Select Board August 17, 2026

Okay, everybody sorry for the late start. Good evening. I'd like to call to order the select board meeting of August 17th, 2026 in the Giuliani room at Town Hall Here from the board are Vice Chair Tom Ulfelder, Secretary Colette O'Frank, Beth Sullivan Woods, Kenny Largess and myself Marjorie Freiman. Also here are Executive Director Megan Jopp and Assistant Executive Director Corey Testa. The meeting is being broadcast live on Verizon Channel 40 and Comcast Channel 8 and will be available for later viewing on Wellesley Media. Our first agenda item is Citizen Speak. Is there anyone here for Citizen Speak? Any calls, Corey? No. Okay, thank you. The next agenda item is our executive director's update. Megan?

Thanks Marjorie, just a few updates. First we have a couple important election reminders the last day to register to vote in Wellesley is Saturday August 22nd by 5 p.m you can register online in person at the town clerk's office or by mail Early voting in person takes place in the Giuliani room, so this room at Town Hall beginning Saturday August 22nd from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m., and Monday August 24th through Friday August 29th from 8 a. m. to Just a note, on Friday August 29th all of the offices still will continue to close at noon but early voting will be open here till 12-5. Election day is September 1st, before Labor Day. So just as a reminder for the primary polls are open from 7am to 8pm and vote by mail Ballots must be received by 8 p.m. on September 1st to be properly counted.

Morse's Pond closed operations for the season on Sunday. So as of today, the pond is open but it's unstaffed and there are no lifeguards so just a reminder folks in particular if you're heading down this weekend. also a reminder we have made the conversion on our parking ticket and so payments and appeals and questions are now handled by the Wellesley Police Department in the parking office Our online payment portal which you can find online is active at this point. Payments may also be made on the WPD, the police department website homepage using the light blue pay a parking ticket button so that's new if you haven't been to the site in awhile The other thing the police wanted us to remind you is that during this transition, if you receive a Town & Wellesley parking ticket issued between June 29th and July 15th we had extended the period during the transition as to when you have to pay. and that has been extended through August 19th.

And so after August 19, unpaid citations will be considered overdue and so that's approaching so we just wanted to remind folks on that. And that's all I have Marjorie.

Thanks very much, Megan. Our next agenda item is the Consent Agenda. We have several items on the consent agenda tonight to approve a car dealership license for McGovern Auto Group at 962 Worcester Street, to vote changes to corporate officers and directors in the corporate name for Whole Foods all alcohol license. to approve the design and installation of a new sign at the Bates Elementary School, to appoint a new building inspector, to point five new members of the cultural council and to modify the board's prior approval of free parking in commercial areas from the previously approved September parents day out event to a new event called Discover Wellesley on October 2nd and 3rd. Any discussion?

Marjorie, I just want to clarify for the public and the board. The agenda posted by me on Friday morning had in error it listed as an all alcohol license by Whole Foods. It's actually an off premises wine and malt beverages license, they do not have one of the all alcohol licenses Kain Marr in our office clarify that for me. So I just wanted to make sure the board knew that the amended agenda does reflect the accurate license that they are seeking the changes for.

Thank you, Corey. Okay, Colette can we have a motion please?

So moved to approve the consent agenda.

Second. All in favor? Aye. Okay, now we can take up the other issue that was removed from the consent agenda which is the Norfolk County intermunicipal agreement for weights and measures. And I'll let Megan introduce that.

So thanks, Marjorie. And Bill Buckley from the Norfolk County is also here. He's the Assistant Executive Director should the board have questions. So are long-serving weights and measures is Jack Walsh, who's retiring October 9th. This is a very challenging position to fill and we've been really fortunate to have Jack for all these years so Norfolk County over the past several years has worked to accrue staff and takeover a number of different communities their weights and measures given you know the low sort of number of hours and budget really for these. And so Norfolk County is able to bring on Wellesley, should the board be amenable to that for an annual cost of $13,000. And we have drafted there's a drafted intermunicipal agreement and Bill is here to answer any questions you can come up though.

I believe there were some questions. Go ahead Beth.

I have several questions. The first one is, this one caught me by surprise because I don't think the board ever discussed outsourcing our weights and measures so I didn't know if we'd done a pros and cons of hiring internally and maintaining it because this is something where they support our businesses and confidence in our business. And had we looked at internal versus external, just kind of globally. We didn't discuss it at any of our planning sessions or retreats so I I just procedurally, I felt like we should have more of a conversation than approving it in the consent agenda.

So I'll just say that it is incredibly challenged to hire. This is a very specialized position and typically Jack Walsh, for instance, operated for multiple municipalities and so his departure doesn't just affect Wellesley, it impacts the other municipalities for which he currently works under. and Bill can certainly speak to the communities that Norfolk County is taking on. So, the law is the law in terms of administration of weights and measures in terms processes. we have submitted to and I'm happy to share with the board then the number of varying scales and measures etc so um the board not the board excuse me the sealer basically handles five pharmacies, 10 scales 11 gas stations one vehicle truck sales the school scales

like at the nurse's office and stuff, and then at senior residences at the Marillac and Elizabeth Seton residence. Those are the properties that Jack Walsh administers and so we're confident that the Norfolk County could assist us in doing that at a lower cost, and it could pick up on literally October 10th to do the work.

So we don't have to do the supermarket scales. Is that right?

We do do the supermarkets scale, so there's 10 scales within this. The Roach Brothers, Whole Foods, Captain Martins, The Cheese Shop, Tudor, Fells Market, The Linden Store Wells, the Wellesley Office Park Cafe, the UPS store and Hercules Cleaners. Those are the scales that we monitor.

So that was my first question is kind of the pros and cons. I didn't know if we'd advertised for a sealer weights and measures, if there was another person that was looking for a half-time job so that was one piece The second piece was it looks like there are two individuals assigned to the six or seven towns you have. and we are paying someone for .4 right now. So I wasn't sure how we were going to support our businesses by absorbing it, and I'll say my mindset is It took us, we're in great shape now with our veteran services but it was a really bumpy road to get Testa, Ulfelder, Wellesley, Councilor in the way it impacts our businesses and our residents made me nervous.

So I wasn't sure about your staffing model, if you want to address that?

Thank you, Madam Chair. My name is William Buckley I'm the Assistant Director of Norfolk County and also our Director of Regional Services and on behalf of Chairman Shea, Commissioner Peter Collins and Commissioner Richard Stady we're very grateful to have you considering joining us in this regional program. In full transparency we have been aggressively lobbying Megan for many years because we really want to provide this service for one of our constituent communities. Being Wellesley also is quite easy for us being based in Dedham at the county Shiretown if you will, and working with both Dedham and Needham. You are logically literally and figuratively right up the road. So you raised some great questions just by way of background This program exists because about four or five years ago, a number of towns within the center of our county had individuals who were doing the sealing that were state employees.

The state has the capacity if you don't do a particularly good job to take that requirement from you and then charge you for it, and the state decided that their role really was enforcement and not doing that front line certification. So they backed away from a number of the communities, we felt this was a perfect regional service to provide So we recruited an individual with 20 years experience in retail management who also happened to be fortuitously a sealer of weights and measures for a number of years in the town in Plymouth County. Spirited him away from there and added a second individual for our six communities. I think we spoke right before the meeting, the communities we serve currently are Dedham Canton Needham Norfolk Franklin, and Rentham.

