Select Board Meeting — April 15, 2026

Good evening, everyone.

Welcome to the Board of Select Board meeting on April 15th at 6 PM here in the Select Board meeting room.

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

All select board meetings are recorded via audio and video and are broadcast live on Seacock Channel 96.

Would you all please join me with the Pledge of Allegiance and moment of silence?

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.

Thank you.

Okay, board and committee openings.

Would somebody like to read them, please?

Volunteers are needed on the Capital Improvement Committee, Commission on Disability, Cultural Council, Economic Development Committee, the Energy Committee, Finance Committee, Historical Commission, Human Services Council, Recycling Committee, and the Zoning Board of Appeals.

Okay, thank you, Mr. Zahra.

Priority matters.

Number 1, recognition of Jack Sluder on achieving the rank of Eagle Scout.

You must be Jack.

Come on down, please.

We have a proclamation accommodation I'd like to read, Jack, on your behalf.

Whereas Jack Sluder first joined Boy Scouts of America in 2019, joining Troop 1 Seacock, and whereas in addition to being a webmaster, quartermaster, instructor, patrol leader, assistant senior patrol leader, and senior patrol leader for his troop, Jack earned 32 merit badges, 1 bronze palm, and 1 gold One Eagle Palm.

And whereas Jack has received the Kayaking Award, Snorkeling Award, and Stand-Up Paddleboarding Award.

And whereas his Eagle Scout project— Jack led the installation of a series of steps along the Gamino Pond Trail in Seekonk, totaling 107 service hours to complete this project for Jack and his team of volunteers.

And whereas Jack Sluiter is to be congratulated for having attained the rank of Eagle Scout and for his service to the town of Seekonk.

The Eagle Scout Award is the highest achievement of the Boy Scouts of America.

Since its inception in 1911, only 4% of Scouts ever earn this rank.

It takes years of dedication, having the ability to lead and desire to serve.

And therefore, on April 15th, 2026, be it proclaimed by the Select Board that we hereby express our sincere appreciation for your commitment to duty and unselfish service.

Thank you for your dedication to the town of Secaucus.

Congratulations from your select board.

Okay, thank you.

Consider the appointment of Thomas Jones to the zone— to the Zoning Board of Appeals as an alternate, term to expire 2028.

Mr. Jones, good evening.

Have a seat if you would, sir.

Mr. Chairman, I had the opportunity to interview Mr. Jones for the the Zoning Board of Appeals as an alternate.

The term will expire in 2028.

He'll be replacing Selectperson Healey for his position.

I was going to say, I thought we were doing the other one, but are we not doing economic development?

Yeah, we are.

Okay, well, we missed it on the agenda, but we're also— Mr. Jones was also interested in economic development.

So obviously there was no interest in economic development.

So as we had done with the last Uh, candidate, we're going to put him on.

We'll do it at another meeting, but it may take us a little while to fill that, to, to get a quorum.

So with that, he's still going to serve on the Zoning Board of Appeals.

So that would be my recommendation.

Okay, is there a motion?

So moved.

The second?

Second.

Any discussion?

All those in favor?

Aye.

Opposed?

So voted.

Thank you.

Congratulations, and thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Have a good night.

You too.

Next is consider the appointment of Jessica Siegel to the Cultural Council, term to expire 2028.

Please have a seat.

Good evening.

Good evening.

Mr.

Chair, so I also had the pleasure of meeting with Ms. Siegel to have a discussion about the Cultural Council, and I think she'd be a great asset.

So my recommendation to the board is that we offer the position with a term to expire in 2028.

Okay, is there a motion?

So moved.

A second?

Second.

Any discussion?

All in favor?

Aye.

Opposed?

So voted.

Congratulations.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Next we have to consider the appointment of Colt Duckworth to the Commission on Disability, term to expire 2028.

Mr.

Chair, similar situation.

Mr. Duckworth was interviewed for the Commission on Disability.

My recommendation is that the board appoint him to a term that would expire on 20— in the year 2028.

Okay.

Is there a motion?

So moved.

Second?

Second.

Any discussion?

All in favor?

Aye.

Opposed?

So voted.

Thank you, Mr. Duckworth.

Thank you very much.

Consider the appointment of Jennifer Loomis, part-time kennel worker, to the position of full-time kennel worker.

Good evening, members of the board, Mr. Cadime, and welcome new members.

Um, so Jen has expressed some interest in the full-time position.

She's been in the part-time position since January 4th of '26.

She's done very well, um, with her, her tenure here, and she works well with the full-time kennel worker that has moved up to the ACO position, the assistant ACO position.

So I believe she'd be a good asset to our team, um, and recommend her for the position.

Mr. Kadeem, my recommendation is as stated by the animal control officer.

Okay, so to entertain a motion to approve.

So moved.

Second.

Second.

Any discussion?

All those in favor?

Aye.

Opposed?

Uh, yeah, I'm sorry, we need, we need that proper motion.

Yeah, right.

Sorry, you want me to read it?

Yes, please.

Move that the board select and appoint Jennifer Lomas to the position of full-time kennel worker effective April 16th, 2026.

The second— all in favor?

Aye.

Opposed?

So voted.

Okay, thank you.

Good, thank you.

Thank you.

Next, we want to recognize National Public Safety Telecommunication Week, April 12th to the 18th.

Good evening.

I'd like to read the proclamation.

Whereas emergencies can occur at any time that require police, fire, emergency medical services, and whereas when an emergency occurs, the prompt response of police officers, firefighters, and paramedics is critical to the protection of life and preservation of property, and whereas the safety of our police officers and firefighters is dependent upon the quality and accuracy of information obtained from citizens who telephone the SEACOM Communications Center, and whereas public safety telecommunicators are the first and most critical contact our citizens have with emergency services, and whereas public safety telecommunicators are the single vital link for our police officers and firefighters by monitoring the activities by radio, providing the information, and ensuring their safety, and whereas public safety telecommunications of the SEACOM Communications Communications Department have contributed substantially to the apprehension of criminals, suppression of fires, and treatment of patients, and whereas each dispatcher has exhibited compassion, understanding, and professionalism during the performance of their job in the past year, so therefore be it resolved that the Select Board of the Town of Seekonk, Massachusetts declares the week of April 12th, 2026 through April 18th, 2026 to be National Public Safety Telecommunicators Week in Secaucus, in honor of the men and women whose diligence and professionalism keep our community and citizens safe.

Given this 15th day of April, 2026, in honor of National Telecommunications Week by the Secaucus Select Board.

So congratulations.

Thank you.

Good.

Thank you, sir.

Can I say a few words?

Yeah, I can say a few words.

There you go.

Thank you.

Um, during the week of April 12th through 18th, 2026, we proudly recognize and celebrate the National Public Safety Telecommunicators Week.

Honoring the dedicated men and women who serve as the vital link between our community and emergency services.

Public safety telecommunicators are the calm voice amid chaos.

They are the first to answer when someone dials for help, gathering critical information, providing life-saving instructions, and dispatching police, fire, and emergency medical personnel quickly and accurately.

Their ability to remain composed under pressure, multitask in high-stress situations, and communicate clearly make a life-saving difference every single day.

National Public Safety Telecommunicators Week allows us to recognize the professionalism, dedication, and resilience of these highly trained individuals.

They work around the clock, including nights, weekends, and holidays, putting service before self to ensure help is always just a phone call away.

We encourage everyone to take a moment this week to thank our public safety telecommunicators for their commitment, compassion, and unwavering service.

Their voices are often the first source of reassurance in any emergency, and their work truly saves lives.

Please join us in celebrating and thanking our public safety telecommunicators during National Public Safety Week of 2026.

We have Ronald Rickey, Jody Pacheco, Nicholas Rondo, Thomas Deserres, Taylor Cordero, Kelly McGill, Ryan Burke, Lori Hernandez Cruz, Patrick Mendonça, and Katrina DeRoche.

These individuals make up our dedicated dispatch team.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you, Donna.

Next, we have recognition and proclamation of National Library Week.

Is there anybody here from the library?

I don't see anybody.

Okay, but we can still read it then.

All right, I'll read— let me read it into the record.

In recognition of National Library Week, April 19th to the 25th, 2026, whereas National Library Week has been sponsored by the American Library Association since 1958, this year's theme is Find Your Joy and emphasizes the value of reading and the role of libraries in sparking creativity, fueling imagination, and inspiring lifelong learning, offering a space where individuals of all ages can find joy through explanation and discovery, is a time to celebrate the gifts and opportunities that libraries offer to their communities.

And whereas libraries are a place where people can connect with the community, whether it's through story times, programs, events, book clubs, or movie nights.

And whereas libraries are inclusive and supportive for people of all ages and provide access to technology and literature throughout one's life.

And whereas libraries adapt to the constant changes and needs of the community, expand programs, collections, and services to broaden community involvement.

They offer invaluable opportunities to learn a new skill or rediscover an old one.

And whereas National Library Week is also a time to celebrate library workers and their contributions inspiring discovery, collaboration, while promoting library use and support.

And now, therefore, Be it resolved that the town administrator and select board proclaim National Library Week, April 19th to the 25th, 2026.

During this week, we encourage our residents to visit their library, explore its resources, and celebrate all the ways that the library helps our community find joy.

And it's signed by the Seekonk Select Board.

So thank you all today.

We'll get that done.

Okay, next we have Community Speaks.

Yes, would you like to come up?

Good evening, my name is Doreen Taylor, 101 Forsyth Circle.

I have been following the Massachusetts Fiscal Alliance activity through Facebook and on their website, and as everybody knows, Almost a year and a half ago, the state of Massachusetts had a ballot question about auditing through the state audit auditor.

I don't know how to say her name, and I'm not going to attempt it.

I just know it's Elena.

And the legislature has blocked her way.

As of the end of March, the departments that they have audited have found, um, in excess of $4 million in fraud and abuse, which they are dealing with.

However, the legislature will not allow her into their offices, and she's fighting it all the way to the Supreme Court.

I have also read that there are various municipalities who are asking their select boards to send a letter to the state legislature to ask them to support the state auditor's position and honor the vote of the city— of the cities and towns of Massachusetts.

72% of the registered voters want this audit done.

And it's been blocked ever since the ballot question appeared.

So I'm asking you as our select board if you would consider sending that letter to the legislature and, and asking them or telling them that you support the voters of Massachusetts and you are expecting them to honor that vote as well.

I think this is something that the alliance is going to do statewide, but it was— took one town, and it's in Western Massachusetts.

I'm not sure where it is.

I'm sorry, I forgot.

Um, it took one town to do it, and now there are 3 or 4 others that have also done it.

So I'm hoping you will consider doing the same on behalf of SEACON.

Okay, what I will do is put it on the agenda for the 29th.

Okay.

And if you could supply us a list of maybe towns that have done it so far.

I thought I saw on Facebook Howitt's done it, Cape did it, and was probably the most recent one.

I think there's more and more, more and more.

Yeah.

So we'll put it on for the 29th.

And there's 351 communities in the state of Massachusetts.

If we can get half of them to do it, it would, it would be a good thing.

But right now the case is sitting at the bench of the Massachusetts Supreme Court.

Does anybody have any questions for Doreen?

No?

All right, thank you.

Okay, thanks.

Anyone else for Community Speaks?

Good evening, I'm Megan Duckworth from 31 Kovalav, and I'm not sure whether I should speak now later.

I have wanted to get some input into your license hearing.

Can you bring the mic down so they can hear better?

Could you— can you hear me better now?

Yes.

Okay, speak up a little bit.

Um, Megan Duckworth from 31 Covell Ave.

I want to have some input into the license hearing for Topic D. I didn't know whether I should speak now or later when that's brought up.

Oh yeah, when it's brought up.

Okay, so that it can be in the record.

Okay, thank you.

Okay, Miss Hines.

Yes, Michelle Hines, Rickard Street.

Uh, about a month ago on March 25th, there was a letter that went around from the city of Attleboro.

It was a public advisory notification which was dated March 18th.

It was online.

I don't know who else received it.

I have it.

It has to do with, um, the city of Attleboro discharging wastewater into the Ten Mile River.

Now, for those of you that are not from the North End, the Ten Mile River comes in from Attleboro, goes behind Colville Platte, which is the connection, the— on the border of Seekonk and Attleboro.

Goes behind all those houses there, goes behind the houses that run up to Pond Street, goes underneath that— the Pond Street Bridge, goes by Maple Avenue, which we've been working on to decontaminate, goes down and across Central Avenue.

Really, that's in Pawtucket, but there's a lot of properties in Seekonk that are affected.

Now, this letter does say Um, it says that this partial— I'll read it to you.

Discharge consists or likely consists of partially treated sewage and waste.

Avoid contact with affected water bodies for 48 hours after the discharge ceases due to increased health risks from bacteria and other pollutants.

Now, you may not know about this letter, but it To me, it's very scary.

I live up in the North End, not as close to, uh, the Ten Mile River, but very close.

But we have a lot of people there.

I want to know, or the town should know, if our Board of Health has looked into this.

Of course, the letter from Attleboro says, oh yeah, we're doing everything right.

But to me, that is extremely dangerous.

I don't even know if the people on Covell Plat and all the other backyards that the Ten Mile River runs behind have even been notified.

And like I said, it was on Facebook, but as you know, not everybody uses Facebook.

And I received this, and I think we need to— the SEACONC deserves to know what SEACONC is doing about it.

All of the discharge from that sewage treatment plant goes into the Ten Mile River.

That's its source.

What this letter is all about is with all the snowmelt and everything, they had an excessive amount.

So I believe some of it may have not got treated.

But the discharge point is way beyond the Colville Platte, and it's right at the back of the plant, and it would be right in line with the discharge where the Ten Mile River borders with Pawtucket.

So they— so basically they discharge into Pawtucket, not into Seekonk?

They discharge it to the Ten Mile River, which borders, right?

And then we have all that other water behind there too, right?

Right.

Well, I— that's great information, but I would also like to know if our Board of Health actually went out there to look at this.

All right, because this sounds extremely unhealthy to the people at the north end that border that treatment plant.

And then if they do discharge it into Pawtucket, well I think maybe Pataki was notified.

I— yeah, I didn't get that.

So did you— do you know if we received that letter?

No.

So I'm not— I'm not familiar with the letter, but I'll double-check with the Board of Health to see if they've received it.

It would be outside their jurisdiction.

So DEP or EPA would probably get involved.

So I know that there may be a release and track— a release tracking number for it.

So I'll just confirm that.

Well, it does have a compliance thing here, but it doesn't say anything about the DPA or anything.

