Agenda – Select Board Agenda May 9 2023

Official Minutes – Plymouth Select Board Minutes 5-9-23

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

0:12

thank you everyone welcome to the Plymouth select board Tuesday meeting May 9 2023 if you would care to join us

0:19

in the Pledge of Allegiance please

0:30

one nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice for all

0:45

okay the first order of business is public comment do we have anyone that we should speak under oh geez there’s a

0:52

whole gaggle of them well ladies first Mr serkey

0:59

please thank thank you thank you my name is Evelyn Strawn I’m

1:05

here as a representative of the League of Women Voters and I just wanted to remind the select board and everyone

1:11

who’s watching about a event that’s happening this Thursday it’s sponsored

1:16

by the no place for hate committee and the League of Women Voters over the last

1:21

few years these two organizations have done a number of Forums on one was Meet

1:27

Your Muslim neighbor another was on immigration from 1620 to the current

1:32

time and so this time instead of doing a panel we’re actually trying a different format and it’s called so here we have

1:42

the race and song a musical conversation so this Thursday at the Spire there will

1:48

be two very good folk singers They’re nationally and internationally known been

1:54

nominated for Grammy so and in addition to being great singers They’re also good

1:59

storytellers so we’re trying to continue the conversation but in a different format so we hope that people will will

2:07

want to come out Thursday night you can get tickets in advance at the Aspire website or there’ll be tickets at the

2:15

door so thank you thank you for this opportunity thank you just Mr Turkey

2:23

I’m sorry I didn’t see you you won’t no no you can go ahead

2:34

hello I’m Cheryl Heller I live at 20 Chilton Street I’m also the president of

2:39

Southeastern Massachusetts Pine parents Alliance um last week at the candidates Forum Mr

2:46

quintal asked for someone to come today and talk about the forest Legacy program

2:54

so Mr quintal I’m here for that purpose the Southeastern Massachusetts Pine

3:00

Barons Alliance semba for short received a three-year U.S forest Service landscape scale restoration Grant in

3:09

2017 that included several Partners including the town of Plymouth

3:15

on completing the grant we were encouraged by our U.S forest Service Grant monitor to apply for a forest

3:22

Legacy Grant the forest Legacy program is a federal program that provides grants to states

3:31

to purchase forested land states determine the eligible areas and

3:37

prioritize projects according to the state’s assessment needs in 2020 the state added the region that

3:45

includes the town of Plymouth as a priority area for land acquisition acquisition based on our globally rare

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ecosystems lands acquired through this grant are held either by the municipality in which

4:00

the land is or by a state agency such as mass

4:06

fish and wildlife or the Massachusetts Department of Conservation and Recreation that is DCR if the

4:13

municipality prefers not to manage that land the forest Legacy funding typically

4:20

provides up to 20 million dollars for Massachusetts divided between one to

4:25

three projects the DCR decides what projects to submit to the forest service for funding

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the DCR deadline for FY 2025 funding is July 15 2023

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before the national submission deadline of September 18 2023

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now this is the big news in addition to the forest Legacy core funding of 20

4:50

million dollars to Massachusetts the inflation reduction act Ira includes an

4:57

additional 50 million dollars for the Commonwealth this year there are three types of projects under

5:04

the forest Legacy program for which Plymouth could apply number one is the Keystone large

5:10

landscape project large-scale and high impact projects

5:16

with exceptional public benefits Massachusetts is only allowed to send

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submit one Keystone project funded at up

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to 50 million dollars project must have a single property owner as does the whole Tech property

5:33

and it requires a 25 percent non-federal match but there are State programs in

5:40

place that help with the match the second type of program is called

5:46

strategic small tracks slash family forest project

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these are small tracked projects that protect strategic in-holdings or

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adjacent properties to already protected lands and then number three is tribal

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Partnerships projects projects where the state actively partners with tribes and

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these can be both federally and state listed tribes to conserve land with high importance and benefits for these tribes

6:17

the deadline for the IRA project proposals are as follows there will be a

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release of the call letter and scoring guidance for proposals this June June 2023

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the deadline for the FY 24 Ira project proposals is December 2023 and the

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deadline for the FY 24 Ira project proposals due to the U.S forest Service

6:48

are will happen in May of 2024. I have provided the contact information here

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for Lindsey Nystrom she is the forest Legacy program coordinator for DCR

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and I have also included some links to webinars and the slides from those

7:08

webinars that speak to the U.S forest Service Legacy program I would be happy to leave

7:16

those with you and I would just suggest that perhaps you’d like to form a committee to investigate these Grant

7:23

proposals and maybe consider under a knowledge and understanding of

7:29

what’s available if you’re negotiating with whole Tech in the future so

7:35

quento thank

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you thank you very much the reason I requested it because at the

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debate last week Mr Mann made the remark quote the town lost I think he said

7:53

either the town or the select would lost 50 million dollar Grant last year so I

7:58

said to him please come Tuesday night and bring me that that check I’d love to see it as I know the rest of the board

8:04

would I’m very familiar with parts of that Grant because I did actually do

8:11

some homework on it it was during covet so I still have them all back when I researched it at that time

8:19

Patrick was on the board Mr Clarity that’s it and uh I you know I

8:27

was trying to follow it and understand it so I mean I I do know it exists but I also know it’s across the Commonwealth

8:34

so I think it was just you know a reaction to that but I’m more than happy

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to have you know if I’m so lucky to be here um gladly look at it when the time is

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ready all right with a whole Tech but it’s a little early in the game and we

8:51

shouldn’t be talking about it right here but anyway regardless thank you your time and I will add that to my folder

8:57

Sala I appreciate it one of the things that I know that the

9:06

town is venturing for that Legacy grant for the whole Tech property

9:12

um we were told that whole Tech withdrew their claim to or their their

9:20

document that said that they would sell I believe it was uh yourself and your

9:27

vice president Mr Mann and they said they weren’t going to do it so I think

9:32

the town has taken the lead to try to move forward I’m sure that they’d share

9:39

all sorts of information and you know the goal is to get the property and I

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don’t think anybody cares who gets it as long as we get it so um but thank you for providing that

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information now Mr circuit I’m sorry

9:57

thank you very much Richard serkey town meeting member Precinct 2.

10:03

on July 29 2019 the town entered into a five-year

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lease with the Southeastern Massachusetts Pine Barrens Alliance which you’ve just heard mentioned about

10:16

for Town owned property at 158 Center Hill Road the termination date of the lease is

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July 31 2024 more than a year from now unless the lease is extended or renewed

10:31

prior to that date the lease provided the alliance would need the prior written consent of the

10:38

board if it wished to sublet any portion of the premises

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three weeks ago in a letter to the alliance written down town letterhead and signed by the chair

10:50

of this board the chair claimed that the alliance had violated the terms of its lease by quote

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subleasing the property to its attorney Margaret Sheehan without the consent of

11:03

the select board close quote her claim was based on the following reasons all of which are true but

11:11

irrelevant one in 2021 attorney Sheehan Incorporated save the Pine Barrens a

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separate and distinct non-profit Corporation number two attorney Sheehan is listed on

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State records as the president Treasurer Clerk and director of Pine Barrens

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number three the corporate address of Pine Barrens is listed on State records as 158 Center Hill Road

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number four a certificate of change of directors which added three members to

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the board of directors of pine Barons listed 158 Center Hill Road as their

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addresses number five certain corporate filings

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for Pine Barrens have listed its corporate address as 158 Center Hill Road

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number six the bylaws of Pine Barrens list its organizational address as 158

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Center Hill Road and number seven in correspondence from attorney Sheehan to various Departments

12:14

of the town on behalf of Pine Barrens from 2021 to March 2023 the mailing

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address of Pine Barrens was listed as 158 Center Hill Road as I said all of these statements are

12:28

true but in no way do they establish that the alliance sublet a portion of the

12:33

property to attorney Sheehan or pine Barons and thereby violated the terms of

12:39

its lease any attorney with even a rudimentary familiarity with the law of commercial

12:46

leases will tell you that none of these facts either individually or

12:51

collectively prove that a sublease was entered into between the alliance and

12:56

attorney Sheehan or that those facts establish a quote-unquote tenancy in any

13:02

way the chair’s letter even acknowledged the fact that no sublease agreement ever has

13:08

been signed between the alliance and attorney Sheehan the chair simply claimed on no basis at

13:16

all that the towns leased with the alliance had been violated by attorney Sheehan because quote her use and occupation of

13:24

rental space owned by the town created a tenancy at the property without

13:29

permission the irony of this claim is that her

13:34

letter was presumably written for her by the board’s new hand-picked in-house Town Council firm

13:40

that firm has an office in town hall by her reasoning that firm is subleasing

13:47

a portion of town hall from the town of course that’s not the case

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that firm is simply occupying a portion of town hall with the permission of the

13:58

select board and yet that same firm is apparently now advising the chair that the alliance is

14:05

breaching the terms of its lease with the town by allowing attorney Sheehan to use the

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least premises if that were true and even if attorney Sheehan represented

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Pine Barons which she does not then all Massachusetts corporations with

14:22

in-house corporate Council will have to change the terms of their legal representation

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there is a danger when an attorney is willing to do his clients bidding by

14:34

setting forth claims that have no merit the letter also stated that quote monies

14:41

were exchanged with attorney Sheehan and the alliance close quote the chair stated that a review of

14:48

Internal Revenue Service filings submitted to the Office of the Attorney General by the alliance indicates that

14:55

attorney Sheehan on behalf of L knife and suncorp a family Corporation of

15:01

which attorneys Sheehan’s father is a director and the community land and water Coalition has paid the alliance a

15:08

significant amount of amount of money since July 2020.

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its public knowledge that the alliances of section 501c3 approved non-profit

15:19

corporation that is eligible to accept charitable donations

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it’s my understanding that since it was established many years ago the alliance has accepted charitable

15:31

donations from many people and has received grants from several sources

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as you’ve just heard including but not limited to donations from the Xi’an family and from L knife in the sun Inc

15:44

the chair’s referenced to those donations and her allusion to any others in no way established that these monies

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were rental payments under a sublease it’s my understanding that neither

15:58

attorney Sheehan nor any other donors to the alliance received any benefit or

16:03

service or expected to receive any benefit or service in exchange for their donations Beyond a

16:12

tax deduction it’s also my understanding that attorney Sheehan and pine Barons as

16:19

volunteers and contractors are among the many organizations and individuals from

16:24

across Southeastern Massachusetts and Beyond who visit 158 Center Hill Road

16:30

from time to time that the office and Conference Center at the property are open to any member of

16:37

the public to use and visit for meetings that many public educational talks

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conferences and meetings have been held there and that of upcoming educational events

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are listed on Pine Barrens as well website for all to attend

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are you serious when you claim that one or more visits or meetings create a sublease

17:02

when the town entered into the lease in 2019 it was for the purpose of education

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and community outreach on environmental issues that affect us all

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if this is an issue why did the town enter into a lease for the property to the alliance in the first place

17:20

the chair complained in her letter that quote attorney Sheehan was using Town property to litigate against the town

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close quote attorney Sheehan did not check her first amendment rights in at the door when she

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walked into 158 Center Hill Road and nor should any other person who visits the property be expected to do so

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simply put her letter relies on a series of links in a chain which in no way

17:48

support her claim my remarks here tonight Are Made primarily to rebut the contents of her

17:55

letter rather than to defend Ms Sheehan Michigan can and will speak for herself

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I can tell you that when I was in practice I often found myself representing clients who oppose the

18:08

positions of Ms Sheen’s clients but in this case the claims made in the chairs letter

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are so far-fetched that they must be challenged finally I also want to say a word about

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the timing of this letter this letter was sent within a month of the upcoming May 20 Town election

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I suspect that the chair was hoping that her letter once made public would influence their

18:36

election in favor of the candidates and positions she is supporting or perhaps before leaving the select

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board the chair simply wanted to send a parting shot to the candidates and positions that she

18:50

disfavors and to get back at her attorney Sheehan for her advocacy on behalf of the

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environment why else would a letter be sent more than one year before the expiration of

19:03

this lease in order to advise the alliance that its lease may not be extended or renewed

19:09

after it expires more than one year from now I submit to you that whatever her

19:15

motivation was this letter bought disrepute upon this board collectively and upon any

19:23

individual board member who voted in support of sending it thank you

19:31

well Mr shurkey when something is brought to our attention that something

19:36

done is done wrong you don’t hold off and wait because there’s an upcoming election although I appreciate your

19:42

legal opinion I actually take the legal opinion of Our Town Council much more

19:48

seriously thank you foreign

20:00

I’m George McKay and I’ll be on a lighter and shorter note wonderful we

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love that I’m here to follow up on a presentation I made earlier this year regarding the

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license plate program we have in Plymouth and I put some information on the board

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and John Mahoney picked up on one of the line items I had and he said this doesn’t make sense

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you’re talking about a certain number of license plates out there and the revenue they’re generating

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and the two numbers don’t match and I said you know John you’re right and I

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will get back to you on that and so the purpose of my comments tonight are to answer John’s question

20:43

I’ve seen license plates PL license plates out there in the 6000 series I’ve

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seen many license plates out there in the four and five thousand series so recently somebody said to me you know

