001and we're we're back in regular session um and i just wanted to say before we take citizen concerns that beginning this evening and through the remainder of my tenure as chair uh town ice tea staff will facilitate citizen concerns and citizen comments during the regular agenda items and then citizen concerns and citizen comments will be limited to three minutes each so um is it uh matt are you on or is it mark to open up with if there are anyone who's there with citizen cops seriously concerns so this is matt frost i believe murphy is signing in right now i'll be helping you with that oh yes i'm here i'll be starting with public comments um if you're ready to take them we do have a few hands raised please begin matt okay first we're
002gonna hear from charlie cadlick charlie you should be able to speak okay am i on yes yes good uh i want to talk about what happened in this past election now back in december december 17th when we had the first zoom bomb incident you the that board of selectmen promptly had a special executive meeting uh issued a statement condemning what happened a hateful incident all very appropriate now let's look at what happened in this election it's pretty obvious that there was an organized sustained effort to discredit john very maliciously misrepresentations were posted on facebook lies personal attacks there was not a single statement by any elected official in acton condemning this now this happened to john this time it can happen to anybody anytime if we allow it to continue this is not much more
003than about the uh controversy about the colonial mascot this is about changing acting having the power to basically destroy what we have and substitute some somebody's fantasy about what a town government should be like if we allow this to continue acting will never be the same it's time to act it's time for people who know what's going on to stop being polite considerate and silent and express their disgust as they do privately with what was done by who it was done by and the lack of official condemnation still time to do that maybe the mortal selectmen will do it that would be a step in the right direction but regardless let's alert everybody to what's going on i will repeat this is much more than a controversy about discontinuing the colonial mascot this is about
004the future of acton and it's time to act thank you uh matt who's is there a are there additional hands up for citizen yes we have quite a few we're gonna go next to a calling user if you could let us know who you are and where you're going from once you get the ability to speak yes yes um so i didn't engage in any attacks i can tell you that um but that said i think it is important to um include more voices but i'm not calling about that i'm calling about the weatherby parcels i'm very excited to see that that might be a potential purchase for the town and i hope that the town figures out how to do that um i think that the cost of more market rate luxury condos is
005high the cost of growth is high the cheaper rate zone and to limit the land clearing for zoning which allows uh basically um useless to the community market rate housing i don't think that meeting market demand is a public necessity or in the public's interest it's a private uh developer profit at the cost of our environment our water without any social um benefit and i urge you to purchase this lot um and uh to direct town staff to come up with a list of solutions to prevent more market rate housing oh we've got to stop this useless waste of the land it's an environmental justice issue right there on route 2a that land will make a great park uh for people that are already crowded not too crowded on route 2a um and it's time
006that we start focusing on giving folks that live in apartments a place to walk to um there's way too few parks associated or reachable by people who live in apartments in boston they have now announced that that every resident can walk to open space within 10-minute walks and they're aiming for five minutes i think that that's a reasonable goal to expect here in acton and uh thank you for any efforts to purchase land thank you thank you jerry okay we're going to hear next from another call-in user same as before if you could identify yourself and let us know where calling from all right you should be good to speak hi my name is daniel gilfix i live in historic south acton and i too was quite this disheartened by the incivility of this past
007election i guess i'm not alone in noticing a trend in in local politics of vilifying candidates treating folks with disrespect attacking based on hearsay and assuming sinister intent the conversations i saw on facebook were felt unjustly harsh and unrelenting numerous players on social media including from our own clergy and school board appear to be inciting anger and hate as part of their own movement against these very issues many appeared to be conflating isolated acts of racism anti-semitism and hate which occur in the very best of communities with rampant systemic problems then condemning everyone with shared blame one such divisive strategy was to accuse anyone who did not agree that there was rampant systemic racism in actin with being racist or insensitive themselves i felt this strategy was clearly and unfairly used against john benson they
008were also misconstruing benign suggestions as ultimatums well-meaning intent as inexcusable ignorance and lack of agreement over the prioritization of these issues with evidence of prejudice and malice i happen to take for granted that those running for office in acton are good people who care about helping our town address various problems and opportunities related to commerce taxes education conservation housing and development and so much more i take issue with those labeling actonians with character flaws simply because they cannot see statistical relevance or propose solutions that certain individuals find offensive and hurtful that is by no means a litmus test for whether someone or someone's proposal is good i've lived in acton for over 25 years far from being a racist town i believe the overwhelming majority of acting citizens are neither racist nor anti-semitic and we
009have created a school system and government that does not tolerate acts of hate but respond quickly in solidarity on rare occasions when they do occur nevertheless i'm concerned that there is a degree of fanaticism gripping the town that's self-defeating it causes polarization intimidates many not to speak out and creates resentment that's pushing good people away if we want to effect if we want effective leadership towards constructive solutions to real problems we need folks to tone down the rhetoric stop making things personal assume positive intent and approach matters with objectivity logic and sound judgment thank you thank you man sorry about that we're next thing here from scott smyres scott you should be able to speak oh thanks thank you scott's meyer central street um several months ago peter light proposed contracting a corporation called visions
010inc to serve as a mediator specific to racial issues and policies some of which we just heard some comments about that were related very recently to this election that just happened they were a focal point at that time a actin citizen called into the board of selectmen meeting and asked for more about this after he had heard about it what is this corporation all about are there other other alternatives and what are the related expenses since then there has been very little or no discussion about visions inc with the school committee or the board of selectmen but now we hear that this is actually planning some meetings in the near future but it's been quite quiet and not exposed to the public what is the status what is the purpose what is the cost and
011are they really non-biased their mission statement says that they're all about diversity equity and inclusion so how can we expect them to come in and not find any problems with diversity equity or inclusion that is indeed their specialty and how much time will it take the town's staff indirect costs that is you know we pay our town staff to do work for the town not to be working on things that the town did not approve thank you thank you scott okay next we're going to hear from anthony and you should be able to speak hi can you guys hear me oh well hold on um okay um i thank you um i wanted to address something that you guys might think is not appropriate for this session but can i bring it up because it
012is appropriate to the town of actin thank you very much so um i wanted to recover an innocent bystander's rights of unequal representation um and it i've been here going on 21 years i've lived here since 2000 i respect the board of selectmen the town manager the town hall everything um so this regards to 126 parker street i'm sorry it might just be just one thing but it's parker's crossing and um uh it's a it's a it's a it's a it's a deprived majority member being unlawfully badgered bulldozed by a particular member of the protected class and um may i just say it please or i'm everybody's talking about racism but this is related i wish everybody would treat each other well everybody but can i just say it so um i'm sorry please say
013it i'm sorry thanks so i am introducing if you don't mind of course this is acting but i'm introducing it nationwide and and but i it just takes a lot a lot a lot of energy and i'm just trying to get a job so but i'm just trying to push for april as heterosexuals month please excuse me for saying that but i mean but i feel that it should be respected recognized and validated and this person um that that's it and and so if the two one to recover an innocent bystander's rights of unequal representation and two for april heterosexuals months for acting and all over massachusetts and that's it thank you and this it's just i just witnessed inappropriate unacceptable outrageous reprehensible behavior okay that's it okay just like contemptuous combative um cantankerous behavior
014and uh it happens in the parking lot and then the police we love our police that the chief uh rich rich mr burrows rich burroughs um they're fantastic but um i think i i observe that they have they show a bias towards this group and and i'll just say one more thing and i'll end with this um a manager told me oh yeah the in the closet lgbs are are are the worst i i don't think so i think they're all i i i respect them but peop other people think that i don't but i do and then i'll just end with like the in the he said that in the in the closet lgbts caused trouble for the straights and i i just hope everybody and you are out of time okay thank you
015man i'm sorry thank you um matt next please next up we're going to hear from linda vieira linda please go ahead uh linda fierro um diligent woods i was part of john's opponent's campaign team and i would like to set the record straight we ran a pure and a positive campaign and a platform of moving acting forward fran and her team including myself did not participate in any negative campaigning at all whatever was posted on facebook or any other place had nothing to do with fran or her campaign team thank you thank you linda all right next up is ben lieberman then you should be able to speak hi ben littleman massachusetts avenue in west acton so the recent election pretty clearly showed extreme hyper polarization at the local level and i would just ask
016that acting residents remember in the future that no matter how fun it may be in the spur of the moment to get that little jolt of energy from a facebook post with a lot of likes that the people you're talking about are your neighbors and moreover we're all going to probably hopefully see each other soon with masks off it's a lot easier i think to go after people if you don't expect to really see them and i would also ask that local leaders and i mean that broadly uh look at themselves and ask whether they see themselves as bystanders or as leaders so it's you know a bystander might say this has nothing to do with me i can't do anything about it i won't speak out so that's my my question for local leaders
017broadly considered thank you very much thank you ben all right we have two more so far corn hog seth you should be able to speak hi my name is karen hogs i live on seminole road i had a question pertaining to the visions thing as well um given that there are meetings coming up what does what's publicly available about it do we know who's going to be participating are the meetings going to be open to the public what do we know about them all right john uh thank you um i was gonna touch on this in my opening remarks um i can wait then okay does that cover what you have to uh ask uh corinne um well yeah i have one other comment actually related to um a comment that was just made about
018the so-called positive campaign run by this arsenal a leader would have put a stop to that that's all i'll have to say about that thank you thank you and is there anyone else we have one more from raya kobe ray you should be able to speak thank you um i actually don't know where to start this is directed to this select board i hope you are listening i've lived in town for 36 years and i don't think i've ever been as shaken as i am right now first of all i want to thank john benson for his service to this town i think john is honorable i think he has served the town in an exemplary way and i think that needs to be on the record this board needs to take a stand as
019to what's going on in town people are being bullied people are being creating politically correctly i have friends by now that they say they are afraid to speak this is wrong this is bad for the town and is being done in the interest of some greater good which is absolutely a facade that people are hiding behind i am trembling right now this is a town that i love and this is turning into a very divisive hateful town someone just said and this is not about who won or lost let me emphasize that but i want to strongly say to try to distance because oh it wasn't part of my campaign etc a leader would have put a stop to this and said this is wrong we're quick to talk about racial justice and say it's
