Sherborn Annual Town Meeting 4/23/2019

001when you leave there will be poll workers at each exit from the auditorium please hand one of them your handset as you exit you will receive immediate feedback when your vote is recorded a successful yes vote will show a green light and one egg on the LCD screen a successful no vote will show a green light and to be on the LCD screen if your vote does not register you will see a red light and a circle with a line through it on the LCD screen if you get a red light or no light at all please raise your hand and a poll worker will bring you a new handset and will collect the non-functioning won from you you may begin voting as soon as a closed discussion on an article or the motion sorry

002okay but when I announce please vote now a countdown clock will appear on the screen and you will have 10 seconds to finalize your vote during that time you may change your vote simply by pressing the other button from your original choice so as I stated earlier if you push the wrong button that's okay the last button you push before voting is closed is is the vote that will register in case I will also point out in case anyone is having going to have trouble seeing the screen this magic cube code frontier will indicate that the countdown clock of 10 seconds is running okay it will be green when the when you may vote and it will be red when voting is closed that if everybody can see either that or that or both we're

003good let's see when the countdown clock reaches zero all votes are locked in and the results will appear on the screen for articles where a two-thirds vote is required the results will show first as numbers and then it will toggle to percentages so that you will be assured that the call by the moderator is correct and I won't have to do a lot of math on the fly one final note as has always been the case only votes cast are counted so adding the yes votes and no votes may produce different totals from article to article this does not mean that there is something wrong it means only that some voters chose to abstain on a particular article again if your handset fails in some way please raise your hand and a poll worker will

004bring you a new one and collect the non-functioning one since we learn best by doing let's try a couple of sample votes the question here is about how the town of Sherbourne got its name you should assume that my yammering here is a discussion about the question and that discussion is now closed so I ask you to please vote now [Music] have we got it at all I mean have we got a countdown clock here oh sorry right my mistake okay so a hundred seventeen people said that said yes this was the answer and 71 said no I believe the answer is actually correct although you know whatever so I guess the moderator I don't take a position on articles so well all of your votes are correct as far as I am concerned right

005so the the motion passes because the next question kind of afraid of this one will the Sox win the World Series okay we're having a discussion now and pretending that we have been debating the question and that debate is now closed I asked you to please vote now now now okay if that was a positive motion that the Sox would win I guess the motion fails okay so I think that we are I'm sorry we have someone with a faulty clicker yeah Joe can you can you go to the end of the aisle soda okay article 1 annual reports this is a majority vote mr. Leahy I move that the reports of the town officers and committees as contained in the annual report be accepted second okay I will open discussion now yes mrs. Lincoln

006moved that the motion to accept be amended by adding the following after the word accepted quote and that the governance task force to is to continue until it completes its final report period is there a second for that moved and seconded is there any debate on the amendment okay then I am closing debate on the amendment and please get ready we are voting on the amendment the addition of the words suggested by mrs. Lincoln please vote now where I'm gonna hold on this for a minute till we get the count until we get the countdown clock just I'm just wanna do we have can we give a countdown clock on just a yes or no here so that we can move or okay yeah okay I'm just going to do a vote foot on this

007all in favor of the amendment please say aye opposed motion carries so now we are voting on the main motion as amended is there any further discussion on the main motion okay then the original motion is on the floor and I would ask you to please vote now I'm sorry yeah they're working on it this is please have some patience I think this will improve as time passes all right all right then we will do a voice vote on this article as well okay on the motion the main motion that the reports of the town officers and committees as contained in the annual report be accepted as amended all in favor please say aye opposed motion passes articles 2 through 7 are contained in a consent agenda I will read the article I will read

008the titles of the articles that comprise the consent agenda as I do so if you wish to call a hold on an article please do so by calling out hold when the title of that article is read article 2 supplemental appropriations for the current fiscal year two nineteen budget article three bond premiums and authorization rescission use of net premiums received by the town on the sale of any bonds or notes to pay down other bonds or to pay project costs and to rescind the borrowing authorization passed in 2008 article 4 internal transfer from enlargement fund for the care improvement embellishment and enlargement of town cemeteries article 5 revolving funds set limits on expenditures from the following self-sustaining outside the budget revolving funds that would be council on aging Board of Health recycling town Forest farm

009pond ambulance and elder housing article 6 transferred to the open trust fund article 7 stabilization transfers to generalist Stabilization Fund and elder housing capital Stabilization Fund since no holds have been called we will go straight to the motion mr. Joe Agee I move that articles 2 through 7 be considered together as consent calendar articles where such articles are routine and typically approved without significant debate and when such articles moved as written in the warrant and with the following additional information article 2 the 2019 supplemental budget amounts with 260,000 dollars to be transferred from free cash in the Treasury for the purpose of supplementing the following fiscal year 2019 budget lines snow and ice removal of 160,000 and police overtime of 100,000 article three I move that the town vote to supplement each prior vote of

010the town that authorizes the borrowing of money to pay costs of capital projects to provide that in accordance with the Massachusetts General Laws chapter 44 section 20 the premium received by the town upon the sale of any bonds or notes there under less any such premium applied to the payment of the costs of issuance of such bond or notes may be applied to pay project tests project costs and the amount authorized to be borrowed for each such project shall be reduced by the amount of any such premium so applied and further to rescind the affordable housing appropriation approved under article 14 of the 2008 annual Town Meeting article for cemeteries there's $5,400 be transferred from the cemetery enlargement fund article 5 the revolving fund fiscal year 2019 expenditure limits Council on Aging revolving fund $75,000

011Board of Health revolving fund at $15,000 recycling revolving fund $860 town forest revolving fund $30,000 farm pond revolving fund 160,000 and to authorize a select board to expand such monies without further appropriation the ambulance revolving fund is $300,000 and the elder housing revolving fund is two hundred eighty seven thousand five hundred sixty one dollars on article six the O peb Trust Fund that $100,000 be transferred from free cash and finally in article seven the general stabilization fund transfer ten thousand dollars from free cash that the elder housing capital Stabilization Fund transferred twenty five thousand dollars from elder housing revolving cont second okay there is no discussion no debate on the consent calendar so I would add the bait as well debate isn't open more closed there is no debate so I would ask you to

012please vote now greenlight design motion passes yeah article three I'm sorry Article II I'm fy2009 bus budget next fiscal year this is a majority vote mr. sy each department represented by the numbered items appearing in the advisory committees fiscal year 2020 omnibus budget in the column under the heading recommended FY 2020 he called over by the moderator and if no objection is made that such amounts be raised and appropriated for the purpose specified except that where a transfer is indicated by a numbered footnote the specified amount shall be provided by such transfer that the salaries for the various town officers including those indicated by numbered footnotes be fixed effective July 1 2019 as specified in the Omnibus Budget that becomes effective pursuant to this motion and that any item to which objection is made be

013separately considered and disposed of in accordance with the vote of the town second I will now read the totals for each department in the Omnibus budget as always the full amounts for each component salaries and expenses are printed in the Advisory report to the town which I hope you have with you anyone wishing to comment on or question any amount may call hold when I read the department's name and amount and I will set that line item aside when the entire omnibus has been read I will list the departments on which there have been holds and we will vote the unheld-down soul $80,000 assessors 135,000 $940 treasurer seventy nine thousand eight hundred four dollars collector 134,000 $438 finance director accounting 285,000 $889 Advisory Committee three thousand eight hundred thirteen dollars Conservation Commission sixty thousand 83

014dollars Planning Board eighty thousand fifty nine dollars I'm sorry fifty town-clerk one hundred thirty two thousand eight hundred eight nine dollars eight nine dollars a lecture and registration twenty five thousand five hundred eighty four dollars town buildings two hundred eighty thousand eight hundred dollars police 1 million eight hundred seventeen thousand eight hundred ninety-eight dollars Fire and Rescue four hundred and twelve thousand eight hundred thirteen dollars ambulance $80,000 inspectors 95 thousand one hundred twenty three dollars dover-sherborn Regional School District nine million five hundred sixty nine thousand eighty eight dollars Tri County Vocational thirty two thousand two hundred $24 Sherbourne school's seven million two hundred forty-eight thousand eight hundred $19 Norfolk agricultural $34,000 community maintenance and development 1 million sixty two thousand eight hundred forty two dollars snow and ice eighty-three thousand $918 street lighting 23 thought

015sorry $22,000 solid waste 288,000 $877 recycling three thousand two hundred thirty dollars cemeteries $64,000 Board of Health thank you 141 150 140 1152 dollars Council on Aging one hundred fifty-three thousand eleven dollars veterans six thousand four hundred ninety dollars library five hundred three thousand nine hundred eight dollars recreation $15,000 Historical Commission $1,300 insurance and employee benefits two million eight hundred ninety five thousand one hundred sixty dollars debt service 1 million three hundred fifty five thousand $881 Reserve account $300,000 so we have a hold on the selectmen z-- budget so I am going to ask now for your vote the for mr. sy to move the unhealth madam moderator yes mr. sy I move to approve all of the non held budget items second is there any discussion right hearing no discussion I will close the

016debate portion and ask you to please vote at this time motion passes now we will address the hold on the selectmen budget Robert Johnson - Robert Johnson - 7 - Western Avenue in the note at the bottom there it says - a selectman chairman 0 second member 0 third member 0 what about the fourth and fifth members does anyone care to address mr. Johnson's questioned good catch seeing no other discussion I will ask for a motion on the selectmen budget [Music] okay so there's no further debate on that I will close debate now please vote at this time okay right now don't ignore the red alright motion to Thornton's budget please vote now at this time okay okay so we're using the tube here okay voting is closed I'm sorry can you move the so

017motion passes that was the vote was 89 to 11 can I I would just like to confirm that with a hand count the boys spot like a voice vote all right all in favor of the vote on to move the sorry on the selectmen budget please say aye opposed all right motion passes article 9 capital improvement plan mr. lahey matter moderator yes advisory will be making seven separate motions under article 9 Madame moderator yes mr. Waldron I move favorably action your mic is not on Jeff sorry can you hear me yeah yes and I just before Jeff starts I want to point out that this will be a 2/3 vote because it is I move favorable action and that the treasurer with the approval of the Select board be authorized to borrow for the purpose

018of acquiring breathing support equipment for the fire department item a as set forth in the Advisory Committee report table the sum of seventy three thousand dollars pursuant to Mass General Laws chapter 44 section seven one or any other enabling Authority and to issue bonds or notes of the town therefore in accordance with mg/l chapter 44 section 20 Arthur as any premium received by the town upon the sale of any bonds or notes approved by this vote less any such premium apply to the payment of the cost of issuance of such bonds or notes to be applied to the payment of costs approved here under thereby reducing by a like amount the amount authorized to be borrowed to pay such costs provided however that this vote shall be expressly contingent upon approval by the voters and

019an election of a proposition two and a half so called debt exclusion question pursuant to Mass General Laws chapter 59 section 29 C subsection K section 21 21 c k a second I believe that fire chief Aaron Kenny has a presentation to make good evening this will be pretty quick so for the capital request for the fire department we have this breathing air cascade system this device and what you see is a all-encompassing cabinet and storage for the breathing air that we use to breathe through the air tanks that you see us wearing so currently our breathing air system is over 20 years old it is missing many of the filters and OSHA required requirements for breathing air quality as well as safety when refilling those air bottles and with the state becoming a or

020making municipalities B OSHA compliant now this became a priority for us to replace this year so that was that cascade system improves obviously debris the air quality enhances personnel safety and will allow us to be OSHA compliant and it provides for enhancing enhancement of tracking of our resources in terms of our scbas which is our self-contained breathing apparatus bottles and allows us to be better track the air quality and to maintain a high level of service and making sure that our personnel safety is is a number-one priority the next component is the oxygen containment fill station so this is different in that this is the air that we provide you in the event of a medical emergency so we have smaller oxygen tanks which we use and what we call our first in medical bags

021so if we in the UM in the event we respond to your home and have to put you on oxygen this is to refill the bottles that we use to provide oxygen for you as our citizens currently we actually do not have a true transfer or fill station the great ingenuity of the the members of the community and of our department created a system many many years ago and it had it worked up until you know we'll probably hit it would stop being used a few years back but I made the decision to definitely we're not going to use it because there's no containment fill station at all so in the event we had a failure or wanted oxygen bottles it would probably kill or severely injure one of our members so that system is

