001kind of acting in response to the covid19 coronavirus is currently following the guidance from the acting board of health massachusetts department of public health and the cdc regarding the virus and steps communities can take to prevent the spread the town hall is closed to the public this meeting will be broadcast live local access cable on the actin tv channel or streaming online at the actin tv youtube live channel and audio will be broadcast live on the radio on waem 94.9 to participate remotely from the computer please click on the link below to join the meeting that's webinar calling uh https colon forward slash forward slash zoom dot u s slash j slash one 5039 seven eight five or from a telephone dial six four six eight seven six nine nine two three and enter webinar
002id 503 918 785 telephone users may may dial uh uh star nine to request to speak after joining the meeting computer and app users may use the raise hand feature uh to request to speak so to begin on are there any citizens concerns i i'd just like to say at the outset that uh those of you in citizens concerns um you will be um discuss and vote on appointments to diversity equity inclusivity commission um including the communications that we received um this weekend from fran so uh dave are there any citizen concerns is one hand up time thank you please go ahead please call and use it is this tara from attacking can you hear me yes yes um so i think i heard that you will allow people to speak the public to speak
003during the duic portion of the meeting is that correct that's correct great thank you um uh and i have a concern a different concern it's my understanding that a number of mature public safetrans were removed from charter road as part of a school road rising project and hoping to find out um i watched these agendas pretty closely and i didn't see uh treatering for those trees um so if we're going to be talking about a replacement for the trade because they're gone i urge the use of cross-sectional methods so that we don't get 10 new skinny little trees that you know what's that no you're still on it okay um so i urge a cross-sectional method of replacement because the old pro developer way of just measuring the diameter and putting up a few scraggly
004trees i don't think cuts it in this day and age especially where we declared a climate emergency et cetera so um i urge uh within this and urging the schools to engage in a uh serious replacement program for those trees thank you thank you dean yeah just a a comment uh i haven't been down there but most of uh the charter road section that is uh in the school campus is not actually a public road anymore uh there's only uh it's the residential portion of china road between hayward road and arlington street and then there's a very short section going in from hayward road towards the uh the auditorium um which is maybe less than 100 yards and the rest of the road the rest of the road was discontinued now that being said i
005i agree that that's certainly an area that that should uh deserve a lot of trees and i hope that they will be replaced but i don't believe that any of the trees that were removed at the other section of charter road towards the junior high actually qualifies as a public road or public shade trees under mass general law chapter 87. um just as a follow-up question um so i don't remember i mean i remember the vote to uh convey the properties to the schools um and it's my understanding that that vote did not include a notification that the public shade trees would then not be protected and so that would be a reduction of rights uh at least in terms of the protection of the trees and the right to a public shade tree hearing
006uh so i would hope that the schools would not do this again and to engage in a tree hearing for the sole purposes of of of community building and ensuring that we do the right thing so um anyway thank you very much john did you infinity yeah the discontinuance of chowder road as a public road in that section actually occurred back in the early 1970s uh the most recent conversion of land from the acton public schools to the to the abrhs district um really didn't have anything to do with the changing the status of the road itself again i agree i think those trees should be replaced inch by inch it's just that you know it's the wrong section of the law that uh it does not apply thank you okay thank you okay so
007um on to the uh chairs update um our meeting scheduled for monday september 28th will be canceled um because it coincides with young kippur the jewish day of atonement we will be we have two meetings scheduled in in october on monday the 5th and monday the 19th i am concerned that we have a lot of work to do and our agendas are becoming pretty lengthy so um uh in connection with uh john and uh and dean we uh we may be looking to schedule uh you know a third meeting um in october just to keep ahead we're gonna have a long meeting tonight and i i just you know don't think meetings that stretch two and a half hours plus or we make our best judgments at that point um the um for the um
008audience the the board of selectmen um names change is a uh is an amendment to the town charter and it involves two votes we had our first vote at special town meeting last week that required a two-thirds vote of town meeting uh there will be a second vote at the town election on on march 30 2021 which requires a simple majority so should it pass then we will uh our name will officially then be changed select board and then finally um we will i'm still a select man right you are what you want to call yourself yes you're very good you're very good i'm joan gardner um we'll have an executive session um immediate hopefully a short executive session immediately following the regular session tonight so uh john for your managers update please thank you
009uh yes i just have a few items just to bring to the public's attention first the fire station project in northachton uh you will hopefully see the existing structure demolition beginning uh in a few uh days or a week about a week or so i was just finalizing some uh permitting for that and i wanted to put people uh give people some save the dates for public forums that we're going to have this fall we've been trying to um wait for maybe a time that we could do these in person but i think we're going to just move ahead and schedule them virtually to keep the projects moving forward so the first one is the actin center design project uh we've been working on re-envisioning the design for the center right right out here behind
010town or in front of town hall and we have a 25 percent design forum that we're scheduling and the date that we're plugging in is october 7th at 7 pm uh with more details to be uh provided a second item is that the border selectment earlier this calendar year asked the planning board to take a look at the existing zoning bylaws as it relates to drive up windows and so a process uh has begun and there's a public uh forum to discuss and get input on that process and that is scheduled for october 15th uh i think it'll be seven uh but the details will be um more specific as we get closer just wanted to get it on people's radar and we're also looking at a second date for december 10th both at 7
011pm also just a reminder the dog park discussion that the board decided to have later this year will take place on october 19th and we have a discussion that we're planning uh regarding the asap harlem house behind town hall we've worked with using cpa funds and state year mark to do a stabilization and selective demolition of the asap parliament house and the next step is to work on a vision for how to reuse that building we've had some ideas but we want to get a public forum together to put those ideas and get some support for one or two concepts to take to the next phase and work with the community preservation committee to see if they'll consider further funding next year so that will probably be in the second week of october i just
012wanted to get that on people's radar another item is that there is a community group offering english language learning and they are starting up classes again in october uh you need to register by the end of this month if you're interested you need to call 978-393-1738 uh those are my updates i have several other that will be embedded in the tonight's agenda so thank you thank you john so on member minutes uh minute uh jim um i don't have anything this week john will be talking about um a report from the green advisory board hi john yeah i'd like to thank john mangioretti eva and um gail austin and steve barrett for their work during pre-voting and election day i looked up at one point and gail was on her back trying to get ballots
013out of the machine and i thought she had fallen and everybody worked so hard to make that all work and it was it worked very very well so thank you to all who participated okay um david nothing from me this week john hi team now i had my say about charter road that's good enough thank you okay okay so um it is now 7 13 um this will be for the dog hearing and i will read the legal notice town of act and notice of hearing the board of the acton board of selectmen will hold a public hearing on september 14 2020 at 7 10 pm remotely by video conference and call in for an order to show cause to determine a dangerous doghouse the 39 of nidar road act in mass 01720 the documentation
014concerning this hearing can be expected can be inspected before the public hearing online at http http colon forward slash forward slash doc dot actin hyphen ima w e b get slash document 73752 due to the continued closure of town hall to the public the hearing will be held online via zoom login instructions for computers laptops can be found here from the computer please click on the link below to join the meeting e s https forward slash forward slash zoom dot u s slash j slash 5039 18785 or from a telephone dial 646 876 9923 and enter webinar id 503 918-785 telephone users may dial on star nine to request to speak after joining the meeting computer and app users may use the raise hand feature to request to speed so um i would like to
015introduce from anderson and kriegers sam dinning who will her legal counsel for this evening and will um guide us through the procedure i think jim this is your first uh dangerous dog hearing um and welcome aboard um sam how should we begin i'd like to start with a brief summary of what um what authority the legal basis for the hearing uh a brief overview of the process and then to proceed with testimony if that works for you sure please um since i've been today can i just ask a question first would that be okay john please yes um the the link that you read out loud um appears to go nowhere um the one that seems to go somewhere is the one that ends in seven three seven seven one um so for those that
016are following along at home that's where to find the actual paperwork it looks like that other address was used for a while and then has gone away i'm sorry about that okay sam sure so just to be clear that's the http slash slash doc dot actin hyphen m a dot gov slash d s web flash g e t slash document hyphen and jim can you say the number that does work there 73771 thank you so the the dangerous dog hearing is conducted pursuant to mass general laws chapter 140 section 157 this is the dangerous or nuisance dog statute the statute gives this board the authority upon receipt of a complaint to determine whether a dog is dangerous meaning that it a has caused injury by attacking a person or animal without justification or b behaves
017in a way that would cause a reasonable person to believe that it poses an unjustified threat of physical injury the board will hear under oath from all witnesses who can testify to this issue in particular this complaint concerns a dog by the name of yeager and events that took place on june 12 if after testimony has been taken and any evidence has been presented the board declares yeager to be a dangerous dog the board will issue an order prescribing a remedy that may include among other options certain restraints muzzling or euthanasia should the circumstances warrant the board's decision will be memorialized in a written decision issued shortly after this hearing and any order of this board may be appealed to the district court within 10 days so in taking evidence tonight we're going to go
018through a few different steps the board will first hear from any witnesses from the complaining party including miss maldonado the animal control officer the board will then hear from the dog owner and any witnesses that wants to testify with the dog owner or on the dog owner's behalf all witnesses will be sworn under oath so we will ask everyone who intends to testify tonight to identify themselves and then to be sworn in and verify that you will be testifying accurately once all the testimony all the evidence is provided the board will close the public hearing i will review the definition of legal definitions of a dangerous dog and then a vote will be taken by the board about whether this dog eager is in fact a dangerous dog once the once all testimony is given
019there will not be further testimony or evidence heard by the board the board will then deliberate on its determination and it may take two or more votes first whether the dog is a dangerous dog as defined by statute and second if so what remedy should be uh what remedies should be employed to ensure public safety so during this time for the benefit of the board please the board will have opportunities to ask questions of anyone who's providing evidence to ask factual questions to ask questions with me if there are questions about law or the options available to the board and to members of the public this is not the time to ask questions of other people who are providing evidence if you have questions for the board that's your prerogative you can address those to
020the board and the board can decide how if at all it wishes to respond to those statements or questions i think that should be it for process so i would ask first to address the complainant's case to hear from ms maldonado and then we can hear from the victim after ms maldonado has finished okay uh miss maldonado then you would need to be sworn so david correct thank you yes uh uh uh now would you uh swear to swear or affirm to tell the truth the whole truth and nothing but the truth on this matter i do okay uh please begin let's see we're here tonight regarding kate and mark bishop's dog yeager who resides at 39 oneida road in acton the first complaint started in november of 2019. jaeger continuously gets out of his
021house and charges dogs and owners walking by his residence jay jacobson was the first to report this behavior of jager on december 4th 2019 bill funk reported jaeger ran off the owner's property and tried attacking his dog to the point where he had to get physical with jager to get him away mark bishop who's the owner of jaeger came running and kicked jaeger to get him away and back to the house also a concerned neighbor karen dunn called on december 6 2019 to discuss how to stop jaeger from getting out of his residence and how to keep the neighborhood safe on june 12 2020 mark bishop wrote me an email letting me know that jager got out of his house once again once again and charged another dog the dog mark was referring to is
022owned by dave longer this time jager jumped up and bit dave's right forearm dave went to the ar and the doctor confirmed it was a puncture wound and dave was treated and released august 19 2020 mark bishop wrote me an email and he wrote and i quote i finally saw the picture of the quote-unquote wound that's a scratch you can clearly see it in the picture on july 28th of 2020 backtracking a little bit um mark bishop wrote me an email and um was concerned about the neighborhood dogs other neighborhood dogs that were not leashed in the neighborhood and i basically let them know about the town bylaws as long as the dog is under their verbal command they don't need a leash because acting doesn't have a leash law he wrote all reactive dogs
023including mine will have a problem with off leash dogs it makes me extremely nervous to walk my dogs in the neighborhood end quote this dangerous dog hearing is being held because of the owners of jager at 39 and nader road mark and kate bishop cannot keep their dog under their control there are numerous neighbors who fear for their safety and their children of the neighborhood safety if the board of selectmen d jaeger dangerous there are a few guidelines i'd like to recommend to be sent in place thank you okay so we go on to mr lundgren now yes i i think it might make sense because we're virtual tonight to uh get anyone who would like to testify uh on behalf of mr lunger or anyone else uh complaining about the dog to identify themselves
024so that we can be clear who is in attendance for that okay is it possible to have people raise their hands and to identify those yes if um uh um yeah if you raise your hand and please put in the chat um if you want to um speak about um a complaint about the dog so um mr longer is ready when um sure so if we could just swear mr lungar in okay and and let me say also that if you want to speak i need your full name in the chat um just your first name will not do can you hear a minute yes uh yes uh mr mr longer um let me just uh swear you in um do you swear or affirm to tell the truth the whole truth and nothing but
025the truth on this matter i do okay thank you so i'll start off by making one correction to nelba it was my left arm and not my right arm that was bit um that said um there have been numerous incidents in the neighborhood and there are three official ones that triggered this hearing but there are numerous others and talking to neighbors uh with this same dog jaeger so i'm just going to mention i'll just go walk through the uh the details of the june 12th incident but the other two incidents did lead up to it and the concern of my on my part is that those two initial incidents didn't change the behavior so anyway on june 12 i was walking my dog tuckett a golden retriever elderly she's soon to be 14 years old
026i was walking on a night in front of the 39 oneida home of the owner and the owner uh was with his dog in the yard the dog apparently saw me and my dog first and made a mad dash for us so i saw the dog just you know screaming at me so i picked up tuckett by surrounding all four of her legs with my arms and lifted up to about my chest level her legs are dangling however this the dog yeager is was acting vicious and jumping up and down and towards towards tucker and on me trying to get at her and so uh at this point the owner subdued the dog because he took him a few seconds to get there and he starts bringing back his dog to his yard uh i
