Select Board- September 9, 2026

call the Wednesday, September 9th Select Board Meeting to order. First item on the agenda is please rise if you can and place it.

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.

Thank you. The next item on the agenda is a moment of silence in remembrance of Dave Roberts. Dave recently passed away Anybody who knows Dedham, knows who Dave Roberts is. His service began on the school building rehab then he was elected to the School Committee Finance Committee, town meeting representative. And really as we were just chatting a little while ago he is probably the only one that has been the chair of every major committee that he was on. Dave really was involved in all aspects of education. Education and the future at Dedham were especially important to Dave He chaired the committees that helped bring both the Avery and the Dedham Middle School to life.

And was involved in efforts to renovate Dedham's football field, He served on the scholarship committee, continuing his commitments to supporting Dedham's young people. His more than 30 years of public service reflected how deeply he loved his town and the people who called it home. Michelle, would you like to say a few words?

I would. I served with Dave for all of my seven years on the Finance and Warrant Committee, the last several working closely with him as his vice chair and really developed a friendship that continued beyond that service, beyond my time on that board. We had frequent phone calls on my commutes home from South Boston where we would chat about all things Dedham and South Boston as he reminisced about his many years working there. I learned so much from Dave, from his perspective on the town through his many years of service on school committee finance and warrant. And I won't say the whole list that Jim already gave but as we all know, Dave cared really deeply about this town and its residents and particularly with an eye towards those who struggle with increasing costs. I can still hear his voice now which many of us I'm sure can too the mantra

that he would give each budget cycle when he never failed to ask us what is the impact on the average residential taxpayer. and I'll miss hearing that from him this budget season. Dave also cared very deeply about his family, talked about them often both his immediate and extended family was so proud of them and I know was looking so forward to the upcoming high school sports seasons said my deepest condolences to his family and my gratitude for them sharing him with all of us, and the privilege we all had of calling him both colleague and friend.

Thank you. Dimitria?

Yeah, so tonight I'm gonna speak about my friend Dave if I can get through this. Our friendship began many years ago through our service on the school committee We served together during early terms and again when I returned in 2010. Over those years, and all the years that followed, Dave became someone I could always count on. Dave and I shared many of the same views, and were certainly times when we saw things very differently. We both had very strong opinions, and neither of us was shy about sharing them with each other. but we would listen to one another, offer our perspectives and sometimes agree to just disagree. At the end of the day, we were friends. We never allowed a difference of opinion to come between us We had long conversations about everything and anything. Anything we were hearing in the community, about our families, about whatever was on our minds and he always gave me something to always think about and I knew

from our conversations that I would always consider a different perspective and a different view. I have a memory that still makes me smile. Years ago when they used to have caller ID on the TVs, whoever remembers this, there were usually just two people who would call our home. The first one was my husband's friend Mr. Akira Ira and it was Mr. Roberts, and that's what we would always hear from our kids watching TV. Mr. Robert is on the phone! So he simply just became part of our household. Those calls, that friendship, our memories, I will always treasure them. I will also treasure who he was to me. to his family and his grandchildren, his daughter or son, his wife Jerry. Thank you so much for sharing Dave with me. I know how much the family meant to him. I'm especially grateful that I was able to speak with Dave before he passed, and I will always hold that conversation close to my heart.

There will never be another Dave Roberts. He was thoughtful, dedicated, opinionated, generous, and above all a wonderful friend. So Dave, thank you for being my friend. And if there's a way to make a call from up there, I'm sure he will figure it out. He just needs to make sure he gives me that sign because he knows I'm always going in a thousand different directions. So rest in peace, my friend, I will miss you. that you'll never be forgotten, thank you.

So let's please rise in a moment of silence in remembrance of Dave Roberts and thank Jerry and Caitlin for joining us.

Thank you.

Next item on the agenda. You're welcome to stay, but I wouldn't if I was you. but now thank you very much for coming in. All right, the best to Sean as well too please. Thank you. Next item on the agenda, Dedham citizens open discussion? Seeing none, move on to the town manager's report.

Thank you Mr. Chair and members of the board. Just a couple of items to update you all on this evening. The first is not about the budget at all, but the second's about the budge and I think Dave would very much appreciate that conversation because he was always thinking ahead and always willing to lend his perspective and opinion, like you all reflected. He often brought a valuable viewpoint to whatever conversation it was, and his years of experience were super helpful to me as town manager. So I will certainly miss that as well as we go through this year's budget process. but on a lighter note, I wanted to highlight some good work that one of the departments is doing that was sort of brought to our attention today during our department head meeting. and that's the health department. And they deal with a multitude of things, licensing, permitting, restaurants, body art, things of that nature.

to make sure that the businesses in our community are providing health, healthy and safety to their patrons. That's on the regulatory side. And then they respond to environmental health complaints throughout the community so whether smells, issues with housing, issues Trash, things of that nature where there could be harborage for rodents. And this year we've heard a lot of complaints about rodents in our community, in particular rats and so the health department has been responding to a lot of complaints. I think they've logged, to date, about 65 rat complaints this year And as a result of that, they've developed some resources. On their town web page, they now have some resources for dealing with rodents and particular rats. through partnership with our GIS department.

They've created what they're calling a heat map or a rat map, where it shows the hotspots around town where we've gotten the rat complaints so that folks can go on there and they can see whether their neighbors, it doesn't go down to individual property for privacy reasons but you can see if your neighborhood is a for a hotspot, for those complaints so that you're not alone in dealing with this and you can work with your neighbors to work with a pest control company to remove food sources because food sources are the number one reason why we see these things. So again, just wanted to give a little shout out to the health department for that work they've been doing and for bringing and a cool new technology to our town to help our residents better visualize the problem that they are experiencing. And then the next thing I wanted to just give you a little bit of an update on is The last select board meeting, I gave a verbal update on the FY28 budget. I followed up with that

with a memo regarding the forecasted FY28 budget deficit. and this is something we've been talking about year after year now for several years, in that we have what we're calling a structural deficit. And that means our revenues are not keeping pace with our expenditures a percentage 1.3 to 1.5 percent per year where our revenues are falling behind our expenditures and that's creating this gap up until now we've been able to fill that gap using excess levy capacity, one time funds reducing some things. A couple years ago we saw we made some reductions to things like yard waste and Summerhelp, and things like that to try to reduce the growth in our expenditures. But those one-time measures really can only do so much. Looking at FY28, that gap is projected to be about $2 million. in FY27, which is the current fiscal year we're in.

We used about $1.7 million from our excess levy capacity to help close the gap in FY27 year. But what that did is, that only left us $700,000 thereabouts to use in FY28. So going into FY28 with a two million dollar gap only $700,000 in excess levy capacity to use. It's going to cause us to make some hard decisions. There are three sort of ways of dealing with that, perhaps more. But broadly speaking there were three ways we can increase our non-property tax revenues and and we've been doing that year after year, and that's something that was identified in the deficit reduction plan. So looking at user fees and things of that nature where we charge residents for services to try to make sure that those charges match the cost of providing the services and getting that as close as possible to breaking even.

We can reduce our expenditures, but that also in many cases means reducing services or reducing personnel which is something we always try to avoid. and then we can increase our tax levy through what's called an operating override. But again, that's not something to take lightly it's something and a somewhat difficult process that requires a town meeting vote and a town-wide vote in order for that to happen. And again, speaking are of residents' ability to pay and whether that's something as a town policy, something we want to move forward with. So each of those possibilities comes with consequences and choices. And I think it's important that we begin the conversation early, and have discussions with the policy making so the select board being

the chief policy-making board in town, but also we need to talk to the school committee being that they have a sizable budget as well as the finance and warrant committee because they ultimately make the recommendation of the town meeting on our expenditures. So I already talked to the select board chair and we've tentatively scheduled a tri-board meeting for October 22nd. We're waiting for confirmation on that, but I think that's a great first step to get the three main boards together to talk about our approach to this year's budget, the goals, objectives, our challenges and how we might address those using this broad tool that we have right now. and looking forward because the forecast is based on certain assumptions. And we can bend those assumptions, and we can change things but... but that'll require us to cooperate and start working together very early.

