Select Board February 24, 2026

Hi Corey.

Good evening.

Good evening. I'd like to call to order the Wellesley Select Board meeting of February 24th, 2026 in the Giuliani room at Town Hall. The meeting is being televised live on Comcast Channel 8 and Verizon Channel 40 and will be available for later viewing on wellesleymedia.org. Here for the Select Board tonight are Vice Chair Tom Ulfelder, Secretary Colette O'Frank, Beth Sullivan Woods, Kenny Largess, and myself, Marjorie Freiman. Megan Jopp is also with us, and Corey Testa is joining us remotely. On behalf of the Board, I'd like to thank our Department of Public Works, Police, Fire, and Municipal Light Plant staff for all their hard work during the recent storm. With over almost two feet of snow, we recorded two feet, downed trees and power lines and extended period of snow, we know that all first responders were working for close to 30 hours.

Public Works and Utility staff were on the front lines of ensuring resident safety and we just want you to know how much we appreciate all your hard work. Our first agenda item is citizen speak. We had a resident who wanted to speak. Oh, here she is. Okay. So, Kelly Nars is here. She's asked to speak on an agenda item at this time due to a meeting conflict she has later in the evening. I've indicated that I would take her comments on the agenda item now, but please understand this is an exception and will not set a precedent for agenda related comments during Citizen Speak in future meetings. Hi, Kelly, go ahead.

Hi, thank you. I'm Kelly Norris. I live at 11 Tanglewood Road, speaking tonight on the Capital Planning Committee. I've heard in your discussions the capital planning committee is being created in response to the school AC project. School AC was an important issue on the town's capital plan in 2019 and resurfaced post-COVID. The problem was identified for the health, safety, and education of our children. People across town came together. They started talking about the health and educational concerns that our children are facing. The project came to town meeting and was unanimously approved as an urgent priority. This was a process that worked really well. Now the study is complete and the design is scheduled for the fall town meeting vote. And now there's

This response to create a capital planning committee to stop this from happening again. School AC showed a process working with broad community input and engagement for an issue that the residents want and need. Now there's an effort to circumvent the town's existing processes with this new committee, an effort to take away power from independent committees with elected representatives and expertise in the respective areas, A push to take away power from town meeting and take away the voices of town meeting, our legislative body, and to take away the voice of our residents. I hope the effort isn't being rushed to try to block a project for the health and safety of our kids moving forward this fall.

Kelly, we just lost you.

You're muted.

Am I back?

You're back now.

Okay, great. I believe that encouraging community engagement Preserving the authority of our elected boards and safeguarding projects that protect the health and safety of our kids is the stronger election platform. . Community engagement is one of the most important priorities for us to understand residents and to advocate on their behalf. I hope that select board will encourage residents and town committees to come forward with issues that are important to them, especially If there's something that needs to rise in priority due to a health, safety, climate, or other type of issue that changes over time. Our town's needs will evolve and issues will come up that require our openness and flexibility to change plans when it's important.

Thank you for listening to the residents who care about our town and take the time to engage and for respecting the elected representatives who support all of the areas that enable our town to run. We need good people in these roles not to weaken their roles. I'd ask you to pause to more deeply evaluate the need for this committee, its composition, higher minimum threshold for major projects, and to clearly add up the time commitment for the 16 plus people in the group additional time that will be needed for projects to move forward and higher expenses projects will incur. This would be a major change to our town government, how it currently works, and it should not be rushed. Thank you.

Thank you, Kelly. Is there anyone else here for Citizen Speak? Okay, Kelly, because this is an agenda item, I believe Colette will address your concerns during our agenda conversation, so you may, if you can, stick around for a while, if not, at least watch it later, because we will be discussing it. Okay. Our next agenda item is the Executive Director's Report.

Thanks, Marjorie. I just have a few updates. The health department was going to provide their community assessment on Monday. We will alert folks as soon as that is rescheduled. That was obviously canceled as a result. of the storm event, but we're very much looking forward to presenting the information on that community survey, and so we would just ask people to keep their eye out on the community calendar for that, and we're hoping to reschedule that as soon as possible. just to add on to your message with regards to DPW the work is not done and so they have a lot of work to continue in particular on sidewalks. So sidewalk clearing takes an exorbitant amount of time and so we want people to bear with us as they continue the cleanup likely through Friday. We are also expecting additional snow although not the quantities we've had earlier in the week on Wednesday and Friday. We will also have to commence snow removal through the commercial districts.

So we just ask people for their patience. The staff has worked many long hours to also give wide berth to our plows. and Plough crews because they're tired and also because they still have a lot of work to do. So we wanted to just put that out there just to set some expectations. just given the amount of snow that we're trying to move and there's a lot already out there from the prior storm. the other thing we do have online the ability to adopt a fire hydrant so we would encourage people to take a look at that adopt a hydrant and also if there's a hydrant by you that you can see that has not been dug out we would encourage you to do so that's important work that our residents do for the fire department. The other thing I just wanted to remind folks of is the upcoming town election. So the town election is next week on March 3rd.

the town clerk has mailed out ballots and all of our polling places will be open so just wanted to remind folks of that upcoming date and that's all I have Marjorie.

Okay, thank you very much Megan and thank you for indicating that there is still work to do with DPW. We were lucky enough to be able to move through town unlike some other people but There is ongoing work. Our next agenda item is a consent agenda on which we have three to vote a change in manager for the Babson College dining hall alcohol license, to vote three one-day licenses for Wellesley Country Club for its annual Adams Bowl tournament in the middle of July, and to approve a disclosure by a school department employee so she can work with the rec department teaching after school enrichment and summer camp classes to students in grades three to eight. The staff has reviewed these three items and recommends approval. Collette, motion please.

Move to approve the consent agenda items.

Second.

all in favor aye okay our next agenda item is an update from the town hall working group We know that the group continues to work. Beth, thank you for your update and thank you for the show and tell of the pieces you have. If you would, would you focus on the charge and where the group's thinking is about the environment you want to set? We have about 15 minutes for this.

Yes, please. So and we'll go to the next page Megan. So as everyone will recall we have a very robust committee of 16 members of the community with a range of expertise. We've had a series of meetings with different people able to attend and not attend. We make progress and then we do catch up and then we make a little bit more progress. And we're feeling like we're in a good place it's time to get some feedback from the board about the concepts and where people are thinking. So if you go to the next page, Megan,

Just to remind everyone, our original charge was to identify and recommend a plan for appointing the town hall space. recommend which public spaces should have appointments and which should be left unadorned, to look at what was saved from when we moved out of Town Hall, and how could we use that and which pieces maybe don't have a home but should be rehomed and then also have a concept about what we're trying to accomplish with appointment of town hall. And so if you go to the next page, Megan. After we all aligned on the charge there was an additional request coming from Stephanie and Casey and Megan, I believe, to add to the charge

looking at how we could support communications to those that come into town hall both through the material that was distributed because we now no longer have the table and the ledge is a little bit narrow to be collecting material. And the feeling was we might be in a time period where using a monitor. would streamline things and allow for more regular updates and also be a little bit more eye-catching to people that come through. So if we go to the next page, Megan. and just to remind people that the committee did align on the fact that our existing collection is very limited. We do have very few walls and spaces for display in the building. It's much more open with the glass fronts of conference rooms and whatnot. There is no provision right now for hanging materials on the wall.

There's no hanging system and we don't really want to get into a position where we're punching holes into the brick or into the walls after such a in restoring Town Hall to its beauty. And we have had intermittent conversations with FMD. Actually, it's our FMD rep to PBC. and then there are some places where the walls might be attractive for art but they do have Exit signs or thermostats or a lack of plugs if you need lighting. So those are kind of workarounds once we figure out what the concept is. and we have spoken about the fact that there's really no budget but we're hopeful that many of these things are relatively minor and might fit within some of the remaining town hall budget.

We do know that if you look up at the art, a lot of it to look appropriate in the new space will need reframing, rematting, remounting, and more consistency because the framing of the pieces evolved over time and they don't really match or necessarily coordinate with one another very well. So Megan if you go to the next page. so with that said the approach we took was walking through the space and universally the entire committee thinks the space is just spectacular and that it will be important to balance adornment with celebration of just the natural beauty of the space. And so we need to be,

firm in terms of evaluating what makes sense, what is of the caliber and the quality to celebrate on the walls and what perhaps needs rehoming. And we need to have a clear vision that supports the experience that people have so that it elevates the experience and doesn't interfere with it. We have received some additional donations. We received a beautiful piece from Dr. Cosimini as well as from Wellesley Friendly Aid and from the family that owned EA Davis. So we do have a couple enhancements to our existing piece. The bottom line is that the determination was that the first floor is really a transitionary space. It is where the majority of the action is.

And it's really an opportunity to educate, welcome, and create a little bit more warmth as people are moving through. So it's more of an opportunity to interrupt and Enhance, where the second floor is really a business space. You only go up there because you're conducting business, so we don't want anything that distracts from your mindset of being in a business mindset. So they're more interested in more muted and larger pieces that are give you a break and enhance but don't distract or make you overly thoughtful about what's on the wall as opposed to what's happening at the meeting. So if you go to the next space, Megan, the next slide. These are all the spaces which we're going to look at a picture of.

You'll note there is nothing in the basement that's noted, and we as a group agreed to exclude any personal office space. although rehoming some of the pieces in personal space is an option if the office occupants would like some of the art. So if you go to the next space, Megan, next slide. and if you look up on the wall, really what we have, we have a lot of pictures of Town Hall. It's an attractive thing for artists. We've got a lot of depictions. We have a series of portraits of leaders of the town. Two of the pictures are required to be hung near the town clerk's office by bylaw. So they'll be hanging near the town clerk's office. We have some historical documents. We have some historical photos and prints. The Fisk Award, which was a

put in during the centennial of the town, which is now hanging by the town clerk's office, weights and measures. We have a lot of veteran-related Awards. The VSO has kindly agreed to hang those within his office space, which was terrific. There were several images of Boston, maps, prints. The committee feels that those are not appropriate given our limited amount of space. We're not recommending hanging those and we have received a gift of an antique cash register and a scarf. designed by Lilly Pulitzer of all the town buildings, which the committee is pretty intrigued by. So if you go to the next slide, Megan. So I think if we go, I'd like to just, I think, go to the next slide. So for the first floor, where we are.