020wrong this is more core to our town right now if we don't speak up and say it's wrong shame on us and shame on this board and i plan on actually coming back to the board with a more concrete resolution because if we can't speak up and because people are engaging in behavior that they are condemning but they're saying it's okay because they're on the right side of god and that is scary and i'm actually heartened that a number of people spoke up tonight i hope this board hears it and i don't want to see it dropped if we're quick to talk about an incident here or there in town or what happened with the colonials this is more important and this is more central what's happening in the town and it's upset a lot
021of people across the whole town so i encourage the board to hear what you heard tonight and to follow up and not let it drop take a stand you have one minute left thank you ray you finished yeah i was gonna say i apologize for being so emotional but this is really upsetting what's going on and i think it's important that the board acknowledge that and not just say oh well passing the board and it's something else this is something similarly different and we better take we better pay attention to the point i was wondering if i should just drop off all boards in town etc because it's getting too vicious and too personal that's it i'm i'm done thank you thank you ray matt is there anyone else who wishes to speak uh that
022does it for citizens concerns okay so um we we have the shares update we we do have a hearing at 7 10 and if we could just move into that hearing and then come back to um chair update manager update remember a minute so um the um the acting board of selectmen will hold a public hearing on april 5 2021 at 7 10 p.m remotely by video conference and call in on the application of nstar electric company dba eversource energy and verizon for a grant of one new poll installation on craig road northerly side approximately 743 feet west of school street acton from a computer enter into the link id actin m a dot gov slash meeting slash telephone dial 646-876-9923 503-918-785 telephone users uh may dials uh star9 to request to speak after joining
023the meeting computer and app users may use the raised hand feature to request to speak so um is mr uh schiffian here from um from eversource um i missed the name of that what was that s-c-h-i-f-o-n-e chris from eversources is here somewhere okay so let's bring chris in there i don't see chris in attendance unless they're one of our dial-in users i can there's a dial up user with their hand up i can promote them and see if that's chris if you would like i'm seeing not in heads so if the dial in user who had their hand up could let us know if you are our guest of honor this is christine cosby okay can you hear me okay thank you um yes this is christine crosby from eversource energy and um we are
024requesting permission to install a new poll over 5a out of craig road in acton and the purpose of the new poll would be to provide a new service for a solar project located at number 7 craig road okay um are there any questions or comments from board members uh jim just enthusiastic support for this idea uh dean no okay are there uh any comments from uh the public no one hand has gone up okay sure please tara you should be able to speak hi this is tara uh from austin and i'm wondering what's the purpose of this because i'm concerned about too much electronics being near people's bedrooms and i realized that area trump probably doesn't have too many bedrooms but i do want i'm always conscious of what the utilities are up to uh
025can you tell me what the purpose of this is yes um uh the craig road which i believe is an industrial like an industrial area there's a building there um and it's a storage storage building and they are building a solar solar panels a solar project on the building and to to to to provide solar energy and in order to provide the service to that project we have to install a new pole dedicated strictly for this particular project thank you and it's it's in the industrial area right yes it's it's in the industrial area thank you i'm in support in a residential area are there any further comments uh there are no raised hands at this time okay so um john is it uh now before us to um approve the request of eversource for
026the additional poll yes move to approve so it would be to a point of order mr do we have to close the hearing first or is that not required um that's interesting uh john do we close the hearing and take the vote okay nina that would be right okay so is there a uh a motion to close the hearing joan moves two seconds uh dean seconds um david if you call the role please uh mr snyder grant aye ms gardner aye mr charter aye mr benson i uh and i say isolation animals okay now can i move to approve the call yes you're you're approving um uh installing one poll um 217 5a in acton and it's a uh located at number seven craig road okay and is there a second second okay david if
027you please call the role uh mr snyder grant aye ms gardner hi mr charter bye mr benson i and i say aye so that's unanimous as well thank you okay uh thank you miss crosby thank you very much okay good evening i'm sorry i got you a little bit late okay we're back onto regular business uh i'll begin with the chairs update um there will be um a joint uh budget workshop uh tomorrow night with the um uh board of selectmen still and the finance committee beginning at seven o'clock that is a virtual meeting and the um the agenda is posted with together with the link and the public is welcome to join um our next um select board meeting uh will be uh monday april 20 no i'm sorry monday uh april uh 12
028where we will be um reviewing and uh hopefully approving the the town manager's budget and then our first full meeting after that um will be um on the on april 26th so that's where we are meeting wise um i just wanted to say something i'm good um i learned back in high school elections that one person has to win and one person has to lose um but what went on on facebook in the run-up to the march 30th election has no place in local elections we are not politic neither fran or i are politicians looking to build a political career we're both town mothers and town fathers going back serving as a select board member it's a tradition that goes back to the early 1700s okay okay you know you know all for the good
029of the town and what i was particularly upset about where there were elected leaders in this town members of our state uh uh state house bill house and senate delegation who could have spoken up and chose not to um i'm particularly i would particularly upset with state senator jamie eldridge a leader in the massachusetts progressive community for not speaking up there's another election coming up on june 29th there will be a varied field of candidates and no candidate should be subject to the lies the vicious untruths that i was subjected to talk about issues talk about what you're going to do as a selectmen what have you done the last three years what are you going to do the next three years and jamie we had a call last week you called me on thursday
030after the election and i raised this with you about your inaction and i called you a coward and i stand by those words i'm expecting more of you as a leader in this community and i'm not expecting a bill clinton type political calculation of how much i can get away with i want to see you as a true massachusetts profile encourage and that will cause you to go back to the communities that are your political base the racial justice community the social justice community the progressive community and you're going to have to speak to that group of people the evil and obeyers the carol wilson cooks the krishna the amy krishna murphys the mike rothbaum's the leela ramichardons and really have a heart-to-heart talk with them because what they said about me and i'm sure
031prepared to say about other people has no place in local elections and it's incumbent upon you of all people to speak up okay managers report thank you uh members of the select board um just to clarification the meeting tomorrow night starts at 6pm uh we we expect it won't be a long night but we want to get started early just in case um department and division has a very excited to present their operations and their budgets to both the slog board and the finance committee and i look forward to all of your questions tomorrow night the issue or the question of community conversations came up a few times in citizen comments and i was going to address it anyways over the last year there's been a lot of discussion if you remember january of last
032year there was a meeting at the school to talk about an incident that happened at the merriam school and there was hundreds of people in the auditorium and we wanted to talk we wanted to move forward and have community dialogue about the issues surrounding race and then the pandemic happened and a lot of other things happened as you all know the purpose of these two meetings that are going to be happening in the next month are to try to to take a step i don't know if it's a step back but a step sideways and just get some people in a room virtually um that and to try to try to speak and have a conversation uh and and have reached a common understanding there's 21 people that will be participating in it the goals
033are to hear a variety of perspectives on the current state of the community related to diversity and equity to develop some steps that the community can take on to to build forward in a more unified way um and more inclusive for residents and and develop ways to communicate with each other um as some of the comments that preceded me there has been some um challenges with with how we communicate with each other and we think that holding a form like this uh will help put people in the position to be able to hear each other and and talk with each other with regards to the public component of it there is this initial two conversations are not going to be a public meetings they're going to be held in a way that people can can
034speak freely with one another and develops uh trust with one another uh my my intention as part of the group that's helping to organize this is to have this effort lead to a public workshop type discussion with more people and the public at large but we thought it was important to first develop a little bit of trust amongst ourselves before in front of however many people may attend um and you know as a public official it's not that usual for us to meet in that way but in this particular instance we think it's the best format to move forward on for two meetings uh to develop this this common understanding and trust amongst each other and hopefully have a more collaborative and community-wide conversation going forward because someone asked about the cost it's um it's
035around five thousand dollars and um i think those were all the topics on that i wanted to address other items from uh the manager's office we did get this the warrant closed for private articles uh last week we did get three uh one related to the dog park and two related to changing the playing board from appointment to elected uh we've heard from the sponsors on the plane board one that they may want to make some changes to that but that's to be determined so as of right now there are three citizen petitions uh that would be on the warrant i've talked to mark and we're going to connect with the moderator but we're hoping to have a draft outline of more articles for the board to look at at your april 26th so that
036you can start to think about how to handle town meeting this year uh obviously things are uh changing and it's not the situation that we're in last year isn't the same that we're in this year but i personally think having a meeting that's um can be accomplished in one night is something that that we should shoot for as a goal but that's something that the board would have to take on and discuss and so we'll have a draft outline for you at that meeting to start thinking about uh other things there's a hearing i don't have a hearing but a public meeting next i guess it's actually the eighth which is this week it's a virtual forum to on the parallel um corridor the study that we're doing with maynard and people the first two
037meetings were pretty well attended and we encouraged people to check this one out there's information in the municipal monthly or you can see it on our website to get into it i also wanted to mention that we we've received some grants that we're uh pleased to report uh housing choice grant we'll be discussing later in the meeting so i'll save that for there but we just heard earlier this afternoon that we also received the grant for the winter shared streets program for the mass d.o.t to do a new sidewalk on harris street um as you recall that was when we were playing the north african fire station it was brought to our attention that there's a need for a sidewalk there and even more so now that the land on the road is changing so
038we were planning to find ways to fund that through the project budget and other available resources with a 285 000 grant from the state we'll be able to do most of the sidewalk of using that grant which is very exciting corey and chin uh our corey our public works director and trainer our town engineer uh applied for the grant and i've already put it up to bit and we will get started on that uh in weeks and not months which is which is uh very exciting uh the thing i wanted to mention is we're actively pursuing grants and we're tracking them and where we'd like to share that information with the public you can look at all the grants that we've received if you go to actonma.gov grant there's also a link on the town
039manager's website if you're uh looking through there i want to thank acting tv for helping us last week we put together a little video for earth day and i took a lot of effort from a few volunteers and from our partners at acting tv i just want to thank them for that and the mismo monthly uh it was sent out with tax bills this quarter in the tax bill it's only two pages but i want to call your attention to the online version which is like the extended version it's i think seven or eight pages so don't think that uh just because you got it in hard copy that you've seen the whole thing there's at least five more pages of content that you should check out on the website so don't don't forget to
