Select Board Meeting — June 10, 2026

Okay, good evening and welcome to the Board of Selectmen on June 10th, 2026.

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

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

Would you all rise and 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.

I'm going to call on Liz to, uh, read them because I think she'd like to add something to it at the end.

I thought you were— well, yes, I will.

But, uh, volunteers are needed on the Capital Improvement Committee, Commission on Disability, Economic Development Committee, uh, the Energy Committee, Finance Committee, and Historical Commission, and the Recycling committee.

Okay.

And one point of interest, that for all the— any of these committees to function, they have to have a minimum of a quorum of members so that they can meet.

So we're really starting to see an uptick in, uh, people coming forward, and that's good, and I hope it continues.

So you had something you wanted to add?

I did.

Um, I know people may be hesitant about signing up for a committee because of the commitment or not knowing whether they're making the right choice.

I want to just put out there that if somebody would like to email me, call me to discuss any of the openings, to discuss what each committee does, I'm more than happy to take those calls or emails.

We can set up a time to talk because some people— I think sometimes people are hesitant to jump in without really knowing what they're getting into.

So if anyone has any interest by all means reach out, and I'm more than happy to talk to people.

Okay, thank you.

Priority matters.

Consider the appointment of Robert Stoops to the Capital Improvement Committee, term to expire 2029.

Is Mr. Stoops here?

Yes, I am.

Sir, would you come forward please?

Sure.

Have a seat.

So, Mr. Chairman, I had the opportunity of interviewing Mr. Stoops.

We had a great conversation.

Uh, his background lends very well to the Capital Improvement Committee.

I did explain to him that we don't currently have a quorum, so it might take a little while for us to be able to fill the committee.

He was still interested in serving on it, so he's helping us kick off the Capital Improvement Committee.

Okay.

Anything you'd like to add, Mr. Stoops?

I've been a resident of Seatown for about 3 years.

I think my education, experience, work experience would fit well with this particular committee.

I'm an engineer.

I've been an engineer for, you know, 40-something years.

I have municipal water, wastewater design, construction, operation experience, education, business engineering degrees.

I think it'd be applicable.

I've worked with asset management systems in the past.

I think it's— I think I have the skills that you'd be looking for to assist with this committee.

So excellent.

I'd like to volunteer if it would And you're already an elected member of the Water Commission.

Yeah, yeah, ran unopposed, so that was a good one.

Okay, so the chair would entertain a motion to appoint Mr. Stoops.

So moved.

A second?

Second.

All in favor?

Aye.

Opposed?

So voted.

Thank you, sir.

Thank you very much.

Thank you very much.

Thanks for your time tonight.

Yeah.

All right, next is consider the appointment of David Bortz to the Economic Development Committee, term to expire 2029.

Is Mr. Bortz here?

Come forward, sir.

So, Mr. Chair— oh, good evening.

So, Mr. Chairman, we had the, uh, the opportunity to interview Mr. Borts, uh, to the Economic Development Committee.

Again, this is another committee, uh, that does not currently have a quorum, uh, but we do have a couple of members, so we're also building up this committee.

So hopefully we'll have a quorum shortly.

Uh, we felt that Mr. Borts would be an asset to the Economic Development Committee.

Okay, do you have anything you'd like to add, Mr. Borts?

Just to add, I'd be very interested in participated in the committee.

I've had a long experience developing a business, serving on some nonprofit boards, and I've been a practicing attorney for about 35 years.

In all of that time, I've seen a lot of growth in different areas, and I've had the very great luck to live in 4 different states in the United States over the years, which is— was Rhode Island, then Maryland, then Missouri, where I went to law school, and now Massachusetts.

And getting to see a lot of different places, growing up in the— I'd say the Providence metropolitan area, which reaches out to Seekonk.

I'm a great fan of New England also, and I think Seekonk is just another one of those towns that a lot of people on the outside don't know who we are.

But in looking through the background of Seekonk when I was just coming in to be interviewed, I started realizing how old Seekonk is and said, you know, sure, I know it.

Mom used to go shopping at Ann and Hope.

But I didn't know about the history, which probably is one of those great things that's pretty much sitting out there waiting to be explored by a lot of folks on the outside.

So I think this— I think the city has got tremendous future potential.

We're in an area of economic growth in the Providence metro area, and I think there's a lot more to come.

Okay, excellent.

Anybody have any comments, any questions?

No.

I'd like to see his second choice also yet.

I see you got forward to Mr. Burke.

Hey, you're going to be on the Finance Committee.

I hope you are able to fill that seat.

Yes, I can certainly.

So it would be on both Both or one?

You can't be on both.

No.

You'd have to be one or the other.

Oh, because you'd have to change something.

Yeah, yeah.

So I do think that— I think I've got economic development, perhaps maybe I've got some more background.

And it's not my own personal background, but I will just add to it.

This is a family history.

I grew up in the household of a world-famous economist.

And sitting at the dinner table, I listened to supply and demand for about 22 years till I got to college.

But there's, there's a lot to be learned about it.

And, uh, and in development in towns and cities, economics is all it's about.

And I've done some reading about the town's budget, its history, and I, as I said, it's growing.

I moved here in fall of 2022 and I could see the growth, and I think more is to come.

I'd like to be involved with it.

Thank you.

So that's your first choice?

Yes, absolutely.

Okay, I just want to make sure.

Okay.

Yep.

So the chair would entertain a motion to appoint This gentleman to the Economic Development Committee.

So moved.

Second.

Second.

All in favor?

Aye.

Opposed?

So voted.

Your term will expire in 2029.

So thank you, sir.

We look forward to working with you.

Thank you, and thank you, board.

Okay, okay.

Next is to consider the appointment of William Clark to the Cultural Council.

Mr. Clark here.

Mr.

Chair, again, we've had the opportunity to interview Mr. Clark for the Cultural Council, so we are making a positive recommendation for Mr. Clark.

His term would be effective July 1st, 2026, with a term to expire in 2029.

Mr. Clark, would you like to add anything to that?

I've been on the Cultural Council for about 20 years, actually, on and off.

And I've been the chairperson and a member.

I know what's going on and I know how the system works.

We actually get money from the state and we get to give it to artists and performers, and it's a lot of fun to do that and to have people come from town to enjoy it.

So I'm looking forward to another good year, and I would just suggest to you that if you hear of any artists or anybody that might be interested in have the interest in performing for the citizens of our town, uh, to let us know and we'll get an application to them.

Okay, does anybody have any questions or comments?

No.

Okay, let's hear— we're going to entertain a motion to appoint Mr. Clark to the Cultural Council for a term to expire in 2029.

So moved.

A second?

Second.

All in favor?

Aye.

Opposed?

So voted.

So welcome back.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

All right, next is to consider the appointment of Charles Halpin to the Recycling Committee, term to expire 2027.

Last but not least, uh, Mr. Halpin.

So we're making a positive recommendation for him to join the Recycling Committee.

Uh, the term will expire, uh, 2027.

Okay, sir.

All right, very interested in sustainability.

Recycling is part of that.

I've implemented some programs with companies I've worked for participated in them.

Not much more you can say about recycling.

Okay, give us some good programs though that people might understand.

Yep.

Okay, anybody have any questions and comments?

Okay, would the chair entertain a motion to appoint Mr. Charles Halpin to the Recycling Committee, term to expire 2027?

So moved.

Second.

Moved and seconded.

All in favor?

Aye.

Opposed?

So voted.

Thank you, sir.

Thank you.

All right, next, to transfer the donation of $100 from Human Services to the Veterans Services account in memory of Eugene B. Haru Sr.

So, Mr. Chairman, uh, last meeting we actually accepted this donation, but we sent it to the Human Services instead of Veterans Services.

So we're just looking to correct that and just acknowledge that that donation is meant for the Veterans Services account.

Okay, so I'd entertain a motion to do As the town administrator prescribed.

So moved.

Second.

All in favor?

Aye.

Opposed?

So voted.

Community speaks.

Anybody here in the community want to speak?

Seeing none, moving right along.

License hearing.

Consider the request for a change of manager for Apple New England LLC, doing business as Applebee's Neighborhood Grill and Bar, 105 Highland Avenue.

Jennifer Terra as manager.

Good evening.

Good evening.

And you are Jennifer Terra?

Okay.

And you are the new manager?

I am currently the general manager at the Seaconch location.

Okay.

I've been with the company for about 29 years.

I've held several other licenses in other towns.

I'm a Seaconch resident.

I've been here for about 16 years.

Um, and I opened that location when it opened back in '97, so it's kind of near and dear to my heart.

So, well, good.

Any questions for the— from this part?

Seeing none, entertain a motion to grant the request for the change of manager.

So moved.

The second?

Second.

All in favor?

Aye.

Opposed?

So voted.

Okay.

We thank you.

Thank you, Your Worship.

License hearing.

Consider request for a common vehicular license for Asian Flame Incorporated to operate a restaurant at 2 Olney Street, Unit 60.

Oh boy, Nick said, Zhu Manager, would you come forward please?

How bad did I say your name?

Completely wrong.

Guess if she's being honest.

You asked.

Say your name so we'll know.

My name is Shinan.

Shinan.

Shinan.

Yeah, that's what I said, isn't it?

Okay, you're applying for a license.

Yes.

Okay.

For my new restaurant in 2 Oni Street, Unit 60, Asian Flame, Japanese and Asian.

Chinese food mix.

Yeah.

Okay.

Anything else?

Nope.

Nope.

Okay.

Any questions to the board?

I guess we've been highly anticipated.

When are you going to open?

Yes.

Facebook people are like, everybody's coming.

Everybody's coming.

That's good.

That's good.

Okay.

Any questions to the board?

Nope.

Okay, will the chair entertain a motion to grant the request for the license?

So moved.

And a second?

Second.

All in favor?

Aye.

Opposed?

So would you tell us what your hours of operation, just for the, for the general public?

Like, when do you open?

Times.

Times.

