Select Board December 2, 2025

I'd like to call to order the meeting of the Wellesley Select Board, November, sorry, December 2nd, 2025, in a hybrid platform. We are in the Giuliani Room and Town Hall. and also accessible on Wellesley Media, Comcast Channel 8 and Verizon Channel 40 and for later viewing on Wellesley Media as well. We hope everybody had a nice Thanksgiving. Thank you for joining us. Here from the Select Board are Vice Chair Tom Ulfelder, Secretary Coletto Frank, Beth Sullivan Woods, Kenny Largess, and myself, Marjorie Freiman. Smith, Executive Director Megan Jopp, and Assistant Executive Director Corey Testa. Our first agenda item is Citizen Speak, so I'll turn it over to Corey, who has the list of speakers.

Yes, the first one is actually going to be virtual, but I don't see him yet. So I'll ask Gene Mayell to join us in person.

Can you hear me?

Yes. Thank you. We're going to ask Eugene to give us your street.

27, Seaver Street, Wellesley, and Precinct H, and I'm a town meeting member. Thank you.

Thank you. And we're going to ask, we have several speakers, so we're going to ask that you try to limit your remarks to three minutes. Go ahead. Okay.

I just want to say that in the mid-90s I was very involved in getting this property as conservation land. and I want to thank the Select Board for considering challenging the state's plan to sell the MassBay Forest. I'm really proud of the Select Board. I've always felt proud of you all, but I've never said it before, but this is a special moment. in which you have stepped up and to possibly consider legal action. And I want to add that I hope you will use every legal, financial, moral tool to stop the state from selling off this precious land. If necessary, we should go to court, even to a jury trial. That's how strongly I feel. and as a town meeting member, I will stand behind this fight for as long as we have to. The state's proposal would destroy a living century old forest. It has encouraged the public to enjoy

It is also physically and ecologically connected to Wellesley Centennial Park, which most of us thought was all one park and I maintain it is. in effect, officially protected in 96 under Article 97 as permanent conservation land. I suggest we invite Maura Healey to walk the trails, stand at the top of Centennial Hill where she can see, as we have done many times, Blue Hill on a beautiful day and really see what this land is. perhaps then the state would stop calling it surplus as if it were an unused parking lot perhaps then they'd see what it really is and why it must never be sold There are two major legal issues as I see it. I'm not a lawyer, and I hope the lawyers will do everything to advance the strongest arguments possible.

First, we know that Article 97 land protects open space and recreation from being sold to private developers. Courts have ruled that protection is based not only on paperwork, as the state would have us believe, but on long-term public use and state intent. For 45 years, the state has treated this as open public space with the main trail that runs through it named Centennial Reservation Trail. Second, when the legislature protected the town-owned portion in 95, it affirmed that the whole area functions as one connected conservation land. That was the state legislature that voted. There are no divisions shown, no boundaries. It is one on a map, sure, but when you are there, it is one great ecosystem. It is one beautiful piece of land.

The state cannot erase decades of its own actions with a stroke of a pen, legally. If the town stands firm, the courts will see this. We have to stand firm. And that is really part of how we can protect this space. people from across town and beyond beyond this whole state have walked these trails years ago visitors wrote handwritten messages at the top of Centennial Hill and they express how they felt about this park and I took them and put them all over the library along with photographs that was so moving to show what this land actually means to people. We all understand the need for housing, but not at the cost of a functioning forest. MassBay Community College has a barely used parking lot, which I'm sure you all have seen that is visited not much more than anything but then by turkeys and they could use that

and they can put the parking underground and I would suggest that they start considering doing that with other properties too rather than putting parking all out and then using up precious woodlands. Thanks.

Next is Ezra Engelbart on Zoom.

Hi, thank you. This is Ezra Engelbart, 19 Kirkland Circle here in town. I am a town meeting member from Precinct H, and I am the chair of the Trails Committee. I will not be speaking as a town meeting member tonight, but as the chair of the Trails Committee. And thank you for the time this evening. I will keep my comments short. I love what the previous speaker had to say, so thank you for that. I echo all of your sentiments there. And I want to thank the Select Board for their efforts to date to help protect our trail system and our natural resources. These are irreplaceable resources that we need to protect however we can and whatever we have available. To that end, the Trails Committee has led so far to date two guided walks of the area to show not only the trail system that we have and how we've been maintaining it for years, but also what is at stake.

And we have recently added some new signage that went up last weekend that says, you know, now entering MassBay Forest or MassBay Land, now entering, you know, Town of Wellesley Land so that people realize This is not some little piece of property. This is a major piece of the land that they love and that they enjoy. and that it is at risk right now. And to that end, when I published a statement earlier this year about our Belief that this land should be protected. I offered for all these stakeholders in town to contact me personally to take a guided tour of those trails. I continue to extend that invitation to the select board, to everyone on this call and everyone in town and in attendance. Our next guided tour of the area will be December 13th at 10 a.m. departing from that Oakland Street parking lot. As I said, we've run two so far. They've been very well attended. and we look forward to seeing any and all of you on the next and future tours.

So thank you for your time this evening and thank you for your work tonight to protect our trail system.

Thank you very much. The next person is Doug Youngen.

Can you hear me? I'm at 162 Oakland Street. Thank you for the opportunity to speak tonight. I want to thank all the select board members for making the decision to consider potential litigation in regard to the DCAM mass pay proposed development on 40 Oakland Street. I'm only speaking for myself. However, through a multitude of discussions over the past several months, and with 3,143 signatures to date on the petition to reverse DCAM's course of action, many citizens think that the Select Board is now heading in the correct direction. we need your leadership to have DCAM take this land off the surplus list immediately and stop or significantly reduce the development. for MassBay to use this pristine forest, MassBay and DCAM to use this pristine forest and reservation land.

enjoyed for over 300 years by Wellesley residents as a pawn to get funding to pay for upgrading mass-based facilities is clearly wrong and short-sighted. We must assume the intentions of our elected officials were good when they passed the Affordable Homes Act in 2024. This does not mean that every property that was deemed surplus or disposable by the administrators on Beacon Hill was correctly deemed surplus. We must let the Healey administration know that the decision to proceed with the MassBay forest transaction is a mistake. Some people think the 40 acre forest can be saved by placing a high rise housing complex and a parking garage on the 40 Oakland Street parking lot. and a point of clarification from previous, that is full every day of the week. Research shows, so it's not surplus.

Research shows that the large construction projects near forests can cause deforestation, habitat loss, pollution, long-term ecosystem disruption. To put it simply, this project will significantly reduce biodiversity, contrary to Healy administration goals. With this large development, you will have 300, 400, 500 new residents who will use the Centennial Trails daily as their front yard, backyard, and as a dog park. This proposed development will crush Oakland Street and the surrounding neighborhoods. Major infrastructure improvements will need to be made to Route 9 and the connecting roads. What is truly disheartening is to know that all this disruption and destruction will only dent the state's housing goal by less than 1%. Let me say that again, by less than 1%.

once again I want to thank the select board members for hearing us and moving in the right direction the residents are getting highly organized expanding our awareness of all options and we will do whatever it takes to make sure the correct people are listening and understand this project is a mistake thank you thank you very much Ken Pritchard let me get myself off mute

Hey there, Ken Pritchard, 524 Worcester Street. I'm really here just to talk personally about the park and its impact on me for the last 25 years with walking two dogs through there and the joy you get on a daily basis. I was there tonight, even in the rain. I think that people underestimate the amount of pleasure the townsfolk and people who attend the park get Not only just by being out in nature, but by the community that they make with the other dog walkers, other people who just happen to be in the park. I didn't know if we have done any kind of... empirical research on how many people actually use the park on a regular basis in terms of either daily, monthly, weekly, if that data is available and if that has been shared with the powers that be.

um you know my big concern obviously was I agree with everything I've also said but the the thing I'm curious you know once this thing's gone it's gone you know you can't get a forest back um and I have actually reached out to Maura Healy and said hey come come to the park with your dog I heard she has a dog come to the park with your dog and let's take a tour and see what you're actually talking about so anyways that's about all I have to say just anything I can do to help I would like to help I encourage the the town to take any action possible. Less than three minutes.

Thank you. Thank you very much.

Thank you. And last, but certainly not least, Alison Griffin. Not at all.

Hi, I'm Allison Griffin. I'm a resident at 64 Russell Road in Wellesley. I took a few notes, but I'm not going to be as eloquent as the other speakers. I actually decided to get involved with the Friends of Brookside because of... When I heard about this project, I was pretty incensed. It seems pretty illogical to take away green space. to create affordable housing, especially I've lived in this town since 1998 and traffic has only gotten worse. it doesn't seem like the state is proposing any solutions for congestion and it actually will create more environmental issues to have all of that housing in this area so I'm you know it's it as a resident it really didn't sit well with me so I decided to volunteer and I've been helping put out signs well and part of that too is um

It really infuriated me to hear people say, well, you know what? The state's just going to do it anyway, so what can you do about it? And I thought, you know, we live in a democracy. I can show up to my town meeting and tell them that I'm deeply dissatisfied with what the state is proposing to do. I can also volunteer so I've been volunteering and I've been putting out some of the signs that we had made and it's actually been so wonderful because certain neighborhoods where I showed up on the first day with one sign. The neighborhood has slowly been dotted with these signs as they have obviously learned that this is a project and they've put orders in. so word is getting out there the community of people is growing and I think that you know that is the people of Wellesley using their voice to say that we do not want this to go forward

It just sort of seems shortsighted, negligent, and illogical for the state to take away green spaces in a world where we are losing natural resources at an immense rate. the fact that that was never taken into consideration when writing this law is pretty concerning so I want to thank you all for seemingly sticking up for us it's very nice to hear that you are considering those options and I just want to advocate for you know all of the people who are just trying their best to show support just by putting up a sign or signing a petition. And it's been amazing to see the development of that throughout the town just within a week or so. So thank you so much. I appreciate you listening to me. Thank you very much.

That's everyone that signed up in advance.

Is there anyone else who would like to address the board? Okay, we appreciate everybody coming and sharing your comments with us. We also encourage you to write to our state representatives. and legislators and state officials to let them know your viewpoints. They are listening. They have received a lot of email. and it's important to let them know what you're thinking as well as letting us know. So thank you all very much for coming. Our next agenda item is the Executive Director's Report, so I will turn it over to Megan.

Thanks, Marjorie. I just have a few brief announcements. One, I did want to just remind folks that the previously scheduled December 8th Visioning Workshop has been postponed, so that event will not take place. also a reminder that parking is free in our two hour parking spots all through all of Wellesley and the commercial districts that will run through January 2nd We also do want to remind you that it is only two hours, so if you park there for four hours, you likely will get a ticket. The other reminder is that the holiday stroll is this weekend in Wellesley Square on December 7th. That runs basically from 12 p.m. to 5.30 p.m. In addition to that, the town tree lighting will be from... 5 p.m. to 5.30 p.m. at the Wellesley Square Fire Station. So Station 1 at 100 Central Street. And so we welcome everyone to come. There'll be great singers and...

the whole day is really they have so many activities I take a look online and you can see all the different characters that'll be there events etc also wanted to let folks know that our chair Marjorie Freiman will be holding office hours on Friday December 5th between 9 to 10 30. Those will be both in person and zoom appointments. Feel free to email Marjorie directly or email SEL at WellesleyMA.gov and we can arrange that for you. Lastly, we did receive notice today, it has been posted on the website, that there is actually an affordable rental opportunity at Cedar Place at 3 Burke Lane. That's for a three bedroom unit. and I announce that because those are somewhat rare to come up to be quite honest so I wanted to make sure folks are aware that information is on the town's website.

and then lastly today we celebrated not long ago Linda Schelling's 30 years of employment with the town but today we celebrate Lenore Mahoney our ZBA executive secretary today is Lenore's anniversary 30 year anniversary with the town So we want to thank Lenore for all her years of dedicated service, both to the Select Board, whom she worked for for many years prior to taking up the role, but the Zoning Board of Appeals. So I wanted to just thank Lenore.

Can I add one thing Marjorie? I just wanted to make a note that on Wednesday December 2nd at 2pm at the Tolles Person Centre they will be hearing from their consultants on the UMass study and they're going to be presenting the Council on Aging's needs assessment so that might be of interest to residents.

Thank you very much. Our next agenda item, and congratulations, Lenore. 30 years is a long time. Thank you for devoting such a long time and all your energy to the town. It's people like you that make this town so special. and we have an amazing staff and we want you to know that it is greatly appreciated and not taken for granted. Okay, our next agenda item is our consent agenda. We have one item on the consent agenda to vote a change in the alcohol beverages manager at Roach Brothers. The alcohol beverages manager is not necessarily always the same person as the store manager. Michael Pedranti has been the store manager for eight years, is currently TIP certified and the application is now to name him the alcohol beverages manager as well.

once the proposal is approved by the board the change will be vetted by the ABCC and approved officially. Has anybody requested that it be removed from consent? No. Okay. . Move to approve the consent agenda.

Second.

All in favor? Aye. Thank you, Mr. Pedranti, for taking on these additional responsibilities. I'm sure people will be in it on Sunday at noon. just generally Sundays at noon when the alcoholic beverages are made available. Our next agenda item is a public hearing and to vote the tax classification for the coming year. We have our, I'm sorry I'm trying to find it, we have our Board of Assessors here. and Ellen Muller, our Chief Assessor, Chair Arthur Garrity, Steve Burt and Steve Mahoney. Thank you very much, all of you, for joining us. I will be open the public hearing and This is the challenge when you go digital.

