Needham Select Board, 11/12/25

Levy, Levy

calling to order the select board meeting for Wednesday, November 12th. and we'll start with our regular notice that this meeting is being broadcast by the Needham channel for broadcast on the town's youtube channel and also via zoom and presumably by the Needham Observer. And I don't see the Needham Local, but I think they're all set. If anyone else is recording or would like to, now is the time to alert the chair. You're recording the meeting? Okay, can you share your name with me? Thank you.

Okay, so we're going to start, as we always do, with public comment. Is there anyone in the room who would like to make a public comment this evening? Come on up. I'll ask you to have a seat, share your name and address, please. And then our routine is that we give you three minutes. We tend not to have a conversation. This is you speaking and us listening.

Hello, my name is Nick LaCasha. I live at 1 Dartmouth Avenue. And I want to give public comment today to voice my support for the Envision Needham Center efforts. Me and a couple other classmates from Needham High, we came together and we saw what was happening in the town and we really liked what we saw in the Envision Needham Center plans. Needham deserves a vibrant and safe business-friendly downtown that balances the needs of all road users. And Needham should be a place where people work, play, shop, and not just a place where people drive through. and the goals of Envision Needham Center uphold those ideals of placemaking and road safety for all users. And so I'm hoping that the town continues productive conversations about Envision Needham Center, engaging residents and telling them about the benefits of the placemaking efforts of the project. So just wanted to voice my support of that project.

Thanks. I very much appreciate it.

Anybody else in the room here for public comment? Anybody online? Okay, great. Thank you. All right, so our next item is our public hearing grant of location. I assume we'll be joined by Joanne Callender from Eversource. I think she's coming over. Hi, Joanne. Good evening.

How are you? Very well, yourselves?

Good, thanks.

Good.

So tell us about this grant of location, Joanne.

Yes, so we have a grant location to install approximately 35 feet of conduit into South Street. This is to provide underground service to new single family home at 626 South Street, Needham.

Okay.

Thank you.

Madam Town Manager, is everything in order? It is. Okay. For the board, any comments, questions? No? This is a public hearing. Is there anyone here for this hearing who would like to make a comment? I don't see any hands on line. OK. In that case, if there's no questions from the board, I'd welcome a motion.

And I'll adjourn with this left board approve and sign a petition from Eversource Energy. to install approximately 35 feet of conduit in South Street.

Second. Excellent. So, all in favor? Aye. The motion carries. Thank you, Joanne. Thank you.

Have a good night.

You too. All right. Next up, we're going to invite Town Council Chris Heap to join us and talk about his activities over the past year. Welcome.

Thank you very much. Hello, everyone. And thank you for having me on the event site to give the update on the work of town council over the past year. Okay. That's loud. So over the course of the past year, I've worked daily with all town staff and boards on all legal matters that the town regularly confronts. The topics that I tend to work on regularly include preparation for town meetings, open meeting law, both advising boards and staff ahead of time on how to comply with the open meeting law and responding to complaints if and when they are filed. assisting the town with responses to public records requests, helping town employees navigate questions under the state ethics law, contract review and procurement, bylaw drafting, interpretation and enforcement, permitting, licensing, and any number of other miscellaneous topics that regularly come before the tab.

In addition to that list of everyday topics that come up all the time, there have been a number of sort of non-routine significant projects over the past calendar year, including navigating a referendum petition the first in quite some time in January and most recently working on the Stephen Palmer transition and the Pollard planning for the Pollard construction project. that is coming up soon. So those are the topics that I've spent a lot of time on over the past calendar year. In addition to that, a good deal of town council's work involves meeting in town. I'm here regularly several times a week for meetings with staff during the daytime and boards and committees during the evening. I keep regular office hours once a week, which provides a great opportunity to meet

regularly with the town manager and anyone else who has a question to go over workload priorities and catch up on anything that needs attention. So those are the topics that we've been working on at a very high level. I guess I'd like to speak a little bit briefly, a little bit also on in terms of how we do the work of town council in town. My goals as the lead town council are to always be accessible, responsive, available to meet as needed, and to always prioritize Needham as a client. It's also a goal to always provide legal advice that is responsive to the questions being asked, accurate, clear, and usable by you, the client, in the performance of your jobs.

I always attempt to serve as the principal point of contact in town when dealing with Needham to provide a clear, so that everyone knows who to ask the questions of and who the answers are coming from. But I also think it's important to point out that We have at our disposal 11 other full-time municipal attorneys in my firm who all have their own specialized areas of expertise within the realm of municipal law. and are working behind the scenes to help support the work of town council that we deliver to the board. So that's a quick summary of what we've been working on and how we do it. I'm happy to answer any questions from the board.

Thank you, Chris. I will just start by saying I just really appreciate having you, frankly, always available. probably two available for your personal life, you're always very diligent, you always provide excellent information on the risks associated with any given action, but also make it human-sized so that those of us who are not lawyers can understand what we where we need to work. I also appreciate that you are willing to share the The expertise of your... It seemed like it was going to blow up. The expertise of your office. So if there's a subject on which you feel like you need assistance or backup, you're willing to share that with us and that is...

just I think really valuable so I appreciate all of this.

Thank you.

Comments from my colleagues?

thank you for everything you've done. You say it in four words, but actually, you know, Fletcher, you worked on the stormwater bylaw. and I had been working with Josh for about 15 months we understood it very well we appreciate the nuance we talked to engineers but you were the one who had to go through dryly and actually turn it into gold so thank you very much for everything you did It was your insights were helpful and you made pass rigor and you also really good going into town meeting with all the sort of build up to it as we navigate that. So thank you very much. Thanks very much. So what's the batting average this year?

on, I think so far, I think a thousand. I think so.

Thank you.

to elaborate for the public because I'm not sure that's entirely clear.

It's a baseball metaphor.

I think we're upholding, yeah, like I don't do baseball. So I'm just going to say that that means that the opinions that you've issued have not been overturned. Is that correct?

I don't believe there has been a loss either in litigation or administrative appeals to the Supervisor of Public Records, or the open meeting law complaints.

But there has been an increase in all of those open meeting law complaints and FOIA, you know, information requests. Is that correct?

There have been a number of them. And I actually thought a little bit about in preparation for the meeting about how much time we in my in my office spend sort of responding to public records requests and open media law complaints and i think what i came up with was that there were in and I looked at this by fiscal year, not calendar year, so it's broken down that way, but in fiscal year 2025 we assisted with approximately 13 public records requests and responded to i believe one open media law complaint that year and in fiscal year 2026 to date we've assisted with approximately five public records requests and have responded to three open meeting complaints so far.

So batting 1,000 is pretty good.

Chris, I love the fact that you are always there to answer our questions and we have a lot of questions and I feel just at ease. I feel that I don't have to worry, and we're in good hands, and that means a lot.

Thank you very much.

Yeah, having this conversation with Stonewater, that was helpful. We brought you in like midway through once we have settled on the policies that we wanted to establish. And you helped us kind of craft that into something enforceable and clear. So that was very helpful. Thank you. We've been thinking recently about Quiet Zone stuff, and I imagine that there may be more on that front in the future, because right now that is not clear at the moment. So I think that there are other... Great.

Happy to help.

So, same thing. Deep, deep thanks. I am always grateful when you take my call at whatever weird hour I'm calling because I've finally gotten to to this, and I appreciate the information about the public records requests and the open meeting law violations that was on my list to ask about as well. I do worry about that, but the amount of time that we're spending. And I think it's important for us to talk about it, particularly because I think often those come because somebody is concerned that there is a systemic rot Right? And therefore they need to hold the system to account. So it's useful to know when after that review the system has done what it was supposed to have done in the first place.

I understand that they'll continue to come but but it's a significant amount of your time of the town managers time of our time as individuals depending on each of the requests to respond to them. And certainly it has always been my intent to be a good and honest public servant and not the most corrupt person ever in the state of Massachusetts, which I think has been alleged. So it's just that people do have the right to ask. I recognize that. It is always our intent to do the right thing. We do respond. but the escalation of those requests is significant and people should know that that's how we then end up spending our town resources when there's a variety of real work to be done. So it's a tension, definitely.

and I did one thing I did notice as I was going reviewing the information in preparation for the meeting is that there are sometimes when there is very little public records work or a stretch and then there are other times where it tends to dominate the work over the course of several weeks or a month and I think that often tracks with there being something a hot issue or controversial issue on the board or the town's agenda that the the work becomes much more intensive during those times and then often tapers off a month or two later.

therefore I think the request always and I know that you often work with requesters to narrow their request to be as specific as possible because what people often find is they get hundreds or thousands of pages which makes it hard to actually find the information that it might actually be looking for, right, to review within the course of a document just by nature of the work.

The drafters of a public record request often try to be as broad and general as possible out of fear of not getting the document or documents that they're looking for and then end up being overly inclusive in what they've asked for. and provide a request that is difficult or impossible for the town to actually respond to in an expedited way. So yes, I think it's absolutely right that the narrower the request, certainly the easier It is for the town to respond quickly, but oftentimes it's going to get just as much of the information as the requester is actually looking for.

So, at any rate, all things to think about. respond to the public record requests and all that stuff. I think part of what people are asking for when they ask for information is they want to see how the sausage is made. How did you arrive at that decision? How did we get to this place? Maybe it's a commentary on the various boards in town, but they can do better at showing that ahead of time. There doesn't need to be a record request. I don't think that's directly related to your performance or what you do, but I just think that that's how I interpret those requests.

So I would say there's an assumption, right, that the sausage is being made somewhere else. and I often think that in those requests people don't learn anything that they haven't already learned from a public session because that's where it is.

When I read through the public record requests responses that we've gotten, I've learned new things. and I am generally involved in many of these discussions. So I think there are new things to learn.

That haven't been said at some point in public because they're actually significant to a discussion.

not in every case, but in certain cases I found that.

I look forward to seeing you frequently. as part of the tree preservation committee. I'm looking forward to that too. as we have a potential bylaw coming up. So I assume that my experience with you on trees will be similar to the gentleman on stormwater. I hope so. And I look forward to seeing you tomorrow afternoon.

Yep.

Thank you.

Thank you all. You don't get off and get an occasion to say it, but it's a great pleasure to work with everybody and I really appreciate being your town council.

