Agenda – Plymouth Select Board 1-24-23 Agenda

Official Minutes – Plymouth Select Board Minutes 1-24-23

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

Dick Quintal:

Selectmen’s meeting, Tuesday, January 24th, 2023. Please join the board in the Pledge to the Flag.

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.

Dick Quintal:

Mr. Helm?

Harry Helm:

In accordance with State Law 2475, and pursuant to Chapter 20 of the Acts of 2021, this meeting will be conducted via remote means and in-person. Members of the public who wish to watch the meeting may do so in the following manner: tune into PACTV government cable access channels Comcast Channel 15 or Verizon Channel 47 and watch the meeting as it is aired live, or watch the meeting live at the PACTV website at pacttv.org. Members of the public who wish to participate in the meeting may do so in the following manner:

In-person: at Great Hall located at the 2nd Floor of Plymouth Town Hall, 26 Court Street, Plymouth, Massachusetts or go on the town website under the Select Board page and click on the Zoom webinar or type in the webinar address.

Dick Quintal:

Thank you. Now declare the meeting to order, 5:00 p.m. approximately. Anyone wishing to speak on the Public Comment? When you do get up to the microphone, please state your name, make sure the green light’s on for the record. Thank you. And you have three minutes.

George McKay:

George McKay, Chair of Precinct 8. In late 2022, the Select Board made a couple of decisions to streamline and improve our budget process. One of the things they did is they set an early deadline for a submission of Warrant articles. The other thing they did is they asked the town departments to have a level service budget. At the last Select Board meeting, which was two weeks ago, there was an issue about the CPC submitting a warrant article earlier than the board anticipated, and there was some discussion about that between the CPC and the Select Board and it went on for five or ten minutes, and that was fine. At that same Select Board meeting, the school presented their budget, which did not meet the Select Board’s requirement for a level funded budget. And at that meeting, there was no comment at all from the Select Board. They were completely silent. And also, the Financial and Advisory Committee was completely silent. Thank you very much.

Katie Barnicle:

Hi! My name is Katie Barnicle, and I’m here to speak about the Allerton Street Park. And I was wondering if I could take three minutes from someone else so I can have six minutes to speak, would that be appropriate?

Dick Quintal:

So, I’m just going to watch the clock because we have a six o’clock and that’s when it’s going to stop.

Katie Barnicle:

Right, but I thought instead of two of us–

Dick Quintal:

Let’s start with the first. Let’s see how many more people want to speak and what you’re going to say. Is this new information that you have?

Katie Barnicle:

Yes, it is. And I did submit a letter. I’m not sure if there were copies for everyone but I’ve been using this playground for over 20 years, 10 with my kids and 10 with my dogs. And I’m in support of the renovation of the park using the ARPA funds and I’m really thrilled that the town is looking at this park because it was kind of old and tired, but I am really concerned about how this process has happened. And I’m going to start with the Capital Improvements and the estimate of costs. There is no cost estimate provided in the ARPA funding that was posted on the project web page, and it had an amount of $398,300 and there must be some breakdown of the estimate somewhere. And 400,000 seems like an exorbitant amount for that park. I’m in full support of using the funds, but I wanted to see what that breakdown was. So, I request that that be posted on the website. Also, I don’t understand how this project came to be such a priority when the town always does a lot of work doing the Capital Improvement plan for five years, and there was no mention of this park for five years.

[0:05:14]

Katie Barnicle:

I think the only thing was Allerton Street and Sever Street intersection that is upcoming in Fiscal Year 2025. And so, I’m not sure how a project this large, the funding so large, can jump to the top of the list and it was approved in December and construction started immediately a month later. I’ve never seen a project go over 0 to 60 so fast. So, I don’t really understand how that happens like wouldn’t this being such a big Capital Improvement project have to be approved by the Capital Improvement Committee? ARPA funds are not exempt for many local bylaws or state laws.

Also, the procurement process. Obviously, you have designers O’Brien & Sons on board and NELM Corporation doing the construction, and I couldn’t find any current closed or archived bids for anything relative to this. So, there has to be a competitive bidding process for the work. I haven’t seen it. I would love to have an update of when that’s going to go out to bid. It’s already planned for May 1st when the playground is going to be reconstructed. So, it seems like all this is in the works. In fact, it seems like this is already a shovel ready project. By the time it got to you in December, it was shovel ready. I mean, a month later, they’re ripping down the playground and putting up the fence.

Dick Quintal:

That was three minutes.

Katie Barnicle:

May I have another three minutes?

Dick Quintal:

Okay.

Katie Barnicle:

Thank you very much. I’m not going to go through all this because it’s a 10-page letter but I think that the construction phasing was pretty poor. The fact that the playground was ripped down first. That playground did not need to be ripped down. It was not a health and safety issue. The fence could have been reconstructed without ripping down the fence. And now, we have to wait five months before the construction starts. We don’t know how long that construction is going to be. And I would hate to see the uh the equipment parked in the park for those five months. That Park needs to be reopened as soon as possible. So, as soon as that fence work is done all that stuff should–excuse me, the construction equipment should be removed and that park reopened as soon as possible because passive recreation can be done in there even without the actual playground. I have a lot of concerns about the site design, ADA compliance, also the port in place rubber that’s proposed has been found to have contaminants, the forever chemicals, the PFOS and PFAS chemicals and the Toxic Use Reduction Institute at UMass Lowell has a lot of information on this and alternatives for parks to not use this rubber. So, I ask that that be removed from the design immediately. There is no design provided, just a rendering of what the actual playground would look like. I would like to see a plan of the entire park and what the plan is.

The fence is a big issue and I like to direct the attention to the Sirrico Memorial Park where the same thing happened. The town 10 or 20 years ago renovated and put in a split rail fence and I was horrified as a mom because kids can just easily bolt right out of that. And within a week or two, a chain-link fence had been put inside the split rail fence. So, I’m not sure why that isn’t being done here. I like the wooden guard rails. I think that’s a really important part of this.

Also, there’s no swings. If there’s anything a parent likes to do, occasionally get on a swing. Please add swings back. There’s no seating, no picnic table shown on the rendering. Also, there are invasive plants like the honey locusts that has lots of thorns that are all along that northern side. Those should be removed so kids don’t run into it. Sinkholes, there are major sinkholes there because they probably buried stumps, and as the stumps broke down, you get sinkholes there all the time and the playground is proposed right where the largest sinkhole has been. So, I’m wondering if there are any Geotech or ground penetrating radar studies to show that that’s appropriate. I think there are alternative designs where we can have half of the park be fenced in for off leash dog park. We have over 20,000 dogs in Plymouth and there’s a huge need for places to go with our dogs, and I think this is the perfect place. I think that additional funding, ARPA funding, should be set aside for dog park construction whether it’s in West Plymouth or in some other place. And I think the town should immediately approve a committee for the Allerton Street Park playground and look at all these things and just take a minute because this was rushed through. Let’s take a minute and there is no public participation, which I really take offense to. So, I’m probably at my six minutes. There’s 10 pages here.

[0:10:05]

Dick Quintal:

You are over six minutes.

Katie Barnicle:

Thank you very much. Is that okay? Acceptable to you?

Dick Quintal:

Yeah.

Katie Barnicle:

Yeah. This park is located within one mile of four mapped environmental justice communities and for those that aren’t aware what environmental justice communities are, they’re low-income communities of color and communities that have English isolation. There were another languages spoken and these communities typically have more hazardous waste sites and less open space sites. And so, this small park services for environmental communities within one mile, and I have a map that was attached to my letter. And by ripping down that playground, you were preventing the kids in all the communities in that neighborhood from using that park for five months. And I know some of the requests that I’m asking may delay that construction because I really think we need to just stop everything and take a look at really what the design is and again, provide that public comment. I would love to have a committee that is filled with stakeholders not only town board representatives, safety officers, the Disabilities Commission, abutters, users, the dog users, people that like dogs, people that don’t like dogs, people that like kids, people that don’t like kids. Let’s get everyone in a room, because our world is really divided right now and this park has caused a huge division in our neighborhood by getting a committee just taking a deep breath, getting a committee together and allowing everyone to work out our differences and make a really great park with a really great design. I really think we can do this and in a short period of time. Give me a month, give me six weeks, we’ll get it done. So, I thank you for your time. Unless anyone wants to give me three minutes. I got plenty else to say, but I think my letter speaks for itself. So, thank you very much.

Dick Quintal:

Mr. Brindisi, you had her comments and her concerns.

Derek Brindisi:

Yeah. I’m happy to meet with Ms. Barnicle with appropriate the staff at any time.

Dick Quintal:

Thank you.

Katie Barnicle:

I’m sorry, what was your name?

Derek Brindisi:

Derek Brindisi.

Katie Barnicle:

Great. Thank you so much.

Dick Quintal:

Anyone else wishing to speak on the public comment? Okay. Moving on to Licenses and Administrative Notes. Any questions on the two licenses? Any questions on–

Harry Helm:

License and the two permits.

Dick Quintal:

I’m sorry. Yes, that’s what I meant to say. Harry, thank you. And there’s also 12 Admin Notes.

John Mahoney:

I move the license and the two permits.

Dick Quintal:

Okay.

Charlie Bletzer:

Second.

Dick Quintal:

Discussion? All those in favor? Unanimous. Administrative Notes? Any questions on those or moving them all at once? What do you, gentlemen wish to do?

Harry Helm:

I move to vote on them move them as a group.

Dick Quintal:

Do I have a second?

Charlie Bletzer:

I second.

Dick Quintal:

Second by Mr. Bletzer. Discussion? All those in favor? Unanimous again. Thank you. Town Meeting Articles. Article 10.

Silvio Genao:

Good evening. Silvio Genao, Director of Human Resources. I’d like to thank you for the opportunity to come before you and discuss Articles 10 and 11. Yeah. Both of these articles are related so if it’s okay with the board, I’d like to discuss them simultaneously. Thank you.

So, in summary, the typical framework for implementing policy at most level, every level of government actually in our country including our local level is having a legislative body, create a law or a bylaw with the intent to address a specific item. Usually, that law or bylaw allows for the creation of codes or regulations to carry out its intent in a practical manner. This framework is already used in Plymouth for other instances. One example is Chapter 191 of the bylaws, which expresses the town’s intent to protect access to the public water supply in order to protect the public’s health and welfare.

[0:15:11]

Silvio Genao:

Section 7 of that bylaw expressly allows for the regulations to be created for the implementation of the bylaw, as necessary. Unlike that bylaw, the personnel bylaw does not explicitly allow for the creation of codes or regulations and therefore acts as a de facto personnel regulation for the town. The current arrangement creates logistical issues where certain management related items not requiring additional funding or appropriations have to wait until town meeting, which sometimes puts the town at a disadvantage for the recruitment. An example of that is when we hire seasonal employees.

Seasonal employees fall under the non-union personnel bylaw. But town meeting not happening until April means that other towns could start recruiting ahead of us, change their rates, be more competitive than us and basically steal away from the pool available until we can go to town meeting and change those rates in order to be competitive with other towns. By the time that happens the pool to choose from is dwindled down to basically nothing.

Additionally, with the ever-changing nature of personnel management laws, this also has the potential to leave the town in a liable position due to our inability to implement changes in a timely fashion. Furthermore, the current bylaw contradicts the authority given by the charter to the town manager to manage non-union personnel, which includes all department heads such as myself in a more proactive and practical way. And finally, changes to the personnel bylaws made the town meeting are not even reviewed by the Attorney General’s office as other articles do, because the Mass General Law that requires review for town meeting articles does not include personnel bylaw related articles.

So, our goal with Article 10 is to amend the bylaw in order to follow the framework that I previously described, in order to update our processes so that we can be more efficient with the management of our non-union staff. Again, then Article 11 is changes to the existing bylaw that we would be requesting a town meeting if Article 10 does not pass at town meeting. Some of these changes actually provide a good example of the clerical and timing issues that I described before, which could be easily addressed with the updated framework for managing non-union personnel. If Article 10 passes, we would simply withdraw Article 11 from consideration. Thank you again for the opportunity to discuss this, and please let me know if you have any questions.

Dick Quintal:

Any questions or comments from the board? Mr. Helm?

Harry Helm:

Well, I kind of have a procedural process question here. We, I believe, vote to recommend or not an article. So, we are being asked to recommend an article and then also recommend an article if it doesn’t pass? I’m not sure in my 10 years I’ve ever encountered anything like this. So, I’m confused about the process. I don’t know what to really vote on here to tell you the truth.

Derek Brindisi:

If I could. So, the approach with these two articles is a belt and suspenders approach where if Article 10 were to pass as Silvio pointed out, we wouldn’t need Article 11. Article 10 gets at the issue of the town meeting members having the authority to approve or disapprove any changes to the personnel bylaw. Under Article 10, what we’re proposing is that that authority gets moved to the Town Manager’s office to approve or disapprove changes to the personnel would then become personal rules and regulations. So, we would have this very small framework of what the personnel bylaw requires of the personnel rules and regulations. And so, what’s being proposed is that if that doesn’t pass, if for some reason town meeting doesn’t support Article 10, there’s still work that has to get done. And so, Article 11 then we would present that to try to accomplish some of the necessary goals that we need to make amendments to the personnel bylaw.

