more than vice versa uh it's it's like any organization there's joining and then there's actively participating and I will say that Ashland and you know it's easy to compliment you because I'm

064here and we're on camera but I mean this quite genuinely um I look at you know ilana's involvement with the Metro West Regional collaborative uh Michael and best involvement on our board I see Ashland not just having a seat at the table but using its seat at various tables and speaking up for the community's needs and not all of our municipalities are doing that at an equal pace and again that's often a capacity issue I don't mean that to be an insult but Ashland in in Mike's three years of experience doing this job Ashland doesn't just have seats it uses its scenes right um and so if I was interested in knowing what you guys are doing with commuter rail how would I find out about it great questions so anyone is welcome to join

065our email list if you go to 495partnership.org we do not send out more than two or three a month if you've ever wound up on some organization's email lists and they're sending you stuff every day that drives me up a wall so we make a point of not sending them out more than once more than a few times a month but as I alluded to briefly I was talking about our committees most of the events and meetings we do are actually open to any interested stakeholder most of the time you can sign up directly on our website there's an events and committee meetings page of the website um so you know we'll use the term can we use the term committee to describe our housing committee Transportation committee but really participation is open to any

066interested stakeholder we'll do some recruiting work to make sure we've got good representation and balance amongst our stakeholder entities but any interested party is pretty much always welcome to engage and getting on our email list is the best way to keep keep up to date and would you be interested in coming to the commuter rail subcommittee meeting or these are Zoom meetings with the you know of the MBTA is that something that well something to think about you know because we're looking for input about what's going on with commuter rail so if you have a certain perspective or thoughts that could be you know a helpful thing I think happy to rmo is usually to to pitch at the most senior levels so we do tend to work directly within me but I would be

067absolutely happy yeah interesting yeah okay think about that thank you anything else for Jason it's been a very helpful presentation appreciate you coming in in person to uh which is I think I mean most people like people coming in person I'm a little I'm I could take it earlier but anyway it's good meeting you so well yeah come in and you can take it no no uh I'd appreciate you on Zoom just as much I just want to say that I would say whisper we're headquartered in Westborough right near 495 nine interchange so I can go down computer drive and take sort of the back back way into Ashland so I rationalize this right down the road it's personal concern well thanks for coming in person that's very important to us thank you so I

068guess we got to keep moving here that yeah yeah right oh um okay that went a little over our presented time but I think that was useful yeah right but there was no time limit that's right who did who did this agenda it was pretty good no that was good that was good and and his his web the website is the website is really informative yeah it sounds like it yeah okay yeah I know I do yeah I'd probably get them and yeah select board yeah don't read them just keep going through yeah yeah they have good programs sometimes too they before the pandemic they were offering I went to at least a couple of them that they do it a day on the hill where through the partnership so everyone from the partnership from

069the cities and towns gets invited to go up to the state house and and that's been always very interesting great all right I think if uh we could move on to old new business and that would be the update on Cadillac paint Park the subheading discuss a name which I think was Brandy's suggestion yeah so um our contractor well one of our contractors on that project Brown they're still working on the pass and um you know those have been laid out and you know they're put in place they're you know putting in the stone dust where it's uh the section that's ADA Compliant they've done that and used the polymer that similar to what we did on the Riverwalk and have compacted that um after Brown is done so Lynch's Lynch it was our Paving

070contractor is actually going to come in and they will do the parking lot also at that time DPW will you know install the buttons and the lights at the crosswalk you know get that all set we're going to do some more cleaning around there as as brown has done a lot of their work they've actually done dug up some things you know just like just trash like stuff uh take care of that and then we'll mow it for the winter and then prep for doing um you know seeding or whatever we need to do our assistant planner Alvaro has actually had a light bulb moment and he is about a potential use for the Parker specific type of views and I think it would be really really great if he came to the board in

071a couple weeks and presented his concept and idea so all right so does it um conflict with all the conversations we've had already about the park and you know pollinators and just a walking area and not not a lot of active but very much in line okay okay very much together a number of okay yeah no pickleball um other questions discussion or thoughts um so a timeline for when the paths are going to be open is that going to be like are we gonna are we gonna plan to have that open for the public before the spring or are we thinking it should be ready in the fall okay really I mean people should be able to I mean we're probably talking about late fall but um yeah people should be able to access excess

072it it's not going to be I think the fully manicured well not until it's all completely exactly there was a con someone brought a concern to me that there's a lot of Poison Ivy at the front of the park are we doing anything to try to manage that or remove it or so we'll look at that when DPW goes over there to Mo and look at doing some of the cleaning there is a bunch of poison ivy yeah at the front but I think it still has that old you know chain link fence yeah some of the stuff is still there so okay okay is that will that be removed eventually it will stay there or get removed we will we'll probably have to put something in its place but yeah I'm not a huge

073fan of the chain link I'm not even less of a fan of dilapidated dirty Rusty chain link yeah even even rubberized Galvin would work better very difficult to spray paint in between uh that's true that's true but um so I agree do you have a time for substantial completion when you say it's open this fall that's that's not completing yeah you should be able to access the paths and everything this fall and like the parking area [Music] um I don't know if we've actually determined like what we would consider substantial completion Rob that's a that's a good way of framing it and looking at it we can put something together yeah so one of the things that we would talk about tonight if there's going to be you know how the ceremony of the opening

074would work but sounds like it's a little early for that I think I think it's something that we could potentially do this year um let's take a look at it when they kind of get sure get done and see if that's something that we want to do I will say some of this um you know if we want to do additional things we've really kind of expended the hundred thousand dollars that we received from the state so we'll probably have to look at you know CPC funding or something like that I'm really excited for you to hear alvaro's presentation okay and so that's kind of I think a couple at our next meeting or yeah you can do that at the next meeting well I told him if you're supportive of that he would have

075to do it at the next meeting who were meeting in early November uh October it's only September I'm sorry early October missed a month it's okay he's just moving along I'm moving ahead here and then Brandi had brought up discussing a name for the park let's talk about that so um I've talked to a few folks in in you know when we talk about Cadillac paint because we refer to it as Cadillac paint Park and it's the worst name ever so it really is so people know where it is people know where it is but but I think it deserves a new a new name um we've I I know that at heart who has been the driver of this project and he's the first to say that that you know it's been his whole

076Community that's been behind this and and you know we appreciate um all of the the the residents um on Nancy drive in that area that have advocated for this but I really do feel like you know this this would not have happened if it wasn't for Ed Hart so I think I know he doesn't want the park named after him but um I feel like we should acknowledge his his contribution to this in some meaningful way and but I I don't know how the rest of the board feels and if we if we don't name it heart Park um we do need to come up with another name for it so I didn't know if there was any ideas from from the board so I saw Ed when Brandi and I had um select board

077hours at the Farmers Market on Saturday and we were talking about it I said yeah we want to discuss a name and many of us really like the idea of hard park because of the work that you've done into it spelled h-a-r-t for his last name and he's like oh no I I don't think that's necessary I said well what why don't you see if you can get some input from the community so he did send out an email he has an email list and uh he caught he copied me so I have a few a few recommendations uh one was health and revitalation health and revitalization territory that's just a very big name but I think people are looking at this as a sort of restorative Park that you can just go walk and

078sit uh the other two that sort of got some some feedback was because we're going to have pollinators and hopefully butterfly plants and things like that someone said a few people said butterfly Loop or Butterfly Park but a couple of people also said that they really liked the idea of Hart Park and this is one of those things and I think I agree with Brandy that even though Ed may not want it I think for our community to understand the amount of time and effort and the consistency that he has had in making sure this happened he's been there since the beginning I remember meeting in someone's green area with Ed and Tony when he was our town manager and we were getting the EPA funds to get rid of the buildings and all that

079and then continuing to just add really when we talked about do we want to put the dog park there and him sort of galvanizing the neighborhood to talk about it and get ideas so and the idea is about the the pathway and what kinds of flowers so even though he may not want it I I really like the idea of Hart Park as well and and if we don't want to do it heart h-a-r-t so you know it's not his last name it could be h-e-a-r-t right heart Park a park that people would love and that the neighborhood can support you can oh go ahead no I was just going to ask you other thoughts on this yeah yeah go ahead the idea of having Edge name on it is a is a great idea

080for all the time and effort that he's put into it uh some brief history uh that goes way back before some of you folks are even in town uh there was a young lady well a young lady Sally Linus who was part of the senior citizens group down there she lived off of Sheffield Drive Sally was a driving force to get everyone's attention to what was going on at Cadillac paint many many years ago and it was her dream to clean that up and put something out there and I know that Ed and her had many a discussion with respect to that and um when Ed asked me about you know what what the idea is we should you know do up there I says well if we don't name it after her or name

081it in some way where there should be at least a bench with her name on it or a kiosk on it too her name her name is Sally lannis l-a-r-n-u-s and she lived on Sheffield Drive it was the third house on the on the right hand side she had this yellow Cadillac that was a bomber the thing was huge Cadillac it was a charity there and she never drove everybody had a driver for us because she didn't drive uh her husband her husband passed away she never drove and so people would drive her a run in the Cadillac long story shot um if Edge really serious about not having it um you know named after him we can always I was just thinking sitting about thinking about it earlier this evening and I said well

