001[Music] do [Music] all right noticing time and the presence of quorum the select board [Music] we will re-enter into public session the august 22nd 2022 select board meeting the uh will start out as we usually do with residents concerns we have anyone who would like to come forward with any concerns that are on the agenda jim wood redwood road at the select board meeting on august 8th it was proposed to delegate organizing police details at polling stations from the select board to what had been the practice until very recently that is to the chief of police working with the town clerk in the discussion that ensued one member of the board made several statements about police presence at polling places that deserve comment quote having police outside of polling stations for some people could make
002them feel a little bit more unsafe quote the police could be stationed a little bit further back from the exact entrance of the polling place so it's not like an armed presence quote anecdotally i haven't heard this from many people but especially people from immigrant families people who have recently come here do feel a little bit uncertain with police presence i respectfully ask if any other select board member has heard these concerns expressed by any actin voter the comments are at best naive and at worst foolhardy recently there was a violent confrontation between protesters and of all places the discovery museum which resulted in multiple felony charges nationally there's an uptick of threats against election officials and law enforcement officers from local police to the fbi it therefore seems remarkably ill-timed to propose micromanaging the
003town clerk and police chief in the organizing of a police detail at election sites particularly the suggestion that officers be moved further away the current law chapter 54 section 72 which is titled preservation of order by police states quite unambiguously that the purpose of a police detail shall be to preserve order and protect the election officers and supervisors from any interference with their duties and to aid in enforcing the laws relating to elections how would that be done if the officers are moved further away in fact the law chapter 54 section 66 requires the presence of an officer or constable inside the polling place to secure the ballot boxes how could she or he be moved further away i have been voting in massachusetts for 46 years and an acton for 34. i have personally
004found the police presence at polling places both appropriate and reassuring it seems to me that the acton police and election officials deserve our gratitude and yes our respect thank you thank you charlie cut like poor review wrote a couple of meetings ago i made some comments about the report on the e i see by the women's group and mr martin subsequently corrected me well i am not going to repeat the whole thing except for one particular issue where i said that the change in title from diversity officer to anything else was prompted by concerns by several people that the word officer was inappropriate and to read the exact words several expressions of concern about including the term officer in the title due to connotations of policing policing has to do with police mr martin so
005it concerns me that this change was made immediately by the people running this interview without any questions without any discussion of pros and cons basically this that's another evidence that this group was biased as there is the rest of the di enterprise and there will be more of this unless we stop it thank you panelists um i will take your uh attention on a issue that is uh global uh point you know a problem uh of a genocide so my name is vandana sharma and i live in acton massachusetts war crimes if left unrecognized and unpunished only lead to more aggression and suffering there is no better time to reiterate that than today as we see millions of people women and children face death and destitution today i get up to commemorate the genocide of
0062.8 million hindus by pakistani army and allied islamist in bangladesh 51 years ago bangladesh was known as east pakistan back then senator ted kennedy one of the most illustrious son of our great state and a senator who represented us for 47 years wrote in senate u.s senate judiciary committee 51 years ago quote field reports to the u.s government countless eyewitnesses gender generalistic accounts reports of national international agencies such as world bank and additional information available to the subcommittee document that the reign of terror that grips east pakistan the hardest hit have been the members of hindu community who have been robbed of their lands and shop and their shops and systematically slaughtered and in some places painted with the yellow patch marked as h for hindu i request this gathering to remember the victims of
007this forgotten genocide on the 51st year of since this tragedy i'll be happy to share a detailed resolution by email on this important event to our fellow attendees thank you for your time and listening to me appreciate it thank you and and certainly i would appreciate if you have additional information if you could send that along that would be great thank you do we have anyone in online okay therefore we'll move ahead uh mr manager your update thank you a few items uh if you've driven uh or walked down main street you've noticed the fence that we put up in front of the kennedy kennedy landscaping property this is to secure the site kennedy landscaping finally vacated the property last week and so staff have been working to make sure the property's secured and we're
008getting ready for the acton housing authority and their project which is still seeking funding but it will eventually be a new 40-plus unit senior affordable housing facility right on that location so if you see the fence there that's what that's why it's there further down main street kelly's corner we are hosting a block party on september 10th to kick off the construction project and celebrate the area try to promote some of the businesses that are there this is an effort initiated by our economic development office and many other community partners we encourage you to go down there i believe it's um in the afternoon on september 10th but there's a lot of information about it on our website and social media so check it out massdot who is running the kelly's corner infrastructure project is
009actually scheduling a construction kickoff meeting with our staff uh next week so uh it's it's happening and as we meet with the contractor we'll learn more about the schedule that they're proposing and how it will impact traffic and and all the various other things that will be communicating to the public over the next few years during that exciting major infrastructure project another project i wanted to update folks on actually staying in that area uh kelly's corner if you happen to go to dunkin donuts today you may have seen our local or our artist a muralist meg nichols who was one of the grantees in our public art program and she designed a very cool acton mural that will be going on that blank wall that's on the end of the edens building where nacho ravaged
010joe's is and there's a package door that blank wall right there is going to have a beautiful mural on it this is a project that we received funding from the state to do some public art grants and this is one of the four projects that has been awarded so and she's actually looking for help so if you want to do some painting you probably can't do the intricate stuff i'm sure she'll do that but if you want to do some background she's looking for help i think wednesday and thursday of this week contact the town manager's office for more information but it's very exciting and then finally i just wanted actually gardner field at the last meeting a member of the public asked for an update on gardner field and i have been working on
011that project since that time with our recreation department and our public works department additional staff resources have been allocated to support this project and ensure that it is that it is successful there's been some significant redesign work that is necessary due to some of the challenges we've encountered with the site we're working closely with the friends of gardner field and the local business community and we'll hope to continue to have an update for the community on the playground but it will not be completed this summer as we had hoped and i will provide additional updates this fall as we sort out exactly the final schedule finally item six on the agenda tonight relating to sewer o m rates um we need to take a second look at uh what we're proposing so i'd ask that
012it be continued to the next meeting so if anybody's here for that i just want to mention that now because i'm asking the board not to discuss it tonight thank you um one question are there uh could you give me an update on any plans if there are any about observation for 9 11. yes uh the committee that of folks in public safety and the community that work on that event every year is working on an event for that morning or for that day and we will be publicizing information uh within the next week or so on the details but it'll be typical last year was a 20th remembrance and and so it'll be more typically like the ones we've had in the previous few years thank you okay comments from members jim sure i
