Select Board - August 20, 2026

Okay, good evening. I call the August 20th meeting of the Select Board to order. First item on the agenda is the Pledge of Allegiance. Please rise and face the flag if you can. for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible with liberty and justice for all. We have Dedham Citizens Open Discussion. Is anybody here for that? Can I ask the officers to come up, please? Debbie, the sit of the podium.

So we're here today to ask for the approval of the first annual No Quig Deal Four on the Fourth Road Race, to take place first annual on July 4th, 2027. before you is the logo that we came up with, with Quigg's wife Kate. The race itself will mirror the former Rally for Sally road race So it'll be the same race route, the same start and finish at the Fairbanks Park. We did first and foremost reach out to Rob Nassar, Sally's father in the Thirsty Irish Running Club for their blessing and to make sure that they were no longer doing the race they love the idea and offer to help in any way that they can. So the distance is a four-mile road race. It's the same route, so it's all residential streets. We have a tentative planned window of time. An example is 9 to noon, so the race will begin at nine and there'll be some time at the end We're working in conjunction with Marathon Sports and we are planning on having a food truck, possibly a bear truck.

So that'll give us some time at the end to spend time and remember Quiggs and celebrate him. So far, we're still in the very beginning stages of the planning process. So as of now, we've had two meetings with Marathon Sports and we're in the process of securing a meeting with their logistics department. So they have tremendous amount of resources to help us, some of those things include the start and finish line, the timing company, the website to sign up for the race itself, bib pickup, all kinds of things of that nature. So that's where we're at right now The second page is the route itself, begins at Fairbanks Park, and as you can see we think what we're gonna do is we're going to do it backwards from the way that they did it for the rally for Sally my understanding. So we would go out to E Street

and then Whiting Avenue, Mount Vernon in the beginning. So that'll eliminate those are really the only main roads that it would touch on so that way in the begining the race can move through that and that will be out of the way and the remainder will be in the Oakdale side streets.

Okay, thank you. Anybody have any questions? Is there a motion?

Motion to approve the no quig deal fourth on the fourth four-mile road race.

So second? Second. Discussion? Hearing none, all those in favor? Aye. Thank you. Good luck. Thanks very much. Appreciate it.

Thank You and thank you for planning it

Your next item on the agenda is the town manager's report.

Thank you, Mr. Chair and members of the board. just a quick town manager's report for you all this week. Wanted to remind everyone that the facilities master plan steering committee will be meeting on Monday, the 24th they've been meeting all summer long doing really important work for the town along in parallel to the work that the educational model subcommittee is doing with the Ready Center for the school department. There's been a lot of project updates posted this summer. And again, we're encouraging residents to follow along with that process. We'll have a lot community engagement this fall. I don't want to take anything away from what member Sullivan will be saying perhaps later. But again, this is something I just wanted to highlight for residents that we are working on and while it may have been a little quiet over the summer because it's been sort of this behind-the-scenes work

there will be community engagement opportunities this fall. I know that some folks have been asking about, we had a discussion in the springtime about Airbnbs Our new building commissioner has been responding to complaints on those. We feel like we addressed the one on Westfield Street, that one they've updated their listing. They're no longer offering it for short-term rentals and we haven't received any complaints from neighbors up in that area so we're hoping that one has been resolved. We were also taking action on others where we received neighbor complaints and we're looking, working with the planning and building departments take some perhaps proactive steps via town meeting to try and figure out a way to regulate and or better address existing Airbnbs in the future. So that's something that's an ongoing project, but I did want to update you all on that work that we're doing. Similarly, we talked a lot in the spring about the pilot program.

I've continued to have conversations with non-profits. I think those conversations are important and ongoing. And we've had one commitment so far, we have others that I think are in the works the requests met the nonprofits at I think a difficult time for them given their funding cycle. Many of them operate on a similar funding schedule as the town does, and as a result of that they had already planned any potential giving opportunities or payment opportunities for for this fiscal year. So I think we're gonna continue to have these conversations with the non-profits and hopefully they'll be able to incorporate pilots in future fiscal year budgets for them, but I think that it was an important step that the select board took. We're having good conversations with the non-profits, I'm just not sure how much we're going to realize in the near term just because of

and the availability of funds for them within their fiscal years currently. Speaking of fiscal years, we're already working on the FY28 budget. Our finance director Brady Winston will be coming in at your next meeting I believe to do a quarterly update which is for the current fiscal year. But again, we're already forecasting for the FY28 budget and as we discussed when we adopted the FY27 budget, we continue to experience a deficit, a structural deficit that means that our revenues aren't matching our expenditures. projecting that forward. We're looking at roughly $2 million per year of that structural deficit that we're going to need to find a solution for, and that solution could be reductions in expenditures.

increasing revenues, or it could be potentially a need to increase our levy capacity. And those are all things I think that are willing to be discussed among the select board, the school committee and the finance award committee earlier the better. So we're going to prepare a memo, hopefully get it out to you all that lay this out in more detail over the next couple of weeks and I think, again, a conversation with the big stakeholders would be the most important thing because a big part of the structural deficit is the projected growth rates of the big budgets in town. and having all those stakeholders around the table to discuss that, and look forward to what those solutions may be in the future is important so we can build budgets that are realistic and can be supported at town meeting next spring. again I'll try to get that out to you hopefully next week the week after and then we can start those other conversations.

Thank you, any questions? The consent agenda because I know we have some people sitting so

move to approve the consent agenda including request from Dedham Square Circle for all permits and approvals for the 14th annual Trunk or Treat event 10-24-26, 2-6 p.m., with rain date of 10-25-26 and for use of the town green for fall yoga in Zumba 815, 26 and 30 September 19 and 26 of October 11 and 14 block parties Barrow Street 9-11-26 1 to 6 p.m with rain date of 9-20-26 Taylor Ave 9-12-26 2 to 8 p.m., with rain date of 9-13-26, request for bike to the beach, 9-19-26. Request from MBACC for signs as noted on the list provided, a pottery sale in Arts Alive, 9 26 26 and Open Studios 12 5 26 and One Day Liquor Licenses, Spin the Brook 9-18-26 6 to 10 p.m. and Sullivan Rep Fundraiser 8-28-26 six to ten pm gift acceptances for COA two hundred dollars from Ron and Michelle Wiley five thousand from Ash Ferry, Herb Chambers Automotive for the 2026 holiday party.

Request for 9-12-26 run for the Fallen Race Route and one day license. Requests for DEF-5K event on Sunday. I'm assuming that's October 4th and not January? 10-4-26. Road race in January, not so good. Dedham Day, one day license 9-27-26 12 to 5 p.m. Second.

Discussion? I just have one comment to make. The Asbury Herb Chambers 2026 holiday party is for the Council on Aging, and I want to specifically called them out for that generous gift that was requested of them to give to the town, and I think they will also be sending some people to help. as well.

One comment too. The list for the Motherbrook signs, are all of those spaces we have control over approving? There were some that I wondered if they were like state spaces or private. Okay, thank you. Thank you.

Anybody else? All those in favor? Aye. Opposed? Thank you. Nancy, we have one item that's not on the agenda.

We do, Mr. Chair. from Rebecca Gates for dancing salsa in the suburbs, and the dates are listed on the

Motion to take an item not on the agenda. Second. Discussion? All those in favor? Aye. What's the wish of the board?

One to approve.

You have a second?

Second.

Hearing none, all those in favor? Aye. Thank you. Next item on the agenda, official swearing-in, Sergeant Brian Crump. Chief? Paul?

Good evening Mr. Chairman, members of the board thank you for the opportunity this evening to present our newest police sergeant I just added it is unfortunate that there was a sergeant position available this time. This is due to the passing of our friend Sergeant Jim Quigley. I do believe that Jim would be supportive of the promotion we have this evening. I'd like to present Sergeant Brian Crump for swearing in as a police sergeant with the Dedham Police Department. Brian has more than earned this opportunity. He's been a member of the Dedham Police Department for over 27 years, began his career in Dedham during 1999 Through interviews with Brian, I found that his responses are a little different than many others. His responses are always rooted in reflective thought and based on extensive experience. Brian has a lot of experience. He's always willing to lend his experience to others Prior to joining the Dedham Police Department, Brian served as a correctional officer for almost three years.

He's always been a quiet but effective communicator. He has the ability to read people Throughout his career to this point, Brian has been involved with a lot of department activities. These include serving as a traffic officer for 23 years. Department records show over 15,000 written traffic citations issued by Brian There are never any complaints. He always treats people the right way. Traffic issues are generally a top concern amongst community members in Dedham. Brian has often found a way to engage with community members when conducting traffic enforcement response to a concern, This helps the department to better understand what the concern is and community members to better understanding how traffic enforcement is conducted. Brian's efforts have made roadways in Dedham safer for everybody. Brian has been a certified child safety seat technician for 22 years. Imagine all the parents, grandparents and caregivers Brian has assisted in keeping children safe over the years. If Brian installed it

I'm certain it was done correctly and thoroughly explained. Brian has been our equipment officer for over 20 years. He has supported all aspects of vehicle purchases, configurations, upfitting, and equipment maintenance The current vehicle graphics were designed by Brian. Brian has represented the department at Dedham District Court during hearings on Tuesdays for about 20 years, so that alone is four areas of involvement for over 20 years, in addition to the overall role of being a police officer. And there's more. Brian has been a field training officer for 10 years. This began as a supporting role and expanded into a much greater investment in new officers Most recently, Brian worked with Deputy Chief Munchback and Sergeant Sullivan to upgrade the onboarding process of new offices to generate a more positive experience. He further worked to develop a mentor program to support new officers beyond field training.

His efforts have helped direct new officers toward success, career development and being safe. Brian has worked with several officers in this capacity his efforts related to the MENTO program earned him a challenge coin presented to him during a psychological first aid training session by the Crisis Intervention Team Training and Technical Assistance Center. Brian has been involved with many other areas over the years including supporting narcotics investigations, attendance at community events, including presenting during our Citizens Police Academies. visiting community block parties, and being a regular participant helping unload groceries at the Dedham Food Pantry each month. Collaborating and contributing to design equipping of the beautiful new public safety building we have next door Brian has participated as member of the Metropolitan Law Enforcement Council. He was a member of Mountain Bike Patrol, Honor Guard.

frequently at times, suggest upgrades to uniform as materials and safety features evolve. Brian was the recipient of the Department's 2015 Officer of the Year Award, along with a 2022 Commendation for Excellence in Crisis Intervention. He's been sought out for further participation in crisis intervention training classes by Riverside and the clinicians that we have worked with. Brian brings a lot of this experience with him to this new role. I'm confident that Brian will excel in this new roll and help guide the department forward. I present to you Sergeant Brian Crump.

I'm going to ask Tom Cook-Munchback to swear in. Sergeant Crump, please?

Chairman MacDonald, Sergeant Crum's already signed the official ledger book that's kept in Tom Cook's office. Anthony, Ian Sneakney, Brian Croft, Toussaint Muswell.

That it would be a true faith in allegiance and the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. And we'll support the Constitution thereof, so help me God. I, the state of England, do solemnly swear that I will faithfully and impartially answer to the best of my ability all the duties as a sergeant for the Dedham Police Department. So help me God. Congratulations, everyone.

So we're going to ask Sajinda who is going to be pinning you.