The tax classification hearing is required to certify the tax rate for fiscal year 26. and is held for the select board to determine whether there should be a single tax rate applied to all classes of real and personal property or whether there should be different rates of tax assessment for residential and commercial properties. Notice was advertised in the Wellesley Townsmen on November 20th, 2025. The Chamber of Commerce has been informed of the hearing and has expressed their desire for the town to retain the single tax rate. and continues to be appreciative of the town support for the commercial properties. So I will turn it over to Arthur and Ellen. Thank you very much.

Thank you, Marjorie. And thanks to the rest of the select board members and also to Megan and Corey. Good evening. My name is Arthur Garrity. I'm the current chair of the board of assessors. With me at the table tonight is my colleague on the board, Stephen Mahoney. Joining us using the hybrid option is another colleague on the board, Stephen Burt, and our Director of Assessing, Ellen Muller, is joining us at the table. So we have put together a presentation that includes information about the current State of Property Values in the Town. and I'd like to lead you through the materials we've distributed.

I believe you have all of those and walk you through some of the slides that... comprise our report. So the first slide on the screen is the profile of the assessments for the single family and commercial properties in town. And it's designed to show the trend. We have information drawn from years past including going back as far as 2022 fiscal 22 up to the current fiscal year and in this slide we are showing the trend that I think many of us who live in the town can realize and appreciate already namely that values have been continuing to rise in the single family category.

We see this year, for example, that the class 101 single family properties in the aggregate have increased from a shade over $14 billion to almost $14.75 billion of value. and as you'll see on a subsequent slide, that number is drawn from our assessment of the value of essentially the same number of properties or same number as last year. There are a couple of small differences. Sometimes there are properties which move between classes, but for the most part, this change from by almost three quarters of a billion dollars shows an increase among the same

Houses, the same single family residences as last year. And sometimes people ask, well, tell me more about the breakdown. What's the average? What's the middle? And so we show these categories as well on the chart. And I'll share with you My little hint for how I can tell which of these numbers, mean or median, is the middle point and which one is the average. So I start, this is just a little digression, but I hope it helps you like it has helped me. The word average has at the end the word rage, rage. and who might be filled with rage? Well, it's someone who's mean.

So the mean of these numbers is the average and the median is the middle half. half of the properties are above that number half are below. There's also another common term called the mode that you see when you look into these statistical analyses. Mode is the number which has the greatest number of occurrences within the range. So the middle point for our residential single-family properties this year is $1,751,000, an increase of about $100,000 from the prior year. and the average or the mean is a little over $2 million this year. How remarkable is this? The average house is a $2 million house. But that's what the values tell us.

And this is an increase, again, of about $100,000 year over year. and continuing down the chart you'll see that the commercial values have declined in the aggregate. from about 1.5 billion to under 1.5 billion. It's sometimes a conundrum. How can values go up and down by this measure? But the takeaway for you is that commercial properties have declined in value still in the aftermath of

the years of COVID experience, and also just declining economic conditions generally. there are more vacancies in the are slightly lower.

Arthur, can I add something? Sure, Steve. So the commercial on average went down, but they didn't all go down. So there's certain sectors that were hit pretty hard. And so I just wanted to add that.

So the bottom line of this slide shows the tax rate. And I just want to declare the obvious that under the fiscal year 26 column, the number there of $10.17 assumes that the decision made at tonight's meeting will be to preserve a single tax rate. We're not trying to steer that analysis in favor of one or the other. We'll have more to talk about that in another slide. But that's the number which a single tax rate would yield. I could turn to the next slide. This is in many ways a presentation in a different form of some of the facts that are on the first slide. So we see again the...

Testa, Ulfelder, Wellesley, Councilor Sullivan Woods, Testa, Ulfelder, Wellesley, Councilor that's headed levy percentage, the residential part of all the properties in town, they bear approximately 89% of the total tax levy. and the commercial about ten and a half percent. Again, those were the prior year numbers, but We don't know this year because that's what we're here to talk about tonight. But that difference of almost 10 to 1 or 9 to 1,

between the percentage that's born commercial and the percentage residential. is a top line fact that will, I suggest, drive your deliberation about how to sort out whether we're going to have a single rate or a split rate. Next slide, please. So this is a good slide. It tells us how the and how the properties across the town are in different classifications. By far the greatest number of property types in the town are single-family residences. The number this year is 7,319. That's an increase over last year of four properties.

The number of condominiums has gone up by six and is now 672. and part of the explanation for that is that the two family properties went down by four. there were a couple of instances where a two-family was converted into a condominium. So those numbers would reflect that by one rising and then the other falling. We have one more parcel of vacant land than we did last year. And I wondered how that could be. but I don't know the answer. So in case we're, maybe Ellen, do you know the answer?

That would be the net result of a teardown. So there was a house on the property last year and now it's a vacant lot. No foundation as of July 1st.

Right. We measure the physical condition of the property on July 1st each year to decide whether we are going to tax that parcel at 100% if it's completed or zero if it's vacant land. So we look at the values several times over the course of the year. and as you can see the bottom line on this slide is the total value of all taxable properties. There are of course many properties in town which are tax exempt, churches, schools, colleges and so on. as examples, but the total value of $18,238,625,040

is going to come into play when we get to the tax rate calculation on one of the other slides. So the next slide, it talks about the impact of Proposition 2 1⁄2 and the way to understand this slide is to start at the bottom. we take the levy base from last year and then we start adding to it. Proposition two and a half allows for an increase in the total levy of two and a half percent. And so that's the $4 million. $100,290 figure. then on top of that we add in new growth, new construction, additions, renovations, things which don't change the characteristic of the property but increase the value of what's already there.

Maybe I said, I think I said that right.

And also new to the tax roll.

Right, right. So an interesting point about the new growth figure, we have on the slide that it's estimated That's because the new growth numbers need to be certified by the Department of Revenue. And I'm pleased to report that the Department of Revenue approved our new growth calculations yesterday. So this number here is not exactly the final new growth number, but we can represent to you that the actual new growth figure approved by the Department of Revenue departs from this number by such a small amount that it would not change the tax rate calculation. So it's no longer estimated, and it's pretty close to the number that you see here on the slide.

There are no overrides that have been voted. There are some debt exclusions. and when we add those together we come up with a fiscal levy limit for the current fiscal year. Now we turn to the slide which again presents this same analysis in a slightly different format. Here we start at the top. We have the tax levy limit base from the prior year. And now we're going to add the new growth and the Proposition 2.5 percentage increase of 2.5%. No overrides.

And before the debt exclusions, this slide tells us that the amount of money that the town needs to raise is $170,000. The taxes is $170,494,000. and now we're going to add on to that number the required debt exclusion payments for the elementary school, middle school, high school, the North 40 acquisition, and the senior center, those are going to add another 82 cents to the calculation. And so We at the bottom of this slide will harken back to the total of the assessed values of all the properties in town, $18,238,600. No, I said that wrong. $18,238,625,040.

That's the number that you've seen on some of the earlier slides. that's going to be the denominator of our fraction and the levy limit of 185 million is the numerator of this fraction. And when we crunch the numbers, we come up with the tax rate that applies or will apply if it's your decision to adopt a single tax rate and not a split tax rate. The last slide really frames up the decision for you. Under the applicable laws, the town can vary the tax rate by up to 50%. That is to say,

This slide is not talking about how much money the town needs to raise. that's the figure that we did on the previous slide. Now that we know that number of what the town needs to generate in order to fund its operations, This last slide shows or depicts how much of that number is going to be borne by different classes of property, in this case the commercial property. and the residential properties. So the top line here, looking at the left-hand column of 1.0 for commercial and 1.0 for residential is the single tax rate.

and you can see that if that's the outcome of this hearing tonight that the residential properties will bear a little over 90% of the town requirements and the commercial under about 9.6%. and again, staying on that top line, the tax rate would be the same for both classes of property and you would see the median taxes for commercial and residential. Now, if we move down toward the bottom of the slide, you see the impact of choosing a different rate, choosing a split rate.

in the immediately adjacent row, you see what would the impact be if it was a 1.1 factor for commercial 1.2 factor for commercial and so on all the way down to the 1.5 factor and interestingly I think you can determine a kind of a shorthand way of thinking about this problem by looking at the column all the way to the right. which is what would the impact of a change in the factor for commercial and residential properties do to the median taxes that would be paid by a taxpayer?

as the factor goes up and more of the tax levy is borne by the commercial properties, Well, you can see the impact on the median commercial tax bill goes up dramatically. The difference between a factor of one and a factor of 1.5 is $14,000 in the average commercial tax bill. Sorry, it's not the average. I tripped myself. This is the median, the middle. But the point remains that as the tax factor changes above 1.0, the more and more and more of the town budget is borne by the commercial taxpayers. and so with that in mind we have

I hope demonstrated for you what would be the practical implication of adopting a split tax rate in lieu of the single tax rate. And with that, we'll be glad to answer other questions you might have.

Thank you very much, Arthur and Ellen and Steve. Does the board have any questions?

I don't have questions, Marjorie, but just a comment. I mean, I think I've said this in previous tax classification hearings that this is certainly an important consideration that we have to do it's an important thing we have to do every year but it's not a complicated decision just given the makeup of Wellesley's tax base between residential and commercial it just simply doesn't make any sense at all to have a split rate and so a major increase as you've shown in the commercial burden would result in a much more modest relief in the residential burden. and I just think our residents they want a thriving business community this is not conducive to that I just don't think there's any reason to have a split tax rate so same thing I've said for four or five years now thank you

Are there any other questions among the board? I want to make sure that we give the board and the public an opportunity to ask any questions. Are there any other questions?

So first I want to echo Colette's thanks for the diligence of this presentation and the thoughtfulness and and also thank the merchants who I believe also sent us a letter concurring with your assessment that a single tax rate made sense. My question is when a commercial property Sells at significantly less than its assessed value. At what point does that change, do we see that change hit the tax rates? and so it's It was sold for substantially less.

So you're asking if something sells for less than the assessment, how long will it take to change the assessment? Well, sales are the best evidence of market value. So we pay a lot of attention to that. Not every single sale is arm's length, but most of them are. So assuming it was an arm's length sale, noted in our next cycle valuation. And we don't take us, yeah, we have to pay a lot of attention to it.

Thank you.

Interestingly enough, we had the transaction volume in this town It's really dramatic. Looking at it from a historic perspective, a lot traded, and now it's slowing down, so...

Steve, when you say transaction volume, are you talking all properties in general or a specific class? Oh, when you say the transaction volume has gone down, do you mean among all properties or among commercial, residential?

Yeah, there's one large property owner in town that they had reason to... they decided to sell a lot of the portfolio. There was also coming out of the COVID-19, there was a huge amount of demand for life science. They perceived that that would go on forever. and the vacancy was 0%. And now the vacancy is 30%. And that's across not just Wellesley, that's the market. South San Francisco, same thing too. But when buyers and sellers can't agree, the transaction volume goes down. So it's slow now. Does that answer your question? Yes.

Thank you very much. Other questions from the board? Tom?

As Colette and Beth have said, our comments are often very much the same year over year, but I always like to point out that we don't take lightly the fact that the maximum split rate would generate savings for homeowners of $987. but at least my calculation is that we care about having a thriving retail sector and commercial sector in town and $987 when measured against the impact on the commercial base, particularly at a time that the Haynes properties are being sold. If we're going to have in that sector if we're going to have empty space, the impact potentially per square foot on the rent that they're going to be looking for could fundamentally impact the redevelopment, reoccupation of this space in a way that would change Wellesley for the worse.

So I think I do appreciate that 987 were the Dollars for the Family would make a difference month over month, but I don't think that when measured against the negative impact on our commercial sector that that's a choice that I would make.

Now I'll just add to that. Every increase in the tax factor to the commercial segment creates a tenfold increase in the median commercial taxes. Testa, Ulfelder, Wellesley, Councilor and consequently Coletta and Kenny have been working on the capital planning, long-term capital planning and financing for the town because we're exquisitely sensitive. to additional debt exclusions and more borrowing. And it is very important that it represents a $900 decrease to the median tax bill. By the same token, we have such a small percentage of commercial property and residents depend so heavily on commercial activity. that we don't want to further discourage economic development.

And Corey and Megan worked very hard on fostering economic development. So I'm in agreement that the single tax rate represents the best for the town at large. Other comments? Okay, Colette, may I have motions, please?

We should check this. I don't believe anyone's here for public comment.

Yeah. Anyone from the public here who would like to make a comment on the tax classification? Okay, I don't see any, so I'll turn back to Colette for the motions, please.

So I'm going to do a motion to close and then a motion to vote. So I'm going to move to close the text classification public hearing. All in favor? Aye. Moved to adopt a residential factor of 1.0 for the purposes of determining the fiscal year 2026 tax rate.

Second.

All in favor? Aye. Thank you very much. Arthur, you've made this presentation so clear and so concise and all of the numbers, as Colette said, make it a relatively easy decision for us. We're trying to protect all of our residents and commercial entities and not to send our commercial partners out of town. So thank you all very much.

This presentation was made easier on my part by the work of the assessing department, including Ellen Moller, our director of assessing.

