Select Board Meeting — March 18, 2026

I thought like 7 o'clock.

Good morning, Gary.

You're all set?

Yes.

Welcome everybody to the select board meeting, Wednesday, March 18th, 2026, 6 PM in the select board meeting room, Town Hall, 100 Peck Street.

Mass General Law Chapter 30A, subsection 20F requires any person recording must notify the chair at the beginning of the meeting.

Is there anybody?

Seeing no one, all select board meetings are recorded via audio and video and are broadcast live on CCOC Channel 96.

I call the meeting to order at 6 PM.

Pledge of Allegiance and moment of silence, please.

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.

Could somebody read the board and committee openings, please?

Madam Chair, we have openings on the Capital Improvement Committee, 4 select board appointments, 3 moderator appointments.

For the Commission on Disability, we have 8 select board appointments.

Cultural Council has 2 select board appointments.

The Economic Development Committee has 5 select board appointments.

The Energy Committee, 3 board of selectmen appointments.

Finance Committee, 1 moderator.

Historical Commission, 3 select board appointments.

Parks and Rec has 1 appointment.

Recycling Committee has 1 select board appointment.

And the Zoning Board of Appeals has 1, uh, select board appointment for an alternate.

Talent bank forms can be found online.

When they're submitted, they reach all of us here at this table.

Thank you.

Priority matters.

Consider the appointment of Amy Jolie Bean to the Historical Commission, term to expire 2027.

Madam Chair, I had the opportunity to, uh, interview Miss Bean for the Historical Commission, so my recommendation to the board is that we appoint her with a term to expire in 2027.

Miss Bean, you're here.

Hi.

Just come forward and say hi to everyone.

Whoops.

You, you can say yeah.

Hi.

That's exactly right.

You do.

Thank you for coming.

Just hold on one second.

You could sit down if you'd like.

No.

Good for you.

Did I— can I have a motion please?

So moved.

Second.

Okay, got a motion and a second.

Do I have any questions?

Seeing none, all in favor?

Aye.

Any opposed?

Seeing none, unanimous.

Thank you for volunteering.

Consider the request to change the employment of Katrina DeRoche from full-time telecommunications dispatcher to part-time telecommunications dispatcher.

So, Madam Chair, so I'm just looking for the board just to authorize her to go to part-time.

She's accepting another full-time job.

She's moving on to be a town clerk.

Marion, thank you.

I was gonna say Falmouth.

Marion.

Really?

Congratulations.

At least she's gonna stay.

Yeah.

So moved.

Second.

Okay, got a motion and a second.

Any questions?

Seeing none.

All in favor?

Aye.

Any opposed?

Seeing none.

Unanimous.

Thank you.

Board vote to approve the early voting schedule for the April 6th, 2026 annual town election.

We going to have— oh, there she is.

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Kristen, as we briefly discussed at a previous meeting about the early voting hours, the Board of Registrars did meet on March 3rd and we voted to propose the following schedule: Monday, March 30th, Tuesday, March 31st, 7:30 AM to 4:30 PM, Wednesday, April 1st, 8 AM to 5:30 PM, and Thursday, April 2nd, from 7:30 AM until 4:30 PM.

And I just need the approval of the board and a vote.

Okay, these are all the open hours for town hall that week.

And that's the week prior to the election.

Correct.

Okay.

So I need a motion to approve.

So moved.

Second.

Okay, I got a motion and a second.

Anybody have any further questions?

Seeing none, all in favor?

Aye.

Any opposed?

Seeing none, unanimous.

Thank you.

Thank you very much.

Thank you.

One other thing.

Is this the last meeting before the next— for the— before the election?

No, there's one more.

April 1st.

April 1st.

I won't say thank you yet.

So April 1st will interfere with the Board of Selectmen's meeting, just so people know that we'll have to be at the senior center on April 1st because this room will be otherwise occupied.

And I'm sure they've already been notified, right?

See?

Good.

Okay, community speaks.

Anybody like to get up from the community?

Good today.

Okay.

Thank you.

General business, public hearing, fiscal year 2027 department fees.

I'll take a motion to open the public hearing at 6:05.

6:05.

So give me a motion at 6:05 to open the public hearing.

So moved.

Thank you.

Okay, I got a motion and second.

Any questions?

Seeing none, all in favor?

Aye.

Any opposed?

Seeing none, unanimous.

Public hearing is now open.

We're going to have— are we going to have any kind of a presentation on this?

Uh, so Madam Chair, the board has the fees before you.

So the only 2 departments, uh, have changes, so it's going to be the first page and the very last page.

So it's going to be Animal Control and DPW.

So the highlighted fees are the changes.

So what you'll see for Animal Control is the spay/neuter fees for both, um, for all the dogs.

The animal control fee rabies vaccination, and then the animal control boarding for the, for the cats.

So the veterinary fees are just the pass-through.

So that's what the vet charges us.

So those fees have gone up.

So we're just passing that through.

And then the animal control for the, for the boarding of the cats, one day, it's a $2 increase.

And then any day after that one day will be an increase of $4 going to $10.

So that's just to cover the additional costs for food, litter that we've absorbed.

And then for DPW, so it's just going to be the annual trash fee and the 2 bag fees, the large trash bags and the small trash bags.

So what's really driving the annual trash fee obviously is the 5-year contract that we have for our trash services.

But the big portion of that is just the recyclables.

So we are doing an average market value calculation.

So if recycling goes down, we see a savings for that.

But right now recycling is higher, so we're going from $76 a ton to $89 a ton.

So it's a significant increase there.

The collection rate for the trash is a— is the annual 4% increase from that standpoint.

So that's driving the trash fee of $333.10.

It's an $18.10 increase from fiscal year '26.

The large trash bag fees are going up to $1.53, so it's a 5-cent increase.

And that's just to cover the tipping fee going from $109— I'm sorry, $109.20 to $113.57.

And then that's just reflected in the bags.

So 5 cents for the large bags, a 3-cent increase for the small bags.

So do I have any questions from the board first?

I have a question.

Go ahead, go ahead.

Mr. Dean, with the trash fee, can we do it in 2 separate payments like we allowed the first year, uh, with no fee?

I know the last year they allowed people doing 2 payments, but it occurred interest.

Um, can we go back to doing it like we did the first year with 2, 2, uh, payments, not interest?

We can, uh, it's Christophons here.

I just don't know.

I just operationally, if there was any concerns.

It would be better if we could bill it twice, but then that's more money too, right, with the postage.

Yeah, which we didn't really have that many people that took advantage of it.

No, not really.

A senior citizen— all right, I just remember last year a senior citizen reached out to me because during the second payment occurred interest from the first.

It was— we waived it the first year.

So I don't know how many people took advantage of it, if it was just that one person or not, so.

I can send it again, I provided all that information for you.

Is it, did you have any problems with the second— Can you just— Without the reminder, without sending a reminder, did you have anyone that actually forgot about the second payment?

Oh yeah, a lot of them.

Oh, okay.

Yeah, it was manually tracked.

Yeah.

We tracked everything manually, so.

All right, I was trying to make it easier for the— For the people that wanted in 2 payments, but I don't want to incur the cost.

I think if we have to do it, we have to do the whole thing and actually send them out twice or send 2 coupons, like do the whole thing.

It's going to be an expense to do all that.

Put another coupon in the envelope, is that a big expense?

You have to reprogram it all.

I don't know if you want to mail it twice.

They're going to forget about it.

They forget about the next quarter when it's 3 months later, so they're going to forget about the other half of the tax.

The other half of the trash bill 6 months later.

What if they come in for the first payment, you just hand them a simple reminder printed out of the copy machine?

Hey, second payment due on this date.

Would that help?

But not everybody comes in.

No, people have mail.

What's it cost to do a mailing?

Budget-wise, it's significant.

We've— we had a significant increase after that.

Yeah, I can, I can get it for you, but it's, it's pretty expensive.

Okay.

Not sure what else to do then without incurring cost in trying to help out.

So if you incur the cost of a second mailer, they're gonna pay for it anyways, you know?

Can people pay by credit card online?

They can.

They can.

But I think it's like a surcharge.

Yeah, 3% or something, or?

For the credit cards, it's 50 cents for an ACH debit.

Right.

If they do it at home, it's only 50 cents from their checking account.

Anyone else has any ideas?

Well, I would say to send it out once a year, and if somebody's having problems, they need to come in, and hopefully we can make arrangements for them to, to do it easier.

I mean, it's something that has to be paid, and you just said not too many people took advantage of the split payment, so I really didn't.

But I think it was less than 100 that actually followed through.

Yeah, it's over $6,000.

So if you mail it out once and they don't pay, you have to, you have to notify them anyway.

And I would say if somebody is having problems with it, that they come in and maybe do work.

You can make— yeah, you can make arrangements or whatever with them.

Anybody who qualifies for the 41C through the assessor's office only has to pay half the bill as well.

So if they apply for the elderly through the assessors, they only— they get half the bill wiped out.

Yeah, well, that was something that I was going to bring up later, that because I was questioned at one of the gallery gatherings about, uh, supporting a tax, um, abatement for, um, seniors.

And, uh, there's, there's ways to go.

You have to go through the assessor's office to get approved.

There's, there's several.

I have it on another piece of paper.

Under 41D, 41C, 41E.

Yeah, there's a lot of, uh, abatements that you can get, but you have to apply for them.

You have to, and you have to qualify for them.

And if they do, then they get half their trash bill, right?

We don't make them do a second application for that.

They automatically get that.

Okay, so if they go through the assessor's office and they fill it out, C-18, and even Taxation Aid, we would give them half the trash bill, right?

Right.

Okay.

Are you good, Chris?

Yeah, I'm good.

Okay.

We have any more questions from the board?

And then just so the postage is $45,000.

So that's what we have for a budget for '27.

And I'd say, I mean, it's not an accurate number, but probably 80% would, would be the tax bills that are going out.

So $36,000.

We mail the tax bills twice.

Yeah, so preliminary quarterly, and then that includes a trash bill too.

So we can't stuff them in the same envelope?

That's what I just asked.

No, we can, but then, um, for the second— I guess we could, right?

What are you saying?

You sat down too soon.

Sorry.

When you, when you send out the actual bills— actual real estate bills?

Yeah, we send those out 12/31, right?

You can't include that, the trash bills in that?

Send the trash bills in September, right?

October.

Oh yeah.

Oh, thank you.

So, uh, could we change the timing of what?

The trash bills to coincide, put them in the same envelope as the real estate.

You're never going to make people happy.

They don't like getting bills.

You want to put 2 in one envelope?

It's in the bylaw that we send them in September, they're due in October for the trash.

It's an annual fee, and it's in— that could be changed.

I mean, is that an option?

Sure.

Does it make sense?

Does that affect the budgeting process at all?

Collecting that money?

Uh, change it to a later date?

No, no, I mean, we've, we've got a cash flow that— so the trash bill's— what's the due date?

It's going to be the same as the February real estate bill.

So we'd issue them January 1st, and the real estate and the trash is all going to be due on February 1st?

Yeah, it's going to make it worse.

Yeah, it kind of breaks it up more doing it the way you are doing it.

We used to do them in March, right, a long time ago, and we moved it to September so we could get the funds closer to the beginning of the fiscal year, but— and that's the way it's been since in the bylaw.

So your recommendation would be leave it as is?

Yeah, unless you were going to start doing 2 separate mailings.

You're going to do them 6 months apart, and in March they get the excise bills.

Yeah, I mean, well, how about we just don't send so many bills?

That's why I That'd be great.

No, okay, thank you.

All right, just keep it the same.

Yeah, do you have anything else?

Do we have any more questions from them, from the board?

This is a public hearing.

Is there anybody in our public that would like to speak on these fees?

Speak on these fees?

Come on up, Mr. Benoit.

Welcome back.

Thank you.

Tom Benoit from Cliff Road, Seacombe.

Uh, I don't have access to the, the details here, but just a comment about the trash, the trash bill.

Um, one of the things that you pointed out was the rise in the cost cost of— I'll call it a tipping fee for the recyclables, the disposal of recyclables.

And I guess until this contract, there was none.

They were just kind of picked up as part of it.

Um, I brought this comment up before with the trash itself.

The use of the blue bags, uh, kind of, uh, apportions the cost of that tipping fee so that the family that does 10 bags a week pays more than the family that does one bag a week.

But there is no method so far, and I'd ask that you consider some method to somehow allocate the cost of the recyclables in a similar fashion.

I do, and I mentioned it before, I do go by and see, see homes with multiple barrels because we give out extra barrels, multiple barrels for recyclables.

And one barrel for, for trash.

So there are some that, whether they do a lot of Amazon shopping or whatever, they have a lot of recycling.

So you may want to consider that as a method to do that.

The other comment I would have is that, and I know that the, quote, trash fee is more than just trash, it's the contract, it's apparently incorporated in that, is the, the tipping fee for the recyclables?

Isn't there some landfill cost as well?

And some things like that.

It might do you well to, to document at some point, whether it's in the mailing or not, saying the, um, the total cost that the trash fee is covering for the town is X hundreds of thousands of dollars, and it's broken down as so much for the contract for the truck to go by your house whether you got trash or not.

So much for the disposal of the recyclables, so much for the landfill costs, or whatever it is, the, uh, the place in back of the, uh, the American Legion.

It, it might do well to educate the public as to the different components of that whole trash fee because people think of it as simply I'm paying for my trash to be picked up and I'm paying for the bag.

So just, just an idea.

And the other thing about the, the recyclables, in some way to more equitably allocate that cost.

Just some ideas.

Thank you.

I think it has the— is the, um, Sean, is the, uh, does the trash fee cover the cost now or is the town still having to pitch in from somewhere else?

To cover the cost?

Yeah, the, the Enterprise Fund is self-sufficient.

Okay.

Yep.

All right.

Do we have anyone else from the public who would like to speak for or against or about?

Okay, seeing none, I need to have, have a motion to accept the Fees at 2027 fees as presented.

Close the public hearing.

Oh, sorry.

First I'll take a motion at 6:19 to close the public hearing.

So moved.

Second.

I got a motion and a second.

Do I have any questions, any statements?

Seeing none.

All in favor?

Aye.

Any opposed?

Seeing none, the public hearing is closed.

Can I get another motion at 6:19 to accept the 2027 department fees?

So moved.

Second.

Any questions?

Seeing none.

All in favor?

Aye.

Any opposed?

Seeing none.

Unanimous.

Thank you.

Public hearing for the fiscal year 2027 budget hearing.

I'll take a motion at 6:20 to open the public hearing.

So moved.

Can I get a second?

Second.

Thank you.

And, um, any questions?

Seeing none, all in favor?

Aye.

Any opposed?

Seeing none, unanimous.

Public hearing is open.

And now our presentation.

Thank you, Madam Chair.

First, I just want to, as I typically do, thank the department heads for their continued support through this budget process.

It is a group effort, and there's a lot of conversation that goes back and forth.

And then when we're trying to close the gap in the budget, there's even more conversations in terms of how we can find some additional costs to close that gap.

So there's a lot of communication and and all department heads have been extremely supportive of the process and understanding of the overall reaching goal, which is providing services to the town and not being one individual department.

So thank you to them.

So before I get started, I do want to say that the first 4 slides are more about the concerns.

And I hate to start a budget presentation that way, but I think it's just important to highlight some of the concerns that we have going forward.

Before I switch the slides, I will say that some of my department heads have seen the graphic, and the graphic wasn't intended to make people laugh, but if it does make people laugh, that's a benefit as well.

And yes, maybe the graphic is me.

Who knows?

But it does look like me.

But— so I did want to start with the fact that we do have some growing fiscal challenges, which I think the board is aware of, and we've had some type of discussion and conversations at various levels, whether it just be in passing or during negotiations or general discussions that may be taking place during board meetings.

But the concern that we have is what I like to call the revenue-expense imbalance.

And this is not anything that is unique to the, to the town of Seekonk.

What I would say is, is that Seekonk has done a extremely good job of being conservative with their budget approach that we have not necessarily seen this impact as soon as other communities have seen, seen it.

But what we're seeing is, is rising costs in healthcare, energy, education, and public safety are outpacing our revenue growth.

So for revenue, our state aid is coming in at 2%, our local receipts are coming in at 3%.

For expenses, we're seeing increases that are significantly higher than what our revenues are coming in at.

So for health insurance, coming in at 7%— just staying on health insurance, we are part of a joint purchase group, so Southeastern Massachusetts Health Group, which I chair.

We were currently 7 members, but we've been extremely aggressive in trying to bring on new members, other communities coming in to enhance our purchasing power and be more competitive in the market with health insurance-related costs.

So we've grown the group from 7 to 12.

We've added Collaborative for Educational Services.

We've added Tri-County.

We've added Renfrew, Medway, and just recently the Town of Dartmouth will be joining us as well.

And then we also have the Town of Uxbridge who is looking to come on.

To be part of our group.

That being said, the health insurance 7% is actually— should be significantly higher.

The group actually put $1 million of surplus at risk to lower the health insurance costs being provided to the other communities.

What we got from— what we received from Blue Cross Blue Shield was actually a 9.7% increase.

With the $1 million being put at risk, we were able to lower it to 7.7%.

5%.

