Agenda – Plymouth Select Board 11-15-22 Agenda

Official Minutes – Plymouth Select Board Minutes 11-15-22 Executive Session, Plymouth Select Board Minutes 11-15-22 Regular Session

Please note this transcription is unofficial. If you find an error, use the contact page to notify Plymouth On The Record.

Betty Cavacco:

Good evening and welcome to the Select Board meeting, November 15th on Tuesday. Would you please rise for the Pledge of Allegiance?

All:

I pledge allegiance to the Flag of the United States of America, and to the Republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

Betty Cavacco:

Thank you. The Select Board has been in Executive Session since four o’clock. Now, back to Open Session. And I believe the first order of business is Public Comment. Do we have any public–whoa, you guys can kind of line up and please state your name and precinct for the record.

Irene Caldwell:

I have everything all ready. My name is Irene Caldwell. And I understand that last time I spoke before you was 10/4 and I understand that I got some people rather upset. If I apologize or mischaracterized anything that was happening or spoke rudely, I’m sorry. I had a surgery that day and the anesthesiologist said, “If you were my mother, I would not let you go and talk before the Selectmen.” I did not listen to him. So, after that 10/4 meeting, I did all kinds of Investigations to find out what was happening in Morton Park and in our other beaches and parks and what committees were doing what to take care of the beaches. And so, I’ve spent a lot of time. I went to open Space Committee meeting and I gave them my whole outline for what I think should happen and that was like killing the idea before it even started, because people don’t want to be told what to do. They just want to be heard. And so, if I could just be heard for a minute. We don’t have a clock, do we?

Betty Cavacco:

Well, I just wanted to I know that Mr. Senesi did email you. The Morton Park issue is now out of the board’s hands and with the Natural Resource Committee and the Morton Park residents. So, honestly, your best venue right now would be to attend those meetings when they’re called and give them the information. We’ve already heard everything Morton Park that we could–

Irene Caldwell:

So, listening to what you said, this is what my question is, is swimming and picnicking in Plymouth a right or a privilege? I understand that in Plymouth, we have three ponds that we can swim at: Hedge Pond, Fresh Pond and Morton Park. As we decrease the number of parking places where people can come into the park, that leaves us with less and less availability to get to the park on selected weekends. We’re only talking about six or seven. So, what I want to know is if we are not to be swimming at the parks because the adjacent property owners are upset about what’s happening and if there’s no place for the public to swim, what are we going to do about the recreational needs of the people in our community? I do not think that the people around Great South Pond should determine what happens to that pond. I don’t think the people around Morton Park should be the sole determiners. I think that there must be a way for the public trust to come in and understand what are we allowed to and what can we do. But may I just read to you what I wrote?

I believe there needs to be a community-wide forum addressing the issues of accessibility, recreational opportunities for our community members and members of the greater community at large. In order to ensure the public to access to its town beaches and parks for the 2023 year, I propose providing buses, and it wasn’t my proposal, I interviewed lots of people.

[0:05:13]

Irene Caldwell:

These are ideas that were thrown out. We propose providing buses to parks on the weekend for a minimal fee. We can use the Registry Building. We can use Manomet Elementary and we can find other places to provide a fair and equitable system of admittance to the park and recreational opportunities. And I just don’t know how to do this. I would ask the town lawyers to help me draw up an article so that we would study the issue on a community-wide basis. I asked to be on the Morton Park Committee. I asked that like October 5th and I haven’t heard back from the committee saying that I could, but it seems to me there needs to be a public trust where the public has an opportunity to provide their thoughts about where we’re going to swim and where we’re going to picnic. And I’ll take any questions.

Betty Cavacco:

And those are the things that you should bring up at those meetings.

Irene Caldwell:

I hope I get invited to hear them.

Betty Cavacco:

They’re all public meetings so everybody’s invited.

Irene Caldwell:

I understand that Titled Beaches is doing the review of what’s going to happen to the beaches. And since I used to be on the Title Beaches Committee as the naturalist, environmentalist instead of the property owners, I at least hope that I will be able to figure out who is going to talk for the public trust. If it’s not me, then somebody.

Betty Cavacco:

Thank you.

Irene Caldwell:

Thank you.

Derek Brindisi:

If I could before we move on. I just want to let folks know that I received an email from the chairman of the Natural Resources and Coastal Beaches Committee. He has told me that the meeting will be this Thursday at 6:15 via Zoom. And at 7:00 p.m., he has it scheduled to discuss Morton Park. It is via Zoom. It’s going to be remote via Zoom so you could always dial in.

Kathie Khederian

No problem. Hi! My name is Kathie Khederian. I live at 16 Allerton Street, across the street from the park. I think we’re familiar with what I’m talking about, the park at the corner of Allerton and Siever Park #8 described as a children’s park. Originally, a reservoir and it was changed over to a children’s park. So, I’ve been to my home 35 years and my husband and I have collectively raised four kids: 28 to 44 and they’ve all enjoyed the pleasure of the park. It’s brought a lot of pleasure to all the kids over the years. When the kids were at Cold Spring Elementary, we would have on Tuesdays for a number of summers baseball games. It was also utilized as a park when the town ran shy on the youth soccer. We were able to use that. It was just always full of kids. Now, it’s full of dogs. Dogs are wonderful. They’re a very integral part of our lives. They provide a lot of support, mental health, well-being. And so, now, at this point, approximately 25 to 30 dogs visit the park a day. And when I speak, I’m speaking as a nurse of 47 years. So, if some of my data is grim, I ask for your forgiveness.

So, at 25 to 30 dogs a day, that’s 9,000 to 11,000 dogs annually doing their business there. This is not fit or healthy for children. Children don’t go there anymore because it’s been taken over by dogs. The dogs are fine. The issue isn’t the dogs. It’s what the kids have lost. This park supplies entertainment for this neighborhood and surrounding neighborhoods, the Cold Spring School District. So, I’m asking for consideration to reclaim the park and bring it back to the kids. There are kids who have moved into this neighborhood over the years who have not been able to utilize it. It’s filthy, it’s dirty. 11, 000 dogs in a year pee and poop in that park, it’s unfit. So, I’m asking it’s not about the dogs, it’s about the kids.

[0:10:03]

Kathie Khederian:

My voice is for the kids who have lost use of the park. I think we all in the neighborhood, we’d listen to the dogs’ bark. A dog bark in decimal measurement and this is all Google, can be anywhere from 75 to 100 decibels up to 130. A jackhammer is a hundred decibels. So, I want for the kids, I’m a voice for the kids in the neighborhood who have lost use of this. There are kids who live there who never got to use the park because it’s filthy, it’s dirty, it’s disgusting.

I met with Derek on October 5th. At the time, there was a dog poop bag on the picnic table. It’s terrible that the kids don’t have. It’s such a wonderful park. It’s huge. They lacrosse, soccer, everything. So, strongly consider reclaiming this back for the kids in the Town of Plymouth. And that’s my plea and I thank you for your time.

Betty Cavacco:

Thank you. Mr. Helm is the liaison for the dog park. And Derek, if you have anything to say about that but I think Harry has some information.

Harry Helm:

Well, first of all, I just need to be very, very clear. This is the Allerton Park. This is not an Allerton Dog Park. Just want to be really, really clear about this. This is the Allerton Park. As I mentioned to you, I was actually planning to bring this up under new, old and other business as an agenda item at our next meeting. And the reason being is that I have due to some input from the neighbors and doing drive-by at various times a day, I’ve come to the understanding that the basic, let’s call it verbal agreement that we had with the group who was here, that they were going to have their dogs on leashes and that they were cleaning up after the dogs actually is in fact not taking place. So, it’s basically returned to the way that it was before. I can’t remember when our original meeting was. Rather than bringing it up at new, old and other, which I was going to tonight I would like to request the Allerton Park to be an agenda item at our next meeting, please.

Now, on another subject, because the Allerton Park is the Allerton Park, it is not the Allerton Dog Park. The Dog Park Committee is in process. We’ve examined other dog parks across a wide area from Provincetown all the way up through to the Boston area and the South Shore to see the processes good and bad that various communities have done, have put in place to either attempt to get a dog park because some of them still are stuck on some of the minutia. But also examining what some of the communities have done. And there have been a number of folks from Town Administration who have addressed us. So, we are at the process now of creating the process of creating the plan for dog parks moving forward and how we’re going to address all the various components of site selection all the way through funding, all the way through upkeep, maintenance, etc. So, that’s kind of where we are with dog parks, in general.

But I just want to be very clear that the Allerton Park is the Allerton Park. It is not the Allerton Dog Park. So, once again, I would like to have the Allerton Park as an agenda item for our next meeting.

Betty Cavacco:

Sure. Anybody else for a public comment? One of the things as long as the board doesn’t disapprove is that I know there are staff members that are here waiting. If we could go through the licenses and administrative notes, if there are any questions on any of those, I would like to move those as a group. Does anyone have any questions on any of them? And if not, I look for a motion.

[0:15:08]

Charlie Bletzer:

I make the motion.

Dick Quintal:

Second.

Betty Cavacco:

Motioned by Mr. Bletzer, seconded by Mr. Helm. I mean, Mr. Quintal, I’m sorry. Discussion? No discussion. All those in favor? Unanimous.

And then Amplified Music for South Shore Race Management. Do we have a motion?

Charlie Bletzer:

Motion.

John Mahoney:

Second.

Betty Cavacco:

Discussion? All those in favor?

Vehicle for Hire – Special Occasion Limousine, (61 Camelot Drive, Diane Dockery, owner). New operator, Jonathan Raymond.

John Mahoney:

Move approval.

Charlie Bletzer:

Second.

Betty Cavacco:

Discussion? All those in favor? Unanimous.

Comprehensive Entertainment (Amendment) – 3a Cafe & Grill, 295 Court Street, Judson Cunha, Manager. Amended to add Group 3 – Live Entertainment.

Charlie Bletzer:

Motion.

Betty Cavacco:

Motioned by Mr. Bletzer.

Harry Helm:

Second.

Betty Cavacco:

Second by Mr. Helm. Discussion? All those in favor? Unanimous.

And Change of Manager (Liquor) – Plymouth Lodge 2485 Loyal Order of Moose, 601 State Road is requesting a change of manager from Francis J. Kuhn Jr. to Raymond E. Tompkins.

