Acton, MA Board of Selectmen Meeting 2/22/21

001presence of a quorum i'd like to call the february 22nd 2021 meeting of the act and board of selectment order uh the town of acton in response to the coronavirus pandemic is currently following the guidance from the acting board of health the massachusetts department of public health and the cdc uh the town hall is closed to the public this meeting will be streamlined online on the actin tv youtube live channel and audio will be broadcast live on the radio on wa 94.9 fm to participate remotely from a computer use the link to join the public meeting on actingna.gov meetings bos or from a telephone dial 646-876-9923 and enter webinar id number 503-918 785 telephone users may dial star 9 the request to speak computer and app users may use the quote raised hand feature to

002request to speak david are there any citizen concerns there's no one with their hand raised john okay i'm sorry there's one okay uh charlie please go ahead [Music] you've unmuted but we don't hear you um maybe john we could come back to charlie in a minute okay sure um okay so um under chairs update um a few points on february is black history month and i'd like to recognize the contributions made during the course of the month so far by the boxcar historical society the first parish church of stone acton and vivian virtual of acton tv on a sad note um a former selectman wayne fredericks died at home on friday evening he was age 80. um i spoke with his daughter tara and funeral arrangements will be private there will be a post covered

003celebration of wayne's life he was a he was a very good man um our next meeting is march 1st there will be uh an executive session to cover two matters beginning at six o'clock uh john for your update please thank you uh good evening a few things uh first i want to just announce another promotion uh within the organization i'm pleased to announce that chin ray pang we just uh promoted her to the position of the town engineer but you recall paul campbell left that position almost a year ago now and chin has done a really nice job filling in and we after a recruitment process uh have selected her and she's already gotten started and hit the ground running so work and there's plenty of public works projects for her to jump right into

004uh and other really really good news we heard this morning from snp one of the bond rating agencies that our aaa rating was reaffirmed uh this is very important because as uh the board knows we are issuing debt in about a week for a lot of the projects including the fire station that the town has um borrowed for over the last few years and so having this aaa bond rating helps us get the best bond fund interest rate available and uh we're hopeful that uh that works out for us and it's it's a nod to the excellent work in the finance department uh led by steve barrett and the leadership of the board of selectmen and the finance committee for all the work that we do every year to make sure that uh our financial

005position is strong and and the rating agencies agree with with that and in fact they do uh speaking of the budget i'm excited to present uh the town manager's recommended budget march first which is a week from tonight so i have a lot of work to do we're also going to be presenting the 10-year capital plan that night so i look forward to talking with all of you and getting your initial feedback on this very exciting project that we've been working on uh the diversity workshops that we offer to our volunteer boards and committees in addition to staff the first one of those is friday and the second is tuesdays so if voting committee members out there haven't signed up for one of those two please let me know if you're having an issue uh

006with that information and then we can help you out i wanted to mention the fire that occurred in barksboro earlier this month tragic fire uh left many um dozens of family or twenty about 22 families without homes uh and there's been a large outreach effort in the barksboro and acting community to support them and our social services team uh primarily laura ducharme has also been assisting in ways that we can so that's just a really tough situation for folks and we wanted to know we want people to know that we're we're helping in in ways that we can on a similar note i wanted to mention that one of our firefighters chuck dunnigan lost his home in a fire last week um and him and his family are now out of a home and uh

007our employees have been pulling together and trying to help him so i just wanted to mention that uh that we're thinking of chuck and his family and we know that um everyone's safe which was the most important thing but it was a tough uh thing for him other items uh public forums coming up uh this week on wednesday there will be a public forum on the 1921 maple street property this is the property that the town acquired next to the south acting train station uh formerly owned by gordon richards we've done some uh analysis and some survey work and to understand what concepts could be for the use of that site to help expand its use as a parking facility and other amenities that we may be able to incorporate there and uh that's wednesday

0087 p.m it's a zoom meeting the information is on the website another meeting coming up is high street there's been a high street safety study and there's a public forum on that on march 4th at 7 pm and that i believe is on the website if it's not it will be there tomorrow so stay tuned for that thank you sure okay so remember thank you john remember minute uh excuse me john could i just try charlie again sure let's try yeah charlie cadillac please um commute yourself and try again uh i guess i guess not i guess that's not not working for him tonight all right let's come back to charlie at the end of number minute and we'll try again during the course of the evening if that doesn't work um so jim oh

009hi um let's see i got three little things um on thursday night the 25th at seven o'clock the league of women voters in green acton are co-sponsoring uh a panel discussion about plastic uh recycle reuse refuse um with three great speakers uh including um ben harvey who's the the president of uh uh pj harvey they're the folks that receive all the uh the mixed plastic recyclables that come from the town of acton so we can speak about how that process works there's a to get more information about that and to sign up there's a link right on the front page to the greenactin.org website um the next thing is i've been talking with greg hutchins of the volunteer coordinating committee because we have now more than half of our committees are down at least one

010person 26 of our committees are are looking for people which actually surprisingly is not um out of the ordinary sometimes it does get that high but it did seem time for the two of us to talk about how we can do better um so um we have a bunch of ideas uh that i'll be coming back to the to the board for uh help with uh including we uh we had a series of um really nice short videos done by members of committees to talk about their committee and uh looking back at the numbers a year later it's clear that those videos made a difference um but only a handful of committees responded to the invite to make these videos so we're going to do another round of trying to enlist uh committee members to

011describe the work of their of their committee and i might be looking to the board members who are liaisons to those committees to encourage them to you know go ahead and you know overcome their concerns about you know being on acting tv and just go ahead and do it we can help them we can help them with you know what to say and how to say it and there's a bunch of other little ideas that greg and i are kicking around i may be talking to the manager about some ideas for the website and we'll see if that's a possibility that's a ball about volunteers but if you are interested if you're listening and you want to be on a committee come on in there's plenty of room for you um the next thing was

012about car chargers um you may remember that last year uh in the lead up to the springtown meeting we had a warrant article um about um electric car charging stations uh in our in commercial establishments and um we yanked it because we were trying to pull things off the uh off the warrant that would uh you know potentially make the meeting go on since this was our first experience with a you know an outdoor uh partially outdoor town meeting we didn't we wanted to make it keep it short and simple um so that warrant article is still sitting around but it hasn't been added back into the draft warrant so i'm going to be asking the board members here at our as soon as i can get an agenda item with this on it to

013uh discuss the pros and cons of adding it back in i also have since then gathered a bunch of information about how other municipalities have handled this question so i have some useful information about um you know the typical language that's used and uh so it may be uh it may be of help in making this happen and i'll make sure that that information makes its way to the packet for whatever meeting we managed to discuss this in um and those were the three things i had today thanks hey thank you jim hi joan hi david nothing for me quiet week last week okay um uh dean no nothing from me thank you um do you want to try charlie again yes he seems to have reconnected hold on just a second uh charlie please

014try again i'm trying again yes it's working great sorry about that technology i will make this brief what i am interested in is an update on the police report on the zoom bomber for those who may be listening not the board you know all the details but a brief chronology this started december 17th at a school committee meeting where about an hour and a half into the meeting someone posted some vulgar insulting racial comments into the chat box which hacked by the way i've never seen that obviously created a response right then and there by those present at the meeting and you the board of selectmen held an emergency special meeting the next day which issued a statement which i don't have the time or the necessity to read now but you instructed the police

015department i'm reading to initiate a hate crime investigation subsequently there was another incident a school committee meeting january 7th but the main point of my comments and i'm going to read from the police report which chief burroughs submitted january 13th obviously won't read the whole thing but it does say throughout its ongoing investigation which began after the first incident on december 17th acton police have identified a juvenile male in arizona as a suspect acton police are working with the local arizona police department to continue the investigation skipping a paragraph that quoting again acton police have determined that the individual has no apparent connection to acton or boxborough and is believed to have learned about the scheduled meeting excuse me on excuse me scheduled meeting online one minute left i just have one more queen quick

016quick comment or quote uh according to the town manager these incidents have been offensive and the cause for deep concern for our entire community and i'm grateful for the effort the acton police department has put in to identify this individual that's the last we have heard me the population of acton and boxborough have heard anything about it so subsequently there has been some speculation i am told online that the police department is still investigating possible other individuals i have no idea whether that's based on anything or not so i'm asking for an update okay charlie okay john um if you would um ask chief burroughs to provide us at our meeting next monday night march 1st with an update um on the investigation yes i'm happy to do that and i can actually provide it

017during my opening remarks if that works sure thank you thank you okay so the next item would be this is a notice of a hearing the acting board of selectmen will hold a public hearing on february 22nd 2021 at 7 10 p.m continued from december 7 2020 uh virtually on zoom acton m a dot gov slash meeting slash bos on the application of old mill development trust for site plan special permit number o nine slash 28 20 hyphen 480 under zoning bylaw section 10.4 at 67 powder mill road map j3 partial 59 hyphen 6. the application and accompanying plans can be expected at the planning division office in town hall during normal business hours for information on how to participate remotely and to view the application materials go to http colon forward slash forward slash

018doc dot acton hyphen m a dot gov slash d s w e b view slash collection hyphen one two seven seven the applicant has requested a continuance to march 2021 at 7 10 p.m john is there any reason for the continuance it was requested by the applicant did he offer a reason and not that i um i didn't look at too closely i can bring in kristen who i think is here we may have more information if that's helpful sure just so we know i mean hi good evening can you hear me hi um good evening everyone um so the applicant's um council did contact me um requesting the continuation it seems um they are in discussion with the property owner chip orcott and also in discussion with a council that they have also contracted

