2026-10-06 - Select Board

Recording in progress. Okay. It is 6 p.m. on Tuesday, October 6, 2026. I call the select board meeting to order. Please join me in a in a pledge of allegiance. Pledge to the flag of the United States

of America and to the republic for which it stands. One nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. I'm going to read the hybrid meeting statement. Pursuant to Governor Healey's

directive of extending temporary open meeting law provisions until June 30th, 2027, the select board meeting will be conducted in a hybrid format and will be recorded. Any person in attendance making

an audio or video recording of this meeting must notify the chair at this time. Recordings will be accessible on the town's website and YouTube channel. Please be aware participants attending via Zoom

will have their video and audio disabled. If you wish to engage in the discussion, raise your hand. If the chair acknowledges you, you will receive a pop-up message allowing you to unmute yourself.

For agenda, YouTube, and Zoom links, please visit www.sutenmma.gov. Okay. Could I do a roll call, please? Jesse Lmanic, physically present. Adam Marta, physically present. Watkins, present. Spangler,

present. And Jonathan Anderson, in person. Sure, I can help with this. Pretty funny. >> She's had a voter. Yeah. Siri always sticking her nose into things. All right. As we all check to make sure ours

are off. Oh, wait, wait, wait. Did I say myself? Yeah, I said mute. Yeah. All right. Uh, public forum. So, limited to three minutes per person. Max time public forum is 15 minutes. Anybody here for

public forum? All right. Anybody on Zoom? Okay. Next, we'll do the minutes. Uh, Mr. Chairman, if I may, I'd like to make a motion to accept as presented the minutes from our September 22nd, 2026 uh,

select board meeting. I'll second those. Okay. Any other discussion? Okay. Roll call vote, please. Jessa Manic, I. Edarn, I. Watkins, I. Spangler, I. And Anderson, I. All right. Next on the agenda is

uh appointment to zoning board of appeals associate Russell Longendorfer. Come on up. Hello. Good evening. Good evening. Uh Russell Longorfer Adelana Drive. All right. Just tell us a little bit about

why you want to join the uh ZBA. Uh sure. So um citizen of the town looking to get involved. um and to kind of lend some of my spare time uh to the town. Uh there was an appointment available. So I

put my hat in. I think I got about maybe 200 applications or something like that and I somehow rose to the top. Um so uh excited to start showing up, learning how the board works and uh uh going from

there. Great. Thank you. I was going to open up to the board if they have any questions for you. So who'd like to go first? Yeah. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. How you doing? Well, thank you. How are you?

Oh, very good. Thank you. Uh, so I appreciate your uh your willingness to step up. I mean, obviously all our boards are volunteer-based. You know, it's very important uh so that we can conduct the

business of the town by having volunteers willing to step up. Um, but um, looking at your background, um, do you have any experience zoning or any issues along those lines? This would be my first. Oh,

all right. Um, this is a huge learning curve. um the ZBA, Concom, you know, those are very technical boards. Um so get ready to roll up your sleeve and uh learn some things. There you go. There you

go. Well played. Well played. Um other than that, again, just just be mindful of obviously, you know, the duties and responsibilities uh to the town. You know, ultimately um when you're new to such

positions, you it's it's really hard to keep in the back of your mind. you're making decisions not based on what you necessarily think is right, but you always got to kind of focus on the well-being

of the community, and that's sometimes hard to do. But, uh, if you're willing to do that and and learn and listen, I think you do a great job. So, I wish you luck, of course, provided all my

colleagues, uh, vote for you. Yep. And I think uh, this is for an associate position, which I think is a a good entry point, too. So, I would not be a voting member, at least not initially. Great.

Thank you. All right. So, first things for volunteering. Um, if you had the proverbial magic wand and could make changes to uh the mass law 40b, what changes would you make, if any? That's a pretty

loaded question. Um, probably to be rewritten to better suit the needs of municipalities and uh to better address the housing crisis in the state. any how would you Okay, so if you imagine wave a

magic wand and and address the housing needs of town, what would that look like? Uh that's not really what my board position is going to be about. Um if I had my way, I would uh have more housing

available in the state. Okay. All right. Magic wand. What does Sutton look like in 2050? Beautiful place, just like today. All right. Okay, I'm good. All right. Hi. Hi. Nice to see you again. Thank

you. You, too. I'm I'm really glad that you're stepping on to a another board in a in a volunteer role. It was great campaigning against you. So, I don't know if many of you remember he ran for select

board and uh it's great to see you coming on to another board and still wanting to be involved. Um I think you have a lot to offer. Um it was great getting to know you and I think you'll be a great

fit. I think you're really mindful. I think you listen and um I hope you do really well. Thank you. So, thank you. Uh no questions. Just I think a lot of uh to to follow up on that that 40B question.

I think a lot of the angst in some of the Sutton residents is that a lot of the laws that are passed down that fit very well with in certain larger communities um perhaps need to be pushed back a

little bit. Maybe that's the wrong word. Um adjusted to fit uh rural towns like Sutton. So, I just hope that that's kept in mind with zoning going forward is there's it's not just always going

straight to whatever is being passed on the hill, but pushing back when necessary to make sure that it fits in with our town. Yeah, that sounds like the ZBA is is one of the few mechanisms we have to

push back with. So, I will certainly keep that in mind. All right. Thank you. All right. Well, again, just want to thank you for being willing to volunteering and it's a great way to get to know the

town. I was on the planning board, so for when I first started and um gave me a lot of depth of understanding of the laws, so this will be equally uh educating as far as how the town runs. So, this is

a great way to um to get to know. So, thank you for your willingness to run. Thank you very much. All right. All right. You're entertaining motions. Yep. I will make a motion to appoint Russell

Longadorfer as an associate member to the zoning board of appeals. Have a second. I'll second that. All right. Any discussion? All right. Roll call vote, please. Jesse Manic, I Edomar. I, Watkins, I,

Spangler, I, and Anderson I. Congratulations, everybody. All right. Next is Waters Farm Day. An update from Paul Schaefer. I brought my twin, the other Paul. Paul and Paul, Paul Kever, Oxbridge Road,

something all done. 124 Singleary app. I I can't believe that it's uh it seems like it was just yesterday that I came before you guys to announce what we were going to do for the year this year. And

we even exceeded what we what we talked about back way back in May, I think it was. Was it May? March, March, May, April, May, somewhere in there. That was warmer. It was definitely warmer. So, we're

here here to announce uh uh our annual farm days, which is October 17th and 18th. Um I'm looking forward to seeing each of you on Saturday, except for one I know who's going to be very busy. Yeah. U

volunteering at the farm because we we are we are we need volunteers and so I'm hoping that you guys will be able to step forward and spend a couple of hours with us. Um, we're expecting to exceed uh

the the number of cars in the car show. So, maybe 500 cars. Our goal is to try and get to 500 cars this year instead of 450. Wow. Um, the tractor pole uh run still runs from 25 to 30, sometimes 40

tractors. So, they can start pulling at uh 10:00 and could still could still be pulling at at 5:00 in the afternoon. The kids area is is uh is growing for the children's activity. The animal showcase

uh um under uh the leadership of Paul and Danielle Wentz. Um I think it's going to be fabulous this year. And uh we've got some community groups that are going to have some tents as well. We've kept

the pricing the same so that there's no change for that. And uh look forward to seeing everybody. And I'm also praying that my weather right now I'm five for five in terms of years of no rain on farm

days. I looked at the long range weather forecast and Saturday morning does not look good, but we'll get through it. So, I I I brought my brother Paul along uh because uh uh the farmer is going to be

hosting a new event on Saturday night to help us get through to help us get through the night. And we're quite excited about it and he's here to tell you more about that. So, our third annual

illuminated tractor parade ride has been moved to Waters Farm. Um, with the play and and the Oh my Gord stuff actually ending before dark, it didn't make sense to try and shoehorn all that. So, we're

going to try and grow farm. We're going to reopen the farm at 6 p.m. People can come. Um, we're going to have some music on the DJ stand that where the carpool is. We're going to um have a couple fire

pits for people just for ammonian. Um and then at 7 o'clock we're going to have a line of lit up decorated tractors come up out of the woods, go around the farm, back down taking a left back down

Waters Farm Road and disappear back into the woods. So I'm thinking it's going to be a fabulous fabulous experience. I think it's going to be an improvement and we're hoping to hit 40 tractors. So

awesome. That's our That's our goal for our new third annual That's our new event. That's our new event for Waters Farm. Third annual for for us. Great. I'm going to open it up. We're going to miss

you at Oh My Gourd, but I know the daylight shift due to the high school play um was causing some issues. Hard to be lit up. Yeah, they moving trunk or treat, everything got shifted around, but I

think it's going to be a great fit there. Uh that's a perfect location for it. And thanks Paul for all you do. And FYI, I'll still be there on Friday helping out. Okay. Very good. And just one other

thing, did you end up getting the occupancy for the visitor center? We're still uh they the the ma the masons finished the stone fireplace inside I think Saturday. And uh the plumbers and the

electricians are working very quickly. And the flooring I think is I think the flooring started today. Cool. So, we're hoping to have just a temporary use permit for for the farm days just just to

open the doors and let the people come in and see what we the progress we've made so far and uh uh help us get to our goal during the rest of the year. But it's uh it's it's amazing how much it it

looks inside. It's fabulous. Are you still fundraising for that? Are you still short? Absolutely. How much are you short? Do you know? I'm going to say in the range of 200 to $400,000 and we've spent

over a million so far. Wow. Thank you for improving the farm. You're welcome. All right. Thank you. Anybody else? Now, just just a thank you and just a reflection that if I think back I don't know 30

years ago when uh Bud Gurnie, Pam's father, and you know, Wally Johnson, a bunch of other people got Waters Farm Day going uh versus Farm Days. I mean, it's just an amazing how how it's improved over

the years. I mean, last year we had uh cars from New Hampshire and Vermont and Rhode Island, Connecticut. So, just was drawing people from all around. So, I think that's great. Um, awesome to see the

uh the tractor parade at night. Only tactical thing just for context for people, I I always volunteer to do parking, but parking at night might just be a little challenging. So, just won't have to

think that through. You're going to have the nice red vest on the glows in the dark. You'll be fine. There you go. So, uh, so that's all good. Um, only other thought, just because obviously we're the

board that that hands out liquor licenses. I always wonder like should we ever consider a a um responsible beer tent? I see Paul holding his face. Not not suggesting that idea, but that's just a

thought for making, you know, Waters Farm Days interesting, but guess that might be a little too interesting. So, all right, I'm good. It's property. Yeah. Yep. Insurance liability. I see Jesse's face

on that one, so I can imagine. It's not allowed under our bylaws. Okay. Alcohol on town property. There we go. All right. I'm good to go. All right. Thanks, Jim. Can we secede from the town for 48

hours? If you do that, we're going to let Oxford take you. Hi, Paul. Hi, Jess. Hi, Paul. How you guys doing? We're doing great. Uh this is always a very exciting time in Sutton as we get around to

farm days and as you mentioned you know now we have other groups involved. We got Omar Gourd and you know activities and stuff down the school. So it's definitely an exciting time and uh I always look

forward to it. Um I will do everything that I can to show up and help out any way that I can. I I actually put farm days in in my calendar months ago, but of course, as you know that I wear multiple

hats and I do have other activities, but I will make an appearance and I will help out any way that I can while I'm there as always. Um, if anything other than, you know, the illuminated tractor um

parade, anything else really new, anything that really caught your attention this year that people could look forward to? Uh not from I I thought we couldn't beat last year. So it um I'm I'm actually

thankful that we're having the tractor parade that as an as in I know that uh uh our vice president and Apple Chris Maven Norma and Roy Dutter who is a judge for the car show. There is a competition

between the two of them as to which one is going to raise more funds for the day. Ah, well, I can't I don't know if I can help out with the car show, but I definitely will be helping Norma out. That's

for sure. Um, I I I I appreciate everything that you and your group does. This is truly a special event. And, um, I know so many people when they think of Sutton, they think of farm days. So, um, if

there's somebody watching, and after all, this is the most viewed television program on cable access during this time slot. If there was someone sitting at home and they would like to volunteer, how

would they go about contacting you? They go uh I would recommend that they go to watersfarm.org our website and there are there is a a section for volunteers and if they go to that click on that then

they can send us the information and we will gladly sign them up and through the same website because Christine asked about donations is possible for members of the community to make donations through

the website. same website. All right. Or or you can go to Waters Farm Preservation, Inc. on Facebook. Okay. Perfect. Perfect. Anything else you'd like to add? No. Well, thank you. I'm going to be very

excited to be there. We'll see you soon. Thank you. Glad to have you there. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you. You want to say anything? I'm good. Thank you. I'm usually there as a as a spectator,

but I'll be there helping this year. Are you good at handling traffic? We were caring. We are look. We are looking. I don't I don't want to take anybody's red vest, but we'll come up with something.