I got a copy of that too, I believe.

What is the date of that?

The date— well, I received it on March 25th, but the date of the letter itself is March 18th.

And I don't remember when I read it on Facebook.

Somebody posted it, but I haven't heard anything about it from, uh, town, so it's very concerning.

Yes, okay, should be for you too.

Thank you.

Thank you.

All right, anybody else for Community Speaks?

Sir?

Oh no, I thought you wanted something.

Sorry.

Hi, uh, Andrew Tessier, 26 Kovalav.

Um, for those of you who don't know me, I am recently elected, uh, school committee member.

Got kind of thrown in in the middle of a tense time here with the budget.

I forwarded on some information.

Mr. Cadime was very helpful in getting me some data to try and just track down trends and kind of see where we got and how we got here.

I'm very familiar with school budgets and I know what Seekonk school budget looks like, the line by line, and it's kind of scary right now.

So what I tried to do was take a look at the last 10 years worth of budgets and try to look for trends and try to see, like, what changed, what happened.

So one important clarification on the data that I provided you there.

It was pointed out to me at our meeting on Monday that the 2.78 that Mr. Gadeem put in his presentation, that includes the money that goes to Tri-County and Bristol Aggie.

So when we have to get to our number, so that's minus that.

So we were having to work down to a 2.5% increase.

So the data you have there is just the Seekonk Public Schools line, because that's really what I'm trying to figure out right now is what, what money is actually going to the students of Seekonk and what's happening to that amount over time.

So when we look at the past 10 years, we see that it was relatively stable prior to COVID.

There was an average increase of about 4.5% annually.

Which is right in line with what Mr. Juckett said to you 2 weeks ago.

When you have a budget that's 75% salary and then you're— the majority of the rest of your budget is just uncontrollable fixed costs that are raising at 10-12%, that, that's just, that's just the cost of doing business for something like that.

And we saw that prior to COVID that the budget was keeping up with that.

However, after COVID, the growth rate has dropped to just 2— an average of 2.8% per year.

And that represents over that like 10 years, the budget of the school department has only grown by 40% when the town's total operating budget has grown by 60%.

And trying to look at where that ended up, a huge portion of that did go into debt, which we understand, right?

There's, there's things that we invested in, so there's, there's no control about that.

And this isn't about intentions or gotchas or anything.

It's just about looking at what the— what the budget says.

And in that time, other departments have almost doubled their budgets.

Public safety itself has actually gone over 100%.

So in those last 10 years, their budget is just over more than double what it used to be.

And again, I bet it was worth it.

I'm not questioning that.

Like, like we— this is public works that we— there's no, there's no fluff here.

That's— I'm going to take you at good faith and trust that those were all things that were absolutely needed.

Not, not questioning that whatsoever.

But the reality is, is that that funding came from the schools.

So while the schools were getting increases, the increases weren't keeping up with the costs.

So we were not growing at the same rate as other departments, and that's when you kind of get into danger.

So giving some context to some of the things that were brought up last week, you know, we all know that, you know, schools already make up the largest part of the budget.

That's everywhere.

We get that.

It's because the school is responsible for serving roughly 2,000 residents every day for 7 to 8 hours a day for more than 10 months out of the year, and that just requires a significant number of staff and services.

And not to mention the amount of legal requirements that are placed on the school district.

Like, the amount of the budget that is actually, like, controllable is a very small portion.

It's only, like, about $1.5 million.

So while, yes, it does make up a huge part of the budget, it's because it serves the most amount of residents per day.

And all departments are absolutely being impacted.

That's, that's 100% true.

But we heard firsthand about how police, fire, and DPW have had to work within limited constraints as well.

No one's disputing that.

No one's saying that anyone here is rolling in money.

That's obviously not happening.

But when you compare the major service areas, the schools experienced one of the largest slowdowns in growth.

I think the only other department that had a larger slowdown in growth was Human Services.

And that, that can— that those constraints translate directly into service impacts.

That's not about cutting out fat.

That's just not keeping up with level service.

Um, and we understand that, you know, everybody needs to find efficiencies, right?

The, the feedback with schools need to find efficiencies.

But when you look at the line-by-line budgets that I had forwarded on to Mr. Cadime and hopefully, uh, get to you as well— if not, I'll go through the town forum and send it individually to you all tonight— um, everything's level funded.

Supplies are level funded.

Positions are adjusted.

And spending is reallocated wherever possible.

So the challenge is that roughly 75% of that budget is personnel, and most of the rest is either mandated or fixed.

There's not— there's not a lot of control there.

There's not a lot of efficiencies to be had.

So at this point, it doesn't mean trimming excess.

It means doing the same work with fewer people.

And that's something that's had to happen the last few years, year over year, when we've had to be taking less and less and less.

And I understand, you know, sometimes people conflate with, oh, COVID funding contributed to this problem, but that's not what the data shows.

The data shows a steady decrease.

There was no spikes or anything.

It was just a decrease overall every single year.

Can I ask a question?

Yeah.

And I don't mean to interrupt.

No, no problem.

The reference to safety, yeah, um, growing— did you have the numbers Where were they?

Where were they?

Where they were supposed to be?

I think you need that information in order to make these statements.

For example, last year, wasn't it -1%, the budget, as far as public safety?

Yeah, a decrease.

So to say that public— to say that safety is going up every year, that's what— that's not what I said.

What I said is in 10 years, the public safety budget has doubled.

Right.

But were they where they were supposed to be?

I'm not questioning that.

And that's why I am.

Oh, yeah.

Great.

And we should have that conversation.

But this is what I'm talking about when I say we need to coordinate.

Could you please clarify that you are speaking as an individual?

Oh, yes.

I am speaking as a community member, not on behalf of any kind of community or anything like that.

Okay.

I'm just curious about the numbers themselves.

Yeah, that would be a great conversation for us to have.

It's very late in this process, but that, that's the type of stuff that we're talking about when we— when some people say that schools have been treated unfairly.

I wouldn't say unfairly, I would say inequitably, because when we talk about equality and we talk about, yes, the schools are the biggest part of the budget, so if you dole out the same amount of dollars to each department, then that's equal.

But you do recognize that educational-related expenses are $0.60 out of every tax dollar in every single municipality in the state.

Yes, I understand that.

So yeah, that's, that's the reality.

That's not a thing that we can really control or fix.

You know, we can absolutely spend time looking at like how much actual budget there is that is controllable because there's very little.

It's either all contractual or mandated costs through special education and transportation.

There's a very small window there that there's actually flexible wiggle room.

And all I'm asking is for us to have these conversations and look at that and answer questions exactly like that.

Like, was that doubling required?

And I don't have the answers to that.

And I'm not, I'm not insinuating any ill intent on any of those things.

This is just what the data shows.

But to be quoting that data without having all the numbers is misleading.

Well, the numbers are what we put down in the budget.

So the context is what needs to happen in these conversations, which I would love to have, but we've— we're working on a very tight deadline here, and, uh, it's only my second week on the job.

Michael, do you want to say something?

Can I?

Sure.

I just have to ask a question.

Mr. Gadeem, did you make this sheet?

I did not, no.

You did not?

So we have your budget sheet?

You do.

Okay, so I am not going to entertain discussing this piece of paper right now because he's not the town administrator.

He can put anything on a chart and put it up and throw whatever he wants.

The numbers were just taken directly from his spreadsheet.

Don't interrupt me, please.

I'm listening to you.

Don't interrupt me when I'm talking.

No problem.

All right, thank you.

This is— to me, this— you're the town administrator, you make our budget, you do a fine job at it, everything like that.

I'm going by your numbers and what you have.

This piece of paper, to me, I am not going to even entertain.

If I could just quickly, just in— I mean, I just saw this worksheet that's before us.

So in terms of the presentation, so I'm not going to deny that, and I've said this in my budget presentation, that when you look at the total net school spending, that number has decreased over the last 10 years.

What I will say is that the percentages that you have here are a little inaccurate.

Just when you— and I thought we had the conversation in Finance Committee that you had to be careful and take every single year, because when you take one year and you start looking at the previous years the previous years are pulling in actuals, right?

They're not pulling in the appropriation.

So your percentages are going to be significantly higher.

So when you start looking appropriation to appropriation year over year, it's significantly lower.

And I say that because when you start taking the educational component, the schools typically do not turn back a whole lot of money.

So they spend down, and if they don't— if there's any type of surplus, it's carried over and you know, prepaid sped tuition.

So to get that apples-to-apples comparison, you know, you would have to go back and actually look at the appropriation.

Um, for instance, FY26, you've got general government at $3.4 million.

Uh, the act— uh, yeah, because we don't have— we're still in FY26, so we don't have a full number.

So I just— yeah, right.

So, so that, that number is, is good.

But then when you go to '25, you got $3,200,793.

That was— that came directly from the spreadsheet you gave me.

Right.

Which is what I'm saying.

So it's actuals.

Yeah.

The actual appropriation, you're off at least almost close to $200,000.

So the actual appropriation for general government was $3,377,795.

So that's why I'm saying you've got to do an apples-to-apples comparison.

Understood.

But the top where the percentages are, those weren't calculated percentages?

Those were just straight copy and paste from the— what you gave me there.

From, from what?

From down below?

And so those where the column headings are, those are the actuals.

Those should be for every single year.

That's what came from your spreadsheet that said actual spending from that year, right?

But when I, when I present my numbers in terms of change year over year, I'm looking at appropriation because that's the true number that you should be looking at, right?

So because again, we've got turnover, you talk about staffing, so at no point are we 100% fully staffed, right?

So you're going to have that money that's going back in.

So when you start looking at the actuals, the actuals are going to be a lot lower than what we have for the appropriation.

Sure.

I mean, that's an easy fix.

It's just a copy and paste to the other one.

But it's a significant— it's significant, right?

Which is why when I sent it to you on Monday, that would have been great feedback because I would have been more than happy to make the change and have it updated for you.

I'll have it for you later tonight.

That's not a problem.

But those numbers aren't significantly far off to the point where they're going to change the realities that the other departments there have had significantly higher growth than the Education Department.

No, no, they are, because you're pre-COVID.

Just, just legal, the legal fund, right?

You have pre-COVID a percentage change of $1,265.

Legal has been at $155,000 for the last 12 years.

So, so when we take the actual dollars that we're spending, that's not a relevant number to take a look at and analyze.

It's an appropriation.

The appropriation, the money that we have, we have a pool of money that's been appropriated to the department.

So if it's not spent, it's then turned back, right?

And then the other argument that we would have, which Mr. Zara brought up, is, is that money that's turned back, which is generated by the town, is then going to free cash into the stabilization account, which also goes to the schools.

So you're not also capturing that.

Got it.

So, so it's just, it's just, it's just misleading.

That's all I'm saying.

I'm not, and I'm not arguing that percentages have gone down.

All good.

Yeah.

No, uh, so the question I would have then is, so is the argument you're making that the appropriations will be higher than the actual or lower?

Higher.

Okay.

In some cases significantly.

So, so that only drives the point home more that in these town meetings and in these budgets, we're appropriating more to the other departments than we are to the education budget.

No, no, because what, what's happening is, for example, for the schools.

Yeah.

Okay.

If we're talking about staffing, we'd probably be at 70%.

So you're never 100% of of your staffing levels, right?

So if you've got 25%, um, unfilled positions, what you're doing— and I mean you meaning the school department— is you're now taking that surplus, rolling it over to next year.

It's not coming back to the town.

You're rolling it over and using it in prepaid SPED.

And we're going based off of the actual appropriation, not the actuals that we use, right?

So when we start talking about percentages— so we're giving you 2.5%, we're looking at last year's appropriation.

I would You would be a little upset if I went back and I started saying, okay, it's 2.5% over the actuals versus the appropriation, right?

Because you would then come to me and say, well, the appropriation was higher.

And I would say, yes, but you spent less.

So we're going to go 2.5% off of what you actually spent, right?

So we would have that disagreement and argument.

So if we— I would be, yeah.

Again, this is just all about education and learning.

No, I recognize that.

And I guess just from my standpoint, point where we keep saying that the funds are coming from the schools.

The funds are not coming from the schools.

The funds are coming from the town.

And I say this, and I say this, the schools are a department of the town.

Now, how that portion gets appropriated is, is a relevant conversation for everybody to have, but it's just misleading and disingenuous to keep on saying that the funds are coming from the schools.

The funds are not coming from the schools.

The funds are coming from the taxpayers.

It's coming local receipts, it's coming from motor vehicle excise, which is coming from the town, right?

So when we start talking about paychecks that are being spent out, it's, you know, all the teachers that are receiving paychecks, it's not the Seekonk Public Schools, it says the town of Seekonk, right?

So from my standpoint, just the messaging I think just needs to change a little bit so that we're not— because I mean, I think that gets people a little offended and defensive.

And no problem, happy to, happy to change the phrasing.

That's not what That was not the intention at all.

What it wasn't to say that the money is coming from the schools.

What it's saying is that when we look at where the growth was in these different departments and we see the significantly smaller growth in the school department, that's where— that's where we're saying the money is coming from.

It's coming from conscious decisions to have some departments grow faster than others.

And that's what gets us into trouble.

Right.

But, and to Selectwoman Almeida's point is, is that when we start talking about these conversations leading up to the last, I don't know, call it 6 years, or where you see that significant growth, that's when the board made a determination that the— we're not at a benchline level, right?

So when we start talking about public safety, to her point and to her credit, is, is that we were understaffed for police, we were understaffed for fire.

So at some point, the Board of Selectmen made a determination to say, hey, we need to get to baseline.

And I've said for the last couple years, we're at the baseline in terms of our departments, with the exception of Public Safety, and we've made those, those changes.

So yes, you would have significant increases, and you would see that within the last couple of years.

I've been here for 12 years, and when I, when I got here, I, you know, in 2014, the police department was still at the same staffing levels that they were in 1980, right?

They'd never seen any increases, right?

And in fact, I think they might have seen some, a little decrease.

So we were just trying to get to that point.

And part of the conversations that we've had internally, and the chiefs can speak for themselves, and Mr. Healey was a chief at the time, if money was not an issue, where— what is the perfect staffing level?

Right?

That was the baseline conversation that we've had.

Once we got that and we captured that, we then asked the question, what is the affordability and the sustainability of it, right?

So that's why we slowly went up to where we needed to be.

And for a while, the numbers were 40 for the police, 40 for the fire department.