When you walk in, the west entrance is really a very special space. And the thought was that it should include art exhibits. it has its challenges because it is all brick so it will need a hanging system but the thought was it could really be and exhibit space, whether it's art or education, special events, special initiatives in town. that if we had a rail system of some type that it would offer an opportunity to the community as well as to different town departments. There is some talk about using a large monitor, which addresses some of the lighting issues. likely to be a challenge because of the lack of electrical outlets there. So in speaking with FMDPBC, I think we're more inclined toward a wall system

and we may need to move the wayfinding chart a bit. And then in the divots, I don't know what the alcoves I guess is the proper name for them. We think that there's room for a brochure rack or some type of shelving to put materials whether they're trail maps or the hometown news or if there are flyers about events that it would keep it a little bit more organized, it would be very visible, and it would free up the space where Casey's people come to transact business at the town clerk's office. Does anyone have questions about that as a concept? No, okay. So if we go to the next slide.

I do have to say, I like the idea of a wall system more than a monitor. So do I. I'm not crazy about the idea of a monitor out there.

It has a lot of problems. So on the committee, there's a tension between more modern and more flexible and more hanging. Because it's brick and because it's dark, we might have to do something like the History Center does where you hang a fabric behind the system depending on what type of material you're presenting. But it seems eminently doable and allows more celebration of the richness and warmth of the space. On the first floor, so now we've entered into the Casey's area, you can see the Fisk Award is already hung. And the thought is to put a monitor up in the corner and that it might be more feasible electrically because you could maybe work through the town clerk's glass area or something.

and that would give the flexibility for the communications director, other town departments, town clerk to post information and because it's on a monitor it would be fairly eye-catching. So that's something that's actively under consideration. The thought is the wall on the right here of the town clerk's office, both the one facing us and the one that faces down the corridor. would hold the four men, one of whom is missing right now, but we will find him. Mr. Flagg has apparently vanished, but he's in the bylaws, so we will find him. that would need to be reframed but it does seem to be an appropriate spot to put them. We would put Felix Giuliani in here. That seems more appropriate given the naming of the room and the committee was inclined to put him over here near the camera.

Okay. um, We spent a lot of time thinking about what would be appropriate educationally and also relevant for people who are visiting town halls, understanding that they are Newtown, or in some cases, you know, just like to come in and visit and personally conduct business. The Wellesley Historical Society and the History Center is set up to do evolving exhibits and so their opening exhibit which really focused on Wellesley with a timeline of Wellesley and a collection of a lot of the thematic buildings, they're willing to share all of that with us. And so the thought is that perhaps the timeline might make sense right opposite the weights and measures.

and then some grouping of different depictions of spaces, kind of celebrate parts of Wellesley. You could put famous people, famous spaces, famous things to do. you could switch it over to be an exhibit space but it presents more challenges in terms of ADA with knocking frames and having them stick out and also creating a hanging system perhaps but that that's the thought there and then moving the bullet board with the legal notices and stuff right opposite the lavatory at the beginning of the corridor by the VSO office. And some type of, this wall here is an interesting wall.

They think because this is a meeting space that it should have something that grounds you in conducting business for Wellesley. whether it's events that happen in Wellesley or a big map they have various ideas but I would like to get feedback on whether you're comfortable with some type of celebration of Wellesley there that's not distracting but complements the space because that's really the only space in this room. that they feel like anything should happen except for returning the beakers and weights up onto the shelf. Okay. And that, Megan, if you go to the next page, I think that completes our tour of the first floor. Is everyone okay to go to the second floor? Okay, so on the second floor, the consensus is this is a space that you only go to because you're going to a meeting. You don't go there otherwise.

And so there was a lot of discussion about the large white wall. as being fabulous for exhibits. But the thought is nobody will go up there and we don't really want to pull people up there. just for an exhibit. We'd like to do something that complements the space and lets you really focus on the architecture of the space because the ceiling's gorgeous, the walls are gorgeous. and so the current proposal is to take if you look over there see that map of town hall with the floor plan up in the upper right corner, to take either that one or something more like the line art of Town Hall and blow it up more like a wallpaper, but it would be in a sepia tone.

The artists say it should be about six foot by three and a half, nothing like having precision, and have it go across the space so it's not a stark white wall, but it's not jumping out at you. It's just complimenting the space. and then leaving the rest of the room as is because everything is just gorgeous in that room. And in the walls, kind of entering and exiting, kind of if you go up the stairs toward Washington Street, those circular stairs you come out. toward this area where the restroom and that you could put photos of town milestone documents or commerce type business photographs. They think that would be in keeping with the space similarly around the elevator.

The circle, which is kind of an empty space by the elevator that seems to call out for something. The thought was to put the cash register, which is a turn-of-the-century, gorgeous, huge cash register on a pedestal there, perhaps with an armchair too, so people could... if they're waiting for an elevator catch a breath or they're waiting to go into a meeting they could sit. It would warm up the emptiness a little bit but also give you something to focus on. and then the last space up there is the little conference room. And again, given that it's a business space, the thought was to put something on the wall when you walk in to the left. So that door with the exit sign goes into the bathroom there. And either put the scarf

which has all the buildings, it's kind of soft muted tones that celebrates the town. Or, and Glen is looking to see if there's a blueprint of the clock. because the clock face they think is just a beautiful architectural piece and it would be good to echo the clock that's up above and have it there. It also shines on the wall so it would be kind of a a repeating image. So that's where we are on the second floor. Is everybody okay? Third floor is really quick. So if you go to the next one, Megan. The third floor, I didn't take a picture of the conference room. I think we've all been in there. And the thought was to put one or two images, including the one of Lower Falls, which There it is.

It's right closest to you, Megan. because they thought that the tones of it, it's a watercolor and the tones worked really well. The committee hasn't had a chance to consider the three pieces that Wellesley Friendly Aid is willing to donate to us. and they want to intersperse some of the more special photographs of town halls. So I think on the first floor, Dr. Cosimini's donation is one that they want to put on the wall down here. But we do, that is kind of our dominant Art, Peace. Okay, and then I think the rest, we did nothing in the basement. If Dolores or IT would like something on the walls, We could work on that. And then the rest of the deck is just for the committee's, for the board's edification on what the images are. That's the timeline on the left.

Poor photography, but the timeline. that's kind of where we are. Do people have questions, thoughts?

Questions? Comments?

Thank you for the presentation. Is it going to be all rolled out at once or is it going to be staged?

I think the ideal thing would be to roll most of it out at once, because by the time we reframed, if we get the budget, if people are good with this, then we'll get a budget for framing. The historical society materials, they should be taking their exhibit down either at the end of the spring or early fall. We may depending on how it works use our art and then fill in when we get the additional pieces.

Are you all done? I don't have feedback right now because we didn't get, I just haven't spent much time with this. We just got it today or yesterday. So if you wouldn't mind, I'll just take a look at it and give you feedback following that.

Yeah, no, that's perfect.

So Beth, how final are these recommendations? Is the committee satisfied that this is what you want to present and your next step would be to work on a budget?

Yes. The only thing the committee hasn't seen is the three pieces from Wellesley Friendly Aid. I think we're in a terrific place to do a budget and kind of work on the framing Testa, Ulfelder, Wellesley, Councilor Testa, Ulfelder, Wellesley, Councilor Testa, Ulfelder, Wellesley, Councilor through whatever the channels are to PBC to see if the town hall renovation has room or if it's something that we need to look at other funding avenues for. Okay?

And go through FMD for hanging.

Right, so that FMD would... FMD, PBC, I don't know exactly how that would work, would do the estimate on the hanging system and the installation of it. I did speak to Glenn today. and obviously it would have to go through all the appropriate channels, but it does seem that there are hanging system solutions that we could look at. and I imagine it would take them a little bit to evaluate what's appropriate for the walls and how long it would take.

Comments? Okay. Okay, well thank you very much for that update. It's interesting to see your ideas for what you think should go where. and I guess we'll wait. We'll consider this. We'll all take a closer look at it. We'll wait for the budget and figure out how to work with PBC and FMD on the hanging system. I'm fairly confident they discussed some of the electrical you know thermostat exit sign issues so we'll have to coordinate with them on Testa, Ulfelder, What they were thinking, what they don't want to do, what they might consider doing, what might be appropriate.

And in the meantime, if Folks haven't gone, I would recommend going to the History Center on Washington Street just to look at what they have in the current collection for Wellesley history and art and pieces. They've done a really creative job. putting photographs and images and stories out about Wellesley in a cost effective but high quality manner. And I think that will be instructive for us. and the women that was critical in the exhibit spaces on this committee. And so I think it would be good for all of us to look at it and see if it sparks ideas.

Okay, and I think some of it's online too, isn't it? Not sure. Okay. It was in the Wellesley Western Magazine. Yeah. Okay, go ahead, Tom.

I do think that we should assume that the thermostats can't move. We're at the point of commission now. That isn't to say there are some thermostats, for example, and they're going from offices to the hallway, such as up in the third floor. But I'm sure you agree, employee safety, employee comfort, and all of the detailed commissioning that we've been doing makes that unlikely. What I don't know the answer to but suspect is that the signage in terms of exits are designated by code. That may not be able to be moved. And then the last thing is the project considered monitors quite extensively and the decision was this is back when the professional team was working on the project that in their experience

they were appealing at the beginning but they were difficult to maintain and that they were essentially left idle after some period of time and weren't worth it. It was not advisable to put in and other electronic monitors. And doing the electrical work now is very expensive. You would be very surprised at what the, and particularly where we have closed out our relationship with Consigli. So if we were to have them back because we have warranty issues, we have issues of where you can bring the wiring up from, and we can't just sort of go the easiest route necessarily on some of the plug placement.

No, I appreciate that, Tom. A couple members of the committee I've been quite impressed with the monitor in the lobby of the library when you go in what I call the back door but I think for most people it's front door parking lot. That monitor has been up for several years and has been enthusiastically embraced according to a few members of the committee. So I think given the challenge presented by the communications director and the town clerk, we wanted to at least put it out there for consideration whether some type of a dumb monitor system that had scrolling town related updates would be appropriate and I think we'll learn whether that makes sense or doesn't make sense. It may not make sense. I think we'll have to see.

Okay. Thank you very much, Beth. Appreciate all that information. Okay. Our next agenda item is to vote a winter supplemental request for snow and ice. And Jeff Azano-Brown is with us. Hi, Jeff. Thanks for joining us.