My daughter's gonna hand it off to my dad.

Anyone else?

So before your daughter sits down, I want to show you a picture. And I'm not going to embarrass you. 2015 Officer of the Year. Sergeant, would you like to say a few words? I will. Please.

Thank you for taking the time out to swear me in today. I thank you to all the town officials. Thank you to my family for supporting me through this journey, all my friends that are here and my coworkers. Like the chief mentions, it was unfortunate how this came about with Sergeant Quigley but we had long conversations I'm just going to do my best. I'm going to try to hold myself to his standards, and if I do that, I'm gonna do the town proud. And I know he's looking down thinking the same thing so... I just wanted to mention that. And that's it, I'm really looking forward to my next step here and I'm gonna make the town proud. Thank you.

So comments from the board, I will start with Erin.

Sure yes well first it's an honor to be able to witness your swearing in this evening you are certainly deserving of that years of service, you have contributed meaningfully to this community and continue to show leadership opportunities not only among your peers on the force but with us as community members, and that's greatly appreciated. Sergeant Crump installed car seats for my children when they were young Um, and it certainly is no surprise to hear the incredible opportunities that you've taken within The Force to participate in the mentor program, and mentor those peers around you. We're lucky to have such an upstanding member of our community, and congratulations.

And thank you.

Thank you. Stephen?

Sure. Kid who learned to drive in Dedham. The last name Crump was always one that you were taught to beware of and it sounds like with 15,000 tickets over 27 years there is good reason for that so congratulations on this promotion Thank you for your service to the town.

Thank you. Michelle?

Congratulations and thank you. It's wonderful to hear about your history, a long time of service to Dedham already and so much more to come that we're lucky to have all the different ways through your service on the police force that you've found ways to make an impact, particularly hearing about training and mentoring and onboarding which is just so crucial for new officers coming up. thank you for all you've already done and we look forward to seeing all that's to come.

Thank you. Michio?

I have to agree with everything my colleague said when the Chief was reading your resume it was incredible, just what you've done over the years and then I'd have to say on a personal note, no, I didn't get pulled over or anything but I did have an interaction with you pulling out of my driveway. and professional friendly, 100%, so keep that up. Yes? everyone bears the name Crump. And that's okay, right? That's okay. Keeps us in line, right but thank you so much for everything and just you make Dedham proud.

Thank you. So Sajan, congratulations. you come from a law enforcement family, your father was and still is a trusted member of our police department in our community. And you have continued that tradition within your name. When I was reading the, went back and I pulled the 2015 Officer of the Year and I looked at you know, you were 44 years old and number of years on the job. And now here we are a little over about 10 years later, you know the promotion and sort of you have continued to work that you started almost from day one when you became officer. You understand the job?

you understand the people that you interact with and your compassion, your understanding but also knowing that you have a job to do is really what makes you a model Brian. and for years, people have interacted with you. That sometimes is not always easy especially today being a police officer and we have members of the force with us Lieutenant, sergeant and detective in offices. You have a tough job. The public is always looking at you but when you have training in offices like Sergeant Crump to augment what is already a well-rounded, very responsive department. It just continues to show that we can within our department promote and sort of entrust them with the responsibility to take care for each other.

and Brian, you have done that. And those that you were gonna supervise now it gives an additional responsibility to sort of help the younger officers as they're coming on and learning and mentoring. It's so important for us to continue to have a department that is responsive for everyone. and what I showed Brian, his father and his daughter in 2015. I took a picture of when Brian was sitting in the front, in the old town hall. And as soon as you walked in I knew who it was and it just shows that It's family. And thank you for bringing your family with you today because that support is what's going to carry you. Congratulations.

Thank you.

So now we're going to take a picture with you. We've got out front, we're gonna take a moment recess okay?

September These observances are so important. They give opportunities for our community to come together around remembrance, awareness, support and hope. International Overdose Awareness Day is observed on August 31st, and it gives us an opportunity to remember those who have lost their lives to overdose. To acknowledge the grief of their families and loved ones and to continue to work to reduce the stigma that surrounds substance use in overdose. Beginning on Monday, August 24th we will have a display of purple flags at Barnes Memorial Park. These flags will serve as a visible reminder of the lives that have been lost to overdose in Massachusetts and the impact that continues to have on individuals, families and the whole community.

Community members are invited to dedicate flags or submit a message of hope, and they can do this by either coming into the health department or visiting the website and filling out a flag form there. We're planning on concluding that observance with a community remembrance vigil at the park on Monday, August 31st at 6 o'clock p.m., and we invite anyone in the community to join us as we remember those we have lost, support those who've been impacted and share messages of remembrance and hope. As we move into September and recognize National Recovery Month, we have a great opportunity to shift some of the focus from loss to hope. to celebrate people in recovery, recognize the many pathways to recovery and highlight the people and resources that are available to support individuals and their families along their journey. We have several programs planned for the community throughout the month of September.

On September 15th, we're gonna host a What is a Recovery Coach program with our partners from Riverside Community Cares Connect to Recovery Program And this is to help residents learn more about recovery coaching and the support that recovery coaches can provide to individuals and their families. On September 24th, we'll offer a evening drop-in naloxone training where community members can learn how to recognize and respond to opioid overdoses and receive a nalaxone kit. and then finally on September 30th, which is the last day of recovery month. We want to encourage all residents at Dedham town employees local businesses organizations in schools to wear purple in recognition and support of recovery

Our goal through all these programs is to encourage conversation, to reduce stigma, connect people with resources and to remind our community that substance use in overdose can affect any family. Most importantly, we want people to know that support is available and there should be no shame in reaching out for help and recovery is possible.

Before I have a couple of proclamations, comments from the board. Anyone?

I would just have to say that these observances remind us, as we said, of those people we've lost through overdose. and also trying to take away the stigma from it as well too. So, it's really important and thank you for your work on this and like you said, letting people know that there is hope out there and that there are resources and recovery is possible. So thank you.

Anyone else?

Just to echo Dimitria, thank you for all your work on this. They're really important issues and bringing the awareness to the community is so important. So thanks for all the dates too of the different events coming up right around it.

Could you, Katie, could you share again the event and how community members can dedicate flags and where that happens?

Yeah of course. The International Overdose Awareness Day is August 31st. We will be having a remembrance vigil at Barnes Memorial Park at 6 o'clock p.m., we invite everybody to join that would like. Starting Monday, we'll be putting out those purple flags if you go to the town of Dedham's website to the health department's page The first thing that's going to pop up is a link if you'd like to dedicate a flag to somebody in honor of somebody or if you just want to send a message of support or hope, everyone is welcome to do that. and then the other way to do it is in the health department. We do have papers to fill out, we have the flags. We'll also have additional flags on Monday the 31st if folks would like to fill

a memorial tribute at that point as well. Thank you so much, thanks for your work.

So I have two proclamations here. I'm not going to read them all, but I just want to sort of highlight that that Dedham Select would proclaim September 2026 as National Recovery Month in the Town of Dedham and encourage our residents to celebrate the achievements of individuals in recovery. support evidence-based prevention, treatment, harm reduction and recovery services. Reduce stigma associated with the substance use in mental health conditions. Learn about available community resources and join together in building a compassionate community where recovery is recognized, supported and celebrated. So thank you.

Thanks very much.

Thanks, Katie. So the next item, Brady as Leon mentioned will be at our next meeting. and we had posted a compliance check. However, they are not able to be here tonight so I'm going to open the hearing and asked to continue the hearing until September 20th? September 9th, I'm ahead of myself. So I entertain a motion to extend the compliance hearing to September 9th.

So moved.

Is there a second? Second. Discussion? Hearing none, all those in favor? Aye. Thank you. So they'll be here on the 9th? Yes. We are way early. Change of manager for golf? So next item on the agenda is discussion and vote. Change of manager for the golf lounge.

Yes, sir.

Aye. How are you?

Why don't you tell us who you are. My name is Joseph Cavallari, I'm the general manager of The Golf Lounge here in Dedham. I was previously on the liquor license at the Chateau Restaurant in Stoughton and we had a change of management in the area so they're now putting it in my name if you so approve.

So, you were going to be the new manager of Reckonette Golf Lounge? Correct. Okay. Anybody have any questions? No, okay. It's a public hearing. Anybody in the public? entertain a motion to close the public hearing.

So moved. Second.

Discussion? All those in favor?

Aye.

What is the wish of the board?

Move to approve a change of manager from Christopher Abadi to Joseph Cavallari for Golf Lounge, 18 Dedham LLC, 765 Providence Highway. Second.

Any discussion? Hearing none, all those in favor. Aye. Thank you, good luck. Thank to all of you. Appreciate it. Moving along.

I did see them here, the HR staff.

Did you see them out there? I think they're in the side room. Okay. Go check.

It looks like Amber's on her way.

Don't worry, we'll make up for this.

Are you ready?

Are you ready for it? Yeah, we're running a little early.

We are. We're running early. Yes. Very exciting. There's such a thing? I don't think I've ever heard of that.

So the next item on agenda is, the first is an update from the Human Rights Commission, Lance and Maureen. Welcome. Thank you, thank you. Good evening. Can you just give me two seconds?

Sure.

And you guys do have my clicker right there in between the two of you.

Thank you

Okay, introduce yourself and welcome.

I'm Lance Hartford. I am the chair of the Human Rights Commission and I have with me Maureen Hurley who is also a member of the commission First of all, thank you for the invitation to be able to tell you a little bit about the origin of the commission. Some of you I'm sure know about the But we want to make sure that everybody is up-to-date on the origin and also on the programming that we've been doing. And I also wanted to talk a little bit about some collaborations that we would like to at least explore with you. So Maureen will start the presentation and I'll follow up at the end.

Thanks, and again thanks for having us we really appreciate the time here. It occurred to us probably less than a month ago that we're coming up on the 10-year anniversary of the Human Rights Commission. We're really excited about that, So that means we're currently in the 10th year of operation of the commission. So what we would like to do today is go over what our mission is, and what we have accomplished. And then as Lance said, Lance will go over ways that we can collaborate in the future. So yeah, we can click... Do you want me to do it? Sure. We were established in 2017. I'm not sure how many of you folks were here then to advance several principles in our community

of basically freedom from bigotry, hatred, discrimination and disrespect. And to make Dedham a warm welcoming place are a very enjoyable place for everyone in our community regardless of their race, class, ethnicity, sexual orientation etc. We also took as part of the mission to take on education as one of the ways to bring this about. and I am going a little quickly although we can probably slow down if you're ahead of time.

No, I think you were doing it at fairly decent speed.

Okay good thank you. All right, so the strategies. First to educate and to celebrate. You've probably heard a lot in the past about celebrating different backgrounds. in our country, in our world and absolutely in Dedham. And we've been really exploring ways that we can do that. The Human Rights Commission doesn't do this on its own We reach out to community groups. For example, for the Dedham Pride event that we have every year, we work with a group that gathers together the children of LGBTQ plus families in Dedham that have a lovely party at

the community house and then walk on over for the flag raising up until this year. This year we did change things slightly, and we don't need to go into how it will be different next year, but Juneteenth and Pride will not be on the same day next year. We promise you. But we also work with the schools when we are doing the MLK Day. We work with our LGBTQ Plus Pride Committee for our pride day in June, on Juneteenth, we work with a community group that helps us pull together speakers and events and then for the first time this year we participated in Flag Day. We were like, well why not? We're part of a community too, let's do this! And we actually had a great time. We may have had a picture at the beginning from, no that was from a different event.

