Agenda – Plymouth Select Board 1-11-22 Agenda

Official Minutes – Plymouth Select Board 1-11-22 Minutes

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Dick Quintal:

Thank you and welcome back. We’re going to get an update from Margaret Coe. Good evening and welcome, Margaret.

Margaret Coe:

Good evening. How are you?

Dick Quintal:

Thank you. And you?

Margaret Coe:

Good. Thank you. So, hello everyone. I’m going to do this in place of Karen so I hope I can live up to doing this as well as she does. So, just to give you a quick couple of updates. Right now, the biggest, exciting news is that the town will be ordering some at home test kits. We hope to have those ordered by the end of day tomorrow. We’re using the ARPA funds to get those ordered. Once they are ordered, they’ll ship within about 10 days and then we’ll have an update or hopefully we will be able to have a better information of the estimated time of arrival on that. That’s exciting.

Some other things to know, as of January 5th, all Massachusetts counties were still considered high risk for COVID transmission including Plymouth County. The Omicron variant is accounting for about 82% of the cases in New England. That’s information that comes from the CDC. It’s considered to be about two to three times more transmissible and thus reproduce at a faster rate than the Delta. However, it does have less severe symptoms than the Delta did like what you’re hearing with the fatigue, the cough, the congestion, the stuffy nose.

At the moment, those that are unvaccinated currently make up about 70% of COVID hospitalizations. So, that is a pretty big number and just stresses the importance of people getting vaccinated. Speaking of the hospitals, right now, we just got an update from BID Plymouth. They currently have 140 in-patients; ICU is full and 7 of those patients there are COVID positive.

As of January 6, the state is going to start counting hospital numbers a little bit differently. So, what that means is they’re going to track people that are in the hospital because of COVID and not include people who are in the hospital and then they find out that they have COVID. So, those incidental cases are not going to be counted. We’ll start seeing those numbers being published on January 17th. So, that’s next Monday.

Some of you may have heard of the update on mass.gov, which is the myvaxrecords.mass.gov, and this is a portal that will provide you with a digital copy of the record of vaccines that have been reported to the Massachusetts Department of Public Health. These records will include your COVID vaccination. So, if you’d lost that card, great idea to log into myvaxrecords.mass.gov and you can download that information right to your phone. So, that’s going to be a really handy tool for people.

Another thing that mass,gov has is MassNotify. This is a service that was developed in partnership with Google and Apple to help slow the spread of COVID-19 where many people are now doing the at-home test kits. This is just the way for them to be able to transmit that information anonymously so that those around them can know that they may be exposed through somebody with COVID. Again, that’s right on mass.gov.

Also, on mass.gov, you can find locations for vaccination clinics or vaccine sites such as pharmacies and make appointments right through there. We are still very much encouraging people to get vaccinated. If they’ve already received their second dose of Moderna or Pfizer, whether first vaccine of the J&J, definitely getting booster because definitely helping people to fight against the Omicron variant and also, helps to slow re-infection.

Test sites, you can find testing locations. You can still do that through mass.gov. But you are probably going to have to wait a couple of days. I know that there are some sites in other towns, they’re waiting up to 5 hours to get tested and having to go out a couple of days. It’s just the way it is right now because everybody is looking for those tests.

And then lastly, something that I would like to make people aware of is the COVID-19 Interactive data dashboard that’s right on mass.gov.

[0:05:00]

Margaret Coe:

These numbers are daily numbers, cumulative numbers indicated Monday through Friday. You can track how many hospitalizations are in your area. You can track how many tests are being done, what the positivity rate is in your area. Sometimes it’s done by towns, some data is by county but it’s just going to give you an idea of the overall trends. It’s very informative to be able to look at that and to see how much vaccines are helping.

So, that’s what I got. Do you have any questions? I’d be happy to try to answer them for you.

Dick Quintal:

Any questions from the board?

Betty Cavacco:

I do have one question.

Dick Quintal:

Betty?

Betty Cavacco:

And it might not be for you, Margaret but it might be for Lee. I know that we received a notice that the state was releasing testing for all municipalities. That was like a couple weeks ago. Didn’t you send something out that COVID testing or test kits were going to be released? So, I’m wondering, are those being released for free or is it something that we have to pay for? Because I know that you said we’d be using ARPA funds.

Lee Hartman:

Yes. So, there are three categories of what we’re talking about. So, ARPA funds and you have that on the admin notes tonight for what Margaret was talking about and that represents 15,000 test kits. There’s two to a test. So, the request tonight is for 15,000 for a total of 30,000 test kits. Two a test, 15,000 tests and that’s tonight and we’ll be ordering those. We also had been in discussions with the Emergency Management Group and they’re thinking that they’d like to get another 15,000 through ARPA again. So, probably at the next meeting, there will be a second request for an additional 15,000 test kits from them.

In addition, the county had received 200,000 or a commitment for 200,000 test kits for the whole county. I talked to the County Commissioner and Treasurer about that last week and he indicated that they don’t have a timeline yet for rollout but as soon as they have their vendor and make their order, they will be releasing those 200,000 and their release to each county is going to be based solely on per capita of however that works per capita for each release. So, really, I think we’re looking at three different levels of where we get these test kits.

Betty Cavacco:

Okay.

Dick Quintal:

Is that it?

Margaret Coe:

That’s it for me.

Dick Quintal:

Thank you very much, Margaret. Have a good evening.

Margaret Coe:

You’re welcome. Take care.

Dick Quintal:

Plymouth Education Foundation: Valentine Gala, that would be Mr. Betters, I believe.

Robert Betters:

Yes, Mr. Chairman, members of the board, thank you for the opportunity to be here tonight and to speak about the Plymouth Education Foundation. I actually had two purposes and requesting time in your agenda tonight. One as Mr. Quintal indicated was the Education Foundation Gala but then I would wish to give an overview to the board of what the Education Foundation does, where we stand in terms of fundraising, scholarships, grants, etc., particularly for the new board members who may not be as familiar with the Education Foundation and what we do. In regards to the gala, we had originally scheduled our annual gala for February 12th at Waverly Oaks but because of COVID intrusion issues, we’ve postponed that to the 9th of April. But we wanted to extend a personal invitation to the Select Board to attend that gala. As I indicated, it’s our 11th event. We missed last year because of COVID but we’ve held an annual gala every year since 2010. It’s our primary fundraiser for the Education Foundation.

Briefly, I know you’re busy tonight. I just wanted to give you an overview of what the Education Foundation does and how it was established. It was originally established in 2008. Oh, by the way, I should also introduce Kathy Babini, who is in attendance tonight. She’s a member of our board as well. We incorporated in 2008 and there were 5 founding members of the Education Foundation at that time: Linda McAlduff, who is the former chairperson of the School Committee. Lauren Bakken, who is the CPA, Barry Haskell, obviously a former superintendent, and Adele Manfredi of whom in addition to me had a commitment to public education, in particular. We obtained our non-profit determination from the IRS in 2009. We started fundraising in 2010. We are independent of the town and independent of the schools.

[0:10:01]

Robert Betters:

We are a private non-profit administered by a board of directors who are hundred percent volunteer. The goals that are within our charter are four-fold: one, to encourage academic excellence, two to promote community awareness of education and the foundation itself, three to support lifelong learning and four, to ensure perpetuity of the foundation by means of establishing an endowment. We wanted to pursue both an endowment and immediate impact on the schools because we wanted the foundation to be perpetual. We’ve been, I think, very successful over the last 10 years in terms of enhancing the endowment.

But we also provide scholarships and grants on an annual basis. Currently, we provide a total of $11,000 in scholarships to graduating seniors at Plymouth North and Plymouth South. $1,000 per year alternating between Plymouth North and Plymouth South for the Abate Scholarship, which was established by Adele Manfredi’s parents and is currently administered by the Education Foundation. And then we have four Plymouth Education Foundation scholarships, each in the amount of $2500 to the Plymouth North and to the Plymouth South. We also provide a variety of grants. We have a grant application process in the spring and in the fall. Teachers, educators, administrators can apply for grants that we review and hopefully approve as we deemed necessary.

Essentially, we look to enhance programs, educational opportunities, professional enhancement opportunities that are not funded by tax-based revenues and are not part of the school budget. Some of the grants that we provided over the years, just to give you an example: the Robotics program, Enhanced Place for Elementary School playgrounds, Kids Voting. Most recently with Children’s Business Fair, edible gardens at two schools, Parent Math Night. We also work with other non-profits and public organizations to provide grants like Plymouth Philharmonic. We’ve done a number of grants for their music immersion program. The Chamber of Commerce for their College Jumpstart program. Pilgrim Hall Museum for their Riverview Book programs and other educational programs that are available to Plymouth students. We’ve also early on provided a grant to the Plymouth Public Library for the literacy program. So, that just gives you an idea of what we do in terms of scholarships and grants. Since we started fundraising and providing scholarships and grants in 2010, we provided almost $200,000 over the years both for scholarships and grants and we hope to really increase that and have more funds available now that our domain is well established.

The other thing I just wanted to point is when Adele Manfredi passed away, we established the Adele Manfredi Excellence in Education Award, which is given out at the gala. This year’s recipient is Gary Maestas. But we’ve done it every year since Adele has passed away. So, that just gives you an overview. I appreciate the time tonight. I just wanted to kind of generally explain what the Education Foundation does. On a personal note, I have retired from the practice of law. I practice law in Plymouth for 44 years. I’ve been here for the entirety of my legal career, but I want to extend my thanks to the Select Board for its courtesy that it had shown me over the years that I’ve appeared before it. Thank you and if you have any questions, either Kathy Babini or I would be happy to address them about the Education Foundation.

Dick Quintal:

Any questions for Mr. Betters? On behalf of the town, Bob, I’d like to just mention back to you, it always was a pleasure in my tenure on the board when you came before any board and I watched you before quite a few, you always handled yourself just so professionally.

Robert Betters:

Thank you.

Dick Quintal:

And you have a good reputation in town because of it, so I wish you well and any way I can help you with the gala, I’d be more than happy to.

Robert Betters:

Right. I’ll let the board know assuming we go ahead in April and I hope that the COVID is such that we can go ahead in April. I’ll let the board know definitively that we are proceeding.

[0:15:02]

Dick Quintal:

Okay. Thank you.

Robert Betters:

Thank you.

Dick Quintal:

Next stop, we have Climate Change Addendum and I believe that’s Patrick Farah and Mrs. Sharl Heller [?], I believe. I’m trying to find everybody here. Hey, Patrick.

Patrick Farah:      

Hi, good evening, Mr. Chairman, everybody, thank you so much for taking the time with us. Real quick, both Sharl Heller and myself, she’s with the Open Space Committee, we came before you back in March 16th of 2021 with the first draft of the Climate Change Addendum, which just for a quick background it’s a supplement to the Open Space and Recreation Plan that the state requires on all the municipalities to draft every five or seven years depending on the criteria that’s achieved.

In the past, all communities or mostly communities never really addressed climate change in their Open Space and Recreation Plan mostly because the state never had any criteria for it. So, after the town submitted their draft in 2017 and it was amended in 2018, discussion at the Open Space Committee level was, ‘Well, aren’t why we talking about climate change?’ And the priority and the achievements that Open Space Committee as other groups can look at for taking open space as part of the solution to climate change resiliency.

So, the last three years, there was a working group, which included two or three members of the Open Space Committee and myself as support staff. We drafted the report, vetted through it many times. There’s a lot of science behind it. Last March, we submitted it and the charge from the Select Board was to have the report sent out to many different groups, organizations, committees, boards and look for comments. We did receive responses and this was part of our goal anyway. Our charge was to have this done. I believe Chris sent everybody a page showing the Climate Change Resiliency Addendum submitted responses. These were the responses that Sharl and I received.

We took all the language and incorporated it where applicable to the report, to the addendum, amended the entire document and resubmitted it to Chris for your review a few weeks ago. I hope the board had a chance to review the report and Sharl and I are happy to answer any questions. What we’re looking for actually tonight not only we’re looking for a vote to endorse this addendum, but also, we’ll need a letter of support, which we could attach to the addendum, which we would be submitting to the Division of Conservation Services and that’s the agency that actually approves the Open Space and Recreation Plans.

I’m not sure, Sharl if I miss anything.