082we could call it Sally's dream just another thing to throw out there I mean you're right Ed had done a lot of work and and prep but there was the initial kickoff was Sally getting everyone's attention saying hey we got to get rid of this place we need to get rid of it we need to make it vibrant again and so another idea that just came to me is the larnis heart park there you go both of their last names to sort of the beginning the person who started it and the person who helped finish it so in terms of this whole process or we've seen or Sally's all right are you guys seeing that this is a name that we would come up with and decide at our meetings or this meeting or another

083or do or do you see like a public process where we do something to well what I would say is I I mean we could put it out there to get a lot of names but I like the idea if we have one or two names put it out to the public Michael can put it out in his town manager newsletter I can ask Ed to send it out to his to his neighborhood and say you know these are our couple of suggestions and get feedback yeah I think I'd feel better if there was some sort of public process yeah I mean there are some people who are like who will have no idea because they don't really know where Cadillac paint is or they'll have no interest but I think for those who are

084interested if we can give them a couple ideas I like the idea of Sally's heart that's I think really good or Lorna's Heart part you know one of those um I think I like the I just I like the idea of combining the history yeah before you get like wedded to park okay um I would encourage you to listen to Just Alvarez presentation but sure who's invited Eddie for that you know I think that's a great idea for the first meeting in October yeah or November I forget which one well if we want to get some stuff done this at all we're going to want to do it in October yes yeah we you know I think we had having Beth be there I will not be I will not be watching the meeting yeah

085because they're doing a lot of that okay I'm sure um the other thing I I don't know especially because that's funny did you have anything you wanted to say about this process so okay the naming contest yeah so we can continue this discussion I actually I always kind of assumed it would be named Cadillac paint Park and the reason I think that's in some ways fitting because look at what it was and and what you know it's been turned into through a lot of hard work and that's I think an important bit of history that we should consider retaining that's just Ally you know that's how I think about that area and you know but you know it's a name so but so I think Cadillac paint park has some you know people know what

086happened there and what we did to fix it or what was done to fix it and look what it's become I think sometimes when we if we're going to name things I think that um we should probably provide some history somewhere right whether it be in the past that's good good point you know so the people know I'm sure things are named after individuals or whatever we're naming yeah I think it's important to because years later people go wives yeah I would I would agree with that I think if we have history there yeah I think if we so I think that creates some kind of kiosk that says sort of the history or how it all happens so that when people come there they know how we got this wonderful space maybe we can

087get Justice and then make one especially very very similar to 433 Chestnut Street with the kios that's a good one it's enough people know yep okay so enough on this one we have kind of a plan yeah we'll be thinking about how to do a public process and we'll be and invite some folks to the next meeting in October okay thank you so the next item on the agenda is the Community Choice power aggregation program and Michael this is what your kind of annual presentation or is there something special that happened there's a couple things I want to talk about uh with relation to this first is kind of our new our new rate that's going to be coming into effect in January but what I want to start off with is there's a growing

088let me back up so this last round of the aggregation program what we had done is we had selected two different products one you know kind of a mixture of you know traditional brown and green energy and then one was going to be a hundred percent renewable option that people could take advantage of so the Deep so that has to be approved by the dpu and the dpu has just dragged their feet on this for years now and it's not it's not just been happening to us it's been happening to other communities too so there's been some growing frustration there and then now dpu is talking about doing an investigation of you know the aggregation program itself or the overriding statute and really kind of from you know my perspective and some of my colleagues

089perspectives really kind of taking local control away from the municipalities and determining what's best for the municipalities and really kind of having one of those top-down approaches um so I just wanted to make you aware of that and um you know I'll have some more details soon there's going to be a couple of you know Zoom calls associated with it um but anyway that's the first first piece do we think that there is um pressure on higher-ups from the energy companies to say we don't want you changing this or looking at this okay I do that's right unfortunate that is my gut um so could you give me a kind of a an overview of what the what aggregation is for the public yeah thank you so oh the aggregation program has been electricity aggregation

090program has been established or authorized by the state legislature a few years ago it's probably a decade ago now um and what it allows communities to do is to go out to bid on behalf of its residents to secure competitive or better pricing from other companies than what they might get through the Standard eversource Supply rate and so the concept is is that the more you know it's bulk purchasing right so the same reason you go to Costco you know you buy more you get it on a less you know cost per unit basis so and that's generally what it is and we have made out so well with the last contract so residents have been paying 10 cents you know 10 10 and a half cents when eversource was at you know 24 25

091cents over the last couple of years so the savings that we've accrued for residents has is getting closer to 10 million dollars you know over the time period that we've had it so that's in a nutshell what it is yeah I actually was recently doing some research and and saw that we were paying the 10 cents and it is a pretty uh amazing it's significantly lower than what you'd be paying if you weren't part of the now how do how do how does a resident participate in that so you're enrolled automatically you do have the ability to opt out if you choose there's a lot of communication that goes out via mail and we have communications on like our website that shows people how to opt out but again you're automatically enrolled so do you

092know what the participation rate is in in Ashland I don't have the exact number but I'm pretty sure it's over 90 percent why would someone in general why do people um so they might have a contract with the supplier themselves that might be at a lower rate at the time um you know there could be a situation it hasn't happened to us where we're kind of upside down and for you know eversource changes its rate and all of a sudden we're now higher than the eversource rate of course at that point we would communicate that out to the public too and encourage them to you know make the best choice that they can for their households so thank you the typical time frame time frame and company will allow a citizen to be found in

093a full year or is it six months or three months so the contracts range from six months to three years in various intervals in between six months 12 months 18 24. yeah the only reason why I asked that it was we just got a ever Source Bill the other day and I was reading that you know I used to just 12.5 percent lower than last year at this time and it said you know the company who we buy our electricity from on the belt so I looked at last year's bill at this time frame and almost the same amount of usage but it was 200 more so how is that a savings oh that's a you know what you get two charges when you get your ever Source Bill oh yeah you get a supply

094bill which is like okay it's the same yeah and then you get the delivery charges which which is not part of the aggregation program you think so so I'm sorry without looking at your bill Joe that's what I would surmise well I'm sorry if I missed it what's the trend is it going down Are we more competitive than ever Source or just going back we have been extremely competitive over the last three years we didn't make out as well in this pricing uh scenario um and I should you know so what what we ended up with is a 15.8 cents which over a 24-month period but that also includes so in terms of clean energy that's um so Mass has a requirement state of Massachusetts I I want to say it's 25 it might be

09530 rob you might know this better than that I don't remember clean energy plus 25 percent so you know if it's 20 if the mass requirement is 25 it's what we have elected is 50 clean energy so there really wasn't that much of a difference between yeah so far it's been pretty competitive so ever sources eversource changes their rate um so they they have they changed their rate twice a year and so this last round for the winter they dropped it down to 16 cents I do expect in January when they get ready for the air conditioning season and everything that will go back up again so 15.8 is going to be our new rate as of January okay great so still better but um not quite as much of a difference and that's the

096mixed what did you call it the brown plant so that is that is the um for a clean energy from a clean energy perspective that includes the mass requirements plus 25 percent so and these are class one wrecks Rob Moulin beak if you're watching so um just a I didn't realize people had contracts under like I just signed up years ago when this started so what's what are contracts in terms of that well some there are some companies out there who are suppliers and they they're the Alternatives yeah they offer you know alternative contracts but they have a years whereas whereas members of the public who signed up for this or stayed in it are just in it and they don't there's no contracts get correct okay correct so that's okay and it's an opt-out

097right so everyone automatically gets put into it unless you say no I don't want to do this and that does lead me my next question are you seeing any issues with these kind of predatory power suppliers and their practices because it seems to be kind of a recurring issue yeah you know so the only complaints that we have actually received have been more from people going door to door and just kind of that practice if you will haven't necessarily seen anything in terms of predatory um well because it was a big Statewide issue last year and I know the senior citizens are very concerned about you know there's there's a lot of praying on senior citizens for this sort of thing so yes well sometimes you you know you could end up signing a contract

098that has like a rate of eight cents you know for the first six months and then goes up to like 30 cents for 18 months and you're locked in fact so yeah I guess that's good that you haven't we haven't we're not hearing about issues so maybe that's I know the Attorney General was cracking down a year or two ago about it so okay yeah so that was my update on that one very good all right anything else on Community Choice power nope nothing else on that one so I guess the next one is sidewalks and that was um uh Claudia had asked the question if a few weeks ago and then that kind of reminded me of our discussion last year about sidewalks so just wanted to hear and Michael you would send an

099email about the sidewalk um your kind of sidewalk plan so I thought it was worth talking about um you know what we're talking about with sidewalks and you know especially on an interim basis because I presume sidewalks are going to be part of the comprehensive playing and you'll you'll come out with a list of I guess recommendations at some point but in the interim basis I thought it would be good to just discuss what we're talking about with sidewalks and how it maybe it's related to complete streets and things like that so well good question and since I sent that email there's um you know we've had a little bit more information about uh the West Union Street sidewalk I wish it was good but it's not but generally our our plan was to do

100West Union Street this year High Street finish you know the High Street section next year which would connect the network of Northern sidewalks with Southern End sidewalks and a place other than downtown um and then the following year do Cedar Street um so the board had allocated 250 000 for High Street excuse me 250 000 for West Union 250 000 for High Street and that's through the arpa arpa funds so then meet with Doug last week and you know he's anticipating construction and I think he's being conservative here for just the West Union Street sidewalk to be around six hundred and fifty thousand dollars so um and that's been at one time fortunately he doesn't think we'll have to do some land taking well one time we talked about multi-modal path there naturally yeah that