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what I’m going to do today I’m going to order a PL license plate and I said oh very good I’d like to know when you get

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it what number it is so 10 days later

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this is what appeared in the mailbox

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PL 42 27. and I said that doesn’t make sense to me

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so I wanted to borrow this license plate for the night to show you what came in the mail a couple of days ago

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so over the weekend beginning on Friday I started talking to the RMV again and

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we’ve been talking off and on for over a year but I said you know I got I got

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some issues here we’ve got 6 000 plates out five thousand plates out now somebody just received in the mail

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a four thousand plate what is going on and she said oh it’s very simple we

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issue these numbers on a random basis problems out right unfortunately it

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means that we don’t have 6 000 flights out there generating Revenue we have much less than that so I asked

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for the number the number is over two thousand we got 2065 license plates out there generating

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revenue from PL number one which somebody paid ten thousand dollars for

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up to I think the number I saw was six thousand one hundred and twenty five

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so anyway that’s the that’s the answer to your question John and and we’ll follow up on this later on

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in the year when we talk about the Plymouth Legacy programs we’re rebranding the promotion of the license

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plate and this is one of the ways we’re doing the rebranding the previous promotions

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had magnetic signs that said PL 2020 and

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so when people thought gee should I get a license plate oh that’s dated that was

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this commemoration of 2020. so now the promotion information is going to have a

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a PL 2023 so hopefully we’ll do better so anyway thank you for your time and

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thank you very much for your support thank you Mr McKay

23:18

to pharah okay

23:24

oh good evening everyone members of the board my name is Patrick Farah I’m planning staff and just a quick

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announcement for this Saturday at May 13th throughout the day is the town-wide

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cleanup so if anyone is interested and who has not signed up please call

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508-322-3374 that’s my direct line and I will help you get some trash bags and we

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have a sign up cheat at Town Hall up in the planning office just wanted to say that thank you very much thank you thank

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you and now Mr Golden please

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good evening Mr Golden muted

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there you go nope you’re muted me the time to speak

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here tonight uh I I come before you to put something on the record that I think is important for the folks in this town

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to hear last night in the Very Room in which you’re sitting the chair of the charter commission repeated a claim that

24:31

he and several other Commissioners have used countless times to legitimize the proposed chart

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you Commonwealth has reviewed last night totally

24:51

the terms of all sitting members of the board of Select

24:58

David something’s going on with your audio hold on a second

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something just happened there

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can we try to bring him on again

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can you folks hear me now yes we can start over sorry for that last night in

25:34

the Very Room in which you’re sitting the chair of the charter commission repeated a claim that he and several other Commissioners have used countless

25:41

times in order to legitimize the proposed Charter simply stated they tell us that the

25:47

Attorney General of the Commonwealth has reviewed the proposal and found it to be as Mr Abbott stated last night totally

25:54

legal this includes an alleged approval of the section in the charter that ends the

25:59

term of all sitting select board members as well as the town moderator

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this claim is not true the section in question is 9-9

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and it was never provided to the attorney general for a review the preliminary report which included

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the chart the draft Charter was sent to the AG’s office for overview and was dated August 29 2022.

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that document ends at section 9-8-2

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it was sent to the Attorney General on September 15 2022. and the Attorney General responded with

26:38

their comments on October 12 2022. section 9-9 wasn’t added to the proposed

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Charter until two drafts later dated October 24th 2022.

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so contrary to what is being said by the charter commission the state has never seen the provision that the chairman is

26:58

telling the residents is approved this is simply not true thank you

27:06

okay yes

27:51

I read we can see you are you able to speak to us

28:18

Irene can you hear us no I can’t hear you at all

28:24

um we can hear you

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there’s no sound

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um can you hear me yes we can hear you

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um I can’t hear what you’re saying give me a thumbs up it’s been a very nice experience in

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civic responsibility since I got concerned about Orton Park and I really

28:56

appreciate everything that I’ve learned about how our town works natural resources committee

29:05

um did not meet again tonight at six o’clock and I had so many

29:11

questions about the follow-up to Morton Park but I want to assume that the

29:17

Selectmen and the marine and environmental Affairs committee is doing

29:23

due diligence and thinking about the new plan but you know being 78 I’m a

29:29

worryboard and I wanted to know who is thinking about the traffic flow of the

29:35

Walkers coming from Algonquin Heights and coming down from Colonial Arms and

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coming up through that lovely that subdivision that’s right across from

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Morton park is there somebody in charge of that and like having a walking sign

29:54

you know how how many seconds are we going to give people to walk so

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um so that’s the one thing I had and then I had another idea wouldn’t it be nice if

30:06

we had a Jitney at the rear entrance to Morton Park where we had a place to park

30:11

and then when the bus got full it took you down to to one of the beaches in

30:18

Morton Park and then we wouldn’t have the traffic and overuse of the roads and

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three I really want to be about on a committee that places the environment

30:31

um natural resources and our Public’s needs where we where I at least get to

30:38

propose these things and thank you very much but I don’t even see your picture now so I don’t know if you heard me or

30:46

not but I’m signing off

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okay anybody else for public comment all right we have a list of administrative

31:11

notes if the board has no issues I’d like to see them moved as a group

31:17

do we have a motion movie has presented second

31:25

we have a motion from Mr quintal seconded by Mr Helm discussion

31:31

all those in favor roll call Mr home yes Mr Mahoney yes Mr quintal

31:38

yes and myself yes it’s unanimous thank you next on the agenda is street light

31:44

purchase and led retrofit cost environmental analysis Mr Farah our

31:51

energy officer hi hello again

31:58

so Mr quintal I know this is better late than never

32:03

but sometimes complex questions require complex answers all right so when uh responds to the

32:09

board of selectment request for a streetlight purchase and retrofit cost analysis the town hired uh power options and I

32:17

have with me tonight Michelle Gardner from power options in the back they’re a non-profit organization that

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provides municipalities with Energy Management Services to conduct a cost and environmental benefit analysis as

32:31

part of this study power options retain the services of Guardian Energy Management Services a

32:38

turnkey and Energy Solutions provider to assist with specific project costs and

32:45

also I have Patrick Mahoney with Guardian so throughout the town there are

32:52

approximately 2 600 high pressure sodium metal halide and Mercury light fixtures

32:59

this does not include all the downtown decorative lighting as well as some of

33:05

the other Town owned Lighting in in some of the subdivisions

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these non-led fixtures consume about 856 000 kilowatt hours annually and emit

33:18

over 220 metric tons of CO2 based on the latest electric bills uh

33:25

Guardian found that the town currently pays over 315 thousand dollars a year

33:31

for the utility owned flight fixtures that’s including the rent as well as the

33:36

energy costs the retrofit is expected to save energy

33:42

reduced greenhouse gas emissions lower annual costs reduce maintenance

33:48

operations while increasing light quality also

33:54

owning the fixtures so the town were to go to town meeting and pert and vote to

34:00

acquire the fixtures they would also result in a change in the utility rate classification therefore a change in the

34:07

cost per kilowatt hour of electricity consumed so to put that in perspective

34:14

if the town were to go to town meeting and vote and also retrofit all the

34:19

lights to LED there’d be a decrease of approximately 544

34:24

000 kilowatt hours annually as well as a greenhouse gas

34:30

reduction of 140 metric tons so it’ll be actually about 100 about 75

34:37

metric tons annually of of greenhouse gas emissions per year

34:42

energy costs are estimated to be about a hundred and ten thousand dollars annually so it’ll save from the 315 over

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200 000 and that’s per year when considering the annual maintenance

34:56

costs of over twenty five thousand dollars the sound the town would save approximately 228 thousand dollars

35:01

collectively each year the projected 10-year savings is over seven hundred fifty

35:09

thousand dollars with an estimated payback period of less than eight years probably closer to

35:14

seven and a half and also the proposed light emittance color will be a full spectrum many of

35:22

you I’m sure have seen these high pressure sodium lights and they’re this really dark Amber

35:28

um not really uh well they’re more annoying than anything else so we what we would propose is a

35:35

it’s a Kelvin color of full spectrum and it’ll provide a lot better lighting

35:42

so to achieve this goal like I mentioned before will require two-step process one it’ll require vote of town meeting

35:50

to acquire all the utility-owned light fixtures and eversource’s current estimate is

35:56

approximately 250 000 to purchase the lights if town meeting does vote in

36:01

favor of it the second phase would be to retrofit

36:06

all these existing lights to LED and the investment needed to retrofit

36:13

all the lighting to LED is estimated at 1.49 million dollars this total initial investment would be

36:20

about 1.75 million dollars and also keep in mind if the town does

36:27

vote to acquire the lights and retrofit them the town will also be responsible for all maintenance and repair of the

36:33

acquired infrastructure and that’s what I have so I’m happy to

36:38

answer any questions wonderful thank you I know this has been one of Mr quintal’s little pet projects

36:45

for a few years so it’s nice to see these things come to fruition

36:52

um does the board have any questions thank you so much all right thank you

36:58

very much what Mr hold on

37:07

Steve lighting Patrick I got a question would there be any grants available to to the town to reduce the price of uh

37:16

the service and the purchase of the lights I know sometimes when you go into schools you knock down the price of you

37:22

know they go in and they reduce the the usage in in the buildings on a grant is

37:28

any way that the town can get grants to help us with this price

37:34

uh Mr Leiden thank you for that question it’s a great question possibly it depends

37:40

um as of right now I have been keeping close contact with eversource to see if they could reduce

37:46

the uh acquisition pricing and um that is not on the table right now as

37:53

for for us as far as retrofitting we would work with uh both power options

38:00

and or Guardian actually we’d be working with the since it’s such a large project

38:06

we’d have to go out to bid um but that is something that we would be

38:12

looking at we are now a green Community designated uh design we don’t have that we have that designation so uh we could

38:19

look at some funding for there but it’s only would only cover a portion of it

38:25

um and I I would advise greatly against um phasing this project because with the

38:33

maximum of two hundred thousand dollars annually it would take a few years and by that time technology changes and

38:40

Consultants go in and out of business contractors and and it would be uh it

38:45

wouldn’t be a wise choice at least in my opinion thank you

38:52

okay next on the agenda is the Stevens the much awaited Stevens Field update

38:58

oh I’m sorry Mr quintal it just one second please David I just want to say

39:05

thank you Patrick I know things in a government and how you have to put all

39:10

the pieces in there but I really hope we get at the town meeting in it and it

39:15

passes because you know we towed our arms we need to do more so it’s all about doing more and I think it’s great

39:22

good job thank you okay now

39:28

Mr Gould good evening everyone for the record

39:35

David Gould director of marine and environmental Affairs um and I’m sure folks are um anticipating along with update on

39:42

Stevens Field so um very quickly we started working again in late February

39:48

um upon the departure of the DPW director the town manager had requested that

39:54

I began working on this project along with Ann slusser Nick viella which we

39:59

started doing about you know a little over two months ago and I think we’ve made a tremendous amount of progress in that time and I

40:05

want to thank both Ann and Nick for all their hard work during the last few months it wouldn’t have been remotely possible without them helping

40:12

so I appreciate that very very much so at that time there was an expectation

40:18

unfortunately there was a mid-march bid date um quickly learned that that was unrealistic and I just want to let you

40:25

know what we’ve been working on and why that was unrealistic since we started working on this a little over two months ago we’ve had to

40:33

assess both the buildings out there for lead paint and asbestos that hadn’t been done so we needed to do that we had to

40:38

disconnect those buildings from electrical sewer water get zoning permits in place and get those two

40:44

buildings ready for Demolition and we have done that we also had significant environmental issues out there that I

40:50

think you and the community are well aware of there was a previous AK Finney building there were the previous underground storage tanks had been

40:56

removed and of some hydrocarbons still left in the soil and then there were other issues with coal ash and other

41:01

material out through the throughout the site that work hadn’t been done yet either so there’s a process in

41:07

Massachusetts called the mCP which is the mass contingency plan which is essentially 21 East sites that we had to

41:12

enter into since that time we’ve done 28 test pits 40 soil samples six Geotech borings and

41:19

six Geotech test pits the Geotech is is an investigation of the soils to make

41:24

sure that it’s suitable whether or not it be for a building Foundation or underneath the playground or the tennis courts or pickleball courts to make sure

41:31

that they’re built correctly so that’s a lot of going out doing test pits doing digging doing soil samples and again a

41:39

thank you to DPW and Highway division especially for that work they saved a lot of town money by doing that work for

41:47

us we identified four areas within the within the park that we had to look at from an mCP issue and essentially what

41:53

we do is we look at it from what was called the risk assessment an assessment for human health and an assessment of

41:59

Eco risk we looked at the the gravel parking lot we then looked at the ball field area we looked at the tennis

42:05

courts and we looked at the area we refer to as the duck Bond area well they all have some level of issues

42:11

they’re all quite easily work we can work through most of those issues the one area that did show up

42:17

with some concerns was actually underneath the tennis courts that was

42:22

some significant film material that had some elevated levels of lead and antimony in it so that is an area we

42:28

went out to last week and did additional test pits to get both depth and horizontal analysis done of what we’re

42:34

seeing out there that would be the area where we will have to remove soil from the site

