Select Board Meeting — June 24, 2026

They're good.

What's up?

And I planted a bunch of tomatoes.

Good evening and welcome to the select board meeting on Wednesday the 24th of June, 2026, at 5:00 PM.

Would you all please rise and join me with a salute to the flag and a 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.

Okay, thank you.

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

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

Before we go into the business at hand tonight, we were informed earlier today that the Seacock Water District has imposed their Phase 3 outdoor water management program effective yesterday, which means there is no outdoor watering of any kind.

Uh, we've all been under the every other day, but that is I also see, so no watering of— at any— for anybody.

So thank you.

Okay, board and committee openings.

Would somebody like to read?

Volunteers are needed on the Capital Improvement Committee, Commission on Disability, Economic Development Committee, Energy Committee, Finance Committee, and Historical Commission.

Okay, very good.

Priority matters.

Consider the conditional offer offer of employment to Abigail Cabral for the position of Human Services Receptionist/Program Assistant.

Mr. Kadeem.

Yeah, good evening, Mr. Kadeem and members of the select board.

Tonight I respectfully request your consideration of a conditional offer of employment for Abigail Cabral for the position of receptionist/program assistant within the Human Services Department.

Abigail performed exceptionally well during her interview with the panel, which included Mr. Cadime, Ashley Cartwright, Nicole Buffington, and myself.

Based on our collective assessment, we believe Abigail would be an excellent addition to our department and would thrive in this role.

Throughout the interview process, Abigail demonstrated a positive attitude, strong interpersonal, interpersonal skills, and a genuine eagerness to learn and grow professionally.

We are confident that she will contribute positively to our team and provide excellent service to the community.

Thank you for your consideration of this conditional offer of employment for Abigail Cabral.

Mr. Chairman, my recommendation is as stated by the Director of Human Services.

Okay.

The chair will entertain a motion to offer conditional offer of employment to Abigail Cabral, position of Human Services Receptionist Program Assistant.

Moved that the Select Board appoint Abigail Cabral to the position of Reception Assistant with Human Services, subject to and conditioned upon her successful passage as determined by the town administrator of an employment check, successful CORI check, and the completion of all pre-employment paperwork.

Okay, so moved.

Is there a second?

Second.

Moved and seconded.

All in favor?

Wait a minute, wait a minute.

Bob just did the second.

Sorry, sorry.

Thank you.

All set?

Okay.

All in favor?

Aye.

Aye.

So voted.

Number 2 is also you.

Good luck.

Yep.

Okay, so again, Mr. Cadime and members of the select board, tonight I respectfully request your consideration of a conditional offer unemployment for Michelle Puhak for the position of community liaison coordinator within the Human Services Department.

Michelle participated in an interview with a panel consisting of Mr. Cadime, Ashley Cartwright, Nicole Buffington and myself.

Throughout the interview, Michelle demonstrated, demonstrated strong communication skills, professionalism, and a genuine commitment to serving this community.

Michelle brings many years of customer service and administration experience to the role.

Additionally, her bilingual abilities and experience as a group fitness instructor are valuable assets that will enhance our department's ability to connect with and serve a diverse population.

As a resident with deep ties to the SEACOMC community, Michelle has a strong understanding of local needs and a vested interest in supporting the well-being of our residents.

Based on her qualifications, experience, and enthusiasm for the position, the interview panel agrees that Michelle would be an excellent addition to our team and a strong fit for the Human Services Department.

Thank you for your consideration.

Okay.

I support the director's recommendation.

Okay.

Moved that the select board appoint Michelle— can you pronounce that for me?

Puhak.

Puhak?

Yeah.

Puhak to the position of community liaison coordinator with Human Services Subject to and conditioned upon her successful passage, as determined by the town administrator, of an employment check, successful CORI check, and a completion of all pre-employment paperwork.

Second.

Moved and seconded.

All in favor?

Aye.

Opposed?

So voted.

Congratulations.

Thank you very much.

Okay, Seekonk Board of Library Trustees, introduction of our new library director, Elise LaForge.

Hello.

Hello.

And you are, for the record?

For the record, Alyssa Richard, um, forest staff.

I'm also— I sit on the Board of Library Trustees.

And I'm here to introduce you tonight to our new director, Elise LaForge.

We're very pleased to have her join us.

She started on June 10th.

She has over 20 years of experience in the Massachusetts library system, spending the last 5 years, um, as the director over in Avon.

And we're very pleased to have her join us.

Thank you, Alyssa.

Hi, Hi, everybody.

I'm Elise.

Hello.

Hi, Elise.

Elise.

Melissa pretty much covered it.

I've got a lot of experience in the, in the field of public libraries.

I was a director for the past 5 years.

I've got a lot of experience in terms of population sizes.

I've worked in a really small town.

I've worked in the city, and I love what I do, for whatever that's worth.

So I'm really excited to be joining the team at this critical time with the building project that's going to be underway.

Can you swing a hammer?

Hey, on a bad day.

So thank you so much for welcoming me.

I do just want to say quickly, so Alyssa said I started on the 10th, so I've been here for about 2 and a half weeks, and I just wanted to thank everyone that I've met already.

I've been so warmly welcomed to Seekonk.

Um, patrons, residents, staff members, town hall employees, everyone has been so kind and welcoming, and it's been a really great start to an exciting new transition.

So It's called the honeymoon.

That is, that is possible.

Um, but, but still, um, it's been really nice and I've just felt really welcome.

So that's great.

Yeah, the best is yet to come.

Yes, I agree.

I agree.

Thank you guys so much for taking the time to, to let me introduce myself and say hi.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Have a good night.

Okay, read it to the record.

The town moderator's appointment of Michael Novosin to the Finance Committee, term to expire 2029.

And I see Mr. Novosin here.

I'm just making note of that, and hereby read into the record.

So you're all set, I believe, because it's a moderator appointment.

So, okay, good luck, sir.

Okay, the next one concerns the zoning board.

This is a request of mine.

I serve currently as one of the 4 members of the Zoning Board.

I have been on the board for 26 years.

Mr. Matthew Collins is an alternate member.

I'm also the current chairman of the Zoning Board, and my term is going to expire the end of this month.

So I'd like to switch places with Mr. Collins and let him become a full member, because I believe he's going to be in line to be the vice chairman behind the current vice chairman, who will be elevated to, uh, to chairman.

So I'll be staying on but only appear on an as-needed basis and hopefully not too often.

So items 5 and 6 can be decided together.

So if somebody wants to make a motion— I make a motion that we change Gary Segar from full member of the Zoning Board of Appeals to an alternate member and change Michael Collins from alternate member to a full-time member of the Zoning Board of Appeals.

That's effective July 1st.

July 1st.

Yep.

Okay.

All in favor?

Aye.

Opposed?

Then I will— okay.

Community speaks.

Is there anyone here who would like to speak on behalf of the community?

Hello?

Hi, Bonnie DeBlois, 380 Prospect Street.

I just wanted to say how much I appreciate the fact that our speed limit, after 40 years of trying, has finally been lowered.

And it's hard to tell if it's making a difference, but I think it is.

I mean, especially the 30-mile-an-hour portion.

So I really appreciate it and thank anyone that was involved in that.

Okay, thank you.

You're welcome.

Thank you.

Is there anyone else?

Anyone else like to speak?

Yes, sir.

For the record, just identify yourself.

Absolutely.

Hey, good evening.

Uh, Michael Novenson, 100 Brown Avenue.

Uh, here tonight, uh, in addition to being appointed to Finance Committee regarding the Medeiros Farm agenda item, uh, did I wanted to respectfully request the select board honor the will of the people as, uh, as expressed at town meeting and move forward with the awarding of the design services bid.

Uh, for me personally, uh, as somebody who has young kids, I certainly— more recreation, more green space in town would be appreciated.

I enjoy the nature preserves we have up at Caratunk and at Camino Pond, but certainly some more green space to exercise, run around, active recreation, as well as the historic farm equipment and the truck equipment.

It's good to remember our rural heritage and, uh, and where this town came from, especially as we move to a bedroom community.

So, uh, as folks here know, this has been before town meeting on 2 separate occasions.

First, uh, for awarding of the bids, the votes were overwhelmingly in favor, in excess of 2/3 in favor on each of those.

And then subsequently was brought, uh, forward by some members to try to pump the brakes on the project.

That was overwhelmingly opposed by the public with about a 2 to 1 in opposition on 2 separate votes.

So we have heard from the public loud and clear on this issue.

I would ask for, uh, to, uh, to respect what people have had to say on this and, uh, that we move forward with this project.

Thank you.

Okay, thank you.

Is there anyone else wants to speak?

The community speaks.

Anyone else?

Nope.

Okay, consider the request for a common vitriolo license for WS Seacock LLC Doing business as Wingstop, 1201 to 1205 Fore River Avenue, Unit 8.

Steve Tate is manager.

Is Mr. Tate here?

Yeah, right here.

Would you come up here, sir, please?

And for the record, you are Steve Tate?

Yes, I'm Steven Tate.

And you are the manager-to-be?

Uh, so no, I'm not the manager of the location.

I oversee all of New England.

The manager, his name is George Morgan.

He can't attend today.

So we have Steve Tate as manager.

That's correct?

Yeah, so I am the manager of like all of New England.

So I do oversee that restaurant in my portfolio.

All right, is that sufficient, Mr.?

Yeah, that's fine.

Okay, so that's the former Dunkin' Donuts, correct?

No, I have no idea.

It's next to the old Blockbuster.

Or the old Subway.

Subway.

Oh, okay, yeah, yeah.

Oh, and it's in that plaza.

Oh, okay, I'm sorry, same neighborhood.

Okay, does anybody have any questions of Mr. Tate?

Seeing none, I entertain a motion to approve as we— as submitted.

So moved.

Second.

All in favor?

Aye.

Opposed?

So voted.

Welcome.

Awesome.

Thank you, guys.

Thank you.

Welcome.

Good luck with everything.

I'm sorry, I'm sorry, who made the motion on that?

Uh, me.

Okay, Mike second.

Thank you.

Okay, next we have under item B, consider a request by Paul Medeiros and the Medeiros family that Susan Moulton be appointed as an alternate member of the Medeiros Farm Committee in the event that he is unable to participate as a member.

And it's dated June 3rd, and it says, uh, Addressed to Mr. Cadime, in the event I'm unable to participate as a member of the Medeiros Farm Committee, I am writing to request that Susan Moulton be appointed as an alternate member representing the interests of the Medeiros family.

Should you have any questions, contact me.

And it's signed by Paul Medeiros.

So do you, uh, your comments on this?

Uh, no, I would just suggest that the board just take a vote on it, accept the, uh, the alternate.

Well, it's to my understanding there was a similar situation involving the the appointment of the historical committee member who wanted to have an alternate and you said no?

This one's different because it's the family member.

So we have to have— by the, uh, the vote of town meeting, there has to be a family member that's participating on the committee.

So if Mr. Medeiros is not there, we need a family member.

So we can't appoint a member.

So it would be up to Mr. Medeiros to figure it out.

But if it also says you need a member of the historical commission and one of them can't make it, we can't have an alternate there either.

Well, I, I think that's different than somebody being in Florida for 6 months versus somebody being sick, right?

That— so what's your thoughts?

I think it opens the door.

If we want to have an alternate, then it's up to the board.

Um, one's a completely different— I mean, this is a family member, that's got to be specific.

But, you know, the board can vote the way they want to vote.

If we want to go back to the purpose of, uh, you know, an individual committed to being on the Madera Farm Committee was going to be down in Florida for 6 months of the year, I mean, that— I don't know that an alternate makes sense at that point.

It should be a full member.

So it's truly up to the board.

I mean, we can, we can come back if, uh, in the event Mr. Medeiros, uh, is unable to participate.

Either way, can we table it just to make sure that we're not stepping over the line here with what you brought up?

Let's do it.

Let's look into the background of it.

Does she want to replace him, like, permanently?

So if he's not able to make it, he would just be an alternate?

That's, uh, is that his daughter?

Yes.

Yeah, if you like the table and such, we'll all make it.

I don't see it a big issue with it.

I— this is new to me, what you, what you brought up as a chairman about something historical, just so we're not, just so we're not flip-flopping.

I don't, I don't think it's flip-flopping.

It's just if Mr. Menderes can't make it to the next meeting, someone's going to take his place as a member of the family.

This is just an alternate, or— right, but if— but I guess what you're saying, if alternates aren't allowed on other committees, then we're kind of creating a gray area.

Not allowed on other committees.

They— so like he mentioned with the other representative that was not going to be here for 6 months, so that could— right, no, I'm not— that's a big issue.

No, I'm, I'm not saying that.

I'm just saying I understand where Bob's coming from.

If if it wasn't allowed on the historical committee in alternate, then again, I just want to make sure we're consistent.

Right.

Are we going to straight away just not create the alternate but put the person in that place?

Is that the case with the historical?

It was just— we're not going to allow for an alternate, we're going to replace that person.

Is that what happened?

Yes, I believe.

Yes.

Yeah.

I'm just— with a member of the commission.