And then obviously we had a little bit of cushion in the, uh, in the actual operating budget that we were able to reduce those costs for the town of Secaucus down to 7%.

Pension, uh, is coming in at 5%.

That's, uh, going to go on until, uh, 2038.

Public safety, we're seeing significant costs associated with, uh, public safety, and I'll talk a little bit more about that, but they are coming in at 8%.

And as we know, the schools, which we've been discussing for quite some time, looking— what they're looking for is anywhere from 5 to 8% to be able to provide the services that they're currently providing.

Unrestricted General Government Aid, or UGA as it's known, that's the state aid that comes in specifically for the town, the Commonwealth's main local aid program.

For us is still 25% lower than 2002.

So if you think about that, it's just— it's unbelievable that we haven't even been able to, to keep pace with that.

And we've been advocating on the legislative level through MMA to try to get those numbers up and get the governor and the, and the state legislature to actually increase that so that we can get back to the basis that we need to, to be.

So when you start looking at cost of living adjustments and things of that nature, and then we look at the main local aid program coming in from the state, from towns, we're still 25% lower compared to 2002 levels.

More and more municipalities are going to Proposition 2.5 overrides.

Those conversations are happening, and we— I must get weekly emails from communities asking who's looking to do a Proposition 2.5 override.

We actually just had a bond rating call that was a discussion that we had as well with S&P, whether or not SECONC is looking to do a Proposition 2.5 override, which we are not.

I'm not— I want to make that clear.

But I just want folks to know that when we start looking at all the municipalities, this revenue and expense imbalance is across the board.

For long-term stability, obviously we're going to require some new revenue sources and tax diversification.

Something I've been trying to push, and I think the board has been very supportive of.

But what we have seen throughout the town and town meetings, especially with some of the bylaw changes, zoning bylaw changes, there doesn't seem to be support for this.

But I think we need to really kind of push this moving forward, is leveraging the Route 6 corridor as we had talked about and having some mixed-use development going in there to diversify our, our revenue coming in.

So that's going to enhance some of the, the revenue that comes into the, uh, to the town.

So I think it's something we should focus and highlight on and try to come up with a plan moving forward for some type of economic development for that mixed-use in that corridor.

The other item is just as I mentioned a little bit a little while ago was the rising cost of public safety services.

So competition from surrounding communities to recruit and retain employees is driving up personnel costs, and we've known that.

Have that discussion when we were doing contract negotiations.

So trying to maintain the competitive wages in the union contracts, which we have done I think successfully, has, has limited the town's ability to control costs.

So we're competing with other communities for recruitment and retention.

I've had conversations with the 2 chiefs when they go to chief meetings to really kind of hammer home that, that 1-year or 2-year competitive edge of throwing additional money to recruit either police or fire has long-term impacts to other communities because you gain that competitive advantage only for 1 or 2 years, and then everybody makes, makes up ground because we're forced to be competitive.

And that is driving up costs significantly, which is creating a fiscal cliff for us.

Since 2025, fiscal year 2025, public safety costs have risen substantially.

So police have seen an increase of 10%, fire 26%, and then communications is at 16% from 2025 to 2027.

Education budget pressures, again, nothing new.

These conversations have been taking place for the last 10 years.

SEACONC remains a minimum aid community, and for folks who do not understand what a minimum aid community means.

That means if minimum aid was not in play, we'd probably receive less Chapter 70 funding because we have an affordability factor that goes into the Chapter 70 formula.

So there's a state statute that maintains that you will maintain a minimum aid regardless of affordability.

So essentially, from a statutory standpoint, we receive— since we're a minimum aid community— $30 per pupil.

So then that's what our Chapter 70 funding equates to.

85% of all the school districts in Massachusetts are at a minimum aid, and I'll talk a little bit more about where we stand because statutorily it's at 30%, but it's, it's higher based on the governor's proposed budget.

Again, the school department needs annual increases of 5 to 8% to sustain current programs of services.

And then with competing priorities and limited revenue, the town can only afford, as we have funded in the past, 2.5 to 3%.

So just going back to fiscal year '27— I'm sorry, fiscal year 2017, we were 26% above net school spending.

So we were at 126% of net school spending.

Doing this 2.5 to 3%, that number has dwindled down to 16%.

So we're 116% 16% above net school spending.

State requirement is 100% of net school spending.

So it's still pretty significant, but year over year, maintaining the 2.5% to 3%, you're gonna start to see that net school spending number drop.

And then this is really the challenge that I see moving forward starting next year.

So we've got limitations due to the fact that we've got a lean municipal budget.

So we have reduced in areas that we can reduce, and I think we're at the point where there's not a whole lot.

This probably— and Jen and I talked about this— and when we have budget meetings, usually department heads will come in and there's a lot that we can just kind of cross right off, saying, okay, that's a nice wish list, we're going to reduce this.

The department heads have done a phenomenal job of just only putting in what they truly need and what is required for the department, and it becomes more challenging to make those cuts.

And the fact that we've already made cuts in the past, there's not a whole lot for us to make cuts.

So that becomes a major concern moving forward.

So the FY '27 budget began with a gap of over $3 million.

As I mentioned, most municipal department budgets have already been minimized to essential increases.

And then again, without any new revenue, future budgets will look— likely require significant impacts to services.

So just to put everything into perspective, so if we have another $3 million budget gap for next year, when you take out public safety, DPW, the library, and fixed costs, and we just focus on general government departments or departments in Town Hall, that $3 million is equal to 57% of the entire budget for Town Hall departments.

So essentially, without making any cuts to those departments that I outlined there, and obviously not being able to make reductions to fixed costs, we would have to cut close to 60% of town hall budgets if revenues are not increasing or we're not finding new revenues.

So now I'll get into the FY20 budget.

So as I just mentioned, the $3 million-plus budget gap that we had to close, a lot of contributing factors here.

Public safety contributed $1.2 million.

That was due to the collective bargaining bargaining roll-ups from last fiscal year on the new contracts.

Then also additional staffing costs that we've included into this operational budget.

Health insurance and pension, again, a fixed cost continually going up, $826,000 increase.

And then education between Seekonk Public Schools and then the regional schools, looking at a million-dollar increase from '26 to '27.

Just quickly, in our stabilization accounts for all our reserve funds, the stabilization fund equates to 57.7%.

We have $7.2 million in that.

The second highest reserve is going to be the building and infrastructure at 24.6%.

Currently have a $3 million balance.

That does not include the $1.6 million that we're going to be taking out of that to purchase the property that's adjacent to the DPW.

So once we do that, it's going to be close to just under $2 million on that.

And again, I've put in there the policy requirements for 15% certification for free cash and identified the minimum balances in the various reserve funds.

Just some of the budget assumptions.

The tax levy— the Quad Board voted on October 15th to do the 2.5% tax levy.

Uh, that generated $1.3 million in new revenue.

Our new growth is estimated at $600,000.

Uh, so DLS certified our FY26 new growth at $642,000.

On average, we have budgeted a forecast of anywhere between $500,000 to $600,000 annually.

So, uh, this fiscal year we'll be doing $600,000.

As I mentioned before, uh, local aid, 2.3% increase.

So that's going to be our unrestricted local aid and then the Chapter 70.

As I mentioned earlier, the statutory requirement is $30 per pupil.

The governor's House 2 budget has $75 per pupil.

And then last year that was similar, she had $75, and then the legislature came in and actually funded $150 per pupil.

So we're actually down for a percentage in terms of local aid based on FY26 numbers.

And then in terms of salaries, we've included all contractual step increases for contracts that have been settled and individual contracts.

There are no increases for 4 units.

That's going to be the supervisors unit, the clerical unit, DPW, and library, as they're currently in negotiations.

The department overview.

So the total budget is $78.7 million.

That includes the general fund and the sanitation enterprise fund.

The general fund accounts for $76.6 million.

In the general fund budget, general government was reduced by 1.2%.

That's the second consecutive year that we actually are lower We were lower last year and then this year as well.

Public safety, as I mentioned earlier, increased by 8%.

Education, when you take the regional schools, is looking at a 2.8%.

And then our fixed costs were increased by 4.9%.

Our sanitation enterprise fund, which is a separate budget solely for trash, that sanitation budget is $2 million.

That was a 4.6% increase over FY12.

26.

In terms of revenue sources, uh, tax levy— again, real estate taxes coming in, uh, personal property taxes accounting for 74.3% of our actual revenue coming in.

Prior year base was $53.6 million.

Prop 2.5, uh, generated $1.3 million.

The estimated new growth, $600K.

And then we have debt exclusion of $2.

$8.5 million for our debt-excluded projects.

So the total tax levy, $56 million.

The second highest is going to be our state aid at $9.9 million, $1.7 million for unrestricted local aid and then $8.5 million for our Chapter 70 educational funding coming in from the state.

Local receipts coming in at $7.5 million, departmental fees accounting for $4.4 million of that, and then motor vehicle excise coming in at $3.1 million.

And then for other sources, we have $1.2 million being used for ambulance receipts, $450,000 from overlay surplus, and that really is a wash.

So we have to put money into the overlay, so we put in $450,000 from taxes into the overlay, and then we take take $450,000 out of the overlay surplus.

So it's a net wash on that.

We are using free cash of $300,000.

That's going to be used to pay the last payment of the judgment for the asphalt plant.

So that's going to cover that cost.

And then we've got indirect costs of $71,000 coming in from the sanitation account into the general fund.

So those indirect costs cover portion of DBW Treasurer's— the finance director— for the services that they have to provide for the sanitation fund.

So just some key highlights.

Salary increases again reflects contractual obligations, with the exception of those 4 units that I had mentioned.

We added 4 full-time equivalents to the fire department.

Those 4 we tried to get for full-year hires.

We ended up doing mid-year hires on those.

Also, to balance the budget, we currently have 3 vacancies in DPW, so we've eliminated 1 position.

So we'll reduce 1 position in DPW, and then 2 additional vacancies will happen within the mid-year hire.

So January, we'll hire those.

Town hall expenses savings— conferences and seminars, similar to what we did with office supplies last year.

We combined it into one cost center, so that generated an $8,000 savings for us, where we were able to consolidate everything into that one cost center.

And then we had $2.4 million reduced from the initial department budgets.

And then just in terms of funding changes by group, as I mentioned before, we had a 1.2% decrease from local government.

Public safety saw an 8% increase.

COC schools, the 2.5%.

Regional schools was the 7.3% increase.

And then health insurance was a 7.3% increase.

Departmental budget share.

So education continues to still be the highest budget that we have at 48.3%.

The second allocation is coming in with fixed costs.

Public safety being the 3rd highest allocation in the budget, and then general government being the last at 10%.

So I haven't gone through all the departments.

So the departments that I've highlighted, just to keep this streamlined, and as I mentioned, trying to consolidate the presentation a little bit more, I'm only highlighting the budgets that had some significant changes.

There are increases in other departments, so there are going to be salary increases As I mentioned before, they're related to contractual increases.

So if they're not identified, there are no new positions.

And then also there are just your typical percentage increases with service contracts and things of that nature.

So highlighting the town clerk and the elections— so the town clerk's budget, $177,000, they had a 90% reduction in expenses, but most of that expense was actually just shifted into the elections office because the a lot of that, um, the 90% of that was really elections-related expenses.

So just reallocating where those costs are being captured just to get the true cost.

And then we also added an additional $12,000 for part-time office coverage.

So we still have Lorraine coming in providing some assistance in that, that office.

So we've included that in that budget.

For the elections budget, uh, $38,000, uh, 61% increase in the overall budget.

So we have 3 scheduled elections, so there's more elections this fiscal year.

And then we also had $4,000 in expenses transferred, as I just mentioned, from the town clerk.

What you'll notice is the graph— I just provided a graph, a 5-year trend, so that you can see where the costs are coming for the departments that I've identified.

For the town hall budget, we're seeing a 10% overall budget increase, $197,000.

So, as I mentioned, the town hall conference and seminar expenses was consolidated into this cost center.

So we provided an $8,000 savings by doing that.

Postage costs have increased by $15,000.

The training line item was reduced by $5,000.

The motor fuel in the town hall budget was reduced by $4,000.

And then office supplies was also reduced by $5,000, and that's following a $20,000 savings from last year due to the consolidation.

Moving on to the Police Department budget, $6.3 million.

The Police Department has 44 FTEs, so a chief, a deputy, a captain, 3 lieutenants, 7 sergeants, 31 officers.

$165,000 increase due to collective bargaining.

We had a collective bargaining roll-up from last year of $295,000.

Training replacement was decreased by $20,000.

The police department is doing a lot of in-service training in-house, so we were able to reduce the replacement of those officers doing the trainings.

The training— the actual training line item increased by $23,000.

Overtime increased by $25,000.

And then armory supplies increased by $50,000, and that's just for a new Taser program.

So with this agreement, all our— all our Tasers will be replaced.

We'll have new Tasers.

If they break, they are automatically replaced for free.

So this is just an ongoing replacement plan that we have with the Taser group.

Then we added $25,000 for the line item for the bullet bulletproof vests to offset the vest grant.

So we do get a bulletproof vest grant.

It's not 100% reimbursement, but by the time we get the reimbursement, it's lagging.

So we put a one-time— well, it's going to be a recurring line of $25,000 that will be reduced by the amount of the grant that we receive.

And I think it's usually about $6,000 to $8,000, right, Jen, on the grant?

Yes.

Does every officer have a vest?

Yes.

Yeah.

Fire department, $5.7 million.

So there's 49 FTEs.

So we've got the chief, the deputy.

We're proposing 6 captains.

So we currently have 2.

We're proposing that we add 4 more that will be in, in the line, in the shifts, 1 EMS coordinator, 8 lieutenants, and then 32 firefighters.

Salary increase was $604,000.

So again, we had collective bargaining roll-up increase.

We've got the 4 new FTE mid-year hires, and then we've got 4 new captains being made.

But overall, from, from an FTE standpoint, it's only 4 new positions.

We had a $100,000 increase in the overtime line, $25,000 increase in the overtime line for fire prevention.

Solely just to do fire prevention.

The services contract increased by $40,000 to cover first due, and then our new agreements with Zoll and Stryker.

What I will say is that the Zoll and Stryker contracts— and I forgot what the percentage is— came in significantly higher than we anticipated.

The Zoll are the hot monitors, the Stryker are the actual stretchers.

Uh, for folks that don't know Zolan Stryker.

Public Works budget, $1.9 million, uh, 17 FTEs for fiscal year 2027.

So again, I mentioned this earlier, uh, we currently have 3 vacancies, uh, looking to eliminate 1 full-time position to close the gap, uh, 2 positions to be filled mid-year.

That generated a $104,000 savings.

Uh, capital outlay was reduced by $40,000, and then the street light electric cost was increased by $10,000.

For the library, nothing— no new major changes, but I always like to include the library because we do have state requirements.

So the budget is $1.9 million.

It does meet the municipal appropriation requirement, also known as the MAR.

And the MAR is just the minimum funding level required for public libraries under Massachusetts General Law.

And if we don't meet the MAR, we lose our certification and then also our ability to use the sales network.

We're also required to have a material expenditure, which is 16%.

So we have to spend 16% of our budget on new materials.

So we meet— with this budget of the $1.9 million, we meet both of those requirements.

For fixed costs, uh, increase of 39% since, uh, 2023.

Pension costs increased by $225,000.

Of that $225,000— uh, I'm sorry, of that cost for the total pension, uh, the school department's related cost is $1 million, and that's, uh, 25%, and that's fully funded in the town's operating budget.

Liability insurance increased by 2%.

The school department accounts for 65% of that liability insurance, again fully funded within the town's operating budget.

Health insurance increased by $600,000.

As I mentioned earlier, SMHG put $1 million at risk to lower the cost increase.

School department-related health insurance cost is $5.6 million, again fully fully funded within the town operating budget.

So Medicare FICA taxes total $575,000.

The school department's share is 67% of that, and again, funded fully from the town operating budget.

So when you see the school budget, it does not include these costs that have been covered on the town side.

Seekonk Schools— this is specifically for the Seacock School District, $34.7 million.

Chapter 70 coming in at $8.5 million.

That's a $174,000 increase.

76% of the school department's funding is coming from the town.

Foundation enrollment per the Department of Education and Secondary— Department of Education and Secondary Education has the enrollment of 2,018 students, which is a decrease of 22 students from school year 2026.

Uh, the net school spending requirement is $29.8 million.

Uh, we're spending $34.7 million.

Uh, that's $4.9 million above, uh, the required minimum net school spending, or 16.5% above net school spending.

Uh, as I mentioned earlier, the Quad Board approved 2.5% funding increase And then earlier this week, the school committee approved a budget of 4.61% increase over fiscal year '26.

So with that, if that's maintained and if we wanted to fund their requested budget of 4.61%, we would have to find an additional $714,000 to get us to that— over that 2.5% level.

For the regional schools, Tri-County Vocational, the assessment was $2.2 million.

That includes the assessment for their new school building project of $644,000— I'm sorry, $645,000.

Foundation enrollment is 89 students.

That's an increase of 5 students from this current school year, and SEACOC represents close to 9% of the enrollment.

In Tri-County.

Bristol Aggie total assessment is down from last year, so it's $108,000.

Foundation enrollment is 10 students, and that's a decrease of 1 student from this current fiscal year.