022not used at all right now so this would that system would be used to obviously make that a safer process make us OSHA compliant and also over time it should reduce operational costs because we do have what we call large the large cylinders that we use in the ambulance and in this station as storage which we're able to fill all of the oxygen bottles including those that are used in the police cruisers and our apparatus as well instead of having to pay external company to come in and fill those for us so that is the the job that the two items that are included in that $73,000 so obviously enhancing personnel safety is a big priority and being open ocean compliant is a large party for us and the ems side of things or the

023EMS services we provide you know are the largest demand of service that we have in town so the oxygen containment pieces is very important so these are the two items the oxygen single unit of fill station and the breathing air purification and cascade system for our for our members and provide you enhanced level of service good are there any other are there any comments questions and he just bait or discussion okay so since there is no discussion I would ask you to please vote at this time motion passes and yes can we have I'm gonna just declare or two-thirds on this because I think that it's pretty clear article nine item B Singh M&D air compressors and jackhammers this is a two-thirds vote as well thank you I move favorable action and that the treasurer

024with the approval of the select board the author's to borrow for the purposes of perching ACM Indy air compressor and to jackhammers item B as set forth in the Advisory Committee report table the some of $22,300 pursuant to Mass General Laws chapter 44 section seven one or any other enabling Authority and to issue bonds or notes of the town therefore and in accordance with Mass General Laws chapter 44 section 20 offers any premium received by the town upon the sale of any bonds or no it's approved by this vote less any such premium applied to the payment of cost of issuance of such bonds or notes to be applied to the payment of costs approved here under thereby reducing by a like amount the amount authorized to be borrowed to pay such costs provided however

025that this vote shall be expressly contingent upon approval by the voters at an election of profit of a proposition two and a half so-called debt exclusion question pursuant to Mass General Laws chapter 59 section 21 C K second I believe that C MD director Shawn Killeen has a presentation to make Shawn your is still intending to do them all right now for Sam yeah not a moderator I'd like to do one presentation for the four articles it's great you'll make a lot of friends that way so although it's one motion so far that the first is the jackhammer as we spoke of also a wood chipper a large tractor and to pick up some other highway equipment the compressor we currently have was purchased new in 1970 it's a diesel compressor it failed to run

026several times while the crew was out trying to do road work this year so it was time to go it also runs so poorly that it gets everyone sick when they're around it the tractor were replacing was purchased in 1994 it was mostly used for the fields when we were mowing the Laurel farm and the other fields we use it quite often for roadside mowing and we're using it beyond its useful life and expectancy so we're gonna we're upgrading to a much larger tractor that well talk more about that in a second service the new tractor has an enclosed cab so we'll be able to use it in the winter for snow cleanup the increased horsepower and the size will allow us to fill trucks so we have one more piece of machinery that can

027be used to fill the Sanders and again the existing ones from 1994 to pickup so we have a fleet of just three pickup trucks two of which are not gonna pass the d-o-t inspection this year without significant work they're unreliable they break down in the middle of snowstorms we use those obviously daily for the foreman we're also purchasing a tow behind blower we were used using the region's blower this year to clear off the fields and a water tank brine sprayer in the summer it'll be used for transporting water and the winter we'll use it for spraying Brian on the roads for de-icing and we're also going to upgrade our chipper we have one but it's rather small newer ones have a winch which helps with increase safety you can pull a full three into

028it without needing a machine to load it and obviously humans to load it if it's too large to pick up that's the end right okay is there any debate or discussion on on 9b only that is the only one we will be voting on now this is for the air compressor and to jackhammers yes mr. young is there any other comment or discussion this is a two-thirds vote and so I would ask you to vote at this time 9b article passes by 2/3 yes the count is 182 13 article 9 items see make a few words of explanation before we present our motion yes in the warrant you'll see that article 9 see for material processing equipment cap request is for a ninety six thousand dollars from CMD in the last few weeks seeming he

029came to us with a request for a reserve fund transfer from current year's budget to purchase a hot box asphalt recycler the cost of thirty five thousand dollars initially seaman D had expected to a sit-down for capital for this here in the capital request however advisory did and as did the Select board author recommended an authorized see me to take those funds make the purchase in the past week or so which allows Siemens you get work on some of the road work repairs that needed to be done and so for that reason because this thirty five thousand dollars has already been transferred from a reserve fund transfer to see Mandi and the hotbox asphalt recycler has been purchased we're gonna make a change to the extra dollar amount being requested in article 9 section C

030from ninety six thousand dollars down to sixty one thousand dollars so if I can have a motion now so for article nine items see the CM and D material processing equipment I move favorable action and that the treasurer with the approval of the Select board be authorized to borrow for the purposes of purchasing CM Indies material processing equipment items C as set forth in the Advisory Committee report table the some of $61,000 pursuant to Mass General Laws chapter 44 section 7 1 or any other enabling authority and to issue bonds or notes of the town therefore and in accordance with Mass General Laws chapter 44 section 20 auto eyes any premium received by the town upon the sale of any bonds or notes approved by this vote lest any such premium applied to the payment

031of the costs of issuance of such bonds or notes to be applied to the payment of costs approved here under thereby reducing by a like amount the amount authorized to be borrowed to pay such costs provided however that this vote shall be expressly contingent upon approval by the voters at an election of a proposition two and a half so called debt exclusion question pursuant to Mass General Laws chapter 59 section 21 c k ii so sean has already given his presentation on this is there any debate comments yes mr. yang thank you all right then we will move to the vote on this this is article 9 item C cm and D processing equipment please vote now motion passes 182 18 passes by 2/3 article 9 item D cm and D tractor this is also

032a 2/3 majority about a moderator yes I move favorable action and that the treasurer with the approval of the select board the authorized to borrow for the purposes of purchasing and equipping equipping a cm and D tractor item D as set forth in the Advisory Committee report table the sum of seventy five thousand one hundred pursuant to Mass General law chapter 44 section 71 or any other enabling authority into issue bonds or notes of the tone therefore and in accordance with Mass General law chapter 44 section Audrey Miam received by the town upon the sale of any bonds or notes approved by this vote less any such premium applied to the payment of the costs of issuance of such bonds or notes to be applied to the payment of costs approved here under thereby reducing

033by a like amount the amount authorized to be borrowed to pay such cost provided however that this vote shall be expressly contingent upon approval by the voters at an election of a proposition two and a half so called that exclusion question pursuant to Mass General law chapter 59 section 21 c k ii is there any comment or discussion any other comment or discussion Peter black 55 Maple Street I just have a question your funding purchases of equipment that we've heard there is a life expectancy are these are we financing these purchases with notes or bonds that coincide with a life expectancy are these 30-year notes five-year notes what are we borrowing how long are we going to be paying for does that make sense is there someone who can answer this question statue in action

034the state statue actually tells you how long you can borrow an item and you would have to make a case for to borrow longer than that if your life expectancy of the vehicle or something if you normally get longer than say 10 years out of a vehicle you could do that but so are there specific notes for each purchase with with the treasurer issues bonds through an advisor so each it's not a separate bond for each item it's one bond and total of whatever she's putting out to debauch different yeah the one bond may have six years on a vehicle may have three years on a piece of equipment or something or 15 or 20 years if it's a bigger long public works project but they're all rolled into one bond thank you is there

035any other debate or discussion comment okay then we will vote on article 9 item D please vote now motion passes by 2/3 170 224 article 9 item e CM and d to pickup trucks with highway equipment two-thirds majority madame moderator mr. Daley I moved favorable action and that the treasurer with the approval of the select board to be authorized to borrow for the purposes of purchasing and equipping cm indeed to pickup trucks with highway equipment item II as set forth in the Advisory Committee report table the sum of one hundred eleven thousand two hundred ninety five dollars pursuant to Mass General Laws chapter 44 section seven one or any other enabling Authority and to issue bonds or notes of the town therefore and in accordance with Mass General Laws chapter 44 section 20 any premium

036received by the town upon the sale of any bonds or notes approved by this vote less any such premium applied to the payment of the costs of issuance of such bonds or notes to be applied to the payment of cost approved here under thereby reducing by a like amount the amount authorized to be borrowed to pay for such costs provided however that this boat shall be expressly contingent upon approval by the voters at an election of a proposition two and a half so-called debt exclusion question pursuant to Mass General Laws chapter 59 section 21 seek a second is there any comment or debate mr. Jung thank you is there any other comment or debate please approach the mic Karen Lane 15 Meadowbrook Road sharpen my first question is are these bonds issued by the town

037of Serban sold by the town of service or they state bonds these are town bonds issued through a a bank and what is the bound rating of the town of service right now we're at urple a rating thank you is there any other question comment or debate okay hearing none I would ask you to please vote now motion passes by 2/3 162 238 article 9 item F town buildings 2/3 vote moderator mr. Gallatin Oh be authorized to borrow for the purposes of repair and/or renovation of town buildings item F as set forth in the Advisory Committee report and table including all incidental and related expenses the sum of $300,000 pursuant to mastering the law chapter 44 section 71 or any other enabling Authority and to issue bonds or notes of the town therefore providing that

038said that the authorization to borrow shall expire on June 30th 2022 and in accordance with mass general law chapter 44 section 20 any premium received by the town upon the sale of any bonds or notes approved by this vote less any such premium apply to the payments of the cost of issuance of such bonds or notes to be applied to the payment of costs approved here under thereby reducing by a like amount the amount authorized he borrowed to pay such cost provided however that this vote shall be expressly contingent upon approval by the voters at an election of a proposition two and a half so-called debt exclusion question pursuant to Mass General Laws chapter 59 section 21 C K do I hear a second second we have a presentation here from mr. clean [Music] town

039buildings improvements I don't think you're my Kazan better yeah so we have several different categories we have town campus projects gutters and masonry work at the police station the Town Hall entryway and handicap ramp they have pictures of several of these and replace remaining original siding and trim of the main fire station and then of course is there's quite a few smaller projects which were all included in the insight the on-site insight report from several years ago the town campus projects most of which were obviously trying to get done while we're finishing up the library which we hope to be this calendar year the library of course isn't responsible for paving the entire parking lot but it's all due to be paved the exterior lighting we're in the process of replacing throughout the town hall

040that both buildings are 20 years old the Town Hall and the police station so the Lighting's old there's also while we're paving there's some there's a pinch point at the rear of the police station lot that we've already started to fix so we will finish that obviously when we pave and then there's a contingency for unforeseen engineering for the upgrades that are gonna be done to Town Hall in conjunction with the library generator the police station when it was built for probably cost reasons they took the gutters off the building before it was before was built they took them out of the design that's not a good situation the water falls on people's heads as they're walking in the doors ice forms you can see most of that in pictures it also is degrading the

041brickwork on the front and the rear of the building so there's picture of ice right in front of the front door of the building the fire station last year you noticed we did the the doors we also did the siding on the front but the cement board siding that's on the rest of the building needs to be replaced so we need to finish that we couldn't do that in conjunction with the project because if we didn't have enough funding for the entire building that was somewhat a new project we weren't aware of when we started there's some pictures of the family siding with mildew and failed trim on the side of the elevator shaft and the gutters have rotted the the trim boards above those are the main projects okay is there any comment questions

042debate on this okay I see someone like Susan Tyler what's inevitable just a clarification on a line item one we have the word campus paving and then also under the line item three in there we also have campus paving what's the difference between the two and why are they on two different lines Thank You Sean I'm trying to find what slide she was referring to I think she's I think she's talking about the advisory report well the first slide was a recap of the several different projects that are encompassed in it we're only gonna pay the parking lot once if that's the most is there any other comment mystery on is there any other comment questions okay then the motion has been moved and seconded so I would ask you to please vote at this

043time motion passes by 2/3 166 227 article 9 item G Sherbourne school committee renovations to Pine Hill school 2/3 madam moderator yes mr. cow shall I move favorable action and that the treasurer with the approval of the Select board be authorized to borrow for the purpose of Pine Hill School reservations are sorry renovations item G is set forth in the Advisory Committee report table including all incidental and related expenses the sum of $65,000 pursuant to General Laws chapter 44 section 7 part 1 or any other enabling authority and to issue bonds or notes of the town therefore provided that set authorization to borrow shall expire on June 30th 2022 and in accordance with general launch after 44 Section 2000 eyes any premium received by the town upon the sale of any bonds or notes approved