The historical commission.

Right.

I just want it to be straightforward.

So this is the way we do business.

Yeah.

Just not this way in this meeting and then 6 months down the road doing something different.

I appreciate that.

What I would say is it's a completely different situation.

There was an individual who put in for the committee that knew they were going to be away for 6 months.

So if you know that that's going to be the case, I don't know that you should have put your name in the position.

That's, to me, it's you're going to be here for 6 months, then change, and we're going to have different people participating.

So the commitment should have been, if you know you want to be on the Medeiros Farm or any building committee, it should be that you are going to make the meetings.

There was a number of meetings that were missed leading up to that.

I get it.

I don't know that tabling changes anything.

This is, to me, a different situation and circumstance.

But again, if you don't want to put a family member because it is a health-related issue that has to have a family member on it— No, I completely agree with that and understand that.

I just— again, if other commit— regardless of the— we just want consistency.

No, and I would say if this was another town committee, I would tell you that we shouldn't be doing that.

You know, I think if you have a member who's representing a board or commission, that they should be part of it from beginning to end.

This request is based upon his health condition, correct?

Correct.

Simple that.

Okay, so I have a question.

I, I thought I read something that might have been a year, year and a half ago, some of my documentation, that this issue has come up previously.

A question— there was a letter from Mr. Medeiros about a possible alternate a while ago as well.

Yeah, so this isn't the first pass through this.

This is— was it 18 months ago?

I, I remember reading through it a short time ago.

I'm just trying If you can refresh my memory on it.

Hi, good afternoon.

Hi.

Continue.

Oh, thank you, thank you.

You can continue.

And you are, ma'am?

I'm Susan Moulton.

Okay, I didn't call you up here.

Could you go back to your seat, please?

Oh, sure.

Okay, I just wanted to add to the discussion, but I'll wait for the call.

Thank you.

Yeah, so I, I just— I'm trying to put it all together.

Okay.

Um, but this has come up before.

Okay.

But so things materially have changed.

I mean, I don't want— you don't have to get into all the detail, obviously.

Um, yeah, I guess my only point is that we— everything we do is, is consistent and transparent.

Everybody knows exactly what's going on.

We do it this way and we do it this way going forward.

So no one can come back and question and say, why do you do it this way on this case and we do it differently here?

That's what I'm trying to prevent.

Okay, Bob, I think what you're referring to is Mr. Medeiros had told the committee at the time that his daughter would be the alternate.

And if Mr. Sullivan, if you want to call him up, can confirm this, but I believe that's what happened at one of the meetings when I attended, that, um, Paul had made the— not the suggestion, but he said if, if I'm not able to attend, my daughter will be the alternate to the Medeiros farm.

So I think now we're just finally made the letter and made it official.

Um, like I said, if you want to call Mr. Sullivan, he can— might be able to— I thought it was a little— how long ago was that?

Yeah, that was a long— it was a while.

It was back in the wintertime that I recall.

Right.

I'm just— I, I just want consistency, that's all.

Is there any opportunity for this to be a replacement, not simply an alternate?

He would have to sign I don't want to kick the guy off the board.

He wants to resign, he has to resign.

No, I'm not— I'm not— I'm— I— that's not my intention.

That's not where I'm going, to remove him from the board.

I, I'm looking at options to keep everything consistent, that's all.

So would you rather we continue this to the next meeting?

Is there anything you want to consider, or I believe we can move forward with it.

Okay.

Like I said, if you want clarification, you can call up Mr. Sullivan to maybe— if you had questions, or— no, it's just willing to come up.

My comments are strictly not toward this particular action that we're taking.

It's just for consistency about what we do here.

So if we approve it, we should put it so state that if we if it passes is because of medical reasons, potential medical reasons, right?

Mr.

Chair, can people use the microphone in hearing you?

Difficult to hear without it.

So, okay.

So what's the pleasure of the board?

Make a motion for Susan Molten to be appointed as the alternate member of the Medeiros.

Um, committee to represent Paul Medeiros due to medical conditions, correct?

Yeah, correct.

Yeah, reasons for health reasons.

It's a— it's like a health consideration here.

Okay, uh, second.

I moved and seconded.

All in favor?

Aye.

That's unanimous.

Okay.

Yeah, name mic.

Okay, consider the appointment of constables, special police officers, detention attendants, and traffic constables, not requiring disclosure, as recommended by the list provided by Police Chief David Ennis.

And we have it on here.

Do you want me to read all of them, or can we just, uh, so state it on the record?

So state it on— okay.

So I entertain a motion to appoint for 1 year.

It's a 1-year appointment, correct?

Correct.

Yep.

Okay, do I have a motion?

So you would like to do items D through K, Mr. Chairman, altogether?

Is that what you're saying?

No, these are the— these are the special ones that are so listed.

This is the sheet that we have.

Yeah.

Okay, attached list.

Yeah.

Yep, yep.

So making a motion to appoint as recommended by the police chief.

So moved.

Second.

Moved and seconded.

All in favor?

Aye.

Opposed?

So voted.

And now the second group, if you will.

Uh, they have to make a disclosure under 268A because they are already employees of the town, correct?

And that list, I'll read that off.

This is all considered a disclosure of Mass General Law 268A, Section 20 The reappointment of Special Officer Ronald Rickey, detention attendant Taylor Cordero, detention attendant Kaylee Kelly McGill, traffic constable Jonathan Mattel, traffic constable Douglas Young, traffic constable James Roy, traffic constable Kevin English, and traffic constable Timothy Goodwin.

So I have a motion to make those appointments.

So moved.

Second.

Can I just clarify, to, uh, accept MGL 268A subsection 20F disclosure form as well, and the appointment.

Oh, that has to be part of it?

Yes, so the board needs to accept the disclosure form.

Okay.

Is there a second?

Second.

Second.

Moved and seconded.

All in favor?

Aye.

Opposed?

So voted.

Okay, next is a discussion regarding drones for public safety and in general government use.

So if the chief and Mr. Auburn would go up to the table, if you would, please.

I think you met Enos, police chief.

Is he here?

Is Chief Enos here?

Chief Worm, come up.

Chief, you want to join?

You can come up.

Topic of conversation.

All right.

He would never exclude you.

Oh, you and Air Force.

Okay.

So about a month or so ago, when meeting that you missed, I believe you were out almost getting— I provided to Chief Ennis first page of this was an article on Channel 12 on drones.

And I don't know if you could pass this down to Chief Whalen.

So what sparked my interest is the fact the City of Warwick Police Department is in doing, if you will, a pilot program using drones.

And the way their program works is the drones are on the roof of the station and they're connected to 911.

And if they get an incident, the dispatchers can send the drone— I guess they call them anonymous— and they can be on scene far ahead of any of the resources of public safety.

I was at the funeral for the Boston firefighter, and as part of the funeral procession, They had a whole unit, a drone unit that the fire department uses.

And we also— I gave you information about the fire academy is now using them for firefighting and interior fire suppression.

I had this brief conversation with also our town planner, who I was— who learned that you're now a pilot, right?

Drone pilot.

Is that what they call it?

Drone pilot.

A drone pilot.

It is an FAA pilot's license, but it's a drone pilot.

Yeah, right.

So And Mr. Orban suggested to me that there could be a use for planning, maybe building, anyways, all the regulatory boards in town.

I was saying the class that I took through UMass Amherst, the ground school, so to speak, out of probably 50 people that were there in that class, probably about a quarter of them were public safety.

The rest were DPW, MBTA, MassDOT, So there's a broad spectrum of uses.

And the engineering company that the teacher that was teaching the class, his engineering company has 40 drone pilots throughout the East Coast.

So it's something that, that's, as far as applications, there are a number of different applications out there across a number of different public safety as well as just the general public government service.

I had actually kind of had some conversations with Sean over the last year or so since I've gotten my my license, as well as with Chief Ennis and Sergeant Perry, who's kind of our lead over in the police department.

He has been working on putting together a program in the police department.

I've started putting together some stuff myself in the planning department for a future presentation to the board, and Mr. Segar just kind of happened to come in with this, so I think it's a timely discussion and glad to be a part of it.

So I, from what I see, there was also, I found it's a big drone company that does a lot with public safety, this Skydio.

It's part of your attachments.

It doesn't seem like if a program was introduced in Seacong, it doesn't seem like it's a lot of money to do it.

And I think the benefits of it are great.

So, so you mentioned autonomous.

I know you said anonymous, but we'll go with autonomous.

Okay.

For the sake of argument.

I wasn't going to correct you.

I saw you though.

No cloaking systems yet.

You can't get them cloaked yet.

Does it require a drone pilot on every dispatch, or as E911 is dispatched, is it automatic to the scene in this case with the In just the reading that I've done so far, I'm not— my training wasn't with autonomous drones, it was with, you know, the drones that you're actually piloting.

My sense would be is that it's kind of odd, and from what I learned in some of the drone technology in my class was my sense is they program it, it goes up, it goes, and you're probably just as simple as putting the address in and it'll go to that site.

From reading the article, it looked like it was more to provide kind of on-site information to kind of site commanders and kind of really build that informational kind of picture of what the scene looks like.

And obviously it's different situations and different applications between search and rescue versus an active shooter versus, you know, a silver alert.

So you can get the right assets out there ahead of time.

Yeah, this Warwick system seems to be something to kind of get something out on scene as quick as possible so that the chief or whoever might be the, the on-scene commander can have that kind of eye in the eye in the sky, so to speak.

I think there are other applications that actually, you know, involve somebody kind of sitting there with the drone, be it either a, you know, kind of a first-person deal where you see somebody with the goggles on.

I think fire— so there's a lot of applications there with sending a drone in rather than a fireman into a dangerous situation, particularly with special hazard situations.

And then also, you know, obviously search and rescue is a kind of an obvious one.

Do we have any— is there any research done on towns similar to our size that have implemented these?

I, I think as far as the autonomous ones, I would say no.

I think that's kind of somewhat of a kind of next-level thing.

But given, you know, Route 6 and the commercial districts that we have and the things in the past, you know, Chief Healy was involved at the Attleboro Dye Works fire.

I, you know, that's the one that like immediately sprung to my mind because I know they were fighting that fire, there was a shift in the wind.

I think there was a live gas line going through the middle of that building.

So things like that where you can have that eye in the sky in fire application, you're most likely going to have something that's got thermal imaging on it.

So if you see a part of the building, it's really starting to— the temperature's going up, that gives that on-scene commander that information all that much quicker.

But as far as what towns are using it, to answer your question, I, you know, we'd have to take a look at that a little bit more.

The— what I've been working on it since I've gotten my license was kind of putting together the program, so to speak, um, you know, chain of command hierarchy, uh, putting together the, you know, actual resolution from the board to authorize it, um, those types of things, and what the program would look like from the kind of mechanical side of it.

Um, but we can certainly, if we're going to investigate this more, look into those questions.

So with you having the license, I'm just— and I don't know anything about it, that's why I'm asking the question.

Questions.

So with the drone license, if we did something like that in the Seaconic, what is— a call comes into 911, how does the— how does someone with a license quickly get that program to get to that location?

Sergeant Perry is probably the, the most equipped to speak to that.

Um, there are some restrictions where you get into the law enforcement, particularly where there's an opportunity or the end situation is going to be an apprehension of in that situation, I think your drone pilot, from my conversations with Detective Parry, have been to— you have to have somebody that's a sworn police officer.

In other instances, you know, where like search and rescue, that's not the case.

If it— and again, it would depend on what the— I think what the situation was.

And those are the kind of things that we'd have to kind of build into the program to make sure those are covered.

From the town hall side of things, I think there are applications with regard to site investigations, enforcement actions from the building department, on, you know, somebody doing something on their property they shouldn't be, and kind of gathering that evidence and kind of getting pictures and that type of thing.

And for DPW, looking at things like when we're out trying to find outfalls to some of our stormwater systems that are out in the middle of a wooded lot, you know, and that's surrounded by a swamp, and, you know, we don't want to send DPW guys out there.

We can pop a, you know, 2-pound drone up in the air.

Well, if the water district was part of town government, yeah, I guess we could.

But that's another editorial comment.

Thank you.

I will say from the fire side, we do have a— the Department of Fire Services, you have some literature in here, a special operations unit.

We can request them.

And also we've just developed a Bristol County team, a drone team.

So the Bristol County chiefs are divided into North and South District, so we can use them as a county-based asset.

And we have pilots available for any sort of response that we may need.

But as far as autonomous drone, that's not a capability.

They're all, they're all piloted, which I believe Mr. Perry already helps you guys out on scenes.

They do, yeah.

We had a brush fire maybe 4 years back.

They just got the drone and we put it up and they were able to track some hotspots that we weren't able to see through the, you know, through vegetation and things.

Good.

So yeah, it's a great resource.

If we had the capability of doing, I would highly recommend developing a program And we have all the requirements in Bristol County.

We have standard operating procedures and everything from the team, so we could most likely use that for like a template if we need to.

Well, what I'd like to see, Mr. Gadeem, is potentially the 2 chiefs and Mr. Aubin get together and come up with something that would work for the whole town.