And the commissioners as well as myself as the department head are committed to not expanding it any other communities unless we're sure that we can provide that same level of service are enjoying now with the individual working here. It really is a seasonal, in the sense that one doesn't do gas station and bulk metering when it's 90 degrees outside. You do it in the spring and then the fall, and when it is rainy you look at deli scales at the local supermarkets So what we've found is by having two individuals whose sole job it is to do this every day, day in and day out. Many communities find themselves with a building inspector who's also the sealer Food Service Inspector, who's also their sealer. So they have different competing roles whereas these individuals do one thing every day and they're quite good at

at manipulating schedules so that if they find themselves going to do a gas station in Franklin, they drive through Norfolk and they have the equipment. They'll do a to base as well. What we can also tell you is and guarantee to you from the consumer perspective, in the event we have a complaint which we have from time to time about and a gas pump or a deli scale that a consumer believes is not within the TARE, it's not within correct calibration. We will inspect that within 24 hours. We'll be on site. We are down the road and we found that We are able to get the body of work done in a timely fashion and we will not, the commissioners will not expand further unless we have demonstrated that we will continue that level of service throughout. and finally you do have, I believe at your last meeting

put a new representative on your Norfolk County Advisory Board, you also have oversight over us. The community of Wellesley in particular, in my tenure with the county has given us two tremendous exemplary individuals, Barbara Searle and before her Owen Dugan who have risen quickly in the leadership and become members of the finance committee of our advisory board. They meet quarterly and that's another direct advocate and oversight person you have for the county government and spending. And so when we were beginning to build this program, Barbara said this is a great idea and it's a great backup communities, and we're sorry that she has moved on from the board but just also know that Wellesley has a great seat at the watchdog table for our operations as well. I'm happy to answer any other questions you may have, but hopefully that gives you a good picture.

This one's a little trickier. So Mass General Law, it doesn't look like we're allowed to do intermunicipal. It says if you have more than 20,000 people, you shall hire your own sealer of weights and measures. So I did call the state and check on this, and I did read it properly. So how does that work? Because it seems to be not in the law.

That is a great question. We have worked very closely with the Division of Standards, which is the state division within professional licensure that oversees these these, this particular state requirement. Interestingly the the activity of making sure a pound of flour at the local A&P is a pound and a gallon of gasoline predates our Republic. And likewise, these portions of the general law are also quite old and what the current interpretation with the Division of Standards is that you shall, your job as a select board or board of selectmen or city council is to appoint a sealer. So many of the sealers who work within the Commonwealth are sealers for four, five, six, seven different communities.

There are a couple of regional models which we shamelessly stole from in building this program. One is Barnstaple Town, not to be confused with Barnstable County which does a lot of regional work the town of Barnstable's sealers, seal five additional communities within the center of the Cape. The successor to Essex County in I'm sorry, North Middlesex County and Lowell. The community of Lowell did three or four communities as well their weights and measures inspections I believe Northampton, which Hampton County. They did both the county seat of not Amherst, I'm sorry, Northamptons and a few of the communities around them so Sometimes you'll see with us, we just put a county seal on all of the devices. if you had contracted with the Commonwealth, the seal would be the Commonwealth Seal.

If you had your own, you would have a seal that says Town of Wellesley on it so the model has been approved and active in a regional space, in a couple of parts of the Commonwealth for a number of years now. But we have met with the Division of Standards A number of times they like what we're doing and have not raised any flags about the legal permissibility.

but the law does say we can't do it, right? It just seems like a really good idea. But I personally would like an opinion that this is okay for us to do because that it goes through if you're under 5,000, five to 20,000 and 20, 000 or more. So I just feel like we need to that cover ourselves, that the state is going to find this acceptable for us. I don't want to color outside the lines, given the way it's in black and white. It sounds really attractive. My last question is kind of minor.

I just want to clarify, it seems to me that what you're saying through due diligence with the state organization is that in hiring your organization we are hiring our own sealer of rights and measures.

Right. And so what we would do to further color that, we have two gentlemen William Mullen and Gregory Pisano who are the two sealers for the county program. once you've signed an intermunicipal agreement we would let the state know immediately that William Mullen and Gregory Pisano are the sealers for the community of Wellesley just as they're the sealer's for the Community of Dedham, Franklin, Canton and so on. but in one sense we're happy to begin the work immediately. We have the capacity to seal something tomorrow for you, but we also know it's the summertime and if there is additional due diligence we are quite patient as well.

Go ahead, Kenny.

So just a few things I'm sure the answer to that question is this is acceptable but i think from our own perspective we need to check that box I think this is probably a very good idea. We've had the same person doing it for 47 years, so the contract itself I have a few issues with. So in my opinion, I would be happy to approve this contingent upon executing a contract that works for us. For example, there's an indemnity provision in here that I don't I don't know why we'd be indemnifying anybody in this, but it's like an uncapped liability that we would have. Which I completely understand is highly unlikely to ever be triggered but I don't think that should be in there. There's a 30-day out clause which makes sense to me because we have no experience with you, you have no experienced with us

but there's no refund policy under, which again it's short money. But I would like to see things so I would be in favor of approving this whole idea contingent upon negotiating agreement and an answer to that question.

So I would be comfortable with a contingency of review by town council. OK.

So I had one other question that I think is a technicality. I just didn't understand. So the fees, so we collect the fees and then the fees are to offset the cost of the inspections Right, so do we manage that as part of the fee we pay you? We offset it on our side. Do we set the fees? I just wasn't sure how that would work out.

The board does set the Testa, Ulfelder, Wellesley, Councilor I'm from Walpole myself, so if Framingham is a comp we can loop them into it. But your fees are pretty competitive compared to some of your neighbors not to out anyone but when this process to spend 30 minutes doing a scale in the CVS. In another community, they charge $3 which is a little silly in 2026 so a lot of these things have not been examined by boards for many decades in some of our neighboring communities. So we I'm happy to provide that

Megan gave it. It was super helpful, thank you.

And I think it's a very interesting thing and so when we looked at the price we presented to you, we looked at what you had within. We did the same thing with the other communities when we took them from state. What were you paying the state and we want to match that We saw that you had about a $13,000 appropriation outside of all the other administrative fees which we would be taking over. So that's why we gave you as time goes on and the market changes that the fees you collect help further defray that $13,000 cost to you. We hope as a sort of point of information for communities began this process with us three years ago, their fees have been flat. The commissioners have not raised the annual fee we charge to them and our goal ideally once like all of us we get beyond some of our pension liabilities is perhaps lower this fee than further because you're part of the county and

these are like our free engineering survey services we offer to you. We want you to have benefits for being a part of our county institution so generally speaking what we do is we would leave a receipt with the and then on a monthly rolling basis report to your whichever division within town hall here does the invoicing. And they would send information out for billing. Some communities we work with they use OpenGov, some others we leave a paper sort of reminder and then they'll get the formal bill in the mail but you are not in this position but for some of the communities they weren't really invoicing because their fees were so small. It was almost more expensive to send a bill through the US mail for $3 than to recoup those funds, but we hope that the fee structure and we're happy to tinker the IMA in a way that best suits your needs here.

We hope the fee structure makes this even more attractive and then it just runs, we don't have to really think about it for many years to come.

Thank you for taking the time to come and thank you for answering my questions. It seems like an excellent idea it just, the language made me nervous in the law. So I do think we should take a look at that before voting, Marjorie.

So could we please have a motion contingent on these two things?

So move to enter into an intermusable agreement commencing on August 1, 2026 and terminating on July 31, 2029. with Norfolk County to provide weights and measures services upon the retirement of sealer of Weights and Measures Jack Walsh. the agreement is contingent upon review of the contract by town council and specifically resolution of the question over provision into municipal services given the population of the town and the content of mass general law.

Second. Well done, all in favor? Aye. Bill thank you very much for coming that was very helpful and we'd also like to thank Jack for his 47 years of service that's incredible and you have a new representative from Wellesley, Paul Criswell will be your new county representative. And I'm sure he will be- Large shoes to fill but- Yes, yes. Well, I'll tell Barbara when they

On your way out, go that way and you'll see our weights and measures and the board that Jack created for us. Thank you all for your time.