And one of our goals is to not necessarily replicate what is already being done, but to provide different opportunities for our community to gather in lovely ways. If you notice in the background of this slide are pictures that children drew at the Dedham Middle School before we did our MLK Day a few years back. So all those lovely pictures. and if you did see our logo on the first slide, that was also submitted by a child as one of our logo opportunities. So that's the one we went with several years ago. So caring is really what we want to do. And Lance is going to talk about how we'd like to continue collaboration.

Yeah, so we talked about collaboration for some of our programs, our educational programs. But we also want to do collaborations with all of you around certain issues. First one we wanted to talk about is public statements We think that there's opportunities for the Select Board to make statements in collaboration with us about issues that concern us and concern the community. We believe that public statements would go a long way both in supporting people whose human rights have been abused, but it also would set a good message to the community about what the core values are of the town. and so I think that there's several things we could do. In the packet that I sent to Nancy, an example of what Mayor Wu had set up for temporary protective status of Haitians.

and there were a number of people in organizations that supported that statement. I'm not suggesting you all take that on, but I did want to include it in the packet as an example of the type of things we could do together. and that I think would be very beneficial to the community. The other thing is building more inclusive civic leadership. I know there's been two recent studies that the town did, one was the UMass study on workforce and also the master plan. Both included segments on the boards, committees and so the structures that are involved in that, the volunteer structures and they identified those organizations, those volunteer organizations as a main resource for the town. And yet they were somewhat critical about how whether or not it represented the community.

And both studies said that they were recommending that there be improvement on the diversity of the committees and commissions and boards that the town has. So we think there's an opportunity for us to collaborate there, and being able to perhaps start with an audit of looking at all those organizations and seeing how representative they are, figuring out a baseline for that. And then maybe making some activities to try to improve that baseline. but if we're not measuring what the baseline is, then I think we can't really make any improvements. And I know that The UMass study led to some changes in the human resources department that has made great strides in some diversity. So I think we could replicate that around boards and committees and commissions. The final thing is about the recruitment of the actual commission.

I know that you all have the authority to appoint people and we certainly recognize that, but I think that we could have a stronger commission if we participated in the recruitment and selection of board members, so we'd like you to consider that. So those are the thoughts that we had. I'll stop before I go to next steps and ask if there's any questions.

Why don't you finish your presentation, and then we'll take it to the board. The board will then comment and ask questions. You have something else you want to continually answer?

Yeah. Well, a suggestion that we would have is to get a small working group together to see whether or not these suggestions resonate with all of you, build them out a little bit and see where it goes. or you could come to some of our committee meetings and hash it out there. Those are the two that I came up with, but I'd also be interested in your thoughts. Thank you.

Thanks for coming in and open it up for questions and comments, who wants to start?

Thanks for coming in and thanks for all the great work you do. It's exciting and so fast to think that it was 10 years ago, I was sitting in the town meeting seat at that time I believe, and I think that you do a really great job of balancing kind of your goals of educating and celebrating and bringing awareness to the town so thank you for that. and I like the thoughts about collaboration, not just with us but with other boards and committees in town which is some of what you're already doing because I think it's important that these and the values that our town have don't just sit with one committee, but they get integrated into all of the work of the town. So continuing to think of ways to do that I think is important. Of the things you mentioned, I would love to see more heads together on diversifying our boards and committees in town because it'd be a much healthier situation if we more reflected and represented what

the diversity of our residents on our committees and boards. And that's tough because we have just who comes in front of us, but I know there's work we could do to to educate and make people aware of what opportunities there are, and to demystify it and not seem so scary to put their hat in the ring for something. So I think open to further conversations on how we can work to make sure that staff, boards, committees in town reflect our population more than they do now. Thanks for coming and giving us the update.

Thank you for the comment.

Yeah, thank you for coming in. I've been excited to watch the growth of the Human Rights Commission over the last few years and just really what has come from better community advocacy around a lot of these issues and community engagement I look forward to being supportive of all you all do in the future. Since Lance brought it up, just a piece on recruitment and selection. I think at least as an individual member it just would be helpful to know when there are openings what you all see as the individual strengths and weaknesses of HRC, and I think I would share that part. Any board or group that we appoint to, I think that's helpful. And I think it sort of gets to the point you're going to and might be a little bit different in terms of actually being at the table but Either way, it's just as helpful to hear from you all who are working with each other.

What are you trying to do that would be aided someone who has X talent or Y skills, or like do you need someone who can manage social media? Or a great writer. Just someone who is going to to help organize. Those kinds of things I think would be helpful, at least as I'm thinking about it for the future and would be happy to talk further on some of those other ideas as well.

My response to that would be, I think we could come up with what our needs are if we felt like we had an option to participate. If we knew that there was an opening, I think we can get our heads together to say what we are lacking. Social media is a good one that we could certainly come up with. Our need to communicate our message is something that's really paramount to us, and we need to do a better job of it. but it's also, we've been doing all the fundraising ourselves. We don't get any money from the town so whatever we do, we have to go out and raise money for it and one of the things that takes a lot of time to do that. So I think it's good, but it also is time consuming so someone with that kind of skill would be helpful as well.

Thanks David. Aaron?

Thank you for coming in this evening. It's really nice to have you before us and to have an opportunity to review both the history of the HRC and opportunities for the future. And I find it interesting and timely, a discussion just about recruiting for positions across our boards and committees because these are conversations that we've been having over the past year. How do you get the word out about postings and opportunities? How do recruit volunteers, how do you match as Steven mentioned skills to committees. I think we're looking for opportunities on how to improve that and certainly getting the word out about opportunities through HRC and our other boards and committees. would benefit that.

We often find that we are in a position of having to repost open vacancies and all our posted publicly, but how can we improve awareness and knowledge of those opportunities as well. And also to really help the public understand the type of contribution that can be made across each of our vacancies. So anyway, I just wanted to add that this has been how we can continue to engage participation in our, we have hundreds of volunteers that run this town across all of our elected and appointed volunteer roles. And you know I am always just

Whenever I talk about this in other communities, I think it's a real strength and interesting structure that we have the level of participation that we have and that our town requires of our residents. So just continuing to think about how we can improve that process, get the word out, you know, and have some thinking around do that so I appreciate your offer to lend some thought to that as well. Thank you.

Dimitria?

So thank you for coming in. So I've been sitting here listening to what you had to say, and I'm sure that the two of you bring something special to the HRC as well, right? So you bring Something Special to your board. I think it's very difficult to recruit. We do try very, very hard to get out there that we need people. When you have one applicant, it's very difficult for the people sitting on this side of the table to say we're not interested in you. We're going to move to the next person because it could've been you, right? So I think it's a big conversation to be had. You can start recruiting right now, you can start helping us get people to committees to run for office, et cetera. I think that is absolutely possible and I'd love to see, I'd like to see my colleagues would agree

I like to have people come in front of us and get to know them, and make those decisions. And I like choices as we all do right? And pick the best person for that position so the recruiting aspect of it 100% on board to helping on recruiting and those ideas, right? Would love to hear them. So I'm giving you homework. Send us some ideas on where we haven't gone what we haven't done or what we could do better. And I'm sure that this board and town manager's office would definitely be willing to have those conversations and work towards getting that recruitment that you're mentioning. So I do thank you for that.

And how would you feel about doing an initiative to do a baseline as to the representation of the committees and boards and commissions.

When you say baseline, what are we talking about?

A diversity of the commissions. How are they represented both racially, socially, economically

I'm not sure we have to have that discussion, but we could have that. I'm always open to a discussion.

You individually or with the Select Board?

I can't speak for the Select board.

Should we have that conversation with the select board or you individually?

Sure, we could have it with the select board. That would be great and I'm always willing to have a conversation.

So you'd be willing to a workshop with the commission?

Let's talk about it. Okay?

Thank you. So, I'm glad when you said you're not going to have Juneteenth fried the same day. Yes, that was long dead. It's a long day and you know what it is? It's really not fair, in my opinion to both groups because somebody wants to go to both of them but Not too many people that I know, especially when you have young families in town can give up an entire day to participate. So I think it was a good attempt but I was glad to hear you say that we're going to move away because I think in and of itself each one of those deserve its own time, its own celebration. And so glad to hear that. And you mentioned the ones that you have, MLK, June Flag Day.

There were many other events, many other things in town. There's Memorial Day. you know there were so many other other events within the town that I think we would love to have involvement or participation showing up. That's number one, is showing up and I'm sure when you have your meetings The only ones that show up are usually just your committee. and so it's because I think people have busy lives. And as you can tell, sometimes we'll have a room full. Sometimes we don't depends upon what the interest is. So that's really, it's tough to do sometimes when you're just meeting and listening but also helping recruitment I think is a wonderful idea.

Sitting and participating, I'm not there, but helping to attract What you see as a committee for those that are, you know, for the open seats? Because you've got to remember. A lot of the members of the HRC are appointees of other boards, right? So there's only a few that we actually appoint. So it's a matter of getting not just the ones that we appoint but the other ancillary committees and boards going in and talking to them because they're selecting somebody that they believe will be helpful to the committee and bring something. But you know, it's also helpful to maybe invite someone that disagrees with you. That is not on board

and sort of giving them an ear, and try to bridge that gap between what you're trying to do and those are against some of the things that you're trying to do and sort of try to bring people together within your committee, invite people. And I know it's sometimes... What does Father Steve say? Those uncomfortable conversations, sometimes good and can lead to good things. the advocacy that you mentioned, opportunities to collaborate. It's a lot different for a select board than it is for Mayor Wu and the City Council. They can just do stuff. The mayor doesn't have to talk to anyone. doesn't have to touch, they can just do it.

We as a board have the open meeting law that we have to abide by. So when somebody says well you should just do a statement, it's not that easy because you cannot just do a statement. there has to be an open discussion and then move forward. And I think a lot of people don't understand that because of the Open Meeting Law, and we have had challenges in the past You know, with that when people are saying you should be saying this or you should being saying that. It's not that easy.

But luckily... Could I just clarify that? What we were proposing is that we do a collaboration together and work on statements that would go through that process. It's not just asking you to make a statement.

Right, again, you bring something to the town managers and they'll bring it to us and then we'll have that sort of conversation. Okay. Of how it applies to to Dedham residents. As you mentioned at the beginning, we have such a diverse community that There's a lot of people who have different ideas, and we'd welcome them going through the town managers if there's something specific that you as a committee discuss in your open meeting and have it as an agenda item, and then forward it to the town manager. So thanks for coming in. We appreciate the update, I think it's been a while since we had the Human Rights Commission and I do remember I was here when it was farmed.

And those at the beginning, Joe Porcellino and others who really did a lot of work and it was not easy it was not easy but I think the town has embraced what the Human Rights Commission is and Martin Luther King celebration that you have in the middle school, I think is really probably one of one of the shining lights of celebration and people coming together. So thanks for coming in, and be in touch.

I'm disappointed that we don't have more of an actions step.

Okay. I hear you. Thank you. Okay, next is Ron. Open space. Oh, I'm sorry.

