Select Board October 27, 2026

at 7.03, so I'm calling us back to order in the Great Hall. Is there anyone here who would like to address the board on a non-agenda item?

We had two people reach out about agenda items, but no one about a non agenda item.

Okay thank you Corey Okay, Megan will turn to you now please for the executive director's update.

I just have a few updates. So, a couple of reminders Wednesday tomorrow evening there will be evening voting available at Waterstone Senior Living at 27 Washington Street from 6 p.m to 8 p. m the town clerk will continue to have voting at Town Hall all through this week till 5 p.m. The last day to request a vote by mail ballot was today and so vote by mail ballots must be postmarked by November 3rd or delivered to the ballot drop box or the town clerk's office at Town Hall here no later than 8 p.m on Tuesday, November Third. vote by man ballots may not be dropped off at polling locations. So that's a distinction.

Also just to reminder, election day is November 3rd and the polls will be open for in-person voting from 7 AM to 8 PM. 7 PM. Also just wanted to remind folks about second quarter tech payments that are due Monday, November 2nd. Online payment is encouraged. through city hall systems. In-person payments can be delivered to the treasurer collector office, you can also drop those off at a secure ballot box in front of town hall. The other thing they wanted me to just remind folks of is to beware of tax payment scams that the town will never text or call taxpayers about payments. So do not click any links or provide information to any callers. We also will not call you. We also did just have an announcement, I just lost my notes.

One other announcement which is that our construction project and construction manager Steve Agosian will be retiring next week and so I just had a few comments that Steve Gagosian retired from the town of Wellesley next week, and I would just like to recognize and express our sincere gratitude for his many years over 10 years of dedicated service to the community. Smith, Steve is a Wellesley resident and his commitment to public service extends beyond his employment with the town having first served as a member of the permanent building committee. and his role there. He contributed his expertise to a number of significant municipal school projects, not the least including the Wellesley High School. Following his term on the PBC, he began working for the town as design and construction manager in the facilities management department, bringing decades of private construction and project management experience to the benefit of Wellesley residents.

throughout these past 10 years, Steve played a central role in some of the town's most important capital projects and facility improvements including Town Hall both the exterior and interior Hardy, and Honeywell Schools. Steve was a member of the HHU Master Plan Committee and the School Building Committee for that. He also contributed to the planning and implementation of numerous projects at the middle school, including the steam pipe project and the middle-school building systems. He also was really the one who took over the school security project as soon as he began and did that project saving the town. Actually, I think you saved us two million in the process who implemented that in about a year I think. He's also contributed to the main library interior project and many other projects over the years. Steve has become a trusted resource and respected colleague known for his practical approach, he does not mince words

and willingness to support others. Steve's career reflects a longstanding dedication to improving Wellesley's public buildings and facilities, strengthening municipal operations, and serving the residents of the town with professionalism and expertise. His contributions can be seen throughout the community in the schools and municipal buildings. And on behalf of the town, we extend our deepest appreciation to Steve Gagosian for his years of service and wish him a well-earned retirement.

Thank you very much, Megan. When you start listing all the projects Steve worked on it's quite remarkable the impact that you can have in a town over course of 10 years and prior to that on PPC. So we all join you in wishing Steve well in his retirement. Anything else? That's it Marjorie? Okay, thank you very much. All right, our next agenda item is to discuss and vote union tentative agreements. So I'll turn it back to Megan.

Okay, I have a PowerPoint just to go through the highlights of these. So first I'm going to start. We have come into tentative agreement with three unions, our patrol officers, our superior officers and police, and our firefighters. All three of these unions have also voted to ratify these contracts. We continue to be in negotiations with all the other unions and we're hopeful that we can... Oh, hold on. That's the wrong one. that we can come to agreement shortly. Hold on, let me just pull up the right one

Okay, first we're going to start with the patrol officers. And I just want to thank the unions for their participation and excellent negotiations with the town. It was very collegial and it's a lot of work for everybody, so we just want to recognize and appreciate all their efforts. So the patrol officers consist of 34 employees. Under this tentative agreement, they would receive a 3% COLA. We would delete step one which is our and Academy Step. That's largely based upon a class action lawsuit that has eliminated the ability to have an academy step that all patrol officers once appointed by the select board are to be paid as patrol officers. It would be a 2.5% COLA in year two and year three.

Some of the other financial components include a detail, overnight detail rate of an increase of $20 an hour. That is from 7 p.m to 6 a.m on weekends and town holidays that excludes town and Wellesley public school events, those would be at our standard detail rate. We've also negotiated an advance body worn camera provision. So if the town or the Commonwealth requires us to move to body worn cameras, We would implement a 3% increase to our technology stipend. And that's something that would require a significant capital appropriation at town meeting, so that's not something that will be implemented on the fly. that would be something with a considerable appropriation in terms of the equipment that we would go to town meeting for and should that be implemented, a 3% increase would be given to the patrol officers.

In addition to that, we have contractual amendments in terms of reducing the pay for our sick time buyback. We'll reduce that to 45 days and decrease the pay to $100 per day. employees will continue to accumulate up to 90 days for use. Given the number of new officers, we are increasing our field training officer amounts from one hour to two hours of overtime. Town Meeting had approved for our first responders an increase in our residency requirements under a special act. And so that has been implemented and allows for a 35 mile border to border residency. individuals must retain residency in Massachusetts. We would increase the uniform allowance from $1,000 to $1200

We would increase the military buyback, which allows an individual to buy back up to four years of credit for military service and that would count towards longevity pay only without affecting hire date or seniority. Just to give the board a brief background in terms of the financials, clearly the board is aware of this but the board's philosophy has been to seek to get people to the median. and within our policies, we've seen that the town fluctuates based upon the steps. And we've added longevity steps as well So we start off okay, sort of fluctuate and then we drop considerably in terms of the length of service. Under this contract, we've also provided opportunities for individuals to seek additional payments. So our existing contract maintains if you receive EMT certification, you get an additional 5%.

if you receive educational attainment, these are existing provisions. You have 10% for a associate's degree, 20% for bachelor's degree 25% for master's degree as all these other communities also have We've also increased our stipend provisions. So we currently have, let me just go to that. We currently have a number of officers that seek specialized training for various positions within the organization. Those include animal control, licensed drone Pilots, Canine Handlers, MPTC Firearms Instructors and PTC Defensive Tactics instructors, Elder Affair Housing Liaison, Fleet Maintenance. All of these, except for housing liaison elders and fleet maintenance require upwards of 40 hours of technical training and various certifications for this.

and so we have officers currently doing this, but we've negotiated a stipend to recognize the certification and the ongoing work. The other thing that we've looked at is our night shift differential and so under an analysis of our peer communities, Wellesley's been at 5% for several years. We're well behind the average and so we would also increase our night shift differential to 7% to meet our peer communities. Let's see. Total settlement cost is $141,997 for patrol officers. Do you want me to go on to, okay. Are there any questions on patrol?

Okay Megan please.

Superior officers is comprised this union is comprised of the sergeants six sergeants and four lieutenants Under this analysis, So here's our sergeant start off. So in many communities, sergeants will start off on a stepped scale and Tata Wellesley we do not do that. We believe your responsibilities as a sergeant on day one are the same responsibilities for someone who's been a sergeant for 20 years. So we maintain a singular rate each year, and so we start to drop back. So it's a bit clustered here, but as where the board and police sort of looked is As you look at our closest comps in terms of population, density, activity Natick and Natum Datum have significantly surpassed our sergeants

with upwards of a $20,000 pay differential. So as part of the sergeant's total compensation we have settled on a market adjustment of $10,000 followed by a two and a half percent COLA in year 2, and a two-and-a-half percent COLa in year 3. for our lieutenants. Our lieutenents tend to be middle of the range, and so what we've discerned there is slightly nuanced but they currently receive holiday pay, oh sorry and so we would roll their holiday pay into their base, and then they would just receive the day off similar to Corey or myself in terms of our compensation. And then we would increase out their base by 1.5% COLA In year two, it would be 2.5%, 2.50%. The night shift differential which only applies to our sergeants

would increase from 5.5% to 7%, based on the same analysis as our patrol officers, that the town continues to be behind a night shift differential. The detail pay would be the same provision as the patrol officers with an evening, weekend and holiday rate increase of $20 per hour. this would exclude town and Wellesley public school events. Same provision in terms of body worn cameras, a 3% if it is implemented by the state or by the town. Under the Superior Officer's existing provisions, the town will pay for your master's degree or to work towards attainment of the master's It's a clarification that if you have a master's degree, that we're currently reimbursing for you. We're only going to pay for it once. We won't pay for additional masters degrees.

also looking at modifications in sick leave buyback, implementing the same residency provisions field training uniform allowance military buy back. Settlement cost is $126,917. I'm going to move on to fire. So under our

under the firefighters slightly different than police. So, the firefighters, the lieutenants and the deputy chiefs are all within one union. There's not a supervisor's union they're all together I'm going to just start with an overview of pay. So we'll start with the firefighters, they continue to be in the lowest levels of our comparable communities This is something that we looked at very closely three years ago and worked to try and get them up. But because they have so many provisions in their contract, that were set amounts not on a percentage base increase they continue to fall behind where those same provisions in our comparable communities are on a percentage based increase. So we've tried to implement a lot of that into the contract provisions. this is just extending that through 25 years.

as we look at our lieutenant's salary, the same thing somewhat stalled. We do have steps but this is just the extension of this continue to be somewhat staled in terms of deputy chief, again towards the lower end of our rankings. We have some additional comparables but that numbers weren't pulling correctly so we can update that for town meeting. and again that continues. Deputy chiefs, when we looked at this also three years ago were down about 12% from our peer communities and obviously that's been continuing In terms of our shift differential, Wellesley continues to be at the very low end of the range. This is our night shift numbers. and then in terms of our educational incentive, Wellesley again low end of the range just comparing it with our police. They're different paradigms but just showing where they are at.

So under this, we would change the shift differential to 2% of weekly pay. We would look at our added technology stipend which would be 1% additional to weekly pay We already have an 8% EMT calculation. We're just pulling that differently to step one, lieutenant. That's across the board so deputy chiefs, lieutenants and privates would all receive that Education, we would move that to percentage base. So associate's degree would be 2 1⁄2%, bachelor's master's group would be 4.25% of a step six lieutenant's weekly pay. Uniform allowance would increase from $650 to $800 a year on 7-1-26 and then increased to $1175 using specific vendors in deleting the linen stipend and the cleaning stipend. in the out years.

We would redefine base pay to include the EMT, stipend the certifications, education shift differential and technology that is actually how we pay them now in terms of overtime and in terms of our traditional weekly pay rate, the issue more is making sure that if we ever get to long-term disability that those factors are considered in their base pay rate. Longevity Payments, we would delete those because we've established a new step table which I'll show you momentarily. Which also has steps for our firefighters at the longevity increments. We would reduce the sick leave buyback from 65 days to 50 days for all new hires after July 1. Oops, sorry. EMS coordinator stipend would be increased to $100 a week.

We have also, for our fire prevention lieutenant and deputy chief they are removed from our regular rotation of Overtime, and so to recognize that they would receive a 15 percent salary increase. And they also don't get the night shift differential. And then Deputy Chief would receive 10 percent salary in lieu of the night-shift differential. We would just amend some of our fire service certification pay to clarify that additional pay begins at the completion of the Fire Academy. And in terms of our meal hours, It's more of an operational issue, but we would continue to allow those as long as it doesn't affect operations or pull any trucks offline. We have a number of different language clarifications including changes to bereavement leave, adding brother-in-law and sister-in law.

Again the residency requirement which included our firefighters to increase that, that's actually should be 20, 35 miles. I apologize for that. Vacation accrual to clarify when that begins for our new hires. and also looking at union leave. So that's if you go to union conferences, the state conference, the national conference allowing particular hours for the unions to be covered under the contract. And then we'd be updating some of our promotional language This is a completely revised pay table, so we would add steps. So we would modify our step tables year one has a 1% cost of living adjustment, but again there's modified tables here. And so step six would be a 10-year firefighter and then step seven...

and 10 would be a 15 year, 20 year and 25 year firefighter in terms of the Deputy Chief, Lieutenant. They would have six steps and the pay differential between a lieutenant and a firefighter would be 15%, and then it maintains that Lieutenant and Deputy Chief, 15% across the board. So this is right now the pay structure in terms of lieutenants. Once you're a firefighter and go to a lieutenant, you're basically put on the third step and so you have like one step, and then you hold there for the rest of your duration as a lieutenant. This allows for mobility and to get the lieutenants pay up the same with the deputy chief. You basically are brought up from a lieutenant to a deputy chief currently at step three, you would go to step one and have six steps

The step differences are 2.5% on the out years between steps 6, 7, 8 and 9 and 2.5% for all of the steps for the lieutenants and deputy chiefs. the total cost of that settlement for all of the staff there is $368,777. I don't know what is happening. I stopped sharing.

So move to approve the tentative agreements between the town of Wellesley and the Wellesleys Police Patrolmen's Union, the Wellesey Superior Officers Association Union. and local 1795 IAFF firefighters as presented to the select board on September 27th, 2026. Sorry October 27th.