Thank you very much for coming.

Okay, our next agenda item is the fiscal year 2026 year-end financial update. So we have our CFO Rachel DeRoche and town accountant and accountant Tiana Dessens with us. And they will provide a comprehensive, very positive update on the end of FY26.

Well, while Megan pulls up those slides the board should have received a memo prepared by both myself and Tiana, town accountant. So again to echo what Marjorie was saying extremely favorable results and we're here to report on FY26 year end. So as we've seen in many prior years, revenue is exceeding budget. Expenditures are under budget. We're going to dive in over the next few slides really wanted to acknowledge reserves are 20% or we're projecting reserves at 20% of FY27 revenues. So that is on the higher end, but as we walk you through the results FY26 revenues and expenditures, you'll see what's driving that higher percentage.

Okay, so revenues for FY26 were 10 million over budget which is a great number to have. but we did want to dive in so you can better understand what makes up that larger number. So interest earnings, historically we've been seeing higher and so on, interest earnings. Again as you know the town we budget very conservatively when it comes to revenue particularly Interest Earnings, because again that's more challenging to predict what that number is going to be. So looking back at FY25 our average interest rates were around 4.5%. they've trended downwards a bit in FY26, closer to 3.8%. And again that interest earnings is really driven by the amount of cash on hand so when we go out and we borrow We have more cash as we're spending towards our capital projects and other needs.

We will see these larger interest earnings, but we're expecting as interest rates continue to come down in those cash balances continue to be decreased, we're expecting interest earnings to really come down over the next year and particularly in the out years. So we will continue to budget conservatively and then see these larger numbers. And then motor vehicle excise, revenues were 1.3 million over budget so again This is really driven by the number of vehicles registered in town and the value of those vehicles. since FY24 to current, so over the last three plus years we've seen a lot of housing developments. As you know, we have Terrazza, Bristol, The Nines. So as those residents move into town they bring their vehicles So we've historically been seeing around 7 million motor vehicle excise revenue.

We've been budgeting conservatively, around 5.8 million. you might recall in order to help balance the FY27 budget we ticked up our motor vehicle excise to 6.4 million oh excuse me 6.2 million so we upped it around 400,000 Again, we continue to see a steady over $7 million motor vehicle excise revenue. So we will continue to be conservative there but you know we expect to continue to at least a million dollars and higher revenue there. The next one, oh building permits. So building permits 1.6 million so you might recall back in April of 2025 we restructured the building permit fees. So FY26 was the first full year that we saw really, the impact of those higher fees.

It's also important to note that the Babson Lodge, they had a permit in FY26 just over $700,000. So such a substantial amount is contributing to this 1.6 million and then also conversations with Mike Grant, our building inspector. He's expressed that with more custom residential homes in town, that's driving higher have permit fees. So again, if we're seeing a larger let's say $6 million home before those fee increases maybe we would see 50, 60 thousand dollars for a permit they're upwards of 90,000. So that is really contributing to driving again as the values increase it's going to increase the building permit revenues. We wanted to add meals tax on here.

Again, it's just about $300,000 over budget but it really just acknowledges that we the town, the select board works to draw in new restaurants into town. So we did want to note too that this was the first year really looking back at prior trends that were over a million dollars in meal revenue so we just thought it nice to draw attention to that. and then tax title 41A deferral payoffs. We generally don't budget for that, again 41A Deferrals, that's our senior deferrals and then Tax Title those are folks that become delinquent in their real estate taxes. We put them into tax title, either they enter into a payment plan or they sell the property and then once that property is sold we're collecting that those past taxes. So, that was around $400,000. So that is a summary of our revenues.

I'm gonna turn over the expenditure portion to Tiana.

So when we look at expenditures, we were about 6.9 million under budget for that. The largest portion being the school being the largest budget within the town they had 2.6 million in turn back 300 thousand of that was there 25 encumbrances that are now turning back, the remainder being the 26 operating? So about 940,000 of that 2.3 is personal services and the remainder is the expense So the new assistant superintendent for finance and operations over at this school, he's going to be giving a more comprehensive Testa, Ulfelder, Wellesley, Councilor So they hired some folks under budget, under what they had budgeted for them. So there's savings there.

The long-term and short-term substitutes they needed were less than budgeted. And then the other thing was out of district transportation came in under budget, which is hard to predict. the next piece being health insurance at 1.5 million so just keep in mind that the health insurance group insurance budget is not just health insurance it's all the other additional insurances the towns contribution to FSA and HSA. So the group insurance, your true health insurance that was the smallest amount of the turn back it's mostly those additional insurances that are driving that. So on the town side for personal services, we had a combined 1.7 in turn back majority of that was the fire department. They had so 500,000 they had a few vacancies and then I think for the first time in I'm not sure in how long but there's no they didn't have anyone on 111F the injury pay

so that when you have someone in 111F, that's driving overtime costs of their savings there. And then some of the rest of the 1.2 there's a handful of departments that had vacancies. The planning director, IT had some vacancies, FMD had turned back in custodial costs so just kind of a combination of multiple departments We also wanted to point out, seeing as the board probably remembers we did an analysis of prior year cash capital earlier this year. We're having $400,000 in turn back for that. the largest pieces being NRC they had I think that was from 25 about 83,000 and then 10,000 from an older project planning board Testa, Ulfelder, Wellesley, Councilor

19, and then 75,000 for digitization in 21. Those projects they just hadn't started yet and being so old it's time to turn them back and reevaluate. and then the Youth and Recreation, they had capital from 24 for a van but Corey secured Earmark from DOT. So we received $150,000 from DOT for that so no longer need the general fund appropriation and that's the expense.

Great, so looking ahead. Fiscal 2028 guidelines. So as you all know contracts for 2027 still need to be settled and again it's open for all the unions. So that information is forthcoming, and that's really going to drive what the guidelines will be. Also a reminder, the new health insurance MOA that those negotiations will be starting later this fall. That'll also be for FY28 and then we always like to keep a pulse on Medicare rates because those are effective for January 2027 so they're a mid-year so they'll go into effect this year but then they will impact the 28 planning.

Just on the Medicare rates, we should have a better sense end of September start of October. That analysis is currently being evaluated. We're also in transition with Hub International from Gallagher but we should have likely at the end of September, start of October some information. We currently just as a reminder had about 6% increase budgeted for that last year was 10%. So it impacts half the year.

Williams.

and then next step, so the warrant I believe opens tonight for the fall special town meeting. So that planning will be underway again setting the 2028 guidelines in collaboration with that, the capital and operating budget timelines will be finalized because there currently is a draft of the budget timeline and schedule. We wanted to add on here Capital Planning Committee, Capcom recommendations. So we had our kickoff meeting back in June but will be having I guess our second meeting the end of September. Already been a lot of work underway there and then as you've now heard the high levels of reserves, something that we have spoken about in the past is the potential establishment of a capital stabilization fund. so particularly with all of these capital projects on the roadmap and coming forward we, the board may want to consider that establishment again

that capital stabilization fund would have to be approved and presented at annual town meetings so it might be a nice opportunity to start to have those conversations this fall. and that's it. So I'm open to any questions you might have for us.

Thank you both very much, all the explanations help a lot. Are there any questions?

Sorry. Has our free cash been certified?

So not yet, that process will take place in the fall. So Tiana's town accountant we're gonna be preparing all of those calculations so we usually get that final number and that end of October beginning of November timeline. Should it be certified by special town meeting? That's a good question. I think generally it's the end of October, so it might be.

It's generally certified for SCM, yeah.

