Needham Select Board, 10/27/26

Thank you for watching!

recording in progress select board meeting for tuesday october 27th This meeting is being broadcast by the Needham Channel for the Town's YouTube channel and via Zoom, and it's being recorded for publication on later viewing in accordance with the open meeting law. If anyone in attendance wishes to record the meeting they're required to notify the chair first I see the observer and the local. Anybody else planning to record the meeting? OK. Thank you. We're going to start our meeting with public comment, I think Debbie Bryson? yep come on up and i just have you pull the microphone closer introduce yourself um your address in about three minutes okay okay sure just bring that microphone a little closer thank you

Hi, my name is Debbie Bryson. I'm from 18 Hoover in Needham at the top of Hoover, Paul Revere and Tower so I'm here to request either a park bench or benches or picnic table be placed in the large green space that's a public Townspace, that was just recently put at the top of those three streets to replace a big Asphalt area that was impermeable space with permeable space. It's the largest space that covers the top of our hill now is in front of 201 Tower That's a private residence, which is a huge green space now put up there at the top of the hill. We have a lot of pedestrians, a lot dog walkers, a lotta runners, everybody crossing up at the

and now the residents in front of 201 Tower have removed their private fence so it now looks like that entire green space is private property. So I'm requesting, since it is town property and that huge green space we pay taxes on it if we could just use it. It's not private property So I'm just requesting respectfully that the town please delineate private from public and just put some benches or something up there. They put some beautiful trees up there we'd like to use it as public property not private If you go up there and have a look at it, you'll see it looks like an extension of 201 Tower. And clearly we're paying taxes on it as public property. So that's my request. Thank you.

All right. The first, any other public comments? I don't see anybody raising their hand. Nobody online.

Now we're testing.

Okay, so the first thing on our agenda is our 2026 Veterans Day Proclamation. And for that we will turn to our Vice Chair.

Whereas on Veterans Day, our nation comes together to honor our veterans and commemorate their legacy of service and sacrifice. And whereas Needham residents have answered the call of duty in every war and expedition in our nation's history to ensure the security of our country and its ideals. And whereas returning veterans contribute in important ways to the civic life of our town, and whereas their service, performed with a sense of duty and honour reflects great credit upon themselves and upon our community. Now therefore be it resolved that the Select Board of the Town of Needham does hereby recognize Wednesday, November 11th, 2026 as Veterans Day and asks that citizens of the town join in appropriate observance of those who have served in uniform to preserve the principles of justice, freedom, and democracy.

Thank you. Madam Chair, I move that the Board vote to approve and sign the 2026 Veterans Day Proclamation.

Second All right, all those in favor say aye. Aye. And I believe we have a Veterans Day observance for the town coming up and if someone could remind me about those details that would be awesome.

Thank you. At Memorial 1111 at 11. Yes, perfect. Thank you, 1111-11 at Memorial Park.

thank you all right the next item on our agenda is to approve the sale of bond anticipatory notes so we'll welcome a whole bunch of folks Dave Davidson, Heath Utter and Celia Simchak. Thank you. and our town clerk is in attendance as well for this. Thank you.

Hello, Madam Chair. We've come before the board to ask the board's approval of a bond anticipation note that the Town is issuing The purpose of this bond anticipation note is to roll over a note that is maturing on November 2nd. and with that, this note will mature in September. And the plan will either be to roll it again do a partial pay down or convert it to a bond, depending upon what the interest rate market looks like at that time. And that's what the decisions will make. As noted, the note came with an interest rate of 4.75%. with a premium of $107,384 which resulted in a net interest cost of 3.2346%.

And the town did receive five bids on that, again reflecting the town's favorability in the marketplace. It's a known entity and attracts the attention of bidders who are looking for AAA pay-per-views. and with that unless Cecilia or Heath have any comments, questions from you.

Questions? I have a couple of questions, and they're probably not really related to the note. But I just saw a couple things in here that I was curious about on let's see, I don't know it's page 13 in my packet. It's basically sort of an overview of the bond rating that we've received. There's a note in here that says budgeting assumptions are realistic with regular monitoring. The town maintains a five year financial forecast, et cetera. and it says there are formal, albeit more basic policies guiding debt management and reserves. And I'm curious if our debt management policies which I don't know, seem pretty rigorous to me.