101does not look good because of the utility poles and the amount of takings that we would need to do so um if if we do a multi-use path the polls will be right in the middle essentially of the of the path whereas if we do the sidewalks they'll still be there but there'll be more on the side because these are typical kind of inadequate sidewalks they're like three feet wide and five and a half feet wide oh that's not bad um but you know you see a lot of the sidewalks around town have asphalt berm and asphalt it's asphalt which really it's not the best way to do it right excellent it deteriorates a lot quicker than granite Curbing and so so this includes Granite Curbing and concrete sidewalks okay okay and crop and a

102couple crosswalks and what was the price of the cost 650 now we are looking at Grant funds so Evans put in a couple Grant funds including an ADA you know an accessibility one and um I'll just have to figure out what to do that's okay so one of the things we worked on probably like four or five years ago was our complete streets project list and I know sidewalks on West Union was part of that is it time to sort of regroup and re-look at that so that we can make sure that we're getting not only what Evan has found out for Grants but there's always complete Street grants available and it's it's lining up Yolanda because really the last project of that first round is the painting on Summer Street the the bike okay

103um the bike lane or bike I know the third stop sign at Elliott Street was part of that project it was part of that initial review but the last one is the Summer Street piece and once that's done we would be eligible for another round okay so when do we expect that to be done and is it time to reconvene I mean I know it was myself and Doug and Sheila at the time um I mean I'm willing to sit back again but are there other people as stakeholders that would be good to we need to go that far but yeah I mean I think if we're talking about doing it for the purposes of finding Grant funds for existing projects that that could make sense okay um you know if we're talking about you

104know additional projects we'd have to go revisit our list and stuff right well that's what I mean looking yeah it's sort of a two-step process right it's grants for the projects we've already identified but also then looking at our list and we had a long list we just only could I think we only were able to submit for you know the top five or six and like all the the sidewalks on Fruit Street and all those ADA Compliant that was all part of that so yeah they probably look at that as part of the comprehensive plan again it definitely should yeah it's it we might but I think a lot of that would go into more detail than what we look at at the comprehension I think the comprehensive plan is a little bit higher

105level yeah and then maybe this could go part of that so maybe we start as a comprehensive plan and then separate it out afterwards are we looking to still be able to do the sidewalks on 135 this week yeah I mean we've heard from so many people that it's just wow from the students you have to my ears are ringing yeah really all of a sudden we've been talking about this for a while we've been talking about yes we have and so and we talked about it at the retreat we talk about you know so okay we go back to the traffic study committee and we bring that information up and okay well we're waiting to hear back from what the town wants to do I said I already thought that we already had this

106discussion and we were going to be working on it who's I'm not going to drop any names I don't throw anybody under the bus but I think it's a financing issue right because we originally had put 250 in the budget and now we actually actually have a plan and a scope and it's 650. so I mean we're currently in the process of doing the design okay so so we did it we talked about it our meat and one of the things we brought up was you know can this be a multimodal path because that you brought that up and I didn't think that was a good idea because it was part of the discussion right we were looking at that as an option right yeah I I get that but in the meantime as we

107discussed this time is fleeting and our kids are still walking on the side of the road on 135 to get to school and winter is coming so if you add this alt again you look at the formula could be an issue I'm not saying there will be but there's a potential of an issue of somebody getting hurt and we're trying to keep that from happening and I've said that I if not once a hundred times so everybody's disagreeing Joe well I understand it's that we we have this apple money we have other monies that are available let's let's just utilize it let's get it going Joe it can't you can't just drop a sidewalk somewhere I know there's an engineering design but we've been talking about doing an engineering design and I know Doug's up

108to his eyeballs and other projects and I get that I understand that but this should have been a priority a year ago Joe it was that's when you appropriated the money if I could just jump in here too I you know I think that um first of all I mean I obviously wasn't involved in any planning for what sidewalks got done when but I would certainly think that sidewalks that are for approaching schools when children aren't uh you know eligible for a free bus that those should take priority um so you know I don't know that High Street would fall into that category I think you mentioned that as the second one I mean I think it would be great to put one on High Street for a lot of reasons um but I think

109priority should be given to sidewalks that again are for students who approach a school and then you know in terms of 135 I mean I think that the traffic on 135 has probably changed somewhat dramatically in the past I don't know 10 years whatever but um it's uh it's pretty bad um and you know the kids have to the kids coming out of say Olive Street or Edgewood and and I have a granddaughter who is involved in this so I just want to put that out there um but um that the children coming out have to cross the street so that they can walk towards the traffic so now they have to not only do they have to walk um along 135 without sidewalk but they also have to have to cross I have a

110video that that I actually took last year that is a happen to drive up behind the kids when they were crossing and I sat there for a few seconds I'm like nobody's stopping for them and so I recorded it it's a minute 30 seconds even after I started recording before anybody stopped to let them go across the street I do not believe that people um we're doing that intentionally I think they thought those kids were trying to take a bus waiting for a bus um and there's no crosswalk there there's no crosswalk there's nothing okay and so we gotta you know it's just some we need to do something and I don't think that can I understand you can't drop a sidewalk right right it's it's a dupe it's a dual issue but we need

111to do something crosswalk at least those kids are having to I mean some of them come use bikes right there's some bikes I know that Mrs manyani is um yeah she's a crossing guard there so she has an information in terms of numbers of students but there are certainly several um and then I mean are there alternatives to for now to either putting some kind of a temporary crosswalk there putting something along the side of the road I know that uh you know I think I had mentioned at some point about when you get off of 495 now in Hopkins and they have all those um you know orange uh they're not cones they're you know stanchions maybe would be the right yeah yeah Milford has the same thing now yeah mine I don't know

112if something like that could be utilized to keep the kids but again it is it's a it's it's a problem when it snows it was a problem last year when I watched them working on building those houses on 135 and now they put up some fences because they're under construction and it pushes everybody further onto the roadway yeah sometimes the traffic is actually beneficial because it forces people to go so slow sometimes that at least uh that's that's not a terrible thing unfortunately the traffic seems is on the the traffic that would slow uh drivers tends to be on the wrong side of the street my understanding is that they're going to put there's going to be a bus stop there now at Edgewood a permanent or temporary um I don't know the answer to

113that but at least temporary Edge where's that right next to the state park oh on that side of the road I'll double check on that but that was my understanding so you said that we're moving forward with the West Union Street sidewalk so what's the timing when do we think um you know figuring out so you know Doug's timeline is a go out to bid over the winter and then break ground after the marathon 2024. okay so would it be oh that's right we have to wait yeah because we can't do that work yeah so would it be possible for us to talk to the school committee about doing maybe a temporary pickup for those kids during the winter time I understand because that's what's happening like that came out of the trout last Traffic

114Safety Committee that conversation it was a conversation but there was we didn't we didn't make a decision that we were going to sit down and talk with them about making a temporary making a temporary stop for those kids for the winter well and so many of those kids want to take the bus right well that's the other reason and I mentioned that at the prep study committee probably none of them right so putting a temporary stock there does no good if they don't want to pay the bus fee to take the bus well I think they were well first of all if they're going to put a bus stop there because of a safety issue I don't think they're going to be charging anybody so does the scope of work um I know we had

115talked about putting in a crosswalk Beauty Center as well is that included in this too so crosswalks are included I don't know the exact location okay but because that's going to be more the engineering yeah was the design to be on the eastbound side I didn't think they're looking at that Joe okay as part of the design okay because there is a sidewalk already a third of the way down and I think it stops at that 24 Karat it does Nursery there so from that point on they would still be you know walking on the roadway from that point to Indian Spring Road but then you'd still have to have some kind of a cross oh absolutely yeah but you still need a crosswalk and it would be ones that you know you know solar

116power so people would see the stop or whatever potentially a sidewalk also on the seniors the community center right right well I don't think this is going to have two sidewalks going down right but you need to get I don't know that you want the inner I don't know that you want the crosswalk right at Olive and Franklin and 135 I don't either I don't right so if anything so I would you know if we're if they're coming from Olive Street you know there's a sidewalk in front of the community center and then somewhere there is the crosswalk to the other side where there's already a sidewalk yeah you know I'm I'm you know I'm not an engineer so um but just I you know I'm nervous about putting a crosswalk there I I yeah

117it's like positioned especially if it's going to be one of those Hawk signals you know people come flying around that curve it's tough sometimes you know you'll land it to your point I I think that's an interesting idea is what if the on the eastbound side the sidewalk really only went from say the community center to um the sidewalk and then the into the to the where it currently ends on the westbound side and then you put a crosswalk somewhere in the middle yeah it moves and I just want it down it makes it much shorter distance that you actually have to create sidewalks and I would think that the public the Traffic Safety Committee could take a look at right similar to what they did for Cadillac park right in that they looked at

118where is the best place to put the crosswalk and the most line of sight I would think there at that intersection you'd do a similar kind of thing determine where is the best place to put the crosswalk for safety for people to get from the community center side to the other side I mean unless we're thinking of putting sidewalk on the whole east side but I I don't know about crosswalks and where they're going to located right part of the design that's being the engineering and we have an engineer right right yeah but Michael that might read the cost if we're trying to only you know get to the part where the the sidewalk picks up on the other side and that would be great if it's the safest option right yeah absolutely but but