013had a couple things first of all so mr wood started out with a comment and ended it with i thought a good note which was let's be respectful and that's the part i agree with the part i found disrespectful was that you called one of my fellow board members naive and foolhardy and i think that was not appropriate and not respectful so please watch out for that thank you [Music] the other note was with my sustainability head on a lot of the news in the last couple weeks has been about federal and state climate legislation and just really pleased that we will be able to go ahead and apply for one of the slots one of the 10 slots that's called out in the state climate legislation that will allow up to 10 cities and
014towns to have be part of a pilot project to ban within some limits the use of fossil fuel infrastructure in new construction and major rehab and this is consistent with the bylaw that town meeting passed that did precisely that that particular bylaw is is is not in effect yet because we need an actual act of the legislature to allow us to do that but this is a very close second and i'm really glad that we're proceeding with that i appreciated seeing our our little application in the uh in the in the packet for the consent calendar and i'm really glad we're finding a way to make progress on this um that's it thanks fran i too wanted to speak to the comments regarding um our vote at the last select board meeting i'm always appreciative
015for um another perspective that i might not think of and himaja has perspectives that i respect and i enjoy working with her on this board and she has very very great insight thank you immature thank you um yeah i'm i'm really upset right now um being a note taker is um at sometimes really fun sometimes really disappointing this is one of the most disappointing times um it's being a young member on the select board is difficult to be called naive and foolhardy is extremely difficult i don't appreciate that i speak when i do because i do have some knowledge i do have some perspectives and i share that willingly and i'm looking at you right now and that's something you didn't even give me the respect for you didn't even look me in the eyes
016when you were saying all those things you made contact with every other member of this board but you didn't look at my eyes when you were speaking and that's not okay at the end of the day i speak because i have a unique perspective as a young woman of color coming from an immigrant family and so i appreciate the fact that you have been able to have police presence and not worry about that for the majority of your life i can't say that that has been the situation for me 100 and i know that it's been a lot worse for my other friends of color and so for you to disregard that is extremely disheartening um i do think that at the end of the day we made a select board vote the majority voted
017in favor and so this is not just me speaking for the board it's the board voting on this and that's how we make all our decisions here is we respect each other's opinions and we vote by majority so i'll i'll end it there i i do think this warrants further discussion i'm happy to have those discussions um i i do feel um i i do feel disheartened by what had happened but um i also want to end with i respect your opinion and you as a resident of acton have the right to say what you believe in that's completely you're right so i will i will end it there but i actually did have an update on my end so we are making some progress with um indigenous indigenous peoples day for october um so
018i have been working with one of our local historians who researches indigenous history we're in contact with the library so hopefully in september um for of our select board meetings we have um a little bit more information to give on that some updates on the programming that we're hoping to do to honor that and also the proclamation that will have been reviewed both by our local historian but also members of our indigenous community as well which we're really grateful for their time to help us write a proclamation that honors their voice and perspectives thanks and nothing from me either except to acknowledge that uh three of us were at the uh ribbon cutting for gorgeous martial arts over on grape road they had an opening in their new facility i believe they've already been in
019town in the past and it was great to see them expanding into that space and not having another vacant storefront on great roads so it was a great event check out their website thank you so we'll we will move to the discussion of the west acton citizens library vacant position it's a legal notice which i need to read notice is hereby given under massachusetts general launch chapter 41 section 11 that the select board and the remaining west acton citizens library trustees will hold a public hearing on august 22 2022 at 7 10 p.m in the francis faulkner hearing room from 204 acton town hall and remotely by video conference and call in to fill the open trustee position the board will interview those people that wish to serve as trustee until the 2023 annual town
020elections from a computer please click on the link to join the public meeting acton-m-a dot gov slash meeting slash b-o-s or from a telephone dial 646-876-9923 and enter webinar id 503-918-785 telephone users may dial star 9 to request to speak after joining the meeting computer and app users may use the raised hand feature to request to speak so we as i think everyone knows we have a vacant position uh in the west acting citizens library for trustee i feel an unexpired term this position would be from starting tonight until the annual town meeting which i believe is may 16 2023 uh the the procedure for carrying this out will be very similar to what was done several years ago when there was another vacant position and i did send out a uh a checklist on
021how we're going to proceed with this we're going to uh candidates who have submitted letters of interest to the position will be given time to present their qualifications candidates shall be interviewed in random order each candidate will be given five minutes to introduce themselves during that time the candidate should discuss their qualifications any prior library experience either to exist the library in the transition with new staff and any ideas they have about improving the library experience for the public members of both the select board and the west acton citizens library trustees we give an opportunity to ask questions of the candidates starting with questions from the trustees after the boards have asked questions comments and questions from the public will be accepted for the time limit of two minutes per public comment same procedure will
022follow for subsequent candidates this point the public comment period will be closed the combined boards will deliberate as chair i will ask for nominations from the combined boards the members of the boards will vote by roll call with present wacl trustees voting first simple majority of the combined boards is required in case there's a tie will be run off election candidates with the highest vote counts person of the fi and final highest vote count will be appointed interim trustee we just need a simple majority so i've been informed that one of the individuals who was interested in the position has withdrawn so instead of having four candidates to interview we have three mr chair i think two candidates okay it's the latest update so yeah so who do we have so i think uh ann
023gannon and um susie alex withdrew okay very good okay so so okay go ahead within the last hour how we received notice that um the second candidate withdrew um susie alex and earlier today we received or about a few hours earlier today we received notice that um one of the other candidates withdrew and anne glennon and so there are two remaining thank you so i guess the easiest thing if anybody has a coin to flip i know coins i remember point of order mr chair are you going to invite the the wacko existing michael trustees up to the table or how are we doing that uh yeah i think that would be fine we've got two seats right up here for the trustees come here right over here over here up here with the grown-ups
024yes so i just to formalize this um we do need to call the meeting to order for the combined boards have a motion to from someone on the select board to call us meeting to order so moved second hey all in favor of of meeting a combined session please say aye aye aye opposed abstentions okay we are in session um since nobody up here seems to have a coin that we can play oh you found one okay all right so what it sounds like we have two candidates we have we have annette and and we have um um linda right yes yes so uh uh let's say heads is linda heads it is uh in the dumpster a present [Music] oh okay uh we need to have them called their meeting okay i call this