If those are judged to be basic what are there other towns that are doing something differently than we are?

There are different scenarios that communities may have. in this area that do it, but you could have provisions to state what type of bonds you'll issue for what type projects that you may set a policy on. Needham's policies look at two different things, which are the 3% within the levy limit and then 10% overall. There're some communities that might say well in the sewer enterprise fund you only have this much debt and then Water, you only have that much debt. And CPA, you'll only have this much debt but we have the overarching basic concept of just to strive to keep at 10% or less and then there are other metrics is that they know that we follow when we measure but we don't have them policies in terms of total debt as a total valuation, total debt in terms total income.

The things that they talk about in their rating which are clearly delineated because they know what the income levels are. They know what evaluation of the town is and all those things are also contributed to maintaining the AAA rating

thank you I always learn new things from these conversations I appreciate it okay well that was just education for me thank you anybody want to make a motion

I would move, Madam Chair. I guess we should probably do them all individually or? We can read them all. Motion one, move two, please.

If we're doing them with no changes, we could say motions 1 through 6 as written.

Move motions one through six as noted in the agenda. Second.

All right, any other discussion? No? All right all those in favor say aye. Aye.

Thank you, and with that the treasurer has some documents. The signature pages of all the material that was provided to you earlier. The clerk is Mr. Keane so he'll sign just So there's two there, if you would. The rest are going to require everyone's signature. Madam Chair, if want to start?

You know what? Bill, do you want to start and then they can just kind of all go down this way? Otherwise we're going to get them all out of order for you.

And just as a reminder, what you're signing is the signature page associated with the actual note. There is a piece of paper that's held in a safe So that if everything else fails, that proves that the town was lent money and that it will be repaid on September 22nd at an interest rate of 4.75%. and then there's the signature pages associated with the significant events. And basically what the board is acknowledging that if there are certain that if they happen will be promptly disclosed. Basically, The town does not pay its debt on time, that's a reportable event. The town decides to call the bond, that is a reportible event. Biles bankruptcy, that's a reportable event. They're all bad things so you never really want to, hope you never have to report it.

And that's a four-page document. Then there is the official statement certificate and that's acknowledging, it's also confirming that your signatures are your signatures. And that the town is under no material litigation and that the official statement, that's thick book. That gives you all the tidbits of activity and financials on the town in addition to the annual audit. Of course it's a five page document and then of course, as you would expect something to do with taxes the tax certificate is the 11 page document. And that's attesting to bond council who confirms for the buyers of municipal debt whether or not the note is exempt from taxation, which this note is and you're attesting that you will not do anything to cause it not to continue to be tax-exempt.

and whether or not it's bank qualified or not bank qualified, these notes are not bank-qualified. what Ben qualified means. And it's something that's actually stated in our policy, that if we're able to issue less than $10 million worth of all have debt in any one calendar year, and the town has not been in that position in many years. But if we were there they're considered tax, bank-qualified tax exempt notes and there is additional credits that banks may obtain by purchasing those. It's basically an incentive to encourage, to help the marketplace or low dollar debt issuers in the municipal, county and state market to be able to get access to the markets.

Thank you. Where is that signature page held?

Which signature page, the tax certificate? That goes to bond council. That's what they rely upon when they tell everybody there's a tax exemption.

You said one is kept like the wet signature or something?

Yes, the note. The actual note that's kept in a vault.

Whose vault is that though again?

That's the holding company.

From a previous life, I signed a lot of releases that are at the registry. No, they're not at the registries.

Not at the register either because that piece of paper is given back to us.

That's like the deed for your car, or the deed of the house. It's not called a deed for a car. What is it called? Title. Title. Thank you.

And as you're finishing up, Don Marcus Whitney saying that this is not being done on a duress.

Thank you. All right.

I move that consent and appointment.

Second. Okay, any discussion? All those in favor? Aye. Excellent, okay so next thing on our agenda is the Needham Power Choice program update and new contract discussion We're going to be joined by Gabby Queenan, our sustainability manager. Paul Gromer from Peregrine Energy Group and Kim Perret also from Peregrain. Welcome.