Thank you. And we hope your new software will make it yet easier in the coming year. Thank you again. Okay, our next agenda item is yet another public hearing on a Comcast cable license renewal. and I have some introductory comments on that. The select board must, I'll open the public hearing. The select board must issue licenses for cable television. The town currently has a license with Verizon and our license with Comcast is set to expire on March 31st, 2026. The town has been in negotiations with Comcast for a year through a working group established for the negotiations, which included Megan Jopp and James Joyce, Higgins, the Director of Wellesley Public Media, and has been led by Special Counsel Bill August of Epstein and August.

Epstein and August have been assisting the town on these contract renewals for more than 20 years. We extend our thanks to Megan and to Bill and his office for their extensive work in negotiating the license. The board held an ascertainment hearing for this license on October 1st, 2024 to hear any public concerns on the cable services provided by Comcast. Following the ascertainment hearing, negotiations began and are now complete, and the final renewal license is ready for the board's approval. Staff finds the terms of the license favorable to the town over the next 10 years and recommends approval. And I'll ask Megan if she has additional comments on the renewal.

I do. I think there's some additional comments that would need to be read, Marjorie. I think it's on the second page for you.

Good evening and welcome to the Town of Wellesley's public hearing on the Comcast Cable Communications License Renewal. By way of background for the public, state law requires the holding of a select board public hearing prior to final action on a proposed renewal license to allow public comment on town needs and the proposed renewal license. Notice of this hearing was in the local newspaper for two successive weeks and copies of the notices will be entered into the hearing record as hearing exhibits one and two. A copy of the proposed Comcast license as negotiated with the Town is attached as Exhibit 3. Based on information and testimony before us and the record of the prior public hearing, the Select Board may take final action and approve or reject the proposed non-exclusive Wellesley Comcast license renewal.

Comments from the public and other interested parties should be directed through me and I will rule whether they are in order. Before getting started with accepting public comments, I'd like to recognize and thank James Joyce, Executive Director of the local programming provider Wellesley Media Corporation, and Patrick Shearns, Comcast's representative, for their hard work and collaboration through a productive license renewal process. Now we shall proceed to accept comments from the public, if any, and we request that you keep your comments to no longer than three minutes. is there anyone from the public who would like to make a comment on the cable license renewal I don't see any Okay, so may I have a motion to close the public hearing? So motion to close the public hearing.

Second.

OK. All in favor? Aye. And I'd like to ask Megan now to highlight a few of the changes in the negotiated license that would be in place for the next 10 years.

Thanks, Marjorie. I really want to thank Patrick Shurns from Comcast, in particular, as well as Bill August, who's represented the town so favorably. So as some of the board may recall, we did a Verizon license not that long ago, and that was a five-year license. So this is fantastic. This is another 10-year license, so we want to thank Comcast for that. We are maintaining our PEG operating gross annual revenues of 5%. That's consistent with 2016. Although the capital funding is slightly reduced to $98,000 total over the next 10 years, that's a slight drop of $12,000. What we are increasing is the peg capital percent of revenue. That's up from 0.2 percent of gross revenues to 0.45 percent of gross revenues.

and keep in mind, I know the boards heard this multiple times with regards to cable licensing, as people cut the cord that impacts both the cable provider as well as the revenues that are attributable to Wellesley Media. or attributable to the town, which then fund Wellesley Media and all the great programming that the town enjoys from them. And just a reminder, when I say PEG, that means Public Educational and Government Broadcasting. So the other great news is we will be getting an HD channel and equipment for our Wellesley Media Corporation to... Broadcast in HD. If you watch it streaming online, that's all HD. But on TV, we don't have an HD channel for Comcast yet, so that is great news. there is also we've added five additional buildings to this including Star Academy who's a new education group in town and

We are maintaining and enhancing customer service protections. There are loads of technical standards that I want to thank, in particular, James Joyce for all his work on those. and then in addition we did also receive a side letter from Comcast to maintain the senior discount for the next 10 years as well which the town has enjoyed which is a Walsh, $2 per month discount for Wellesley residents 65 plus at a household receiving SSI or Medicaid. So this has been a very favorable negotiation in my opinion for the town and the staff would recommend adoption of the non-exclusive license with Comcast.

Thank you Megan and thank you for your hard work. Thank you Bill and Patrick for all your work and thank you James. you and your staff provide extraordinary service. We see you and your staff here late at night with us. and we're all frequent flyers on cable channels to watch other government channels and please also the public should support peg access that's the way you see us and we know we're a high demand meeting for people to watch. So thank you everybody. It is indeed very nice to have a 10 year license so we don't have to return to the negotiating table too soon. Does the board have any comments or questions? Beth?

So first, thank you for your diligence in negotiating and your partnership. My question is about the 10-year license. So I recognize we're keeping the gross revenues flat in terms of a percentage. and our capital is going down but as the cords get cut over 10 years we're going to be in a very difficult position with Wellesley Media because we've been increasing the demand for Wellesley Media to carry and film all of the different meetings that are going on. And so...

Have we looked at how this will play out over several years because the funding for Wellesley Media, in theory the salaries are going to go up, the cost of services is going to go up, and hopefully the demand will go up. but the revenue stream that has over the years offset that is going to go down and so that I'm not sure if it's a and so forth. It's not solvable within this contract but for ten years it's going to leave us with very little negotiating room to help Offset, a critical service for us.

I can certainly begin to speak to that. So two things. One, when the town created the PEG or the cable reserve fund for which we go to town meeting annually now. We did look at the holdings of Wellesley Media Corporation, who has, through past year's investments prior to it being within the town coffers, has substantial funds, over $2 million set aside for additional funding. Steele, and others. We will direct our funding annually as received from Verizon and Comcast to fund the ongoing program and any supplemental would come from the existing Wellesley Media Funding. Should that at some period of time not be adequate enough, That's why we have a revolving fund and the town at some point may have to put additional funds into the operation. We do not expect that to be for many, many years to come in speaking to Peter Marks.

that is certainly you know our Wellesley Media Corporation has been great fiduciaries in the past and so I think we're in a favorable position to that end.

Tom?

I want to support Megan's comments. The chair, Peter Marks, has made it quite clear that he's quite comfortable with their financial reserves. And in fact, has said clearly that he is not supportive of town funds for their operation and does not feel that this is a real concern for them at this point or in the near term at all.

Marjorie, I had one other question. In terms of the number of channels that we receive, was there any increase in that or are we staying the same in terms of number of channels?

That is an increase in number of channels. So we'll be receiving, we have three SD, I think, and one HD channel. But it is a net increase with the HD.

So I see Bill August and Patrick Shurns are here with us. Gentlemen, would you like to make any comments on the license?

I'll comment. Bill August, council to the town, thank you very much for an opportunity to say a few words. I'm very confident about the license the annual 5% of gross revenues is the maximum permitted by law. So in terms of the annual operating payments, we could not take it any higher than that. That's limited by the Cable Act. Unfortunately, as noted with the decrease in the subscriber numbers, the total revenue goes down, but in terms of what we can negotiate, that is the maximum. In terms of the capital funding, that's a much smaller portion of the total.

revenues to the town. And that's essentially level, which is an accomplishment in light of the fact that the although the fixed dollar capital payments slightly went down, the portion of capital payments that are a percentage of gross revenues did go up by more than the decline in the fixed payments. So resulting in the capital being about level at this time. Again, and this access corporation does have reserves and expressed confidence that they would be okay in light of those reserves, which is not the case. And most of the access providers do not have such reserves, but

this is somewhat unique that your access provider was particularly prudent as a fiduciary over a long period of time and did accumulate reserves precisely in anticipation of this type of situation. One technical correction, the high definition channel is a substitute for one of the three existing channels. Patrick, isn't that the count in terms of the...

Sorry, Bill. Yes, that's correct. So there'll be two SDI channels and one HD channel.

Correct, so there will be full three channels. And Megan gave a great summary of the highlights in terms of the additional municipal sites. and the technical standards. And I'll just end with the draft license. it's basically trying to continue a very successful existing framework. We're not changing things here. We're continuing something that has worked well, and we're doing it through a licensed document that is very comprehensive in terms of so many other categories that we're not even touching on. in terms of right-of-way management, response to consumer complaints, you know, very comprehensive insurance and indemnification. So there are like 102 other...

very protective, strong clauses. And they're based on our precedent. used in over like 15 or 20 renewals where we were representing the cities and towns. So we're not using the Comcast boilerplate, but we're using a draft initiated and put forward by the town of Wellesley. Other than that, I really would just cannot thank Megan, enough at every twist and turn, whether it was a question about a word or a clause or a section, you know, the responsiveness and the concern was... was very strong. And likewise, Patrick is, you know, in Comcast.

you know they're a first class negotiation partner it was completely you know they have to say no to a chunk of what we ask for but they always go back and try and see if they can tried to meet our needs and find a happy medium. James Joyce provided extensive technical assistance. So it was a very informed, thoughtful, collaborative process and continues a positive, successful framework. So I feel very confident about the package overall. except for the unknown that we don't know with this technology what will happen to it with changing to streaming and new technologies. But that's just the nature of the beast. That's beyond our control. Thank you.

Thank you very much, Bill. Patrick, would you like to add anything?

Yeah, thank you very much. I'd just like to again extend my thanks to Megan and Bill and James and the entire community in Wellesley. after a very thorough and collaborative negotiation process we're very proud to present this license that really I truly believe reflects a very fair and beneficial outcome for the town. You know, there were a lot of, as Bill mentioned, some twists and turns along the way and, you know, some hard negotiations took place and We are very grateful for our partnership with the town of Wellesley and really look forward to continuing our role as an engaged and committed community partner. and as Bill mentioned you know in terms of the capital funding while the flat fee was reduced slightly the percentage of the gross annual revenue is more than doubled

which will provide a bit more cushioning in the short term and I think will be beneficial for the community in the long run for sure. As I said, the team over there worked very hard on this. and I had to call in a few favors on my own end to get this through and we're very proud of this negotiation and I really believe that this will be a good Strong license for the community going forward.

Thank you both very much and thank you Bill for mentioning some of the other clauses in the contract. I know most of you watching don't know but the license is 70 pages. So Bill is not kidding when he says it's comprehensive. and so much more the thanks to Megan for negotiating all of this if there's nothing further I'll ask oh yeah go ahead

I just wanted to add one or two points. I thank you again to everyone for their work. I do really support the contract and especially the ten year portion of it. I mean, I remember how much effort it was to negotiate the previous five-year contract with our other provider it's a lot of investment in time for staff and I do want to just make note that when James Joyce came to see us the select board in one of our first meetings in town hall we had kind of an extensive discussion about the future of Wellesley median funding and we talked about that at length and I think that at that point I reported we had raised it at our legislators and Breakfast just before that with MAPC about how are we going to support public media in other venues and I think we've written a couple of letters supporting other avenues. So I do want to say that we are aware of that and trying to find other solutions. But I'm very supportive of this contract as it goes forward. And thanks to everyone.

Ready for motion? So move that acting in its capacity as the statutory cable television license issuing authority Pursuant to Mass General Law 1668 and fighting that the cable license renewal proposal of Comcast Cable Communications Management LLC reasonably meets the cable-related renewal needs and interests of the public and the town, and finding that Comcast's financial and technical qualifications and Comcast local programming channels, facilities and services are reasonable to meet the town cable licensing needs. Second. Second. All in favor? Aye.

Thank you all very much. Thank you.

Could I ask you, Megan, could you share that side letter with the Council on Aging director to put in the newsletter? Will do. Thank you.

Thank you and good night.

Thank you very much. You as well.

Thank you very much, everyone, and happy holidays. Thank you. Okay. Thank you, Patrick.

Thank you. Okay, our next agenda item is to discuss and vote a conservation restriction for 50 Pond Road. The Wellesley Conservation Land Trust has brought a proposal to the board for approval of a conservation restriction at 50 Pond Road and I'd like to welcome Michael Tobin, the president of the Land Trust. Under Mass General Law, a conservation restriction held by a Land Trust must be approved by the select board or town meeting. The Executive Office of Environmental Affairs has approved the conservation restriction, and I'll turn it over to Mr. Tobin.

Hi, thank you. Michael Tobin, 45 Cottage Street, President of the Wellesley Conservation Land Trust. And so this is our second conservation restriction we are bringing to you. for approval this year. And just as quick background for anyone listening, conservation restriction is a legal contract that goes on the deed of a property. after all of the approvals that you just said Marjorie. that the landowner, private landowner is giving up some of their rights, typically for development, to protect that property for open space and its conservation values. and under that contract, the conservation restriction, there are allowable uses and non allowable uses in there. that are agreed to between the private landowner and the holder of the conservation restriction, in this case, the land trust.

So 50 Pond Road is a two acre parcel that is owned by the Honeywell family in trust. and they had subdivided a larger property in approximately 2000. and 50 Pond Road is a two acre parcel trees field and also used partially for pasture for a nearby Honeywell Farm. 20 acre Honeywell farm that is behind it. And so the family, the landowner has now decided they would like to permanently protect that open space. From a land trust perspective, we also like it because this actually protects more of Pond Road as a scenic road beyond the stone walls and keeps Pond Road as we all love it.

and so in front of you you've got the conservation restriction allowable uses non-allowable uses mostly to keep it just the way it is wooded sometimes used as a pasture. And so we ask for your approval.