Harry Helm:

So, I would request that you explain Article 11.

Silvio Genao:

Sure. So, Article 11 consists of basically three major changes to the existing bylaw.

[0:20:06]

Anthony Senesi:

Can you please turn on your microphone? Thank you.

Silvio Genao:

Thank you. Apologize, I’ll begin again. So, Article 11 consists of basically three changes to the existing personnel bylaw. The first one is changes to Section 15: Earn Time. Basically, the way that that works is currently, non-union personnel have two types of accrued leave. One of them is earn time which acts as their vacation, personal time and things of that nature. Sick time, etc, etc. So, the second one is long-term injury or LTIA, Long-term Injury Account, which is to be used by employees who know that they’re going to go in a long-term injury. For example, they may have surgery planned or something and their recovery is going to take a long time. Currently, the bylaw says that in order for you to be able to use that accrued LTIA time, you need to burn two of your earned days first. So, for practicality purposes, that doesn’t make any sense to us. If you have again an employee in a situation where they know they’re going to be gone for a long time, they’ve accrued this leave, we’re basically penalizing them and asking them to use two of their vacation days in order to access their long-term sick time.

This has been a concern that’s been brought to our department in the six, seven months that I’ve been here multiple times. So, we’re looking to address that language with this change. The second change is to reclassify the precision of benefit as administrator, HR assistant from EM-2 to EM-4. This is one of the things that when I started working here it was brought to my attention again because recently there has been changes in reclassifications through a lot of positions based on the 2017 HR comp study that the town had previously done. It seems that this particular position when all the negotiations and all the other positions were changed last year, somehow got missed. So, what we’re asking for is to rectify this situation and bring that position to parity based on the study that the town had previously done.

And last but not least is the seasonal staff salary table changes. So, we have two groups here. We have the Public Works Department seasonal laborers for the park and forestry division. We received a memo from the Department basically stating the market that they see out there requires us to hopefully begin paying these staff at a higher level. So, they’re requesting really only a $2 an hour increase for us to be competitive with other towns. And then the Finance Department, which is the seasonal office staff are the treasure collector’s office, that has a little bit of history. So, as you can see those in the memo, I don’t know actually you’re probably at the moment, but in my memo that I’ve provided with the article, basically it talks about that those rates for the treasure collector’s office seasonal staff has not been changed since 2015. The reason for that is because the Treasure Collector’s Office typically uses that staff to sell stickers, beach stickers which hasn’t happened since 2015 out of that office. That function is going to be brought back to the Treasure Collector’s Office so therefore, again, to remain competitive and to hopefully bring people in that are going to be helping folks in the summertime. And as you probably will know, it’s a big long line, a lot of people, a lot of demand. Definitely a job that requires a certain type of people with the demeanor to deal with a lot of members from the public. Hopefully these rate changes allow us to then bring those types of folks in. Those are the only changes that we have right now. In the event that again, Article 10 doesn’t pass, we would try to do that under Article 11.

Derek Brindisi:

If I could, Mr. Chairman. This is the point that Silvio just outlined that each and every town meeting, we have to go to town meeting and try to articulate the very fluid discipline of personnel changes at the state level and some of them that need to be meet at the local level. To try to describe classifications of certain positions, honestly is I think can be complicated for meeting members. And quite frankly, really is not a legislative decision, which is why the AG’s office doesn’t even review the personnel bylaw changes. So, that gets back to the purpose of Article 10. Article 10 allows the Town Hall to be more flexible and responsive to the changing process of various laws and other classifications of compensation settings that have to be made.

[0:25:11]

Harry Helm:

So, I’m still a bit of quandary over this, just FYI. Is Article 11 an article that has precedent? Have you done this? Has this been done before? Individual going to town meeting per the bylaw and asking for changes.

Silvio Genao:

Yeah. This is actually the normal process.

Harry Helm:

So, Article 11 is the normal process.

Silvio Genao:

Correct.

Harry Helm:

Article 10 is you saying we would like to change the normal process. So, all of these things that you’re suggesting in Article 11 would be things if article 10 has passed, you can do without town meetings approval?

Silvio Genao:

Correct.

Derek Brindisi:

That’s right.

Silvio Genao:

In certain events. Again, town meeting will always serve as a checks and balance to this process. For example, let’s use the example of the seasonal staff. If the departments right now have it in their budget to um absorb this increase in rates, they would be able to right now put an ad and say, ‘We are hiring people for the Treasure Collector’s Office or the DPW at this rate,’ but if they don’t, they would still have to go through the process of going to town meeting and obtaining that funding to do so. So, there’s always going to be a checks and balance on the administrative side from the legislative side. What we’re saying just as the Town Manager mentioned is we want to be able to have the flexibility when sometimes we get into these situations where we see an advantage to be able not to be mired by the bureaucratic component of the bylaw and be able to act on it as quickly as we can, so we could be more efficient with the taxpayers funding.

Harry Helm:

So, a question, can you give us a couple examples of times that the non-existence of Article 10, let’s call it and the current procedure in Article 11 have caused issues?

Silvio Genao:

Correct. Like I said, in my short time here, I’ve been approached numerous times again by employees who said, “I have a medical procedure right now. I think it’s unfair for me to have to use two of my vacation days in order to do this medical procedure that I’ve scheduled for a long time when I’ve already have literally weeks of LTIA accrued that I’m going to use anyways.” And similarly, in this particular situation with the Parks Department, it’s not something that I personally in the time that I’ve been here since I’ve been here such a short time I can attest to, but I can tell you that town meeting being in April, by the time these rates get passed, the Department of Public Works is already going to be in a disadvantage when hiring these folks because another town start hiring people maybe or putting out advertisement to hire people sometime in March. As soon as the weather kind of stops and snows kind of stops, they start hiring people for these spring cleanups types of things. So, the seasonals do a lot of work on roadside mowing, do a lot of work and tree trimming, do a lot of work in maintenance that typically starts in the spring. So, our inability to change these rates right away, it’s going to already impact us in this year.

Harry Helm:

Well, in terms of salary rates for seasonal employees and being competitive, is there any reason why those could not go to fall town meeting so that they were already in place for the spring?

Silvio Genao:

Absolutely. And as you can see, that’s what Article 11 does. In the event that Article 10 doesn’t pass, we have rates for the next three years. So, we’re not trying to go to fall town meeting then to change the rates for the next year. The departments actually are interested in changing the rates for the next three years. So, we basically do this just the one time. But again, here’s a scenario. Let’s say, town meeting goes and approves Article 11 at the fall town meeting or this town meeting, and for some reason, another change in the market happens and there’s a high demand for these folks that now requires us to change those rates yet again. We don’t have the ability to do that. So, our ability to foresee what’s going to happen a year from now, two years from now, three years from now is very limited. We are doing the best we can with the information we have now. But if there’s a change that happens after spring town meeting, let’s say in the middle of April, that requires these rates to change then we still have to wait six months again. And then by then, we might lose on opportunities that we wouldn’t otherwise have to miss if we have Article 10 passed.

[0:30:13]

Charlie Bletzer:

That’s very clear to me. It just quickens up this process. And basically, if the money’s there in the budget, you can spend it. If it’s not there, we have to go to town meeting. So, it gives you the ability to pull a trigger right away. So, I’m completely in favor of this and I hope town meeting recommends this article. So, thank you.

Silvio Genao:

Thank you.

Derek Brindisi:

And if I could add. This is, I would say, one of the most important articles at the annual town meeting coming up. Again, it gives us flexibility and using examples as a reorganization of certain departments that would require us to create positions under the current financial construct, we would have to wait a minimum six months to implement that reorganization because we don’t have to go to town meeting and get town meeting’s approval to create certain positions within the classification plan. So, again, this allows us to be more efficient. The goal of the Charter Commission was to create a more efficient form of government, and this is just an addendum to that to try to help us do our jobs better. Thank you.

Dick Quintal:

Any more questions, comments? Mr. Helm?

Harry Helm:

I’m still confused about how taking away the pay and those sorts of things from town meeting under 10, how town meeting still has oversight over what we’re paying because I know with unions, they have to ratify or agree to the contract and they are the body that approves spending. So, I’m just not getting the connection with where the checks and balance.

Derek Brindisi:

So, that’s a great compare and contrast. So, town meeting doesn’t approve collective bargaining agreements. They approve the appropriation that is found within that CBA. The contrast to that is the personnel bylaw, which represents our non-union members, town meeting approves the changes found within. So, the benefits found within, the classifications found within. So, there’s the difference that town meeting has authority over the present bylaw but not of the CBA. They have authority in both respects for the appropriation of both of those. Does that make sense?

Harry Helm:

Yes, it does.

Dick Quintal:

Okay. Pleasure of the board?

John Mahoney:

Move approval.

Charlie Bletzer:

Second.

Dick Quintal:

Second by Mr. Bletzer. Discussion?

John Mahoney:

Just for Article 10.

Dick Quintal:

Article 10. Is that all right? You second that, Charlie?

Charlie Bletzer:

Yes.

Dick Quintal:

Okay. Discussion? All those in favor? Unanimous. Article 11?

John Mahoney:

Move approval.

Charlie Bletzer:

Second.

Dick Quintal:

Second by Mr. Bletzer. Discussion? All in favor? Unanimous again, 10 and 11.

Silvio Genao:

Thank you very much.

Dick Quintal:

19. 18.

Kelly McElreath:

Do you want 18 first or 19 first? Again, thank you for letting me be here. If you don’t know me, I’m Kelly McElreath, the Town Clerk as of two weeks ago for the last six months and I just would like to thank the board and the Town Administration for welcoming me for the last six months as your Town Clerk. It’s been a busy six months. So, that being said, with the town meeting coming up, I took one of the questions that came up was planning for the local election that we’re having in May and reading the proposed Charter and the Charter states the election is the third Saturday of May. And I was looking at the bylaws and the bylaws says it’s the second Saturday in May. So, I immediately recognized that there was a conflict. Upon looking at that section that dealt with voting and the bylaws, I noticed that secret ballots could be used. The Charter states no secret ballots could be used. And the last thing is there was the number of town meeting members that the last time it was updated was 1987. So, I looked to increase that to represent nine precincts, three precincts only.

[0:35:07]

Kelly McElreath:

So, Article 19 will take out secret ballots being allowed, third Saturday in May for the town election and increasing the number of town meeting members representative of the number of precincts that we currently have in the Town of Plymouth.

This is just a minor, I shouldn’t say minor, this is to change the bylaw to be reflective of current circumstances in the Town of Plymouth.

Dick Quintal:

Any questions? Seeing none, do I have a motion? Motion by Mr. Bletzer.

Harry Helm:

Second.

Dick Quintal:

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

Kelly McElreath:

Thank you. Article 18. Again, reviewing the general bylaws, there’s a lot that has to do with dog licensing, a little bit of a public announcement we’re in the midst of doing dog licensing registrations right now. So, if you haven’t done that, please get that to us as soon as possible. And one of the things that I’ve noticed in the bylaw that it said that there was a fee that was recently amended within the last five years to $15 per dog, but nowhere was there any type of late charge indicated that if the dog owner did not register the dog by a certain date, a late charge would be applied.

There is a fee that says any unlicensed dog would have a $75 fee. The way I interpret that bylaw is more with animal control picks up a dog and it’s unlicensed, they charge the $75 fee. I know past practice in the Town Clerk’s Office is then in the fall, they’ve looked to see any unlicensed dogs and they go out and they send the dog owners, they quote bill and send it to the court and get the $75 that way. I’m still proposing to do that in the fall. However, I would like dog owners to register their dogs by March 31st to avoid a $15 late charge. And by doing that, we get the majority of the dogs have registered so we have their rabies up to date for public health situations. So, I’m looking to amend that general bylaw to add the late charge of $15 after March 31st.

Dick Quintal:

Any questions, comments? Mr. Helm?

Harry Helm:

Question about that $75 fee.

Kelly McElreath:

I knew that was coming up.

Harry Helm:

Well, you mentioned it. If you interpret that as being something that the dog officer, that the Animal Control Officers assess, why is the clerk’s office assessing it across the board to those who have not, in their opinion upped, re-upped for a license? Why is the clerk’s department doing something–

Kelly McElreath:

So, that’s so that’s past practice, I will state that. And my understanding is the bylaw says, there’s a line in the bylaw that clearly states, the penalty for an unlicensed dog is $75. That statement falls under where they talk about enforcement by Animal Control. So, that’s how I interpret the bylaw to be under the Animal Control that if they pick up a dog and the dog is unlicensed, in order for the dog owner to get their dog back, they have to pay the 75 fee. In the past, I believe the Town Clerk’s Office in the past, took that if dogs were not registered by the fall, they apply that fee. I’m looking to continue to do that as much as possible but at the same time require dog owners to register their dog by March 15th to avoid the late charge.

Harry Helm:

Then why are you not also in Article 18 including the inclusion of a more clear $75 fee. If it’s under a bylaw talking about a department that is not part of the Clerk’s Department, it is a matter of possibly incorrect interpretation, why didn’t you add it to this if you’re going to do it anyway.

Kelly McElreath:

That’s a great question. And my answer is I’ve seen a lot of situations with the current general bylaw in regards to dog licensing, and my plan was to walk it for the next year and propose a new general bylaw in the fall. This was just to get the fee so as of next April, I could start charging the fee. There’s a lot to the dog bylaw that needs to be updated and I just started with the fee to begin with.