027placed tucker on the ground start walking away i had some inkling to check my arm and i see two blood spots about uh two inches away indicating in my mind a a puncture wound uh upon realization that i've been bitten i uh on my walk back home i placed a report to the acton police and then once home i realized the better of the situation and decided to go to the er because of the issue of of rabies and it turns out that the you know the yeager is vaccinated for rabies so that's not an issue so just to summarize uh of all these incidents and others i'm aware of i think the most uh the aspect of this is most of most concern is the inadvertent escape from indoors and actually in my case
028was outdoors uh it shows the dog's thin ability to grab uh excuse me it shows the ability to grab momentarily escape opportunities to his advantage but to the disadvantage of dog walkers of all ages young to all additionally i might mention that the owner stated his dog is merely excitable but not in no way is it aggressive nor that it even bit me uh this is particularly laughable and preposterous on its face although an apology was offered in his letter to the dog officer to the current day no direct apology has been received verbally nor in the two written contacts i've had with them thank you sure are there any um other individuals who wish to testify um on mr long and mr lundgren's behalf yes uh mr mr funk uh would like to testify
029mr funk um one second well we have to um swear you first sir and mr frankie need to unmute okay you've done that um uh do you swear to swear or firm to tell the truth the whole truth and nothing but the truth on this matter yes i do please go ahead um i resided at 34 oneida road and i had met the family and the dog one night and the dog was extremely uh aggressive to which um the owner mark had to restrain the dog firmly on the ground and indicated to me at that time that the dog is not used to being on a leash it wasn't in a on a leash in florida and it's it's difficult to contain right now um at some point after that i can't remember if it
030was november i contacted noba regarding the aggressive action of the dog as a result of one of the children having left the dog at the door a jar and the dog came charging out um and there was ice on the ground my dog slipped and i nearly slipped uh trying to keep the dog away from dogs away from each other but um jaeger was quite aggressively coming out at us with bar teeth [Music] mark did run out and he did apologize unfortunately he also fell into his head uh casualty of the event um i was just upset after that and every time i walked by that place my dog which would shrink away from wanting to be on that side we were never on that side we always walked on the opposite side of the
031street and it was difficult to convince my dog to walk on that side i didn't even want to walk there i'm just sorry that this has happened that's all okay there's um uh uh jay jacobson would like to speak or just disappear mr jacobson oh yes can you hear me yes we need to square you in yes bye mr jacobson do you do you swear or affirm to tell the truth the whole truth and nothing but the truth on this matter yes i do thank you please go ahead um yes um i believe that the date i i'm the the fellow that um filed the first complaint with nelba after the situation developed and that goes back i believe it was 11 16 of last year and i was walking my dog 14 pound miniature
032dachshund across the street from the house we're discussing and somebody uh a woman i i i did not know these people a woman opened the front door and started to come out i believe carrying a bag or something anyway the dog ran by her came charging now i was not walking on their property i was across the street and came charging at olive and i'm going to refer to her as a little olive because she's tiny anyway the dog started to put his mouth over the back of my dog but i caught just in time and pushed the dog away put olive under my arm and the dog started to come at me in an attempt to get to olive um i'm 70 years old i was scared to death i have never been through
033anything like this before in my life and when all was said and done and things got a little loud um i believe it was kate bishop at the time who i had never met came over and apologized and i said well i'm sorry that's not really enough and that's why i called right then the police station on my cell phone and um eventually spoke with nelba and i filed the complaint and um first of all i want to say how much i appreciate the fact that we're able to have a situation like this to discuss a problem and try to solve it in a way that's appropriate for everyone thank you thank you is there anybody else who wishes to testify in david lundgren's case uh yes uh pat dunn matt we will need to
034swear you first okay uh pat you can on yourself uh pat am i correct that you want to uh speak uh about a complaint about the dog no i'm attending and i was just verifying my what my address my full name was so that you knew who it was but uh i did not have a comment oh okay that's fine thank you so is there anybody else who wishes to offer testimony yeah mike majors has his hand up but it has not said why let me just allow him to talk and see um mike you can unmute yourself and did you want to uh uh i have something to contribute about the complaint about the dog or did you want to speak in another matter excuse me i guess there was a mistake i have
035no i have no dog in this race okay so uh john that's all that that's all so um sam we there was a message from uh kate bishop that she wanted to cross-examine uh dave longer is that permissible no all comments should be directed to the board the board has the opportunity at any point while people are talking at any point to interject to ask questions to follow up with people who have spoken later on in the hearing the board can ask any questions that it would like but there is no direct uh cross-examination okay should the board ask questions about about dave dave lunger's case at this point or should we wait till the end that's up to your discretion whichever you would prefer uh okay so um so we keep it consistent um
036is there anybody who would have uh a question to dave longer or the witnesses on his behalf john is there any fencing around this the yacht of this house is that to me dave longer than me that's the anyone who can answer the question there is none so uh john uh uh noble has her hand up melba i was just gonna say as far as i know there is no fencing i spoke to the owner last year and he said he had some contractors come out to look at putting up fencing but i guess he had too much rock in the area that they couldn't install it okay and one more john what is your role nelba in the dangerous dog hearing yes i'm hoping to set some guidelines so yeager doesn't continuously get off
037the property and are you a neighbor no i'm an animal control officer oh okay okay so is there anyone else with questions at this point jim um this was a question from mr funk um who described the dog as acting aggressively and i was wondering if mr funk could provide more details of visually or behaviorally what that meant mr funk you can just unmute yourself okay yes i mean i've been been a dog owner for decades so i know when a dog is barring their teeth and taking aggressive steps um to be able to identify that there is aggressive tendencies emanating from an animal okay so bearing of teeth oh yes thank you okay um so do can may we move into um mark bishop's case on behalf of his dog yeager mark mr bishop
038i think uh kate bishop would like to talk first i'm happy to have you either that's quite sure um kate you can unmute yourself and then i'll swear you in okay miss bishop do you swear or affirm to tell the truth the whole truth and nothing but the truth on this matter so you're unmuted but we can't hear you i think right now she's not i i'm gonna um also allow can you can you hear me now yeah we can absolutely i do i will thank you um i'm sorry to bargain i don't know if i'm the most appropriate person to start but um i just wanted to clarify in response to the question about fencing we have installed an invisible fence so an electric fence um the the uh fencing the the physical fence
039um it was not appropriate for our property so we did install an electric fence to keep our dogs in the yard so they can no longer reach the street or get even close to it my husband mark was the primary person i was witness to part of the incident but i wasn't um you know a primary witness i i think it probably makes sense for mark to start and then i can add in some comments after that's okay okay let's hear from markman okay mark i'll swear you in uh do you swear our front to tell the truth the whole truth nothing but the truth on this matter mr bishop he's noted in the chat that he can't hear ah um i don't know if you can hear me now oh okay great so uh
040mr bishop do you do you swear from to tell the truth the whole thing said nothing but the truth on this matter yes but you're very quiet uh it's probably okay i mean okay i i when you unmuted me i think my audio got disconnected so i i lost the last minute or so of the of the conversation so i i at at that point kate was just telling us that you had erected it and elected fence and so that's the only thing we've heard uh so far from yourself okay so the how shall i proceed shall i take you through the process of what's happening here and how we've addressed these issues because what what you heard tonight is a snapshot in time uh from november to june and uh and uh there's some
041history that's important but i i don't want to waste people's time but it's relevant take your time and tell your story okay so yeager is about four years old and uh he i got him from a shelter he went into doggy daycare a lot when i was traveling up to massachusetts uh so he's been around other dogs non-aggressive no issues i had a backyard in florida with a fence so we i didn't walk him a lot but uh the doggy daycare didn't effectively control the energy of the dogs when they were like all together and he has learned from bad behavior as which is quite out of the town and and throughout the course of the last eight months or so um so i'm not distributing the fact that he's not a well-behaved dog um
042in these instances uh jaeger is not bearing his teeth he is not growling uh jaeger is typically jumping up on his hind legs and he is trying to uh sniff the butt of the other dog and i'm not trying to be offensive here but that's he is just trying to play with the other dog um he hasn't bitten any dog um the the the bite uh well it's not by scratch uh the officer joe kong joking as number 94 when he showed up at my house i asked him about it and he said that it was a scratch i saw the picture eventually of the um of the uh of the wounds you can see the dog's nails from david longer's dog that was sitting on his arm he specified that there's all four caused
043rohana's arm that's what caused the two indentations uh in in his arm and you can see the scratch mark from the nail in the uh in the digital image i couldn't see it in the printout that i got from the officer so yeah my dog is reactive and we have taken him to reactor uh dog training we were driving to uh oh man it was like 40 miles away so we went uh six or seven sessions uh with uh with the trainer uh he got more exposure to dogs he got more exposure in controlling his uh uh his reaction we have gotten a lot of our confidence from from our neighbors uh even though uh dave kind of polluted the well a little bit with all his knocking on doors from my dog we have
044gotten we have gotten a lot of compliments on how well behaved he is now the electric fence has been great uh he's been responding to training he we actually have some friends of ours that live in the neighborhood walk their dogs past our yard the theater in the front yard and uh he as a test keep you know training him and he doesn't go across this uh we have been doing the uh dog exposure to get him used to other dogs around him you can't go play with him at a hundred percent uh he's played with the kids behind us uh uh our neighbors behind us he's not the offensive i'm gonna i'm out to bite people kind of dog i mean there's there's no taste of that he's scary because he's a you know
04555 pound pit bull and he's flat yeah so i get it people are afraid of that i understand that but that's also why we went through the training we spent all the time for that we spent the time and the training for the invincible fence and and the money for that we looked at getting a real fence that wasn't possible it's not like we have ignored the uh the situation and uh it's been a progressive learning process for uh yeager and myself i mean in the middle of all this code that happens you know we had we had it set up for training but but then everything got cancelled in march and april so the training stopped and didn't pick up until july when things started open back up again but we're also a victim
046of circumstance with respect to that um hey have i have i forgotten anything else you missed anything kate you can just unmute yourself again okay um there's a few things that like to state one is uh nelba made an assertion that a doctor confirmed that there was a puncture mark i would just like to state that we've asked mr lunger so mr lunger contacted us and demanded us to pay his co-pays which we we did and in response we asked him to provide any notes from the doctor because there is a fundamental disagreement as to what happened and how mr langer was damaged we are very sorry that he's he was hurt in the incident we feel very strongly that it was probably his dog our dog claws that punctured especially since um dog bites
047for you get to get a puncture on the top of your arm you'd need to have the teeth contact on the bottom it's not like they're snakes they don't just spontaneously put their teeth in and the pictures that we've seen of the the one picture that mr lunger sent of the wound makes it look like the two little blood spots are about an inch apart and not the two inches or so that would correspond to canine teeth for for um an adult dog of jager size um i would also so you know we've had the refusal to get any evidence from mr lunger even though like i said he had demanded money from us and we have paid that um i would like to say that our dog has been hey we have kids in
048the house so this dog is around kids all the time um it has not been anybody in our house it has played with little kids and has played with elderly we have elderly neighbors that come up and like to pet the dog um and we have like mark said there's many people in the neighborhood who find this dog who are dog owners or just not dog owners who like jager they find him well behaved and nice and they come out of the way to come and pet him um you know there's been this assertion that jaeger is dangerous to children and there's absolutely no no factual evidence that anyone is put forward nor is there any that he is a danger to any children like i said we have kids there are teenagers and if
049anyone deserved to be bet it would be the stuff that they do to yanker but um again he's not been aggressive with them at all um he's walked twice a day every day so he has constant exposure to the neighborhood he has constant exposure if there was a real problem you know and there's a lot of dogs in our neighborhood so we pass dogs pretty much every day and if there were a case where jaeger were completely out of control danger there would be more than a few complaints where jager snuck out of the house behind us and we have very much taken that seriously and like i said we installed the invisible fence so that jager can't leave the yard i mean at this point he's scared of the yard but he can't physically
050leave the yard without a constant shock and we got the invisible fence that will not turn off you can't outrun our fence the old technology you could outrun i think you can if the dog went more than 12 feet maybe it would be outside the boundaries we got the upgraded fence so you can actually outrun it on purpose to make sure that our neighbors were safe and that no more of these a nuisance incidents where he escaped out behind someone coming in the house happened ever again i want to say that we take this very seriously we take our neighbors health and well-being and security seriously um the other thing that we have done that uh nelba had recommended and we've done it since she's recommended it was um we walk eager with the basket
051collar like i said we think it's not necessary because we don't believe he's been anybody but you know out of an abundance of caution we have happily done that and we have also been using an e-collar on walks to make sure that if any that we have that as a second um in addition to all the positive reinforcement training that we're doing um because nelva also suggested that so we've been doing everything humanly possible to make sure that um our neighborhood is safe and secure our neighbors are respected and yeah i think i think that's pretty much all that i have to say other than we also have spoken with our vet who wrote us a nice note which i guess we can't present um and we have one neighbor testimonial about how you know
052she heard about the alleged incident she came right over and actually wanted to meet jaeger and befriend him more because she thought that he was a very nice dog and i don't know if it's possible to show those or anything else but um you know those are other recitals that we have for um in support of our case is there anybody else who wishes to speak on behalf of the bishops and and yeager if there is some money please raise your hand so uh cater any of the people you mentioned here um there are uh two people that raised their hands uh to the two people who just raised their hand please put your full name in the chat and ideally your full name and street but okay um yeah uh uh one person i'm
053gonna allow uh to speak john this is uh jewelry julie if you would just state your name and we need to square you in yep julie becker died on that eight here on road okay uh julie do you swear or affirm you tell the truth the whole truth and nothing but the truth in this matter yes i will thank you please brian uh so i live probably the closest to um jaeger being diagonally across on him he's a very nice dog i've gone up to him and said hi to him multiple times never had a problem i walked past him with my dog without a problem i'm not at all scared of the dog he has definitely even improved his behavior because i've seen him doing the positive reinforcement training with him and he's gotten
054even better than he originally was and i don't think there's any need to be fearful of him he has a lot of energy and he just wants to play but he's a very nice dog and i usually go out of my way to go and see him and say hi to him because he is a sweet dog thank you thank you and um i'm gonna let uh marianne speak here marianne would you please state your name and david will square you in all right my name is mary ann farrington okay okay uh do you swear or affirm to tell the truth the whole truth and nothing but the truth in this matter i do thank you please go ahead um i i just wanted to say that um i've seen this dog from both sides
