Select Board April 21, 2026

Good evening. I'd like to call to order the select board meeting of April 21, 2026 in the Giuliani room at Town Hall. Here for the Select Board are Vice Chair Tom Ulfelder, Secretary Coletto Frank, Beth Sullivan Woods, and Kenny Largess, and myself, Marjorie Freiman. Also here from the Select Board Office is Assistant Executive Director Corey Testa and joining us at the table are Town Council Tom Harrington and Eric Russell. Our first agenda, we are being broadcast live on Comcast Channel 8 and Verizon Channel 40, and the meeting will be available for viewing later on Wellesley Media. Our first agenda item is Citizen Speak. Is there anyone here for Citizen Speak?

Ms. Mayall, would you like to address the board?

Okay, that's not Citizen Speak. Thank you.

Anybody else?

Okay. All right, so our next agenda item is to prepare for the special town meeting. Most of you know the select board has called a special town meeting on May 11th. to discuss the proposed disposition of land at 40 Oakland Street. We have a draft warrant and we're going to start by opening and closing the warrant. So I'll ask Colette for a motion, please.

So move to call a special time meeting to be held on Monday, May 11, 2026 at 7 p.m. at the Wellesley High School, located at 50 Rice Street. and to set the following dates. To open the warrant on Tuesday, April 21st, 2026. To close the warrant on Friday, April 24th, 2026 at 9 a.m. with motions due electronically to the Select Board Office email and that email is sel at wellesleyma.gov due Tuesday, April 28, 2026 at 8 p.m. Second. All in favor?

Aye. OK. Thank you, Colette. And I'm going to ask Cory to display the draft of the article of the warrant that we have. There are three articles. The first is to receive an act on reports which typically has no motion. so our discussion will focus on articles two and three. Tom, I'll turn it over to you.

Your mic.

Thank you, Tom Harrington, Town Council. So I drafted for your consideration Article 2, which is above. the idea is that this is a non-binding question to go before town meeting to instruct the board how it would like the board to proceed on and the proposal for 40 Lake Street. And you'll notice that there's two parts to it. So the first part essentially mirrors the letter that the select board received from the Commonwealth last week, I think. And so what it calls for is for the, it would be advising the select board to pursue an agreement with the Commonwealth wherein the town will accept the construction of 180 units of housing on and around the parking lot

on approximately seven to eight acres of land in exchange for a permanent conservation restriction for passive recreation on the remaining 37 to 38 acres of land at that location. that is essentially what the Commonwealth is offering. So I think it's important that you understand if town meeting wants you to pursue that. The alternative is found in Section B, which would be to pursue litigation against the Commonwealth of Massachusetts seeking a declaration that some or all of the land located at 40 Oakland Street is not legally available for housing, and to seek to limit to the greatest extent feasible the amount of housing that may be constructed on any portion of the property determined to be eligible for such use. So the purpose there is to understand

from town meeting if they want you to put up an adversarial front and to oppose this project in any and all legal means possible so that you have an understanding at least you have their thoughts on how you should proceed. And I did it this way specifically. I wanted to give kind of the bookends, right? So here's what's being offered. Would you like us to pursue that? the other end of the spectrum that were going to oppose rigorously this development. town meeting has the ability to kind of pull you down on or to make their advice to you less than what's offered in A or more than what's offered in B. but I think it's important to give them the choice and the clear direction. Here's one end, here's the other end. Help us understand which way you want the town to go.

So when you say town meeting has the right to offer opinions on less than A or more than B, I think the board is looking for a direction, a definitive direction. So, for example, if town meetings input would like the board to negotiate with the state. That means negotiate to its end result. not negotiate to a certain degree and then come back and consult town meeting again. It's to negotiate the best result we can get.

Yeah, no, I think that's fair. we need to understand that we're up against the state. So in that way, We need to be genuine in our approach so that if we are seeking to negotiate a settlement, we need to put our best efforts into negotiating that settlement. it doesn't mean that we need at the end to accept the settlement they could change the terms but we understand the terms they're offering right now and we need to understand if that's something that the town would like us to pursue

OK. All right, I'm going to open it to questions. I have other questions, but I'll open it to the board for other questions at the moment.

I have a question. So that anchoring specific numbers in there, seven to eight acres, the remaining 37 to 38 acres. How did we pick those? Where do we get the guidance on those exact numbers?

So we understand from the state that they want to construct in and around the parking lot. and we understand that the parking lot is five acres? Four point something. Approximately five acres? About five acres.

Yeah.

So this is an expansion on that. Again, it's not, so if town meeting were to, say, approve eight acres it doesn't mean you remember this is advice to you so you can take that advice and if it came in at 8.2 you can still strike a deal they're not limiting your ability but from my perspective we need something to consider and leaving that blank and I don't know if there's better numbers to use I'm happy to hear them

I'm just curious. We've never talked about numbers, so I'm wondering how you got that guidance. Did we talk about that somewhere?

did you get it from us? it's an estimate I don't know that I can point to any specific document that says precisely because I don't think they know how much they want to build

No, I know, but when you wrote it down, did we tell you somewhere that those are good numbers to put in?

No, I've been participating right along, and so that's what I came up with.

Okay, so I'm going to start with... extraordinarily uncomfortable putting out an acreage that is almost twice the size of the parking lot as a kind of like, this is, an option to settle at. I feel like that doesn't leave any negotiating leverage even if you were looking at development on the parcel. As a warrant article, yeah, an article, I'm kind of baffled why we would tip our hand when we've only been meeting an executive session to discuss what we think about what's going on to come out with something like this that we've never talked about seems So you need to start somewhere. you can propose an amendment. So that's... So I'm going to say to the board, I am very uncomfortable with that.

Well, okay. Okay, and so I have another... All right, but before we move off that, it says approximately. My thinking about this is that what I have heard over the past year is that the town's priority is to preserve the forest. So the question is, if we can preserve 37 or 38 acres, did you really mean it? Is that what the town wants? Because if you say no, That is a very different answer. We have heard and characterized and the state has characterized the town's priority is preserving as undeveloped and protected the forested land. If we can get 37 or 37 acres, 37 or 38 acres, can we live with the result?

Well, that's what town meeting is going to be asked. That's essentially the question. I mean, that's the bottom line question. What's your priority? What are you willing to live with? What are you willing to risk? What are you willing to give up? That's the question.

Let me just point out that these numbers aren't made up out of whole cloth. The hard top is slightly less than five acres. But GIS mapping has shown us that it's not 40 acres of forested land. There's an additional two to three acres immediately abutting the blacktop that is clear-cut at this point. So you didn't just make these up.

I mean, these are numbers that that I think have been out there in the public for a while.

So they haven't been public with me. I'm just going to put it out there. I have not had any exposure to those numbers. And I thought there were wetlands abutting the parking lot. Okay, so my second issue.

Let's move on to the next one.