And the Plymouth Yacht Club Company, 34 Union Street is requesting a change of manager from Leonard Blaney to Lucas Packard.

John Mahoney:

Move approval.

Harry Helm:

Second.

Betty Cavacco:

Motion by Mr. Mahoney, seconded by Mr. Helm. All those in favor? Unanimous.

And Keno – Plymouth G Pub, 101 Carver Road, is requesting a Keno license for the establishment.

Harry Helm:

Motion.

Charlie Bletzer:

Second.

Betty Cavacco:

Motion by Mr. Helm, seconded by Mr. Bletzer. Discussion? All those in favor? Unanimous. Okay.

Next on the agenda is the Department of Marine & Environmental Affairs – 10-year report with Mr. David Gould, who is the Director of Marine & Environmental.

David Gould:

Good evening. Thank you. Thanks for taking the time just to allow us to give an overview of the 10-year report. I think a lot of folks have already seen it. Essentially, what it is, is a document that we put together. We have some hard copies. It’s also on the web page. And essentially, what we did was as most of you know, the Department of Marine & Environmental Affairs was created 10 years ago in October of 2012. It was a recommendation from a consolidation subcommittee, a committee and then the Select Board at the time. And so, with that 10-year anniversary, we sort of thought it was an appropriate time to look back at what the department was able to do and accomplish. And so, we put this booklet together. It doesn’t really look at day-to-day activities or operations. We, obviously, like every other department have those, but we looked at a lot of the bigger projects and started compiling those and putting those together so that we could share it with the community and let folks know what it is that we’ve been able to do.

So, we took the report and we broke it into six sections. One, restoring nature that has our dam removals and wetland restoration and storm water projects as well as some other pretty unique projects like common loon relocation that we worked on some unique pollinator habitat projects. Another section was the environmental monitoring. All of our watershed studies, Harbor TMDLs, our lakes and ponds sampling that we’ve done with a lot of watershed groups throughout the town, the work we do we do with white sharks on an annual basis. We also had a section on open space, which is a lot of partnership with Community Preservation and the properties that the town has been able to acquire for open space: Darby Foothills, the Black Cat Preserve and as well as some of the trail projects that we’ve done. Our harbor development section: Town Wharf, T Wharf, all the harbor dredging projects are all in there as well. As well as a section on climate resiliency. The sea walls and beach nourishment projects and other work that we’ve done throughout town.

[0:19:59]

David Gould:                                                       

One of the things we wanted to really look at was what we’ve been able to do in our department is obviously secure a fair amount of funding for the community because we know that when you work in the environmental field, funding is not something you’re always going to be able to go to town meeting and ask for funding for those projects. So, we’ve always looked at it as if we can secure a matching fund from the community. We’ll go and try to secure the rest and we’ve been fairly successful in that.

So, a couple of numbers just to keep in mind. When you look at our overall budget, we’re about less than half of one percent of the town’s overall budget. In the 10 years since the department’s been established, we’ve brought in about $67 million in grant money. So, if you look at that, that’s about 6.7 a year. And what’s interesting one way to look at is we looked at like the largest taxpayer in Plymouth is Eversource and they bring in about taxes about $4 million a year. So, if you want to look at us as a taxpayer, we’re right up there with some of those taxpayers. So, we try to bring in a lot of funding to offset the projects that we do, which just aren’t environmental. I always use the dam removals as a great example. Dam removals, the new bridges, new utilities, storm water, water sewer utilities all go along with that. So, we’ve been successful and I think that one of the nice things about the book is it sort of shows what we’ve done and hopefully, the town looks upon it favorably and sees all the work we’ve done and is equally pleased with the accomplishments that we’ve been able to do in the past 10 years. So, thank you for letting me present that. And if there are any questions, I will try to answer them.

Betty Cavacco:

Go ahead, John.

John Mahoney:

I don’t have any questions, David. I just want to say that I remember when the department was created and I think certainly at the 10-year point, what a remarkable book and presentation highlighting or showing the community what investments we’ve made over the course of the last decade and doing that collaboratively with the federal government, the state government, the town and private sector donations. Ninety minutes ago, we were upstairs having a pretty intense conversation with respect to water and to me, when you flip through that book and you talk about securing open space to protect a well or removing a dam or a sea well in Long Beach, it’s just the majority of those things always come back to water. And then the other thing, and you’ve already highlighted that. Obviously, if and when you bring a proposal to the town meeting, you’ve built the credibility with the community and the town meeting members with respect to you’re able to leverage the funds that town meeting might approve and go out and get federal and state money and they know that because there’s a 10-to-15-year track record of doing so. So, I look forward to the next decade because I know there’s a lot more to go on and I will tell the people at home that as a community West of Boston or Southwest of Boston that just went through a pretty contentious public debate over the potential removal of a dam and I did converse with individuals in the Town Hall and on the Select Board and I shared that document with them. So, thank you.

David Gould:

Thank you.

Betty Cavacco:

Anyone else? Thank you. Next is Parting Ways Cemetery Update with the DPW Director Jonathan Beder.

Jonathan Beder:

Thank you, Madam Chair. I’m here this evening to provide the board with an update on the Route 80 cemetery. And with me here this evening is Kenny King. He’s your Cemetery and Crematory Superintendent. We also have Frank Rowlett. Frank Rowlett is the Chair of the Cemetery Commission. Today, we had a meeting, which was great. We had a quorum, which it’s been a little bit but the Cemetery Commission if you’re not aware has really been able to help guide us over the past year I’d say in terms of new staffing, doing a better job with maintenance, supporting Mr. King and his pursuit of kind of really transforming the cemeteries to what they look to today.

Our focus is now as far as what those next steps are and that’s why we’re here today. So, I have a couple of slides I’d like to run through. And then again, the three of us are here to answer any questions. So, thank you very much. So, your burial space is limited. Currently, we have about enough grave space to provide us with three years of burials left. So, we’re looking at about 300 plots.

[0:25:00]

Jonathan Beder:

As you know, you have seven active cemeteries. So, we’re really kind of gearing up and looking at that Route 80 site as a cemetery space. So, what we’re referring to Route 80 or Parting Ways is off of Plympton Road. I’ll get to a map in a second. The town purchased this land, we believe is around the early 70s, somewhere in that era. It’s a 37-acre site. We have done our deed research. It is approved for cemetery purposes. We did do a master plan with a registered architect. His name is Ray Dennis [?]. He did a great job. I had the document. If anybody’s interested, we can put that on the website actually. That was done in 2018. And for the FY ‘24 budget, we’re going to be submitting a capital request for design at a price of 600,000.

So, this is the site. If you go to Plympton Road, Plympton Road Route 80, on the left you can see that that’s the 40 acres. This site here in yellow, this is the site we’re looking to do the design and engineering on for the cemetery space. This is a concept plan that Ray Dennis did in the master plan. This is a little detailed. Again, we’ll work towards a design once we if we’re if we’re fortunate at a time meeting with an appropriation. We’re looking to really maximize space for the next two to three hundred years. Correct, Kenny? In terms of burials, we’re looking at hopefully around 6500, 7,000 over 10 acres as a start. We’re looking for something flat, gridded and evenly spaced. Something easy to maintain. Nothing crazy in terms of topography. Open areas in terms of ease of maintenance and things of that nature. But again, this is just one of the concepts that was put forward in the master plan. And again, that would sit somewhere in these 40 acres.

Some of the top issues facing our cemeteries today is basically we’re reaching the end of our space, so that’s our priority. We want to make sure we do some careful planning of that new cemetery space to meet the burial needs of the town going forward. Again, we’re looking to obtain funding at the spring town meeting in April and we would like to complete that design, develop a cost estimate and then go for future funding at the subsequent spring town meeting.

So, in summary, I think it was about a year ago, the board took some actions in terms of fees and moratoriums on selling lots where you change your prices to $1200 for residents and $2400 to non-residents. So, basically, Kenny has been tracking it and over a year’s time, we have witnessed a 50% reduction in sales, which has been great. That’s been helpful to us. Cemetery Commission, I won’t speak for the commission themselves, but I think they know they need to meet more regularly especially as we work our way towards town meeting, as we look at the Route 80 site. As we kind of look at developing some changes with the rules and regulations, the Cemetery Commission will really take the lead on that and make recommendations to you as the Select Board.

Kenny’s been doing some fantastic work in terms of some changes at the cemeteries to get more space. He’s currently doing work at Vine Hills. This picture here is the niche walls. These are new. So, we’re doing things of this nature to really gain space and hopefully we’re successful at the spring town meeting if we can move forward with a cemetery design on Route 80. So, that’s pretty much our presentation for this evening. And again, the three of us are here to answer any questions. So, thank you.

Betty Cavacco:

Thank you, Mr. Beder. Mr. Quintal is the liaison for the Cemetery Committee. So, do you have anything that you’d like to say or is there any questions from the board?

Dick Quintal:

I do, but I’ll put it out to the members on the board first.

Betty Cavacco:

John?

John Mahoney:

JB, just a few questions on. Could you put the map back up? Not that. Yeah, that one right there. So, obviously, water is a hot button issue. So, three questions. Are we putting a cemetery in here but we’re compromising our ability to put a well in there? Was this or is this a good site for municipal source of water? Two, there’s a significant Native American site there. I could just point that out in the map and how does this negatively impact that? And then three, 30 to 40 acres here, what’s the life expectancy?

[0:30:06]

John Mahoney:

Does that buy us several decades at the current pace of burials? is it five years? Is it 50? Do we know that number?

Jonathan Beder:

So, I’ll work backwards. So, in terms of life expectancy, Kenny and I had the conversation where I believe in the master plan it says that Plymouth has not dedicated or developed any cemeteries in about 400 years. So, this will be the first one in quite some time. And as I mentioned earlier in the presentation, we’re looking at 300 years with these 40 acres. This one cemetery should provide the Town of Plymouth about 300 years of cemetery space. So, that’s the longevity you’re looking at which is fantastic.

As far as negative impacts, we have a new surveyor on staff. We did a lot of research in terms of the slaves that were from the Revolutionary War and they are buried across the street on this side, on the north side of Route 80. So, there will be zero impact to that location. Zero impact. So, this is all town owned property for cemetery purposes. So, this is very clean as far as moving anything forward.