And again, I appreciate the chair's action in setting up that meeting so I'm waiting to hear back from the school department on their availability but I'm hoping they're available that night as well if not, we'll work on another night in the October timeframe just because it's so important that we start this before we get too deep into the budget process. especially the school department's budget process, the town budgeted process. And then we can start making some decisions as we move into December, January, February with the Finance and Warrant Committee. Yeah, I'm happy to take questions, expand upon anything that Select Board has questions on I do appreciate the opportunity to talk about this again tonight and get our creative juices flowing so we can work together to solve this challenge.

Thank you, Leon. And we know that at the summit on Monday, you will bring this up. You will expand and start the conversation. I know there's been some ideas floating around with various members of the board. Maybe we'll just take a few minutes, just to talk about those before we move on to Brady and take a look. So just give an opportunity for a few minute now if anybody has Suggestion to throw out, our comments to Leon. Let's have a brief conversation now if anybody's... Thank you. Michelle?

Yeah, so thanks for that update and it's nothing to surprise to us but obviously we want to make sure the community is aware of the situation we're into what I am hoping is in the face of this extraordinarily difficult budget year and in the spirit you're talking about, a cooperation and consensus building that we propose budget advisory working group. This was something that was suggested in the deficit reduction plan and several other towns have made up of a couple members of select board, school committee and finance and warrant with the kind of goal of building alignment earlier like you were mentioning between the different boards and to advise both Town Manager, and Superintendent as they build their budget. Obviously there'd be details that would need to be worked out but I think a smaller committee like this in addition to the tri-board work we would do would be important.

Just getting all the players in the budget process working from kind of the same assumptions and having the same goals hopefully reducing some surprises we've had in other recent years where we get really far into the process and different budget makers and builders to get far along before then they're told to kind of go back and have some different assumptions or just trying to get that conversation started earlier. something I want to just throw out there that we could hopefully dig into the details a little bit more and maybe try to build in and decide at a future meeting about.

Thank you, anything else?

Sure. One, I really appreciate that we're talking about this now at the beginning of September and so thank you for putting together the update for us as well as sharing that Forum next week, and also at the to be confirmed Triborne meeting in October. This is an issue that we have been talking about for the past several years, like a slow train moving down the tracks. And so I think Michelle's suggestion of a working group makes sense and is an important step toward our discussions around this topic. It's not going to be easy, We've known this, that it's not going to be easy for a while now. And I would only add that

to the extent that we can really make sure that these communications get out to community members in ways that they can receive it. You know, so looking at tracking community members' awareness of this and what it means, and the array of options as you just laid out. and ways to engage community members meaningfully in helping with some of those decisions. So it's critically important for elected leaders to provide leadership there and tangential to that or collaborative with that process needs to be significant discussion

and I guess, I use the word communication but really the word is discussion with community members because regardless of the direction that is taken to address this, it will have a significant impact on our community. And so yes I encourage of a community engagement plan to couple this series of discussions that we're having as well.

Thank you, Dimitri?

So I'll just, I'll be brief. I agree with both of my colleagues and thank you Michelle for bringing that forward. I think a committee like this could be very beneficial so Are you going to bring it again to a full committee agenda meeting or are we not sure?

So, so we will have it as Well, we'll have it as an agenda item at the next meeting and my sense is that probably appoint two members of our board. I know that would be the initial start. And then once we have formed a committee, then notify the other two of the of what the plan is and sort of elaborate on it more. But it will be an agenda item, the next meeting two members from this board and then let Michelle to go into further on the, I think you mentioned school committee and finance and warrant. So then once we formally establish it, we can ask them to add a member in members and move forward.

Thank you.

Steven, anything?

I will also echo that I believe the tri-board mini committee. There's probably a term out there but I think that's a great idea because you know Many of us have had experiences on different boards, and everything's kind of siloed. And I think we'll see that a little bit later today. We're going to look at the Q4 budget report There's nothing about the schools on that. And likewise, the school Q4 report doesn't have anything about the town services. So just having a dedicated place where that is getting out there so that the members that are on that mini committee can come back to their full boards and say this what's happening across the town and across the board. Here are the pressures that, you know, the town services are facing here, the pressures with the school services they're facing. And meanwhile, the Finance and War Committee gets sort of perspective earlier and earlier in the budget season, I think it just will be helpful and more efficient just moving forward. And just one kind of general question for the town manager

How unique of a situation, you know like our financial situation is that unique compared to neighboring communities here's 350 other cities and towns in the state?

Unfortunately, it's not unique. I think it's something we're seeing many of our peers are either in the same exact spot or have been there a couple years earlier just because Dedham was fortunate to have a little bit more financial flexibility than many of our peers did with regard to that excess levy capacity. And so they've had to make some of these hard decisions last year or the year before, even a year before that. Really this is a problem that we've seen exacerbated as we came out of the pandemic and the cost of goods and services have really accelerated especially in the Boston market but throughout the country and then our revenues are really strictly limited under state law, as you all know. And so that's really created this tension where I would say most communities in the Commonwealth are struggling right now and many of our peers have gone for overrides. Many of them have failed, some of them passed. I think it's just the reality of local government right now in the commonwealth is that we're struggling with this

increasing costs at a much faster rate and then we can raise revenues realistically.

Thank you. Is that it, Leo? Yes. Thank You. Move on to is there a motion for the consent agenda please

Move to approve the consent agenda including block parties, Manor Halloween Block Party 10-17-26, rain date 10-18-26 1-6 p.m., and Lincoln Street 10- 17-26 3-9 p. m., Relay for America 9-9-26 8-30 p. Dedham, Turkey Trot 1126-830 AM Endicott Estate Drain Layer Approval Keeley Excavation Corp. WC request for Banner and Dedham Square for annual craft fair on 11-21-26. Request for one day wine and malt license from Paddle Boston, 2020 Westcroft Road 9-12-26 and 9-13-26 12 to 7 p.m. approval of meeting minutes 918 to 2025. Is there a second? Second.

Any discussion? Hearing none, all those in favor? Aye. Opposed, thank you. Brady.

Good evening. Brady Winston, Director of Finance. So tonight we're going to be talking about the town's fourth quarter budget update. This is Pretty much the complete year's picture. There are some things that we factor in 90-day receipts after July 1st, so there could be some small adjustments until we're done with the full year but this is I think 99% of the picture for us. So as usual, this is a high level overview of the general fund expenditures and revenues. And then at the end I add a note about the local rooms and local meals taxes. So overall, the general fund ended the year 94% expended. And general fund revenues came in about $3 and 1 half million over budget. are excellent. We'll dive into a few small nuances, but overall we had a good year budget-wise.

So to start with revenues, overall the full year revenues were 4% higher than the previous year The total amounts look good. There are some caveats that we should talk about so when we did receive one large building permit in June This was about $800,000. You can imagine if we happened to not get that or get it a couple weeks later the year-end revenues would look a lot different building permit revenues were sort of down all year, and we had been keeping a close eye on it. That one large project brought us above the budget, but this is sort of an example why we do budget conservatively because the timing of certain projects or the market concerning construction can really affect our revenue budget overall. So the other large positive variance in our local receipts is investment income.

That's another line that we like to budget conservatively given that we cannot really predict the market, especially right now So we did come in over budget, but had the market taken a dip or some other fact come into play, we could be in a different place. So one note on this page, I did want to say Dimitria was kind enough to draw my attention to the planning department revenue. So I'm going to give you an amended memo. This page shows just the planning revenue, whereas last year included conservation in this line. So I'll add back in the conservation fees and then that will show you the full picture. Okay, I can move down to expenditures. So like I said, on the expenditure side, the general fund ended about 94% expended compared to last year which was 95%. So we're sort of right on track.