And then with that, I'll open up to questions.

I have a question.

Yes, DPW budget decrease, any of that going to impact the roads getting done?

I know we had like a list of roads that didn't get done last year.

And no, the, the roads, that's, uh, that we do the contracts anyways.

Our guys will do the catch basins.

Yeah.

So it won't have an impact on, on the actual roads.

Okay.

Yeah.

Currently, how much free cash do we have?

$580,000.

Yeah.

So you're going to take $300,000, so it'll be $200,000 and some left over.

Yeah.

From what's certified, then once the books close, and then October we'll have another— we'll have 26 numbers certified.

Yep.

Okay.

Anyone else on the board have questions?

Just in regards to the school committee, and I know we can't decide what they decide to do, are they willing— are they looking to go forward to town meeting with that number, that 4.6%?

I mean, that's what I've been told.

Um, so if that goes through, as soon as town meeting ends, you have to come up with a difference.

You have to find $714,000.

That's if— that's if that number is approved, that 4.6%, correct?

If they go and get support at town meeting and it's approved, they're, they're okay with that, and they're going to expect the town to find $714,000 on top of the— what'd you already give them, $800,000?

And the 2.5 that— yep, in your budget, right?

So $714,000, and I know you can't answer that question tonight, is going to be pretty devastating on the town side to come up with that kind of money.

Yeah, no, I, I don't— it's— that's personnel.

Absolutely.

That's— so we might be able to reduce a couple more expenses, but it's going to be personnel.

The other thing I, I will say is, is that we've been less, uh, conservative with our revenue numbers because it was a very difficult challenge to get that $3.2 million that was the gap we had.

So we've been a little bit more aggressive, more aggressive than I'd like to be.

So even if, let's just say the legislature comes back and says that they want to increase Chapter 70 from the $75 per pupil to $150, I'm not comfortable giving that additional funding to the schools.

I think this is the max.

The additional revenue that is coming in should come into the general fund and and that's where it should stay.

I don't think we should increase any of the other budgets with any of the House numbers or the final budget that comes in, just because we are more conservative— more aggressive with our revenue numbers than I'd like to be.

Do we have any plans to meet with the school committee again?

Yeah, I believe that coming— is it the next meeting?

They requested to have— yeah, they've requested before town meeting to with the select board to meet the deadline.

To tell us what, their grand plan?

They want 4.6%?

I'm just asking a question.

Yeah, I think, I think so.

That's what they're going to come and tell us.

Well, what I would say, regard for the impact of that.

So what I would say is, is that I did have a conversation with the superintendent earlier this week.

So she did inform me that they were going with a 4.6% increase.

That was what the school committee wanted to do.

Um, so as, as the heads up, we've had the conversation and we've got a good dialogue.

She then sent back an email saying that the school committee was requesting to see what that impact would be on the town side.

I have not yet provided that to them, so I'm a little optimistic that they are at least taking into consideration that there is going to be— and I know the superintendent understands this— that there's going to be, um, you know, obviously some significant impacts with what we're dealing with.

And this is a conversation we've we've been having for a number of years, right?

It's, it's that, that give and take.

So I respect her, her position.

Obviously, she's, she's in charge of the schools and education, so she obviously has to advocate for, for education.

From my standpoint, we— I've got to look at the total town, and we got to make sure that I've got a balanced budget.

Number one, that's the most important thing.

But if we have to go to that, anything over 2.5% is going to, is going to be significant.

It.

Okay.

And it's not, you know, I don't come with, you know, the sky's falling.

This is truly, really where, where we are.

I mean, it was— we were right up until yesterday making changes to this budget.

So I have a painful memory of the school to pop.

And Michael can attest to this.

When they went to town meeting and they raided $2 million, was it?

$1 million.

$1 million.

In 2 separate votes.

In less than 2 and a half minutes.

So they're dangerous.

And it's not— it is not a good practice to have the town on one side and the school committee on another at a town meeting.

It is not a good practice.

And I understand over the last couple years we've done a good job of working together.

But when we sit with them and we decide to have a 2.5% increase and we do the best we can to hold it on our side, which we don't have much more to cut other than personnel the way I look at it.

'Cause I've watched the budgets go down and down and down.

And the only place left for us to cut on the town side is personnel.

I mean, we're already going to lose one DPW worker, which I don't particularly agree with.

But if that's what has to be done to balance the budget, or any department that loses somebody to balance the budget, it's unfortunate, but unfortunately there's only so much money.

But for them to take a stance that, well, we're just going to get 4.6%, and, you know, for now they want you to go back and tell them what the impact that's going to be.

Yeah, listen, we— and we did DPW because the vacancies were there, right?

So we had the conversation about what the impact was going to be to the services.

So Mr. Cabral agreed and he actually offered it up.

So I want to give kudos to Mr. Cabral in terms of trying to, to make the cut and close the gap.

What I will say, and I said this before, once we've got a balanced budget and more revenue comes in, I've always been the one that says, hey, let's give more money to the schools, try to get that percentage up so that they can provide the services.

I am steadfast in my, my statement and it's not going to change.

To me, this is what it is.

Any new revenue coming in should not be allocated.

It should be flowing into the general fund.

Funds to support our forecast going forward.

Because if, you know, our meals tax don't hit our forecast, or, you know, the marijuana tax doesn't come in, or the motor vehicle excise comes in lower, uh, you know, we've got to be able to have a cushion.

We have some cushion now.

It's just, again, it's more aggressive than I, than I like to be.

So previous conversation, I know, but you brought it up about licensing at one of the marijuana places, and that usually carries a big fee.

Are all the marijuana places up to speed on all the payments they're supposed to for licenses?

So we're still negotiating with 2 of them because we had that— the law that changed with the CCC, and then the CCC decided that they were going to come in and go retrospective on all the agreements that took place, which there are communities going back and forth on what.

So we, we're close with one group, so I'll be going into executive session with the board to look at that, and then we'll be caught up on that.

Car excise tax— are we going after everyone that's not registering their cars in Seekonk after so long?

I remember there's a, there's a big property in town.

We had this discussion with the property manager at the time, and he was telling the residents that were renting there, they have to change their cars.

I'm not sure if we're successful on that.

Yeah, I don't know what we can, can do in terms of— I mean, the Registry of Motor Vehicles is going to capture that.

The one issue we had is obviously the car dealerships.

If they're storing their cars, they're buying cars and then they're storing them somewhere else.

We've had conversations with the dealerships to make sure we're capturing that because then we are losing revenue on that.

But in terms of somebody still having a Rhode Island plate living in Massachusetts, you know, you're going to capture that once they go for a renewal.

And I know Rhode Island's a little bit different.

I think it's 2 years.

So this is a public meeting.

Is there anybody out there that would like to speak on this issue?

Come on up, Mr. Benoit.

It's nice to have you back, buddy.

I'm not known for being bashful.

Just a couple of points, and correct me if I'm wrong, things may have changed, but in the past when we've gone into town meeting with a balanced budget and someone makes a motion to increase a line item they must identify what other line item has to be reduced, where the money is coming from, where it's coming from.

So it can't be just an increase, it has to be a transfer from one line item to another.

Is that still the, the rule?

I don't know whether Sean has any— if there's been any change on that or not.

Uh, so it, it really is up to the moderator to make that determination, but that has always been the rule of thumb.

But there's no statutory requirement requirement, but you gotta— it's got to be balanced because otherwise you, the town meeting, will be approving a budget that is not a balanced budget.

Correct.

And then— and that would require— that forces an override.

Uh, so it doesn't necessarily force an override.

What it does is then, um, when we go to do our tax recap, we won't get our tax rate certified.

And then what that means is that's going to have an implication on our cash flow, which is going to have an implication on how we pay bills.

And it's just this— and your credit rating.

Credit rating.

Yep.

All that good stuff.

Okay.

Uh, the other, the other point was, uh, it's good to hear the free cash and your comment about being more conservative this year with regard to revenue estimates.

Less conservative.

Less conservative.

Less conservative.

Because in the past we've been very conservative with revenue The expenses haven't been there.

Free cash has been certified anywhere from $2 to $4 million, which represents— and I've been very open about this before— almost game playing.

And it's like, okay, you're really, you're really fixing the game so that you come up with a lot more money at the end of the year.

But that's, that's just my opinion.

And with that, the, the stabilization funds We have other stabilization funds as well?

I thought they were approaching in total, like closing on $20 million.

You're probably thinking of the OPEB fund is included, but we can't use the OPEB fund.

I get that.

So that's the only thing that's missing from here?

Yeah, we've got revolving funds, but that's not— that hasn't been included.

So what I've always shown, the only thing that's not shown there is the OPEB fund.

Okay.

But that's significant.

And what I would say in terms of just the free cash, I know that's your— your opinion.

Uh, the Department of Revenue, uh, recommends anywhere from 5 to 7% of free cash being turned over.

When we start talking about the bond rating, uh, S&P wants to see those reserve counts and, and that they're actually being built up.

Uh, we just had a bond rating last week that's, that's been included.

So part of having a strong— we have the highest, uh, short-term bond rating that we could possibly have in terms of, uh, S&P Global.

Uh, we have the second highest rating bond rating for long term.

And again, we can't control some of those factors.

It's, it's economic factors that are outside of the town's controls, uh, that's kind of preventing us from being a AAA.

But we've been recertified on those, and it's been due to the reserves buildup and the strong financial policies.

And that's all outlined in there.

So they have stated that there is a potential for a downside, which they don't expect, if reserve windles or debt significantly increases.

So when we start talking about reserves, I know a lot of folks think, you know, you're overtaxing, but that's, that's not the case.

It's, it's allowing us to, number one, have a strong bond rating, which obviously reduces the cost to taxpayers, especially in a community that does— is so heavily reliant on debt exclusion for all their projects.

So, okay, just 2 other questions here.

If I can remember both of them.

Uh, the contracts that are not settled, um, I'm presuming that therefore at town meeting they'll show, uh, for the budget a zero increase.

They do, correct.

So we will then— we will then again be, uh, supporting the budget with free cash because in the fall, once they get settled— because this has been kind of a prior practice It's like, why settle it now?

Because if they got settled tomorrow, you'd have to reduce other line items to cover that increase in the budget, correct?

Yeah, well, well, I mean, these, these departments that we have are smaller than— I mean, the big ones that we did were public safety.

But it is, it's been a practice since before I got here that that's what the town has done.

Decades ago, they used to actually bury money in the budgets that committee, the school committee, selectmen will come together and say, I'm going to bury 2.5% somewhere of these budgets, and so that there wouldn't be a fall thing.

So again, with regard to increases in the line item budgets at town meeting, in the back of your heads I'm sure is that come the fall— well, actually, this is going to be free cash from '26 that's going to be available, not '27.

So So it's not a good, not a valid point.

And since I can't remember the other point, okay, thank you though.

Thank you.

You can call me or email me if you have another question.

Is there anybody else from the public?

So, Madam Chair, my recommendation would be— I'm sorry, go ahead.

My recommendation would be as it always is, so if we can just continue the public hearing to the next board meeting, which we just got to make sure that we include it at the senior center, just to give the board enough time to review the documents that was presented.

So you got the Munis reports, you got the budget, and then also to give the, the public the opportunity— the presentation and the budget is on the website so that they can review it and just have them have another opportunity to just have some questions.

You believe the school is coming?

Yeah, they put in a request.

I forgot.

April 1st?

Don't quote me on the April 1st, but they did ask to have a meeting before town meeting.

So, all right, well, okay, well, that gives them an extra month or two.

I know Chris was trying to schedule this.

I just don't know if it was April.

I didn't receive anything yet that said when it was.

Okay, so I'll take a motion to continue the public hearing at 7:03 PM to allow next meeting of April 1st at the Senior Center.

So moved.

Second.

Have any other questions?

Seeing none, all in favor?

Aye.

Any opposed?

Seeing none, unanimous.

Okay, now we have an e-bike discussion.

Chief Enos, are they all set?

Are they done?

I will give all the department heads permission to leave.

Oh, all right.

Not you, sit down, you're not done yet.

I have no more.

Thank you very much for showing up.

Just think the money we saved if we get rid of the Cruises and just get e-bikes.

Captain would be excited about that.

Yes, very excited.

I brought my trusty Captain Lindy.

He's been working on the e-bikes project, both the education part to the department and officers and the public.

E-bikes have increased in use over the last few years, incidents occurring that caused concerns for public safety.

So with that, I'll turn it over to the captain.

He'll explain what we've been doing and what our plan is going forward.

I also gave the board some information on it.

Okay, here are the packets.

Well, I don't know how we follow that last presentation, but, uh, e-bikes, um, obviously they became a hot topic, uh, and I believe that's why it was put on the agenda, just to have some information related to the board as to what we're doing.

It's thankfully— and I don't like saying this, and Chief will tell you, knock on wood— we haven't had many problems yet.

I don't like saying that, as the lieutenant will also agree.

However, just in a general sense, just so everybody has an understanding, because there's a lot of nuances with this, but e-bikes are defined under Mass General Law Chapter 90, Section 1 There's 2 types essentially in the state of Massachusetts.

There's a Class 1 and Class 2.

Not a big deal.

I'm going to break it down real simple.

A Class 1 is the type of e-bike that you have to pedal in order for the motor to then assist you.

And a Class 2 e-bike is one that powers itself.

You use a throttle, kind of like a motorcycle.

The biggest thing and the only thing that really matters to us from an enforcement is when that bicycle is able to go in excess of 20 miles per hour under its own power.

So that's not with the person pedaling, that's just solely on the motor.

Over 20 miles an hour, it actually becomes, in the Commonwealth, a moped.

Now, a moped, you need a license, you have to have a registration, insurance, and it's essentially under the guise of like driving a motorcycle.

Which creates a problem insofar as enforcement because, you know, parents, kids, there's not a lot of education that that's how it goes.

The manufacturer can say whatever class they want it to say.

It doesn't matter.

It's whatever the bike actually does.

So if you clip that 20-mile-per-hour limit as far as a statutory limit, now we're opening up stuff that could become, if, you know, the situation arose to that point, a criminal offense.

Not, not a great situation to have, never mind the, the safety issues that we have with these things, because I just think they've become so popular that both juveniles and guardians, parents, just aren't taking a totality of how unsafe it is for somebody to be, you know, mowing down the street at 30-plus miles an hour, being a juvenile and everything else.

The e-bike itself, though, is not illegal in the state of Massachusetts.

It's subject to the same rules and regulations as bicycles.

The only major difference that was put down by law is that e-bikes are prohibited from sidewalks.

Bicycles can be ridden on sidewalks.

E-bikes are already fundamentally prohibited from that.

Other similar requirements such as like juveniles 16 and under have to still wear a helmet.

The other thing that the Commonwealth did take care of us as far as the general law was concerned, is that e-bikes are also prohibited from natural, uh, natural trails, natural surface trails.

So, you know, not different, uh, areas, whether it be Camino Pond, um, all the different popular walking paths— those are already prohibited on the part of the Commonwealth, never mind.

So it's not something that we would have to take up on our own with our own signage.

It's a good reminder, we should probably do that, but insofar as the actual law, that's already, that's already there.

Um, like I did mention at the top, knock on wood, the town of Seekonk, at least the Seekonk Police Department, has not had no major events, crashes, and even complaints, to be honest with you, at this point, um, which is good.

Our officers have noticed some uptick in e-bikes, but not where we're inundated.

And when— thankfully, we don't have any of these tragic stories that some of these other Massachusetts communities have had in the recent past.

Um, we are proactive in developing an e-bike safety initiative, uh, obviously with the growing concerns that I already talked about, the fact that I just don't think that the education is out there to the parents of some of these juveniles that think these things are good to go when in fact we're putting these kids on little rocket ships and, and sending them down the road, right?

Um, the department did start training our officers in February through the use of roll call training to them up to speed on Mass General Law and all the safety initiatives that go along with it.

Um, the Mass laws regarding e-bikes are also covered in our mandatory in-service, which is a statewide curriculum.

It's being covered there.

We are going to do it again within our own in-house in-service, uh, in April as the weather gets better to reinform our officers.

So we have at least there mindset is confirmed as to what we can and can't do.

And at the end of the day, it's about, um, you know, being educational.

That's, that's, uh, first and foremost.

And in that regard, we, we already had some templates that the, uh, the chief passed out to you, some trifolds.

Um, we're gonna put that stuff out on our socials.

We're gonna put that stuff out, uh, you know, in the lobby of the police station.

And probably most importantly, we are going to work with the school department, particularly through our SROs to have some information sessions, uh, hopefully where we can invite parents, guardians, to kind of give them the heads up that these things are not strictly toys.

And, you know, we, we can hope for the best, but we got to prepare for the worst.

So we would like to, uh, make sure that we continue doing that.

At the end of the day, obviously there is an enforcement component should it become egregious.

Um, we are going to, from a command staff level, place an emphasis on warnings, like first-time offenders.

We don't need to be taking enforcement action off the rip on, you know, a 14-year-old.

He doesn't know he's not supposed to have a license, you know, that, that sort of thing.

But at the end of the day, if it's egregious enough, if it involves unfortunately some type of accident, um, or it's a repeat, uh, offender, we, we will potentially, uh, you know, send things off to court, and we are able to confiscate the actual bicycles, uh, e-bikes as you call them, as well.

