Select Board September 29, 2026

Good evening. I'd like to call to order the select board meeting of September 29th, 2026 in the Giuliani Meet Room at Town Hall. The meeting is being held in hybrid format, broadcast live on Comcast Channel 8 and Verizon Channel 40. And will be available for later viewing on wellesleymedia.org Selec board members here are Tom Ulfelder, Vice Chair, Colette O'Frank, Secretary, Beth Sullivan Woods and Kenny Largess. And I'm Marjorie Freiman. Also here with us are Executive Director Megan Jopp and Assistant Executive Director Corey Testa. I don't see anyone here for Citizen Speak, so we'll turn to Megan please for the executive director's update

just a few updates, so a couple reminders. So the RDF will hold its Fall Document Destruction Day on this Sunday from 10 to 3. This is a great opportunity you can bring in a cardboard box or Brown paper bag, all of the documents that it's really hard to shred at your house one by one and they do it all at once. It takes two seconds great opportunity to get rid of sensitive paper from your home so encourage everyone to take advantage of that just as a reminder the documents should be in brown paper bags or disposable cardboard no binders plastic folders or metal so the staples are okay but anything more substantial make sure you just take that off. But again that's it's a great resource that the town does every year. The other important date is actually for Thursday at the RDF, it's the last paint collection for the year, that's from three to six at RDF this Thursday October 1st We also have some deadlines that I just wanted to remind folks on.

So the Cultural Council grant application is open until October 15th, and so the application is online. Just wanted to remind folks about that. There's about $20,000 of funding available for anything really affiliated with the arts and they provide a wide, incredibly wide range of approvals for applications. The other one is the 2027 Boston Marathon. The nonprofit and runner applications are open until October 15th as well at 4 o'clock on October 15, so we'd encourage people to take a look at those and get those in. This weekend is the new Discover Wellesley. That is both Friday and Saturday down in Wellesleys Square, that's where community members and visitors are invited to the square to explore the shops, restaurants. Some unique experiences that they're gonna have and participating businesses will highlight some new projects, some special collaborations

and some local stories throughout. The two-day event, it's all day down in the square, no really set times like we have some of the other events so we'd encourage people to attend and then just a final reminder the Charette for the North 40 is scheduled for Thursday evening at the high school. We would encourage people, the meeting time starts at 6 30 for check-in We'd encourage people maybe to get there a few minutes early to check in so we can get everyone situated. We do expect this to be a big turnout, so just appreciate people's and others. Collaboration on that, if you have not registered we ask you to do so just so we make sure we have enough materials for everyone and thank you to all the people that have registered. We appreciate you taking the time, and look forward to hopefully a good event.

Thanks very much, Megan. Our next agenda item is an election update and Town Clerk Casey Cato is here with us to provide an update on the upcoming November 3rd state elections. Hi, Casey.

Hi. Thank you so much for having me tonight. Megan's gonna pull up the slides and thank you for signing the warrant last week. So we're official at this point. Go to the first slide. So this is the state election. As was signed on the warrant, it's the typical races that are done during the stateside, state elections. So the governor, lieutenant governor and senator and so forth. So it's the same races that were in the primary, but now it's one per party plus a couple of other independent parties. Next slide. So the big thing on this one is there are nine questions. And this is a big situation. There are a lot of questions, and so The Red Book went to all houses if people didn't get them I encourage them they can either call us up we have extra plenty of extra It's also online, but it is a lot to read through.

And they're complicated and yes means this and no means that so I encourage people to read up on it. The thing is... although I don't know whether I'm being shown on TV or not, our camera. So this is the ballot. It's two pages so people are going to get them and we're mailing out over 6,000 ballots this week. When people open them up they're gonna call up and say I got two ballots the answer is yes you did, everybody did. So it's actually two cards front and back three sides so we encourage everyone to fill out the whole ballot. Read through the whole thing, don't just pull out your first page you see and start filling it in and you're like okay ready to mail so really encourage people to return both they are not required to turn both but we encourage them to read through it all So elections on November 3, vote by mail. Actually last week we had over 6,000. We now have more than 6, 000 ballot requests, about 6,200.

We'll be mailing those out this week thanks to a lot of help from the community. Testa, Ulfelder, Wellesley, Councilor Testa, Ulfelder, Wellesley, Councilor Jop, Largess, Sullivan Woods, Testa 15,000 people vote. That's 30,000 pieces of paper going through the machines so that's not insignificant and then we'll have election day voting What we typically see in Wellesley is about 50% of our people will vote early in person or by mail. Most of that's by mail, and then the other 50% will show up on election day. Okay, so early voting in person. So these are the state requirements one day per weekend six total hours that day also week one we're allowed to have a reduction but this year actually I'm not coming forward to ask for a reduction

So this is just an informational piece, but the law is that we can do that. But we're not because We're back at Town Hall, and we're going to be doing early voting in person here. We feel like we can staff it actually with our office and a little bit of help, but it is significantly easier to staff it here. And also, if people come after we... If we reduce the hours which we did at the library, which was easier to do because we set up and took down. people show up late here, they're going to see us across the hall. And so we figured we can support them from the office. We'll be regular business hours, so it's 8 to 4. The law is that it has to be at town hall unless it's unavailable or unsuitable. So our town hall now perfect for that. And we did early voting in person in the Giuliani room for the primary, and I think it went really well. So this is all informational for you because we're here, we don't need a vote.

