Needham Select Board, 11/25/25

Levy, Levy,

Calling to order the select board meeting for today, Tuesday, November 25th. This meeting is being broadcast by the Needham Channel and it will be broadcast on the Town's YouTube channel and via Zoom. currently is likely being recorded by the Needham Observer. And I don't see the Needham Local, but they're part of the same organization. So if anybody else here wants to record this meeting, time to let us know is right now. Okay, so we're gonna get started this evening. Typically we start with public comment. Is there anyone in the room who wants to make a public comment? Is there anyone online? No, Madam Chair. Okay, then we're going to move right along to our next thing, which is a public hearing. for an application for a new all-alcoholic beverage license for Bohemia LLC doing business is Taberna. So I'm going to Ask the gang to come on up and have a seat.

You can introduce yourselves please. A lot of familiar faces here.

I am Stephanie Boudreau from Our Law in Brookline here with the applicant, Stuart Henry and Mary Keeley.

Very nice, welcome.

Okay, so tell us the story. Sure, I have like just prepared a little blurb and then you guys can ask questions. I'm here on behalf of Bohemian LLC. doing business or planning to do businesses to Berna, rehearsing approval from the town of a all-alcohol liquor license, a common vic, and an entertainment license, all to be exercised at 1037 Great Plain Ave., The applicant intends to operate a full-service restaurant serving primarily small plates with a Mediterranean flair with similarly themed cocktails. The restaurant is occupied pursuant to a lease with Great Plain Avenue Realty Trust. The design for the space is shown on the floor plan that's been filed. Once construction is complete the space will have 110 indoor seats and the plan is to have 60 exterior seats on the patio, 3,000 square feet on the first floor, two dining areas, a bar, bar seating,

and the current hope is that the restaurant will open in April of 2026. So the board has a CV app and the proposed hours of operation are 11 a.m. to 12 a.m. though likely it will probably close a little bit earlier, but they'll see how it goes. And then an entertainment license application is before the board. seeking approval of Piped In Radio and a small live music ensemble both inside and possibly outside. But the applicant will be filing a separate application for when it's ready to open the patio. Legal ad was placed in the hometown weekly on November 13th and all of the abutters were notified. Return receipt cards were filed with the town. The application has been approved by the police and fire. The demo on the property is done and I believe building is waiting on final plans for issuance of the permit.

As for the operator, I believe the board all is familiar with Mr. Henry, who's operated the James and Needham since 2018, has earned a strong and positive reputation with the community through his dedicated service. He also owns and operates the James North in Essex and has had similar success. There, as he has in the James and Needham. He's recognized for his professionalism, commitment to high standards, and the respectful manner in which he conducts business. And we believe that the addition of this restaurant will really serve the community well. and Let's see if I have anything else. Oh, the property manager of record, Mary Keeley, has over 10 years of experience in the restaurant industry and bar industry. She's worked with Stewart since he first opened in Needham in 2018. She's TIPS and crowd management certified.

and after successfully getting the James in Essex up and running, she plans to return to Needham to Taberna and get it fully operational. Let's see what else. We did want to address any concerns the board may have had as a result of recent infractions of the James and Needham to counter any issues like the ones that they've had. they've implemented more frequent and extensive training of staff as well as mobile scanners to be used both at bars and at all of the tables. They're committed to preventing underage drinking at all of their establishments and are taking the time and spending the resources necessary to do so. Again, Stuart, Mary, and I are all here to answer any questions the board might have.

Thank you. Thanks. Excellent. Well, congratulations. I know this has been in the works for a long time. I would just say that my family loves your restaurant. We're very excited about this new concept. But as you know, you are here in front of the select board. And so as you've already addressed, I guess my only concern is the alcohol regulations and making sure that we are super super tight on those and I will say that in the as I have said in the past that I think you're your process is great and actually serves sort of as a standard for a lot of the restaurants in town. It's one that we have admired. despite the violations that have occurred. And I think, I guess my concern

that I'd love for you to address is not that the process is in any way flawed but that it has been difficult for you to hire the staff that is able to carry it out. And that, of course, is a critical component. So I guess I'm just throwing it out there to say that how are you going to handle that because We only want to see you here on good occasions.

Yeah. Both staffing's a problem everywhere. We're going to have to stop it somehow, but we're going to... implement the same strategies that we've implemented in the last few months when we do have our new staff right from the beginning. It'll be extensive training. in all aspects of the restaurant, but especially the safety aspects, safety been underage. the scanners are going to be we're going to have we've talked about this we're going to have a stationary scanner and then a scanner for every different station in the restaurant so that's our staff is just gonna be readily be able to go to tables and take take the the scanners right there and then no questions asked you know there's a

zero tolerance policy now in our restaurant about this kind of stuff that it has to be

An ID that's scannable, yeah. An ID that we can physically take and scan. And we've actually added three to five days to everybody's training. So instead of it being... 8 to 10 it's more like 12 to 15 now so they kind of come on almost as an apprentice for their first week on the floor so even though they're still you know operating as a trained staff member they still have somebody shadowing them and it's just kind of more of a just for us to kind of be confident that people aren't getting distracted by being in a new position that will still be there to like make sure that they're doing all of the steps for which we're always on the floor anyway but it's like an extra step for new employees that it's an extra week of training and shadowing

great okay very happy to hear it because we're really looking forward to patronizing the restaurant and don't want to detract from sort of the celebratory nature but um want to make sure that This is the only kind of nature that we see you in. So we'll open it up to my colleagues.

Kathy, why don't you start? I'll start. I'm very excited for the new restaurant. I think that's great. It's a great asset for the town. very, very great news. I'm interested, I'm happy to hear about the additional training that you guys are doing. and at the James as well as at the New Place. Do you have ways to sort of audit yourself, you know, to kind of check and make sure that your employees are doing as they are trained to do?

yeah i mean when we have people at the bar if for example if there's people at the bar i I go and I make sure that everybody has checked their IDs and I'll say, how old is the person at the bar? So they tell me because they've just checked their ID. If we have people coming in and it's an extremely busy night where you know we have 15 tables in the restaurant if a server has 7 tables that all get sat at the same time then I as a manager will help ID some of our tables so that it's not all on that person so we kind of split it up because it's you know, it's hard to ID everybody. So instead of we do it as a team and the manager checks IDs as well. And we had had some friends come in from time to time just to see if they've been ID'd or Regulars that we know really well, if they've been in, I'll ask them, hey, you know, did you get ID'd when you were there?

So we have kind of like some follow up just using friends that go to the James frequently, kind of like spot checks, spotters, I guess. is what you'd call them back in the day when you were hiring companies to do it, but we're just using friends and regulars.

Stephanie, that was a curiously concise and informative brief. Thank you very much. I've anticipated so many of my questions. I'm really happy going in. This building has been empty for I don't know how many years, so it's great to see some life in it. Mary, you're managing a record with The James too, correct?

We have a full-time GM at The James now.

Oh, okay. All right. So this will freeze up to do that. Okay. You're doing the 12 a.m. closing, right? So...

that's what we're

That's what the license will say. That's the license.

I think at the weekends, that will be something that we'll strive for. But, you know, Sunday through Wednesday, it'll probably be an earlier close, but we kind of have to see where the busy spots are.

because our friends at the Board of Health are very concerned about the 12 o'clock closing and just would like to, I think they communicate to us that they're concerned that what this might have on what effect this might have for the town or for the town and just for you know health and well-being so just not just compliance checks, but how do people leave? We don't want over-serving. We don't want people to over-indulge. And I'm sure you'll be mindful of that.

Yeah, for sure.

Thank you. Good luck.

I'm really excited.

Thank you.

Thank you. Two questions. One for the town manager. Are we using the current recently revised alcohol regulations or the previous regulations? It came in after the

Yeah, the recently revised, the most recently adopted.

On the website or where would we make sure that we have the most recent?

Yes, it is on the website.

Okay. And then the second question. One of the motions is about educational and spiritual activities, schools and churches within 500 feet. Have you reached out to any of the schools and churches in that area?

we received the abutters list from the town and notified anybody who was on that abutters list which should have included churches and schools and hospitals within 500 feet there were yeah no no we haven't we haven't received any calls, objections, anything. Thank you.

I was going to say, I thought a couple actually had letters. Am I misremembering? Is that packet? They were highlighted, actually. So at any rate. Did you have another question? That was it. So I'm curious, with being open from 11 in the morning till midnight, are you thinking you're going to be open that whole period are you thinking you're going to start with dinner and then add lunch later so those are just the hours that you're expecting to move toward i'm just trying to understand how this expecting to move towards yeah so

probably start out with dinner give it a couple of weeks before we start probably introduce brunch and then weekday lunch

Are you thinking at all that you might have any of the workers from one establishment going back and forth to the other? Are you thinking there will be any back and forth?

for employment. Right now we're hoping to have a new team. Dedicated. Yeah, we have had some staff members that have expressed interest in working next door as a split but we haven't made any firm decisions.

don't think in the front of the house that'll be maybe the case because we are trying to differentiate the two different places and kind of not mingle them at the start you know so people be associate people's faces with you know the James you know you see Dee behind the bar you know that she works in the James and then try and keep them separate as as much as possible there might be some crossover in the back of the house some some cooks might be picking up some extra hours

from one or the other. I'm delighted to hear about the implementation of the mobile scanners. I think that will be quite useful. So I appreciate that that has been undertaken and helping you get out to the tables. I think, like Heidi, that was my biggest concern is just to be sure, as I say all the time, that we never have to see you other than under good circumstances. is the most important thing. But otherwise, I know that the community is very excited for this restaurant, which is a credit to your work at the James and how much it's enjoyed.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Okay. Anything else? all right is there um that's a hearing uh that is a good point thank you so this is a public hearing is there anyone in the room who would like to make a comment i don't see any anyone online all right fantastic In that case, I would welcome a motion.

Madam Chair, I move to find the issuance of an on-premises liquor license Pursuant to Section 12 of Chapter 138 of the General Laws to Bohemian LLC doing business as Taberna, located at 1037 Great Plain Avenue with Mary Kiley as the Manager of Record. will not be detrimental to the educational and spiritual activities of the schools and churches. with a 500 feet radius of the establishment and move to issue said license to Bohemian LLC as outlined in the application and subject to the rules and regulations of the ABCC and the Town of Needham regulations for the sale of alcohol beverages. And three, authorize the town manager to send written notice of this decision. to the applicant pursuant to Section 16C and the ABCC pursuant to Section 16B.

Second.

All right. Any more discussion? All those in favor? aye all right motion passes thank you thank you very much so much to you guys thank you so much we are not the only ones all right next up is a public hearing on tax classification and we're going to welcome up the board of assessors and the director of assessing the deputy town manager and director of finance

and the Assistant Director of Finance.

brought my team squad all right so squad let's have you all introduce yourselves please okay uh you can uh head right into a discussion of evaluations okay

My name is John Bullion. I am chair of the Board of Assessors. To my right is Cecilia. That's why we have people introduce themselves.

Julie Castor Diaz, Director of Assessing Michael Diener, Member of the Board of Assessors David Davison, Deputy Town Manager, Director of Finance

excellent thank you all it always happens to me it's like yeah um so good evening and uh it's been almost a year since uh we have been here and um Before I turn it over to Julie, I just want to make some opening remarks. Sort of fill in the gap from last December when the board was last here to present. everybody knows that we went through the recertification last year and we certainly did we were without an executive director at that time the month of January was shall I say more than exciting Michael and I spent many hours every week of the entire month in the department helping them as hundreds of people descended on the department asking questions, some upset. I will say most people wanted to understand what was going on.

And there were some people that were very upset and some people that were crying. It was a challenging time for the department and everybody did a great job. what I will say to Julie I've said to her is that Mike and I commandeered her office and we were taking turns in the department during the month meeting with people who came to the window Fielding phone calls to the department. I received many phone calls at home, which I took the time to work through with people, having access to the information necessary to help them understand what was going on. and it was a challenging time and what it resulted in, in hundreds of people coming to the department, we ended up with 390 abatement applications that were filed.

of the 390, the breakdown is roughly 245 commercial and 145 residential. and I think it may have been the other way around. And once we got through those filings and it took us months to go through the abatements applications. We met every week, sometimes twice a week, until July. and which is something that having been now on the board for several years it's like wow this is normally we'd get 50 abatement applications. of all the abatement applications that were filed, we ended up with roughly 50 that are filed with ATB. Yes. of that three residential are going to ATB and the rest are commercial and what we've been doing

since we finished the abatement process going through the applications is we have been meeting with commercial property owners as they have reached out to us to enter into and discuss is there other ways of settling and seeing if we can you know possibly work with them work with us in order to not go to the appellate tax board and that's what we're doing now and we need now instead of meeting weekly or twice a week we're meeting every week, every other week, every third week. But it's been a learning experience for Mike and I. And Julie came on in the end of April. and we're very glad about that because it took off of our shoulders an awful lot of the workload that we took upon ourselves to do. So we're pleased to have Julie. And with that, segue into your opening remarks.

Yes.

Thank you.

Well, thank you, John, for that. So good evening, select board members. My name is Julie Caster Diaz, director of assessing for the town of Needham. I'd like to take a few minutes just to talk about the fiscal year 2026 tax rate classification hearing. First, I want to thank the entire Assessor's Office for all their hard work and support this past year. Why are we here tonight? This hearing is required by the Mass Gen Laws, Chapter 40, Section 56, and it's held every year so the select board can decide how to divide the property tax burden between homeowners and businesses. This decision is known as choosing the residential factor. Basically, the board decides how much of the total tax bill will be paid by residential property owners and how much will be paid by commercial, industrial and personal property owners. This decision results in either a single tax rate or a split tax rate. Needham has used a split tax rate for many years, meaning commercial owners pay a higher rate than homeowners.

