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Select Board Meeting — November 12, 2025
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1:27
Welcome everybody to select board meeting Wednesday, November 12th, 2025, 6 PM at the meeting room, Seekonk Town Hall, 100 Peck Street, of course in Seekonk.
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Mass General Law Chapter 38, subsection 20F requires any person recording must notify chair at the beginning of the meeting.
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Anybody else recording?
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1:47
Seeing no one, all select board meetings are recorded via audio and video and are broadcast live on Seacock Channel 15.
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1:54
Call the meeting to order at 6 PM.
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1:57
Pledge of Allegiance, a moment of silence please.
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I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.
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2:23
Could someone read the board and committee openings, please?
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2:27
Let's not all volunteer.
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2:30
Somebody start reading.
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2:32
Uh, Madam Chair, volunteers are needed on the following: Capital Improvement Committee, 4 board of second appointments, 3 moderator appointments.
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2:39
Commission on Disability, 8 board of selectmen appointments.
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2:41
Cultural Council, 1 board of selectmen appointment.
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2:44
Economic Development Committee, 5 board of selectmen appointments.
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2:47
Energy Committee, 3 board of selectmen appointments.
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2:49
Finance Committee, 1 moderator appointment.
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2:52
Historical Commission, 3 board of selectmen appointments.
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2:54
Recycling Committee, 1 board of selectmen appointment.
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2:57
And Zoning Board of Appeals, 1 alternate.
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3:00
Thank you.
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3:00
I wanted to let people know there have been a lot of talent bank forms coming through.
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3:06
It takes a little while.
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3:07
Don't get discouraged if you're not called right away for an interview on your talent bank form.
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3:13
So other things sometimes take priority and it takes a while.
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3:18
So don't get discouraged.
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3:19
Keep them coming in.
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3:21
Priority matters.
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3:22
Presentation of the Sharon St. Helier Award.
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3:27
Come right up.
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You have something to read, I hope.
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3:32
Yay!
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Yes.
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3:33
Good.
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3:33
Uh, is this on?
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3:34
Yes.
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3:35
Good, good evening.
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3:36
Can you hear me?
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3:37
Yes.
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3:37
Uh, I'm Patty Pomelo, chair of the Seekonk Library, um, Trust, and I'm here tonight to present the Sharon St. Hilaire Community Service Award, named for a respected former librarian in town.
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The award seeks to recognize a community volunteer or public employee who has distinguished themselves in serving the citizens of Seekonk.
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3:57
It is my great honor to announce Sandra Phillips as this year's recipient of the Sharon St. Hilaire Community Service Award.
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Sandra is both a volunteer and police department employee.
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I'm going to utilize some of the words of Police Chief Enos to describe why this award so fittingly describes Sandra.
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For the past 30 years, Sandra Phillips has served the town of Seekonk in both volunteer and per diem capacity.
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4:37
She was first hired as a matron by the police department in 1995 and continues to serve in this role today.
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4:45
Her duties as matron include being called to assist with watching, processing, and transporting female prisoners.
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4:52
This was frequently during late night or early morning hours.
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Oftentimes The prisoners she watched were not the most pleasant people in the world to deal with.
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Sandra was one of the most reliable matrons for years and remains a valuable resource.
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Sandra was also an integral part of our Macduff program for years.
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She embraced this role, volunteering to dress in the costume for countless parades and community events.
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I also heard that you washed the costume as well.
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Sandra also helped secure many grants for our police department, as well as other departments.
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She has volunteered at various police-related fundraisers.
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Today, Sandra is also a volunteer member of Seacong CERT, the Community Emergency Response Team.
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She continues to help out at community events such as Nation Night Out and is always eager to help whenever she can in whatever role she can.
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6:00
This is handmade by a worker in Zikani.
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6:04
Oh, wow, thank you so much.
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Yes, it's great.
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6:23
If you don't want to take pictures in here, you can take them outside too.
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6:30
I'm not going to photobomb.
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6:51
It's usually easier that way.
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6:53
We have a lot of cable in the middle.
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7:01
Thank you.
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7:08
Is that all?
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7:11
Thank you.
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7:13
I know.
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7:15
Thank you, everybody.
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7:17
Thank you to the library.
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7:19
Thank you, TV, for coming.
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I hope I'll be still working here.
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7:26
This is congratulations, Sandra, not goodbye.
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7:31
Well deserved.
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7:32
Thank you.
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7:33
Congratulations.
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7:35
Thank you, library.
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7:47
Okay, now we'll have a tax classification hearing.
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7:57
And we do— we know your names, but please, for people at home who don't know who you are.
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I think, yeah, they're pretty quiet.
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8:14
Kevin, you can hear everything back there, right?
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8:17
Okay, it's all right to start.
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8:25
Good evening, board.
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8:27
Lydia, Lydia, just introduce yourselves.
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Oh sure, Lydia Cudero.
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Town Administrator, and also Allison Halliburton, Assistant Assessor.
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Town Administrator.
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Town Administrator.
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You're the Town Assessor.
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8:39
Oh, I'm sorry, switch places.
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8:42
You gave yourself a promotion, not her.
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8:44
Okay, starting off the classification, um, first page, the Board of Assessors.
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Nelson Almeida is our chair, Joey Solomon our vice chair, Jen Parker clerk.
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She's also here as well.
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8:59
Again, myself, um, select board Michelle Hines as chair, Michael Healy vice chair, Christopher Zara clerk, Pam Hill, member Gary Sega, member Shawn Cadime, a town administrator, and Jen Argo, director of finance.
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9:16
The property assessment review— we are required under the guidelines of the Department of Revenue in Mass General Laws Chapter 59, we are required to assess property at 100% full and fair cash market value.
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9:30
What does this mean?
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9:31
Our assessed values have to reflect the market.
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9:33
Example, it's not changing.
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9:35
The properties are selling for— the Department of Revenue reviews and processes and reviews— I'm sorry, can you change the slide please?
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Oh yeah, that's true.
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So people— good, thank you.
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Okay, sorry.
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Yeah, no, that's all right.
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The Department of Revenue reviews and approves our values annually, completing a full audit or certification every 5 years.
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10:00
If our values are not market value, they will not be approved.
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10:04
The purpose of this classification hearing is for the select board to determine the percent charge share of this tax levy, and each class will pay.
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10:14
The residential factor is used by the assessors to determine the tax levy paid by each class of property and calculate tax rate for the residential, open space, commercial, industrial You go to the next slideshow.
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10:31
Here you're going to see the LA-4 comparison report from last year.
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10:35
All this information, these sheets, I'm getting from Azarn Gateway.
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10:39
So the LA-4 comparison, you'll see, um, starting with the 101s.
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10:43
101s are single family, and they'll give you a description of what those numbers are.
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10:48
Over to the next column, you'll see the fiscal year '25, the parcel count And if you continue going, rolling over down to the next columns, 5,117, those are the current parcel counts.
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11:01
That could be with new homes, so on and so forth.
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And to the far right-hand side, there's the assessed value difference.
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11:08
So that's telling you that the 101s went up 7.2%.
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And all again, these numbers are all approved by the Department of Revenue, and they question us Actually, they questioned us more this year than ever about not just our community, other communities as well.
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11:24
For example, the 500s, our corporate individual value of telephones and the wireless telephones, they went down 20%, so on and so forth.
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Those are depreciated by the state, those numbers.
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11:41
The next slideshow.
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11:44
You're going to see residential and the commercial scenarios.
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11:48
Last year we had a factor of 1.75.
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11:51
We cannot go to 1.75 this year due to the increase in growth that we had in residential and commercials.
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11:59
So that is strictly out, 1.75.
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Maybe it'll come back for next year, I'm not sure, depending on what we have for growth.
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So the scenarios I'm giving you is 5 different options.
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12:10
And they— that you will get from this sheet as well.
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12:13
You can find it on the TIF, the what-if sheet, the long sheet that you have.
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12:18
It's also on your packet, the last sheet for the next, but I brought it a little bit larger so you can see.
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12:25
Lydia, can you just go back a slide real quick just for the board's edification and I guess people at home because this is going to be online?
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12:31
Uh, so residential 101 has increased 7.2%.
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12:34
So the other big factor increases the 11.1%, which is miscellaneous, the 103, 109s.
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12:40
What is— what does that make— make up?
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12:43
The 103s and the 109s?
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12:46
Miscellaneous res— um, could be like, um, 109s, uh, not being used, not being— there's no structures there.
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12:54
Okay, vacant land in a sense.
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12:56
Yeah, they can— they could have— they could have a structure such as a shed or what have you, but it's very small.
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13:05
The residentials did increase, like I said, 7.2%, and the commercial increased by 2.1%.
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The industrials went up 3.8%.
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13:18
And I also want to make note that the values as of current are medium house values are $558,473.
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$558,473.
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So you can figure that out by taking the 101 class, looking at the value, multiply that by the, um, the parcel count.
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That's how you figure it out.
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13:47
The last year's median house value was $521,924.
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You'll see that also on the— you won't see that number there, but you have to break it out.
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13:58
Same thing, take the assessed value, multiply it by the parcel count.
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14:03
The current tax rate as of now for residential is $12.35, commercial industrial is $26.35, and personal property is $26.31.
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14:14
You just switch the slide.
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14:18
You won't have it on that slide.
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14:23
So these are the commercial factors if you want to look at that.
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14:27
So based at, um, like I said, 1.75, that was the max last year.
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14:31
So we're beginning with— it's 1.745.
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And if you run your finger across this long sheet that I gave you, the very last one, you'll see a— to your far right-hand side columns, you'll see the 1227.
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That would be your residential.
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Rate.
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2578 will be your commercial industrial, and 2575 will be your personal property.
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14:58
Now going back to the far left, you can keep going down— keep going up, and then you have to run your finger across the columns to match it up to the number, the tax rate.
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15:12
There's also, um, I don't have this on the slideshow is this also this template.
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15:18
Sean thought it would be a good idea to put this in here.
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15:22
So it's all based on the tax shift of 1.75, just on the first row.
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15:28
The next one, if you look, it's highlighted, highlighted 1.745, 1.74, 1.73.
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15:36
So going from the beginning, you'll have a single-family home at $450,000 Multiply that with a tax rate of 12.26, you'll have a tax dollar amount of $55,170.
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15:50
And we went as far as, uh, a house being worth, uh, $2.5 million, because now the way the market is, there's a lot of homes going up on the market for closer to $2 million.
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So we went to that factor.
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16:10
Do you have any questions while I'm going around?
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16:12
Just let me know.
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16:13
I'm gonna go on to the next slide.
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16:17
There is— for this year, 101s, you'll see the residential value for the class of 101.
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16:30
It continues to go down.
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16:34
501s through 504s are all, um, in 506s as well.
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16:40
They go to personal property.
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16:43
So over on the left-hand side, everything in green— I'm sorry, on the right-hand side, starting with the $12,771,000, that's all personal property going down.
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16:53
And you also have the next column, the next row down, real, uh, is it Except parcel count and value.
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17:01
Those are town-owned properties.
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17:09
I'm going to continue going.
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17:12
Here is just for you to note what the tax rates were all along, all these years.
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The next slide shows is the top 10 taxpayers, and this is based on today's value, the new values that were just certified, um, Monday morning, based with, uh, tax rate of today, because that's what we're here for, is to calculate the new tax rate.
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17:50
So the gas company is one of the people that went down in value, right?
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17:54
Oh yeah, due to the state, just on the underground pipelines.
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18:02
Yep.
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18:06
And the next slide is the small business exemptions.
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18:10
We get a report from the Labor Workforce Development This is classified information.
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18:17
This does not leave the office, but I can tell you there's 17 people that do qualify for it.
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18:23
This is where the 10% exemption, small business exemption comes in.
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18:29
And 10% is the max.
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18:30
You can't go no more than that.
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18:33
And I think we have 9 other communities that give out the 10%, and that's it.
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18:41
In Massachusetts?
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18:42
Mm-hmm.
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18:47
Well, that last one of you just went over it on the biggest sheet so that we could see the same thing.
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19:25
Okay, that, that, um, chart that you was talking about, tax rate options and shifts.
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19:32
You pointed out the estimated tax rates, 12.27, 25.78.
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19:36
Was that for 2025 or is that for 2026?
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19:42
Well, you're saying the 1.75 factor?
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19:49
Well, wait.
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19:58
I'm looking at numbers here, and everything I'm looking at is a different number, and I'm trying to clarify it in my head.
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20:05
I got 3 different charts.
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20:06
I got a chart that I got tax history for all from 2014 to 2024, and now this one here, the numbers are totally different, so I'm having an issue with that.
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20:20
The tax rate history for all classes right now For 2025 is 1235, 2635, and 2631, right?
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20:32
Which sheet are you looking at?
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20:33
Uh, oh, sorry, you got to go back.
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20:35
Right now I'm looking at this one.
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20:44
Oops, the other way, the other way, right there.
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20:51
Okay, okay, the very top line, 2025, $1,235, $2,635, and $2,631.
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20:59
So now this sheet that you gave us for the tax rate options and shifts, which is that— yes, that long one— you pointed out the bottom line, um, on estimated tax rates, $1,227, $2,578, $2,575.
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21:19
That is so for the new rate for this coming year.
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21:21
That's for 2026.
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21:24
Yeah, that's what I needed to ask because I got too many numbers in front of me.
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21:30
And this is old and decrepit, so throw that out.
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21:34
Goodbye.
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21:35
You know what we do with old things?
