Needham Select Board, 7/21/26

Thank you for watching!

Good evening and welcome to the Select Board meeting for July 21st. This meeting is being broadcast by the Needham Channel, The Town's YouTube channel, and via Zoom and recorded for publication in later viewing. I know that the Needham Local and the Needhamserver are here and recording um in accordance with the open meeting law if anyone else in attendance wishes to record the meeting uh the time to tell the chair is now

Okay.

I'd like to start this meeting with a note of appreciation for a departing staff member, Harold Hintz is our staff member in the office of a town manager and she has been with the team now for almost two years. And having returned to the public sector after two decades away, She supports this board, not just running the Zoom but preparing the room, the weekly mail and countless administrative support functions. She finished the years-long effort to streamline the board's licensing processes. She has assisted our director of communications and community engagement, reviewing and editing the newsletter on a weekly basis She's handled 100% of the town manager and select board accounting processes, making sure that the bills and paychecks are sent out on time. She is fabulous working face to face with the residents, treating everyone with dignity and respect.

And she will still be serving the public at the town of Wilmington, working in Town Hall which instead of an hour commute is literally across the street from her house. So we are very appreciative of your time here, and we will miss you. Thank you for your work. OK, and so returning to our regularly scheduled business. We're going to start with public comment. I'm just going to remind everyone that when we do public comment the select board doesn't really talk back this is just we're just here to listen we're gonna ask you to stick to around three minutes if you can and remind you to state your name and your address for the record so that we can put it in our minutes. So, the first person on our list is Judith McIntyre come on up and I'll just A little closer for you.

Welcome Thank you Is this good?

Yeah, and you don't really have to speak into it. This is for the Zoom.

Is this a good Zoom?

It's perfect.

Go ahead. All right. I'm Judith McIntyre. I live at the Stephen Palmer Apartments 83 Pickering Street here in Needham. So I'll just get right into it. Would the Needham Town Meeting members attending last year's October town meeting have voted to allocate $385,000 for the early eviction of Stephen Palmer tenants had they known that upon termination of the land lease on May 2nd, 2027, the Stephen Palmer Building reverts to the jurisdiction of the Needham School Committee and not to the Needhams Select Board as we all residents and tenants alike were led to believe. Were the town meeting members aware that the Stephen Palmer building did not have to be empty at the end of the lease on May 2, 2027? After last year's meeting, Stephen Palmer residents have been racking our brains wondering why the Select Board would insist we vacate the building by October 2026. When the lease did not end until May 2027.

Why the hurry when a select board has insisted that they do not know what they want to do with the building? Well, According to recent information, discussions have been taking place for years among representatives of the Needham Housing Authority, the Town Select Board and the Needhams School Committee concerning use of the Stephen Palmer Building to temporarily relocate residents from the Seabed low-income housing complex during a $20 million scheduled renovation of the Seabet apartments. Said relocation is set to begin at the start of the new year. Is that why the Stephen Palmer building needed to be empty by November 1st and not May 2nd? Is that way Stephen Palmer tenants were forced to vacate our homes six months early? We shall see. The unofficial discussions, unofficial decisions, misleading information and outright lies during this entire process

may not rise to the level of a legal violation, although that remains to be seen. But they certainly arise to an ethical violation. And had Stephen Palmer residents been in possession of all this new, hidden information it would have been a very different scenario today. At present, several remaining Stephen Palmer tenants are on waiting lists for low-income senior housing in Needham, Newton, Wellesley, Boston. The wait for an available unit is generally two to four years. Going forward, and in the interest of salvaging a modicum of decency and fair play, I suggest that if, in fact, seabed tenants are to be temporarily housed at the Stephen Palmer for the next two to three years that the remaining Stephen Palmer tenants be allowed to stay in their homes, paying rent to whatever management or agency oversees the temporary process.

This could help prevent current Stephen Palmer tenants from having to make two major moves within 2-4 years. If, as reported, Seabed tenants are being housed at Stephen Palmer only 12 units at a time I'm just about done. It leaves plenty of room for the current Stephen Palmer tenants to remain This seems like an equitable and fair solution, and utilizes what the building has provided for the past 50 years. And what Needham residents continuously say we need even if temporarily, affordable senior housing. Thank you.

Okay our next public comment will be from Matthew Ching

Thank you for having me. I come before you Matthew Ching, 198 Manning Street as a resident. I'm also the commander of the American Legion post in town and a member of the Memorial Park trustees. I come before you to bring attention to the fact that the Memorial park baseball field is in tough condition and if you go outside today, you'll probably see that it's underwater completely. It won't be able to be probably playable on Thursday night for a game. I bring this to your attention because of the fact with the proposed construction at the Pollard Middle School, we're going to lose another diamond at Warner Field at DeFazio. When I was a kid there were three big diamonds down there and now there's one. So you're going to leave us with two diamonds in the entire town to play for four teams in the summer. I don't even know what baseball has during the spring, but it's gonna be very challenging to fit four teams into a weekly schedule.

We ask that the select board make it priority to redo Memorial Park, we ask that i asked that uh you know consideration be used to partner with some of our friends such as saint sebastian's Babson or something of the like to use their fields during this downtime of construction. And once the construction is complete, I urge the select board to make every effort to ensure that as part of the construction costs, that the Warner field is completely redone over and doesn't face any issues that it currently faces with flooding, and so forth. It'll certainly be damaged due to the staging area. So this is a pretty serious concern because we have a lot of kids playing. We'd like to see the kids out you know, off the video games if we may. So I just want to bring that to your attention and I thank you very much.

Appreciate it. Thank you. There are a couple of chairs over here if you wouldn't sit. Okay, our next public comment will be Richard Ucci.

Hi there. Thanks everyone for allowing me to speak My name is Richard Uche. I live at 27 Coolidge Avenue here in Needham. I'm here to ask select board today to not accept the Pollard project as it will be presented today and to provide the building team a target cost for Pollard before it's allowed to come forward for an override vote. We only have to look at what, to Lexington for a relevant and recent example of why we should not continue on our present course to build such a large expensive facility. I'm here today to ask you to exhibit the leadership and stewardship which FinCom has already exhibited on this matter, and would be shown by asking the school committee and the project committee to continue their work and find a way to meaningfully reduce the cost of this program below $250 million prior to any outside grants or MSBA subsidy.

According to the MSBA website and every available credible site I can find, Pollard Project would rank as the very most expensive middle school project in the history of Massachusetts not by a little but by a Texas mile more than $100 million. This project also exceeds MSBA guidelines on a square footage basis by more than 53,000 square feet. While everyone I speak with agrees including myself on the need to do power that's a no brainer Why this plan? Why $325 million, one-third of a billion. It makes no sense and very few people I meet ever agree that that makes sense. It's easy to understand why. Our present plan will saddle our town with a substantial debt for 33 years. This goes well past the 20-year norm that our town has previously used for construction bonds underwriting school buildings. The size and duration of debt for this project will have a material impact on the affordability of our town

for seniors and new families, and will force many in both groups to leave our town. It'll have generational impact. It'll also impact our town's financial outlook and our ability to access funds needed to tackle other priority projects that we have in our capital plan, including addressing Mitchell, which desperately needs attention. I'm here to ask this board to pause our sprint to the override vote and instead press the building team to do the right thing with a very clear cost objective. there are many areas in this current design which provide excellent opportunity to reduce cost but like so many building committees it seems this project team is a prisoner of their current design unable to consider taking substantial action to right-size this program. While I'm not an expert in building, just looking at the building and looking at facts there's plenty of options to better utilize the existing building envelope, eliminate the fourth floor revisit the extensive use of glass which is very expensive

right-sizing the space dedicated for special ed, which is more than double the state's guidelines for special Ed given it. Given the size school that we have reconsidered needs for learning labs, which individual learning labs are impractical for middle school we consider delaying the investment in a theater no offense bill lots of opportunity responsible governing is hard and you guys do a lot of hard things but really making tough choices around spending is very important. I'm urging you to press for meaningful reductions in the Pollard program before it's brought to an override vote and potentially losing that vote, which would set this project back

Thank you. Okay, and last known public comment is Dave Vellante. Welcome.

Thank you for having myself and Matt tonight. I'm not going to repeat a ton of what he said.

Just your address.

Sure, 799 Central Avenue. I'm the current president of Needham Baseball and Softball. We serve over a thousand families through programming in spring, summer, fall, and even some in the winter. And as Matt said from the sort of Memorial Trustees and Legion point of view they have four teams out there in the summer. We have an additional two teams plus another program we run that runs into the end of June, which would have an addition of four teams and that's just summer We have at least four or five teams in the fall and between six and eight teams in spring. I sent a letter on behalf of the board today, I'm sure it hit your inboxes late so I don't want to repeat a ton but just sort of echo what Matt said. This is a lot of rain tonight, but even with a quarter inch of rain that field is unplayable. My oldest is an incoming or rising senior at the high school who plays in the baseball program they hardly get to use the field in the spring.

Obviously, baseball and the New England Spring is tough but we routinely see other towns that were traveling too have availability and we're playing away games as home games at times. Just in the high school program, there's three teams of the high schools and a middle school program sharing two fields will make it really difficult for just the athletic department. And I don't want to speak on their behalf, but I have had talks with Ryan Madden who's the AD up there not to mention we come on fields after those games are over and essentially losing Warner, which has to be staging area completely understood. But going down to essentially one-and-a-half fields when any kind of rain happens we can't use Memorial We're going to have a lot of kids sitting at home at night, which is unfortunate because it's a great program for the older kids as they enter into high school and later middle school to play and have fun with their friends in a fun environment, which

our goal every day with with our program and all the thousand kids we have is to you know, have them have fun. And as Matt said kind of keep him off screens So I'd urge the board just as Matt did to invest in Memorial, get it to a point where and I had worked at length with Ed Olson before he left town. And we had quotes to really fix it to the point where it would shed water and not all drain to shortstop or the clay is which is obviously not where you want water um and even to the point that we've seen in travels in the last couple years a lot of towns and cities doing a turf infield and a grass outfield because the grass can handle the water it's really the dirt and the clay that cannot We at Needham, you know baseball and softball would love to work collaboratively with the board in the town. I've talked to Karis Lustig, to Stacey Mulroy all the kind of players throughout we have a long relationship with them

as far as fields go and this has certainly been sort of the next thing up for us with the Pollard program you know incoming and losing that field would be almost impossible for us to run programs even at half capacity what we are now which will be unfortunate for the kids. and Needham. So thank you for your time.

Thank you. Okay, is there anyone else in the room who wants to make a public comment? John?

Hi, everybody. John Conley, 67 Bay Street. Town meeting member, finance committee member here as a resident and town meeting member to speak about Stephen Palmer. When I voted to support the Select Board's recommendations last October, to provide for the early shutdown of the tenants at Stephen Palmer. I did so primarily because there was representation that that was going to help facilitate the planning for the next uses of the building. and to me it made sense that we needed to do something with the building. And if we didn't have tenants in there, that would facilitate and allow that to occur in a more readily fashion.

I've now come to learn that the planning process for doing anything with a property has stopped, that the committee that had been studying his has been or will be disbanded. and that we've stopped all plans for the future usage of that property. And for me, if I had known that at the time, I would not have voted the way I voted. And I now regret having voted to support the select board proposal at that time. I think it would be a disservice to the residents in that building and in service of town meeting into the town as a whole, to stop the planning process for Stephen Palmer. I think we need to get it going. I think it would be a shame to have two mothballed buildings in this town under the jurisdiction of the school committee, that being the Hillside School and now potentially the Stephen Palmer building

I think those are assets that should be planned for and utilized for our entire town. I'm not prejudging what they should be used for, but they should not be mothballed and it should not at Hillside and potentially is going to happen to Steven Palmer. So I just wanted to come on record that based on what has now transpired, I regret the vote that I made to do so. And I urge the people who are now involved to get the planning going and let's do something with that Stephen Palmer site, the building whether it stays or comes down whatever I'm not prejudging that but let's get planning and let's do something because I think that is what we owe to the people who we displaced into the people voted in favor of those warrant articles last October. Thank you.

All right. Anyone else in the room want to make a public comment?

Hi, Barbara McDonald Pickering Street here in Needham and I just have a couple of points tonight I want to make. So I want to raise two serious concerns about the current school design and concerns that affect the size, the cost in a long-term tax burden of this project. So I've been looking at the schematic designs, specifically 4.1.4 pages 57 through 60. So the program shown in the schematic drawings makes it clear that the fourth floor is not even necessary. The entire fourth-floor program is only 17,000 square feet and it consists of almost entirely standard instructional spaces, classrooms labs sped rooms and small group rooms. These are not specialized spaces that require a separate floor.

They can be integrated into the first three floors without compromising adjacencies, safety and educational functions. other MSBA schools of similar enrollment Wellesley, Honeywell, Hardy-Westwood, Hanlon, Deerfield, Lexington, Pelham they all deliver their full academic program in three floors or fewer. Keeping a fourth floor adds a full additional structural level, more exterior wall area, more stair and elevator travel, more mechanical distribution, more circulation space, and more cost. Removing that fourth floor would reduce the building size, simplify its systems and save millions in construction and long-term operating costs. So the first floor has 96,861 square feet. The second floor has 82,820 and the third floor has 68,000

141. So those three floors can incorporate that 17,000 square feet for that fourth floor. So the second item tonight is that the third floor media and production suite The schematic drawings show an oversized media center paired with a podcast studio, a TV studio and a broadcast control room. These spaces are not part of MSBA's elementary school standards and no comparable elementary school in Massachusetts includes them. Not Wellesley, not Westwood, not Lexington, not Belmont on Arlington and not even our own prior projects. These specialty spaces add 1,500 to 2,500 extra square feet to the building. All of it's non-reimbursable.

At the current construction costs that's $900,000 to $2.2 million added to the project and they also increase the operational costs by 40 to 70,000 every year for utilities technology support and staffing. The Media Center is significantly oversized, multiple breakout rooms and production adjacent spaces that duplicate functions that are already provided elsewhere in the building. MSBA's baseline media center for this enrollment is much smaller than what's shown here. We really need to be honest about what's happening. The Unnecessary Fourth Floor, and the Oversized Third Floor Production Suite. Those are examples of design creep. features that inflate the building without delivering proportional educational value. This project is becoming too large, too complex and too expensive for Needham taxpayers

I urge you tonight to take a hard look at these areas and insist on rightsizing the design to align with MSPA guidelines in peer districts. we can build an excellent school without building a fourth floor and without building broadcast studio complex we must be mindful of the tax burden this project places on residents thank you

I don't see any hands on line. OK, last call for comments in the room. We're going to move on then. and the first item on our agenda is the 2026 Purple Heart Day Proclamation. And we will turn to the Vice Chair for that.

Whereas the residents of the town of Needham have great admiration and the utmost gratitude for service members who selflessly serve their country and our community in the armed forces, and whereas the contributions and sacrifices of service members from Needham who served in harm's way in the armed forces have been vital in maintaining the freedom and way of life enjoyed by our citizens, and whereas many Needham residents were awarded the Purple Heart for their sacrifice, having been wounded in action while engaged in combat And whereas the Purple Heart is the oldest American military decoration in present use and was initially created as the badge of military merit on August 7th, 1782 in Newburgh, New York by General George Washington The award was made of purple cloth shaped as a heart with the word merit sewn upon it. And whereas August 7th is the nationally recognized day as Purple Heart Appreciation Day, Now therefore be it resolved that Needham be declared a Purple Heart community, and furthermore be it resolve that August 7th be proclaimed Purple Heart Day in Needham.

