Capital Planning Committee Meeting - March 17, 2026

Okay. Uh, welcome everybody to the March 17th St. Patrick's Day CIPC meeting.

Yeah, I didn't wear any green on the clock. So, uh, at today's uh today's meeting, we have uh the last um department parks and recreation. Uh, we'll go over the uh master capital plan that I prepared and um interview uh candidates for open positions here on the committee. So right now I just like to invite uh Becky being meeting is being recorded and we're in person.

Becky Emerald you can go up there and then I'll you sent me the the picture.

I did okay for that list just I think that'll be easier so everyone can kind of see what I'm talking about.

Y let me just So do you want me to just go through the three items for this year? Is that how Let me see. Hold on. I don't think we did.

for for this one for this request. I don't know if you did.

Yeah. So, uh, Becky, just run down the items and explain them. Okay.

And the need and know the cost.

Okay. Sounds good.

So, the first on the list is the automatic gates at Jones Park, Aonigansit Park, Dartmouth Regional Park and Trails, and Roundill. Um you guys approved the entrance gate, but there is also a lower gate past where the uh Rayek drive houses cross over. Um there's another gate there which is included in this $94,810 um request.

I put it as a mustdo. Uh there's always problem. nothing good happens at night and and having these facilities left over, you're open to the fires on the beach, the drinking, the tearing up the lots, um racing down the roadways, things like that. U the neighbors have always had concerns and we just did not have the funding or the personnel to be closing the gates every night. it

it's fine just if you could drive up to the gate, close it, be done, but you actually have to check for um any patrons that are down there and then nicely ask them to leave, which is not always an easy thing to do. Um so I respectfully request that this move forward at town meeting um to help alleviate some gates will open from the inside. Right. They have they have one.

Yep. A person will not be locked in.

It's a sensor that will in the event someone, you know, we don't see a car, someone is in there, um when they drive up to a certain point, the gate will already open. That's how Round Hill is right now. Um and that's been working out well. There are some bugs where for whatever reason during this blizzard, the gate open I watched it on the camera. It opened itself at 9 uh 9:00

p.m. on Sunday during the blizzard and then when it tried to close itself, obviously the snow was in the way and couldn't, which is ironic. it actually worked in our favor by having it open so when it was time to plow we could just go right down but theoretically I mean that's not supposed to happen so we do have some issues to work out but overall the the neighbors have been so thrilled

um there's been no problems and so I would like to see this uh at all of our facilities um are there any questions on that one no what's the reason for the second one more so the the hill the gate Oh, at round yes. Um, it's just for more security because anyone going in through Round Hill estates could then go down that way. Not I mean it's mostly an older community,

but still if we want to uh cut off access completely then that would be the only way to do it is to have both gates. I'm sorry.

How much is one gate?

So the lower gate to Round Hill because it has to be powered by solar. It's 20,410. And I can read them all off if you'd like me to. Would what each gate cost?

Yeah. Okay. So, um Jones Park would be 22,700.

That we could um tie into the electric that's there. Again, it would be solar powered. That's $24,950.

Dartmouth Regional Park and Trails would also be solar powered at $26,750.

And then as I stated, the roundhill lower gate would be solar powered, $20,410.

Um, and all the um top three there, Jones Aonigans and Dartmouth Regional Park and Trails. The gate, it would be closed for vehicles. You can't there would be pedestrian access. There's just no way to prevent that. Um, they can just climb over guard rails and and what have you. Um, but that's the breakdown for those gates.

I'm sure as you know there's been um a lot of public safety concerns up the regional park. Not necessarily just it's been in hours too. It's not just off hours but that's that's I mean they all need to be done but that's really one in particular that we need to put a priority on.

Yeah. In her description when Becky had sent this she did a good job of explaining like I think you I sent this to you while this is a while ago when Becky initiated this request.

So with DNRT, that's uh I'm sorry, the DRPT.

Such a long name off road, right? Yes.

Uh that one's tough because that's one entrance and exit. So that's just one big arm. Uh or is there a breakdown where you're going to put two arms in there?

I believe that fence is too wide. It would have to be two. Okay. Two swinging, which would make sense because then you could stop because otherwise if it opens up, people can come in while they're theoretically that could happen. Yes.

Yes.

Okay.

Um the next one is the box the box van replacement. Um it's listed as a should do because the language didn't fit, but really it's a mustdo. Um the van we currently use is a 2007 and it's having mechanical problems. Um so we would be spending some money to get that into, you know, workable order. uh if if the van is not replaced, it's used every day from April through October and then as

projects are uh you know less throughout the winter, but when we do have projects that is the main piece of equipment, it goes out like I said every day from our main working time which is April through October. Um this new one is a little more heavy duty um rather than just an um I think they call them like an economy van. It's it's more like a dump truck body version. uh so it can handle

more weight um and we can put more things in there.

It's going to have a an inverter so we can have a a power for our compressor and the hose reel and outlets now will be in there as well. Um so that for us is a luxury because like I said that that is our main piece of equipment. Um now how many miles are on here Becky? I know you submitted the sheet here.

You know what I'm put you didn't get the you I might not have updated that. I can get that to you though.

Okay, let me see if I put it on there.

18 years old. It's 18 years old.

Uh, I put 19 unless I miscalculated.

Okay.

Yep. No, I I can uh I can get you the mileage. My my thought is that the mileage is probably going to be on the lower side, but the age is what's uh Is the vehicle still uh able to get a sticker?

Yes. It's still roadw worthy then.

It is. Um but I mean the engine's smoking a little bit. The the gas the float on the the tank doesn't work. So in order, you know, we have to just be mindful that we don't run out of gas.

So we're going to we're going to we're going to auction that off approved and the new one gets that would be the but it it does take a little bit usually to get these vans um because they kind of have to customize it with the the special lights for municipal work and and things like that.

So, it's not like we can just go buy one off the lot, unfortunately.

Yeah, we'd be getting rid of it, though.

But yes, it would we would not be keeping a definitely definite replacement.

Okay.

All righty.

And the last one, um Gary, I don't know if you can try to put that picture I took here.

There we go. Perfect. So, this is Evergreen Cemetery. Um if I can just come over here. This section right here straight up is what we have now to the left. That is where um that is where we currently sell plots and and do the burials. The next section here and then this is would be the third section. Um it's just woods right now. So that's you know our room for expansion. Um, I think

again it's a not a mustd do for this year, but it it's we can't keep holding out. We literally only have 77 single lots remaining in that first section.

And I would rather be ahead of the game than all of a sudden find ourselves, oh my goodness, we have no more room, and then trying to play catch-up and get this cleared and whatnot. Um, so I would say if I understand money's tight, um, if we couldn't do it this year, then I would say no later than next year. Um, how many do you sell on average in a year?

It depends. It could be anywhere between 20, 25, 30. It just some years are more than others.

It just depends.

So in five, that's a good question there. So like in five years theoretically we could have no no space and then so the clearing would go um up until this red line here but we would only mark the graves in this section here but just give us more space. And then the roadway is included in that.

And also this roadway here is included in that price because this was never for whatever reason. And this little circular area that was never done either. So that's also included um in that pricing.

So So this price here includes all the excavation down to a certain level. And then it says old. I didn't know there was a certain Yes, it's it's actually it's everything.

It's as it's the the tree cutting, the grading, the lman seating, and the asphalt.

Is that all pine trees up that way?

Pretty much. Yes.

Lodge pine.

Yeah.

Make a lot of furniture.

DPW could use it.

Yeah. For the mulch, the recycling to go and mix it with the And that was it, right Becky?

Yes. If I could just add something in closing.

Sure.

Go ahead.

So, um I just wanted to give you guys an update on our current projects that we have um funded. Uh the Allen Street garage, as they say, third time's a charm. U the bids came back and we are able to move forward with the renovations. So, the um notice of award was sent out yesterday. Um I'm hoping that it it will be starting for this spring. Um but I haven't heard back yet.

Also the community park playground surfacing. Um those bids came back as well and that project will be going on this spring. The DRPT fencing which the money was awarded two falls ago that also will be occurring this spring. And the roundhill roadway we are looking for a temporary fix for this summer for that flooded area. Um, I've been working with DPW and conservation to hopefully um get

that somewhat taken care of, at least passable for this summer because it is a mess.

And that is all.