Sharl Heller:

I think you covered it very well, Patrick. Thank you.

Patrick Farah:

Thank you.

Dick Quintal:

Thank you both. Any questions or comments from the board? I have a few but being on the hour, Patrick, I’m going to let them go because we have other committees waiting but I know on page 8 number 12 was the Superfund site. It mentions. I like to know a little about that. Number 11, a radioactive waste. Saltwater, I figured that one out and the Water System Management Plan. I like to talk a little about that, but another time. So, maybe I can just give you a call. The other board members have questions and talk with you tomorrow. If that’s all right.

Patrick Farah:

Absolutely.

Dick Quintal:

In the spirit of time, okay. Any other questions for Patrick or Sharl?

Sharl Heller:

I see Harry Helm has his hand up.

Dick Quintal:

Go ahead, Harry. Thank you.

Harry Helm:

Thanks, Sharl. Thanks, Dick. Just a quick question, and Patrick, I’ll call you tomorrow about it. In Appendix 1 at the bottom, it mentions and this is not about the report. I thought the Climate Change Addendum is very complete. I just had a question: estimated cost for future projects, Plymouth beach seawall reconstruction, $4,030,000 and Warren Cove Nourishment $4,000,000. Just kind of wondering where this came from, but we can cover those in a conversation outside of the meeting.

Patrick Farah:

Absolutely!

Harry Helm:      

Okay. Thank you.

Patrick Farah:

Thank you very much.

Sharl Heller:

Thank you.

Dick Quintal:

Thank you. Do you need a vote to recommend this, Patrick or–

Patrick Farah:

Yes. We’ll need a vote and then if you don’t mind, I’ll talk to Chris Badot tomorrow or later in the week for a letter of endorsement. Thank you.

Sharl Heller:

Good night.

Harry Helm:

Good night.

Dick Quintal:

Do we have a motion from the board?

Harry Helm:

Motion.

Betty Cavacco:

Second. For discussion.

Dick Quintal:

Discussion? Mrs. Cavacco?

Betty Cavacco:

Yes. When all the questions are answered from the chair and Mr. Helm, could you please give that information, provide that to the rest of the board so we know what it’s all about? And to find and draw up and of course, making the recommendation, checking in that motion.

Dick Quintal:

Okay. All those in favor? Unanimous. Thank you.

Patrick Farah:

All right. Thank you very much everyone. Good night.

Dick Quintal:

Good night. Now, we’re going to move on to the Joint Budget Meeting with the School Committee and the Fin Com. I welcome both committees. Ms. Savery and Mr. Canty. You have your meeting time. The board has been opened.

Kim Savery:

Not yet, thank you. I can go ahead. Thank you, Mr. Chair. So, it is now 6:35 and I call the Plymouth School Committee special meeting to order.

Kevin Canty:

Thank you, Mr. Chair. At this time, it is 6:35 and I will call a forum being present for the January 11th meeting of the Plymouth Advisory and Finance Committee meeting to order at this time.

Dick Quintal:

Thank you. And welcome everybody else. I see the superintendent and the screen is quite large, so if I miss anybody forgive me. Lynne Barrett, are you with us? Mrs. Barrett?

Lynne Barrett:

Yes, I am.

Dick Quintal:

Hi, Lynne, how are you?

Lynne Barrett:

Hi, good.

Dick Quintal:

Do you want to kick off what we’re up to here tonight? I think we all know but let’s just–

Lynne Barrett:

Sure. Everyone knows that this is that time of year where we put together the Select Board’s recommended budget and we hand it off to the Advisory and Finance Committee for their review and work during their subcommittee meetings with the different departments to go over everything. As you know, we started this process back in late September, early October. We put a budget message out to all departments to basically fund a level service budget. Knowing that there were several departments that had areas either of concern or really needed to add some service adjustments so those were also requested at that time and reviewed thoroughly by the town manager and myself. At the same time, I had updated the budget projection tool that the Select Board had used in the previous year with the file town meeting numbers and looked at all of our revenue estimates and it was determined that we had to reduce the budget by a certain amount of money. It was probably about 1.4 million. The school side reduced a little over 700. We reduced our side of the budget and the town manager’s recommended budget that was given to the Select Board in early December reflected that budget. At the same time, I was working on some of the budget items. One of them was health insurance.

[0:25:00]

Lynne Barrett:

I had a meeting scheduled with our health insurance consultant to sort of go over some numbers. We are waiting for some final figures from the retirement board for the pension assessment, just some other items that may be needed adjustment after we had given the board the town manager’s recommended budget.

So, at last week’s meeting, January 4th, the Select Board, we made those changes to the budget. We reduced some items, increased some other items. So, the budget is basically the same total that’s being recommended to the Advisory and Finance Committee that was the town manager’s budget but some of the items were increased and/or decreased. So, the total overall budget including general fund and all of our enterprise funds is recommended at $272,334,007. That includes the school budget. And let’s see. So, at the books that we are putting together for Advisory and Finance, hopefully those books will be ready for you possibly tomorrow but as soon as possible.

As you can imagine, every business had been affected by COVID and the town is not excluded from that. So, we’ve had some vacancies and a little interruption in different things but the books will be delivered and/or you can come and pick them up at Town Hall probably but we’ll set that up with you, with Jeanette when they’re available.

As far as a full-blown budget presentation to go over some detail revenue and other things like that, Kevin, we could schedule one of the nights of your meetings so I could go over that in more detail if you’d like. But that’s basically the budget that’s been recommended by the Select Board at this time. A lot of this information, all of these reports and budget presentation that we’ve already given around are on our website. So, if you go to town meeting information up on the left-hand side, it will say finance department budget information. So, the town manager’s recommended budget was there. The Select Board’s recommended budget is now there. And the budget presentation that I gave to the Selectmen in early December is also there.

I can answer any questions too that anyone might have.          

Dick Quintal:

Any questions from anyone? Not seeing any.

Lynne Barrett:

I know that at this time too, usually the school does just a short overview of their budget. Dickie, if you’d like the schools to do that.

Dick Quintal:

Yeah, I was going to ask. I’m looking for, I believe it’s Eric, right? Oh, Chris.

Chris Campbell:

Yes, hi. Good evening, everyone. I’m happy to do that. It’s good to see all of you. I hope you’re all doing well. And I’m happy to give an abbreviated version of presentation that was presented to school committee and ultimately supported unanimously back in December. Do I have the ability to share screen? Do you know? Seems like it.

Dick Quintal:

This is a whole new format tonight so you definitely have to–

Christopher Badot:

Yes, you should be able to share.

Chris Campbell:

Thank you, Chris. All right. So, I will present the budget presentation that was given to the school committee to you. If I can’t see you, please just speak up if you have a question along the way as I share my screen. With these many people, it’s going to be hard to see anything. So, can everyone see my screen?

Dick Quintal:

Yes.

Chris Campbell:

Okay, very good. All right. So, again, thank you for having us this evening. Tonight, I’ll present FY 23 proposed budget, which was unanimously approved by the school committee back in December of December 20th. If you have any questions, please speak up. And of course, we’ll take questions at the end too. So, as Lynne said, this was a collaborative process. What I want to do is share our approach to the FY 23 budget process, which was collaboratively done with our managers. Those are our principles, our coordinators, our directors. I’ll share some of our concerns as we move forward in the future and also, how we are using some of our ESSER funds and how we’ll continue to use some of those funds in the coming fiscal year. And again, any questions we have along the way, please don’t hesitate to speak up.

[0:30:13]

Chris Campbell:

So, we built a level service budget as Lynne said reflected the projected needs related to our current services and student population for next year. This budget accounted for all contractual increased obligations whether it’d be staff contracts or contracts with our vendors.

A couple years ago, as you all recall that at joint meetings, school committee agreed to work collaboratively with the Board Selectmen to build a budget within the town’s money capacity for our town. So, in doing so, the school department reduced the overall FY 22 budget proposal last year by 1%, which is just over a million dollars, a $1,049,392, to be exact.

So, this year, with projection slightly improved and talked with Lynne, we were asked to reduce our level service budget by 0.7% or $770,000. So, we’ll speak to that reduction near the end of this presentation.

So, this year as the same with last year just in terms of our October 1 enrollment. This is when we check to see how many students are in our school on an annual basis and report it to the state. Last year, we’re up actually 90 over last fiscal year. As you may recall last year, I spoke about we had a hundred student increased to our own school situation because of COVID. So, many of those students have returned this year and now they were back full-time. So, for the purposes for people expenditure development for our budget, we use our October 1 enrollments.

I’m not going to get into this but some of our lines sort of collapsed. Academic coordinators re-distributed the funds between in this case for ELA going from three lines in this particular cost center to two, which you can see in our budget as you go through our budget books.

Some things that are important to note. As we all know, the cost of goods and services is up significantly. We’re seeing that and we see that in our personal lives. Supplies and materials are more expensive and as they are for our schools as well. General supplies for paper, carpentry, electrical and plumbing supplies for vocational programs. The cost to do business is up. There’s no doubt at that. We have a need for increased English Language Learner support across the district and I’ll get into that in a moment.

Our FY 23 salaries represent two years of COLA and one year of step increases because they came in late this year so they weren’t budgeted this year. We’ve got that at fall town meeting as you all know. The prior fiscal year, trends are not a great benchmark due to the hybrid format, so you really can’t look at last year or the year before in terms of where our spending habits were because things were just so different and as you know we gave money back in some cases. I believe, over $3 million last year.

While some of the lines may look like they have large variance, the per pupil allocation just shifted between lines as I said in the last slide example.  That’s just another example of that. We’ll get into that.

So, I talked about ELL students and the need for additional support, which is a concern of ours. This slide here represents the number of English Language Learners that are currently receiving services in our school. Several years back, the Department of Education recommended that we regionalize our English Language support because our numbers were so small. When I started in Plymouth, we were serving approximately 42 students so that made sense. As you can see from this table, our numbers have grown considerably. We currently have 224 students that we’re servicing across these five schools. What’s also important to note is not only are we serving an exponentially larger group of students, the majority of them have little to no English, averaging 59% beginner English learners with 88% at Cold Spring, for example. So, the proficiency level is very low as well.

This slide illustrates the number of English language students in the schools that we don’t provide service currently to. As I mentioned in the last slide, we have five schools that we regionalized. These are schools that have students that are English Language Learners in them. 25 of them are receiving services in our regional programs. We are required by law to transport these students, which is very, very expensive.

[0:35:03]

Chris Campbell:

There are an additional 28 students among these schools whose parents have opted other service and many of them just want to be in their neighborhood school understandably.

I mentioned transportation cost. As I said previously, we are obligated to transport these students to schools that provide English language support. Their parents want ESL instruction for their children. Last year and this year, the need to transport students and the cost for transporting students lows considerably as you can see from the slide. We were transporting back in FY 20 approximately $36,000 for our transportation cost. It’s near half million dollars of an expense. It is very, very expensive. So, our goal moving forward this year and next year is to increase our English Language staff and expand services to school. It’s costing us approximately $20,000 to transport our students because of the way that we have to transport our kids. So, I’ll talk about how expanding those services will actually help our budget long-term.

So, just to give you a sense, this is just an example of some hypotheticals of how we could expand our ELL services to additional schools while reducing transportation needs and the associated costs. So, you see I circled two schools there: Federal First and West. We have 17 students that we’re currently transporting to other schools. This is costing us on average $19,000 per student because of the private transportation that we need to provide. In some cases, the students are doubled up but this is a challenge. So, you can see if we were to hire two additional ESL teachers at a total cost of a $110,000 and reduce 17 students being transported to different schools, which is costing us over $300,000, we could save upwards of $228,000 in savings plus provide services to students in their neighborhood schools, which they deserve.

This is just another way of illustrating our ELL students receiving services overtime. I mentioned at the beginning of my presentation that back when I came here in FY 2008, 2009, we had 42 students that we were providing services to. We’re up to 224 as of December 6 when I did this presentation. I think we’re actually above that now. Typically, most of our students are Brazilian Portuguese and Brazil ends their school year in December because their summer season starts and we see an influx of students in January. So, we’ve seen a 25% increase since last year in EL students and 82% increase since FY 19. So, that’s substantial.

