Select Board September 15, 2026

Thank you.

Williams.

Meaghan, hybrid. Oh, one for speakers here and for the chiefs just one here. I'd like to call to order the select board meeting of September 15th, 2026 in The Great Hall at Town Hall. The meeting is being held in hybrid format, broadcast live on Comcast Channel 8 and Verizon Channel 40. And available for later

and available, is that better? And available for later viewing on wellesleymedia.org. The select board members here in the Great Hall are Tom Ulfelder, Vice Chair, Colette O'Frank, Secretary, Beth Sullivan Woods and Kenny Largess and I'm Marjorie Freiman Also here with us are Executive Director Megan Jopp and Assistant Executive Director Corey Testa. We have a couple of changes on the agenda, just want to let you know There are a couple of items we will not be taking up tonight. The first is the National Grid Grant of Location, and we will also not be taking up the local government representative for clean energy siting. So, were going to move the financial discussion slightly earlier

so that we don't prevent people who are coming to talk about the fire station from being able to hear the entire presentation. Our first agenda item is citizen speak. We typically allow a 15 minute period for public comment on items not on the meeting agenda, and we ask that speakers limit their comments to three minutes. Is there anyone here who would like to address the board on a non-agenda item?

Yes, Don Davis.

Hi, Don. Great, name and address please Dawn.

Hi thank you. Dawn Davis 267 Washington Street and thank you for the opportunity to speak tonight. I'm a board member of the Wellesley Conservation Land Trust and on whose behalf I am speaking tonight regarding White Pond. As we can see, for the past year and prior to that our town constituents really value open space This is something that we've heard in discussions regarding the North 40, the Mass Bay Forest. And those of us who are aware are very keen on preserving White Pond I got a lot of signatures for White Pond among other friends and colleagues so that we could be on the special town agenda. for November. And I was amazed by how many of our fellow residents, especially long-term residents had no idea what White Pond was or where it was so it's tucked behind hundreds road across from Farm Station.

But once I mentioned that it was in a private trust for the past 70 years and that, that was no longer viable In most cases the confusion that people had turned to curiosity and concern about how to preserve White Pond. So as we learned that there's only one active trustee left from this formation of a trustee that started in 1950, and this person has been previously working with the NRC to determine what would be necessary to gift White Pond. So again, Wellesley's handed this amazing opportunity and responsibility to help a fellow resident to preserve our values which is to preserve open space. and the NRC's own assessment last December found no environmental red flags. They confirmed the boundaries, they laid out a real path forward Habitat, Passive Recreation, Stormwater Management.

Really important so the whole neighborhood can benefit And as we know, Rockridge previously was privately owned and now is under the control of the NRC. The North 40 was privately protected and now it's under the Mast Bay Forest, privately protected. And now it's not clear what's going to happen so we'll be discussing the citizens petition and advisory on the 23rd and I ask that the select board engage in this process now, after reviewing the remaining questions over the coming weeks and ultimately consider supporting the citizens petition as a logical next step in this process that was begun by the NRC and in-town meeting. So as they say, the center will hold. In my opinion it's going to hold steady if we protect these assets that are irreplaceable and they're so valuable to so many of us. for hearing me tonight.

Thank you very much, Dawn. Anyone else here to speak to the board on a non-agenda item? Okay I'll turn to Megan please for the executive director's update.

I just have a few updates. So as reminder, the North 40 public meeting will be held on October 1st at 630 that is currently planned for the Honeywell School although based on registration we are looking to see if the high school was, the high school cafeteria is available just for a little bit more space. So we'll keep folks posted on that. Also wanted to remind folks at the town's cultural council is now accepting applications for grants they have over for approximately $20,000 to issue this year. And applications were open until October 15th. These grants are wide ranging and so we'd encourage individuals from artists, performers, educators, community group, nonprofits schools. There's so many eligible projects take a look at the website we encourage you to apply. Also, our Boston Marathon Invitational Entry application process is now open. And that deadline is also October 15th at 4 PM.

Applications for that are limited to nonprofit organizations that contribute significantly to Wellesley or to some population of Wellesly residents as determined by the board. Our policy is online linked in the application so folks can read that And then the last thing, I just wanted to remind folks to check our community calendar. There are tons of things up for September from now until the end of September Those events range from guided trail walks, the Wellesley Symphony Orchestra concert. There's lecture series and some exhibitions so we just encourage people to take a look at that community calendar and try and visit one of our Many activities that are happening in September.

Thank you very much, Megan. Our next agenda item is the Consent Agenda. Tonight we have one item on the consent agenda which is to appoint an additional eight individuals as election workers for the upcoming election in November In a typical election, town clerk Casey Cato hires approximately 100 people to work that day. So I'll ask Colette for a motion please. Move to approve the consent agenda.

Second.

All in favor? Aye. Okay, as I mentioned we are going to be skipping and moving around a couple of items so our next agenda item is the FY28 budget guidelines discussion. We hold a series of discussions about the guidelines and set the guidelines a little bit later in the fall So I'll turn it over to Megan and our CFO, Rachel DeRoach is here. Thank you, Rachel. Turn it over

So Rachel and I have started looking at the revenues. We've provided the board with some state calculations in terms of our past experiences to actual as well as our local receipts We had provided in the board an initial FY28 projection looking at both revenue and expenses from the town-wide financial plan. I have passed out to the board an updated version of that, that we can walk through. But I'm going to turn it over to Rachel to high level give an update on where we're at and her thoughts in particular with regards to the revenue projections

Great, thank you Megan. Good evening everyone and I apologize. I am just getting over a bit of a cold so I might sound a little off. I hope you can hear me fine. So yes, Megan had handed out and updated guidelines projections. So what we did when, particularly when looking at revenue projections is built in the assumptions that were in the town wide financial plans so You'll see that for state aid, we built in a 2% increase. For local receipts, we also built-in a 2%. I did want to flag that it is a bit earlier this year that we're having this first initial conversation regarding revenue projections and local receipts. We're just wrapping up Q1 So in the coming months, we'll have a better sense of how we're trending this fiscal year.

But in line with providing an initial to support the future guidelines conversation, we modeled the state aid and local receipts at 2%. So I did want to flag if you were to look at the local receipts that I had projected. We did tick up the meals tax, again if you recall when we had a conversation regarding FY26 year-end close Oops, I think Megan's sharing a screen here. When we had that conversation about year-end clothes, we did see Meals tax came in over a million dollars, just over $1,057,000. It was appropriate to tick that one up from $750,000 to about $800,000. The rest of the local receipts at this time

I'm keeping those flat. I'd like an opportunity to see how we're trending over the next month or two once we close out Q1 to get a better sense of where revenues are falling. I did wanna also add, when we're looking at local receipts if we're going to be increasing that, okay great thanks Megan. If we're gonna be increasing local receipts by 2%, we're slightly higher than what I have projected here so there could be an opportunity to tick up Interest Earnings, and we'll get a better sense as I mentioned as we go through the next few months. What else? and also for state aid, for chapter 70. So again those... Great thanks Megan. So if we're looking at chapter 70 that's based on October enrollment

so again a little bit early we'll have a better sense next month I generally work with our assistant superintendent of finance and operations over at the school to have that conversation based on off headcount where that's trending. And then we'll do like a back of an envelope calculation of what we think state aid Chapter 70 will be for the following year. Historically, we've built in an increase of about $25 per pupil Last year we used an average of 4,000 pupils and that yielded a $100,000 increase in Chapter 70. We were pretty conservative last year, but I think there's an opportunity this fall to reevaluate Chapter 70. And again we could be increasing that, For the analysis tonight, we just built in the 2%, which was noted in the town-wide financial plan.

Rachel, I'm gonna just project... Let me stop sharing for one moment. I'm going to project the recast with a 2% because in the initial Guideline projection that was in the board's handout. It had 100,000 for this state aid and didn't include the tick ups of the others. So hold on one second while I share that. Great thanks Megan. So I'm just going to, I just want to quickly go through what the, based on the original, what the difference is in terms of the revenue. Let me just zoom out a little bit here. So if we're looking at the Sources here, it's about $154,000 differential from what was in your packet initially versus the 2% year-over-year with regards to the state aid.

and as Rachel indicated, that will be modified likely based upon the projections from the school department their October enrollment. If we look at the local receipts, a 2% increase would be an increase of about $370,000. on that, and that is slightly higher than what Rachel's projecting based upon the local receipts. So again there may be opportunity under investment income to increase that. Rachel and I did go back and look at past trends over the past and I believe it was 950,000 was the highest it's been. And keep in mind the reason we don't keep elevating that even though we've some significant investment income over the past several years is that once it's in there and if it drops, it's hard to build that back up. So we are looking conservatively at that as to whether

We potentially might be able to bring that up to the $950 or a million dollars, but keep in mind we only have two months at present of investment income to make that assumption based on. but it's likely that we can tick that up. So, we just wanted to highlight that. Rachel you wanna maybe just walk through this the remainder of Projections.

The expenses, sure. So again for uses we separate school and town so again in the Townwide Financial Plan We projected 3% increase for school, 3% for town budgets. And then skipping down to cash capital that nine point almost 9.6 million. That's directly from the five-year capital plan. So again, that'll need some eyes on it but that's a number right from the plan debt service. That's the actual number our current debt service schedule, health insurance. Again in alignment with the town-wide financial plan we've built an 8% Increase. And again, just flagging this is health insurance you'll see down in other employee benefits yep that 4.8 million so you'll notice if you recall on the sources and uses it's all grouped together under group insurance, but for here we've broken out health insurance and the other employee benefits.

And then as for pension and OPEB those appropriations come directly from our valuation. So directly from those actuarial reports, so those are actual hard numbers and then state and county assessment we usually build in at two-and-a-half percent We can get a better sense of that as the year progresses. And then abatements, again we'll have a better since as we're working through the tax recap and the assessor for what amount we need in that abatement or overlay but for now we have a placeholder of 800,000.

Rachel can we jump in and ask a few questions?

Absolutely let me just give one comment on the debt service so this is inclusive of 27 Borrowing and where we're at. So under FY28 in the capital plan, there's projected present inside the levy borrowing upwards of $16 million but we know those projects, there are projects that are shifting So it's likely more in the range of six or seven million dollars and so that number will increase as part of that. Correct

So thank you, Megan and Rachel. My question was about excise tax. And we've been trending much higher than projected on excise for a couple of years. So do you think it's time? I think it is time to adjust that so it's a little bit more conservatively reflective of the trends we're seeing.

Yep, that's a great question Beth. So actually in FY25 excise receipts, the budget was $5.8 million and in FY27 so this current year we did tick that up 400,000 to the 6.2 million so Is there an opportunity to increase excise again? You'll see the trend in 23 where we're at 5.6 million Since FY24, we've been consistently over $7 million. For FY27, this was the first year we included a tick up of $6.2 million. So for 28, I've currently kept that flat. We can keep an eye on Motor Vehicle Excise over the coming months. As a reminder, that large commitment, that first bill comes out in January so that really is the tell-all of

how we're trending, that's going to be our indication if we're continuing to increase but valid point. We'll keep an eye on that and as we get closer into the budget year there could be an opportunity to bring that up as well.

