Acton Select Board Meeting - August 21st, 2023

001yeah Matt do you need to start the recording yes it is stardom now thank you hey it's August 21st and this is the Acton select board meeting um we don't start until seven but it's seven now so we can start and we have to wait until we have a quorum of at least three select board members but all five of us are here so we're ready to go we start as usual with citizen concerns um Lisa has gotten me a new toy I'm very excited to use um this has got little red lights and green lights and yellow lights just like a town meeting um and let's see it's got three minutes on it uh so we got we're trying out yes it's going to go um one minute left 30 seconds left 10 seconds

002left and then it starts counting down you know like up back up again yeah yeah um so let's go ahead anybody have citizen concerns resident concern sir I thought I did but I can do that sure I'll buy it I won't object okay we're called to order Tara from SF and I think you mean residence concerns not citizens concerns because we're including everybody who's a resident right yes thank you okay um so the letter of condolence and welcome to the members of Nashoba and I just feel a little awkward um welcoming a settler welcoming Indians to their own land so I I have concerns about that I hope you revise that um the climate Action Plan update I did not get to see that material so I hope that you allow the public to speak

003since we haven't seen the materials there's going to be some presentation there's no materials it's just gonna overall okay Andrea talking showing us she may be showing us the public um the Acton tracker that's that's been out there for a while okay thank you um I had submitted my comments and I'll submit them again so regarding the West Atkins citizens Library trustees it's my understanding that you're not going to let anybody else speak is that the case yes during the discussion we want it to be a discussion between the select board members thank you um and so I just since I had this time now I just want to make sure that you got my mailing of the friends of the citizens Library legal memo uh also it's my understanding that another lawyer has taken

004interest and has written in just recently that also says I don't think this like word trustees have the authority to decide the scope of the assistance Library trustees Authority that's provided under law and so I hope that you make that note um that uh before that conversation or during that conversation so people listening can get the advantage of or at least the um the equity of knowing that there is another side from what the town lawyer has said so thank you very much thank you hi my name is sahana purohit I'm not here for any concern but just wanted to let the select boot know that I'm here from the Acton Housing Authority as a commissioner liaison to the select board so um it'll be me and Bernice Baron I think she'll be dialed in

005most of the time um remotely and I can't promise I'll be here for all the meetings but I'll try my best to be here and also today I see on the agenda on the consent agenda that you guys have given the Acton Housing Authority 24075 for range Replacements so huge thank you to our sustainability director Andrea and to all of you guys so thank you we really appreciate it great thank you there might be additional resident concerns Matt is there anyone online great well let's start in um chair update um the only thing I have is just an explanation of the last minute changes in the agenda those of you who follow these things very closely will remember that this morning we put out a slight change to the agenda the item on discussing next

006next steps for the Sewer Commission analysis needs more conversation between me and the town manager and and Alyssa who's the who's in the select board member most involved in this so we're going to have we're going to let this brew a little bit more before we come back to the select board um and this new this new letter um that we're approving is mostly about um the return after 275 years of members of the Nashoba praying Indian band who are we're now living in Acton I mean in Littleton um and we'll get more into the details but that came up kind of suddenly um I think that's all I had for updates anyone else thank you I just wanted to let everyone know that the Acton water district received a 500 000 drinking water supply

007protection Grant toward the purchase of 549 Main Street where the district will be operating Bedrock Wells to diversify Acton's water supply increase resiliency and drought preparedness and improved water quality so that is super good news a lot of money the health department will be hosting a hazardous materials day at the DPW Garage on 14 at 14 Forest Road on Tuesday September 12th from 4 to 6 30 PM they are not going to be sending out paper flyers in an effort to go paperless but you can find information on the town website the Water Resources advisory committee is reviewing the draft report of the Great Road Wastewater Solutions study that was conducted by environmental engineering firm Wright Pierce they started their discussion at their meeting last Wednesday and will continue that discussion tomorrow at 7 pm

008via zoom and then they will submit those comments to the town manager the public May comment now and also when the final report is published and presented presumably to our board here on September 9th at 10 A.M so Saturday the East Acton Village Green will be the location for an event that is a dedication and ceremonial blessing of that Park many thanks to conservation staff for their tremendous efforts and advocacy and the community preservation committee for funding the creation of the park this park is dedicated to Mary michaelman Carol Holly and Charlotte sagoff who were environmental for their environmental advocacy work in Acton so there are informational panels about them funding was also sourced from their families there's also an informational panel that was just installed featuring The Nashoba praying Indians which Jim just mentioned

009so members of the Nashoba tribe including strong bear medicine who just recently moved from Natick to Littleton will hold a ceremony in full regalia with music and dance um so we invite everybody to attend if they are able and just a couple of short announcements that Danny's place is having a grand opening for their new location on Sunday September 17th at 11 A.M the ribbon cutting ceremony that will take place at 543 Mass Ave and I also want to let everybody know to save the date for the second annual Diwali Fest which will be held Sunday October 8th at the Sargent Memorial Library in Boxborough from noon to 4 30. food vendors music dance and that is being announced in Acton because it's a collaboration between students that are in acton-boxborough and Littleton and there

010were hundreds of people there last year great entertainment and great celebration and great food so attend if you can thank you um David friend thank you for the updates Alyssa they're helpful and I just wanted to put a plea out for uh just to um you know to encourage Town folks to join a committee find a committee that might be something that you would it piques your interest we have so many committees that need members additional members and I'd be happy to walk you through their process if you reach out um that's all for me thanks Ryan Dean yeah just one uh the community preservation committee is meeting tomorrow night at the Memorial Library we will be reviewing the community preservation plan uh it's been circulated amongst all the members and and interested parties uh

011we've got some edits to it uh we'll be deciding on it making a vote on it and then there'll be a formal hearing process later on in September but it's still uh in flux at this point that's it great thanks um normally we would now get a town manager update but you may notice that the chair is empty John manjarati is getting well-deserved vacation and has even resisted any temptation to call in or be available online with our encouragement to just you know actually take a vacation so we will we will carry on without him um next we're going to have a presentation of the climate Action Plan update and normally John would be here to say just like to introduce Andrea Becerra our sustainability director so I'll do that so and you looks like

012you have your team here as well so maybe you can introduce everybody and come up and tell us about the climate Action Plan update you press that little button there and then we can hear everything you say yes um so I'm the sustainability director for the town of Acton I've seen many of you here before um I'll pass it down to Hannah and Lauren to introduce themselves as well I'm Hannah I'm one of the sustainability fellows for the summer and I'm Lauren I'm the other sustainability fellow for the summer and today I started as the environmental analyst for the Townsville um okay and with that we can get started um I may need some technical help Lisa to share my screen thank you I'm not okay I'll do that okay perfect here I can join

013so while that loads I'll give you all some context um so as many of you know um the climate action plan was published last year um and it was a culmination of work that started in 2021 um and before that um I'll start at 2018 when the select board passed an environmental policy which asked the town to set um [Music] yeah it's not giving me share um Aesthetics here here thank you you think this was my first time on Zoom um here we go okay yeah thank you for bearing with me um so um we published the climate action plan um last year and a lot of the work leading up to the climate action plan most importantly the select board Environmental Policy passed in 2018 which asked the town to pass a set of

014goals and actions around sustainability thank you and um and then in 2021 the special town meeting declaring a climate emergency and calling for Net Zero as quickly as possible with a Target date of um 2030. um and um it's just it's important to remind everyone of the context because so much work led up to the climate action plan and then as the environmental policy states it asks for an annual progress update on those goals so here we are today to give you um present the tool where folks can dive deeper into a progress update into each action found in the climate action plan and the goal behind the climate action plan tracker is to make sure one just make it a tool for annual updates but to make it a live document that people can

015provide updates and input on throughout the year at any time so for example one resident reached out and said hey you should include um the solar at Knox trail that the Acton water district has just um unveiled and so we're going to include an update on on that work um so it's an opportunity to provide updates um of progress throughout the year not just on an annual check-in and then um we will host an annual check-in with the public as well which we already did in July and so we'll also do that on an annual basis as well as a way to sort of um continue to collect input from the public in a more organized fashion not just through emails and direct input on the actual um tracker throughout the year um and it

016appears we're having some here we go Zoom is sort of closed on me um okay so um Hannah well first we'll start with Lauren Lauren will give an overview of the greenhouse gas inventory so we were able to update the inventory that was conducted and published in 2019 um so we have an update on that today and then Hannah will dive into the actual tracker itself so you can get a flavor for how you can navigate the tracker um so I'll pass it on to uh Lauren hi everyone so this summer that's a good idea unless you want to scream okay thank you um so this summer I've been working on updating our greenhouse gas inventory and once you enter the first main page of the tracker you can see there is some different categories

017you can pick on but under about you have basic introduction to what the tracker is and a bit about the plan as Andre was just explaining and we also have some highlights from what we found so far from the greenhouse gas inventory update so the original update was completed through the consultant agency and that was done using the igli reporting and this year we used the mapc tool which is more of a regional tool and it relies on Municipal data as well as estimates using census data and so it's kind of more of a high level inventory and it was very useful and very easy to complete with the data that we currently have um thank you but we are still working on updating that further and getting more specific data so that we can

018use the Glee report again so that there's kind of a clear comparison between the original inventory and the new one but so far we've seen some really impressive decreases in emissions so there was a 21 decrease across all sectors comparing the 2019 inventory to the mapc one and the mapc one was completed for 2022 so it's as recent as we could do in stationary emissions have only decreased by about one percent so we are hoping to really work on that number however we did see a 35 decrease in transportation emissions um that was very exciting for us to see and thank you um that decrease we see is directly related to a large increase in electric vehicles in Acton um we have about eight percent of residential vehicles in Acton right now are some form