And clearly, we've seen a shift, and there's a concern about public safety and response times and making sure that we have enough firefighters on the apparatus when they are responding to calls to service not just 2,000 students but over 15,000 residents, which obviously, as we talked about at the last meeting increases close to, you know, and I don't know the exact number, but you can go to 20,000, 30,000 individuals in the town of Seekonk on a given day and just look at call volumes and, and response times and everything that we, we deal with.

So there's a lot.

And, and I, and I will say that on top of it, we, we talk about dispatch.

It's going to be Telecommunication Week.

And when I first got here, we had one dispatcher, one dispatcher on midnights.

We had 2 we would potentially not backfill.

And if anybody knows about the response time, I don't know that you want one dispatcher answering telephone calls.

So again, it's that balance.

And I'm just concerned that— and I understand the frustration, and I know you're saying that you're just getting here late, but these conversations have been had with some form of the board in various makeups of the board with department heads talking about what are the priorities moving forward.

And I don't disagree, and I've said this before, we need to do a little bit better job when we get to the quad board meetings, but these conversations are not had in a silo.

They are had at public meetings, and if you haven't attended the public meetings, I can't control that, but they legitimately have been had during public meetings, and conversations and discussions have been had about that.

I appreciate what you're saying, and I, I don't expect anything else from you because you, you do serve on the school committee.

So my expectation would be you would be advocating for the schools, and, and I, I'm grateful for that.

Um, but from my standpoint, just as a town administrator, somebody who has been sincere about creating a partnership with the schools and the town to make sure that we're not running into a situation of public safety versus the schools, we are headed down that dangerous road.

And I am a little concerned about town meeting.

And I will say that whatever happens in town meeting happens in town meeting.

But I will ask, you know, the residents of Seekonk to please be cognizant of the fact that there is still a lot of needs outside of this operating budget.

There are capital needs that need to take place on both the town side but also the school side.

So if we run— we run into a situation where we start alienating people and, and pitting public safety versus education, and People are stacking town meetings.

We don't know what's going to happen when we get to a situation where we potentially need to ask for funding for a building.

Okay.

Indeed.

And that is the last thing I want to do, which is— so if it wasn't clear at the beginning, I want to reiterate that now.

And like, I tried to preface this with there is no assumptions being made on any of this.

That's what I started to say.

I am positive that all of those increases were needed.

That makes sense.

Can I just say something real quick.

When you talk about staffing increases, just to piggyback on what Mr. Cadime said about 6, 7 years ago, I was involved with that.

We had to increase the police staffing because the schools requested SROs.

So we took people off the street to put in the schools.

So the police department had to backfill by putting manpower on the streets to deal with the other 15,000 residents.

So it all comes back to we met the need of the schools, so we had to increase the staffing to increase to help the schools.

Schools out.

So a lot of this goes to the schools.

So you— I don't get it.

So I'm, I'm sure you guys still insinuate that we're stealing money, so for stuff, and we're not.

A lot of the stuff we do is going for the schools.

Like, everything we do is for the schools.

I get that.

And let me be very clear, you say they— the teachers have the biggest population, 2,000 people.

They do.

But the police and fire, 2,000 people in the school, plus everyone else driving around Route 6.

So it's not all about the schools.

You say these numbers, but it's, it's just crazy.

Like, it all goes back to the schools.

Our free cash, because we're down a couple people, gets turned back in, like I said last time.

And now we have $2 million in warrant articles for the schools that came back from— because we were down people that got turned back.

So a lot of it goes to the schools.

I understand.

I'm not trying to question any of the decisions that were made to how we got here.

That's not what I'm trying to do.

You, you said that you looked at your department, you saw that there was a benchmark that we were not meeting.

And so funds needed to be shifted and growth needed to be adjusted to account for that.

And I fully support that.

I'm not trying to question that or say that that should not have happened.

What I'm saying is the school department is now getting to the point where they're almost in the same position.

And that's what we need to be careful of, because it's all a balancing game, because it has to— the growth has to come from somewhere.

It's not about the money coming from it.

Cranston's in a $10 million deficit.

Yeah.

Brighton just turned down their 2.5 position prop.

Berkeley's up next week for 2.5.

It's not unique to SEACOM.

Indeed, I know, which is why we have to be very careful.

That's all I'm saying is that if we continue this trend of just taking the growth from there, we're going to be in the same situation we were with the police and fire department.

We're getting very close to that.

I'm trying to stop that so we can level it out before we get to that place.

Okay, well, thank you.

Thank you for your comments.

Thank you.

Thank you for your time.

I appreciate it.

Sorry.

All right, next we have 2 public hearings to consider the application for Blackstone Subaru, which is Pride Hyundai, 800 Fore River Avenue, Seekonk, Mass., requesting an import permit under Category 17B of the town bylaws to allow the importation and placement of soil, loam, sand, gravel, stone, construction and demolition debris, or other earth materials in an amount of approximately 1,130 plus or minus cubic yards of fill at 800 Fall River Avenue in Seekonk.

And also, I'm going to combine these 2, consider the application of Blackstone Sewer Bureau, DBA Pride Hyundai, 800 Fore River Avenue, requesting an earth export permit under Category 17A of the town's bylaws to allow the removal of soil, loam, sand, gravel, stone, or other earth material in the amount of approximately 180— 148 plus or minus cubic yards of cut at 800 Fore River Avenue, Secaucus, Mass.

And we'll declare that those 2 public hearings open at 7:45.

6:45.

6:45.

I am rushing.

I'm sorry.

Okay, so moved.

Second, Crisora.

Michael?

Michael?

Yeah, I made the motion.

Yeah, you seconded it?

Okay, I seconded it.

So Chris, you're aye?

You're aye?

Yep.

Liz?

Yes.

Bob?

Yes.

Okay, 6:45, we'll open the public hearing.

Yes, go ahead.

Good evening, Mr. Chairman, members of the Good evening, members of the board.

My name is Greg Esterbrooks, attorney with Kelly Souza Parmenter and Resnick.

We're located in Providence, Rhode Island at 128 Dorant Street, Suite 300.

This is an application for one, earth importing, and two, earth exporting under Chapter 17A of the bylaw.

The project is to renovate the old Showcase Cinemas on 800 Fall River Avenue.

It's going to be turned into a Hyundai car dealership.

We're currently before the Planning Board for site plan review.

I was there last night.

We presented the project to the Planning Board for preliminary review to solicit feedback on the project, gave an overview, took comments from the board, generally positive feedback.

We also were before the Conservation Commission on Monday for a wetlands permit.

They granted the wetlands permit.

There was also a peer review done by Horsley, which was positive, and generally no issues raised.

So the wetlands permit granted before the planning board, and now we're here for earthwork.

Importing and exporting is part of the project.

I think that's all I have on my part.

I'll turn it over to Chris Cabral, professional engineer from Crossman Engineering.

He'll go over kind of the scope of work that will be done for the project and some of the more technical details.

Thank you very much.

I'm Chris Cabral from Crossman Engineering.

Our office address is at 1 George Levin Drive, Suite 200 in North Attleboro, Massachusetts.

And we are here before you for 800 Fall River Ave.

This is the 5.5-acre site of the vacant Showcase Cinema Theater.

The existing building is about 50,000 square feet in size.

And the proposed Hyundai dealership is essentially going to renovate that existing building and try to create a dealership facility in a way that creates the least amount of impacts to the environment and the surrounding areas.

And just to add to that quickly, the renovations are being done within the existing footprint of the Showcase Cinemas.

So there's a very minor expansion around the edges, like 50 square feet or so, but, you know, it's within the footprint.

Yes.

Are very small.

There's 2 86-square-foot building additions, but overall the existing facility is going to remain the same, the same footprint.

There's 2 driveway entrances right now off of Fall River Avenue.

The one— the driveway nearest Cole Ave intersection here is going to be closed off, so there'll be one point of entrance and exit, with the exception of 2 security gates out on the side here for fire use if needed.

There will be an access easement in the back here and for vehicle delivery trucks to come in off Fall River and exit to this side here off of Greenbrier Drive.

The existing parking lot has about 292 parking spaces.

For the new dealership facility, we will be proposing 72 new parking spaces for employees and customers, as well as 279 new parking spaces for just vehicle display and loading.

Under existing conditions, the site is approximately 89% impervious and the proposed improvements will allow for a minor decrease of imperviousness by 2%.

So the project, in addition to preserving the existing building as greatly as possible, we are also trying to preserve the existing paved parking areas to the greatest extent practicable.

We prepared this earthwork summary plan which shows the limits of regrading where our proposed cuts and fills are coming from.

In the yellow or the gold color, that is our proposed area of fill.

And then in green is where our proposed cuts are occurring.

And so when we laid out the grading and drainage design for it, we really tried to minimize the amount of import and export volume required for the site.

But because we exceeded the thresholds, um, I believe it's 30 cubic yards, we're here before you tonight.

Um, if you just repeat, what was the yellow and the green?

Um, the, the areas of yellow and gold, those are our proposed fill areas, and in green are our proposed cut areas.

You can kind of see the majority of the property is blank because we are just maintaining existing grade, existing building.

And then just quickly, the exporting, the majority of it are existing islands in the parking lot that are no longer going to be used, right?

So the soils will either be reused onsite or if they are unsuitable, like dead trees or any other debris, they will be taken off of the site.

And the work will be completed after the erosion control measures are put around the property, thereby containing the work.

I can go on in more details about water, sewer, lighting, landscaping, but if the board has any questions, now may be a good time to— That'll be covered under your site plan review with the Planning Board.

Oh yes, yes, yeah, yes, yes, correct.

Yeah, we've done comprehensive stormwater and drainage studies, and the planning board will take a look at all that.

We've also done traffic studies, and there— that's under review with the planning board.

Good.

I do have a question.

I did a site survey of 800 Fall River Avenue yesterday evening just to check it out, be prepared for this.

Um, it's not relevant to your moving the earth.

I did notice it's under remodel, it's under construction, and the front of the building is wide open to the public.

It's wide open overnight.

There's no fencing.

Anyone can walk in there.

Kids can walk in there.

They have full access to that building.

So just so it doesn't become an attractive nuisance to kids, I would hope that that could be fenced off to keep kids from going into that building under construction.

I can certainly raise your concern with the client when I speak with them next.

I appreciate it.

Just to clarify, we're combining both these?

Yes, it's the same, same plans.

Yeah, the question I have, when you guys are importing and exporting, do you guys have any idea the route you're going to use, where the trucks are going to be going?

And stuff like that, because the one thing I'm not gonna be in favor of is if you're using residential streets to be hauling material in and out.

114A to the highway, um, I don't know if you're at that point yet.

I went— I asked the same question when another business came into town down off of Route 6, because we cannot have all these 18-wheelers going on our residential streets that we're trying to maintain and keep in somewhat halfway decent shape.

So I'd rather use mostly main roads Um, traffic on that road's bad enough.

It's going to be difficult getting in and out of there, um, with a lot of trucks.

Are there typically conditions that the board would put on an approval that would state that and cover that concern?

In the past, right?

Yeah.

Yes, the last time someone was in front of us, I put the stipulation on it.

I wanted to see their traffic route before the permit was issued.

So we have, um, we've submitted a memorandum.

It should be in your package.

Um, goes over some of that as far as the routing.

There will be monitoring on site for the earthwork, daily on-site field supervision.

Site will be secured from public ways and adjacent properties to make sure that the vehicles going in and out with the dirt, uh, will be traveling through safely.

It's right here.

No loading, unloading, and/or stockpiling of fill, equipment, or materials on public property or upon public ways.

No pile driving, blasting, or other heavy vibration activities.

So we, we cover, um, we have a plan for that.

Okay, anyone else?

I just had a question.

It's not on your presentation, but the access road, are you guys going to be filling that in, or do you know?

You know the, uh, the island between Cole and 114?

Because you guys don't— well, your client owns that, that parcel of land with the access road that used to bring into the movie theater.

Do you guys have a plan for that, or— oh, is it to your right?

All the way to your right, go down.

Right there.

Yeah, uh, yes, they own that land.

Pride does.

So I didn't know if there was anything, if they're going to be filling that in for grass or anything like that.

Not at this time.

I didn't see anything on the export-import, so, or if it's even in there.

No, our, our proposed limit of work is just confined to the driveway right where it says Cole.

Yeah, right there.

Yep.

Right here.

Um, nope, no plans.

Okay, I didn't know if that was going to be— yeah, not, not part of this project.

Okay, very good.

All right, the board all set?

Now I'm going to ask the audience, is there anybody here that would like to speak in favor of this proposal?

Seeing none, anyone want to speak in opposition?

Does anybody have any general comments or questions?

Seeing none, so— oh, I'm sorry.

Oh, it's an easy question.

Um, Doreen Taylor, 10147.

Now there is an access onto Greenbrier Drive that I heard them say that transport trucks bringing cars in would use that as an exit, correct?

So they're going to be using Greenbrier Drive, that far end of the drive closest to 114A?

Um, summertime hours is not an issue, but come school, school days, that's a bus stop, and there were people parked on both sides of that street for dropping off students and, and waiting for buses to come.

So is there a specific time of day?

I mean, I know you can't hold them to a schedule, but those trucks are huge and need a lot of room to move around.

Um, what's that going to do to parents parking their cars there?

Very familiar with that, with that area.

One, I live at Greenbrier, and 2, I worked at Showcase when it was open in 1975.

So I know where that, that access is.

But you know what I mean?

The site— the size of that turnaround there is not very big.

And that could, that could cause a problem on a school day.

Uh, yeah, I do know what you're talking about, and that's the type of thing that will be taken into consideration as far as monitoring when we have trucks going in and out.

So if there's special times like that where children are getting off the school bus, uh, or extra precautions need to be used, they will be used.

Okay, that goes for the earth removal trucks and the, you know, the big We used to call them dirt dummies.

Sorry, but I, you know, the big— I'm assuming the trucks will be that size or the size of a dump truck.

But again, as long as the school hours are there, there's going to be cars there.

Just— I just wanted to make you aware of that.

Thank you.

Appreciate it.

Yes, yes, ma'am.

Want to come forward?

Ann Miller, 25 River Street.

And I just had a question.

Are you adding more paving, more parking area that will be paved?

We are not.

We're actually decreasing the amount of impervious surface and increasing the amount of landscape buffer.

We're planting 54 trees as part of the project and there will be increased buffering around the exterior.

So— All right.

Thanks.

It is actually lesser environmental impact than what was there previously.

I lost the thread when you were talking about the parking spaces and so I was wondering if you were adding more.

No.

So part of the way that is being done is some of the existing islands that were there are being removed in the existing parking lot.