019with and so they're working together to discuss some items and want some time to be able to do that together so well thank you is there any uh comment from board members so seeing none then um may i have a motion to continue um the public hearing on the application of old mill development trust from today to march 15 21 at 7 10 p.m and is there a second second okay second gym uh is there any further discussion um then david uh call the role please mr snyder grant aye ms gardner aye mr charter aye mr benson all right and i also say aye so that's unanimous okay so john um um covid uh 19 response updates please thank you uh yes we had um we had another successful clinic over the weekend on saturday

020at the rj grade junior high we had a clinic a clinic where we used the second batch of uh 100 vaccines that we received from the state uh from what i understand it may be the last last batch of vaccines that we receive for the near future but we had a team there with volunteers and fire department nursing uh board of health council on aging it was a great effort um everyone the people were very complementary to how it was operated so we're very proud of of our ability to do these things we would like to do more and we're going to work continue to work to advocate for the ability to do that uh as as i've mentioned in the past it's really about the supply uh and this it just isn't available to

021us we are going to continue to request supply um and partner potentially partnering with the housing authority which has been given um an elevated status in terms of the rollout so we'll be doing that uh this week and we're also working on a multi-town collaboration uh our health director the health directors in the communities basically south of us and then westford have been discussing how to attack the new guidelines that were released by the department of public health last week which basically say we're not giving out any more vaccines to individual communities and the only way you get them is if you formed your own sort of public site and in order to do that you need to be able to put out 750 vaccines a week and be with a few other towns so

022we're trying to form a partnership and regional collaboration we had a call with managers this afternoon to try to talk about our next steps and we're going to work on put out a letter of intent to the state to say hey we're a group of towns we've all been doing clinics for many years including over the last few months and we want a chance to do this more we're not that optimistic that we will get approved from the state but we're going to put it in and hope for the best and continue to advocate for our residents and find ways to get them access to vaccines um so again i'm very proud of the work we've been doing um and we're going to continue to try to get more vaccines in our hands the case

023numbers as of right now uh we have a total of 749 cases in the town since this started 27 people are currently in isolation um so it's actually it's actually the lowest it's been in a while um so we're cautiously optimistic uh and but we're going to continue to work very hard to keep people uh safe we're going to start talking about what reopening looks like later this spring you know our services have have been uninterrupted but we've been delivering them differently so we're optimistic that as vaccination become more um available that we'll be able to start opening things up a little bit here and so we're starting early now to think about what that may look like uh and we'll be able to uh be planning for that in in the spring other updates

024um i think that's all i had on that topic yeah john for those who've received the first shot will you be able to follow up with the second shot yes so i guess i should have been more clear thank you for asking that question they're not the state isn't going to give us any more first doses they will give us second doses for any uh folks that we vaccinated in the first round so thank you for that question and we will be in touch uh when we get those to those people that uh need to come back uh other other questions comments from jim um i just wanted to thank you and your team for the this all this great work um i know that in my neighborhood uh this last week was the the

025awakening of the boomers suddenly all these kids from 60 ages 65 to 75 were eligible for vaccines and they were you know hungry for with questions and trying to get appointments and um your the nursing service was uh was able to answer a lot of questions for people i know you you weren't able to give out many shots but i think you're still performing a really important public service as being a reliable source of information and you know getting people in the right direction just want to really appreciate it thank you yes the the team has been uh tremendous and you know the nursing service and our hotline staff uh have been answering and fielding calls and directing people to resources our council and aging staff made hundreds and hundreds of phone calls uh to

026try to get people information and so yeah it's really been it's been nice uh that everybody's stepped up and we're gonna continue to do that uh until we're all uh vaccinated thank you um who who received the hundred doses where they've been um residents 75 and over yeah so our focus has been folks that are we're considering most vulnerable and maybe not about available to go travel to places to get get themselves so we have a list of people that through our own social service providers that we have people that are homebound that we did a mobile clinic in addition to the clinic at rj gray and the rest of the people were those that are elderly that met the eligible requirements that we were able to reach and um connect with we definitely prioritized

027the most elderly and those that we think couldn't get it up elsewhere that's great and thank you know all members of our the town staff community and those volunteers that helped out it's great thank you so much um we'll skip the feasibility study on the uh regional emergency communications center can we move to item six which would be review the public feedback from the drive up window outreach effort and discuss next steps thank you so it's part of uh early actually early in this pandemic the border selectmen mentioned that uh the limit limits on drive throughs um were something that they wanted the planning board to look at so the planning board did look at it uh the planning staff uh work with the consultant they did a pretty robust uh planning and community input

028process and so kristin is here uh tonight to sort of share the results of that work and talk to the board about how you want to proceed um because i think if if there is to be something on the uh timing warrant we would need to hold formal public hearings through the playing board process and several other things that have to kind of go in motion pretty soon so kristen do you want to be promoted to a panelist are you able to talk from where you are um whatever you're comfortable with either way um just begin go please do please now you're muted man work your magic how's that hi there good evening um so as john mentioned um you know from the direction of the of the order selectmen um the town uh hired

029a planning consultant daphne politis from community circle to assist us in the planning department to roll out um you know a pretty robust public outreach effort to gauge the community um in really their interest of pursuing any changes to drive up window sections of the zoning by law so today the actin zoning bylaw only allows for drive up windows for pharmacy i'm sorry for um for banks and only in certain zoning districts so we were pursuing whether or not the community had some level of interest in drive up windows for pharmacies as well as restaurants and possibly expanding drive up windows in those districts where um they are currently prohibited so uh we had uh two public forums um virtually uh one was in october and been a pretty good turnout there's about 30 to

03040 participants that were there um and we also had a survey that went around um through town that was available for people that may not have been able to attend that forum and we also had another forum a follow-up on just in december and to really hone in a little bit more on some of the questions that came out of the initial survey as well as the initial forum so in the first forum we kind of just wanted to gather information on um you know people's general interest and then from that and the survey we learned that there were quite a lot of people interested in seeing drive up windows and the expansion of that as an accessory use both for restaurants and far on pharmacies and for varying reasons too so you know there

031are some people that express the interest for the issue that we're dealing right now with covet other people express the interest because they have either possibly a disability that doesn't allow them to easily get goods through pharmacies and restaurants and other people that express that interest because they have small children at home so there are really a range of reasons um and there were some interests from business owners and then there were also some concerns from residents as well and the potential effects to small businesses who may not be able to um maybe implement a drive up window that a more chain type of business would be able to um but overall a majority of of people that responded to the survey indicated that drive-up windows should be allowed on a permanent basis um you

032know one of the concerns again initially why the outreach was conducted was because i think cove had brought some of these issues to light um but it seemed that there was a sense from the community that there's interest there for something more permanent and um again the majority of people um also indicated at the public forums that there was interest in this as well so we're looking tonight um for really direction from the board to get a sense of um whether or not you'd like us to pursue a zoning bylaw change for the junetown meeting um and if so what you'd like to see um there are some things that you could take into consideration such as the zoning districts that you could allow drive up windows for um allowing drive up windows by right

033or through special permit um you could allow drive up windows in certain circumstances or if they could be designed in a certain way for example one of the concerns that some residents expressed was how they would look or how they would be oriented on the site to make sure that there aren't conflicts with pedestrians for example um so those are some of the things that we'd be looking for your feedback on robert hummel put a very nice memo together outlining this process that we took um and as well as some of the um statistics from the forum and the survey so um that's kind of their bulleted that might be helpful to look through as well so i'll turn it back over to unless you have any um additional questions are there any questions for

034kristin and or general comments jim um sure um i'm wondering what we know kristin you expressed that concern that some people have raised about um small business owners and i'm wondering if there's anything in the survey or anything in you know communications that you have from small business owners about you know pros and cons for them sure um so the survey asked um a question basing or basically um in the finding like who you are who's taking this survey and the question was are you a resident or a pro sorry a property owner or a business owner and so we don't have that data in survey form detailed out saying like are you a small business owner you're a larger business owner are you just a business owner and not a resident um so we

035have it clumped together what we're really hoping for is understanding who is um living you know in the community and who owns a business in the community so that was kind of what we were hoping for in terms of getting that information um so some of the anecdotal um information that we heard or i should say more uh qualitative uh feedback that we got was um some concern from a small business owner that they may not be able to implement a drive up where um you know in this particular instance of a pharmacy may not be able to implement a drive up window or another may um or if drive up windows are not allowed in certain districts it may prohibit one business from competing against another um if it's allowed in a different business

036and that specific conversation related a lot to west acton village and so that was something that was in the comments that we received and also the discussion through the virtual public forum yeah i would be in favor of proceeding with the drive up window my concern is the businesses in west act and then could that be by special permit where businesses on 2a if they had the right land could do it as a matter of fact yes you could you could formulate a zoning um zoning article that way oh dean yeah generally speaking i'm very much in favor of allowing the the drive up windows and i was pleased to see what a good response the uh the survey teased out it seems like the majority of folks are interested in allowing them in all

037districts and allowing them as a matter of right obviously there's some dimensional challenges that people will have in some of these districts as far as you know being able to fit something in but you know that's sort of the nature of of free enterprise you know if you choose to go in a certain district why you'll have certain impediments whether they be it's tough to put in a drive up window or you're going to be in a historic district with their own set of requirements um but i think it's important you know people think well this is just because the pandemic well there was a real need for drive ups especially for pharmacies long before the pandemic the number of people that you know have mobility issues that can't get in and out of drug