025meeting to order of the trustees of wissatton library citizens factory okay thank you bye people keeping me honest here all right in the dempster do we uh we have anybody online nope all right then tails annette please please come up and describe why you should make a excellent trustee for the next few months thank you for the opportunity to be here i'm annette lockery i live at 57 windsor avenue i've lived a few houses down from the library for a number of years before moving to acton i had a job with the federal government where i oversaw a multi-million dollar federal contracts all over new england with physician organizations i oversaw a staff of 15 people and again we covered all of new england we left i left that job to come to acton and
026start raising my family but even before closing with our house i walked down the street and saw citizens library and of course went in as most people have the experience of as soon as i walked in i was immediately drawn to the location it's warm and comfortable and that time and every time since then going into that library feels like coming home [Music] in very short order after moving here i found myself in a position of spearheading an endeavor to defend the citizens library against a tom warrant which if passed would have closed the library it would have ended its long life as a library with the help and support of the librarian and the trustees a small group of us created and distributed a flyer all over the town of acton urging people to
027come to the town meeting and explaining what was going on about the possible closure of citizens library fortunately that worked enough people saw it and came to the meeting and voted against the warrant and citizens library continued to be funded it was a very very heartening experience a good friend of mine began her long political career in acton based upon coming to help me with that endeavor as a result of a successful summer reading program i ran the citizens library after that i created the taught time program which i ran the citizens library every monday for 22 years until covet struck they were morning classes for two and three-year-olds and afternoon classes for four and five-year-olds in the morning they came with an adult in the afternoon it was often the four and five-year-old children's
028first experience without their parents it was fun there was always a craft involved and of course at the end of every class i encouraged people to take out books i particularly liked it when they took out about 15 at a time which is what i always used to do when we took out books with my children again at the end of each class i checked out books so i was very comfortable with the procedure on how to check out books how to log books how to shelf books the whole book situation a number of years later at a special anniversary section a party run by the citizens library trustees i was commended by the trustees for the most having the most successful program that citizens library ever had the talk time program it it helped
029because not only did it increase the circulation in the book count but it also increased the patronage many of the parents or grandparents who brought their children kept staying at citizens library because they loved it even after the kids went off to school at the same time as wearing the tart time program for the past 15 15 years i began began selling promotional products in west acton village thereby becoming very involved with the west acting merchants the worst acting village merchants association also known as a ravma as a current member of the wagma board i become the face of the organization i'm the secretary clerk i handle all correspondence and outreach with the community the organization i'm happy to say has grown to more than 40 businesses in the village and i'm happy to say
030i personally recruited citizens library to become a member of webma in this grammar role i have helped organize and run several major big events within the village the spring fling the holiday stroll and of course the hugely popular oktoberfest the oktoberfest involved me writing to and soliciting hundreds of different people and organizations getting their money assigning them spaces figuring out the layout on the field helping people get onto the field and making sure everybody was happy our oktoberfests were very very successful and they were great community events we really lucked out because there was sunshine blue day blue sky days all of them based upon my event planning and organization experience all of these endeavors within west african village have been planned down to the smallest detail to not only bring people into the village
031but also expose them to each and every one of the businesses within the the village realtors have saying that there's three important variables for success in real estate location location location with me what i do i sell promotional products and for me the three variables are exposure exposure exposure and that's successful when i'm helping people market their business and it's also successful when i'm helping my organization webma to to bring people into the village and get business from people coming into the community and that's what i think also would happen with citizens library the citizens library really can use the experience that i have to bring exposure and bring people in more and more with my husband blake is an english teacher at abe for many years and me on the other end of the
032end of kids lives with the taught time program we like to think that together we had at least some influence in encouraging many many acting students to read and enjoy books all of the foregoing is by way of saying that i love and care about the citizens library and the viability of the library down the road furthermore i appreciate and wholeheartedly support the undertaking of the town along with the support of the memorial library to assure its viability if i'm honored to become a trustee i will bring to my position my management financial event planning and administrative business skills in helping to assure the ongoing viability of citizens library i would also help to create and implement additional outreach programs which will bring both families organizations and individuals to the library some ideas i had
033santa claus when i was running talk time i posted in regional um the acting act and um what was it called action unlimited people came from all over the citizens library to see santa i did it not just for talk time but to bring people into the library there was a halloween party that was started at the citizens library the recently um the the librarian who recently left had an idea to have a have an outdoor heaven have a halloween story telecom what she was doing was looking around to read the spot somewhere outside of the library to have it i urged her to have it at the library in the backyard with some reluctance she agreed to do that and it was hugely successful people came to the library they saw the library and
034that was run for several years in a row outside in the backyard and it was really cool the kid loved being outside in the dark for the storyteller so i was glad to have that happen um right now we have people coming from some the local co-op they come over from the library i would encourage people to come to the library from gates in in douglas i think also i think it'd be great to have an outreach person to go visit gates and douglas maybe go over and read to the younger kids i think more frequent book sales would be a great outreach program i would encourage the library to have tote bags big tote bags that have citizens library on the side so that when people take out books particularly children who take out
035a lot of books you would have the name of the library on it i think a teddy bear's picnic in the yard would be fun have a little parade and all that similarly a halloween party but people could come in costume and walk around the village i would have a reading contest with prizes i know that always entice my children to read more i think a whiz waldo game would be fun and afton wide where is waldo game it surprises me how many people don't know what citizens library is or where it is a good friend of mine a little more than 15 years ago was a librarian and she was the first person who thought to put a sign in front of the library there's a sign on the building but you have to
036really look for it to see it the sign that she put up of course after lots of approval from all the the beings she put up a sign and that really helped um so my worst waldo game i think would be a fun thing to do i think having a book swap for kids one for teens another for adults would be again another way to bring people into the library and expose them to citizens library an author visit many years ago we had authors come to the library and it was great you know it's hard to find just the right person that will bring people in but again it brings citizens library exposure one other one i had the idea of is a historical historical site scavenger hunt goodness knows we have enough around here