Times.

Um, we open from Tuesday to Sunday.

Okay.

11 to 9.

11 to 9.

Okay, thank you very much.

Thank you.

Okay, good luck.

That's a lot.

Yep.

Okay, next, another license hearing is to consider a request for a common vehicular license for Triple S Craft Barbecue LLC, doing business as Triple S Craft Barbecue, 72 Meek Street.

Scott Bland is manager.

We need a back door for your establishment.

Oh boy, I always leave it outside.

I'm Shannon Bieland, his wife.

So we are currently operating out of one unit in the plaza.

We want a second one where we're going to transition our daily sales out of the new unit and we'll keep our current unit just for catering.

Could I ask who's the boss?

No.

He's the boss, I just work here.

Okay.

So, uh, it's nice to see you expanding.

We always like to see businesses that grow.

You know, Lemon and Oil, I think, was there for like 17 years, was it?

Yep.

And we enjoyed their— some of their last catering when we went to the groundbreaking.

Yeah.

So we actually kept the whole Lemon and Oil squad, so we took them as part of our building now.

Oh, that's great.

They're all working with us now.

Oh, that's excellent.

Very good.

And we're just going to build something special.

Yeah, that's great.

All right.

And that's where you folks started too, right?

You were doing the, uh, barbecue on the side and working as kitchen handle.

Okay.

From one end of the parking lot to the other, brick and mortar, back again.

Is that going to come with a bigger smoker?

Your demand is ridiculous.

Fire department already has enough of me.

Okay.

It's a good business.

So any questions of the board?

Appreciate the opportunity.

Yeah, absolutely.

Do you have anything else you'd like to add?

I just want to say thank you for giving me the opportunity to, to be able to grow in C-COM, because I remember when we first went here, it was a, it was a sketchy— you guys didn't know what was going to happen.

Yeah.

And then, you know, here we are.

Took a big chance on you guys as it was found.

I appreciate that.

In prior years, it worked out really, really well.

Yeah, you should do well there.

I'm sure we're happy for your successes.

Thank you.

It's amazing to see those lines.

It's not good when you have to wait in the line.

Yeah, it's good to see the line.

We'll make it work for you guys.

So the chair entertainer motions to grant the request of Triple S Craft Barbecue.

So moved.

The second?

Second.

All in favor?

Aye.

Opposed?

Divoted.

You're all set.

Thank you very much.

Good luck, guys.

Thank you.

Okay, fine, we did.

Okay, next is to accept the animal control officer's warrant.

Correct.

Trying to keep it uniform.

Yeah, trying to make it easy for— Good evening, how are you?

Good evening, I'm doing well, and yourself?

She asked you.

Anything else, sir?

Yeah, go right next.

All right.

In accordance with Massachusetts General Laws Chapter 140, as amended in foregoing warrant, I, Andrea Russo, hereby make due return of my doings in compliance therewith as follows.

Excuse me.

Number of dogs for the period of April 1st, 2025 to March 31st, 2026.

Uh, caught 14.

Confined, 47.

15 adopted, 29 claimed, 1 DOA hold, 1 euthanized, 2 in the shelter, and 0 transferred, for a total of 48.

Number of cats for the period of April 1st, 2025 to March 31st, 2026: 82 caught, 69 confined, 51 adopted, 2 died.

6 claimed, 13 DOA, hit by car, 2 euthanized, 7 in shelter, 0 in foster, 0 returned, and 1 feral release, for a total of 82.

To the best of my knowledge and belief, all unlicensed dogs in said town of Seekonk have been caught, confined, killed, or adopted, sold, and complaints have been made against the following named persons under the provisions of MGL Chapter 140 as amended.

Tickets written from April 1st, 2025 to March 31st, 2026 for non-criminal offenses: failure to license, 28, totaling $1,400; dog at large, first offense, 4, for $100; dog at large, second offense, for 1, at $40; failure to vaccinate against rabies, 1, for $100; animal in vehicle extreme weather, 0; barking complaint, 1 at $25.

Total tickets, 35, for a total of $1,665.

Total number of dogs licensed from April 1st, 2025 to March 31st, 2026 are 1,951.

Insofar as I have knowledge, complaints have been entered against all persons who have failed to comply with said provisions.

Do we usually— and I'm just trying to think back of your previous warrants— do we usually have many more cats than dogs?

Yes.

Yeah, many, many more.

And by law, by law, we don't even have to deal with cats, right?

Right.

By law, we do.

We're a wonderful, wonderful town.

That's right.

That's it.

Shelter or on the streets.

Yeah, that's right.

Um, all right, so your next warrant will be a little larger in the cat department.

Quite a few cats.

Okay, any questions of the board members?

Okay, the chair would entertain a motion to accept the report.

So moved.

Second.

Second.

All in favor?

Aye.

Opposed?

So voted.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Have a good evening.

Yeah.

Okay, discussion of the speed limit on Brown Avenue.

Uh, is that amazing?

Okay, um, I've been corresponding with, uh, the resident on Brown Ave, and, um, he said that he does see, um, a difference in the speed of some vehicles, but it's still an issue.

Um, There's an issue with the trucks, but we can't stop the trucks from using Brown Ave.

But the, the one thing that I did notice, um, and I think you've noticed it as well, when you first turn onto Brown from Newman Ave, it says 30 miles an hour.

Then as soon as you turn the corner, it says 40 miles an hour.

And then when you get to the other end, right before you get to the stop sign, it goes back to 30 miles an hour, right?

So we need some consistency.

I can see where— but then if you go the other way from Pine Street onto Brown Avenue, well, no, it goes from 30 to 40, I think, the other way too.

So I think we need some consistency.

Um, his complaints also are, you know, the deterioration of the roadway creating runoff.

I mean, there's— this is a pretty loaded, you know, list, but I think addressing the speed limit would be the first thing.

Well, to speak to the speed limit, that's more set by, um, the town engineer, Mr. Cabral.

I know there was a study done and it actually changed the speeds.

The police department, we don't set speed limits.

We don't even determine what they should be.

We just enforce them.

Um, I know I did receive an email regarding complaints on the road We have deployed a few things out there.

One, the speed trailer.

Traffic posts in the last month— the last few months, we've had 15 traffic posts where officers just staged there.

And then we've made several motor vehicle stops, but placed a signboard out there last month.

I can tell you, at one point we had a traffic officer And due to personnel, you know, not having enough personnel, we had to take that person and put them in patrol.

But I'm glad to say that we have a recruit graduating next month, and we'll be field training another lateral transfer.

That's my priority, to get that traffic car back, because they deal directly with the residents, where the post offices obviously answer calls.

You know, they can— we give them different assignments, like this came in Brown Apple.

Okay, hey, special attention, where the traffic officer, uh, has his own email.

Any complaints go to them, he reaches out to the people.

We're also going to do a speed study.

We're waiting for our equipment to get repaired, but, uh, that will give us, uh, the average speeds and any time where the speeds are more than others so we can focus on enforcement in those times.

Okay, so you're going to do a speed study at Brown Avenue?

We're going to do— yeah, it's a speed recorder, um, not a speed study to, you know, like they use for setting speed limits.

Basically, it records the speeds of cars and, uh, at the different times and stuff like that.

It will give you that data.

I was going to suggest we lower it to 30 miles an hour on the whole road, but if you're going to do that study, and I'm— I have— Mr. Cabral is going to tell me that we can't do that.

Because the state does that.

But right, but if we did it as a study on a temporary— yeah, but it's not— again, it's, it's— oh, Mr. Cabal can speak to it.

Um, I don't know what they do to figure out speed limits on, on different streets, but our, our recorder records just like I said the speeds of vehicles and anyone that, you know, the times where it spikes.

Good evening.

I did just want to point out Brown Avenue has gone through a little bit of transition over the years, and there is a speed regulation for Brown Avenue.

The speed regulation has been in place since 1983.

It's regulation number 7150.

So this was adopted, approved, and with MassDOT as an enforceable speed limit.

There is a little confusion, I know, as you mentioned, driving it, but we've had to put the signs up in accordance with the regulation, and the correct signage is from the beginning on Newman Avenue, 30 mile an hour posting for 0.17 miles, and then it changes to 40 all the way to Pine Street.

Coming back the other way, it's 40 miles an hour beginning at Pine Street, right, just prior to Newman.

Now I know there is a 30 mile an hour sign, speed limit sign, right before Brown Avenue as you come to the stop sign.

Neither here nor there, in my opinion, because you should be slowing down if nothing else.

That one is not part of the regulation, really shouldn't be there, but it's just kind of— at that point you should be slowing down for the stop sign.

That's the regulation.

Um, back some years ago after I had started working here, maybe even prior to, um, Brown Avenue had been posted at 30 miles an hour.

It was just— I don't know if it was through the board, but it dictated to go out and post Barnard Avenue at 30.

Sometime later on, the police department was issuing tickets.

The tickets were being fought in court because someone realized it was a regulation and it was not 30-mile-an-hour posting that you could enforce.

It was in fact a 40.

So I was charged with going out, removing the signs, putting them back up in accordance with the regulation.

And prior to doing that, we also did a study study on that roadway, traffic study with road tubes on the roadway, and determined the 85th percentile speed.

So when you have a roadway and you have traffic on it, posted or unposted, generally it's the prevailing speed that dictates that speed.

It's the speed people feel comfortable traveling on in that roadway.

And Brown Avenue was in that 40-mile-an-hour range as a prevailing 85th percentile.

The chief mentioned the study.

He could probably get the same information, I believe, in his study because it'll do the average, and I think it'll do that 85th percentile.

But we do have regulation.

It's enforceable, and it's marked out there.

You said that was '83, that regulation?

Yeah, some of these regulations are pretty old.

This was done January 13th of 1983.

In '83.

Well, that's adopted.

Have you done a study since?

We— I did do one with traffic counting tubes across the roadway to capture the 85th percentile speed, and it was consistent with the prevailing speed.