For fiscal year 2026, the property values in Needham were based on market conditions as of January 1st, 2025. These values come from sales data in 2024's calendar year and must reflect 100% of the market value according to state law. The Department of Revenue has reviewed and approved our values for both real estate and personal property altogether and personal property. All together, we assessed 10,919 parcels in the town. That includes about 9,800 residential parcels, 400 commercial industrial parcels, and 600 personal property accounts. The total taxable value of all property in Needham this year is $16,737,745,250. which is a 3.9% increase over the last year.

We added over 3 million in new tax dollars from new growth, and that's new construction, renovations, and new business properties. Here's a quick look at how property values have changed over the years. We have our residential values that went up about 5%. We have our commercial and industrial properties that decreased 8.5% and we have our personal property that went up about 1.3%. Now a quick note about assessments and taxes. People often think that their property value goes up, their taxes automatically go up. It's not always true. It's the town's budget that drives how much we need to raise in taxes. If the budget goes up, taxes usually go up, even if the property values go down. The assessments just determine how we defy the total tax bill among property owners. As part of tonight's hearing, the board will vote on what tax shift we'll use for FY2026.

If the town used a single rate, everyone across the board would pay $12.05. Last year, the board shows a factor of 1.75, which meant that even though commercial, industrial, and personal property make up 14% of the town's value, They paid 20.8 total towards the taxes. Finally, it's worth mentioning that Needham continues to have the lowest average single tax bill among contiguous towns such as Dover, Newton, and Wellesley. and FY 2025, the average tax bill for a single family home was $15,523, which was an increase from the year before. But as John just explained, it was mostly due to the wide revaluation that we went through. So if everybody has their packet, I would like to just highlight a few pages. And I have extra copies if anybody needs any.

And for people who are watching online, the packet is available online.

Yes, it is.

Thank you.

All right. So on page two, we have the historical The historical picks. So we're going to be choosing the residential factor today. Open space is on here and that is it's something that we hadn't had before. It is on the table today because we just happen to have a property that is open space. It was open space as of January 1st, 2025. So I have to put this on here. We have the residential exemption and that is It's supposed to be CPA exemption. I do apologize for that. But in the past, we have voted no for residential exemption. So no should be highlighted. We do offer the CPA exemption, which is the first $100,000. and then from there the rest would be valued at that CPA amount. So that's what that is.

So, sorry, the red indicates your recommendation?

No, the red indicates what was chosen in the past. So I do apologize for the

and on three yeah that was it was supposed to be the red should be indicated no no yes thank you

and number four small commercial exemption which has been voted no but we do offer our personal property exemption and that means that if you're a business owner for your personal property The first $5,000 in value is exempted. On page 4, I'd like to just talk about the new growth. So this just kind of explains over the years. One thing that stood out was the commercial new growth. You'll notice that it says 64,000. It has been a very busy year and not much going up in commercial. Children's Hospital does not count towards the new growth of commercial fit outs. maintenance does not count towards new growth and considering the staffing situation that the team went through and having to keep up with abatements

For the short amount of time that the team was able to go out and capture some of this new growth, I want to kind of pivot towards the residential. They did an excellent job capturing all of the new homes and that residential growth, which is what we need. So I do want to commend them for that.

Can I ask? Yes. Children's Hospital, for instance, that would qualify under personal property, whatever equipment is in there, right? No.

No? No. I just want to make sure that that's online. The answer is no. It's a tax-exempt organization. There have been previous conversations about Children's, and what that is is Children's has agreed that once it has opened to make a voluntary payment. and Texas to the town and that will begin once they officially open.

We'll share this one.

all right uh page eight please this is just pointing out the tax bills of contiguous towns and you could see um Dover's average bill last year was about 18,000, 18.5. We have Wellesley. which was at 19, 19.7. So we are still one, we have a great rate compared to our contiguous towns. Our beautiful town is great. So, all right. and then we have, did you have?

I had a question. Sure. Perhaps it's in here and I missed it. What is the average tax bill across these neighboring communities relative to the valuations?

It is above, did I? Right. If you look above, oh no, I'm sorry. Relative to value. Give me the tax rate. Like the actual, but this is for us. I don't know what the tax is.

Say a $1.5 million house in Dover versus Needham. What is their tax rate?

Oh, it's on the next page. Okay, now I understand your question. Sorry. I thought you wanted their own. Yes. So Dover's tax rate, they actually came out with their 2026 already. They have a single at 1119, but then you have Newton's Their tax bill, residential.

980 for 2025.

Yep.

They're at $980.

Yep, $980. And their split rate, they have $1,834 for the FY2025 for commercial.

And then Wellesley at $1,028. Also a single rate. Yes.

So Needham's lower than Dover, higher than Newton. Correct. It's in the middle, essentially.

Yes. Thank you. Well, the bigger continuous towns.

I still think the most important point probably is that the rate is really not the thing that people should focus on. It is the average.

tax yeah and also the shift dollar amount right right right um i believe i have put it in here i've been thinking if you know if the valuations in one town are higher than another town and the average is going to be higher but i'm thinking for for an average valued house or just pick a number a 1.5 million dollar house in two communities what is the tax that's

It's truly not comparable because the average single-family home in Newton is significantly more than the average single-family home in Needham. A home in Needham, if you just were able to pick it up and put it in Newton, would jump up in value. So the amount is the total tax levy divided by the total value comes up. determination. And as Schooley had mentioned, it's really what the average, that's the comparison. That's why the state publishes that information. That's the true measure where the metrics is the same across all communities. Okay, thank you.

On the next page it actually shows you what their Levy was and their percent of that their commercial applies towards it. Page 11. Yes, page 11. So you'll see like the single rate town, Dover, for example, single rate. They only have 2% commercial contributing.

and again Needham's in the middle.

Any question on that page before I move on? Okay. And now lastly, page 13. And this is just the potential change should you choose the different shifts. now this just shows you kind of what the change would be what the increase would be and i broke it down even more because a lot of people sometimes assume you know that total increase eleven hundred dollars oh my goodness that's every month this is over the course of four bills So I broke it down per quarter so that you just have an idea of how these shifts will affect the residents.

Thank you.

Can I ask a question here? I'm interested in this particular page and the potential of a shift. I think it's a really difficult time to do a shift. I changed the shift, I would say. But I wonder if you can talk a little bit more about the exception that you mentioned earlier the small commercial exception. The small commercial exception, sure. I guess I'm just interested in learning more about that, particularly You noted that we have exempted some personal property, which from a conversation earlier with Mr. Diener, I understand to be more or less for home offices and things like that. up to 5,000, but yes, yes.

And I'm wondering, is there something here that could, I guess I'm concerned and I know my colleagues are concerned, the potential for a tax burden increase for our small businesses when the Pollard override is potentially executed next year. And I'm just wondering, without a major change like a shift, Is this a tool that potentially could be used to alleviate some of that burden to our small businesses? Like our mom and pop shops is what I'm thinking about. necessarily are larger businesses.

Jump in for a second. Just say that. if we reduce a burden on one group, the rest of that burden doesn't go away. It gets shifted to everybody else. And I think that one of the things that I saw in January is that became full-on you know which you don't really see things unless they're sometimes right in front of you is that there are more people than we think that are in the middle class in this town that are living in one to two million dollar homes that are struggling. and that you know the economy is difficult and that the tax burden was a you know potential tipping point and I think that so as and I am a small business as well so I fully understand you know because I pay I'm a Newton based business and I paid the commercial rate and so I I get it. I just don't know what the answer is, though.

Right. Well, I guess what I'm asking for, understood that the tax burden is the tax burden, and this is about shifting it, not alleviating it entirely. But I guess I'm asking to better understand what tools are available for us. The shift itself seems like a pretty blunt question. and I'm wondering if there are smaller levers to pull that would make smaller changes and just making sure that I understand this as well as everyone else.

I don't think there are small, unfortunately, to help release, no, I don't think that there are other ways other than what we have in place now. In terms of the small exemptions for the small businesses, I don't think we have many businesses that would even qualify for that one. And by that, do you mind if I just defer to you on the small business exemption? That's what I might look at. But, yeah. Go ahead.

Okay.

The small business exemption, basically it's for commercial properties of less than a million dollars in value. Not many properties in Needham commercial below that that are very, you and many homes that are below that. And second, you have to have five or less employees so those businesses that you just granted a license to, you would increase their taxes even more in order to give a break to whatever businesses would have five or less employees.

Okay. All right. Madam Chair, just to add, I mean, this is tax policy at this hearing, but the other tool we have is fiscal policy. If we are concerned about the tax burden, another tool we have is to either lower spending or lower the rate of increase of spending.

Yes. I'm confining this to these tools and just making sure that we all understand that I understand what these tools can do. So thank you.

So yes, so did anybody have any other questions on the tax bill analysis? On the page beforehand, it kind of just gives you an overview shifts from 1.5 to 175, just so you have an idea of what that would look like. I did want to talk about a few things that we have to look forward to.

Can I ask one other question? Sure. So when you talked earlier about New Growth in the commercial space versus in the residential space. I wasn't sure at the end of that whether you were saying that you thought that the team there may be more commercial growth out there that they weren't able to accurately assess or whether we accurately assessed all the commercial growth as well. So I just wanted to check on that. I believe I understood that you felt that the job of assessing residential growth was quite thoroughly done by the team.

So primarily the assessor, the director of assessing would take over commercial. Hence why I don't feel like it was inaccurately assessed at all. Do I feel like all of them were? We got through a majority of our permits, a majority. We did not. We weren't unfortunately able to complete all of them, but we got through a majority. So for what they were able to do, that's amazing. But they did do it accurately. I want to just put that out there.

Okay, so I understood that. I just wasn't sure what it meant. So that means that you go into this next year sort of with a backlog maybe of some permits that didn't get this year because you were very busy after you finally got here in April, right? And then you'll be continuing to tick through permits as they come up next year as sort of be your practice. Yes. Okay. because it's not clear to me that that practice has always been so conscientiously covered in the town in the recent years.

It's not ideal, but I'm definitely, we're going to cover that backlog and we have a few projects coming up that'll help even more when you... Thank you.

May I ask another question? Yes. Maybe this is for Dave. So the 3.9% increase in valuation, how does that compare to our expectations in prior history?

Again, valuation in itself does nothing for generation of revenue or loss of revenue. That's just the determination of what percentage of the pie each individual assessed property would pay. The valuation is neutral in terms of revenue generation. That's not true across the country, but in Massachusetts, that is the law.

but Dave maybe what Josh is really asking about is how new growth compares this year the prior years because that does drive the increase on top of the on top of our plan, two and a half percent, you know, that's built into up to a half.

Yes. Page four. I show that the new growth compared to other years and it it You can see there's no line for the not really a huge line for the industrial and commercial. However, it shows the growth here on the gradual increase over the years.

So just to be clear, you're not forecasting commercial growth for 2026 in this chart?

No.

Can you talk a little bit about that?

when you what do you mean by I'm not uh I know it's not a forecast that's what's been this is what yeah so this is that there is no commercial portion in 2026. because it's so small you don't even see the line right yeah To the bottom.

Okay, because it went down.

Yes.

Okay.

Madam Chair.

Is there any cause for worry that there's so little commercial new girls? Absolutely not. No? Okay. It just tends to be maybe very lumpy? I think we've seen a big project in a given year and then in another given year not.

Is that how to think about it? I think we've also seen like a slowing pause let's say in commercial projects that haven't progressed.

where it wasn't like a hot market for commercial. It was pretty bad last year, too. We had $88 million.

That's because Children's Hospital was included in that. And Children's Hospital is exempt.

Oh, it was included.

Okay.

And that new growth was exempt. Yes. Okay. I thought it was left off of this entirely, but it's included.

I guess I would just make the comment that given all the turmoil from the reassessment earlier this year, I would be in favor of continuity. as much as possible predictability absolutely same same no excitement no change

I agree with that. The increase in new growth, so I don't see the percentages here. It looks to me that it's been slowing since 2023. Is that accurate?

yes yes it is it's it i shouldn't say that it's been slowing i mean they just really the it like you said it's been lumpy so we have a lot of years and this past year is a great year to say you know where there's a lot of teardowns but next year which is uh what i want to say we're looking forward to is there's going to be if you look at the assisted living home I'm still getting used to it. Yes, they're adding another floor. That completion is going to be huge. We're looking at about nine, I want to say, new homes that we got partial growth from last year that I know will be completed, as well as a few that are going up. So that's exciting. So all of that will help. So we will have some years where you don't see the growth as much as you want it to. However, we are nowhere near being anywhere near concerned. That's for sure.

can you explain quickly the open space discount you said there's a property that qualifies or is this like first time so it it's the first time that we've had any open space introduced um the way that the sale was it had to be classified we

All right, I'm done. Which one?

I'm sorry?

Who was it?

Can I? 770 Chestnut? Well, I know addresses, which is the thing about assessing rather than names. But it was a large sale. It was about nine acres, and it did go into another town. So the sale did not match the assessment whatsoever. And in order to do that, we did have to reclassify a little bit. And so that's why. However, in that sale, within that same timeframe, We assess as of 1-1-25. They've already started building, so it's no longer there.