Thank you very much for having me. Today I bring you, first off, thank you for all the kind words and encouragement for our folks out there. It's been a long effort, no doubt about it. and we've got more in front of us and thank you for the warnings to the public and setting that expectation and the request to clear hydrants and catch basins aren't far behind that too. So just be careful out there, there's plenty of snow. before I bring you before you today a second winter authorization supplemental request this one As you'll see in the memo, if winter were to have stopped last week, we anticipated that we would have a balance of about $250,000. Winter did not stop. Testa, Ulfelder, Wellesley, Councilor Testa, Ulfelder, Wellesley, Councilor Testa, Ulfelder, Wellesley, Councilor Testa, Ulfelder, Wellesley, Councilor with additional winter weather in the forecast that we will be back for a third.

But what is before you is just our second request for $400,000. So I'm willing to take any questions that you might have.

So Jeff, do you anticipate that this request would cover if we get more snow this week?

I have very rough estimates. Payroll has not hit for this week at all. And we're still receiving invoices from our contractors. But I have rough estimates that if winter were to have ended after this storm, we would have about $10,000 left.

One thing to note is both this storm and the significant storm previously both hit on Sundays. And so that necessitates double time pay. and so then once Sunday lapses into Monday, you're still at a time and a half rate. So that's really the driving force in terms of the cost too. It just so happens they hit on Sundays.

I wasn't questioning the cost. I'm just trying to figure whether, you know, these are going to be final numbers. That's all. Any other questions or comments for Jep? Okay. May we have a motion, please, Collette?

So move to approve the winter supplemental request for $400,000 from free cash.

Second.

All in favor? Aye.

Thank you very much, and please extend our thanks to the entire department.

Thank you as well. Appreciate it.

All right. Well, Rachel has joined us. And our next agenda item is town meeting preparation. So I'll turn it over to Megan and Rachel.

So we have provided the board the full deck of motions. We've also sent those to all our department heads. So there's some nits and nats that have been corrected. and obviously we're going to have to correct Article 7 Motion 1 likely again. And the other thing Town Council did just want me to raise is that for snow and ice supplemental. We actually do not have to go to town meeting for that. I did just want to raise that with the board. It has been our past practice. and so wanted to get your thoughts if you in fact wanted to move forward with that as a supplemental request but under state law we actually don't have to do that. We certainly call it out. within the Townwide Financial Plan. And as part of our presentation, obviously the Townwide Financial Plan, depending upon when the third supplemental request hits, may make it in there, likely not, but it may. If not, it certainly is part of our timeline financial plan presentation to town meeting.

would address all of the anticipated impacts to our reserves and we would reflect that. So I just raised that as a question for the board which we can take up. The other thing I did want to just call your attention to is I did hand out, in the set that I sent you, we had not received the Leibniz, and then we just knew we typically get one last payment in February which rounds out the payment for the peg access and cable related fund and so that we did receive that on February 20th and so Tiana just sent that to me and so we were able to update that. So I have updated Article 14 and sent advisory these numbers. So that previously was not a motion to approve, but we have the corrected numbers for that.

and happy to answer the only other we expect we'll work with planning on the last motion for Rio, and we'll have that reviewed by town council. This version, the set you have before you has been reviewed by town council, and there was a few edits that we that we'll make prior to printing. We also have not finalized Article 8 yet. That is, we're currently waiting for CPC to finalize their numbers. for the board to finalize Article 8. And so that will be held off until such time. We expect CPC to vote March 18th, and then our meeting on the 24th, we would vote Article 8.

So they're voting on their contribution to the playgrounds. Are they voting on all of their motions?

Yes. So they have the contribution to the playground, which would offset our free cash, depending upon which amount is appropriated. because they were determining what portion of those funds could be perceived as maintenance. DPW believes all of the funds could go towards the $500,000 request, but we'll wait to see on that. They also have funds for the dredging of Reed's Pond and Ducks Pond, which is anticipated right now at about $750,000. We updated the capital plan. Capital plan was carrying about $600,000. but in consultation with NRC and CPC we have updated those to 750. They wanted to make sure there was enough contingency in that number. The bids will come in on March 18th. CPC is going to vote on actual bids in hand. That's why we'd adjust the Article 8 number.

Okay. So I want to take up the question of snow and ice, but I first wanted to thank Kenny for the update from the Rio meeting last night. So everybody should have gotten the results of the planning board's decision. and Town Council will review whatever amended language planning submits. And so Article 8, Article 15, 16 for CPC, and Article 32 are the only other ones we're waiting for updates on? That's correct. Great. Okay. My personal opinion is that Mass General Law allows the Snow and Ice to be augmented, whatever happens during the year, and if you're going to call it out in Townwide Capital Plan, I would be comfortable not having a separate supplemental for that. But I'd like to hear what other people think. Go ahead, Beth. Oh, Kenny.

I agree with you, Marjorie. It has to be done. It's not really discretionary.

So I agree it has to be done. It's a meaningful amount of money and the Board of Public Works does a lot of work and I think it's an opportunity to provide understanding to the town and active engagement that this is a meaningful expense that we incur. And this year has been a fairly monumental snow year. So I don't think this is the year that we should not present it. I think it's a big part of a budget supplemental. And so I would prefer that we present it.

I didn't get the impression it wasn't going to be presented. It was just a question whether Tamina's going to vote on it.

Well, whether you need a, whether you want to proceed with a motion or not.

Right. I would proceed with a motion.

Other thoughts? So I think it's fine to move forward with not doing a motion. It's so late in the game for this year that maybe we take this motion this year. and have a conversation make that part of the presentation that we've had this update from town council you know obviously this is something we have to do we don't need to have a voted time meeting it's going to be definitely always called out in the townwide financial plan but the board will take it up and decide whether or not to have a motion next year. I think it's a little bit late this year. I mean, if the whole board felt that way, I would support that. I could go either way on this one, but I think if we don't, decide not to make a motion this year I do think we should plan to not have a motion next year because it is required but that gives us a chance to socialize at time meeting I don't remember a lot of discussion on this at time meeting I think people are generally very I'm very happy with the services provided and that's all I have to say.

And they understand that more snow requires more snow removal. I think that's a reasonable compromise to do it this year, but explain as we prepare for next year that it doesn't have to go to town meeting. It is permitted under mass general law. Tom, do you have any thoughts?

I agree with Collette. I think if it were November, it would be one thing, but I think that's an excellent compromise.

Okay, so let's leave it in.

Any other questions on motions or comments?

So the March 18th vote will require a second motions package of just those three motions.

Yes, so typically, well, we'll await those. And we typically mail out the motions when we mail out the advisory books. We try and get them in with them. so I think we'll be okay to meet it after the 18th because we typically would they'll probably send it out like literally like the next day so we'll have a we'll work with and Stephen Murphy to have the motions ready, pending final vote. We can change those quickly. if it's just a staple on to the broader package and have those ready for town.

Okay. And the advisory report isn't going to the printer until the 13th?

Yeah. We'll have time to get those in.

Great. Any other questions?

Okay. So move to approve motions for articles 2, 3, 6, 7, 9, 10, 27, 33, and 36. And you can add 14? And 14.

. Second.

All in favor?

Aye. Okay, now we'll move on to the fiscal year 27 budget update.

So we have presented a draft version of the Townwide Financial Plan. Inclusive in that are three attachments. Those include Exhibit I, which is sort of our overview of the overall budget, Exhibit B, which is the sources and uses in detail, and then Exhibit C, which is the five-year capital. Smith. So happy to go through the town-wide financial plan. You tell me how you want to go through it. But essentially, you know, the plan's a little longer than in past years, but we've tried to be inclusive. I don't know, 50 pagers or so. But we've also tried to add the things that we've heard from advisory members and others in the past. We've spent a lot of time this year focusing on

and some of the direction from the board but in addition to that really focusing on the debt component and trying to break that out on a much more micro level than we have in years past. to really show what the true impacts are. We now have those formulas which we do believe we can work with GIS so that In the coming weeks when our GIS person is back from vacation, we will set that up so that you can click on your property and understand what the impacts will be to you personally. So we are in very good shape moving that forward, which I know has been a desire of the board to have that available and a request we've gotten from advisory in the past. So and I'm happy to to reflect some of this online but so we've really broken it out into two things sort of the overview which talks about the two main things from a governance standpoint that we focused on this year outside of the budget. So that is how we're presenting the budget this year under Article 8.

which is a separation in voting procedures for both the municipal and the school budgets. And so we break that out and the purposes for why the board has asked us to do that. In addition to that, we talk about the ongoing future impacts of the shared costs from the municipal and school budgets and how those are allocated both in the school budget, but there's additional costs that are absorbed in the municipal side. from maintenance of parks and fields, health department, capital, and we are still fine tuning those numbers. Those numbers aren't going to shift tremendously, but they will shift by a couple thousand dollars as we, We're getting into the minute detail. And we want to make sure that schools align with us on where the cost allocations are. Just because it was February vacation last week, some of that work has been delayed.

And then schools have largely still been out due to the snow events. So we're fine tuning that, but the percentages aren't gonna change dramatically, they're changing nominally. And that's reflective essentially of, which is no surprise to the board, were at about a 65-35 split in terms of the cost allocation. And that is inclusive of debt. The town-wide financial plan also focuses on what the board's going to discuss later in the evening is the town-wide capital planning committee and really what that does in terms of looking at our long-term debt, which given the and a significant number of debt exclusions that are anticipated over the next seven years or so. We wanted to break that out for our residents and town meeting members so that they can see that.

We actually had a call for our inside the levy borrowing for Warren HVAC, Weston Road, and RDF Admin Building today. So we had our Moody rating call. And we had to go through what the projected debt in this time period. We project this out to 2035 in the townwide financial plan. and I think we do that well in terms of really getting down to that. We certainly go through the highlights of the overall budget. This budget is Getting close to $250,000, so this budget is $246,081,818. and that not 100% final because they're right in front of CPC but in that ballpark. We have continued to maintain reserves on the high end.

We're currently at about 14.94% with the application of free cash. That will be modified slightly by an additional appropriation of snow and ice as we talked about. I'm just basing off Jeff you know let's say 200,000 potentially which would align with the 2016 appropriation we had about 1.1 million in 2016 when we had this same type of snow accumulation. So fairly consistent given the increase in cost. And then depending upon CPC appropriation to the playground, it might offset that. So we're going to hover around that 14.9%. which again is far higher than our 12% guideline. We had good news, favorable conditions with regards to the health insurance. and so where we had initially anticipated a $1 million additional free cash appropriation, we're at $576,000 towards that.