The Select Board encourages residents and businesses to display the American flag, and recognize Purple Heart recipients honoring the service and sacrifice of our military personnel.

Thank you.

all right any discussion if not just madam chair on that evening of august 7th there is always a nice service at memorial park i can't remember the time i'm sure there'll be publicity about it but it is nice uh it's not long but it's a nice service for the people at the gazebo yeah excellent thank you Bill August 7th he said And I would move that the board vote to approve and sign the 2026 Purple Heart Day Proclamation. Second.

Okay, all those in favor? Aye. motion passes excellent thank you we're going to move on to a public hearing for grant of location and I imagine will be joined by Joanne Callender from Eversource We're just on our way over, okay? Hi Joanne. Good evening. How are you?

Are you well yourselves?

You're in the dark.

Oh, yeah. Sorry. Wow! I guess I am. But you can see me, yes?

Yes we can and we can hear you. Go ahead and tell us about this grant of location please.

Yes, so Eversource is seeking a grant location to install approximately 23 feet of conduit and that's on Lincoln Street to support a new 5300 square foot home at 132 Lincoln Street.

Thank you

Sure.

Madam Town Manager, is everything in order? It is. Okay. This is a public hearing. Is there anyone here to speak on this matter? In the room or online? OK. Do any of my colleagues have any questions? All right, then I would welcome a motion.

that the Select Board vote to approve and sign a petition from Eversource Energy to install approximately 23 feet of conduit in Lincoln Street. Second.

Okay, all those in favor say aye. Aye. Opposed? okay the motion passes thank you thank you joanne have a good evening thank you bye Joanne oh lights okay um all right so we're gonna move on Next item on our agenda is an application for an amendment to an alcohol inholders license by 365 Management Company, LLC doing business as a residence inn by Marriott. And I think we should have Sean Wilson with us, the proposed manager of record. Come on down. Madam Chair, we also have Kelly Keating joining via Zoom. Great. Excellent. Welcome. Thank you. Thanks for joining. Okay, so let me just get to this. So we're going to where you've submitted an application for a change of manager

um can you are you are the new manager yes applying to be the new manger i am the new manger of the hotel yes okay but now you're going to be the license holder.

Yes, now I'll be the licence holder as well.

Okay great. Madam Town Manager is everything in order? Everything is yes. I'm sorry, I can't read that. That's too far away. Kelly? Hi! Is there anything you'd like to contribute to this as well?

Oh, no. I'm just making sure that he got approved and all is good.

Okay. All right. So is there anything that you'd like to share beyond the application?

Not at this time. I know that we're looking to maintain the application so that where somewhere in the future, we could justify reopening our bar establishment inside the hotel.

okay all right um all right for my colleagues any questions just a question do you have any timeline and when you think that would be reopened

At this moment in time, I do not have a timeline. We would probably be looking more towards going into 2027 where we have a little bit more of a heated debate over that it is a large Okay, so that's an internal thing first and then of course you'll come to us. Fantastic.

all right um this is a placeholder for you right correct okay okay so no changes at the moment then no um all right i would welcome emotion

Madam Chair, I move that the select board as local licensing authority approve and sign an application for a change of manager for residents in by Marriott ADB Street and to forward this application to the ABCC for approval.

Thank you Second

Thank you. Okay, all those in favor say aye. Aye. The opposed? All right the motion passes thank you.

Thank you very much have a great evening.

Madam Chair I'd like to move the consent calendar and the Appointment Calendar.

That sounds great. I just want to make sure that everyone notices this very exciting donation of artwork from the Wyeth family to our public library who is like having a banner year um it's very exciting and there'll be more details forthcoming

And Madam Chair, just on that. When I took a tour of the library as you know when you... I actually got to go back in the archives and see it's an unbelievable beautiful piece so we're very lucky that they have donated to us.

Excellent thanks Bill

Could I just for a point of clarity also note that the Library Foundation of Needham made some of that artwork available to be donated uh to the town so they used their funds to be able to donate the art to us thank you

okay so uh we have a motion and a second so all those in favor aye aye okay motion passes All right. So the next item on our agenda is a public hearing, an application for a transfer of an all-alcohol license from Lo and Jang Corporation, doing business as Mandarin Cuisine. And so we're going to ask folks involved come on up. Jing Chen, director and Li Weipan the proposed manager of record Are we ahead of schedule? No.

Madam Chair, it appears they are not here so we can continue on to the next agenda item. Should we continue? We should open the hearing and vote to continue it to a date and time certain. Thank you. That was Ivrea Creed, our town council with Harrington Heap. Yes, thank you.

All right, so then we will open this hearing. And do we need to vote to continue it or just? Yeah, make a motion.

Make a motion to continue this hearing until

and your next meeting is August 11th or the one after that is September 8th.

Okay, so moved. Second.

Okay so August 11 just for clarity.

yeah sure we'll open it and close if we need to right or continue it okay all those in favor aye motion carries continued Okay, the next item on our agenda is the Palomino School update. So I'm going to ask...I know that many of the school committee members are here but we're suffering from a little space crunch so i'm gonna ask Alisa Skatrood, the School Committee Chair to come up and for the rest of the school committee members to hang where you are if you don't mind for the moment. We're also going to ask Dan Gutekantz, superintendent of schools come up. Hank Half the director of the building design and construction. Meryl Nistler senior project manager Louise Miller, if she's... She may be online. Okay.

Richard Crean, the PPBC and School Building Committee Chair. And Dave Davison, Deputy Town Manager and Director of Finance. come on up and that's all the chairs we have. And Madam Chair, we also have Michelle Geddes. Oh, that's right, Michelle Geddees. I'm sorry it was written right here. Michelle, come on down and we'll pull over a chair for you. Yeah. Scooch over, so yeah, perfect. A lot happening here. Before we start, I'm going to ask or give Elisa a moment to convene your school committee meeting because I think we have Do you have a quorum in the room? We have four. Okay, so go ahead and do that so your meeting gets started.

Thank you. I'm School Committee Chair Alisa Skatrud, and I call to order the school committee meeting of July 21st, 2026. This meeting is being held jointly with the select board. We have no members participating remotely. We do have four members here in the room.

right and school committee will have you come up in a moment for the next agenda item when there are chairs available okay so um i'm going to turn to the town manager to give us an update on status

wonderful uh thank you madam chair and it's good to have so many people here joining us for this important project um i want to update the board primarily on new conversations we've been having around warner field and its use related to the pollard middle school Project. This will be a lengthy update, so I'll say I'll cover some information about Article 97 how that relates to where we are in the MSBA process and then how that relates to the select board's planned vote on the ballot question. And folks will notice that on the agenda, we are recommending a deferral of that vote so I'll talk through that as well. I will then pause for questions because there's a lot of information here so just want to be able to outline kind of how one thing connects with another and then we'll have plenty of time for questions um and then

Be able to hear from the deputy town manager on his memorandum related to preliminary estimates for operating budget costs related to the project. and then open up for questions for the project overall. So, a lot to cover but let's dive in So where we are in the process is the Mass School Building Authority has been closely reviewing the town's submission of our schematic design for the Pollard Middle School project. one of the questions that has come up along the way from the MSBA was a request to the town for us to articulate what our analysis of If Article 97 under the Massachusetts Constitution, which I will share kind of the 101 of what that means. but if Article 97 would be triggered by our planned use of Warner Field related to the Pollard Middle School project,

and MSBA also kind of further inquired if we had conferred with the Executive Office of Energy and Environmental Affairs. That's the state agency ultimately responsible for Article 97 and for us to report back to them within this review period of the schematic design. So a little bit about what is planned for Warner Fields relative to the Pollard project, it's intended to serve two purposes for the town. First, Warner Field would be a lay down space during construction a large portion of the timeline. And that would be a temporary use, of course. And Warner Field will also be and this is the 90 foot diamond closest on the DeFazio complex, closest to the Pollard Tunnel for folks to orient everyone.

The second use of Warner Field would be the permanent location of underground geothermal wells or ground source heat pumps, that's the chosen mechanical system for the project and those wells would permanently be underground. And ultimately, once the construction of Pollard Middle School was completed, Warner Field would be returned to its current use, rebuilt as a baseball diamond and field to it's current condition but actually with improvements as well. And the cost for that Restoration improvements of the field are part of the Pollard project budget as submitted to the MSBA. So that is kind of the plan for Warner Field. And the town had done a review of would Article 97 apply?

Article 97 is, it's article 97 of the Massachusetts Constitution and its goal is to preserve open space parkland and recreation land. When any city or town is taking an action that may reduce either acreage or the use of current parkland or conservation land. That reduction in user acreage triggers Article 97 once it's triggered a series of approvals are required to allow that action to take place walk through the steps kind of later in this summary but it's a series of state and local approvals that would be required. And there's also requirements for there to be no net loss in the action taken so if acreage is removed from park recreation or you know conservation land um in order for that

proposed action to be taken, additional acreage or monetary value commensurate with it would have to be provided in lieu so that ultimately there's kind of a replacement for that loss and there's no net loss. So that's a kind of non-legal overview of what Article 97 is. And for the application of Article 97 to Warner Field, for the temporary use as a lay down space. There is an ability under Article 97 to do temporary used parkland for temporary purposes without triggering Article 97. And we had done an analysis for if Article 97 would apply to the geothermal wells and as I've previously mentioned since there's no change in acreage for the placement of geothermal wells and the use would always remain after the Pollard Middle School is built as its current use.

We did not believe that Article 97 would be triggered Upon hearing from the MSBA, we have reached out to the Executive Office of Energy and Environmental Affairs. I will note Chris Heap our town council is online so he can answer questions as they come up. but we did get an initial response from EEA and it was non-binding not the official response, but the kind of first response we got was that we should assume it is likely that article 97 will be triggered by the geothermal wells and unlikely that the temporary Use, Triggers, Article 97. So this is giving us guidance to proceed, assuming that Article 97 will be triggered by the Wells. And I'll talk through kind of what then that would mean for the town, for the project and clear for the last thing

Maybe I misunderstood. Article 97 would likely be triggered, but that was the second part?

So our plans for the geothermal wells would likely trigger Article 97. Our plans for temporary lay-down space would likely not. Got it.

Thank you.

So when Article 97 is triggered, the approvals that would be required locally is unanimous approval by the Park and Recreation Commission. a unanimous approval by conservation commission these are Needham Park and Rec and Needham Commission Conservation it would require two-thirds approval at town meeting and a home rule petition town meeting would have to advance a home roll petition to the state house um to our state legislature which would require two-thirds approval by the House, the Senate and ultimately sign off by the governor. And with that, the Executive Office of Energy and Environmental Affairs would confirm that if replacement was needed to satisfy that no net loss requirement that we have satisfied that as well in addition to those approval steps.

I'm going to pivot for a second and kind of articulate how this Article 97, new information and processes in front of us intersect with the MSBA process and timeline that we are currently in. So as I mentioned, the MSPA is reviewing our schematic design and they're actively advancing that through a series of meetings the next being on July 29th meeting with the town and regarding the schematic design leading up to the August 26 MSBA board vote of approval on our project, we hope. We have every intention of. So within that series of conversations and approvals would be the project budget and scope agreements So this is where MSBA outlines what their reimbursement will be for the town. and at what level.

So I know it's something that all stakeholders here have been interested in, understanding that that project budget scope agreement would be finalized before the msba board vote would be the sign off on that project budget and scope agreement on the state's end At our next meeting on July 29th, the MSBA will ask us to reaffirm our chosen mechanical system. The geothermal wells kind of reaffirm generally the scope submitted in our schematic design and I think inquire about the status of local approvals under Article 97 now that this information is before us. Because of that, I have asked the chair of Park and Rec at the Chair of Conservation Commission to meet expeditiously prior to July 29th

to take this matter up and request their consideration and approval of Article 97 for the plans from Warner Field. you know I want to kind of lay out if article 97 approvals are affirmed by Park and Recreation, by the Conservation Commission. The town would kind of move forward with confidence with our submitted schematic design and all the steps that we've been outlining to date that August MSBA board meeting that I previously articulated. If Article 97 is, if there is not support to move forward with that you know we had a conversation with MSBA and my understanding is that if we needed to change mechanical systems to something other than the geothermal wells

that they would view that as a material change to the submitted scope of schematic design. We would be allowed to continue conversations with them about amending the schematic design, but the time and additional information that they would need review and get comfortable and update the scope of our project means that I would anticipate we would get deferred from the August MSBA board meeting. And so as you kind of play out all of the competing timelines, regulatory timelines and such that we're operating under. if we were deferred from the MSBA August board meeting, we would not have an approved project budget scope agreement in time for the November election. So we would be looking at the ballot question being deferred until April of 2027.

the final piece of this is kind of led to the adjustment in your agenda and the recommendation that you not take the vote on the ballot question tonight to place the November ballot. Once the Select Board requests that the Secretary of State place this question on the state ballot in November, you can't take that back? and so I think the prudent thing would to make sure we kind of give Conservation Commission and Park and Recreation Commission and all of us time to digest this information, kind of understand in the course of action. have a discussion about the article 97 approvals and had votes taken on those matters so that we can proceed with confidence through our current schedule. or we would know that we need to pivot and you would not have already placed the ballot question for November.

Let me just pause there there is an MOA and a memorandum of agreement that we will also walk through. But why don't I just stop there and say, you know, I think I want to just appreciate everyone's fast response to this new information. There's a shared commitment to maintaining a really strong partnership that we have with the MSBA and to process thoughtfully this new information as it's in front of us. So thank you, thank you to all involved. And with that I will open it up to questions.

I have a question, Madam Town Manager. So for Chapter 97 do they only care about what is on the surface of the land or do they care about underneath the land? And if it is the surface only, am I right that the only surface effect is a manhole? Just help me understand this because it's not intuitive to me.

So our analysis was that the surface is what would trigger Article 97. I think Conversations this week with EEA has revealed to us that they do view subsurface use. as a loss that needs to be get the legislative approvals and potentially mitigation required. I would say one point of ongoing exploration and conversation with the state that we are undertaking is how do they understand what guidance would they give us on how to value that loss? Because the field will return to the same acreage and the same use today. We are in conversations with them about you know, what does replacement look like under their regulations? So that is conversations are ongoing. And it may be that the funds that are already in the project budget committed to approve the field

may be that investment that's needed, but that's an open question that we will get further information on.

I've got to borrow your mic. Can we just do a land swap with new land purchased already and just declare that we're swapping it out already?

I think I would just want more information from EEA on kind of what we're trying to solve for in terms of a swap. It's what may not be necessary. It may be the financial investment in that, in the asset. OK. Yeah.

Particularly since it's our plan to return the asset to its condition today or better? Right.

May I ask, when we were discussing the potential for Article 97, when you're considering it building at DeFazio. We discussed the possibility that Article 97 would trigger a MEPA review and that both of those processes together would be quite a long time, one or more years. Do you know whether MIPA will be triggered here? And what the impact on the Pollard timeline is of this new information?

I will share what i do now so we've asked this question of town council and under State Regulation triggering Article 97 can also trigger MEPA, but we have an outstanding question to the state about two things. What level of review? There's kind lower level and higher level of review under MEPA. So clarifying which of those two would apply in this instance, and there's a the regulations mentioned that if replacement land is not required, that may change if MEPA is triggered. And so again because this is kind of a unique situation we're looking for clarity from the state exception would apply here as well. So more to come and I think what i would note is

The MSBA is comfortable if the remainder of the Article 97 procedural steps and approvals in the MEPA process continues to play out. kind of through detailed design. So these are not things that we need to resolve and conclude before August or before they would advance us from schematic to detail design, that work would continue on if the project's approved by town meeting and the voters

But could the timeline impact the start of construction?

