Select Board May 5, 2026

Okay, good evening. The select board is back in open session after executive session. Our first agenda item is citizen speak for items not on the agenda. Sally's here for an agenda item.

No one signed up for.

Okay. So Megan, may we please have the executive director's report?

Yes, hold on. I'm just going to start the Zoom, Marjorie, so that if there's anyone on there. I don't believe we had anyone for citizen speak, but I just want to check.

OK.

Let me just pull up my notes here. Thanks. We just wanted to give a couple updates. I know it's 720, but there's still time to shave the peak, and so we have sent notice to everyone that today's a day to shave the peak to assist the MLP. And so we're asking residents to voluntarily reduce electrical use between 6 and 9 p.m. So again, still time. Small adjustments are recommended, such as minimizing use of air conditioners, turning off electric vehicle chargers and other small appliances, clothes dryers, dehumidifiers, pool filters. It goes a long way in terms of lowering energy costs and greenhouse gas emissions. I also want to announce that the select board office hours are scheduled for tomorrow May 6th with Colette those can be in person or via zoom between noon and 1 30 if you would like to have office hours with Colette, you can email her at cofranc at wellesleyma.gov.

The other thing we wanted to just report to the board, and we will put more formal notice in the Friday Night Mail next week, is that we have the Boston Marathon totals that have been raised for all of the nonprofits. So this year, Team Wellesley, all our runners raised an incredible $221,925. some individuals were way beyond the $5,000 minimum requirement and so we'll put those totals for all the organizations in Friday Night Mail so the public can also see that. We did want to provide a congratulations to Cindy Marr. I know it's been announced that Cindy will be leaving us at the end of the school year, but Cindy was also appointed to the Association of School Business Officials International. So she's been tapped as an expert by the leading professionals in the body of her field at a national level that she will now sit on that body. I think she can do two terms on that.

So congratulations to Cindy, that's a huge professional accomplishment and we're happy to hear that from her. I know Beth also had one item she wanted to raise, so I'll turn it over to Beth.

Thank you, Megan.

Yes, so we have the dressing of the graves, which is the changing of the American flags at all veteran graves. We're inviting the public to come and help at Woodlawn Cemetery. on Thursday starting at 3 p.m. Any and all volunteers are welcome to come and also provide a thank you to the high school lacrosse team as well as a veteran's son who has helped us get a jump start by doing several of the graves in town. and then Marjorie can I also mention Wellesley and Bloom was a huge success so thank you to all of our merchants as well as to Representative Peish who secured the grant because the merchants had Despite the bleak weather, it was really quite joyful on Central Street and on Linden Square. It looked great, lots of flowers, and the shopping was super.

Great, thank you Beth very much. Our next agenda item is the Consent Agenda. We have four items on the Consent Agenda. and the select board staff has reviewed and recommends approval of the three that are not a particular vote for us. the first is to vote a democratic nominee to fill a vacancy on the board of registrars of voters for a three-year term The second is to approve a second-hand articles dealer permit for TLC closet and that's for one year. The third is to approve a CV license for Blank Street Coffee. We know a lot of people are eagerly awaiting their opening. and the fourth is to waive a traffic study for Blank Street because their retail space is below the threshold size for the requirement. So Colette, may I have a motion please?

So move to approve the consent agenda.

Second.

all in favor? All right. Our next agenda item is to invite mobility and transportation manager Sheila Page to give us an update on Catch Connect.

I forgot my computer today so it's making me sign into everything, sorry.

It'll do it once I sign in.

Hold on one sec. Should work. Hold on. Aye, aye, aye. Did the room join yet?

It's joining now. Congratulates Sheila Sun for his graduation over the weekend.

Yeah, they're joined. I apologize for the delay for anyone on Zoom for the items that were in the consent agenda. The select board did just vote those with no questions. That includes Blank Street Coffee, which was approved for the CV and for the waiver.

Okay. Good evening, everyone. My name is Sheila Page. I'm the Transportation and Mobility Manager here in Wellesley. Is this working? Okay, good. So today I was coming to tell you about some changes that are going to be happening with the Catch Connect. But to start, the Catch Connect is a service from the MWRTA. And the services that are specific to Wellesley, we have a Route 1 bus, which is a flag down route. There's a few bus stops, but if you want to get on that bus, you've got to wave it down. They also provide a Boston hospital shuttle. for Wellesley residents, and that's a door-to-door service, but reservations are required. They also, again, require the paratransit transportation for qualified riders

and then finally we have the Catch Connect which we're gonna talk about tonight. So the Catch Connect is a curb to curb shared micro transit system. and it serves the town of Wellesley, the whole town. It also leaves the town borders to go to the Woodland MBTA train station. On the way to the train station is the Newton Wellesley Hospital, the Wobbin T Station, the Neda Community Center, and the Needham Heights and Valente Farms. and the Catch Connect has been very successful. In the last six months, over 19,000 rides have been provided serving 24,000 passengers. and on the screen is sort of we've sorted through the

popular or what I thought you would all be most interested in for rides to and from. So Babson, not surprising. Most of the rides or half of the rides originate from Babson College or are or End at Babson College. The second highest is the Woodland Tea Station. But I know you all have received your own feedback from the residents that Catch Connect can be very frustrating. It takes a long time. It doesn't arrive when you expect it to. It's not reliable for trips that you need to be somewhere. So we wanted to look at Catch Connect more closely, how we can make it more efficient to help make it work for the most amount of people. So we started by re-evaluating this service outside of Wellesley.

So the catch connect as of right now goes to the Natick COA, and that's an important connection into the rest of the MWRTA system. It goes to the Woodland Tea Station, that's a very popular destination. and conveniently on the way to the T is the Newton Wellesley Hospital and that's an important service for our residents. It also goes to the Wobbin Tea Station. However, MWRTA reports that it's time consuming and difficult to get to. and in that six month period that we looked at, there were only 70 trips to or from the Wabin T Station. and then it does go to Needham Heights and we had arranged for it to go to Needham Heights specifically because there was, we at that time, Wellesley at the time, did not have an accessible train station.

And at Needham Heights, there's the Needham COA groceries and businesses. However, Wellesley now has an accessible railroad station and we have our own fabulous COA. We also have groceries and businesses. So then we looked a little bit closer at the Needham service. There's about a thousand rides that come to and from Needham. however only about 600 of those rides are valid rides there's several rides and they're shown on the screen here as the purple splotches that are happening outside of our agreed service area. We've been working with MWRTA and for whatever reason they can't geofence all of them out and it's particularly because many of the rides go from Needham Heights to the Nines or to the Woodland Tea Station.