The town-wide financial plan goes into detail about our proposed use of free cash in addition to our policies on the free cash. We obviously get into our budget drivers, our revenue projections, our personnel costs, and employee benefits. This year we have very limited strategic initiatives outside of capital planning as designed by the board. We go into detail about the guidelines and why the board identified those guidelines in this particular year, noting in particular that all of our town and school unions are currently in negotiation. Higgins. The document references our primary financial policies in detail. One is the capital reserves policy, which details how much of our spending in the operating budget goes towards both cash capital and our inside the levy Borrowing. So we are lower.

The board had asked us, had asked the staff to go on the low end of the range, the 6.2%. We are below that. We're at about 5.79 to create some capacity within the operating budget to absorb some of our additional costs this year. Our out-year projections, the board has discussed in detail, but essentially it's a 2.5% tax increase and we're projecting and Testa. Approximately $1.7 million in new growth. That is a very conservative estimate given the amount of construction we foresee in FY27. just scrolling through here to hit some highlights. In terms of our out-year projections, one of the things we hit on which is considerable is our OPEB and retirement, our OPEB and pension payments. So you've all heard David Cornwood speak. I've actually partnered with David.

So we are gearing up for our town-wide financial plan presentation. David's actually going to deliver the OPEB in retirement We are in such a favorable position through his leadership. Because the Retirement Board will be there at a later article discussing the COLA, David and I worked it out because understanding where we're at today to then think about the COLA adjustment to the base for our retirees is really important. and he's really put us in a favorable position which in the out-year projections of the town-wide financial plan are going to come to fruition. So our OPEB funding is significant and with a very conservative discount rate of 6%. We would be essentially funded if we were at a 7%, our pension would be funded if we were at a 7%. would be at about 83%.

Initial projections are returned this year. So far it's at about 12%. So we are far outweighing our projections. and so starting in FY30, what we'll see in our out-year projection is we have, so 29, we drop our percentage by about 5% in terms of our pension payment. We're flat right now. and then in FY 30, we dropped by over 50%. So our $9 million appropriation drops to a little over $4 million and so we're creating capacity in the out years simultaneously as our projections for healthcare increase. In addition to that, we are fully funded in OPEB for MLP. So what does that mean? That's starting in FY27. They're going to draw down from the trust. So their health insurance for their retiree... Oh, in 26. In 26. I forgot we took back the money, the other money.

So in 26, we're going to start drawing down from the OPEB trust this current year. for their retirees at the end of the year for their portion of health insurance. So not active employees, retirees. So as we approach full funding where the last payment we make is in currently under our actuarial schedule is FY33 and FY24 we would start drawing down the trust on over 800 retirees. So instead of paying that out of our operating budget, you're then paying that out of the trust. So as we start to look at the Townwide Capital Planning Committee, where we have capacity inside the levy in terms of our operating budget for both health insurance, capital projects, or other types of reserve funding to maybe shave the peak on some of these capital projects. We are in a very favorable position.

I know it's a little painful these years, but there is light at the end of the tunnel because of the long-range planning that David and Hans Larsen really did for the town and that the town passed a debt exclusion on OPEB. They have really set themselves up for tremendous success. We are number one in the commonwealth on this, and it's now starting to be reflective in our out years. So we're literally, you know, right at the threshold, which is, you know, towards the conclusion of this, tell my financial plan a really important message. So I know this is a lot of information for the board. One of the things we have to talk about as well is the capital plan. for the major capital projects. The one thing I did call out in the town-wide financial plan is, and the board had only preliminary discussed this, so this is certainly something we need to comment on is with regards to the school AC we have a potential vote at the special town meeting

of $2 million, where we would likely do free cash. But I know the board had had questions as to making sure that residents were aware of the then, should that project go to construction, significant cost implications. So under this scenario, we have it listed as its potential, so it's up to the board vote at the time whether that appropriation would be subject to a referendum at March 27. Right? Election. It just sounds weird because I'm like 27 and you feel like it's got to be 28. That is identified here as a possibility, not as a definitive proposition, but that is in the policy as a consideration. So I just wanted to call your attention to that. We break down in detail the existing net.

Those are actual numbers for anything in sort of the yellow. And I can share the screen. Let me just share this real quick. because this has not been in the town-wide financial plan in the past. So this is our outstanding debt annual principal and interest through 2035. So the yellow, those are actual numbers. Those are in our debt schedule. Those are provided to the town. And those are the payments. So if you look at that 13,585, that's going to tie to your sources and uses in terms of your excluded debt payment. And then the projections for 28 and 29, those are at present the numbers we would also expect in the sources and uses in those particular years.

As you get into 2030, 31 and beyond, those are projections using estimates that are in, just gonna scroll up a hair, in this table. So the numbers here in terms of estimated costs, taking both the design and construction funds and assuming, depending upon the project, 20, 25 years at an interest rate of 5%. What we cannot do is under the school AC, that has been determined by bond council to be equipment. So we can only borrow that for five years. So the financial hit is far more significant, but for presumably a shorter duration. So we then have taken these projections and shown what that would be in terms of a median tax impact.

and rather than just showing prior years debt, we have broken it out to the various projects and what those actual numbers are two things to consider. want the current valuations town-wide that we have and the median value. So that number shifts, right, goes higher or lower based upon the amount of total value and how that's divided up in sort of the out years so it's the excluded debt but keep in mind the top shows you know you're going to have a levy and that levy is going to change each year as well because we typically anticipate. We have through 29 I think a 1.7. million dollar new growth and then through 30 and beyond we've actually made that a little bit more conservative at about 1.5 million.

So I think these numbers are significant and I think tying this to the Townwide Capital Planning Committee I think is important so that The reason we're taking that extra step is because of these financial impacts to taxpayers. And then reserves, I'll just... Excuse my scroll. I know it's hard to, I just want to get to the main table here. Thank you. So, again, starting the year in a very favorable position, 16.93%. These are the appropriations that were made in November at the top here. And then these are the anticipated appropriations at the Annual Town Meeting. Rachel's gone into detail in the past about turn back this is a very conservative number we are likely we actually think it'll be interesting to see at the year end but we really think it's probably closer to eight to ten Millian, yeah. So this is a conservative projection.

And so happy to walk through any portion of this or answer questions. I did just want to note so we were asking the board for comments and certainly we have some department heads giving us some comments who to try and get this ready for the advisory committee, not presentation per se, but the final write-up for the book. and so we're timing is a little tight so we were asking the board for comments by this Friday and that final sign off by Marjorie so just wanted to get the board's thoughts on that as well. But Rachel and I are here to answer any questions. It's a very dense document.

Go ahead, Beth. So thank you for the tremendous amount of work in this document. It's a chuckabuck full with every piece of information one could possibly want. For distribution of it, it's going to all town meeting members, right? Is that the plan?

So this would go into the advisory book. Yep, so go to all town meeting members. We will also, our goal is, that's also having to do with the timing. The letter that is also on the agenda for discussion to go to all residents. Household would have a link to the town-wide financial plan as well. Okay.

I would like to structure the document so that if you're interested in the town's finances, that information is right up front and then you get sucked in. So it talks about the overall budget, the drivers, and the key elements of what changed in our budget this year. Because I think having policy things at the beginning makes it so you're not going to wait all the way in to get to the things that you care about first in terms of what do I need to know about the budget? What do I need to know about the trends? and I feel like that should be like two or three pages so that if you don't make it to page 50, you've had a good high level that sets the table for what you're going to be considering and the context for what you're considering it.

That's my first thought. The second thought I have is that there's a lot on separating the school budget out and how many components of the school budget there are and how significant the school budget is. I don't know if we have to go through so many cycles on that as opposed to just explain that given the desire to allow for more focused discussions on the two components of the budget, We've separated them. and we're cognizant of the desire of people to understand true costs for each side. So there is this extra enhanced schedule 19 and lay that out. But it feels to me like,

a little more explanatory than is necessary to get the point across about what's different when you look at the presentation this time. and the third thing is, given the timing, I don't think the town-wide capital planning is fully baked enough to be sending it out at this point. I think whatever we decide to do should go out with the fall update. I just think it's premature to be sending it out before it's been voted, implemented, whatever's happened. This is annual town meeting. I think we should get down to the business of the budget and where we stand and what the outlook looks like. Those are my thoughts. I have a lot of littler things that I can come and sit down with you on.

And you'll be able to get those to Megan this week? Yes. Okay. So I know there's a lot in here about the schools, but this is a really big change. And town meeting, Testa, Ulfelder, Wellesley, Councilor Sussman, Jop, Largess, Sullivan Woods, Testa, Ulfelder, Wellesley, Councilor Sussman, Jop, Largess, Sullivan Woods, Testa, Ulfelder, Wellesley, Councilor Sussman, Jop, I think it's incumbent upon us to include all the explanation that's in here so that when people see the explanation they'll understand exactly what the breakout means. I think just to break it out without all of the explanation, doesn't fulfill what we said we were going to do and the directions we gave the staff. We gave the staff very explicit directions about how to break it out.

and I think we owe it to town meeting to be explicit about, for example, schedule 19 is not the full panoply of shared costs, for example. Most people don't even know what Schedule 19 is. I think that's very important. And I would also distinguish this from the budget. If you want to look at the budget, you can look at the budget book. The Townwide Financial Plan is meant to be this year and Outyears. So I think explaining where we are and where we're going are equally important. If you want the numbers for the budget, you can go to the budget book.

Well, the only thing I'd say, Marjorie, is the first 10 pages are really the executive summary of the overall document. And then we get to the table of commons. of Contents, where for those who only want to see, you can just go to each section. Or just look at the Sources and uses are what have you for the budget.

Other comments?

Go ahead. So I personally think this is exceptionally well done and very easy to understand. So I have two comments. One is I agree with Marjorie in terms of the school budget. I think this lays it out in a way that people who aren't in the weeds can really understand like this is 65-35 split and here's how you get there and we did a cost allocation I feel like personally it's at the level that it should be at especially in this year in the first time. Now, maybe in a few years we don't need that level of detail going forward, but that chart in there I think is great. so it is very dense but I also found it and I'm not a hundred percent way through it but I feel like it's

I feel like it's really well done and it's at a level that people can understand but also gives them enough detail to really be able to drill down one question on the AC so is it equipment because of the way it's proposed being like the Is it window units or is anything? Because it's not like a, what's the word?

It's not like a VRS system or like, think about Warren HVAC. That's a system. Yeah. and so we went back and forth with actually we went back and forth initially with Hilltop our consultants and they said we just got to go to bond council with this. But that is because they're window units and each window unit only has a lifespan of 10, a useful life of 10 years. That's where the borrowing gets diminished to five years. It just so happens it's a very unique situation.