I just want to go with my second issue. This sets up a premise that it's fight the definition of surplus or agree that 180 is the right number. I have never heard from this community that 180 units on the parking lot is acceptable to anyone. I just haven't heard that number at all. I've heard a lot of discussion about the lot is not surplus for multiple reasons. It's not surplus because the parking study proves that they need to use the parking still. and it's not surplus because it has the indications of Article 97 land. So I've heard a major issue about it's not surplus in toto.

I've heard concerns about from us and the letters that we've written that we have extreme concerns about the municipal rights that are not reflected in the act that they're pursuing and things like being able to enforce wetlands, things like being able to comply with some of our rules and regulations are not not well reflected and we've spent a lot of time documenting that so for me this sets up a definition of the end but doesn't talk about all the other reasons that the community and the board has spent so much time trying to protect the interests of the town.

And for me, I thought we wanted to know from town meeting, did they support the select board protecting the interests of the town. And I would say they do because they didn't even whisper when we asked for the $200,000. authorization, but this to me doesn't seem like It leaves us set to negotiate.

This is article language. It should be broad. Not too broad, because we want a definitive answer from the town of what their opinion is that we should do. and the terms could change, as Tom said. We could accept terms in negotiation. They could change what they're offering. We could ask for more. But the question is, which direction town meeting would prefer the select board move in. This will be covered in motions and in presentations, the things you're saying. All of it will be covered, but it can't all be included in the article. Go ahead, Tom. Oh, Kenny.

So I'd like to propose a different version of this article for us to consider. I think it's important to recognize what an article is it's essentially a notice to the town right to town meeting members that there's a town meeting this is what's going to be discussed and these are the parameters of the discussion itself, right? It's defining the scope of what can actually be discussed. So in my view, the original language unnecessarily narrows the scope of that discussion. It essentially frames it as a choice between two outcomes. I don't see where it... allows for a motion that is somewhere between A and B. It seems like you're going to vote on. If you put this in the article, it's either A or B, and a motion that deviates from that is outside the scope. That's the way I'm reading this.

And I also have a serious concern that if we're including litigation explicitly in the article, that we're setting ourselves up for failure here. If the litigation is a path that the town is willing to pursue, it's just not something we can meaningfully discuss in an open town meeting session. Can you imagine how that goes? Somebody wants to discuss the scope of, what is the definition of surplus lands? and they're gonna wanna know. And we're gonna say to them, sorry, we want you to vote on whether or not to litigate this. But we can't tell you how strong we think the case is. We can't tell you what the potential arguments are. We can't tell you any of that. But we want you to vote. to litigate this, which I don't think is a great way to do it. So Corey, can you throw up the language that I proposed, just so everyone can see it?

One second.

So I'll just read it. So my language is to see if the town will vote to advise the select board regarding engagement with the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. with respect to the use, development, conservation, and or disposition of the property located at 40 Oakland Street, including actions the select board may take in response to any proposed use, development, conservation, and or disposition of such property. and to provide guidance on priorities, process, alternatives and next steps or to take any other action in relation thereto. So in my view, this language preserves our flexibility, avoids unnecessary strategic risk to the town and allows town meeting to give us a more meaningful and informed direction, which ultimately I think puts the town of Wellesley and the select board in the best position possible. I understand the motion language can narrow what we're going to talk about but I don't think in the article we should be narrowing the discussion to two possible outcomes.

Thank you, Kenny. I appreciate the thought that went into this. But this is so broad. any motion will fit under here and we can't we don't have the luxury of asking town meeting tell us what uses you want what disposition, what priorities, what process, we don't have the luxury and there's no way we can formulate that in what we put to town meeting. What we need to know is whether town meeting wants us to engage with the Commonwealth to do the best we can for the town. or potentially risk a conservation restriction, risk losing. This is an untested statute. There is no judicial precedent. We don't know what could happen for either side.

and we know what we could lose. We have to have advice on which avenue we pursue. This could take three months.

So I appreciate that. I'm saying. I don't think we know what the motions are yet. And so correct me if I'm wrong, Tom, but if you propose A and B, how do you get to C landing somewhere in the middle of it if the article isn't capturing the potential for C?

So it's a good question. So in proposing A and B, again, I was trying to do kind of either end of the spectrum. I think what I want to be careful of because with the understanding we're going to try to do this in one night I worry about answers like let's take the conservation restriction but fight them on everything else because that's not a realistic answer. that's not going to happen. The state is the state. They have lawyers too. They're not going to accept that. So to me, these are the polar ends, right? It's either fight or it's accept. And the accept part is what's being offered. So I think it's important for town meeting to understand this is what's being offered. I do think you can shrink anywhere in between there. I think town meeting can say, Okay, we're okay with parts of A.

We're not okay with 180 units. We're okay with fewer than that. and they can advise a number. They can go to the litigation and say, you know, we're okay litigating on one, but we think some of the ideas we don't think you want to litigate. I will say this about litigation. I agree with you that we cannot divulge strategy. It's not in our best interest to talk strategy. I think all we can do is let people know what the elements of a claim are. So that if we're looking at surplus land, here's the section of the statute that defines surplus land. town meeting, after that it's almost as if town meeting is acting like a jury, right? Because that's all the jury does, they're presented the law, they're presented the facts and they make the decision. We can present them the law.

We can give them the standard, just kind of the plain vanilla standard, and then they can make that decision. But I don't... I think I agree with you in that the litigation piece, town meeting needs to understand a little bit about that in order to make that decision. They have to at least know kind of what the standards of the claims are. we're not going to talk to them about evidence and we're not going to talk to them about here's where we think our strengths are and here's where we think our weaknesses are but I think they're owed that much.

So if I was a town meeting member and I hadn't been in an executive session the first thing I was going to ask is what is the likelihood of success? And we can't answer that. We can't. So how do I vote on pursue litigation if I have no idea about the likelihood of success? but even- And I feel like that puts us in a really bad spot because if there's two options and one I have no way of understanding the potential, whether I win or lose, I'm only left with option A and that may not be what anybody actually wants but if you have a binary choice maybe you make that, and that's not necessarily what you would make if you had other options.

And it's not set up to be a binary choice. It's set up to be the polar ends. I think there's lots of things that fit in between, but I think we... with your article, we're gonna get to the litigation discussion probably as fast as we do.

Probably, but if what you're saying is essentially Marjorie's concern I understand and I think it's a real concern is that under what I'm saying my proposal it's wide open right people can bring motions but what I think I hear you saying is these are just bookends and you can bring anything in between so therefore I'm not sure how it's different than what I'm proposing

So I think my bookends are accepting what's offered, or Sewing. And what's in between all deals with the development of the land. So we know what the state's goals are. adjusting our goals with their goals all make sense within that article. But with your article, we can go off on a lot of detours.

Where do you think that under My article, we can't go. I'm sorry, that we could go, that we couldn't under your article.

To acquiring the land by eminent domain. just as just as a for instance.

Okay. And what if I proposed as the town meeting member stands up and proposes 20 units, conservation restriction, they fixed the traffic, and they fixed the streets. Could that motion be made under your, and inclusionary zoning, which I have a question about. as well.

I think it could. I think it's important to that's not a settlement option, right? That's a two weeks for settlement and then we're gonna slide into litigation.