All right. We are going to move on. Let's see. Is it 620? Oh, on the dot. So we're going to move on now to our next conversation. This is about Pollard Middle School Project. So we'll welcome up Hank Half. the director of building design and construction and Meryl Nistler the senior project manager for building design and construction and I will welcome you and just say this is a The time that we have allotted for this is not humongous. It does not match the subject. We understand, and I'm sure that you will point out to us, places where there are yet gaps in our knowledge, where we anticipate more information coming in. I think the objective here, I'm hoping I'm understanding this right, is in preparation for the public meeting in which the select board will be participating next week.

So hopefully we're going to be able to keep this kind of high level so that we don't fall into any two hour long rabbit holes.

So could I add to that? We have double booked these two staff members. They also have to go to the planning board tonight downstairs. So that will also dictate some timing.

So we'll just ask, I will ask my colleagues to just be mindful of their double booking and our timeline as well. as we ask our questions.

Thank you very much for the invite. So we have, what, half an hour?

25 minutes. That's the goal.

That's the goal.

Put that to the beginning.

So thank you for inviting us. I think many of you have already seen some of the presentation you'll see tonight. I invite you to ask questions as we go through. and there are two slideshows so we will go through quickly and to give you the update. The HMFH has been working very hard, the architects, working very hard with their engineers and gathering additional information. which this is largely was most recently presented to the PBBC or the school building committee largely a repeat of that. So, Meryl, you want to jump into this and go to the next slide? I guess you can see behind you, and I believe you have copies in your book.

So, essentially, this is... where we are as far as the traffic report goes. On November 3rd, the traffic consultant came to the SBC meeting and gave us preliminary understanding of the sites. No recommendations just yet. because we're still working through the different design iterations and they're still collecting data as far as how the sites can operate given the different options on the table.

What metrics are they looking at? Are they looking at current conditions as well as future conditions if the school were in a different place?

analyze the current conditions. It's a little tricky at Pollard because people do park in the neighborhoods to allocate where those people go once they leave their car. So there's that metric. So they're looking at what's currently existing right now. They also did nights and weekends for especially DeFazio to understand

Will they be able to anticipate or predict what traffic will be in and out of that site? with a new 6-8 school at Pollard or Richelieu.

Sorry, everything mixed up. Different locations. Yeah, at both sites they're going to consider 6-8 and 7-8. options and those populations and corresponding teachers and staff so at both sites.

And will they also consider field traffic? at both locations?

Yes. So we have received already kind of the schedule of field activities that we've given to them, the consultants, the traffic engineers. So they're analyzing that as far as and Tripp's analysis goes and what they can predict each season as well. Next slide. So stormwater approach at each of the sites is essentially again also being analyzed. This is, I should highlight this whole thing, but this is feasibility. So we're very high level here. They're not doing detailed and so forth. So this is a very high-level analysis of what could be. This is very high-level to get a good cost estimate and come up with an

they're going to have different options at the Pollard site it's tricky because the building is there you can't deal with the infiltration and existing site and it's an occupied building so they're going to look at the fields and the parking areas at the Pollard site. And then also the next slide talks about this low impact development also near Dedham Ave. So we're just going to run through. They're still doing their studies and their analysis. This is what also went to the cost estimator. So they're looking at the different benefits and drawbacks of each of the options.

And they're working to the new stormwater regulations, the first one and a half inches stored within the site.

I have a question about that. So when we spoke about Pollard before with Beta, I think the consensus was that the requirements, or the intention at least, was to do much more than one and a half. Did I misinterpret that?

Beta is the engineer working with the town on the stormwater. I think they're looking at different opportunities throughout town to deal with existing stormwater, not just that which is related to the development on a specific site. And in fact, I think they were looking at the opportunities to do stormwater retention underneath almost every playing field throughout town. and if we build a school in the lower playing field at Pollard then we can't do it underneath there but there might be an opportunity in DeFazio to deal with that. as a town project.

I guess when we spoke with Beta, I had the understanding, because we did ask sites in Pollard, my understanding was that the one and a half was it was contemplated to exceed the requirements. So one and a half would not be the only requirements for stormwater mitigation. There would be others as well. Maybe I can review that meeting.

I am not aware. I'm not aware of those details. I do know that there is stormwater coming from that entire neighborhood. It crisscrosses the Pollard site. whether there be capacity to deal with that on the Pollard site with the development of the school. I don't know if the intent was to build on DeFazio and take over and totally redevelop the fields and put an entire stormwater detention system underneath the existing field. So that would be a separate project by the town. I think there's opportunity there's plenty of opportunity at DeFazio to have significant not in

There are a couple fields that are uphill from other fields and you would obviously look to mitigate as early as possible for the neighborhood stormwater.

But that's not part of this project.

That's not part of this project.

So I think we need to contain ourselves to this. Yeah, let's try to do that. I mean, I appreciate the question, and I think, you know, eventually we need to get there, but I don't think we're there yet for the purposes of this presentation. So let's try and make it through the slides.

So wait, just want to understand, so what about stormwater is part of the Pollard project? Meeting code. Okay, just that. And if there's anything in addition, that would be separate?

Yes.

Okay.

So the designer had their wetland scientists come out and review the assumed wetlands and delineations and boundaries, which is determining buildable areas and not buildable areas.

Okay, a question on this. Based on this, do we know yet We know that we would need to do a MEPA review if we built on DeFazio. Do we know whether we would need to do it if we built on Pollard?

We don't. So the MEPA review is triggered because of Article 97. and because the school committee owns Pollard, then a MEPA review wouldn't be needed.

So it would not be at need at the Pollard site. Correct. For sure.

That's in part because the other trigger is you'd have to increase the imperviable area by over five acres. and because there's an existing building and existing paving at Pollard that's discounted compared to what is the new footprint of the building and the new footprint of impervious surface. we would not increase by more than five acres of impervious surface in any of the options.

Thank you. In the boundaries here, the red are the new delineations. So as you can see, they're a bit different than the initial assumption.

How'd that happen?

Wetlands change over time.

More rain. Yes. Some of it has to do with soil sampling as well as vegetation. Okay.

So here we are with the seven PSR options that have been studied and these are where the architect currently is proceeding. Thank you. Appreciate it. So the design team has been reviewing the different options. They've progressed past these diagrams that you're currently seeing, and we've gotten into it over the past couple weeks with some different iterations. So you will see on the next slide, which is option two. This is addition renovation, 7-8 option. three-phase construction.

So this would take a longer period of time, three phases, because it would be an occupied building while the addition was happening. So disruption to the students in the building, A three-story classroom wing additions are the darker yellow, the solid yellows, whereas the hatched area would be a light touch, a renovation to bring it up to code.

No, it's only included in the new construction options.

It's seven and eight as well. correct okay so 450 is basically renovating what's there making it more efficient with the seating and doing a renovation essentially of what they currently have in place which is 435 seats 434 seats. So this is just making it a more efficient layout using the existing auditorium.

And not changing the heights of the ceiling.

It would be what you got.

and likewise it would be unlikely that we could meet Levy Dowd because a significant amount of the building would be renovated. We would attempt to get to the code required Energy Efficiency of the envelope, but it could be a difficult process.

Okay. So similarly, moving along to 3, same scenario. of a longer process, longer construction period, additional renovation six through eight. So there's basically an additional leg of new construction for an additional grade.

and all of the phase construction, it would be occupied. So you have to build the first wing, then that's occupied along with the other existing wings and then you move children around so it's as complicated as the high school was back in 2004 and 2008.

and each of the wings would be three stories for the classrooms. Does that require a zoning relief? This, I don't believe so because we're three stories.

I believe it would require an FAR increase because the gross square footage of the building is already existing non-conforming and it would likewise probably trigger site coverage requirement variation. Thank you. But it would not require the four-story zoning by-law change.

And we're good for three?

In this option, yes.

Okay.

Thank you. So this is the first new construction option. This is in the backyard of the existing Pollard School. The white outline is the existing footprint of the existing building, so outside of the boundaries of the existing school. this would be we're calling this the one phase which would happen all in one swoop really as far as the construction goes and we would have two are three story wings for the classroom spaces. This middle atrium space also would be three stories and an auditorium is that two and a half story off to the West, and a two and a half story off to the east. This is 7-8, so the classroom bars are the ones that project down towards the tracks.

And is zoning relief required for this?

Similar to the prior, so not height. But lot coverage. FAR definitely, I believe lot coverage as well.

So this is a 750 seat auditorium in this room?

Correct, yes. So all the new construction options have been carrying a 750 seat auditorium. Thank you. and then similarly this is also a 7-8 grade 7-8 two-phase construction so the light yellow is the first phase the students would move into those spaces then the existing building would be demolished creating the second phase which would be essentially the gym space and the auditorium space after the students have moved in.

they're both seven eight they're both on the this part of the lot here why would one go with the two phase over the one phase given that it's longer and probably maybe would add cost it's further from the tracks

It's closer to Harris Ave.

and the building you can see on that wing facing south, it would step. So it'd be two stories going up to three stories. So that would bring more light into the courtyard space.

I assume that because both of those options are shown, it's not required to be further from the tracks. It's just preferred?

The further you get away from the tracks, the less noise. although the comparison these two I think is relatively minor in all cases we would need to put in triple pane glass I think on that edge of the building and other sound buffering

and both of those schemes have a small field for Pollard for a little bit of green space up towards the top where the current schools yeah once the existing building comes down

When you say small field, context, what sport?

It's not a soccer field, it's a... It's about half the size of a soccer field. A little bit bigger than the one over at Sunita Williams.

So is that like a kiddie?

The one at Sunita is about 6,000 square feet. It's about the same footprint as the gymnasium. and in this case, actually I didn't measure it, but it'd be larger than that, but more like a 7V7 soccer field.

younger kids younger kids okay but not not a replacement for no any larger like regulation size yes yeah and conceptually

The students can run through the tunnel in the middle of the day and use the fields at DeFazio. We already see them walking around the reservoir, so it brings them closer to that resource during the day. they're not being used for sports. Now this is a six through eight option. Similarly, this is the one phase construction. This would have four stories for the classroom bars, so that's the differentiator, really. And same scenario where there's an atrium space in the middle, the classroom wings, the public spaces being the auditorium and the gyms are closer to Harris Ave along that side of the building.

How much further from the tracks is it in this two-phase?

Approximately 60 feet.

Sixty. You can't really see that in the drawings.

Well, I can't, but okay.

Sixty feet.

That's the difference between the one-phase and the two-phase is sixty feet. Yeah, further away.