So they're not even really going back through Wellesley and so they're stopping on that route. So we'd like to consider, or MWRTA is proposing to remove Service to Needham. But first we wanted to understand a little bit more about who is going to Needham. Interestingly, half of those 619 trips, so this is looking at the valid trips, half of those are three residents. so they are spending a lot of time in Needham the three residents are coming from actually two addresses so it's I don't know it's a a couple or two friends that always travel together and then a single person and then 22% is Babson a little bit from Wellesley College, and so 19% is sort of other, which I would say is the rest of Wellesley residents.

And then, a little peek at what's happening in Needham because the Catch Connect, I already covered this, because it travels through Needham travels through Newton, there's over 400 rides that happen then for Newton residents. So we're going to pilot changing around the service. So we're eliminating the service to need them. we're going to eliminate the Wabin T stop and then we're also going to consolidate the campus stops because the Catch Connect was also going all throughout the campus. where I think it's gonna stop at two, maybe three stops right on that Babson Road so it's sort of an easy and easy on, easy off.

And this new service will start July 1 and Stephanie is good because it'll help Babson prepare for the changes because I think a lot of those out of bound and Tripps are Babson students because they're going to and from apartment buildings in Needham and in Newton. but if anybody does find themselves in a hardship position because we've changed the service, the Wellesley Youth Commission and the Health Department are happy to kind of troubleshoot how we can help those folks out. If people continue to have issues with the MWRTA, it's important that they reach out directly to the MWRTA. I want to know about the issues, MWRTA wants to know the real specifics, the ride number, who you are, where you were standing, all that sort of thing.

So please contact them directly. That's kind of a message to the rest of the residents. And then a quick plug. Oh, it's not on here. Oh, it is. Rules of Ride event. is scheduled for Sunday, June 7th from 10 a.m. to 11.30. I think it'll be really great. Mass bikes will be doing the instructions and the police are planning on leading some bicycle trips. So thank you. I'm happy for any questions, but that's about all I got.

I'm sure this is a straightforward answer to this, Sheila, but rather than 500 rides, for example, to an out-of-bound destination, why wouldn't we be looking at whether that's, Why that's out of bounds. Maybe we should be incorporating some of these locations if there's a demand.

that's that's true we can look at that a lot of those I will say a lot of those out-of-bound trips are between Needham and Newton so they haven't even originated from Wellesley. And you're right, we should be trying to service everyone and that's why MWRTA was initially reluctant to change the service. but Newton and Needham are served by the MBTA. And so that's something maybe they should work on to try to serve those folks as well.

But we're gonna see how it goes. So Sheila, when people contact Catch Connect for a ride, do they say where they're starting and where they're going? Yes. But they've picked them up and taken them regardless of the fact that it's beyond the

Yes, yes, and I don't quite understand, they've been having trouble with the geofencing.

Oh, that's what you're talking, okay, I didn't know what you were referring to.

Yeah, so it's the computer program that does it, and there are monitors that can override Ride It, but they're also watching all the Catch Connect because there's, you know, services in Marlboro and Natick.

Do you have any information about calls that exceed capacity at any given time for Catch Connect? I have not heard that happening. 10,000 rides from Babson or too many people calling from Babson at any one time?

No, I haven't heard that. There are a lot of rides at Babson, and I know it's kind of a sticking point a little bit, but it's a public service, it's a public transportation.

No, I just wanted to know if the calls were exceeding capacity, that's all.

No, I don't think so, I don't think so. But when I can look through the logs, I can see, I can see, you can see how many people are on the rides and the Babson students do, they might call one ride, but there's four, five, six kids taking that ride. And then that ride then might pick up somebody else, but I haven't heard that then the van's over capacity.

If I'm, which I am, but if I'm a resident who takes the Catch Connect and I'm hearing this right now, and I look at those stats, 58% of the rides are generated by three colleges. presumably most of those college students are not paying taxes in Wellesley and I understand this is not funded necessarily by Wellesley. Why wouldn't we prioritize Wellesley taxpayers over Babson and Wellesley College and MassBay students?

Well, we can't, because it's public transportation, it's anybody within the service area that can use it.

Understood, but if you see a call coming from two places at the same time, can they not say go to the Wellesley resident instead of the college?

No, so this is one of the issues is then they route it. The software then routes, makes an efficient route. and because there's a lot of calls in Wellesley and I mean in Babson and a lot of those Babson students are then going to need them, it's pulling it away. So,

And when Sheila and I, when we were having these conversations and going back and forth with the MWRTA, we decided that piloting this actually was responsive to that. We think that that's responsive to this concern. we think making these slight changes will make it more accessible and more timely for Wellesley residents and Wellesley taxpayers. by streamlining the efficiency especially at Babson because as we saw that generates the vast majority of the ridership and gums up the efficiency of both the software but also just the and the reality of driving throughout town. So in our estimation and with the support of Jim Nee and his team at MWRTA, we feel like this is actually a better way for Wellesley residents to get from the service what they anticipated they were getting when they said we want Catch Connect.

Beth? So I had a question similar to Kenny's about kind of moving the bias toward more availability toward the residents, particularly in the summer when there are kids home trying to get to summer jobs and the catch connect is slow, right? That chart you shared with the 19,000 rides, so I apologize but I'm a data person, and I added up the rides and I had 10% more rides in the list than I had the 19,000. So I had almost 21,000 rides. But Needham's not on there with 1,125 rides. I'm having a hard time understanding how to interpret the list here and how that guides us. I do like piloting something in the summer.

I think naturally we'll have fewer rides to the colleges in the summer, right?

Right, well that's part of giving everybody an adjustment, giving the colleges adjustment. So the difference in adding up is because A ride is a single ride, but I'm counting the origin and the destination. So the number of rides is sort of double, if that makes any sense.

we'll have to meaning if I go I'm not sure what I mean if I take it from here to my house how many rides is that

It's one ride. It's one ride, but I've counted it as two because I wanted to see the origin and the destination.

But the destination's mostly not on there, right? because the residents that aren't students. are, where are they? Where are the people that go from their house to a doctor's office or from their house to a job?

where are they? So I can figure that out for you. There's a lot of residents that use it and there's a ton of one-offs. A lot of them go to Woodland. That's what I was trying to figure out. Sorry to interrupt. Roach Brothers, that whole plaza is a huge thing. And then the medical offices on Walnut.

Right, so I'm just wondering if this is misleading for us in that it under reports the residents riding and it over reports the students riding. So the 19,000 is just

Calls, yeah, that's a good...

Okay.