But do you think that could be discussed and a motion could be brought under that? I do. OK.

So I'm just going to maybe add to that, Kenny, because I had a different way of getting to the same question. And I had some back and forth at town council today, which was basically asking should we have a little bit broader wording so that we could land somewhere in between and the response that the town council gave me is that as we've included it we've included the two extremes so that special time meetings job is to advise the board on where they can land by motion so that special time making can make a motion to land somewhere in between Am I capturing that correctly, Tom?

That's how I see it.

But I also think we need to be realistic. In every conversation we have had with anybody from the state, they have not moved off 180 units. If we go in with 20 you may as well call the settlement negotiations over.

I totally understand that. What I'm trying to make sure is if somebody brings a motion to that, that can be discussed. I don't want to get to the time of meeting and somebody brings a motion and they say, sorry, you can't.

No, I think that's fair game, but it's a fair question too, and I'll confirm the answer to that.

The other question I had is you traced essentially what they put in their letter, but you didn't mention inclusionary zoning, which was... Interestingly worded by the state. It was different. They said something along the lines of we're open to discussing where the others was, and I'm assuming that was intentional. So curious why you didn't put that in.

Failure. Yeah.

Well, I think it's more than just inclusionary zoning. Let me back up a sec. I think one of the things that Tom's considered, and correct me if I'm wrong, is that the two options that he's put in front of town meeting are well grounded and realistic in terms of what we know in our conversations with the Commonwealth. So we don't want to mislead people. by putting out there that, you know, should we go after 120 units? We know at this point that that isn't a choice. That isn't the choice that we have. Regardless, I think if people aren't willing to look at 180 units and the conservation restriction and a few other items, then the choice is litigation regardless of the likelihood of success.

and I think that stark difference between them is exactly what we want the community and town meeting to understand. that we don't have fine gradations of the state's offer realistically in front of us that we can push forward. There's been absolutely no indication from the Commonwealth of Massachusetts that we have those options. and so I think we're charged really with putting realistic information out there for town meeting and for the community as a whole to look at. That's what concerns me, Kenny, about the fluidity of the language that you're proposing is that it does exactly what you suggested, which is somebody could put out there 20 units, the conservation restriction, fix the traffic, and we know that that is a non-starter. We wouldn't even need to call the Commonwealth.

They'd be calling us and saying, don't bother. So we just don't want people to a month later say, Well, what's the story? You know, this is what town meeting wanted, and we haven't seen any action on this. I don't think that's being responsible as a select board to the members of town meetings.

We have to give town meeting the full history of our engagement with the Commonwealth, what we've said to them and what they've said to us, so that town meeting can give us advice that they think is acceptable or at least an opening gambit with the state because it's the state versus the town. and we want town meeting members to understand what we've heard and where we think the state has moved a little bit and where they haven't moved. And to Beth's point about the acreage,

It says in Juana Matias' letter, we are prepared to require that the selected developer cluster all of the units that the town is required to permit. I understand that's... Testa, Ulfelder, We have looked at the You know, it may be that a compromise is another acre or two to protect everything else closer to centennial. It's the traditional dichotomy between trying to get something that you know for sure Or risking a lot. And I know it's a huge question. And we can't get into the strategy or the likelihood of success on the merits. But as I say, it's a new statute. It's never been tested.

We're going up against the state. Do we want something we can walk away from that we're sure of? Or are we willing to risk everything? That's really what it's going to come down to.

If I can just add to that, Margie, what I'm really hoping to hear here is that I think similar to some of the comments we've made before is that we keep hearing that the preservation of the land is I think the primary goal of residents and I want some clarity on that because my biggest concern is that we take an action that then we don't achieve that. And I feel that's a primary goal that I'm being told that the town wants to achieve. and so I really want some direction or to hear more from town meeting about how to achieve that goal or or am I misunderstanding that goal? They're actually willing to gamble that. And so I really would like to hear that more. And I think going back to Beth's point originally about the number of acres,

I think that we had had in your chairs debrief of the conversations that we had with DCAM as we were getting ready for the visioning session, the question was, what can residents live with? Is it concentrated on five acres and very concentrated or a little bit less concentrated in a bigger space? I think we had those initial discussions. maybe not talking about seven or eight acres but it has to be more than five to be less concentrated so that's I think and I certainly want some feedback on that is it is it to be very concentrated on just the car park or a little bit less so it looks and feels different to the neighbors? So I certainly want some feedback on that particular point.

So first of all, Kenny, thank you. like 1,000% more comfortable with the proposed Article 2 as warrant language than I am with the initial proposal because for me, it reads as a binary choice that doesn't have any flexibility. And I just conceptually don't like warrant language that is so tight. and I'm specifically uncomfortable with putting out a very clear offer of acreage and number of units. in a warrant language so both of all of those reasons make me inclined to support article two because I We're looking for non-binding direction and I think part of that is

we're not doing a visioning session and we need to have the flexibility to get through the discussion on Thursday about the motion language and I don't see how there's flexibility in the initial. When I got it, I don't know where my head was. I thought that was the motion language because of the structure of it. And it reads to me like a binary choice. So you'd be in town moody and you'd push one or two. A or B.

Well, Tom just said it's not, that a lot can fit with either one.

But you still need to. Can I just ask you, if that came forward to town meeting, town meeting would be debating A or B, and they'd be voting maybe a modified A and a modified B, but they're gonna vote A or B, right? That's what I'm just asking. We're not voting A and then voting B.

We don't know what we're voting yet because we haven't drafted the motion. But the way it reads. This is the article. So again, this is supposed to be non-binding advice. supposed to be in one night. So from my perspective, you need to lay out the width and length of the field. And that's what I've intended to do. the motion language is going to find its way somewhere in between there. It may choose A or B, or it may find somewhere in between there. And I'm sure there's going to be amendments to it because I think lots of people will have decisions on it, but at least we've in my way of thinking, contained it to the playing field. With broader language, you might get there. You might end up in the exact same place as my version. But you also could take some detours along the way, which My concern there specifically is it lends itself to more than one night of discussion.

So I'm just going to put it out there. I don't know where everybody else is. I don't actually care if it takes more than one night. It's a really big deal. It's 45 acres of land in this town. if we have to meet for a couple of nights, that's our job. So let's have at it. For me, efficiency, is not the goal when you're talking about permanence. So I don't know where others stand on that, but I would prefer not to scope something to be able to get through it really fast. I'd prefer to scope something to get the feedback that we feel we need to then make the decisions to get to the best solution for the town. The best decision may be that the town does not want 180 units, but the town could live with something less. The town doesn't want to go more than the parking lot.

and the town doesn't want to count the forest as the denominator upon which it, does the density. I don't know how to do that in this. But it may be that with a direction from town meeting that those are the elements that the state may care enough about what the town that you don't have to necessarily litigate. You can go in empowered to negotiate or maybe come up with another creative solution. For me litigation is the last thing you do, but if town meeting tells us go litigate, We don't really have an option then.

So Beth, I'm just, I'm not the attorney. I have to jump in here.