Thank you.

Thank you. We do have some slides that we would love to share, if that's OK Miles? Thank you. So just quick intro for Paul, so the goal for today is just to provide a high level update on the program, where we are right now and then talk about some of the factors that have changed since our first contract was signed for Needham Power Choice in anticipation of us having to go out to bid for our next contract.

I'll go through quickly as a quick recap. Needham Power Choice is the town's municipal, what's called the Municipal Electricity Aggregation Program which is basically group purchasing for electricity. Massachusetts allows these programs to be operated by cities and towns, very popular over 200 communities have programs like this including Natick and Newton, and Lexington and Acton and Boston and Western Cambridge and lots and lots of others. So this is an update on as Gabby said on your program and also a look ahead to our next supplier contract so we can go to the next slide. This is just a snapshot of the participants in the program. The program offers three choices, a standard option with some additional renewable energy and about 90%, 89% of program participants are on that There's an more expensive option with 100% renewable energy.

About 1% of participants have chosen that one, and then there's a lower cost option with no extra renewable energy, and about 10% of program participants have chose that. These percentages are the percentages of the participants in the program. If we look instead at what percentage of accounts in the town are participating, it's about 75% of the residential accounts in town or participating in the Program. and about half of the small businesses. So we can go on to the next one. One of the goals of these programs is to provide stable prices and savings compared to Eversource Basic Service, which is the primary alternative Your program has done both of those things. You've saved participants more than $3 million so far compared to what they would have paid on basic service and you can see the program prices that straight red line, it's been locked in for two years The Eversource price changes every six months, so it's more volatile.

And in this market, it's been going up while your price has stayed low. So that's where we are so far. This is really great. Performance, it's more common actually for the program price to be since Eversource goes up and down. The program price is more typically like in the middle and sometimes Eversources higher, sometimes lower. You've been lower all the time which is really a great result. We can go to the next slide. So that's the update. looking ahead you entered into a two-year contract about a year and a half ago so it's time to look ahead to a replacement contract. You need to do that no later than December in order to have time to move the customers to a new supplier if you choose a new one We'll learn in mid-November what the next Eversource basic service price will be, what the benchmark will be. So we've suggested we wait until those prices are known before the town locks in its new price but then we move relatively expeditiously after those prices are known.

So that's what our schedule is and the new prices would take effect next March. just to give a preview of what we'll see if we go on to the next slide. We'll see that electricity prices have increased since the town last went out to bid and you can see the sharper part of the increase over there on the right. And that's the impact of the Iran war and other things which have pushed up electricity prices as well as gasoline prices and other thing so The town will be buying in a higher market than you did the last time. To give some more specific examples of what we looked at, we can look at the next slide and we can see your current price is 12.8 cents programs like this that have gone out to bid recently, I've seen prices of between 15 and a half and 16.5 so we should expect to see pricing similar to that will get competitive bids but that would be the norm

but comparing that to wherever sources spin at 17.3 better higher than you are today, but still better than the alternative so a way to think about it is you can still expect to get a competitive price, but it's a competitive pricing this market rather than the market where you went out to bid last time. So, the last slide just flags a few issues to think about One is when to lock in a new price. So we've suggested we wait till the Eversource price is known, which is coming up middle of next month The next thing to think about is contract term. So last time you were a two-year contract, you can choose a different term and in this market it's a volatile time. You might think maybe we should go short or maybe we Just to flag that as an issue now, when the bids come in you'll have different prices for different terms so you can decide then when you know what the price is for the different terms what seems to offer the best value.

The next issue, which is the one slightly more complicated one, is to think about the impact of buying additional renewable energy or additional RECs, renewable energy certificates, which So your program, like many others has included additional renewable energy in what's called the standard product. What customers get unless they choose something else The reason to do that is to spur the development of new renewable projects, and that's why you and Mayden and other towns have done that. the challenge is that the impact of those purchases has changed because of actions at the federal level in blocking the development of new renewable energy projects so whereas before we were in a market where if towns bought more, it sent the market signal that there was more demand which could lead to more supply over time. Now the market's really supply constrained.