055um in the beginning i was afraid to walk my dog near their house because you could see from inside the house it was you know bouncing out the windows and and and i've been not not this dog but i've been on the other end of other dogs with my dog walking and i know how scary that can be but i've also seen these people work really really hard with this animal and i've recently walked my dog it's it's also a large animal and he's actually bigger than jaeger but um i've i've recently walked by and they will go into a driveway and do some uh positive reinforcement training and the dog really did essentially ignore us i mean i think basically because they were doing the uh positive training thing with with treats and stuff
056like that but um my husband has also walked him and in the beginning that dog did um seem to be aggressive but now he is not aggressive i think they've been doing a pretty good job at trying to work with this animal so that he can be um something that would be safer in our neighborhood thank you um anyone else who wishes to testify on behalf of the bishops there are no hands up john melba you had a question i just wanted to um correct kate when she had mentioned diego wearing she had called it a basket collar it's a basket muzzle and it's actually a device that goes over the dog's muzzle and ties up around his ears that way if he did slip the lead or run after another dog he potentially couldn't
057harm or bite another dog or a person so it's a basket muzzle okay are there any questions from board members uh to the bishops david uh yes um uh so uh kate mark um i was wondering uh before you install the um electric fence how is jaeger getting out can you hear me yes i can hear you do you want to answer or do you want anything um i i think it's the same answer it's always inadvertently so um you know the one time with um mr jacobson i was going to work and i was just leaving the house and jager just scooted out behind me um and it you know the interaction was only a few seconds long and it was you know understandably um not a positive one for mr jacobson but it
058you know that's that's the only way that he's gotten out he's not roamed the streets ever you know in these times where he slipped out of the house he's not been outside of anyone's site for any period of time it's just you know he's scooted out a few times in the last year that we've lived here in acton right so so it sounds like when he's gotten out that he someone's got the door open to go in or out and he sneaks apart is that right right which is why we got the invisible fence because he wears the collar all day long can't slip out of the yard yeah and since he's had the invisible fence on has he left the yard no it's hard sometimes to convince him to leave the driveway to go
059for a walk because he's a little scared right now i know i i understand um john can i ask a couple more questions of course people um uh now by assuming you've met the dog is that right i've not met the dogs um or the owner in person i've just had phone conversations with both of uh kate and mark okay um thank you and um and uh mr longer uh can i ask you a question yeah are are you as far as you're concerned are you are you certain that the punctures were caused by jaeger's teeth i went i went to the emergency room i was treated the wound was dressed and they said that's a dog bite right oh yeah i i i i understand but at the puncture room it may not i
060don't know it's probably not very deep uh there weren't uh pictures on the other side but i should mention that my dog's paws were dangling below my arms so the only way i could get this was from jager okay and it was probably it was a grabbing reach for my dog's neck i think but it's it sounds like you didn't it was inverting it sounds like you didn't feel it at the time you felt it you know maybe because of adrenaline or whatever but you felt it later uh and then you got it you took yourself to the doctor it was clearly adrenaline i didn't you know feel you know teeth going into me at the time but within about uh 30 seconds i had reason to look at my arm when i put my
061dog back on the ground and my adrenaline was lowering and i saw the blood yes i understand thank you that's all john for me thank you is there anybody else with questions for the bishops um i i had two um either for for either bishop um when was the um invisible electric fence installed about a month ago about a month ago okay and when did you um take jaeger for the six to seven sessions of dog training yeah i think it started the beginning of july we were at four leggers dogs and it was a six week program in beverly and we actually have signed up for the next session of of training for reactive dogs starting in september it's later this but that's at the end of the month so these actions were in
062response to the um incident with mr longer then so we had contacted um and a trainer previously in the winter um and mark and jaeger had done an in session in person session in december um and that was definitely prompted by um the concerns with um mr funk and mr jacobson um over the winter with the the weather and the we didn't really do a lot of outside walking or training we were starting to re-engage in march when the spring came and then everything shut down and that our original trainer actually had some medical conditions so she wasn't able to work with us so it took us a while you know while we were in covet shutdown before we found another trainer and an opportunity to get this addressed so was any further training uh
063suggested or did the six to seven sessions complete the necessary coursework so the dog program that we had him in four leggers is a reactive dog program and it was a six week multiple multiple dog session it wasn't in person and we also took him for a private session afterwards so we did seven weeks of training with him so he completed it successfully there's just another level so it's you know like algebra 1 and algebra ii um so we're just committed to keeping working with him um because it took him three and a half years to get to the point that you know this situation happened and it will take us a while to make sure that he's deprogrammed and calm around other dogs and that's our goal any other questions from from board members
064to the bishops would there be any further questions to mr lunder is it possible for me to make an additional comment uh mr bishop yeah sure yes if you could speak up a little bit okay can you hear me better now yes yes okay i apologize so um my testimony also needs to conclude that when the incident happened with mr longer my eyes were always on my dog and i did not see him fight mr longer okay would there be any further comments from mr lunger in response to what you heard from uh the bishops uh one thing i want my mention is this invisible fence is of no would not factor into my my thoughts as to whether i'd walk on all night i will not walk on a night of being protected by
065an invisible fence because once this uh dog yeager sees another dog and goes wild with adrenaline flowing uh he might he's gonna go right through the um the fence and right you know ignore the pain of the initial pain of that boundary and do his thing so that's of uh not you know i'm just not gonna go there anything further mr longer nope okay um sam so at this point uh we should close the hearing that's right can we make a motion for that unless david had something to add well two things two people's hands just came up uh okay uh mr jacobson and mr bishop uh and actually both bishops um and um uh i i i didn't know whether we had to get uh ms maldonado's recommendations before we close the hearing or
066whether we can do that after we close the air but i'll i'll start with the people who want to testify please okay uh mr jacobson uh please go ahead i just had one quick question and again in an effort to make sure that this gets done to everybody's satisfaction which i guess is a key element here um will jaeger continue to be um i should say is he going to have to wear the muzzle when he's out walking with his masters and will he have the muzzle on when he's within the electric fence as a safeguard so and i guess this goes to noble i guess i don't know um that would be up the uh to the board to decide if the dog is deemed dangerous then there are certain protocols that we would
067set in place um until then the bishops have been taking my advice and making sure yeager has that basketball muzzle on when they're walking him in the neighborhood i've not said anything to them about leaving that on on their property in their yard with the invisible town so and and john the bishops have their hand up again i don't know please of course so kate or mark you i'd can to my wife uh kate you'll have to unmute yourself okay i i just wanted to state um two things one is um i haven't personally seen mr lunger walk in front of our house in a while but he for sure walks on oneida in our neighborhood all the time um and i'm glad that he feels that he can walk in in our neighborhood and
068we want him to be safe but he you know the statement that he's not on oneida is not actually correct um it might be that he chooses not to walk on our part of the block but also the invisible fence that we installed doesn't have an initial shock um if the dog crosses the boundary and we have two dogs if either dog crosses the boundary the shocking does not stop until they cross back into the yard so it's not an initial thing the old technology of defense did have a means to outrun the the shock um it was only available for feet within the of the wire and the new version that we have purchased means that the shock won't stop until they come back and retreat to the yard and we got that on
069purpose so i just wanted to clarify okay and i want to i want to make sure mark yeah i'm sorry and i wanted to clarify that um we are working with the training with jaeger by having our neighbors with their dogs walk by while jaeger is in the front of the yard to assess his behavior i i will not i mean i am a responsible dog owner i will not put my dog out there in the yard if i if i didn't think that he responds responded to the training it's evident from the testimony that he did that he does respond to training because there is a um differential behavior from when this behavior started to what has been reserved now we've even had a testimony of someone tonight who has testified exactly to that
070so he is a trainable dog he's not a wild and crazy dog um that is not trainable therefore um i wanted to uh reassure the panel that jager is trained also with other dogs walking by while he's in our front yard so that i can gain confidence that his training is working thank you no hands up john okay so um sam would it be appropriate we take a motion to close the hearing i'd actually because i think there if there are remedies uh needed if the board does decide that the dog the eager is a dangerous dog um because there may be some testimony needed regarding remedies i'd like to go over that briefly now and perhaps get miss maldonado's recommendation as well as either you or david had suggested okay let's do that then
071please so the first step uh as i mentioned there would be two votes here the first vote would be whether or not jaeger yieger is a dangerous dog for the sake of the record i'll read that definition of a dangerous dog again dangerous dog is a dog that either won without justification attacks a person or domestic animal causing physical injury or death or two behaves in a manner that a reasonable person would believe poses an unjustified imminent threat of physical injury or death to a person or to a domestic or owned animal so that would be the first step deciding whether or not jaeger is a dangerous dog meeting that legal definition the second step if so would be determining the appropriate remedies there are seven remedies that the statute specifically lays out in any
072of these jaeger would not be able to be under the control of anyone who is under 18 years old that comes by definition with the declaration that he is a dangerous cause john there's someone talking in the background it makes it difficult to hear sam is this better joan yes okay so the the seven remedies that are allowed by statute one is that the dog be humanely restrained and this is when it's in the yard so that is some sort of restraint while it's in the yard second is that it be combined to the premises sorry i think there was some background noise here again um so that would be that the dog is confined to the premises joan can you hear me okay here there's someone else i call in the next room yeah
073this i can hear that voice give me one second and i'll change uh the microphone that i'm using see if this works any better sorry about that uh so the second would be or yes sorry the second would be uh confinement actually sorry give me one second my apologies there's someone else on a call and we have a small space right now um so the second option as i was starting to say was that the dog would be confined now statute does not provide for the invisible fence as a method of confinement the statute provides for a pretty specific [Music] lock or dog run area is how it says it has to uh have either a floor or fencing that goes two feet below the ground i know that has come up in previous hearings
074before the board so that is the definition of confined the third remedy that's available is muzzling and restraint that would mean uh either muzzle and or being on a leash at all times that they're that the dog is outside and that leash would have to be of a certain strength and be no longer than three feet long the fourth option is proof of insurance fifth option is providing a clear identification to the board or sorry to the uh appropriate animal control officer the sixth thought the sixth option is uh spain or neutering and the seventh is euthanasia so i just i wanna be clear about those options at the outset the board can choose any combination of those options you can choose none to all of those or some combination thereof that it deems appropriate
075but i did want to put those out there in case the board or anyone well if the board had specific questions about which options or wanted to develop facts about which options would be viable um yeah i have a question no but have there been any complaints since the electric fence was installed no sam we can't include as a remedy um the uh the maintenance of the um the invisible fans can we that's not something that the statute provides and the statute doesn't give an or anything else as the board shall as the hearing authority shall deem fit there's no catch-all like that so i don't think that that would be an appropriate remedy no unless the parties agree the parties can agree to whatever they like yes so um okay so what would be
076our david so before we close the hearing should we get ms maldonado's recommendations should we find um jaeger to be a dangerous dog sam yes that would be testimony before my recommendations came up but i'm going with the flow with you guys and i'll just uh in addition to the seven statutes uh number seven i would just cross right off the list i don't believe this dog needs to be euthanized okay can you guys hear me um i would like to see a fence system be installed inside the uh residence for every door on the first floor that way if the dog if a door were to open or if one of the children in that residence were to open the door um there'd be another barrier so the dog couldn't get out also i
077know that they had mentioned they are doing a bunch of training and they've done apparently really well uh it seems like i have not had any complaints since the invisible fence um and they have been taking my recommendations with the basket muzzle but i think i'm not sure if you can add this into it or not but all fines from here on out start at the fee of 200 and increase within hundred dollar increments for each and every um complaint if the dog did get off the property i'm not sure about the new electric fence system i'd have to research that more talk to somebody from the company to see how that actually works um i'm not a big fan of electric fence because i know a bunch of dogs that can still just run
078right through that so i'm not sure how you want to handle that as for the fencing i know it is hard in their yard to install fencing especially if it's going to be two to three feet underground um but um having a kennel run area where you can have a concrete floor or whatnot um would be an option that they can put in their yard as opposed to digging two or three feet down to keep the dog in um other than that uh statutes one two three four and five and six uh which sam just read i would apply all of that to this so you would say uh the dog he would say we meet the threshold question that the dog is dangerous i would and i'll just clarify for the record that that
079that is a determination for the board to make okay so um sam we would uh close the hearing at this point and go into our discussion yes that would be appropriate okay so is there a uh motion then to close the hearing is there a second second okay uh so david would you call the role uh mr snyder grant aye ms gardner aye mr charter aye mr benson aye and i'll say i so the hearing's closed okay so um i guess we would begin with the first question is the uh has the dog methi standard or being dangerous or not dean yeah i'd move that the board find this is a dangerous dog as defined by the statue is there a second yes okay is there any discussion on whether the dog is dangerous i
080i think that since they've taken the time to go for training and have installed the electric fence and there have been no complaint since i would not think he's dangerous david yeah i actually i'm not sure it meets the standards that uh sam read to find a dangerous dog um it uh um i mean i understand that there were a couple of incidents it sounds like the um the the uh bite might have been inadvertent or whatever it i you know we have conflicting uh testimony there um you know but it doesn't sound like uh jaeger was uh you know uh uh attacking attacking mr longer um uh but that you know uh you know uh that jager wanted to go after mr uh longest dog whether it was to play or whatever i you
081know or you know i i don't i don't know um but um you know i it doesn't seem to me that uh he meets the standard of a dangerous dog we've heard testimony from other people that uh he's he's not dangerous um uh i also uh you know uh think that the the bishops um have tried to uh you know uh you know taking steps to control their their dog um you know we've also heard uh testimony that um the dog's behavior has gotten better since the training um and they've installed the uh invisible fence and so again um the the uh this bishop said a couple of times that um this is not the kind of electric fence you can run through um it remains on as long as you're outside the property and