42:40

and do some cleanup work there quite honestly that was much better

42:46

information and data than I was expecting so and all in all that’s that’s a lot of good news

42:54

there are some other areas where they’re hydrocarbons in the soil and we’ll incorporate that into the bid documents

43:00

to make sure that’s an appropriate contractor who’s doing the right thing out there so we will be putting together

43:05

everything we need to do for the mCP to comply with dep regulations one of which the town manager signed a document which

43:12

is an administrative consent order and I know that sounds a little scary but quite honestly we requested it because

43:18

it had been so much environmental cleanup work at Stevens Field there were four reporting track numbers these rtns

43:24

and what we asked dep was if they could consolidate those into one and give us one um

43:30

compliance schedule for all of that into one document and they did that and the time manager assigned that and we’ve

43:36

sent it back so we are in compliance we will remain in compliance and we move forward with

43:41

the project just very quickly again the core improvements that you’ll see out there

43:47

are the buildings the bathrooms we’ll have a new bathroom we’ll have a new concession building we’ll have a new

43:53

playground structure we’ll have three new tennis courts four new pickleball courts new parking lot sidewalks Green

43:58

Space and Landscaping and then there are other components that we will put into bid alternates hopefully if there’s the

44:03

funding we can achieve those those would be things like the improvements to the baseball field the fence the backs off the bleachers and the basketball court

44:10

so getting through all of that I know everyone wants to know well when is it going to happen so the bid dates we will

44:17

be getting all the documents to the procurement office uh on Monday June 5th and it will go out to bid then and the

44:25

bids will be due Thursday July 6th in the meantime we’ll be using State bids

44:30

to order some of the materials out there like the playground structure and the building and getting those

44:36

pre-ordered and ready to go so those will be owned and provided to the contractor but we’ll start eating up that lead time so again June 5th and

44:44

Thursday July 6th we will open bids for Stevensville if anybody has any questions I will

44:50

attempt to answer them only

44:57

so I guess so the bids are due by July 6 David two days after the Fourth of July so

45:05

you know I know how to put this so give us the perfect world perfect world with respect

45:11

to awarding a bid execution of construction and completion of the project

45:16

so Mr Kerman is pretty fantastic about turning around contracts so I don’t think that’s going to take too too long

45:23

um we we also hope to be able to do some pre-construction work out there with our with our staff hopefully that will

45:28

happen so you might even see demolition before that that will drive down some of the costs and allow us to do more of the

45:34

more positive things with the contractor afterwards um I would expect that the contractor if

45:40

we can get a contract in a bid My Hope Is that we have a contractor working out there sometime in August taking

45:45

advantage of at least three three months of good weather August September October and then once that happened through the

45:51

winter and work into the spring and hopefully late spring we we can open the park but then the park once that

45:57

individual that company gets on the ground and if it happens in August and then Stevens

46:02

is off limits correct correct correct and then yeah I mean it’s going to be construction site obviously sure

46:07

but then there’s also the secondary issue of hydrocarbons in the soil areas that we need to clean up

46:13

um will we be stockpiling material in compliance with regulations we don’t want people walking through that site until it’s clean

46:18

and in a perfect world everything would be done by the Fourth of July of 24. I

46:24

think that’s possible yes it’s building in hopefully a couple of months of fudge time correct yeah okay all right I know

46:31

um I think you’re on the agenda for CPC for Thursday night I know that the last meeting that the committee voted to have

46:37

you come in for some technical advice on a potential article so yes I’m I’m

46:43

looking forward I think they’ll also love to hear the update on Stevens Field probably in a couple of other topics too we can certainly provide them the same

46:49

update that we’ve provided tonight thank you you’re welcome actually if we could put pen to paper so

46:56

this is something that we could post on our website because there’s quite a bit of talk on some of

47:02

the social media sites about the update for Stevens Field so if we could get that

47:07

and get it out on time website so the rest of us can share it to our constituents please thank you I will

47:14

work with Anthony to do that

47:19

now okay the next on the agenda thank you David

47:26

I’m sorry um the next on the agenda is digital Communications and engagement technology

47:34

presentation I don’t know if folks have noticed that we’ve launched a brand new website we’ve got some uh

47:42

online e-permitting and other things that we have a few folks in here that

47:48

we’re going to be explaining what it’s all about so this is Mr Young my team

48:00

that would help technology one keep Mike’s on sorry folks

48:05

the items we’re going to be showing you this evening are the new website see click fix opengov pull pads and

48:13

online marriage registration system before we go integrated details it’s

48:19

important to note that these items address the following FY 2023 select

48:25

board goals and priorities develop a 3-1-1 system that’s c-click

48:30

fix develop a user-friendly website develop an enhanced agenda management

48:36

system improved online bill notification and payment tools for taxpayers

48:42

develop a One-Stop shop for Town permitting although not being presented tonight we

48:48

previously addressed the goal of implementing a wayfinding kiosk there’s actually two of them in this building in

48:54

creating a Citizens help desk at Town Hall

48:59

at this time I’d like to recognize the employees that made this all happen the website redesign team was Mary Beth

49:06

McQueary from it Anthony sinasi from the Tom manager’s office Kelly mcelory from the Town Clerk

49:12

and myself the c-click fix team was Brad Brothers Anthony sinessity and myself

49:19

open gov team was led by Nick Mayo the pole pads and Mrs team was led by Kelly mcalrath

49:26

before we get to the new website I thought it’s important important to look back at where we came from

49:32

so history of plymouth’s website September 2000 staff we launched our own web page the

49:41

URL was tunnel plymouth.org very limited it probably got updated

49:47

once a quarter and we had no money budgeted and these were the results

49:55

remember this was two thousand we didn’t hold on hold on

50:07

I’m not sure we can find a spot on the new website for this but we’ll try

50:15

then in January 2002 a local web design firm stepped up

50:22

um offered to host and design the website for us for free all the design upgrades and hosting were

50:29

provided free of charge in the web a web web budget of 4000 was

50:35

established the caveat to it was all the updates to

50:40

the website had to go through the vendor and we had this and it was web wizards

50:46

of New England in August of 2003

50:54

we changed the URL to plymouth-ma.gov we switched firms we added some more

51:02

features Town news and now we took a big step forward in

51:07

town employees I.T staff were allowed to actually update the page real time

51:13

budget 7 800 dollars and this is what it looked like

51:20

in 2006 a new company was brought on board

51:27

new redesign a lot more functionality budget just over ten thousand

51:35

in all departments assumed responsibility for updating their own pages with their information we

51:41

eliminated the bottleneck of going through I.T and this is what it looked like

51:52

2015 we redesigned same company

51:58

24 000 web budget this is what we have

52:07

brings us to today IT addresses the select board’s goals and priorities

52:14

Civic plus purchased our previous vendor virtual Town Hall so it’s essentially the same company

52:20

new designer format was introduced we added C click fix and online permitting

52:27

web budget is currently 38 250. and we’re at our new website

52:36

so now I’m going to try and go from over here unless Anthony wants to

52:43

microphone is on and just show some of the nuances and the

52:50

change of the new website

53:02

good evening everyone I feel like I can touch base on a few

53:08

things that I would like to go over the new website

53:14

so we can see here this is the home page if you are all able to see that

53:20

um at home as well you can see here like a lot of the information that was on the previous

53:27

websites and the designs of them are all located on the home page it’s just a

53:33

different format it’s more user friendly it has a little bit more of a stylistic element

53:41

to it and this is very much the standard for a lot of town websites

53:47

municipalities um when it comes to the overall layout and

53:52

Design if somebody is looking for information on the website generally they are going

53:58

to be gravitating towards um we love to call it the mega menu

54:05

um we have six different buckets we have government which includes boards and

54:13

committees and things of that nature we have a dedicated town meeting page

54:18

um we have information regarding elections and voters we have public records requests Town

54:25

budget all of these things along here these are hot button things that people are

54:30

looking for if somebody’s looking for a specific department and they know exactly what they’re looking for it’s

54:36

right here for residents that might not know where to look they could start here

54:42

potentially a lot of the things that we migrated over we determined based off of The

54:50

Click rate and what pages um and and the analytics behind the old

54:57

site to determine what would be migrated over on the home page so we are kind of

55:02

funneling that information to and and getting that information to people right

55:08

on the home page as clear as day so people can be able to see that information

55:13

we also have a new to Plymouth page which is pretty exciting so if folks don’t know where to start

55:19

um they can look here we also prioritize business businesses

55:25

as well so we have a spot for inspectional services properties and permits how

55:32

about starting a business that’s a very daunting task at any municipality and we have a page dedicated for that

55:40

that we’re building out to provide a little bit more information and context for people that are starting a business

55:46

or interested in starting a business visitors it’s worth noting that if you Google

55:53

search Bing Yahoo whatever you use this page

55:58

plymouth.ma.gov is the first thing you click on and you see when you’re searching for Plymouth MA

56:04

we get a lot of folks that are looking for visitor information because you know Plymouth is a tourism destination for a

56:11

lot of folks so we um highlighted those things

56:16

specifically to the C Plymouth official tourism website so all of these links

56:23

here actually take you to see Plymouth um so again we’re trying to integrate

56:28

the the great resources that we all have um in our community and highlighting

56:34

them we also have a good spot here called how do I it looks a little

56:40

daunting but if you take a look at it it kind of makes sense intuitively in my opinion

56:46

um so you have you know buckets here access apply for contact

56:52

pay learn about report a concern stay informed and watch

56:59

and it has various things that we’ve determined our hot button things that

57:04

people want to get information quickly so like I said that Mega menu is really important for

57:11

people to understand how this website works and operates and how it’s formatted and if somebody’s not

57:18

finding that thing they can also go to the search bar as well which has been

57:23

we’ve done some tests and it’s a lot more accurate than the old search

57:29

feature as well so we’ve utilized tagging search engine optimization so

57:36

that we are able to get the information that people want and make it one of the first search the second

57:43

searched items we also have this um little Nifty thing

57:49

here on the side that carries over for the home page I’m not going to get into the weeds here but I kind of am already

57:56

um but this is kind of helpful for folks you know that are kind of used to the old site everything was smack dab in the

58:03

middle of the page all the main things here are um here so you can click on them and it

58:09

takes you to a different part of the home page we also have agendas and minutes career opportunities pay bills and fees online

58:16

please note that your water and sewer bills are due on June 1st they need to

58:22

go to that page but it’s a good FYI properties and permits report a concern

58:28

which is see Quick Fix and stay inform which is kind of the communications element

58:33

we have we carried over some of the consistent features from the old site that we thought were really important

58:38

news and updates providing folks information that is readily available

58:44

available like the Stevens Field update would provide information through that we probably provide information through

58:50

a web page we have the meetings and events calendar if you click on this it takes you to all

58:58

the meetings that have been posted that have agendas and then if you click on this it takes

59:05

you to see plymouth’s official tourism website which we are going to be using for any events that are geared towards

59:12

the public we also have a visitor section please note that these are kind of in order

59:19

um so things to do outdoors and Adventure where to park that’s a big one

59:25

um town videos we are utilizing a lot of Pac TV services so we have this an up

59:33

recent this week in Plymouth with the police Chiefs we have something to kind

59:38

of advertise the cow Cafe which is awesome and they have great food and then the Plymouth Public Library and the

59:45

events that are going on so that’s essentially the home page and

59:50

that’s something that is definitely a little bit different you have to scroll a little bit but this is kind of the

59:55

standard for a lot of web pages especially in municipalities

1:00:01

and I want to touch upon just a couple more elements agendas and minutes

1:00:07

um that’s a part of my job people ask me where the agenda’s in minutes well now we can say it’s all right here

1:00:13

um so you can see that we have populated just a couple years worth of of minutes

1:00:18

and agendas and we’re still working through the process of processing those

1:00:24

um it’s taking a little bit but we do have those those agendas and minutes that were posted that were approved and

1:00:31

if you need them you’re always more than welcome to reach out to the public records officer

1:00:37

or the town clerk so all of them are right here so if

1:00:42

you’re looking let’s say for oh how about the select word where we’re at right now

1:00:47

let’s go down here oh you want to get this agenda here

1:00:54

oh wow you can click rate on it it takes you right to the agenda oh wow and you

1:00:59

can click right on this link that takes you right to participating to the select board right now in real time

1:01:06

minutes when they’re approved get posted right here and there’s also a spot for

1:01:12

recordings as well that can take you directly to Pac TVs um website which has all the archived

1:01:20

recordings for specific boards and committees I’m gonna pause does anybody have any

1:01:25

questions so that’s one element

1:01:32

um we have a we have a more robust notification

1:01:39

system so if you’ve been receiving emails you might have received an email today regarding the website I recommend

1:01:47

um clicking on that link and looking through the options for getting

1:01:52

notifications through email and also via text we’re actually piloting that now so it’s a

1:02:00

laundry list of things that you could sign up for if you all you need is your email address which you would click

1:02:07

right there so we’re looking to advance that with newsletters

1:02:13

um where Mark real is working on a sustainability newsletter that we are

1:02:18

hoping to have live in June the center for active living is looking to

1:02:24

integrate within this website as well which is really exciting

1:02:29

and there’s a few other communication type things that are going to be really helpful for folks we have two elements