019of either hybrid or electric and we were able to collect that data thank you to Jim Snyder Grant um we had the town data and he provided a code and used that to kind of disaggregate that for us so that was very helpful thank you and here's just a brief overview chart showing the basic breakdown between Transportation emissions waste emissions and stationary emissions that we've seen so far so we can see that Transportation has really shrunk it used to be the largest category and now we have stationary energy is the largest so still working to reduce those um and then this chart comes from the in progress equally report that we're working on and so currently the largest Municipal category is buildings and Facilities this is specifically for just Municipal emissions as well as the

020vehicle Fleet so still working on reducing those as well but we will provide some greenhouse gas inventory updates on this page as well as we have them um and then you can also explore the rest of the categories to see kind of how those all play in and I think Hannah if you want to show them how that works cool so let's see so if we scroll keep scrolling down you can see that we have a key um for coming soon in progress and complete we use those colors and then those symbols on the side consistently through all of the pages um and then we go through each of the seven sections of the climate action plan to break down the strategies the action and then in each categories specific page we go into the

021direct actions that actin has taken on each strategy um so here we'll use buildings and housing as an example we have our strategies listed the actions and then we have a status um no it's not doing that yeah you can use your imagination oh yeah it's about to cancel out again it keeps shutting shutting down the zoom huh but here's the deal sure I think that would be helpful thank you David um if you just go to um okay perfect thank you for those that want to follow at home bit dot l y slash Acton tracker thank you great so we have it in this form which is a smaller section of a larger PDF that you can find kind of up in that about section as well if you prefer to just see all

022of the information at a glance of our progress um you'll notice that most of our actions are in progress or to or coming soon um and we'll go into oh wait sorry for you have control of it if you scroll down and click see more you'll go to the specific page for that section so we're entering buildings and housing and if you scroll down more each strategy would you mind xing out of that one the next so then like click oh yeah yeah you'll be able to scroll through and see what it means to have something be in progress or the next steps we're about to take in order for something to be deemed coming soon um as well as the um final product for something that we've said has been completed a lot of

023these action items are supposed to be things that we continually work on um and so hopefully this will give a good structure for data we hope to continue collecting steps we are still you know working on taking and give a very like transparent view of the work that has been done but also all of the work that is to come um and yeah so at the bottom of the page there's like a contact information section so that if there are any comments questions people willing or interested in getting involved in any of the different um actions can reach out to the sustainability office is there anything I'm missing um yeah the other piece is the if you go to the home page um David or the actually the tab oh yeah perfect thank you um

024yeah if you go to the description I have it up here but I won't be able to share my page so there I link it into the interview um scroll down a little bit it's in the about it's in the last paragraph of the about um a little bit lower um you can click here at the last sentence um so when we had our um event with the public some folks um stated that they would love to just see the progress update on each action and and just a few pages instead of having to dive into the details of each one so this is a table summarizing each of those actions into a really simple format for those who don't want to get into the weeds of each one and so we'll update this on

025an annual basis as well um and with that we'd love to open it up to you all to see if you have any questions or if you have any edits the beauty of this is that it's not a final document it's something that we can continue to update on a regular basis thank you thanks so much questions or comments from board members Alyssa thank you thank you for the update and congratulations thank you and good luck back in school um I wonder if you could let us know if there's any area on the tracker where it's clear that residents can provide feedback because I do know who sent you that feedback and she was involved in all of the workshops and the development and review of the climate action plan itself so I feel like

026somebody with that level of knowledge just knew to get in touch and I'm wondering if there's any place on this tracker to alert people that it's a living document and here's where you get in touch if you have feedback not just a contact button but specifically inviting that yeah so in the actual about the last paragraph they'll say if you have questions about the tracker and or would like to provide feedback on a particular action please reach out to sustainability actonma.gov but that's about it okay so that's that's perfect sentence in a paragraph okay but we actually did add that because of that feedback okay wonderful yes um and my other question was um I saw at the top of the Google Doc last updated July 2023 and I think I saw it on another

027page where all um where are all of those last updated dates located like every single page every single item so somebody who's looking at it knows how old the data is automatic feature um yeah just on the title slide of the cap tracker it says also last updated July 2023 and then on those tables so just once and that's for the whole thing not just for each yeah but it was it's not for each individual you're asking for like each individual section not just I'm not asking for anything in particular just wondering um if it's only on the home page or if if it's um on each page which I think that's sufficient yeah as long as it's easy for people people to find right thank you David thank you and and thank you for

028this this update I just have one quick question on uh there are there status percentages um what exactly are those percentages is that the progress we've made since 2018 on the particular Google or is that something else yes it's lit it's literally look at the table it's literally a breakdown of all of the actions within that strategy and then um within that section and then it just takes a percentage from each one like each action is worth if is worth one point basically I teach just from to say uh if you give it back to you and see if see if my interpretation is correct it's a progress of the the actions that we're taking not a progress and say removing carbon from the carbon discharges into the atmosphere right it's it's a it's our

029work progress exactly that's great thank you that's right yeah thank you I was curious what what's included in the category of stationary is that buildings yes structures yeah yes that's all buildings residential Talent everything yes um yeah a couple couple questions or comments um first of all thanks for this it's great to see um I'm really looking forward to seeing the um the inventory information when that's when that's updated and it gets integrated into the tracker really this is sort of related to David's question which is that you know a lot of us are curious or vitally interested maybe even in how what the actual you know progress is in each sector um and uh so looking forward to knowing that so that we know uh you know where to go um a question related

030to that was um you know the big drop in vehicle emissions I'm wondering if you yet have a sense of how much of that is a change in methodology from the ickley tracker to the mapc tracker and how much of it is you know sort of apples to apples and actual drop it's a really good question this is something that um we've grappled with quite a bit um because the data is a lot more accurate now than it used to be um so the vehicle data in our last inventory came from 2014. um so there is also a lot a long time between the 2014 data and the now data um and then um so um it I'd say the vehicle data is actually quite accurate um it's just a matter of whether or not

031the 2014 data was as accurate um I don't know Lauren if you want to add anything there Lauren is the one really important yeah and I really do appreciate the work that you put in on that um it has been a little challenging I think there are some parts of the ickley report that aren't reflected in the mapc one we're working on like employee commute is part that wasn't included that was included originally so I do think there'll be a little bit of an adjustment from that um and another challenge which is kind of like how it needs to be reported it requires vehicle miles travel data which wasn't included in the town data and so the state recently came out with an updated vehicle census which was the first one since the 2014 census

032so exciting that there's that updated data now but um mapc hasn't had the chance to kind of format it into vehicle miles traveled and also the breakdown between what categorizes a vehicle as electric versus hybrid sometimes it's just considered fossil fuel car versus diesel or like strong diesel things like that so there's so many factors and we've gone back and forth A lot of times I think like Andre I said it's pretty accurate now just because we do have the data directly from the town compared to the Census Data is a little bit of an estimate so I'm confident with where it's at now but I'm definitely still trying to narrow it down to make it very accurate but definitely a challenge thank you for wrestling with it um yeah it was it was a

033struggle back then in the original report as well [Music] um one one question I have for you Andrea if you had any thoughts about this because I mean maybe this is something we need to wrestle with as a as a board but I'm just curious about your thoughts um so we have these so now we have the climate action plan with its goals we have select board goals which are an annual thing and we have as a third theoretical set of goals we have the town's sustainability policy which has required us to come up with town-wide environmental goals you know a little broader than just climate change but um some set of goals and we haven't done that for five years um and I'm I'm wondering if you have any thoughts about how how those

034three buckets relate to each other or should relate to each other great question [Music] um consider doing a sustainability plan I think there's just pieces of sustainability we can draw from different sections um so it's interesting because it's there might be a place in this tracker itself to maybe keep track of parallel sustainability goals or when we do resilience planning see how we can um keep track of those as well um so there is maybe a future where we have like a maybe not in this tracker itself but like another story map because story maps are so easy to work with and wonderful where we can maybe combine sort of an overview of all the sustainability actions and kind of point to the various plans that are related or where that action lives um that's

035one way to approach it um yeah thank you that's great I I I I don't know anything about the flexibility of this tool but it's it's a wonderful place to look and I'm glad that it has some flexibility to it um another process question um what's what's your idea about when we review the actual actions you know maybe we edit them maybe we add new actions maybe you know um there's there's this obviously needs to be a process so that we continue to make progress you know I mean if we got all those actions done we still wouldn't be at our net zero emissions call So eventually there's going to need to be new goals and given that it's 2023 you know we they may need to come sooner rather than later um so any

036thoughts about the process for updating these actions yeah um so I think you're not referring to just updating the status on the action but maybe adding adding yes yeah that's a good question because it's not really set up for that at this stage we're sort of just updating within the action um so one option is a mid-year um climate action or not mid-year I'm sorry like sort of mid-decade um like a 2025 plan um to sort of see where we are and then see if we can update the um add more actions or sort of check in and see you know some actions maybe weren't weren't structured well and we need to sort of look at how we restructure them um so we could have another process like that in maybe 2025 um okay well

037we'll keep talking about it it seems like it also that also lines up well with the the next round of the comprehensive community plan where we're going to want to you know have in the last plan there was a whole environmental section which I I imagine you know it rolls from these goals plus some possible updates thanks um that's all I got I just really just want to extend my appreciation again for all the work you're doing and um it's great to see you know climate emissions reductions actually happening thank you all thank you so much I'm sorry please stay there because there might be comments or questions from from the audience oh okay for example hi it's Tara again and my question is about the 50 acres or so of land that's destroyed and

038actin every year and the impervious Paving that's created every year and in various other surfaces and so are we tracking that since we have the data um we are not tracking that from the greenhouse gas inventory um only because it's not um standardized and it's not considered as part of the um like your typical greenhouse gas inventory that's not to say that we can't and shouldn't um we did try um last year with the publishing of the climate action plan to to do that so there is information on that in the actual climate action plan itself um on what sort of emissions reductions come from the existing um tree cover um but that's sort of the best approach we found um unless there are other approaches that we should consider yes so the Greenback and