Thank you, Michael. Does the board have comments or questions? Kenny?

thanks Michael so what is the tax impact to the town and how does that all work there's a statement in here that says talks about tax impact I'll pass that one to Megan please

So there is, I went to the assessor to see what the current taxation is, so town receives for FY25 approximately a little over $18,000. For full year FY26 we anticipate a little over $21,000. and so that would be eliminated essentially, significantly reduced because it would only be used as open space in perpetuity.

Okay, so it's just the assessed value is predicted to go. Plummet. Yeah. Got it.

Collette? So I have some questions, Michael, and they're kind of long, so please bear with me as I go through it. So I'm just framing this in the way I see it. So the effect of the conservation restriction... is to allow the current owners to use the land essentially as they're doing at present. So it's open space, arable, farming, recreation, but with a reduction in taxes, as we've just heard. The benefit to the town that I can see is the land stays open or arable and as it's situated on Scenic Pond Road. I think that's a good thing I just want to be very clear I think this is a good thing and we have had plenty of feedback to say that this is how the town would like to see Pond Road stay from a visual perspective however I don't see specifically that there will be public access allowed on any trails there which I also feel is appropriate for us to ask when giving a conservation restriction and you know I think that that's what the residents would like to see also. I'm just going to go through a few things and then come back to it.

I also think it's appropriate for us to feel comfortable that the appropriate body is holding the conservation restriction so as I read the document the land trust would need funding to enforce the conservation restriction and the grantor reimburses the costs. We've had some questions go back and forward with staff, so I understand that the Conservation Land Trust would upfront fund those legal fees. but I do have some questions about like how is that done like what are your reserves what are your reserves for are your reserves for purchasing land defending land and how do you it seems like you've shared some information with us about previous enforcement but previous enforcement was in partnership with some other fairly significant bodies. Is that how it works in the future? Is that how it's intended to work? I would also like to understand how enforcement is shared with the public on an ongoing basis I went to your website today there's a sort of

Press release on that one conservation enforcement but nothing sort of formal so I'm wondering you know is it appropriate to have some sort of annual reporting to the town in terms of okay we've done this is a day we did our enforcement this is what we found this is what we think we did our inspection we either there's no enforcement or we think there is some enforcement we're either taking this path or we're going to waive it I know this is the second time you've come to us this year but I think this one's very different and I think there's a lot of public interest in opening up access to that particular area and I think we have to respond to that and have a conversation about there are so many conservation restrictions in that area which is a good thing and I think that there's a lot of benefits in terms of open space but I think we need to have a conversation about public access benefit

and the other question I have and I'm sorry for dumping this all in one go because it's not my favorite thing to have 12 questions in a go. What does the NRC think of this? I would like to hear their opinion as well of this before we can go any further. So those are a lot of questions. I know you've answered some of them a little bit today, but I'd love to go further with them.

Sure, thank you. I'll try to get to all the, remember all the questions, but let's start with the public access. We, the Land Trust, always asks for the landowner in these situations to consider public access, as we've just heard from the chair of the Wellesley Trails Committee, and we all enjoy our public trails in town. and so we always look to enhance that. We've asked the landowner for that, but they have denied the request. in that there are no other public access to this property today. It's used for farming and pasture and so for the cows on there. and that there would be no other way to get to this property.

So as a private landowner, they have the right to decide those things and we've accepted that. and understand that. So we are okay with that having pursued it. Any further questions on that topic?

so I mean I understand that you may have accepted that but I think that and I'd look to maybe I have to ask town council here but what's our options here that do we have to grant the conservation restriction if we don't think that public access because if you look at the open space in that area there are several contiguous pieces and this makes a connection at some point is it appropriate to ask for public access in recognition of those significant grants of conservation and therefore loss of taxes to the town.

Yeah, those are also private property landowners who abut the area under various trusts. And there are 17, I believe, conservation restrictions on other lands all around there, also protecting them in open space. The town would be welcome to make an offer to purchase or either an easement or otherwise but you know if you could imagine if Someone said, hey, they would like public access through your backyard. And you said, no, thank you. And so you can understand any private landowner's desire in that case.

I do understand that, but there's essentially a significant diminishment in taxes and revenue to the town. So continuing my other questions, how do you report to us on your inspections and your decisions on enforcement, etc.?

Yes, so the land trust has... had three conservation restrictions in Wellesley for the last seven, since the 70s. And we have enforced, the land trust has enforced those for the last 40, 50 years. and Land Trust, the standard for doing that and enforcing Land Trust now. is to provide an annual inspection monitoring of the property and to write a report to the landowner to compare the original baseline observations when it was put into conservation against what's observed at that monitoring point. and then to discuss any issues with the landowner at that time. and so we have done that with our three conservation restrictions.

We've acquired two more conservations this year in Needham and one that we just talked about. here in Wellesley. And so that The resolution of any issues of the property against its conservation values is a private matter between the two parties. And if necessary, and you hope it never has to get there, then it's the obligation of, in this case, the land trust to pursue it with litigation. And as I mentioned in the write-up, We have significant experience in this matter at another property in town. It was a five year legal battle. and not only did the land trust prevail but we also set state precedent for what happens to a landowner who breaks their

contract, and only repairs the damage that they did in its remediation, but you can't repair 60 and 100 year old trees. And so that precedent has now been cited. the Land Trust does have financial reserves and we also know how to pursue litigation on pro bono basis that did not cost us any out of pocket expense. and then it was ultimately the law firm that represented us was compensated through the damages that was negotiated at the end.

So I'm just going to summarize. So you don't have any intention of reporting to the town on inspections or enforcement? No. You haven't identified your reserves, but your strategy is pro bono and to be negotiated at the end?

Yes, that's our strategy. In that case, we started off by using free services. from the Harvard Law Clinic. There's also state and national organizations that provide free legal advice for that so there's many many options for us to do and then it's also now has become a more common practice for recognizing the perpetual obligation of monitoring and for potential litigation for land trusts to except some funds to start to build up reserves for each property that they need to do. This is relatively new, and we're putting this in place now.

Sorry, can you say that last part again, Michael? You're starting a way to save money for this type of actions?

Exactly, right.

And have you been to the NRC? Has the NRC given any feedback on this?

informally not haven't presented it formally to the NRC but informally to each each each members been aware of it and it's been Informally, very much appreciated.

Okay, all right. That's my questions. Beth?

So I'm very supportive of this. I think the extent to which we can grow the open space on a scenic road it is private property and I applaud the private property owners willingness to help us preserve the beauty and the peace of that particular area. I understand their desire not to grant public access on private property that they are agreeing to Preserve, they are actually yielding their development rights, which is of significant value. I think we do have a track record. I think there are times where public access is really critical and I think we discussed that on the last one which didn't work out for public access but

For this one, I'm very grateful that we are getting more open space in that section of town that is so pastoral and gorgeous. So thank you for your efforts.

if I could add to that. The closest conservation restriction we have to this property is across the street at 99 Pond Road. And that is a six acre conservation property. that we protect that is on Wellesley College property. That abuts the Lake Waban and there is, as today, Wellesley College does allow public access on that path. and so we now monitor that annually and ensure that the college keeps up their part of the bargain for that.

Other comments or questions? Does anybody on the board feel that they would like NRC to have a formal review of this before we decide?

I would.

I'm not sure what the role of NRC would be on a private contract between the land trust and the private landowner. I understood our role as a board is to say that having this land preserved is of value to the town as open space. I feel comfortable accepting it as is. It's not a huge parcel.

I just think that, you know, when you start adding up a lot of conservation restrictions, especially when they're contiguous, I do think that there sometimes should be some discussion of should there be a trail for the amount of conservation restriction and tax revenue that's foregone by the town and Trails is the subcommittee of NRC and this is NRC's purview I would like to hear what they have to say about it I'm sure it's supportive I'm supportive of it but I do think at some point you have to ask should there be a trail or something this is very sensitive the town has given us a lot of feedback that there are other conservation restrictions that they wish we had negotiated access to trails for the time, for the benefit in this area.

So Colette, I was responding to the fact that it sounds as if the Conservation Land Trust did actively pursue public access and that was denied. For me it is more important to preserve the open space on a scenic road than it is to lose the conservation restriction because of the lack of public access. It doesn't sound like that's something on the table. We have crossed this bridge before where the private landowner has said that is not on the table. unless we think that going to NRC is going to change that rubric. Are the other contiguous parcels, do they have public access?

that's my knowledge.

I mean I agree that's the case and I think that this is an important conservation restriction like I said at the beginning I'm supportive of it but I think it it behooves us to ask on behalf of the town we haven't asked should there be public access here it doesn't hurt to go back one more time and say if this is of interest to the board or the NRC something to think about and you know when you build up the conservation restrictions piecemeal you don't maybe don't think about it when you but when you look at them on a map there's a fairly big contiguous space that you know might provide some reasonable access and I think it's okay to ask especially given the sensitive nature of the other restrictions just across the road that there's no longer public access to that the public has said pretty clearly they would like to have access to that.

So, Megan, it is our purview to approve the CR. And if we would like an opinion from NRC, it's not a binding opinion. They can't change the content of the CR.

So the town can, the select board could require municipal certification, which that's not required, but it's essentially a recommendation from what I think the regulations say. is it's a recommendation from the Conservation Commission so from us it would be the NRC which would be and there's a particular form that they would do which would basically be detailing the public purpose. I did ask Brandon Schmidt our NRC director about that. He said the board could certainly require that. His view was that the pure benefit, given the intact nature, that the NRC would support it, which I think I've relayed to the but that is a mechanism the board could pursue the board let's just say the board denied it then there's an appeal process to

that the property owner or the land trust would pursue with the Department of Environmental Protection or Superior Court.

So the question as I see it is, as Beth phrased it, the value of putting land into a conservation restriction, preserving open space, versus a potentially negotiated and financial, I would imagine, if we were to pursue a request for an easement over the objections of the landowner. So what are the board's feelings about that? Tom?

I, Colette, I understand the point that you're making, and it is a fair point about public access. But what I'm looking at in this case is that if this were the first conservation restriction that we were looking at in this area and it was a larger parcel, it would make a difference to me. But it's two acres and I'm not making light of the point, but it's sort of a trail to nowhere. where would you start the trail and where would you end it on two acres when we can't go back and change the conditions on the abutting parcels? I do realize that there is a in terms of taxation to the current owners. But I think there's a significant benefit to the town as we think about the discussions that we're having over DeCamp's proposal at MassBay

This is a particularly remarkable rural piece of land for Metro West Boston. and in light of the fact that this is such a small parcel and we can't change the conditions on the abutting parcels I'm not sure that I think it's worth holding up the CR on this two acres but I may have

The only thing I would add to that is it does abut the Sudbury Aqueduct, which is under MWRA control but has been open for public access. Kenny?

about the NRC, what question are we going to ask them that they're going to answer that would change our opinion? I don't know what the question is that would be posed to them.

I think the question would be whether they support the putting I mean very simply whether they would support putting it under conservation restriction to preserve it perpetually.

and I guess because they're the Natural Resources Commission and they have control over town land that makes sense in name but to me that's really no different than going to the school committee and saying what do you think because they don't have jurisdiction over this so I'm not persuaded by that I think it's private property and they should be able to do what they want

Okay, I think the consensus of the board is not to take it back to the NRC. Are there any other comments or questions? you know I share Colette's interest in having public access to beautiful scenic land but on the other hand I also understand the position of the landowner and leaving the land in perpetuity as open space and pasture I do feel is a value and given that it is a small property Although it does abut the aqueduct, the other abutting properties do not currently have public access and we can't go back and change those. So I would also be in support of approving the CR at this time. I just want to note that there's a

On the CR itself, you need to make a correction spelling of my name, but I will ask Colette for a motion.

So move to approve the conservation restriction at 50 Pond Road as amended.

Second.

All in favor? Aye.

OK. Thank you very much, Michael.

Oh, also if you'd use the full spelling of my first name on...

Yes. Yeah. Okay, we're fine with that, Megan. Okay. Thank you very much.

We'll fix it so that you all can sign tonight since I have you here.

We'll see you next week. Is that timely enough to sign? Do you need wet signatures?

I'll need wet signatures. Okay. But I can get it for you guys to sign.

Oh, yeah. Okay. All right. Our next agenda item is a fire station master plan update. I have to put my monitor down to see the chief's name. We have Chief Steve Mortarelli from the Fire Department and Glen Remick from FMD. I'll turn it over to you both and let you introduce the others you have with you and let you lead the update for the fire station. Hi, Chief.

Hey, how you doing? Can you hear me okay?

Yes, we can. Thank you.

Right. Thank you. So we're on today. We have context and context team. I'll hand it over to Jeff. So Jeff can make that introduction.

All right, very good. Thank you very much. My name is Jeff Shaw. I'm principal at Context Architecture. I also have Emily Mowbray and Selvi Shaw with me from my office. as we kind of assault your screen with orange everywhere. Sorry about that. I'm going to run through a brief presentation and happy to take questions as you prefer either during or afterwards, but I will. come and do the screen now. Okay, hopefully you now see the screen.

We do.