119so I mean I'm not going to compromise safety no no no no no we're not asking and to that point too in terms of the order again of things I mean maybe it should be reconsidered whether High Street comes next or Cedar Street because Cedar Street again we have students walking to the high school over there right and have we ever looked at um you know sidewalks that approach schools yeah I think what we'll have to do to make the West Union Street happen is take the money that was going to be part of High Street and move it to the the concern with Cedar Street right is it's a Scenic Road and that's gonna there's gonna be a lot of evil or design or between stone walls and trees and you know all kinds

120of stuff for Cedar Street I do think some preliminary work that was already been done for proceeding we did some work already we started looking at yeah the other I mean there's a section near the end of towards the high school where Union Street come you know so we could prior to their land takings we could prioritize that oh yeah but I I will say this you know and I appreciate everybody's thoughts our DPW is slammed oh oh don't disagree well everybody says that and then everything else becomes a priority no no no no no so we need to respect them we need to respect the work they do and we need to respect their time their time with their families and their energy speaking of there's sidewalk work being done on nope Pleasants not

121pleasant yeah there's one that goes toward you guys is that us or is that the state that's the state okay okay Michelle quarterville yes quarterville yeah well that's interesting yeah there's some sidewalks being fixed there I'm noticing that as I drive it's ADA compliance because it looks like I think they are I think they are because they were doing like some ramps and stuff yeah so okay all right but that's the state work okay yeah okay so that's another venue too that's how Framingham we're able to get all their sidewalks in on the ADA compliance Federal Federal grant money the state can't do anything for us on 135. no it's it's our that that section is our road which they're still not sure of 100 it's really weird it's like a little small slivers are

122the state and then summer it's funny all right so where um where's this conversation leave us so we think we you know we're moving ahead on the West Union you're gonna have the engine do we have is this a Consulting engineer that yeah so they'll come up with a plan we'll look at it at some point hopefully soon I just don't know if they can move any quicker I know well I'm sorry can we have that conversation with the school about making a temporary stop there for the kids to get picked up absolutely and we as a board will not be looking at the plan for the sidewalks on 135 will we it'll be that'll be nice it'll be the well I would think you should probably you know see it but it's DPW and

123Traffic Safety Committee they're going to look at the safety issues and sure and we'll maybe you know give it our blessing but yeah okay okay um I don't want to hold anything up because we feel like we have to have a discussion and we're not moving forward yeah let's get an update um and so than the other one you had on your list was High Street right but then are we having some discussion about changing the priorities or like I said I think probably to do the West Union Street piece we're going to have to take the funding that way so then what does that mean for High Street and Cedar Street and High Street we have to push it push it off so then given the the latest I think what you're saying given

124the latest estimates that we're looking so we're looking at West Union for next year but after that we're not sure at this time what else is next on the on the schedule or what we have arpa funding for or um well we don't just have to use arpa funding we can look at you know other other pieces too well and I also think to to Brandy's point right and and complete streets and all these other things if West Union isn't going to get done until next year sometime we're not going to be looking at doing High Street or Cedar Street for at least another six or nine months after that so as we're working on the comprehensive plan we're working on I'm sure Doug you know knowing Doug he has a long-term plan for Stuff

125at some point we'll come back and reevaluate and say okay where are we seeing the pinch Point that's the problem Doug doesn't have time to do long-term plans oh you know I told you we're doing so many things we're not doing anything well and it's it's impacting our ability to anticipate things coming down the road I mean what are we going to do about fields you know that obviously that's not like a public safety issue but I probably had more complaints about fields in the last two weeks than you know anything else what kind of complaints which is about the maintenance of them scheduling issues which isn't necessarily you know in our domain who's in charge of it no DPW oh even the scheduling is DPW I thought this don't the schools don't schedule their

126own well the schools will schedule the school teams but they and then they have the right to bump whoever is scheduled which is why we're looking at a Parks and Rec Department who can take over some of that from BPW but we got dams we got to worry about we got there's awesome you know DPW things takes care of all the maintenance of the fields too pretty much yeah the school department doesn't take care of any of theirs they take DPW takes care of the trash take care of the maintenance of the fields sometimes we have like some of the youth organizations will help take care of of things so so he does some stuff like for one of the fields is it possible that that's a discussion that needs to be had with our

127schools that it does you know that trash may you know the minimal day-to-day you know obviously they don't have the equipment to mow the Lawns and to do that kind of stuff but do we really need to be sending our Public Works people out to pick up the trash around a football field or around a baseball field or well I will say Jim and John Murray have have tried to help with that but there's some you know I I'm not sure about this but I think there's some contractual Arrangements that may prevent some of some staff from being able to do the trash and so we're kind of left up to doing it maybe it's time to the fact that the matter is I mean I can attest to the school department doesn't have the

128bodies to do field stuff yeah right we can't even put people in the schools to clean them at the end of the day so I certainly know that that was the case at minda so it's these jobs are challenging right you want to talk about not making a lot of money and trying to live and it's hard to live around here and then have some jobs so what do you want to do with this question is this another future agenda item or do we want to is there something I think a lot of this will be discussed during the conference of planning process do you really think we'll get into the details of who handles the trash no but I think but I think it will help us prioritize what we talk about that's very

129long term which ones that we right but can't isn't there an interim yeah you know reach out to the school and gym and and yeah tell you we've had very candid conversations Gemini we've had a lot of them over the summer because we were talking about Cedar Street it's actually put a strain on mine and Jim's relationship and it you know it yeah he's got the same issue that that we do so we don't have enough bodies in DPW Administration police fire basically anything the schools can say the same thing about their staff so do you see this as a long-term it's been a long-term project in fact one of the projects that you wanted to do as part of the you know when we did The Retreat is to do more of an organization

130like a bigger Cemetery Department no bigger uh even larger yeah okay oh okay to do that study to make sure okay the Staffing is not a comprehensive plan issue yeah no so but that's the so if you come up with a plan though that says okay we need x amount of bodies and it's going to cost x amount of money then that's a very Frank discussion right the community is going to have to have right right okay okay all right so all right so let's go back to the sidewalks then I think so we have a plan I mean I think we have an understanding about West Union and then the question I think in terms of I'm still thinking there's interim stuff to be done before the comprehensive plan comes out which I presume

131will be a sidewalk plan with dates and things like that right they can't do a full sidewalk plan no I think it you know during the comprehensive plan process as we get feedback from the Community will be like oh well really we think it'd be good to have sidewalks here and then that information might be put into a long-term plan about where we want them and then based on what we're doing and where we have funding how can we sort of marry marry those two lists and and information I guess I thought okay so you're saying you don't you guys are not seeing that out of the process comes a sidewalk plan with a schedule no oh no I mean I would be really careful about like you know trying to come up with lots

132of plans yeah before we come up with the comprehensive yeah like I feel like no no no I'm thinking as part of the comprehensive plan the end product would be no we'll get the good feedback on the open space will get feedback on amenities we you know one of the goals or one of the things might be ensure that there are sidewalks in these specific areas potentially so my point right now is on an interim basis then what are we doing in the next few years well I think to Michael's point right we're doing West Union Street because it's going to cost more than we thought yeah we're gonna do that first and then my recommendation would be once we do that we sort of take another review and say okay based on either complete

133streets or access to schools then we go to that but I think that's in six or nine months or six months once you West Union Street is going that's my suggestion all right what would anybody else think I'd prefer to move have something in place a little sooner than waiting well I think because of the funding mechanism because we're going to have the the West Union is going to be more expensive it's I think we're going to have to wait I think so I think I think we're way ahead of ourselves if we start planning Beyond West Union Street at this point let's get that done let's get it done all right so I just want to just make sure that at some point we'll restart the process and talk about next priorities may be

134involved with complete streets the chapter 90 funds you know how that works and because I know Doug is making he's prioritizing that when he knows those projects you know so we should probably look at Doug is going to whatever priority of the day he is whatever crisis so just as long as we have an understanding we're going to kind of revisit this and try to do some okay [Applause] um follow up and join me with the planning board so I wasn't there so oh yeah we had a meeting yeah yeah who wants to I mean I think it was you know I thought it was a positive meeting and we came out with just a few things I think um the um and we had a discussion about naming a representative from the select board

135so I don't know I'll turn it over to to you guys uh and like Joe did you want to say anything about follow-up oh graciously Claudia allowed me to yeah put your mic on oh sorry about that um I'll be representing the board when it comes to sorry that was good catch thank you um when it comes to sit down and talking with Peter and being part of that that group too do the things that need to get done so just to kind of give context because when it this is in in specifics to the MBTA communities and looking at options we had talked I thought Peter did a really great presentation and outlined the issues and outlined what our needs were going to have to be to meet the MBTA communities law I think

136that um you know the next steps is really seeing what what options we have to um to comply with keeping as much control over over the zoning and just to kind of anyone that's watching that wasn't watching our joint meeting MBTA communities is really just a zoning zoning exercise we don't have to build any units to meet the state mandate for for MBTA communities but we have to zone for it and it has to be by right so we have to expect that anything that we do Zone could potentially be built but maybe we can look at areas that have already like Cirrus has already been developed other areas possibly have been developed and we can plan to have a proposal or a couple different options for for us in the planning board to look

137at that would meet the needs with the least impact on the community I think is what we came to the conclusion on and it's the change in paper change more than anything else well hopefully so you'll know and so you're Joe you're going to be meeting with Peter and yeah Peter and Trish yes uh at some point and then are we still we had talked about I think our first meeting in November as a potential is that is that a good for the report is that that's what yeah that may be rather early okay there's possibilities what did you guys have anyway we don't need to hold hard and fast to it I think that was just some discussion of possibilities no before we get into what did you guys have for that I don't