But I appreciate the opportunity. Next slide. We're also going to be doing similar to what we did last time is have some in 2024, is have evening hours. Our voters appreciate that. and we have additional locations. So Sisters of Charity 125 Oakland, we partnered with them in the past and they greatly appreciate the support. Waterstone will do senior living there at 27 Washington Street, and what's nice about that is we'll... The kind of pop-up voting early in person six to eight at night. And so it gives us another opportunity at that end of town to have an evening hour and the proposal is to do an evening our here on the Thursday before the election as well

Casey, just on that. I just want to hit the point that it's not just for, to your point Waterstone residents, it's for anyone in the area who wants to come and It's actually for anyone in town. Anyone in town who wants to go that evening?

Right, so even though it's in Precinct D if you're from Precint B you can go over there. and so we'll have all ballots available. And we ended up seeing the last time we did this in 24, it was a big mix of people for just from the community versus residents there. so actually here are the specific hours. So town hall on October 17th, Saturday we'll be here nine to five. Monday through Friday during that week eight to four Saturday the 24th again, 9 to 5. And Saturday the 25 is actually the last day to register to vote as well. So anybody who comes in the 17 through the 24 to vote they can actually register to and then vote automatically. so um and then oh that's okay um special hours at town hall will be Thursday night till eight and then the pop-up sisters of charity as I mentioned will be during the day and Waterstone will be at night

and then Election Day, same polling locations we've been at since about 23. So we've there for a few years now but I just want to remind everyone that precincts A and C are at Upham. So people who used to go to Bates, are no longer going to Bate's. And so we'll put signage up what we found out is even though it's been three years actually spend more years than that since we left Bates because we were at the MLP for a little while because people have been voting by mail for many years, then all of a sudden they'll decide to go out and they remember Bates. And so we'll put some signs up again just to remind people if they show up there, they have to go the other school. and then I think the other schools have been or other locations people have gotten more used to it so that's worked out. and that is it. So any questions?

Casey, I just want to thank you for making preparations to have alternative locations in hours. It really makes it easier for people who are on different schedules and I realize it's additional logistical complications for you and your staff, but thank you. Does anybody have any comments or questions? All right. Thank you very much. Our next agenda item is special town meeting preparation. And for the town bylaw amendments, I'll turn to Kenny.

Thank you. Megan, can you pull up? article, the school committee first. We'll go with the easy one first. So the first bullet point says we're gonna talk about Article 7 which is the select board's article. We're not going to talk about that tonight We still need to work through some of advisory's comments and modify. It's going to be substantively the same, it's just more technical things but there is no change in substance So while Megan's pulling this up, so because we haven't gone through in detail yet the manner at which we're going to approach. We've gone through it in detail. We haven't made final decisions about how you know, stylistically approach different things.

We looked at these articles more to conform with the existing bylaws and to ensure compliance with the law and all that. But we did not try to rewrite them in a way that would be forward looking to how we expect modify the bylaws in the future. So this was more just a looking at it, does it make sense now? This is an easy one. So the school committee is proposing to change the transportation contracts have the ability to enter into transportation for school children contracts from five years to 10 years. So all they're doing is striking five years and changing that to ten years

the one change that we are going to suggest in order to conform it with the other sections of this bylaw are to capitalize the letter Y in both instances. So, so that's the school committees Exciting stuff, I know. Okay so the next one is advisory committees which is a little bit more comprehensive.

Yeah yeah.

Just out of curiosity, Kenny, why are you capitalizing? Why in years?

So you can't see it because the rest of the bylaw is not there. But there's a list of types of contracts and it's capitalized in every other instance.

So Kenny, in the body of that motion where it says to change from five years where the Y is little, do we also?

We're not touching the motions. We're just dealing with the bylaw itself. So one example is all of that sort of in a chart. And ideally, that charts going to be moved out because nobody would really look in that particular section for that information. But we weren't gonna go try to change that now Okay, so here's the advisory's proposed bylaw change. And at a high level what this is trying to do allow for the advisory report to be distributed electronically. So I can walk through each one of these changes, but really in the first sentence what we're trying to do there is earlier in section 11 of the bylaws it uses words like, it talks about a specific report but it doesn't call it the advisory's committee report to town meeting.

It just says, the advisory is gonna provide a written report so we thought it made more sense to cross reference section 11-3 rather than use a defined term that's not actually defined anymore and then we said they shall do this, which is consistent with the other ways in which it's discussed earlier in the bylaw. I won't go through everything, we moved the provision about email earlier in this section because we wanted to state what we mean by email before we start describing what email is. So there's no substantive change there, it's just really moving it up, but the one point that I think is important is we made clear that it's for purposes of section 11.8 this is what email means because email could be used throughout the bylaws and we're not intending to change or create a definition that doesn't apply in other instances.

Again, that's an example of something where we will in all likelihood have a defined term what electronic mail means so it can be used consistently throughout the bylaws. I would say oh let's see so there's one that we added that is Is that the one, Megan? The town department except any that is notified.

I was looking for that version.

Well we said we were going to provide it in like a note

Let's see.

So I would say there's one interesting thing that was sort of policy. And so we decided to leave it out because we didn't want anybody to think we were going anywhere close to policy, so we're gonna... The way it's drafted, it says if the committee uses email delivery only, the committee shall leave one hard copy at town hall for each town meeting. In our view, the better approach would be to say that the committee will leave a sufficient number of hard copies at Town Hall so that town meeting members and department heads can have them instead of specifying if there's 240 town meeting It's sort of like a bank. You don't keep all the cash in the bank because not everybody is going to withdraw the cash, so you don't need to put 240 when you know that only 15 people or so are gonna request it.

but we thought that might be policy so we left it out and we're going to just kind of suggest that might an idea like in an email or a discussion. So any questions about those?

It sounds like lawyer heaven. I mean, how much fun are you having with this? That was a good time.