044by this vote less any such premium applied to the payment of costs of issuance of such bonds or notes to be applied to the payments of costs approved here under thereby reducing by a like amount the amount authorized to be borrowed to pay such costs provided however that this vote shall be expressly contingent upon approval by the voters at an election of a prop two and a half so-called debt exclusions question pursuant to General Laws chapter 59 section 21 C sub K 2nd motions been moved and seconded is there discussion or comment is there any further discussion or comment okay then I'll open the voting please vote now motion passes by 2/3 182 211 182 211 right article 10 transfer from stabilization tree cleanup 2/3 yes mister saw I move favorable action and at the

045town vote to transfer one hundred and fifty thousand dollars from the general stabilization fund to CM and D for purposes of removal of dead and or dangerous roadside trees including all incidental and related costs second motion has been moved and seconded I believe mr. Cohen has a presentation this will be brief and it's the last time I'm going up here I don't think I need to make much of a presentation for everyone in here to know that there's a lot of dead trees in town the gypsy moths dropped from a few years ago and a couple consecutive years took their toll I want to show a map DCR goes out and flies over the entire state every year and they map out the extent of deforestation so this was done at the end of the

0462017 season you can see it's almost a million acres the uppermost portion of the red is sure burn it it came from Rhode Island it came up into town it hit the south side of town so if you live on the north side of town you didn't see it as bad yet we're not sure if you're going to we can't really predict exactly what they're gonna do each year we're a few years out from the drought so the trees are a little more healthy but that doesn't get the dead trees down to the ground last year once we kind of cleared through the fog of the March storms we went out and did and found at least 500 dead oak trees those are dead like didn't leaf out at all we estimated at least under

047the 200 leafed out and then gave up it was their final straw by July or August they were showing signs that they were just dead it costs about twice as much to take trees down in an emergency than it does if you plant it out cranes are expensive when it's not planned you usually only get one tree down maybe two in a day versus planning it out and setting up and taking maybe six maybe ten it's obviously much more dangerous to leave them standing and find out that they're gonna fall after they start to we work with eversource closely everyone has seen the stanley tree crews most of the time they're working forever serfs in town we do also use them they probably spent at least five times more than we have this past year

048eversource has deep pockets but their priorities are a little different than ours their priorities are their infrastructure so if you have a dead oak tree across the street from wires they may not choose to take it that's their decision so we've gone in a couple areas where they started and we finished the work Bullard Street being one of them this week if anyone has tried to travel down there it's been closed at least one lane and that's why that's it okay is there any comment or debate on this motion that's on the floor any further comment or debate okay then debate being closed open the voting and I would ask you to please vote at this time motion passes by 2/3 177 2 9 article in lebanon transfer from free cash tree clean up this

049is a majority madam moderator yes mr. Waldron this article was inserted in case article 10 which requires a two-thirds majority vote did not pass as article Tim has now passed I move no action on article 11 I second that motion the article has been moved and seconded is there any debate on this okay hearing no debate we will move to the voting when it is time for you to vote no action means that you are defeating this article and that we will appropriate no money from free cash to deal with the tree problem so you want to vote Yes to defeat this I'm sorry oh hey I'm smart okay so the motion passes for no action 97 to 18 article 12 use of free cash Madame moderator yes mr. lahey I move that no action

050be taken on this article second this is another no action article if you wish to take no action on this you would vote yes is there any comment or debate all right seeing none hearing none please vote at this time okay I think they are all not working I will take a voice vote on this all in favor of no action on article 11 please say aye opposed motion passes I'm sorry article 12 article 12 motion passes no action right I as I served on the committee for this as an ex officio member I am going to leave the stage for the next article and turn this over to Corinne Lincoln who is assistant moderator for the evening good evening article 13 electronic voting is Lincoln yes I move favorable action and that the town

051vote to raise and appropriate $5,000 to supplement the FY 2020 elections and registration budget to provide for the use of electronic voting at town meeting second it's been moved and seconded is there any discussion or questions yes in the rear Richard Robinson 117 Mills Street I was going to ask commerce is gonna cost thank you for attaching a number to it I'm against spending that money I'd much rather spend that $5,000 on the many things we need here in town I don't really mind waiting around for the very very few votes that require a paper ballot I I do mind spending $5,000 where we don't need to and clearly we do not need to right here yes in the rear I'm Carol Rubenstein 57 Oldfield Drive I'd like to suggest that we hold off voting

052on this until the end of town meeting because I'm not sure we've given the group a good test I haven't had total success with my second whatever you call this device and I'd like to see how well it works through the rest of Town Meeting before I vote on this article yes excuse me I saw a hand raised here if you would like to speak please go around and stand in line to speak at one of the mics yes in the rear Christine Kony 55 maple street I think although it seems a little cumbersome now just in our experience we've had for the last hour and a half that if you recall some of our other town meetings where there's been very contentious votes where even if it's not very contentious where the vote has

053been very close to even where votes have had to be counted and recounted handheld and then a ballot it can be extremely time-consuming plus the voting machine for the voting electronically gives anonymity I think it's really the most democratic way to go and I strongly urge people to support this yes next in the rear April continue Mill Street can I have clarification on that $5,000 is that per night or how many uses do we get out of that lease yes is there someone from the committee who could answer the question what seem yes yes it is per use yeah I mean meaning per night it yeah per night that's that's the cost of renting the system for one day of Town Meeting yes there's the comment in the rear good evening my name is Susan

054Gooch I live at 1:04 nason Hill Road here in Sherbourne I'm in favor of this device and one of the reasons is of many reasons is the digitization of our modernization of our world today by the use of this electronic device we are saving on the cost of the paper and are saving our trees as well as the people and and the trucks which need to drive the paper to the location and all the work that's involved behind it which I think the justification for $5,000 greatly exceeds what it would cost for us to do the math if we did it the old-fashioned way thank you yes was there another comment Carroll Rubinstein can I offer an amendment so that we can delay the vote until the end of town meet it the delay the

055last article well what we'd have to do at this point is to take a motion to consider something out of order require a 2/3 vote and we'd have to to take that vote and then we could move it to the end if that is your proposal that would be my proposal could could you come and get one of the forms and and fill that out we can consider that I'm going to have Carroll Marple who was on an ex officio member of the committee speak from up here I was just going to answer Susan Gucci's question it's me apparently I wanted to answer Susan's question about eliminating the waste of paper we would still have the paper at every meeting as a backup should the electronic clickers fail yes the rear okay Daniel Murphy bare

056Hill Road so I work for Dover Sherman cable television as such I've sat on Dover's town meetings which does use the electron does use an electronic voting system I'm not sure this is the best option for electronic voting system I can say that that the system in Dover has sped up the meetings some meetings that take two nights take one night and when considering the cost of this what should also be considered is the cost of carrying the Town Meeting into another night because that is going to obviously incur additional costs in which the $5,000 may be worthwhile just something I wanted to bring up thank you thank you I'm sorry what seem I have a note here from Mary saying I should call on you were you going to make a presentation on behalf

057of the committee oh okay why don't you go ahead and do that now I apologize oh sure so as Mary mentioned at the beginning of the meeting the electronic voting committee was was formed as a result of an article in last year's annual Town Meeting and the charge of the committee is to survey investigate available options for electronic voting and to assess their applicability to our town meeting house in Sherman so we went through a methodical process of researching the different electronic voting options we identified the driving needs for considering electronic voting in ensuring we for example the speed the privacy of the vote when we started out speed was probably you know one thing on my mind certainly but integrity of the vote is very important sometimes it's hard for a moderator to be

058able to tell if it's a 2/3 vote or not and so we go to a paper ballot which again goes back to the speed there's another aspect that also we came to learn about from surveying other town which is the the privacy a lot of voters appreciates being able to vote without peer pressure then we research the available technologies we eliminated options that were not we did not deem applicable so for example there are many options where you can vote with your mobile phone we surveyed also and obtained feedback from other towns in the Commonwealth there are so many other towns there are using electronic voting some towns have used it I think for a decade now and more we in particular I listed here Dover Westwood and Avon used actually the same system that

059we're piloting tonight we compiled a report and we provided that to the to the Select board we recommend the system that we are piloting tonight for a variety of reasons cost is one of it but one of them but anonymity so there's a belief Mary mentioned this at the beginning there's no association between between the clicker that you have and between you so so there's no there's no no record that says that a particular person voted this with this way or that way the security this this system uses industry standard security so there's you know that that's that's important as well user friendly so with the exception of sometimes the adding last-minute slides when amendments show up all the slides as you can see are prepared with with the with the voting capability and it's

060it's usually smooth again the price as mentioned it's it's about thirty four hundred plus travel expense if we need a support person for for this purpose that's it thank you thank you if there are no other comments Carol are you in the back would you like to make your motion I moved to take article 13 out of order and vote this article after all the other articles have been decided thank you is there a second it's been moved and seconded to take this article out of order to move it to the end of the evening this requires a two-thirds vote can I ask the that clicker clicker people are we equipped to do a clicker on this yes okay if you want to move the vote on this article to the end of the warrant

061hopefully tonight okay never mind we're not using the clickers we're gonna try a voice vote on two-thirds all in favor of the postponement please say aye those against oh okay let's let's try a show of yellow cards all in favor of hold on to your yellow cards I think we're going to get a chance to vote with the clicker are we good to go ooh yes please click now the motion fails it required a two-thirds for passage so we will return to a vote on the article itself are you guys ready for that okay please vote now ah the motion passes it was a simple majority for this article 14 recreation revolving fun tight Matt a moderator this is our Ronin I move favorable action and that the town vote to rescind acceptance of massachusetts

062general law chapter 44 section 53 d which established a recreation and parks services revolving fund and established in accordance with mass general law chapter 44 section 53 ii and one-half a new parks and recreation revolving fund by amending chapter 28 of the general bylaws revolving funds inserting a new row as printed in the warrant and to transfer all funds in the existing revolving fund into the newly created fund and therefore to establish an FY 2020 spending limit for such revolving fund at two hundred thousand dollars second is there any comment or debate on this okay I was not aware of that I am hello there we go I'm so just to help explain what we're asking before here it's essentially a change of the revolving fund type for recreation right now we are under what's

063called or under 53d which limits us to ten thousand dollars in terms of what we can carry over from one year to the other and the request is to move to a fifty three and a half which will give us essentially a spending limit but the ability to carry over any funds that recreation generates within the year we just interrupt from women could you identify yourself yeah sorry I'm Dave Goldberg I'm the chair of the Recreation Commission thank you for those of you who don't know recreation primarily is is self funded so through the programs that we run within the town such as snappers or summer go around as well as leasing out our fields to the various sports teams so lacrosse and soccer and so forth over the past few years we've actually been

064able to increase our revenue which is which is great we've offered many more programs to the town however as I said there's we're only allowed to keep so much of that money from year to year one of the one of the issues that we run into is in the spring when we generate the most the majority of our money is right around is essentially when the fiscal year changes so we generate all of our money in the beginning of the year all right sorry it towards the end of the fiscal year and we can only keep 10,000 of it over to the to the next fiscal year so you can imagine we bring in all of our money on one slide and we have to essentially spend it down to $10,000 into the next into

065the next fiscal year all right I think I said most of that the reason why we're asking to keep more of the money from from one year to the next is we have a lot of deferred maintenance within our recreation facilities so those of you who've been out on the fields at the tennis courts you can see that there's a significant amount of stuff that has been left essentially unfixed for quite some time if you play tennis you'll notice that the majority of the lights don't work have you been over to Laurel farm you'll notice that things like the the the car barriers are all rotten and need to be replaced if you've been over to Jameson you'll notice that things like the dugouts are old and need to be replaced and or and they're

066currently somewhat of a safety hazard because we can't see into the dugouts from the street so I'd rather not it's because rec generates money itself and we believe that we can we can save up enough money over the years to actually tackle some of these capital expenses we're asking that we are able to keep the money from year to year are our excess and essentially save it from year to year to apply to some of the capital expenses that we have this is not unheard of there's we actually voted in an article 5 today there's a number of other committees that are already on a fifty three and a half just rec was not what is not one of them currently this doesn't cost the town any more money it's essentially it we're saving the