138have a date for when they're going back there was no date um all right and I'm just gonna throw this out there I mean certain members of the planning board were trying to say that this is going to be easy because we have these certain areas that we can just Zone that way um you know maybe part of Pleasant Street or this my question is what if we don't comply or what if we don't comply by December 24th by December of 2024 because it's a larger discussion and with everything else we have going on in town we can't come to an agreement or consensus I think I think we talked a little bit about that I think you know the idea I just wanted to bring it up for this group we we aim to

139do it and then if we don't meet that deadline the chances are would be because a lot of communities can't right um but that certainly our goal would be to meet the deadline yeah and then I think like you know the ramifications of us not complying I guess it depends on for how long so if we were so say we were because we have to comply by by the by December of next year by 2024 if 12 31 20. if we go to November town meeting and it doesn't pass town meeting and we have to push it and make changes or do whatever we need to do to bring it to say annual town meeting in the spring um you know that that Gap is not a huge a huge gap if I guess it

140depends on kind of what where your question is because if if we don't if we don't comply we're not eligible for state grants we're not eligible to or at least that's what they're saying right but but what if and possibly litigation from the from the attorney general our attorney general has shown very quickly what if the community what if the community doesn't support this no matter what we do and we have this great plan and the community goes but we don't want more zoning like this we don't want to comply as a community that's what they made it for so that's what I'm saying right we we you know are we're saying we should bring it to Springtown meetings so we bring it to Springtown meeting and it gets voted I mean I don't know

141and then we bring it to the fall of 2024 and I do I think I just I think it's our responsibility is that what you were yeah it was saying if we could bring it to the spring the first time to the spring 2024 to the annual and then should it not pass or should it need to get tweaked then it could go to the special town meeting in 2024. and I guess it's up to us to create something that we can communicate to the public that isn't going to impact them in a huge way and I think if we communicate that and we're able to show that um you know that that's that's on us and and the planning board to kind of craft it to work and I thought people were pretty optimistic

142about being able to put together an acceptable plan but of course we won't know until we actually come up with something and see it concretely but we had like a number of different kind of scenarios the other thing they we discussed was that they did not want to uh jeopardize the downtown area with this with the zoning changes they didn't want to see we didn't come to consensus on them zoning downtown we had mentioned that as as like something that you know if we could avoid that we we should well there was there was one planning board member and that you know just like we didn't come to consensus but there was also discussion I mean and early on with the MBTA it's like oh when originally they said it had to be within a

143half hour of the train State a half a mile of the train station we had brought up and it was mentioned in our response that well we might not have the space in a half hour so and a half mile so could it extend further out and that's why they changed it from just a half mile around the train station to allowing it to be in other location up to you know certain percentage in other locations of your community because we were looking at the the Mills project as potentially helping us because of the density that that building was going to have and Joe one thing I'll remind you I I'd suggested multiple scenarios so when you guys go to put I mean give people some choices you know like to the downtown question I

144don't you know I'm not sure where you know what exactly her objection was to that but you know have a couple scenarios that's how I'd put it together and people can kind of look at it and say Hey you know but but I thought it was generally positive and we got a direction to moving and all right and the only other thing that did come up was we also talked about other interim close-term actions we might want to take before the comprehensive plan whether it's zoning or housing and I think there was kind of a consensus a lot of discussion about housing maybe inclusionary zoning but that is also something under consideration so I I kind of thought about that afterwards and I know I know housing is a big is a big issue I

145know inclusionary zoning I mean like I said we got it to the five yard line we got it all the way to the planning board for a public hearing right before I went to town meeting and the planning board had some major concerns about some of the some of the things around um the inclusionary zoning so we had decided not to bring it to town meeting yeah we could have still brought it to town meeting but that's another that's another story but you know I do really feel like I want to be careful about what we do in sort of an interim way before our comprehensive plan is completed or at least directionally where we're going with the comprehensive plan because I think anything that we do that undermines the work that that our consultants

146and our team are doing um really runs contrary to why we're doing the comprehensive plan so I would just I would just caution things like interim zoning and and things like that I would second that um other so who would be yeah who would who would be doing that well zonings the what the like if you're talking about an interim zoning who would be doing oh so you know I just thought like were there certain issues that people thought were more short-term by that I meant like within three years that we should think about doing that we see is lack things that are lacking I did not there wasn't a lot of really concrete specific stuff Trisha talked about some tweaks which I think in some ways the planning board kind of does that anyway

147like every year they seem to be doing something so she talked about that and some of it had to do with this I recall a certain type of uses so things not in my mind huge big picture thing so that was one thing and then you know we did talk a lot about housing and Joe talk about inclusion arizonian I think you know so those were kind of the things I remember as being identified so that's I and I asked kind of like so what else we got short term because we're leaders here and we've got all these housing issues what what do we think is short-term I did not get a lot of concrete specific things other than those so um so maybe there'll be other things so we did talk generally about continuing

148that process um but I don't know Joe did you having to add what's your thoughts now on this uh there's going to be a lot of work that needs to get done number one um for well to sit down and make a a strategic plan as to how we want to deal with this zoning change whether it be written it's not about the MBTA or the MBT oh first of all the MBTA yeah you know that that that aspect of it other planning I mean they yeah that's part of the comprehensive plan and I hope it gets done that way all right so you're sounds like you're kind of Shifting and I mean well I'm not shifting but it just affordability and affordable housing to me in inclusion Arizona one and the same for me

149and and I said it at that last meeting that you know if we had an inclusion having zoning bylaw that would have been a great tool for the planning board to use one that when a developer comes into town and threatens a 40b well guess what folks we have inclusion every zoning if you can't go by these bylaws and then find another town that's uh willing to accept you okay you know I'm tired of Ashland having to bow down to these people coming in and saying this is what we're going to do and you can't do anything about it well then we need to get either a safe harbor or two or ten percent well you're right but as we every time we if we if we if we only go 10 percent every time

150where these buildings were losing ground I agree 100 we're losing ground it should be at least a minimum of 15 if not 20. missionary zoning is never going to get that high though no inclusionary zoning is never going to be but you can give a baseline so just it was I think it was 12 was what we were aiming for so so just real quick I don't know how much Claudia understands so with affordable housing when an apartment building comes in and let's say they have a hundred units and they're a rental if they give if they're only 10 affordable you can only count the 10 units if 25 are affordable you can count all 100 toward your affordable housing number which brings your percentage up um and it's interesting after the planning board meeting

151I realize how important it is that we and the planning board really keep that in mind about it has to well let me finish about 25 because I remember sitting as a new member when Cirrus came in yeah and someone said well we should do 25 affordable we should really push for that and I was new I didn't understand and we had some other people in place that were someone new and so we only got 10 affordable had we understood better or had we had more guy I don't know what if we had been able to do 25 affordable at Cirrus we would have been at our 10 I mean granted that's you know that's the pass but we need to learn from that we need to learn that as we put any large projects

152in place and to me large is 10 or above you know and I understand Trisha said you know there's other things to think about sustainability and I get that right but for a community like us where people don't want to see more housing the the quicker we can get to our 10 number and we can have the Safe Harbor and we can say to developers coming in look we want to work with you like we did with Carlos not Carlos you know with uh we tried with Carlos and he decided not to um but with pond with the project on Pond Street and people got upset with us for allowing that but because we did four units there all 20 of them now in looking it back that's not a lot but at least it's

153help and and then there's also that argument well that's not real affordable and I get that right that if you only get 20 you know you get 25 percent so 25 of 100 Apartments that doesn't necessarily meet the need but it meets the requirements from a state perspective and that gives us safe harbor so there's do we could we use more affordable housing in Ashland of course could we find you know other ways of course but we are working within the state guidelines and if we can push some of these other you know it's it's unfortunate that Chestnut Street is not 25 I mean if Chestnut Street was 25 affordable that would have helped us a lot if the Pond Street project or is that one the one with bench 501 Pond Street so that's

154you know and we were able to count on right and and you know that's Ben Trask who is who has worked with us right Ashland Woods is 25 so so anyway that's a lot that reminds me one of the reasons I brought this up was that that very Factor where can we come either have a policy or come to an agreement with the planning board that that's what's going to happen you know we talked about and so I think when we had that conversation it kind of shifted into inclusionary zoning which would kind of accomplish that in an official zoning but is there another measure whether it's a policy agreed upon policy that both boards support that's kind of what I was trying to get okay we'll see and that wasn't I don't think that

155was clear right because when we brought when we brought up the fact that if we could make these 25 and we brought up some of these other projects that had already you know the Homer Street project right let's see if we can work with I don't know if where that's at in the permitting process but can we I mean is it too late to say can we do 25 but you have to do this initially right the minute the developer comes in with a plan that's 10 or more units we need to that needs to be right well it depends on like how much control we have over the over the situation like when you look at like what we did with you AGC and we had a development agreement we were having to do

156that and that was going to be a 40b anyway and a 40b is always 25 affordable correct so you know you think about those numbers but I but I think part of it is like how much what what is the parcel size like how how many units are they supposed to be putting in if if is the community willing to increase the number of units what that would support right increasing affordability to 25 like so you know and that's and that's a trade-off so if is there is there enough like I think one of the reasons and I and I don't know the specifics so I but I have a feeling one of the reasons 10 to 60 Main Street fell apart was because the financials didn't make sense anymore and lots of things change