Renewable energy developers can't respond to those markets signals so many towns, Newton as an example has decided we're not going to buy extra renewable energy for a while I'm going to save our money because we don't think it's gonna have the same impact that we had hoped. So you may want to consider that as an option, the way many other communities have done. and then the final thing to talk about is just community outreach when you have your new prices. The state requires that you announce the new price, but the town can do more than that. One option is to send a letter to every participant in the program explaining the new prices and any program changes if you want to send a letter the electricity supplier will pay for that mailing so they'll cover the cost of that and then we could discuss what other outreach the town would like.

the electricity supplier will cover the cost of the mailing? Yes. Will that include could that be to the enrolled base already or to the entire Available Market.

Yes, so the two things so for sure the enrolled participants so they'll cover the cost of a mailing for that many towns now have been including in the contract a requirement that the supplier pay for one mailing per year to everybody in town so if we were to conclude that and your contract which has become the norm they would pay for that as well

that would be great i just met some folks who didn't know about this and they sort of seemed to me like right in the sweet spot of folks who would So getting the word out is imperative, yeah. Can I just ask a question about the contract term? we're just going to be given choices like this is a procurement situation they're gonna tell us what they're willing to do. What are the typical obviously we're on a two-year term now. I think three years was an option in the first place, are there shorter terms?

There are. So we typically request prices for one, two and three years. And then we also look at whether there's any other term that might be more attractive in the market today, and so we would ask for that odd term as well. You're in an unusual spot in that you have a contract that runs March to March so the winter months are the most expensive months. So if you were to have a contract that ran March to December or even March to the following December, you'd lose some of the winter month so you get a lower price for that So that's an option if you're looking for a lower cost. that option saves money. Now, it doesn't really save money in the long term because you're going to have to buy electricity in those winter months sometimes so it's either gonna be this contract or the next contract but it would be a way to keep the price down now to make that choice. And we'll look at what other terms are and if there are other terms, we can ask for whatever terms you're interested in and it's pretty easy to get the prices for the different terms.

Okay, who has questions? I have a question. So in terms of the buying of additional class one recs if i go back to this slide with the three programs that we have, the standard, the green and the basic. Is what Newton did essentially to put something like our basic as their standard?

Correct. Exactly right.

Okay. And that would lower the price for consumers?

Correct, yes.

I think Newton did only one option too. They didn't also offer the 100% green, but Lexington I've tried to write them all down. Some communities have kept the 100% green with 100% Class 1 recs, whereas some folks have chosen to play around at the standard... Did you want to talk about the national wind too?

Sure, you bet. So there are other renewable energy options too so we've most communities have favored what's called class one renewable projects which is new renewable projects in New England because they had that bigger impact on on spurring the development of new projects. That's also the most expensive thing you can buy. There are other renewable energy options that are less expensive, some that are much less expensive so your still green but you're not sending the signal to build new projects. Just step back one second, there are really two reasons people buy extra renewable energy. One is just because they want it to be green. They care about what they're using and they want that to be great others look beyond that and they say well I don't want to just care about what I'm using, I want to know about the impact of that on the world. Does it cause new projects to be built or not? And that's the philosophy folks have taken so far which has led us towards more expensive renewables

but you can just be green for a lot less. So that would also be an option and that would be renewable energy from projects in other parts of the country.

Questions?

I just think the community outreach, this...I've talked to a lot of people who don't know about this program. So I think if we're going to somehow get the new contract where they do mail to that other group it would be nice to have that option available to us because we need to get the word out.

Absolutely. Questions?

We'll see what happens with the Eversource rate when they announce it, I guess my preference is, we don't know until we get bids but we want our aggregated rates at least whatever standard we set to be less than the Eversource rate. And then, we can talk about options higher or lower but I think for me that's like the basic principle

This program has been a slam dunk for the town. It saved a lot of people a lot money and I remember when we were trying to launch it, there was like a lot FAQs and trying to explain to people. I think this thing sells itself and you guys have done a great job Um, it's a little bit discouraging that we're at this spot two years later where there's no new renewables being built. It's like, what on earth is going on? And I think we were much more optimistic. This was simpler time back then. but Paul, your crystal ball. What are you thinking? for the energy markets. Just like you're in the business, what do you?