We always talk about how most departments are largely personnel costs, so many of the departments that had a year-over-year variance were because they had a vacancy either last year or this year. When you're looking at the departments that jump out, it's nice to be able to see like oh yeah I know that. It is pretty clear that personnel costs are a big driver because if you have a couple months vacancy of one position impact your overall expenditures. So on the first page, I will just note we always talk about public safety over time and police chief and the fire chief are both tracking overtime expenditures by driver. So splitting up injured leave, sick military parental leave everything like that So throughout the year, the top drivers were as you might expect accrued time off.

So people taking the vacation and personal time that they're allowed to take under the contract then injured leave sick in military leave and on the police side is training because as we know they have to do a lot of training in addition to their normal shifts. So on the second page of expenditures, I can note one thing which is as we all know, we had a very high snow and ice year. So some good news is that the state announced the Winter Recovery Assistance Program which is based on a formula and gives towns and cities funds to help with their snow and ice expenditures. So we expect to be reimbursed about $233,000 from the state which will replenish the amount of free cash that Town Meeting authorized us to use for this past year. So, that is good news. And finally on the last page I'll talk about the local meals tax and local rooms tax

As you all know, those receipts are reserved in the Robin Reyes Fund to offset debt service for major capital projects. Through the full year, the room occupancy tax was down 10%, and the meals tax was done 2%. So we ended the year with about $2.58 million collected between the two, which while that revenue is slightly down it is nearly identical to the figure in our long-range forecast so we are not in any danger of overexpending the fund or being over leveraged for the next fiscal year. We're right where we expect it to be, even though revenues were slightly down. So there I can stop and take any questions you have

Thank you. Thanks, Reilly. Excuse me. I'm going to go through the board first. The board asks questions, okay? No, I'm not doing what I want. This is the process.

Okay, I didn't know that.

That's okay. Questions for Brady? Dimitria?

I just have some very brief ones. So the underspending, as you said vacant positions right which attributes to that are we looking at funding them? Have they been filled or are they still unfunded And do we know if they'll remain, or you don't know? That could be more of a town manager question.

Sure. After a certain amount of time, if a position is vacant, we have to reassess it There are some highly skilled positions we've had trouble filling, such as DPW mechanic, HVAC technician. So in that case, we sort of transitioned funding maybe to a contract with the vendor or we look to training in-house or different things. So if a position is left open for a significant amount of time, we do try to take a different track.

Just one more question regarding the Robin Ray's. You said that With your projections, it's still Sullivan? Yes. Absolutely. are we still going to put money into it from the general fund? We've done that before. Is that something, oh you're still too early in that process?

So we used to have a convoluted process where we would transfer from the general fund into the Robin Rand's and then pay out certain debt service. we changed that process a number of years ago. So now, we transfer out of the Robin Reyes to pay debt service and supplement the general funds payments into that debt service so there's not It's not the loop in for the loop out. Yeah, so that's how come but the fund does remain solvent and we always make sure we leave a little bit of room in there just to make sure were not overspending it

Thank you, thank you. Erin, go ahead. Oh sorry. Sure please. Brady where are our debt service obligations? Are they on this?

The expenditure side, I believe the last category, second to last category is debt service on page four.

Debt service under other, okay, all right great thank you.

I'll say that right?

Yeah.

Thank you, Michelle.

Two quick questions one of which Dimitri pretty much already asked but similarly with the vacant positions I was curious if they were in the process of being filled or being held vacant. And correct me if I'm wrong, am I right that we still have part solutions towards the budget issues was creating a committee so that when there is a vacant position internally, there's a small committee that really looks at that to see should it be even filled before it's automatically posted, right? Is there anything, is that right?

That's correct. So we still have the position control committee We review every open position. There are certain limitations, some unions we have to fill vacant positions, others we can reevaluate and not fill them. And there are also certain positions within the town where Public Safety, or the fact that there might not be another technical person who can do that job where we have to fill positions. were constantly evaluating and making sure that the position, when it becomes vacant is actually needed. And we've generated some of these savings by holding positions open and again thanks to the other employees in those departments who generally pick up extra work during that time, to allow us to generate some savings which was one of the budget measures that was adopted by the Finance and Work Committee I think that was two budget cycles ago, but yeah.

Okay great and then I assume that I'm correct to assume that given the departments being within the budget and then the higher than anticipated General Fund Revenues that we should be seeing a positive impact of free cash. And you can remind me, I should know, Dave would know when is it with that cycle again of predicting and then knowing and certifying free cash?

Sure. The goal in Dedham is usually to have free cash certified by fall town meeting, if there is a need for it. If the timing is flexible with the Department of Revenue you could move towards certification as early as you sort of officially close your books. Our timeline in Dedham is usually that fall before time meeting.

Thank you. Michelle? Oh, Melissa. Sorry. OK. Stephen? And just to follow up on that, So what is the current, and understanding there are some other bills that will come in, but what is a current delta between what we took in and what we spent?

In the general fund? Sorry. took in and spent. So on the revenue side, it was that $3.5 million revenues over budgeted. On the expenditure side, To get you an exact number, I'll probably follow up just because we are doing some end of year cleanup right now. We're closing our software this Friday so town side and school side are doing last adjustments so I can follow up with that figure. At least three million, yeah.

So out of that we're talking roughly just even conservatively about like six million? How does that account for the long range financial plan as we're looking towards next fiscal year? Is that accounted for or is were like a new, not surprise but like a positive that from the town manager's memo there is going to be more of a gap in a positive way than expected.

In the forecast, we account for about $1.6 million of free cash use for the operating budget. So that's sort of a historical level we've used to balance the operating budget. Otherwise, we use free cash for capital and further one-time expenses. There's no forecasted use of free cash other than that 1.6 historical amount. some towns have used free cash to balance budgets in tough years but it's not a best practice.

That's it, thanks Stephen. If you have a single question on the budget go ahead and I'll let you ask it.

You'll let me?

Yes, I'll let you.

You're through the chair, sure.

We might, excuse me?

What a joke! I mean, I'm here to ask questions. So obviously you- You can't, I can't just ask?

No, no you can't. There's an open meeting law, there's a decorum and there's process by which the board operates in policies so no, you cannot just ask a question but if you have a question for Brady, you can ask it through the chair.

We do say that we have investment income How is it invested, and what money?

So the money that's invested is sort of our checking account, you would say. So our pooled cash that we pay all our weekly payroll and bills from it's invested in low risk investments outlined in our investment policy, and that's on our website. But they're very stable low-risk investments give us a solid return but it's not the S&P 500. So many funds, because it's basically all of our cash that is sitting idle at any time. And then our treasurer on a regular basis will transfer funds to pay our liabilities so I could get a ballpark total figure for you, good follow up.

Thank you Brie, thank you. Okay anybody else? Board, all right. Move on next item on the agenda request public hearing common vitriol license Chipotle Mexican Grill. Hi come on up.

Can I go in here?

You can sit right there. Thank you.

Thank you Mr. Chair, board members Daniel Brennan I handle permits and licenses for Chipotle in the region here for a new store that's under construction at 762 Providence Highway. It's an end cap space on a new multi-tenant building. Our square footage is just under 2,500 square feet 38 interior seats hoping to open November 4th we're tracking. Hours requested are 1045 a.m. to 11 p.m., seven days. I'm happy to answer any questions.

Thank you. This is the public hearing, first any questions from the board? Hearing none, any questions for the public? Hearing none, is there a motion?

Move to close the public hearing.

Is there a second?

Second.

Discussion? Hearing none all those in favor? Aye. What is the wish of the board?

move to approve the request for Common Base Rural License for Chipotle Mexican Grill, 762 Providence Highway, Dedham.

Is there a second?

Second.

Discussion? Hearing none, all those in favor? Aye. Thank you. Good luck! Thank you, appreciate it.

Are you keeping both open? I just have to ask that off the record.

November 4th is the planned opening.

And are you keeping them both open.

Oh, yes.

Thank you. That's all.

Next item on the agenda, public hearing compliance failure hearing Orchard 7 Fusion Bar and Grill 565 High Street. Please appear. Thank you. So before we start, ask Nancy to swear anybody that's given testimony.

Yes.