157like you know interest rates have gone up and right and right and the the landscape is really different but like you know mandating 25 affordable for the mill building to me would be a slam dunk but it's like are we willing to to have 225 units or 250 units in exchange for for the affordability factor and and I think the planning board would say no right so well and I think that's where you know your point where the difference is right and but but again part of our discussion at the meeting and that's what we're doing I mean we we could go on for a long time and I don't think we need to right part of the discussion at the meeting and this is to let Michael know is that when we brought up

158the fact that there were a number of of projects that they did not push to the 25 affordable the response back was well we also have to think about sustainability was one that that I remembered I forget what else she had said but there was there was like three or four things and I'm like you know maybe it was impact on the municipality maybe with schools so okay but and I think some of this will come out in the comprehensive plan but we are currently not at Safe Harbor even though we have a housing production plan because ugc is not moving forward we are no longer forward we still have an issue that's my understanding uh no if they pull building permits then we're right because it's you have to do you have to do

159no no you have to do show growth you have to show 0.5 growth yeah in the plan so I guess I'll just with that so one of the things I guess that was one of the things I was hoping that we'd at least think about a short-term strategy um and you know and that's that was kind of the continuing conversation maybe it's an overlay District or a few overlay districts where 25 would be helpful to get us to where we want to go and we would have less of a disappointment like why did the planning board not push for that when we thought they could have if we have a coordinated kind of approach that's that was kind of my hope there I mean I don't want to speak for for Michael and the staff

160but I know that the con doing the comprehensive plan was sort of a huge trade-off to be able to do a lot of other planning things other than what's on the planning boards plate correct so like there isn't the staff I don't think maybe Michael will disagree with me but I don't think there's the capacity to like create an overlay District or a couple overlay districts and I honestly don't think we should until we have a comprehensive plan right so but realistically you're not that far off or we're not that far off from getting to that 10 percent number in fact I think are we at six we're at a little bit under five okay or excuse me a little bit under six we're in the five five ranges but you have ugc waiting in

161the wings so that's going to get you 180 right we've got one we have 501 Pond Street which we're able to put that on we will have 120 units is that in our plan or not yet it's not it's so it's approved it hasn't made it to the list yet so it's not so will we will we be in Safe Harbor will that get us to a certain percentage for a year so that we can because isn't it once it's permitted or something you can put it on your plan well you have to have a regulatory agreement in place okay so once the agreement's in place you can do that and then really if you know if if 10 to 60 went through at like 1000 units we would have been at our 10 not

1621000 units what did I say you said ten hundred oh my God not that many people okay it's not even that late well ten percent all right so I guess I mean Sean Michael uh 501 Main 501 uh poetry is that 15 no it's 25. it's it is 25. okay you push this one okay I just yeah so all 120 units will go towards that so were we uh so is there so thinking of even a short-term thing is there a policy we should have in place so there's clear understanding or so we can't so we can't keep criticizing the planning board if we don't have a clear policy that we're Community we can we can encourage especially based on based on the in the the you know what some of the planning board members

163said about trying to get interim zoning in before the comprehensive plan is done I mean they're they're obviously looking at something so so why can't we just encourage them when you can if something comes in look at 25 percent if it makes sense we're looking at some creative or looking at Creative Solutions like either using the affordable housing trust or like CPC affordable housing bucket don't take it off right we did that with 12 Pond Street so reach out to people options and we came up with some a creative uh yeah and it worked out pretty well the the the district only required two of the units to be affordable right right so 10 so we talked about at the trust you know it suggested using some of that money to buy the affordability for

164two more units to bring us to 25 which allowed us to put all 16 on there trust supported that again those are two I'm sorry those are tools that again if the planning board was willing and able to you know take on assistance and having you know to make a decision I guess the one thing I would suggest rather than making a policy or something like that is I think Michael's very supportive of looking at 25 what you know I would say instead of making a policy and you know maybe we can have individual conversations but you know we don't want to necessarily put our you know what we think on the planning board but from a planner perspective I would say if Peter when he looks at these projects can recommend or I don't

165know if that's possible right he can say you know we're trying to get to this affordable number let's look at what if and he can make that recommendation to the to the planning board and at least have the discussion he you know he can put it forward but it you know it's it would be their decision I understand it's their decision but you know he can remind them look the affordable housing trust is willing to work with us the you know their support to get to our 10 percent and again if it's a hundred units 25 percent are affordable we we get it that they're not all really affordable but it will help us get to our number and it will give us safe harbor so it sounds like we're kind of looking at a

166staff a staff solution which could potentially so Michael and Peter knowing how we're trying to view things or their own perspective can help implement this process yeah I mean I can direct Peter to you know recommend that um it's certainly something that you know can I ask if it makes so much sense why it's such a problem with the planning board what what's well I'm missing something so one thing is density so they're always going to want if you say 25 they're going to want to build X more units than they otherwise the developer yeah they'll be denser so that's that is an issue when you get in all sorts of other issues and maybe there are other things that people want to negotiate with a developer maybe it's there's other priorities so then but

167I'm asking about the planning board so yeah that's what so the thing with the planning board would be that it makes it hard for them to negotiate with the developer because they want up the number and and so and there may be people saying density we don't want density here this is bad I understand that yeah so the planning board like starts with zoning in that area right so if there's a 10 overlay um then that that's sort of the the starting position so I I have a question we don't have any kind of um affordable housing overlay anywhere do we yeah no so well like you've got the Pond Street overly District which has an affordability requirement of um 10 10 okay Cirrus had or excuse me the RTD I think had ten percent

168one of the one of the components there um uh Wildwood which is where 100 Chestnut Street is Right 10 okay that's probably the I'm sorry that's how the developers say oh oh right you're only your overlay is only 10 so right they're happy with that thank you very much right it's already written now so see that's the issue but I I and I would suggest I would see but it's a special permit so you could stand firm on the 25 but you know they're probably plenty board wrestles with a bunch of different issues I would suggest and I don't think it's the time you know I don't think we can do it right now but I think at some point collectively you want to get all your priorities like when you're looking at a development

169what are you looking at sustainability you know you might be able to achieve your sustainability goals now just through the code through the building code so then you could focus on other things that might be important to you as like affordability and yeah public transportation including those elements but I would suggest at some point and again I don't I don't know if it's now's the right time but again just kind of get all of those on paper and prioritize them what's the most important to you so great interesting okay well that's the um that's the follow-up discussion so um okay um okay the next is the consent agenda and I think Brandy you had a uh item a the uh except regular session minutes from September 6 2023 pull that out of the consent if

170I have one small edit okay I move that we approve the consent agenda minus item a okay oh I'm sorry uh so this motion been made and seconded okay all those in favor of accepting the consent agenda except for item a say I I consent agendas accepted so a um so in the section where we um I know there were a lot of public hearings and a lot of movement on the meeting minutes for September 6th um in the section that is noted that Mr share noted that they need to open the second public hearing and then we'll suspend to finish this discussion for Mike's Auto Sales for a change in location there was a motion um by Yolanda to open the public hearing and then there was a motion to close it says close

171the public hearing so it should be so it should be suspend I just want to make sure that it's if you guys got that yeah so one small edit but easily easily I get it so we have accepted so that changed the minutes with that change emotion okay all those in favor of accepting the minutes with that change say aye aye all right minutes are adopted all right it gives us the town manager this brings us to the town manager report Mendez first is related to the bond issuance that's coming up or excuse me I should say the ban issuance of for this last round of funding for Mendes so first of all I think he did seem you know you might not have seen my note today I haven't been able to really check

172my email just kind of sent one but so s p we had our ratings call last week and so we have been they did their examination so we have been reaffirmed at AAA with a stable Outlook so and uh they you know they pointed out some very um some key points such as so they have different criteria that they utilize um to determine you know basically what that what that is and one of the things that they pointed out is that you know we're in a fluid affluent community in Boston's western suburbs and we continue to maintain our strong financial performance and robust management practices which supports the AAA rating so just to go through the criteria one is the economy so they rated us as a very strong economy that's the highest you can

173do budgetary performance that's another category they're rated as strong which is the second highest budgetary flexibility they rated us again at very strong liquidity very strong again management very strong and then debt and long-term liabilities they've rated us as adequate which is you know basically middle of the middle of the road and that's really due to our Oak Heaven pension obligation so um anyway congratulations to uh to the finance team and and you know yourselves and the fincom everybody who's done work on on our policies and have followed up on it because that's what leads to to this raid which will lead to us saving money um we're looking at about 17 million that we will go out for after um what you look at after the uh msba reimbursement so after you you have

174to net it out so what you anticipate the msba reimbursement coming in no we haven't factored those in yet so what Joe is referring to is that um the legislature passed additional funding for existing projects that are in the msba program to handle cost increases many thanks to the Senate President and representative Lewis for their work on that and so we've calculated it out we could be eligible for 3.8 to 3.9 million more which is which is significant but we will go out to Market on Tuesday and um so they'll you'll have to sign the notes that you're meeting on the fourth Claudia have you been through that Pro you haven't been through that process yet no I was just signing the notes it's a really long and arduous process so okay but anyway that's

175um that's just an update on Mendez um I've got Mendez opening on here but I wasn't there so um you know just congratulations to everybody that was that was part of that uh part of that building and getting that building opening open and um you know I think all of you were able to attend which I think is awesome and a good ceremony and then finally the Attorney General decision so Brandi you just made a comment so it's not a decision they've just they've asked some questions about article 14 from the May 3rd town meeting which was the net net zero emissions in municipal buildings so they've questioned the constitutionality of that so are they seriously is this a serious thing or just some kind of like what they asked Lisa to write an opinion

