Capital Improvement Planning Committee Meeting September 16, 2026

Welcome everybody to the uh capital planning committee on Wednesday, September 16th. Uh we are continuing on with our um departments. Uh I've sent the information over to the committee so that they've had a time to review these uh MIS um invite Mike Corville, our IT director, uh to come up and explain his request to the committee.

Good morning. Good evening.

Mike Corville, MIS director. So, what I'd like to do is so we have a a fiber wide area network that is built in town.

Um, it's been built for for many years and uh the equipment on the town side is approaching end of life. So, I'd like to replace um the layer, not to confuse that, the layer three switch at every municipal building um to facilitate the connections between each other. Um I have uh I have a few months before I reach end of life. I kind of pushed these switches right till the end. Um

this equipment was installed in the 20145 time frame and um I've I've added all the updates and everything that I could do to the current switch. Uh they just have to be replaced at this point otherwise they'll no longer be supported. So, I'm asking you to consider um funding uh this request um to replace uh there there are nine uh municipal locations, um the town hall, the police department,

Council on Aging, Southworth Library, the North Branch Library, uh the DPW Administration Office, the DPW water pollution control facility, um DCTV, and the Fire District 3 Crossroad Station.

Um there al there's also a school piece to this. I believe they asked for funding as part of a bigger request during the Springtown meeting. Um they have seven buildings including Bush Street. So um this I would kind of piggyback off of they've already started the process, the school department. I would piggyback off of them and um get this equipment um installed on the town side.

It's requesting 95,000.

100 It's 100,000.

100,000 for this project.

Requesting 100,000 for this project.

So Mike, you said is this all A3 stuff or there's no Okay.

So um it's we're determining who's going to pick up the tab for the core.

Um it could be me, it could be the school department.

Um we just I just want to I want to build it in. The core is built in for me. Um if I can divert funds to something else, I will as part of this project. Um but if I So the core resides here at town hall and everything goes from here to all all the buildings to include school and town. Um so is there a reason why you use an Alcatel Loosen stuff?

Um that is just something that's in place now. It's in place now. So um not to say we're going to stick with it, but um that's I mean they they are solid. I mean I haven't had I really have not touched them honestly.

They just run. You know, we've we've done firmware updates. We've done things of that nature, but they usually set and forget of stuff, especially like with routers and stuff.

You know, if you're touching them, then it's not a good thing.

Correct.

Yep.

So, is the school department also going with the Alcatel Lucent or I believe they are. Yes. I believe they're going to stick with that product only because it's it's solid. Um, so yeah.

um threeyear it looks like the three-year maintenance is uh the cloud maintenance right seems like it's pretty af pretty affordable if I'm looking at that 138 bucks correct yep that's yeah yeah and is that like uh every 3 years does it go up in price as these age maybe a slight increase but you know um that's cheap for support it is it is so

I think um uh Mike does a good job with uh keeping up trying to keep up with the with the infrastructure as far as um in the schools having done that. Uh we've done a lot of stuff internally in this building. uh not only you know with a very limited budget a lot of the stuff that is you know software related is built in the annual annual costs are built into the budget whenever there's

an actual capital outlay we like to bring it in front of the committee and then from then on if there's any support that gets built into the uh operational budget any other questions I rely on Chris this is his area I don't touch this I feel the same way.

I mean, the fact that like 10 years that's that's a that's a good stretch uh for stuff. I mean, like we would like to update more often, but it's it's the cost is prohibitive. So, the fact that you're able to get uh 10 years out of like routing interfaces is pretty good or it's actually 12 years, right? 2014.

So, right. So, I've you know, absolutely I mean, you know, they're they are pretty they are in inside the network for the most part. So, I mean, but you know, if if you know, we've had So, they do have like a a quick turnaround RMA replacement plan. I think I've done it once, right?

Um, but for a power supply failure, it was better off just replacing the entire switch. Right.

And I said, "Okay, you want to send me a switch? Fine. I'm good with that."

So, we just replaced the entire switch, uploaded a configuration, and we were done.

Nice.

So, um, so with as part of this, um, are you guys up? So, it's single mode fiber that connects all these locations, right? Y are you changing the optics to go with higher speed or are you just going to stick with one gig? Uh we're going to stick with what what's current currently in place? Yeah, cuz I would imagine that you could just swap out the optics and get cuz we're

doing like 40 gig off a single strand right now. I mean, the optics are more expensive, but as long as the switches that you're putting in can handle it, that might be an opportunity to like uh increase. I mean, you're always going to get bottlenecked by what you're paying for commodity internet, but intert traffic stuff, you might want to consider going to 10 gig. You can easily

do 10 gig um with just swapping out the optics.

That might be something that sure might want to consider.

Okay.

And and costwise, it doesn't really like it's not going to burst your budget.

Looks like you have a like a $6,000 to $7,000 buffer in there from what the actual code is to what you're requesting. So, you might want to increase it and just get more throughput, especially if you're able to actually get above one gig outside connection, you know, because that'll be a bottleneck as your routers with one gig optics. So, okay.

And again, I don't they're not going to it's the 10 gig stuff you can it's not going to bust your budget. Go to like fs.com and buy them for a couple hundred bucks a GBIC. So, okay. All right. I'll consider that.

Yeah, we have um one gig service now here at Town Hall.

One gig service. Yeah, dedicated Ethernet. We have dedicated Ethernet here. One gig up, one gig down, right?

Uh it's it's I mean it's not it's not cheap.

Yeah. So, you buy it through Exfinity MS.

Yeah. Comcast, whatever.

Comcast.

Yeah.

Yep.

Um I have a question. Mike, are you it for the town as far as making decisions about what we're doing here for this type of thing? Yes. Um and then you know I'll go to Gary with you know if there are any questions in terms of I know Gary's in charge of everything but um so but as far as software and you know that and then you work with Jonathan those are the

right we we collaborate we talk all the time so it's you know um although he has his separate systems that he does I have the separate system you know he's not doing real estate and and tax billing and those types of things I'm not doing report cards or attended systems or anything like that so but you work together enough that if there's an opportunity to cost save or something, you'd be able to to do that

to a point. Like I said, well, during, you know, as we were sitting here, uh there are different pricing schedules for education and local government. So, you know, he can take advantage of of savings that I can't.

So, I try to, you know, I always try to get the best bang for the buck for the town that I can. Okay.

So, as you know, 12 years for a switch talking about the the possibilities that might be available to municipalities.

Now, that's something.

Yeah, absolutely. I'm going to be looking into that. Yep.

And then, as Gary said earlier, the um the cost of the software upgrades that's built into operation. I'm assuming that any equipment upgrades that need to be done regularly like you know, new computers or whatever is that's built into operation, the operational piece.

Well, those are CIP requests when I did falls back.

So, I recently did this this what this group does. So I recently did so I did a computer refresh this time last year and I asked for the authorization for that.

You do it for everybody but the the routine like if somebody's is down or um you're doing one department then that would be done as part of yeah if there's software that needs to be purchased like we like view permit we have now we have a dog licensing permit uh that really doesn't go that's not really something that Mike would ask for through capital. Okay. Uh it's the it's the initial like this right is initial

uh outlay and then any kind of software upgrades to that is built into routine routine budget to an extent. You know if it's a big big upgrade then we would need to like if we're if we're going to change mut software to another another platform if that ever happened we would ask for the for the committee to to give that to give that a look.

So it sounds like you'd rotate those through. So one year you might ask for something like this.

Correct. And Okay.

Yep.

Okay. Thanks.

So, it's funny you saying you have Xfinity. We should talk because um at the university we have one of the providers is ocean which is the ocean uh ocean state higher education something network but they provide um they provide uh commodity internet to like I think South Coast they just started buying from them.

So they they got some fiber to our campus from Verizon that they're leasing to do that.

Okay. It may you might get better pricing.

Okay.

So, reach out to us and we can put you in touch and Okay. Yeah.

At least kick that bucket, see if it's if it's worth it.

Sure. Absolutely.

I know Exfinity is like they kind of the only You would think they're the only game in town, but we do have a headend for one of the um for Ocean on campus. So, that might be an opportunity for for you guys to get hopefully ocean. O.

Sure.