039land use committee is all excited about that and they're willing to help thank you very much thank you hi Tom Beals uh Willis Street I'm curious for your numbers for uh reduction due to electric vehicles did you factor into that the charging source for the vehicle if someone is plugging in an electric vehicle and charging but getting their power from the non-renewable sources then you may have just displaced the CO2 instead of reducing it or eliminating it we don't get that granular it would be really interesting to see but it does sort of make an assumption of Emissions on it doesn't make an EV zero emissions it just gives it a much lower MPG like miles per gallon than a fossil fuel vehicle or a gas powered vehicle so it does give it some emissions

040and those are emissions associated with the um or is that reduction Factor included in your document so we don't describe it but it is it is tracking like data like the process okay thank you included in that too but for people charging electric vehicles in Acton that electricity would be factored in to the total electricity and the associated emissions there and since the municipality is on 100 renewable then that rate would be reflected for at least the municipal charges and then I assume the other chargers in the town would also be included in residential or commercial yes that's a really good point if the vehicles are charging on the municipal electric vehicle Chargers then technically um it is supporting 100 renewable energy since the town has a contract for 100 renewable energy um the great

041news is that the grid is also increasingly cleaner so um if a vehicle isn't charging on a Town electric vehicle charger or a charger that is connected with is matches the grade 100 then that grid itself is getting cleaner every year oh um yes and a pitch for composting um and just in general is there a place where people can make comments about other potential things we can reduce because sometimes like Transportation you can't really Force everybody to stop using their cars although I am very I'm uh learning in my older age to withhold comment and I was on a list of environmentalist lists and they were talking about all these people going to protest and then they were talking about their vacations and I was thinking you know and I wanted ideas on how

042to reduce carbon footprint it's like stay home that would be one idea so I'm wondering if there's like a place where we can put ideas of both things we can do binding you know things that where we actually have the power to do something and things that are just sort of optional recommendations and suggestions and I say that because how much more effort are we going to go do in encouraging and nourishing and educating and and not doing things that we have finding because we have the ability to protect land we have the ability to do that and uh that doesn't cost any money so not very much money anyways and so I'm wondering whether there's calculations about potential actions and how much ftes and the return on investment in terms of carbon the carbon

043return investment that we're engaging in with our limited resources and how we might better use those to get there faster thank you so much for listening but Dean's got a thought about that so somewhat related it kind of piqued my interest when you mentioned about the uh cars being charged on the town system um is the are the town facilities and town properties all being supplied electricity by the same supplier as as the act and choice that goes to the residents or as the town found a different supplier so the town found a different supplier through a bid process and we received um a much better price because we have so many buildings we were able to qualify for much better rate so we pay about 15 cents per kilowatt hour for 100 renewable energy

044and the acting power Choice price is much higher so I guess that begs the question that is is that same um preferable rate going to be available to all of our residents who have um you know opted into the town system um because I think one of the selling points when we first got into this was well it's going to be a big pool of of electricity that we're going to be buying that'll be not only the town and maybe the schools but certainly all the residents so now if if if you're telling me that the town of Acton actually opted out of the system that they've encouraged all of the residents to be into I'm not sure that's a really good look I was in on some of those meetings Dean so I can

045provide a partial answer um the thing about the actin power Choice program is that uh the the bidders into that program have to uh have to include the fact that people are coming in and out uh you know people move they change their they change their settings and all that and that's an overhead that they have to include in their price was uh town of Acton or a large business can go to a vendor and say hey we'll we'll have a fixed contract with you for this many years and we're not moving anywhere so we do we do get that slightly better price for the town uh that we can't we can't find for residents although if you are a large business it's it's it's often better to go directly to a bidding process and

046get get your electricity that way rather than going through actin power choice so I I think you know and I'm not sure what dollar value that is involved in this I I believe the town manager at some point during one of his budget processes mentioned that we were getting preferential rates and we saved a bunch of money which is great from a taxpayer point of view but I think I think in the future it would be really helpful if the town was much more transparent about um the decision-making process that you apparently have gone through and the town manager has to bail out of the act and choice program and I think you know that might open some people's eyes I know um in the past with my involvement with the Council on Aging there

047was a lot of concern about acting Choice whether they were getting the best deal and you know I was trying to recite the party line that oh yeah this is a great deal but apparently it's not such a great deal and there might be ways that people could do better than with the active Choice program I think seems like it would be a really good idea to publish the kind of charts that we've used internally and sometimes bring to public presentations that show the actin power Choice prices over the years and the eversource basic prices because we have been consistently saving saving residents money over what they would have paid if they'd gone with plain old ever so ever Source but I think what you're talking about is another layer of of disclosure which is

048talking about uh these these contracts that large businesses and the town can get into which which which lower the price even more and I think it'd be a fine idea yeah I I hope that uh you follow up with the manager on that um certainly uh before we get into another solicitation process um if I may could I please just add something else to that um so I will just note that the prices the new prices are gonna um set in in December and they will be much lower um so we went out to bid this year um and you might remember that [Music] um um last year we only signed a one-year contract because when we went out to bid the prices on the electricity Market skyrocketed which was unfortunate timing um so I

049do receive a lot of calls from residents who have questions about the high prices and are concerned um so just a heads up that which I I let them know um that prices will go down in December um substantially so those will match more um what the market rate is right now thank you any other questions or comments thanks so much thank you the next item is update from the 250 committee and announcement of logo I think this is Dean's item okay thank you I know that the logo was in the packet and if somebody could put that on the screen that would be great it's coming up in a minute so while that's loading up I just wanted to update the board on the activities of the actin 250 committee we've been meeting at

050least monthly we've got at least one subcommittee that's been uh meeting much more frequently we just recently approved the uh the logo which we will see in a minute which we solicit public submittals on that I think we had 43 separate submittals that came in it was sort of a lengthy process that we went through but and we actually combined two suggestions and we ended up with this logo here which there are several different color iterations of that available eventually we've got a merchandising committee that's going to be looking at at various commemorative items will be available so this is obviously multi-color renditional we also got you know a black and white and we've it'll get tweaked slightly just depending upon the background of the item that's going to be portrayed on so merchandising committee

051will be getting going probably in September we hope to be able to have some commemorative items available I'm still working out exactly how the financing is going to work on that but uh we think it's a we think it's a great logo we're very happy with the way it turned out and uh the next important piece of information is that starting in September will also be beginning some of our programming the first is going to be in late September we're bringing a speaker in who will be in this room here um I believe it's Bob Allison who's a scholar to talk about some of the events leading up to the 250 to the uh events in April 1775. um which is all part of our charge is you know it the battle didn't just occur

052there was a drum beat of activities that went back five or ten years prior to the Revolution starting itself and we're exploring a lot of that so there will be a series of speakers right now it looks like there'll be a different speaker or some kind of an event about every two months for the next year or so we're trying to key some of these things in with some of the obvious um events that people are aware of things like the Boston Tea Party and and some other activities are taken by the British crown against the colonists Crown resistance day that sort of thing show you'll be seeing more and more of it we've really got some wind behind our sails here now there'll be some articles probably every couple of weeks it should be

053going into the action Unlimited and uh I say well we haven't started working yet on a big event a parade or something in April 2025 we've kind of concentrated on some of the background items and information and sort of setting the stage for that so it's been a good committee we've been meeting once a month and they say some subcommittees have put in huge amounts of work especially lining up the speakers we are going to be uh setting up a possibility if people wish to make donations to support the speaker program that will be available to folks we do have a small budget and public celebrations that we'll be using but certainly the some of the speakers that we've been talking about are fairly expensive and at some point we might need some more some

054additional funding so we're certainly going to make that a possibility of civic-minded citizens wish to uh make some contributions so there it is and hope that everybody likes it because you're going to be seeing a lot of it for the next couple of years thank you thanks Dean I wonder if there's any questions or comments from the board about the update my only tiny contribution here is that um uh I I verified that the the cool image is in the public domain so we're not at any legal risk of there's a lot of different images of of Minutemen out there and it looked it looked to be a one that was created a while ago and was you know Modified by by the by the logo designers but um you know it's a familiar image

055I just want to make sure we weren't violating any copyrights it's it's based on the uh the Minutemen statue that was uh cast by uh Samuel Chester French that's down at the North Bridge in Concord which was based on an understanding of what Isaac Davis himself looked like yeah I even saw some versions with the with the plow right there underneath his feet I would say I also really like the way that you uh the designers chose to take some of the elements of the logo and have them extend beyond the box I think it gives a nice three-dimensional effect thanks Jennifer Dean going to be some sort of centralized place to view all of the events throughout the years leading up yes we hope to uh to work something like that out probably get

056something on the website so that we've pretty well nailed down the speaker program for about the next six months but so we'll be adding all that in so we'll make it available thank you thanks again Dean um now we're going to move on to the item about discussing the role of the West Acton citizens Library trustees I think some of you might have come in a little late uh after the introduction at the beginning of the meeting so just as a reminder this is going to be a discussion um among among the among the select board members we're always open to you know getting comments at other times or by email but this particular one is the goal of this discussion is to really understand uh our Visions for How the West Acton citizens Library

057trustees work with the library to create you know and maintain of this wonderful institution where we're trying to avoid talking about um you know the legal details of how we get there and we're not planning to make any decisions tonight we're just planning to finally have a chance to hear from each other and have some discussion about the topic of you know what do we want to what do we want to see and with that I think I would like to turn it over to Alyssa who's our liaison to the citizens library to take us through the this process thank you Jim and thank you to all of the board members in advance for having this discussion um I think that it's important to first off acknowledge that there are many different opinions on the

058the issue also acknowledging that it's taken a tremendous emotional toll on officials staff trustees I would like to express great gratitude to the staff the Memorial Library staff for keeping the citizens Library open um following the resignation of the library manager right at the beginning of the summer so they've been keep Staffing the library offering programming and especially the library director Maria Palacio and the assistant director Carrie I can't remember her last name and Mary cadis have been supporting the trustees as they have been meeting the trustees have requested a lot of information and data which the staff have provided to them so that they can make informed decisions so I just want to put that out there you know that the acknowledgment and the appreciation also for the resources that have been expended both