Okay, great. So this is our second presentation and update to the Select Board. In this presentation, we're going to go through an overview of the work to date, response time analysis that was completed, the operational analysis that was completed, and existing Station 2 renovation expansion concept and the next steps. I'm not going to read everybody in the project team, but we're including them here just for reference. So since we've last met, we've continued to meet regularly with the working group. Like I said, we finalized the response time analysis and have been working on and are very shortly finalizing the operational analysis, but have some results from that. we've conducted preliminary discussions of potential master plan scenarios based on all of the work done to date the existing conditions in the existing fire stations space needs

work that has been done and finalized, the operational and response time analyses. So In terms of a summary, the response time analysis indicated the current average response time is four minutes and 90% of the incidents are responded to in a little bit just over four minutes, which is very good. for the town. In fact, because of that response time, which we were looking to as the first check on the potential master planning of the department and whether or not additional facilities were needed. There was some discussion, a lot more discussion about refining that response time and really making sure it was reflecting what was happening at the colleges and other

areas around town that have different numbers of incidents that you might have than just normal residential neighborhoods. and as you can expect, a lot of incidents occur at the colleges, medical offices, assisted living and multifamily residences. Over the years, the call volumes increased and other than 2020, it's increased every single year for the last 10 years. So we're expecting that to continue to increase. While the department has been good in responding, which is basically a geographical way of response. The call volume starts to indicate in the increase, there's to integrate at some point, the department will need more resources, more firefighters, more responding units to handle the volume to make sure that the response time is kept in a very good level.

So we then looked at the development that will be happening in town. And I'll show you some maps in a second. But of course, development is potential. We don't know for certain that this is going to happen. but the numbers and the development suggested that this increase in call volume will probably be more than the average depending on how early those developments happen. and the nature exactly of what those might be. What we concluded at least to date is that because of the space need requirements and the inflexibility that the current stations have and the potential for the need for more flexibility on one end of town,

coupled with the increase in call volumes and the development potential in the town, a third station might be necessary and it would be driven by those fire and east call demand which is regulated or at least there is a standard NFPA standard 1710 that the department uses to monitor their response time and measure their performance. and that third station would only be needed once there's been triggers from the call volume. So in a master planning context here, we wanna be careful about saying something is needed because it may not be needed today. It might be needed down the road in the future. And as we'll get into in a second, we need to talk about what that might look like from a master parenting perspective.

So the first map here was created by the town, very assistive GIS department created this wonderful map. It shows us the response times and the areas around town where there's some hotspots, like I had mentioned around the colleges and some other various facilities around town. You can see the majority of the town has a pretty low number of incidents. Sorry, I said this is response time. This is actually a call volume. There are some areas where it gets orange and red where there's higher volumes of calls. and of course the eastern end of town also has some areas as well.

Jeff, can I interrupt you and ask you a question? Certainly. How do you determine the level of development and correlate it to a potential increase in calls?

Yes, that is very challenging to predict, of course. We did work with our response time consultant, Manitou, to start to think about what that would look like just in general in terms of development. it is a projection of course but you know it you can take some numbers that we currently have for The surveys for population surveys and the nature of some of the units, what's anticipated, like for instance, maybe more than 700 housing units might come in. and interpret that in terms of how much call might come from that based upon the historical averages that we're seeing in this town and other towns from that response time consultant.

While it wouldn't necessarily indicate that there's a direct, each unit creates X because it's sort of averaging, we're expecting the totality of that number of units to put stress onto the system. So what we are, working towards in the master in this group the working group for a master plan process is to define we haven't yet what the call volume might be that would trigger that so that we're not having to sit here and say, well, if we add X number of units, we need to now, housing units, we need to have a new engine company or a new station built. it's really looking at the volume of call as it ramps up over time. And again, while we can predict to some extent, it's hard to be super precise.

So hopefully that helped a little bit.

Yeah, and just to follow up, I imagine that the demographics of the developments also impact the volume as well as the kinds of response that's needed, whether it be ambulance first or a full fleet to go out. We don't know what's going to be built or when it's going to be built or what kind of units they're going to be. So do you imagine there will be, by permits pulled, that you will anticipate increased volume or how do you actually make that projection?

Yeah, so we did get from the town, this map actually shows it here, some indication of what's being discussed just in general. Again, like I said, until there's actually something built and people are living in it, you don't know what it's going to be. But once it's at least being proposed in the planning stages, we have something to go on. and you can see a lot of that is towards the eastern half of town you know around 128th and those areas but you know If it's residential, we can understand it might have a certain impact if it's assisted living or a medical facility. might have a different impact, and certainly those would have a larger impact. So we can make some predictions, but we certainly don't expect all of this development to be one static type.

It's not all going to be housing the same type of housing. Even condominiums might be a different impact than single family residential homes, of course. We also looked at the general population increase in town and while it is continuing to increase there are some other factors at play too and you know whether people the population you know may not increased as rapidly, there might be more things being built in town and homes may sit vacant for part of the year or they may be rented out when other people aren't there. So we have to look at that too. to factor that in. I'm not yet at the point ready to tell you what we haven't really figured out what that magic number is for the trigger point. That's the next steps that we'll be working on, but it's

It's going to involve using some of these metrics to anticipate what that future volume of calls might be that would trigger it. and it's not again it's also not a precise science it's not to say that if we you know 10 000 calls you got to have that third station in place um because there might be um There might be a need for it earlier. It might be a need for it later. It's just to start to tell you. It's kind of like a warning bell. Now we have to start the process of figuring that out, where it's going to go and all that sort of thing.

Thank you. Kenny, you have a question?

When you do that analysis, do you assume a certain amount of development and therefore increase call time? Do you also model an increase in traffic and therefore decrease in response time based on that?

Traffic's a little different when you're talking about emergency vehicles that can turn the lights on and go through lights. So it's not typically taken into account. There are some things that are taken into account, like grade crossings for Trains. Those do have to be taken into account because you can't go through it at that time. But generally speaking, you know, unless there's an unusual circumstance where the emergency vehicles like downtown Boston, for instance, where they can't just get through it. Usually that's not, traffic doesn't really prevent us from running the same speed essentially on the road.

You ever been on Washington Street at 830 in the morning?

Yeah, no, I understand that in certain areas they're going to have that. And maybe the chief could speak to that specifically and whether you've Chief, you feel that that's an issue that that needs to be explored in more detail here, but how you currently are able to traverse the town.

Yeah, I know that one area that came up in conversation in the early stages with Manitou was that of 40 Williams Street. because in William Street, that's obviously, you know, we have 350 units there now and it's projected to have up to, I think from what planning was telling us, up to another 700 units So if that were the case, right, I mean, that has to be taken into consideration because in order to access William Street, there's one way in, there's one way out. we have to go into Newton, circle back around. It's essentially, it's almost a one, it's kind of a one-way access as you're coming around that bridge. It's very difficult. for the tower to make that turn. So things like that, Kenny, are taken into consideration and we are working with them. Kind of what Jeff was alluding to, I think it's, and Jeff, correct me if I'm wrong, I think it's a little, we're a little,

Jop, Premature on to make that type of call as of now. But we are trying to come up with different areas, Kenny, that could certainly be problematic if the call volume did increase.

Tom?

Well, you know, Chief, back when we were looking at the development agreement and the development of the nines, one of the things that we discussed with the developer and John Hancock was was petitioning MassGOT for an emergency left-hand turn off of Route 9 East into that. So It seems to me that there are some proactive steps that we might be able to take. We know that it's going to take forever and a day for mass DOT to respond. Now's the time. to suggest that we're looking at emergency services and need them to consider whether an emergency left-hand turn might be worthwhile. I, you know, the difficulty that I think we find ourselves in is that as a municipality and stewards financially of of the revenue that is generated.

We just heard the tax classification hearing to know the percent that comes from residential and commercial taxes. We're really in a difficult position to project ahead and have discovered that those projections weren't accurate. in terms of building a third station, for example. It seems to me that there's an extent to which our decision to build a third station is reactive. to increase call volumes and realizing that we're reaching a point where our response times are slipping in a direction that we're uncomfortable with. You know, it seems to me that it's not as difficult as it sounded to begin to predict the likely call volume. You have enough experience in the area to know that if you build 100 new units that are rentals, you tend to generate...

Call Volume X, and if it's 100 condominiums, if it's 100 retirement community units, I mean, you can begin to predict. based on the average age rental condominium type of dwelling and its use, sort of what the call volume might be. But I think we have a responsibility to the community to be fairly certain that we actually need to acquire land and incur the significant expense of building a new station. But I think there are proactive steps we can take, like talking to MassDOT.

Tom, I agree. And part of this exercise, like Jeff was stating, is the reason why we have to look ahead. Now, obviously, this isn't built yet. And there is data that you can equate to different types of occupancies and what we project call volume will be. That's not really the issue right now. It's that this is a master plan. So we need to be looking ahead you know, 20, 30 years out and we don't want to miss anything. So an immediate need right now for the fire department isn't actually a third station based on projections from whenever that is going to be built. It's actually for what we're finding the west end of town because we have a hundred year old building that we cannot fit apparatus and we can't there's no storage doesn't meet any standards. There's a slew of issues with that.

And then in addition to that, we have those same type of issues with our headquarters. So it's not that we're not thinking in that direction. It's just not the immediate need at this time.

And I also wanted to say that as part of this process, I alluded to it before, but since we're in the middle of it, we don't have numbers to give you. but we will have a projection on the call volume and we will have a target that we will all agree in the working group represents the most Prudent course for the town to plan for that would trigger the need to start the process of planning and developing a third station, not to tell you after the bell is wrong, but to say, okay, if it takes X number of years to get something like this accomplished, we need to know the growth rate of the call volume and how it's trending and when to tell you early enough. So we're going to have that as part of the master planning study so that the town will have a mechanism to track

the call volume as it continues to increase before when it hits that threshold it'll be a warning essentially that now you do have to start the process to plan for it because the trajectory is going towards the direction that we all have agreed would be a signifier. But I also want to stress that it's not just development. solely on its own, that would be a trigger point for the third station. A lot of what we did was working within, as the chief mentioned, the existing look to it next, but working with looking at the existing station one and two on the facility analysis, looking at the space requirements that the fire department has and what is available at those two stations.

and also considering that Station 2 is the only facility that serves the eastern portion of town where most of this development is happening and how cramped it is even beyond its current walls, but just on the site with the light department there and facilities and the train and Route 9 all hemming it in that if you're looking at this project, fire department projects down the road, you may be limited in what you can really do at the location where Station 2 is. Even if you said we need to build a third station, let's try to renovate and expand Station 2 to meet the flexibility that the development, the call volume would suggest. you may not have that and what we actually are going to talk about in a second shows you really don't have that flexibility that you need and

this is where the process of doing a master plan really becomes very beneficial because we can run different scenarios to look at how would it impact the town to build a third station to do a renovation project in lieu of a third station? And how could you phase those and structure those so that you can make the most economical minded choices? So we did put together a number of different scenarios that the working group is now starting to consider. you know, with the potential that the third station would be needed at some point, calling it the new east side substation. As the chief alluded to, and as we discussed in our first presentation, there's some major

challenges with the existing buildings and so the biggest need is really for addressing those in what we've determined is a new west side station which would then be the location of the headquarters. So these different scenarios project whether it might be two projects, project A being construction of the headquarters, new headquarters and renovation of station two. as one project and then the B project coming in the future might be a new east side substation. This would of course require, because of the renovation work, all of those folks to be housed. in Swing Space, which might add cost to the project overall to the town. Another project scenario is to just do them all.

and of course that would also add swing space requirements might be the cheapest if you want to talk about just dollars because you'd be doing them sooner all at once. or phase them out over time. You know, one, two and three over 10, 20 years, whatever it ends up being. The advantages of some of these is that, for instance, if you built the east side substation before the station two is renovated, you allow yourself to move units around within those various buildings to then not need the swing space because the renovation of the Station 2 building, those crews would be housed in the new facilities that you've already built. But these are still under consideration and we're still looking at them in detail and trying to consider

advantages and disadvantages of each, the costs and all that sort of thing before we come to any sort of recommendation yet to come.

Marjorie, yeah, go ahead. So thank you for that explanation of various project scenario approaches. The scenario that I was looking for Given the response time, which I was pleased to see that our response times are strong across town, that to me, and I may be misinterpreting it, says that our two stations are as currently cited provide strong coverage of the town and therefore growth could also be interpreted as you would need expansion of your stations, but you might not need a third station? And have you looked at the efficiency of running two stations sighted at or similarly to where they are versus a third station because there are

I take your point on the space constraints but there are options when you look at a site as a municipality in terms of Accruing additional space near your current site or looking at creatively how to do it. And it was a scenario I was hoping to see working within two sites. and how would we expand our capacity within the two sites?

We did and I think the we'll call it the station one or the west side current west side substation is probably you can take that off the table because that really just doesn't have any space in the building or outside the building to help us. So really, when we think about this question, we're looking at Station 2, the current headquarters, and we actually did which is coming up in a couple of slides a lot of study as to what would fit in that building either without any renovation or sorry any expansion or with expansion that would could be accommodated while keeping the other town uses able to use that area. We also considered bigger renovations as well as the potential for putting essentially we'll call it a new building station two next to in the parking lot essentially next to the existing station two which would allow

and others to ensure us to not need swing space. That as you can imagine would be greatly disruptive to the operations of the Light Department and probably would be hugely disruptive to the substation that's there and would require new access permits to Route 9 and whole new traffic scenario. So for a lot of reasons that didn't seem plausible at all and so didn't really go any further. But we did look seriously at how big of an expansion we could make at Station 2. And as I said before, the limitations were the train line, Route 9, the existing light department and substation, to the east. And then we really were left with maybe space on the west side, which there is a private business there.