To allow parking on where it was already impervious.

And then around the perimeter of the property, there'll actually be a decrease in impervious surface.

Great, thank you.

Okay, anybody else?

All right, seeing none, I'd entertain a motion to close the public hearing.

So moved.

A second?

6:59 PM.

Second, Ms. Zorra.

Okay, all in favor?

Aye.

Opposed?

So voted.

On the 2 permits, what's the pleasure of the board?

Okay, let's see.

I will make a motion to approve the earth import permit under Category 17B of the town bylaws to allow the importation and placement of soil, loam, sand, gravel, stone, construction and demolition debris, other earth material, and approximately 1,130+ cubic yards to fill at 804 River Avenue, Seekonk, Mass.

And also to approve the earth export permit under Category 17A of the Seekonk town bylaws to allow the removal of soil, loam, sand, gravel, stone, or other earth material in an amount approximately 148+ cubic yards of cut at 800 Fulver Avenue, Seekonk, Mass.

Okay, so second?

Second.

Any discussion?

Any stipulations?

Any stipulations other than I would, you know, before the permit is actually granted, we do have a truck route, um, where the material is going to be hauled in and out of, just so it's not on residential streets if we could.

All right, all in favor?

Aye.

Aye.

Opposed?

So voted.

Uh, you've been— the board has voted 5 to nothing to grant your 2 permits.

All right, thank you for your time.

Much appreciated.

Thank you very much.

Have a nice night.

Okay, next is a license hearing.

Consider the Request for a common vehicular license change of ownership for Newport Creamery, 701 Florida Avenue.

Jan Companies is owner, Alex Coloro is manager.

Okay, would you identify yourselves for the record, please?

Um, Alexandria Coloro, I'm the general manager over at Newport Newport Creamery.

Okay.

My name is Caitlin Dotson and I'm the company representative under Mark Bogosian Newport Creamery Restaurants LLC, which is now the current owner of Newport Creamery.

Okay.

Jan Companies is no longer the owner.

All right, sorry, go ahead.

Change of owner from this— does this make sense?

Is it backwards?

Uh, it may be.

So I know that the change in ownership— so what's, what's the new company?

The new company is— well, the new company is Mark Boghossian is the owner, and it's Newport Creamery Restaurants LLC, which is a Rhode Island company, but we're operating under the Massachusetts.

Does Renaissance Development Co. sound— so they're the landlord, so they still own the building.

Okay.

But we purchased the Newport Creamery branding.

Okay.

But I have worked under Newport Creamery for the last 7— well, last 10 years, but 7 years operating the Newport Creamery in Seekonk.

So as far as from a management perspective of every single day, we're still in the operation.

I saw the news about it being— so a gentleman from the Cape owns it, correct?

But so Jan Companies is not the owner?

They're the owner of the land and the building.

We're renting it from them, but they no longer own the Newport Creamery LLC, the branding.

Okay, so we okay, Mr.— Yeah.

Yep.

Okay, do board members have any questions?

Yeah.

No.

Okay, do you have anything you want to add?

Nope, thank you.

All right.

Okay, if not, entertain a motion to approve?

So moved, Chris Zorra.

Second?

Second.

All right, all in favor?

Aye.

Opposed?

So voted.

Okay, the board has voted 5 in favor, none opposed, to grant your license.

Thank you so much.

Thank you.

Have a great night.

This is the one that's supposed to be public hearing.

Yes.

Okay, the next Yeah, on the agenda it says license hearing, but it is a public hearing.

So it's to consider a petition from National Grid and Verizon to locate poles, wires, and fixtures, and to install one J-O pole on Summit Avenue, Covet Avenue, beginning at a point approximately 28 feet northeast of the center line at the intersection of Summit Avenue and Covet Avenue, and to remove the existing tree guide Between Pole 3423 and the large tree stump located at 22 Summit Avenue.

So we'll open that public hearing at 7:05 PM.

Mr. Chairman, I have to recuse myself of this item.

I work for the Verizon Corporation.

Okay, so any vote taken?

How would we handle that?

Just abstain.

I can still take the votes.

Yeah.

You can record me.

You just— when the votes come, just say abstain.

Yes.

Okay, David.

So, good evening.

Um, I'm here just to shed a little light on what the purpose is of this poll.

Um, if you all have a copy of the permit— I don't know if you do or not— for their permit on the, um— I'll go over it briefly, but there's a figure you can look at if you do have that on, um, the second page in.

There's a sketch So as I talk to you, you'll at least be able to see this sketch right here from, uh, National Grid, typically what they provide.

All right, so currently right now there is a guy wire from that pole at the end of the intersection of Covell and, um, Summit that goes into a tree.

That's where the guy wire currently is right now for the guy wire for that utility pole on the corner.

That tree is rotted out.

I actually notified National Grid about this a couple of years ago.

We took the tree down but left a standing stump because of the guy wire being in that tree, and they're here before us today to resolve this.

Um, if you look at the first large picture that's attached, you'll actually see, looking at that pole, that standing stump is to the right in front of the white house.

You know, it's there if you see it, but though it goes from that stump to that pole.

All right, if they were going to locate a guy wire to replace the existing guy wire in the tree, it would line up with the pole and end up being in the driveway almost between the 2 properties.

That's why they didn't pursue a guy wire to replace the one that's in the tree.

So if you can't place a guy wire directly in line with the pole, their other option is to put a brace pole.

So instead of pulling the pole, the guy wire, across the street and anchoring it, they're going to put a brace pole up against the existing pole to hold, to support it for that tension that's in that pole.

Um, that's, that's the broken-down version, if you will.

Do they typically put the guide wires in trees?

They— so there's a few locations in town.

Um, there were probably— there was a couple on Central Avenue.

When we locate them, especially if the tree— we're not always aware of them.

This one here, I became aware of it because we we were taking the tree down because of the condition of the tree and realized the guy wire was in that tree.

So it's just not acceptable practice though?

No.

Okay.

Back in the day they used to do it all the time.

Okay.

It's just kind of how they guide everything.

So now every time we come across it, we fix it.

Okay, thank you.

And I just— to be clear too with the board, because I know it's come up in the past, I've been in touch with Dennis O'Sullivan, who's the one that, uh, drafted up the petition as a contact info anyway for me.

So I've been in direct communication with him.

I understand what they're trying to do, and I also wanted to let them know that on the town side, we'd be looking to have that standing stump removed as well, flush cut, as I would have left it when we were out there doing the work.

I did get a call today from their, um, uh, forestry division, and they did confirm that they would in fact be taking that stump down, flush cutting it like I would have done 2 years ago.

Okay, that's all I have.

And if you have questions, National Grid does have their rep here.

I have a question.

Sure.

Just how long does this process take?

Um, as soon as this petition happens, I would say a couple weeks they'll be out there.

Okay.

And as far as the power being affected by the residents, there'll be no power outage.

Okay, thank you.

You're very welcome.

Anybody else?

Can I just quickly— so the tree is in the right-of-way, town right-of-way?

The— yes.

It's a town tree.

I just want to make sure.

Yeah, absolutely.

Okay, because I know we get a little close to the edge, and then we— and I've been in touch with the resident over the past, you know, year and a half anyway, kind of, you know, indicating that this is in the process.

So, all right.

Okay, if you have nothing further, I can just open it up to the audience.

Is there anyone here that would like to speak in favor of the petition?

Anyone want to speak in favor?

David, could you just start us Microphone, please.

Um, Megan Duckworth from 31 Kovalav.

Um, I have a picture of the tree stump that the wire is attached to and the driveway.

There is approximately 10 feet of distance between the two.

I do not understand why a new pole cannot be put up to put the guide wire from the pole here across the street, you know.

Um, can someone answer that for me?

I mean, it seems like there's more than enough room when I'm looking.

I'll ask the engineer from National Grid.

Um, realistically, it's just— it's, it's just better to put the push brace.

The push brace is going to put against it.

We're not going to put a tree in front of, you know, the neighbor's house.

I mean, they would have a complaint as well.

To have the pole in front of their house as well.

Either way, it is dying.

An upstanding pole is a lot less disruptive than having something like this in the front of your house, like taking up half of the view of half of your yard, you know.

Um, I mean, a telephone pole upright is not very disruptive as long as it's not blocking a driveway or anything like that.

Correct.

And I think it would make it very difficult for that homeowner across the street to come in and out of his driveway.

And there's 10 feet of space.

It doesn't have to go right by the driveway there.

Well, we have to keep the pole in line in order to guide the whole thing.

Attached to this tree for a number of years, which is off to the side, correct?

Unfortunately, back in the day they didn't do things properly, 100%, and we try and make it correct now, and that's kind of where we're at with that.

All right, well, I have a question.

I have a fence.

We will not touch your fence.

Yeah, okay, but the view of it is half of my yard is going to be obstructed, and I just I don't understand it because I think— I mean, I, I think you get it.

I think kind of close.

Yeah, I just don't think it's realistic, unfortunately.

I mean, I understand your point of view.

I just think that if we put it there, it's going to make it very difficult for the homeowners across the street to come in and out.

It was on an angle back in the day, but now if we, we've done the proper guiding to guide that correctly, it would have to be in line.

It would be a different story if the push pole was like going parallel to the side of our house, but it's not.

And I understand probably from where the supports need to be, it can't go that direction, correct?

You know, this is just— no, I understand.

I wish I had a better answer for you.

Just unfortunately, in order to guide the pole line properly It's— I just want to add a little bit too for your concern, because National Grid, in my conversation with them, did look at— I think they tried to put in the guide wire first.

Um, I don't know if you received a copy of this plan.

No.

But just for the sake of the board, since you have this, what they— the explanation I had, and they kind of listed it right in here too, right on this permit, that due to limited available space across the street at number 18 with the driveway A guy stub cannot be installed to replace the guy wire at this location.

Yeah, but I mean, there's all this space here.

There is, but what they're getting at is the way these lines come down the Koval Avenue, to put that straight in line with it would be the ideal.

It would place it right there, right in line as you extend that across.

This is not done properly, the one that's in the tree, as they explained that it was done way back in the day.

And they basically want to line up the lines of the telephone poles down the street in line with that guy.

And in order to do that, the operator will put it right in the middle of that guy's driveway.

And as an alternative, and that is not always feasible, they look at the alternative of the push brace.

And the push brace, although not attractive, is going to accomplish the same thing right in line with that pole, which is again, is in line with the overhead wires.

So that brace pole is going to line up with that that support right where it needs to be.

So that's how they explained it to me.

And had there been no obstruction— that was a lawn, grass area across the street— they would have put a utility pole there.

So I just wanted to clarify that too.

They did.

So you're telling me it has to go directly across?

Correct.

Any other questions?

All right, thank you.

Okay, anybody else?

Any questions?

I have one quick question.

Okay, sir.

Basically, can you run And your name is?

Colt Duckworth with 31 Coogaham.

Can you run a wire down to the ground instead of a pole?

A guy wire would pull the pole backwards, and unfortunately we need to put the— we need to guide the pole the opposite way.

So the pole needs to be guided towards Summit Ave., and if we put a guy wire, it would actually pull it backwards.

Okay, thank you.

You're very welcome.

Anybody else?

I hope the board— any questions?

No questions.

So I'd entertain a motion to close the public hearing.

So moved.

A second?

Second.

Second.

Moved and seconded.

Uh, close the public hearing at 7:15.

What's the pleasure of the board?

I'm going to take a vote.

All in favor of closing the public hearing, say aye.

Aye.

Opposed?

Abstain.

Much about abstains.

All right, what's the pleasure of the board?

Okay, I'll help you.

I don't think we have much choice.

Yeah, I'll entertain a motion to approve the plan as submitted.

Second.

So moved.

So moved.

Is there a second?

Second.

Okay, all in favor?

Aye.

Opposed?

So voted.

Uh, 4-0-1.

Yes.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Good night.

All right, all right.

Consider the acceptance of fiscal year '26 Department of Fire Services DFS firefighter safety equipment grant in the amount of $19, to the Seekonk Fire Department.

Chief, good evening.

Good evening.

Sean Whalen, Seekonk Fire Chief.

Good evening, Mr.

Chair, select board members, Mr. Gadeem.

I come before you this evening to ask through you for the town to accept the sum of $19,000 to be used for the purchase of the start of a replacement jaws of life.

We had a catastrophic failure of our primary set where they took an extraordinarily long time for repair.

I think that just falls in line with everything that we're dealing with in the fire service in today's market.

We could not get the set repaired in a timely fashion.

We put our second set of jaws of life, which is approaching 25 years in service, into play.

We had a police motor vehicle rollover And during that extrication, that set did fail.

So we made the initiative on the fire side to try and secure some funding because we didn't have an operational budget to try and start replacing the jaws of life that we currently have.

And through capital improvement, that is on the warrant for a primary set, but we still need a reserve set as well.

So this would be the attempt to start getting 2 fully functional sets of jaws of life for us.

Are those gas-powered or electric battery?

These are what they call hydraulic, so they're, they're currently, uh, run off a battery.

Battery.

Okay.

All right, any questions?

Okay, so the chair will entertain a motion to accept this grant in the amount of $19,000.

So So moved.

A second?

I'll second.

Mr. Healey, any discussion?

All in favor?

Aye.

So voted.

And, uh, you the second one also?

I am, sir.

Okay.

Consider authorizing the application for the federal FY20 Department of Homeland Security Federal Emergency Management Agency FEMA Massachusetts Emergency Management Performance Grant, EP— EMPG, correct?

I come before you this evening to ask through the board to allow the fire department submit an application.

The reason for the request to allow us to submit the application is it is a soft grant, a soft match.

So on the front side, we have to allocate the funding, and over the course of this fiscal cycle the EMPG grant was reduced some 10%, so we went from $4,700 down to $4,140.

And this is an initiative to try and fall in line with the FEMA, the Federal Emergency Management Association, guidelines for preparedness for the community.

So we would look for equipment that would fall in line for emergency preparedness generators.

Last year we used that to purchase some generators for the community, and again, we are very strict guidelines on what we can purchase and what we can't purchase.

So it would have to fall within the guidelines to purchase equipment that would be compatible to the Federal Emergency Management Association guidelines.

So this is just for the application process?

This is just to submit it because there is a soft match associated with it.

Any questions by the board members?

All right, the chair will entertain a motion to authorize the fire chief and his staff to apply for this.

So moved.

A second?

Second.

All in favor?

Aye.

Opposed?

So ordered.

Thank you, Chief.

And just before I leave, I would just like to acknowledge Lieutenant Matt Bradford and Lieutenant Alex Impalazzo for their continued work in developing security grants for the community.

