Agenda – Plymouth Select Board 6-13-22 Agenda

Official Minutes – Plymouth Select Board Minutes 6-13-22

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Betty Cavacco:

Chris, can you send me over the agenda?

Chris Badot:

Sure.

Chris Badot:

We’re live.

Derek Brindisi:

I don’t know if it helps, Betty but I did put it in the chat box. It’s a short agenda.

Chris Badot:

And you guys are live.

Derek Brindisi:

Thank you.

Harry Helm:

So, we’re waiting for Dickie?

Charlie Bletzer:

You’re muted, Betty.

Betty Cavacco:

Yes, we are but–oh, here we go. It’s 5:01 so I’d like to call the meeting to order. The first is reconsideration and vote funding source for the Special Town Meeting Article with 46 Sandwich Road. So, Derek, if you wouldn’t mind?

Derek Brindisi:

Sure. So, just to recap where we left off last week, as you all recall, those unanimous report to use $1.4 million of ARPA funding to balance the $3.75 million purchase price and acquisition cost. At the time, the Board discussed the quantum vote. We all believe that the quantum vote by using ARPA funds would be a majority vote. We were told the following morning by counsel that given the fact that it’s a land acquisition, the quantum vote is actually a two-thirds vote.

In addition to that, I’ve been working with town counsel because there have been dozens of requests for information relative to whether or not we can use ARPA funds for this land acquisition. Counsel will find that based upon their review and consistent with our finance director’s recommendation that we can in fact use ARPA funding for this land acquisition. So, I think the reason you folks are reconvening is just to either reaffirm that you want to continue to use ARPA funds for this purpose or borrow. Those are really your two choices. So, to borrow the 1.4 million.

Harry Helm:

Derek, just to confirm for everybody watching, the remainder of the 3.7 is coming from where?

Derek Brindisi:

So, the balance would come from free cash, which is approximately 2.2 and then another $78,000 is being used from the premium that Lynne Barrett had described last week. The premium fund take note of that.

Harry Helm:

Thank you.

Betty Cavacco:

So, do any of the board members have any additional questions? Is there any kind of conversation that we want to have that would change the support towards the ARPA funds? If we can move fairly quickly, we could take comments from our attendees if there’s anything specific.

Charlie Bletzer:

I’d like to make a comment if I could.

Betty Cavacco:

Sure.

Charlie Bletzer:

I think we were worried about getting this pass through the town meeting and we thought that by eliminating the borrowing that it would be a majority in our two-thirds vote. I was hesitant with the use of ARPA funds for this, because I know there’s a lot of projects that we could use with the ARPA funds. Now, knowing what we know, I’m in support of rescinding what we did and borrow the 1.4. I think it’s a smarter investment for us right now. I’m all fully were in agreement on that that I think the only reason why did use the ARPA was to eliminate every goal to avoid the two-thirds vote.

[0:05:28]

Betty Cavacco:

Go ahead, Harry.

Harry Helm:

Charlie, I voted for the ARPA funds because I thought that was a good use of ARPA funds not necessarily to have a lower vote threshold in town meeting but that’s just for clarification. So, I guess the question that I would have, ARPA does not require borrowing. It does, maybe Derek can comment on it, it adds an extra step for town meeting approval for any of those projects, Derek that you listed. And if you would review those again when I’m done, that would be great. But I am a little bit concerned about borrowing if we’re pushing ahead with this and if it passes town meeting and Fire Station 1 goes there immediately, let’s forget about the police headquarters for the time being. That’s a few years out. It seems to me we can sell the Water Barn immediately up on Long Pond Road and sell South Meadow and possibly other properties in order to pay off this debt as quickly as possible. I guess, Derek, if you have any comments, I’d like to hear what Lynne might say about that, if that’s possible to do something like that because I’m not a tremendous fan of borrowing. I mean, I will go with the rest of the group in this because I do believe it’s important that we do purchase this land. I think we will all look back 5 years from now and realize it was a mistake if we didn’t but that’s my own opinion, but I’m a little bit concerned about just flat out borrowing without some sort of strategy for paying that borrowing off as quickly as possible.

Derek Brindisi:

Yeah, that’s a good point. So, if we were to sell land, the money would be transferred into the Sale of Land account. What I would have to find out and I could find out fairly shortly whether or not we could apply money that’s in the Sale of Land account towards debt. I think that’s the question that you’re asking, correct?