How long ago was that?

That's probably 12 years ago.

But again, it would be to some extent as difficult to change a regulated speedway as it would to be trying to get a regulation on a roadway.

Way that doesn't happen.

You put those tubes across the road, they also count, right?

Yes, you can, you can have those set up to do, uh, classification counts of trucks.

Um, and I'd be interested— we'd be interested to know in 12 years how much that traffic has increased, you know.

I think we're doing it.

You're able to distinguish between cars and trucks, is that what you said?

If you do a classification count, they do have different ways to do that.

And CIRPAD, maybe I could reach out to them to see if they could perform that if you were interested.

You know, we have the trucks out there obviously from the businesses, the local business.

I think the speeds are going to be relatively similar.

The amount of traffic, I really, you know, there may be some information through the planning agency as well through CIRPAD.

They may have some numbers available without having to do anything.

And if not, I could always reach out if you desire through the town administrator and put a request in.

Yeah, what do you think?

Do you think the— I'm just curious— that the traffic has increased in the— in those 12 years?

There's more truck traffic?

Probably.

I think it's pretty consistent, to be honest with you.

I think the, uh, it's, it's a busy road.

Yeah, it is.

Um, I don't think it's any busier than it was, but It's definitely not a quiet road.

Plus, you also have a country club down there.

So there's people going in and out of there.

You know, I don't think you're gonna see much difference.

Okay, so if you put those out, and we'd be interested to know how much increase the traffic has been.

So if this could be something for just to get the data and everything, get back what do over the summer and get back to us like the beginning of September or something, and then we could look at it from there.

It would give you time, Chief, to do whatever you got to do too, right?

Dave, yours is going to cost money though, right?

Well, it's going to be expensive.

I would recommend going through Surpave, have them do it for the town.

They have the resources to do that for us if I put the request in and just see if they can accommodate it.

They'll do it during the summer most likely.

Yeah, if they can accommodate it, they'll do it for us.

Okay.

Um, as far as us doing it, I think we'd have to hire out.

We just don't have that, you know, the time to go out and deal with that, I don't think.

But we could have a sidebar later on or have further discussions with the town administrator.

But I can say there hasn't been any incidents on the road.

I mean, obviously you live on the road, so you'll, you know, see the speeding and stuff, but we haven't had any crashes or any kind of, uh, to make us concerned.

One concern I think the residents are having now that federally they allow doubles and triples for tractor-trailers, and so if you ever watch them try to make the corner onto Pine Street, you know, and I mean that pole's been taken down several times, a lot of times they'll use Broad Avenue.

Maybe we could request through R&L that they mandate that doubles their trucks to go 30 on that road, that might, that might help.

If just a letter from the town might— I think it would too.

Yeah, I think, I think that would be a big help.

Yeah, just to acknowledge— send them a letter to do 30 on which road?

Brown?

Brown?

Yeah.

And the drivers are going to say it's 40 miles an hour, how are you going to enforce this?

You guys are just giving me a piece of paper telling me what to do.

So if their bosses— just trying to be devil's advocate— tell them to drive 30, I would hope They listen to their bosses, right?

Technically, if they get pulled over and get in trouble, they can even tell their boss, I'm doing the speed limit.

Because you got to realize a lot of those guys don't live here.

They come from other places.

So we're asking them as a courtesy.

I'm just trying to play devil's advocate before we, you know, you want to start telling them this and this, you know.

But also though, that it's very misleading to have a sign saying 30 and then so many yards or whatever, then it changes to 40.

You can see where people would be.

Yeah, you know, what's the correct speed limit?

I mean, it changes like as soon as you turn the corner, and then it changes again before you hit Pine Street.

So, um, all right.

And also noise, try anything.

If they think they're doing 40 or 50, sometimes they're really not doing that.

The noise— and that's where the speed test will come in because that happens.

That's the case a lot of times.

I mean, you know, officers hone that skill over years to estimate speeds.

The layperson really doesn't have that.

You know, loud cars, loud cars seem to go fast— slower than what they appear, you know.

So we'll put the recorder out there, we'll get speeds, and we'll look at the data and see what it says.

Okay, beautiful.

No, that's all we can ask.

That's right.

Thank you.

Anything else?

Nope, that's it.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Okay, okay, review of outstanding American Rescue Plan Act ARPA funds.

So I'll give you— there's a couple of, uh, projects that are still outstanding, so 3 to be exact.

So I'll give you a quick update on it.

Uh, so 2 parts of, uh, 2 different fundings for OPERA.

So we have, uh, the town funds which were initially received from us, so we ended up using it as lost revenue.

So essentially clean the money so there's no restrictions on it, no time limits on that.

Then we also have the Bristow County OPERA money which does have restrictions and then also has to be spent by— technically, the federal government is saying that it needs to be spent by December.

Bristol County is saying that they want all the money spent by September.

So this is coming up this year— of this year, correct.

So currently for Bristol Opera funds, we have the stormwater mapping.

So we were about 54% spent on that.

There's a balance remaining of $90,000.

So that project was— involves the mapping of the town's stormwater infrastructure within the GIS system.

So it includes manholes, drainage pipes, outfalls, and then more importantly, the connectivity of the pipes between the different components, which we don't currently have in GIS.

And then developing a comprehensive stormwater database.

So we anticipate that to be expended by September so that that will be completed.

The stormwater testing, that is essentially just what it is, is a requirement.

So we have money budgeted every year to do this stormwater testing for the outflows that we currently have.

And it's really just testing the process that involves analyzing water runoff to identify pollutants.

So sediments, nutrients, heavy metals, and contaminants that might be entering through the waterways.

So that's ongoing.

So we've, we've spent 42% of that.

There's a remaining balance of $128,000.

This one is on hold right now because GPI is doing the testing for us.

So it's— we're waiting for lab results.

So we're just going back and forth with Bristol County since we have a contract in place.

And it's just the lab results that we think we'll be able to utilize that that money.

More importantly, I saved the best for last for you.

Uh, the— so the, the Newman Ave Cemetery, the $50,000, that's the town funds.

Uh, so no restrictions on that.

So we currently have GPI reviewing the roadway improvements, uh, the installation of a white decorative fence along Water Lane, uh, reconstruction of the stone wall.

We've done some repairs, uh, to that stone wall.

There was a couple of trees that fall— fell damaged, that we repair those.

They're also looking at the drainage improvements and then tree removal.

So we've had several trees that have already— large pines that have been removed.

We have another approximately 5 to 6 that we anticipate being removed by the end of this— by the end of the fall.

We've added some additional spigots.

So Dave anticipates that GPI will have the estimates to us.

So we, we don't anticipate that— obviously that study, uh, taking up the entire $50,000.

So once we get that study back, we'll then know what the costs are for, uh, the road improvements and drainage and all the other items.

And then the board will make a determination on how we spend that additional— additional— I'd like to see a formal engineered plan because you're going to have to anyways because the southern end abuts wetlands, right?

Right.

And then try to get grant funding.

Yeah.

To do the whole thing over completely.

Yeah, and potentially, I mean, there's potential use could be CPA monies as well.

So I believe July is still the target date for GPI, or at least a report.

And just a question, it's actually CEC, is my legal firm doing that component?

Oh, I'm sorry, I'm sorry.

Yeah.

Dave, what picture?

My voice does carry.

Yeah, so, um, I'm figuring— we're figuring mid-July to try to meet with the board to try to get a sense of the prioritizing of these items in different levels of improvements that you could do out there.

Because you have the stone wall, could be— are we going to repair the whole wall?

We'll probably like to get some input from the board.

The more we've had discussions on the different items we're looking at, the more it leads to kind of wanting to know what the board's desire is out there for the study to cover.

Because you could repair the entire stone wall from one end to the other along Newman Avenue, or you could just kind of patch it and make it look good.

Um, there's some things that DPW may be able to do.

I've been handling the tree removal through my tree budget.

We've been a little proactive there, but I think it would be a good time because you mentioned a plan, it'd be good to know what level of a plan you're looking for for that as well, because they're doing an assessment study, if you will, coming up with ideas.

It'd be a good time to sit with the board, get your input, and if you want a little bit more elaborate plan, we can spend more of that money.

But right now I don't anticipate spending all of it because it's kind of an assessment study, and then at that point would be good to get the input from this board to give some direction.

Okay.

Very good.

And there are a couple different options on the pavement out there too, but, you know, we'll wait until we have that meeting.

I just want to put that forward.

Okay, thank you.

Thank you.

And the biggest item outstanding is the fire truck, right?

And that's not due to February, correct?

Yeah, but that's paid for.

Oh, it's all paid for?

Yes.

Okay.

Yep.

So that they, they consider that— so they cash the check, but we're all set, right?

Okay.

Yeah.

All right, very good.

Any questions, anybody?

Nope.

Okay.

All right, discussion regarding the awarding of a bid for Encore Pavement and Sidewalk Rehabilitation Services to one of the following bidders: Attucket Hotmix Asphalt Incorporated, J.N.

Swinson Incorporated, or Task Force Construction Incorporated.

Okay, I see this, I see the smiles.

Um, so this is a little bit more of a challenging bid that we would have.

I mean, typically when you see the, uh, estimates that come in, it would pretty be, uh, self-explanatory that we would go with the lowest bidder.

However, we've had some significant issues with that vendor, especially with, um, the recent project that they did on Anthony Street and the time associated with that.

Dave can speak a little bit more about the concerns that he has.

He also provided a recommendation which I sent over to the board.

I think we'll just have him, you know, officially state what his recommendation is.

However, it's roughly, uh, $500,000-$600,000 difference between Pawtucket Hot Mix Asphalt and Lynch and Sons.

So we're looking at $2.6 million versus $3.2 million.

I understand, you know, and Dave and I have had this conversation, I understand the concerns he has with not going— or the recommendation not going with the first bidder but going with the second bidder is pretty significant, uh, in terms of the difference associated with it.