1:02:37

that I think are really important that we’re going to talk about I don’t know Joe do you have anything to add

1:02:44

sure so report a concern like you mentioned um see Quick Fix is what we’re calling

1:02:50

it um I also call it affectionately fix it limit um

1:02:56

so you can go right to this page here and you can submit a um a request uh Joe

1:03:03

do you want to go through that a little bit I don’t want to spend a lot of time on it it’s

1:03:10

pretty easy to navigate but there are links you scroll down the screen

1:03:18

oh boy scroll down

1:03:27

I have to say Anthony’s been the most passionate person I’ve ever worked on our website redesign team with

1:03:33

and his knowledge coming into the town having used this platform before was

1:03:38

invaluable to getting this done if we scroll down there’s a little at

1:03:43

the bottom says get the app so there’s a free app you can download and there’s a link for Android and Apple

1:03:49

products then if we click on the video this video walks you through how to enter uh

1:03:57

um a concern

1:04:05

and then one of the you know this has been up for a little over a month and a half with little publicity

1:04:12

but in April we ran a report and potholes were the top issue reported

1:04:18

and on average those issues were addressed in an average of 2.8 days

1:04:24

so in the data we had from March which was very limited it was more like four days so we made an improvement over one

1:04:31

month so we get more data it’s going to be interesting to see how long it takes us

1:04:37

and what resources we actually need to resolve problems so I just want to provide a little bit

1:04:42

of context as to what C clickfix is so folks can utilize their phone

1:04:49

um or using a desktop their laptop their computer what have you they can drag and

1:04:55

drop where they are located they can also type in in the search bar their address or the address that is closest

1:05:01

to the issue that and concern that they have so for instance a pothole try to

1:05:07

find that address that’s closest to it and then you’re able to write a description you’re able to add a photo

1:05:14

outlining where it is and then it gets submitted and gets processed through the

1:05:21

the town staff the Department of Public Works assigns it to a person they are

1:05:27

able to determine if they’re able to resolve it if it’s on state property if it’s on Town property and then they’re

1:05:34

able to directly communicate back to the person that has those concerns and the

1:05:39

fun part is you can all you can see see this all in real time so I think we can

1:05:46

do that in a little bit but you can actually see you know how people are communicating and when it gets resolved

1:05:52

and it provides a little bit more context and accessibility transparency

1:05:57

that’s what we’re all looking for um and it’s a really helpful Gadget to

1:06:03

have for for folks that might be tech savvy it also could be helpful for Town staff to utilize if somebody has a

1:06:09

concern or complaint they can log it within the system they can recommend folks to try it but they can also log it

1:06:15

within the system as well so that town staff can respond accordingly

1:06:26

so you can actually see right here these are some of the concerns that people

1:06:31

have logged some are acknowledged some are open some

1:06:36

are closed and it’s all dependent on um what the issue is

1:06:44

I think next we want to bring up Nick Mayo to go through opengov

1:07:03

should come a little jealous I appreciate it

1:07:10

good evening for those who don’t know me I’m Nick Mayo the director of inspectional services

1:07:17

this is um our new permitting flat platform called opengov

1:07:22

um just to give you a little background I’ve actually used this as a contractor and a handful of other communities so

1:07:27

this is that’s kind of what turned me on to this product was how user-friendly it is for

1:07:34

homeowners and contractors alike to be able to permit stuff from their home or home office or their

1:07:39

office without actually having to come to the town hall or if they want to they can do that as well on another note this

1:07:46

is my second time going through this process I I was previously in the community of Dennis

1:07:51

and we implemented online permitting not this system however online permitting

1:07:56

and I can tell you firsthand these types of systems just like the website the success of that deployment

1:08:05

of that new system is a hundred percent dependent on the staff who are willing to dive in and construct it and get it

1:08:11

moving forward and I can tell you that with inspectional Services the fire department the DBW some of these

1:08:18

services that are already live that’s exactly what happened and that’s why it’s been so successful is because of the staff that came together to make it

1:08:25

happen so the first thing I want to show you is just simply how to access there’s a few

1:08:31

things we think about when we think about permitting online or permitting in general is is access to

1:08:37

those permits the user friendliness of it how easy is it to use and get through

1:08:43

as well as on the staff side how does it bring staff together to make it more efficient

1:08:49

and some of the technical things on the back side of the process that most of the public don’t see in-house what do

1:08:55

you do with that permit once it’s issued where does it get archived how do you incorporate other departments for

1:09:00

notifications how do you how do you process your money how do you turn a batch over to the finance department there’s a lot of things that go into

1:09:07

this and and I can tell you with with full confidence that this new system is up and running and it’s running really

1:09:12

well so when you come to the town website

1:09:17

inspectional Services is a is a page on the town website and you can see on the bottom half of the page now you have

1:09:23

some different access points so one of the first access points here is a just a

1:09:29

main link that’s going to bring you if you click on that that’s basically just going to bring you to the home page where people call it a portal the online

1:09:34

permitting portal for the town of Plymouth in general it’s going to show you all the service areas that are live and give you options when you hit there

1:09:41

one thing we opted to do here is we got some feedback from contractors and homeowners and they really like this

1:09:47

option where you see these these icons at the bottom of the screen if you click on one of these it’s literally going to bring you to that portal right to that

1:09:53

type of application so you know what you’re looking for this is what I want to apply for you click on that it’s going to bring it right there

1:09:58

it’s that simple so this is what our our home page looks like in our portal

1:10:04

these are the service errors that are currently live so we do have some service areas coming

1:10:09

up inspectional services live fire department is live Florida health is under construction right now with

1:10:15

opengov they’re they’re technical staff they’re configuring it as we speak planning department is working on a few

1:10:21

items in their office as we speak Administration they are currently under construction as well the DPW they have

1:10:28

one application that is live mainly because I’m dependent on it and inspectional services so we kind of

1:10:34

nudge that one forward but they are currently under construction and you have the town clerk who’s who’s

1:10:39

entertaining coming on board with a few things and and we’re in discussions about that and same thing with Marine environmental Affairs so so all in this

1:10:46

is likely the service areas that you’ll see um kind of One-Stop shop permitting if

1:10:52

you will for the majority of our permits through the town hall moving on

1:10:57

this is a general just a snippet of a general list and inspectual Services I just took a snippet of three when you

1:11:03

when you move forward in the permitting portal you decide to click on a service area it’s going to give you a list of all the available applications that that

1:11:09

service here say inspectional Services the building department has to offer and it’s very simple to click on the little

1:11:16

blue icon if that’s the application you want to file

1:11:21

previously when I mentioned the icons on the bottom of the web page if you click on one of those it’s going

1:11:27

to bring you directly to that permit application either way you’re going to end up at a page that looks like this just to confirm that that’s the

1:11:33

application that you want to apply for you read the description of applies click on it

1:11:38

you’re going to get something that looks like this either frequent flyers of our system are very familiar with this

1:11:44

already however it gives you this is going to give you a few options either you’re going to log in if you already have an account or you’re going to sign

1:11:49

up it’s going to give you an opportunity to sign up so any new technology these days with permanent or anything in this

1:11:54

world you need to create an account it doesn’t cost you any money to create that account however you need everything’s email based in this world

1:12:01

now so everything you sign up for you put an email in and some kind of username you’re creating a password one

1:12:06

thing to note about this which in the contractor world we get a lot of positive feedback and I can speak to this personally when you permit with

1:12:14

opengov or Citizen Services in any Community anywhere they are nationwide

1:12:19

service you have the same login information in the same account no matter where you go

1:12:25

the difference is is how you access it if you go to the town of Plymouth web page and access site it’s going to bring

1:12:30

you to the town of Plymouth applications if you go to the Town of Barnstable it’s going to bring you to their applications it’s the same credentials if you have

1:12:36

the same account with that company so contractors really like this who do a lot of work say on the South Shore in

1:12:42

the cape it’s very convenient for them they don’t have to remember or try to figure out 10 different passwords and usernames for

1:12:49

different accounts so it’s very helpful moving on so once you create an account and you have successfully have applied

1:12:55

or submitted a permanent application you’re going to have your own personal user dashboard you can put a little

1:13:01

a little little picture in here if you want to I just chose not to do so

1:13:06

um on the left hand side here you’re going to see all your options as a user as a contractor or homeowner you’re

1:13:11

going to have your own dashboard you can actually send messages to the staff the town staff that are

1:13:18

using this system you can actually send them a message and they’ll receive it in their email and on their platform when

1:13:23

they’re working every day you can change your profile up you can view all the applications you have on here all your projects you can access any of your

1:13:30

permits at any time any documents that you’ve attached to this system sets of plans any of those things payments you

1:13:36

can you can go in and choose to pay for anything you want at any time when you’re allowed to pay for it see any

1:13:42

money that you owed you can also see any inspections that are due on any of your permits that you have and it’ll actually notify you of all of these things

1:13:49

this is just another place to see everything you have going on so it’s also going to list out all your actions

1:13:56

required so actions required in this system is going to say hey you you owe us money for this permit go on and pay

1:14:01

for it pay for it here your permit’s been issued um we’re looking for you have a message we’re looking for this but this set of

1:14:07

plans please go on and attach it it’s going to notify the user in their email every time an action is needed or

1:14:13

required or any action was taken place so step one of our build I’m just going

1:14:19

to walk you through a simple building permit application just to get an idea what this looks like step one is always

1:14:24

going to confirm your information the applicant’s information or the user that’s using the system once you’re logged in you can edit that at any time

1:14:32

um it’s it’s editable any anything in these fields you can change that information at any time

1:14:38

if anything changes it’s very user friendly simply click next to get to start through in the application

1:14:45

one thing here that’s good to note is we did a lot of work on the back end here this integrates with the Assessor’s

1:14:52

Master address table and also the it and somewhat engineering departments GIS

1:14:59

systems so the maps that you see in this system are going to be pulled from our current GIS data and the address has

1:15:05

come from the assessors department so if it does so the only addresses that you

1:15:11

can select here to file for a permit is anything in the town of Plymouth it will only allow you to select a current Plymouth address so this is an address

1:15:17

that you’re going to plug in or where you’re doing the work simply choose the location and plug it in moving on

1:15:24

it’s going to bring you to an address page it’s going to show this page the next page in that application is actually going to bring up the owner’s

1:15:32

information this is going to actually pull in the Assessor’s card the Assessor’s record on that property from

1:15:37

that Master address table which is also you can change that information so we had a lot of feedback in our previous system where in munis we couldn’t just

1:15:44

go in and change the owner of our property so and these are never current so this is always out of date because of

1:15:50

Mass General law and how often it can be get updated with the assessor and staff’s ability to keep it up to date

1:15:57

with constant deed changes and and what have you with properties it’s never really live in live time so this gives

1:16:04

the applicant the opportunity to update that at the application process which will also not write back to the

1:16:10

assessors record so this doesn’t affect anything other than this one record and that’s it so that’s very key for us so

1:16:16

also enough something else to mention you can save and exit this at any time so if I’m an applicant and I’m going on and I don’t have all the information I

1:16:23

can click simply say save it log out go get the information come back to it and pick up where I left off

1:16:30

moving forward we took a very simple approach with our applications and and the systems kind of

1:16:35

designed to do so is you have a series of drop down menu options some text fill

1:16:40

in boxes you can type in give us a description of things you would like to do check boxes those kinds of things to

1:16:46

just filter the proper information that’s applicable to what you want to do and we have the ability to weed out the

1:16:51

information on say long applications that doesn’t necessarily apply we can

1:16:56

take that anything that doesn’t necessarily apply to what you’re doing and weed it out through a series of

1:17:02

almost like a questionnaire if you will and we’re just collecting the relevant information for what you want to do to

1:17:08

your home or or what you would like to permit another great feature about this system this search function here this

1:17:14

integrates with the state this this goes with the State Department of Professional licensure and this search

1:17:20

function will actually pull the information from the state database for contractor’s license plumbers licensing

1:17:25

gas Fitters licensing hydraulic licensing so if the state if you have a license with the state as a contractor

1:17:32

it will pull it in here and so you don’t have to go find it every time and if it will give you the cut let us know that

1:17:38

that license is current and it’s active and it’s in good standing which is what’s something important we need to have the other thing this system is

1:17:44

going to allow us to do is digital signatures so the days of wet signatures on a lot of this stuff and wet stamps

1:17:50

from Engineers that those days are kind of over so we accept full digital signatures in digital stamping on on

1:17:57

just about anything that comes through our office at this point with permitting and that that kind of rules out having

1:18:03

to scan things in and bring them back in or having to actually come down with a set of hard documents to the building

1:18:08

department the one thing we didn’t want to do is have somebody fill out online but then come down to the building department with a set of plans that

1:18:14

doesn’t do anybody any good so um we I thought it was important to note that we

1:18:19

can take digital signatures legally for these things so simply type your name in there and then click submit and you’re good so here’s

1:18:27

where you can add attachments very simple depending on the situation the system’s automatically going to trigger

1:18:32

the requirement for certain attachments so if this is a new house you’re going to see the required steps here it’s automatically going to ask you not allow

1:18:39

you to move forward unless you submit a set of construction documents and you give us your energy compliance certificate for your new home right it’s