That you just— I can certainly flesh out what I've kind of already been working on kind of on the side, just to you know, for a future proposal and get together with the chiefs and put together what Sergeant Perry's been working on.

So I know he's done a lot of work on this over the last year or so.

Okay, Chief Pienas just arrived, so would you give this to him?

I apologize, I didn't know there was a time change on the meeting.

That's all I have for now.

So great.

So you got into the tail end of the conversation, which we're going to suggest that the 2 chiefs and Mr. Orban get together and look at a potential drone program for the town.

Kind of building on what Keith's already working on.

Yeah, absolutely.

Okay.

Thank you.

Again, I apologize.

Nope.

No apology needed.

Thank you.

Ladies and gentlemen, consider the reappointment of board and committee members: Board of Health, Board of Registrars, Community Preservation Commission, Conservation Commission, Commission on Disability, Human Services Council, Taxation Aid Fund Committee, Zoning Board of Appeals.

And it's all in an enclosure.

Would anybody like me to read them, or can we just enter it into the record?

You might want to read them so people know.

Okay, I will read them.

Okay, Board of Health— these are reappointments for 3 years expiring June 30th, 2029.

Board of Health is Jason French.

Board of Registrars is Catherine Testa.

Community Preservation Committee is Willett Conservation Commission is Nathan Sosha, Brett Roberts, and Kristen Kearney.

Taxation Aid Fund Committee, Kim Lalia.

Human Services Council, Terry McGregor.

Zoning Board of Appeals, Greg Gauthier and Shane Haleko.

And Commission on Disability, Eric Harris-Grimes and Ashley Cartwright.

So entertain a motion to reappoint.

So moved.

Second.

All in favor?

Aye.

Opposed?

So voted.

All right, next is to accept the resignation of firefighter Samantha Spatola from the Seekonk Fire Department effective June 19th, 2026.

So moved.

The second?

Second.

All in favor?

Aye.

Opposed?

So voted.

Accept the fiscal year '26 emergency management performance grant, EMPG, for the Seekonk Fire Department in the amount of $4,140 to be used for emergency management supplies.

Chief.

Good evening, Mr.

Chair, select board members, Mr. Kadeem, Sean Whalen, Seekonk Fire Chief.

I've come before you this evening just to ask through the body to accept the sum of monies of $4,140 for the EMPG grant.

I rose before you a few months ago to ask for the application to be submitted.

We were successful in obtaining the grant.

They did put a lot of restrictions on this grant, so every dollar will be used for the emergency management program along with CERT.

So we were able to acquire some equipment through the EMPG grant last fiscal cycle, and we're just going to go ahead and make our capabilities for emergency management a little bit more robust with this money, if so accepted tonight.

Okay, any questions of the chief?

Make a motion.

So moved.

Second.

Moved and seconded.

All in favor?

Aye.

Opposed?

So voted.

And good job as always with the grants, Chief.

Thank you very much, appreciate it.

Have a great night.

Yep.

Okay, consider signing the deed for 911 Thornton Avenue.

Thank you, Mr.

Chair.

I just need the board to take a vote to accept the acceptance of the deed for for 911 Taunton Ave., which is going to be the part of the DPW site, facility site.

Just for the update for the board, we don't have an actual closing date as of right now, but talking to Mr. Murray, the current owner, he did mention July 16th, just waiting to hear from his attorney.

So that seems like that's the target date.

Okay.

So we need to approve the DPW So to accept the deed, approve the acceptance of the deed, and then sign it.

Okay, so motion.

So moved.

A second.

Second.

All in favor?

Aye.

So voted.

Okay, and consider signing the paving contract for J.H.

Lynch and Sons for the Arcade Avenue and Oak Hill Avenue paving.

Yep, so we have the contracts in there.

So we had amended language that we discussed at the last meeting last week with regards to substantial completion from Newman Ave. to Taunton Ave. by the end of August.

And then the second half, the second phase of it will be completed by November.

They are working on a timeline with regards to that street.

So that has been committed.

Letters of insurance have been submitted.

So all of the documentation has been provided.

We have that for signature for the board.

And notice for rejection of bids have also gone out.

No, good.

What was the start date again?

They said if we can get something to them tomorrow that they would stop by the end of June.

Okay, so that's next week.

Yep.

Ideally, if we could contact the high school and use their electronic sign.

Oh yeah, put up there.

We can do that in the senior center too so that, you know, people are aware.

Okay, so we've already approved this, so this is just to sign it.

So we don't need a motion, right?

Correct.

Correct.

Okay, okay, okay.

Next we have a joint meeting with the Madeiras Farm Committee.

If the Madeiras Farm Committee is here and like to join us up front, put both tables together.

You do what?

Both tables together, or might be easier, Chris.

Okay, we're gonna move that table towards you.

All right, guys, let's You move can on.

sit down.

I believe we're just missing Mr. Sosha.

Is he— are you expecting him?

We were, but he was working until 5, so he might be tied up with everything going on.

So would you all identify yourself just so— if you want, I'll call the meeting to order first.

Go right ahead.

I'd like to call this meeting, a joint meeting with the Selectmen of the Majority Foreign Committee, to order at this time.

Fine.

Just roll call introductions from— Sure, that'd be fine.

Will it?

You want introductions for the board?

William Mason.

Nicole Lamang.

Susan Moulton.

Andrea Rossiter.

David Sullivan.

And Dennis Blanchette.

Dennis is our OPM.

Okay.

Just for the record, meeting's open at 5:43 PM.

PM.

And also, just for the record as well, um, just want to advise the board, I was informed a short time ago that Mr. Medeiros just arrived home from the hospital this evening, and Susan was sworn in by the clerk about 10 minutes ago.

Okay, so Susan's going to sit in as a representative of the family.

Okay, very good.

Thank you.

All right, um, the reason why you're here, okay, Um, in January, January 6th, at your meeting, you voted unanimously to reach out to members of the Board of Selectmen, being the chairman and the vice chairman, and with your— at the time, the representative of the select board— to meet with the chair of this board, the vice chair, and Mr. Cadime to discuss some issues.

Yes.

That was 169 days ago.

My phone never rang, and I don't think anybody else's did, so the meeting never Correct.

So, uh, after your meeting, when I came back to the select board, I voiced my opposition that I did not want to just see the chair and the vice chair.

I wanted the whole board to be involved.

And so that's why I asked Mr. Dean to not just invite you and the vice chair, but the whole board, so that both boards are here and can have a discussion.

I was made aware recently of potential— if I could say this the right way— uh, compromise of the process of selecting the, uh, designer going forward with the Rubik's Square or whatever, however they do it.

So that person that reached out to me, or I had a conversation with, I If they would like to bring it up and discuss it, then the floor is theirs.

So— It wasn't the selection of CHA as the designer that I had a problem with.

It was the process.

And so the first time when we picked the OPM, we went over the rubric.

And then we went through the interview process and we decided on one and we voted on that one.

This time the process was different.

We scored our sheets, they were taken by Mr. Kadeem, and it was whoever got the highest score would be picked.

Now we all agreed to that being the process.

We didn't vote on it, but we definitely as far as I know, all agreed to it.

My only problem with it is that after we turned in our scores, we changed the staffing from Michael Moonan being on CHA to I don't know whom, just somebody else.

A few people on the Madeira Swamp Committee did not want him.

So in the rubric, when you're doing the proposed staffing, it is on, you know, when you're looking at referrals, that they be good referrals, that they be personal.

And one of the referrals that we got was for Michael Moonan.

In our— in the organizational chart, Michael Moonan was the to-be be the project manager, the lead as in L-E-E-D, public relations or public outreach, and the landscape architect.

So it wasn't one— it wasn't like Michael Moon is just doing the HVAC, so we're just replacing that.

It was 4 kind of integral parts.

So I scored on staffing on proposed staffing that is no longer relevant.

And so I didn't know what would happen with the process past there because the process was different the first time.

So that was my only issue is that would those scores have changed?

And I'm sure they would have changed, but I don't know that it would have changed the outcome.

Because if there were several people on the committee that found Michael Mooney to be unacceptable, then the score for proposed staffing would have been unadvantageous as opposed to advantageous.

If you want to remove the project manager, the guy who's the project manager, the PR, the landscape architect, and the lead, then obviously the proposed staffing is not advantageous.

I can't remember whether I scored them as advantageous or highly advantageous, probably highly advantageous, because in the references that we received, Michael Mooney was mentioned favorably and then he was removed.

So that's what I have to say about the process.

I don't know that the outcome would have changed, but I do know that the scoring would have.

And since it was only based on the scoring, I don't know if it would have changed enough or if people who thought that they were advantageous would have made them non— or I can't speak for what any individual, how they would have scored, but mine would have changed.

So were you satisfied with the process?

No.

And that is my dissatisfaction with it, is simply that it was— we scored, our sheets were given to Mr. Kadeem, then at that point, towards the end of the meeting, a couple of our committee members said, well, actually, we don't want Michael Mooney on the project.

They explained their reasoning why, and it was that, well, Well, we got assurance from the OPM that they felt like CHA would have no problem removing him from the project.

In fact, I don't even know if he was removed from the project.

Mr. Kadeem would be the one to know that, not me.

And I don't know who was put in his place as the project manager, landscape architect, lead, and public relations.

I don't know who I scored.

Do you want to respond?

Sure.

So I guess first, in terms of the process, the process— let me take a step back.

So I do have an MCPPO certification, which is a Massachusetts certification of public purchasing officials, which is issued by the Attorney General's Office.

That's number one.

Right?

So I am certified in procurement.

The process is consistent with every process that we have followed.

Now, whether the process before, the meeting didn't end late I had my computer and I took everybody's sheets and I actually inputted the sheets in front of everybody.

Every other building committee— I know we have a library building committee member here, I'm not putting individuals on the spot— they have submitted their rubrics, their scoring sheets to me.

I've got the rubrics here, I've got the RFPs that were submitted, I've got the scoring sheets, I've got everybody's scores.

Now if, if there's an issue as to how individual members of the building committee ranks based on the, on the actual rubrics, I can't control that, right?

Every individual is going to rank based on what they see for a proposal.

So based on what Ms. Rosita is saying, I don't necessarily disagree that if she feels like there was no change in Michael Mooney, you know, maybe members may have changed.

I, I can't speak for those members, right?

The scoring is for CHA.

The organization.

It is not for Michael Mooney.

So that is obviously— it's the project team.

Michael Mooney is not the only member of the project, right?

So you had Bruce at Thornton Group who was also going to be providing some assistance as well.

There was other members.

There was absolutely— I agree with her wholeheartedly— there were conversations by members that they did not feel that Michael should be the lead.

But I can't speak for the members.

The members are going to have to speak for themselves in terms of why they, they chose CHAI.

I don't have a seat at the table for scoring.

I can only take what was given to me, put it into the rubrics, and provide that scoring.

So similar to what we did for the paving management, it's the lowest bid.

So, and I made sure everybody was aware, even though, you know, you go into the interview process and once you have people before you, you could have a firm that you really, really like, and then based on all the other rubrics, they could be number 2 or number 3, and you don't get to pick those individuals unless you bypass any have to have a specific reason for bypassing, you know, the lowest bidder or the second lowest bidder.

This happened to be— and I don't— I guess I can have it here, so— well, I can get it.

I don't have the actual tally.

I can see what the difference was.

Because— it was 10 points.

So potentially it could have swung, but I can't speak for how the individual members would have.

What I will say is in terms of the process itself and the integrity of the process, from outside of the Miraderas Farm just how we bid a building project.

It has been consistent with all the building projects.

We have an OPM who is also very familiar with, you know, procurement, public procurement, especially in Massachusetts, that oversee this.

So the integrity of that component is— I stand by.

But I don't necessarily disagree with, you know, I guess Ms. Ross's take that potentially if Michael Mooney was to, to stay on as a project manager if there was a change.

I, I can't speak for the, for the individual members.

I will say that we don't have a contract.

We don't have it.

Michael has still been the lead.

He's the one that's been negotiating.

So there hasn't really necessarily been a change.

So, and at this point, we, we don't have a contract with them, so we can't really have a conversation about project leads.

So I, I have a question.

Uh, Dave, as chairman, were you aware Of what, sir?

Of what we're talking about right here.

Yes, I was one of the ones that we had the discussion that had issues with Michael Moonen based on past performance as far as being the point person for the firm to be out there doing it.

I really don't have a change to me, and I don't remember what my grades were.

I have to go back and look.

That's a long time ago now.

But as far as the overall firm, I think their other grading points spoke for themselves.

Because I think their presentations with Brewster Thornton and some of the other subcontractors that they brought in, along with the gentleman that made the presentation, made their case very strongly that this is really the top firm.

And Mr. Cadime, as he stated here, said the same things to us, that just because we like certain things or like this person or that person or whatever, the scoring is going to drive who we go with and who is number 1, who is number 2, and so forth.

So things can change.

And it was also stated by Mr. Cadime during that discussion at the end of the meeting that someone could resign, someone can retire, things can change.