And when you look at roughly $900,000 is what we get for Chapter 90, that's roughly half of our Chapter 90 allotment in terms of the difference between the two.

And sometimes, I mean, it's typical to see such a discrepancy, so some, some contractors will come in and they're so busy that they'll just throw a price on there, and if they get the, the job, they get the job.

I think this may be a situation what we're seeing, because you're seeing a significant increase from the second lowest bidder to the third lowest bidder as well.

So they're not really— huge increase, right?

They're not really close.

So, um, really looking for the board's direction in terms of where you want to go.

Do you want to move with the lowest bidder, or do you want to bypass the lowest bidder?

What I will say, and I'll just throw this out for a caveat, we can bypass the lowest bidder.

We have to have a specific reason as to why we need to do that.

However, and I'm not saying that Pawtucket Hot Mix would do this, but there's always a chance that there'll be a bid protest, and if that's the case, it does delay the process.

So that's always an additional concern to think about and consider.

I have a question.

That was the company that was used before, previously, correct?

Was there any documentation or report or anything written after that job was completed to point out what basically went wrong on that job?

We had meetings as the project was going along with the town administrator in his office to give it some direction.

They failed to have a supervisor on the job site which was a contract requirement.

And right out of the gate last year, I will tell you, it was June 24th or so, my assistant— I was on vacation— my assistant forwarded a letter to the town administrator of his concerns with the road work from last year.

So there's documentation.

It carried right through till September, tooth and nail, to get that job done.

Okay, so there's documentation.

There is.

And then we ended up hiring GPI to manage the project, so then they had additional documentation.

They went out and and review the project.

What I would suggest— and I don't know, I had asked Dave to get an estimate for the cost of if we went with the lowest bid to hire GPI to be a project manager on the project to maintain the oversight of what's going on on a daily basis.

Did you— I have a number, I'll go over that.

And the only reason I say that is we brought GPI on late.

We typically manage our road projects ourselves internally.

Uh, so when we brought GPI on to manage it, they obviously gave us a little bit of a discount because it wasn't— it was halfway through the project.

So it's— I'm sure it's going to be significantly more than what we, we had.

But if that's the direction we're going in, especially with the, the road that we're going to be dealing with, Arcade and sidewalks, and I think there needs to be significant oversight on that from, from day one.

Would we be in that second price with GPI?

I don't know.

I don't— I haven't got it again.

I think we cut a little late on that too.

OK. OK.

So before I get into reading my memo, I just want to mention a couple things regarding Pawtucket Hot Mix.

There's certain aspects of the paving and resurfacing that they can do, and they do rather well.

If it's a milling and overlay of the pavement, they're just grinding the roadway, no sidewalks, but grinding the roadway down, 2 inches of milling, and then putting pavement back, kind of hard to mess that up, and they do good with that.

And we don't need an outside engineer overseeing that.

I've been able to handle that in the past through myself, my staff, and my foreman.

So that's the first thing.

2 different roadway projects we had last year.

They had road reconstruction.

They did Barbary, Hawley, Bear Hill Road.

That area over there was full-depth reconstruction the roadway.

No control of grades, it was all done by eye.

Some drainage concerns popped up that we had to deal with.

You have a driveway, how can you not put it— take the roadway out and not put it back exactly where you wanted it when you're done to match the driveways?

So when it comes to certain work, I don't think I would recommend them in the future or now.

But for other work, I would certainly say if it's a mill and overlay job, job like we were doing on Newman Avenue, I would probably be giving you the recommendation to go forward with that.

Last year I lived Anthony Street.

It's the first sidewalk project the town's had that was not under review by MassDOT.

The only other job I've been here for in 19 years has been Baker's Corner.

It was a state bid project.

The engineers were competent.

You had state engineers out there overseeing the project.

All those sidewalks came out fantastic.

This job here, everybody tells you they've done them, and Anthony Street was a nightmare for me right from the beginning, right till the end.

The amount of interaction just to get the job moving, uh, I had the foresight enough at the beginning of it to realize that I needed outside assistance with an engineer prior to even meeting with Sean, but had conversations with the town administrator, let him know that I have some concerns, we need to get somebody out here to oversee this work.

And then for them not to show up and have the supervisors in per the contract and the delays, I know some of the board members last year in particular drove that.

There were concerns when they put the berm in.

They're doing asphalt berm again.

Arcade Avenue is the same type of road.

They took the berm out, they put berm in, it was crooked, it didn't match up across driveways or intersections.

They had to go back, and every time something had to get done, It was tooth and nail to get them to even get the job moving forward.

I also know that they had other jobs going on last year.

So I just want to paint a little picture.

They had some jobs last year that they won in Plymouth, as well as Newport.

And a lot of their resources went to those towns.

I did a little research and found out they had quite a bit of road work in those 2 towns last year.

In my opinion, they overextended themselves.

They had better crews who were probably working on these roadways, there's a lot more there.

I don't want to side too far away, but there's probably some reasons why some of the stuff didn't get done right.

But we really had a lot of concerns last year.

All this packet is the concerns that were documented on that project.

So I'm going to move forward with my recommendation to you formally, which you have a copy of.

But, uh, this is, uh, my recommendation for the bid award for 2026-01, the on-call payment and sidewalk rehabilitation services.

The Department of Public Works solicited for bids for use in public works operations.

Advertisements were placed with local media as well as with required state agencies.

Bids were received at the town hall through Thursday, May 14th, 2026 at 2 PM, at which time bids received were publicly opened, read, and recorded.

A copy of the results is attached board's review.

The agreement shall be for the period of contract execution through December 31st, 2026.

At the sole discretion of the town and subject to appropriation of funds, this agreement may be extended for an additional 1-year period beginning January 1st, 2027, ending December 31st, 2027.

After review of all the submitted packages, the Department of Public Works recommends award awarding this bid to the second lowest bidder, J.H.

Lynch and Sons, Inc., 50 Lynch Place, Cumberland, Rhode Island 02864.

I am not recommending award to the lowest bidder, Pawtucket Hot Mix Asphalt, since I do not consider them a responsible and eligible bidder based on last year's performance with the town for similar services.

It is my opinion that they lack the have the skill, ability, or integrity to perform this work in a timely manner and within the parameters set forth in the agreement.

That's— that last sentence is a pretty damning statement, Mr. Cabral.

I would hope they don't come back and sue us for it, huh?

It's my recommendation, and from my— the performance last year, what I've seen out there, that's— so your department bears no responsibility for anything that happened on Anthony Street?

I, I won't say we don't take any, but we certainly were not— they never had a supervisor on the project.

Okay, we're not the supervisor.

We're not telling them how to do their job, but that's what they were looking for us to do.

Okay, so, so I, I will further state, the engineer, GPI, I advanced him a copy of this.

Yeah, he stands by what's in the memo as well as the review engineer.

The sad, the sad part about this is the board members haven't seen any of that documentation, and I find it hard to make a decision to spend $600,000 more of taxpayers' money without documentation to support it.

Because if they, if they do turn around and sue us, then they could put a hold on any paving that we're going to do for a while.

So this is my recommendation, and I'm going to stand by this recommendation because I know the burden on this project will be on me in my department.

I will, to Mr. Cadime's point earlier regarding additional services on site, I did get numbers from GPI.

If whatever the board decides to do, if they decide to go with Pawtucket Hot Mix, I wanted to get a sense of what their involvement would be because I certainly would want their involvement.

So just last year, they got into the game a little bit late.

We spent $32,000 with them to the work last year, not really knowing— we came in late in the game.

They probably had billings of about $50,000, but because of the situation, I know they didn't bill me fully.

So this year I just asked them, if this job gets awarded to Patagonomics, because I don't know what the decision is going to be, what would the expense be for them to oversee this project to make sure it moves forward in a timely fashion, go all the parameters in the contract, and And it's $150,000 to do that aspect in addition to the cost of the— of your painting.

So the outside cost to have someone on board to oversee this project, knowing who the vendor may be, would be $150,000.

If it were to go to a different vendor, Lynch for example, they really don't know, but they would have to kind of see how that plays out.

Have the supervision.

It would be a cost.

It may be $50,000, but there would have to be something.

The sidewalk component is the key thing here.

Again, you're putting sidewalks in, there has to be some sort of control with the drainage because you've got— Arcade Avenue's got locations that have low spots.

They're going to have puddles and will continue to have puddles.

Again, my recommendation, my opinion, I've got numbers for you through the engineer if you were to enter going with someone different.

At least you know if you had to bring in outside services to oversee somebody's work what that cost would be.

So I'll just say this, as a developer, when I paved my road, I had to pay an inspector from GPI to be there to inspect every asphalt of the paving.

All right, I don't think it's a bad idea to have GPI oversee.

It's a major road, we're talking millions of dollars here.

And even if we paid them the $450,000, we're still, what, $400,000 and some odd to the good.

My concern is Arcade Avenue is going to be the worst road in town right now.

And I just— I want a commitment from somebody, whoever's going to do it, that that road is done completely by the middle of August while school is out.

Because it's going to be a horror show to start with, but add the complexity of bus traffic and students and everything.

So, and, and just let me go back just for a minute too.

The contract prior, so last year's work, was also supposed to include Arcade Avenue North and South, right?

Okay.

We started early on in the game knowing that we were trying to get a lot of work done from our standpoint last year.

So we had Bob— we had the roads there, Barbary, Bear Hill Road, Ollie, all those roads to be done early on in the spring, right out the gate, and then immediately get onto Anthony Street so that could be done before school let out.

So my focus— and I know the board said it didn't necessarily have to be done when school is out of session, but that piece of road in particular was discussed.

That was my hope and try to commit with the schedule to make it happen if we possibly could.

But the schedule early on when they talked about it was we can get these done, we should be able to get that section of the roadway done.

So there's Arcade Avenue North and South didn't happen last year with the vendor you had under contract with last year, right?

So, and I thought we stopped it because of the problems on Anthony Street.

They never finished Anthony Street.