1:18:46

pretty standard power for the course you kind of need a set of plans to build a house right so it’s not going to allow

1:18:52

you to submit that application unless you do do so and again other permanent applications that we have you may not have anything really necessarily

1:18:58

required because there’s so many scenarios out there but just a good function of the system so this also

1:19:04

helps us here in the town hall which most people look is we don’t have room for digital storage so this system is

1:19:12

all on what everybody hears the cloud right so this this is all cloud-based so this is storage off-site this does not

1:19:18

take up local server space when you start dumping a ton of electronic file data into storage that’s that’s a real

1:19:25

problem and we don’t have to worry about that so the other option you’re going to have here that’s going to allow you is add

1:19:31

any kind of other attachment information that you think is relevant whether it’s a pitcher or your dog or it’s an additional set of plans it doesn’t

1:19:38

matter if you have another attachment you want to add you’re always going to have that option and you can come in hindsight and do it at any time as well

1:19:44

once I submit a permit application I’m going to have the ability I’m going to get a screen that looks like this with any application you submit in this

1:19:50

system I’m going to have a page that looks like this and allows me as the applicant to immediately send a message

1:19:55

to whoever manages that application I can go in and say hey I forgot to I forgot this can you please you know

1:20:02

hold up until I get you this you can send any kind of message you would like to whoever is looking at that application and vice versa staff can

1:20:08

send something back as well um on the left hand side of your screen here you’re going to see some other

1:20:13

options you have is you can go back and look at your submission you can go back to add any attachments one of the big

1:20:19

features here is the guest feature so a lot of our contractors who have office staff a plumbing outfit that has you

1:20:25

know six or eight plumbers and they have an actual office staff they can go in and attach their staff as a guest so

1:20:32

that office staff can go in and retrieve that permit they can pay for those permits they can do those administrative

1:20:37

tasks that say the plumber isn’t necessarily going to want to be doing out in the field so that’s a big thing for contractors with this to be able to

1:20:43

do that that’s very helpful for them um this here is what we call a workflow

1:20:49

so every every application everything that goes into this new system whether it’s dog licensing whether it’s a

1:20:55

sidewalk permit or it’s a building permit has some kind of workflow in the system that’s set up to what’s the process from start to finish with that

1:21:01

with that application process and that permitting process and that’s that’s this that workflow on that side that

1:21:07

applicant is going to be able to see in real time where that is with the town who it’s with what step in that workflow

1:21:15

it’s at um and that’s that’s helpful to have in real time

1:21:20

there’s the messaging so once you submit something also you’re gonna well anytime

1:21:26

the system takes action if you will so if we issue a permit if a fee is due

1:21:32

if uh if we send you a message hey we need this this is this is missing this

1:21:39

the system is going to send you an automated email that looks something like this and let you know that action or some kind of action is needed some

1:21:45

action has been taken on your on your application or anything in the system and you’re going to have this nice

1:21:51

little blue icon down here you can simply click on it it’s going to take you right to it as an applicant or a user and let you take care of it

1:22:00

on the back side this is what employees see every day so this is where the new where the employees live uh and

1:22:06

inspectional services fire prevention uh DBW in some fashion at this point

1:22:12

um to see what’s going on and and what they have to do on a daily basis so this actually is a snapshot of

1:22:18

some current permitting in our system also some test permitting that some of the other departments are doing but this

1:22:25

is all this this entire area is all the Departments of real time of what’s going

1:22:31

on in this system town wide on the left hand side here you’re going

1:22:37

to see active records ways to filter through those things anything to be able to filter to see any money that’s owed

1:22:44

to a certain service here or a certain record type you can see any documents that have been issued this is a

1:22:50

filtration system right here to be able to create any reporting you’d like in lifetime out of this system in inside a

1:22:56

few minutes this here these are two methods these arrows here these are two methods that

1:23:02

the employees are trying to to uh really pay close attention to because this is where they live is on the left

1:23:07

hand side you’re going to see that little envelope those are tasks those are something that’s assigned to that

1:23:13

user so every staff in inspectional services and Fire Prevention and whoever’s going to use this is assigned

1:23:18

to certain tasks in the system either a permit review an inspection those types of things it’s

1:23:25

an actual action required and you’re assigned to something and you have and that’s your workload that’s what you’re being assigned to do on the upper right

1:23:31

hand corner those are notifications if um if I ask an applicant to go back on and upload a set of set of plans well I

1:23:38

don’t have to babysit that and go back and constantly check that notification is going to gonna light up and let me know that something was attached to that

1:23:44

record so I can go back in and confirm that we got what we needed to be able to move forward so the system is uh has

1:23:50

some automation to it the next big thing on the left here is inspections at least with inspectional services and Fire

1:23:55

Prevention these are this is a big thing so every day we have a list of What’s

1:24:01

called the requested inspections so the system will allow applicants to go on when they get far enough in the

1:24:08

process to request an inspection they can go online right from their phone right from their laptop their iPad

1:24:13

whatever they want and they can request an inspection for their their work that they’re doing a frame and inspection a

1:24:19

plumbing rough it doesn’t matter what it is whatever inspection they needed and staff will go in on a daily basis to be

1:24:24

able to retrieve these and schedule them accordingly this is what they look like

1:24:30

um this is somewhat from an administrative level where I I can basically sit in my office at this point and look and see where every inspector

1:24:36

in the office this is just the local building inspectors but we can see on a daily basis out of this system where

1:24:42

they’re all going so we get a lot of call volume in the in the building department is my inspection scheduled

1:24:48

today when are they going to be there those kinds of those kinds of calls and this helps us to help in real time to

1:24:54

give them real feedback on on how far out they might be how far down their list it is any of

1:25:01

those types of things and and confirm that it is scheduled those kinds of things it’ll it’ll provide real-time

1:25:07

data to anyone in the office who needs to look this up sorry too many clicks so this will also

1:25:14

allow us to um access the record types right here so the inspectors in the field actually have access to this in

1:25:21

the field so they can have real-time data in the field with the digital records that they need to access while

1:25:26

they’re doing inspections it also allow them to reassign inspections to each other so you got to draw a hard line with those guys because they start

1:25:32

messing with each other a little bit but um so you hope that they you can you can reassign inspections at any time if you

1:25:39

want we can there’s a lot of stuff you can do with this you it’s very very user friendly

1:25:45

moving forward so this is what a building permit looks like to the staff so you can see all the information that

1:25:54

would have been where’s the laser pointer all the information that would have been collected through that questionnaire say process on the

1:25:59

application populates right here and everybody has access to it anyone who’s a user in the town hall or with the town

1:26:06

as staff has access to view this regardless also on the left hand side it’s going to give you that workflow

1:26:13

so it’s going to show you everyone who it’s assigned to um to do their reviews who’s done their

1:26:19

reviews where it is in the pipeline where that permit application is and this is real time and this correlates with the applicant side to see that list

1:26:25

in real time as well one thing I want to note that’s very important here is now we have the opportunity to to

1:26:32

somewhat expedited a building permit process at least because all these reviews are happening

1:26:37

at the same time this isn’t necessarily heading over to the fire department to get a signature heading down to the

1:26:43

Sewer Department then heading over to the Board of Health this is in real time this is this is all at the same time

1:26:49

concurrent so everybody looks at it at the same time so it really helps us move this along and a little bit quicker

1:26:55

once we’re ready to issue the permit you’re going to see you’re going to get an email with fees due the system will

1:27:01

notify you that you you know we’re ready for you to pay for your per pay your permit fee so this will automatically

1:27:06

based on how we have the system set up we have certain data that we simply

1:27:12

enter into the system and it will populate the fee automatically so most of the fees in the inspectional services

1:27:18

are automatic they are verified 100 verified by a staff member before they are sent out however they do populate

1:27:25

automatic somebody can come in at the counter at any time and pay with uh with a check

1:27:30

they can pay with a credit card right over the counter we do have terminals at the uh any anyone who’s going with this

1:27:36

server with this open gov service will have a a credit card terminal that comes along with it so we purchased

1:27:41

those we have those just about up and running so you can come in at any time and pay with those the e-checks unfortunately we can’t take e-checks we

1:27:49

can’t process any kind of E-Check at the counter um and I’m told mostly because we’re not entering bank account

1:27:55

information you need to enter in your banking information to do it so what I mean by that is an owner at home who

1:28:02

wants to pay for a permit they need to actually they actually log into their bank account and it and it connects with

1:28:08

their bank account in order to transfer those funds we’re not just simply entering a routing number and a checking number so it’s a little different so

1:28:14

very simple um little into the reporting into this so at any time I can look up

1:28:21

any I can map out any record type any service area any anything I really want

1:28:27

and map it out throughout town to figure out how many we’ve how many permits we’ve done in a certain period of time

1:28:32

of a certain type of hermit any of that type of data we want to try to find and we actually want to map it out through town to see if if there’s a

1:28:39

concentration or certain area of a certain type of of Permitting going on we can do that

1:28:45

um some more of the analytics we can get into here is at any time I can take at a very high level I can simply take this

1:28:52

was sometime last week I believe that this is going to show you that we’ve um collected not quite a half a million in

1:28:59

Revenue since we went live and we’ve issued a little over 1400 permits I can

1:29:06

do any date range we want any type of record a service here same thing any along any of those lines uh we this is

1:29:12

this is a real high level broad view of just pulling simple data out to run some some kind of reporting

1:29:18

now one thing I I’d like to let the public know is we’re going to be going forward with what’s called a

1:29:24

transparency platform so we have not finished the training on or 100 percent

1:29:29

let’s say wrapped our head around how to manage it 100 yet but pretty quickly

1:29:34

we’re going to be launching this where the public will actually have the ability to access this transparency platform on our website and they will be

1:29:41

able to filter the data how they see fit um and and take a look at our records

1:29:47

our permitting and and revenue we’ve collected on certain types of permits a number of permits we issued and any kind

1:29:54

of number of variables they want to filter with the public will be able to interact with this at one point so they can change it to certain pie

1:30:00

charts I can tell you that this is actually a snapshot from last week again this is since it’s important to note

1:30:08

since before we went live we were 100 paper and we took in maybe a couple hundred

1:30:14

thousand a year in credit card transactions compared to about 3 million a year and right now you can see in real

1:30:21

time that that’s the percentage we’re doing credit cards now so we know that the public are

1:30:27

taking to the credit card transactions and that the payments in and I can tell you we’ve only processed over-the-counter credit cards somebody

1:30:33

comes in and wants to pay for it in person a handful so this is all remote transactions taking place from the field

1:30:40

from contractors on their phone or homeowners sitting at home on the computer they’re all paying for it remotely

1:30:46

so this is just another way to filter that data I can actually tell you how what type of transaction the trades are

1:30:54

really paying for so you know your your electricians really like to use their credit cards the plumbers are really coming in with the checks and they’re

1:31:00

paying with checks so I can actually filter that data to tell me who’s paying

1:31:05

and how they’re paying for it that’s it yeah

1:31:20

no questions I mean you know what this board want to change boy did we get it

1:31:26

so congratulations we do have one more presentation

1:31:33

is going to talk about some of the technology upgrades over the town clerk’s office and you’re

1:31:39

right Madam chair you asked for change and you got it I did thank you hopefully I won’t go too

1:31:46

much I actually bought show and tell but in all honesty I bought one that’s going to be used for early voting so I’m not

1:31:52

sure how much I’ll be able to do at show and tell but if you haven’t if you voted in person early voting in the fall

1:31:59

um or if you went to the polling locations um in November you might have noticed

1:32:05

that we purchased pull pads I think especially with the G of a f here I

1:32:12

think a enough for supporting this purchase to allow us to have 18 of these iPads where we are able to use these and

1:32:20

check in the voters on Election Day and what this does it’s a couple clicks find

1:32:26

the voter’s name if you remember the old days there would be papers of um you

1:32:31

know lots of papers you’d have to go through to find the street and then find the name and check them off now is now

1:32:37

we’re just checking people off on the iPad I can say one of the polling locations in November mentioned that

1:32:43

they had a line out the door first thing in the morning and she said within 15 minutes they had the line done and she

1:32:50

goes when we were using paper it would have taken us like an hour to get that line through so it’s definitely saving

1:32:56

the voters time at um when this at the polling location

1:33:02

the other thing I wanted to say is not only is it saving the voters time it’s state it is saving the town clerk’s

1:33:09

staff time if you’re unaware Big Brother’s always watching so anyone that

1:33:15

you know voting is a public record so anytime you vote in an election it is on

1:33:20

your voter history that is a state system that we have in the town clerk’s office

1:33:26

in the past has in last May and last September anyone that voted if you

1:33:32

remember that paper list I went back to I had a bar code on it the the staff would have to scan every voter in in

1:33:39

November we had 29 000 voters the staff would have been responsible for scanning

1:33:45

29 000 barcodes to get that load of History within six hours I was able to

1:33:51

get the information off the 18 different poll pads and get it into the state system so it’s not only saving time for

1:33:57

the voters and the election workers it’s saving Monumental staff time as well

1:34:03

and the last thing I’m going to talk about is the marriage registration system in the next week we will be updating the