Yeah. Yeah, no, it does. I just kind of pulled out... sort of the noteworthy destinations and originations there. I can kind of go through again, but there's a lot of just one offs of residents who use it. We have a couple employees that take it from Woodland to here or 99 Worcester Street.

I think it's a good problem to have. It means the program's a success. I also think any new program needs tweaking, and this is a tweak that has been identified by Sheila and MWRTA. And to Sheila's point earlier in her presentation, if we get significant feedback from our residents that this is not working or it's disrupting their enjoyment of this service, we will certainly readdress that with the MWRTA. I mean, that's the priority is to make sure this is providing a microtransit option for our residents.

Thanks for the presentation, Sheila. And I think a couple of things that we talked about, Tom, I think ideally when this works well the rides about any ride from A to B whatever it is is about 20 minutes and when we start extending it beyond Wellesley into Needham and into Newton it gets longer than that and that's that really is critically sort of and I do want to say that the system overall you know most of the time the response times are you know less than 15-20 minutes it's it's really most of the time it's very effective their target they would really like to get um up into the sort of mid to high 90s on that percentage it's not there right now it has been in there over the course of the service but there's definitely been some deterioration just because it's becoming more popular for the past

there's now that 1420 rides to and from the high school that wasn't happening a year ago so it's really picking up in different areas but I think it's really important to you know as we get more feedback saying it's you know particularly for certain groups of residents that want to like say the seniors want to be able to order the catch connect and get to their class at the COE or get to their medical appointment on time that we're looking for a higher performance rate and the upper 90 percent which then it would be more dependable and going back to the very beginning of the service it was partially grant funded and to be successful we had to demonstrate a certain number of riders per hour and Babson College made it successful. The students made it successful. and that meant that the whole program was established well, it was successful, we're no longer on that grant funding and so now we're at liberty to do some tweaks that can make it

you know less service area perhaps but better service internally and so I'm very supportive of it and appreciate all the work that was done to bring it to this point.

Yeah, and I'll be back in next year at this time and let you know how it is and I'll work on a better explanation of particularly this slide as well.

Archie, can I just say, so Sheila, my 13-year-old came up to me and said, do you know that there's like a free Uber service going around the town?

That's great.

And I said, I actually do.

That's great. Yep, you have to be 12 to ride it by yourself. That's the rule.

Thank you very much, Sheila. Appreciate all your work on this. Glad it's being successful.

Yeah, it's great.

Okay. Our next agenda item is to discuss the selection process for the Select Board Annual Appointment and I'll turn it over to Colette and Kenny. Sure.

So I have a couple of updates that I've put in my liaison updates to the board, but I think it's time for us now with the appointment policy to talk about how we're going to do the appointment and interview process. So I'm going to talk about the Council on Aging and the Municipal Light Board. So the Council on Aging, the board discussed, they definitely want to work more closely with us this year on appointments process. And they've had a discussion about what characteristics members feel new appointees could bring to the board. and those characteristics included experience in transportation, experience in finance, policy experience, strategic plan implementation experience and just an ability to connect with people and seniors throughout the town so town connections for outreach were important to them. They also felt town government experience is important. and as a reminder there are three board members this year who have terms are expiring at the end of June. Corinne Monahan, Bob McCarthy and Patty Chan.

Both Bob and Patty have indicated that they will not reapply and Corinne has already submitted an application. and then in their most recent board meeting they discussed the process for interviewing candidates they're going to appoint a subcommittee which is going to consist of the officers so that's Judy, Peter and Pat and they have asked me to sit in on those interviews and so the chair the process is the chair is going to bring the full set and the full list of people who applied along with their recommendations to the Council on Aging board for their board's full discussion and then their recommendation to us. the only so what I'm asking the board to consider as liaison is that I think that's a reasonable process this year as I think board members know I meet with leadership on the council on aging every month I think we've got a really strong

very positive working relationship together I think we will have a much more cohesive process this year the only characteristics I think I'd suggest from the select board's point of view in candidates as I do think it would be helpful for them to have a candidate who has a strong connections in the housing authority and possibly in the Chinese community. If you look at their strategic plans, they've done a needs assessment with UMass Amherst to see where do we need to do and make stronger connections and that's certainly some areas there. So those are the, maybe I'll just talk about the Council on Aging first and take feedback on that margin and then go on to the MLB. So that was my suggestion and I wanted to know if the board was comfortable with that process? And if there's any other characteristics you feel are appropriate for the council and aging candidates?

Collette, did you list town government experience? I know that was a priority last time. I just didn't hear it.

They did. It was something that the Council on Aging leadership and the board had discussed as a priority for them.

I'm very happy to hear that they've identified specific experience that they want. And I also agree that housing authority or a minority community would be very helpful. I know they're trying to expand their services and their reach into different communities and either or both of those would be great.

One other thing Kay raised just with regards to appointments is just as folks are working with your boards and committees in terms of timing, she was just reminding us that the board has scheduled June 2nd and June 16th regular meetings where we can do appointments and so on. June 30 is a retreat, so we typically would not do appointments at that meeting. So just in terms of if we wanted them done by end of year, oftentimes we have to kick and some to July and that's okay. But just in terms of meeting dates, she thought it would be a good place for me to remind folks as you're just trying to set up times that what the deadline would be for appointment prior to June 30.

Right, so I've asked the board to talk to the chairs of all the appointed boards and get this exact kind of information from them and bring it back to our board because we make the appointments. and to ask whether any of us, as Colette did, have other criteria that we think would be helpful. So let's aim for all of that information. If board members can get us some of the information on May 19th, we could take that in and start making appointments on June 2nd because we don't have a meeting in between. Go ahead Beth.

So the historical commission has recently put out another call for architects. So I would expect that they may, given their meeting cycle, they may not have the applications in and met with people and so if anyone's watching that is an architect, knows an architect that's a resident, please have them apply because they are looking to round out their architect portfolio.

Okay, great.

Let's go back to Colette and the MLB. So for the Municipal Light Board, they circulated prior to their most recent meeting a really extensive list of qualities that they feel would be helpful in board members. and then they had a pretty extensive discussion of that list in their board meeting to sort of identify where their current board members already covered those attributes to sort of identify well what should we really focus in in our recruitment process. So they noted that the board member whose term's expiring, which is Paul Criswell, is the only member who brings a set of legal skills to the board. And they do feel that is still a priority. So the priority legal skills after they had a really thoughtful and extensive discussion is that applicants have experience with rate design. They are going to be doing a review of their rates this year. Legal experience, as I mentioned. A finance background.

experience in organizational development, the structure, succession planning, things like that, and a background in privacy issues. They're implementing automated metering and they want to think about that from a privacy and a legal perspective. They have also identified a process where They hope to report back to the MLB for their May meeting. They have formed a subcommittee. It is the chair and the vice chair, so that's Ned Hall and Scott Bender. They're gonna include the director, Dave Woods, and they've invited me to attend those interviews. So again, I have to say I don't have anything to add for qualities that the MLB would be looking for. I thought their discussion was really extensive, but I wanted to share with the board that that's the process that they're suggesting and see if there's any feedback on that. it's a really technical board.

seems very comprehensive and well thought out.