Yep.

We did have them marked out on Monday in the rain and Tuesday. and there were members of the committee who did go out and unlock the site and Barry Dulong did do some drone. But when you get too high, you can't see it very well.

question about the parking. How much is, in the calculation, how much is devoted to school teachers and parents and drop-offs versus the auditorium? Because I noticed there's only a 10 parking difference between the 6th grade and 7th grade options.

Right. So the auditorium, as far as the zoning bylaws goes, is essentially one spot per three seats. So that's 250 spots. So that's the 250 number that you're familiar with. The 260 is for the full-time equivalent. And essentially, that's plus 20%. for visitors. So that's the 260 number. So that's where the difference comes from. With a 750 seat auditorium, that's your constant. So that's the 250. Is that the question? That is. Thank you. All right. We're on two-phase here.

No, back to this one. So the advantage of this two-phase construction as a 6-8 school is that you would then, in the second phase, you'd construct this three-story wing that's on the right-hand side or east side. and that could become the sixth grade center. So the sixth grade wouldn't move over to the building until that is constructed. And it enables the town to have what I'll call a sixth grade center within the middle school. All of those sixth graders would still have access to the common areas that are in the core of the building. seventh and eighth graders would be down below. The other advantage of this is that even though portions of the building are stepping up the hill, any one component is only three stories tall.

does this mean that for the seventh and eighth graders who are here after the first phase is completed they'll be in the building during construction along the second phases?

In all of the two-phase options, yes. They would be in the building occupied so that we could tear down the existing building.

So High Rock would be the sixth grade school for like another year? A year to a year and a half.

Can I just ask, it was a year to a year and a half additional time? Is that what I'm understanding?

Yes. With the two foods? 15 months we think is the additional time necessary to do the two-phase.

And we haven't seen costs on these new options yet? I can't remember now that I understand this.

You did not see them in PDP. They're in process right now. And yes, there will be a premium for two-phase construction. their benefits but their cost premiums.

Alright, so DeFasio, so this is expanding the jurisdictional boundaries so it spreads us a little bit further towards the north, northeast. DPW would remain where they are in their lot, in their lay-down space. This has essentially a phasing component where the parking would be constructed first, that 162 spaces that you see, and that The purpose is so that the fields could continue to be used during the construction of the building. So essentially that would be a permanent parking lot that would be left behind after the project is complete so that's a permanent parking so the fields can remain in operation.

How many spaces are currently in the lot?

So 200 is what So this would be those spaces and signage would delineate that those would be used for the fields during school hours and the parking the darker gray would be used for the school so the school would have 230 parking spaces and then once school is out all of those spaces could be used for the for the fields

or for evening functions at either location. And currently the two turf fields are illuminated and the cloud field is also illuminated.

So this is a... Oh, gosh. McCloudfield, you said it's illuminated?

It's illuminated. Illuminated.

Illuminated. Right, yeah. It glows. I miss him. So this is the 7-8 option. So the bar in the back is a three-story wing. And towards the denim outside, it's two and a half stories. So again, that would house the auditorium and it would house the gymnasiums. so it keeps the public facing operations more towards the access.

and the gymnasium would be on the left hand side. So it's closest to the rest of the fields. And if the fields were being used and there wasn't an event in the school, then there'd be close to 400 parking spaces available. that could be used by the fields.

So we know that this site requires a jurisdictional transfer and triggers a MEPA review. Does it also require zoning relief?

Yeah, uh-huh. This one would not.

This one would not, but the four story might.

the four story would require the modification in height, but because the larger triangle, the black outline that goes all the way up around all of the Fields, and Dowden, and covers 470. That overall lot is 36 acres. So the FAR calculation and the site coverage calculation Those would not need to be changed.

And you have a new driveway on County on Dedenham Ave across from George Agate, right? Correct. Okay. And then another existing driveway and then a third driveway, right?

Yes. And the designers are looking at... The possibility of having it just have two points of access onto Dedham. and then there would be a gated access into the DPW yard. So that would be emergency access and DPW access.

And in terms of the drop off and pick up, I know that's kind of in the weeds, but that affects traffic a lot. It would be sort of similar to the high school. They'd come in one part of the parking lot and come out the other. Hasn't that been thought about?

Well, there's best practices of separating buses from vehicular traffic, from cars, so that the students aren't crossing over. So that's still part of the analysis of what's being studied with the traffic engineer. So I'd say this is very preliminary. It's more to see how many parking spaces we can get in there and would be further analyzed, especially with the traffic engineer.

And the driveway for DPW that exists now would stay. So we're talking about two new driveways, but four in total.

If you include DPW, DPW is at the very bottom of, actually just off of this screen.

Okay, so three, not four.

Okay. I know you guys haven't gotten this far, but... I'm just picturing this. Almost nobody's going to be coming from the south. So people coming to drop off a pickup, they're all going to be turning left.

Anyone living off South Street and that whole neighborhood on that side of town would be coming up from the South. 85% would be coming the other way. All the better for people who ride buses.

and Bussing. Just a side point with Bussing, right now 6th grade is at, well I guess this is a 7th grade option or 7th grade option so it wouldn't change much for 7th and 8th but for 6th or 8th we'd be Bussing kids who are currently going to High Rock to Bozzio. I imagine there'd be more busing needed to get the kids to Bozzio.

At the end of the day at Pollard, the existing Pollard, There are 14 buses that go to Pollard. They use the Pollard front entrance area as a bus depot. And students change buses. I'd say a third to a half of those students get off and do after-school programs at Pollard. So that level of exchange would actually be lessened if you combine 6th through 8th. because you don't have to bring 14 buses from High Rock over to Pollard. Students are already in the building in the 6th through 8th.

So I'm thinking about, so I think 6th, K-6 busing is required to be covered by the town. So we think like two miles if you're, you know, outside of the two-mile radius than town covers busing. I imagine there are more students outside the two-mile radius from DeFazio than from High Rock. That's my thinking.

It's possible. I can't really. I'd have to ask our GIS person.

There's a good point about the churn that happens with sixth graders going to Pollitt and the switch. Thank you.

okay so option six seven c seven c seven seven c is the same footprint uh the bar in the back would be four stories and similar parking, same layout, a taller bar. So this one would require zoning change because it is four stories.

Okay.

And then new fields.

and then... So both of these have 230 parking places. Does that mean that the size of the auditorium ends up reduced or do we

So it's one seat per three. I'm sorry, it's one parking spot per three, so it's the same $750,000.

there would need to be some shared use of the 260 parking spaces to accommodate both.

That's how you're accommodating.

These are very schematic drawings. There is opportunity, perhaps, to find some additional staff parking in the DPW yard boundary. There's a lot of stuff that's stored over there.

Okay, that's fine.

Got it. At DeFazio, the fields would have access to the parking spaces. afternoons, weekends, to be able to use those as part of the resource. And then even for Buses for sporting events, they could use the fire access lane that goes around the proposed school. So there is kind of a path for seeing that eyesight from the bus to getting the kids to the field. This is Abbott Pollard. So once the building comes down, the existing building comes down, there could be possibly two fields plus a recreation of the Healy field and the Issa small field and the tot lot could be recreated as well. and the cost estimators are replacing these in kind.

So what they have now is what the proposed is and then also what the additional cost would be if they were turf fields or if they were something more than what they have currently at DeFazio.

would the cost of demolishing the existing Pollard building be included in the project costs?

It would be included in the project costs. It will not be recognized, though, by the MSBA, since it's a different site. So it won't be reimbursed.

but when we put our numbers together, we need to include that so that people are looking at apples to apples comparison. Because that's not currently.

Well, in the prior PDP study, it was included. It wasn't segregated out. And we didn't quite understand what would be reimbursable and what wouldn't. We had assumed that it might be reimbursable. They made it clear it would not be reimbursable if we build on DeFazio.

But it is reimbursable if built on Pollard.

Correct. up to the thresholds.

Understood. It's not a full coverage. Right. Nothing is. The same percentage. Yeah. Right.

Okay. Other questions? Did you have a question, Catherine? Same.

Okay.

All right. We did good. We do have another slideshow. Oh, that's true.

Don't start congratulating yourself. We do. They'll invite us back.

Okay. and if you'll indulge us for five more minutes. I'll run through these. I think the second set of slides is to show that there's impact on DeFazio no matter what option is chosen and some of that These are critical decisions that need to be made during the PSR process, so ideally this month. the site option, the ad reno versus new construction, the grade configuration, and then the auditorium. If we go to the next slide, if

If a 7 and 8 building is constructed at Pollard, then we will likely need, we will definitely need lay down and parking space on DeFazio. The current agreement is that the town, the school department could take over the existing parking lot and use that without having to replace it. It's further away from the adjacent property through the tunnel. So there's an option two of doing parking and lay down on top of what is now the Warner field. and the conclusion of that construction of the building, then that owner field would be replicated to its existing conditions.

Is the cost of that replication, could that be included?

That will be included, yes.

Sorry, included in the cost or included in the reimbursement?

Included in the cost, not reimbursable.

But the assumption there is that there's some cost savings of having this parking laid down area closer to construction that would justify the cost of having to redo the field? Otherwise why would you do it? you have to put it somewhere no I know but why would you move it from the option one to the option two unless it somehow saves you money to have it closer it would have significant you'd basically have to you wouldn't have parking for DeFazio

that would be a major impact in option one.

I was going to say, that was about to be my question, which doesn't just mean there's no parking, which makes those fields really unusable, more the duration.

but there is an agreement in place. It was done in 2016 and the school department controls that parking lot. Okay, next slide. the other impacts are if seventh and eighth is constructed at Pollard then Mitchell needs. That means that High Rock is not available for temporary space while Mitchell is being constructed. And so modular classrooms will need to be constructed for the middle, for the Mitchell project. Right now, in the school master plan, there was a design and layout that took the parking lot and the taut lot area and a portion of the DPW yard for the modular classrooms. to accommodate the full school.

And then at the conclusion of construction on Mitchell, the modulars would go away. And if there was a, Middle structure of a gym, gym slash cafeteria that was constructed as part of the temporary project that could be left behind as an additional resource for but those costs would guesstimate at about $40 million and would be unreimbursable under any MSBA project.

I don't understand the slide very much because If you build the 7th through 8th on Pollard in the back, and especially in the one-face designs where you're not impeding upon the existing Pollard building, you could keep the existing Pollard building a swing space for Mitchell.