Kenny.

I have a question about the investment income and I understand your point, Megan, about budget versus actual but how much What rate are we applying to our cash balances right now?

Give me one second. I was looking at that earlier, I just want to pull up just to see. Let me see. Okay, so We were trending July of last year, it was 4.8%. July of this year 3.8% so 3.84% is the slightly decreasing.

And just to Megan's point, the most we've ever budgeted interest income in the past was around that $950,000. But again, there is an opportunity to reevaluate that this year.

So the 10-year treasury was at 5%, a little over that today. And so presumably, we're going to get at least that on the account. So if you bump that up to 5% and applied it to our cash balance, What would the actual number be?

I'd have to get back to you on that, Kenny. I'd look at our bank recons from either August or end of September to see what the actual balances are. I do know that Treasurer will be sending out early October her quarterly Treasurer's Report. So happy to circle back once I have those final numbers.

I would really like to know that number because if we're carrying $950,000, we are grossly understating what we're actually going to receive. And I think that's something we should keep in mind. I'm not saying change the budget but... when we're talking about what we're going to spend.

Can I add to that, if Rachel's looking into it? Is the 10-year Treasury the appropriate rate to use because we are more likely to be looking at and MMDTA's rate, the Mass Municipal Depository Association's rates which I think are quite different. So the treasury rate I think only is applicable to a quite small part of our reserves that are invested in that type through and the policy that we adopted last year. So, that only applies to a very small part of our reserves.

My guess is that amplifies the issue because presumably that's a higher rate than the Treasury.

MMDTA, I don't think it is.

We can circle back on that. Colette is correct that MMDT has a higher rate than our other accounts, which we're using for like our day-to-day operations. Oh shoot I was just gonna say something and I lost it apologies Oh, the other thing to consider Kenny too is when we go out to borrow that has a large fluctuation on our cash balances. So again, as a reminder, when we went out back in the spring, we borrowed our general obligation bond. What was that? to five million. As we start to spend down, that's part of the funds that are in MMDT. As that money starts to spend out our interest earnings decreases. We just made the Opeb contribution that came out of MMDT. We just made the first of three retirement contributions so

throughout the year, the balances are fluctuating. But again I can look to see what the specific 10-year trend on the MMDT account is because again that's holding the largest rate Again, I just wanted to add and I think Megan alluded to this earlier. Our intent to remain conservative with budgeting interest income is because once we acknowledge these higher than normal numbers, if we were to build that into the operating budget if and when those interest rates decline, now we have to find either another revenue source to make up that difference or make decisions to decrease the budget. So again it's something in the past that we just haven't considered because we need to be sensitive too. We're not budgeting for the total revenue that we're anticipating, we're budgeting for

that we can sustain, that we maintain and lives within what the town can afford.

And I think, correct me if I'm wrong, at some point during the year when we have a better idea of where we're going to be with interest because at the moment there's a lot of things that are unknown on the cash balances that will drive that. but that sort of affects our projection for free cash in the coming years, which then we can plan for one-time uses of free cash based on that. I think if there is to Megan and Rachel's point, if we can understand that there is going to be some opportunity on interest We don't necessarily build it into the budget but plan for it with one-off items so that we're not facing a fiscal cliff when the interest goes down, which it will because we won't always have this cash on hand.

That was sort of where I was going. You can't budget for it, but you can use it in a way that makes sense.

or at least think about it.

Rachel, I have a question about the cash capital. The figure that you read to us 9 million, 9.6 million, What percent is that? Because last year we used 5.9%, I think, for cash capital. What percentage is that estimation for this year?

Sure, so the number in the projection is the actual number from the plan. Megan has that on the screen. So right here, the 9.559. Megan, can you go back to the guideline? I think at the bottom we had a calculation of what the percentage would be. I have it on my copy

Fred, I see what it would be reduced to if it were 6.2 or 6.0 or 5.8. I'm using the 5.9 as my reference from last year.

Megan's doing the calculation for me right now. Thanks, Megan. I'll try to do that real quick here.

Our current policy has a higher range, but we used a number below the range last year and I thought that might be where we were trending again this year. Just curious what this number represents?

So the 9.5, along with the debt service of the 4.2 is approximately 6.6%. Thank you.

Megan, the other thing you mentioned in or Rachel in the update is that the new health insurance administrators are doing deep dive. When do you think we might have any additional information from them? Because I'm hearing like 10%, 11%.

So we have a meeting in October. That is largely to set the Medicare rates, so keep in mind our Medicare rates go into effect for our retirees January 1st, so we set the rates and the open enrollment process begins in November. So we have budgeted a 6% increase in that so that's going to set the tone initially too if we're over or under projections with regards to health, the overall health insurance budget for this year and for next year and then following that we will get a brief update on what the trend is but again, you're really only going to have July, August and part of September by the time we have our meeting in October to get a sense of what the run rate is on the claims because it's all driven by claims analysis. and as we all know, there's oftentimes a delay in terms of your claims information from the insurances.

So they'll give us sort of the national average that will begin to factor into the budgets and as the board knows, We step that back based upon actual experiences. The rates are typically set in February, will have a much better sense in December and the other thing which is in my list of unknowns for the board, in terms of the consideration, is that the MOA with all the unions with regards to health insurance will have to be negotiated to be effective July 1, and we'll have to have that largely settled before we get to town meeting because it will impact the overall budget on that. So, that's one of the unknowns that is not necessarily factored into here. This is just a town-wide financial plan and so that will be constantly updated as we get more information on this projection the other thing Rachel and I there was a few things sorry I just got to look at my notes I had to stop sharing that we also wanted to just highlight in terms of

where we see outside of none of the unions, school or town are settled. So that will obviously impact 27 and 28 as part of our budgetary process We also have the, and I think I've alerted the board to this. So Munis where we're tracking that they are projecting $100,000 increase each year for the next three years to go to a cloud-based service We are working to negotiate that and potentially work with other municipalities to see if we can sort of level set Munis because so many of our peer communities are using this. That's our financial software. That's our financial software, yes. Also they will be bidding the FMD and land use leases this year 2, which is that we are expecting that to come back at a much higher cost per square foot than what we're currently paying at 888 Worcester Street.

and then the other expense which we will be in FY27 basically any day now starting the applicant and the applicant tracking software that was adopted by town meeting as a capital project for HR, but the operational impacts to that will hit in 28. will allow every department to track applicants and it's a tool for HR. And that would be an additional $24,000 in expenses moving forward so those aren't factored in necessarily to our other expenses but we wanted to raise those as some additional costs that we think will play a factor into the overall budget this year. Thank you, Collette?

So I have some questions. I sent them to you, but I think at the request of other board members I wanted to just run through them. We've talked about the rationale for interest rates a number of times and one of the things I wanted to understand when we get a little bit further on with a number of decisions we have to make is what is the balance that you're using to calculate projected interest when we got to the point where we want to do that? At the moment our reserves are high but there's a number of questions that impact the level of reserves. I wanted and not we don't have to answer it tonight if we could just look at why rental income is projected higher than last year's actual. I'm not sure if that's because of renegotiations or because collections of old

So we're down on collections on that. But we also have, that will go to town meeting this year, that we are currently in the process of doing the appraisal. The rentals go to the aqueduct leases so we are in the processes of doing Renegotiated for the 2027 town meeting.

Okay, state aid we talked about. We don't know where we are in terms of Union negotiations, and we're very early in the process of small group discussions with schools in terms of their response to 3% and these guideline projections. So cash capital, I think Marjorie touched on it a little bit. We are in the second or maybe even third year of being below our lower end of the range which makes it difficult for us to then build that back up because it's the opposite of, well kind of the same implication of the interest income. So I don't know if at this point we need to start making a clear statement that we're trying to build up that capacity again, or are we considering revisiting the range temporarily until we've basically sorted out what we're going to do in terms of extra capacity that comes from OPED and pension? I did look at the five-year capital plan.

Are you taking comments on that now, Megan? Or are we holding on that? There's a number of things in there. are going to move quite a lot in the next couple of meetings. I don't know if we're taking comments on that right now.

Yeah, I would hold on capital. Keep in mind, we realign capital every year with capital submissions in November where we're gonna push and pull and other larger projects, but certainly there's gonna be in the large projects anyway some significant movement.

I just want to raise for this board, Rachel and I spent quite a lot of time in the past week preparing the packet for Capcom. We're having our next CAPCOM meeting on the 28th, which is a day before we are having our board meeting. We're having a board meeting the next night. That's, we're still in the early stages of Capcom. We'll be having a presentation from the Board of Public Works on there Civil Insight Projects. We're going to go through at a high level the project proponent forms and the staff evaluation forms, and after that comes the really hard work of you know scheduling where we think our recommendations are for capital but there needs to be some movement there and then there are other significant large moving pieces on capital that are you know essentially up in the air until there's more discussion with schools and time meeting, essentially.

I just got a message that the feed to the live broadcast has died on Wellesley Media So anyway, there's a lot in capital that is very liquid at this point. I'd say it's

Okay, any other questions? All right. Rachel thank you very much. Megan, thank you. It's the beginning of a long hard arduous process and we appreciate everything that you're doing to keep us in the loop update things daily, weekly as we go along through the year.

Marjorie, just one maybe other brief update. So the HR board did meet last night and began their discussions on COLA. They did not vote on that I will forward along to the board the slides that were presented to the board and I believe they were intending, they were looking to see if they were going to schedule another meeting. If not their meeting is October 5th that they would vote that, but I will forward to the board the slides that were presented last evening.

So that's the next time they'll take it up is October 5th?

they may actually try and book an interim meeting to continue that discussion. So I'll connect with Sean and report back to the board. Okay, thank you. Anything else before we move on?

I am still getting messages that Wellesley Media's feed is dead and I'm looking at it on my computer. Rod, can you check?

We're just going to hold for a minute because this might be the part of the meeting that people at home want to see. So let's see if we can confirm that we're on.

Rod, could it be that the TV stream is okay and the live stream isn't? I don't know.

Oh, it's on. It's back up. Okay. Or is it up? Back on, great. Thank you very much. Thanks Rod. Our next agenda item is to discuss and receive public comment on the report recommendations of the fire station master plan siting and I'd like to invite Chief Mortorelli, and Assistant Chief John Domenico up with us to the table. Glen Remick from Facilities Management Department is here and Jeff Shaw from Context Architecture is also joining the board to continue the discussion of the Pre-Feasibility Fire Station Master Plan Study. Okay.

We're still hearing there's no audio.

and it's actually running on air.