067money that we generate within the rec commission within the rec committee from year to year so that we can take that excess money and put it towards some of the capital projects that we have and essentially take care of a lot of the deferred maintenance that we have in our fields and other facilities today that's it thanks and I do remember now that you said it's been a busy two days so I apologize okay so the article has been moved and seconded is there any comment or questions on this okay then I would ask you to please vote now motion passes 182 to 4 article 15 affordable housing trust fund and ward of trustees this is a majority vote madam moderator yes mr. Daley I move favorable interaction at the town vote to accept the

068provisions of Mass General Laws chapter 44 section 55 C establishing an affordable housing trust fund and creating a board of trustees and to authorize the select board to draft a trust agreement in accordance with Mass General Laws chapter 44 6 and 55 C second all right I believe we have a presentation here from Adam a [Music] okay can everyone hear me article 15 is a continuation of the work that the Housing Partnership did starting with the work when we wrote the housing production plan it's it and had it approved in 2017 thanks to a lot of work from people in town and this is a asking to establish essentially within the guidelines of Mass General Laws chapter 44 section 55 C basically a holding place for funds however they're received whether there are gifts and

069kind donations of land any any funds that need to be managed for the purposes of creating affordable housing at this time we do not have any mechanism to accept funds we are not asking at this time for any funds from the town of surfboarding from you we are simply asking for authorization to create a fund where these funds could wear this that could manage this in the event that cut they come up and so there's no there's guidelines that are established by the state for what a local Housing Trust can do basically there's if in the event that funds were received perhaps from a negotiation with a developer or there were instances where it's an affordable unit for whatever reason goes in foreclosure and there's funds that come from that that we want to be

070able to manage and create small-scale affordable housing this would be the way that we would have been eventually being able to we couldn't use it to benefit existing homes we can use it to make sure that we don't lose any of our current Shi units but again at the end of the day we are simply asking you to vote to authorize the town to establish this fund to have a board of trustees to manage this fund and we are not asking for any additional funding I'm gonna end my presentation at this point I think I'm hoping that it's pretty clear to everyone that this is a fairly low risk asked of everyone and without it we we might have some issues down the road as we continue to manage our with having a fund better

071thank you yes mister someone's at the back mic I think yes neil kessler 43 page farm road i would also encourage a yes vote on this when i was first on the housing partnership committee there's really very little we could do other than sort of weigh in on projects there weren't any funds or anything of that sort and we were always looking for ways to encourage affordable housing development and i think that you know adoption of this isn't just a creative mechanism to receive funds but the the authorizing law state law allows you allows the trust to accept property by gift grant or contribution purchase and retain property borrow money it's just going to be an essential Clearing House and an entry point for anybody coming in and wants to do affordable housing in our

072town and I just think it's we we need to do more than this but I think this is an essential first step so I'd support it is there any other comment questions debate okay hearing none then we will move to the voting and I ask you to vote at this time motion passes 185 to 6 article 16 department title change community maintenance and development CMD to Department of Public Works DPW this is a majority vote madam moderator mr. Gallatin oh I move favorable action and that the town vote to change the name of the community maintenance and development cm and D to the Department of Public Works DPW and further to replace all references in the town bylaws to community maintenance and development with Department of Public Works in all references in the town bylaws

073to CM and D with DPW is there a second second is there any comment questions debate yes mr. Johnson it's luck board voted unanimously to support this article and our discussion we felt that although community maintenance and development is unique name the Sherbourne and there's some pointless to that the reality is that it can sometimes be problematic when applying for either state grants or compliance just recently but the EPA national pollutant discharge elimination system permit we even had to put down you know who executes this permit we put down DPW because we knew that understand that they're seeing six hundred two hundred and sixty permits come in all at once and we didn't want to unusually flag something and if we apply for either um tip our mass works or any infrastructure grants we felt

074it be better to actually have a more common name rather than kind of something unusual that might just either raise flags or rise questions or our abilities to do the work any other questions or comments mr. Huck Frank cook town Line Road I just have a question about costs on this would there be evening cost of changing signage changing logos letterheads paperwork anything like that that's not indicated in this warrant or someone want to address that question Shawn do or even if you don't would you know cost okay all right the motion has been moved and seconded and debate is done so I would ask you to please vote at this time okay motion passes 161 to 7 article 17 madam moderator just let me read the title here amend general bylaws with respect to

075rules and procedures at Town Meeting this will be a majority vote mr. Carson right I'm in favorable action and that the towns vote to amend the general bylaws by inserting a new section 8 into chapter 2 as printed in the warrant so that the town clerk is authorized to assign appropriate numbers or letters to bylaw sections subsections paragraphs and subparagraphs where none are approved a town meeting for purposes of clarity and removing obvious abnormalities or errors in numbering or lettering second is there any common question debate okay hearing none I would ask you to vote now please motion passes 176 two three article 18 a men general bylaws with respect to bowhunting this is also a majority vote madam moderator mr. side I move favorable action and that the town vote to amend chapter 8

076section one of the general bylaws as printed in the warrant second is there any comment question debate hearing none I would ask you to vote now please motion passes 168 212 article 19 amend general bylaws with respect to information technology manager this is a majority vote madam moderator mr. Waldron I move favorable action and that the town vote to amend chapter 3 section 6.2 of the general bylaws power and duties of the town administrator to add information technology manager to the town administrator's existing responsibilities by inserting a new subsection H as printed in the warrant and re letter the remaining subsections accordingly I second the motion I believe we have a presentation here from the Governance Committee [Music] good evening I'm Cory Lincoln of 10 great Rock Road and chairperson of the governance task force

077- which was authorized by a vote at last year's Town Meeting to recommend changes in the structure of town governance after reviewing past reports and looking at best practices of other small towns in phase 1 of our work we interviewed all major town department heads and committee chairpersons about their responsibilities what worked well for them what did not work well and what changes would help them perform more effectively and efficiently roughly a dozen topics of concern emerged from these interviews four of them are reflected in the four warrant articles our committee is sponsoring tonight other concerns we felt did not rise to the level of warrant articles will be addressed in a letter to the Select board after Town Meeting and a few more general concerns will be discussed in our final report in phase

0782 we investigated how the ten smallest towns in Middlesex County of which Sherbourne is number three deal with the topics of concern and in Phase three we surveyed shurberg residents about their confidence and town governance and the subjects of our proposed warrant articles the most frequently mentioned frustration in our Town Hall in committee interviews was information technology inefficiency we have incompatible systems between and even within some departments that prevent direct sharing of data this interferes with work flow and necessitates duplicate of effort and increases the possibility of errors departments make IT decisions in isolation and may not coordinate with other potential users of the same technology some departments use more cutting-edge technology while others are considerably behind the curve we do not have why data security standards and practices we do not use systematic digital

079filing to replace overflowing paper files and E's overcrowded offices in short we have failed to reap the benefits of a coordinated and comprehensive IT strategic plan article 19 will give the town administrator the authority and scope to act as the town's Information Technology manager broad IT oversight will be coordinated in one central place the town can then develop a comprehensive IT strategic plan that will reduce obstacles to information flow improve work efficiency facilitate system sharing among departments implement an wide data security practices begin systematic virtual file storage consolidate budgeting maximize bulk purchase savings and position us for development of a common database and resident portal this article is consistent with the best practices recommended by the Department of Revenue and it also has the approval of the current town administrator are there any comments questions

080debate okay hearing none just hold on a minute or switch over here yes mr. yan the selected unanimously to support this warrant article thank you all right then I would ask you to please vote now motion passes 179 210 article 20 amend general bylaws with respect to human resources director this is a majority vote madam moderator yes mr. Leahy I move favorable action in that the town vote to amend chapter 3 section 6.2 of the general bylaws power and duties of the town administrator to authorize the town administrator acting as the town's human resources director to delegate to a qualified Human Resources professional any or all of the functions specified in said section 6.2 II and for such purposes to insert at the end of the introductory paragraph of section 6.2 e the following and

081they delegate to a qualified Human Resources professional any or all of the following functions second presentation the resolution of human resource issues was another concern frequently mentioned in our interviews article 20 will give the town administrator who already serves as the human resources director the authority to delegate some or all of the HR directors functions to a qualified human resource professional when necessary or appropriate while most personnel situations can be handled in-house some would benefit from the expertise and efficiency of an outside HR specialist this is especially appropriate in a small town setting when the involved parties want assurance of complete neutrality or if the town administrator must recuse him or herself or if the situation is particularly urgent ready access to an outside specialist can be very important now the town administrator has to

082seek authorization from the select board to engage an outside consultant this article would streamline and clarify the TAS the to independently take that action also resolution of some situations tends to be time-consuming and use of a specialist will free the town administrator to focus on other responsibilities this article clarifies that HR functions may be delegated to a qualified specialist when the town administrator on her or his own authority deems it necessary it has the support of the current Town Administrator and select board is there any common questions debate on this motion switch over here I would ask you to please vote now motion passes 172 to 9 article 21 designate treasurer as an appointed office this is a majority vote we have a presentation over sorry let's have the motion first place yes mr. I

083move favorable action and that the town vote pursuant to Mass General Laws chapter 41 section 1 be to make the elected office of treasurer an appointed office such office to be appointed by the select board for a term not to exceed three years provided however that such change shall not take effect unless approved by the voters at the 2020 annual town election and further that any incumbent holding office at the time of acceptance will serve out the remainder of the elected term second we have a presentation approval of article 21 will move the position of town treasurer from elected to appointed town treasurer is a highly skilled position that executes many complicated legal requirements but does not make public policy it is closely regulated and audited while sherburn's population has not grown significantly technologists technologies

084financial options and state mandates have increased exponentially and continue to do so performing the duties of treasurer has become increasingly complex our our town is no longer well served by a structure from a simpler time here are some reasons why we should change first candidates for elected office in Sherbourne must be Sherbourne residents up to now call of town moving to an appointed treasurer will cast the widest possible net for qualified applicants adding non-residents and campaign shy residents to the pool second appointment will promote the best practices of hiring verification of qualifications vetting of references and thorough interviews third appointment will allow closer monitoring of job performance we do have a process for removing elected financial officials who have demonstrated serious failures but the process does not address lesser deficiencies appointment will allow job performance

085to be evaluated by a supervisor at shorter intervals and if there is a problem appropriate action remediation or removal can be taken immediately no need to wait for the next election fourth appointment will facilitate succession planning currently a non-resident assistant is trained at servant's expense but is ineligible to step into the treasurer's position should it become vacant a non-resident assistant seeking advancement has no choice but to go to another town taking along our training in institutional knowledge and fifth of will coalesce the finance department under the leadership of the finance director to allow for more effective establishment of departmental goals based on overall town needs and priorities there are some concerns we've heard first the treasurer should be independent from other officials this arises from concern that an appointed official might be asked to do

086something unethical by a supervising official and should have the freedom to refuse protected by having been elected such abuse of power is unfortunately possible in all organizations and should more properly be addressed by HR reporting rather than by election second sherburn residents care more about the job we believe that good employees take pride in their work ethic and honest character wherever they are employed several of our staff assistants are not Sherbourne residents but from our experience they care very much about their jobs and serving the people of Sherbourne residency is no substitute for good hiring practices at the same time appointment does not prevent the best applicant from being a shared resident third we've already been down this road we did it several time meetings to feed a motion to combine treasurer and collector and

087to make the new position appointed the single issue of moving treasurer from elected to appointed has been considered twice once losing by five votes so why did we bring it up again the short answer is good ideas don't die when our committee began its work in 2018 we reviewed listened and deep dived into similar towns looking for best practices that can help sherbert move forward in continuous improvement appointment of the treasure still emerges as a best practice seven of the ten smallest Middlesex towns have appointed treasures or treasure collectors Collins Geor and strategic Banamine management all advised moving to appointment I'm really getting Brian sherburn is a small town trying to strike a balance between adapting to modern needs and retaining the best of traditional character we must maximize efficiency and effectiveness of the first