And then the last question, the hot topic water. If you remember we held back on this site. We were going to move forward with Parting Ways when I first got here, I think around 2012, 2013 then we did the local declaration of emergency with water in 2016 and we knew Darby was an issue then so we were looking at Parting Ways. And we really did a detailed analysis on Parting Ways and determined that it’s not a feasible site for a water supply. Even though it’s very close to Darby and it’s in West Plymouth, the amount of dollars it would cost to construct a well and permanent well, it’s not feasible because we did some testing on the site, we’re only looking at two to three hundred thousand gallons of water a day and for the several millions of dollars to construct it, just was not feasible to put a well at that site. So, we started looking elsewhere in terms of our site screening, which we’re going to spring town meeting for another Well site. In this site, we can confirm with the board today that this site’s best use would be for cemetery purposes.

John Mahoney:

Thank you.

Jonathan Beder:

You’re welcome.

Charlie Bletzer:

Hi, Jonathan. So, you said we have three years left of plots?

Jonathan Beder:

That’s correct, Charlie.

Charlie Bletzer:

So, how many total would that be?

Jonathan Beder:

300, 300.

Charlie Bletzer:

300, okay. And when do you think this could be completed?

Jonathan Beder:

If we follow the schedule and we get an appropriation at the spring town meeting this year, I’m hopeful we could have design and an estimate to bring it back to the following spring town meeting in 2024.

Charlie Bletzer:

Okay. And you’re comfortable that we’ll make it in time so we don’t run out of plots because I know when it was presented last year, it was kind of scary.

Jonathan Beder:

Mr. King has a couple of really good creative ideas in terms of finding additional space so we can really kind of increase the current 300 and I think that will support or sustain us until we have this new cemetery space developed.

Charlie Bletzer:

Great, thank you.

Jonathan Beder:

You’re welcome.

Betty Cavacco:

Mr. Helm?

Harry Helm:

JB, a question for you. You noted in the last slide, Mausoleum and Columbariums, okay. Do they count towards the state requirement of grave sites, burial sites?

Jonathan Beder:

I’m going to let Kenny answer that question.

Ken King:

Good evening. Ken King from the Cemetery Division. I don’t see why it wouldn’t be considered space. They’re referred to as columbarium. Each space that someone buys is considered a niche for each space. So, each one holds two urns. So, I am including them in space. I am also asking for more of them to be funded. A lot of those can be placed in areas that traditional burials can’t go.

Harry Helm:

Absolutely.

Ken King:

So, right now, our burial rate is around 60% and they estimate cremations will be about 70% by 2030. So, I think we need to really focus on that, on columbariums and more space for cremations.

Harry Helm:

Okay. But do mausoleums where they are not cremated, but they have niches, does the state consider them to be burial plots?

Ken King:

I believe so. I believe so. We don’t have too many mausoleums in the cemetery.

Harry Helm:

No. I know we don’t.

Ken King:

The last one was constructed probably about 25 years ago.

Harry Helm:

It seems to me that if mausoleums and columbarium are included in burial plots by the state, we might want to think about maximizing those. Just my two cents on the subject.

Ken King:

In the next budget, I’m asking for a total of four new columbariums for the Vine Hill Cemetery at two different locations. The following year, I’m asking for four more for the Chiltonville Cemetery where those are located. There’s actually two at that site right now.

[0:35:19]

Ken King:

My concern when I first purchased them was that they wouldn’t sell and I didn’t want to buy too many of them. Right around that same time, we decided that we were going to sell as a need based only. They have become popular for people once they see them.

Harry Helm:

But if you could look into whether particularly columbariums because of the cremation aspect whether the state considers those niches as being part of your total reservoir, let’s say, of burial plots. That would be good information to know.

Ken King:

We’ll do. Yeah. Thank you.

Harry Helm:

Thank you.

Betty Cavacco:

I mean, I actually have a comment or a question but I think I want to hear what you have to say or I can ask because one of the big problems that I have is the restriction on burial plots because we’re hearing from people that can’t buy a burial, they want to buy a burial plot and so that’s propped out of all this plan, that’s very problematic for me. I mean, there are people literally that are going through a divorce that they’re supposed to secure a plot for someone in their family and they’re not being allowed to do that because of the restrictions that we have. So, that’s a concern for me. And out of all of this plan, except for what Mr. Quintal has to say, I don’t have really a problem with it but I think that you should be fast tracking it sooner and maybe it’s on special spring town meeting so we can implement it sooner than 2024, which will be 2025. And I think that’s just too much time, so. And I want to go in the ocean if I die just so people know that.

Ken King:

So, I completely understand that but we only have a certain amount of space. We’ve been fortunate to have all these cemeteries Cedarville, Manomet, Chiltonville, Vine Hills and to have the space that we’ve had is that we just have never increased or really invested in the cemeteries from what I can see. This Parting Ways or Route 80 Cemetery has been talked about for over 50 years. So, also, what I do see is that people are buying in the past more lots than they actually need. We currently do not buy lots back. For Manomet, for an example, I counted over 150 plots in that cemetery the other day and it was just in one section. These plots were purchased over 20, 25 years ago. And we have people calling us up telling us that they will probably never use those lots.

Betty Cavacco:

So, why don’t you buy them back?

Ken King:

Well, we would need to have the funding or some sort of mechanism to do that. We currently don’t do that. By law, people are not supposed to sell their lots for any more than what they were purchased for. On the other hand, people don’t have the conversations they probably should have as in far as what are they going to do? Are they going to be a full burial, cremation burial? Sometimes they have that conversation at the same time they’re meeting with me. So, currently, we allow three cremation burials per plot or we allow one full burial and two cremations per plot.

The next cemetery, we should be looking at double deep vaults to utilize our space more efficiently so we’ll be still selling the 30 square feet give or take but allowing two full burials. This is what they’ve done in cities with places that they’ve had problems with space for years. Also allowing more cremation burials to go on per lot up to four. The next closest cemetery only allows two. But I have seen that people are buying too many plots and they’re not utilizing them. And also, they’re buying lots at one price and not utilizing them for a 20 or 30 years later. So, that has been a problem.

Betty Cavacco:

Well, I can understand that. If there’s a husband and wife or a family that all wants to be together. I mean, they should be together. And luckily, they are young enough to buy it and they can wait 20, 30, 40 years so I don’t think people should be punished for that. But I think that if there’s something that we can put in place that allows you to buy plots back then you should be moving forward with that. I mean, I think it’s just that simple.

Ken King:

Absolutely.

Betty Cavacco:

But I’m really looking forward to hearing from Mr. Quintal.

[0:40:09]

Dick Quintal:

Well, I have some concerns. One, I think this took way too long to get to this point. We’ve been talking and looking at these pitches for well over a year. Chairman Tavares was the chairman at the time when I started all this and I wasn’t there this morning. I had some medical stuff to attend to. But looking at over what was coming even before the meeting, it amazes me or I should say saddens me how long it takes to do something. Poor planning. There’s 3 P’s, I’m just going to use the two and this should have been taken care of back in the 80s or whenever. So, we’re telling the people in this community they can’t buy lots. Actually, I’m going to make a motion when I’m done speaking to lift that ban for residents in this town. I don’t think the residents in this town should have to suffer or wait or be penalized because the town did not plan and that’s exactly what this is. And this is not planning. John brings up a lot of a lot and he’s correct. I guess, how do we get to this point? How does a town given out hundreds of buildings permits whatever, there’s a hundred ways to look at it. We have department heads in charge of these departments or you do, Mr. Beder and we find ourselves putting bans on the people in this community such as myself that can’t go purchase a lot. And I want to. I’ll be very honest with you. I was against voting on it the night that I did, but I did it and hope we would be somewhere by now.

I’m hearing all kinds of things in the past and I think we have a little honesty here because I don’t see it getting any better. Are we going to be able to do this in Parting Ways or not? I’ve heard because of the historical cemetery that’s already there and forgive me because I don’t know exactly what it is that there’s going to be issues. So, has somebody actually checked this out or is it not going to be an issue? That’s the first question.

And the second question, I believe you’re retiring pretty soon and I wish you the best. Should we be going forward with this plan where a new director will be coming in and maybe he’s got a different vision of what should be going on? I mean, I’m just putting it all on the table. But when you sit where I’m sitting, I want to make the right decisions. But I want to see in December where are we with water, where are we with sewer, where are we with this. I don’t want to wait till the last gun goes off and say, “Oh, geez. We got enough for three years.” That’s really not my problem. It’s a mismanagement. And say it what it is, you say we’ve got enough for three years, we don’t know that. We know we’re 65 and above senior community. We won’t make any jokes tonight, but I mean that could affect what the outcome is that you’ll be very much looking at. And I respect all that you’re trying to do, but I think we need to turn it up like about 10 notches, get it going. If it’s going to be Parting Ways and so be it, but I don’t want to get into all this at Parting Ways and then find out we can’t do it in Parting Ways or maybe that’s not the best site.

Jonathan Beder:

So, we do think that’s the best site, Mr. Quintal. We have done our research internally looking at the deeds, looking at the acquisition. And as I mentioned, the slaves from the Revolutionary War across the street, the site is clean and will move forward. We have our budget hearing on Thursday with the Town Manager and we’ll talk about moving this forward to the special. And again, I mean, looking at what David presented, I’ve read the document, it’s awesome but looking at the DPW, if you just want to get in on the cemetery pieces, if you remember, we split Teddy Bubbins job because it was just way too much for one superintendent. We’ve done so many changes on that front. We talked about maintenance of the cemeteries. I think you’d all agree that the cemeteries look phenomenal today. You drive through every one of them. I mean, the conditions that was the focus. Now, we’ve been able to kind of regroup, recharge. Now, we’re moving forward towards expansion. And again, the Darby Well was an issue. We just relieved that restriction two years ago. That was an issue. Now, we’ve been able to make the determination that we do not need Parting Ways and we’ve had those discussions with prior boards. And we’re finally at that point. We will do everything we can to move this forward as quick as possible. Okay? Kenny is retiring in March. And as soon as we can, we will post that job and we will move forward to fill it as quickly as we can, but that should not redirect what we’re doing.