I am not anticipating that.

OK, so what You're saying all of the reviews could be done prior to the planned start of construction. There would be no impact on escalation of costs because there's a delay in the construction timeline?

understanding that we're still trying to figure out what exactly is triggered at this time. I'm not anticipating that completion of MEPA or Article 97 requirements would impact construction start date, but again, this is

do you think we'll know before voting on the ballot question? I

about the resolution or what's it?

What level of review is required and whether or not.

I see, yes we can certainly endeavor to try to get a clear answer from the state before that.

And Katie, can you remind us the date that's required for the ballot question vote?

The town through the Town Clerk must submit the ballot question to the Secretary of State by Wednesday, August 5th. And so I was looking to have the select board schedule a special meeting. We have to coordinate calendars a little bit, I think, to give us some breathing room. I think if it's the 29th, 30th or 31st of July that would be preferable but we still have to sync up schedules.

I understand Article 97 from dealing in the past. Like if you take land, you've got to replace and stuff but when they did the geothermal testing I was down then it's not It's on the outside, like even the outside of the dugouts. So when we return it, we're going to return exactly what it was just seems like a path that's on this side of the Dugout might have something There, but I feel like it should not be that big a deal because we're not really taking or affecting anything that much. So I'm kind of surprised they aren't looking at it, but if they are looking, we have to do what's right.

Yeah, we are proposing somewhere between 120 and 125 wells. So they'll likely cover the entire outfield of Warner Field Does that mean there will be manholes across the entire field? No, all of that will be buried about four feet below grade. The only manhole will be near the tunnel that connects through, and all of the subsurface horizontal piping is buried well below grade. And once it's in there, I think similar to what we have at PSAP. It's there for a long, long time.

How many wells are at PSAB?

16. and those are 500 feet deep. The ones at serving Pollard or Testwell went 800 feet deep, and that improves the efficiency

Do you want to?

If there are no further questions, I could also just walk through the memorandum of agreement. That's helpful. I think Park and Recreation had requested when we started these conversations about Warner Field that it would be helpful to memorialize what was planned in an MOA. I think that is a good suggestion, the right one and so we have drafted what has been articulated as the plan, but this would codify it and kind of have the parties be in agreement. So I won't read through the whereases because I've largely articulated the plan is but um you know the could be

Agreement really is laying out the timeline that Warner Field would be taken offline March of 2028 through substantial completion in April of 2032, the offline period not to exceed five years. PBBC, the School Building Committee will notify Park and Rec if unanticipated conditions arise that might change that. Item two, a commitment that the school committee and PVC shall be permitted to maintain the subsurface geothermal wells after installation and access and repair wells subject to these following requirements. So item three, at the conclusion of the Pollard Middle School project that Warner Field will be returned to its current condition same or better quality Item 4, that PBBC will make the following improvements to Warner Field.

Replace the existing field soil and irrigation to specifications provided by our Parks and Forestry Division of DPW and to design and construct a new ADA accessible route from the Pollard site through the tunnel out to the outfield of Warner. Item 5 that PPBC has included, as mentioned the funding for all of this in the project budget. and that Park and Recreation will not be responsible for securing the funding to do that restoration of Warner. Item six, if the wells need future maintenance that warner fields when maintenance work is completed warner would be restored back to its condition and that it's understood by the pri the parties that that would be a joint responsibility to request appropriation for that additional work so that it would not be a Park and Rec's obligation to request those funds alone. And lastly, that Park and

agreed to provide the written certification that they approve of the wells to be underground. So this is just an and Draft, I will say that I shared it with the relevant chairs to get some initial feedback. So there will be some adjustments but happy to kind of adjustments on some wording choices, some clarifications, but I think my goal tonight is just to hear any discussion or reaction that folks have to the draft bill

You said temporary use will not affect or enact 90-70. But what is temporary use? What is it defined because we have five years that right time is it can go six if something gets slow or something happens i mean what is that timeline yes uh the I actually wonder Chris if you're um

I see he's not on camera, but Town Council's initial... Oh there he is. Chris, I wonder if you can respond to your conversation to EEA about this?

Sure. Can everybody hear me okay?

Yes.

That's great. So my conversation with the EEA is that there's no specific defined term that is permissible as a temporary use, but that five-year window seemed appropriate based on our conversation and from everything I've heard, it sounds as though it is going to be logistically possible do everything we need to do in the temporary lay down space on Warner within the five-year window. So I think with that being so, I don't think we need worry about the temporary use for Article 97 purposes if there is a scenario after five years where there's some brief additional window of time needed, I think by that point as long as the end is in sight and the return of Warner Field to its current or better state is on the near horizon, I think that should all work out fine.

Does that answer your question, Bill? Yes. Thank you.

Other questions?

I have another question. So the Conservation Commission has to vote as well but they're not a party to the MOA.

um yes that was my suggestion because they don't actually have a formal role in what's planned at warner field and the field is under jurisdiction of park and recreation so there's no kind of commitment that they would be making related to the Pollard project. But under Article 97, they do have a vote in that approval process.

Would this project need to be permitted by the Conservation Commission?

not for this purpose, but Hank can speak to any other conservation approvals needed.

We're within jurisdictional areas. In other words, wetlands have been agreed with them and their jurisdictional area extends 100 feet beyond that wetland So the building will be within about 50 feet of the wetland that's at the base of the hill on the eastern side. of the Pollard site, and the Warmer Field. Some of the outfield if you've walked there it's pretty spongy and so that technically is the base of slope, is wetland. So we will be outside of the wetlands but inside jurisdictional area. Therefore, we will need to go through CONCOM for their approval in the process.

So then I would suggest that they be a party to this as well, especially if there's going to be future commitments to do work on the parcel in the event of maintenance I just feel like that's maybe you feel differently.

No, I'm open to adding them. I just want to clarify that their approvals on the permits we would need to seek from them for the project they have they would view those on their own merits and decide to issue the permits or not unrelated to this agreement. So I just wanted to clarify that, but it wouldn't undermine their regulatory authority.

Other questions?

So the mention of future maintenance, what what cadence is anticipated for future maintenance and how long will fields be offline when that occurs?

The expectation is that the wells will last 50 years or more. and I'm sure there are some in the country that have lasted 50 years or more, but there are many projects. The PSAP project for instance is a similar issue and there's been the only maintenance that has been necessary is inside the building replacing a pump, replacing ball bearings on a pump.

Remind us the date that well was put in for PSAP.

How old is that building? 2010, 2011. So that's been there for 15 years.

Thank you. So no well maintenance in that time. And how long? So maybe you can't compare it to PSAB, but when maintenance has to be done in general, how long will the fields have to be offline

In 50 years, they might need to replace some of the horizontal piping.

Sorry I'm asking like not so in the event that it has to be maintained is it another five years when it has

I would think that if there were, if a well failed for instance they probably would drill a new wells adjacent to it and reconnect the piping it would really be dependent upon what the condition was within well and so if you think about the test well that process took you know from

getting the stuff set up.

It was about a week.

Throwing some grass back over it, yeah.

Yeah I mean they took great care. They took a lot of care trying not to impact the field and I think they did a pretty good job and likewise they would do something similar if and when a well needed to be replaced but I think there's added capacity. Well, I'll put it this way. The only time you need to maximize out the energy withdrawal is during extreme portions of the winter or in the summer whereas a lot of the time, they may only be operating at certain number of wells and they'll be linked together in groups of 10 or 20. I'm not exactly sure how the piping will go. So if there was a failure, they could probably divert some of the flow to other sections.

And that would also give them latitude to do their repairs on a timely basis. for instance, if it were off-season.

Okay. Thank you.

Great. Do we pivot to operating budget discussions?

Madam Chair, members of the board. What I have prepared is what a operating cost on the town side would look like for the New Pollard School as it's currently proposed to be Bilt. In that the major costs that are associated with the building that are not within the school budget is areas of cleaning and repairs of the building, electricity. and Insurance. I did a review of the major components of those costs Some of the several things, the input I received from the building maintenance department that for the year-round maintenance and cleaning of the building it would require a staff of 10. and then independently looking at industry standards.

The industry standards are about 28,000 square feet of space per and that's gross square footage space is the standard 28,000. That came out to about 9.5 so 10 seemed to be a reasonable number And again, the 10 is not 10 working all one shift. There's two shifts. There are custodians that need to work during the day when the students and educators are there, and then the majority of them work at night. The balance proposed here would be two during the day and eight during the evening. The next item was looking at electricity and electrical costs in the facilities. The building is still in the process of being designed, and what the actual load will be on the building will likely change from what I am assuming now.

The range that I could deduce from industry averages and based upon Eversource estimates for what's the average kilowatt load per square foot for school buildings that puts the range between 2.2 and $2.6 million I settled upon an assumption of 2,457,000 cubic feet of electrical usage. I also built into the assumption an additional 10% for this maybe extra load to come about due to programic changes. and other devices that are not necessarily connected directly to the building, but would be introduced as I said through programs and through activities and after school activities. The next major area is, of course, the building maintenance department budget.

Major expenditures are cost supplies and materials for cleaning supplies and for parts that would be needed to do repairs to different areas in the building during the course of the year. uh grounds keeping and supplies that's parks and forestry one part of their operation is the maintenance of all the school grounds. And um we do not anticipate a need of additional staff for Parks and Forestry as a result of the new project, but it's anticipated that there'll be an increase in some of the expenses. Some of things that were noted is will actually be down a field. So the demands on the fields will be greater, which will require probably more supplies and materials being used

on the sites as well, because there's more use in the field for some of the contracted services. We're going to have to find a work better hours with the contractors which inevitably will probably increase the costs. So therefore, there's an assumption of an increased cost there as well By far the largest driver is outside specialized contracted services for mechanical, electrical and plumbing systems. The size of the building is going to be significant. The complexity of the new equipment will be more than it is today. and in that industry averages are between $1.50 and 450 per square feet is what one should assume for budgeting for those type of repairs. I settled on the midpoint at 3% in part because we do have some in-house trades personnel

and for that not everything will need to be done by contracted services. and then the other major component is other property related services. That basically covers everything else that needs to be done by building maintenance or public works to the facility pest control, communication items, repairs of walls, specialized deep cleaning rental equipment. all that and based on industry averages, that's usually between budgeting at a 50 cents. to $1.10 per square foot. Again, I settled on the midpoint of 80 cents per square In the new building as currently proposed is $265,572.

So that was the number that we used to multiply against all those unit measures that I had discussed. Another component that The demand is already there on the town's trades. We have a single electrician maintaining all of the operations, and the demands on that one person's time is excessive in The benefit of having a second electrician on its own has merit and could be argued, but it is clear that with this new building We would need to increase the number of electricians. So I have also shown the cost of what an additional full-time electrician would be

and it's incorporated in reflected in the cost of the operating costs assumed for at The Pollitt School but that is the one component that actually is going to be benefiting all the facilities so it's not the Pollitt School by itself that's drawing the cost of electrician, but it's reflected in the Pollit numbers. And then lastly, another town cost is also just the cost for property insurance for the facility. That's also based on a per square foot measure until the actual building is built so it's known what actually will be covered. and also the level of fire suppressant systems that will be in place and all that, will come into weight as well as whatever the materials they ended up getting. Better materials tend to lower the rate of insurance.

Less expensive materials tend do increase the rate because they break down and damage much more easily. With that, we're looking at an operating cost for the town of $3,347,000. Now, let me just look at that in the vacuum because currently we are spending money for the Pollitt School. as well as the High Rock School because the proposal with the Pollitt School is to move the sixth grade from High Rock, hence abandoning the Highrock building and putting the students at the Pollit School. So we look at the cost that we're currently incurring for the college school today, for these same expenses. Those costs that we are assuming for the High Rock building and with that they

that will reduce, by moving the students from High Rock School to the Pollard school, will reduce A major portion of the cost associated with the High Rock School. We would anticipate currently we're budgeting about $666,000 for all those types of costs for the High Rock School. It's anticipated that those costs will drop down to $253,000, effectively freeing up $412,000 to offset the increase in the Pollitt Middle School. Currently, the same cost that I talked about for the current middle school is $1,329,000 that is budgeted for the Paul Witt School. So all told currently

$1.7 million is available to contribute to the future costs of maintaining the Pollitt School, which means effectively the new building is going to cost the town 1.6 million more when it, if it were operational in FY27 compared to what it does today. The other truism here is all that money is not going to be needed in one year because the project is proposed to be phased into over a period as long as five years. and as a result, it'll be incrementally that these costs will come into place. So the $1.6 million that we would be looking at if the building was operational today in FY27 at $1.6 million would actually be phased over probably three fiscal years is what I would anticipate.

Mask. I guess you said the assumption is abandoning the hierarchy, not using it but I think that The plan is to use it as swing space and some people have suggested using it as sixth elementary school. So I think the $412,000 savings would in that case be added back, is that correct?

Well, yes. If you're going to reuse the High Rock School for something beyond a diminished use here and again there's still a use here because The school department does not use the Hillside School for students anymore, but there is still a cost associated with that building. But there was a notable reduction in all those costs because The demands for cleaning are not as much. There's not as many people that you're having to support there, so there will be an offset but clearly if the High Rock School is proposed to be used for something significantly more. Well, that would be the associated cost of doing that new project and if it became an additional elementary school well then you would have to consider what's the uh increased cost of maintaining a sixth elementary school and that's when that discussion would be held

okay but even just as a swing space you presumably need to have the same costs for use of High Rock as swing space, as you would as a sixth grade swimmer.

You're saying for swing space for what? For Mitchell. Well but then the cost that Mitchell would would disappear because we wouldn't be cleaning the building, we wouldn' t be insuring the building. We wouldn't provide power to the building so that budget would move over to the IROC school and then I did not do that analysis yet because even at this, the Newport School is still three years away if everything were to go according to oil.

Yeah, I know. OK, but the costs, I think everyone, I've heard everyone say that hierarch is going to be used it's not going to be going away.

And hence why there is still a budget I'm assuming we're still gonna heat the building, we are still gonna have electricity There's still going to be some sort of diminished use that there'll be human beings into it, but what I did not cost for is an active school with multiple classes and stuff. I did associate with more on the administrative supports area, where the cost structure is similar to what we're currently paying for Hillside. But a little bit more because it's greater square footage.

I know we're all concerned about all of the potential maintenance costs for geothermal and the impacts on the field, but I just want to reconfirm that despite those geothermal was found to be the most cost effective over the long term both Upfront, and with the 25 years of maintenance? Okay. Though you're saying that actually we can expect the system... We can hope that the system lasts potentially up to 50.

Yes, I mean there are components of the system that would need to be replaced after 20 or 25 years. The heat exchangers would likely need replacement pumps, 15-20 year life expectancy. But the geothermal wells, the part that's underground we would expect to have a much longer life.

Okay. And am I correct in having, I've only been in this seat for a little while but it feels like the HVAC units get replaced on a much more frequent basis in other buildings, then you're talking about 10 and 15 and 20 years.

But that is true in all the options. So even if you have a natural gas system, you're going to have to replace the rooftop units probably on a 20-year life cycle. So we will have rooftop units, they will likely have to be replaced in a 20 year cycle that has been factored into the lifecycle cost analysis but those are, well in the ground source heat pump system you have fewer moving parts if you will and kind of like an electric car. you don't have to change the oil too much. So I think it's a simpler system

So I have a question about that. The rooftop units are placed on a 20-year cycle. Are the debt financing schedule is on a 33 year cycle, I believe? does that mean we're going to be continuing to pay for units that we will have already replaced?