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21:38
That's what I do with— oh, oh, I want you funny.
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21:44
So let me look.
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21:45
Hold on.
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21:51
Okay, keep going.
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21:53
So are you done?
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21:53
I think the— okay, the sheet that she has here is probably one of the more important ones to see what the impact is going to be.
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22:00
So that's going to just show you based on the average home value currently for FY25 what they're paying.
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22:06
And then if you go to the 1 point— I guess she's saying 1.75, but it's really 1.745 shifts.
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22:14
That's the highest.
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22:15
Yeah, you could do that.
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22:16
The average single-family, uh, value of $558,474, if we went to the 7— the 1.745, the residential increase would only be $5.58.
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22:29
And that's the max that you can shift the burden over to commercial to, to present the most Um, I guess, uh, easing the burden for savings for the, for the residential.
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22:40
And then even with that factor of the 1.75 commercial, because of the assessed values that were taking place, they're still seeing a reduction in their tax bill of $218.12.
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22:55
And then she just went down the line, 1.74, 1.735, and then 1.
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23:00
1.73 and what the impact would be if you do the shift.
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23:10
1.745 in commercial would be $109.06.
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23:15
They see $109.
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23:17
Commercial would see a reduction of that.
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23:18
Reduction to $218.
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23:20
You— didn't you say $218?
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23:21
That's, uh, that's the second one.
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23:22
That's 1.74.
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23:24
Yeah.
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23:33
I'm in agreement with keeping the 10% that we've been doing for the last few years for some of the businesses.
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23:38
Yeah, for small business.
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23:39
Yeah, for the small businesses in town.
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23:41
The 17 affected— you said 17 people were affected?
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23:44
17 properties, small businesses.
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23:46
Yeah.
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23:47
So do we have to make 2 motions or just one to include that?
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23:50
Uh, you have 2 separate ones.
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23:51
Sean has the motion to give you.
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23:53
If you want to make a motion, I got the proper paperwork to read.
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23:56
Well, you can tell me, I'll do it, whatever.
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23:58
You got the paperwork?
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24:00
So the only, the only thing we need is the shift.
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24:02
So if you want to do the 1.745, and then you would also have to make sure that the motion includes the residential factor, which is the 83.197687.
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24:14
So whatever shift, you just got to make sure that the following residential factor Where did you get that from?
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24:23
83.1976.
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24:24
This number and this number.
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24:25
Yeah, and then the factor, 1.745, and the 83.97.
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24:33
Okay, you got that?
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24:34
Yeah, I got it.
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24:35
Yeah.
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24:35
All right, so Chris, I'll make a motion to— for this to set the shift at— oh yeah, we're going to do it separate, aren't we?
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24:43
No, no, it's all on one line, but just so he could just— shift of 1.745, residential factor of 83.197687.
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24:58
Yep, to include a 10% small commercial exemption.
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25:01
All right, I make the following motion, uh, to approve the, uh, CIP shift of 1.745 with a residential factor of 83.197687 to include include a 10% small commercial exemption.
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25:14
Small business exemption.
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25:16
Small business exemption.
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25:17
Okay, Crisor, second.
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25:21
We have a motion and a second.
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25:22
Anybody have any questions?
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25:24
Any more questions?
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25:25
Everybody good?
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25:27
All in favor?
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25:28
Aye.
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25:28
Any opposed?
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25:29
Aye.
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25:29
No, I'm not opposed.
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25:31
You're choking?
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25:32
You're not opposed?
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25:32
Good.
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25:33
Okay, that is unanimous.
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25:35
Thank you very much.
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25:36
Do we have— thank you to my staff and my Yes, thank you very much.
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25:40
Did you want to say anything?
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25:43
Okay.
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25:44
What do you want that paper?
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25:47
He just filled out the.
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25:48
No.
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25:49
Is that after you sign?
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25:52
No.
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25:53
No, no.
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25:53
She's got to do it in Gateway and then.
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25:55
Oh, she's got to do a.
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25:56
Okay.
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25:56
Give that.
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25:57
You want that, Chris?
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25:58
Yeah.
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25:58
Just do that too.
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26:02
Okay.
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26:05
Next is the acceptance of firefighter Michael Cronin's resignation effective November 9th, 2025.
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26:13
So moved.
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26:14
Can I get a second?
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26:17
Any questions?
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26:18
Oh, sorry, I'm sorry, that's her.
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26:22
Um, was it 2 years?
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26:24
2 years maybe.
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26:25
Yeah, I can go back and double-check.
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26:26
Off the top of my head, I don't know.
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26:29
July 2023.
In
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26:31
I should have looked your way.
In
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26:32
2 and a half.
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26:32
Thank you.
In
Out
26:34
All good.
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26:34
All in favor?
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26:35
Aye.
In
Out
26:36
Any opposed?
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Out
26:37
Seeing none, unanimous.
In
Out
26:39
Acceptance of— you want to come up for this, Chief, or no?
In
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26:42
Acceptance of Tractor Supply's Hometown Hero donation of a $500 check.
In
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26:51
Good evening, Madam Chair, select board members, Mr. Cadime.
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26:54
I come before you this evening to, uh, ask for your acceptance of the Tractor Supply Hometown Hero donation in the order of $500.
In
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27:04
Again, my grant and grant team reached out to Tractor Supply.
In
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27:11
They had a hometown grant available for us to help with the hand tool replacement initiative that we're currently in the process of doing for our mechanics bay area.
In
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27:21
So they were kind enough to grant us a if you accept the money this evening, uh, a check of $500 to help with that process.
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27:29
Thank you.
In
Out
27:30
Can I get a motion?
In
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27:31
So moved.
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Out
27:31
Second.
In
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27:33
Any other questions for the chief?
In
Out
27:36
Seeing none, all in favor?
In
Out
27:37
Aye.
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Out
27:38
Any opposed?
In
Out
27:39
Seeing none, unanimous.
In
Out
27:40
Thank you.
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27:41
Acceptance of the fiscal year '24 assistance to firefighters grant in the amount of $15,340.95 for an upgrade to the exhaust system fly-in mo vent.
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27:58
Madam Chair, uh, coming before you this evening, uh, I had originally, uh, came before this board to ask for the submission because this is a matching grant, uh, back in the fall when the application process opened up for the FY24, uh, Assistance to Firefighters grant.
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28:12
The grant application currently, uh, was originally requesting about $45,000 And now we do an upgrade to the Plymovent system, which is the— if you've ever been to either one of our fire stations, it's the exhaust removal system.
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28:25
So they go on the exhaust of the vehicles, which has been proved to be a carcinogen.
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28:30
So they— as soon as the trucks turn on and they sense a pressure difference, it automatically turns on a vent fan, if you will, and sucks the exhaust out to the atmosphere after it gets filtered.
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28:41
With that being said, headquarters is 2005, so we're approaching 20 years of use.
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28:47
It's failing, starting to see some increased maintenance issues.
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28:50
So we had applied for the AFG grant in the amount of $45,000.
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28:55
Because it's a competitive grant, we were reduced down to the $15,000.
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28:58
So we have— my grant team and myself reached out repeatedly to the federal government to see if we can get some answers as to where we went wrong in the grant process.
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29:05
But of course, with the shutdown, we haven't gotten any answers.
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29:08
So hopefully I can come back, but tonight I come before employees just to accept that grant because they have a timeline for acceptance, uh, in the amount of $15,340.95.
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29:20
Second.
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Out
29:21
Any other questions of the chief?
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29:23
Just quickly, so the, uh, could you replace some of the Plymo vent or for that $15,000?
In
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29:28
Because I see that there's a matching for like $700, but we can do at least one or two or whatever, right?
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29:34
We can start doing work, uh, as soon as the grant is accepted.
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29:39
Yes.
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29:39
And this work is just being done on, uh, headquarters here?
In
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29:42
The application was originally for, uh, headquarters and Banna.
In
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29:45
Um, we're trying to ensure that we're compliant with the grant because we don't want to do any work at Banna if it's not going to kind of meet what they're looking for us to do.
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29:53
So, um, until we get that answer, I'm going to hold off on Banna, but right now it's primarily headquarters.
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29:59
Okay, good.
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30:02
Um, any other questions?
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30:04
All in favor?
In
Out
30:05
Aye.
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Out
30:06
Any opposed?
In
Out
30:07
Seeing none, unanimous.
In
Out
30:10
Thank you, Chief.
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30:12
Consider accepting the animal control officer's warrant.
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30:21
Good evening.
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30:22
Good evening, Madam Chair.
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30:23
And you would be?
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30:24
Select Board, Mr. Hadeem.
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30:26
Andrea Russo, animal control officer.
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30:35
In accordance with Massachusetts General Laws Chapter 140 as amended and foregoing warrant, I, Andrea Russo, hereby make due return of my doings in compliance therewith as follows: number of dogs for the period of April 1st, 2025 to September 30th, 2025 Caught 32, confined 32, uh, 10 adopted, 18 claimed, 0 DOA, 1 euthanized, 3 in shelter, and 0 transferred, for a total of 32.
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Out
31:10
Number of cats for the period of April 1st, 2025 to September 30th, 2025: caught 62 plus 1 that was prior to April 1st.
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31:21
Confined, 54.
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31:24
Adopted, 24.
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31:26
Died, 2.
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31:28
Claimed, 3.
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31:30
DOA, 0.
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31:32
DOA hit by car, 9.
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31:34
Euthanized, 1.
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31:37
In shelter, 22.
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31:38
In foster, 1.
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31:40
Return, 0.
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31:42
Released, 1, for a total of 63.
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31:45
To the best of my knowledge and belief, all unlicensed dogs in said town of Seaconch have been caught, confined, killed, or adopted, and complaints have been made against the following named persons under the provisions of MGL Chapter 140 as amended.
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32:03
Tickets written from April 1st, 2025 to September 30th, 2025 for non-criminal offenses: for failure to license, 37; totaling $1,850.
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Out
32:18
Uh, one large— I'm sorry, 4 dog at large first offense, $100.
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32:24
One dog at large second offense for $40.
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32:29
Failure to vaccinate against rabies, one for $100.
In
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32:33
Animal and vehicle extreme weather, one for $150.
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32:36
Total tickets were 44.
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Out
32:38
In the amount of $2,240.
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32:41
Total number of dogs licensed from April 1st, 2025 to September— that's actually 30th, um, 2025— total licenses issued were 516.
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32:56
And so far as I have knowledge, complaints have been entered against all persons who have failed to comply with said provisions.
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33:07
Good.
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Out
33:07
Does anybody have any questions?
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33:11
Just like acknowledge, I was reading the report and noticed you had a birth in there.
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33:14
Six kittens.
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33:15
Yes.
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33:16
When you that brought your numbers up real quick.
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33:19
Yes, real quick.
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33:20
Yeah, you you have six kittens, but they're not ready for adoption yet.
In
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33:24
No, no, there's another two months probably.
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33:26
Yeah, they're tiny.
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33:27
Yeah, cute, but tiny.
In
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33:28
They are cute.
In
Out
33:29
Um, yeah, no, we've had— that was a, that was a great mom.
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33:32
Good litter.
In
Out
33:33
Okay, keeping you busy.
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33:37
So what's that?
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33:39
Job security, right?
In
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33:40
Yeah, well, they'll always be here for you.
In
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33:44
They're cute.
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33:44
Um, can I have a motion to accept the animal control officer's warrant?
In
Out
33:49
So moved.
In
Out
33:50
Second.
In
Out
33:51
Have any further questions?
In
Out
33:53
Seeing none, all in favor?
In
Out
33:54
Aye.
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Out
33:55
Any opposed?
In
Out
33:56
Seeing none, unanimous.
In
Out
33:59
Thank you very much for your time.
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34:02
Community speaks.
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34:03
Do we have anybody from the community that would like to come up and— oh, I thought you were going to raise your hand, Chief.
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34:10
You were waving goodbye.
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34:12
Okay, nobody.
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34:14
Okay, good.
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34:15
We'll go on to the next general business public hearing.
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34:17
Consider the request for the renewal of an earth import permit from Lynch Corp located at 0 Taunton Avenue, Plot 12, Lots 500, 502, and 422.
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34:28
I'll take a motion at 6:32 to open the public hearing.
In
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34:34
So moved.
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Out
34:34
Second.
In
Out
34:36
All in favor?
In
Out
34:37
Aye.
In
Out
34:38
Unanimous.
In
Out
34:39
Thank you.
In
Out
34:42
And you are talking on behalf of this, correct?
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34:45
And you are?
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34:46
Jonathan Cardosi, general counsel for Lynch Corp. Jonathan who?
In
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34:49
Cardosi.
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34:50
Okay, that's better.
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34:52
I understood that.
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34:54
Okay, what do you have for us?
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34:56
Uh, so fortunately we were able to utilize the online, uh, submission portal, so I think all the documentation should be available for your review.
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35:05
Um, the public notices were sent out 2 weeks ago.
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35:08
I've got a stack of the green cards with me reflecting compliance with that requirement.
In
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35:12
Uh, notice was published in the Sun Chronicle.
In
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35:15
Um, beyond that, there essentially have been no modifications to the site whatsoever.
In
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35:21
So trees have been added on the property line to give some more shelter to the butters.
In
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35:27
We've not heard of any complaints.
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35:29
I think there's at least 2 representatives of the company listed, cell phone numbers, myself and our plant manager, should the need arise, but we haven't had any, fortunately.
In
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35:38
Beyond that, I'm happy to answer any questions.