Good. We got a yellow one, too. All right. All right. Well, my colleagues have said it all. Um, thank you very much for coming forward and bring this to us every year and allowing us to ask you

questions so we can get this out to the public and very good. Look forward to it. So, thank you. You're welcome. All right. Have a good evening. You too. You too. Take care. All right. Next on the

agenda is legal council consent regional intermunicipal agreement animal control. Uh good evening board members. Um so just uh just a little background on this. Um the uh police chief and I and police

chiefs in attendance can also answer any questions you may have. Um have been uh discussing animal control operations for for some time now. Um within the FY2027 budget, we actually changed the

reporting structure from the animal control officer reporting to the town manager to uh to the police chief. So you also saw that just an overall budget alignment, but the reporting duties also

changed uh to the police department. Um we've been trying to explore uh I think and we've talked about this a lot several different options to provide services uh not only to continue to provide

quality services but if there's an opportunity to enhance services but also um see if there's ways to leverage um any um any reductions in cost as well. Uh we have an existing relationship with the

town of Oxbridge for our opioid funds. Uh we had a conversation with Chief Montman um about potentially joining their regional animal control operation that they've had in existence for many years

now. They actually when they started up this program, they actually approached Sutton and for whatever reason the town at the time decided not uh to pursue that um arrangement. So um this is something

we'd like to explore um potentially joining that operation. There's a few different benefits from a staffing perspective, but also uh the service that's provided. They actually have their own uh

kennel. Right now, we have kind of several different contractual arrangements uh with nearby vendors. Uh we contract separately with our animal control service, but also with a a kennel operation. So,

um after discussion with the police chief, this is an opportunity we'd like to explore to officially uh potentially join the Blackstone Valley Readal Animal Control. Um, this currently serves the

towns of Blackstone, Douglas, Hopedale, Mend, Milville, and Oxbridge. Oxbridge is the lead community. Uh, the reason why this document is in front of you is is KP Law. Our town council also serves as

town council to Douglas, Hopedale, Milville, and Oxbridge. And under the rules of professional conduct, um, we have to receive permission to be able to continue these discussions and and draft an IMA.

um uh so that there isn't any appearance that there's a a conflict of interest. We don't believe there is. Uh this is a kind of a simple paperwork um process here to add Sutton as a party and any cost

allocation to the agreement. Um but this just allows us to continue those discussions and then come back to the board with uh the draft IMA. Happy to answer any questions about this or animal control

as well. Forgive my ignorance, but what what does it mean? What is it? You said Oxbridge is the lead. What does lead mean? So, they're the host community, right? So, they serve as the fiscal agent.

The uh staff that serve all towns are actually Oxbridge employees. Um so, you know, they serve as a fiscal agent. So, we would be paying the town of Oxbridge, for example, for the service through the

IMA. No different than the uh agreement that we joined with the town of Ox uh town of Douglas for the conservation agent. Douglas is the lead or host community for that regional agreement. And we have

IMAS um in the public health arena as well, of which we're pay. Yeah, we're the lead community for that one. Y we also share VSO as well. Yep. Correct. Anybody else have any questions? Um I'm assuming

I I mean obviously I know we're we're contemplating allowing KP Law to to engage in representation. Um but once you manage to negotiate all the terms and conditions then we can get a little more

specificity on on how this is going to work. Yeah, you'll get the the language of the IMA and then surely I think we can also probably ask Chief Monty to come and present um the program as well uh

alongside Chief Coloro why we think it makes sense. Uh certainly if the chief wants to add anything about why we're looking to go in this direction. I think we kind of summarized it but um but when we

have a document to be presented in front of you, we will definitely bring that back. Yeah. And uh the town manager did a great job in giving you an overview of what we're looking at. So looking

fiscally at every single dollar that we're spending um this current program, although adequate right now, our current program with the acco it it currently works, but there's no growth. There's no way

to grow the services going forward without costing an an astronomical amount more money. So, this is no different than the same path we're taking with with regionalizing dispatch where we're trying to

get with our our communities that we touch and getting the most bang for our buck out of the money. Um, and this I in talking to uh the Oxbridge chief in depth um the the people that that that they've

hired already, I'm very familiar with them. I had hired the same individual when I worked at Winsaka to backfill there um as a secondary in place. the they they provide a lot of services that we are

currently like peacemealing financially in one in one lump sum. Um and again it it it increases our ability to grow the service as well. So it's not just it's not just for a dog or a cat. It's for any

if if there are any type of animals that are in the roadways on our roadways. we this acco function can take those animals off the street without us having to call in highway or us physically dragging

these animals off into the woods. So it it's it's really going to fill a lot of blocks that we're missing right now and I think it's just something that's bit that's inevitable with the growth of the

town over the past 15 20 years. It's just a better fit for us going forward. Um but as soon as we get everything on paper for sure I'll absolutely invite the chief Oxbridge in. He's got a real good

handle on this because they they were the ones that kind of invented it like, "Hey, we can do this better. We can share kennel services. We'll never never possibly be in a position to build our own

kennel. We just they just did this in the city that I left. It cost I think we're just shy of $7 million to have an acco facility um to support the city and and everybody with with their pit bulls.

the uh where here we don't generally have that issue because of how the the houses are separated and most of our animal control issues are roaming dogs. But this is a way better fit as we go forward.

It's just a it's a progressive growth thing that we're we've had to look into and we've been researching this for the better part of four months, five months, but I've been looking at it since I got

here 18 months ago as because it was it was odd and we had talked about it when he came town manager that that acco didn't fall into the police department. So, we've had to kind of baby step along to

get this stuff aligned so that we can get a better service out to the out to the town. Just a couple comments from my perspective. So, regarding the KP law potential conflict of interest thing, I

don't see any. So, I'm good with that issue. We can move on from that. But the um um regarding the idea of sharing costs and doing this, great job. I mean, I really appreciate the thinking of how we

share costs between different regions and such with the with this one in particular. There's probably something to be said about being proximate. I mean, there's a a timeliness, right? there's you you

don't want to have a animal control officer who's a couple towns away if there's something unique and specific happening like that requires more immediate attention. So just in the service level

agreements just give that some thought right having a centralized kennel makes a ton of sense but being able to respond to some sort of animal issue in a quick time manner might be good and then I

guess the other thought is how do we actually charge for this or bill for it because that's uh it's like what is the actual denominator that we charge x dollars per what per population per household

per registered dog per incident of bear per I mean there's there's a whole bunch of ways you know and without knowing the specifics I can just say from from prior experience, my previous community, we

also were the lead community for animal control, it was by population. Mhm. Um, and that's pretty much the easiest way to do it. There are some towns that get really complicated with it with the

amount of calls or 50% calls, 50% population. In in this case, um, I would assume it's by population. It's probably the easiest way. So then they they take that percentage across uh the entire animal

control budget and that's your quarterly allocation. So that's good for us because the population doesn't necessarily account for the wild animal issues. So we'll get a benefit on that. Yeah. Yep.

Good. No comments. No comments. One question I have just around like large animals like you know cows and horses and things like that. Do they have the capacity to handle that or they have they this

current structure has no restriction. And so we would call them if there was an issue with if there was an issue that we couldn't handle and I really don't know that that hurdle is never going to get

met to be honest with you. But um we we have access to them for anything that's related to animals. Paul Dunn has capacity for the large animals and there's a cattle pound down the hill. Yeah. Revive

that. I I think the service also u provides an opportunity to provide for a backup for our animal inspector duties which typically falls under the board of health. Um it's always good to have backups.

Um so you think of things like barn inspections, those are typically um duties that are performed by the animal inspector. So uh I believe talking with the Oxbridge chief, he he also mentioned that

this is a service that they can provide. I think we're pretty satisfied with that service for now, but an opportunity to have that as a backup, too. And then you get into the factor, too, with the

liability of dog bites. Um that's starting to become an incredibly complex issue. Not that it happens here frequently, but when it does, um, the liability that's involved in it between homeowners

insurance and the person that got bit and whether they were in a work status and not a work status, the the followup to that, this the the the acco that we're going to be shifting to has an incredible

amount of knowledge in that area and writes an incredible um, report to support what's going on so that we're not in a situation where we're reporting things about a K9 that we don't really know

nothing about. So that's and that's happened honestly recently in town twice within the past month. We've had uh people bitten and it it it becomes a public records kind of nightmare where we're

trying to give fact out that we don't really have the knowledge to give out. So having somebody that can come here and produce that kind of product, it helps the town and it cuts us out of the

liability of of the document and what happened and and whether the dog has to be quarantined or not quarantined or self- quarantined or not. So there's a lot that goes into that piece of it. So this

this again it this this is going to have a lot of potential for growth um which it needs from where it is right now and that that's only going to be a better end product for the town. Does the current

um acco um just serve Sutton or are they multiple towns as well? I think he does Melbourne. Not anymore. No, I think he's just us now. Okay. North Bridge. Yeah, maybe North Bridge, too. Okay. Any

other questions? I'm I'm going to save him for when we we actually have the agreement in front of us. Okay. All right. Do we have a motion? Um yes. I'll make a motion to approve the select board chair

sign the determination and consent for multiple representation by KP Law for the regional animal control officer intermunicipal agreement IMA between the towns of Blackstone Douglas Hopedale Menden

Millville Oxbridge and Sutton. I'll second that. All right. Any other discussion? Roll call vote please. Jesse Lmanai, Edmar I Watkins I Spangler I and Anderson I. Thank you. Thank you. Thanks chief.

All right. Next is the FY2028 budget discussion. All righty. go this way this time. All right. So, uh it's amazing we are already uh we're already here um talking about FY2028. Uh feels like yesterday

we were just uh at town meeting talking about FY2027 and and very quickly the summer uh the summer is gone and we're talking about fun stuff like budgets and capital plans. So, uh, what I want to do

is is take some time to talk about the, um, where we are, um, in terms of closing out on FY 2026 and then where we're expected things to go, um, for the next fiscal year, which is, uh, 2028. Uh,

obviously, at the upcoming town meeting, we're going to make some slight modifications to the FY2027 budget, which I think we've spent some time to discuss. So, I won't be covering FY2027 tonight,

just 2026 at a glance, uh, and then again 2028. So, uh, obviously for FY2026, um, still working on closing things out. So, I just want to place a heavy emphasis on the fact that these are unodudited

results, right? And we're still, um, in the process of submitting our balance sheet to the Department of Revenue. But, uh, overall for FY 2026, very good year. um uh between our excess revenues and

some turnback on the uh on the town side um we uh we resulted in a a very favorable um fiscal year for the general fund. Um just want to be clear that the numbers you're seeing here aren't things like

our free cash certification, right? There's a kind of a whole process that we go through in certifying that uh with the O. But um next few slides kind of talk about and break down where we are seeing

some of that um on the excess revenue side um largely driven by a huge increase uh over our re our uh budget for local receipts. Uh and I'll talk a little bit about some of those high level categories

for local receipts. uh what kind of drove that? Uh long story short, I think and and I think some of the the board members that have been here a while, local receipts was often kind of our plug. We

would very much uh budget on the lower side for local receipts, especially for things like motor vehicle excise. Uh that's definitely was the same methodology for uh FY2026. Um and you'll see, you

know, some very very strong collections on local receipts there. And then also property tax collections. I I think Sutton has historically been great at collecting property taxes. Uh even though some

may may think that we have a long list of uh of tax title, we actually still have a very good property tax collection rate. Um always above um at least 98 and a half or 99% which is very good for for

a town of our size. Uh local receipts, right? So I mentioned motor vehicle excise uh just under 400,000 over budget. earnings on investments. Very great um investment environment, especially with with

continued higher rates for the town and our investments of our various funds um stabilization funds, general fund cash uh tax leans redeemed. That's largely attribute attributed to our very aggressive

uh tax collection efforts over the past several months uh by our new tax collector. Um, building permits, any other permits tied to the to the economy also have been very strong again uh in in FY

2026. Any questions on revenue? It's good. Good news. Yeah. Uh expenses, as I mentioned, the town was able to to turn back just uh just over $430,000 between various departments. Um uh you know,

general fund or general government turning back the most. that is kind of a functional category that houses a lot of different departments, things like our our public buildings, the select board and

town managers uh budget, our finance committee reserve fund. Many of those funds um uh were had a very positive year. Um for example, we did not tap into our finance committee reserve fund. That's

30,000 right there that's turned back. We did make some changes during the budget year um not just at last year's fall town meeting but also in May, right? So the largest was um the supplemental

appropriation from the sped stabilization fund for unanticipated out of uh district tuition costs for special education. That was $470,000 um to the um special ed expenses for S public schools. We

also um appropriated $390,000 additional from free cash um for our oped contribution. Uh Nick and and his team uh with the highway department did a wonderful job clearing the snow, but it also cost us

an extra $334,000. So, good job. Um but uh that was a a supplemental freecast appropriation in May. And then as you can see, some various uh changes as well or transfers that we had to make to uh to

zero or balance those budgets. unexpended uh balances. So while on snow and ice he spent more uh highway department also did uh did turn back some money um between his other line items. So 72,000 we

also had some modest I think turnbacks in terms of our benefits public buildings reserve fund. Again all those are sort of housed in that general government. So you can ask why did you turn 200,000

from the general government side. all these smaller budgets, especially with turnbacks, they add up. So, you know, that was a again a very very high level summary of of 2026, but you know, really that

kind of informs how we start thinking about FY 2028. So, as I mentioned, our revenue estimates, we've already started to in FY2027 increase some of those categories to be a little bit more realistic.

For example, I increase motor vehicle excise. I increased some of our building permit revenues. Uh I increased our investment income as well. Several different lines you saw an overall net increase on

uh what we anticipate for budget in FY2027. FY2028 also kind of follows that methodology as well. Um however many of those we can't be too aggressive, right? So investment earnings um are still very

sensitive to what's happening at the state and federal level. Building permits and any other related um uh um permits that are tied to the economy as well as motor vehicle excise. Those are things

that we'll have to continue to monitor um for FY2028 beyond. Uh we still will have continued rising uh cost pressures. I hope that we don't have as much snow as as we got this year. Um, but that's

certainly an unanticipated expense. Um, and certainly I think uh last year um I think we did a very good job demonstrating to the public why it made sense for that supplemental appropriation. I think

the highway department did and our contractors did a fantastic job. So, that's something I'm willing to support. Uh sped costs are are always again continuing to be um a large uh expense driver and

discussion. And I think that we're actually starting to talk about at the tribal level uh at our meeting next week. Um and several other expenses whether it's police overtime um especially where

departments like the police department unfortunately over the past year or two have had either unanticipated injuries uh to our personnel which resulted in extra overtime that was the largest driver

for FY 2026 expenses. Uh and unfortunately we're also experiencing still some of that uh in FY 2027. um capital investments, right? So, as we continue to be more aggressive in our local receipts

budgets, that means that we're probably not going to turn back or have any excess revenue. So, our free cash generation will likely not be as healthy over the next few years. Now, what does that mean?