I'll take Elliott and Broadmeadow as an example. But those are 20-year bonds. So there will be ongoing maintenance, and some of those might need to be replaced while you're still paying off the bonds. Yes?

I think that's tricky. I'm just remembering, maybe I'll turn to Dave like what is the guidance on How long debt should be issued relative to the useful life of a structure?

It's useful life an overall structure. If you want to make the analogy, if you purchase a home and have a 30-year mortgage usually groups are replaced in 20 years but when took that mortgage out, you were also paying for that roof at the same time. So that's in a way considered ongoing maintenance and repair of the building for what it was meant to do But that's true. It is also true that when we do a new school project and we issue bonds, we bought the school furniture with those proceeds as well. And that's clearly, a lot of that furniture is not going to last 30 years. So there are parts but that's also why the debt structure is such that you're paying greater principal So in the early years when you have the most utility and as because of debt payments declining, because the amount of principal that's remaining on the debt to pay

is also declining, to free up your ability to reinvest in the facility even though you still have debt payments. Whereas when you think of a mortgage It's vice versa. You pay the most of your principal and your final payments, so you're paying the most for the house when it's its oldest from when you acquired the house and likely having more expenses that you have to maintain the property

but I guess in general the longer the debt schedule, the more amount of money you will have to pay more than once, essentially. So you pay it the first time for the first year and then have to replace it later on.

That's correct. And the other reason, and just as a reminder, the reason we're looking at bonds of 30 years that is to lower the annual impact on the taxpayer. I mean, we could issue 20 year bonds but then you're talking significantly about much more on the average taxpayer. And that's a judgment call, and in this side as everyone keeps mentioning it is the most expensive project the town has ever undertaken, that it seemed fiscally prudent both in the long term and both to the taxpayers of today to look at 30-year bonds. And of course, we keep mentioning just the Confucian one says 33, 34 years. In terms of that, I'm talking about from the day we borrowed dollar one to when we don't borrow $35 million on day one.

We borrow it as we spend it, in this case over a course of five years. when I'm counting the number of years, from day 01 to last payment that's made. That's why you're hearing it's you know, 33 to 35 years. But the bonds themselves would be 30 years each.

Right and that's okay so that's clear it's certainly longer than the typical 20 years.

Yes it is.

Okay, any other questions? All right.

Can I ask just about the geothermal because I guess I do worry that there's been a sudden wrinkle and that this could affect the timeline. The purpose of the problem is to build an educational building, and I don't want the geothermal to disrupt that so i mean we're waiting on more information but if we have to get to that choice i hope we have a conversation about you know if we had to make a choice between expediting the building versus including the geothermal i'd rather get the building done

This new information regarding Article 97, I think the only urgency is to be able to secure the two local approvals from the Conservation and Park and Recreation Commission so that we reaffirm the scope of the schematic design. I am not feeling urgency related to securing all of the additional regulatory components that we would need to during detailed design.

and I guess I'm asking the same question again. We don't know at this point, but all of the necessary reviews if they end up impacting the timeline and then that's the cost of the project because it gets delayed, I do think we need to know that before we vote on the override.

I will be able to provide whatever update I have from EEA relative to if we are triggering MEPA and at what level. Yep.

So that's information to come, and that's why we're not voting on the ballot question tonight?

If I may, and I'm sure that It is also true that the MSBA has approved other projects in the Commonwealth that are undergoing Article 97 and MEPA reviews, and they've kept to their schedule. So I think both can be true from what I've understood.

Thank you, Dan. I see you raising your hand up. Am I allowed to ask a question right here? Yeah, you've convened a meeting. So yeah go ahead I just uh I need to have you speak into a microphone and Sorry to make you sort of stand there.

No, that's fine. I just was hoping – I just wanted to ask sort of a clarification question on the immediate timeline and critical path items as I understood it. the hope would be that Park and Recreation Commission and Conservation Commission would agree to the sort of plan as proposed. And we would have those in place before the MSBA board, before the select board votes to put it on the ballot and before the MSBA votes in August for their meeting to go forward. And then, the subsequent approvals of town meeting and the legislature would happen after the fact. Can you just clarify that? And then also, if we were not to get Park and Rec and Conservation Commission to sort of affirm those then we would definitely be going back to the MSBA with a different mechanical system that would delay the project. Is that true? I just want to make sure i have sort of this

do you want to start? just on that latter point we would if there were any town board that did not support the article 97 We would be paused in the process, which would just cause a delay and a vote at a different time.

I think that's the delay that Katie spoke about earlier, where instead of a ballot question in November it would be an April and that would be a delay. And that could conceivably increase the construction cost.

To answer the first question, the timelines we're trying to meet is to have the Park and Rec Commission and the Conservation Commission vote prior to our next check-in with the MSBA which is July 29th. and prior to the select board voting, the ballot question which would come in hopefully in the subsequent days from there.

Okay.

I do not want to belabor this agenda item. I just want to note that the town clerk is online if there was any questions about the letter she provided you and the superintendent had also answered your previous questions, but with that, I am done.

I just want to give folks the opportunity to address any of the comments at the beginning. I don't know if you were here for them. There are questions about the fourth floor. If you're not prepared, that's fine.

I mean, reality is there's limited space on that site. And 17,000 square feet is a significant number of classrooms. It can't disappear. We've been changing the educational program, the design and therefore the project. Headspace can't be added on the first floor, for example. It's a tight site as it is and very thoughtfully carved out. That's why we began 10, 11 months ago with the all boards meeting to engage planning board and the consideration of a project that might exceed a typical height of two or three floors. I don't know if there was another. The only thing I would point out is that programmatically, this is not an elementary school. The speaker's correct that we do not have the kind of programs that we have currently at Pollard in our elementary schools

This is designed as a middle school program, and all the programs that we have are replicated in middle schools around the Commonwealth. And actually, we have those programs right now at Pollard and High Rock.

but just in some very substandard spaces.

Very different spaces, very different spaces.

I would also say that one of the speakers did note that part of the expanded space is for special education. And there's a very thorough and well-written description of all of our special education programs. Needham as a district with the support of this board and the finance committee has undergone a multi-year effort to educate our special education students here in district, as opposed to what many towns do which is to send students to out of district placements. Those placements in addition to being very expensive and requiring specialized and expensive transportation, do not allow students to be educated in their neighborhoods with their peers. Seeing their neighbors you know, traveling to school in the morning getting together for a play date.

All of those things are off the table when you're in a specialized program and The idea that this town would change its mind about those specialized programs because they think that they are too expensive to implement is... I mean, I don't want to speak for all of my colleagues on the school committee. But we've made a commitment to educate those students partly because it is fiscally Best, but mostly because it is morally and ethically best. And so the idea that that is wasted space that should just be eliminated I find

Do you anticipate fewer out-of-district placements as a result of this design?

I would add, too, that I can't say we'll have more or fewer out of district placements because the situation with each individual student is so unique and so different. And it's pre-K through 12, pre-k through post grad actually because we have post grad students in out of district placements I think that the key thing with special education space in this building, it does exceed the state's guidelines and rules allow us to increase the state guidelines. In fact, it's not just we saying this or the MSPA or the School Building Committee. It has to be approved by the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education and the spaces that we're providing are spaces for all of our kids. There at the secondary level, at the middle school level about 20% of our students are on individualized education plans

So you're talking about close to 300 students who will take advantage of the spaces within that new building to get the services and spaces they need rather than in hallways, rather than under stairwells. They'll get them in appropriate classroom spaces and for that reason we have programs that do exceed some other communities and I think that we provide even better services for those students.

And to build on that, the plans are now under review by DESE. And special ed is taken very seriously by the MSBA how it's distributed throughout the building and mostly reimbursed by the MSBA. So that's a good percentage that we're going to get because of the spaces that we do have that are supporting the educational program for special education. And then also, I just wanted to respond to a comment about certain spaces not being reimbursed. We don't know besides the auditorium what's not being reimburse so we're not assuming at this moment that anything beyond the auditorium space is not under consideration for reimbursement. That's a discussion we're going to have with the MSBA early August, and that's when we'll determine will hear and have a discussion with the MSBA to determine what exactly is a reimbursable program space versus what's not.

Sure. So I just, um, I am on vacation right now and so I just wanted to just follow up if any of you have any questions for me right now so that Go back. I just missed dinner with everybody.

Thank you, Louise. We appreciate your dedication. Sorry. Yeah. So does anybody have questions for the town clerk? All right. Go back to vacation.

All right, and I hope I will probably see you next week. Excellent.

Enjoy your time.

Thank you. Bye-bye.

All right. Any other thoughts before we move on?

Can we talk about Dr. Gutekamp's memo? Sure. So that mentions geothermal as well, I was just curious It says there are broader design implications that are harder to isolate, such as reduced piping size throughout the building, redesigned rooftop equipment. Is that not factored into the cost currently?

The life cycle cost analysis did try to factor these elements and the differences between option one through option four. it's at a very schematic design level so in many cases they were making assumptions based upon actually the cost estimators have years and years of experience with these kinds of systems. But you do have a different type of system at PSAP compared to this building. and that does get factored in we so I think that the geothermal

The simple principle, and you commented on this Richard, is that the ground temperature is typically between 50 degrees and 65 degrees. and extracting energy out of that or pushing energy into that is the most energy efficient system you can have. in terms of energy use efficiency.

Just to drive home a point about the mechanicals. The mechanicals are really in the building, not below grade.

Correct. Although Assuming the IRA tax rebates apply, the directions that we are seeing is that with a geothermal system You don't just calculate what's in the ground and coming to the building. You also calculate the tax incentive on the distribution of that energy within the building When you put in a natural gas system, you get zero.

So I guess it sounds like at this stage of design, calculated the cost of wells, site work and distribution but there are other costs yet to be included which is understandable. Can you just give a general sense then what costs have yet to be broken out or calculated just based upon the phase of design we're in. I'm wondering if the $325 million budget, how firm is that and how much is that expected to change?

I had understood that this was an estimate. That the particulars might change, but that the estimate would hold?

It's going to hold. That's what the project scope and budget meeting is based on. We went to the MSBA and we said this is 325.4. It's not gonna change. That set.

You mean it cannot exceed $325 million? Correct. It can be less than that.

Yeah, it can be last not more.

We will work hard to make it less than How much is the contingency? Because I heard it was $50 million across the owner and the project.

there are multiple stages of contingency at schematic design we don't have all the details of the building but the cost estimators know from prior experience that they don't have all those details. And so, they include a They include a contingency as it's spelled out here. they include a contingency which I'm going to call an unknowns contingency at that stage. then there is built into the construction manager at risk they when they buy out the building and get all of the filed sub-bids and then also the non-filed sub-bits together.

They still know that there's going to be some pieces of work that aren't fully covered in that and so they have a construction manager at risk contingency. The contingency that the PBBC voted on was instead of putting a five percent owners contingency, it was going to be 7% owner's contingency. And I think that was based upon recommendations to be very conservative. the maximum that there is a, there will be in the project scope and budget agreement A maximum amount of contingency that the MSBA will reimburse for. And we have to track that all the way through. So yes, if you take all of those different pieces it might add up to $50 million.

But I wouldn't equate all of them in the same way.

Maybe this is My hope is that the PPBC is really cautious about that contingency and how it's spent, because that's really the only way this project can be reduced in cost if less of the contingency is spent. and I remember like with the police and fire station we had certainly a smaller contingency but half of the contingency was spent before we even found the soil problems um so As much as possible, I would just encourage the PPVC to reserve the contingency for truly unanticipated things.

Message heard and received. Thank you.

Thank you all so much for all of this hard work and for your contributions moving forward. So I'm going to ask all y'all Thank you, the chairs so that we can invite the school committee up so we can move on to our next school committee agenda item. Thank you. Hi. So we've got Mark Macias, our CTO, Liz Lee, Michael Grice, Andrea Carter

and Alisa Scottrude still, and Dan Gutekanst still. And no other school committee. Oh, and Anne. Thank you. Nobody else in the room who needs to get up here we can you can squeeze in more chairs okay excellent so um in april of 2024 school committee and select board entered into a memorandum of understanding consolidating town i.t functions with school ID functions, and we are here to hear about the status and updates and all of the things. So who's planning to start? Is that you Mark? Excellent.

Well, thank you to both the chairs and to both boards for having me here tonight.

Does everyone... Actually before you begin.

Yes. I take that back.

Mark Visayas over the last couple of years has been the interim technology chief, if you will. However this past spring we engaged in a search process where we cast the net wide. We interviewed several folks for the position of Chief Technology Officer for the Town of Needham and then Needham Public Schools. And after a really thorough search process that Angulati headed up, we determined that we had our Chief Technology Officer Mark Macias and so he was appointed. Katie and I worked on this together, and he's appointed in the spring. So I want to congratulate him and thank him. So he's in a new role here this evening.

Very good. And belated congratulations. I honestly couldn't remember if we had done this announcement before, so I appreciate you scooping in there. Mark, welcome again. Thank you very much. I appreciate it. A continued welcome.

Thank You.

Off you go.

So thank you again to both chairs and both boards. I know you have your packets electronically, does everyone on the school committee have material? So thank you for having me tonight to give a brief IT strategic plan update for FY25-28. In your packet, you've got the presentation and you have the full in the back of that second document is the full IT strategic plan update that I have gone through, highlighted. And just a little brief notes that I've highlighted in green everything that's done and everything in yellow is a change from the prior submittal. something that we've pushed off to a later time just for clarity but we won't be going through the whole plan tonight. We'll just be doing some highlights So to get started, for slide one we'll go through the overview. That was my overview. And then on slide two just as a reminder our mission and vision I won't read them out loud but they're there and there are our core.

And on slide two is our core values, you can move to that slide. I do like to highlight the core values just to say We really do focus on end user focused collaboration excellence in security and reliability innovation. And I think collaboration has been one that we've hit very well this past year, and then we'll talk about that a lot tonight. That's the next slide. So our first goal one, which was our structure we are happy to say that we are nearly complete of the whole entire structure the boards have very generously provided the budget to hire my staff and this year as Dan said you hired me as the chief technology officer I was able to finally hire Enterprise Applications Manager, which took a little while to hire but we ended up hiring from within and that's been a fantastic hire. And really helped solidify that team

And you all gave us funds to hire a cybersecurity officer, which we're changing the name slightly. The job will be posted hopefully this week as the Cybersecurity Compliance coordinator and that job will be hopefully hired in sometime in August. I want to highlight that job because that job is really pivotal in filling out the whole department Right now, we have a great cybersecurity platform that's giving us a lot of information. And it's slowly on the apps team and my other managers to disseminate all that information on a daily basis. and that can be anything from you know someone's on vacation and they didn't we didn't know about it and they're in south africa and like we got a ding this is why you know what is this to a real threat which happens more than we want, and right now the whole team has to pivot to coordinate all of that. And this person's job will be solely to manage all of it.

It has become more than a full-time job for our department. So we're very happy about that hire. On to the next slide. The next slide is goal two, which is implement a formal technology governance process and we have done that. We created an advisory committee over the last two years, and this year the committee met in the fall to talk about a training plan which is slide three, but to develop and find out what the needs were for the town and schools for training staff. And that was a very good conversation which is going to drive a training plan for next fiscal year, for this fiscal year coming up. and in that we also took the opportunity to sort of break out this strategic group, and actually make an AI focus group inside that. because there's been a lot of demands on what to do with AI and what costs are going to be, what the real uses are for staff. We're not talking about students.