So I do think that the time-wide financial plan is appropriately constructed. And just as a reminder, what we did maybe over the past two or three years is really look at all the time-wide financial plans since they started in 2006. and the evolution of them and really trying to have the executive summary, the table of contents, what people expect to see in it in an order that they are used to so that if you want to see something in particular you can if you're a very experienced town meeting member and there's certain things you like to focus on you can see that But I think it's critically important that the executive summary highlights the major issues that time meeting members are being asked to focus on, which is up front and center. and then it goes through highlights of the budget. So both things are there and not just the policy or the big issues but the key elements are right in the first 10 pages.

I think it's appropriate what we've got discussed here about the Townwide Capital Planning Committee and we had in this letter last year we basically had called out to town meeting members that there was an issue, an emerging issue for them to consider and we felt that there needed to be more support for town meeting members, residents everyone involved really to be able to have a more holistic picture and we're addressing that and I don't think it's not fully baked at all I think we've been discussing it you know for I mean a year now at this point you know a year now we've been discussing that capital planning needed some more structure around it and we've been talking about the detail of this plan since our retreat in June. So I don't think it's not fully baked. I think it is a mature proposal. And I think it needs to be discussed in there.

And later on tonight we're talking about voting on its implementation. Tom.

I agree with the comments that have been made about the school budget, but I would add that you and I met with the chair and vice chair of the school committee today. to review their comments about the section on the town-wide financial plan and at no time did they address any concerns about the length. They had some specific targeted comments that they wish to make. I think the comments were reasonable. You have discussed them with Marjorie and Rachel, I believe. made some adjustments, but I think to Kenny's point, I think the complexity of this change or the perception of complexity about the change deserves this level of information and input. With regard to the capital planning committee, and I'll reserve my comments really for when we're talking about that.

I think it's very appropriate that it is within this town-wide financial plan because I think it's important to generate Testa, Ulfelder, Wellesley, Councilor Testa, Ulfelder, Wellesley, Councilor guide the operation. And this is a starting point. This is an ability to get this information out there so that there can be an informed discussion. about the point and purpose of the capital planning committee. To remove it entirely from here, I just don't think is helpful for the community at large. and I think at this point it's far enough along that it's appropriate timing to do that.

I would agree. And we did preview the fact that we were going to be looking at a way to evaluate our substantial future capital projects in a holistic way. because continuing to look at them one at a time doesn't give town meeting members or residents the ability to see the impact on them and on the town and be able to plan for the long term. and we've been talking we've been looking at drafts since October September. So it's important that town meeting members know the steps that have been taken to address that particular concern, especially since so much of the capital projects are detailed. and the impact on taxpayers is laid out in the town-wide financial plan. I just want to take the opportunity

and several of you have said how well done and comprehensive the plan is and I don't think 50 pages is too long. 50 pages was necessary to convey everything we needed to convey. but I wanted to thank specifically Megan, Corey, Rachel, Tiana, Paul, the entire finance office, Stephanie, Andrea, and the select board office because for those of you who don't know what's been going on here the past few months, They've been working on the budget book, town-wide financial plan, town meeting letter to residents, tomorrow's presentation to advisory, planning the Citizens Leadership Academy. I'm looking at you, Corey. Collective Bargaining, preparing all the articles and motions for town meeting. And that's on top of our own work plan and our own regular meetings. It's an extremely labor intensive time of year. and the work is detailed and demanding and it's not always visible to everybody.

So on behalf of all of us, I wanted to thank you all and to please ask you to also thank your staffs. Okay, so are there any other questions? Any other questions for now on the town-wide financial plan? And everybody will get the rest of their comments to Megan by Friday.

I just want to understand the process. So there are comments going to Megan by Friday, but the final approval of comments is delegated to the chair?

That's the proposal. OK. and if there's anything material or significant, obviously we'll bring it back to the board, but Megan's talking about relatively minor changes in numbers.

Yeah, I mean, the number changes are the cost allocation and any, I mean, I do have to say once CPC is in, depending upon when that comes, we've sort of made a line in the sand. There comes a point because once you change one number, every number changes. These numbers are likely final because CPC is not going to change anything until March 18th, which would be after this. I actually talked about that today. We would update the town-wide financial plan slides at town meeting to make sure they're consistent with the revised sources and uses and obviously that would be reflective in Article 8. But otherwise, this is it.

I think that's a good plan, Megan. And Megan, what are you presenting to advisory tomorrow?

So I have a draft presentation that Marjorie was able to review. I have to make a couple edits. I will send those out to the board first thing in the morning. but it's essentially the same exact materials in terms of the tables in this document it's just parsing those tables out with regards to reserves so showing the the pie charts along with the local and the state funds, our overall budget, which is FY26 as compared to FY27, the out-year projections, the debt table, I am working on a slide just to show how the compounding debt would look in a bar graph for people. And I think that's it actually. There's only about 12 slides which are largely the tables. and the median tax bill and the debt.

Yeah, the slides are really good, so thank you for sharing them with the board. I will send them to the board. I just hadn't had a chance to incorporate Marguerite's comments today.

I think I saw a mountain chart in here. I don't know if I saw it here or somewhere else, but I think that's a really good one. The layered data with the... Yeah, kind of as it rolls off and things come on. I think that's a really... I don't think they have the Death Mountain in there, but we can... I saw it somewhere.

It was healthcare costs. Those were health care costs.

It was showing how health care... So I think that type of chart is really helpful if we could do that again. We could do the Debt Mountain one.

I did it a little different to show more of the impact to the taxpayer, which is tough, but I'll look at the Debt Mountain too.

Okay, I think we're ready for a motion. Move to approve the Townwide Financial Plan, including attachments, and to authorize Chair Marjorie Freiman to finalize the edits.

Second.

All in favor? Aye.

Thank you very much. Okay, now to a policy subcommittee update and I'll turn it to Colette.

Okay, so I just want to remind those who are watching tonight where we are in the process. So the select board added the development of a time-wide capital planning committee to its work plan in June 2025, following rising concerns over planned capital debt exclusions as highlighted in last year's time-wide financial plan. and presented to annual town meeting in March 2025. The policy subcommittee led the development of the draft proposal and the select board took up the proposal for discussions multiple times in 2025 and to be specific it was September 30th October 28th, November 18th. Following that, the draft proposal was circulated to department heads and board chairs and I led the roadshow taking the draft proposal to multiple boards for feedback. The detailed feedback was circulated and discussed by the board on February 10th. The main discussion points at that meeting included raising the dollar threshold where proposals would be reviewed by the committee,

discussing the inclusion and descriptors of strategic plans and other resources in the document, specifying expertise for the citizen appointee and committee membership. The board came to consensus on everything except voting membership and the document remains as it was drafted, which largely reflects majority consensus from our discussions. In the packet, there's a red line of the changes that we talked about in our meeting. And so the direction I got was to incorporate that feedback from the board and bring back a proposal tonight for a final vote. So the version circulated in the packet incorporates the feedback from our February 10th discussion. I do want to just touch on some of the citizen speak we had tonight. I've received a number of emails in the last few days that indicates there's a misunderstanding of the select board's role in capital planning the rights of independent boards to bring forward capital projects within the town bylaws

the Established Capital Budget Process and the Proposed Townwide Capital Planning Committee. So I'm aware some residents may be watching and just beginning engagement with the process so I think some level setting might be helpful here. In 1989, Town Meeting transferred the authority from a previous capital budgeting and investment committee to the select board. the select board is thus charged to annually coordinate the preparation and maintenance of the long-range capital budget program and that's town bylaw 19.5.2 the select board has discussed and specifically referenced in the town-wide financial plan presented in 2025 that planned capital projects in the coming 10-year period are anticipated to approach or exceed 400 million dollars and that translates into approximately $2,300 increase to the median tax bill. The current capital plans would result in a series of significant debt exclusions over the next four years.

The Select Board has expressed concerns about the sustainability of this pressure on taxpayers and is currently discussing the establishment of a standing committee to advise the Select Board in capital planning. based on municipal best practices, guidance from the Government Financial Officers Association and the Department of Local Services. the advisory committee has for several years asked for more insight into the prioritization of capital projects and included a statement of support in the select board of the select boards and I'm going to quote here open quotes focus on analyzing prioritizing and presenting the town's major capital projects to town meeting members and the town as a whole close quotes that's in the town's 2025 annual report the select board has taken no actions to change the bylaw allowing any board official or registered voter to bring an article and thus a capital project to town meeting. That's town bylaw 8.12.

The Select Board did have initial discussions over whether a bylaw change should be considered to establish this committee or to review bylaws that could potentially override the capital planning process. the select board decided not to take that approach and has instead set up an advisory committee to advise the select board on its capital planning responsibilities As the person who's leading this work, I have spent zero time on looking into changing the bylaws. That would require an incredible amount of work. It would require initial meetings with town council a lot of review of bylaws in our peer towns it would require agenda items on the policy subcommittee it would require a lot of work and the policy subcommittee is Kenny and myself It would require a lot of legwork by the policy subcommittee to bring forward something for the board to think about in terms of changes to the bylaws. And that would also incur a lot of discussion at the select board.

That has not happened. So as part of the Select Board's preparation to discuss and vote on the establishment of the committee, me as a member of the Select Board did conduct the roadshow which was presenting the Tidewine Capital Plan to multiple elected and appointed boards including school committee and answering questions and taking feedback. The detailed feedback from all those discussions I had with multiple elected and appointed boards it's on the select boards policy subcommittee web page at the very bottom of that page and so the feedback has been overwhelmingly positive every board we talked to thought it was a great idea to establish the committee they had their feedback they had their questions which we addressed in that memo and worked into the proposal as appropriate and as the board came to consensus doing that.

I think it's important to understand that the current proposal includes a school committee as a voting member because it's best practice and due to the magnitude of capital projects brought forward by the school committee. School committees are supportive of establishing this committee. I think we had certainly had one discussion earlier in our deliberation on this that had this town-wide capital planning committee been in place the action taken at town meeting to move something basically from the out years in the capital plan to the forward years in the capital plan might not have been necessary because every year all of the proponents of major projects would have come together to talk about the prioritization of capital projects. My understanding of what happened with air conditioning is that the proponent, school committee, asked for a study prior to COVID. The study was completed and presented to the school administration.