Kenny, I'd just like to raise the one sentence that refers to the select board because it says the select boards office shall mail a copy of the report to any town resident. and I asked both Megan and Casey who responded that in the past several number of years, no resident has requested a mail copy. and I wasn't sure, first I thought that maybe it wasn't appropriate for the select board to send it out. Maybe it should come from the town clerk's office or the request should go to the advisory committee but my understanding is the select board's office is happy to send out any request that comes in. So unless people have, if people have thoughts about that whether it should be under our purview or someone else's. It would be interesting to know

Can I ask you, is it possible that if this passes and a town meeting member doesn't want to come pick up the report that they'll just call the select board and ask for it to be mailed? I mean, I would think that's okay.

Isn't that essentially what it says?

I think so, I was listening to their discussion though and I think they differentiate town meeting members from residents even though all town meeting member are residents. So it's kind of like a square and rectangle

Well, advisory also will help to make copies available for town meeting members if they can who can't pick them up but this is intended for town residents who wouldn't otherwise get the whole report so that it is available to town residents who request them. That's what differentiates it. and yes, if someone calls the Select Board's office Megan said they'll send them out.

I think it's a good idea that we offer this service that if somebody would like a copy that we will give it to them

So the idea is if we vote to approve this, we will bring it back to the advisory and present this to them. And so these are the select board's comments by way of the By-law Review Committee.

I just wanted to raise a question about the wording. So, about three quarters of the way down if the committee uses email delivery only, the committee shall leave one paper copy at town hall for each town meeting member and Any that has notified the committee is who is any as a town meeting member and town department?

Tom, it's hard to see. So after town meeting member and, it says and town department except for any that has notified the committee.

Okay, I misread that piece. And my second question is for copies that are going to be picked up by town meeting members, where those going to

Right out by Town Clerk.

Then why wouldn't the town clerk mail out the, why wouldnít they handle the whole thing? I donít understand what the select boardís involved.

That was my thinking.

it's all handled by the town clerk.

But this is just saying that we don't want to change what is existent right now and no one's taking advantage of it so it's not something that's important to us or important to the select board staff. So I think when this article comes up, it's clear that the Select Board has no issues providing the residents with documentation if they so choose it. So I think that we should just stay where we are and let this fly by itself.

I don't think anyone's going to think that hard about it, Goodwill towards the Select Board Office for what they're willing to do. And I think it's an opportunity to create a more logical system I mean, I respect the bylaws decision whatever it is finally but he seems to me that's an opportunity that we should consider.

So my concern first, I completely agree that it should just be one group that handles the whole thing. I think this sort of veers towards policy. And we were trying to be very careful, especially in the first instance not to veer into that lane But what I can do is when I email advisory and say, here it is. And here's one suggestion I could say in there. Here's another suggestion as

I think that's a good idea. So we can raise it to them and they can decide this is their bylaw. Right, yeah.

I think you're more apt to blur if the intent is town meeting... If their intent is that town meeting members are not going to have the opportunity to get it mailed to them, but residents can if you put it on the town clerk to navigate that. I don't know.

Put it in an envelope and usage.

So I mean, I think there's two things Kenny started out. You know the simplistic form is that to meet the deadline advisory committee wants to be able to use email just given changes that might occur. We all know sort of the rush at the end to get the report out for any town meeting, But in addition to that, I think it's so the town clerk doesn't handle this right? So its advisory. It's really like just a location there because it's the ease of use but because advisory has their own staff now and that's in their budget in terms of the mailing. So I mean it is, it's nuance at best because of the departmental. So to Kenny's point, I think it could be a friendly amendment to say that if we get requests, we'll just mail them out and to not get into policy You could be less specific on who's going to mail it out too.

Yeah, I was thinking you could say the town.

The town, yeah. Well, the only problem with saying the town is then if someone reads the by-law they don't know who to call

and I think the more likely thing is nobody's reading the bylaw other than the people who work in the town. And then they're gonna say, well, who does it? Exactly.

I think what generally happens, and Casey says this on anything is when people are looking for something the place they stop and ask is the town clerk's office before they come up to us. I think it's just you can pass the thought on that Here's to so many of our discussion, it's up to them.

You know given the complexity of this conversation I wonder if this is going to pass?

Well the whole intent is to avoid the problems created by the mail delays. It's not the report getting to the printer that's the problem, it's the program getting it to town meeting members after it's printed in time before town meeting. So that's what this is intended to address.

Any other questions or comments? Should be great when we go through 63 of these.

That's why we're doing one at a time

I'll be retired.

So, I think we have to vote on those.

Okay, so move to approve the edits to the advisory committee's Motion language?

Proposed bylaw amendment.

Proposed By-Law Amendment Language for Special Town Meeting 2027 and the school committees proposed by-law changes for special 10 meeting 2027.

All in favor? Aye.

Marjorie, can I just clarify we're voting to support the language not the article. Exactly.

And just the amendments to the language. Exactly, the by-law review committee's proposed amendment.

I just wanted to be clear that we were not supporting the... This is not a vote on the article itself. Just the proposed language from the by law review committee.

Do you want me to add, as proposed by the Biological Review Committee, to that motion retrospectively?

As proposed by Biology Review Committee to the Select Board.

Okay I'll add that. Thank you.