Historically, Sutton has has funded most, if not all, of their capital through the use of free cash. So, I just want to put that out there that use of any reserves like free cash or stabilization

funds for anything other than capital means that we just don't have the funds and we'll have to uh defer some of those investments. So, here's where we are right now projecting for FY 2028. I've been

talking about that there's a deficit, but here's your number projected right now, just over $2.2 million. Next few slides, I'll talk about the why and some of the things that again we're seeing in a

little bit more detail. Um but simply what we're seeing is revenue is simply not matching uh what we're anticipating for expenses. So you know we as a municipality are are bound to Prop 2 and a half.

So we received the the two and a half increase plus what we're estimating at $250,000 new in new growth. That's just under a million at 970. Our excluded debt continues to go down. We haven't uh

authorized any new debt service that's excluded uh outside of the tax levy. So, we have just only a handful of projects right now that are that are actually excluded. Um, the debt service continues to

be paid off and and that continues to go down as well. We're projecting only a modest increase about a 1% increase in state aid. Will that likely be a little bit better? I think so. Uh, but again,

we're trying to be conservative on the on the revenue estimates for the next several years. And again, as I mentioned, local receipts, again, just trying to be a little bit more real realistic about

what we're expecting for the next few years. FY2028. I also did not include any transfers in from things like health insurance or sped stabilization um to support the operating um because I want to

give everyone kind of a realistic where we are without any supplemental transfers in right now. So next slide kind of shows a little bit more in detail about what those transfers in look like in terms

of supporting operations. So you can see for for FY 2027 uh between uh indirect cost expenses from things like our enterprise funds uh cable access fees which support um our communication and cable uh

department uh and then also the two stabilization funds. So we did use 350,000 this year um from the stabilization funds, 250 from health insurance and 100 from spe stabilization just to support the

FY2027 budget. Uh the the bars on the left kind of show operational support and then uh the light blue bar is simply what we've been able to to spend uh in one-time funds for capital expenses. Past

few years have been very good and very healthy capital budgets for for town and school departments. So some of the large cost drivers what we're projecting for FY2028 education obviously our largest

uh uh cost um projecting about a 5 and a half uh percent increase this is not just for S public schools this is also for our projected uh tuitions and assessments for uh BBT and also Norfolk Aggie

employee benefits again another unfortunately large year for employee benefit benefits. Uh after initial discussions with our broker and Maya, our insurance carrier, right now for the budget, we have

estimated another 15% increase just in health insurance. So that that's all employees including the school or that's just Yeah, correct. Yep. So we do cover um uh within the municipal operating

budget. It's about a $4 million uh line item um that covers both town and school employees. Um, again, municipal departments, uh, kind of the methodology there was a was a 3% cost of living

adjustment, uh, and a 2.75, um, increase for our supplies and services. So, that nets out to just about a 3.25% increase for municipal departments. Um, our pension again, still a lot of money at 6 and

a half% um, for our Worcester Regional, and again, as I mentioned, debt service continues to uh, continues to fall. cost pressures as I mentioned again 15% for employee benefits most of our fixed

costs are continuing to rise fairly quickly um whether it's a general and property liability insurance pension employee benefits um and then we do have um some other known pressure points right so as

I me just mentioned out of district tuitions for Sutton public schools continues to to be a large strain on on the expense budget uh for the school department new contract also as well for the

teachers and um we are beginning negotiations with our teamsters union and our police patrolman union as well. Um so those are things that we have kind of place some assumptions in the budget but

again those are you know yet to be uh resolved. So um uh those will continue to be I think a pressure point for the uh 2028 budget as well. So what does this look like? As I mentioned, FY2028, just

about a $2.2 million deficit. If we continue at this rate, as you can see, the deficit continues to grow. Um, by 2020, uh, 2033, you're seeing u approximately an 11 million deficit, right? Again,

that's following the same methodology of the 2 and a half% uh modest new growth estimates, modest local receipts, modest state aid. Um but again, our our expenses are continuing to rise at a pace uh

that are simply not matching um our revenue rate growth. Could pause there if you have any questions for now. I have a quick question. Sure. So, and Jesse, you're on the tri board, too. I think we

talked about Hold on. I'm not there yet. Oh, yeah. We're going to talk about that. The cap. Yes, but we're not there yet. Oh, yeah. Okay. We'll talk about that. Any questions on the slides? I just go

back to page 12, please. If you would. Yep. Yeah. So to me when I'm looking at this one it's just uh it's striking you know it's 5.4% for education which is a large number and it's like I mean

obviously that's that's growing in ex well in excess of the of the prop two and a half. Uh we could talk about what what we can do to offset some of that or is that some of that discretionary or there

are there levers to pull within that? If I look at the next biggest one the employee benefits this is like you know up 15% roughly. Yep. Not much you can do about that right. So, it's like uh

inflation in in benefit costs or uh healthcare really I imagine is driving up way way ahead and there's correct me if I'm wrong but there's really nothing we can do about that. Is that fair? I I I

think the town pulled a lot of those levers already in terms of u plan design changes. Certainly, I think there are a few others, but unfortunately any of those levers that the town would pull to save

on the budget would directly impact the employees, right? So, if you if you're talking, for example, and I'm not putting this on the table, I'm just saying for demonstration purposes, if you're

shifting the the percent that's covered by the town, again, that's that's directly shifting that to the employee. And I don't think that's the answer there either. But we've already, you know, I I

think the town very early on, several years ago, converted many of the plans to high deductible plans, if not all, actually most if not all the the employees. Um we offer things like opt out. Um we

have an HSA HSA. Um we've done several things to try to to reduce our health insurance increases. You know, this is something unfortunately that everyone is seeing whether they have more plan design

changes to do or not. Um, you know, there are I think every municipality, this is on every single slide is employee benefits, particularly health insurance. It's the single largest um budget buster

for a lot of um municipal budgets is is the cost of health insurance. Um, not a lot of from what I'm hearing or seeing answers right now that's that's being put forth by the legislature. MMA, the Mass

Municipal Association has talked a lot about this. I'm not hearing a lot from them. I'm just seeing a lot of data about the why. Um, I think that, uh, we actually actually have an insurance advisory

committee meeting tomorrow, um, which consists of representatives from all of our labor groups, uh, and and retired employees to kind of talk about this a little bit and see if there's an opportunity

um, to to maybe explore elsewhere. Um, but again, that doesn't directly u, right now, I can't guarantee that that would be a cost savings from the 15. Just so you know too, it's that's not out of line

of what I'm seeing in like at least in my own private practice, you know, but also as you alluded to before, I I believe the the phrase that they use is our experience. You know, our experience over

the last year has not been glowing as it were. So that also contributes uh to what we're seeing in terms of numbers. And unfortunately and and not just for um not just for the health insurance but all

of our insurance categories our our claim ratio unfortunately has gone up for a variety of reasons. Um so that's uh that's you know probably not a good uh situation for the town of Sutton to be in.

This is the first community that I've worked in where I've had to have mandatory meetings with our insurance broke uh insurance carrier with action plans for how the town will resolve and and mitigate

some of these claims. and I've worked in some interesting or been involved in some interesting communities that I've never had to do that. So, um, you know, a lot of work to do there, but um, but I

think particularly on the health insurance, I I don't know if we're going to be able to come up with any answers directly within the next few months to be able to save substantially on on that line

item, unfortunately. Thank you. Can you go back to the Can you go back to the page that shows the projected deficit over the next few years? Absolutely. Yep. So, I was just wondering what your

assumptions what your assumptions are. Yep. So, as I mentioned, so just on on the town side, um keeping some of those same assumptions in terms of uh wage increases, keeping it at the uh what has

been, I think, typical for the past few years at a at a 3% cost of living adjustment for uh municipal employees. Um looking at our supplies and services where we reasonably can um make increases. I I

kept those at 2.75% increase. Um, and then unfortunately those larger line items, uh, like some of our fixed cost items I did have at, uh, at a little bit higher. Again, I I kept health insurance not

quite always at a double digit because I believe at some point over the next few years, there will be some leveling off, hopefully a little bit. Uh, but over the next few years, double digit

increases. Um, our other liability insurancees, uh, insurance line and I'm keeping at about, um, at about a seven or eight%, our pension at about a seven or eight% increase. And then on the school

side, um looking uh after discussions after our last tri board meeting, I did boost from a 3.75% increase to a 5 and a half% for some public schools. Um and then having discussions very early on with

um uh with um uh BBT. Um I think we're in a little bit of a better situation with BBT as um with the new lottery system and some of the methodology that this select board was presented in terms of how

they're shifting the aortionment of students. I believe that we'll still see I don't think we'll see another reduction like we saw for this year, but it certainly won't be a substantial increase um

like unfortunately se several other towns this year saw. So um and then keeping I think uh a 5 and a half% increase on Norfolk Aggie. So collectively all those um it ends up being about a um maybe

four or five and a half% increase year-over-year overall for the municipal budget with all those assumptions in mind. Austin, just real quick, the the dark blue line, do you know ballpark what the

growth rate of that the annual growth rate of that is? It's significant, right? It's it's it's probably what around a seven sevenish. No. So So the the the dark line is the expenses, right? So to give

you an idea, so for for 2028 it projects a 5.72% increase. Yeah. For 2029 5.5. Okay. 2030 5.7 2031 5.8 and then it it drops down to 3.8 um and then drops actually rises again to 6.39. Yeah. But the

point is that line's growing faster. So even if we catch up, the light blue line up to it at some point in time. The dark blue line is still growing faster. Correct. Lovely. But our main revenue is

the tax levy which is constrained by Prop 2 and a half. Yep. Plus any new growth. Correct. Yep. Yep. So the only way to get that revenue number up is to grow or have the state do something with Prop 2

and a half or to grow the tax levy be via a ballot vote. So if you know that's an override I don't want to you'd have to present value you'd add all these up present value back you know you're going

to have to levy enough to cover you for more than one year. Yeah. So, but obviously remember so if you do an override for example right um that then becomes part of your base so then that new base is

what grows by two and a half plus the new growth right so um you know certainly and and I don't want to get ahead of the next few slides where I'm going to ask some some real questions of you guys to

to kind of start talking about this but um but certainly I think from a revenue perspective um I think that we unfortunately cannot continue to rely on and we have over the past several years the to

solve our problems. Um, local receipts are are unfortunately slowing down a little bit. I think for for 2027 we we made some reductions. I don't think for 2028 we'll see any massive projects that will

be coming right now that I can reasonably put into here for building permits. So, um, really our our largest by far is our tax levy. That's almost 72% of our revenue right there is our tax levy. Um

that is single-handedly pretty much how we support the entire town, both town and the school, um is through the tax levy. Um we're fortunate that, you know, within our tax levy, we're above 15%

commercial industrial. there's some other towns around here that that do not have that, but um so if there's ways that we can kind of try to drive any additional commercial industrial revenue that

doesn't have a direct impact on um potentially some of our other services. So we wouldn't also see a tremendous increase in our expenses whether it's for the school department or any other services.

But those are I think discussions for our next agenda topic. Correct. So the tri board uh I'll just start with that. So want to have a couple options um for the board to to think about and discuss. Um

perhaps these aren't all the options, but these are just some of the things that I've been thinking about and some seen in some other communities. So um Christine mentioned the tribe board. So, the

tri board did meet a few weeks ago and and had discussed um this very um well, this very situation that we're in in terms of uh our expenses and our revenues. Um we took a look at the model and I

projected as well um where I think we would be over the next few years. Uh what wasn't included in that original um model to the tri board was the fact that um we had received information from our

health insurance um estimates for 15%. Um so that substantially increased our deficit from when the tri board discussed um the tri board had made a a recommendation to the select board to consider the

use of reserves to balance FY2028. So again our deficit for FY2028 is 2.2 2 million. Um, so they had discussed and and recommended and we have another member of our tri board here as well, but

Christine and Jesse were were there as well and can certainly fill in on that. But, um, that was the, uh, the recommendation that came from that meeting a few weeks ago. Is it okay to say the

rationale behind that was, you know, no different than when you run your household, right? You're going to dip into your savings a little bit before you start going out and trying to get debt. And

that was the consensus that if you go before town meeting with a big override number, you better have kind of looked at all your resources before you did that. Is that what you gleaned from that too?