Well so in other times I can have what I consider a a valuable informed opinion. Now the markets are influenced so much by world events and which are difficult to predict, so it's hard to know. I mean will we have peace in the Middle East in six months? Will we have an all-out war in six month? It's hard to say. I do think, fingers crossed, we've seen maybe a little bit of softening in the markets over the past several months so maybe that bodes well for the town. We'll have to see. It could be different tomorrow.

I think I'll just add to Kevin's comment. Not only has the pricing, I mean obviously I think you said say $3 million over the Eversource price. But I think the stability has been really nice for folks, just not having the price change all the time every six months. and I think even if, I hear you that it's likely that the prices will be higher than the current program prices though to Josh's point hopefully less than the Eversource price I think i still think that the stability over whatever contract term we end up picking is a real benefit to this program and hopefully we can pick the right term to to fit the market, to some degree. Sounds a little like gambling. But make the best choices that we can. So I guess that means we'll be, at very least, seeing you again in a month or two. November 24th. We will be back.

just one final comment I'm just looking at sort of what people are paying now which is $12.88 and the recent aggregation programs $1550 to $1650 that is a large jump so i guess as much as it may be and it will need to be, as Josh says less than the Eversource price. I think people are going to feel like wow you just raised our prices I think personally looking at that, especially if we can't send a good signal to build new and renewable that we might think about doing what Newton did just to try to soften the blow and keep the price stable. I mean in terms of the term That is like gambling. That's going to be tricky, but I guess I would worry about locking in if we are at a high point, you know, locking in for like a three-year term if this happens to be a high price. That worries me.

I don't know we're going to have to look at our options but i think we want to cushion the blow because this is a very large price increase agreed well we'll look forward to your update in November yes thank you

So for our next agenda item, we will welcome Miles Tucker, our support services manager to talk with us about the board and committee demographics survey. Hi. Good evening.

I'm really happy today to present you a follow-up on Select Board Goal from a few years ago, which is to improve outreach throughout the community to help make the boards and committees a little bit more representative of the town itself. The first step in this was to create a baseline, where are we right now? This slide presentation, which is also included in your packet, summarizes the findings from a survey that was developed in 2023 for rollout in 2024 to understand the demographics of the boards and committees elected appointed throughout the town. Next slide. I usually don't have slides, this is weird. I'm usually pressing the button. This is where we're going to talk about next slide. So again, the history of this study.

One added point just highlighting these bodies that were used to consult in the development of the slides was this board at the opposite manager We worked with the Commission on Disabilities as well as the Human Rights Commission to come up with a survey to make sure that we're touching each group appropriately and to use the proper terminology for each thing, make sure it's inclusive in representing populations that we are looking to understand. Next slide. So there are two surveys actually. One is for sitting members, the other is for applicants. The survey results that are in this packet are just for the sitting members. because this survey was released in January of 24, 25 and 26. That's three years of data right now because of when it was released we gathered the data at two points during the year during June and again in January for folks who applied in the previous year. So we don't have data for 26 and we only have two years full worth of data, and that

Subjectively and probably objectively is not enough to get any real baseline or understanding from. We want an extra year before we get back to the applicants, but we do have the committee member surveys so we've got those here Keynote, these are anonymous and voluntary. This is not a mandatory survey this is not representative of every committee member this is representative of committee members who chose to complete the survey after being asked multiple times you all received this application request so thank you for those who did complete the survey and it's completely anonymous we don't have the email addresses, we don t have the names. We don't know who submitted these, though they're only submitted via the committee liaisons to committee members. So to those committee members who have completed this thank you for those who maybe were on the fence and say I don't know if my data is secure. I literally don't know who complete these surveys, so these are sent to all appointed and elected members of Needham committees and again, many thanks to the committee members and board members and commission members who did complete this.