I don't think there was an extensive presentation to school committee at that time and given COVID and other things that happened the school committee did not take that article or that Capital Project and move it forward in the capital plan. I think if there had been a committee having discussions every year about what was on the capital plan, how things should be addressed, how things should be advanced, that might not have happened. That was part of our discussions. So at this point I think I'll highlight I think I've already said there were two or three changes in the last The last go-around, there was the only matter that came up we did not have consensus on was voting membership. It is drafted as per the majority consensus in the discussions I heard. So at this point, I think we need to take any further comments before we move to a vote. Gord. Tom.

I do have one comment about the membership, actually, and I apologize for not raising this earlier. It really just is something I've been thinking about recently. You know, we have heard comments about there being two select board members on the panel. and it leads me to consider whether we ought to evaluate a different way of appointing the citizen. Testa, Ulfelder, Wellesley, Councilor Levin, whether it might be done along with the members of the capital planning committee. I think that would go Testa, Ulfelder, Wellesley, Councilor Testa, Ulfelder, Wellesley, Councilor Testa, Ulfelder, Wellesley, Councilor Testa, Ulfelder, Wellesley, Councilor I certainly agree with the requirements that there be a financial and reconstruction background for this individual.

I think we've seen such requirements work so well on the permanent building committee, for example. but I do wonder if there isn't a slight adjustment to how we raise and appoint the citizens representative that might assist in terms of community confidence in the operation of the committee.

sorry this this is a little scripted but uh i wanted to be careful in how i said this so i've said this all along i support the concept of a town-wide capital planning committee um i think given the size of the operating budget and the scale of the proposed capital projects, coordination is a very important tool. And I think a well-structured committee would be a valuable vetting tool for these projects. but I cannot support this proposal as currently framed. First of all, the composition of the board matters a great deal. From the beginning of this entire process, I've said the most important issue to me is who sits on this committee. if the body is giving if a body is going to evaluate and prioritize projects that affect the town land and facilities then in my view every landowning board or committee should have a voting seat on the committee. Representation is essential to the credibility, balance, and trust of the committee which is I think what Tom was alluding to.

there. And second, I'm going to address this point directly, Colette. We need to be completely transparent with the town about the scope of what is being proposed here. In a recent article in a Meet the Candidates article in the Swellsley report included the following statement regarding capital planning committee. prioritization needs to be enforceable and as presently we're in town bylaw permits any department to submit capital projects directly to town meeting in the future town meeting will be asked that's not maybe asked will be asked to to consider a change in the bylaws that would recognize the list of prioritized projects as the order in which they will be presented to the town meeting. Again, it did not say may be asked. It says will be asked. This is not a minor procedural tweak. It's a significant structural change. and these two issues are directly connected.

If we are going to contemplate a bylaw amendment that would strip independent boards and committees of their ability to bring capital projects directly to town meeting, that it is even more critical that those same boards have a voting seat at the table where prioritization decisions are made. You can't centralize a pathway to town meeting and at the same time exclude affected boards from the prioritization process. If the intent is to amend the bylaws and make this committee's prioritization enforceable, that needs to be clearly acknowledged now before we sign up the committee to do anything in my view. Any discussion that treats this merely as advisory fails to capture the magnitude of what at least arguably is being proposed. So until we resolve both the composition and scope, I do not support moving forward with this.

Do you want me to address some of those things? Or do you want me to ask you for comment?

Yeah, so I wrestled with this committee consistently. I think you all are aware of that. I wrestle with the fact that originally when presented, it was presented as going to have a bylaw component. and then we shifted, I think Colette the recommendation was to try it out for a little bit and then go forward for the bylaws. So I do believe we did speak about Bylaw, and it seemed to be embraced by some board members. So I do think the intent of this committee is to create more of a gatekeeping role. I read the bylaw today that governs our role on capital planning. I believe that this recommendation oversteps our scope.

Our scope is to work with the other proponents of capital plans to compile and to collaborate with them on the order where when I read through the intent here, it seems to empower the members of the committee to really vet, modify, and determine whether a project goes forward or doesn't go forward. And I don't believe that is within our scope. So I think that As constructed, this committee has too much authority for an advisory role.

the other pieces, I do wonder if we're creating a long range capital plan, the fact that all the seats turn over every single year, potentially, doesn't seem to me to give good stability to a long-range plan and the ability to understand the decision making and be able to respond to things that come up. And I would say, Air Conditioning came up and it accelerated because we had new schools and it created inequity. Now it hit a pause button because of COVID or whatever I don't know what happened there but it was a health and safety and education issue it was timely I don't want to close the gate on a timely need in this community.

And I think as constructed, this seems to have the intention maybe maybe it wouldn't happen but it has the intention and the capacity to gatekeep so I am uncomfortable with that. I mean, planning is a fabulous thing to do. I actually think we do a good job of planning and prioritizing. I don't think the committee composition is correct. I actually don't think there's any guarantee that the members of the different boards have the expertise to evaluate. different projects coming before them and the burden seems to be heavily on these members to vet the projects based on project scope

I think the facilities maintenance department partnering with the boards does a much better job of vetting and I wouldn't want this group to get into reshaping a board's project, particularly a board that's not represented at all. I think that there's an opportunity for minority voices either at the table or not at the table. to have their projects waylaid. So I don't believe we are there in terms of approving this.

I'm just going to go back through some of the points. I think in terms of the question about membership, should the citizen representative be something that is basically appointed by the members of the committee? I'm certainly willing to entertain that. I think that the way that we have identified the specialized needs of the citizen member being construction or construction finance really make sure that we have someone at the table who is qualified to fulfill the role that we're looking for and it's not going to be so someone who's a kind of, for want of a better word, a political appointee to favor one border another.

I think it's important to remember that this is a committee, an advisory committee established by the select board to help the select board do its work. there's nothing wrong with it being majority select board either members or appointees because it's helping us do our work. I don't think there was a sense, I certainly wasn't directed to weaken or adjust the responsibilities of the select board. It was to help the select board do its work. So if the board wants to take up a slight amendment to say that the resident is going to be somebody that is appointed by consensus of the committee, I'm happy to entertain that. The other comment that was raised, I mean, we've talked about how we all feel about landowning bodies having a voting seat on the committee.

I don't think it's appropriate for a board who has 5% of the square footage of buildings in the community to have the same voting voting membership as, for example, the School Committee or the Board of Public Works, who have vastly more capital projects in the pipeline. I just don't think that that's appropriate. It is not best practice. We've talked about the fact that I've used 100 municipalities and I've only seen the library represented twice, once as an ex-official, once as a voting member. And in that case, when it was a voting member, it was because the committee was essentially looking at cash capital as well as larger cash projects. and this is not what we are doing. I think the question about this We need to be very transparent with the town here. I can only speak for myself.

We discussed before, and I certainly at the very, when we first brought this around, I thought that the path forward, the appropriate path forward, was to establish this committee through bylaw because I thought it was more transparent. I thought if we took it to town meeting and established it by bylaw, then there would be some trust created in the committee. this board didn't want to do that. So I do say that I, at that point, thought if we were going to establish the committee by bylaw, We had to, I'd say, being thoughtful about it taking something from soup to nuts, we should look at all the bylaws about capital and if there's something that is conflicting and could potentially override the capital planning process, we at least had to talk about it. that was that was my I put that on the table this board didn't want to do that and I have to say now at this point now we've gone through so much work with the capital planning committee I think it's very important that we don't change the bylaws right now

I think this committee has to do its work and show what it can bring to the capital planning process, which I think we've heard both from time meeting, from advisory, from staff, it's not working as I think we need it to do so we need to make some changes I can certainly speak for myself I have no intention of bringing forward a town meeting by-law change and if this board decided to do that and we can't bind a future board from doing that, it needs to go to time meeting and time meeting needs to vote on it. So that's up to them whether they want to change or not. Not up to us, that's up to them. and so I can only say for myself, I have no intention of bringing that forward. I want to be really clear on that. So I think, Beth, your comment, we're shifting it for a little while. I mean, I hope I'm clear. I'm not done with my comments, Beth. So this committee is going to do its work.

I think we will probably have iterations on how the committee works. And I think that is certainly important to share. that this committee will learn some things in its first years, and we might change some things. And we should allow this board to do that, however this board is composed. Let me see. I don't think that this committee doesn't overstep the bylaw because it's advisable to us. Nothing is changing in what the select board has to do. This is going to help us do our work. and there's been several comments that the members of the committee don't have the experience. I don't think that's true. I think members of the Board of Public Works. I think capital planning is a big part of what they do. I think they do have very good experience with this. They certainly had good capital planning questions when I spoke with them. I think, and I said this last time, that school committee always pretty much has a capital project on the burner.

The permanent building committee, they are conversant with the capital concepts and what we're doing here. and I think we need them at the table because we have to come together. We have to make some decisions together as a town and I think that's important. I think Let me see, I think there was one other point. This is not a gatekeeper. This is a committee that's making recommendations to us in the work that we're doing. And let me see. I think FMD partnering with Bodies To Do does a much better job. Well, we wouldn't be in this situation now if it was working. It's not working. And so we do need to make some changes. There are certainly opportunity for any board that has any project coming forward to have a voice at the table in the same fashion that the permanent building committee does that. and I think there's one other point.

I think I've covered everything, but if there's something else, I'll come back to it. Anyway, that's my feedback on that.

So I just want to circle around to the PBC analogy because for me the PBC analogy doesn't, it doesn't resonate with me because PBC helps a proponent refine and shape and execute their project, their project's approved. So for me, this is a very different process. This is a group of people for whom A board is not the, so let's just say you're the NRC and you want to, I don't know, redo, I'm going to pick on Fullerbrook again because it was a large project. You don't have a vote? you're allowed to go to the meeting and advocate for your project but you don't have a vote and you are not working collaboratively to execute a project. Your project's not approved.

So the PBC relationship is a series of experts that help you bring your project to life when it's funded. This is not that. This is getting yourself on the list, on the prioritized schedule. and so I think the analogy for me, PBC is truly independent. Whoever the proponent is, they help them execute the project in the strongest way possible and they have a series of acknowledged expertise sets that are independent and designed around executing that project. So I just want to tell you that analogy doesn't work for me, but thank you.

I just wanted to address that.