Uh Ocean State Higher Education Area Network, I think is what it stands for.

So, okay.

But not for residents, huh? Just for it would be just be for businesses and stuff. Yeah. Because the cost to build out is probably not not it's just too expensive of a cost, but um but it might be an opportunity for you guys. So, I know we looked at it in the past, but yeah, maybe now. Yeah. Yeah. Sure. Yeah.

I've got a note here. Visit UMass. Yeah.

So, bull was Any other questions?

Okay, thanks.

Great. Thank you. Thanks for coming.

So, uh, next we have, uh, Tim Sheen, our EMA director, Emergency Management Services. He's requested a, um, vehicle, show and, uh, we have the, um, spread those around.

We have this thing called the computer tin that we can go.

I have stories. Chris, good morning. Thank you for letting me uh talk to you about uh the SIP request for the purchase of a F250 with a plow.

um during the blizzard and the the storm that came before it to get our EMA equipment out, we had to hand shovel to get all our equipment out. Um which was kind of a laborious task. And at my old age of 73, it was uh you know, it was it was arduous to say the least.

And there was only three of us there.

zone that that made for a delay in response to uh requests from the either the PD or the fire department or town residents during the uh the process of the uh blizzard. We delivered oxygen.

We delivered kerosene. We reset generators. We reset um panels in people's homes primarily of our elderly population that were stuck in their homes. And um above all Fall River Road, we had to go in there, I think, at least five times. And um we had and it was um just say that getting there was a process. The fire department the goal is not to just have this vehicle be used by

EMA. If any one of the three fire districts, the PD, EMS needs to get access to a to a home or a street, we can help them out with that. We can also take care of plowing out the the three fire districts, the PD if we need to.

The whole emphasis will be on allowing our public safety assets for the town to be able to get to the people that they need to get to in a timely and safe manner. Um the vehicles we have um are older. Our two light towers are 2018 and 2020. Um they're not plow they don't have they're not able to plow, but um they're four-wheel drive. We have used them uh primarily out there to uh block

streets, block for wires, trees, whatever the case might be. It's in keeping with the philosophy we've engendered is that we are there to facilitate any public safety issue that might arise and the the afteractions that came from the storm that was before and then the uh blizzard.

It was quite evident that we had to we drew assets from Hampton County Sheriff's Department because we utilized Web EOCC. If you're not familiar with web EOC, it's a it's a subset of MIMA.

Uh we put our request in early uh and that enabled the DPW to uh remove snow quicker, faster, and a more efficient, safe manner.

This vehicle will allow for if district any any of the districts call and say, "Hey, listen. We need to get to Smith Street and like Pete went out and we delivered oxygen, but we had to park the vehicles. We had to walk. We had to trek through snow piles and mounds and all the rest of that stuff. And we couldn't get plows from the town because recreation, I think at that point, had three that went

down. And when you're stretched thin like that first, you know, hopefully we'll never get a blizzard like that again, but when you're when your assets are stretched thin, that means a delayed response. Now, when Pete was the uh I remember that actually went to that woman's house and can you speak to that for a second then?

Yeah, we had a call for a lady had a generator and the generator quit. Um, so the request was to come out and see if I can restart the generator for her.

because she oxygen.

I went out there and to get out there um the roads at this at this point the town was starting to close stop plowing. Um our vehicles were plowed in at COA.

That's another story. So, I took my my personal vehicle uh which is which is a GMC HD. Um it's a lifted uh heavy duty truck and I took that all the way out the nonqu my own room with I don't even have I used the front end to go down nonquip. Um the other question was whether I could get across the bridge.

That was sketchy, but uh got out there and determined that I then had to call EMS because one, she was out of oxygen, oxygen bottles, and the generator that she had was I was not I didn't have the equipment to restart a home setup generator. It was a whole house generator.

And I asked EMS to come out. We then had to plan the driveway out by hand so we could get the EMS out there.

That was that was a long afternoon.

She was very grateful. The family was very grateful.

Not sure. That's it's well that's that's a prime example of where if we had the vehicle that I'm that we are requesting we could have plowed to her we could have got her in thank god she didn't have to have further services from EMS but she you know she went for a hospital stay the family out in um on old fall road the foley's um we we went back there five times and what happens is you

know one of the things 30% of this town is 60 and older and I want to make sure that that population gets served because, you know, they they sometimes they panic and they're used to just living their homes for for generations sometimes. And the upgrades that would make sense to some people, they don't do. And we had to facilitate like uh like Pete just said, bring kerosene and um we brought oil, we

brought gas. Uh but getting there was was arduous to say the least. generator.

We have portable generators that we can, you know, give to residents in emergency situations and we did that as well when we run out of supplies, then it's it's just getting what what the the primary lesson learned was if fire district 3 had to have the firemen come up and hand shovel the driveway to get us to to the family that we were back to at least five or six times. Uh that's a delayed response.

I'm an old EMT for 13 years of my life in my career and timeliness is in essence is is paramount. So the primary request is it's kind of global in the sense that we're here to facilitate all our public safety departments and any other department that needs assistance quickly in a timely manner.

Whether it be a hurricane, whether it be hopefully never a blizzard again, but any kind of storm because things happen.

And I look at it and say it's an extension of the town. It's an extension of goodwill back to the town to our residents, especially for that population that needs us that sometimes doesn't know how to ask for help.

Any questions? Yes, ma'am. So, in an emergency like that, um, is there a a uh an initial meeting of the people who are the responders to figure out how to deploy and who to deploy and what vehicles and all that? Or it sounds like you you guys were on your own that day.

No, we Well, there was there was now a confirmed EOC, emergency operations center over in the police department.

Um, we adhered to uh incident command.

I'm I'm a firm believer in that from my years at UMass as Chris can attest to when we would set up um a control room with video the whole nine yards. Um so in the f as in any incident like that you do you do a hot wash you do an afteraction people sit in the room and say what could we have done better? Um, so we we we I was the in the communications point

for the for the blizzard. We operated out of the bullet building, but we were in constant contact with PD, the fire districts. Um, to your point, yes.

Should we sit in a room like this during that emergency with the decision makers in an EOC? Then you have the command post. Yes, exactly. That's why Yes, Pete.

Yeah, I just want a little more point in response to that. Um so specifically during the blizzard um we said where we are on our own. There was a slight communication breakdown we did end up burning to cell phones but um 911 calls do go to the PD department. PD dispatch has my number his number actually everybody that's on emergency management their cell phone numbers are at PD and

they will just start going down the list and calling us directly which is what they did. Um so the The nonqu response was literally a call from PD about a 911 call. I got a call directly on my cell phone that I dispatched to to go out to respond to that.

So the reason that I was asking that is that in an emergency you need things that you may not need the other 364 days or 30. So how how do we decide how high a priority it would be to do something like this? I I wonder if there I don't know exactly what's out there. I looked at the list of inventory and there's a few vehicles that you have on the list. I just wonder how necessary

it is to have this. Um, and then maybe not at all or what if it's a year where we don't have storms and it's just sitting there. Um, well, we do get several snowtorms a year and as tenon pointed out, we end up hand shoveling our equipment out.

is, you know, did we get 30 inches of snow? No. But we get 6, eight inches of snow.

You said you're 73 and I'm I'm 63. Um, I'm sitting there handing a quarter mile drive.

Yeah. I I remember so respond.

I remember my 90 foot driveway that day.

I know that that's not easy, but to me it would be a an an issue of get somebody in the town getting that stuff out first if there's a plan if there's an emergency response plan. Um I would think that that meeting that you talked about afterwards where you look back kind of a postmortem of what what happened uh that for the next time there would be something in place that would say

the town does have um we went through that mock exercise uh but that was mainly for hurricane but but I mean if you think about it maybe that same um process could be used for a blizzard probably not you know so we did have a we did have a mox uh we used the police department for it and uh all the key departments were there uh and uh Tim Tim

was there and u he went through a whole uh you know scenario if we had a hurricane what the response time should be what what the assets should be where they should be communication uh all that was part of it uh but I mean yeah I think the point is well taken you know these storms that happen every so often I mean that was a historic that was a historic storm

just one more thing to add you brought up the fire districts we have no idea what the fire districts have we're not involved in that budget process at all so we don't know what they have for vehicles I can speak to fire district 3 because I'm on a provincial committee.