Our next agenda item is to discuss and vote the Executive Director's review in merit pay. I wanted to take a few minutes to provide some preliminary comments on the extraordinary achievements that Megan has achieved this past year. Then I'll ask all other board members to add their comments, we'll then turn to the composite review and have any discussion about anything that appears in the composite review, and then we'll take a vote on the review. Megan's contract provides for up to a 3% merit increase at the board's discretion based on her performance evaluation and we'll discuss and vote that item as well. So each summer, the board creates a work plan laying out what we expect to be working on for the coming fiscal year. And at the end of the fiscal year, we review with the board and the executive director and her team have accomplished

it cannot be emphasized enough that FY26 was an extraordinary year in unanticipated developments, workload challenges and achievements. For example, Megan's list of achievements for last year is six pages long single spaced. She recruited and brought back to Wellesley Finance Director Rachel DeRoach following a period of time without a CFO, onboarding and working closely with Rachel following her arrival in October 2025. to get her up to speed right away for last year's budget planning. There were three town meetings last year, board retreats, budget summits, executive sessions and public hearings in addition to all of the board's regular meetings. Megan served as staff liaison to five other boards and committees, and coordinated major public engagement processes and meetings

related to the affordable housing trust, strategic housing plan and fire station master plan. She also also supervises the Assistant Executive Director, CFO, Facilities Director, Building Inspector, IT Director, HR Director and Police and Fire Chiefs. Drafts, select board meeting materials and weekly updates, response to select board and other board and committees as well as other public questions. Megan has also been heavily involved in every stage of the process on the proposed housing project at MassBay under the Affordable Homes Act. She's worked with the Select Board, Council, DCAM, EOHLC and MassBay to coordinate a joint presentation in September advising the board on the new AHA statute and regulations, zoning density, and local permitting authority issues.

Assisting with the presentation on the AHA for the May special town meeting and participating in executive session meetings on legal strategy. Megan worked with the select board, consultant and others to hold public meetings and finalize the strategic housing plan She served as the primary staff member to the WHDC and led the administrative efforts to transition to the Affordable Housing Trust following approval at town meeting. managed the consultant to prepare the AHT's five-year housing plan and coordinated all actions leading to the finalization of the plan in August. Working with Colette, Rachel and Joe McDonough Megan established the Townwide Capital Planning Committee now known as CAPCOM

through policy development, presentations to the board, developing a major project finance schedule and identifying the cumulative impact of town-wide facilities needs. She worked with me and others to establish the new Town By-law Review Committee, and staffs both CAPCOM and the By-Law Review Committee. Megan worked with Joe, the fire chief and assistant fire chief consultant and others through the Fire Station Master Plan conducting multi-facet analysis and evaluations assisted with the creation of public meeting and select board meeting materials, FAQs, and an initial public meeting for the residents. She worked with Rachel and the finance department staff to separate the town and school budgets for presentation at annual town meeting annualizing shared and separate department costs, and preparing motions and presentations. She worked with the HR director

to finalize the transition to a new class and compensation plan which was approved at the fall special town meeting. Established a PFAS Special Revenue Fund, serves on the West Suburban Health Group Steering Committee and helped prepare an RFP and hiring process for their new plan administrators. Megan secured design funding for the Westin-Lyndon intersection improvements, worked with Corey to initiate the Route 9 West and Road Interchange Study, and worked with the Traffic Safety Group to hire Tool Design to prepare the Wellesley Square Amenities Plan. Meagan also worked with the select board, consultants and other board members to advance the solar power projects at Hardy & Honeywell. Megan has headed all union collective bargaining sessions since they all expire this year, preparing the board with bargaining strategies, salary and cost tables, and contract language

Kola comparisons and benefit discussions. A few of the union settlements will likely be ready for special town meeting, and the others will continue into the fall. This is almost a full year's worth of work. These accomplishments are in addition to the more regular work Megan does, such as preparing the annual budget and townwide financial plan. following the development of budget guidelines, sources and uses reserve and expense projections and all meetings for the select board advisory committee town meeting in the public Smith, monitoring of all development initiatives and pending real estate proposals, and more ongoing tasks too numerous to mention. Megan is a consummate professional, and in her eighth year as the town's executive director. She manages an enormous workload that grows in complexity each year

She is tireless, widely respected, unfailingly polite responsive and optimistic creative thoughtful and always prepared Her expertise as a planner is invaluable to the board, and she draws on her years of experience to broaden the board's consideration of these multiple issues. She's dedicated to her staff and supports and promotes their learning and advancement. Megan operates at an extremely high level in a challenging and very demanding environment, and the town is extremely fortunate to have her at the helm. Her position requires a broad and polished skill set and she excels at relationship consensus building and collaborative work. She's a wonderful partner to the board, and supports our work so that we have the materials we need

to have informed discussions and make the best possible decisions. Thank you, Megan for everything you've done this year. Now I'll open it up to other board members for their comments

I'll try not to duplicate what we've heard already, but I will say that every year in the select board starts with energy and an aggressive and optimistic work plan. and before the ink is even dry on the work plan there's often additional tasks that arrive unbidden, and the town must address them. And by the end of the year I'm often exhausted. I need a refresh especially if I'm a member of the leadership team I think it's important to notice that Megan is always a member of the leadership team and there is never a respite for her. And that makes all the more impressive that you are full of energy, enthusiasm and a can-do attitude which I can tell you I thoroughly appreciate I think this year has been particularly daunting and Marjorie's pointed to a number of things that have happened but particularly with the Commonwealth section regarding Oakland Street there's just been an incredible amount of work we've had to take on

I have to say Megan you've been at the top of your game in terms of understanding the complex legal land use and constituent issues that are on hand in that issue and later on top of that all the things that Margie talked about an additional town meeting, union bargaining establishing two major committees Capcom and the bylaw review committee there's literally no chance for a respite Your summary of achievements this year, I feel it should be appended to your performance review because it's just staggering. And the fact that all that work was conducted with such a small supporting staff is truly impressive and the value to taxpayers is substantial. you should be commended for another outstanding year achieving multiple milestone goals planned and unplanned strengthening the department and adopting new technology. You're a born leader, and you're a wonderful partner to work with

As always I think the board should be cognizant of the limitations that must come into play to ensure you can continue to serve the town and always have time to take vacation, recharge, engage in professional development and remain as the towns most valuable asset. So board members must do their part to be timely, efficient and support staff streamline processes and be thoughtful about the work in the plan and the priorities. Thank you Megan.