In
Out
35:42
Okay, just like people to know that this is a a renewal that has to come up every year for Lynch Corp.
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Out
35:49
They're right on the line between, uh, Seekonk and East Providence as you're going down towards East Providence on the left, and they have to come into our town and ask for this every year.
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35:58
And as far as I know, because I have checked to see if there were any complaints and I was told there were none, well, and there haven't been any as far as I know.
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36:08
And this is— I can't even tell you the year this is— this has been.
In
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36:12
So is there anyone here to talk in favor of this earth import permit?
In
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36:23
Is there anybody here to talk against this earth import permit for Lynch Court?
In
Out
36:32
Okay, seeing none, I'll take a motion at 6:34 PM to close the public hearing.
In
Out
36:38
So moved.
In
Out
36:39
Second.
In
Out
36:41
All in favor?
In
Out
36:42
Aye.
In
Out
36:44
Any opposed?
In
Out
36:45
Seeing none, unanimous.
In
Out
36:47
Now I'll take a motion to renew the earth import permit for Lynch Corp located at Saratoga Avenue, Plat 10, Lots 500, 502, and 422.
In
Out
36:58
So moved.
In
Out
36:59
Second.
In
Out
37:01
I got a motion and a second.
In
Out
37:02
Do we have any more questions?
In
Out
37:05
Seeing none.
In
Out
37:05
All in favor?
In
Out
37:06
Aye.
In
Out
37:07
Any opposed?
In
Out
37:08
Seeing none.
In
Out
37:09
Unanimous.
In
Out
37:10
Thank you very much.
In
Out
37:11
Thank you all.
In
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37:12
Thanks for being good neighbors.
In
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37:14
We try.
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37:16
I think you do a good job.
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37:17
You don't have any complaints.
In
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37:18
That's a good one.
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37:19
Not too bad.
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37:20
Thank you all.
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37:21
Thank you.
In
Out
37:23
Consider the request from Gary Manesian Ocean State Multisport to waive the strict compliance of the requirements from the one-day special event bylaw and to conduct 3 road races to be held on January 1st, 2026, starting at Seekonk High School, 261 Arcade Avenue, May 17th, 2026, and August 2nd, 2026, starting at the Newman YMCA, 464 Thornton Avenue.
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37:47
It— hello.
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37:48
Hi.
In
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37:49
And you are?
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37:50
I am Randy Shoecraft.
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37:53
What do you have for us, Randy?
In
Out
37:54
Um, I'm here on behalf of Gary Minnis Yeah, just to talk about the races.
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Out
38:02
He's done them for many years.
In
Out
38:05
The only change this year is the one on January 1st that's being moved from the Y to the Seekonk High School.
In
Out
38:13
Okay, when this came up last week, we postponed it because one of the questions I had was if you had— you, the Y, had permission from the high school to use the lot.
In
Out
38:27
I did see the application to use the lot but never saw anything that asked— that told me that you had permission.
In
Out
38:37
That being said, I stopped at the high school today because I know this is on for tonight, and I asked them myself.
In
Out
38:45
And though there is not a formal letter I got it.
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38:48
I was told that you do have permission to use the high school, so I was happy about that because this turned out to be— it's a lot of letters and you tell us the track and all that, and it's something that I know that's been held a lot.
In
Out
39:01
But as you just said, this is the first time you're going to start from high school, and I know the school department, you have to fill out a building use form, but nothing on this crazy form says approved, you know, and signed by somebody.
In
Out
39:15
So I needed to stop and double-check.
In
Out
39:18
Yeah, so just so everybody knows, because that was a question, right?
In
Out
39:23
I know he has been in touch with the school department because it is a holiday for them to be open to use the facilities, the bathrooms and stuff.
In
Out
39:31
Yeah, so I know.
In
Out
39:33
Yeah, I heard that he's been calling the principal at the high school and the superintendent.
In
Out
39:39
They have been keeping in touch.
In
Out
39:41
Right.
In
Out
39:41
Yes.
In
Out
39:44
Okay, so can I get a motion to waive the strict compliance for the one-day special events listed here for the Newman YMCA?
In
Out
39:55
So moved.
In
Out
39:56
Second.
In
Out
39:57
Does anybody else have any questions or statements about this in case you know something I don't?
In
Out
40:03
Seeing none, all in favor?
In
Out
40:05
Aye.
In
Out
40:06
Any opposed?
In
Out
40:07
Seeing none, unanimous.
In
Out
40:09
You will not see me there, but have a good time.
In
Out
40:13
Thank you.
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Out
40:13
Thank you.
In
Out
40:14
Licensing, consider the request from Fuel Spot, George Farhat.
In
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40:21
What is it?
In
Out
40:23
Oh, I can't say that.
In
Out
40:25
This gentleman right here, manager, for a Class 2 motor vehicle license to be located at 984 River Avenue.
In
Out
40:31
George— oh, okay.
In
Out
40:34
Give me a break.
In
Out
40:36
I'm not done yet.
In
Out
40:38
It was actually put down on this for 980 and it's actually 738 Fall River Avenue.
In
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40:47
So I believe everybody did get an email or something for that.
In
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40:54
This is the building that is near Greenbrier Drive that comes out onto 114A.
In
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41:01
Right, right.
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Out
41:03
Is this the one?
In
Out
41:05
Okay, so this is the one that I didn't see the number of vehicles on it, because if you can read that, good for you.
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Out
41:15
The number of vehicles is supposed to be 8, and you knew that already.
In
Out
41:22
I didn't know that, so I had to double-check on you.
In
Out
41:25
I didn't double-check on you because because I haven't talked to you, but I, I know on the, um, the, uh, licenses for something like this, there's always a number, and that's why I was looking for it.
In
Out
41:37
So, so, um, I need them most— you don't have to say.
In
Out
41:46
It's more than 8 because you have 8 for the used car sales and you have 4 for the employees to park.
In
Out
41:51
I was told 8.
In
Out
41:53
So I remember we approved this a few years ago under the old ownership, and I still see it here.
In
Out
41:58
What are you looking at to see where— to your top left, there's parking spots on the left side of the property that was designated for the employees to park.
In
Out
42:05
There was 4.
In
Out
42:06
It wasn't supposed— and the right side was supposed to be for their repairs, their cars to go for repairs.
In
Out
42:13
Oh, I see.
In
Out
42:14
Used car sales right here.
In
Out
42:16
Then you count the spots in the actual bay.
In
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42:18
Has, uh, spots too on the property.
In
Out
42:20
Well, I think the total number of spaces are 23.
In
Out
42:22
That might be the number of spaces, but they're only allowed 8 used cars for sale on the property, right?
In
Out
42:28
Yeah, there are other parking spaces, I understand that, but you're only allowed 8 for used cars.
In
Out
42:34
Used cars are here, so that's— they got 3 for the garage repairs.
In
Out
42:39
Yeah, but that— yeah, that's what this license is for.
In
Out
42:42
This is just for the— I just want to clarify with you.
In
Out
42:45
You said it, but you knew.
In
Out
42:47
Oh yeah, I do.
In
Out
42:48
They do.
In
Out
42:49
Okay, you do.
In
Out
42:51
Are we good?
In
Out
42:52
Yay!
In
Out
42:54
Okay, so I need a motion for fuel spot manager for a Class 2 motor vehicle license to be located at 738 Fall River Avenue for— with a total of 8 vehicles, used vehicles for sale.
In
Out
43:12
For George.
In
Out
43:16
Thank you.
In
Out
43:16
So moved.
In
Out
43:17
Second.
In
Out
43:19
I got a motion and a second.
In
Out
43:20
Anybody else have any questions?
In
Out
43:23
Seeing none, all in favor?
In
Out
43:25
Aye.
In
Out
43:26
Anybody opposed?
In
Out
43:27
Seeing none, unanimous.
In
Out
43:29
Thank you very much.
In
Out
43:30
Good luck.
In
Out
43:32
You too.
In
Out
43:34
Okay.
In
Out
43:39
Okay, discussion and review of trial work schedule for town offices.
In
Out
43:44
And we have Miss Days here.
In
Out
43:47
Oh, we will give you 2.
In
Out
43:50
You made the last motion.
In
Out
43:51
Who made the motion?
In
Out
43:52
Second?
In
Out
43:53
Uh, Gary Mike.
In
Out
44:08
Made front page, Chief.
In
Out
44:10
Well, he always complains that I only like to use Jardine's photo, so— Oh, I get it.
In
Out
44:18
They used the wrong photo though.
In
Out
44:20
Oh geez, which one?
In
Out
44:21
The losing one?
In
Out
44:22
No, him and, him and, uh, D'Alessio.
In
Out
44:26
Enos and D'Alessio.
In
Out
44:27
That's Enos and D'Alessio.
In
Out
44:29
On the bench of reflection.
In
Out
44:31
The bed, the bed.
In
Out
44:34
Yes.
In
Out
44:34
Um, so I'm just gonna pass out copies of the actual presentation just, just in case there's any— isn't that what this is?
In
Out
44:45
Oh well, this is bigger.
In
Out
44:46
Here, a little easier to see.
In
Out
44:48
Oh, bigger I like.
In
Out
44:50
It's landscape.
In
Out
44:51
I didn't bring my magnifying glass though.
In
Out
44:54
And then if you just want to hold on to the— that's— we like— we're going to need to plant trees because we kill too many trees.
In
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45:09
We recycle.
In
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45:10
I know.
In
Out
45:17
Um, so I know I sent I can hear me.
In
Out
45:20
Okay.
In
Out
45:21
I know I sent the board the presentation and then just my summary of findings.
In
Out
45:26
I'm assuming you want me to go through this just for the public's purposes.
In
Out
45:30
Okay.
In
Out
45:31
So this is actually excuse me.
In
Out
45:35
It is actually on the website.
In
Out
45:36
So if you go to the calendar for today's Board of Selectmen meeting, you can actually find this presentation.
In
Out
45:42
So I did add two slides that I didn't actually send you in advance.
In
Out
45:47
Because I got them from the ICMA conference.
In
Out
45:50
So the first meeting, you'll remember I mentioned the generations in the workforce, and Mr. Sagar had asked me which generation was which.
In
Out
45:58
So luckily, the ICMA actually provided it when we went to the conference.
In
Out
46:03
So I attended one of these workshops, which was actually geared strictly for Gen Z, for HR professionals to figure out how to hire, attract, retain of that.
In
Out
46:13
So I included this, but I really just wanted to show you— oh, sorry, I don't know why it's doing that.
In
Out
46:20
Um, but I wanted to show you our workforce in comparison to what ICMA has.
In
Out
46:25
Um, so we're actually pretty much right in line with what they're seeing overall for the workforce.
In
Out
46:32
Um, 8% in declining for the boomers.
In
Out
46:34
I hate that term, but not my term.
In
Out
46:37
Um, so we're at 9.1 But obviously, usually baby boomers.
In
Out
46:41
Yeah.
In
Out
46:42
No, that is baby boomers.
In
Out
46:43
It's baby boomers.
In
Out
46:44
So we're at 9.1.
In
Out
46:46
I did look at that today.
In
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46:48
So in, let's call it 4 years, everybody is at that 65 age where they consider it retirement age.
In
Out
46:59
So I do think, you know, we're probably going to see that number continue to go down in the upcoming years.
In
Out
47:05
And then Gen X in 4 years, our youngest Gen Xers are going to be reaching that retirement threshold.
In
Out
47:12
So I just thought it was interesting because we're kind of right in line with what they're seeing.
In
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47:18
So then this obviously was sent to you and I'll just kind of go through it.
In
Out
47:24
The dates are important.
In
Out
47:26
I do want to point out, I hope it was understandable with what I sent.
In
Out
47:30
So we started to track prior to the board voting on the trial schedule.
In
Out
47:36
So that's why you see the date of May 30th.
In
Out
47:39
Um, but the other piece that's important to kind of point out, that Friday data is really missing a lot of information because within about a week we were already on the trial schedule.
In
Out
47:50
So those numbers that you're seeing are exclusive to the fire department and DPW.
In
Out
47:57
So I just don't want you to think that that's town hall data because it really isn't.
In
Out
48:03
Um, but as you can see here, the busiest day of the week was Monday with 739.
In
Out
48:08
These were all in-person visits where they were either scanning themselves in with the QR code that we had provided, or the treasurer's office especially did a very good job of checking everybody in.
In
Out
48:22
So we got the most data probably from the treasurer's office.
In
Out
48:26
So as you can see, um, the top in-person service were tax payments, because when we did the check-in, I did allow them to kind of say what transaction they were doing just to get an idea if it's a transaction that they might have been able to do online, to see what people are coming into town hall for.
In
Out
48:46
So as you can see, tax payments is, is a big one.
In
Out
48:49
And I mean, we saw them, you know, at the counter, so it makes sense.
In
Out
48:52
Um, so obviously with that, the department was the Collector's Office with having the most in-person transactions during this period of time.
In
Out
49:01
And then the second highest in-person transaction was exemption applications with the Assessor's Office.
In
Out
49:08
Again, it's pretty low in comparison to the Treasurer-Collector's.
In
Out
49:12
Um, I, I think that's just speaks to the level of people that come in to make their tax payments.
In
Out
49:17
They do have the option obviously to put it in the box outside, but I think a lot of people tend to want to pay with cash and they want receipts, so they do the in-person transactions.
In
Out
49:30
Um, so again, this is just giving you some more information with all the data that I was able to pull, all the in-person transactions that they tracked.
In
Out
49:37
So as you can see, I did break it down into categories.