All in favor? Aye. Megan, thank you and please thank Dolores for all of your work in the negotiating team and the chief as well. These are wonderful results. and best of luck with the continuing negotiations on the other unions. All right, our next agenda item is special town meeting preparation and we're gonna be discussing in voting support of three articles which call for appropriations. Before we begin our discussions, I'd just like to make a couple of comments. It's important for all town residents and town meeting members to know that since the summer members of town staff including select board, finance facilities management human resources and if I've left anybody out I'm really sorry in addition to Town Council

have collectively spent hundreds of hours in addition to their own work responsibilities responding to questions, doing research, reviewing documents in meetings and phone calls, in support of planning for the upcoming special town meeting. From town boards, departments, committees, advisory committee citizen petitioners and others. Much has been asked of town staff on behalf of the select board, town meeting members and all residents I would like to extend our thanks to all staff members for their patience, expertise assistance and guidance over the past several months. These additional requests have also been over and above the work required to conduct union negotiations, plan and prepare for public engagement on the North 40

The Fire Department Master Plan, the Wellesley Square Amenities Plan, The MassBay Affordable Homes Act Proposal, State Elections and much more that the public never sees. Wellesley has an extraordinarily talented and dedicated staff, and it would be appropriate when residents see staff members to express their thanks. for sometimes triple workloads that have been managed extremely well and quite professionally over the past several months. So we wanted you to know that, we appreciate all staff members working to help prepare for the upcoming special town meeting and beyond. So, the first Let me say one more thing. In early October, the board did not necessarily expect to be discussing the merits of citizen petitioners

But the reason we are doing that is because they call for appropriations, and that impacts and engages a lot of our financial planning over the past several years. So it has involved staff and finance to a great degree. And as fiduciaries, we felt it important for us to be able to discuss and take a position on these requested appropriations. So Article 14 has two motions, the first of which is the school committee's motion to continue Bates and Fisk Elementary School Air Conditioning, as has been carried and proposed in the Townwide Financial Plan. Are there any comments about that? Any questions? Discussion Board members have about that?

I'm happy to start. The agenda item is discussing both support of the appropriations, so I support the appropriation in Article 14 Motion 1 for a number of reasons and am happy to lay them out It represents the town's carefully planned path for school air conditioning on the towns well developed three step construction planning process that town boards, town meeting and residents are familiar with and have come to expect. The three-step construction planning process is designed specifically with multiple checks and balances, public input compliance with public procurement, and the highest regard for spending taxpayers' money with care and oversight. It's been socialised for some time now, feasibility was funded several years ago and the debt exclusion was always identified as a funding path to construction.

School Committee, the elected representatives and their proponent in this case made deliberative choices on a path forward through the established public process. Town Meeting's been engaged in multiple conversations along the way and the funding path was built into the townwide financial plan for several years. This has been the basis of our strategy to finance multiple capital projects that town is facing The Townwide Financial Plan has been the basis of important financial planning communications with town meeting members, advisory committee boards all across town and the public. and the Townwide Financial Plan is the basis of what we've been doing to communicate to the town, the serious capital planning challenge that we face. So I'm supportive of this for those reasons.

Beth? So I'm supportive of 14 and 2. I think we should do everything possible to get our children into healthy, safe, and strong learning environments. Our school committee is charged with that. They are recommending it to us, and to me 14 seems like a very small and prudent step

Can we start with 14.1? It's a separate motion. I'm supportive of 14.

1 and 2. Okay. Kenny?

I support 14.

I support 14 as well. My support for 14 has been clear since last spring. I agree that it's important to improve the environment that our children are in these four schools. But I've had the pleasure of attending PBC meetings now and managing a lot of the construction projects that the select board have responsibility for some time. I've seen the way the permanent building committee works, I've see projects that have gone off the rails because it didn't follow the process that PVC imposes on its evaluation and development of building projects in town.

and as a result those projects have caused considerable additional money and angst as we try to work through the deficiencies in the process that was followed. I also think that it is very important that the town in approving these projects understands accurately the full scope and scale and cost and challenges that we're going to face in implementing air conditioning in these schools. I was vice chair of the HHU school building committee Back during that process, we discussed the fact that there would be a perceived inequity between the schools and we recognized that there was going to be a need to address that whether it was through a step like this or whether it

building committees to take a look at replacing these physical facilities. But I think in the interim, we know that process is a long one in Wellesley and I don't think that these children should have to wait 10, 11, 12 years before new schools could open to have an air conditioned environment for the hot weather. But nonetheless, I still feel that the delay in air conditioning these environments for one year in exchange for a more certain outcome and cost is a worthwhile trade-off.

Thank you. I won't repeat a lot of the points that Colette made, but PBC and FMD have a tried-and-true process going through feasibility and design in construction, and I wholeheartedly support that three-step process for this particular project. So we are unanimous in our support of Article 14, Motion 1. Article 14 Motion 2 is different. The original design timeline for this project was 18 months It was subsequently shortened to 12 months, and Article 14.2 requests further shortening it to four months.

I strongly support air conditioning in all schools so that all students have equity in their learning environments. I also fully supported the 12-year school facilities plan created in 2012 by SMMA that outlined the kinds of upgrades, renovations and reconstruction that our schools needed and which were placed in a timeline appropriate for our staffing, funding capacity and town-wide needs. It was clear then that not all the capital work could be done at once at the same time, and therefore had to be phased over a decade. Fourteen years later nearly all of that work is done. The school air conditioning project was studied for the first time in 2019, and School Committee presented the original feasibility study in 2020.

Then there was COVID and the school committee set the project aside to turn to some field work, lights, team rooms, and other projects. Beginning with the Townwide Financial Plan in 2021, design alone for the air conditioning was projected as debt capital inside the levy. By the time of the 2024 Townwide financial plan The design was listed as a debt exclusion for ATM 2028 and construction as a dead exclusion for fall STM 2029. The school department requested a supplemental feasibility study since by that time the original study was five years old. They then requested that FMD reconsider whether they could complete design in less than 18 months, which is how we got to the 12 months.

Smith, FMD's response was their fastest possible recommendation was 12 months. In the 2025 Townwide Financial Plan, design was listed as a debt exclusion for ATM 26 and construction as a dead exclusion for fall STM 2027. The school department also requested that the select board consider other possible ways to finance the design. When the school committee made the final choice of window units for the air conditioning, The Select Board did reconsider and agreed to consider the design funding from Free Cash. Construction has always been scheduled as a project bundled debt exclusion, and the entire capital planning process for the past six years or more has worked under that assumption.

Fmd, the Select Board and Finance placed the work on the capital plan in the most responsible way. to account for needs across town and the desire to bring schools into equitable condition for all students. Then, over the summer, the proponent of the citizen's petition presented a report asserting that further accelerated timeline was possible. FMD met with the designer to discuss timeline issues, to see whether how and when BLW could accommodate accelerated work. then the citizen petition was filed and the PBC in discussing a citizen petition as opposed to a town board or department project as proponent suggested that FMD work out a new schedule which would further shorten the design phase from the 12-month period to four months.

Only then did the school committee add an additional motion to Article 14, picking up an idea that PBC itself generated as opposed to considering from a town department proponent. Steele, Town By-law requires new projects to be presented to PBC 120 days prior to town meeting. Neither the citizens petition which is not a town department and has Questionable authority to engage PBC at this level, nor the school's additional motion which is a new project if you consider the accelerated timeline and implicated funding decision was presented 120 days. and Vance. At this time, no town department officially owns this project.

Feasibility is complete but design following an appropriation has not yet begun. So I'm going to stop there. I have more to say, but it's important that everybody understand how we got to this point of requesting additional fund accelerated design, which in and of itself has implications for the construction funding. So now I'll open it up to the board Beth, you started to talk about 14.2.

I'm really grateful to our citizens for pushing the question because Tom, I agree with you it's a perceived inequity. It's also a real inequity and I think we as leaders, and we as residents have a responsibility to our fellow residents to address real inequities especially for our youngest learners. and the fact that the citizens took the lead in giving us a little more of a push to step outside our comfort zone of the three-step, 18 month or 12 month process I think it's to their credit. The fact that our PBC heard them, understood what was going on in the community and leaned in and tried to solve the problem and come up with their expertise. I think we all trust PBC, they have done phenomenal work.

design and construction team is beyond the best. They're fabulous, and the fact that they said they could do this I trust them and for $170,000 to have the chance to get air conditioning in a year early for our two of the three elementary schools. I can't imagine not supporting that, so I am 100% in on that and that's where I am.

So I support this school committee's motion here. What I would say is, I'm very grateful for the citizens to step forward and take a leadership role here because, I'm not sure exactly when this started but I think you said 2018, 2019. and we're talking about another year. But when you look at it, it's almost a decade we're taking about. And to me the schools committee should have been the one who stepped forward and pushed this because it's not just inequitable. It is not safe in certain instances. We're talking about health and safety, and we're talking educating our kids. I would think that as That is of the utmost priority in this town, and I think those are values that everybody on this board supports. So, I applaud the citizens for coming forward and doing this. And I wish the school committee took a leadership role here and did this.

I think this is a very tiny step that they took and I wish they actually adopted the citizen's petition and moved further than they did. And I'll say more about the citizens' petition after.

I actually combined my comments for 14.2 and 15.1 together because I see a lot of similarities in them, and I can't untangle them at this point I don't support the appropriations in those motions for three principal reasons. Firstly, because the aim of the motion is to accelerate air conditioning beyond the already accelerated path that 14.1 represents, asks the town ultimately to go down a construction path that to me based on the discussions and presentations we've had from senior staff including our building and finance experts, and the materials in their packets it's just way too much risk for me. It's bordering on something I don't have comfort for and you know how carefully I choose my words, but I think it's in this case candor over politeness is necessary. It's just unacceptable on my mind

and I do believe our design and construction staff are fabulous and they are experts, but they detailed a great amount of risk in the presentation. I'm not confident in the cost numbers. The schedule compression to me seems destined to result on a lower quality process with important checks and balances omitted, I'm particularly wary of advanced procurement and transfers of risks to the town. Any resulting delays could eliminate relief from air conditioning in the opening period of school that's a significant part of the raison d'etre for this whole proposition For me, the risk reward tradeoff of possible acceleration given the risks identified for a limited number of days is definitively not acceptable. Particularly as a member of the body charged with fiduciary responsibility for the whole town I understand the citizens petition is focused on a subset of schools and a subset population at the time. I understand this school committee is as the advocate for schools

We are in quite a different position and have to balance the many needs across the boards and departments, and plan to spend taxpayers' money with great care. Okay. Secondly, the funding path that's implied by the motions I feel could do significant damage to our long-term financial planning and materially limit our flexibility to manage capital projects and protect our capital assets as successfully as we have been doing. Advisory has four years celebrated the careful and conservative financial planning approach the town has adopted. The mindset has resulted in an advantageous financial position with regard to reserves and credit ratings, and our CFO have provided us with compelling strategic reasons why we should follow our financial planning and typical financial management strategies. It's critical to note that we've been contemplating revising our reserve targets upwards and have been planning a debt stabilization fund.

Both of those planned goals are materially jeopardized by these motions. and then thirdly, we've been beating the drum regarding the need for holistic capital planning for three years now. We built Capcom in its inaugural year. We're working on our policies and we're working towards a capital stabilization fund This is definitively the opposite approach. It's siloed decision making without regard for the whole picture or implications for the future where we know there are several important capital projects several of which have significant health and safety aspects on the horizon. I think it's just not serving our town and taxpayers well and the memo in our packet tonight outlines in depth a multitude of implications that the proposed funding method implies. I feel that we should let our highly qualified staff make well-reasoned holistic funding plans, let us debate them

and closer to the point of construction make reasoned decisions of what relief we can bring to bear in the form of applying free cash to this project and really importantly to every project that is thoughtfully programmed in the 10-year capital plan recommendations from Capcom. don't essentially avoid the careful capital planning process. So that's combining 14.2 and 15.1. Thank you, Colleen. Tom?

I do want to address this question of feasibility. This has been debated somewhat, in particular over the past two months. Joe McDonough has made it quite clear what was meant by the word feasibility. Feasibility does not mean that it's probable, does not mean that it can be accomplished. It means that under ideal circumstances, it might be possible to complete the project under these conditions but he has counseled against that risk is counseled against that approach and said there's a very significant difference between whether a project is feasible or whether through our regular process We have a clear understanding of how the project is going to proceed, and we have the typical most likely outcome that we see with PBC which is on time and under budget.

I think we have heard time and again that any effort to accelerate through buying equipment ahead of time is a terribly misguided effort. We can't be sure, first of all that we could even get it on a timetable that met the accelerated intent There is a serious question about warranty in terms of the developer and their ability to choose the particular equipment that they will then stand behind. It may be a small incremental amount, approximately $170,000 represented by 14-2. But it buys a significant disproportionate level of risk that also is associated with Article 15. So I consistently remain supportive of 14 . I think it's the right approach, and I think

I think that 14-2 is ill advised.

I think what upsets me the most about the article 14.2 and 15 is that It has the potential to make out people who are watching finance and the needs of people across town seem like they don't care about kids. and that to me is unfair and improper, inappropriate. You could ask why not approve the accelerated design and see how it works out. I agree with Beth, I don't think the $170,000 in addition is the issue at all. That would give FMD and PBC a chance of getting it designed, completed, and out for a bid in a few months in advance. and would show support for potentially achieving equity at all schools a year earlier. If the design's not ready or the bids come in too high,

or any other number of eventualities arise which demonstrate that the project should not be brought to ATM for construction funding. then that could be decided at that time and it's not before us now. We could say, at least we tried. My answer to that is that it is not such a seemingly simple question as a member of the elected board that holds central fiduciary responsibility for the town's finances, financial planning impact to taxpayers. As Colette said and their rights to have a say in their town's expenses. And as a matter of principle, supporting our expert professional engineering and architectural staff who are the most conversant with public construction and all of its quirks, requirements glitches potential problems and inevitable delays

and having seen as a town meeting member, advisory member and select board member for the past 16 years how bids often come in much higher than expected and projects frequently take longer than anticipated. I cannot support what I believe is a proposal to deviate from established financial and capital processes and take a chance as Tom said that everything works out. To me, I agree with Colette it's unreasonable risk I believe it's disrespectful of our facilities director. It ignores the rights of citizens and it pits this one project against many other town projects when it has not been demonstrated to my satisfaction that is the only alternative.