You had I remember I had to log out. I wasn't there till the end. Okay. I missed like the last half hour. Um next few slides we'll obviously talk about that. There's definitely some um some points

that I think the board needs to consider. That is definitely onetime money for operations. Yeah, we've been fortunate that we haven't been a we haven't had to uh to do that to be able to support

operations. It's been many years and that this this town and previous select boards and finance committee and school committee worked very hard to to get away from that. Um so just something to put

out there. So the danger Yep. No. And and the other reason too was that the tri board felt that they need a little more time to come up with the right override number. You don't want to just throw a a

dart at the dart board. It was more of looking at what the needs are going to be, what the growth is, and what's the right number versus just asking because you don't go to the well more than, you

know, one or two times. Yeah. And so, because we're only talking about FY2028, I you know, what I didn't mention is the fact that the tri board, to Christine's point, has recommended pursuing an

override for FY2029. So I think my my thought is if the board kind of agrees with this recommendation, my thought is to also begin sort of almost for developing our FY2029 plan concurrently along FY

2028. So um you know we've had some discussions with uh with departments about kind of planning for the future. I asked for departments to provide what their needs would be um to make the department

operate sufficiently and we would include that in an override uh request for 2029. I think that that that is the key piece. We can't just say oh give us money. We have to be able to justify exactly

why and we can show you know what services are at stake. Right. Right. And just as a as a board watcher, I think at planning last night, Unified was there talking about Unified Parkway and they did

say building two is 6 months to 12 months from starting to be built. So they've been setting up the pad, but Matt Petarski was there. So that's something that could be impactful for 29, too. So, and

Wilks got its water drawer and there's already people uh developers looking for that. So by pausing for a year, it might be a different um scene in a year or two. Mhm. Um you know, obviously that you

know, the remaining options that that this board could certainly talk about and consider is is you could pursue an override for FY2028. Um you know, I I agree with the fact that that I think that

departments we still need some more time to kind of put together uh you know, what would be requested. um with an override, what sort of investments we we think would be valuable. I I think that

unfortunately those discussions, they take some time to put together, talk with the community, um talk with the various boards about, you know, what you think would be, you know, the best bang for

your buck and a good investment for um for voters to consider. It's also not guaranteed, right? Um so those are things that uh and very hard discussions that we'll have to also unfortunately talk

about concurrently as we're talking about 2020. And to Christine's point, we don't know what the future holds. If for some reason the economy dips, then voters are going to be less likely to be

supportive of it, which would make our job that much harder. Yep. Uh it also does mean though, right, so if we are pursuing for 2029 and 2029 fails, we are in a even worse situation, right? The

deficit for 2029 currently right now just level services is 3.6. if we're potentially talking about uh enhanced needs, obviously that goes from a budget request, but um that deficit grows,

unfortunately. Um so there's an option. Um number three, you could say we're not using one-time funds. We could reduce budgets um between the town and the schools and just, you know, um uh make sure

that our budgets um align with our expected revenues. Again, that's about $2.2 million, which is uh combined, it's about 6% of both town and school budgets combined. I I think we have to see what that

scenario looks like just to make good decisions, right? And I don't mean the doom and gloom like show me show me the Hobson's choice. Show me the really painful thing that I don't want to do so that I

only have one choice. I mean like if we didn't have the rain day fund or unwilling to use it, what would we do? And the one reason I say that from an affordability point of view, if you look at what's

happening in inflation in people's households, everybody's food costs, fuel costs, everything's going up. So, I hate to, you know, I I think it's incumbent on us to show what a realistic live within

our means scenario would look like for 2028. Yeah, [sighs] I think so. And I'm just I'm floating that. So, let me just before we get there, let me just So, you could also do a combination, right? You

could make slight reductions or you and you could use a little bit of reserves. All right, next slide. What do we have for reserves available? So, obviously we're still uh working on certifying those

with do, but we're estimating our free cash certification to be around 2.7 million if we use that. That's a simple majority. We're still and again that has historically been our our funding source for

capital general stabilization. We haven't um we've been fortunate we haven't had to touch that for many years. We're uh that uh balance is estimated to be just over $3 million. Um if we tap into that

fund, that's a twothirds vote at town meeting. Higher threshold, of course, to be able to pass your budget. Health insurance stabilization, that's a special purpose stabilization fund. Um that's had

some activity. Obviously, we took out, as I mentioned, um um funds this year, 250 to be able to to help uh support this year's budget. Um that's estimated to be about $550,000 balance. and then the

sped stabilization that's had the most activity over the past few years um to support uh the budget that's estimated to be around $400,000. Both of those voting thresholds because they're special

purpose stabilization funds are simple majorities. Can you just remind us with this upcoming fall town meeting we're adding money? So that 400,000 is is that assuming that we make the No. No. No. um

because that will be that is our certified balance as of June 30th. Okay. The appropriation happens obviously after June 30th. So that will be next year. So that would be about $500,000. And obviously

this is we can certify that with anticipated um contributions if that makes sense. This set of reserves this is integrated town and school reserves or is there anything in the school? Well, they're

just overall town, right? So, um, the schools, I would argue, um, you know, don't necessarily have reserves. They have revolving funds, um, which are slightly different. They're not, they shouldn't be

treated as reserves. Those are funds that have money going in and money going out for various expenses. Um, we have a a small amount of revolving funds for the town. The largest one that we have is

for our our health department because of the fees that go in and out for um for the health services that uh to the other communities. Is the school's biggest fund their school choice revolving fund? I

believe so. Yeah. All right. So, um not going to talk a little bit more about the override, but but the expense reductions. Um what I just put in was a 50/50 split, right? So, um, obviously we're not

quite a 50-50 split in terms of our educational expenses and municipal departments. Um, but just to show you that that would be about 1.1 million in cuts to both town and the school. Um, you know, if

you consider our base, right? So, if we take proportionally the the 3.1 million in in employee benefits for the school department, I added that to their base of approximately 24 million. And then I

also added the the remaining uh 900,000 to the schools I mean the town's base. So as you can see if we split evenly it's uh uh it would be about just over 11% uh reduction on on the municipal side and

just uh just under a 4% uh reduction on the uh on the school side. Um still all in all need to look at 2.2 million in reductions between town and the school. So uh I think Jim to your comment about we

need to see that my concern with going through that exercise and I say this because I had to do this in my previous community. I had to put together five budgets. Yeah. And ultimately the select board

that I put together those budgets for just decided to use free cash. So, I don't want to waste the public's time, your time, and staff's time to put put together various budget scenarios if you really

think that you're you're you're truly okay with just using reserves to support the budget. So, I'm just putting that out there. I I I will certainly do what what the what the board uh directs me to

do, but I just want to say that the budget process goes by very quickly. And I think that um we have already sort of had a lot of those discussions over the past several years, it seems, in terms of

what the the impact on programming would look like. I'll just say right now on on on the town side, we're already lean enough both on on on um staffing and supplies and services that there there would

be impact. Roll back one page on the town side. Yep. So when you when you pop that up here, I'm just trying to think in my mind what it would mean to take out a million dollars from the town side.

Yep. And it's not good, right? I mean, it's just I'm trying to think through the math of where you'd take it. up. Yeah. I mean, um, you know, unfortunately, um, there are still some core essential

services that that we still have to provide, right? Unfortunately, there's, uh, it would mean a reduction in services across most, if not all of our departments. Um, certainly, I think larger

departments, um, they have more personnel. Um, I don't want to necessarily kind of get ahead in terms of what that would look like in terms of reductions in services, but that's still 1.1 million that

for a um for almost just under a $10 million budget, that's a huge chunk. And it it it I don't know I don't know any other way to put it other than that that is a reduction in services that would be

noticed on the town side. Yeah, for sure. I'm just going to ask would would that potentially be met with like just reduced office hours potentially? I mean, if if that's the if that's the direction

that the board wants me to to look at, then certainly I'll I'll I'll talk with departments about um what those proportionate cuts would look like for each department, right? and and there's a there's

several different methodologies and and that's a part of the five budgets that I had to do last year was you know we did for example I did um percent reduction by your proportion of the overall town

budget right so if you are the if if the select board and town manager budget was 25% of the town budget then the select board and town managers took 25% of that cut um and then you kind of went down

the Um you could also do a a even cut across all departments um whether it's by dollar or percent right and that can have different um impacts to to um each department in terms of what they're able to

provide in terms of services. So um I'd be curious if if that's where you want to go. I want to hear um from you some some direction about what you think would be uh the most reasonable in terms of

looking at reductions. Um and then we'll put together a plan from there. But I'll just say right now we are I am getting ready to send out the budget instructions to departments very shortly. So some

some input on on what you'd like to see um would be very helpful as we send that out to people. So the largest expense line item is personnel. Yes. Salaries. Yeah. Yep. Salaries, benefits. Yep. So, if

you have to, it comes down to either reducing hours to reduce payroll or reducing staff or and reducing school staff. That's the only way to really make the impact. Right. Right. That's consistent

with every organization, right? is um especially on the municipal side we are we are mostly people um you know I I I would say that our our proportionate breakdown is very similar to the school

department we're about 80% salaries 20% supplies and services so salaries and benefits and then 20% supplies and services so there's obviously some line items for example our public buildings budget

that is mostly supplies and services right we we have a $10,000 budget for we pay overtime for uh school custodians to help clean the town hall. But that budget, for example, is mostly supplies and

services. It pays for our uh heating oil for municipal buildings, pays for electricity for municipal buildings. Can you go back to page I think it's 14 again? 14. Yep. Absolutely. Uh 12. Sorry. Sorry.

So, we're trying to figure out where to how to address the 2.2 million. So, you split it 1.1 1.1 on this page. is, you know, 1 1.269 for for education, but you know, some portion of the 659 employee

benefits, how much of that is school versus town? Any guesstimate? Um, yeah. So, um, the breakdown for our employee benefits, the breakdown, for example, as I mentioned, the, um, health insurance

costs alone, that's about a $4 million budget, uh, for across all of our benefits. Um, school employees comprise about 78% of that. Okay. So, it's about 3.1 million I believe is the number for the $4

million budget. Okay. So, 400 and change of this is schools then. Yeah. Just so if I'm looking at this then I would say you know almost 1.7 million should you know if you're trying to figure out who

who bears this. But I I would say like 1.7 of this is of of the increase is driven by the schools versus then if you're trying to split a 1.1 you know split the 2.2 two and a half and say 1.1 and 1.1.

So, you know, my takeaway of this is school costs were increased and driven up largely by the schools to the tune of 1.7ish. And so, we're trying to figure out what to do about that. So, that's just

kind of my my takeaway. So, I don't know that it's necessarily right to split the 2.2 50/50 1.1 and 1.1. And again, I'm not making a I'm not making a statement. I'm just trying to do the math in my

head about what's what's the reasonable way to think about that. And there's a lag with the circuit breaker um repayment. Right. So that 1.2 doesn't that probably has sped costs in it but not the

companion circuit breaker that comes the following year. Right. Correct. Yeah. But it has the prior year circuit breaker in it. Right. Do you put that in there? So this is just core expenses. So this

doesn't involve uh this is just what we're projecting for the general fund allocation. So this doesn't include anything that the school department assumes for any of their revenue that they use to

offset their overall budgets, right? So um they use do you Chris, do you know at the top of your head how much revolving funds you use? I don't know off the top, but it's it's a non-trivial amount

revolver. So you know that's things like school choice, that's things like circuit breaker breaker, that's things like uh transportation, several different revolvers use. Yeah. And that's above and

beyond what the general fund allocation is. So then that 1.2 number when you add in their revolving funds would be less. No, no, that's that that's what we're projecting for the general fund increase.

Um I am sure that their overall budget inclusive of all of their revolving funds is is projected to be higher. I I I haven't seen that total figure yet, but conversations about where we're projecting

for the general fund allocation is amounts to a 1.2 million. But again, 1.2 2 million. That's inclusive of what I'm projecting for BBT and for um Norfol Ay as well. So that's our overall cost of

education. So out of curiosity, do we have an average teacher salary? Is it 70? Is that what you use, Chris? It's a little higher. A little higher. Yeah. Yeah. I I think that we have to be careful

about doing some quick math about, for example, how many staff members you could could to get there first and foremost because that's going to be the school committee and the school department's job

to do that. Um, but if the direction from the select board is to look at reductions, that's something that I'll have to send to to Caitlyn and the school department and they figure out how to get to

that number if that if that's what the the board's looking to do. Yeah. I'm not sure I'm looking to I'm just trying to process and think through, you know, I just I I I hate to just say drain the the

piggy bank, you know, and I know that no one's just just saying that whimsically, but y as I think about it, um, in just my own mind, like with my own business or in my own household, you know,

obviously I have cash reserves that I try to maintain. Then tough times come along. I make cuts to reduce how much I'm using out of my cash reserves so I'm not drawn that down too quickly and then

figuring out from there what's really needed to go forward. I mean that number that you give going out you know few years is a pretty scary number and I don't think any override is going to solve for

that if I look at it. So it's just an completely unsustainable model and so in my own mind I'm thinking we have to kind of you know the state's not going to help us. So, we're going to have to kind of

reinvent how we perform government because this model here that you just showed up on that screen, I don't see how we fix it. Um, even with an override. So, in reality, we're going to have to really

think about how we deliver services and what that looks like. But, I think it's going to be have the combination of of all those things. I think it's going to be a combination of using our reserves,

making cuts. This is coming from my perspective. you we got to talk through this as a board but um and you know looking at how do we think about our what we what services we provide and how we're

going to deliver them in a way that you know we're not falling off this cliff that you're showing here which I don't see even an override is not going to solve so or it would be a very very very very

large very large which means it won't pass won't pass to Jonathan's point is because on your page 14 the dark blue line is going growing twice as fast as a light blue line. That the math just doesn't

it doesn't math. Yeah. 11.25 million deficit is I don't know how you solve for that, right? the the override would be the addition of those present value to F with the you know understanding about the

two and a half growth but there's a calculation to do to figure out what you need today to get you through that with all the assumptions and and that and that's so there's been some really really

creative uh override strategies. Um you know there's been communities that for example you know they did ask for the larger override but they they didn't um they didn't use all of it for the municipal

or school budgets. They placed it into an override stabilization fund every year for maybe like four years. Um, let that stabilization fund grow and their plan was to to continue make contributions to

that and then they started to draw down. They actually made it last longer than their I think it was originally a five-year override plan. So, you know, I I didn't want to go down kind of the the

several different override potential figures if there wasn't any interest in at least talking about something right now. certainly if that's something that you want me to come back with with some

different uh solutions, but it doesn't sound like that's what we're talking about for 2028. So, I don't want to waste your time, my time on talking about an override for this for this year. I will

definitely do that and present that to you for 2029 if there seems to be consensus among the board as well to to talk about that for 2029. Plus, it'll also give us time to realize what our costs and

revenue actually look like because yeah, it's it's always the the cliff the cliff the cliff and the cliff always seems to get stretched out because things happen. So, if we do get a new building in,

if there's someone that's going to look at um where building one was going to go, you know, those are opportunities that potentially could add revenue in and skew the numbers. Absolutely. So, so yeah,