They're seeing it, so you've been on the whole time. So let me just double check this live stream.

they say it's back now. I got a screenshot of a black screen, I'm not sure if they're watching on the website or on the TV but I think it was on the web site

All right, we're going to forge ahead and hope that all is well. Let me go over the structure of the evening's discussion. I'm going to do a brief introduction to the master planning process, I'm gonna turn it over to the chief, assistant chief in the project team to talk about new developments since our last public meeting in June, questions that have been addressed in the FAQs and facts. We're not sure everybody knows that those have been posted to the project web page and items that will be addressed during feasibility phase, among other things. We'll turn to resident comments and questions We don't expect we'll be answering many of those tonight. We'd like to gather the questions, group them, take some time to answer them thoughtfully and discuss them during the next public meeting and also post those on the website

We heard a substantial amount of public comment in June and in emails. And comments since then, the whole team has read and reviewed them all very carefully Tonight is an opportunity to hear from those who were not able to speak previously, to hear new information or questions that may have arisen or which may require further elaboration. and to help the board identify issues that we need to examine more closely as we deliberate. Our goal is to leave the meeting with a clearer understanding of what we know, what we don't know yet and what the board needs to learn. After the public comment... Next slide please Megan The Select Board will provide its input. I previously sent questions to the board for their consideration and comment then we'll move on to next steps.

I think most people know that we have a Charette planned for October 1st, we believe we're gonna be moving to the high school to provide a little more space than Honeywell School and that will be widely publicized as well. Thursday, October 1st 630-9pm We hope you will all join us, everyone at home, town meeting members. It'll be an opportunity for everyone to provide input to the next phase of the conversation So the overarching question in the master planning process is what does the community need from its fire department, its fire service over the next 30 to 50 years? and what town location or locations could provide that service most effectively, safely and responsibly? That's a very complex question.

It has many different components and that was the aim of the master plan. Next please, Megan. The plan began in June 2025 and among the planning group were Chief Mortarelli, Assistant Chief DeJohn Domenico, Retired Chief Soar, Megan Jopp, Joe McDonough and Glen Remick from FMD Eric Arbini, the former director and Brad Downing from planning Brian DuPont our IT Director Jeff Shaw and two of his associates from Context Architecture There were also six additional consultants and a cost estimator working on the project. The study proceeded over the next year, and was presented to the select board with interim reports in the meantime on June 3rd of this year. The master plan included the final report and several appendices that you can see listed on the screen.

The summary findings of the master plan were that both existing fire stations are undersized and cannot support modern Fire Department operational needs or adequately protect firefighter health and safety, that deficiencies exist for housing new firefighter apparatus and that neither station has space for critical decontamination of personnel or gear nor the ability to separate firefighter living quarters from the apparatus. The analysis of those stations included that Station 2 on Route 9 could be expanded by perhaps 700 square feet. but that certain administrative staff and operations would need to be relocated from Station 2 to a new headquarters. Station 1 on Central Street needs to be replaced.

It's 100 years old, it can't fit the current apparatus, it doesn't have separate living situations for male and female firefighters, and its landlocked and cannot be expanded and finally the second fire station is needed near Station 1 that meets all the National Fire Protection Association response time requirements for locations within that second fire district. We only have two in town. In terms of the site analysis, 14 objective criteria were developed initially against which any potential site would need to be considered. This was before the sites were identified. Multiple potential sites were then studied and 12 were evaluated further based on those 14 criteria applied equally to each site

Two locations on the North 40 received the highest total scores, and a third location at 515 Washington Street was also selected for further study. Underline preliminary fit tests were conducted on each of those three sites. The town currently owns the property on the North 40, while the property at 515 Washington Street is within Morton Park and protected under Article 97 of the amendments of the Massachusetts Constitution as parkland, and under the custody of the Natural Resources Commission. In terms of site considerations, the planning team considered as many sites they could identify over approximately one and a half acres. To meet response times and to not disadvantage any area in town. No quadrant, not the northwest most corner of town, not middle of town

The new station again needs to be close to the existing Station 1. And it was seemed prudent to examine property that the town already owns, given that we have at least $400 million of pending capital projects over the next seven to eight years. The town spent $35 million dollars to acquire the land at the North 40 and otherwise the town would have to either take by eminent domain or purchase more land, whether it be commercial, residential or protected land. and the taking of land considerably increases the price. There is sometimes as much as a 30% premium over the value with the land for eminent domain-taking. On June 25th, the Select Board reviewed the Master Plan and posed questions to the Chiefs Assistant Chief and Jeff Shaw from Context which we have all been working on since that time.

Higgins. Responses to those questions, as I mentioned earlier have been posted to the website and we hope you'll all take some time to look at those. Any further discussion was tabled for this summer So we knew residents were out of town and we didn't want to conduct any further deliberations while the majority of residents were not in town. to briefly review part of the North 40 process. The P&S was signed in December 2014 and among the conditions in the P&S were that the town would maintain no less than 50% acreage as open space, The southern six, the part of the property below the aqueduct would remain open space and the town would maintain the community gardens for three years. The project received unanimous special town meeting approval in January of 2015.

Long, the way the North 480 steering committee prepared an interim report in October of 2014. of its work in anticipation of the acquisition decision by the town. The steering committee was comprised of representatives and alternatives from various town boards and committees and included a neighborhood representative, an alternate from both the Woodlands neighborhood and the Weston Road neighborhood. The interim report reviewed extensively the parcel's zoning and land use properties, as well as potential development opportunities. noting that it was located in an SR15 zoning district and within the water supply protection district overlay. By-right uses were identified as single family homes, educational child care clubs, agricultural home business uses

and with a special permit could also include nonprofit organizations, charitable or religious institutions Community Group Residences, off-street parking, municipal or public parking or other municipal use, municipal light plant or waterworks facilities. So there's a broad range of uses that could either with or without a special permit be located on the North 40. At that time the town's percentage of affordable housing was below the state's 10% minimum, about 6%, so the report indicated that development under a 40 proposal was also possible. Other uses considered at that time included open space, recreation schools and affordable housing.

There was a briefly convened focus group in 2018 including representatives from the select board, myself Schools, Planning, Recreation, NRC, CPC Advisory and Facilities. We discussed suggestions for potential uses on the North 40 and generally generated the identical uses that had been suggested prior to and following acquisition. The thought at that time was to create a new North 40 committee with broad membership, including neighborhood representatives to do two things. Review the acquisition process and history and conduct a charrette in which participants would be given a map with certain attributes depicted, and asked to identify conceptual future uses for the site. and I just want to pause here to note that this is exactly the plan for the October 1st Charette.

So, the step has not been skipped it's just been slightly delayed We had a lot of things going on between 2018 and today, but we are returning to this identical plan for the October 1st Charette. Since 2018, the planning board requested that the consideration of the future of the North 40 be considered not through a committee, but through the development of its upcoming comprehensive plan. The comprehensive plan many of you will remember was merged with the town's first strategic plan and became the unified plan. And land use was considered in three consecutive public sessions in the spring of 2018. Over that year and the following year, remediation of the landfill was funded and completed.

Two years thereafter we had COVID and a redirection of attention to support remote town government operation Then from 2020 to 2023, CPC and the select board worked to identify an appraiser for the CPC funded portion of the property because this conservation restriction needs to be placed on that portion of a property. Ultimately, it was determined that an appraiser was not required The work has continued nonstop on the CR since that time. The school facilities work and HHU process continued, and the Hardy School was constructed and the select board determined that it did not favor creating a strategic plan for the entire parcel. because we wanted to retain flexibility for emerging needs.

We didn't necessarily expect a fire station, but that was the reason we wanted A few of us have heard comments about the Hardy-Upham school selection process and asked why when traffic on Weston Road was considered a problem at that time, it's not considered the same problem at this time. and I'd like to differentiate between having three to four hundred cars arrive and leave a school at the same time during the morning in rush hour and maybe having seven to ten on average fire apparatus machines leaving the fire station on Weston Road. It's really apples and oranges, it's a completely different issue. And Weston Road was not the only serious consideration for traffic during the Hardy HHU consideration, We needed adequate space for car queuing, for cars to line up.

And we also needed a second method of egress and that involved the select board purchasing the three homes on Route 9 to make that possible So it's highly distinguishable from the HHU consideration, what we're discussing now. And finally, the Chief will address this more. But Weston Road is used now as the major north-south access road on the western side of town there isn't a better way to get to homes located in that part of town and when you have a serious medical emergency A heart attack, choking, something like that to unnecessarily add a minute or two to response time can make a difference in somebody's life.

The signal will be activated from the station to clear the Weston Road traffic, and some of you may have seen there are now videos up on the webpage showing the fire apparatus traveling on Weston road. Northbound trips may decrease from a new location on the north 40 and south bound trips may increase on the part of Weston Road between Central Street. and where a new location is proposed, but we don't expect any major fluctuation in the number of trips. That's not anticipated at the moment. So with that, I'll turn it over to the Chief and Jeff to bring us up-to-date on their comments.

Thank you, Marjorie. Can everybody hear me okay? Okay. First, so I have a few questions and comments that I wanted to review but before I do that I just want to thank everybody here for coming Obviously if you're here, you're a stakeholder. This proposal or recommendation is obviously affecting everybody in this room one way or another and we understand that there are a lot of questions and concerns, but I do want to thank you. We've received a lot very thoughtful emails that obviously you have taken a lot time to compose, and I want to show you we do read every single one of them. and in just about every email or every conversation I have with somebody, it always starts off with we support the fire department. We support the firefighters on what you're doing so really we appreciate that. We understand you have a lot of questions.

And I just want to let you know that we also have questions, right? There are a lot unknowns here so you're not alone in that. It's one of the reasons why we're hoping get to the feasibility study so that we can actually find some concrete data, so that know what the best direction is to move here. At the end of the day our objective is to have a safe environment for our firefighters to work out of, but we also want to have that in an area where God forbid should you need our service. We would need to be able to get to you in a timely fashion and that's what this was all about whether it's the North 40, Washington Street or some other location. That's our main objective so I just want to reiterate that with you and again thank you very much. So like I said, we've received a lot of questions, a lot comments and like Marjorie stated up on the website. I'm not sure if everyone had a chance to review that, but we try our best to keep that updated and will continue to do that because we think that's probably the best way to be able to communicate with so many people.

But some recent questions and comments that came in I just wanted to touch on a few of them We received a lot of feedback, and this is probably our fault the way that it was proposed. And it has to do with cutting through the neighborhoods off of Western Road and I know it at the, I believe it was the... It might have been the June meeting when we were discussing the parcels that were being proposed and we had said it's directly across from Howe Street, and then one was directly across Curve Street. So when you think about that, the first thing that you're gonna probably assume is okay why is it across? So what does that mean? Does that mean a fire engine is going to leave the driveway and come directly up Howe Street, or directly up Curve Street? And the answer to that is no. We don't have any plans of changing our routes of how we currently move north and south on Western Road.

Whoever here lives on Howard Street, as much as you see a fire engine coming up Howard Street right now that's what I would predict you would see in the future the only reason we would need to get to somewhere off of Howe Street is if our destination was actually off of how street so we don't plan on cutting through your neighborhoods or anything like that. So what we're currently doing is what we will plan on doing down the road regardless of where the fire station is located. The second concern, and I know we did touch on this a bit before but I do want to reiterate it. And of course you're going to have the concern about noise because even though right now we're currently located on Western Road, we are closer to more of the commercial district than the residential district by a few hundred yards. So we realize you're going to have that concern about what kind of noise are we gonna make when Lee, leave the station and travel up and down Western Road.