Throughout the process of considering Motion 2 and Article 15, more than a dozen ideas have been presented to the school committee and school department to find a short-term solution to get us through the now one year time. The project is already scheduled to be completed. If you want to say this project started in 2018, you're right it's been eight years The question of relief from warm weather and improving learning conditions for students should not be a binary choice. Either do AC right away or have to wait an extra year. I believe there may be options. They may not be easy, they may not convenient but the school committee and school department could and should have considered them to improve the environment for students on the relatively few days of very warm weather.

Every suggestion and idea was met with a no, putting the town and this board in the position of doing responsible planning, not setting a dangerous precedent by allowing town meeting to force staff and consultants to rush through what is an electrical project. It is not an air conditioning unit project. against our own expert staff opinion, throw financial planning out the window and serving the other 95% of residents with the projects that they deserve or have waited for, or had been paying for versus avoiding possible risk and injury to students in their learning. That is not a fair comparison. Turning out the lights, having kids rest on cool floors, pulling down shades, turning on fans.

in my opinion is not the full list of actions the school department could have taken to bring relief to the students and staff earlier. The FMD director has listed a dozen ways in which this accelerated design could be problematic, from eliminating critical points of PBC review to eliminating any time period to accommodate the slightest delay. There could be issues related to unknown and unknowable conditions until it's too late, such as opening up walls that haven't been investigated, requiring additional town board review for placing more than 50 outdoor components on school buildings Rushed or eliminated PBC review. There's additional risk of the size of the bidding pool, attractiveness of the project to bidders

Change Orders, Requirement to Identify Three Potential Components, Rushed Procurement Phase and potential for the rushed project not even to be completed on time. having pushed staff and PBC to rush through the design, and then not meeting the intended time target after all. and what happens if the work's not completed by the start of school? Time-and-a-half or double timework. Necessity of contractors stopping work early each night to clean up the classrooms so that classes can resume in the morning. Challenges of securing every classroom that's under construction I don't think town meeting members should substitute their judgment for our experts who have overseen hundreds of public construction projects

and overrule the professional engineers and architects who believe appropriate time to prepare this design for a significant electrical project is longer than what's being proposed. Given the hundreds of millions of dollars of capital projects ahead of us, it presents a fiction as Colette said earlier that one project should be separated from the others. and presented a loan to Town Meeting to make a decision. There is no margin for error, and no cushion for delay in this accelerated design proposal I think I'll stop there. Oh, the last thing I will say is that this very different than a private construction project

and the Boston Public School air conditioning process has been held up as a model for us to follow. Just last week, the Inspector General found that there were dozens of issues with the Boston Public School air conditioning procurement. We don't want to run afoul of any procurement issues We don't want to rush this design. It's not in anybody's interest, it's not according to our financial planning, it is not fair to the rest of the residents Everybody should have a vote on whatever the total project cost is for the four schools and I oppose 14.2 and 15 Megan, would you and Rachel like to present some of the financial and other information that you have?

I'm going to turn it over to Rachel. She cleaned up some of

Great. Thanks, Megan. I'm just going to share my screen. Marjorie, are we going to vote on this?

Or is this related to 15 or 14-2? Where are we? Are we going to vote on 14.2 like we did on 14-1 and then?

The issue of 14. 2 is that it is contingent upon a construction funding model that does not include any debt exclusion, contrary to the planning of the past six years. And if it's funded in a different way, it has implications for the rest of our capital planning. That's why I think it's important.

I move that the select board support motion 14-2, which funds $170,000 out of free cash for the acceleration of the air conditioning design. I second that.

Beth? Aye. Kenny? Aye Colette? No Tom? No And I vote no

We didn't actually take a formal vote on any of these yet. I wasn't asked for the, I mean, I think we intended to take those votes. Margie hadn't called for it.

I think that we should close out 14 before we go to 15.

Well, I'd like to defer to the Chair to call for a vote when it's appropriate.

And Marjorie, I just want to remind you there is one resident here for public speak on these two articles 14 and 15.

Okay, all right. Happy to have you come and present your comments I'm sorry we took a vote once there's a motion on the floor and it seconded we have to move to the vote

Just hit the button until it's green. Yep, there you go.

And just make sure the mic is close to your mouth.

Hello, my name is Britt Kelly of 45 Pine Street. I'm the mother of three boys in the Wellesley public school system and the current PTO co-president at Schofield Elementary School. I'm a signee of the citizens petition to accelerate school air conditioning, and I'm here to share my perspective on articles 14 and 15 in advance of your deliberations on the matter. The issue of adding air conditioning to the four schools in Wellesley that don't have it is not divisive. As you've acknowledged, there is broad support in our community for creating school environments that are conducive to learning and that adequately address the health and safety of our children and teachers. There's also broad support in the community for creating equity amongst the schools in Wellesley.

Last June, I went to Schofield to observe the classroom conditions on a hot day. Lights were off, lethargic children were sprawled on tile floors, sweaty and red-faced. My own five-year-old fell asleep in his kindergarten classroom. He'll tell you he fainted, but he fell asleep Now, mind you as the youngest child he has a fear of missing out and he hadn't napped since he was two years old. He told me he felt like he was going to pass out that week in school During the end of year band concerts, the conditions were so bad that a student had to leave because they became ill from the heat. The parents who were in attendance were outraged. It's one thing to talk about the need for air conditioning, but it's another to feel it firsthand. That was a mere 45 minutes of exposure and these conditions persist for seven hours throughout the school day.

The citizens petition is sending a clear message that the original timeline on air conditioning is not adequate. The past 10 years are the hottest 10 years on record, and we've spent you can say eight of them talking this issue in circles. Wellsley is in a favorable financial position to be able to act more swiftly on this matter, and we're demanding that. Preserving free cash for townwide needs feels like a slap in the face to the people in this town who care about children and deem them worthy beneficiaries of town resources. As I read through the dozens of pages of information that were prepared for this meeting and several before this, it struck me how much time and effort was put into making a case against air conditioning acceleration. and how misaligned it feels that members of town leadership are with the needs of the town.

I see neighboring towns like Weston making statements about unacceptable classroom conditions and acting with appropriate urgency to fix the problem. And I wonder why Wellesley can't come together with the same purpose to get this done faster. So I'm sitting here asking for a perspective shift, understanding that sometimes it's difficult to see the forest through the trees. I'm asking you to zoom out and recognize like getting Cooler classrooms at all schools is possible and it's the right thing to do. And it is what the majority of people in our town support. I'm asking you as elected officials to be the solution and making it happen. Put the same amount of energy and to figuring out how it can be done faster instead of coming up with reasons why you don't want it done in this particular way.

We're talking at the elementary school level about less than 50 window units across the three schools. We have many smart and capable people in this town. It can be done faster, and it should be done Let's be collaborative in being creative problem solvers. I'm happy to be a thought partner in this. It may feel uncomfortable for you to adopt a process that isn't the status quo. There have been times in my career when I was asked to disagree and commit, in pursuit of an end goal. And I'm challenging you to do that for the greater good of the children in our town. Please keep that lens in mind as you consider supporting articles 14 and 15, a yes on all five AC motions is the best path forward for Wellesley schools and our children. And I call on the select board in all town leaders to be the solution on AC acceleration

Thank you for your time and consideration

Marjorie, Rachel's just going to go through some of the questions that the board had asked us to look at which were with regards to free cash inside the levy and debt exclusions.

Okay, thanks Megan. So what I wanted to share this was included in your Friday Night Mail we did go and do some updates so wanted to walk through The top part of this spreadsheet, this has been presented in the town-wide financial plan. So we're showing the free cash or the reserves trend looking back to 2020 through 2026 and projecting 27 through FY30. Let's start with FY27, and what we're projecting Again, this is based off the existing townwide financial plan that was accepted by town meeting members at our last annual town meeting. So again, our certified free cash balance as of June 30, 2026, $38.4 million.

Rachel, I'm sorry to interrupt you. Can you just for the benefit of the public who's not familiar with this explain why you're showing us this? Yes.

So what we wanted to show, we want to compare what is currently modeled in the town-wide financial plans. there are already identified uses of free cash. A lot of those around capital, reoccurring uses of Free Cash like snow and ice So we want to present what's in the existing plan. And again, this is what we know as of today it is important to note that Cash Capital, it's not due until November 20th. So we're modeling this based off what was submitted last year and what was projected for FY28 and forward We have received preliminary cash capital from the FMD director. He is presenting to select board on November 17th, advisory on November 18th so he is from some steps ahead, but we haven't received capital from school, DPW et cetera. So again this is very preliminary Best Case Scenario.

And then further down you'll see we're modeling the impact of Article 15 and that use of free cash, and then we proceeded to model based off advisory minority report, potential use of additional funding and free cash for the middle school. So we wanted to model what's in the plan and the potential impact of citizen petition and onward.

Rachel, did the school committee vote to remove the pause feasibility?

They did, they voted to move it out to 29.

So again, just going back to the uses of free cash that exist in the current townwide financial plan. Just under 9.1 million. so that's including the items at the special town meeting again our comp plan 350,000 library LED lighting 325 and then again the AC design an accelerated and AC Design. So that total, you'll see the summary over here on the left. You'll see 2,268,600 those are our STM free cash. Appropriations. The town-wide financial plan, we were estimating two million to balance the operating budget but based off our and others. Current views of how we're going to be potentially settling contract negotiations, a better number to balance the operating budget is $2.5 million. Again, we're also including $1 million for snow and ice.

FMD has identified some uses of free cash for some potential capital projects. And this is the part that we really want to stress, free cash provides flexibility for the town's capital plan for us to meet the capital financing plan, to come within that 6.2 to 6.8 guideline? Again as the board approved guidelines a few weeks ago we're looking for cash capital to be at 6%. So in order to meet that guideline, we historically fund some of our capital projects with free cash. if we don't have that flexibility and to punish that use of free cash, that's not available a lot of these ongoing infrastructure maintenance

the need for the town to preserve their existing assets, really the whole point of establishing FMD back in 2012 goes to the sidelines. So again, in this $9 million number that we're projecting includes middle school interim roof repairs, 1.1 million dollars Bates parking lot renovation, 850,000. And then also we've discussed relocation of the land use and FMD departments so there is gonna be some need for that move and Fitout of their office space, 405,000. So again those uses are free cash nine million we're projecting six million in turn back so again I did want to flag turn back is not guaranteed. It is always in our best interest to remain conservative. If we look at the average turn back that we've seen from 2013 to 2020, the average was around 5.5 million

As you look at 2022 and onward, yes turn back has been higher than that 5.56 million but that's really due to ARPA monies which was one time um injection into our revenues. We also have faced post-COVID hiring challenges, it's been harder to bring on qualified, skilled folks. So we often see open positions which we saw in FMD planning even over at the school where we're struggling to have Hires, so that's driving turn back. But again, that's not guaranteed once those positions are filled, that turnback is going away. Say one thing?

Sure. Is anything in a budget guaranteed?

No, that's why we budget conservatively.

That's what I thought so to drive home the point that the turn back isn't guaranteed suggests everything else is guaranteed and it is not

Well, the only other thing that we would say is guaranteed the existing operational costs that we have, right? That then are able to be reduced to meet other objectives. So those continue and escalate, and our taxation continues and escalates. New growth is not guaranteed to your point so reserves could certainly be reduced which then would necessitate additional cuts So to your point, that's why we are conservative in our projections.

And I agree with doing all of that, but I don't want people to think that some portion of this other than fixed cost is guaranteed because it's not.

Just to your point, is it that you're... I just wanna be clear that I'm either making a point for you maybe. that, yeah we can always over perform. But we are expecting in particular this year we had significant turn back from the schools. We did not expect that in the subsequent years, largely because of obviously the contract negotiations increase in special ed. Koss, they're working to fill their positions. So we're not expecting the same level of turn back there which has been sort of unprecedented. from them. So those factors play into our estimation. To your point, we've also seen experience... What's the word I want to use? extreme interest income over the past several years. And so we don't want to hedge our bets that's necessarily going to continue, but we've had the ability to increase our reserves as a result of that.

So isn't it also the point that we plan well and we put everything that we think is coming on the plan so that we have the agility to juggle and move. And often projects move forward, and projects move back, and project come in and disintermediate. they're building blocks and they move so Rachel to your point you're saying FMD has identified 2.4 million dollars or Which one is it? Yeah, about $2.4 million in projects but those are on the plan they may not all come to fruition. Roofs, Joe keeps moving them out if they need to. So nothing's... for sure, until we vet each project separately.

It's an amount of money that we have available.

I'd say for that in particular what you're pointing to there Those are refined numbers that I think are closer to hard numbers than C-turnback. Because we've just gone through our first two meetings at Capcom, those roof costs were significantly higher and FMD has come up with some creative strategies to bring those costs down. These are the lower costs, so those I think are harder than you might think and yes, everything in capital is subject to movement every year. And we make that point all the time but those numbers I think are harder

The other thing I would just add is to your point in terms of the building blocks, we put them on the chart as we know today. And as we get close, we're bringing bids in hand. So a good example of that is the roads. We kicked a road out last year, 4.5 million. And so we'd have to push out... That goes to this year and the 5.5 for this year goes to the next year which but Those are all estimates. So the cost is likely going to be higher. When we did Weston Road, it came in a million dollars higher than we had anticipated. We applied $1 million of free cash to maintain inside the levy borrowing. So again, these are best estimates with the notion that we're going to town meeting with bids.

I also want to draw a distinction between blocks within this plan that are for totally new projects such as a new fire station or the DPW campus. but many of these projects are maintenance projects and we've learned hard lessons about deferred maintenance. Thinking about the Bates parking lot and the repaving one only has to look at what the increased cost was that the middle school because we kept putting that project off and we therefore had to do a significantly greater and a project there in terms of rebuilding those driveways. So aside from a few projects like DPW and the fire station, many of these projects are maintenance projects and as Colette said I think FMD was, and PBC were very

thoughtful in how they found less expensive ways to extend those roofs, but it's time to do that work or we're going to be forced to do roofwork that's far greater. in the extent of the work required.