040check that out and i think those are all my comments thanks sure um remember minutes starting with joan jim i'm sorry all right either way um let's say i got a couple things um so i think most of you have met um ed mcmullen the amazing superintendent of minuteman um he's announced his retirement as of june 2022 there's big shoes to fill so he's announced with enough time that the uh that the minutemen can go through a a full search process and uh just wanted to thank him for all you know his work since 2007 uh to really a major revival of the work of minuteman um it's been it's very exciting what's going on there next the acting water district has drilled two new bedrock wells uh in acton center and is now testing
041them as possible additions to our water supply um this is a big deal because in the past the water district has relied entirely on on surface surface surface wells wells near the surface in the in the uh you know the sandy overburden but this is a real bedrock well it's deep well so it's a new direction for the water district to take um along those same lines i wanted to mention that the uh the water resources advisory committee which has been um inactive for the last year is coming together again um they're they're coming together again for the water study of supply and demand over the long term in actin uh that was part of our one of our selection goals to get that process working again between the town and the water district so
042i'm happy to say that that committee has found a way to start meeting again um let's see i guess the last thing um not sure quite sure what to say about the election but i certainly had a lot of thoughts and feelings as people were talking um so let me say a couple things um the first is that because i was not announcing a candidate to support for this election i got calls from both people who are volunteering with john's campaign with fran's campaign and was able to sort of see a lot of of what was going on and uh i wanted to agree that both john and fran were very honorable during the campaign and we're acting you know as putting putting together a positive vision and not talking each other down so i
043will miss i will miss you working with you john and i am looking forward to working with fran i think you're both fine public servants i did [Music] i did see the same kinds of social media comments that people called in here about and i i get that they are upsetting um i guess my i am less upset about them than than the people on the phone and i'm trying to figure out why um i think the first thing is that um you know over the years when when politics happens uh with with this board and other elected bodies supporters can get really intense um you know i remember uh campaigns for the board where um you know old old involvements in uh anti-gay marriage activities were brought up by one candidate and then sometimes
044when we've had fiscal conservatives running for the board there's been all kinds of crazy stories told about you know what they're going to do if they get elected and i i think it's you know it goes in cycles i think there are often times when uh there's an election that people sort of glom onto as representing some issue for them and they get all hit up about it um i i guess i'm not too worried about free speech on facebook um it's it's it's quite a territory out there people say all kinds of things um you know i i would skip reading the comments um it's just gonna happen that way and the other i guess the other thing that's still sitting with me is um i i wish i had seen that same level
045of of outrage and demands to do things uh coming to this board every time there was an anti-semitic incident every time you know somebody was yelled at for being of a certain race when they're in acton i mean there's a lot of nasty stuff that happens in acton and you know i want us to be able to hear uh when those things are happening uh from any perspective so i'm glad that people called in and talked about how upset they were about um you know people being mean and untruthful uh on facebook um and i think there's also other things going on in acting too that deserve call outs um i think that's all i have to say um you know i was really unsettled by the i was not expecting john to lose because
046he's run a number of campaigns both for himself and for other people he's a very good campaigner so what i take from that is is not that there was some evil conspiracy against him but that um there was a there was a good attempt to get a good good large turnout um and that's you know so like john was saying there were more there were more votes for the other for the other person and that's what happens in a democracy thanks thank you jim jones yes aside from the issues that have been raised i'd like to compliment eva and her pal gail and especially austin who walked so many voters to the different precincts he's my favorite election worker they do an excellent job and keep good humor throughout i've been a selectman now this
047is my 14th year i think so i have served with a variety of people over the years and john has dedicated his retirement life to this job and he's done an excellent job and i've been privileged to work with him over the last three years so thank you for your service john john thank you and thank you for yours together um david uh no comments from me today john thank you dean yeah i uh just like to follow up with some of the comments that came in this this evening and and first off to say to you john you know you we we've been acquainted for well over 40 years and and i've always found you to be a an honest and honorable person and i will admit to the fact that i try to
048stay off facebook as much as i can and most of the vitriol and frankly just plain garbage that ended up there was something that i was not aware of until just the very end and there's certainly no place for it and john i've been privileged to work with you and hope to work with you again in the future in some capacity um you know as far as the tenor of the uh of the conversation i certainly there's been some very passionate campaigns that i can think of in the years that i've lived in town which is all of them so far um the uh but i i think the the combination of you know the national politics the national situation the pandemic when everybody is is on edge um and and this problems with social
049media that people just don't feel responsible um you know that in a in a less technologically evolved time somebody said the sorts of things that got put on facebook face to face somebody get punched in the nose and i think you know i'm not advocating violence but i think it did bring a certain amount of civility and i'm frankly very disheartened with what i've seen and the total lack of tolerance that i think is just not called for my hope is that as this pandemic ends as quickly as possible we can get out of zoom we can get back into in-person meetings and we can see people face to face and we can have decent conversations and not spend all this time technologically backstabbing one another which is what's going on um i'm i've read
050a couple of uh of messages that charlie cab like i sent out and you know i i've had tremendous respect with charlie for my entire career he absolutely nails it with what he said and i agree with him very firmly um with the kind of comments that he's made and i just don't think there's any place for the kind of crap that we've been putting up with recently and what's come up in the last few months so hopefully better times are coming when we get out of our little zoom boxes we can start having decent conversations with one another and whatever can be done including the discussion that the town manager had about these conversations with the various town leaders to try to move forward a little bit um and stop spending all your time
051demonizing one another thank you thank you um let's just go to we'll jump to item 12 which is the next steps with regard to charter change for renaming the board of selectmen to select boards so nina sure i didn't know i'm john if mantra if you want me to just describe the process or if you had anything you wanted to take the board through well no we uh thank you uh yeah so the the election that occurred last week was the last step in the process of the charter being changed to reflect that the border selectmen uh is here and after referred to as the select board and you direct you you gave us guidance that we need to send a letter to the state which i think the town clerk sent today and um
052so each of the members here today are now select board members um yeah i guess you could just explain the rest of the process because there's a lot of formal paperwork that we're gonna have to do just on um just to finalize the uh where all the documents and the bylaws and all the things that we have and we're going to start changing all the selectmen agendas to be select board agendas and everything like that will change like the website but in terms of the bylaws if you could just explain how that's going to go sure this is as you said this is a couple step process so as most folks know a charter change has two significant triggers one is the town meeting vote and the other is about uh of the town at
053an election the next annual election that has just now passed so um that is the last step to make it legally effective um for changing the board of selectmen to be select four and um select men are now members of the select board so you're all referred to as members um [Music] as john said that that is now legally in effect under the charter there are additional steps that need to be taken the town park needs to notify um and give a certificate of the charter change to various entities that the state the publish the new charter get it on the website um and uh every now and then um that should be republished and and reviewed and updated as john mentioned that charter change does not also change all of the verbiage in the
054town's violence so the zoning bylaw and the general bylaws in probably hundreds of places referred to the board of selectmen as the board of slick uh the next step in this process will be a town meeting article to change the bylaws um and that unlike a charter amendment will just be a one-step process it's just below that town meeting and once it's certified and approved by the attorney general's office those bylaws will be changed so we do have this um period of time where there's a little bit of a lag between what legally you're referred to as under the charter and what the bylaws say uh but that's just an administrative detail that between town council's office and the town manager's office we will straighten uh and present to town needing to complete the process
055so although the bylaws still say the board of selectmen we gleaned with the chartering select form that was a long way of saying something somewhat simple so i'm happy to take questions if i overcome yeah when the the letter was sent eva's letter was sent in to i think it was the department of housing and community development today yes there's a number of state agencies or entities that need to get the letter the state archives the attorney general's office and dhcd among them is there an acknowledgement we need to receive from them before we're officially the select board no this is just a notification process so like putting it up on the website it is it is a legal requirement that we put up the revised charter on the website um and it is a
056legal requirement that will notify the state but the legal triggers for the change have a quote the town vote in the election so when we meet tomorrow night in a joint meeting with the finance committee we are the board of selectmen or the select board you are the select board i think john's intention with discussing this tonight was to have the board acknowledge that the charter change has gone through and acknowledge that you are all now referred to as the select board general members we are members of the slug board so are there any questions or comments from board members there any questions a jim um i guess i i feel my heart is going out to joan because i know this is distressing to you in some ways or at least not the way
057you wanted it and i just want to say that if if you prefer that i refer to you as a selectmen for the next few months i'm very happy to do that okay great um and my next thought was uh when do we get an sb actonmay.gov shell to use it's already there um so the old one will still work so right now you can email selectboard at academic.gov sb academy because we can't that one has to stay active because a lot of people probably only know that but yeah it works as of today okay thanks okay we're all set then any comments from the audi from the public on the name change there is one hand raised i don't know if it's on this particular item or not it would need to be on
058this particular agenda item okay uh so i'll promote quorum but if it's not on this agenda item then i'm afraid i'll have to bump you back down to the regular audience corn did you want to speak on this issue i it's correct it wasn't this issue it was one that was a while back i've had my hand raised for a while was that on um was that on the visions question that john that he'd cover yeah i had another question i have another question regarding that okay fair enough all right thank you it was about the 21 participants are we going to find out who the 21 participants are and it's to ensure that there's some ideological or diversity of thought among the group um i would think that any of the people that that
059participated in the garbage on facebook should be disqualified from participation um so how do we know our money the money is going to be well spent and that the discussions will be fruitful without knowing who's participating oh john so the 21 members include people uh that are elected leaders in the town of acton in the town of boxborough elected leaders for the acton-boxborough regional school district it also includes some local clergy faith leaders and specific association leaders and um other people that have been very actively involved a lot of care was taken to try to include people as you uh referenced with with a good range of opinions uh and of course there could probably be another 21 or another 31 people that we could have included but we did the best we could to