1:34:12

website with the new marriage program and couples that want to get married can

1:34:17

sit at the comfort of their home and give us their information then they come

1:34:23

into the office pay the fee sign the documentation and three days later they get their license and they can go out

1:34:29

and have the ceremony and be happily happily married for the rest of their lives that being yeah that being said in

1:34:39

the past they would have to come in fill out the paperwork then come back so on and so forth so this is going to save a

1:34:46

lot of the couples in Plymouth and people that are using Plymouth as a destination wedding a lot of time that

1:34:53

we can have them fill it out at home so short and sweet but we’re making some advances in the town clerk’s office as

1:35:00

well thank you thank you

1:35:05

if I could just one common thread that ran through those last three presentations is um

1:35:14

um Anthony came from the town of Weston where he led the the town of Weston’s

1:35:19

website redesign so he brought that experience here Kelly coming from the town of Upton I used pole pads and all

1:35:27

that technology and she brought that with her as well and Nick who’s now left I came from the town of Dennis who had

1:35:33

instituted e-permitting and so when we started bringing up these ideas having talked to Joe Joe’s been wanting to do

1:35:38

this stuff for years and now he had mutual Partners in order to get this work done so it worked out extremely

1:35:44

well because we were able to take advantage of all their experience in the I.T department on the Joe’s leadership

1:35:50

having the backbone to be able to implement all that so um great things happened the past 12

1:35:55

months and this is just the first presentation amongst our annual review

1:36:01

that’ll take next take place next Tuesday

1:36:06

that’s awesome um in the and it is something that we’ve been trying to get done for a few years

1:36:15

anyway I know even before John and I had had these discussions back in the time

1:36:22

machine John let’s go back so um it’s great to see like I said it’s

1:36:27

great to see all the things that you wanted and wished for come to fruition especially two weeks before I leave

1:36:34

office so that’s wonderful anybody have any questions or comments

1:36:39

about the new website we have Al Denardo on Zoom

1:36:46

Mr dinardo go ahead please member Precinct 17. first of all this is

1:36:53

music to my ears tonight and I want to congratulate the town manager Anthony

1:36:59

and the IT director I don’t want to leave anyone out of course the board and others and of course the town clerk two

1:37:05

issues is you know on the North Shore we used the C click and fix for many many years and what’s good as a town meeting

1:37:12

member is that we could take a photograph of that pothole like like it was said earlier

1:37:18

and post that monitor that no more do we have to call in and get someone to pick up the phone so so town meeting members

1:37:25

and others are going to really love that system I’ve used it many many times it’s

1:37:30

great the other issue is uh just this mopping up of posting of meetings uh

1:37:37

that we have the agendas now uh every week I check the calendar to see what

1:37:42

meetings are are um you know happening this week we can look at the agenda it is it is light

1:37:48

years ahead of where we were I was a bit confused when I first moved here a few

1:37:53

years ago and uh I have to give a compliment to the town clerk posting meetings now 48 hours in advance

1:38:01

matter of fact last night we had a Precinct 17 meeting and Joe Hutchinson and I have made it a standard practice

1:38:08

that we have the zoom credentials posted on that so really anyone can attend our

1:38:14

you know Precinct meeting and I’m hoping that will be the standard process you know the standard process with the rest

1:38:22

of the caucuses and other meetings I just want I have to give credit where credit is due I know I have a big mouth

1:38:29

on some issues but I just have to say congratulations and this is really music to my ear so thank you everybody

1:38:38

thank you Mr dinardo and I believe there’s someone else on there that would

1:38:43

like to speak we have Lori Downs hi um I have a question I’ve been searching

1:38:52

really hard to find the Motions as voted on the website

1:38:57

Um this can I don’t know maybe Kelly can tell me how I can find them

1:39:02

under what category they would be

1:39:17

I apologize Lori I haven’t they haven’t been posted has I haven’t posted the proceedings yet because I’m still in the

1:39:24

process of doing them been busy with the town election and I believe the transfer from the old website to the new to the

1:39:31

new website which has Anthony alluded to we’re still in the process of trying to get the Legacy information moved over so

1:39:40

hopefully within the next you know once the town election is over I’ll be concentrating on getting that town

1:39:45

meeting web page up and running and getting all that information we don’t know how far back we’ll be able

1:39:51

to go with all the town meetings but again always feel free to reach out to me in the public records ACT public

1:39:58

records officer and we could definitely get you the information okay thank you

1:40:04

um additionally we’re going to be providing a different format as to those those documents for town meeting members

1:40:10

and members of the public as well that is a little bit more accessible um and a little bit more user friendly so folks can find that information

1:40:16

quicker um it’s one of the things that we are currently working on and probably in the

1:40:22

next week or two great thank you

1:40:30

next order of business is the phase two reorganization

1:40:36

Mr brindisi so I’m going to wait a few minutes while

1:40:42

Anthony pulls up the slide deck and just while I wait I just wanted to

1:40:48

just talk a little bit about just the last presentation and a couple comments

1:40:53

by Mr Donato I mean there’s been some criticism that the town clerk is is requiring the posting and making us do

1:40:59

within 48 hours and yeah that is all true but that’s following the open meeting law and so and there’s criticism

1:41:05

about you know how we handle the war articles again following the the laws that are set forth in the town bylaws in

1:41:12

the townshata so you know I would say that we’re not doing anything um special we just following the laws

1:41:19

and so that technology allows us to do just that so so folks that are asking

1:41:25

questions why have we changed things we again we’re just trying to abide by the local and state bylaws

1:41:32

those pesky little laws aren’t they if you don’t like the law change it that’s what I always say

1:41:38

so on today we’ll begin uh phase two of the uh proposed town reorgs

1:41:45

so this is the current structure as approved by the board last Tuesday

1:41:53

the today’s focus is going to be on the police department and Marine and environmental Affairs so as I did last

1:42:01

week I tried to expand the areas of discussion and you can see

1:42:07

here if I can get this late tour

1:42:12

under the police department they have operations Administration and Professional Standards and they also

1:42:18

have the 911 dispatch Center under Marine environmental Affairs is

1:42:24

haramaster animal control and natural resources

1:42:30

so those are the two years we’ll talk about this evening the first thing you’ll notice under the police

1:42:38

department as we have removed the 911 dispatch Center

1:42:43

um so this evening we have with us Chief Foley Chi Flynn and Mr brothers who

1:42:49

spent the last 12 plus months working with the sheriff’s department on

1:42:55

relocating our 9-1-1 Dispatch Center over to the Sheriff’s Department

1:43:01

and so that conversation began because there was a study that has confirmed

1:43:06

that the town of Plymouth is no longer able to meet the current national 9-1-1 call answering standards

1:43:15

this change really came because the chief chief Foley working I think

1:43:21

started with Chief Bradley right you guys began a conversation with Chief

1:43:26

Flynn to really try to think about new ways to uh enhance and meet those 911

1:43:33

dispatch standards and so part of that was to con think about consolidating both fire police and EMS all in one

1:43:42

location as you can imagine and both Chiefs he had to explain in more detail how the

1:43:49

system currently works from a 9-1-1 call with your cell phone maybe being routed

1:43:55

to State Police then going down to the 911 dispatch Center over to Fire and Ems

1:44:01

for final dispatch of a say a medical call and you can see the sequence of events of how that you know takes place

1:44:08

in all the different transfers that have to take place um and so this was the kind of

1:44:14

short-circuit all those different transfers so this consolidation will reduce 911 call processing and dispatch

1:44:20

times decreased delays and response times while increasing first respondent safety and awareness

1:44:26

the sheriff’s department has already established a Dispatch Center with enough room to accommodate this need

1:44:32

and Personnel needed to effectively operate a municipal 911 Public Safety

1:44:37

answering point which is known as a psap to further enhance Plymouth Public Safety 911 system

1:44:44

the town will invest I believe we’re using operas in considerable technology

1:44:49

upgrades and then finally I’d say that there have been ongoing conversations

1:44:55

with the existing 911 staff we think that we’re in a very

1:45:01

um we’re in a position now that we can announce as publicly staff we’re

1:45:06

accommodating all their requests and their needs some will go over to the Sheriff’s Department if they choose to there are positions available for them

1:45:12

those that choose not to take advantage of this system have will move to other places but we

1:45:20

have accommodated all the requests and their needs through this this relocation of this of the 911

1:45:27

dispatch Center so um I’ll pause there and I’ll defer any of the detailed questions over to either

1:45:34

one of the Chiefs uh answer any questions you have regarding this reorganization

1:45:42

I know that you’ve explained like we’ve explained before this has been going on for about a year

1:45:48

I don’t have any questions I’m well aware of

1:45:54

um break the place up I don’t have any questions I you know I

1:46:01

think the board has understanding but unless the anyone John do you have nope I think

1:46:08

we’re good with all the questions for the uh dispatch okay so uh moving on uh

1:46:13

to the next uh business item uh so the so the other item that we want

1:46:20

to talk tonight about is uh transferring the harbor Masters personnel and

1:46:25

responsibilities under the police department again this has been a an on

1:46:30

and off conversation I would say uh almost 13 to 14 months now with uh with

1:46:36

the union members myself and um and um chief chief Flynn who’s with

1:46:43

us today so I’m going to I’m going to ask the chief to explain some of the

1:46:48

issues around police reform in this post commission which is very different than

1:46:53

these conversations that may that may have taken place prior to 2020. I know

1:46:59

this conversation of the the police department having the harbor Master’s

1:47:04

office fall under that Authority is not a new conversation but what’s different today is post the previous time manager

1:47:13

the previous police chief did not have to work on the post commission they did

1:47:18

not have police reform to deal with so Chief Lind if you could come forward and

1:47:24

talk to the board about some of the issues that are surrounding this recommendation thank you

1:47:30

okay evening everybody Chief Lynn Plymouth

1:47:37

Police Department um so I’ve been tasked with providing an opinion as to whether or not it’s

1:47:43

feasible to reorganize the Plymouth Police Department in the Plymouth Harbor Master’s

1:47:48

Department to work together under Under One Roof when I started looking into this uh the

1:47:54

idea this reorganization I made a number of calls to communities along the coast North Shore South Shore South Coast and

1:48:02

there’s no there’s no standard there’s no standard set from town to town some communities the harbor management

1:48:09

and harbor harbor Masters totally under control of the chief of police

1:48:14

some some communities have the Harbor Master as a division of the

1:48:20

police department and some have totally separate departments altogether

1:48:27

so as Derek had stated this isn’t a new topic of discussion I worked way back in the day you know we

1:48:34

talk about the 80s we we’re not talking about the 1880s anymore talking about the 1980s so I worked down for Angelo

1:48:42

brigidaire and later Ralph stavy from 1984 to 1997.

1:48:48

there was a period of that time from 2000 and 1996 to 2002 that we were a

1:48:53

division of the police department and I can say at that time in my role I didn’t I didn’t see any any difference

1:48:59

in in my day-to-day responsibilities or job in 2011 the former Chief uh brought up

1:49:08

another proposal for reorganization to place the administrative responsibilities of the higher Masters

1:49:15

Department again under the police department um at that time he cited concerns about

1:49:20

training liability and and all this stunned around

1:49:26

the hot some of the higher Master staff are armed you know

1:49:32

um as stated it’s not a new issue however with the passing of chapter 253

1:49:39

of the acts of 2020 also known as police reform and the establishment of the Mass police

1:49:45

uh police officer standards and training commission also known as post I think this is an appropriate time to

1:49:51

start talking about reorganization again and I brought my captain of Professional

1:49:58

Standards with me he’ll talk more about post in a minute as a chief of police I’m extremely

1:50:04

concerned about liability training and accountability I’m also concerned right now the state has recognized more than

1:50:10

one law enforcement agency in the town of Plymouth what this does is this allows for

1:50:15

different age for the two different agencies to have different standards policies and rules of conduct yet we

1:50:22

have overlapping the areas of responsibility in order to mitigate the risk of

1:50:27

liability to town is my opinion that all employees who carry a gun and

1:50:32

have the power of Russia abide by a standard set of policies and procedures rules and regulations are received

1:50:37

maintain equal levels of training in use of force de-escalation and other highly

1:50:43

High liability topics that are related to law enforcement as the chief of the police of the police

1:50:50

department I oversee and I’m responsible for all policing and police matters in the town I’m accountable for the supervision and

1:50:56

assignment of all certified police officers post has certified for the hob Master’s

1:51:02

department members as certified police officers I’m responsible for the establishment of the rules and regular regulations the

1:51:08

positive procedures of the department in pursuant to Mass General law 41 section 98 Ivy the authority to determine what

1:51:15

equipment and weapons are utilized by the towns police force so in consideration of above and what

1:51:21

Captain Higgins will explain a little more about post it’s it’s my recommended recommendation at the high Masters

1:51:27

Department be placed under the administrative control of the police department and what I mean by the administrative

1:51:32

control I don’t mean operational we don’t want to be involved in the day-to-day operations that’s not our

1:51:38

intent here our intent here is to make sure that we do already have a

1:51:43

a highly qualified police High Master’s department but we want to protect them and we want to protect the town from

1:51:49

liability

1:51:55

thank you Chief before I start I just want to say that I’ve been a lifelong Plymouth resident and a police officer