So personnel can— is fluid in that sense on the firm.

We don't control that.

So, so we could do our grading based on Michael Noonan being the lead person, but he could retire or move somewhere else and they plug somebody else back in.

We don't control that.

Now, would it change their rating?

I don't know.

I know it might not change mine.

I'd have to think about that.

But as far as the process and how we did it, I'm confident with how we made out, and I'm confident with using CHA would be a quality design firm.

I don't have an issue with that personally.

Can I ask, any of the Menderez Farm committee members took was concerned with this process, or was it just run with it?

I'm just, I'm just curious.

I'm trying to learn what was going through your heads when you had a situation like this.

Did anybody— was anybody concerned maybe it's compromised, maybe we should pause here and, and make sure we're doing this right, or is it you're just all fine with it?

Nate, you want to go first?

Yeah, a couple things.

So I think I think that it's a fairly complicated project, right?

There's architectural components, there's landscape components, there's kind of incorporation of the farms type stuff.

And so it's not a very common project.

It's not like— I think a fire station might be a thing where you have a similar type project that has a certain architecture.

And so we were looking at combinations of firms and we were trying to weigh them all equally when it was a hard project to do.

And I think as we went into this next phase, we thought, well, architecture is a really important component of it too.

And CHA also had a really strong architectural component as part of that.

And when we were thinking of the broader firm of CHA and kind of having everything under one roof, but also having Brewster Thornton, which is a very well-known firm, been very successful in the community, that kind of weighed in on us too in this kind of imperfect process of going about doing it and trying to go through the rubrics and metrics that we were given as going through that.

So I don't know if that clarifies anything, but I think we tried our best to try to think through the process the best we could and make it work.

And I think that CHA, through that process, still stood out as the strongest.

Actually, they weren't my first choice.

They were my second choice.

And as Nate points out, actually my concern was more with the architectural abilities of the firm and not so much of— I wasn't looking at the individual members, so I was focusing more on the architecture.

And I do feel that the presence of Michael on their staff or as even a leader was not a plus or a minus for me when I was making that decision.

My decision was really driven by the architecture strength of that group.

And I also would agree with the group that although I like Michael a lot, I felt that given the complexity of the project that— and the need to communicate to the public what the project was, Michael wasn't the best person.

But that was not going on in my head when I was making the decision.

I was trying to look at, you know, you're looking at 5, I think we had 5 firms that we were looking at and trying to sort out what strengths one had as opposed to another.

So I feel very comfortable with the project.

Process and the outcome?

So anyone who went through the first part of the process for the OPM with me knows that I am stringent by what it tells us to do.

Like, I sat there and went back and forth for every little point in the RFQ that we're supposed to be looking for, because it's not a subjective process.

So I try to remove as much subjection as possible.

So when you look at the rubric for proposed staffing, so highly advantageous is highly qualified staff with outstanding personal recommendations and specifically relevant experience, recreation, historic staff backup and additional resources available if needed.

Advantageous is highly qualified staff with outstanding personal recommendations.

And then not advantageous is inadequate or negative information regarding proposed team members' qualifications, background, or experience.

So when you have committee members saying, okay, I like the firm, I just don't like the guy that you're putting at the head of 4 major components of that, in my kind of black and white objective thinking, that automatically would put them down into the not advantageous.

I mean, to me, I— when I read the reference One of them was for Michael.

The other one was for somebody by the name of Jason Pelletier, who was not on the organizational chart at all.

So in other words, I disregarded that because that is not somebody who is part of this.

So when I read a really glowing recommendation and it's for Michael Mooney, and I go, oh, he's in all of these integral sections in the organizational chart, and now he's being removed.

Removed, that's how I know it would have changed my score personally, because that is how I have been through the— this entire process, the first time and the second time.

It's, this is what it reads, this is what I'm looking for.

Okay, you ladies have any comments?

They weren't involved in the process.

They weren't members.

Oh, well, okay.

I see.

As far as the OPM, any input?

So, we weren't allowed to vote.

No.

I'm talking about the staffing.

On the staffing, but we were scoring independently by ourselves after the Building Committee asked me where I stood with the scoring, and I had CHA as my input.

My number one choice.

And I didn't— I know that they had a— the committee had a concern with Michael Noonan being the front person, and that we had discussed that we would discuss that with Michael Noonan and have somebody else, whether it's Barbara Thornton or someone else in the firm.

But Michael would still be on the project, but he wouldn't be the person, the point person on this project moving forward.

I didn't see a problem with the process at all, and I know both firms, and I've worked with them before in the past, and they're both extremely professional.

So, just so I know, so I can learn from this— Can I just, just to elaborate, because I think we should throw it out there, that the concern to, you know, the OPM's point is that, you know, Dennis is not wrong.

I don't think anybody was questioning Michael Moonan's ability to be the architect, right?

It was being the public-facing.

Correct.

Right?

And so being a facilitator, because we obviously, we've all went through these public meetings, the public hearings, and he's just not a strong individual publicly.

And we just felt, given the contentious on the— with this project, we needed somebody who would be able to facilitate, you know, working with the neighbors, working with the committee, and be able to help facilitate a project that would work for the community.

So that was the overall goal.

It wasn't about the qualification of design or anything like that.

It was about who was going to be the point person for public speaking or public hearings and charrettes that you may have throughout the process.

That's what it was.

Sorry for interrupting.

That was— If I could just finish up, Andrew.

So you're doing a parallel scoring?

Is that how it works?

Oh, no.

I just— independent of the— the building committee.

I was— I know you weren't part of this, but you did your own scoring?

I did my own scoring.

Is that, is that typical of how the OPM would do his own scoring on, on these projects, or is that just something— no, that would— there'd be other OPM firms that would, you know, look at the, you know, the presentations and, you know, look at their strengths and weaknesses.

And, you know, I would independently be doing that for myself.

It was just for you.

It was just for me.

I think, I think we asked too, you know, and they asked as your advisor, as our advisor, what was your— they asked me who my top choice was at the time.

I said it was CHA.

That, that, but that didn't come into play on how the committee— no, that was after all the scoring was done.

So the explanation that Mr. Cadime just gave as to why Malcolm Moonan was unsatisfactory to some members is what I remember.

It is correct.

That is the reasoning behind it.

Um, it was that he be removed from the project though, not maybe just not from one part.

And if it is that he is just removed from like, say, the PR part, because that really was the thing that committee members talked about— I was not part of the committee during that time— but, um, that that they just didn't like the way he did the PR part and he is on the rest of the staffing that he was already on, like, so if he's fulfilling the other 3 parts of that organizational chart and he's just not PR and they put somebody else there, then if that's the specific to it, then it's actually— the scoring is kind of a moot point because it hasn't— nothing would have changed.

If so, if he's still on the other 3 parts and he's just not the PR, I mean, that'll happen.

That's understandable if, you know, um, you're not going to get this fryer suppression person, you're going to get that one.

It's just one small part.

But the discussion was that he'd be removed from the project.

But if that's not the case, then there's— it's a moot point then because nothing would have changed because he's there, and nothing I guess would have with the people who scored with him on it because he's still there?

You know what I'm saying?

I don't know.

Can I ask a question that might— Sure.

So I'm just wondering, like, typically the contract hasn't been signed yet, so the scoring was based on a perceived person being in certain roles, but until a contract's awarded, like, at what point is that person even named?

Like, I feel like typically with— until a contract is signed and the company that you're working with and have hired starts to actually bring the project to fruition, you wouldn't actually know that.

So I'm curious, like, how that is.

So there's an organizational chart.

There's an organizational chart that's given to you that names everybody, where they they're going to be placed in their proposed staffing.

And that's the name of what's in the rubric, is the proposed staffing.

Now, you may end up with some different staffing afterwards, but you are scoring on the proposed staffing.

Yes.

So every firm is supposed to give you their project team so that you know who they are, so you can vet their qualifications to make sure that they're appropriate for, you know, the project.

So I think a lot of the discussion around the other you know, firms that came in.

There was, there was one in particular who was a very young firm that folks liked, but they were concerned about just the experience component of it, right?

So, so having that on there helps to guide some of the conversations and discussions with these bids.

So, and they're subject to change.

However, that's got to be through a mutual agreement between the town and the, and the company if it changes throughout the project.

But I guess just to go a tiny bit deeper, since now we know this was a PR, a PR move, this was the issue with this person, public relations, correct?

Yes.

What was it he said?

Because details matter.

What was it he said, or what was he doing that people lost confidence in his PR?

Because the town administrator said because it's a contentious project.

What was the tipping point to start moving this guy?

Okay, I can't say what the tipping point was because I was not part of the committee at that point, but I can tell you that the gist of the comments from other committee members were that he was too open-ended during the in-person and survey portions of the beginning of the project.

When we came up with the master plan, he did not lead enough.

In other words, your choices are A or B to the public.

It was that it was open-ended questions and that he was not forceful enough, which is where I think Mr. Gadeem is talking about the contention of it, that he— so that, that's the gist that I can give you.

But wasn't that what he was supposed to do, let people choose, give options and let people just vote on it?

So the discussion was the fact that in the public hearings it was meant to be open-ended.

Those were meant to be open-ended.

The concern was not, again, facilitating.

He wasn't a strong facilitator.

He was a very weak public speaker.

You know, there was a lot of input going back and forth.

You had people who are very— have strong opinions for the project, strong opinions against the project, and he wasn't doing a good enough job.

I, again, I don't have a vote.

This is just my personal opinion of being able to facilitate those 2 groups, right?

Being a facilitator as part of the architecture— architects and the designer to push back a little bit so everybody is just, you know, on the same page, listening to everybody.

And that was just the concern.

And he just— he wasn't captivating.

You go to even at town meeting, he didn't have a presence about him to really kind of, you know, capture some I just think though, for somebody to facilitate, that's their job, to be neutral, unbiased.

No, it's— yeah, everybody wants them to be neutral.

It was more facilitating conversation and discussion and being a leader.

His physical demeanor and the way he presented himself in the committee, it wasn't to the level that we expected it to be or what we think it should be or should have been at that time.

As far as his vision on the project and his ability to do the work, top-notch.

He just— if all things being equal, if we could choose a spokesperson, he would not be the guy.

Okay, so it was the delivery, not the— it was just the delivery.

My knowledge was right on.

It was— he just was not the person to be up there.

Okay, that makes sense.

I don't know if you want to proceed or— yeah, I just, uh, so we're good with that aspect of the discussion.

Okay.

Um, again, watching your meeting on January 6th, there was statements that said that he wanted to come and talk to us about the project, how in some areas what would be designed and or developed what wouldn't.

I think it was more about— it's again, trying to remember, it's been a while— but the conversation centered around the board at that time, what they had for goals and objectives as far as what they were looking for, what they wanted to see.

It did a jive with what the committee had looked at through our comprehensive plan and the design and inclusion of everything and made sure it matched up.

And what you folks as the board— obviously different faces then versus now— but what did the board want to see included that What did you want to see taken out?

What did you want to see changed?

Those kinds of things.

And that was really, for me, that was the center of the conversation for that, is to be able to sit down in a casual environment, to be able to have a frank conversation about things and not have to be bound by minutes and motions and things like that, and have a hashing out of what's going on.

It didn't transpire, so it never really happened, but I think Those pieces still are lying out there to a certain extent.

I mean, everybody's seen what the comprehensive plan was and what it showed.

It was presented again back about a year ago now at time for funding to move on to the next phase with OPM and design phase and all that other stuff.

And so, that was what could be.

Now we're moving into the phase of what, I don't say will be, but what the final decision is as far as what we're going to have there for when we get the construction documents, is what the final piece is going to be and how it's going to look.

And things can change, it's fluid.

Something, maybe something happens where what we wanted to put over here in spot Y has to go in spot A or can't go at all because the ground cover doesn't allow it, drainage, whatever the case may be.

And for the outside stuff, as far as the houses and the house and the barn and the greenhouse and things like that.

I think that's an important piece too that we need to delve into more in this phase because we need to really see what the bones of these buildings are and where— because of our purchase and sales agreement, we have conditions there with covenants and things like that to preserve certain buildings for a certain amount of time.

What's that going to look like and how is that going to prevail for uses in the future.

And Brewster Thornton Group, during the comprehensive plan phase, did a really good job of laying a lot of that out.

And we need to take it and move on and expand on it and get— and really get some fine numbers and some information and material and be able to move forward with that piece of it as well as the outside stuff.

Well, I'll put it right out there.

I've been a constant critic of the way this whole project gets transformed.

It was procured improperly.

I think the town overpaid for it.

And in justification of that, I advise anybody to read the appraisal.

Uh, it makes no sense to keep spending all this money on a project you don't even know is legal to be there.

So I'm going to be a strong advocate tonight that we spend no more money, sign no more contracts until we have the full Um, traffic plans, traffic study, and a special permit from the Zoning Board of Appeals.

Wouldn't we need those studies to move forward to do all the— get the zoning permits and everything anyway?

Well, we do the, the, uh, the traffic studies, and that'll be part of the permit application too.