Okay, any questions?

Any other questions?

No, thank you.

Thank you.

Thanks.

So, let's see.

Where is that road? I'm looking on the map.

I think it's on the left hand side. Is it by the power plant? We should take it out of order. Listen to them.

It's almost to hang around.

Okay. So, we can take the agenda a little bit out of order since we have the candidates that uh looks like some candidates that are here for the for the committee. Um so as you know we have some positions that are open on the on on the committee. We've asked for applicants and we've got 11 applicants 10 11 applicants and so we invited um them to come to this meeting and maybe talk a

little about their background and any questions that the committee had um had uh thought of. But we haven't had this in a while. So we've had right um maybe some time to think about some questions. I think this like we have Becky was the last one. Yeah.

So, um Mark Mark, would you like to come up?

Sure.

Talk to the group.

Good morning. Morning.

How do you want to start? maybe introduce yourself a little bit about your background and sure your interest in the in the committee.

Sure. My name is Mark LOL. I um have retired at the end of uh 2020 basically but still involved with a business that I owned. Turned the business over finally at the end of 2024.

Prior to that I have um been in private industry for you know 40 plus years. Um as you know originally my background was training as a um engineer. I had a PhD in chemical engineering. Um I had also had gotten some you know started an MBA program had some accounting training there started a family stop moved on but then ended up with an executive training program with the international company

that I worked uh for more years many years. um then moved on from stopped working for the man in around 2011 started my own business spun off of something I was doing in um business management and um R&D and had run that business like I said turned it over to a business partner in 24. Um we I moved to my wife and I moved to Dartmouth in 20 2022. We love it

here. Um, we I would like to do whatever I can do to help this community um survive and thrive through some volunteer efforts. I haven't done anything. I mean, I've done as a volunteer is in the local HOA where I live. I live on um Wild Pepper Lane, which is I don't know if you know where Wild Pepper Farm is. It's off of Rocka Dundee.

Okay. Right. Okay. All right.

Um so um I came in there and they had no one with business experience, no one with financial experience. said it was a mess, the financials. So, taxes weren't being paid lot a lot a lot. Okay. And now, um, they've never had a reserves plan before. um creating reserves plan, do a five-year analysis of potential projects, and then figure out what our potential liability is in terms of these projects and ultimately

going out and um taking that analysis and deciding what our assessment should be in preparation for stuff that could be as long as 10 years out. But say the streets, you know, there's two streets that are private streets.

You know, we have to have those repaved sometime. You know, fortunately, I have a neighbor who's an expert on roads. He he teaches at Dartmouth. So, um I feel like I'm perfectly capable of doing whatever. Um financial analysis, you know, payback period, internal rate of return, you know, MPV. These are all things I did all the time in projects I was involved with and either running

business units or in R&D projects. Um you know what would be new to me is how do you do this analysis com say for public projects you know where there's not necessarily a clear income stream coming in but might be an income stream for taxes or or just generally something more soft in terms of social benefits let's say parks okay so quickly that's my background great sure Terry somebody on the finance committee once

said that if he ran his business the way that municipalities run, he would have gone bankrupt. So that it's kind of the opposite.

It's a lot more soft factors.

So you were on the HOA.

Yeah.

And have you served on any of the boards or uh decision-m bodies like that?

Not in um public sort of related. No.

Yeah. I mean anywhere. I was thinking anyway. I I'm just curious about how you work with the team. So if you came in and you were working with the HOA, nobody took that up. How did you end up uh doing that?

Well, I got involved because um I came moved in there and I'd never been in an HOA before. So, I started attending some meetings, the board meetings to see, you know, um understand what the status of the rules were, what's the um it's a trust. So, you know, more learning about the trust, you know, what does the trust say, what the rules say? And I started digging. I found out they'd let all the

rules expire, but they were telling every new owner they had to live by these rules, but they didn't exist anymore. And no one told me that. And so then, um, I started asking questions.

Um, and in particular in terms of the finances, you know, I had asked a simple question like, um, do we have real estate taxes?

The answer was, I don't know.

And then I came the the office here. We hadn't paid the taxes in two years, that type of thing. And so then I got more active and um I ended up writing the um job description for the treasurer. Then he quit. I wrote the job description.

But in terms of operating a teams, obviously, you know, in private industry, I had to be involved. You know, it wasn't me saying, "Oh, we need to put 10 machines at this end of the plan." You know, I would have to work with operations, have to work with finance, you know, and have to, you know, work with a always working in a team of people either reporting directly to me or under other management.

So, in the HOA, you you you uh found that there was a need after doing after going to meetings, right?

Unfortunately.

Yes. So then I stepped up and as soon as this guy retired, um there was an election. Well, we just had an election cycle. I voted in as secretary.

I knew this guy was going to eventually go he went left and then I just picked up the treasurer's job and set up I know some you you watch some of these HOA meetings, you know, in some of these groups, they get very content. I mean, it's really contentious, you know.

Yeah. This is not the situation we had.

Yeah. I mean, it ended up quietly contentious with individuals. I didn't want to make a public right?

You know, I didn't want to call out the treasurer, you know, it would just sort of, you know, have a meeting and say I'd ask a question if I didn't like the answer.

I wouldn't like it there, you know.

You know, yeah. What what's your understanding of our committee and why do you want to be a member on it?

Okay. Well, first off, why do I want to do anything like this? Because I want to do something valuable that I have a skill set to contribute to this community. Okay. Um, so, you know, doing financial analysis, I'm very comfortable with, I think I do very thoroughly and very well. Um, so, you know, having opinions about that and supporting that would be a contribution I can make in

terms of my skill set. So in terms of uh I didn't look at every volunteer opportunity within the town. My wife made me aware of this and she said you should be perfect for this. And so I looked into it and I've done some more research and I've I researched generally what are the practices for townships in terms or spe more specifically you know doing searches you know what do other

towns do what do they need to do and I but I've not let's say done in depth um an analysis of how good a job or bad a job you've done here you know I expect you to tell me that okay um so um you know I I've researched what should a capital committ should be doing and what um in terms of a township.

Does that answer your question?

Yeah.

Okay.

Thank you.

How many houses are in uh Wild Peppa? I haven't been in there.

14.

14 houses in there.

Yeah. There's a couple properties that undeveloped. They'll never be developed there in Woodland.

We have 45 acres of open space that's part of our trust.

Yeah.

Yeah. It's been a while since I've been up there. Yeah.

Beautiful spot. Used to be a Love it there. This is a favorite place I've ever lived.

Used to be a rock quarry.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Look right down over the top of it.

All those rocks on the dyke down there.

Exactly. And and a bunch of them, you know, around, you know, roads, the two road streets that are part of the HOA.

Thank you.

Okay. Anything else, D?

I don't have anything else. Yeah, I'm good.

I give you a few questions.

Sure.

Okay. I'll try to make it quick.

Um, you know, in terms of financial analysis, the softer part of I mentioned, you know, public public benefit. Um, are most are most of the projects you do not gen income generating?

Most of the projects that we put through.

Yeah.

Um, so I'll I'll give you a little bit of explanation how we fund these projects. First of all, we fund it from uh either free cash on the general fund side or retained earnings on the on the uh enterprise enterprise fund side. If you have water and sewer, um each one of those categories generates their own revenue, if you will. So, at the end of the year when we do a calculation, we

have x amount of dollars left over.

Typically, what we've done in the past is we've put that towards capital projects. Um but recently, we're talking about having to do borrowings because some of these projects are now into the millions of dollars. So, a bonds or just bonds? Yep. We go to bonds. Um, and we we ask the public to, you know, we ask a question at town meeting. Would you want to put this on the on the uh ballot to,

you know, to um vote on a spec specific project?

Uh, but that's how the funding that's the really the funding mechanism for a lot of the projects that this committee votes on.

Okay. Um, so does the town or this committee have a would say a metric in terms of current total debt service as a percentage of annual tax revenue?

Matter of fact, we're going through that right now because as I mentioned, a lot of these projects are lot uh are big.

You know, we're talking about new schools, new treatment plant um and how that fits in our current debt schedule.

We actually uh Cody did a presentation at the last border cycling meeting and talked about that.

Okay.

Um more function in terms of the committee.

Um how often are meetings?