We were not going to let them start.

So they were working on Anthony Street.

We were not going to let them start any work on Arcade Avenue because they had asked if they could start doing a little bit of work there.

They had— with the lack of supervision and they're not following the contract and them not showing up, because there were weeks that went by and we never knew when they were coming.

I'm just saying, they should— they, by their own contract, were scheduled to have 3 roads done.

Well, the other roads too, but those 3 roads last year was Anthony, Arcade Avenue North, and Arcade Avenue South, and it didn't happen.

And I'm not opposed to whatever the board's going to do.

I will, I will also mention the prices for the bids from 2024 when we went out to bid.

Yes, we had more bidders, we had more vendors submitted, but there was a big discrepancy between Kentucky Hot Mix's number and the next bidder.

So there was always that difference in price.

We've always gone with a little bit of though because we haven't had any issues with them up until last year, and now tell you it was all related to the sidewalk work.

If the board would want to entertain having someone oversee that work, like a company like GPI, that certainly would be part of your discussion, I would assume.

And but this took away so much of my time and department's ability to carry on with things.

It was a big impact to me.

So You know, Mr. Cabral and I, we've had this conversation, so we— I don't disagree with what he's saying, and I don't want to discount the issues.

Where we disagree is whether or not to go with the first bidder or the second bidder.

And the only reason on my standpoint is that it's a significant amount of money.

So that's the piece.

If it was closer, then I would absolutely be in agreement 100% to move on with the second lowest bidder.

My recommendation would be that we We do Potucket Hot Mix, but we also commit to $150,000 to GPI to be able to manage that.

We're still ahead of the game financially.

Correct.

Right.

So the difference is $592,000.

And if you just, you know, take that $150,000 from that, we're still pretty significant, right?

Yep.

What's the lead time from the time that the contract is awarded to the commencement of the work?

There's not much of a lead time based on— it depends on their scheduling.

But I was going to say, it depends on on their side.

The eyeball a little bit, because I think a lot of them are already committed, right?

That's, that's my concern too right now, because if we get a commitment for the next meeting that if we went with them that they would firmly commit, and maybe we can even put a penalty clause in.

Yeah, so if, if you want to make a motion subject with a stipulation that they start— they need to start before by a certain time period and get that commitment, we can, we can do that follow-up with Patucket Hot Mix and then follow up.

Michael, what do you think?

I'm not voting for Patucket Hot Mix.

I can tell you right now, ain't gonna happen.

I won't vote for them.

I wouldn't have them do a parking lot.

I wouldn't have them do anything just because of the problems we had last year.

We spent more time, more aggravation, more resources down on Anthony Street last year.

We had to keep going back.

GPI went out.

The thickness of the sidewalk wasn't right, we had to tear it out.

Curbing wasn't right, had to tear that out.

Had to go back, refix everything.

Maybe they can pave a road, but I'm not— I listen, I'll take all the heat in the world for spending an extra few bucks.

Arcade Avenue is the main road through our town.

It needs to be done correctly.

We need to hire a good, proven company, and Lynch is a proven company that can do paving, sidewalks, you name it, in my opinion.

So I will support the recommendation of the superintendent because I'm not going to waste your time, I'm not going to waste the town's time, and And we're not going to— I don't want to go through this again because they'll promise anything.

We can put any stipulation we want that, oh, you're going to start by this time.

They're going to, okay, we'll start.

They'll go there, dig up the road, they won't be back.

And we're going to run the same thing we did last year.

I say we give them a couple— I'm sorry, that's just my stance.

So you guys vote however you feel comfortable.

I got— I've got to be honest with you, without seeing the documentation of— and, and I'm not questioning what you say.

I'm just looking at the liability part of it because that's what I do on a daily basis.

And I would want to see what's documented just to protect the town from any type of lawsuit from Pawtucket.

That's— that was— that's my— rather than give them a start date, I'd rather give them a completion date.

But then if they don't comply with the issue date, then it's going to be a penalty, right?

There'll be a penalty.

But then what if they don't finish and school starts and we're in a mess?

That's, that's another concern.

That's what happened last time, your scenario.

We've been down this road before.

So I think it's difficult to enter into a contract with anybody close to July when I'm sure everybody is booked.

It is.

That's— is there any way to find out from all 3 companies where they stand as far as when they'd be able to start?

Or even Lynch, like, when would they be able to start?

Is that possible?

I, I think the longer we wait, the, the worse trouble we're going to be in, right?

It's on the agenda tonight.

I think we need to award a contract.

Whoever goes to, it goes to, and then we live with the consequences.

Because if we drag it out for another 2 weeks, it's 2 weeks more, and then it's another 2 weeks before they can get all their stuff together, and it's another a month and a half before they can even probably get into town.

So, because they are busy, it's that time of the year, right?

So, you know, my suggestion is let's, let's take a vote.

However the vote goes, whatever stipulations anybody wants to put on it, let's do it.

But let's get it done because we need to, we need to get roads done.

And I understand that we're going to spend— if we went in a different direction, we're going to spend more money.

So there's, there's probably some roads we may not be able to get to this year.

With chip seal or something like that.

Would that be a fair statement, Mr. Cabral?

Yes.

Right.

If we, if we end up spending with a different company other than the lowest bidder, we would have to cut back on some of the other roads that you might chip seal this year, possibly.

Correct.

That's absolutely right.

I haven't— okay.

And I haven't reached out to anybody else with the extra money because I don't know what I have.

Okay.

Are you— Arcade Avenue, is that from Newman Avenue to the Griscom?

It would— yeah, broken.

I would— I have it broken down 2 sections, north of 44 and south of 44.

Obviously I would want the section north from Newman Avenue up to Route 44 done for obvious reasons.

It's the main thoroughfare between 44 and Newman.

That I would do separately.

But again, it doesn't have to be that way depending who you go with.

And if they can do the whole project and commit to it, there's leeway.

That's why we need to have somebody that can sit down with us at that supervisor level commit to the project and tell us how they're going to get the project done.

Okay.

And your suggestion, Mr. Gadeem, was low bidder with the GPI?

GPI, correct.

With the stipulation that they need to complete the project by a certain date?

Correct.

And I don't, I don't disagree what's being said.

That's just a matter of— well, I, I think trusting their, their word.

I mean, they've, they've told us they were going to complete Anthony Street as well, come in and And they didn't do it.

So I don't— I wouldn't put— if we're going to put a lot of effort— I mean, emphasis on the actual completion date or the start date, then I don't know that we can trust them to do that is what I'm saying.

So I think we just— to Mr. Healy's point, I think we just need to be prepared to, you know, award the bid and try to hold them accountable to meeting the timelines and staying on top of them.

And what's the math again?

Bring GPI on?

So the difference, the difference between number 1 and number 2 was $592,000, and then you take the $150,000 off, correct?

Yep.

So you're talking $450,000?

Yeah, $442,000.

Yep.

It is a lot of money.

And who knows, you know, I, I worked in the construction company I work with part-time doing milling in Attleboro.

And J.H.

Lynch had the contract and they subbed it out to Attleboro Paving, to Pawtucket Paving.

So I just think $450,000 is a lot.

It's almost half a million dollars.

I mean, well, somebody make a motion or we can vote.

Sorry to interrupt, but the problem is we already had, right out of the gate, we had so many problems with this company.

We lived it being on the board, hearing from the residents, hearing from updates from Mr. Gavreau weekly.

Mr. Gadeem.

I mean, they couldn't even do Bear Hill Road.

I mean, I know they were stretched thin.

They had— we're just a little peanut in the pot.

What's a couple million dollars when they have $25 million bids in other cities?

So we're kind of nothing.

We're a joke to some of these companies.

Well, that's— they can't offer $10, $20, $30 million worth of paving.

But they were really stretched thin because they were real busy in other cities.

One he didn't mention, they were really busy in So they had to put a lot of their assets there, then they would come here.

The timing was all off, and we caught a lot of heat of it.

And we had people, residents, other board members from other things, finance and stuff, said— I remember— don't ever hire them again.

So, but look at— let's look at the difference between bids 2 and 3.

There's a huge discrepancy there as well.

Why did we only end up with like 3 bids though?

Because a lot of people are real busy.

The timing and what it is.

Like Mr. Healy said, they'll throw a high number and okay, if we get it— they do it for everything, whether you're building a house to— yeah, doing, you know, they'll throw out a wild number and if they get it, okay, they're going to make a lot of money.

But as Mr. Cabral said earlier, every year we get multiple bids.

I mean, I think we typically get about 4 or 5 versus 3, and they really are all over the map.

And the other thing is, is that the real number could be in the $3 million range, right?

And then it's like a hot mix is just coming in low to try to get this, try to get them, right?

Because they know they've, they've run into situations.

I know there was one community that didn't hire them because they knew what the issues were in Seacong.

So I'm not, I'm not downplaying what Mr. Cabral and Mr. Healy are saying because I don't disagree.

Uh, from my standpoint, again, it's just, it's a dollar and cents.

It's just a lot of money.

But that's why we're here before the board to make that decision.

But I think too, if it's GPI'd from the beginning and they know they're dealing with an engineering company and not principally the town, I think it might— and if they don't satisfy GPI, they don't get paid, right?

Right.

Yeah, right.

So I just think it's difficult.

We're not talking a close number, we're talking close to half a million dollars.

But that's the difference with the, with the other 2, was as well, which makes it that much more difficult.

Yeah, I'm just concerned about that.

You're right, that, that street is like the main street from 44 connecting into the north end of town, and we really can't— it's not around with that.

Not a good situation we're in to choose on a main street like that.

Would we be able to get, um, Like a commitment end date from Lynch?

How do we know we can even do that?

Can we?

Do you think?

And if— I don't know, I mean, if you're looking for one tonight, it might be difficult.

I will just offer to the board that, you know, again, my recommendation, my opinion recommendation will stay like it is.

Lynch was at the bid opening, and if they assume that the bid's going to the low bid, I can't speak for what they have.