059in time and dollars over the years so I know that it's challenging to have the patience to revisit the process but I think that it's a necessary thing that we do out of respect for the people which would be the patrons who visit the library as well as the staff that work at the library and the trustees also respect for the law and probably most especially respect for process because we need a good process so I just wanted to let everybody know that since I'm becoming a select board member and the liaison to both the Memorial Library Board of Trustees and the citizens Library Board of Trustees I have had many conversations and reviewed many documents and my opinion is still evolving it I have not you know firmed that up I've looked at reviewed

060legal opinions and memos meeting minutes of both Memorial trustees and citizens trustees the long-range plan that was developed by the Memorial Library trustees and staff the citizens Library incorporation documents Town annual reports the town Charter and bylaws all sorts of documents reviewed and also had conversations with present and former trustees present and former staff trustees and other towns Library directors in other towns so I'm really trying to dig deep into understanding this so right now where I am in this moment which is different than I you know the place that I was in yesterday last month just two hours ago is that I my vision is that this board allows the discussion that just begun with the citizens Library trustees to continue so I did fill out the table with check marks over each Authority

061item and and where I thought the citizens Library trustees should fall but rather than sharing that I I would like to ask that the this board steps back and lets that process continue without undue influence from from our board so that's that's where I am now so the citizens Library trustees um have had only one conversation amongst themselves it was a really great conversation in my opinion they went through each of the items in that table one by one they listened to one another made sure that each one of them had an opportunity to speak on on each they respectfully disagreed on some of the items agreed on others so that's what I expect is the first of of several discussions that will continue to happen they are also participating in the long-range planning process

062that the memorial trustees and staff have started for the next five years so they have one trustee who is a representative and will be attending the meeting but the communication will go back and forth so I think it's important for that process to continue I think that another very very important piece is that through this process we get a lot of public input we engage in public education and get public buy-in so that whatever structural solution comes out of this process will pass it down waiting so I think that it's really important to engage engage the public because libraries exist to serve the public right so the strategic planning and the decisions that are made come from the needs and the desires of the public so I think it's really important to have public input

063um I do think that the the legal opinion that was provided to prepared for the friends of the citizen Library which cites case law is a very compelling document the town Charter outlines uh you know who which officials are elected either at The Ballot or at town meeting that elected officials have authority that's granted by other documents whether it's the general laws or the Commonwealth Constitution the town bylaws Etc the original citizens Library Constitution sets forth that the library be controlled by the people again referring to my insistence that there be a lot of public input the the gift that was that happened at the town meeting in 1962 required that the original purposes of the West Act and citizens Library Association be carried out so I think that it's really important for this structural

064solution to be true to that Constitution because I don't think that that was negated um that might be a question for for Council but I don't think that that Constitution was negated when the gift was accepted by the town in 62. um Mass general laws provides that a library gifted to a town must be quote administered by the board in accordance with the provisions of such gift so we need to again be in alignment with the gift the town meeting article the the transfer of deed um and I I keep asking myself whether it's more plausible that for the last 60 years this board has been exercising Authority that they didn't legitimately have or that they did have this Authority and maybe exercised it in different ways depending on who was in those roles their

065knowledge and experience their effectiveness and it just seems to me that it makes sense that it's more likely that they have this Authority and that we need to put a structural legal something in place um so that that ambiguity that so many people see is is resolved moving forward no matter who is in the role on this board who is in the role of town manager who's in the role of Library director or trustees and I have you know ideas about next steps and and questions that I think that we need to answer but first I think that we should hear from the rest of you I think that's exactly right next steps would be a good thing to conclude our our conversation with but first I'd like to you know offer offer any of

066the board members you know some minutes to say um you know things they discovered after filling out this questionnaire while filling out this questionnaire uh what their vision is of the of the of this of the citizens Library trustees um you know wherever I want to listen to everybody so who who would like to go next excuse I think the uh the chart did a great job of focusing some of our thoughts on these um and you know respecting the uh your request that we not delve into it deeply um there is one item in particular it's it's actually the last item on the spreadsheet the duties of review of trustee performance and and frankly I'm I'm puzzled and a little troubled by that um in light of the fact that the trustees however we

067might feel about them past present and future our elected officials and I I'm a little troubled by the idea that you know we have an official document where we're opposing the possibility that certain members of the trustees could write up a document um critiquing the performance of other trustees and you know taken to its logical conclusion you know they are not the only elected bodies in town you know we could have a situation where the select board could decide okay now we're going to critique the performance of all of our colleagues here on the board and and I I really I won't comment on the other items on the uh on this the spreadsheet here but I I really question whether that is an appropriate item to even consider at this point um in light

068of the fact well admittedly it's usually our elections for uh Library trustees and indeed our elections for select board members are not usually hotly contested but there is an elected an election process by which you know if if folks feel that performance is not Optimum they can opt for uh running a different candidate so I really have some problems with that one the rest of it I'm sure that each one of us is who filled it out as I did you know our numbers our little checks are going to be all over the place um a couple of my observations from you know working closely with the previous Library director at the uh at the West Acton library and actually serving as a trustee some of the items of business that the uh the attorney

069the outside attorney um cited as things that oh these are things that the library trustees always did um that was not my experience I think that the the attorney got a very skewed view um of some of the duties and some of the activities of the library trustees and I would just say that from my involvement as a fellow staff member and later is a trustee in observing the library for probably 10 or 15 years a lot of that information frankly is inaccurate so I I think that's something that at some point we could have a longer discussion about but a lot of that stuff just didn't happen um I think this this is in the letter from attorney um Berman yeah the uh I think the uh my other observation is that you know

070I and I've said this repeatedly as I I really definitely think that we need to have a library presence in West Acton and I hope what comes out of this we still end up with a library presence in West Acton I think it's just important that it be structured in such a way that it be sustainable from the point of view of finances and Staffing and what we had going on there for a number of years was not sustainable from the point of view of Staffing it did not provide good access to the public because they just you know we had one person that worked part-time and was not always available and then we were relying on volunteers to do quite a bit of the rest of it um and I don't think that's a

071sustainable model people need reliability uh that you know they have some reasonable expectation that the building is actually going to be open when they show up there and you know when that didn't happen obviously people got discouraged and didn't participate in it and I think that's the absolute opposite of of what we want to see there so I think it's important that however we come out of this that we end up with a sustainable model that is financially prudent and that has some reasonable expectations of of Staffing and providing Staffing and supervision you know in in my tenure as a library trustee at West Acton Library we had a really good Library director who basically was a soft daughter and the trustees could take sort of a back seat to a lot of things because

072he knew the work was getting done but you know you're not always that lucky when you bring in employees so I think it's really important that anything we have there is supported with by a larger organization and you know having an elected Board of Trustees just as we as select board members do not directly interact with Town staff as far as directing their day-to-day activities we rely upon a professional manager um we don't reach down and and you know introduce ourselves into people's offices and start checking what their books are and looking in their desk drawers and that sort of thing that's not appropriate for select board members we don't do that here at Town Hall we rely upon a professional manager to do that so I think it's important again with any kind of

073a structure that we have ongoing that we have a Cadre of professional Librarians that can supervise this not only from a library operations point of view but from an employee point of view as well so just my initial thoughts um it's a truly a gordian knot that you're trying to untie here thank you thanks Dean um next David thank you um one of the things I think that we have to start with is what is this Library um and it seems to me that there are three kind of choices it's an incorporated Massachusetts Public Library it's an association and that's what that Neil Berman uh memos says or it's a branch of the Acton Memorial Library well we know it's not an incorporated Massachusetts Public Library because the state has no record of it so

074it doesn't mean we also the um the um we we um so it can't it's not a Massachusetts Public Library because it's not separately incorporated as one is that me or you is that me I think it's you but um I'll make sure I'm quiet too um the uh it could be an association as as Mr Berman's male says but that Association is long defunct it has no directors it has no presence it has no nothing and so if we were to turn the library over to an association we'd have to find that Association and they would have to make um a case that that they ran the library or it's a branch of the acting Memorial Library um the the fact is that this has been managed as a branch of the Acton Memorial

075Library for almost 100 years there are Town records going back to materials being shared from the Acton Memorial libraries into west and south Acton almost 100 years ago there used to be a South Acton Library there's no longer a South Acton Library and in in fact the association was not as Dean alludes to was not viable as a um Financial entity so there is documentation all over the place that calls this the West Branch of the library um and I'll I'll come well maybe I'll do that now so you know people refer to the um then are the articles in the 1962 warrant and town report as being a reason why it's not a branch but in fact those um articles and the town report are not haphazard or confusing every place that they refer

076to the property they refer to the citizens Library Association of West Acton so they the property is always referred to as the association the library is always referred to as the West Branch of the actor Memorial Library I'll come back to that because attorney Berman um says that um the library and the building are separate and I think that's absolutely true the the library is referred to as again as the citizens Library Association of West Acton and uh sorry the building is referred to as the citizens Library Association of West Acton and the library is always referred to as the West Branch of the actor Memorial Library and in fact it's actually referred to as the West Branch of the Acton Memorial Library and other places in that town report that have that yeah we

077know yeah it's an odd beeping it'd be good to resolve that um seems like Lisa has disappeared in an attempt to figure out what the odd little beeping is oh yeah yeah oh okay gotcha okay do you want me to stop um well it's hard for me to focus on what you're saying but here let's let's take a person to go out there and see what they can do what the heck yeah let's take a brief pause let's get the former facilities manager yeah yeah we have a former facilities manager here as well who could take a look at the beep and go oh okay oh yay okay thank you whatever magic made that stop oh it's well briefly yeah yeah that was its Last Cry no I'm sorry that those of you in TV