Harry Helm:

Basically, yeah and perhaps Lynne has an idea or some thoughts on that. I know she’s in here somewhere.

Betty Cavacco:

She needs to come in as a panelist, I would think, if that’s possible.

Harry Helm:

Yes. She’s under Attendees.

Derek Brindisi:

Okay. I can see her.

Betty Cavacco:

Chris, could you bring Lynne? Go ahead, John.

John Mahoney:

I can think of an example from about a decade ago where the committee made an investment in land on the fall town meeting under the guise of raise and appropriate. And then in between fall town meeting and spring town meeting, a piece of property was sold. Those proceeds went into the Sale of Real Estate account. We went back to the following spring town meeting and got permission to use those funds to pay off the debt from the purchase from the prior of fall. So, I’ve seen that done before.

Harry Helm:

Okay. Thanks, John.

Betty Cavacco:

Lynne is shaking her head, so.

Harry Helm:

How do you know she’s shaking her head?

Betty Cavacco:

I can see her.

Harry Helm:

You can see her right now?

Betty Cavacco:

Yeah.

John Mahoney:

Lynne, did I get that right?

Lynne Barrett:

Yes. So, Sale of Real Estate is what we call a receipt reserved for appropriation. So, once you receive it, it is available for appropriation at a future town meeting and you can use it to–we didn’t necessarily use it to pay off the debt. We just didn’t borrow for whatever it was and we just used that to pay for the proceeds of the acquisition or building and we review Sale of Real Estate for other capital.

[0:10:12]

Lynne Barrett:

For example, the fire station on Hedge Road. We used it for just different things like that. You can use it for other capital, which would incur the same immanentization schedule for what you sold. So, if it’s 20-year or 30-year, you could use it for another 20-year or 30-year project.

Harry Helm:

Thank you.

Lynne Barrett:

Yeah.

Betty Cavacco:

I believe I’m getting message that Mr. Zupperoli would like to speak. Can you–geez, we almost forgot how to do Zoom. Chris, can you allow him in? Thank you. Go ahead, Mr. Zupperoli.

Robert Zupperoli:

I don’t know. I can add to the discussion just in terms of a favorable response with the purchase of this land and listening to the financial plan so that when we talk about it certainly in caucuses and going forward, I can sound a little bit more intelligent than what I really am, but I’m going to listen for a little while and then if I have some questions then I’ll ask if that’s okay. Yeah.

Betty Cavacco:

Okay. Yeah, that would be great. Thank you. So, Lynne, a question that I have is if we decide that we don’t want to go with ARPA funds and we raise and appropriate, what would that be to our tax payer in the interim that we are selling? Just so you know, Harry and I’m sure you remember, we did ask Derek to move forward and I know Brad’s working on it a list of our properties. They’re out trying to find a commercial real estate salesperson to be able to market our properties to the best of what we can get for them. So, that’s true, correct, Derek or Brad, whoever?

Brad Brothers:

Yeah, we’re in the process of that right now. I have in Excel all of our properties, but it’s a very ugly worksheet that I was trying to structure so it gets something that’s easy to read for everyone. So, that should be available in a week or two.

Harry Helm:

A question on that, and I don’t want to get too far off the subject, but my experience is–Lynne, maybe you know Derek in your experience, is it normal or usual to use a real estate brokerage to sell our properties?

Lynne Barrett:

We’ve hired someone to come in to do our auctions for our tax titled properties. We’ve done at least three times in the term that I’ve been here. It works such that they get like a percentage of the sale and we can get that information to the town manager’s office of who reviews before.

Harry Helm:

Okay. So, we would be looking for somebody to auction not necessarily your typical brokerage to market.

Lynne Barrett:

I don’t know. I mean, I’m not–for tax titled properties, we’ve done the auction process. So, this person that would be familiar with, he’s in the business of selling properties. However, the town manager’s office does it. It wouldn’t necessarily be an auction.

Derek Brindisi:

Yeah. So, traditionally, as Lynne pointed out, if it’s a property that’s in tax title, it goes to the Treasurer Collector’s Office through an auction. If it’s a property that we already own and is in the current custody of the Select Board and in these cases, we would put it out to bid like any other public procurement process. What we’ve done in the past is send a direct bid document to interested developers especially properties on say Long Pond Road just so that they are aware that these properties are available.