088in order to keep the second change is always challenging but when there are sound reasons to change refusing to do so chokes innovation and stops improvement dead in its tracks our current town treasurer was appointed to fill an unexpired term all indications say she's doing a fine job and she does not oppose this article our recommendation of article 21 is based on what is best for the town and not intended to reflect on any individual we urge you to support article 21 thank you we have a presentation in opposition to this article as well Nancy Nanci heads excuse me 64 south me nancy has 64 South Main Street and your collector please do not give up your right to a lecture of financial officers I was asked if I would support this article if the

089collectors position was not included in this year's warrant this is not about me or about Heidi and it's not about the people on the select board is about the structure that will serve the town the best through the years regardless of the people in place the Independence of the elected officers as another layer of checks and balances especially necessary in a small town operation and the personal commitment of the elected officer to the community has been of great value to us through the years no matter how you couch it this article is about consolidation of power and with it the repositioning of authority the appointing authority becomes the office Authority even though that appointing authority is itself an elected board that has no requirement of knowledge of municipal finance or the laws that govern it

090your financial officers should remain elected first long as we have residents who will step up and assume that responsibility it is a huge responsibility both on a municipal level and a personal level a bond of over $1000 a hundred thousand dollars is on the heads of both these officers when that responsibilities should go the authority to act according to the very specific state statues your financial officer should remain independent of the day-to-day politic and personal agendas that can compromise the integrity of the office after 30 years in Town Hall I can say unequivocally that had I been appointed I would not have survived the politic and I certainly would not have been comfortable to stand before you now to oppose all of my esteemed colleagues on any of these articles there are already multiple labor

091layers of oversight you authorize what we spend and borrow the Select board has to sign off on any outgoing money through the warrant process and sign off on any authorization to borrow they have a significant amount of oversight then we answer to the Department of Revenue the rating agencies the annual outside auditor and the inside otter who is your finance director slash town accountant and who works directly for the select board she does ongoing reconciliations of they counts in both the tax office and the treasurer's office to make sure we are on track with those appropriations the select board already has the authority to a point should a vacancy occur out of the normal election cycle a provision you adopted last year to remove or to censure these officers for not doing their job for

092doing their job poorly or doing their jobs dishonestly is a protection also initiated at the select board level and Accenture is a pretty strong negative job evaluation the treasurer's job has always been complex but the complexities change ongoing education is necessary whether you're new or seasoned and there will always be a learning curve whether newly appointed or newly elected the only thing about the collector or treasurer's job that cannot be taught is work ethic and honesty the electric has been very good at vetting that for us and the MCT a mask collectors treasurer's association is a terrific network of all kinds of john job-related support to help even the seasoned navigate the waters there is no great pool of applicants across the state the grain workforce has alarmed the Department of Revenue the mass municipal

093Association and the mass collectors and treasures Association and steps are being taken to encourage the next generation of candidates our last two financial appointees the accountants last finance director Sharon and treasurer Heidi did not come from the municipal world but are proving rapidly they are up to the task and an asset to the town the prior accountant finance director appointee did come from an immiscible world with a pedigree a mile long a pocketful of non-disclosure agreements and brought us to the brink of disaster in less than a year there are no guarantees appointed or elected but with the brain trust we have in our own town hopefully there will always be someone willing and able to step up and serve in the two elected positions so we can maintain the independence and integrity of the

094offices and if they're doing a good job we have always shown appreciation by reelecting them that risk should not deter anyone from considering the job history confirms that as far as upper mobility is concerned if we treat people right to fair working conditions fair compensation respect and appreciation for what they do we will get a fair return I have had my assistant for over 17 years and only once did she consider another job another assistant job they'll fully qualified to be a collector and it was all about compensation she also serves as the assistant treasurer she knows that she's an integral part of any transition plan to support a new collector upon my departure and will be there she receives fair compensation and support please finish up Nancy this is about keeping the integrity the

095independence the responsibility and the authority in these jobs and how they can endure the test of time with changing players and continue to serve you best and it is about you being able to have a say in that keep your right to vote and say no to this article once again please I'll now open debate yes mr. Morrill that we need to have the ability to hire the best for an important job like the treasurer we feel that as it's been brought up the finance director that we had before had she not been appointed or in a position like that that would have been much harder to remove her as soon as we did so I think this gives the town flexibility for a position that's very important is there any other question comment okay

096I have several here but Robert Robert Johnson - seven - Western Avenue I'm in favor of keeping what we have I think it's important to have checks and balances whether on the national level the state level or the town level I think that's really important I think the Collins report has a problem where they have one recommendation that fits all towns regardless of what the input is from the different towns their recommendations are always the same and one size does not necessarily fit all so let's keep our checks and balances thank you I'll take the rear Don cross Shaw 198 Western Avenue I support keeping the election of the town treasurer who would be answerable to the voters of the town and not to the few people or person who would appoint him or her

097George George Morgan 41 Bear Hill Road as voters we would like to believe that when we actually achieve a majority vote on a matter of sound business that the matter voted upon will then rest to that majority vote such is not the case with article 21 an article that has appeared on at least two previous warrants and that on each occasion has been voted down by a majority of the voters at those town meetings once again this article asks us to surrender our right to citizens to elect our town treasurer once again no claim is made that there is that any abuse of the office no claim of any inability of the office to competitive competently perform the requirements of the office reasons that have been advanced for this article are speculative and not based

098on any current evidence including imagined future complexity of the job beyond what the elected treasurer could handle imagined future need for frequent oversight of treasurer's job performance imagined future need for increased accountability of the treasurer to be to a supervisor a further reason advanced for this article absence of candidates for the office this is not a reason for altering the position from an elected position to an appointed position has already been demonstrated in the case of our current treasurer that under such circumstances the Select Board may appoint someone to the position doing so does not require that the position thereafter cease to be a position for which the treasurer may be elected the sponsors this article cite state that their purpose for the article 21 is efficient workflow resident satisfaction with the treasurer and functioning

099job structure at present the work of the treasurer's office is flowing efficiently residents are satisfied with the performance of the treasurer the job structure continues to function without any demonstrated need to change it George your two minutes are up so finish up please okay all right to reelect the position particularly in a town of our size where government does not need to be the size of those in larger towns is a concept that informs how we as a country govern ourselves and as such is not the right that we are obligated to surrender to local interests thank you George thank you are there is there any yes thank you madam moderator Greg Kenan 1:29 Hollis Street I urge you to support this warrant article and amendment to the town bylaws I have the greatest respect

100for town collector Nancy Hess but to be clear this article does not affect her office the person whose office is affected has not spoken against and to my understanding does not oppose this article the most frequent argument we've heard is that we need checks and balances and that sounds very noble and as a general proposition it's true but let's drill into that a little bit more what's never been articulated is what has to be checked and what has to be balanced the treasurer position is a very highly regulated position it's audited and it's subject to all kinds of safeguards so what checks and balances will be added to that by electing I suggest that there are really are none this is not a big town small town issue many other small towns in Middlesex County

101and the Commonwealth of Massachusetts appoint their treasurer's the town of Holly in Franklin County has a population of 331 they appoint their treasurer there's nothing about Sherbourne that makes it different from these other towns who have seen the wisdom of appointing their treasurer and what I think is very telling is that the Department of Revenue which is the state agency charged with overseeing the financial integrity of towns recommends that the treasurer be appointed so let's listen to the recommendation of these experts and learn from the experiences and other towns let's vote to approve this article the Select board favors it and the advisory committee favors it as well thank you there any further comment okay then I will close debate are we set to go yeah okay and I would ask you to please vote

102now [Music] motion passes 115 to 70 article 22 established quarterly tax payment system this is a majority article madam moderator yes mr. Aronian I move favorable action and that the town vote to accept the provisions of Massachusetts general law chapter 59 section 57 C for the purpose of establishing a quarterly tax payment system for the fiscal year beginning July 1 2020 and continuing thereafter second we have a presentation article 22 will change the town from a semi-annual to a quarterly property tax billing system the town's fiscal year begins July 1 when a disproportionate number of bills come due but under the current semi-annual system that is precisely the time when available cash is lowest because the first tax payment is not due until November 1st a lesser cash shortage occurs in early spring because the

103second tax payment is not due until May first quarterly tax billing will address these annual cycles of cash shortages by smoothing cash flow throughout the year with approximately one quarter of revenue due three months earlier in the fall and one quarter of revenue due three months earlier in late winter smoother cash flow will reduce the need to budget the cost of short-term external borrowing and the town can also benefit from six-month additional interest income smoother cash flow will also reduce reliance on the stopgap measure of borrowing from reserve funds to cover operating expenses in a quarterly tax system the first two bills due August 1st in November first our estimated amounts the second two bills due February 1st in May first are adjusted once the tax rate has been set under a current semi-annual system

104the Assessors feel pressure to set the tax rate as early as possible so that November bills can be mailed early and with luck paid early to help relieve the summer fall cash crunch quarterly billing will give the Assessors more time to complete their work and ensure its accuracy because the tax rate need not be set until the third bill an owners total property tax bill for the fiscal year will be the same whether quarterly or semi-annually is used now what will quarterly tax billing mean for property owners more than half of residents indicated in our online survey that their property taxes are paid by their mortgage lenders from escrow accounts for them nothing will be different but importantly the town rather than the mortgage lender will benefit from any interest earned for those who pay

105directly to the town we believe the tax rate reduction from reduced short-term borrowing costs and potential interest income for the town will help offset the investment income an individual tax payer would forego by earlier payments and third seasonal income earners such as farmers have expressed concern about aligning their income stream with quarterly billing our article intentionally delays the start date of quarterly billing one year out to fiscal year 2021 so that seasonal income earners can plan well in advance commercial billing services have advised us that the most cost-effective way to handle quarterly property tax billing is to make two mailings each with two bills in one envelope the extra expense of quarterly billing is essentially one the cost of printing but not mailing additional bills and two the cost of processing additional payments using data

106provided by the collector's office we estimate that the additional expense of quarterly property tax phil's is 587 dollars per year contrast that with the $7000 which we annually budget and taps for short-term borrowing and the six months additional interest income that could be earned by the town we believe that quarterly tax villag is clearly cost-effective yes there will be some confusion and lost bills in the beginning but these problems can be mitigated by robust public information campaign quarterly tax billing is recommended by the mass do our colleges Institute and municipal management services all of the ten smallest Vilsack's County towns except Sherbourne our quarterly property tax bill errs 114 of the 170 Massachusetts towns with populations under 10,000 bill quarterly and eighty-five percent of all messages it's Townsville quarterly it's a smart solution to a

107serious recurring problem one advisory member commented at the advisory hearing it's overdue we agree and we urge you to support article 22 thank you I believe we have a presentation in opposition I'm a glutton for punishment deja deja vu all over again this is still aprox a solution to a problem for which we have not yet passed the litmus test we have not had to do excessive borrowing to meet our obligations as backup we have always had a borrowing ready just in case but quarterly billing is not going to eliminate having to budget funds for borrowing we have had a few inch anxious moments but serious conversations with advisory the accountant finance director and the finance team has made us all recognize that free cash is neither free nor cash and a few gentle Corrections

108to its use should set us back on track to a little less angst in anticipation of those first tax payments we have not forfeited any interest for lack of funds to meet payment deadlines that are for big savings we have not had to send out our tax bills late delaying cash flow on the contrary we usually get them out early and big those who can to pay them a few weeks early to jumpstart the cash flow our tax payers have stepped up every year asking taxpayers to send their cheques a few weeks early it's different than requiring everyone to send them three months early even if it only lets half the tax payers keep their money to get their own interest any interest the town would gain would not move the needle on the individual

109tax bill because of amazing cooperation between advisory the finance departments the town clerk the Select board and you the taxpayers we have been able to have the kind of money management that allows us to function successfully on a semi-annual system and maintain a triple-a bond rating especially unique for a small town anyone falls down on their part of that process and we may have to rethink but this is a drastic step even the DOR in their later reports acknowledge that going to Quarterly's may not be as economical for the smaller towns different towns have gone to quarterly billing for different reasons we should not go because everybody else is doing it I'd followed up with one of the town's studied and learned that they use the same vendor for their accounting and collection systems as