[0:40:14]

Harry Helm:

Okay.

Charlie Bletzer:

Kelly, your office is the collection. The dog officers don’t collect.

Kelly McElreath:

Correct.

Charlie Bletzer:

Also, when you take because I’ve seen it a thousand times, when you take people to court and I used to see Larry in there on a regular basis and they’d call out about 20 dog cases unlicensed dogs. What is the court charge, a fee to the Town of Plymouth for that?

Kelly McElreath:

I have to be honest, I’m unsure because I haven’t gone through the process.

Charlie Bletzer:

But there is a fee. There is a filing fee, I believe.

Kelly McElreath:

I would imagine there is.

Charlie Bletzer:

And then what happens if they dismiss it and they don’t collect any money? The town is out that money, I believe.

Kelly McElreath:

Correct.

Charlie Bletzer:

And just to be clear to the public, having a dog myself, it’s been late and I’ve come down and paid it but it’s not a money grab. It’s basically to make sure it’s safety for the public to make sure that your dogs have rabies shots and it’s really a safety issue for the public not a money grab, so.

Kelly McElreath:

And also, if your dog gets lost and it’s found by Animal Control or police, they can look at the tag and know who it belongs to.

Charlie Bletzer:

Exactly. Thank you.

Dick Quintal:

Any other questions from the board, comments? Mr. Helm?

Harry Helm:

We’ll phrase it as a question, in your interpretation, when you assess on or after April 1st the $15 and you don’t change the other bylaw about a $75 fee, can you charge both fees?

Kelly McElreath:

No, because we will only charge the $15 if they come in on, for example on April 15th, they’re two weeks beyond the deadline so they get charged $30 per dog. In the fall, we will see that that dog is registered so we wouldn’t apply the $75 fee because the dog is licensed.

Harry Helm:

So, you’re not compounding the fees?

Kelly McElreath:

Correct.

Harry Helm:

Okay. You just added something that I’m a little bit confused about. Okay. The town will charge a late fee of $15 to be paid by owners or keepers of record each year who licensed said dog or dogs on or after April 1st. You just mentioned that on April 15th, it goes to $30.

Kelly McElreath:

I apologize I wasn’t clear. Let’s put it this way, to register a spayed or a neutered dog, it’s $15 plus the $15 late charge.

Harry Helm:

The fee plus the late, okay. All right. Okay, got you.

Dick Quintal:

Pleasure of the board second?

Charlie Bletzer:

Move to approve.

John Mahoney:

Second.

Dick Quintal:

Moved by Mr. Bletzer, second by Mr. Mahoney. Discussion? All in favor? Unanimous. Thank you. Reviewing the Town Fee Schedules. I’m sorry, I thought that was the part of it. Mr. Flynn, I’m sorry. Is green light on, Dana?

Dana Flynn:

I do now.

Dick Quintal:

There you go.

Dana Flynn:

Evening, everybody. Chief of Police Dana Flynn. Article 17 is a request for my department to increase the fees associated with police responses to false alarms, false arrests, accidental burglar alarms. The intent of this increase is to encourage the alarm system owners to upgrade service repair to their systems to avoid faulty calls. The current bylaw allows for three police responses before allowed to charge a $25 fine. The fifth response allows for us to issue a $50 fine and a sixth and subsequent responses are $75. I requested an increase to keep the first three responses free, increase the fourth response to $50, the fifth response to $125 and sixth responses and beyond $200 for each occurrence.

[0:45:08]

Dana Flynn:

For example, from 2020 through 2022, we responded to 5645 burglar alarms, which required 829 man hours just at the call themselves include response times. Out of those 5645 alarm calls, 5551 were deemed to be false. So, what we’re trying to do is reduce the amount of time officers spending on these types of calls so we can attend other things in the community. Again, just to hope that the alarm owners do upgrade their systems. I would just add, we have one local business in this town this year alone with 29 times we’ve responded to false alarms. So, it takes a lot of valuable time, manpower.

Dick Quintal:

Mr. Bletzer?

Charlie Bletzer:

Chief, I got two questions. First of all, if it’s a legit call or alarm, it doesn’t count for the fee?

Dana Flynn:

No.

Charlie Bletzer:

Okay. I figured that–

Dana Flynn:

No. We keep track of the false.

Charlie Bletzer:

And the second thing, that business you don’t have to mention the business but what were the for 29 what were the–

Dana Flynn:

We have some businesses especially this time of year. They’ll kill the heat in the buildings and you can almost time them in the morning about five o’clock, the heat kicks on and whatever signage they have starts waving promotion around sets off motion detectors. We have another business of town that we’ve all been to. You might have birds dive bombing you when you’re in in the building, so I think you know what business that is. It’s not too far from the station. But that’s the biggest response right there.

Charlie Bletzer:

So, these are easy correctable problems and–

Dana Flynn:

Right. I would think so. If it comes to an extreme extent that can petition to have the alarm system removed or we’re not going to respond anymore, but I don’t want to get to that.

Charlie Bletzer:

No, no, no.

Dana Flynn:

We’re there to private service, but we’re asking for the help.

Charlie Bletzer:

Okay, thank you.

Dick Quintal:

Any other questions from the board?

John Mahoney:

Move approval.

Charlie Bletzer:

Second it.

Dick Quintal:

Moved by Mr. Mahoney, second by Mr. Bletzer. Discussion? Seeing none, all those in favor? Unanimous. Thank you. Review the Town Fee Schedules.

Brad Brother:

Yes. I’ll take the lead on this one quickly. So, as we were going through the budget process, we quickly realized that we were going to have a long-term couple deficits going forward. And we said right away, we need to look at fees, it’s pretty standard practice. What we found is a lot of our own internal fees had not been changed since the early 2010-ish to 2015 for some of them. So, Inspectional Services, the Fire Department and Recreation Department are here tonight to talk through some proposed changes that they have for fees. And again long-term, this will help money coming in or revenue coming in that’ll impact the budget going forward.

The only change I have on one is Inspectional Services. Instead of effective immediately, it’ll actually be effective on February 1st. We need a week to implement it. And then Nick, go ahead if you want to talk through Inspectional Services.

Dick Quintal:

Mr. Helm?

Harry Helm:                                    

Can you give an overview? You sent us a very complete document that is so complete I’m utterly baffled by it. So, I have really no idea what you’re proposing changes. It’s very complete though, so thank you.

Nick Mayo:

Mission accomplished. Good evening. For those who don’t know me, my name is Nick Mayo. I’m the Director of Inspectional Services. So, when I was asked to look at these fees, my intention was actually much more limited was to start with our electrical fees. But as I went down the proverbial rabbit hole, this kind of snowballed and we just thought it was the best time to really take a look and get what I had planned on for the future another year down the road just get our major overhaul out of the way here. I can tell you that historically the Town of Plymouth fee structure in Inspectional Services is historically low. When you compare to other communities, our current fee structures is low. And we actually get that feedback at the counter from builders and tradesmen that come in and they’re actually quite surprised at the limited fees that they pay.

But to your question, we’ve historically had a square foot cost with our buildings.

[0:50:05]

Nick Mayo:

And one of the models or a few of the models that most quite a bit or the majority of inspectional services are going to these days are cost based on a permit fee based on estimated cost or calculated cost of construction. And given the surrounding communities and first off, my apologies, there should have been another attachment in there and I hope you got it, it was a little late but there is a comparison in there that I hope you have now of an example of a few permits I pulled out of the file that we permitted these buildings, a single-family home and a commercial business and compared it to what you would have paid in those other communities. And it’s really on the low end. And these fees, what we’re proposing to do is move the structure of the cost to a calculated construction cost. The square footage still comes into play. However, we’re basically saying, Mass General Law and the Building Code basically tell the building official that he’s really supposed to determine what the actual cost of the project is going to be. By law, I’m required to get that on a building permit application from an applicant, and we’re supposed to either agree with it or determine what that construction cost is going to be.

What we’re doing here is we’re going to, with calculated construction costs, we’re going to take a blanket approach to say, “This is your cost of construction,” which quite a bit of communities do. And for instance, a new single-family home, we’re going to say, “Okay. It’s $110 a square foot for your construction costs.”
It was actually quite low in the construction cost world, but that’s the average in the communities around. And then, we’re going to use a multiplier to determine per thousand based on that calculated cost of what your permit fee is going to be. And at this point, that’s pretty standard in Inspectional Services permitting fees. It’s back and forth between estimated or calculated construction costs. And that’s the model we’re looking to move to. Partly too, it helps us a little bit with our new permitting system. A lot of these fees that you see on the fee schedule, it’ll help us set up our new perming system, which we’re knocking on the doorstep to go live with to help facilitate that process as well. The structure of the fee, not so much the value but how they’re structured.

A lot of the flat fees you see in our fee schedule haven’t been touched in quite some time. For instance, our zoning fee on our zoning applications one isn’t even in the existing fee schedule. So, we’re putting that in there and two, hasn’t been touched. The residential fee hasn’t been touched since 2009. The commercial fee hasn’t been touched since 2013. Our wiring fees haven’t been touched since I think ‘15 or ’16. I could go on and on. The plumbing and gas fees haven’t been really revised or overhauled in quite some time. So, you do see in your package the comparisons in the trade world the plumbing and gas and the electrical, those are comparisons I had the trade inspectors themselves do in other communities.

We will be at the top of the list. We will be right up there at the top of the list as far as cost. However, we do feel that the other communities will be catching up quite soon. My intent is to not necessarily come back with the major overhaul a year down the road is to incrementally deal with this over time more periodically than every five or ten years.

Dick Quintal:

Any questions or comments from the board? I just want to say that I’ve been watching you and your tenure here, and I’m very happy to say the things I’ve seen and observed in the way you’re taking that department forward.

Nick Mayo:

I appreciate that. Thank you.

Dick Quintal:

Your online inspections and all that that you’re doing, I think it’s great. And I’ve had a few people on the street tell me, electricians, plumbers that it’s getting a lot easier to apply for this stuff, apply for an inspection. So, I commend you on that. It’s not easy and I just want you to know that I’ve noticed it and I’ve heard some good things and I want to say thank you.

Nick Mayo:

Thank you. I appreciate that.

Dick Quintal:

And that’s the reason I’m going to wholeheartedly support this under one condition. It’s a small one. It’s not in the motion, that you look at these fees on a yearly basis maybe the tops too because I think we all know we sit here, I heard 2009, which is nice but to keep up with the times and keep up with the pace and the maintenance and so forth of your department in this building, I’d hope you look at them on a yearly basis, if that’s what it takes.

[0:55:00]

Nick Mayo:

I’m happy to do that. It’s not a problem.

Dick Quintal:

Thank you. That’s all I have. Mr. Helm?

Harry Helm:

Just one quick question. I noted on the tables that you gave us, for instance Plymouth residential or commercial construction fees 5/13/2021. Okay? And then on another page, that was crossed out in November 2022.

Nick Mayo:

I can speak to that. So, that’s merely nothing more than those fees I had originally planned on being in an agenda in November.

Harry Helm:

Okay. But you’re not going to go backwards on the promise that you’ve given in when they–

Nick Mayo:

No, not at all.

Harry Helm:

Okay. All right.

Dick Quintal:

But this will, if we vote to approve, it will be immediately, correct?

Nick Mayo:

Respectfully, we’re looking for February 1. Believe it or not, this takes some actual training with our staff in the office and a little bit of a notification heads up to future permit holders is nice. It’s not a lot but February 1 would be helpful.

Dick Quintal:

Okay. And I understand the reasoning for that. You would have an influx. It would be crazy. So, anything else from the board? Motion?

Harry Helm:

Motion.

Dick Quintal:

Motion by Mr. Helm.

John Mahoney:

Second.

Dick Quintal:

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

Nick Mayo:

If you don’t mind, if I just add, might as well be out with it, is just so you’re aware, we’ll put out some more public announcements but it looks like March 1, the Building Department and Fire Department are going to go live with their e-permitting. March 1, just with our new e-permitting software. Just so you’re aware.

Dick Quintal:

Awesome.

Harry Helm:

That’s a miracle.

Dick Quintal:

No, it’s not.

Harry Helm:

No, it’s wonderful.

Dick Quintal:

It’s good management. Okay. We have a public hearing I believe for 6:00. Mr. Hunter?

Chad Hunter:

Good evening. Chad Hunter, Plymouth Harbor Master. You have an Aquaculture License Site Transfer in place for tonight. Frank and Joanne Costa who are here have had this site for, I would say, at least 12 maybe 13 years and they’re looking to transfer to Mr. Nathan Palmer, who I believe is here as well. I did provide a memo supporting the transfer that you guys should have in your packet but here for any questions. And if you have any questions for the applicants, they’re here.

Dick Quintal:

Thank you. Any questions from the board members or comments for either party? Mr. Mahoney?

John Mahoney:

Chad, so this is pretty standard with what we’ve done in the past?

Chad Hunter:

Correct.

John Mahoney:

We’re following same protocol we’ve done in the past ever since we implemented these?