And along— I think you've seen on our social media platforms, we are going to continue to do our positive reinforcement for the helmet use.

We've partnered with Chick-fil-A.

They've given us a lot of tickets for free ice creams and stuff like that.

So all of our officers are out there.

They see the kids with the helmets on, on the bicycles.

We're going to, you know, trickle that right down to those that are using e-bikes to try to just you know, have a positive reinforcement with that.

So again, at the end of the day, we're on top of it.

The officers are being trained up, and our primary focus as a police department anyway is certainly the education side of it, to try to put that out there first so we don't have to get to the enforcement side.

And that's essentially where the PD stands on e-bikes.

What about the noise component?

Quiet?

There is Extremely quiet.

Yeah, extremely quiet.

That, and in fact, to be completely honest with you, I think that that is some part of where the disconnect is.

I think most of us adults, if we saw the traditional dirt bike ripping down Newman Ave, we'd be like, that's, oh, that's atrocious.

These things are essentially electric dirt bikes.

If they exceed that 20 mile per hour limit, they could be easily modified to, there's, you know, Somebody will figure something out no matter what the bike is supposed to ride at.

You know, you can— but I think that that's sometimes the mindset, that because they're more bicycle-looking, because they have electric motors and aren't, you know, super loud, that we don't take it that way.

But on the flip side, if any of us saw, you know, a 14-year-old ripping down, you know, 114A again on the traditional dirt bike, we'd all be like, oh, that's incredible.

And I unfortunately think we need to educate the public to realize that the speeds is is, is what becomes the issue, right?

So that's, uh, what we're trying to work on.

I think this is fantastic because I personally live in a neighborhood where the e-bikes are pretty popular.

Yep.

And I've seen quite a few, um, young children flying through the stop signs.

Yes.

Taking the turns without slowing down and not stopping.

And yeah, they are, they are to abide by the rules of the road.

So, and I think even One night I made a comment in one of our, you know, at the end of the meeting that, you know, just remind parents to remind their kids of the rules so we don't see any issues.

100%.

So this is, this is great.

Are they expensive?

Yes.

Yes, they are expensive.

Very expensive.

Unfortunately, the days of skateboards and scooters passed us.

We're on e-bikes, and next will be those things that glide and that you saw in Back to the Future.

They're not too far far away too.

But we have to keep up with the times.

Like the captain said, as a department, it's about educating the public, really educating the parents, right?

So, you know, kids can fool their parents like, oh, it's just, you know, an e-bike.

The parents really don't know, and they go buy these things for Christmas, right?

Great, great Christmas present.

But, you know, when they start getting calls from the police department saying, hey, we had your kid clocked at 25 miles an hour down Arcade Ave.

So, you know, it's not— they don't realize it.

So I think the captain hit on the important part, like working through the schools, right, with our SROs in the sessions, with trying to get parents in and things like that.

I would say to hit on try not to be on your cell phones when you're riding those things either, because I've seen that quite a few times.

Yeah, it's tough.

It's tough for sure.

Thank you, very nice.

Actually, this, uh, brochure here is really good.

It said— it says here that where they shall not be operated, correct?

Sidewalks, Camino Pond, you know, Mott and Wildlife Reserve, Arcade Woods Conservation Area trails, Runnings River Trail, Cushing Conservation Area, Turner Reservoir Loop.

That's good.

And that's good.

Of course, highways, access highways, and the interstate, of course.

I think the big thing too is that if, if they're being responsible about it, um, you have to ride like with the flow of traffic.

Um, you can't be— you have to even obey all the laws, right?

It's the same thing as the bicycle laws.

So, but they also allow passengers on these things, but the passengers have to have helmets.

And well, they have— they I have yet to see one that allows a passenger to ride those.

No, I haven't seen it.

Only one seat.

So I don't know where you'd put a passenger.

I'm sure they figure it out.

I've seen that too.

2 on a bike.

They both have helmets on, though.

I will say they did have helmets on.

Okay, so no 2 on a bike.

And just for the record, the captain has put a capital request to get a Segway so he can, he can chase these.

That was one of the things that came out in our budget.

It came out of your budget?

Yeah, yeah, I get it.

Thank you very much.

It's very interesting, and it's information that the community needs, especially parents who think that, well, maybe I will.

Yeah, and maybe you shouldn't, right?

Um, and you said you're going to put it up on the, uh, your social media?

Yeah, especially as the weather gets better, we'll make sure that we, uh, put it out through socials, uh, you know, periodically.

And then, like I said, the SRO is going to be instrumental in trying to organize with the schools some information sessions on them.

Yeah, that's good.

Good.

Good.

Thanks.

Excellent.

Thank you very much.

Thank you.

Good night.

Thank you both.

Okay.

I apologize.

Is it okay if I speak about the e-bikes for one second?

Oh, sure.

The fire service This has a major part in e-bikes and micromobility.

FDNY has a big problem with these fires.

They need to be— have the correct charging cable.

You can't use a cable that's not consistent with the bike.

In New York, people are using them.

They put them by their door to charge, and then the battery catches fire.

That battery then— that fire then doesn't allow the people to exit the building.

So it's, it's a big, big issue.

And if the captain would be okay with it, maybe we can throw some fire safety component in there with it, because it is— I'll ask the captain.

Yeah, no, it's definitely the flies that would made up.

Yeah, there is a big problem.

Sergeant Perry, graphics and stuff, we can add it, we can add something to it.

Yeah, the fire.

And also when we do the schools, we can incorporate the fire safety person.

My daughters had those scooters, parents, and I won't let them charge them when at night or when no one's home because of that.

There's a big issue.

So, okay, no, thank you very much.

Good addition.

Thank you, Deputy.

Accept the resignation of Patrolman Liam Locken from the Seekonk Police Department.

Motion, please.

So moved.

Second, please.

I'll second.

Thank you.

Any questions?

Seeing none, all in favor?

Aye.

Any opposed?

Seeing none, unanimous.

Consider accepting the donation to the Seekonk Animal Shelter from David Lemire in the amount of $1,000 in memory of Lauren Sheehan.

Sheehan, go ahead.

Hi.

Hi.

Um, yes, we just had a wonderful donation.

Um, this gentleman donated in memory of his dear friend Laureen.

Um, we would like to obviously extend our most sincere sympathy on his loss and thank him for selecting us.

As the recipient for that donation.

Can I get a motion, please?

So moved.

Second.

Any questions?

You lucked out.

All in favor?

Aye.

Thank you.

Any opposed?

Seeing none, unanimous.

Thank you.

You too.

Blizzard 2026 post-storm impact discussion.

You want to go first?

Sure.

Come on down.

All right, Madam Chair, Mr. Kadeem, and honorable board members, thank you for this opportunity.

Um, just want to let you know that the fire department, in coordination with the Seekonk Communications Department, the Seekonk Public Works, and the Seekonk Police Department, responded to 43 calls for service during the peak of the storm.

Most of these calls involved providing medical aid, which required innovative thinking from our firefighters and paramedics to deliver safe and efficient care that our community members rely on.

It's also noteworthy that the fire department responded to 8 calls for service, mutual aid, in nearby communities, and our residents never had to wait for a mutual aid rescue to come in and handle their emergency.

This success is mainly due to the staffing model during the storm.

Another task firefighters managed while addressing carbon— was carbon monoxide issues in structures caused by vents blocked by the snow.

This required firefighters to trudge through high snow amounts to dig out the exhaust vents and make the home safe for reentry.

In closing, I can honestly say that we successfully mitigated the impact of the storm and it was truly a team effort across the board, both internally and in collaboration with our other public service departments.

Any questions about calls that we, uh, we had?

Not a good time to take calls.

There's 4 feet of snow.

Yeah, I had, uh, maybe I shouldn't even bring this up, but it just— residents said that there was a pregnant lady that lived down the street and they called to get her to the doctors and they were told nobody was available.

And I said, well, I'll tell you what, who is they?

And that's, that's, I said, that's a very, very drastic accusation.

And I want to know the time of day, who they spoke to and everything.

I said, I don't believe that.

And I said, well, they probably don't want to get involved.

I said, no, because that can't be accurate, you know.

And I mean, it's just social media was ablaze with everything.

And I mean, my God, I mean, you had 30 inches of snow.

When was the last time we saw that?

The blizzard of '78, right?

Even less than that.

Yeah.

So, uh, yeah, I mean, certainly everybody worked real hard.

Yep.

And, uh, we probably— you, when you critique things like this, there's probably things you do differently or you you could do better, but that goes with everything.

But yeah, never heard any complaints about the fire department or anything.

And thank you, you guys did a great job.

Yeah.

Did you get a lot of help with the shoveling out of the fire hydrants?

I know you had the competitions going.

Yes.

So they did.

That was it.

That was successful.

I can't believe how that took off.

There were a lot of people who participated in that.

And they recently, um, handed out the, um, the certificates and everything.

So it was good.

And there were some anonymous people too that I know of that would— went around and shoveled out the fire hydrants.

Yeah, because people need to keep that in mind, you know.

And if you can't do it, try to get a neighbor to, to do it or something.

Yeah.

Chief, who's in charge of the fire hydrants?

Is it us, the water department?

That just general maintenance?

General maintenance is the water department.

But it's the— during this type of event, it's the homeowner's responsibility to— Can we coordinate with them to make sure every fire hydrant in town has a marker, a stick?

There was an incident in a surrounding community where— you know how everyone brought in heavy equipment?

One was not marked, and a heavier piece of equipment actually destroyed the whole fire hydrant and everything.

But they didn't have a marker on theirs.

So I think after this they're going to be doing the same thing around their community.

Yeah.

So I didn't know if they could just— either if DPW's on the road, police, fire, if they go by and just notice one, they can just somehow write it up and put a marker on it.

I mean, I don't know the next time we're going to see 4 feet of snow, but still, just in, just in general, I don't think we had any incidents with people hitting hydrants.

Not that I'm aware of, no.

Out-of-community help or anything.

Well, the hydrants are marked on the telephone poles.

People see that white tape around the telephone poles with black H on it, and it has an arrow somewhere which points to the fire hydrant.

But those, um, markers that you're talking about, those are the flags like that they just have, like the circle on it?

Because it would have to be a flag or something.

I was going to say it'd have to be a flag because you wouldn't be able to see it under 4 or 5 feet of snow.

Not that we're going to get that.

See, they're like a rod with a piece of rebar where it's spring-loaded.

I was just thinking, I don't— I wouldn't want to see that happen to us.

But like I said, the last time we got 4 feet of snow was with the wind drifts and stuff.

So we can follow up with the water department about that.

Okay.

That would be a good collaboration with them.

Yeah, that's good.

Okay, Dave, you're up.

Don't go anywhere, Deputy, just in case, just in case we think of something.

Stick around.

I didn't prepare much.

I did want to at least reach out to, um, just to recognize a few people, um, starting with the people that provided food to us prior to the event.

There's a lot of coordination with this event across the board.

I did want to just comment on, um, Popular Pizza providing us with pizza, uh, Quality Fruitland providing us with food that we had in the refrigerators.

And Young's Caterers.

Those 3 in particular always help our department out quite a bit with these kinds of events.

Got to keep the guys fed during an event, nothing's open.

I also want to just reach out, make a special note to a resident in town, Cindy.

She always drops stuff off to us every major storm.

She's just a great person.

Uh, Paul Medeiros, John Ferreira from Ferreira Construction, and Rep Steve Howitt getting us some heavy equipment to assist us with the storm.

Um, Chair Michelle Hines, who actually came in and manned the phones for a little bit during the event.

Um, I tried to discourage her initially, but it was kind of pleasant to have someone's voice there.

Uh, it was interesting.

See that?

He liked it.

It was good.

Uh, and then special thanks to, um, police, fire, and dispatch.

I will tell you, there was a lot of coordination prior to the storm.

Fire department offered up that they would have their plow out small truck, not going to be able to do a lot with a lot of snow, but they had that with them.

We, for those who don't know, we are in direct communication with all of our radios in town with dispatch.

So any emergency response to that— police, fire in particular, and rescue, what have you— we were in tune with it.

My guys were directed where to form and pick up, acknowledge the request for an emergency response where they can't get into these residential roadways.

Roadways, and then have whoever's in close proximity respond and address that they will, in fact, respond to that request.

So we were constantly in touch.

We knew a lot of the residential roadways that needed assistance, so we were on there working close coordination with all 3 departments.

It was— that part of it, as this thing developed, became very critical, because there were times where all we were doing was maintaining mains and secondaries.

We could not keep up the residential.

We know some of those residential are long access to try to get in.

So I just want to give kudos to the entire town departments working together on this thing as this thing developed.

It was a unique storm.

I, you know, quarterbacked it with my assistant.

All my guys understood what we were up against.

We had a briefing prior to the storm.

Looking back on it, I wouldn't have changed a thing, but I quarterbacked it.

I ended up during that event coming up with 6 phases of strategy.

So as this thing developed, we started out with our normal plan with our guys and vendors, and that, that worked from about 10 o'clock when everybody showed up initially.

The vendors came in a little bit later.

By 7 o'clock in the morning, We had over a foot of snow on the ground, wet, heavy snow that came down sometimes, you know, 3 inches an hour.

Couldn't push it.

The vendors had to pack up and go home by 7, 8 o'clock in the morning.

That left all our residential streets not plowed, not touched.

Had to abandon ship.

Our guys were getting stuck.

We were spending resources trying to get a loader or a big truck to go fish out a small truck.

Aborted operations.

The second part of our operation started at 2 o'clock in the afternoon on— I'm losing track of days, so I wrote it down— on Monday, and lasted till 9 AM on Tuesday, where all we were doing was working to keep the mains and secondaries open and responding to emergencies.

All right?

That Tuesday morning, from roughly 4 AM to 6 AM, we had whiteout conditions.

You couldn't see.

I personally was on Newman Avenue, uh, in vicinity of the Aiken School.

We lost power on that section of road all the way up to Baker's Corner.

When I went past the Aiken School, not being able to see about 20 feet in front of me, the glow of the Aiken School was my only indication.

I had no idea where I was heading up past the middle school until I saw that fluorescent yellow-green sign looking— coming back at me in the lights.

All right, so 2 AM, you couldn't see anything.

We had trucks gotten, uh, had some issues.

I called everybody in, but we stayed on with dispatch.

If there was an emergency response, we had guys go out.

Um, 9 o'clock on Tuesday morning, uh, and as things progressed, there were certain things happening Monday as the day went on.

I reached out through some pushing from Frank Almeida to Steve Howitt because it was— they had the news conference.

It was declared an emergency.

I figured our chances of us getting any heavy equipment in for a little old town of Seekonk were probably next to nothing.

But with Frank prodding me, we reached out to Steve Harwood.

Ironically, he had a meeting coming up at about 4:00, 4:30.

He already put the request in on behalf of the fire chief and just asked that the fire chief follow up.

We ended up getting 2 pieces of equipment the following day from District 3, trailered out here, and to, uh, Public Safety Headquarters.

So I just wanted to give kudos there with that.

Um, I made phone calls, Frank was making phone calls to everybody we knew.

Ferrara Construction again had the Komatsu 500.

If you haven't seen a video of that thing, I know Michelle, you saw it.

Frank, and he approved that from his beach chair down in Florida.

Yeah.

And you know, I just gotta— thanks.

I gotta say, across the board, you know, that phase 3 of the operations, we actually started opening up all the residential roadways starting at 9 o'clock on Tuesday.

And pretty much by 4 o'clock Tuesday afternoon— Tuesday evening, we had the majority of the roads in town were opened.

So we actually went home Tuesday at 4 o'clock.

So we started at 10 o'clock on Sunday, stayed here with the short 4-hour break on a rotating, uh, splitting the crew up into 2.

Um, and then we had to send our drivers home, but we had them come back the next because when the loaders were coming in, we had them assist us.

So we were fortunate.

We ended up with 6 pieces of heavy equipment.

You know, 2 of them we had of our own, um, and the rest of them, you know, Paul Medeiros had a piece of equipment, John had a piece of equipment, and the 2 pieces from the state.

So we ended up with our 10 residential routes having 6 large pieces of equipment assisting us to just open the roads.

We weren't trying to curb to curb, we were just trying to provide access.

So Tuesday when we went home, we got a hold of the fire department, offered them up one of our bigger plow trucks— not the, not the 6-wheel truck, but a bigger plow— to assist them.

I tried.

All right.

Um, afterwards we, um, started on Wednesday widening the roadways with the heavy equipment, and pretty much by the end of the day Wednesday, much to my surprise, we had majority of the roads in town were actually widened.

We continued with the widening on Thursday.

Friday, we, um, you know, we started doing the walkways while this was going on.

Some of the guys actually broke off and did walkways starting on, uh, Wednesday morning.

And we actually got to the point by Friday that we actually had the library all plowed out.

I believe they opened up the library on Friday.

Everything was done.

I think they might have opened the library up.

I know they asked about it and we told them you can go because Everything's— the parking lot and the walkways were cleared.

If they chose to open, it was available to them.