I'm glad they've identified those particular technical and experience criteria and I hope they can find what they need. it's interesting rate design finance organizational development these are not things we hear about on a regular basis but I'm glad that they've identified them

and they did acknowledge that no one candidate's gonna have all of that. We'll see what we get. Okay, so that's me.

Okay. Anybody else have any other criteria? All right, we will bring that back. If there's more information before the May 19th meeting, we could discuss it then as well. But for sure, we want to bring it on for June 2nd.

So on the Climate Action Committee, there's two open seats, Mary Gard and Sue Morris. Sue is not going to seek reappointment. Mary is. I would say we're not far that far down the path we did discuss this at the most recent climate action meeting and we have a handful of resumes and Lisa and I are going to go through and vet candidates, bring it back to the full board, and then we'll take the next steps in front of the select board. It's hard to say what qualifications Sue was very focused on waste disposal and in her view one of the reasons she's not seeking reappointment she feels like that is there's a lot of expertise on staff that covers that so So we'll have to figure out what qualifications we're looking for.

I mean, to be honest, it's a board that has significant experience in this area. So we'll see. And I'll bring it back to this board.

Great. So I have one more. You all set, Beth? Yeah. So the other appointment we have to make is for the Townwide Capital Planning Committee. and so for that committee what I'd like to recommend is forming a subcommittee with myself and Tom Ulfelder being the members of the board in the subcommittee and then having staff join that, Megan. I would actually recommend Joe and Glenn, Rachel and maybe somebody from the PBC to interview candidates. the subcommittee obviously will post agendas and minutes and things like that but according to our regulation of recording of meetings regulations it's not going to be a recorded meeting and that's a similar structure that COE and MLB are approaching. So I think we would aim to do interviews in May.

and report back to the full board with a recommendation and then have the board make the appointments in early June so that the committee can convene. I think that that committee would like to do, I think it's gonna be important for us to convene and have a planning meeting before school breaks essentially. for the summer so that we can really hit the ground running when that work gets started in September. So that's what I'd like to propose to the board, but I'd like to get feedback on that proposal.

So Colette, have you put out a job description and a call for volunteers?

It was included in the general call.

Okay, great. Thanks.

Collette, would you just repeat please who you wanted to work with you and Tom on the interviewing committee? I have Joe, Megan, Rachel.

So I think it would be helpful to have Joe and Glenn because they're going to be so critical in the first year's work. Rachel, because there's such a critical finance element and Rachel's principal staff on the committee. and I do think it's going to be helpful for somebody from PBC there because what we're looking for and what we've said at the candidate we're looking for is going to have construction executive level construction experience and I think there'll be some good questions that come from somebody from the PBC to elicit that. I mean I know Tom has extensive experience in PBC projects but neither he nor I are a construction executive and I think that that would be quite helpful to have that during the interview process.

I agree with that. I think there's no substitute for having a senior. When I sit at PBC meetings, listen to Tom Gohmert's input, I think you're absolutely right about the source of the questions and the input.

That sounds like a great subcommittee to me.

We'll get going.

All right. Okay, anything else on appointments? All right, we are now moving into a public hearing. I'm going to open the public hearing on a hearing and a vote to increase municipal lien certificate fees and demand fees. So I'll turn it over to Megan.

Thanks Marjorie. So Maura O'Connor, our treasurer, and Rachel DeRoach, our chief financial officer here to address any questions. This one's actually fairly straightforward. Over the past year or so, Maura and I have been discussing, in particular with Rachel, looking at our municipal lien certificates. Ours is currently $25, along with the demand fees, which is currently $5. Mora has put together our comparable communities rates for the board to review. The town gets a significant amount of municipal lien certificates on a daily basis and so you know the it's it's not necessarily a revenue generator in particular it's really to address the amount of staff time that pertains to generating the municipal lien certificate happy to turn it over tomorrow to maybe just fill in a little bit more on that

I thank you and uh yeah pull the mic closer okay thank you very much um Maura O'Connor treasure collector um and sorry about my My garb, but I just came off the golf course. And thank you for accommodating my schedule. It was the new member guest at DeHuyden tonight. So, yeah, so Megan outlined the reason for the increase in the fees. I mean, we're significantly lower than most communities, and in particular, what we would consider comparable communities. and I had four to address the MLCs first. So the polling went through the Mass Collector and Treasurers. We have a listserv so I put the question out there and we got about 47 towns that responded.

14 were at 25, one was at 35, 28 were at 50, one was at 60, two were at 65, and one was at 75. now the municipal lien certificates in 24 we did about 557 25 we did about 587 and currently we've got about 194, which is right in line for where we were this time last year, actually a little bit ahead. So at the end of the day, if we increase the $25 based on 25's numbers, that's $14,675. and so on. No impact on the residents on the increase on the MLC fees, however, it would be just a little bit more revenue. And again, it really isn't for anything else other than and the staff's timing to justify that.

And a lot of these numbers that I just rattled off also, some of the towns have what's called a sliding scale. So if it's one that needs a rush, They charge more. We don't do that. But that happens a lot here, especially the local attorneys that know us. They'll come over twice this week. We need this tomorrow. And we turn it around. so they do a great job and I just think it's it's time for an increase for on those fees and again those fees are just passed on to the consumer. So municipal lien certificate is for somebody that's maybe refinancing or buying a new house or mortgage company doing some sort of a check on the financing. so those are the reasons that they get ordered.

Maura, could you explain the process of preparing the MLC?

Right, so an attorney, typically an attorney or mortgage company will send a request for, you know, to do a municipal lien certificate. So what the staff does is we look to make sure that the taxes are current, and then we also do what kind of a history of you know what was paid in and it's usually two years prior so in this case you know there would be what was paid in 24 what was paid in fiscal year 25 and then fiscal year 26 and then we would put by quarter you know if depending on the timing of the year so we're in fourth quarter now but our fourth quarter was just due the other day if they were paid if they weren't what was due in the interest due but we typically say we don't typically say we say call because that amount that's on that MLC is that interest through that day. And then on the bottom there's utility information,

there's also information on the lot size you know and you want to make sure that the bill number that all the information is correct because that's a legal document So if it's wrong, we could be on the hook. If we said you didn't owe anything, and they did owe anything, they probably wouldn't have to pay. so what happens is the staff does it and then they give it to me for review so there's always two eyes on it and you know it's just a good a good process and then we send it out back to the attorneys

So you have to go into a specific property record to pull out all of those bits of information?