So Fullerbrook is actually an excellent example because what happened is NRC began that project alone under the exact premise that you're talking about. and there were so many questions through advisory that they actually created the Fullerbrook Committee which is arguably akin to what the Townwide Capital Planning Committee would be and brought in DPW, select board, planning board, and others, residents to review that and refine that project and essentially start over. and answer a lot of the questions from outside in terms of, are there alternatives? What other mechanisms could we use? Is there grant funding? What should we do for the river? Historical was brought in as we looked at making it part of the National Register.

and so arguably we essentially set up a committee akin to the Townwide Capital Planning Committee which really is what having sat on that committee pushed that project forward.

There was one question I didn't address. One of your comments was that the number of years having one year membership doesn't build institutional knowledge. The reason it was drafted that way is twofold. We have recent experience of I would say a committee member behaving inappropriately at committee meetings. And this gives their board a chance to remove that member after a year. otherwise it's very difficult if you appoint someone for three years they're there for three years and they can derail meetings and we see that all the time that's number one number two is each board has their own work plan and depending on it's up to each board who's represented here it's up to them to determine their appointee what their bandwidth is and what they can feel that they can cope with during that year and who's the makeup of the board and so that's really out of respect to the boards who are going to be members of this committee. And I will say one more thing about PPC.

You may not like the analogy, you may feel it's different, But in their bylaws, only school committee are a voting member. They treat school committee differently. And so I think it's important to know that. And so we have treated school committee as a big capital project driver. So I have nothing else to add.

Well, I'm not going to repeat what Colette said, but I have a couple other thoughts about this. Whether or not you think the process has been working, and there's obviously a difference of opinion, There's nothing wrong with advocating for a new process that people think might work better. And with more than $400 million of capital projects, that will probably raise the median tax bill by more than 33% over the next 10 years. it's time to try something new. And we don't want to lose the sight of the fact that we're going to have finance staff, executive director staff, FMD staff, The people on the committee are not discussing this and parlaying their own board's interest.

Ahead of everybody else's in a vacuum. It's just what Joe does now. And it's taking the same kind of plan that Joe has now, going through consistent and objective criteria to help everybody figure out what the town can tolerate, what taxpayers want to pay for, how the best way is to fund it. I mean, we need Megan and Rachel to tell us how we're going to afford these projects and how we're going to phase them. You look at the town meetings, we have eight or nine successive debt exclusion votes in every single town meeting coming up after two years. and we need to work together to put all that together. We're gonna have the Fire Master Plan, we're gonna have the DPW Master Plan,

and school committees discussing the school facilities master plan, those three plans will be voted and vetted by those departments and boards and no project is funded until town meeting votes it. So it's no different than putting it to town meeting. We are charged with creating this capital plan under the bylaws. We don't want to confuse the bylaw review committee with this committee, which is not changing bylaws. That's a completely different committee. We've made it clear here we are not changing bylaws and I think that's a red herring and I think it's a little gaslighting and I think it's a little bit of people being overly concerned that there isn't going to be fair representation from boards and departments on these projects. and in fact school air conditioning is going forward to fall town meeting.

It is not going to be put on the back burner as was alleged in an email we got today. I think that's an unfair characterization. I don't see that we should be continuing to do our work without this. It is an advisory committee. The select board has final determination of what goes into the budget. and Town Meeting has final determination of what's voted in the budget.

So Marjorie, can I just, when I looked through, because I've been giving this a lot of thought, I looked through the really terrific notes that Colette gave us on every single board's feedback, which was really helpful. I did see very clearly and I watched the meetings I didn't see enthusiasm among the boards for this and I did see the note in one of the feedback from the schools was that they were very concerned about the composition of the committee.

I think that's a mischaracterization, Beth, because they said that they were, and let me address your points, they said that they thought that this was a good idea and they supported the establishment of this committee. they wanted to have more members on the committee and I addressed that question you know if we were going to add more members to the committee that's up to us to decide and so that's up to us to decide that. But they were not unenthusiastic about this. They think this is a good idea and supported it. as did many other boards and that's why almost every single board it says they support this process and my comment is no action necessary that's in there.

It does say could a project be blocked because it has two members of the select board on five person committee and an appointee. So whether or not you change who appoints, there is a waiting on the committee and they express the concern. I'm just putting it out there that I mean, in fairness, you did a really beautiful job reflecting all of the feedback. I'm just putting it out there that there seems to be conceptual alignment, but maybe we aren't there yet in our composition.

and so I think their question is could we block something? And that assumes that the select board is not doing their job as the chief executive for the whole town. We're charged with that. We didn't block Hardy and Honeywell. We were members of the school building committee. I think that might be a legitimate question, but I think that that is not respecting the diligence that slug board members do when they take their oath of office and the responsibilities we have. And I don't think that this board would do that.

So let's go back to Tom's comments, which is something I suggested to Colette a while back. Would it make a difference if all the members of the committee, voting and ex officio, came to a consensus about the appointment about the fifth member and it was not the select board.

I'm fine with that.

that addresses your concern about the overweighting aside from the fact that it's our own committee.

That doesn't address my concern.

Would you like that change?

to me that would be better than it currently is but it doesn't get me over the hump because it doesn't address my actual issue understood okay

So we're not changing bylaws. We've made a proposal about changing how the membership is structured. And I think we've all said what we want to say.

Can I just address one thing that you said? You said it was a red herring and it was gaslighting. You may be referring to some comments that people sent into the select board. You may be referring to what I just said. I don't think it's either of those because people are reacting to something that was said in a straightforward, absolute manner.

but it wasn't representing the board.

I get that. It wasn't the select board but it was from somebody on the select

and so if somebody, I mean, but I...

I understand. All I'm saying is this is a reaction to something. It is not being pulled out of thin air.

Right, and I've really tried to address that.

And I appreciate that.

I've reached out to people to offer my time to meet with them and talk with them. There was a few email exchanges. No one took me up on my offer to... Call, Zoom, Meet. And this has been going on for a long time. And I've had almost no one reach out to me to say, tell me more about this outside the roadshow and things like that. I'm happy to spend time on this. I don't think anyone came to my office hours to talk to me about this. and I've responded by email to several questions. Everything that I said in my emails I said tonight so that you guys all know what I say and I'm complying with open meeting law. which is complicated. But on behalf of the board and what this board has decided and what we are moving forward, I think I've been really clear about that.

Collette, can I ask you? So we have the potential of $400 million in projects over the horizon. This committee, is it your expectation that this committee would reduce the scope of projects That's my first question. And then is it your expectation this committee would remove projects?

I think that this committee is going to have good conversations where the proponents will be thinking about what is it that is reasonable to put forward and there is going to be some master planning done that's going to help us in this process. So master plan for the DPW is we have asked very clearly to have that come back with us, not master plan, their feasibility. into how can we break it down into smaller pieces? How can we move it into a different phasing? Those discussions will happen with the proponents at those committees to say, together do we think this is achievable no well what can we do about it and those are the discussions are going to have make a recommendation to us what that's going to be I don't know so no I'm just trying to

Understand, do you imagine this committee will reshape projects that are brought forward by proponents?

I think that's the proponent's job to reshape its project but this committee will have feedback to say we'll evaluate the proposals and say these proposals evaluate highly and if it's health and safety if it's there's certain all projects are going to be evaluated in the same criteria how do they stack up what does the committee think about about a prioritization of them

is the, and do you imagine, yeah, sure.

This is a capital planning committee. This is not a committee that is being designed to reshape or kick projects out of a wish list by a board. The idea is to figure out whether and how we can afford to do them if town meeting wants to vote for that funding. it's not about evaluating a project, it's evaluating how we're gonna pay for them. So I think we need to look at it from that standpoint, because the funding is going to have to go to town meeting. The committee could recommend every single project and when it comes to a town meeting could say, no, we don't want to fund that. Town Meeting is the ultimate arbiter of all these capital projects. We will present them and decide what we put in the budget, but it's up to Town Meeting. This is not a how are we going to change this project to our liking committee. Megan.

The other thing to that point where I do think this committee plays a critical role is so let's say town meeting moves it forward and then the voters turn it down. Well, what are the alternatives? What is the backup plan? Because right now, none of these capital projects have a backup plan. and so some of them thinking about DPW in particular. How do you then phase that project? How do you prioritize elements that are critical to operations? just using that as a particular example. Are there, you know, what's the fail-safe? Because there's things that have to go forward, and then there's things that... There's some things that could be considered amenities. How do you reprioritize those? Or is there a way to create any type of synergy between projects for better pricing or funding?

So I think there's a lot to be had when you look at the projects holistically instead of looking at the meta silo, which has, I think, been the message all along. And I think when you aggregate those, which you'll see in the town-wide financial plan, the cost implications are significant and residents need to understand that. And they may certainly choose to fund them all. and within the same timeline and the capital planning committee maybe through messaging addresses that. I find it highly unlikely that all of the projects would be funded and so I do think you also need to be contemplating what the alternatives are or and other project components that may be moving forward ahead of potentially other aspects of a project.

It's also really important to look at the criteria that will be used to evaluate the projects. It is not going to be a free-for-all of people evaluating a project based on personal opinion. The criteria are very clear. Benfit to the community, strategic alignment with the town's long-term goals, urgency, needs, sustainability, compliance with regulations, cost and budget impact, risk assessment, feasibility, These are criteria that any responsible capital planning group would use to evaluate how they're going to phase and fund projects and put them forward to the voters. It's not a subjective process, it's very objective.

I just want to touch on the question Beth raised about a five-member board blocking something. Really what that question, what the heart of that question was because I spoke to the member that said that is we don't want to go back to the time when our capital assets were unmaintained and I think we've as a community, we've really learned a lesson that we don't want to leave our maintenance of our capital assets. And that's something that's reflected in my answer is, the mission statement of the committee is intended to ensure maintenance of town assets in a fiscally responsible manner and that the core values of the community in the unified plan include maintaining and protecting town facilities that's the response to that question there really was a question was we don't want to happen what happened to our schools happen again you know and that's that's really I think something the community has learned not to do

Well, if FMD could tell you anything, it would be all the additional costs we've had from delayed maintenance. Tom?

Well, I was just going to say that I using words like gatekeeping, vetting, modifying, I don't think are helpful or accurately reflecting the language of this committee as it's proposed. I think what we're really dealing with is an excellent staff as ex officio members applying the criteria objectively. So the focus really should be on whether we feel that we have captured and others within an effective evaluation process the criteria that are necessary for that goal. And I think to have the DPW Leibniz, and so on. And I think that FMD as ex officio members makes an enormous difference in terms of how well and objectively the criteria are applied.