Thank you. Just introduce yourself please, good evening.

Hi my name is Marie Yaya and I'm the owner of Orchid 7.

Okay, and we have in the police department? Sergeant Sullivan representing Dedham Police Department. So you've received a copy of the police report? Yes. Do you stipulate to what's in the report or do you want Sergeant Sullivan to read the whole thing, or just give a brief overview?

He could go ahead and do it, but I can tell you what I'm doing based on what happened.

So just a brief overview of what's in the report he can give?

Yes.

Okay. .

On Wednesday, June 3rd at approximately 5.40 PM an alcohol compliance check was done at 565 High Street Orchard 7 Fusion Bar and Grill an underage operative who possesses a valid under 21 vertical Massachusetts license was used to conduct this alcohol compliance check. The operative asked the bartender for a Bud Light bottle. The bartender did not ask for ID and was then served the alcoholic beverage. Officer Jenkins went into Orchard 7, Fusion Bar and Grill to gather their bartenders' and managers' information for the necessary compliance work.

Thank you. Great.

Okay, it was a trainee person. The person that was training the server actually went to the bathroom at that time. So when the person walked in, the person asked for a beer. He did not ask. Since then we've been training. We've been training everybody, make sure everybody have their... If somebody's training we're trying to do it before our time. Before we open and another thing that we also do, we do a power meeting before is SHIFT, so everybody will know. Let's be alert. You know let's check everybody ID and whoever you knows like I said like doing training we're trying to do it not on when we open we do it way before that or after or days that we're not open just to help avoid this from happening again.

Okay, thank you. Anybody have any questions on the board? Nancy when was the last violation?

Yes. October 20th of 2022. Okay, thank you. Anybody?

Go ahead, Dimitria.

So do you have any signage with like the date and is it a general rule that you will card everyone? What's your policy on that? And do you have signage with the dates that they should be looking for, you bartenders?

Anybody. It should be anybody. No matter how old you are, you should be able to flash the person for their ID.

Do you have any signage for your bartenders? Or do you have training before a shift letting them know the year?

Fifteen hours, fifteen hours before. We start training. You know, we have a power talking with everybody. We let them know, remind them you must check everybody's ID and then alert all that and how to read the and some people from other countries that we did differently. Yeah, thank you.

Thank you. Sajid, anything else you wish to add?

Orchard 7 was very apologetic and cooperative throughout the process.

Great, thank you. What is the public hearing? Anybody have anything to wish to end? What is the wish of the board?

Move to close the public hearing. Second.

Discussion on the vote, Erin? Yes. Steven? Yes Michelle? Yes Dimitria? Yes And a chair vote yes thank you, we will render our decision at our next meeting. You don't have to come. Okay? Thank you very much. A motion to make under advisement to September 24th. So moved.

Second.

All those in favor? Aye. Thank you. Next item on the agenda, Conservation Commission Update. Eric and Meredith, welcome.

Thank you, Chair MacDonald and members of the Select Board. It's really great to be here tonight and kind of remind you what the Conservation Commission does and talk about a couple projects we have going on. So my name is Meredith Confrey. I'm the conservation agent for the town.

Eric D'Alec, current chair of the Conservation Commission.

And so on the screen, you'll see this is our current membership of the commission. So there's myself as a staff member and then we also have Leo Lainez who was actually here at the last meeting talking about the open space plan. So he splits his time and helps out with the conservation division as well and then we have seven voting members of the Commission appointed by the Select Board. A great range, I would say, of years of service to the Commission so we have kind of a combination of older and new members, which I think is really nice. We have a lot of institutional knowledge on the commission but also new members that are really eager to learn and take classes, and kind of grow as they learn about all the regulations we have to deal with. Also a new thing in the last couple years is having resource associate members

So we have two resource associate members. They're not voting members, but they actually come to every single meeting which is great and they listen in. They can ask questions as well and they really help out with some of the more, like the less permitting focused items so outreach and events and things like that. And actually, one other quick note on the last slide. You'll see our Zoom faces or our team's faces. We have a fun update for you all tonight that starting next week we're going to go back in person and meet in a hybrid format. I see Dimitria is smiling. So it will be great to be back in person, be able to talk to applicants face-to-face and then we'll still have the hybrid option for the people that do like to watch from home. So it will be I think a really positive change.

just a quick reminder of what the Conservation Commission does. So, the biggest thing is Wetlands Permitting. So I would say probably about 80% of our meetings, 90% of out meetings are reviewing projects and issuing permits for projects that may impact wetlands and resource areas So in Dedham, we're fortunate enough to have tons of acres of wetlands. Riverfront, we have the Charles River and Mother Brook as well. Vernal pools and floodplain are also protected. Any time any activity is happening in those zones, the Conservation Commission reviews the project. basically is like a safeguard to make sure that the work or the construction isn't going to negatively impact the resource areas. So that's kind of the main thing.

And then recently, so back in 2023, the Open Space and Recreation Committee became a subcommittee under the Conservation Commission Historically, conservation commissions were created for open space protection in addition to wetlands permitting. this kind of merger created more collaboration among the members and so the protection of our conservation lands in town is now back under the oversight of the Conservation Commission. and then lastly, educating the public about wetlands. Some of the things we do there are sending out new homeowner letters to people that might move into a house that has a wetland behind their property behind their backyard just to let them know, hey there's this area. These are the protections that it gets if you ever have questions, email us or call us.

This kind of prevents a lot of unnecessary violations because I think a lot people might not know that there's rules to building near wetlands and then lastly, something that our department does with the help from staff is applying for grants to get some funds to work on various projects. Project. So we'll talk a little bit about those later, but that's part of the outreach and education. and we'll quickly talk about some of the projects that have been ongoing. So really with the con-con permits, you're getting the application, but then it's kind of the whole lifecycle of monitoring the project as it happens and then making sure and everything that was agreed upon during the initial meeting is actually completed.

So these are some recently completed projects, you'll see the, if you haven't been out on Westfield Street there's a new culvert there that's awesome. So that was done by the DPW it replaced an aging culvert that had no real good capacity for managing flood waters as they came through that stream. It now has a lot of space for the stream to travel, it's better the fish and other animals that use that wetland there. So, that's a really cool one. Northeastern University on Common Street recently did they added some 88 parking spaces that was also right near a stream. You can kind of see in that photo the little restoration area that they did along the stream just to kind of mitigate any impacts from the parking spaces

And then the Dedham Country and Polo Club did a golf tee repair project, so that was a golf teee that had historically been put into a wetland back before there were regulations. the edges of the tea were eroding away. And so they shored it up and then added wetland plants around it prevent future erosion. And so kind of the point of this slide is to show that when projects come to the commission, their focus is really how to improve the resource area while also if the project can meet the performance standards, making the project happen as well. So it's kind of that balance. and other current projects that are under construction. So you heard about the Chipotle tonight, so formerly known as 750 Providence Highway. It sounds like they might be changing that address That project is actually really cool.

It's been a long time coming, there has been some legal challenges along the way but with the final approved plans It will result in 8,880 square feet of new wetland creation that will be kind of in the form of a pond. That's like a progress photo there so you can kinda see this Pond that's been created, as well as 13,700 square feet of new wetlands along Wigwam Pond. So that was all necessary to mitigate the work that was permitted there. There's also going to be two wildlife crossings underneath the roadway, so that will connect Waywampan to the wetlands next door. the Noble and Greenough schools doing a renovation of their Omni ice rink, which is along the Charles River. So that went through about two months of permitting maybe even more just because it was so close to the Charles River.

But that will, you can see in that kind of like mock up there, there's gonna be a new vegetative buffer created between the rink and the Charles 75 Sturgis Way, that is also next to Wigwam Pond. That is under construction currently it looks like Mars just been leveled basically. And there was no kind of going down from the amount of impervious surface out there, so it's going to result in the creation of 39,000 square feet Pervius area, so a decrease from all the pavement that's out there. So that's real positive as well. And lastly, a permit from us, the town of Dedham to work on the invasive species that are in Wigwam Pond, so that is also ongoing. It involves the cutting of Phragmites, the treatment of aquatic invasive species in the pond. But we had to go to Concom for permitting for that which was fun.

and I'll turn it over to Eric.