Um, without going into a lot of other detail, I just, uh, you know, in my monthly report, I did put a little bit of a write-up in there this time around because we haven't had— I don't know, Toronto Blizzard of '78, the storm hopefully we don't see again for another 50 years.

But, um, well, you're going out 50, we're only going out 20.

Yeah, whatever it may be though.

But, you know, I just meant— I just made note in here that this was, uh, you know, that unique storm.

You know, they did give the total tally was 37.9 inches at TF Green Airport.

I measured in town, trying to get away from the drifts and all that, 3 feet exactly with the yardstick rule on County Street.

So that's what we got in Seekhoff from my measurements anyway.

And anyway, it was pretty intense.

It lasted for a while.

We saw whiteout conditions where you couldn't see, pulled guys in off the roadway.

And like I said, not having done this before, we ended up with these sheets that got us through it.

And I, I really can't stress enough the kudos to my department.

Um, they actually exceeded my expectations by the day.

I kind of figured Thursday we would be in a certain point.

I indicated to the town administrator probably by Friday, just because I wasn't too sure how things were going to play out.

But by Wednesday, 6 o'clock in the evening, my guys exceeded that transportation by a full day.

And just kudos to everybody involved, the team effort across the board with the different departments and all of my guys.

Yeah, and kudos to your guys because they slept there for 2 nights on those rickety army cots for only 4 hours, and then they had to go home on Tuesday night and plow out, shovel out, snow blow out their own property because they're not allowed to do that with the town.

Stuff.

So they ended up going home and trying to shovel out their families.

Uh, it was a terrible storm.

It was a great effort.

Thank you very much for, uh, taking me for a ride.

Just so people, residents, know that when there's a major event like this, usually the town administrator or assistant town administrator gets in the truck with the DPW director and he takes them around so they can see what's going on.

But I was lucky enough that neither one of them were available because they were in, but because I live in town, he was able— the director was able to pick me up and take me for a ride to show me.

Basically, we covered the whole town.

And the biggest kudos— I mean, the best thing that happened was the travel ban.

The worst thing that happened was that people didn't— some people didn't abide by the travel ban.

So we have DPW guys trying to dig out the people who weren't abiding to the travel ban.

And then they get them out and then they get stuck.

And I understand it was tough.

It was tough.

That was Wednesday.

It's tough sometimes to stay in, stay in the house for 3, 4 days, but they did good.

A lot of the phone calls that I got were people frustrated because their road wasn't plowed yet.

But as the director said, that, um, they had to do that emergency pass first and then come back, and some people It was just— I wanted to say thank you to the strangers and the neighbors too, because there were a lot of strangers, a lot of neighbors that would see somebody out shoveling, they'd come by and at least plow off the bottom of the street, their driveway, so that they could, you know, get through, try to get through that.

That took some people days to shovel out or blow out, you know, with the snowblower and everything.

So I had neighbors and strangers help me.

So, um, it's— it— in a situation like that, people get together, and not everybody gets done at the same time.

It's— I know it's frustrating, but I was— I was really impressed with the jobs that DPW did and the people who, like the Medeiros family and John Ferreira, who stepped right up And the people with the food too, because that, that's a big concern.

You don't think about that.

And our chef at DPW won't let anybody touch the grill.

Also too, I think Plaza Azteca did also, um, yeah, tacos to the public safety.

Yeah.

Do we have any injuries to any personnel?

We did not.

I stressed very strongly to my guys that this event was going to be what it was.

We're going to react to it, but everybody keep an eye out for one another.

Yeah, we had one guy that got stranded for a while because a truck ended up going off.

He just slid off the road, you know, missed the edge of the pavement, but, uh, tandem in line with 2 other vehicles stopped, and the heavy sand was enough on the roadway with the wet snow on the bottom, he just slid and the back end of the truck went off.

We actually had 2, um, tows done with wreckers to bring out back on the roadway.

And one guy was out there for quite an extended period of time, I'd say about 6 hours.

Then he came back into the shop for a while only to find out that the wrecker was coming.

We had to get it back out to the truck, wait for the wrecker.

Equipment overall, a lot of breakdown?

We did a breakdown of some of the damage we had after.

I think the— it was kind of, you know, for that kind of a storm, normal wear and tear on the vehicles.

One of the bigger things things I just found out after the fact, um, a few days ago was the box plow over at Public Safety Headquarters took a beating.

It's a fixed 12-foot wide on a backhoe, and without being able to see everything, the ends got banged up a bit.

So we will be looking to replace one of those.

I did just got a quote at the end.

We submitted, um, a report to FEMA.

I did indicate it was probably about, uh, $10,000.

Yeah, so pretty substantial expense, but we need to replace that.

That's what we use at Public Safety to keep that open over there and clear the lot and all that.

So do we know if we're getting any disaster aid?

So I was just waiting for them to wrap up.

So we did submit because there was a state of emergency.

So we submit our initial damage assessment to MEMA and then MEMA will review it.

They'll send it over to FEMA.

So Bristol County was the hardest hit.

So I anticipate that we're going to get some additional money I mean, it's going to be pennies on the dollar, but, um, so we did submit this.

We submitted it last Thursday, Friday, uh, yesterday.

We had till yesterday.

We had the initial one.

They extended it.

Yes, sir.

Okay.

Yep.

Um, it got submitted.

Yeah.

Okay, perfect.

Because I thought it was last Friday, but, um, how many million we put in?

So they allow for the, uh, so it's going to be the initial 48 hours.

But what they're saying is that they're going to allow communities to, at some point, pick the 48 hours so you can figure out what the most cost is.

So based on what was submitted, it was $183,000 that was put in.

So it's broken down by the first 48 hours and then the additional costs outside the 48 hours.

So we had $115,000— $116,000 in that initial 48-hour time period, and then $67,000.

Outside of that.

So we asked about DPW, but public safety personnel, as far as you know, everyone was, was good.

We managed, and luckily we did have Car 5 plow— not these, but personal plow hit it and hit the bumper and stuff, but the driver was fine.

Our driver was fine.

Good.

Anybody have any questions?

I don't have any questions.

Can I say something?

Say whatever related to this.

No, I just want to take a moment to gratefully thank the Department of Public Works, the Fire Department, the Police Department, Public Safety Communications, and the town administration for a job well done during such a historical storm.

Okay, you guys worked in conditions that most of us would never think about working in, as they decided to leave their homes, spouses, children in the safety of their own home to help you, the residents.

I know I'll be told it's their job, and very true it is, which I will commend every one of them, as they have a choice to do what they do or not.

But they decided to protect this town because they care about this community and everyone who lives here.

To all our employees that were able to stay home due to the travel ban.

We call you nonessential.

You are essential people, and I truly appreciate you understanding to be told sit tight until everything's safe so you can return back to work.

And I understand that work needs to be done, and I will ensure you that our employees will catch up on any missed work.

So there should be no concern for anybody that wants to question that.

Even though we have a small majority of people who can comment, vomit their expertise on a keyboard, but would never lift a finger to help somebody else, these employees continue to act professionally and with respect to everyone, even though they hear and see these comments about them.

That's true commitment to this community.

While these individuals were physically here to perform their job, which they are dedicated to do, the town's administration, the town administrator, the assistant town administrator, and the office staff worked diligently behind the scenes to handle logistic issues to that continue to arise during this unprecedented event.

I want to say that I fully understand everyone's frustration with this storm that most people have not experienced before in their life.

It's truly unfortunate that we live in a world of entitlement and self-absorption.

It's a complete disgrace when I am notified that a DPW worker clearing roads is confronted, threatened, and blocked from doing the very job that you were all complaining about that wasn't getting done.

I will ask you self-proclaimed experts, and it's not anybody in this room, to please take a moment when you wake up in the morning, look in your own mirror, and ask yourself, am I a good person?

Never mind, I'll answer it for you.

You're not.

In conclusion, I need to express my full support to every employee from every single department who made choices and sacrifices to protect, serve, and provide for this town.

I truly appreciate every one of you.

Thank you.

On a separate note, I have two individuals individuals that I want to thank personally.

On Wednesday, I decided to go out because it was sunny out and there's nothing else to do other than shovel snow.

So I decided, I decided to start shoveling hydrants on Newman Avenue just to assist in the interest of public safety, because that's something I believe in.

And Mike Gilligan, who is a town resident, a former firefighter for the town, saw me, stopped, and decided to help me shovel out one of the hydrants.

So further down, I was on Central have.

And a gentleman by— just by the name of Timmy, would not give me his last name, but he's from Pristine Landscape out of North Attleboro, had seen me earlier and stopped and said, you must be exhausted.

He took his plow truck and literally took a 4-foot windrow and pushed it out of the way so I didn't have to shovel the hydrant.

So I just wanted to say personally, thank them, because that is what this is about.

Thank you, guys.

Thank you, sir.

Thank you.

Nobody's going to follow that?

You bunch of chickens.

Okay, all right, we're good.

Thank you very much.

Thank you, guys.

Thank you.

Next we have TV9 budget discussion and possible warrant article.

Come on down.

Thank you.

Thank you, Kevin.

Just pull up another chair if you need to.

Get closer.

Okay.

Hi, I am Michael Dressler.

I'm treasurer of Secon Cable Access, doing business as TV9.

I am requesting $149,102.33 for the period of July 1st through December 31st, 2026.

The subscribers and residents will be getting TV production local peg cable and equipment from TV9.

Select Board, I am proposing the July 1st through December 31st, 2026 budget.

I want to show all of you that it is a responsible use of subscribers' funds.

TV9 always tries to provide a clear community benefit.

As treasurer of TV9, I always try to provide transparency and accountability for the town of Seekonk.

And finally, we are always listening on how we can make things better for Seekonk, better for our subscribers, and better for TV9.

I'd like to go over the equipment first, that page.

Um, hi, uh, also I'm Andrea Rossiter, president of TV9, and I just want to say that Mike and I have been having a pretty good meeting so far because we got a new member for the Historic Commission, right?

Yay!

Shout out to Miss Bean.

We're on the Historic Commission too.

And, um, now we're doing the Team 9 budget, which is going to be so easy and it's going to fly right through, right?

Right.

And then also next up, um, I did— I thought I was going to have to wait till today, but, um, to find out who, as part of the Maduras Farm Committee, that we ended up— that we're recommending.

But Mr. Qadim sent us an email last night letting us know who we're recommending.

So, good meeting, very good, lots of good stuff.

He sent you an email?

Mr. Qadim, to let us know who we're recommending.

All right, so on the Equipment purchase.

We have, um, the first— the top of it, the $60,186, was in our budget of, uh, the last time we presented it, and this has all been ordered.

It will be installed before this July 1st Installed, ordered, purchased, everything.

So that will be behind us.

But the equipment that still needs is $24,000.

And the, and the first part, the first line, the disposition is incorrect.

And it's not Town Hall.

It's— that one is the digital recorder for $6,500 is going to the studio.

The battery backups for $5,000 will be for the studio.

Soundboard for $3,500 studio, the intercom system for $4,000 studio, and the computer equipment for $5,000.

It's a studio.

That comes to $24,000 for the equipment.

So now if we go through the budget, now, uh, we'll go through the peg balance from July 1st to December 31st.

Our projection is we should have approximately $10,000 in our account.

The grant proceeds that we're requesting for is $149,102.33, which would give us a total PEG funds balance of $159,102.33.

Our admin budget expense— expenditures— building overhead is $26,917.64, professional is $52,054, and the studio and office is $10,288, which gives us the admin total of $42,460.

The service fee budget expenditures for studio and office is $61,353.64, so the expenditures total up to $103,813.82.

The equipment from the last page that we just went over is $24,000, so what we need in budget expenditures is $127,813.

We expected to have $159,102.33, so that would give us a balance of approximately $31,288, which is an, an estimate only because we haven't been doing this for long enough to really get a, a total feeling on it.

But this is what we expect, and plus our raises and insurance prices and everything go up in October, and we don't do them contractually.

They're by merit and performance, so we can't really judge what those are.

So those are not in here, so I can't tell you what our beginning balance will be, but it won't be $31 million.

No, it's probably going to be a little less than that.

Next January through June, we're requesting $150,000, which was about $166,000 last meeting.

But through negotiation of savings on equipment and fiscal responsibility, we've got it down to about $150,000 approximately right now.

And our ending balance for January through June of '27, we expect to be about $25,000.

As an estimate.

So our ask this time of $149,102.33 is the same as we told you it would be a year ago at this time.

And the one for the next time, the fall ask, is actually $16,000 less than we told you a year ago.

Well, actually, you're less in the July 1st to December 31st of this year, you're less than what you had predicted last year.

Yeah.

So that's good.

Yeah, we're always trying to get it down, get it down.

Like I said, the ending PEG balance is the thing that will change, but our ask will not.

Anybody have any questions?

I have a question.

When you say battery backup, that's acting basically like a generator, or— The battery backup is for the broadcasting system.

So if the building was to lose power, if the generator doesn't work, the broadcasting equipment doesn't shut down.

And it's also protected from a power surge later on when the power does come back on.

So you guys do have a generator there?

Yes, we do.

Okay, so this is— I didn't know that.

Okay, then the other thing, uh, does your budget include the rental house?

I know when you handed us a budget last time, you had it separate.

We, we do not put the rental house in our budget at all.

Okay, now how does that work?

Because that's subscriber only.

It's so insignificantly.

The, the expense and the profit of the rental house is almost break-even.

Okay, insignificantly.

But that is subscriber-owned, right?

The whole property?

The rental?

Because the rental house— no, it's owned by, by Secon Cable Access.

Secon Cable Access is not owned by the town, but Secon Cable Access gets their money by the subscribers, correct?

Correct.

Which purchased the property and the rental?

No.

Oh.

Nope.

So when cable switched over 10 years ago from whoever it was from before Comcast, they gave everything that they had to Secong Cable Access.

So, and just like they gave everything that the schools owned to the schools, so we own own the buildings, we own our equipment that's in there.

The only things that the town owns now are any equipment that we're buying with PEG money from the start of our contract forward.

So that those buildings, our buildings, have nothing to do with PEG or our PEG fund or anything.

It's a totally separate thing.

Okay, that's why I'm confused, because I remember you initially when you gave budgets before you had included the house, you know.

Oh, that's when you were asking to look at our, uh, that was like a couple years ago, yearly budget.

Yeah, I think you included to just show that it was— so when you first— but when we first bought the property, or not subscribers, they purchased both properties, the property as a whole with subscriber money, then they just dished it off, or— yeah, no, it was actually used.

It was bought for— from proceeds given to Secon Cable Access by the— it might have been Comcast when they pulled out of town.

We have a whole— we have the, the contracts from it and everything.

Okay.

Yeah, no, I just surprised I didn't see it this time.

I know last time you didn't either, but before that we had seen a breakdown, and that's when you were trying to— we were given between the 2 budgets because it was all money going to one pot.

Instead of like a budget breakdown.

So that's what I was confused on.

Yeah, no, it's totally separated now.

Everything's separate, total separate accounts.

Everything is on their own.

Anyone else with questions?

Okay.

Are you— we don't have to vote to do a warrant, right?

Right, you're going to submit one?

Yep.

Sure am.

Okay, just need to know the, uh, amount.

Well, the amount is going to be $149,000.

Yeah, what you were requesting.

But I think— right, but, uh, do they have to vote?

No, they'll do it— no, they'll do it when they get the warrant out again.

Yes.

Thank you.

Thank you very much.

Okay, thank you.

Consider awarding the designer service bid from Daris Farm Project based on the building committee's recommendation after the interview scheduled for March 11th, 2026.

Thank you, Madam Chair.

So the, uh, Daris Farm building committee held interviews, so we had 5 firms that put in for design of services.

So the committee decided to interview all 5 firms.

So based on the qualification— I'm sorry, the evaluation criteria that was posted in the bid, the score sheets were tabulated, sent to me.

I received the last one from one of the committee members on Tuesday, so I was able to tabulate that.

So based on the scoring sheet, CHA was the highest firm.

They received a sum total of 245, and then Stimson was the firm that was in second place.

So the request— The highest number, the highest score?

Score, yes.

Score, okay.

So the request is that we award the bid to CHA and then authorized my, uh, authorized me to, to begin negotiation for, uh, fee-for-service.

And I only highlight the second firm in the event that we're unable to successfully negotiate a contract, then we would have to go to Stimson, who is the second highest with a score of 235.

Can I ask a question?

Yeah.

Following the January 6th meeting on the Madeiras Farm.

There's a lot of discussion with all the, all the members, and they were going to contact our chair and vice chair to have a discussion.

And Mr. Sullivan, Mr. Justin Sullivan, who's the representative of this board, said he wanted to also appear.

We came back to a meeting here, and I believe you, you weren't aware of this, and I mentioned it to you, and you said, well, if they want to have a meeting, we'll we'll have a meeting.

And then I believe I said I'm not comfortable with just a couple people from this committee meeting the board.

And I think Mr. Zorro wanted to be involved in it, and I think, uh, Mr. Posey wanted to be involved in it too.

So that, that never occurred?

No.

So there was, there was, there was a meeting that was originally set up, um, with the chair and the vice chair, uh, the 2 Mr. Sullivans.

Um, and then that was— I think that was during the blizzard.

Yeah, so it got, it got canceled.

It's never been rescheduled.

Yeah, yeah.