078Land can't see the full action here but basically the door going into 204 has been uh its security system is complaining to us loudly and Lisa is attempting to find the magic position at which it will not make noises and sometimes she finds it and sometimes she doesn't oh that might be as good as we're going to get so why don't we struggle forward it does seem that there's no bomb that's going to go off no alarm that's going to get any louder so let's go ahead it'll focus back on David what else you got David so um the the the articles in the 1962 warrant they consistently refer to the building as the citizens Library Association um of West Acton and the library as the West Branch of the Memorial Library and there's other

079documentation including in that document of for example the insurance committee referring to do as the West Grant the of the Ikea Memorial Library and the fact of the matter is it has been the West Branch of the actor Memorial Library for a very long time and it predates 62. right and so nothing really changed in 62 the library stayed the same um The Memo from the attorney I agree with Dean has is has lots of errors in it right he he concludes that there is um there were two kind of as I understand it that there might have been two libraries in that building because it says that part of the building was used for the library well that's not correct the the the the the correct thing is that there was a a woman

080who resided in that building at the time and she was allowed to stay there um and so that isn't a legal um reason why it it um isn't as it is an association so I think he's absolutely correct that the library and the building are different things but if it's the association then we have a big problem right um and we would have to back up find this Association or recreate it um make the library belong to them um that's that's that's a big deal um you know I think that the only reasonable thing is the thing that it's been for nearly 100 years is that it's the West Branch of the Acton Memorial Library um and I'm not I don't quite understand the the the the reasons to not do that um for all

081this time the library has been run by staff with input from the trustees right um and that kind of makes sense to me but um the uh and I think we want a professionally staffed library and we want a library that's open to all patrons and and a benefit to all patrons so um and I don't understand the the vehemence against it being a branch of the Acton Memorial Library um finally I know that I guess I had kind of expected based on what was in the the packet and stuff that we were going to be going through these points one by one today I guess we're not doing that um any of those points that you want to talk about where you know would be great to hear well I mean I could go

082through all my things for all of them if if anybody's interested but maybe I'll stop here and I'll come back if someone's interested but um a number of the things in that list are there isn't there aren't degrees of freedom based on laws or the charter right so we could choose for them to be one way they can't be that way right so um I'll I'll stop there thank you thank you David um so we got three men me and Fran uh can we maybe we hear from the two of us before you just kind of layer of license I just wanted to clarify something since both Dean and David asked about the specific items that were in that table okay I I think we can still wait because we'll have a general conversation afterwards

083um with questions back and forth and clarifications um friend that's something you want to say or I don't know if I can add anything but I I too found this helpful just to think about different um you know categories I left the last one completely blank because it completely confused me um but I too have been really back and forth um like Alyssa and I may feel one way you know sometime another way another time but I think it's it's clear to me that the history of the building of what it was is great it's always going to have the culture that it has um I I feel like we need to move forward from today and I I just see it as a branch of the library I think it makes the most sense

084I think it's been budgeted in the town budget um and I also it's been staffed by Library staff and I think the trustees can be separate as I said before in another meeting we can have a set of Trustees for the citizens library and us and trustees of AML I I think that's clean and makes the most sense to me but that's my opinion um in a body of five so that's that's really what I have to say thanks Fran um so what I discovered as I went through this [Music] um said a few that I felt most clearly belong to some set of Trustees thus the citizens Library trustees um they were safeguarding safeguarding the historic look and feel of the building Outreach to the community collecting public feedback and and fundraising to replenish

085the gift fund um those all felt really clearly doable also by a three-person trustee board when I looked at some of the others that I thought were you know going to be important um I was sure the um they're they're they're together in this chart fundraising to replenish the gift fund Outreach to community collect public feedback and Safeguard Safeguard historic look and feel of the building they felt like the to me the most um clearly in the purview of that set of Trustees there were a lot of other items on here that I thought they should be involved in um either reviewing or approving or giving feedback on um but those are the the three that felt at the heart of things for me um some of the others felt also very important um but

086I rated them a little differently because I thought well I think either either the trustees need to be beefed up in some way like to be a five-person body so they can actually function in between meetings I mean right now with a three three person set of Trustees two of them can't even talk to each other outside of a meeting so it's it's very slow it's very hard for them to you know be a body that deals with complex things that have a you know time pressure to them because they you know they meet and then they have to not talk to each other for a month um so in the back of my head I was thinking well you know maybe there's a five-person trustees or Sundance in my head I thought um some

087what if um we changed the the original act that created the um amended the original act that created the Memorial Library and defined a role for a set of those uh Library trustees to be uh particularly focused on the citizens Library um and you know presumably expanding the the Memorial Library board so that the existing trustees would be you know naturally in line for being elected to these new spots um so I I thought of that because then that then you have a much larger body of people that could help each other out and learn from each other provide backup for each other um so I I'm I'm not clear if that makes sense or not but it's it's something that's been in the back of my head somebody to beef up the the ability

088of the trustees to get things done either by increasing the board or by uh combining it in some effective way with the with the Memorial Library trustees to create a body of Library trustees um so that would be things like um you know working with the working with the budget um being involved participating in the um you know hiring an evaluation of the the library manager things like that that um you know maybe right now A a trustee could be involved in but it's hard for them to be effective at that with when there's only three trustees um I think a lot of the other items they should be involved in um and depending on the the ability the functionality of the board could they could even be in charge of um but um I

089think that depends on the on the ability of the trustees to take this stuff on um what else came out to me here um oh well definitely Library policies and procedures was an interesting one for me um it seems reasonable to me that there are a bunch of policies that apply to both libraries and a bunch of policies that are unique to each Library I don't know enough about the details of policies to know which or which but it's it's clearly you know a tiny little library has different policies than a very large Library um and that the uh the citizens Library trustee should be intimately involved in reviewing and I think approving uh policies for the citizens Library um if they have the capability to do that um I think that that was the

090main thing and and my thought on this the general you know historical situation is um it seems like there's plenty of ambiguity in there um yeah to me I want us to have an agreed on sense of what we want and then we can do the work of figuring out what legal changes are necessary to make that true um that you know given us and the trustees and town meeting working together there's almost none of this stuff we can't change if we if we have a common vision so it could be now that there's questions and comments and I know Alyssa you noted that you had some some sort of starting off you had some responses to what people said um not really a response well I guess it is a response um so the

091question about the items that were on the table specifically the final item um I just wanted to explain the process by which that table was developed and intended to be used tonight so Jim actually created the the list of responsibilities and some categories sent it to me and I reviewed trustee duties from the Massachusetts Board of Library Commissioners website because it very not the website the handbook because it very clearly states what the trustees are responsible for what the staff is well director specifically and what they do together so I just from that list added several items just to get us thinking not suggesting that any particular item be included and I can understand completely why you both think that that might not be something that we should even entertain but that's where those items

092came from and I also added several categories for other types of levels of of responsibility um I guess we might hop around and go back and forth as we respond um it could be that people heard things from each other that they had questions about or had responses to um yeah great one more comment I also um I safeguarding the historic look and feel of the building and safeguarding operational functional culture of the citizens Library those two I I was confused by um the buildings in the historic district and it's owned by the town all right so it is a town owned building and I know that I've said that here before so the historic look will never I don't think will change so I don't know um and the culture I think it's the

093culture will be as it always is um I mean it's such a different feel it's in West Acton it's so much smaller it has a different visitor base so I I just knock those off my fist um I tended to I I did this quickly purposefully because I realized things that I checked matched up with the way that I understand the library to function um as a branch I'm sorry and having trustees just have duties as the AML trustees have maybe maintaining the fund um historically that's what they've done fundraising Outreach to the community tasks like that thank you David thank you um so you mentioned about changing the structure of AML I just want to point out that AML is a separately Incorporated entity from the town There's Nothing the town can do to

094change that if they want to change their incorporation they could do that um but we can't do that um this board cannot do that town meeting cannot do that um the historic nature of the building I agree with Fran that has nothing to do with these trustees they have no involvement with it at all in fact the the library trustees at AML have nothing to do with the exterior of their building either it's between it's the towns buildings they can do what they want within this the uh this again this is the exterior of the building which is what HTC is involved with um that um they they can uh the town can maintain that building as as they wish within the within any permitting limits from uh any boards and committees that might be

095affected whether it's cons Com or HTC or anything else um so um I I think that there's no involvement there as far as fundraising goes and I'm sorry to disagree with you on all these things um Town entities have limit ability to fundraise we this board can accept donations on behalf of the Town a town entity cannot go out and solicit donations under most circumstances so that's why the friends of Acton libraries exist so the friends of Acton libraries you can donate to them you could make a donation to the town but the library cannot ask you for a donation right and so you would have to get Council to really tell us exactly you know what circumstances that could happen but as I understand it um the fundraising has to be done by a

096separate entity not the in the in its uncouth to have the trustees involved in that right so again uh you know the library trustees at the main library do not engage in in fundraising unless they do you know maybe have an event with the friends of or something like that um so that this is what I meant earlier that many of these things are restricted by law or Charter and um I'm going to just go through mine so people touched on it you know as far as the the selection of materials for circulation I think the trustees should have no involvement the the penny Library trustees don't have involvement in that and it politicizes the selection of materials which I think should not be the case um Library policies and procedures I guess again I

097differently I have a difference from you I think the library policy and procedure should be the same across our library system and the the the main trustees are tasked with doing that I think they should continue to do that um trustee bylaws um the um citizens Library cannot impose bylaws on anybody else they are not Incorporated The Entity to do that under in the state of Massachusetts they can make bylaws for their own operation so they can say that you know on odd months we we always meet at a circular table in the library um they they can do that kind of thing for how they operate but they cannot impose um uh bylaws on others the main library can because it's incorporated as a Massachusetts Public Library weekend town meeting can but um the