Chad Hunter:

Correct. So, any license holder that we have does have the right to request a transfer from the board. So, we’ve probably processed, I would say, at least five or six of these over the last few years. And I know the initial transfer, the question came up about the waiting list that also exists, but those that are on the waiting list are for newly established areas or sites that are brought back to the town, turned back to the town to be reissued. So, transfers are allowed. They don’t have to go to the next person on the list and it’s really at the existing license holders wishes.

John Mahoney:

Thank you.

Dick Quintal:

Mr. Bletzer?

Charlie Bletzer:

Mr. Palmer, could you come up? Thanks. I’d just like to commend you. It’s good to see our youth carrying on this cause. I’m sure he’s worked at on those beds and it’s good to see our youth carrying on this aquaculture. It’s very important. It’s going to be very important to blue water economy and it’s great. Like I said, I commend you. It’s great to see. And thank you for passing the torch to somebody of this man’s age. Look, he’s all dressed up and very professional, so I can tell you’re going to do a great job out there. So, thank you very much.

Nathan Palmer:

Thank you. I appreciate it, sir.

Charlie Bletzer:

Yup, thank you. Good luck too.

[1:00:04]

Dick Quintal:

Any other questions or comments from the board? Obtain a motion to transfer. Wishes of the board?

Charlie Bletzer:

Motion.

Harry Helm:

Second.

Dick Quintal:

Motion by Mr. Bletzer, second by Mr. Helm. Discussion? All those in favor? Unanimous. Good luck. Thank you. All right. Now, we’re going to go back to, I believe, the Town Fee Schedules and pick up on the Fire Department. Welcome, Chief.

Neil Foley:

Good evening. Thanks for having me here tonight. Neil Foley, Fire Chief. So, back when Nick was putting together his proposal, it became apparent that it was a good time for all the departments to take a look at their fee schedules. And of the direction of the Town manager, we went back and took a look at our fee schedules as well. And we found that we implemented our inspectional fees back in 2016. We never evaluated them after that. So, they’ve been in place since 2016, have never been adjusted. Even further back, 2008 was when we established our last change to our Master Box fee schedule. Both of these fee schedules help operate our revolving accounts that are associated with salaries and maintenance and the nourishment of budget line items for our public education, fire safety and other pieces of equipment that we use in the fire department for community outreach.

Chapter 148 is very specific on how much we can charge for our permit fees, but we’re able to establish our own inspection fees based on the needs and what it costs. Typically, just like the Inspectional Director Nick Mayo alluded to, we take a look at the project as a whole and try to develop a fee schedule that is commensurate with the work that’s going to go into it. Some of the fee schedules which we’re not going to be adjusting is the square footage. We charge the square footage for plan reviews mostly for commercial properties and a flat rate for just about everything else.

The only change that is going to be really new for the residential side that will be based on the size is going to be the energy storage system. So, photovoltaic battery storage systems. Years ago, the maximum that we were seeing were under 20 kilowatt hours. And since then, the technology has increased exponentially and some of these residential homes have 20-to-80-kilowatt hour systems in there, and we’re also seeing a lot of commercial systems that can potentially be in the size of 600 kilowatt hours. So, we’re going to implement a fee schedule that is going to be measurable to the size of the system itself. So, it’s going to be charged by the kilowatt hour, $5 a kilowatt hour.

So, your typical residential home say 20 kilowatt hours is going to roughly be about $150 dollars. And there’s a lot that goes into these inspections since they’re greater than what we were seeing before. There’s a lot of protections that go into it. Right now, our captain in five prevention that goes out specializes in these inspections is finding that they’re not being built to the national specifications or installed the national specifications. So, he’s doing excellent work out there to make sure that these are being installed correctly and safely. It makes you wonder prior to us getting so involved with it what is potentially out there in the community. So, that’s going to be one major piece of this fee schedule increase.

And the other is going to be on our master boxes. So, those are the direct links right to the Fire Department. So, when an alarm goes off at a business or a commercial property, we get notified directly. There’s a benefit to the business owner. They get a tax break that is beyond just the alarm system tax– not tax break, I’m sorry, the insurance break that is beyond what they receive for having their typical alarm system. This is in addition to that so they can get additional savings as well.

[1:05:01]

Neil Foley:

But they again haven’t been adjusted since 2008 and where a hundred dollars for radio master boxes which is a new technology and 300 for the typical telegraph that we’ve seen historically throughout the town, and those are going to be increased from the 100 to 300 to 204.75. And that’s really reflective of the increased cost that it takes to maintain these systems and also the salary of the individual that runs that division for the Fire Department.

The other changes that were implemented were again the inspectional fees and it’s really for the most part just the $25 change to account for that time that it takes for the inspector to go out and conduct these visual inspections for the permits that have been pulled. And I did include some of that information in that package.

Dick Quintal:

Any questions to Chief Foley? Mr. Helm?

Harry Helm:

Minor but I’m interested particularly being a resident of Manomet Point. I noticed that you unlike everything else except for a reinspection fee, you’re proposing that ceremonial bonfire permitting drops from 150 to 125. Why are you dropping it? What has changed?

Neil Foley:

I don’t believe that it was ever being charged correctly before. So, historically, I think we were taking in 125 is what I was being told. So, we’re just making that the standard and we wanted it to be equal to what we were doing for any other bonfire. It just made sense to standardize.

Harry Helm:

Okay, thank you.

Dick Quintal:

Any other questions or comments? Seeing none, the only thing I’ll add, Chief is that we try to keep an eye on it even if it’s every couple years versus five and a major swing. It’s just easier I think for everybody. Okay. I’ll wait in the motion of the board.

Charlie Bletzer:

I make the motion.

Harry Helm:

Second.

Dick Quintal:

Motion by Mr. Bletzer, second by Mr. Helm. Discussion? All those in favor? Unanimous. Thank you.

Neil Foley:

Thank you.

Dick Quintal:

And those will be in effect March 1st.

Neil Foley:

That’s correct.

Dick Quintal:

Recreation Department.

Joe Goldberg:

Thank you. Sorry about that. Good evening. For those who don’t know me, I’m Joe Goldberg. I’m the Director of Memorial Hall. Today, we’re going to propose some increases in our budget. I mean, increase in our expenses and fees for some recent budget changers. I sat down recently with Ann in my department and we realized that the fees for Memorial Hall haven’t been raised since 2012. The increase in our budget is the salary and benefits for the director’s salary will be moved over to the revolving fund. So, it made us sit down and take a look at it. With the increase of the new sound system, we thought it made more sense to be competitive but also be a little bit more profitable for the town as well.

So, we proposed a tiered system. We sent you a memo kind of breaking it down and outlining it. We wanted to try to keep it as affordable as possible for anybody who wants to come to Memorial Hall, but also increasing it for the usage. We’ve increased a tiered system for those who want to come in and just rent the main hall or the blue room without any use of the sound and lighting services. We also increased it if somebody wanted to come in and used our sound and lighting system, and as well as if we could offer everything like bringing security, ushers, things of those nature. So, we wanted to try to make it as affordable and competitive.

We spent a lot of time looking at what would be affordable and competitive. So, basically, what we did is we looked at the sound system that we are providing in the hall and what would it cost for an outside vendor to bring that in. So, we looked at the pricing of that, we looked at what we’re offering. We tried to keep it as low as possible. I did a lot of research at what some of our competitors throughout Massachusetts charge, I’m happy to say that we are well below them. So, the numbers that we are putting here or asking is very competitive and it makes us very desirable for a promoter to come to Memorial Hall in Plymouth.

Dick Quintal:

Mr. Bletzer?

Charlie Bletzer:

Joe, a couple things. You talked about the revenue increase and I believe this was the most profitable year that the hall has had. Is that a fact?

[1:10:08]

Joe Goldberg:

Yes, yes. The past year, we probably had about an 80% increase in profitability of what we’re able to bring into the revolving account.

Charlie Bletzer:

And this new system that it was a 350 or whatever, how much?

Joe Goldberg:

Yeah, it was around, I believe all in were around 330, 340,000.

Charlie Bletzer:

And it seems like a lot of money but you told me that isn’t there a group that’s looking at booking 50 shows because of that system?

Joe Goldberg:

Yeah. Last year, we had just around 80 event rentals and that’s not days, that’s just event rentals. So, someone could come in and they could book the hall for three days. So, we were probably well over a hundred rental days last year. This year, we’re looking at increasing that and we’re working with a local promoter who’s, if everything works out well and they’re happy with the sound system once it’s in, that they could increase us to an additional 30 to 50 additional events.

Charlie Bletzer:

And without disclosing because these are pretty well-known acts that would be coming because of that system that you wouldn’t have gotten without that system, so.

Joe Goldberg:

Yeah, absolutely. The promoter that I met with probably four times at the hall said he had considered Memorial Hall in the past but to bring in the sound system that the town is going to be putting in there, just didn’t make it feasible for them.

The other piece to make known is that we have entertainers of rated A, B and C Level. The fact that we have the sound system we can offer these prices allows our promoters to bring up from a C to possibly some of the B level, which is a greater name or more well-known names. One of the things that consider with that is every time we have an event at the hall, the restaurants in our areas flourish. I mean, they’re packed. I mean, you come down an hour before a show, try to get into any of the restaurants even within a five-minute driving distance, people who come to our and there’s people outside of Plymouth who are coming in.

Charlie Bletzer:

The Spire Center is great for the downtown business as well. Memorial Hall is a much bigger venue, so it’s great. So, I think the fee increases are definitely warranted. These promoters are getting a great value with that hall and so was in the town. And not just the town, but all the South Shore using this venue. So, anyway, thank you. I’m in support of this.

Dick Quintal:

Mr. Mahoney?

John Mahoney:

Joe, so you had mentioned that last year was a record revenue year, calendar year ’22, I guess?

Joe Goldberg:

Yes, yes.

John Mahoney:

So, you pushed 330 – 340,000. Is that the number I heard?

Joe Goldberg:

No, no. That was how much for the sound system.

John Mahoney:

Oh, sorry.

Joe Goldberg:

Yeah. Not what we made, no. That would be a very good year.

John Mahoney:

So, the record year that you were referring to last year, what were the peak years prior to the pandemic? I guess I want to know is those “good years” prior to the pandemic, how much how much above them are you was ’22?

Joe Goldberg:

From our peak year before the pandemic to 2022, we’re about 80% percent higher.

John Mahoney:

80%?

Joe Goldberg:

Yes, compared to what we were to where we’ve got to.

John Mahoney:

Thank you.

Charlie Bletzer:

One last so people know, that Hall has not always been profitable?

Joe Goldberg:

Yeah, it was tough during the years. I can only speak for the times that I was there. I managed the hall as a private contractor from 2008-2012. Those years were tough. It was tough to turn profit.

Charlie Bletzer:

So, anyway, I just want people to understand that.

Joe Goldberg:

Actually, just kind of tout on the hall, a little bit some pride. I was speaking to the General Manager of the Cabot out in Massachusetts and so, we were talking about rates and being competitive and we’re kind of outside of each other’s markets so we can be a little bit more open to each other than most. And he opened up the conversation is it’s a pleasure to be speaking with people at Memorial Hall because it has such a pristine and great reputation. So, it’s contributing to the town. You guys are doing a great job supporting the hall.

Charlie Bletzer:

Well, it’s the home of the Philharmonic too and that says something right there. Philharmonic is very important for our community and it’s great having them there. So, anyway, thank you. Thanks for what you do.

Dick Quintal:

Waiting a motion.

[1:15:03]

Charlie Bletzer:

I make the motion.

John Mahoney:

Second.

Dick Quintal:

Motion by Mr. Bletzer, second by Mr. Mahoney. Discussion? All those in favor? Unanimous.

Joe Goldberg:

Thank you.

Dick Quintal:

Thank you, Mr. Goldberg.

Brad Brothers:

Through the chair, if I could add one more thing on quickly.

Dick Quintal:

Sure.

Brad Brothers:

So, I just want to add on to this that there’ll be at least one more coming in front of you. We were reviewing the alcohol licenses. And as you mentioned, Mr. Quintal, a lot of this is when you don’t touch things for five or ten years everyone has sticker shock, which people may be seeing. I view this as like my Comcast bill. I signed up for Comcast two years ago and through incremental fees, I’m up to $130 a month when I started at 100. But when we haven’t touched these in so long, we’re raising them let’s say 50% percent, we’re saying, “Why is it so large?” It’s because we don’t review them on an annual or every other year basis. So, just to your point that we plan on doing that moving forward.

Dick Quintal:

Okay, thank you. And those will take effect on July 1st, correct? Okay. And then we have Massachusetts Department of Environmental Protection Draft Regulations – Title 5 and Watershed Permitting Presentation. Welcome, Mrs. Keane.

Karen Keane:

Thank you very much. Karen Keane, Director of Public Health. I’m here today to talk to the board and to the audience and our residents about some proposed draft regulations for 310 CMR, which is Code of Massachusetts regulations for Title 5 for the State Environmental Code. So, what that means is we’re talking about septic systems.