060try to have a productive conversation on zoom which as you know um once you start getting in the 20s you really lose the ability to have a group conversation so uh we think it's a well-suited group um and i can share the names with you directly if you'd like to email them to you i would appreciate that okay i'll send you an email now when the when the meeting is the first of the two meetings is thursday night i understand it's not being recorded will it be uh virtual and people can listen in it will not be no it will be able to close okay okay any other questions with regard to the select board name yes mr chair a few more hands did it sure uh so this is going to be from tara
061tara you should be able to speak hello it's jared my second please don't put my name in zoom about the t if you like uh i will also refer to joan as a selectmen forever if she would like that thank you okay cute uh one more comment it's gonna be from charlie cadle charlie you should be able to speak troy back to the visions i've been trying to get to that so very briefly i don't see any reason why the meeting should be closed to the public people participating should be able to say what they have to say publicly their public officials secret meetings are not going to do anything to increase the trust between this group and the population i think it's a big mistake to make that a closed meeting thank you thank
062you charlie okay um we have it at seven or past 7 20. there was a um a hearing schedule on 67 power mill road the acting board of selectmen will hold a public hearing on april 5 2021 at 7 20. continue from march 15 2021 virtually on zoom https colon forward slash forward slash zoom dot u s slash j 5039 18785 on the application of old mill development trust for a site plan special permit number 20-480 under zoning by law section 10.4 at 67 powderville road map j3 parcel 59-6 the application and accompanying plans can be expand inspected 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 doc dot acton hyphen
063mass dot gov forward slash p s w e b slash view slash collection dash one two seven seven the petitioner has requested a continuance to april 26 2021 at 7 10 p.m uh since this is uh the latest in the series of continuances i asked lisa tamil to inquire what is the reason for the continuance and she wrote me back um on thursday april 1 the planning division received updated plans this week and the town's engineering consultant needs more time to fully review the plans to provide further public comment to the town so that's the reason for the uh continues so um can i uh uh take a motion to continue the hearing from april five uh at 7 20 p.m to april 26 2021 at 7 10 p.m move thank you joan is there
064a second uh dean for a second um um if there's no further comments uh david would you please call the role sorry i had to unmute um uh mr snyder grant uh ms gardner all right uh mr charter aye mr benson hi and i say aye too so we're unanimous thank you okay so um we're back to john for covet 19 response updates thank you um the the cases in town uh they had dipped down to single digits in early march and has been an increase actually a pretty steady increase in the last few weeks where uh it actually reached there was 38 active cases um just a few days ago we're down 28 today but i think it's consistent with what we're seeing across the state i just got the text from the state
065that their numbers are up around 2900 today which is high um so you know uh while we're working uh very hard to get people vaccinated and a lot of people are getting vaccinated is also a parallel situation going where people are i think out and about and um doing more feeling more comfortable doing things that they haven't been doing for the last year and it's creating a little bit of a spike terms of acting we're still not considered the state's categories of high risk we're we're still in the yellow category which i think is is moderate risk medium risk but we're going to continue to closely monitor that and as part of that the state did enter its fourth phase which is a substantial reopening you know fenway park is open a lot of things
066are open uh that have been closed for a long time and our staff here has been working on what reopening looks like for us uh the library started restarted i guess i should say their in-person browsing today i thought at the memorial library they let people in for i think it's a half hour or 20 minutes uh and they let only certain other people in and then they can get books and then get out they get out of there but they're in the building the public in the building which is uh which is nice to see and we're using all the necessary protocols to make sure that both the employees and the people visiting are doing so safely and um i asked cheryl ball our health director to talk to the board of health last
067week or maybe the week before about the idea of reopening and looking at early may may 3rd as a date to start letting the public back into town hall and some of our other buildings in the organization and they were generally comfortable with that concept as long as we took a few measures to make sure that we did so safely the three things that they wanted us to make sure that we did um one was that we had the proper ppe and plexiglas and signage and all the things like that and that's something that we did you know a year ago and we didn't really ever use because the public never came back so we sort of have that all set to go um another is they wanted us to make sure that we had
068processes in place if there is an exposure in the building and how to handle it and again that's another thing that we had prepared um a while ago and we can just finalize and have it ready to go for our use and others just to make sure that we maintain our social distancing and physical distancing and that we have a cleaning protocol which is all things that we're doing we also have a testing program that we introduced over the fall or the within the last few months where if any employee needs a test we can we could give it to them uh and get results within 24 hours uh so they don't have to try to get an appointment with a medical provider a fire department has been providing these tests we purchased them using
069uh care's money or female money and it's worked out pretty well to give us a level of certainty and also keep people at work if they rather than waiting five days for an appointment they can get tested and maybe come back sooner so it's been a benefit and we'll continue to do stuff like that so i guess um in march of last year the board of slacking board health jointly declared a local state of emergency and we're not asking you to consider changing that at this time within that declared state of emergency you directed that certain measures to be taken to protect the health and safety of the public one of those measures that we implemented was closing buildings and what i'm asking you tonight is if you be comfortable with us moving forward with
070the reopening to the public in some limited way starting may 3rd okay john just one question first how many cases cases have we had since last march do we have that number yeah it's um 876. thank you okay so on on john's request seeking support for reopening on a limited basis beginning may 3rd comments questions dean i i think it's uh it's time to do it um i'm very much in favor of opening it to the extent that john and the health director feel it's appropriate um and may third sounds fine i suggest to be supportive of that david yeah i i agree i think we i just think uh opening uh in may and a limited basis makes sense i don't think it quite makes sense yes to do [Music] public meetings and that
071involves a little bit more thought i think as to how we ramp up public meetings and in what spaces those public meetings can happen and with what numbers of people you know that kind of thing so you know i think we we don't have the spread out meeting space um uh that would allow all the public meetings to happen the way they used to happen um but you know i think what i'm basically saying is sometime after that may third date we probably should have a plan for how to ramp up which public meetings and when how and when thank you but after after may 3rd after week yeah i i i just kind of wanted to confirm that may 3rd did not mean that public meetings were going back into effect yet um that's
072what my my assumption based on what the manager said yeah so thanks for that question i i think that that's not we're not asking the whole public knees in the buildings i do think that the board maybe who should consider whether you would want to allow certain treaties to meet outside i mean not it's not right for every community i don't know that the sport could do it but some smaller committees probably could um but that's something we could talk about at a later um later time no i would support this hey jim um yeah i'm fine with proceeding however the the health director and john thinks is appropriate i think you guys have been very appropriately cautious through this whole process and i'm confident that if if the uh you know if we start
073seeing another if the search doesn't camp down you know it's not going to be appropriate to open but i trust you guys to figure out the details as we get closer um and in response to david and your conversation about board meetings i just want to really appreciate john and the staff for creating uh some zoom ready spaces inside of town hall like the one that you're in right now and the others because they'll allow us to have um mixed uh in-person and remote meetings and i think that's going to be a mode that we're going to need to be in for a while um you know i we've had wonderful turnout at our at our select board meetings because of the uh the ability for people to use zoom uh to to participate and
074i want to make sure that continues and there may be um boards where you know some members are comfortable meeting in person and some are not and that's tricky to do what uh well from a technical and kind of management point of view but i i think we may need to figure out how to do it okay so thumbs up consensus for john to go forward with a limited re-opening of town buildings on may 3rd all right john you're in business thank you i guess i just also say that the board of health wanted us to make sure that we track public health metrics and be able to scale back if needed and that's we would certainly do that and intend to do that thank you okay so um john this will be you announce
075the housing choice grant award yes i'm very pleased to announce that we were awarded our second community uh housing choice grant award uh this grant is for 200 and um 33 000 85 isn't it well no that so there's two grants 285 for sidewalk and then the one that i'm talking about right now is um sorry again i'm confused too it's 233 000. so what we're going to do with that is two things uh it's going to support two proposed uh affordable housing projects the first is the housing authorities proposed project which the board just voted a letter of support for last meeting which would be to build uh approximately 40 units at the former canning landscaping site that the town owns and so what we're going to do is we're actually going to do
076a sewer a feasibility to determine whether we can connect the sewer the existing sewer that stops basically at the dunkin donuts um before the bridge in kelly's corner and see check out the feasibility to bring sewer across the bridge and connect it to the project there which would open up the opportunity to not not build a septic system first of all and also have it connected to the sewer uh secondly uh it's it's funding to design the um and so it's the feasibility and if it's determined to be feasible it's funny to do the design work for that so it's a project it's a project to help offset the costs for the housing authority the second component is that there's a where 60 approximately 68 000 of it is going to go directly to fund
077the construction costs for the water and sewer connection for the project at 446 massa being done by common ground uh it's currently referred to as residents as kelly's corner and that's 31 units of 100 affordable for seniors and others so a great support from the state to help out with two very important projects and you know i want to thank the team that that helped put this together in planning robert hummel and kristen gishard and uh also our partners in in the agencies and also our partners with the legislative delegates who support support these grants and we look forward to getting started uh right away on that feasibility project because it ties in nicely with kelly's corner we're about to go out to bed a year from now on that project there's major infrastructure being
078done there if it's determined that it's feasible it could tie very nicely into that whole effort even you know in a tangential way not necessarily part of that big project great good work great thank you so that's jim um does the feasibility does the scope of the feasibility study include um uh public input on using up that much more of our uh sewer capacity uh seems like there's some sort of there's some implications for what we can or can't do in the future uh by by connecting up these various projects um so i just wanted i wanted to check in to see if that was part of the that was going to be part of the study or part of the decision making process well the the funding that we requested was specifically for an
079engineering project but you know there is obviously the public component to any project that we do and whether it's a check-in with the board acting as a board or the slack board or acting as in your role as sewer commissioners uh that will certainly be public opportunities to discuss that it will also be discussed if it moves forward as part of the permitting process for the housing authority project if you know if it is feasible so there will be some public input to how it moves forward great thank you okay um any for any last questions on the two housing grants or the the one grand to assist the two projects okay so um then uh john again presentation on the reuse options for the ace of pearl and housed thank you uh we have