We do. And typically everything's right in Munis, sometimes on the commercial buildings. will have to go into the assessor's records, into the property card information to get the square footage of the lot sizes, but for the most part, it's pretty, all the information is there in Munis. But then we do have to pull utilities, so it's, you know, I'm not saying it's a lot of time, but it takes time. and because of the importance of the document, we make sure that everything is correct. And again, there's always two eyes that look at him, every single one that goes out.

Thank you. Any other questions on the municipal lien certificates? Okay, thank you. Demand fees?

And regarding the demand fees, we're at $5. different polling, we had 61 towns that responded in total. And for the demand fees for the billing in real estate, we did approximately in 25, 700 demand bills. and personal property, about 140. And that's for the year. I'm sorry. that was, yeah, 700 and 140. And then in excise, we did about 3,193 and 24, and for 25, I have 3,529 excise bills.

So a $10 increase is about $35,000 if we're using the 25 numbers. We do approximately have got here about $50,000 in demand fees.

So when taxes are overdue, when is a demand fee first assessed? And is it assessed every time you have to send out a request for payment? No.

The demand only goes on in May after the fourth quarter. So we wait for everything to go out. So in two weeks, so the due date was the other day, May 1st. So roughly two weeks, we can send out demand bills by law.

and what happens then if it's not paid?

So after demand bill, then it goes to what we call a warrant. So then it goes to our deputy. for excise. For real estate, if it doesn't get paid, then there's a process with tax title. But that process, I'll send out a letter probably July I usually send out the first one saying you know you want to avoid being have me put a lien on your property and then if I don't hear I send out another letter and you don't have to by law send out any letters. I can go right from demand to tax title, but I've used this process just to be fair. And then after that, then it's for real estate. and it would be a tax title. I'd put a lien on the property.

And when do people pay interest on the taxes that are owing? So right after May 1st. So when you send out the demand fee, it's the fee plus interest? Correct. Correct.

So, but excise is a little different because then the excise, after each commitment, Demand fee gets put on. Then after that, then it will go to warrant. Then after warrant, you know, so there's a little bit of a different process for the excise. And then if they don't pay that, then, you know, eventually if they try to, you know, renew their license or renew a registration. If it got to the point where they call it's marked at the registry, they wouldn't be able to.

So when you say commitment, does that mean every time a car is purchased or the plates are changed or what do you mean by commitment?

Yeah, so with excise we do about seven to eight commitments a year. So the first one goes out in February. That's for the entire, you know, whoever has cars. and then if you put a car on the road or take one off the road and replace it or you got in an accident. So pretty much every other month there'll be a commitment, another commitment for excise.

Got it. Other questions for Maura? Kenny?

Thanks, Maura. So I'm concerned with raising the fees for the municipal lien certificate fees. I kind of view this as we're just increasing taxes on people. And it sounds like the rationale for it is other towns are doing it. So we're doing it. Do you feel like your job isn't getting done because of the amount of effort that goes into doing this?

So municipal lien certificates won't have any impact on the residents at all.

That's not really true. The borrower in either a sale or a refi is paying that dollar for dollar pass through when they close.

but I don't want it to come off as if it's a tax for them.

No, no, it's dollars out of somebody's pocket, right? It is, it is. So call it a fee or effectively a tax. So we're talking about affordability all in the town, in the state, and nationally. And we're imposing more fees on people. at a time when we are running reserves that are well above what our target is. So that's problematic to me. The second part is, just because other towns are doing it doesn't really persuade me. I think it's a good thing that we're the lowest, we're at the low end of the spectrum. So for those reasons, I don't really support this. And the other is I would think with technology, especially with AI coming in, that the cost should actually be going down. because I would think there's technology that can scan all of our databases and say this is what's owed

prepare a certificate and put it in front of you and say here proof you know make sure this is right but Technology should be able to do what used to be, I assume, people pulling out paper files and doing all that kind of by hand. Computers has probably made that more efficient and AI should make this way more efficient in the future. So I would prefer we hold off on doing this until we look for a technology solution to actually drive the price down on this. Demand fees I see is very different. People have the opportunity to pay their taxes when they're due, and if they don't do so, I'm okay with this from both a penalty perspective and a cost of collection. I can support that one. I don't support the municipal lien increase.

Other comments, Beth?

the yellow highlights on the municipal lien. So the top ones look to me like our peer communities. So I felt like $25, we were already competitive with our other peer communities. although the list is longer a lot of the Hounds on the list that charge higher fees, I didn't feel like were our comparables. So I was comfortable at the $25 rate on the demand fees. it looked to me like five of the 14 were at $15. I don't know. It looks like 10 is in a place one goes. There aren't many at 10, so you're either at 5 or 15. What's the average price of a Bill that you're paying here.

Which kind of bill? Excise? I mean, excise is tough because that's based on the demand.

The demand bills. What's the average price? Yeah. So I was just looking at what's the ratio. If you go from $5 to $15, have you substantially changed the ratio of what someone's going to be paying?

I think the variability, it could be from literally $80 to $30,000.

Right, because some of the excise bills, I mean there are some excise bills that are $5. and there are some excise tax bills that are $15,000 if you have an expensive car. And with the real estate bill, the average real estate bill is probably $15,000 and you're talking a $5... Demanphy. But some of the comparable towns on the MLCs, right, in the beginning, I kind of did it, but there were several that are at 50. Belmont, Milton, Newton, Norfolk, Sudbury, Whalen, Winchester, Brookline, Natick are 60 and 65. So the average of what I would say a comparable town was about $40. And again on the demand fees, we've never increased the demand fees.

I was just going to ask, when was the last time that we've increased these? You're saying demand fees we've never increased?

No, I don't think so.

I mean, I am sensitive to what you're saying, Kenny, that we do have to be concerned about affordability. And if it's being passed on, if it's a tax or a fee, it's passed on anyway. When I think about our reserves, I think about those really differently, especially since I'm hoping that we'll have a conversation you know over the next several months about what's our plan for the reserves in terms of shaving the peak on the capital costs that we know so that Our reserves being high is intentional and I think that we have, we haven't talked about it so I don't know what consensus we have to apply them to bring down the costs that we know are coming to us as much as we can. and I think this is in line with we've done some review of our fees recently the building department was one that we've done but I don't think it's unreasonable to ask departments if they can

I don't think that's unreasonable. Honestly I could support them both. The income I think if you said the differential on the lien fees is about $14,000 a year.