So I mean, there was some— when I watched that meeting, there was a lot of discussion and it seemed like there wasn't a lot of agreement there.

So this item says Based on a recommendation of the building committee, they're now— the building committee recommended?

Yeah, based on the scoring sheets.

Yeah, right.

Okay.

When you say there wasn't a lot of agreement, in terms of, of what?

Well, at that meeting, I know you were there.

Yeah, they were about what would— what should be done with the property and with limitations, right?

Design, not, not necessarily moving forward with design of services.

So I don't— I think the 2 meetings are separate.

I still think, me personally, I think that meeting that was canceled should be rescheduled.

I think there's a valid discussion that needs to take place.

But for— in terms of choosing and recommending a firm for design of services, it's pretty straightforward because you've got to follow the Massachusetts General Law, which requires you to do the evaluation criteria in advance.

So everybody needs to So, the committee's on board, that's who they— Yeah.

Yeah.

So, the problem— so, it's not the problem, but I had to remind the committee that it's based on the evaluation criteria.

So, you might have somebody who comes in, we interviewed 5 firms.

They— some of the categories are arbitrary, most of them are not.

You have to specifically either it's highly advantageous, advantageous, not advantageous.

And so, there is very specific categories.

On how you get a highly advantageous versus an advantageous, non-advantageous.

So you score that.

So when you get to the interview scoring, that becomes a little bit more arbitrary because you get to pick a firm that you like and highlight which one it is.

But you may have a firm like— it's not the case, but I'll just say CHA.

CHA might not have been a number of members' first choice, but once you compile all the scoring sheets, you have to go go with CHA unless you have a, a real reason that you can articulate.

If not, the AG will come down and there could be a bid protest and things of that nature.

So, so this is just— this recommendation is solely based on the evaluation criteria that was approved by the, uh, the committee for the RFQ.

So this firm now, whoever they are you're going to recommend, they will design the whole project?

They will.

So we would, we would negotiate it and then they would come back and And so the design might not necessarily be the same design that was in the master plan.

So that's part of the conversation.

So that conversation, I think, needs to take place.

So does it make sense to go forward without having a conversation here with them?

Yeah, we still have to award the bid to a designer, and then how that design comes about, that's— the designer needs to know that.

So that's going to be the input.

Remember at one of the meetings I took issue that you hadn't done anything with Wheeler on the potential of using their fields.

Yeah.

So it doesn't make any sense to me to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars to design something you might not use.

Yeah.

So we had a conversation today, just— I didn't know you were bringing this up, so it's not like I scheduled a discussion with Wheeler, but we did have a conversation with Wheeler today.

We did have a discussion about the potential use for the fields.

They're in agreement of allowing us to use the fields, but it's not going to be consistent.

So it's not like if we eliminate the Medeiros Farm that you can move all the activity over to the Whales School because they obviously competing interests with their own athletic program.

So it'd be a scheduling problem.

Yeah, yeah.

But we still could save hundreds of thousands on design and millions in construction costs.

Well, I, I guess it depends on what you're looking for for recreation, right?

So I'm, so I'm saying if you think you're gonna have full-time recreational every Friday, you know, for soccer or lacrosse or whatever it is, and on Saturdays, that's not the case.

They'll have a time slot maybe, you know, once a week or once every 2 months or something like that for it, because they've got competing interests.

They've got summer programs, they've got different activities, and then they have obviously got their scholastic program.

So, but we did have a conversation.

So we're— they also have a pool that they just put in.

So there's gonna be some discussion about the use of the pool and all that.

But I don't, I don't know if you, if you're saying that you can replace what the intent of the Maderas Farm was from a recreational standpoint at Wheeler.

That's not— he said it's not feasible.

Not that we can't use it if it agrees in the scheduling.

So it's a scheduling problem.

Well, it's their, it's their, their place, so they have their students and their students use it.

And so of course, like any other business or whatever, it's going to be their students first.

But then they have a lot of things they schedule by season, so they do 2 seasons in advance.

So say, I don't know, Thursdays they're not using their fields at all, so on Thursdays between September and, they got 4 seasons, I think, so it would be October through December, and that's when it would be available.

But I don't know how, you know, how Pox and Rex and the other people schedule their games and their practices and everything.

But at least now we're going to get everybody together so that if we're able to use Wheel of Property will know ahead of time, will schedule— well, if they can schedule it.

So the thing is, right now I don't think all of us are on the same page.

And by all of us, I mean Wheel of School, Parks and Recs, our school committee need to all get together and look at what, what's available and what isn't.

I mean, they're very open for community.

They're even thinking, uh, you know, if the, if the town wanted to do— say we decided that we were going to do a Town of Seekonk barbecue and we don't have a place that's big enough, they're willing to do that.

They're willing to do, you know, whatever they can for the community.

So they're— but I don't think we're all the departments that need to be talking, uh, talking together because I know Parks and Rec doesn't do anything at Wheeler, but the school does.

And Wheeler School has programs for the high school students, some of them where they work at their summer camp, which I was told 400 of our SEACOC kids go to their summer camp.

And our high school kids go to their summer camp and then they get training for that and for— they're going to get training for lifeguard and, you know, the coaches and everything.

And then those high school kids take it to— lots of them take it to wherever they're going.

And now Wheelock School employee who is the— she's former Parks and Rec for— but she's— she works for Wheelock School now, was hired at the high school.

So I mean, the school seems to be utilizing Wheeler School some.

So we need our Parks and Rec to get together and see if we can get that going too, so we can, if possible, use theirs.

But that's, you know, that's going to be season to season.

That's not going to be promised forever.

But this, with the designer, we can design it knowing the issues that have come up because of this.

And knowing how the town feels about it now with the designer, they work for us.

We tell them, you know, we don't want it close to this, this road.

We want it away from here.

We want more parking.

We need, we need, uh, restroom facilities somewhere.

You know, you can't just throw all these kids in a field and have them play and have no restrooms or anything.

But the neighborhood is concerned with the noise in their backyard, which you can understand.

So we have to have some kind of like sound barrier.

I'm not talking big cement sound barriers, but sound barriers and stuff and pulling the fields and the kids kind of away from those areas that people have been— have issues with.

I just think it's sad that for the years that we've been working on this, there's so many unknowns.

We've wasted a lot of money over there.

We spent way too much money for the property.

And I think all the discussions that need to be had about what the town can use it for should be made before we go forward and start designing.

So my vote will be against the designer services at this time.

I just want to clarify, so The person that was hired from Wheeler School was hired to be a coach, not hired to work at the school department.

Oh, that's a joke.

No, no, I know.

I just don't want people thinking that they're working at Wheeler School and in the school department.

It's just a coach.

Okay.

Okay.

Thank you.

Okay, so are you done with your presentation?

Okay, so I need a motion to award the design of service bid from Daris Farm Project to CHA for Mr. Kadeem to— and to authorize me to negotiate the service.

Authorize Mr. Kadeem.

So moved.

I got a motion.

Can I get a second?

I'll second.

Thank you.

I got a motion and a second.

Do we have any more questions?

Oh, I hope I said with CHA.

Did I?

I hope I did.

Okay, good.

I didn't want to leave that out.

So we'll have a roll call vote, please.

Terry Sagan?

No.

Pampozzi?

Yay.

Crisora?

Yes.

Michael Hill?

Aye.

Michelle Hynes?

Aye.

Foreign Favo?

One against.

Thank you.

Next we have consider awarding the bid to CHA Consulting Incorporated for owner's project manager services for the library building project, to authorize the town administrator to negotiate a fee for services.

Okay, so, uh, slightly different.

We had 7 firms that put in a bid for the owner's project manager OPM Services.

The committee chose to do the top 3 of the finalists, and then of the top 3, the interview would be added to the score.

So the results was CHA, which is actually the same company, different group of people, for the owner's project manager, came in the highest with a score of 305, and then Downs Construction came in second at $285,000.

So the recommendation would be to award the OPM service to CHA and authorize the town administrator to negotiate a fee of service.

So moved.

Second.

We got a motion and second.

Does anybody have any questions before we vote?

No one?

All in?

Let's take a roll call vote, please.

Harry Segar, aye.

Dan Posey, aye.

Chris Orr, aye.

Michael Hill, aye.

Michelle Hines, aye.

Unanimous.

Thank you.

Consider— suspense, suspense.

Consider the billboard zoning bylaw and forward to the planning board for the public hearing for possible approval on— tell me, Mr. Orban.

Madam Chair, How are you?

Good evening.

Good evening.

We've been working— you've been working on this for a while.

Uh, yeah, we were here last in January.

Uh, we did receive a revised, uh, bylaw from Mr. Davis, who I believe is here this evening.

Um, and then I did put together for the board, as discussed at the last meeting, some proposed district boundaries, essentially, uh, kind of putting a corridor over one— the 195 right-of-way.

And then the biggest discussion would be how deep would that corridor— you know, how deep would the district be.

I drew it out at 150 and 200 feet in the maps that you should have in front of you, basically shown with the blue showing the 150 feet and the yellow strip being the additional 50 feet there.

Obviously, that could be expanded, retracted, whatever, however the board wants to proceed with that.

The other question would be where the district is to be laid out with regard to just commercial properties, with regard to private properties, as well as publicly owned properties.

The primary, I think only publicly owned property within the corridor is the Martin School.

And that's actually sits within a residential district, relatively close to some residences.

So that's the question with regard to the district boundary.

As far as the language, I had some similar comments to the ones that I had with the previous version with regard to the procedure.

As written, the bylaw basically calls for essentially a site plan review in the guise of a special permit granted by the zoning board.

Me, it should be just as any other non-residential specially permitted use, uh, where it goes to the zoning board for a special permit and site plan review for, uh, uh, before the planning board, notwithstanding any other, uh, Conservation Commission reviews and that, or that type of thing.

Um, other than that, basically the memo just kind of lays out the details as shown and as depicted within the bylaw language.

Um, obviously the board's got it before for a referral down to the planning board, we would conduct a public hearing on it.

If the board had any direction with regard to the language itself, obviously I'm going to— my memo to the planning board, my staff report is going to be pretty consistent with the memo that's in front of the board this evening.

And then the other bigger question is the actual bounds of the district and what other underlying zoning districts to include vis-à-vis highway business, local business.

Uh, it actually is highway business or the residential districts.

Did you— did you calculate how many we could see along the highway?

How many with the, the spacing requirements by, by state law?

There you would— I think you're probably looking maybe 2 or 3 once you get— once you lay out the spacing requirements.

And it also depends on if you're looking at illuminated versus, uh, non-illuminated, non-electronic signs for the whole 6 miles.

I'm sorry, 2 or 3 for the whole 6 miles?

I'm not sure what the exact distance— Phil, you might know the separation distance better than I do.

1,000 feet.

Stephen Ross with American Outside Advertising.

So the state requires 1,000 feet spacing for for a digital billboard on either side of the road.

So that's 2,000 feet right there.

I've looked at the entire 195 corridor, and maybe we have one location at Seekonk Speedway, maybe one more, because there's off-ramp issues.

It has to be commercial or industrial for the state to approve it.

Can't be on a school, can't be near a church, can't be near a cemetery.

So there's very, very limited locations, and The location we have is the only one that you can see from both directions for a double-sided face.

So you're very, very limited.

Thank you.

Was it worth doing?

I'm assuming you didn't want to answer.

As Mr. Segar knows, I don't often make specific recommendations.

On decisions that elected officials are elected to make, or that are going to be brought up by, by town meeting.

I got to remember that one.

Can you write that down for me?

If I can play the video.

So I'll make— I'll take a motion to forward this, uh, billboard zoning bylaw to the planning board for a public hearing.

So moved.

Second.

I think we have to set the zone, give him an idea what we accept for a zone, because he's given us a couple different options.

150 foot, 200 foot.

It does need to be advertised with a specific zone and specific boundaries and specific language.

Westbound.

So I think we would need to— I would need some direction to properly prepare the— could you do the whole thing, make it open, and then go from there?

Oh yeah, we can.

Well, only the valid ones, because you can't do near Martin School and you can't do it so many feet with the— well, then I think we're just talking, looking at the, the commercial program or this commercial, commercial industrial.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Which I believe, uh, if I'm not mistaken, the Speedway is within an industrial district.

Yes.

Um, so that's fine on the language.

Um, if the board doesn't have any additional comment, I can advertise it as is, and then the planning board can make their recommendations.

And then we just told you commercial and industrial only.

Yeah, so the language though, the bylaw language, the actual language, not the map.

The map I got, that's fine.

But I just— to me, it should be a special permit and a site plan.

The way it's written now, it's basically written as a site plan masquerading as a special permit.

Yeah.

Masquerading.

Okay, but I do have a motion to forward it over to the planning board for a public hearing.

Any other questions for this?

The board?

No.

All in favor?

Aye.

Any opposed?

Sorry.

Any opposed?

I sneezed.

That's all right.

Any opposed?

Seeing none.

Unanimous.

Okay.

It's gonna How long does it take you to get a public hearing?

Uh, we're going to try to do it for the 14th, so we'll be putting in the advertising it with the next— within the next week.

April 14th.

And you do advertise this on the town website, right?

It's advertised, uh, in the newspaper and then obviously advertised, you know, through our normal meeting announcement posting process.

What newspaper is that?

The Standard Times.

Sun Chronicle.

I'm sorry, Standard Times.

That's one from way back.

But you do put it on the website so that— yeah, well, a lot of people get their newspaper from online, so— but approximately April 14th.

April 14th for the public hearing, and then the language will be filed with the, the town clerk as required by state law.

Okay, just administrative minutia.

Okay, so we're all good on that point.

Okay, thank you very much.

Thank you, gentlemen.

Thank you very much.

Consider warrant article to create 8 new firefighter positions with funding from the stabilization fund not to exceed $800,000.

Okay, on.

We had a very nice detailed presentation by our fire chief, went through his needs, and certainly we've all known this for a while.

The biggest need is manpower, and with our tough budgets, I was happy to hear that you put 4 in mid-year.

What's the likelihood of that staying?

You mean going into next fiscal year?

No, no, I mean surviving town meeting.

Oh, I would assume— I guess I would assume good.

That's my assumption.

But okay, well, I mean, it's— I know you had said before you were going to put in 4 and it was tentative.

So I wouldn't— I'm not changing the budget.

The budget I presented presented to you folks is, I guess it's all up to you folks on the next meeting how you vote.

So then it's just a matter of, you know, does town meeting support it, which I would hope that they support public safety.

But you're going to have that, that give and take with public safety and education.

So, so if you're putting 4 in mid-year, I'd be happy if, like, if we change this to 4 firefighters from I mean, stabilization's got the most money.

I mean, it's a 1-year deal, and then it has to be absorbed into the budget and part of the operating budget.

And I get that.

But the way the numbers are working on the budget and everything, I don't see any other way of doing it to try to get 8 people in this fiscal year, even if it's staggered, 6 months and 6 months.

Yeah, I think for fiscal year '20, 7.

I don't, I don't think we can get 8 firefighters right in the general fund, right?

Yeah.

But what's your thoughts of taking maybe 4 out of stabilization?

Um, so it goes against our financial policy.

So the financial policy says we're not supposed to use one-time money for recurring costs.

So I would tell you not to do it.

Um, I think it's— me, I personally, I think it's, it's bad practice just to to use any type of one-time money on recurring costs, especially, especially when it comes to salaried positions.

So I know the Department of Revenue strongly advises against it.

You've got the GFOA, which is the General Government Finance Association— Officers Association, which is really the standard for budgeting.

They strongly recommend using any type of reserves for that.

Um, so that— I mean, ultimately it's up to the, to the board.

I want to, I want to, I guess, yeah, I want to replay John's, John's verbiage on, uh, the, you know, taking a vote as an elected official.

But, uh, my recommendation would be not to do it just for financial practice.

And, and again, we don't know what, you know, '28, um, is going to bring.

So I don't want to have a situation where if we can't support it, and then we hire firefighters, and then we've got, you know, potential layoffs, and there's additional cost.

You know, when you lay somebody off, you got to lay off 2 for the price of 1 to cover unemployment costs and things of that nature.

So that, that's just the, the concern.

And, um, you know, just also handcuffing the budget moving forward, uh, in the other year.

But listen, I, I appreciate the support for the fire department, which is what I've said we've, we've got to do anyways, and it's going to be a difficult discussion.

So, so if I could, I don't know what any other board member has anything.

I, I changed that, amend it to be 4 firefighters, but the $400,000 out of stabilization.

Do they still have that grant that came out a couple years ago?

If you hire firefighters, the response, like 5-year breakdown or something like 100% they paid for, then 75% or something, if I remember correctly.

So it's a SAFER grant, but we've— we looked at it.

They changed the specifications.

So you've really got it— in order to get it now, you've got to significantly impact the standards.

So you, you can't just hire 1 or 2.

In the past, you might— you were able to hire like 2 or 3 firefighters, but you really got to Whatever you put in has to have a significant impact on the standards.

So we— Chief Whalen looked at it, we can't meet it.

Basically, I think most of the communities that get them, we are considered too wealthy.

Yeah, we're too wealthy.

Yeah.

I know the city of Fall River put in and they were going to put in, I think it— I think it was like 4 or 5 firefighters that got turned down because it wasn't enough.