[0:15:08]

Harry Helm:

Okay.

Betty Cavacco:

Okay. We can–now, Derek, looking–

Lynne Barrett:

I’m sorry, you had asked a question, Betty about how it would affect the budget and the tax payer? So, because we would authorize to borrow the 1.4 at the June meeting, we would close on the sale I believe at some time in July or around there. We would probably end up borrowing from ourselves within the first year, which is Fiscal ’23 because we do that all the time for other projects and then by the end of the fiscal year, we would cover that debt with a long-term borrowing. If we haven’t say, for example, if we sell another property, we could go back to town meeting in the fall or we could go back to town meeting in the spring and use that money to pay off that debt. If we’re potentially going to be selling the property and have the intention of using that money to pay off the debt, we can actually just do a short-term note for like another year so we would only be paying interests based on that 1.4 in fiscal ’24. So, that would be the first year that any effect to the budget would actually happen. If we do end up doing a long-term borrowing and we borrowed like 20 years for this particular property, the first-year principal and interest, I’m using like a 6% coupon rate because the rates obviously are going up because of the economy, it would be a $154,000 in year 1 principal and interest, which equates out to about a penny per thousand dollar of value for home owners. So, for that, average homeowner in Plymouth, which is about 412,000 or 417,000 home equates to $5.11 in the first year.

Betty Cavacco:

Okay. So, just for the board, I mean, I guess which of these ARPA projects, if we did use ARPA funds, which of these would you be removing from the list, Derek?

Derek Brindisi:

That’s a tough question to answer. I mean, we would present this list to the board. The list that I put in the chat box is what the departments feel are a priority. It’s not the full comprehensive list. There are other projects that are out there, but these are some of the projects that rose to the top given the history like park for example, the conversation about regionalizing dispatch with the office. So, it’s hard to say which one we would take off of here but if I look at it, I would probably say the two parks would probably be the one that would have to come off.

Betty Cavacco:

Right. And the dispatch one, we haven’t had a conversation about yet because I know Mr. Bletzer and I want to meet with you about that.

Derek Brindisi:

Right.

Betty Cavacco:

So, I guess, it’s however the board wants to approach this, if we want to keep our vote and go with ARPA funds, do we want to go for the borrowing, a $1.4 million borrowing at $5.11 per tax payer? It’s really the pleasure of the board. And we have a couple people with their hands up. Do you guys want to take those comments first before we come back to the board?

John Mahoney:

Yes.

Harry Helm:

Yes, I agree.

Betty Cavacco:

Pat McCarthy? Chris.

Chris Badot:

Just waiting for her to enter. She may have changed her mind because the hand–oh, here she comes.

[0:20:26]

Betty Cavacco:

Pat, do you have–

Pat McCarthy:

Okay, yes. I’m sorry about that. Can you hear me now?

Betty Cavacco:

Yes.

Pat McCarthy:

Okay. I know you’re discussing the funding mechanisms, etc. A lot of people had spoken to presumably, lots but lot of people have concerns about not using the ARPA funds for what we feel they were intended for, to begin with. I have a follow-question, which I had emailed through to Derek earlier today and the question relates to your actual motion for town meeting because your motion at this point does not match what is in Article 1 in our booklets. We’ve already had our caucus meeting last week as you know. So, we did discuss this article at length. And Ashley Shaw was there at our meeting because she had been at your motions meeting in the morning. So, in your draft motion and I was in touch with Steve today and Kevin Kenzie [?]. So, in the motion that you have as a draft motion that says: use for recreational and/or open space. It does not relate to your Article 1 that we have in our book, which relates to public safety and the building and all of that other stuff. So, I have a real concern about that and I had asked Derek. I didn’t know how is that motion going to be cleaned up for town meeting because at this point, if we’re only voting on use of it in the motion for open space and recreational purposes, I think that’s a whole different take for people who are in the fence out there about whether or not we should buy the land to begin with. So, I think there’s a lot of questions. I know tonight at the preview presentation, Steve told me today that it seems that we would have a chance to ask questions there and I did ask him about who actually writes your motion and who approves your motion? So, that goes along with your funding. If you’re going to fund it for open space and recreation in the motion, that’s a question. And/or are you going to change the motion to be more equitable to what is in Article 1 in ARPA? So, thank you.