It's on the same gem mark. Historic district. Okay.

Gotcha. I'm sorry, the next one jumped ahead. Tara? Hi.

Hi, how are you?

Good. Welcome.

Thank you. It's always awkward looking this way, and the presentation is that way. I suppose I could go to the podium a bit.

I'll talk to you in half.

Okay, great. Thank you. Well thank you for having me. My name is Tara Ikenoi. I'm the current chair of the Dedham Historic Districts Commission and Historical Commission, and I'm here to give you an update. Thank I put together a few slides, Amanda just stole my thunder. A lot of this I think will probably be, you already know that but I thought there might be some folks watching that could use a little refresh on what the Historic District Commission is. So this is kind of just an overview of some of the things that I wanted to mention tonight. Just what is the role in authority? What's a local historic district, philosophy around preservation the homeowner process, and then some of the recent projects and what we're working on in the future. Next slide

So as you know, the Commission is a voluntary body. It's appointed by you all. It encompasses professionals with backgrounds in law, architecture, history, preservation, real estate and finance. The regulatory part of the commission is to review properties located within Dedham's three designated local historic districts. and then in an advisory role, we work town-wide to evaluate and help homeowners or property owners with historic buildings guiding them towards possible listing on the National Register. So the current commission, as I mentioned there's seven of us. I'm currently the chair and I was handed off by Stanton Lyman, who I know you all know very well.

And I just want to take a moment to recognize Stanton because he was the chair for a long time and he did great service to Dedham for many years not only in chairing the commission but helping to write a lot of the standards that I'm going to talk about, field me a lot questions. So he currently serves as the vice-chair and I'm hoping that he won't give that up because he's really are really an asset to Dedham and the commission. Other members are Kevin Hampe, he represents our attorney, Heidi Fieldston, Andrea Gilmore, Wendy Matthews, and Emily Morgan are the other commissioners. I just want to take a moment here that we currently have Andrea as technically an alternate so we have six fully appointed commissioners and So she is there when we need her.

She participates a lot, but if there's anybody out there that would be interested in the Dedham Historic Commission I think that's one thing that has been kind of a challenge over the years is getting folks to join and participate.

Who's the property owner on that list?

Oh, we have a couple. Andrea and Emily and Heidi. And Wendy also lives in the district.

Is Andrea still Church Street?

Pardon me?

Church Street. Yeah, okay. I think so. Thank you.

I'm kind of the outlier in that I don't live in Precinct 1, but representing the other side of Dedham. Thank you. Yep. All right next slide. So I just wanted to take a moment and just talk about the difference between a national registered district and a local historic district because they are two different things. And as the commission, our responsibility is to review properties in the local historic District Commission, not necessarily the National Register district. That is a listing that goes through the state. It's more of a significance kind it's more of a recognition honorary listing, and it doesn't have the same types of restrictions I would say that building in a local historic district does. A property can be listed in both. And regardless of which one they're listed on, they get listed in the state register.

Go to the next slide. So Dedham has three historic districts. The first boundaries were set in 1974. They're under Mass General Law Chapter 40C, which requires a two-thirds vote of town meeting so that's when the first district was established So we have Franklin Square, Connecticut Corner, Federal Hill. And if you're familiar with these areas they are outlined in the map there. They each have a very distinct character and as a commission, that's the character we're hoping to protect. and within these districts, the review that the commission does it applies only to what's visible in a public way and not everything that an owner does. So in addition to the local historic districts, we have two national historic districts.

the first one being the Dedham Village Historic District. So this area has kind of the town's most historically significant buildings, period of significance 1740 to 1956 and then the most recent one is the Motherbrook Lower Mills Pond Historic District. I think we could work on shortening the titles but that one was just listed in the last year, and the map shows that area there so That's the period of significance there is from 1664. with the construction of the Lower Mill Pond, and then the 105-year history from when the Dedham Woolen Mill Boarding House was built in 1825 through the 1930s when we started to see a decline textile manufacturing there. And so these two districts sort of pair the historic Dedham village core with the industrial core and history of Dedham.

And then just wanted to reiterate that preservation, we're not against change. I think sometimes there's a misconception that we don't want you to do anything to your house or property Our philosophy is to encourage responsible treatment of historic buildings within their context. and to do that, Dedham as many towns have adopted standards. And so we have standards that guide property owners for exterior alterations. We also have standards for new addition New additions and then new construction in the districts. And I won't go into all this detail here, but I just wanted to put this out here that so this is kind of a practical piece for homeowners of the Historic District. And the process that you would go through, you would be seeking a certificate from the historic commission either

Your application, we would deem it appropriate for what you're proposing to do to your house. Perhaps there's a hardship situation where is the only option you can do due to financial constraints. And then there's other situations where the work that you're doing is not under review, it's not applicable. And I would just say real quick if you in a historic district, it's always good to talk to the commission as early as you can. We can help you answer questions, help guide you with the process and we appreciate hearing from you. and then this is just some of the materials in the aspects of buildings in the historic district that are under review in the standards. And the standards are available online to PDF, there's a lot more detail about

the different components of the building exterior and what we would consider acceptable preservation. And then I just also want to note that it's in addition to the building, site around the building. So fences, paving, porches if you're painting, solar skylights things like that and then as well as any outbuildings might have barns and garages. So the standards for new construction within the historic district, again we're not you know the intent is not to restrict creativity it's mostly to make sure that the construction is in harmony with the historic fabric. but we also want it to be distinguishable. We don't wanna like have something be fake old, you know? And I don't think we've had a whole lot of new construction in our historic districts at least not

We had one application that didn't go through, but the applicant withdrew. But I don't think there's been a lot of that. And then the next one. So in addition to reviewing work in the historic district. The commission has also been supporting and assisting the town with different survey projects, and these are the most recent surveys The most recent one was the Old Town Center survey, which that one was funded partly through a matching grant with Mass Historic. Excuse me. and that survey looked at 113 buildings in the Dedham Village area. So each building, when it gets listed, has what's called an inventory form and that's basically a description of the building. And those forms had not been updated since they were created in the 1970s

and it's really important to update those on a regular basis because that is where information about buildings is retained and is useful when change of ownership or if if there's a significant change there. And then the other district is one that I mentioned before, the Mother Brook Lower Mills Pawn Historic District. That came out of a survey that was done prior to that. And then the third one is the High Street, Upper East Side neighborhood survey. So some of the future projects that we have been started to discuss. So one of the things that came out of the most recent Old Town Center survey, the professional that did that survey looked at the Powder House and made an early determination that it would be eligible for the National Register.

it's not currently listed. And for folks that aren't familiar with, the Powder House was built in 1766 and it's where they stored the munitions when they couldn't be stored at The Meeting House Raptors any longer. So we just started talking about that, like how we could support that and what that might look like. And then the other project we're working on is transitioning to OpenGov Right now, we're in a paper process still. We kind of made it transition to all paper to somewhat digital PDF, but most applicants that are going through the permitting process are using OpenGov. So we're hoping to be a part of that, because right now it's kind of a workaround where the commission reviews the application. A certificate is... prepared, written, printed.

And then I deliver it to the few offices and I hand it to Fred, and then Fred scans it in, and Fred puts it in OpenCov. So we've just started working on how we could make that process a little smoother. and then the other thing that we're working on is community education. We've had a lot of applications in the last year for window replacement, and questions about energy performance and how to improve your buildings you know, thermal performance. And so through that process we just realized there's an opportunity to provide some education around that And then I'll just close out that our meetings are open. They're open to the public. We meet the fourth Tuesday of the month, 7 p.m., We meet at Town Hall, and we also offer a virtual option to join that way. And we would encourage people to come and talk to us with questions

were happy to discuss things at that time. And I'll just go to the next one, yeah? So I just want to thank you for the opportunity to update you, and I'm happy to take any questions.

Thank you. Thanks, Tara. Any questions or comments?

Thank you so much. First of all, congrats on being chair. I know it's been a little bit now but when I was at the Community House for 15 years I worked closely with Stanton many times that we were doing projects and I know him well enough to know that being willing to hand it over means a great deal of respect and trust in your expertise to run the committee, so that's great. It's awesome to hear about the work modernizing some of the processes too. I think this is a committee that most people don't have reason to think of that often but really does impact us all through the character and preservation and just the character in history of our community. So thank you for all of that, my only question would be if there's anything that the select board or town staff anything that you all need. It sounds like you're working closely with the departments on some of your projects already.

Yeah, we had a meeting I think in the last couple weeks. I think the transition to OpenGov will be the most significant improvement to the process.

Thank you. Steven, anything?

Just want to thank you for coming in and the work you do like Michelle said modernizing makes it easier for those homeowners. And you all do a great job. Great walk to go through those historic districts. The houses look great, so good work.

Thank you.

Erin? Yes, thank you. I just have a... it was interesting to see that map and see definitions of neighborhoods that I've never heard of having a definition before. So a question around, well, so what is the benefit for having these historic districts? What's the goal or intent or benefit for... anyone maintaining buildings within those districts?

Well, I think I guess the benefit of having a historic district and following So Massachusetts enacted the Historic District Act in 1960, that's kind of when like historic preservation kinda had a lot of things going on nationwide towards preserving things. the intent of the historic district is to preserve, you know, the streetscape and the unique aspects of historic neighborhoods, and communities. And within that you have the individual building. So I think as far as Well, maybe I can just start. I think most homeowners that live in the historic district they live there because they like a historic district and they like an historic house.

with it being in the district, it does make you subject to review by the commission. I think our goal again is to help educate and help you to be a good steward of your historic building I mean, we all think of our house as our own. But some of these houses have been here for 200 years so they're they've been somebodies for a lot of different people, and if everybody just kind of came in and did what they wanted to do it'd probably look really different. I would hope that there's not necessarily any kind of tax advantages or things like that. In order for that to be true, you'd have to be listed on the National Register So if your home is in one of these national register districts, which there is some overlap between the local and the national, depending on the type of work that you're doing could be eligible for some state tax credits. for that.

That was a long answer. I wasn't sure if there were opportunities for resources or funding maintaining those neighborhoods or anything that we as a town could or should be leveraging to maintain those districts.

So Massachusetts, the Massachusetts Historical Commission offers an annual Grant, and that was the grant we got a few years ago. It's a matching grant so they awarded us $15,000 in the town meeting chipped in $15,000. So that is a grant that is available for types of projects like surveying that we did which can help to identify historic resources that might just need more attention. We did not choose to apply for that this most recent cycle, mostly due to the sensitivity around just town budget in general because it is a matching grant. So I think it's something that we could consider in the future.

And you had mentioned The Powder House as a future project, So in order to be considered part of an historic district, that's a process, right? Would that need to be...

So really the Powder House it was determined to be eligible for the National Register individually listed. buildings can be individually listed and so we have actually four of those. The Ames building is one, the Courthouse, Endicott Estate, and the Fairbanks House. And so those are individual listed they're not necessarily in a district I mean, some of them are but like the Fairbanks house is not. So the Powder House, the professional that did the survey determined that it would be eligible for individual listing on the National Register of Historic Places so in order for that to happen a nomination would have to be created, which is separate process that they would build upon the work that was done in the survey. But then it's a separate process and typically that requires usually a paid professional to do that.