Thank you everyone. some of our permitting that is under review. We do have a very difficult one called the Presidential Park at 637 E Street that's the empty lot, that's basically across Neanderthal state. That has been in quite despair for years. The biggest challenge of that is going through 40 years worth paperwork and files, and a lot of confusion. So currently under pre-review right now to help us out with trying to see which path we can go by directly at the developer. 185 Buzzy Street, basically across from the Conning Park site redevelopment. It's an existing old millhouse just beyond its time. The new developer wants to convert it over

I believe it's a mixed use, a mixed-use with some apartments and we're trying to work with them to get that out of our buffer zone of the river which were pretty stern on. We really stay in their ground with a 200 foot Buffer typically, especially if it's never been developed before. So we're still working with them on that and then one of our other permits under review is 18 Power Street This was a retaining wall that was built without our knowledge. It's quite extensive. I think this is the project decided to come up with a training to homeowners and contractors because of the violation. It's currently under review with the building department, just make sure that

it's engineered correctly, and then we will work with the homeowner to mitigate the area. Community Events. This is some more of our fun stuff. Many of you were there for the Sawmill Lane Pollinator Pathway, the opening and ribbon covering. It's looking great down there. Sadly we are I made a count on my way here tonight. We're missing eight artist photos now. There's stickers, I guess you can't ask much on concrete but it was nice while it lasted But Joe and his team did a fantastic job, Meredith getting the grant. Thank you to many others that have helped along with that. Our Dedham Biodiversity Day. has been the third one so far.

We're already looking forward to number four next year, which thanks to Leo and Meredith we were awarded a grant through the Mass Cultural Council, and so it'll be a much larger event for next year. We could add more things for people that want to come down and enjoy it, and it's typically a good time. We have the open space and recreation plan public outreach. Leo, as you know has been... He's driving force behind it. I'm also the chair of the open space, but Leo really did all the legwork. So I want to give kudos to Leo for that. Community Presentations and Training. That's the class that we came up with to try to prevent violations.

Our first class had about 12 plus attendees, our second class had over 20. So each year it increases. And believe it or not, I think we do see some less violations. I typically go around looking for them. and a great thing too is that a lot of the contractors I work with have reached out about it The word gets around, and now they're not violating. So it helps. And then we had the Earth Day cleanup at Mother Brook. We had well over 20 volunteers and along with the Mother Brook community group. We collected tons of trash, is well needed.

Granted, it ought to be done again next year but we're on it.

Thank you. Questions? Steven?

I just want to say thank you for the work. Good to go to the Sawmill Park Pollinator Pathway, and it's a great event. It's a space. Thank you for your work to bring that along.

Michelle.

Yeah, thank you great presentation so much fantastic work I love the pictures of the projects that are completed and the improvements and thanks especially for all the work to find grants for some that you do. Two quick questions. One is the trainings, those are great. Are those recorded and online so they can get out or could be done in the future so people who don't attend can benefit from all of that work?

Yeah, I think the second one we did was recorded by Dedham TV. The first one we didn't and that was a suggestion.

And are you able is it like on our website? Like the town website or only on Dedham Tv?

I think it's only on Dedham TV, but that's a great suggestion. We could definitely link it.

Exactly. Yeah, I think that would be great. And then anything else you can say about the work around Wigwam Pond with a couple of different projects touching that? public access, like how far away is that improvements to be done and where access is or anything at all about improvements there?

Yeah, so currently we're still kind of in the wigwam pond master plan. Phase one is really addressing the invasive species problem because it basically surrounded by that Phragmites, which is that tall reed you see. And so to even get to a spot where you could figure out the access and figure out like a boardwalk or trail that is kind of the number one thing has to be tackled first. It's looking good though, so we're probably in the I think going into the third fall of removing that and we're working with a company called Water & Wetland that specializes Fragmites Removal. So they have this like Marshmaster cutting machine that they'll take out in the winter when it's like the most effective time to cut. So I would say probably by next year, it wouldn't be

It's crazy to start thinking about the next step once we get a sense of how effective the invasive species removal has been.

and are some of the developments helping us with that?

Yeah, so a lot of the development that we mentioned tonight. So the Sturgis Way, the TGI Fridays 750 Providence Highway they donated to the Wigwam Pond Revitalization Fund as part of the mitigation for the permits that they got from conservation and planning, as well. kind of bucket is ready for when we're ready to implement some of the trail features out there.

Thank you.

It'll be exciting. Thank You, Dimitria?

I already said my big thank-you coming and going live, so I appreciate that. And thank you for all the work that you do sometimes maybe I'm sure there's a lot of anxiety sometimes between you and people coming in front of you. And at the end, you come to a good place, right? So thank you for all that. As far as your permits, you mentioned you had 26 permits. How did that compare to previous years?

Yeah, so in 2025 we had 31. 2024 we had 29 and 2023 we had 33. So it's teetered around like the high 20s early 30s that numbers a combination of our larger permits, which are called orders of conditions and that's for like the big projects. And then we also have RDAs, or Determinations of Applicability. And those are for small homeowner projects like maybe someone's putting in a pool or patio. kind of varies year to year depending on how much construction people are doing or, you know, how many projects they're doing around their house.

And how long does the typical... Is there an average in how long a project... is with you on going through review or anything like that?

The big projects, some of them We're expecting over a year because there's a lot of back and forth. Because when we hire the third review, they have to kind of go back and forth between Meredith and the developer. And then once they have all that sorted, then they come back to the commission, and then we have to kinda go back-and-forth. So it can stretch out some homeowner stuff very simple. One and done, yeah. Boathouse Lane came to DuPont to upgrade their landscape all native plants get rid of invasives you know, very little. Five minutes.

Yeah I think the one that is taking the longest is definitely that Presidential Park simply because It's like Eric said, there's been a 40 year history of permitting and work undone and not done violations. So to go through all that and then have the third party reviewer look at it it takes a while. I feel like the average for a big project would probably be two months, like Noble's I feel was two months.

Yeah. I think they're kind of simple. E Street is difficult and then I had asked Meredith a few months back when we started hearing about the 128 campus. I said, I want to ask the committee about going back live because It's kind of difficult to control some people on Zoom. And we want to keep it orderly and everything on record, and straightforward so there is no bickering back-and-forth or whatnot.

Thank you.

Erin? Sure, thanks. Well Meredith and Eric thank you so much for your work I mean these are not small projects that you need to come up to speed on and understand your role in, so thank you for all of that. I like to say this repeatedly for everyone to just understand Our town runs on the time and effort of hundreds of volunteers. elected, appointed, volunteer and otherwise. So thank you so much for stepping up and doing this work on behalf of the town. A question, just out of curiosity for education for anyone listening here or at home. Relative to your permitting what rules and regulations are you bound to follow and what level of discretion do you have in your decision making?

And, do you receive training on how to navigate this decision-making?

Do you want to take this?

You can take this one. I'm going to try to remember all of them. So the training question, MACC is a great organization. So they're the Massachusetts Association of Conservation Commissions, and they've been around since conservation commissions existed like they're kind of the training resource. They have classes you can take, they have online resource libraries and I think their reason that their organization is So great is because a lot of towns don't have conservation agents, so it's really just the volunteers that have to figure all this stuff out and have to spend hours and hours looking through the wetlands regulations and making sense of it all. So a lot of our members have taken those classes. And I think two of them have actually gotten their graduation certificates, which is great. It means they've taken at least five or six.

and then I guess to answer the question about the regulations and how much leeway there is. So, the conservation commissions they're responsible for administrating both the state and any local regulations So the State Wetlands Protection Act, we're pretty bound by that. That is its law. There's not a lot of leeway in there for really anything and so depending on what resource area you're working in So if, let's say you're in floodplain for example there is like five or six specific criteria that have to be met for your project to get approval. And so I'd say the state there's less flexibility, Dedham has a local bylaw and regulations not every town does most towns do County, but we have our local regs and those have additional kind of guidelines that the commission uses to evaluate projects.