And we initially looked at, you know, if the town bought that property and expanded to that side. But as you go in that direction, the property is a triangle and it keeps getting narrower and narrower and narrower as you go to the west and making it less and less usable especially considering how the back Weir Bay needs to operate to allow folks out. And the way the building is organized, everything on the west side of the building really can only be accessed if you walk through the garage bay. and the current best practice for health and safety of firefighters would really want to segregate them from walking through those garage spaces to get to other program areas. So most of the space of the building would have to be on the

Eastside for personnel, and then Garage might be on the Westside. So I'm using a lot of words to describe it. It's probably better with pictures, but what we ended up determining is there just wasn't enough room to really effectively expand the building as to what would be desirable for the town. And I think the other challenge was it didn't seem plausible that we would be able to expect the town to conduct a major renovation on the building now and then later on in let's say 10 years conduct a major expansion of the building once your development starts to trigger the need for more space. it just didn't seem plausible that people would be comfortable doing that.

It wouldn't even have paid the bond off essentially by the time you're going back and renovating the building.

So Jeff, thank you for that. I think you're right. Pictures would probably help substantially because I'm not going to say I like this idea, but the Central Street Station does have... a side yard. And I would be curious to see if we've looked at that and what we've looked at in terms of the back, which is a private parking lot. I just would like us to maybe see something a little more visual if you have that.

I can flip to some of these diagrams here. We did the operational analysis around the two-station program. allocation first, knowing that three stations is more money. And so if two stations can work, that would be better. So in this scenario, it would shift the headquarters component to the west side of town, which obviously really wouldn't work in the existing station one. So this would be kind of a new scenario. whereas the existing station to this right hand diagram here would be renovated, expanded existing substation. the benefits are is that it balances the engine and ladder companies between the two halves of the town but the challenges are that as I explained that we limit what we can actually put.

We've essentially filled it on day one and there's no room for expansion in the future with development on the east side of town. And since station two is really the only one serving the east side of town, that's a real impediment to this scenario. So that's when we looked at the three station program allocation which then again moves some future expansion into a new substation. Again, it keeps the balance from engines and ladders on both sides of town so the department can continue to respond in a very uniform way throughout town. but it does give you a sort of a relief valve for the expansion. The existing station here is station two. This drawing is the first floor plan.

and it shows how we might reconfigure it with a slight expansion to accommodate a substation concept. And basically we are using 100% of the existing available floor space plus a small 700 square foot footprint addition in the back corner to house really what is kind of essentially a substation component plus the ambulance company. and that of course maintains the four apparatus bays they're completely filled and then we have the two ambulances in the back whereas there's currently the repair bay We have support spaces surrounding it and this is what I was saying before the right hand portion of the plan, which is this side here faces east. That's where we have our personnel spaces and support areas. and the stairs to go upstairs.

And this is the part we want to segregate from the garages and keep health and safety in mind. On the left side of the station, which is the west side and faces the private property that might be available, or maybe potentially purchasable. You can see that there really isn't any access to the upstairs currently, although we could make them and we could make a small expansion here But again, it really impacts how ambulances would have to come out or any other vehicles in the back of the station would come out and changes how Route 9, the interaction with Route 9. this is the upstairs of that same option living spaces essentially and then the top floor which is more living quarters for those teams that will be in there.

Jeff.

So I wanted to go back to this because that's what kind of we were discussing. We don't really have a site plan here, but I think As part of the master planning group, I think we can explore in one of those options what it looks like to purchase the adjoining property and expand station two more robustly to the West, like you had mentioned, and what would be needed and how the department would operate in that scenario.

Jeff, I'm just going to ask you to hold one second and let Tom has a question.

Well, I'm curious. Are we coordinating with the DPW exploration of their new building? Because I realized that that's not... immediately intuitive, but I have long felt that the property of Municipal Way east of the light plant is very inefficiently laid out and used. And so... I will disclose that the property you're talking about to the west is my favorite veterinarian. So I will, that's not why I bring this up. I honestly feel that and I can't believe I'm saying this because of the projected expense I'm sure about dealing with this but I just don't think we're using municipal way efficiently. And I can't imagine that we're having two parallel studies

taking place without a significant interaction between them so that one doesn't preclude the best use for the other.

I know that we have discussed it in our working group repeatedly and I believe that the fire Masterplan is ahead of the DPW Masterplan process, but I'm happy to let Glenn or somebody else on the team get more into the interaction there. I know that the town staff have been our conduit to interrelating the two studies.

Yeah, I think that we are coordinating with the DPW right now. I think that the studies that we're doing in these master plans don't preclude us from moving certain functions into the DPW master plan and kind of coordinating that. But I think we can't rely completely on a scenario doing that either. So I think this is a master planned, So it's programmatic and these are big colored blocks and things like that. So it informs, can inform and if there's efficiencies and ways to coordinate it as these two develop, there's still options to to make adjustments and do that. So we're just we're playing through the scenarios right now.

Beth, to your point about the sites, I think we are We haven't gotten to, we're not disclosing or discussing today the preliminary site analysis that was done and locations. We're still starting just at the beginning of that. but one of the scenarios would be looking at the current site for station one that we think that would rank pretty low in some of the options, but it's gonna be one of the things that we will explore. So we're looking, the master plan will include all these different scenarios and all these different options kind of vetted and and you're not going to just see one conclusion it's going to be these scenarios played through cost and schedule and all those so that we have all the information to make educated choices as to what the recommendation is.

So we're not just going to reach conclusions and go with one scenario or one concept. So right now, this is just kind of expanding our thinking, looking at you know a two station scenario now and then you know a possible third in the future or if we do it all at once or if we just do one station now and then do it in kind of three phases Those are all going to be played out. We'll have some more information to kind of make some more choices about. But nothing's off the table and none of these things are conclusions that we're just going to move on from. These are the beginnings of further investigation that's going to be included in the report so that we'll have more detail playing out each one of these scenarios and options. including coordination with the master plan for DBW.

Thank you, Glenn. I know Kenny's been waiting to ask a question. Then I'm going to ask that we allow Jeff to finish his comments before we take further questions from the board. Go ahead, Kenny.

so this is piggybacking on what Tom was talking about before but all of this discussion about three stations seems to be predicated on an assumption that we're going to have this growth and in order to do that I would love to see how that's been modeled out and what assumptions have been made to come to that conclusion because I don't know how we know that the town's going to grow. I mean, the average house price is $2 million, and there's, depending on which way you slice it, a net outflow in Massachusetts, which are probably only going to get worse in the coming years. So it's hard to... I don't know that it's going to grow. I don't know that it's not going to grow. And before we say we need three stations, I think we need to understand what the modeling is saying about how many people are going to live here, where they're going to live, and how we're coming to those conclusions.

Yeah, we have looked at the modeling that has been done already for population growth in Wellesley and it's continually gained population over the last 20 years, 25 years. Based upon projects that the town is aware of, seems like it will continue to gain population. But I don't have a crystal ball and can't predict the future. So we're just going to go with what we have Seen in these models and what we were seeing for current projected development. But I think it's important to understand that the master plan is designed to give the town the option to put a third station into play, not a requirement to do it, and to set up the factors that would suggest the need for it and when to do that in advance.

Again, the town would retain full and complete authority as to whether you do it or not. We just to do it properly need to understand that there's factors at play that would potentially make limiting the department to what the footprint it has today in Station 2 a problem in the future if the growth continued to go in the direction that we are seeing it now. If it doesn't, then you don't have a problem. But if it does, this plan I think would just identify how that gets resolved. and just like Glenn said we're not today saying you have you know we're wedded to a three-station solution that's what we're seeing so far but we're going to go through these different scenarios projecting them out and coming to

a recommendation through analysis of these different scenarios and which ones might present the best overall value for the town and representing, you know, the encapsulation of all that need into kind of one scenario. I think it's a challenge, of course, because none of us can say when that surge station might be needed today. and like you just said, who knows, maybe the population in the state. collapses suddenly and it's not needed. But we just want to make sure that the study is providing the framework so that the town has an ability to do it when it's needed. So let me just flip through the last few slides here quickly.

Sorry, can I just make one point on that other slide, the plan? Yeah, so I just want to be clear that when we say app support on the right-hand side, this is the decontamination kind of sequence that the firefighters go through after coming off the truck to get out of their equipment to basically be able to shower and not take any of those contaminants into the building This is an issue at both station 1 and station 2 where you do not have this sequence currently. So as opposed to maybe If you could expand to the west side, as Jeff was saying, you don't want firefighters to have to walk through again the apparatus bay where the contaminants are. back into the other side where they're living quarters.

I just think it's important that everyone realize that we're not just talking about call volume, but it's actually the buildings functioning to the best support the health of the firefighters. So that's the case in both station one and station two. So I just wanted to add that. Sorry.

Thanks, Emily. Yeah. Okay. So next steps for us. As Glenn mentioned, we're still in the process of looking and analyzing the options for other sites. As we've been talking about the potential for new facilities, we need to rationalize and understand where they might go, performing some test fitting of those and ranking of those options and sites. We want to come back to the select board to review these scenarios, the identified and ranked potential sites, and then go through a process where once that comes to a level of consensus, start to lay out what a building might look like in the future if it's a new building or a renovation concept and then begin preparing the final master planning documentation with the development of the swing space and the phasing scenarios.

all of the program allocation because although we did an initial analysis of the program, if we're changing the model and we're going to be in a three-station model, we need now to redo the program and identify which pieces go to which stations and which how those stations would be programmed specifically proposing timelines for the scenarios and of course that go hand in hand with that cost for these scenarios and that would all have to be done before we'd end up with any recommendations that would come in the future. So that's all to be done in the future. So I'm happy to now jump back into questions.

Beth? So Jeff, I apologize if I missed this. Did you tell us what our percent of current capacity is? and how close we are to kind of having a structural challenge meeting the call volumes and servicing the community.

So the great thing about the fire department is that despite the fact that they don't have the right types of spaces and what Emily was just mentioning, the sort of best practices for decontamination and how a station might be designed, they are still performing at a very high level for the town. And our response time analysis concluded that. it would be a lot easier master plan if we could simply say hey you guys are terribly slow at getting to response time so you need a new station because it's going to reduce those call times. They're in the wrong location. But in fact, as I reported at the beginning, they're actually very good. Average about four minutes, which is the NFPA standard. it's not necessarily the current response times.

Increased pressure from more calls will potentially affect that response time. And there'll be a greater share of calls that will be or maybe above that in the future if no additional capacity is in the system, is plugged into the system. In conversations with the fire department, we did not anticipate the need to add more crews or additional apparatus companies in the near term. but they're potentially as we've been talking about with development would be the need to add additional at least one additional piece to solve for some of that increased demand in the future so essentially they are meeting the capacity of the town today. And I'm happy, Steve, if you want to chime in as well.

So Jeff, can I just clarify? Because it seems like we have two separate issues. One is capacity and the growth in demand that could occur at some point that you're modeling. And the other is structural and the layout and the way that the stations are set up. to support our firefighters and if I'm hearing you correctly it sounds like the layout and the features and functionality are the more dominant issue and the capacity, number of trucks, distribution of trucks, all of that is more of a long-term master plan. Is that correct?

Yeah, you really hit it almost squarely on the head there. The most immediate need for the department that we've identified is modernizing and handling the the health and safety needs of firefighters, as well as solving the space crunch that is currently within these two facilities that you have. There's just no space available and a lot of compromises in terms of where things have to be put in order to kind of keep it in use. Everything's kind of crunched in there. And that's a very proximate need. Now, there is a long-term desire to have flexibility so that the thing we don't know today can be accommodated in 15, 20, 25 years, 30 years from now. You need to bring in a new piece of equipment that that's not contemplated today, you would have space for something.

The other component of that is if the demand for service continues to rise and the call volume rises, We want to have flexibility to accommodate that and how do we do that most appropriately and also solve all of the physical needs questions that you just asked or you just stated. in the best way possible. And that's essentially the problem that we're currently working on is what is the best scenario to merge those two components.

But I do want to have a clear understanding here. No matter what, we're talking about a new Station 1. We have a commitment to gender diversity in our first responder ranks here in town. We have really no ability to effectively and respectfully create separate quarters for men and women at Station 1. We have to pay extra for equipment. We don't have choices in terms of what gets stationed there because of the limitations of that 100-year-old building. So no matter what our call volume is, no matter what our response time is, we need to build a new station one.

That's very accurate. Yes, absolutely.

Okay, thank you very much, Jeff. Any further questions from the board? Are there any further comments, Chief, Glen, rest of the team?

I would just like to quickly add, Marjorie, that there are a ton of moving parts to this. It was very difficult to get to the point where we are right now. trying to dictate how many stations you need and then prioritize what needs to be done first. I'm very comfortable where we are right now as far as we know. The good news is after the analysis, we know that our response times are not an issue today. Our response times are within NFPA 1710, which is obviously great. I mean, a lot of cities and towns cannot cannot reflect that like we do, so that's obviously good. Again, kind of my statement before, the reason why we're looking down the road is because

the point of the master plan is to make sure that, you know, two chiefs from now or the next generation, you know, that they're not gonna be handcuffed with all of a sudden there is, you know, Almost like where we are today. Wellesley has been overly developed, I would say, in the last 10 years. And now here we are, we're trying to accommodate. We have one really old building. We have another building that's about 40 years ago. We're bursting at the seams, right? So we want to make sure that we're looking ahead, even though that might not be a need right now to build a third station. we're looking ahead so that when we get to that point, we'll be prepared. But as Tom just noted, We do have some immediate needs right now.