This is a little unique, and I think we as a commission can talk about, is that something that we could take on doing that nomination form? Because there's not a cost to doing that. It's just time. Great, thanks.

And just one last question as time marches forward is there a reason or need or interest in looking at what becomes historic? Are we just looking at 250 year old buildings or as time passes does that definition start to expand?

So technically, so the Secretary of the Interior has the jurisdiction over the National Register. And one of the criteria is that it has to be 50 years, at least 50 years old. which that puts us in like the mid 70s right now, pretty soon those brick veneer buildings from the 80s are gonna be built. and so that's like the look back period. And you're right, it changes generation to generation will help people feel about things. And you might have heard me mention period of significance, and so anything that's listed individually or in a district they look at it was like what was the most significant time period for this district? So the town center, 1700s. The mill, the textile industry over there, mid-1800s, 1930s. That's part of the process as well.

is trying to figure out at what time period in history was it the most significant. Thank you.

Thank You. Richard?

Just briefly, thank you for serving on this and I know you've done other work on other committees as well too. I did have a question which We could talk at another time or have you back. Just regarding how the historic commission really falls in with energy performance. and all that. As you mentioned, that's a big question and all of that. So not for now but at some point it would be interesting to hear a little bit more on how that balances.

Yeah, it is a balance. I mean in general historic preservation you want to do things that are reversible. So, professionally I deal with a lot of historic brick buildings and they wanna add insulation to the interior so your options could be spray foam or a mineral wool. Mineral wool you can take off a lot easier than spray foam, so reversibility is important there and then also just typical cold practices. Everybody talks about windows, there's options for interior storms, exterior storms Air sealing, it's usually air that's the biggest problem with your windows. But yeah I'm happy to talk about it on the hotline page again how that can work together.

Thank you.

Thank you for coming in, good questions and the PowerPoint. I think that most people know the one historic district and that's Franklin Square. And so what you put up is, this will be up on our website for those who take a look at it. It's areas that I never even knew, you know? I thought it was all one big area but now it's a section of Franklin Square, the section by you know where the community house is, the separation. So I think it's helpful for people to see where they are and what you said Tara that the commission will work collaboratively with those that need to do something to their house. There's a process, and I think most of them in the historic district understand what that process is.

So thank you for continuing to work with somebody that wants the paint, put a new shutter or do something do something different because I think it helps, as you say, to maintain the districts. Thank you for the work that you do and appreciate you coming in today.

Now run. I know what happens being early, huh? Yes, and thank goodness we're not ahead of schedule anymore. Yeah, exactly. It happens.

Welcome. This is open space and recreation plan update. Welcome.

Thank you, thank you. I have some plans to distribute. Thank you.

Thank you. I had so much technical difficulties trying to get this online.

I also have the slides printed.

We're good, we have them in our books. Welcome.

Just for those that are watching, just both introduce yourselves please. Yeah. Good evening everyone, Chair and members of the Select Board. My name is Lionez. I'm an environmental specialist here in town. I've been working with the Open Space subcommittee, and also MAPC doing the 2026 plan update. I'm mostly here joined together with Ron Wiley who's a part of the committee as well We're here to provide a brief update on the OSRP process, what it means to have one and also some of the work that has gone into the plan itself. We're also asking the select board to consider providing a letter of support for the updated plan, which will be included in the state's final submission. So we appreciate the opportunity to come before y'all and give you an overview of the plan and why it is important for Dedham. Thank you.

So I think one of the first steps that I would like to talk about is what is the open space plan itself? It's a long-term planning document that helps guide protection for open space and also recreational programs here in town, either active or passive. We're also connecting with the community to make sure that we're understanding their needs for the environment, but also protecting the natural resources here existing in Dedham. One thing I would like to highlight is that this plan is valid for 10 years. So, that expands from the seven years from the 2019 plan. The state has updated those guidelines for us So valid for 10 years now, which actually opens up for many grant opportunities that would require a OSRP in the ballot or SRP plan. Some of those plans are some of those grants I should say that have gone in the past include the land fund, parks and also land and water conservation funds as well.

So all those funding opportunities will be valid as long as we still have a OSRP plan as well. and one thing I would like to highlight is some of the team members here. So from the committee itself, we have Eric Diavola, Martha Casey Ryan O'Toole, Ron Reilly who's with me, Jim McGrail, Jamar. And I think it might have got cut off but we also have Elena from the Conservation Commission as well part of the committee and also Jaewon Park who is the consultant from MAPC, who has been helping us for the past year writing this plan. and so some milestones, a quick timeline of everything that has happened since we started this back in September. So the kickoff meeting research and data collection happened back in september 2025 we then transitioned over to the first public forum and also community-wide survey back in October. With information that we received, we stepped on to November

Remember 2025 with the community needs analysis, which gathered everyone's responses in the first couple of steps. Then we transitioned those responses with the goals, strategies and action items of the 2019 plan to reflect more modern times throughout the spring season this year we did something a bit differently instead of a traditional public forum that we had back in October. We actually broke it up to mini-forum series, which I'll go into deeper in the next slide here. But then we transitioned back to June of 2026 with the first draft and also the public comment period. and then now we're currently at the step of asking of different boards and also committees for letters of support, and also still finalizing the plan itself. and then later down in the fall season, we'll be submitting to the state between October slash November because that's when the current 2018 plan officially is out of date.

And again, as mentioned I want to highlight some of the things that the committee has done in order to get this project up-to-date. And so with that being said, I'll start with the survey and also public forum. So that was the first initial step for myself, the committee, and also MAPC to get to know the community really well Some things that we found out during those moments were what things are working well within the town, what needs improvement. What new ideas could we consider as a town? and then with the survey response, community-wide survey we actually got 180 total responses in that was open for two months. The first public forum happened in October and we had about 25 people attend, including staff. 214 comments during our breakout group activities and then 19 brand new ideas using the school of idea activity provided from MAPC.

and then again, instead of the traditional public forum for the second round we actually did a mini-forum series which we broke it down to smaller bits and pieces to better directly connect with the community. and so some of the things that we asked during those moments were, as residents what are their favorite locations? What are their least favorite locations. What are some recreational programs they may participate or want to see in the future some amenities that are really working well for some of the parks or fields here and also what are missing as well in general. So this was a targeted approach to ensure that we have broader community representation among youth, seniors and also members that live within the environmental justice areas. and so the committee was able to show up to nine different locations, and these include sports tryouts, school events, the Dedham Housing Authority, the Green Space Coalition, the Deadham Food Pantry, and also the COA.

And I would just like to highlight that Part of the update was really fun, just being able to connect with residents here. Just talking to them one on one was really helpful to understand what this plan could mean for them. and I'll transition next to the different sections to what makes the open space and recreation plan together. So those are just the seven different chapters in there so that we have the executive summary which summarizes everything about the plan itself, the introduction, which provides historical context of the plan and also Dedham. The community setting, which is populations, demographics et cetera. And then section four is the environmental inventory analysis, which is the science part of the plan, which includes soils, geology and also one thing I'm forgetting, but the science part of it though. And then section five is the conservation and recreation land so currently what the town owns whatever we have acquired since 2019

Section six is the analysis of needs. That is pretty much accumulations of all the responses, surveys, first public forum, the mini-forum series, all compiled together under section six and then Section 7 is actually probably one of the most important parts of the plan, it's the 10-year action plan. So this where we have reflected more of the needs of the community in order for us to better plan for the future here when it comes to open space, recreational planning, our fields, natural resources. and it's all divided by departments, priorities, and whatnot. So if there is one section I would recommend reading, it's probably Section 7. And now I'll hand it off to Ron who actually will dive a bit deeper into the plan itself.

Good evening, everyone. Ron Willey, father of Daniel Willey. I appreciate the opportunity to serve as a selectman representative on the open space and recreation plan. First, I assure the select board that the committee has served unbiasedly on behalf of citizens of the town and their concerns, interests and needs. As outlined by Leo in preparing this version of the plan we made consensus efforts and succeeded in, sorry the word was conscious efforts, and succeeded reaching many constituencies of the town of Dedham. The younger employees, Meredith and Leo working in the town of natural resource offices are outstanding. They have been committed to the project, are well prepared, and keeping the committee informed. Make sure they get a raise.

Having the Metropolitan Area Planning Council, that MAPC has been extremely useful. I think we got a grant for it in this case but Juwan Park has been able to pull her experience of working with other communities. So we have input on how to create a plan and work on a plan because this person has access to the plans of around the surrounding area. One of my last points before I go into the slides was, my eyes were open when I met with Jim Maher at the high school one evening in the spring, the Girls Softball League registrants. A common sticker that kept appearing on our survey boards were the need for restrooms near recreational areas. please note, and I think the recreational commission has been trying to adjust to that.

All right, here we are with the graphical information system map. Can't tell you how important this is to the town. It is terrific to have this resource for our town for many reasons one of them being open space, another being that we could look at the tax map. One of the items I'm not sure if it's my work or not but I know at least anything I worked on, I looked up for the town on the town plans what is put a parcel number on there and tied it to the recreational area. And so, want to credit or encourage you to support those who are helping with this GIS system. It's not even also valuable for us, but also valuable the water company, the utilities companies and many, many others. Okay, what's new? So we'll take the next slide.

What's listed here, I'll read through the list quickly. There is a new splash pad at Condon Park. I live nearby and I haven't seen it yet. but I have seen the kayak rental at the Dolan Center. I have see the outdoor archery programs and can attest that I've seen citizens up there using it, I didn't see the outdoor exercise equipment up at the Gonzales Field, but I did see what is that new court there? The new tennis. Pickleball, there is a pickleball court. I was amazed. I read it in the report that can't be there and then I walked down to this park that's near Brookdale Cemetery and sure enough, there was one there. and then there's been new water trail signages at the three town boat launches. And what else to say?

I hike your trails frequently, and someone has been tacking up on trees Fresh Sign, so there's signage to tell where the trails are. the GIS I commented on, the Conservation Commission has been involved with us and particularly our leader is Eric. And he's done a tremendous job and I'm not sure if he's volunteering, but if he is it'd be nice as a selectman or two said hey Eric you've been doing a great job we heard about you last night. So with that said let me continue. the planning board has been incorporating into their requirements, something like give back a little bit to open space or consider on how you develop your property with some ideas of creating good ratios between parking and landscape.

We have partnered with the Neponset River Watership Association, the Charles River Watershed Association. and so on. I guess this guy here issues the remote drone licenses, he has one himself in all these great photographs you see are due to letting him have a drone, so thank you town of Dedham. Two vernal pools. I'm aware of one, and I keep an eye on it. And I try to keep my dog out of it. We walk by it probably once a month or twice a month. That's just great. Land acquisition and management. we have been awarded now, Leo and I guess I won't mention it that I saw 75,000 for the pollinator. And I see 30,000 here so you've got a correction in that report.