Okay. All right. Thank you.

Yes.

That would be a reason not to have that category. Yes. Okay. Great.

Any more comments, questions?

Yeah, thank you to the Board of Sessions and everyone in your department. I understand this has been a hard year, and I appreciate all the hard work you did. So thank you, John. Thank you, Mike. It's been, it's appreciated.

Yeah, and I just want to clarify just to make sure that I'm being understood. I am interested in all of these things and understanding how the levers work. I am totally interested in boring, same same, no drama. So both things are true at the same time.

and we had plenty of drama.

It's not the most exciting stuff, but yes.

Can I ask one more question? to hopefully avoid the shock of future revaluations? Are you periodically reviewing certain parcels as you go every year?

As I'm going, I already have a game plan on targeting certain neighborhoods, just making sure, okay, are we all in line? Coming in these past six months, I've been here officially six months. 400 abatements and dealing with attorneys and whatnot. However, dealing with the residents as well, understanding was the main thing. And I think I said that when I first got here, that's what I wanted to kind of give to the community. And with that, I do feel as though that we're not going to see the same amount of abatements. And with the plan that I have in place, you won't see this sticker shock in five years. So I'm definitely going to be on it. And I have an awesome team that just needed a little bit of guidance on how we're going to do that. So no worries around there. Thank you. Great.

Great.

Okay.

I believe this is a healing as well.

yes it is so if there's anyone in the room who would like to make a public comment with regard to the tax classification please raise your hand Jean McKnight. There's a seat right over here. If you want to come on up, you can introduce yourself and share your address.

It's true, it's true.

All right. Thank you. As a member of the Large House Review Committee. Introduce yourself, Jean. Oh, excuse me. Jean McKnight. I live at 100 Rosemary Way in Needham. As a member of the Large House Review Committee, it's come to my attention that renovation of single-family homes and reconstruction of single-family homes can result in what's referred to as new growth. and this was particularly brought to our attention by our town clerk Louise Miller at both our second and third community meetings and I'm I haven't been asked to ask any questions or do any research by the Outlarge House Review Committee. I'm really doing this on my own. so that I'll understand this.

And it doesn't necessarily, of course, relate to the reclassification, but among the materials that have been provided, there's information about new growth. My question is, is there any report that the assessing department or the treasury department has produced that would sum up new growth resulting from renovation of single-family homes and separately new growth resulting from reconstruction of single-family homes over time, over a few years back. Is there any such report?

That's a report that definitely could be created. It would just take a little bit of time, but yeah, I would be able to create something like that.

I think it might be helpful to our considerations of fiscal impact.

but it would be fair to say that largely that matches that number of the residential I mean there are a couple stray houses that didn't exist in the past that are new but for the most part that number is in the report that we have here. I guess I'm not sure. that it's best to create another report. I think we can work with the information that we have available.

But I guess I understood the question differently. Maybe I'm wrong. That you're looking for the difference between wholesale teardown reconstruction versus addition

Yes, and I think it's been referred to both orally and I was kind of scrolling through things online that renovation can also of a single family home can also result in a new growth factor. And that's what I'm looking for is... to what extent renovation contributes to new growth and to what extent reconstruction, single-family reconstruction, contributes?

are you worried about proving, or what are you trying to, what is the question you're trying to answer?

I just want to understand generally the extent to which reconstruction, as it occurs now, contributes to new growth. And if there were less reconstruction or if the reconstructed houses were somewhat smaller and might be somewhat less valuable, to what extent does that change affect? I think this was the point that Louise Miller was trying to make and I just wanted to perhaps understand.

I think that a lot of the data analysis that the large house committee has done shows precisely that. Sorry, the slide that was shown in the public forum last week had a a slide that kept building on itself to show what the cost of the house was when it was purchased by the developer or sold by the homeowner and then what the what the cost of the build would be and then what the profit margin was and what the amount that the developer would reduce their initial offer to the homeowner by. Remember that slide where it was?

Yes.

and I think all of that goes to the amount above the sale price that is the new sale price, that is what constitutes new growth in those teardown situations. So I think that actually a lot of what you're looking for is probably in that data, maybe less so Renovation, but I do think that there's some information in there as well.

Okay, well... look at that again, of course. I just want to make sure we have the data to address that question that was asked at our community meeting.

Yeah, because I do think that certainly that's a point that I know Marianne has called out in the meetings and in the public forum to say that this will have an impact on the town's new growth. have the ability to generate new growth should these regulations pass or whatever.

Okay. all right then I guess we'll leave it at that and I just wanted to understand the the issue better and I appreciate it is a good point because I've heard this before people wonder what's the teetering point between

When we do a knockdown, would something encourage more knockdowns or encourage more renovation? And it's like, well, you might miss a knockdown, but you'll still get more growth if they renovate. So it's just teasing it out. Interesting point.

Thanks, Jean.

OK, thank you.

Did you have more to share with us? I had sent over large data now that I had a different perspective of the question, but you spoke on that. I sent a huge file over on that. on the differences between... To the large house committee.

Yes. Got it.

Once I understood. And I just wanted to point out that we have nine new houses and there's like a count here that kind of tells you the differences between and in terms of renovations what qualifies as like new growth and renovation maintenance just doing your windows no roof no that's maintenance but if you did over 60% of your home rule of thumb Renovation, you know, major addition.

Did you have another question?

uh yes more comments so about new growth and i guess dave please correct me if i'm wrong we we proposition two and a half allows us to raise spending by two and a half percent per year new growth allows us to raise it buy that much more beyond 2.5%.

The new growth revenue is adding value that didn't exist before. in the taxes that that generates is what additional taxes the community can raise.

Exactly. So to the extent that new growth is diminished, that necessarily limits the amount of spending we can do unless we go to an override, for instance.

Yeah, that's correct. Yep. There is someone online who wishes to speak. Thank you, Carol. Okay.

Hi, Joe. If you can unmute yourself and introduce yourself and just state your address before you speak.

Sure. I'm Joe Abruzzi. My address is 30 Bridal Trail Road. Just a quick question on the other side of this. We talked about abatements and exemptions. When an abatement is granted or an exemption is granted, does that, just for my own education and maybe others who are listening, does that reduce the total tax revenue for that year, or is that then spread across all the remaining taxpayers? You can just clarify that for those two categories.

An abatement or an exemption, that's a reduction in tax revenue that's generated. That is why another term that you'll hear referenced from time to time is provisions for abatements and exemptions. That's an amount... In the private sector, they may consider that an allowance for doubtful accounts, monies that you don't, that you bill, but do not anticipate collecting. And that's a provision that every community needs to do and Needham does as well. So yes, it's a reduction in actual tax dollars collected. Going a little further on the gentleman's question, I think he was thinking something like valuation.

that if a property is taxable and then stops being taxable, becomes a tax exempt parcel, that is when the taxes end up being shared by everybody else. and that's the situation. That's not a abatement or exemption, but that's actually taking taxable value off the tax rolls.

Okay. And Dave, historically, how frequently does that happen? Is that a very rare case?

It is infrequent. The most recent notable example would have been Children's, and that's exactly why Community negotiates to have a pilot because Children's did need a change to the zoning in order to build that. and one of the concerns was that they were taking valuable taxable property off the tax rolls and that's how Children's agreed to make a pilot payment comparable to that which the site would have generated in taxes for a commercial office space.

Great. Okay. Thank you.

Any other raised hands online?

Anybody else in the room?

Hello, my name is Elizabeth Caponia. I'm at 27 Highland Terrace at Needham Heights. and a town meeting member, and I've been asked to come here and express myself. Last week was very busy for me because I attended the tree preservation committee. I recognize the faces. and also the large house review. So I learned an awful lot. And it seems that from what the large House committee wants to do is to minimize the amount of teardowns. That's its goal. That's what my notes was. and the Tree Preservation Committee wants to make sure that there is more permeable soil that absorbs the water and prevents this excessive runoff.

and that's why they don't want the clear cutting. So, but now it seems with this amount of new taxation, we're working at cross purposes. because precisely the people that own the smaller homes, they say like around 1,750 square feet in that value or a million dollars, they are the ones that are most likely going towards teardowns. So if we want to minimize the amount of teardowns, we have to offer some kind of incentives for people, be it some kind of an abatement for if they have large trees on their property, if they have more open surfaces that absorb the water, things that help the town ultimately. because if a person is a more modest means or they're renting out the house, there's a limit to how much they can charge for rent or also a limit to how much modest means, let's say retirement age, There's a limit to how much money you have available.

And if it all gets chewed up with taxes, the money isn't there to take care of your house. and then it goes downhill and then you have to be faced with a decision which very often, because they come knocking on your door all the time, the developers. and then it becomes a tear down. So that's why I was hoping that we could avoid this over taxation because people have complained. It's come to me, the complaints. and so that way we can avoid, as John said, the tipping point towards teardowns. So that's my thoughts. We've got to maybe balance this whole situation a little bit. Okay, thank you very much.

Thank you, Les.

Could I ask for a brief explanation of the overlay, given the previous question about how the overlay set, things like that?

the overlay is that we usually look at it Custody to it being there. The overlay is usually estimated to be about 1.5% a year, but once we get to the tax rate setting process, we're able to fine tune it. The actual final number is determined by the Department of Revenue when the town submits its tax recap, which is inclusive of the Select Board classification. but it's generally been about between 1.3 to 1.8 for the last several years. and I use that average in terms of when I develop the revenue estimates every fiscal year as I look at our average and make that assumption that that's To begin the process, what would be the overlay?

But as I said, it is set finally by the Department of Revenue.

And that's a percent of the levy, right?

A percent of the levy.

And that.

The tax levy. Exactly. Not value.

That's added to the.

It's not added to it. It still has to fall within prop two and a half. That our community doesn't get any more money because of overlay.

and any abatements come out of that overlay are funded?

Yes, all abatements and exemptions are covered by that. And if there's a determined that there's an amount that's no longer needed, that's what becomes overlay surplus. that's available for one fiscal year to appropriate. And as you know, from time to time we have that as a funding source when we go to town meeting.

Thank you.

Any other questions, thoughts?

Come on up.

How you doing? John Nogosian. South Street, Needham, Mass. And I'd just like to say I'm surprised you didn't get any information from the building inspector for how many teardowns are happening now versus before. and he'd be able to tell you that it seems pretty stagnant compared to 10 years ago. large house review committees doing an excellent job in making it very very complicated okay and harder because you don't see anything there's nothing like 10 years ago. They're really slowing it down. But most of all, I'm here to talk about the commercial rate, okay? As in the past,

The commercial rate, the assessment was double, but the assessment, I mean, the tax rate was double. The assessments were reasonable. and that changed this year. The first industrial park in the nation is more housing now than it is commercial. I'm just saying what I see. Needham's turning into a transient town. People move here to put their kids into the school system because God knows what it costs for each student. The select board should know that. and as soon as that youngest kid, they live in a $3 million house, pay $38,000 taxes. Nobody studied. The tax is in this town more than me. I could go head to head with everyone here. Even Julie, she's been here for six months or whatever.

I could go head to head. You can even give her John. Nobody's gone and studied it more than me. Country way, the taxes on those houses have gone down. Okay, but the little people houses have gone up. The commercial rate has gone crazy, okay, with the assessments. We're losing businesses. They have a policeman walking around downtown giving tickets. There's no problem getting a parking spot, okay? There isn't much that's changed in Needham for a long time, okay? I could tell you what's changed, okay? When you go to Wellesley, how vibrant it is. It's one of the best top 10 downtowns in the state of Massachusetts. Right next door to us. Okay, it's beautiful. Needham's not. The taxes are too crazy. Staples.

$450,000 taxes a year. Staples and Petco. I've studied it. Julie can probably back this up. Go look now. It got dropped to 360. There must have been abatement of $100,000. Okay, still, that's crazy. $360,000? How long do you think Staples is going to be there? Look at the businesses closing down on Chestnut Street that have been staples in the town of Needham for 50 years. I'm not going to say names, okay? Everyone drives down there. I see select board members in Wellesley eating dinner. Not naming names, they know who they are. Needham's stagnant. There has to be a fire for something to change in Needham. Something has to burn down so they can build something new, okay? It's too bad.

No one's coming here with the tax rate the way it is, okay? the burden was put this past year was put on to the commercial businesses and that's not fair okay it's not fair I'll take any questions from anybody on the board little role reversal here if anyone has anything they want to ask me feel free thank you thank you thank you thank you and if anyone wants to contact me feel free

Thank you.

Just to be clear for folks who are watching, I think that your comments about an increase in the commercial taxes refers to the change in the assessment versus a change in our tax rate, because there has been no change in our tax rate. So it is absolutely true that many of the assessments changed and there was a tax implication for that. It wasn't the tax rate.

I think the tax rate did change. So on page nine. It went down.

Well, it goes down when the aggregate assessment goes up. It goes up and down according to the total population. But we didn't change the shift. yeah so just to be clear it wasn't like it was an organic factor but that said it does bring up and I think you you have already spoken to it but since it was just brought up again I think one of the things that was surprising last year was the the change in assessments, but particularly those for the commercial sector. So we know that we've done a fabulous job in the residential sector you've talked about having some safeguards so that the increases aren't as surprising. increases happen as our land value goes up.

So maybe talking a little bit about that would be helpful. Sure.