080our design designer carl packard and some members of our working group here um and you know we're not going to do a long presentation but we wanted to share with you the work product that has been created since the public hearing that we held in october and the survey that we held shortly thereafter uh we've come down to two designs for how the space can be reused both include um adding a new accessible bathroom to the rear portion of it and the main difference between the two is whether or not we reuse or how we reuse the 1950s or 60s edition or 70s edition whatever decade it was from um in in the future of the site or whether we remove it entirely and just go back to the historic one with what we're adding
081and the goals for this project are to create a new amenity for the town hall and library complex there's a ever-growing need for meeting space in addition to providing a venue for an indoor meeting space we feel that this project would also create some interesting opportunities for outdoor meeting space so um matt murphy can you bring carl packard in as a promoter i mean a panelist please i just saw him the invite to move he should be coming up on the board in a second uh thank you so and carl uh as you're getting settled in um if you could what i'll do is i'll share my screen showing the uh the two layouts but if you could carl you could just talk us through uh where we are now okay that's unmute and all
082right um [Music] so i have a number of things that i wanted to do the share screen and i'll push this hopefully it'll happen um and the first one was this good okay um this just a little bit of um uh whatever statistics um we have uh a program that we're looking at of um yeah i can't see that can anybody see this no [Music] okay it says i'm screen sharing yep you're screen sharing a big black screen i'm sharing a big okay um do you have two monitors well i do yeah you could be sharing the other monitor and yeah you know they're both they're both saying the same thing they both have the same thing on them what i'll do is i actually i will i'll turn off this big monitor does that
083do anything we see you well that's an improvement um well maybe it isn't i don't know that that's uh i guess that's debatable um problem is this screen so small i can't see oh why don't i share that why don't i share the two floor plans that that you provided concept okay well i had a bunch of things i've got the floor plans and um i've got this the information on the program i don't understand what is i think we have to we can we can we can get back to other stuff you can just talk through the programmatic stuff as we look at the concepts yeah um okay so basically what we've got at her program is uh two toilet rooms is required by code you have to have a male or female whatever
084you have to have two actually he's frozen um all right let me let me walk through let me walk through this um so the two the two design concepts uh on the if you see on the left hand side this is using the existing um edition on the south side um carl needs to stop sharing carl needs to stop sharing let's see let me just see if i can get any of this to work um so if i flip to another can i go back to screen sharing damn i would stop sharing kyle i would stop sharing and see what happens let's just talk through the project do we need to you know um we need to see some yeah we need to see we got to see this so you guys want to work
085on it and we can cover some other business and come back to this yes all right so um the next item would be the uh presentation from friends of gardner field that'll be paul swiden so i guess if matt murphy if you could just force carl's screen to stop sharing um i can't seem to force him to stop sharing it seems like the whole application is kind of frozen right now i can't control it something's very oh wait here we go stopping speed okay it won't let me stop the screen share um new issue yeah all right um okay we're gonna have to kick you out of the meeting carl matt murphy can you ask me sorry carl yep sorry okay all right if you can't work it out maybe we could hear from carl
086next monday night that that sounds good okay so next up would be the the presentation on friends of garden field hi john yeah so uh paul swine and melissa ryan are here uh paul is a part of the friends and melissa is our wreck director and they're here to make a joint presentation on this topic which we're going to try and share a screen again hopefully it goes better this time melissa are you going to share it or paul paul you're nude paul hi can you also promote carol acquitty from prince of gardner as well sure but then i wasn't sure if melissa was going to share her screener if i was going to do it on my end i think melissa is going to is going to run point on that but um i'll
087do it if she if she doesn't hi all right so i'll share my screen um slideshow all right so hi i'm melissa o'brier i'm the recreation director i'm here with paul um he's from friends of gardner field and cara um she's also from friends of gardner field um we're just going to talk a little bit about the renovation process and i wanted to invite cara first to talk a little bit about the the press about what gardner field means to her as a citizen in this town um so is is cara promoted geez i don't see cara in the maiden she's there it's k-a-r-a oh i'm so sorry she'll be coming up in just a second i apologize about that no problem in this presentation other shares okay thank you for um having us and
088providing this opportunity to speak for the refurbishment this evening gardner field has historically been on the same refurbishment schedule at jones field over several cycles we're thrilled the recreation department led the charge on jones field and put in place a new accessible park last year after reading through lots of historical documents um it's been a really strong community effort to put these lovely parks around our town like gardner jones and goward um i think it speaks to the community great of ordinary folks coming together to champion recreation what brought this cause was the hope to further improve inclusive access to public spaces in actin i grew up in west acton close to ida wilds but i had a friend on windsor so we'd walk to skips and go to gardner and it was thrilling as
089a kid now as an adult west acton has so much more to offer coffee ice cream books but the exact same part in fact there's less right now because some of the equipment has failed and traffic has significantly increased so there's a tempting playground on one side of the road with a tempting ice cream score on the other i've pertinent personally witnessed kids run across the street and car accidents from that parking those two parking spaces so why is gardner worth our time and money now what sets gardner apart from the other parks and acton is it it's a true recreation chameleon it's the first place i saw folks come together in an organized way during the pandemic for distanced yoga classes it's one of the only places you can buy a cup of tea
090and walk a reasonable distance to drink that cup of tea um looking into trees as old as acton for all the wondrous treasure gardener offers there are items in need of address one in five americans have a disability every public space we allow to exist and act in that is not accessible we're telling 20 of our neighbors that we're not quite ready to welcome them there's not one piece of equipment on that playground suitable for use by a child without the ability to sit unsupported nothing to meaningfully interact with from a wheelchair moreover keystone is inaccessible and makes the surfacing below all equipment and accessible grandparents should have access to steady surfacing so they can play with their grandbabies and with the grandparent population growing in actin let's give them a park they can easily
091get into and enjoy gardiner is a petite village park this can and should be the place in acton where small community conversations that lots of folks have been talking about tonight can happen we have the big space in nara we have smaller parks and more remote locations in acton gardner is a place that will draw folks from across the generational spectrum now more than ever this generational divide that is popping up where generations are having less face to face and it feels like we're losing touch let's bring everyone back together let's have those multi-generational chats over coffee at gardner not on facebook let's make space for people let's think of equity and inclusion through the lens of recreation and let's see what good we can do i'd like to thank everyone on this board for
092their time their energy and their creativity in finding the best path forward to fund this endeavor our group has 65 000 in privately raised funds for this refurbishment that does not include the 30 000 that was awarded by the cpc last year or the 6000 that we've already spent on the land survey we understand the cpc is currently reviewing applications and we appreciate anything that can be done to champion this particular project thank you so much for your time thanks kara um one thing that we wanted to do and present to you guys right now is kind of different tiers of cpa funding so we applied for 350 000 um to support the the renovation of uh gardner this this time around and that would be the full funding so we're starting that at as
093the full funding we also put together a partial funding if they decide to partially fund us or a no funding option um the picture that you have on the screen right here this is tucker ranch playground and it's in florida and this is so one of the things that we envision for gardner is a very natural looking playground typically you don't see that in playgrounds too much um you usually see plastic and you see metal we're looking for a wooden um structures that are up to the playground standards and this is one of the biggest ones that we've found is company and this is a compound playground that is one of the one of the really popular ones in florida so some of the visuals are from compan and that's kind of where we're getting
094our inspiration from for for building this playground so if cpa funded us this 350 thousand dollars this cycle this is what it covers so first we would get a civil engineered stamp design plan and this will happen any at any level um so for the parking lot so we need to make sure that we're planning for the um the storm water and parking um we're going to get a playground design from company so this is from them directly then we'll have then the 350 would support the parking lot the construction of it the installation of the playground equipment and the playground surfacing and this is kind of the breakdown of what it's going to be paying for so it is servicing play equipment and benches parking installation demo and field repair the parking the part
095of the sidewalk um in how this is broken up broken up is cpc that money would be 350 towards that and then gardner friends of gardner has raised a lot of a lot of money on their own um and that gets us to the 420 mark so this is if we get the 350 this cycle partial funding so we're gonna say maybe cpa gives us a hundred thousand dollars this cycle um what we would go with unfortunately is the parking lot and as the recreation director obviously i don't want a parking lot over a playground and neither do friends of gardner but this is what a hundred thousand dollars can provide for us and what we're doing suggesting is a parking area that comes into the park and it has 14 spaces um obviously we'll
096also have the civil engineer design for the parking lot and then we'd put in the fall we would try to get some capital funding for the construction of the playground and would also apply for cpa for the playground as well did you want to take over from here paul or do you want me to keep going i can jump in okay um so as melissa alluded to if we were only getting partial funding this year the the best step forward would be um to do a parking lot not a playground and so the natural question is why um so while the cost of playground equipment would only be roughly 60 000 and the installation of that equipment would be roughly 40 000 which comes to 100. it doesn't include a lot of the things that
097would have to go on in order to make the those things playground ready um if we just plop them down where they were now the park would not be able to be certified it would just be like a playground museum because you would have to you have to demo and remove all the old equipment and you have to do playground surfacing and those things unfortunately are more expensive than the equipment and the installation of the new equipment itself um so in order to actually construct the playground in full um we would need 250 000 from cdc and if that was the case then we could combine that with the money we've already raised and and switch our priorities from parking lot to playground with this cycle so of course there's another option on the table
098which is that we get no money um from cpa um we hope that's not the case obviously but we're trying to plan uh for every eventuality and um you know the first thing it is like melissa said you know to keep working with a civil engineer to to perfect the um the design plan for the parking lot with the storm drainage and all those sorts of things um and also keep working with compound two to get the best uh playground equipment that we can and when we say best we don't mean best in terms of what every other playground in town has we want gardner field to feel a little different than the other playgrounds um so that when you're making a choice to go to a playground you you know gardner field offers something
099slightly different um we don't want to just put put the same playground down in every market town um we would we would also put in for town money for next year and cpa funding for next year and you know do do some more research into grants and other possible opportunities and obviously continue to fundraise um [Music] so say we we get the full 350 from cpa this year will there be more money needed in the next fiscal cycle yes there will be more money needed in the next fiscal cycle um you know there are still going to be outstanding items on our to-do list um 420 000 uh altogether um you know the 350 from cpa plus 70 that we've raised um that would cover the nuts and bolts um but we'd still you know