Derek Brindisi:

Ms. McCarthy, I can answer that. So, the first answer to your question is that town counsel reviews and approves all motions. And to your point, the original motion only referenced open space and recreational purposes although the article itself also list general municipal purposes as a possibility for this parcel of land. So, I put in the chat box just an excerpt of a draft motion that we have at the ready after this meeting is over. And so, I don’t know if you can see the chat box but if you can’t, I’ll just read it. Can you?

Pat McCarthy:

I can see the chat box. When–

Derek Brindisi:

You’ll see it says, “And/or general municipal purposes.”

Pat McCarthy:

Who approves the final motion and when do we as town meeting members get it to review it?

Derek Brindisi:

So, town counsel will approve this final motion and as soon as this meeting is over, I plan on sending it to Jeannette and I believe she is the person who sends all the final motions to town meeting members, correct?

Pat McCarthy:

Just to follow up on that because there’s been a lot of confusion on correct email addresses especially new town meeting members. And I know Jeannette and the town clerk’s office have been working on that and I work on that in behalf of my precinct. However, at one point, only a 105 people were getting emails from the finance department. So, I think it’s important to get the information out to all town meeting members. There were town meeting members who did not get invitation for tonight’s preview night. I told Steve that today. And then there were people who didn’t even get their books in the mail even though they have been sworn in and correct addresses. So, in light of all the confusion, to minimize more confusion, I would hope that you will give a good presentation tonight and also, at your caucuses that you’re able to go to but also at town meetings where we can also ask follow up questions. Thank you very much.

[0:25:01]

Derek Brindisi:

Thank you.

Betty Cavacco:

Is there anyone else, Chris?

Chris Badot:

Not that I see, no.

Betty Cavacco:

Okay. Then we’ll bring it back to the board. Anybody have any questions, comments, concerns on do we stay the same direction? Do we go for borrowing? How does anybody feel about that? John?

John Mahoney:

So, when I came into the process with 90% of it done. We have 8 days to go. We want to be concise and clear on what you’re trying to do. You’re asking your congress, your legislative body, do you believe that securing this piece of property is going to be an asset to the Town of Plymouth? And I think we all agree that we do at X amount of dollars. And infrastructure is a problem from the town all the way up to the federal government. So, if you want to tack in a different direction and move away from ARPA funds and go to the straight up borrowing, I don’t have a problem with that. You will then move forward with three buckets free cash, the 70,000 and the premium in raising and appropriating 1.4. I’ve seen it done before with the story I just told you. Certainly, the last thing you want to do is bond $1.4 million over 20 years is a complete waste. There’s no doubt in my mind that if town meeting approves this, we can certainly avoid that. And having said that, if somebody wants to comment, I think that’s the direction that we should head in.

Betty Cavacco:

Borrowing?

John Mahoney:

Correct. Because Betty, it comes back to the two-thirds. With two-thirds ARPA, we’d leave ARPA alone if we’re going to go down, we will make the argument in 8 days and let’s just stick with the 1.4 of the borrowing.

Betty Cavacco:

I don’t have a problem with that either. So, Charlie was first and then Harry. You’re muted, Charlie.

Charlie Bletzer:

I agree with John. And as I said before, we borrow, we’re able to use the ARPA funds for other projects that we want to get done and then we sell some parcels of land and we pay off that debt. I think that’s a smart way to go so I’m all for that.

Betty Cavacco:

Harry?

Harry Helm:

I’m going to agree with John and Charlie but I do plan to keep tabs on the land sales, because I really do want to minimize the impact of borrowing this money. I think it’s important that we buy this piece of property regardless of the back and forth that is going on. We’ve seen many times in the past where we’ve chosen not to buy land and we’ve come to understand that we probably should have. I hate to see this be another time. So, yeah, whatever the wishes of the board are. I think John made really good points about borrowing and then selling off property and then using the money out of the sale of land account at a future town meeting to switch it over and pay off this debt. And then Lynne made a good point about the short-term nature of the borrowing.

Betty Cavacco:

Go ahead, Charlie.

Charlie Bletzer:

If everybody is done with discussion, I can make a motion right now.