And my answer to that is what you see now on Western Road is again what you can predict to see in the future We use our, when responding to calls we always use our lights. Every emergency call we go on. The sirens are there for drivers or pedestrians that we think they can't see us okay and we need to activate the siren so that they know we're coming in that they can safely get over to the side of road and safely allow us to proceed. So I just want to reiterate when we leave the station, we are not activating the sirens for no reason. So if it's two in the morning and there's nobody on the road and everybody is sleeping, we're not going to be laying on the ear horn or the siren or anything like that. the sirens and every device we have in that truck as needed. Truck size, I know this came up at the last meeting there were some concerns

that our apparatus can't actually fit up and down Western Road. Even though I know many of you see us on a daily basis, it is a valid concern because as we know Weston Road is not a very wide road. It's a congested road at certain times of the day, and I'll admit there are definitely times where it can be difficult to navigate through the traffic. That's not just on Weston Road, that could be in any road in Wellesley. What we did because we thought it would be helpful, is we posted some videos like Marjorie pointed out. I don't know if you had a chance to see them but we did post videos traveling northbound and southbound and we made a point to to post a video while we were traveling northbound. It was on a Friday morning, it was around 9 15 between 9 and 9 15. We purposely did it during

and drop off at the Hardy School because we wanted everyone to see what that looks like as well as, at 9 o'clock it's obviously congested for people going to work and things of that nature. So you can see that it is something that we do literally every single day. But the reason why we posted it, we just wanted you to be able to see how we go about that now. It's never the same. because depending upon how many cars are on the road or the types of vehicles on the roads, I think in one of the videos there might even be a trash truck and you can see obviously when it's a trash we have to be very very careful how we navigate around that but I do think it's worth taking a look and if people think that's helpful and they would like to see more of that, we'd be happy to take additional videos and post those as well. and others. Response times, so we'll probably touch on this a few times tonight through the discussion. Response time is the time it takes

the activation of emergency call to re-reach our destination. To the fire service, I can't stress this enough it is our lifeline of how fast we could reach you in an emergency and it was brought up in, again this is a good problem to have. What the study found out was that our response times right now with our existing model, our two-station model, are as a response times meet NFPA standards which is great. That makes my job a lot easier. and the question was brought up because where we can put a fire station it is such a small footprint there's obviously not a lot of choices within that footprint. So the question was brought up since the response times are so good, could we look outside of that footprint? and maybe make it up on the other end. And the answer to that really is no, and the reason for that is there's such a...

a careful formula that goes into response times. So what we know is that our current model with one station at 457 Worcester Street and our station at 104 Central Street currently works So we want to keep the destinations of our stations as close to that as we possibly can because one tweak of that formula could cause a domino effect and obviously it could be detrimental to the town. So response times where they are, are very good and we want to keep them that way. So those were the four or five bullet points I had. But like I said, please continue with the emails I'm sure just the discussion tonight will probably trigger many more questions and many more concerns. And that's okay, that is what we're here for. It's morphed into, I'll admit a lot more than what I anticipated but I also never

tried to build a fire station before. So I understand that this is going to happen, but this is what we're here for and I want to make it clear that we do enjoy the emails, the conversations so please keep them coming.

Good evening, everybody. My name is Jeff Shaw. I'm principal at Context Architecture. Our firm has been designing fire stations and public safety facilities for many decades, and we have had a tremendous amount of experience over those decades conducting feasibility studies and master planning studies for fire stations. This process here in Wellesley has been along the same lines as many of our other process and really over these decades we've been refining this site selection feasibility study master planning process to really hone in on making it better and better each time that we go through it. And I have to say that the work with the town of Wellesley has been incredibly rigorous, incredibly thorough and highly successful.

We think very productive and comprehensive the work really included so many factors that in other past studies long ago probably wouldn't have been considered. So I really hold this up as a high level, high standard to meet for other towns in the future. I want to address a couple of things that we have been made aware of through the questions and comments that have come in. They're a little bit random, so I apologize for that but we'll just go over a few The size of the facility and sort of comparisons to other towns or maybe what a typical town might have for a fire headquarters or fire substation. and what's being proposed in this study, although possibly a little hard to understand towards the beginning of the study There were two particular outcomes.

One was an overall comparison of the current fire station needs in the current locations with the current programs to what would be needed if those were upgraded to meet best practices and that indicated at the current fire headquarters it would come up to about 37,000 square feet. It's about 22,000 or so square feet right now but actually when the final conclusions and proposed plan was presented. The plan included the new station being proposed for Station 1, and that proposal had that station at about 26,000 square feet. which is very, very typical for a fire headquarters. And there's numerous examples all over the state of fire stations, fire headquarters in particular falling somewhere between 20 and 30 thousand square feet Station one obviously is a little bigger for our substation.

I shouldn't say station one, station two sorry the current headquarters is a bit bigger than you would consider a substation but because it is centrally located, it's obviously needed. to handle that additional equipment. And when you look at the overall size of the entirety of the square footage, that's being proposed about 49,000 or so square feet it compares well with other similar towns, Edom, Weston Lexington, Newton and there's probably many others were in the same ballpark. So it really is a very adequate I think compliment considering the needs geographically for and the call volumes that are happening here in the equipment and calls of the department takes on. We also had questions about stations being located in residential areas, quite common.

In fact, I think in every feasibility study we've performed or master plan, we've had questions about why is a station being proposed in a residential area? And that's frankly because most of the towns that are not, you know, downtown Boston are comprised primarily of residences and it's pretty hard to escape locating fire stations in and around residential areas. Now certainly putting them on major thoroughfares is important As you heard the chief talk about response time, a critically important thing. We want to make sure we put them on infrastructure that's already in the town that helps them get to their locations in a very direct way. So Western Road already being used for that is a pretty good example. But again, many towns in the surrounding area all have stations in and amongst residential areas whether they're on a thoroughfare right now you go around the corner and there's

scale buildings, single family homes that sort of thing right around the corner but many towns nearby Belmont Arlington Lexington again Natick Needing Needham Newton they all have Fire Stations and Residential Areas. And it's a very normal process of designing a fire station. Again, site selection Harrisons of the sites. I know it's been discussed quite a bit, and I'm sure it will continue to be discussed tonight and in other meetings. From our perspective of doing these feasibility studies, we can say that the Western Road site is vastly better than the Washington Street site in comparison. It's night and day, and while Washington Street was studied in detail because we felt it was important to leave no stone unturned within the study I can say that the constraints on that site are not constraints.

I would recommend to the town, the aqueduct coming through and having to do construction on that side while carefully managing, not disturbing that aqueduct and then the limitations it puts on the town in the fire department for future expansion on that site. It really hems you in more than it should Frankly, considering what we have already at station two of the existing headquarters with the limitations on that side. I think it's unfair to have both fire stations in town being so constrained that way and is a disservice in terms of a master plan looking forward future focused to recommend something like that. So we were excited to find that ended up the North 40 Western Road was a so much better site comparatively. And then finally, just wanted to comment about the sites themselves what sort of happens there.

We talked a lot in the report about contaminants that might happen inside of the building, particularly in the existing stations and some issues with them not being able to handle some of those particulates and realistically at a new fire station, we'll be able to handle this in a much more composed way. In fact, in a highly renovated station maybe can do that as well But there's a multi-step process involved in decontaminating the firefighters gear, particularly after a call. They usually do a gross decontamination off-site, which means at the scene of the incident they'll be decontaminating their personnel equipment gear Clothing, all of that. And if there are found to be or suspected to be any hazardous materials, those won't even come back to the station. Those will be dealt with on site

At the station, the gear will be cleaned with specialized equipment. They actually have this equipment currently in their current stations but they'll be either moved or there'll be brand new equipment for the new stations up to the current standards when they're constructed. That will help eliminate that particulate matter and any benign substances that happen to be on their gear from contaminating in a way, the station itself the station as clean as possible. Any fluids and all of that, what it's washed off through the drains would then go through an interceptor into the sewer system. Same thing for truck trucks being washed down you might be concerned that they're doing that outside and getting into the environment. It's going to be done inside the building typically, and all those garage drains go into an interceptor before going on into the sewer system.

it's a fairly well honed process, multi-step process so that there is really no challenges or no concerns to be had. talking with the chief. The fire department's already going through the process of using PFAS-free gear really paying attention to the equipment they're buying, making sure it is treating the gear as best as possible so that we are taking care of the health and safety of the firefighters where they are now. And then also in the new location that we would have so that in the future it would be well looked after. So those are the points I wanted to make at the beginning, and I will be happy to answer questions as we go through.

Thank you very much, Jeff. Thank you Chief. Turn it over to Corey. Corey's been maintaining a list of those who've requested time to speak.

Jerry Kelly

Jerry Kelly, 55 Parker Road, Wellesley. Thank you for this opportunity to share my thoughts regarding the Western road site for a new fire station. I'll just point out a few items, and if you'll pardon me, I'm not much of a public speaker. I can read from my notes. I believe the current site visit was at school time and given the repositioning setback of the new Hardy School, one would not expect a traffic problem. Has anyone done a site survey during the rush hour? Weston Road backs up bumper to bumper, often past the turn for Morris's Pond at this time on Turner Road. Given the traffic and high curbs along Weston Road, where do we think the cars can go when a fire truck gets out? I have a 2018 Ford Mustang. I won't be able to hop those curbs without serious undercarriage damage. also consider the possible loss of critical time going out of the station can blow your response times.

Thank you for your time and I do appreciate you guys, wife passed away a couple years ago, but the last five years I can't tell you how many times we called you guys out. She'd get stuck on the stairs and I couldn't lift her so you guys are excellent.

Thank You Jerry. Miriam Gates If speakers can speak as close to the microphone as possible, that usually helps.

Can folks in the back hear me? Even closer, all right. Hey, my name is Miriam Gates. I live at 151 Weston Road almost directly across from the proposed site so first let me thank you for your service we really appreciate the firefighters in this town And I sent a complete letter with my thoughts to the board on Sunday, so I won't reiterate all of that. I want to just kind of focus on the two points that I made requests about. I have reviewed the entire master plan. It's 566 pages, including appendices and I was trying to understand the analyses behind the recommendation What I found were some questions that I would like the board to resolve One of the reasons that we are being asked to move so quickly is because the health and safety issues are urgent for our firefighters.

The master plan contains no air sampling, no exposure measurement. From what I can tell it does not cite a single NFPA standard governing firefighter health. The word carcinogen appears on the town's website, but nowhere in the 566 pages. And the documents own appendix list things that could be fixed now. I would request that because this is so urgent, you act on it now. Commission baseline measurement, fund what the Towns and Sultans recommended in Appendix A, make an updated plan based on the baseline measurement and please don't ask our firefighters to wait seven years for a change in conditions consultants identified last year. My second ask is that the town consider reconstituting a steering committee for North 40. In 2015, Town Meeting approved the purchase of 46 acres without deciding what they were for as you noted.