110we do but besides taxes only collect for the water department we have centralized collections as recommended by the do are rare in small communities and only added three hours per week of clerical help to do so this has gotten proceeds out of departments desk drawers and to the treasurer in a timely fashion we collect funds for burn permits Fire Department inspection building department gas plumbing wiring dog licenses boat farmer permits pawn stickers council on aging programs recreation programs swim lessons conservation fees to the tune of over $600,000 last year that's a lot of 10 20 75 and $100 transactions if you think adding close to two thousand more transactions twice year passing through this office is not going to have an impact you are sadly mistaken these are all funds that must be processed accounted

111for and reconciled the first bill whether one or two parts is male late June for an August first due date Sherman vacates for vacation a bill mailed to an address where people are away is returned to us to remail the second if not included in the first gets mailed at the end of September for November first but as both bills are based on the prior year's tax is not really half and does not return as much money to the coffers as an actual bill this itself may have unintended consequences the third bail bill is mailed between Christmas and New Year's again Sherman vacates this also may have the fourth payment slip included again if people are away another mailing is required it is supposed to be an actual tax bill with the actual tax rate

112and any increase from the prior year but since so many cities and towns have gone to court early as of DOR has difficulty getting everyone's to reset by the deadline so pushes for towns to start the process earlier and earlier the third quarter is due by February 1st at the same time we are doing close to 5,000 excise tax bills and the first pond transfer station stickers burn permits dog licenses and lifetime learning registrations quarterly billing will increase costs the town and there is no going back once you invest in that necessary in computer programs educating the public excetera going back will not be reasonable just as going forward before it's absolutely necessary is not reasonable please vote no thank you is there any further comment questions yes tomorrow the Select board voted unanimously to

113support changing to quarterly tax bills we feel it's time that we smooth our cash flow this last year the only reason we avoided a short-term bond was because so we it just doesn't make any sense especially since over 50% of the town the mortgage companies just holding that money anyway we should have that sooner in the early part of the fiscal year getting a first tax bill in August is really gonna help the finance office and smoothing our cash flow in the town Karen Lane 15 Meadowbrook Road urban I don't have a dog in this fight because we pay our taxes or our mortgage however by one we do not know the impact yet of the tax bill on on people in cherven in the change in the property tax law in our federal income

114taxes we all have taxes higher than $10,000 a year I am concerned that you are going to be billing people when they have to pay their federal income taxes and I'm also concerned that you're going to be billing people at the time when they are good and be getting bonuses from the year previously and they do not know what their income is and the other thing is the grain of this town how is this going to affect the elderly citizens of this town who are on fixed incomes who no longer have mortgages but have huge tax bills and now they have to budget to pay their bill four times a year as well as dealing the with the impact of the federal women's change that has decimated the states that have high property taxes like

115ourselves so I would say vote no on this bill this year because we don't know what the ramifications of the of the federal income tax changes are on the incomes of the people with Serban thank you we have more comments here Robert Robert Johnson 272 Western Avenue there are approximately 2000 bills that go out that's more than the 1700 households because some households get more than one and sometimes there are other types of bills than just the real estate bill that goes out I doubt that the tax office can process 2,000 bills twice a year for under $600 I think that's a gross underestimate of the cost and I think that in addition to that feature if you send out two bills at the same time I'm confident that the first bill will probably get

116paid by the majority of people on time but that second bill that gets put in the drawer how many people are going to remember that three months later and if they don't what's going to happen well there's going to be more work for the tax office for them to send out you haven't paid your bill and in addition because you didn't pay your bill now you're gonna have to pay more so we're going to end up paying more money each of us individually and it's going to be even more work for the tax office so I think that there's a significant increase in cost here I don't think $600 comes anywhere near the true cost Thank You up back there sir maybe 17 Abbey Road I'd like to ask to move the question so I'm

117moving the question there is excuse me I need a second first of all right no debate on this question and we need a two-thirds vote to move the question so we are not voting now on the question itself we are voting on moving the question it means that okay if we move the question that cuts off debate no one else will be able to comment on the main motion which is the question at hand and what on whether to move to quarterly tax payments or not so the the thing that we're going to vote on now and I'm asking the the techies down front here to see if they can put a slide together quickly for us okay because it is a two-thirds vote so when when I ask you to vote you are voting

118on whether we are moving the question which means that I will go directly to voting on this question with no more opportunity for debate the question has been moved and this must be considered please vote now hang on all right so wait okay we are voting on moving the question okay if motion fails as this would not be a two-thirds majority so debate may continue I would support very strongly what Robert just told you but I want to add a little something else to that in the write-up about the quarterly tax billing it says it would reduce the Assessors workload I was in the assessor's office for over 30 years so I think I know a little bit about what goes on there and it would not it would make more work for the Assessors

119I also have talked to a gal who is doing quarterly billing and she isn't he had Assessor in another town and she agrees with me it would be considerably more work because the Assessor has to prepare lists twice instead of once and it wouldn't reduce their work that would not give them any more time to do their work after it's in place also if you recall some of you will back when quarterly billing first came about Ruth Johnson and Pete Hoagland did a very thorough job looking into it particularly from the interest income we heard that the town would have more income coming into the town earlier and they'd be making quite a bit of money now the interest rates back then when they did this research was considerably higher than the interest rate today

120which is almost nothing so it's not going to save the town money it's gonna cost the town money because you're doing more work thank you Thank You Jean any other further debate oh yes we have Thank You Madame Otto ready to Greg Kenan 129 Hollow Street and I just wanted to respond very briefly to a couple of the things with that we have heard here I do support this amendment I think it's well past due and it's something that we ought to vote just keep in mind this will not affect overall tax bills the tax you will pay over the course of the year will not change it will just change the timing of two of the payments we heard statements about the town asking residents voluntarily to pay their bills early so that the

121town has enough to cover its expenses is that a good fiscal practice to rely on voluntary early payments just so the town can pay its bills I respectfully suggest it is not and let's talk about the benefits here the town and its set forth in the advisory committee report the town potentially will benefit to the tune of $100,000 from moving to quarterly Billy let's do a back-of-the-envelope calculation seven million dollars will be collected three months earlier twice during the year seven million dollars at a three percent interest rate is $210,000 a quarter of that for three months it's fifty odd thousand dollars twice a year is a hundred thousand dollars so potentially a hundred thousand dollars in interest savings that the bank and mortgage company now gets will flow to the benefit of the town

122this is not really a question this is something that should be approved the select board and the advisory committee both favorite the Department of Revenue same Department of Revenue that is charged with overseeing good fiscal management on the part of towns recommends quarterly billing let's vote support this thank you further comment I just wanted to respond to Robert Johnson's comment that he thought that the estimate of the additional cost was a gross grossly low number as I said in our remarks we actually worked with data that we got from the collector's office we got a price for what the additional forms would be we even added in the cost of using additional toner we looked at the the estimated how many particularly bills could be processed in a minute and we received two different answers

123and we actually went for the middle we averaged it and we asked the question well who is it that processes these these bills we were told that all the people in the department do so we actually took the per hour wage that is paid in the department which goes from and we have two year old data that we're looking at but forty dollars and forty-five cents an hour it's the high for the collector and the part permanent part-timer is down at twenty to sixty five we average that out so we use that as the per hourly cost of this and that is really the genesis of where we got that number we have some comments of that it's Bill Seymour 25 Saddle Brook Road and chairman of the board of Assessors the Assessors discussed this

124and voted to hold a neutral position and are happy to work with whatever outcome thank you another comment part is favela 32 Maple Street with all three strikes with respect to my friend Craig Kenan and others i strenuously disagree it's hard hard for us to pay our taxes most of us who live here and having to go to this pay schedule is harder in fact it's not just no big deal to have to pay four times a year instead of two times here it is a big deal and I believe I know some people that choose to have their more their taxes rolled into their mortgages to make sure they're paid as a matter of fact you know who wouldn't rather have that interest in your own pocket so I think it will make it

125harder on the taxpayer as well as the debate about whether or not it's going to cost more money to process these bills on the returns and so on and so forth thank you if you can wait everybody first computer unless you wish to Peter black 55 Maple Street I'm anytime someone tells me that there's a free lunch I get suspicious I know it's gonna cost me money to pay my tax bill four times a year instead of twice and I don't have a mortgage but if I did it would cost my mortgage company money and you know they're in it for a profit so they'll find another way to get that they're not gonna pay the town a hundred thousand dollars a year and say oh this is so nice it's gonna cost us money

126this is a tax raise so I think if you're honest about it and say it's gonna cost something we can go forward well can you say we get a hundred thousand dollars and it costs you nothing that's not true I'm gonna vote against this Nancy I just wanted to comment on the analysis of the cost in my office I was asked how many seconds it takes to enter a bill into the computer that doesn't take into the consideration what do we have to do as far as getting that bill in front of the computer there's more to it than than that and also the idea that you're going to have seven million dollars sitting in the bank to gather interest my understanding is that seven million dollars is going to pay bill sooner rather than

127later and therefore won't be sitting in the bank gathering all that interest so again I urge you to vote no on this article is there any other comment or debate okay so are we set to go with the voting side okay then I would ask you to please vote now okay can we can we get the numbers here please all right motion passes 95 to 93 article 23 amend the general bylaws with respect to illicit discharges madam moderator yes I move favorable or action and if the town vote to amend as people are leaving would you please leave quietly thank you very much I move favorable action and that the town vote to amend chapter 25 of the general bylaws comprehensive stormwater management by inserting a provision addressing illicit discharges to the stormwater management system

128with text to be inserted shown in bold underlined and text to be deleted shall shown and strikethrough type as set forth in the handout entitled 2019 spring annual Town Meeting article 23 illicit discharges provided that April 23rd 2019 annual town would people please be quiet thank you second right I believe that Eric Johnson from the Select board has a few words to say about this thank you madam water here yes like board voted unanimously to approve this bylaw change it really is its Genesis is the the EPA permit that was issued this last July they had the unprecedented essentially of regulating the water quality of the stormwater it goes through the town stormwater system it's called the National pollutant discharge elimination system yeah originally was used to regulate wastewater treatment plants and factories and now

129it's regulating serving stormwater so it's kind of a big deal at the genesis of this at the heart of this bylaw change it regulates new development has greater criteria it regulates illicit discharges and regulates kind of on how how we enforce that it is an important bylaw it protects our waterways and which is the heart of all of our drinking water as well as our recreation as well I think the Planning Board had some specific presentation on it oh the one thing I want to add is that the what you see here is some bylaw changes has been a handout I had to be tweaked a little bit to make sure it was compliant with the with EPA permit I think maybe John can talk a little more about that John higly is going to

130make a presentation on this now hello John Hickey 14 Center Brook Road chairman of the Planning Board you won't get a handout or most of you've got a handout that's a that shows the edits to what appears in the printed town warrant so rather than go through that whole thing we have a few slides to just point out the changes between what's printed in the town warrant and the the final that's being voted on so as mr. Johnson just said this amends our general bylaw for comprehensive stormwater management by adding illicit discharge if that is now required it was passed in 2016 and it becomes effective and I think it's July of 2018 so this is our first chance to vote it and add it into our current general bylaw so that's what we're doing

131here just bringing us bringing our current bylaw up to date as soon as we can which is tonight so the first change is that date it's effective what appears in the tongue in the warrant that the change in the handout is July 1st 2018 that's on page 23 the second is just a typo thing and we've just passed a tonight a an article that would allow that allows making typos type of Corrections but on page 23 and 24 section four point one the the lettering of these items was incorrect and this corrects it so now it reads a B C and D so that's just a typo correction from what's in your printed warrant the the next one is on page 25 which is section 5.3 stormwater management handbook and the addition is it also

132references and NPDES permits and also that the Planning Board will utilize the provisions of M s for general permit and other NPDES permits so the reason this is the the Planning Board's role in this is if somebody's got a development that part of the criteria for deciding to issue a permit or not is that they have to follow the rules of the stormwater management so and our current bylaw says that we can look at the stormwater management handbook as a reference for what that criteria is so we we want as mr. Johnson stated we want to update that so that it also includes NPDES and ms4 and MPTs is that is the the federal ms4 is one of those is it as part of that so we want to be able to reference the best

133right now the in book may lag in terms of the criteria and the and what's required in stormwater management and so this language allows us to reference ms4 and MBP MPTs so that we're current and comply with our own urban zone and ms4 permit and then the last I think it for the last one is on page 25 we're just adding the name of cm and D and then as we've already voted tonight that will then go back and we change the DPW next but right now we're just voting on this correction so this is the last on page 26 the language and the handout states this and and this is language that just says that it's the illicit discharge language that we need to have in in our article it was left out in