If we can get a word in here. Go for it. I really object to setting up the idea that this board would sacrifice thoroughness for efficiency. That is absolutely not what Tom Harrington has done. or what this board is suggesting. I think what we're trying to say is we're trying to set up a truthful, realistic expectation within town meeting about the position we're in right now and the choice that we're asking Town Meeting to help us make. And I think that anything short of that is misleading the community and I object to that. So I think that, you know, if we can help town meeting by understanding the Commonwealth's position and our options and leading them on a more direct path to assist us with a non-binding answer, I think that's our obligation.

And I think that creates a more effective town meeting and sharpens the debate in a constructive way.

Thank you, Tom. So for people who don't know, we have been told that the state will accept comments on the legislation and the disposition until May 13th. We need to get, we don't want to lose the opportunity to respond to the state within the time that they have given us. Again, they're the state, we're the town. and I felt that that was so important that we needed to conclude town meeting in time for the board and the attorneys to fashion our response to the state. We are not going to sacrifice quality for efficiency. On the other hand, we have had hundreds of emails countless conversations.

We have heard and taken into account everything people have said and we need to make a decision as a town and move forward. Nobody is going to get everything they want. The question is where you're going to draw the goalpost and what you're willing to risk. It's going to be a negotiation or a litigation where things are not going to go 100% one direction or the other. We have to be realistic about that. The question is, what's our risk tolerance? And if we litigate, we're going to ask you for a lot of money. So that's part of it, too. We could be talking upwards of hundreds of thousands of dollars. And to some people, that's going to be very important. To other people, it might not be as important. but we have to ask for a supplemental authorization for the FY27 legal budget in order to move forward.

So that's gonna be part of the calculus for some people. Marjorie, can I, sorry, go ahead. I was just going to say the reason we're doing it in one night is because we have to get back to the state.

if I could just add that so that's in the Adam Bakke served on the town on April 13th the notice of surplus property which is on the website that has the 30-day at the bottom so

to Tom's point about not misleading the public about possibilities, absolutely. We should not mislead the public at all. But I think it is incredibly misleading to the public to have option A and option B But we cannot discuss option B in any meaningful way. And then we're going to throw a huge number out to say, and by the way, we cannot tell you with any level of certainty. We can't even discuss. Our ability to win this case because that will compromise our position. But by the way, throw us another million dollars to litigate. We're setting ourselves up for failure here. by doing this. And I think if you present binary choices, first of all, for the people who have not been town meeting members for multiple years, it is quite likely they look at the article and say, it's A or B. It's not A or B of the goalposts.

I can bring whatever motion under that I want. It's I have a binary choice. and I can pick 180 units on seven or eight acres, or I can litigate something I have no clue if we're gonna win or not, and I'm going to spend whatever, a million dollars of the town's money. I think this is a false choice and we should not do this. I just think this is the wrong approach. After hearing the whole discussion, I think the article language that I proposed is a far better way to have the discussion that we're telling the town that we want to have I understand there may be some lack of efficiency. I'm not convinced that this will then veer way outside of those lanes of the two goalposts.

maybe somebody brings up adverse possession and I think that's a quick answer and I know this was just one example but like hey that's actually not in play here. and I'm sure there's other examples that may lead to a longer discussion. But I think that discussion is worth having. I understand we have to get back to the state. I'm also a lawyer who's worked at a law firm. You work 24 hours a day, seven days a week if that's what your clients demand and you throw whatever resources are to get that letter out the door. So I think we could do all of this and have the most robust discussion about what's going on. And I think the article language gets us there. All it does is say, this is the notice, town meeting, we're going to talk about it, and here are the parameters of what we're going to discuss. the motion language is gonna define what is actually discussed and I don't feel like there's any reason to cast a narrow, anything more than a broad net here for something so important at the time.

So Kenny, let me ask you, if there are several different suggestions of combinations of terms that people would like us to pursue, how do you reconcile if people take a vote on one motion and then somebody recommends another one they say oh I like that one better and they vote on that one and then there's a third one or a fourth one How does that provide us guidance with whether we're going to talk to the state or not?

I personally think town meeting is not the right approach to all of this. I think town meeting is a legislative body that does two things. It passes laws and appropriates money. We're seeking guidance on a strategic approach to something that is actually better positioned for all of the town. I understand there's issues with that. We can't do that in short order. you know town meeting members or representatives of the state of the town but in this amount of time it's going to be very hard for town meeting members to reach out to their constituents and understand what they actually want so I fundamentally don't think this is the right approach but it's an approach and so I'm willing to go with that but if we get all kinds of feedback I think we digest that feedback and say What did the town really want us to do here? Did they want us to try to did 75% say 180 units is great in conserved 37, 38 acres? That's probably a pretty clear message.

I don't think that's what we're gonna get. So we're gonna get all these different, discussions that we're going to have to synthesize and say, what did that actually mean? And we're going to have to make a decision base. We're the executive branch of the government. This is what we're hired to do is make this decision. We should seek feedback from the town. So I don't know what we're going to do with that information other than I think look at it holistically and say what's the best approach. I don't think it's an A or B discussion at this point.

So I think there's been some discussion about the fact that it looks like it's binary. And I think that's not giving credit to the amount of information that's given to time meeting members beforehand. There's going to be a moderator's bulletin There will be presentations at the beginning of the discussion, so it's perfectly clear to people who are there what the options are in the discussion on the evening. So I think that I'm not sure that I give that as much weight as it's maybe been given in some of these comments tonight. The other thing I'd say is we've had a number of town meetings where the last night has centered on a citizen's petition. and we've had pretty rich discussions on the citizens petition in an evening. I'm not sure that I feel that that's giving it short shrift to send a night for it. I think that the night is a reasonable amount of time to have a discussion to hear what the general themes are.

I think you're right that there's not going to be consensus there's not there's not consensus here why should we expect to anywhere else but I think we're going to see a lot of opinions, maybe nothing new. I'm not sure that. I think we'll probably hear some more threads we haven't heard before. But I would also say that today I was looking at the minutes of town meeting from 1973 when this purchase previously came up. there was a very robust discussion that evening along with a very difficult discussion on settlement of a budget after a very challenging collective bargaining situation there was no sense that that wasn't given the appropriate amount of time Time meeting members decided to have that discussion in one night for various reasons. And I think devoting a whole night to this is appropriate for the purposes of what we're doing, which is advice to us. They're not making the decision. We are. But I think it's a good way to reach out to people and get some feedback.

If we had gone another path, there's loads of paths we could do. In my mind, it's like Wedding China. there's a lot of good choices here and we could have done a visioning session that wouldn't have had consensus that would have come out with 20 options

It was also a unanimous decision by the board to call a special town meeting. And we have to also look at some other realities. We are in a box of time that has been drawn by the state. They are starting to write an RFP. If we want to have any input, any hope of any input into an RFP, we have to have some direction from the town. they have indicated they will take some input. What input they would consider and to the extent they would consider, we don't know. But the RFP is going out in July. So we have a May 13th deadline. We have an RFP. For those of you who've drafted an RFP for development on 45 acres, it's not a simple document. And it takes time. And the town would like to have input on that, which It's more of a time pressure because we've said that all along. We want to have input into the RFP.