[0:45:03]

Jonathan Beder:

The town needs cemetery space. I think we all know that and I think what we need to do is move forward as quickly as possible with town meeting, get that appropriation and then start in on a design. That’s my recommendation.

Dick Quintal:

And if I may, the budget for the cemetery, do they make any money over there? How much do they make in with the cremations? How much you’re making with burials or do you show a profit at the end of the year? Is it vehicles coming out of these budgets? So, we got to go hit the taxpayer for $600,000 when actuality, if we didn’t have the trucks in there and tractors and payloaders. I’m just asking. I’m not saying it is, but I want to ask the question while we’re all here.

Ken King:

All right. First, I’m going to go back to your comment about running out of space and buying lots as you see fit. I believe that this is what has got us to this point. We haven’t had a plan for years for new cemetery space. We really haven’t invested in our cemeteries at all until the last few years unless it was Burial Hill. Almost all the cemeteries, I will say all of them, have been someone else’s cemetery and we’ve taken control of them one way or another. So, with that, a lot of money, those funds probably weren’t allocated to the town since half the cemetery was sold off before the town started taking care of them: Manomet, Chiltonville Cemetery are the two that I’m thinking. Even Oak Grove was owned by a corporation years ago. Now, we’re going back hundreds of years. So, as far as running out of space, I’m asking for more columbariums. The columbariums each year that adds about 100 spaces. I’m also asking for funding for 50 double defaults which would allow us to bury 200 people in the space of 50 spaces. This is what should have been done years ago, but the funding has to be there. So, as far as the funding for each time someone buys a burial plot, that lot is split in half. Half of it goes into perpetual care to take care of the cemeteries forever, the other half goes into the sale of lots fund. The sale of lots fund can be used for planning and design of the cemetery that we’re talking about right now. The other fund that we have is through the foundation account. That money goes to beautifying the cemeteries. Mostly the last few years it’s been for tree work, historic stone preservation, etc.

So, is it utilized for funds for cemetery purposes? Yes, those funds are utilized by the people who buy a plot to maintain those cemeteries forever. If not, then it would be the taxpayers who would have to once again flip the bill for buying equipment. It’s supposed to be that that money is utilized for cemetery purposes and I think we’ve done a really good job with the amount of equipment that we’ve purchased.

Dick Quintal:

You just answered my question. And the half of the money could be used to expand cemeteries and design and plan is being used for equipment.

Ken King:

So, one columbarium that you’re looking at right there, once that is sold out, that pays for another columbarium just in sales. The other money for the burial would go into the general fund. So, like the cemetery that we’re planning, even if we developed 10 acres of it, which is a quarter of the property, the sales would almost pay for the construction. It would be slow to do but it would happen. $11 million would be just in burials and that would be Monday through Friday burials not including Saturdays. So, they offset one another and that’s what they were designed to do.

Dick Quintal:

I saw the diagram you had up there at the slide and it looked like a roller coaster. All the streets you had there. Why is it a different design now? Most cemeteries are in squares. Actually, most of ours are. I’ve never seen one like that. Yeah, like that.

Ken King:

So, this was a concept in the beginning back in 2008 by the previous superintendent. Looks like a horseshoe in the top. I did ask the planner that we need to straighten that out. The roads that you see that are looped around, he was basically trying to utilize the roads around the topography of the cemetery, the land. So, you’ll see some darker shades, those are hills. I really don’t agree with that. We really need to maximize this space. So, this space is 40 acres. The Vine Hills and Oak Grove Cemetery has a lot of wasted space inside that cemetery because the Oak Grove side was a garden type cemetery.

[0:50:02]

Ken King:

When you start going over into Vine Hills, which is about two-thirds of the cemetery, the space is utilized well but there still is a lot of wasted space. So, that cemetery, we’re still doing burials that were purchased in the 1800s but we can add space if we utilize the columbariums and the double deeps will really prolong the space and put us in a better position.

Dick Quintal:

I’m not a superintendent of cemeteries but in the ones that I see with the square roads, I think even our own engineers in this building could help us with and try to curb that cost down. And the way I’ve seen it done in other cemeteries, that doesn’t mean Plymouth has to do it, but they usually do I’m going to use my word as a square. They have a street and when that’s pretty much full then they put another piece in. Doxbury does it. They do it in Tennessee. I would much rather see myself but of course, this will go to town meeting something like that where it’d be more economical and I think it’d be easier to keep, try to keep track of mowing. I know at the meetings I’ve been I know they didn’t want things on the stones, you didn’t want hanging pots because people are going to catch your elbows on it. Well, in the spirit of efficiency I don’t think that’s efficient. It’s beautiful, but I don’t think that’s really efficient. I think it should be laid out pretty flat unless somebody can convince me it should look like a roller coaster and then I’d probably go with it. When you have all squares pretty much and you have all circles, I see lost space but I’m not an engineer so I’ll wait till that comes forward.

Ken King:

If you’re looking at the roads, you will see curves and so on like that but the lots are all straightened out. When I did talk to the person who designed this, he asked me, he said, “Do you actually want it to look like the cemetery right out in front of the office?” And I said, “Absolutely. So, we can maximize our space, maintain it easily. And so, this is just a concept, the beginning of what was discussed years ago.

Dick Quintal:

So, the timeline is to go in ‘23 Spring town meeting for funding and then one shovel in the ground start? One thing I’ve learned doing this, you need to get some dates. I would say it all the time. He’s absolutely right.

Jonathan Beder:

We can talk Thursday, the manager and then Derek can update the group but if we kind of accelerate this thing in terms of schedule and we get money at the special, that means we’ll have funding in April and we could speak to the architect tomorrow to see if we had funding in April, if we could have a cost to go to fall town meeting. That may be an option but we’ll have to let you know, okay? That would be the quickest we could do it. So, maybe Fall ’23, if the stars align, we really push but it’s conversations like that Dickie in terms of getting a group together to get everybody on the same page with design because that is just a concept. But you’re right. I mean, we want something easy to maintain, something that works and something that lasts. But hopefully, Fall of ‘23.

Betty Cavacco:

So, you’re going to go to spring special for just the design?

Jonathan Beder:

That’s correct. Yeah. What you think in lumping design and construction, the problem with that today is the labor market, the cost of materials, all of those contingencies. I would much rather take a little bit more time and get an actual cost estimate go to town meeting, Betty because otherwise we’re shooting in the dark today. Things are way too hectic and chaotic in terms of design and construction even though it is just a grading project, there’s still a lot of unknowns.

Betty Cavacco:

Well, one of the things I feel is that I think the cemetery should be almost like an enterprise fund. The cemetery and the burials and the cremations, that should be creating enough money to take care of everything cemetery related whether it’s burials, whether it’s equipment, whatever it is. So, I think that the financial structure of what we’re doing there needs to really be revisited. And I know you’re saying, Derek you’re going to start the budget on Thursday, I’d really like to see some information on the ability to buy back plots.

Derek Brindisi:

I think that’s a great idea. I wasn’t sure that was available, but I don’t see why we can’t purchase plots back. I would take it a step further and see if we can develop a policy that we create a list of those individuals who want to sell their plots. And so, once we create the list of those who want to sell, we can then have another list, a corresponding list of those who want to buy and then maybe that becomes the business transaction between the seller and the buyer. And the only thing we have to do is facilitate that transaction.

[0:55:15]

Betty Cavacco:

I mean, I think it’s now especially that you’re doing budgets, what does it take to run the Cemetery Department? And we should look at revisit all our fees and do everything like that just so we can get closer to that number of running the department then we would be un-raising taxes.

Jonathan Beder:

That’s a good point. And again, just so you know, Enterprise funds are not allowed in the Commonwealth for crematory cemeteries.

Betty Cavacco:

I understand that. I said like an enterprise fund not an enterprise fund.

Jonathan Beder:

So, I think we’d get into the detail of the weeds in terms when we meet Thursday in terms of the petrol care and what it’s costing us to run the operation. I spoke to the Chairman a couple of minutes ago as far as they’re looking to come back in front of you sometime after the holidays with some recommendations. I think we can look at that discussion in terms of buying back some of those lots. I think that’d be a fantastic idea as well.

Betty Cavacco:

And one more thing, when was the last time we raised our burial fees and all that?

Dick Quintal:

We just did it.

Betty Cavacco:

We just did?

Jonathan Beder:

It was about a year ago, Betty.

Betty Cavacco:

And are they in line with other communities?

Ken King:

They are. Some of the towns haven’t gone up in their prices in over 20 years. I don’t know how they do it, but you really can’t compare some of these towns to our cemetery and how many burials that we do per year. Our lot prices are still a lot less. I mean, with Dickie involved in some of these conversations, our lot prices are still less than some of the private cemeteries. Some of them are about $800 more than us even in the Town of Plymouth. So, there is also two other cemeteries in Plymouth that no one discussed. There is space If people really do want to plan. They can purchase lots at those two cemeteries. One is St. Joseph’s. It’s run by Saint Peter’s Church and there’s another one on Plymouth County Cemetery off of South Meadow Road. I believe a lot of the problems that we’ve had with selling the lots and how many Lots we’ve sold is because our lot prices have been cheap for many years. But the only revolving account we have is the cemetery repair and beautification. That comes from the foundations, but we cannot have the cemetery. I understand what you’re saying. I believe we’re truly covering our costs now before we weren’t especially when we drive down to Cedarville or Manomet Cemetery. We’re covering our costs. We’re providing a service. We’re really aren’t in it to make a profit.

Betty Cavacco:

So, I just got a message from a resident that says, “Why we can no longer visit the cemetery on White Horse Road?” Is there an issue there that they can’t visit the cemetery?

Ken King:

The White Horse Cemetery off of Cedar Road is surrounded by private property. In the early 70s, a subdivision was planned and the Cemetery Commission at that time said, “Well, with that planning, needs to come in easement for cemetery access.” It never followed through. The subdivision was approved and they closed the right-of-way to the cemetery, which is on private property. During that time, the person who was developing the land wanted to swap land and give us access, give the town access during that time on a piece of property that is not accessible for our equipment. It’s extremely steep and it’s off of White Horse Road. It’s just too steep. For many years since I started over 30 years ago, the access was off of Cedar Road and the property owner allowed us to access that site to maintain it. About less than a year ago, probably about eight months ago, she rescinded that offer. She’s had a lot of problems with people going across her property, she’s worried about liability. So, they close access and we actually gained it from another abutter and that’s the only way we can maintain the cemetery. So, unfortunately, I just got off the phone with someone today about that. This development should have given us a piece of land for access to that cemetery. It never happened. The access back in the old days when the cemetery was still active up until like the late 50s was off of Rocky Hill Road.