134the handout version in the in the town warrant article version its corrected here in the handout so this is language that's required by the MS for permanent so that's it any thank you is there comment or by the way this language is in your handout are you in line Mike yeah okay Michael Lee 28 Wildwood Drive is the intent of this bylaw change to make it illegal to have a pool filter that is back washed and we discharged that back wash out to your property I know that's just be a regular ground discharge this one i regulate if you discharge it's like a catch basin in front of your house in the street that is that that is actually the town's ms4 system it's actually the catch basin system and the pipes in the catch

135basins and so on so how do we know when we're discharging that it's not gonna lead to one of those spots just discharging to your lawn it won't it will not make it to the catch basin you'd be fine Darryl Darryl Beardsley 54 Forest Street and ironically I also have a cool comment under 4.3 a it says for things that are strictly prohibited dechlorinated swimming pool discharges somewhat implies that chlorinated would be okay which actually from an environmental standpoint would be more problematic so I was just wondering whether us either there's a specific reason for that or a simplification to just swimming pool discharges would be appropriate does anyone have the answer to Darrell's question yeah I mean really B covers everything a was called out he is a because some places do allow D

136chlorinated swimming pools to be to be discharged it was this basic call thought you almost don't need a with B and look at these says any discharges you know Leslie put into the street so I think that would be covered under there is there any further comment questions Susie yes isn't Allen Western Avenue I'm just wondering do we still have quorum yes we have actually made a count okay because I'd like to have a question up there well we hit one if we're still here okay so majority vote on this and we're set to go here okay so I would ask you to vote now on this question motion passes 142 to 7 article 24 amend the zoning bylaws with respect to accessory apartments and this would be a two-thirds vote Madame moderator whoever that

137was mr. gallant ah no thank you I move favorable action and met the town vote to amend section 3.2 subsection 2 of the zoning bylaws with insertion shown and bold underlined and deletions shown and stripe to type as printed in article 24 of the warrant except that the following shall not be added to the end of subsection a7 quote such special permit shall automatically terminate upon the sale transfer or other change in ownership of the property of which such unit forms a part second daddy may do have a presentation I think you do adding a weight when Jackson remember at the Planning Board we the Planning Board had voted unanimously to support this article and and we are we accept the change in language recommended by Advisory the purpose of the article this year is

138to simply clarify a few things that to bring it back in line with the intent of the accessory apartment bylaw it's fairly straightforward to town supported this last year as you can see the language changes are fairly minor simply just removing something that caused more confusion than was intended removing the word existing and removing the date that was applied to bring it back in line with the original intent of allowing for a more naturally affordable housing throughout our town and to provide an opportunity for seniors to age in place providing opportunities potentially for for families that are divorced for both families to live continue to live in town there's a number of reasons that this is a good thing and we're not and as again I've said town supported this last year we're not changing

139any of that we're just clarifying some language items Thank You anime yes my the Board of Selectmen unanimously supports this this is a great way to have another as pulpit before another tool in the toolbox to get affordable housing into the town of Sherbourne and buy affordable there I mean a diversity of housing stock that would be suitable for people who work in town perhaps and other people who right now don't have good a cup to have accommodations in Shermer okay this right because this is amending a zoning bylaw it requires a two-thirds vote we such a go here okay thank you so I would ask you to vote now on this passes by two-thirds the number is 132 to ten I'm just going to make a statement here because I am leaving the stage

140because a family member is making a presentation on the next article but we are down to the last three articles and two of those articles are citizens petitions someone did raise the question of a quorum and so we have one now the corn is a hundred but I would ask you if possible to remain for these last three articles particularly because they are citizens petitions and if we don't have a quorum we have to come back Thursday night and people have made these petitions and we'd like to hear them [Music] we're at article 25 authorization to acquire CSX property the Rail Trail Madame Oh ready yes I move favorable action and that the town vote to authorize the select board to acquire by gift purchase eminent domain or otherwise the fee or lesser interest in

141all or part of the CSX property from the vicinity of Whitney Street north to the Framingham town line that's Assessors map number one parcel 32 for open space and recreation purposes specifically for a so called rail trail and thereafter construct the so-called rail trail thereon provided I'm sorry provided however that such acquisition and construction shall be funded by environmental bond bill funds made available to the town for expenditure without further appropriation donation gift and or other private federal or state grants made available to the town for such purposes and to accept on behalf of the town any fun so donated grant that are gifted and further to authorized the Select board to execute all instruments including deeds leases licenses restrictions donation agreements grant agreements contracts and or other agreements upon such terms and conditions as

142the Select board deem appropriate and to take all other action as may be necessary to effectuate the vote to be taken here under second it's been moved and seconded I understand there's the presentation John Hinckley fourteenth South Road chairman of the Planning Board the Planning Board voted unanimously in favor of this article thank you Rob Wolfe 31 cider Hill Lane I'm on a working group that John higgling in the Planning Board organized our goal is to extend the Upper Charles rail trail through sure Bernie the trail currently consists of six or a bit more miles of paved trail in Milford six miles of stone dust trail on Holliston and Sherbourne owns 1/4 mile from the Holliston line to whitney street that little section is currently undeveloped but there's plans in place and grant money already

143awarded for construction of parking spots at Whitney Farms entrance and a handicap compliant path to the trail at that point here's the map of the the trail now the green section is the paved section in Milford the purple section is the section in Palestine you can see there's some little bits in Holliston in Hopkinton that are under construction and the rest is just possible future plans here's a couple of pictures of the Holliston section which is really quite nice it was kind of an eyesore beforehand there was a lot of littering dumping trail being torn up by motorbikes and things and it's really a nice community resource there there's the center and there's the bridge approaching route 16 so the proposal is to authorize the acquisition of the further 1.4 miles that goes from whitney

144street to the framingham line the estimated cost of required environmental studies the purchase and some improvements is in the environmental bond bill authorized but not allocated yet a hundred percent of the bond all funds are from the state there's no local matching funds required and there's the possibility of getting other funds and donations if needed CSX is also offering another four tenths of a mile north of that to Framingham here's the here's the proposal from CSX and let me just point out a few things there's Whitney Street at the bottom the rail line is a single track going up and then it widens out into about six sidings and then just right here at the power line right away as the framingham line then there's a small section in Framingham and then it widens out

145again into the CS Engineering Yard for it if Framingham buys this small piece there's a possible connection to Bates Road which go out to 126 they give a nice easy path to the commuter rail station you can also see the Barbour reservation here and there's trails that used to go across here but they're sort of blocked right now here's the assessor's map showing the abutters the light green that looks yellow there is town owned land including the Barbour reservation the dark green is conservation land owned by the rural land foundation and the red is the N star power line right away so you can see that almost all the abutters are conservation land including a lot of wetlands here's as the trail enters Sherbourne you can see the stone dust ends at the Holliston border

146it's dopping brook which flows under the trail on the culvert forms the border and then the first part of the trail and Sherbourne is unimproved but it's in very good shape and then it gets a bit wet as you approach whitney street and that's where you may end up detouring around on the easement and the Whitney Farms property here it is just north of Whitney Street and then as you go farther north it starts to widen out at the sidings and there's a lot of wetlands formed by beaver activity and behind the Barbara reservation so just to summarize there's very few abutters which is mostly conservation land there's a good possibility of linking the base circuit trail from the Barbour reservation across into Ashland avoiding the current detour on Whitney Street which is a dangerous

147road with not much shoulder it's consistent with recommendations in the open space and recreation plan and the master plan the Framingham section of Framingham gets on board will wink out towards the commuter rail station it's possibly in the future that can even link on the rail bed all the way to the rail station the it's possible that this would not move forward based on the amount that's in the bond bill but we hope that the amount estimated is good and that the select board would be able to negotiate a purchase and sale with CSX contingent on the funds becoming available from the state thank you thank you is there any discussion questions yes Richard Richard Robinson 117 Millstreet I'm certainly in favor of the acquisition I'm not in favor of passing supporting a motion that

148is not ironclad and I do mean ironclad that no town funds are involved in this it's not quite clear to me from the motion defense true I wonder if we is this the motion because that's not I think what was actually really no that's not the motion - thank you would you like to hear the motion again it says they're authorized to look for to acquire buy gift purchase and I'm not sure what the nature of that purchase would be and I don't I'm afraid I just don't understand enough about this environment of bond bill funds and whose money it is and who authorized it and how much all of that and what kind of negotiate is involved I think I need some more clarity before I can support this and I may not be

149a little bit dare inclined KP law through the moderator so there is no there is no appropriation as part of this motion so the town is not spending any funds so in my opinion the language is ironclad in that regard if there was going to be an expenditure of funds town funds there would need to be another Town Meeting article at a subsequent tab meeting so this part of this motion is ironclad in that any type of acquisition would be a hundred percent not from town funds are there any other comments or questions if not we'll proceed to the vote if you could place your vote now 152 to 0 motion passes article 26 this is a citizen petition supporting a new position of sustainability coordinator madam moderator mr. Tsai I move favorable action and

150that the town vote to request and recommend that the Select board create the regular part-time position of sustainability coordinator and appoint a sustainability coordinator whose compensation shall be fixed in a manner consistent with the personnel bylaw and further that the select board shall fix the sustainability coordinators compensation in a manner consistent with the personnel bylaw and related plan and within the amount annually appropriated for that purpose and that the select board and Town Administrator be requested and recommended to take whatever actions are necessary to effectuate the purposes of article 26 as printed in the warrant second I believe we have a presentation petitioners Fred Cunningham 58 Everett Street tonight we have an opportunity to direct a town to hire a part-time sustainability coordinator we're asking for your vote on this important initiative which has been

151given a recommend favorable action by both the select board and the advisory committee sherbanoo green community since 2011 has been working to reduce our emissions and to increase the use of renewable energy and although our town officials have made admirable progress town employees working on this all have full-time responsibilities a coroner's role sole role is substained ability that means getting grants and financial incentives for renewed energy renewable energy and carbon emission reduction projects it means measuring and reporting on progress against our goals it means working with residences and businesses to educate and to recommend cost-effective energy reduction projects coordinate and collaborate with projects across town departments and a lot more so tonight I can cover three main topics what is sherburn's carbon footprint what's the cost and return on investment of a coordinator and at

152a high level what can a coordinator do for our town since we became a green community in 2011 we've reduced our carbon emissions approximately 25 percent over our 2009 emissions and that's laudable progress the fact is however if you look at this chart that we have not continued to make that kind of progress as you can see the chart is essentially flat since 2012 now the town's done very good work on municipal buildings but in order to achieve significant levels of carbon reduction we need a dedicated resource who can expand the scope of work to include other municipal opportunities but also residential and commercial opportunities for why is 25 percent of a reduction which we've already achieved not sufficient it's because we haven't achieved significant carbon reduction since 2013 and in 2013 this data shows

153and this is the most recent data available the urban residents were emitting 80-plus tons of carbon dioxide per household annually and if you look at this that's much higher than other towns in our area with the reality of climate change becoming increasingly clear the time is now to act the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change predicts that we must reduce our carbon footprint by 50% by 2030 and a hundred percent by 2050 or we may face irreversible climate disruption and changes we need to do our part in the short time allocated for statements tonight we cannot begin to cover all the data that we've accumulated on the compelling return on investment or the wide range of grants and incentives that are available or the scope of municipal commercial and residential activities the coordinators and other kinds

154of achieve but we can give you a few facts that are relevant sustainability coordinators in other towns around Massachusetts have achieved between four point two and eight point three times the salary and benefits of the position in other words if we were to hire a sustainability coordinator at thirty nine thousand dollars which is what we proposed to advisory we could reasonably expect a return of a hundred and sixty three thousand eight hundred dollars brought to town annually via grants incentives and savings and that's the low end expectation by endeth twice that but I want to be real clear this is not all about money this is about the scope of the initiatives that a coordinator can bring to our town over and above what our town officials who have full-time responsibilities our volunteer groups which