For commercial, as I mentioned during the beginning, it did decrease a and a half percent. That's just something that needs to be looked at again. And that's part of my projects. I'll be looking at neighborhoods. I'll be looking at more commercial. We have over we have a lot of commercial properties to just review and I just want to make sure that the tables are corrected. So with the reval, yes, you know, commercial was hit hard. So now it's just time for me to fine tune and just make sure that we're taking in all considerations because this was an overall reval. Some commercials, yes, they had vacancies. Some commercials had more expenses than others because of the type of Business that they are. So that's something I'll be able to fine-tune in the upcoming years.

And let me also add to that that the way we value commercial property is different than the way we value residential. I think that's something that isn't as well understood. According to the Department of Revenue, we are required to do the income and expense approach. So we require, we request, and then we require income and expense reports from the property owners in Needham. and what we've seen is that yes as if rents are stagnant if the economy is driving a dynamic where there are vacancies then the valuations could theoretically decrease yet what we're also seeing is that the sale of commercial properties the values has gone way up and so it's a real, it's a much different way, it's a much more complex dynamic to deal with commercial.

Residential, there are a robust number of sales on an annual basis. which gives us the ability to more fairly and accurately value residential property because you have the ability to have comps or multiple comps to property. The market is more dynamic in that regard, whereas commercial, there aren't as many properties, there aren't as many properties sold, and it's more difficult to find actual comps. within the range of commercial properties. When we think around Needham, and I know we're all right now thinking, think about all the different shapes and sizes and properties, but then you boil it down to what income are the businesses receiving? and what are the expenses that they're showing. And we also go deeper sometimes when the income that's reported may not be

We have concerns or questions about the accuracy or what the real rental values are, and we will request leases as backup support. to further determine and verify and support the incomes that are being reported so we're able to really key in and we're starting this a lot of work that's involved the residential is more straightforward so a lot of moving parts and that's why we have far more abatement applications and ATB filings for the commercial. But we also have felt the need and the desire to, as business property owners reach out to us, We want to meet with them. We want to talk with them. We want to get additional information that they have because the market, the economy has changed and we understand. And Heidi, when you talk about the dynamics of looking at our businesses and especially the small business in town, I agree with you.

It's a difficult dynamic right now because small businesses are struggling. and taxes are many of the small businesses pay triple net costs so they are paying the real estate taxes. So we're hearing from some small businesses that I can't afford these taxes or they went up a lot. and so it's of concern to us very much and we're trying to go through and apply the fair and equitable standard in all of the work that we're doing. but it's not as the same as residential, different.

Thank you. Any other public comment either in the room or online?

Good evening. Just remember to introduce yourself and tell us where you live.

My name is John Washak. I live at 132 Forest Street. I'm an owner of multiple properties in Needham, a lot of them rental properties where I rent to different tenants. and I have a commercial puppy in Needham. And I've never had, I used to in the past deal with Chip Davis who was the assessor two assessors ago. met with Julie a couple times and had pleasant discussions with Julie and John and the rest of the board this year regarding my properties and we've reviewed my properties and and so forth. And so I still have concerns. And the first concern is that the taxes that are assessed to all property owners is to support the budget for the town, right? So the first approach would be, I would ask is, has anyone looked at the budget to see where we can make budget cuts to reduce the taxes and then use whatever available tax money for new projects such as the Pollard School, which I understand is up to $390 million.

I don't know if that's the correct number or not. or 380 million. So that's a cost that's coming up. So that's the first thing I would recommend that review the budget. because the tax rate is based on that. Then the next point, as John mentioned, which I was going to mention as well, is that when you increase the commercial tax rate, Most of those, all those tenants have triple net leases. So they just, the landlord, if I'm the landlord, I own a commercial property. Mine are not triple net leases. It's a small office building. So I can't have a trip in the lease. I can't pass the taxes on to the tenant. But the other landlords, the larger landlords... like downtown landlords, they can pass it on to tenants. So now by doing that, you know, if you look at the building where Chromosomic TV is downtown, that's owned by Mr. Graymont who lives in New Hampshire and he owns the building. I looked at his property value, you doubled, I think it was doubled his taxes, commercial rate.

So I look at, if I'm Mr. Chromosomic TV down there, trying to survive, competing with Best Buy and Costco and, you know, anyone else that sells TVs. I mean, how is he going to pay those taxes? He's going to be out of business. That's why you're going to have an empty storefront there. You have an empty storefront where Rice Barn was. You have empty storefronts growing in Needham. I've lived here since the 1960s, so I'm a long-term resident. My parents owned property since the 1950s here, when they were alive. So now we go to, that's the commercial aspect. Now look at my residential ones. Most of my residential rentals, small apartments. They're one bedroom apartments. I rent to young people or I rent to old people. That's the demographics. It's usually young people that are just starting out in the town. They want to stay in the town. So I rent to them. I try to keep my rents reasonable. But when you increase my rents to the point they are, The money has to come from somewhere, so I have to raise the rents. So do I like raising rents? No.

Do the people like me raising rents? No. So what do they do? I've had some tenants where they can't afford to live in Eden, they move to Norwood. I have a property in Norwood I rent also. Norwood is a different type demographic, different type tax base too. And they also have other advantages than Norwood. They own their own electric company. So that keeps the taxes lower and also keeps the people from, you know, it's another expense. So that's Norwood, but that's separate. Right now we're talking about Needham. So for those small buildings that I own, some of them are on small plots of land. So if I was to sell it, a builder's not going to buy it because he can't build a nice big McMansion on it. Thank you. So you're changing the demographics of the town because you're forcing out all those lower income or lower paying rents. Most of the people, you know, all my tenants, I consider them good tenants and they want to stay in the town. They want to be able to afford the town. So you're forcing me as a landlord to raise the rents or sell the property. And like I said, a builder on some of the properties, he's not going to buy it.

So what's my option? Then I looked at, if you look at the property cards, there's another factor that people don't know about. I don't know if the board knows this. If you look at your property card in Needham, there's two amounts, two assessments. You have the land value, you have the building value. So I had some of my properties where the building value increased a couple hundred thousand last year. So I had no permits. I've done no improvements. The building? Nothing. So what caused my building value to increase $200,000 last year? I asked the assessors. They said, well, it's based on the replacement cost. I say, okay, so you're assessing me on the replacement cost to build something brand new there to today's assessment value when that building's 300 years old. So that's true throughout the town. So that should be investigated whether that even should be fair. I mean, how can you assess me on a building value and increase my building value for the replacement value when it's not worth that because it's 300 years old.

If you look at it today, the building's 300 years old. It hasn't changed since last year. It's not going to change until next year. So that's one fact. That's the building value. Then I looked at the land value on my properties. I had some properties where I looked at my neighbor's property. I'm being assessed at the square footage. You can look at your square footage for your plot. My cost per square foot on some properties was $86 a square foot. My neighbors across the street was $60-something. Down the street was like $50-something. It was all over the place. So there's no rhyme or reason as to how... And then it's also based on the classification of the neighborhood. Country Way is... this fellow back here mentioned, Country Way is a different neighborhood than where some of my properties are. It has a different classification. So that's another assessment. where they adjust the rate based on the neighborhood, how it's classified.

Obviously, country ways are more expensive areas, so it demands a different classification versus something that's on the denim line or whatever. So that's another factor. And then there's also adjustments. Some people have adjustments. There's one property, my neighbor, where his house is set back further than mine from the street, so he has an adjustment factor. But it's right next to mine. I can touch it from my back porch. So... The point they're trying to make is there's a lot of variables involved in this tax discussion, and a lot of it should be looked at more closely to make sure it's more detailed and more factually administered throughout the town. because it has great ramifications. One last point I'd like to make is I think this fellow back here mentioned was that As you add apartments to the town, you're adding children to the school system. I was told by someone it's $97,000 per student now. Is that the right value?

What's the value then?

It's closer to $15,000.

$15,000 per student.

And that's like an estimate. I don't have that information on hand, but it's considerably lower.

So whatever the value is. So you evaluate all the apartments you put down in the industrial park. You have Muzzy Ford, that developer I guess was going to do commercial, now he's going to residential. So you have apartments being added there. You have apartments being added at AV across from Trader Joe's soon. You can have apartments with the MBTA zoning that was voted in.

It's a complicated process.

We hear you. There's a lot of apartments that you're adding that potentially could add more students to the school system, which is then going to further burden the tax rate. Those are my concerns as a resident.

We appreciate you sharing them. Thank you.

Quickly.

Yes.

Can you explain the replacement value?

We use Tyler, which is IAS. This is our CAMA system on how we do valuation.

Just talk more about what you're What definition are you giving it? Replacement. He was asking about replacement of homes.

Yes. So the approach that was used this past year due to the revaluation was the cost approach. So we use Marshall and Swift, which is a valuation, but basically the cost of replacing certain items with the depreciation included. and by depreciation, if it's a 300-year-old item, that's how much it is. And by item, I'm using that very loosely because we know the cost of wood last year is not the same as this year. that's part of how we use the cost approach that valuation on how we came up with numbers. So that's the simplest way for me to say the replacement. We use Marshall and Swift, which is where we get our numbers from. Marshall and Swift. So it's like an industry standard? Yes. It's a valuation book that has literally a list of every single item. And that is factored into our CAMA system. We use different tables. Yes, neighborhoods are taken into consideration.

How old your home is is taken into consideration. Any permits taken out. Your home could be 300, but you did a remodel 10 years ago. everything is taken into consideration. And that's the approach that we used last year for residential. So that's where that cost replacement came from. We also and I just want to clarify, we did use that approach as well. And it was once again, from the state towards commercial. So hence why commercial went down. After reviewing and we see our values are somewhat where they need to be and me doing more of Fine tuning in on commercial, I was able to say, hey, you know what, let's try this approach for 26. And I went back to income and expense. And that's why we were able to see a decrease by just adjusting our approach on that.

I thought that building values were established based upon sale prices rather than... Hand in hand.

Hand in hand. But...

but residential is valued predominantly through comp sales. However, in the case of Mr. Warshak, he has rental properties. Rental properties, there are very few data points. So therefore, that's when we go to Marshall and Swift to create the building value. based upon the factors that Julie was referencing. So, no, the Marshall and Swift isn't used predominantly for residential valuation, but it is in the case of rental Residential, because we just don't have the same data points.

Thank you.

I mean, I see that as a point of, like, insurance. You would insure for a replacement value. But I... Okay, I'm not fully understanding that. Or residential rates, buying a replacement value.

We use market and cost approach. When we say replace, there's there's reconstruction and there's replacement so replacement where I wish I could like pull out a Marshall and Swift book so that I could better explain this but there's a confluence of factors that go into the system so when I'm saying the cost approach how much would it cost to essentially build that same exact thing, not to replace it with a newer version of your home, but this same exact home. And Marshall & Swift helps with the depreciation, which is part of our tables. So I'm able to, do the calculations behind the scene on how I come up with my value.

OK.

if that made any sense assessing so hard to kind of explain what is clear here is that this is a very complicated multi-factor yes yeah

Go ahead. So I was going to say assessing is complicated. It is very rules-based. I would think that if the board would like to spend more time on this that maybe there's another time when it might get added to the agenda with some specific questions from people but in the interest of sort of moving our agenda along I might suggest that we kind of move our agenda along because we have lots of people who have been waiting for quite a while. This is a very important topic, but I am conscious that it is a very rules-based

Yes, agreed. I know that this is a topic that is very close to the heart for a lot of people. these days so I I don't I haven't wanted to cut off discussion and wanted people to be able to explore this but it is true that this is a very complicated subject and it's not something that we're going to be able to and I will explore fully tonight. So your point is well taken and it is really time for us to move on.

Let me just make one last comment. Everything we do is guided and governed by the Department of Revenue. and so everything so everything that you see here has been certified by the Department of Revenue we you know and but it is you know when we're going through the valuation process yes there there is discretion that the board uses but it's always always fair and equitable is forefront in our mind so and you know I've spent many an hour talking with people I know Mike has as well especially in the past year. So always happy to meet with people, talk with people, explain, and be more than happy to come back if invited.

So Madam Chair, I would be willing to make a motion. Thank you. I move that the Select Board establish a residential factor of 0.8988 for the purposes of setting the fiscal year 2026 tax rates. That factor comes from page 12 in our packet, if you're wondering where it's from.

It's a shift, page 12.

Waiting for the 1.75. Do we have a second? Second.

And that, I'm sorry.

That incorporates the .75 shift. Exactly. Thank you. Right at the bottom.

Thank you. My colleagues, is there any more discussion before we vote?

All those in favor?

Aye. Any opposed? Okay, the motion passes.

Do we need a vote to maintain the 1.75 shift?

No, that's incorporated in the factors.

Incorporated into, that's okay.

Thank you very much to all five of you. I know that this has been an extraordinary amount of work. And on top of that, just a really challenging year, as you went into in some detail. So I really just want to say thank you for all of your effort, not only in doing the work, but also explaining the work and helping the folks who really had to struggle with it to understand. Deal. Thank you. Thank you.

Thank you very much. Thank you.

Okay, oh yeah. Thanks, Julie.