In
Out
49:41
Wednesday does cut off at 4:30 with that yellow, but that 111 transactions, that does include up until 5:30.
In
Out
49:50
It just would have been too confusing for me to try to split it out, so I left it there.
In
Out
49:55
But obviously the busiest day for in-person transactions was always a Monday, and it's kind of right in the middle of the day, you know, 9 AM till pretty much 1 PM.
In
Out
50:06
Is our highest peak transaction time for in-person.
In
Out
50:10
Um, but obviously, as you can see, we— it kind of scatters throughout the week, but I just wanted to provide that information.
In
Out
50:18
And then I did the same exact thing for online transactions, so pulled the data the exact same way.
In
Out
50:24
Of course, this one's a little bit easier, um, because it gives you the date and timestamp as soon as they do the transaction, so it's just much easier to kind of classify it.
In
Out
50:34
Excuse me.
In
Out
50:35
It's practically, uh, the same.
In
Out
50:37
It is, which I thought was 50/50.
In
Out
50:39
Yeah, I did think that was kind of interesting because I thought when I pulled the online transactions, I figured I would see either a different day, um, or a completely different time, right?
In
Out
50:49
But it ends up being pretty similar in terms of busyness.
In
Out
50:53
Um, and as— and hopefully again it makes sense, I put the slowest day as Friday because that's a work working day, but obviously Saturday and Sunday we had some transactions come in, so I just included those at the bottom so you would have it.
In
Out
51:06
Um, top online transaction, residential building permit.
In
Out
51:09
That wasn't a surprise.
In
Out
51:11
Top online department in terms of overall online transactions was the building department with 36%, and then the second online transaction was electrical permit, but the second online department that had the most online transactions was the Health Department.
In
Out
51:27
Again, I think that all kind of aligns with what we expect.
In
Out
51:31
So many of their transactions, with it being permits, inspections, they are done online versus, you know, tax payments.
In
Out
51:38
It's just a matter of whether or not the resident's comfortable making it online.
In
Out
51:43
So again, more of the same.
In
Out
51:45
But as you can see, I kind of changed the AM/PM only because people literally were kind of putting transactions all the way up until 10 o'clock at night.
In
Out
51:58
So I just wanted to figure out a way to capture that.
In
Out
52:00
So that's why you see that.
In
Out
52:01
But again, you see, you know, a busy time is still Monday.
In
Out
52:05
Obviously Wednesday is really the highest transaction, and that's outside of our business hours.
In
Out
52:12
Again, cutoff was 4:30.
In
Out
52:14
I didn't really make it 5:30.
In
Out
52:17
But Monday and Wednesday seem to be our peak hours when it comes to in-person or online transactions.
In
Out
52:25
This was interesting, and, um, Krista Fonz, I thank her very much for pulling this information together for me because it's, it's not something I would have thought to ask for.
In
Out
52:35
Fortunately, the way they do their counter transactions, it creates a record for them, so she was able to pull a you know, apples-to-apples comparison between her tax day in 2025 and 2024.
In
Out
52:48
So obviously in 2024 they were open for 5 days.
In
Out
52:52
They had— obviously I won't repeat everything you see on there, but they actually had more counter transactions this year and they were only open 4 days.
In
Out
53:00
Um, I did speak with Chris about this for a while because I just wanted to ask if she received any feedback.
In
Out
53:07
Um, you know, if people perhaps were upset that they weren't able to come on a Friday to do it.
In
Out
53:13
She said that she hadn't received any complaints.
In
Out
53:16
The only thing she heard a couple of people say was they didn't know originally that we were closed on Fridays, but it didn't matter.
In
Out
53:25
They were coming on like a Monday or Tuesday anyway.
In
Out
53:28
So there wasn't really any, you know, negativity that she was able to give me for feedback.
In
Out
53:34
So as you can see, they obviously had Higher transactions, higher counter transactions processed overall.
In
Out
53:40
And then the really important piece that I was interested in that she was able to provide.
In
Out
53:44
So they didn't see it at first.
In
Out
53:47
Again, I talked to her for a while just about it.
In
Out
53:50
At first, they really didn't see people coming before 8:30 because they typically had been open for, you know, that was the time that they were typically open.
In
Out
53:58
Once people started to get used to the schedule, they started to see more people coming in between 7:30 and 8:30.
In
Out
54:03
So I thought it was interesting because she was able to show that though not, you know, an earth-shattering number, they were able to take care of 14 customers between that first early hour versus 3 customers between 5:30 and 7:00 PM last year's tax day.
In
Out
54:19
So, you know, I think it just kind of shows that people, I guess, are more apt to come in first thing in the morning.
In
Out
54:27
I don't know if it's on their way to work or whatever, or if the 5:30 to 7 PM they just didn't need because they were able to come before that.
In
Out
54:36
Um, again, this is just another way, and I'm sorry that it's displaying like this.
In
Out
54:40
Blame it on Canva.
In
Out
54:41
I don't know why it's not interpreting over to, um, PowerPoint, but who are we blaming?
In
Out
54:47
We're blaming Canva.
In
Out
54:48
This is all I use.
In
Out
54:50
This is what I use, but it's okay.
In
Out
54:52
It was converted to PowerPoint and it's, it's kind of messing up with the with everything.
In
Out
54:56
But yeah, so this was just to show that in weeks 7 and 8, we did finally see a peak of more customers coming in before that 8:30 time start where we would typically start.
In
Out
55:09
Again, not earth-shattering numbers.
In
Out
55:10
We didn't see like huge numbers of people coming in before that time.
In
Out
55:14
But I did think it was interesting that it seemed like the longer we were doing these hours and people started to realize that they took advantage of coming in earlier.
In
Out
55:24
So again, this was just all the data that was reviewed.
In
Out
55:27
Um, I do apologize.
In
Out
55:28
I hope it wasn't confusing.
In
Out
55:30
It was really, really difficult to take all of this data and try to figure out how to present it in a digestible way, um, you know, because I was looking at months' worth of bills.
In
Out
55:43
I was trying to compare things.
In
Out
55:45
Um, I was actually really surprised to see that overall we did see a decrease with our Eversource bills, and that was month to month.
In
Out
55:53
Every single month was lower this year compared to last year.
In
Out
55:57
I did put in my summary, I certainly don't think that it can all be attributed to the schedule.
In
Out
56:04
You know, I really do think that that has a lot more to do with people being a little bit more conscientious of leaving lights on, you know, utilizing that electricity.
In
Out
56:14
Um, but it was nice to see that we saw a decrease.
In
Out
56:18
And if you'll notice, for Q2 and Q3, I expanded it.
In
Out
56:22
You know, I went even further because I just wanted to make sure that I wasn't only pulling the data for when we were open.
In
Out
56:28
Because if there was, you know, a month where we were higher or lower, I wanted a, a broader range that I could pull from, um, just so that I wasn't giving you, you know, like, oh look, This month, of course, we were lower because we were only open 4 days.
In
Out
56:44
Um, so I was actually happy to see that even though I kind of extended it out, we were still lower, which is why, again, I think that has to do with employees just being a little bit more conscientious in terms of their electricity usage and what they're doing.
In
Out
56:58
And do you feel that way for DBW too?
In
Out
57:01
Because DBW is open one additional day, so Yeah, which is— but again, that's why I think if you really look at it, I can't sit here and say, oh, it's because we're just open less hours.
In
Out
57:14
Perhaps it's just a combination of the two.
In
Out
57:17
But I know that we did send something out.
In
Out
57:20
Sean, I don't know if you remember when we had sent something out a while back, because obviously we've seen it budget year over budget year that the energy prices are just continuing to increase and they're getting worse.
In
Out
57:32
Uh, just like people are experiencing at home.
In
Out
57:34
So he had sent something out just kind of reminding people to, you know, use more task lighting.
In
Out
57:41
Um, you know, we asked people if they were using like space heaters to please stop using those, just things that we knew were really drawing on the electricity.
In
Out
57:49
So that's why I don't really think it's fair to say it's strictly due to the schedule, you know, especially because I did expand it out.
In
Out
57:55
If we're seeing that decrease, then I think that what we're seeing is our employees taking to heart what we have asked them to do.
In
Out
58:06
So you'll see more of the same here with the exception of Human Services, which again, I hope that made sense.
In
Out
58:13
I actually had to call Brittany because I was so confused at first.
In
Out
58:16
So it really has to do with the April 2025 usage.
In
Out
58:21
So the expansion wasn't complete last year in 2024.
In
Out
58:25
So it makes sense that starting April 2025 of this year, we saw that huge jump because now we're heating electricity that entire second section.
In
Out
58:35
So that to me made perfect sense once I put the dates together, because I did have to call her and just remember what— when it actually opened and when they started using it.
In
Out
58:46
So, you know, you'll see the therm usage, you'll see the electricity usage.
In
Out
58:51
It absolutely should have doubled because it's basically— it's double the size, right, the building.
In
Out
58:56
Yeah.
In
Out
58:57
Um, but then public safety again, and this is why I go back to, I think, people being a little bit more conscientious.
In
Out
59:04
With the exception of maybe some administrative offices, um, you know, they're not on a 4-day work week, they're 24/7.
In
Out
59:11
So the fact that we saw a decrease with public safety too, um, which I think too did they go through public safety and put like new efficiency?
In
Out
59:21
Yeah, so they put efficiency.
In
Out
59:22
So I'm glad to see that we're actually seeing some of that decrease.
In
Out
59:27
And of course, I put efficiency— what, thermostats?
In
Out
59:29
The new lighting?
In
Out
59:30
Oh, the lighting.
In
Out
59:31
Okay.
In
Out
59:31
Okay.
In
Out
59:32
So I think, right, it's like almost— I don't know if it's motion sensor.
In
Out
59:35
So that sensor— well, and, you know, in public safety, middle of the night, the kitchen's lit up, nobody's in there.
In
Out
59:41
So at least now when somebody's gone, it's turning off, kind of like in human services, I think.
In
Out
59:45
So then when it detects the motion, it comes on.
In
Out
59:48
So I think that's what we're seeing for public safety.
In
Out
59:51
And then I know I provided probably a little bit more detail in the summary that I sent to you, but I did try to kind of get an idea of what the cost savings was for, you know, over the 6-month period and what that would look like long-term.
In
Out
1:00:07
Fuel usage, I didn't see too much of a decrease.
In
Out
1:00:10
I was surprised to a decrease at all, actually.
In
Out
1:00:13
Um, and there was no— what's interesting, there was no one department that stood out.
In
Out
1:00:21
It was just a collective decrease of 4%.
In
Out
1:00:24
Um, again, I don't think that really gives us any information in terms of are we saving a ton of money.
In
Out
1:00:30
No, because ultimately they're still conducting the same number of inspections, they're going out the same amount.
In
Out
1:00:35
Um, so I don't think we're going to see too much of a savings there.
In
Out
1:00:39
Um, and then the employee survey, which I believe I sent out to the board also.
In
Out
1:00:44
Um, I just tried to kind of summarize this in terms of what their overall feeling was.
In
Out
1:00:48
I did— if you noticed on the survey, I really limited the questions, um, because I was, I was kind of putting myself in a position where I was asking so many questions that I couldn't summarize it all.
In
Out
1:01:00
Um, so I finally just went back and asked them basically like 4 simple questions, you know, ask them if they had anything else that they just wanted us to know and to take into consideration.
In
Out
1:01:11
But ultimately, I was pleasantly surprised to see overall what they said in terms of positivity about the schedule.
In
Out
1:01:19
And that is an increase from, let's call it, the first survey, right?
In
Out
1:01:23
Because we, we were early on, people were trying to figure out if they liked it, if it made sense.
In
Out
1:01:29
And I will say, which I, I don't know that I put put in my summary.
In
Out
1:01:33
Um, I did meet with every single employee in town hall, and I had DPW— I had Dave Cabral speak with them.
In
Out
1:01:42
I also spoke with the DPW union representative so that I could talk to him about the schedule.
In
Out
1:01:48
So I made a concerted effort to listen to people's unique circumstances, make sure that they knew that they had options, that they— we were going to remain flexible.
In
Out
1:01:59
I got a lot of good feedback, especially once I went around and started speaking with everybody.
In
Out
1:02:04
I think there was some confusion with the communication and the messaging.
In
Out
1:02:08
I don't think they knew that the options were available to them that we gave them.
In
Out
1:02:12
And by that, I mean, you know, we have, let's say, conservation planning and ZBA, right?
In
Out
1:02:18
So we have those clerical staff, they're working night meetings sometimes.
In
Out
1:02:22
And I told them, I'm like, you know, we can make up that time somewhere else.
In
Out
1:02:27
Don't feel like you have to do it the next day.
In
Out
1:02:28
So if Wednesday is your longest day and you're struggling that day and you need to go home an hour early, you have an hour.
In
Out
1:02:36
You've been at the meeting, you know.
In
Out
1:02:38
So I think they were happy to just hear that from me versus the messaging that I kind of sent through the department heads.
In
Out
1:02:45
I think they probably didn't know how to kind of deliver that, and I could see that it was was, um, it was giving a lot of people some relief, you know, that they just wanted to hear it from us that it was okay, that, you know, if, if anything changed— I told them, I said, if anything changes with your personal circumstances, if you're having difficulty, please come and see me.
In
Out
1:03:05
Don't stay silent.
In
Out
1:03:06
Talk to your department head.
In
Out
1:03:07
If you don't get an answer, come and see me.
In
Out
1:03:09
Um, so I think that went a long way.