Tiana had it so early last year. So if we continue with the same timeline as last year, we likely will have it before STM, and I've already started working on it.

So we're in good shape. Excellent.

And then my other question is the schools that was a pretty big turn back this year do we know how much they still have like as a cushion that they've retained? So you mean the carry forward? Carry forward, yeah. Because they carry forward and turn back some but not all, right?

Yeah, so they have to carry forward a portion of their FY26 budget to cover those teachers that are paid through the summer. So that was, I think it was around 5 million. And then like every department they're able to carry forward any of those expenses that either have been incurred or those items that have been received but they just haven't been paid, they would carry forward that portion. So I think it was just under a million. Was it? No, it was 200.

It's five something so it's

I think it was just over $200,000 and then they also can carry forward prior year capital. adding the payroll carry forward, the FY26 expenses and their FY26 in prior capital. The total they carried was 6.5 million but again they provide detail of what makes up those balances.

And quick, wasn't there a fairly long discussion at Audit Committee about are there new requirements to justify carry-forwards? For capital.

Yes. So the school's actually been very on top of using their capital timely so that was, we didn't have an issue with I don't have the D.T. Hiller but I think they've only carried 25 anything older Yeah, it was some of the smaller departments that we had to go through that exercise and Tiana did speak to some of NRC in planning that had turned back. They agreed that those were older balances and they've, we have, we did not carry them

So you don't have to answer this now, but do we have any older debt that's carrying a higher interest rate that we should be looking at? with our cash capital balance so high? I don't want to put you on the spot now.

That's a good question, we can look back but there is Post-COVID or building up to COVID, we had very favorable interest rates. So we could go back and work with Hilltop to pull out some of those older rates but we've had very rates of recent.

Yeah, the only thing I'd add to that is now in Tiana we might remember this too. It was five or six years ago. We did have some higher rate borrowing for the high school that was recommended by Hilltop to refinance which we did. which allowed us to pay off the debt earlier. And so they do, as they evaluate all of our borrowings on an annual basis and give updates. They do take a look at that restructuring, and let us know if it's something we should continue to do. To Rachel's point, many of our short-term borrowings typically have been in the five and so it's really the longer term borrowing. And outside of the high school, The next big ones were the schools, and we got unbelievable rates. But they do continue to evaluate that.

Just on the borrowing, Rachel and I believe, and Tiana believes because of the solar and when that's going to be executed. Initially, we thought it could be executed in the fall but it looks like it's gonna be later in the spring. We will likely have to redo the ban again this year for the two elementary schools, so there will be some additional debt accrual on the ban for another year.

.

Sure, sure. So that came up in the spring when we had our rating call with Moody's. Nationally they're seeing reserves closer to 25%. So we took that, we presented that to the board saying that now that we've closed and are now going into thinking ahead for FY28 I will have conversations with Hilltop to help better understand their guidance was yes, Moody is advising 25%, however nationwide communities are not as highly funded in pension, highly funded OPEB. So yes our reserves may be under that 25% benchmark but these other favorable Balances are leveling out, meeting that higher percentage. So those are conversations we can have but Hilltop was

again they can't tell us what to do but they can advise us of what they're seeing really across the state so those conversations we will be having in the coming months.

I just think it's important for anyone watching that, oh we hit 20%, there is a range out there it's a new world and so we need to be cognizant. It's not just rolling in funds, that we have to be cognitive of the new financing world with all of our capital coming out.

Most definitely. And then as anticipate taking on potentially more debt as we have these recommendations that come from Capcom. that also will impact, it would benefit us as we go into out years where we want to have higher borrowing. It'll benefit us to have high reserves so Again, yes reserves may look high in the moment but we need to anticipate long term planning. So again those conversations we can have more this fall.

And the reserve policy was drafted when our reserves were not in very strong shape, which is why we're above the reserve range-policy range because We started from a point where we basically had no reserves, so that was ambitious at that time and as Beth said now it's time to reevaluate.

I think, oh I'm sorry. I think too though it's a conversation better had along with the capital stabilization funds so As you've suggested, we are in a different situation in terms of whether we need to go to 25%. But if we're looking which I would favor increasing our reserve policy in the range, I would also absolutely look at a capital stabilization fund.

Sure. And there can even be a caveat where the reserves is, let's say 8% to 12%. But in the given years maybe we have a tolerance for percentage of debt. In those given years we want reserves to be higher within this higher range so again agreed that there's an opportunity to reevaluate the reserve policy and potentially readjust those ranges.

So I didn't have questions, just a couple comments I wanted to touch on. And some of them you said in your presentation but I think it's worth underlining then? I did want to call out the excellent performance in the fire department after years and years of transfers for overtime. I think there was several prior years we had significant transfers that were resulting from the long-term leaves and understaffing But that's taken time and leadership, both within our office and within the fire department to correct the ship. So I just really want to say that is much appreciated. It's really nice not to be going to town meeting this year with hundreds of thousands of dollars in transfers and I think, and you did call this outreach but again it's worth underlining. It's very good news on insurances that turn back but the health insurance is turned back as relatively low and that's one where we have risks so we've got to keep an eye on that

and as you talked about now, as we previously talked about in our discussions. We're gonna be talking in September about debt management policies and the establishment of a capital stabilization fund So we know we're facing significant capital pressures in the coming immediate four years but also longer terms of 10, 20 years. as you look forward, and we don't really have a good handle on the longer term right now because the strategic plan for the schools principally is going to be driving that. What are we doing about middle school? What are other elementary schools? So I think it's really critical that we preserve the financial good news represented by this turn back and establish a stabilization fund in short order. to do what we can to moderate the burden for taxpayers on needed capital work by shaving the peak of borrowing and major capital projects that we know are coming.

and you know a capital stabilization fund paired with debt management policies just like you talked about in my mind is one of the most pressing things on our work plan. and I also wanted to just go back a little bit, and you talked about we've had such good return on interest. And it's been that story since I've been on the board but before I was on the board as part of audit committee, I remember the year where Cheryl's like oh interest is a million dollars down from when we budgeted it and the budget was a million. And so it was when interest rates essentially went to zero So I think that we've been responsive with interest, with building permits, with motor vehicle excise to say okay every year we get good returns. We'll take the budget up a little bit but it's, I do have some gray hairs.

It's good to remember that it's not always good times and that when you forget that you build yourself an enormous risk for when the blue interest rates essentially go to zero and who knows when that can happen again? So I think it's important to say that, because we may hear you're a cry wolf. There's always this low in your budgeting law for interest and then there's always a lot of money but there's a reason for that So, I had some questions that you answered today and you answered again in your presentations. I have no further questions but I think we've got a good foundation here, but a lot of work for us to do in September. To use that foundation for the next generation and I think Marjorie's dead right because when I joined the board I did go back to say When we did the policy, not establish but when we revised the policy last time I looked at the history and we came from nothing. in our reserves.

In short order, we built up reserves but we had nothing so that the 8 to 12 percent was as Marjorie said a stretch goal at that time and it's great that we've made it but it was up and down for a while done

then we had the debt exclusion for, the 10 year debt exclusion. to make up for pension and OPEP losses. Kenny?

So in no particular order, on the interest rate well you can say there's catastrophic events that you don't know that can drop interest rates to zero overnight. The Fed does give guidance all the time, so I don't think it's overly difficult to monitor directionally which way interest rates are going. They bounce around, to some extent, but you sort of have an idea where they're going. I think the debt stable or the capital stabilization fund is of critical importance at this time and a debt management policy that Colette mentioned is also very important. One thing I know we're talking about this like it's great that we have $40 million in reserves, but these are, this is taxpayers money. We're sitting on 40 million dollars that is not being spent right?

and so you need to maintain a reserve to some extent but I think we should be not just looking at the capital stabilization, but either looking at ways that we can cut fees or taxes particularly for seniors. We talk about affordability all the time as a major thing continuing to see tax bills go up and fees go up is not great for affordability. I mean, we talk about house prices when you go from a $60,000 permit fee to a $90,000 the developer's not paying that. The homeowner is paying that and that's driving the cost up, and up,and up. And so when we look to raise fees Going forward, I hope we keep in mind that we're sitting on $40 million of taxpayers' money and we really reconsider those things.