037we could do that so those of us who love citizens library refer to it as a gem because it really really is as part of my role in addition to all the foregoing as others have done many many generations before me i would work to sustain its unique charm and warmth and maintain its rightful place in the west acting village community thank you for the opportunity to speak thank you uh questions of the candidate and we'll start with the uh might as well stay up hi dr trustee hi ned thank you um lots of great ideas but i do have a question i know that you have um voiced a strong preference for the citizens library to remain as an independent library do you still feel that that is visible i support whatever's going to
038make the library the most viable i think there are powers beyond me that maybe know better than i do and whatever's going to make the library sustainable and live and thrive i support thank you for the question and are you aware of the changes that have occurred already with our collaboration with i'm sorry with what with our collaboration with aml i'm done with club collaboration collaboration i'm sorry with aml i know just the ones that i that that were mentioned at a presentation here the other ones that i know of other than that i don't know do you want me to list them okay uh go ahead other questions from the trustees hi net thank you hi jara good to meet you nice to meet you as well thank you um first of all so
039much for applying to become a board of trustee we appreciate it and as you know that's why we serve as well because we do love this library for many many reasons um i love the ideas that you had i think they're really great i um i agree with you i remember when i first started in 2019 and i was looking back through some of my notes and i remember when the top time program was canceled due to low attendance and um i think there does need to be some changes and that was prior to covet so we do need more tots programs and unfortunately kovit came right in and swooped through that one of my questions for you is is by viability i would love to know how you would define that what does viability
040look like to you how is it measured and in your thoughts on that process my guess viability to me would be having the library be used okay i mean i think there's a lot there's probably a lot of ways to measure viability i don't know whether i mean i know sometimes libraries are measured based upon book counts and that kind of thing i don't know how equitable that is or how appropriate it is but i know that's one measure of success but i think you having it be used is is i guess i would consider viable that is used and people come and enjoy it and there's enough to bring them into it it keeps it valuable i'm not explaining it very well but you know it's it's kind of an off-the-cuff question just based
041on the word being out there quite often so that's why i was curious yeah i mean i guess it it i don't know how anything in terms of a library pays for itself for example but but i think the intent is to have enough people come in utilize the library keep circulation up enjoy the programs all of that feeds in to make it viable right great thank you i appreciate that answer my next question for you is i'm very curious what your three key drivers were for running for the board of trustees i know you've been very involved throughout acton and thank you for all of your service for all of those positions but what now made you decide after uh running tots time and i'm not familiar with the tots time program was it
042funded by the library was it a program where parents paid or how does that program work it was it was funded by the town okay all right yeah i believe that's where my checks came from okay all right original originally it was funded by funds that were raised by the auxiliary um but then the auxiliary ended so the library was more comfortable not letting letting people pay for it so i ended up getting paid by the library and i think the mechanism was through the town or at least that's where my check came from okay um so back to my question um so what were the three key drivers at this point now for you to decide to run for the board of trustees citizens library is clearly going through a big transition and i
043think that's very exciting and i'd like to be a part of that to help in any way that i can i think people can help even without being a trustee but i would like to be a trustee if that's possible to facilitate that process okay three sorry three dig a little deeper how many was that um that was one that was one okay um i guess another thing would be because i would like to help my my my way back background is in healthcare administration i'm a nurse so i think no matter what i do my my driving thing is i like to help people and i think that's probably why i really loved the kids so much when i did talk time because it was helping people so even what i do now helps
044people so i think i want to help i think it could be a very it could be a tough situation totally changing something and moving over to something else so i wanted to help and if i had to do it with a third um does it have to be three i would prefer it but if there is okay i don't want to put you on the spot let me see if i can think of one more um i think it'd be fun to be involved with some innovation that's going to be going on i like being creative and i think it'd be fun to help be creative in as many ways as possible to make things work for the library perfect thank you i appreciate it thank you for the questions sorry i thought it
045was done i just wanted to know annette um did you participate in the survey that our board created through surveymonkey i don't remember hurry it was very very thorough survey and many people had no clue the citizens library existed and many people wanted more services and to be connected to aml and um social media and we changed all those things but i i just wondered if you were aware how what a high percent of people in town that did respond i'm not aware of i don't remember getting the survey and i don't know the survey results but thanks for asking yeah okay okay uh questions from members of the select board imager thank you first of all thank you so much tara and dot um for your questions um we're really really grateful for the
046work that you've done um with our citizens library um internet thank you so much for exactly like i'm tara and dad said for your services in the town um so my question is um in terms of just navigating and working with the team through like you said a difficult transition um but an exciting one um in many ways how would you make sure that you work together with your team how do you prioritize teamwork and navigating disagreement to try to say your opinion and and stand by your opinion but also respect other people's opinions and and the will of the majority of the board well clearly if i were appointed a trustee i would be the new kid on the block and being the new kid on the block i mean my personality is such
047that i'm comfortable giving my opinion but i also respect other people who have more experience so i would learn from other people's experience give my opinion and go with the flow thank you um and that's it for me it was really um great hearing about your passion your ideas for um the citizens library um so that's it for me thank you thank you jim [Music] um [Music] well the first thing i want to say is also echo what hima just said to to thank tara and dot and that for your willingness to serve um one of the great um outcomes of this process so far um is a lot of people have been asking really good questions about you know what is the the sort of the role of the trustees you know where's the
048what's the charter what's the you know where where are the bylaws you know what what what is this organization um and so it's been really helpful uh that um just just a couple weeks ago uh no just a week and a couple days ago we finally gotten a good helpful written out opinion from town council about all this to clarify which something we already knew which is that there since the um since the library was sold to the town in 62 there hasn't been any formal organization for the trustees there's no charter there's no reference in the town bylaws there's there's a lot of ambiguity here um and one of the things and that you know as best as we can tell the library is functioning as a department of the town the trustees are
049in charge of you know advising the providing advice about the the library and about and of course this particularly important role in taking care of of uh stewarding the money that's been donated to the library over the years um and i i wonder about your your your your interest or willingness to participate in a process where we actually um you know come up with a bylaw or a change to our charter or something that actually describes the role of the west acton citizens library trustees i think that would be a good idea and it would be fun having worked with the federal government i spent a lot of time involved with law and it's something i'm comfortable with and i'd be happy to help with great thanks thanks jim nothing else david hi david and