We also need to do a geological survey and topos things like that to begin with.

There's no way we can put things— we spent $150,000 on a master plan.

Now you want to spend nearly 4 times that amount designing it, and I just can't support spending a total of $3 million and then find out, no, we're going to change this, or no, you can't do that, or the neighbors aren't happy and it ends up in court.

So you've really— I don't think you've done a good job of doing this right.

And so this is an opportunity to pause and to do it right and to get the right studies and to get— and to get the special permit that you need.

Get everybody on board and then move forward and do the final design.

I think that's— I think Dave is in agreement with you.

I think he's saying yes, this is what our next step should be, is all of this testing, all of these surveys included in the design, and it's included in this phase.

Case.

So that would be our next step, to not go and start designing anything or locking anything down until we get all of those studies and surveys done.

You said what I was going to say.

It is because we have all— that all has to get done.

We don't have that information.

So to go in front of the zoning board for a special permit, which is what the next step would be because it's a special permit used for all town functions, right?

So the questions are going to get asked.

Where's the traffic study?

Where's pedestrian safety?

Where's the parking lot?

Where's this?

Where's that?

How is this going to flow?

Where's your drainage?

We don't have any of that.

We don't even have— you have it on the master plan, but not to the extent that people are going to— they're still going to ask questions.

We don't have a traffic study.

We don't, we don't have any information.

That's the next thing that has to be done before anything is a traffic study.

But again, though, if we were going on the premise and that's— and it's all included in this design phase, because that's going to give us the information of what can go where as part of the project.

And that's good.

I don't mean to interrupt you.

The master— the master plan shows a full build-out of everything.

I would submit that, and then with the zoning board, based on what the neighbors say, what you can build, then go to the final design.

Nobody in private business would ever do it the way you you're doing it, that's for sure.

I can assure you of that.

Spend all this money up front and spend all this money up front and then not even know if you can use the property for what it's been— I mean, it's not all that far different from how we handle the South End Fire Station.

We went through and did everything in that site with design phase.

We did all the plans, we had everything ready to go.

We had right up to construction and bid documents.

Then we went for the permit.

Then we had the public hearing.

And then we had the actual bid come in with the funding number.

So the process— and that's— we had this discussion way back when in the beginning of our committee, and I think, I think Nate and Will are the only ones here from that time, Sean.

But we went through all that, we talked about is how we're going to do this, and that— and the game plan that we came up with at that time was to follow what has been done before for the town, which is to go through, do the comprehensive intensive review, get with the OPM, have the design, get a design firm, come up with a plan, have bid documents, do the studies and reviews that have to be done, which only make common sense because we need that information to be able to make decisions properly and move forward with intelligent actions.

We need all that material that's going to come from the design phase anyway.

But to reiterate what Mr. Cadime said just a few minutes ago.

This is not your typical project.

And I know I'm part of this committee, but I, I mean, I sit here too, but this is not a typical project.

And you said it's not like a fire station, and, and I have to bring that back to the table because, I mean, a fire— it's, it's, it is different.

It's entirely different.

And maybe, maybe the contract should have been separated where certain tests were done aside aside from, uh, maybe it should have been done in phases where different, different tests were done first and then the design would come later, to take the— oh, what is it, over 3/4 of a million dollars, and, and then run the chance of it not getting the special permit.

And I understand what you're saying, that we need things done in order to get to that place.

It's just I think it could have been done differently, maybe in different steps or increments instead of spending the whole lump sum and then possibly— I'll weigh in on this.

So just some thought.

I mean, once we sign the contract, I think we can dictate how to execute the funds at that point.

And if the goal is to do our due diligence to get it ready to go in front of the zoning board and to do a traffic study to prepare it for a zoning board, that we could probably reorganize that.

And then if there's any concerns at that point, you know, the contract's at will, right?

At that point you could terminate it if you needed to.

I'd like to see the contract rewritten where it's certain amounts are allocated for certain parts of the contract.

And yes, that can be done because I I have to say, I've read the master plan twice.

Um, I don't think it would be prudent to move forward without doing a traffic study based on the concerns that are in that master plan, um, before like signing an entire contract.

That, that's troubling for me, and I, I want to be able to protect the town, um, in the future.

Yeah, I'm uncomfortable with that as well, Nate.

It seems too open-ended to me.

Yeah, that we think, well, maybe we can— can it be rewritten where it's done in allocate?

Yeah.

So I, I will say that the process that we're following is consistent with probably 100% of the building projects, land projects throughout Massachusetts.

There's, there's really no difference.

If we want to move the goalposts and do something different, we can absolutely do that, but that— we need the direction.

Um, with this We've done this for the animal shelter.

We've done this for the South End Fire Station.

We've done this for the senior center.

We've done this for— those are all buildings, Sean.

This is an entirely different animal.

The process is still the same.

You still got to go out.

The process is the same, but the project itself is— the end result isn't the same.

I recognize that.

And I know there are some folks that just don't want to listen to what I have to say because for whatever reason they think I'm driving this, this bus.

At the end of the day, I'm taking direction from the board whichever way we want to go, I will execute that, right?

From my standpoint, the town has voted to move this forward, but the process has always been you go out for an OPM.

That— this is all Massachusetts General Law.

We got the OPM, the OPM's on board, he's here, he can speak to the process, if the process is any different.

The next phase, which is what everybody is talking about, and I share the same concern, the traffic parking issues, that is all based on schematic design.

We have to go through that process.

Anytime we go through any type of contract with the designer services, they are breaking down exactly what each cost is.

So schematic design has a dollar amount associated with it for their fee.

Then you get into design development.

That's when you get into your real design documents.

And then you get into your construction documents.

So at any point, we can stop the project if we say we are not moving forward with this, and we obviously are paying that portion of the contract.

So schematic— I'd like to see the contract.

That would be perfect.

Schematic— I would be fine.

I mean, for us, if we're not going to spend any money and then we're saying we got to get traffic study, we need the money to get traffic studies.

And that's the contract.

That's going to be the design of services through their consultants.

We need to contract directly with an engineering firm to do the traffic study.

I think there might be a little bit of due diligence that we have to do as a committee and the master plan from the last time it finished stuff to kind of just get it to the point where it's ready for that traffic study.

This is like a— not a ton, but I think a little bit of work that needs to be done, I'd say.

I have a question.

I mean, we've all read this master plan many, many times.

Like, as part of this, on page 9, it tells us Part of this master plan, total project cost, phased capital improvement, and what it's going to cost, financing options, summary of findings and recommendations.

And then you go through it and it's all blank.

I've yet to have somebody tell me where it's in a document so I can explain to the people I speak with in town residents and taxpayers.

What is this going to cost?

Not to the penny.

What's it going to cost?

What's it going to cost to maintain on a yearly basis?

How many more DPW people are we going to need to maintain this project?

Fertilizer, electricity, maintenance, irrigation.

What is the cost of the project before you're asking the taxpayers to spend $549,000 dollars to get into something that we don't turn it into the DPW $1.5 million later, then we find out we should have done a little bit more homework, boys.

We need $8 to $10 million for soil remediation.

This board has a responsibility, and I'm sticking to it, that before we spend a single nickel of anyone's tax dollars, we'll we're going to dot the i's, we're going to cross the t's, we're going to have our act together.

We're not going to get into $549,000— this is my opinion as one member of this board— and then find out, well, we're going to prorate the contract, we're not going to go any further.

Like the town administrator said, we found something, maybe it won't go through zoning, maybe this design we've worked on, this, this, we're going to change it, it doesn't fit with zoning, we didn't get the special the traffic study comes through and we find out this could really impact not just that neighborhood but Route 44, some different things going on.

This is why you do the homework, because I don't want to see another project in Secaucus end up as a DPW spending a ton of money and then find out later we should have done a little bit more.

Maybe we shouldn't have been in such a rush.

So, so what I'm hearing is we got the zoning, we got the traffic, and then there's kind of 2 cost estimates.

One is kind of revisiting the cost of the capital improvements as well as doing a study of the maintenance cost.

What's the operations cost and how is this going to get funded so you can put the dollar amount in front of the town and say this is the impact to your wallet, this is the impact to you financially?

Actually, because when I look at this survey on page 11, okay, and I think it's great that 647 people responded as well as myself, you know, highlights 87% of the residents for the survey were at least 6 years old.

75% of the residents were at least 10.083 3% of the people of the population of this town did the survey.

So when we have someone come up and go, it's the will of the people— you know what else is the will of the people in this town?

That the people on this board are responsible, accountable, and have a fiduciary responsibility for every nickel that's spent.

That's also the will of the people.

Not just put out a Christmas list.

And I was at the senior center like, like a lot of people, okay?

You said 110 people and maybe 25 people for the second at the senior center.

I was there, I was putting up sticky notes.

I was a resident here.

I said, this is going to be great, and I think it's going to be a great project.

And it was like a Christmas list because we were all there.

You had pickleball courts, tennis courts.

I want a lot of those things too.

I thought it was great.

But then the adults have to come in after you say, what do you want for Christmas?

And you have to be responsible as a board in committees and say, okay, we all want a lot of things, but what can we do here?

Let's be responsible with the project.

What's it going to cost?

Let's explain to people, because a lot of people want recreation fields, sure, but a lot of people can't use those.

Okay, in 2000, the age in this town for the census, 39 old.

It's 47.1 years old now.

In the year 2000, we talk about fields, we had someone from the director of baseball here and he said we only have 39 kids for Little League.

When my kids played 14 years ago, there were 169 kids.

I know lacrosse has taken some of those kids away, but we, you know, the town has grown, the population's exploded, but the amount of kids in this town has not exploded.

We had close to 2,400 kids in public school in the year 2000.

We have 2008 this year.

So respectfully, as a member of the Parks and Rec Committee, which is how I am appointed onto Madeira's Farm, we do have a need for more sports fields.

But I also want to point out that this project is not just sports fields, and I think it's doing a real disservice to talk about it as such.

There is a walking path, which is something that we really don't have in this town.

I mean, folks utilize utilize the Wheeler track when it's available.

But there's other components of this project that do meet the needs of different members of the community.

So to talk about it like we're only building fields, I think, is really missing the heart of the project, which I think was conceptualized around there being components that are going to benefit all members of the community.

And we do need more fields.

The public school numbers are not a good reflection of the number of kids in this town because if you look at the number of kids in our middle school versus our high school enrollment, there is a huge discrepancy.

Kids are not moving out when they are in 8th grade.

They are going to private schools, but they still may be utilizing Seekonk public sports.

Homeschool kids are eligible to play public sports.

Sports teams in Little League because it's based on residency, not school enrollment.

So I think that some of the, like, numbers that you're looking at about the children in town is not accurate.

Um, and again, this isn't just for kids.

This is not just a for kids who play sports project.

Um, there are other components that I think are going to benefit a lot of people in town.

And again, the town has supported this project project.

And I think that, yes, you have a responsibility to be fiscally prudent, and I think we all do as members sitting on a committee, but you also have a responsibility to make sure that you're moving the project forward.

And these next components that you're asking for are part of what we're requesting here in this contract.

So yes, we could go back to the drawing board and separate it all out, but at that point, you know, I do have young kids that love to take on a walking path that is stroller-friendly, and by the time the project rolls out, they're going to be driving.

So I think that, you know, in your responsibility to be fiscally prudent, you also want to make sure that when people say, yes, we want this, that we also need to make sure that you're keeping it on track to actually happen and not delaying it because we could have done it a different way.

We always could have done it a different way, but we also can do it this way.

And again, we can— if there's an issue that comes up, we can stop.

But, but that doesn't answer what he— the point that he raised.

And the majority of this project are fields.

Let's say it the way it is.

The— I mean, between the parking lots, it is fields as far as the space.

No one has put a price tag on what the maintenance of the fields are.

During— before the election, I brought that up and I was laughed at.

Okay.

And I think that is very relevant because with the cost of living right now and the way it's going up and the people that are 65 and older who are living on a fixed income whose taxes go up every year, we need to take that consideration.

And I don't see it where anyone wants to stop this project.

I think we need to make sure that we're providing all of the information.

I also asked, how are these fields going to get watered?

I got laughed at for that too.

How are they going to get watered?

Are we going to put in more wells?

I mean, like, what are we doing?

I don't— so I mean, but these things have to be addressed with a price tag.

Some of those things the residents, this is what it's going to cost.

For instance, there is ledge on that property.

We're not going to know how that's going to affect the overall plan until we have the work of the engineers and designers.

And so if, if the ledge affects the construction of fields, it's going to change the number of parking lots, the parking spaces over there.

It's going to change the traffic pattern.

But we should have a proposed amount.

You can make a— you could— you can— we can't— we can't make a guess until they start.

You can't make a guess on what it costs to maintain 6 fields?

I think— no, I'm sure they can do that.

But that's my point.

We need a price tag to say to the residents, this is what the cost of maintenance— what we're looking at for the next X amount of years.

This is what, you know, installing— what we just need to make the residents aware of, what the possibility of the cost is.

I mean, we don't go shopping without looking at prices.

Why would we proceed doing it the same way with this?