It's very helpful to help the select board and I think us as staff understand who we're reaching and who are not. The survey has not changed year to year. It's meant to be longitudinal, a true longitudinal study since that would be the same cohort doing it every single year. We again don't know if we have the same people submitting it every year If it's different people submitting it, some people do one year. They do a year three but they missed year two. But the survey design itself remains the same So and again, meant to gauge the outreach efforts into identify areas where we can augment as opposed to try and pull back from certain areas. The goal is to expand the reach at the end of day. So next slide Again, many thanks to the committee members who completed the survey. We've gotten improved rates every year up from 52 to 77 last year and again this is Electeds, Appointeds and folks who are representatives to other committees on behalf of the town. Next slide

77 is not the 209 unique committee members we have in Needham at this point in time. That unique number shifts up and down as we have more committees, fewer committees. We have members who sit on multiple committees But as of the point of building this survey, there were 209 unique members. We had 77 responses so less than a quarter but improved numbers. So taking that W and just highlighting the importance of continuing to do this survey over time, keeping the questions the same, the demographic requests for information the same. So we know we're tracking the same information over time.

All right. Miles, just for a second. The 77 you have is how many turned it in? Not 77% turned it In.

77 unique responses. Thank you.

And that goes to all committee members?

Correct through the chairs and liaisons in January.

I'm just noting that you have how many appointees the select board makes, but other committees appoint as well.

So this was actually thanks to the town clerk's data from the annual reports. I went through and have all the officials, we have multiple folks on multiple committees. So it's crossing off the individual names, cross-check virtues between them. We have 209, excuse me, select board has appointed 209 unique committee members. You're correct. This year, I'm looking forward because we don't have the full data for the 2025. That's usually an annual report. We've got the 24 data and as we work to complete the 25 and 26 annual reports that's where we'll pull the data from in the future at least for that specific number. Thanks Next slide please So now to the actual data. I won't touch on all this All of these give everyone who is online, there's a chance to look it in the packet. I won't read off the slides to save everyone sanity

What we're looking at is less of a trend, but again more understanding a baseline. I don't think that any of these numbers can represent over time any sort of shift and change in how we're doing, but this really is meant to understand the basic baseline and I don't think any of these numbers surprise folks. It shows a key area that relatively younger folks those 45 and younger are you know both a target area and also anecdotally things we've heard um these are people with families who are working these hours, who maybe don't have the availability after working hours as easily as those who maybe have children who have moved out of the house or don't and we'll just keep moving through the next slide.

Can I ask about this? Yeah. So can you go back? Thank you. So the y-axis, are these counts again or are these percentages?

These are counts. These are individual response numbers. So you're going to see a higher sum in the later years across all areas in theory because we're having higher response numbers, these are not percentages. and for reference... Oh, excuse me. Excuse me. Josh I am so incorrect. These are percentages. I'm looking at my legend. It's later on. These were percentages.

Okay, thank you. And in the top left those are is that American Community Survey?

Just about to get to that absolutely because we also have this on the next slide and again I don't want to read off each individual slide. But where we have ACS data, that's the American Community Survey that the Census Bureau through the Department of Commerce does on not a 10-year basis but they do more frequently. If we have data from the federal government, we use data from as a sort of a benchmark for where this is going. And again, these responses are based on the questions so I don't know my axes. On the bottom Those are those are part of the survey design. Those are the questions we ask. So what is your gender? It's self-identified man or woman, or prefer not to say so you go to the next slide.

Yes. Sorry just for interpretation. men are overrepresented compared to the population.

Is what this shows, yes.

And on the last slide when we look at age?

Yeah.

I'm just trying to do the comparison. So younger folks seem to be underrepresented? That's correct. And older folks seem over represented?