038stores very easily a vast number of people that might have an illness might be immune compromised that don't really want to have to walk through a drug store and you know expose themselves to those kind of germs and diseases and this is certainly pre-pandemic same thing with the with the restaurants um i think you know as we know from listening to these forums and the people saying yeah we drive to other towns because it's so easy to just order and go over there and pick it up rather than you know because you can't do it inactive so certainly there's been some innovation as far as getting delivery whether that will continue past the pandemic i'm not sure but i think it's something that's it's really time to do it design review board had dealt with

039this a little bit and basically they didn't seem to be in favor of the uh of any kind of drive up windows i think they should be asked a little more pointedly well if you're going to have drive up windows how are you going to handle it you know what kind of design issues should be taken into account but i'm definitely in favor of moving ahead with bringing something to the junetown meeting whether it be one by law or whether it be two one to the law of pharmacies one to a lot of restaurants but i think it's time to uh to crack the nut and uh and get something going on this good david so the the feedback that i'm hearing is a little bit more pro dry up in terms of pharmacies than

040restaurants you know i'd rather see us move forward with pharmacies first and then and then come come back for restaurants but um also um i think there are so many variables in the design of the drive up you know pedestrian traffic car car traffic the aesthetics and the orientation of the drive up and things like that i would like to see these done by special permit because i think they're very complicated to judge and you know and be able to get design review board input and um um you know just be able to judge the the special i mean i think it's very difficult to um encode uh you know in the zoning bylaw for all the the the details that you want um and and even then you could you know if even if

041you tried you'd come up with something that you know maybe people wouldn't be in favor of it it would it would meet the the terms of the zoning law so i i i so just to sum up you know uh pharmacies ahead of restaurants and um by special permit okay any other comments uh christian how would uh jim i'm sorry that's fine um i'm also in favor of having this come to town meeting because i think you know enough people want it i mean i'm inclined against it but it's it's not i don't feel like this one should be up to us i think this is a great town meeting discussion to have um i i wish we had more i want us to develop more guidance for for kristin and the planning department about

042what to put in this uh um what to put in the bylaw i i am inclined as david was expressing to split the pharmacies and restaurants in case there's a different feeling on each one and maybe i i'm i'm of two minds about the special permit or not on the one hand i think it does give us you know input into the complexities but it also makes it so that for uh for the smaller res for the smaller businesses that might want to go ahead with this a special permit is a much more daunting process so i would hate for a special permit requirement to mean that only the the large well-funded chains would go ahead with the work necessary to do a drive up window so i'm i'm still confused on that one and

043i agree with dean that it might be really helpful before we got too much further to say to get some feedback from a group like the design review board about um you know assuming these happen what what design criteria makes sense you know what's what's important to be thinking about there because i don't i don't feel like i have really good guidance to give the planning department about that thanks okay uh christian um there there seems to be a sense among the board uh to bring this to town meeting um what would be the proceed of the process for going forward so i think it would be just hearing from you right now it would be helpful if um i don't know if maybe you could possibly pick someone or appoint someone to um kind

044of work with us on this so that we can try to meet with the drb or member of the drb to pull together some feedback from them and then kind of run it by maybe a member of the selectmen um for additional feedback um because we're looking at an april i think we're originally looking at april 13th for a public hearing for all the zoning articles but realizing now that that's our um i believe that's our budget meeting um so i think we're looking at april 14th so um that would april 14th would be the uh zoning public hearing so we need to have really a draft zoning article available for a public viewing um by march what did he say i think he said march um in march 25th so march around march 18th

045is when the legal ad will be sent out to the public alerting them that you know this is when um there'll be a an article available to view so we need to have something for people to read um and so that's kind of our our timeline so it would be helpful i think to have somebody possibly to work with from the selectmen and then we can reach out to the drb in the meantime and get their feedback and try to pull something together as fast as we can so what we're talking about is is um um march 18th to have a zoning article prepared is that what you said yeah i mean our our absolute latest date would be march 25th okay and then and then a public a public hearing on approximately about april

04614th correct okay um jim would this be something you would want to be our point person on i'm i'm willing i mean i'll note that with dean being our liaison the design review board that might make more sense but whatever the board thinks i'm happy to either do it or not dean or joan i'm sorry you had your hand at first yeah no i just have a question aren't there um other similar towns to acton that have drive up windows in their zoning bylaw and couldn't we look at those pretty quickly i think we can but i think some of the feedback we got are is going to you know we kind of want to i think cater it to acton um because i think there are some things some um examples that we can

047look to but i think that there are also um some things that we might be able to do that are a little bit more unique um and kind of speak to some of the concerns that have been presented from residents that relate to design and placement but that's a good idea that to look for you know we have we do have some examples from other communities that we can look at a dean i'd uh i'd be happy to work with with christian and drb and whoever you know it's it's a lot of work in a short period of time but you know it's i think it's really important for the town so i'd be happy to take that assignment okay did you assume you're okay with that oh that's great yeah um the only other

048piece i can add might be um since we've been asking about small businesses in west acting in particular i wonder if uh if if a call to the you know the west active merchants association might uh help us get some quick feedback on you know design criteria what makes sense if that's helpful if it's helpful i'd be happy to make that call or just leave it out there as a suggestion and mr chair i just have a few questions in terms of a couple more direction pieces are you comfortable with us starting out with a draft that allows drive up windows by right for pharmacies only at this time in every zoning district is that what i'm hearing i'd like more well why don't you um you know my thought is you know have it

049by right for both restaurants and and and pharmacies um in all districts and see what the reaction is if we have to pull back and do it as david said you know maybe just start out with pharmacies um but you know that's let's put up a comprehensive bylaw proposal uh together and if we have to pull it in based on public comment uh uh we can uh but it's important to get you know public support for this it the last time it was up i think it lost narrowly you know didn't miss the two-thirds by a small relatively small margin so public support is crucial what about today banks already have it um thanks so banks are allowed you know in most zoning districts they're not allowed in west acton drive up banks um so

050that might be something that um i don't know if you want to think about that and um in terms of expansion or not and if we're going to be allowing other um other drive up windows were there other uh process questions i think that was it because you kind of answered all of them and one i kind of asked them all at once so thank you uh david yeah this is a question maybe for john mancharati um does it if a building has a drive up window does that increase its assessment for tax purposes i don't know i can find out thank you mr chair if i could clarify um drive up bay drive up the um driver bank sorry drive up windows four banks um are only allowed in the office business and industrial

051districts so they're not allowed in any of the village districts that includes the east italian village districts north dakton village south african village okay all right so you know what you the go forward is yes thank you very much well thank you great work okay so um we're uh our team is here if you're ready for us sure let's do it sure let's go back to the number five which is the feasibility study pre uh presentation of establishing a regional emergency communications center for acting and concord um thank you as i'm starting i'm gonna bring up a presentation and um can you help me bring in the presentation team uh chief burroughs chief heart uh stephen crane and then chief tom judge and chief joe o'connor we've got a big team oh and thomas kennedy

052thank you so um earlier this year i'm just going to try to share my screen uh that's showing the presentation i hope yep okay so earlier this year uh our uh we received the grant from state 911 to look at a feasibility of establishing a regional uh center and with that grant we brought in a consultant tom kennedy from edward uh collins center for public management at umass boston and so over the last few months we've worked on this study in close partnership with the town of concord so this evening we're going to be presenting uh some information about the feasibility study that we completed uh but here before you i just mentioned very quickly but i'm going to be here police chief rich burrows fire chief robert hart town manager stephen crane from concord

053police chief joseph from concord and fire chief tom judge and tom kennedy is here as well basically um the purpose of this project was to determine whether it was feasible to establish a regional communication center to provide regional 9-1-1 dispatch services for both communities and in order to determine this tom kennedy and his team did multiple site visits to both concord and acton did interviews of staff and stakeholders in both communities facilities in both communities look at all the technology that they use as you know 911 communications is heavy on technology and then looked at all the staffing and the financials related to running the dispatch centers in both communities and from that work uh what what the collins center determined is that both acting and conquered very similar communities and as a result they're

054doing quite well to establish a regional communication center uh we're right next to each other we've covered uh town border so we have a lot of interactions on the right anyways um our dick scots corner is um there's a dispatch center in acton that was actually built with something like this in mind years ago so we have a facility already in place and if you look at sort of some general demographics about the two towns acting in concord our populations are pretty similar the number of calls we receive are almost identical and the cultural service are very very well so two communities that have both have very high expectations for public services public safety services and public safety communications uh our residents in both communities have very high expectations and our employees in both communities

055deliver on those expectations so it's almost like we're running parallel operations right next door each other so some of the things that came out of the interviews was that in some of the benefits that uh could come from a project like this is that there's um you know additional personnel available to help with surges if with an incident one day in one of the communities it'd already be an extra person in the room to begin with but there would also be a capacity to add more um quickly without impacting uh the other agencies that are doing first response uh create some opportunities for for employee investment uh we'd have access to technology and resources through our partnership with the state and it would also offer an opportunity to standardize and dispatch protocols it will be

056crimes of scale as in any regionalization effort there is an economy of scale and certain elements and those will be seen here there will be cost savings um and the cost savings is it's not so much as it's cost savings but it's actually um offset so we would still be spending similar amount of money to deliver services but we'd be getting more incentives from the state to offset those costs so it would save our taxpayers in both communities money but we would still be spending similar to what we are now probably less for operations and definitely less for capital we also we have very professional operations already i think an opportunity uh to combine two professional uh organizations into one would only elevate the professionalism and uh the way it's set up is that it

057would be an independent entity different from both towns and so it would create an opportunity for it to have some status and really be a special program so i mentioned incentives uh we both towns get incentives every year uh based on our population and call volumes and we get them to help support our 911 operations right now they're funded through i think cell phone surcharges everybody pays [Music] and uh as a regional center we would be eligible for more incentives and we'd also be eligible for a significant equipment and technology grants which would help uh allow us to expedite the process of of replacing some of our equipment and help us be uh responsive to the needs of the of the future of public safety so as part of the work that tom and the