I I I think if we're going to talk the potential, at least in the short term, I think we should look at a combination of things so that way it won't hurt any approach significantly. So yeah, we may

have to think of maybe reducing services, reducing hours, reducing staff in tapping the reserves to a degree in a responsible way because no one avenue, no one approach is going to get us that $2.2

million. At least that's my two cents because that's that's how I would do it in my own house. Yeah, that's what I that's exactly. I mean, and again, I know it's not an exact correlation, but it's,

you know, it's just principles of of um financial management. And I think um I think the that the the towns people are going to want to see that from us before we just come to them and it's based on

the number you showing as your projection. Again, these are all based on assumptions, you know, and those assumptions change every year. Yep. Um, but I think just from my own perspective, I think

we're going to have to have a a com a com combination of of everything you have up there to figure out what that looks like. That's just my my feeling about it. It's it's not an andor thing. It's it's

it's kind of all of the above, right? Just the hard facts. It It's never fun. Okay. Dan, do you have any thoughts? It has to be a combination of things. I'm I'm struck by I agree with what Jonathan

said that the whole model needs to be rethought because that no override is going to is going to sustain us unless we're going back for one every couple years and nobody's going to vote for it. I

don't think we can explain to the town why an override needs to be that big to cover that. It's not going to get it's not going to get approved. You know, it's it's these times that, you know, even in

my own personal life, when you hit these moments of like, wow, this isn't working. You have to kind of step back and find a new path. And I think unfortunately, that's where we are in municipal

government across Massachusetts. It's not just a Sutton problem. I think we're going to have to really think about what this looks like. And um you know we're going to have to innovate you know in a

way innovate our way out of it because I don't see cutting and cutting and cutting just doesn't work in the long run. You can assume some small things like health insurance isn't going to continue to

go up 15% a year. You'd hope not. But you can't count on that until things change at a higher level. So yeah, some of those projections are daunting and and this projection didn't include anything

from the feasibility fire study that we had. Correct. Yeah. Or any of the issues we're having with some of our buildings buildings, right, in the highway department. I mean, kind of all hitting at

once. say certainly those are things that you can I'll tell you right now I'm not going to put those in 2028 if we're talking about cutting and unless you want me to cut I mean there's going to

probably have to be something just to keep the the heat on in some places. Well that's yeah the thing that you see the cost of oil they said is $68 right now in the state of Mass. But if I need to

cover those expenses I need to cut elsewhere right so um it's got to be minimal. We're not going to be able to go for the grand package. We're going to have to go for the things that keep the system

chugging along. So let me ask so um if if it seems like there's consensus for the combination approach so reductions in use of reserves is there a is there a cap that you have on how much reserves you

think would be appropriate to support the budget what's the capital plan looking at like for this coming year so we haven't started the capital process right so um but I would say between his our

historical requests over the last few years and in the capital plans, it's been a $2 million capital plan for the past several years and that's supported most if not all departments. So, uh you know,

we're we're trying to stay on the the same plan to to have cruiser replacement. That's almost $200,000 right there. Um our highway trucks are several hundred,000 now to be able to replace and there's

definitely needs there. Um the school department um obviously talking about their various capital needs across both of their buildings. Um I would imagine that there will be again several million in

requests again and then we'll have to try to figure out what is available. So um you know we do have the fortunate um uh mechanism that is our capital stabilization levy right and that's about 750

almost 800,000 give or take um in funds that will be able to support the capital plan. Historically, we've only kind of tapped into that a little bit and deposited that into the uh stabilization fund.

Um, last year we did a we pulled a little bit more out of that to be able to support several different projects. Um, so that I think will help us still be able to have a a good capital plan and we can

supplement with any available free cash that's available. But, um, you know, certainly the the requests aren't going away and they're not getting cheaper, right? Um, especially for some of these

large, you know, our rolling stock as well. Understood. Thank you. And any increase in debt would be a debt exclusion vote. So whenever you go for debt, right, that has to go to town meeting. Yes. But

if it's a debt exclusion, it has to go to the ballot. And obviously for we're not proposing any excluded debt ballot votes right now. But there's a potential that you could be looking. You said debt

is declining as stuff is rolling off. Then you wouldn't have to do a debt exclusion. You would just go out and get debt without just a town meeting. I think it depends, right? Right. I mean, I think

it depends on the the the borrowing term and the estimated debt service level, right? So, um if it's for construction or building projects, you can typically typically borrow for a little bit longer.

Um studies or or rolling stock, it's it's less, right? It usually tries to match the expected useful life of the project itself. So, if it's a for example, if it's a building project, you can do 20 or

30 years, right? if it's a um if it's if we're borrowing for a highway truck, it's maybe 5 to 10 years. So, and those terms have a tremendous um as you know, right? Anyone who's who's purchased or

leased a car or financed it, um how long you borrow for can have an impact on your annual payments. So, so just looking at Falltown Meeting and the potential for the schematic design of the heating

system, that heating system would be exclusion or would that just come out of So, good news on that. I was going to talk about that uh in my update. I think between where we're landing or we're

estimating free cash to be and where we have projected new growth to be, we are no longer recommending that to be a borrowing authorization article. So that will be covered by raise and appropriate

through new growth and free cash. So saved us some money there. Just the design piece, not the whole 500,000. Yep. Yep. Correct. But then if it goes forward with a project in 29 28 borrowing that

would be and likely I'll just say this probably the the the cost I don't think we'd be able to to fit that into our our municipal budget. So we'd probably I think ask for a debt exclusion there. At

the same time we're asking for an override. Depends on timing, right? Okay. Yeah. And that was estimate 2 to three million ballpark. Ballpark. Yeah. From last meeting. Y. So again the question about

the cap of reserves. Yeah I'll give you my quick two. So as I think this through again I'm I'm kind of struck by if we have to make these cuts it it it's it is very painful just looking at this like

if we were not to if we were not to provide the money from the capital reserves making these cuts in this next year would be very painful. I'm just thinking through scenarios. I do think you have to

we have to look at what what that would actually look like to get our heads wrapped around it. But when it comes to using reserves, my own personal sentiment is it makes sense to provide the reserves.

I hate doing it because I hate draining, you know, we'll be draining down our reserves. Plus, we get to the one-time things, which would really put us in a spot next year where we really get a gun to

our head because it's either then you either have to pass a big override or we have to make some really big painful cuts. And I'm just, you know, I'm kind of more thinking aloud here of I don't really

like doing that in a non-planful way. So I'm I'm kind of wondering do we you know what do we do between now and then to really think through what the two different options are and I hate you know to

Jonathan's point before again the lines are diverging so it's more like I start think about regional kinds of things and you know kudos to you and other colleagues here for thinking about the

intermunicipal agreements and things like that but is there is there something more fundamental we can do to change the cost structure in the town number one but then yeah like I I I think it's

reasonable and sensible to use our reserves to get us to a point that we have to make a snap decision. So, I'm open to using I'm open to using it. But, you know, to Jesse's point, I think it's got to

be it's got to be a combination. And I don't know if it's 50/50 1.1 and 1.1. I think it it should be more proportional to the cost drivers. Okay. I heard from only two of you on that. So, what about

the rest of you, Jesse? I think you kind of answered maybe. Not really. Oh, what? Combo. Oh, I'm all down for the combo. Well, but just the the number, right? If we're talking about right now 2.2,

right, is the I Jim, you mentioned the the hypothetical splitting it, right? Yeah. Half half use of reserves, half reductions, right? Um I I'm I'm trying to understand where your Can you put the

reserve slide back up? Yeah, of course. Uh reserves where your limit is. Right. So understanding that using reserves is not a good practice. Understanding that um typically use of reserves definitely

I think receives some attention from things like our bond rating agencies. We have to be very, I think, strategic and limited in the use of reserves. So, so I'll just give you something right now. I

think that we should probably take our special purpose stabilization funds first. Those were established for a reason. Yeah. Right. For kind of times where we are now, right? So, another year of a

double digit health insurance increase, we should probably drain that down as low as possible. Yeah. Unfortunately, uh, special ed sounds like that's going to be potentially another tough year. We'll

learn a little bit more about that at the tri board next week. Um I would say that probably it's not a bad idea to take a look at that too. And then if there's any, you know, opportunity to fill the

gap that allows um for a limited use of free cash to be able to support the budget, but it still ends up being if you if you drain those two and then use some free cash um you know, you're still using

almost a million some odd dollars just in onetime funds to support the budget. Yep. How much free cash did you roll over and certify for this year? Um last year. So after using everything, right? So

we had the supplemental appropriation for uh the firetruck. We had a few different lines. We had 800 just under $900,000 left in uh undesated fund balance for free cash. Okay. And then we added with

the the revenue and expense turn back. So that gets us to 2.7. Yeah. And when's the last time we used general stabilization? Oh boy. Uh a long long time probably. Right. Yeah. was generally created

when we had the last crash. Yeah. Um to so that if we suffer a significant, you know, hit like that, that's what that that that is the break glass in case of absolute emergency. Yeah. That's to as

Jesse kind of just mentioned, right? That's if all those other lines say zero, that's definitely your Yeah. That's where you go to. Yeah. Or that's, you know, or that's typically something if we have

a um, you know, a dam failure or infrastructure failure in town, that's a fund that you can use to be able to, you know, not just for operating budgets, but but for unforeseen, you know, capital or

infrastructure emergencies. And that new resiliency grant fund they have for that. They were talking about that at the state level through MIMA and FEMA and all that too that covers that type of

stuff. Yep. So, you know, I I agree with you. you know, if we got to have increased bed costs, you go to that fund. If we do have this increase with uh healthcare, we got to go to that one. Um I I

don't know if I would feel comfortable draining those two down to zero, right? Um but again, if you could do something in line proportionally with the increase, maybe we could tim or or you know, kind

of temper. That was the word I was looking for. You know, the the spikes. Yeah, that's what we did the past two years, right? So this year it was 250, last year was 150 because of the the large

increases. So that the idea was to kind of take the the peak off the Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely. So percentage wise, what are we comfortable draining those down by? 30%. Well, what's the number? 50.

Well, yeah. Those those would have to go to those dedicated uses. Yeah. Right. So yeah, maybe we do go 50%. What's what's there? So drain the two stabilization funds by train. Yeah, utilize reduce

levels to 50% use for the purpose they're designed for. All right. Um 50%. That's what we're for both of those stabilization funds, right? And then and then are you still looking to fi I guess are you

looking to to fill the 2.2 gap 50% with reserves and then reductions. So and I'm just so if that's 225 from health insurance that's 200 that's 400,000. So we need to come up with another 700,000. So

that maybe comes from free cash gets you to uh 2 million in free cash. Well we're going to have some appropriations so uh in the fall. So that gets you to just under two million. So the new growth

comes on in January, right? So any house that didn't qualify this January but is being built now doesn't go into the new growth until January. Correct. And you budgeted what for new growth? 250. 250.

250. Yep. And that is equal to how much of new growth? The tax rate is 1155. So 250 divided by 1155, right? Uh I can't I don't Well, hold on. Remember 250 is the actual growth to the tax levy you're

talking but value is a different story, right? So I'm just trying to figure out what's the value. So there's a lot of big houses that are under construction right now. So I just wanted to see is your

250 what would Nobody has a calculator. So, I'll just say right now 2.5 before we had some of the unanticipated personal property growth for for this current year, which resulted in a substantial

amount of new growth over the the the um the original we had originally it was $300,000 and then talking with the assessors, they said, "I think you need to pull that down because they weren't

expecting anything substantial." So, all the activity that you saw over this past year, we were estimating to only be around 250 275. And then again, we had very, very, very good news with personal

property. I think we should probably stay at a conservative new growth estimate at 250. Oh, I'm not saying don't stay there. I was just wondering in my head a little bit if there's wiggle room there

that's going to pop up like it's been doing for the last four or five years in a row. We've been budgeting 150 and 250 and we've been coming in four and five and six. Yeah, that's a discussion maybe

that I'll be able to have once we get closer to the end of the year with the assessors in terms of where they would be comfortable for me to have new growth at right now. But um but right now I think

just just talking with them they're I think they're in agreement that the 250 is where we should be for right now. I think that's wise. I I I think just based on the strategy that we just talked

about, I mean, you're going to get close to a million dollars, you know, doing the healthcare, doing the the go and doing 700,000 or so from uh, you know, free cash if possible. Um, that will help

give you a little bit of a cushion and then we just do the wait and see game like we typically do and see how the numbers pan out, you know, once you get beyond the new year because you never know

what new growth's going to be. You never know what's going to come down the pipeline, right? Yep. Good. And then and then if we don't have to actually utilize all those funds, we leave them alone. We

don't touch them. Hope, you know, hopefully the governor's budget is positive. Again, hopefully new growth, but as of right now where we're beginning the planning, you know, I'll need some direction.

So that's I agree any anything and we had some positive news for FY 2027, right? Yeah. You never know what's going to end up happening next year. State budget came out better. New growth came out a

lot better. So, um, but as of right now, I need to be able to have that direction. So I I I think have received some sort of a consensus about where we need to go. And so if you do 50% of the health

in the sped, that's that's only about a half a million, right? 200 from you're doing 50% of each. Yeah. So you're at 475 475 you're 1.2 and the other 700,000's coming out of free cash. What I'm saying

is is you potentially tap the reserve funds for half of the projected deficit and then you wait and see till the real numbers come in. Oh, I thought he was asking us deficit may disappear. So, I

thought you were asking us for the balance. You were willing to draw down this the stabilization. Is that what you were asking us? How much? That's what you kind of said, right? And that's what I I'm

saying. I misheard. So, he's saying so you're looking to get fund balance. So, because Jesse, you said you didn't want to deplete them to zero, right? So, reduce those fund balances um by 50%. 50%.