You do not have anywhere near enough parking. you would not have any play space for either. There are a series of constraints. You'd also likely have to do upgrades to the existing Pollard building in order for it to be used as an elementary school. once you start investing 30% or more of the asset of the assessed value of the asset. You have to bring everything up to code. Everything.

Right. So when we were talking about using High Rock as swing space for elementary the upgrades that we were talking about with fixtures like smaller toilets, smaller lowering the sinks, things like that, I don't think that it was approaching 30% of the costs and parking is a factor, I don't have a solution for that but I just want to if we're talking about swing space for a limited amount of time it seems like something we could work through and find parking for that rather than building a 40 million dollar temporary structure I think though that they're not determining

what will be they're just you know this has been an expressed need and so they're speaking to a potential plan for mitigating it.

Yeah, but I guess I don't see the need. In this scenario, I don't see a need to build modules when you have an existing Collier building. That's my only point.

And you

I hear that.

Isn't there sewage discharging into Pollard right now? I thought the beauty of rebuilding Pollard was that we could actually fix that problem, not have to fix it for the new Pollard and then fix it again for the old Pollard because we have Mitchell on that.

And part of the issue is that the sewer line from the one-story wing goes through the courtyard and underneath the two-story wing. So How you replace that in kind is not easy. The existing building would likely be too large for that elementary school function.

To what extent do we investigate that problem now? I guess it's unclear to me how I think that this is something, this is a question, right? And I'm not certain that that's necessarily the right answer and I know that there have been questions about potentially just building on the Mitchell Field and then knocking down that building and so on. So to what extent do we need to How detailed do your potential strategies to mitigate this future need have to be?

We don't have any designer in place to reinvestigate the school master plan. there's a lot of detail that went into the school master plan and we're pulling where we can from that school master plan for estimated costs. I think that in the School Master Plan, you will see that there were diagrams that were done for trying to build in the field while it was an occupied building. And the conclusion we were coming to was that One, they would have to relocate those existing kindergarten modular classrooms elsewhere on the site. They would have to use Mitchell Woods as a lay down space and contractor parking because access would not be possible through the school site. And that would require an Article 97 land transfer.

just from this speculation, which would then complicate MEPA. And there's a forested area on the other side, which is largely impacted by wetland as well. there is an alternate access off of an adjacent road in the back of Mitchell so we would have to cut down a whole bunch of trees over there and there'd be significant work but we have not studied all of those options in great detail But there's a lot of information in the Schoolmaster Plan that I would encourage you to investigate.

But so ultimately, this is one potential plan, but not the entirety of that universe.

it was never studied Pollard was never studied as a temporary accommodation for an elementary school

I think that's because the master plan contemplated an addition renovation scenario and again like I don't know if that's not my preferred option but the master plan didn't envision any new building

There were multiple options that were explored during the school master plan, one of which was to build a new building. on the field behind Pollard and then demolish the existing building. It looked more like a doughnut shape in the school master plan and it was it looked that way in part because they were trying to keep it to three stories it was a very double loaded building small courtyard smaller than the one at the high school but you can envision the footprint from the high school.

Those were in the planning stages in Europe but I guess the master plan, the school building that the school committee voted on was an additional renovation of 638. That's correct. And so I guess all of the new building scenarios we're seeing here are a departure from the master plan. it's not a criticism of the process as much as saying that we're already departing from the master plan. And so I think we need to understand the implications more we don't have as much from the master plan that we can rely on because we're doing things differently now.

I guess I would observe that the master plans that have been built have been good planning documents. They have provided guidance. I think this master plan is the same, but we have always ended up building based on the scenario that was in front of us. The prior master plan, the first thing that happened was we had Newman break, right? And we had to redo Newman, which wasn't anywhere in that plan. But by the time we got to other things, other things had shifted. recognizing I think that things can change over time. I think it's important to consider what options are that we know but also recognize that the town will make its best planning decisions with whatever scenario is in front of them when we get to it. So all of those things I think are true.

Yeah. I'm just mind full time wondering if the board's comfortable if the team jumps to the last slide. Yeah.

Come to our meetings. Invite a friend. This Saturday we will... Be at the Pollard itself to do tours along with the principals. Check it out if you haven't. I mean, it's interesting just to see it firsthand of the situations and the challenges of the existing building.

And the architects have built two models, one for Pollard site and one for DeFazio. And we will have those there. So we encourage you to come look at those. We will also have boards similar to the ones, identical to the ones that we had at the prior open house, which show a series of images of what new buildings look like, new middle school buildings look like. what those types of spaces could be like. And we'll be there to answer more detailed questions. and likewise at the public hearing on the 17th. That's mainly a listening session and PBBC will be there, school committee will be there, you all will be there. Parks and Rec will be there. But it's for us to listen to all public comments.

And then there is the all board summit on the 24th. We hope to refine a selection.

Excellent. I have one more question. Is there going to be a tour of the High Rock School? Because in the sixth grade scenarios, there's the proposal to turn High Rock into swing space and then maybe even eventually in elementary school, but there's a change in use proposed at High Rock. And I know many families have expressed support. They'd like having a sixth grade center. Is that something that's contemplated to have a tour of the sixth grade center as well?

The educational program that was submitted to the MSBA reflects having the sixth grade join the 70th. so as part of the educational program that hasn't been considered to do a tour of High Rock.

I think also from my understanding part of the school committee's My preference with moving to a 6-8 is that it's not that there's necessarily things, well, it's too crowded and so on, but there's also an entire program missing from the sixth grade school that is housed at the Pollard because of a lack of space. the special education program is entirely missing from the school and I'm not sure how that that would be apparent to people by visiting the school although the space issues might be apparent well I think

What would be apparent is the condition. High Rock is a relatively new school. It was completely redone in 2009. And so I think people may want to see If we're looking at the condition of Pollard, considering replacing it or completely redoing it, I think people may want to see the condition of High Rock if we're considering changing its use as well.

That's probably something we should bring up at school. Yeah. Any other urgent comments before we let these folks get on to the next? Thank you. Thank you so much.

Thank you.

all right madam chair i move the consent agenda second any discussion all those in favor aye motion passes thank you kevin Okay, so we're going to move on to a proposed update to alcohol regulations. in our, I guess this is all you, Keane. I was like looking around for miles.

the materials in your packet remain unchanged from the previous versions in terms of the proposals before you there was a pending question just to provide the board with more guidance about why we have two separate tables of penalties those that are and Council provided you with additional information for kind of case law related to the ABCC and why they view compliance checks as or what's led to the determination that their educational nature. And as a reminder, the policy change before you relative to that schedule of penalties is just having the first penalty be held in abeyance. That is something that has been doing in practice. The change in the language would just reflect your ability to do that. Frankly, the change in the language, you have the ability and discretion to have it in abeyance with or without the language. more clearly articulating current practice.

And council also provided context about are there other communities that have kind of a dual violation where there's a sale to a minor but then also a violation of the regulations and just the quick overview is we're not aware of other communities that have the scanner use requirement which is where we see the the dual violation under our existing conditions. So that I hope provides more context to some of those open questions but otherwise happy to answer questions that the board still has.

So I don't have a question, but I'm going to talk out loud about what my sort of thinking and proposal might be. I am wondering if, given that we have the scanner regulation, whether the right thing to do is to look at those penalties because it really says that if somebody has a compliance issue and it's their first one, and presumably they're not using a scanner which I think has been true in each case the scanner was not used that we wouldn't hold it in abeyance but we would assess one date so I'm wondering if we need to take extra dates for the scanner off and just make it automatic in the case of a compliance check even with one date. So I offer that as a question of food for thought.

So currently if we do a compliance check and they go in and there's an underage issue with the underage person gets sold A beer, we learned in part of the investigation that somebody looked at their license or didn't look at their license, right? And they're sold a beer. In any event, a scanner was not used. So when it comes to us, they currently could get on a first night one night for the compliance issue plus one night for not using the scanner. because the scanner has its own separate set of penalties. And given the information that other communities aren't requiring the scanner, and that we're very clear that we do want the scanner used, all right?

And if they were using the scanner, we wouldn't see them on a compliance issue, all right? I'm wondering if we take the Knights off the scanner, but we just say, you know what? Having that first night in abeyance for for an issue just goes away. I mean, I feel like we were doing that because other communities were doing it, but then we put in this issue where we're adding a night for the scanner so then you're putting one night in abeyance on compliance and you're keeping the night on the scanner you know it just it makes it more confusing i think and i think we should be able to be clear and just say

it's happening so basically two nights

I think one night is probably reasonable. So the other thing that was interesting to me in Chris's guidance to us was about what is too extreme for a penalty. So it led me to say, okay, are we being too extreme? with adding additional penalties for the scanner. At the same time, I want to be very clear with people that we are expecting the scanner to be used and therefore it becomes automatic.

I just want to make sure I'm understanding you. So Chris's guidance the other night, and in the written guidance that he gave us, was that the violation, the actual selling the beer, to the secret shopper. That was the one that was recommended to be treated as educational and held in abeyance. If we want to make sure that a first-time violator gets a penalty, it needs to be through the scanner regulation.

But our scanner regulation is written in such a way that it's an additional penalty.

Correct.

All right, which again, we're talking about educational, so.

Katie? Just two thoughts on the suggestion for your context. In the current regulations, a violation of using a scanner, that table of penalties isn't different than any other violation that's only in your regulations. So if you were to reduce the We'd either have to rewrite it and have a schedule just for the scanner versus the current schedule applies to any violation of any of the regulations in here. Does somebody serve? before or after hours, all of the other requirements in here. Also to make the point, right now in practice you can

do a stacking of the violation of the scanner plus the non-compliance of selling to a minor during the compliance check, but that is always optional and at your discretion. So it's not required that you stack it. You can, but you do not have to.

But somebody has to serve it eventually, right? The scanner violation. So you're saying it doesn't have to be stacked. I presume that means it can be separated from the other violation. It's not that it goes away.

Your current regulations and as proposed as amended always gives the board discretion to impose an order that is more lenient or more severe than as is suggested.