So one of those that Eric was talking about earlier is kind of a no disturbance zone. And so the state doesn't specify that, they actually allow in some situations you to impact a wetland, like you could dig out a certain amount of square footage of wetland as long as you replicate it. The town doesn't allow that and they actually ask for a buffer between the wetland and any work A lot of that is simply because protection of the resource area, but also because you wouldn't really want to build a house right next to a wetland. It would be a bad idea for flooding purposes and just wouldn't work, really. So a lot of towns have a no disturbance setback. We have ours and that's kind of what Eric was talking about with like there's usually very little leeway. When you see the culvert replacement project, for example, there is no way to get around that no disturbance zone.

You have to be replacing that culvert in a wetland and you have to take precautions to make sure you're not gonna impact it. But that's an example when the commission can grant a waiver and say, We understand this culvert is important and that it's work that needs to get done, so we'll grant this waiver. So I'd say within reason there's more leeway on the local regulations but the state is pretty cut-and-dry.

Thank you. Well, thank you for your dedication to understanding all of that and applying it to the work. So thanks so much.

Thank you. Thanks for coming in and giving us an update, clearly the amount of work that you do as a volunteer Commission is a lot. Occasionally if I'm flipping, I'll stop and just get so confused that I turn it off. because I don't understand. But when I do watch, I know that you take your time especially with the average homeowner who's coming to do something to their property and don't understand. And I appreciate the time that you spend with them so that the process, while necessary, is not overly burdensome for them, and they're able to whatever they need within reason to work with it and be satisfied. So thank you. And Eric going to a hybrid? I suggest that you reach out to the town manager's office before you do it.

We've been doing it for a while and would be happy to help because it's a little different sometimes, but when you have somebody like Amber or others that are at the keep, that's really key to the meeting. would be happy to have a conversation with you about my experiences, not only here but in my regular work. But we'll also help you any way you can. Thanks very much for coming in. Have a good night. Thank you.

Hello.

I don't know your name. I'm Jeff Tegnell. A couple years ago, I presented to the select board about our program of taxation aid Committee, and I'm an emeritus member of our committee. I finished my term last year. but I'm here to reinforce what Michael will be talking about.

So I see you at the gym all the time, but I don't know you. That's right. At Dedham Health.

Keep lifting those weights.

Absolutely. So welcome.

Thank you.

Just introduce yourself for those that are watching.

Yeah, I don't think I know Nancy and I know Tom Manager a little bit but I don't think I know anybody else. Been in the town for 41 years, 42 years really and I've been involved in youth soccer for 17 seasons involved with my kids in the school system. But I basically, in fact, I was 23 years in this building with my own business, a financial advisor. So I have a lot of roots in Dedham. But I'm basically apolitical, so I don't know too many people up here. I was brought to the board by and Mrs. MacDonald, she had asked me to join and she was a select person at that time.

She subsequently left the board and left me to fend for myself, and I've done exactly that. and with the help of Jess and Joanne Richard, we've carved out this program. So if you please take a minute and read the first page I think that's a good place for us to start, and then I'll start filling in the details.

Okay, Michael. Go ahead.

Okay.

I have your question in bold, so...

Excuse me?

I said I see your question is bold.

Okay . All right. I'm here today because I am looking for help. Okay? I'm looking for ways to keep this program alive because the need justifies a program. The first thing we did when this, before the meeting actually was called to order was we all stood and we pledged allegiance to the flag. and the last sentence says something to the effect, for liberty and justice for all. And that's essentially what we're talking about here

I don't know the financial well-being of anybody here other than myself, but I would venture that we've all been very fortunate in this world. But that hasn't extended to everyone and there are many people who live in the town of Dedham. who either through aging or disability are struggling to pay their taxes, their real estate taxes because A every year they go up and I know that whenever a town is being governed, there's always a push pull between expenses and revenue. and I was here a couple of months ago when there was a general talk about real estate taxes going up, and I thought a riot was gonna ensue. and I can understand that, okay?

Because we go to the gas station and we pay more for our gas. We go to grocery store and we paid more for out food. And everything goes up and so when we see our tax bill going up, it's just another one of those things that puts more and more pressure on us. And right now the only means we have of funding this taxation aid program is by contributions in a process that, by itself, is not one that would be really conducive to being charitable. if people are writing checks that they don't want to be writing to pay their real estate taxes, it's a really hard thing to ask them to be charitable. But we do it.

and we do have any number of very well-intentioned people in town who have provided us amounts of money. Those amounts are generally about $5,000 a year but we need more. We essentially need about 10,000 more to keep the current program going and the question I bring forth here is, where is it going to come from? And I offer several ideas of where it might come from. One of the great handicaps that we're facing, well there's several but let me start with this one. We don't have a budget okay? There is no money allocated to the committee anything that we do, okay? We have to do without charge. that's number one.

And number two, we're very restricted in ways that we can raise money and I've spoken to the town attorney about this I believe her name is Lauren Goldberg, but I could be mistaken. And I asked here if we could create a 501 organization which is a not-for-profit organization and use that as the fundraising arm. Well, I didn't really get a clear answer from her. She said we didn't need it. She that just representing the town, we could raise money. Well, maybe we could. I don't know the legality of it. Okay? I'm familiar with the Dedham Square Circle because actually do financial work for them, and I know that they are a 501 , and they do solicitation.

Okay, so let me just have Jeff say a few things about it because Jeff is as familiar with the program as I am. And we've put a lot of work into this and I don't want to see it just go by the wayside because the need is there.

Well, when I was here two years ago presenting to the board. You know, I was I anecdotally brought up, I've looked at all the applications. We had a 100 year old woman who had been in her house for 75 years, and she's living off Social Security. and there were families with multiple disabled kids. veterans who were drawing veteran pensions, but not enough to keep up.

with their taxes in, buying food and heating their houses. What do we give out? We give out $400 or so, and it makes a real difference for folks. and I'd go through all the applications every year, and I have to tell some people that no we're not gonna be able to fund you because you bring in too much Income, and it doesn't meet the guidelines that we've had to decide on. 30 plus were, these are desperate people.

and our issue is we take in $5,000 from the little box on our property taxes and we did for eight years, those donations accumulated and then we started to fund the program, and we've run out of money.

Essentially, we have run out of money. It's, you know prior to being called to the committee I didn't really pay much attention to the people who may have been in need in this town. I knew that they were certainly out there. But for the most part, I lived along with Jeff in the Green Lodge section and it's basically a middle class neighborhood I don't know what people make or whatever, but you don't see poverty there or people struggling. being on the committee, I got an upfront look at it and it was really very disturbing quite frankly.

and I came here in 1984, that's 42 years ago. And I don't know if there is anybody here who has been in town that long? and I'm going to tell you, Dedham was a mess in those days. The downtown area here the square Terrible. And throughout the town, things were just not very good. Fast forward 40 years, and we've got a beautiful downtown. We have a very diverse and healthy population. and it's a very desirable place to live. All the properties have gone sky high, but there is another aspect to a town and that's the care they give to the people of the town who contributed to the town. Okay?

that's something you're not going to find written anywhere, but the people who live in the town can take a great deal of pride in the help they extend less fortunate people who live in that town. and that's all I have to say as far as the program goes. I don't know what the answers are, okay? It's not something that we can pin on the town to make contributions. I don't think that's part of the program, I think it all has to be done by donation but I could be wrong about that But what I'd like to do is find more ways that we can create donations. And I listed some ideas at the very bottom of the second page, Some things that we might be able to do.

I grew up in a very rural community and every Thanksgiving, we used to have a turkey shoot Does anyone know what a turkey shoot is? No, I'll tell you what it is. It's a raffle and the fire department used to raffle off turkeys and we used to raise funds that way And that's what you do when you need money and it's not readily available. You get creative, so I'm here today asking for help in being creative to keep this program alive.