They, uh, they write a lot of grants for you, don't they?

They do, and they're doing an excellent job with us.

Yeah.

You're doing a fabulous, fabulous job.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you very much.

Okay.

All right, item G, consider the reappointment of Brittany Farrier as the Greater Attleboro Taunton Regional Transit Authority, GATRA, representative.

Thank you, Mr.

Chair.

My, uh, recommendation is that we reappoint, uh, Brittany Farrier to the GATRA representative board.

So the reason we had put Brittany on this is because Gatred doesn't necessarily run a dedicated bus route into Seekonk, but they do demand services for seniors.

So we felt that Brittany was the best person who represents obviously seniors to advocate to make sure that we either get some appropriation or some other additional services into Seekonk.

They do have one route.

Yeah, one.

Yeah, it comes in from Attleboro, down Central Avenue, the Central Plaza, and back to Attleboro.

And then Repta's in town more than, uh, the GADRA.

So, um, okay, very good then.

So I'd entertain a motion to reappoint Brittany Faria.

Is this a life appointment or is this just, uh, 3 years?

Yeah, it's annual.

Annual format.

Yeah.

Okay.

So moved.

Is there a second?

I'll second.

All in favor?

Aye.

Opposed?

Opposed?

Opposed?

One opposed?

Okay, so that's, uh, 4 in favor and 1 opposed.

All right, consider the reappointment of David Cabral to the Southeastern Regional Planning and Economic Development District, SERPD, Joint Transportation Planning Group.

Uh, so Mr.

Chair, my recommendation is we reappoint Mr. Broad to the SERPED Joint Transportation Planning Group.

So for the new members and the board members that may not be aware, SERPED does have a planning group, and it's an advisory group.

So typically either public safety superintendents or department heads sit on this, or planners who are in charge of roadwork.

So what they do is they advise, and the good part about obviously having somebody a representative from the community on this is that we get to advocate for roadway improvements, safety improvements that obviously would be in the town of Seekonk.

So my recommendation is that we reappoint Mr. Cabral to that.

Okay, any questions of the board members?

Seeing none, I would therefore entertain a motion to reappoint David Cabral to the SERPD position.

So moved.

A second?

Second.

Well, any discussion?

All in favor?

Aye.

Opposed?

So voted.

Consider the appointment of James Halpin as alternate to the Southeastern Planning and Economic Development District, SERPD, Joint Transportation Planning Group.

That's one of the foremen, or the assistant superintendent.

The assistant superintendent.

So he would, he would fill in as the alternate for Mr. Clark.

So moved.

Is there a second?

I'll second.

Moved and seconded.

Any discussion?

All in favor?

Aye.

Opposed?

So voted.

Consider the appointment of a select board member to the Bristol County Advisory Board.

So, Mr.

Chair, we would just need one member.

Uh, this typically is just one meeting, uh, typically held in June.

It's to approve the county budget.

So part of that budget is, uh, Bristol, uh, Bristol Aggie.

So unfortunately there's only— well, Fortunately, it depends who gets, uh, gets appointed to be the representative, that there's typically only one, one meeting, but it's usually pretty late, so there's not a whole lot of necessarily input.

That's usually a Zoom meeting too.

Yeah, um, but you, you meet with the county commissioners to go over the budget and, uh, final approval on the budget.

It's all weighted by need and tax levies and everything else.

So it's a, it's a fun— it's appropriated by the state, and then they make the appropriation similar to our budget.

They— the county commissioners will allocate what they want for, for budgets, and then we just approve it overall.

So we have representatives from the, uh, rest of county.

So there's 4 cities and 16 towns in that?

Yep.

Are you interested, Mr. Archambault?

Yes, I would be.

Okay, I think, uh, you would fit the bill.

So, let us take a motion that we appoint Robert Archibald as the select board member to the Bristol County Advisory Board.

So moved.

Second?

Second.

All in favor?

Aye.

Opposed?

So voted.

Next, consider the appointment of Shawn Cadime as the select board representative to the Southeastern Regional Planning and Economic Development District, otherwise known as SERPD.

Would you like to say anything in your defense?

I don't know that I want to recommend myself.

This is similar to the Transportation Planning Group.

It's just the overall commissioners, so they look at overall projects that could be allocated to various communities.

So having a representative on there is important to be able to to try to get some of the, uh, CERP money for projects in town.

Okay, so the chair would entertain a motion to appoint Shawn Cadime as the select board representative to the CERP.

So moved.

Second.

Moved and seconded.

Any discussion?

All in favor?

Aye.

Opposed?

So voted.

Okay, the next is the fiscal year '27 budget hearing continued from from last week.

Uh, again and again, Mr. Chairman, before we move forward, we had a point of order last meeting, um, challenging Mass General Law 268, Section 19, as a conflict of interest with myself, with a member of my family working in the school department.

So the flow of that has been filing will be with the town clerk.

Um, we have 2 opinions that were issued this afternoon from town council and waiting for a final determination from the Mass State Ethics.

So I'll read a little bit about the opinion here, and I'll let you know in a moment what's going to happen with that.

So I can provide copies to this, and it's, it's, it's, it's public record at town hall as well, so there'll be copies available to anyone who wants one.

Uh, from our attorney Joseph Fair: In my opinion, General Law 268-19 prohibits you from participating in any manner relative to the salary or financial interest of your wife for the school department budget health insurance and payrolls, which is similar to what I read last time.

Anything that impacts by direct household, I'm prohibited from getting into.

Going on, he says, as such, in my opinion, General Law 268.19, which is what we spoke about, prohibits you as a select board member for participating in matters for your immediate family member that have a financial interest to that.

As such, defined in the in the, uh, statute that is, that is recognized as reasonably foreseeable.

Okay.

The State Ethics Commission has interpreted the law to prohibit a person from sitting at the table during a discussion concerning a matter in which they have a financial interest, even if the person does not speak or vote.

Thus, in order to avoid violation, an elected official must stand up and leave the table where the rest of their board sits, as if such a matter arises.

It further goes down to school department budgets.

General Law 268:19 once again indicates the term financial interest was analyzed in the context of school committee budget discussions.

In the case of Graham versus McGrail, 370 Mass.

131, in 1976, the Supreme Judicial Court held that While a municipal employee with a financial interest in a particular department or budget line cannot participate in deliberations on the portion of the budget— and we don't have that, okay, we don't work on line by line as we talked about last week— they may nevertheless participate in approving the relevant budget as a whole.

In that case, the school committee was the entity responsible for, for preparing, approving, and implementing the school department line budget.

And I'll wrap it up with here, however, the town may not vote on the school department line items and approves only a bottom line budget for the school department in accordance with GL Chapter 71-34.

For that reason, it is my opinion you could vote on the bottom line school department budget and on the town budget as a whole, but would nevertheless be prohibited from discussing school department salaries, contractual bargaining, salary obligations.

During any discussions, you would need to leave the table where the select board sits and sit in the audience, or even leave the room.

So that's the opinion of counsel, and I'm waiting for the state to weigh in because, as counsel has told myself, board members, and town administrator, it is our legal opinion.

Uh, it's their legal opinion from our attorneys.

However, I need that piece of paper from the state before we proceed with my getting into details on a school budget.

But I can, as it says, vote on the entire budget.

So if we're going to talk about school budgeting, I will be leaving the room.

So we get into that table, just the table, just the table.

You're standing, sit right there.

Yeah.

Okay, we'll leave the schools for last then so you can participate in town, right?

Do we have anything else to do?

No, on the town side of the budget?

No, it just said we just need an overall vote on the budget.

So if there's any additional questions, we can ask the questions now.

But the biggest outstanding piece is just on the school side.

Oh, is there anything on the town side?

Anybody have any questions?

Uh, I don't.

As far as if we're going to meet them percentage, is that what you're— Oh no, that'll be the school part.

So I just— I know he wants to have general conversation first.

Oh, conversation.

Yeah.

Okay.

I thought you were— Yep.

So if there's nothing else on the town side, then we'll go right to the schools.

And so, Mr. Archambault, Okay, and I know the school is represented by the vice chair and one of the other members, and certainly with the superintendent here, I would extend the invitation to join them at the table.

Before we get started, I just wanted to thank you guys for having us back here again.

Thank you.

And I also just wanted to echo the town administrator's comments about walking kind of down a dangerous path if we start to compare or compete the school— the schools with public safety, because it's a fool's errand.

And no one is— either way you look at it, we either all win or, or we all lose.

I have a child and I want her— well, both of them to be supported and educated and go to the best schools possible.

But if they were in danger, of course I would want an ambulance there.

I would want a fast response time and I wouldn't even think twice about it.

So to sit here and try to compare which is more important and which adds more value to our town, I don't think is a good use of anyone's time.

And so I just want to thank you guys for continuing these discussions because one thing that certainly adds value to our town is collaboration between these departments or these boards.

And just the fact that you're willing to continue engaging in these discussions with us, it feels like we've been doing it for years even though it's only been a couple weeks.

But I just wanted to say that before we began and just to reiterate that The goal here for us also is to end these discussions united and, um, to just kind of continue with this— the culture of the town that all of these departments are important and they all add value.

So thank you.

Did you want— do you have anything you want to say?

Do we have the number?

Right there.

Sorry.

Okay, I would just like to say, from Monday night, the school committee voted on their budget— on our budget, and we— I'm sorry, I'm trying to see.

I should have set up my computer.

And we ended up at 3.41%.

So that is a difference of $308, correct?

Of $3 08, 112.

Um, would you like to hear what we reduced, or do we not even want to get into that?

It's totally— it's the bottom line.

Yep.

So let's move on.

I don't— we don't need to get into what we got and what you got.

I'm not interested either.

Okay, Mr. Kadimi, you agree with those numbers?

Uh, what was slightly off on the— I had 304,892, but what's 4,000 amongst friends?

So we'll make it work either.

That's if that's the direction of the board.

So, okay.

So following your meeting, I know the next morning the superintendent was on the phone with Mr. Gadeem, and I was also.

And my conversation to him was, is there anywhere we can cut and not hurt?

And so he spent a lot of time going through the numbers and crunching the numbers, and he's come up with 2 scenarios.

If we helped you or provided the funding to the schools so that you would get a 3% allocation, it would be cuts on our side of $169,444.

If we provided the full 3.41%, as he said, it would be the $304,000.

892.

And the, uh, do you have any extras of these, Mr. Gadeem?

Uh, no, I can print some out for them.

Yeah, if you could.

Yeah, that way you can see different though.

It's okay.

Okay, so why don't— if you would, Mr. Gadeem, if you would walk us through.

Sure.

So again, these are just recommended cuts.

So I just gave 2 scenarios.

So first, I'll say that based on my calculation, every 1% increase would would mean a $338,618 gap that we would have to close.

So I gave a scenario to the board at 3%, which would find us needing to find an additional $169,444.

The cuts that I'm proposing are in that first top box, which totals just a little bit more than that— it's $169,491.

The first cut would be to the Board of Selectmen line, reducing the other initiative line by $7,000, which is just about half of what's in there.

And that's for the tree lighting event.

So essentially, the tree lighting event would be significantly reduced.

Not a whole lot of expenses outside of obviously just the lighting of the tree and potentially the Santa Claus ceremony that comes with that.

The reserve fund— so just to speak a little bit about that.

So the reserve fund, we typically budget $100,000 in there, and that's just essentially a rainy day fund that's kept into the operating budget for any unforeseen expenses.

And this allows, at the end of May, the Finance Committee along with the Board of Selectmen to take votes and use that money to transfer into any accounts without the need of town meeting, which would also include the schools.

So I'm proposing that we cut that by $25,200.

The next line item would be training, and this is all for through general government.

So all the departments within town hall would be utilizing this training line item.

So we eliminated that line item, which is saving $25,000.

So this allows for no professional development for employees.

If we have anybody that has any needs, for example, that needs Excel training or any type of training, Munis training, which is our financial system, we would not have the funding for that.

So that's eliminated.

The conference and seminar line item in town hall has been reduced by $9,800.

The remainder of that is solely for department heads or employees that need to attend conferences because there's educational credits that are required for that for certification.

So that's a minimum for those conferences and seminars.

Also recommending the town clerk's coverage.

So she had coverage in there for the office.

We reduced that in half, providing an additional $12,491.

So that allows for less coverage in the event that one or both individuals are out of the office.

And then from the police department, reducing $10,000 from the salary line item from the police department for police community engagement.

That will impact National Night Out and other community engagements that they hold.

And then finally, In the DPW budget, we have a capital line which we've had budgeted for public works truck replacement, so every year we'll replace one of our vehicles.

That has been completely removed, saving $80,000, so coming to the amount of $169,491.

So to get to the school committee's voted number— percentage increase of 3.41%.

And I know the numbers are slightly different, and we can just double-check those numbers and make adjustments if needed.

But we would have to essentially, if, if the board's in agreement with it, do all the cuts that I just mentioned, uh, plus the following.

So the town clerk, we would have to eliminate the additional $15,000 for the office coverage, so there would be no coverage.

Moving on to the fire department, we would cut their newly requested overtime line for fire prevention in the amount of $24,723, which would have allowed for 2 4-hour shifts per week for fire prevention inspections.

And again, that is somewhat cost neutral because obviously the more inspections we do, the more revenue that comes in from, from the department.

Fire overtime, reducing that by $50,000.

The fire chief had requested an increase of $100,000 into the budget, so we went from $200,000 to $300,000.

So we'll be reducing that $100,000 increase down to $50,000.

And then in the police capital, similar to the DPW, we have budgeted for the last couple years 3 replacement vehicles that are built into the operator— operational budget, which would be year lease.

So we're reducing $25,000, which would allow the police department to purchase 2 new police cruisers as opposed to 3.

And then police overtime would be reduced by $20,000, which was an increase over FY26.

I just want to point out that is level service— level funded.

However, with the reduction of $20,000, it's level funded, but the— with the collective bargaining agreement and the adjustments in hourly rates, that obviously would mean that there are less hours allotted for overtime for the police department.

So that is the recommendations that I put forward, and the premise behind that was still committing to what the board had put out for a priority, which was public safety.

So I could have easily went to the fire department and said that we're eliminating 4 new positions, but that's the easy road.

So I wanted to make sure that we were still committed to the priority that the board had laid out.

So that, I think, essentially does that.

And then I also allowed for additional cuts that the board, in no particular order, that the board can either consider and either switch or entertain adding to, really up to the board.

Those options are the reserve fund, completely eliminating the $100,000, which is not recommended by myself.