This is solely for staff and how it will affect administrative roles and administrative processes for town and school. So we have a group of about 40 users, all who've been given sort of advanced AI tools, who have committed to use those tools and report back to us on how that affects their workflow. It also gives us an idea of whether or not we need the more expensive tools, or what we get for free. Those kind of decisions and that's going very well. on to the next slide. Goal three, which is elevate end user experience or support training and communication that is our focus for next year we have We have done a lot of work to consolidate and build efficiencies and stabilize. And now it's time to bring the staff what they've been asking for, which is more training support beyond just something broken actually. How do I use my equipment better? How do i use my software better?

So that's our goal for this year is to develop a A formalized training program. With that said, the new cybersecurity officers piece of that is to make sure the security training compliance is done for every staff member which is important. That's town and school-wide. but just some other highlights with that we talk about, we developed this technology profile for town and school groups and we installed a learning management system on the school side which helps us hold all that training materials for staff for professional development. So the Canvas system was not just for students, it was also from professional development for staff as well. That's only on the school side. and like I said our focus for next year is really to one, figure out what tools are best for everyone to use. Figure out a training process for all those tools for all of our staff

and most importantly is to communicate with the staff that those tools are available and the training's available, and they can get help if they need it. I'm going fast. I usually go fast, but I know I was asked to be brief tonight so if you want me to slow down, I'll slow down. Okay, so next slide goal four. So ensure a robust and well-documented technology infrastructure. We have been doing that ever since we took over and just some really big highlights. We're trying to actually unify our systems. And one of the success stories of that was obviously Zoom Phone, which most of you know about. We've now completed the Zoom Phone system for all town and schools with one little asterisk the police station was never part of that project because they had a separate system than the town had but now that system has gone out of business

So we're going to roll them in. We still have a little more discovery to do, but we feel like we're gonna roll them right into our existing Zoom phone system and because we already have it built the cost is gonna be minimal to bring them in which is good. And we've been looking at unified data integration systems and document management system, so document workflow systems and unified printing. We're trying to get all of our systems Unified into one platform, which obviously has a lot of efficiencies in the budget. That's our goal. So we're also with the focus the cyber security coordinator, one of the things that's been held off is doing a complete inventory of software and you may ask why is that waiting for the cybersecurity person but it's actually It makes a lot of sense. That person has to understand every single piece of software that's used by the town, what its privacy policies are and what its potential effects are if data is lost.

So we're leaning on this job to catalog all those softwares with every department and keep a list of not only what our budget is, but what our security risks are with every piece of software. That's why we delayed a little bit on that, but that's our focus for next year with that person. So moving on, next slide. Goal five which is improve data accessibility integration and informed decision making. We have definitely this year taken on a huge process, which is our townwide ERP financial system in Pershing Munis. We have procured that. We have actually begun implementation, we've begun all of that process. It's a three year process but We have done focus groups with employees from all different departments on actually that whole implementation.

it's not solely my department and her department, Dave and their department have been instrumental in that process but it is a huge town-wide integration project going forward. We had a new foyer management system that's just been implemented. The police have actually started using it already, the public safety has used it already the town is just about to come online with a new foyer system which sounds like a small win but it's actually a big win for us in that foyer management system and we've been doing a lot of work again on sort of this past year on collaborative platforms. And we're trying to figure out where, especially when you start getting into school projects that are across both schools and town all of our projects that we work on together, we need a better way of sharing information that's not siloed into One system or another.

So we're looking at a collaborative platform We're not there yet, but that's our hope to have plans for both sides for next year and upcoming, we're also finishing up our student registration enrollment system upgrade. That has had a little bit of delay with some software implementations but we're hoping to finish that next year and once again I already mentioned the data storage and collaboration. That's one of the highlight we did our OA are dashboards for data on the school side. They have been fully rolled out for teaching and learning, and that's been very successful. It's not been with my department but with Anne's data team. That's been a great rollout. So we're moving on to the next slide, a secure technology environment and data privacy.

I think this is one that we have spent our most focus and time, personal hours on cybersecurity network security and trying to lay over a one unified cybersecurity blanket over all town environments. and I'm very proud of my team. I'm proud of the network team, and the data team, the app team for the work they've done in the last two to three years We have worked closely with public safety to get all of our outside vendors properly accessing our network. We've done all kinds of work the different like water treatment plants, all of those different sub networks. And we're pulling them all under control and oversight that let's say they didn't quite have before which is making us safer, let's just say that.

Making the town safer and I'm proud of them for the work they've done in the last two years to do that. and also just to highlight here a year ago or more we started helping the library with their data systems they had a need to buy They had a capital request to buy a server. It was about $40,000 and we just spent $1.2 million on two new data centers so I suggested that we save that $40 thousand dollars and pull them into our data center but That sounds easy, but it's actually something that takes our networks never talk to each other. And so we had to make sure that we have a secure connection to the library, that they couldn't affect us and we couldn't effect them and the team did that. And in doing that, we developed a relationship with the library helping and assisting where other needs were.

So when they had a need during the building project, when they have a personnel change and lost their main technology person during that period Once again, sort of like what happened with the town. We stepped in and we helped. And we are beginning the conversations on how we can help on a longer basis. But to say that because of everything both boards have given us and the budget they've given us, we've been able to sort of take the beginnings of the network of a library and make sure it's secure and make sure that it's going to be funded properly, to stay secure. And have better Wi-Fi access and all that kind of thing but unified across the town environment. But still segmenting so there is security with the public over there. So I'm very happy. The structure that we built kind of played out in that scenario where we were able to be nimble enough to help and take over with what I hope to be not much of a budget change for either side on that side.

and just some other highlights that we did. One of the things that we were lacking on the school side was an internet safety platform for the students when they took devices home Many people during the pandemic thought that we, you know, the kids when they went home had the same filtering that we had in schools but it's not required by law. but it's something that we should do and so this past year, we actually implemented that system. So when the kids take a device home They actually are protected in the same way they're protected when they're in schools. Even though they're on their parents' WiFi, they have our protection rules with our devices. So that was completed. We updated the two data centers, as I said. That work is all complete and we've been doing a lot of work with actually authentication stuff was kind of boring, but it's all about we're trying to move the town and the schools to everyone using two factor authentication. Which sounds like it should be easy, but not always as easy there are

things like union contracts and all that have to be negotiated when you're using personal phones. But, you've given us the budget to do it so now we have to implement it and do it which is great. additional focus areas like we said we're going to be hiring the cyber security officer and one of the things on our cybersecurity plan that we have to complete is is getting all of our policies and procedures and response plans documented in place for you all to have and to understand. And that will be this role's responsibility, to get that work all done and coordinated out. They won't writing the policies, they're going to make sure that we're in compliance by having all those policies and everyone knows what those policies are. And yeah, so that's it. That's basically all the highlights for that section. and I have gone very fast, incredibly fast. And I open this up for questions and comments

well geez Louise that was a lot um you say that's it but like that's not that's a lot yeah I guess primarily like to say thank you. This is an enormous amount of work, but it's all that kind of hidden behind the scenes work that... You know, it's kinda not sexy, sorry. But it makes me feel so much better knowing that it's that's in process underway, partially completed. A good deal completed because the security of our town and the residents' data is just, it's a trust. So very much appreciate all of the effort that you and your team Ann, and your team have gone to make this happen.

Just my mind is a little bit blown so...

it's amazing how we say we're um we're very lucky we have a structure that not every town most towns don't get and i don't think that lately and um i we appreciate it and We're doing everything we can to make sure that we keep that security and also keep within budget, and find every efficiency we can so it does not cost more money.

Thank you for doing all this. I think when we first did this arrangement with the town and schools, who is going to be a good fix and thank you for doing it. But this has certainly grown bigger with the wider scope than ever anticipated. I think we gave you a gallon of gas, and you went 100 miles. So thank you. And I look forward to hearing from you next year, to see all these other things and what the LMS will be and what you decide on stuff. Thank you.

and I didn't say it but part of the plan is, so our plan is up in 2018. So part of next year we'll also be planning the next plan as well.

It's a ton of work. And like Heidi said, it's kind of behind the scenes but we appreciate it so thank you.

I have a great team. It's not me, it is my team.

Josh, anything?

Yeah. Thank you. I know in the MOU when we put it together two years ago there was a question about level of service agreements If a staff member has a tech issue with a device or software, how long do they anticipate response time? Are those in place?

They're not, they've been discussed at our leadership meetings on the town side. They are not in place and it is good work that we still need to do for sure.

The documentation is to come but I just want to say to your question, but more broadly the town and the town departments are so well served by this structure, by this team. So we have the systems in place. We have the right people in place I think the next step is really policies some of the training as you mentioned and finally kind of turning the corner to being opportunistic finding efficiencies, being planful things. And in the exciting things like what could we do better with technology to better deliver municipal services? to support the staff in the way they need to be supported. This is a real kind of pivot from where we were for the last couple of years, so you see like the energy in my voice I hope? You hear it because we're really kind of turned a page on a new day.

If I may Madam Chair, just because I think I can make a connection between the two. I think about The Pollard Project and I think This town, and Mark mentions his team and this team select board the school committee. It's unusual but this town can pull different pieces together to provide better services So in the case of IT, we had two silos. We had a town side and we had a school side. And they were not always talking to each other. It wasn't as we've learned necessarily the right thing for the town. It was certainly not secure in the way that we would want What we have now is not done yet, to Josh's question. But we're in process. This collaboration that we began I think has made the town stronger. It's provided better services, and I think employees in the town school side feel that.

that wasn't the case unless we decided to really collaborate and make it happen. The Pollard project is the same thing, we have two different schools we're trying to bring together to be more efficient, to provide better services in this case for kids and I'm convinced with that project, and what Mark has outlined this is the kind of town they can pull together to provide great services for its residents and students. So I echo those comments to thank Mark and Ann, and all the folks working on this because you can do in Needham really collaborative and thoughtful things to provide great services. And you should be proud of that. So, thank you.

Thank you. I've actually known and worked with Mark even longer than he'd been on the school committee, so that's saying something. We were part, and he was part of the original Technology Advisory Board. And if you think DeSalvo's were bad three years ago, you should have seen them 20 years ago. and Mark for the work that he's done. I was delighted to see him get the full-time position. It is hard to hire people These are tough to hire for. So having somebody who has this level of experience and willing and wanting to stay here, we should be thrilled by it. I wanted to just mention one other thing and maybe you want to comment on it I worry a lot about cybersecurity. I worry about attacks that come in, you see them in governments and you see awful things, really bad things happen. One of the concerns that I have had and Mark and I've talked about it, and it's a whole not piece where they didn't mention

is as we start to use larger systems and those systems are used by a lot more enterprises that's on the government side, on the school side then those systems become targets. and a lot of the worst cybersecurity incidents that have happened worldwide have been not people's systems individually being attacked, but a system that they depend on, that they get from a vendor. So Mark had talked to this He has also, and he will continue to work very closely with some of the very largest vendors to ensure they understand. And he understands what they're doing to protect us because that is probably the most likely. I mean somebody could come in and attack Downing Needham individually. They are a lot more likely to attack our financial system or educational systems because they're used by a lot of people around the world. So when they attack a system like that, they can attack a whole bunch of systems. So I don't know if you want to mention it on that?

Yeah, I agree 100%. you know third party vendors and third-party systems are what's in the news most of time. We know about the Canvas breach, we know about Power School breach, various other breaches all of those breaches were from elevated privileges you know someone getting a lower privilege and then elevating it up and getting in so just to say you know Michael, you understand that and most people do is that we have implemented quietly it'll be part of our actual policy and procedure but um we have implemented a full least privileged policy when it comes to onboarding systems. And for those of you who don't know what that means, most of you do, it means that people... A lot of times when people are doing systems as quick and dirty and they just like give everyone access and go and then figure out the security afterwards. we don't do that or allow that anymore and it's very frustrating for some people during an onboarding process because you know if you take, for example our municipal implementation

we started right away by saying you know when you get with the project managers they say okay who needs access to the file shares? Who needs access these documents that have all of our HR data in it and someone will say oh just give everyone access and we immediately start the process of saying nope, we're not going to do it that way. It's not easy. We're gonna have to work on this but it's going to start with these two people when they have access we make sure that they are properly secured and all that we roll that out for everything that we do. The hard part, Michael is actually going back and looking at all the systems that we don't have a lot of access into and that's the work that will be going forward is working with every department and every vendor to say, well first of all it's part of that work and that scope. What's vulnerable? What data do they have of ours identifying each piece of data that's a problem and then who has access to it because the reality is it's very hard to stop the vendor from giving you our data away, right? We don't control that.

But we can control our own privileges and our own passwords and things like that So that's how we're attacking that. And that least privilege is where we do with everything now. It has caused some friction with some of our... even that we don't give our managed service provider, the people that we pay a lot of money to help us. We don't them full privileges anymore to our network for that reason that they have a rotating staff of 30 young kids and We want to trust them, but we don't. So we have taken all those steps. It's more work for us, it's harder for us. But it's the right thing and so that's our quick answer to that approach.

made me think of another question. When you procure software for a software with the vendor, do you have minimum security standards that the vendor has to meet?

Typically what we're looking at Well, it depends on what it is. Right? So if it's anything credit card based and all that, then you have to have SOC 3 certification, all of that. That's depending on whether it is a financial system there are all kinds of rules but if you're talking about just something to manage I don't know One of the systems, radio management for the DPW radios. Really there's not a lot of data in here besides the person's name and what radio they're holding. More, we want to make sure that they have no other access to anything. We're not giving them more data than we should and then secondly Yes, we're always evaluating what their privacy policies are. That's part of our procurement actually and has implemented that pretty well. So on the school side anything student facing

there's part of that process is actually approval by my colleague on the education side he actually runs the whole entire data privacy review for those student data and our site we're always looking at what their what their privacy policy as part of the procurement process and it's interesting because a lot of things get in trouble at that point so we're always doing review but does depend on what the platform is and what we're giving them for sure

Yes. Mark, I'll add to my colleagues' kudos and congratulations and expressions of how lucky we are to have you. So thank you. Thank you. I had two questions. One, can you just give us the high level structure? Because I look at everything in here and I'm like okay so your team of a thousand did this last year. and I know that's not true, so maybe if you could just recap.

Yeah sorry actually for forever we put that sort of org chart in there but we kind of stopped at some point Yes, very quick highlight. So there's me and then I have three managers who work underneath me and just above that I have I have an assistant director. It's odd, he's called the Assistant Director to a... Now that the CTO title is in there it doesn't make a lot of sense but he's the assistant director to a director who doesn't exist and so that person is the manager of those managers as well. I have three functional managers, a device team which is everything for you know, deploying devices helped us support all of that. And there are my FTEs here but there are seven FTE under that position which do everything from computer support to AV support Many of you see Jeff O'Neill who comes to us at board meetings.

And then we have the people behind the scenes that you don't see installing security cameras and door access control and all that. That's that team. And then the next team is the enterprise applications team and that is everything, all the software support, all of the end user support for any of the enterprise application we use They also do training. And they're also heavily involved with cybersecurity right now because a lot of cybersecurity is contacting a person and saying, you got to change your password and this is how you do it sort of end user support So there's the manager and two members of that team, two FTEs on that team. and then there's the network team which has the manager and three reports underneath that. And those three reports do everything from all the data centers to actually everything phones and door access control and all that those security measures fall under the network team now as well.

And then right now we have a technical project manager assigned to the ERP project who's on a three-year contract, not an official FTE. On the ERP project? Yes, so on the MUNIS project but we are utilizing because during the beginning time, there are some bandwidth in there and he's been helping with some other project management for us. And then I have a bookkeeper as well to help me with finance.

Thank you. And then my other question is, so I know the ERP system that you just talked about. When do we expect that will be apparent to a resident in terms of paying their taxes.