050thank you for um being an applicant and for being here um so i guess showing up is important huh um i uh really appreciate all the ideas that you mentioned in in your opening statement uh about promoting the library i think that's a great thing you also talked in considerable detail about some programming ideas um i was wondering how you thought you would work with the other trustees and the library director to implement those ideas those pro because you put in a lot of detail um and so i was wondering how you thought that yeah well you expected that to work and you know having an idea but putting it into action would be probably somebody's responsibility above my pay grade probably the librarian i don't know i mean if the trustee has agreed to
051one of my ideas for example i think it would be run by the librarian to see if if they agreed with it and if everybody agreed then maybe it would happen and we'd figure out how to make it happen i don't know it depends upon what it would be how it would evolve in terms of the detail okay so i i think that's an important distinction maybe the first thing that needs to be worked out in detail you know just some of jim's points but maybe even before as to how that relationship works you know for example um for the select board if one of us has a good idea um we don't go to the director in charge of that in a department right we work through the town manager to do that i
052assume that that's that would be true here too and so you wouldn't go to the library and go go to the library director and try to try to figure that out which is why i asked that question when you say see i guess i don't know whether the person sitting at the desk at citizens library is that person being called the director or the librarian that would be the branch librarian so the library that's what i meant by the librarian i guess so she she that's also exactly my point you know if if i have a a great idea for the dbw director i don't go to the dpw director and say we should do this right um i uh chat with the town of the editor right and the same thing is true there
053you wouldn't want to direct the the branch manager in the library you'd want to go to the library director david i worked for the federal government for a long time i'm very aware of dealing with the appropriate hierarchy i don't know what it is i threw an off the cuff the answer to you but whatever the hierarchy is and the way to do it is how it would be how i would do it right i was just trying to figure out what your expectation no i don't have any expectation because i think it seems like everything is pretty new so i would follow the channels that were appropriate to be done again having worked for the federal government for a number of years there's certain ways that things are done and that's the way it
054is okay i'm happy with that i'm okay with that thank you thank you no more questions for me just quickly thank annette thank you liked listening to your your uh timeline thank you and um you live so close too i know i spent a lot of time walking back and forth at that library thank you um so i guess the key thing for me once again is that that it's become very clear uh and now we have a legal opinion uh from council about the exact structure of the library that it's it is in a different category than for instance the acton memorial library so i think it's important to understand that it will be a has been since 1962 a department of the town in 62 it was actually set up as the west
055acton branch of the acton memorial library so i think that it's very important to understand that although it has been somewhat independent in the past i think the only way that it can move forward is to provide more services and to provide reliable staffing and the only way that that's going to be able to happen obviously is with funding and with a close collaboration with the memorial library so i think that's a take-home message that i would offer to you is that we're not going to go back to pre-1962 i think it's important that we move ahead i what i've seen and full disclosure i did serve as a trustee of the west acton citizens library for a couple of years and so i think it's really important to understand that we're entering a new
056era for that building and i'm 100 committed to keeping that building open and keeping library services going there good but it's it's not going to look the same as it did before and we've had a long series of really excellent library staff there starting with thelma hermes susie pomeroy reggie tishler rosie jennifer friedman i mean we've really had a wealth of really qualified people there that but that's going to change um all of those people were hobbled somewhat by the fact that there wasn't enough funding and there wasn't enough staff time there so the library was never able to really blossom and i i hope that under whatever set of trustees and rules and regulations we come up with we understand that it's going to be a much more viable and much more vibrant operation
057there has been in the past um that sounds exciting it's not really a question but no i think that sounds very exciting so um since everyone on the boards has had a chance to ask questions we'll open it to see if there's any comments from the public should i sit down yes and it appears we have no questions from the public um all right therefore i will close off the question and answer period and we'll open for deliberations from the board if any members of the board wishes to make any discussion points this could include a nomination or not uh we could just at the discussion period at this point if anybody has any comments they'd like to make absolutely we'll start with the trustees okay um one of the things that i did want
058to mention that i think we need to take into consideration while we're making this decision as i think there was a communication breakdown at some point in the chain for coming to this meeting and that this was on the agenda the re and so i am a little concerned that the other candidate may not have even known that it was today because i didn't know until dot had texted and emailed me and forwarded an email to me so i don't think i would even be here today so that is a concern that i wanted to bring up because i think it's interesting that somebody would go through all of the work of writing the letter and then not show up or even respond or pull out as a candidate so i don't know what the
059answer is for that if the decision has to be made tonight or if it can be pushed to re to recircle with this candidate i can't see the name right now but i i just wanted to put that out there that i do know that there was some sort of communication breakdown because i didn't see any formal notification for me to attend this meeting today thank you didn't someone try to text her i was curious linda the other candidate we did notify all the candidates of the process that would happen tonight uh i think we did that about a week ago and uh as recently as an hour or so ago we did or within the last 20 minutes we did try to contact the other candidate to see if she just missed the zoom
060invite or what and we haven't heard back any other questions comments deliberation from from any member of the combined boards um if first of all the two candidates that withdrew that was news as of tonight and that was disappointing because i think it is good to have a pool of candidates and you know ex thorough exchange of thoughts and things like that and roles as trustee but if there are no other candidates i'm not clear how that goes does that automatically mean the one candidate is nominated i you know what i mean i'm just asking about town wall well like the way i would propose we proceed is first we see if we can some member of the combined boards would have to make a nomination and if if nobody made a nomination then we're
061at it at a deadlock we would renew the process if nomination was made for one candidate we'd take a vote and obviously um would have to be a it's a roll call vote and it would be the simple majority so we could have a particular candidate that could could get nominated but not get a majority of the vote could will vote a or nay or abstention so that's the process and we could we could hold this off uh you know depending on how the vote is we we might end up having to reconsider the whole process but that's the way i proceed tonight yeah and um just as a clarification i think um further chartered you you have three you have a maximum of three full members so in this case technically both of you
062were meeting it would be considered a quorum am i right so okay so you could make you could continue making decisions um as a citizens board of trustee um but it would require both of you to be present so um in that case that could tie it over until we maybe redo this process again to try to find a third trustee um but i don't think i think that as long as both of you are there technically like you you can still call meetings and still function as a committee and we have not um hired a library manager for citizens is that correct i don't even know if there are candidates um so i would uh defer the manager about you know thank you thank you so uh we met with the uh well a