So, what is a septic system? Here’s a little drawing, a little diagram of what a septic system is. It consists of a septic tank, a distribution box and a drain field. In Plymouth, we refer to that as a soil absorption system or an SAS. The tank digest organic matter. It separates the matter, solids from the water, discharges them from the tank into a series of perforated pipes buried in a leach field. Alternative systems use pumps and gravity to help septic tank effluent trickle through sand, organic matter, constructed wetlands or other media to remove or neutralize pollutants like disease-causing pathogens, nitrogen, phosphorus and other contaminants. Raw waste water contains ammonia, which is a form of nitrogen that comes from our urine. A nitrogen reducing system removes nitrogen through a process called denitrification. It converts nitrate to nitrogen gas, which then is released into the air.

So, why did we get here? Well, the State of Massachusetts took a look at areas in the state and are contemplating changing the Title 5 Law to make things a little stricter for those who are living in certain areas. So, what we’re going to talk about tonight would be the framework, perhaps funding opportunities, the public information sessions that have been had in early public comments that have been gathered so far.

Many estuaries, which is a body of water, do not meet the Massachusetts Water Quality Standards. It results in what’s called an impaired listing and requires development of a Total Maximum Daily Load or what’s referred to as TMDL. This is an environmental problem and an economic problem because it causes a decline in the fishing, shell fishing, recreational opportunities, tourism, real estate values and business. Unaddressed, this problem will only become worse.

So, why is DEP, which is the Department of Environmental Protection for the State of Massachusetts proposing changes to Title 5 regulations? Well, there’s a long history. In 2001, they started assessing nitrogen impacts. It was the start of the Mass Estuaries Project from the Massachusetts Environmental Protection Agency. In 2015, coastal embayments were impacted by nitrogen and the Cape Cod plan was approved by EPA. 2017, Title 5 groundwater and a stakeholder group was founded and nitrogen sensitive areas were developed for Title 5. In 2020, the NSA, which is the Nitrogen Sensitive Area Subcommittee was formed to discuss nitrogen impacts.

The stakeholder group met on September in February and in June of 2022 to discuss potential changes to the Nitrogen Sensitive Area, NSA provisions of Title 5.

[1:20:00]

Karen Keane:

Topics discussed included: expansion of the definition of NSA which again is a Nitrogen Sensitive Area; defining how these areas might be determined; new nitrogen requirements for certain NSA areas; compliance options and implementation schedule for new requirements. So, here we are.

Plymouth is in the darker blue area that we’re sharing with Wareham. Currently, Plymouth is in the accepted Massachusetts environment protection report area, but does not have a final total nitrogen level determined yet. It may be still designated as a natural resource area in the future. So, right now, we are not in the required area. We are actually what’s considered Level 3. Level 1 is they must do it immediately. Level 2 is you’re going to be doing it pretty soon. Level 3 is we’re going to get through these Title 5 changes and then we’re going to get back to you. What that represents is what’s called the Wareham Estuary. It starts in Wareham and it ends in Plymouth. The area that that represents mostly consists of the area of Miles Standish State Forest.

June 1st, 2022 – revisions were announced and a fact sheet was sent out. We had 46 meetings between 32 cities and towns and other interested groups. They have an ongoing development of a webpage, which is listed right there and there’s also a Mass DEP Nitrogen Sensitive Area Online Viewer with an address lookup. So, you could go to that website, type in your address and you could see if your house would be in one of those areas that they may be looking at in the near future.

Our current Title 5 regulations, which we follow here in Plymouth, defines the drinking water protection or the Nitrogen Sensitive Area as Zone IIs, drinking wells, interim wellhead protection areas and areas with both on-site septic systems and non-public drinking water supply wells. Imposes a loading restriction, which we already did today, a 440 gallons per day per acre. These provisions are maintained in the draft regulations and exist currently in the Town of Plymouth.

The proposed Title 5 regulations will establish a new designation of the natural resource area. So, we have two options here in the Town of Plymouth. Option 1: Systems serving new construction or existing facilities must incorporate best available nitrogen reducing technology within 5 years of the effective date of the NSA designation of which we don’t have yet. So, we don’t have that date so I can’t tell you when that is, but that is option 1. Option 2 is the community, Plymouth, would operate under a Watershed Permit. That is our sewer system. So, that would mean we extend our sewer system to that designated area. Those are the two choices.

So, what is the best available nitrogen reducing technology? An alternative system certified by the Mass DEP for general use pursuant to Title 5, which has the lowest effluent total nitrogen performance value. An alternative system will be granted provisional or pilot approval by Mass DEP and may also be utilized as long as such system has a total nitrogen performance level less than or equal to the lowest alternative system certified for general use by Mass DEP. So, you can see Mass DEP has many decisions to make that we will still be impacted by in the future. Again, there are exemptions to this and we just kind of talked about that briefly. Title 5 requirement to install the best available nitrogen system in five years. So, if I live in an area which is considered to be a Title 5 NSA area in Plymouth, I will have five years to upgrade my personal septic system to become compliant with the new Title 5 regulation.

John Mahoney:

Mr. Chairman? And Karen, that hasn’t been established yet?

Karen Keane:

Correct.

John Mahoney:

And what’s the timeline for establishing that?

Karen Keane:

Well, they’re telling us that Plymouth’s decision or the decision for Plymouth might be made within a year. Then for that year, we’ll have additional time before we have to start telling our residents they have five years to upgrade their septic system.

John Mahoney:

So, the state, let’s say a year from now, delineates the entire town.

[1:25:01]

John Mahoney:

They say where this area is in the 100 square miles of the community. And I live at 10 Main Street, so I can go to a computer, punch in 10 Main Street and figure out whether or not I am in that area?

Karen Keane:

Yes.

John Mahoney:

And then from there, you have five years to comply?

Karen Keane:

Yes, and that’s really important, Mr. Mahoney because what if I’m thinking about selling my home and it needs to be an upgrade Title 5 system, what if my system is in failure and I need to replace my Title 5 system, wouldn’t you want to know that in the near future you may be required to do a nitrogen reducing system? So, save yourself time and money by actually doing it now.

Charlie Bletzer:

Mr. Chairman? Are you all set, John?

John Mahoney:

I’m good. Yeah, thank you.

Charlie Bletzer:

Are you sure?

John Mahoney:

Yes.

Charlie Bletzer:

Question. You don’t have to give me an exact, but what’s the estimated cost to upgrade the system? It’s a two-part. And also, we’re going to have some funds available to like no interest, low interest.

Karen Keane:

The answer to your first question is it could range anywhere from $15,000 to $36,000. Just like a regular subject system would anyway. It’s dependent upon much criteria. What’s your soil like? How big is the amount of space that we have to work with? Are you near a well? Are you near your neighbors well? There are so many criteria that goes into that. But to answer your question, that’s just a range of what the Title 5 system might cost.

Charlie Bletzer:

I mean, I have a new system that I paid 15, whatever I paid, but it’d be kind of tough in a couple of years if they tell me you’re going to spend another 15 or 20,000.

Karen Keane:

I totally agree with you and that’s why we’re doing this so ahead of time. We have just started learning about this and I’ll be before you probably many more times after this when we get additional information. But it was imperative and Mr. Helm really was the one who suggested it that we bring this information to our residents as soon as we knew about it so they could plan accordingly.

Charlie Bletzer:

And my last question would be in 5 years or 10 years, is there going to be another issue that’s going to come up and you got to upgrade your system again? I mean, is that something you can’t answer probably but–

Karen Keane:

Well, what we have been told up to date is that there’ll be an additional review of all towns that have to do with nitrogen reducing systems. And the Town of Plymouth stands to have an additional 20,000 acres included in this program. Mostly most of Cape Cod Bay.

Charlie Bletzer:

Now, my question is–

Karen Keane:

Financing.

Charlie Bletzer:

No. My question is if I upgrade my system and then 5 years from now, is there going to be another issue that’s going to come up? Another DEP I need to–

Karen Keane:

I can’t answer that 100% because I’m not Massachusetts DEP, but I’m going to go with my best guess, an estimate that says no, because the timeline of this is going to incorporate multiple years. So, I don’t think something would happen that soon again. And for financing, we have the Community Development Program here in Plymouth that people can apply to for a low interest loan to upgrade their septic system and the payments are taken out of their tax bills.

Dick Quintal:

Mr. Helm?

Charlie Bletzer:

Okay, great. Thank you, Karen.

Harry Helm:

Karen, I have a few questions. Do you want to continue and finish your presentation before I interrupt it?

Karen Keane:

Is it a question about what I’ve already talked about?

Harry Helm:

It’s sort of, yeah. But–

Karen Keane:

Okay. It’s up to you.

Harry Helm:

Well, there are a number of questions and my questions will probably additionally terrorize residents. So, there is an option. And the reason we’re doing this now is there is an option for people to contact this group and make comments. So, perhaps it would be best if you finish so that residents have an understanding that this is being determined now. It has not been passed by the state yet.

Karen Keane:

Correct. This is proposed.

Harry Helm:

This is proposed. So, why don’t you finish then, then I’ll further terrorize people.

Karen Keane:

Okay. So, actually we’re just going to reach the summary at this point anyway. So, in summary, what is too much nitrogen pollution and what is the reason why Mass DEP is doing this? Because it causes eutrophication, which is excessive growth of nutrients in water. It causes dense growth of plant life and the death of animal life from the lack of oxygen from septic systems, fertilizers, agricultural and storm water runoff.

[1:30:06]

Karen Keane:

However, studies have shown that the majority of the problems stem from septic systems. So, why Title 5? Title 5 regulates septic nitrogen effluent to protect drinking water today. So, it’s just a continuation of what is already happening. However, currently, no regulations in Title 5 protect other water bodies from nitrogen effluent. So, what could be the impact to Plymouth’s economy? Well, a poll of residents by the Cape Cod Commission revealed that up to one-fifth of the population might consider stopping water-based Recreation altogether or leaving the Cape area if local Waters which become too polluted due to high levels of nitrogen. Downgraded water quality is negatively impacting economic drivers including coastal and other waterfront property values. An impact on the town’s economy would ultimately affect all homeowners in Plymouth.

So, what if we don’t do anything? Well, we have to because Mass DEP is going to tell us to. Let’s just say we have the choice. If we did nothing, water quality would continue to degrade, ecosystems would deteriorate and perhaps collapse and waters would become unusable for humans. So, what do I do? I have to look at innovative or alternative systems. These prevent excess nutrients such as nitrogen from entering estuaries, coastal waters and freshwater ponds.

Will I have to upgrade my existing Title 5 septic system? if your septic system is in a watershed with a nitrogen TMDL, you will need to add nitrogen removal to your Title 5 system within five years from when the regulations become effective. And again, we don’t know what that date is. So, I can tell you when that effective date is because we don’t know.

Is there funding available to assist individuals with upgrading their Title 5 systems? Talked about that a little bit with the Community Septic Management Loan Program, but there’s also additional information and I listed the website there. And of course, we’ll post this both to our website at the Board of Health and the town’s website as well that folks can go to, to get additional information about funding sources. And that concludes what I want to talk about tonight.

Dick Quintal:

Mr. Helm?

Harry Helm:

So, this committee group, whatever they are, they are soliciting feedback and comments from residents. How can people do that?

Karen Keane:

Okay. They are collecting public comment until January 30th and you can go on mass.gov and in the search button, put in Title 5 nitrogen reducing and then it will go right to the page where they can put in their comments.

Harry Helm:

Can you put something–

Karen Keane:

Absolutely.

Harry Helm:

–on your department that that explains that? Because I know I’m going to forget that. Sometime during Mr. Abbott’s, our discussion with Mr. Abbott. So, that’s about how long my memory on that’ll last.

Karen Keane:

We’ll definitely post it to the website, for sure.

Harry Helm:

Okay. In no particular order, the Community Septic Management alone, it’s limited.

Karen Keane:

It is.

Harry Helm:

In your thinking and discussions with Town Management and the Finance Department, are you considering upping that considerably? Because we’re talking about, on the low end, you’re talking 15. I do know in the discussions that are being had, they’re usually throwing around about $30,000 per system.

Karen Keane:

Yeah. I did some research with Falmouth voluntarily went through this program five years ago because they were having such an issue with their water bodies. They utilized 10 different septic system companies to offer to their residents at discounted rates, and that’s where I got the range. The highest was $36,725.

Harry Helm:

Okay. I mean, just–

Karen Keane:

We have been asking the state through the meetings that we’re having with Mass DEP. We are definitely getting the word to them how imperative it is that additional funding sources be made available to the residents of all these towns that are impacted.

Harry Helm:

Okay. For some of our residents, this is a killer. They don’t have that kind of money sitting around. It’s just that simple.

[1:35:02]

Harry Helm:

Could you also speak while we’re talking about the financial impact on our senior citizens, our people on an income, people who have watched their housing values soar on a house they may have lived in their entire life, and now this comes along? What are the yearly required costs for the maintenance of one of these systems? Well, again, that varies. The highest that I’ve seen is $600 a year for the annual maintenance besides the pumping of course which you would do with a regular Title 5 system.

Harry Helm:

So, in other words, say I have a modern system, which I do. There’s two of us and a couple dogs. We get it pumped every two years. We don’t get it pumped every year. So, this new regulation would require–

Karen Keane:

Yearly maintenance.

Harry Helm:

Yearly maintenance required. Not optional now like if I don’t feel like pumping my septic system every year because I don’t need to, I would have to. So, we’re talking about a thousand dollars–

Karen Keane:

Not necessarily pumping. There’s a maintenance involved in cleaning and checking the system that’s nitrogen reducing, that would be mandatory yearly.