Yeah, the reasoning for the MLC fees has nothing to do with an increase in money. It's pretty insignificant. It really is I think just for the time that is put into preparing these, the staff time.

I don't feel super strongly on it. If we wanted to say yes on the second fee and hold on the lien fee until we rethink it, and maybe it's a case of we don't raise the fee unless it's a rush. and then that might change behavior and then it changes your workflow also. And so maybe it's the $50 if it's a rush, but it's $25 if it's not. So maybe that's something we could think about.

That's one of the reasons I was asking you how you ascertain how you get the numbers. Because like Kenny, it seems to me that you could populate a spreadsheet with variables that get filled in for a particular property through AI. I'm not comfortable raising it any above the average unless I think Collette has a great point. If somebody comes in today and says I want it tomorrow, I think that's a justified additional fee. I'm fine raising the demand fees, but I would second Colette's suggestion. If it's a regular one, leave it. If it's a rush, say 24, 48 hours, whatever rush means to you and your department, I could support that.

So a question on what Rush means, because in my experience, the MLC is ordered like the last thing anybody does in a refi or a sale. So how would you define Rush, or is that something we should think more about? Thank you.

Yeah, so the attorneys, sometimes they forget to order them. So that's when we'll get a call or they'll literally come here to the office and just say, can you do this? That's what we're talking about with the rush.

in the normal process. So they know, say it's a refi, they know they need it. Do they call you or email you a week or two weeks in advance? I know they need it like right on the closing date basically so that's why I'm sure like a rush it sounds like the right word but I think they all have to be right near closing date in order to bring it down so that they know that there's no liens or there's no past due payments. So I would wanna know how we're defining rush before. And I don't wanna overthink this, but I fundamentally don't think this is the right time to raise the fee.

You say you want something like 24 or 48 hours, it's a rush. Otherwise, it's...

I want to know what would constitute a rush because I think in this... in this scenario, it generally is a last. You need it as close to closing to know how much is potentially owed or not.

Right, and by law, we have the law tells us we have 10 days to turn these over. So if we got one in the mail today, it would have to be the last day that we could send it out, back out would be the 15th of May. So a rush often, again, they usually call, the attorney calls or emails, but normally they call. and say, you know, did you get our request for an MLC at 123 Main Street? Yes. Can we pick it up today? We need it. Or sometimes they just forget to order them and they'll literally come in physically, come in and ask. and ask if they could wait for it, I'll come back.

So the increase, these fees go into free cash, correct? They go in the general fund, yep. I guess I just don't feel a need to raise the fees right now. The department's funded, it's the beginning of the year. I feel like, I thank you for the analysis, I just, I don't, I don't see it. I guess I'm uncomfortable tripling from five to $15. If you want to go to $10, I guess I could support that. Tripling seems pretty aggressive to me at a time where We're not in need of raising fees. So I don't... I do think that we shouldn't go forever without raising fees, which is why I could say, OK, we could go from $5 to $10.

The $25 to $50. It seems too much to me because I think you're doing it when you're transacting on a house. And so it is a cost that's being passed through to someone. And so although it seems like not big dollars, there's bigger dollars happening at that moment. I like to think of us as a town that encourages people to move in and trade up and do those things and not to me this is the nickel and dime category of I don't know why we would don't bother getting them frustrated around going from 25 to 50.

So let me propose something. I'm hearing some support for increasing the demand fee, some noncommittal. What if we say raise the demand fee from $5 to $10 and we say request for an MLC within 24 hours is considered a rush and goes up to $50? because they have 10 days. And if somebody comes in the office and says, I need it right now, that's interrupting work that somebody else has planned and scheduled to do because somebody else has an emergency. that I think is justified to encourage people to think ahead a little bit. So my proposal would be demand fee to $10 and leave the MLC unless it's requested within 24 hours in which case it goes to 50.

Can you keep in mind also that out of 351 cities and towns in the state, my polling, I only got 47 towns and 61 towns responding. My statistics here is for a small sampling. If maybe all 351 towns responded, it may be very different. But I understand what you're saying. But again, the increase in the MLCs has nothing to do with getting more money for the town.

No, but it does interrupt your work if somebody wants it right away.

It absolutely does. They're time consuming and it's an important document.

trying to find something where the board is comfortable. And you've gotten a lot of our peer communities. If you were to come back, and show us that even more of our peer communities are higher, the board could reconsider it at any time. But what do board members think about my proposal?

I'm good with that.

I haven't spoken up and I want to say clearly that I don't have a problem with the request that was originally made. I would be quite comfortable going from 25 to 50 and 5 to 15. I find in a community with an average property with a value of $2 million that I'm not terribly sympathetic to an increase of $25 on the municipal Leen Certificate. And I think with the demand fees, having had one of my children who just doesn't get it out the door, I don't see a reason, there really isn't an excuse for why people aren't paying their excise tax on time. It's a matter of organization, and I think they should incur a penalty for their lack of organization, and I think $15 is perfectly reasonable.

Ready for motion? So move to close the public hearing.

Second.

All in favor? Aye. And then move to approve the fees from municipal lien certificates requested for issuance within 24 hours from $25 to $50 and for demand fees from $5 to $10 effective May 18, 2026.

Second.

All in favor?

Aye. Okay. No, all opposed. Okay. Thank you very much. And please feel free to come back if and when you would like us to revisit the issue. Thank you. Okay, our next agenda item is special town meeting preparation. We don't have any specific items on the agenda, but I know we have people here for public comment.

Our first resident, Sally Watts.

Hi, Sally. Hello, I just have one preliminary comment to make. If we're shaving the peak and this is the time, I had to put a sweater on because it's cold in here, you guys. Okay, Sally Watts, 43A, Atwood. I'm here to talk about MassBay. I'm here to urge negotiation rather than litigation. What is the current commitment from the Commonwealth? Housing clustered on or around the parking lot, preservation of the remainder of the forest, respecting the town's inclusionary zoning. So now what Wellesley needs to do is iron out details through negotiation. Why not just sue? What would be gained by suing? Wellesley can have about 40 acres of preserved land for free, or we can spend a lot of taxpayer money on a lawsuit with an uncertain outcome. Why pay for something that we can get for free?