Tom?

Megan, you returned from North Andover shortly after I came on the board and began my service. and I think it's important for us to note that over that time there has been a tremendous expansion in the role that the Select Board plays within town. There's been, in particular and expansion well beyond our essential responsibility for Article 8 and the budget. as we began to grow in areas of social interest and within the town, and within country in general. and you have had an amazing capacity to absorb all of this extra work, and to be able to execute as Marjorie and Colette said beautifully.

I do want to recognize and take a moment the work that Corey does, and all of the staff in our office. but I have to in the end give you credit for that as well in terms of your hiring and the fact that when I go up to the select board office, the clear The feeling of professionalism and the extent to which people are happy to be there working with each other, the friendships that have developed is really a significant mark of your leadership. and many people would have no reason to know that the other half of your life is a very busy family with three with three boys and who were a handful, in good ways. your husband and your family generally, and the demands on your time that they provide.

And not once have I ever felt that that's taken away from how responsive you are to the needs that we have. you are always there for a conversation. You were always there, for advice quite frankly in a situation where people may think that we give you advice and direction but I think you are constantly at the center of the decisions we make on the work plan You know, Colette mentions the work plan. What a lot of people don't realize is that the workplan is a flexible document that we review and create every year that is over and above the pages of essential core responsibilities that this office is responsible for, and you're responsible for executing. So I certainly am not going to go back down through the list that Marjorie laid out. It is just amazing every year to hear what is on that list,

but I want to thank you on a very personal level for the years that I've been on this board. Uh, I have been fortunate to work with you very closely over that time it has been an absolute pleasure and the town benefits from your work and from the person you are, and I say that about Corey and everyone in our office.

Oh, Kenny, I'm going to leave you to that cleanup because they've pretty much said everything. So I'm gonna try not to repeat anything and I think Marjorie enumerated all the accomplishments and things. For me, the most striking thing that I think we are very proud of and glad to have is that you were the linchpin you're the linchpin for us in terms of connectivity to what's going on, connectivity to information you have such a facility to know the answer or get the answer so quickly, so efficiently, so seamlessly and to lead with such confidence. and I think that inspires people around you.

And instills a sense of respect, and a belief that they too will accomplish together and the town will continue to grow achieve great things. That's an intangible talent that comes from within you, it flows out and its above and beyond all the specific accomplishments For me, the core values and the core strengths of leadership are far more important than any of the individual things. And the other piece is that you're truly unflappable. chaos could be raining and you're like it's okay we're gonna lead forward and break it down. And I think that kind of stability and reassurance We've had a lot of tricky waters. We continue to exist in tricky waters, and every time we turn around there's a new unforeseen unexpected opportunity to manage something

and I think you've taken it all in stride. So thank you for that, and I look forward to this coming year.

I don't know how much left there is to say, but I don t really have that much to say to Megan. Megan and I sat down. I handed her my review and she read it in front of me, so she knows exactly what I said in that. But what I will say is in my day job, I work at an investment firm and we invest in companies large, small and I'm able to see leadership teams in all those capacities. And I've seen good the bad great and all that. And i can say that your leadership of the town is second to none and I truly mean that. People have talked about how hard you work, I don't know if people truly appreciate in the town how much work you do but it's not just you do a ton of work, you do it incredibly efficiently. As Beth alluded to your relationships across the town allow you to get answers to questions like

I sent you something two days ago that I thought was going to be three weeks before you could possibly get it and I had it in two days. So, you know, you work hard, you're smart, you are very easy to deal with. the newest member in having very little understanding of how any of this worked before I got here. I truly appreciate the advice that you give me and say, you know, you're going the wrong direction here and here's why. So I do appreciate that. And just, I want to read something from my review because I think it's a little bit of a different spin on it I said, Megan and I don't always agree on the right approach. And we have definitely had our disagreements this year but she has never once appeared to take any of those disagreements personally which I think is not a small thing in a row when you have board with five members that have very strong opinions about things and in a town that also has a lot of very strong opinion.

And this is really a quality I respect and appreciate and you know the town is very fortunate to have you so thank you.

Well, thank you. And every year I say the same thing. I can only do what I do because of the people that work with me. The special town meeting that came up I was like on the way out the door to a 10-day vacation and was like, Corey, I think you can handle this. So we actually have a very small staff that work incredibly hard. It's sort of in the immediate select board office, but everything you've said and everything we've done this year Capcom is a perfect example with Rachel really taking the lead. I'm a member of that, but Rachel and Joe McDonough have done a lion's share of the work. And Dave Cohen has also been an integral partner much of the this year. for collective bargaining has also been besides our team members, but the HR staff has been integral in that.

So we always talk about our siloed nature in town, but really the department heads really function as a team. And I think we've had some new department heads Coa, Sahar is a good example. She's fit right into the team in terms of being a great team player and valued team player so you know I'm able to do the things I do or get the answers because we have great people that work here. and I think we are fortunate right now to really, the team has gelled incredibly well especially with Rachel DeRoche back as CFO. The finance team is has been unbelievable in assisting our small department on many of the things. And again, all of the department heads are great partners and in our office it's great to have Mary Beth there

working on things. And I can't also let it go the amount of work that you all do, it is substantial there are boards who have make policy decisions and that's it. You all are in the weeds on so many items that people don't understand how much time you put to this volunteer position You'd all get double pay on overtime, I mean in terms of the amount of hours that you put in. And anything that we generate, you have put your stamp on in terms edits and red lines and you all take the time to do that. and it's a lot of time. It's a very time consuming role to be in the select board office or on the select board to get those materials out. And so I appreciate all the thoughtful time you all put in, which is not just these meetings it's

it's probably depending upon the week you know 30 to 40 hours of your time that you put into this so for all those thinking about running in the future, be advised. So thank you. I appreciate the kind words. This is a place I look forward to coming every day I am not always cheery. This was a good week where my staff saw the bad because we got a lot to get done and some frustration, but there's no better group of people to come in start in a bad mood I said, they're like you better put your sunny disposition on to move forward. This job is very challenging but when you come to work with great people even the hard things and there are A lot of hard things that behind the scenes people may not know or how we work through them. in particular, and public safety.