Harry Helm:

And that’s about 600?

Karen Keane:

That’s about $600.

Harry Helm:

So, it is not required that you pump at the same time?

Karen Keane:

Correct.

Harry Helm:

All right. But that is an additional $600.

Karen Keane:

It sure is. And that’s why I thought it was so important that we saw talking about this. Even though it could be very far in the future, at least this gives an opportunity for folks who might be thinking about having to change their septic system anyway to have this extra time to try to figure out something financially.

Harry Helm:

Okay. Yeah, and that’s why I brought it up a few weeks ago. A question about in that impacted area, do you foresee the possibility that from your knowledge of eutrophication around Plymouth and the reasoning of the DEP, which seems to be estuary oriented. Okay. I can think of one estuary other than in that area and I may be wrong. Certainly, there are some downtown I would guess and there’s also the Bartlett Pond. Okay. What do you foresee that light green area of we haven’t decided yet becoming much larger? Because currently, right now, when you look at the maps, it’s all geared to the estuaries going south because those are the most impacted. But there are other estuaries, what do you anticipate? Do you anticipate for Plymouth expanding that green area?

Karen Keane:

I do. Not just not necessarily the green area. They’re going to expand beyond the estuary to Cape Cod Bay. The areas that will be excluded that I know of right now would be Miles Standish State Forest because they’re already going to be hit on phase one and the airport area.

Harry Helm:

Okay, the airport area.

Karen Keane:

Or anyone who’s on town sewer.

Harry Helm:

Or anyone on town sewer. Okay. What will happen in your estimation to those properties that cannot put in a nitrogen reducing system such as the properties between Taylor Avenue and Cape Cod Bay? Any of the cottage areas around a number of the small ponds and stuff like that where they are on very small pieces of land and have other environmental issues. Like the houses off of Taylor Avenue are in the coastal dune.

Karen Keane:

These are the folks that will be paying the most money.

Harry Helm:

But they will be able to have one?

Karen Keane:

They will, but their systems will be much more expensive.

Harry Helm:

Okay. Like describe. Knowing what you know about, let’s just take the average concept when you think about the houses on Taylor Avenue. The ones in the coastal dune, although that’s more than that is the coastal dune. What do you think it would involve and cost them since they cannot have cement structures, okay? Plastic structures are problematic during flooding because they float to the surface.

Karen Keane:

Right, but we can do buoyancy. There are buoyancy charts we can follow. There is a system that is four smaller tanks that kind of go into descending order.

[1:40:02]

Karen Keane:

That is one of the more expensive systems, but that’s something that would work in that area.

Harry Helm: 

Okay. Is an option for certain homeowners, should they choose to do it to go away from an SAS system to a type tank system? Would that fulfill this coming DEP?

Karen Keane:

No.

Harry Helm:

No?

Karen Keane:

No.

Harry Helm:

They’re not going to exclude–

Karen Keane:

As of right now, they’re not going to allow tight tanks.

Harry Helm:

What is their thinking on–

Karen Keane:

Again, this is just a proposal. This is just what they’re proposing but that’s something that’s come up. And as of right now, they’re not going to have a tight tank be an alternative to what they’re requiring.

Harry Helm:

Even though a tight tank is pumped out and the sewage is taken to a treatment facility?

Karen Keane:

Yes.

Harry Helm:

Okay.

Karen Keane:

But to be honest, we don’t really like tight tanks currently either. They’re not an ideal Title 5 situation for your waste.

Harry Helm:

Why are they not? Because it’s a tank that gets pumped out and it doesn’t supposedly let anything in the environment.

Karen Keane:

Because nothing is leaching. So, everything is sitting in that one area.

Harry Helm:

In a tank?

Karen Keane:

And it has to be pumped quite regularly. And if you don’t listen to that little alarm that’s going off that’s telling you, you have to pump your system it can be catastrophic especially when it backs up into your hose.

Harry Helm:

Okay. So, the concern is about the human element in a tight tank not the–

Karen Keane:

In most cases, yes.

Harry Helm:

Okay. Not some sort of concept that the tight tank is going to somehow on its own under normal release into the environment. Okay.

Karen Keane:

And again, these are our questions that we have proposed to Mass DEP to consider during this proposal phase. But this is the information that they’ve shared with us, so I thought it was important to share.

Harry Helm:

Thank you. And I have one more question. This would be for the Town Manager. Are we currently or planning to in the near future start planning for this because there is an alternative? Okay? It’s an incredibly expensive alternative, but it’s one that comes up every once in a while. And that is if not, which would probably be impossible, a town-wide sewer system, a system of regional sewer systems. I mean, that’s still going to be the cost of the taxpayers. I mean, have we even started thinking about this?

Derek Brindisi:

So, we began those conversations this morning at our staff meeting. Again, we meet every Tuesday morning with our staff, and this issue came up. We had a lot of cross talk with the DPW, what a sewer expansion would look like and the costs associated with that. So, again, this was the first conversation. We said we would table it. And we’ll pull together a group so that we can analyze that and come back with a recommendation to the board at some point.

Harry Helm:

Okay, thank you.

Karen Keane:

If the town does decide to look at it in our sewer perspective, it does buy you 20 years. Whereas the septic system path gives the individual homeowner five years. And you could do both. We could do sections of our town and so we don’t do the whole area and sewer. We could do both, but that would be something like Town manager said would have to be a lot of different departments would have to work together to see what would the best decision would be for our residents.

Dick Quintal:

John?

John Mahoney:

Karen, just a couple of follow-ups. And through the Town Manager, I would certainly hope that as soon as this map comes down from the Commonwealth that you’re here the next Tuesday.

Karen Keane:

Absolutely.

John Mahoney:

That it can be no delay. You have to get that up on the board, delineate exactly who’s falling under this area and I would name every street, if possible.

Karen Keane:

I can certainly do that. I can work on that and get you an address listing for the first phase.

John Mahoney:

Five years for a homeowner is not a long time. And then the last thing I will say is that I do know that that loan program, the low interest loan program that we’ve had over the years has been very successful and I believe it’s maximized out every year. I don’t know what that is budgeted for the next fiscal year, but whatever we can do to increase that number that has to be done, if possible.

Karen Keane:

And not only that, but there are grants that I’ll be looking into that the state has shared with us that they may be putting together their other funding sources that Mass DEP will be sharing with towns that we can look into. So, hopefully, we’re just not saying we’re going to put all our eggs in the community development basket. That certainly would not be a viable option.

[1:45:08]

John Mahoney:

Right, thank you.

Karen Keane:

You’re welcome.

Dick Quintal:

Harry, you’ve touched on this at the end. I’m very curious to see at least like the White Horse Beach area and I don’t know nowhere near what you know about it, but I can know that the houses are so close there that maybe the smaller plant ideas, if you will, and it’s a matter of speaking in plain English like we have at the airport and stuff like that and the hard areas. I should say the areas that are really environmentally, that we’re having problems with or could have a problem with. I mean, as far as these new regulations, you know what, as I said here today, I think it’s not all that great to me. I mean, I get it what they’re trying to do, but you’ll see 5, 10 years from now, there’s going to be another scientist that says, “You know what? You’ve been doing all that backwards.” So, the guy that spent the 30,000 wrapped in these repeat occurrences. I’d rather see a long-term solution and I very much like the 20-year. Hit the hottest areas first. I don’t know how you’d look at that, but that’s the way I was leaning before we even had this part of the conversation uh for some of the hot areas.

Karen Keane:

Sure. That would be a watershed program.

Dick Quintal:

We’re so big, I get it but we also have to watch out as I’m sitting here thinking running down Warren Ave because naturally you think of the waterfront homes. And so, what does that trigger? Does that trigger condo-nization along Warren Ave now if we were to do this. I mean, I know nobody says not miles but they start flipping Hamilton’s on your nose and before you know it, there we go. I mean, so, we’d have to really study it. I mean, I would have to really study it if I was sitting here because it’s a lot of hidden in the mechanics of it. But I’d be very much interested in at least for the very saturated areas like White Horse Beach. This at Simes House with a perfect renovation. See that? I know it would come to me for my turn was over. I only got a few–that was a joke. Okay. Mr. Lydon?

Steve Lydon:

Karen, great job as always. Is the state looking at cranberry bogs? That’s what a lot of the nitrogen comes from? I know they’re taking out 400,000 yards to build a retention pond. And when I asked,
Are you going to line it? They said, “No.” So, they pump from the retaining pond into their bogs back into the retaining pond and all the sediment from the nitrogen and everything else is going right back into the aquifer in the ground. Are they looking at cranberry bogs at all besides the homeowner?

Karen Keane:

Yes. Mr. Lydon, thank you for that question. They’ve looked at several things not just cranberry bogs, other businesses. And also, an example would be that we did a study, our watershed study here in Plymouth a few years ago. And the result of that study said that what they believe to be the number one cause of the problem with the water was the septic system or the septic system. So, I think what’s happening is a lot of data is being collected and the arrows are still pointing, most arrows are pointing to the septic system situation.

Dick Quintal:

Mr. Malaguti?

Anthony Senesi:

Mr. Chairman, we also have two people online as well that we would like to speak. Thank you.

Everett Malaguti:

Everett Malaguti. I just have a couple quick questions on this. First would be, I know it was stated by Mr. Helm earlier about if the area was expanded more northward and eastward of this. Especially you stated, Karen that the airport area and anyone that’s on a town sewer would be excluded from it. But what about if they are within the town sewer area, but still have subject to that? Are they going to have to follow this time frame or are they going to follow more of a timeframe that we enacted for the, I think it was probably five years ago now and we changed the bylaw for attaching to the hookup of the town sewer system if you were within a right-of-way of a sewer line?

And just to add the second question. With the multiple communities that are either now designated or proposed designated for areas for this, which I believe were like 32 or more communities that are going to be affected.

[1:50:06]

Everett Malaguti:

Do they believe that the 5 to 6-year timeline is enough time granted upon how many households are going to be impacted by this and the amount of companies that are actually available to actually give all these systems the time needed to install them?

Karen Keane:

Mr. Malaguti, as usual very thoughtful question, which I’m glad that I have the ability to answer. That is one of the items that our department keeps bringing up. How many companies will be able to do this? How many engineers will be able to do this? So, what we’re trying to do now in preparation is have educational sessions with our engineers, with our installers, with really the game folks, people are in the game and have skin in the game, so to speak, to try to figure out what is the best way we can roll this out to our residents to make sure there’s enough options for them when it comes time for them to pick a company.

When Falmouth did it, I will tell you, 12 companies came forward with appropriate nitrogen reducing systems for the residents, that was voluntary at that time, who wanted to upgrade their system at that moment. And does that answer everything, Everett?

Harry Helm:

He also asked about houses on septic that are currently within the sewer area.

Karen Keane:

Well, we would highly recommend as well as Mass DEP would highly recommend that any house that could hook up to our sewer system to do that.

Harry Helm:

And if they do not, they would come under this nitrogen reducing?

Karen Keane:

They would and I think I would have to really have a conversation with that homeowner to understand what their choice, why would that choice would be that way. Anything else? Oh, I think we had people–

Dick Quintal:

Yeah, I do. That’s why I’ve just–good evening.

Anthony Senesi:

We have Patricia Adelmann.

Dick Quintal:

Yup. Mrs. Adelmann? Pat, welcome.

Patricia Adelmann:

Good evening. Thank you for taking my question. I just went to the Board of Health website and I was wondering if they had any input into this. Thank you.

Karen Keane:

Well, we are the Public Health Department who works with our five-member Board of Health who of course are abreast exactly what’s happening as this information that I’m sharing with you. So, as we continue through this process, there’ll be in the same process that the department will be in. So, we’ll definitely be having their insight, their input with that.

Anthony Senesi:

Through the Chair, Ms. Keane, we can also work on adding additional information on the Board of Health webpage that direct links to the public health site as well.

Karen Keane:

Great. Thank you.

Dick Quintal:

Mrs. Davis. Welcome.

Virginia Davis:

Good evening and thanks. I just wanted to thank Karen for this wonderful presentation and for bringing this to us now. And it reminds me of how precious our water is. We’re being assaulted by the nuclear plant that wants to dump in our harbor and people are working very hard against that including our legislators. But also, as Mr. Lydon brought up, it’s a huge thing. It’s our water, it’s our sewer systems, it’s our septic but also it is the removal of sand and gravel in huge amounts down to the process where sometimes groundwater comes up. So, this is just a huge thing that we have to look at.

And I applaud Mrs. Keane for all the work that the department does. But also, we need to look at a bigger umbrella of what is happening. Thank you.

Karen Keane:

Thank you very much.

Harry Helm:

Thanks, Karen.

Dick Quintal:

Distribution of Proposed Charter Discussion.

[1:54:58]

Derek Brindisi:

All right, Mr. Chairman. So, the last time we had this conversation, I want to say it was back in early December, where Mr. Abbott came in to present the final proposed charter. And so, during that discussion, we talked about different methods of distributing the proposed charter.

According to Chapter 43B Section 11, we are required to distribute a printed version of the charter. And so, in the December conversation, I think it was Mr. Helm who had mentioned that it’s important to send out the redline version. That’s the version that will demonstrate to the reader what the existing charter is and the changes that are being proposed.