082so um uh so uh anyway so i the the two things i don't think it means that what i heard doesn't mean the standard is being a dangerous dog and secondly the bishop seems to have taken um uh steps to um to control the dog uh jim um could i ask sam a question about the definition sure okay so um what i didn't hear in the definition was anything about um we certifying that the dog is dangerous now because i agree with david and jones points about the training there seems to have been a transformation in the dog's behavior but my uh what i see is that in the past there were people who thought who reasonably thought that the dog was dangerous and were approached by it so even setting aside the confusion about
083or the dispute about whether there was an actual bite that was the sort of the death the first definition it seemed like the second definition has been met in my mind but i didn't know whether the the law required a finding that the dog is currently damaged i think the law is written in the present tense i think arguably so there were two prongs that i read the first one is without justification attacks another person or domestic animal causing physical injury or death that of course is in the past tense that is something that happened the second prong of behaves in a manner that a reasonable person would believe poses an unjustified imminent threat of physical injury or death uh to a person or domestic animal that is written in the present tense as it
084as uh if it is on an ongoing basis so i think that is the appropriate distinction yeah that's very helpful thank you okay so uh to the to the threshold question uh there was a uh i think a motion in a second to say that um jaeger uh be declared a dangerous dog um is there uh you know that's the threshold question then if we get over the personal question then we talk about remedies but let's do with a threshold question first is there any further discussion on on prong one dangerous is he a dangerous dog okay then uh being no further discussion then let's let's vote uh david would you call the roll yes uh mr federer [Music] no ms gardner no mr charter yes mr benson yes and i also vote no to
085that motivation okay so the motion fails so that would end the hearing then that's correct okay okay so um hearing is closed the dog is not determined uh uh to be dangerous and um that would be it then that's great and thank you and uh to parties thank you and best of luck and and be safe thank you john thank you thank you okay so um our next item would be number four would be discuss results of september a special town meeting so um i guess from from my perspective i thought we had a very good meeting uh we attracted 437 people which was about 150 more 160 more than attended the annual meeting it was a very interesting mix of issues from from piper lane to the climate article um to the name change
086article to the small business grant article um there were good presentations and very good discussions i thought where we uh didn't uh do well and it's it's really on us is on article eight uh we just you know we didn't provide a summary at all let alone an adequate summary as to you know what the article was about uh what was the uh what people repeatedly asked what was the reason for the restriction in the 1980s and we didn't uh present uh explain that well at all and people wanted to know the uh the background and the history and why is there a need to remove the restriction um you know so my sense would be is to you know just let's do a better job and bring it back in in april um because
087there was something certainly in it for the for the uh strawberry hill property owner and the easement there was something in it for the town because that's and that's a an intersection we really got to improve so any other comments about the meeting or particularly article eight david yes i was just uh wondering if uh uh you or john mangerati knows it's a legal action uh from the landowner there is likely to move ahead or um what the story is john i don't have a specific knowledge of what the property owner's intent is but i do believe they're here tonight virtually let's hear from them if they're i know they were from a note that i saw they were they were kind of overwhelmed disappointed and so who who are they a person named karen
088watkins is on has her hand up yes that's who my understanding is it was someone that has an interest in the problem and ian watkins okay can i let her talk please yes can you hear me yes yes karen um so we're not the homeowners we live across the street but i i just wanted to clarify our understanding was that that easement is all about making the intersect the intersection safer and creating a better sight line along polk road for people who are waiting to go westbound on strawberry hill um yeah is that correct yes yes so so basically it was just a misunderstanding of that people didn't understand what the easement was about and it's just a uh issue of making it clearer for next next year well it's not only making the easement
089clear they want to know what the restriction that went on the property in the 1980s was um and the history of it and why is it being removed now um is there going to be a large housing development um going on the parcel or part of the parcel and you know those are you know questions we get in uh the context of these articles and uh those are all fair questions and we do we just have to do a better job dean yeah i uh i would i don't know if we're getting feedback here um i think i agreed that you know it was not well presented uh there's a huge amount of very tangled history there and you know at the last minute at the meeting there was some really irresponsible misrepresentations made from
090the audience so i definitely agree that it should be brought forward again in april and i think that you know we should work closely with town manager and staff to to really get a little bit more up to speed on these things and be prepared to uh make a much more richly nuanced presentation joan no my apologies to everybody no no no no you'll you'll get your easement intersection okay um anybody else jim um i think one thing um that i still can't actually answer for people is um which i think uh david you were asking about is you know what happens now what's the risk of not passing this um and so i think that's another answer we should develop before we bring this back david yeah you know i i know john i
091don't think it's your fault i think you know in in in hindsight it probably shouldn't have been on consent but and we should have you know prepared a presentation uh but that's not what we did and so uh you know hindsight's easy um so uh but i i think you know what one of the confusing pieces for people and i have to admit that my understanding is a little bit confused is that this restriction was supposed to have been removed uh like more than 30 years ago but there was a recording error and so it wasn't actually removed and so people can the owners can take legal action potentially saying that the recording should have happened that's my understanding and so um and so uh uh you know that's for the courts to decide um
092but it's it's it's it's better to decide these things and appropriately rather than in the courts absolutely well i think it's the definition of what the restriction is yes yeah my understanding was it was supposed to have been removed 30 years ago um and there was some glitch and something slipped up you know things were you know a lot looser in those days um it just didn't get recorded and we are where we are now but uh you know people you know um butters neighbors uh you know fairly so wanted a you know a little better explanation than that so um i would hope that uh we could just bring it back and not get ourselves and you know involved in a lawsuit um or they the property owner sue and we don't defend and
093then it comes across as just a lack of transparency and there was a fix in and it uh it wasn't right so you know let's bring it back and do the job we're certainly capable of doing john ian watkins has his camera sure mr watkins sir uh hi there i hope you can hear me okay um i'm about a minute away from a call with asia pacific so i'll try and be brief the one thing i think would help uh tremendously for the audience at the town meeting would be real clarity on um not only the safety benefit but but i think the environmental impact because i think a lot of people who were voting against were voting against on an understanding of a quite drastic possible um impact on trees because of this motion
094which was completely different to the understanding that came and i had and i had got at the strawberry hill um traffic study meeting about the impact of the sightlines so i think one thing i would ask respectfully is in as you rightly said about taking it back in april but particularly making sure that there's clarification for the people who are concerned about environmental impacts hope that's okay okay so um any further comment on town meeting jim uh just a couple quick things um one is i i am also a person who was pleased that we had um you know 432 people there it did it still came home to me that um you know there's a lot more voters uh and that most of the a lot of the there was a fair chunk of
095questions that came to us as a board after the meeting or before the meeting that said why can't we remotely participate my understanding is that the the governor changed that for emergency purposes for representative town meetings but there's been no um move by the governor to make a similar change for open town meetings and there also has not been any legislative change to um you know to make that uh you know a permanent possibility for towns to take on um so i i i guess i'm sitting with that still that i wish i wish there a way for us to move towards um allowing even more people to participate okay anyone else okay then um let's move on to item five discussion of pump track at quarry road in nara park and we have a
096a presentation from uh nathan kleinschmidt who's um a junior at the high school and this pump track would be his eagle scout project and he'll be assisted by mike grafio so gentlemen hey nate thank you all hear me yes great um so we're here today to um to talk about the uh acting pump track that we'd like to build um we're here to ask you to um let us build this track as my evil project um here today so um i believe the i made a presentation i believe that was in the uh packet and y'all hopefully you all went through it um but i i'd be happy to do a quick overview of it um just to go over some of the key points again um if if you're familiar with it um i
097can also just jump right into questions um you might do a presentation available well and i think it would be helpful okay so why don't you just let let's go through the presentation i know it was in the packet and i assume everyone has looked at it but let's just do is we have an audience here tonight as well of course [Music] all right um so this is the actin pump um hurry i am nathan kleinschmidt i will be a senior this year uh after boxer regional high school um working with a few other members of the mountain bike community um and we are looking to bring a pump track to actin now you might be wondering what is a pump track um a pump track is by definition a small loop trail um containing
098rollers and bank turns and features um all designed specifically to be ridden by mountain bikes [Music] they have many great advantages um mainly for building skills for mountain bikers of all ages and experience and it's just also it's a whole lot of fun to ride i'm a really great asset to um this community um a few reasons we should build one they're fun they're designed for all ages all abilities it promotes a great activity it's outside it's healthy um really a great activity that i have come to love the nearest pump track um is one that was built in chelmsford on this pump track was built by the new england mountain bike association at russell mill um in chelmsford and it's been really successful um they've had a great time with it and it's a
099huge attraction for many local riders um i know tons of kids who are super excited whenever they're able to go there um if their parents are able to drop them off but they haven't had a whole lot of problems with trash or anything um it's really been a good success there it's been well maintained um mountain biking and acton the mountain biking scene in this area has really been jump started by the local team which uh adam moldy actually started and he was one of the folks who was working with us to build this pump track um and we have grown from a team of about 30 riders the first year um to well over 60 70 riders we've actually got the cap registration because the team has gotten so popular we've actually grown to
100become become one of the largest teams in the league we are participating in the new england high school cycling association league um we do everything from just fun rides and even some racing in the spring so that really just demonstrates how much support there is in the area especially with the younger age group and how much dedicated people there are who this um track would benefit all right there we go so where do we want to build this we've considered a number of other locations all around town we're looking at all municipal properties here because that is the that makes the most sense for what we're doing the reasons that this property was decided on to be the best property at 70 quarry road um was first of all because of terrain um it has
101enough space it is relatively flat there's not a whole lot of trees that we'd have to take down um it's also a relatively good location with narrow park um the rail trail it's kind of a center for recreation in the town and we think that a pump track would fit in very nicely here narrow park also has some amenities such as you know port-a-potties or someone you know needs to go like most um [Music] like most conservation lands it's not going to be the port-a-potty um but you know narrow park provides some additional resources especially in the summer um when they have the snapchat and all that fun stuff um convenience the property is super easy to get to my bike on the rail trail um many of the users will be kids who can't
102drive so they'll that would be awesome for them to be able to bike themselves on the rail trail um get there in a safe manner um you know it's also right next to willful conservation land which bikes are allowed on and mountain bikes do like to ride there so that's also an additional resource for it um and we've also gone to the land stewardship committee and the recreation committee and they've both agreed that this is a suitable location um now the area that i showed in the last slide was one point three acres roughly um but our contract will not be one side three of us that's a lot of dirt um it'll be it'll take up less than half an acre and will be relatively situated to the quarry road side of the property
103let's see that is for two reasons one is to set it back from the yellow trail we've heard some concerns that we don't want bikes riding right next to the conservation land trails we've also heard some concerns from abutters that they would rather have the track closer to narrow park than to their property through the noise and other concerns like that so we decided that it would be best to um place the track um roughly on the quarter road side you can see this rust map here um it is a very fluid map design um it's made of all of dirt there's no pavement there's no permanent features per se um so nothing's super set in stone um like i said before the forester is fairly sparse we will not take down any large trees
104um it'll be a relatively um low impact project and like i said before it will all be made of dirt um so you know if it had to be taken down for some reason um it could return to its natural state in a matter of years um the designs our protract will take up less than half an acre um design will incorporate the national geography uh once we get a survey of the property we will be able to design the track um around that geography keeping in mind drainage um and the natural flow of the terrain working around major trees that we don't want to take down and such we will be bringing in all the dirt to build the track for a couple reasons one of them is because we don't want to disturb
105the ground i believe that if we had to use the dirt that was there we'd have to conduct an archaeological survey and we don't want to do that um also raising the track up is better for drainage um and we'll just make the process easier to conduct in general because you don't have to deal with the natural ground um we've we're connecting with some experts who um have experience building pump tracks uh another mountain bike specific terrain um experience um [Music] in working with dirt and natural futures um so be excellent and very helpful when we need to design this construction so where are we gonna get the dirt from because it is a pretty decent amount of um we have talked to a few folks from the department of public works um and nearby
106as i'm sure you know there is a yard with a sizable amount alone there we have talk to some people it seems like we can get some of that loan for free now because of the design of it that loan does not pack super well because it doesn't have a particularly high clay content so we will be buying some of our own dirt to mix with that loan to get the correct ratio of clay in our dirt so that it can be used to build a pump track and so that packs properly and drains properly means a sustainable surface um what will construction look like some of it will be done um with a bobcat that's mostly to move the dirt around get in the rough shape um it will also be a sizeable amount
107of hand work packing in shaping which that's my headphones we still hear you you guys hear me yes awesome all right i think my head's not shut off sorry about that um so some rough steps that we'll take um we gotta clear the path um to make room for the track get the dirt mix it screen it um deliver it organize all the logistics uh then the kind of power tool stage of it we use the bobcat um to move the dirt around get it in the rough shape pack it in shape it get into his final shape then just kind of finish off the track put in any little details you know put up a sign that kind of stuff amenities parking um we have heard that narrow park is relatively strained on parking