Anything else? I just want to touch on what Kenny was saying there. And I think it's important that the capital stabilization fund is, you know, to sort of moderate taxes. So I do think that's an important point.

All right, thank you both very much. All right now we'll move on to our vote to open the special town meeting warrant and set the dates

Should I just do the vote? Okay. So move to call a special time meeting to be held Monday, November 9th 2026 at 7pm at the Wellesley High School located at 50 Rice Street and to set the following dates. Open the warrant Monday, August 17th 2026. Close the warrant Friday, August 21st 2026 at 12 p.m. motions due to the select board Friday, September 25 2026 at 5pm. Second

All in favor? Aye. And just a reminder, we've asked folks to hold November 9th, 10th and perhaps the 16th for the fall special town meeting just in case and Megan, you have some potential articles to tell us about.

Yeah I just wanted to alert the board to what we at present are anticipating for the warrant and also just as a reminder so although the warrant will close on Friday, the board will sign that September 8th. So we'll be working on drafting that once the warrant closes So we are expecting about 10 HR policies. Some of them are housekeeping, some of our classification and rates since we're in the new tables it's like it's still referencing you know series 40 50 so some of them are really housekeeping and then others are ones that we've I'll provide you a list. I don't have the list on me at the moment. All of our union contracts are currently open, hopeful that we will have union contracts to bring forward special town meeting. Town bylaw review committee is looking at whether they would bring forward sort of as a first attempt some modifications to potentially

provisions within articles one to seven within the town bylaw. We are looking at modifying the class and compensation table, this came up as part of a discussion with HR board several months ago and this would be looking at the facilities director, the DPW director in a CFO position even though the CFO was under contract it is an option for the future to not be. and so establishing a group 16 for those. We are anticipating potential FY27 supplementals from the planning department, and then as the board has previously previously discussed transferring the parking clerk from the treasurer to the police department now that we've modified those operations.

Excuse me, what is the supplemental for planning?

So planning is evaluating whether they would have transitioned the senior planner position into a assistant director or deputy director position, and that will be going forward to the... HR board in September, I believe. but at present they're maintaining the interim pay that was established as the acting director for the senior planner position which is impacting the budget. They also have a current vacancy, which will ameliorate some of that but not all of that. We anticipate having, it's very small but we would have a rescinded for the MSBA. And the board, we should potentially just have the option for consent agenda item. I don't know if we need it or not, but we might want to just put it in the warrant for contemplation by the moderator.

Advisory's advised us that they are contemplating modifications to the delivery of the advisory report. and then we have a plan for the FY27 capital plan. The AC design funding, the school condition School, Air Conditioning Design Funding, Comprehensive Plan Funding and then Library Lights. School AC Design, and the library lights were existing capital items. And comprehensive plan was denied at annual so it's kicked over to the special town meeting The only other item that is a potential, I did check with Dave Cohen DPW director this afternoon. is, as the board might recall we deferred the road work for Great Plain Ave because there was some work from National Grid that had to be completed

So I did just ping Dave to see do we think that it would be ready for special town meeting. He doesn't think so, but we're just holding on he just wants to confirm with Dave Hickey So we're just going to confirm that, but that likely would be deferred to annual town meeting. But I was unclear just because it was on our capital plan. I wanted to double check. That was something I actually wanted to mention now that I think of it in our executive director update. if you're driving around town, loads of construction right now. So Linden Square tonight, the square, Central Street this whole week So I just wanted to remind folks, check our social media. Check the town's web page. Check DPW. We have tons of information on where the road closures will be. We're trying to get a lot of work done prior to the start of school. So those are our anticipated items from the boards.

We have been informed of two potential citizens petitions, one new news potentially for Michael Tobin with regards to White's Pond I don't know if we're going to get that or not, but there was a question about that. And then a potential modification unsure what to the school air conditioning?

Does anybody on the board know of anything else we should be expecting?

I have a quick question. I think from our retreat, you were going to look into the war memorial if there could be a repointing or something that could come up at special?

So we wouldn't do that. We would have funds within our existing, we could always do a supplemental at annual if we needed to do any. Shoring isn't the work, what is the? Repointing, yeah.

So I have a question about the warrant process because I traded emails with Megan. In our bylaws, it says that town council shall provide support on request for warrant and motion language preparation, but it appears that in practice we may not be providing that support to residents that are bringing forward motions. If not today, I think we need to talk about that approach because I personally believe we should be ensuring that things that are brought forward before they get their signatures should be in the right form and substance that whether they're supported or not, they're structurally sound. I don't know why we wouldn't follow the bylaw in that case.

I don't agree with that reading of the bylaw. The select board engages town council and the client of town council is municipality. Megan, Town Council and I are not familiar with a time in which town council has helped draft an article but town council does help to make sure that form and substance of motions is acceptable for town meeting. We have had several citizens petitions in the last few years and none of them has been offered Town Council Assistance. And as the client, as the select board I think Walsh. Citizens should draft their own articles and Town Council helps draft the motion to ensure propriety for moving at town meeting.

I agree with the interpretation that Town Council is required to review all proposed warrant articles. If you look at many other provisions in 25.4, it makes clear where it shall be at the direction of the select board that one is not one of them. It says to prepare when requested in another section, it says to appear as counsel when directed by the Select Board so The pure statutory construction would suggest that that is not the case. I understand it's not how it's been done before and that ambiguity, I think just on its face as town council should be reviewing all of them.

Is this something the bylaw committee should look at? If our practice has been one way and there's a lack of clarity in the bylaws to help us feel comfortable with that,

I think so. Because my understanding is the citizens petition, Warrant Article is also the town meeting motion. So it has less flexibility Well, that's how it's been. We don't vote on articles. We vote on motions. No, but we're not going to vote... It's the same thing because the citizens sign it so we don't have to do it now but I do think it needs to be looked at because in plain English, it's really clear that it's the responsibility of town council. and it's not deferred to the select board or anyone else.

I don't happen to agree with you that's not been our practice, and it would be arbitrary to start that practice right now when we've had citizen petitions very recently and that has not been the practice. I would say the bylaw review committee should look at it but as chair, I would not direct town council to do that Town Council has issued an opinion as well.

So one thing that's not on this list, but I'd like us to think about it is we will have discussions in September about Capital Stabilization Fund. So we might want to bring that forward, a special time meeting so I'd like to keep that open and so we can continue working on it and see how we feel. Do you want us to draft the placeholder for that Colette? I think so yes please.

So you're talking about creating it?

Yes, to create the campus stabilization fund. Not necessarily funding it now? I mean, that depends on if the board wants to fund at this point but I think we should talk about the structure of it and get ready for it. It's something we've been talking about for a while now

that's a good size special town meeting.

It is and there was a couple items that we had previously listed for STM just as a reminder, we've deferred the feasibility study for the fire station to the annual town meeting. There's also the rezoning and potential development at 888 Worcester Street, which was deferred and School Facilities Master Plan funding as the school committee continues to contemplate that as well, which are also those would have been lengthy discussions as well.

but it's also getting a little bit, I mean the warrant is going to close on Friday so it's unlikely that those will be on this warrant.