100part of our plan is to um reseed and and smooth out the area in the back of gardner field um because if you've been back there you know it's it's a slightly um it's not level and it's not uh it's not there's not grass growing evenly in all parts of the field and we'd like it to be as nice as possible um you know we want we have uh in our plan to to finish a sidewalk all the way around the playground again speaking of what kara spoke to about accessibility um utility connections um you know we want to plant a lot of um shade trees um and our plan calls for having shade trees in the midst of the playground equipment because um you know at many other parks shade trees are just around
101the outside and that doesn't really help children when they're playing on the playground um so you know the shade trees in this case have to come after the playground is done so that we can make sure that everything is done with the equipment before we plant those shade trees and then the same thing with with benches you know we obviously want to put as many benches under shade as possible um so there will be more more to do after and then of course there's a splash pad that is um in our plans it it will it will be a logistical challenge um on a number of levels and um we're not quite sure that that we can achieve that goal but it is in our it is in our plans and we have set aside
102um you know money for it in our budget as as we are our proposed budget as we move forward and that's it um thank you for your time tonight and we would welcome any questions or comments that the board has sure thank you paul and kara and melissa um from board members uh david yes hi um i'm uh very much in favor of this project first of all the friends of gardner field have done a superb job over the past couple of years um uh especially fundraising but also putting together a a reasonable um design the design is more than what we usually do for a feasibility study but it needs a little bit more work in order to um make it into a shovel-ready design having a shovel-ready design i believe at this time
103is really important um i think with the uh american rescue plan and other uh things it may be possible to get um grants to cover part of the park um you know depending on how those american rescue plan and other grants are funded it may not cover playground equipment but it might cover the the parking areas and things like that so it'll be um you know the you know depending on how um uh much the cpc decides to fund um this this project some of it may be able to be made up with with uh with these various grants to cover different parts of the project um i do think that you know uh if uh you know funding falls short that we may want to consider um uh at some point adding you know
104some general revenue or our capital money um to help finish the park um i think we're in a little bit of a a difficult situation with our parks we we've mostly funded them with and what i'll call an an a la carte mode where um you know we we kind of build one piece at a time um and you know and then you know and move forward and try and get the monies around for the next piece this design came through a kind of in a a prefix model right so um or one and done um but the one and done is is difficult for us to fund through the cpc process right it's uh it takes you know it's it's difficult out of the cpc monies to fund many hundreds of thousand dollars hundreds
105of thousands of dollars in one year and so it gets spread out over multiple years um and that plus the design is just you know it becomes a very long time to wait so um bottom line for for me is i mean i'm very much in in favor and and uh especially in getting um the the plans to be shovel ready so we're ready for any grant monies to come in and then that hopefully plus some cpc money will will will be able to fully fund that the initial phase of the um uh the main phase here of the park comments questions from other board members jim um i'm i'm an enthusiastic supporter of this project for a number of reasons um did we already mention that this provides a way for the acton-boxborough farmers
106market to return to the heart of west acton that's key to me i think and it's also an expl it's also helps help to help me understand why the size of the parking area because it really allows for you know the vendors and the and the people coming into the farmers market to be there um i think it's a it's great for that the other reason i'm enthusiastic about this project is because of the amazing support it has in the community both in terms of you know people showing up at hearings and the seventy thousand dollars of fundraising that's been done so far which is really as an amazingly substantial number for for a project of this type it really shows how um how many people and businesses know that this area is really key
107for um sort of putting together the the the complete pedestrian nature of of uh west acton village um you know that it's so close to places where you can get food and drink and then you know sit down and enjoy them uh you know we have to you know we have to be able to make that area handicap accessible uh which it's not now and we have to make it visible so people know it's there so one of the one of the uh aspects of the plan that i really like is the replacement of the of the sort of the screening that's there with uh you know knee height uh stonewall that you can sit on so you've got both additional seating and you've got visibility between the the playground and the rest of west
108acton so it's not like this you know weird scary shady place it's like you can see it it's there it's it's fine it's a good place um i think that's my main point i i did i think i think david raises the the absolutely critical point that we are in we are we are crunched with the ability of the community preservation act fund to to make large uh one-year contributions especially for recreation projects we're way oversubscribed um so i really appreciate the the the creativity of the gardner field folks in coming up with you know alternates like oh that's what if you've got all the money we get with this wonderful stuff what if we get some of the money we get some good stuff what if we get no money we can still proceed
109um to do something to be prayer to prepare for future funding um that's all eugene yeah a number of points um first off regarding the uh the proposed equipment i was surprised that you're recommending woods wood equipment that was something that was pushed heavily by the folks who redid um goward field about 30 years ago and we were warned at that time that there's not a long longevity on that kind of equipment so hopefully there's been some good investigation done that make sure that this stuff is going to last longer than what was put in it at goward field also on the procurement end of the equipment i know you're talking about going compound and my question is you know are they under some kind of estate bid that will allow them to do the
110design and provide the equipment i know in the past other vendors that the town's used have had those sort of arrangements i just want to make sure that there's not any procurement problems so from the financial thing that's something that's worth looking into um the parking i have a you know sort of a visceral feeling about parking you know the whole issue about you know paved paradise um i understand the need for for parking my question is if it's only a 14-car parking lot there which i guess would be sufficient for the uh for the farmers market if that's going to happen there will that in turn be large enough for the crowds that could be attracted if eventually put in a splash pad so that brings me to my point about the splash pad
111frankly i'd be a lot more supportive of the entire plan um if we didn't know that looming out in the back of everybody's mind is putting a big splash pad at some later point i think the logistic challenges that paul has talked about i think are really severe as far as how is it going to be maintained how are you going to you know recycle water and chemically treat it or are you going to you know just bring in fresh water constantly and run it to waste um the whole feeling that i have about a splash pad is it has a really urban feel to it which i don't think is appropriate in a village like west acton um you know we've got one really nice recreational water feature in town which is narrow park
112and i'm not convinced that under any scenario a splash pad makes a lot of sense also although certainly the climate is getting a little bit warmer i'm not sure how much use it's going to get you know you might get four months a year out of it which seems like a really big investment which we haven't talked about what the dollar value is on that so i have some frankly really strong reservations against a splash pad and the last item uh you know shade trees around the playground equipment of the benches excellent idea i love it the problem you run into when this is something that your landscape designer is going to have to deal with is the soil compaction that occurs near the playground equipment over the root zones of those trees frequently will
113end up killing the trees which is why you don't often see trees very close to playground equipment although it's a very desirable thing to do so i think a landscape designer has to look at not just stone walls but really understand what the critical root zone trees are going to be like compared to the footprint you're going to need for the playground equipment and where the kids are going to stop on the grass you wouldn't think that a 60 pound kid could kill a tree but you put enough them on a small spot they can so those are kind of my points um yeah i always thought the garden of field is a great spot um i think this is a really ambitious project um i think if if we were talking about just the
114phase one that you've described and get that to completion i i feel a lot more comfortable in supporting it than knowing that there's another piece out there that folks are thinking about thank you um joan yeah i i was just concerned when i heard the equipment was wooden i know that many schools have removed wooden equipment because of splinters and the wood disintegrating over time in use if i may i don't believe that equipment is actually wooden it's it's just made to look like okay um over the 420 000 paul which is the uh the renovation cost how much more would be needed to complete your vision for the project so uh our budget for the for the final phase calls for um another 320 which would be which we have committed to raising 40
115of so the request from cpa next year would be if we are fully funded this year would be for 280 000 but again that includes a substantial chunk of that is is the splash pad and if um you know if everybody feels that splash pad is not in the best interests or is just going to be too tough logistically then obviously that that number will come in what is the splash what would flashback cost the the budget that we have um uh in has has a hundred thousand dollars allocated for it um that was done by our our landscape designer jennifer brooke and brookie and concord um you know i i think the real answer is it can cost as much as you want to cost right um but that's that's the number that we
116have in our budget at this time um and we've we've in the in the final drawing you know we've added around uh seven eight different layouts for the park um before settling on one the one we settled on um has the has the splash pad in and kind of tucked into a corner so if if you know we move forward and um splash pad isn't going to be in the cards it's not going to impact the design that we have for the playground in other words we don't have it like smack dab in the middle of something where it's going to look awkward if we don't get it done so we've kept that in mind as we move here how many other area towns of splash pads so the ones that we focus on are
117are marlbro leominster lowell waltham has two of them um karen melissa can can correct me if i'm wrong but i think those are the ones oh and concord has one at emerson playground as well um although that's not really open we don't really count that one because it's not open during the summer because for their summer camps so um with the stone wall that will replace that guard that's up by the sidewalk where the sidewalk meets the road is that we're talking about yeah and it would replace the um the insidious plants not insidious um thank you um uh bushes that are there that um when we speak to how landscape architects tell us needs to come out anyway how much how much have you budget in for the stonewall um the the budget for
118the stonewall is right now is in 90 000 um we've we've actually we've actually um gone and looked uh for a quote from a company in concord to to see if that's uh we think that that budget may be a little on the high side and that we may be able to get it for less than that um but we we budgeted that conservatively just because we you know those there are certain design elements that um you know people are going to want to have input on so we put a little padding on that just in case the the most uh cost effective matter is not something that people find visually appealing um let me ask and in creating the 14 space parking lot you'd be you'd be paving over existing grass is that correct
119partially a lot of it's going to go over the where the basketball court is now and a lot of you know the the sort of the the driveway that we have to it uh part of that is going to be covered by the by the walkway that exists now um so you know we're doing our best to make sure that we're not just taking up a whole bunch of new you know whole bunch of green space where we tried to that was part of the design plan as well is to if we're going to be putting more pavement down to at least do it over as much of the existing pavement as possible okay um have you looked into um getting some ear marks from our state house delegation we have um uh dan cena