So I guess just back to the scenario that you're laying out. My understanding, and I'd love correction if I'm wrong, my understanding of this proposal here is that the scanner violation will be a one to two day suspension. No, a one day, a one to five day suspension. And we don't talk about abeyance for the scanner. So typically we're doing one for the first offense. The compliance check is a one to two day suspension, which may be held in abeyance. And we have been holding those in abeyance for the first offense. So my understanding is typically for the first offense, we are doing one day certainty. one day at least and that is for the scanner now the the ones in abeyance if they have a second offense then that comes back on the compliance is that correct so

they will eventually if they are repeat offenders but i think in this proposal we would definitely have on the first offense a day served for the scanner violation is that a correct understanding

Is that what we've done?

I think that is what we've done. Yeah, it is what we've done.

I think it's written. We have had one situation where a minor was served during a compliance check and the licensee did use a scanner and the minor was still served. it turned out that there was an error with the scanner and in that case you did not hold a penalty against them so it's an oddity I don't expect that to happen again but again the existing regulations and as proposed allows you to understand the circumstances of each individual situation.

Yeah, I mean, if a licensee came in and said, not only do I not have a scanner, but I don't plan on getting one. I would say you get the whole ball of wax. We're not holding anything in advance because we want to move that issue along. But I think for the most part, the whole point of having the scanner regulations is to avoid the compliance regulation. If the scanner were used, we would not see it. If the scanner were used, I mean, except in the case of software glitches or whatever. I feel okay with the way we have it. And I will just share that I did speak with the chair of the Board of Health. And I think that they're

understanding of that secondary scanner regulation was imperfect when they made their comments here and that they didn't understand that that was a standing regulation that that frankly we're much stricter than most of our peer communities in that regard. And that that was not Well, there is some discretion that there was no opportunity for no violation. So I think that after that conversation, they felt relieved that we were not going to let compliance failures go unpunished, even if the compliance portion itself was to be regarded as educational.

We also allow cell phones to be used now as a scanning mechanism. Is that the restaurant's cell phone or is it the employee who just uploads the app?

All right, was there any other discussion that folks wanted to have on this?

I think the obedience thing was the main controversy. What message is it showing when, if we're holding things in abeyance, is that not strong enough? because I haven't gone through a lot of these. What is the process? Does the whole board make that decision?

Well, it's the licensee first comes to, well,

there's different levels maybe you can walk us through the process sure after a violation occurs there's an initial meeting with the chairs to get a better understanding of the circumstances rather than just kind of in addition to the and police report, but ultimately the penalties, the recommended penalties come to the full board.

Including holding anything in advance?

Yeah. when it requires a hearing, the licensee appearing.

In my memory, we certainly have had full discussions about that.

it's not a decision that's happening outside of the full board yeah okay if there's is there more discussion on any other points anybody have anything If not, perhaps a motion. Marianne, you look like you're still pondering.

I'm still thinking, but I'm fine. I'm back still thinking about all these different things. There's no perfect solution, right? The question about what gets served consecutively doesn't, you know, we pulled out having it served consecutively. I do think that it's reasonable, right, There is some pain involved in this for the merchant, and that is by intention. I feel like we've done different things to try to be understanding of that. But it probably shouldn't all be but nights and Tuesdays, so we'll have to just continue to watch that as we're thinking this through.

I think that's something that we have some discretion on as well. We do have discretion. So if needed, we can apply it.

Madam Chair, I move that the Select Board approve proposed updates to the Town of Needham regulations for the sale of alcoholic beverage dated November 12, 2025.

Second.

Any more discussion? All those in favor? Aye. And the motion passes. Okay. Um... Next on our list is DPW 2025 construction season updates with Karis Lustig. I feel like I'm on a talk show. Come on down. Karis Lustig, Director of Public Works. Hi.

Thank you, Madam Chair. I actually did not get an opportunity to give you my pre-update in the spring because that's how busy of a year I think we have had. So I'll be giving it to you all in retrospect. So this particular year, again, was another high construction year. Since COVID, we've been doing approximately $20 million worth of construction projects. and that pace does not seem to be decreasing based on our current capital submission and other projects coming up. Does it give you an overview? One of the challenges I expressed last year was in staffing of the department. We still have that challenge, although we're seeing a little bit of a slowdown as far as transition. We are down to less than five vacancies. I think we had close to 11 the year before and then over 18 the year before that. So we are steadily making hires.

We are hiring primarily from outside the profession, so largely entry-level employees that we are putting through our own internal training process. There's just such a high demand for individuals in the construction industry and the salaries in the private sector are quite competitive. So we are hiring entry level and then working on our own training programs. One of these has been that the town became certified for commercial driver's license training. Four years ago, the federal government and then the state changed how the commercial driver's license program was administered. and required that an individual go through a certified program. These programs out on the market run anywhere between five and $10,000. We're able to provide that training opportunity for our staff in-house. So that's a huge advantage. We have had three trained this year and we have three in our program currently. We had a couple challenges this year related to contractors.

So I think with the sort of getting to the tail end of all of the ARPA money and some of the other stimulus programs, a lot of communities were doing a significant amount of construction work. Again, supply and demand, there's only so many companies that provide this service. and so we did have some challenges getting our contractors to commit to coming into the town or juggling a variety of projects. So that did slow down a little bit our roadway construction and there are a couple of projects that got pushed off until next year. We also have seen an increase in emergency response within the department, particularly to wind events. In the past few years, we've had storms that have come through, thunderstorms, but this year it seemed to be sort of non-rain as we were in the drought, but high wind events that did have tree damage.

whether the tree damage ends up being public or private trees the town usually ends up providing some support services particularly if there's roadway or electrical wires involved and one of the things I won't like All the construction work I'm going to give you is sort of what's happening out in the field while we're continuing to design for projects moving into the next year. and we're also managing some larger projects throughout the town. So I just wanted to quickly highlight those. We have the MWRA tunnel project, which includes right now construction on both an electric connection to those tunnels by Eversource and some preliminary work on identifying a route for relief drainage for the tunnel itself. We did receive funding at town meeting for the fleet addition to Cogswell facility.

We actually received bids for that about a week and a half ago. that came in under budget and all four at alternates were able to be awarded as part of that project. So it's nice to see there was quite a bit of competition on that particular project. So it's nice to see that that other factors did not increase the price related to what our estimates were. We're also working on finalizing the design for Mark Tree renovation. This has been a project that's been on our list for quite a while. It is complicated. that's why these projects do take a long period of time there are many alternate paths you can take in order to achieve the same end all of which involve Trees, poles, where to put sidewalk amenities, and then how to do traffic calming. So we are working with the community. We've had multiple outreach events and working with the abutters when we talk about specific issues. specific challenges in that right of way. We are finishing the design on Great Plain at Central intersection improvements.

That project does involve again some private property at that intersection that we have to navigate in order to determine the final layout. And then we have just finished construction on the improvements for Great Plain at Honeywell. We have and a significant amount of time spent towards the Envision Needham Center project and trying to make sure that that project moves forward in a sustainable fashion, as well as the Highland FTIP. we had to manage drought management restrictions this is a new requirement on the community for the last two years we have had we've had compliance for drought restrictions related to Consumption, but never in response to drought events. So that is a new communications challenge that we've had. We've been working on the assisting in communication around the Pollard and some of the engineering challenges, providing support for the tree committee. continuing to work on the 128 sewer interceptor.

That's a multi-year multi-request plan that we have in order to make improvements on the largest conveyance of sewer through the town. and then also all the Eversource projects that they are also conducting within town. We provide all the services for oversight on that. So the projects that I'm just gonna highlight today, and again, this is outside of the regular maintenance work that we do, We did a water meter replacement at Del Ave. This particular project was conducted by town staff. We've been doing in-house water construction projects. I mentioned a lot of our staff are new, and so it provides an opportunity for our staff to get exposure to the water main system. in a non-emergent situation. So that's been a value from a training purpose. And then we're also coming to the end of this phase of the water service replacement program. We have about another additional year

This year we removed and replaced 23 lead services and we only have four known lead services remaining in town. We also had to perform testing on several services where the materials were unknown. and we will be providing additional testing for any houses that we weren't able to hear from this upcoming year. The town is under a mandate in order to remove all lead and copper and it does look like the state is going to be adding additional requirements to that program. while we will have removed all of the lead or the lead goosenecks, they are now requiring that we remove all the galvanized steel when we go and remove the lead. So they're increasing the requirements on the community. on the continuing water sewer and drains. We did a bit of work at the water treatment facility. We redeveloped one of our wells and did work on the backwash facility that we have there.

and we also worked with our sustainability to replace the lighting that accesses the path with LEDs. On the sewer pump station, we have had worked on both the West Street Pump Station and the Great Plain Ave Pump Station, working on the pumps at that facility. We are now, we've replaced a lot of our pumps in the last 20 years, but many of those pumps were replaced in the earlier part of that 20-year cycle, so we are now running into more replacements that we need in order to maintain those critical sewage pump facilities. You can, yes. Inside and outside. The recycling and solid waste at the RTS, we removed an old

Levy, Levy, Levy, Levy, Downtown is virtually non-existent when it comes to the regular workday, so having a place to get some respite from either the weather conditions or just from the work in the public has really been beneficial.

Is that a long-term rental?

Yes.

And there's no plan for a permanent solution?

Not at this particular time. We're trying to, in the multi-year DPW phase, I believe the recycling and transfer station is in that and now that we have more results from the RTS Delivery Study, which we'll be presenting in the next few weeks to the Select Board, wanted to hold off on making any permanent plans at that facility before we knew that we wanted to continue maintaining that facility in its current condition. And now we have some results with some indication that for the foreseeable future. The community does want to continue that facility in its current condition. We can look at more permanent methods of addressing some of these challenges. on the highway they did a significant amount of curb ramp compliance work just for a reminder when we do a repaving of a road we are legally required to make all of the ramps ADA accessible we do get calls on a regular basis

are concerned about expenditure of taxpayer money and why are we taking ramps, particularly those that already were at grade and why are we tearing them up and putting them in. We are required to put in tactile warning panels for people who are visually impaired. and that does require that we put down concrete as opposed to asphalt in those areas. So while it doesn't seem like a necessary improvement, it is for those who may not be able to see or have access to that intersection. So in order to get ahead of all of our paving work, we did a significant amount of curb improvement. We also do several different treatments. One is a regular paving mill and pave. Another is asphalt rubber chip. It's a product we've been using in town for the past five or six years. It is significantly less expensive than paving and has fairly significant durability.