108um so we don't want to rely 100 on their approach parking um so we are proposing to put in roughly five to ten spaces on the opposite side of quarry road from on the pump track um this will just be simple dirt parking uh nothing too serious there and we've looked at it it seems like there's ample room there to put in a few spaces um trash uh we can have a trash can there you know bikers are environmentally friendly we've all been kind of trained to respect our trails and use our trails kindly um because if we don't respect ourselves we don't get to use them we want to use our trails um bathrooms we don't think that a bathroom is needed here most users are only going to be there for an hour
109like the conservation area it's not really needed um we'll post a sign similar to the ones here um with you know safety information proper use um that kind of stuff number um number is the new england mountain bike association um and we have good friends there i'm sure many of you know philip kai's i believe there's a on the lane stewardship committee um and he used to be the executive director of number uh he's very closely tied with tied in with them we know a few other uh you know many other people number of many of the people working on this track are members of number and number has agreed to assist us with this project um help us with construction and maintenance um you know provide some labor that sort of stuff um we've
110also discussed with them uh entering a membrane of our understanding um so that they can help uh with the maintenance of it um [Music] we've also applied for a troll grant with them um but they're super useful organization and willing to support this project a couple other notes we will raise funds for gofundme we're budgeting out four to five thousand dollars um a lot of that skirt some of that tool rentals um and then some other little details um like water that kind of stuff just for um using to build the track um liability with regards to use like the skate park will be handed similarly to that um although this is actually significantly safer than the skate park because the skate parks made out of concrete this is going to be all dirt um
111kids will be wearing helmets it's relatively safe they're not going super fast or anything so it's safer than the skate park in comparison timeline wise my eagle scout deadline is in june 2021 when i turn 18. um so in order to get all the paperwork done um with the voice scouts of america um it would need to be done sometime in the spring of 2021 um so it would be ideal to start the project um this fall um and maybe even get into some construction before the ground freezes um assuming we can get the logistics figured out um we have talked to the abutters of the property they raised some concerns about increased trail use increased use of narrow park um and some concerns about riders riding on the road at uh riding on their
112driveway um so we're willing and we'd love to work with them i don't know if any of them are on this call right now but we've talked to them and we're definitely trying to we would love to work with them and make sure all their concerns are heard i'll make sure we can make sure everyone's happy basically all right um that's the presentation um it will be available as a public document um so feel free to review it um so i guess we're open to questions now actually uh mike do you have anything uh nathan i don't think i could add anything to the excellent job you did there with that presentation uh thank you okay so um i guess a threshold question um that i would have um are there any um butters who
113are in the audience who wish to comment on the on the project okay um and just another uh procedural question um um what um with the authorizations um would the pump track project uh john uh need from the town to to go forward uh we would need to work with the uh custodian of the land which is this board and the um our staff to just determine what needs of if any would be required of staffing and if there's any ongoing expenses that we would need to be planning for going forward when something is built it does need to be maintained in some form and i understand there's a plan that was laid out but it'd be something that our team would have to sort of shepherd through so that would be something that i
114would want to work on with with the proponent if the board supports moving forward with us uh dean do you have any questions yeah i guess uh first off nathan that was a really very impressive presentation uh thank you for that i i guess my questions for the town managers just sort of follow up on his comments um yeah i think that you know if the board decided to approve this uh i really need to know that there is a town department or town committee that's going to shepherd it through and who that might be and you know i think that would reassure me uh you know nathan's probably going to go off to college another year or two and you know we want to make sure that if this gets built that it uh
115that it either continues to function properly or that it gets retired and then not just sit there um unused so i just need to know what's your plan mr manager uh well it's something that i would have to to work on and i'm not prepared to present a full plan uh for how to handle it but i'm happy to do that if that's what the board would like you to do um any other comments from board members uh david uh yeah so um is the site of this that would show the the map you showed nathan was focused in on the on the track so i couldn't tell what part of the property it was on um uh and or have you selected a specific site and is the uh uh natural resources department okay
116with the exact site um so there's a few questions in there is the exact site chosen um where exactly is it is it closer to main street and farther away and is the town okay yeah david it was the site is it was one of the two narrow sites that we looked at last summer as a possible dog park location yes i i i i certainly know where the property is john but i assume that it does not fill the whole property there and i'm that's correct i'm curious exactly where it is um so uh and and whether the site's been when chosen closer to main street further from main street um and and is the natural resource department okay with that so the the site um where the trump track will specifically be built
117uh will be on the narrow park side of the area um so be situated closer to quarry road um then to the conservation land um and it will be roughly in the middle of uh kind of north and south it'll be roughly in the middle uh if you go too far towards [Music] miracle field you run into some lower ground if you go too far to the main street side you start running into a butters and a driveway there um so we'll be roughly in the middle that in that direction okay mike mike yes sir please do you have a comment yeah i i do yes just just briefly um so uh so so mr martin in terms of the uh the sighting on that in the in the presentation that they put together there
118was one picture with the property there was a second picture with a small oval section that's the proposed location the boundaries of it on the property uh specifically set over towards the quarry road side uh to be closer to that uh so i just want to want to clarify that that is available in that document there um and then mr charter just to respond it uh mr manager we haven't spoken about this but we have done a lot of benchmarking of how other towns have managed uh the way that a pump track is kept up or retired there are several models that have worked in chelmsford in hingham and stratham new hampshire and other places uh we are we have a number of different ways that we would love to work with the town to
119uh to make that work we've not sort of worked through each piece for that just yet but we are very confident that there's a lot of avenues that will minimize anything any uh you know cost to the town and we're committed to making sure that that happens in a responsible manner okay any other comments uh david yeah um on the the liability uh where nathan said that liability would be similar to the skate park well what what is the arrangement with the skate park is that is that a town maintained park on school property you know i'm actually not aware of the exact arrangement there and who would uh how the liability is done for the state park does anybody here know john well most of the facilities that we maintain are listed under our
120maya liability property liability program i don't know specifically whether this is individually listed maybe in the skate park i'm sure that they would want it to be i can i can look into that for you and just so i can look into the insurance question but as a follow-up natural resources and the wreck commission has voted to well the rec commission is voted to support this project and the natural resources folks are comfortable with what's being proposed there are details that i would like to talk more about with proponents that the parking is is new to me um and some of the other components that i think we need to sort out but just wanted to clarify that the staff has reviewed it and is supportive of it from what we've what we know so
121far and and john benson there are two people with their hands up this brush sure please um steve brown did you want to make a comment uh yeah i would just uh like to say that as an acting resident can people hear me first of all yes as an acting resident and member of the new england mountain bike association for uh over 10 years now and also as a former parent volunteer for the argonauts um i'm very supportive of this i've seen what riding bikes can do for people's health mental well-being i've seen what it can do for kids um it's a great way for for kids who want to learn how to handle a bike and it doesn't need to be an expensive mountain bike it just needs to be a well-maintained bike with
122some knobs on the tires to hold onto the dirt to uh to really enjoy themselves build confidence and whatnot and i would love to see something like this in our town that's okay and john there's one more sure parker and hamilton cole so i'm parker cole from the nargonauts um we've i've me and my family have seen how it's been done down in chelmsford with russell mills uh and we very much support this and we think that there's a whole lot of people that would be willing to take over if nathan uh is no longer able to take care of it for a while thank you uh jim um i'm enthusiastic about this project um my initial response was to be very protective of the trails as a former land stewardship committee member and a
123fan of you know trails but um i sat down with nathan previously and i'm very comfortable with the way that they've arranged uh the the pump track to be at a distance from the yellow trail um it just seems like a very well thought out project uh i think in terms of staff time the only the only thing i can think that maybe wasn't mentioned was that the um the trash can there would need to get added to the to the root uh that the the team takes to uh you know get trash from recreation areas to the transfer station that should be very easy and straightforward but just wanted to to say it out loud um and i would love to see a uh recycling bin or two next to the trash can you
124know there's usually a fair number of plastic bottles and things like that that can accumulate it'd be nice to get them recycled rather than okay if there's no further comments what john what would be uh the next steps required of the board um and your office what would you what would you need from us tonight just a a vote of of uh whether you endorse the project as presented and you would like me to work out the details uh or if you want more information before doing so those are the two choices you have okay so um i mean we have a motion to um you know endorse the project and um have uh john come back how much time would you need to pull your end together and get back to us we have
125meetings on the 5th and 18th of october uh yeah that should probably do it depending on what how much if they have plans that they can present um you know the parking i think is something that i want to learn more about uh exactly what's being proposed okay so you could you could be back we could deal take this up again on the on the on the 5th of october then at our next meeting okay hi this is um david kleinschmidt like to make a comment i could well we're in the middle of a motion if there's do you have anything to add that we haven't yeah sorry it's just a it's just to fill in uh maybe some information for john um about the parking for example we did talk to uh tom tidman
126and he did recommend um the site across um quarry road that would be relatively straightforward to build some gravel parking there so that was his recommendation just want to make sure that you've got some professional advice about that and also regarding supporting maintenance ongoing maintenance of the pump track we are a large group of folks um we're building a friends of the acting pump track group that will support this uh from a long-term standpoint so we're not planning on depending on the town for any maintenance whatsoever going forward just want to give john that further information thank you very interrupt um okay so joan yeah i moved to approve the concept of the pump track at the quarry roadside okay or is there a second a dean is there any further discussion okay then uh
127david if you call the role please jim one last comment just to make sure um i i'm comfortable taking this off the list of potential dog park sites but i wanted to make sure that people were aware that this this was one of the sites that we had that we were going to be discussing in october and this would be uh taking that off the uh the list yeah the dog park committee endorsed this site as a as a pump track side and they're okay so david would you call the role please uh mr snyder grant hi ms gardner hi mr charter aye mr benson aye and i'll say i is what's unanimous nathan and mike very well done we'll see you on october 5th we will much thank you okay um so our next
128item is an update on uh the quoted 19 response uh john please yes thank you uh if if i may i'd like to take the next two or three items all all at once in a single discussion if you're comfortable with that sure okay thanks so uh just let's see sharing my screen can you see the presentation of the little one i see this location the big one okay so uh that's not working sorry let me try that again i do better at my home office with these things i guess um so i want do you see the graph of the cases no still on the front page there we go all right thank you so we are um about six months into this uh the number of active cases which are current uh cases
129of people right now in town uh dip down to zero over the weekend and we're back to one uh which is good news uh relative to where we were in may um and we hope that continues but i just wanted to this is a chart that we update daily and then we publish on our website every monday night or sometimes tuesday morning and so heather is doing a great job and tracking these cases and her team is doing a lot of you know still doing a lot of contact tracing even though there's only one case there's still a ton of work involved in tracking potential cases and a lot of different uh phone calls and interactions they have to do uh so they're doing a terrific job with that uh where uh so the public
130health standpoint is uh you know working very closely with the board of health they're meeting tonight at the same time and going over a few important things which we'll share with you after tonight but i wanted to get to some of the financial impacts through the budget process leading up to the deferred town meeting we made several presentations to the slackman and the finance committee about finances and i just wanted to give the update of where we are right now so as uh was reported by the chair at town meeting last week our real estate collections are very strong uh considering uh not a deterioration that that we could point to which is good news for the first quarter of the fiscal year we hope that continues the governor and our legislators have committed and
131dls has actually booked the state aid at level to last year which is what we ultimately put in the alg model so that's relatively good news that um they've made that commitment and it's one less thing for us almost variable for us to worry about as we work through this year we are being cautious with spending in spending freezes and a spending fees and hiring freeze was in place uh in march and i've been very careful not to uh straight from that but we are doing some spending as needed to do things that we need to do in multiple departments and operations there are some positions that we can't go any longer without filling we started to do that we have a few dpw positions that are out looking for applications right now so if
132you know anybody uh watching uh please send along and hope they'll apply we're also doing some other hiring uh in targeted positions and we'll continue to evaluate them on a case-by-case basis as we move forward we're also doing a lot of great work i think many people in the organization are seeking grant funds and they're being successful and getting them so it's really helping with taking pressure off the budget we're working with the eligible cares and fema expenses we've we have about 750 000 expenses since the beginning of this situation that we're going to be putting forward or already have put forward for reimbursement to those programs and just to give you a reminder we were awarded just under 2.1 million for the cares act funding earlier this year we submitted a request to the
133state for 190 000 for the fy 20 expenses that we are able to document we've since been awarded 50 000 for the fire department through a competitive grant 30 dollars was also awarded for ppe and cheryl and other staff did a great job uh seeking funding support for border health uh so there's a lot of resources that are coming in that we're using to help offset costs that were incurring due to this pandemic the expenses um are you know ppe staffing overtime we've completely overhauled our um office spaces and technology and there's been a lot of investment in that we're doing cleaning in and in different ways we've just installed these interesting nano technology on our doorknobs and our elevator buttons that stay clean somehow so we're doing all kinds of things to try to
134limit the exposure and the transfer of germs and this virus we've done a lot of retrofitting of office spaces we held two very successful town meetings which required a lot of extra expenses that we normally wouldn't incur and where we had the emergency rental assistance program in which the board just approved an additional fifty 000 last meeting uh and so the regional housing authority and laura ducharme are working to disperse those uh assistance grants to residents in need so tonight um uh as part of this update there are a few things that i would ask the board to consider doing one is to approve the health director cheryl ball as the municipal approving authority for remote learning enrichment programs schools started today in action of oxford i talked to the superintendent this afternoon and he