058calling center did there was a cost analysis the costs included here are are really just um part of a feasibility and they would certainly be refined in the next phase of this process but i think the message here is that there is savings um this is down to the penny actually if you look at the angle um it probably shouldn't be uh but i think we're just trying to have something that we could back out of and and show that you know in terms of back up the calculation to show where it came from but we would certainly look at you know what what the costs are and and further refine that as we go forward but there's definitely an opportunity to save money based on the the structure that the state has set up

059for us so some of the recommendations that came in through the report um there's two models for regionalizing dispatch you can do a hosted model or you can do a district model the host of mobile will be the act the town of acting just brings on the employees from concord and makes them our employees and then we work together to dispatch to both communities the model that um that i'm recommending and that our public safety chiefs in both communities and town manager in concord steve crane we're all recommending is a district model uh it's more equitable it's it's cleaner and it's it provides more opportunities to uh have a appropriate cost sharing and so we're recommending a district model um what we would need to do is continue to do outreach and you know we've

060from the very beginning of the study we've met with the employees of employees are in both towns are represented by teamsters which is a union and we've met with the business manager and and the leadership from the union uh several times over the process and including a few times over the last few weeks so we've continued that work we'd look at some of the issues that are brought up and try to identify plans we developed a transition plan and then we'd work on next phases so what are the benefits of an art a regional communication center uh some of these i mentioned earlier but uh standardizing dispatch protocols and aligning best practices in both communities taking the best of both and putting together access to resources personnel resources and both every day and during major

061events there's financial benefits based on the partnership with the state it enhances 911 aid as i mentioned we work together from a public safety standpoint probably every day and this would just further um cement that relationship that we have with the town of concord and there'd be more efficiencies found in certain areas um as part of combining the efforts so we're here tonight we actually spent some time at the concord select board meeting earlier today and we're here tonight at the acton-select board meeting to present the results of this study we did issue a press release about a week or so maybe a week and a half ago to the public to the community to let them know that this conversation was taking place so i know that some people from the public here tonight

062i believe there's some concord uh select board members and maybe uh definitely some members of of our employees that are here tonight so it's exciting to see everybody here uh the purpose of tonight is to understand it as a consensus from the board to move forward and if there is we would uh proceed with the grant application it's actually due in less than two weeks to look at the next phase of planning for this and um so what the planning will include is is working out some of the details that i know um employees and others may uh wonder about so i wanted to um just run through that quickly uh i wanted to bring in now the members of our team just to kind of um mention how this has been going uh steve

063crane i'll start with with stephen crane who's a town manager in concord uh he has he comes from a previous um position where he led an effort like this so he has some experience in a different part of the state with this and so we're good to have him in all his pieces as part of this process stephen can you weigh in on some of the benefits of this program and what we've been talking about yeah sure i would say well first of all good evening and thanks for inviting us here um and um i apologize for uh the the select coordination for concrete ran over a little bit so thank you for your patience and accommodating our timeline um you know i think um you know tom kennedy's findings um were consistent with the

064findings that that when i was a town manager with tom long meadow we went through an exhaustive process uh for a multi-town regional dispatch that ended up being um initially a two town regional dispatch center between the town of longmeadow and the city of chicopee which is somewhat of an asymmetrical partnership um but we were able to even with that asymmetry able to develop a governance agreements and a cost-sharing model that was equitable for both communities and provide the right level of input and guidance for each community and the thing about a district is that even though it is an independent sort of governing entity the components in a district are the same people that are managing a dispatch in the in the member towns um currently so districts can provide are composed of a

065board of directors usually the town managers and then they are governed and then the day-to-day operations are overseen by an operations committee which is the service which are the service chiefs for the member communities and so it's it's the same people involved in managing and overseeing the district i will tell you that i i you know when uh john approached this concept i know chief o'connor and chief judge who i take my cues from uh were very interested in pursuing it i obviously um agreed with that because of my own experience from western mass and there were a lot of challenges to get from concept to uh you know execution of and getting what's called wescom the western mass emergency communications center live and so we went through the with the bottom on all the

066discussions about host first district uh how we structured the you know the work environment um you know what is the governance agreement i mean i mean hours and hours to do that so there are a lot of there's a lot of that ahead of us but in in talking to my former colleagues uh it really has worked out very very well they have achieved that that um capacity to handle surge events in a way that didn't happen for either longmeadow or jkp and they have had and they received financial support from the state that is very favorable for both communities and um the model that they it has proven that the model really works and i did speak to some folks out there last week in preparation for advancing this discussion and the biggest challenge

067they have is really managing the differences between a community a suburban community like long meadow and a more urban city like chicopee and um because that's really not a factor here because the towns are so similar um you know i think that we really have a great opportunity to um really um you know create a new level of cooperation uh you know for both communities and i think i think you know john and i were in the same outfit tonight should be a sign of our commitment to really uh work together yes i wish i'd honestly i wish i had noticed that earlier because i would have made that comment and content as well but i just noticed that we're we're totally aligned here that's that's the deal well you know this is the this

068is an interesting project um i think there's a lot of benefits to pearl we certainly wouldn't be having this conversation uh if it wasn't going to be an enhancement and a benefit to our public safety which is the utmost importance of why we're doing it in this and so that's why i think it's important that all four chiefs from the agencies are here tonight and it will be uh i'd like to introduce chief carlos and chief heart just to weigh in on on their their thoughts just so we're all on the same page as to how this is going to impact public safety if we move forward please gentlemen chief heart you want me to go first yeah sure good evening everyone thanks uh thanks for our concord partners uh to take time to sit

069down on this meeting and it's a pleasure to be here with you all tonight it's very exciting project chief judge from concord you know as a forward-thinking one of the better chiefs in the area and you know i'm really honored to be able to work uh with him on this project uh certainly we have two different departments but very very similar so you know aligning our response structures should be fairly simple and straightforward we work well together every day [Music] you know we do work together every day along with our public safety dispatchers and our communications which do provide a fabulous service currently and it's hoped that with some more bodies in the room when when these incidents that require more people on deck uh they have those people to to help out so you

070know i i know the dispatchers have a little concerns uh and we're working through those uh we're lucky to have stephen crane's expertise from his past experience to help guide us through this and you know tom kennedy as our consultant so just a great group of people to work with and i think it'll really enhance both communities public safety awareness gee if if we um go ahead with this what kind of time frame are we looking at uh actually uh tom um would you mind uh weighing in on on where where uh timelines uh how timelines work out here hold on you're muted i think i know you are yeah uh if uh if all um if all works out we were able to submit the uh the grant on march 4th they'll do an

071award in june and then um and then depending on the amount of money that they actually award sometimes they do it over two years uh stephen will tell you a little bit about that uh but there is um you know i you know i believe that there's great interest in this project i know it's uh they go through a competitive process but i think this with that interest um i think the you will have sufficient funds that i would project um in by the uh september october of 22. so in other words your fiscal 22 i believe that it would be up and running you know and you know as you know it's all depending upon you know very quickly once you once you get the funding for this is moving quickly and coordinating all

072of the vendors because there are a number of vendors you know on this uh this entire project at the same time the technology and the infrastructure goes into the center there's a lot of work for outreach um uh training and actually the development of those standardized protocols so it'll be a busy year and do both towns have to take it to town meeting uh i i guess that's for stephen and john to answer that i i think the creation of the district um would require a town meeting vote so eventually yeah so yeah so there's you know we're in the early this is the feasibility stage um so there's a lot of details in that timeline and things like that would certainly be explored and finalized and communicated both to the boards and to the

073public um as as we uh proceed i think we're really here tonight just to make sure that uh we're able to communicate to to this board and to the public right now uh what we think is is a project worth pursuing and i just wanted to actually continue with um our chiefs um from the communities of chief burroughs if you could weigh in just on on your thoughts on the project certainly uh good evening and thanks for having us i think this is a great opportunity this isn't anything new um dean i think you're on the building committee for the public safety facility a few years back and then we had a chief at the time frank woodmayer and he thought that this would be a great opportunity to build a new facility and have

074a big enough dispatch center to be able to have multiple communities being served out of one sector which is why the consultant identified the psf as a good location to host this so great forethought by you and the rest of the members of the committee to uh to build it in in such a fashion that it's uh it's it's able to be built uh big enough to handle it um and i look forward to the opportunity i work closely with chief o'connor not just because we share a border we also work together through domestic violence services network jail diversion program um c4rj these are all ongoing initiatives that we all do on a regional basis already so it's a great opportunity to continue working with joe i just wanted to reinforce one notion um the

075town of concord uh is completely fine with it being in the acting police station uh as chief judge and chief o'connor said it it really doesn't matter to us where it is uh i know in research on this many states have a handful of dispatch centers for their entire state and so massachusetts is kind of behind the curve on this and so it really you know we think that that if we did this and it was successful um the end user would have really wouldn't know the difference at all they would be their call would be answered by a highly trained um dispatcher because that's we have highly trained dispatchers now and they would get excellent service no matter where there's no matter where that dispatcher is today john further comments before we uh chief

076o'connor chief judge did you want to weigh in at all i just just say uh that with chief bonus so we worked together on on a regular basis and got no chief heart a little better in yourself joint and really uh we have a really good team here i think we can do a very good job and have a really exceptional wreck and which serve both communities very well i echo what everybody else has said here you know all of us are saying you know we work together all the time and and to put some perspective on that chief art and i have been working together literally since we were both lieutenants and we worked on the same shift so we saw each other all the time so there's a there's a long standing relationships