Right. Um, and then fill the rem. So I guess so. Well, you said you you turned over year over year about $700,000 in free cash to to be certified. So from last year, correct? Yes. So to so to me

that's just kind of extra money floating around. Anyways, including in the 2.7, it is way free cash works, undesated leftover from any appropriations, excess revenue, turnback expenses. That's where

you get to your Oh, and then they do a couple other interesting calculations for your So if you do 450,000 or 425, whatever from the bottom two and seven from free cash, you're well over half of the

deficit, right? And then we wait and see until the numbers come in and then we make our our actual hard cuts or decisions, you know, once we get beyond that point. Okay. But you're still but but but

we're still looking for for right now reductions. It's gonna have to be reductions. Yeah. Okay. All right. Or Okay. Or if free cash was to be looking like it was coming in more, you could I would

rather not play around with the projections until we actually see the way they're coming in. Yeah. But you would have an idea of new growth after January, right? Um I'll have the assessor's estimates,

but not Well, because they're putting it on the tax bill for January, so you're going to know what it is. They have to send the tax bill out. So, we have new growth already for for FY2027 tax bills,

which is um which was submitted, and that's all the extra personal property. Um but I won't have FY2028's new growth. I'll just have a discussion with the assessors about where they think we'll be

landing. And I've already had that. That's that's the where they think that we should stay at 250 for budget for the 2028 budget. And I think, you know, as we're budgeting for the different

departments, um although I like, you know, turnbacks, I would think that if we're budgeting pretty lean, we really shouldn't see much in turnbacks because departments are not projecting beyond what

But if you estimate $100 for paper and you end up that's going to happen. Yeah. But yeah, but it we've had years with lots of turnback which Well, absolutely. Which is better than what we see in

alternatives where people just spend the money, right? You know, and I don't want to see that change, but I think it's just going to be lean. So, we're not going to see maybe as many turnbacks as we

we have in the past. I mean, there's some towns that actually have a mandatory turnback at the end of towards the end of the year. they have the town manager implement a, you know, turn back one or

two% of your operating budgets, right? And then it usually ends up in slowing down spending to try to replenish or or generate free cash. Yeah, as a general operating policy, that's not a bad idea,

but I don't think that would put a lot of stress and pressures on operations. Yep, I agree. And I I'll just say for FY2027, I wouldn't anticipate a a a large turnback. Yeah. No, I'm just I'm just

going to warn you like we're not going to probably see, you know, turnbacks because of the the situation we're in, you know, because nor excess local receipts either, right? Because we already kind of

we're a little bit more aggressive on that, too. So, we shouldn't see that big of of a free cash certified free cash balance either. Probably not. No. So, that would reduce the OPE additional funding

we do in the fall, too, because that's tied to the free cash balance. Yep. Yep. All right. It's always fun to deliver this news. Unfortunately, it's not Well, it's not a big sarcastic, but um I

appreciate you guys giving your input on this. I appreciate the work that you do. Thanks. All right. Next is the economic development discussion. So, this kind of ties in um to this prior discussion.

You know, I think as the board over the last um this last year has been kind of looking at like what our role is and trying to better understand it um and stop kind of looking at well this is how

we've always done it and start to actually align with what state law and um our own bylaws and um charter kind of hold. So we did some work to kind of build a a document that will help us um it's a

framework for us to run by. And as we did that, it gives us the day-to-day and how we're supposed to operate and what our boundaries are and you know what our role is as a board and as individuals on

the board. And part of that discovery was is that one of the roles of a select board is strategic planning. Of course, strategic plans take a while to put together, but it's not something that the

board does uh in a vacuum by itself. It has to actually we're not you know we can kind of set a direction set some guard rails but in reality we can't do that on our own and someone has to execute on

that and we also uh work in conjunction with other boards who have similar um charter in the charter have as much um you know you know kind of co-d delivery of services for the town and so um as part

of our work that we had done at our off-site or our um goals planning. We had talked about doing something similar to what we're doing with the tri board around the financials, starting to look at how

do we work with other town boards around things like economic development and housing and work with them in conjunction to kind of put together a strategic plan that meets the town's needs. And um and

especially right now, I think it's more than more important than ever, and I think that residents are expecting this of us, is how do we, you know, just as I said earlier, looking at that long-term

deficit, um we're going to have to figure out how to solve for some of these things um that traditionally we didn't have to really worry about. And unfortunately, in the climate we're in right now,

that we're not getting the aid from the state that the numbers keep declining. Um, and so we're going to have to solve for this for ourselves and um figure out ways to deliver services in a way that

can live within its means to deliver those services. So part of that is, you know, economic development. Part of it's looking at growth. Um, the problem that I personally have with growth is that the

more you grow, the more services you need. So it's, you know, it's just it that doesn't really solve it so much. Um, and then there's aid, which is more of a political thing that happens and shifts.

It's based on the political winds. And then there's local receipts. So, there's not a whole lot of levers. Um, and so I think, you know, as we start to think about this, we talked about bringing

together the planning board and the, um, you know, and the, uh, CBA, zoning board of appeals. Um and zoning board of appeals is kind of limited and it's you know it's scoped that it's very set by

state law but I think that they can bring a perspective to the discussion that would be very helpful. So we included them. So what I want to do today is just kind of talk about like what this would

look like. I don't really don't want to get into like ideas of how we're going to solve for these right now. Like this is something I want to do in conjunction with these other boards because

ultimately they're really in charge of the delivery of how it would happen. Um but we as a board can help facilitate this discussion and start to lead us more to look at this. I know some like the

planning board, you know, has probably their own um thoughts on this and their own plans and um plans, you know, strategic plans around it. But I think, you know, in the past we we operated in a more

silo and I think we're we have to move to working more across boards to to make these things happen. And we're seeing that with the tri board and I think we need to do this in other areas like housing

and um economic development. So, I just wanted to kind of quickly have a discussion today around what that would look like. Um, do we agree that ZBA should be involved in it? You know, because they do

have a specialized role in this, all of this. Um, and just kind of shape this up so we because we had talked about having this meeting sometime around October. Obviously, that's not going to happen

right now, but we can get it going relatively soon um before we get too deep into budget season. So, I just wanted to kind of bring it forth to the board to just kind of discuss it and finalize it. so

we can have the appropriate discussions with um the planning board and ZBA if that's the way we decide to go or another board if we feel like we want to add them as well. So just wanted to open up to

what you guys think. Well, I'm thrilled we're doing this. I think uh you know I'll just share a few thoughts for a second. um from my own point of view on economic development. And I think it it it

really impacts the budget and the revenue like we were just talking about, right? So you think about the challenges on the cost side. Well, what if there was a way to grow our revenue that does not

significantly increase our cost, right? When we think about growth, right? There's always the the cost of services that come along with it. But if there was a major um commercial enterprise or a

cluster of commercial enterprises that could help spike our our revenue and not drive our cost, I think that is one way to fix the curves that we were just looking at in page 14. So that's point one.

Uh point two, I think when we think about the nature, the culture, the what Sutton is like to live in, I think the businesses in town matter greatly. um you know preserving our rural character all

that kind of stuff. It's about helping the farms et all there's all the the cluster of businesses that support a rural community. I think that's important to preserve the nature of sun. And probably a

third thing is helping all the small businesses like um you know we think about job growth. I would say personally when we I I normally think about economic development from perspective of jobs but I

think right now post you know a post zoom world these kinds of things I don't know that we have a population people in town and it's like hey let's go get a a business to provide jobs for those

people. I think it's probably better to have lots of small business opportunities for people to engage in. But that's just, you know, if I think about what I'm solving for, at least in my mind, it's

revenue for the town. It's preserving the character of the town. And then probably a later priority is is around jobs. But I think from a Jonathan, you mentioned the role select board. I mean, you

look at the charter, the town charter, our role is to set the strategic vision and and frame that up. And so I think I'm glad we're having this conversation to frame, you know, what's the north star

that we're aiming for to then be able to come back and provide direction and guidance and work with our colleagues on other boards to help drive the the outcomes we want to get. So that's just my own

two cents on this. I think the biggest challenge we have is we have a limited amount of parcels that are are commercialzoned. So obviously there's not much opportunity. My other concern is is and

again this is just an anecdote. I I actually had a conversation with a friend who was another attorney that, you know, was working with a commercial entity that was uh kind of looking on the periphery

of the towns in the area and and they watch meetings um by the boards and they often make their decisions on whether they're going to look into a town and start kicking the tires as it were based on

conversations that they have, you know, at the board level. So, I'm just going to say I'm I'm going to be a little concerned because some of the conversations that I know we've had um in recent months

and years, you know, could be a detractor uh for certain entities wanting to come to look into town because if we're going to rely on getting some type of commercial partner in that's going to help us

fix the gap, you know, we really can't be picking and choosing, you know, the type of businesses that we may be comfortable with, you know, if someone wants to invest in town and it's a business and

it's not going to draw too much on water, not too much on on our police, our fire, not add other kids to the schools, you know, that's kind of what we need more than anything because that's the

easiest way to prevent future costs. So, I I don't know. I I think it's a good idea. I just I remain cautious because we could set a tone that causes businesses to say well forget about son and that

would be more detrimental than anything that we could achieve by collaboration. Just just to respond to that for a second. I think um fully I think I fully get your point. I mean we we don't want to

say we want I don't even try to make it an example. I think to me what we had to define and help shape is what are the characteristics. So, for example, you I'm looking at Jen down here. You know, if

you think for a second about things within the life sciences cluster, right? I've had some good, you know, Jen's has some good ideas there. The thing I like about life sciences cluster is you get um

it is approximate for the region that we're in. There's businesses coming in. There's a lot of equipment. There can be a lot of good things to drive to drive the revenue. So it's like to me for big

businesses it's assets that would drive the property tax the personal property tax. So and it's things that may fit within you know Jesse you mentioned water right so within the constraints that we

have things that won't have adverse impacts on the neighborhoods that the few parcels we have are in. So it's like what are the attributes of what we would look for because then it's probably an

effort of going out to the chambers of commerce and the others to try to recruit those those entities in. So I think it's a way to put some targeting for characteristics and then say hey how do we go

and recruit such companies in that's kind of my I I I get it. I and I agree with you 100%. But again if there were those entities out there um there are parcels available and they're not knocking on

our door. Yeah. So I would hate Right. I well I'd hate to say you know this is the type of business we're going in because again if they're not there they don't exist they're not looking to expand or

grow you know my wife works in um um pharmaceuticals and all the major pharmaceutical companies are contracting right now because you know it's just not working so to say this is the you know kind of

put over to put too many eggs in one basket I'm afraid that we could potentially miss out on opportunities I would rather just be like look we want to be a business friendly town and if you're a good

business, you know, come look at us. I think that would be the best bet to get a new partner in or to allow one of the existing businesses in town to expand. Sure. Right. And the planning board, you

may already have a plan already around this and it be really good to understand what that is, you know, so I think that's part of the conversation because we're not here like we can't set we can't go

out and make it happen. We can only set the direction, right? We've we have a real narrow uh There you go. That's the parcels we got. Not much to work with. So I think this is really more of a

conversation just it's not for us to dictate to the planning board or any other boards of what because we can't do that. That's not something we can do, you know. So I would like to understand what is

the direction we're heading and what is the plan. So well and on that point so like if there was a constraint like or if we needed to suggest some way to look at zoning to help with a particular

something I I think that's a conversation we have to have with them if there's a is there something that's prevents that prevents a business from doing something that we should take a look at. Well

yeah ultimately the whole town is the the the zoning of the bulk of the town. That's the biggest restraint. I mean, not that I'm in favor of this in any way, shape, or form, but if you were to

eliminate all of the residential zoning, that would be great for business, wouldn't it? But I don't think anyone in their right mind would want to do that in town. So, it's really not suggesting that,

but I think that's what we got to deal with, the open space that are in those zones. And, you know, we got to do everything we can to kind of be cheerleaders, you know, to get somebody that wants to

come into town and invest in those areas. I think your window is closing very quickly because if you've been attending the water meetings, Wilks got its water draw and there's already several and

Jen's sitting here. They're already queued up and once they get the uh the okay from the water district, they'll be coming before planning or zoning. There's already several uh developers that have

been waiting for the water and it's here and they're at the water meeting and they've been coming with what they want to do. So, um, and Jen knows this. One is a big box store that would be, um, on

146 South behind the post office. And the other is a Galaxy with the 40R project. They came to us as a 40B with a 33,000 square ft of retail and the 310 apartments. And what they're waiting for is for

that draft permit to be out of appeal. And they're going to be getting the allocation from Wilks. And then they're going to be coming before zoning and planning. And those are your two projects that

are that are right there. These people have been waiting for the water. And so those two projects are going to use pretty much the entire increase in the draw. So then it becomes to the same issue

we've had. We don't have water and bio. Jen's worked very diligently and she's not going to look up, but she can wave to try to get in some of that bio and the issue was no water. No water. No water.

So they did a best practice with what would need a limited amount of water that could bring in personal property and and that's how the unified project came and they were before planning they're

supposed to be opening unified well finalizing it. they have till the end of December to bring to finalize that u unified parkway and they said on on camera that they're six to 12 months away from

starting that building because they have to right what do they have eight years or they already started the project right so that's what we're looking at we're looking at a potentially big box store

that would be egressing onto Boston road and 146 right at that in intersection which would entail at would the DOT get involved if those two projects to do the flyover. So then we'd be looking at a

flyover project. So it's not really the flyover's coming down the pipeline anyway. So well they they paused because they didn't want to invest the 60 to90 million to do it and they wanted to see more

growth. If 50% of the permitted projects were to come online, we would be at more failure. And now we have these two big projects that are probably going to come to the Wilk side. And that's not even

talking about um the Manog Water District did a pump test and there's a developer down there that's talking about housing down there, but they're having other issues in the district. So, we're looking

at people waiting for water that are coming in with housing and they're coming in under 40B and that's and as soon as they get the water, that's that's what they're going to be doing. And so, um, both

water districts right now are are looking like they might have the available water and it's going to get used by a few then there's nothing that we can do about it. What the water districts do are

outside of our domain and hopefully we'll get businesses that can contribute to the tax base in a meaningful way. And I believe because Jen's there, I think what happens when someone comes before

planning, they already have to prove they have water that they need for their project. Hi, Jen Hager, the town's community development director. Um, they have to have an initial positive service

letter. Um, it is the policy, last I knew, of the water district to not lock down that water until they have the planning board approvals in hand. But when they come to the planning board, they need a

letter from the water district that says the water district has the capacity to serve the intended use. Exactly. So then the water actually gets used by the first planning board permitted project. I

understand how it works. No, but I mean the general public doesn't understand. They didn't understand the difference between the water district. Then it kind of is what it is, right? And again, then

we're going to have new buildings. We're going to have new growth. We're going to have some more revenue and that will help us in the short term. And you're also going to have projects of those kind

that are drawing more on our services and requiring more services. There's nothing we can do. No, I'm not saying there is. I'm just pointing that out that chased away potential commercial entities

based on conversations, then we're going to end up with housing or the housing just managed to skew up, you know, in line first. You know, that's just going to be the reality of things. But anyways,

yeah, maybe we should have the planning board and the zoning board before us. Let's focus on the the the matter at hand. Yeah. We can have some type of discussion. Yeah. Yeah. But I just wanted to

shape up like what that would look like and to get everybody's kind of consent that we wanted to move forward with this because this is something we brought up during the goals meeting and I wanted to

bring it before us to discuss to decide if we're going to go forward with that kind of a conversation. I am going to suggest though that they come before our one of our regularly scheduled meetings

though. We don't need to stretch um by adding more meetings to the calendar. Our our staff is is limited. That would be just a rep from there or because they would have to post a meeting too if they

all came. So would it be like when you did the school committee thing where it's a combination meeting with the boards or are you looking to do two reps from each one and do like a tri board? Are you

looking to just have a rep come before us from the board, the chair of each of them? just have a joint meeting, invite them all in. Is ZBA too much or do we just do it with planning? I don't I don't

fully have a perspective, but it's a lot of people if it's ZBA as well. That's up to us. I mean, yeah. What do you think, Mr. Chairman? I'm on the fence with it. I think that they have a very

specialized role, but I also think they have a perspective that could be helpful. So there are also a lot of changes coming down from the state to the ZBA and zoning especially with regard to housing.