063few weeks ago we presented the plan that we had implemented for the summer because jennifer friedman retired at the very end of june uh the first week of july and since that time the library has remained open we've actually increased the hours it's been open through the use of memorial library staff several staff i think a few key ones have have been doing most of the work but i think there's been a rotation of others to make sure that the building remained open to the community that is you know the summit that was the summer plan and the summer is over next week so we have proceeded with um recruiting for a full-time librarian that the process is still out i believe um i think we're either still accepting applications or or the the period
064just closed um and once that once the recruit the interviews start we would invite a member of the citizens library trustees to participate in the process uh as we discussed when you know we laid out the summer plan uh earlier this year and so what that would do is provide a full-time person to work at that library which we haven't had for for a while thank you hey any any other comments from remember is the board jim um i'm aware that there's an election for citizens library trustees uh in in may right at the regular town election at town meeting um so given the relatively short period of time i'm fine with uh with nominating annette lockery uh to fill the gap between now and may uh and then um you know and then hopefully
065uh one or more of these fine people who have put their names in and then apparently you know two of uh sort of explicitly steps back and and one may or may not want to be interested but hopefully that they would be interested in um you know putting their names out again in may and then we can have an election and and you know let the citizens choose i think uh these these kind of fill-in appointments are just that they're to fill in a temporary gap um so i would i i'd move a nomination for for a net for filling the trustee role from now until i would second okay we have a nomination we only have one candidate we will call the role if the clerk could call a role and start with the
066members of the trustees sure thing dot do you vote um i nay or abstain abstain okay thank you tara abstain okay um i will vote i will vote i um i'll also vote aye i'm dean i will uh go with the trustees and abstain as well okay friend okay thank you david some people have to shut up um i'll vote i okay thank you so that was abstain abstain i i abstain i okay so that passes then i believe it does or thank you very much annette it's sort of a grueling process you've gone through uh and we we hope to see good things from continue to come from the west acton citizens library and thank you tara thank you and thought for all of your work on this as well and i think the
067i think the library trustees need to close their portion of the meeting i move to adjourn the meeting second thank you very much all right uh new business update on mbta community compliance in the south acton action plan mr manager thank you the governor's office just last week published their official guidance for how communities are to implement the the new multi-family uh zoning requirements related to mbta communities and this is something that we have been working on since the the whole thing started if you recall there was a presentation to this board in december and we talked about it again in may where we talked about where we thought the compliance guidelines were going to go and what we were doing to prepare for it happening so we did submit a form to the state
068saying that we're working on it and we want to stay eligible and with the new guidance that's come out uh actually kristin in the in the planning office actually applied for a grant through mapc and received it to develop what we're calling a self-actin action plan it's a technical assistance grant and it's a robust public engagement process where we're looking to look at the 2020 master plan look at this new guidance and try to understand things that we can do from a planning and community zoning standpoint to help address this new compliance these new guidelines there's a there's an advisory group made up of staff members of the planning board the community housing corporation economic development committee historic district commission transportation advisory deic and i would ask the board to consider designated delegating or assigning
069a member to participate in these meetings the first one is next is the 7th of september and they will help develop the public engagement efforts that we'll be doing along for for that work so there's a memo in the packet that goes into more detail about what i just highlighted but the main ask uh of the board tonight is is there a member that you'd like to have participate in that process the internal meetings and if there's any questions that you have about the the new guidelines if you've had a chance to interview them okay questions remembers the board we have anybody who'd like to volunteer to oh sorry and almost anyone else i would be happy to volunteer yeah mr manager you have your designee thank you and you know as as the guidance
070just came out last week we've been working with um town council and you know our other colleagues to understand how exactly to to apply it and we'll keep the board and the community apprised as as we continue that process one question jim um one thing that was mentioned there was a tool under development that would from a map point of view would describe um you know where where such where where these zones could be where they couldn't be what size they needed to be specific to each town um and i'm just um i just want to make sure that that was my is my understanding correct that that's coming and i'm certainly eager to see it uh when it's when it's available yes so where you know there's only a subset of the state that
071is is considered mbta communities and they actually reduce that by making a clarification about communities that have bus service only and so yes they're going to be providing resources to each of us to help us navigate that and i will share that cool map when we get access to it okay anything further on that john or is that okay next update on the american rescue plan act allocations and recommended process to update plan thank you so just to review the american rescue plan act funding allocated to the town of acton 7 million dollars 2.4 was a direct allocation to the municipality and 4.5 or so was uh an allocation to us through the county uh to as of uh friday or actually as of last wednesday because i haven't checked since we received all of
072the funding from our municipal allocation and fifty percent of the county reallocation and we expect to get the rest soon the school district also received a little bit of money through sr3 which i didn't account for in that calculation if you recall last year probably around this time we conducted a needs assessment um some stakeholder engagement um internal working group we looked at our capital plan we looked at the select board goals that were in place as of last year and we brought to the board about 12 million dollars worth of ideas for what we could spend the opera funds on from there there was a comment period for approximately a month there was presentations to the select board there's finance committee presentations the board held a formal listening session to collect public input there
073was a public survey then on october 4th the board did a deliberation with some fancy spreadsheet work by the chair and then on october 18th it made it voted to approve the final recommended investment priorities uh since that time we have been working um you know at that at that meeting 5.1 million dollars was allocated in about 24 different initiatives uh and about two million dollars was held in reserve for future years and so as of as of you know some of the things that were invested in were some revenue replacement to refill to fill shortfalls in local receipts we did some investments in sustainability initiatives water wastewater parks playgrounds facilities some technology later in january there's actually additional funding set aside for public housing and reinvestment to make energy efficient improvements one million dollars
074was allocated to the regional school district and since then we had to work through the very you know if you recall the cares funding where we received around two million dollars was given to the state and then the state administered how we used it and that was sort of a complicated process and we thought getting the money directly from the federal government would make it easier in some ways it did but it also created a requirement that we follow some different procurement guidelines which uh you know we always follow the state guidelines in this case we have to specifically follow the federal ones which in some cases a little bit different for us so we developed an internal process to make sure that each of the departments and in some cases the private entities and