077here i think for all of i'm going to speak for myself but i think the other chiefs echo this as well one of the primary things we're looking at here is grouping our people together into a stronger organization by having them together we're gonna we're gonna um gain some surge capacity for ourselves right at the beginning of an incident and that is we talked about this earlier in the concord select board meeting the first 10 to 15 minutes of an incident are often the most critical and that's when the staffing is you know potentially at its lowest before they can get some help in there having having them group together and have that surge capacity right up front it just makes everything safer for everybody involved thank you so uh questions and comments from board

078members david please yes i i think this is uh this makes a lot of sense and it's uh uh great to be able to have a cooperative uh you know to start this offering a cooperative arrangement with concord um i have a couple of um really just under understanding questions listed in in both the report and the show the slideshow here there was a listing of one time savings what kind of things are one-time savings i can understand possible ongoing savings but what are what kind of things fall into one time staples um would you mind uh taking that one oh sure yeah um i mean that would be uh the one time savings would be the uh you know the uh some of the initial capital costs you know while they're developing it um

079and then um this is also what you call a transition award uh a transition award and i really didn't get to speak to about this over at um over at um conker by the transition award is something new that the state 911 department started this past year um it provides a uh actually it covers a five-year period and uh and it in a it provides the cost of joining uh closing a a dispatch center and joining a regional dispatch district or a regional center a hosa site um that the state would pay the cost of joining that it's an additional savings beyond what is actually in the report there is in that in the report there is a uh a description of the transition award so for three years the town wouldn't really pay anything

080the uh the fourth year they would pay uh 50 of the cost of being a member of a regional center and for the fifth year would be 75 so some of that really fits into that the one-time cost the other is really the the cost of actually building out the center which they pay for that through development grants okay great thank you and john i just have one more question yeah um uh so i i think in implied in this and i just wanted to to clarify that uh between acton and concord the the the two towns preferred mutual aid would be to the other town right because i i've seen i i saw an incident once where a littleton officer responded to a traffic accident in acting it must have been during a you

081know a heavy you know a busy time but i presume um after this regional dispatch gets in place that you know the these two towns would respond uh preferred uh in a mutual aid way than before we brought in other towns is that the case or how would how would that work i think a chief judge touched on this a little bit in his remarks would the dispatch change uh the way we do mutual aid uh otherwise chiefs so i who's taking that one i can chime in i think uh what chief judge was talking about uh david was in the dispatch center itself not necessarily how police and fire departments operate or ask for mutual aid right now uh conquered and act and do collaborate a lot with mutual aid but that's not inclusive

082of that town we typically go nearest nearest uh station or nearest town to the incident that's happening out there so it's not always going to be conquered and that's not the intent of this uh this program it's really to to get the dispatch centers working together um better than the fire department or the police departments yeah thank you my apologies for for the confusion no no no no that's right i decided to go ahead and ask the question thank you some other other comments questions just to follow up on that um you know our existing psf it's a little scary to think that we were designing this 20 years ago it looks like a brand new building and uh i'm sure a lot of the technology is getting pretty dated at this point and there's

083got to be a lot of upgrades so this is a a great time to do it uh when i was on the building committee with uh chief widmeyer and especially with the lieutenant palmer they ran a lot of different scenarios about eventually combining dispatch with other communities and a lot of forethought was done some you know ward gaming if you will was done looking at some scenarios in concord and how acting could help out and vice versa so this goes back many years uh even to the point of when we looked at the uh designing the uh the eoc that auditorium shower at the front of the public safety building that was always looked as being sort of a regional command center if things got really bad so you know this is just a continuation

084of thoughts that people have had for a lot of time a lot of years and uh i i think it's great you know the uh what we ran into 20 years ago was unfortunately a lot of you know what i call sandbox thinking and uh now i'm glad that a lot of that has ended and i i think it's a great idea all in favor of it good jim um so one thing i'd love to understand more about is what are the future turnback points if things don't turn out you know looking as good after we get more deeper into the analysis um so i i think i've heard you mention town meetings so both you know both towns would have to have a town meeting so that's obviously a point of a potential point

085of turn back um the um but i wonder about you know other things that might come up i i know that um you know there's a whole bunch of uh union and personnel issues that you're gonna have to work through um and um you know and i'm glad we're not trying to work those out in public here because i know those are complicated um but i'm wondering if there are there are other points where you know we would either say oh this isn't working let's turn back or yeah so i'm just curious you know what what are what are the decision points coming up yeah sure so i i did i apologize i just spoke about the tom eating vote and actually the vote to create a district i'm like i said that out loud

086i thought wait a minute i think it's i think it's a vote of the of the select board and it is a it's chapter 500 of the acts um that is real that is really the legislative authority uh for creating a district which is something that you know to dean's comment you know the the legislature really made it a lot easier to do these in 2014 and then the state really got serious about incentivizing it using cell phone surcharges instead of fighting for general revenue um so the the basis as tom laid out the state has an aspirational schedule of uh grant approval and notification that is they say june um i've gotten letters in late october with our notification in the past so sometimes things do slide a little bit it is a very

087competitive program but really until you execute the district agreement um you're really not obligated and every district agreement and certainly the one that that would be developed in this case if we did get to that point would have um out clauses if you will so a community uh i can tell you that the district agreement for westcom which i i had uh you know a hand in preparing um you know had clauses for if the community wanted to be if a community failed to fail to fulfill its obligations i had to get rid of them but also the community wanted to change its mind so to speak and really it's just it's really just the intent is not to find a community forever but to just make sure they give enough notification um you know

088for um towns to plan around for the district to plan around you know offsetting that loss and then also potentially compensate the district for contributions that were received you know as a result of being a part of the district so um there's never a it's not etched in stone it's it's a it's an agreement between communities that can be modified over time so it's um but to get the to get the next round of grant funding after you get your award um once you get your award letter then you have to execute a district agreement and so then that would be and then when you get the development grant funding um so between now and then uh i think we want to have those conversations and we have and i don't know i'm stepping all

089the way john's toes here but i know we've been talking to uh as a group we've been talking to both the conquer dispatchers and the active dispatchers which are represented by the same union and that conversation is going to continue great thanks any other comments from board members just one last sure um uh what's the point or perhaps we've already passed it where we um we look at the various uh collections of communities that could be a part of this arrangement and decide that oh yeah no this is the right size is concord plus act have we already gone through and and eliminated the possibility of working with other towns i i think i think that we have at this point of where we are i think we've you know at the way that this

090has come together and the similarities that we've identified and the opportunity that exists between the two of us we really want to proceed and create a two-town district uh and work out everything that needs to be worked out um and we think given the uh support that we have from the team here tonight and uh the support that we expect to uh continue to build um with the employees and we're gonna work hard to keep them involved in the process we think it makes sense to do it with just the two of us i think the state would want us to have you know 10 pounds in it but that's not what we we want to um we want to do this right and we want to do this for two towns and if at

091some point in the future the two towns say maybe we should bring someone else in the mix then we can have that conversation but but we hope to not have it right now uh this is my big way to answer that do that work with you stephen yeah john i would agree with that it's if it doesn't work for the two of us it certainly isn't going to work for more communities and so it's really important that we get it done right for the two communities and like john said can't predict what the future future's going to hold but it's important right now to make sure we can get this to work i completely agree with what you said so what you would like us to do is to say uh it's a go and

092proceed to the the next the next phase of the the project yeah so from particularly speaking that there isn't a vote necessary tonight i think if as long as there's a consensus from the board that you're comfortable with be moving forward there will be a need for the board to take a vote on a governance agreement and other things related to that probably this summer i would think or maybe maybe leading up to that so that's sort of what we're here tonight and just to get any feedback from the board tonight and anyone else that um provides feedback so that we're continuing to have an inclusion mr sure did you want to take public feedback yes i would yes should i go ahead and give people please do yes before that sorry i do want

093to report that the did congressword the consensus was to submit the letter of attestation before the grant application as well it was called it was submitted a letter of i'm sorry steve yeah what john is is suggesting uh okay happened earlier and we did there was consensus to you know kind of move forward the next steps bearing in mind the important conversations that need to take place okay so david let's take uh public comments please join harper please state your stream i'm sorry go ahead yeah please go ahead and join oh um i still have a question going back to the question of the turnback point um i've asked that question before too and the answer is still not clear to me that um what exactly it is that uh we're moving forward with right

094now and um and that you're sort of all agreeing to and um how far of a commitment that brings uh the two towns into and at what point is there a point after that where you could still say you know where uh we're not committing to this so i'll try first but basically we want to put in this great application next week to keep the process moving and then we're going to do a lot of work um amongst ourselves with the team and uh with with um with the employees uh such as yourself to to make sure that we're moving in a direction and and putting together a program that is something that the community can support and then when we have to come to the point where uh if we are successful grant award

095then um we would have to have a formal agreement between the two towns before we can spend any of that money and so if for some reason the boards don't uh we don't have a formal agreement at that point we would then i guess walk away from the project at that point um as steven mentioned points do and the towns do execute a governance agreement within that agreement there would be language to leave under certain conditions but those could be developed as part of i guess my confusion comes from you're applying for a grant um and the awards are going to be given this summer but before you can spend the money you have to enter into an agreement a district agreement correct am i misunderstanding that that's my understanding tom is there more clarity

096you can provide to this question okay so i just so if you're you're you're you're applying for a grant but then you have to enter in into an agreement before you can spend the money from that grant once you spend the money from that grant it's binding so you're john yeah actually uh um joanna when they submit the grant this is it does require a letter of attestation uh it doesn't lock in either town it's a commitment on the part of the town managers you know that they have been working with the police chiefs and the fire chiefs and and regarding the development of a regional center now it is a you know it does go through a uh a review review board at state911 um and that um once they make an award you