So I usually send out the bud budget message to the department heads in November and it gets them thinking about what their requests will be. Uh they then submit those uh usually around the end of December. We'll start the meetings with the group at that time and they run from it could be December, January all the way through um you know now March, April of how uh once a week maybe uh depending on

when I get the request in but uh and we schedule those in the morning sometime around you know 9 8:00 9:00 so once per week during this would say six month period say six months. Yeah.

Okay. um you know what happens it's not unusual for me to go overseas um for private time for like a month at a time.

Okay. You know we do Zoom we do we can do Zoom meetings.

Okay. All right. Um uh you know whether you know what's the load on the committee right now? Is it something the committee has trouble keeping track up with or do you need to expand or um I don't I don't think the just I think we're just down two members right now. Yes, that's the reason you're down two because I thought down one two two members.

Okay.

Ultimately two.

Yeah.

Right. Um we've been down we've been down one for Yes. many years.

So is the current load say typical or is it some years really high in terms of the demands on that on capital committee or in terms of requests that we receive or Yeah. Or yeah like the amount of work you have to do to respond and review. I mean, the amount of work is the amount of work that you I suppose you put in.

Like, you know, I think we all put in a good amount of work to to figure out like do our own worksheets to see how we're going to spend money because we we I mean some of us have been in this town for a long time.

Yeah.

My whole life pretty much.

So, uh over 47 years that I've been here. And so, like we really care about this and we want to see this, you know, succeed. So yeah, I think uh a lot of us put in a decent amount of time during these five or six weeks that we're we're doing this. So yeah, I think it's a lot a lot too. It's it's a lot of it's it's it's analytical.

So I gather all that information. So the information is is prepared by me for the group. Okay.

All the financials are and it's really the groups um they'll analyzing a lot of this. So it's a lot of analytical uh data that I mean information that they have to decide on. I mean, they all come with different views, different opinions. Most of the time, we're we're all agreeing on that. Uh, but it's a lot of they're doing their own um uh research on a lot of this on a lot of

these items that come through, questions that they have in particular for each one uh one of the projects. So, I I want to say it's each individual member is kind of doing their own uh indiv individual analysis and research on all of these projects. Um, in the last 10 years, what has been your most successful um, pro capital project? Just name one.

That didn't involve borrowing.

Good question. Actually, uh, well, we had managed to get the library going.

Yeah.

We we built a new library and we built the police station in the last Okay.

Yeah.

And what was the library cost? Uh I think it was 14 14 all told and then we had got it was a combination of uh library state do you have to go get funding externally for that or was that all funded was library I think it was Massachusetts Board of Library Commissioners funding okay so you had a other governmental agency that provided funding okay um what was what was the worst project in

the past 10 years you're disappointed how it came out don't be too hard on That's a good one, Terry. I think the stadium's a good example. Not that it came out poorly, but you know, they anticipated being able to do the the whole project and we essentially just got the field done.

Okay.

In the in the building. Yeah. Due to the cost about double.

Yeah. So, the cost went up because of inflation or just misunderstanding the project.

No, I think it's inflation.

Transitions with leadership. So, we've had a couple of uh Cody's been here for two two years now. One and a half. No, six months. Six months. Seven months.

Like two years.

It seems a It seems a lot longer.

Gary has been here for a while, but in another role and on this uh committee, there's been different people. I don't bring technical and financial Yeah.

Uh perspective, but I am interested in the communication with the town meeting and how this information gets out to people.

Yeah. The chat. Are you Are you Teresa Ham?

I am. I I know you're doppelganger.

I used to work in Pennsylvania for a woman named Teresa Ham. I haven't seen that.

Yeah. The challenge has been I think more so this committee's realized that over the last few years is the cost of inflation is is so high. So as these projects get I don't want to say put off but the funding mechanism isn't there it becomes that much more money to complete these projects going forward. So I think that's one thing that's been an eye openener for this committee you know

that you that and that's a challenge.

That's a big challenge. the projects still need to be done.

Okay?

You know, and I think another thing that we've done a good job of since when when I started like seven or eight years ago is that um a lot of the open articles that weren't that have gone unused have been reclaimed and Gary has done and and um Cody has have done a good job of recapturing that money so we can use for other projects. Um because what will happen is if those articles stay open

for too long, the costs go out of control and it's it's it's not going to be used. So, I think we've done a real good job of recapturing that. So, we've we've definitely made this uh uh committee more of a less of a rubber stamp and more of a you know, let's let's look at things and get things done.

All right.

Created a lot of accountability.

Well, thank you for the opportunity.

Yeah.

Thank you very much for coming in.

I don't need to stay for anything else.

You could stay if you'd like or we won't.

Okay. Thank you.

All right. Thank you. Yeah. You'll be we'll be in touch.

Okay. About when will you make a decision? probably within a week.

Thank you.

Y Okay, Maria. Yeah,

good morning.

So, you had heard the last candidate, so you asked a lot of questions, so I don't have too many. My name is Maria Freda.

Um, I live in South Dartmouth on Elm Street. moved here. I moved here in October, November, this past in 2025, but we bought the house about a year ago and we've been renovating it. So, that's been a great project. I am an accountant by trade. I'm licensed as a CPA in the state of New York. I work for a company called Horizon Media. Um, started out as a controller there. I've been the chief

accounting officer right now. I I kind of lead the whole back office, which is I oversee over a hundred people. Um, and we're paying bills and we're making sure money comes in. I have a deep passion for public service. I was an intern in college for Senator Moahan. I volunteered at the White House. I'm the kind of person that volunteers to be the foreman when I get asked to serve for

jury duty because I think it's so interesting. Um, and this is a goal of mine that I've had for a long time. Um, I think I'm aptly qualified for this role. Uh, my father was in construction my whole life. I've been around capital projects forever. in my company. I've helped renov we moved and we built out a whole space. I've helped with that budget. I've opened I've done the construction selections of the vendors.

So, I feel like I really have a lot to offer. Um, and it would be a real honor to be a part of this committee.

Okay.

So, my question was about teams and what other boards have you served on any other uh volunteer boards or No, I haven't s served on any volunteer boards. I've also um I've started a a fractional CFO company. So I've worked very closely with startups and helping them kind of make decisions financially.

Um I've done work about you know presenting information to banks and working with banks and getting funding.

Um but I've not served on a board.

So have you watched some of our meetings? Have you have you have you almost educated yourself on what the process is?

Yeah, a little bit. Yeah. So yeah, you know, and listening to what you said before, right, I have the time and the the to to donate, right, and to commit to this committee. Um I've I've watched Cody online recently. Um so yeah, I understand that you meet, you know, once a week or so and that you've come here to to kind of analyze the projects and and make decisions to go forward. I'm

curious how you manage like how do you measure success here? Like like what's your measure of success? like how do you know you've kind of made the right decisions or you've gone in the right direction?

I think success is when the committee uh approves a project and and they come and the the department comes back to the committee and says the project is complete. You know, here it is. Even if it's something small as like the gates that you that we just heard from parks and wreck or whatever that project is, I think that's really the the goal of the of the committee is

to um I guess out with the old in with the new if you will. And a lot of these projects as I mentioned are now becoming million-dollar projects where back in the day they were smaller smaller dollar amounts but because of inflation uh it becomes that more diff much more difficult to use the pot of money that we have and use it to the best best effect you know be as effective as

you can with that with that money. I watched that in real time with my own construction as when we started the project in December of 2024 to when we completed it in 2020 in like October 25.

The prices were insane and trying to get ahead of like the raising the rising prices as we were going through that. So I I totally understand.

Yeah. The municipalities are no different than than an average homeowner trying to build a house. So right.

Yeah. And because of the way that we're organized that this committee makes recommendations to the select board and then to town meeting town meeting some of the projects town meeting has to vote on additionally to approving it at town meeting communications very important right so we've been working on trying to get information out to people um right and then what do you do when like how do you

ensure these things come in on budget right again you can't control the cost of inflation I've watched myself go through it like personally so how do you ensure that you're keeping these projects on budget.