Thank you. Thanks very much for your input and the time that you spend in, no it's not easy going through and saying yes or no and what you're saying tonight is what we have been saying and others have been when it comes time for increase in taxes, that there are those within our community that struggle every single day and make the decision of of what they're gonna do with their limited dollars. Are they gonna buy food? Are they going to get their medicine? And a lot of times, you know, paying your taxes and other stuff has to take a back seat because you need to live. You need to eat! And then that goes into a whole different set, so... You know, I'm gonna open it up for the board for some comments. I do have just a few comments I will at the end on your suggestions and take it from there.

So I'm going to start this side first.

All right.

Erin, it is?

Yes. Well welcome thank you for coming here this evening. It's really wonderful to get this update. to hear from both of you, and I really appreciate both the work that you've been doing it looks like since 2021 or 22 but also the time that it took to think about ways that we can help build this fund and appreciate the passion that you bring to the work that your doing. I, you know it's great to look at this and I think that is something we all need to think about and talk with the town manager about. Are you aware of other communities that have a similar program? And if they do anything in terms of public engagement to have increased participation in the program?

Yeah, Erin. I did some leg work on that. I called, no. See one of the things you have to do is get towns that are similar okay? When I started years ago, I called the town of Harvard which is way up near the New Hampshire border. I don't think I've ever been there. I think they got maybe 5,000 people excuse me, all of whom all of whom are well-to-do, and they told me they raised 5,000 and had four people looking for help. Okay? totally different altogether.

We have 45, 50 applications.

And that's without a lot of maybe awareness potentially about the program.

We publicize in Dedham Times and with our brochures, I take the brochures around to you know, the various fraternal groups into churches and we hand them out at the food pantry. So we try to disseminate information about the program. But you're right, every year someone says well why hasn't somebody told us about it? Well, you know, we've done our best. We do presentations too, we have done our

Thank you for feeling like you need to take that on alone, but I would say this is a great opportunity for us to look at how we can collaborate and what we can do as a town through our many channels for raising awareness and participation in the program, both from a contribution level but also and need in participation level that way.

Erin, just to finish what I was saying, I called Norwood and they don't have a program, but they have ways for people to work off their taxes or reduce taxes or something. Thank you so much. Hold on just a second here. Thank you Thank you. I got in touch with Milton, which is a more affluent community and they just started their program in December So they really weren't able to give me any information. they were just getting going, put it that way. But like I said a lot of towns don't have the program. I was surprised by that but they have other things. Some towns actually freeze

the individual's taxes when they get to say, let's say 65. If you're paying 8000 in taxes it never goes higher.

And we do have another committee that's working on potential options that Steven can share. Thank you.

Who's next?

You're set. So thank you, thank you for all of this and I'm sitting here thinking many people that don't know how to contribute You wonder how many people don't know you exist as well. That is true, yeah. And I do see online things that you see and everybody's looking for money, right? what everybody makes their choices, but at least if they knew more about what you do. So that's kind of a thing on how we can work in letting people know exactly what your committee does and the need of it. You said I think 45 people could have, right? Imagine if more people knew.

I would bet there's over 100 people.

Yes, I would think so too and I just have a question Nancy or Leon can we actually get the answer on developing a FIBA Friends of?

Friends, yeah.

Right? Accounts? So you know... if there is something that we could do in that sense, it's a beginning. And then making the right connections from there to try and help fund because it is the truth you're sending your taxes how many people go, well I'll throw another 50 bucks in.

Yeah when you write out those thousand dollar checks you're not inclined to be charitable. How could you be?

But I think that's a good place to start and then also this was a good Place to start, and to start thinking about how do we Again the committee you're working on but how do We actually get the word out to help Fund. Right, that's and that can't be answered right now, I don't think unless somebody has a magic wand.

But I don' want it to fall through the cracks, Demetra, okay? By that I mean I don't want it to keep being put off, put off. I'd like to see if we can come up with some sort of plan to get this thing straightened out. That's what I'm here for tonight. Jeff was here two years ago, and they just kind of passed the football down the line and I know the Patriots are playing tonight. And I know everybody wants to get out of here and go watch the game, but I'm worried about the people out there.

Steven?

Sure. I will try to keep this somewhat brief. I'll start with the tax aid fund, so just looking at the statute in MGL it looks like the optional box can be put on real estate property tax bill, motor vehicle excise tax bill or to mail with such tax bills a separate form and I guess more for the town manager. A, do we only do it on real estate tax bills? Do we do it motor vehicle excise loans and then is there anything separate about people who are paying their property taxes through an escrow for a mortgage, whether that's more just they're less likely to maybe look closely at the box or is there like a mechanical Challenge with raising the taxes after they've been in escrow. I don't know procedurally if anyone's run into that issue.

Yeah, and I think that would be an interesting to look into because we don't have as high of an escrow payment that you might imagine. I talked to the collector about this and it's, I believe it's below 50% in the number that are coming out of escrow which is somewhat surprising to me just considering You assume that most folks are paying their mortgage, and I guess that's a good thing. It shows that perhaps many folks don't have mortgages. So I can get you the exact numbers on that, and we could try to do a little bit of data analysis if folks are more likely to pay when they're writing a check versus if they're paying out of escrow. Everybody gets the tax bill, whether it comes out of Escrow or whether they're reading a check but whether they pay attention to it more I think that's a good question. And I can double check on whether what forms exactly it's on and we can, I can report back to the board.

And then just kind of broadly as it's been alluded to there is a town senior Here. It's a long one, but it's looking at policy solutions that the town can take to help relieve some of the property tax burden that seniors are facing in So we're still working through the report. We kind of have it high level right now. The tax aid fund does come up specifically awareness both as donors and people who would need it I think another thing that has come up, and this probably isn't a surprise based on the report is just The amount that's available compared to the need that's out there doesn't always match up. Even if, you know, the fund was to triple or quadruple, there's still probably a lot more need out there. It doesn't mean that the Tax Aid Fund does not have a role in the town. It certainly does and

you know, combined with the number of other exemptions that we have for senior citizens there are a variety of categories criteria that some people qualify for some and not others. Another policy and the committee's not necessarily making recommendations but trying to put options out there things that can be considered in one was just trying to make the process of applying for any either the Tax Aid Fund or any of these statutory exemptions, making it easier for seniors. Whether there could be a common app where you apply once and then from there you figure out what additional information is needed to see if people qualify for it. office hours, things that would make it easier to naturally increase awareness but also help you know there was the mention of someone who's a hundred years old like I think we could do a good job of making it easier for that person to apply and helping them. And then just kind of loosely, there are going to be some options in there

will likely be able to raise a significant amount of property tax relief for seniors so that the Tax Aid Fund could almost work in tandem with it. So I think awareness is sort of what came to mind out that committee, because it's more of a review of what do we have now and then what additionally could we pursue. So I think for the purpose of tax aid fund awareness was one of them but I do think maybe exploring motor vehicle excise tax or separate sort of mailer that goes with it may catch people's attention a little bit more. I think just what the committee has talked about is The challenge with a goodwill program is that it fluctuates. It depends, some people's economic situations are challenging to say I'm gonna make the charitable donation and plus its forcing someone to take an extra step whereas there are some

some options out there that would not necessarily be Goodwill and just sort of be built into the property tax system.

Thank you, Michelle?

Thank you so much for being here and for the really important work that you're doing. I feel strongly that we can't talk about the town's budget and budget challenges like we were earlier in the meeting without always hand-in-hand thinking about how do the most that we can possibly do for people who really struggle, and I'm grateful to Steven and the committee that he's on for really looking into that holistically beyond even what your group does. and I want to echo what I think a lot of folks are saying here about the need for publicity. And wanting to see, I'm sure there's a lot you're already doing but I'm surely there's help that town can give through our communications work and things, because I would like to see that tried first before there's something in a consultant or some of the other ideas. because there are these days a lot of free or low cost ways to get the word out about things whether that's, maybe some of this you're already doing

you know, Dedham TV and Dedham Times even a QR code to donate on this form or the town's social media. I'm one of those people that pays through escrow. So, I never have that box in front of me and there are so many people in this town when we're having budget debates that say, I'm willing to pay more taxes, I want to pay my taxes for services in this town, and I want to see those folks putting their money where their mouth is and helping those that can't when the taxes go up. I did, you know seeing this on the agenda. I didn't look up online your committee and on that page I found my way to how to donate online But it's not something I see in front of my face often And so I would love to see the town commit to helping you all get the word out.