In
Out
1:03:12
Thank you for your attention.
In
Out
1:03:13
That's all I have.
In
Out
1:03:14
I tried to keep it as brief as possible.
In
Out
1:03:15
Where, where is the slide that, uh, You said you asked some friends for further comments and that this is the slide we get.
In
Out
1:03:23
Is it?
In
Out
1:03:23
Oh, what did it print out?
In
Out
1:03:24
A blank?
In
Out
1:03:26
Yeah, I was just curious.
In
Out
1:03:29
I was just curious.
In
Out
1:03:30
No, so I sent that out to the board.
In
Out
1:03:32
It's part of the, um, the final survey.
In
Out
1:03:35
I allowed them to kind of give us any additional information that they might want us or the board to know.
In
Out
1:03:42
That's what this is.
In
Out
1:03:44
I don't, I don't know.
In
Out
1:03:46
Should be in our packet.
In
Out
1:03:48
It's in the packet.
In
Out
1:03:49
Last page.
In
Out
1:03:51
Okay.
In
Out
1:03:56
Which, if I remember, there wasn't— I think it's pretty much some of the same information you've been seeing for a few months.
In
Out
1:04:02
Um, I know somebody put information about, I don't want the Board of Selectmen to worry that we're taking less time because it's the same amount of time.
In
Out
1:04:11
And, and they're right, you know, they're working the same amount of hours.
In
Out
1:04:14
And yeah, what about the comment they would ask the select board put the employees first for a change?
In
Out
1:04:21
When have we ever not put them first?
In
Out
1:04:23
So I can, I can tell you, serve the public, right?
In
Out
1:04:27
Hey, listen to what she has to say.
In
Out
1:04:28
So I can tell you that I hear plenty of times from employees that they don't feel like they're considered because there's too much noise Um, and I don't think the board should take that as a dig, but I do think they see everything that's online too.
In
Out
1:04:42
You know, they see the posts on social media and they feel like sometimes the board might want to react to that instead of realizing we still have employees who are doing their job every day.
In
Out
1:04:53
You know, so I've heard that multiple times, that they just want the board to recognize they're doing their job, they're showing up every day.
In
Out
1:05:03
I didn't put it in this particular presentation, but you saw in the summary I was surprised.
In
Out
1:05:07
I even told Sean that I expected to see time off increase this year, um, just naturally.
In
Out
1:05:15
I just figured maybe people were going to take more time off or tack it on to like extend their weekends.
In
Out
1:05:22
But we ended up having more employees this year versus last year, and I think there was a difference of about 40 hours, which would Um, so they didn't take additional time off.
In
Out
1:05:33
Like, it's not like they abused, you know, the privilege that they were given with working a 4-day work week and they said, okay, well, now I'm going to take off every Thursday or Monday.
In
Out
1:05:42
Um, but I mean, I understand the, the comment might hit, but, but I don't understand it because I don't, I don't see any of us talking negative about any employee.
In
Out
1:05:55
Employee that's— no, I don't think it's here.
In
Out
1:05:57
And I don't know what else that can possibly be done.
In
Out
1:06:00
You have, you have an employee picnic, you have employee lunches, you do special activities here.
In
Out
1:06:07
I mean, we— right, we see all— we see all that.
In
Out
1:06:10
We know all that.
In
Out
1:06:11
We don't have— but I also think they feel disconnected from the board.
In
Out
1:06:14
They don't, they don't see you every single day.
In
Out
1:06:16
So you have to understand that to some people, you're an entity that makes the decisions.
In
Out
1:06:21
You know, I don't think it needs to be looked at completely negative.
In
Out
1:06:24
I think what they're trying to say is please don't listen to the few people who may be going around saying, well, I'm not off on Friday, I don't work 4 days.
In
Out
1:06:33
You know, nobody's saying that you should or shouldn't, but we have to worry about our employees too.
In
Out
1:06:42
That's all.
In
Out
1:06:43
Well, we have our social media member, so he will let him just read everything.
In
Out
1:06:50
And you're not going to make it.
In
Out
1:06:52
No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no.
In
Out
1:06:55
I'm pointing to Chris.
In
Out
1:06:56
99%.
In
Out
1:06:57
No, and the thing is, on social media, the employees, you know, they, they saw that because they were coming to me too saying, you know, oh, we're seeing a lot of negative chatter on social media.
In
Out
1:07:08
Um, I don't follow any of that.
In
Out
1:07:10
Just, just for that, I'm not even on social media.
In
Out
1:07:12
So, you know, I said, don't, don't worry about it.
In
Out
1:07:14
They're like, yeah, but, you know, is the board going to look at that and think it's true or it's accurate?
In
Out
1:07:19
I don't know what the comments were saying.
In
Out
1:07:21
You know, that I can't speak to.
In
Out
1:07:22
We got phone— I got phone calls about it.
In
Out
1:07:24
Phone calls about what?
In
Out
1:07:26
People working 4 days, they have to work 5, and we have to explain it to them.
In
Out
1:07:29
So it's not all on social media.
In
Out
1:07:31
Yeah.
In
Out
1:07:35
Oh, I'm sorry.
In
Out
1:07:35
So the other thing I gave you basically was just You know, I told you I would come with recommendations, so I essentially gave 3 options, potential motion, and obviously it's up to the board.
In
Out
1:07:51
We, we started this trial schedule— what was the date?
In
Out
1:07:54
Was that July 1st?
In
Out
1:07:56
Um, June— so it was the week of June 19th, so I want to say June 15th, and it was supposed to run through, I want to say, August 29th, right before Labor Day.
In
Out
1:08:07
Can you see any value to continuing this trial, if you will, for a full, full year?
In
Out
1:08:14
I mean, listen, the more information we can get, the better.
In
Out
1:08:18
I do think that you might end up seeing a lot of the same information.
In
Out
1:08:21
I don't know that there's much more new information I can give you.
In
Out
1:08:26
Not to say that some of the data could change, obviously.
In
Out
1:08:31
Um, like I said, I was a little surprised to see— I said it to Sean, I'll just say it this way.
In
Out
1:08:38
I was surprised to see that the data kind of collectively was in the positive.
In
Out
1:08:42
I thought we were just going to have, you know, like, okay, this, this was good, but this, this tanked.
In
Out
1:08:47
Um, I was surprised to see that we had, you know, it reflected pretty positively in terms of just the data points we were collecting.
In
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1:08:55
Um, if there's additional data that the board thinks I could get.
In
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1:08:59
If there's additional information that you think would be helpful, um, you know, I'm open to suggestions.
In
Out
1:09:05
Like I said, the check-in was very helpful, at least to find out what the peak times were that people were coming in.
In
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1:09:12
I think that that has its own flaws, right?
In
Out
1:09:14
Because it's just— and it depends on how much people are actually checking themselves in.
In
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1:09:19
So if they don't, we're not getting that information.
In
Out
1:09:21
Um, but yeah, just I'm I think it just depends on what the board is hoping to get for information, if there's additional information that you think needs to be gathered.
In
Out
1:09:33
What I would like to talk about, and it has to do with the hours, and I'm glad that we have a lot of this positive feedback, and I don't have— I haven't heard anything negative from anyone out there.
In
Out
1:09:47
I know that there's a compensation made if somebody would call, say, and talk to the building inspector and leave a message.
In
Out
1:09:56
Oh, well, I, I'll change my last statement because I did get one complaint.
In
Out
1:10:01
Somebody had an emergency and they needed an electrical inspector.
In
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1:10:04
Yes.
In
Out
1:10:05
Now, I don't know exactly what they did, but— so we actually had a complaint either this week or the weekend prior, I can't remember.
In
Out
1:10:14
There was— this is what I know of the story, but there was a gentleman who I believe was without electricity for pretty much the whole weekend.
In
Out
1:10:23
He came in first thing Monday morning, and this I haven't been able to verify, but I guess he said he called the fire department, which doesn't make a whole lot of sense because I don't think the fire department offices were there.
In
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1:10:34
So I don't know if they actually called dispatch.
In
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1:10:36
Dispatch was on social media.
In
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1:10:39
So I was going to say, so I think they might have called Dispatch, but he said, I called the fire department and they said they didn't know what to do.
In
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1:10:46
You know, and I, and I guess the conversation was like, well, you know, why didn't you contact the electrical inspector?
In
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1:10:51
He just didn't.
In
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1:10:52
He didn't contact the electrical inspector or the building commissioner.
In
Out
1:10:56
Okay, so, so we'll leave that.
In
Out
1:10:59
Something happened.
In
Out
1:11:00
But people need to know that just because the town halls only open up Monday through Thursday, if there's an incident Friday, Saturday, or Sunday, they can call the line that is connected here to the town hall and leave a message and get a callback.
In
Out
1:11:18
So it's kind of like a question.
In
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1:11:20
Yeah.
In
Out
1:11:20
So we don't have that option only because we don't have a way of forwarding the calls.
In
Out
1:11:25
What I will say is we've always directed people that outside of hours— and we have the list in dispatch which we keep updated.
In
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1:11:32
Sandra actually does it on a monthly basis now, to contact dispatch because— and I said this— emergencies.
In
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1:11:40
Yeah.
In
Out
1:11:40
So I said this to Sean too.
In
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1:11:42
I think what's important is sometimes even dispatch doesn't know, right?
In
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1:11:45
If somebody calls and says, I don't have electricity, which I think was the situation.
In
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1:11:50
I think this gentleman, like a tree fell, he took out his— lost electricity.
In
Out
1:11:55
So then he didn't have electricity the whole weekend.
In
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1:11:57
Obviously, I don't know who he called, so I wasn't able to just call and ask, you know, what was information that was given out.
In
Out
1:12:03
But ultimately what should be happening is it should be filtered through dispatch because then they can go down the list and find the person who can assist.
In
Out
1:12:10
Um, you know, in that situation it was the electrical inspector, and his information is like— his actual cell phone from the town is listed on the website.
In
Out
1:12:19
But I, I don't think the gentleman called, or if he called, maybe he left a message.
In
Out
1:12:23
I don't know.
In
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1:12:23
I think what happened is a tree came down, he got it fixed, but they couldn't turn it on because it needed to be Yep, right, correct.
In
Out
1:12:32
Yeah, I don't think you saw it online.
In
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1:12:34
I did see that.
In
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1:12:36
I knew I had seen it, but I, I don't, I don't check online every day, so I could have seen it 3 or 4 days later.
In
Out
1:12:43
But then it was like, what is, you know, we need to let the town know what to do Friday, Saturday, and Sunday if they have an emergency.
In
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1:12:53
Yeah, and I think the, the easiest thing for the public to do do.
In
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1:12:56
And certainly we can do a better job.
In
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1:12:59
And by we, I mean me.
In
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1:13:01
I can, you know, update the website.
In
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1:13:04
I think we need to kind of stress the importance of outside of those hours, they should be going through dispatch because then dispatch can really, you know, figure out, okay, let me go down the list of people that I need to call.
In
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1:13:13
Even if they don't know who it is, they have more resources at that time than anybody else, right?
In
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1:13:18
So they can ask the OIC, do you know who should you know, be in charge of this?
In
Out
1:13:23
Well, try this person, try this part.
In
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1:13:24
They have the whole list.
In
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1:13:25
So they can go through the whole town.
In
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1:13:27
Yeah, I'm surprised that person wasn't given that information if they called.
In
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1:13:31
No.
In
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1:13:31
And that's why, like, I heard the fire department and I thought that can't be right because— but it would go through dispatch unless— so that's why I figured maybe it went through dispatch and they thought they were calling the fire department.
In
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1:13:42
That would be my understanding.
In
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1:13:45
I don't know.
In
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1:13:47
What's that?
In
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1:13:49
If you had gone out, the problem would be solved?
In
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1:13:53
Thanks, Fire Chief.
In
Out
1:13:55
Okay, and the other, other thing I had— we have contracts with all these unions.
In
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1:14:00
Have you or— and the town administrator, um, there's got to be, um, this has got to conflict with some of the stuff in the contract.
In
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1:14:10
So as far as, you know, the only The only one it conflicts with is DPW.
In
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1:14:15
They're the only one that actually has their schedule spelled out in their contract.
In
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1:14:20
But I've been in contact with all of the unions.
In
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1:14:22
So prior to us even starting the trial, I emailed every single union representative, said this is what we are looking to do.
In
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1:14:29
It hasn't happened.
In
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1:14:30
The board is going to be making a decision in an upcoming meeting.
In
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1:14:33
If it does, what do you need from us?
In
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1:14:35
Do you need a side letter of agreement?
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1:14:37
Nobody needed anything because We set the hours of work for most of the unions.
In
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1:14:42
The only one is DPW.
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1:14:43
It's negotiated.
In
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1:14:46
So their actual work schedule is spelled out in their contract.
In
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1:14:49
But I've been in contact with their union representative the whole time.
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1:14:53
She said— I guess she was hearing the same thing from them in terms of them being in favor of it.
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1:14:58
She said she had no issue with it.
In
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1:14:59
If we decide to make it permanent, we would just do a side letter of agreement with the new hours.
In
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1:15:04
And then come negotiations, we might either just work that language out, um, or just allow them to change the language to whatever the current schedule is.
In
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1:15:13
But luckily— okay, but not only the schedule.
In
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1:15:16
Does this affect sick time, vacation time, holidays?
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1:15:20
Nope.
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1:15:21
Anything like that?
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1:15:22
Nope.
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1:15:22
In the contract, there's holidays on a Friday, they get the Thursday off.