Another point is that Collette just said a few minutes ago, that our financial advisors are advising us to increase the level of our reserves. and any unplanned use of free cash will take us down below where we are now, and in many cases Very close to our old policy and further below what we're being told we need to increase it to. So it's not only for the future years. If you're looking at $8 million, $7.8 million now You don't even have to look any further to see what it does to our reserves relative to what our advisors and bond council are telling us right now.

Just to clarify, Marjorie, you said our old policy. Our current policy is 8% to 12%.

True, but it's under review based on all the information and advice we've been given recently.

There was something in the reserve policy that Sorry, I feel like an old person here with my glasses. The Government Financial Officers Association of the United States of America and Canada which I don't know who they are recommends five to 15%. Has that changed?

So, that has not changed. It's been at least six months since I've looked at it. I'm not aware of it changing but I think I think the 5% is unacceptable. We had looked at the 15%, several times should we be there? I think from our ratings agency perspective, 5% would be unacceptable.

I would agree with you. I was going to discuss the rating agencies later but if you'd like to talk about that now, I'm happy to do that.

We kind of interrupted Rachel in her presentation so... I'm sorry, I was the one who started this.

and I don't know if we need to belabor the free cash. You know, I think she's hit the highlights but the other thing we wanted to touch on is the inside of the levy, the potential for inside the levey borrowing so under 14.2 which you voted So I don't know if you want me to go through this or not, but under 14.2, Telmeny adopts It necessitates the application of either free cash or inside the levy borrowing, or hybrid approach. It necessitate essentially just not going to a debt exclusion is the easiest way to say that it has to be funded with either existing operating funds or Free Cash.

So we have modeled that. You're talking about the $170,000 right? No. 14.2%.

Yeah, so under 14.2 if you approve $170,000 to go on an accelerated path what you are also approving is that at the annual town meeting when bids are in hand you must fund that through either free cash or operating budget because you cannot go to a debt exclusion and meet the deadline just in terms of that schedule. So there is like a nuanced vote to that in addition to voting the appropriation of $170,000. So the free cash model shows what that impact would be, but that is not the only option that exists for the town. You also have the option to either fund that inside the levy and Rachel will explain what inside the levee means to folks at home Or a hybrid approach, which is you might apply a little bit of free cash and you might borrow a little Bit.

And we wanted to just explain one what inside the levy means and The impacts that then has on capital so Do you want to maybe break it down sort of high level first, what inside the levy borrowing and cash capital mean?

Yeah. So again, inside the levee barring that's our tax impact that is included in our tax impact budget. So again, if you don't have their sources uses pulled up but if you look at our sources and uses we're always having a line budgeted for that principle and interest so In this model here, we know what are existing. You'll see on line seven what our existing inside the levy debt payments are and then every year we're looking to see well what is in the capital plan that we will be borrowing and then we add to that inside the levy. And again, the capital financing policy when we're looking at that 6.2 to 6.8 percent, that includes the cash capital plus the inside, the levy debt. So as we're adding more borrowing that has a reverse impact, we have to reduce cash capital

it's really moving it between the two buckets. So what we've modeled here is what is known, so again the operating revenues, we're showing our estimates. Again, the capital financing were using this 6.2%, but as the select board approved guidelines a few weeks ago it was six percent and then we're adding in what our known debt service payments are, and then were showing what that percentage is. So for this year were slightly below. Next year you're gonna see a drop off, there was Great Plain Ave, it was... So that's why you're seeing a slight decline. And then what I did, modeled out some other

I think, and keep in mind if you vote a town meeting to borrow it actually hits the next fiscal year in terms of your debt payment just as a point of reference. Correct.

We always borrow in the spring, but those principal and interest payments aren't due until the next year, the preceding fiscal year.

Rachel, inside the debt payments are those that we have already incurred or those that

We're going to show you, this is existing and the out years 29 and 30 are basically what we've Levy, putting the capital plan for inside-the-levee borrowing to date. And then we will show you Rachel's model something else.

So, Rachel, just one more time, the impact, the importance of the cash capital reduction is what? Cash capitals used for infrastructure. Correct.

Cash Capital is any capital project that is not being borrowed, that is now being applied free cash. So that includes all of our departments. That is not specific to anyone department. It could be from purchasing copiers to Technology at the Schools, to Cleaning Morse's Pond, a Harvester, Vehicles, Library, Scanners. You know it's those items...it's the air Filters for firefighters, it's radios for police. You can look at our capital plan and you can itemize those smaller... And some of them aren't small cash capital items A good example would be the LED lights. We just happened to pull that out because it got kicked from a regular, we didn't have it ready in time for annual town meeting but that would've been a cash capital item under, for the library.

So the point of increasing the inside-the-levy debt payment means we have less money to spend on all those things that you've just reviewed across the town? Correct.

Correct, and the reason we limit the percentage is So you could raise it to 10%, but that's within your operating budget. The more you increase your capital financing, which is again the cash capital and inside the levy debt payment you're taking that away from your other operational costs. So, you are taking that way from your personal services and expenses for every other department.

and Megan, what you had mentioned earlier about financing for the AC construction. I have modeled that if we were to borrow that inside the levy So just moving on to this next slide, you'll see again if we were to borrow the $7.8 million for Bates and Fisk and Schofield, you'll see that impact in 28. So then that would leave or bring a $1.2 million really cut in cash capital that we would need to absorb. Now, that would mean potentially 1.2 million that we have to push out to out years and then you'll see the preceding impact Again, this is based on capital that we know as of today. Once we receive the department's request for 28 and onward, this could change. It's likely going to go up, costs go up but you'll see really the impact

the inside, the levy debt and cash capital if we were to fund the complete 7.8 million with inside the levey

And keep in mind, there's then every variable in between in terms of the application or free cash and the borrowing of some number. We're not going to model that because we're showing you the extremes.

And we don't know what the final numbers are.

Exactly, correct. That would be based upon bids in hand. A little bit of a challenge on that which I I think needs to be recognized is that if you look at the calendar which is in there where the bids are due, they're like two days before. So we are... You're making an estimate based upon what we know at the time in terms of Typically, we have 60%, 90% cost estimates that have a longer range. This is the concern with the acceleration, that then you have a better estimate and then the bids can still Blow, yeah out of the water or I mean there is a pot sometimes they come in and you're like wow. They came in Great. I mean that did happen for Warren HVAC the bids came in slightly better than we expected. So I don't want to negate the fact that does happen, but when you have the accelerated schedule

We're probably going to be basing the numbers just because you're not gonna get the cost estimator numbers in the same fashion likely on the current estimates.

Could I ask, what's the percentage interest rate you anticipate?

So we're modeling 4%, so I did reach out to Hilltop. earlier this morning to see what interest rates are trending. Again, we have historically received very favorable interest rates. Last year when we went out it was 2.6%. Her guidance was rates are going up, expecting another increase in December. She said it is best practice to continue to be conservative. In the past, we've used 5%. We did model 4% because there is a likelihood that we will have a favorable rate. It would be if we were to receive a... 2.6, 2.3%. That's actually less than what we're earning in the bank so our money in the banks those reserves that were earning 4% interest in our MMDT account so it's actually cheaper

to borrow, but again we did want a model 4% because we can't predict what interest rates are going to be in a year when we go out to borrow.

I have a question on that one, and I just need to understand this better. So we can borrow at 4%, but the five-year U.S. Treasury is at 4.846% today. So can we borrow at a better rate than the United States government? That would suggest our credit is better than the US government who can literally print money.

When we go out to borrow, given our AAA rating it's highly desirable. So our rates tend to be are considerably below. Again, can't predict where we're going to be in a year plus. We always model a 5% or 4%. But historically looking back at our more recent borrowings they've been well under 3%.

I think the Honeywell was 2.02%.

it's also a factor that we issue tax-free and so they're more attractive to... Oh yeah, it's the tax exempt.

And there have been instances just as I put a fine point on that, this would be 100% tax exempt. There are instances where we borrow where some are taxable and some are taxes, so that blended rate does tend to be a little higher, Kenny?

And to Megan's point about not having the same level of 60% and 90% review for cost estimating, the schools estimated 1.1 million dollars for the team rooms and the bids came in at 1.8 million dollars it was 67 percent above and you need the funding in that amount where the bid is in order to sign the contract. If you don't have that funding, you can't sign the contact. You have to go back to town meeting for more money

So it is no doubt that the bids vary from when we get them to if we execute them late, but I believe the team room had an eight-year deadline. Lag on it because we authorized it before COVID. There was a pandemic and there was much closer to there was a flood in the manufacturing plant, I just think we should pick a different example.

I think the team rooms, they didn't get the bid eight years ago and stick with that bid. They got the bid much closer because the path changed so many times for the team and that you know there was question at the time should it be stick built or pre-made, and they got quotes at that time to make an argument that it should be a premade so those bids were fresh.

It's important actually to underscore what you just said. It's an excellent example of going against the advice of Joe McDonough and FMD there's no question that the bids would have come in had that been stick built for less money. There were reasons inherent and going prefab, that bid became so much greater than the original estimated cost So it serves two purposes, one that you can't predict how the bids are going to come in but the other is the accuracy of the advice we get from FMD.

Do you want to hit maybe just on the debt exclusion?

Yeah, I was just going to ask that. Okay let me just stop sharing for a moment and I will bring up so we did model um the tax impact if we were to pursue a debt exclusion Let's give that a second. Okay. So this might look familiar to annual town meetings. Design, again two millions here it's the one five but As we all know, Article 14 will be funding design with free cash. So we modeled out a few scenarios here. presented in the existing town-wide financial plan would be to fund the full $17.5 million through debt exclusion, again modeling

A 4% interest rate at a five-year term, the tax impact on the median tax bill would be $403. and again I do want to flag you'll see line 46 and below our median assessed value one point 751, that's last year. So again the assessor is currently working on working towards the tax classification hearing in early December. So again, we are basing this off of last year's number so I just did want to mention that. Rachel?

Sorry. Would you also explain why it's a five-year borrowing and not longer?

Yes, so we... And again, we had mentioned this before but just to remind everyone. We had reached out to Bond Council, we reached out Hilltop Securities, and based off the useful life. The max is five year borrowing term, and again when we're looking at roads, when we are looking at full HVAC systems, we're borrowing those at 10 years. So we always borrow less than generally the useful life so when it comes to AC models, they advised us a five-year term. So again that's why we're seeing a slightly elevated tax impact.

You could borrow for a slightly longer term based upon recommendation from FMD or what have you on what the useful life is. the issue goes to what Rachel just said is that we typically outside of land, land we do 30 years new construction. We do 20 to 25 if it's a 50 year building will do for 25 years so we historically would do it for sort of a half lifespan. So you have the capability potentially to borrow at the select board's discretion based upon additional information. The useful life has been determined that 10 years, we would never borrow for the full useful life. It could be six it could be seven there that could reflect Poorley on our AAA bond rating because it's inconsistent with our past practice. But I note that we did talk to Bond Council about that, So it's sort of what Bond Council says and what Hilltop says.

That's why we've put the five in there, which is more consistent with our past borrowing practices but this was a question at advisory and so we did delve into this a bit and so it would be, it is up to the select board based upon additional information that you have the right to potentially extend that but I cannot pass the useful life.

I do think it's important to highlight to people that these are general obligation bonds, right? They're not project specific. So it's a discretionary thing about how long you borrow for on these type of things, it's not prescribed. If you were to finance this with a specific revenue stream, you might be tied to a much shorter duration this is based on what we would ultimately decide. I'm not saying five years is the wrong thing, because when people started talking about your financing air conditioners and therefore it's five years that's a decision not a requirement

Well, there are statutory provisions in state law that do have maximum borrowing. So equipment is five years. unless the board, only the select board can extend it and it has to be based upon a number. A good example of that is a fire truck. Fire trucks are piece of equipment their lifespan is 15 to 20 years. We typically buy those with free cash, but if we borrowed it, we wouldn't borrow it more than five years.

I don't want to belabor this, but I keep hearing that this is an electrical job. That it's not an air conditioning job, it's an electrical and I would have thought electrical is a building improvement, and that electrical lasts much longer than the unit I put in. If I had an electrician come and put the plugs in a different place and drop a lot of wires those seem to me not to have the short lifespan. Well, I have one window unit it has a crazy long life span but is this an electrical job or an AC job?

based off guidance from Hilltop and Bond Council, it's equipment. And that's the guidance that we have to go. If we were to try to argue the electrical...

I'm not going to argue with you.

I just am confused.

Well, that's for the borrowing. That doesn't mean that's where the bulk of the design and construction work is. You're opening up walls that have never been opened. You are putting units on buildings that have not had units. I mean it is an electrical design

the two different things. I didn't mean to derail us, I just...I've heard so often it's electrical I'm like maybe that's good for us

So Rachel just did the 17.5 million, the 7.8 and 10 million, just to show you what the sort of rough order of magnitude would be.

Okay, Megan. When we move into considerations in Article 15 can you explain the typical order in which you do design and procurement?

So from a PBC standpoint? Yeah, so the PPC has policies that are online for both proponent as well as the owner's project. And we have essentially four policies online that expressly detail this which is essentially you would go through schematic design through bidding and within that you have various levels of design, design development then 60%, 90% the establishment of the construction drawings that you would then put out to bid. In the memo from Mr. McDonough, it goes through sort of the compressed timeline on that and we did compress the FMD under their proposal for the 1.4 million design that compressed an 18 month design, they're typical process to a 12 month design process and under this it would bring it to an 11.4 week design process. In the memo that I provided the board, I raised a couple concerns.