Betty Cavacco:

Can you hold off just a second? I’d like–

Charlie Bletzer:

I’m sorry, go ahead.

Betty Cavacco:

No problem. Mr. Zupperoli has raised his hand. I’d like to hear what he has to say.

Robert Zupperoli:

Thanks. I was just–I mean, it’s ditto for me just on the short-term borrow. I think staying away from ARPA is a smart move to do both with infrastructure projects that are already planned and you never know what’s going to happen in hurricane and blizzard season. But for a short-term borrow, I think that’s great. I think whoever attends the caucuses and certainly the presentation to town meeting, a real clear concise message the condition of the land, the condition of the land, the benefits, I really think that will be your strongest point.

[0:30:14]

Betty Cavacco:

And there is a caucus this evening, Precinct 1’s caucus and I believe I sent it to you as well, Mr. Zupperoli. I’ve sent that along and I’ll be joining Precinct 1 this evening but I sent–

Robert Zupperoli:

As well I from the Hedge school.

Betty Cavacco:

Okay, good. So, I guess, back to Charlie.

Charlie Bletzer:

So, my motion is to rescind that vote earlier using ARPA funds and to make a new motion to use the 1.4 million short-term borrowing and that’s what my motion is.

Betty Cavacco:

Do I have a second?

Harry Helm:

Second.

Betty Cavacco:

Discussion? I just have one thing. Derek, how quick–Lynne? Hold on. Lynne?

Lynne Barrett:

Yeah. You can’t specify short-term unfortunately. What the motion would be is to authorize borrowing but then that is the plan is to short-term borrow it until we sell other property and we go back to town meeting and pay down. You know what I mean? That’s the intent of what you want to do. I’m hearing you tonight, that’s what you would like to do and that’s what we’ll make happen, so to speak. Okay?

Charlie Bletzer:

Can I put the word “hopefully” in there? No, I’m just kidding.

Betty Cavacco:

So, Derek, is it possible that our next in-person meeting is the 28th with the Select Board, is it possible to have the list of properties that evening so we can have movement on them and give direction as to what the board would like to see? You’re muted.

Derek Brindisi:

As Brad pointed out, he has a very funky list right now. He’s actually convened a meeting with all of our department heads tomorrow to go through that list to try to clean it up. So, I think in two weeks, we could definitely have a more refined version of properties that are available for sale.

Betty Cavacco:

Great. Okay. Any more discussion?

Brad Brothers:

Derek, just correct me if I’m wrong, it’s the same standard practice, the board would actually have to vote to declare the property surplus. So, anything we want to sell, it would have to go through the board for a vote prior to us even selling it anyway, correct?

Derek Brindisi:

Yes.

Brad Brothers:

Yeah, okay.

Betty Cavacco:

Okay. All those in favor?

Harry Helm:

Should Charlie restate his motion removing the short-term from the borrowing part?

Charlie Bletzer:

Yeah. First, I am rescinding that vote to use ARPA funding and I want to make a new motion to use 1.4 as borrowing.

Betty Cavacco:

Okay.

Harry Helm:

Second that.

Betty Cavacco:

Discussion? All those in favor? It is unanimous. So, the next is licenses. We have one license, James J Auctioneers and Appraisers, 190 Court Street, Josh Rioux is requesting a Special Auctioneer Permit for a Stamp and Coin Auction being held on June 21st, 2022 from 6:30 to 9:00.

John Mahoney:

Move approval.

Charlie Bletzer:

Second it.

Betty Cavacco:

Discussion? All those in favor? It is unanimous. And before we adjourn, town meeting preview is at 6 o’clock and if any of the board members would like to attend, I know that myself and Mr. Brindisi will be there but we can certainly send on the Zoom link so you can attend as well. Just let us know one way or another.

And there is a Precinct 1 caucus this evening too and if people can get back to me. Looks like our week is pretty busy with caucuses. I think we have three of them tomorrow evening. So, if you guys can get back with which one, you’ll attend, that would be great so we can cover everything. And now, a motion to adjourn.

[0:35:02]

Charlie Bletzer:

Motion.

John Mahoney:

Second.

Betty Cavacco:

Everybody has a good evening and we’ll see you in 30 minutes.

Charlie Bletzer:

Okay, thank you.