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1:15:26
If it's on a Saturday, you get the Friday off.
In
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1:15:29
Um, so Some contracts don't have it, but the state of Massachusetts determines that anyway.
In
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1:15:34
So if a holiday falls on a Saturday, you have to kick it back to the day worked prior.
In
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1:15:38
So it doesn't matter if it falls on a Saturday, it would be observed either on a Friday or a Thursday.
In
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1:15:44
What we did, because this happened during the trial, was 4th of July, I think, was on a Friday.
In
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1:15:52
Does that sound right?
In
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1:15:53
So 4th of July was on a Friday.
In
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1:15:55
I wasn't going to close town hall on Thursday.
In
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1:15:58
I just wasn't.
In
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1:15:59
Um, so they take it as floating because that's in their contract.
In
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1:16:03
So when a holiday doesn't fall on a day that they would have worked, instead of us backing it up, we give them a floating to take.
In
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1:16:10
So they take a floating holiday instead.
In
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1:16:11
So floating holidays are, uh, determined by the number of hours you work per day, or does it get like— like 37.5 is full-time Right.
In
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1:16:23
Yep.
In
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1:16:23
Well, for different— yeah, for supervisors, 35 is full-time for— because some of the days are 8 hours, some of the days are 10 hours, right?
In
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1:16:31
Yeah, but they're working, so it's 35 hours, right?
In
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1:16:34
So they get paid for 35 hours.
In
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1:16:35
Okay.
In
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1:16:36
Um, the only thing that recently came up, and the only one it was impacting again, was DPW.
In
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1:16:43
But I, I spoke with the union representative and I said this isn't an issue we already kind of addressed it.
In
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1:16:49
I just hadn't relayed the information back to DPW.
In
Out
1:16:52
So, um, so Human Services works on Friday too, and so does Animal Control, right?
In
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1:16:59
So we have 3 departments out of all that work a 5-day week.
In
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1:17:03
So it's not just— let's not just say the town hall.
In
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1:17:06
They work 5 days, right?
In
Out
1:17:07
But you're asking about how the holidays are impacted if they fall on a weekend, right?
In
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1:17:12
So, so the only ones are issues— or I shouldn't say issues, but the only ones that we have to address head-on would be town hall because we're not here on Friday.
In
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1:17:21
So when Human Services, if there's a holiday on Saturday, it gets backed up onto Friday.
In
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1:17:27
It doesn't change anything.
In
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1:17:28
The, the contracts, the way the holidays fall— we run into this every year because the holidays don't always fall on a weekday.
In
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1:17:35
Sometimes they fall on a weekend.
In
Out
1:17:37
Um, and then for example, like I think it's Good Friday, that's automatically a floating.
In
Out
1:17:43
So they don't get it until they receive it, and then it's a floating half holiday for them to take.
In
Out
1:17:47
And we just ask them to take it before the end of the fiscal year so it doesn't, you know, run into anything, which we've never had an issue with.
In
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1:17:54
And I can tell you, we had zero issues with Fourth of July.
In
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1:17:57
Everybody gave us no issues.
In
Out
1:17:59
Again, I reached out to the union.
In
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1:18:01
This is what we're doing, just in case they felt like it was somehow going against what the contract said, but it doesn't.
In
Out
1:18:08
The state says, you know, if it falls on a Saturday, you observe it on a Friday.
In
Out
1:18:11
Well, if we're not open on Friday, I'm not backing it up to Thursday.
In
Out
1:18:15
You know, I'm not gonna— for what purpose?
In
Out
1:18:19
The holiday doesn't fall on that day.
In
Out
1:18:21
They were more than happy to have the floating holiday, and I had no issues.
In
Out
1:18:25
But no, in terms of like the contract language, all of that was gone through before we even did the trial period.
In
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1:18:31
Just to make sure we weren't going to run into anything.
In
Out
1:18:34
And I'm sorry, I started speaking.
In
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1:18:36
That's all right.
In
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1:18:37
That's all right.
In
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1:18:37
Went sideways.
In
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1:18:38
But the only thing we ran into was the personal days.
In
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1:18:41
So, for example, DPW, 40 hours a week, they get 4 personal days, but it's broken down into hours.
In
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1:18:50
So if somebody wants to take 4 full personal days of 9 hours, they're short.
In
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1:18:56
So I told him, I said, we've addressed this before, 'cause the same thing actually happens to me.
In
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1:19:00
I'm short hours for my personal days, but the treasurer's office just pays it a full day.
In
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1:19:06
It's just the way Munis has the accruals, I guess, and it's harder for them to try and adjust it.
In
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1:19:11
So we just make a manual adjustment on the back end.
In
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1:19:14
So nobody gets deducted anything, they get their full day off.
In
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1:19:19
But they had concerns just because it showed hours.
In
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1:19:24
Right.
In
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1:19:26
Okay.
In
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1:19:27
Okay.
In
Out
1:19:27
So, oh, anybody else?
In
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1:19:28
No, I was just going to say my, my personal opinion is I, I would like to see the town hall open back up on Fridays.
In
Out
1:19:34
Um, you did have a slide up there where you showed 60-some people coming in on Fridays, but to like DPW or whatever the other one, but those desks are open.
In
Out
1:19:42
Um, I think your numbers would be different if you had more time to, yeah, to get those numbers for here as well.
In
Out
1:19:48
Um, you know, we do serve the public, so I think having— being open on Friday is a good idea, back to whatever it was, noontime.
In
Out
1:19:55
Um, and I'm definitely in agreement with the Wednesday night, like killing it at 5:30.
In
Out
1:20:00
I don't see any reason to go later than that.
In
Out
1:20:01
But I do— I, I would like to see the town hall reopen on Fridays.
In
Out
1:20:06
It has nothing to do with I have to work, so shouldn't you.
In
Out
1:20:09
That has nothing to do with it.
In
Out
1:20:10
This is, this is strictly for the servicing of the public service.
In
Out
1:20:14
That's all it is.
In
Out
1:20:16
If we, if we continue this till like June 1st, you would then have the ability to collect the data on energy use for a whole winter and you make a comparison.
In
Out
1:20:31
And I don't know the real benefit to that or non-benefit to that, but I mean, it might be good data to have.
In
Out
1:20:37
And it seems like it's— everything seems to be working fine, so I'd be in favor of continuing the trial to June 1st.
In
Out
1:20:45
And do we say July 1st for the fiscal year?
In
Out
1:20:49
June 31st?
In
Out
1:20:51
June 30th, right?
In
Out
1:20:53
Yeah, just June 30th.
In
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1:20:55
Yeah, it's a fiscal year.
In
Out
1:21:00
Anybody else have anything to say?
In
Out
1:21:03
Go.
In
Out
1:21:04
Just so people know, Um, the town offices are open 4 days a week, but they still do inspections on the Fridays.
In
Out
1:21:10
The plumbing inspector, electrical inspector, building— if they set you, you can go on the line and set one up for Friday, contractors or yourself, and they will come out on Friday to accommodate that because they get paid per the inspection.
In
Out
1:21:21
So they are servicing the residents as far as that goes.
In
Out
1:21:25
And we did have an issue, I think, during, um, something was shut off online for like We realized it after somebody had said they couldn't schedule an inspection.
In
Out
1:21:36
Something was just shut off online.
In
Out
1:21:37
So I would also, I guess, say to the public, if you're having issues with something or, you know, you're saying, well, I can't do this, please let us know because sometimes we don't know.
In
Out
1:21:46
There's, there's these little checkboxes buried deep in these websites and we just don't even know that it's not functioning properly.
In
Out
1:21:53
So that unfortunately, I think that happened at some point.
In
Out
1:21:56
Walk to.
In
Out
1:21:57
And this, you can go online and see the, the main number here is still 336-7200.
In
Out
1:22:07
336-2900.
In
Out
1:22:09
Okay, 2900, because I know people who don't have the internet, don't have cell phones, but that's the main line to get to the town hall where you get the directory, get the directory and everything.
In
Out
1:22:21
And what is it, hits 0, you had the town administrator's office.
In
Out
1:22:24
Yeah, yeah, so just hit 0.
In
Out
1:22:26
No, I think 0 brings you to dispatch.
In
Out
1:22:28
Does it?
In
Out
1:22:29
Oh yeah, I'm pretty sure 0 brings you to dispatch.
In
Out
1:22:31
Okay, so what's that?
In
Out
1:22:33
That's Carol.
In
Out
1:22:35
It's not Carol.
In
Out
1:22:36
It's not.
In
Out
1:22:36
I can give you Sean's cell phone number.
In
Out
1:22:38
No, uh, the town hall, just so they have a single number to, to, uh, call into and then they can get somebody.
In
Out
1:22:46
Um, so that would be.
In
Out
1:22:49
That's good to know.
In
Out
1:22:50
And yes, there's still people out there that do not have internet and do not have cell phones, and I personally know them, so that's why I'm saying this.
In
Out
1:22:57
And they're probably not even watching me because they don't have cable either.
In
Out
1:23:01
So there you go.
In
Out
1:23:03
Um, okay, so somebody give me a motion.
In
Out
1:23:08
We have 3 in front of us.
In
Out
1:23:10
I make a motion to approve a permanent change that operational hours as presented in consistent with those utilized during the trial period.
In
Out
1:23:16
Till— or did you just want to— do you want to put a date?
In
Out
1:23:19
I want to make a motion to approve a permanent change to the operational hours as presented, inconsistent with those utilized during the trial period.
In
Out
1:23:27
But I'll second that.
In
Out
1:23:28
Okay, any other questions?
In
Out
1:23:31
Seeing none, all in favor?
In
Out
1:23:33
Can I get a roll call, please?
In
Out
1:23:35
Gary Segar, aye.
In
Out
1:23:36
Pam Posey, nay.
In
Out
1:23:37
Michael Healy, aye.
In
Out
1:23:38
Chris, aye.
In
Out
1:23:39
Michelle Hang's aye.
In
Out
1:23:41
4 in favor, 1 opposed.
In
Out
1:23:45
Thank you very much.
In
Out
1:23:46
Thank you for your attentiveness.
In
Out
1:23:47
Thank you, Carol.
In
Out
1:23:48
Thank you.
In
Out
1:23:49
Thanks, Chief.
In
Out
1:23:50
Yeah, thanks, Chief.
In
Out
1:23:51
Yeah, you'll be keeping an eye on this in case— I mean, we can always revisit this should we have to.
In
Out
1:23:57
Yeah, absolutely.
In
Out
1:23:58
And I'm— I, uh, the good thing is now, because I had asked for it during the trial period, I'm blessed with receiving all of the utility bills for the entire town every single month to review.
In
Out
1:24:10
Um, and honestly, I have, I have sheets going, so I'm probably going to keep it going just in case at any point if there's any information that the board does want, I'll have it and I don't have to go fishing for it.
In
Out
1:24:20
Um, it's just easier to kind of maintain it.
In
Out
1:24:22
So yeah, I will say thank you very much.
In
Out
1:24:24
Thank you.
In
Out
1:24:25
As much as I know some of you may have wanted one to— I understand— to go back or to do a trial period.
In
Out
1:24:31
Thank you so much because this has been a lot of work.
In
Out
1:24:34
Um, it probably doesn't look like it, but I, I struggled with all of this data trying to figure out how to put it together and, and make it presentable.
In
Out
1:24:42
So thank you very much.
In
Out
1:24:43
Well, you did a very nice job.
In
Out
1:24:45
Thank you.
In
Out
1:24:45
And now I should go home and have something to eat.
In
Out
1:24:50
Pick something up on your way.
In
Out
1:24:51
I'm going to shut these off.
In
Out
1:24:53
Oh yeah, please.
In
Out
1:24:54
Okay, thank you.
In
Out
1:24:55
Discussion of annual fall town meeting.
In
Out
1:24:58
Mr. Sega, if you have anything to say, not that you have to, but okay.
In
Out
1:25:03
Well, prior to the meeting, I asked the moderator if he would just take a non-binding survey about changing the start time from 7 to 6.
In
Out
1:25:18
And so that was his test question that he put up, and it was answered.
In
Out
1:25:22
There was 177 yeas and 60 nays, uh, to go to 6 o'clock.
In
Out
1:25:29
So 75% of the people said they'd like to see it changed.
In
Out
1:25:32
So I understand that, and that was on my list to talk to Mr. Kadeem about.
In
Out
1:25:37
Okay, later.
In
Out
1:25:39
I— this is kind of like where we say an overall discussion of the town meeting, how you felt about it, whatever.
In
Out
1:25:48
The sooner we change our form of government the happier I'll be.
In
Out
1:25:54
Thank you very much, Mrs. Posey.
In
Out
1:25:56
We're gonna leave you right there.
In
Out
1:25:59
I thought for the most part it moved pretty well.
In
Out
1:26:01
I mean, the end with the 2 Madeira Spalm-related items, I get that they have a right to get up and make a motion.
In
Out
1:26:12
I just felt that they should have been a little bit better prepared and wasn't quite sure it was all properly handled well by the model.
In
Out
1:26:21
Okay, that's it.
In
Out
1:26:22
Michael?
In
Out
1:26:24
Where'd Chris go?
In
Out
1:26:26
So I thought it was, um, all right.
In
Out
1:26:28
There was one thing I was confused on.
In
Out
1:26:31
Um, I believe it was Miss Posey saying that the leadership was not good when it came to— I believe it was a town hall.
In
Out
1:26:37
You said something about leadership.