Mhm.

So, I can tell you that it would be a boon to have us come and take care take and plow them out or even if we need the PD.

Um because you can't plan for an emergency. You cannot plan for the recreation department had three of their plows go down.

The other thing is it's not just the hurricane. I mean, it's not just the snowtorms. We have windtorms in town. We have We've had in the past several rain events where we've had to use our vehicles to ford what used to be a road now it's a stream.

Um you know so it's not like this vehicle would be used once in 365 days. It would be available for the flooding events um which we get a couple a year um as well as the wind events.

We just just two months ago we had to go to up in North D for trees down pulling wires down. Um and we were able to respond to the site over an hour before the got there.

And the whole thing the whole thing is that instead of having a police vehicle there, we relieve that police vehicle so that police vehicle can then handle priority one calls. And it's also doesn't, you know, it it allows for a more effective delivery of emergency services. Um, and it it to your point, and I understand it, it's the fact that that the light towers that we we have, those were the

vehicles that were going out. And I really would like the the the lifespan of those light towers to last. and to keep exposing them to all the elements that are out there is really going to diminish their ability to to last. As you can see, the the fleet is old and um I keep two years ago, we used a white tower truck to rescue four fisherman.

Um yeah, of River Road during one of the flood events, um some people decided to go down and they thought it was a great idea to go fishing during a flood event.

Um their hyundai went swimming.

Um And we had one of our Joe decided that because there was no emergency services available, he used the light tower truck to forward the water up to the height of the windows to go rescue four people from a submerged Honda.

That cost $1,000 to desalinate that truck because seaweed in the air filters.

Wow.

It was not good. So I So we do use these vehicles constantly.

So how many vehicles do you have? I mean I saw the pictures.

That's that's it. In total we have the two Yeah. two the 18 to 20 the tower light towers, right?

A two 17 U cruiser from uh from the police from PD.

So that's a reused vehicle.

A 1994 Chevy C10. the 1997 the box truck which both are dead. Um the uh so so it sounds like so so you have some older aging vehicles. Is the goal to decommission some of these vehicles and put them to auction?

Um if you get a vehicle like this you well each believe it or not each vehicle has a purpose.

Understood. But like you said some of them were not not working right. I mean, so that's Well, one is the Seaway bus that was given to us. Okay.

The idea of that bus is we're going to retrofit that and turn it into a vehicle, a recovery vehicle. So, if the fire department's at a a scene, PD's at a scene, it's cold, it's miserable, they can go in um and get a heating shelter, coffee, whatever the case might be. So, that's the purpose for that. The old box truck is filled with cones and barrels.

That's a quick deployment. So, um, for example, when the when the airplane crashed out on on the highway, if they they called, we we put us on standby to get those barrels and the cones out there quickly.

Yeah. No, I mean I so it I think to speaking to what Terry's saying, I think focusing on what's happened in the past is important, but like what you guys are used for on a regular basis and now as the you know the chief has said that uh getting officers sworn officers is more difficult which is going to probably put more strain on EMA I would imagine to backfill. I think I've seen you guys on

Hathaway Road where a tree branch falls and you've blocked it off on my neck of the woods in the north end of town. I see your vehicles a lot blocking off roads because there's branches that are downed on a regular basis.

So certainly, you know, there's a lot of use over there. I mean, I see you guys a lot. So, that's a good thing, right? We want to see our all these vehicles being used.

Um, I mean, having a plow is just going to help for six months. So we can talk about that, but ultimately the more important thing is how often is this truck going to be used outside of that?

And it sounds like it's quite a bit.

Yeah, that's the intention is to not pull the light tower trucks out for blocking roads for wire, right? Or having personal vehicles, right, to do that. So um there is there is quite a bit of use then that this vehicle is going to Right. That's that's the goal. And again, it's not just for us. If one of the fire districts has a need or the PD has a need, we'll take care of it with them.

It's it's more of a global philosophy on our behalf. Not to be not to be micro, but to be macro on how we deal with the town.

Do you have uh enough volunteers to to man all of these vehicles? Uh the president, yeah, we just uh when I first came on board, I was one of the youngest.

Uh since then we have made a a concerted effort to get younger people where we've got uh people uh I've got two fire district 3 personnel. I'll have a third.

The young man just uh came on board. Uh so and I'm going to work with it. There was a going to work with HR and uh with Jessica to get the word out so we can get younger. Um, and I appreciate that the town supported uh bringing up the detail rate because to get woken up at 3:00 in the morning in the middle of a storm. Uh, I mean, it's nice to have a

little added incentive to that. Um, one of the things I'd like to see in the future is bring the SER program back.

Uh, that would take that would work right into the high school, you know, and and UMass. Uh when I was there, one of the goals was to have all the RAS trained. Um and uh so anybody would like to wake up at 3:00 in the morning, just let me know and I'll I'll put you on I'll put you on the list. Um but you know, it's like like everything else it's a metamorphosis

that's going on with us is we're no longer just the old nice guys that lit up the Christmas tree. We are a town asset that can really help people when push comes to shove.

Any other questions I can help you with, Tim? On this vehicle in particular, so this is already retrofitted with with lights and um leaded Yes, it is. That's Yeah, that that that's nuts to bolts.

Yeah. And this was a is it a utility body as well or is it just a No, it's just a regular it's it's very similar to Steve Officer Steve Canario's uh F250 that he presently drives with the PD. That's the more that's the model we utilized.

Would it make sense to get something that's a utility body?

We could probably um Does that increase the cost? Probably.

Yes.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, we could do an add-on like the utility boxes that we have uh with the two light tower units. We could do that in in the next fiscal phasing.

That's kind of the way we're looking at it.

Okay.

All right. Anybody have questions?

Thanks, D. Thank you.

Could you email that packet that you um that you shared? Can you sure?

If you send it to Gary, he can send I'll send it off to Okay, great. I will do that. His truck is almost similar to the Hob master's request, is it not?

Yeah.

Was he going with the utility body or not?

Um I don't think he I don't know. Went to go back and look.

I think we had asked him about it.

Yeah. Because I mean the only difference is is the plow.

Yeah.

Yeah. Right.

And even at that time I I believe the top master should have a cloud too because what else is he doing during the winter?

You know, he's not on the water. He should be, you know, utilized a little bit more. He's asked for that because of potential hurricanes and so we'll be able to support him during that particular type of event with a second similar I think I think what Bruce is saying well what I'm trying to say is if we're going to be buying one already that's very similar let's see if we can match them up and

yeah I mean at a rate going two of them instead of yeah I don't think the harbor master is asking for though that's what I just said yeah I did say that yeah it makes sense if um if we're going to do this or if it's going to get eventually get approved um if we need the utility body if that that's going to help with putting stuff in, you know, maybe maybe along the lines you

eliminate another vehicle because of the because of this that type of that type of truck you put in.

Yeah. And and if that makes sense, if it's an additional$10,000 or $5,000 more, we auction off the other car.

Yeah. I think I think that's kind of where was going like if if if there's a way to reduce insurance and liability by getting rid of vehicle but this vehicle will take the place of competition not necessarily a net net but especially small vehicle that doesn't get a lot of use like the truck better off with a trailer instead of a box truck so you're not paying the insurance for it.

Yeah, true.

Every little bit helps and anybody can grab it.

You don't have to worry about it stop.

everything to I mean so there's so many positives.

Yes.

Thank you folks.

All right. Thank you.

Uh so next we added this uh um I don't know I don't want to say last minute but within good uh sorry I'm sorry. Can I ask one more question about EMA? So I think you said volunteers drive some of the trucks.

I'm assuming that the volunteers are protected in the same way that any town employee would be if Okay.

Yes. Yes.

Um so we had um a request from the health department on two items. I invited Chris Mishaw um health director.

I'm not getting anything else from the board. That's it.

Um Chris, if you wanted to come up and explain a couple of those. There was the um locally funded betterment program and Sloum River water testing.

So, I don't know if I can take these out of order because I do think that the two kind of um one leads into the next. So, um I'd like to start with the Sloum River water uh quality testing.