1:52:00

for 26 years I’ve enjoyed working side by side with Chad hunter in the harbor Master department they do an incredible

1:52:06

job down there and this whole thing is simply just to as the chief said to uh to give them the tools and the training

1:52:12

that they need as well as the um an intern that’s going to give the public what they need uh good evening

1:52:18

for the record sir I’m about to do that I said before I begin good evening my

1:52:25

name is Jason Higgins I’m captain of the Professional Standards division within the Plymouth Police Department the division that I command includes

1:52:30

post-compliance Internal Affairs accreditation and training I want to talk about the peace officer

1:52:35

standards and training commission post as they’re commonly known and they have imposed stringent rules regarding

1:52:42

certification of the Massachusetts police officer they have comprehensive time-consuming methods of submittal and

1:52:48

investigation for internal or external complaints against officers that would include Harbor Masters that carry guns

1:52:54

in a badge they track training whether it’s annual in-service use of force specialized in-house medical legal

1:53:02

updates and even bias training any officer that feel to complete their assigned training can and will be

1:53:07

decertified in addition the head of the law enforcement agency is responsible for completing time-consuming interviews

1:53:13

with every employee with the goal of attesting to the officer’s morality non-biased behaviors and having no use

1:53:20

of force encounters that cause red flags posters created a portal for submission of Officer complaints and soon a use of

1:53:27

force portal will be online where an agency will have to report every use of force once again time consuming data

1:53:33

that has to be properly characterized and submitted under a strict time frame post was created due to police reform

1:53:40

police reform took place due to several incidents across this country where police did not act appropriately thank

1:53:45

goodness the Massachusetts police officer was very rarely on the Nightly News police or armed Harbor Masters are going

1:53:53

to be held to a much higher standard in 2023 than at any other time in American history

1:53:58

so far post is only 33 percent complete in the review of Massachusetts police officers even so they’ve refused to to

1:54:06

certify 246 officers and they’ve suspended 28 certifications when this

1:54:11

happens it’s embarrassing for the agency in the community thankfully Plymouth is in 100 compliance with post

1:54:18

how do we make sure that these training errors don’t happen in Plymouth or at the very least significantly minimize the embarrassment

1:54:24

or cost of this happening I’ll tell you the Plymouth Police Department has hundreds of policy and procedures rules

1:54:31

and regulations in general orders that reflect the best current practices of the American police officer these

1:54:37

policies rules and orders have been tested by the Massachusetts police accreditation commission and we’ve

1:54:43

recently completed our second accreditation this accreditation is so important making sure that Community is safe we

1:54:48

have a dedicated Sergeant Robert Ferguson who is always looking to improve policy in accordance with the commission’s best practices once this

1:54:55

policy is enacted training must take place currently post recognizes two separate

1:55:00

and distinct learning agencies in this town operating under different policies procedures and standards of training at

1:55:07

this time that’s irresponsible the Plymouth Harbor Master department is

1:55:12

the only Harbor Master Department recognized by the post commission as being a separate law enforcement entity within one municipality this is because

1:55:19

out of the hundreds of municipalities within Plymouth excuse me with Massachusetts it simply doesn’t make sense and has the possibility to be a

1:55:26

lot a liability nightmare when there’s different policies and procedures different rules in place as post

1:55:31

requirements grow it would be almost impossible for hypermaster Hunter to carry on with this very important Duke

1:55:36

Harbor Master duties and fulfill all the requirements of post as well as all the training the post requires

1:55:43

if one was to talk to a small agency police chief regarding this matter and I’ve talked to several just today I spoke with Carver police chief Mark

1:55:49

dufully who explained on his small Department the amount that he of time that he has to put into this is an absolute undue burden on his department

1:55:56

and his people taking away from their primary duties of providing law enforcement and the safety of the

1:56:01

community for a very short time we heard the term defund thank goodness due to the recognition of the police officers

1:56:07

difficult and necessary job as well as the harbor Masters Massachusetts since 2020 has been just the opposite train

1:56:13

train and more training Massachusetts wants to give our communities the best police officer that they can

1:56:19

without training is going to come complaints and litigation today’s May 9th we’re over five months

1:56:25

into 2023 Oklahoma police departments respond over fifteen thousand incidents so far I want you to keep in mind that

1:56:30

we have 10 to 20 officers in every shift we ride 24 hours a day we’ve had only one complaint not for theft not for

1:56:37

excessive force no abhorrent Behavior simply one complaint for alleged rudeness I can tell you that complaint

1:56:42

was investigated it was unfounded the complaint was the complaintant was upset that she was cited for a traffic violation and it was found that the

1:56:49

officer did act with professionalism the fact that we’ve only received one citizen complaint in over five months is

1:56:54

a testament not only to our incredible police officers but also their training necessary uniform ongoing and robust

1:57:01

training in accordance with Massachusetts best practices I also happen to be the public information officer of the police

1:57:07

department if I ever had to address the public or the media regarding an unfortunate or attention-getting incident which is always very possible

1:57:13

in our line of business I would have no problems falling back on the proven practices of this Police Department however

1:57:20

if a public information officer a member of town management or member of Town Council had to address the same set of

1:57:25

circumstances without the extensive ongoing and necessary training take place I’d feel pretty bad for that

1:57:30

person I wouldn’t want to think about the potential liability that the town would occur it only makes sense to have law

1:57:35

enforcement Personnel both police and the Harbor Master divisions having the same standardized training and safeguards that our training department

1:57:42

is ready to provide for them not only does it make sense in 2023 necessary and

1:57:47

100 prudent thank you thank you Mr Higgins I don’t know if um

1:57:54

our Harvard Master and one of our assistant would you want to speak

1:58:01

and Mr Dolly you can be next good evening Chad Hunter Plymouth Harbor

1:58:07

Master so I think we’ve had uh I think his town

1:58:13

manager brendeezy pointed out this just just discussion has been going on for close to a year now

1:58:19

um and you know I think everything that the the chief and Captain Higgins

1:58:24

mentioned is absolutely true um we’ve uh as far as a hard Master

1:58:31

Department goes we’ve been very proactive with training when police reform actually came down I was the hard

1:58:40

Master training Council for the state of Massachusetts from for 10 years and actually kind of

1:58:48

had some oversight as to the training of harp Masters within the state and how police reform uh fit into that so being

1:58:55

in that position we were all my staff myself or proponents of training and we

1:59:01

would take any training that we could get our hands on everybody went through uh the The Bridge Academy which was sort

1:59:09

of to bring us all up to that single standard that that post had set so you

1:59:15

know we’re we’re pretty far along in the process but I think we’re also a four-man Department essentially with

1:59:22

seasonal and part-time help that join us in the summer so you know all of all of

1:59:28

these things that Captain Higgins had mentioned are very cumbersome for our

1:59:34

very small department so I think in that sense it makes a lot of sense

1:59:41

the you know obviously we’ve we’ve been under the Marine environmental Affairs

1:59:46

department for close to 12 years Dave’s not here anymore but I just wanted to

1:59:52

point out that um we’ve had a wonderful tenure with that department David Gould’s been an

2:00:00

excellent leader we’ve completed completed a major overhaul of the harbor

2:00:05

completing dredging building Piers bulkheads the maritime facility leveraging close to 20 million dollars

2:00:12

in state and federal money coming to the town to get those projects done offsetting the cost to the town

2:00:19

a teamwork of this small Department group of about nine ten employees

2:00:25

was truly extraordinary and a wonderful experience and I’ve learned a ton from David the projects that we’ve done

2:00:33

together it’s it’s been great um we just I guess more recently we’ve had

2:00:40

some very fruitful discussions I met with the chief late last week and we met

2:00:45

again yesterday with a larger group to really discuss the the proposals leading

2:00:52

to tonight’s meeting um we have some details to work out in an

2:00:57

MOA which I think everybody understands and the chief has assured us that you know

2:01:06

operationally things for the harvardmaster Department moving forward would would stay the same and I will say

2:01:12

that’s very important for us as staff I think we all we all felt that we do a

2:01:18

really good job for the the size of the department and the uh the demands that we have

2:01:24

especially in the summer months in the harbor I’ve heard from a lot of people that have reached out or told me like

2:01:30

you know you guys do a great job and you know I I think those words um they’re they’re very much appreciated

2:01:37

and I I completely respect that um so you know we’ve heard that from the

2:01:43

community and I think we want to make sure that we continue to provide those services to the boaters and Commercial

2:01:49

fishermen in the harbor visitors anybody that that frequents the the harbor so

2:01:56

um I’ll turn it over to Mike if he wants to say something yeah I just want to thank everyone for

2:02:03

getting us here today um this is this is I’m really excited about this um what gives us the opportunity to be

2:02:08

here today is the aggressive training that Chad put us on as soon as this came out we were among the first people to

2:02:13

get through um all of the Bridge Academy and um it’s been an up and down cycle we were very

2:02:20

much in post when it started and then we were out of post and now we’re back under post so we’ve been trying to keep

2:02:26

up with it along the way and I think right now is the time that we need to make this commitment formerly for all of

2:02:32

us to get it done and get it done right um we’re still gonna it’s it’s change

2:02:37

this whole night has been about change and I’m sure it’s difficult for someone who’s been finding paper permits forever to go online

2:02:43

it’s it’s short-term pain for long-term gains and I think that’s the point where we’re at right now where you know it’s

2:02:50

just change and uh but it’s we can do it we’ve done it in the past we’ve got a great crew the police have a great crew

2:02:56

we work together on the water all the time anyway the changes day to day I think are going to be minimal and I

2:03:02

think the advantages we’re going to get through training accountability and having one unified system it really

2:03:07

makes sense right now and uh now is a great time to do it um so so we look forward to it we’re excited it’s going to bring some great

2:03:14

new opportunities for us and we’re still going to get projects done uh we’re still focused on the Harbor none of that

2:03:20

is going to change we’re just we’re just we’re adding more and more layers of of great work that we’ve been doing and I

2:03:26

think right now is the right time to do this and we’re excited we’re looking forward to it thank you

2:03:31

great Mr Brewster

2:03:38

yeah wrestling Brewster um I’ve been a harbor Committee Member for over nine years I just want to

2:03:44

commend um the harbor Masters Department I’ve really seen it evolve and flourish under

2:03:50

the environmental Affairs and my concern is that I don’t think we would be where we are with aquaculture dredging

2:03:59

the amount of grants that we got for the boats in the harbor and that the

2:04:05

environmental Affairs and David have really brought the Harbor Master up to a higher level I don’t think he would be

2:04:10

able to manage that new building that that he helped create I just want to

2:04:15

make sure that that relationship between environmental Affairs and the Harbor Master is kept up and I think that it

2:04:23

would be a benefit to the town that that relationship is you know it’s a natural relationship where we’re dealing with

2:04:29

aquaculture we’re dealing with environmental that the Harbor Master and environmental Affairs are still on the

2:04:35

same page and still you know in unified Force thank you um to your comments Mr Brewster as you

2:04:44

well know I’m also the liaison for the harbor committee and I have to say that

2:04:49

it’s one of my favorite committees not trying to say my other ones aren’t

2:04:55

but it is one of my favorite committees um I think what everybody has come to

2:05:00

the realization that under the tutelage of our new town manager we

2:05:06

work together as a team and nothing should change with anybody working together

2:05:12

it’s done all the time I Derek enforces you know that

2:05:19

relationship with everyone and I’m not even remotely worried that they won’t

2:05:25

continue the way they have been yeah yeah no I think that’s a great point and I sh I shared the same

2:05:33

concerns Mr Brewster when we started this conversation a year ago and you know I was always wondering I haven’t

2:05:39

come back five years later and seeing the dredging project and the boat ramps and now a second boat ramp and so on and

2:05:44

so forth that you know this would be everyone’s concern and but I can tell you right now that you know we had a

2:05:50

meeting today it was myself it was David Gould it was mockerella climate resiliency planner James Downey from

2:05:55

engineering to talk about a different Grant at complete streams MVP Grant then multiple departments are

2:06:02

working together collectively on to try to bring multiple um millions of dollars to the town of

2:06:08

Plymouth for a different project so this is what we do all departments in order to to move

2:06:14

forward with any infrastructure project have to work together so Mr Hunter and Mr Gould they already have

2:06:21

that baked in relationship so I don’t expect them to do anything but the great work that they’ve done in the past

2:06:31

Mr Mahoney

2:06:37

Chief Flynn

2:06:46

so Chief would this change all the requirements with respect to post and so

2:06:51

they these employees transition underneath the police department a new status of designation

2:07:00

how does that affect their benefits especially retirement so right now

2:07:08

Commonwealth of Massachusetts has four levels of retirement right now group one through group four

2:07:16

people clerical Personnel DPW personnel

2:07:21

um they’re right now what they call group one Public Safety staff are a group four and

2:07:28

what that does is that gives Public Safety pers uh persons uh

2:07:34

a higher level of a retirement benefit at a shorter for a shorter period of active duty time

2:07:42

so right now over the past it was several times the the town has tried to

2:07:48

recognize the higher Masters department and the work they do as law enforcement and the way the law is written

2:07:55

because Harbor Master is not specifically within the state law the requests are have always been turned