Well, what we hope happens is that when we when the committee approves these projects that they're done in a timely fashion, as I just mentioned, if they're waiting two, three years, uh we had an instance where someone, you know, department was purchasing an engine last last month. Uh this is an open article that the article was voted in a year a two two years ago. If the person goes if

that department goes on to implement that purchase, what's been voted on may not be enough, right? you know, so that's kind of what we've done over the last couple years is keep track of those uh to make sure that articles don't sit out there. If they are, they have to repurpose that those funds to be used again. But it's it's keeping it's monitoring the purchase and then going

forward on the implementation of whether it's a motor, whether it's a truck, whether it's, you know, uh and then and then eliminating the uh the old item also, right, for auction or repurposing the van department, right? I think some departments do like for projectwise, you know, not purchasing vehicles because that's pretty easy. I think like for construction, a lot of them carry

contingencies and if the projects come in uh on budget, um then that contingency gets returned to free cash the following year. So, I mean, for the most part, like construction wise, I think they do carry contingencies and again as Gary said, like getting those quotes in a timely fashion, getting work, but that's not always easy to do.

Yeah.

Right. I wanted to ask the woman about the the cemetery. How much money was she going to bring in from selling those cemetery plots, right? Could that offset some of those costs?

Yeah, I think that probably goes more towards operating because I don't think it's a I don't think it's a lot of money. I mean, it's it's not a revenue generator. I think it's like I don't think I mean they Yeah, they have perpetual care accounts that that continue the maintenance of those those plots for years, right?

Eternity. So um yeah, whether it's a revenue generator, you know, it it's enough to maintain the the the existing property. Yeah.

Okay.

One one of the interesting things that's different about um the way that we operate is we don't budget for capital projects. We essentially use our surplus revenue at the end of the year and that's how we fund our capital projects with with um any long-term borrowing excluded. That's separate. We obviously have to budget for the debt payments, but we don't when we prepare our annual

operating budget, we don't budget for capital. There isn't an align item for capital that happens after essentially our surplus revenue is certified. We know what we have available from the previous year. That's how we fund our capital. So that's a little bit different than kind of how most private sector operates, right?

And we've been lucky enough over the last few years to average around5 million dollars of re, you know, available funds. So, we're we're in a good we're in the town has always been in a pretty good position to fund a lot of these capital items.

So, that's the good news. The bad news is we have like a hundred over hundred million worth of requests.

Things age quickly and we only have a couple of million dollars to spend. So, it's it's this tough decisions that this committee makes and we'll be making today. So, yeah, the challenges is just keeping everybody afloat, right? afloat and taken care of and never fall too far off the off the page because there was years that the park department didn't get anything and it' come up well we need the uh Jim said

yeah oh we'll put it off next year maybe we can talk about it next year and it would go six seven years without getting funded and so it's just really a challenge of trying to figure out how to get everybody something that they need yeah they don't it usually doesn't go away like Chris said it just the list just gets longer Right. Absolutely.

What do you do when someone like if you've approved something and then they're not even starting for two years?

How does that happen? Like is it is it this committee's responsibility to make sure they're starting or do they ever lose it?

It's a challenge. We're we're looking at some policies to um you know a timeline requirement. One of the challenges is you know for $135 million annual operation we don't have a centralized purchasing department. We don't have a centralized procurement division. Um, and so it falls on essentially that department to make sure the project gets done and that's on top of, you know, the day-to-day things. So some of these

larger projects aren't at the top of the priority list. Um, and they're a lot of work. So we we try to support as an administration them to get those things done, but you know, buying a vehicle is simple, right? We can buy we have a state contract. go through that process.

But we have the Allen Street garage.

That was something, you know, you need to go through um design. You bid it out.

Then we don't have enough money. Then you bid it out again. Um potentially add some options within the design in the bidding. And then you come back, try to get a little bit more money and next thing you know, it's been three, four years, right? So a little bit longer than that.

And double the price. Yeah. It's been more than double.

Right. I wanted to refer to the last question that you asked. Um I've talked to other people from business from uh industry who have come in and worked on boards and they're they ask questions like where does the revenue generate?

Where can we where can we find a department and that's not how the town works. They don't very few departments can generate revenue.

Yeah. My first job ever was at a nonprofit was the New York Blood Center and again we were we were relying on royalties and donations. So I understand what it looks like when there's no revenue stream as well.

Yeah.

Any other questions? Well, thank you very much for coming. Pleasure. Um I really would welcome the opportunity to to work with you all and to serve on this committee.

So here about in about a week.

Okay. Thank you so much. Have a great day.

Yep. You too.

Good morning everybody. My name is uh Jamie Jacquwart and a 20-year town resident. Um worked at UMass Dartmouth for 25 um years and so I've got some long roots here in the community. movein on and off of the um town meeting for about the last 18 years. I think there was a stretch of two or three where I had stepped out for a little bit. Um served on the um youth commission for

about a decade. Um had an opportunity to have a really great experience working with that group. Um so long ties with the community. I think I have a really good understanding of sort of the role of this committee. Um how that dovetales in with municipal finance. Um, I really got involved with town meeting because I mean it was a basic question. How much do these packer trucks cost for us to

buy these big, you know, garbage, you know, how does that operation work? And what does an enterprise fund and how do we end up funding all of those kinds of things? Um, I've lived here long enough to see the lights or street lights turned off. Um, I know the tough decisions that this committee and finance committee and and our whole town is asked to sort of wrestle with. Um,

and I've seen us kick a lot of decisions down the path. Um, as we've waited for some magic thing to happen. Um, at times I have paused of choosing to get involved with say Fincom because oh it's it's a tough e economic year this next year um this next year that there was worries that you know they were going to have to make some really hard decisions.

I mean I think the reality is there's hard decisions that have to be made every single budget we make. um and that I feel like I'm ready to be a part of a team to wrestle with those things, to look at the data, to be able to come up with new solutions and new approaches. I think we've got some really great minds and some new um thoughts around how we

can do some of those kinds of things. Um I'm ready to be a part of a team that really um collaborates and and does that kind of work. Um professionally, just to give you sort of a perspective, I am the sustainability director at UMass Dartmouth. I've had an opportunity to represent um our organization with the Department of Energy Resources um over for more than a decade. So I'm really

well aware of the Green Communities Act and the potential revenue opportunities and grants that are available um through that organization as well. Um and so that's just a different perspective that I bring. Um I've worked as a part of our facilities operations team, our capital planning team. Um so I've been a part of you know lots of construction projects um as well.

Great.

Does anybody have any questions or did you have any specific questions?

Answer my question.

Did you have any specific questions of us or um I mean what is it that you're looking for in a new member um new members to be able to join the group? What is it that you are looking to add? Well, I think, you know, as we mentioned, uh, we've been down a couple members for a while, and sometimes it's it's just the, you know, meeting quorum. I know that we had

an issue with that a while back, but I think and I think it's more uh another uh maybe another lens looking at different, you know, different ways of uh we haven't had a new member in a while. It's been it's been a while. Um, and and I don't know. I guess the question is, have you followed some of our meetings? have you? Um yeah, I had a chance to um certainly um

I've not watched the meetings um but I follow all of the the written notes that have come out um coming through um town meeting.

Okay.

Yeah. I think I think it's just a you know it's another another person to to weigh in on in a lot of these projects you know that may see things a little bit different than we do or you know add perspective to the conversation.

Yeah. We have people from like various backgrounds here and they all kind of add their own thing which is really good because uh if we had everyone that had the same type of like all financial off construction it would it would skew and I we don't have that here. We have a very good mix and I think it works well for what we do.

Yeah.

Because we have like between the police department and school department technology.

Yeah.

You know and that's what Chris does. I mean just I have to just sit back and just listen try to try try to learn something from them you know and stuff and and it's just a matter of and banking and finance and finance committee and me construction and history and of being in this town forever.

I would say history is big contribution that you make because you know all the buildings in town. You know what work's been done, what hasn't been done.

So that is helpful.

Yeah.

And that's, you know, so we're looking for somebody else that we feel that could fit right in and add something to us.

Yeah.

That's my opinion.

Yeah. Okay.

Great.

I I would say that, um, again, I've got a really good, um, history of working collaboratively. I'm working with a variety of people. Um, got a year of, you know, accounting in my background, but again, capital projects has been a part of that. um my my work experience and and working with um you know long-term projects and the sort of struggle of you know how do you get things from um an idea into um fruition

um and how do we sort of do that as quickly as we can um but also you know that you know the nature of this work is cyclical and long range um that we have to be thinking three and five and 10 years out anticipating you know what are the things that are going to be coming as well as the things that we already know that are on that hundred million

dollar list um so um look forward to the opportunity to, you know, collaborate with you and um Yeah, great.