The only reason to sue now would be to try to stop or significantly limit the housing. Well, then why not stop or significantly limit the housing? There are pros and cons to every housing project. There's no perfect place to add housing, but this is a pretty good place. Each housing project impacts the community, but housing also brings great benefits, such as filling empty seats in our classrooms, some reasons why we should work with the Commonwealth. The Commonwealth has the right to build this housing, which simplifies an incredibly difficult process. Normally, for multifamily housing, it's challenging to get through all the opposition, get approval of all the permits, and secure needed financing. The Affordable Housing Act, Homes Act, allows the state to more easily build 180 units on this property. They've been very clear that they don't plan to budge on that number.

they could spread the housing out across the entire parcel but they don't want to do that. They want to cluster it all together so that the forest can be preserved. Some people feel that we need to stop this housing project in order to save the forest, when in reality it is the housing project that allows us to save the forest through the RFP process. The cause of the traffic is known and periodic, which means that we have a good opportunity to mitigate it by adjusting student use of Oakland Street. through working out a plan with the state, we have an opportunity to better manage traffic on Oakland Street. This is a good location for housing because it's walkable. For active seniors and young families, it's an easy walk to two train stations and great retail stores. It's on the number one bus route, which we discussed tonight. It's one of the limited locations in Wellesley that has scheduled public transportation.

It's next to a beautiful town park that will allow residents to enjoy healthy living. The number of units 180 is the reason that this project can generate a significant portion of the funds needed for critical upgrades to MassBay's campus facilities. Most importantly, Wellesley needs housing for seniors, young families and our town's workforce. It's time to move forward. I believe that it's in the Commonwealth's interest to make this project a success. So let's see what we can get from them so that this is the best project possible. Thank you for your patience.

Thank you very much, Sally.

Thank you. Doug Youngen.

Hello, Doug.

Good afternoon, good evening. Nice to see you all again. My name's Doug Youngin, 162 Oakland Street. Thank you for letting me speak. So I have two things to address. both relate to the town meeting process. We are less than a week out from the meeting, as you all know. I apologize in advance for my ignorance on the process I'm learning on the fly. First, on Sunday, I requested to Megan a copy of the drawings that your outside consulting firm is producing to show prospective developments on the 40 Oaken Street property. And Megan got back to me. And thank you for doing that, Megan. They will likely be available at town meeting. I request that the select board ask your consultant to expedite this work and make the renderings available to the public and the town meeting members sometime on Friday.

even the drawings that are in a draft format that are mostly complete will be helpful to I think a lot of people. This way we will have the time to digest and study the information in advance. There's gonna be a lot of information, as you know, flowing this weekend, and trying to understand it when we see the drawings for the first, if we see the drawings for the first time on Monday evening in a crowded room with a screen from afar, I think it's gonna be very difficult for people to get scale and understand it all at that point. We appreciate that you want everyone to be well informed. So that's the first thing. The second thing is a bit confusing. Last evening during the planning board meeting, a planning board member said that he worked with a developer through his Boston College class to come up with plans on how to potentially develop the 40 Oakland Street site, which sounds very interesting.

My understanding is that it is a large developer that is already doing work with DCAM on a substantial project. He described the developer as a household name. he said that yesterday he had an informal meeting site visit with a few select board members and two members of town council he indicated that he showed everyone a proposed site plan and a proposed parking plan and a handful of slides. So what I was wondering if the select board can share these plans or slides with the public and town meeting members prior to the weekend so we can review them, similar to the first request. getting all this information to all of us so we can see these various things would be very helpful. So that's my request. Thank you.

Thank you very much.

that's everybody that reached out.

Okay, so my understanding Doug is that it's not our decision about whether the information the planning board member has is available for sharing with the public. He is working with, this is a class project, and the, it's, an academic exercise essentially. His students worked on one idea for what could happen on the property. and they're presenting it in class. So we don't have the documents and it's not ours to share. So you may wanna talk with him. I believe he will be speaking at town meeting. Yeah, okay. And we don't have final renderings from our consultant. They are working on it.

We had an initial rendering which we asked him to work on. We don't have them yet. but we will discuss that when we do have them.

as somebody that has almost 40 years of business experience. As an outside consultant with something this major and thousands of people involved, I think getting on the phone and saying we need this and if you gotta work till extra hours or give them a few extra dollars, I think it's gonna mean a lot. If it's dropped on Monday night, it's gonna feel like Like I said, nobody has time to digest it in the middle of so many other things going on. As you know, the rules of the game are changing minute by minute. So we would just appreciate it. That's all. Anything you could do.

I understand the request. Thank you very much.

I appreciate it.

All right. Anything else for us to talk about special town meeting?

I have a question about when we're going to review the special town meeting presentation that you're giving because you're speaking for the whole board and none of us have seen anything. And I think it's unusual in that we're in a really tight timeframe. So we didn't even present the warrant, the motion language to advisory. So we are on an unusual cycle, but I think the five of us should all see the presentation and have a chance to talk about it.

I understand I've been working 10, 11 hours a day on the presentation and as soon as it's finished I will share it with you.

Could we schedule a meeting for Friday?

We'll have to talk about that. We already have the moderator's meeting in the morning. We'll have to talk about that.

I think we have in the past and correct me if I'm wrong Megan for time meeting presentations we've circulated slideshows and members have given comments to you and then you've worked with you know the chair or whoever's presenting the presentation to kind of try and work those comments in. Could we do something like that if we circulated a comment

That's typically how it goes. It goes back to staff and staff relay them to me because we can't do it if it's not in a public meeting and I don't think we can do a public meeting. it would violate open meeting law, so it has to go through staff.

So the reason I was suggesting it is not to imply you're not working crazy amounts of time, it's everything about this meeting so untraditional that if we could at least all of us know what's gonna be presented to set up the non-binding question. We know that the community each, they have two minutes each and so it may help them understand the ground that they need to cover or not cover in their comments and it just seems like we've worked really hard to get community input for this meeting and so the extent to which we can foreshadow what we're covering and how we're covering it it will make the meeting, I think it will reduce everyone's kind of anxiety about

how things are going to flow, what's going to be set up, and what's going to be covered, and what to speak to.

Well, if people want a preview, they can watch my presentation to advisory on April 22nd. That's about 85% of what I'm going to say next week. There are some different slides, but that's the gist of it, and I think people know what they want to say. Number one. Number two, the time crunch has been imposed on us. it's been imposed on all of us and we have to convene and complete this meeting in time to allow the board to issue our final comprehensive comments to the state within 48 hours after the completion of town meeting. So it's not that we're putting this on the town, it's been imposed on us and we're doing the very best we can. to gather the input and represent to the state what we have heard. And as I said, I will get you the slides as soon as I can. And the slides are for the board to review. They're not for the public.

the public will see them on Monday and as I say most of it was presented to advisory. I don't think the issues are new. Anything else?