176for them so Lisa's provided that she's um unbelievable it it is getting almost silly but I wasn't sure if that was sorry interrupted but I wasn't sure if that was just some kind of routine thing where they say that but no this is unusual she's actually questioning us we've never had we've never had this that's unbelievable so um anyway and then just a couple of other items before you go on so is there so that's the response and so so we're waiting for the Attorney General so Lisa's at has provided them the information that they've asked people had a chance to read through it it was very thorough I mean you know a lot of work yeah she can be thorough and just a couple of other things uh you know we had movie night

177recently at The Corner Spot and that was really successful I think we probably had over 200 people um you know thanks to Beth and Melissa in the ABA and all the sponsors who helped put that together and then Jen do you want to talk a little bit about the holiday program so the human services and Community Center are once again um planning for their holiday program so that program is sort of twofold they do a Thanksgiving dinner for families in need and then they also identify people for holiday gifts children for holiday gifts and then we match them up with Community donors um to date we have um I think 130 participants meaning recipients of the program um it's just been two days since we started to really put out information to obtain the donors

178and we already have 37 people willing certainly we're always looking for people who want to either participate and provide the donations and gifts but also if you know families that are in need just get in contact with the human services department and they can match your family and your children up with donors this year we're all so if anyone's interested in participating in making donations for the Thanksgiving meal we're certainly looking for that as well over the last since the pandemic the Ashland emergency fund has really fully funded that program and in previous years leading up to 2020 we did have people in the community that were donating parts or pieces of the meal and that was super helpful and it allows us to sort of stretch out the emergency funds donation to the to

179the food pantry throughout the whole year and if people are interested in participating either for the Thanksgiving meal or for Christmas how do they what do they do to say I'm willing to support a family so all they have to do is reach out to human services at ashlandmass.com or if they don't have access to email they can certainly just call the food pantry um or actually anybody at the community center can help and it's full out Human Services and then Courtney um or other staff would send you a Google form just to fill out sort of um there's options you know you can either adopt um a child and sort of do that or you can do filler presence so we found people um feel more comfortable just sort of picking up things along

180the year and then bring them and then we fill them in um some people will do um gift cards for teenagers you know they're sort of sort of certain um things that people feel most comfortable with and we've tried to be a little bit more flexible than we have in the past just to meet people where they are quick question are they you are we still utilizing the Boston food bank for some of the uh food supplies for Thanksgiving um that's how we get our food or um you know for the yearly for the year I think I think I that will certainly utilize we have Partnerships and we reach out to the the grocery stores um last year we reached out to Whole Foods and sort of tries to see if they're willing to

181give us donations which many of them are and then we purchase it okay Ashland emergency fund gives a donation as well thank you speaking of the community center um I wasn't able to make it to the community center reopening but how was that I don't know if other folks like is it good yeah it was odd we had 100 people it was so busy it was great to see yeah it looks great and it does look great oh my gosh they did such it's like refreshed and and I heard that I don't know if it was from you or someone else that as they were making some repairs they found that there was stuff that might not have been done correctly the first time so so but it was great you know just it looks

182really refreshed and it's just really nice you can tell the people that go there all the time are very excited yeah they're super excited and then we were able to um sign up about 20 new people who had never come oh that's right so that was as that was one of um one of the initiatives that Candy Wilson really wanted to do is sort of bring new people in and sign them up have the fob so that they can start to use um the activities right away yeah so that's awesome candy and her team did a great job they definitely putting all that together it's much brighter over there it's very I don't think I realized how dark it was until now you don't and so now it's brightened I mean I thought they put

183in new woodwork like new wood paneling and it's like no but they just painted it differently yeah yeah it's a little less furniture too so it feels a little bit more accessible yeah the items that were found not not all of them yet so but they're now on the list they're on the list let's go and then just uh looking forward to Ashland day on Saturday no it's New England it's Wednesday it's true with that so that's what I have okay so I guess that that brings us to board reports so we'll start with Claudia go ahead work our way all right just to uh just to piggyback on the community center reopening I I stopped by as well and I think the one thing that I would have to say really the energy in

184that building was was palpable there was a tremendous amount of enthusiasm there was all kinds of different things going on and uh so it was very very nice to see and it did it looked looked beautiful I hadn't been over to the left in a long time when you go in the front door so um but it was it was much brighter than what I remembered um I had the opportunity to stop and and do a little uh sending Sunshine last week with Natalia Melnick and uh there you know there was a that was a nice event down at Corner Spot um it actually happened to be at the same time as I think the final night for uh you know guess at the mic what if it's not open mic thank you go open

185mic and uh so it was nice some nice background music and uh there were you know probably when I was there probably about 10 people who were filling out making cards the hearts actually were were there um and so you know I I managed to do a few you know it helps if you could draw which I can't but you know the sentiments there the sentiment was there um and then I did I attend the the traffic study committee uh last week and I I just want to be clear that I do not in any way shape or form think that um I understand how overworked many of our departments are throughout the community that and certainly the public works department they do a yeoman's duty and and there is there's always an emergency in

186public works always right um so I just want to be clear that that uh I certainly appreciate all the work they do and um you know I I just raised some issues because I feel so there's significant safety issues um and then last night we had a school building committee meeting and this was the first in the new building um you know I too was at the opening and gave tours all afternoon um they were I think six of us giving tours it was one right after another uh uh you know hundreds Jim thinks that probably about 1500 people came through oh really wow that's right and so it was really nice it was it was certainly a proud moment in our community um and you know again a big thank you to our community

187for supporting it and especially at the level that it was supported um and then just to talk uh briefly just to reiterate a little bit about the the amount of work that certain individuals put into making that building a reality for our community I mean initially uh really Jim had a lot of work to do with the legwork up front in terms of getting us into the whole SBA process that that's you know a significant amount of work and it was it's huge for the community right millions of dollars um and it doesn't hurt that we have uh I happen to have the Senate President in our community who you know does a lot of things that that we benefit from so um and then Dr Kyra who did really the omen's work on writing

188um the educational plan um I think that you know the the the entire thing the thing that's one of the most impressive things about the building is that every space was done with intention everything was intentional um you know we lived in a building for many years that was maybe intentional when it was built in 54 and 56. um but there weren't any they weren't we didn't have intentional spaces for for people to receive services or to meet in small groups or um so to be in a building where everything had been you know thoughtfully planned is is really very very um unique I think um and again you know like I said Dr Cairo was did a yeoman's amount of work on that and then you know finally uh Paul Kendall I mean I

189mean we should figure out something to name after you yeah I'm not sure what but you know maybe the geothermal well we definitely something in that building needs to be named after him I've got an idea he just did a you know he's done a tremendous amount of work I was in there one Saturday when he was in there going through room by room with a punch list and and spotting you know the uh you know the plate around the electrical plug was a little Askew I mean there wasn't a thing that that he missed and hours and hours and hours um if daily um and then finally just with regards to that now they're trying to get the playground going before um the weather gets cold they they need to get it up and

190then the uh it's some kind of a rubber uh base that will be underneath it has to be done when the temperature is 41 degrees and above so they are really working as quickly as they can to try to be prepared to to do that base prior to the weather getting cold at night so um so I guess that's it for me so thank you Randy go ahead uh so a couple of things Yolanda and I were over at the farmer's market last Saturday for office hours and despite the cold slightly rainy um pretty windy conditions we actually had a lot of people come up and talk to us so um you know I just wanted to give a shout out to the farmers market and especially um Gene Gene Walker who really kind of

191helped and coordinated all of this and made arrangements for us when when we came kind of came to her at the last minute and said we really would love to be able to do office hours there so she really kind of um helped us out quite a bit so thank you to the to the farmers market and to Jean I was also collecting items before you go on are we scheduled more hours there where are we 14. so Joe and Yolanda are going to be there from nine to eleven well like we're gonna do I can only do nine to ten so if someone else could have joined Joe for over 14th I had a conflict but let's keep that on the ship October from 9 to 11 and yeah you're gonna be okay all

192right all right so I interrupted um but um I was at actually I was at Rob's house I guess it was about a week and a half ago now like an end of summer thing and yeah I was talking to representative Jack Lewis um and really I was with my friend Maggie masoki from from area and both of us were talking to Jack and Rebecca Carter from home to homes and um about the um the humanitarian crisis that's that's happening in Framingham right now I know some of us have probably heard about migrants and refugees coming to Massachusetts um and Framingham has taken on a number of of um of refugees that they are housing and trying to get the kids into schools and you know these are families that are literally coming um to

193our country with nothing and so um area had done a a had put the word out and I did as well area had collected three carloads worth of items toiletries coats clothes shoes um and and I took over a car load today to um to the shelter from all the generosity from everyone at the Farmers Market on Saturday so which was heavily appreciated my friends at Smock who I've been working with they are very appreciative of all the the generosity of our community so I know areas putting together one more um one more collection and the drop-off is going to be next you know by next Friday the 29th so I can get information to anyone who is looking for where to what to bring or where to take it and I can I can