All right. So the next item on our agenda is the open meeting law complaint filed by Carol Roskam. on November 12th, 2025. And I just want to say we did actually make an effort to move this up in the agenda so that folks wouldn't have to wait through so much meeting but unfortunately things take as long as they take and people have questions on prior items so thank you for your patience everyone and especially you welcome Chris Heap Town Council to explain what's going on here

Thank you very much. Thank you. So as you noted, on November 12th, the Select Board received a new open meeting law complaint. It was filed by Carol Roskam. of the Stephen Palmer Building. The complaint concerns the recent agreements entered into with respect to the Stephen Palmer Building and specifically takes exception to the manner in which the decision was reached to provide a $10,000 relocation benefit to the tenants of the Stephen Palmer building. and the degree to which that relocation benefit was described at town meeting as being tied to the agreement that the board entered into with Stephen Palmer Associates. I've reviewed the complaint and I don't believe it discloses a violation of the open meeting law. The topic of the tenant relocation benefit, was closely linked to the agreement with Stephen Palmer Associates. And I believe that all of the discussion of those topics was held appropriately.

I think it's also important to note that the entire agreement both the payments made to Stephen Palmer to be made to Stephen Palmer associates and the tenant relocation benefit were discussed in detail in the open session at the Select Board's October 14th meeting before the agreement with Stephen Palmer Associates was voted and signed. So for those reasons, I don't believe that the complaint discloses a violation of the open meeting law. And as the board is aware, when you receive a complaint of this type, the board must meet to discuss it. and provide a written response within 14 business days. So consistent with the board's prior practice, my suggestion would be that the board vote to authorize me to provide a written response on your behalf to the complainant.

Thank you. Questions, comments, thoughts?

Some questions. So when I met with the town manager before the very first executive session on this, the town manager told me, I believe it was a relay of your advice. I just wanted to confirm that. We were not allowed to discuss tenant benefits in that executive session because it wasn't it's not one of the ten enumerated reasons for an executive session. Is that correct?

That is correct. And that I believe that's true in the abstract. I would have said, you know, we couldn't talk about just tenant relocation benefits. but given the way the negotiation of the agreement with Stephen Palmer Associates unfolded, the topic of tenant benefits became so closely linked to that agreement and to the extent that there was no agreement to be had, I don't believe, without some provision for tenant relocation benefits. So what I'd say in response to that is that that would have been my position before negotiations really began in earnest with Stephen Palmer Associates. But once the negotiations began, it became clear that the two topics were so closely linked that they were both part of the ultimate agreement that was reached.

I guess I don't remember that change or I didn't hear that there was a change in interpretation.

There was a moment in the negotiation specifically where that it became very much a part of the agreement that was being negotiated with Stephen Palmer Associates.

But it wasn't in the agreement itself.

No, it was not. was not included in the written agreement with Stephen Palmer Associates, but I think it is fair to say that it was an integral component of the agreement with Stephen Palmer Associates and the negotiations wouldn't have proceeded to an agreement absent some resolution on tenant benefits, relocation benefits to be paid to the tenants.

and then second question is your point about the discussion on October 14th. I recall the discussion only being about the agreement with Stephen Palmer that did not include those tenant benefits. I don't recall a discussion about the benefits itself during that meeting.

thought I had gone back and looked and confirmed that there was discussion of the benefits. I can do that again.

Sorry, which meeting? October 14th, the public meeting.

Oh, no. We definitely did. Because you were going to talk to town meeting about it. Yeah, and the... The discussion with Stephen Palmer, was that the next day? Or it was just prior, right?

the materials for the open session including a memo outlined the agreement but also the tenant benefit and the detail of what would be going to town meeting versus reserve fund transfer for finance committee so It was all part of the same agenda item.

Right. But there are parameters of that that still are undecided. So for instance, I don't know if a tenant would be eligible for the benefit if they stayed beyond the October 31st, 2026 lease. We never discussed that, for instance. Thanks for watching!

yeah I mean I don't know that it was inclusive of every detail but it was yeah I can't say part of the level of detail that it was discussed but it was just it was aired during the open session of the of the October 14th meeting

Did you say for somebody beyond October 31st?

For instance, like, I don't know. We never discussed that. We never set parameters. We never set parameters around the $10,000. And when are they eligible for reimbursement? Like, you know, at what dates?

Well, we offer that to people who are gone by October 31st.

we did not know we'd never said at what date they would be eligible to receive it and then on top of that we'd never established a date for eligibility for reimbursement like do they have to submit reimbursements by that date or after that date there were many things that we never discussed

I guess I don't see that. I mean, there's a lot of topics within that topic. And the question is whether what we discussed was appropriate, not whether we've left anything out. I mean, I think these are important points that you're mentioning. I think that we did discuss some of them. I have a different recollection than you. But I think for the purpose of this agenda item, I'm not sure that what we didn't discuss is as relevant as what we did discuss.

I think for immediate purposes, the question is whether what was discussed and how it was discussed is consistent with the open meeting law. And I'm prepared to prepare a response that it was.

And if we blew it and didn't bring things up, that maybe doesn't qualify.

the open meeting law does not govern just the decisions that actually get made or the level of detail in which they have to be written out or discussed in an open meeting you know the open meeting law only provides notice only requires notice and of of matter on the agenda and you know keeping a minutes but I think Josh's questions about the administration of the tenant relocation benefit well how the tenant relocation benefit is going to be administered going forward are separate and apart to my mind from the complaints that have been leveled in the complaint that was filed recently.

The other part of the complaint in the administration was the claim that if the agreements were not passed by town meeting that the 10,000 benefit would go away. That was never discussed by the Select Board in open session.

To me, that component of the complaint is, well, I guess it's my understanding that the $10,000 relocation benefit was only going to become available if, well, backing up, absent an agreement with Stephen Palmer Associates. Stephen Palmer Associates had every right to fill any unit that became vacant up until the point that the building reverted back to the town. therefore there needed to be an agreement with Stephen Palmer Associates that they wouldn't take advantage of that right if a unit became vacant in order for the town to make that payment to a tenant stated differently in order to make a $10,000 relocation payment to a tenant, the town needed to understand that that unit wouldn't immediately become occupied by a new tenant prior to the building or burning back to the town in May, 2027.

In order to have that level of that assurance, the town needed an agreement with Stephen Palmer Associates. In order to have an agreement with Stephen Palmer Associates, the town needed to be able to pay Stephen Palmer Associates to keep those units vacant. So that's, in my opinion, why The payment of the $10,000 tenant relocation benefit was necessarily contingent upon the appropriation passing a town meeting.

but that's where the details of the implementation in my opinion matter because we could have determined that people are eligible for the $10,000 who are residents as of a certain date. and if Steven Palmer for whatever reason filled the unit after that date, that person that fills, that occupies the unit after that date is not eligible. We never had that discussion. So the details of that agreement that led to your conclusion that they were inextricably linked were just never discussed.

I don't know that they needed to be discussed in order to accomplish the goals that we attempted to solve for in the agreement with Stephen Palmer Associates, which was to produce a scenario in which a unit that became vacant would remain vacant when the building were reverted back to the town in May of 2027.

I guess I'm thinking about the tenant benefits specifically and how how those are related but I think I've made my points Madam Chair I guess I would just say if you as town council

feel satisfied that we have not violated the open meeting law, then I feel satisfied that we have not violated the open meeting law.

Miriam, anything? I concur. Kevin? Kevin?

Yeah, I agree. I'd like to see what you write.

In that case, why don't you suggest a motion?

I move that the board authorize town council to prepare and submit a response to the open meeting law complaint.

second so i'm also interested in seeing the response i noticed with the timing we have 14 days and since we happen to be meeting next week that's within the 14 days could we ask town council to prepare it and review it so that we we vote on the submission next week

I can attempt to have a draft for review next Tuesday. I don't know that I can promise it. I'm actually out of the office for the rest of the week and if there were disagreements or major substantive comments about the draft, the response is due on Wednesday so I think there's a there's a time crunch I can outline for you now what the response will In broad strokes, what the response will say.

We don't typically vote on responses. We vote to allow town council to respond. We review the response, but we don't typically vote on it.

Well, our vote is telling town council what we want included in the response.

I guess I disagree with that. I'm telling you what I think the appropriate legal response to the complaint is and what arguments I'm comfortable putting to paper and, you know, signing. my name too, in defense of the complaint. So I guess I'm always happy for feedback, but I'm not inviting input into the arguments from the board.

Are we the clients?

you are the clients.

So then we should have input, right?

The motion before the board just is to authorize to submit this response on your behalf. So I think the question before the board is, are you comfortable having him do that or not?

Right, I mean, this is a suggested motion, so we can make... We're not restricted to this motion.

There was a motion on the floor. Yes, we've seconded it.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, I understand.

I will say I feel comfortable. I... I'm not a lawyer and I feel very strongly that when we have staff or town council contractors who are qualified to do a job, we need to trust them to do that job. In this case, the town council is quite familiar with the scenario, and I would prefer his counsel to the opinions of the board, frankly, because we're not lawyers.

I would actually venture to say the opinions of the board are not relevant. I mean, town council has an understanding of the open meeting law and what the complaint is and what we need to do. We do not. our views are not actually relevant.

I disagree. But I mean, I think as as the clients like we could choose to submit the response ourselves. I mean, I would never support that. I'm saying we are the client and we can choose what we want our response to be. But in any event, you offered to outline the broad brushstrokes. Would you be willing to do that?

I thought I had, and that is that the discussions about the topic of the agreement generally and tenant relocation benefits were held appropriately throughout the topic was discussed in detail in open session on October 14th and in addition to publish you know documents in the meeting packet two-time meeting um so i because everything was done appropriately in my opinion um and i would uh The letter would read consistent with that with some additional case law supports thrown in.

Thank you.

if there's no other discussion uh let's take a vote on the motion on the floor so all those in favor aye those against nay The motion passes. Thank you. okay uh it's time for an application of change for manager for an all-alcohol restaurant license for the lieutenant manson carter vfw post for uh 2498. Hi, Mr. Green. Hello. Come on in. Have a seat. Nice to meet you.

Good to meet you.

You are the proposed manager of record. Can you tell us what the change is that you're looking for?

Just changing from our current manager, Charlie Keith, who's kind of aged out of position. He's 98 and looking to... Wow. He's in his 90s. I'll go with 98.

92. Thank you for agreeing to step up. We don't hold you to staying in the role for that long.

I hope not. God.

I see from the summary here that the review indicates that you meet the requirements to serve as the manager of this facility. So does anyone have any questions or thoughts that they'd like to share? No.

OK.

All right. Well, in that case, I would entertain a motion.

Madam Chair, I move that the select board as local licensing authority approve and sign an application for a change of manager. for Lieutenant Manson Carter, VFW Post 2498 20 Junction Street and to forward this application to the ABCC for approval.

Do we have a second? Second. you are single-handedly bringing us back on time.

Happy to do it.

So I do have a question just because I'm answering.

Here we go.

The Post is occasionally rented out, right? Yes, it is. And when you do that, the Post serves alcoholic beverages.

Yes, if asked for.

And it could be that there would be underage people. people attending a gathering there at a time when alcoholic beverages are being served. Talk about the provisions that you have in place for ID checking.

So we do card everyone. We also have an app on each bartender's phone to scan the barcode to make sure it's valid.

Well done. You just passed. You know what? You passed. It's good. And everybody checks that. Yes. I hope. Okay.

We try. I'd like to get like a standalone unit, but they're rather expensive. Yeah. But we try to just do the nap on their phone.

Thank you. Excellent. Excellent. No further questions. There's a motion on the floor. All those in favor?

Aye. Aye. Thank you very much.

All right. Thank you. Thank you.

Good luck. Madam Chair, I'd like to move the consent agenda and appointment.

That is fine, but there is one item that we're going to, I think it was pulled in the final, was it? There was a final agenda.

I didn't see the final one come out. So is, well, I didn't see it.

Let me jump to it. Well, is it number six?

Yeah.

So the removal of number six on the consent agenda.

so the original if the updated one has it removed already no we're gonna remove it so yeah you can take it off consent let's do that we're gonna um pass the consent without item number six. As amended. Move to discussion later instead. Is there a second?

Second. Okay. All those in favor? Sorry. Just wanted to comment on number five. My understanding is the town clerk was looking at the I don't know if there needs to be any change, but.

We are reviewing the comparables and don't have a recommendation yet, but I have the election in mind. Thank you.

Yep. Okay. So the consent agenda without number six Seconded. All those in favor? Aye. Excellent. OK. The next thing on our agenda is the signed notice of traffic regulation for Denham Ave. Karis Lustig, DPW director, welcome.

Thank you, Madam Chair. I'm here today on behalf of DPW and the Transportation Safety Committee. There have been several recommendations to be made on Dedham Avenue all of which have been completed except for this one. In the last two years we have made some significant improvements and upgrades to the street including adding a full-size sidewalk underneath the MBTA bridge. Prior to that we had a barely two and a half foot sidewalk that did not carry pedestrians, anyone with any mobility needs nor our sidewalk tractors that all go down Dedham Avenue. And we were able to accommodate a full width sidewalk as well as maintain traffic in both directions. We also were able to put some traffic calming features into that corridor, including painted

Thank you for joining us. Thank you for joining us. we have a 40 mile per hour road with a 20 mile per hour advisory sign outside of the fields as we do have obviously a significant portion of Dedham Avenue that is adjacent to a recreation area where kids tend to be. We ended up looking sort of back into the history of why this particular section of Dedham Avenue would be 40 miles per hour.

we largely believe it was connected to just access off the highway right if you're coming off the highway into a town center I think one would assume you're coming at a higher speed one thing that This didn't account for was when the speed limit was put in place, we did not have a traffic signal at South of Dedham. And now currently we have a traffic signal at South of Dedham. So oftentimes traffic is actually stopping off the highway and then going back up to 40 miles an hour. So based on the request we had and the evaluation of the Traffic Safety Committee, they began to embark on the process of changing the speed limit at this particular location. Typically speaking, we would put forth a regulation we'd put forth a recommendation to rescind a regulation, but because this is on a numbered state route, it became more complicated. And so the state required us to do a traffic study of this area, which we did complete.

and they have told us they would support the reduction of the speed limit back to the prima facie speed of 30 miles per hour. and provided us the process in which to do it, which is what you're being requested to vote on today. The town engineer who could not be here and he apologizes did asked me to remind you that we do need three signatures on this in order to send this to the state for that change.