Some positive news in terms of cost reductions. We have seen a decline of our special education service district wide tuition budget out of this tuition line by 6.3% for just under a million dollars. These are students that age out primarily, but we’ve also had many students that return to district programs. We have many programs across all levels and many of our schools that provide services for some students that require most substantial support. So, we have some outstanding programs.

When COVID hit last year, many of these private programs where students were being transported to weren’t full-time. Our students that were in our programs last year came to school every day. So, we had a lot of families that opted to come back and since being back have decided that this was a preferred option. So, we’re happy to have the students back but was also able to reduce this particular line when it comes to our out-of-district tuition day programs.

So, if you get to the level service budget less the $770,000, which I mentioned before, this is a breakdown of that. So, our proposed budget moving forward is $109,341,203 and this just gives you a breakdown of where those dollars lie. Just under 79% are in salaries and the rest goes to non-salaries. When we break that down even further, you can see this slide will show you by object code.

[0:40:03]

Chris Campbell:

So, our budget is broken up into these object codes as you can see certificated salaries makes up most of it 63%. That’s just over $69 million. The next is our contracted service line, which makes up 18%. We can see the breakdown of these object codes. Other expenses, which is just under 1% actually but round up as 1%. That remaining 1% is really other expenses such as professional development. It’s contractually based.

This graph illustrates FY 23 school budget including insurance contributions. So, as you can see health insurances increases our school department budget by a substantial amount. We know that 61% of this increase is for active employees and 39% of this increase is for retired health benefits, which is just under $9 million.

This graph illustrates Chapter 70 Aid to Plymouth since 2012. Chapter 70 as you know is the program of state aid to public elementary and secondary schools. It’s been relatively flat in the last few years increasing only about 1.8% in the last three years. We saw our greatest increase in 2018. As many of you may recall, this was due to the implementation of full-day kindergarten the year prior where our part-time students were now recognized as full-time students thereby increasing our enrollment for Chapter 70 purposes, which benefitted us in many ways.

This table shows the percentage increase by object code, which I mentioned in the pie charts. So, you can see their overall proposed budget is up by 3.65% over current year. I can see the breakdown of where that percentage lies, certificated salaries of just under 2.7%. Total salaries make up 3.6% of that increase. And other expenses such as contracts, supplies and materials 3.69%, for an average of 3.65.

So, to recap, our level service budget, which was originally $110,111,203. After 0.7% reduction, this level service budget was brought down by $770,000 bringing our new proposed operating budget into $109,341,203. Our current FY 22 school operating budget is $105,495,363, which gets us to 3.65% increase over our current year.

So, just for comparison purposes. This is just a graph that illustrates the percentage budget increase over prior year. We’ve been doing this for many years. The last ten years post-recession with average 3.6% increase over prior year when you look at all the years combined. And again, with the year that we implemented full-day K being the most substantial, you can see there FY17 and then the following year, our Chapter 70 went up.

So, in terms of how we may address the 770K shortfall, our plan is really a three-pronged approach. First, future retirements. We’re hopeful that through our retirements that come up during this year as we hire replacements for classrooms that we will have a savings there. Clearly, when we hire new, the initial salaries go down significantly. Our ESSER Grant funds, we want to minimize the use toward salaries but we want to use grant funds to our advantage to bring down other costs that otherwise would be impacted. And then as I mentioned before, our ELL transportation. This is allowing us to expand our services to other schools will also, as I mentioned, reduce the need to transport students which will ultimately save us money in the long run.

I mentioned ESSER funds before. So, we’ve been fortunate to receive significant funding through the Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief Funds commonly known as ESSER. This slide just illustrates how we have and how we will anticipate to spend these funds moving forward.

[0:45:03]

Chris Campbell:

So, just over $4 million expected to be expended on Capital Improvement Project items, NMEs roof, which was supported by the town meeting members recently PCIS and South Elementary School, HVAC upgrades. We also are obligated to set aside and reserve 20% of those funds to address student learning loss, which is very helpful to us to provide extra support to toils, extended school day support, summer programming which comes out to about 1.3 million. And then other allocated for salaries and benefits. Associated with those salaries, of course, comes up to about $2.6 million. We’ve planned and in need for additional counselors. We have added some classroom teachers this year to lower class size especially in the younger grades where students have had an abbreviated experience for school. We have higher additional itinerant subs and para support and now it’s very useful for us for those purposes as well. Again, setting aside money to maintain staff. Some for FY 23 and also, looking at FY 24.

So, just to sum up some of our concerns. We are concerned about supporting English Language Learners moving forward. We’re doing everything we can to hire in this regard. It’s not a location that receives a lot of applicants. You see a lot of applicants really going towards more urban districts to support students. But we’re trying to get very creative. We actually had a virtual workshop for staff today to try to attract some additional staff here. We’re also concerned about the EdTV program, which is currently supported through our cable tax and that money going down because fewer people are getting cable in their streaming. So, those are the things that we’re concerned about moving forward. Our PYDC program funding so, Plymouth Youth Development Collaborative, if any of you are familiar with that, does a lot of work for this entire community around healthy choices and reducing student substance abuse, preventing substance use. That funding is going away. We have allocated some grant funds to support that but sustaining that is something that we’re concerned about.

Our solar project, as you all know, we are completely off the grid and have least options, which generates solar, which decreases our utility cost and also getting older and the production goes down. So, it’s just something that we need to take into consideration moving forward.

And then lastly, just continuing increase in students opting to attend agricultural schools. So, we have a wonderful location program, which is very comprehensive. And there’s a lot of options but we don’t have enough agricultural program. We have seen increased in students opting for that. We are obligated if they are successful in going to that school to transport those students and that comes at a cost, because that private transportation is quite expensive and this is something that we’re not at a point now where proposing a program would be economically feasible but we’re going to have to look at that. So, that concludes my presentation. Let’s stop sharing my screen so I can see all of you. And again, we’re happy to answer any questions that you may have.

Dick Quintal:

Any questions for the superintendent?

Brad Brothers:

Mr. Quintal, if I can just add on one quick addition. Chris, during our meeting with the public, just the one quick note that I want to mention is even though Special Ed that cost shows as a 6% decrease, overall expenditures are up 1.7%. So, I know some of the perception originally was we’re cutting Special Ed services, that is not the case at all. Actually, Special Education overall in the budget is getting a 1.7% increase but just the cost there that contains the out of districts, that’s where you have that 6% reduction. But that does not mean there’s loss of service or programs or anything.

Chris Campbell:

Yeah. Thank you for expanding on that, Brad. I appreciate that. They come up during our presentation in December. Another thing to note regarding that is while some of those several students have come back to our own programs, we are still transporting students to many of these programs. So, just by reducing a student on a particular van to this program doesn’t necessarily bring the transportation cost down either because again, it’s very expensive. It’s very complex how we get billed for this. But we’re just happy to highlight the fact that we do have a reduction in this particular area and the people are electing to have their students in our programs.

[0:50:26]

Dick Quintal:

Any other questions or comments to the superintendent? Seeing none. I’ll open it up to the Fin Com. Anybody? Mr. Canty, questions or comments?

Kevin Canty:

I know myself, because there are a number of folks on the call, if any of the Fin Com members do have a question, it might be easier if you can raise your digital hand so Chair Quintal could see you more easily so you don’t get lost in the soup. Looks like no questions. None at this time.

Dick Quintal:

Okay. That being said, I think we’ll move on. Thank you everybody for attending. Do we need to close out these other committees?

Kim Savery:

Yes, we do. Yes. And thank you for having us.

Betty Cavacco:

Mr. Quintal, I thought this would just going to be budget but Kim, I did receive your email about your and Michelle’s schedule and as soon as I have a conversation with Mr. Quintal, we’ll get back to you with the date because I know that consolidation has been–I think this is the 5th year now that we’ve actually talked about it. So, I know it’s still a hot topic from the town side and from some of our residents. So, as soon as I get confirmation with Chairman Quintal, I’ll just shoot you back a text.

Kim Savery:

Yeah, that’s great. I just would like us to at least have that first meeting before we have our Saturday meeting so that we can discuss it as a board.

Betty Cavacco:

Your Saturday meeting is the 5th, right?

Kim Savery:

Yes.

Betty Cavacco:

Okay, great. Thank you.

Kim Savery:

All right. So, thank you again, Chair Quintal and it is 7:05 and I’ll call the meeting of the Plymouth School Committee adjourned. Thank you.

Dick Quintal:

Thank you.

Chris Campbell:

Have a good evening, everyone. Thank you.

Kevin Canty:

And thank you, Mr. Quintal and the rest of the Select Board for having us. At this time, we have concluded the business purpose of the joint meeting. I will call the January 11th meeting of Plymouth Advisory and Plans Committee adjourned at 7:06 PM. Thank you very much.

Dick Quintal:

Thank you. Have a good week.

Betty Cavacco:

Thank you.  

Dick Quintal:

Betty, did you get a hold of Bernie?

Betty Cavacco:

He is in another meeting at 7 o’clock. He did say he would come back between 7:20 and 7:30. So, if we could just continue on with the agenda until that time.

Dick Quintal:

How about outdoor dining? Mr. Helm?

Harry Helm:

Hold on. We need the chairman of the Outdoor Dining group on board. I had warned him that this might happen.

Rick Vayo:

I’m on, Harry.

Harry Helm:

Oh, excellent! Thanks, Rick. All right, good. I believe we can proceed. We have Lee here too as well, correct?

Dick Quintal:

Yes.

Harry Helm:

Okay, excellent. All right. I just wanted to take a quick moment at the beginning of the presentation to introduce the presentation. After which, I will be asking the Select Board to vote to approve the plan that is going to be presented. I guess, just to review how we got here. Back in the end of summer, it became clear with the upcoming end of COVID protocols that allowed outdoor dining to go on with more flexible guidelines that Plymouth needed to create a defined program and structure to carry outdoor dining forward on a more permanent basis. The Select Board voted to create the Outdoor Dining Working Group to design this plan. Tonight, the chairman of the group and then Lee Hartman will present an overview of this proposed plan.

[0:55:05]

Harry Helm:

But before we start that, I wanted to thank all the members of the working group, which included residents, restaurant owners, store owners, tourism and Chamber of Commerce and town officials. It was definitely an all-hands-on deck effort and we’ll go ahead. And Rick, if you want to take it away.

Rick Vayo:

Sure. Chris, were you able to pull up on the screen the presentation and just go to the first PDF?

Chris Badot:

I’m not sure if I got that.

Rick Vayo:

Harry, are you able to do that?

Harry Helm:

I don’t have it on my screen.

Chris Badot:

Let me check my files.

Betty Cavacco:

Chris, please allow Mr. Vayo to share screen. Is that a possibility?

Chris Badot:

Yes, he can share. You should see the Share button down the bottom of your screen.

Rick Vayo:

Give me one second and I’ll pull it up. I don’t know if everyone can see that.

Dick Quintal:

Yes.

Rick Vayo:

Okay. So, first, I wanted to thank Selectman Helm for pulling this group together. It was a terrific group of as he had mentioned business owners, residents and they worked very hard to come up with this plan. I want to again thank as he did all of them. They were great to work with and I think we worked through this very quickly.

As you all know, COVID impacted all the local businesses but possibly hardest hit in the downtown area were the restaurants. It very quickly became apparent that a need for outdoor dining was there. That need I think presented an opportunity. An opportunity to hopefully elevate Plymouth to a different level, a level of like many of the coastal towns like Portland and Newbury Port and Province Town and Newport that do a great job with outdoor dining on a more permanent basis.

So, we also realized when we started working on this that trying to seize that opportunity and work with outdoor dining was not without its problems. I think this past season saw issues of accessibility, conformity, a variety of problems with signage and sort of a haphazard approach, if you will. Just from an overall standpoint, a big aesthetic issue driving down the main drag.

So, the first thing the group did was try to address those issues and I’ll go to some of these guidelines. We wanted to develop a set of guidelines, regulations if you will, that hopefully benefited everyone participating first of all. And how they were benefitting them is by offering enhancement to the downtown dining experience. Things like barricade facades on all four sides, things like plantings on the top of the barricades to create a very consistent and very enhanced streetscape. And then also, platforms at each of these parklets to solve the accessibility issues we’ve had.