I think at the time the Charter Commission as a whole had also wanted to submit the clean version. So, Mr. Senesi and Ms. Roberts over at procurement, they did a lot of work to get a better understanding of the costs associated with sending up those two versions, just regular mail, a print version almost like a bound copy. And that was over a hundred thousand dollars to do that.

So, after further exploration, I think even in 2003, we followed that model, which was a printed newspaper version of the proposed charter. And so, that’s what we’re bringing before you this evening. I know Mr. Abbott is here as the Chair of the Charter Commission. I believe they had a meeting last night to discuss the same. If we were to go to the print version of the newspaper redline. It’s approximately $17,000 and that will get sent to every home here in town.

So, that’s our recommendation this evening in how we should distribute the charter.

Harry Helm:

Can you describe further the newspaper printed version? I’m picturing it in the Old Colony Memorial.

Derek Brindisi:

It won’t be in the Old Colony.

Harry Helm:

Okay. I mean, it’s on newsprint?

Derek Brindisi:

It’s on newsprint. It looks like a newspaper, yeah.

Harry Helm:

It looks like a newspaper. It’s sort of–

Dick Quintal:

I mean, all those things you used to find in your driveway, Harry in a plastic bag.

Harry Helm:

Once upon a time, back when they had to find it–before we came a news desert.

Derek Brindisi:

Anthony can speak in detail as to what that’s going to look like.

Harry Helm:

So, basically, we’re talking about something that is like a newspaper. And it’s lighter.

Anthony Senesi:

That’s not the newsprint. Ms. Turner in procurement actually has a copy of it. It looks very similar to that of a newspaper.

Harry Helm:

So, it’s not a booklet on newsprint.

Derek Brindisi:

This is a booklet. This is not what we would be mailing. We will be mailing a newspaper like version of the proposed charter. It would be a red line version as originally requested.

Anthony Senesi:

In addition to that, it will be legible. It will have larger texts as well to accommodate people. And it will also be in color for the red line version if the board so decides.

Harry Helm:

I think it’s a that’s a really smart idea. I mean, it’s a lot of money to mail this, but it’s important that the red line does go out. My experience with newsprint is that you end up with ink smudges. Are you going to ensure that the ink is going on the newsprint is going to not wear off as people go through it because from my own experience, Dick has one here, my printed one looks like the dog has chewed on it because I go through it back and forth and back and forth.

Anthony Senesi:

We can work with the printer on that to make sure and verify. In addition to that, with that newsprint if the board so decides, there will also be additional information regarding the date as to the town election, precinct locations and information, and then also the deadline to register to vote. There will also be additional information as to where they can access it online. They’ll probably be a QR code for perhaps the clean version, which is not the redline version but it’s that charter. And there will also be, we’re working with various departments as well, the Town Clerk’s Office. We’re going to be working with the Center for Active Living, the Library, what have you. We’re going to make sure that those copies are available and readily available as well not just the red line, but also the black and white version without the revisions.

[2:00:04]

Harry Helm:

Great. Thank you, Anthony. And just real quick, one last thing. Am I correct that the Commission has agreed to this form?

William Abbott:

Not exactly. I thought we had as of last night, just to tell you where we are, the Commission, the elected Commission. And my name, by the way, is Bill Abbott. I’m the Chair of the Commission. Finished the charter two months ago and presented it to this Board.

And under the state statute that governs this process from A to Z, that means the ball has been transferred to your Board to distribute the charter. And the section in the statute is very specific, it talks about printing a hard copy and distributing it to all homes where there are voters. There were some questions as to how that was going to be interpreted because of the size of Plymouth. There are enormous geographic size, great population and what it was going to cost to do this.

So, we had a brief discussion with the Town Manager then I went back to the Attorney General who has supervisory authority to do certain things under the statute. You’ll recall that they read the charter in September and approved it as being consistent with state law. So, I asked them about the distribution question. And after back and forth, that result was that they did not want to become involved. They would not give us advice for fear we would act on it and then be taken to court, the Attorney General would be dragged into this. So, basically, they said, Plymouth you’re on your own. You can read the statute, you distribute it as you best see fit with the advice of counsel. s

So, we did seek the advice of counsel, as did the Town Manager, and I believe we came up with a solution. The full Commission met last night, 8 of 9 members were present of the Charter Commission. And we accomplished three things, three votes. The first vote was to go along with the distribution of just the red line version. This seemed to be what the Select Board wanted. The town manager was proposing it and it made sense to us too as probably the most economical way to do this for Plymouth. There’s no reason to have to submit two charges: a red line and a clean version but submit the red line showing the changes for the current charter with the instructions perhaps on the last page that would say if they want to see the whole charter, go online with the URL link and so forth. But they’d have a red line that would go to every house in Plymouth and that could be done more economically than trying to single out all the voters. This would just be a bulk distribution. And Anthony working with our staff person Michelle Turner had priced it all out. It was actually better to do it that way. The mail team would pick up a whole stack of these and when they’re delivering normal mail, they’d also deliver the charter to every single resident.

Last night, we thought that was the proposal. And in fact, this was presented to our meeting by our staff person and I thought that she had worked it out with Anthony that this was going to be the format of it, because he kept saying to us and I thought–Derek, you said too, it’s going to be like a magazine. And this is very readable, very easy to read. It’s not newspaper print. I like to pass it out to the Board and you can see what a handy way of presenting the information is. It’s very easy to carry it. I thought that was going to be what was going to get distributed to all of towns voters. It’d be kind of like the recreational schedules or those kinds of things that the town distributes periodically.

Anthony Senesi:

Through the Chair. Mr. Abbott, I can work with Ms. Turner to make sure that that is ironed out what that looks like. That might be a miscommunication on our part, so.

William Abbott:

So, we voted unanimously to support the distribution of that in this very economical way by distributing it to all the homes as part of the normal mail routes. We also, in a second vote, since we were under budget, we still had $18,000 left in our budget to give the money over to the board to use that to assist in the distribution costs of the charter because we had no really further expenditure of moneys coming up. So, we voted to basically turn over all of our moneys. And I worked with Lynne yesterday morning and it’s about $16,000 or $17,000 that would be given for the effort.

[2:05:08]

William Abbott:

And lastly, we thought the timing of this is also crucial. We were proposing that this all be done the first couple of weeks of March. The statute’s kind of screw you on this. The statue says it has to be done not later than 14 days before the election. I mean, that’s crazy. That’d be like May 5th, sometime in May. We think it should be getting out to people early March so they can discuss it.

There’s a lot of interest in it. I spent the whole evening at the precinct chairs last Thursday night answering questions. So, everybody’s beginning to tune into it. The beauty of this book, this magazine format not only is it easy to read, very handy to handle but there’s also a couple of blank pages and we were thinking in the back you could have a page that would suggest how people can register to vote, where they can find a clean copy of the charter. You could say this is our constitution vote. We may even increase the percentage of vote by putting that right on the document. So, that’s where we’re at. And the Commission finished its business and that’s all we thought we were going to do.

I think to go back to an Old Colony newspaper type format is really inferior and it’s too much on the cheap. This, I think is a really economical way of doing it. The charter was printed in September in the Old Colony, as you remember, and all we got was criticism. The people had trouble reading it. It was this tiny little print. I think this is a much and it’s not an expensive way, but a much better way of doing it.

John Mahoney:

So, Mr. Chairman? So, I guess, the question would be to Mr. Abbott and Mr. Brindisi is if we move away from the newspaper and we go to the “magazine” where does the cost bring us?

Derek Brindisi:

Do you have a cost to that, Anthony? I don’t think we’ve done a cost analysis on a type of booklet like that, a stapled booklet.

Anthony Senesi:

I have a call with the printer tomorrow to look into something like that. Rough estimate 40 to $50,000. I will need to double check first with Ms. Turner to determine the quote for that $17,000 if in fact that is the booklet or the magazine that Mr. Abbott showed the Board or to determine if it is that in fact the newsprint that I was describing before. But again, these are things that can be ironed out.

In addition to that, ideally, it would be great to get this out as quickly as possible. We are at the will of the printer’s in getting that large amount of paper. So, that decision with the Board should be pretty expedient.

Dick Quintal:

Mr. Bletzer?

Charlie Bletzer:

17,000 and 50,000. It’s two different numbers and you said, one of the questions I was going to ask you, really you answered it, the ball is in our court. And we have to be fiscally responsible. And I see what the voter turnout is every year. A lot of these, no matter whether we send them a beautiful magazine or what they’re going to get just tossed and it’s sad to see it. It’s sad to say it I should say. So, Harry, you’ll get your pair of gloves for the newspaper form, but I think that’s the way to go, save a lot of money.

And it’s like newspapers. And I mean, I know they’re the thing of the past but everybody grew up on newspapers, so it’s not like it’s something different or anybody that’s worried about prints, we all with the Covid, everybody’s got gloves in the house now. There’s not a person that doesn’t have the gloves in the house. So, I would be in favor of doing it the newspaper version. It’s just I think the citizens would be much happier seeing us spend 17 as opposed to $50,000.

Dick Quintal:

Mr. Helm?  I mean, John.

John Mahoney:

So, to the Town Manager. The intention to meet next week–is there a meeting scheduled for the 31st?

Derek Brindisi:

Yeah. We plan to meet next week.

[2:10:02]

John Mahoney:

I just think that we need to have a hard number on the “magazine” version. And then obviously, the second data point is what kind of turnaround does the printer need? What kind of leeway? I understand where Mr. Bletzer is coming from, but I would prefer to have a hard number on the magazine version before we make a hard vote.

Charlie Bletzer:

The newspaper will be a lot quicker.

Dick Quintal:

Well, that’s not necessarily actually true because I’m going to put on my publishing hat, which is what I did for 30 years of my life. We not only need to see exactly what Mr. Mahoney outlined. We need to have samples. We have a sample of the booklet. We do not have a sample of the newspaper. It’s in somebody’s office. We need to be able to see that. So, you know, Mr. Bletzer, my concern was not about having ink on my fingers. My concern was about the eventual readability of passages in it after you have wiped the ink off on your hands. It’s about legibility and long-term durability.

Durability is an important concept in publishing, and that’s what we need to address. Costs are important but when I do my calculation, you mentioned the upward amount was 50,000 for the booklet, possibly. We’re just using this and that can change. We’re not going to hold it to you next week. You take 17,000 that will be donated as opposed to ending up in free cash somewhere. That comes to 23,000 if it’s 40,000. It comes to 30,000 something if it’s 50,000. I’ll just say this and I could say it next week, what is being proposed in this revised charter is a massive change in our form of government, okay?

It isn’t just perpetuating town meeting. It is changing the power structure. I’ve been told don’t say power, say responsibility but I’m going to say power because it’s about power. It is about to transfer of responsibility or power to other parts of our government. Some of them elected. Some of them actually not really elected. And I know you and I would disagree on that.

It’s of seminal importance to the future of our town. This isn’t the Charter Committee of a few years ago making a few changes to some semantics and some spelling. This is major. And I really think this is not the time to the difference between $20,000. It does not make sense to me to go cheap. And I’m not saying that the newspaper version would work out to not be sensible, but I think we do need to explore both options in depth.

Charlie Bletzer:

Can I just respond? I think it’s very well said about the importance of what this charter is going to do, good or bad for this town. I think it’s important that the people vote on it and they read it, understand the changes and the differences. And I’m not going to speak about that but using the scenario with the money that they’re going to give back, if it’s 17,000 and they give us 18,000 back, it costs us nothing to distribute it for the newspaper. So, it doesn’t cost anything.

Harry Helm:

Yeah, I totally understand.

Charlie Bletzer:

I don’t mean to go on the cheap, but we’re trying to cut the budget. We’re trying to cut millions of dollars out of the budgets. We’re working with the employees on health care right now and we’re trying to ask them to give and if they see us spending $50,000 on a mailing that we could spend 17 or actually nothing because they’ll give the money back to us, if they see us spending that kind of money it’s going to make them wonder why we’re trying to level the budget off the backs of our employees and changing their benefits. So, it’s very important that we do this in a cost-effective way.

[2:15:10]

Dick Quintal:

Mr. Mahoney?

John Mahoney:

I’m good.

Dick Quintal:

Okay. Any other comments? From the left? Mr. Vautrain?

Charles Vautrain:

Charles Vautrain in the Precinct 4, Vice-chair. And actually, I’m glad that Mr. Helm spoke about what he did because I was going to bring up the same topic about not seeing a sample. You really need to see the thing before you make a decision about pick this one or that one. And the other thing is too, I don’t know about this for sure but Plymouth South High School is a VOC TECH school. Has anybody checked or thought about can they have the capacity to print a project like this? Because Mr. Quintal knows I worked in Duxbury, and we would print things for the school department and once in a while for the town. And that was not of VOC School. So, I’m just saying. Maybe we could check because then you’re using your own staff, they’re already getting paid to be there and they use the kids. And anyway, and if I can check out too, I suppose I don’t know who to talk to.

Anthony Senesi:

Through the chair. Logistically, that’s not possible. There’s just incredible amount of paper. And then also, the mailers, the companies that we utilize are mail houses. So, they distribute the paper as well in a way that the post office can handle it. Respectfully, through the chair, just give us the week and we can work on it internally. Thank you.