We sent the state 37 questions on January 9th as Secretary Augustus asked us. They didn't respond for three months, and then they never responded to our questions. We didn't hold the visioning session because we couldn't rely on the assumptions under which we were going to hold it because the state kept telling us different things. And that has not changed. So the town needs to move forward. We need to move forward. And in my opinion, this is the best way under all the circumstances. to get input to help the Select Board make a decision on what to do next.

Kenny, I'm not sure how your warrant article language answers the question any better than Tom's about litigation. and about the merits of litigation. And I think what it does is risk town meeting members, some number of town meeting members not thinking about that. and I think whether we can completely answer that question or not, we want town meeting members to think about it. Is it important to them in voting on this to know whether there is a greater likelihood or a lesser likelihood that we could succeed at litigation. And I would suggest that from a lot of the comments and emails we've had, it's merits be damned. I don't want housing there. I want you to litigate. We're not seeing shades of gray in the language about the responses that we're getting and the comments we're getting.

and I think and reasonably so, you were one of the most concerned among us that we respond with thoughtful comments by the 30-day deadline. and so I think that's and and that you made good points about that but that's why we can't draw out town meeting to be a three four five night Town Meeting. I'm not suggesting that your language would necessarily do that. I don't want to exaggerate. But I think it would certainly What I'm concerned about is that it would open it up to multiple nights much of the time being taken on wholly unrealistic Testa, Ulfelder, Wellesley, Councilor anything of interest to the Commonwealth.

And so I think what we're trying to do is to put in front of town meeting choices that are truly realistic and that we can pursue. and I think that's what Tom has done.

The other thing that we haven't discussed yet is everything that we have said to the Commonwealth. We have told them 180 units is too much. We have told them we want the conservation restriction. We have told them we want inclusionary zoning. We have told them we want traffic off of Oakland Street. and we want assistance with mitigating traffic impact. We have told them all of these things. So it's not like this is the only thing they're gonna hear from us or from the board. We have been talking to them and asking questions for nine months. So it's much more of a complex landscape than you might think just looking at this. and I'm presenting to advisory tomorrow night so they'll get some more of the details in the presentation tomorrow night to go over all the background. This is in a much bigger context and it's much more complicated

and the state knows all of those things about what's important to the town. It's not that they haven't heard them. It's not that we haven't told them. We've told them repeatedly. and so it's not all in Commissioner Bakke's letter but they've heard it and they know it and so do our state legislators and our legislators support us so we have that as well.

There's something else that I meant to say. What I think is also critical is including local permitting requirements. so that we don't have displacement of the wetlands and we don't have downslope water infiltration so we've talked about the need for there to be if there were to be housing that there were some realistic, there was a realistic level of acceptance about local permitting requirements to assure the safety and the value of the properties that are a butters. And this isn't to say that I'm in favor of development. there, but it is my responsibility to think about in either case what is it that's involved and what is it that I think the public needs to know about either option.

Go ahead, Beth.

So it seems to me that We're discussing the motion language and kind of how we foresee the discussion at town meeting. But what we're talking about this evening is the notice to the public about what the topic will be. And so for me, I think, and we're gonna talk about this on Thursday, but I would think that, I'm gonna call it the Kenny language, provides notice to the public, that we are seeking advice on how to proceed. And then the warrant language is the framework within we intend to bring that discussion pieces are not incompatible. We could put the Kenney language on the warrant to provide the community notice that this is the topic. And I think that's what we've done in the past. Broad topic announcement.

make no mistake we're going to talk about 40 Oakland Street and what we should be doing and then the warrant language that the select board pops up and motion language, it can be far more concrete and is always far more concrete. It could be what you've proposed, it could be somewhere in the middle, or it could be wholly different. But that's for Thursday, not today. Is that correct? Well, a decision on the warrant language is not going to be made tonight. the warrant language we're gonna make tonight, aren't we? On the agenda it said to discuss and finalize the warrant language and I believe that Thursday is the article. I'm sorry, now I've got myself tangled up. So the warrant language, the this version, the one paragraph version, could be the warrant language. It gives sufficient notice to the public.

It's legally sufficient.

It's legally sufficient.

And then. .

And what you provided to us could live underneath this as motion language, correct?

Yeah, I think it would fit.

So for me, that's a good solution.

It could. The question is, this is our town council. I prefer to take their version and their Rationale for language, for the warrant language. So is there something, you've said that motions can be under what you have written. Is there anything, okay.

Again, so these are either ends of the spectrum. I think you're not going to want to move choose A or choose B. I think you're going to want to refine them further. and that discussion would occur Thursday with things like we want the ability to control some environmental permitting. We can flesh them out more, but the idea is it's just, here's either ends of the spectrum. That's where we're going to discuss. but yeah, that's where you're gonna flesh this out more. These are just, one is just- The notice.

That's why I think it makes most sense to make the notice broad I would be fine with putting the two goalposts as the motion language so everybody knows that this is what we are talking about. I understand people can make motions somewhere in between and my language makes that probably marginally easier to do but what it sounds like is there's a broad spectrum of what motion language could even be made under yours yeah I think I think

the town only has so many options here, right?

There's practical reality here. This has been a well-discussed topic. Something can come out of left field, but I don't see that. really happening. But I think I would completely support the language I proposed as the article and the motion language being the goalposts.

I just want to say I'm super uncomfortable. I was given this when the meeting opened. I mean, I'm not a lawyer. and so we had the other options on Friday. It's just really hard to react to something in real time that's this important. When I've had time to reach out to town council, ask my questions, have them answered, to me it's really different. to me it's not talking about litigation at all and the realities of that and I don't mind considering something else but I think with something this big it would have been a courtesy to receive it

I got that but there's a lot going on in the world and I didn't have enough time to do that so I apologize for not getting to town council's telling us this is legally sufficient and it Correct me if I'm saying something wrong, but it's not much different than what you've proposed. It's just broader in the presentation.

What Town Council has given us does focus the discussion more on basically the two options the town has, right? I mean, either we're going to engage with the Commonwealth or we're going to do something else. These are the two options. I find that this is more focused. And because these are not the motions on which people are going to be voting, I think the motions are going to be even more specific than this and contain more information. We don't know yet because we don't have them. but I find this that this puts town meeting on notice where we're looking for their input better than

is a much broader because everything under the sun could go under there and that's really not going to be helpful in the end for the select board. What we need is choose this avenue, choose this avenue. The specifics town meeting can't dictate.

So what are we going to say to somebody that brings a motion under the goalpost approach that seeks to sort of modify the 180 and they say 50. Are we going to engage in that discussion where you say that's not even been offered? How can you make that motion? It's not an offer. If what you're saying is there's two things that have been effectively either offered or options. One is what they proposed. One is litigation. and somebody says 20 units, parking, all that stuff. How does that fit under this?