Sounds good.

All right, you too.

Thank you very much. In about a week, we'll we'll get back to you.

Perfect.

All right. Thank you.

Thanks so much.

Thanks for coming.

Great.

Did you have trouble finding your way up here?

Wasn't I was told to go to 308.

So, I sat there for a while.

Oh, somebody told you. Yeah, maybe. I was told to go to 308 and I sat there by myself and I'm like I guess they don't need me Bruce. He gave him he gave him that information.

No, I know.

I'm just messing.

That's what he sent me down there.

Yeah.

As you all know, my name is Rick Ferrer.

Been with the town for 41 years. Served before you guys on many for 30 years.

I'm a licensed contractor, a licensed electrician, have a CDL, hydraulics, uh done all these things as we all know, been with these projects. I've done these projects with the town. I sat on the police department.

I know where we can save money where sometimes money it is what it is. But my biggest thing that I bring to the table is that I see sometimes these projects need to be watched a little careful and sometimes the people watching them are not always there to help out. And it'd be a great idea to have someone from Capital Improvements start stopping on some of these projects and just watching

them, you know, to see where things go.

I found that out with the police department when they want to uh, you know, move a move a wall and they want to charge $5,000 and all it was was a snap a line. So, it's things like that.

That's the only reason I'm here. The reason I've never applied before is, as you know, I worked for the town, worked with all you guys.

You were on the other side of the fence.

I was on the Yeah, I was on the receiving end. I was on the asking end, but uh that's it. I mean, that's now that I'm retired, I somewhat retired.

I just thought it'd be a nice idea to join the committee and help out way if I could, you know.

That's it.

Have you served on any boards in your life in terms of nonprofit?

I I always had a thing about working for the town and serving on the board.

Okay.

It's a conflict of interest in my opinion. A lot of times it is. How about in like church or in uh business someplace outside?

Fire department, weren't you?

I was in the fire department. I worked my way up with deputy chiefs and on the potential committee. Okay.

Things like that. So I have born and raised in Dartmouth.

Yeah.

So I have all that what's going on, how things are done. So that's all that's I just want to now that I'm retired and I thought it'd be a nice idea to join a committee that you know, especially you guys are shortand I can see that.

I didn't know you were down too. Now, have you watched some of the meetings?

Have you uh since have retired?

Yeah. I won't have a chance to watch any of our meetings. No.

Oh, I've watched a lot of the meetings.

I sat in on them and went to town meeting and spoke and on a couple of the issues.

Yeah. Okay. you know, and the only reason and the only thing I I'll say one thing about the projects I served on that stadium project and the biggest reason we ran into is it was peacemeal in every time it got another one added, cost kept going up.

Mhm.

So what we thought was going to be somewhere near $5 million end up being almost 14 million.

Yeah.

So crazy. It's uh and sometimes there's things you can do knowing when you have things you could probably peace meal in a project you can recommend that you know peace meal it in and you know boost you guys get the knowledge with everything right there on how to piece meal it in you know don't put you know you're not going to leave the last thing to be the internal part of it maybe

something where there could be an add-on down the road yeah phase some of the projects in right some of these project you know save save like something for the end that can be added on a garage or whatever because I know that some of the big things coming up and everybody's talking about it is all these new developments and so now we got to talk about uh infrastructure especially number one is the treatment plant.

Yeah, that's going to be huge.

You know that's going to be a huge one.

So I know you guys that's what you guys do and these guys what they do is they just say okay you know and unfortunately you got to say who's gonna you know not get as many things as possible but where I've you know and I see it now because I still work with the town I plow so I get to see their inner workings I get to see you know still with the schools and the

police and all that so all right question I don't have to ask Okay. All my all my life.

I good.

We already had enough questions as with me. Cody, I worked with uh on many of those uh renovation projects.

Yeah.

So, thank you. I'll be here for about a week. We'll we'll get back to you in about a week.

All right.

I have to have a 11 o'clock.

Yeah. I have a meeting at 10.

Tough decision.

Just as a people. No, you'll recommend I'd recommend two people. Okay. Because well, you because it has to go to the select board. Select board makes an appointment.

Well, we can make a recommend if you feel like you have enough information.

Okay. Wait. The next select board meeting isn't until March 30th. So, I'll just need it a week, you know, a week before roughly the th Wednesday before.

Um, so why don't we um what I would say is that uh we think about the candidates that we h that we had today. I think they're really good. All four of them are really good, you know. Um they're really really good. Um and we go over the master plan that's next on the agenda. And then maybe we scheduled one more last meeting for the picks for the um for the um candidates and then also

the recommendation to town meeting for the for the items for the mass.

Yeah. To finalize them and stuff like that. Things have changed from now to then.

I guess that'll give others the opportunity because we had 11 the only four that showed up. So some of them some of them didn't respond. Some of them um you know just they never called back after we left a message.

If I can get a list of the names at least I can you know maybe there's somebody I know and there's a reason for it or whatever. Maybe there's another explanation or somebody else might know.

I'm not the only person that know people in town.

I sent in fact I'm forgetting more than I know.

I thought I sent them out to everybody.

No I didn't get any. Um, okay. I'll I'll re I'll try to read maybe maybe didn't go through.

Okay. I mean, I think we heard from them today.

Yeah.

Background is uh and then um we can we can I mean we can go we can go from there. Like I said, I don't know if I don't know if there's going to be additional candidates that would want to Yeah. I I just if I if I see it if I just say, "Oh, well, you realize, you know, you you know, we only meet this, you know, for this hour or whatever."

Like some of them said they can't do it every morning or whatever.

Yeah.

Maybe they didn't get a full explanation.

Yeah. Some of them may not be able to make the commitment to come in.

Yeah.

At the times or you should have asked them.

I didn't think of that.

Well, I think I think that the the four here were aware of the times. Yeah.

Um but yeah, I'll get you the list of the candidates including these four and then you can maybe maybe you know some of some of the names or just in case just a closing date for applications.

No, we didn't put them.

We kind of gave them a couple of weeks to just to respond, but I mean because we already have, you know, we have some decent candidates for sure.

I was thinking it was kind of funny as we were going through. This is a more for formal process for sure.

Oh, yeah.

Than we've had for a while. So that was good.

There was no interview process for me and Chris. Yeah, I think Hey, welcome to the committee.

Was it I think it was Gary that said, hey, hey, I got literally I got Luke coming in.

And that's what it was. It used to be presented I had to talk on right now is select board in front of anybody I had to present for the select board for no for the for this so we had some of the candidates just read their names it's uh uh Dwat uh Rajiio uh we Kevin Rigo um Maria we met with let's see Dylan Cromwell Well, Mark, we met with Matthew Medeiros.

Is that is that Matthew Medeiros? That's the There's so many Allenale.

So many Matthew Medeiros.

Oh, I thought you superintendent.

Yeah, the superend.

Matt Medeiros.

There is a Matt Medeiros that's the superintendent, but I'm sure we have more Matt Mad.

I'm sure the amount of Medeiros in town. We're definitely going to have a first name say thank you.

Yeah, we run out of first name.

I'll forward the I'll forward the information off to the to the group including these here so that everybody has it and then I would say we schedule another meeting just to go over um the the committees what what you feel is uh the best but as mentioned I think we had pretty four pretty good candidates tonight.

Yeah.

Okay. So uh let's see back into uh the uh the capital plan. So, what I'd like to do is just start off with in the fall we this is what we uh the committee voted on in the fall just a back kind of back door into then move forward. Uh the Dartmouth police had you know a few items just so you can see and kind of get a refresher of what was um funded in

the fall when we were certified with the with the free cash. Uh in total we used um 4.9 million in free cash in the fall that includes the uh enterprise funds also and also I'll also uh bring up on the screen here the availability of what we have left. So 3.1 million Uh we had conversations of potentially leaving some of that um and uh letting that flow into the into the fall the

next fall town meeting because um if we don't spend it all it doesn't it it just adds gets added to the balance of our next re our certification in the fall.

Um would it be a useful exercise to look at the departments like for the past three years to see what percentage of what they requested and then received was?

I'm just thinking about how other people sometimes feel like what's the rate the ratio that you know people have given up. Um and I Oh, you mean by by department?