098the citizens Library cannot um uh Library programming I think the the um the uh trustees and the assistant strategies should be able to recommend programming but programming is really a staff operation and is done to be consistent with staff um especially for reasons of accessibility programs that are offered in the uh West Acton Branch are also offered in the main library for accessibility um um obviously these trustees manage the gift fund and report on the gift fund that's completely in um in their domain fundraising as I mentioned I don't think that they can have involvement in we can double check with with Council um Outreach to the community that's that's uh great Safeguard the historic look and feel of the building I believe the exterior of the building they have no involvement in um Safeguard

099the functional character of the citizens Library uh Branch I actually the the functional culture i that worries me a little bit as a term um it almost sounds dog whistle-esh so I'm a little concerned about that I don't know exactly what that means what people would say is their culture um and I um so I'm I'm a little worried about that frankly um improve the accessibility of library and space I think that they don't have any involvement there it's a um uh that's the facility the town does that I actually think frankly it's possible to make that building accessible without ruining its historic character um I mean obviously we'd have to work with the HTC to do that um but it can't happen until these things are settled with the library right um so but

100I would like to see it become an accessible building and I think that's frankly possible um there are exceptions in accessibility regulations when you have an historic building um um the budget they don't have any involvement in budget advocacy sure you know um that makes sense um Divine the vision and mission of the um uh the citizens Branch Library that's you know as I recommend that's that's fine long range plan they can recommend anything there the hiring and evaluation of the director of libraries there's no involvement there for them um that's done between the town manager and the AML trustees the hiring and evaluation of the um the citizens Library manager manager uh local manager they can comment on that um that makes sense to me um then obviously they notify us of any trustee

101vacancies um and I also didn't under I for the last one I just said I'm not sure what that means the conversation I was hoping we were going to have um Dean yeah um just as a follow-up on a couple of David's points and I was disturbed by the discussion about you know protecting the culture of the library that was a discussion that occurred prior to town meeting um at a library trustees meeting and you know that we need to preserve the culture of the of what the library was like in 1962. well let me tell you about what the culture of the library probably was in 1962 being somebody who was 12 years old and hanging around in West Acton at the time West actor at the time was primarily white Christian and working

102class we've moved on from that and I think the value of being more closely affiliated with the Acton Memorial Library is we know that the Memorial Library has a a larger pool that they're dealing with they have Diversified their staff they have Diversified their collection they understand that they're part of a larger town which is not West Acton in 1962. so I'm not sure I would have used the term dog whistle but I think you know David you're probably getting pretty close to being right it could be interpreted that way um and I I think I think it's important um that we understand that actin is not the same as it was in 1962 in West Acton is not the same as it was in 62. so we really have to move on from that

103we're not trying to protect um not that it was a bad town it's just it was a different town um 60 years ago you know as far as the exterior of the building I agree all highly was Fran obviously the building was within the historic district we can't change anything on the outside of that building without going through a really lengthy process the renovations that were done to expand the use the library use inside the building itself and all of the other work as far as uh redoing the windows um the uh all the historic preservation work that was done on the outside of the building and a lot of the work done on the inside of the building was almost entirely funded by historic preservation funds from Community preservation and it was primarily staff

104initiated certainly as Municipal properties director at the time working with the library director at the time we presented these things to the library trustees as they existed then and told them what was what was going ahead but frankly the trustees were not directly involved in that and that's one of the issues I had with the attorney's letter um you know is it is a town owned building I don't think anybody is debating that um so I really although certainly I like the idea the trustees are concerned about what the building is going to look like um but I think you know as far as direct involvement and getting things done um these things really are going to have to get done by Town staff dealing with the proper Authority whether the historical commission potentially zoning

105board of appeals Ada folks architectural access board whatever so certainly they should be involved in it but it's not like they're going to be the initiators of this kind of work and hopefully if it comes to a situation of doing some major project down there hopefully the trustees would be advocates for it um but as far as the uh the real down and dirty work there it's going to be done primarily by Town staff and contractors um that's all I have at this point thank you thanks um I'd add a little bit at this point I think it's a maybe a question for David um so two parts one is that we um we have a director of the Acton Memorial Library now I think that's her title but you know acting libraries okay director

106of Acton libraries so that would imply to me that there is a role for a member of the Memorial Library trustees to be involved in you know either reviewing candidates or interviewing the last round candidates just as there is a role for the Memorial Library trustees since this is now a director of of of the libraries so I wanted to get your reaction to that because that's sort of a that's a it's a shift right it's a new title for so again the Incorporated Acton Memorial Library um it is part of its incorporation reviews the choice and approves the choice of the Town manager by the town manager of the library director right so um you know I I think we should not the the citizens Branch library is a teeny small piece of the

107main library and um uh that doesn't I don't think entitle those trustees who are selected by town meeting and not even selected in a way that Massachusetts Public Library trustees are selected to participate in that process I do think they should participate in the process of the local manager um that that's just my opinion again and this is part of the Incorporated acting Memorial Library I mean uh if if we want to have an informal thing I'm okay with that right but it's it's not not a defined role um similar question about policies if there are policies that apply to both libraries would seem like representatives from both libraries should be involved in that I see how we're doing this with the long range plan and committee that we have now a representative from the

108citizens library on that group that's working on the long-range plan it seems like there will be a reasonable similar thing for for policies I think that there is a member of the citizens Branch Library trustees on the policies committee great right and I that's and they were invited by the AML trustees to do that and so that that kind of crosses is good yeah thank you that's all I had at this time um other follow-ups Alyssa um so I just want to express that I'm a little disappointed that this discussion has devolved into um specific duties um not that you need to agree to what I've requested I'm absolutely understanding that this is a five-person board but what I had hoped would not happen was a very detailed discussion of of each individual item that

109would then have undue influence on the citizens Library trustees discussion that their currently engaged in I was hoping that we could step back a little bit and allow that process to unfold with the citizens Library trustees and I'm assuming that eventually they're going to bring staff into that as well their first discussion they only had input from Town Council to answer a couple of questions and at one point the town manager answered one of their questions um so I think um the first thing that that caught my ear was the mention by you David about the difficulty in finding this Association um because this Association doesn't exist any longer and I think that I don't see Finding the association as something that's necessary because the deed that was transferred specified that the original purposes of

110the association would be served right by the new Board of Trustees that was created with that Warren article so I don't see that as a as a challenge for us um I'm really uncomfortable with the um that they can they can't there is involvement there there is no involvement there because I think that that is something that has yet to be determined we have different legal opinions on this and so I think if you know we instead we phrase it as I'd like to see involvement in this or I'd like I don't think that involvement in that is appropriate rather than a definitive statement about what is and and isn't because I don't think that's for for this board to decide um and in terms of the culture uh of the library being preserved uh

111that is not that doesn't have anything to do with demographics or a particular point in time so you know obviously a small phrase listing an item is is really difficult to convey the meaning behind that so instead I would offer a story I guess um to explain that the the culture that so many people who use the library who are trustees at that Library who are former trustees at that Library are concerned about the culture of the library and the feel and the services that are provided and the personalization of that so they're not stuck in 1962 with a non-diverse demographic that they're serving long before um long before I was even born probably they have been meeting the needs of the people that use the library it's it's located in West Acton Village so

112the people that are coming to the library most of them are walking there or biking there live you know either they're walking through the woods or they're walking down the sidewalks they live fairly close obviously anybody anywhere in town can drive there if if it's not a walkable or bikeable um distance for them but you know there there were efforts that were made not only by staff but also by trustees to diversify The Collection to meet the needs of immigrant residents who were moving in to establish policies and accessibility Beyond physical accessibility but accessibility to programs and resources and they were they had teen volunteers that were you know delivering books to homebound patrons they allowed low-income patrons to come in and you know use the photocopier in order to print out the materials that

113they needed to update their annual housing um applications so I think that's the culture is that personalized service that meets the needs of the patrons um in a very uh special way um so you know the story that I can tell is that I I use Memorial Library primarily exclusively now but when my oldest was two years old we went to the citizens library for taught time maybe she was three so when we walked into that library for taught time a night said hi Sylvia right she knew all of the kids by name you go in there and it's a small space you feel like you're in a living room because you are you're in a little house there's natural life and that is a really special environment that people are wanting to preserve and

114I have absolute confidence that whatever role um this the citizens Library trustees settle on and whatever staff is in there that that is possible that we can preserve that I think that that just needs to be part of the conversation you know story time at the Memorial Library did not work for for my child we went to Citizens because it was natural light not a large group of people a small space you know we had a relationship with the person doing story time it was not you know overwhelming and loud and I think that that applies across all of the ages right no matter whether it it's a family with elementary school children or a teenager or an older person or a senior citizen when they go in there they might you know have that

115feeling of I'm getting you know treated in a very special way I might be the only person in the library for for a while because they don't have um the the foot traffic that the Memorial Library does so um so I definitely want to get away from that that idea that we're trying to you know freeze something in in time and not be inclusive because it's actually exactly the opposite thanks you're welcome thank you um we could transition on to a brief conversation about next steps unless there's more that people want to say back and forth um so one thing about next steps in response to your concern Alyssa um I don't see any way around uh that since we were since where we want to head is an agreement that we're gonna we're gonna

116get opinions from the board about and board members about how to proceed you know and I know it'd be nice to let the library trustees do all that on their own and I think they're gonna have to work on a lot of the details especially as staff gets involved but yeah we're gonna we're gonna have opinions and we're and we're and we need to know where the tenancy of the board is in order to know if we're if the trustees are heading in a direction that will you know like make its way to town meeting successfully so I you know I don't think there's there's no getting past some of the you know bumps and scrapes of um you know having different opinions um another comment about next steps um one thing we talked about

117before was after the trustees had at least another discussion uh maybe more I don't know um of of having a smaller working group um you know uh Memorial Library trustee Representatives CL Library trustees staff maybe a select board member I don't know but some small group that can take what they've heard from all these different groups uh and um you know comes up with something coherent that that fits for a lot of these groups and I wonder if that's still a direction that the group The Board is comfortable with is that because that that's one possible way we could proceed so I'm sorry I differ in one major case this board does decide right we decide what to bring to town meeting that is our role right if whatever the group the five of us