The town meeting was told, sorry. The steering committee reported that no clear consensus had been reached for what the land was suitable for. The town expected a committee with neighborhood representation to answer that question. By the town's own account, it was never convened. And I want to note that a charrette is not a committee. A committee has voting power and staying power. The question has not yet been put to us about what the North 40 is for. So, what I would ask is that Sorry, lost my place. What the North 40 is for should come before where the fire station goes I support a fire station, but I think the community deserves the chance to decide what the North 40 is for first. I hope that you will give us that chance. Thank you

Melissa Martin.

Good evening. Melissa Martin, 175 Weston Road and to begin with I greatly appreciate the service of our firefighters and I am disappointed that our current facilities do not meet the health and safety needs of our firefighters. And to that end, I do hope at town meeting to see a request for funding that would support any interim measures that may mitigate the health faced by the firefighters prior to the final construction of new facilities. Recognizing the importance of a timely and cost-effective process to complete the renovations and construction of appropriate fire stations, I wanted to provide some suggestions for the feasibility study portion of the process. I'm drawing upon my experience serving alongside a number of you on the Hardy and Upham School Building Committee

as well as looking at past town processes including the fire station number two study committee that resulted in the current fire station on Route 9. I have a few points. First, I would encourage the select board to establish a separate committee to work through the feasibility study that would include community representation and Wood conduct its work in publicly posted meetings. This would allow community members the ability to surface questions, Learn the answers, learn more about the process and understand the decision-making process in a real time fashion. This was essential for me as a committee member in the Hardy & Upham School Building Committee process. Secondly, as we did with the SBC I would encourage the board to bring multiple sites forward into feasibility.

recognizing that most people consider 156 Weston Road a single site with multiple potential building placements. If feasibility is conducted on 156 Western alongside other potential sites, Community members will have greater trust in the data that is brought forward and what the final decision is made through that process. Finally, and the committee would have greater information with which to make a final decision. Finally I would suggest that we keep on the table the option of purchasing property to be used for the fire station site. We have precedent for all three of what I represented and outlined because we did that, all three those things precisely for the Hardy and Upham School Building Committee project. and I think that it was not an easy process as I think many in town would attest to, but we did end up navigating through

allowing everybody within the community to participate, to engage, to have their input heard and to make a decision as a community. Finally, and I think that this is going to bring us closer to a timely and cost effective solution to the challenges facing the current fire station facilities. and finally I would echo that I too have asked the question multiple times regarding the and the original North 40 committee that was envisioned about what we were going to be doing with the North 40 neighborhood representation from the Weston Road neighborhood and from the Woodlands neighborhood, as well as Wellesley College representation. And I continue to think that should be kicked off with the October 1st charrette so that the town does have the opportunity to make that decision. So thank you for considering my input.

I apologize if I mispronounced this, Sophia Bozic, Mutlu Bozik, Deborah Bennett.

Hello. Thank you again for, I was here in June so I appreciate that your opening this up to questions again and like I said when I made my comment in June I agree fully with everything in the proposal that you're doing for the firefighters. Thank you for all you guys do, the world is getting warmer and drier and in addition to the number one thing which is the health and safety of the firefighters, we do have a real need for you going forward. So this is great investment for the town big picture. I continue to have very strong feelings that the North 40 location is part of a unique gem that Wellesley has environmentally. The combination of North 40, the Vernal Pool and Morse's Pond.

A reminder that our water supply does come from under Morse is pond, and that we have an equal responsibility to take care of that environmental gem and honor how special it is. So my questions are around A, if we go forward with a feasibility study in addition to the impact to the North 40 from environmental toxins and carcinogens can we consider the foot traffic in the feasibility study of people that are walking there and our pets because I think the pet factor of that area is a tiny little thing probably we're not thinking very much about, but our animals are our family members.

They walk there daily and trace carcinogens which may be driving into the firehouse to be cleansed would be in the roads, would be on the runoff. And our pets are licking their paws and they deserve this same type of care in terms staying away from environmental toxins that our firefighters and people do. So if when we do that feasibility study North 40 becomes a place that we do study, can we check the foot traffic of the pets and the people both at North 40, Morse's Pond that whole kind of section group together. I would love to see that happen because once we get in there and we start seeing our pets have cancer it's too late It's too late. And I think that would be something that would heartbreaking for us.

In addition, kind of skipping around the decontamination area for the new firehouse seems to be one of the very key things that we're putting in with this proposal. and I'm just curious, Is it possible that, I would love to see the current Route 9 firehouse be re-looked at as the place to stay or Washington Street. is the decontamination area something that could be a separate location? Does it have to be right at the firehouse, maybe yes, maybe no. Is there any precedent for that nationally? and then is there any precedent around combining the decontamination area with another town that's abutting to us? Needham, Newton, Natick.

where we're sharing some of the burden of decontamination in terms of responsibility and limiting the toxins that potentially could be moving out into the environment. Practicality, you know how things function and what's realistic but could we either answer some of those questions or possibly look into that as a possibility? I don't know if this has any bearing on the North 40 versus the other two locations which is the noise factor from the train I haven't heard much about it but when I hear about the train, I do see some cringing and our firefighters are sleeping right next to a train right now. You know, I'm a very light sleeper. I'm wellness professional. I coach people on sleep all the time I don't know if that has any tiny behind the scenes factor at all but if it does, if we can be open about that concern

and address it in a possible proposal if we end up staying near one of the train locations. Can we soundproof the living areas better for our firefighters at sleep time? Could we put a barrier behind the buildings may not be a factor at all, so in which case toss that. But if it is I'd like to see a little more conversation and brainstorming there And I'm going to ask you to wrap up, please. Sure and then the last one is there's an extra truck bay proposed for a fifth truck in the new proposal and I heard some comment in June around one about that being for repairs. Is it possible to have a separate location the truck repairs versus needing to have it on site, which would then make Route 9 a viable area to continue at. And the last thing is the Brook Street Garden location

Was that something that was considered at all as a possible location? And if not, is that something Evaluate. I know a lot of the calls are coming from the colleges and the Brook Street Gardens are in that side of town, which is close to a couple of the colleges. Thank you.

Debra Wall,

Good evening. Can I be heard in the back? Thank you My name is Deborah Wall, Massasoit Road here in Wellesley At its September 8th meeting, the select board stated it would need to make a decision about a site for a proposed new fire station by this November. in order to go to feasibility. Select board and the town's fire station master plan working group appear to be trying to move along a final site selection demonstrating preference for two locations on Weston Road within the North 40 before any future usage of the North 40 has actually been decided by the residents and taxpayers in Wellesley.

In the end, while understanding the information it may not matter to residents that the two preferred locations achieved the highest scores on a matrix. it may be a case where a matrix devised by a consultant did not adequately capture the values or priorities of a community and an acceptable but lower scoring location becomes the choice. Select board keeps referring to the purchase and sales agreement, emphasizing that it was made clear the North 40 was purchased for possible municipal use. It is important to note that keeping the North 40 as it currently is a valid municipal use. This possibility has not been included in the discussions

It should be one of the options offered at upcoming public engagement and considered for future use of the North 40. The North 40 has been used as a town asset for open space related activities, trails, community gardens for many decades. Wellesley has less green and open space than surrounding communities. Green spaces in general are under threat, and our valuable but endangered public resource once developed, they are gone. That is why a decision about whether or not to develop the North 40 is such a major one for the town and it should not be rushed. At this point, it would seem that being able to act upon the fire department master plan site recommendations on Weston Road within the North 40 hinges

on what Wellesley residents and taxpayers decide is the best future use of the North 40. Ultimately, residents may decide that they do not wish to put a fire station on Weston Road or develop the North 40. Residents may prefer instead to place a new fire station on one of the other available sites and leave the North 40 as it is. without first coming to a town-wide consensus and buy in from residents and taxpayers about the future use of the North 40, the clear risk that the select board makes in moving a Weston Road North 40 site forward in November is that the request for feasibility funding may be rejected at town meeting.

to have both of these important and consequential projects intertwined in this manner and seeking to wrap up the site selection for a new fire station by November, while discussion about the future use of the North 40 is ongoing and unresolved. may, it seems impractical. It seems rushed and it may lead to wasted time and town funds. That's my comment. I thank you for receiving it. What caught my ear about the purchase and sales in the previous comments, and in some of the comments made by the board

I personally find it surprising that a planning board preference that was listed in the slide could override or negate section 6.03 of the Purchase and Sales, which really discusses in detail the North 40 Steering Committee and the components that are necessary. And it was written in such a way that the North Forty Steering committee would continue on it has several very carefully worded descriptors to that effect. Additionally, there were two sites on the matrix. I realize that perhaps they are sites that would require purchase but they scored higher than Washington Street and there does not have been any test Fitt, I don't know for those. And finally there is land owned by the town eight acres I believe it is that was St James on Route 9

and 900 Worcester Street. And I understand that while it may currently be under lease, that the town does own eight acres there. I wonder if there are other sites that could also be examined I really believe that the North 40 future use must be decided. Selecting a site at this juncture prior to this other larger question is challenging. Thank you.

Zuli Criado-Hedrin, I'm sorry if I mispronounced your name.

Zuly Criado-Hedrin, 50 Curve Street. I am not going to repeat what so eloquently the previous speakers have made very clear until North 40 is resolved by our town, by us. No one should put a fire station there. With all due respect, The traffic on Western Road is not only terrible during rush hours, it's terrible at all times. I am trying to go from Curve Street onto Western Road in the middle of the morning, no rush hour traffic. And I have to wait for 10 cars to pass by and wait for the other car to come that's a terrible road, it is congested to the maximum. Leave alone when it is rush hour and because of some sort of

App, Coldways or similar. Now they tell them to go on our streets so now we have traffic on Curve Street and I don't know how it works but all around us cars trying to cut through. You put a fire station there and that would be mayhem in putting our people walking in our nice neighborhood on the streets because there are no sidewalks are at risk for an accident waiting to happen. So other sites in this town need to be considered, and I hope there is future for discussion for this. I'm not gonna believe it as I say the point that the other people made, but the western road traffic spills into our neighborhood day in and day out So, thank you for listening to me.

Kathleen Woodward

Good evening, everybody. First of all I would like to thank you for your service we deeply appreciate all you do for our town. I'd like to speak to you this evening my name is Kathleen Woodward and I live at 50 Kirkland Circle here in Wellesley I have lived in Wellesley for almost 28 years, and I have gardened at the Western Road Community Garden for about 20 years. I'd like to speak to you briefly about what it's like at the Weston Road Garden. I have spent countless hours there, and I have lots of firsthand knowledge of the magic of that place. The Weston Road Community Garden is so much more than a garden. It is it is a beloved park like our beloved Fullerbrook Path and Centennial Park The peace and beauty of the Western Road Gardens beckons not only gardeners, but residents of all ages and interests. Residents love the quiet dirt road

Free of speeding cars and lined with wildflowers. Every time I'm gardening, I see people taking walks on the Garden Loop Road alone or with a friend or their dog enjoying the sun, the fresh air and the birdsong. I see runners enjoying the freedom from pavement. I cyclists with wide tires bouncing over the bumpy road I have seen parents teaching their kids to ride bicycles at the garden. I have entire families from grandparents to babies and family dog enjoying a walk in the garden together. Unworried and unhurried. I have even seen the Wellesley High School cross-country track team race through the garden like a stampede.