Mary Ann.

Karis, I just really want to say thank you to the division for all the work on this. This has been, as I know you know, a longstanding question and request. and it wasn't clear to me whether we were absolutely going to be stuck by this prior speed that was on the road and I appreciate all the dogged work just to chase down every last thing and I'm happy to be one of the three signatures when it can be done.

Kevin?

Thanks for doing this and I'm thinking If it wasn't for last night, this would also be a school zone, too. So we're not doing that. Thank you. Don't mean to scare you.

Yeah, no, I think it's a good change. I agree it is confusing and that kind of stuff. And then people going faster and with the kids and, you know, it's just very sensible and I'm glad to see. And I know it's hard with the state, so I'm glad to see we're pushing through.

Yeah, this is a lot of administrative work, but I think it's worth it. On the third suggested motion, the speed limits on Great Plain Ave. portion of 135. It looks to me like those were not changing from what's currently posted. Is that correct?

That's correct. The only thing that's changing is from the Dedham line to Bradford Street. Awesome.

Thank you. Madam Chair, may I make a motion? Please. The Board vote to rescind Special Speed Regulation Number 734 for Dedham Avenue, Route 135, and that the Board vote to approve and sign the Special Speed Regulation SSRMW19910048 for the amendment of existing speed zones on Dedham Avenue between the Dedham Town Line and Great Plain Avenue, and that the Board vote to approve and sign the special speed regulation SSRMW19910072 for the amendment of existing speed zones on Great Plain Avenue between Dedham Avenue and the Wellesley town line.

Second.

Any more discussion? All those in favor? Aye. Motion passes. Thank you, Karis.

James, thank you.

Oh, you're staying. Okay, so we're gonna talk about the recycling and transfer station study. Matt Damaris and Deborah Darby, come on up. Come on up, make yourselves comfortable.

I'll just, yeah, I'll provide a very brief overview and then allow. Thank you, Karis. There's like a thousand slides. So just want to contextualize this a little bit, and Debra will get into all the details of it. But this is a study that was largely prompted by a select board goal. that had us re-looking at our service delivery model for the RTS. And I think part of that came from it had been over 20 years since the town had sort of queried the residents to see if the service delivery model that we have was meeting their expectations. And so in doing that, we engaged Tetra Tech to provide some survey work and then also some modeling analysis for the town.

Thank you, Paris, and I'm Debra Darby with Tetra Tech, and it was an absolute pleasure to be working with the DPW in the town of Needham. Is this to advance slide? It is. Okay.

It works sometimes. We'll do something. Try pointing it at it. While you're figuring that out, Matt Murray, Damaris. Am I saying that right? I knew I was going to say that right. And Jeff Heller, just thank you for joining us. It's a pleasure to be presenting to the Select Board.

I'll try to go quickly. I know there's a lot of slides, so I'm really good at talking fast. Please stop me if there's some questions. So as Karis mentioned, we embarked on this study and this slide just kind of overviews our methodology where we conducted an evaluation of existing operations and infrastructure of the recycling transfer station facility. We did conduct a very thorough residential survey. We benchmarked with some neighboring communities and then we did a high-level analysis of four service models. Just to quickly overview the service model options, we looked at existing recycling transfer station services, the RTS, RTS operational improvements, Curbside Collection for Municipal Solid Waste or known as MSW or trash, and then Enhanced Residential Services.

These models, we received some feedback from the survey, so it reinforced the selection of these four service models. Okay. There we go, moving ahead a little bit. So this is just a quick overview of the recycling transfer station facility with your yard waste, capped landfill area. other materials, storage, salt storage, and then the actual area where residents do the drop off of materials.

I've never seen it from that angle.

I'll have to get you up in the air or we'll have to do our drone effort. So in the report, which was a significant number of pages, I just wanted to provide an executive summary of the evaluation of the operational facility. It appears safely and adequately managed, given the nature and current volume of materials of MSW and recyclable and divertable materials. infrastructure, best management practices. The facility supports alignment with what we call BMPs relating to controlling fugitive litter, odors, and vectors. And Regarding capital improvements currently...

I do want to say BMPs are best management practices. I know that's not something that everybody...

everybody knows okay thank you and i appreciate that because in our business we do talk in acronyms frequently And then currently, we did not see significant indication for the need for large-scale capital improvements for the facility. But I'll talk a little bit about that later in the presentation. We did not find significant gaps in programming or infrastructure identified during an initial site visit that we conducted or through the residential survey. and overall residential survey results strongly indicate that residents who utilize the RTS are satisfied with the services provided. there are some site navigation and user experience improvement that we will recommend involving public education and outreach and perhaps some if more and the flow of traffic through the facility.

And then there were some surface conditions that could be improved primarily around the yard waste drop off and composting area. and for future planning considerations. And again, based on benchmarking with neighboring communities, there are some opportunities for what we like to call semi-regional or shared service opportunities and that really could be part of future or long-term planning. And I'm just going to go into the survey results. Pardon me. So as Karis mentioned, you have this really good tool called Polco and residents are really comfortable and used to using this type of, you know, a dynamic communication tool.

I think most recently a traffic study was conducted for a residential survey and then we did this waste and recycling survey which as Karis mentioned The survey like this hasn't been conducted in nearly 20 years. So topics that we covered were residential waste management habits and practices, use of the current facility and potential future waste management services and demographics. The responses were very good. We got a 20% response rate of Needham households. The responses do indicate, though, a modest underrepresentation of households with annual incomes of less than $50,000, residents who rent, and younger, maybe newer residents. residents into the community.

But overall, we believe the survey did capture a reasonably representative sample of your town residents. Some of the key findings, and I know this is kind of a busy slide, but I'll talk through it a little bit. The RTS appears to be widely and frequently used by your town, by your community. survey feedback related to what users like about the transfer station. The survey results were higher or twice the rate of the type of feedback where People disliked the facility, if I can just kind of simplify it that way. I'm sorry, can you repeat that? Sure, I'd be happy to. Survey results, we got more response with likes than dislikes about the facility.

Okay.

and you probably can't see the graphs because of the corner of the slide here, but we did not see any uniform preference for future waste management services. And what I mean by that, in kind of the upper right corner of the slide, a combination, 47% of respondents use the RTS facility and also have private curbside collection service. Whereas around the same number, about 42%, residents just use the RGS for all of their trash and recycling and material diversion. So we really didn't see a leading for, you know, maybe going curbside or utilizing the RTS.

I just want to add one thing, but it was sort of... an unanticipated side effect of removing the fee for the use of the facility. We ended up removing the fee when the facility stopped being an enterprise fund. But now that everybody has access to it, we're finding a lot more people who use it on an intermittent basis versus those who use it every single week. So there are more people in town who are using the facility even though there are still also more people in town who are doing curbside collection. so like to get rid of mattresses and leaves or after a birthday party and they need to get rid of things so i think they're coming for specialty items and i think they're coming for like a secondary you know oops i forgot the curb day now i can come to the rts and use that facility I think also for recycling as well because we have a lovely process there.

I'll just continue to move forward. I'm kind of skipping the very last bullet point because I think you talked about taxes a lot tonight.

I think that's important. You could just go back. I will. I will. Sorry, at the bottom of that slide it indicates one of the questions was whether people would support a tax increase for increased services. and there was more support for an increase if it was supporting improvements at the RTS. There's more than 50% of the folks who responded did not support a tax increase for something like curbside.

And I think there was generally a sentiment expressed that they also didn't want to lose any services at the RTS that could potentially offset any cost increase.

Thank you, folks. You can see this was a good team effort. and then I'll just go quickly into the service models. So we looked at service model that we call number one, the existing transfer station services. In current users of the facility, strongly indicates that residents are satisfied and there's no obvious programming or service gaps, nor the need for large-scale capital improvements appear to be warranted at this time. However, future or additional residents that might utilize the facility, survey responses, again, they generally underrepresented younger residents. would like to recommend that stronger online or social media presence would significantly improve outreach and engagement with your younger residents.

and then I also like to point out that we did conduct interviews with the RTS staff and there was a clear indication again for Outreach to the community and for developing ongoing consistent community education about the value and overall services that the RTS provides because the services do go beyond and what you see at the transfer station, the waste, the recycling, the moving of materials. The staff is doing services beyond that, providing services to the schools after hours, providing services to other departments, snow plowing. There's a lot that is kind of behind the scenes that residents should know about and that helps develop greater community involvement and use of the facility. Anything you'd like to add or I'll continue?

No, I just want to say, and I know you have it in other parts, it was bulleted in earlier parts, but just the survey results, the other models that they're going to provide, there's not Strong statistical information to say that that's a direction, that's a preference. These are just models that we asked to investigate should we choose to add additional services in the future.

That's correct. So the second service model is looking at overall operational improvements, and again, based on survey results. We explored enhancements that might improve customer experience and again, streamline operations. Overall, there were feedback on hours of operation, facility layout and traffic flow improvements, enhanced and consistent facility signage, yard waste drop-off area improvements, and the different category of material bins like the textile bins and the swap shop are very important to residents and they tend to fill and they need to be serviced perhaps more frequently.

I would say that just on the bottom of the screen here, just to note the survey results on what users disliked the facility was less than half of the survey results. related to what users like about the facility. And I'm kind of repeating what I said earlier, only looking at it from a different perspective. and again, operational improvements that we talked about that I just mentioned on these bullets and I'll go into a little bit more detail in the next couple of slides. They are backed by survey results. But again, these are just findings. These are not necessarily things that need to happen, you know, short or midterm. With regards to the hours of operation, you know, residents, you know, people have different works and family schedules and, you know, there was a desire to perhaps

look at additional operating hours such as Sundays or weekday evenings. But there are certainly considerations around changing of operations. evening and Sunday hours you know present staffing difficulties evening hours present challenges as we change you know to daylight savings time it gets dark early that makes it very difficult to you know operate and move material with that in mind and moreover the facility hours were recently adjusted in September of 2025 so there's really no further considerations other than looking at safety for staff and for their work?

Can I ask, Karis or Matt, if since the change in hours and it was two and a half months ago, eliminating the Friday afternoons and adding that the morning has that changed people's usage time so where basically where have people gone who would usually go Friday afternoon

I think most of them are probably coming in on Saturday if they miss it. I have noticed that there are people, the word still isn't thoroughly out there that we're closing at noon on Saturday. the Fridays. So maybe we need to do another information push on that. We do get people at the gate at 7. It's not... It used to be at 7.30. There could be a line on a Tuesday morning that actually impacted traffic on Central Ave. It went all the way out the driveway onto Central Ave. That's gone, obviously. I wouldn't say we're seeing a rush at any at any time like seven in the morning but it does alleviate that opening half hour and we're busy right up till 4 there are always people on site at 4 so even when we shut the main gate there's still people using the facility for the

but we're seeing also the to the point about the daylight hours you know it's really dark up there right around when we when we're shutting the gate at four especially in this next month

Thank you.

And of course, the slide shows a potential annual increase for staffing, but I'm not going to go into that at this time. another area for potential improvements are facility layout and traffic flow improvements, which I thought was quite interesting to consider. There were limited survey responses that had complaints. about the facility. So we're just highlighting perhaps some minor improvements that could be done. One would be a facility layout and traffic improvement study. The costs for minor consulting fees are noted there on the slide. also again thinking about social media and outreach to the community as an example we show the town of Wellesley's facility map

which could also be done similar for the town of Needham, a simple interactive facility map where residents could become more familiar with the transfer station, either on their phone or on their home computer. And the facility could be interactive to make it more accessible are user-friendly so that users would know when they approach the facility how the facility is laid out and where materials that they would like to dispose of, they know exactly where to go to. and again looking at enhancing consistent signage to kind of help with the layout and the flow in the facility.

One thing I do want to also bring to attention, MassDEP has a program called the Recycling Dividends Program, the RDP grant funds, and the town of Needham does have funds available, and that could be utilized towards... Education, Outreach and the other types of social media enhancements that we are talking about. the yard waste drop-off area improvements again there were some you know limited survey responses that you know if you will had complaints about the area but it's worth noting specifically the yard waste drop-off area is unpaved so it's on after rain events they're people are going to get muddy shoes or the cars are going to get dirty when they drop off their yard waste material and also there's some potholes that could be repaired and you know these are um

opportunities to maybe consider paving the area, but also consider the composting, the active composting area where your conducting windrow composting and screening for finished compost to consider the investment of paving the the area and I believe that is a a 3.7 acre area. And we did put an estimated cost there, which is an expense considering the limited survey feedback on that. But I'd like to just also keep in mind, and I'll talk about this a little later, regarding the future area for composting. The Mass DEP is pushing their threshold for organics diversion. They're going to be lowering the commercial to zero. Right now, it's a half a ton per week. It will go to to zero, that will increase the number of commercial entities that will need to divert their food waste from the MSW.