Full work schedule right now.

So Lynch did show up at the— yes, but let's assume for the sake of discussion that if GPI is going to charge $150,000, I don't see where it's gonna differ from, from vendor.

So now you take that $592,000 and add $150,000 to that, and we're talking a difference of close to $700,000, right?

Over $700,000.

Well, 6 and change.

I don't know.

I mean, that's some serious money.

Add the $150,000 to what, Lynch, you're saying?

Yeah, the difference between Lynch and Pawtucket is $592,000.

If you add $150,000 to that— $592,000 you're talking about?

Yeah, $592,000.

Add $150,000 to that, and that's coming up to over $700,000, right?

Are you saying we'd have to bring them on for Lynch as well?

Well, if you're going to do it, you're going to do it.

Yeah.

Oh, I see what you're saying.

Yeah, I see what you're saying.

I don't think I'd bring them on for Lynch.

I think Lynch can handle it.

But you're right though, if this is such a small job, how do we know where we stand in line, or where we stand in line?

Well, for the Patuxent Hot Mix, we were— we had everything set, scheduled, ready to go.

They did start back barbering and all that right out of the gate.

It just— the completion and the problems there was, was a nightmare that we lived through.

Yep.

Through here.

No, I don't— I'm not just— no, by all means.

I just don't want to— I don't want to be in the same position with Lynch with a time frame, is what I'm saying, seeing it's Arcade.

That, that's all, right?

Could we award the north section to a bucket and they'd get the other section if they did what they were supposed to do.

Do we split the job in half?

That's how we were going to handle it last year, split it.

But I mean, we could, we could do it however the board votes on it.

Um, I don't know if they, they accept it or— I mean, but both Both roads are— both sections of the roads are terrible.

Oh, absolutely.

So I think, I think the goal would be to get it done this year on both sides.

Oh, absolutely.

So, so if we don't award it, that just means we're not getting that section done.

That's, I guess that's the issue.

But the priority, if there was a problem with the way that they paved, then we said we're not going to do it.

So you'd only have that section from, from 44 to out of it, right?

Yeah.

So you're going to get criticized for spending a lot of that money if you want to go with option 2 from people, and it may come out good.

We're going to get criticized if we go with the other contractor given the history of it.

So either way, it's a no-win battle.

I'm going to go off Mr. Cabral's recommendation and having lived it on the board between all the residents and the back and forth.

So that documentation that I may have not physically seen it.

We heard it and we saw— actually, we did see some papers being on the board, some complaints and stuff.

Did the other job end up going over cost-wise?

No, uh, it did go over a bit.

They tried to charge us a little bit.

They went over a little bit.

Yes.

What's a little bit, roughly?

All right, give me an exact number.

I'd say probably about close to $50,000, probably.

And they also try to charge us for coming back out Saturday work and trying to rush it.

Yeah, we pushed back on that.

We pushed back on that because they were— they tried to throw us bills our way and we're going to change this.

We don't want to have to babysit.

Well, I mean, so your recommendation, Mr. Gadeem, differs from Mr. Cabral's.

Yep, and hence the reason we're here.

Okay, looking for your recommendation.

So you've heard the arguments.

Somebody make a motion.

I'll make a motion to go with JH Lynch for the paving.

Okay, moved and seconded.

Any discussion?

Roll call vote starting with Mr. Zahra.

Chris.

All right, Elizabeth.

I'm going to go with Mr. Kadeem's recommendation.

Okay, so that's a no?

No.

Okay, Michael, and Gary Sega, no.

So the motion does not carry.

You know, yeah.

So do you want to make a motion, Liz?

I'll make a motion, um, for Pawtucket Hot Mix.

Okay, with any stipulations?

With a stipulation that we have, um, a penalty clause with a beginning and end date.

Okay, then you want to tell them there's any GPI involved?

Yes.

Okay, that's your motion?

That's my motion.

All right, I'll second that.

Any discussion?

Do a roll call vote.

Mr. Zahra.

Prisar, no.

Elizabeth, yes.

Michael, no.

Gary, say aye.

So no, that motion doesn't carry.

All right, so we have TASCO.

No, no, I think we can agree on— I agree with that.

All right, so can we put Bob on Zoom?

So would the, would the board feel more comfortable if we had some commitments from the— could we get that from both, from both Pawtucket and Lynch?

With their knowledge that there's a penalty clause that will be enforced.

All right, and bring that forward on the 24th.

You want to have a meeting sooner than that?

We can.

I'm, I'm available for a meeting before, and I, I would like to see whatever documentation there is, okay, for the last job, just, just out of— I don't mean to interfere by any stretch with your discussion, but we're at an impasse.

I, I kindly ask you to consider one other option, because the longer this drags out, the less chance we are getting anything done.

Considering where we are right now at an impasse, I'm going to suggest to the board you consider possibly going one more year, shim Arcade Avenue north and south to get you through the year.

I can get a price as an option.

That way the defects in the road are taken care of, the motoring public.

You're going to be spending some money and then rebid it.

That's an option.

Can we— I'm just going to put that out there, and I don't know how we're gonna— can we rebid earlier though than May?

I mean, that puts us in a position where we, we're under the gun.

If you could talk to the, the first 2 vendors and see if they will commit to a timeline that's accessible to us, or you, Sean, right?

Yep.

And then bring it back in 2 weeks.

Is that a violation of the bid process?

Shouldn't it already be in the bid, like a start and an end date, a completion date?

No, we— like, how can we go back now and say, hey, we want you to start tomorrow, we want you done in another month?

No, I, I don't think a beginning and end date— I think a beginning date is more than reasonable, because we need to know when they'd be able to start.

Beginning date is what they did last time.

They started it, and then they just took off.

Right.

But so enlighten me, I don't know what the contract looks like.

So we have the dates that are specified in there.

But we can, we can always— there's language in there that we can reject all the bids, right.

So I think what we would be looking for, again, is just a commitment to when they're going to start, when they're going to end.

And it's just a matter of whether or not the board is comfortable and trusting what they're stating in terms of a start time and a— right, and an end time.

So again, I don't— and then if they sign the contract, we have, um, liquidated damages associated with it.

And if they sign the contract, then we've got a contract that's, that's agreed to.

But so this contract, when you say liquidated damages, is, is there like a fine per day?

Yeah, we would establish it, but we would have to document, obviously.

And absolutely, it's that like they have— they're fined by the day, right?

So, and then it gets challenged and, you know, absolutely.

But still, I think, I think the stronger the language in there, the more— the stronger.

Just to move this along, if you get commitments, we could call a special meeting next Wednesday.

We could, yeah.

Yep.

And, um, yep, and go from there.

Absolutely.

And what, to Mr. Healy's point, is that legal to go back and ask them these questions to bring it back for, uh, for a bid?

I mean, for a vote?

Yeah, I mean, I mean, what I would do, I would ask all 3 just to be consistent across the board.

Yeah, and make them aware that there's, there's going to be like a strong penalty clause in there.

Not— well, that would have to be spelled out in the bid process, right?

We can't say we're going to find— no, that would be in the contract.

Contracts.

That would be because we can, we can reject— we could do right now, we could reject the entire bids from the bid documents.

We're going to say if you don't get such and such, we can fine you.

It would be in the bid document, but then we would capture the contracts.

Yeah, that's something you could do ASAP and get us— have a special meeting next week if I mean, I think my— I'm going to be pretty— having lived it, I think I'm going to be pretty much stuck with— well, tonight then there's the other option of what he's suggesting, which if we could— if, if— I mean, I'm just saying, I don't want to throw money over there, do that, then rip it up, and then you're back to the— yeah, we're going to do it.

Let's do it.

Let's do it right.

Yeah.

Is that agreeable to everybody?

So what can you just— so what, what are you looking for?

Just to make sure I got it.

You're looking for a commitment from— yeah, ask all 3 vendors a commitment in time and explain when there's going to be penalties.

I mean, that's the best way to resolve the impasse.

Michael, you agree?

Sure.

Okay.

And then target a special, special meeting for Wednesday.

Yeah, whenever.

Okay.

Thank you.

Thank you.

H, consider awarding the design service bid for the Madeiras Farm project to CHA.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

So my recommendation is that the Select Board award the design services contract to CHA in the amount of $549,450.

We've gone back and forth with CHA just looking at the scope of service.

That took a little bit of time.

And then looking at a fee for service.

So over the past several weeks, we've been working with KCM, who is the owner's project manager for the project, to finalize that scope of service and negotiate a fee proposal with CHA.

So we met Monday, June 1st, to review the agreement that was pretty much agreed to, and then we ended up discussing several revisions that we felt were necessary.

Those changes were incorporated into the proposal and then we met again on Friday, June 5th for a final review to ensure everything was in order.

So the proposed designer service fee of the $549,450, when combined with the current contract that has been approved and is in place with the OPM for the total cost of professional services is $765,960.

Town meeting has appropriated $825,000 for the 2 services that we've went out to bid for.

So that's approximately $59,000 under budget or underfunded based on what town meeting has authorized and appropriated.

So similar to the Library Building Committee project contract that we just awarded for the OPM services at the last meeting, the contract is just the standard designer service contract that has been provided to us by town council.

And it's consistent with the contract that was in the bid documents.

So again, my, my recommendation is that the select board award design service contract to CHA in the amount of $549,450 and authorize the town administrator to sign the contract.

Okay, uh, I have a problem with this.

Uh, back in January when the Menderes Farm Committee met, there was a discussion that the chairman and the vice chairman with the representative at that time were going to meet with the chairman or vice chairman of this committee.

And when I brought it back, I said I objected to that, as did, I believe, Selectwoman Posey did, and I think Mr. Zara did too.

So, uh, I can't see spending any more money on this project until we meet with them and have discussion because they need to go to zoning, because there's no sense in us going into this project for close to $3 million and then get it rejected or stipulated by zoning.

And the big thing that I— that needs to happen out there is a full traffic study.