120put one in for us last year that was uh quickly rejected um and uh maybe he has more clout now he may be uh jamie eldridge's office just submitted one for us for this next cycle i'm not really up on on how the state uh does these cycles with earmarks but um we're waiting to hear back okay well a lot of good hard careful work thank you um jim um just a couple follow-up questions um i think one is either for melissa or john it seems like there's a there's a possible splash pad listed in the 10-year capital plan um i think it's proposed to be at nara can you can either of you say something about the relationship between that idea and the idea of a splash pad at gardner field i think that
121the capital projects that are in the 10-year plan are all projects that were in the narrow park master plan um melissa is that is there any more to that i mean we've had a vision for a small splash pad at nara specifically in the area where there's a boardwalk wiped right by the bath house pavilion area there's boards there that tend to pop up or give people splinters and stuff we'd like to take that off take that out maybe put like a mushroom or something like that one splash feature it's not going to be a huge splash pad but some we we've been talking about that for many years okay thank you and one other question um i remember hearing one wild idea about um um underneath gardner field having a shared uh septic system
122for the small businesses nearby who were you know we're hoping for a sewer system uh and i was wondering if that conversation went anywhere or whether whether it's been officially thought of as being ridiculous or whether it just hasn't been explored and how it would relate potentially to the gardner field project melissa paul carol um i'm not completely sure i'd have to look into that okay okay are there any further questions for the gardner field proposal okay uh cara paul wants to thank you all very much john there are two panthers okay okay i can um right there sorry i was having some technical difficulties uh first comments gonna be from franny osman franny you should be able to unmute yourself yes hi um first of all i just before i comment on this i
123just wanted to ask it are we coming back to the ace of parliament tonight or are putting that off to another meeting let's see if there will will check in with uh asap parliament right after this to see if they can do it if not on the 12th next month okay i just wanted to draw your attention to a letter that i collected signatures for today that i sent about a cultural center at asap parliament [Applause] i wanted to thank this committee and recreation department for working on this i remember cara and paul came to the commission on disabilities and it just seemed so great i just had a question about the universality of it are the um is the equipment is it the entire playground or just part of it um accessible the entire
124part of it would be did you want to say i just wanted to reiterate that that um universal design is definitely our um top priority and goal for this park that's it's really great it's very exciting i like the idea of um taking advantage of the interest of the businesses in the sewer system below it i think that sounds sort of interesting i'd like to hear more about that but anyway um this sounds good and i had so much fun bringing kids to splash elements and so what i i think that would be fantastic um to have something some kind of water even just a hose anyway um so thanks for working on this it's really great and you i assume you're still doing fundraising to try to fill some of these needs yeah okay
125yeah wait thank you franny thank you and man i think there was someone else with a handout yes we have two more um next up is going to be barry rosen barry you should be able to speak water district commissioner gary everyone okay so i think it's great that we're going to do something with the garden view um i would just uh urge um to investigate two things um one i had not heard about the septic idea but i would caution that we look at anything happening to the septic or any other possible pollutants because there is an act in the water district well site that adjoins a garden of field that has a good possibility being developed in the future can't say more about that now but that land is being has been decided
126it's going to be held so uh i think it's that was the o'malley land i think it was what it was referred to um so i don't think septic would be a good good idea to go forward with uh right now um but be careful of that of the adjoining land the second thing is i would i would suggest that um that the group maybe hold off a little bit before you spend the hundred thousand dollars or allocate a hundred thousand dollars or so as you say it could be whatever you wanted to be a a splash pad it's really unclear at this time um what the state's going to say about outdoor water use in acting um the water district is currently negotiating with the dep right now uh as you might have heard
127they're going to be water restrictions fairly severe not as severe as last year when there was no outdoor water permitted for for irrigation um the water district's going to start off allowing some irrigation this year until the state tells us no um depends what happens with the drought nobody knows what's going to happen with the drought we're way way under in where the welds should be and where where we expected the rainfall should be uh i'm not prepared to go into a lot of detail there's more detail we just posted uh yesterday on the acton what initiative website but the town's been divided essentially into zones and you can type your address in it'll tell you what zone you're in now and it'll tell you what day a week you're allowed to water that's essentially
128one day of water per week uh if you're if you're in for irrigation but you will be able to use the hose and then do some stuff but the states required us to to do it seven pm to seven a.m from a hose so a splash pad 7 am to 7 pm 7 pm to 7 a.m might be out of the question um i don't know much really about what it would take to do like a recirculating type thing and what you'd have to do to uh keep the water safe and uh filter it chlorinate it that might be an alternative i don't know but right now it's it's unclear going forward uh what the mass dep is going to tell uh not just act in all the water districts on how much water uh
129everybody would be allowed to withdraw and like i said we and some of the surrounding towns are now in negotiations that's the right word with the mass dept because it's our permanent renewal time for many of the districts including concord what the mass dep is going to allow going forward and uh to tell you the truth i don't think they're going to say yeah use whatever you want i think they're they're going to be someone more restrictive some more restricted with some districts we've been pretty good as a town and demonstrating uh that we have made good efforts in conserving uh the water and the state's starting to look at things more regionally now and we've been one of the better ones to tell you the truth uh so we get some brownie points for
130that but i i think it's unclear um what the center uh we're part of the central district now we're managed out of uh worcester uh concord is now um managed as uh a very different district a region between the region that we are so we just don't know how the uh different regions are going to react to each of the towns uh for those of us there that are getting permitted so my recommendation was if you can uh i would try to hold hold off a little bit or if you guys are able to uh going forward with at least that part until we understand we we just we don't know david yeah i'd just like to be uh clear for everybody that this initial phase even if fully funded um uh does not include
131the splash pad um so so uh the splash pad would be a future feature that they're leaving space for and so um and you know some of the things that barry referred to there are designs that recirculate water um you know with some treatment but anyway that's kind of not on the table now so i just don't want to get get hung up on on that so this initial phase includes the playground equipment the parking area and things like that but um and the landscaping but not not the uh the splash pad at this time okay with that thank you very much thank you mary i'm gonna remove myself thank you barry thank you um matt was there i think one more individual wishing to comment yes it's going to be ruth thatcher ruth you
132should be able to speak thank you i just want a citizen from little statue prospect street i grew up in west acton i spent countless hours as a child there i went to school and there was a school building there um then the recreation department took it over and i was a rec leader there and i've taken my grandchildren there i think this is just an absolutely wonderful project as it has deteriorated over the years and it needs to be refurbished and i'm very excited about seeing it done and i thank the friends of gardner field for all their hard work thank you thank you ruth are there is there anybody else from the public wishing to comment on the gardner field proposal uh that appears to be it so we're gonna guess that on
133this okay um people thank you all very much so um it's uh it's 907 now we have several other items in addition to the ace of parliament shall we move ace of parliament next monday night the team is ready to try again all right let him try again okay okay so i i can reintroduce it while carl is giving it be given given access to share and present uh matt murphy so uh in in in october we held a public hearing uh anyone that's been to the town hall complex notices that the the really the bad portion of the rear uh building has been the selective demolition has been completed and carl packard and a design a working group has been uh working on how to re-envision this building to to be an amenity for
134the town for the community in general and also users of the town hall in the library specifically so carl um you ready to try again yes yeah all right i'm sorry carl packard from red hawk studio architects and i apologize for the crash and burn of my computer there and john has asked that basically i kind of skip all the data kind of stuff and uh go right to the fun stuff which is flying around the ace of parliament house so i'm gonna if i can get that screen share thing back all right that one yes okay so do we have something up there yes yep oh good okay um so this is um basically we're looking at it two ways one with the existing 1976 wing uh included in it and of course i
135will uh emphasize that that structure well the parliament house itself is uh over 200 years old this is only 44 years old but it's basically in as bad a condition as the harlem house itself but anyway let's take off um and we can fly you know come around there's turn up on the house um and there's an entry on the north side right with some parking there zoom out a little bit um we would we're adding some additional parking off of the existing parking lot on the north side um and then it can come around there there's basically you come in and there's a kind of a gathering hall there that has some space off of it uh which including two restrooms jagger room some storage and so on and then this has the uh
136existing uh 1976 wing uh there but we've lowered it yeah again if i could you know some of the if you look at it as it is today you can see that that existing uh wing just totally overshadows the uh the original parallel house there but this lets us keep that space there on the ground floor as as a as a meeting room and an additional meeting that gives you two meeting rooms and that bling there and then if i can go back to i think i might have to stop the share to say because basically i have to have two applications you know unfortunately that's part of the problem so i think if i can stop the share and then start it again is that okay with uh matt you should be able to
137yes okay okay and then we just screen share and then this is this one here okay okay and then this is taking the 1976 wing away um and it makes a much simpler structure particularly from the point of view of the roof lines and everything it gives you but it gives you that one meeting room and then the ancillary spaces um that would serve both the parliament house and and the uses that go on in the site including any events that might take place on the on the lawn by the parliament house so that is that is brief enough but if you have any questions i can talk about it some more okay so board members i like the first version because it gives us the two meeting rooms uh john that dean yeah although
138the first iteration does give us two meeting rooms i think it it's really a kind of awkward looking building um i agree i i think the the nice thing about the second version that we're looking at right now it's a much simpler building it's more in keeping with what a real colonial village would look like now certainly having two spaces is nice but i think i'd go with the authenticity of the original building that truly has some historic value as opposed to what was added on back in the 70s so my strong very strong preference would be if we're going to move ahead with this do the smaller version and i think obviously some cost implications as well and just the idea of providing preserving a little more green open space so i think uh
139this one we're looking at right now would certainly be my favorite are there questions or comments dude yeah um i mean i i understand that the reason for a historical you know the historical perspective to keep it small but i i think uh that i agree with joan that you know the utility of the space it doesn't to me make sense to really fix up the space really nice only to have it be too small for a variety of uses and so i i think it's uh you know i think it was important to take that second story off which this does but i i think having the the two-room version is will have much more utility for the town going forward um so i think that's that's very important further comments a gym no
140no this time of night my brain is not as sharp so i don't think i have anything bad okay okay so um then i guess thank you and then i guess the the the next steps would be in april may to refine the concepts and and get a coffee instrument yes that's right yeah so we have to do a little bit more detailed design of the systems the heating ventilating and air conditioning system all the things that a cost estimator needs to put a price to it and then you were looking at sometime over the summer for a public forum and a further presentation into the select board that would be correct okay uh for uh thank you for your note matt so let's take some public comments please okay we have just two first