Can I go on that one? Yeah, so I think from a motion practice perspective, just town meeting, town meeting time, how we conduct ourselves at town meeting, I think that motion is fair game. I think the information you want to deliver is you can make that motion, we can act on that motion. That motion is effectively choosing option B. By bringing that motion, you are telegraphing to us, Sue. you might not be saying it in those exact words, but that's what you're telling us because there will be no discussions with the state. The state will know what we did and say, all right, well, we're gonna proceed.

I also think by the time that motion is made, people will have heard the presentation on everything that has occurred between us and the Commonwealth. and we'll know that the Commonwealth hasn't moved off 180 and see 20 as many, many fewer than 180 and they'll have to decide whether they want to tell us to do that because the likelihood of that is not high.

I do want to say that just to put a finer point on what you said, Tom, if town meeting were to say we would settle for 120 units on seven acres. It isn't to say that we wouldn't transmit that to the state and would just say we're going to litigate. but it is trying to put people on notice that it's unlikely that the state is going to accept that and therefore far more likely that we're going to end up in litigation. but the way you had worded it made it sound like we wouldn't even take that to the state.

We would take it to the state, obviously. I think it would be a very short conversation. Let me just offer one more thing. So this is different, I think, in that this is a non-binding question. You're just seeking advice. are typical practices to draft warrant language broadly. And that's because we've got a piece of land and we want to put a building on it, but what's the building for? How big is it going to be? What's it going to look like? We want to leave all that open so we can have those discussions. But with a non-binding question where you're seeking advice, I do think you want to lay out for the town what you're seeking advice on. And you can do it through the warrant article, which gets it out there most quickly, or you can do a broad warrant article and then the motion. I think it gets it out there faster and kind of draws the attention more with the warrant article.

So that was my thinking in why I drafted it the way I drafted it.

I do think that the language of foreign articles needs to be clear and easily understood by town meeting. We have very intelligent educated residents in Wellesley. So this is by no means any comment on our capacity for town meeting members to understand. But I do find I'm an attorney and I had to really wade through your language to understand it. I don't think the town meeting will truly understand the language and therefore I think the more easily understood definition of the goalposts is a more attractive approach to me particularly if there is no Shortening of the motions that could be brought on the floor town meeting in between those two goalposts.

So I'm not an attorney and this is much easier for me to envision the conversation than the goalposts which I struggle with because I don't view it as a binary choice. And so for me, I prefer this because it tells me we're going to give the select board direction on what we care about. as they go in and figure it out. I don't think they are going to want to tell us to litigate or don't litigate. I think they're going to want to tell us their priorities. and their priorities may be save the forest at all costs,

or we can't have that much density on this narrow street with no sidewalks or we're very concerned about the ecological impact and the fact the town's been caring for that forest and we don't like the precedent of letting go of a forest without a real discussion about leveraging what may be Article 97 land to get 180 units. As a non-attorney and someone who's used to debating things, this is an easier path for me to see kinds of questions that would work. then goalposts that leave out things that we've spent a lot of time talking about as reasons that we have trouble with the state's proposal.

and so I feel like it overly simplifies a very complicated issue and I don't think that's fair to do to town meeting. I think town meeting should have the capacity to give us feedback on what they care about because we're going to decide whether to litigate or not. anyway, and I think we are always going to talk to the state. I don't see a future where we wouldn't engage in a conversation with them about what the will of the community is and what why we're asking for the things we're asking for so regardless of what they give us I think we're going to talk I don't think there's a direction where we don't talk first

Where we don't talk with whom?

You said either we litigate or we discuss with the state. And I think we always discuss even if we're going to litigate. I might have misunderstood you, but I thought you set it up as a choice.

I think the Commonwealth has proven not only in this community, but others, an endless capacity to pretend they're interested in what we have to say. and they either have not responded to the January 9th letters whatsoever or they didn't agree to the terms that they reached in Lancaster. I mean the list goes on and on. I don't think that we have any reason to trust the Commonwealth of Massachusetts in the way they're dealing with us in this matter. And therefore, I think it's important to with town meeting joined together and cut to the chase and figure out whether we're trying to negotiate an outcome in the best interest of the community on the best terms that we can get or whether we're going to have to enter into litigation that, as has been said tonight, is unprecedented. There's absolutely new territory in the courts.

and I can tell you that it's the governor who appoints the judges in Massachusetts.

Just part of the problem with even bringing up litigation is we can't, sitting here, even have a discussion about the benefits in the strategy involved in litigation without how to phrase this delicately. It's not do you win or lose necessarily. How you define winning and losing in litigation is not did the judge say you won or lost necessarily. There's many other outcomes that are derivative of litigation that can be I'll just leave it at that. So I keep going back to we're going to put this in front of people, but we're not going to be able to talk about litigation. And that's one of your two options. And it is setting us up to look terrible.

I'm just going to respond to that first Beth that's the world that we live in that is open meeting law and executive session and that's what we have to deal with and we have to be frank with town meeting that that's what we were dealing with. I think not telling them that there's litigation as an option and we can't talk about it and here's the reasons why is not being fair either. That is the world we live in.

I can't imagine that anybody that's paying attention to this at all in this town does not know that litigation is an option. I mean, it would be very hard for me to fathom that. I mean, town meeting, in fact, voted to pay for litigation.

I'm not saying that we're not considering it as an option, but the fact that we can't talk to them about our strategy or a potential success or not, that's the world we live in.

No, I understand. We're putting it in front of them, though, as like, Here's something to talk about, but we actually can't talk about it.

Right, but I think, Kenny, there are some people for whom the likelihood of success on the merits is not as important as other things. and if people want to draw a line in the sand about protecting the forest, they might say that is the most important thing to me. I want to walk away from the state knowing we have protected the forest. This could be our last chance. We passed it up 50 years ago. We may never have a chance like this again. We don't know what the state would do if we lose in litigation This is where I'm drawing the line in the sand. For some people, that is going to be the most important thing. That's what I want to know. That's what everybody has said. Protect the forest. Now there are a lot of gradations in there. Protect the forest, there are environmental concerns, there are natural resources concerns, there's a lot subsumed under there.

But if we could get that, Can we go talk to the state? That's the question. And for some people, the likelihood of success on the merits, as unpredictable as it is, this is probably one of the most unpredictable There's no precedent. There's no court decision. There's nothing written. and you're taking a risk and that's what I want to know. Is that what people really meant that protecting the forest is the most important thing? So to me, it's not binary because there are gray areas within the two goalposts, but we have to know what town meeting really meant, what the people really meant. Town Meeting will talk to their precinct members or they won't, but this is our legislative elected body.

and we need a representative body to help us gather the input from across the town and tell us yes or no.