So they had to put in for more firefighters in order to meet that standard.

So I just— I don't like taking from the reserve account for a one-time expense that's going to be a recurring expense.

We, back a few years ago now, when we were trying to build staffing, it was based upon sustainability.

And over the years, every group of firefighters we've hired, we've never had to lay them off.

They're still here.

We've been able to build them into the budget.

I do like the fact that we right now currently have 4 mid-year hires.

We've done that before.

So hopefully we can absorb that in the next year and we can keep those 4 firefighters and maybe next year get 4 more, or if the situation is different, even more.

You know, my concern, my biggest concern is Um, as I stated earlier, the potential battle we're going to have on town meeting floor, um, and you know, I'm going to argue for the town side of things that I'm going to be dead against giving them 4.6% increase because it's going to truly affect the town side of things.

Because if we have to come up with another $700,000, I think the jeopardy of those 4 mid-year hires could be in jeopardy.

They could be really in jeopardy.

Or a portion of that.

You might only get 2, you know.

So, um, it's just the uncertainty, Gary.

And I, I, I, I truly want to figure out a good plan and sustainable plan to continue hiring firefighters however we can, but we got to make sure it's sustainable.

That's all.

That's where my— that's where my biggest concern comes in.

From the perspective of sustainability, I think with a lot of all the new commercial construction reduction we see, I think if we change this from 8 to 4 out of stabilization, they could easily be absorbed into the budget.

So I don't agree.

I don't agree that $400,000 is easily absorbed into the budget, and I do not support, uh, taking the funding out of the stabilization account.

Okay, but just for clarification, you mean absorbed budget for next fiscal year, right?

And the year after that and the year after that.

Not that we're not trying to hire firefighters, because they had interviews even this week, and we heard that the fire chief, he wants to build up his, um, his firefighters.

And we're going to work on it without being detrimental to other departments, police and fire Yeah, police and fire.

Police is hiring, communications is hiring, and even though I don't see the schools, maybe they're hiring too, I don't know.

So I just don't like the funding source at all.

Do we have any other funding sources?

Well, it has to— it would have to go into the budget, and right now that's not what we have money for.

But to take out of a stabilization account that's basically used for one-time services or one-time purchases is, is not the one way to go.

It's not financially responsible for the town.

Okay, well then I guess that's a no.

So you're not going to even make a motion?

Well, I can.

No, you don't have to.

I'm just saying.

Yeah, I will.

I make a motion that, uh, Item K— yeah— is amended to 4 new firefighter positions with funding from the stabilization account not to exceed $400,000.

Okay, I'm waiting for him to stop writing.

Okay, I have a motion.

Do I get a second to the motion?

Do I get a second to the motion?

Do I have a second for the motion?

Hearing no second, the motion Does not continue.

The motion fails without a second.

Okay, we have consider accepting the open session meeting minutes of February 4th, 2026.

Can I get— make a motion to approve?

So moved.

Harry, what'd you say?

Second.

Oh, okay.

I didn't get that word.

Okay, Harry's second.

Do we have— I got a motion and a second.

Does anybody have any questions or— not questions really, but anything that was left out needs to be corrected?

Seeing none, Uh, all those in favor?

Aye.

Any opposed?

Seeing none, unanimous.

Uh, consider accepting the open session meeting minutes of February 18th, 2026.

I'll make a motion to accept those, those minutes because I approved them.

How's that?

I reviewed them because, uh, clerk was not here on that.

That day.

So I make a motion to approve.

Second.

Thank you.

Does that— I got a motion and a second.

Does anybody have any additions or corrections or anything?

Seeing none, all those in favor?

Aye.

I'll abstain.

Okay, 4 in favor and 1 abstention.

Thank you very much.

Community Speaks, do we have anybody Come on down.

Good evening.

Good evening.

Bob Archambault, 17 Toweringham Road.

I'd like to circle back, if we can, back to a topic I didn't think we were going to bring up tonight, but the Madeiras Farm Committee Designer Select on under Mass General Laws 149 under procurement.

I think the rules are pretty clear.

That's why I'm a little confused here by a town administrator's comments.

Seemed a bit of semantics.

Let me explain.

Under 149, Medeiros Farm Committee was tasked with working through the rubric.

They had their 5 companies to go through.

They would score, and they would vote as a committee and bring that recommendation to the Board of Selectmen.

Yet it seems to me— please don't take offense, I know you're easygoing with this stuff— you hijacked their opportunity.

You hijacked that committee.

You hijacked the process in which they were to vote and recommend.

What you said is you took— the question was posed to you by, by, um, by Mr. Sagar.

It was a recommendation made by the committee, and you said, well, by the rubric and scoring.

So you skated around.

That's why I say semantics.

You did indeed hijack their opportunity to make that vote.

Not only did you do that, there's a chain of custody of those documents under 149.

You broke that chain of custody.

You took those documents and you decided who you're going to recommend.

Now, are we going to get sued as a town when we— when someone who didn't get that bid realizes that the committee never voted?

You took chain of custody of those scoring rubrics and you alone selected who was going to get that.

Are they going to come back if they find out and say someone had custody of those and the committee never voted in a hearing and then come back and sue the town?

Are we going to invite another lawsuit to this town?

Don't we have enough lawsuits?

You said to me in a meeting that was recorded, what does it matter about the lawsuits?

We're going to get sued anyway.

I guess if you don't live in this town Maybe the lawsuits don't hurt you personally, but they do hurt the residents of this town.

So I take offense to that comment because I went home and I thought about it.

And Miss Hines, the chair, you made the same comment in another meeting: we're going to get sued anyway.

Well, maybe we do live in a litigious society, and maybe we are going to get sued.

Why are we inviting lawsuits?

Why did you, Mr. Town Administrator, circumvent that process and not let them vote and bring that recommendation, as they should, to the Board of Selectmen.

I'm not happy about it, and the residents of the town should not be happy that this is happening.

You're overstepping your bounds.

And Madam Chairman, this is happening under your nose, okay?

You're allowing him to do this.

You should be stopping him.

I don't know what's going on.

Maybe it's One of 3 things.

Maybe you just don't understand what they're doing, okay?

Maybe it's neglect.

Maybe you're complicit in what's going on here.

I'm not accusing you of that.

I'm trying to figure out what is going on.

A central responsibility of select board, especially the chairman, is to supervise the town administrator.

Yet when I went back I went into town records today.

There is no evaluation, an annual evaluation that's called for in his contract for 2025.

It's nowhere to be found.

Why aren't you supervising him?

Why are you letting him overreach?

He's opening us up for a lawsuit to someone who did not get that bid.

This Pateris Farm committee, sometimes I think we're getting past it, and we'll working our way through it.

But my analogy is the head of lettuce you bought last week.

It's in your refrigerator, and you finally get at it and you start peeling it back.

The outside's a little bit spoiled, and you peel it back, and you're optimistic that as you keep going down, you're going to get to the good part.

But you keep going and you realize it's rotten to the core, and you got to start all over again.

This isn't right what's happening here.

Mr. Sullivan's behind me, and if he backs up this action, I don't know what to tell you because this is flat out wrong.

Mr. Gadeem, you're overreaching, and this is a problem in this town.

That's all I have to say.

Can I just quickly go right ahead?

Um, so just, I guess, being accused for hijacking and litigation and all that.

First of all, if anybody had a question about the process, they would file an appeal.

There's no litigation.

But overreaching and overstepping, I'm not quite sure.

I mean, that's the gentleman's opinion.

You know, but unfortunately, opinions are not always factual.

So the chairman is here.

The board voted to recommend— have me recommend the top vote firm, which is what I did.

So we did that on March 11th.

So I didn't have a vote in any of this process.

I took everybody's evaluation.

I've got the documentation.

I didn't fill out any paperwork.

It's all public record.

It was put forth.

CHA was— it was the vote of the committee, and the committee voted to move forward the top-ranking and the second— keep and allow me to notify the second-ranking firm that if we are not able to successfully negotiate a contract, that we would potentially move their name forward.

That's exactly what was done.

I didn't circumvent anything.

It was all public record.

It was part of the process.

So I'm not quite sure how I'm hijacking anything, how I'm circumventing anything, how I'm overstepping.

I simply assisted the Medeiros Farm through the entire process.

They did the evaluation, they took a vote, and I just followed what the committee has done.

I mean, the gentleman clearly has an issue thinking that I am moving forward with the Medeiros Farm.

I, I am only following what town meeting has voted for, what the board of selectmen has voted for.

I do not have a vote.

So clearly there is a personality issue, not a performance issue.

And it clearly— if you ask the questions as opposed to being accusatorial, then I would have been able to answer.

The chairman could have came up, and if the chairman wants to come up, he can affirm that the committee took a vote to move forward, the top person.

I did not arbitrarily make a determination to identify what firm it was.

Madam Chair, if I could— yes, hold on.

Go ahead.

No, no, I would like to hear from the chairman, if that's okay, that your committee had a discussion with all the— with all the contractors that came in.

Yes.

You evaluated them?

Yes.

In writing with the rubrics?

Okay, and did your committee— did your committee— I don't mean to cut you off.

Did your committee take a vote?

I'm sorry, did your committee take a vote on the number one candidate according to the scores, or no?

Because they weren't given— they were evaluated in the way that was explained to us was, is that the rubrics and the process by state law is what drives it.

Okay, our opinion of who we would like would not necessarily be the right way to go because that would be improper.

The grading and the score sheets are what holds up under the law.

Okay.

And the rubrics were handed in to the town administrator with our grades, our notes.

Everybody's got handwritten notes on interviews and other things that we did with their remarks and how they've— how they looked at things.

I know mine is a half a sheet for the— into just the interviews alone.

And those are all handed into the town administrator, and the town administrator took that evaluation each.

He took about high the highly advantageous, not advantageous, and so on each received a number that, that was graded per firm, per individual.

And that was the process.

And they came up with a total, and the totals are what the administrator presented tonight.

And the information that I received in the email that I'm sure you folks received as well this afternoon with the breakdowns are pretty much in line of we talked about at our meeting as far as who our 1, 2, and 3 finishers were in the process.

And just as an aside, if I recall correctly, the same scoring rubric process that we used for Madeira's Farm— I was a member of the South End Fire Station Committee— is what we used for OPMs and stuff and for architectural design services to select those people.

So we're following the same, following the same process for all of these different steps.

So it's, it's not different than what we did on the fire station side going back 3 years, 4 years ago.

And the OPM for the library, we did it the same way.

I didn't see the meeting.

I wasn't able to attend the meeting.

Yeah, I don't know how it went.

I'm asking you as the chairperson of the committee how it went so I can understand it better.

Um, exactly.

Was in the audience.

So, okay, I mean, I mean, I can't disagree with what the gentleman said.

He's the town administrator.

He's explained how it went, and that's how it went, and that's how it always goes.

But clearly, right?

But clearly, right?

And clearly it's just a personality issue.

So individuals don't like me and they just want to attack me.

So the, the statement about litigation, again, taking comments out of proportion.

Um, my statement was to the committee that if they're, if they're going to manage based on litigation, we will never get anything done because anybody can litigate for anything.

That's what I was saying.

I said you need to evaluate the project and do what's right for the town.

That's exactly what I said.

So in terms of the cost of people not living here, the number of department heads that don't live in town— a majority of them, okay?

But all of a sudden it's the town administrator because you don't live here, you don't care about the town of Seekonk.

I highly disagree with that.

The commitment that I put for the town of Seekonk, the time and energy that I put forward, I think speaks for itself.

But it just, again, it's personal attacks, and I'm just personally getting tired of it with the personal attacks.

If you want to come up and start have actual factual things, that's fine, but I am hired to run the day-to-day operation.

I assist with every single committee, every single committee.

There's not another department head that is sitting at any of these public, uh, building projects.

And I have a number of public building projects.

And if you want, you know, it's funny because I'll have the Library Building Committee praising me for what a wonderful job I am making it streamlined, making it very successful, having the right questions to ask for all the OPMs and stuff like that.

And then we've got an individual who is upset about the Medeiros Farm that wants to be accusatory of what's going on.

And I was trying to work with him.

And I've been trying to work with him.

And I'm going to continue to try to work with him because I don't disagree with them, right?

I think we need to make sure that we're focused on— and I'm going to say it again— minimizing the quality of life.

But it doesn't matter because somehow the Medeiros farm is all my fault, right?

It's all my fault.

It's been all my fault the entire time.

I don't quite understand.

I don't get a vote in this stuff.

All I am doing is moving forward with what the board has voted on and what town meeting has voted on.

That is it.

Okay, other business.

Uh, I don't have any other business.

Do you have any?

Oh, oh, I'm sorry, I'm sorry.

Mr. Benoit, welcome back.

Thank you.

So I'll start with— can we all take a deep breath now?

Go ahead.

Okay.

Yeah, there you go.

Um, just some questions.

When does the town meeting warrant close?

Uh, last week, already closed.

Yeah, it's already closed.

It is.

So there can be no new warrants considered?

No, the board cannot.

I mean, the board can open up the warrant again because you've done it in the past.

But hey, so at this point in time though, you know all the warrants that have been presented or submitted or whatever, correct?

Okay.

And we know that the budget's like number 2, and number 1 is committees and stuff like that.

So between now and when they get submitted, are they submitted in their final form, or is it like, uh, I will— a department head or a committee says, I want to submit this, this one, and that's enough, you know, or a one-liner, and then they have time after the, the end?

No, they, they're typically in the form that they think is appropriate.

It, and then we send it out to town council for review.

Okay, okay, so that's it.

So as of right now, you kind of know how many warrant articles you expect that are currently in the, in the pipeline, correct?

Okay, but we won't know till 2 weeks before the public— 2 weeks before town meeting— what's on the warrant.

Is there no process by which you can have a draft, if you will.

We've got a warrant article having to do with— and it clearly won't be, I wouldn't think, unless you're going to reopen it for billboards.

But let's say that was already in the pipeline.

We're going to have one for billboards, we're going to have one for this, one for that, so people at least, Mr., have an idea.

We talk about all the warrants here and we assign them to people to talk about them at town meetings.

So at the— at our select board meetings, we read all of them, we talk about all of them.

Okay, you don't read the entire warrant, as I understand, as I recall.

It's like you go through a list, uh, here's one about this, here's one about this, and that's usually 3 weeks before the town meeting, something like that, 3 weeks, a month before the town meeting.

And then you go through them and you'd say, are we going to approve this?

So when— who's going to take it?

Things like that.

I'm saying earlier than that, kind of like a draft.

You put— I'm sure the administrative people know how to put boilerplates across it or watermarks across it, draft.

So I'm just throwing that out as far as that goes.

Um, do you know, since you know this, do you know whether there'll be a, a peg for the school department in, in the spring?

So all, all the, all the articles go to the finance director, so I haven't seen them yet.

Oh, you haven't seen them?

No.

Also, the finance department has— she puts them together.

She puts them together.

So the question I've got about that is, I know you have oversight of the PEG monies, and TV9 comes and has a budget.

As I recall, last time the school department didn't really present a budget.

Do they present a budget to you?

To be reviewed before they have a warrant?

I'm sorry, for the PEG allocation?

No, they just put a request for— like last year, they just put a request for the PEG-eligible equipment.

They didn't put like a budget to it.

They had backup though, like they had quotes.

Do you have any oversight?

Because what— let me just cut straight to the chase.

I don't have cable.

I don't have Xfinity.

But I rely on the TV9 website, which is for the public, to provide me— I'll go tomorrow and I'll see what I said today, tonight, I'll see on demand.

But it does not have any of the school department stuff on it, school committee meetings.

And I know they have this other thing they do with, but if you're giving them money, can you make it a requirement requirement that they provide their tapings to TV9 to go on to— to go on the town TV9 website?

I know they have their own channel.

They have a channel.

Can you get their channel on a different website?

No, you have to have cable.

You have to have Xfinity to get their channel.

But I don't have Xfinity, but I can watch this board, the planning board, and everything like that on the TV9 site because they have on demand.

The school department uses some other funky thing, Venmo, Venmo, whatever it is that I hear nothing but complaints about trying to get to.

My thing is, is that if we are spending money, if we're allocating money that's given to us by Comcast by some formula to come up with TV9, the OS studio and all that stuff, but also supporting a website that has on-demand of all public meetings that are available.

How do we get the school department to provide the tapings of their public meetings to TV9 to be on that website?

TV9, whatever it is, Seekonk TV9.

I don't know.

I know what you're saying.

I don't know that it's not here.

Yeah, I don't, I don't know that I have the answer for that, but I can, I can speak with, um, Andrea, Kevin, and then the superintendent.

So the formatting, I don't know if it's a different formatting for TV9 using that.

I know it's not Venmo, but whatever it's— it would be good to be able to the day after be able to view it type of thing.

Um, the last— do they not provide it on YouTube?

I thought they provided on YouTube as well.

No, it's a different platform.

I can't remember how.

Yeah, I might watch it.

Yeah, so like you used to be on YouTube.

Used to actually present on YouTube with my favorite owl there, uh, but I don't know whether it's on YouTube.

I'm just saying that there's a central place called Seekong TV 9, right, that has, uh, all of these.

The last thing I wanted to go through, we had over the last couple of years, and I know one was just last year, you got authorization to sell property, and I know County Street just happened.