Because we may not end up with 6 fields.

We might end up with 2 fields.

But that's— no, so there's a lot of exploration of the property that needs to be done before we can start projecting usage.

But that's not what's in the master plan.

Usage— the master plan doesn't know the, the geographic, the geologic structure of that area.

I, I understand that.

Back fields over there, and are they wet?

Am I the only one that is like— so all those things need to be considered as far as I'm concerned before you start doing traffic surveys and even zoning surveys because that's going to affect the usage of the property.

No, I don't agree with that with the traffic study, and I'm talking from a legal standpoint.

I don't agree with that at all.

Okay, hold on.

Michael, would you like to speak?

Yeah, if I could.

Um, I was at the meeting in January when you guys discussed this whole project, and at the end of the meeting you guys had a discussion about possibly meeting with the chairman, vice chair of both committees just to go over the issues that were out there.

Meaning the Board of Selectmen, I don't think, was really on the same page as the committee, and the committee probably wasn't really getting clear direction from the Board of Selectmen.

Agreed.

I think there were the discussions that were— the ongoing discussions that we were having with the neighbors and the impact of the neighborhood and how things were going to move forward and stuff like that.

So when I left that meeting, I took it as you guys You guys took the ball and kicked it to us to make the decision.

So we can go around all night long talking about Rubik's and all kinds of stuff and who did this and who did that.

Basically, I think this meeting tonight— the way I took the purpose of this meeting tonight was, are we on the same page?

Are we moving this project forward or aren't we?

If we're not going to move it forward, stop wasting everybody's time.

Stop.

Why do you— why continue to meet and move forward, right, if the board's not going to support it?

That's how I took the meeting.

When I left that meeting, I took it as we were going to have a joint meeting between the chairs to figure out where we were at, if we were still on the same page or not.

I'm fully supporting what the people voted for.

People voted for this project.

A committee was formed.

You guys are doing your job as the committee.

Your job is to report back to us where you're finding it and everything else.

That's where it's at.

I am not going to go against the vote of the people.

What I will say is I think the town administrator and the committee has done a phenomenal job meeting with the neighbors, discussing their concerns, and we will address every single one of those concerns.

I don't think anything's changed in that, right?

I don't think any— anything's changed as far as the committee or your— or your stance.

We're willing to work with the neighbors to address their concerns with this project.

The people voted.

This is the next stage.

The next stage goes forward.

We get all these studies within that phase, and then if we want to move forward, fine.

If not, if the rest of the board doesn't agree with me, they have a vote.

They can vote to stop it tonight.

But I'm gonna— I'm gonna sit here, I'm gonna tell you, the people have voted on this project a few times.

There's been work done to go forward and meet with the neighbors to have their concerns heard.

And I, I want the project to go.

I think everybody wants the project to go.

If we have to limit some of the scope of it to make everything fit for everybody, I'm all for that.

Let's get the project done.

That was the intent of the project.

That was the intent of the Medeiros family.

But what are we doing?

We're going around the circle.

What are we going on, 5 years now?

I'd just like to— I'm not trying to stop anything.

I'm just trying to proceed with caution.

Everybody can proceed with caution.

I'm giving you my explanation of how I took their meeting at the end of it.

Okay.

It was, let's discuss it, because at the time the Board of Selectmen was kind of fragmented on what they wanted to do and the concerns of the neighbors in the committee.

And I think the committee had concerns to make sure, is the, is the town, meaning the board, and the committee still on the same page?

Right.

That's what we have to decide tonight.

Are we still on the same page?

Are we?

I would agree with you, Michael.

So, and to just one point to what the discussion is when it really— talk about facts and figures.

Those numbers come from all the work that we've talked about that needs to get done, and then we sit down and do constructing documents and bid documents and look at the actual numbers and find out how much it really is.

See, I think— I personally think a traffic study can be done before all of that other stuff can be done.

Yeah, I do.

Where's the money going to come from?

That's what I'm saying.

Yeah, I mean, it, it's That's my— I'm not saying I want this project to stop, and I'm a little tired of even before the election labeling me.

If I could just— it's like this project was like the, the deciding factor on how people were going to vote.

It's insane.

I'm not against this project.

What I need to do is like what he said, face all of the residents, not just people with young children, but face all of the residents and let them know that I I am in agreement with spending money responsibly, and I personally feel that a traffic study can be done with what's been done so far and with what's in the master plan.

I don't think it would be prudent to sign the, the entire contract without having that done.

It's— to me, it's not a black or white situation.

I think that's the difference.

And I'll go on the record once again, and I have at every meeting, I've never opposed the Medeiros Farm project.

I tried to improve it, try to be rational with it, ask that some adjustments be made to it.

I've been a supporter of the project, and I'm on record of saying so.

So I'm sorry if people feel otherwise.

I want to be smart about this.

I want to be smart with your money and be responsible.

And Miss Lameda, just I didn't want to make it sound— and I don't feel it's only for recreational kids.

It's a project for everyone.

It does check all the boxes.

You know, when we— even when we talked about the fields, and I'll just make this very brief, in November before town meeting, we met in the classroom with the Medeiros Farm Committee, and, and many people had questions about why so many fields, can't we narrow the scope?

And that was part of what happened that night, and a vote took place and everything else.

Revisionist history.

However, the answer we got from someone who's no longer on the committee was, we're doing this because we need more fields to rest the fields.

The Cole Street fields need to be rested.

That's the term that was used for the health of the fields.

We need some more fields.

There's a lot of fields in the master plan.

The Board of Selectmen just received a letter.

It was sent to the town administrator, but it was sent to the town administrator for the select board, and it was on behalf— it's not signed by the person, but it's on behalf of Seacock Lacrosse.

And it, and it goes on about— we talk about resting the fields.

The Seacock Lacrosse organization would like to hold jamborees on the corner of Lincoln and Elm.

Okay, they want to hold clinics, they want to host tournaments on the corner of Lincoln and Elm.

And we had a lot of people had concerns about putting that project on top of that neighborhood.

I do not abut Lincoln and Elm.

I live further down in Tyringham.

Most of you probably already know that.

I did have concerns from the beginning about the congestion and the people crossing that road, because when you go down to Cole Street and you watch the fields, the fields that are proposed on Lincoln and Elm are large enough to house— have 2 youth games on each field.

So you could have 4 games going from— people tell me that do it, and they tell me you get about an average of 50 people at a game between coaches and referees and kids and parents and everything else.

So you could have 4 games going at one time with 200 people, and you could play 4 games in a day on a Saturday, which would be approximately 800 people— approximately 800 people in one day crossing Lincoln Street because there's only 23 spots on that one side of the road.

I'm concerned about people crossing 44.

That intersection is the worst.

How many accidents do we have there?

That's— and that's where I say I want a traffic study done, because it— that's a very dangerous intersection to begin with.

This is what— this is what we're getting to, being smart about the project, getting a traffic study done ahead of time, not spend $549,000 of your money only to find out that, oops, we've got a couple issues here.

We got to change things, maybe change things dramatically.

And I do think it can be calculated whether it's 6 fields, 3, you could do a number of them, get an estimated cost of what maintenance, how many, you know, how is it going to affect our DPW department?

What's the cost going to be for maintenance?

I think people, yes, people want to move forward, but then, you know, people need to be aware of what it's going to cost in the long run just so they're— so they'll know what to expect.

That's That's all I'd want to know.

You know, moving forward, if I may just, uh, moving forward can be many things.

And to your point, with what you see potentially could be for traffic, the traffic study could be the real limiting factor as to what gets developed on that site.

And I just think it's the most prudent thing that we do now, that this board does.

Your committee don't have to do it.

This board will do it.

A traffic study for that project.

With the monies in the budget, we can spend that appropriation, right?

We get the $825,000, and I think you had $56,000 left over.

So I was going to say, we— based on the contract that was left, there's about, uh, I was going to say $50,000, but it could be $56,000.

Yeah.

So I, I would suggest that this board does the traffic study And let's do it the way we do every other one in town.

If you do a traffic study, it's peer-reviewed also.

So we'll get the best information we can on what that complex can create for traffic.

And I think that's going to be a huge limiting factor as to what the ultimate design is.

Based upon the master plan?

Yeah.

The traffic study on the master plan?

Yeah.

OK.

So my concern is that the master plan is not fixed, and it actually— there were discussions prior to the vote a year ago about how many fields were going to be there.

So if you do a traffic jam— traffic plan, you want to be able to a traffic plan given 2 fields or 3 fields versus 6 fields because it makes a lot of difference.

And it also changes the parking requirements considerably.

And so my feeling is that I don't think we have actually arrived on how many fields are going to be.

Parking plan may determine that, to Mr. Archambault's point.

Well, but, but maybe if they could do the parking plan given 2 scenarios with 2 fields versus 5 fields, because we don't know.

Well, I say do the parking plan based on the master plan.

Well, it doesn't make any sense.

We don't know how many fields you can— how many fields are shown on the master plan?

Are there 5?

There's 4.

There's 4 high school level fields.

Okay.

Okay.

So let's, let's have that number.

Well, I mean, fine if that's what you want to do, but I don't think it's a— it's necessarily valid because I don't think that's necessarily what's going to happen.

Well, we spent $150,000 on a master plan.

Let's use it.

Unreasonable.

Regulation size is 3 fields on the plan.

2 on the elm, 1 in the back on the other side.

Okay, so if they split them in half, right, just like they do in basketball, little kids, right?

Basketball, 4, 3 and a half maybe.

Yeah, so regulation 3 fields.

I guess, could we do it in a way where we look at the field impact for the the corner of, um, was it Elm and, uh, Lincoln Street separately, with that included and without?

I'm just trying to think of that.

You know, I'm— this is my opinion based on what I hear.

You should really forget the fields on Elm and Lincoln, because if you go forward with that, I think some neighbors are going to take you to court.

We did vote to renew the fields.

We voted, uh, as a committee to remove the active recreation from the Elm Street side.

Is that firm?

We voted.

That was at that November 10th meeting before the town hall meeting.

That stands today?

Yes.

So the master— it was the motion to reconsider was not taken on January 6th.

It was tabled.

So this master plan I see online is not accurate?

Accurate.

First fields are no longer on Lincoln to know.

We need to update the— again, can I just explain?

This is why folks are getting confused.

And again, I will do whatever the board tells me to do.

If we do a traffic study in the beginning, we're going to spend more money to do a traffic study because we haven't designed it.

The master plan is just conceptual.

So we put the master plan together.

We heard complaints coming back from the community.

Part of this discussion was really about to have have— do we want to see fields on Elm Street?

The committee voted to remove the fields on Elm Street.

There were members on the board that said, no, we want to see fields on Elm Street.

We want what was in the master plan.

The architectural services that are coming in for schematic design is going to look at the master plan, have a conversation with the committee, and talk about what the fields are really going to look like.

So that's what we're going to get into.

Is Elm Street on the table for fields?

Why did we spend $150,000 $150,000 then?

Because we needed it.

We needed the conceptual.

So it's— am I the only one that's having an issue with this?

I think what you— this is the way the state law sets up the— no, I understand all that.

All I'm saying is like to have this document and now say, well, it's really not relevant.

I'm like, that's $150,000.

It's a guide is what it is.

No different than the Townsmaster Plan.

Townsmaster Plan cost us how many thousands of dollars a few years ago?

That's this thick.

And sits on a shelf and nobody uses it.

It's the same thing.

Doesn't make it right.

Doesn't make it right.

I say we go— we need to— we go forward with spending with a traffic study based on the master plan.

I am not prepared to approve $500,000 in a designer contract because based on the traffic study in accordance with the master plan, everything could change, and then that contract could be substantially less.

I'm more uncomfortable with this in the past 5 minutes than I was in the past hour, that now it surfaces that, oh yeah, that's— don't, don't look at this, we've— this is all gone.

Anyone's comfortable with this right now?

That, that's not, that's not what was said.

That, that's a conceptual drawing.

So that's going to be the premise, that's going to be That's a good starting point.

But we've heard— so if that's the case, then we just move that forward and we ignore what the residents are saying, right?

So the conversation is to get the residents back.

And we've said that from day one, that the Master Plan, this is a conceptual drawing.

This is not finalized.

We are getting people back to the table in terms of what this project looks like.

So we've heard the residents in terms of Elm Street.

I'm on the record saying that we shouldn't have any recreational fields on Elm Street.

I stand by that.

Right?

And I'm in the minority.

Right?

So there were board members that stand firm on an athletic field.

I don't have a vote on it, but what I'm saying is we can get a project that I think is beneficial to everybody in town.

Right?

So but part of that is if we're going to just stick to the master plan, which was a conceptual drawing, that's all it was meant to be, was conceptual design to say here's the project, this is what it's going to look like.

A majority of that project is going to be the same.

It's just going to be changes in terms of the Elm Street fields.

I get that.

When we start talking about the backfield, you know, there was discussion about whether or not it was going to be artificial turf.

Depending on the cost, it may not be artificial turf.

It may just be regular natural turf, grass, right?

Which is a lot cheaper.