So I would like to table this and invite the Medeiros Farm Committee to meet with us at the next meeting and hash whatever we need to hash out.

They wanted to do in January, and just because the personalities here have changed, it doesn't change the fact we, we still have to do this in the best interest of the taxpayers.

So that would be my request.

I certainly entertain any discussion from the board members.

That, that's one of my concerns is, um, moving forward with the contract and then having, for some whatever reason, it fail.

And then we have plans for something that can't move forward, and we've spent that kind of money.

That's, that's, uh, concerning for me.

I'd feel a whole lot better if we knew zoning was all taken care of.

Um, but I, I think I, I agree with you on that.

Michael, this is one of those things that I believe now 3 times people have voted for what they wanted.

Okay, the townspeople voted.

It's not our job to take their vote away.

That's what we— that's what I feel like we're doing.

We're taking the townspeople vote away from them.

They voted at town meeting.

They decided to fund this project.

We're at this stage.

This is the next step.

This is what the people wanted.

If the board wants to stop that.

We have the right to stop it, I guess.

I mean, it's not like we haven't done it before on other projects.

I just think that how many more times are we going to do this?

We're going to go down this road and ask the people— they— people want to— I think 3 times now the town meeting supported this and everything, and now we're just going to stop it because we don't want it.

That's what— we can, we can say it's change of personality, we can say it's anything.

In my opinion, and hopefully I don't want to offend anybody, it's personal agendas.

That's all it is.

It boils down to personal agendas.

And everybody can huff and puff and you can do whatever you want.

I'm just saying that's what it boils down to, in my opinion.

You don't like my opinion, you don't have to listen to it.

I'm just giving you my opinion.

I just think that again, I just think again, we're taking the townspeople's vote.

Town meeting voted on this, I believe it's 3 times now.

We're at this stage of the project.

If it's the— if it's the wish of this board to stop it, go ahead.

I'm not going to vote that way.

So my question is, we spend the money, we spend the $765,960, and then for some reason down the road, zoning, whatever it is, um, it doesn't pass.

Then we've spent 3/4 of a million dollars on something.

And again, the town people said yes, but I would think that they would want to make sure that the plan is going to be approved before the money is spent.

I don't see this as stopping it.

I don't have a personal agenda, much to, you know, the surprise of many.

I don't have a personal agenda.

I, I— if people want soccer fields, God bless, they have soccer fields.

But the nature of the job— I mean, the nature of this project does afford that the people living around in the area, um, the, the traffic.

And there are other considerations.

It's not that the money's been allocated— fine, spend it.

But I mean, I, I listen to people, and people want reassurance that, yeah, we'll have the soccer fields, that's great, but we got to get over a couple of hurdles first.

I, I have— I've said it before, I'll say it again— I don't have a personal agenda, and people don't have to believe me.

I don't really care.

I mean, with what's been said about me.

I don't care.

Um, but I, I— if my home— if I were to put something— if I want to add an addition to my house, of course I would go before zoning before I'm going to spend any more.

I mean, that's just the way it is.

So that's, that's where I stand on this.

It's got nothing to do with how I feel personally.

So my issue is not to try to stop it, it's the process.

Yeah, that means I forward from the beginning.

I, I have, I, I have no desire to stop it.

I don't live there.

I don't have children who play soccer.

I mean, all the more power to people who do.

I just want to make sure— I said from day one when I ran for this position, I, you know, we, we owe a responsibility to all taxpayers, not just those who voted for this, this project.

And for the people that are questioning the process like you said, we owe them a responsibility too.

It's not just about moving forward, and it certainly has nothing to do with what I want as, as an individual.

Chris, do you have any comments?

Is there a reason— do you know when they are going in front of the zoning board or why they haven't?

Uh, so yeah, so they would go through the process once we did the design.

So there's 2 processes we can go through.

Zoning, um, if Obviously, if the ZBA denies the use of municipal purposes, the other option, alternative, is to go to, um, town meeting for, for the change.

Okay, let me ask a question.

Um, if I'm not mistaken, I've looked at the plans that are, that are on the website, our website.

You don't need this, this plan to go before zoning.

Why haven't they gone before zoning already?

With what?

With The plan that's already in place, couldn't they have gone already gone before zoning before this?

We could have.

We could have had town meeting do the rezone for us as well.

But typically with the process we've done it, we've done it with the animal shelter as well.

We've had the process and then went during the permitting stages.

So it's not— there'd be no— no, you're wrong.

What would town meeting do?

They could issue a rezone.

What, to rezone For what?

For municipal purposes?

No, it's right in the zoning bylaw.

Municipal purposes for recreation areas are a special permit.

They could also change the zoning bylaw, right, so that municipal, municipal uses by right— they tried that once before and that was rejected.

No, no, I, I'm not saying it's gonna pass.

I'm just saying that there's an option.

But the easiest way of doing it, right, is to do it with the plan you have and submit it to zoning, and then all the neighbors are notified, and then it's a formal process.

That's all I was— I have said that from day one.

That is my only concern about this, is to spend that kind of money, and, and then if the neighbors concede and say, okay, this many soccer fields would be okay, then the plan changes.

If we spend this with, with the plan that's in place now, and then we get kickback, and then it has to be changed.

Where does that put us, having to have them, you know, come up with another plan and we spend another $500,000?

That's my only concern.

That is it.

There's no other— there's nothing else out there for me anyway.

So can we— can you invite the committee?

I can, yep, for the 24th.

You want the entire committee?

Yeah.

No, no, let everybody come.

I think everybody should have buy-in.

Okay, anything else on this matter by anybody?

No?

Okay.

Discussion regarding the live broadcast of select board meetings outside of Comcast.

In discussions with Mr. Testa They— your office has received many calls and people would like to know why these meetings aren't broadcast live.

Correct.

We, we've, uh, a number of residents have, um, reached out saying that they, they do not have Comcast, uh, so they don't— they're not able to watch it on TV live.

So in the past, um, TV9 has broadcasted on Facebook, so people are used to going on Facebook to watch, watch the meetings.

Uh, so they've been reaching out to see why We can't do that again.

So that's the conversation.

Okay.

So we have TV9 herself here.

Hi.

For the record, Andrea Rossiter, president, TV9.

Okay.

Okay, so you want to know why we don't currently livestream to Facebook?

Correct.

Okay.

So for those of you who do not know, the subscribers to cable and Comcast pay pay a franchise fee.

We have no choice but to do that.

It comes out from that franchise fee.

Part of it goes to the town and part of it goes— well, it all goes to the town, but then part of it also funds the PEG.

So PEG is funded entirely by Comcast subscribers.

Now, for that fee that they have no choice but to pay, They get 2 things.

They get to see live TV, and they get any opportunity that they want to make an appointment and come on down to the studio and stand up and say pretty much anything they want, and we will put it on TV.

By removing one of those things, personally, me as a subscriber, I think you're cheapening getting what the little bits that I get for the franchise fee that I have no choice but to pay as a Comcast subscriber.

So we would essentially be giving away for free one of the 2 things that people pay for.

And so that's why we currently don't do it.

I cannot speak to why they did it in the past.

I think it was, I think Facebook was much different back then than it is now.

I can tell you that the next day all of these meetings are on TV9's website on demand.

The rest of the citizenry that is not Comcast subscribers, all they're missing is less than 24 hours.

So it's not as though they're not available or we make them wait a week.

It's the next day.

It's there whenever they want to see it.

And I— we're also making it available, of course, to the administration.

If you so choose, you You can put it on Facebook if you want, but I'm going to caution you against that because I can tell you that I went to the town of Seekonk Facebook site and the latest video, which was the one when you were going over the warrant articles, was on there.

In less than a minute, an ad popped up on the video.

And that's on the Town of Seekonk Facebook site.

Now, did we produce it commercially?

No.

Do you mean to monetize off of it?

No.

Everybody who is reasonable understands that Facebook just stuck a frozen food ad under Michael Durkee, so they'd have to disable the pop-ups and all that, and most people don't know how to do that.

Right, or actually it should be done on the town side.

So the actual recording has a— that's correct.

An ad popped up for some sort of frozen dietary food program within a minute of me watching the video.

Yeah, I took a screenshot of it.

Because at the school, or they used to, they use Vimeo or something.

Vimeo?

YouTube, right?

YouTube TV.

So Now we're going to talk about other things like YouTube TV, Verizon Fios, Hulu, all of those.

In your contract, not TV9's, in the town's contract with Comcast, you cannot just download that stuff to PEG specifically, to other multichannel video production distributors.

Now it's going to say in a commercial way, but it's just inviting questions.

It's inviting trouble.

I mean, we know that, that the 10— like I said about the commercial, we didn't produce it that way.

PEG should never have anything to do with any sort of commercial enterprise.

But there might be somebody unreasonable out there And Seaconch that would say, "I bought this frozen food.

It's supposed to have this much protein in it.

It made me sick.

Now I'm after you, Seaconch." Now, and and you know, I've heard lots of times from Mr. Kadeem that we do not manage based on the chance of somebody suing us.

But really, you're simply doing it for for no reason.

Everybody can't.

Get the videos on demand on the TV9 site the next day.

That's all.

For free.

With no trouble.

With no commercials.

You don't have to worry about it.

And here's something else you don't have to worry about that you do have to worry about if you put it on Facebook, is that it then becomes public record.

So you then have to keep it.

You then have to keep those comments.

You can't edit those comments.

No matter what they happen to be, it's then part of like if somebody was to FOIA something, some comment on Facebook, you have to keep them.

You have to, it's part of public record.

So what are you saying about the schools then?

'Cause they have theirs live on Vemo, not Vemo, Vimeo or some type of— I don't know that they should— What's it?

Vimeo.

Vimeo.

Right, I don't know whether they have commercials on.

But I have to tell you, I don't know what the difference is I'm not telling.

I'm not saying what schools should or should not be doing, but they use.