075and the districts that are using the funds are all following the appropriate procurement guidelines and so as as of today or recently of the 3.7 million dollars that was allocated in fy 22 about 2.34 million of that has been encumbered either spent already or pos have been uh pulled to to spend the money and so there's about a 1.3 million dollars that had been allocated in fy 22 that hasn't been encumbered yet and that's not because the projects have have fallen off it's just because they're either still in the planning phase uh there's some procurement things that we're going back and revisiting um very few of those efforts are uh are um are over um and we you know we start to sort out a few of them so uh we also have funding that
076we allocated in fy23 which is about 1.4 million and those projects are just getting started you know we're just getting started with a pretty cool um program to to provide grants to businesses to do energy efficiency improvements uh we're starting the child care subsidies for um students or families with with children in schools or daycare and we're starting to do a lot of those things but there still is approximately two million or that the board had held in reserve and so what i what i'd recommend that the board do is that you know it just did another goal setting um last month or recently and so some of the some goals and priorities have been shifted and new ones have been added and there's been some needs that emerged over the last year and arpa
077was suggested as a way to address those and so i think what i what i'd recommend that the board do is to take another month or so and formally start the process of revisiting the plan and either start that tonight or start that at the next meeting and then plan to take a vote again at an october meeting probably the first october meeting with with an update and a new investment plan and in the meantime we can do very similar things that we did last time we could we could submit a public notice saying that we're doing this we could talk to the stakeholders again we could check in with finance committee and the school district and the water district and everyone else and come back and let the board know exactly where we are
078and make recommendations of how to invest i really think that the board should invest the rest of the funding we have we have a few years to spend it but i think the longer that we we wait to decide what to spend it on the longer it takes and i think it it's in it's in our interest to lay out the rest of the funding over the next two years uh actually next three years fy23 any changes that we want to make to the current year fy24 and f2025 and you know we can look at our capital plan [Music] and you know that we already have and the capital plan that we've that we'll be working on and and just i think it makes sense to make make those decisions um this fall before we
079start the budget process because i think it helps to have our opera plan established at that point so that we can do the rest of the town's finances going forward so that's my update my recommendation is to hold a comment period and take a vote in october on the new a new plan yeah i think that's a good path forward um i i do think we need to solicit some some input from stakeholders um i'm particularly concerned uh you know looking at water and wastewater issues personally i would only be in favor of of what i would call one-time expenses i would not want to go out and hire a bunch of new help with this money and then say okay well you know 18 months down the road you're going to have to appropriate
080money to keep those people on staff so i'd be looking at sort of one-shot kind of projects personally i i don't want to you know handcuff the town into making long-term personal costs or other costs that you know that could bind us uh could be a real problem uh when we're looking at you know we're hitting the limit on on two and a half before too long so certainly i would go for those capital expenses and for projects that can be easily accomplished and one and done sorts of things uh comments from other members of the board david so i i was just wondering how we were going to what the process was going to be right so last time we asked for suggestions produced a list out of the suggestions got feedback on the
081suggestions both from the public and from committees like fincom and then we came back and voted on the selections um uh are we going to do the same thing or something different or you know i'm just wondering how this is going to work i mean it's a that kind of process that we did last time was a number of meetings right um um including you know getting comments from the public so it it did take a number of meetings and we had made a a commitment to making a public process for the first pass-through i i think looking at the time constraints if we i would not be opposed to abbreviating it a bit i do think we should have some allow some time for public comments maybe a whole full-blown process that we did
082before but i could be swayed on that david so just specifically how do we produce the list are we going to you know ask the town manager to draft the list or are we going to you know so last time for you know for example the the school district made a request the water district made a request um a couple of private entities made requests um are we going to ask people to do that so last year was a merge of a few requests like that and then um some needs that were identified by the town manager um and then we we took feedback on the whole thing again i'm just wondering i'm not trying to argue you know one side i'm just trying to figure out exactly how it's going to work i i
083would think that i would be very interested in getting input from the public entities the town manager the school superintendent and the water district commissioners i think between those three entities we can easily find a way to commit two million dollars any one of the three could eat up to two million um so i i think i would my my thought was that at the end of tonight we asked the town manager to come up with a list have him work and i'm looking because i think it's been very well documented i'm looking specifically at the the capital improvement plan as where we come up with a list of things we've certainly identified some new needs recently that some were in the capital plan some weren't certainly want to articulate some issues with things like
084a good project moving ahead would be the public works facility the fuel storage tanks which i think we have a a potential issue there potential liability and i i don't think we were as aware of that when we went through this the last time so i would just go to those three entities and ask for a list and come back to us certainly anything that we decide to do is subject to public comment maybe have a list back by our first meeting in september and plan on doing a vote on our second meeting in september david yes that that sounds good and so just again sorry one point of clarification we'd ask the town manager to reach out to those public entities add those to his list and he would put in capital items that
085he thought were strong needs and then um that would be the list we'd get in september get some public comment um after that list is out you know the fincom can weigh in if they would like and then we come back with second meeting in september maybe the first in october or whatever it makes sense and vote on them yep great thank you so much later out very well thank you questions comments from other members of what imager yeah i think that sounds like a good plan and i think the good thing is we don't have to reinvent the wheel so even just thinking about the process we went through last year um you know we had a lot on our wish list some of them were accomplishable um some of them exceeded what we
086had been given um and we had um some aside and so i think that luckily we don't have to reinvent the wheel and so i do think that looking through those requests um and and looking through those items that we hadn't addressed yet adding in this new feedback that we get from different committees i think would produce a robust list that we can then kind of go through and allocate the rest of the money thank you jim yeah i'm i'm comfortable with this plan um with the caveat that um if either the water district or the schools decide to they need to go through uh um you know a board meeting to review this then first meeting in september might be too soon but if if if the you know if if they're ready on
087a staff level to proceed because they feel like they've gotten enough feedback from their boards already then let's go ahead with uh you know the double september schedule but if not i'm i'm i'm open to extending this into the first meeting in october if we need more time to get the input from the the other public bodies thank you all right mr manager does that sound like a plan for you yes thank you all right moving along got to the consent items item seven approved meeting minutes august 8 2022. item eight approved draft charge of the committee to commemorate the 250th anniversary of the commencement of the american revolution i would like to hold that okay accept easement 1 180 newtown road accept gift economic development office for one thousand dollars from philip 66 to