So even though this plan is still underway, I'm very confident in the fact that the result will be we are going to need a new station one at the least.

I think Chief it's worth commenting because there was a lot of discussion about this in the working group. that you know what happens at station two is also a priority too because if you fix the need for the folks working in station one but then you you know prioritize something else and station two doesn't happen for 10 years what are we really saying about the health and safety of those folks that work there too so it presents a challenging concept when you If you're not just talking about from bricks and mortar and dollars and cents and you put humans into the equation, it changes some of the priorities.

Well, I'd say if we learned anything from the last 20 years, it's that you have to think ahead for your facilities needs and plan ahead because we've gotten caught in this situation with many of our buildings. and we'd like not to be in this situation again anytime soon. It would be really nice if everything was going to stay exactly the way it is today but we know that's just magical thinking and we appreciate that you do have a lot of moving parts and a lot of things to consider. and appreciate you bringing this update to us and we look forward to the next update. So thank you all for your hard work.

Thank you all very much.

So Stephanie, I see you just turned your video on. Apologies to you. As you could see, we had a couple of complicated issues tonight, so I apologize. for the belated start. I want to welcome our public information officer, Stephanie Hawkinson, and thank you for your extensive work in reviewing all of the invitational entry bibs applications for the Boston Marathon, and Stephanie also prepared a detailed memorandum of recommended distribution of the bibs. By way of introduction, Stephanie told us that the town received more applications for bibs this year than ever before. and Wellesley receives the bibs obviously because the marathon route passes through our town. The town dedicates extensive resources from DPW, public safety, volunteers and others.

to make the marathon a success and it's a flagship annual community event in town. Some entities that award marathon bibs reserve a designated number for first-time applicants Some do not award bibs to the same organization two years in a row. Some require participation in local running events or volunteering with the marathon. in a year they're not running and Wellesley's process is currently that the public information officer reviews the applications with the executive director and assistant executive director and together they come up with a recommended list. I just want to reiterate, we say this every year, but the board emphasizes that receipt of a bib in any given year cannot act as a guarantee of receipt in any other year. We receive a limited number of bibs.

and that number is determined far in advance so there's nothing we can do about the number this year. and if we wanted to make a request of the BAA for a change in the number, we'd have to do that significantly in advance. The awarding of bibs addresses several objectives of the Board and the Town such as community engagement, fundraising, boosting local nonprofit efforts and participation to benefit residents, supporting charity runners, providing educational scholarships through the War Memorial Fund and more. And considerations, I'll let Stephanie review her considerations. and I will turn it over to you now to review your process in considering the applications.

Thank you very much, Marjorie. And hi, everybody. It's nice to be here tonight. As most of you know, the Town of Wellesley Boston Marathon Cities and Towns program is one of my favorite parts of my job. It is, as Marjorie mentioned, an opportunity for some of our very small nonprofits. to have a marathon runner that can raise a minimum of $5,000 and oftentimes much more for these nonprofits. So the impact that these bibs have is very big and very, very important. As Marjorie also mentioned though, this year we had an extraordinary amount of applicants. and I mentioned in the memo, we had people applying for these bibs from as far away as Scotland. Colette, I don't know if you have any family members interested, but anyway, it was very interesting to see the response. And I think it is due to a couple of factors. First of all, a lot of nonprofits have seen reduced funding in the last year or so. And so I think their needs are even greater. I also think that there is greater interest in the Boston Marathon every year more and more.

And the Boston Marathon itself has become more restrictive in giving bibs to qualified runners. So more people are looking for opportunities to run and therefore more opportunities to fundraise because this program gives them that opportunity. As Marjorie also mentioned, we never guarantee that nonprofits receive a bib. And this year... is definitely an example of having to make some hard decisions. So I, as she mentioned, I did put together a memo and I'll kind of go over a couple of things that are fairly straightforward and then really get to the meat of our decisions tonight, which would be the nonprofits who could receive Boston Marathon bibs. As Marjorie mentioned, the town of Wellesley has the War Memorial Scholarship Fund. We always reserve a couple of bibs for this particular fund. and it is a fund that we work with the Wellesley Scholarship Foundation to administer. But it really gives us the opportunity to have individual runners apply and then raise funds

for the War Memorial Fund, which historically was started as a way to provide individuals with connections to the military, family in the military or military veterans to pursue higher education. So this year we had six applicants who were interested in running for the War Memorial Fund. I will say, There are three applicants that definitely meet all of our criteria. They are outstanding individuals. All have Wellesley connections. One individual was a West Point graduate and served in the military. Another individual also has family members serving in the military. And the third individual is a Wellesley resident whose grandfather was a career military officer and who actually wants to run this year because his grandfather is going to celebrate his 90th birthday in 2026. Those three I feel like are definitely the appropriate individuals to award for the War Memorial Fund.

We also have two other individuals who, while they don't have connections directly to the military, also expressed interest. So we may be interested in pursuing for those two individuals. As well, we always do award or hold four bibs for our public safety officers because they commit so much to helping put the marathon on marathon day. Our policy is to hold two bibs for Wellesley police officers and two bibs for Wellesley firefighters should they be interested in running. These individuals do not fundraise. This is just an opportunity for them to participate as a thank you for everything they do for our community. We do have two officers from Wellesley Police Department. Their names are Tyler Sullivan and Alfonso Lopez, who would like to run for the police. And we have two firefighters from the Wellesley Fire Department, Joseph Matthau and Jake Jewett. who would like to run for the Wellesley Fire Department. So we're very excited to have those individuals. Now onto the nonprofits.

I did provide information in your packet, so I won't go through all of the merits of all of these organizations. They are all very worthy organizations and all contribute to our community and to Metro West Boston at large. But I want to share a little bit about my thoughts and the review strategy that I use to develop my recommendations. And please know that these are only recommendations. The purpose of this discussion tonight is for the board to ask questions. And we have a lot of flexibility with these bibs. We can move individuals around. We can swap out nonprofits. So this is an opportunity to really discuss these individual nonprofits and determine what would be best for our community and for these groups. So as per our criteria, we really want to look at the local benefit from the very young residents in our community to our senior citizens. How do these nonprofits benefit our community directly? We also want to find out about how these individual nonprofits are community partners.

What is their broad impact? Do they work with us in other capacities? We have some of our nonprofits that part of their work helps out the celebrations committee. Other nonprofits support METCO with a buddy system. So there are a lot of different ways impact implications that we look at when I am reviewing and making these recommendations. We also look at the the percentage of funds raised that go to the mission of the organization. And now this can vary. Some of our very small nonprofits, 100% of the marathon funds go to their mission. For some of our other nonprofits, it's split a little bit differently. We have some where 90% of funds go to the nonprofit's mission and some go to administrative costs. Wellesley Friendly Aid, for example, has a little bit of a different scenario. They have about 54% goes to their mission, but then they also have overhead costs. They have a facility, a building where they operate.

So some of the funds that Wellesley Friendly Aid uses helps with their overhead and operating costs. We also want to look at other funding sources that these nonprofits have. and there are some of our nonprofits that have their own fundraising campaigns. They do an annual campaign. There are other nonprofits that have received grant money from the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. There are other nonprofits that have Foundation that actually raises private donations that helps fund these nonprofits. So there are a lot of different things that go into this decision. So as I mentioned in your memo, I did make recommendations. And what I am recommending at this point in time is I've identified 17 nonprofits that I feel like meet our criteria, have a broad impact throughout our community, serve all of our population. And I recommend that they would receive one bib each, no more than one, because again, we have so much interest.

But we also have one bib that's out there that I'm not sure if we have another nonprofit that the board might feel would deserve that bib, or perhaps we want to look at another war memorial runner, or perhaps we decide to award a second bib to one very worthy nonprofit. So this is kind of the crux of our discussion tonight. And I would like to answer your questions. I would like to hear your thoughts as we kind of go through this process. So Marjorie, I'll turn it back over to you and see if the board has any questions.

Thank you, Stephanie, for that comprehensive review. Tom?

Stephanie, thank you. I do appreciate all the work that you do every year, frankly. I think it's an enormous amount of work. But I do want to say, and I understand your analysis and the thinking that's gone into how you developed this list. but I want to say that I do feel strongly the community investors should receive one of the bids. My feeling is that we place such value on our youth here in town we're so proud of our athletic program at the high school level for example having the highest percentage of of boys and girls who are playing at a very high level, playing sports across the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. but I think a lot of that begins with the work that Joe and others do with the children in the programs that community investors support.

and I think we want to, yes they have other funding sources and I know you aren't doing this but I don't want to penalize them for their ability to raise funds through multiple sources. And I think that there is a symbolism to their receiving a bid and participating in the marathon and the visibility that goes with that that's very important to the success of their mission long term.

thank you Tom so Tom I'd like to add on to that because I agree with you I feel like community investors does such magnificent work in the community for our youth and clearly the community embraces their receipt of a bib they were among the top fundraisers with their bib. I believe they raised about $10,000 last year with their bib when the minimum was $5,000. So for me, that's another sign that the community values the work of the organization. and understands the importance of the funds to delivering their mission. So for me, that is one that I would like to move onto the yes list.

I have a question about the MassBay Community College Foundation and I did call Stephanie because it said general scholarship funding on the Chart, and they don't charge tuition necessarily right now with the wonderful program from the state. If you're over 25.

I was just going to say the same thing. Over 25.

for students over 25 but on the on their application it's to help those students with social service needs and I feel like in within the town the town supports the social service needs of its residents and if the bibs are to support the needs of the residents in the community that those are being met or we have resources to support them within the other social service arms of the town. And so for me, I know we have to have a plus and a minus. I would be in favor of promoting community investors and

moving MassBay onto our second tier list because of the fact that I don't see it as necessarily exclusively supporting the residents, which is part of our stated goal. I believe in sporting all but with the bibs it is part of our criteria. with the knowledge that we do have other resources that do fundraise and do outreach like the food pantry, Wellesley Neighbors, and Friendly Aid that provide some of those social services.

just for the board's clarification, the social services Beth is referring to. So the particular fund is their essential needs fund, and MassBay uses this money to help any students who are attending school in Wellesley, the college in Wellesley, with food insecurity as well as transportation needs so they can get to classes and then it's also and they're also providing emergency aid should someone perhaps not be able to have child care for a class or something like that. So that's kind of the background for that. But I do understand that there are other organizations in Wellesley that do provide that, and that MassBay does. It is more of a commuter school, so we don't know how many of the individuals attending the college are from Wellesley or if they're from outside of the community.

Right. And my understanding is that Sustainable Wellesley and the other organizations, some of which are represented here. do use some of the funds raised to support food insecurity and other things because I do believe they are part of our community and we should be doing the support for the students. But I look at this list and I feel like we have a lot of other touch points.

I just, for transparency purposes, I'd like to add a little clarification that there are other organizations that do not exclusively serve Wellesley residents. and we don't know the breakdown of community residents for example who participate in the theater project or who take advantage of Library Programs, or who are at Elizabeth Seton for short-term rehab, but I do believe that they provide important services to the community as well. and I'm a little concerned about jumping to a conclusion that all social service needs are met in Wellesley especially with the threat to SNAP benefits. and other, I think food insecurity is drastically rising need.

So I might differ with Beth on that particular issue, but I also would like to support community investors. When I read about the expansion of their programs, they're providing opportunities for student musicians and student DJs and student announcers and mentoring coaches and providing girls flag football and they've come a long way in 10 years. I understand that the Fenway Rocks program was not held this year not because of lack of desire to hold it but because Fenway scheduled other activities. at the park at the same time this had been held in previous years. So I would also like to support community investors.

Marjorie, to add one thing, actually, because I appreciated your question. I did follow up with community investors to find out a little bit more about their enrollment because they talked about their Girl Flag program. They also have a summer program where they funded... leadership coaching for 37 coaches as part of their summer program. And you alluded to the fact that they couldn't do the Fenway flag day, but they do also have a seminar for Wellesley High School Seminar Day. and they did say that last year it was attended by 200 kids so just kind of a follow-up we asked for a little bit more information and they were great to provide that

Thank you, Stephanie. I appreciate the follow-up. Go ahead, Colette.

I just have a clarifying question, Stephanie. So my understanding is there's one bib that's not placed yet and that we don't need to take away from someone to give to community investors. and I would rather just give to community investors and not take away from someone you've identified. I agree with all the proposals you've made and I do feel that there is a great deal of food insecurity among some of the students at MassBay and I don't know what the breakdown is between residents and non-residents but once they're here and there are students, there are students. and I'm not supportive of taking them off. I'm supportive of adding community investors. The other one I would have entertained was human relations services. Kenny?

So Colette, you are correct. There is that extra bit that we have the opportunity.

So I don't need to go into any more detail on community investors. I think they do an amazing job and are worthy of a bib. I would agree with this is just my two cents I would take MassBay off I would take World of Wellesley off and I'd substitute them for community investors League of Women Voters you know what they're doing right now is I think incredibly critical considering our turnout is so low and they are one of the one ways that we get out the vote and the historical society I think is an important group in the town so I would take two out and swap three in to use the open space.

Okay, so we have a proposal to, two proposals to take MassBay out. three to leave them in and add community investors, and then two to take out another and substitute two others on the alternate list. are there responses to that?