097cannot spend the money until there's a governance agreement so that a community is really committed at that time to um to the project because they're in in essence investing a great deal of money into all the development of all of the wrecks so it's really uh they they want to make sure that the towns are very committed to the to the process of the development of the regional center so um i mean i suspect if they make an award in in may um i should say in june um you know it's it's really incumbent upon you know the towns to uh to uh to submit their governance agreement very shortly thereafter okay i understand that i guess my the question in my mind still remains that we keep hearing that we don't have a lot

098of specific answers because those answers will be brought about in this next phase but what i'm also hearing is essentially we're going into the next phase without any concrete answers and um but before we can get those answers we have to commit to doing this you're committing to something without all of sort of all your ducks in a row and all the information that you need to know whether or not it's going to actually be a good idea to move forward your tongue steve yeah i know you've done this before yeah i know joe and joann's is is sort of right but that's where we are that's what happens after a feasibility study um and that's the place we're at we finished the feasibility study it shows that's feasible i agree with that assessment and

099um there are aspects to the next phase you know the next phase starts when we move forward and submit the grant application and begin the planning process there are aspects to this planning process that are i don't want to say no cost but it's really this team working together on certain things that we can control and information we can generate on our own including um you know working with employees on um you know structuring labor issues and things like that and then there's also the development of a governance agreement which again is a discussion between two towns and those are all the things we're going to spend the next few months working on when we get the grant award it then turns to um equipment upgrades you know technology integration there's going to be some

100consultancy that we're going to need to help us do all of that it's very we yeah i can say this wescom did a bad job on that part early on and we ended up having it took a lot longer and so that's something that i think lesson learned will be a front-end part of this but that's what that the development grant is really about the equipment the technology and a lot of the other things discussions about what's it going to look like from an employee standpoint those are the ones that we that we control and that we can have in the meantime and so joanne is right it's it's when you say what's the next phase the next phase of the discussion starts now the next phase of the grant and the development of the

101wreck uh pursuant to the grant is um you know after the governance agreement i've you know uh i've never run a business or a town but i've never known of one that would enter into a contract of this magnitude um without knowing sort of completely what they're getting into and it sounds to me like that's what's happening that's the way the state has designed it is that you're you're being forced to a commitment to follow through before they'll give you the funding to find out whether or not it's actually a good idea to follow through for other comments or jim um well i see there are a couple more hands up but just a a short statement um if we were taking a vote um i think i would and i understand we're not going

102to take a formal vote if we were i would be abstaining uh i i have some intuition that um there's i'm missing something here and this so this just may be a matter of my needing to dive deeper into the details and understand it which i know i'm not going to do tonight and if the rest of the board wants to go ahead i want to i don't want to slow that process down but i i did want to say that um i i just i have a sense either of an ease or a uh an intuition that i'm missing some important aspect about this so just just just so it said david are there other comments two more people with hands up please yes user please go ahead hi uh this is tara frederick's

103calling from west acton and john thank you for that nice um oh to uh wayne um i would like to i have two different questions that are may or may not be related so my first one will depend on all the rest of them and the question is why wouldn't we look at the proposed governance structure before doing anything else that's my first question and i do have a couple follow-up depending on the answer to this does everybody want to answer the first question steve oh let me go first please okay john if we have consensus tonight which i feel like we almost do um uh or we do i believe and uh we would get started right away on trying to understand what the governance agreement would look like we wouldn't start the process

104of developing a governance agreement after we got notified by the grant award and in within a governor's agreement and i guess i would admit that i haven't done one yet but i would imagine that it outlines several of the conditions of each town's participation and how a transition would occur from the current state of operations to the proposed new state of operations and i would expect a lot of stuff to be laid out within that and we wouldn't be able to develop that without talking amongst ourselves and with the employees and relying on best practices and learning from mistakes that other rccs have made in other parts of the state and looking at successes that others districts have found in other parts of the state so i think if we apply for the grant next

105week that work would get started right away to look at all those things and start shaping that up so that if we are successful with the grant award uh we'd be ready to start talking about this governance agreement so may i continue john please please so i think what i'm hearing is that you're asking for permission to go get a grant that will pay for you to develop and propose a governance structure no i'm sorry if i wasn't clear did someone try that and try to answer better steve yeah i think you know tara junior point if if the grant deadline we don't set the grand deadline for one and i think you know that um but if the grant deadline was in july then i think based on the outcome of the feasibility study

106we would do exactly what you suggest but the state has set the grant deadline for march 4th which means we have to go through this process and apply for the grant and concurrently work on all these other things that you identify and so that's really the driver of the timeline um and so that by all the things you thought you are talking about are going to continue well i guess my question is is are you by submitting the grant application are you then committing to a governance structure that we haven't seen yet not by submitting the grant application no you're just committing to moving forward to the through the process of developing one and you know it's not i guess i don't want to say there's a measure of faith in doing this you know

107jim's your point as you see i guess i'm probably the only one that doesn't have a high level of uncertainty about what comes next and that's completely understandable um but that's why i have absolute faith in the two communities ability to do this especially with the leadership structure that that certainly the acting has and sort of you know you know being taking the initiative of this and coming to conquer to say what do you guys think um so there is you're you're you're building it from scratch using parts that already exist uh elsewhere in the commonwealth if that makes sense and so that's really the next step is okay one of those best practice pieces we can put together for our version of a regional dispatch okay well i still don't understand what we the

108town will be committing to and i urge you to not commit to anything i don't think that we need to do this this year uh but uh my last comment or concern is what about control policy regarding police activity for example we went through a great deal of trouble to create a due process for undocumented immigrants um otherwise known as sanctuary town and um under such a regional dispatch center if would conquered police be dispatched to acton then have to obey act in local policy regarding undocumented immigrants or how would that work were you creating a whole other governance structure that then we would have to that the board selectmen would not be in control of um the policy of the police and there would be some regional governance group that then we have to

109go convince a layer of other government government so that's a good question thank you no the police and fire operations of both communities would operate exactly as they do now this would simply be the public safety communications and dispatching uh which would be consolidated and um it wouldn't impact how closing fire do their work okay so if a concord cop was um dispatched to an act in residence they would have to obey act and local policy and bylaws well we're not regionalizing police and fire we're just regionalizing um the people that are the first first responders the ones that answer the phone when you call and put you in the right uh to get people to your house uh or wherever and that would still work the same in both communities uh we wouldn't you

110know mutual aid exists and is used throughout the area uh but it wouldn't change that i would we'll you know acting officers would respond to ag and conquer officers and respond to concrete unless there was a need for mutual aid but it wouldn't be automatic just because of our his batches working together okay thank you uh anyone else david yes several more charlie cadillac please go ahead hi can you hear me yes troy good i have a question a couple of quick comments the question is would this be creating a separate legal district similar to the school district yes okay that ties into some of the questions on the governments my quick comments are to highly encourage you to make this more known to the general population because although the six of you sitting here

111are in full agreement that's not necessarily true of the general population dean will remember there was some discussion of regionalizing with another neighboring town back 20 years ago and they had a rather parochial response to that you know we want our own dispatch center the problem with a separate district which doesn't have to exist in every one but does exist with a school one it's it's almost impossible to unwind unless you make some very very precise uh procedures for how to do that that could be a problem so i would again highly encourage you to make this more known and solicit public response to it before we go too far down although i happen to think it's a good idea thank you charlie yeah uh fan arsenal please go ahead muting hi all uh fran

112arsenal west acton i was curious why our sister towns aren't included which would be box burling and carlisle were they asked or one step at a time uh stephen or john please good question uh thank you um i think we we looked at the similarities of the two communities um although they may not be considered our sister community i think there are a lot of uh community uh things that are similar about the size and scope of work and the services we provide um chief boro is the chief heart is there any further um thought on on how we picked concord for this uh for this team team over the past few years um chief woodmay has reached around two other communities to try to try to regionalize um i think voxpro was the one

113you were referring to 20 years ago sounded like it got pretty far in the process and then it dropped off at the last minute um in the past couple of years i've mentioned to other communities if there was any interest and joe was the first one that said yes i'm interested thanks richard keller here please go ahead hi thank you for letting me speak um i live at 46 rooster lane south acton i from one the previous discussion several a couple of questions back about the grant i think and tell me if this i got this correct you are you're going to apply for a grant to do studies and movies feasibility study like you would for a new building and there's no the only commitment is that you're going to proceed to do that

114and then when it's done you can do whatever you want to do go ahead drop it whatever is that correct we actually are we just completed the feasibility study we received the grant we've completed the feasibility study and now we're talking about the next steps but it's it's one more step and you get you're getting grant money so there's no no financial impact to the town and there's no commitment beyond that other than to to do the study is that right well for the study whatever it is we just completed right we could we could both walk away right now and move on with our lives but i think um the grant that we're putting in for next week is a development grant in the purpose of development grant is to start to build out

115um what what a regional center would look like and um start investing in in components of that so that is more of a commitment so as we mentioned earlier we don't need to commit to concord or this district by march 4th when we're submitting the grant but if we're successful in getting an award once we receive that letter uh we aren't able to actually utilize it in that funding until we have reached an agreement with concord on a for the governance structure that we both agree to and so at that point whether it's the day after we get the grant award or six weeks later or whatever however long it takes is when we would be sort of at a point where uh we we can't spend any of that money until we have a