Uh so, uh an amount has been requested uh for a third year of testing. Um I believe it's $18,500 um in the fall of 2024.

the select board awarded ARPA funding uh for water quality testing in the Slokums River. Um a number of years before that there was a lot of concern that some state regulations were going to descend on Dartmouth and a lot of the criticism um about those regulations. One was about the datedness of the data that defines the Sloum River as being impaired uh for primary pollutant in marine environments being nitrogen. Um

there were also some other concerns. Um however, we didn't know how the river was performing. So in the fall of 24, the select board awarded $25,000 of opera money for it. Um in 25 we began testing. In 26, we continued with testing with that $25,000 funding.

The purpose of the testing is to duplicate the data within the river that established that that river is impaired for nitrogen. That testing was done between 2000 and 2006.

So, here we are a little over two decades later redoing the testing.

The reason for this request here is is that when that initial round of testing was done, it was a three-year data set.

So, we only have two years. We need an additional year so that we can have symmetrical data to see how the Sloum River is performing.

We also know that the Sloum River is about 75% inside of Dartmouth. The remaining 25% is largely in New Bedford and under 1% under a half a percent of it is in Westport. We also know that there are about 1,650 septic systems in that watershed and that 90% about are in Dartmouth.

We've got ongoing water quality activity uh monitoring activity um in Peyton Arum Harbor upon by Buzz Bay coalition. And our third major watershed in town is the uh Westport River and that's divided up over a number of communities. Um but if these state regulations come back, having this data earlier will allow the town to understand what's going on and to plan how to address it or to see how

it's responded. Um we can't do that with two years. So that $1,800 um 1,00 um $18,500 will allow that town will allow Dartmouth to understand what's going on because we'll largely bear the burden of any mandates going forward.

The reason why I wanted to take this um topic first was we know that about 6% of the septic systems in the Sloum River wershed in Dartmouth have access to sewer that the town doesn't have to install any lines in the street, upgrade any pump stations.

we can get 6% of those systems out um much easier than extending sewer lines.

However, the cost even to tie in is significant.

We're looking at pricing running around $75 or more a linear foot just to run a line from the house to the curb.

That's a lot of money. So even with the ongoing connect to protect program where there's a subsidy in the aonagans wershed some people still can't afford it. So the betterment program is a longstanding um tool that assists homeowners that need to connect to sewer or repair a failing septic system.

What happens is you only have to be a primary home. You have to has to be a primary residence and you have to have a failed septic system or you have to have access to sewer and we have to have funding available.

So the last thing is you have to be up to date on your taxes. We do not do a credit check because it actually becomes a tax lane.

We've haven't had any situations in over 30 about 30 years that this program's been ongoing because the town always gets its money. Um so up until this year we have utilized state funding.

The state funding has changed a bit um and interest in the program kind of uh waines and rises with the economy. So during the great recession, we saw a lot of interest in this where people who wanted to stay in their homes, who had failed septic systems or needed to connect to sewer couldn't access conventional private funding because they were upside down in their mortgage.

We're seeing very turbulent times right now financially.

So, a continuation this program um does provide a valuable uh public service and unfortunately um I think it was in June of 2025 we did receive town meeting approval for additional borrowing from the SR from the state revolving fund. However, um as we've dove into those details, that's going to come at a cost to the town each year. So once we access enough of that, a small amount of that money, it gets

dispersed to the town and then we pay the interest on the unspent principal.

So paying 2% interest on let's just say $300,000 until it runs down and then to borrow more and find ourselves in that circle um is creating an expense for the town when times are getting tough. So, um, as we were talking about this problem earlier this year, uh, Donathan Andy's a town accountant, suggested, um, why don't we see if we can create our own self-funded, uh, betterment program

perhaps with free cash. um where we would allocate a certain amount of money and that would be the pool that we would tap from and every so often have to come back if it dropped below a certain amount of money to make sure that we had a workable balance. Um so that's really about it. I'm sure you might have some questions. Um I don't want to take up too much time. Thank you.

Yes.

Couple questions. So the state loan would be a 2% um loan interest rate.

We would be paying 2%.

That's free money with inflation really.

I mean if you have the loan it's only 2% but we're you know we're running 5% or more on you know interest you know on inflation rate. Um it's not that bad a deal on a loan.

2% is f is fantastic funding, but it it does come at an expense until that money draws down. So, and then, you know, it'll actually if we want to continue with this program, it'll become a permanent 2% that we're paying out um on that money um until it gets spent down.

Could that and actually there's actually there's a there's a loan servicing fee that goes on that as well, and I forget that it's under 1%. I mean, if you think about it, it's it's kind of creative because um you're right, it's it's a very it's a the program has been around for decades. Uh and I don't think you have ever changed that that interest rate. It's an attraction to communities.

But if you think about um not having to spend that 2% and then us keeping this money in a fund that could earn 3 to 4%, um you could say that the town's a little bit ahead of the game. Uh and yeah, it is it is true that it's a good program. The towns towns have taken advantage of that. So that's that's an interesting take. The converse like devil's advocate here is if we put money

in it and there's a project that we can't do like a building project or a capital project that we can't do and that cost escalates by you know in a building project by 10%. Then if essentially you've lost like it so it's I'm curious to see how much money uh what the because I I haven't seen we haven't seen anything like I haven't got an email about like how much money is

requested other than the 18,500 for the that you just mentioned for the with the water testing of the slow.

Yeah. So this would be 250. So this would be 250,000.

Do you only need it once or if you're self-unding it, would you need to?

So, what we would be looking So, um, we would be looking for a $250,000 allocation with this town meeting. Um, if it if it happens, then we're going to have to set up some sort of internal program.

Um, because again, the town doesn't have unlimited funds to dedicate to this. and you know do we want to be reserving these re this resource for perhaps some communities have done uh income eligibility um and then the town has always charged an added 2% so it actually the added 2% becomes part of like a servicing fee um by the town um so there's a little bit of income derived or revenue uh that the

town derives from the program I mean if it if it if it's set up as a revolving fund, an internal revolving fund. Um I think that would need town meeting approval.

Yes, we would.

Yeah.

So, so the question is is how often I mean you have you've done this now for years, right? You said that this program has been around for years and it es and flows as you said. What is the average over those 20 years that this program's So, it does it does um rise and fall. Um right now we're in a little bit of a lull. Um we saw a big push on it about

12 to 18 months ago. Um our ex we have a small balance left um very very small that can probably tackle a couple sewer connections. Um but once that money is gone, then we're either going to have to, you know, look to do that SRF funding um or have a self-funded and and do so do you know how much roughly per year, Chris, over the last, you know, Yeah. to do an average I think is

inaccurate because again, it it follows a couple things. One, it follows when you've got a um an upward trend in real estate market, right? there's a lot of access to money and you know there's no interest. When all of a sudden things start slowing down, the brakes put on hard, then all of a sudden there's a lot of interest. Um and then sometimes we get some unique situations that develop um with, you

know, people just trying to remain in their homes um on fixed incomes.

How do you know 250 is enough?

What's that?

How do you know the 250 is enough?

based on historic borrowing from the state. And then also if we do this, you know, again, it goes back to do we want to be providing this broadly or do we want to structure it for people that maybe have less financial abilities?

Um, yeah.

What is the average system cost? our sewer connection. We saw actually we saw our sewer connection under the uh this program $18,000 and the sewer betterment for the line in front of the house was $9,000 in 1997 or 98. Uh a septic system, the last septic system we did on it um within the last 12 to 18 months, I'm going to say that was about $40,000 and the person paid for the engineering.

That's what I was going to ask. Is there a way without making it a big project?

And there probably is, but it would be good to see a report on the use of of this program because I think our goal I sat in at so many of those meetings on the title five uh conversations and at that time we talked about the need as a town to be thinking ahead to the many many people who are not connected to the sewer and people who you know we've

heard about at this meeting who may not be able to afford to get a $40,000 septic system and How could we be of assistance if and and I was a benefit of the uh against my will? I did not want to connect to the uh sewage, but I was told that I had to. And it was very helpful for me to get a $15,000 betterment for a small low rate of

interest. If I had applied for a second mortgage, I'm not sure I would have been able to get it at the time. So, I can see the benefit of that for people. And I think we need to think about clean water obviously. And you know, one question on the the testing. Do you have to do three consecutive years or can it be?