Dave and Ann, I'm going to defer to Dave on the utility because it's the water bill and the tax bills that are going to be most apparent and the fastest.

12 to 13 months before the public starts getting a sense of the new system.

12 to 18 months from now? From now, yes. Great. Super. Thank you. I know that a lot A lot of work has happened so far, and a lot has to happen in that 12-18 months. So thank you to all of you and your teams.

Yes, I just want to echo that thanks not only for the complete presentation but obviously all of the work that's been done since you started this position and the interim position before it. It's making a real difference I'm going to give you Elisa a moment to finish up your meeting, adjourn your meeting. Anything else from the school committee?

All right. I'll now entertain a motion to adjourn the school committee meeting of July 21, 2026. So moved. Second. Moved by Michael Wilkinson and seconded by Liz. Any discussion?

all those in favor aye thank you everyone before we move on to our next agenda item I'd like to propose a five-minute recess and then we will move on to the historic district. Commission. Do you want to convene your meeting?

Sure, so I'd like to call tonight's meeting of the Historic District Commission to order. It was noticed for 7 PM and we do have a quorum present. Excellent.

Okay, and so here with us now to talk about the proposed local historic district at 178 South Street we have Allison Varely Lauren Soper from the Historic District Commission and also Miles Tucker our Loved support services manager.

And so, yeah. So I will just jump in to the first slide It's just a reminder of the background from where we were from May 2024 town meeting, where we adopted Article 42 which established the Historic District Commission and basically the process for creating and administering other local historic districts. Purpose is to preserve and protect Needham's historic and architectural character while supporting thoughtful, compatible change. So on this I also have our commission membership with a few other committee members sitting in the audience tonight and just the responsibilities, which is to administer the local historic district bylaw review proposed exterior changes within local historic districts when a resident brings it. They want to alter their property, evaluate projects for compatibility and then develop the regulations, design guidelines and educate the community. Next slide please.

So we're here tonight to talk about 178 South Street and the preliminary study report. I don't know if you've been given the whole study report? You have, okay. So in the preliminary study report, we have defined the district boundaries which are limited only to the parcel at 178 South Street and it's to the exterior architectural features only. We prepared a draft by-law amendment, and our committee, the Historic District Commission adopted the preliminary study report in June. So the next steps were to, we submitted it to the Mass Historical Commission and then also the Planning Board where they are reviewing it but they don't have to give us comments from what I understand Next slide. So just a little quick on 178 South Street, if you're not familiar with it, Home of Dennis Zerngebel, who was the Pansy King and that's why we have our town flower as the pansy.

I'm sure many of you are familiar with the illustrations of NCYF as illustrated on the slide in front of you is built in 1776. It's on the National Register of Historic Homes, home of NC Wyeth as I said and it's an enduring and beloved Needham landmark so the current owners have approached the commission to start this process, to create a local historic district. Okay, so next. What happens next? So here we are. We adopted the preliminary study report. We are here with you guys and then on August 6th, we have a public hearing which is mandated as part of the process pursuing this and then bringing it to town meetings. So in August or September, we will review the public comments. Any feedback? MHC already... The Massachusetts Story Commission already signed off on it

agree that was a good project and if we get any planning board feedback. So in the fall, we will I guess bring it back to you or you take it to put it on the warrant for town meeting where we would need a two-thirds vote because it is a zoning change So for public engagement, we have a public hearing coming up on August 6th. We're here today with slides for the public that they can see the Planning Board, I don't know what meeting they're taking it up at but they're going to discuss that I believe at a meeting and then we will review it as a committee.

Okay, thank you. So looking ahead this last slide shows the six step cycle that every future application for a historic district would move through so the application received, historic research preliminary study public hearing final report and then a recommendation to town meeting and we as a commission are working to make sure that this process is clear to homeowners. We've looked at how neighboring towns have done this, such as Newton they have a standalone flow chart and we believe that a flowchart would be helpful because it sets expectations up front for the homeowner when they go through this process as they're moving through it so they can see exactly where they are. and then once a district already exists our bylaw already does directly define a separate process for homeowners that are inside that district who want to make changes to their property and we want to build a flow chart for this too so that applicants can see clearly what happens when and if they want to

And secondly, we want to have a community education aspect. Not for compliance but really for excitement because there are homeowners across Needham who don't realize that their property could qualify for a historic district or don't even know what a district designation actually means for them. So, for our outreach it would be about surfacing that sharing what a designation protects using homes like the Wyeth House as our story, inviting neighborhoods to come forward with nominations on their own. We believe that our website could become almost a showcase of the appeal of the historic district. And so we could see local news, even social media help us with coverage to reach more residents for specific moments where people are already paying Attention, like when a public hearing is already scheduled and when that property goes to town meetings.

So we could use those moments to really get residents to think about whether their home or even their street could go through the process.

Questions? Comments? So can I just clarify, the first historic committee was formed to form the historic district commission correct and you did that through the one parcel then yes you brought to town meeting last so that committee is now going to be disbanded?

So that committee was. It was a study group, I believe, with technical term. We can go back and look.

So this committee as it stands is the committee that will stand moving forward and take future applications as you're discussing.

I just want to clarify for people the difference. What happened before was it was a study that with that bylaw or that article passing, that ended that but gave the guidelines for creating the Historic District Commission which is now some of us are repeating

Yeah, there's a little intermingling. There's a lot of...

So now we are standing committee with the goal of setting regular meetings every month as we're working through this process, as Lauren talked about creating The flowchart and the application process. We already know that there are other homeowners who want to go through this process, so we're creating a process to streamline it.

Great.

The only thing I'd also add is you have to go in front of BINCOP, right?

Right. Well as any warrant article. Yes.

and this is a single parcel district just like the Kingsbury House.

Just like the King'sbury House limited just to 178 South Street, and I believe in the back of your study report there should be the assessor's map that shows

and the property owner is?

I believe it is the foundation. It was the Wyeth, excuse me Gloria

NC Wyeth Research Foundation and Reading Libraries. It took a long time to memorize that.

Fantastic. Kathy? I think this is so exciting, um i'm very excited that we have another historic district and then this one in particular the 1776 the pansies and the ncy's together it's just kind of mind blowing, so very exciting. And you mentioned that other homeowners might not know that they qualify without getting like way in the weeds. What are some of the things that might make a property qualify? for being a historic district?

So I believe that is in the methodology section, but it has to be historically significant. Hmm... I thought it had to be a home that was part of the...

It doesn't have to be on this floor.

No, here we go. The methodology.

Obviously the overlap's going to be huge. Right. You have to make a case Ford's and Starr's significance.

Right, so in the whole study report you have methodology of the research. There's a whole section on the significance to the Needham history and then it goes through all of this process to deem it as to do this. Great.

I just think it's very apropos tonight when we're on the consent agenda item. We accepted a gift from Wyeth of this beautiful painting and now, so I think it is fantastic.

Thank you. Josh any questions?

No questions. I appreciate the energy and enthusiasm. I think the education especially is what's are hopefully going to be really beneficial. We have a six-month demolition delay for historic homes, and that's not proven super effective. And this might actually be more effective in some ways for people to appreciate history learned that it's a value to the community.

yeah we're really excited about that aspect of it now that we are an established committee taking on other projects to create the flowchart and for people to understand what are my options for historic preservation is it being on Inventory, Needham. Is it a deed restriction or is it a historic district? So we have excited about the work ahead of us.

All right so I'll offer you a chance to adjourn your meeting.

Yes um we need a motion to adjourned please May motion to adjourn all those in favor of adjourning historic district commission meeting aye aye yes okay all right good thank you thank you

Okay, next we're going to turn to our community health survey with our public health division and we have Julia McCarthy, Assistant Director of Public Health. joining us.

Hello, welcome back. It's lonely up here just me but that's okay. So, yes for those of you who I haven't met or don't remember me my name is Julie McCarthy. I'm one of the assistant public health directors in the Public Health Division I was the epidemiologist for a few years beforehand, so you've seen me before. And I'm excited to be able to very briefly talk to you about our community health survey. We're also calling it a public health needs survey It's exciting because it's the first time that the Public Health Division has ever surveyed residents so broadly. So, this survey is open to Any resident 18 or older, and this is different from how we've sort of typically done things. We focused on youth under 18 or seniors age 60 and over We've really never captured our 18 to 60 population.

We've never understood their health needs or their health situation, so we'll be capturing our senior population again but will really be excited to get data for the first time on 18 to 60 population. We tried to fit as many health topics as we could in the survey without making it So long that nobody will take it. I think people are probably could argue it is quite long, but we beta tested it out and it is 15 minutes online to complete We can give paper copies out and we plan to be putting paper copies in places like the Senior Center where we think that will be a little bit more appealing than taking it online. The surveys open until August 15th. And so we tried to fit anything from health care, including sort of health care access insurance to chronic diseases, maternal and child health transportation, emergency preparedness.

And then we have demographic questions on there so we can stratify our answers by some of these like subpopulations to get a better understanding of the specific needs. So again, I'm going to keep it very brief. That's all I really wanted to say but if you have any questions for me or suggestions for how we can widely advertise the survey or distribute the survey, I'd be happy to hear them.

I guess that was my only question is making sure that people understand when the survey closes which i'm seeing here is august 15th and just using as many distribution channels as the town has determined, which is quite a few. All of them. But making sure that we use all of them so that we can get that broad and hopefully the schools will also distribute this both to parents and students?

Yes, we are going to try that Rout as well. And we're doing things we've never really done before, walking out to businesses and just asking can we hang this in your window? Can you hang this on your community board? And we'll see how many of those things stick but we're trying as much as we can. and I would encourage and hope that perhaps you will all take the survey as well. Well, I think getting the word out is always the biggest challenge so it's great.

Has it already started?

It has. It's been open for about a month, I think. Yes.

And the responses of you?

Yes, we've gotten a good response rate so far but it comes in fits and spurts. And we never quite know which was the successful method when we're shooting out sort of many arms at once. But again, we're just going to keep trying as much as we can and working a bit with the town clerk to see if we can get it out broadly. Going to keep pushing.

and Dover, Medfield and Sherbrooke in the same survey.

The same exact survey their survey actually already closed and smaller towns fewer respondents but it will be nice we can combine some of the data together to get a little bit of a regional comparison to see

where things stand okay any other questions we'll still be able to compare within the region like Needham versus other communities is that true

Needham to Dover, Sherbourne and Medfield. Yes. And then we'll be able to separate them all out and compile it together. Thank you so much.

all right so the next um agenda item uh we're actually going to defer until our next meeting there's just some more information that we need before we can consider this so we're skipping agenda item nine and we're moving on to ten which is our stormwater bylaw regulations. So I'm gonna ask Tom Ryder, our town engineer to come up and then I don't see Kim Donovan in the room potentially online there we go great

Hi, Tom.

Hey there. Thank you.

So I will jump in and start us off just to say that this is, I was going to say your third presentation but it's actually a fourth presentation on the stormwater Stormwater Regulations. So you have the red line in your packet and the clean version that incorporates all of the recommended We would recommend your adoption. And if you have any questions, those will be for Tom.

Yeah, I mean, I think this is pretty well covered territory as the town manager has just said. So I guess I would, I don't know if you have anything new to present but otherwise I would just open it up for questions from the

We're going to continue with the education process, which I think is very beneficial. So we'll start opening up like Friday morning coffee hour you know, just so that people can come in and just understand a little bit more. So what we're looking for? And I think that's the idea. Just keep the education going great.

So questions

Madam Chair, I make a motion that select board approve and adopt the stormwater bylaw regulation. Second.

All right all those in favor say aye. Aye. Opposed?

I just want to thank Tom and Kim for all the hard work on the committee and implementing it moving forward. It's really a document that I think we're all really proud of, so thank you.

Thank you.

thank you great thanks Kim that was easy huh yeah this is the easiest part of the whole thing well you laid a good foundation so thank you very much right thank you thank you have a great night you too all right uh the next item on our agenda is to set recycling and transfer station user fees and charges charges and fees Dave Davison Director of Finance.

Madam Chair, the board had a public hearing last month at your meeting in June. The solid waste and recycling advisory committee had recommended A 3% increase in the paid-to-throw bags. And I'm here to answer any additional questions you may have and to remind the board, the recommendation is the rate would take effect on October 1st.

Okay. I think this is also pretty well-covered territory, but if anyone has any questions?

Did we get any feedback after the hearing, emails or anything like that?

No.

Madam Chair, then I would move that the Board approve the proposed changes to pay-to-throw bags and that the new charge be effective October 1st, 2026.

Second. Okay, any more discussion? All those in favor say aye. Aye. Those opposed motion passes thank you very much. This end of the agenda is like... All right. Next, it's 8 o'clock. We turn to the town manager.

Just made up a lot of ground on time, I have to say. Still behind. Let's power through. um thank you madam chair uh so first up for me is uh just a review of preliminary list of articles that we're looking at uh that were anticipating for the october 19th 2026 special time you will formally call for the special town meeting and open the warrant at your next meeting, August 11th. The warrant closes September 8th So this always comes sooner than we anticipate. I want to review what's on the current list First, no HR articles at this time. We settled the expiring collective bargaining agreements this past spring for financial articles. Obviously, the Pollard Middle School is the largest item

in terms of for consideration and the rest of the list are things that we always keep on the list as needed. So line-and-end transfers in each of our operating budgets, the Water Enterprise, Sewer Enterprise and General Fund and will be working with the departments to see if any transfers are needed heading into October. Appropriating for unpaid bills, if there are any and transfer of the public education government programming PEG funds from our cable providers through the town to the Needham channel. For zoning articles, the planning board's continuing their work in conversations around large house so they're what I understand from their discussions at this point is they are considering splitting the they have a number of articles and they are considering advancing some to October and the residual to May so that remains on this list

For general articles, you just heard from the Historic District Commission regarding 178 South Street. So that would be a general article to amend the bylaw. The tree bylaw work was presented to the board from the Tree Preservation Committee, and I'll come back maybe to the asterisk when we get to the end. We have on your select board goals list for us to take a look at having a home rule petition filed, the state required legal notices that we post to allow us to do that digitally. Right now, we have to post in a printed circulation and obviously the landscape for printed Circulation has changed even recently, semi-recently with Hometown Weekly changing their distribution. So that one is on the list for consideration

We have been asked by the board and by others to take a look at are we taking advantage of all of the tax exemption options that we could make available to Needham residents. So the deputy town manager is working on that and will have recommendations to the board for a potential Warren article, in working with the Board of Assessors to consider the implications for those. There are two bylaw amendments that we're reviewing right now at a staff level related to revolving funds, One is to take a look at parking recreation activity and consider changing it to a different form of a revolving fund. And have it better serve our needs, if there's questions on that I'll have Dave come up and chat with us. Traveling Meals Revolving Fund.

We're looking at just expanding the scope a little bit more so that it can cover some of the discussions we've been having around what could be possible with the renovated kitchen at the CAF. and having communal meals, more robust food delivery options being produced by the town through the Cath Kitchen. And a revolving fund would be helpful for that but the traveling meals is kind of just one subset of the community nutrition work that we could be doing under a revolving fund model. The last two bullet points are related to DPW infrastructure projects, so the improvements at the intersection of Great Plain Ave and Central Avenue. The design layout would require taking at the corner at the Presbyterian Church. We are in touch with them, they are supportive and willing voluntarily to have that taking occur as a donation to the town.