That's what then becomes the subject of the discussion that the members are going to have. So I think, Marjorie, your point is well taken about Testa, Ulfelder, Wellesley, Councilor Testa, Ulfelder, Wellesley, Councilor Testa, Ulfelder, Wellesley, Councilor A good example is if there had been resistance to the Honeywell School when I was serving as vice chair of the school building committee, it would have been erased by the fire. that took place towards the end of that evaluation. That fire in that building highlighted the deficiencies in the electrical system and made it quite clear why that Project needed to go forward and needed to go forward now.

And it did under an 18 month accelerated construction program and has turned out to be an absolutely beautiful elementary school that the community Love. So I think Wellesley has demonstrated a capacity and willingness to pay attention to issues of safety, to issues that make a project emergent and to be flexible in terms of very prioritizing what has to move forward quickly.

So I think Tom just brought up a really good point. You're going to have experts as ex officio members. So Megan and Joe and others and whoever comes after them are going to be experts on this type of thing. who's ever appointed by the school committee or the select board may or may not be an expert. We just don't know who they're going to appoint to do this. So if you have the experts there that are advising and this is an advisory committee, I don't know why it we can't have landowning boards all represented on that because essentially they're going to ingest the feedback of the true experts and make a decision. and so I think they should be representative almost precisely for the point Tom highlighted. And again I support this conceptually. It's the voting membership that gets me.

I mean, I can't see any more of what I've said before is that, yeah. No, but I mean...

Both of our views are well known.

Yeah, but it's... because one thing I haven't said tonight is when you have everyone at the table it becomes advocacy and not planning and that's what the Government Financial Officers Association wants to guide you against.

I think the minute you have if you're a non-voting member you are an advocate if you're a voting member you have authority and I think there's a big difference

maybe but it's our responsibility and these are the people who have capital projects I mean I think it's just it's bad practice no one else does it anyway I'm gonna leave it at that

It's actually why I had no issue with the library and the NRC represented as ex officio members through through their department heads. I think that, and thinking about the two people who would fill that role now, they are more than capable of bringing forward for example, Morses Pond, the Morses Pond project's an excellent example where I think if Brandon had been on board and participating actively early on Article 97 land and the implications and restrictions that attach thereto would have come forward at a much earlier date and we would have had a project come out the other end of the initial feasibility study that look more like the project that is going forward now. And I certainly think that Jamie is more than capable of

representing the interests of the library and the library's perspective. You know, they have certainly done an excellent job with the renovations that they have done in their buildings. But I I also am persuaded, and I asked this question I believe at a recent meeting, that this committee in the makeup represents best practices as seen throughout all of the research that Colette did and all of the communities. I mean, she addressed how many communities have the library is a voting member, for example. And I have to accept the research that's been done about what the membership looks like. And I think I even asked, are there communities where there has been concern expressed that the library, for example, was missing?

as a voting member, and I believe the answer was no to that question. And I think the other thing is, I don't think that the Select Board is ever going to stand in the way of evidence that suggests there ought to be a change. If going forward there was a need, a need became evident to change the membership, I think there would be a full discussion. of that, and strong consideration of changing the membership. I think this board has shown a capacity to do that and an interest in doing it. So I don't think that I think this committee needs to operate for some period of time and I don't think we know how long that is. and I think it needs to operate in a way that develops trust and respect within the larger community and within town meeting.

and I think that both the community and town meeting need to see the output and and to see the deliberations of this committee and the recommendations to be satisfied that the committee is doing its job in an effective, meaningful way. and I think then further changes might be made or might not be made, but it'll be made in the face of community input, town meeting input, about how it's working or how it might not be working from their perspective. And town meeting perspective on that very question is critical because they're the ones that are going to be asked to respond by vote to the recommendations that are made.

And the committee is going to be operating in public. It's going to have public meetings with agendas and minutes, and anybody can go and express an opinion at any time. Okay, I think we've heard everybody's points of view on this and I think we're ready for the motion.

So move to approve the time-wide capital planning committee policy.

All in favor? Aye. All opposed? No.

I can give you a brief work plan update if you want. So the next meeting for the policy subcommittee is Thursday this week. I expect that following that meeting we'll be bringing forward a revised naming policy to the board. along with procedures for interactions with the Human Resources Board both on policies should that move forward and the COLA. Kenny, anything you want to add to that from the stuff you're working on?

No, okay, that's it. Okay, thank you very much for all your work on this. I know it's been a lot.

Marjorie, can I ask, the policy on COLA, I'm not familiar with that one.

So this year, it's not policy, it's procedures for us working with the Human Resources Board. So when we set COLA for the guidelines and they talk about COLA for changing the tables, This is the past couple of years we've worked much more closely with the Human Resources Board. And so the Human Resources Chair and Vice Chair asked if we could document how we do that. and so there's an understanding for us in our handbook and them in their handbook about how we do that dance together. We talked about it at the retreat. and I think that you know it would include things like okay what's the timing for the all board meeting when do we have our first discussions with the HR board about you know what their COLA guidance might look like and what their timeframe is and what their research about doing that. And we're looking at, you know, we get the indicators from finance about the close of the year and what we think we can afford, what the capacity is.

Now those two numbers might not always be the same. they normally are but if they're not the same what does that mean and you know how does the dance work so just as you know I think we've done a really good job over the past two or three years working closer together and we've kind of figured things out but there was a request for establishing procedures and putting them in both the handbooks so that we all know what we're doing. And so that's what that is.

Thank you. We haven't discussed that though, right?

We talked about it in concept at the retreat that they'd asked for that as well as procedures about the policies having financial implications so I'm liaison to the HR board so I said I would do that work and we've got drafts which the board has seen the draft procedures for the HR policies if they have financial implications. So we've had our first discussion on that. But I just wanted to bring it to policy subcommittee so that you and I can talk about it.

The language, it's mechanical of how like process timeline.

Okay, let's move on to our next agenda item which is to discuss and vote the town-wide select board letter.

So we submitted that to the board. That would be the letter that goes out to all residential and commercial properties, similar to what we did in the fall. This would be our second, the W select board edition, volume two. So I've received comments from three of the board members, all actually very consistent. So I was hoping today maybe to have a revised draft, but I did not get a chance to do that today. looking for any either if there's anything missing in the letter or generally they were editorial comments I would say to from the board members that have submitted comments so far and then obviously we would link those to either broader messages or tell my financial plan etc once those are finalized.

So one of the things I noticed is I think we should break out all of the large capital projects that are being voted. at Town Meeting. Right now it lists the DPW Master Plan and then it lists the Planning Board comprehensive plan but the comprehensive plan is actually less expensive than a couple of the other kind of larger lumpy things that we're voting separately. So I think we should be comprehensive. If we're going to go from a little under a million to 400,000, we should fill in the middle there.

The only reason why we didn't do that. So comprehensive plan relies on residents participation. So we highlighted that primarily because the secondary line to that is and stay tuned because we're going to need your participation on that. The reason we didn't add all of them is the others are much more perfunctory in terms of maintenance. We wanted to call a DPW master plan in particular because the longer term implications. and I may be able to include them all and we're just pretty confined in space is the main issue but that's why we had called out those two in particular one to draw people's attention to the fact it's a town-wide process for the comprehensive plan and we're going to need your input and two for DPW master plan, because the project, excuse me, the letter will link to all of the major Financial Documents, that particular one to say, hey, this is the feasibility study, and oh, by the way, this is like a $100 million project, so we want you to pay attention to that.

but I will certainly try and fit them all in but that was the rationale behind that.

I guess the one that struck me was Weston Road because there's been so much visibility for Weston Road. The intersection? the past several years that I feel like highlighting that that is also coming and the designs being funded. could benefit from some visibility. I think people might like to know about the playgrounds, but I know it's a little bit different because it's being funded through CPC. I get that, but I feel like if everybody's getting this, we should celebrate the big things that people can feel good about and might want a heads up on.

We'll certainly try and squeeze it in.

Exactly. Yeah, we have to be able to read it. Okay, so any further comments should go to Megan by Friday. The letter took longer to reach residents in the fall than we thought. Mine came after town meeting. So Megan has kind of a drop-dead date to make sure it gets to people in time. So comments to Megan on Friday would be great. In the meantime, do you have a motion?

So move to approve the W select board edition volume two and to authorize Marjorie Freiman to make final edits.

Second. All in favor?

Aye. Okay. Thank you. I have a very brief chair's report. Tonight at the school committee meeting School Committee will be voting on changes in class offerings and credits, including AP and evolutions, based on the presentations that have already been made. Nikki said there were no changes since those presentations. They're also getting updates on district goals and for the first time they are going to be more metrics based. School committee asked for metrics. they will review a second quarter budget update and the most significant change was that there are new three new out of district placements Niki did not know what level the students are or consequently for how many years those expenses would be in place but that was the

have a major new issue in terms of the budget and they'll also have their first discussion of the school facilities master plan I emphasize to Nikki how important it is for them to begin the process now so that with DPW and FIRE we have plans for the major projects anticipated over the next 10 to 15 years. Nikki expects some questions and discussion because two members of school committee will be new as of next week. and they will discuss it at at least one more school committee meeting if not two but also expect to have it voted in time for annual town meeting the public hearing as you heard for the town meeting warrant at advisory is tomorrow night and Megan will present the budget and town meeting articles Meaghan posted a meeting for our board so if we have a quorum that we have a posted meeting. Advisory will begin voting on articles next Wednesday, March 4th.

meetings are currently scheduled for votes the 4th, the 5th, and the 11th, although Madison thinks they might not need all of that additional time. and I have office hours this Thursday depending on the snow it may be all remote or Hybrid in Town Hall and on Zoom. If anybody wants a 15-minute appointment, please email me at mfreiman at wellesleyma.gov. and that's all I have for chairs. And we will be moving into our executive session.

Yeah. So given that the schools haven't approved that they're requesting a master plan, are we premature in writing it up in the townwide financial plan and the W update? Just seems like we might be a little ahead of their own process.

Well, we've asked them and we've discussed it with the chair and the vice chair and it's coming to special town meetings, not coming to annual. So, I mean the thought is that we've requested that one be begun.

Yeah, we've moderated the language so that they're still contemplating it.

It looks more concrete in the version I read.

It'll be softer. More Prospective. Thank you Beth, that's a good point. Okay, I request a motion to enter into executive session. to conduct strategy with respect to bargaining with the Wellesley firefighters and to discuss strategy with respect to potential litigation with Albany Road Wellesley LLC

as I declare having such discussions in open session may be detrimental to the town.

and Testa. . . .