141is going to be from franny osman fanny you should be able to speak hey hi um thank you i'm excited about this space finally being fixed up um i think it's going to be a real gem right we're in the middle of the campus um when i was at a united way meeting a few months ago i heard from vivian birchall that she and don wang wong and that um vivian and bettina had written and showed i think the town manager i'm not sure who they showed it to a wonderful proposal of using the space as a cultural center um so i just so i met with them and a few other people and i heard more about it and it really sounded promising so i just wrote a letter and we all signed it
142and we have a lot more other people that are signing it we sent you some of the signatures now and i'll wait a week and then send you more um of people who think it's a great idea so i was wondering at what point we would decide i mean is this too early to be encouraging the town to put a cultural center there or is it something that should be going right along with the work into the architect at this point uh carl um well i think in in the program that we've been using there there was a uh i guess a memo that was put out by some people from the planning department or one of the town departments anyway in which they uh mentioned certain kind of uh facilities that they would like
143to have and we've tried to basically put those things in here so we do have you know certainly there's the kind of meeting space uh flexible space that can be used for a lot of different things building art galleries and art creation and whatever um and then basic you know the basic human needs of a bathroom uh toilet rooms and also uh some place where you can make a cup of coffee i wonder if it was there because they were working in the land use department at the time that's right yes yeah so probably was there so yes it's the same proposal yes not a splash pad but maybe a sink where you could wash brushes would be um good if there's wash brushes wash your hands whatever yeah anyway um okay so i i
144really want to encourage the board to consider helping that cultural center concept grow so thank you thank you freddie so um is there a further public comment there is uh one more from tara you should be able to speak now and uh i uh side with joan i feel like sometimes the simplest isn't the appropriate design for the historic area so i like the idea of that other little area i like the idea of a another conference room however i'm const i'm cautious i would like to see the um final price tag for the two options uh but i did want to say that i i side right now without seeing any numbers i side with the true conference room option i also love the idea of a art center cultural center for sure i
145don't want to restrict it and leave it empty if there aren't any arts events to allow other meetings and events and gatherings i love this idea thank you so much thank you tara is there anyone else now that does it for public comment okay thank you okay so um i guess john and carl just you know proceed with your with your program and uh we will hear from you over the summer thank you yes we'll we're going to do some cost estimates and be back uh before the board to share uh the results and and hopefully you have a consensus to move forward on the design concept at that point thank you for your patience this evening okay well thank you for hanging in and um okay so um we're up to item nine which
146would be approve the preservation restriction for the middle place condominium trust 140 mainstream act hi john this is a restriction required i believe through the fact that it received cpa funds for work at this place and this restriction would put in place a restriction to just protect the town's investment in in that facility and i think it just requires a more vote um to sign it was a lengthy document about 44 pages and jim you've worked your way through all of it now i was going to say since dean is our rep to cbc whatever he says i'm going to agree i could read it out loud so just a little bit of background this is this is the building which now has residential condos in it it started out as life as the unitarian
147universalist church uh the intersection of central and main street the uh the owners of the condos went to cpc a couple of years ago looking for money to fix up the steeple and the building interestingly enough is not within the historic district so the uh that that was one one issue uh there was a lot of discussion uh frankly about you know the appropriateness of spending tax money on um on supporting basically fixing up some of these residential condo but uh the decision that came out from the cpc and which was approved by town meeting was to provide a sum of money which some escapes me right now but it was fairly short money uh i think when a 30 or 40 000 dollar range what might have been more um and in return for
148that getting the steeper fixed up the town did get the value from this is a permanent restriction uh preservation restriction on the building itself and all the exterior features uh interior features they can do whatever they want but the exterior will stay the same so that's the value of the deal it was approved by town meeting um it's been kind of in advance i think it was two years ago anyway that this was voted uh at town meetings so this is i believe the final piece once this gets recorded okay is there any further questions or comments from the board david yeah i just think this is taking the action that we agreed to so it would be odd for us not to take the action because we you know this was um trading the
149cpc uh or cpa funds for uh the the preservation restriction and you know the part we get that's the talent is the preservation restriction it'll be odd for us not to take it no we're taking it and joan move to approve the restriction the preservation restriction okay is there a second to the motion i'll second 15 seconds okay david if you call the role please hi mr snyder grant hi miss gardner hi mr charter hi mr benson hi and i say i okay thank you so um next item i think it's something we do every year um where we uh uh proclaim april 22nd this year it's april 22nd 2021 is harbor day in the town of acton and there's a uh a proclamation if you want we can put it up on the screen
150for uh those people still viewing in matt would you have that i can plan thank you i'll let dean make the motion on this thank you yeah this is this is one of the in addition to being a good thing to do this is one of the requirements for the town to maintain its status as a tree city usa and there will be an aberdeen ceremony as well which hopefully this year there will be more than two people that because we can actually meet um so there's well i don't see it but i think it's been in the packet so i would move that we approve the uh the aberdeen proclamation um as written and as circulated to proclaim april 22 2021 as arbor day enacted second second joan um any final comments from board
151members okay then david if you call the roll please mr snyder grant hillary for arbor day yay okay uh ms gardner here we go yes hey hi okay uh mr charter aye mr benson aye and i say aye okay well thank you so um our final um new special business item is to discuss the appointment of the mac council representatives joan you've been our representative for the last three years yeah but austin has been doing the duty okay so the uh the question is um it's a three-year term it may be an elected an appointed official or a resident um do you want to have a board member and austin because you could i think you could have a member and an alternate yes so just how would you like to think i should think
152about it john so um so joan is rep john represents us as an napc council but she's also on the mpoc the mpo is uh the seat that austin sits in for joan uh the napc council is a different responsibility this is a group that meets about three times a year approves the mapc's budget and does all the things throughout the year but it's not a huge commitment of time i would recommend that the board consider making two appointments one as a as a council member and one is an alternate uh because i think it gives an opportunity for you know us to have more people involved and also us to maybe potentially train someone or give someone the exposure to to be the next person uh as an alternate you get to be involved
153in all the meetings if you'd like only it's just the thing is only one person from acting can vote so i think it's a great opportunity for for someone from the board or from the community and i would love to offer the opportunities to um someone in our staff to to be involved as well but it's up to the board so three-year it's a three-year appointment in either case which would take effect i talked to the administrator over there and they said that uh if we could have a if we could have the town's choices by the next meeting which would be the 26th it will be in time for them to formally be appointed at their may meeting so uh it's not something that needs to be decided tonight but if we had it
154by the end of the month we would be able to get someone installed right away well is there any any any board member who would like the appointment okay uh if you john if you you'd want to come back to us with a staff person then oh i would reckon yes i already know who i'd recommend um i can tell you now or i can tell you on the 26th tell us now uh christine our town planner okay all right so shall we shall we nominate uh dean yeah like my question the town manager is is there a uh a particular reason why you would want to have an elected official there in addition to a town staff person uh will that add more clout is it important that that we that the board be
155represented well um nap is a pretty big organization you know boston's in it and a lot of communities are in it and there's very they're very active there's a lot going on we do our best to track everything that they're doing and try to be active participants in it but some stuff gets missed every once in a while so having more people involved with what's happening with the association it would help us think us leverage all the opportunities that are available and having an elected official just gives it more prominence but i think there are appointed officials uh that could fulfill the role as well um i would i often attend mapc events anyway i just was i didn't want to be the main person because of time potential conflicts um with either work or
156other municipal duties but i would be willing to be the alternate person if uh if that made sense well the the meetings take have traditionally taken place in concord and the surrounding communities all send selectmen planners and others to these meetings and mapc tells us what the opportunities are for grants or studies and uh it's worthwhile participating but they usually two o'clock in the afternoon yeah i wonder uh if we can appoint um kristen you know either now or next week uh and then um we consider this question after the board is reconstituted in late june early july to find a board alternate because it could be that there'd be someone coming into the board who would be particularly interested in okay so do you want to go forward with uh christian's appointment as the
157as the i guess it would be the the representative mapc council representative and they seek mapc council representative and then the next board can decide um a selectmen um associated or haven't you fair jim uh just had a question um is this is this um is this the magic board or the whole mapc board i have the impression that magic meets in concord but the mapc might meet all over the place just for people to think about uh the meetings this is the this is the the overarching organization i've i've met some ap's mapc things downtown okay in boston yeah and sometimes they're in the town hall so they moved them around the agencies area so um then it with with somebody uh uh move that we appoint uh christian gashard as acton's representative for
158a three-year term uh as our representative on the metropolitan area planning council hello is there a second second okay uh dave if you call the role please mr standard grant aye ms gardner hi mr charter aye mr benson hi and i say aye thank you okay awesome she'll be excited thanks good thank you for the thought so on uh consent items let me there's about nine or ten number uh consent items 13 approved meeting minutes march 15 2021 14 approved amended meeting minutes october 4 2020 15 approve executive session minutes march 4 and 24 2021 16 committee appointments and alyssa nicholl associate member open space committee termed to expire june 30 2024 17 committee appointment alyssa nicol associate member historic commission termed to expire 6 30 24 18 one day alcoholic beverage license hannah i'll
159spell the last name s z y d l o september 19 2021 nara or picnic pavilion 19 one day alcoholic beverage license suit susan walbridge dune 5 20 21 narrow picnic pavilion 20 accept gift department of public works for twelve thousand dollars from friends of the bruce freeman rail trail for a rapid rectangular flashing beacon crosswalk study 21 accept gift department of public works for twenty thousand dollars from friends of the ruth freeman rail trail for a rapid uh rectangular flashing beacon crosswalk upgrade and 22 accept a gift planning division for 9 650. from property acquisition group llc as required by the planning board decision number 1910 condition number 2.11 so do i have a motion to approve consent items 13 through 22 inclusive so move second no moves uh david seconds um any further
160discussion uh then david if you call the role please mr snyder grant aye ms gardner aye mr charter aye mr benson i and i say right um that would conclude our business for this evening um we will meet again tomorrow night at six o'clock in the uh joint budget workshop with the with the finance committee um so with that i i would uh take a motion to adjourn some david seconds um david if you call the roll please uh mr snyder grant aye ms gardner hi mr charter hi mr