Betty Cavacco:

Like I said, I just think it’s unacceptable that people can’t access it. And hopefully–

Jonathan Beder:

Just to add because it does get a little complex. So, as Kenny mentioned, the owner that was providing access has posted that, “Prohibited. No Trespassing.”

[1:00:04]

Jonathan Beder:

So, we, the town, have been working with counsel. So, we did find another means to get access to. We’re just trying to work with that new owner in terms of can we provide municipal like general purpose access to residents. So, that’s kind of an ongoing discussion. Once we know that, we can follow up with you and let everybody know.

Betty Cavacco:

And when will we know that?

Jonathan Beder:

I’ll send an email to council tomorrow morning.

Betty Cavacco:

Okay. Anybody else have any questions? Oh, Pat Adelman. Pat, are you there?

Patricia Adelman:

I am. Can you hear me?

Betty Cavacco:

We can.

Patricia Adelman:

Okay. I’m a little late raising my hand. I just wanted to commend the Department of Marine and Environmental Services for their 10 years of work. And I also want to commend the cemetery people because I think it’s noble that the town is trying to plan for their own cemetery. My parents are buried in a private cemetery and the care and upkeep is very negligible. And it’s nice that the town will take over something like this. Thank you.

Betty Cavacco:

Thank you.

Jonathan Beder:

Okay. Thank you very much.

Betty Cavacco:

Oh, Mr. Mahoney?

John Mahoney:

No, I just want to reinforce and Derek picked up on it. If someone’s calling Mr. King saying that they’re willing to sell back to the town, we have to take advantage of that, Derek. So, I like your idea that’s going to be worked on. There’s got to be some sort of process in place where there’s an opportunity to take one of these back, we’ve got to do that.

Betty Cavacco:

Great. Thank you.

Dick Quintal:

Well, just for the record, I was at one of the meetings and I offered this up because our family had one. And they told me point blank, no, they couldn’t do it. So, I’m glad that they’re reconsidering it and I think it’s a good way that if people aren’t going to use a lot to sell it back to the town.

John Mahoney:

So, when you’re told no, is that because the town policy says that we don’t do that or is there a state law against that? It’s just what the town has done over the decades as far as policy.

Jonathan Beder:

We need the mechanics behind our rules and regs as far as the process and how much we charge. Once we have that background, we can move forward.

John Mahoney:

Absolutely, okay. Thank you.

Betty Cavacco:

Thank you.

Ken King:

Real quickly, John. So, we do keep a list of names for people who want to sell their lots. We will give that information to people when they call up and they want a specific cemetery. There is a de-transfer fee of $250. It’s a quick process. We have to change everything over again. And then the lot is sold. The lot is usually sold for a lesser amount than our current prices. So, in the end, the people really are happy with that. So, we do sell lots. So, we are involved in it, but currently, the town doesn’t buy them back.

Betty Cavacco:

Can we send that information over to the town manager?

Ken King:

Sure.

Betty Cavacco:

Thank you.

Ken King:

All right. Thank you.

Jonathan Beder:

While we’re going, I’m just going to add another piece here, a tidbit. If I sold you Betty a lot in 1970 for $10, the town has to buy it back for $10 in 2022.

Betty Cavacco:

I understand. But I want to be in the ocean. I already told you that.

Jonathan Beder:

Well, then, yeah. We’ll continue to work with the other members. Have a good night.

Betty Cavacco:

You too. Thank you. All right. The next item on the agenda is the–

Dick Quintal:

Madam Chairman, I would like to make a motion to lift the moratorium of two lots at point of death to residents only for the next year.

Betty Cavacco:

Do I have a second?

Harry Helm:

Second for discussion.

Betty Cavacco:

Discussion?

Harry Helm:

My discussion point would be not that I don’t totally agree with lifting that, but would this be problematic as the agenda item is the Parting Ways Cemetery update and should this be an agenda item at the next meeting?

Dick Quintal:

I have no problem with that.

Harry Helm:

Yeah. Just so if anybody for some strange reason has a problem with it, that they can speak up.

Dick Quintal:

That’s fine. I withdraw my motion.

Betty Cavacco:

Perfect. And you withdraw your second?

Harry Helm:

Sure.

[1:05:02]

Betty Cavacco:

Okay. Anybody else before I move on? The next is the Proposed Town Charter – Delivered to the Select Board.

Bill Abbott:

Thank you, Madam Chair. My name is Bill Abbott. I’m the Chair of the Plymouth Charter Commission. And tonight, I have the pleasure of delivering to you the results of the last 18 months of work of the Plymouth Charter Commission. I would like to read a brief statement which was drafted collectively by the commission, which is in your package of charter documents.

The town’s charter, which is really the constitution of the local town government has evolved over the last 400 years from the original body politic meeting in the hold of a ship anchored in Cape Cod Bay. While the basic form of Plymouth’s local government has remained largely intact, it has evolved and undergone thousands of changes large and small over that time. As you know, in May of 2021, that Evolution accelerated when after a citizen-led signature campaign initiated the process. Nine citizens were elected members of the official Charter Commission, charged with the review of the existing charter and finding ways to improve it. This process was created by a state law that allows towns and cities to design and form their own local government. Now, the prospects for unity within our commission seemed at the outset limited. While the newly elected commissioners represented hundreds of years of relevant experience, we also believed in widely different governmental ideals.

The process we employed in our debates however, was relentlessly inclusive. After first organizing, the Commission then engaged the Collins Center in UMass Boston to advise us on the structure and language of the charter. And later, when we got down to the drafting, we hired the firm of Anderson and Kreiger for legal advice and I like to see it there because there was some concern about our legal budget. We asked you a while ago for $15,000. We’ve only spent 10 and we received many, many memoranda. A complete review of the budget legally such that it was approved by the Attorney General with only one change to the Housing Authority that had changed with the state statute. No other changes were made and was approved. And I don’t anticipate any further legal issues. So, we were able to get it done under $10,000. That’s where we stand right now.

The Charters of 27 Massachusetts – Towns and Cities were then closely examined including those that represented mayoral, city council and town meeting forms. The initial goal was not only to select a basic form of local government, but to harvest the best ideas that each had to offer regardless of form. After several months, the Commission took an early vote meant to facilitate the process in the form of government that would serve as the foundation. By a vote of six to three, a majority favored adhering to the representative town meeting and shortly thereafter, also agreed to maintain the level of representation of nine representatives per precinct.

The six commissioners voted in favor of retaining representative town meeting, believed that this form of government allows for the most democratic participation bringing diverse knowledge, experience and skills to the decision-making process and protecting the beauty and character of our town bringing collective wisdom to the many issues that all towns face and providing for the welfare of future generations were paramount in that decision. If anything, those early votes increase the passion of the discussions that followed but that heat was tempered by a corresponding degree of civility.

Important and weighty issues including transparency, conflict of interest, improvements in the structure of our government to make it more efficient, democratic and accountable and to make town meeting more effective, we’re taking on one after another. A considerable amount of time was given to the authority of town meeting and its leaders, the Committee of Precinct Chairs, was near unanimous approval of the commission to increase the authority of the COPC so as to achieve a balance between that body and the executive branch.

[1:10:16]

Bill Abbott:

Several measures in the new charter give additional powers to the COPC. It will be tasked with advising town meeting on non-financial articles. It gains the right to appoint 10 of the 15 members of the Finance Committee, newly named to reflect the more focused responsibilities with five other members to be appointed by the moderator.

The charter mandates quarterly meetings as a COPC with the Select Board. The COPC also appoints the majority of members to a Legislative Oversight Committee, which will follow up and confirm the results of the past successful articles of town meeting. To meet the criticism that town meeting should meet more often to take care of business, the new Charter adds a third town meeting in January. Should the Select Board and the COPC believe that the third town meeting is not necessary in any year, the Select Board and COPC waive this third time meeting by a joint majority vote.

The most notable change in the moderator’s position comes in his method or her method of election. The previous plan of town-wide ballot election of the moderator was changed to election by town meeting as it has been done historically for many, many decades. Again, the Commission believes that this further empowers town meeting.

Reacting to a perception that parts of Plymouth are underrepresented in municipal government, the Commission voted to alter the Select Board. The charter increases the number of Select board members to seven with four large members and three to be elected by the voters in separate districts comprised of specific precincts in order that the Select Board’s principal focus is on long-range strategic planning. The charter specifically forbids members of the Select Board from interfering in day-to-day operations of the town and directs the members to act instead through the town manager.

The new Charter strongly emphasizes long-term planning on behalf of the executive branch of municipal government and directs the Select Board and Planning Board to cooperate in those efforts. And to that end, the master plan receives far more attention in this new charter than in past charters. And given that the Plymouth has a large number of committees, the new charter adds an Appointments Advisory Committee to aid in the process of applications from the public. Also, the public assigns to the Town Manager responsibility for making improvements in communications and public engagement.

In summary and to conclude, in this charter drafting process, there were of course firmly held beliefs, frequent intense discussions and yes, disagreements. Three commission members while in support of the draft charter that has emerged believed that the form of local government should be a council manager form. Plymouth is now the largest town in the Commonwealth with a representative town meeting form of government. They think that a growing Plymouth needs a council form to provide more frequent meetings of town government than two or three annual town meetings provide. Others hope to see the number of elected representatives peered down to as few as five per precinct. Some were opposed to the expansion of the Select Board. Yet, in the end, the cordiality, the collegiality of the overall process greatly assisted the Commission to present a united front. There is no minority statement. After careful consideration and without rancor, the Commission as a whole, all nine members, agree to support this 56-page draft of the charter. With the support of its nine elected members, the Commission presents this charter to the citizens of Plymouth believing it represents a significant Improvement in the government of Plymouth. And it is signed, as you’ll see in your materials by myself, by Laurence Pizer who’s here tonight, by David Peck who’s here, by Frank Mand who’s here, by William Keohan, Wrestling Brewster, Betsy Hall and David Malaguti and Scott Vecchi.