088support production costs for the 2022 kelly's corner block party item 11 accept gift economic development office for 100 form from q cleaners to support production costs for the 2022 kelly's corner block party item 12 accept gift economic development office for 500 from rf's woodworking to support production costs for the 2022 kelly's corner block party item 13 accept gift economic development office for 2 500 from roach brothers to support production costs for the 2022 kelly's quantum block party item 14 accept gift economic development office for 250 from squash west to support production costs for the 2022 kelly's corner block party item 15 accept gift economic development office for 250 dollars from xgolf to support production costs for the 2022 kelly's corner block party i am 16 approved one-day alcoholic beverage license vicky tidmouth narrow park sports
089pavilion september 17 2022. item 17 one day alcoholic beverage license acting democratic town committee narrow park september 18 2022 item 18 one day alcoholic beverage license ironwork farm 5 high street october 1st 2022. item 19 request for one day alcoholic beverage license fee waiver iron work farm item 20 committee appointment thomas wolfe associate to full member land stewardship committee to field unexpired term of lawrence ullman june 30th 2024 item 21 approved letter to department of energy resources doer commission revolve regarding fossil fuel ban pilot program item 22 accept gift planning division for 49 542 dollars from d.c bean and associates construction company towards the sidewalk fund as stated in the select board decision number 2022-485 i will accept a uh a motion to approve item 7 and items 9 through 22 inclusive so moved second
090movement seconded all in favor please say i i i opposed abstentions uh david to your hold thank you i have um uh one big issue and then a couple of um little issues that i'd like to discuss with the charge the the big issue is you know at our previous meeting when we were discussing the 250th committee and during resident concerns people spoke against things like the 1619 project and using critical race theory in our schools which is odd since we don't use critical race theory in our schools i was taken aback um we were discussing how to celebrate acton's part in the revolution and these people took it as an opportunity to to diss black people in addition multiple people spoke out about making sure that the focus is only on april 19th and
091they said this again and again which is to me was a backhanded way of making this exclusionary one person was very explicit saying he didn't want the process to be hijacked by people who are anti-american and only wanted people who love america this kind of judgment as to who is a proper american and not um must not play a part of this in this committee um uh i'd like to make two points here one is i know people of color in the town who avoid some talmud events because they don't know if they'll be welcome because of attitudes like this frankly and second immigrants especially those that later become citizens come here to be americans um it's upsetting to think that we might reject them when they're trying to be part of us um uh
092you know i've been excited about this committee i i like revolutionary uh history i i read books on on the subject i've been to the old north bridge more times than i can count coincidentally i was just there two days before our last discussion showing it off to some out of town friends uh we took a tour of the uh old man's next which is next door and uh and i actually learned a few things even though again it's i can't count the number of times that i've been there to make sure that we avoid um tendencies to make this committee exclusionary i propose that we add the sentence all events must be designed to involve and must have outreach to all the residents of acton and i have two little issues i don't know
093how you want to structure this mr mr chair whether you wanted me to say all my things or whether you want to discuss this first or yeah um well let's let's resolve the first one uh your first point um certainly i think your statement uh your addition i think fits within the spirit of what i had planned here and i would have no objection to uh to adding that in um i think lisa has the original of my document and i think if you just give her the changes i would i would have no objection that i don't know if other members of the board feel differently no i think i agree but maybe you could say it again so i could hear it i'm sorry proposing that we add the following sentence i think
094there's a place in the middle of the large paragraph but it could probably go anywhere all events must be designed to involved and must have outreach to all residents of acton thanks i got no problem with that okay do your other points so uh two minor things and um uh both kind of financial and i'm both uh maybe a little technical um you you say in the in the draft charge that um the committee can propose um putting things through the town budget process or in into town meeting um do we need to explicitly say that they can apply to the cpa or is that implicit i i would think that would be implicit and would obviously that would only apply for permanent remembrances statutory restoration that sort of thing i don't think you could
095do programming with it i i agree with that but there could easily be a plaque yeah exactly uh i think that's totally appropriate and do you so you don't think we need to mention that here okay i'd be happy to add it but but i i'm not sure it's necessary and the the other thing is whether we need to say that this um effort can accept gifts and grants or whether that's also implicitly allowed i didn't know that that was implicit i mean someone could easily want to donate 500 or a thousand dollars to this um events i think any any gifts or grants would end up being accepted by the select board and then we could allocate it so i i'm not sure that that wording is needed but you know i have no
096objection to it um so when we do this in other cases don't they go to a town department right i'm just again it's out of ignorance and my you know for example a lot of um gifts are given to the recreation department for particular purposes you know doing something at nara or an event or whatever mr manager your recommendation yeah so we could um through accounting established a gift account for the celebration if we anticipate that there'll be a lot of donations um to help fund it and that should take care of that and the slack board could accept donations to that um without having it necessarily in the charge okay thank you david so that sounds fine it sounds like my last two details no don't need to be in the charge okay um
097and and while we're at it um i discovered that i got nailed by spell check um so let's see i can find the charge i made note in the charge uh that one of the members should be a my intent was a designated professional educator and it came out as designed so that's the other change that i would i would offer um so i david i i moved that we accepted the draft charge with the um edition of the sentence all events must be designed to involve and must have outreach to uh uh uh reach all residents of acton is that a motion i'll second that moved and seconded further discussion jim um just wanted to appreciate dean the looking at the old version and the new version um i i think you did listen
098to a number of the points from the people that spoke and you did that in a way that didn't move us away from the kind of inclusive event we want but still paid attention to those concerns i appreciated that you had a you know a tricky balance to play and uh um thanks for thanks for for traveling through that particular path thank you imagery yeah um actually i'm echoing jim thank you um for um accepting comments from us um and the public um i thought that um the the charge was well balanced um and i think that hopefully we can get some uh native american history representation and then i'm glad that was put in there as well um and kept in there so yeah i think that's good and i also appreciated um the
099breakdown of where the 11 members could come from and the different committees and and organizations that could be a part of it so i thought it looked good thank all in you say aye aye aye opposed abstentions all right um what i would david i could just ask one more question uh when will we choose the liaison to this committee the i would propose it at probably the next meeting and i would also like to work with the town manager's staff to publicize that we'll be looking for members of the public and get that out on the website um i would hope to see some work starting to get done on this probably in september as people get back from vacation um now it seems like a long time away until you try to plan
100these things so thank you uh i think i am looking for one more motion i move to adjourn second moved and seconded in favor say aye aye aye aye opposed extensions thank you very much very productive session have a good night [Music] you