2:08:01

down right now with post their certification by estate agency as

2:08:08

a law enforcement certified law enforcement officer in coming under under if they were to come under the

2:08:14

police department I would say is the best opportunity they’ve ever had through a home rule

2:08:21

petition to get them um reassigned to the group four status for

2:08:28

retirement as law enforcement officers are there other are there other communities out there where these

2:08:34

employees are already in group for as I said when I went to other departments the ones at the police

2:08:41

department run the whole thing they run it with police officers right um

2:08:47

other other communities that do have the hard masses under their purview some of them are armed some are not uh some are

2:08:55

sworn special police officers some are not my intent whereas the state does

2:09:01

recognize them as certified Law Enforcement Officers is to make my recommendation that they do me be sworn

2:09:07

and as special police officers so that would bolster the uh the argument if you will

2:09:14

so I I think that’s a significant variable here if they’re going to be you know reclassified and that were to

2:09:20

happen and they’re going to continue to carry weapons we have a deadline for October town meeting of August 11th I

2:09:26

have no problem um I’m guessing we should probably uh wait a couple of weeks but I would have

2:09:32

no problem supporting an article that would go to fall Tommy to get that ball

2:09:39

rolling right just just so you know John um we met yesterday and that is one of

2:09:47

the things that we discussed is um putting an article 4 reward for a

2:09:54

group four for the harber Masters and also further discussions with Derek is

2:10:01

to take a look at the pay rates of everybody and there may be some changes

2:10:07

that we need there as well to make it more Equitable for the guys joining the

2:10:12

force so um I’m happy that they’re going to be special police officers because first of

2:10:19

all it’s going to help the chief that we have a lot of details out there there’s

2:10:24

a lot of money to be made with these details I know the guys do a lot of them

2:10:30

so I think it’s going to be a great benefit for these folks and

2:10:35

um like I said I mean for an article for town meeting hopefully I’ll be in town meeting and

2:10:44

that would be something that that’s something that I would support I mean I

2:10:50

would do it now if we could and say let’s get an article on for town meeting

2:10:55

so anyone else Mr Clinton

2:11:04

thank you I had my concerns I bought this early on not because it was

2:11:10

anybody’s certain idea but just because of the past history and how the hobby

2:11:16

Master Department got directed to the assistant Town manager going back in the time machine

2:11:23

we had a lot of a lot of complaints and this is was the result of those

2:11:31

complaints and that’s where it sat so then I come back now and we’re doing this and times changing

2:11:38

and I understand but the most important thing to me was to have both groups both

2:11:45

departments come in in unity and to do it the proper way that was my wish and I

2:11:52

have to thank Betty Chad and the Chiefs and the captain I said it right right

2:11:59

captain uh and Jack everybody involved

2:12:04

because I am going to support this but I you know in I would like to revisit this in a year

2:12:12

or six months I’d like that to be part of this mou

2:12:18

um so we can just make sure everything I’m sure it’s going to but in the event that it doesn’t

2:12:25

um we just need that that safety guide and I and I’m fine with it and I don’t believe it’ll be needed

2:12:31

but when I make my decision on this so everybody understands because it’s not that I don’t trust the people I’m

2:12:37

looking at you have to look at things when you sit here sometimes as 10 years from now 15

2:12:43

years from now I’m not going to be here I don’t think John’s going to be a bet he definitely won’t be in them I don’t

2:12:50

know about Harry he likes to hang up John’s going to be here all right yeah maybe Kevin but what I’m trying to say is the

2:12:58

Harvard Master will probably be different the police chief will be that’s why I say the things sometimes I

2:13:04

say like and Derek maybe maybe Derek will be mayor of Boston or running to

2:13:09

Boston I don’t know there’s only one step up from Plymouth so that being said I just wanted people

2:13:17

to understand my thinking it was never to undermine the chief or Derek it never

2:13:23

was but it was uh listen to the concerns of the people on that actually used the

2:13:29

wife and bringing it to where it should be so I am very happy

2:13:35

very happy to be here tonight and to see you as all working on mou that’s that’s

2:13:42

all I wanted so good luck glad speed be safe everyone and

2:13:47

that’s it thank you Chad and I were supposed to hold hands doing this so

2:13:55

um and I said when I shook his hand yesterday I was like oh your hands are

2:14:02

softer than mine so anyway

2:14:07

um are you looking for a vote mister

2:14:12

Mr Mahoney Madam chair I’ll make them I’ll make a motion that we approve the riog as proposed by the town manager

2:14:20

pending uh the uh the creation of an mou um

2:14:26

MOA MOA uh between the police chief and

2:14:31

the uh the Harbor Master with the support of the Town manager for implementation on uh beginning of the

2:14:36

fiscal year July 1st second

2:14:42

we have a first by Mr Mahoney a second by Mr quintal discussion

2:14:49

all those in favor roll call please Mr Holm yes Mr Mahoney

2:14:55

Mr quintal yes and myself yes congratulations everyone

2:15:03

okay on to the next order of business the town managers report

2:15:10

all right so I just have a short report this evening just to make a few provide a few updates

2:15:16

just on Monday actually yesterday the building committee awarded

2:15:22

the management fire station reconstruction project to Seabrook construction we’re happy to report that

2:15:29

the that the award is within our projected budget with a substantial cost

2:15:35

savings hopefully if things go well without a contingency account the Station 2 on West Plymouth is still

2:15:43

on time and on budget and the five Department’s emergency preparedness program under the

2:15:51

leadership of Christian Horvath have uh recently executed a tabletop

2:15:57

exercise regarding the airport as you know this we haven’t done a lot of work with the

2:16:03

airport and we thought it was best that we engaged the airport staff around you know any catastrophic event that could

2:16:09

happen the airport and how our responders would respond if that were to take place and then on top of that staying on the

2:16:17

theme of preparedness this you probably have seen nationally there’s been a number of

2:16:24

scams that have held hostage municipalities to having to pay upwards

2:16:30

over a million dollars to get their Network back so we are working with our

2:16:35

I.T department and in our emergency preparedness Department to develop a we

2:16:41

think would be the first in the state a tabletop exercise around cyber preparedness and continuity of

2:16:48

government so what would happen if our network was locked down by through a

2:16:53

Cyber attack how would we continue to provide government operations during

2:16:58

that period of time and I think we heard today that there was one municipality that’s been out of work for almost 30

2:17:03

days and trying to figure this out so you know thinking about preparation the things that we need to do

2:17:09

along those lines and then as another announcement announcement May 20th is coming fast

2:17:15

that’s our election date election date is uh the operating hours will be from 7

2:17:22

A.M to 7 P.M early voting will begin uh this in this room on Thursday starting

2:17:29

through the Town Hall hours and we’ll go until next Wednesday at 4 pm 4 P.M we’ll

2:17:36

have Saturday hours from 9 A.M to 3 P.M we will not have Sunday hours for early

2:17:41

voting so again starting this Thursday going until next Wednesday no Sunday hours but we will we will be here on

2:17:47

Saturday we know that there’s been a number of requests promote on this election so

2:17:53

we’ll have electronic signboards throughout the community one during the early voting period and then on the day

2:17:59

of election will change the message to to voting

2:18:04

I wanted to I had the opportunity to attend a cal event yesterday that was

2:18:10

focused on volunteerism and recognizing all the volunteers that have helped the

2:18:16

Cal over the past year I think you know we have well over a 20 25 volunteers and

2:18:22

Miss Michelle bratty who again kudos to her and her leadership she announced

2:18:27

yesterday that looking at all of the volunteer hours has saved the town approximately 780 thousand dollars in

2:18:34

salary by the generous gift of people donating their own time to get the work

2:18:39

done at the Cal so it was a great event we had a state delegation there and local auto

2:18:45

dignitaries just there the room was crowded for the luncheon to honor those

2:18:51

volunteers at the Cow and then before Mr brandisi yes I have a message from

2:18:58

you from Michelle Brady is it the chat which is why you said 700

2:19:05

something thousand seven hundred thousand so Mrs Brady asked me if I would

2:19:11

show this to you so that is the check hopefully the camera get that so that

2:19:17

783 thousand dollars represents represents the um the dollar amount in

2:19:25

volunteer hours that took place at the Cow so

2:19:35

so we’ll uh so we’ll take this check um and uh and and again you know I wish

2:19:42

that was a real check that we could cash but um it just speaks I mean we only have there’s only nine ftes and four

2:19:49

part-time staff at the Cal and that’s a busy operation they serve a huge

2:19:54

population we have 25 000 of us seniors that live in this community and and so that check represents the volunteerism

2:20:02

that take place up there so again a lot of great work by Miss Brady uh to be able to pull all that together so but

2:20:08

before I I end my time manager report not to do another presentation but um

2:20:14

Anthony um is going to talk a little bit about appointments I think we have approximately over 100 potential

2:20:21

appointments this coming June and so we’re pushing that message to get folks

2:20:28

to apply to all of our board and committee vacancies but we also have a very simple way to do that I’m going to

2:20:34

ask Anthony to show everybody it is reappointment season um and as any municipality does that has

2:20:42

reappointments per fiscal year we have speaking to what Mr brindisi said we

2:20:49

have over 300 board and committee volunteers that’s significant we have

2:20:54

about over 30 to 40 select board appointed committees in in general so

2:21:01

there’s about a hundred or so folks that are up for reappointment and so we’re

2:21:07

trying to streamline the process with with your blessing um to have some type of form in place

2:21:13

where it we cannot get get information in a more succinct fashion and then also

2:21:18

have you know select board members be more informed of

2:21:24

um you know what the folks have been working on in their their committees and their boards for the past three years

2:21:30

and so we sent that message out with this form that’s you might be able to

2:21:36

see at home I’m just describing you know what they have accomplished what are

2:21:41

they involved with and some of the work that they’re doing in their board and committee and additionally you know we are going

2:21:49

to get that information um and then we are going to be able to

2:21:55

um no matter what the Border committee that has an opening vacancy or what have you starting in June

2:22:02

um or late late may we will be advertising a full Blitz for all of the

2:22:07

boards and committees that have vacancies and that are going to be due to expire

2:22:15

June 30th 2023 and I know we have a couple boards and

2:22:21

committees that are more pertinent and time sensitive so we’re advertising accordingly as we speak for the

2:22:27

Retirement Board great Mr helm

2:22:32

a question Mr sanessi can you please explain to any residents who are still

2:22:37

watching and might be interested where on our website do you find this form Center

2:22:43

great how do you get there great question so this actually is hidden you you only the folks that can that have

2:22:49

the ability to that are reappointing at reappointed actually have access to this

2:22:55

page however if you are interested in volunteering you go to government

2:23:01

volunteer for a border committee and it has some of the vacancies that

2:23:08

are available right now it’s not a full list we’re still prepping for the entire list and you can submit an application

2:23:17

online it’s not an application at all it’s just you know three or four questions maybe you want to include your

2:23:23

resume and it has all the contact information which is actually kind of difficult to get sometimes and then

2:23:29

people can submit their credentials their experience why

2:23:35

they’re interested involved and it’s kind of open-ended just kind of you know

2:23:40

for folks to just Express their their interest um so that that’s kind of the the basis of

2:23:46

what we’re going towards so it’s more automated folks are more than welcome to to hand in a letter that they drafted

2:23:55

and they can they can email it to me they can mail it they could walk in and

2:24:00

and give it to me in the town manager’s office we’re not trying to negate

2:24:05

anything for folks that don’t feel comfortable doing this online but we’re just providing an easier way and access

2:24:12

more accessible way for people to have interest in municipal government and get involved

2:24:18

okay thank you any anything else

2:24:25

um now we’re going to

2:24:30

new business letters old business select men’s open discussion anyone

2:24:37

I just have one quick thing Derek um and I sent it I believe I sent it to you today

2:24:43

um there are a couple of people obviously the White Horse Beach parking district is different from any of our

2:24:50

other Beach stickers it was um there are some people that sold their

2:24:56

vehicles but their stickers are still good till December of 2023 they’re being told they

2:25:04

have to have a piece of the sticker to get a new sticker

2:25:09

I sent something to Lynn that said I’m sure City Hall systems has a record of

2:25:17

them purchasing a sticker so they don’t have pieces of the of their

2:25:24

prior stickers they did buy new vehicles I have I think two people I can send you

2:25:30

that information but they didn’t know because of course the sticker thing was all new to the folks

2:25:36

down there so um hoping that we can figure something out for them

2:25:42

yeah we’re you know that’s I think as Miss bear pointed out that the policy does state that you’re supposed to have

2:25:48

a piece of the sticker and the primary purpose is that is because if they show

2:25:53

that the sticker is broken or torn then we know that they’re not trying to have

2:25:59

two stickers for the price of one for example so um I think the only way to get around

2:26:05

that is to try to ensure that they’re actually not trying to get too stickers for Price one so I think at this point

2:26:10

you know we’d like to know that they actually purchased a new vehicle and that they sold the previous vehicle and

2:26:16

so I think we need at least those two pieces of evidence okay and how that them come to town hall okay great I’ll I

2:26:23

will share the message actually they’re probably watching so anybody else

2:26:30

I love motion to adjourn motion all those in favor good night everyone see you next week