And so having the people there to get through those days whether it be a win or a loss What are you going to do the next day? How we gonna get through it? Because this is a job, it never stops. Everyone knows my philosophy is how do you win? What does winning mean? This is a job, we don't make widgets here. There's no end in sight it never ends and so it's okay what's the next goal? And so we've been fortunate to be able to achieve a lot of what we set out to do and not everything and that's okay because we work for the will of the people. And so, you know, we look forward to having those conversations and I think 27th this is a challenging year but I think at the end it'll be, I think we'll have some great results.

Thank you very much. And Corey, you're such a stable and helpful partner to Megan. It's really important for her to know that you're there if she can't be there and that she has you to bounce things off. and that you are supervising others in the office, so that relieves a little bit of the responsibility for Megan. So we appreciate everything that you do as well. And thank you Tom for raising that I should have said that earlier. Are there any comments that people have on particular parts of the composite evaluation that we'd like to discuss?

There's just one comment in the goals section, and maybe this is my fault for not making it clearer. I think there's a comment to the effect that the establishment of Capcom really was more led by a board member and FMD director but there was so much pre-work, thought leadership and partnership with Megan in the very early stages and you know it's a combination of that leadership the relationships across town and the ability to delegate to the right people that got they got the the establishment of Capcom going in the right direction from the very beginning. So I would like to amend that to reflect that really it was, Megham is a critical part of it. Maybe not as high profile as Joe or

and Rachel, but in terms of thought leadership and giving direction in terms how to even begin the whole process it wouldn't have happened without Megan. I do note that a very similar process was conceived and brought forward during the period when Megan was not here, and it didn't move forward. And I think that it's leadership that makes it happen and so I wouldn't mind if you could maybe just finesse that a little bit to reflect it. Megan really was critical to that.

Okay, thank you very much Colette. Anything else? Okay, if the board is okay I will finesse it as Colette said and make it clear that Megan did a lot of the pre-work may not have been quite as visible. but showed extreme thought leadership leading up to the actual implementation of creating the Capcom itself. All right. In light of all of our comments and everything that Megan has achieved this year, I would like to propose that the merit increase be the full 3%, and I'd like board input on that as well.

I agree. I strongly support that.

I also strongly support it.

I agree too.

So moved to approve the executive director's performance evaluation as amended and to authorize a merit increase of 3%.

Second.

All in favor? Aye. Can we say that again, all in favor. Aye. Thank you Megan, thank you for everything. We're really very lucky that you're here to work with us. We are going to postpone the minutes of September 8th and September 15th. We do have a review that we will see, Corey will share those are all amendments with us and we will take them up next week. Cycling through... Yep. Our next agenda item is to discuss and vote two CAPCOM project proposal forms the first for Wellesley Square reconstruction and Weston Road and Linden Street intersection reconstruction. So I'll turn that over to Colette.

So they were circulated in the packet. There are some minor amendments that Sheila and I made today. Mine were just really typos, but Sheila's were a little bit more substantive that maybe we can bring up and show the board, but these are prepared by Dave Cohen. These have been reviewed and approved by the Board of Public Works and we're co-sponsoring these so we should review and approve these as well any edits board members have we're open to that one thing we should consider it's our responsibility as we have multiple projects in the chain here is to identify which is our priority here the Board of Public Works identified the Wellesley square reconstruction as their priority and the way that they program things and the order things are programmed in reflects their priority So we really should think about between these two projects, which is our priority. I think from my perspective they're both high priority and you know i think there's

and the capital plan is always subject to change, so sometimes things come around like we need maybe to do more time for public engagement. So some things move around based on that but we should talk about what our priorities are but if Megan, if you can just there were only two I would say There's one amendment by Sheila in the consequences of delay. And I think this is in the Wellesley Square reconstruction Sheila had added that continued deterioration creates adverse conditions for those that are mobility impaired so when the sidewalks aren't great or there's a lot of pieces of equipment in the sidewalk. It's hard when you have a wheelchair or a walker to navigate that, especially if there are the tree roots come up and things like that, if that goes on for too long that can have an effect so Sheila added that which I agree with. And I think there was one other ad in this one, I think it was a Complete Streets

if it wasn't in here as in the other one there were just two small amendments that Sheila made. The amendment I had was purely typographical, it was a name at the top of the form

there was just this other, these very minor.

Beth? So Colette I had a couple edits. One is around why this project is needed, and I think there's also in addition to the infrastructure piece it is harder and harder to attract businesses to towns to set up storefronts and to the extent that we continue to allow the town to deteriorate cosmetically, and from an infrastructure perspective it becomes harder to maintain the vitality for the landlords to get the rents that are demanded by the taxes that they owe and to really get the right mix of shops downtown. So, that was one piece I thought and I'll defer to you on how to word it, but I do think there's a vitality in attracting both businesses

and I think Sheila probably attracted the shoppers because of the mobility piece. piece that I thought was, can you go to consequences of delay? I think that is another place we could put the vitality because We have deferred this project for five plus years. I mean, like the first planning outreach we did was four and a half years ago when we had initial plans so Dave Cohen, at that point as I recall really felt the street and sidewalks were past their prime. And had been holding off so I think we have stretched this far beyond

Useful Life. I'll expand on it, it just says loss of competitive advantage for the merchants and there is more than one place where they talk about...