Yeah. No, you we do not want an interruption.

Okay. You end up with an interruption and it it it makes the data question back to this. I think the concept is a good concept, but I'd like to see some data on the use of the program and if you had this like under an account number and you could run, you know, this basically what you just described. This is when it happened. And I know when they did the residences at Cedadell that

was probably a big push at that time because that's when it got put in. And then that would also let us know we've said this 6% of the um systems on uh the Sulkum River have access to town sewage.

So what can we do to kind of push people to connect obviously um and I think that becomes access to to low interest loans that they're not going to that they would get otherwise. Right.

and and yeah, and it so yeah, I would I would like to see a little bit more information. I think it's a great idea overall and it it gets in keeping with trying to take care of the town, but it would be good to know. Um, yeah, we can we can probably have something on the um the historical data and what's been done in the last maybe five to 10 years.

The the funding source that we're working off of right now, which was an uh a $400,000 funding source was last was approved at town meeting I think in 2013 or 14.

400,000. So, it's not something that everyone is jumping into. Uh it does uh take up a lot of staff time as well because essentially we're loaning people money so we're having to documents you know go to the registry.

Um so you know that's why the 250 I do feel safe with that. Um especially if this is a local program we can set up some controls like other communities have done. Um some communities have like a sliding scale based on income on the sliding scale on the interest rate. Wasn't there money with the Bosses Bay Coalition um that was supposed to be helping out all these uh properties along the watershed?

So that's the um connect to protect program I believe. Um and the connect to protect program was something that I think came about right around 2024 as well. uh Dan Gulot uh applied for what's called a SNEP grant with the EPA and got a $100,000 award um for the project that he pitched to the EPA which was to um get money to help subsidize sewer connections in the Buttonwood Brook or a

Ponaganset watershed. Uh and he had an income threshold on that and unfortunately I know that they've run into a few obstacles with some of the initial uh properties that they reached out to. it had to also be uh owner occupied and um you know it just even with the subsidy it wasn't enough and I think the subsidy might have been 10,000 and the town provided a match to that grant we did addition funds to that

we put money that to match that yes yeah and I do understand that the program is underway they've made you know you know a certain number of connections I don't know if it was five or seven when I last discussed it with um some of their contractors um so they finding people that are able to access enough funding along with that to make the connection.

Right. So the question is which one you're going to be pulling from and you're going to be but that's that's an exclusive project to the aonagans wershed.

Okay.

Whereas most of our septic systems are in town are in the Westport River wershed and the uh Slokum River wershed.

And we know like we know that Westport River wershed also has a a fair number of houses that have not connected yet either. Um we're working with someone right now um off of uh Route 6, north of Route 6 where the sewer went by in 98 and you know they're considering using some of the remaining funds that we have left from that $400,000 allocation um about 12 years ago.

I I have a question. Is there um regulations or not necessarily reg are we breaking any rules by using uh free cash for um a betterment of someone who's uh connecting to the sewer? So a sewer enterprise fund and a general fund kind of mixing of money over there.

No. So what happens is this is this with loan money it's not necessarily an issue because you're borrowing money. this is this is you know so there's a specific statute that allows us to do this um you know and it's done through the board of health um it's a statute that we can actually uh utilize as well to go to a problem property um and clean it up and then

lean the property um and this is but this is a little bit different that's an enforcement process but this is a voluntary pro process um but It's structurally the same and how it works with the finances. Uh the the board of health records an initial betterment um assessment and then and then we do a um an order of betterment um assessment at the end. That becomes a tax lean. Uh we

notify the assessor within one year. We actually do it within the same week um of it being recorded at the registry of deeds. From there it goes on to the tax bill. Um, and then it's at the owner's discretion as to the uh life of that uh lean and it can be up to 20, but it can't exceed 20 years.

Uh, but it it doesn't it doesn't um conflict with the enterprise fund at all because that's for the operation of the system.

This is just for the uh individual private property to make that connection uh for the protection of public health and the environment.

Yeah, that's a good question. I I think um uh it could get confusing on whether or not we're using uh the revenue source would be free cash using free cash to supplement a project that's really based for homeowners.

Uh but I don't see anything that that's illegal about um doing that. And as Chris mentioned that it everything's recouped. So once the lean's recorded, the town's protected.

Yeah. I think that's the piece that's really important because I've heard um people who might not have the whole story think why is the town subsidizing for this person but not for that person.

It's really almost no risk for the town because the lean is on the house so the the town will get the money and it's actually zero.

It's really kind of a pass through thing. It's not a go for the banks.

Yeah. The grant is different obviously but this is this is not that.

Yeah. Unfort I did some I did some research on this because this started around 96 97 I believe uh statewide it didn't exist before that yeah we could have done it through the enforcement mechanism as I mentioned earlier um but in that 9697 period the state came in and allocated all this funding to disperse the cities and towns through the state revolving fund. So, I went back and I looked at all these records

because I wanted to make sure as well that, you know, there um it's been, you know, so long since we've looked at this program. I wanted to really get down to the granular level on it. And when we were floating the idea of participating in the state program, there was some internal discussions and I think it might have been lost opportunity. Um I'll let I'll let others decide. Um

at that time if the town had charged you know just a little bit more interest rate and put that the money from that interest into a dedicated revolving account after a number of years it becomes self-funded um and communities like Barnstable have done such and they've being larger and I think they administered over the county level in um on Cape Cod that there's so much use of it that they're now actually

able to actually give almost like a grant to some people based on income to help promote the connection. But at this point here with so many um newer septic systems in town, proper maintenance of septic systems, um a lot of sewer connections, even though 95 uh systems in the Sloum River wershed um that haven't connected, um sounds like a lot, it's not a lot compared to the um 150

less systems that we have in the Slokum River watershed today than we did in 2000.

So 26 years of buildout when Dartmouth looked very different in 2000, we actually have less septic systems in the Sloan River wershed in Dartmouth. And that's because of the miles of sewer that Dartmouth put in in the late 90s through the just before the Great Recession where it ended in Bay View.

So, a little bit going back to your first thing, do you have any initial test results from uh 24 and 20, excuse me, 25 and 26? Are the nitrogen levels like uh obviously going to be higher, but are they like is there a correlation between the septic systems leeching in and increasing it at a higher rate than what the state had worried about years ago when they wanted That's a great question. Um what I can

do is I can get Gary um some links and you can decide how much information you want. Um we had a presentation um back in May about um year one.

Okay.

Um so yes, we do have a summary of year one data.

Okay.

Um it did trend a little bit higher.

Okay.

Um we know what our target concentration should be. We know what our target concentration was that said that it's impaired. And you can't draw conclusions in year one. But if you want to, we're a little bit higher.

Okay.

With less septic systems, but but but that could be it could be more people are fertilizing their lawns than they did in the past. And you know, there's more companies doing that. I mean there's there's well so another comp so what we know about the Sloum river and this is what you know um is concerning is that that river is heavily influenced by fresh water um and storm water. So we

have no while I can tell you with a a high degree of accuracy how many septic systems there are and there were when DP finalized the uh diagnosis of the health of the Sloum River there were two primary sources of pollutant nitrogen that we could control. One was septic systems the other storm water.

So, as we added all of this sewer, did it bring in more impervious? We don't know.

Um, we know that septics have retreated, but I don't know about the storm water levels.

I could speculate, but it's speculation.

Speculation. Gotcha. All right. Thank you.

Yeah. Do we still have the rehab program? There used to be a rehab program that Dartmouth ran. Would get state funds. It could be a couple hundred thousand dollars and um you know I actually did it I would go out and evaluate people that would apply for it was basically putting a lean against their house.

There was no interest and that that way the state put it on there. So you if something that was out of um if they needed a sewer system or tie in I we tied in a couple of houses and stuff like that with that using that type of grant and they weren't paying anything until the property gets sold or inherited at that point then they were had to pay back that money you know um I

we had a housing rehab program set up Copley was like the manager way back And then Deborah Meleno Wenda and yes yes and it's been a number of years um since 2014 I'm only aware of one property um that sought funding under that that included a septic um prior to that I'm aware of one other um and from my outside interactions with that program when they sought septic and when we've actually had some situations where

We've tried to refer people in. There is a ceiling as to how much money that the town can award per property. Um and I think it's $100,000. I could be wrong.