One, I felt that it undervalued the impact that this is overseen by an appointed body and so it's unclear to me how much delegation of responsibility because we they just haven't had that discussion yet in terms of for a change order I think in the private sector, you can meet on site and someone in charge can go yes. No that's not what happens with us because it goes to the body and so sometimes they'll delegate. You can approve a change order in the field up to X amount, and then it returns to the full body for ultimate approval in line with the contract. So there's likely to be some delegation because that is standard practice, it is unclear to me what amount that would be and how often it would go back to the PPC the PBC meets biweekly and with a compressed schedule it's also unclear to me are they will they meet weekly? Will they, it's just unclear.

And I didn't feel that the memos addressed that enough just in terms of what the board responsibilities are Obviously, as someone who reports to a board I am attuned to that. That I have to come back to the body for authorizations. The other thing, just bare bones is this is public dollars. So you're gonna see Rachel and I take an extremely conservative approach as we do with all public dollars How you vote, how town meeting votes. We abide by that but the information we put forward is going to be conservative. We look at the inspector general's guidance which would never be to go forward on this level of design because it is so variable to move forward with that, and again these are public dollars. I'm not disputing in any way the merits of the project

But this is the process that we've established as a town under an appointed body led by volunteers, which is also challenging because We're trying to present information, and then people make votes. So we've put forward certainly the most conservative approach because it is the public process and we don't take for granted that these are public dollars.

So I just want to clarify my understanding, which I don't do PBC projects generally. But I have been watching this one pretty carefully PBC approved this timeline. I understand they don't approve... They did not approve. Okay. Well, in the meeting it seemed that PBC brought forward the timeline and they have not said they can't do it. I'm going to go with if they have not said they can't do it and they created it, that it's their timeline. My understanding of the process is that the accelerated design which would be finished in and a half weeks, is the gate before which they would not spend the funds that are being appropriated. So for me this is

15 is an agreement to set aside the funds to secure a project moving forward and remove an impediment. so that the design would be completed, albeit on an accelerated schedule and the funds are there. So this may be a bad analogy for us but it's the life I'm living. You put money away for your child to go to school You don't know which school they're gonna pick, you don't now exactly but you have a target and you put that money away. You may not spend all of it, you may spend more of it or less of it but this is a request to put the money in an account to spend on air conditioning at these schools. And the money wouldn't be, I mean PBC, I don't know a more conservative body in terms of watching our taxpayers' dollars and they're not going to expend the funds until the design is done.

That's my understanding of this project. I'm not clear what your question is? I'm responding to the fact that the way I heard Megan, and I apologize if it was incorrectly, this was approving funds to be expended before the design was complete so it was riskier.

Well, we don't typically fund capital projects or capital equipment until the design is sufficiently advanced. We don't pre-fund future purchases. That's the point of going through design and getting bids in hand, and knowing what the cost really is as opposed to an early stage feasibility estimate which is not the same as a fully developed design cost estimate. I mean that has to be really clear. The numbers that are being proposed for this project are not cost estimates, they're early feasibility stage Estimates, it's not the same. And we don't pre-fund capital purchases typically that is why we get bids first and then we fund the project when we know what its going to cost.

And we don't delay projects, so a good example is the road. If we thought we would have that designed and ready to go in December We wouldn't fund that at annual town meeting and just hold the money. We have a realistic expectation to proceed work with upon appropriation because you've then held those funds for that purpose, and there could be a purpose that takes more immediate pressure. We don't hold funds for projects. It was to date our goal with the capital stabilization fund which has not been established yet, is to do that for significant projects to pay down debt but not to hold money aside for projects in the queue.

So for me, the question before us is kind of twofold. One, can we afford it? I believe we can afford it based on everything I've seen that we can't afford it. Yes, maybe we will have to juggle some other things but I think question one is if town meeting says can we afford it in free cash? I believe based on the data we can afford it. And then the second thing is, I think as Brittany said to us Do we have the courage to get out of our normal system because of the importance and priority that we place on it? to trust that we are experienced, we're smart, we flexible

and that we are going to act as expeditiously as possible to move this ball forward for all of our citizens. It's not just the little people, it's half of our town own homes in precincts where the schools do not have air conditioning. And that is, as a taxpayer, as homeowner you should want to own a home that has a quality in terms of the learning environment. So it's not just the little people, we are investing for all of our residents in the learning environments and so I think it's a two-fold question. Can we afford it? And do we prioritize this in a way that we are willing to trust the nimbleness and the experience of our experts to move this forward.

What is the worst, worst case that can happen? We don't finish on time. That's the worst thing that could happen to us. I think that's worth it.

I appreciate what you've described as a process, but our experts in their best advice are saying 14.1 Let's be clear and it isn't a matter of courage. It isn't not caring for the children, there isn't person here that is an apparent that doesn't care about their children or the children of every other family in Wellesley The question is, can we move forward with well-considered bids and projects with known costs and no design challenges so that we could succeed on time and under budget the way PBC always does. I have great respect having worked closely with PBC for a long time now, this however was an irrational effort to respond to inquiries about the air conditioning process. This was not well considered, it's been described within PBC

as just a set of plugs and some units in the windows, as if it's putting one in my master bedroom. That's not what this project involves. and when you start to get into Schofield, and you start getting into the middle school and need for additional electrical work. You cannot pre-order the switchgear you cannot get out ahead of the process under 14.1 where a designer is on the hook for making equipment selection choices that they then have to stand behind for a warranty So everything you've said is true, but the conclusion that you reach upon consideration of what you described is 14.1. Marjorie, can I?

Yeah go ahead Kenny.

So to me, the analysis is what is the risk? What is the reward? What does it cost and can we afford it. and so the risk as I understand it, and I've been trying to gather this information for a few weeks now is one we try and we fail. And those kids and those teachers are in the exact same spot as if we didn't try. But if we try, that's the risk from one hand. There has got to be some financial risk to doing this on an expedited basis because we don't have the level of information that we would otherwise have. I think that is a real risk, I asked Joe what that amount is and I think he rightfully said it's change orders and we don' know We just don't know what that is. So I do acknowledge there's a financial risk and there is a risk that we simply don't get it done in time.

On the benefits side, you again... Tom called me out for being emotional but I'm going to say it again. were dealing with little kids who are trying to learn in a healthy environment. We would not have town meetings show up for 22 nights and attend town meeting for six hours. We certainly wouldn't have our employees in this building on this floor showing up for work, we would say work from home on those days I don't think anybody would debate that. So, I think there's a significant risk that you're putting children and teachers in an environment that is both unsafe and certainly not conducive to learning. If you successfully do this project, that's a major benefit. And there's also financial benefit. We've talked multiple times including tonight about the cost of delaying projects and it's a real thing. Every day that we delay a project, it's going to cost more unless we're in a deflationary period which doesn't appear to be the case anytime soon.

So if we wait another year this is gonna cost depends what your escalator is but if it's you know 7.8 million dollars at 5% you're in the 350, 400 thousand dollar range so there's a real dollar amount so I don't even know that the financial benefit or Cost, where that would come out. But my guess is it's pretty close to a net neutral. So then you're weighing really in my mind the benefit of accelerating it which I just articulated versus the risk of just simply not being successful and I think in my view from a risk perspective, I favor moving forward. And once we...I'm happy to get into the cost analysis right now if we want to do that because I saw Rachel's numbers and all that, and I think there is more to add to that discussion that people should see.

I just wanted to add before we move on, the notion of can we afford it? Again, just to address the numbers that I just presented. Use of 7.8 million in free cash was not included in the town-wide financial plan will bring our reserves to roughly 12.6%. That is really against Hilltop's guidance of maintaining and working towards 20% reserves. Again, we're tending to see communities target those higher reserve numbers if the decision is made to move forward and replenish our reserves to that 12%, the board needs an actionable plan to replenish those reserves. So, that's something that hasn't been part of the conversation that I think needs to be. Because again, we're facing 400 million in potential capital

Projects, as Capcom is raising and going to be making recommendations. So absent of that free cash there's gonna be some hard decisions and we're going to have to address how to replenish these reserves. So I just wanted to make sure that was in everyone's forefront

I think that's a great segue. Can you pull up my slides?

Before we go to that, can I just touch a little bit on... We'll get to that.

Only if it's just about the risk part.

No, I think it is, yeah. I might disagree with you in certain levels of what you were saying, but what you are seeing is on one project only. And it's not acknowledging the impact that this has on the other projects and we have other health and safety projects. And they are important, and I think it does have a particular impact in those projects since you're sort of you're taking resources and spending them only on one health and safety project. And I think that's something we need to acknowledge as well.

The only other health and I mean, we could argue about a roof being a health and safety issue which I don't think it is. I'm assuming you're talking about the fire station. I don' agree that DPW's a health an safety issue. I've heard nothing that somebody has gotten hurt because of the current facility. Maybe it's a difficult job, but it's tough job and I'm sure people get hurt all the time. because of the facility. So yes, I agree that by doing something faster you could be taking away from another project that also has health and safety. I don't disagree with

I'll just say like what it said last time the DPW did and i'm not sure was last year or the year before didn't have any air conditioning they were at work, they were working outside and had no place cold to come to too. And that's what you recommend for heavy duty workers, they have to have some place for a respite. They didn't for almost the whole summer because their buildings are at that stage in their life and so We've been band-aiding it, but I think there is a different level. There are multiple levels here. But there are other projects that will suffer. I don't want to get in the way of your slides.

I'm also not sure that the only risk is change orders. I'm really concerned about pushing the designers to work at If you go 18 months, four months is 15% of the recommended time. If you start if you go down to 12 months it's 25 percent of the recommend time to do a design and that's what worries me. It is electrical work.

I do think it has to be said like, and I know a lot of people are thinking this we're talking literally about putting in air conditioners. We're not talking about building a high school We're talking about running conduit. We were talking about ripping walls apart, but what I've heard is you can run this on the wall. You don't have to rip the walls apart and then putting in an air conditioner This has to be an easier project than a lot of the big ones that take much more time to do. And no, I'm not an expert in this. It just seems common sense as this is an easier product then building a high school.

That's possible.

However, that ignores the fundamental difference which we've been talking about between public and private procurement processes So in a private project, you would stand there with the particular contractor and say I don't care how you run the conduit. We need 100 air conditioners in these windows, and here's where the breaker box is. you figure it out and you take care of the job. That's not how public procurement is done, we've seen that here in this building, we see that in Tolles Parsons, we have seen it in Warren you have to have schematic designs that are accurate and on target every twist, every turn Every track that the wiring takes has to be on those schematics and has to accurate. Every deviation, even if it's four inches, the electrical company comes back and says that's a change order.

So it's fundamentally different in terms of what's required to put 100 air conditioners in through a public project than it is through a private construction contract.

All right, do you want to pull up more slides?

Yes. I love slides. So I wanted to, I looked at the financial analysis of free cash and Rachel just said that free cash would be a 12.64% if we spend $7.8 million. it was the 7.8 not the 17.5 in any event so what I did you're gonna see slides after this so slide one is Staff's numbers. So it shows only free cash, and it shows $6 million of turn back essentially. what I'm trying to show is, okay it's not really just free cash. When we talk about our reserve policy its free cash plus the general stabilization fund which is currently at 4.2 million dollars That's what our reserve policy measures when measuring 8% to 12%.

And also on the net free cash line, we're modeling $6 million. I went back and looked since fiscal year 2020. And the average, which includes the COVID year of 2020, the turnback was $12.8 million. over that period. If you get rid of fiscal year 2020, it is actually $15 million. So could you go to the next slide?

Yes but I just want to reiterate what Rachel had indicated why those reserves were high isn't our typical course rolling out of COVID.

It is a six-year average though.

but the seven years before that was 5.5 million average.

And we made significant changes in our policy. In March of 2020, when COVID hit and the world shut down, we met Marjorie and I, you Cheryl Strother we met and along with the board support, we made fundamental changes in how we were budgeting and in our operating costs. That's what generated the free cash.

It was an intentional buildup.

We were in far better shape. We can talk about whatever it is. Fiscal Year 2020. That's a fact, I appreciate the fact that we might have changed our entire approach but I don't think that was a temporary thing it was a change in approach

they definitively made changes to build the reserves to hunker down because we didn't know what was going to happen so there was intention to have that happen as well as other intended.

You guys, our reserve- It's $12.8 million of free cash over the last six years so- All right let's let Kenny keep going.

I'm just gonna tell you our free cash reserves were between 12 and 16 1⁄2 million from 2008 to 2017.

We're looking at what we gained, Beth, each year, not what we held.

The turn back basically right?

Well, it's turn back but it's also revenue.

But also at a time when we had a lot of bank money. This is what staff showed. The free cash percent of revenue is the free cash number. It is not the free-cash plus the stabilization fund So in each of the years you're at 12.6, returning .3, 14.2 and 14.1 When you go to the next slide Sorry I'm just looking at it again so oh start of the year this is So the only thing that I adjusted from what was provided to me was the $2,999 in fiscal year 2029 is a lower amount than was presented in our package for the reasons I discussed with Rachel. which actually created a lower percentage. Okay, so instead I modeled this saying what does our reserve policy actually say and everything is the same

up until I added the 4.2 million dollars so our reserves on June 30th 2027 using this is 31.8 million dollars which is above Hilltop's suggestion, going up all the way to basically $38 million. If you look at the reserve percentage which again I will restate this is how we calculate it under our policy which shows 8% to 12%. You're well above. Not only are you well above the 12%, starting in 2028, you're above the 15% that we were talking about.

Right, but that was three years ago. We're talking about 15%. Now we're talking 20%.

Well let's go to the next slide then. So if you now do exactly what I did in the previous slide and then add in, instead of $6 million, you use this six-seven year historical average of $12.8 million your reserves go to 17, 21, 24 and a half 27.1 percent over that amount of time This to me is the far more accurate picture. At a minimum, even if you assume the $6 million and if you go to the next slide it shows them all together this is model one is the current slides that staff prepared. Model two uses all of their same assumptions except it builds in the $4.2 million which again, is how we calculate reserves and shows us well over the 12%, well over that 12.6%.