With that said, Jim is well aware of this because he had to speak at it yesterday everybody. That we opened up a Saar Mill Park pollinator pathway I think it's a terrific addition to the neighborhood is a terrific addition to Dedham. We also received a technical assistant program grant from, and I had the MAPC there but it's Metropolitan Area Parks or something like this NC. The ECA, when the ECE was formed somehow through the developers who were doing work behind there a 20-acre land donation was made. in October of 2024. The wigwam pond, ecological improvements, those are terrific. I haven't been over there recently but

considering to what it was three years ago, to what is today. It's a great improvement and I await the day that we get some kind of great public access to start taking advantage of that pond. Communication. Oh, the Biodiversity Day. I went this year, I went last year. Eric was there with his bees and Hollow showed up that I missed people went on walks around there and people were out kayaking. So great time for all, and this is up at the Dolan Center on the Childs River. There was a conservation division created working for the protection of resources, trainings for homeowners and contractors. It wouldn't surprise me that Eric's behind that somewhere, that he's the one doing this training.

Water trails and open space brochures were created The Dedham Planning, Zoning and Natural Resource Department, started sending new homeowners letters for properties near protected areas. and then there's a project called Be Heard. With that, I think I can conclude, will conclude and offer you the opportunity to ask us questions. Merci beaucoup, thank you very much, gracias.

Thank you both. I'm going to start on the other side of the table now.

Sure, I thank you. Thank you for coming this evening. Thank the past year plus and for working to develop and present us with this action plan.

Some of this goes, most of this go to Iloilo or Juwan

Excellent, well thank you. And the committee has been behind it. As someone who I would say is a fairly avid user of our Outdoor Natural Resources here in town. I'm always happy to have areas that I can have meaningful and otherwise. And would certainly love, you know in reading through the action plan, love to see our town meet many of these action steps. My question, so I do have some questions though as someone who works with towns or not towns but organizations in implementing action plans and otherwise. So this is a 10-year action plan

and I see that you have a significant number of goals for 10 years. I know that 10 years goes by really fast and you seem to have identified potential funding sources. I'm wondering if you can talk a little bit about the process of setting, I see that some of the dates are staggered and staggered over 10 years A couple questions that I have are, I don't actually know what some of these acronyms stand for. for potential funders. I do see quite a number of items that are where town resources are allocated, I see in particular Parks and Rec as being a funder. which following our, as we opened the meeting with our structural deficit, our Parks and Rec Committee has virtually no funding that's not raised through their own programs and services.

I'm probably premature in poking around at the actionability of this action plan, but just curious about the thought process for developing this scope. of action steps, what is meant by the funding column and what kind of opportunity or What's the, how do you plan on, I think we do see this not only here but in so many places. This is a beautiful report and my question is always what do we do with it? So I know that you're here to present this as a beautiful plan. And so I'm going to kind of start with, and now what? As a question.

Oh boy, what I was gonna open with was Jim Maher educated us very early in the game saying the town won't have any money. So we were well aware that there's a deficit involved here and some of their financial constraints On the other hand, it's our obligation to present what could be or what might be. And I would think you'd think of this as quote a planning document or a guideline for the next few years you're wondering what did the people think about doing Project A versus Project B. There is some guidance in this report, Further, the committee tried to rank them a little bit. What is most important? and I don't know whether the restrooms made it most important, but I can tell you there's a bunch of girls out there would love to see restrooms throughout the community in the recreational areas.

and sometimes we put low, you know. But we want to note it in case someday magic happens and we have some funding. There is often in the past been frequent State Initiative projects that now, with this report we can go after. And these two well, I'll point to Leo and his partner there Meredith. They tend to go aggressively looking for ways to get money to help support projects so I don't know if this helps you at all or not but it's a guideline I guess.

and I would just add on really quickly too. I think from the talent staff perspective, I think as Ron just mentioned like Meredith and I are always looking for grants whether it's things that our department could go follow or if it's like a Parks and Rec as well. We actively look for them. I think, for the committee itself, they're really great advocates of what the town is looking for and what they're hearing from residents as well and also just making sure that we are getting things done and it's not a plan are there to collect dust. I think they're advocating for it, they want to keep updating it and they wanna keep reviewing it and making sure that's within... That it's talked about within the town itself.

Thank you. And just because I am curious, Park, and LWCF listed frequently. What are those?

I don't know at the top of my head, I'm sorry.

Okay. I might be able to pull it up.

on the report. Through the chair, I can answer. So the park grant is the grant that we it's through the state and it's depending on the location within town. It could be anywhere up to $100,000 or I believe it's $500,000 if it's within I believe a half mile of transportation stop. So that's something we recently applied for, for the playground at Memorial Park, the park grant. and we're hoping that we'll have a successful round for that. And LWCF has Land and Water Conservation Fund grant, which is the grant that we went for for the town green. And that's another state grant, it's federal money and it enables the communities to make improvements to public properties that then require them to be protected in perpetuity.

Good job.

Thank you.

Great, thank you. And if at any point just because I think that action plans need to be able to live beyond the staff that work to develop it if there's an opportunity to include some labels for things that are unlabeled so if we need to pick this up in eight years and everyone's trying to wonder, well where were these funding sources? We know what to do. So thank you I mean I would be curious to continue to track the action plan and opportunities to move forward on it but thank you for for your work and presentation.

Thank you. Thanks, everyone.

Thank you for all of your work on this. This is a great deal that we have to read and go through. I found it interesting just looking at some Change and Dedham age cohorts stayed the same, right? Over the... the years from 2010 to 2024, and even looking at households without children versus households with children. We've really kind of been on the same plateau which I expected to see that a little differently and I expected to see more children. I don't know why, but that's interesting. I do agree sometimes we do the studies they end up sitting, but somehow we come back to those conversations. Which is why it's really good to have this done so that we kind of have Roadmaps, to help us get to places.

We can't say this and say okay we're gonna do it because there's always other things that might get in the way but then when that opportunity is there that we can walk through that door, right? And I think having open space and recreation space. I think sometimes we forget about it. It's very important, going places and seeing hiking that's one of the things where I live, I do a conservation land I don't see a lot of people back there hiking, but I do. And I see a lotta people coming out of the bike path from Needham that they come out of there and so it's pretty cool, right? So you got to work hard to keep those reserved for the communities. Thank you all on this work.

Thank You. Steven.

I have a couple things. So first, just a general comment because it's listed in here and its one of the action items. A good amount Parks Recreation, open space that we have are under the care custody and control of schools. So just maybe a note for a future town meeting that as we continue to look at open space whether the schools might have a representative on that just where they have actual of some of those properties. Good idea. And just to make it so it's a little more seamless, and just kind of building off the action items I see the select board is given a few responsible party. So I guess one on the, looking at the CPA Norwood since 2018 has approved six

0.4 million in projects through CPA and a little over 1 million for active recreation, and 0.8 million for open space and passive recreation. I know we've had this conversation before as a town but no. Times change, and I appreciate it just being put on our radar again. But there are a couple things about chapter 6161b properties and the option to buy I'm just wondering if you have it on hand or maybe we could just get a little additional information down the road of what specifically we as Select Board should be doing in regards to that, what the recommendation is. That would be helpful. just where it's kind of assigned to us and in the note of keeping on with this plan, just having that peer guidance. What it is and what we should be willing to do would be great.

A lot of people, so I just want to thank you all for your work on this. Look forward to reading through it all in detail.

Thank you. Michelle?

Thank you. Like everyone else has said, and I know it's a lot of work, I went to the first community forum. It was really well done. Obviously an impressive group working on this I don't have a lot of questions, but just similar. I know Steven just mentioned, I also saw select board as responsible for some things on here and so to kind of go along with what Aaron was saying about implementation. You know, is there a plan? And you don't have to necessarily answer it now but just hoping that there is a plan we've got planning board on here, Board of Health, Animal Control just making sure that everybody knows what they can work on and that there's a communication plan for that as well as whatever we can do to make sure things get implemented. and so am I right that the next step is that you need to submit this to the state, and they approve it? Or do they send back feedback or like what does that process look like with the state?

I think they automatically just approve it.

Okay.

and it's simple as sending via email. They don't have a portal or anything, just one person from the state and that's all.

Well good luck getting it in an e-mail. I know. Because that's my next thing, is there anything you can say for folks at home looking for this? Can you direct them where to find the link and how do people at home that might want to see this report?

Yeah, 100%. This is, I should mention actually this whole project is actually on BeHeard right now. So there's actually a comprehensive news articles that the committee has written up also these past couple months, additional photos and everything, all the survey responses are on there for the boards for the first public forum. They're on our BHERD website. But yes, even then though, on our committee's page website I'm actually working with Amanda to update that so once this plan is out and ready there'll be a whole new page for that.

Yeah, we discussed trying to communicate the resources Dedham has. Because one of the things that we discovered was few people might not know... Few people know about the town forest so we gotta tell them where it is and hopefully someday the town will figure out how to get us a parking space over there. Good luck.

Jim. Thank you, this is a really comprehensive plan and he did a lot of work, a lot people. I remember when it might have been the last one that had submitted in, the individual did all the work herself. And really when you think about the amount of time and energy that it takes but having the process that you just went through is much more collaborative and it was great to see people step up. and want to volunteer, want to help put this together because as we were just talking you know to the Human Rights Commission these are all volunteers. And getting people who wanted to volunteer to have this niche on the Open Space Committee because this is what their passion is.

It was really great to see the list of names and in the process you went through, so thank you for that. while Jim Ma talked about, well there's no money. There never is money so that's nothing new but if you don't have a plan, if you do not have a roadmap then there's never an opportunity to do anything. And so this gives the plan, and as was mentioned is some takeaways from various boards and committees that need to be followed up with in looking at the years and as this board goes through the goal setting again at some point to add some of the items that you have under our jurisdiction, to move forward and get people talking about it. because if you, plans are good to have.

Follow up is even better and that falls on I'm gonna say the town manager and Yard Department. You're putting the report out, so it's up to the Planning and Natural Resource Department to make sure that questions that they have, that they put out to various boards and committees get answered. And I think Steven's comment about the school department I think that's probably a good idea. I don't know why it hasn't been talked about before, but it's also something you should present this to the school committee and the the amount of open space and land that they have is a part of your analysis here. So thanks for coming in. Thank you, thank you. We are a little late but appreciate the time and effort, thank-you. Thank-you all.

Thank You. Jason? Not too bad. No, Titus is out of it. Thanks Ron, thanks Leo.

Okay, thank you.

Now next item on the agenda discussion a possible vote. Director of Engineering Jason Mamone private inflow identification and removal I'm sorry, before you go, Ron and Leo, you had asked for a...

It was attempted. A letter of support. We have time. We'll vote on it at September 9th. Okay, good. Thank you.

Good evening, everyone. We'll just wait and Jason Maloney, Director of Engineering. I hope everyone's summer has been going well.

Is the attorney on?

Give me two seconds.

Okay, thanks. OK. Jason?