And the Commission looks forward now to the next step working with your Board to mail a copy of this final report and charter to every residence in Plymouth with the voter with sometime between now and the May election. And then this charter will appear on the ballot for an up or down vote in May of this next spring. Thank you.

[1:15:16]

Betty Cavacco:

Thank you, Mr. Abbott. Does the board have any questions?

Charlie Bletzer:

I got a quick question.

Betty Cavacco:

Go ahead, Charlie.

Charlie Bletzer:

Every resident, every voter is going to get a copy of this?

Bill Abbott:

Yes. The state statute provides that every resident as a voter receives the copy of the new charter.

Charlie Bletzer:

Okay. What’s the cost is going to be for the town for this?

Bill Abbott:

Pardon me?

Charlie Bletzer:

What is the cost to mail something like this?

Bill Abbott:

We’re researching that right now. The statute says it’s the Select Board’s responsibility, but we have money still in our budget that we haven’t spent. We want to work with you to do this. We have about $19,000 still left in our own budget. So, that could be applied to this as well.

Charlie Bletzer:

So, I have a couple. I’ll save. I have some comments for later but I’ll listen to the rest of the board first because I have my feelings on this.

Betty Cavacco:

Mr. Helm?

Harry Helm:

Yeah. I don’t have any comments that I wish to make at this time, just FYI, but I do have some questions. First of all, thank the Commission for the hard work. It is a lot of work and it is it is appreciated. Following up on Mr. Bletzer’s question, will what you mail out to all residents, are you planning for it to be the red line version, which we received today? Would you do that?

Bill Abbott:

Mr. Helm, I think the residents should get both versions. Double-sided, which would be the clean version and the redline version.

Harry Helm:

Thank you. I really think it’s important for transparency that the red line gets mailed out. That will show them the changes that have been made in a very apparent way without them having to sit with both documents next to each other. Okay. Question, is this what we’re looking at now and this is the absolute final?

Bill Abbott:

It is the final report.

Harry Helm:

Okay. No more changes?

Bill Abbott:

That’s correct. No more changes.

Harry Helm:

Okay, cool. Do you happen to know off hand and the answer is I don’t know off the top of my head what changes were made since the version that was published in the Old Colony Memorial? Because I know there have been some. I’m not sure if the–

Bill Abbott:

My colleagues can certainly pitch in here, but I think between September 15th, the preliminary report and this report, there were no real substantive changes, major changes. none of the big items, the big changes. I can’t think of any. We did a lot of editing.

Harry Helm:

Okay. Yeah, I do believe that there have been some changes that I do think are significant. One of them is the removal of Rights of Nature because if it’s out there in the OCM, the charter no longer mentions the rights of nature.

Bill Abbott:

That was in the Preamble.

Harry Helm:

Yes, in the Preamble but was the Preamble published in the OCM? So, you do have people out there who are going to believe that rights of nature and should they choose to look it up, they would be looking at something that isn’t actually accurate. And I believe that you may have made some changes for instance, I believe in the draft that I reviewed, town meeting members were not permitted to be served on the Finance Committee, but I believe you may have changed that. I’m not sure. I haven’t really reviewed the final-final. But it’s not a problem. I mean, if you–

Bill Abbott:

Actually, when we had that discussion, it was way before the preliminary report we made that decision then. And in fact, because that’s in the existing charter.

Harry Helm:

Yeah, cool. So, generally, were the changes that have been made although minor, were they in response to the attorney general’s report and review?

Bill Abbott:

There’s only one change made response to the attorney general because the state statute affecting the Housing Authority was the current charter did not comply basically with the state statute required a waiver in order to comply and the Attorney General suggested just fix it in the charter, so we did. That was the only change.

Harry Helm:

Thank you.

Betty Cavacco:

Mr. Mahoney?

John Mahoney:

Bill, thank you for your efforts um with respect to chairing this commission and all the members especially the ones that are here today. For you to come out of this, not that I agree with everything, certainly with a nine to zero vote in favor of your finished product is extraordinary.

[1:20:05]

John Mahoney:

So, I started reading it a week or two ago. I’ve got the copy that you provided tonight, I’ll continue to go through it. But just the timeline. So, the timeline is May of ’23?

Bill Abbott:

Yes.

John Mahoney:

It goes in front of the voters, and if they give it the big approval, thumbs up, it passes and the whole town is up again at the election for everything is basically a year later. What? May of ’24?

Bill Abbott:

No, if the charter passes in May, effective date is July 1st for the things that can take effect immediately. The election because of the cycles of elections, that’s going to be phased in when the elections occur. So, the first big step after July 1st is going to be to find the districts, these three district members of the Select Board are going to run from. That hasn’t been defined yet.

John Mahoney:

Okay. I thought that existed. That doesn’t–

Bill Abbott:

We have a provision. We have a little chapter in the charter called the Transition Chapter. And it provides for the transition to get us from where we will be on July 1st to the new rollout with the moderator, Select Board and so forth.

John Mahoney:

Okay. All right. Thank you.

Betty Cavacco:

Just to clarify that. So, elections are in May?

Bill Abbott:

Yup.

Betty Cavacco:

Yup, it goes into effect in July.

Bill Abbott:

Not the election. Changes in the Select Board would be May of ‘24. You continue to serve the term after July 1st but May of ’24, all Select Board seats will be up or actually four and then the three member of the three district seats.

Betty Cavacco:

So, let’s just say because we’re up in May, we run in May, we get elected. We have to run again in May of ‘24.

Bill Abbott:

Yes. Yeah, we had quite a bit of debate about that.

Betty Cavacco:

That should be fun.

Bill Abbott:

It should be. In the May ‘24 Select Board election, the two top vote getters would get a two-year term, the two vote getters would get a one-year term and then the three district members would get a three-year term. And then in ’25, everybody would get three-year terms that’s worth forever. So, each year, there’ll be two Select Board members elected for a three-year term, the next year will be the two more for a three-year term, the third year will be the district members and then back to the beginning again. It’s actually quite elegant in its simplicity.

Betty Cavacco:

I was going to say just–yeah, Mr. Bletzer?

Charlie Bletzer:

I’m looking at the charter, it says there’s going to be a lot of cooks in the kitchen from what I see. I see the Select Board and the Committee of Precinct Chairs. It sounds like they’re going to equal. The Committee of Precinct Chairs might have more power than the Select Board. In fact, I’m surprised in this charter, the town meeting is not electing the Select Boards, because they elect the Committee of Precinct Chairs and they have a lot of power. It’s in the Finance Committee too. And six to three vote for the former town meeting, how many of those six were on the town meeting slate that was mailed out? How many of the six votes? Or you can tell who the–

Bill Abbott:

Actually, there was five members of the commission who were town meeting members.

Charlie Bletzer:

No, no, no. There was a slate that went out. So, this is the problem I have with the Commission is a lack of, no offense because there’s a lot of great people on it, but the open mindedness, I think it was–it was slate that you wanted to keep the form of town meeting form of government, and I don’t think the open mind–what’s that?

Bill Abbott:

The answer to your question, four out of the six were existing town meeting members.

Charlie Bletzer:

Who were the people that were on the six votes, the EA votes?

Bill Abbott:

Let’s see. Myself.

Charlie Bletzer:

There’s one. Larry, two.

Bill Abbott:

Mr. Pizer, Mr. Keohan, Betsy Hall, Frank Mand.

Charlie Bletzer:

Everybody’s on the slate, right that got mailed out. So, all right.

Bill Abbott:

That’s it.

[1:25:06]

Charlie Bletzer:

We’re getting elected, we ran, we raised money and I ran because I believed in something. I want to make some changes. And I ran and I got elected not once, but I got elected twice. And now, the power seems to be taken away. Town meeting is going to have too much power as far as I’m concerned in this form of government. And I’ve always had a problem with how slow the former government is, and I’m against this charter. Nobody else will probably say it here but I’m going to. And I hope it gets voted down, I really do because I think the people in this town want a change in government, I really do. What I read today, you can have all the COPC, the Select Board, there’s going to be seven Selectmen instead of five or Select Board members. I think it’s just going to be–

Bill Abbott:

Mr. Bletzer, one thing you should please realize is one of the key principles of our whole work here was effective checks and balances.

Charlie Bletzer:

I know you did a lot of work on this.

Bill Abbott:

If you think the COPC is too powerful, somebody else is going to say, well, they think the Select Board is still too powerful. We’re trying to balance the powers.

Charlie Bletzer:

But we ran and we get voted by the town, the people of the town, okay? And we get elected to work for the people of the town. And we’re the ones that put our name out there and did that. And you’re taking the power away from this party, and I think that was a goal from the start. And no offense to you guys sitting in front of me here but–

Bill Abbott:

I think there are some members of the commission, myself included, who think we’ve increased your effectiveness as a Select Board.

Charlie Bletzer:

I disagree from what I read, but I’m going to read it closer.

Bill Abbott:

That’ll be the subject of the debates.

Charlie Bletzer:

Right. Okay, yup. Thank you.

John Mahoney:

Just to the chair, if you look at the agenda item, it was a presentation of the charter by Mr. Abbott to the Select Board. I was under the impression. Obviously, I just received the red line copy, a hard copy literally an hour or two ago. So, I was under the impression that we would have the ability to digest this and maybe in the future, there would be an agenda item, Ms. Cavacco and then the board would weigh in on our opinion.

Betty Cavacco:

Well, we can certainly put that on the agenda, but it really doesn’t matter what your opinion is because it’s moving forward and there’s nothing that can change.

John Mahoney:

But when you talk about a mass mailing and everyone in the community is going to get a copy of this, I think in the future whether it’s one, two or three months down the road, we should have an agenda item and at least weigh in on it.

Betty Cavacco:

I’m ready to weigh in on it right now, but you probably don’t want to hear it.

Charlie Bletzer:

I just did.

Dick Quintal:

Yeah, Charlie just did.

Betty Cavacco:

I’m with Charlie. So, Mr. Lydon?

Steve Lydon:

Steve Lydon, resident. The question I have is if the vote takes place in May and the charter goes through, does this have to go back to Attorney General to be approved or is this once in May when it’s done, that’s done? That’s done, okay. And I have to agree. I don’t agree with a lot of things on this charter. I think the moderator has done a great job. I don’t see how taking the appointments away from him. He’s kind of limited on how many people per precinct he can appoint. I just think everything is just–I don’t know. I think it’s just too much. Too much change. Thank you.