No, we are officially fired. We would go to annual town meeting at the earliest. 888 Worcester there is not time for the planning board nor this board to take that item up. We will direct them to annual at this point.

Okay, anything else on special town meeting? All right, our next agenda item to discuss the joint fire class action lawsuit has been deferred to a future meeting. And after that we are going to review the public engagement plan for the North 40.

So I'll just give a little introduction to this. And I'm going to hand it over to Megan. But before I take up, I just want to again be clear. And Megan just mentioned that the feasibility for the fire department master plan has been deferred until Annual Town Meeting 2027 and the Select Board will be deliberating specifically on the Fire Department Master Plan in our September 8th and 15th meetings. and staff have been up working to update some level setting in terms of facts regarding the fire department master plan and some frequently asked questions. based on engagement already conducted so we can get that on the website for public engagement when we start that process. So just going back to the North 40 and public engagement plan at our July 21, 2026 meeting. So our most recent meeting, we discussed an outline of the public engagement for the North 40 using the Public Engagement Template developed by the Policy Subcommittee.

and there was general consensus on holding a Charette style process to gather broad community input regarding future use of the property. The intention is to consider the north property comprehensively, including conservation and open space recreation potential municipal uses on the proposed fire station rather than evaluating individual uses in isolation. and so that's consistent with the board's prior discussion, that the town should understand how potential uses might fit together over time and avoid decisions unnecessarily limit future options. So at this point I'll hand it over to Megan for an update on planning for the public engagement.

So just briefly, so we have set the date for October 1st at 630 p.m., and we have secured Honeywell School for that and so just as Colette indicated at our July meeting, we discussed really what the workshop would look like which would be about the start of it, about 50% to go through the North 40 acquisition. The original intent that 50% of the property be preserved as open space and 50% be available for municipal uses That presentation would also summarize prior planning and public engagement efforts on the North 40 uses, or future uses as well as the board's multiple of the Council, conversations on the conservation restriction and CPC's proposal and where the board is at present in terms of moving forward. Following that there would be a

hands-on component as part of the workshop, which we're still working to finalize. To look at additional uses in the future, areas in which that would be potentially located or try and build some consensus around that and that would be you know any host of uses from municipal uses to community uses such as Community Garden or other uses that had previously been discussed. such as housing or field use or some other use that we haven't thought of yet. In advance of that, we had committed at our meeting in June to send notice to abutters which we will do. We will send that a little closer towards the end of August So when we have all the websites up, so when people can review all of the documents with the FAQs and other information. And so we'll send direct notice to abutters 40, we did I think 500 feet of the North 40 the last time so certainly whoever received one for the fire station master plan.

We will send notice to all of those. We'll actually expand it a little further into the general to also send notice more broadly given the discussion about the conservation restriction and the uses. We'll also send notice to folks around Morton Park So that neighborhood, inclusive of the Housing Authority property as well as Atwood and Morton and Sessions of that event as well. We are working to finalize, I don't want to say finalize because it will be ongoing with documents but the webpages for people to use. and we continue, will also set up a... We previously had a North 40 will serve so we'll use that as well but anyone hopefully who gets noticed, we'll set up another link that people can request any additional information on the North 40 in general.

and so we'll be doing that in the next two weeks, that information will go out.

and we do have the Fire Station Master Plan email address up and running. And we continue to receive comments, emails and correspondence from residents. That's firestationmasterplan at wellesleyma.gov.

Thank you both. And at our September 8th and 15th meetings, the board will continue our discussion of the fire station master plan Smith. Neither those discussions nor the Charette will result in a decision on the siting of Fire Station, it would require subsequent action by the board and ultimately town meeting approval. So nothing will be decided prior to this charrette.

So in terms of the notification list for the North 40, can you also include the gardeners? I'm sure the NRC has a list.

We're happy to send that. And we'll also send it as we did previously to town meeting members.

Great. And who is going to facilitate the charrette?

Staff will be facilitating it, so we're gonna ask planning department to assist us on this but then our office will also be administering.

Great thank you Any other questions on the North 40? Okay, we'll turn to administrative matters. Corey how extensive were the edits on the minutes?

There were a few that have some pretty substantial edits. I would say that the minutes of July 28th and July 21st seem to have the least amount of edits.

Actually, Marjorie before you go to that I have a question. So at our retreat we discussed getting the precincts together and trying to organize them It feels like it would be beneficial to start organizing them in advance of the October 1 meeting. Does the board feel like that would be helpful if we started outreach to a few of the precincts to offer them the opportunity to meet in advance in a town space.

Well, I think it's a good conversation to have. What are you thinking in terms of the work to get the precincts organized?

I don't think it's an incredible amount. I would reach out, I've spoken to a few precinct members in different precincts to ask if they would like you know, help put the word out to see if there's interest amongst the precinct members in gathering. So I would just pursue that a little more aggressively to see as we get to the run up to these particular planning meetings as well as special town meeting if they have interest. What we would be doing is providing space for them. That was my understanding. We're not facilitating, we're not doing presentations. We are just helping them secure location if they wanted to get together and talk in advance.

Could we ask Town Clerk to write to town meeting members and see if they would reach out to their fellow? It's 30 people at precinct. I don't know about town space. That would depend on the town's meeting calendar, but I imagine someplace in town whether here or the library or a school might have some space for a meeting

And we're also happy to prepare Zoom links for folks too if they wanted to meet virtually and they didn't have a paid version. We're happy to set that up as well.

I just thought we'd spoken about it, and this might be a good pilot moment. I hadn't...I would have connected with Megan. It just hadn't occurred to me. I've been speaking to people but I hadn�t thought about doing it. it would also held over one but we could see I could start with the precincts that are tighter into the north 40 and then

We'll ask Casey to send an email. It would help increase attendance at October 1st because this is something that affects the entire town and it would be nice for as many town meeting members as possible to attend the Charette.

I think your idea about asking the town clerk to reach out in a form of polling, to see if there's really interest. I think we're going to get mixed results in terms of the precincts and where people really want to commit to meeting before we put a lot of work into that.

Well I think it's an appropriate thing, kind of outreach for the town clerk since she sends all town meeting emails

Yeah, I'm a little unclear. That was one of the questions they had on the minutes that I think you're talking about. There was a discussion at the retreat that I actually didn't remember assigning to a board member to organize the precincts to do this stuff. Maybe we discussed it, I just don't remember but can you tell us what you're doing in terms of conversation with precinct? I wasn't aware that was going on.

So my understanding was that Marjorie asked if that was something I was willing to do, to reach out and see if the precincts would like to meet in advance. And we would help them Secure Space, that we were going to coordinate with staff to get them conference space. We weren't going to provide presentations or anything like that but just because some of them, it's hard to find space in town to meet. So if there are 30 of them even if 15 go that's not everyone has room for 15 people to meet in their living rooms, so it was just to help facilitate. It's happening organically. I think we're aware of it happening more organically in some of the communities as things happen in their precinct. So we were just going to help make it a little bit easier.

So I'm a town meeting member, and I wasn't aware as a town-meeting member that precincts were being organized in any way. How are you reaching out?

I've only spoken to a couple right now because we just had our retreat. I would call you. And then we would have Casey send out a notice but so my vision was it would be good to have some town meeting members in each precinct lined up so that as Casey sent it out, she could say these folks have agreed to help coordinate. So we're building those communities, not a community for us.

How are we identifying who within a precinct is going to be basically precinct captain? How is that happening? Are you picking them or is the precinct itself picking their own captain?

I was going to, what I've done so far a little poking is talk to a couple people in the precincts and ask them who else they might be able to coordinate with. So, I mean it's a known list. It's 30 people. I can get back to you on how it's going

Yeah, I didn't remember that part of it.