In
Out
1:26:39
I'm just trying to figure out what are we kicking the can down the road road.
In
Out
1:26:42
Okay, somebody made a comment about it's been kicking the can down the road, and I said, well, that kicking the can down the road falls on the leadership.
In
Out
1:26:49
All right, so stole my ballot statement.
In
Out
1:26:53
So I'm trying to figure out what do we do with that building because it's been 20 years old over there.
In
Out
1:26:58
What are we talking about?
In
Out
1:27:00
What building?
In
Out
1:27:01
The old town hall.
In
Out
1:27:01
Okay, okay, for another night.
In
Out
1:27:05
But yeah, I'm just saying that that was one of the comments, but it's like every time we present some of the townspeople, they don't want to spend money, this and that.
In
Out
1:27:10
So it's like, what do we do?
In
Out
1:27:11
To make one correction on that, yes, I believe the comment was made during the discussion of the County Street fire station.
In
Out
1:27:18
Oh, is it?
In
Out
1:27:18
Okay.
In
Out
1:27:19
And there were no plans for it, and the statement was made, uh, that's the problem with the town leadership.
In
Out
1:27:25
And my— I took it like that's a shot across every one of us because we're the town leadership.
In
Out
1:27:31
And if that's directed at us, that's how you feel.
In
Out
1:27:34
That's that you didn't say in the past.
In
Out
1:27:37
You said the problem with the town leadership— of the town, we're the leadership of the town.
In
Out
1:27:41
So I, I agree with Mr. Zorra.
In
Out
1:27:42
I'd like clarification on that statement.
In
Out
1:27:44
Was that directed at the members of the board, the current board, the lack thereof, or is it directed at the town administrator?
In
Out
1:27:51
It was directed at the fact that it's been kicking the can down the road, means it's been happening over year after year after year.
In
Out
1:27:58
If we've, we've said that in the past, we didn't want to sell that building, and it has sat there for years.
In
Out
1:28:04
Well, how come nothing has been done for years?
In
Out
1:28:06
Like, why would we just keep letting it sit?
In
Out
1:28:09
So not necessarily just this board, and we've actually been trying to make progress on that.
In
Out
1:28:13
This is something that has come up at multiple, multiple meetings of ours where we've talked about these buildings and what to do with it.
In
Out
1:28:20
If anything, we were probably the one group that hasn't been trying to kick it down the road.
In
Out
1:28:24
We've actually been trying to do something.
In
Out
1:28:25
I have been saying that it has been, you know, that particular person who made the comment was a member of this board at one point.
In
Out
1:28:32
So he— so in my, my— not my defense, but to say like, well, why was it— why are we constantly kicking down the road?
In
Out
1:28:40
Kicking it down the road because it starts here.
In
Out
1:28:42
We are at the top of the chain, and we should be the ones doing stuff about these boards and these buildings and these properties.
In
Out
1:28:49
And to make that kind of a statement about kicking it down the road is the leadership that has been coming down the road.
In
Out
1:28:56
So it's not just us, it's everybody before us.
In
Out
1:28:58
And for whenever this all started, I don't know, when did we first say that we didn't want to sell that building?
In
Out
1:29:03
You know, like, why has it taken so long to get to this point that we're actually trying to now do something about this property?
In
Out
1:29:09
But just, just remember, it comes down— a lot of this stuff comes down to town meeting.
In
Out
1:29:16
We can decide, and we've had this discussion about town-owned property.
In
Out
1:29:22
We went through it.
In
Out
1:29:23
We decided to go before the town to see what they wanted to sell and/or not sell.
In
Out
1:29:30
Some of us want to sell things and some of us don't, but it comes down to town meeting.
In
Out
1:29:35
So when the article comes up and you say your piece, whether you're for or against it, that's when whatever is going to happen.
In
Out
1:29:45
We're not kicking it down the road.
In
Out
1:29:46
It comes up periodically, so the town does or doesn't want to dispose of the property.
In
Out
1:29:54
So we have to go by then.
In
Out
1:29:56
Some of us believe some of the property— the town shouldn't sell any property it owns because a comment was made about if you need to build something or, or we need something, we have to go out and buy property in order to do it.
In
Out
1:30:12
Why get rid of the property we have, but the property— some of the property that we have is deteriorating.
In
Out
1:30:19
And but there are projects coming up, and then you can kind of see in the future, well, this has just come up, maybe we can do this.
In
Out
1:30:26
So this board decided to put it on an article on the warrant.
In
Out
1:30:31
So we did, and we had what happened happen, and that's fine.
In
Out
1:30:36
I don't call that kicking it down the road.
In
Out
1:30:38
Kicking it down the road to me is not doing anything.
In
Out
1:30:40
We did what we were supposed to do.
In
Out
1:30:44
The town said yes or no at town meeting.
In
Out
1:30:47
So it'll come up again.
In
Out
1:30:50
It will absolutely come up again for whatever reason.
In
Out
1:30:52
But for right now, that's the answer, because this is the form of government we have, right, Gary?
In
Out
1:31:00
So, but again, I don't think— I don't think that was the issue that Mr. Zorro raised that I just raised.
In
Out
1:31:08
It was the comment that was made that the town leadership— there's a problem with the town leadership.
In
Out
1:31:14
The way it was said had nothing to do with kicking the can down the road.
In
Out
1:31:18
It was said that the town leadership pretty much is failing, and we're part of the town leadership.
In
Out
1:31:22
If that's how it was directed, that's fine.
In
Out
1:31:24
That's your opinion, and you can live with my opinion.
In
Out
1:31:26
I'm the one who said it, so I'm telling you exactly what my opinion was, and it was in response to the comment made about kicking it down the road, and that was what I was directing it at.
In
Out
1:31:35
Then kicking it down the road, and that's because of the leadership's been kicking it down the road.
In
Out
1:31:40
So yeah, it does.
In
Out
1:31:44
Are you done?
In
Out
1:31:46
Yeah, I'm done.
In
Out
1:31:46
Are you sure?
In
Out
1:31:47
I'm good.
In
Out
1:31:49
Okay.
In
Out
1:31:49
I mean, presented with money, they say no.
In
Out
1:31:52
You do this, no, no.
In
Out
1:31:53
Everything, they don't want to spend money, they don't want to do this.
In
Out
1:31:55
So here we are, we're still with the building.
In
Out
1:31:57
Well, yeah, Michael, listen, everybody's entitled to their vote.
In
Out
1:32:04
Um, I thought it was a good turn— I thought it was a good turnout, which is another good sign that, you know, at least the word's getting out there about town meeting and people are at least coming to voice their opinion, whether some people like it or not.
In
Out
1:32:15
Um, so I was a little disappointed with some of the discussions that took place and how they were interrupted and people were being disrespectful to each other.
In
Out
1:32:23
Um, but also, unfortunately, unfortunate that— I think that's a sign of the times across the, across the, the country right now.
In
Out
1:32:29
Um, it's just unfortunate when it plays out in front of you like that, like at a small town meeting.
In
Out
1:32:33
We're not, we're not a city, and we're not like— it's just, it was unfortunate because people were trying to make their points, whether they were struggling with them or not, and there were people in the background making comments and all kinds of stuff.
In
Out
1:32:44
So I thought that was— and I think everybody heard me ask the moderator to please stop it, um, because I just think it kind of got out out of hand.
In
Out
1:32:51
Um, the only other thing was I, I kind of thought that the conversation— and shame on myself for not getting up and speaking— that we kind of lost sight of the purpose of what the, the motion for Firefly was, just to have that option for the board.
In
Out
1:33:05
It wasn't that we were, we were intending on selling it tomorrow or anything like that.
In
Out
1:33:08
It was just an option that, you know, there are neighboring businesses around there that were interested in possibly doing something, but it— we don't even have the option to talk to them.
In
Out
1:33:16
It was really just to get that tool in our toolbox.
In
Out
1:33:18
And I probably should have said this Monday night, but I didn't think it was going to make any difference.
In
Out
1:33:22
So it was kind of disappointing to see that happen.
In
Out
1:33:24
Um, but again, it's just the way things go, and it is, it is our form of government, you know.
In
Out
1:33:29
And until it changes, then, you know, it is what it is.
In
Out
1:33:32
We can only bring things forward, and hopefully people will have some faith in us.
In
Out
1:33:36
But obviously you can see, and it was raised not only on social media but also there that night, that people don't trust.
In
Out
1:33:44
There's really not much trust out there.
In
Out
1:33:46
With the legal thing signed, we weren't allowed to say much, and so people thought we had our hands in people's back pockets.
In
Out
1:33:52
But I do think when the actual, um, background information that was initially read, um, it pretty much explained the options, what we were looking to do, just so we had some flexibility.
In
Out
1:34:03
If the opportunity came up, we could at least entertain something.
In
Out
1:34:06
We still have to come back to you people, right?
In
Out
1:34:08
But that got lost.
In
Out
1:34:09
That really got lost in the whole shuffle in the discussion.
In
Out
1:34:11
It was, we're selling it, we're going to sell it for whatever amount, and it's just going to be, you know, we're just— that they were going to give us all the authority to sell all and dispose of all this property like tomorrow.
In
Out
1:34:22
To me, the conversation was kind of off base, but I think that's just the, um, the professionalism— the, the ill-informed people of this community, they come and they just only hear what they want to hear and they don't really understand the whole picture.
In
Out
1:34:35
So even if you wanted to put a taco cart there, you still have to get a permit and have to hear stuff.
In
Out
1:34:39
So yeah, so yeah, that's all.
In
Out
1:34:42
Other than that, yeah, I'm sure I have nothing else.
In
Out
1:34:44
Okay, I'd like to thank everybody that came.
In
Out
1:34:46
It was a great meeting.
In
Out
1:34:48
Um, I'm always up for a heated town meeting.
In
Out
1:34:52
It did get a little bit overheated and I actually felt bad for the moderator because— and I just— we we talked to each other afterwards.
In
Out
1:34:59
It is, it is very difficult sometimes to control a whole room of screaming people, and screaming doesn't get you anywhere because nobody can hear what you're saying and it just goes crazy.
In
Out
1:35:12
I was admonished for things that I said when I was trying to help a certain gentleman along, but I was just trying to help him so he could move along, you know, because, uh, people have to understand that articles that are presented by like the school committee or the school department, that the board or a petitioner, they're done different.
In
Out
1:35:36
And, you know, people need to ask for help about with these things.
In
Out
1:35:40
I mean, we, we help people do these things, and you have to— you need to talk to the right person, please.
In
Out
1:35:48
And, uh, so we can get these things a little bit more.
In
Out
1:35:52
We knew it was going to be contentious, but, you know, we need to have— you need to— people need to be able to hear what's going on.
In
Out
1:36:00
Um, and we don't— we also don't want to divulge any— we can't divulge stuff that, like, in executive session, because then this holds the town up for, uh, liability.
In
Out
1:36:15
That's the way things are.
In
Out
1:36:16
Open session, we sit here and we talk about things, but in executive session you can't.
In
Out
1:36:21
You can't bring information out of executive session.
In
Out
1:36:24
That's— it's the law.
In
Out
1:36:25
You can't do it.
In
Out
1:36:27
We can be sued.
In
Out
1:36:28
Not that we're not going to be sued anyway, because we get sued all the time, but people need to understand there are things that we can't say.
In
Out
1:36:35
And there's a lot of things we can't do.
In
Out
1:36:36
Like you— like was said, they think we can go out and we're going to sell the property for $100, because I just don't get it.
In
Out
1:36:43
I get in insulted because this is our town too.
In
Out
1:36:47
A lot of us have been here for years.
In
Out
1:36:49
Some of us been here our whole lives.
In
Out
1:36:51
I don't want my taxes going up.
In
Out
1:36:53
Nobody else does in this town.
In
Out
1:36:55
I'm not going to pass something to raise my taxes if it's, if it's, you know, it's not approved.
In
Out
1:37:04
And I don't know, people need, we need to look at both sides.
In
Out
1:37:06
They think they, that we're trying to get, pull something over on you.
In
Out
1:37:10
No, So we bought a piece of property because the town— the town outcry was outrageous.
In
Out
1:37:18
So we did something about it.
In
Out
1:37:20
Now, are we gonna hold on to that property now and make it an animal sanctuary?
In
Out
1:37:25
You got to remember, all that property was taxed.
In
Out
1:37:28
That tax money isn't coming into the town anymore because the town doesn't pay taxes on their town-owned property.
In
Out
1:37:34
So all, all that land is That tax money is gone.
In
Out
1:37:40
So do we— you know, it's just I get a little frustrated.
In
Out
1:37:44
And as Mr. Segall was talking about that poll, that non-binding poll, we need to find out the right way to change that.
In
Out
1:37:56
And this is what I was thinking.
In
Out
1:37:58
I don't know the legal way to change like the time.
In
Out
1:38:01
I know we've changed the time on the board because we used to meet at 7 and now we meet at 6.
In
Out
1:38:06
But I'm pretty sure that was just a vote whenever by the board.
In
Out
1:38:11
But seeing as this is a town meeting, my thought is, do we have to go— do we have to pull it to a ballot?
In
Out
1:38:18
No, it's just the board sets the town meeting, the time and everything.
In
Out
1:38:22
So we can just change it to 6.
In
Out
1:38:25
6.
In
Out
1:38:26
Okay, well, I'm not gonna put that on now because What I would think was that needs to go on for— in— go on open session so that people— how about a public hearing for that?
In
Out
1:38:38
What do you think?