118want to write in the warrant to bring to town meeting that's what goes to town meeting and in no case you know that you know sometimes we allow advisory committees to suggest a change to their own charge but no border committee or set of Trustees or anything gets to decide their own role we don't get the side role our own role our role is defined in the town Charter right we don't get to say now we have more powers or now we have less and and um in the case that is the citizens trustees at least right now unless we decide that they are a separate an association separate from the town or in case they incorporate somehow someone takes the work to incorporate themselves as a Massachusetts Public Library they're under the bylaws of

119the town right and so we do decide right and you know we have to write out what we think and town meeting will um either pass it or not pass it um sure okay so I I understand that the select it's the select boards warrant that is not what I'm suggesting I'm suggesting at this point in time that we step back and allow that process to continue for the time that it needs to because whatever we bring to town meeting if we have any hope of it passing it needs to have everybody's buy-in or at least whatever majority right we need to have the trustees input we need to have the staff input we need to have the public input and I just wanted to express my disappointment that today we felt the need to

120not you know just have an overall General view I didn't want to get into the the each individual item and and make a proclamation that this is or this isn't a one of their authorities um because I wanted it to happen uh in in due time with the trustees so yes we will be the board that brings something to town meeting in the in our warrant but I hope that um that we can allow whatever time is necessary for the process to to play out and in terms of the the working group I think that that is that's something that I'm in support of um with the um entities that you mentioned Memorial trustees citizens trustees staff select board the public maybe the friends of the Acton libraries can have a representative there but I

121do think that the working group should be formed once the citizens Library trustees have their second and possibly third discussion um because they've only had one discussion on this topic thanks um other thoughts on next steps Fran so as far as bringing um being on the warrant to town meeting it would be somewhat similar to last town meeting right um moving forward with a bylaw is that what it is that's one possibility and and I think Jim outlined a few more and and David even more an amendment to the special act and an expansion of the board and you know just before anybody gets really freaked out about that idea I only printed up one page because actin is right at the top but obviously there are hundreds of libraries in the Commonwealth but some

122of these boards have 10 12 15 trustees I'm not suggesting that but I just you know don't freak out about the idea of expanding the board so so I don't know what what will be the structural solution I think that we need to find it but as I said at the very beginning the process is of utmost importance right we didn't we didn't respect the process and allow it enough time although a lot of people have been working on it for a long time I think that um we brought something to town well I know we brought something to town meeting that that was not acceptable because it was postponed indefinitely and I don't want that to happen again because then we're gonna do this all again next year and I do not want that

123and I also don't I think that all of us not only this board but staff and trustees of both libraries don't want this to end up in court with a judge determining um what's legal and you know that is a possibility with these differing legal opinions with and with good points and and not so good points in in both maybe and and the and the library the citizens library is still functioning under the town it's still functioning and doing this day-to-day and I apologize but this list was so inviting to get into the nitty-gritty sorry no homology necessary and and yes that's that's what I suggested at the beginning that we go through this process while we maintain the status quo of of operation because I think that it is working so I'd like to

124make a couple things first of all this process was started without any concurrence by the board usually when we start a process the five of us vote to assign people to go to this process was started without concurrence by the board so um and that's fine but I I think it's hard to complain now that we did that you didn't have concurrence from the board um also I tried to with the things that I use the hard words like can't I I tried very judiciously to only did that when I think it's against the town's Charter or against the law as I understand it right that um so I I you know and I I pointed out those things I wasn't trying to to it doesn't make any sense to me to discuss those things

125too much because I think there are hard you know barriers to that right we should discuss the things that where there are not those hard hard barriers and finally I think one of the reasons we're in this predicament is that we did not have this discussion last year like this right if we had as a board um discuss the pros and cons openly um uh I think we would have been in better better shape but we didn't we only discussed this in terms of approving new library trustees or whatever or that final article 11. um and and so um you know I think you know facing these hard questions is is is necessary um I um and I'm I'm fine with a a working group um I you know I'd like a good understanding of

126you know who the who the members are and and exactly what their their output product is is their output product a draft um warrant article is their output product a list of responsibilities um you know what is the output product great yeah there's definitely more work to do before we'd actually have a proposal like that but it's good to understand that the board would be open to you know us coming back with some notion like that appreciate it the other thing I heard Alyssa say that I wanted to highlight was um that that Fran also said is that the citizens library is working right now I mean there's there's people showing up there's events happening there's Staffing um so something's working um and uh you know we have we we we share a goal of

127of uh you know having that continue um that it's that it's working and that's good other final comments on this topic um I just want to have the chance to to ask a couple of questions that I think would be useful to have answers to um one was mentioned by by Fran earlier can we continue to have one director reporting to two boards what are the challenges um of that and can those be overcome I think that's a critical question to answer um can we continue to have Memorial Library staff cover shifts um vacations sick time lunch hour can we continue to rely on volunteers you know the senior worker program I came across some document where the I think it was a town report where the the volunteers were covering lunch breaks for the

128sole librarian you know is I know that we're moving towards increased security for the people who are working in the library so questions about whether or not it's okay to have one person working alone there or not whether or not it's okay to have volunteers Dean I think you mentioned supervision so so I think that in the conversations whether they happen with us or with the citizens trustees and the staff Memorial trustees those questions need to be answered and also the question about um fiscal sustainability whether or not it's it's feasible to to return to a more independent operation whatever the you know legally acceptable governance structure is is in place who's responsible for what and who reports to who whatever that is worked out um but uh you know the the conquered um two

129libraries there's one board one director but there's also a library committee that's appointed by the select board and interestingly the committee is actually responsible for long-range planning and um and policies rather than the trustees so so that was a surprise to me um and speaking with one of the two Natick Library directors and this was the director of the smaller Library like citizens um she told me that the their two libraries have had for like 15 20 years an informal agree Arrangement where they're both part of Minuteman and one library is is charged and then the smaller Library pays five percent of that fee it's based on circulation so it's similar to the multi party Arrangement that we had with Minuteman and you know can can that continue there it's I was told that that

130was a a new thing that was like a pilot for for our libraries and Minuteman but apparently um it's been happening in Natick for a long time the libraries on the cape do the same thing in the native librarian told me that director told me that I'm also some University Systems operate that way too so you know some of the thing things that came out in the survey with different hours like we want weekend hours we want evening hours we want to be able to have the ability to do interlibrary loans like can those things be met reverting back to a more independent operation if that's you know what what comes out in the ShakeOut and these are questions you'd like the trustees to wrestle with or you'd like feedback from us or that this

131would be part of the working group or what's your vision of how those really interesting questions get wrestled with I just think that they need to be wrestled with by whom whether it's the trustees or the working group or us eventually so it sounds like if if if folks here have thoughts on that topic they could contact you or contact the trustees or contact staff I mean anyway not you okay okay right okay staff oh yeah yeah and you might have you might have come in after we determined that this part of the conversation was just going to be among the board but I mean everybody was he was here who's managed to you know sit through this has valuable input so we're looking forward to hearing from you but in some other form like

132drop us a note or talk with us you know help us understand where we're going right and wrong thanks so we have received um through the the citizens Library shell going to the trustees some comments some emails and this is something that has been discussed I think with both boards um having documents that are being discussed at these meetings available to the public similar to the way their in Doc you share for any other boarding committee so really the only thing that's available online are archived agendas and minutes and um I'm assuming that that will be sorted out but I also wanted to just take the opportunity to State my opinion that in in the service of of governmental transparency I think that it's really critical for those documents to be available so that public

133who are attending the meeting can review them and also see what other people are are sending in right their their thoughts and ideas so that they can either agree or oppose with them okay um we've we've opened up this topic in a good way but looks like there's a final yeah the only thing I I would say is because of the point that we can't send comments to LSI it's to me critical that we have uh this on the agenda from time to time so that we uh we we can give um feedback or you know continue as part of the evolving process absolutely does that does it make sense for me to provide an update as liaison about progress that's that's part of it and and then we also want to actually have on

134the agenda a chance for discussion so we can give feedback but both both would be great thanks y'all uh not a not a particularly easy topic but I felt like as as as we were saying before we'd never had this conversation before uh and it's good to finally get it out in the open let's see this is a select board meeting we've got an agenda okay there it is one more thing um a proof letter of condolence and welcome to members of the Nashoba praying Indians um this is uh Alyssa I'm going to hand this over to you in a minute I just want to give a brief sort of start to this um I'm going to give a story uh I just want to tell a story about what happened uh yesterday um after

135folks go um the um yesterday at the Littleton Historic Society um we welcome back um strong bear Medicine of the Nashoba praying Indian tribe and six people in his family and um who had made contact with members of the little thin Historic Society about starting about five years ago um and the conversation has gone on in a lot of different directions um but one of them is that a house that's managed by the little the Historic Society is now being rented to little to to strong bear medicine in his family and what that means is that um almost 300 years after the last evidence of this tribe of Indians uh you know was lost from recorded history uh they're back and they were able to tell us a lot of stories they were able to

136tell us that well you know we were um you know taken to Deer Island uh where some of us died uh we were brought back to the community we survived more than a lot of the other tribes because we were taken off to Deer Island much later than some of the other tribes so we didn't have to go through the worst of the winter but when we came back we determined that the best thing for us to do was to disappear so while keeping the knowledge going from generation to generation they've lived in places all all around the United States and in Massachusetts but not being open at all about you know their background um and the feeling in the last few years has been oh it's time you know it's time to come back

137together and be open three years ago they tried to have a a powwow in Littleton but you know that was three years ago the the uh the pandemic got in the way but now they're coming back together again um so it was a very moving ceremony um and um part of what hung over that ceremony was that they had recently in April lost their chief so we wanted to find a way to both welcome them back to the area to their original homes and and at the same time we couldn't do that without acknowledging our condolences about the chief um so uh I guess I think we can have Alyssa talk about it from here but I think the main thing I wanted to say was that um this is uh you know every every