All right, good evening everyone. and Jason Memorial, Director of Engineering here tonight to present an update to the Select Board pertaining to the presentation that I provided for the Select board back in October of 25 related to the door-to-door inspections in the Bonham Road, Greensboro Road sewer study that was presented. One of the recommendations that came out of that report was to develop a private inflow removal policy We do have approximately 50 connections and it's on the next slide, but I'll kind of get at that. Just give you a little bit of background to why we're here. Despite all of the INI efforts that we do due to our public sewer system There's an area in the Bonham Road, Greensboro area of the Manor neighborhood that experiences sewer backups as a result to sewer surcharging within our system.

and that's a result of excessive infiltration and inflow that comes into the sewer system either through groundwater or through storm water, or people's sump pumps connected to the sewer system and yard drains, and so forth. So one of the initiatives that we took in what we looked at during our study was how much inflow was coming in from private residences, and that's what the door-to-door inspections was about is to see if we do in fact have a large inflow policy, I mean, inflow issue contributing to the sewer surcharging down in the Manor neighborhood. and over the years we spent about 2.9 million just in our public infrastructure and have removed about 1.5 million gallons but we still continue to have an ongoing issue that we need to as we'll continue to work on, but we also need to start reaching into the private section two as well to remove inflow and infiltration from those areas.

and from about the 50 properties that we identified to have prohibitive connections, it attributes roughly 350,000 gallons of peak inflow. the most common types of prohibitive connections were sump pumps and floor drains connected to the sewer system, and there was a handful of just regular open sewer cleanouts. There was no cover on them so if the basement gets water inevitably goes into acting kind of like a drain. So the removal of the Zionite not only benefits potentially to the Bonham Road area, but it also benefits the town as a whole because every gallon of inflow and infiltration that can be removed from our system is one gallon less than has to be sent to the MWRA for transportation and treatment. So anything that we get out of the system is a benefit, just not to those but to every single resident that is on our sewer system which helps us keep our rates fairly stable as much as we can with the efforts that we do do.

and just to give you an idea of the breakdown in FY24, of the wastewater flow that goes through the MWRA 51% of that flow was clean water inflow and infiltration. and that attributes to about 3.3 million of our $6.4 million assessments, so there's quite a bit of clean water that's in there and it's clearly been reduced over the years since we've been doing our program but it still shows its prominently within our system. So we developed the private inflow removal policy to address these 50 potential, well actually they are actual prohibitive connections and in the spirit of what we discussed back in October, we didn't want to provide any financial burden onto the homeowners. We wanted to develop a system and a program which we could help these homeowners that had a prohibitive connection remove them and redirect them to the appropriate location. So we've been working diligently internally for the past handful of months, and today we have that

draft to you with lots of materials, the regulation, the agreement, some information sheet and a couple other things in there that supplement this presentation. With that, we've also estimated the approximate cost for each property to remove their prohibitive connection and redirect it. And we coupled that with what we have available for funding in this current year and we're hoping with what we have and what we were anticipating, we can cover it with the amount of money that we have this year which is $250,000. But the agreement that's in place for these properties, they will get a letter that has all the information that you received.

Do you have another slide?

Oh, I'm sorry. You know what, I am so used to somebody else doing it. I thought it was you. No, no, no. It's the shortest presentation I have and I can't even get these slides going. So as part of a program timeline with the 50 properties, we're looking to send out a letter which will contain all the information and materials that you received in your packet. and we're trying to do 10 at a time, working from the closest to the bottom road area and working our way out. The property owners will have all that information with them. They'll have three months to enter into an agreement with the town, whereas we will assist in paying financially to the contractor that they select to redirect their source, prohibitive connection. And it gives them one year to complete it so we don't want them to feel the pressure of oh I gotta get this done right away

one year is more than enough time to complete the work that's associated with it. If I had to take an estimate on, you know, are one of the homes that have probably the most difficult retrofit. It'd probably be about three or four weeks, but most of them should take a week or less. but again, depending upon contractor scheduling and everything like that. We just wanted to give them enough time to resource look out see what they can get who they want to have trust the person that's coming into their home so we don't want to do this under our own umbrella where they're being forced to have us go in there and do it, and they don't have any say about the schedule. They don't any say who it is So this gives them a little bit of control in this process while the town is also funding the project. However, if they don't elect to participate in this program, borne the cost to do it themselves. This is a very important thing, these connections are illegal they are contributing to a public safety issue down in the Bonham Road area

and it's also increasing our MWA assessments because of that additional clean water that's getting into the system. So, it's important that this work gets done and we're hoping that The availability of having the funding for them to do it is enough to have them participate in this program wholeheartedly. So again, the biggest thing for them is they're gonna have to act as their own project manager. And we don't always assume that we know exactly what the cost of the product's going to be because a lot of this It's unknown, it's underground. Things happen, things come around and there is an opportunity that when someone's high as a contractor and they get a quote it shows that it's higher than what we anticipated for that, they can provide us with that detailed information to say hey this is what our contractors saw and then this is why the cost was a little bit more. And we'll review that and if it makes sense increased the allotment that's associated with that particular repair.

So, Again, it's the start sending out the letters. End of August, begin of September. This was supposed to be in July but you had a very busy schedule so I didn't get a chance to update these, but it's probably going to be most likely September where we start this. Again, we're gonna send out 10 letters right now. just because I don't know what the response is going to be, the communication that's going to needed so I don t want to stretch the department too thin. I want to make sure we get these things out and I'm able to give each resident the opportunity get any time they need with me to kind of explain things. So we'll work with 10 and every month or every other month, we'll go out and do another ten until we get all 50 lettered Right now, again we have 250 set aside right now to do this work and if everything kind of falls within the budget that we're anticipating, we should be able to do all 50 within that $250,000.

but in case we do see some unforeseen things, we might have to request additional money to finish this up in a subsequent fiscal year. But we're hoping that we don't have to. So that's it and... and the quickest way I can do it for you, so I'll leave it open to any questions or concerns that you may have with anything. And also again just to remind you Greg Korbel from KP Law is on just in case you have anything legal that you would like to have answered.

Thank you. Okay, that's a lot. But Jason it's a program that was started because of the issues that were raised. And now this is the action plan as a result of the time and effort in energy and cooperation. that we had to get from the neighborhood. So thank you for following through, as we looked at the open space plan I said well You have a plan and it sits. Well, we had a plan because of money. This is an example of we have a We implemented it, and now we're in the process of hopefully to rectify it. So I just want to say

say thank you and open it up to questions. Steven?

Thank you, Jason. And knowing it's late I'll be real quick. Correct my numbers if I'm wrong, 51% was clean water INI out of what gets sent to the MWRA?

Yes, correct.

So what ideally would we be trying to get down to? How did those 350,000 gallons fit into that 51% ?

It's a fraction of that, but we have to look at it more in terms of its general location. so the removal of that $350,000 allows the opportunity for those residents that experience the backups to reduce the frequency of that backup alone just by removing that inflow. So it's less of a benefit for the entire town even though there is something there, important to the Bonham Road residents to have that 350,000 removed. So it's a small number in terms of the grand total but it's significant amount just for that specific locale.

Got it yeah I was um that's very helpful clarification because I was just looking at like the $250,000 that's coming out of the or allotted from the sewer fund and then the assessment and just how those numbers might work but understand also the proximity issue as well. Thank you. Thanks.

Michelle?

Thank you, thanks for all the materials. I thought they were really clear in explaining the issues so hopefully residents find it that way too. It made me curious where like how this was developed, the policy and the materials. And is it modeled after what other communities have done or you know if the process and fines that were in the materials?

Dedham's kind of on the forefront of private inflow removal, but we tailored this a lot off of our existing private infiltration removal policy. So a lot of the framework was already there that we've been using since I think it's 2015. reinvented the wheel a little bit and used that, and we made it conform for this particular instance. The agreement in the policy and everything's kind of the same. The private infiltration is no cost to the homeowner, it's just more of an agreement, let us do this and we take care of it, and the benefit is for the town because remove infiltration. So it's kind program, just flow instead of infiltration. So that's kind of what we used.

And then you said about 50 households and about $250,000. Will those letters go out with the same average number for everybody, or are you all taking a look at what you expect the cost is going to be? Like one project might be a lot different than another. And I know they can appeal for more and things like that, but...

Yeah, every property has a different repair needed so to speak. And the letters that go out like the main notice that was in your package it kind of had some blank spaces to be filled in I will tailor that to be more specific to the exact property that's going out. Oh, your property has a sump pump and we're estimating it to cost X amount of dollars whereas someone else would be tailored oh you have an open clean-out and we're estimating to cost this, so it's going to be a little bit more personal to the property than just a general one.

Okay great yeah it's clearly a lot of work so I was gonna ask about the staffing to do it but it makes sense what you're saying of doing ten at a time for every reason Thank you.

Mr. Mitchell?

Jason, thanks for all your work on this question on enforcement and I see here that the town may extend things, the town may make some changes. Who's the town?

Sewer Commissioner.

Okay, so town manager would look at that and make the decision.

So if someone's doing good faith effort to get this done and corrected and something happens and they're flirting with a timeframe issue or whatever We're more than happy to grant extension. I can't do it personally, but Leon can assist and help out with that. get down on people that are just trying to do their best. And so if they need a little more time, we're going to get it. But the idea is hopefully there's plenty enough time where we don't have to worry about extensions or people not wanting to participate in this. We do have to have that in there in case we do have circumstances where something like that arises, and then I'll look for the sewer commissioner to assist in that.

can make a decision.

All right, thank you.

Eric?

Sure. Well first I just want to start by saying I think that this is really best case scenario outcome for those who have these types of hookups. We started talking about this, was it two and a half years ago or three years ago? And there's a lot of concern about what all of this meant and we asked how can we help make this replacement of these illegal hookups not be a burden to the homeowners, and you have found a solution. So I really appreciate the work that you've done over the past two-and-a-half years to communicate with community members to build a program, to consider the select board's comments about mitigating cost of consumers and putting together what I see as a very reasonable outcome here.

So, if we move forward with this, I really see this as a best practice for the town in looking at how this process began and where it's ending. So it's a real like you can see an actual solution in a short amount of time when you're looking at public timelines. So thank you for that. I think that's really excellent. And I see in here that through this agreement, the town will be cutting checks to the contractors themselves?

Correct.

So I think that is a huge benefit for the town, for the homeowner. It's not a reimbursement for services so that again mitigates burden on the home owner and So my question, so you mentioned some might take three to four weeks. Some of the more complex cases, what level of disruption to their use of their plumbing or sewer will each house have? And are there other elements of this repair, such as will it require tearing up their lawns or creating detours on the streets? What else could residents expect in participating in this program?

That's a good question. They will not experience any disruption to their service of their sewer system. The issue is that whatever they have is illegally connected to it, so A licensed plumber will come out and disconnect that spot. So it just might be a connection that they cap, but the service is still in action. They're just cutting the pipe and saying no you're capped here now we're going to take this or we're gonna redirect it to where it's supposed to go So in terms of losing service, you shouldn't have one second loss of service to using your sink, your bathroom, whatever it is that you use in your home. Again, some construction can be a little bit more difficult. All this is going to take place internally so it's all taking place inside the in the home we didn't have anything that was outside there were no roof leaders or driveway drains or anything like that that um were tied into the sewer a lot of it is floor drains in the basement, sump pumps in the basements or again open clean outs.

So the biggest disruption is going to be to someone's basement. Again depending upon if it's finished or unfinished that level could be different. So some people may have to have concrete floors, you know saw cut and removed so piping can be redistributed systems adjusted and then refinished. So that's like the three to four week scenario where there could be a burden to a lower level of their home so there is a potential for I think there's three or four that have a really substantial work ahead of them to correct it. so there could be a little bit more of an inconvenience to them whereas a homeowner that just doesn't have a clean out on it, they're gonna hire a plumber. He's gonna come out and half hour he's gonna slap a clean-out on and say you're all set have a good day so the disruption level is going to be different per property but everything should be inside okay

Great. And for those few that are more complex, if we could just make sure to communicate that clearly what that means for any repairs that they'll need to do afterwards? I mean, this is again just to anchor this. These are illegal connections that were likely done by and current or past homeowner themselves. And the town has intentionally created funding to correct this. And I hope that homeowners see this as a significant value to their home for future, not only the present use of their home but future resale et cetera and so I hope that there's a recognition, that this is responsive and of great value for each of those properties. So again, thank you for coming up with this solution. I hope that it goes smoothly.

and that there's a recognition that the town has really gone out of its way to make sure that this is corrected for the benefit of the entire neighborhood in the entire town. but also that it's been crafted to be of great benefit for the individual homeowner. Thank you.