And the Department of Revenue would suggest, as a rule of thumb, that we do have some type of reserve account in there, but that would be an option.

Police capital, we could eliminate $50,000, which would be the additional 2 vehicle replacements that are in the police department budget.

We could potentially eliminate the $50,000 for the Taser program, eliminate $25,000 for the police vests.

If the board remembers, I added that into the budget because there is a grant, a bulletproof vest grant that we get.

However, it doesn't, it doesn't cover the entire cost of the, of the grant, and we do run into deficits at the end of the year.

So that was really trying to cover that cost.

So we would just continue to run a deficit, and then that money would be offset— would be offset by our free cash.

So our free cash would be lowered by that.

Then we have the 4 captains, $78,000.

So that would eliminate the chief's restructuring plan.

We have the 4 mid-year hires, which would be $147,000, and that keeps the staffing levels at 10 firefighters per group.

So eliminating— bringing the groups up to 11 And then finally, $52,000 savings by eliminating the 2 mid-year hires that are current vacancies, which would reduce the DBW staff down to 15.

So for the fiscal year, DBW would lose 3 staff, which are vacancies.

So recommendations— or options, I should say.

All right, you wanna have any comments, Liz?

I'm not in favor of the second 2.

I'm opposed to those cuts, the second 2, to get to the 3.41.

Yeah, though that's, that's too much.

What's that?

Which cuts you said?

The additional cuts required to reach the 3.41.

Yeah, that, that's That's just cutting into too much of public safety.

You're talking the whole box?

Yes.

So are you in favor of the top cuts to get to 3%?

If we had to.

I mean, I'm not— I'd like the police community engagement.

I think those— I think that's important.

But if we, you know, in good faith, yes, I would be in favor of the 3%.

What is the police— if I could ask, the police community engagement, what is— what does that provide?

National Night Out?

So that account is for the different various projects that we do, National Night Out being one.

It also is part for our accreditation, working towards accreditation.

We have hours that are billed to that account for overtime.

We don't have a dedicated person for accreditation, so any time that's worked on is worked on in overtime.

So that would basically eliminate those hours.

We'd probably just use it for the community engagement aspect of it.

All right, thank you.

All right, do you have any other questions, Liz?

No, that was it.

Michael?

So to get to the 3%, we're looking at, you know, obviously the first item, the tree lighting event here, which is a huge annual event for us, which is unfortunate if that goes by the wayside.

I'm sure that people would probably band together and donate money to make sure it could happen and keep things going.

I think it's a little sketchy to take money out of the reserve fund.

That's just my personal opinion, because we're We have $100,000 in there, and as you know, anything can happen at any given moment.

We need that money.

To take away money from professional development and look at people worrying about their certifications because we're not going to have the money to send them, all that's going to do, in my opinion, is drive anybody that works here and tell them, oh, let's go to certification, or needs professional development, is going to look elsewhere that provides it for them.

So you'll probably see good people that we have working there start looking to go elsewhere.

Police community engagement, I mean, that right now nationally laid out is probably one of the biggest events the police department holds.

I would hate to see that get lost in the shuffle.

And to continue to push off vehicles, not only in DPW but also like in the next row of cuts, we're looking at potentially on the police side reducing the number of vehicles they're going to be getting.

All we're going to do is stack up a problem going forward year after year after year.

We've been there in the past where police cruisers were— they had in excess of 180,000 miles on them.

And we spent— and this is the reason why we built in these plans that was built into the operating budget that we replace vehicles on an annual basis or semiannual basis or a 4-year period, because that's what it takes, right?

So we don't go back to the town and hit them with $500,000 or $600,000, $700,000, $800,000 for vehicles.

This happened in the fire department a few years back when I was there.

I was in the captain's position, then when I took over as chief, we had to replace a lot of vehicles at a very short period of time, and it cost the town a lot of money.

And we came up with these replacement plans to offset that.

And the way I see it, we're going back to the old days of pushing off, pushing off, pushing off, pushing off.

And everybody has needs, everybody has all this stuff, and I get it.

What I don't— and I've said it repeatedly— I don't want to go to town meeting and be on the opposite side of pages.

I would fully support the cuts to reach the 3%, not that I agree with them.

I would fully support to get there.

I struggle with the additional requirements to get 3.41.

When you look at it, okay, fire prevention overtime, could we consider it?

We could, but then that also takes away revenue that we could generate.

So that's like an offset.

Fire overtime, that's going to impact the chief's ability to staff the stations that he currently has just with the minimum staffing that he needs.

Okay, that's already a problem.

He's been dealing with that for years.

Again, I I don't, I don't agree with taking money away, um, to replace police cruisers.

That's— I just— something I don't think— that's the police overtime.

I don't know really the impact of that.

The chief would have to explain that better to me, other than I think it's just the increase in the collective bargaining agreement, correct?

Correct.

Correct.

And then you look at the other options that you gave us, um, to completely eliminate the reserve fund.

Again, that's a very sketchy thing.

Um, and then if— when we start talking about taking away equipment, public safety equipment, personal safety equipment, especially on the police side.

To me, that is the wrong direction and the wrong— that's the wrong area for us to go in.

And then we get— then we get into looking at the 4 captains mid-year.

Okay, that's— that's a want.

Is it really a need?

I don't know.

You know, it's a want.

We've been— I wanted them when I was there.

I think the previous chief wanted them.

Deferred mid-year hires, that is our direction to build the fire department up, so I would not be supportive of eliminating those.

And then the mid-year hires for the DPW, I would not be in favor of eliminating those either, because again, we have a department that we're asking more and more of every day, and we— oh, every time we want it, we have to make a cut, we cut DPW.

But then we ask them to do more and more and more with less and less and less.

So I'll support the 3%.

Um, unless other people have other options to get to a little bit more than 3%, um, it's going to be difficult for me to move from that.

And, and unfortunately, if we go to town meeting and we're not on the same page, we'll allow the town— I'll allow the townspeople to decide what they want.

Um, and I will, I will, I will caution my board, however we vote, um, if we decide to go with 3%, so be it.

If we, if we don't And, or we do, and they hold at 3.4, and we go to town meeting, they have 2 choices.

They can take it out of the stabilization account, which is a 2/3 majority vote at town meeting.

That's a one-time investment.

Next year, he has to find that money somewhere, or that night we're going to be asked where to cut it from other departments.

Those are the choices that we face, unfortunately.

So I'm not in favor of a lot of the second round cuts, to your point.

Yeah, I think they cut a little too deep in areas that we've been trying to, to work on and, and strengthen.

I appreciate Mr. Gideon, you going through again.

I know you and I had a couple of conversations about where we could potentially get some more cuts.

Um, unfortunately, I do think that people that require professional development and certifications, when they start to see that as department heads and employees of the town, I think they'll start to look elsewhere.

That's all.

That's my biggest concern.

But I would go forward with supporting getting to 3%.

Chris?

Yeah, I'd have to agree with Mr. Healey.

Having been on the Capital Improvement Committee before, there's a long list of capital needs and everything for vehicles.

I don't want to go backwards.

The stabilization fund, to even cut that though, it takes two to tango.

So We'd even need, we need FinCom to approve it too.

It wouldn't be just on us to take anything from that account.

Town meeting, 2/3.

No, you need the FinCom to vote on it too.

You need our majority and the— You're talking about the reserve fund?

Yeah, the $100,000 reserve fund.

So he's talking about the reserve fund that's built into the operating budget.

So to even put it on here, we have to hope that if we do from that, Finance Committee is on board with it too.

Oh boy.

National Night Out is really a huge thing for the whole community.

It is.

I mean, that's— I mean, that's— it is a big thing.

I'd hate to cut that.

I mean, you even have school children and also we're going against a school here, but you have everyone really You have thousands, not thousands, but you have hundreds of people that have probably been to it.

Um, the tree lighting, to Mr. Healy's point, I'm not sure.

You might be able to get some donations.

That's a big, another community thing.

Um, I don't know, I'm at a loss, but I— to go backwards and start getting rid of, uh, replacement for vehicles and everything else.

I think that's gonna be a big hit in the future for us.

I'm not sure if you want to go for the 3%, 3.41%, or just leave it as is.

When you go down to the last thing, the budget reduction options, I only see one that I would probably entertain for a big-ticket item out of all the requests, and that's probably the floor fire captains.

I'd rather have more boots on the ground than promotions.

And I'm sure the chief is not happy to hear that, but I will not back down from the 4 mid-year hires when we have people screaming at us, we need more, more staffing.

So I would support the staffing.

DPW, the cut there— we're already getting calls about grass not being cut and people want fields done and sidewalks maintained, everything like that.

So to go backwards is To cut from there too is, is also not good.

They've worked very hard to bring their staffing levels up to what could handle especially all the fields in town, just the roadside maintenance.

That's why we bought another backhoe, because they were starting to get into a lot more— they were starting to do a lot more stuff in-house.

By going out, they were saving us a lot more money.

So I think right there is not good.

The tasers, not good.

The police start, start dipping to that, we're gonna have some issues as a community.

So it's very tough decisions here.

We don't have anyone retiring that we don't have to backfill or anything like that, or going through all the other departments, there's not much cuts to be made.

Not sure, what's your opinion, Mr. Well, I looked at this long and hard today, and I can support, regrettably, the deductions to get us down to supplement the schools for our contribution to 3%.

But any of the others, I'm not in favor of.

Added to that 3%, I previously stated that if there's any additional Chapter 70 money, state aid, I would support that going to the school with no offset.

I think last year we got $120,000, was it?

Yeah, I believe so.

Yeah.

So can I ask a question?

Sure.

I don't know if you can figure this out right off the top of your head.

If the full all captains were eliminated, what would that give?

What would that— would that jump that 3% to 3.1, 3.2?

3.2.

3.2 against that.

Okay, do it mid-year, maybe a little higher.

I'm just— I just wanted to know.

Can I ask a question?

The house numbers, are we going to meet before town meeting in case the house numbers get released and Have they, have they indicated to you what they're looking at?

Uh, no.

So there's no indication, but typically we'll have the house numbers before May, and then we just will just make an adjustment at town meeting with an amendment.

So, so any of these cuts, not just on our side, on the school side, any of these cuts, could they be reconsidered?

Could they be reconsidered at fall town meeting for funding?

Uh, no.

They could.

But again, so if you're looking to reduce from anywhere, so you— at that point, depending on where you're at, you might have to double the cuts because you're almost halfway through the year at that point.

Okay.

More discussion?

School, school department, everything that they want to add.

You have anything else?

No, I'm just here to help you with numbers.

All right, somebody want to make a motion?

Are we, are we replacing any of these numbers with something an outsourcer.

That was, that was the discussion we just had.

I know.

Well, if I could just add something to that.

Um, you had brought up retention as far as employee retention with, with the professional development.

I mean, if you take, if you take the firefighters, the cap— I have to find it in here, but I mean, we want retention there too, and people will continue to look elsewhere.

And I— and that is something that we really need to take a look at.

You're talking about cutting— like, if you cut the captains, I mean, the union's been in front of us before and they'd rather have staffing than— No, I understand that.

I'm saying, why, why do we have to do either-or?

Let's— I'm in favor of the 3%.

I only brought it up to see what the gap change was from the 3% to get closer to 3.4%.

That's the reason why I asked him.

It wasn't, it wasn't to eliminate him.

It was just— okay.

And that's why I asked, can we do that halfway through the year, like a mid-year thing?

Could we do it?

And then the impact is it wouldn't be the same.

That's all I was asking.

Okay.

I wasn't— thank you.

I wasn't trying to clarify.

Yeah, I wasn't trying to like apples-to-apples type thing.

I was just trying to see where we could close that gap.

I guess I would, I would recommend it If that were the case, the remainder of the reserve fund is $74,800.

I mean, that leaves us with nothing for any unforeseen.

Yeah, and that's scary.

So not necessarily recommending that, but that if you're looking to get close to that $3.2 million, that, that would get you there as well.

Obviously without impacting public safety and keeping our fingers crossed that nothing unforeseen happens.

So anything catastrophic happens.

All right, well, it's the pleasure of the board.

Motion for the 3%.

I mean, is that— is that your motion?

That's my motion.

Is there a second?

I'll second it.

Any discussion?

All those in favor?

Aye.

Aye.

Aye.

Aye.

4 in favor.

Unopposed.

So can I just clarify— clarifying point— so with the reductions that were recommended, is that— yes.

Okay, the 3%.

Yes, 3%.

Yes.

While you ladies are sitting there, I'd like to take out of order the 2 warrant articles, if that's okay.

I'd like to speak first too.

I'd like to thank you guys.

I didn't have any faith that you guys would move at all, and I, I want to be open about that.

So I really, really appreciate you guys working with us, and I'm very excited to work with this new board moving forward because I think we're going to collaborate excellently together.

So again, thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

So more an article on our Q and R, starting with Discussion, reconsider warrant, Article 12, $725,000 for the Seekonk High Dektron unit.

There's been some discussion in the last couple of days that I had with the, uh, superintendent and the chairperson of the school committee.

Uh, I made it clear I'm no fan of the pool, and as far as I'm concerned, they could close it.

But that seems to be met with some pushback.

So, uh, I did reach out to a local person that's an expert on pools, and especially pools of that size and their maintenance.

And tomorrow I'm going to meet him at the pool with the maintenance director, Jim Roy, and we're going to take a look at this $725,000 Dextron unit.

That they want to replace and see if there's any possibility that it could be rebuilt.

Um, the school department wants to go forward with the warrant article as presented.

Um, I did ask the maintenance super, Mr. Roy, that $725 does include the unit and removal and new installation.

So that— I know that was a question of a few of the board members.

So looking at the space, if we got rid of the pool, and maybe some of the opportunities that it might present— I was fortunate to have Wiz using AI, which I've never seen this before, but this is pretty amazing.

I can't take credit, I just put the information in.

It is pretty amazing though.

It put all the information and it came up with— and this is just information, going forward if we ever want to do close the pool.

All right, you could get somewhere between 9 and 11 classrooms out of it or other office space.

So if you would— no, I got, I got enough.

Do you pass them around?

Pass this this way.

Just for your information, this is just for the board and them.

Oh yeah, yeah, for the, for the school department too.

May I speak?

Sure.

Um, I love this collaboration, and I would just like to say on— well, I think I'm on behalf of the school committee— that if we will continue to look into this, and, and we're totally on board with that, and if anything changes and we decide to go a different direction, that we would withdraw the motion— the warrant— at town meeting if needed.

Okay.