It's in a few places but I do think that a meaningful consequence of delay because not only do you have the erosion of the attractiveness and the vitality of the town, but there's a period where we're going to be kind of offline during this work. it's just those are my comments about I'm happy to add them and strengthen that so that was the Wellesley Square and then the West St. Lyndon So, could I ask you in terms of the area? It may not go in this proposal. but I would like us to include in this how to improve the connectivity between Washington Street and Central Street, and look at the central park which I know is part of the project.

but I think now more than ever that connectivity with the Taylor Block in flux is really important.

I do believe they talk about that in the forum, but again...

It was just kind of... I think the timing of the developments that are impending makes it really important.

That was a huge portion of the RFP and why we reissued it after getting only one response to the initial one because we thought Testa, Ulfelder, Wellesley, Councilor Jop, Largess, Sullivan Woods, Testa the submission lacked creativity and Beth to your point specifically in that area because feedback we've gotten from board members from merchants was missing and it was something we critically thought would be a priority. So that also was highlighted in the RFP, and Toole, we thought addressed it really well.

I'm happy to add in. And my last question is, this seems to me to be a significant economic engine project and I think the select board should be co-sponsoring it.

We are.

I just didn't see it on there. I heard you allude to it, but it's a Board of Public Works project and to me that's more roadways and less vitality.

It is co-sponsored and it's marked that way in Capcom. So the Western at Linden, the one edit that Sheila made was in strategic alignment. She noted that the Complete Streets Prioritization Plan had prioritized that intersection as number two on the plan So that was her edit there. I'm confirming the construction phase request at 2027 ATM. I do believe that's how it is currently scheduled, but I am confirming that with Dave otherwise I had a small edit to the title and that was it.

In terms of priority, I had a question about how this dovetails with any Sighting of the Fire Station and it seems to me, I don't know where its going to end up in terms of fire station sightings but if this proceeds that placement, it seems like we might have missed an opportunity to look at road widths turning slip lanes things that might become more important with significant equipment. And so I would defer to the committee on that, but I think there has to be a logic flow so that the investments support each other.

Well, I would think that they will have that in mind when they're looking at this intersection. And as we know the vehicles already go through that intersection so it's a high priority for making that intersection safer from multiple perspectives but I will certainly take that comment to Dave.

To that end, the reference to Complete Streets if you could go back to that is not very specific. And given the purpose of this work, I want to be sure that is not seeking to impose attributes that Complete Streets advocate for that will narrow the actual roadway. So I think we have to be very careful whether, certainly we've seen what the reaction has been to changes on Central Street. and how the merchants have responded to any decrease in parking, any narrowing of that street. We saw that Needham and what the final outcome was. And I think we need to learn from that, but it's the same thing here if the whole issue is to widen the center section

more easily navigated I think we have to be very careful by what we actually mean.

I do believe this is more than the, when Sheila did the public engagement on this. This intersection got so many public comments for the safety and so improving the safety of that intersection for pedestrians, walkers and people trying to cross the road there. I think that's what it is about but I will confirm with Sheila and put more information in there.

edit the language and say instead of saying prioritizes number two in the plan, say something to the effect of it was the identified as the second highest ranked or prioritized location on the Complete Streets Prioritization Plan as an area of concern, because number one was the Fells intersection. So to Colette's point, I hear what you're saying Tom because they think people here complete streets and they think one thing about our efforts in that area. But to Colete's point what Sheila really was is trying to say here out of that whole mapping of the entire town, we got tons of responses to Fells and then close number two was this intersection. So she just wanted Capcom to be aware of that. So maybe we can just tinker with the language a little bit. to provide more context.

I'll work with you on that

Collette, in the cost and funding assumptions it looks to me that the cost estimate among the plans we're looking at is handled differently. One may have a cost assumption for the current phase and one may have for the entire project. How does Capcom figure in the cost of the requested phase and the total project cost to figure out how to, and when to fund it.

Well, what we ask for is total project costs and the current phase costs. So you know we just got these forms this past week and I'll just go through and do an audit to make sure that when we're seeing total project costs, and we've got both the project and the current fees. I'll make sure that's on them both.

Are you making adjustments in the escalation given the current economic outlook on some of the materials that drive asphalt, etc. ?

So we talked about that last night. So right now, the escalation is at 4.5%. It can vary and so sometimes it goes up and sometimes it was down. That's what they put in right now for a reasonable estimate but these forms or these numbers would be re-evaluated every year so if there's a significant increase they'll look at that but what David said is actually the bids they've had in recently have been more competitive and they've been happy with the bid that came in so it was you know advantageous bids people are hungry for work they do their best they can to have an escalation assumption that's reasonable and they take into account the factors you're talking about.

I will say we have no lack of professional input on that figure in particular. I've been involved with enough building projects long enough to know it's a key point that's discussed frequently in between FMD and Tom Gohmert, people on the PBC. We seem to have been accurate over time on that projection.

Just one thing you said, Colette. You're asking us to prioritize? Yes. So between these two?

Yeah, so we have to say it is part of the guidance from Capcom. We're asking proponents if you have more than one project what's your top priority? the Board of Public Works sees Wellesley Square as a top priority and then it sees Linden at Weston as a high safety priority for both the board of public works in the select board. So they're asking Capcom to put it on construction phase funding for 2027 ATM. We should talk about what do we feel the priorities are

so we're in a little different position because we have multiple projects above and beyond these um so how should we be thinking about these two sort of in isolation as compared to all of the projects that we would be looking to prioritize.