So this may be wholly unadvised as a legal strategy or a town meeting strategy. But another way to do this is to have a series of questions to give us guidance about where to have our negotiation points. It could be, how important is protecting the forest? How important is the density? Right? Is how acceptable is some level of density? How important is traffic mitigation relative to density trade-offs? So it doesn't have to be a we do exactly what we think and we've set the bar I think generously by placing acreage out there versus litigate it could be if we want direction from the community about

where their priorities are, like how much does town meeting care that we protect municipal rights in terms of the our bylaws, our wetland rules, all those things. Is that something that's important when we negotiate or is it more important to negotiate on this? that I think might be more helpful for us than litigate or don't litigate.

but we're going to get all of that information. I think it's important to remember, we are not going to walk out of this town meeting with a binary answer. we will have been charged with the responsibility to listen to the entire discussion over the entire evening and all of the information that is focused by two questions initially and subsequently all the motions is what we take in and discuss here and upon which we make a decision. So we will have answers to all of those questions, Beth, because we will have heard what the majority of people stand up and say. and so we aren't, this isn't a situation where we are bound legislatively in municipal governance by the yay or nay votes. on the screen at town meeting. It's every comment, every point, everything people said over the course of the evening.

I totally agree with that. I think I'm going to call out vote 16 as a really good example of where we heard like a whole range of opinions and some things new to us. in terms of what time meeting members' feelings were, which was really helpful when it came back to us. So I draw an analogy to that. That's kind of what I'm thinking it's going to work like you know people are going to go up stand up and share their feelings about it in general they'll take an opportunity to say here's what my my Pressure Points are on this issue. And I think that there's an opportunity for, and it depends how the moderator wants to run this, to ask people who else agrees with that comment so we get a sense almost like live polling. I think it's going to be a very rich conversation.

I think that's exactly right, which begs the question why we would set a A quote or B in front of the town. I completely agree with what Tom and Colette just said. It is going to be a discussion. We're going to come out with no binding decision. It's not going to be a yes or no. It's going to be a whole lot of information thrown at us. and we're going to have to talk about it. And that's why I think the warrant language, the article, should be broad enough to promote or be in line with that expectation in that conversation. Having language that is an A or a B does not align with the expectation that we're going to have a robust discussion with many options on the table.

But I go back to the question I asked Tom today that I was answering with your very first question is I asked Tom that question and he's saying he's included the two extremes to kind of fence in a little bit. like work within these parameters because it's going to be anywhere we've said I mean we've said that over and over again it's not binary there's a sliding scale here but it's there's the way I see it it's kind of parameters to get it in so we stay somewhat on track

Tom, is there a reason that in the goalposts, so it reads A or B, right? It doesn't say to include actions such actions may include this to that as opposed to A or B.

Well it has our standard or take any other action.

and it's all on the education of town meeting members in the moderator's memo, in the presentations having to be set up. If there's one thing I'll say for our chair, she has demonstrated incredible skill here in framing what the topics are. what we have to think about what we're looking for in our discussion I think we've had a honestly a master class in sharing with clarity what we're dealing with here, the challenges, what we hear from residents, what we hear in the sessions that were held not just by us. We have been very, very clear about what is the situation we're in here, what we're looking for in terms of feedback and what the actions we feel we can take are. I really think that we've done an excellent job on that and I'll thank the chair for that.

Right, well we're not talking about what we've done, we're talking about how we give notice to the community. because the community is just going to read it, right? And what they're going to assume is going to happen when they walk in the room. And so for me... I am uncomfortable on the warrant with the A or B language. I'm uncomfortable setting the definition with the numbers in it because the letters from the state if we want to be honest and straightforward what we have heard from the state is no numbers we've heard on or about the size of the parking lot, right? We haven't had any numbers.

We have. Secretary Augustus gave us that approximate acreage when we were at the Statehouse, and I reported on that in December and January. It's been in the public for months.

I have been following this extremely closely, and that is the first time I've heard seven or eight acres. That's the first time I've heard anything.

It was reported... from the State House meeting in December, Secretary Augustus said they would be prepared to protect 37, 38 acres. So Marjorie, the most recent letters. People are not going to be voting on the article language. By the time they come to town meeting, they're going to have motions. That's what they're going to be voting on.

Would you take the numbers out of the motion language? The warrant language, yeah, that's the non-attorney part. I still prefer this, but I cannot support having numbers in the warrant.

I think that I would not agree to that. I think that people have to understand realistically what I'm concerned about is people have heard the number five and 40. and we know that that's not entirely accurate if you were to go down and map the possible area that could be built upon. So I think that's misleading. I think it's important that we do have numbers in there. Now, for example, mathematically, if the blacktop area were 4.75 acres, and there was an additional two and a half acres outside of that, then it would be possible to use those numbers which we could obtain quite easily from Mike Thompson and GIS. So if there were some critical corrections to be made according to what we absolutely know is a clear-cut area,

and the Hardtop, that's one thing. But I think elimination of the numbers is a mistake because what you would invite is people to use 40 and five in their minds and we already know that those aren't the numbers that the Commonwealth is willing to work with.

but you're inviting seven or eight saying those are numbers the Commonwealth will work with. And the letters we got on the Friday, don't, they say on or about. They don't have any numbers. So we're putting out numbers double the size.

Well, we said seven to eight instead of the common wall, saying, well, we meant ten.

No, but I would prefer we not lead with a number that's higher than the size of the parking lot.

What happens if we propose, we go with this language, the town votes and says, whatever, 51% say I can live with it, and the Commonwealth comes back and says, we're putting up 180 units on 10 acres of land and we're going to clear cut five acres. What do we do with that?

Well that would not comport with what we heard from town meeting. Right. So we have to make the ultimate decision based on everything we hear and everything we've heard. The problem with doing what Tom suggested is you have to look at the slope. You need to look at the wetlands. You need to look at the buffers to the properties. It says approximately. It's not a number written in stone, but it also recognizes This is what the state has told us we're willing to engage on this. We're not willing to concede it, but we're willing at least to engage on it.

What if the majority vote, which I don't think it will be, but the majority vote is A. Where is our leverage on addressing traffic mitigation or addressing anything for that neighborhood once we've done this? But how do we negotiate when we've already gotten a vote that the town will settle for that?

It's a non-binding vote and it's not all of the terms.

Beth, we have no leverage now.

Well, we have more leverage if we didn't go out ahead of our cities here.

The Commonwealth of Massachusetts has the Affordable Housing Act, the Affordable Homes Act, and they've declared 45 acres surplus. We don't have the leverage now except for what we've been able to develop in our working relationship with the Commonwealth in trying to resolve this.

and the issues that we've identified as potential litigation areas, which we can't talk about.

We do have some leverage. We can talk about what our legal issues are. And we have published them and publicized them several times. Okay, I think we're ready for a vote. Okay.

Yes.

So no one reached out on agenda items, so there are just, I'm just. Can you can I finish my sentence to the chair? Thanks. So there was so we'll take the people that reached out about citizens speak on the agenda items. That was what I was actually going to say before I was interrupted. Ms. Mayell, you were the first to reach out.

So we're asking you to limit your comments to three minutes, and please turn on the mic and give us your name and street.