Just to interrupt you, Michelle, there's also this issue, I mean computer savviness is something that is born of the new generation, not the old. And you've got a lot of older people who perhaps could make contributions but are not computer savvy and wouldn't even know how to go about doing it via a computer.

and so all the avenues need to be anything that we can put our heads together about ways to help you all figure out how to get the word out, both for, like has been mentioned before, both especially for those who can donate and also especially for that want to apply, could apply, should be benefiting but don't even know to apply despite all your efforts of trying to get So thank you.

So I think the town manager and assistant town manager have heard the board, and heard some of the suggestions and things to move forward. For instance, Demetrius on the 501c3. I'm not sure whether you're familiar with Friends Of? So for instance there's friends of Parks and Recreation, friends of the library, friends so many other avenues that they're the fundraising arm Flag Day Parade, Flag Day parade committee raising money. So I think we can look through council and sort of get a maybe put the question a different way to council and we will follow up with that at a future meeting as well. As I'm looking at this, my suggestion is that we have the town manager's office look at this and sort of redesign and up to make it a little more easier to read.

I know there's a lot of information here, but we have professional people within the office that they're the ones who do these sort of things, and they are a lot better than a lot of people as part of the community. Which is then be a part of communications within the town manager's office to push the information out there. social media, other ways in which to do it. In regards of doing the insert we know we can't do an insert into a tax bill because Department of Revenue does not allow inserts into tax bills. You can't do it, but we have other communications and bills that go out that maybe we could put it into the excise tax bill. Maybe we can put it in to the stormwater bill, so while we can't do it in one, we should look into to do it in the others.

And those bills don't go out at the same time when you're getting, people are getting the large tax bill. So find a way in which this sort of increase as has been discussed here the awareness of the existence of the tax aid and the purpose, and try to see if we can generate something. I guarantee you that this is not just gonna be pushed off. That within a month or so, asked the town manager to add it back to his town manager's report and get an update, and we'll take it from there. So thank you both for coming in and hanging around. Appreciate it. Thank you. All right, next item on the agenda discussion decision of select board policies. We are not going to vote on anything tonight

but I think we're going to need a little more understanding of what all this is, and I'm just gonna ask it if we can even have a discussion tonight or if board members have specific questions to forward them to the town manager's office and get your answers of what it is, and then we can have it on. There's no hurry to get this. We could have it for a future agenda item. if everybody's okay with that or does anybody have anything? Okay.

Sorry, Mr. Chair and members of the board. So I just wanted to express my appreciation to you all for considering this and to Amber for carrying the ball forward. This is work that was started by our former management analyst, Julia. And now Amber's picked up the charge so we have policies going back 30 plus years, maybe even longer. And thanks to Nancy as well for helping compile them. So the plan is to pull all of our policies together digitize them and get them in a place where they're accessible to both you as the select board, and also the members of the public so that they know what policies we are working with. and we're taking an incremental approach. So this was a list of, looking at the policies I don't think any of the ones that were listed here were any newer than 15 years at 25 years, 30 years that were obviously obsolete.

And so we created a list and we linked to them but if you have any questions about any specific policies or why we recommended they be rescinded that's the case, and many of them have been superseded by the charter or by bylaw or things of that nature that have changed. The charters made significant changes especially since 2014 but I'm happy to take questions from the select board individually offline or at a future meeting. Again, this isn't rush it's just us trying to move the policies forward and we will have other ones for you in the future to revise policies that we plan on keeping as well, whether we're recommending or kept.

You both have a question, so go ahead. I guess everybody has one.

Go ahead. A couple of quick things. One is... I know at least a couple of us had trouble, we couldn't open the links. I don't know if that's because it's in legislate or if its user error but maybe if it can be put in an email so that we could link them. Then when I look at it, that might solve my question. Same thing I was going to say.

We can reshare in a way that's more accessible for sure.

One, just thank you for the context because I wasn't understanding where this was coming from. I'd also love to see the list that you were able to compile of all of our policies either via email or if there's an opportunity to put that in a shared drive. And then, if we can understand how to approach this in a little bit more of a systematic way, that would be great.

Absolutely, yeah. We can send both of that again. Thanks to the work of Amber, she has compiled it all in a shared drive that we can share that with you and you can see those.

That's great.

I don't completely understand rescinding anything that's superseded by law or charter. I'm a little hesitant on rescinding things that are...

I'm doing the same thing!

In the personnel policy procedure manual, only because I think that some of them were important position on it. So I'm wondering if for some of those there's a way to almost revise it where it asks the town manager to create that policy within the park just so there's some level of select board oversight also kind of acknowledging like We do care about these things. It's easier for a day-to-day operational change to make that and keep it up to date, but still important to the board

Thank you. Everybody else in? And just a motion to take it under advisement, please.

So moved.

Second. Discussion? Hearing none, all those in favor? Next item on the agenda is discussion and vote to call for a violation hearing Kings, Ball, Dedham 600 Legacy Place. Is there a motion?

Second.

Discussion? Hearing none. All those in favor? Aye. And we will ask them to come in, Nancy, at the next meeting in October. Yeah, next meeting on October because I know it was slammed. Summer's over. We do have a need for a brief executive session, but before we do that, old and new business. I'll start on the left. Steven? No. Michelle?

I assume you're probably going to handle all the many September 11th events. I'll leave that, I'm good.

Now I've got to write them all down.

Karen? No, not an additional tonight.

Thanks. So there's... On Friday, Friday morning September 11th the 25th anniversary of of the horrific events that took place not only in New York, Pennsylvania and DC. They will be at 930 is it? At the public safety building outside the annual remembrance Police and Fire, all are welcome to attend. Friday evening at seven o'clock the town will have a 9-11 25th anniversary remembrance. It will be approximately an hour, we have some speakers where you have seen that working with the Military Friends Foundation, there will be two beams of light that will be raised up during the evening.

So it's an opportunity for the community to come together and then afterwards, there'll be some refreshments courtesy of the American Legion on the field. So that is seven to approximately eight o'clock on Friday evening. And then Saturday, the annual Run for the Fallen will be at Barnes Memorial Field, which is the same place that Friday night will be. And that will start in the morning with A few reflections, the readings of the veterans that have been killed since 9-11. And by the way on Friday night we will be reading the 206th Massachusetts names that were killed on September 11th. And then there will also be a road race going through the town with banners throughout of fallen military.

They are expecting approximately 500 runners Right now it's three to four hundred that have registered and another 100 or so will register the day of the race. And there'll be a barbecue afterwards, which of course is open to everyone, hamburgers and hot dogs. three events for 9-11. We hope that folks that are watching can go to one, two or all three whatever your time but even if you don't, if you can't is just to pause on Friday and just remember all those that were taken on September 11th.

And then one other, as a service on 9-11 we are also having for the day of service a can drive. We are asking people to bring nonperishable cans if they could when they come to the event as well. Which event is that, sorry? 9-11 for the evening.

And those will be donated to the Dedham Food Pantry. This has been, I think a lot of work by a lot people and I just want to say thank you. Sarah Sweeney, Nancy Jo, Dimitria, and there's so many others that have that have contributed to the events, including police and fire. With that, I would entertain a motion to enter into Executive Session pursuant to General Laws 30A21a2 to conduct strategy sessions and preparations for negotiations with non-union personnel. are to conduct contract negotiations with non-union personnel, town manager Leon Goodwin. Is there a second?

Second.

Any discussion? Hearing none, on the vote. Stephen? Yes Michelle? Yes Erin? Yes Dimitria? Yes And the Chair votes yes. Thank you