So it would be important to understand what the state is putting as an overlay over our own bylaws to allow housing and densities that we don't currently have on our bylaw and the ZBA I think is

somebody that's they're being notified of this and that could be impactful for growth in the town as well. So what would we want the outcome of this meeting to be? I mean, do we want it to be

educational for us so that we can then um because we're facing all these other things we're looking at with all these assumptions uh around the future of our budgets. I think that's what it's going to

have to be. Yeah. Ultimately, yeah. So, and as Jesse's always said, we're the most watched uh show in this time slot. So, then the public would have much higher ratings kind of coming down the

pipeline. There's a lot of pressure coming down from the state for housing, right? would you say the the the multif family thing in the economic bill, the ballot question for the 5,000 lots, the I

mean I you know um I'm not going to take a position on pressure or not because there's obviously there's many people in the community that would agree with it, right? Those are the the the fact is the

statewide has set the state has set statewide housing goals, right? And they are using um their ability to legislate to be able to to change those laws to accomplish those goals, right? So the most

recent changes were in the FY2027 budget changes to 4A mostly kind of procedural changes right J I'm just trying to recall at the top of my head with some of the changes in terms of um you know how

long uh which things might need special permits but yeah I'll process stuff but that's important to understand but certainly you know you have the affordable homes act from 2024 which had some

provisions that's how we got things like the protected use ADUs right so I don't think that's going to stop I mean that the I I think the state has been pretty clear uh that they're looking to

legislate to accomplish their statewide housing goals along with some other right they have a really interesting I I would encourage in advance of this discussion all five of you take a look at the

statewide economic development plan there are some things that match our uh master plan and some of the things that that you guys have discussed tonight so you know I don't think we have to be

adversarial with the state there's certainly some things that we have a mutual um agreement in in industries that we'd like to see not just as in Sutton but in the region. I'll just say right now I

think that um as a town um both from from my position the select board any position in town we do do need to do a better job at thinking regionally about some of these things right so Jim I think

you've mentioned it like regional hubs for different industries um I think other parts of the country do a much better job at that it does seem like every single town is just trying to attract their

own right but they're not thinking about well if Milbury is growing this certain industry what are associated industries that we can try to incentivize or encourage to come that can support that.

Right? So, we don't do a good job, I'll just say in my opinion, statewide with that. Um, maybe Boston does a better job because they have trade industries that are more involved in that. We do it

here. I mean, the the uh Not really though. Like I, you know, I'll just say right now, I mean, I I think you have met with them. I've never met with the Chamber of Commerce for Worcester, right? Um,

CEO. I I know he's interested. I know he's talked about Sutton, but um I do think that and and this is something that I've complained to my my my peers and town managers. We do a poor job of getting

together and talking about things, not just from an economic development, but also solving issues. Um and it sounds like I'm going to be have to be the guy to organize that. I don't want to do that.

Um but I I I think that we need to do a better job. Um Christine and I attended the DLS MARP uh Mass Associated Regional Planning Associations conference at Holy Cross. Very interesting things that

they talked about um different sessions in terms of well we'll talk about that. I'm sure Christine you'll have your full update but talked a lot about some of the statewide housing goals had some

discussions with some of our peers across the Commonwealth about what's going on. I think that we should do more of that. So I would encourage if you have the time and availability attend those

meetings. um whether it's through the MMA, there's all kinds of stuff going on. We can get some good ideas from our neighbors as well. So just to respond to a couple things you said to react a few

things you said to Austin like so when you talk about us working across towns and and looking regionally fully agree um so for example let's let's take the agricultural thing for a second but if we

were collectively to try to support our agricultural cluster keep sen rural you know these kinds of things we would want to I would say work with Douglas and Oxford and GR like all the towns around us

Melbury right to try to help the farms and such right so having a farmers I kick around a few ideas, but being able to help the farms around here bring things to market and have restaurants and that

kind of thing that to me it extends beyond sudden borders. I don't know if that's a role for the town itself, but that's a way to help preserve the rural community. And then back to your point in the

um the more macro thing and the thing that actually would pay us revenue. Uh the term is clusters, right? So you you think about the life sciences cluster from Boston up to Worcester down, you know,

into Rhode Island. Uh, and again, I'm looking down at Jen because I know I mean she's looked at this stuff. Kudos and great job looking at that because I think that's a that's a thing in this area.

There are nonprofits, there are entities in the Worcester area, Boston area that help companies find. So, to Jesse, to your point within within um small molecule stuff, you know, I mean, we got the

whole capital cycle there there are economic conditions going on right now, but it would be good to find something that's in that cluster. And I think I don't know as a lazy fair kind of guy I like

just you know letting letting people knock on our door. My guess is we're going to have to go knock on their door. So to Jonathan's point about what the to what the um you know right thing is. I mean,

for you and, you know, your team members to do this, is there anything that you guys all need, direction, help, what, whatever, to be able to go and knock on the doors correctly, get connected in with

the right nonprofits for, you know, chambers of commerce, things like this, like what what is it that the town staff needs? Should anyone want to come here and answer that? Is there anything the town

staff needs to help be able to uh, you know, succeed in that extra people? Well, well, can I just say that Central Mass Regional Planning just had a great the quarterly meeting and they were talking

about the bio the biomed in the Worester area is one of the fastest growing areas in the country. Yeah. To only second to maybe Madison, Wisconsin research triangle. Um, but the problem that they're

having is they can't move their people around. In other words, we don't have transportation. And you're on the WRTA, right? You're on that board. So you can get someone to get in here at a Union

Station, but then they they might have to take their bike, then they get on that bus and that bus. There's not a transportation system in central Mass that is drawing people to that industry. And even

though they want to be here, they're really finding it challenging to to get the bodies. Housing costs and transportation are the big issue. And well, and I'll just say right now, the WRTA will not

provide I mean they're actually reducing service I think in Grafton because and then they're definitely not thinking about Sutton because we we don't have the poll industry-wise yet, right? And

they've said that in several public meetings. Yeah. Um but even within Wister, they're not doing a great job of moving people around. That was I mean better, right? I think Fair Free has helped with

some things, right? And I know we'll see how long that lasts, but um but certainly any of the the communities outside more suburban, rural, whatever we want to call ourselves, communities outside of

Worcester, um very limited transportation, transportation access, um very limited housing access for people. So if they don't need to hop on the WRT bus to get to work, um for some of our associated

industries, I mean, think about some of our large companies. How many of those truly are sudden residents? they probably can't afford to live here, right? Um, so we also don't have a a combination of

a variety of housing stock available either to support some of these industries. But then on the flip side, the master plan wanted to have businesses that could the people who live here could work at

and we weren't able to accomplish that because we didn't have the infrastructure to be able to bring the business in to match the education level of the people who were already here. So people are

commuting you know an hour and 45 an hour and a half from here. So yep the ones that are working here are coming in here from here and the ones that here are commuting out yeah two three hours a day.

So what do you guys think about infrastructure? Be specific. What kind of infrastructure? The kind of infrastructure that serves businesses. I know. No, really. I mean, it's a it's a really there's

only a few different kinds of infrastructure that we actually have water, sewer, transportation. I mean, I don't know if we're going to be Well, actually, Jen got a master grant for a gas extension.

So, maybe not, but uh a couple years ago, and that served South Sutton Commerce uh Park, right, business park that was able to recruit Prime Metals out of Worcester, right? Am I doing this right? Um

so, that was infrastructure enhancements to be able to recruit businesses. I think that was a positive for the town. Are there other areas or industries uh well are there other areas in town that are

not served by infrastructure that should be in our long-term goal to be able to try to enhance some of this these parcels to make them available um and ready for for development. I know we're always

looking at like larger businesses. You know, one of the challenges I see as a small business owner or other small business owners I see is they often start in their homes and they get going and where

do they go after they get to a certain point? Y they go to another town because there's no infrastructure as far as uh buildings like um to be able to move to. So then they move to other towns and

there I've seen plenty of Sutton businesses go to Milbury and other places like that. I mean that's we have to look at this beyond just the context of getting the big whale which you know but where

are they going in Milbury and does the do the places in Milbury that they have do they have the infrastructure to support those businesses? Right. Probably yes. Yeah, probably yes. Yeah, because

they're going there. Not I mean not everybody's going to Milbury but I'm just using that as an example. I know several people who were in Sutton and now they're in Milbury. Yeah. So do we need to I

mean are there you know are there more business parks that you're interested in? Right. That's going to take some serious land use changes right in terms of zoning changes to be able to develop that

or are you not and you're willing to do the override? Are you know so what is the what does the community want? Well does it have to be either or though? It has to be a combination. Yeah it has to be

a combination on it. Right. I mean that you saw that map. I mean it is it is a sea of white zoning can be all residential. You could you can change zoning. Yeah. I mean it just takes a town meeting

vote right and the agent approves it. But is there interest among that that was the details what and where and all that? I think most people are going to protect their zoning. Even the people who are

on the edge of business zoning fight hard to keep things from changing. People are going to protect their zoning. People are going to protect their wallets. Yeah. Well, but so is it a proven fact that

changing to more of a mixed use or commercial zoning changes property values in a negative changes quality of life? How do you how do you dollar on that? Right? Like so for example, if you were to

change the zoning in the town center to to uh allow for more commercial, do you really think it uh hold invite you to Paulie's and just sit on the porch and watch the traffic? Guys, hey, remember I

grew up in small towns and small communities, but you know what I liked? I could go downtown and grab a bite to eat. Yeah. I could I could uh you'd have to create another area that would be like a

downtown because I don't think people want you touching I it's not going to pass. That's not even like Hold on. I also have a I'll just say this. There's five of you that are saying that there's

almost 10,000 people that live in town. Do you really think that you're speaking on behalf of 10,000 people? 5,000. Yeah. Do you really though? Right. Truly. Yes. Have have where's the poll and have

you conducted any research to be able to justify that? I don't think so. Right. But I know I know why people move here and they move here. Like here's the challenge that we have is they move here

because they're a few minutes away from the mass pike. But if you move here if you want to live in Shrewsbury I don't know. I mean maybe but I didn't grow up here and this is a very tough discussion

to have. It is. That's why we're having this discussion. like we got to have these discussions, but we're not going to make any resolution and all we're doing is pushing time. No. So, I I think we're

not getting anywhere. So, I think we should just move forward. Call the question. It's my job to come up with some ideas. And that was one, but and it sounds like that's going to fall on its face and

I'll blame you guys for it. But, um, but we have to think differently, right? Whether it's an override, whether it's looking at the businesses or the opportunities that are provided for the town, I

think that if we continue with the status quo, nothing's going to happen, right? That's what I was saying earlier. So, we have to kind of get outside the comfort zone, but we've got to have these

conversations. And that's why I want to have I think we should have this meeting. But what I want to know is if we invite 10 other people to come, how are we going to manage that? What's that look

like? And what are we really looking to get out of that? That would be like the first tribal. We have the other two boards join Zoom join remotely could do that could do that's a really good idea but

to Austin's point before what are like what are we actually solving for which I think Jesse raised that too to my question is what what do you know Austin Jen what what do you guys need in terms of

any direction to help with this I'm not sure I heard a clear answer you know we kicked around a few ideas I think if we do this we should have a few things that we're actually solving for versus just

I don't want to just talk about general things and I and again these board like the planning board may already have a plan but we just you know we need to understand what that looks like is there is

there an economic look at topics I mean there's there's businesses that come here and they they talk about are there potential tax incentives they talk about uh what is the applicing that's in place

is there an opportunity to change zoning I mean that's just the experience that I've seen not just in this town but in every town I mean they look at AAR variety of things if we're trying to recruit

people, not just the big ones, but also the smaller ones, too, right? Um, is there an opportunity to try to partner up on a massworks grant to get infrastructure to be able to serve them? Is there an

opportunity to partner up on a one-stop grant, not just for infrastructure, but for other um programs that are available, too? Have we ever taken advantage of the um uh downtown storefront uh redesign

grant program? Maybe. I don't know. Well, we don't really have a downtown storefront. It's not like Clinton Gardner. We have villages, right? Have we ever tried to look at um I think that's something

that we could be utilized is the villages because they're already zoned. To answer your question, it's not easy, right? I do think that and I I've referred to this before like some sort of a northstar

about a variety of things that I just mentioned and some more. Certainly, Jen, please. That's really our role is to create that north star, but we got to do that in conjunction with the other boards.