It's Jean Mayell. 27 Seaver Street. Let's see. I've been with Town Meeting for 11 years and I think Town Meeting is sophisticated enough to give you feedback and help you figure out what to do. Everything you said, Marjorie, in that one moment where you summarized everything is going to the heart of where I think town meeting is. and I personally would prefer to vote on litigating and I think that the During litigation, you can fall back on other positions if you feel like you're not going to do well in the litigation. When the state replied to your 37 questions, they deliberately skipped over the most important

questions in my view is, is this actually Article 97 land because of how it's been treated for the last four decades? The state knew that it was open space. There are maps, trail maps from MassBay College, and that is part of the state. There are hiking groups from MassBay College. The state did not have any boundaries. They didn't have signs. I go back, way back, and most of us believed that it was all one property. We didn't know that it was split up. because it didn't show that. I think you've got a good case, but I think it's going to involve a lot of research. There needs to be a title search going back to the 1800s. We really need to understand what the intentions were all along for this land.

And also searching for maintenance on the land, because I know that the land was maintained. The state part of the land was maintained. and Groomed back into the 1990s. So that's really my main position and I forgot to say I am so grateful to you for what you're doing and how much you're respecting town meeting. This has been such a pleasure to see the integrity of you and thank you so much.

Mr. Bellis.

Thanks. Mark Bellis, Oakland Circle. Sorry, Corey. Thanks again. So thank you again for all of the hard work that goes into this. I appreciate it. I do think just in terms of how to have a productive conversation around this, and I appreciate that that's the shared goal among all of you, I do like Kenny's language a lot better. As a lawyer, certainly not this type, I think starting broad within the warrant and then using the motions in order to narrow and hone in on the scope and using a lot of that good information and education that you will do in the coming days in order to frame the conversation is the appropriate place to frame the conversation. I do think with respect to what we're calling the goalpost language, I like that phrase, if that's the direction you're going to go, I think it's important to call them parameters or goalposts so that you at least telegraph the intent of the way that you framed it.

As a lawyer, I, looking at this, had a hard time not seeing it as an either or. And I think that at a minimum, if you were to at least flag what this is and what your intent is with the language, I think that'll be a much clearer Way to have the conversation. I do appreciate the broader language and like that better, but reading the sense of the room, that's the one sort of edit I would make on the edges here. I appreciate it.

Thank you, Mark. Did anybody else like to address the board?

I think Patty was next.

Hi, Patty Quigley, Precinct D. Thank you all again for all this work. Really, I know it's difficult. I came this evening because I wanted to understand a little bit more about how all the information that happens in executive session would transfer out to town meeting so that we could make A decision and it sounds like it's something that can't happen, which then led me to a whole bunch of other questions. So real quick, I know you can't answer them. to me tonight, but I still don't know why we're doing a town meeting versus a visioning session because you'd be...

at least you'd end up seeing people liking A, B and C and how much they like A and how much they like B and how much they like C at least that and then I don't even know how you could possibly vote on the wording that you have in front of you tonight because it is either A or B and that seems confusing to me. Executive session. and then this is more of a legal question. If you are gonna have a town meeting, is there an executive session of town meeting that then we can talk about the executive session information? I kind of figured that out as we were talking. But the other thing is to go back to the wording that we saw at the beginning, the AB, I just feel like that's a marketing strategy that doesn't work.

I had no idea what was coming up tonight. I had no idea what any of the working, what the wording was and I just, to me you're driving an answer and it's there's nothing in between and and I think there's in between in there and so that that A and B doesn't sit well with me. I think that no matter how much the town meeting members know ahead of time, Whenever you see a one and a two, you think you're voting on one and two. I mean, are we not, based on what the wording is, is that not what we're voting on? and then how much does it cost to litigate and how much would we lose or win if we did litigate? And again, I don't think that's anything that can be answered. on another part of the subject, will the state be there to present any information?

Are we gonna be able to ask the state any information for this? and why not because that that's kind of like part of what we're doing and why we're and and then finally just if this is an RFP they don't have to listen to us. I know they've tried to tell us they're trying to listen to us. We could have a completely different RFP and even if we do have an RFP that has what we want and it the developers don't have to answer to the RFP either so I think there's a lot of going on that I don't know if, I don't know why a town meeting

and voting on some options, it just doesn't seem to make sense as opposed to having a survey of options for people. So that's. Thank you.

Make it quick. As far as the litigation sensitivity, if you just start, if we are going to vote on litigation, which I think is what town meeting would want to vote on, you can just say we can't answer questions they're too sensitive to answer but town meeting can speak to the question people will offer their own ideas and and I think that would be a good Testa, Ulfelder, Wellesley, Councilor Testa, Ulfelder, Wellesley, Councilor Down, extra housing in the town. We know how town meeting feels. There certainly are pockets of people who would really like to see the housing.

But I wouldn't really want that to be brought up. as an option, it'll get really debated and a town meeting really seriously debated that heavily with Article 32. But you'll figure it out.

Okay, thank you everybody. So the decision's been made. We're having a town meeting. We talked about the May 13th deadline. We feel very strongly about having some information to convey to the state by then. My personal feeling is that if we were to ask, given the situation we're in now, Doing a visioning could give us several different conflicting options with different variables. and I don't think given the situation we're in and the situation in which the state has put us that that will give the select board

enough clarity on next steps because it could be 60-40 this, 70-30 this, 51-49 that, and that's very confusing to tease out. So we will take all the comments from town meeting. The state is not likely going to be here. They don't speak to town meeting. They speak through their representatives, our legislative delegation. We've only been able to meet directly with the secretary and the commissioner once. I'm sorry? Yes. DCAM commissioner came once, but that was to a select board meeting. I wouldn't expect they're going to come to town meeting to answer town meetings questions.

and executive session is still executive session material and conversations are still protected by executive session. in order to release the minutes the board has to vote to release those minutes which we have not done and we also as Tom said we have to protect any litigation strategy we might undertake So as Kenny has noted many times, we can't get into that. But I think there are other points on which town meeting will have decisions. that don't necessarily need at this point all the legal answers. We don't have the legal answers. We won't know. We don't know. And we have nothing to look to.

We can't give you likelihood of success on the merits on this question or this question or this question. We just don't know. And that's part of what makes this so difficult. were the first community, I think, to be considering the question in this way. and the state has a vested interest in its success because they have many more projects in the hopper. They want Wellesley to be successful. They've told us they want it to be a project we can be proud of and they could be proud of. that all remains to be seen. That's their state lands for homes, Affordable Homes Act. But the point I'm making is that they're very driven in the success of this program. So we have to take all of that into account. All right.

So we're voting on the motion on the warrant as drafted? As drafted. Okay, so move to approve the warrant language as drafted and presented in the packet Friday Night Mail.

Second.

All in favor? Aye. All opposed?

No. Okay, all right, that is the only- Could I ask you, would we consider amending the language to change it to the goalposts or do something that loosens it up a little bit?

Beth, you should have amended the motion when Collette made it. It was made and seconded and voted on. that was the time to ask to amend the motion. Everybody here who is in town meeting member knows you amend a motion when the motion is made, I'm sorry. That is it for our agenda items tonight. Advisory is meeting tomorrow. We will take up motion language on Thursday and again on Monday. We're meeting again on the 27th. And we thank you all for coming. Sorry, 23rd, that's Thursday, and then again on the 27th. Yes. Thank you all very much. We're adjourned.