The community garden is about our community. It is a unique and precious place that so many people of all ages, cultural backgrounds, and walks of life enjoy. it is a place that invites everyone equally to experience the song of birds, the humming of bees and the open sky. And you can garden there too The gardens there are a sight to behold with their bounty. Do we really want to pave over this place of gathering and respite? Do we want to drown out the birdsong with sirens? Even if part of the garden remains, it will be forever changed with trees replaced with pavement and quiet replaced with engines and wailing alarms.

Once our garden is gone, it will be gone forever. I cannot urge you strongly enough to find another place for the fire station and I know we need it. We need better facilities for our first responders but we owe it to our community, to preserve our beloved green spaces for today's residents and for future generations. Thank you.

Michael Tobin.

Good evening. Michael Tobin, 45 Cottage Street president of the Wellesley Conservation Land Trust and I'm speaking on behalf of the board of directors The Wellesley Conservation Land Trust, of course, prioritizes our firefighters' health and safety first. And is in favor of any interim measures needed to protect our first responders while our own town facilities are upgraded in the coming years. The board has adopted the following position, The Land Trust opposes the Fire Station Master Plan Committee's recommended North 40 site for a new fire station and instead supports the committee's second ranked location. at Washington Street, Morton Park adjacent to the police station which would centralize emergency services or any other appropriate location.

The Land Trust further supports a land swap arrangement in which protected land at Morton Park is exchanged for land that the North 40 resulting in the permanent protection of additional open space at the North 40. Thank you

Hello, my name is Lisa Moore. I'm a 22-year resident of Wellesley at 69 Highledge Avenue. Today I am here speaking solely as resident Lisa Moore not on behalf of any place where I work in town. I spoke last time at the June meeting about the health risks associated with over 30 different carcinogens that would be potentially released into our watershed. Today, I'm here instead to talk about trying to change the hearts and minds of both board and residents when they think about the value of open space. The North 40 is a contiguous forest. It is mature and it is not spare space, it's actually part of our infrastructure Those trees provide us with oxygen.

They absorb water to prevent flooding, they store carbon. In this town we have many green organizations that are striving to make The things that we do in this town were environmentally friendly. Every new school that we built was a green school, putting in extra funds to make sure that the school functions in a way that decreases our carbon footprint and things like that. I just find that thinking about that space as spare space has to change, We know that climate change is happening. We know our temperatures are changing, the amount of water we see is changing If you drive by many of the places in town after a pretty rapid rainfall, we're seeing more flooding throughout the town.

and removing contiguous forest goes against everything that our climate action plan, and our open space plan have as goals. We have absolute goals that we're trying to reach over the next few years maintaining and preserving open space, and also dealing with issues of climate change. And it seems contrary to those goals to remove a contiguous forest and a mature forest. And once they're gone, planting trees is not solving the problem When we take down a tree that is 80, 90, 100 years old the work it does for this town is more valuable than selling that land would be or putting something else in there. So we have to start thinking about our open space not as spare space, but as infrastructure that protects every single resident in town.

in addition to all the biodiversity and things that live and use that space. So I'm asking that we think about these things in a different way and understand that we know that the fire department needs these adjustments so they can be healthy and safe but so does the residents who live here and removing that forest goes against everything that even the state of Massachusetts is trying to do, right? Because their plan is to now rebuild forests and replace wetlands that have been deteriorated. Well, once you get rid of it the cost to replace is astronomical and the time it takes to wait for that tree to regrow is 80 90 100 years right? To get the same benefits.

So I'm asking that we reconsider these spaces not as open space and spare space but as infrastructure that have a real value, a monetary value to our town. And maybe perhaps We go through a study to see what the monetary value of that space is in terms of flood mitigation and, you know, the heat island effect and all these other things. that are definitely gonna impact our town as we go in the future. Thank you.

Barbara McMahon? Barbara McMahon.

Hello, I'm Barbara McMahon. I am a town meeting member from Precinct H and a 36 year resident of the town which is hard for me to admit. and I am here tonight as a resident, not as a member of any committee in town so I'm speaking for myself. and I applaud the work of our fire department. And I am totally sympathetic to our select board for the position that you are now in, for consideration of the location of a major public safety facility in town. and I think anyone who has paid attention to anything that's been developed in town over the last several decades, we hear the same thing. It's disruptive to a neighborhood. There is traffic. We're losing green space. there has to be a better place. And in this situation, I don't know if there's a better but I will tell you I've been intimately involved with the North 40 Walsh.

Since the purchase was made and since that time, we have tried to identify what appropriate use would be for and myself what the appropriate place for conservation restriction that's required on that land. So I think as we go forward, and I am sympathetic to people who walk their dogs there and I love the community gardens there But I think there can be room for multiple things, whether we're talking about the North 40 or perhaps land at MassBay or other sites in town that have been noted. at North 40 in particular, 23 acres there have to remain open space. And at least 13 of those acres will be a conservation restriction under the CPA requirements and the CPC has worked very hard to preserve important tree groves there.

Our recommendation is to preserve tree grove, to preserve existing trails to preserve existing and more space along the aqueduct. So I don't think anyone should be viewing the potential development of anything there, whether it's a fire station or a new school building or affordable housing which some of us think that might be a good location. I think it's not an all or nothing there, and I think there will still be open space and important municipal use. And right from the start, we knew some of that land and were talking about two acres is that right for the fire station? two acres, and I'll even say three will be for this potential new fire station that leaves an awful lot of space for other municipal uses there or community uses. So I think we need to go into this with a more open mind.

We all sit in traffic, you know Weston Road doesn't have a monopoly on that Washington Street doesn't Every neighborhood has experienced more traffic coming through their side streets. I think we in my neighborhood, we might have a new traffic and speed count mechanism up there. I think we have all experienced that, we've all experience concerns about pedestrian safety We've all experienced concerns about what's happening to the environment. So I think we need to go into this, no decisions have been made. I think that we need be open-minded about it and remember that we're talking about the entire community not just one area of town. And I hope that our October 1st meeting can be a good discussion about the North 40, the conservation restriction and the future of public safety in our community. Thank you.

Sean Milano,

Good evening. Thank you for the opportunity to make a statement here tonight and it's not really a statement, I don't have a prepared statement just more some observations that i would hope that the board would take into account before making this important decision When I first heard that the proposal was made to take the public garden for an important fire station, I thought that was an unusual decision based on just my observations of being a 28-year resident of Wellesley. I've enjoyed the public garden both as an assistant gardener for years, as well as just someone who enjoys open space and outdoor recreation. I probably run through there once or twice a week and using the trail system as well as the loop around the public garden for recreation.

I've made observations that others have made, that it's a beautiful open space used by many in our community families, dog walkers. I believe that the high school cross country team for their... That's their home base for their meets and matches So it's an important space. It's a beautiful space. As many have stated, it's established open space with trees, with pollinators, with birds and I was very surprised that the recommendation was made, that this was the top choice for the important fire station that is needed for the town. My observations beyond my enjoyment of the public gardens and the North 40 is I've looked at what other towns are doing, and I would ask and hope the board would do the same.

And I took a look at what the surrounding communities in and around Wellesley, towns that are like Wellesly in terms of their streets, their traffic and made certain observations about what those communities have done, what those deciders in those towns have done. the town of Sudbury, they have adjacent facilities on Hudson Road for both the police department and the fire department. Acton has a public safety building that houses both the police department and fire department headquarters. The Dover Public Safety Services are both located at 1 and 3 Walpole Street in Dover The Wayland Public Safety Building is that 38 road that houses both the police department and the fire department, the same with Concord.

it has shared facilities on Walden Street at 209 and 219, I'm sorry, Walden street for the Concord. Hingham also has shared public safety facilities on Essington Drive. The needed public safety building is at 88 Chestnut Street, and it's a unified headquarters for the police department and the fire department. So I would ask the board that these are communities that have a lot of similarities with Wellesley, they're respected communities. I imagine they didn't make these decisions lightly. There had to be a motivating factor why they've unified their public safety buildings to house both fire department and the police department. And I would hope that the board in making this important decision would look to those other communities, perhaps speak to representatives of the police department, the fire department and the deciding

boards or officials within those communities and find out why they thought it was important to unify their public safety functions in one place. it seems like this separating the functions would be an outlier. These communities, again that have a lot of similarities to Wellesley, it seems to be the default to put these public safety functions together in the same space. there had to be a motivating factor. There had to some good factors and I would ask the board to look at these other towns, to speak to representatives of their safety community as well as they're deciding factors in their town government to find out why they went that direction and unified their public safety in one building. And I think that's something we could do here in Wellesley Again, almost a 28-year resident. I walk and cycle in town a lot.

I look at the space on Washington Street Call it 515 Washington Street. And that is a vastly underutilized space. I'm not sure I've ever seen anyone recreating in that space, either playing Frisbee, or baseball, or football where that contrasts with the North 40 and that is a highly utilized space in terms of not and the volume of people at one time as a public gathering, but as others have commented, dog walkers, gardeners, the cross-country team, and people who just want fresh air and open space in a beautiful and natural environment. That's not what I see on 515 Washington Street, I know the architectural firm commented that it wasn't even close and I'll take a look at the master plan to find out what that was, why it wasn't close.

the architect didn't really articulate that, but again based on my observation how people enjoy this town. That is an underutilized space next to the police department on Washington Street, whereas the North 40 is a much beloved and highly utilized space by the community. Thank you.

Again, my apologies for pronunciation. Shidi Hassan?

Hi, my name is I want to first thank you. You guys, thank you for your service with all of my heart. I called the fire department many times, and you guys showed up every single time that my family needed. So thank you for everything. I echo everyone, I know it's really late and you heard everybody's concern. The only thing that I have to add, I'm a residence at 63 Linden So I'm very close to Weston Road and you know, I live here for almost 12 years. And over the 12 years, I noticed all these single family houses are turned into condos and townhouses. And that turns into more traffic, more people, more cars.

The traffic on Western Road is worse than any other street in Wellesley, in my opinion. And over the years I've seen a lot of accidents and there was one that was fatal. And I would not forget that, and I don't know how many people remember that, but we lost a very young wonderful surgeon and the road rage, all this traffic bumper to bumper. It just really concerns me about the future. As you said, this is a 50 to 100 years investment in property. I don't think we need to rush into this. And again, like anybody else that said the North 40 should remain the way it is. and the only thing that I have to add is the public safety.

I do not want to hear about another fatal accident on Weston Road. So we really need to consider other options. Thank you.

Maya Patevia.