That was one question I had. I did not remember assigning that to a board member at the retreat and so I'm just we had also said that the retreat they were going to try and have communications to town meeting members come from Casey so that they would know like to look to come from casey I think it's a little, we haven't discussed that we as a select board are trying to identify people within precincts to be precinct captains, to do an initiative. I didn't think we had discussed that

All right, so July 21st and the 28th you said.

And the all board meetings actually May 12 also I would say the two June sets of minutes had the most substantive edits and the other ones were Ministerial and Grammatical.

If the two June meetings, did you receive edits from more than one person? Yes. So may I propose that we hold the June minutes so that everybody can look at them and see if we can approve the May 12th and the 2 July versions?

I had, there was two sections in the May 12 minutes which I just wanted Rachel and Megan to look at.

Yes, which they actually had months ago so I reconfirmed yes.

Okay, so I'm fine with that. So then on the May 12th one

I'm really bad at spelling Jeff Wexler's name, so my apologies.

So shall I make a motion on May 12th as amended to approve the minutes of May 12 as amended?

Well, let's see if we can do all three at the same time. May, July 21st? Let's just take a look through that. They look ministerial. Is everybody okay approving those three sets? Okay. July 28th, it's only one page. It's basically to go in and come out and adjourn.

So moved to approve the minutes of May 12, 2026, July 21, 2027 and July 28, 2028 as amended. Second.

all in favor aye okay we have a few proposed amendments from the general bylaw review committee and I'll turn those over to Kenny yes sure

So for the most part, these are just clarifying or cleanup I would say. So in the first instance which ripples throughout is the naming convention on the bylaws and therefore, the Bylaw Review Committee. So the decision was made to call it the Town Bylaw review committee to distinguish it from the planning bylaws. And this is how it's named in the bylaws, meaning it's the town bylaw not the general bylaws so that's why that happened. The other... Scroll down a little Megan. this change right there who's going to be two members of the select board appointed by the chair and one person wanted to clarify it's the chair of the Select Board not the chair and then at the end, how the voting was going to happen.

The decision was made to strike that because that is the default in the bylaw anyway so we don't need to restate it anywhere.

and the line that says votes of the committee can also come out.

Yes, we'll make that change to the heading with the colon.

Any comments or questions on the charge?

So I know that. I'm in the minority on this. I'm just going to renew the fact that, I don't believe the committee should be appointing its own members. I believe that the select board should be appointed the members to it's committee just like we do for every single one. It's not clear to me why this committee is different than every other committee in town where the elected board appoints the members so I just find it inconsistent and not best practice to have a committee be able to build itself So I recognize that I brought this up and the board doesn't agree. I just want it on the record, it is absolutely opposite what we do for every single other committee in town.

and my second question is, on the second to last bullet report its vote to town meeting on any proposed bylaw or bylaw amendment. I think we said if requested. I don't think we assumed that the committee would have to report its opinion on everything, I thought we were going that they would be available to report at town meeting, but it's not a mountain I'm dying on. It's just something I thought we had agreed to. This is the way it's been since the first draft? That's fine. The other one I feel actually very strongly about. It's just we've done so, so much work on how to appoint people to committees and it just seems particularly unusual on something that has town-wide impact.

Okay, could we have a motion please? So move to approve the Town By-law Review Committee charge as amended.

Second.

All in favor?

Aye. All opposed? Okay, next is the Hegarty Pump Special Act Language, Megan.

So at the annual town meeting, town meeting approved. Hold on I'm just scrolling up to it here. Modification so this is like a tri-party agreement in terms of some land swaps between the NRC the Water Division and Board of Public Works, and the MWRA. And as part of that it authorizes the select board to spit language at the general court so we were finalizing the language, the general court as we were going back and forth with MWRA on the Hegarty pump station. And so in the packet, we have that proposed language for your consideration and I think we got a couple minor modifications to it. I don't know if we have that in Redline, Corey?

and so with that once the board votes it then we can submit it to our legislative delegation to get that before the House and Senate I will put it up what we have here in terms of the special act give me one moment Let me just zoom in a little bit, it's a little small.

Megan were there any substantive change recommendations?

No, there's no substantive changes here. This is really just a small conveyance of land to move some land around for the pump stations for You said there were some modifications. Do you mean between... Well, in terms of this language they hadn't formalized this with MWRA as we approached town meeting so the language held it at town meeting that it would be submitted to the general court after this language was approved by the select board. So Town Council has submitted this language to us for you, your consideration in order to submit to the legislative delegation.

Council's changes, I get it.

So Megan, it seems to have an unusual capitalization strategy so Town of Wellesley note the T is lowercase everywhere, the Board of Public Works is all lowercase the Registry of Deeds is lowercase.

It just seemed like... That's a general court construct.

Yeah, so that's actually very standard in legislative language and statutory language at the State House. it's very hard to unlearn when you make the transition from the state house to town hall, but that's actually very common at the state. That's de facto drafting technique at the State House.

I know this came up but it was in concept at town meeting. We are doing this for all excellent reasons because it would bring in the MWRA line which, for which the funding has not yet been secured and it's a really expensive project. So should something happen with this project and it is moved to another location, it's delayed a huge number of years. I didn't see any rescission plan in here. And it seems to me that we're doing this for one specific reason, and that we wouldn't give land to the state if it was not going to be used for that very unique purpose. So I would like to see some rescission language in here where, if the state's not using it for that purpose, its returned to us

Well, this is a land swap. So it's not we would have to return the Commonwealth land so we are swapping Commonwealth land for townland. We're swapping with NRC?

No, we're swpping within our town. We are swipping DPW land

But MWRA is also giving us land.

What's the MWRA giving us? I don't think they're giving us land. I think we're giving MWRI land because they needed to have full control over the site where they were putting the wellhead and that is valuable to us because we have to draw the line less far.

And so it's a cost savings. Under the town meeting, we say it differently too.

My recollection is we discussed this before, and Dave Cohen had a response to it. Because I think that's something that the Board of Public Works would have respond to as well as us, and Dave did have a response that I just can't remember what that is but this is not the first time we've discussed it.

Yeah so I thought the response was that at town meeting we were approving in concept the land swap and the turning over to the state for the purpose of the water line. But that the details of how we did it were to be delegated to the select board, which I think is there now at our stop on the train. So I would like when we do this that there is a rescission in there if it's not used for that purpose or if it doesn't within a certain amount of, it may not be a certain time but that its restricted for that particular purpose.

maybe instead of a rescission clause it could be said at the outset that this swap is intended in furtherance of that specific project only.

and Beth is correct. I was thinking because it had the MWRA parcel, that's where the Board of Public Works, it says in the motion language, dispose of said parcels for good and valuable consideration to the M W R A for their title program.

I was thinking... We're giving it to them for free because it puts the wellhead closer for us to be able to connect, so it saves us money in the long run on the connection but they're not paying for that land and so if they don't use it for this purpose either it should be deed restricted only for that purpose or it should come back to the town.

Can we approve this language subject to that issue being taken up with town council to see if there's something that can be I did to the... What's, why couldn't we do it on the 8th?

We can.

They don't have the funding yet so...

Right, but they wouldn't be able to get the funding if they don't have the land.

I'm not sure there's a time deadline tonight. Could it wait till the 8th, I think is the question so that we can have an answer to that?

Just to remind the board, the end of the legislative session is December 31st of this year and then all legislation dies and has to be refiled. Home rule petitions will be automatically refiled by the legislator that sponsors it. At the start, we don't need new authorization from the select board or certification from the town clerk for the subsequent legislative session but it would need to start over so let's say it got Alice got through the house by December, but it didn't make it to the Senate. It would then die at the end of December and have to restart with committee hearings and all that starting in January and February so to Beth's point unlikely if a few weeks would make a huge difference in that on that score but you know every day we delay the legislative process could kick this can further down the road up to the board. I just wanted to remind you of where we are in the legislative calendar.