I'll say right now the people that have come to me to ask, well, what do you think this board would do? Do you know what I tell them? You don't know. I have no idea and neither do I. And that makes me

feel very uncomfortable as the town manager to say that. And it goes back to the point I made about people watching the meetings, too. So that's why I think I'm going to have to probably sit down with

you and maybe the chairs of the other two boards to really think about how we want to structure this because it has to be tight. So what I don't want to do is have a big meeting and we we have to have

a real outcome. And what I want to know from this board is you we have this on our list of goals. What do you want as an outcome of this? Like I'm going to say now it's going to have to be driven I

would say if you're going to have the meeting the only way it's going to work because you can't have 15 people all chime in in their two cents. It's going to have to be driven by the chairs of the

board. Yeah. So maybe we just invite have to just sit back and listen and then the other ones can just Yeah. Yeah. It can't be it's got to be I mean we've got to have like I'm going to have like what

outcome are we looking for? This is going to be, you know, when I run these type of meetings, it's right. We've been we've been doing this for half hour and we got no resolutions. I know. Well, that's

what I'm trying to do is wrap it up right now. I mean, no matter no matter what the outcome is, who who owns whatever parcel or whatever land or whatever your district at district you're looking at,

ownership means everything. So, you know, getting a buyin from heads of the board is great, but ownership matters. You know, that's why, right? But ownership matters more because that's that's their

turf, not not ours and they're paying taxes on it. So good point. It's great to have these boards together, but knowing what parcels are owned by people who have, you know, and Jen probably knows more

of this, knowing which parcels, you know, people may be willing to or waiting for an opportunity to come up and which ones aren't because if there's ones that are not, then the all all this talk is

useless because ownership matters first before all the boards and that's the way it ought to be. And economic de development is not the panacea. It's not going to solve our problems. I mean, it really

isn't. I mean, it's just one mechanism out of many. And and in reality, there's pros and cons of that because just like we said earlier, people move here because they like it quieter. And you start

putting in more businesses. Guess what? You're sitting at a stoplight 15 cars back waiting to get through two cycles, which I've seen in many other towns that have gone through this. So, I think

you're going to have to sit down with Austin and kind of map I'll map it out and I'll meet with the other um chairs. Makes sense. All right. All right. Next is approve and sign the state election

warrant. Who has that one? Is that me? Yep, that's you. I'd like to make a motion to approve and sign the 2026 state election warrant. I'm going to second that. Any other discussion? Something we have

to do every single year. Okay. Roll call vote, please. Jesse Lman, I Adam I. Watkins. I and Anderson I. Spangler. Oh, I jumped one. Sorry. All right, that's all set. Next is town manager update. I'll

be very brief. Um, just wanted to provide an update to the board and the community about uh what we've learned uh since our last meeting about the uh Amazon uh uh Prime Air service that's proposed uh

within the town of Westboro, but impacts um uh many communities including a a small sliver in the northern section of the the town of Sutton. Um, I did attend the community meeting that was hosted by

Amazon at the Double Tree Hotel. There's a lot of people there. Um, in Westboro, a lot of people from all over. Um, uh, Jonathan was there as well. I think maybe towards the tail end of the

presentation. Um, very interesting presentation. A lot of questions and feedback from the public. So, I'll just quickly roll through just overall what I learned. Not a lot has changed from what I I uh

had reported back uh at the at the last meeting, but um just to to reiterate that. So the proposal is to uh provide for drone delivery services to single family homes within a 7 and a half mile um

radius of the facility on Otis Street um in in Westboro. Um, for those who are not familiar, it's I think it's sort of off of Route Nine. Um, next to I know that there's a brewery there. Um, next to

the brewery. Um, Cold Harbor dealership there, too. Yeah. Car dealership. There's also an Amazon robotics location. So, it's sort of a side street off of uh off of Route 9. They could deliver

Growlers. They could if that's within their uh 85%. So, I mentioned 85%. So that's the number they said the amount of product within the facility that they believe would be eligible for drone delivery

and there are some characteristics that um that they are adhered to. So um the packages uh the drones carry less than five pounds um once you kind of opt into the program. So for example, if you order

a I'm not going to use your example. You order a new phone on Amazon um a message will pop up saying this item is eligible for drone delivery. um yes or no. There is a fee. If you're a prime member,

it's $2.99. If you're a non-prime member, it's $4.99. Once you say yes, you designate a a map sort of pops up on your app. You designate three sites um within your property and those sites have to

have 18 foot clearance uh radius and 100 ft in the air clear um to the sky. Um once you do that, uh it's all set. Amazon says that the sites are okay. Uh within 30 minutes to an hour, uh one of their

workers at the site will put the package on the drone. It will cruise up to between 260 and 300 some odd uh feet altitude, travel about going to round up and say 80 miles an hour to your uh to its

destination. Start to slowly um you know drop down to about a 100 or so feet. Once it gets directly above the site, drops down directly uh to about 13 feet, drops a package, buzzes back home or buzzes

back to Westboro. As I mentioned, this is a fully opt-in program. Um as they are delivering, there's many sensors and technology on this. Um, if for any reason as they're trying to attempt delivery

within the 18 foot radius, if they see a squirrel, a dog, someone trying to catch the drone for whatever reason, it will abort delivery, go back to Westboro, um, and we'll send you a message saying,

"We aborted delivery for whatever reason. Do you want us to try again?" Or they also just make may make the decision that they'll deliver by their normal means of a of a van or uh again their normal

vehicle. um approvals. So, um right now the only approvals that uh that are required are by their host jurisdiction, which is the town of Westboro. Um their zoning enforcement officer has declared

this an accessory use to the warehouse. Um and uh I believe they're just going through site plan review. Is that correct, Jen? Yes. No. Site plan, right? You know what? I believe it's just site plan

review as an accessory. Yeah. special. Yep. Um, uh, also, uh, needs FAA approval. So, Federal Aviation Administration approval. Um, if you look at some of their their approvals across the country,

they have about I'm going to round up and say about a dozen sites across the country. I don't know if it's quite there. Um, sort of the the normal conditions that they have are their ceiling is 400

ft. They can do no more than 1,000 flights per day. Now, that's not 1,000 separate drones. That's flights. So from taking off to Westboroough, round trip, landing back, that's one flight. Um, uh, they

also have to stay away from helellipads, airports. In the case of Arizona, there was a certain area of Arizona that was designated, I think, as a nesting site for bald eagles. They have to stay away

from that. So they do uh environmental assessments as well through, I believe it's through the FAA, and that is ongoing. So the FAA and Amazon will continue to will continue to have to monitor. So for

example, if migratory birds change for whatever reason, that will also change the delivery patterns and lanes that are available for the for the uh drone delivery. Uh what else? Um so they are

autonomous, right? So they are not flown by humans. They do have FAA certified flight monitors on site. So, um, what you'd see if you drive by is you see essentially several trailers within a

fencedin, uh, zone. Within one of those trailers or flight monitors that are looking at the the drones, not cameras, but they're looking at the flight data. And for whatever reason, if a drone veers

off site or has any sort of issue, there's a couple of different uh things that they can do. They can tell it to come back or they can tell it to make a safe emergency landing somewhere, and then

they'll hop in a truck and go get the drone somewhere. Um they're going to start with six drones right now. Um so if you just kind of do the math, they're only allowed to deliver during what they call

civil twilight, which is essentially daytime. Um uh six drones right now, just mathematically within that large square mile radius, I don't think they'll be able to get to the thousand flights per day

right now. Um I think that's it. There's a lot there. I'm sure there's stuff that I missed. certainly learning a lot about this. Um over the past several weeks, we've received a lot of comments and

questions from people. I brought this up at my coffee talk at the senior center and received some questions. Um the select board, as all of you know, received um some comments from a resident also

proposing um uh zoning changes to Sutton zoning to be able to try to mitigate this from uh or any of this sort of related activity from occurring in in town. And certainly I think we can that's maybe

a future agenda item if you want to talk about that. I think one of the things too is that people need also understand is that the FAA controls the air and we only control like the ground and far as

like the takeoff and landing within our So that would be like in Westboro. They have the site plan review. So that's their only Yeah. So but the FAA controls the flight and all the air part of it. But

aren't there a lot there's a lot of chatter about this. Isn't there some 1940s law too where you own so much 150 ft above your you you have space above your house and if someone violates it that's

aerial trespass but if if the FAA is coming in and regulating it I sure the federal government will supersede you know any common law traditions or statutory traditions from the state yeah very

interesting um sorry I was going to say I I do think it's reasonable at a future point to consider a zoning via law about launching, you know, and and what what that would look like. Um either for

fixed locations or I'm sure we're not far away from having a trailer truck come in and then launch a bunch of them to do I mean there's a few ways that this would go, but it might not be a bad idea to

consider bylaws. Yeah, I've heard some rumors about the alter. So, someone had had mentioned, well, they're they're they're also looking to do the trailer truck just launch from, you know, culde-sac.

Yeah. To be clear, that's not what they proposed. Correct. Not yet. But that's not what they proposed right right now. So, um I just want to make that very clear. Certainly, I think if it starts to

impact any sort of um use of any land within Sutton, certainly the planning board would have um you know, an interest and the town would have uh an opportunity to to regulate that. But as of right

now, very limited. Right, Jen? Well, can she come up to the mic? Yeah. Um actually I the only thing I wanted to say because this is all conjecture where it will go from here but for anybody that was

interested and was not attend able to attend the virtual session that I went to or the inerson session that Austin went to and Jonathan went to um the presentation slides all of them are on the

planning board's meeting materials from last night. Um so you can just hop on there and look at the whole presentation. Um and they do have a website that's specific to the Westboro um location and

their operations and it does contain a map of all the countrywide locations. So you can kind of see and if you want to do more research from there and I'll just add so the planning board in Westboro

is meeting I think right now on this as well and this is I think the first topic uh on their agenda but there's also been several meetings in Westboro with their select board and their planning board

that I would encourage and maybe we can embed them on our website just forformational if people are interested. Um I found the select board discussion in Westboro very informative a lot of really good

questions. um especially from some of the board members and they they answered a lot of the questions that I had or I had heard from from people as well. So um I would just encourage people to to take

a look at that if they're interested further. So that's it on that one. Just a few other updates. So uh we are uh we're ready for town meeting. The the finance committee uh closed out their their

public hearing process last week. Uh approved favorably all articles. Uh there's a caveat on the citizens petition article. The motion was to recommend favorably, but they all voted no on it, right?

And pretty much the argument was well there was no one here to present the article to us. So um but uh we're ready for town meeting on uh Monday, October 19th. Again, check-in begins at 6:30. Uh

meeting starts at 7. Uh everyone over the next few days will receive their postcards. I want to thank the the cable department for all the work putting this together. They did a a great job as always.

Um, if anyone has any questions in the meantime about the uh about the warrant, please feel free to reach out. Uh, and we'll put out some more information over the next few days on on town meeting.

Uh, we held a kickoff meeting with CMRPC uh, with various members of town staff to begin the hazard mitigation plan update. As I as I mentioned in in the previous manager's update, uh, this is

supported by a $35,000 state grant to update that plan, which expired in 2021. And so it's a few years uh expired now. Um the the meeting was essentially taking a look at the existing plan any of the

mitigation or implementation strategies just asking for an update where we where we stand on it. Many of those strategies we we did accomplish. Others are still ongoing. I'll just say that. Um so the

discussion uh will you know do we need to change those strategies? Do we need to add new ones? There's community input that's involved. um select board input as well. Um uh the timeline to complete

this originally was June 30th of next year. We're likely going to ask for an extension to allow for more public input on this uh which will give us until October 30th of next year to accomplish that.

Um that's all I have for updates at this time. All right. Thank you. Anybody comments? All right. Move on to announcements. Select board round table correspondents and business topics. I got three

real quick. Uh, one quick reminder to the community, found days, found days, found days. Not this weekend, next weekend. Um, second on also on Monday 19th, um, I am going to be back at the senior

center. I did kind of take the summer off from having my coffees with the seniors only because I was dealing with family stuff. So, I did have one last month. Totally forgot to mention it, but I am

going to be back on Monday the 19th. And speaking of the senior center, I do have the latest food pantry list. And again, I we're sitting here talking about budget. We're talking about the idea of

having to increase taxes, but we have near over 200 residents in town that have to utilize the food pantry because they can't even afford to feed themselves. So, just remember, unlike other food

pantries, this is not taxpayer funded. This is filled with donations from our residents and local businesses. So, if you are shopping, please be on the lookout for cans of beef stew, clam chowder,

spinach, mandarin oranges, pineapple, raisins, the little snack packs, ham, I think canned ham, um, canned chicken, pancake mix, hot cocoa, juice bottles and juice boxes, flavored rice, saltine

crackers, Ritz crackers, brownie mix, flour, sugar, preferably in the plastic containers, hand soap, they generally like the liquid hand soap, laundry detergent, familysiz jugs, cleaning sprays, dry

cat food, dry dog food, canned dog food, and of course, you can make donations here in town hall, St. Marks, the First Church, Market 32 at the transfer station, and you could go right to the senior

center during normal business hours. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you. All right. Just echo Jesse. It's Waters Farm Day is coming up. So, please visit. Please volunteer. That's it. Yeah. Volunteer.

Cool. I have nothing. Okay. Uh I just want to put two things that we've gotten for correspondence um particularly around the um Amazon air delivery. So, we received a letter from both um Ryan, Senator

Ryan Fatman and State Representative Joe McKenna just expressing their concerns um in regards to the joint delivery that was addressed directly to us. And then also they sent a letter along with um

all of the other delegations from within central Massachusetts to our congressional delegation, you know, Elizabeth Warren, Ed Marky, Jim McGarburn, and Lori Trhan. So, that was sent to them as well.

just putting out concerns around the Amazon air. Um and then also we as um Austin referenced earlier, we received multiple emails from Jeffrey Hamill, a town resident, just giving us um ideas and

thoughts and um requests uh for different zoning that would or um bylaws that would be sent to town meetings. So, we just wanted to address that as well. So, that's all I have. All right. With that,

do we have a motion? Mr. Chairman, I'd like to make a motion to enter into executive se session pursuant to Mass General Law Chapter 30A subsection 21. Number three, to discuss collective bargaining,

Teamsters contract, and number seven, to vote to approve the select board executive session meeting minutes from September 22nd, 2026 with the sole purpose of re-entering regular session for

adjournment only. Do have a second. Second. All right. Any discussion? Roll call vote please. Woman Manic I Edamar I Watkins I Spangler I and Anderson I. Good night everyone.