So, more importantly, we felt though in developing these enhancements for everyone was developing a set of what we sort of termed as stringent guidelines and rules to follow with fines if you don’t. Rules around to seize and then re-use, rules around lighting and décor, rules around the consistency and look for the entire streetscape, rules around accessibility and even things like insurance and trash and storage, etc., etc. I won’t certainly go through all of them but we felt that it was very important to create those guidelines and everyone buying into those that made sure what we implement will be fully in place right through the end of October.

[1:00:18]

Rick Vayo:

And we think they’re reasonable guidelines and I think they’ll actually enhance the business in downtown. So, we then set out to work on implementation of this. Working with local companies on donations, working with local resources for the various materials we’ll need, working closely with fire police and DPW on best practices and procedures on how this would come together. And most importantly, I’ll say working with the DPW and them generously donating or I shouldn’t say donating but agreeing to assemble all of these outdoor facades and platforms, maintain the plantings and oversee a lot of these.

I can’t say enough for working with JB on this and how quickly he saw the vision. And honestly, this would have been, I won’t say impossible, but a much higher mountain to climb without the DPW seeing that vision right away and wanting to bring this to this level.

So, as I go through some of these pictures, I think you hopefully will begin to get a sense of what the streetscape would now look like. You would have stained wooden facades on all of the barricades with a consistent planting scheme across the top. Again, the DPW watering those along with the other outdoor plants that they water every so many days. We’ve tried to run a few views here to give you a few looks at some of the different areas in downtown. And then move to the actual barricades themselves. I’ll give you a few views of that.

So, we felt overall that this was a comprehensive plan. We think it corrects all the problems of the past and it more importantly sets us up for the future. I think the basis of this plan and the feeling it will create in downtown sets the basis for hopefully a more permanent solution as we move forward and one that will benefit the residents of town, will encourage local and regional dining and shopping from all across the South Shore, coming to downtown. And then finally, enhance our tourist model and draw people in from far and wide.

So, I’m certainly available to answer any questions or give some more details if needed at this point.

Harry Helm:

I’m just going to break in right here, Rick and I’m going to run through a couple things that are on the guidelines that I just wanted to highlight. First of all, the question about fees to the participants. There will be a thousand-dollar licensing fee that is due with the application. The platforms for the parklets. There was a lot of questions about whether we needed platforms that would raise the floor up to the level of the sidewalk and that is part of this. And not only does it help with ADA compliance, it enforces the barricade stability. So, they’re less likely to move if engaged by a vehicle. If there are any questions about the seasonality of this April 1st through November 1st, that seasonality allows a lot of ability for the restauranteurs to involve themselves in this program without cost of additional plumbing and stuff like that. That’s one of the reasons why I wanted to point out that it is seasonal.

Also, a lot of questions came up or concerns during the last programs about the ADA compliance. And I just wanted to make sure that everybody saw that there will be a five-foot aisle along the sidewalk, which must be maintained at 5 feet at all times.

[1:05:15]

Harry Helm:

It’s to be a clear five-foot walkway at sidewalk level through eight feet high. So, in other words, there can be umbrellas but they have to overlap that 5 feet at 8 feet in height. No obstructions are allowed in there like lights, tables, heaters, etc. And the path is to follow the straightest line possible and may not zigzag through tables. So, I think that was an important thing that is part of this.

I also wanted to point out to people that no additional décor besides what is presented in these guidelines will be allowed. That is to keep a professional, clean, unified look to our downtown area. I’d also like to point out that unlike the previous with the COVID protocols, there will be actions for violations. The first violation, the restaurant owner will be issued a warning. The second violation, there will be a $1,000 fine and an additional $200 a day until the violation is corrected. And then the third violation, your outdoor dining lease and license is terminated. So, that will hopefully keep our guidelines straightforward for all of our restauranteurs.

I also wanted to say that these guidelines, there was a lot of thought and a lot of concern by members of making sure to create something the residents could be proud of. I think that we’ve been successful in doing that. So, just wanted to step in and kind of highlight some of these. So, if anybody has any questions or if not, on the guidelines, Lee, if you’d like to talk about some of the funding that we’ll be voting on later.

Lee Hartman:

I just have a few points to make. So, first, with the license agreement. I want to thank Tiffany Parker. She put a lot of time and effort into crafting that agreement. It’s been reviewed and approved by town council. So, as we look at the agreement that we’d be using, we have that through town council. Also, as we’ve gone through and it was pointed out, we work closely with the DPW with the fire department and park Plymouth and the police department to make sure that what we were doing was going to be something acceptable to each one of those groups and I believe we’ve done that.

Just to comment about the fee. The group spent a lot of time talking about the fee. I think the fear was that if we didn’t have a fee, people might say, “We’ll reserve it. I’m not sure if I’m going to use it. I’m not sure if I’m going to do it this year, but it doesn’t cost me anything so I might as well just do it.” So, I think we really thought that that fee was important so that if you are a business owner and you want to do this, that you have to commit something to make this work and it weren’t something you’re going to say, “Well, I’m not sure if I’ll do it but I’ll reserve it anyway.” So, that’s a big reason for why we want to include the fee. And again, as was pointed out, I think also if somebody does that, we can see that there’s no use of those parklets or those areas that we have the right to then go back and say, “Okay. You’re not using it. We’re going to now revoke that.”

And then finally, we’ve been able to see on your administrative notes been able to work through and make a request for $80,000 to pay for the actual decorative enclosures for these barriers and you’ll see under your admin notes an $80,000 request to go through the ARPA process to actually fund these improvements. So, again, I think we found a great way to finance these. We don’t have to put it on a burden on the tax payer and we’ve gone through and worked with a bunch of different people and I think we’ve got a program that will work for the community. And I’m looking forward to it this summer.

Dick Quintal:

Mr. Bletzer? You’re muted, Charlie.

Charlie Bletzer:

So, the parking spaces, is there a fee for the parking spaces? Park Plymouth, you’re okay which is given the parking spaces or is there going to be a fee for that?

[1:10:03]

Rick Vayo:

The Park Plymouth had waived all fees related to the parking spaces.

Charlie Bletzer:

Let me get this right. This is a permanent policy now?

Rick Vayo:

Our intention was to have this voted in for the 22 Season. Our ultimate goal would be to see a program like this possibly changes or enhancements the following year then leading to a permanent solution with modifications in the downtown that would be of a more permanent nature and didn’t require the barricades.

Charlie Bletzer:

So, the reason why I’m saying that is our parking situation is not getting any better. Okay? And in fact, it’s getting worse. As businesses opened, it’s getting worse. So, what I saw last year and the last couple of years, and it was a great idea to do this to help these businesses but at some point, this pandemic is going to be over. It is going to be back to normal. I get concerned about giving all these parking spaces away for nothing. And what I saw was businesses taking these parking spaces and not using them, okay? I just want to know, is there going to be a policy on how many days a week you have to be opened, whether you’re going to be using these parking spaces? If there are some businesses that were using them like two or three nights a week and those spaces were empty, we couldn’t use them for parking. So, I just say I have concerns about that.

The other thing is there’s no fee for sewer. So, there’s no sewer fee, there’s no fee for the parking spaces. I’m all for this outdoor dining. But the businesses that have paid into this fund, I think some of them are upset that these other businesses are getting this for free.

Rick Vayo:

So, on the parking, again, Park Plymouth had agreed to donate that parking for now. There is a part of the guidelines that specifies that when you’re open, the outdoor dining has to be used. Obviously, if it’s pouring rain or a thunderstorm or it’s snowing in September, they wouldn’t be. But other than that, if the restaurant is open, these are to be used. So, not using it would be a clear violation and an opportunity to warn a restaurant and pull back on that.

There was a lot of talk around the parking space and what not. And I could see moving forward if this was a success and restaurants were sticking with this that maybe some of those fees change around parking. I think it’s to be determined as this moves forward. I think Park Plymouth recognized that there was still a need tied to COVID at the moment and that moving forward, that will have to be reviewed. They certainly did not agree in perpetuity in any way to give up those spaces.

As for the sewer, so the feeling of the DPW and the Building Commissioner, so we limited the number of seats you could add to 29 because then it didn’t require additional restrooms. So, that kept us in compliance with the Building Code. But then from the DPW standpoint, how they felt about it was we’re getting additional moneys by additional volume. In other words, we’re charging you for water, we’re charging you for sewer. If you add 29 more seats, they’ll be using the bathroom more and we’ll be collecting our money as we would before. So, you’re not being charged a fee for upping your seat count like a one-time fee, but you are being charged for the use of that resource.

Charlie Bletzer:

My biggest concern though is parking and also, the number one word in the restaurant business is consistency. Obviously, I was on the PGDC when we did this, agreed to give the parking. I believe Patrick was on there too and Dickie might have been, I’m not sure, but I’m all for helping the businesses. But they got to help themselves. They have to be opened.

[1:15:03]

Charlie Bletzer:

I know a lot of people are going to have their money and stuff like that and got PPP but I drive down and I see all these empty parking spaces because the restaurants are closed and I just don’t want to see that again. So, I think you really got to monitor that because I would love to see businesses open later in the downtown area. That’s what’s going to help bring the business back to downtown is having businesses open. Some of these restaurants, you don’t know when they’re open and when they’re not open.

Rick Vayo:

I’ll add to that comment and it’s one of my pet peeves that we don’t just need restaurants open in downtown, we need all businesses open in downtown.

Charlie Bletzer:

There’s a new shack downtown that’s opened. I won’t mention the name but they’re open at night. They’re open till like–

Rick Vayo:

I literally go by. Every time I walk the dog and thank them for being open.

Charlie Bletzer:

And they’re open and they’re doing business there.

Rick Vayo:

They are.

Charlie Bletzer:

Well, not downtown. At some point, I would like to see all the businesses stay open. It’s good for the tourists, they go out to dinner and then they can walk and do some shopping afterwards and that will be helpful. So, I just want to make sure, Rick that we keep an eye on the businesses that paid a thousand dollars and then don’t use the spaces. We have to take those back, okay?

Rick Vayo:

I agree a hundred percent. Just to follow up on what you were saying, Tatum, the representative from the PGDC on our group was adamant about use and keeping them open. If we’re not using them, take them back. So, that point was driven home. I think all of the group’s members agreed with that 100%. Beyond that point, I think we all agreed to what you just said and it’s a point that can’t be driven home hard enough is that the mentality in downtown has to change about being open and being open later and more days and etc., etc. And again, I applaud the company, I won’t say the name. But literally, every time I walk the dog past them, I thank them for being opened.

Charlie Bletzer:

Right. They’re doing business and they should set an example for other businesses, I hope. The other thing is when I was on that board when we okayed. We set that, we sent the letter to the town manager at the time and the PGDC agreed to give the parking. We were all going to do whatever we could to help the businesses during this pandemic. But we agreed there’s a couple things we wanted in the PGDC. There was a letter sent that we wanted two-way traffic. Okay? Because it’s not just restaurants at the downtown, there’s also retailed businesses that wanted a two-way traffic. That’s helpful for the business, and Tatum could tell you about that.

The other thing was the sidewalks. We wanted to see the sidewalks ADA compliant. In fact, we were trying to encourage at the time all the business use in these parklets. So, we’d actually keep people off the sidewalk so the tourist had a clear pass. Some of the sidewalks are not that wide in certain spots. So, I think we’re going to be really careful. There are some businesses that just might not be able to have. If they can’t get a space, if there’s not a space in front, they may not be able to have outdoor dining. That might happen. Okay?

Rick Vayo:            

Yeah, the guidelines are very clear that we laid out and then technically three feet is enough. We made it five feet and we also made it clear to eight feet tall. And again, I won’t mention businesses but there were some businesses that couldn’t have violated that anymore.

Charlie Bletzer:

The sidewalks. So, I think it’s a great plan. I love the consistency, the flowers, it looks great and I love to see that. It’s what I always wanted. I always wanted to see drive down the street and see a very inviting outdoor dining area. Okay? Instead, what I saw at times, it looked like a third-world–I mean, I’m not trying to be so negative but it looked terrible down there. And then people had advertisings, there were some people banners advertising other businesses. So, the plan you got right now, you covered all that.