116commitment between the two communities so you would have to come back to the board then to get permission to go make that agreement and then proceed further right each select board would have to approve yes thank you thank you uh mr chair julianne harper would like to speak again tomorrow sure of course all right joanne please go ahead hi there um i just wanted to respond something a gentleman earlier said uh relating this district to the school district and um how difficult it would be to uh unwind i think is the phrase that he used it's um in this case pretty much impossible once you enter into iraq um there are exit clauses as mr crane stated uh that are inherent in that agreement but the cost of of removing yourself from a wreck and

117creating a new standalone call center is cost prohibitive people other towns have tried it they've they've been dissatisfied with being in the wreck and then tried to withdraw but when you leave the game you don't get to take your toys with you but they invest a lot of money into creating a wreck and buying all of the equipment the radios the computers all of the software the office equipment everything that's involved in setting up a wreck um they don't just hand it to you on the way out the door you're then starting from scratch from square one from like ground zero um to recreate your own standalone rec center i mean sorry call center and um i would like to point out that at that point um the state would have possession of the space

118that is currently the town of akron's call center and i'm not sure what how that would look if they get that space or you'd have to go look for your own space um i just know that these are uh actual events that have occurred in other towns that have entered into rec agreement so yes there's a there's an exit clause but the the logistics and the cost of exiting make it cost prohibitive so once you're involved um there really is no exit and i also want to address um the idea this idea of there being more staff to handle calls we're talking about two towns joining together their call centers and um so and they are very similar in terms of population and call volume so essentially you're talking about your dispatch center handling double

119the call volume of what it's handling now without double the staff um i don't want to get into it too much because not everybody has seen that study but um but we're not talking about having a flood of staff in there to handle extra calls we're talking about um uh three people working in the call center at a time to handle the calls uh the entire call volume of two towns and also the very important consideration that the dispatchers that you have now um the majority of them have been working there for a decade or more um some of them you know 15 or more years and um they are very familiar with the pulse of the town of acton uh there's uh the familiarity with the town is really difficult to explain to somebody

120but i i can only equate it with if you've ever moved to a new town and you know how long it takes to sort of get familiar with the town with the hot spots and the parts that you uh um the neighborhoods and the feel of the town it's very similar when you're a dispatcher and you have to learn the geography of the town and all of the unique features of the town and the different neighborhoods and the different businesses and the layout of the town and um having to teach that to an entire body of new staff you know it's it's difficult teaching that um tribal knowledge when we hire one person you know and the rest of us can teach that person as they go about what's important for them to know you're

121talking about merging two staffs and essentially having a call center that is half staffed by people who are unfamiliar with your town and that's um something that that we as dispatchers i am a dispatcher in acton and it's something that we as dispatchers are very concerned about regarding service to the community we know that we provide excellent service to the community we've gotten a lot of feedback from the community about um about the the compassionate response that they get when they call us and we take a lot of pride in that and we don't want to be turned into automatons who are responding to the basic to the lowest common denominator you know where we're relying on computers to do our job for us um we want to be able to take the call and

122be a human on the end of the phone not just a call taker that is you know looking at a computer and being unresponsive would either of the managers or any of the chiefs wish to respond to ms harpin's comments i would respond to one general comment um about the state taking town of acting's property um you know the district would be a tenant and this is how it worked in westcom the district was a tenant of the city of chicopee because it was located in chicopee police department we had a lease with the city and so if it failed we would just the district would work it out through the lease um i think we joined us and was i have great respect for the dispatchers of conqueror enact and it's a very very

123tough job um and so i don't want to make it seem and i think i think john and i have from the very beginning committed to try and make this process as inclusive for the dispatchers as it possibly can be but there is one dispatch center um and because we're uh in the public meeting i don't want to name names but there's one dispatch center that is the cautionary tale for all of them and so we may hear a lot about the on the about the lack of success or the trouble that that that jim that germinated from that one dispatch center that really worked out pretty terribly it's on the north shore um and so there are many others who have opened successfully and all i can offer to you as an anecdote and

124i don't want this to suggest this is our goal here i think we've been clear we wanted to build a first class two-town wreck but west com opened as a two-town wreck and i think within the first year they added you know three or four more towns which was a sign to me that other towns recognize that hey that's something that we want to be a part of not something that we don't think is is is viable uh you know and that's that's just a results-based analysis of it and like i said i i wasn't there for the addition of those communities but i knew that we were building something that was going to be attractive to the towns and um that just that to me is more a proof of concept than a goal

125for us and um if i may i would also agree that i you know i completely agree with joanne uh and i'm proud of our of our communications uh operations that we have here in acton and uh from what i've learned of concord i think they have a lot to be proud of too um i think that the concerns that are being raised are are very understandable and reasonable and i think you know if if my position were being talked about in this way i would probably have similar concerns and i think that is why uh from the very beginning we've been uh reaching out to union leadership like joanne and and other members of the of the local union to make sure that we have input and we'll continue to do that and we've

126committed that they would have a seat at the table um as we move forward to make sure that what we're doing and what we're thinking and what we're planning makes sense not just from us that are um you know leading the compartments or or the organization but people are actually in the seats doing the work and yeah i know i i i think it's very i'm very proud of what julian said about wanting to have a voice and not not follow script and and you know i think i've heard a lot of great feedback about our um communications officers we get emails and letters uh pretty often about what people in those seats have done to to help people on their worst days and you know they get calls they don't you know they got

127calls from people pretty much on their worst days and their worst moments and they're in charge of making sure that uh they can calmly uh help them and get services to them as needed and i know they could do a great job with it and i think i mean if any two towns and if any one group of people can can successfully join forces and and make an even better outcome i think it's our team i mean i think there may be other operations and groups of folks out there that have tried this that may not have been successful but i'm pretty confident that with the people that we have here with the people like joanne and other members of the dispatch department involved i'm i'm very confident that we can do this successfully so

128and that and we totally understand concerns from dispatchers and communications employees we have i think many of them are on the on the meeting here tonight which is which is great to see we did invite folks to to watch uh so i'm glad that they're here but just know that those issues are are a big part of what we're going to be working out um if we move forward to john and steven do you anticipate retaining um all dispatchers in both towns under the new plan yeah that'll be a goal yeah uh john history and in the research that that we did in most in most cases uh the feedback we got from regional from exit from reach of the staff centers was all the all the existing dispatchers who wanted a job in the

129district could get one um not everyone made the switch but um it was structured so everyone could where did they go if they they seek a job in another place if they didn't want to remain yeah i mean i know um all i can do the dispatchers i know the best of the five longmeadow dispatchers so i hate to be anecdotal but um some of them just used it as a an opportunity for a career change somewhere you know near enough to retirement where they didn't really want to get into a new adventure um i think one or two came over and um you know just i don't know if they're still there or not but um you know every it was all a very individual choice but we we you know we built it

130so they could come over and have essentially have the same you know compensation benefits plans the whole thing it would be a seamless transition and so that opportunity was there and then it was up to them whether or not they wanted to come over so when we we talk about um retaining um everyone and there was a comment that the the shift would be just three people well it's it's three people plus a supervisor oh okay but didn't but don't know we have now what three people plus a supervisor john what do we have now gene can you break it down for us we have two dispatchers on each shift john okay it's avocado so um okay so so when we would go to a um a joint dispatch how many would we have is

131it three plus a supervisor we'd still have to finalize that um in tom's study he looked at a staffing proposal but that doesn't lock us into a final decision that's something for us to consider and one of the proposals he had was um three dispatchers and a supervisor on on most days and early night shifts so instead of having two and two you'd have basically four three dispatchers plus a supervisor okay that's good thank you any further comments just one more handbrake christopher recipes go ahead [Music] hi uh good evening um so my name is chris hurst i am a part-time dispatcher and acton um i also as mr crane stated i actually worked for that regional center that he was uh talking about i won't say the name uh for this purpose you can

132google it that's on the north shore um and i work currently uh short acting part-time i can speak to working at the regional center and what the environment is like at a regional center and how different communities for those five communities we dispatched for didn't really have too much of a say on what was going on as far as the outcome so when they would end up calling the dispatch center you would get somebody who may or may not know your specific community so whereas if you were to call acton right now you would get somebody who moves after if you call concrete you would get somebody who knows congress the two towns are very similar but at the same time they are also very different concrete has an extremely larger part of route two

133um they have two jails if you will from the state the one's the medium facility one's the farm and then they have hanscom air force base that they're responsible for as well with that being said there's been other surrounding towns such as chelmsford that had a feasibility study similar to this back in 2017 2018 if my years are correct that when they went to their select board it got rejected for regionalization for a few different reasons massachusetts has 351 cities and towns and in 2008 the state had 267 different 911 dispatch sites as of january of 2020 those 247 dispatch sites so that 20 um plus difference there in the 12 years has been towns regionalizing and so on and so forth where i currently live we just became a regional center with tewksbury and

134drake and i will tell you that the trying to learn the town as far as being on the other end of the phone of a town that you're not very familiar with or different landmarks for instance can be very difficult when i ended up calling in regards to a emergency to that center they had no idea what i was talking about whereas unless you were from that town um you really wouldn't know so i'm also just trying to figure out one would the supervisor be on every single shift it would be [Music] two people on a day plus a supervisor two people underneath plus a supervisor and then two people on just the midnights because as of right now i believe concord has one dispatcher on a midnight as act and has two um and

135according to the study if i read correctly that number would drop down to it would only instead of three it would be just down to two um so that's just my main question that i have here you're going to end up losing your officer and firefighter working relationships if you will knowing their what they do and how they do different things what they how they talk on the radio um and i will give you i can give you an exact example of an instant that i knew one of an officer that got into trouble in the middle of the snowstorm and it was just one thing that i heard over the radio that didn't sit with him and knowing that specific officer um it you know sounded off as in hey we need to get