Good evening. I didn't prepare any written comments. But this morning at eight o'clock, I was expecting someone so I looked... Okay. Can you hear me now? I'm a resident of Wellesley. I live on 85 Crest Road, which is essentially an extension of Howell Street and it's right in the College Heights neighborhood That neighborhood teams with life. A lot of young people, with a lot of children. My two children finished all the Wellesley Public Schools right now they're out of there but I see the new crop and it's exciting.

Just several days ago last week, a dad was taking for the first time his two kids and showing them the way to go to Sprague in middle school. and right on that street this morning at 8 o'clock I saw a fire engine going without sirens or lights. And we do not have sidewalks, by the way on Crest Road just a part of it but most of it not So all the children are walking to school and there's a lot of traffic trying to evade Western Road, the traffic jams there. So my main concern is the safety of the children that are in that neighborhood. And I would challenge you to do a research and see how many young children are there

they're practically in every house, two or three. I'm concerned that this shortcut which several people mentioned and it's a real problem on Curve and Howe and Crest Road might get worse. And my other concern is noise pollution. We do live close to the train station, which that was taken into account. However since a year ago with the new wheelchair ramps being built in Wellesley Square Station, now the locomotives are stopping right where all the residential area is and it reverberates everywhere.

I can just imagine how much worse it's going to get, not only with traffic but also with I apologize, but sometimes with the fire engines. So that's all I had to say. Thank you.

Andrew Boyle,

Good evening. Thank you, thank you Chief and Deputy Chief and thank you for our professional staff in our volunteer select board we appreciate your efforts So I'm a trucker. That's how I've spent most of my career, so others have articulated better than I could as far as the use I don't think that fire trucks would actually add much to the traffic because you're only in and out of there a few times a day relative to other possible uses of the land. However, I live on Patton Road and I'm actually looking at it through the lens of how could fire trucks service the needs in that environment. Right now you're at an ideal location, kind of a intersection of two major thoroughfares which is a great spot. For a couple hours and I actually viewed the video, the southbound video on Western Road

that southbound video showed the fire truck proceeding from Route 9 down to Central Street, and we didn't meet any traffic until past Linden Street. and there was only one oncoming vehicle. So for those of us who live in the area, actually everybody here is aware, for a couple hours in the morning and two to three hours in evening that traffic southbound traffic on Weston Road is queued up closer to, certainly past Turner and midway up that access road on Western Road. So it's a solid half mile of traffic queued up in the southbound. And there, the shoulders are hard So, you know a fire truck I would think is probably eight and half feet wide. You really need 10 feet right? So if we're queued up when we're pulling out of there heading southbound I don't think there's space to operate the vehicle, to get through northbound and southbound traffic.

More examples during peak times of that type of flow, because with the hard shoulders there's really not adequate space for vehicles to pull over to allow 10 feet in between them. and then why should we care about that? Well, then that affects the service times. The response times. That's kind of the lens. Of course, I don't want this space to be developed either. That's a selfish thing but we do as I think Barbara said reasonably there are plenty of people in different spaces at the town who who are averse to any sort of development. We have to be thoughtful when we have the needs. I'd like us to consider, the location where at right now, I think we can admit is ideal the facility is aged, is not suitable. So there are a lot of in modern industrial settings whether it's renovated or built even at that site the mitigation that can take place, oil water separators in the wash bays any other type of

has met services can be provided from exterior vendors, et cetera. So another person stated something that I thought was very thoughtful is shared services either among different towns or within the town or outside vendors. because first and foremost, we have to put people in a position to be safe and successful on their jobs. But I would like us to consider that southbound traffic might end locating there would likely cause increased response times. Thank you.

That is everyone that signed up.

Would anyone else like to address the board? All right, thank you very much everybody for your questions, your comments, your concerns. The process will continue. We've taken detailed notes. We have a transcript, we'll be working the staff and the consultants will be working with the chief and the assistant chief to address as many of those as quickly as possible. So thank you all very much. We're going to continue with comments from the board and I'd like to ask if anybody would like to start us off?

Collette. Okay, so you had asked us for a couple of feedback and a couple points what concerns us specific aspects of the master plan we might disagree with what other information we need and a couple more things. I'll go through them one at a time. What concerns me most is that I see questions coming in from the public So I see questions coming in from the public on matters we would expect on any development, so it's traffic congestion. Bike and Pedestrian Safety, Noise, Lights, Neighbourhood Impact and some more specific questions to the project. We have been developing and adding frequently asked questions but I'm concerned these are not being used as resources so we need to continue to push out in the communication efforts, adding frequently asked questions and using every opportunity we can for education and sharing information.

Even tonight there was a couple of questions that go back to some things we tried to address in the level setting so I think we have a lot of education to do. specific aspects of the master plan that I disagree with, I don't have any at this point. I'm still open to hearing and listening but I don't have any aspects I disagree with. And that's not because I didn't read them and didn't have questions, I had plenty of questions We've sent them in, and the questions have been addressed. And several were talked about tonight, and several of them are in the frequently asked questions. what I'd like more information about. I wanted to really focus on costs, we are in the situation right now where For a couple of years now we've been talking about the capital, the mountain of capital work that we're facing as a town. There's $400 million on the table in the fairly short term

and that's a very abstract number. So what does that mean for you? What that means for you is a 30% increase in your taxes in the next four, six, seven years unless we moderate those costs. We're working hard to do that We feel that that's unacceptable, so we're working hard to do that. A lot of things were talked about here tonight have costs associated with them. So as we work through that process and trying to mitigate the cost of what's already on the table If we're considering adding other costs, I'd like more information on that. What is the approximate cost of purchasing two acres in the area we would consider to be as good or equal value to the top ranked sites identified at the North 40? what would those potential parcels be and were any of those not considered in the master plan? So is the perfect plot out there, how much does it cost? What is the approximate share of the value of the North Forty that could be assigned to the community gardens?

And could that be escalated to today's cost? I think it's five acres, maybe seven acres. We spent $35 million on that. I'd like to understand what the cost of investment in the community gardens are. I'd like to understand if we could build into feasibility study some aspect of okay, if we want to keep some land. If the town in our charrette identifies the community gardens as a top priority Could we build into the feasibility study a way of identifying appropriate space for that? And also, I'd really like to look at a different model for the community gardens. At the moment, the community gardens are used by approximately I think 50 residents. It is not open to the general public There's a waiting list of about 50 people waiting to use that resource.

And so I'm concerned that what we have is, we've spent a significant amount of money and I'm not quite sure how much there is in todays value on a resource that's used by a very small number of people. I'd like to understand that at cost, and I'd to understand is there something we could do in feasibility to maybe have a model that's A accessible? Right now it's not accessible. and B, it could be used by more neighbors by having a different model for that. I'm not sure if that's something that could be addressed in feasibility. I'd like to understand what the cost that we put into financing a portion of the North 40 with taxable bonds. For the residents that are here, we purchased North 40 with in part taxable bonds to allow us to use the North 40 for other uses. We paid a premium for that. If the North Forty is not going to be used for other What is that premium that we paid not to be reused? That was our use of taxpayers' money. We have to explain that.

What is the length of time it took from the very first notice of land being transferred out of Article 7 when we have an example of that until it was concluded. Right now, we have a recent example. It's Hegarty Pond, very small piece of land, fairly simple construct. There was no controversy about it whatsoever What's the time? It's not even finished right now. So from the very first day we got notice, total meeting action and what do we think is the time it's going to take to complete that Once we've got that time, I'd like to know what does that mean in terms of escalation costs for fire department construction? I understand it's $4.5 million a year what does that apply to any potential, in best case circumstances for doing a land swap? And I just want it to be clear that we have had Conversations with the NRC previously about potential land swaps on the North 40.

When I was chair in January 2025, we started having conversations with the NRC and it's in the history and timeline for the north 40 that has just been updated The NRC could not come to consensus on a position on the North 40 and those land swap decisions did not go any further. that the NRC nor the select board has come to consensus on land swaps. It could be quite some time before we come to a consensus. What does that mean in terms of escalation costs? And then I think those are really my costs because what I'd really like to be able to do is explain to town meeting and to the residents if we have a path forward that is identified, and we have a reasonable estimate of costs. And then we have other paths that you want to explore. I'd like to give them an idea what the cost of that would be. One more question.

what would it cost to do a feasibility study on two sites and would extend the period of time that would take? those are my questions, then what would I regard as essential to the fire department's program? No degradation of services to residents. I think sometimes when we do public engagement, we get a lot of public engagement from people who are aware of what's happening and engaged. I'm concerned that the residents and the outlying districts that may have a degradation to their services aren't engaged. And so, I'm not really willing I think it's unacceptable for us to degrade the service to those residents. And I think we have to meet current NFPA standards for health and safety. What do I want to see is negotiable? I touched on the community gardens. Could there be something built into feasibility that could give us options for that if that is something that the town considers as a top priority for use of that land

and I would like to see, I did follow a lot of the public engagement on some difficult projects just generally speaking and feedback on how to make public engagement better. and one of the things that there's constantly referenced is when you're having an impact on someone, how can you better narrate? How would you try to mitigate the impacts So I would like to see what can be done in feasibility, to give us some ideas of how best to address the major concerns especially regarding traffic. I think feasibility will give us a harder understanding of what the actual impacts of traffic could be, what the implications of automated traffic control could be How much have we built in for setbacks, land and screening? My understanding is that we have built in some good land to have setbacks for land and

and to give us, as I've mentioned a more concrete analysis of traffic impacts the volume of calls and how that is different to today's actual situation. and that's it from me. Thank you very much, Colette. Kenny?

Well, that's a tough act to follow. So I think I agree with most of what Colette said about the cost. I think that's big issue. I support the two feasibility studies. I think that is money well spent because We're making a decision that's about a fire station that's going to be there for 50-100 years, so I think we need to get it right. Well, I am concerned about the timing. This was brought up last time about the clocks ticking and the safety issues for the firefighters are not going away. So when I did some research on this, I think there's a lot of mitigants that we are doing and that we may possibly do in the future. and what I would like for us to do is to inventory what we're doing, what we could be doing. How long that would take?

What the cost of doing that and have that written down in a report that you could deliver to us so that we can analyze that and figure out what exactly you need to put you in a safe spot. being a firefighter, as I understand it is now the equivalent of smoking cigarettes. It's that level of risk to the firefighters and it's something that needs to be addressed immediately I don't think you can do this through a capital project. It's going to take almost a decade to do this and we can't sit back and wait to solve that issue to the extent possible. So I think, I have heard nobody say they would not support any of those measures So that's what I would like to see out of this. I don't really have any more, I don' t have a strong view on the Western Road 515 Washington Street

at this point because it's very hard to look at that matrix and come to a conclusion, like I said last time. 83% of that is some level of subjectivity. When you look at the difference between the 515 Washington and 156 Western Road, 75% Sorry, what was the actual number? The gap between the two is 16 points. 75% of those points were tied to land acquisition time and cost as well as buildability. Buildability is sort of subjective at this point, it's subjective you have to drill holes in the ground to figure out you know what the whether or not you could build there in any event at both Western Road and I think probably it's more known about 515 Washington so a big chunk of the gap is attributable to those two. So, I do think it's worthwhile taking the time and getting this right. And those two sites make sense to me.