[1:20:08]

Charlie Bletzer:

My biggest alleviate with this is make sure the businesses that are using this parklets or these spaces that have taken up parking spaces that we don’t have enough of that they use them for their outdoor dining, that they’re open and they use them. I’m all for it. I think the plan looks good. Thank you for reference too, Rick.

Rick Vayo:

You’re welcome.

Dick Quintal:

Any more questions or comments from the board? Seeing none. Mr. Helm?

Harry Helm:

Well, I guess this would be the point, I don’t know if there’s any other residents who might want to ask you a question but at this point, I guess a motion would be in order.

Patrick Flaherty:

You want to make that motion? I’ll make that motion, Harry but I don’t know if you want to–

Harry Helm:

No. I’m okay with making it but I love to have another member of the board make that motion.

Charlie Bletzer:

I’ll make the motion.

Betty Cavacco:

Second.

Dick Quintal:

Motion there. Second. Motion is to approve. Second, Mrs. Cavacco. Discussion? All those in favor? Unanimous. Thank you, Mr. Vayo and your committee and Harry for a job well done.

Harry Helm:

Thank you everyone.

Rick Vayo:

Thanks! We appreciate the support.

Charlie Bletzer:

Thanks, Rick.

Dick Quintal:

And we’re looking for Mr. Lynch. Hi, Bernie! Welcome.

Bernard Lynch:

Well, thank you. Glad to be back with you and I think we made some good progress over the last week to get you to the point that you want to be at with some candidates and I’m very grateful for the modern technology, which allowed me to be 80 miles North of Boston a few seconds ago and now I’m back in Plymouth, Mass. So, I appreciate you moving on with your agenda and allowing me to get that meeting completed.

Well, we met last week. We came in with the Screening Committee and the work that they have done, the efforts that they have put forth to review a number of resumes and candidates. And as you know, they felt that they had reached the point where they had a couple of good candidates or a couple of candidates that they could bring forward to you and they would like to have more than two and the board would like to have more than two. So, the decision was made to have me go out and try to identify some other potential candidates, which is what I’ve done over the last week. And tonight, I’m bringing you three candidates for your consideration. And I believe we’ve scheduled or plan to schedule the interviews for next week, a week from today to have the board move forward with their interviews.

I think I gave a good description of the process last week, what we did in terms of getting candidates and the number of candidates that received and the work that the screening committee did. So, I won’t repeat all of that. It’s all in the document that I provided you with the resumes and the reference comments that we received regarding the candidates that we’re presenting tonight.

Let me just talk to you about because I know the public is probably watching this and they’re interested in knowing who the candidates are that the board will be considering. So, let me just talk a little bit about the three candidates and then we could talk about the process that we’ll use to move through the interviews. In alphabetical order, the three candidates.

The first is Derek Brindisi. Derek is currently the town manager of Upton, Massachusetts, which is up in the center of the state. It’s a suburban community right along Route 495. He’s been there for four years. We’ve received very good feedback from people we’ve spoken to in Upton, with the work that he’s done during that period of time. Certainly, it’s been a challenging period in every municipal government over the past couple of years but Derek has been there for those four years. He actually served as the Assistant Town Manager in Plymouth for almost two years before going to Upton and that came on the heels of a lengthy tenure as the Director of Administration in Health for the City of Worcester.

[1:25:11]

Bernard Lynch:

He served the City of Worcester for about 8 years in that position. And that’s a combination of a variety of responsibilities within that position that he had, working closely with the city manager and the city manager staff on a number of operational needs related to health and inspection of services and so on. So, I think that he certainly kind of steep in a large community in the City of Worcester.

He’s also a member of the US Air Force National Guards serving as a Lieutenant Colonel, has a bachelors degree from Worcester State College and a master’s degree in Public Administration from Clark University. So, he checks all the boxes academically for a position of this sort and has a good number of years out of his belt from municipal government in a large community, large city with council manager working in Plymouth, certainly a large community and so he understands Plymouth and then serving in that number one role in the Town of Upton. So, Derek is a good strong candidate for it.

Jennifer Callahan is the current town manager from the Town of Oxford. She served there for three years. Oxford is a challenging community and again, in the center of a state with a number of economic development issues that she had worked on and operational issues. Prior to that, she’d served as the town administrator of Millville for close to two years. That was her first foray into municipal management. She had been a member of the Board of Selectmen from the Town of Sutton, served on a school committee in the Town of Sutton. So, she certainly understands local government. She used her position as an elected official in the Town of Sutton actually to go into state government serving as a state representative for 8 years. So, she has a number of state connections and she worked those connections and that understanding of state government to the benefit of the communities that she has served, whether it’d be Sutton, Oxford and Millville in terms of state funding for a variety of projects and economic development in those communities.

Millville is a particularly challenging community. They’ve had a series of financial issues that she worked through during her time there. But she’s interested now in taking what she’s learned in all of these positions in Millville, Oxford, as a state representative and her work in her own hometown Sutton to move to a larger community and Plymouth as a community that interests her greatly. She has Doctorate in Education, Master’s degree in Public Health from the University of Massachusetts as well as a bachelor’s degree in Sociology from Boston University and nursing science from Boston University. So, she’s got obviously a great academic pedigree and has utilized that early in her career in the health field but her passion over the last several years has been in government whether it’d be at the state house or as a town administrator, a town manager. So, she is your second candidate.

The third candidate is Jennifer Phillips, and Jennifer Phillips most recently she’s currently out in Washington State. She was the city manager of Bothell, Washington for about four years. Bothell is roughly 50,000-person community. A suburb of Seattle. She had the opportunity there to work on a number of important efforts particularly related to economic development and organizational development. She left there in 2021 on the heels after working through a number of major issues related to the pandemic as well as the strategic initiatives of the city and came with a very good references from that community. She did inherit when she was there a very severe financial crisis that she walked into that she and the council were unaware of. And they really turned the finances of the city around.

[1:30:14]

Bernard Lynch:

Again, comes highly praised by the members of the council as well as the staff with the work that she did there. She truly is a professional municipal manager. Prior to Bothell, Washington, she served as the City Manager of St. Helena, California, a small town in California. But she took that position on after serving as assistant city manager in some very large communities out in California: Santa Rosa, Santa Monica, Fullerton, where she served in a variety of roles really developing her skills as a municipal manager. So, she comes highly credentialed. In fact, to that point, both she and Derek are credentialed managers in the International City/County Management Association. They are truly committed into the profession as is Ms. Callahan but she has that lengthy municipal service that she can bring to the Town of Plymouth. She has a masters degree in Public Administration and bachelor of science degree both from California State University – Long Beach.

So, I think that you have three excellent candidates that were familiar with in the work that we have done with the variety of communities and knowing people in the field. I think any of these candidates would be a successful here in the Town of Plymouth. So, I’m happy to take any questions about the candidates and about the process from here.

Dick Quintal:

Questions for Bernie? Betty?

Betty Cavacco:

Bernie, can you actually explain the process so our folks at home know how we’ll be doing this? Now, one of the issues and I didn’t know or haven’t spoken to anyone but we’re going to be going into this possibly next Tuesday evening and it seems that these candidates, two of the three of them are actively serving as towns and believe it or not, most towns do have their meetings on Tuesday nights. So, I’m just wondering if there’s going to be any kind of conflict? Do we need to adjust the schedule for the interview process or what are your suggestions?

Bernard Lynch:

That’s a great question, Betty. I have not cleared these dates because first, I need you to accept them but I have not cleared these with the candidates but perhaps we could have a fallback date that the board could look at if they are busy on those nights. But I anticipate that they would be available. We will double check that immediately.

So, the process though that we’re looking at is that I think that we initially had thought that the board would meet at 5 o’clock on a given night to do these interviews. The interview is generally of this sort. Generally, lasts about an hour and I was actually looking at trying to do this in alphabetical order just as I presented them. So, if we’re to start at 5 o’clock, if the board was available to do that, we could do Mr. Brindisi at 5:00, Ms. Callahan at 6:00 and Ms. Phillips at 7:00. If we were to do that, that actually might work around some of the issues if there are any conflicts as well. Because I imagine we would be doing this by Zoom as the board has been meeting. I’ve provided the board with a set of draft questions that you could use. I’d be happy to help facilitate some of those questions if that would be helpful to the board. But I know that the members themselves, I’ve heard from a couple of you that you have some questions, you want to do some drill down into certain areas. So, we could work that in as well.

Dick Quintal:

Any other questions for Bernie? Charlie? You’re muted, Charlie.

Betty Cavacco:

You’re muted, Charlie.

[1:35:09]

Charlie Bletzer: 

Would it make sense, Mr. Chairman that we do this on a separate night from our meeting night so we don’t get into another situation where we got the public waiting and we get criticized again for that. I mean, maybe originally, we’ll going to do it on a Monday and then have a meeting on a Tuesday. I don’t know how the board feels about that, but I would prefer to do it on a separate night and then do the meeting on a Tuesday so we don’t run into that problem. Because we certainly don’t want to rush this. Certainly, everybody has a lot of questions but it’s something that we’re not going to rush so we can get to our meeting. I don’t know how the board feels about that.

Dick Quintal:

I was going to wait till the end for that, Charlie to see what the other members feel but I was thinking along those lines too. Dedicate maybe a separate night just for this and we can ask all our questions and we don’t have to rush by time. I think an hour is sufficient but you never know.

Charlie Bletzer:

Who knows? 15 minutes might be sufficient. It depends until we get into the interviews, we will never know how long each one is going to take, so yeah.

Patrick Flaherty:

I think these are public interviews, right?

Bernard Lynch:

They are public interviews, yes. To Charlie’s point, he’s right. I mean, we generally book an hour and then we might add in a little buffer there somewhat. But yeah, they can take a little bit shorter or they can go to 75 instead of 60 minutes to 75 minutes but depending upon what you’re getting into.

Dick Quintal:

Charlie?

Charlie Bletzer:

So, we’re going to do interviews but when we pick the candidate, we have to obviously negotiate a contract. That’s like in a session.

Bernard Lynch:

Well, right. The steps that you would interview, some communities make the decision that night, some communities, the boards meet on a separate night and make their decision, and you make that decision subject to the success or negotiation of a contract and any further background checks just as sort of a safety there if you want to make sure that you build that in. But you’re right, the negotiations would take place just like in a session.    

Charlie Bletzer:

It might be had to do it all in one night is what the point I’m making. I don’t know what’s going to happen.

Dick Quintal:

It won’t be all in one night, I doubt it very much.

Charlie Bletzer:

Yeah.

Bernard Lynch:

Let me ask you the question, how does the 19th work for you? I would say the 17th but that’s a holiday, so.

Betty Cavacco:

19th works for me.

Charlie Bletzer:

What day is it?

Bernard Lynch:

That’s a Wednesday.

Betty Cavacco:

That’s a Wednesday.

Charlie Bletzer:

Okay.

Harry Helm:

Works for me.

Charlie Bletzer:

Works for me.

Patrick Flaherty:

So, we’d have the Tuesday and Wednesday?

Charlie Bletzer:

Yes. I mean, if everybody agrees to that, Patrick. I just think we need to do it on separate nights. So, we don’t run into the same conflict we’ve been having and we get people upset that we’re going too long. We’re trying to make everybody happy as we can. They’re probably never going to be happy but–

Patrick Flaherty:

The reason I say that is that would we also have it on Tuesday? Because I think our whole meeting agenda was going to be just the interviews. So, that’s what I just want to clarify. Are we just moving it?

Charlie Bletzer:

We called on Chris. Chris is saying that there’s nothing booked for the 18th, so.

Patrick Flaherty:

So, is this supposed to be the only agenda?

Dick Quintal:

No, I want you to do a sewer update or a water update. I want an update every week going forward. Long as we leave time for that, I’m going with it. But I won’t want it. It’s January. Now, it’s going to be the 18th of January and I want to find out the conditions of the cemeteries, the water system, the waste water system. And long as it’s one a week, I just don’t want to keep putting it off because that’s how we’re in some of the positions we’re in.

[1:40:15]

Dick Quintal:

I mean, I think if we start at 4:00, 5:00, 6:00, 7:00, that’s 3 hours. I mean, even if it went a little longer, fine. I mean, I think that will work.

Bernard Lynch:   

We start at 4:00?