And then by 2030, the state will implement residential mandate. And it'll probably start off though with a phased approach with education first, helping municipalities to be prepared. But the need for regional or local composting facilities that can manage both yard and food waste, the DEP is going to be looking for opportunities for siting these types of facilities. And the town of Needham could be in a good position to lead by example for managing food waste within the community. But before I pause, I'd like to say that end market use for the compost is needed. You can't just make compost and not have an end market for it. It needs to be a circular economy.

That's what happens in my yard all year round. What do we do with all this? Can I just ask about anaerobic composters? Because I know we're... trucking up to Maine. Is there any I mean, with an increase in composting on the horizon, is there any regional Potential, or is that even needed? I don't know.

Well, I sit on the DEP's organic subcommittee, and over the past 10 or 15 years, there's been a heavy focus on anaerobic digestion. which is wet anaerobic digestion typically cited on farm and the DEP is going to be pivoting more to composting Thank you very much. recently been acquired by Circular Services. Big investors are now getting into the composting space, so we're starting to see Thank you for joining us.

that finished compost and digestate, but it's not coming back into Massachusetts. So it's a one-way. Similar to how you're handling MSW, it's one-way. So we're looking to make this more of a circular economy.

I'll say just one of the struggles we have with pretty much anything we talk about sort of scaling it up is just the management of it. So we did take food waste for quite a while. We had a partner. They would actually deliver food waste through their restaurant. Industry, we kind of had two different issues that came up from that. One was simply quality of material, just like anything else. If there's plastic debris, glass debris in the product, that then has to be screened out, and then we have to pay to get rid of that debris, which is not a particularly... It's more expensive than our MSW process. And then the second item we had was I'll call them pests, but it's really birds. Um, I don't know for those of you who frequent the RTS, but you would have noticed like five years ago that we had a lot of seagulls that were spending a lot of time at the facility and you will notice now we have virtually none. and I think the struggle with that is really dealing with bird poop.

And so the roofs of our buildings were being undermined because of the volume of birds we had. We have to just figure out what are the processes when we take on new products, how do we make it so that it doesn't then have an end product that is more costly to the town than we had intended.

Thank you, because I was wondering about that. I remember that they love turkeys.

They knew exactly when the deliveries were coming, too.

If I can add one more thing. I think what it takes to build a digester is to have a consistent flow of material. They need the food waste coming to them. And so when I started at the transfer station, it was about 11 years ago, there were plans to build digesters locally and towns weren't into it. Towns weren't jumping in and diverting food waste and so the flow of material wasn't there to justify building one of these very expensive digesters. Needham and Boston and these other communities are going all in on food waste to create that flow. And once you build that flow of material, you don't have to have material trucked up to Maine. You can say, well, let's build it on the 495 corridor. There's farms out there in like Topsfield or whatever. And you build them closer, you're lowering your footprint for transportation.

and then once you start doing that more communities are going to join in so I think although our program isn't as efficient as it as we would like it to be it's going to get there and Obviously, we have the opportunity to do food waste at our facility, but we found the contaminants were more than we could manage at a small-scale facility. Thank you. Thank you. So we have opportunities, and I think we can work on that. But I think the food waste will get better as we are participating as the program grows.

And also there's some technologies that can manage vectors like odors and birds. You know, right now it's currently it's a very well managed windrow. passive windrow operation, but there are in-vessel or covered systems that can prevent the types of vectors that you've had some issues with in the past. And so I just wanted to share that. some low-cost facility enhancement considerations and again based on the survey from the residents with regards to the textile drop off in the swap shop you know the bins you know additional bins could you know be brought in and the signage could be enhanced to make it easier for people to understand how materials need to be separated at the bins and perhaps the service providers could just do more frequent Service to those bins.

And the swap shop is very well loved. And it's a community space where people like to hang, if I may say. and it might very well be that increasing the size of the swap shop and that could happen through the perhaps the relocation of some Some material storage like the paint drop-off could be relocated to an alternative location or perhaps a construction of a hoop structure that could be utilized either for the swap shop or for the paint. So there's some creative discussions that could take place to enhance the swap shop, which is also a community spa. And then we did conduct benchmarking with some neighboring communities regarding curbside collection. We conducted outreach to the communities of Framingham, Newton, and Acton, as well as the city of Kingston in New York

due to their comparable size and their curbside collection programs. And that really provided us with some High-level information to assess potential costs, logistics, and service impacts of transitioning to a curbside collection model for the town of Needham. We did also reach our contact, the town of Wellesley, but we did not receive a response and they were excluded from the comparison analysis. Town of Natick and City of Framingham both operate town-wide curbside collection programs conducted by municipal staff. In contrast, the City of Newton, they contract with a private hauler to provide curbside collection services. and importantly, this outreach did provide valuable insight into regional waste management practices and identified opportunities for collaboration and the potential for shared learning and shared services.

And as I talk a little bit more about the curbside collection, which is the service model number three, there's two options. One for the town to self-collect at the curbside. This does provide a lot of transparency into waste generation metrics and the service delivery, which you may not get from private haulers. And I think from a high-level perspective, the requirements to do this would be four to five new Packard trucks, additional four or five new staff members, the purchase and distribution of trash carts. and we are making the assumption that the RTS operations would remain the same again those discussions are for others but we just wanted to make that assumption The second option would be to contract with a private waste hauler. There's less control over the service delivery.

And recently, we had the Republic service strike that lasted several months and affected the community where I live. and that our DPW had to respond very quickly to service the town. And part of the contract requirements could be that the private hauler would tip directly at the RTS to increase the tonnage going through the transfer station or to increase include a flow control so that all the material collected from the town goes to the waste to energy facility, which you have the contract with. and we did pull together some rough numbers regarding the self-collection. I don't have to go into detail because I want to be mindful of everybody's time, but that information is available to you.

I just want to be clear. These are the costs just to bring the MSW for curbside. It does not include recycling for curbside. So that would be an additional cost. basically they built the model up for MSW and we said we feel like this gives us enough information we don't feel like you need to go further and calculate the cost for recycling but in practice we would do both yes

Exactly.

And I think there was something, someone that suggested that roughly the costs would be likely double. Yes. For recycling. Yeah, that's correct.

and and uh there are you know one-time charges that you know would not be part of your recurring charges to keep in mind and that this table breaks that out And then there are some notes that cart maintenance and salaries don't include fringe and things like that. So there are other costs. And then just for looking at the cost for contracting with a private waste hauler, we did utilize the city of Newton and just did, I'll just say it like a back of an envelope estimation. and utilizing their numbers and their households and just doing the math and running the numbers directly for the town of Needham. So just for comparison, I think if there was interest to look at these numbers in more detail, that would recommend a deeper analysis. There are several pros and cons if the town decides to do self-collection.

And I guess I don't have to go into a lot of detail here because we talked about the visibility, the transparency, and the service delivery model. are known quantities for the town. And, Maris, you brought up we did not include the recycling as well, but it would technically double. and then the fourth and final model is enhancing residential services and that would mean specifically curbside leaf collection and curbside food waste collection town-wide.

I'd like to comment these are the services DPW provided in the 1980s that were phased out partially because we closed the landfill and partially because of Prop 2 1⁄2.

and then we did provide some numbers for leaf collection looking at itself collection for the seasonal spring and fall where you're going to have the majority of leaves and equipment recommendations and there's also the option of course for hiring a landscape contractor on a seasonal basis to conduct that type of work. And then for food waste collection, the town could also conduct self-collection of weekly curbside. It would require up to two staff for a 10-hour day, and you could utilize your existing packer truck or purchase a new one. and we would recommend a phased-in approach not starting town-wide but starting with certain areas of the community first and there will be challenges of course but you work through them and then you build up from there. And there's also private subscription such as Black Earth Compost.

Some of your community members already subscribe to that. Then I already did mention that the DEP continues to trend towards increasing diversion of organic materials from landfill. and the commercial food waste ban is expanding and the DEP will also look at mandating residential organics diversion. and we do recommend for communities to proactively look at how to get ahead of regulations even if it's starting with education and outreach and how to how to source separated home and preparing the family and how to set up the kitchen is really important because once the DEP gets this moving, it's going to apply statewide to all communities.

So in wrapping up the findings, really no major findings regarding significant changes to the current operations, but we do recommend targeting your younger residents through more proactive social media and website communications. And if there are operations that you want to streamline to take a phased approach, and explore semi-regionalization or shared services with your neighboring communities. In the report, there are some insights on how your neighboring communities may want to collaborate with you and utilize the transfer station. And again, just overall, you know, looking at organics management and upgrades to the composting area.

And with that said, working in the solid waste industry, the value and importance of having a transfer station is it's a very valuable resource, especially in a metropolitan area. because as properties get subdivided and more homes get built, it's very difficult to build solid waste facilities. but if you have one that exists, it's so important to keep and maintain the operations. As the Northeast, we face a limited disposal capacity, and that includes the transferring of materials So having the network of these types of facilities in Massachusetts is really highly valuable to residents and to the greater community across Massachusetts. So thank you very very much for inviting me to present this evening.

Thank you.

Thank you. Thank you. That was a lot to digest. But really, really interesting. And actually, I think the upshot is that our RTS is pretty awesome. So if anybody has burning comments, please.

Go ahead. So one of the other things I was thinking about was this question about hours, which we keep coming back to. So in Wellesley they are open on Sundays from April to November. which made me think, you know, we're open on Sundays in November, right? But there's another six months that we're not. I wondered if we could maybe share with them. So half the months they could go, to Wellesley, half the months they could go here. They're relatively close and have that be a shared cost that would reduce. So it's just a question.

So I would say we have a regional partnership or communications group with DPW directors in the general area. Wellesley is a part of it, Natick, Framingham, Dedham. and so we've talked about some of these regional issues that we have and I think we talk about you know some of the struggles we have we're very fortunate to have a full staff at the RTS and they're very happy staff at the RTS and so which is great because they do work in really rough conditions but we've talked about things like water areas where we're having difficulty hiring and where do we have similarities right where oftentimes licensed the same way. So how can we collaborate them? And we've had talks about, you know, I think on the upper level, like how do you manage that from a union perspective? How do you manage that from a resource perspective? So I think those conversations will continue to be had and we

did do a tour of the facility, I would say three or four years ago with the Wellesley RDF and talked about sort of their model, which is a little bit different than ours. to better understand how they function and I think there could be some some those communications will continue as we sort of have all the same struggles across the area. what I would say is we are looking at a new MSW contract with Wheelabrator we hope we're entering in negotiations with a consortium of over 30 communities and the communities that have curbside pickup that do direct delivery to that facility really struggle because they have to wait in line and they all pretty much get there at the same time from all the towns. And so they can only process so much material at any one time. And there's also a resource that we have that I think was alluded to at the beginning, which is the amount of trash we are able to process through the RTS is significantly higher than what we process through the RTS.

So there are some regional collaboration benefits. I know Newton would absolutely die to get their hands on some capacity at our RTS so they could process their Trash into trailers like we do and ship it off at our convenience as opposed to on a daily basis. But all of them have their own challenges, right? You have to deal with additional traffic, additional resources, but we all know that as problems become more complicated that collaboration will be necessary.

So I was just thinking Sunday is a relatively lower traffic day and I wondered if it might be a gateway

drug in some ways to doing some collaboration. I think one of the challenges we have, I always joke because everyone thinks people from Dover sneak into Needham and people from Needham sneak into Wellesley. One of the challenges that we have is that they do not charge for their trash. So we have bags that offsets the cost of our trash. Wellesley does not. So I would be concerned that people might take that as... a benefit and then overutilize that facility and underutilize our facility. So we'd have to figure out how to make all things equal.

So everybody in Needham would start going to Wellesley for the free trash. For the free trash. Okay.

And you know what would happen?

I'm sure there's some at the margins. It's interesting the question about nights. I don't think the nights make sense. I think when it's dark it's not safe for The guys there, it's not safe for people to be dropping off their trash there. I mean, it's just that doesn't make sense to me.

Thank you. Thank you all for your work year round. And also specifically on this very long and all encompassing study.

It was interesting.

It was really in-depth. I'm amazed. Thank you for doing it. And thank you for running it. The ship is well-run. You did great.

It was an amazing place.

No, I know a lot of people use it a lot.

Like as Kara said, Newton and Brookline wanted to work together to manage their trash and the missing piece was the transfer station. their transfer station in Brookline does not have a permit like our permit. We're a fan base. It's not a small thing to have.

Yeah, you've got a lot of fans.

Yeah.

Thank you very much. However, I think that this study was significant. but all it did was reinforce the same thing that we've studied and done for the 30 years, 28 years that I've been doing this. I don't think that there's enough visibility. There are a lot of people who don't know what an asset it is that we have. They do not want to pay attention to the process of getting rid of it. that they're garbage. This is why I joke about the, you know, back when we paid, people shared the sticker amongst the neighborhood to get into, you know, to save $10. You know what I mean? So do you think they're going to not go to Wellesley, given the opportunity? I don't know.

You're the second most popular place in Needham. You come in second to the library. I mean, that's pretty good.