You know, drainage is going to be a little bit different, but those are the conversations.

And then bringing in the community and the neighborhood to see what other issues we have and dialing that in so that you get a real building, a real project to say, okay, this is exactly where it is so that And you can point to this architectural plan and say, this is what we are going to do.

And then obviously the other component to it was the phasing component.

Are we doing it all at once, multiple phases?

Are we just dealing with the buildings?

So there is a lot that still needs to be done.

That was just a preliminary overview of what the project looked like.

Right.

I know that.

I know that.

And it is just— unfortunately, we are in the public sector, so there is a process that we have to follow, right?

And we can't change that process.

And that is just— where we are.

And I'm hearing everybody's concerns.

The committee has talked about traffic and crossing Lincoln, and, you know, there are significant concerns about that.

So I'm pretty sure that those conversations will still take place.

But I guess what I— let me simplify this then.

Then your committee is on record as no active recreation on Elm Street and Lincoln.

And there was a motion to make to, to, uh, reconsider that, but that motion was tabled pending further action.

Okay, so by the town, so that there's still a pending motion to reconsider.

You recommend no active recreation on Elman?

We've recommended it from day one.

All right, so the chair will entertain a motion that this board goes on record that there will be no active recreation on the Madeiras Farm property at the corner of Elman and Lincoln.

On the Elm Street side of the property.

Yes.

Yeah, I'll second that.

No, you're gonna make the motion.

Well, I'll make that motion that no fields are going to go on— no active recreational fields will go on, uh, the Elm Street and Lincoln— on the Elm Street side, correct?

Yes.

All right, you make the motion, I'll second it.

Okay, we'll do a roll vote.

We'll start with Mr., uh, Zorra.

For Zorra, no.

And Michael Healy?

Michael Healy, no.

Yes.

Aye.

And Gary Segar, aye.

Okay.

I'd also entertain a motion that this board commission a traffic study using the master plan with peer review for the Medeiros Farm project.

Budget.

I'll second that motion.

Well, you made the motion.

I made the motion, you seconded that.

Do you second it, Mr. Archambault?

Yes.

Okay, we'll do a roll call vote again.

Mr. Zahra?

I think the committee should be doing this.

No, I want it under us.

No.

Okay, Michael Healy?

No.

Okay, aye, aye, aye.

So 3 to 2, we will do a traffic study.

So how is that process going to come back to the committee as far as the results?

How do you want to review Well, we'll get together again.

That's no problem.

I will probably suggest— I would suggest to Mr. Cadime that maybe Mr. Orban does these all the time, so maybe he could have a revolving list.

So can I just— yeah, I'll have the peer reviews.

I'd like to make a point of order.

You have no point of order.

You have no standing.

So please sit down.

Sit down and you can speak during community speech.

Why can't I make a point of order?

Because you can't— you do— you have to be a member of these committees to be relevant and to have a point of order.

Okay.

Okay, thank you.

Can I, um— yeah, so we'll, we'll get a peer review, uh, work through, uh, town planner with regards to the list that we have for peer reviews.

Just in terms of the contract that's before us, I just need the board to take some action one way or the other.

Are we moving forward with CHA?

If we're not, I would suggest that we reject the bid because at this point this goes back to November.

So if we're not going to approve it tonight, then I think we would have to restart the entire process because it's been well over 6 months in terms of the design of services.

So I'm not prepared to sign it.

Certainly not.

So somebody want to make a motion to either accept it or reject it?

So you have to go through that whole process again to bring them on board, or we need to do is everything, right?

If we're not going to take action, I mean, it's, it's been 6 months.

I don't know how we can take action with so many questions looming.

I think we need to know what it's going to cost.

What is it going to cost to maintain?

Not to the penny, but people have a right to know before they spent over $500,000.

And that can be scaffolded.

That, that doesn't have to be definitively 6 fields, 5 fields, 2.

I mean, you could do 2, 4, whatever, just to give an estimate or an idea.

Okay, as far as the contract for CHA, what's the pleasure of the board?

I just— after— well, you're dealing with that.

I was just gonna ask, what would you have this committee do?

Nothing at this time.

Yeah, nothing.

Nothing at this time.

Nothing right now.

Thanks for your time.

No, we'll get the traffic study and then we'll go from there.

Okay.

What kind of timeline are you projecting as far as that?

We're looking at— well, that's up to the— it's up to the vendors.

Is it kind of something you have to go out to bid on, or are we going to have to go through the process with advertising and things of that nature as far as the actual traffic study?

Yeah, we'd have to go out to bid.

So it's going to have to go through the Central Register and all that kind of stuff out for bid?

Engineering services are exempt from 30B, but we might— we have some folks online, but we would just put it out for procurement just to get some price.

Yeah, a free proposal kind of thing is what you would be looking at?

Yeah, I mean, we've got a limited scope, so I want to make sure that we just have enough money.

Okay.

So probably end of the summer is where we're talking now to even come back together and sit down and look at this when it's all said and done, because it's probably going to take 6 to 12 weeks to get the data to do it.

Sure.

Probably.

So now that projects the project out '28, '29?

Rather than 27, 28?

Well, I don't know.

You took 24 weeks to get here, so— I didn't.

Well, you were in the process.

You were supposed to call me since January.

You're supposed to call the Board of Selectmen so you get together, and you never did.

Can we, uh, can we bid on the contract, please?

You want to— you mean do a vote on it?

But yeah, can we vote on it?

Okay.

Said again in a pissing contest.

All right, so I'll make a motion.

All right, I'll make the motion as to whether we'll, um, to reject, to reject the contract, to move forward for the contract for the Medeiros Farm project.

You're rejecting whether— yes, I'm making a motion to reject the contract.

Okay, I second it.

All right, moving and seconded.

Any discussion?

Until that traffic study is done.

Okay, roll call vote.

Mr. Archambault?

Aye.

Michael?

No.

Chris?

No.

Gary?

Yes.

Okay, so is there anything else you— we're gonna recess to the planning boardroom.

We have some invoices to approve before the fiscal year, so we're gonna do that.

Do you want to— you want to Close your meeting here.

We've got recess to the planning boardroom for about 5 minutes.

Okay, thank you all.

You're adjourning in the planning room, right?

What's that?

You're going to adjourn in the planning room.

Just let us know the time.

Do you want to put these tables back?

Uh, 6:50, 6:57.

I told you to close at 6:57.

Uh, recess.

Recessed, yeah.

You say 6:57?

Yes.

I need to open a minute.

So, uh, Dave, Dave, Dave, can you just give me the time tomorrow when you adjourn?

Sure, no problem.

I'm gonna take some minutes for that anyway.

Okay, they're gonna recess at 6:57 to the planning boardroom.

Just so she hears us.

Okay.

Goals and objectives for fiscal year 2018.

7.

Would anybody like to start the conversation of what they have?

My personal goal and objective is just, uh, as I've stated for a few months here, to be extremely transparent with everything we do.

And I don't know if you can hear it.

Oh, all right.

Yeah, we'll take a— we'll take a 5-minute recess.

We'll get the room clear.

Yeah.

Okay.

She won't be able to hear it.

Whenever you're ready.

Yeah.

What's up?

Okay, all right, so Bob, go ahead and start again, please.

Yeah, just, uh, I'm going to continue being as transparent on everything we do, just so when the residents and our taxpayers look at everything we do, they have an explanation.

This dialogue on why things were done, why we're spending money the way we are, and why we're being careful with their dollars so we can try to minimize any missteps that can sometimes happen with projects in the past, projects going forward, the project we're working on now.

Just want to Make sure we do all the homework would be a big objective, that we're as careful as possible, as diligent as possible on everything we do.

An ongoing concern in the coming years, it's not an objective for tonight, but it's an objective ongoing, is again the South End with Market Basket.

Basket and the density of that area.

I think, and I know, chief concern, priority for this board is safety and security.

And I know it's been contentious, but we have to keep our eye on the ball for South End safety and security going forward because these projects, like I've our South End fire station take years and years in the making.

And I don't want to take our eye off the ball there as Market Basket comes in and the density of the town rises.

I want to, I want to keep that.

As I mentioned in the finance meeting before town meeting, I highlighted that the finance committee was making a recommendation to not make the mid-year hires and add the 4 firefighters.

And I want to highlight that again, that we— it's not static environment, that we have attrition in that department, that we have to play an active role in getting more firefighters on board.

We can't just say stop hiring for now because we don't have the money and then find out that 2 or 3 leaving, and then we're shorthanded once again.

We have to keep an active role.

So that would be one of my objectives, to make sure we keep an eye on fire and safety.

Okay, pretty good.

Well, it's up.

Liz?

Um, I have 2.

Um, one would be, and I think Bob and I will work on this eventually, look at— I, I personally want to look at areas where we may be losing tax revenue.

I want to look into areas where, um, and I have one in mind already, possibly 2.

I just want to make sure that we're getting the revenue that we should be, whether it's property, vehicle, whatever it is.

That's one.

And the other is, and I don't know how I'm going to do this, but increase community involvement.

It.

And, um, I think getting to what Bob just said with, with the safety being an issue with that south end really building up commercially even more so than it is yet, the fire station is something that we have to, um, keep, keep on the back burner.

Okay, that it?

Yes.

Okay, Michael.

Um, I got a couple.

First thing, because of last year, the way things went like financially for us, um, as we know through the budget season was kind of difficult.

I'd like to see us like really set like a good financial guideline that follows our financial policies that we have in place, um, along with a good capital plan.

We have our— not this upcoming Quad Board meeting because we have one on the 29th, correct?

I'm talking about the one in the fall.

So when we meet with the schools, we have a good financial outlook, the best we can have from our standpoint, and what our priorities are on the town side, not so much what on the school side.

So we can go in— I'm gonna say it now and I'll say it at that meeting— I'm a true believer in sticking with that 2.5%, and I think we should really strive as this board throughout next year because I think it's going to be financially difficult for us to go above that.

I think we really need to stick as close to that 2.5% as we possibly can and not— for the schools or for everybody.

Okay.

Yeah, that's just my thing.

I know periodically we do policy review, like town policies, and make sure that they're up to date and stuff like that.

I like to see that continue and make sure there's no conflict with any town town bylaws, if there's a town policy and the town bylaw that conflicts and everything like that.

And then obviously it's been discussed already, town projects, we got to prioritize them, where we're going, and you know, what's our number one priority to get done.

We have some out there already that's underway.

The library's underway, DPW's been hanging out there, obviously the South End Fire Station's out there, and God only knows what else is coming down.

We keep talking about the old town hall.

So I think we have to— sometime we have a discussion as a board.

I think that would be a good goal for us to set and work on it and figure out ways to fund it, you know, because we all know that, you know, on the opposite side of it— I'm not picking on— I'm not pointing fingers at anybody— we also have the issues of the schools.

They have their concerns.

We have some big heavy capital projects that weren't funded that they're going to be coming back for, whether they're in the fall or in the spring.

So I think we need to— we need to look at that.

We also need to start taking care of our own town facilities, and I think that should be a good goal for us to look at and work towards.

So that's all I have, Mr.

Chair.

Okay, thank you.

Chris?

Just one quick— it was basically everyone touched on it— to try to bring back some of the money that we took from some of the budgets for public safety.

We stripped the police department out of money for cruisers money for overtime shifts.

If we can at least get back to par with that, um, moving forward in the next fiscal year, at least bring it back to status quo.

And for the fire side too, whatever we stripped out of their budget.

Okay, and that's, that's about it.

All right, Sean, would you pass these down?

Wonderful question, Sean.

What is the CVA roll-up the next year for the school?

I'm sorry, what was the percentage-wise CVA roll-up?

What's the percentage-wise?

I'm not sure.

I can get it for you though.

Around 2.5?

It's— yeah, it's about that.

Okay.

For the contracts, you talk about CBS, is that what you say?

Yeah, yeah.

Collective bargaining groups.

Yeah.

So I don't know where the schools are, but on our side, it's— that's where we're at.

Okay.

Well, my goals and objectives, South End Fire Station Communication to me is number one.

We do need to review and change as needed our permitting procedures.

They're a horror show, and a lot of people are complaining.

We can do much better.

See, audit of all tax-exempt properties.

Um, we don't have that many of them, but the big one is, uh, for me, Wheeler School.

We need a follow-up meeting with a potential pilot.

And I thank you for that tax information you supplied.

If Wheeler School paid any taxes, which they don't, if they paid the full boat, granted they're tax-exempt, and that was based on a residential rate, Sean?

Yes.

Okay, they would pay us $158,185.91.

Right now they pay us nothing.

And if it was under agricultural land or chapter land, it would be just under $40,000.

Correct.

So they've been there going on 125 years.

They've never contributed a penny.

So I'm not satisfied with that one-and-done meeting with them.

So we're going to pursue that.

Maybe contributed a salad.

Yeah, I was going to say it was more the lunch.

No, but that is insane.

125.

Yeah.

I didn't think we broke the bank under 25 years.

Yeah, okay, very good.

Thank you.

Community speaks.

Anybody?

Okay, ma'am, go ahead.