Dick Quintal:

Yeah, and go 5:00, 6:00, 7:00. If we need another, just say, “We need another hour,” you’ll have it. I mean–

Charlie Bletzer:

Dickie, is everybody available for it? I mean, I am but I’m not sure–

Betty Cavacco:

I am.

Dick Quintal:

I am.

Patrick Flaherty:

Yeah, that’s okay. But this is just what we have Wednesday. So, this would be the meeting on Tuesday only, right?

Dick Quintal:

It could be everything, yeah.

Patrick Flaherty:

Okay, perfect.

Dick Quintal:

Just the Tuesday really.

Patrick Flaherty:

Then that 4 o’clock is okay.

Dick Quintal:

It will work. I doubt just because it was in time, Patrick.

Patrick Flaherty:

Yeah, I know. That works just fine.

Betty Cavacco:

How about Harry?

Dick Quintal:

Okay. So, there, here we go.

Bernard Lynch:   

Well, you guys are good coming a decision so quickly.

Dick Quintal:

Let me ask you a question, Bernie. Say we do agree on somebody, what’s the usual notice time per se for a town manager in the community. I mean, I’ve seen it about a year but I don’t know–

Bernard Lynch:

Yeah. It tends to be the 30 or 60 days. So, one of those. Although I just saw our contracts signed with a six-month notice but it’s 30 or 60 days typically.

Dick Quintal: 

Did you see the look on Lee’s face? [Laughter] Any other questions for Bernie? Patrick?

Patrick Flaherty:

It’s bringing up something that might be awkward but it is cutthroat out there, so to ask a question. I know we had a screening committee that went through and vetted one of the candidates, and two were recent add-ons. Is that kind of the last we’re going to hear about the screening committee in that recommendation or just to get that out of the way. I’d rather ask it now before we have the actual candidates here for the interview because it is sort of an awkward thing where now we have a majority of the candidates that worked with the screening committee and how we got here.

Bernard Lynch:

Yeah. It’s unusual but you’re not alone. We have that other communities where for a variety of reasons, the screening committee’s work could only be to a certain point and then the board asked us to do this. I could think of one other case where that was done and there are other communities where we were asked directly to just bring names. So, it’s probably a minority of the communities that go this way but it has been done in other communities.

Patrick Flaherty:

Just one quick follow up. So, the two new candidates, just want to make sure that those two candidates were candidates who went through the screening committee yet at all and then were turned away at one point?

Bernard Lynch:

Correct! I was careful not to do that. I think I left it open last week that I might do that to bring your kids, but I did not. Both of the candidates are candidates that we’ve had discussions with over the course of the last couple of months about this position.

Patrick Flaherty:

And then I guess having then a part of the whole screening committee process and watching how that went through, I mean, I can’t imagine an issue. I can tell you’re feeling good and enthusiastic about these candidates but based on how you saw the other process go and the other candidates that moved forward that had some stepped out, that weren’t finalists. Do you feel that this is a good representation of the screening committee? Do you see these people they probably would have ranked in the top two 3 based on it?

Bernard Lynch:

Yes. I do. I do think that.

Patrick Flaherty:

I don’t want to ask the questions but I want to–I know you’re the professional here. You’ve been through this a hundred times. I just want to make sure to kind of throw it out there now that we have them in front of us.

1:45:05           

Bernard Lynch:

Yeah, let me talk about that a little bit. I think that’s a great question. Some of the candidates that the screening committee did not move forward at any point in their process is because they hadn’t met the requirement of being a town manager in another community. They hadn’t held that title and had that portfolio responsibility. There were other candidates that the screening committee made the decision not to move forward because there were things about those candidates that may have been town managers, town administrators but there were things in their background that would have been problematic coming into the Town of Plymouth. Things on their background that were easily identified and discovered.

None of these candidates fit into those categories. They have the experience as town manager, they have clean backgrounds without any other issues and looking at these candidates, that I can say with certainty, there were a couple of candidates. There was one candidate in particular that the screening committee looked at, had the background, had the clean background but the interviewing left there wasn’t the passion really that they thought that the person should have.

Knowing all three of these candidates, they all have experience, they all have the backgrounds that we can look at and say there weren’t any issues and then they all have the passion for municipal government that they would bring to the table. So, I would say, obviously, I can’t say with a hundred percent certainty that the screening committee would have moved all of these along but based upon working with the screening committee over the last month, I think these candidates would meet those thresholds and would have supported the screening committee, in my opinion.

Patrick Flaherty:

Thank you. It’s very helpful. Thank you.

Bernard Lynch:

Sure.

Dick Quintal:

Any other questions for Bernie? I just have a comment. I’m going to say I’m a little disappointed. Actually, a lot disappointed with what I’ve seen on social media on a possible candidate to this position and it’s really not going to be a secret because you all know what I’m talking about because of what I’ve already read. I like to know how that this information gets into the hands of people and social media? Not only to that extent, to the two emails I got at town hall mention the individual. I just want to throw it out there. It saddens me and I feel very bad for the individual and then to watch the conversation, if you will, at least the part that I saw, I really felt bad. And you know what? It made me ashamed. I hold that fact to say that in social media and I could sit here and be quiet but anybody that knows me, I got to tell you how I feel. That’s exactly how I feel. I mean, I’m not blaming it on you. I’m just saying I don’t know if you solved it. But I think it must have been very uncomfortable for somebody to see. I know it would be for me and the remarks that were made in the comments. People are just cruel sometimes. Let me apologize on behalf of this community for that individual. That’s all I’m going to say on that.

Bernard Lynch:

If I may, I have not seen it on social media. I do try to track that a little bit but I have not seen it. But one of the pieces of advice we give to every screening committee, to every select board, to every community is this is a confidential process and it should be made confidential because people’s careers and people’s reputations are at stake here and it’s important that occur.

[1:50:09]

Bernard Lynch

I assume you were speaking of something that was confidential because no need to out until right now. I will say that I have been surprised myself here in Plymouth with the degree with which that confidentiality has been violated. I will agree with you on that.

Dick Quintal:

Thank you. Charlie? You’re muted, Charlie.

Charlie Bletzer:

I’ll go one step further. I actually responded to one of those Facebook bullies as I call them. And I said to that person that it’s funny that you know that the candidate and we don’t know it. I said that explain the process that 25 candidates were vetted by 7 very reputable citizens of Plymouth. They brought 3 finalists to us. The board is going to make a decision and who have the candidates and that’s how we’re going to vote. That’s how I’m going to vote. I said, I just want to make, I forget the exact wording but we make it very clear that our vote is going to be influenced by the Facebook bullies out there. It was awful. When that person resigned, I was surprised. It’s awful. I know myself, I will speak for myself. I won’t speak for the board but I think again, we’re going to pick the best candidate out of the three candidates to pick for. We’re going to pick the best candidate. I’m not worried about what the–I mean, of course, I worry about what people think because I wanted to make sure we’re picking the best candidate and he makes us all proud or she. She/he makes us proud. You’re right, Dick. I was disgusted too. It was supposed to be confidential. It is why right now if you said let’s bring these new two candidates back to the committee, I’d say my vote would be no because I’m prepared to do the interviews and I want to look at their resumes. I’m going to Google. I want to make some calls and do my due diligence to find out their backgrounds and what kind of reviews they get in their former job. I’m comfortable that I can make the right decision. And I’m comfortable the rest of you in the board are going to make the right decision too.

Bernard Lynch:

Along those lines, Charlie, I say this in every community that we serve is the board members over the course of the next week, any questions you have regarding any of these candidates, we’re giving you the reference comments that we received from people. We assemble those, we put those forward to you. So, if you have a sense of who these people are, what their experiences are, what their skills are, that their problem solving capabilities that if you have any questions about any of these candidates, I’m happy to take your call anytime between now and next week.

Charlie Bletzer:

It’s amazing the information you’ve given.

Bernard Lynch:

Well, it is. But it’s like reading Facebook.

Charlie Bletzer:

No, this is factual.

Bernard Lynch:

Yeah. But sometimes there’s a little bit more as you know from your role on the board, stuff that you do with the board is sometimes misinterpreted and misunderstood so you kind of have to get the background that goes with that. So, anything you see that you want to talk about, feel free to give me a call.

Charlie Bletzer:

Thank you, Bernard. Thank you.

Dick Quintal:

It might not be a bad idea for the members of the board, when you get to question speak it out and run them by Bernie to make sure they’re all within the law and something been asked people and unless you’re up to speed about it but I’m going to run mine by him. Right, Bernie? It’s a probably a good idea just to make sure–

Bernard Lynch:

I’ll send everyone out an advisory on that as well that may answer your question. But then, by all means, send them onto me.

1:55:08

Dick Quintal:

Any other comments for Bernie?

Lee Hartman:

Quickly if I could, Lee Hartman.

Dick Quintal:    

Yes.

Lee Hartman:

Bernie, do you have any advice for the board about reaching out to people who are not on the reference list or on the communities that they’ve stated that they’ve worked in?

Bernard Lynch:

Yeah, I mean, certainly. Certainly, the board can do that. The only caution I would give you with any of that is always who you talk to, always take everything with a grain of salt. If you just do a blind call, you might catch someone who has one set of opinions and you might catch the one person who is disgruntled about the decision that that person made recently and you’ll be affected by that. You might get the complete opposite too. You want to make sure there’s a balance to whatever you get for information.

Similar to Google, we use Google for all of our work. And then we verify everything that we get, we get the background on each one of these. I often tell people, if you walk down the streets of–as many of you know I was a city manager in my prior life. If you walk down the street of the City of Lowell, one person would say wonderful things and one person would say negative things. I think two people would say positive things and one person would say negative things. Just take them all with a grain of salt.

Dick Quintal:

Okay. We’ll talk to you during the week and we’ll see you next Tuesday at 4:00.

Bernard Lynch:

Next Tuesday at 4:00, right.

Dick Quintal:

Betty, do you have one more?

Betty Cavacco:

Well, I’m just wondering the process. I believe that we have to accept those applicants, Mr. Chairman. Don’t we?

Bernard Lynch:

I think that’s a good step to take.

Dick Quintal:

Okay.

Betty Cavacco:

Motion to accept the three candidates that Mr. Lynch paradigm brought forward to the Board of Selectmen for town manager.

Harry Helm:

I’ll second.

Dick Quintal:

Second. Discussion? All those in favor? Unanimous. Thank you, Bernie.

Bernard Lynch:

All right. Thank you. See you then.

Dick Quintal:

Good.

Before we go on with the non-binding ballot question. We’d take a 5-minute break, if that’s okay with everybody. See you at 8:16.

Thank you and welcome back. Next up, we have the non-binding ballot question. Mrs. Cavacco?

Betty Cavacco:

Yes. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I know that we had discussed this previously about placing a non-binding ballot question on the ballot in May. This is not the time for a referendum on what form of government that people want. That will occur at the end of this Charter Commission. But it’s the time to let the Charter Commission know what form of governments these people, our people that we represent want to be able to consider.

So, instead of speculating the Charter Commission members have said that they want to have different ideas. I believe that the three questions that I have sent to the board will put that question at rest and be able to give the vote as a Plymouth the ability to make a choice. And then that way, it will make the Charter Commission’s job even easier knowing the direction that the town wants to be going.

Dick Quintal:

Any other comments from the board? Harry?

Harry Helm:    

Are we going to have discussion of this after a motion and a second is made?

Dick Quintal:

If we get that far, yeah. Uh-hmm.

2:00:00

Harry Helm:

Okay. Then I’ll hold off.

Betty Cavacco:

Chairman Quintal, if you’d like I could read the three questions that we have. Like I said, I did send them out to the board.

Dick Quintal:

Sure. Absolutely. Go ahead.

Betty Cavacco:

And the first question would be: should the Charter Commission offer the voters of Plymouth a choice of government, which includes a representative town meeting/town manager form of government?

The second question would be: should the Charter Commission offer the voters of Plymouth a choice of government, which includes a town council/town manager form of government?

And the third question would be: should the Charter Commission offer the voters of Plymouth a choice of government, which includes a mayor/city council form of government?

And those would be three separate questions on the ballot. This way, the residence can go for 1, 2 or all 3. In which lets the Charter Commission know that the people favor having options to consider and what they would be.

Dick Quintal:

Any other questions? Charlie, you’re muted.