Okay. I do have something else. So the consultant, the content that we're receiving is drawings and any other content areas. Are there any other content areas we're receiving?

So I think we should be clear that the consultant is showing a fit test, how you could fit 180 units on the site. It would not be what I would constitute a preferred design in any way, because The board actually, you know, arguably is in a position where we're trying to take a neutral position here to get comment on. So I believe there will be elevations of perspective, but we have not seen that yet. And I think there will be, as part of a fit test, the ability to say, here's one way to look at it. and if you want to go higher, you could have less buildings. If you want to do underground parking, you could have more open space. And so the intent would be to show a base plan that could be modified based upon priorities. It's not going to be a plan arguably that would be debatable because it's just a fit test and the town at this point will

have control of design ultimately once an RFP has been submitted through the review process of site plan review and design review.

Right, it's important to understand that we're not at the point where we know exact acreage or exact density and this is not A proposal of a development, it's one idea of how those numbers could fit. If people say five acres is the limit, this is something that's going to fit on five acres. If people say that's too big, then you have to yield on the acreage. and we're not at that point yet. The board doesn't know what will happen after May 13th. So it's just one idea and again, it's a non-binding question. So I don't think we expect that for a couple more days.

So one thing I would request is that when you show how these buildings fit onto the parking lot, there's going to be underlying assumptions. Like if you put 3,000 square foot condos, and there's 180 of them it's going to cover X amount of ground and if there are 500 square feet it's going to cover Y. So the set of assumptions that go into those I think should be distributed as far in advance as possible so people have, even if we don't get the actual picture, they know what they're looking at when they look at, same with parking spots. I don't remember exactly what the rule is in Wellesley and I know the state can, at least they saying they can override parking regulations but if we're showing a smaller number of parking spots per unit than is allowed under Wellesley's bylaws, then I think we should be telling people, because if we're showing one spot,

on 500 square foot apartments, that's going to really look different than if it's the Terraza or Bristol and there's two parking spots per unit. And I'm sure I'm missing other assumptions that are relevant to understanding when you're looking at it, but I think you understand what I'm saying.

So maybe the fit test, does the fit test show the amount of land and the difference between hardtop only or where those seven or eight acres, is that part of the fit test?

The fit test looks at the parking lot without expansion.

So the 4.2 or 4.4 acres.

The area of the parking lot.

Yeah, I think it's approximately 4.6 or so, but yeah.

I just want to add one thing to what you said about parking Kenny I think there's more information available now I think our parking minimums don't always correlate to actual parking so there's sometimes it just really depends on the development and the people who live there and lots of factors but the actual parking can be quite different from the required minimums and you know if we're comparing what's proposed to the minimums it might be helpful to say and this is the type of parking it's actually experienced and these type of developments, which there's more and more data on that recently. There's been some studies done that capture actuals.

And that would all be fine. I just think people need an explanation of what they're looking at when they look at it.

So one of the things that this conversation jogged for me is we didn't talk about the size of the unit. So if there's an assumption that the unit is 2,500 square feet versus the unit is I don't know a thousand square feet or 900 square feet that would be an utterly different fit test and so well that was what Kenny was just saying is that what you were saying okay great

Okay, I think we're ready to move on. Our next agenda item is administrative matters, and we have one, two, three, four, five sets of minutes. Thank you, Corey, for the compiled edit.

No problem. I sent them out to the board around 5 o'clock this evening and printed out hard copies of all the edits that were submitted. I think they're largely ministerial, grammatical and formatting, but if you want to take a few minutes to look through them to make sure your edits were incorporated correctly.

I agree with your assessment, Corey, if that's helpful to anyone. I did have a chance to look at them.

Everybody ready for motion?

Okay, yes Colette. So moved to approve the minutes of March 10th, 2026, April 14th, 26, April 21, 26, April 23, 26, and April 27, 26 as amended.

Second. All in favor? Aye. Thank you everybody for your input to the minutes. Our next agenda item is the chair's report. I have a few things. I'd first like to extend our gratitude to the police and the school departments for whom last week was very difficult. Both departments went above and beyond to complete their work, keep the public informed, and care for staff and residents during a very challenging time. I'd also like to thank the advisory committee for holding unexpected meetings within a very tight timeframe and for completing their report for the upcoming special town meeting. Due to time constraints, advisory had to schedule two meetings and write their report within two weeks. We're grateful to Madison, his officers,

and those members who worked so hard to adhere to the bylaw requirements of meeting, holding a public hearing and publishing the report in time for town meeting. I also have a couple comments about a conversation from last night's planning board meeting. There was a discussion about participation by a couple of members of the select board with members of the nominating committee for the planning board and quite a bit of misinformation. I wanted to clarify the record. On April 14th, Megan and I were invited by a planning board member and the chair to join them at a meeting with representatives from DRB to share some thoughts about qualifications and responsibilities of a new planning director. We did not approach the Selective Planning Board. We did not tell them we wanted to meet with them. We were invited to a meeting.

We suggested they consider including other senior staff who will work with the board and their director. because other departments might ask different questions or rely on different attributes or have different perspectives in working with the planning director and the board. For example, planning works frequently with engineering, DPW, fire, health, and we suggested they include senior staff as well as the DRB. Last night's planning board meeting presented a very different version of those events, and I wanted to clarify the history of our communications with planning. Typically these kinds of conversations are ones that the select board chair and vice chair have with the chair and vice chair of planning. and then I debrief the select board and my chair's update. But the planning board chair has decided not to hold these monthly meetings any longer. So we were not able to have an in-person conversation.

And that's all I have right now. Okay. Our next agenda item is a second executive session, and I request a motion to enter into executive session to conduct strategy with respect to bargaining with the Wellesley firefighters, library staff, and supervisor association and the custodian unions as I declare having such discussions in open session may be detrimental to the town.

So moved to enter Executive Session under Mass General Law Chapter 30A, Subsection 21A, Exemption Number 3. to conduct strategy with respect to bargaining with Wellesley Free Library Staff Association and Wellesley Free Library Supervisor Association. and the AFSME Local 49 Custodian Union, as the Chair has declared that having such discussion in open session is detrimental to the town and to invite Megan Jopp, Corey Testa, Hamilton, Jamie Jurgensen, Marla Robinson, and Joe McDonough 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.

Colette?

Aye. Kenny?

Aye.

Tom? Aye. Beth? Aye. And I vote aye as well. Thank you, everybody. We are going to executive session. and our next public meeting is actually the all board meeting on May 12th following the special town meeting on May 11th.