In
Out
1:38:39
I'm asking.
In
Out
1:38:40
You could, or we could— or we can just put it in the agenda.
In
Out
1:38:43
I think the 5 of us can make a legitimate— I know, but I'm just— I don't think we should have to have a public meeting on it, but yeah.
In
Out
1:38:52
Or set it for— keep it at 7, put it as a warrant article.
In
Out
1:38:56
Like, at the next town meeting, do you want to move it and make it official?
In
Out
1:39:00
Well, that's what I'm asking.
In
Out
1:39:01
How do you make it official?
In
Out
1:39:03
Oh, can we just— it's up to the board.
In
Out
1:39:06
So if the board wants to— if the board wants to make it official, you can make it official.
In
Out
1:39:09
If you want to put a warrant article to have an official article to get the consensus, or I'm sure we could probably do a survey if we want to do like a SurveyMonkey or something like that to get additional input.
In
Out
1:39:21
But I just don't want to do it the wrong way.
In
Out
1:39:23
I just think, I think it, I think what we saw was a representation of the people that attend town meetings, basically tell you.
In
Out
1:39:30
Yeah, yeah.
In
Out
1:39:30
So we got 6 months at least to decide it.
In
Out
1:39:34
Flip a coin.
In
Out
1:39:35
Yeah, that is true.
In
Out
1:39:37
Well, I just want to make sure that we do it the right way.
In
Out
1:39:39
I don't want to kick it down the road because 6 o'clock, 7 o'clock, I don't care.
In
Out
1:39:43
Doesn't bother me one way or the other.
In
Out
1:39:44
About me either.
In
Out
1:39:45
So if it's right way for us to do it, then we can put it on as a gender ribbon.
In
Out
1:39:51
And there we go.
In
Out
1:39:52
Saturdays?
In
Out
1:39:54
No way.
In
Out
1:39:56
We tried that once.
In
Out
1:39:57
We go yell that.
In
Out
1:39:58
We could make some money if we had a beer or wine license there, right?
In
Out
1:40:03
Entertainment.
In
Out
1:40:04
Oh boy.
In
Out
1:40:04
No thanks.
In
Out
1:40:06
Uh, are we all set on the town meeting?
In
Out
1:40:09
Do you want to say anything?
In
Out
1:40:11
You're good?
In
Out
1:40:11
We'd have a full jail cell too.
In
Out
1:40:14
Okay, so we're done with that.
In
Out
1:40:16
Okay, consider approving the open session meetings of October 1st, 2025.
In
Out
1:40:21
Um, I'd like to make a motion to approve the open meeting minutes for October 1st, 2025, with a correction in the spelling of under Community Speaks where it says Barney, B-A-R-N-E-Y.
In
Out
1:40:36
The lady's name is Bonalyn She's probably known as Bonnie, but it's B-O-N-I-L-Y-N.
In
Out
1:40:43
I definitely wasn't picking that one up.
In
Out
1:40:46
What'd you say her name was?
In
Out
1:40:47
B-O-N-I-L-Y-N Dubois.
In
Out
1:40:52
Mrs. Dubois, that's her.
In
Out
1:40:54
So moved.
In
Out
1:40:55
That's the only correction I got.
In
Out
1:40:59
Okay, uh, I got a motion and a second.
In
Out
1:41:02
Does anybody have anything else?
In
Out
1:41:05
Hearing none, all in favor?
In
Out
1:41:07
Aye.
In
Out
1:41:08
Any opposed?
In
Out
1:41:09
Seeing none, unanimous.
In
Out
1:41:13
Open meeting minutes of October 29th, 2025.
In
Out
1:41:19
So moved.
In
Out
1:41:22
Second.
In
Out
1:41:25
Any questions, comments, changes?
In
Out
1:41:27
Anyone?
In
Out
1:41:30
All in favor?
In
Out
1:41:31
Aye.
In
Out
1:41:31
Aye.
In
Out
1:41:32
Aye.
In
Out
1:41:33
Okay, unanimous.
In
Out
1:41:34
Thank you very much.
In
Out
1:41:35
Uh, community speaks.
In
Out
1:41:37
Anybody from the community want to say anything?
In
Out
1:41:40
Mr. Community, you're good?
In
Out
1:41:42
Thank you, Mr. Al.
In
Out
1:41:46
Other business within 48 hours?
In
Out
1:41:49
I have none.
In
Out
1:41:54
Okay, town administrator's Sorry, I'm looking at my notes.
In
Out
1:42:00
Last Wednesday, Jen Augo and I toured Tri-County for the building project.
In
Out
1:42:04
So we, we have a tour with the superintendent.
In
Out
1:42:07
We did meet with the superintendent and the business manager just to talk about the project.
In
Out
1:42:11
So the project is ahead of schedule.
In
Out
1:42:14
They shared their enrollment numbers.
In
Out
1:42:16
The enrollments have increased by 5 students, bringing our percentage in our allocation for the cost of the project from 8.46% to 8.98%.
In
Out
1:42:28
That was again an increase of 5 students.
In
Out
1:42:31
They did do a residency audit.
In
Out
1:42:35
So there was some concerns specifically from Seacock that as you know we tend to battle with residency in terms of students in our schools.
In
Out
1:42:43
So they did do an audit to make sure that the students that were going to Tri-County do actually reside in the town that they said they were doing.
In
Out
1:42:53
So the audit was completed.
In
Out
1:42:54
They didn't find any of the students that were outside of Seekonk being counted as Seekonk students.
In
Out
1:43:00
So that was a, that was a positive there.
In
Out
1:43:04
The Library Building Committee, we're going to have a kickoff meeting on Monday, so November 17th at 6 PM at Town Hall.
In
Out
1:43:10
So that's just to organize the committee and just have a kickoff meeting to talk about the project, and then they'll move on from that point running the meeting.
In
Out
1:43:20
And then I will share, I guess, for the Medeiros Farm Committee report, just an update.
In
Out
1:43:26
So we worked with the OPM to draft the RFQ for design of services.
In
Out
1:43:32
I sent that over to the Chair and Vice Chair for their review.
In
Out
1:43:35
They were good with it, so we hit the milestone dates.
In
Out
1:43:38
Moving forward.
In
Out
1:43:39
All the advertisement has been completed as of today.
In
Out
1:43:42
The bids will be available next Wednesday on November 19th with a deadline for submission on December 17th at 3:00 p.m. And then the estimated milestones for the committee, because this still needs to be worked with the committee on actual dates, proposal reviews we're saying January 5th to the 8th, and then Interviews for the finalists would be on January 20th, the week of January 26th to the 29th, with an anticipation of having a recommendation to the board at the February 4th Board of Selectmen meeting.
In
Out
1:44:19
And then outside of that, just in terms of town meeting, I just want to thank everybody who came out and actually participated in town meeting.
In
Out
1:44:26
290 registered voters were there as the official number.
In
Out
1:44:30
So that's, that's great.
In
Out
1:44:31
Um, and I know we all said it, regardless of what the issues are, and I know everybody is passionate on one way or the other, the fact that we had people go out there and actually participate in our form of government, uh, is just good to see.
In
Out
1:44:42
So that's all I have.
In
Out
1:44:45
Okay.
In
Out
1:44:47
Okay.
In
Out
1:44:47
Select Board liaison reports and comments.
In
Out
1:44:49
Accounts payable warrant has been signed.
In
Out
1:44:52
I'm assuming everybody signed it.
In
Out
1:44:55
TV9 liaison report?
In
Out
1:44:57
Nothing at this time.
In
Out
1:44:58
Nothing.
In
Out
1:44:59
Bristol County Advisory Board?
In
Out
1:45:00
Nothing.
In
Out
1:45:02
Okay, we got the Madeiras Farm comments.
In
Out
1:45:06
Mr. Segal, you have anything for us?
In
Out
1:45:11
The last meeting I just asked if— are we all set with snow plowing?
In
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1:45:15
Because I'm seeing a lot of advertising, a lot of communities for drivers.
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1:45:19
Uh, I'll double-check with Dave Cabral, but I, I did see a couple signs out there.
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1:45:24
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
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1:45:27
And the other thing, uh, when Dave was speaking at the meeting the other night, he raised the issue when he's talking about his facility, and I remember him saying this earlier, that the fuel depot we have there is at its end of life.
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1:45:40
I wouldn't want it to be leaking or create a hazardous situation Yeah, that they've— I know they've gone in there.
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1:45:48
I want to say 2 years ago they actually completely repainted the, uh, the actual tanks themselves.
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1:45:54
So they've done some modifications.
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1:45:55
So I don't think we're at that point where it's going to leave.
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1:45:58
If we do, if we do have to redo it, just, uh, just an idea, would it make more sense to put it behind the Public Safety Building rather than over there?
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1:46:09
Uh, yeah, I mean, that's something We can, we can talk about that.
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1:46:14
Yeah, no, no, yeah, just throw it out there.
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1:46:15
I just throw it out there.
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1:46:16
What'd you say about it?
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1:46:17
No, I'm not sure if they can.
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1:46:18
They got those drainage swales in the back.
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1:46:21
Oh, I think drainage swales.
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1:46:22
Yeah, because the rain goes down and goes out into the back, right?
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1:46:26
Maybe, but I don't— yeah, that's to be looked at.
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1:46:28
Okay, that's all.
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1:46:29
Thank you, Mr. Posey.
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1:46:32
Uh, nothing, thanks.
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1:46:34
Mr. Zara, don't want to steal your thunder.
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1:46:39
Huh?
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1:46:40
Oh, okay.
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1:46:42
Mr. Healy?
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1:46:43
I don't have anything.
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1:46:44
Yes, you will.
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1:46:45
Yeah, okay, lucky me.
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1:46:48
Okay, uh, the SEACOM's 20th annual holiday tree lighting, December 6th from 4 to 8 PM at the Town Hall.
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1:46:58
People, I guess they're going to put up the ice skating rink again because they have ice skating here.
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1:47:02
Food trucks, gift market, Hot cocoa and snacks, the train, face painting, balloon art.
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1:47:09
Uh, we're gonna have popcorn and cotton candy again, I'm sure.
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1:47:14
Tree lighting's at 6 PM, and Santa will be arriving by fire truck, which would be after the tree lighting.
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1:47:22
So it's 4 to 8 on December 6th.
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1:47:25
Come on, come all.
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1:47:28
We also have our 2nd annual community ornament event.
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1:47:32
Santa wants your help decorating Seekonk's tree.
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1:47:35
Stop by the town hall to pick up a wooden ornament kit and take it home with you.
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1:47:40
Design the ornament with festive colors and drawings and return it to the town hall by December 4th.
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1:47:47
The ornaments will be hung on the town's tree and will be displayed at the tree lighting on December 6th.
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1:47:53
The ornaments will stay outside on the tree, so make sure they are somewhat weather-resistant.
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1:47:58
When Santa returns home to North— to the North Pole, he'll take the ornaments with him as a keepsake of our town.
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1:48:07
Isn't that great?
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1:48:09
It is.
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1:48:11
They're right outside.
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1:48:12
Actually, they're right outside this, this room here.
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1:48:14
There's a box right over there, so I know where it is.
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1:48:18
If you— if the members did not check their mailboxes in there, Um, I put in a copy of the House docket number 1724.
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1:48:28
It's the number— how— it's, uh, it's number 3120.
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1:48:36
This is an act to provide municipalities with the option to freeze residential tax rate or valuation for the elderly with means-tested criteria.
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1:48:48
And this is supported by Stephen Howitt, who represents this district.
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1:48:54
It's probably something that will eventually come up.
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1:48:57
So I did make copies and have it put in your mailboxes so you can, you can check, check it out.
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1:49:05
Okay.
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1:49:06
And that's all I have.
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1:49:09
Don't you stop.
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1:49:11
It's early.
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1:49:12
It's early, you know.
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1:49:13
I know.
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1:49:13
Oh yeah.
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1:49:14
Oh, trust me, I know.
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1:49:15
Let's see, I'll take a motion to adjourn to until our next board meeting, Wednesday, December 3rd, 2025, to enter into executive— at, all right, at 7:47 PM, to enter into executive session, not to reconvene in open session, to act under authority of the Open Meeting Law, General Laws, Chapter 30A, subsection 22F and subsection 22, and review and approve the executive session minutes of October 1st, 2025, and October 15th, 2025, pursuant to General Law Chapter 30A, Section 21.
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1:49:55
Also to act under the authority of the Open Meeting Law, General Laws Chapter 30A, subsection 22 and subsection 22, and review and approve the executive session minutes of August 4th, 2021, September 1st, 2021, September 15th, 2021, September 29th, 2021, October 13th, 2021, October 20th, 2021, October 27th, 2021, March 30th, 2022, April 27th, 2022, May 25th, 2022, and June 22nd, 2022, for possible release pursuant to General Law Chapter 38 Section 21A7.
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1:50:38
And not to reconvene?
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1:50:40
Oh, I said that.
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1:50:40
Not to.
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1:50:41
Yeah.
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1:50:42
So moved, Gary Segar.
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1:50:44
Second, Michael Healy.
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1:50:47
Roll call, please.
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1:50:48
Gary Segar, aye.
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1:50:49
Camposi, aye.
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1:50:50
Crizore, aye.
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1:50:51
Michael Healy, aye.
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1:50:52
Michelle Hynes, aye.
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1:50:53
Unanimous.
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1:50:54
Happy Thanksgiving.
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1:50:56
Happy Thanksgiving.
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1:50:57
Thanks for coming.
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