Betty Cavacco:

Thank you. I’ve read the red line of the charter. I’ve spoken to a lot of people. I think Mr. Helm and I laughed about a couple of articles and we call them the Betty clause, which I felt that there was quite a bit of misinformation. The Select Board doesn’t get involved in day-to-day business. We go through the Town Manager. And quite frankly, if I didn’t have so many residents contacting us and I think that’s everybody on the Board, we wouldn’t even have to do that. You know what, we have close to 65,000 residents. Everybody has a problem.

[1:30:00]

Betty Cavacco:

And I was watching something and I don’t know what it was and I can’t remember what it was, but Mr. Abbott, if I’m not mistaken, you said that the Select Board were just going to be figureheads. So, I can’t remember what it was. I was watching something. So, as far as I’m concerned and I know my board members feel the same way, we are here to be the voice of the people when they can’t, when they feel that they can’t get any further with anything or they can’t get anywhere, they reach out to us. That’s really why people elected the people that they elect. I mean, everybody knows that a lot of people reach out to me because they know I’m going to take their information, I’m going to give it to the Town Manager, whether it was Derek or the previous Town manager, and we’re going to see it through so that there is something at the end to resolve their issue. So, I have read this. I mean, you’re giving more authority to the COPC and town meeting but you want checks and balances for the Select Board, but there are no checks and balances for those people. I mean, like good Lord, the COPC chair didn’t even know where the town meeting was. So, I think you guys need to take under. It’s done now and the only thing that could possibly happen is it fails, but the problem you want two more Selectmen. So, you want two more Selectmen to be on this board whether it’s north and south or whatever, which just creates more like, “Oh, I got this guy from the north and I want this for this people in the north and I want this for this people in the south.” Why wouldn’t you put two more Selectmen, if that’s what you wanted, because we represent everybody. Yes, I live on White Horse Beach. I’ve done a lot of work there, but I talk to people in North Plymouth. I talk to people in West Plymouth. I talk to people down in Cedarville. So, we are here to represent the whole not just, “Oh, I’m going to be North and I’m going to be South,” because you know what? If it’s two against five, how is that even going to be efficient? So, I’m going to say I wish you the best of luck. Super disappointed with the way this has all gone down. Some of the authorities that have been taken away from not only the Selectmen but the Moderator, more authority to the COPC. So, I think this is a huge mistake to move forward in this fashion. And people do want a change in government, not a change in–I mean, you’re adding two more Select Board members, why don’t you just call it the Town Council that you’re really creating but just keeping it as town meeting. I mean, that really is. And three meetings? That means that we are going to put our staff into a perpetual town meeting. We’re not going to get anything accomplished. And the employees have read this and they say, “If this goes through, I’m out of here.” So, I hope you’re all ready for all of that, but that’s just my opinion. And you know what they say about opinions.

Anyone else? You? Mr. Quintal?

Dick Quintal:

I haven’t given it the proper look yet but I will, but listening to other board members and concerns, there’s a few things I don’t like already about it. Probably two more select members I think that’s just trying to mimic a council. I mean, if that’s what you’re trying to do then let the people decide. And I have to say I’ve been amazed I’ve lived here all my life, in every Charter Commission, they tweak them a little at the end and they’re a little different but I’ve yet to see one that actually asks the people in this community if they want memorial form of government or they want a town meeting. I’ve yet to see that one. And I hope someday before I’m on the other side, whatever side that is, that somebody actually asks them. And to be quite honest with you, I think my next venture in life will be to find out what the people in the community actually really want and to do it in a just way. When I ran for this office, it was to help the people in the community naturally, that’s what it is.

[1:35:02]

Dick Quintal:

But more than that, to adjust the problems and fix things that I thought were broken, and there were a lot of broken things, and I think I did my best. And the chairman before you, Chairman Tavares had it even harder in Covid. It was very, very awkward and tough run in this community. Believe me. Your hands were full, all board members. It was different. And I can tell you that because I’ve said in Covid pre and post. So, that being said, I see a lot of times where these rules are, these ideas are made up out of political decisions, if you will. Somebody don’t like this, so we’re going to make this rule. Somebody don’t like that one, so we’re going to make that rule. Some of us have court cases, you name it, they’re all in there. Somebody’s got an ax to grind. I just don’t think it’s really what it is to be for the people that we all represent. And I don’t know how Derek and Brad and Anthony, you better get some more staff if you’re going to start adding. That’s almost 50% more. Maybe it’s a tad on. I don’t have my added machine, but it’s more of everything. And to give the council or precinct chairs, there were a couple examples when things were very important in this community during Covid time when I was the chairman, I reached out to the chairwoman of the precinct chairs to try to have conversation and get some meetings with the so-called precinct chairs. In one year, it never happened. In one year, I never got a return call to have that sit down meeting. So, just for the record and what you might see and what you might not see in this charter and that was to work on a lot of issues. And Mrs. Cavacco, I believe touched on a couple. I was pretty much shocked at the ones I did talk to and didn’t have a clue of what was actually really happening. And these are the people that are supposed to go out and teach the little groups of precinct people, town meeting members what’s going on. There’s a there’s a big disconnect there. And how to correct that? I really don’t know, but I can only speak to my own circumstances where at least several times that I reached out and I even took it upon some other precinct members, chairs. So, I will read it and we’ll have a docket item and I will have more to say on it as we go but I would have it really like to be based on the problems of the Town of Plymouth versus a power struggle, and that’s what I see. And that’s it for now. Thank you.

Betty Cavacco:

`John? No, you’re done?

John Mahoney:

I’m going to read it. We’ll get out the yellow highlighter.

Betty Cavacco:

I mean, honestly and this is the last thing I’ll say and I think it’s sad because I believe that this charter was pushed through based on personalities and not what’s the best for Plymouth. The principles that we are guided by and governed by is trust me when I tell you, these five people here we probably have way better things to do than the stuff that we do all day long. And why we do it is because we want to help people. And I know that’s the reason I get into it. I just wanted to help people. And fortunately, I’ve helped a lot of people. So, I think this was personality driven and not principle driven. And I’ve gotten that same comment from residents that are texting me right now, and I think that’s pretty sad. But thank you for your work. I know it took a lot of work. Although I don’t agree with your work, I know it was quite an effort and I appreciate it. And we will make this a docket item. Should we wrap it up for Christmas or do it after the holidays?

Dick Quintal:

Let’s do it after the holidays.

Betty Cavacco:

Sometime in January, Derek, please. Thank you. The next order of business is the Town Manager’s Report.

Derek Brindisi:

I think before we go to the Town Manager Report, we have the policy around how to submit articles for the warrant.

[1:40:07]

Betty Cavacco:

Oh, I’m sorry skipped right over that.

Derek Brindisi:

Not a problem. So, if I could, so this is a policy, as you know, we’ve been doing a lot of work collectively as a team to go through all of the policies. There’s over 50 policies and to just either rescind them or update them. In this case, we drafted a new policy. This policy speaks specifically to the process to submit articles for the warrant. Mr. Canty was here with us this evening, sat on this team: Anthony, Brad, Lynne Barrett and Kelly have all sat on the team to help draft this policy that’s in front of you today. And I can start by saying that when I was the Assistant Town Manager, it was always a struggle to put the warrant together. Oftentimes, you’d get late submissions or submissions that were half baked and had no backup. I can tell you for the fall town meeting, I believe it was, I received a phone call, the warrant closed at noontime on a Friday. I received a phone call from a committee member at 11:45 and basically said, “Hey, Derek, can you submit a placeholder for me? I want to change a bylaw.” And that was it. No backup information. And so, this policy is to try to correct how we all collectively will submit articles. So, you’ll see right here it’s basically a very simple process. It talks about the steps in which we expect articles to be submitted and the supporting materials that are expected to be with the articles themselves. I know Anthony is going to pull it up in a minute, in the policy, it references a master calendar. And again, the same group has been meeting on a regular basis to develop a calendar of events that we’re going to publish as an addendum to this policy each and every year. And this this calendar of events will depict when the warrant opens, when it closes, when a town meeting will take place, when the town election will take place, when the warrants are to be executed, when the Advisory and Finance Committee is expected to meet and so on and so forth. So, you can see from this master calendar that Anthony has just posted, it’s going to give all board and committee members and town staff and citizens that are interested a 12-month snapshot of all the different milestones that will take place during the course of the year so we can prepare for town meeting and for the town election.

So, I would say to those folks that call me at 11:45, 15 minutes before the warrant closes, if you understand the calendar then you should be preparing your warrant article six, seven, eight months in advance. Do not wait for the warrant to open to start preparing your article. If the board were to approve this policy tonight, it’s my intention to socialize this to all the various boards and committees so they understand the rules of engagement on how to submit articles. Pending any questions, that’s all I have for this policy.

Betty Cavacco:

Great. Do we have any questions? Mr. Mahoney?

John Mahoney:

Derek, I completely agree that there needs to be a policy. And certainly, we’ve seen in the past there’s too many instances of people running around with their heads chopped off at the end and trying to get articles submitted but we have to have a process. Sometimes the U.S Constitution gets in the way and what I mean by that, I’m talking about public versus private property rights. We’ve had discussions tonight about water, we’re talking about cemeteries, land purchases. In the presentation earlier, I think they said that the Parting Ways, 37, 39 acres was secured by the town I think in 1971. And now, it looks like 52 years later, 53 years later, we’re on the verge of making a decision to turn it into a cemetery. So, I’ve seen it in the past where sometimes maybe a piece of land will come through Chapter 61 and we still got to be able to react especially if it’s going to put us in a positive or negative position with respect to water or another opportunity for, I’m just throwing this out, potential school site or a cemetery or a playground or access to a beach, etc.

[1:45:03]

John Mahoney:

We can’t just pass, because the opportunity to purchase has fallen outside of the window to submit an article to town meeting. We still have to be able as a community to react. Not all the time you can go to the private property owner and say, “You know what? We missed the window. You’re going to have to wait for six months. We’ll see you in April or October.” That doesn’t work. They’ll say, “Okay. We thought you wanted the land, but we can’t wait six months. So, we’re going to go to another private owner.” So, that’s the only thing that I would say.