All right.

Keep in mind, you have— if you approve at town meeting, correct me if I'm wrong, they have 5 years to spend it, right?

So you could— heck, would be approved, but I'm not sure.

I don't, I don't know that there's a— maybe it's capital improvement items, 5 years.

I don't know that there's a timeline, but I can clarify the time limit.

But obviously whatever is not spent— so it can only be spent on what the warrant article says, number one.

So it can only be spent on the Dextron unit.

So anything that is not spent would have to be returned, right?

I just wanted to make it clear, just by, you know what I mean, going forward, this doesn't mean mean we want to stop working and collaborating on this pool.

We appreciate that.

Yes, we're all on the same team, really.

Absolutely.

The other one is the Almonte School project, and my concern with that is trying to sell the town meeting a million-dollar paving job when I think it can be done for substantially less.

We had that same very discussion and And we talked about potentially, again, Jim Roy wants to do the sidewalks along Cole Street.

We talked that potential, possibly that could be done with Chapter 90 funds and maybe a different type of curbing and everything.

And we agreed to move forward with that.

I hope town meeting will endorse it.

And certainly any overage will come back.

All right.

Uh, that was my concern.

Those are my 2 concerns with it.

So, uh, other than that, that's where we are.

I would like to say too that, uh, and maybe I— maybe no, I'm just going to say it.

Uh, the feedback I'm getting from some of the community is from the comments that were made with the joint meeting and some of the comments that were made at your school committee meeting relative to this— can you move closer to the mic?

Yep.

Relative to this board and Mr. Cadime.

And the right recipe for us to collaborate and to work together and everything is not with sarcasm and bashing people.

And it just, uh, I, I wasn't at the school committee meeting, but I heard it was worse than what it was here at the selectmen's meeting.

And that, that's not a positive thing.

And, uh, hopefully we can move forward.

This is a, this is a tough job, and especially this year, you know, when you, you know, no is the harshest word in the English language.

But we're all better off when we collaborate.

And I did mention, uh, when we met I was told that this was the other day, but Monday— Tuesday, uh, with the schools.

Yeah, Tuesday.

Yesterday.

Yeah.

And that's— oh, Monday.

I'm sorry, Monday.

Monday.

Yeah.

Dr. Girardi said, well, they— that's considered the leadership meeting.

And I guess quarterly, the superintendent with the chairperson sit— of the schools sits with the chairperson of the board and with Mr. Gadeem.

And that's good going forward.

And I suggested there's some areas that I think we need to dive into, and that's number one, special education and maintenance.

And I suggested that maybe we have a court board meeting after town meeting and start before the summer and maybe get in a direction where we have extra time and not— I'm not waiting till December or January to start budgets in there.

Earnest.

So just more discussion and more intervention, and I think, you know, it's, it's in everybody's best interest, and that's what the taxpayers expect of us, you know.

And I agree.

I, I would love to sit down with everybody anytime you want.

Just reach out to me.

And I've spoken with some people on the board throughout this budget cycle, and I am always available.

And I, I love this.

I'm excited.

This is something that in my 4 years on the board we never really had this quite this type of relationship, and I am excited to move forward.

So just to warn you, and I apologize, um, if anybody on our board did offend anybody on the select board.

I think you guys have showed very good faith working with us, and I thank you again.

And Michael and I together can be a pain in the ass.

Listen, listen, if you get offended by being on the board, you don't need— you shouldn't be on the board.

But can I make one comment?

And it's not really a joke.

I think you would make a heck of a Santa Claus.

Who, you?

I have in the past.

We were talking about at the tree lighting that— you're calling me that?

No, I'm just, I'm just saying we reduced that and Santa Claus was part of that.

And I just am sitting here across the table at you.

I think that we may have figured it out.

All right, I'll be Santa Claus if you'll be Mrs. Claus.

100%, I'm in.

Okay.

Hey, the rest of you are elves.

I'm glad you didn't say angels.

No.

All right, well, thank you.

Thank you.

We all set?

Yeah.

Thank you.

Have a great night.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Oh, so I will obviously bring this back to the board, um, and we will be scheduling a special meeting, um, for us to discuss this before town meeting or before May 4th, correct, Superintendent?

I believe the intent— sorry, I believe the intention of the committee was to schedule a meeting for the week of April 27th, but they did not have enough members available on their normal Monday night.

So we will endeavor to schedule something that week when the majority of the committee is available.

So what, you will be meeting before town meeting?

The committee already has a meeting scheduled for May 4th in addition to a meeting directly prior to town meeting.

So if there's a need for that, we normally meet for an hour prior to the town meeting on the night of town meeting.

Yeah, but the intent is to schedule yet another meeting last week in April to make sure that there's plenty of time to be prepared.

Okay, thank you very much.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Okay, thank you.

All right, thank you.

So, Mr. Gadeem, what's our next move for the budget?

Uh, so we just need to take a vote on the budget.

So I would just say that, uh, we accept the town administrator's recommended budget as the Boris Lechman budget with the amendments that were made tonight.

Okay, is that your motion?

Oh, that's right.

Okay, so moved.

Is there a second?

Second.

Okay, any discussion?

All in favor?

Aye.

Opposed?

So voted.

All right, all right.

Next I brought up a about discussion regarding the status of Chapter 90 funding and town-wide paving.

Um, we are seriously behind in that endeavor.

Where we was currently not under contract, or we're at the end of our contract.

Uh, so we, yeah, we purposely waited for the, the contract to expire so we didn't have to work with Pawtucket Hot Mix.

So we're going out, and Dave can speak a little bit to it, but we're prepared to go out for bid.

Okay.

Yeah, so I guess we could start there since you brought that up.

Last year, as you may know, Anthony Street was done.

We had a couple of roadways we were looking to do as well— Arcade Avenue, at least one section of it.

The amount of time it in terms of the schedule and lack of cooperation out there was very much challenging.

It took 3 times longer, maybe even 4 times longer than I anticipated.

We only got Anthony Street done with a lot of babysitting, if you will, and being out there in the field.

Without getting into a lot of it, we are currently out to bid for a new contract for the work for this year.

That's actually in the works right now.

A bid opening scheduled for May 14th.

I've been working with GPI as usual with our paving contract, and we are in that process right now.

So we have that bid opening on the 14th at 2 o'clock.

We'll have a new bidder, you know, our new bid list will be in front of the board with a recommendation to choose that new vendor, and then we're going to move on with our roadway work in a more timely fashion.

So the only thing I would say is— so I know the board's aware— so when we go out to bid, typically we would have to take the lowest bidder unless there's a reason for it.

So if Pawtucket Hot Mix does come in as the lowest bidder, we would be putting something to the AG's office just saying that we want to forego them and the reasons why we want to forego them and then go to the next lowest bidder.

Just in terms of quality.

Mr. Cabral said, just mill and overlay has not been an issue with them.

The larger projects that included sidewalks was an issue.

It's just the concern, the timing, the responsiveness to it was just extremely concerning on our end.

So we have a lot of money in Chapter 90, do we not?

We do.

So I'll speak to that in a moment as well.

But just in terms of the contractor, to Mr. Cadime's point, Pawtucket Hot Mix has been coming in quite a bit lower in terms of the bid because they're local, what have you.

To his point, in the years I've been here, the first sidewalk project we did was Anthony Street.

We've— other than Baker's Corner, but that was state-run.

So we had— for the rest of the board members, we had the Baker's Corner project was done, but that was state funding.

That was all done under the engineers and all that, whole different process.

The town side of it, we go out to bid, we hire the low bidder general but we do look at recommendations and references and things of that nature.

They have been doing a fairly good job in town for mill and overlay work specifically.

This being the first job, they actually did 2 different things last year.

They did the sidewalks with the mill and overlay, and they did some other streets, a handful of other streets that were full depth reconstruction.

Not pleased with what that came out to be either.

And just for your information, we Also, first year last year, we actually got our design engineer on board with me to assist in overseeing the Anthony Street sidewalk work in particular.

OK, just— I'm going to leave it at that, but not satisfied with their work.

In terms of money, I expect this year's bid is going to come in higher.

We have an engineer's estimate.

We looked at what those costs will be, what we project them to be.

We also went back and looked at last year's bid from Pawtucket Hot Mix to the next low bidder, just to kind of see where we're falling and make sure our numbers— they appeared high.

We wanted a reality check to see kind of where we fell.

We really won't know until the bid opening, but based on last year's numbers, the next low bid was right in the ballpark of where we think we're going to be this year.

Okay, so started with that.

Um, the Chapter 90 balance sheet, I did just get a copy from the state.

I requested that, uh, as part of my bid project anyway to see what I had for money planning for the roadway work.

That just came in, I believe, on Tuesday.

I sent a copy to Mr. Khadim and I sent a copy to the finance director.

The uncommitted balance in Chapter 90 right now is at, and I apologize, I highlighted it in orange and it's $1,683,185.33.

We got $1.6 million sitting?

Well, this is uncommitted.

This is what's available today to do any road work that we plan on doing.

So yes, that's what we have.

Okay, that's it.

So that's what's in the Chapter 90 balance.

All right, and I do apologize a little bit, I should have brought my readers.

I'm just going to zoom in and give you that number correctly so there's no question later.

Um, that's much better.

So it's $1 million $683,135.33, right?

That's what I have for my— that's what I'm working with for my budget.

Um, in addition to that though, I have last year's money for Arcade Avenue.

One portion of the roadway I did put into the state for a project which was about $480,000 that was committed for that project, which is in the pool.

So we're at one— we're at $1.9 million or $2 point— um, I'm I'm sorry, this number I do have written down.

So can I just— can I— yeah, so can I just pause for a second?

So the $1.6 million, does that include the allotment for this year?

It does not.

So, so, so if you can just tell us what the allotment is for FY27, it's $900,000.

And so for everybody's benefit, we get an allotment from the state that generally we'll be allowed to use it.

So last year's allotment is now in the Chapter 90 fund for fiscal year '26.

That allotment, um, in that year, uh, and I'm just going to make sure I had the right one.

So the allotment in last year from February 27th, 2025 was $920,953.36, and that is in our current budget right now.

The allotment for this current year, um, for fiscal year '27, um, is in the same ballpark.

It's $917,139.72.

That money is not available right now for us to use.

That would be after typically July 1st.

Okay, we don't generally like to spend next year's money because it makes it difficult for me to plan projects to some degree.

I— and it's just more conservative.

In the years I've been here, we spent— generally allocated the money for projects unless we had a need to do a little bit of work, because next year I really wouldn't have money to work on before June 30th.

We want to take advantage of that construction season.

So where we are with the money, uh, we'll start with that.

I will let you know, and I do have— I'm going to pass this out because I'm going to give you my roadway program.

Chris, if you want to just kind of send those around, I have 2.

On this side.

You sound like you got the most money of anybody in town.

It sounds like it.

Listen, it's, it's encouraging knowing that, that much money until you start seeing how quickly it gets spent.

So for 2026, just to go over these numbers again, $1,683,135.33.

The project for last year's section of Arcade Avenue was $487,95, I currently have a total for right now's work of $2,163,930.

Okay, the estimate with that list that I gave you for the 2026 roadway improvements— I'm listing Arcade Avenue north of Route 44, so 44 up to Newman Avenue, Arcade Avenue south of 44, which would go up to pretty much Mill Road at the Grist Mill.

We wouldn't have to go into the intersection because that was relatively new.

We have a match line there.

Okay, I listed 3 more roadways that right now I don't know if I'm going to have the funding to do all of them, a portion of them, none of them.

I don't really know yet, but I'll go over some numbers with you in a minute.

I did list Reed Street by section, and this first section is from Newman Avenue to Prospect Street.

That would be the shim and rubberized chip seal with a different vendor.

That's Allstate.

That's the process you're familiar with.

Can you just explain that for the new members?

Yeah, so generally when we do roadways, we're either doing a mill and overlay where they'll grind down the pavement, put down 2 inches back.

That's most traditional.

People are very familiar with that.

Other scenarios we do is full-depth roadway reconstruction.

If there's not a lot of material on the roadway, they can't mill it.

They're gonna have to take all the asphalt out, reshape the roadway, and put back a substantial amount of pavement.

The rubberized chip seal and shimming— a road like Reed Street and Prospect Street, if you've been on them, is a good fit for that roadway.

The roadway's kind of— areas is breaking apart along the edge, the country drainage, and typically they'll shim the roadway, which is just adding asphalt, a thin layer of asphalt, to take out the imperfections, and then you want to seal the water out of the roadway with a rubberized chip seal.

This is— they spray the entire roadway with emulsion, they put stone down that's been processed, and it adheres to that surface and pretty much makes a weatherproof wearing surface.

It's only a half inch thick, but it's to keep the water off the roadway, and it helps you to get longevity out of the roadway before you have to do a complete type of rehab on it.

All right, I don't know if you have any other questions on that, but If not, I'll move on.

I just had a quick question, I'm sorry.

No, go ahead, I'm listening.

What are we required by law?

How many bids do we need?

As long as you go out to bid, if there's only one bidder, you can take the one bidder.

You just— the requirement is that you just have to put it out to bid.

Yeah.

So going back to the numbers that I presented to you, the engineer's estimates right now for the section of Arcade Avenue north and south, which we intend to do this year, which includes the sidewalk work, we're coming in with estimates on that of $1,941,030.

OK?

That's leaving me $222,900 to look at the shim and rubberized chip seal on 3 sections of roadway that are rather long.

That's why I broke Reach 3 down by section.

So we have Newman to Prospect, Reid Street from Prospect to the Rehoboth line, and then all of Prospect Street, which runs from Reid Street past Wheeler School all the way down to Prospect Street.

All of those are pretty substantial lengths of roadway, and I don't know what I'm going to have.

Once the bid is received, we've identified the vendor, we can go back and put all the new numbers into the spreadsheets, see what the real costs are going to be, and I'll have a more definitive on what we have left over for money to attempt doing some of these roadways.

And at the last meeting I was at, I did mention that we had an unusual cold winter, month of January, very, very cold.

Reed Street is falling apart.

Wasn't expecting it to happen this quickly, but with that freeze-thaw, just the conditions of it and the amount of snow, we have these roadways now that are in need of something sooner than later.

Um, that's why they're on the list for this year.

Um, I'm going to just jump forward and I'll come back to the money.

But next year's list on the next page, I did, um, list the 2027 roadway improvements.

Mr. Corral, before you go to 2027, I just want to point out, uh, especially for Arcade while we're going out to bid for that, so the contract language is going to be extremely scrutinized, especially given what we've just had with Anthony Street, uh, in particular particularly because of Arcade Ave South.