135said everything went well and according to all the plans that they made i know they've been working very hard over the summer to plan for today so i was pleased to hear that uh the first day uh was a success uh so i appreciate his work uh so but as part of what's happening is with the education system is there are these remote learning centers that are being established during school hours for families who need to have their children work or do schoolwork outside of the home at either a facility set up for remote learning and these need to be approved by a single entity in the town and i'm asking that the board uh authorized me to appoint or let the board appoint cheryl to serve that role so that's one thing and i
136can give you some more details the second thing is that a rec group is actually looking to use 50 audubon as a remote learning site to provide a dozen or you know a few families the opportunity to have their children do remote learning from 50 audubon uh to help them since they may have to work or for other reasons um we're looking at revising the fee structure for reserve parking and i'm asking you to consider extending the farmers market to let them do a winter market near thanksgiving and i'm seeking your support and any feedback that you want to offer as we plan for reopening so those are the four things so to get to the first one this remote learning we have to do a site visit we have to confirm compliance with all
137the state rules and provide approval of one or more programs to the department of early education and child care so it's an important responsibility that didn't exist until about two weeks ago and we do we have heard from a handful of companies that want to offer this service and we're required to approve and certify that so that's the first ask is if the board would consider uh appointing cheryl for that um would you want to do that now or you want to go to the end is it this is there a second second okay is there any discussion okay then david let's proceed with the vote hey uh mr snyder grant aye ms gardner aye mr charter aye mr benson aye and i'll say aye so that's unanimous okay thank you uh that's helpful and
138so along those lines would you be comfortable also of considering to vote to allow rec to use 50 audubon as a remote learning center subject to uh cheryl's approval so move back or second second discussion all right david let's uh move ahead with the boot uh mr snyder grant aye ms gardner aye mr charter aye mr benson aye and i also say i sorry that's unanimous as well thank you okay i appreciate that so the next item is parking so earlier this year in may the board approved changing the pricing for the reserve parking since no one was using it we the board approved reducing it in half to what residents would need to pay to reserve this space and since then we thought people would start using again they're still not the lots are
139still very empty and so what we suggest uh to provide some relief to our residents and commuters is that you consider changing the monthly rate for those spots to 25 dollars per month for the months july through december of this year which will allow people to pay to reserve this space but not pay the full freight which could be up to 150 a month depending on the location still move there a second second discussion yeah just a question um is this revenue dedicated to some specific purpose that would be i don't know challenged or at risk by the reduction in income yes the the well no it would i think we can survive this reduction uh if that's uh what you're asking uh the money from parking goes directly into the parking program and is
140used for maintenance and operations and uh the costs for those aren't as much this year since they aren't as busy and hopefully things will change after the first of the year okay so is there is there a motion yes there's a motion in a second so should i go up call the road now yes please mr snyder grant aye ms gardner aye mr charter aye mr benson i and i also say eyes that's unanimous okay all right thank you so um as i mentioned the schools started today they have students back in the building they have a smaller number and they're in cohorts but they are using those public facilities so i wanted to start the conversation with the board about if you're hearing from your constituents or if you feel that we need to
141start having the public in the building soon my instinct and my experience is that we've been handling it very well we've been providing service through the phone through email and through windows service and meeting people in the parking lot and there are many complaints but i still want to be cautious and make sure that the board provides with me any direction that you want to with regards to reopening so along those lines the board of health and the selectmen both declared a state of emergency earlier this year and ordered that the public buildings would be closed about a month and a half later the board took a second vote to amend its order to align the public buildings closures with the massachusetts governor's order which basically allowed for a phased return to the office for
142uh the workforce and so i think what i what i'm looking for tonight is for the board to consider directing me to start working on a plan to uh allowing the public back in the building as early as october on a limited basis in a way that we're comfortable with uh we've been doing a lot of planning on that and it's not something that we're ready to do right now uh there are still things that we're not comfortable with uh but we understand there will be a need as the weather gets colder um to have people uh maybe come in the building when when they hadn't had to for a while uh we have taken steps that were required under the governor's plan we we did a marianne heather amerian selecting our a director of
143human resources general ball um our health director and heather york put together a terrific and comprehensive training program for all employees which is one of the requirements we've done a lot of retrofitting we've installed contact free fixtures we are working in cohorts uh when we're in the building to try to limit exposure to each other and to keep the numbers down and that's something that we're continuing to work on uh we're doing a regular schedule of spraying the common areas to try to reduce the potential for exposures uh so those are the steps we've taken and you know as we think about reopening there's a lot of different things we we have you know the buildings we have libraries we have um events and ribbon cuttings and all the things that that we do as
144a town we've been doing them virtually we had a very solemn uh inappropriately put together 911 ceremony last week but we weren't able to invite the public this is a that's an event that the public really uh cherished being able to to be there and observe that important day and we weren't able to do that this year so do we want to continue taking on a weekly basis and just defer to having not people not the public until further notice or do you want to start do you want us to start thinking about how to get the public back in these spaces and um we're planning for it but we don't want to go uh too far in playing until we know there's a desire from the board for us to do so would that
145be it yes yeah i uh i would certainly be in favor of having the town manager move ahead with some plans uh to start opening these offices on a limited basis one that's not presented here i don't think but i think is worthwhile talking about is because you impacted me recently is start to open up as far as being able to do sticker sales and that sort of thing at the transfer station i got my sticker the other day all right i didn't i wasn't so lucky i smiled a lot that's that's the difference um so i think i'd be in favor of of having the town manager move ahead and make some recommendations i think um another point uh that should be considered it's early now but start to think about what boards and
146committees can start to meet um properly uh where we've got enough space which probably means everything's going to have to go up into the faulkner room uh but i think that we should start looking at at opening that up again on a limited basis and finally just one question i got from a constituent is you know any considerations about what's going to happen at halloween which it's not usually big town hall holiday but it's certainly uh coming at us pretty quick and uh folks want to know your recommendations thanks anyone david yeah um yeah i i agree that we need to you know uh be able to accommodate people inside in that colder weather you know people aren't going to be able to sign things you know when it's 10 degrees outside um but i
147think we need to be a little cautious here the also in the winter the um the the virus may transmit more easily and and so i think you know we need to be very cautious to protect the employees and and everything um uh one of the things i was uh wondering john if we've taken any um well so a lot of the things you were talking about uh you know guard against transmitting the virus by touch but this virus doesn't actually transmit by touch uh but it does transmit in stagnant air you know at a ferocious rate and so i was wondering are there hvac improvements we need to public buildings or hvac additions we need for public buildings um to increase the air exchange through heat exchangers or whatever yes that's a that's not
148a consideration that i know that we've been looking at unfortunately we've been able to use windows a lot but that's not going to be an option uh for much longer uh so we'll do we'll need to look at ventilation and that'll be certainly part of the planning and recommendations that i bring forward further comments jim um yeah i'm also in favor of moving ahead with the planning um [Music] in terms of the the need but also the challenge to me the trickiest space is is the senior center the human services building because that is so that's been so vital for the the life of seniors that use it um and yet you know the the risk is also very high so um i'm i i i'm just saying that's going to be a tricky one
149to do well but i i hope we don't um give up on that because it's an important space socially um john were you thinking of starting with town hall as the first building to to reopen well i guess that would be the one of the ones that we were looking to start with on a limited basis the libraries i think there are some communities that allow libraries open on certain restrictions and that's something that i'd like to explore for later this winter as well um the human services building we the senior center is going to be a challenge uh but there are other staff and programs that run out of there that we may be able to uh do sooner uh so i'd like to look at that as well but yes town hall and
150the offices that run associated with town hall will be the first that we're just thinking about um david please yeah and i i have one uh tangential question here because it relates to you know i don't know if we can use uh karzak funding for hbac improvements here um i would suspect it sounds to me like it's legit but i also know that the the school district is expecting to use some of the uh cares act monies from both towns and i was wondering if whether those requests have been made officially from the district to the town yet or whether there's been informal discussions i know that's not direct on this but it's it's it's related i think yes we i've communicated with uh superintendent light regularly um on that issue and they do have
151funding that's dedicated specifically for school districts that they've been utilizing but they do have a need uh to request of of the town use of some cares act funds uh for technology and some other items that they're investing in and that's something that we would be discussing this fall most likely further further comments questions so can we jim dean did ask about halloween and it's just sitting in my mind now i i'm curious if there's any thoughts so halloween uh we do more planning for halloween area than you would guess um as as town hall folks and the police department and that's something that we will do in october we're not ready to do it yet um but yes i in my career i've had to cancel halloween twice um i'm not looking for potentially
152doing it a third time so i'm gonna do everything i can to uh no i'm not gonna do we'll do we'll recommend whatever's right um but there is a group of folks that are trying to put together some um social distance halloween uh special events uh for later in the fall that may may uh serve as an alternative so more to come on that thank you okay any further comments so um how should we put this in a motion john or just a a consensus please go forward um with um a thoughtful reopening plan i think a consensus is fine i just want to make sure that that there's a level of comfort with moving forward planning and i'm sensing that dean thumbs up all right go forward thank you very very very good presentation
153um our next item would be the diversity equity inclusion would you like to take a five minute break and we'll come back you ready to go ready to go all right okay so um this is item nine um and i'd like to proceed this way that we discuss and vote on the um eleven appointments uh the nine full members the two associate members to the deic and then um take up the request from [Music] racial justice to black lives matter to have either a black or brown individual named chair of the committee we had received communications from fran arsenaut who is clerk of that group this weekend and uh the appropriate forum to discuss it is is that our meeting tonight so um and um let's just go forward then with the discussion and a
154vote on david's appointments my uh opening question to david would be um in our charge we authorized nine to 11 full members and up to two um um um associate members i believe you have put forth on nine full members and two associate members is there any reason why you didn't go to the full 11 when we had 31 applicants david um yeah it was just a mistake on my part and so i i will come back with a supplemental um uh set of appointments but this is enough to get the committee started okay would you would your sense be to um move the two associate members to to full members and we can vote on well i i would like to talk with people first before i make that okay i i'd rather go
155with the way it's in the in the agenda for now okay okay um and with this understanding you'd be the chair david yeah uh john just said he'd like to discuss that second i mean i would let's discuss that no our intention was that david as chair it was just a request that was made from racial justice black lives matter to reconsider um that approach and to name a black or brown member of the committee as chair and i think we have an obligation to have a discussion on you know on on on the issue and uh would we appoint the chair or would these members select a chair um that would be for us to discuss tonight whether we even want to approve that request we don't we don't have to i'm just you
156know granting the you know um the you know the courtesy of having um you know you know that discussion um you know they have to convince me why we should do it some other way than in what we've already agreed upon with with david as the chair um you know i've read their materials and uh you know let's here and you know i have some remarks that i prepared um as to why we we did it the way we did it and um and unless you know there's some you know compelling reason to do it differently i'd leave it as the way we have it um but let's just go ahead and let's fill the committee um first and uh david well to divide it up the way you said here john i i i
157would move that uh we appoint the nine members as full members and the two members as associate members as outlined in the agenda okay who would be the ninth member yes sorry yes i'm the ninth member so the the eight members in the um in the uh agenda plus the two associate numbers okay so you know um is there a second exactly okay is there any discussion gene yeah i it might be a little premature to discuss this but we raised the issue about the the number of members on the community um and based on you know the response we got back if david wants to come back with subsequent meeting and ask for authorization to get even more members on the committee i'd be very amenable to that um and i think it's important
158that we be able to represent as many points of view as possible we have a broad cross section so you know we said 9 to 11 um full members i'd be happy to go beyond that if we think that we've got some good candidates just so that we make sure that we're really inclusive here uh jim um i just wanted to say i really enjoyed reading through the the applications from all 30 people and it was just astonishing and moving to me how many people wanted to serve it's it's just really exciting to me and i i i guess i want to say that um the all those all those people who didn't happen to be on david's list are still remarkable people as far as i can tell from from reading the applications and
159i hope that they will continue to find ways to be engaged in the work of the town whether that's you know attending the meetings because all these meetings will be open or participating in other committees or you know all the various ways that people contribute to the town it was also remarkable after um after going through um sort of some reminiscing with the with the bcc chair about um the very small number of black applicants for town committees over the last you know few decades and just suddenly to see all these new names and faces come forward was just really um just really remarkable and yeah i i thought the um just the the diversity on the uh of david's uh appointments was was great it was of the eleven eight were women three were
160men five for black one chinese two indian one lbg dt one latino and david is the one white person uh two are current a b students and one is an ab graduate now in college so that's that's neat and i you know we can get it to 11 and if there's more if you um yeah i guess you got to sort of be concerned of how large you want to make the committee where it might become unwieldy i don't think that at this time i would go beyond what the charge said uh unless the the commission itself wanted to increase the size but but i will uh flesh it out to the full 11 with a supplemental couple of nominations okay uh but i i would agree i was just really taken by um you