Charles Vautrain:

Okay. Well, thank you. But again, like how many pages is it going to have in the newspaper version? 6, 10? No, no, that’s not the newspaper. The newspaper version, I mean, is it going to be regular size sheet of paper like a newspaper and you’re going to have like three or four of them or six or whatever? Anyway, thank you.

Dick Quintal:

Yeah. We’ll bring them back and so we can have this discussion when we have it in front of us. Does that sound good? All right. Anyone else wishing to speak on this? Good. All right. Now, we’re going to move on to Elderly & Disabled Tax Committee Charge.

Brad Brothers:

So, we’re looking for the board to take a vote tonight to move forward on a town meeting article that was passed in the fall. It’s regards to the tax that someone can submit on the back of their tax bill, they can donate anything from a dollar or above. So, we need a subcommittee set up to develop the rules and regulations for that committee. So, the board will be looking to approve three people. And the request is three available seats. It’s five seats total. In MGL, two seats are automatically given. One is to the board of Assessor’s chair and the other is the treasurer, and there’s three seats. And how we would recommend doing this is it’d be in reverse order. So, whoever applies, there would be three seats. The top voter would get the seat for three years, the middle person would get it for two years and the third person will get it for one. That way, there’s always an open seat.

The way it’s advertised right now is the posting will go out from the 25th through February 14th. And the voting would be done by you guys. Interview is on February 21st. Any questions on that?

Dick Quintal:

Any questions from the Board? Nope? Motion.

John Mahoney:

Move approval.

Charlie Bletzer:

Second.

Dick Quintal:

Motion by Mr. Mahoney, second by Mr. Bletzer. Discussion? All those in favor? Unanimous. Thank you.

Meeting, Agenda, and Minutes Submission Procedures. Ms. McElreath.

Kelly McElreath:

Good evening. Thank you for having me again. Shortly, like I mentioned earlier, I’ve been here for about six months now and one of the things that I’ve seen is the posting of meetings and agendas or agendas and minutes for all the various boards and commissions. As you know, we have many of them here in the Town of Plymouth. And with the new website that we have coming and shortly after I got here, I received a lot of complaints of people not knowing necessarily how to post a meeting because they do it so infrequently.

[2:20:13]

Kelly McElreath:

Upon talking to the Town Manager, in my previous capacity in other communities as well as my colleagues, most towns that I talk to, I can maybe only think of one or two towns that don’t do this, all meeting agendas come through the Town Clerk’s Office and it’s our responsibility to get it onto the website, to ensure that it’s in compliance with the Open Meeting Law, which is the 48 hours in advance not including legal holidays, Saturdays and Sundays.

So, thus, I prepared this policy and I’m looking for your support. So, when I go out to all the boards and commissions including elected members to request that any of their postings come to a direct email known as meetings@plymouth-ma.gov, there were six people on that distribution list and we will get that meeting posted accordingly and we’ll have some better control on what is happening out there. Not that things are not happening correctly, it’s just a little bit more of a gatehouse to put it frankly.

If you noticed lately some of the meetings that I’ve been posting because this has been getting out there word of mouth, you’ll see a stamp that has my name or whoever’s posted it and the date and the time it was received. And so, when someone pulls up a meeting and the meeting is on Thursday at 7:00, they’ll see Tuesday at 3:00 and know that the meeting’s been posted according to the Open Meeting Law.

And another portion of this is the distinction that any minutes be composed and approved in a timely fashion and also sent to that email. Especially with the new website coming on board, we will be able to get those minutes on the website. So, agendas and minutes will be there for the public to view. And so, I ask for your support to approve this as a policy.

Dick Quintal:

Questions or comments to the Town Clerk? Nice work. Great idea.

Kelly McElreath:

Thank you. More to come to, I’m sure.

Dick Quintal:

I’m sure. Motion by Mr. Bletzer for approval.

John Mahoney:

Second.

Dick Quintal:

Second by Mr. Mahoney. Discussion? All those in favor? Unanimous. Mr. Brindisi, Town Manager’s Report.

Derek Brindisi:

Great. Thank you. Anthony, can you tee up that image I sent you earlier? So, while Anthony tees up an image I want to show the board this evening, just got a few items I’d like to report. Karen Keane who’s still with us here this evening has been working with Stephen Cole, the Economic Development Director and Lee Hartman, our Planning Director who’s been presenting information to the Board of Health, which will hold a hearing tomorrow evening to adopt the NIH regulations. So, those are the National Institute of Health regulations. If the town adopts those NIH regulations, you can do the other side, the other image in front of Town Hall. And so, once the Board of Health adopts the NIH regulations, we will then be able to position ourselves to be what is known as a Platinum Ready Community.

And a Platinum Ready Community allows us to engage with life sciences or biological RDNA types of firms that may find Plymouth a community in which they would like to cite. So, more to come on that. But right now, we’re at the Gold level. And with this adoption of NIH regs, we’ll be at the Platinum level.

So, moving on to this image that you see in front of you. I’m bringing this in front of the Board this evening because Robin Carver, one of our Assistant Town Planners is working with the Cultural District and with the Chamber of Commerce on a campaign called Fall in Love with Plymouth. So, this is going to be a campaign that’s going to begin in February and go through the month of March. And so, this campaign, they’ll have a bunch of postcards, photo opportunities, business promotion opportunities, opportunities poetry that we work with PACTV and they’re going to hold a live event at the end of March.

So, the reason why I’m bringing this in front of you is because one part of this Fall in Love with Plymouth campaign, one of the ideas that they’re proposing is to have this, I think it’s an 18-foot Banner hang from where you can see the center part of Town Hall.

[2:25:12]

Derek Brindisi:

And so, I bring this in front of you given the fact that we’ve had many discussions around the use of our town common. And before we go ahead and give approval, I’d like to bring this in front of the Board for any discussion. If the Board doesn’t have any issues with this and I’ll go ahead and work with Robin on giving the approval for this 18-foot banner to hang in front of Town Hall.

Dick Quintal:

Mr. Helm?

Harry Helm:

Given the environment of today, have you run this concept by our attorneys? And does this–I know this can sound really ridiculous but we live in a ridiculous time, is this creating a precedent for fringe groups and other groups to demand an 18-foot banner on the front lawn of Town Hall?

Derek Brindisi:

So, I haven’t run it past town counsel, but I’d like to believe that this is different, that this is a campaign that’s being led by the Cultural District, which is one of our boards and committees. So, it’s being led by one of our boards and committees. It’s not a separate non-profit organization that’s trying to bring something forward.

Harry Helm:

No, and I understand. I would like to believe that too, and I do believe that that would be the case. But ridiculousness is not something to arbitrarily determine in this time frame. So, run it by the attorneys, please.

Derek Brindisi:

I’m happy to do that.

Harry Helm:

I love my idea.

Derek Brindisi:

Assuming the attorneys don’t have any objections to this and they don’t think it’s going to create a precedent; I just want to make sure that the Board’s okay with this. The last thing I want is for you to get phone calls when this banner is placed on Town Hall, what’s going on here. So, I wanted to bring it to your attention this evening. No, if I don’t see any objections and I’ll work with town counsel on that.

All right. So, moving on to the remainder of my agenda. Just giving you some updates on some construction. As you know, we have a lot of construction that’s taking place here in town. Right now, the Sewer Interceptor project, Selectman Bletzer and I were down there yesterday morning, the progress over there. They’re still in Phase One of this project. It’s a very–I learned last week how complicated this sewer Interceptor project really, really is. They’re in some depths of 25 feet below grade trying to relocate the sewer. So, given the weather, they are a few weeks behind schedule. They were hoping to complete phase one of this project, the first week of February and they’re pushing that now to the end of February. So, we’re trying to work as much as we can with the business community. We know there are concerns. We know that this is negatively impacting their businesses. We have just as of today received approval that we’re going to reroute some of the traffic to allow better access to some of the restaurants down there. So, more to come on that project. But again, we’re hoping to complete that project by June 1st.

So, moving on to other projects, Station 2 as you know over in West Plymouth is under construction. They’ll be upon the slab this week. Once they begin that and they complete that part of the project, they’ll start erecting the walls. And then Station 5, which as you remember was approved. The renovation of Station 5 was approved in April of 2022. We plan to go out to bid in about three or four weeks on that one so hopefully begin construction sometime in late spring on that project.

And then I’d like to just note that the ABCC was here. They held a seminar for the local business community. And again, that’s the Alcoholic Beverage Commission was here. It was in this room. There were over 100 attendees. And I want to thank Lisa Johnson specifically. She’s the one that organized that for the business community. So, it was well attended and it’s a lot of hard work on her part.

And then I’d like to bring up the Anthony and Joe Young attended the Senior Task Force meeting yesterday to speak specifically about the new website and the proposed 311 system. A lot of great feedback. Again, we’re trying to talk to a lot of the end users so that before we go live with some of these products, we have as better sense of whether or not this is going to work. So, good feedback when we take that back and insert that into the final product of the website.

[2:30:00]

Derek Brindisi:

And so, I’d like to say that I’m hoping probably late March maybe early April, we do an IT update to the Board. So, you’ve heard today from Nick Mayo that he plans to go live with the e-permitting system through Inspectional Services. We plan to go live with the 311 System in February. And then probably in April, the new website. And then lay it on top of that, the Human Resources Department has also started to go electronic with their onboarding system and their requisition system. And so, you’ll see it when we present to you the new way that we plan to do business. We want to be more efficient with our town staff. And then we’ll compare that to what we were doing, and I think you’ll be amazed as to the improvements that have been made from just over a year ago. So, we plan to have that presentation to you all sometime in April’s time period. Pending any questions, that’s all I have for this evening.

Dick Quintal:

Any questions for the Town Manager? Mr. Helm?

Harry Helm:

Derek, just to back up a little bit because I’ve received a lot of questions. Could you please, for those who have not tuned in before, explain the significance of the Sewer Interceptor Project? Because there’s a lot of confusion about what is going on there, and I think it’s important for people to know the significance of this project.

Derek Brindisi:

I’m certainly not the expert, our engineers are. But if you look over the wall, you’ll see a number of manholes in the harbor. That poses a significant risk to our Harbor in and of itself that if we had some type of sewer flow, a sewer backup it would directly impact our harbor. And so, this project is going to remove those manholes from the harbor area and they’ll then relocate the sewer itself into the street is where it belongs. So, that’s one of the primary motivators behind that project.

Harry Helm:

Yeah, and I’d like to point out two aspects. 70% of the sewerage in the Town of Plymouth flows through under the harbor right now, and that will be rerouted onto land. If there was a catastrophic break, which is no stranger to Plymouth, it would be catastrophic because 70% of our sewer system would be shut down for all users. It would likely render habitations and businesses unusable for a period of time. The reputation of the town and our shell fishing business would be difficult. And also, part of the aspect of the current sewer interceptor, there are two either 45 or 90-degree turns in it that make it impossible for them to put any sort of equipment down there, monitoring equipment to see the condition of the interceptor under the harbor. So, we really have no idea the shape that it’s in or what could possibly be going wrong at any given time. I just think it’s important. There are probably a lot of people who haven’t read about it and are just hearing about it now. So, thank you.

Derek Brindisi:

Thank you.

Dick Quintal:

Any other questions? Thank you, gentlemen. Anthony, I just have–before we get into our new business. Like the South Shore Waste Management, it has an address of 124 Long Pond Road, is that like their office? My real question is we have three dates 5/7, 11/23 and 12/1. where are those races going to happen? On the last page, our weekly list of license, the long list. South Shore Race Management. So, my question is moving forward, could we have an actual start, where the base starts and you know what I’m saying? I have no idea what I’m voting on.

Anthony Senesi:

Absolutely, yeah.

Dick Quintal:

Okay. That’s all. Thank you. New business, gentlemen? Okay. New world.

John Mahoney:

So, I just wanted to give the Board an update on the Community Preservation Committee Summit, which was I believe a week ago, Thursday night.

[2:35:05]

John Mahoney:

I want to thank the Town manager for attending with the Assistant Town Manager, Finance Director, Town Clerk and David Gould, the Department of Division of Marine and Environmental Affairs. So, I know that we’re committed to having a follow-up meeting. I’m sure you’ll get together with the chair of the CPC and set up that. My opinion, it was very productive. There was a lot of good information put on the table by certainly the town employees. I think it ran up roughly about 75 to 90 minutes. Communication, taking it to the next level. Spreadsheet from Finance Director putting out potential revenues for FY ’25, FY ‘26 and then putting down what her opinion was with respect to potential pay down of debt on a project like Stephens Field. She’s already delineated that and put that out there for the committee, and it’s already paid dividends because after the room emptied out and we continued with the open part of the meeting, there was a request on a past CPC project Hedges Pond to have the Recreation Director come in. And I believe Mr. DeBlasio will be attending Thursday night’s meeting. So, I look forward to that and certainly look forward to the second half of the summit. So, thanks again.

Derek Brindisi:

Absolutely, thank you.

Dick Quintal:

Old Business, gentlemen? Letters. Motion to adjourn?

John Mahoney:

So move.

Charlie Bletzer:

Second.

Dick Quintal:

Thank you for watching. We’ll see you next week. Have a wonderful night and a wonderful week.