Derek Brindisi:

And if I could respond to that. So, as far as submitting articles, the board always has the discretion to reopen the warrant. So, if that instance were to happen, we could always post it on the agenda, reopen the warrant for an additional week. I think where we’re going to run into some hiccups is when that article has already been submitted but the appraisal hasn’t been completed yet, right? So, those are the issues and that’s where we start going down this slippery slope of just these placeholder articles and the assistant town manager is getting phone calls saying, “I need the back of material.” And his response is typically, “I don’t have it. I don’t have any background material because it hasn’t been submitted.” And so, we’re trying to control the masses and trying to get as much information up front as early as possible.

John Mahoney:

Right. And the policy applies to 95 to 99% of what we do, absolutely. There have been a few times in the past. We just have to have a little lateral movement and I agree. But of course, you want to open up the warrant for a week so we can facilitate such an article but we don’t want to allow five other individuals who didn’t do their homework or their due diligence to slip in at the last second. I get it.

Derek Brindisi:

Exactly. You’re right.

Betty Cavacco:

Harry?

Harry Helm:

John, I’m not going to disagree with you about what you’ve observed. I think we’ve all observed it. I will just encourage you that given your concerns about the length of time involved in actually carrying off a purchase or receiving a piece of property that you think about your concerns as you read through the draft revised charter.

Betty Cavacco:

Okay. Do we have someone that will make a motion? No, we got to vote on that warrant.

Dick Quintal:

Oh, the board will vote on that?

Derek Brindisi:

And the policy.

Charlie Bletzer:

I make the motion.

Harry Helm:

Second.

Betty Cavacco:

Discussion? All those in favor? Unanimous. Now, the Town Manager’s Report.

Derek Brindisi:

Okay. So, I mostly have just announcements today. And I’ll start by talking about the Children’s Business Fair. We met with Steve Cole this morning who had made note of how successful the Children’s Business Fair was. There were 265 children who participated in it and they estimate that obviously, these children they were selling their products, they estimated they brought in anywhere from $50 to $80,000 that evening with everything that was sold, and that’s based upon some tables sold $200, other tables sold upwards of a thousand dollars per table. So, very successful. The concern only is now that there may not be enough space at the high school next year because it keeps growing. So, we’re going to have to find a larger venue for this event every year. So, again, two years in a row, extremely successful.

Staying with the success, the Blue Future Conference also took place in the last few weeks. They had over a hundred attendees and it was so successful that they’re already planning next year’s Blue Future Conference and sponsors have already lined up to participate in next year’s event.

I’ve talked a little bit about it and they actually just had a social couple weeks back the Downtown Waterfront Business Association is now coming together very nicely. It’s this non-profit association with basically the merchants in the Downtown Waterfront area. They continue to do some great things. One of their first public events that they’re planning this December is light the night event that’s going to be at the Brewster Gardens during the month of December. And it’s an idea they came up with to try to attract more tourism into the Downtown Waterfront area. Folks will come, look at the light display over at Brewster Gardens and hopefully, do some shopping in the downtown area. Speaking of shopping in the downtown area, the Hometown Stroll will take place as always, the first weekend of December, December 2nd to December 4th.

[1:50:07]

Derek Brindisi:

And as you all know, the Thanksgiving parade is coming up this Saturday, which will begin at 10:00 a.m. So, just so the folks that are listening at home are aware, street closures will begin at 8:30 Saturday morning.

A couple of things, the shuttle service will begin 7:00 a.m. to 3:00 p.m. over on Obery Street. Folks will be dropped off over at 11 Lincoln then they can walk over. One thing we’re working on, we have the restroom, the trailer restroom, that we use at White Horse Beach the last couple weeks of August. We’re looking at a strategic location where we can deploy that. We know there’s going to be tens of thousands of people here this coming Saturday, so we want to utilize that restroom trailer for the Thanksgiving Day Parade.

Just to remind folks that the town did receive the Public Health Excellence Grant. The host agency is the Town of Kingston but because we’re a part of this Public Health Excellence Grant, we are in the process of hiring a public health nurse and a new public health food inspector to assist us with our work.

The South Meadow Road, 253 South Meadow Road, I had mentioned last time the bid opening again will take place November 30th. So, we’ll keep you posted on that. And the CAL Cafe will start its grand opening tomorrow for breakfast and lunch. So, if you have a chance, go to the CAL Cafe tomorrow for its grand opening for either breakfast or lunch.

And then last thing I just want to end with, we talked about how successful the Halloween event was here in Town Hall. The goal is really to try to get Town Hall to be a part of the business community and be a part of all the events that have taken place. You definitely took the last step a couple weeks back by having the Christmas tree on the front lawn but because of all that, on the excitement in Town Hall, we now have an Employee Engagement Committee that is thinking that they met once a month thinking about how Town Hall can be more actively involved in to support community events. One of those items is Big Brothers and Big Sisters. And the police department and Town Hall and others are starting to be more involved in that and we’ve had a number of town staff who have volunteered for Big Brothers and Big Sisters. So, they’re thinking not only of volunteerism on that end but also fundraising as well. Again, just try to be just a good community partner with those folks that are in need here in our community. So, I think that there’s been a real mindset shift with how we think of ourselves here in Town Hall. So, more to come on that. We’ll keep you posted as the other things that we do, but pending any questions, that’s all I have for this evening.

Betty Cavacco:

Any questions for the Town Manager?

John Mahoney:

Derek, just one quick question. The big event coming up Saturday, the Thanksgiving Day celebration, the restrooms on the side of this building open all day?

Derek Brindisi:

They will be opened all day, yes.

John Mahoney:

Thank you.

Betty Cavacco:

Anybody else? Okay. Select Board Open Discussion – New Business/ Letters/ Old Business. Anyone? Mr. Mahoney?

John Mahoney:

One big one, one small one. So, you see, over the years where the Select Board might want to undertake certain initiatives and we get distracted with other things and they kind of fall to the back burner. The example I’ll use is maybe six months ago or during the summertime, you might have come into the job and had this preconceived notion about what you were going to do for the week and get done then all of a sudden, you’re dealing with the federal government and the state government because whales are bumping into boats off the coast of Manomet and your whole week is gone. So, one of those things that fell by the wayside and I don’t know why is the state pier where the Mayflower sits. So, through the Chair, I’d love to have an agenda item in the future as soon as possible because I know I think about eight years ago, DCR, the state did a report. They have four state piers around the Commonwealth and they said if they were going to divest themselves of one of those piers, it would be the one in Plymouth. And I think that’s another tool in the toolbox that this town needs especially with respect to potential small ships coming in and other industries that are down on the waterfront in a certain new commercial pier. And I think that unless the Commonwealth has changed their mind and done a 180, we need to get Mr. Muratore Miss Moran and others on that.

[1:55:06]

John Mahoney:

So, I don’t know if you need a vote and affirmative at a future agenda item but I’m fully supportive with moving forward on that initiative and making sure that we don’t lose sight of the ball on that one.

Charlie Bletzer:

John, you’re talking about taking back the pier for the town?

John Mahoney:

Yes, absolutely.

Charlie Bletzer:

Derek can probably address this that we’re trying to buy the state park where the half shell is, where the concept. So, we were trying to buy that property maybe do a land swap and Derek can probably tell you more about that. That was one of my goals is to get that back for Plymouth, but I’ll let Derek tell you how we made out.

John Mahoney:

I do know Charlie that before Mr. Baker took over at governor that at the end of the Patrick Administration, I think one of their Economic Development, I think his name is Jay Ash. I mean, they were amenable to that happening, not the park but the pier. And like I said, life happens and we get distracted by other things but certainly I think we need to move forward on that.

Betty Cavacco:

Well, I think that we need to get the Harbor Committee involve and we can certainly put it on one of our agendas. I know we’re meeting Thursday, maybe next month. I don’t know if we’re meeting in December but get it on their agenda so it goes through the Harbor Committee first and then comes to us.

Derek Brindisi:

Yeah. So, to Mr. Bletzer’s point, we had actively engaged with the assistance of the state delegation. Folks from DCR, in fact the Assistant Commissioners came down to Plymouth and we talked about a number of things and trying to take ownership of the state park was one of those. I have to say that they were not cooperative. They were not interested in selling it back. The only commitment that they had made was that they would be happy to work with the town on any special event that we thought was a priority, and that they would support us. I can say though we have a new governor, a new lieutenant governor coming effective January 1st or thereabouts, we had our staff meeting this morning. I had mentioned to the staff that next Tuesday, because we meet every Tuesday morning, that I want to go through a process and start to identify what priorities we have so that we can ask the state delegation to set up a meeting with the new lieutenant governor. And if this is one of the items that the board wants to put on that agenda, we’re happy to put that on. I would suggest that maybe the board make an agenda item for a future meeting so that you can identify what priorities you think we should be talking to the lieutenant governor about. Because we want to get on the calendar sooner rather than later because we know once they get through the inauguration, they’re going to hit the ground running and they’re going to be busy. So, if we can get to them in advance, that’s the hope.

Charlie Bletzer:

Excuse me, Ms. Chairman. John, just so you know, I had talked to Bill Keohan about CPA monies to purchase and he was excited about it. He’d love to get that done too and everybody would like to see this happen. So, hopefully we can get to the governor and have more success this time.

Betty Cavacco:

Derek, do you want to put those both on the December 13th? Are we meeting the 13th?

Derek Brindisi:

The next meeting is December 6th.

Betty Cavacco:

Is that agenda full?

Derek Brindisi:

I don’t think so. I’m looking at Anthony.

Betty Cavacco:

I didn’t think we had one on the 29th yeah I think the November 29th we’re gonna have there’s going to be some items that we’re going to have to discuss so I think if anything the November 29th could be a very short meeting um because we will need an executive session on the 29th okay well put it on a future agenda and that’s the state peer and the state park yeah I I would certainly consider that it was a two different issues I think the infrastructure of the pier and then the park itself those are yeah those are two different things but there are still wishes exactly I got you John all right uh anybody else anything else okay now I guess it’s a motion to adjourn oh yes Happy Thanksgiving everyone have a safe holiday hope we’ll see you all on Saturday at the parade so be careful and enjoy the holiday.