Um it was it was a good amount because I mean I back then it was Yeah. Um and you had to bring everything up to code compliance. So if you had a failed septic but then you had broken rails and everything else that became um a limitation. So nowadays when I see some of the building permit applications and cost um for like a roof or roof and windows um it'd be nice to see that

number double because 100,000 doesn't go far at all. So, like with the septic system, um you know, if someone needs um engineering and they need to put everything on the bill, um you could be looking at with engineering, town fees, everything. Uh worst case, um but then there's some that can even go even worse than that. But, um typically within the bell curve, you could be looking between 45 and 55,000.

This is for septic replacement.

For septic, does this septic have nitrogen mitigation or No.

And so if that comes and the other thing is I did some um some calculations on, you know, what's driving the cost of septic systems and we hear a lot about inflation after 2000. Um the cost of septic systems is largely driven by sand. Um, so right now you got diesel off the charts. Um, and this was done about a year and a half ago. When I tracked the cost of sand against inflation,

inflation was well under it. And the reason being is that as the southeastern Massachusetts and Plymouth County continue to build out, those areas that the construction industry went to to acquire sand in the backlands have now been surrounded by subdivisions or turned into subdivisions. So the so right now if you kind of pay you like New Bedford Light, there's an article about all the sand. Uh so that you know

Plymouth and Carver, the people in those towns are um very concerned about the sand mining over there. So, it's driving up the price and that's what's causing this um faster trend on the cost of septic system installations above that of inflation. And I think it's only going to get and I hate to be a doomsdayer, but I don't see any hidden deposit of sand that's going to drop it. The

industry all feels the same that it's going to continue to rise.

So all these new let's say new septics are put in for whatever reason right now. Is there any prediction of when some the state's going to say no you've got to retrofit all those for nitrogen?

So at this time I can only talk about the status of the existing regulations.

However, when the state finally decided how they were going to adopt those changes that we were concerned about, they only applied it to Cape Cod. They did not include the South Coast as they originally, but they did say we're going to get the Cape going and then after that, we're going to work with the towns. And I believe I'm paraphrasing their press release. we're going to work with the towns and then

we're going to change the regs.

So, there's already some hints that that has happened that they're continuing to work towards adopting it for our area. And what I mean by that is is that that diagnosis of the health of the Sloum River wershed and the Westport River wershed were only a few diagnosis. They're actually called an EPA TMDL, total maximum daily load for nitrogen.

Between the Cape Cod Canal and Westport, those were the only two approved TMDLs.

Right after in 2023, right after they adopted those regulations that excluded us, they opened up public hearings for weanic and a cushion river watersheds.

They're they are completing the TMDL um for the south coast and then I wouldn't be surprised is once it's complete which is would need to be upon a um Marian Matapoet um and maybe Marian and Matapo have already gone through I I don't keep pulse on other communities that closely um all that you need to do is say communities get ready we're changing and all we're doing is we're changing the geog we're changing the

geographic application of the line of the regulations, but the existing technical aspect of the regulations are already in place on the Cape. So there's nothing to talk about there.

So So it'll happen quickly.

The limits on will stay the same. You know, it's set based on what they've done in Cape Cod.

They're not going to lower the limits at some point or no talk of that or anything like that.

So that's that's there's there's that's that's a moving target. Okay. So if those regulations come here and apply here, every watershed has its own uh nitrogen threshold for toxicity, we'll say.

Okay.

Um and that was one of our complaints as well. And they have no idea. So the nit let me just back up a little bit. I'll try to be brief. They establishing a toxicity level. This is when it's this is where you need to be or below. And that level is supportive of a healthy marine system which would include seaggrass, eelgrass. Eelass is the indicator species. If if it was there

and it's no longer there, then there's a problem.

In some estuaries, they know when it disappeared and they know what the concentration of nitrogen was when it was there. Slokums, they have no idea.

So, they arbitrarily just assigned a number based off of another estuary on the Cape. And what we do know is that it can be very estuary specific. And we know that there has been some eel grass regeneration in the outer slums where they they don't show any eel grass. And we've continued to to monitor the inside of the slope and have seen some sporadic attempts naturally to uh populate. Um

we've seen them um there. We've seen them go away. Um we found some new stuff about two weeks ago. Um, so we're seeing it at higher concentrations and they're seeing that in Westport as well and this goes back to another concern that we raised was but once they establish that TMDL through through the EPA, that's it.

There's no turning back.

So it becomes a little ridiculous because it's it's very science-based, but then the fact that eelrass can come back, but the threshold is but it's coming back at a higher, we don't care.

And then inversely if you get to that number and negrass doesn't come back that's not good enough and you still need two. So, it's this moving finish line because we know that there's other things that are impacting estuaries and the Slokum River as I've kind of looked at a lot of these reports in 2022, 23, 24, I believe that's one of the most complex wersheds, if not the most complex on the south

coast because of when you look at those sources of nitrogen, it's storm water. You got dams, the tannins going in there from all of that impounded fresh water. um 50% of the nitrogen hitting that river we cannot even control because it's natural.

So how are we you it's to me and it's like trust me I love the Sum River. It's a fool's errand. If we can't control 50% of the nitrogen because it's coming out of wetlands, how do we fix the problem?

I have another question and then a comment. So the Taton River wershed obviously does the um water sampling. We have a volunteer program to do that. Do you know how but they go to the Westport River? Right. Because it starts up at the Taton River and I don't think it's connected to the Sou.

No. So Ton River comes out through Mount Hope Bay.

Okay.

And then discharges through Rhode Island.

So it's a different system.

Yes.

Okay. And the the comment is that I want to thank you for the leadership that you show on this topic and that you showed back when this first came up because I think that if in my opinion if you had not brought this up and shared the information with the select board and then um worked with other municipalities to uh get the citizens involved um we would not have been able to push back.

We could have really ended up dealing with that at that time. So, um, this is very helpful to know that you're going to show why the Slokum River is different than than the other wersheds that they're looking at. And overall, I think it's going to be helpful to the town.

So, thank you, Chris.

So, the total load of nitrogen, which means the concentration and the flow rate, um, does that factor at all?

So, um I don't know if you were familiar with Michael O'Reilly, a former environmental affairs uh coordinator.

It's now, um director of environmental affairs.

He raised a a really good point. And his point was the Sloum River is clogged.

If you look at what's going on with the Sloum River at the mouth, um is it flushing?

Um, you know, the old saying, delilution is the solution to pollution. Um, that river, you know, and a lot of people that live on it, they say the same thing. The river is clogged. Um, we could go on our, you know, the assessor's software, high resolution, you can um, aerial imagery that's updated. You can measure on it. The mouth of that river has shrunken um, in half. um 10 years ago it was twice the

width and granted maybe some of it was a little bit uh on the shallower side but there was a lot more water getting out of there and I've just seen it in the last two years um you know we're just the seti disc you know it's a just a visual how far down can you see um this year the water quality was horrible so if if again if you open things up and

you can it becomes it's it's a holistic approach You know, just to think you're going to say it's septic systems when septic systems are 12% of the of the nitrogen contribution or 14% of the nitrogen contribution because goes back to what are all the sources? Some of them are natural. Then when you take those that are anthropogenic human, you move that into its own pie chart, 14% becomes 27%.

But we're not going to fix 20, we're not going to fix the problem with just going after 27%.

Which is actually 12 to 14%.

And right now if it's say I don't know what's going on in Cape Cod individual homeowners but the you know for them to install nitrogen mitigation how much is it costing per home?

So the innovative alternative septic system, advanced treatment unit that you would put in might buy you some reductions in the cost of the actual um disposal area because sometimes they'll let you shrink it, but the technology is going to drive it up a little bit higher. Um, so that's that's really a tough one, but you'll be spending we'll be spending more money if that hits here for people to put in best available

nitrogen reducing technology, which is the actual regulatory term. Um, they'll be spending more money. And in addition to that, on the install, now you have operation and maintenance of that system because they are they're electrical. So there's cost to run the blowers, the sprayers, they break, you got to have someone come out and fix them. Very few people do. And then because like your car, your oil furnace,

you just can't let it run indefinitely.