Yeah, I've kind of done that already. I looked at actually I can pull in the last few years. I looked at last year. So I looked at the schools. Um actually I had more than one I had multiple town meetings in there on what was what was um I'd have to find it but I can send it out to the group on what was actually approved at town meeting.

Great. Yeah. To understand.

Yeah, I've got that. I can send that.

Difficult. It seems like some smaller departments we say makes sense. Yeah.

But then you look at um the schools and they need so much what can be approved of them. You know, I think you have to balance that.

Yeah. Uh, let me see.

If I were the queen of the world, I wouldn't be approving the cars for the um for the police department. Their cars look like they're in great shape. The the process that they have was put in place when their cars were falling apart, right? When they weren't getting cars on a regular basis, and I feel like now they are.

Yeah. They were getting one or two a year, you know, and that's about it.

they were getting high mileage and at that point uh the maintenance transmissions going you know and that's that's those things start right so I did look at it Terry uh here it is right here so between FY23 and FY25 here is what um has been approved uh and here's the town meetings um so for police almost a million schools 2.9 million in various projects is over the cost of three fiscal years.

General government um 759,000 public works 9.3 million parks and recreation 2 million. So I know it's I know it's because we don't look at it in this in the aggregate but you can see how large the commitment has been from free from surplus revenue over the last few years. I mean, $9 million.

And you would never think that $9 million would have been spent, right, in in just DPW in public works alone.

That's admin, too. That's not enterprise funds either, right? That's that doesn't include I I only looked at I only looked at admin over here. So, right, which makes sense, right? Because those are the funds, right? So, that I mean, think about it that if you added all this up, you you're north of, you know, 15 million. So, it's hard to grasp that.

Over the last three fiscal years, the committee has voted almost 15 million plus the enterprise funds.

So, that's a big that's a lot of free cap. That's a lot of retained earnings that's been put back into the operations. Um, and I had looked at this just because I was interested in it, you know, looking at what what had been approved by the committee. Um, it's a lot. It's a lot.

If you look at the percentage, it looks like a majority of it goes to or 50% of it or maybe actually a little bit more than that. 75% goes to look at that.

That's pretty funny. It was if the council on aging.

Oh, is it right?

Improvement study $15,000 and now, you know, the library is asking for $50,000 to do a But what's tricky about the Council on Aging is there's a whole fund that we don't know what goes on with that has contributed to Oh, there. So, you don't you don't get the full picture is what I'm saying.

Like when I first came on the finance committee, I asked Greg about the grants because obviously that's funding stuff that we need that were not taken out, but there's not a separate, you know, there at the time there wasn't a a catalog of that. So I I think about like one of the the things that Tom meeting members have complained about is um well, I've seen that old vehicle over

there. Why do we need to keep it? We've done that. And I think I feel comfortable saying to people, it's been inventoried. They're auctioning off.

Yep. We're trying to repurpose not useful so it's not on our insurance that feels a lot of purging with Tim. You know what has been done with the money in terms of the roads.

He's gotten better every year with saying this is this is what's been accomplished with that amount of money.

People just need to know where their money is going because they don't have a sense of it.

Yeah. So I guess yeah, like Chris said, 50% of it would be, you know, and and then when we look when we look at public works, I mean, a lot of these a lot of these items that that have been approved are large ticket items. I mean, no longer can you buy a generator for 50,000. These generators are costing 20, you know, 200 $300,000. We saw that with the schools with just the generator

repair that the finance committee had approved, you know, just the repair alone is 40,000. I know. I mean, so these are these are becoming crazy lodge ticket items.

So, um I could send this out to the group so you have it too. Just I was curious. I had the same question too.

So, uh I would be curious on that same chat what was requested versus what was approved.

That was what was requested like what the departments wanted. They came capital we have this this uh that's on the master schedule. Uh, they're not together though, right?

No.

Okay.

So, I have both figure it out.

Yeah, you have both. Um, could we combine? I probably We probably could combine them.

Well, the nice thing is though is that like whatever didn't get funded keeps getting kicked back to the following year and the following year. So, like some of that stuff like you know like two years still on here. So, two years.

So, if it can't be number one, no. So what we do is like there should it should be no more than like a couple to get it done.

What we try to do now is it should be no more than a couple years that these that the that the groups are the departments are um how much requesting this information if they're looking to buy a vehicle they shouldn't be waiting four years to buy the vehicle. They should be, you know, that we kind of see that when I run the open articles. I go through and I ask, okay, why is, you

know, why is there a truck still on here or why is there why is there an item still on the open article list that should have already been purchased?

And that's that why I think they may not have been the one. Like when Becky was talking about her items, it seemed like they were all urgent kind of, but then if she had to really sit down and say, "What's going to fall apart if I don't do it this year?" Right?

That's a different question.

That's a killer.

is a killer. I remember that day she was here without the uh the pilot light, right?

So, uh does it um does it make sense for us to kind of get going to start on some of like the easy things that we can get through? Like for example, I kind of started working a worksheet solid waste uh enterprise fund. There's not a lot of requests there and we do have some retained earnings that we can um looks like we have 450,000 and I think they had three requests from

uh Solid Waste Enterprise Fund.

Okay. So you if you're looking up at the screen, you're focusing just on the purple. So that's this year's that's this year's request. So I'm going to go down to Solid Waste and those are their requests. So they had a Mac truck alpaca, excuse me, which is 400,000 which we can't afford because we have 450 in retained earnings.

But the other but the other two things which was 38 uh 36,000.

Yep.

And 55 y totals about 91,000.

I think those are kind of like layups.

We can approve those and it only reduc so they'll still have $350,000 roughly and they are retained earnings which I think is makes sense.

Yeah. is is is valid. So that's an I think that's kind of an easy one to let's start with a low hanging fruit is what I right.

Yeah.

Um now Gary yes projected is 500 and something next year.

Yes. So all right so I'll just go over briefly I mean this is it's the same schedule we're using but so this is their requested for the spring annual town meeting. So everything that's in this column is what they've requested.

The total requests for level one are 116 million. But keep in mind I got notes in here, 100 million is the schools, 6 million high school roof, $5.2 million of the aeration project uh for the sewer department. So those are the big if you if you subtracted those, you know, your 111 million. So uh those are um the big ticket items that are in that number.

level two priority requests. Uh 12.3 million includes 1.2 million in road maintenance, 5.6 million in stadium stadium renovations, 1.2 million for the route root um route six main replacement and force corner uh road. So for corner and halfway road uh so those are the big ticket items there and then so that's a have to and the aeration is a have to right. I mean they have to do that. Yo, these are going to be if I

mean so these are going to be long-term borrows, right? But we talked about all I was talking about is actually the waste um solid waste.

Solid waste. Okay.

Okay. Because the projected budget next year is 550.

Yeah.

Yes. So what what I'm what I'm going to try to make a point is yes, we would be depleting them quite a bit, but are any of those like for him to order a truck now?

You mean here? You mean it's going to take him a year to two years to get it forever.

What I'm saying is are we we're earmarking it, but we haven't spent that money.

So when does it you know when we reertify? I know it's tricky.

When we certify their retained earnings for next year, we're hoping that it's going to be more than um the balance is going to go up.

Right.

Right. So, we would have additional funds in there to potentially purchase a truck next year. Right.

Which I think is why Tim put in the 550 for FY28 for the recycling other recycling refurbish.

That's the refurbish.

It's a refurbish existing solid waste recycling truck.

Might buy a new one. It'll be cheaper.

you know, well, we might, but that that was at that point when we were talking about the diesel electric.

Yeah.

David Pressman thought ahead about the library and they put aside 750 every year. Could is that something that could be done in other departments so that we say we're going to approve half a truck.

it won't be spent, but we need to get started on that request and then put it aside and then another half next year rather than uh well the ret their retained earnings accounts for each one of these um uh enterprise funds kind of does that you know it allows them it allows at least the accounting mechanism in in internally to track what's being spent you know that's how we do it individually at every single one of

those on the sheet that I just put up so you We can ear I don't know if we can ear mark it, but they just not they just wouldn't spend it.

That's what I'm talking about though is to say the town meeting, we know we're going to have to pay like he did x amount of dollars.

We're going to have to pay this amount.

Let's put this aside for now and then next year put a little bit more put, you know, like the long-term capital.