The way we determine whether or not we use a paving or rubber chip is we try to alternate cycles. So every roughly 10 years, we try to go in with pavement and then we follow that up 10 years later with the rubber to preserve the surface for longer. We have another product called Micro, which is just a small layer of pavement. It doesn't work on local roads because those roads don't have the infrastructure underneath them in order to support the brittle pavement. So what would end up happening when we've used it on local roads is it cracks. So we use asphalt rubber chip because it has some flexibility to it and adheres better to the pavement. I just wanted to highlight quickly with our sustainability coordinator, we have sought and received several grant funding opportunities to make improvements throughout the town, but also made some recommendations when we have upgraded existing equipment including at the Newman School.

We had initially put in for a grant to replace the gas heater with electric, but we had a premature failure a few months ago. and were able to use the information we had had as part of the grant to do a quick replacement for electric. We also did a project at Memorial Park where we increased the efficiency of the irrigation system and that was also funded through grants. In Parks and Forestry, one of the larger projects that we completed this summer was the Claxton Field renovation. We did have some challenges partially because of the drought this year and then partially because of some grading challenges at the site in getting that field fully open this year. We're working with the contractor right now on that to have it fully open. are fully available for next season, which is the primary softball season. We did all the work that was funded by Town Meeting for the fencing at DeFazio.

improving the original fencing that was done as the Field of Dreams project and replacing it because it was coming to the end of its life. We also do a periodic field resurfacing and the High Rock was up this year. On the fleet side, we've been doing some retrofitting of older equipment in order to better appropriate it for the snow and ice season. including creating a dedicated liquids unit for the highway operations for snow and ice. One thing I just wanted to highlight, we have changed in the past few years our method of disposing of old vehicles. We used to use a local auction house and now we are posting these items through municipal bid and I just wanted to highlight in this year we have sold 24 vehicles generating over $200,000 in revenue for the community and it's not

it's a slightly more involved task because we often have people who are flying bidding on this from out of state, flying from out of state, trying to sort of deal with used car salesmen is a different challenge that we have at the facility. We did not have many vehicles funded this year, but we had a backlog of vehicles that were on order as sort of the supply chain disruption from COVID. And we've received 13 of those so far this year. and one major accomplishment is we have renumbered and rebranded all of the vehicles. So we have all the new logos. We've actually put some of our marketing materials for employment on the vehicles, hoping that people who see our vehicles throughout the community might hit the QR code if they see it. and then one just note we've had the same numbering system in DPW probably since they invented vehicles and we had reserved a certain number of vehicles for each division. And of course, we ran out of numbers.

So if you weren't familiar with our numbering sequence, you wouldn't understand why my vehicle was one, but the assistant DPW director was 15. so now we've created an alphanumeric system so it'll be easier for new employees to know if they're calling off assistant superintendent of a division they know it's you know highway it's H02 as before it was like number 77 so I think it'll be helpful, although a challenge this winter as we go through and we have to renumber all of our vehicles and our snow operations. On the engineering side, they provide assistance throughout the town on a significant number of projects that involve their expertise. The tennis courts at the high school, which were just recently completed, was one of their larger projects. and as a sort of offshoot of that project based on feedback from the community, they ended up adding an ADA accessible viewing platform

that now, because we don't have bleachers and most students watch the game on the hill, it did exclude those who were in wheelchairs where they could either watch it at grade and maybe not get the best view. So now they have an opportunity to view it like every other student at the high school. We are in the process of closing out most of our ARPA-related projects. For the majority of projects, they were required to be completed by December of 2024, but construction projects that were underway until December of 2026 in order to be completed. We also, I think, I think one of the more notable items for disruption is we completed the Water Main at South Street project. I will just note that we have found the South Street project was pipe that was Not as old as many of the pipes in town. We have pipes in town that are over 100 years old. That pipe was installed in the 1970s.

But we have found that some of our pipe that was installed, particularly in the late 60s, early 70s, is more prone to leaking than some of our older pipe in town. We are finding that we are looking at areas that are more heavily used road-wise, because it seems that those were all done in the 1970s, for areas that may need to be targeted in the future. And we just got funding this year for our water master plan, so we'll be looking at how to target our improvements in the future. and as part of that they also added BMPs there related to stormwater features. The building maintenance division has also done quite a bit of work on the exterior buildings as well as the interior. The most notable is the high school granite steps. I will note that those steps have been functionally and aesthetically a problem for a significant period of time and probably have never, from what we can tell from taking it off, have never been resurfaced.

They are due to be complete, I believe, in the next week or so with the railings needing to be installed. We had a delay. Granite is primarily in fact in the United States. and so there was some supply chain issues getting granite cut specifically to our specifications and that resulted in a slight delay in the project. But the building department worked with the building maintenance division in order to make sure that all the egresses were covered for the building for opening. The high school cupola, which I think maybe most people don't see physically, but again was original to the building and had only looked like it had been modified once. I guess originally it was an open cupola. And then they put sides on it afterward. structurally when we went up there there were significant problems with that and it would have posed a significant risk so going in there and doing what we had initially thought as aesthetic improvements ended up having a structural benefit

They did several different projects throughout the town, mostly in the line of just updating current heating and cooling infrastructure throughout the building. With that, I welcome any questions that you might have. This is a picture of, I think, two or three weeks ago that Mike Gretzky took over the reservoir of the double rainbow.

Thank you, Karis. As always, I am, like, Floored by the number of projects that DPW contributes to this town in a year. It's astonishing how much work you get done and how Thank you so much for joining us. How much coordination, you know, different town departments, but also utilities and so on external to the town. So thank you so much for all the work that you do. It's amazing.

No, I echo that it is a prodigious amount of work that is going on. One of the ones that I think is also happening, although maybe at a slower place because it didn't make it to the list, is the ongoing planning for a sidewalk sort of master plan of some sort. And I know that that topic at least comes up with regularity I think maybe the Mobility Committee takes it in small bites, but that work I know is work that the town is interested in that is also ongoing and that you continue to support and help us try to figure out a better way forward on that. So all these pieces that contribute to helping people to get around town more easily, even though it feels like you're interrupting the roads so that we can get on the roads more easily. But yes, I'm grateful. for all the things that are happening.

And I would just observe that for the Eversource work going on now on Webster, that when there's a device of whatever up closing the sidewalk that says sidewalk closed that generally it means that people shouldn't be walking on the sidewalk there and I know that's a complicating factor at the moment but crossing the street to avoid the closed sidewalk might be worthwhile over the next few weeks in that area.

Yeah, no, I agree with my colleagues that you do a lot. There's still so much that has to be done that you can't get to. what are your limiting factor we've i think this is kind of a recurring conversation so like If you had more money or more time or more people, could that help you in any way?

Well, I think at some point there's like diminishing returns. So I think one of the things I've said is like you can only close so many roads down at the same time. So at some point you hit a volume of work that is no longer like it's just you can do it, but no one could move around town. So I think that is one of the challenges. I think a lot of the work Needham's DPW is set up. Every town has its own sort of manner of doing it. Some in-house a lot of work, some outsource most of the work. Needham is more of a 50-50 model. And so we are somewhat dependent on contractors for our work, which when we have a lot of work and there's not a lot of work in other communities is a huge benefit to us. and when there is a lot more work in other communities or the state's doing a lot of work, I think it's more of a challenge. So I think that would be in some years having more equipment, more staff would be beneficial and in other years I think it could be a challenge.

that was certainly the case this year with our roadway construction. Weather is often a factor, although this year less of one. Although if you were to ask Ed, he'd say it was more of a factor for him because growing grass was a real challenge. But getting access to doing construction work was not as much of a challenge because we didn't have as many rain days. So those are sort of the limiting factors. And then I think just one of the things we're trying to work on better is trying to figure out for Subterranean work, I think it's easier. People don't have as many opinions about like how you do a sewer or how you do a drain or how you do a water main. But when it comes to the surface level work for parks and for highway, I think trying to figure out how to gain efficiently is a challenge that we're currently working on. We want to get feedback. We want to understand what community desires are.

At the same time, we also need to engineer things so that they meet requirements and then also do it in a fast enough way that allows us to hit a construction target. And that is, I think, a challenge as well.

I just want to say how grateful I am for all of the work that you do. And especially as we are, since I've lived in the town, we've built so many new things. But it's so important that we maintain. and that's the work that you do and the incredible amount of planning. I mean, all the complexity. I mean, there's just so many things that need to be done and the very thoughtful way that you have that every year we're going to, you know, this is what we're going to do. And so we stay on top of things. And I think that's really great so that we are preserving those investments, you know, as we make

That's um, that was quite a list. and they say that change is the only constant. Now we know who creates that change. It's DPW. So thank you to everyone. And I'm also really impressed with the in-house training. That was a great move.

I would just say, and I know this is how it was always intended, but when you say you, it's all the staff and public works because when it comes to either managing contracts or physically constructing the work, there's a lot of individuals who participate as part of our projects and really make all these projects happen.

True that.

I just add to that, you know, the breadth and the volume is here, but the pride in the work that the team brings to everything. isn't necessarily reflected in the slides, but I get to see it every day. CARES gets to see it. There's so much pride in the work. Each individual division is so passionate about what they do. It just makes the end product even better. So thank you.

Thank you. Karis, one more thing that I'm just seeing that. I think we started right with saying it was $20 million worth of work, right? Is that it? If we went back two years or three years, how many dollars were we doing then?

So I would say like if I were to go back pre-COVID, so 2019, maybe $5 million was like kind of our upper limit. Right. I think... Part of it I will say is our engineering division in particular has transformed over those five years in a very positive way as far as the breadth of work they're taking on. the scope of the projects they're taking on, the services they're providing cross-divisionally, that I think has been part of the difference. I also would say I think it's the town's capacity to support these projects. And I think, you know, to Josh's point about there's lots of projects that we haven't done. channeling more resources towards projects to get more done. I do think we're sort of pushing our upper limit of capacity and that's when we have to then start prioritizing which projects are the ones we can put our attention on.

that was exactly sort of where i wanted to get to so it's a four-fold increase in a very short period of time so really grateful to you and and working with your staff to manage through all that because that's change for everybody and I know that the pressure of working at that faster pace is something that everyone feels. So thank you.

Thank you, Paris. Thank you. Okay, time for the town manager to take the stage.