I'm saying what channels and stuff like that government access through you guys.

What's that?

They're using it through TV nine, the channel, right?

No, they they straight up upload themselves, not through us.

And I've tried to watch them the meetings and I can't get them.

Yeah, you have to Google them.

It's it's not easy.

Even if you go to their site.

The school site, they're like 2 months behind uploading them.

So they do not do it through us.

They are straight on their own.

They have redone their studio so they have that capability.

And I also heard that there were questions about Verizon, if you have Verizon in.

Maybe a contract with Verizon.

You obviously certainly can contract with another cable company.

Verizon Fios is one of those multichannel video programming distributors that Comcast considers direct competition.

So, in order for Verizon or whatever to get PEG and to get get it live, you need permission from Comcast, even if you have a contract with Verizon.

That's also in your contract with Comcast.

Has there been a lot of resident pushback about this, or— I mean, about not seeing— there's been a handful of complaints.

Why don't they just come to the meetings?

I mean, there are some people who probably can't, but how many?

Yeah, I mean, if people want to see it, they can come to the meeting.

And they can see it, it's just the next time.

Yes.

And honestly, I don't know what happens in town hall overnight that you wouldn't absolutely need that meeting live.

Like, what, what, what action could you take?

We are just so interesting, people are just in between, you know, this meeting and being able to see it on demand the next morning or by the next afternoon.

Do you have any other questions?

I don't have any.

No.

All right.

Well, thank you.

Sure.

Okay.

Discussion of regarding the use of the Massachusetts Division of Standards as the temporary sealer of weights and measures for the town.

Yep, so we're, um, we've contacted the, uh, the state to see if they would be filling in for the sealers of weights and measures, uh, while our building commissioner, who is our sealer of weights and measures, is, is out on family medical leave.

So they have agree to perform all new inspections.

So they will be— the biggest one we have going on right now is, is the Whole Foods, ensuring that Whole Foods is inspected in time so that they can open up.

So they will be doing the inspection and then just invoicing us.

So I just wanted to let the board know that.

Okay, very good.

Consider accepting the ocean— the open session meeting minutes of May 27th, 2026.

Motion to approve.

Seconded.

Moved and seconded.

All in favor?

Aye.

Opposed?

So voted.

Community Speaks.

Anybody have anything for Community Speaks?

Not seeing any.

All right, other business.

Discuss other topics not reasonably anticipated by the chair 48 hours before the meeting.

I don't believe we have any.

All right, town administrator's report.

Uh, nothing at this time, Mr. Chairman.

Okay, select board liaison reports and comments.

Accounts payable warrants been taken care of.

TV9 liaison report.

Uh, nothing at this time.

Okay, Bristol County Advisory.

Mr. Archambault's not with us.

Anything from the Madeiras Farm?

Just that we're going to get together for a meeting and we'll everything that we discussed this evening.

All right, Selectman's comments.

Michael, I have 2 things.

Yep.

One, probably not for the next meeting because it looks like we got plenty on the agenda already, but sometime over the summer I'd like to have a discussion about Plainfield Street up the north end that was shut down.

It was made a dead-end street probably 5 or 6 years ago, maybe longer than that, right across the street from the Pine Street Fire Station.

And the reason I want to have the discussion is because there's a severe traffic issue in that area, and I think with the closure of that road, it's only added to that problem.

I think we could put up traffic signs if we have to put a speed bump in the road.

That road was shut down because people complained about people speeding through there.

The chain?

Yeah, the chain.

Oh yeah, they're behind stop-and- shop, behind Salvage Shop and stuff like that.

And we, and we can limit it to where, you know, I, I think the discussion could lead to not having their trucks go that way, just like local people can go that way just to get around the corner because it's backing up.

But that's if, if you would like it sometime during July or something.

Absolutely.

Yep.

And then, um, the second thing I have, I did send Mr. Cadime an email regarding, um, the Gamino Pond entrance area, and I want to thank you for a quick response to that email.

I would like to personally thank Dave Tyler from DPW who spent Monday and Tuesday there.

Monday he weeded the entire island and got all the weeds out in the front, and another kid by the name of Josh helped him yesterday because I was, I was lucky enough to go there yesterday when they were working to thank them for all the hard work.

So I want to thank both of them personally because now the entranceway, the parking lot where the picnic tables are looks like it did when it actually— when we first opened it up.

It really— they went above and beyond cleaning that place up because there was a lot of time spent when that was developed and made, and it's kind of gone by the wayside over the last couple years in my opinion.

But they went back and they really— it really looks nice over there.

I saw the trucks there.

Yeah, it really looks nice.

It's used by an awful lot of people and And that interest rate now looks right up to par.

And then the last thing, which I did get today, um, the email in regards to our, um, liability insurance.

Oh yeah, nice job negotiating that.

Thank you.

Going out, um, you know, sometimes, you know, like homeowner's insurance, nobody thinks about checking it and going out to bid or researching things.

But on behalf of the town, going out and getting a reduction in the cost of it and getting better coverage, I want to applaud you and the team.

Thank you.

You know, as I opened the email and read it, that's great.

I got my insurance and it went up 10%.

So I was just going to say, I wish I could do that for my home insurance too.

But it's one of those things that does get forgotten.

And then when you go out and you— and we get a reduction and get a better coverage.

Thank you.

I appreciate that.

I just want— I just want to recognize, you know, Carol does a phenomenal job.

Jen Argo, the finance director, does a phenomenal job because they're working with Gallagher.

On a, you know, at least a monthly basis to make sure that we're dealing with stuff.

We've got workers' comp insurance and things of that nature, but Gallagher has been a phenomenal partner and they are super aggressive, and so it's a great partnership to have.

Good.

All right, excellent.

Chris, just a couple things for people that have been following the SportsCenter for the Seekonk High School.

You know, the softball team from Seekonk for the first time in 31 years made it to to the Final Four championship.

Um, they, they did lose, but we congratulate them.

And then the boys softball, uh, baseball team, if you remember, they won back the championship in '23-'24.

They actually just won yesterday and they're going back to the championship.

So this is their 4th appearance in 5 years.

So they might be back in front of us, um, again.

Nice.

So it's, it's really good over there.

Okay, uh, that's all I Miss, I have a little bit of a list here, but this is from, uh, a discussion I had with Representative Howitt at the veterans ceremony, uh, the Memorial Day after, right after the parade.

And Sean, I can give you this list if I could just put it on the record of what we discussed.

Create a position of a poet laureate for the town.

We'd have to check the charter and bylaws to see if either of and speak to this position, uh, create a position.

If not, um, we'd have to write maybe or pass a resolution and then, uh, have the Veterans Committee nominate Margie— would you say Risqué?

Is that— I think it's Resnick.

Yeah.

Yeah, nominate her as the poet laureate because she did a phenomenal job at the— she does every time though.

Um, that's the first thing.

And then we would take a vote on appointing her.

Um, and then write a letter to the DOT to put in a crosswalk on Fall River Ave near Dorman's Auto Sales for access to the plaza across the street because of the number of people crossing the street.

We've done that like 5 times.

Okay.

And then write a letter to DOT to have the property surveyed at 751 Fall River Ave, the donut shop.

Yeah, they just had a new parking lot, parking area put in, and it might be infringing on state-owned property.

You did that too?

Same combination.

Okay, we can resend it.

It's been a little while, but we've sent that out.

Okay.

Close off one of the entrances on Old Fall River Road across from the Pride dealership.

This is Howard's personal stuff.

Yeah, it is.

Personal agenda.

Try to close that entrance.

He's been talking about it for years.

Okay.

Um, and then once Whole Foods opens, uh, maybe put a sign that the entrance is at the light coming off the ramp.

People may see it and then slow down, and it may cause accidents.

So maybe— but I mean, there's temporary fence up for the, the bank going up, so this is like, uh, down the road.

Um, check on the number of liquor licenses available to restaurants, uh, see how— if it's maxed out.

Yeah, we, we've got that already.

Okay.

How many ATMs does Seaconch have and where are they located?

Because of all the scams with, with elderly people.

People are getting scammed pretty bad.

I know, I have no idea where they are.

Banks?

I, I know people are getting scammed.

I know one person, she has to always bail her mother out.

It's pretty bad.

Um, and then, uh, are there any Bitcoin kiosks in Seekonk?

And if so, are we receiving a tax on them?

For the ATMs, the So what are you looking to do?

Uh, find out where they are and find out where they are, where they're located.

And then just, just for now, I mean, because people are— maybe to tell what people know, that if there are seniors in their family, you know, keep an eye out.

No, I'm just— you just confused me on that.

I was trying to figure out, because I know people have scanned their cards in gas stations and they've had skimmers on them, and it takes 2 seconds to install it and So it's not just ATMs.

Yeah, it was a big thing a couple years ago when we were on the board with coming through town and stuff.

I'll just give this a listen.

Okay, I was just trying to figure out what— thank you.

I think he's more concerned— I think he's more concerned about people getting in their cars and driving to an ATM versus going into a store and like getting cash back.

All set, all set.

That was it, that was enough.

Okay, just a follow-up from the presentation that Ms. Archibald made about Old Town Hall.

I believe she's had some interactions with SERPID, and there's going to be a follow-up meeting soon, or preliminary meeting if you will, for any grant opportunities.

But I would like to say to anybody out there, if you have a competing interest, there's another idea, because I mean, what Ms. Archibald presented is certainly not a done deal, right?

So if there's others out there that have similar interest, uh, we would certainly entertain a good use for that, that building.

Reminder, on the 24th we're going to do a trial with 5 PM start time.

And I've noticed, especially around Baker's Corners and a lot of the other roads, we're really falling behind on the striping.

So if you can make note of that.

And, uh, other than that, we all set?

So I entertain a motion to adjourn.

So moved.

Uh, 7:40.

7:40.

Yep.

All right, 7:44.

Second.

Second.

All right, all in favor?

Aye.

Opposed?

So voted.

All right, thank you all.