194provide that to folks but yeah it'd be good to know we can get it out there push it out there so it's it's um it's very by next Friday yes by the 29th so um and um just a couple other quick things our comprehensive plan uh steering committee meets tomorrow Yolanda and I and Michael and um the gang will be meeting with our the gang of 29. you're the gang of six um we'll be meeting with our consultant JM Goldson who we had interviewed for our kickoff meeting with with them and I'm excited to kind of really get our hands around what this project is going to look like I think um I think they're going to do they're going to be great for our community so I'm excited about that I would encourage folks

195that you know we have a the room in the library at seven o'clock or we start at 6 30. we're going to start with the consultant at seven o'clock I would encourage folks to to um to connect on Zoom it's it's a public meeting we want people to be informed it's there's not it's not a public forum so it's not an it's not a time for the public to be able to interact with the consultant or the um or the group I just want to make sure we set expectations because I know Community involvement's great and we want people to be engaged but um we just also want to make sure that the public realizes that this is this is our our first meeting with the consultant and that's the primary focus for the for

196the meeting so um and just the last thing um where we talk about the food pantry a simple gesture is doing a collection um this upcoming Saturday it's a great way to be able to donate to our Ashland food pantry if folks want to sign up basically you put a bag of items out on your front porch or you're by your mailbox on a bi-monthly basis and it gets picked up and taken over to the community center and you can sign up if you Google simple gesture Ashland they will drop and sign up they will drop off a bag to you or you can just put out a like a paper bag full of full of stuff this Saturday and it's a great way to to easily give to the to the Ashland food pantry

197and that is it for me so thanks Joe yeah stay dry through your neighborhood you give them a call okay thank you Mr chair briefly we've had a couple of meetings um with the traffic study committee group um talking about a bunch of issues that pertain to safety and sidewalks speeding um that we've had issues with on on East Union Street Cedar Street lower level traffic studies were done we're going to do another traffic study in that area again some of the residents were not uh really believing that the figures that they had were were accurate enough but this was uh East Union Street by um Cedar Street and uh Higley Road this was uh it was a 14-day study that was done and the amount of traffic that was going through that specific area

198was over 67 000 cars in 14 days what sixty seven thousand cars in 14 days well ways now sends people that way from our side of town I understand to miss 126. and that's where the traffic issue was coming from coming from Framingham coming in this way um so yeah there was a or rooting people that way right so once people learn especially after Higley learned about Cherry Street dump it out onto Pleasant right there yeah oh so those that came uh so that study was done via uh DPW and Kevin so I appreciate all the effort that he put into that um so now they're going to well we're going to redo that test uh that that um let's study again and uh hopefully we have uh better results um so that and then

199uh affordable housing trust will be meeting on the 28th we uh summer Hiatus is over with we've been working individually trying to uh find new ways and new things to get people to be affordable and try to build with us and work with us it's not easy it's not easy as as Jason said earlier people want to make money and this is the time to do it nobody wants to leave money on the table because we're looking for you know affordable housing so with that Habitat for Humanity we'll be working with us closely and hopefully we can get something off the ground sooner than later so we're keeping our fingers crossed with that and then like Michael said uh Ashland day the 35th annual uh celebration will be this Saturday starts at 10 o'clock to

200uh 4 P.M and all the vendors were shy 28 vendors when we had 2019. so we have actually 70 70 vendors with some really really uh happy to see that you know after a three-year Hiatus that you know the interest is back so uh yeah and you know two with Hoven and covet and then we last January we said you know they were still traces of covert and we didn't want to take any you know unnecessary chances so we said no we'll give it another year and uh little did we know that the vaccine was going to work and but anyway long story shot we're here uh it's a little shot smaller version of what it is but we have a lot of food vendors this year from Mexican Italian um Indian cuisines sandwiches Lions

201Club will have the food tent there they'll be uh doing a breakfast and all the different types of sandwiches and I understand that they may be doing a lobster roll oh wow who's doing a lobster the Lions really yeah interesting so come on down and there's new ice cream vendors and we have new ice cream vendor uh legendary and it's Le g-e-n-d-a-i-l-y that's their name yeah yeah it's called legendary oh yeah that's there oh okay you did not know they should see so they're the they're the new folks that are going to be yeah um next to next Pizza yeah so yeah and they'll be there next pizza will be there uh Pizza mine Pizza Palace will be there all different types of sandwiches and stuff so come on down yeah if you're hungry that's

202the place to be so hungry we're looking at it and we have six rides a couple Inflatables but hopefully we don't have a wind because anything over 35 to 40 miles an hour they won't they won't uh inflate so Joe I wanted to labor on your first uh on your first Ashland day that's how I remember when it got started oh you don't want to get started we had army tents we use you know those uh damp dreary brown colored cloth that weren't waterproof and they had the tents up and it's pouring and you could have just stayed outside the tents because now you're inside a wet hot damp tent sounds like the summer in general in Seattle but that was in Fall so anyway it's uh but those were those were fun days those

203are fun days and you know it's uh we're still going at it and you know the motto is still the same take pot and be proud We have uh we have two very uh distinguished recipients for the citizen of the year and Phil Marshall and those are surprises but uh we'll uh I think people be very uh very happy to see those individuals uh and a group get get to get the awards so keep praying for good weather and uh I'll see you guys all on Saturday yeah so thank you I'll be reading the proclamation yeah you shall honored to do so thank you just a couple things I want to Second everything that Claudia said about the Mendes and the project and the people that worked on it it was it's been an honor

204to be part of that group and to see the the building come to Frisch and we still have some work to do with the fields but um it'll be nice and the turnout for the opening was great um select select Board office hours as Brandi said it was great talking to different people and hearing their concerns and what I love is every time I go I feel like we get more feedback more people come in and are willing to talk to us and and give us their feedback so that was good a couple things coming up so the Metro West Regional collaborative we have our we've sort of taken the summer off we're having our first meeting in September it'll be Thursday 9 28 via Zoom we start at 8 A.M until 9 30. so

205if anyone's interested in coming and listening and and seeing what it's about let me know and I can send you the the the registration link yep um and then this is not just for Ashland but the haunt is coming in October this is a joint celebration haunted town between the Metro West YMCA and the uh Hopkinton Center for the Arts where they are creating a haunted town at the Metro West outdoor YMCA there's about seven or eight little vignettes you come in and you walk through there's the bed and breakfast there's the town hall there's a library there's a bunch of other stuff so a couple things one start looking for tickets that'll be happening the weekend of Friday Saturday and Sunday so the 26th 26 no 27th 28th and 29th leading up to Halloween

206so maybe don't go Friday but go Saturday or Sunday but the other thing is they're still looking for volunteers so if you love Halloween if you love dressing up they're looking still for people for some of the vignettes as well as to help with parking and ticket sales and just directing people so if if you're interested reach out to Kelly Grill at Hopkinton Center for the Arts or reach out to me and I can connect you with her and Grieves Y at ashlandmass.com but yeah that should be a lot of fun and I will be there all three days helping out so great and and that's it I don't know if I have to be yet we'll see am I going to be okay okay I thought I was going to be behind the scenes

207and she's like oh no no we've Incorporated so I'm going to help manage timing and stuff some of my production work and she's like oh no no no people are gonna see you so I'm like okay I gotta start figuring out a costume well thank you no one mentioned porch Fest which I know is going on but I don't have the details is it next week it's the September 30th from three to four or three to sounds exciting three to five and then it's closing out at the corner spot with the road dog so and I gotta um imitate from I think Helen and Tony Lewis on did you guys get that one it's there so they're host yeah the Washington Street so I don't know there's all sorts of stuff going on so check

208that out that's September 30th the other I also attended the community center reopening and the Mendes so that's a lot of great projects at the same time so that was great um yeah I did want to call it just to you know we got those funding letters from representative Lewis and Senator spilkas that was really exciting news great you know uh so wanted to thank them for their efforts um one thing close to my heart was you know representative Lewis had ident had got through the budget is it 175 000 I didn't have it in front of me but for the trade 150 000 for the upper Charles Trail specifically in the state budget so that was great to see so we all got that I think specifically for Ashland yes Trail okay perfect yeah

209very nice yeah good for him just one question do you would you like me to like write up some correspondence back oh that's a good idea I think so thank you yeah yeah that'd be great yeah thank you for that and um oh and just an update we did um uh representative zapper Charles Trail did meet with the school committee was it last week or the week before I was I and Tony Lewis did you watch yeah and uh Judy Rosenthal and actually it went very well uh Tony spent some time reviewing with them and it actually been I couldn't believe it was something like six years ago that that they had appeared before the school committee and went he went through the whole Trail and asked about support in the high school you know

210trying to Route it and he went briefly through the different routes possible scenarios to go through the high school and they were very receptive they had their concerns and um in the end they they did pick one of the members volunteered to work with the upper Charles Trail committee helped route the trail does anybody have a guess who that would be fall he does a lot of bike riding like he does trail riding and stuff like that so so it was very pot it was very positive meeting they were very supportive they had issues and concerns it's not going to be easy but so that was a good so the good news Rob now now with Paul Kendall on you you're gonna get a trail I know exactly yeah exactly anyway so that's and uh

211so that's my report so I guess entertain a motion to adjourn this just slipped my mind uh when you swing by Saturday at Ashland day if you see my better half wish her a happy birthday okay I don't want to tell her how old she is because she'll probably kill me but yeah now she will but swing by and wish her a happy birthday we'll do that thanks a couple days before my birthday too it's a couple days before my birthday too so all right we'll do the same for Yolanda all right motion to adjourn I will second that all those in favor say aye aye aye see you Saturday at Ashland day yes thanks everybody good night everybody thank you foreign thank you foreign