In fact, two full percentage points higher going all the way up to 15.8 and then if you use the actual amount of money that has been historically turned back since 2020, we are way above those reserve percentages. which I will again remind everybody, this is not our money. This is taxpayer money so we are sitting on a pile of cash well in excess of what our own policy says. Our policy does say if we're above 12%, one of the permitted uses is for construction projects, so it clearly fits in our reserve policy in all respects and we are way above the number that, the ceiling of our policy. We're well above what Hilltop has suggested under this model. And even if you go to the other model, we are quickly approaching 15 and 20%.

So just to be clear on Hilltop, Hilltop recommended exclusive of our general stabilization fund $29 million in free cash. Not inclusive of general stabilization which we don't appropriate.

Kenny, how would you envision paying for the middle school?

Dad exclusion. I think it's fundamentally different, the elementary school kids and the middle-school kids.

Why?

One, they're older and they're better able to deal with the situation. And two, the equality of fairness situation is gone because everybody filters through that middle school. Everybody's in

But you're leaving the middle school out of, I mean you're subjecting them to a debt exclusion vote by all voters and you're leading the other schools up to town meeting alone. Correct. I don't agree with that.

And you're doing so when the elementary school projects may have gone off the rails. What we are hearing from Joe is and others is the risk of the upward drift in cost on that project may so sour the town that it guarantees a negative vote at a debt exclusion on the middle school versus having waited one year where there may be 20 days where it's uncomfortable to have a known project that can go before the town and be approved. I think that, and I think again continuing to use numbers going back through COVID given what Megan has said and reminded us about ARPA and given what we've said about how conservatively we've managed At the beginning of COVID, we were so far ahead of all the other municipalities in Massachusetts because of the responsible approach we took to financing.

and what the numbers also ignore or fail to mention is the list of projects that we have heard that eat away at our free cash every year, whether it's balancing the budget whether it's snow or nice no matter what it is we have known expenses under free cash every year and that's exactly why the Canadian conservative manage management of our budget Leeds to our ability to secure rates in borrowing that are better than the federal government. So I think, you know let's keep this in perspective We are talking between 14-1 and 15, a one year differential. And the average number of days has been 20 when it's uncomfortable. And I will point out that we have absolutely heard

from parents who care deeply about their children, whose children are bothered by the heat and find it a difficult day to make their way through academically. but I will tell you that we've heard equally anecdotal stories about parents asking their kids approximately the same age or in elementary school who are saying their children say they're not bothered. So I think there is certainly a group with whom I emphasize as a father who are bothered by the heat, but they're not the total cohort. and so to me it's a matter of waiting to have a sober, accurate well-considered approach and the known risk and the know project for one year and 20 days in an atmosphere where there are children who are bothered by the heat, and children who aren't. And I go back to Marjorie's point. The schools have not been our partner

in trying to figure out alternative approaches to this that others, we have a member of advisory who every meeting has asked them Where is the information on alternative approaches we might take to make it through that year? And the answer is always no.

So Tom, I think the question before us is can we partner with the community and answer their call to get them air conditioning as quickly as possible so that all of the children have an and others. They are all in the same conditions, and that's the question. We are elected by the community to meet the need, and if we have the resources and the ingenuity, I call it courage to step out of our comfort zone knowing that we have the resources. Will we do it? Will we be courageous enough to know that it might cost a little bit more? I don't think we're going to fail. It's got extra contingency because

There's a price to accelerate, and there is a price for that kind of schedule risk. and I know you do. I trust PBC if they say they can do it, they will do their very best to do it and for me, we've accelerated a lot of things over time. Eight years is, it is long enough. And now we have I think it's come into sharper focus because we have brought on these beautiful schools that our children deserve, our community deserves but it's created a sharper contrast. And so, I just...

Someone tell me why Bates in the US News and rankings of schools was one of the top elementary schools and certainly the top elementary school in Wellesley, it's on air condition.

Why did we put air conditioning in the other schools and in all of our town buildings? We believe air conditioning is a priority.

We're not saying it's not a priority. We disagree about the level of risk, I disagree with your characterization of trust and courage as compared to fiduciary responsibility and concern about risk. Go ahead, Collette.

Kenny, thank you for doing the slides. I agree that the General Purpose Stabilization Fund should absolutely be in there and that's an important thing to pick up. That should be corrected. I think Megan's point that the number of hilltops quoting is free cash, the reserves are more flexible. So those two points are important. I think, I understand where you're coming from. I think where my comfort level separates with you on this is that I think those years during Covid and I was there, I found it frankly terrifying to be responsible for trying to guide the town through that period when we didn't know what was going to happen. And I thought it was really thoughtful of the board to take the strategies that they did and to build up their reserves. And we were under

a fair amount of criticism from advisory for not spending enough on capital at that time. And then following that, we spent a lot of money on capital We spent $10 million on cash capital, really sort of catching up on things that we had delayed because with capital you don't really cut capital. You just delay it and there's no real cuts really but what I'm not so comfortable about is assuming, taking that period which was an abnormality and trying to normalize that. That's, that I'm no comfortable with The other thing I'm not so comfortable with is you're saying, we're going to build up to these levels because we're not factoring in every year. when we have a good year and at the beginning of the year, Megan and Rachel will tell us okay our reserve policy is this. At this point we are higher and every single year during that period, we made plans and brought ourselves down within the policy again.

And our net increment to free cash was only about a million dollars a year So this doesn't really project forward all the uses that come out of the process. As we get closer to town meeting, certain things that we're going to fund with free cash because of all the reasons that Rachel and Megan talked about, the pressures on inside the levy borrowing and the 6.2 to 6.8 and you know we've been using free cash as a a resource to maintain our assets. So I'm not comfortable both on the supply side and the demand side of what you're talking about here, I get your analysis. You know, I might disagree on that. I don't feel comfortable sort depending on that and the other thing is this doesn't factor in what we're going to have to do to help the other projects in town move forward.

There are other really important projects that frankly don't have a group of residents activated, organized, structured and can pass a debt exclusion. So we're really going to have to help all of our projects that the discomfort I feel quite acutely here as we're helping one project at the expense of the other projects and I'll just leave it at that. I appreciate what you did, I think there are some important points here but we had to set differences

I would just say in response, even if you don't believe in slide three which is the 12.8 and you look at slide two we're still at 14.6, 15.1, 16 and 15.8 which is well above our policy. And to Hilltop's point that slide one shows Rachel talked about replenishing free cash How are you going to get to $29 million? Well, your own slides show one year from now we're at $30 million, 33-33-7. So we're there.

I just want to add that again with Colette alluded to and Megan as well, Hilltop when we're discussing maintaining that 29 million it does not include the general purpose stabilization.

your own numbers, the top line 27-6, 29-9, 33 and 33-7 do not include the stabilization fund.

I think it's not a full picture of what we're going to probably spend money on.

I just did this based on the information that and Hilltop is relevant for the rating piece of the equation, right? So instead of looking at Hilltop I went to see what Moody's actually says since Hilltop really an intermediary. So what Moody says is their rating consists of multiple aspects. what does your economy look like? What is the demographic, what is the property value per capita that is 30% of their rating. 30% of their rating is based on how much leverage the town has incurred. How much borrowing, how much debt we're putting on which is a very good reason to put in place a debt management policy 10% is qualitative factors, they were calling it the institutional framework governance. The governance environment within which the municipality operates and

The other 30% is the financial performance. So when we're talking about this, it's not are you hitting a number and therefore this is your rating? It's a component of it and it's an important part of it. It's 30% of their scoring. but what they're looking at is they're saying in our most recent opinion, they said we want you to be You cannot be consistently below 25%. So what does 25% mean? 25% is not just free cash and general stabilization fund. their calculation of that is all reserves. It includes the enterprise funds and all that, so we're currently at 30% when you calculate that they're concerned if we consistently go below 25%. And even if we do, that's 30% of the calculation.

So I don't think throwing around $29 million and saying that, I'm not saying implying. You're not implying that means we are going to have a credit downgrade But it's suggesting that if we go below $29 million for some amount of time, that could affect our credit. Which maybe it does, but Moody's isn't saying that. Hilltop might be saying that, but Moodys itself is not saying that

And I think, I have to own up. I think I misspoke before when I talked about the reserves that are considered in the reading and I'm not gonna say anymore because I've learned my lesson that I'm NOT the CFO and I think it's important that we remember who the CFO is, and that we make all these statements and projections. I'm an accountant I've got lots of years in the industry, I still make mistakes. I think it's really important we listen to our CFO on this one and I don't want to sort dismiss your work, but we're not the CFOs. We're not professional staff and I'm not comfortable

I totally agree with you, but I'm just literally losing the CFO's own numbers.

But that's not the whole picture of Kenya and we don't know that because it's not evolved yet and by the time Time of Millions comes around it's going to be different.

We're putting a boogeyman, we're running this incredible risk and it's not evolving.

I don't think that's fair.

I'm sorry, it probably wasn't fair. The boogeyman classification but we're saying risk. We're running this huge risk but nobody's quantified that risk. I tried to do it. We were talking about change orders, we're talking about timing Nobody's really said this is what it is. You're saying that there's more to it. Well, I don't have the more-to-it information. I have what was provided to me and that's what the model looks like. I've had a dollar number said $29 million is the threshold. While I'm looking at the numbers, we're at 29 million. I'm saying 12.6% is where we can't be there. Okay? We're not there. We're at 14-6, 15-1, 16 and 15-8. So I'm just using the information I have and showing that I don't agree with the conclusion that people are drawing. You may draw a different conclusion from it, and I respect that. I truly do. I'm just telling you, this is the information we have. This is what it looks like. People can make their decision based on that.

But risk can't be quantified precisely. You've made exactly the case about why 15 isn't viable. We can't have these risks exactly quantified because we don't know the project. and we don't, until we do the design. Until we get to 90% design review, until have discussions with contractors who have bids in hand We don't know what the project is, so you can't quantify the risk until we have real numbers.

Well, the risk is mitigated by the sense that If the bids come in at over, use Fisken-Bates. What's it? 4 point... I forget that number. $4.4 million? If the bid comes in at six, it's over. We can't do it. So while you're right, you can't quantify it. You can mitigate it to the point where we're actually spending $170,000 to do two design studies. We're not... saying 7.8 million dollars is at risk because it's not

Well it still does not comport with the last seven, eight years of our financial planning and it leaves other projects at risk for delay, cancellation, unfunding. and I still have a problem with the risk of the accelerated design to begin with. And I'll go back to my earlier point, it's a false dichotomy that either the town spends money or the kids are gonna be hot I'm not convinced that's our only choice here. We have June of 2027 coming up, has the school done anything different to plan for this coming June? No. did they do anything for this fall in case this fall was hotter? No. Did they do any last spring? No I'm not convinced that there is nothing that can be done short of construction, and we're already on the construction path. So we have differences of opinion in terms of financing.

I also thank you for doing the work, and I agree that you did what you did with the numbers you had but there are other reasons for which I'm not comfortable with this and it's a very difficult position to put a board in that's trying to watch out for 30,000 residents when you have it's not even the number of houses that are in a precinct that has an air conditioned school. We are doing what we believe to be the most responsible Way to get equity for all schools. That's already working, and we disagree about the next step, and I don't think we're going to reach agreement

So Marjorie, one of the things we haven't spoken about is the proposal to fund this as a debt exclusion. and why we believe that this project, as opposed to other projects we've done in the past through free cash needs to be done by a debt exclusion. And so when I read the documentation from staff, there was a very strong thread that this is the kind of project that the residents should weigh in on and should fund a debt exclusion for. And I personally don't understand why, We do Warren inside the debt. Levy, and why we do town hall inside the debt levy. And why would you team rooms inside the Debt Levy?

And we don't do air conditioning inside the dept levy I have been unable to explain that to anyone including myself

So the issue with the debt levy and how we, Rachel and I evaluate it is one where does it stand? Right. So what you don't want in terms of inside the levy borrowing is to have sort of a rolling high and low you want to maintain that exactly as Rachel had indicated so that you're maintaining a consistent cash capital amount, as well. So that you are not going to have 10 million in cash capital available in one year and then for the next three years have 5 million in cash capital. You want to maintain sort of a smoothing of approximately, we strive to be around five to six million in terms of inside the levy borrowing. So in particular with Warren, we actually had a trench in the borrowing. The year before we were at about 3.4 or 3.7 million because some things had tailed off so we actually wanted to borrow Warren inside the levy to smooth that We had anticipated borrowing for the town hall.

That was the year where we happened to have seven million generated in interest income based upon the timing of the borrowing for Hardy and Honeywell, So we had Hardy and Honeywell. We got, number one, a much lower rate so our initial debt payment was substantially lower than we had anticipated for Hardy & Honeywell because we had factored in at the time a 5% interest rate that came in at 2.02%. then the interest rates did go to 5% so we had the gains on at a time when we were holding 70 million in addition to any of our free cash but 70 million and borrowing as we began to pay off those projects. So it was sort of a windfall there The other issue at that particular time is we had, at the start of COVID ended a project. So I don't want people to forget completely stopped a $13.1 million project, which is the town hall annex building where we have individuals still in leased space and that's going to impact our operating

budget this year because the lease payment is going to be double what we have. So that's not a long-term investment, that just is how we handled not moving forward with the $13.1 million construction, so we had a design funding in 2020 and then we were going to go I think it was an excluded my recollection is it was gonna be 13.1 in excluded debt But we stopped the design funding to sort of rein in the capital spending. So let's not forget, we ended a project.