My name is Martha Mano.

I live at 116 Reed Street.

Okay.

Have lived there for 43 years on what used to be a farm.

I think it's important that we remember where we've been.

Sorry, I'm getting emotional about this, but it's important.

If the Medeiros family had sold that land for development, I would like to see the traffic pattern that that would have created, especially if they had created cul-de-sacs.

Everyone loves cul-de-sacs.

It's so quiet.

You don't have to worry about traffic.

They create more traffic because there's no through street.

So all of the Amazon trucks that go to your house and the The guys who do the lawn work and every other piece of vehicle, they have to go down my street or one of the other arterial streets.

So why not look at that in the zoning board?

Is that not important?

We keep doing those.

I have 2 on my street.

They're all over.

And one more thing.

I live near the Wheeler Farm.

They may not give us dollars, but they give us so much because that land is not being developed.

There's a pond.

It has frogs in it.

There are deer and wild animals around it.

And it's beautiful.

And it's quiet.

And it's peaceful.

And we need more of that that, like at the Medeiros Farm, not less of it.

And not more houses and not more mega mansions, for God's sake.

We need, we need open space, green space, not just for the kids.

I'm 72 years old.

I don't have kids anymore.

They're all grown up.

But for the whole community.

Thank you.

Okay.

Doreen Taylor, 101 Portside.

I'd like to see this board have a consideration in, in the next fiscal year to do a comparison of our charter and our bylaws.

We have bylaws that contradict contradict the Charter and the Charter that contradict bylaws.

I don't know when the last time the bylaws were actually reviewed, but in reading certain sections of those bylaws, they could either be tied into an administrative policy or they're in the Charter.

Now, I know the Charter supersedes feet, everything.

Therefore, anything that's in the charter should not be a bylaw, um, particularly the administrative pieces of the bylaws.

To me, that's town governance.

And I mean, the bylaws are like rules and regulations of what you can and cannot do, but the charter is supposed to be the governor's document.

It's Seekonk's Constitution, and it's recognized by the Commonwealth.

It has to be approved by the Commonwealth, as do all bylaws, I know.

But somewhere along the way, somebody found it, and it was long before any of you and even me back in the day.

Um, somebody along the decided to put administrative policies, um, in terms of town bylaws.

So I think it's important to compare the 2 documents and see where there's repetitive sections and possibly remove any administrative policy or directive or town governance, meaning administrative government, out of the bylaws.

I know it's a pro— it's a difficult project, and I mean, I would volunteer to present to you some— and not to make changes, believe me, before anybody has me assassinated for trying to make a change to either or document.

That's not what I'm saying.

I'm saying a comparison.

Would you be willing to do that?

I would be willing to do that in a heartbeat.

I've been trying— I've been going back and forth looking for things as certain issues come up, and there are contradictions.

Sean, would you have a comment?

And in the charter, you got— right, we got to reviewed the bylaws.

I don't want to cut you off, but I think the last time we did it, I want to say 2015, 2016, Bob DeRosa was on the committee.

And I think, I think Dave Sullivan was on that committee.

He was.

Yeah, Bob, that might have been a charter committee.

No, was that bylaws?

Yeah, but I mean, I really think the two need to be reviewed side by side, section by section.

Why are you smiling, Chris Zorra?

Is it funny?

Or are you looking at Mr. Healy because he wants no part of this either?

I think it's funny that Gary pinned it on you to do.

Well, I just said I volunteered to point out to you where they're the same or where they're, you know, they differ but they're the same.

And maybe it's just worth But I think we need to neaten those up.

Okay.

I know Mr. Kadeem's office had— has gone through the administrative policies, the Board of Selectmen administrative policies that were online that aren't there anymore, because most of them are now tucked into an employee handbook because it's administrative directive, not necessarily a policy, but it's in the handbook, so it's blessed.

So maybe when you're talking about reviewing policies as such, maybe you want to consider the charter and the bylaws as well.

I have to admit, reading through the bylaws and the charter a few times the past few months, it Not so much the administrative side, but it does seem a little incongruence between the 2 documents where they overlap.

I can see where there's a little confusion between the 2.

Mm-hmm.

I mean, I don't pretend to know anything about land bylaws or anything like that, and that's not what I'm talking about.

I'm talking about what's in the charter, if it's even mentioned by vowel in in the bylaws, it should be out of the bylaws.

Doesn't belong there.

Okay, because the charter is our Bible, is our gospel.

That's what we go by.

Yep, I agree.

So please consider.

Sure.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Is there anybody else?

Miss, did you want to say anything?

Oh no, I'm gonna save that.

You know what?

Oh, I'm gonna hold on to what I was— to my point of order for now.

Oh, okay, very good.

I'm old and I'm halt.

Hello, Susan Waddington, 799 Reed Street, Seekonk.

I'm here for a couple of reasons.

First, I am part of the hearing, and I may have missed it, but I didn't hear any serious discussion of the votes that authorized that $825,000, as if the votes of this town— if the votes of the citizens don't seem to matter to the group that is running the town now.

And I'd like to believe that's not true.

The second thing is that nor was there any acknowledgment made of the Medeiros family who, as it's previously been mentioned, by not making this generous donation could have filled that very space with more houses than those people who live there could dream of.

And I was also sort of surprised that we have a valued town administrator that has been guiding us for how many years?

12.

12.

And all of a sudden, he seems to have lost the respect of the group in terms of following his suggestions, and I think that's regrettable.

Well, let me just say this.

About the $825,000 that was appropriated at town meeting, right?

It was appropriated at town meeting and it's to be expended under the direction of the Board of Selectmen, right?

But correct, if you had said— well, now you've put me in an adversary role, but if you had said what you intended to do, the vote might have been different.

Oh, can I?

Sure.

Okay, I, I just need to say this because I, I've watched the meeting.

I'm watching the looks go between people.

I don't think there's one person in this town that doesn't appreciate the Medeiros family for not selling to developers, myself included.

I'm grateful for that.

I live across the street from R&R Farm, and, and I, I go over, I feed the sheep.

I love the fact that farm is still running and that it won't be developed.

I don't know of anyone that doesn't appreciate that.

Well, the next way to show it— well, I didn't know— I mean, I didn't realize we have to say it every time.

We've said it in the past, and I'll certainly keep saying it because I do appreciate it.

Moving forward, I can only speak for myself myself.

It's not just about money, it's about protecting the residents from any possible lawsuits down the road.

That's part of what I consider one of the most important parts of, of my job.

Okay, here in that master plan, that it did speak about traffic being a concern to almost— what was it, 70 or 80% of, of the people voted that traffic traffic was a concern.

I don't feel it would be prudent to move forward without at least just seeing what a traffic study would do.

I don't think it hurts anything.

I don't see it as going against what the people want.

I, I look at it as safeguarding what the people want.

And I understand the project could change, which— but I don't know of anybody, again, like Mr. Archambault said, I don't know of anyone that that doesn't want this project.

I do, but, well, I, I just don't like people making an assumption about me.

I just want to go about it in the most responsible way possible.

Well, how many committee meetings of the Farm Committee have you attended?

How many?

How many Farm Committee meetings have you attended?

I haven't attended any.

I've attended most of them.

Well, I, I think that they're a very responsible group.

I don't— I've never once called them irresponsible.

I'm going by what's in the master plan.

And my reason for not coming to these meetings physically— I do watch them and I've kept up to date on everything— and going to the other meetings is because I teach at night.

I was teaching 3 nights a week, so attending meetings was very, very difficult.

I finished teaching Monday night.

So I'm, I'm done with school now, and I will not be teaching nights anymore.

So I am free to go to every meeting possible.

But that, that's an odd, an odd taste for your time.

I'm sorry?

I said you're a glutton for punishment if you want to go to every meeting possible.

No, I'm just saying I don't want people to take my absence from meetings as a choice.

I was working at night, so that, that's that.

But to, to get to To speak to some of your concerns, I'm— everybody's grateful that that property is not being developed into homes.

But I think given where it is and the nature of the project, it's prudent to move forward with doing a traffic study just to know what's ahead and to project what the maintenance of this type of project will cost.

And the reason I say that is our of, like, just out of respect for our DPW workers.

The project gets up and running, and now what?

We don't have any extra hands, and now they're going to be working around the clock, and then we have a budget issue.

I think we just need to be prepared for what lies ahead.

It's not anybody not wanting the project to go forward.

Maybe you know people like that.

I personally, I'm not one of them, and I'm a little tired of people making that assumption about me because I come right to the source.

I'd be more than happy to to talk to people.

But it's more just out of responsibility.

I've seen too many lawsuits.

Maybe that's my problem.

I'm an attorney.

I've seen way too many lawsuits.

I think the committee was very, very careful.

And I'm sorry that— and this is a small thing, and Gary can explain it to me.

I thought this was supposed to be a joint meeting.

Of the Farm Committee and the— Yep, it was, wasn't it?

But not when they voted.

What's that?

Not when they voted.

Not when you voted.

Oh, no, no, no.

They, they already voted what we voted, basically.

Pardon?

They already voted and they were looking for us for direction.

That was the whole reason they came here.

I think I better leave, but thank you for your time.

Okay, thank you.

Is there anybody else?

I'm DeBlois, 380 Prospect Street.

I just want to say, I— as I said before, I've been here for 40 years.

Years.

I have 3 children that went through the school system, and as they went through, the residents who didn't have children supported our kids with their votes, you know, for the schools and whatever we needed.

And as a senior now, retired, I feel the same way.

I will support the children of this town, whatever they need.

I'm disappointed in the way the vote notes went regarding the Medeiros Farm, because I feel like all this was going to be addressed with the next step.

And I understand this thing about you want to do a traffic study, which was going to be done, but if the fields are going to change, why— it seems to me a waste of money to do a traffic study based on something that sounds like isn't even going to happen with the field, you know, that we're talking about not having, which would— seems to be the biggest issue as far as the traffic is concerned and the parking.

I don't understand why we're doing a study based on the master plan instead of doing a study based on what the firm tells us is the possibility for that, for that property.

Anybody else?

Last chance.

Anybody else want to speak?

Okay.

Moving on, uh, discuss other topics not reasonably anticipated by the chair.

I covered that first thing with the, uh, ban on the water.

Just a reminder, we're at a level 3, no outdoor watering.

Okay, town administrator's report?

Nothing at this time, Mr.

Chair.

Okay, select board and liaison reports.

Accounts payable warrant, we've taken care of that.

TV9 liaison, uh, they have a meeting next Tuesday night, the 30th, at 5 PM, I believe, and I will be attending.

Okay.

Bristol County Advisory Board, no, they had nothing to report.

They have not met.

They had a commissioner's report, which I'm, uh, meeting, which I'm not part of.

They meet frequently, but it looks like Bristol Economy Advisory meets maybe once or twice a year, and there was no scheduled meeting for me to attend or to go in on Zoom, so nothing to report.

Okay.

And the Medeiros Farm Committee, we, we had the full report tonight, right?

It's a little loaded, but yeah, it's a loaded question.

All right, select board individual comments.

Chris, you have anything?

Nothing at this time.

Michael?

Nope, nothing, nothing.

No, we do not.

Okay, court board meeting is on the 29th.

And, uh, oh, I did see in the Reporter, in the supplemental budget— is that July or June?

July.

July.

Okay.

Yeah, yeah.

Was it said that we're getting $270,000?

Oh, for the, uh, for the storm?

Yeah, I think that's still That just came out.

I haven't seen the— they didn't have the breakdown yet by community, so they must have just gotten it.

Howard was putting in all the numbers.

Yeah.

Okay.

And then $50,000 we're getting for the locks.

So would you say $270,000 for the storm?

Yeah.

Now, would that go— that go into the general fund?

No, they're going to— they're going to issue that under Chapter 90.

So I think— I think they're going to do the Chapter 90.

Yeah.

A lot.

So that's an additional amount, right?

Okay.

All right, uh, you guys all set?

Everybody's all set?

Okay, so we have an executive session scheduled.

Next meeting is July 8th.

Okay, so are we going to reconvene in open session, Mr.— uh, no, no.

Okay, so the chair would entertain a motion to adjourn open session and go into executive session, not to reconvene, but the executive session is A, to conduct strategy sessions with respect to negotiations with the Superintendent of Public Works per MGL 30A-21A-2, as having the discussion in open session would be detrimental to the litigation or bargaining bargaining positions of the town.

B, to conduct a strategy session with respect to negotiations with DPW.

Folks, would you take your conversations outside, please?

DPW, AFSCME Council 93, per Mass General Authority Act 21A, Section 3, is having the discussion in open session would be detrimental to the litigation or bargaining position of the town.

And C is to consider consider the approval of executive session minutes for May 27, 2026, and not to reconvene.

So moved, Chris Zorra, at 7:28 PM.

All right, second, Michael Healy.

Okay, roll call.

Chris Zorra.

Chris Zorra, aye.

Michael Healy, aye.

Elizabeth Almation, aye.

Gary Segar, aye.

So we'll take a 5-minute Yep.

No, no good.

You want to start signing this?