And an easement at Dedham Avenue and South Street, D.P.W will be in front of you at your next meeting to talk about the work that's being planned out at that intersection coming from a Bottleneck Reduction Grant that the town had secured a few years ago. So we're at a good point to check in with the board, bring you up to speed on that grant, that project and this easement would be from a private property owner who also is supportive of the project at the easement it would help us place um the signal in a landing pad for sidewalk crossing so Um... So that's what we are looking at right now. And I would say, what you don't see on this list that should now be potentially listed is Home Rule Petition for the Article 97 from Warner Fields that we've just discussed

the items with the asterisks are um items that are ready if the board wants to advance it but also relative to kind of how robust the warrant ends up being, you could choose to defer those as well. And so I just wanted to flag those for your consideration as you start thinking through the warrant and what will be ahead of special town meeting for that night in October Some items that kind of maybe had been thought they may come to October that you don't see on this list, I want to note. Design Funds for Envision Needham Center, the improvements to Great Plain Avenue. The DPW director and I will come back to you at a future meeting and talk through our recommendation to advance that to May town meeting so we will do that actually at your next meeting so that you have time to consider it relative to this warrant and

at one point, the current property owners of the former Muzzy site had been in touch with the planning board about advancing to October. My understanding is they now are indicating that May of 2027 is when they would be advancing the requested zoning changes. And the General By-law Review Committee had a follow up article that we would be advancing to town meeting on GBRC's behalf since they've now dissolved, to actually implement the changes recommended in their report to townmeeting. That is also something that we're looking at May for once we have a consolidated bylaw in front of us to amend. So with that, happy to answer any questions.

on the Park and Rec Revolving Fund. The existing fund's one of the biggest, correct?

Do you want to? Yes. Correct. It would probably be the largest revolving fund at Chapter 44, 53E and a half. Correctly, I remember. Yes, and this is the one that currently does not fall under that statute. And the proposal is to do that. It just increases the flexibility of the revolving fund for the revolver that they operate under is basically all they're allowed to carry over from year-to-year is $10,000. and it'd be kind of annoying that if you paid for a program in April so your child can participate, in August they'll tell you well we can't do it. And by the way we can give you money back either because the money closed to the general fund So it's just modernizing programs.

The law that the Park and Recreation works under, the $10,000 limit goes back to 60s so it's obsolete. and actually your comment was actually caught my eye about doing this.

Thank you. And there's no change in the structure?

The structure is not going to change. It doesn't impact programs at all. It's more behind-the-scenes accounting and operational flexibility for park and recreation.

Great. Thank you. Okay, so next is the Stephen Palmer jurisdictional update? Yes.

The school committee met on July 13th and had an additional discussion regarding the Stephen Palmer building. The motion is in front of you, in your packet. And they voted unanimously to retain jurisdiction of the building and property following the conclusion of the 1977 ground lease. They have requested that the select board assume management of the property at the conclusion of the ground lease with authority to wind down the existing residential use. And third, have authorized preparation of an MOA that documents the school committee and select boards agreement relative to the property so this is your first meeting since that vote i wanted to share that update um i think defer to the chair and kind of any initial discussions on, you know their vote is requesting something of the board. And if the board is interested in moving forward

the motion also requests that an MOA be drafted to kind of memorialize how this partnership would work through the various stages of the building and property transitioning.

Right. OK. And I guess I just want to address very briefly some comments that we heard earlier tonight, which is to say that there has been no pre-coordination between the select board and any other entity for any interim use of the property. So it is certainly regrettable that this jurisdiction issue came up, but it was despite our best efforts sort of unforeseen and what has transpired is adjusting to the situation as we learn of changes so um the school committee's vote talks about winding down the lease there is no

there's nothing beyond that at the moment okay so I guess I'll just open it up to discussion on on the school committee.

I have a question. So is the proper way to interpret this action by the School Committee that they are retaining jurisdiction permanently? Is that the proper way to interpret this?

Yes, until I mean of course the options are always available to them at any point in the future to vote it as surplus and no longer needed for educational uses but this vote yes that for the foreseeable future or permanently. The school committee would like to retain it.

And have they set out for themselves any sort of planning process or committee or anything to look into how they wish to use? Good building. I guess

What I understand from their discussion, they would not see any need for a use. I've heard in the next five to 10 years. I also will share that what I have articulated as A next step for me, regardless of Stephen Palmer building specifically is the town has not had a townwide facilities master plan since 2014. We've done interim master plans so DPW as an example of that the school facilities master plan is an example of that it is time for us to do one overall as a town we've talked you know at hillside um the nike site the um you know And so one of the things that I would be planning for and requesting through the FY28 budget process is consideration to fund our next townwide facility master plan. the scope of that would be town and school buildings combined.

And so I think if, if that is funded and there's interest, the Stephen Palmer building would be considered as part of that along with all of our other assets.

I don't know looking at number two if we've ever done something like that they want to you know stay in control but they want us to manage the property which i do not love So I would need some further thoughts about what their thinking is like. Especially if it's out five to ten years, so we're going to take care of it for five to 10 years and then it's your property?

I don't know that we would necessarily be committing to that. What we're talking about committing to is continuing to manage the wind down of the lease, and I think it's important to me that we separate the short term from the medium-term, which would be like what happens after. from the long term.

See, I'm confused by that word because to me it sounds like further down the line too. Don't we manage school?

I mean town property is town property to a point right? DPW Electric. DPW does everything, right?

Yes, but I think maybe I can try to provide some additional clarity. I think in this unique situation we are managing transition of current tenants out of the building So there's the human aspect of it. The facility itself, ultimately, it's under my responsibility through DPW to manage the actual physical assets of buildings, whether it's town or school owned. But buildings under the jurisdiction of the school committee, while DBW does the maintenance and repairs. The school committee and the superintendent manage all of the uses of those buildings, right? So I think I would encourage you to interpret item two as just giving governance clarity that the select board would be making the decisions about the transition of the current tenants themselves.

and I think if there are questions about you know would the select board have is the school committee asking the selectboard to have responsibility about of anything further than that um i think either that would need to be an additional discussion between the two boards or that would be something that would have to be explored as we draft an MOA.

So I listened to the school committee meeting from last Monday. And so from that discussion, my understanding is that they They mentioned that there is a possibility that residents may be living in the building when it becomes town, reverts to town property and if there isn't an agreement, by default the school committee would be in charge of managing those residential leases. And My understanding is the intent of this MOA is for that the select board would manage those residential leases instead of the school committee. And that When at such time as there's no need to manage residential leases, then there would be no need for the MOA. Then it could be the school committee's property. Is that accurate? Your understanding as well?

I think the MOA can cover as small or broad of a scope as the parties want. So if it's that narrowly tailored, then that's something we could put together.

Okay. But no one's in there after May 3rd, I mean right? May 3, 2027 that building is empty

Tenants currently only have through October 31st.

So the building will be empty? Yeah, but we're not in the landlord business.

I think we have to plan for a building returning to us with some number of tenants

Yeah, and I think that's part of the idea here is that the town manager who's ultimately responsible for these buildings knows who to take direction from. it's very complicated if there's you know a jurisdictional issue where the school committee is involved and that's not their uh main priority so the idea here is to give the town manager the direction that she needs to work on this problem, this project. To facilitate as best an outcome for all of the tenants is possible and then and then embark on a separate portion phase of what might happen to that building, which is not necessarily our responsibility. It's a responsibility that if we

choose, we could accept if that's the intention of the school committee. But I don't think that that's actually clear. I mean, I think we would have to have more discussions about what the medium term would look like and how that would work. I'm actually not prepared to have that. I think we need to get through this phase and just constrain ourselves to make sure that this works as best as possible for everyone involved

I guess, Madam Chair. I would just sort of pick up on what Bill was saying and say that I would hope that the MOA would be crafted very carefully to give us a narrow role so that we are not I don't want us to be responsible for something we have no authority over agreed so just want to make sure this is as bill was suggesting carefully crafted to avoid such a situation

Yes.

My interest in this MOU is to make sure that if there are any tenants in the building, when it comes back to sound control, they are taken care of. That they're not living in a building without any management. we do not essentially become deadbeat landlords like I do not want that to happen. That is what I want to avoid.

That's the exact point so that we have clear guidance and so that we avoid that in all situations.

and then I guess on the jurisdiction, like just want to clarify that was not a surprise. Like it, I learned that he was under the school committee's jurisdiction October 8th 2024 and I know that there was some back and forth about whether the school committee would give up jurisdiction When we were forming the committee, the school committee said they didn't see a role for them to play and they changed their mind which is perfectly their prerogative. but the jurisdiction itself isn't like a surprise to the board.

Well, it was a surprise at one point and we've been working through reworking the project based on that new knowledge. So at no time was anyone trying to, you know, make it seem as though something that we knew to be untrue was presented. I mean, as we got new information, we presented the new information. We've been changing the plan based on the new Information and we've been informing the public School Committee, everyone. So this is what happens sometimes you get new information and you have to adjust and that's what we've been doing all along

So I think just so I can summarize back that I'm hearing an interest in a draft MOA that's narrow and scope specific to the select board being responsible for the transition of the existing Stephen Palmer tenants. is that an accurate summary? Unlimited to them, limited to that.

at some point we're gonna have to look after that though like next may if it is empty we're going to have to yeah but i think the urgency decreases if the building is empty I mean and

one could argue that the responsibility should be on the jurisdictional holder.

That's what I'm saying, yeah.

Right, so if we accept this responsibility and take this on through the end of the lease and all of that that's entailed in that.

And it may end in October, right? I mean, we don't know.

So...

I'm just thinking after that.

Yes, agreed. Okay.

Thank you. Project-based committees, there are three recommendations that I wanted to make. to you we periodically are reviewing the comps and charges to see where we are for project based committees so my recommendation tonight is regarding three of them as mentioned earlier tonight the single parcel historic district study committee which ended up bringing the article to the board for the prior town meeting, has long concluded its work now. We just need to formally dissolve them so that's on your list. The coming out of this discussion on Stephen Palmer. The Stephen Palmer Development Review Committee now with the change in kind who's planning for the future use and visioning for that parcel with the school committee's vote.

That is now under them, so my recommendation is to dissolve the committee you had created to do the future visioning and I will just know a few things. One, it is such an excellent group and they did amazing work and so thoughtful and really good discussion Obviously the project has changed and shifted, but the work of those volunteers has been excellent. And we will be convening them. They will have a meeting scheduled for July 27th to review all of the discussions that have been had. To date, the recent vote of school committee this discussion and to kind of close that out if you choose to dissolve the committee to close it out at that time So the motion reflects dissolution after their next meeting. And then lastly, the Quiet Zone Working Group is another one of your project-based committees.

I reviewed that composition in charge it really is surrounding advising the town on the studies related to the quiet zone my recommendation is that we keep the working group going because we still are and undertaking the feasibility for the golf course culvert. And I think it would be valuable to have that working group's review of that and guidance to staff and to the board, and then we could revisit the future of that working Time.

Katie, can we make sure that the work that the Stephen Palmer Development Review Committee has done to date is shared with the school committee? So that should they decide to institute... a committee or any work to decide how that should be used in the future, that they have the work that's been done so far?

yes um and actually that just reminded me i wanted to note related to the steven palmer committee we had contracted with barrett planning group and gamble associates uh to help undertake the visioning process to advise us on options and procurement and legal requirements, but also to do building conditions report. We have that deliverable and a lot of the guidance that's been provided along the way. That contract was supported by an appropriation, by town meeting. The contract was for $101,000. I think we've... had expended $58,000 of it to date. So we would kind of let there would be no further work with those consultants at the end so that work would conclude and the balance

appropriation that has been not been spent pending any outstanding invoices will we can close that out for future reappropriation by town meeting.

Could you forward the conditions assessment report? Thank you.

Madam Chair, I move that the Board vote to dissolve the Single Parcel Historic District Study Committee and that the board vote to resolve the Stephen Palmer Development Review Committee at the conclusion of its next meeting.

Second.

All those in favor? Aye. Those opposed? Motion passes Great Okay, so the next item is the revised appointment policy.

Thank you, Madam Chair. I will not walk through each of the red lines but just the document in front of you is a product of Chris Heap Town Council's work and It reflects the discussion at your last meeting trying to just put the amendments and the policies based on the discussion that we heard. I'm happy to answer any questions or to hear if we didn't get anything right but other than that just open it up for the board's consideration

Madam Chair I would say that I think the way this has been changed does reflect the discussion that we had it also reflects My recent experience as vice chair and how I understood the appointment process to work. So, I am happy with it as it is. Okay. Anybody else?

Could I ask on the question about suggesting a withdrawal. The way it's expressed is that... Can you tell us which section you're looking at? I'm trying to find it myself, sorry!

I know what you're talking about. Talking about under three standard appointments, five six seven eight

It's section three, new item nine. The bottom of the second page.

The Vice Chair should consider withdrawing a recommendation upon receipt of an unresolved concern from another member, or on occasion when appointment will be moved to the regular portion of this Board's Zender. What are the expectations of the Select Board about considering a withdrawal? In what cases should a withdrawal occur, and in which cases would it not be appropriate?

Well, I think it says right there. I mean as we discussed in our previous meeting the objective is a unanimous consent someone that everyone on the board feels that they can get behind and support as a candidate for a committee. I think that if that is not Achievable. It should be considered.

So in all cases where there's a concern, it should be withdrawn?

I think if the concern is not resolved and it remains a concern, then it should be considered.

And withdrawn. You said consider withdrawing. It doesn't say. Yeah.

Just ask the vice chair to consider withdraw

So that's why I'm unclear. Under what circumstances do you expect that the Vice Chair would withdraw? In all cases, they'd consider it certainly but what about actually withdrawing?

I think the idea is to have unanimous consent. And if a candidate is not able achieve unanimous consent because of a concern that cannot be resolved, then that seems like a good idea. We want to be able to provide our volunteers as discussed, I think pretty well covered in our previous discussions. That should be our goal. I believe that that should be our goal and so um that's the standard that i would like to see upheld

So in the example of the last time with Zach Wallach, if that occurred again would you expect that to be withdrawn?

I don't think that this is talking about expectations to think that we're talking about the greater goal here, which is unanimous consent. So if the candidate is not getting unanimous consent, then I think we should think about what that says on the more holistic level which is that we are not able as a board to unanimously recommend a candidate, and that is something that we should strive for.

So I think we can strive for that in public. I think the danger of this is that all this happens in closed doors

Yeah, I know. I think we've discussed this pretty well and it's pretty well covered territory so I'm happy with this the way it's written. say I hear that you're not and that we should probably vote because i'm not sure what else we can discuss on this so does anyone else have any comments

yeah um item six under three right it just seems unwieldy i mean i get it but The other one was, let me find it because I was marked with the old version before they revised agenda. Staff shall attend the interviews. In those rare cases where staff attendance is infeasible, the vice chair will notify the staff for the scheduling and provide a summary How rare is that? I mean, in a weird way it's like we have a new policy. Now here's the loophole we just can't make it work. Well, then reschedule it but I think you really need staff there.

I think he needs staff because I think it's opaque it's an opaque meeting if you don't have staff. And I'm not sure a summary of the interview would be, There's a bit of leap of faith there. So I find that strange.

Well, I mean, I guess I will just state my preference. I would vastly prefer that staff was involved but i do think that It's life that every so often there's going to be a case that just can't be achieved.

Well, I mean, all right.

I mean you know people hold full-time jobs they may not be available during the day i mean it's just like most of our committee work is done at night so a person who is available for committee mark may just have a lot of difficulty getting free during the when our staff is working for the interview I guess i don't want to make a candidate ineligible just because they're not able to do the interview, but they could do the committee work. So I agree. I would very much prefer to see 100% of the interviews done with staff but I think we have to say that occasionally this is just not going to be possible.