Correct, however as this notes, younger folks those under 35 includes all people under 35 and as interesting as having very young children on committees might be, that isn't the target demo. At least not yet. Thank you. No of course. Then we go, one more slide. We don't have ACS data on transgender folks in Needham that doesn't exist but it is a question that we asked again for those who are answering to this community We don't know, this is not information that we get. This is a totally anonymous survey just because no one's responding in the affirmative doesn't mean these folks aren't out there. It's just it's question. It synonymous and voluntary. and again some of these like transgender status which is self-identified we don't have federal data on. Next slide

Then we have RaceData, which is again based on... Again thanks to the HRC for their consult on this and we do match those versus ACS data as well. Next slide. Some other language, we do languages spoken at home. Next slide. Again self-identified as a member of the LGBTQ plus community. Next Slide identify as having a disability. Again, this is self-identified. Next slide. Area folks with kids under the age of 18 and next we've got veteran status. And if we go two or three slides ahead, I think town meeting membership is one of these

We also have this data out there, how many folks are town meeting. I think as a percentage of a population where you have in the 2024 survey half of the folks who responded were town meeting members. There are 250 members of town meeting, I think that's an these are folks who care about their community. I think that's something that we can understand from this data is that being town meeting member inclines you to serve on committees because you're already willing to step up and it shows that there might be a centralization of folks who are very interested in government. Not necessarily a bad thing, people who care a lot care a and engagement from non-town meeting members might be an area that the board wishes to look at. Next slide is also kind of a similar trend. The percentage of committees that folks serve on a majority serve on one committee alone.

So I think that's an interesting piece of data that we could take away from this and then we've got some of our Supercommittee members. Again, we don't know who these folks are but for again if a member of this body filled the survey out it would likely be somewhere to the left on this chart in fact all of you are to the Left on this track Next slide. And total committee service, how long have folks been serving? And I think this highlights we do have a lot of committee members who are relatively new to engaging on committee service, which is really interesting. And that's gone up actually measurably. Again we don't wanna take away too much of this I think if you evened out each of these triple bars, that's probably what we're looking at as a baseline. As opposed to watching trends over three-year process for pretty lightly responded to survey. But I think that's our last slide and that was pretty interesting as a takeaway.

So, I'm done with the slides. I'll be following up with an analysis of committee applicant pool once we get that data at the end of this calendar year. And I'd be, I'm frankly interested to see where these two respondee pools line up against each other, find out where the membership is. The folks who are selected versus the folks who apply So with that, I'm happy to answer any questions. But it's exciting to bring this back before the board especially after all these years where this was being discussed and we finally got the survey out. And it's been insane that it's out there for three years so that's pretty cool.

Great. Thank you, Myles. Comments?

Madam Chair, this is great. Thank you. I'm curious and maybe it's not possible to do this but when you do the survey of the applicants, I would be interested to know where they found out that there was an opening. Because if it's outreach that we're trying to do better, what outreach works? You know, obviously we do things in the news you need them. We try to do things other ways but a lot of people probably still despite our best efforts don't know you know that these options are available to them and not just getting more creative about that seems important but maybe there are certain ways that we know work based on survey excellent

that wouldn't mess with the design at all. That's just a supplementary, so happy to add that.

Miles thank you for doing this. This is a lot of work and I think it's very important that we know like what we're trying to learn from this. When we were thinking of doing this years ago, it was we didn't know who is volunteering? Who are volunteers? and I think there's a sense that it felt out of reach to the average person. And so we want to see who are on our committee, so it's good to sort of start to get data on this. So thank you. And I do notice a few trends. It's sort of... where the goal was to do more outreach and reach more people. And I think we're making inroads on that, so good.

Excellent. Thank you, Myles.

Thank You

Wow, that time already. That's remarkable. I know it's a time for the town manager's report.

Well, my first report is your next meeting will be longer.

Doesn't have to be.

No. We're coming out of... Special Town Meeting, which is wonderful. Which was a heavy agenda leading into that so just a few quick items from me one friendly reminder to everyone in Needham that elections are underway and there's still three more days of early voting Wednesday, Thursday and Friday of this week here in Town Hall. And then on November 3rd polls are open 7 a.m to 8 p.m so always love civic engagement. Other events that I wanted to flag, not an event but we are resurfacing the rail trail and we've gotten questions about if we're paving it and we're not. It's going to still be the stone dust over the years have gotten ruts and kind of water flowing through. So we're doing a bit of a regrade and putting new stone dust on so for this week, we asked folks to choose a different path for the next, the rest of this week as we finish that work.