So I do tend to think about them in two different buckets. So, I think about the capital building projects and the civil site projects because they're just such order of magnitude differences and so some of these projects could be financed through borrowing inside the levy. Wellesley Square is big enough that it might actually be a debt exclusion, I think that's the current plan So I tend to think of them very differently from that perspective. I do think our biggest capital building, the most important thing for us is the fire station. These are just an order of magnitude different and so I tend to rank the capital, the civil site ones separately. So in terms of civil site, what do we think is our top priority?

and the other thing for prioritization might just be timing so we are just in the midst it's another public meeting coming up October 14th I should have added that dang it LeBlanc, for Wellesley Square Amenities Project. We think that likely would the I think the earliest that would go, because we're in the design phase now, would be fall 2027. So within the FY28 budget... and that will depend on obviously the public hearing processes for that. It's slightly more complex in terms of all of the different elements from the street design sidewalk, the amenities lighting landscaping to the intersection, which is somewhat more straightforward. So I just call it out that timing might get skewed a little bit

So it might be annual 28 that we ultimately end up requesting that, which allows them to for FY28 and 29, it could be top priorities depending upon what years they hit.

Is it possible that there's a place to bifurcate the Wellesley Square project, to accelerate some component of it to show progress downtown. You know, I would think I'm way out of my element, but I would think redoing the road is different than the sidewalks. And some of the things that have that immediate eye pop and impact on pedestrian safety, I appeal for retail as IPA. So like for me, I could see spreading the cost over a couple years.

It might be able to be phased. I think it's too early to tell at this point, but and certainly given the multitude of roads that are part of that we have in terms of the design phase broken into two different phases so construction phase could be in two different phases.

I'm not at all sure Dave Cohn would agree with us on that. There's a ripple effect, so if he's going to Reconstruct that road surface is going to affect. He's gonna have to know where the curbing is going and that's going to impact how you're going to place the amenities and utilities to those amenities in the sidewalk surface. I think it would cost more to do it that way, and I think he would tell us It's all or nothing on this project because it's all interrelated. And I think he's concerned, because he's looking at the road surface and he has had this delayed for a number of years versus the road surface at Linden and Weston. To some of us, we're looking at the safety issue over there. So that to me is really

the major concern is what about the safety and the public identification of the safety issues over there versus further deterioration of the road surface on Central Street.

I think one thing to think about Tom, I respect that lens. The sidewalk and the crosswalks are, they offer meaningful tripping hazards. I don't know how else to put it but it's... difficult in large areas of downtown. And I think Dave Cohen would say there's a lot of work to be done. He's been amazing, DPW has been amazing removing trees and trying to kind hold steady while we get a plan together, but I think we may get past the point of a good place quickly.

And we can report back on that. We have a meeting coming up actually next week, next Tuesday with the consultant so we can

It's also hard for us to kind of slot different projects in that another department is proposing because there are more questions than just cost, public safety, department bandwidth. how long the phases will take. So to your point, if something's gonna go later than earlier we might agree that should go earlier. If it's a more serious public safety issue We might want to have that go earlier if it's possible. It might not be possible, so all of those things have to be in the consideration but I think the feedback is very helpful.

So can I ask Colette to your kind of different buckets? The war memorial, is that not a Capcom project because it's under the budgetary guideline? Because I don't think we've seen a sheet on that.

So that is, I think we need to understand what's happening with air conditioning before we can really talk about that because if you know and maybe Megan you can talk about a little bit more but

If the AC is accelerated, the war memorial would be kicked off at least a year because they wouldn't have capacity to do it.

But shouldn't it have a project sheet? It's under the... In the queue, have a sheet go... is it going to Capcom or not?

It's under the two million as we bifurcated. So, we haven't done the design yet so if we do the design and it comes in higher than 2 million but right now each combined, it was $3 million for the two different sites. So if we bifurcate them, it wouldn't actually go to Capcom. Okay, great. But just as a point of reference, if the school AC is except that project would be delayed at least a year?

So from my perspective, I think they're both very high priorities. And I think in some ways the machinations of the projects moving forward might determine the timing more than our priority. So I do understand that Wellesley Square is further along, and we've invested a fair amount of time and money in that. that maybe has an edge on the intersection at Weston and Linden. But I think that's almost equally high priority. There's a hair in it, but I think honestly events are going to take their course and they're gonna be decided for us.

I support these, but I'm not comfortable prioritizing right now because I don't know what the universe of other stuff that we have to look at is.

Is that helpful feedback? Yeah, that's helpful feedback. Thank you. Okay we're going to... Can we move to approve these?

Oh yes, sorry. So if I might Move to approve the project proposal forms for Wellesley Square reconstruction and Western Road and Linden Street intersection reconstruction.

Second

All in favor? Aye.

Okay, we're going to skip over the chair's report. We're getting close on time before the all board meeting and We did not meet with advisory or school committee this week. School committee is not meeting this week, advisory's meeting tomorrow they will take up air conditioning and the citizens petition on air conditioning So we will move to the executive session. I request a motion to enter into executive session with respect to negotiations with the Wellesley Patrol Officers Association as well as to conduct strategy with respect to litigation with Albany Road Wellesley LLC.

Move to enter executive session under Mass General Law, Chapter 30A subsection 21 A3. To conduct strategy with respect to negotiations with the Wellesley Patrol Officers Association and to conduct strategy with respect to litigation with Albany Road, Wellesley LLC. And to invite Executive Director Megan Jopp, Assistant Executive Director Corey Testa, Human Resources Director Dolores Hamilton Town Council Tom Harrington and Police Chief Scott Whittemore to join the meeting. Following the close of executive session, the board will return to open session for the sole purpose of adjourning the meeting Second

Kenny, Collette, Tom, Beth and I vote aye as well. Thank you very much everyone we will our next meeting after tonight and after the Charette on Thursday is next Tuesday October 6th