What gets tricky here though, I think, uh Bruce has got a good point. When you look at So this is the this is a 10-year uh projection. So when you Oh god. when you start looking at like um his his total cost just for departmental you in fiscal 31 okay it goes from 500 you know over here's 165 but then the requests go to 820 then they go to a million8 so the question is in those

fiscal years will there be enough retained earnings probably not to to even go with the short-term items yeah let alone large large projects so that's where this starts to get a little bit tricky the years out.

But isn't solid waste changing how they're collecting uh like the trash and stuff like that? Isn't the cost going to go up for that? So that'll have the amount of money on the cardboard anymore because of the paper.

Yes, that's been taken out of the picture and it's been Wasn't the town developing something for solid waste and how they're going to like do costs or was that Well, they looked at you talking about the landfill.

Yeah. Well, no, just like the cost of bags and stuff are going to go up in price.

Oh, yeah. Uh, well, they they were looking at um first of all, extension of the landfill, which brings us if that gets worked out with D, that'll bring us to another like 30 years extension of the landfill. But there is a cost for for you know, there will be a cost for bags um uh you know, cardboard, any kind of those recyclables. Uh if you look at like the metals, you know, where we used

to just get rid of metals, now we're paying to get rid of metals. We're not making money on that anymore. So, a lot of these things have gone.

So, I guess my my question Oh, we're not making as much as we used to, you know.

Yeah. I guess my question is is the enterprise fund fee that they're charging for for trash, has that been looked at to because obviously it's doing okay right now because the retained earnings go up, but at some point to cover break even will be to yeah to cover the cost of these, they're going to have to look at those fees potentially going up because otherwise it's not going to be enough money.

If you remember, they just increased the fee from $90 to 110. Yeah. So, that's my point. So the retain that may be another right the water sewer is another example of that.

Right. So if that's the case I mean I I I just I'm I'm I don't like depleting funds because then you can run into an issue like you did with water where you depleted the fund and then you have to purchase water from the you know I'm not saying anything that would happen catastrophic there but if something does happen and they need that retained earnings for something else. There's been discussion uh recently about

potentially um having to look relook at those um fees again. I mean, obviously we could see it here. If if if the capital requests are getting larger and larger, right, to run the operations, then they're going to need they're going to have to probably look at another So, I know where Bruce is coming from.

If we don't order the truck now, it's it's probably going to go up in price.

It's going to be another, you know, 10,000. Yeah. Or 10% $40,000, right? If it goes up 10%.

But at the same time, if we don't have the money to to uh if they don't have the money to afford that stuff then what you know what do we do because if their requests are 500 this year Gary was um 491,000 and they only have 450 in retained earnings so they even have enough money to cover the the capital cost they have this year and and and I think what we've learned

with the water like Terry said we we kind of and I've always said this to the committee uh we want to leave a buffer in there where we don't want to drain it down to you know pennies we kind of want to leave something in there in case something happens where we can go to retained earnings if if there's an increase in midyear. Um, you know, we we kind of want to wash

that kind of a contingency I would think. You know, we talk about contingencies. I think it's important we see last year what we appropriated what 540 Yeah.

thousand.

Yeah. That was the uh that was the was the truck cycling truck.

Yeah. Remember remember Bruce, they were talking about going from electric to I think that was only a repair because the electric was going to be that was to rebuild the diesel truck, right? And we had talked about potentially returning that so he can purchase a diesel truck now. That's now that there's the availability to do that. So I don't know if that we talked to Tim about that this uh

I thought that's what we did do. I thought I don't know if he's he was going to talk to to you and and I'll follow up with to to return that and then at that point then he'll have ample money to buy the the new truck and potentially, you know, yeah, buy this truck. But I think for now, well, the the point I was just trying to make is that $400,000, it's really not

going to get spent this coming year probably.

Yeah.

It will be almost a year later than that. So that's what I'm thinking. Like and he's got 550 or the next for the next truck. Well, if that truck has if that truck has to get bumped out, you know, at least you've got this and you saved money by doing it now.

It's kind of like layaway I'm thinking about. It's that it's like if they're not you know already they're not going to get the truck for a year. Could you give the company order it give the company a down payment and then request the money the next year?

You have to reserve we have to commit we have to commit the whole amount.

Yeah. When you when you sign the contract for the entire because what what happens if if the town meeting doesn't approve it?

Oh, right. Or the funds are not available. You'll have half a truck.

Yeah. You got your neck out there.

So, I I suppose the other thing we could do is approve the truck and not approve the other two items that he has.

What are the other two?

It was a solid waste container and um I don't have it right in front of me.

Oh, solid waste container and a two two solid waste containers and rebuilding the scale house which I think was something that you talked about u making that the house a little bit bigger. Yeah.

I mean, so that's the other option that I had is you could just do the truck and not do the other two things.

Yeah. Yeah. I mean, they're replacing the transfer station house. I know that they they want to do that, but I don't feel like it's a it's a mustave. Yeah.

Yeah. They're all priority twos unless you talk to the guys twos.

Yep.

Unless you talk to the guys that are working.

Got them all as priority.

The packer is the Packer.

So, You know, maybe maybe the scale house can be a lot done by a Voke program or something like that.

Seriously. Uh oh, Chris smiled on that.

No, I mean I I'm okay with that. It's just lining them up. It's that all great ideas, but that could push it off like three or four because they have projects lined up. You got to get in line and stuff. So yeah, I mean they'll certainly work.

So everybody's thinking to do uh do the pack or not do the uh other and that will leave 50,000 in retained in retained earnings. Is that it's it's pretty low.

Yeah, it's low. I mean uh we would reertify in the in the uh in the fall, you know, uh and there was a rate increase. So, we're hoping that that brings a little bit more money in. Uh, but again, I think looking forward and ahead as these start to creep up, there's going to have to be that's going to have to be re re have to reook at that again, you know,

because again, it's a it's a self-sustained enterp, right? That's what I'm talking.

So, okay, that's that's that one. We'll leave that one for now.

Um, and I think after this We can revisit it with Tim and give him the question on the back.

Yeah, I would say just maybe today we're throwing out ideas and then um we schedule another meeting as I mentioned and meet with the uh make the recommendation for the candidates and finalize this.

So that was supposed to be low hanging fruit.

Uh the other one that I have which I think should be pretty easy is DCTV.

They have tons of money. They have 985,000 in retained earnings and their requests are for 350.

I agree.

Yeah.

Um, so I think How'd they make out with CPC? Do you know?

No, I don't. Uh, that was a long meeting, I guess.

Did you go to the CPC meeting?

No, Janine did. I think they had three meetings that week. Yeah, I went to two of them.

I I didn't watch the meeting. I know.

Well, Heidi went, but it was just because they had so many. So, they didn't make any decisions yet on it.

Oh, they haven't decided on the Oh, we'll have them in talk to the group, too.

We love to talk to Buddy. I was thinking when these people were talking that we are very fortunate that the department heads know the process and don't they're not contentious meetings. They understand some can get a you know some towns I'm sure it's not Yeah. Nobody's here banging their fist saying yeah but I need this.

So um Okay. So those three there I'm going to put these in red.

All right.

So those I think that's that finishes DCTV. I think that's pretty pretty straightforward. The next enterprise one was uh waterways.

Waterways. Yes, they have 152 330 and the request is 90, but the thing is is um he said that the truck was still good and I think that you know Bruce brought up some valid um points last time that um you know if they I think you were going to look uh number one if that article ever got spent on the motors.

Oh yeah, I can look at that. Um because if it if it didn't and they need a motor and there's not enough in there, then he needs retained earnings to finish paying for that.

I think the motor is more important than a truck that's still runs.

And if you look at I mean if you look at and he also was very like um unsure of whether they want to go with like a like an SUV type vehicle or or a truck.

Yeah.

Right.

So I think until they can figure that out, I think that's a something really difficult because it doesn't sound like there's consensus there. It's kind of like Yeah.

If anyone else agrees on that, that would leave him about $60,000 in the Yeah.

in the fund. If if he did if he drew that down, we'd be down to about 60 is low.

Yeah.

Yeah. And the other um I know he somebody said 10 years, you know, and if that's because if it's a first responder, is is the truck the first responder or is the boat the first responder?

Valid point. Yeah.

Correct.

You know, I would imagine not the truck. I would think a boat would be the first response.