And we already noted thank you to Bill for a Veterans Day event on Wednesday November 11th at 11am at Memorial Park I look forward to seeing everyone there. And we have our second Fix-It Clinic, I think it's our second one at the library on November 14th it's from 10 to 2 but you can sign up for different repairs that you're looking for so if you have like a lamp you want somebody to help you fix versus a computer versus and so on. Recycling and Transfer Station staff with the library. So a new committee resource that I wanted to highlight.

Do you schedule that on the library website?

If you sign up for news, you need them. There's a link directly there and then the scheduling goes to a third party site. Excellent.

but those are my updates for this week all right well the next thing is committee reports

So I had my office hours last week and five different topics studied. I was amazed that people showed up, it was great to talk to people in the community One was about water restriction, because I follow the water restrictions. Someone said other people do and what can we do about that? One was gentleman from chamber street just talked about chamber street and lyndon street things of that another was a group from the garden street neighbors just want to see how things are going and have their voice continue to be heard Another was a library trustee that wanted to make sure we kept the children's room on our radar, the redoing of the childrens' room. And the last person was from the Council on Aging, just to make sure we continue with supporting the Council of Aging and specifically the improvements to the cath. and then I was lucky enough to go the police and fire open house which was great, the hot dogs were delicious. I didn't have lunch that day so it was great I went last weekend.

We had the Spooky Walk, which I don't know whether you got to go over, but at Greensfield it was unbelievable what they had over at Greens field too. The bouncy houses and bands and everything so Park and Rec, and I heard Chris Burnham did a lot of work with that. So kudos to Chris at Park and REC for putting in that whole thing. If you've never seen it, go down there. There's so many kids, it's unbelievable. It really is quite the event. And just my final thing is that I am lucky enough to be the MC for the Needham High School Distinguished Career Awards this coming Friday. so there will be a breakfast at 9 30 and then the presentation will be at 10 am and everyone is invited thank you awesome nothing for me okay uh

A few things, I went to this thing called Town Meeting. It was very interesting. And you see, I also just want to say something about Gilcox's past and there was a wake for him last week but he was a giant in town, so he will be missed. I went to the MMA legislative breakfast which is great. Bill was there and Heidi was there and the Spooky Walk as well. Heidi and I had a table, only the bravest of us could go because costumes were pretty good. And how did I have a hypothesis? We've noticed it's sort of empirical, but Needham kids really like candy. They took a lot of it and they had a great time. It was a lot fun.

that's it no update um well i guess the only update that i would add because people already mentioned a whole bunch of things um i wanted to add that The interviews are proceeding apace. Interviews are done for the HRCC, and those appointment recommendations will be put into our next meeting. I wanted to say thank you to the town clerk's office who printed us some signs for The Spooky Walk, which I had forgotten. And so we just looked like strangers handing out candy. So they really It really saved our bacon. So thank you for that impromptu assistance. For the MMA legislative meeting that we hosted at Rosemary, I just wanted to say thanks to everyone here who did a lot of work to get that up and running, and Parks and Rec staff.

But also to our Senator Roush, Reps Tarski and Linsky who attended as well and gave us lots of information about what's going on on Beacon Hill. I attended the No Kings rally at Greensfield, so thank you to Needham Diversity Initiative for putting that together. and the voting. No, we do as you said have three days of early voting left I just want to mention that Friday the 30th is just a reminder the town hall closes at voting closes at 12 30 so it's not a full day of voting um so get in there, get your vote in and that's it. So

Madam Chair, I would move that the Select Board enter Executive Session pursuant to Exceptions 3 MGLC 30A Section 21 A3 to discuss strategy with respect to litigation namely multi-district litigation involving claims of price fixing and other anti competitive practice by fire truck manufacturers and fire truck manufacturer trade associations where an open meeting may have a detrimental effect on the bargaining or litigating position of the public body. and the chair so declares that the board not return to open session at the conclusion of the executive session excellent and the Chair does declare yes all right do we have a second second

Thank you, Bill. All those in favor?

Aye.

Oh, right. Roll call. Yes. Aye. Kathy? Kevin?

Aye.

Josh?

Yes.

Bill?

Aye.

And the chair votes aye so that is us done for the evening thank you