Thank everyone so I think at some point in the fall October, November. You know have you back or have Leon as part of his report an update of where we stand in regards to the who is in, who was out challenges just to keep people updated about what's going on. Now we had here as a possible vote my assumption is that to ratify it, to endorse the process by which has been presented to us. So I would entertain a motion if the board wishes to concur with the action plan as proposed by Jason and the town manager.

Second.

Discussion? All those in favor? Aye. Thank you. Thanks Jason, Leon and everybody else that's been involved in this long process.

Leon, Brady, Joe, Amanda Weston Sampson to a degree. A lot of people had their hands on this one, so we thank everybody for their time.

And a lot more work to be done. Absolutely. Next item on the agenda is you. We're all set, council. Sorry Greg. Greg we're not needed but thank you.

Have a good night, everyone. It was good to see you and I look forward to working with Jason on the next phase of this project.

Jason, call or drive.

Yeah in front of you this evening for the last agenda item is just a motion to adjust what you had previously voted on I believe in July pertaining to a traffic regulation on Caldwell Drive adjacent to the Green Lodge School. The original times that were in the motion from July, Time frame was off. I was informed by the schools and the police department that school starts at a different time, so we wanted to make sure that we captured the 15-minute window before and after school starts for that no parking, so that's the reason for The motion this evening, it's just to change that morning restriction time to coincide with when the school actually starts school.

Okay, any questions? Very quick.

Please. Is there a reason that it doesn't exempt like the summer or is it just for ease of rules?

It's very difficult to place restrictions for parking without ending up with a sign that's way too large and no one's going to read anyway. So even though it's... all year round. If the school safety officers aren't there and the school's not in session, it's really for that so you know it's kind of in that vein.

And then my second is just I was looking at the map trying to figure out where, and this intersection and this description actually occurs twice because Caldwell makes the circle, and so does Bonnie. So I started from the south side. I was like why is this restriction so long? So maybe we just want to note that this Intersection of Green Lodge and Caldwell. Obviously it's obvious for your purpose and everyone else, but just so it's...

we have had a map going out showing where the sign is gonna be placed to the schools so they could issue that out to the parents. So, they should have a map showing exactly where this regulation was being proposed and being installed. But if you need something else, we can certainly follow up with something else. It's clear to me in terms of how we have to do it but I get what you're saying too because of that weird north-south situation.

Okay, thank you. Alright Stephen then what's the motion?

All right. I move that we approve the traffic regulation amendment for Colwell Drive as follows, with respect to urgency for public safety amend part one schedule number one of the traffic regulations to adopt a no parking Monday through Friday, 8.15 to 8.45 a.m., and 2.45 to 3.15 p.m. parking restriction on both sides of Colwell Drive from the north intersection with Greenlawn Street to Bonny Lane.

Do I second? Second. Discussion? Hearing none, all those in favor? Aye. Thank you. Thank everyone. Okay. Moving along, old and new business. I'm going to ask Dimitria on the facilities update plan then we'll go into old.

We are continuing to move forward at our August meetings. Arrow Street began presenting additional facility options as we move forward, we're focused on making sure that the options are evaluated consistently and we understand the financial implications that come with them. Over the next few meetings, Arrow Street will be presenting preliminary options As I think most of you know here, the school committee is continuing its educational model work separately and it's expected to identify this school configuration in late September, those options will be incorporated into the facilities master plan process for additional analysis as well. It's, at this time is and Leon kind of mentioned it as well too. We've done a lot of work up until this point there's been meetings going through different reports

And now we're coming to the point where we're getting more of that information and more discussion time, to talk about the different buildings. Really what they're finding with the cost implications are what the schools are looking at. So now it's really starting to gain traction, more presentations to the specific buildings answering the questions that the committee had. We're going to have department heads coming in for more clarifications, There's things, even the deeds, who owns, who controls, things like that. So that's all going to be happening. So it's getting into even busier for this committee on what we're going to have coming up. We are going to be holding a community and listening session on Wednesday, October 7th at 7 p.m. at the Parks and Rec building on 310 Sprague Street they will at that time be presenting potential options and then gathering the community feedback. Again, this is all potential and we want to hear from them.

This particular meeting is only on the municipal buildings, we will not be discussing schools it will just be the municipal building at this particular time So that's it really in a nutshell where we're at, what we're doing. It's moving forward and I think it's going to get to be a really exciting and interesting committee coming down the pike now.

Thank you. Do you want to continue?

Anybody have any questions for the new chair? How can we as Select Board be supportive of your work or the steering committee's work?

Well, so we have a community outreach subcommittee that's coming to us on Monday. We have a meeting Monday night with some ideas on how we need to communicate to the boards and we really want to let all the boards and committees know we exist in what we're doing. And now's the time, not that it wasn't before but to start listening and watching our are our meetings and being involved in it. Come to the meetings, let us know what you're thinking, come to the forum so for all of us to really push it to our networks to let them know that this is going on The summer's over, sorry. We're coming back in. So that's really what you can do for support right now. Get the word out there so that people are aware of what we're doing. Thank you.

Want to continue with all the new business?

You're done? Yeah, I'm all set.

Okay.

Yeah, surprise, surprise.

Who's next? All the new... Erin?

I'm good.

You're good?

Michelle?

Steven? I'm not. Okay, so a few things. First of all, I want to thank Chief D'Entremont, the police department in the various neighborhoods for National Night Out. It was a huge success throughout the community people getting together. I think this is the 17th year Dimitria, 15th year whatever it is a long time and just want to say thank you for all the work that made those a successful night. Early voting starts Saturday, and so folks that want to come up the town hall have the option. There's some other dates that are on the calendar, so you have an opportunity to vote before the primary election day on September 1st.

and on September 11th. So first of all, as we talked earlier, September 12th is the Rent for the Fallen at Memorial which we have had for many years. We are going to continue that. It's gonna be another great event for our community and recognizing and the military that have lost their lives since 9-11 from Massachusetts, so hopefully people can come down in support. but for the town, well we are going to recognize remember on the 20th anniversary of September 11th. On September 11 down at Memorial We have had an initial planning meeting and we will be working in collaboration with Sarah Sweeney and the military friends to utilize what they have set up.

We're in the process of putting together a A program that will be exactly what Remembrance is. It's a reflection, invocation, some music. We have some speakers that will be sharing various points. Candle, we're going to have candlelight candles. as well as Bellring, and so we invite the community. We will start publicizing this shortly. Invite the community to join us on September 11th down at Barnes Memorial Park, as we remember. all those that were killed on September 11th. And sort of the connection to Massachusetts, there will be a reading of the Massachusetts people, and those that are connected to our state.

It's about 250 names we will be remembering them and reading them so put that on your on your calendar.

And what time is that?

I'm sorry, thank you. 7 p.m.? We're going to start, and then it will be probably about 45 minutes hopefully towards the end. you know, towards the dusk. So 7 o'clock, we'll say seven to eight and then afterwards those that want to have cookies Patries and whatever, the American Legion is going to open up the legion for those that want to go over afterwards. The last item I have is that if you recall, a few months ago we had Chief Don Tremont in concerning the issue of scooters, electric scooters. E-bikes, and so forth.

And one of the concerns that I raised and that others have as well is the increased use of these electronic vehicles within our community, especially by those that are under 16 years of age. So I had a meeting with myself, Chief D'Entremont and the superintendent yesterday, and there will be a communication that's going to go out from the superintendent in the draft format. It's not finalized yet but it's gonna be sort of a guidance and reminder for the families that have young children kids that are utilizing these, and especially the age 16 requirement.

Under mass law, individuals must be 16 years to operate motorized bikes, scooters or similar electric vehicles. So that means anybody who goes to the middle school should not be on an electronic scooter. on an electronic bike. And there's also a mandatory helmet law within Massachusetts. So what's going to happen is you're gonna notify, send notification to all the parents and caregivers, that these are the requirements within the state. And sort of at some point especially you know, anybody that takes them give a warning and then at some point very soon they drive to school. They're not going to be able to drive them home.

Police will take them and contact the parents, and they can come up and pick them up. And same thing for those that are riding without helmets in a funeral, the exact same thing. This is not meant to be punitive, this is meant to save lives. We've read in the last few months of accidents with kids on these motor scooters. And I shared last, a few months ago what I witnessed on Bridge Street with two young kids on electronic scooter, no helmets and a car coming out of the driveway. A pickup truck and striking one of the boys in the back of his backpack and knocking them off. Thank God they were not hurt, but that is what

we are looking at with the unregulation of these. The superintendent asked, you know, we have to get the word out? I said, I'd be happy to mention it at the meeting. And the chief also said so why we're focusing right on the school side about the young the young kids that are riding these bikes. There's also, you know there will be the recognition of people riding adults riding the scooters and electronic bikes on sidewalks. And the chief shared a story that just this past week, he saw two people in electric bikes riding down Washington Street. He pulled the car over got out and told them. They said, well we weren't aware so you can't ride on the sidewalks. I'm sure there's going to be some people that aren't gonna like it but the alternative is if we do nothing and something happens, then it's on us.

So that's it I have for...

I have one question. They're not allowed on sidewalks, are they allowed in bike lanes? Yes.

If they have the electronic... Even the scooters for... So if you're over 16 and you know, you ride a scooter in the bike lanes. But I'm sure we have all seen them especially the electronic scooters all over the sidewalks and even when we had our national night out, three or four kids came down and the police had a conversation with them about it. Especially the no helmets. We have free helmets. So in Riverdale at the National Night Out, gave out 25 helmets. No cost. Anybody can get a helmet that they want. That's fantastic. So I thank Nan and the school department for that. And I had asked the superintendent, because she said that they have been steward

in the lobby in the middle school. And I asked how many, and she said it could be 12 to 20 because kids ask to store them inside. I was surprised. Wow. Anyway, just sharing the word. Thank you.

Can I just have one more question? If we communicate with the school about this again, wanting to consider unintended consequences of not allowing middle schoolers to use the motor race scooters. I would just ask that the schools track Attendance for those students and is there any issues with truancy because this is their only way reasonable way to get to school or other you know just having an awareness or discussion that You know, is this a necessary? do they have other means of arriving to school and arriving on time without these?

You can find a way if they need a bicycle, providing a bicycle for them.

Right yeah so if the school could just keep an eye in your communications keep an any impact on tardiness or truancy?

I'll mention that. Thank you. Anybody else? Is there a motion?

With all that, the minutes will... Are you ready to do them tonight?

It's up to what's the wish of the board. We can do it at the next meeting. Yeah, next meeting. Is there a motion to adjourn?

So moved. Second.

Discussion? All those in favor? Aye. Thank you.