And I think the other important thing to note in that whole picture is when Town Hall was funded, there was not one single capital project that was shovel ready that wasn't funded. and I think the difference here, if you look back that's...I spent some time this week at the previous years' time with financial plans. The major capital financing project schedule used to have four lines on it It was tiny. We are now at almost 300 million. When it was Town Hall, it was like 98 million. It was a completely different environment. I think it's really hard to draw parallels between the two. That keeps getting dropped in as a sort of throwaway statement, it's not comparable at that time I felt it would be really hard to justify and this is to Kenny's point, this is taxpayers money it would be hard to justify a borrowing when we were in that position.

We're in a very different position now and you know, we've said before that the part of this stabilization from which like to create the point of that is to use it in a structured fashion and so it's like apples and oranges.

So my question was not about it was about why we believe the voter needs to weigh in on the project, not why we believed that amount of money should go. out on a debt exclusion. Because the way I read the report, we felt the project shouldn't move forward without the voter weighing in on it and that's where I had the dissonance. Like, I think reasonable people can disagree on the right way to finance it. I just don't understand the difference between asking, requiring that the voters weigh in on air conditioning versus not requiring that they weigh in on HVAC and other buildings or roofs or other capital projects that are to $2.5 million because it's really that each school, we have to look at each school separately

and the amount of money of that size project seems to me that there is a track record of funding those with free cash. So I didn't know if there was something about it being air conditioning that we felt it had to go out on a debt exclusion? Or if it's something that, let me just finish before I lose my thought. Something about the preference for funding type or maybe it's both.

Well, the Town Light Financial Plan looks at it as a debt exclusion because it's $17.5 million in terms of last year's calculus.

But it is four projects?

But we have been designing it as a singular project.

And I do think that we're most likely going to face a situation where we may have to do things like bundle roofs and put roofs out I'm just going to quote a statement from PBC in their discussion about this. You know, it's important to have the voters weigh in on significant capital projects it's not necessarily their nature.

Right, expected to be done designed for four schools and funding for four skills

So I understand the bundling, it's kind of like what we did with the playgrounds where we did them in groupings. My point is that each of these is a discrete place and a discrete project. So each school is two to three million dollars, the fact that they're all being done together makes it 17 million dollars which is maybe...

I'd like to move the question beginning with article 15.1 We haven't, we've only voted 14.2, we haven't voted 14 point one, should we go through? I didn't make a motion, you didn't take a... Go ahead, formal vote Margie just said so it's unanimous why don't we proceed then So move to vote support for the appropriation. Let me just find what we're saying here. Move to both support of the appropriations for Article 14.1

Second.

All in favor? Aye. We've already voted 14.2. Move to vote support for the appropriation on Article 15.1. Second. All in favor?

Aye.

All opposed? Nay. Okay, the vote is two to three.

Moved to vote support for the appropriation in Article 15.2? Aye

All in favor? Aye. All opposed? Nay.

Are we voting support, there's no funding on 15.3 I wouldn't vote that. Okay, so done with that?

Can I ask you about 15.3? It seems to me if... If the board's majority is supporting only design, there might be an advantage to the community to knowing that we support reporting to town meeting the progress that we're making. I can't imagine that we wouldn't want to support it.

That's what the time away financial plan is, and I'm not sure...

But I am just saying I can imagine we wouldn�t support it so

I move that we... We don't take votes on this. Before you make a motion. No, I can make a Sorry. So I do believe that we don't typically take a position on citizens petition and the reason why we're taking up this position on this is because it was funding an appropriation so it's a specific reason, I'm just going to say that.

I think there's an issue about whether 15.3 can apply back to 14, so if If town meeting doesn't approve 15-1 and 15-2, 15-3 applies. It's within the construct of Article 15.

I'm going to move pause that we support 15.3.

And I'm gonna roll that out of order, we're not voting on a citizen petition that has no appropriation. Okay let's move onto article 16. We have citizens who want to address the board on Article 16.

Yeah, Mr Tobin?

I didn't put my name in the hat, but can I jump in and speak as well?

Yeah. Absolutely.

Mr. Tobin, I believe most of the members of the board if not everybody is familiar with your comments before advisory and given the hour and that we have more work to do I'd ask you to please be as brief as possible Yes I will thank you

Good evening, I'm Michael Tobin, 45 Cottage Street president of the Wellesley Conservation Land Trust. Also with me tonight is Dawn Davis.

Hi, Dawn Davis 267 Washington

and a member of the Board of the Land Trust.

Linda Siemenson, 2900s Road.

Thank you for reading the letter that I sent earlier. I do want to just publicly state some of those comments I want to start with one simple point that Article 16 is not an acquisition vote. In the spring of 2025, town meeting voted 186-14 with zero abstentions to support funding the NRC's ecological and structural assessment of White Pond. That was a clear decision by town meeting to invest in understanding this property before deciding whether the town should acquire it the assessments now complete. From a structural and ecological perspective, this is an unremarkable New England Pond, meaning no significant risks or unexpected risks were found. So the question before us is what's the next prudent step before the town can make an informed acquisition decision?

Protecting resources like this is not new policy direction for Wellesley. It's consistent with the 2015 Open Space Recreation Plan, the 2017 Comprehensive Pond Management Plan, and the 2022 Open Space and Recreational and the 2026 conservation plan, White Pond is named. In 1953, Mr. Dean, Mr Norton and Mr Sanders used the best tool they had at that time to protect White Pond for 70 years So I'd encourage us not to become distracted by the complexity of that old trust, its renewals historic beneficiaries etc. These are the questions and the reasons for this motion Chapter 79 and Section 7D of the Massachusetts General Laws specifically anticipates these complex scenarios. and allows us to deal with them simply.

We're not suggesting that the town skip the title work, we're asking a town meeting to fund the titlework that an acquirer must perform. And we're not starting from zero On this USB drive, we have all the deeds for all the beneficiary properties going back to 1931. We've analyzed which properties retained white-pond rights and which did not. And these are all reported on these papers, and on the drive. We have recorded trust documents and all three renewal documents. This information is once again offered to the town and town council so the town can very clearly see the roadmap to perform its own due diligence. So this brings us back to where we started. Town meetings already voted overwhelmingly to investigate White Pond for a potential acquisition

The next fiscally prudent step is to simply complete the legal due diligence, understanding exactly what the town would be acquiring. Tad Heuer, town meeting member and real estate and land use attorney sent you an email earlier today concurring with this approach. and supporting Article 16. So now we ask for your favorable support on Article 16, thank you.

Thank you. Dawn Davis, 267 Washington Land Trust board member. Thank you Michael I just want to add that like look the timing of this is not great and after sitting here and listening to the deliberations and how you all care so much about the budget, the timing is probably not great. But then again, once in a generation opportunities usually don't respond to timing. They just show up as this one did with the change in circumstance and the changing circumstance is that the trust may or may not exist and the one remaining trustee is stepping down. So this is an opportunity to complete what was started. $72,000 has already been invested So to just leave that on the table doesn't make sense. This is an ask for a completion of what has already begun

and it's a chance for us to do what we do best which is thoughtful, informed decision making. And that's what you all evidenced here tonight and so we're asking to just be consistent with that. So thank you so much.

Hi, the only thing I have to add is that I'm the only trustee now and been asking for quite a while for other people to step forward. No one really wants to, and the reason that they give is liability. And it's kind of... what Michael was saying about how in 1955 the trust was the best tools that the neighbors had to solve this problem. that the world's changed a lot since then and people are just much more scared of that sort of thing. So it's not that I have to quit tomorrow. You know, I would stay on for a little bit if there were a couple of other people who are like OK, I will join. Will you get us over the hump?

But that's not happening. So, thanks.

A couple thoughts. Due diligence, the way you describe it is something I've been involved in as a purchaser. This is not a sale and purchase contract. and trustees who may or may not be willing to gift land to the town depending on what the conditions are. and as of now there is I believe one trustee, one landowner who is not comfortable with the terms that the town has proposed. I think having public access for the town would be a big benefit. And if the landowners are not unanimous on the terms, the only way the town could acquire it is through a hostile eminent domain claim

That's not an appealing option, and I don't think the town has ever done a hostile eminent domain or adverse possession. What you're asking the town to do when you have a lot of the deed information is title searches and probate research. and Town Council could not do any of the legal work, like going to court and asking for the trust to be reinstated if it is no longer valid because That's legal work by the town for a private entity. That can't be done. I'm really not comfortable with the use of the town's funds to do what I see mostly as administrative work. It concerns me that NRC is not the proponent. And I understand the overwhelming vote at town meeting, but that was also CPC funded

which is money that was specifically set aside for open space and other purposes, and this is town money. So that's where I am at the moment. Welcome other people's comments.

So I had pretty extensive comments the last time we talked about this. I don't really want to repeat them, I just want to highlight one thing. I'm just going to focus on finances. I think we need to be clear that This is not posited right now as a purchase, but it's a step in that direction. That's the whole purpose of it. The legal work, the taking of land, the remediation of the spillway. The remediation any substances like PFAS Pond dredging, pond dredgings half a million dollars a shot. Making space for parking, making a path to public access that will all add up and this project could easily be recommended for inclusion in Capcom it would take All of this, it would take all that money and effort for that land to be conveyed to the town for public purposes and effectively used by the public. You know if you convey it as it is

Conservation, but it's not public access really I don't think. The costs are nowhere on the capital plan. Capcom has no placeholder for this. It's again its exact opposite of what we're talking about in terms of a holistic approach to Capital Planning. And I think the petition is really asking time meeting members to consider this in isolation, which we're trying to move away from and I think given all the title issues, it's highly unlikely that this land is going to be sold anytime soon and developed. I don't see anything happening to it. and from a Conservancy perspective, I don't see what the rush is. The NRC is appropriate body to bring something like this forward to town meeting I think it's appropriate to let them do their work and consider the fuller picture, the global costs of this particular project.

And then I think it's really important that the NRC balances that against their goals and said, OK, if this globally costs say $2 million, I don't know what the answer is. None of us know. Well, what's the benefits? What's the benefit to the water system? What is the benefit of public enjoyment? and then match that against the dollars they want to spend on their other highest priorities. They've done their land conservation plan do they think that this $2 million is better spent, I don't know what it is. This X million dollars is better spend here on this piece of property or for example they want to establish a land conservation Reserve, essentially. Would they like to have it there so that they're nimble to do things like this in the future? Would they rather have it for... There was a piece of property that came up beside a playground that they wanted to expand. Is that a higher priority they need to do that work. They're the right body to do it, to evaluate it.

So I think I've gone on longer than I wanted to. That's kind of where I am on it. From a fiscal perspective we are running backwards in terms of planning and then I really think, I understand Michael your frustration and that you think this is taking too long. That's a public process and we've heard a lot tonight about the frustration about that but it's that way for a reason. It's a slow deliberative process and I'm really uncomfortable with using taxpayers money to resolve a private land issue when there's not I said before, and they feel really bad. And it's a great deal of empathy for you as a trustee trying to move this forward but it's private issue

Right? I've had a really hard time with this issue because it's so complicated, and I'm going to say I've been squarely opposed. kind of confused and supportive, and I've vacillated a lot. And I actually spent the weekend tromping around in the woods, I hope I didn't trespass trying to figure out like absent, I agree with Colette. Absent NRC weighing in it's really complicated matters and so I went back to NRC did highly value this property Town Meeting highly valued the property. I mean, Town Meeting voted fairly resoundingly to investigate the property.

And I'm going to say, I was nervous then because I don't think you should do environmental diligence on something kind of unless you're gonna follow through that can have its own knock-on costs. So I take some solace and direction from town meeting they believe it is, to Ms. Davis's point an opportunity that we weren't looking for To Collette's point, we're not looking for new opportunities. But that it does connect our water system there. Again, not an area I know a lot about but I did look it over and what I kept coming back to is it seems to me this is unavoidably coming our way. And either we get

knocked over by it when it floods or the dam breaks, or something happens and there's no trustee. And we don't know who to go to because we haven't done the legal work on it So I also agree, maybe there's not urgency in the normal kind of way because it's a pond. It's sitting there. It seems to be fine. The water seems to going down that I don't know if it's the dam that goes down but eventually This is going to be a problem for the town. It's going to flood our road, it's going cause storm water problems, its going to cause problems in the parking lot where our commuters go and I think

It is better to be proactive than reactive, and I think we often find ourselves not by our choosing being reactive. This is one where I don't know about courage. I have a little bit of stress about this, but I think it is the better part of valor to move forward on this because Having one trustee is better than no trustees when we try to resolve something. knowing it's a pond and dam eventually is going to need maintenance, better to maintain it proactively. I think that's less expensive than dealing with a major catastrophe when Our financial plan definitely is not going to be structured for that.

And when I looked at the report, it looked to me like it was $5,000-$10,000 a year and then there's this looming big bad problem out there, half a million, a million dollars. I'd rather plan for it. I would rather get in front of Capcom. in charge of that. And as I understand it, doing the diligence on who has shares is the only path forward, so I think we're investing in our future because eventually there's a problem looming. and I would prefer, I'm gonna throw this out there to you. I would that we went to town meeting with an agreed on

and that we did that before town meeting, and we addressed those property owners because as you've heard tonight, we are not fleet of foot. So the person who's worried about public access, I would tell them to watch this meeting. Think about air conditioning. That is one tough pond to go around, even if you're trying. So I think that we could probably work something out. Reasonable people could get there, I don't know your other landowner but I would really encourage us to get the right parties together and try to knockout some agreement to provide us more assurance that while we're being proactive trying to understand, worst case the land doesn't transition to us. We know who

to approach when there's a problem. I mean, we're gonna have to collect taxes. We need to know who to send the bill to and right now, from what I hear with no trustee we don't know who to send the bill to. So that seems like a reasonable problem to me so I am after much really struggle, I am supportive of this. And I will say it has not been an easy pathway but I do thank you for your persistence in trying to get us ahead of where it could end up.