One of the other things we talk about is where's the perfect site, and what would that cost? and we talk about money out of our pocket. This might not be popular, but we could sell a portion of the North 40 and raise funds for that site or some other parcel of town land. So I think there are other options that we should look at, we should take our time but in the meantime we should do everything we can to make sure the firefighters are safe.

Thank you, Kenny. Tom?

Marjorie, the first question you asked is what concerns us and specifics of the master plan that you may disagree with. I want to say that I find the fire station master plan to be professionally prepared. I don't disagree with the master plan, that isn't the issue to me it isn't an issue we're hearing tonight from the people who have turned out for this meeting, is the community reaction to a report that was professionally prepared. That's what concerns me and that's what I feel the need to focus on. Melissa brought up the HHU School Building Committee, we served together, I was the vice chair of that committee and it was a challenging task with a very positive end result, not just in terms of the facility ultimately that was built but the experience at town meeting.

frankly, which because we prepared the public, because we went through a process with public engagement. We arrived at town meeting with a question on the floor with a much more positive view of the process and I think that's what I really want to focus on at this point. Kenny, you were brought up at the last meeting then raised it again tonight, the idea of whether there are mitigants we could apply to decontamination I think that the firefighters' safety is critical, and I think we should be looking at that because that gives us some room to accommodate public concern. We could arrive at the most logical fact-based answer that said we should build on Weston Road. And if we haven't developed public support, we are not going to be successful

and the issues of safety, toxicity and illness for firefighters isn't going to be any more quickly addressed. and so I think it is more important to think about whether there's a process. And I do not support the idea of going back and committee proposed by the purchase and sale. I just think we're beyond that, I think we are up against some time Timeliness Issues, and Firefighter Safety Issues that we can't ignore. That's why Melissa your idea interests me a little bit more which is can we form a committee that can work along with a more traditional feasibility study, with more than one site to begin to give the public access to the considerations and the deliberations, so that people can see

how a committee goes through the feasibility process to arrive at an answer that still isn't going to be popular with some, but will have been fully vetted and fully heard within the community. So to me at this point, I'm more concerned about how do we develop a deliberate open process through which we develop public support. We are ultimately going to keep answering questions and I feel we have to do that. We have a series of questions that we answered from June 25th We have a series of questions through emails and letters that we've received as soon as this master plan was released. We have more questions tonight. What is striking to me, and I'm sorry more people aren't still here... is having gone through the public meetings with HHU, there were impassioned speakers and what

I'm struck by tonight is there is equal passion about this issue, but there wasn't a single person who said, I don't want it next to me. Not in my backyard, I heard people in a measured articulate tone tonight who were addressing questions and concerns in very articulate ways. And it was striking. and it makes it much more, it means that we're able to respond to that. We can listen to that, it's important for the message to be delivered to us in a way that we can hear just as it is that we have an obligation to deliver a message to all of you, that you can hear. And where we feel there is an equal opportunity to discuss these issues and work them through. So I would certainly be in favor of looking at what we can do to secure, in the interim

the safety and health of our firefighters and ambulance staff, frankly. We can't ignore them as well. and at the same time develop a logical intelligent process through which we can arrive at a multi-site feasibility study that allows public input and lets us arrive at town meeting finally with a more open publicly vetted solution that we'd like to put on the floor for town meeting consideration.

Thank you Tom. Beth?

So first, I want to say thank you to everyone who turned out and shared their thinking because we do a better job when you tell us what you're thinking. So thank you for writing and for coming and for showing up and thank you to the chief and the deputy chief for kind of being here and listening and talking to you about where they are. For me, what I'm concerned about is...I'm concerned first that we have a pathway to quickly providing a safe functional productive workspace for the firefighters that serve us so well to feel they can do that job in a healthy environment. And I do think, and I don't know if context does this but I do thing we need an interim plan

We need a plan that addresses the really bad situation that I'm going to speak for myself. I've been on this board 10 years, I had no idea there was a decontamination issue. really is something that was stunning in this report. And I feel like we need to get right on that, it should not take us seven years At the same time, I'm concerned that we are rushing from a consultant report straight to town meeting to fund something. and that we have the building blocks. We have the expertise about what fire station needs to have, what it needs to look like, how it needs

but we need the community to work with us on where that needs to work and I personally think that we are were in a position of rush, so it seems like we are focused on educating as opposed to listening and iterating. And that concerns me. I don't think that is necessarily the intention but I feel like that could be an end result of the rush because we feel like it's a professionally prepared report and we're in this squeeze play that our valued resource needs to be addressed. So I am worried about that, I do think we need an interim plan. I am really worried that we have the North 40 and it is so entwined its future is entwined with our rush to finish.

And I don't think that's fair to the fire department because they're looking like they want to be in a place that we're feeling like we haven't decided what goes there. And it's two separate things that are on a collision course where we should be having the charrette we're having. We should be have, I believe and I know we're not aligned on this. I believe we should the community group we planned to weigh in on the North 40 and what that is. And it may be a fire station, it maybe something else I mean Given the traffic, the fire station is probably way less traffic than anything else that could go on there. If something's going to go on and where it goes. But I think we should decide that first, and that's why the interim thing is so important to me.

I don't want to delay the health and safety of the fire department Well, we get our act together. It's taken us what 11 years? It's time for us to do it right and figure that out. I don't think we're going to be ready for town meeting and I don't think we're going to be ready in November to pick a site and do a feasibility. Maybe if we do multiple feasibilities proactively, I don't know. I have said this at each meeting, I believe and it frustrates me that we have not met with Wellesley College they are the immediate neighbor to our fire station. They are a major support for where we go and I think we have a responsibility to sit down with them and talk to them that concerns me, that piece of the process in our quest

that we didn't necessarily talk to them. Maybe they have nothing for us, but maybe they do and I just think whether it's a support funding or land or something I feel like we should have done that and so that concerns me. I do agree with the idea of looking at our peer towns. I think it's a question everybody who is looking is going to ask us how we comp out, how big our station is, how I believe that our recommendation from the fire department and from context is solid. It gives us room to grow, and the space is likely correct but I think we're an analytical community and they think we need the comps.

not now because it's late, but I think it would be nice to hear from context the two to 20 Linden Street which was close in the rankings I think that's a tough traffic spot also, but I'd like to understand that. think the town would be supportive of buying land in the right place for the fire department. I think that's actually quicker than socializing and figuring out the future of the North 40 and maybe more economic given the timeline to do development. When you look at the escalation seven years out, it may be quicker to buy and build. I just, it's a cost issue Megan. I think we should have on our list. If the North 40 is the right spot

I don't understand why it wouldn't be at this most southern end because I think a lot of the traffic concerns that I've heard and the times I sit in traffic, going toward the south and you can't get off Weston Road because there's no place to go. So I don't know why we didn't look more southerly and not on the gardens, because to me it just seems like it would be easier to be more south than not on a garden. and I think those are the big issues I have, so thank you.

Thank you, Beth. Batting cleanup is a little hard. My colleagues have registered a lot of the same concerns and questions I have. I don't disagree with the results of the master planning process I am intrigued with the idea of doing a feasibility study on two sites because we're in a catch-22. We don't know exactly how either site would operate without doing more study, without doing and the real constrictions on the 515 Washington Street site. And we could involve several members of different neighborhoods, members of all different committees just like the SBC and the HHU committee that we all worked on. I think that's a really good idea

My understanding is that at least now there are not sufficient and many other acceptable, suitable interim measures to address the problem writ large about decontamination. and we will need to explore that a little bit more in the FAQ, and expand on the chiefs and the architects understanding of what it takes to create that decontamination ability. for coming. We really appreciate your sharing your thoughts with us. We do our work better when we have the advantage of hearing what you think and what your questions are. and it's very important. We hope you will all come on October 1st, and I'll just turn it to Megan and the Chief and Jeff and see if there are any final comments.

I would just say Marjorie at the onset of the meeting, I thought you did a fantastic job painting in the picture. There's a lot of information and a lot and I thought you did a great job. And to the five of you, thank you because I don't think anybody really envies the position that you're in. There are a lot of hard decisions and a lot different things to look at but in the end All five of you always support the fire department and all 62 members of the fire Department appreciate that so thank you. and like I said before, to everyone that came here. You took time out of your evenings a lot of times so we do appreciate that and I'll just reiterate what i said at the beginning is that our objective is that we need a safe place for our 62 firefighters and we need to be in a place where should our services be needed by any one of you, a loved one or family member. We need to get to you in a timely fashion and that is our main objective So again, thank you for your time.

And Jeff I'll turn it over to you but thank you sitting in and your insight as well.

That's really great to hear all the commentary from the public and board. I think this will be a great opportunity for the team to go back and try to answer as many of the outstanding questions that have been addressed already in detail. And I think that will only make the process stronger and more transparent for a lot of the discussion and decisions about the sites that were made and the criteria, a lot of the existing conditions. And some of the things that I think folks have questions about and concerns about can be made more clear because the report obviously while long document didn't go into everything in exhaustive detail. So happy to provide more of that information as we go along.

Any final thoughts, Megan?

Lots of information tonight. We will work with the chief in context and our facility seems to try and address those as well as the board's comments Certainly the public comments, I had a note of a bunch of things that we can address. I think it's important for us in particular to articulate what decontamination is. That was one that sort of a takeaway, just so we have a common understanding of that. So we'll work to do that as expeditiously as we can.

All right, again thank you very much to everybody who's here and we hope we'll see you on October 1st. I do not have a chair's report tonight as the meetings that I typically discuss were held last week and will be repeated again next week. So we will move directly into the executive session.

I request a motion to enter into executive session with respect to negotiations with the Wellesley Patrol Officers Association and Wellesley Firefighters, IAFF Local 1795 as well as to conduct strategy with respect to litigation with Albany Road-Wellesley LLC and potential litigation regarding 140 Weston Road.

moved to enter executive session under Mass General Law, Chapter 38, Section 21A3. To conduct strategy with respect to negotiations with the Wellesley Patrol Officers Association and Wellesley Firefighters, IAFF Local 1795 to conduct strategy with respect to litigation with Albany Road Wellesly LLC. And to conduct a strategy with respective potential litigation regarding 140 Western Road and to invite Executive Director Megan Jopp, Assistant Executive Director Corey Testa, Human Resources Director Dolores Hamilton, Town Council Tom Harrington Smith, Police Chief Scott Whittemore and Fire Chief Steve Mortarelli to join the meeting. Following the close of executive session, the board will return to open session for the sole purpose of adjourning the meeting

Marjorie, before you vote that we amended the agenda to also include the library.

Sorry and to conduct I'm going to amend the negotiations to include the Library

the Wellesley Library Staff Association and Supervisors Association.

I'm going to invite library director Jamie Jergensen and Board of Library Trustees Myla Robinson to join this session.

Second.

Beth? Yes. Tom?

Yeah, aye.

Kenny? Collette? Aye. And I vote aye as well. Thank you everybody we are going into executive session and we will meet again Next Wednesday the 23rd at 4 o'clock.