And I'll support adding the two because one of the things we look to League of Women Voters to do education on when voting is they do that Significant Mailing, which I think all of us know doing a mailing in town is quite expensive, and they're first-time applicants. I think that's important and Historical Society just opened and what they've done so far with their exhibits is nothing short of magnificent and so impressive that I feel like they are a community treasure and that in this first year we should provide them the support and encouragement to enhance to bring on the next exhibit. So I support getting those three in. I concur that three bibs for the war memorial is Thank you.

Thank you. So I feel like that array of swapping would be helpful. Tom?

I understand the logic about MassBay community, but I'll tell you why I'm a little uncomfortable with that. We are at odds with the administration at MassBay over the DKAM project. and this is a separate benefit to the students who are not part of that and I'm concerned that we not be perceived as in any way motivated students to take away a benefit for the students because of our disagreement with the trustees in the administration.

I appreciate that. My rationale for taking them off was when I went through the very extensive package. Thank you, Stephanie. I was sort of ranking who I think does most and who has the most need. and I went through our policy and made sure that it was all lining up and that's how I got to that. This is not a retaliatory thing by any means. and I know you're not suggesting that.

And mine is not retaliatory either. The other piece I would note is that of all of the bibs they were the least in terms of effectiveness of the bib and so I look at the bib revenue as part of is this a fundraising strategy that works for them or is there maybe another Avenue, but I would not want anyone to think that this is something to do with retaliation or an observance of lack of need in the community or desire to support the students. I'm just these are very difficult choices and I was just responding to past years where to add we have to kind of swap one for another and it's not an easy choice. If we had more bibs,

That would be a good choice. That was the call I put to Stephanie. Can we get more bibs? Because they're all worthy.

I'd just like to acknowledge that I think it's difficult to evaluate the relative capacity of an organization to raise money against some other organizations. So I don't necessarily want to penalize MassBay for their fundraising activities. We don't know. the number of people who contributed or their capacity to contribute large dollars. So I just want to be a little careful about that. I'm a little bit concerned about World of Wellesley's visibility in town and their capacity and and the provision of programming in the past couple of years. I have to say I was disappointed there was no programming for Indigenous Peoples Day.

I don't see much multi-generational programming or multicultural town observance provided through World of Wellesley. at the same time as we're going through the DEI task force. So I know it's not all on World of Wellesley, but I would like to see them be a little more visible in town. I could support the Wellesley Historical Society. It's a very exciting development that they've moved into their new building and they do perform an important function that is solely theirs to keep and provide historical education and artifacts for the town.

the only thing I'll add was when we had looked at this when Stephanie ran this by us we had looked at just to put sort of a finer point on what she said where the town in some capacity has given an organization funding, so community investors had received $100,000 for the work. of Representative Peysha's office. And we looked specifically at the Historical Society and went back and forth on that. and one of our we also looked at the town had recently given them five hundred thousand dollars through CPC funding was also one of our determining factors and so just just sort of adding that additional layer of when we were looking at who receives either general fund or we work to assist with significant sort of state dollar. That just played a factor.

We also consider that. Well, we think the work of the League of Women Voters is essential. They are incredibly well organized. They're a long, well-established organization with a deep network of donors, activists, and volunteers that they can tap into to kind of you know kind of organize and get people active quickly some of these smaller nonprofits and organizations in town don't have that opportunity. So we thought with our very small number of bibs, we should give it to organizations that kind of either operate on a shoestring budget or with a shoestring staff, whereas the National League of Women Voters has an operating budget annually over $20 million. So while that's not Wellesley's budget, they can tap into that statewide and the national network. Some of these other groups cannot. So that was the consideration when we were making the recommendation with Stephanie.

Thank you, that's helpful as well.

I just want to point out something I think is important. We just redid the policy, and I totally appreciate what you're saying, but nowhere in the policy does it say we take into account We factor in other sources of revenue for them. It's very narrow. We're going to look at who does the best for Wellesley, essentially. And we do not include anything in there about funding mechanisms, other ones.

so I'd like to propose a slightly amended list from Stephanie's amazing list and I don't want to forget I also want to propose that we think very hard about providing support for Stephanie to do this work in the future. It's a lot for her to be responsible for, even with the able assistance of Megan and Corey, and this is something Stephanie has asked us to consider. So my recommended list would be to add community investors and the Wellesley Historical Society and Does anybody else have a feeling, aside from MassBay, of who might come off that list? if we turn those two, take those two. I might propose World of Wellesley, but I'm open to other suggestions.

I would agree with that. I was a little surprised at what Stephanie was saying about Wellesley Friendly Aid and the percent that was a direct benefit to their stated recipients and the percent that went to and their operating costs, I might add Wellesley Friendly Aid as an organization we would consider.

Well, it's on the list.

No, taking it off.

Oh, taking it off.

So the one thing I will tell you, Tom, about Friendly Aid, so they communicated that their administrative versus percentage that goes to their mission is a little bit different than a lot of other nonprofits because they really have a higher overhead because they have that building in the facility where they host a lot of their programs so they and they don't get a lot of support. They have gone through an administrative change and are hoping to really ramp up their development efforts. But they did express that the money that they receive, while some of it goes to administrative costs, the bulk of it goes to purchase gift cards for individuals in our community of all different ages who need aid I do feel that they really have expressed that the amount of money that they use really is a critical source or critical resource for many in our community.

I appreciate that, and I want to say I was on their board at one time, which I say not... to support what I was raising as a question about their inclusion. But to say I do value the work that they do, I just don't know how much they're likely to raise through the marathon and they are engaging they have engaged for a while and I think more effective fundraising efforts but again as Kenny points out that's not part of the policy.

I wonder if it should be, though. I mean, I think it's a reasonable thing to think about. So I appreciate it's not part of the policy subcommittee had on. But I think maybe we should add that to it.

The other one I was thinking about was the Wellesley Theater Project because I'm not sure their programming is limited to Wellesley residents. and while they support a scholarship program for students in need they also use part of that money to pay their artists and staff so you know I'm not sure how others might feel about that complying or It's relative benefit to Wellesley because I didn't see any numbers about Wellesley participants.

I see they've had six bibs. I see it's intermittent for the historical society. I could live with that one. That one I think is, they're both benefits to the town and sort of the arts and culture type space. I'm worried about taking Waldorf Wellesley away because we need them to do, like you said, there's a lot of work for us to do here. And I don't know a lot about their other sources, to be honest. but I see the historical society and the theatre project kind of playing in the same space whereas the only one we have in that space is World of Wellesley.

That's a very good point. I really don't want to take out Wellesley Friendly Aid. I do know the recipients of a lot of the aid. I know the camp fundraiser that they do in the late summer and fall and how incredibly important that's been to transporting the kids to camp but I do agree with this recent proposal, which is to take the theater project out and insert the historical society.

it's not easy and all of these organizations do remarkable work and I hope it's clear that our discussion is not a reflection of our for their work and their missions and their impact. We're just trying to make a very difficult decision here.

It's like picking a favorite child. Don't tell my children I said that.

The factor of paramount concern to me is the net benefit to Wellesley. to the town, to people who spend time here, go to school here, live here, and have needs that are addressed through these organizations. We have mixed feelings about the theater project and the historical society. Does anybody want to help us with that?

I'm okay with that switch to bring this to Article Society. I'm supportive of that.

Okay. What I'm confused about is the league that does the mailing. We would have three. If we took out two, we would have three. Three, if we swap the war memorial. That seems like a good... do we have consensus on that lineup?

So I think there's one space so you add community investors in for that space and then you swap out the theatre project for the historical society that's it if you want somebody else and you have to take someone else out.

Correct. Well, I made my proposal on who to take out, so.

Okay, so my proposal would be to not award another bib to the theater project, but to add community investors and the historical society.

Okay, I'm going to make a motion based on that. So move to approve the Boston Marathon Invitational Entry bibs as detailed in the memorandum from Stephanie Hawkinson dated November 28, 25. 2025 with the following amendments, the inclusion of community investors, with the inclusion of the Wellesley Historical Society and with the removal of the Wellesley Theatre Project.

Second. Second.

Any further discussion? All in favor? Aye. Any opposed? Okay. Stephanie, thank you very much. I will continue to discuss with you and Megan and Corey and the board. how we can get you some assistance in going through this massive amount of paperwork every year. Thank you so much. And again, apologies for the late hour. No worries.

Before we close this item, Marjorie, am I taking, or can I, as Policy Subcommittee, some guidance from the board to include? you know the factors that some of the staff that staff were using at least looking at other funding sources or funding that's significant funding that's come from the town that we're aware of should we think about that and add it to the work plan at some point

I think that's a good thing to think about. I think the relative impact of the bib relative to the other potential funding sources of the organization is important. It might help us make these difficult decisions. Other thoughts? I wouldn't put it as a disqualifying that there are other funding sources, but it might be something to throw into the hopper.

I think it should be a factor, but it should be below how important is the organization to Wellesley. I don't think they should have equal weight. But like a tiebreaker, I think is helpful.

So just to let you know, I appreciate that and would appreciate the board's and the policy subcommittee's input, partly because I think we are seeing a lot of nonprofits seeing reduced funding. And I have a feeling that will continue. So we will likely be faced with this in the future as well. Okay. Thank you all for your time. Thank you again, Stephanie. We have nonprofits who will be very happy tomorrow.

Collette could I ask you to add kind of the overhead rate to this so that there's some transparency about it's in the write up but kind of an understanding of how much of the funds are going back to the community and I don't think that it's a final determinant either because if you have a permanent facility and staff, you're reaching out to the community more stable.

And some applicants were a little more specific in that area than others. Okay, our next agenda item is to discuss and vote minutes. I believe we have minutes from the moderator's meeting on October 21st.

We have minutes from October 21st. We had some very minor modifications that Corey sent out. If you want me to put them up, I can put them up.

Ministerial.

Yeah.

So you want the motion? Yes, please. So move to approve the minutes of October 21, 2025 moderators meeting as amended.

Second.

All in favor? Aye. Okay, I'll move on to the chair's report. I have a brief report. Tom and I met with both advisory and school committee this morning. for Advisory, Madison has circulated a draft of his findings on the school finances collected from public records. to the other advisory officers and will be incorporating their feedback. He expects to present the findings to the full advisory committee in the next week or two. They have received 129 responses to the survey on town meeting and will be reviewing and presenting conclusions on that as well in the upcoming weeks. and they are now hearing from departments presenting their FY27 budgets. For the schools, the next week the school committee will be presented with the first phase of the air conditioning feasibility study.

which looked at three options for each of four schools. The consultants will explain what they have found so far and which of those options would require ADA compliance. if the school committee is still interested in one or more solutions that do require full ADA compliance. Further study is already built into the consultant's contract to determine what those ADA inclusive construction costs will be. and they're looking at a fall STM 2026 for design funds. Nikki also anticipates a December 16th discussion of the school committee to include feedback on our policy subcommittee's draft of the capital planning committee proposal. So she is gathering feedback from school committee and they will take that up in two weeks.

For the COA, Collette has advised us that the board spent considerable time at their meeting last week discussing funding for their bus drivers. and whether the money should come from general fund budget appropriations or their age grant and potentially in what percentages. Collette drafted a history of that funding and circulated it to all of us in preparation for our budget summit next week. and also to the COA Chair and Vice Chair with the request that they share the information with their full board. I'd like to ask that board members submit updates from liaison committees and boards from the last couple of months that may not have been considered, especially if there's anything , anticipated for the ATM warrant, current initiatives, or other issues of which you think the select board should be aware.

We are looking to schedule a semi-annual retreat, most likely in January, to do a mid-year review and an update of our work plan. and we will send out a doodle poll shortly so please respond as soon as you see that. and I'd like to also just add my regrets at the news that planning director Eric Arbini will be leaving the town effective December 31st. He's going to the private sector. I want to thank Eric in the four and a half years I think he's been here. He's worked on ADUs and Rios and MBTA communities. so it's not been a small portfolio or it's been very challenging work and we have all benefited from Eric's leadership and work with his board and I hope I can speak for the board and say that we all wish Eric well.

I'm sure we'll see him before he leaves but I didn't want to miss mentioning that. That's all I have right now. Is there anything else from anybody else? Beth? The budget summit next week? Yes, sorry. Budget summit next week from 9 to 2 here in Giuliani. And we will not have an evening meeting next week, but we will meet again in the evening on December 16th.

Do we have a timing of when we'll get those budgets? Because they do take a long time to go through.

We are hoping to get them to you Thursday.

and how, I mean, I think it's been helpful when we've sent questions in before sort of end of the day Sunday so that staff can spend Monday answering them so that we can get those answers circulated before the and Budget Summit because that made for a much better discussion at the Budget Summit. So is that something that we can plan for?

Please ask everybody to send your questions in in advance. We have a compressed timetable and we'd like to complete the budget review in one day. So send questions in to Megan and Corey and they'll endeavor to get them answered in advance.

We also will continue to prepare what I would like to call the cheat sheet, which is a quick synopsis of every budget, you know, just with regards to how it meets guideline or if it, what... the key criteria may be being modified just as a when you start to review that budget it helps it will just draw your eyes to those particular lines.

and at the other end of the spectrum of regrettably having to say goodbye to Eric we say welcome back Rachel you came just in time for all the budget work so we're glad you're back and with that we're adjourned thank you everybody and good night