161know you know the 30 people because i don't think any of them have served on on on town committees in the past so that's a you know real opener and to those who don't um you know there's lots of opportunities to you know to get involved if you could match a committee up with your interest it's certainly worthwhile and it really does expand yourself for oneself so are there any further comments and uh if not then there's a motion to approve and let me just read it to the record the the following names and i'm sorry if i get the um last names not quite pronounced right but um for full members uh charmaine williams uh don wang mckenna miyundi nasra mageni nathan cookson avi ah adivis soto sandra hines uh sunanda uh papawa diane
162randolph and leela are rash michondron um so uh david if you please uh call the roll uh mr steiner brad ms gardner hi mr charter hi mr benson um i and i also say aye so that's the animals okay so um uh a friend if an arsenal is available um if perhaps she would open the conversation um on um um her uh from her group a i think about 100 people signed a petition one um asking that a black or brown individual um be named chair of the committee and that the committee or commission be be permanent in in nature and not sunset um after one year as the charge provides so fran hi there can you hear me yes so i i love all the things that i'm hearing um and one question that
163i did have in that the current committee as it is that you just voted on um i i was wondering why the two associate members weren't moved up to full members with a voting uh position if there were only nine full members i'll actually even answer that yeah i i i will i'll come back with a proposal i just want to talk to people first okay and also what what is the uh job of an associate versus a full member david so an associate member uh well first as far as particip participation in the committee there's no difference you know in terms of discussions and that kind of thing the only the only difference it comes to voting that the associate members would only vote if there wasn't a full uh suite of uh full
164members uh at a meeting right okay thank you do you have anything further friend i do in that i i didn't know if you wanted to address the uh chair position well that's what we're that's what this discussion is about i feel strongly that it should be an opportunity for a black or person of color to sit in the chair position before a committee such as a diversity committee does that make sense i understand the point yeah um i don't know if it's not it's not the norm um but i i feel like there are a lot of good candidates that that do have there there is one candidate in particular that does this for uh her profession so she would be very qualified well well first of all i i don't think that we
165would name the chair if we did this right right for every other committee the committee uh we're not for every other committee there are other committees that where uh the chair is a member of the board um but in most cases that where they like their own um chair they look they're wrong we don't we don't choose people right but excuse me excuse me just a minute please um so uh secondly i understand i understand the point um that's um uh being made however i don't really agree with it in this case i think it's important to get the committee up and running quickly um and you know for someone to be familiar with um the open meeting law how town committees run that kind of thing is very important um i think in in
166this case it would be like dropping one of the nominees in the deep end um i would also like to not make changes to the charge at this point without the involving the commission itself um and you know uh you know not taking uh you know i think the people who are members here um should should get you know the the uh the primary consideration and if we they wanted to request changes to the charge and and finally i think that the you know having the member of the board um uh be the chair is going to be very important for the results of this uh um commission when it comes back to communicating to the board um and making and you know addressing the whatever recommendations are made by the board fran anything further
167are you saying david that in the in the future once the commission gets started that it's a possibility that that this could that another person could chair the committee if it's agreed upon by the commission david so if if if the commission voted uh to um ask the uh uh the board for changes to its charge i think we would definitely consider that right um absolutely uh you know whether we would agree or not expensive to propose changes but that happens in other cases as well right um that that you know sometimes the the composition of uh uh a committee or uh whatever is is set one way and it gets uh the committee request changes to that yeah i would uh i back dave at 100 on this uh you know we we carefully
168worked out the charge and the membership it's a limited life of the committee what might come out of this task force is a recommendation that we have a standing committee and then we can deal with that at some later point i think it's very important that we have a member of the board to chair for all the reasons that david has suggested uh better coordination with us i think it elevates the uh the visibility and the importance of this commission so i it's a non-starter to me that we change the charge that we change the decision on who is supposed to be chair or that we change the uh the duration of the committee committee can come back because i'm fully expecting when they come back with their recommendations they might want to stand permanent
169standing committee and we can deal with that then um and also very uneasy about the whole aspect of selecting a certain racial group to serve in a certain capacity and you know i know this is unusual but it's not anything that we've done before and i'm not i'm not good with this at all so i think we stick with the the charge we've got and i've got full confidence in that david's ability to chair okay oh sorry okay um so yeah i'm i'm i'm very sympathetic to the notion of having the uh his body be chaired by someone who's in the the group that this commission is supposed to be like hearing from um but i also agree that this isn't the time because of because of the order of the process this isn't the
170right place or time to do it um so i had a couple suggestions um uh so one question for david is um i mean one of the roles of the chair and the very important and powerful role of the chair is to set the agenda um you know to figure out who what what people are going to be called in to testify and um some of the larger boards like even our board uh has uh so like typically for example david and dean as chair and vice chair get together to talk about the agenda um and um i think it would be great and in the spirit of what we're trying to accomplish here for you david to call together um you know define three or so some some group some smallish subquorum group um
171to work with you on creating the agendas um that would allow um you know participation uh you know some black and brown people on the committee and some of our first generation immigrants to participate at that level of the committee and that might be a good starting point for achieving the goal of the letter that we've got um the other uh the other thought i have is um i think what you said david as well which is i would certainly be open if if after the committee gets to know itself and each other and each other's skills and strengths uh if you want to reorganize in such a way that that chair is someone who is not you um i'm open to that and i'm i mean i'm open to having the discussion come back
172to the to the board to this board uh if if your committee thinks that that makes sense yeah wouldn't you have a vice chairman and a clerk someone to take the minutes and stand in if you're sick or yes yeah one of the things we provided for in the in the charge that when we created it when we said let's go beyond the chairman let's have a we provided for a vice chair person that's elected by the commission right um we didn't we won't appoint the person they will select the person but um just for further friends your comments and in putting this commission bringing the idea forward that um you know as a board when we had our uh our goal setting workshop this was the one goal short term or long term that
173got votes from all five members of the board it was you know two proposals that david and i you know uh aligned proposals that we carpentered together to create the commission and you know we wanted to take you know it's a very serious matter i mean race is complex and sensitive and you know we as a board chose to take responsibility for it not just you know hand it off to somebody else to do the job and we're very much invested um you know in the success of the commission and you know when i asked david to chair it i did so full well knowing his really lifelong commitment to you know to race relations um and his professional work and and you know at running meetings um um in the business world you know
174um you know which is no easy thing and you know we we took a broader view of the commission if you look at the charges the commission's tasks are targeted increasing communication with underrepresented racial ethnic and religious groups and it's to gather first-hand experiences in acting from underrepresented racial ethnic and religious groups and the the 11 members of the commission you know you know fill that um you know um you know to achieve i think we should all be very proud of that and it's it's not just it's it's for all groups it's it certainly was driven by the events in minnesota but it's we are a very you know diverse community and we're addressing a whole range um of people and groups and concerns in the community and further to david's point um as
175a committee of the as a town committee or commission um it comes under the open meeting law which to these 11 people who have never served on a town board it is going to be a a real eye-opening you know experience the open meeting law is about transparency and efficiency but it really has nothing to do with efficiency um it's it's going to be a whole new way for people to operate you you can't have offline discussions of somebody comes up with an idea in an email and sends out an email and comment lets everybody comment on it that's an open meeting law violation and what's even worse is if two people sit down and have a discussion and say well we'll reach out further and bring in three more people each that's another violation
176so you know nina pickering cook is our town council is going to do uh you know a real you know crash tutorial session um you know um on the open meeting law because you could find yourself very quickly in violations with what's called serial communications because when you asked this weekend could we have a zoom meeting earlier today with the board well that's a violation because it's it's not a it's got to be a newly posted public meeting you know with with um with um proper notice and you know one of the frustrating things we have is you know you would like to take soundings among the member reports on a particular issue you know where do you think we're going well you can't do that you you know those are just open meeting law
177violations and it could be incredibly frustrating and um you know one of the you know the great things is when the legislature passed this law you know in fact 2010 they applied it to cities and towns and excluded themselves from it so they don't have to comply with what we have to comply in our in our in our daily governance practices and you've got to be abundantly careful because people from you know towns anywhere in the commonwealth could be listening into a deliberation of this board or any other port and file open meeting law complaints as we learned from the you know the gentleman from you know from boxborough and and david is probably our most adept uh board member at really cautioning us about potential you know open meeting violations that as careful as
178i am you've got to be careful like even in responding to your email of this weekend that david responded to and copied us we've been advised by our town council and by our manager that his copying us in on the response view is a potential violation i don't think it is um but one thing i want to ask of you and i'm very serious about this um is um this is going to be involved in a lot of uh work that's going to be you know scrutinized by our town by and large and um i really want to ask you if you would get through to your group they are not to target individuals on this commission because you know all of their meetings will be open and i i don't want to see people
179you know who make comments that don't square with somebody's view being called out on social media and targeted and criticized and subject to an ongoing social media dialogue because if there's one certain way to harm this committee it's through um you know social media targeting um and attacking them and taking comments that they make out of context i'm pretty thick skinned and uh you know that's happened to me a couple of times out of your group and uh i didn't think it was particularly accurate but that's the way it is it's really important that those people be left free of that kind of attack if we're looking to get the work done that we want to get done so i hope i have your understanding on that are there any other people there are four
180other people with their hands raised let's go amy christa murphy hi thank you so much for letting me comment um thanks for everybody that is involved in this and um i just wanted to say that i think that you have established a really robust committee of 11 of 11 10 11 people and i think that the most um successful way that you would go forward with this is allow those those members to elect their own chairperson instead of deciding on your own that you would appoint a chairperson i mean i think it's it's it's a it's a community of diverse opinions um that are really important so that you should allow that kind of diverse conversation to um to go forward and elect who they choose to be their representative i mean just based on
181my few um six seven years on school committee i just i think it's important to allow the people that are out there and and understanding that maybe they don't absolutely grasp all of the open law you know meeting requirements all of the ins and outs of being on a committee but you know listen as a school committee member you get up to date on that very quickly and and maybe we just allow that people who are who have volunteered their time and experience to you know and give them give them the opportunity to to ramp up but allow them the opportunity to actually choose their the person that they feel should you know be their spokesperson well amy let me ask you this when on the school committee you've been around a while when you
182go on a superintendent search committee uh the school committee appoints one of their own to lead the service committee when you had a when you we had the the gates douglas building project it was a school committee member who was chairman yes no so actually on the uh yeah no i i i completely hear you right so when you are when you are choosing a person superintendent to lead the entire district basically be so school committee has you know three um overwhelming over arching kind of responsibilities policy the superintendent and budget right so this is one of our overarching responsibilities so absolutely the school committee is going to be out there leading the search for the superintendent if you are i'm sorry what was the other thing the school building committee that was uh okay
183so so so school school building committee yes we had um so mary brolin who was who is a former school committee member he was a school committee member when she was appointed and then she left the committee she didn't seek real action she was she left the committee and she could have very easily stepped down and said i'm you know i'm not spoken anymore i want to step back the issue the issue is this okay if you establish a very important honestly i think dei is an incredibly important committee and you you cannot limit the chairmanship to based on the elected five officials that you have in front of you i mean i think honestly honestly i i think that that the people that you have are great i mean i think all of you
184are in you know extremely qualified and and have a very diverse and important position um very important um ideas but you also have to understand that when you have taken 11 members of the community there are very different than your own personal um experiences but you need to allow those 11 people to choose who they want to represent them i i don't i think it's totally different than building committee building committee is like okay well like where where is the emotional involvement in building a new school building you know we're talking about emotional responses to diversity equity and inclusion i i just i just feel strongly that you should not appoint but allow the the individuals that have volunteered to choose who they want to represent them okay thank you thanks all right next we
185have you should be able to unmute yourself um hi everyone this is lovinski jasmine um before i speak i want to be clear that i am in baltimore so i don't want to because i'm not a acting resident so i want to be clear if you guys will please allow me to to speak yeah thank you um i want to thank you all for what you you've been doing in the town for many years keeping the town safe and especially to you know decide to have this commission in town i believe it's a really great step to um include other people in towns especially black and brown people in the community as a friend and amy has have pointed out um we are a long way to go so we we have a long way
186to go and then we begin this commission with the purpose of including black and black people in the community i think they should be able to to lead the commission they sell to lead the commission and be able to choose who they want to represent them and um i know um it's it's hard as a board of selectmen or select board members to just so let everybody do what they want to do because you are you know um managing everything in the town or leading everything to uh and the town in general so this commission in my understanding is something that um that is particularly for black and brown people and choosing one person like from the start as a white person to leave that commission is not really it does not really look good
187and uh you know as we are doing that for black people and we all know uh about like uh white supremacy it's like i'm not saying this is what you intend to do but this is the idea that we receive as black and gold people in the community because like um you know it's like why people should i'm sorry i said that this is not what you want to say but that's what we will see um you know white people should be the leader white people should be the one leading everything when as a group as a commission where it is about black and brown people and you have one white person who is already selecting to be the leader um i mean i want you to consider that that view and please look at