Great. The first item up is FY 2027, select board budget priorities. So I wanted to see if I could have Dave Davison joins, Cecilia Simchak and Liz, when she can, will join us. She's doing coverage. We have two budget related agenda items. First, just overarching budget priorities, and then we'll talk specifically about capital and what's been submitted. so in terms of um fiscal year 27 select board budget priorities i just want to share a little bit of context which is in the um i'd say since covid largely in the town manager's budget the select board budget priorities have been the goals that you adopted at your retreat. So goals one through seven, the high level, not the initiatives. And I think that makes a lot of sense in terms of aligning your policy and your fiscal goals and not having Dooling priorities. But I just wanted to share that as context.

And tonight really is just a discussion. And just want to walk through there were four items that had come up during your summer retreat that the board had said let's revisit these during the budget process those are listed on your fact sheet but I just wanted to talk through So there's three of the four that really are capital in nature. So identifying opportunities for expanded active and passive recreation facilities. and then capital improvements, both at the Center at the Heights and at the library. So tonight we'll be talking through what has been submitted for capital projects. But I would say these three items, I'd recommend you kind of hold taking a position on them until we bring you the recommendations for the SIP plan overall so that you have them in context of all of the submissions.

The fourth item that came up at your summer retreat was increased staff capacity for communications and community engagement responsibilities. I do not anticipate that we'll see a specific funding request for this in the FY27 budget cycle, but I did just want to share that for our hiring of the economic development We have revisited the job description as we always do when openings come up. We've made communications and community outreach much more apparent both in terms of that positions and the engagement of course of the business community and being clear about those responsibilities but also adding requirements that that position really serve as a backup to our communications director on just functional things, the website, social media. We do have some redundancy already in existing positions, but this would really kind of bolster that.

it won't be a funding request but I would just want you to know that within our existing FTEs we're trying to tackle kind of expanding our capacity. So in terms of where we are in the budget process, I think I shared at your last meeting, departments have now submitted both capital and operating requests to the team here. We're in the review process. So we've met with some departments, not all very much just doing the initial understanding of what they're requesting and why. and my goal for this is really just to ask a basic question of all of you which is you know are there things that you want me to be keeping top of mind as we're doing those reviews and as we get further along understanding the requests, but also once we have revenue estimates, which we don't have at this point. I just want to know now if there are things that you're thinking about that I should know through this early stage of the budget process.

So I guess I would pose that question.

I don't have any comments on the operating budget, but my thoughts are more on the capital side. Given the extraordinary cost of Pollard, the debt service is something I'm thinking about. So other capital projects that might require debt. Those are things that I want to be looking at more closely.

I guess I would second that. The balancing act between moving forward with new capital projects and supporting existing buildings with maintenance and upgrades, updates is a difficult I guess I would just love to hear more information rather than less when those projects come up.

Yeah, I agree with them. I think the sense we've hauled on the horizon, I'm not saying not to cut, but just basically how deep is the water and how much do we have to play with it. and I'd like to salt some stuff away so that we can absorb this huge cost coming on. Which I just did like three maritime metaphors. Sorry.

No one speaks as colorfully as Kevin.

That is true.

yeah i mean i i don't have something different to say i agree i think it's a big big bite and so we have to be mindful i don't i don't think we want to starve everything else but i think we have to be more selective um and we have to think hard about what our priorities are and kind of what the needs are, which will be hard. We have to do it.

Yeah, I don't think I have anything more to contribute to that for right now.

I guess just to share an initial thought on that, obviously we will come back to you with recommendations on this, but those recommendations will be cognizant both of debt within the levy versus the debt exclusions. you know that we do have an obligation to maintain the assets that we already have and so in terms of making tough choices I think that's of course going to are going to be part of it, but there are things we need to continue to invest in, in addition to the Pollard. So we'll be thinking about that balancing act when we bring you recommendations in December.

I guess at some point I will come back to you and have you vote your 27 budget priorities and just a sense of the board if you're comfortable with the past practice of largely that just being your goals. Yes. OK. So I'll have that for a future meeting. OK. Moving on to preliminary FY27, to 31, it's weird to say 30, anything, capital improvement plan. I'm gonna turn this over to Dave to walk through our initial submissions. Summer.

Thank you.

So as the town manager mentioned, the department submitted their capital request for fiscal 27 through fiscal 31. And as a reminder to the board, the town has a five year capital plan, which in each five year capital plan, we indicate what are the priority goals for funding over the next five year period. And when departments submit their budget requests, generally new requests would be in the fifth year, which would be 2031. Now there could be circumstances that may cause something to be moved up and conversely something else may be pushed out by a few years. What I'm going to do for the board's edification is talk about the things that are in the 27 requests that have changed from what we were anticipating for the 27 requests last year at this time.

Overall, last year we were anticipating FY27 that the cash capital program for general fund was going to be $8.8 million. and we would anticipate that for tier one capital we'll be at that number again. and depending upon free cash which we do not know yet if there are tier two priorities we would consult with the board about funding those if there's excess Precash. A few things that have changed in FY27. First, Most notable, and this gets to the point which the board's going to have to do some consideration, there's talk about debt within the levy limit to 3%, which we manage very closely and our capital plan is laid out.

based upon that 3% and we've never exceeded 3% because we can't really thoughtfully plan our capital projects around that. But the Quiet Zone project now, which Last year was thought that it was going to be able to move forward construction, but as the board knows, we're not at that stage yet. We were looking at financing $3.5 million with debt and the levy limit. The new estimate, which is yet very preliminary, because we're still waiting for a lot of input from the state, but right now we're looking at a $7 million number. essentially doubling the amount of debt within the levy limit that would have to be incurred if the town were to move forward with the project. and if it ends up to be at that cost.

Last year at this time, we were anticipating funding in FY27, the improvements to the kitchen and game room. and the access to the senior center. That was to be financed by debt. We still are anticipating that. The town, of course, appropriated funds to do the design, and the cost of those three improvements are about $80,000 more, so that's... within our ability to continue to move forward and would anticipate that area. Those were the only items that were identified in the capital plan last year that would be funded by debt within the 3%.

Some new things have come on in FY27 requests that were not in the capital plan last year. It wasn't that they were brought up, but they did not exist. So basically they moved something five years. There's a $106,000 request for the Mitchell School project, the Mitchell School facility. there is um $50,000 request for a disc golf study with an anticipated cost of implementation the following year, $300,000. The Elliott Field project was identified in the capital plan for FY27 and that project is another item that has nearly doubled in cost as well.

last year at this time we had not identified that as being a primary um tier one capital item which one does that do uh that would be the elliott fields the fields at the elliott

Is that the same as what the design of CPC approved? The town meeting approved a recommendation of CPC? Yes.

Yes. and those primary designs of course was going to weigh our ability to fund the project and of course one of the items was CPA to be part of that funding source. Another new item, which was not in the plan, is a Newman shade for $240,400. This is an item that is warranted. This is an example of something that extreme circumstances for a very vulnerable population in the school system needs to be addressed and I would anticipate that you'll see that's going to be a top priority recommendation for funding.

Preschool Shade.

That's the Preschool Shade structure, correct, which there have seen previous iterations, but the project is much more and more complex and larger than they anticipated. So there's been a reset that the school department has done, a combination of prior appropriations, third-party funding sources, and this is the last appropriation that would be necessary in order to do that project. Conversely, there are some projects that were anticipated to be funded in 2027 that have been pushed out. The most notable project which is also in the park and recreation area is the action park.

Pickleball Court, they anticipated the request for 27 would be $3 million. They pushed that out by a year to fiscal 28. there are several factors influencing that as well as completing design as well as a recognition that there are some newer items that have come forth for 27 as well as its increased cost and and other projects were identified for FY27. The DeFazio playground renovation, that's been pushed out by two years for understandable reasons until decisions are made by the town as to what is happening with the Pollitt School will dictate what would be done at Devasio Field for playground equipment reimbursement.

investment, as well as municipal and school parking lot resurfacing that's been pushed out by a year that was A couple of factors influencing that. It was looking at FY27 for funding at 350,000. It's been pushed out by a year because the cost estimates of that are also higher. That's now at $838,000.

Is that the same project? 350 to 838?

Correct. Based on... additional information, and another factor, which you heard the DPW director refer to. It's not only the dollar volume is up, but the dollar volume is up because things cost more. The cost relative to labor, the cost to materials, cost with delays for various reasons, whether it's the ability of contractors to respond in the timely manner, whether it's supply chain issues, but all that has led to cost and that's certainly been inflating a number of construction infrastructure projects. I would also note that on the extraordinary type of projects such as the Pollitt School Project, DPW Phase 2,

in phase three projects all those have been submitted it's the same submission as previously there's been no updating as we know those particularly with Pollitt School, the information with that is changing. So the school department just resubmitted the same information that was provided in the plan last year. and in terms of the public works phase two, not surprisingly, that's been pushed out already by one year. and as a reminder to the board at the time of funding last year phase one was recommended for funding it was approved by town meeting but phase two and phase three uh we have we had not identified uh when that could be funded and in part because we needed to see where Paul at school is going to rest.

What year is that pushed to?

Currently it's now pushed to 28. The, relative to the library, the library has requests, In the out years, they were submitted with the same amounts for the same years. Last year at this time, just as with public works phase two and phase three, the library out phases were not being recommended for funding under Tier 1. And unless things change, I do not anticipate that to change as well. There's a lot of material here. I would remind the board that please save the individual submissions.

We will refer to them at the next few meetings when we come back, rather than regurgitating and reproducing the same information more than once. Cecilia, Kim, Elizabeth, and I can all answer any questions you may have.

Could I just ask Dave to make it easier for me to save it efficiently? If you could send this document as a separate PDF, if that's possible.

I can do that tomorrow.

So I can save it with a good name that is easily findable and all those things. Yes. Thank you.

Can I ask? I noticed the nifties. This is on page, it's on page three. Yep. So FY27 is $4 million at subsequent years. 300,000 women. What's planned for this coming year?

Those are, of course, the submitted requests. $4 million for FY27. Last year at this time, FY27, we were looking at a little over a million dollars request. The recommendation for funding for FY27, the plan last year was $425,000. That's essentially going to have to remain the same if we're going to rely upon the fees that we've been collecting. We have about $425,000 that will be available for appropriation at the annual town meeting. The departments identify what the cost is in order to address those issues. and we have to work with what's available for uh financial resources and again all told and all the infrastructure costs are up significantly and they're going to be um decisions are going to have to be um

made in terms of which infrastructure in general fund infrastructure is the higher priorities. the same thing you did not mention it but the road infrastructure there was a number that was 4.9 million dollars for 27 which We were identifying last year that we could fund about $3.5 million for FY27. It's now a $6 million number. And again, for all the points that the DPW director mentioned earlier in her presentation.