138few hundred year kind of occasion so I'm not suggesting that we start writing um you know condolence letters to you know prominent people in town because I think that would take up too much of our time but this did seem like a special occasion where we're a welcome letter uh was appropriate Melissa you want to add something to that sure um so this letter came about through my conversation with our diversity equity and inclusion director wanjiko um she and I met to talk about the possibility of planning some events around indigenous people's day as was planned last year and then was canceled and she suggested that rather than focus on diving right back into starting up again with the planning that we focus for the next year on some healing and and Reconciliation because there

139was some misunderstanding between the town and the tribe over the plans for last year which led to the cancellation so one of her suggestions was would it be appropriate for for the town to send a letter of condolence so I got in touch with a couple of people that are in friendship or relationship with strong bear medicine Dan bedelian from the Littleton Historical Society is one Bob Ferrara of pine hot friends of pinehawk is another because they have communicate ongoing communication with strong bear medicine um so it was their recommendation that a letter come from the board so I drafted a letter staff looked at it made some comments some changes were made and just speaking to the comment that was made during resident concern I concur with that and offer uh instead of we

140extend the warmest welcome to you we share our excitement that you and your family have chosen to settle into your new Littleton home or your Littleton home because I mean it's new for this generation but it's not really new to the tribe so eager to hear your thoughts on that yeah I I was kind of puzzled by the letter initially um and I I understand that the historical context of this um but I I and I will certainly sign on to the letter uh but I think you know we we should be cautious about where we're going with this um I think you know there are lots of um there are lots of other people that have lost loved ones um in this town and if we start getting into the situation of making value

141judgments about who gets a condolence letter and who doesn't um I think that's a that's a really slippery slope um so I would certainly caution folks on that um you know certainly this historical precedent about clinchover band uh you know it might seem somewhat irrelevant but um you know one point all of this territory once it was taken from the Nashoba Indians was part of the British crown and we didn't write a letter of condolence when Elizabeth II died um I that's sort of an absurd extension of this but I think this is where you could go with it so I would I I don't have any problem with the letter the way it's been edited down um but I do hope you'll be really cautious about this an example that I would use that

142you might want to think about if you're going to make a practice of this it was a policy we established a few years ago to allow the the raising of the uh of the Indian national flag and there was a fairly specific policy that was set up agreed to by the board at that time certain criteria that had to be met and I think that's served us well surprisingly no other group that I'm aware of has asked permission to raise their national flag out front although certainly we'd be welcome to that I did have one person challenged me on it and I said well send us a letter you know we'll be happy to to comply with it so long as it meets the policy so I think that's important from a policy point of

143view that you know this we're establishing precedence here and I think we should make sure that we understand when these letters are going to be put together um and that we don't get in a situation you know one one ethnic group gets a letter of condolence another ethnic group does not get a condolence letter I think that's very important that the board shows some consistency with this David so I I think this is a very nice gesture um I I you know the way you phrased it uh Jim you you put things in a little bit other order and I'm finding with the way the letter was it's written with the edits that um uh I was introduced but I think of this as acknowledging their uh return to their ancest The ancestral Littleton area

144and and again as you put it the need for doing that at this time is also acknowledging the passing of the previous Chief and so I I think you could even reverse the paragraphs but I don't think it's you know I wouldn't introduce any edits and that's why I think it's a very nice gesture the whole thing is very nice gesture and I appreciate you guys you know putting it together um also after the vote I have one little related thing that I'd like to just ask the board not related to this letter but after we take action well it sounds like we're ready for a motion to uh approve this letter uh David I I moved to approve this letter with the uh edits that Alyssa introduced second and friend a seconded uh any

145last comments before we vote okay all those in favor please say yes or I yes I I believe I heard yes or I from everyone so that's unanimous thank you very much um David you had a follow-up you wanted to comments yes so we've talked about for a couple of years now um introducing um and uh locally celebrating indigenous people's day and um the first draft that we had of a proclamation declaring that day in Acton actually referenced uh the Nashoba tribe and then it seemed to be the sense of the board at that time that maybe the Nashoba tribe wasn't appropriate and it would be better to reference the Massachusetts or the Wampanoag I'm wondering what the thoughts are there do we mention all of them if we go forward with it again this

146year because I think sometime in the fall we'd want to or maybe even next meeting designate someone to draft something for us but whether we would wanted focused back on the Nashoba praying Indians or whether who leave it the way it was or you know towards the Massachusetts and Wampanoag or all of them so I just thought maybe we don't have to answer that question now but I think it's an important because we made the switch one way and and now we have folks that are back in the neighborhood and uh and I know you've been to the the talks and it was my thought in the original draft that they were appropriate but again there were differences of opinion so I don't know if people have more opinions now or we just want to

147schedule that for another time um well time is of the essence here and I uh we had talked about bringing back up a short indigenous people's day Proclamation um you know in in September uh given that that day is in October um listen do you have any thoughts about what you know what mentions would be in that kind of note and and maybe other people want to give you feedback on that yes so I have drafted the proclamation and it's much shorter than the the one that was brought to the board last year which was actually more of a resolution and it and it called on many entities to take very many actions this is this is just a proclamation um similar to proclaiming this year we proclaimed August 6 2023 India day so it's

148very similar to that and I have circulated that to Dan bedillion and the town manager and wanjiko and I'm waiting to hear feedback from them before I share it with the board and get feedback from you and there is a single mention of the Nashoba and no other tribe in the draft that I have so far and now that I've referred to it do it does it need to go in the meeting packet now that I've referred to the document well we'll get mentioned as it'll get mentioned as a document but we'll actually put it in the packet when you have a draft okay and we're ready to discuss it together I'll add the comment David that um it could have been in my vague memory is that it was me who had a concern

149about mentioning the you know having the Nashoba be the lead band there and I've been persuaded by you know by by research and by reading Dan bedillion's book and by meeting these folks that uh it's it's appropriate to have them in the lead now so I'm not concerned about returning to that approach um by the board and I see there's a resident who has something to say too but first any other comments from the board no okay so I caution um you know depending on your background which may not be visible uh the people uh there are not of Indian descent um not try and make decisions of what what we are what would be appropriate relative to deciding who should be and what lead um I would and I would trust Alyssa and Jim

150to do this to ask people from Nashoba and people that are around they're interested just put the notice out like a hearing notice hey we're interested in kind of doing stuff and is there people around here that would like to have input as opposed to deciding what you think is right from Europe from a subtler perspective um and that's all I just I urge you to not it's like let's learn about process um in addition to learning about rights of people and land and whether we should declare like like let's just start from scratch like what would you do if this is your neighbor you know because they didn't believe in property rights and so to be declaring things from a municipality that is already in the sense illegal in the ways of being of

151a people to then use that authority to then your position to decide who should be named in what place I I feel like a more respectful way to say we'd like to do something and we're not sure what and see what people say thank you thanks um okay we voted right already okay good it's reading it's reading David's screen so watch out you may we're going to start hearing his email okay um the next thing on the agenda is the consent items so why don't I read through these and people can call call out a hold if they want us to talk about them some more approve meeting minutes July 24 August 8 nine approve executive session minutes July 26 2023 approve the request for use of town roads ride for live for live September

15217 2023. authorize the following expenses from the Energy Efficiency fund 2475.76 to reimburse additional costs for range replacements for Acton housing authority and twelve thousand one hundred dollars for the public safety facility weatherization project except donation of 100 from Angela and Dominic nunia to be deposited in the firefighter gift fund number 315801 accept donation of 100 from Terry Fitch to be deposited in the police gift fund number 3195 approval one-day alcoholic beverage license applications Paulette Joyce at narrow Park picnic Pavilion on September 16th solar on Earth at narrow Park picnic Pavilion on September 11 and Danny's place at Gardner field September 17 2023 then we flip the page number 15 approve license to use state-owned rail property with the Department of Corrections School Street field September 1st 2023 August 30th 2024. David will hold that

153one um appoint Zaid dasagir as a full member to the diversity equity and inclusion committee with a term to end on June 30th 2026 and appoint Michelle Alex as a full at large member to the community preservation committee with a term to end on June 30th 2026. um first let's see what should we do first why don't we deal with David's concern about the Department of Corrections School Street field item so I would just like to move to approve the license of State on news property with the Department of Corrections School Street field September 1st 2020 through through August 31st 2028. which is the corrected date from the document thank you basically the the last August 31st 2028. so I move that okay is there a second for that second okay uh any discussion no

154all those in favor please say aye aye yes okay that's everybody uh now let's go back and look at all the rest um David I moved to approve consent items 8 through 14 inclusive and 16 and 17. great is there a second for that second okay Dean has seconded um any further discussion about that no all those in favor please say aye aye aye okay those are all approved okay a brief meeting evaluation um let's see uh what happened something fell oh my phone fell oh thank you okay hopefully nothing bad happened um I felt slightly scattered tonight but I thought it worked out okay um I thought the uh the West Acton citizens Library discussion had the right level of contention like not too much but enough so that we were open about understanding

155each other's differences um I apologize that the uh the note about the uh letter of condolence came in so late I'd been notified about that before but then it zipped out my mind so I wanted to get that in there um we've managed to end at a reasonable hour I appreciate that um yeah and I thought the we didn't have much of a real test of the culo you know like little light thing because everybody was very succinct as they spoke but I was glad it was here um any other thoughts and comments about how the meeting went David um just that I appreciate the working session on the Wisconsin citizens library branch great other thoughts uh they could be about either how the meeting went or reminders of follow-up items that we need to

156take on or anything like that Dean friend Melissa okay thanks everyone uh one last motion I moved to adjourn second uh all those in favor please say yes or I I that's unanimous we're done thank you everybody