Let's ask town council that question.

Eric gets fortuitous, he just walked in. So Eric, we were looking at the language as proposed by town council's office for the Hegarty pump station for the general court. And one of the questions that was raised is whether in fact Testa, Ulfelder, Wellesley, Councilor the acquisition to MWRA tunnel that at some point it would then return to the town.

I would want to raise that with the MWRA, just get their thoughts on that. But I don't see why we couldn't include that. I don' t see a legal issue with including that.

to state the obvious, if we gave land away for a reason and then they never used it I think we are breaching our duty to town by doing that so let's put it on for the 8th

Town Council have some time to clarify?

One question on the language. I thought I saw it was there's a reference to Middlesex Registry of Deeds. I think that should be Norfolk, but

It would be because we're in Norfolk County.

Okay, so we will bring that back on the 8th and the next item is to vote merit pay recommendations.

Thank you. So I have three recommendations, one for Chief Whittemore, one more for Chief Mortarelli and then one for Assistant Chief Charles E. John Domenico. So for Chief Whittemore, I did want to just maybe summarize for the public. I know the public's heard the quarterly updates but I have forwarded it to the board a list of accomplishments for each of the chiefs as well as the recommendation. Those are not public documents, so I figured I'd just give some highlights. So in the review, Chief Whittemore provided exceptional leadership during a really demanding year this year. Most notably he led the department's response to two separate homicide investigations including the tragic death of two children and then later on in June a secondary murder on Fullerbrook Park. These incidents required extensive coordination with state police, district attorney's office, the schools, regional agencies and other town departments

while also addressing community needs and ensuring appropriate support and wellness for responding officers. At the same time, the department continued to advance several important operational priorities from the year They successfully onboarded five new police officers and continued aggressive recruitment efforts to strengthen the department's staffing. So we are anticipating three additional hires in FY27. they continued the significant and ongoing work required to main the department's accreditation. And that included reporting, documentation, policy review the interview and review by the Commonwealth, and demonstrating continued compliance with their professional standards. They restructured the administrative operations and then partnered with the fire department to establish a shared public safety IT manager position to improve our long-term technology support and the succession planning with Peter McLaughlin's impending retirement.

They also looked at expanding active shooter, emergency response, firearms defense tactics, drone and multi-agency training. They managed public safety operations for major community events, including the Boston Marathon, Wellesley Wonderful Weekend, the Pan-Mass Challenge along with high profile visits to Wellesly College and World Cup related law enforcement activities. We also, through the traffic group and worked with the Chief and Lieutenant Lemenager secured $840,000 from a MassDOT grant for the Linden Street Corridor improvements while continuing work on the traffic management and infrastructure for the town. And then he continued to modernize the department through expansion of the drone program, and keep in mind they have the international conference now annually and so our department really is a leader in that. Implementation of the new Taser platforms, fleet improvements and greater police fire technology integration.

With regards to Chief Mortarelli, he continued to strengthen the fire department's staffing, operations training technology and their long-term planning. A major accomplishment was that successful hiring of 13 firefighters this year from the eligibility list. which is helping to stabilize staffing while we're also expanding recruitment for future hires because we're not done. And the successful onboarding of those new members. Additionally, he expanded the hands-on and regional training. So they did live burn, driver training, aerial training, pump and extraction training while restructuring the training function to address turnover and institutional knowledge they implemented major technology and communication improvements really hand-in-hand with the police department on that including automated 911 alert system, the multiple first due modules an early adoption of the national Neres reporting system.

Wellesley became one of the first Metro Fire Departments to fully transition to Neres and then actually, the chief is now assisting other departments on that implementation They worked very hard on the chief and the assistant chief in particular, advancing the fire station master plan including ongoing response time analysis, district modeling, station siting and long term infrastructure planning. and participated extensively in the preparation for those meetings as well as looking at the public engagement process moving forward. He continued modernization of the department's apparatus and equipment including some new command vehicles, the new engine planning, and the long-term apparatus purchasing plan which they brought out to 2031. Working with the Assistant Chief of Advanced Emergency Preparedness through our local emergency planning committee and the recertification of that committee. improved coordination with MEMA, regional partners and integrated inspection hazard and pre-incident information.

And then expanded the community engagement through the high school firefighter recruitment programming, the youth fire education, the senior housing programs and then along with the police participated in July jubilation. They also have the annual fire camp with Maura Runzella and they had obviously their open houses and have been participating in community events. The chief The fire chief forwarded along his review of Assistant Chief DeJohn Domenico, who also had an exceptional year within really his first 18 months or so as assistant chief. and so it would be my recommendation to award each of them that 3% merit based on those reviews.

We are extremely fortunate to have such a strategic and forward-thinking public safety contingent now. The work that they've done in two and half or three years is It's hard to quantify in every single area. And the fact is Collette said that we didn't have to transfer several hundred thousand dollars for the fire for the first time in, I don't know, 10 years? 15. will be very welcome to town meeting members. Are there comments, questions about Megan's recommendations?

I think that both departments under their leaders have done just a stellar job this year you think about the feedback we've gotten from the community, the feeling you have when you go into those buildings or interact with them. I find they're incredibly responsive to the community and the organizations in the community So the culture is fabulous and the accomplishments are just remarkable. I think they've really both done more than we expected in a very challenging year.

Margaret, the only thing I would add too is just because I don't want them to feel neglected. So Deputy Chief Renzella also had an exceptional year his merit based on his contract is appointed by the chief. And so that just doesn't come before the board, but I don't wanna be remiss in indicating that he also had an exceptional year. I know the board as well aware of his accomplishments So I just wanted to note that for the record.

Thank you very much.

Okay, Colette, motions please? So move to approve a merit increase for Chief Whittemore of 3% and a merit increased for Chief Mortarelli at 3%. Can I just add and move to approve a merit increase for Assistant Chief Dejan Domenico of 3%? Second. All in favor? Aye.

Megan, thank you very much and please express to the chiefs and assistant chief and deputy chief our thanks and our appreciation for everything they've accomplished in the past couple of years. We notice it, the community notices and we appreciate everything that they do. Okay, now we're moving to executive session. I request a motion to enter into executive session to conduct strategy with respect to litigation regarding 40 Oakland Street, regarding Albany Road Wellesley LLC and regarding 140 Western Road. and with respect to negotiations with the Wellesley Free Library Staff Association, and Wellesly Free Library Supervisor Association and Wellesley Patrol Officers Association as I declare that having discussions in open session would be detrimental to the town's position.

So move to enter Executive Session under Mass General Law, Chapter 30A, Subsection 21 A3. To conduct strategy with respect to litigation regarding 40 Oakland Street, potential litigation regarding 140 Western Road litigation with Albany Road Wellesley LLC, negotiations with the Wellesly Free Library Staff Association and Wellesle Free Library Supervisor Association. and negotiations with the Wellesley Patrol Officers Association, and to invite Executive Director Megan Jopp, Assistant Executive Director Corey Testa, Human Resources Director Dolores Hamilton, Town Council Tom Harrington Town Council Eric Russell and Town Council Chris Brown, Special Counsel Nicholas Shapiro Police Chief Scott Whittemore Library Director Jamie Jergensen and Board of Library Trustee Chair Marla Robinson to join the meeting Following the close of executive session, the board will return to open session for the sole purpose of adjourning the meeting.

Second.

Tom?

Aye.

Kenny? Aye Collette? Aye Beth? Aye And I vote aye as well Thank you, everybody. Our next meeting is Tuesday September 8th