Yeah, in my experience as vice chair never had a problem getting a candidate on a Zoom meeting during the day A few had to be scheduled. I mean, it's sort of a... It's not the easiest thing and it has to happen but it does work So I find that problematic

I would just, if i could say that the staff we will do whatever your policy is but there are times where it really isn't feasible for staff. Just whatever our competing priorities and capacity is or schedules if it's nights or weekends, that can be challenging. So I think I hear you saying please schedule it during Monday through Friday town hall hours which I would very much appreciate but it's not always possible to do that so.

It makes sense to leave a loophole.

How rare is rare?

As infrequently as possible.

Madam Chair, if I could just say on both of these last two points what I think that the policy as written does do is establish our values and priorities are, and what we wish to happen very clearly which I hope everyone will follow because that is the intent and sense of it. However, some flexibility is always necessary and if you don't have any flexibility the thing generally falls down and will need to be revised so I think having a little flexibility is I agree.

Bill, anything from you?

No, I think it's great the way it is written and I agree that we're not saying it's just giving flexibility in those rare cases or what the wording was below too, it gives some flexibility. I think everyone understands what we want. We want the staff there and stuff, but if there isn't... If we can't get unanimous, we'd like to be unanimous. I can't even think of one case that could be out there that we're not aware of so as to give the flexibility.

agreed okay Can I ask about the reappointments? So, the way I read it. It sounds like the select board is deferring its decision to reappoint to the chair of the committee being reappointed and and of course the person who wants to continue. Are there cases where the Select Board might want to have a say in that?

I don't read it that anyone's deferring responsibility. I think we're checking in staff is checking in on a relationship that is working. And if it is not working, then either party has the opportunity to say so.

Okay, but what if it's not working for the select board? I can envision a lot of interesting unfortunate situations. What if the member wants to continue but they don't get along with the chair and the chair says that they don t want them to continue? I mean, or I suppose what if the Select Board wants new members on the committee and the policy would say no, that we're going to continue with whoever wants to continue.

That happened to me as Vice Chair. There was a chair who wanted a committee member. We tried to work around it. There wasn't the solution, and that was what we tried to do. But you have an option to work through it. the chair wanted someone on the board yes we want someone what was thought like maybe this is someone who's timed out um and there were no options after that person so it was We tried to solve it. We couldn't solve it, and we moved on. But yes, the vice chair could. There is a process. There's a way to do this or approach this.

I mean yeah what i hear you saying is that there is uh everyone is not in agreement and so that would be an opportunity to have discussions with those people, the member of the chair and determine what the scenario is. So I don't see that as a problem.

Maybe I misinterpreted it then. Which is the section? reappointments. In case we're a sitting appointment committee, this is section 4-1. Sitting appointment committee members' term is nearing expiration and the committee member has capable, excuse me, has capably served the committee in the town over the course of their current term. Has expressed willingness to continue serving that members should generally be placed on the appointment calendar for reappointment without need for advertisement of a committee vacancy or interview by the vice chair. So I guess the word generally is doing a lot of work there for you, so they're saying that there are cases when that may not apply?

I understand that it would be nice to have every scenario ever delineated but i think we can't do that and so yes generally is carrying the load here to say that just like concerns raised by committee members, staff being in the interviews, we're going to try very hard to make these very rare. And we're gonna do the work pursue the goals expressed here to achieve the best committee work that we can achieve with in every case, but you know it's not a formula. It's not perfect formula so we're getting as close as we can and we have to accept that is not gonna cover every single scenario

My main objection really is to the The withdrawal provision? We've heard. And I know you've heard, but maybe I haven't been strong enough. Like, I really think it violates state law. I think it's Chapter 4, Section 6. It says the boards operate by majority and so first of all to have a minority of the board you know, take there's a recommendation and then there's the decision just by one member potentially to remove it moreover behind closed doors without any public process, without anyone knowing. I think that's a problem potentially even for the open meeting.

It's not required, it's a suggestion and the language was vetted by town council.

But why would we suggest something that we think is a violation of the law?

I do not think it's

Madam Chair, I would move that the board vote to approve SB administration 003 appointment protocol as amended.

Second. All those in favor say aye. Aye. Those opposed?

Nay.

Okay, the motion passes. The next item on our agenda is the Park and Recreation Commission vacancy

um thank you madam chair in your packet is a communication from the town clerk to both the select board and the park and recreation commission just outlining the process for filling the vacancy on the commission. The two options are a joint appointment process if actually let me say the three options are a joint appointment process if the Park and Rec Commission provides a letter in a certain required timeline which they have done so that is also in your packet if they had not provided a letter it could have been an appointment just solely of the select boards and the third option is to fill the position by a special election. The town clerk has advised that the state will not allow local positions such as this one to be added to the September ballot or the November ballot and

So if you wanted to fill it by election, you would have to call for a special election. And I conferred with the town clerk and she said it would be 70... You would have had to call it 70 days in advance to make sure you'd give enough time for people to get nomination papers and such, and notify voters. So those are the options before you I will also say of note that whether the person is appointed or elected. The term of the seat expires in April of 2027, and so either way, there will be an election for that seat on the April local election in 2027. And if you appoint someone and they then chose to run, they would not be considered an incumbent.

May I make a suggestion? We advertise it immediately. The next meeting's August 11th. We invite the Park and Rec Commission, remaining Park and Re commissioners here to listen to applicants briefly, like five minute interviews each. And then the following meeting after that in September we take a vote on an appointment.

well we could do that or the vice chair could have a you know subcommittee with Park and Rack an individual from Park and rack and do the interviews according to the open meeting law, like with minutes and the whole nine public. I mean, I guess I don't particularly have A dog in that fight. I don't have a problem with public interviews for a position that would eventually be elected, so I think it's fine either way. the August meeting tends to be a super long one and so just as a matter of logistics, I might consider doing it as a subcommittee. But but I'm not married to that idea. But I do think that appointing and as quickly as possible is much better than running a special election.

And then having that group do an election and then just turn around and essentially doing another election to meet the April deadline. So thoughts?

for the group? I guess just from a logistical practicality standpoint, in my mind depends on how many people were interested. if we had 15 people interested and we were interviewing 15 people the whole joint boards i'd be less enthusiastic than if it were two or three

Well, let's see. I mean, I would say let's advertise it now and keep it open for the end of July. Is that reasonable?

I think we need to do more than that. Even longer. Yeah.

I think about it on News You Need Them Cycle, so I would recommend at least getting into two of those. So the next one is the 24th and then the 31st to have it be advertised it would be tough if you really were trying to get to the August 11th meeting because, you know, if it went out in New Genitum on the 31st I would say keep it open for another week so somebody doesn't get the email and it's already closed. So I think it's just a matter of how urgent you feel about that August 11th meeting versus one of the meetings in September.

Well, I guess I would also add that many of those applicants candidates might be away It's not a time that August, middle of August that we typically expect everybody to be around.

I'd like to do it as soon as possible but i'm not sure that I feel quite that level of urgency so I'd rather like let it stay open a little longer make sure that we get full coverage of folks who might be out of town or whatever and then and then at our maybe our first September meeting we maybe in the meantime you've done some winnowing of candidates if required. And then at her September meeting, we could move forward with something

So September's interviews and then two weeks later is a vote.

Back half of August, I think could start interviews right because we just said the 31st would be the second news you need him

If we advertised and closed it on August 7th, I could at your August 11th meeting share how many people have applied so you have a sense of how many candidates there are. and decide how you want to interview them if you want them all to come.

I just feel like closing it feels too soon. That's too soon

I think that's too soon. People on vacation. People's brains are off.

Yeah, because I think people are still away. August 7th is still the summer and people are just... out to lunch, if not physically gone. So I would prefer to keep it open at least another week after that and then do the interviews and then bring either a smaller selection of candidates or a nomination to the first September meeting.

I would go with the vice chair and the chair of Park & Rec or Urban Park & rec, and just do open meeting and have the interviews. And then come back like two months with a recommendation or a couple candidates because it would be easier. I know this fits a lot on you, but it'd be easy if the vice chair and the chair of the vice-chair would be able to talk to the cameras previously whether it's two or whether it is 20.

especially if it's 20.

I'd like to do it quickly, I mean it's been vacant for I think if people are interested they will apply. I'm not worried about not getting applicants

Well, they might be interested but they might not know that we've opened this.

I mean essentially we're talking about a difference of two weeks and i think that if we can...I mean we know that getting the word out is always the hardest part of this gig you know communication and during the summer we know that that's a thousand times harder than during the rest of the year so I say we err on the side of safety and give it a little extra time to percolate through people's summertime whatever and uh we'll still be doing it quickly a little bit slower but yeah i might also suggest that if there is a subcommittee of the vice chairs of the two committees then

that subcommittee can start interviewing as soon as there are applicants. There's no reason to wait until the whole thing is closed, you know? And then you can start interview who you have and keep interviewing, keep interviewing and you know until you've exhausted all the candidates. do what you will, bring some to the joint boards or whatever. But you don't have to wait until it's closed and then interview everybody all at once.

I do want to do that. Like, I want to make sure that I know...

logistically then you may like let me just say like so those first set of people, then they go on vacation at the end of August or whatever. Like if you do it that way and wait and do it all at once

it is that much harder for availability reasons of people i think if you've you know if you end up formulating a set of questions that you're going to ask every candidate and you your recording taking the minutes and recording the answers. I mean, I understand where you're coming from it's nice to have like it all kind of in a short time period so that you remember what's even transpired. But I think if you're taking minutes, that you can have that information.

Yeah. So so I guess as the vice chair and the person doing the appointment, the recommendations with the other committee. I'm going to reach out to the chair of the Park and Rec Commission and make a suggestion on how we move forward and I would suggest that we close it. I'd like your suggestion of two news you Needhams and closing on August, would that be the 5th?

The Friday is the 7th.

and then depending upon the number of applicants we receive, the chair of the Park and Rec Commission and I will then decide on how we proceed from there.

So we can post the position? Okay.

With the closing date on? August 5th, 7th, excuse me. Well they get it on a, news you need is on what date?

These are all Fridays, so the first News You Needham would go out this Friday, August 24th. July 24th the following Friday, July 31st and we keep it open for an additional week until August 7th.

And if we don't get enough candidates then we can keep it

um that's up to the chair of the i mean what does enough what do you mean well josh i mean if only one person applies or whatever i mean you're gonna keep it open

being cast the net again.

Yeah, the objective here is to get the right person in the right position not to fill a position by a certain date.

Yeah okay I agree with that

okay um town manager report we've made up a lot of ground on time so i am going to say that i have nothing further thank you

all right so the last item on the agenda is um the committee reappointments which were removed from the consent agenda

Oh, so Miles through town community liaisons communicated in April to all committee members, the mandatory ethics requirements. I again just reminded all of the applicants on the consent calendar of the requirement and that these are just the names of the people who haven't yet done it even today though a couple people came back and said that they've still done it uh you know after the agenda was posted so i would just suggest that i'll even make a motion that we place these names on the consent agenda for next meeting when by then I hope all of them will have completed the training.

Any comments?

I think we can reappoint these people. I think they will do their ethics training, and I think that the town clerk will remind them to do their and I would not like in fact it's in our policy that there are not other reasons to not appoint so this would be another reason we've just adopted it. This is a reason of not reappointing that does not appear in our So I would suggest that we vote to reappoint these people and to remind them to do their ethics training. The town clerk does that, in fact, that's her job.

So the ethics, well let me say a couple of things. This was put on the calendar before this new policy was adopted. That's the first thing. Second is, the criteria in the current policy I mean, it doesn't mention civility which is one of the criteria that you care about. And that's what we've applied before. The ethics training is important to me and so I think I will continue to insist when we report people The ethics training is up to date. I think the town clerk is certainly responsible for informing people that they're up-to-date on the ethics, but the only recourse the town I think it really is our responsibility if we want to uphold the ethics requirement, to just make sure that people are up-to-date.

and it's at a point in time, you know, at reappointment. I don't think we can do it at every point while they're committee member but I think this is an easy way to make sure that people are up-to-date. And one thing that was clear when verifying with the town clerk about the training, some people actually had never done it. over the course of their appointments, perhaps they'd been on three years or longer. It had just never happened. So I think we're just not practiced in enforcing ethics responsibilities.

well madam chair I move that the select board appoints the following individuals to the listed committees and terms and i would say that we could do a better job of educating our committee chairs you know to make sure that their committee members are the ethics training is important and it's very important. And the stuff in there, stuff that will apply to people on every committee. So I don't minimize the importance of the ethics training at all. but this feels punitive to me and I think there's maybe other ways that we can get at the same thing. So, I guess I've just moved that we appoint.

Second.

Okay any other discussion?

No, I think we appoint people to committees without them having done the ethics training. And now we're up to reappointing them. I think you need a reminder but These are people who volunteer on committees. I don't know if we make it punitive. I think we have to educate them and send a reminder with the link to do it, but I'm fine with appointing these people now.

Okay, so there's a motion on the table and a second. All those in favor say aye. Aye. And those opposed? Nay. Okay, motion passes. So now we're on to committee reports. Bill, we'll just start at your end.

I'll pass.

No you can't pass because we haven't had a meeting since July 4th.

I can't admit it.

You know, I think...

I mean, I enjoyed seeing Rocket read. The kids read with Rocket. I went to the library The Kids of the Rock. I enjoyed being with Jake Harklaus when he was hunting butterflies for the kids at the camp in Broadmeadow. Those were my highlights that we didn't meet.

And the July 4th festivities?

Wow. So humble. You ran the show.

Seriously, I'm trying to give you a moment in the sun here and you are like dodging at every turn.

Josh? I don't think I have any updates either.

Okay, Kevin?

um yeah big shout out to the exchange club they did a great fourth of july fireworks parade and all right so Bill Dermott is in the parade, because he's on a slack board. And we start the parade and he wasn't in the car yet cause he had to start the parade. And they see this guy running across town common mad dash again the car and he was hot and sweaty. Everyone was waving, that was great. We even got the walkie-talkie to see what was going on.

I know, it was so good!

Yeah, I know. So we had blow-by-blow while we were going through the parade. I went to Kings Day rally. Mike O'Neill, library trustee spoke. He was very good. I went to America 250. The Clergy Association had done that over the spring. It was brilliant, it was so amazing. prior to July 4th, to celebrate America's independence. We did a tour of the Nehemiah Community Farm. I got a tick on me! and Bill and I went to see Jake Auchinclough's town hall meeting too. So that was good.

You were really busy. Okay. Well, I'm just going to add on to the July 4th thing because in addition to Bill and the rest of the excellent Exchange Club, I just want to say Sunita Williams was spectacular and so wonderful Awesome with everyone, including myself fan girling uncontrollably at the end of the parade. Poor woman. The Needham Channel, the police and fire and DPW and especially all the residents who were out there in that ridiculous heat. Thank you because without the residents the parade really doesn't do a thing. And also the fireworks were awesome, and it was so great that it cooled down enough so that everyone could really enjoy. There was a meeting of the Council of Economic Advisors and the council elected new chairs, so that is very exciting.

And they are contemplating an economic development study talking about how that would work and what that would cover. So, that was great. And then I joined the tour of the Needham Community Farm which is excellent and thank God I did not end up with a tick because would have had to cut off that limb. And that's it. So here it is, not even 10 o'clock and I'm very impressed with us. So anything before we adjourn?

adjourn. Move to adjourn? What's the rush?

Anyone want to, Madam Chair?

Move we adjourn

Second.

Move we adjourn.

All right, all those in favor? Aye. Goodnight