188other um diversity and inclusion group or in uh and and you know even in massachusetts who are generally in in in the united states you will see that they make the effort to let a black obam so we could just change that and to appoint just a white person to do it it's like uh sending in a different message that you i'm sure you not intend to send so like the other people and i'm sure you want us black and black people to include and especially this commission will not make decision on their own you will be um you know uh they will make the research and everything and they will send that to you to the selectmen to make the the final decision and i'm for the idea that uh david should be part
189of the commission but uh and then he should be like uh he should be the year zone for the commission while he is a member a full member of the commission and left a personal caller or a black person with the commission and i'm sure we uh if you look in town i'm sure there are other people in town who know a government um you know um committing committing that um uh who knows who know about like government laws who know about uh open meeting law yeah thank you who know about open meeting law so it is not just one person i'm i can i can assure you you will find at least two other people and i'm not saying to just let them do it by themselves and you can be with them accompany
190them to do the work and that will be a great message i'm telling you that atkins and godsville will send to all the other towns in the area and uh and as you know i'm lavinsky i'm part of the ricky justice for black lives group and i am working as i said i what i am doing or what racial justice for black lives matter is not against uh white people we're not doing that in the community we are united everyone together this is the idea and sometimes to do that you know there are things that most people will not agree with and but you know we we do we do it but we do it with respect and encouragement and thank you i i hope that you will move to approve or um somebody uh
191or a black or a brown person as the chair of the commission thank you very much for giving me this opportunity to speak today thank you mr jasmine there's one more sure tara and i have a question for you i agree with what lebanese said and what amy said and what fran said and um i i also understand that now you've got yourself to this point um is it possible that you could that somebody would move to take a vote of the um selectmen um to allow the committee to decide who can be chair thank you is there any further comments from the from the audience no more hands phase john okay so um from the board dean yeah i i would move that we uh proceed with the uh the charge and the membership
192and the chairmanship as described in the original charge is there a second second second david yes okay um is there any discussion on the motion jim um yeah um i think as i said before i'm comfortable with the charter proceeding the way it is for now i do recognize that we got ourselves into this you know entirely predictable situation but it's a hard it's a hard one to figure out how to get how to work our way out of and i agree that um if the board is comfortable with the with the commission coming back at some point uh with uh you know requests to change in the charter um i'm very open to that and i would be great it would be great to know if my um fellow board members were also open
193david yes yeah i i would say two things one that also uh clear your comment before jim um so first of all i think the direction of who the commission hears from and that kind of thing uh i would like that to be the direction to be set by the the whole commission right the details of the the agenda um my intention was to work with the vice chair to produce the agenda perhaps that can be broadened slightly um the logistics get a little difficult sometimes but yeah it would at least be with the the the vice chair and and secondly the final thing is i think what you just said it that happens on any number of committees right where they get to a point where they need to change their charge and they
194make a request through their liaison to to change their charge and to board votes on it and i think that that can happen here as well and in fact like i said originally i would not for no other reason there's a handful of reasons which i stated earlier and for no other reason i don't think at this point we should change the charge without the commission right if if the people want to change it i'm i'm open to bringing that back here and we can decide okay so with that with david's comments are there any further comments from board members okay so we have dean's motion which has been seconded on the floor um to proceed um as we have set forth in the charge so if david would call the role then mr snyder
195grant aye ms gardner aye mr charter aye mr benson aye and i also say aye so that's unanimous okay thank you all very much and um thank you for fran and and others for for commenting and um tonight thank you all so um [Music] review the funding proposal for the new sustainability director i would just like a five-minute break at this point if that's okay thank you see you in five being fine foreign you okay so do we have everyone or just waiting for jim there we go all right we're all back okay so the next item is number 10 review the funding proposal for the new sustainability director john thank you i have a few slides to go over this is a position that was part of the budget proposal that was approved by
196town meeting in the fy21 budget there is a capital article which includes some funding to support a temporary position to help pursue sustainability programs and initiatives but it's clear to me based on the workload that we have here and the demand for this type of program that a temporary contracted position will be costly and it wouldn't adequately meet the needs for what uh i believe and what i've been directed to do as a town manager so i'm proposing that oh we hire a full-time person which is something that uh i'd ask the board to consider uh voting in support of if you are supportive of it and if you have any questions i'd like to go through them but just to give you a sense of some of the thinking uh the green advisory board
197is a very active group and they've been working on they've did a carbon neutrality study and they've done a lot of work and are prepared and excited for taking the next step and developing a climate action plan they need more assistance they're staffed by our facilities director and we need a more dedicated resource to help all the work that they have outlined as a work program having a director the focus on this is consistent with the sustainability policy approved by the board in december of 2018 and the various goals and responsibilities that that policy places on me which i have not been able to meet due to the demands of other things that are happening here it's consistent with goals established by the board every year in the last two years in 2019 there were
198three goals and related to sustainability this year there are four related sustainability so it's clearly a high priority of this board and and all the work that i do i need to focus on on your priorities and i feel additional assistance is needed to be able to do it appropriately uh also last week the town voted uh a non-binding resolution but uh with that vote and some of the discussion that we heard that night is clear that uh this isn't just a board directive it's a there's a lot of momentum in the community for this type of work and i think a dedicated position will help us to better meet the needs of the community and the community engagement that we need to do to be able to do this right uh so what this
199person would do would work it would work this person would work with the green advisory board and other civic groups to work on long-term goals to reduce greenhouse gas emissions uh we were awarded a 35 000 grant uh at the end of june to help towards our work to develop a climate action plan that would be uh this is something that this position would take the lead on and along with the great advisory board shepherd that project through and get a lot of community input develop a plan that the board can review later hopefully later this year if they would also work on other grant programs that we pursue every year such as the green community grant and this position would also publish an annual report to demonstrate and celebrate the progress that we make
200as an organization and as a community on sustainability i think you know the school building and the fire station that we approved last year and several other things that this town and this community has voted to support really should be celebrated and should be we should have someone that's really focused on making sure that all these things are all going in the right direction and we have great civic engagement from multiple groups out there but we need someone in in town hall or in town offices uh to to do it and you know we have our public arts team our facilities team my office there's several people that work on it but we need a dedicated source so as i mentioned there was funding available in this budget to help with the temporary position i'm
201proposing that reality we reallocate that to make a permanent position and the way that that would look for this year uh given that we're um it's middle of september and if the board is supportive of this and we move forward it will probably be the end of the year uh or late november before we have any of you on board we would likely only need half um a year's worth of funding and i think that what's outlined here 20 000 from the existing operating budget 20 000 from the capital article that was approved on june 29th 8 000 from the transfer station enterprise one of the several uh job duties that this person would have would be to help the public works and the transfer station team with composting and other initiatives related to solid
202waste uh and then there would be any additional funding that would be needed this year i would propose it comes from the energy efficiency fund which is a fund at the border selectmen control uh the revenue that's entered into that fund is from the solar facility that we have on the trent on the um at the landfill uh that money uh is a revolving reoccurring revenue source and i would propose that we use just a minimum amount of that this year uh if necessary to support the rest of this position so that's the proposed funding for the sustainability director position and appreciate any comments and feedback that you have on this concept you advance the slide i think some of what you just said was was was on the slide it would be great to
203be able to see it thank you um okay so questions comments jim um this seems entirely in line with all the factors that you've talked about john i really appreciate your finding a way to make this happen i dean yeah i i think it's a good idea um you know we we've never really gotten serious about this for a while when i was still on staff i was trying to do some of this uh working with the gab but you know we really need somebody that has specific training and is really focused on this so i think it's it's worthwhile uh the energy efficiency fund uh you know we've tapped into that in the past uh for instance when we upgraded all the street lights in town we used a lot of the money from
204from that fund so it is a nice way to get some money that you know sort of off budget so uh i think it's uh i think it's a pretty good idea you know and i'm i'm not someone who would normally recommend that we start adding staff for a situation like this but i think there's a good need for it okay any further comments so if there aren't any david would you proceed and call the rule yes uh mr snyder grant aye ms gardner hi mr charter aye mr benson i and i also say aye do you know okay john thank you very much thank you um i guess you're up again on item 12 um authorized the town manager to sign the intermunicipal agreement for the regional housing services office effect of october 1
2052020 through june 30 2021. yes so this is a the regional service that we use to help with monitoring affordable housing and running lotteries and various other tasks and responsibilities related to affordable housing we do this with several other communities and it's something that's funded through cpa uh tell me and get approved the request for user cpa funds and um respectfully request your authorization to sign this renewal move to approve is there a second any discussion um uh david uh proceed with the the roll call uh mr grant aye ms gardner aye mr charter aye mr benson i and i also say hi okay uh thank you and uh on item 12 is discuss requests for proposals for the disposition of three school straight um john another action taken by the recent annual town meeting
206was to authorize the border selectmen to dispose of the former fire station that's located at three school street that was supported by the voters earlier in 2020 we did an rfp only one response was received and i think at the town meeting there was what we said we would go back out again and try again and see what uh if we had better response this time uh in the packet we provided the previously used rfp with a couple of things that we would recommend changing but we did provide it to the board ahead of time with the idea that if you thought there were other things that we should modify to make this more in line with what you think should be done there that this would be a time to do it and what
207we'd like to do is uh reissue this within the next few weeks if there's support for doing so okay um they were um from the memo selby had had a a couple of changes and in an email that dean sent to us he had made a couple he had made a couple of suggestions so do you plan to incorporate those into the revised document absolutely uh if that's yeah i just want to make sure that if those suggestions are supported by the board uh and if they are we will put them in so we've seen selby's which talks about inserting the word affordable housing as a use of the of property and then um dean had certain uh changes that the the building cannot be demolished that exterior changes must be approved by the hdc
208um and the uses must comply with zoning was that it dean sorry i would just add that this the rfp in its previous form was provided in the packet the public facing packet available to anyone that's interested yeah it was the length it was about 40 pages no i just for the members of the public who may be uh wondering it's there and it's been there since the weekend if there was anyone interested in reviewing it okay so are we um perfect you don't have to take a vote are we all thumbs up on the revisions okay thank you john just we'll go forward okay thank you so then item 13 is approving the revised option agreement with the actin housing authority regarding 348 364 means so the board approved this option agreement a few
209weeks ago and there was just one oversight on my part there was a clause in there that required that if they didn't execute their option by date certain that the purchase price would increase by an escalator factor uh housing authority been against that from the outset and it was just an oversight on my part for leaving it in there i wanted to ask the board if you'd be comfortable with us removing that paragraph and resigning the option so we're all thumbs up on that remove it remove it okay would you be willing to vote i'm sorry i know it's late but no no no no we've got more work to do so we'll we'll don't move all right so david called the role sorry um mr snyder grant bye ms gardner hi mr charter aye
210mr benson hi and i also say i so we're not going to soak the housing authority okay so these are the consent items there are five items uh 14 approved meeting minutes august 24 and september twenty twenty fifteen accept gift planning uh uh except gift planning division for twenty eight hundred seventy one dollars and forty two cents from seal harbor towards the sidewalk fund is required in the board of appeals decision number 16-14 condition number 4.2.5 16 accept gift planning division for 7 from sealed harbor towards the sidewalk fund as required in the board of appeals decision number 20-02 condition number 3.3.1 number 17 board to appoint michelle hamburg associated member council on aging board term to expire june 30 2023 18 accept gift um community preservation committee for 56 000 from the acting conservation
211trust to be applied for the cost of acquiring the piper lands let's hold that one please okay so um do we have a motion to approve consent items 14 through 17 inclusive so move after a second and um any discussion and uh uh david please call the role mr snyder grant aye ms gardner hi mr charter aye mr benson i and i also say aye selection analysis so to item 18 on the accepting the community preservation gift for 56 conservation trust to be applied towards the cost of acquiring the pipeline plans like the lane lands gym um i was under the impression because of email that went out the ace acting conservation trust members that the uh amount uh that they've raised has gone a little bit above that so i didn't want to i
212didn't want to have us authorized to only accept 56 000 if we could get even more i guess we could come back for what the additional amount is okay because i guess it'll it'll come in and checks over the next couple of weeks that makes sense i think that value does include the extra donations that came in uh uh like very late last week so um i'm pretty sure that that's a recent number okay great i'm fine with this if a few more dollars come in we can just accept them at some future move to approve um item 18 is there a second second any further discussion so david if you please call the role uh mr snyder grant aye ms gardner hi mr charter aye mr benson hi and i also say i so
213that's accepted right so that completes our regular agenda i'll entertain a motion to enter executive session to discuss the purchase exchange lease or value of real property located in the 25 ledge rock way under open meeting law purpose six as an open meeting law may have a detrimental effect of the negotiating position of the board of selectmen so move is there a second second okay okay uh before the roll call to enter um executive session let me declare that in the executive session the board will discuss um the purchase exchange lease or the value of real property located at 25 ledge rock way specifically the acquisition or relocation of an easement under open meeting law purpose six as an open meeting law may have a detrimental effect of the negotiating position of the board of
214selectmen um david would you please call the roll uh yes mr snyder grant hi ms gardner aye mr charter aye mr benson aye