136him some help uh where he was rolling around with somebody in the middle of a snowstorm so there's definitely pros to the regional center don't get me wrong but i believe that there's more cons than pros thank you christopher are there any other citizen comments david no that's it okay are there any further comments from board members or questions so um but by consensus by uh not of the header thumbs up do we uh give john and the chiefs the go ahead to move to the next phase okay that looks unanimous okay well well done people go forward thank you for all the feedback uh thank you and for members of the public and thank you for the concord team for joining us tonight thank you thank you good night thank you thank you thank

137you okay do we need anybody to break or anything plow ahead okay so um the next would be to designate uh rj gray junior high school as a single clothing location for all precincts okay uh john do any any ex any comments from no just that it worked out pretty well um for the last few elections and we would like to do it again okay um david yeah i was just wondering is this um a permanent change or just for this year this chain this vote uh that we're asking you to take would be for this year not not otherwise and we'd have to if we want to do it again next time we'd ask you again so would this be for the the town election on march 30th and the the special election on

138on june 29th or just the i believe for the town election but i'm sure people would want the same for the june one but we could always come back uh if after she lets us know okay so uh are we doing this for so we're clear you know the motion would be to designate rj greater single folding location for all precincts for the march 30 town election and the june 29 special election second okay okay okay or john would you just move the motion and then david seconds five moves okay and then david's second second okay if there's any further discussion then uh david if you'd call the role please uh mr snyder grant hi miss gardner all right mr charter aye mr benson i and i also say aye okay so the next matter

139was from the um from achc to approve the acting community housing corporation's request for proposed spending for housing needs is janet adachi here or are you going to handle the job janet is on hold on a second okay good evening everyone i was hoping to avoid having to talk no but as long as you don't you can't see me because i'm wearing my bathroom um yeah it i don't know if you want me to explain what this is i think the the memo that i submitted is pretty self-explanatory we do have access to gift funds and the one that we're proposing to use was originally part of i guess a 100 000 payment that came from new view in lieu of one affordable unit there is an affordable unit i understand there but it doesn't

140qualify for inclusion on the subsidized housing inventory because it because of the membership selection process it would have it just was would be adding additional conditions so it doesn't qualify for inclusion on the shi but it is considered an affordable unit but um the thought is that in these times when there are people who are struggling uh financially and um given the response to the town's sort of short-term program which now has even been extended to provide assistance with rental and mortgage payments for people who qualify basically and sort of in the affordable range the committee thought that it would be good to use this particular fund at least uh because i think our treasurer who is nancy taverner is trying to simplify some of the the accounts we have these little scattered uh sums

141and he thought it would be a good opportunity to kind of provide some further assistance to uh through the community services coordinator for just general um housing related assistance it's a it's a broader usage but the committee has done this before and it's worked pretty well to have the administrative part of it handled through laura ducharme we have our own ability to provide grants but it's a little more cumbersome because we only meet once a month and then it's just a little it's a little more cumbersome for us to deal with with you know making direct grants ourselves because you have to talk about them during meetings and we only meet once a month and uh laura's got the setup so she's accessible uh a lot more than we are so that's that's what this

142is um just just trying to help out we do have funds and um part of my effort and being the new chairman was to try to make sure that even our own committee understood what these funds were and in in the course of planning um our actions for the coming year so while they're there i guess in case you know i thought it would be good for us to to show that we're kind of good citizens um at a time when there's obviously need so are there any questions for janet or comments from board members up to fifteen thousand dollars so the the the motion would be that the um that the selectmen approved the request of the actin community housing uh corporation um to spend up to fifteen thousand dollars from discretionary housing if

143funds for emergency housing needs in acting so is there a second okay okay so no there's no further discussion david if you'd call the role please uh mr snyder grant i just want to say my neighbors that new view are thrilled that this fund is getting used uh ms gardner hi mr charter aye mr benson i and i also say aye thank you very much really appreciate your support and i'm leaving i'm going to sign off now i will continue to listen there's some other things that i will mute myself so um thank you janet so then uh item nine is the economic uh development update john mr chairman this item and the item following this were placeholder items that i put in last week and um it was too close to pull them off

144um but i'd like to do so now uh sorry sorry for that okay so nine the economic development update goes off and 10 discuss acting water districts pilot agreement for solar also go off okay just yeah the solar is you know town meeting authorized us to authorize me to enter into a solar um calorie unit and we were almost there um and i was going to announce the details tonight but uh where we'll be there uh hopefully next week that's the bring this go okay so so item 10 is uh discuss the disposition of free school street john yes this is a topic that's been on the board's agenda several times in the last year uh and we're back and i think we've been pretty interesting um to discuss so as you recall town meeting

145authorized the board to dispose of this uh building and property under the terms and conditions that it seems uh appropriate uh we hit an rfp early uh about a year ago maybe uh we received one response which was for someone to buy it and they didn't really have a good plan for what they were doing so we kind of said that that's not sufficient uh we reissued it again uh adding the idea that someone could potentially use it for affordable housing we've got a pretty compelling proposal from um habitat but i think um from a staff perspective we identified another parcel that we thought would be better suited for what they had proposed uh which would be the 26 carlyle tax possession property and so we're in the process of putting that out uh on

146the on the street to bid so that to give an opportunity to put in for that so here we are now back to through school street we've been approached by someone that has an idea to use that space for creative use not housing it would be sort of a um educational use it's some kind of writing uh workshop uh but anyways it's it's an interesting proposal uh they're interested in in um acquiring the property restoring it um the way the way it looked at at some point uh and then using it for its business or maybe a non-profit um but any event i think it's something that i'd really like the board to have an opportunity to learn more about so i'm just checking in before we do it but we'd like to put another

147rfp out there to give this group an opportunity to put in a bid for it and um maybe it'll work out this time so questions or comments for for john rhianna uh jim um sounds intriguing if vague um and uh sure why not go to the next step of putting out the rfp again and hopefully this group will be able to to move forward with that so we're all good with that yeah i think i think it's great good thank you okay so go further so let's just do the consent items before the kmart um so uh consent item 13 approved meeting minutes january 25 and february 1 2021 14 approve executive session minutes february 1 2021. let's hold the executive session minutes um 15 committee appointment daniel malloy full member economic development committee term

148to expire june 30 2024 um 16 committee appointment uh david code associate member economic development committee trying to expire june 30 2024 uh 17 appointment of pesha cocus associate member to full member commission on disabilities current term to expire 630 2022 um 18 committee appointment neha sarah vaughan associate member diversity equity and inclusion commission term to expire june 2024 um 19 accept uh gift recreation department for fifty dollars from lou and eileen york to be used for constructing a dog park in acting so i have a motion then to approve consent items um 13 and then 15 through 19 inclusive so second second david um um then all uh well i guess i'm sorry david please call the roll old habit that john um uh mr snyder grant hi ms gardner hi miss charter aye

149mr benson i and i also say i uh jim on on item 14 are you asked to be held yeah um i i'd like to uh add i'd like to i'd like to approve these i just want to make sure that we add the little uh clause at the end that says these documents were used you know the standard clause that we have that lists the documents that were used in the meeting just a small administrative piece but i did see that there was an open meeting law ruling on on having that list in executive session minutes even if the documents are not um you know wouldn't wouldn't be produced if people ask for them but it's it's important to list them anyway should we come back with those next time then with the list

150in there i think i think either way either way i'm okay with with with moving to approve them just and just making sure that that little clause gets added before they're released but i i i never it works better for you i think we need to see the list so yeah why don't we we're just meeting next week again so we could clean that up and put it on again okay so we'll let 14 we'll take no action on 14 okay so on uh the last uh uh new business item uh further discussion of of the kmart parcel i had a a short statement um in my uh kmart parcel update statement of january 25 2021 i indicated we received inquiries from several developers one of those developers is coming forward with a proposal for

151the redevelopment of the kmart parcel the lawyer for the developer is a former professional colleague and friend of 45 years to avoid any appearance of a conflict i have decided to step aside as the board's point person on the redevelopment of the k-mart parcel dean charter who is a member of the kelly's corner steering committee will succeed me so let me turn the discussion over now to john um and dean for an update uh thank you uh as as mentioned we have since the discussion about ocean state job lot we have received a few other inquiries from other uh firms that are interested in the site uh we've also had conversations with the real estate brokers uh that are actually listing the site from athletic realty and you know we talked about different things uh

152trying to encourage ways for them to uh try to work on town time related goals in their marketing of the site the properties as you all know owned by stock shop and they have certain um restrictions on what what could go there which is something that's um making it more challenging than normal normally would be for uh real estate sales but that said all all deals have complications um we have a few firms that we think may be coming forward uh to do to put something together uh and we hope that we've asked them i've asked them dean and i have asked them to if they if they're serious that they could come to the board and make a presentation um so we're we're we're talking to a firm about doing that later this month

153so we're going to be back in touch with the board uh when that's scheduled but i'm hoping to do it um hopefully the second meeting in march which i think is the 15th yes that would be the goal um and a lot depends on you know where they are they're not 100 percent sure what uh their plans yet so they want to get everything together and talk to us are there any any comments then okay thank you gloves in ocean street um okay so uh you know that concludes um our agenda we'll meet again um next monday night march 1st for that that would be the first monday in march we will have an executive session beginning it should be at six o'clock um for two matters so do i have a motion to adjourn

154can deserve second second second david okay uh then uh david if you call the roll please about mr snyder grant hmm hi mrs gardner yes i'm mr charter i am mr benson i and i also say i said we're adjourned okay