The state requires someone to go out there on a prescribed schedule for the life of the system.

I think one of the things that the state has done wrong with these systems is especially down here as we've painted ourselves into a corner away from the resources that we need to build septic systems sand is that they haven't looked to find out how these systems can benefit people economically and what I mean by that is these these disposal areas that you discharge to if the system is properly

maintained the advanced treatment unit is properly maintained The quality of that effluent, what they call the waste water, is relatively clear coming out of a septic tank. It's relatively black.

That opaque water, that dark opaque water is what eventually creates a bofilm on the bottom of the system that helps treat for pathogens. Uh removes bacteria, doesn't do a great job at removing nitrogen, but it helps treat before it hits the groundwater where we see a high reduction in in bacteria.

Eventually that matures and then just kills and the system plugs up and then discharges to the ground or into the house and you're going to replace it.

But when you discharge in a clear water, how long will that system last as long as you maintain that? And it becomes an insurance could become an insurance policy against a major upgrade in the future. Um, so I think one of the worst things government can do is ram environmentalism down middle America's throat. um find the economics um where the unintended consequence is environmentalism and then you'll get buy

in. Um so I think that's some of the conversation that we'll be having over the next couple years to try to see how we can get the state to do that um because they don't show an interest in doing it. And it's ne and I I it's needed especially when you have all this new development that they're projecting 250,000 units before the year something's going to break.

Gary, where does this uh does this funnel under general general government, right? Because it's I don't think it's in the latest one that uh I'll send out the I'll send out the most recent because we had a change just here today.

Okay.

Anything else, Chris?

No. So I can get um I'll get any Yep.

the links for you and then um I'll see if Donna can run some reports.

Yeah. Okay. Okay.

All right. Thanks. Thanks for your time.

Thank you.

Sorry.

Oh, very informative. That was very good.

Um so on on the agenda, I had the um uh the capital plan, uh the master capital plan. I've sent this, but I'll send it once again because we had a change here today. Um and I'm not going to go through every single one of them. What I would like to do is have the committee look at this over the week. Uh you've heard from everything from school buses

now to septic systems. So, I think um we there's a there's a lot to take in. Um and um we'll we'll revisit this again uh next week. Uh free cash is with the state right now to be certified hopefully within the next maybe even today uh next couple of days. So, I'll put that schedule together to send it to you once it's been been um certified. Uh I have some preliminary numbers, but I'm

really skeptical to change that because what we send in for preliminary sometimes they change because they have their own formulas that they use um when they put it through their systems. So, um I'm thinking north of five million for at least uh the general fund and then we had a healthy reserve also for water because we increased increased rates. So, uh well, I'll I'll share that with the committee once that's been

approved.

And you're talking about putting how much in long-term capital and how much in there's another thing you put in?

Uh we were looking at uh I can go to that quick just so that see

So, what we were looking to do, this is the actual warrant a draft draft copy of the warrant.

These would all be funded by So, the uh uh normal stabilization account, we were looking to put 250 in. We have about a $14 million balance as the financial policies for the town would require um 10% of the operating budget. So, uh we're right up to there. We like to keep putting money in there. We ratcheted that down. At one point in time, we're putting almost a million dollars in

there. Uh we went down to 500, but 250 is what the the goal is now just to keep the uh rating agencies happy. If if we go out for long-term borrowing, we want to make sure that they know that we're still contributing to the stabilization fund. Then we have the um uh uh the uh stabilization fund for collective bargaining. We have about a million dollars in that account. We're looking

to put 150,000. this this um project this what this does is right now we're going through contract negotiations for all unions in the town of four unions when we when we move forward and put in put in the additional funds each year it prepares us for the next round of negotiations. So uh we would look be looking to add 150 and then the last one uh we're looking to add 300,000 into the

long-term capital stabilization fund. We set this up a couple years ago. We had a million dollars initially. We used 400 or 500,000 for the school's uh fire um uh project that they had. We then put 500,000 back into that. So we have back up to a million. This would add another 300,000 into that account.

And the finance committee reserve fund is back to still 510,000. Yeah.

Okay.

And so, um, if you if you saw the select boards meeting at the LA the audit that was given, uh, the recap of the FY25 audit, um, they they look favorably on this again because they want to see us still building balances. We we're we're lucky we have the ability to do that and really only using free cash to do this.

It's not like we're raising tax rate.

We're not going any to any other revenue source to do this but free cash. And this has been the policy over the last probably 5 to 10 years that we've done this. Gary, I know we heard from department heads, but can we assume that this these this proposal to the capital improvement committee is has the support of you and Cody?

Yes.

It wouldn't be in there if we we've met with like uh Chris and and um and Tim uh we've met with them uh through the through this whole course.

Uh I don't want to say behind the scenes, but we we like to know what's going to be presented to the committee before, you know, actually gets presented to the committee. And um I've had conversations like with Mike and all these uh folks and even Jim at the schools with the request that they've asked for uh that you see presented to you now. So yeah, they it's pretty it's a pretty um

you know, we we go in this as a as a team. We want to make sure that when they go to town meeting, they're able to speak on topics if they get approved, so on and so forth.

So I don't think I'm can be here next week. So I'm trying to get all my questions in. So, the other thing is on I still am on EC about two uh police cars every year and I just wonder if we really have we looked back to see if there's any way to stretch that out. Um I feel like before Yeah. I just feel like um and in the questions from EMA, I it concerns me

when I see a lot of vehicles around maybe being used, maybe not being used.

It concerns me when I see two police cars for a regular traffic stop. I feel like it's wasteful and it the the optics aren't great first of all and and I just wonder if we really do need them. So that's why I asked if it's has the support of you and Cody because it does concern me um you know to just see this when I see other departments in other areas of things being sacrificed. Um but

we keep you know taking care I mean we the committee um about four or five years ago did did request that these problems get looked at. We did do that. that we get um the reports, we send those out to the departments. We make sure that they're they if they have any vehicles that need to be auctioned off. We just had a major auction. We sold a lot of vehicles. Uh we recouped

uh you know quite a quite a bit of money for that. Uh but we do make sure that the the vehicles that they're asking for are absolutely necessary. Um if you look at the police department, and I'm not defending one department over the other.

Um this is a big town. I mean, landwise, uh you could have a you could have a a police car up down at down at the beach.

You could have it up in the northern part of town. you're talking 13 15 miles of travel. And I think what was eye openening for me uh was the report that the police chief gave with with the amount of realistic I call them realistic miles times, right?

Um those are that's actual wear and tear on the vehicle even though that vehicle may be sitting still sit at a at a stop or at a um you know at a detail that that vehicle is getting you know worn down.

That's why the hybrid and the electric are better.

Yeah. And I think the chief has done a good job with trying to test a lot of that. Uh it's just that there's a major expense to that. We saw that with the with the truck from the from the DPW where they where you know Tim did a good job with saying, "Okay, let's retrofit and replace the the um mechanics on the older truck instead of paying a million dollars for electric vehicles and on top

of it having to pay for a judger." I mean, so you know, talking half a million dollar charges if you want to get these things fully charged. So I think the whole electric initiative is really still up in the air. I like the fact that that the chief has actually purchased electric vehicles and is supplanting it like he said having an electric vehicle at first was kind of like do we do this and then he's finding

out but the officers like it better the charge time is not as bad as he thought and now with gas encroaching 450 a gallon and the convenience of the obviously you don't want to go with an entire fleet and that's kind of what I spoke to I think last year at the committee when the town was looking at replacing vehicles is to not have an entire fleet of electric, but to diversify just like we do with

portfolios and cash, you have some electric, some hybrid, some all gas. And then this way when when gas is so astronomically high, you can rely more on your electric fleet, and then when it's not, you can kind of move stuff around.

Yeah.

The Jeep has got, I think, a good program with the the the charging over at the Tesla stations over downtown center. Um but um he's got that working out real well now as far as like us not having to purchase those charges. You're looking at $6 million worth of charges sitting in the parking lot.