So we want to make sure, number one, that whoever is taking on the project is going to meet our schedule.

So sometimes, given the fact that we're a smaller community, these companies will come in and do other projects.

So if they've got either a large project with the state, they'll say that they're going to be here and then go on to finish these projects.

So I want to make sure we have language that is going to cover us in the event that we have our timelines, especially with Arcade Ave south to Route 44 is within the school zone in traffic to make sure that we're getting that in a timely manner.

So if we don't— if the vendor says that they can't do it, that we've got language that we can pull in another contractor and then they would have to pay the difference based on what the bid price is.

So Mr. Cabral and I are working on that and trying to get some other language to see if other communities have that.

So that, that's just important to point out.

Can you also structure it by timeline and fines?

If it's not done in time?

Not fines, but you can do where you can just go out and get another contractor.

And so whatever the price difference is, the contractor that actually bid would be on the hook for it.

They don't typically pay up willingly.

There's usually a litigation with that, so you'd have to contract litigation, but the language would be clear on that.

2027 road improvements, I listed Oak Hill Avenue with minor sidewalk repairs.

That has sidewalk along that stretch of roadway too, but where the money that you spend to deal with sidewalks, I wouldn't even have enough money to do that roadway.

But there are areas which, you know, clearly driving out there looking at it, we want to make some improvements on.

So when we're on Oak Hill Avenue, this is nice because this contract for the next 2 years that we're going out for bid for handle sidewalk work.

The year after that, there may not be any sidewalks, it could be a different bid.

But for Oak Hill Avenue, we do have some minor sidewalk repairs in there.

That estimate for 2027, which is part of this bid we're doing, is coming in at $798,182, which would be used for the money I mentioned to be allocated for fiscal year '27.

So it will be against that $917,139 number I gave you before, which leaves me for the other roads listed $118,957.

And for that amount of money, there's no way I would be able to do this section of County Street and Miller Street, I don't believe, for that kind of money.

I'm really hoping that these bids come in a little bit lower because this money, as you can see, is spent rather quickly.

Gone, right?

So yeah, this— the chair's— Mr. Segar's point earlier sounded like a lot of money.

I was looking at it the same way.

It's what we see for the engineer's estimate in last year's bid.

I don't think there's going to be as much money left over as we're hoping, and that includes me.

I was hopeful to get all of these roads done.

Um, and just so you're aware, this is the time of the year too.

I've been in touch with Allstate.

They do the rubberized chip seal.

They're getting me prices.

I'll probably have them by the end of this week, but surely if if not by the end of next week, on all the roadways identified for that Sherman rubberized chip seal.

They're going to actively go out there and give me— they're a vendor we already have hired.

We went through the bidding process.

They are doing estimating, and their estimating usually falls very, very close to what's actual when they're done.

I need to have those figures too so I can get back to this board to say we got the bids, this is where it came in at, this is where we're anticipating to spend the money on.

And then going back to 2026, I'll have to refine this to tell you what I can afford to do for this year.

And then even looking again, you know, further to next year anyway with the same bid, I'll have a better handle on what we realistically think we'll be able to get done in the next 2 years.

And these products for roadways are heavy on petroleum and distillate products.

I mean, they are supposed to be exploding.

That's— we're going to get a good taste of that right now with the bid.

Another question.

Some of the projects we've done in town, some of the sidewalks are asphalt, some arcade cement.

What was the determining factor?

Just a cost thing, or— it's a cost, and it's expensive to put in cement concrete with granite curbing, so we tend to try to put back the berm.

I mean, Anthony Street, if I had things my way, I would have put nice cement concrete sidewalks and granite berm, uh, granite curbing instead of that berm.

It takes a beating, but we just can't afford it.

So the decision on Arcade came out beautiful.

It was a decision there to do concrete.

That would— so that wasn't used, uh, yeah, we went town meeting for a special appropriation.

That wasn't Chapter 90 monies, and it was a specific sidewalk project, which, you know, you have contractors that are going to specialize just putting in sidewalks.

I think we actually got a decent price, like, to kind of be fair about it.

And going back to that day to where we are now, the price on granite is going up considerably.

Dave, are you gonna get the prices?

I know before you've given us prices with the Shivan River Rise, the chip sale, versus if we were to do a Mill and Oval like Are you gonna— because I'm just worried about— I know it's 2027, but even County Street's a main road, so major road.

So I'll tell you, I'll, I'll— I can do whatever you'd like me to do.

It's easy to do the calculation from a practical standpoint.

If you remember, and for the new members of the board, um, we did one section of County Street.

We did a mill and overlay.

We started from County Street, Lower County, uh, you know, Lower County.

Yeah.

However you want to look at it.

We started at the traffic light there and we came all the way up just shy of Drywood Plaza.

Correct.

And we did that for 2 reasons.

We had detours to consider for later on, whatever work we did.

That section of roadway though is much different heading into Rehoboth when you get past the plaza.

Okay.

And there is a section in between that the vendor might come back saying from the plaza up to, you 1,000 feet, maybe after Miller and Bradley.

The vendor that we have to do our rubberized chips here is Allstate.

They're going to go out there and they're going to tell me whether they even recommend doing any of these roadways.

I mean, they've looked at these already and I know they're good candidates.

County Street and Miller in particular, they haven't been on those roadways yet to look at them to that level, but they will.

And when they're out there, They're not going to want to put their product on a roadway that's going to fail.

So they're going to tell me, you're out of your mind, you need to do a mill and overlay, or they're going to say, yes, we can do this and you'll get your 8 years out of that roadway.

So I'm planning to come back before you once this bid opening happens, sometimes towards the end of May probably.

We're hoping to get this contract awarded in June.

We have a schedule to complete all this work for '26 by November, and next year would be with Oak Hill Avenue, you know, similar time frame.

That's kind of where I stand right now, and once I have these numbers, I can give you a lot better sense.

And for my sake too, I'm still juggling and hoping that I can do more.

I just don't know what I'm gonna have for funding when the new bids come in.

One more question.

Have you ever heard back from the railroad company for Oak Hill?

It's been like— I've made no headway with the railroad company, and I've had some recent concerns coming in again on that.

Section there.

So that's going to be part of this, uh, well, I need to— I don't know, kind of— I've leaned on a lot of people.

I don't— I can't get an answer from them.

They seem to work in their own world.

Remember back in the day when the town ripped out the one on 152?

Ironically, I've heard stories.

I wasn't here for that.

I don't know even that that section is even being utilized on one portion of Oakdale Avenue because it's gated across.

Right.

No one wants to give you an answer because everybody's pointing to the different ownerships out there.

The railroad ripped that out.

Oh, it's the railroad?

I thought it was the town then.

Oh, the railroad ripped it out and they try to blame the town.

Oh, okay.

Luckily the superintendent at the time took a lot of pictures.

I just remember hearing about it.

Yeah, how it got their attention quick.

Those groupings I gave you for contact didn't pan out?

No, I've, I've called all So everybody on that list, and I've had my own list sometimes when the signals go down over on Brook Street, because sometimes those arms come down and they don't go back up.

We get a good response to that, but they— everybody's just kind of pointing fingers that the other guy's responsible.

And even to the point that they had a crew out there that was going to do some work, I think that was actually up on Pine Street, and then the superintendent told them to get out of there because they didn't want to take ownership of it.

So we had the Pine Street crossing that needed some that could still use some work.

I think Oak Hill Avenue by far is the worst one because they have that rubberized panel going across and it's falling apart.

So short of us putting asphalt down there, I don't know what else, you know, on the town side we can do.

But Oak Hill Avenue, just— I just had a couple of requests come in this week.

I just saw them come in again about that railroad crossing because there's sections missing.

Yeah.

And quite frankly, I'm probably going to go out there pretty soon, just put hot mix now and just rake it in and keep it off the tracks.

And at least the motorists will be able to pass without having to worry about damage.

And, you know, they have the right-of-way there, but we have motorists traveling across here every single day where I can't even tell you the last time a train went up across that section of Oak Hill Avenue.

You can't.

It's impossible.

The tracks are off and they have a fence and the whole bit of it, but it's a struggle.

I don't, I don't know what else to to do that.

Did you get the contact information, Chief?

You had contact information, right?

Yeah.

Yeah, I think the last time we talked about it, you— Superintendent and I, we had the safety issue.

We did get some contact information, but again, to the superintendent's point, we had Providence Worcester involved and then 3 other train companies, and they all turned around.

That's what the issue is.

Which, which company?

Because we're getting different stories every day about who actually owns that section of rail between Oak Hill Avenue.

That's a specific one I'm talking about.

It's the MBTA, it's the Commonwealth of Massachusetts.

Everybody else has rights to reciprocating rights.

And I think where a lot of the confusion or the pointing fingers that goes back and forth is there's ownership and then there's maintenance.

And that's the problem, because one guy saying yes, they own— that they own it and they're responsible.

The other guy saying yes, we own it, but they're actually doing the maintenance and nobody wants to do any Yeah, probably.

Okay, it's frustrating.

Thank you for the information.

Thank you.

It's crazy.

All right, discussion and assignment of a select board member to a TV9 cable access representative liaison.

Currently it's you, Michael.

Are you— yep.

Will you continue in that fashion if the board wants me to?

Make a motion to appoint Mr. Healy for life, or just— that's up to Mr. Healy.

All right, I'll second that.

All in favor?

Aye.

Opposed?

Aye.

So voted.

For life.

All right, discussion regarding the Madeiras Farm Committee and appointments?

Could we table that?

We could table till next meeting.

All right, on the 29th.

All right, we can do that.

Same with the next one.

So you want to table both of those?

Yes.

Okay, please.

We can do that.

All right, uh, discussion on the schedule for select board meetings.

We have been on every other week schedule.

That works.

And then if we need to fill in in between between we do.

So I'll come up with a schedule and we'll go from there.

That's agreeable to everybody?

The only thing I'll say, Mr. Chairman, is usually typically this time of the year we do have a discussion about the summer schedule.

Yeah, because people take vacations and things like that.

So there have been times where we've only met maybe once during a month instead of twice, um, just based upon people's schedules.

That's all.

Just so you, you, you could set a schedule.

You people have planned vacations, so we make sure we have a quorum.

That's all.

Okay, just to throw it out there.

Next, community speaks.

Anybody in the community want to speak?

Anyone?

Seeing none.

Okay, other business.

Discuss any topics not reasonably anticipated by the chair 48 hours before the meeting.

I have known of none.

Town Administrator's report.

Uh, thank you.

The only update that I just want to provide to the board, um, the owner of 911 Taunton Ave., which is the property we're going to be purchasing for DBW, has found the lease.

So he has a lease starting in July.

So we are moving forward with the due diligence and the closing documents.

So it's just good that He found something.

Okay, very good.

Select Board liaison reports and comments.

Accounts payable warrants taken care of.

TV9 liaison report?

Nothing at this time, Mr. Chairman.

And we just appointed Mr. Archambault to the Bristol County Advisory Board, so I don't think he has anything to say on that as of yet.

Not yet.

Okay, so we'll start Going around the room, we'll start with Mr. Archambault.

Do you have any comments you want to bring up?

Any issues?

Not that I can talk about tonight.

Okay.

All right, we'll save them for another time.

Okay, Liz.

I had Mr. Paul Koutou reach out to me.

He serves on the recycling committee, and, um, their grant— they need, um, the policy.

Yeah.

And Christine emailed me a template, and she actually drafted something.

This could be handled internally.

I mean, yeah.

Um, so I believe it's going to be on the next agenda.

So it was sent to Mr. Cabral.

So Christine was— I think has everything.

Yeah.

So So she's made the changes that's needed for the grant.

So I think Dave— I don't know if he left, but Dave had it, so I think it's on the next agenda.

Okay, so I don't have to email you?

No.

Okay.

All right, that was all I had.

Okay, Michael?

Nothing at this time.

Chris?

Just one thing.

Last time I forgot to mention, I want to say thank you to Miss Hynes for her service on the board.

She's done almost half a century century dedicating her life to this town.

And as you know, she's still heavily involved.

But I just want to say it's been a pleasure and thank you very much.

And I see you're still here on Wednesdays, so it's good to see you.

Is that all, Chris?

That's it.

Okay.

I met, um, about 5 o'clock in this room with our incoming moderator who has some ideas how we'd like to change a little bit of the format of how we do town meeting and to streamline it and hopefully make it better.

So I suggested, uh, that I would put him on the agenda first for the— our next meeting, and he could come and share with everybody what he wants to do.

And it would be a good opportunity for the people of the town to hear what he's looking to doing.

And he also wants to have a couple of like sessions where the community could come and meet with in a group prior to town meeting, just so they could brainstorm or come up with some different ideas.

Mr.

Chair, he's already posted that, or he just posted it.

Oh, he did?

The 24th, the 24th of this month at 1 o'clock at the senior center, and the 25th at 3 o'clock at the library.

Oh, okay.

Well, it just came through.

Okay, thank you.

All right, we did get permission from town meeting to sell the south fire station.

Yep.

So because with the change in zoning with the ADUs, it would make it more saleable if it was— could be a 2-unit unit.

So could you request of the building commissioner a zoning determination to that effect?

And, and if that is the case true, then we could potentially put it out to bid and see what we could get for it.

So determination, see if it could be— qualifies for an AD or a 2-year.

2-year.

Yep.

Yep.

And That's, that's all I have.

Uh, I'm just gonna reconvene in open session.

We don't have to reconvene.

Okay, so I would entertain a motion to adjourn open session to enter into executive session to reconvene in open session for potential contract approvals.

And the reason we're doing that is to conduct strategy sessions with respect to negotiations with the Deputy Police Chief per MGO Chapter 30A, Section 21, Section A, as having the discussion in open session would be detrimental to the litigation or bargaining position of the town.

And B, executive session pursuant to General Law Chapter 30A, Section 21A to discuss litigation relative to 0 Chestnut Street Lot 16, Lot 82, with discussing the matter in open session will have a detrimental effect of the town's litigated position, and the chair so declares.

And also, we will be flipping the, the, uh, Item B will be taken first and Item A will be taken second because Michael does not want to participate in Item A, citing a potential conflict.

All right, so just need a roll call.

Let's do a roll call today at 8:39.

8:39.

At 8:39.

Okay, it's a roll call vote.

So moved, Cresswell.

Gary Segar, aye.

Elizabeth Palmesan, aye.

Okay, so we are now out of open session and going into executive.

Let's take a 10-minute pause.