155I've been very or town committees can achieve so what kind of initiatives what kind of coordinator do for our town other towns have realized these kinds of results they've produced significant reduction in energy costs and ongoing savings through infrastructure projects such as installing energy efficient systems LED lighting solar arrays electrical vehicle procurement and a wide range of residential programs they've secured grants and incentives for sustainability and climate vulnerability and mitigation they've freed up town officials who are working with their regular jobs while attempting to address climate climate change and carbon reduction they track and report on the town and residential energy use in energy reduction they've arranged electricity aggregation or the block purchase of electricity lowering the costs for both the town and its residents they've promoted residential carbon production through things like massive audits

156solarization programs renewable electricity composting things of that nature they partner with selectmen Energy committees facilities volunteers and other town committees Fred run public forum so tonight what we are asking for is your vote of YES on article 26 for a sustainability coordinator thank you thank you yes mr. Dorrance us the Board of Selectmen have unanimously endorsed this article and I wanted to urge your support on the following basis in connection with the work that I've have been doing at the State House I have been told that there have been opportunities for the time to obtain grants that we have not applied for that we have not pursued I had a discussion with the Green Communities coordinator that they are are funds that community like Sherbourne could pursue I believe the premise behind this article that

157a dedicated employee or worker who can apply to for these grants well in in actuality produce dollars for this community and as part of producing dollars for Sherbourne we will be improving the environment for the community and for the state and for our nation I think we're all responsible to make our environment safe and for make our environment that's better this is an opportunity to do a win-win for the town and for our environment I urge you to support this back of the room please Neal Neal Kessler 43 page Farm Road first just wanted to say that last week their Conservation Commission voted unanimously to support this article and I would just echo what mr. Dorrance has said that we should be looking at any Avenue where we can add money to our bottom line

158instead of you know looking to other sources the other thing I just wanted to bring up is that Sean clean earlier tonight we we had a you know requested funds for tree mortality and tree damage and one of the things that interests me most about this sustainability coordinator position is just how much we can do in terms of resiliency where we've got issues with tree mortality storm damage the moth damage we've got floods we've got all these kinds of sort of negative things that a sustainability coordinator can come in and not only help us find funds for but also just help us plan better and and built into the future a way to deal with these things even to the point of you know what kinds of trees can be plant so that they're more

159resilient to bigger storms down the road and I would also just echo that this isn't only about dollars and cents but just about a lot of issues that affect the town in terms of wetlands and and environmental things overall so I would just urge the support for this article thank you Robert Robert Johnson 272 Western Avenue I have a question and that is what if sometime in the future three years from now five years from now ten years from now we aren't getting a positive return from having this position is there an out or is this position irrevocable and goes on forever or do we have to have another Town Meeting vote to abolish it question okay is there someone here okay so with any position that's authorized or made part of the region classification

160plan or any position authorized by Town Meeting it doesn't have to be filled by the by the select board or if the town administrators the appointing authority by the time administrator there's always decisions that are left to the executive branch of the town so just because a positions been authorized or is even allowed by your bylaws does not mean it has to be filled so to your question if it wasn't working out you would have the elected officials of the select board be able to make a determination that they just don't want to fill the position or that they want to lay off the employee or whatever that situation might be I'd point out the language in the citizen petition the last sentence states that the Select Board may terminate remove or suspend the sustainability

161coordinator in accordance with the town's personnel bylaw I think it's tough look very specifically in the language Mykel Mykel lesser 54 Fire Street um I agree with everything that everyone has said I'm in support um I think this is a great idea I'm just gonna briefly speak as your last chair of your Energy Committee since we have not met for a few years I spent a lot of time working on the Energy Committee and doing a lot of the projects there that maybe had that first little dent in our energy use a number of years ago what I'd like to say is that this kind of position not only could it get money it will basically leverage a lot of resources that we have in town such as myself and others who have been on

162the Energy Committee who know a lot are willing to put in time but we do need somebody to help sort of basically anchor our efforts it's hard I did it for a number of years it's very hard to keep it going without having somebody who's more dedicated to it and I think there's a lot of volunteer and other kind of abilities in this town that would be greatly leveraged and come forth this position surrounding thank you thank you Michael is there any further debate question two comments okay then are we ready to go here okay please vote now motion passes 1:26 to 23 article 27 citizens petition with respect to transparency in excluding debt from prop two-and-a-half limits and bundling of capital projects again I would ask you to please consider staying so that we

163can maintain a program quorum and not have to return thank you madam moderator yes mr. Waldron Sherbourne advisory committee has been informed by the primary petitioner that they do not wish to present this article and in fact wish to not move forward with this article therefore I move that no action be taken on this article I second that motion is there any comment controversy whatever okay this is a yes vote on this is to defeat the article and well yes and a vote for yes that's right a yes vote moves no action on this right so we're ready to go I would ask you to vote now hey no action passes 119 to 5 article twin article 28 citizen petition with respect to transparency in the incursion of additional unfunded liabilities matter moderator mr. lahey

164I move that no action be taken on article 28 second michael has a presentation here to make I know it's late move as quickly as as possible I am urging you to vote no to the continued to neglect Michael can you identify yourself as Michael 828 Wildwood Drive I urge you to vote no to the continued neglect of our financial commitment to town employees a few facts if you're not aware of the town's pension program our active and retired employees have earned over 22 million dollars in benefits yet we've saved less than 50 cents to pay out those future benefits in 1988 the state mandated that we fix that these pro up problems be fixed in all towns in Massachusetts in 30 years we've made no progress I'm proposing a simple strategy when you're in

165a hole stop digging this changed our bylaws will force budget makers to not passively let this deficit grow it mandates additional funding above the minimum required by law if and when our auditors determined that the deficit is grown it honors the principle that the town does not deficit spend for an operating budget item it ensures that we incurred debt only for capital items that have a long-term benefit to town residents today and in the future vote YES if you want to continue to prioritize other service is over the financial security of town employees when they retire and I want to point out the town employees are not eligible for Social Security whose financial security the police officer who patrols our neighborhoods to ensure that we're safe the educational aide who provides support to an autism

166child with autism so they can continue to be educated in the classroom alongside their peers the DPW plow driver who's up at 3 a.m. clearing our major roads so that we can travel safely in the morning school support staff who feed our kids and maintain our buildings in fact all full-time employees of Sherbourne who make this a great place to live well yes if you're okay admitting we can't properly manage this obligation well unlike 51 other towns in the Boston metro area who do a better job with their pension management residents incomes in these towns I've listed here are less than half of Sherbourne yet they still figure out a way to better manage their pension plan places like Chelsea Revere Everett Maynard what towns in the Boston metro area have a bigger problem with

167their pension plan one Quincy and then tied with us are the 30 other towns that participate in the Middlesex pension plan administration vote yes if you believe our pension administrators are effectively managing this trust in 2008 we were told the deficit would stop growing by 2012 in 2012 by 2019 most recently we're told it will definitely stop growing by 2021 well yes if you want to kick the can down the road and let future Sherbourne residents pay for services we receive today alternatively you're okay with using future wages withheld from employees to pay pensions to retirees and what happens is poorly when pension plans often morph into ponzi schemes where dollars come in and they immediately go back out well know if you would want if you would only work for an employer who is

168properly funding the pension promises they made to you what would you think if your employer if he found out they were obligated to fix an underfunded pension plan but in 30 years they did only the bare minimum required and your benefits were still just fifty percent funded well know if you want to declare if we can and we will do better you want town employees to know we are just as concern for their financial security as our pro impersonal well-being you want to send a message to town leaders that we need to make difficult decisions today not in 10 or 15 years well know if you want a bond rating agencies to see evidence we're taking steps to preserve our triple-a rating and in the most recent bond rating they've expressed some concerns about the

169status of our pension fund as has happened in Texas is a national issue in the town of Fort Worth out west in Colorado their penchant their credit ratings at risk on the East Coast New Jersey has the second worst credit rating of all states in the country and Illinois is now at a junk debt status in there it's a mess so facts we can't change the rules governing how the retirement benefits earned it's a state mandate we can't expect a state to fix local problems either the Boston Globe recently expressed this concern in an article I want to wrap it up Michaels yep for every year we delay the problem compounds 25 years ago was a million dollar problem today we have a ten point seven million dollar problem if you vote yes in ten

170years this could grow to fifteen twenty possibly even twenty five at the current growth rate right we're happen up place so I urge you to please vote no protect our employees and the neglect of their financial security thank you are there is there any further comment yes mr. moral the select forward voted unanimously to take no action on this article based on the fact that we are currently in accordance with state regulations meeting our pension obligations and the and advisory made a comment earlier tonight about how strapped we are with our operating budgets this would put a requirement that a certain amount to go into this every year that would then further reduce our operating budgets or increase taxes it would only require money to be put in if the deficit grows worse if the

171deaths of deficits growing worse that means we've been earning benefits from those town employees but we're choosing not to fund those services we've received this past year at the time we're saying in five or ten or twenty years we'll take care of them okay so it doesn't it's just a shell game mr. Williams Ben Williams ten Wildwood drive the Advisory report says this would put an undue strain on department budget makers who are already being asked to make budget cuts in their FY 20 bucks well this is a case of you can pay some now or pay a lot more later I don't know when we would ever feel like there was too much money and that we would have plenty to lavish around on pension plans and so forth there is the opt-out provision

172on this it's not a guaranteed thing that we would have to make these supplementary payments I support the idea I will vote no on the motion yes Scott Embry 36 wildwood dr like that's the Advisory Committee if it continues to grow at recent rates what leads you to believe we'll be in a better position five or ten years from now than we are today to to draw the line you repeat the question one more time if what in five years if it continues to grow at recent rates what leads advisory to believe we'll be in a better position later than we are now to pay our current responsibilities you're saying no action take no action now because we're doing the minimum required by the state by law how is this going to get better in

173the future I would respond that as we had our discussions about this article and about the obligations that we have to be town's employees we are aware of the obligations and as we think about the longer term financial planning for the town and our obligations that we have to fill I guess I said that we are aware of it however by forcing this mandate by forcing this mandate on the taxpayers in town you've kind of taken away some of the flexibility and tools that the budget makers in town have the treasurer has and financing in a way to me why I voted again to take no action here I feel as though there's a bit of a awakening Navy to this problem that we're facing but I didn't want to necessarily limit how we can

174handle the overall budget due to this one aspect that look there's other problems that this town has financially right and if you were to put limits on the actions that one could take to handle all these smaller issues that we face then this know there may not be money to do the things that we need to do day-to-day to run the town so again I to meet personally it was an awakening to the issue and it made all of us have discussion about longer-term planning but I don't know that putting this putting this article in place I don't know this is the best solution for it it removes a lot of flexibility for the other aspects of the town's finances that are all Oh Richard you can respond afterwards Michael okay I want to give

175people who haven't had a chance to talk to mr. Robinson 117 Mills Street I'm in favor of the article against the motion and I can think of some better ways to use $5,000 that we decided to spend for electronic voting someone at the rear Pat Mulhall 48 Greenwood Street I'm confused as a yes note as a yes vote mean that I agree with no action be taken yes thank you Michael mr. Leahy has commented about the need to have financial flexibility and the bylaw has a provision that if if the Advisory feels that for some reason the mandated amount to be amortized was not affordable in any particularly year's budget then award an article would be put on the ballot and and you the residents of town the citizen legislators at that time could say

176yes we're willing to continue to defer changes do that they're willing to defer increased costs to the pensions to a future point it just makes it a public vote just like we vote on fire trucks and wastewater treatment facilities and a whole whole range of things so it does not remove financial flexibility it makes it visible it makes it transparent is there any further comment yes mr. Dorrance us I want to point out that this problem is one that's faced by wallach communities in the state and the state itself and so there have been many discussions which I've participated in involving trying to find statewide solutions so one of the things that might change over the next few years is that as we work collaboratively with many communities to try and solve this we think

177that there are ways to reduce managed or otherwise make it easier for the municipalities in Massachusetts to deal with this issue I would suggest deferring action on this article let's see what we can do on the state level are there any other comments okay then we will are we ready to go with this okay remember that a yes vote is for no action a no vote is to passed the citizens petition or no I'm sorry that's right they yes a no vote opens the opportunity for a positive vote to pass the petition a no action must be defeated before okay we are voting now please yes is for no action motion passes 79 to 41 thank you I would take a motion to adjourn second to dissolve the meeting motion to dissolve