Well, now I'm confused because my understanding is that the latest information is that if the culvert were to collapse that there would not be flooding on the road or on the train tracks but it would simply back up into the homes that are surrounding White Pond. And while I'm sympathetic, that's a private ownership issue and concern. I also understand there is not an absence of environmental risk in that location, I believe it is likely there's PFAS in the water there. and I think there is, this board has made a significant commitment to the preservation and acquisition of open space. the litigation we're engaged in with MassBay and Centennial Park is the best evidence of our doing so. The Charette and the concern over the North 40 is evidence for doing so,

I simply don't feel that there's return on the investment at White Pond. It is landlocked on two sides by roadway, It's basically a swampy area with no path around it and resistance about creating public access. It's a huge headache in terms of potential and Dredging, which really should be borne by the private owners of this particular pond. And I have to rely on the advice of Town Council on this in a letter that he wrote I'm persuaded that this is not a road that we should go down, that the money that we might spend and the expenses we might incur are better spent on the other larger scale projects for open space that we're involved in. What I would suggest is that you resolve this with the NRC,

and had the NRC come back with a clear recommendation for our consideration, and perhaps they can move this along. But I think Marjorie's right, we should not be doing the legal work for private property owners. and I just don't think that this is really in a reasonable condition in terms of our responsibilities to the town to accept this liability, which is simply how I look at it at this point.

So I don't really struggle with this one at all. The town, and this is not my own view of whether it's a good idea to acquire or not, Town Meeting voted overwhelmingly to fund a project to look into environmental concerns, which you only do that if you intend to acquire the property. The next step in that is to do the diligence, to say what are any issues with title? Who owns it? How is it going to be conveyed? to me this is the logical next step that has to be taken in order to fulfill what town meeting implicitly wanted to do which was look to acquire the property so I don't have a view at this point, whether it's a good idea to actually acquire it. But the logic to me says if we're going to spend money to do the environmental, the purposes to look to acquire it Okay, that checked out.

Move to the next point. How do we acquire it? What are the restrictions? And so I do support this. To be clear, I support spending the money to do the diligence to see what defects are entitled who owns it and all that.

I'm not sure every town meeting member... Oh, I shouldn't speak for other people. I was interested in the results of the environmental study, not necessarily because I thought ultimately purchasing paying for the maintenance and PFAS remediation or other things was the right thing to do because I wanted to know what the environmental condition was. and it does show that there will be some cost to it. But I keep coming back to the NRC I don't understand why NRC is not the proponent here. It's very difficult to understand. If it is one of their priorities as mentioned in the land conservation plan, they are the right board. It's confusing as to why they're not the proponent.

and I gather we would all feel better if we knew that it was something they felt strongly enough to bring to town meeting.

If it's helpful, I do have a summary from the chair of the NRC that he okayed me to read out tonight. And before we do that, I'll just say Sorry, I have somebody from the NRC chair that he gave me for this purpose tonight. I would just speak for myself. Annual town meeting, I think the chair of the NRC at that time was Jay McHale. And the way it was... The way I remember being presented was we have the option to be gifted this land and before we accept a gift, you want to make sure you know what you're getting. That was the way it was presented to us. It wasn't presented to as this is the first step in a significant outlay of capital but that's my memory of it and the debate was not short. There was a lot of discussion on this one so I think, I can only tell you, I voted for it because I felt that we should know more

I don't disagree with some of Beth's points. I think at some point, I do think it's the function of government to if there is an issue like this that is ultimately going to have to be resolved and We can see it coming. I think it is our job to plan for that, but I don't feel a citizens petition's the right way to do that. That's why I say goes back to the NRC for multiple reasons. But the NRC view on Article 16 is, The NRC recognizes that town meeting is the appropriate place to consider a citizen's petition. from the NRC September 22nd meeting discussion, there is not a consensus among the NMC board about using town funding for the purpose requested in the article. Views range from The request may be considered as part of the transactional cost of an acquisition that supports land conservation It's difficult to justify using tax dollars to cure the defects, the trust and title issues of a private organization.

And this may not be a typical use of town funds not in favor of asking Time Meeting to support an unknown cost for an open-ended scope of work. There's been a few changes in the motion language, so the motion has been updated to specify the request cap of a hundred thousand and includes more detailed language in the uses and activities. The NRC has not yet discussed the updated version of the recent dialogue between the proponent and town council The NRC October 29 agenda will provide the opportunity for a discussion. So, the NRC view in acquiring White Pond is the NRC recognizes the value of acquiring otherwise conserving White Pond property. The NRC facilitated the white assessment report using CPC administrative funds as per ATM 2025 resolution about 44,000 was invoiced for that study.

The property fits well within the conservation priorities described by the NRC's 2025 Land Conservation Plan These values include expanding open space, expanding passive recreation , supporting tree canopy and forest cover, supporting surface water quality, supporting wildlife habitat, and reducing flood hazard . The NRC notes unresolved concerns with beneficiaries, proposed deed restrictions which would limit the town's ability to make improvements to the property to facilitate public access and maintenance. in the form of parking and a trail, at least one abutter or beneficiary is opposed to conveyance without deed restrictions. The NRC would also need modest expansion of its operating budget for regular maintenance, 10 to 20 thousand annually and would need to engage in long-term capital planning for dredging and culvert repairs, 500 thousand to a million dollars.

and the NRC chair summarized the board's view on Article 16 at the October 23 advisory meeting. So that is where our advisory stands at this point, acknowledging they are going to discuss it again.

Megan, Corey is there anything you would like to add?

No, I mean the only other thing I would add is it's unclear that the trust has actually indicated what you guys have raised whether they would sell it to the town. We have heard opposition at advisory from one member. I don't know if that's been resolved, so it's unclear whether it be a gift or whether there is negotiated. Yeah, consideration is completely unclear at this point and otherwise it would be a hostile taking with compensation. Okay.

Could we get some... So I don't see why it wouldn't be logical You've heard a number of questions. Why not go back to the NRC, engage in further conversation and see if they will bring this as an article further resolved with a more clear direction and budget at a future town meeting.

It's a good time to discuss it. I have a question because if, Colette thank you for bringing that statement because the end of it sounds to me like the NRC does support adding the land to the town's portfolio. It offers real advantages and what they are wrestling with is the budget issue. Is that a fair characterization and the title piece?

And the expense of town funds. Yeah, I... They didn't come to consensus on it, so I don't think it's just budget. I'm not going to speak for them. That statement stands in its own. So I'm wondering should we...

should we allow them to go talk to the NRC this week, right Colette? And then take a vote on this after the NLC has a chance to discuss it. maybe give more definitive guidance on where they are and what their level of support is because it seems to me this and maybe struggle wasn't the right thing, but one of the things is it's been so murky, the legal piece. And that as a non-lawyer has been where my struggle is. It's not the land part, it's like unknown and I'm wondering if we wouldn't be better served deferring to the NRC to let them weigh in this week, and then us take it up. after we've had perhaps more guidance from them on where they are as our environmental land experts. I just throw it out for consideration.

I'm not sure that i would change my position on this unless the NRC was sponsoring the article, I mean if the NIC was sponsoring articles a completely different process

I think that's right. I agree, but that's my point is I would prefer that this were withdrawn from this town meeting brought back through the NRC as proponents with a much better formed understanding about how they would proceed forward and analysis of what the real benefit is within the broader conservation portfolio at a budget.

So as it stands now, it's in the form of a citizen's petition and cannot be at this town meeting an article by a town board committee.

They could support it That's the best I think that they could do at this town meeting, right? Which I agree with you. I'm just saying they can't co-sponsor it. So I'm willing to vote now I'm happy to vote. I just thought maybe it would be helpful for some of us to hear from them, but I'm having a problem not voting.

I think you made a fair point about not voting at this part at this point, and I'm happy to agree to defer.

The NRC could vote to co-sponsor.

I don't mind waiting until next week. It has to be next week Kenny, Collette.

But no matter what I'd rather see a more fully formed proposal with the NRC as the proponent so it's not just whether they can have a split vote for example in support of this. It's whether understanding the universe of questions and considerations, whether this can come back from the NRC with a budget, with a clear understanding of what the legal issues are. A proposal as to how they want... You know, a more fully formed proposal

Right. Benefits to the town? Because they're a board, they could meet with Town Council to get that in shape I'm assuming. I think the Board Chair can do that right? Marjorie, can I ask you a question about next week? And I apologize it's not an agenda item. Are we really meeting on election day? Should we look to meet on Monday or, it seems to me kind of peculiar.

No, but we're picking a date for them to come back. We'll take that up afterwards. So I'm not sure it would change my vote. I'd need to see pretty detailed explanation of support with everything Tom has outlined and a clear statement that they are now comfortable with town expenditure for this purpose, which I really don't see as legal research. But I'm willing to wait until our meeting next week. So it seems like we have consensus that we're willing to Good luck with NRC. If they haven't supported it yet, they've got their work cut out for them to get to that point by next week. but we'd be happy to consider it again next week. So thank you all for coming and thank you for your work on this.

Okay, our next agenda item is two issues of administrative matters. We have a few sets of minutes and another gift to discuss. So the first set of minutes is, let's deal with October 13th and October 20th because Kenny wanted to take another look at the 6th. Are there any comments on the 13th or the 20th?

I received no additional edits on any of the sets of minutes from last week to this week

I didn't have a chance to really dig into them but if everybody else dug into them and they're fine, I'm happy to defer So move to approve Let's talk about the sixth Go ahead Kenny

I'm fine with the sixth because most of what I said on the sixth, I probably said more articulately today. So if you could build that in then we can punt on the six.

We'll give you another chance to say everything and then we will approve the minutes. All right, go ahead Colette.

I move to approve the Minutes of October 6th, 2026, October 13th,2026, and October 2026. And I'm going to see as amended because the first time we saw them there was definitely some amendments All in favor?

Aye. All right, Megan I'll turn it over to you to our late breaking news of a wonderful anonymous gift

So late breaking news. The chief has been contemplating acquiring a secondary comfort dog, Winnie is six so as we go through the process to bring on a dog, train a dog we would keep Winnie of course our number one girl but we would be looking to bring on another. As the board may recall, Winnie was purchased through gift and an anonymous donor also annually continues to contribute to the health and wellness of Winnie. So an anonymous donor has donated $16,000 for the acquisition and training of a new comfort care dog and would be seeking the board's approval for that.

Any comments? I just have to say, Winnie's been such a wonderful addition to the town. I think we really need to thank our anonymous recurring donor for enriching the community and the way in which the police can serve the community.

And Tana's wonderful with her, and it was great to have her here when we approved the hiring of the new police officers. Yes, please thank the anonymous donor that's quite wonderful especially over the past couple of months. The issues that the public safety officers have dealt with to have Winnie along with them in the schools and with families has really been terrific. May we have a motion?

moved to approve the anonymous gift of $16,000 for the purchase and training of a new community comfort dog.

Second.

All in favor?

Aye.

Yes, yes, yes. Okay Tom and I did not have committee meetings this week we had a very nice Breakfast Meeting with Wellesley College. We missed you, Kenny and Corey. By the time we were done telling them all the things we're working on they went, whew! You guys are busy. and Green Hall has been refreshed, and I believe President Johnson is very happy to be back there. They have significant work going on first in their residence halls and then looking towards a much longer, larger capital project list as we do. but other than that, I don't have any chair's report.

So- Want me to give a quick update?

Yes please.

So I think yesterday the board received a communication from school committee regarding the school facilities task force. Marjorie and I are going to meet with key staff and school committee representatives this Thursday, to better understand the select board member role and expectations of key select board and FMD staff and discuss the charge, and the process to include language to ensure that the output is responsive to the needs of Capcom's evaluation. and Criteria. And I do just draw our board members' attention to the minutes of the most recent CAPCOM meeting where this was raised as a matter for follow-up, so I'm just closing the loop on that.

And the board has talked for a long time about updating school facilities strategic planning, but it's important to note that this memo came out from the School Facilities Task Force and none of us was consulted. The boards, the staff so we really need to clarify what the expectations are for time commitment and what they're planning to have as deliverables, and how they're going to do the work. Thank you Colette. Is there anything else?

I wanted to talk about the meeting that's scheduled for November 2nd. It seems to me it's going to be very busy here because it's election day, and the polls will be closing coming in. And with nine ballot questions, I think we should meet on a different night. It doesn't feel right to be holding public meeting on election night in town. So I would respectfully suggest that we meet on Monday, or if that's not good for folks, another day next week.

I don't think Megan's available on Monday. We have to be at advisory on Wednesday.

I would also point out Wellesley Club. Oh, no, Wellesly Club's the following year. But Thursday is also the league... STM Prep.

Would the board want to meet earlier on the 3rd so they're not counting ballots? We don't have a heavy agenda. We basically will follow up on Article 16, we have the marathon bibs and the establishment of the war memorial amount our annual report, and then David Cornwitz is coming. I mean some of it we could defer to the... It's mostly if I can relocate, we might be able to cancel I could defer some stuff to before Tom made it. It's mostly Mr. Cornwood and we can maybe do that on the 17th if I can, I gotta talk to him though.

Could we do it remotely? Like a Zoom meeting?

Oh, we could do an all remote meeting. But I don't know if people are working the election. That would be the issue.

on a short agenda, I could do it during the day.

remotely like a zoom four o'clock yeah we've got a Capcom tour from one to three and you guys are all invited to the fire station in the DPW but after three o' clock I can do something

Are we still talking about election day? Yes.

Then, we might as well just stay on our meeting. I just thought that we shouldn't meet on election night.

I mean, I'm happy to meet him. I was more suggesting that the day wasn't... Well, it might be nice actually to do a Zoom meeting then we're not... We're not in anybody's way. And it's a short meeting, and it might give staff a break. Staff have been here until I don't know what time. That's fine.

I'm happy to defer if Megan wants to.

We'll figure that out separately. But if we have our meeting tomorrow, we can report back to the board. All right. Okay.

Okay, there's nothing further. We are adjourned. Thank you everybody and will let you know when we're going to meet next week.