Charlie Bletzer:

The people have already voted that they want to change. So, I’m all for this non-binding referendum. So, I think it will be helpful for the Charter Commission. Also, everybody I talked to wants to change our form of government. What exactly they want? I’m not sure whether it’s mayor, whether it’s just a city government or whether it’s just tweaking the town meeting as it is. I’m all for this non-binding question getting on the ballot so I’m going to vote yes for this.

Dick Quintal:

Is there anyone on the audience wishing to speak on this? Mrs. Vautrain, Martha? You’re muted.

Martha Vautrain:

Hi. Thanks for recognizing me. Good evening, Select Board Members. I’d like to read a statement. And starting with the board of the League of Women Voters of the Plymouth area. So, the Plymouth Area League Women Voters questions the reason and timing of the Select Board’s move to put one or more binding questions this May ballot.

We believe that it would be in the best interest for Plymouth to allow the Charter Commission to complete its responsibilities and bring its recommendations regarding a new or revised charter to the Plymouth voters. Charter Change in Massachusetts is fully defined by states statutes. No role is included for a Select Board nor does our town charter define any role for the Select Board in Charter Change.

In May of 2021, Plymouth voters elected a nine-member Charter Commission to examine the current charter and alternate forms of town, city governments, propose a new charter to the voters and bring its recommendations to the voters in an election. This commission has been meeting publicly on a twice monthly schedule since last May and has heard from a large number of current and former town officials including members of the Select Board, officials from other towns as well as interested Plymouth Citizens. These individuals have made many suggestions for improvements ranging from clarification of duties to a complete change in our form of government. The Commissioners have also examined charters of other Massachusetts municipalities.

[2:05:09]

Martha Vautrain

During the 15 meetings to date, Commissioners have had substantial discussion and respectful debate about the strengths and weaknesses of Plymouth’s and other towns and cities charters searching for ideas that would improve Plymouth governance.

The League is concerned that including non-binding questions on this spring’s ballot could confuse voters when the Commission’s proposals is put to the voters presumably in the spring of 2023. Furthermore, the non-binding questions appear to undermine the efforts of the elected Charter Commission. A member of the Select Board has also spoken to the Charter Commission of wanting to a more alternate charters presented to the voters. This may sound like a reasonable proposal, but a charter has to get approval from a majority of the voters and that becomes less likely as more options are put on the ballot. Years ago, a Plymouth Charter Commission did put two charter choices on the ballot and neither got a majority of the votes. Is that the result that the Plymouth voters want? Respectfully, the Board of the League Women Voters of the Plymouth area.  Thank you.

Dick Quintal:

Anyone else wishing to speak? Mr. Bletzer and then–

Charlie Bletzer:    

I’d like to respond to the League. How can getting information, putting on the ballot and see is a non-binding when it’s a year away from–the Charter is probably at least a year away from making their decision. So, how does that hurt the charter? I see it’s just going to be helpful to them because they’re going to see that people maybe want a different form of governance. Is that an echo there?

Dick Quintal:

Yeah, it was Charlie.

Charlie Bletzer:

Yeah, okay. So, I don’t get that train of thought. I think the people want a change. There’s no question about it. Last time we had this on the ballot, I don’t think people wanted the change. And you talked about the Charter Commission, I don’t want to get into it because I said it before there were two slates that run from that Charter Commission. Everybody that’s on here, I said this before too, you’re all political activists so everybody know what a slate is. Slate is a particular group that has an agenda, that has one agenda. They advertised it because they sent mailbox out. You get mailbox. There was one slate that was pro-town meeting, the other slate was pro-mayor or a city government, a different form that was against town meeting. There’s two or three members against town meeting got elected and the rest were the people that were for a town meeting. So, at least 9 out of the 12–I mean, 6 out of the 9 members were for pro-town meetings.

So, I’m still not confident if they’re going to change, that they’re really looking to have another forms of government. I just think that they’re going to recommend town meeting because I think at least two members have already said it publicly that they’re not going to share their vote. They got elected because they were pro-town meeting. So, to put this on a ballot a year away from when it’s going to be binding, I don’t see how this crips. I really don’t. So, I’m for putting this on the ballot, let the Charter Commission, who knows? Maybe the form of government that they’re going to recommend will be what the people want to. But I just think it will be helpful for the Charter Commission or the Charter Committee to see what the votes are.

[2:10:21]

Dick Quintal:     

Betty, I know you had your hand up but Pat does. Would you like to go first?

Betty Cavacco:  

No, let Mrs. Adelmann go first.

Dick Quintal:

Go ahead, Pat.

Pat Adelmann:

Thank you. I just want to say that I think you should let the Charter Commission do their job. I think a ballot question initiated by the Selectmen gives the appearance that you’re into bearing. You don’t like the way the Charter Commission is going so you pull a ballot question to interfere and influence the results. Thank you.

Dick Quintal:

Mr. Lynch? Wait a minute. Mr. Lynch?

Kevin Lynch:

Yes, sir. I appreciate your willingness to allow me to speak here. I appreciate the sentiment of Ms. Cavacco’s questions. I think it might be a little bit premature to pigeonhole the three different types of government. I think her sentiment is more along the lines that the Plymouth Charter Commission should be open to have a plan A is tweak the current town meeting, Plan B is to have an alternative that the people would like to vote on so that now the people can clearly go and say, “We want not just the normal town meeting tweaked a little bit, we would like to have an alternative.” Mr. Bletzer spoke to that a little bit and I have attended and watched the meeting from the Plymouth Charter Commission and yes, I think it’s changing a little bit but I think it’s a feely strong sentiment to only have one plan and that is to tweak the current government. So, there were no signatures and Mr. Costello brought something at the Plymouth Charter Commission as to one of the main reasons why to perhaps having alternative. So, I appreciate Betty’s desire to have some alternatives but yet at the same time, I think it’s a little bit premature to have and pigeonhole three different forms of government. Thank you.

Dick Quintal:

Thank you. Betty? Then Mr. Hutchinson.

Betty Cavacco:

Well, let Mr. Hutchinson go first.

Dick Quintal:

Mr. Hutchinson? Thank you, Lee.

Betty Cavacco:

I don’t know if he heard you.

Dick Quintal:

Mr. Hutchinson?

Charlie Bletzer:

He’s muted, Dickie.

Dick Quintal:

You’re muted, Mr. Hutchinson.

Betty Cavacco:

You’re muted, sir.

Joseph Hutchinson:

Can you hear me now?

Dick Quintal:

Yes.

Joseph Hutchinson:

Okay. I tried to unmute there. So, not according to my screen.

Betty Cavacco:

We can hear you. Maybe you have the TV on.

Joseph Hutchinson:

I’m having a problem with lag here. So, I’ll just go ahead and say what I have to say and hopefully–

Betty Cavacco:

Mr. Hutchinson, can you turn your TV down?

Joseph Hutchinson:

I don’t have a TV.

[2:15:07]

Joseph Hutchinson:

But there is something going on. Why don’t I call back in? Thank you.

Charlie Bletzer:

Just keep talking.

Betty Cavacco:

You’re muted, Dick.

Dick Quintal:

Betty?

Betty Cavacco:

Okay. So, this has nothing to do with the Selectmen trying to be involved in the decision making. I mean, presenting the people with only one option is not democracy, it’s a dictate. It is only by offering people a choice that we can ensure the various forms of government available have been fully vetted, debated and considered to those actually tasked with making this decision, and that’s the voters. This has nothing to do with us wanting to take control of anything. This has to do with offering our voters a choice. It is their decision. I understand the Charter Commission. I respect the job that they’re doing. I think we all do on this board respect the job that they’re doing. But honestly, I am perplexed at why this has become such an issue or a bone of contention with certain organizations and certain residents that their concern that we’re getting involved where we shouldn’t be. We aren’t. We’re putting a non-binding question. It’s a non-binding question. It’s going to be a year away from when the Charter Commission. There is nobody pulling anything that all of a sudden we’re going to put on a non-binding question. It’s just that, non-binding questions, see what the residents want and take it from there. It’s a year away. No one is telling the Charter Commission that at least the Select Board aren’t saying, “We want this, that or the other thing.” This is the voter. These are the people that matter. These are the people that want the voice on what their form of government is. This isn’t anything personal. It’s just a choice. And I feel very strongly. Obviously, I’m going to support putting a non-binding question on the ballot. And I think everyone should support it as well and I think you would be surprised to see how many people will support making one of those choices and actually guiding the commission to put something like that together.

Dick Quintal:

Mr. Serkey?

Betty Cavacco:

You’re muted, sir.

Richard Serkey:

I’m equally as vigorous at opposing this motion. I believe that the maker of this motion is disappointed at the composition of the Charter Commission. The Charter Commission was composed of people that were elected by the registered voters of the Town of Plymouth. I think the effort to put even a non-binding referendum is a way of expressing displeasure with the make of the Charter Commission as it currently exists. And if people want to make their views known to the Charter Commission, they just have to attend the Charter Commission meetings and make their views known. But the answer is not to have a non-binding referendum. The time for doing that passed when the Charter Commission was created. Similarly, if you want influence their output, go to the meetings and express your points of view but don’t do this. Thank you.

Dick Quintal:

Thank you. Anyone else wishing to speak? Mr. Flaherty?

Patrick Flaherty:

Thank you. I’ll say the idea of getting the pulse of the community, I don’t think that’s a bad idea. I think what I find problematic from the nature of the questions by putting the specific types of government down is that although it’s not binding, it will interfere with the process. If I had to recommend a question that would be on there, if we wanted to have a question to engage some is that would the resident be open to another form of government besides town meeting?

[2:20:02]

Patrick Flaherty:

That in a way opens the door to get the same pulse checking. But I think when you put down the specific types, having watched almost all of the Charter Commission meetings, you can see that it’s so deeply complex even within one type of government that I just think it’s problematic to put that out there like that. And I have to agree with some of the statements that were aired tonight. Overall, I don’t believe necessarily we should put any question out there. But I think if we were going to put one that it would be more broadly asking if you are open to a change in the form of government but not putting a specific type down. Thank you.

Dick Quintal:

Harry?

Harry Helm:

I’m going to give my opinion now since Patrick brought up a possible change. I feel the need to make my feelings known about this. When I ran for Selectman, when asked if I supported a Charter Commission, I told everyone I would respect the will of the voters. Back in May, they voted for a Charter Commission and for the members of that commission. I believe that philosophies of government of all candidates relative to Plymouth becoming a city or a city form of government were well known to the voters. The candidates were clear about this.

Elections have consequences. Yes, only 10% of the registered voters came forth but it was not a secret that on the ballot last May was a vote for the Charter Commission and its member. It was not a secret and only 10% of the population came out to vote. I think this proposal in whatever form or any ballot non-binding initiative effectively acts as a redo for those who didn’t vote in May. I just can’t support this. Thank you.

Dick Quintal:

Anyone else wishing to speak? Bring it back to the board.

Harry Helm:

Mr. Zupperoli has his hand up.

Dick Quintal:

Well, I’m sorry. Go ahead, Mr. Zupperoli.

Robert Zupperoli:

Thank you, Mr. Quintal. I just would like to echo what Mrs. Vautrain, what Mr. Serkey and what Mr. Flaherty said. I think that a non-binding question no matter how you word it or how you phrase it even with options, I think it in point of in fact becomes a binding question and it ties the hands of the Charter Commission who are really elected to do some independent work, some very hard independent work. I think that they need to be allowed to do their work and to do it independently without any influence at all, non-binding, binding or otherwise.

The Charter Commission meetings are all open. They’re all open to the public and anyone at any point in time can attend those meetings and let those wishes be known. So, I really think that going in the direction of a non-binding question becomes problematic. Thank you.

Dick Quintal:

Mrs. Cavacco?

Betty Cavacco:

Thank you for your comments but 78% of the voters voted for a Charter Commission and that means a change. Non-binding is just that. It’s non-binding. The Charter Commission can take that non-binding information and look at it and decide however way they want to go. So, I still feel strongly that 78% of the voters voted for a Charter Commission, which means they voted because they want a change. So, with that being said, Mr. Chairman, I would like to move to a motion for the three questions–

Dick Quintal:

Excuse me, Betty, before you make the motion, there’s just one gentleman, Mr. Hutchinson’s on here had a hand up.                    