But think about the survey. How many people don't use it? and the education. The people coming into the town, it's a very attractive town. How much they talk about it at the large house committee. Again, people are moving in here. They're buying the big mansions. They're not touching their trash. It used to be when you moved into Needham, You know, you got the welcome wagon, you got the things, you got a package of yellow bags, and you got informed, and you jumped into the culture. Half of Needham, or 40% of Needham, is not enamored by the culture at the dump. I'm not allowed to say that, you know, it's the transfer thing.

So I think this was interesting, Jeff, because I think it shows that there's some different things, though, going on. It shows there is a both and. that's occurring now. So I was curious to see what kind of percent results we got back for people who were doing trash pickup, but to see that they actually wanted trash pickup and the dump that they wanted to have access to both. was really a fascinating find to me. That in itself was worth the survey, I think, to learn that because that has been a big question.

We also know that the survey did not capture I think 20% of people who don't even know that they can go to at the transfer station on their own. They immediately walked in and hired a private hauler and everything goes away and they don't know. So to Deborah's point, we're going to see what we can do to reach out to them.

Raise the profile of the Needham RTS.

One of the things that I wanted to highlight, I think that comes out of this as well, is when we talk about certain improvements around traffic flow in facilities, we talked about how You know, there's a five-year plan, or, you know, beyond five years. You're committed to the... for five years to the tipping floor around buildings that need a severe amount of maintenance. That's going to come up in five years. and so these some of these recommendations I think we get another study around some of the needs the traffic flow because when we have to replace some of those things We want to look at it as, let's not fix what we have, let's build a traffic flow that will maintain the future of the operations that might even include collaboration with other towns.

yes um this is a good news story and i'm gonna ask that we leave it at that because we have many miles to go yet before we can Sleep. So thank you. Thank you for all of this work. Thank you.

Thank you very much.

Town Manager, let's hear your report.

First, before my report, we have an accept and refer of zoning. So this is zoning for the Pollard Middle School. The Planning Board voted to advance zoning. at the time to a potential January special town meeting. Given the all boards summit last night, we will not be advancing on that schedule. but this accept and refer still you should still take the vote and the zoning can advance to the Maytown meeting. This is required under Mass General Law for you to except to refer the zoning back to them so they can start their hearing process. So it's a perfunctory matter. Sure.

And this zoning would allow for Pollard Middle School that exceeds both the area on the lot and also the height limitations that are currently in force. So it would allow for a four-story middle school on the Pollard site.

it would and they the planning board will fine-tune it for what's needed as we if we know more heading into May before they finalize the language for the warrant okay any comments

Madam Chair, I would move that the Board vote to accept the proposed zoning article, Amend Zoning By-law, Pollard Middle School, for referral to the Planning Board for its review, hearing, and report. Second.

all those in favor aye motion passes thank you and thank you to the planning board for having expedited that process on the town's behalf Town Manager of Report, I was realizing it's all tis the season. I just wanted to say we had a kickoff at DPW for all of our snow team staff. and thanks to the crew, the leadership team at DPW pulls everyone together every year and just you know really a pep talk get ready for the season ahead and we never know what the season is going to be but it's that time of year so we have wonderful staff and they will keep us all safe and moving We have the blue tree lighting coming up on December 6th on the Town Common at 5 p.m. And just want to say Happy Thanksgiving. Thank you.

And actually, I think the tree on Avery Square gets lit prior to that. There's that as well.

All right, so committee reports.

I think we'll just start at one end and go down, Kevin.

Envision EM Center. Matt, we looked at three options to compare. and it was kind of useful to see. Of the three plans, I would say if you chunk it up, it's basically, they're similar, the post office to railroad tracks. the plan's the same for all like is basically going to be a it it's it's a two-lane plan with similar parking, wider sidewalks. When you get to the point of the tracks to Dedimav, that's a chunk, that's sort of the part that we're gonna be focusing on. and then after Datamav heading east on Datamav it's like one and a half lane but basically those three plans all sort of converge as well.

So that's sort of an interesting thing that of the long length of Great Plain Ave, it really comes down to a chunk from the railroad, basically just before the railroad tracks to Denim Ave. So that's that. We will be presenting some stuff coming up soon. The SEAL committee met.

Hang on one second. You said presenting. Who are you presenting to?

We are going to have an informational meeting in Cares, I'm looking at you, mid-January. Mid-January. For the public. For public, yeah.

We'll also have the project coming to the board, and we just check in after each working group to see kind of when the most appropriate select board agenda is.

So I want to note that Large House also has something coming for the public in January. Hopefully we won't end up with another big bang week with everything night after night after night just lagging that.

Oh my god, that'd be a large envision. OK, next we had the SEAL committee. And we actually are going to be meeting with you guys in December. There was a really good article in the Needham Observer about it. So read up on that. But that was a good one. And then there was Trans Day of Remembrance. last Thursday and several churches met and So I've had a ceremony to remember about 60 people who died from violence. And it's always a hard, it's a really hard event. but it's good to remember and to sort of take stock of the difficulties. That's all I got.

Anything else? Josh?

No, I have nothing.

Mariam? I'm trying to think. One of the meetings last week was large house. Yep.

On Tuesday the 18th, large house public forum.

So the public did come. We discussed Large House again, looked at the... the proposed range of reductions and at the fiscal information that was available related to making some of those reductions. I would have said that I don't think that the committee received a huge amount of information from the public about the range of reductions and whether there was really much of a preference for one versus another, right? There were a variety of questions related to the fiscal analysis and just people trying to understand that. And then there were sort of general sense of I would say for the most part, there were more people who would have said they would have liked to see some reduction than people who were saying no reductions at all, which has been the sense all along in the direction from Town Meeting and why they wanted it undertaken.

So I do think there's more work to do. I think the committee is prepared to have a discussion about some particular level of reduction to make a recommendation to the planning board so they can continue the work.

Yeah, and I would say just that if anyone missed that and is feeling badly about it, It's a little FOMO. That forum was taped, so you can see it on the town's YouTube channel. You can increase the speed. So you can get to the part that you want to see. But all the slides that show the fiscal impact are there and available. And then I'll add that Monday the 17th was the public hearing on the Pollard School. So we gathered at Pollard in the auditorium to hear from the public. there were quite a few people there online and in the seats and everyone had an opinion and We got to hear all of it, so that was great. The Large House Review Committee was on the 18th. And then on the 19th, there was a public hearing from the Tree Preservation and Planning Committee.

moderately well attended i would say online and in the seats uh but this was um significantly less finished than the large house committee was this is this was about foundational concepts and the idea of a tree yard where trees would be protected and either preserved or mitigated or replaced and sort of the situations in which those things would happen and the things that are still open that the committee is still discussing which is frankly quite a few so that also is taped if you're interested um I would encourage you to take a look. I would also say that last night, this board and many others in town attended the second board summit on the Pollard School Project. which was a pretty significant meeting. There were a lot of decisions made at that meeting by the PPPC, the Permanent Public Building Committee,

which also functions for the MSBA, the Massachusetts School Building Authority, as the school building committee, the SBC. and there were four major things that the committee was voting on in response to the feedback that they heard at this meeting and I just I think it's Good to share the results of that. So those votes were to go with new construction over an ad renovation, 6-8 grade configuration as opposed to 7-8, and to include an auditorium of 750. Seitz, and then also to remove the DeFazio site from consideration. And I guess as part of this discussion, I would really like for this board to have a brief discussion, if we can, about the remaining two options that are on the table?

that decision is going to be made really soon this board hasn't discussed those two options and i think you know it's it's likely to be something that we would generally like to weigh in on but we need in order to do that we really need to come to a board consensus or at least have had the conversation in a public meeting so as this might be our only opportunity I guess I just in after having discussed what happened at the board summit I would like to just sort of survey the board and see if anybody has opinions on the the two remaining new build Pollard configurations, one of which is, I think it's referred to as 5D, which is a one phase four story Up to four stories. Up to four stories. Depends on the wing. built on Pollard, sort of just on the Pollard side of the train tracks.

And then the second option, which is referred to as 5E, which is a two-phase up to three-story building. and that is pushed somewhat away from the tracks, a little bit farther away. A little bit further away from the tracks.

It's a 60 foot difference, right?

Yeah, there are pros and cons to both. but it takes an additional two years it takes an additional two years and it is the two-phase is considerably more expensive and so just thought we could open it up so that we could as a potentially if we come to consensus, share our consensus with the PPBC before they make decisions.

Could we have Hank Haff come and present, like, break down the details, or do you just want to do it now?

I don't think we have time for that.

I also just want to say this is going to keep evolving with the design team. So I did not understand it to be that they would pick 5D or 5E as they are. But if you, I think, have principles or goals that you want them to keep in mind as opposed to like picking one of those two options. They might do a hybrid too, right? Right. They'll keep evolving the design.

So I guess I do have principles. One of the things I said last night is my bias here would be to move as quickly as possible. and I think anything that splits it up so that it becomes a two-year project is going to be regrettable to all of us on some level. So while I certainly support new thinking and other ideas and what else could be happening, I still believe that we should move forward with all due haste. to get this project implemented and through the rest of the process. So that would suggest to me that a single phase project, I think, is the best. But at any rate, I'm willing to hear. And that's also the lowest cost to the taxpayer. All those things are positive things in the big picture.

Yeah, I think another benefit is that the kids aren't in the building during construction.

The kids are not in the building during construction, also true.

two-phase option has, you know, seven, eight being built, kids moving in, and then a portion of the school being demolished and rebuilt to accommodate that on the site. And I think I I didn't experience it myself, but people who have note that that was a very difficult period for their kids who were in the school while it was under construction the last time. So it would be great to be able to avoid that as well.

I share those concerns about speed and about not having kids in the building during construction and about cost. I think the cost at this point my prediction is that's the biggest impediment for the override vote and so the most we can do to reduce that cost the better chances of passing the vote

and the good intent of working to reduce that cost as well. And being able to make that effort for taxpayers is really important.

I would echo all of the comments. And I would just add that, again, I know it can change. But from what we saw with the estimates we saw, the cost difference was a minimum of $30 million. which is very significant. That could pay for a lot of other things or it can keep taxes down. It's a very significant amount of money. And the benefits, there are benefits. But it's hard for me, from what I've heard, it doesn't seem worth it to me to elongate the process by over a year and especially the $30 million, where I agree, Josh, 100%. I think showing good faith that we are really trying to work to keep the cost down is very important. and doing things kind of maximally so that they are perfect and irrespective of any cost, I don't think is the right approach.

So yeah, faster, less expensive. That's where I'm at as a, you know, principal.

Yeah, I agree. Everyone's sentiment.

Okay, so it does sound like we have consensus. Yeah.

I want to go back for just a moment to the DeFazio discussion. I think I've been troubled throughout this, and I just want to say that there is the illusion of open space when you look at DeFazio. And I think people forget the level of investment that the town has made into that. So the town has made some $18 million worth of investment in that property. It's not nothing. and that doesn't include the annual costs that have been put in or the user group costs that have actually been put in as well It's been an interesting conversation throughout this, but the notion that that's just open, undeveloped space is really not true. So I do think that this use of Pollard as building that can be used for schools is really the right call at this point.

Yeah, I also just think it's so nice to not change people's routines. There's a school there now. People are used to having a school there, to driving, to drop-offs, to all of that stuff. And the volume... that would, the amount of change that would happen in both places, if we flip those, I think, you know, I believe would be really disruptive. So... This isn't everyone's first choice, but I do think that it's the best thing for the town.

And I'm going to hope that the designers, with their focus now on Pollard, may find a better way to create the separate sixth grade within the structure that they're working on.

That would be in one phase. Instead of seven, nine, I guess. Right. That would be great. All right. Well, thank you. I appreciate that. I feel like I understand where we all sit, and that is very helpful.

Could I just ask, is there interest that I formally convey these thoughts or was your intention to kind of share the consensus?

I would love for you to formally convey these thoughts. How does everyone else feel?

Yes.

I think that would be great. I can do that. She's the best. Okay, so our next thing, because there is like always a next thing, is to move into executive session. Did you want to talk about the acting pay policy? Oh, that's right. Yeah, you had a question about number six on the consent agenda. Do you want to discuss it?

Oh, I thought that was going to be a discussion item at the next meeting. We can discuss it now if you want.

Are you ready?

Sure. So the two areas, 5E and 5I, So let me back up. This is a policy that's been in place since 1994. It's been unchanged since then. It obviously needs some updates. It still says the Glover Hospital in there. I have no objections with those updates. The addition of 5i is a blanket exception policy that allows the town manager to just make any exceptions to the policy. I'm a little concerned with that broad exception policy. And then 5e is a similar exception type policy. So that's what I just wanted to discuss.

OK. I have to admit that I didn't read that policy carefully enough to engage in this discussion. Yeah. So so actually, maybe if we you said that next meeting lightened up a little bit, right?

Yeah.

Next week, so that I can I'm sure my colleagues read more carefully than I did, but yeah, it was a busy one. Yep, that's fine. All right. Awesome. Thank you. Okay. Anything else that I forgot?

No.

Okay. Great. So then I'm going to suggest that the select board enter into executive session pursuant to exception seven to comply with or act under the authority of Any general or special law or federal grant in aid requirements for the purposes of A, reviewing and approving executive session minutes, and B, reviewing executive session minutes to determine whether continued nondisclosure is warranted and to adjourn at the conclusion of the executive session without returning to open session.

So moved. Second.

Any discussion? All right. All those in favor? Roll call. Oh, right. One of these days. Marianne? Aye.

Josh? Yes.

Aye. Kevin? Aye. Chair votes aye.

Thank you.