Um and that's a real savings for the town because he's able to like you said charge the car, bring the car back to the facility and swap 15 minutes it said is what it says is Has anybody been doing the comparison of how much electricity is costing us to run those charges?

Uh how much they've gone up? You know everybody stops looking at that all a little bit. Yeah.

Yeah. Well, yeah, it's it's it's it's it's what I call it the law of diminishing return, right? You're you're you're paying less probably for the use, but you're paying more for the supply, you're paying more for the product, correct? You know, and that's kind of where I think that maybe the state's starting to see that a little bit in the fact that um you know, the initiative initially was let's remember they had

the the the ultimatum everything by whatever. Well, they've ratcheted back on that because they know that the cost of that is just not realistic now.

Great. Can't handle it. Everything was going to be electric. Electric, heat, everything. You can't buy a gas to buy anything. Gas, dry fire, anything.

Yeah. Yeah. So, that's that's kind I think somebody probably, you know, I think the pendulum swings in one direction and it swings to the other.

And obviously, we want to be somewhere in the middle. I think that's where it makes the most sense. I will say, you know, from a police standpoint, it makes a lot of sense for them to have electric because of all the idle hours that they have. Yeah, literally that car is just an internal combustion engine is just running burning gas. It's not doing anything. It just burns gas. So like I

think for them it makes the most sense.

Maybe for a vehicle that's only being used once in a great while probably doesn't make sense to go.

And you think about an idle engine idling, it's not really the best thing for the engine. No, you have no air flow over the engine. You have no coolant circulating. I mean it's it it's almost like us resting on a couch. You know, you're not moving. And and I think that like I said that was to me an eye openener. I know. I appreciate the chief having sent that information to us.

I'm glad that they're willing to like that's the one thing that he does do a good job. He's willing to try different things and if it doesn't work, you can scrap it at some cost, move forward. And he does a good job with that. So yeah. And as far as the two vehicles, I know that in the past we we've done that. We've when when the when it was tight and we needed to fund other

projects, uh we did, you know, do the do the two vehicles. Um, and obviously it's a it's a the committee will decide whether or not they want to do two vehicles four.

We didn't do four anyway because that time because they were offset by six months.

There there was a there was a time where we didn't do any. I mean, there was there was one year that we did zero vehicles because the budget was tight.

Yeah.

And and that's why I think he requested a second floor last year, which we said no to because we approved it in the uh in the fall town. Um, yeah. Now, we started years ago, we started doing all the cruisers constantly like that because when we looked at the maintenance records and stuff like that of how much it was costing us and that's the reason why we really went into that program of

replacing and stuff like that.

My one concern is nobody's actually evaluated since he's letting all these cruisers go home and each police officer has their own cruiser.

Is that really the way to go or is it letting them share again? Because it gets to a point of, you know, the purchase of these vehicles. Is that worth maybe that now is more than what the maintenance would be if you had shared. I know they like the community policing. They call it community policing. Yeah.

Where they have them in the in the neighborhood. So there's a cop in the neighborhood like this one. But when I go by when I go by Slokum Road every single day and I see that cruiser and I have not I don't see it move. I don't know what shift he worked.

Was that it's just that's almost a bad look.

Yeah. You know was that a pilot program? I didn't think that he went full throttle with that. I think it was just like he wants to he wants to continue and try to go that route. But my question is you know how well are we evaluating it? I didn't I I thought that it was something he piloted, but it you know, from what I saw, it looked like he had four vehicles that he was gonna

that he was going to take off and when we added these four in.

Correct. Yeah, that's on the piece of paper that that's what appeared that that was happening cuz I I know that that was something that we talked about a couple of years ago and he wanted to pilot it, but I didn't think that this that was something, right? No, he hasn't totally department.

It is it is really partially already implemented because there's so many that go go home and stuff like that.

Um like that one right there on um you know I know there's an evaluation coming up we funded that last time you know of the whole department the usages of things and stuff like that. So I think we should be cognizant about that when we decide.

Yeah. We can ask how many we do. How how long will this report be done and how much would it hamper of not doing it? Yeah.

Until we get the report.

We can ask the chief if how that's gone how that you know what the results of that were. I know that and Chris is correct when we when we talked to him.

This is what maybe two years ago.

He wanted to uh look to see what that how that played out.

I didn't I don't not comment wise just from from when we talked it didn't seem like this committee was very receptive to that. I know like I was kind of like is this something and I know Bruce and Terry were both and and Luke like we were just kind of like okay well we need to there's no way that they have enough vehicles for someone home right right now. I know I know he said

he was piloting it with has to live in town right with his So he was driving it out of town.

Yeah. So tenants I would assume.

There's a lot of dynamic to that.

Yeah. I think that gets like with the EMA too. I thought of that where are those vehicles stored and the some of them were garageed. Okay.

Yeah. Um, Harbor Master, I checked it was 90,000.

Okay. Yeah. For his request.

Yeah. So, but it's not too far. Yeah.

Not too very similar and stuff like that. But no, years ago, we started to do any truck that the DPW bought would be prepared to be for a plow.

Yeah.

You know, except administrative and stuff like that.

Right. Right. Yeah.

Just because 4x4 and a plow. You know, they found out a lot of the smaller trucks in these neighborhoods where they're being built now, you need correct the smaller truck. You can't bigger trucks and you don't need a CDL driver to do a right. You don't need So, if you've got doing that sometimes that little investment makes sense makes sense of doing it now, you know.

Okay. So, I will um resend this out.

This will be what I'm considering the final uh to everyone today. that one change we had from Mike and uh we'll send I'll send the links out from when Chris sends them to me for the uh programs that he would he was talking about and then like again I just have the committee look at this over the week and then when we come back next week we'll have free cash and the balances

and then we can make the um appropriate recommendations and now the money that the board of health's asking for so that's going to become like a revolving fund like the cemetery so they have access to it without going to well well so like like meeting or Well, any revolving we the town meeting sets the limits. So if you look at the um bucket for instance uh if in fact and it's only they're not

setting limits they're let they're allowing the spend up to a certain amount. Uh the account could bring in x amount of dollars. Town meeting has to approve that amount up to those dollars to be spent. So if that was a revolving fund meeting would continue have to do that.

And the finance committee also looks at that as an article and asks questions about staffing and and all of that.

Every other the library has one library. Yeah. uh it's cemeteries bucket, right? But but bas basically that's what that's what he's going to set up instead of Yeah.

You know, which makes sense longterm capital funds, you know, and coming in front of that and saying we'd like to use this for these septic system.

Yeah. No, I thought a good point were brought up about the interest rates and and um if it's a net net, if it, you know, long term is it going to be um an expense to the town? Uh but like Chris said, that program has been around for decades. uh the uh clean water trust to fund these and you know there are communities out there that do fund these internally.

You're never going to lose money on it either.

No, no, it's protected.

The town jumps in front of a bank if there's an issue.

The only lean the only lean that's superior to the town is like a Medicare lean uh you know a federal lean but we have priority lean over everything.

That's why most of the time when we have issues with customers not paying taxes at the bank, the bank will actually pay the taxes.

Yeah. Right. They want to be priority.

Yeah. They want to be You know what I'm saying? because they don't want the town communistration of that. Couldn't that be moved to the collector with with all the other rather than having one of the Oh, no. Because the board of health is really the um administrator on on record. They're the ones that have to administrate their own because he cut down on support staff in favor of um people in the field. So,

yeah, they they under the law they admin they administer it. It gets sent to the assessor's office. They place the lean on the property and then we just collect that lean over a number of years.

Okay.

It's a good program. Yeah, it is a very good program.

Time I couldn't have afforded to do it.

So, helps a lot of residents.

Okay. Anything else?

Uh, what's the time for next week so I can send out?

Um, I'm good for 8:30 a.m.

8:30 if everyone wants to do 8:30. I mean, if that could because otherwise you'll miss Did you send a meeting request for this meeting?

I did.

I I didn't get it. Maybe it's in my spam or something.

Markinovation.com.

Yeah, I must may I'll have to check my spam.

Okay.

Okay. So, we want to make a motion to adjurnn.

Motion to adjurnn.

Second. All in favor? I.

Thank you everybody.