But it was at least a year and a half ago was the land behind Anna Green School.

What's the status of the disposal of that property?

That's landlocked.

What, the landlocked Holland Street?

Yeah, yeah, it's landlocked.

Yeah, landlocked.

So it would have to be one of the abutters that would— okay, so it always has been landlocked.

Yeah.

So I guess the question is, have we approached the abutters, either any one of them to purchase it or all of them, where we would subdivide it?

Have we approached them?

Uh, we, we have not, uh, but we'd still have to go back.

We'd still have to go out to bid though, so they'd have to submit a bid for it because it's— we'd have to— so have we done— can't— you can't just— you can't just sell it to the, the abutters.

You'd have to go through the, uh, 30B process.

Okay, so the question is, has anything happened on that property?

Nothing's happened on that property.

Am I incorrect that that property, Howland Street, that kind of landlocks it on that side of it, uh, is owned by an entity that also used to own Firefly?

The Howland Street, that portion of Howland Street where it ends, right?

So it's unfortunate when we elected to, to buy Firefly that part of that negotiation wasn't, oh, we we'll put forward buying Firefly, but part of the deal has to be you have to at least give us an easement or sell us that part of Holland Street so it's no longer landlocked.

I don't think we could because it was— they were changing the status from chapter land.

It was chapter land, so we couldn't negotiate anything.

What do you mean chapter land?

Because they took it from the— if you want to explain it better.

Yeah, so, so we, we didn't approach them to purchase it, so it wasn't a negotiation.

So we had the right of first refusal because it was chapter land, meaning open space, open land.

So once it's considered chapter land, they have a reduction in their real estate tax.

But as of by right, we have the right of first refusal.

We live in the town.

So when they made the decision to try to do a subdivision in there, the 40B housing, that triggered our ability to go buy the property.

So, okay, but it's— and there's a process through Massachusetts General Law that you got to take.

You got to go through appraisal process, and then that's what it So what you can't necessarily sit there and negotiate with other properties.

That's a fair point.

Have we ever approached that owner to see what it would take to give us an easement to make that non-landlocked?

Or because I'm assuming way in the past, a long time ago, long time ago, because I'm assuming Holland Street.

Holland Street.

Yeah, because we were using it at one point.

There was soccer was using some type of recreational team was using it.

And then there was a concern about the fact that people were parking on, um, the leach fields.

So we had brought the individual in, we had talked about potentially allowing us, giving us right to use it, and then we would put up a fence on the leach field to ensure that nobody was, was parking.

And yeah, that was a long time ago, and I understand the, the issues here, but, um, I figured where I was going with it.

It's unfortunate.

I'm, I'm assuming we still cut the grass and stuff like that, or is that just totally overgrown?

We don't even have access to it.

We were told if we go on it, we'd be in trouble.

Okay.

Yeah, so I don't know if DBW cuts the grass.

I can double-check that, but yeah, I don't— because I would assume— I mean, if they didn't, I would, I would think it'd be like this tall, and it doesn't seem to be that.

Yeah, it doesn't seem to be that way.

Okay.

On the other town properties that are just out there, like the land that we were convinced to buy a bunch of years ago in back of the— or from the American Legion, all that land back there, do we know what we're thinking of doing?

You mean with that at the transfer station with the land?

Yeah, but if we bought a bunch of land, I— the transfer station was the old dump.

But we bought a bunch of land a number of years ago thinking we were going to put a DPW there, not having done the, the, uh, evaluation of the site and the, the grounds.

That was quite a bit of land that we bought from the— I think it was just some of the parking lot.

Solar farm out there?

Yeah, we're looking on the landfill itself.

Yeah, but that other part, which now just has piles of old grass and stuff like that.

Are there plans in the works for that?

Not currently, but I guess I'm still kind of confused.

Are you talking in the front or in the back?

If you go in the American Legion and you look to your right, all that land where the building was going to be, right, right, 5 years ago, I think it was 6 years ago, that wasn't ours.

We bought that from the American Legion.

They owned it.

Yeah, we bought it with the thought of putting the DPW there at some point.

Okay, long story, I'm not going to get down that rabbit hole.

That land is now surplus land unless you've got plans for it.

Well, I mean, DPW's utilizing it to throw dead grass on, so we bought it for that and it's going to be that anyway.

There's no bit— I would, I would ask that you consider a better purpose of it.

Um, I'll just, I'll just cut it off at Firefly.

I, I, and I have to tell you, my issue with Radera's Farm has less to do with the issues that we had here in that we should be looking at what are we doing with this fairly large— how many acres at Firefly?

55.

Yeah, 55 acres at Firefly.

This reasonable-sized piece of property.

And as far as, uh, recreation stuff, and I was just speaking to somebody else, take a 45-minute ride up toward Auburn, Mass., and there is a place called Pappas.

Remember Dr. Pappas from the Red Sox?

Pappas Recreational and Athletic Complex.

Has ball fields, has soccer fields, there's walking trails, has a, um, uh, one of those things they have in Boston, kind of like a half circle, uh, amphitheater type of thing, like the half shell.

Half shell.

They have a half shell there on 20 acres.

And when that first went up, my understanding is the ball fields were originally had naming, let me see, Home Depot had a ball field.

They built it and they had a naming right for it for a while.

And Lowe's had a ball field and stuff like that.

I look at that, unless you've got other plans for 55 acres, to your point, why would we spend hundreds of thousands of dollars without having looking at this?

Now I've been thrown other things saying, can't put athletic fields here, it's too wet.

My only comeback is, but you can build development and buildings here.

So it's so wet you can't put a field, but it's not too wet to put a building?

Maybe I'm crazy, but my only thing to your point, before we go spending— we already spent $2 million to buy the land from Madeiras— before we spend another million to develop it in a year and a half ago is estimated to $12 million, I would be shocked to do it.

You'd want to take a look at a huge field, piece of land you've got like that, and decide what are you really going to do with it.

So, uh, that, that was my only thing.

I think I've been up here enough for having come back.

Forget Tom, meeting's at 6 o'clock.

I'm meeting at 6 o'clock this time.

Yes, I'll make sure of that.

And hopefully at town meeting other people ask questions and not just leave it up to me.

I have to pick my points.

You're always welcome, Mr. Benoit.

Thank you, I appreciate it.

Apologize for the time.

That's okay, that's okay.

Um, okay, uh, discuss anything within, uh, 48 hours?

I have nothing.

Town Administrator's report, do you have The only thing I was going to mention was Whale School, but we had that discussion already.

Right.

Okay.

Board of Selectmen liaison reports and comments.

Accounts payable warrant has been signed.

TV9 liaison report.

They did have a meeting on the 2nd of March.

It was supposed to be February 26th, but it was wiped out because of the snowstorm that we had.

So we had— they had it on the 2nd.

Um, the director's report, a lot of this is old stuff that they covered because we haven't had— they haven't had a meeting in a while.

Um, they covered the annual fall town meeting, the Veterans Day parade, the sigan tree lighting at the town hall.

Um, they started recording and broadcasting the Medeiros Farm Committee meetings.

Um, they held our select board meeting at the senior center.

Um, they put out a public service announcement about the pajama drive for the library and the Bruins pajama drive.

They recorded a new show called New Destiny with Pastor John Amaral and Pastor Jose Lima from New Destiny Church.

So one half of the service is in English and the other half is in Portuguese.

That's a new channel that they got, a new show that they have.

They updated everybody about the changes of the channels.

If everybody doesn't know, Channel 9 went to 95.

Government channel went from 15 to 96, and educational channel went from 17 to 97.

They had really no notification of it.

It was just done.

Comcast didn't let anybody know.

They just did it because I guess they have the right to do it.

They did discuss some of the equipment that they had purchased and when it was getting installed, and they were doing training on some of it.

One of them was the video switcher for the studio, which I believe was installed in January, and they've been doing training on that.

They had ordered other equipment, monitors and stuff like that, they were waiting for to come in because additional equipment was needed to get them installed inside the studio.

And the last thing was the equipment order for the town hall, new microphones for us.

They're on backorder still, and there's a mixing board and something else that's going to be coming here to the town hall, but it's on backorder.

And then obviously the budget presentation, they did discuss the budget budget and their proposal that was going to be coming tonight, that it's required by their agreement to present it to us.

And we all heard that part.

So that's, that's it.

Good.

Bristol County Advisory Board, nothing new.

Okay, we've got a Medeiros Farm committee report.

Do you have anything else to add to that, Sean?

No.

Okay, comments?

Mr. Sagar?

I've been out of town for 6 days, so I don't have any.

You didn't bring the sun back.

No, it was— when I left very northern Maine, it was 4 degrees.

Oh, you were in Maine snowmobiling?

Yeah, I didn't bring any more cold down.

That's pretty cool today.

Yeah, I know.

I was amazed though.

I left, I left that I had snow on my lawn.

I come back, the grass is already green.

The grass is already agree.

Yeah, pretty soon.

Lucky.

Pam?

I've got nothing.

Chris?

Just one thing.

If some of our board members remember, a while back Mr. Gadeem had sent out some economic letters to some corporations trying to bring their businesses to town.

He was successful.

We do have Crumble Cookie opening up in the south end, and I believe there's another one that is going to going to be moving in, but I don't know if with all the, uh, to avoid lawsuit and stuff with all those papers you signed that we can't say who they are, um, that we had to go through with like the Firefly and stuff.

What, Ugly Duckling?

Yeah.

Oh, I don't know.

Ugly Dumpling.

Ugly Dumpling.

If they came here for the license.

Yeah, they did.

Yeah, they came here.

But, um, just want to say that we have a successful business coming out of all the letters you sent.

You good, Chris?

Yep, I'm good.

Michael?

I'm good, I don't have anything.

Okay, okay, I have a couple of things here.

First of all, I don't know who sent me this note, but I'll do it anyway.

The Seekonk High School Key Club is offering babysitting services provided for the Springtown meeting by the Seekonk High School's Key Club.

Um, date Monday, May 11th, 2026.

Drop-off begins at 5:45 PM.

The meeting starts at 6.

Event check-in elevator lobby outside of the library.

Babysitting location is room 325, which is close to there.

Sign up in advance and required no walk-ins so that the Key Club can staff properly.

All signups must be submitted no later than 10:00 p.m. on Sunday, May 10th.

To sign up, please fill out this form, or you can send an email to Dina Marinucci at [email protected].

They do have another address here, but I'm not reading that.

That's you.

So the school club at the high school is offering babysitting services.

Well, babysitting services for the town meeting so that if you have a child, you know, and you still want to go, they are now— I think this is the first time that they've decided to do babysitting services, and that's, that's good.

They've done it a couple times.

Have they done it?

They've done a couple, couple town meetings they offered it.

Yeah.

Good, good.

I hope it works.

Um, a couple of things.

I got some notices from National Grid, uh, just to give people the heads up that they're doing their vegetation clearing, uh, which is mandatory.

And the location is— hold on, they send me lots of stuff here.

There we go.

Planned work 2026.

You You'll see them in the woods around near Ledgemont Country Club.

So if you see the National Grid out there doing work, it's for annual vegetation.

Also, some people have been asking about the work that's going on on not Baker Street, but the other 2 streets beside it.

It's Coleman and Ellis.

Gas lines that are being put in, and they're doing both streets at the same time so they can get them done at the same time.

Baker Street's already been done, so they won't be doing that, but those parts of those streets are closed.

Um, uh, I went to the high school play I told you people about.

It was excellent.

Sound of Music.

It was a super thing.

Um, the Anthony Street overpass with Mass DOT.

Is that finished?

Does anybody know if that's finished?

In progress.

You said that with such thought.

Is it bad because it goes 9 PM to 5 AM?

Yeah, they have machinery staged and they just go out at night and do what they got to do.

Okay, um, somebody had brought up to me a, uh, to support a tax reduction for senior citizens.

And, um, they— there is a House bill out there now that is sponsored by our Steve Howitt from the 4th Bristol District.

It's House Bill number 3120, and it has been discharged to the Committee on House Rules.

Uh, I did not see that the Committee on House Rules had received it yet, but basically there is a It's going for a freeze on the rate and valuation of taxes on real income from sources in excess of a figure.

So I looked into it because somebody was asking me about a 40B to support their 40B, which is tax reduction or freeze for senior citizens.

Um, and I did look into it, and though, um, that is not the one that Steve Howard is talking about, this is separate.

I want the senior citizens in this town to know that there are some tax deductions.

You need to contact the assessor's office and find out what they are.

There's some for seniors, there's tax work-off programs, there's some from veterans and everything.

So please, I mean, I found it online.

It's, uh, and we have already adopted— the town of Seekonk already accepted in 2006 Uh, Chapter 41C, which is all or, all or a portion of property tax.

But as everything, you have to qualify for it.

So there's 41D, there's 41C, and you have to be a certain age, certain income, and all these.

But you have to, you have to qualify for it.

So, but you have to find out about it, and you can call the assessor's office and they'll— they will direct you.

So please, please look into that to see if you can get a reduction.

Okay, also from MassDOT, this is dated February 24th.

The subject was a request for a review of traffic operations on Route 114 and County Street.

And this letter was directed to Mr. Kadeem by the district highway director.

Says, Mr. Kadeem, thank you for your letter dated February 3rd regarding operations in the intersection of Route 114A and County Street in the town of Seekonk.

MassDOT's mission is to provide the highest quality customer service to residents and visitors and the focus on safety and efficiency.

So I'm going to skip skip over one paragraph.

As you are aware, there are several upcoming private developments in the town of Seekonk, all of which are expected to further increase traffic volumes at the subject intersection.

The district is committed to working with the developers throughout the MassDOT permitting process to mitigate the effects of the site-generated traffic on Route 114 and US Route 6.

In the meantime, the district will continue to monitor traffic operations at this intersection and make appropriate adjustments when necessary.

And I read this because that is an issue that people have been bringing up about traffic, traffic, traffic.

And MassDOT has their eye on it as well as the town.

And the town administrator sent a letter so that people— I read that so people will know it's not a subject that's forgotten, forgotten, forgotten.

Well, anyway.

And then I have another thank you for your kind expression of sympathy, and this was dated February 19th.

Dear Mr. Cadime, thank you and the select board for the beautiful flowers you sent following the death of my husband Peter Fuller.

Your thoughtfulness is greatly appreciated.

Please extend our thanks to the select board.

Mr. Fuller, as some people remember, was the direct library director for many, many years.

Yeah, very good guy.

Madam Chair, I did forget one.

Can you hold on till I'm done?

Oh, absolutely.

I'll come back.

Okay.

Um, I want to thank everybody that was involved in the rabies clinic that they had over the weekend, Saturday, uh, morning, um, at the fire department.

Thanks to the fire department for letting them use, um, the bay.

They use one bay that the dogs and cats come up in this way, fill out paperwork, get a shot by Dr. Truesdale out the door.

It's very well organized, and Rehoboth is also included in that.

And I don't know how many people— how many people— how many animals they, they gave the rabies shot to, but I was only there, I don't know, 45 minutes or so, and there were a lot.

They said they were very busy.

They did very well, more than last year.

So thank you, Dr. Truesdale, and all the volunteers that were there because a lot of them are volunteers.

Mr. Sayer, you forgot something.

Yes, you said, you said a magic number, 40, as in 40B.

And the long— 41.

40.

41.

You mentioned— go ahead, go ahead.

The long-expected application for the 40B on Sagamore Road was filed yesterday.

Okay, that's 40B housing.

I was talking about taxes.

It's 41.

And that first public hearing will be, I think it's the 13th of April at the senior center.

Based on some of the comments on here, we might need a police detail.

Well, there you go.

Okay, I have— that's it for me.

As soon as I find my paper that I lost, I will— we'll move on.

Ah, as soon as you gave it to me, I found it.

Thank you.

Okay, I'll take a motion to adjourn at 9:06 PM till our next board meeting, Wednesday, April 1st, 2018.

2026 at 6 PM at the Seekonk Senior Center on Arcade Avenue.

And to enter into executive session— um, to reconvene, are we?

Yes, to reconvene an open session for potential contract approval.

A, to discuss strategy with respect to potential litigation pursuant to Mass General Law Chapter 30A, subsection 21A3, and as having the discussion in open session may have a detrimental effect on the town's litigation position, and the chair so declares.

With respect to Country Brook Estates, Madison Estates, Ursula's Way, Hart's Court, Court Street Extension, Pine Hill Estates, Jacob Hill Estates, Caleb Estates, Holland Woods, Three Ledges, Brigham Farms 2, Greenwood Farm, Kathleen Wyatt Strawberry Patch and Orchard Estates.

Votes may be taken.

B, to consider the purchase, exchange, lease, or value of real property pursuant to Mass General Law Chapter 38, subsection 21A6, as having the discussion in open session would be detrimental to negotiation position of the town.

911 Taunton Avenue, Assessors Map 17, Lot 106.

Consider accepting the executive session minute meetings of February 18th, 2026.

So moved, Prezora.

Second, Michael Healy.

Okay, a roll call please.

Gary.

Gary Segal, aye.

Impose, aye.

Prezora, aye.

Michael Healy, aye.

Michelle Hines, aye.

Unanimous.

Thank you, Caroline.