Betty Cavacco:

Okay.

Dick Quintal:

Is that okay? Mr. Hutchinson? Sir? You’re muted.

[2:25:04]

Joseph Hutchinson:

Thank you. So, well, I just unmuted myself. Building a charter, which is to say providing a comprehensive and effective form of government will need to present their voters demands attention and focus. It’s complicated work. This proposal makes it sound like it’s a simple task. This idea is not doing voters a favor but it’s forcing them to choose.

Dick Quintal:

Go on.

Joseph Hutchinson:

Between a multiple complicated charters and each of which balances the importance rules, processes and legalities required to run a municipality. So, who’s not in favor of choice? It sounds great and make some great bumper sticker but the voters had a choice among the 21 commissioner candidates and they chose the current 9 to sort through the issues and the variables and I would urge the committee to let them do that.

Dick Quintal:

Thank you. Back to the board. Mrs. Cavacco?

Betty Cavacco:

Again, no one is stopping the committee or commission from doing their job. And with that being said, Mr. Chairman, I would like to make a motion to put a non-binding question–three non-binding questions on the ballot. If you’d like me to read them again, I will or what I’ve read previously for the record.

Dick Quintal:

I think that’s okay. We heard you say it’s in our packet, so. Do I have a second? Charlie, you’re muted. Charlie, you’re muted. Oh, you’re trying to get it off? Okay.

Betty Cavacco:

Chris, can you unmute Charlie?

Chris Badot:

No, I can only ask him to unmute.

Charlie Bletzer:

Sorry. I have a different set up tonight than what I’m normally used to using so sorry about that. I’ll second the–

Dick Quintal:

Betty’s motion?

Charlie Bletzer:

Yes.

Dick Quintal:

Discussion? All those in favor? Three in favor, two in opposition. Motion carries.

Town manager’s report, Mr. Hartman.

Lee Hartman:

This one is quick. I don’t have a lot tonight. First, I just would point out as we talked about COVID, we do see it throughout the town but every report I have is that we’re managing. We do have a reduced staff in almost every department. But again, it’s not affecting our ability to deliver services and hopefully in the coming weeks that will improve.

And then the second is that the last meeting last week there was a request for a Firewise sign to be installed in the town. We have talked to the DPW and they are making the arrangements to put that sign up for the Firewise people. And that’s really all I have tonight.

Dick Quintal:

Okay. Any questions or comments for Lee? Seeing none. Thank you, Lee. We’ll move on to public comment. Anyone wishing to speak on the public comment? Mr. Serkey?

[2:30:02]

Richard Serkey:

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I want to speak about the executive session minutes from August 3, October 19, November 4 and November 30th pertaining to the former town manager’s contract. On December 28th, which was two weeks ago tonight, I was advised by your office that those minutes would be reviewed and approved at your January 4 meeting, which was a week ago tonight.

The agenda for your January 4 meeting called for an executive session to review and approve those minutes. On January 4, I was advised by your office that upon approval by you of the minutes they would be sent to me forthwith. Indeed, on January 5, I received a letter from the Chair stating that the board met an executive session on January 4 and approved the release of the subject minutes and that the minutes have been referred to special town council who I presume was in attendance at your January 4 executive session to make redactions. And it was expected that the minutes would then be forwarded to me by the end of that week. I did not receive the minutes by the end of that week, which was January 7. I know there was a storm on that day so I waited until the end of the first business day following January 7, which was yesterday, January 10 and I still haven’t received them.

Now, the agenda for tonight’s meeting called for an executive session for the same purpose as the January 4 meeting to review and approve those executive session minutes. So, my question is, were the minutes in fact reviewed and approved on January 4 as represented in your agenda for last week and has confirmed by your January 5 letter? If so, why haven’t I received them along with the over 40 co-complainants who filed the open meeting law complaint? If they haven’t been reviewed, if they weren’t reviewed on January 4, why not? And why was I not notified otherwise? Thank you.

Dick Quintal:

Thank you. Anyone else wishing to speak on a public comment? Okay. Moving on to Licenses and Administrative notes.

Special Occasion Limousine, vehicle for hire operator license renewal for Patricia Carter, 4C Marc Drive.

Betty Cavacco:

Motion.

Patrick Flaherty:

Second that.

Dick Quintal:

Discussion? All those in favor? I think it’s unanimous, but there’s two screens. Everybody is moving around. Let’s try it again. All those in favor? How about Harry? Are you there?

Harry Helm:

I am.

Dick Quintal:

Are you in favor or are you–thank you. Unanimous. Administrative notes. We have five. Do I have a motion?

Betty Cavacco:

Motion to move as a group.

Dick Quintal:

Do I have a second?

Charlie Bletzer:

Second them.

Dick Quintal:

Second. Discussion? All those in favor? Unanimous.

Committee Liaison updates. Betty?

Betty Cavacco:

Yes. I did reach out to our Selectboard Assistant, Mr. Badot today and if the board remembers, I have made a motion on behalf of the Harbor Committee probably about a month or so ago. And there were some additional information that was presented and we ended up pulling that agenda item and I’d like to the Harbor Committee to reschedule to come back. Just to update the board that Dan McKernan who is the head of Division of Marine Fisheries did send out on a email to the Harbor Committee and myself stating that the information that was provided by our staff did not change his opinion. The only thing I’m concerned about is that I believe we’re coming up on a six-month and I know Mr. Badot was going to find out when that time was.

[2:35:03]

Betty Cavacco:

But I didn’t hear from him before the meeting so I’m wondering if he does have that information.

Christopher Badot:

Oh, I have reached out–oh, sorry. I had looked back at our agenda and saw that we had voted but I don’t know when they actually begin the license. I reached out to Chad and David Gould. I’m just waiting to hear back from them. I should hear by the morning.

Betty Cavacco:

So, I don’t know, Mr. Chairman if you would like to because I think we’re right at that point, I believe or within a couple weeks of it. Should we extend that for another month? Because it was originally six months but like I said, we don’t know. Remember when we did the licenses for six months, and we were supposed to get a report back in three and that got postponed and now like I said, without knowing the date, I don’t know if the board would entertain extending that six-month license period to seven-month so we just have the time. the Harbor Committee is meeting on Thursday. I’ve asked Chris with them on the agenda for the 25th but we don’t have the time readily available to us right now. I think it would behoove us to extend that for a month so we are certain that we have the time to do what we need to do and we’re not in any violation with the license agreement.

Dick Quintal:

Is that a motion?

Betty Cavacco:

Sure, that’s a motion. I’d like to make a motion.

Dick Quintal:

Extend for 30 days.

Betty Cavacco:

Yes, please.

Dick Quintal:

Do I have a second?

Charlie Bletzer:

I’ll second it.

Dick Quintal:

Seconded, Charlie. Discussion? All those in favor? Unanimous.    

Designee Updates?

Old Business? Letters? New Business?

Mrs. Cavacco?

Betty Cavacco:

Just a quick and this is just to let our residence know that the skating rink at Briggs Field, the liner will be installed in the morning and it will flood during the day tomorrow and we’re hoping that we’ll have ice by this weekend. So, just want the folks to know that. We have 200 pairs of ice skates. We had Mike Freeland of Freeland Woodworks. I think he built a dozen 12-foot benches and Kevin Hennessey worked with a pitching company and built cubbies for like ice skates and those will be installed. It’s all been delivered to the DPW and everything will be installed over the weekend.

Dick Quintal:

Great. Anything else under new business? Mr. Helm?

Harry Helm:

Yeah, I have a couple things. First of all, I mean, this would be for potential future discussion at a Board of Selectmen meeting. A suggestion has been made and I think that it make sense that for instance the climate change addendum to the large document that possibly for presentations of that size that are given to the Board of Selectmen that would be of interest to the residents who are watching the meeting that they be posted under the News Section on the town website so that residents could see them. I don’t believe residents were able to really easily, if at all, access the Climate Change Addendum. So, that’s just something for us to put in the bag in our year about something along those lines so that the residents have that information that they can review as we’re talking about it before.

Secondly and at the moment more importantly, it’s come to my attention that the State of Massachusetts has passed the Spending Bills, which distributes nearly $4 billion in COVID relief money received from the federal government as well as surplus tax funds like $3,998,000.

[2:40:07]

Harry Helm:

According to the Patriot Ledger, the Town of Plymouth received nothing. None of that almost $4 billion. Two private organizations in town: the Spire Center and the Pilgrim Hall Museum, each received $75,000 but the Town of Plymouth received nothing. I would like to have an agenda item placed on the next meeting so that our state representatives are aware of it and can come and tell us exactly what happened. Perhaps, maybe there is money and we just don’t know about it or they’re waiting for some funds or there wasn’t any. And if we did not receive any, I think it is incumbent upon this board to investigate and find out why out of $4 billion the Town of Plymouth received zero. I would like to have that put on the next agenda.

Dick Quintal:

I will take a look at it. I’ll let you know what’s going on. We’re stopping at 4:00. So, let’s take a look and see what it’s up to next week. I know I promised already the legacy grant and they’re getting. They want to come forward so we can put it on.

Harry Helm:

Sure, or it could be on a following one because if this ship has sailed, it’s not like we can turn it around and get some money. I think if we receive no money, there are some problems and we need to take a look at why that happened. For instance, was it only shovel-ready? Did we have no shovel-ready? What is it about the way the Town of Plymouth does things that we had no shovel-ready programs, etc.? I just think it begs the question and it’s an important thing to look into.

Dick Quintal:

Charlie then Betty.

Charlie Bletzer:

Harry, do you know to get that money, you have to apply for grants to get that money? Is it like a grant process type thing or do you know?

Harry Helm:

I have no idea. That’s why we need to investigate.

Charlie Bletzer:

Yeah, we have a new grant writer. Maybe Tiffany could look into what happened.

Harry Helm:

How about our state representatives? This was House Bill No. 4269. I think the representatives need to find out what happened.

Charlie Bletzer:               

Okay. I got you.

Dick Quintal:

Betty?

Betty Cavacco:

Actually, one of our state reps is watching and he said money is not even spent yet. All this will be grant money to apply for.

Charlie Bletzer:

Okay. So, now, I’ll say let’s get Tiffany call Matt and find out what she has to do to get some money for Plymouth. So, the money is still there.

Harry Helm:

This is why we need to discuss this because according to the Patriot Ledger, $8.7 million has gone to Southshore towns directed at infrastructure projects. Okay. Not like the 8.7 is waiting in advance. So, I think we need to have this discussed.

Betty Cavacco:

I’m sure our state rep would love to join us at a meeting.

Dick Quintal:

Yes, he loves it.

Harry Helm:

And he would.

Charlie Bletzer:

I’m sure tomorrow, you’ll hear some tomorrow.

Dick Quintal:

Yeah, probably tonight.

Charlie Bletzer:    

We got a grant writer now and she’s great so we should have her look at that.

Dick Quintal:

Well, let’s get all the details. Mrs. Cavacco?

Harry Helm:

And that’s why I’m bringing this one up.

Betty Cavacco:              

Yes, I do have. One of the things that we always talk about is communication for our residents. After noticing, I obviously surfed social media sites quite a bit, noticing so many other towns have like their DPW has their own Facebook Page, their police, their fire. I really think that we should do something similar to that because especially DPW with all the projects that they’re working on and roadworks.

[2:45:10]

Betty Cavacco:

Although they do post town website if it’s paving or something like that, but I think the DPW has like so much information that they should be able to post on their own town department website, Facebook page, Instagram, however what they feel. And I know that the director would like to do that as well. So, I’m wondering if we could make that happen and I think it gets really important that folks know what’s going on. I’m not saying they’re going to be posting something all day long but a post a day, a couple of posts a day isn’t going to take a lot of time away from what their regular duties are. I know that we have three managers over there and I think it would be great to keep our residents updated on the goings on of what’s happening in town. So, I’d like to have that happen and not only for the DPW but for every department.

Dick Quintal:

Anything else? Motion to adjourn?

Betty Cavacco:

Motion to adjourn.

Charlie Bletzer:

I second that.

Dick Quintal:

Thank you for watching. Have a good evening, good week. And remember next Tuesday, we’re starting at 4 o’clock. We’re doing the interviews for the town manager.