I just add to that as well. We did not have the beta stormwater master plan heading into the SIP process last year. We do now have that. So I think what you'll see in the NPDES submissions is also a reflection of having those strategies now that are also prioritized. So for the 2027 submission, it's improvements to the lower field at Broadmeadow. That was one of the ones that Beta highlighted when they presented the plan to you. So I think the submissions from the department are reflecting the new information that we have. But to Dave's point, obviously, we'll reconcile it against resources available.

Thank you. Anybody else? I was curious about the theatrical lighting for Pollard that's on the second page.

That was, of course, last year. Noted that that was put on hold until decisions with the public school. I would anticipate, again, the school department resubmit the exact same capital information that they submitted last year. and didn't alter the date. But of course, until decisions are made with all at school, there won't be any, there was no recommendation to fund that for 27 and I anticipate that will still be true.

and they are not requesting that we invest in the Pollard School. It's a placeholder until a decision is made just for anyone watching. I just want to be crystal clear.

We were supposed to do some water projects by the top lot, so that's delayed, right? Yeah. Yeah, the daylighting of the book, all the book. And that, there was, it had been proposed. There was a spiel proposed. Yeah, okay, but it's not...

I believe we got a grant to design that, but I don't believe we had money to construct it. Does that sound right? Yes, thank you.

This is a can of worms that I didn't intend to open up, but we're talking about capital. Are there any placeholders for Envision?

There is no...

I believe there is. It's called the downtown... It doesn't have a dollar.

It's a placeholder. But not a funding request for 2017.

It's a future form. which is a way to keep things on our radar that aren't ready to attach a number to.

Thank you. Mary Ann, any questions for you? Okay. Well, I have a non-financial note. which is that in the quoted section of our town charter which talks about the project submissions, it refers to our town manager as he. and given that we've never had a male town manager and that generally this is these days considered an inappropriate use of gendered language, I would just like to suggest that the next time we review our town charter that this is something that gets changed. It seems in light of our two female town managers and only those two female town managers, it seems a little archaic.

just a note good point okay miracle of deva well it's it's interesting because actually it refers to the select board instead of the board of selectmen which i assume at some point we changed at some point under our female town manager we changed but we didn't we didn't notice that or whatever so note to self next time

You probably changed the town manager language back in 2004 or whenever that was, right? And he was still a generic term at the time.

So, say them would be great. Not urgent, but of note.

We'll put it on the list. Put it on the list. So we will be back to you at your December 2nd meeting with recommendations. And then you will vote the final sip December 16th.

December 16th. Okay. So...

Thank you for entering into the time of all the consultation with everybody to bring a budget forward. Let the games begin and here we go again, right?

Yeah. Yeah, great. Well, you know, it is, had been observed at the last, the spring town meeting, that like, town meeting is just, we have a budget and everything seems to go through. This is when we are saying the no part.

Yeah, really. Talk about sausage being made.

So I love this process. This is good to do, and this is when we say no.

You're a great winnowing. Thank you.

Thank you.

Town Manager report.

Great. I have five items in absolutely no particular order here. First, I just wanted to make the board aware that we had a fire actually overnight at the Daley building. Everybody is fine. This is our building maintenance facility behind Fire Station 2. it was contained to the boiler room we had staff in the building when it occurred they immediately called 9-1-1 the fire station is next door so just wonderful reaction and additional public service by all of our employees. But what it means today in terms of next steps for that building is we don't have a boiler. functioning and so um you know the building um does not need to be vacated vacated but we're solving for how to get heat back in um so i you know maybe giving you additional updates throughout that process but just

wanted you to be aware that that happened and so glad that everyone's safe and was fast acting in their response. Any damage? Was that an insurance claim? We will process everything, yes, through insurance, but we're within hours of when this has all occurred, so I don't have too much information. Great. Item two. Joe Prandack, our building commissioner, is retiring this week. He's not here in front of us because I think those of you who have worked with him know he does not like to be the center of attention. So we're having a very kind of mild. and staff gathering for him this week. But I just wanted to take an opportunity to share a little bit of his public service in the industry to Needham.

Joe has been a local building inspector for 38 years, and for almost 20 of them, he has been a building commissioner. So he has served in Hull, in Quincy, for most of his career in Milton, and then he came here to Needham. You know, I have really enjoyed working with Joe so much. He's professional and thoughtful, really thinks so much of his profession as we were talking earlier about pride in the work and the importance that the building department does in protecting public safety, making sure that all the buildings that we are in are safe and are built to code. and he has also seen so much evolution. So if you think about the energy codes changing, the number of building codes that have been updated over the years, and taking everything from a one and two family home to inspecting and New Children's Hospital. It's really quite amazing.

So he will be sorely missed and but I wish him the very best and he has absolutely earned his retirement and then some and you know we are currently posted to find a new building commissioner and so hope to have an update when we have somebody on board

I'm sorry, he's retiring. He was such a straight shooter. And Josh, when we were working on Stormwater, there were certain things like, he'd make these suggestions, and it was like, that's great. My God, you changed the world today. and you know we put it in and so he will be missed.

SNAP benefits there's something new in the news every day on SNAP benefits so I think the only thing I want to say is we work very closely with the Needham Community Council. They are our local food pantry. And if anyone is in need or are confused about what's happening, if you're a recipient of SNAP benefits, You can contact the Needham Community Council. You can also contact the town. The Council on Aging has social workers. We will plug you in where you need to to get the best information available. And if you're somebody who is not a SNAP recipient but you want to help We're doing a gift card drive. So again, the Council on Aging over at the Center at the Heights is collecting gift cards to local grocery stores. We're asking for increments of $25.

the money is more helpful than actual food given we're really unsure you know what how long this might last who needs what so it's a lot more nimble if you're able to provide a monetary donation

Can I add one thing there? I also want to note because I know that a number of members of the community have been concerned about this and certainly have made donations that these donations now to help families with Food and Security in this moment with what's going on with SNAP will be shortly followed by the Needham Community Council's annual fundraising drive. and so I hope when people are donating now for this specific purpose the answer is the community council will still need you to donate to the annual drive if that's something that you do and hopefully many people will consider that because it's a service that is in fact needed even in Needham on a regular basis.

We have more than 1,000 Needham residents who are SNAP recipients, just to put a number on it. The town, through the great work of Department of Public Works and Sustainability and Parks and Forestry, received a $92,000 grant from the state for cooling corridors, which is going to allow us to plant 46 trees around school walking routes. So we unfortunately have to come to the board when we have to take down trees, but we always are putting them as many back as possible. And this will help us expand that. And lastly, I we're coming up on the holidays and the select board has a policy that allows the town to waive the

and so those fees will be waived so the meters will be free from Monday November 24th through January 1st and this really is a way that the town can support our small businesses both in the center and at the heights and a friendly reminder to parkers you can park for free but the two-hour limit still applies so please don't park all day and please shop local. That is my update.

Thank you. Time for committee reports. So let's just start at an end. Mr. Keane.

All right. Went to the Needham High School, the Distinguished Career Awards, where Chief Condon was given an award. I didn't know he was grad, but tears. And Paul Gammie also got an award. It was a great show, great production. All the juniors The high school saw it, and they were in attendance. They got a lot out of it. They asked really good questions too. Okay, Envision, Needham, Matt, we are going to be doing the block-by-block review at the next meeting. I know you guys were interested in that. Seal and Branding is met and we are presenting to the select board December 2nd. If you read the Neem Observer about how the Possible Working, Version, Looks. We're going to talk about taking up the two Englishmen.

And then finally, Pancake Breakfast. November 1st. I did a really good job serving pancakes. Heidi was there, too. She did great, too.

Yeah, well... Kathy and I took over for you and it got really busy. So some of us were standing around flipping a pancake every so often. Some of us were like under the gun. The 9 to 10 o'clock hour was really busy.

T. Chalk met last night and we didn't get a full update from the Needham Housing Authority. We were just doing some Reimbursements, but they shared the great news that the Seabeds Way project has been awarded a Grant from the state, and this is for lowering the energy costs in the seabeds units as they redo them. and the grant is for 1.15 million dollars so great great news for them this is that part of the layer cake or is that part of the layer cake

Anything else? Yep.

Okay, Josh? While my colleagues were at the pancake breakfast, I was at the police and fire station for their touch-a-truck. DPW is also there. It was a really good turnout on a very cold day. There's also Smashing Pumpkins, which the kids loved.

Great day. Large House Review Committee met on Monday evening. They are actually at the planning board. probably as we speak. They started a little bit earlier tonight. And there is a public hearing next week. Tuesday, Wednesday? I'm out every night next week. So was that Tuesday? Tuesday night next week for feedback. So they are bringing forward for public consideration three different options for people to look at for some reductions in house size and also the fiscal analysis sort of behind that that helps people to understand what might be the impact for the seller of a house, potentially, at a moment in time, and what might be the impact, frankly, to the town.

of less new growth as a result of somewhat smaller houses compared to what if it continued at the pace that it was. So those things coming forward from large house. I encourage everybody to go to every public hearing there is next week.

Yeah, and just to be clear, there's the Pollard public hearing on Monday and that is at Pollard. There's the large house review public meeting here in this room, Powers Hall, on the 18th. That's Tuesday. And then on Wednesday, there is a meeting here, a public forum on the proposal submitted by the Tree Committee. Tree Preservation Planning Committee. That is more of a preliminary work to expose the public to some of the foundational concepts that the tree committee is using in looking at a potential tree bylaw. So I would just say that the tree committee has met and is meeting, will meet again prior to this public forum, but I I highly recommend that just because it's third in line, you don't sleep on the tree committee. You should come to the tree forum. That's on the 19th.

I'll also just mention that a number of colleagues went to the chamber breakfast with our AG Andrea Campbell on the 7th which was really interesting and interesting to hear how national issues are impacting Massachusetts. A lot of talk about SNAP benefits at that event. And then of course on the 11th, which was yesterday. We had a really moving Veterans Day observance at Memorial Park, which involves many town departments and first responders and of course the veterans and post 440 sorry the VFW post it was freezing but very well attended, and rightly so.

That's it. I don't have anything else. You would like a motion? Yes, please.

To do what?

I move that we adjourn. Excellent. Do we have a second? Second. Any discussion?

All those in favor? Aye. We are adjourned.