And that's he has a boat that's only like five or not that old at all.

Yeah. You've got fire rescue. You've got forestry trucks that have the winches.

We've got we've got plenty of equipment that can do Yeah.

can get there.

So maybe maybe we hold off on that one a little bit.

I'll check on the article for the modus.

Uh no no that can be done in the fall.

So the water enterprise fund there's not much money there so we can't approve anything.

Yeah. I would I would I would suggest with that account because we um had the rate increase and we're still looking what those revenues look like between now and June that we hold off on on that um water enterprise.

And then I think the sewer from what I looked at we spent a lot of money um in the fall sewer we spent uh $725,000.

Yes. Right. Yeah. It was uh preliminary treatment, the screen uh grit grit chamber rebuild and uh WPCF upgrade evaluation.

Yeah, I I think his requests are pretty high and I don't know if we're going to have enough money to fund anything in that, but I could be wrong.

Half of the total for sewer 399 and I think so was three. Yeah, 399 783 and I think his request 6.6 million.

Yeah.

I have it over here.

Water pollution control. See yeah airation was 5.2 million. A brush grinder was 990. I guess we could fund SCADA which at $90,000 and even the ini is 250.

Sure. I mean it's I think that's water water pollution control.

Yeah.

Sewer inflow outflow.

Which one did you say Chris? Inflow up two.

So there's the aeration project which was 5.2 million or level one. Yep. And then he had a level one for in I ini ini which was 250,000 there's a skater um 9000 level one and then the brush grinder which is $990,000.

Yeah.

And if this is if I'm correct this is the sewer enterprise.

Yes.

Correct.

So I think the only thing we could fund if we wanted to draw it down would be the SCADA at $90,000.

radio everything else I think just what do we do with the inflow outflow because it's looks like he has 250 for the next for infinity if we prolong that is it going to cause an issue I think we have prolonged it in the past yeah there has been some commit um I don't know if it was last um last spring town meeting uh there was a commitment to the INI I'd have to go back and look

But um Okay. So, so the SCADA Okay.

Yeah. I mean, also I think the committee also has to keep in mind that $5 million was spent in the fall. That's that's that was a record amount, I think, right, to be spent in the fall. And usually everything is spent in the fall.

Nothing's really left for the spring.

So, you know, it's a that's a I think this year we decided to leave a little bit money to spend in the spring in case there were like requests that were immediate. And again, you know, we didn't do the skater for them uh in the fall and that actually would help with maintaining what they have there, right?

Um yes, that's what the skate is for is to monitor and maintain, right? So yeah, but every I think all the other requests are just so expensive that like it would draw that account down quite a bit.

Yeah, we we want to we want to have some level of um reserve in there on both those for the for water obviously water and sewer.

So and I think that finishes the enterprise funds.

Okay. Yep.

Yeah.

And now it's really the the general funds that that we really have to, you know, I I think DPW is like the really the massive asks that they have.

Yep.

And I don't know. U there's a lot of them.

One I mean a lot of it's uh road design.

I mean they've got they just in road maintenance it's 1.25 million which are you meeting with Tim on a regular basis to review the books? I thought I heard that you were going to be or Cody was going to be meeting.

Oh we we have. Yes. Okay. Yeah we have.

Okay. Yeah. Um, we met with them I think like a few weeks ago.

Okay.

They're all twos.

Yeah. Two. Two. Um, the three. Dartmouth is a two.

Yeah. Hawthorne Street is two. Dartmouth Street 50% design is three. The preserve pump station is 400,000. That's a two.

Yep.

And then it goes to Chris. You did a lot of work on this. I I just I don't know what's the pumps when does that preserve pump station upgrades need to be live?

Um the way they're moving up there.

Yeah, I know. Not sure if we can check it in this.

No, this it's moving pretty pretty slow.

Oh yeah, it's been almost 5 years.

So that that might be about guys. Those guys are like nationwide. They're like from Michigan or something.

I think it's been almost five years.

I'll tell everything else that I see is is twos.

The road maintenance, the freight liner, the plow trucks, everything's is a two.

Yeah. You're looking at the different divisions right?

Yeah. Right now I'm looking at the DPW services and infrastructure highway division.

Yep. 1.2 1.2 for road maintenance.

That's I mean I think it's important that we put some money in there. It's I don't think it's going to be 1.25 million. I don't think Yeah. Last year I wasn't at nine uh nine I don't I think that I think I think it was less.

I think it was significantly less guarant but I think it's important that we put some money in there just because especially after this they spent 4 million yesterday winter winter season.

Oh yeah.

You know it's it's there's like they're not potholes. They're like craters out there. Let me see.

And they're doing a great job of trying to fix them, but it's just they need to have some money.

There's a sinkhole on 140 this morning.

Yeah.

Was it 13 cars damaged? Wow.

Yeah. Yeah. It was a like massive sinkhole. Yeah.

All I know is I lost my teeth going in Lowe's the other day.

Literally a sinkhole. Wow. So, so if I recall correctly, I think I wrote down that the preserve pump was something that was important and then road maintenance was another thing that was that like seemed to be important to me anyway that I think Tim said something that like, you know, it was it was not critical, but very important to get to get done. So, those were kind of on my radar, but

everything else was kind of like we just we don't have the money to fund If you did maintenance, so 3.1 million.

So we had to keep let's say it's 2.1 million we have. So if you did like 3/4 of a million for road maintenance, 750.

Um yeah, these are all level twos.

Yeah, even the road maintenance, I think that's that's a lot to to because that would chew up a big chunk of what we have.

Maybe Like I was thinking like half a million like Yeah. or like three a quarter of it. So yeah, 400,000 or something like that or 300,000. Excuse me.

All right. So make that 400,000. I'll park that green.

Yeah. Um, how about uh do you want maybe go Okay, so that's DPW. How about from the top? You want to go to usually start?

Yeah, we can start from the top and work our way down.

Go to the Usually go to the police. So, anybody have any thoughts with the police?

uh the cruisers, the tasers, the admin and the st I think I think really a staffing study is is um I know he has it as a level three but um I think um that's vital for the safety but is I think what I think what happens with the staffing study is it it will get us on the track to look at efficiency.

I agree. you know whether or not we need more officers, whether or not we need less officers. So I think it's an investment in the type of department.

In my opinion, it's an investment.

What would people think about doing a changing the schedule to one car every year?

One car.

I mean, I it depends. I think I don't know how many cars they have in their fleet, and that'd be a good question to maybe ask.

They have to discuss it with him.

Yeah.

Yeah. Well, I I think I think right now I think the tasers are something that like we have to fund because it's it was a fiveyear commitment I think that they made and it's relatively um yeah 37,000 right um yeah and that's only my opinion I think that the study and yeah the tases I would agree the vehicles can you I I think you looked at it and I'm sorry I didn't I didn't look write

it down but the cruisers we've funed did four I think for the last few years.

Uh let's see what we Yeah, we normally do two in the spring.

So we did four We did four for the spring for the fall, right?

So we did four cruises for the fall.

Um and I believe last year we skipped we actually skipped like a whole Yeah.

town meeting. We didn't do any cruises, right?

So this kind of got him back to maybe, you know, some some compliment. I know that um we can't go by we really can't go by how they look. It's really the me mechanisms and the maintenance involved.

I mean, these these, you know, as you know, they're idling. They're they're, you know, it's the hours. It's not the mileage.

It's the hours on the right. It's it's Yeah, it's the condition of the motor. It's it's a lot of things that go into it. They may look great but actually the staffing study is a is a priority four on the on the sheet that I have here that he that he gave us.

I know.

Oh, really? I thought he I don't know.

He does have it low, but yeah, I hate to say it. I mean, I agree with Terry. these these different things that uh the more we know that we're being evaluated and running properly, we can keep on pushing that aside, we could be going in the wrong direction. We could be bringing on more police officers at an extra expense where if say if we only need five less I'm just not that I'm skeptical about

these studies because I haven't seen one that saved us any money.

Yeah. the re the re classification the all the consultation the the feasibility studies nobody comes up with a good idea to save money.

Well I I think I think there something you have to do. I know that.

Yeah. I but I I also think that like this is a different this is a different kind of study. This is an evaluation of uh efficiency um where where you do a reclass and you you're looking at jobs that are are positions that we're we're we're trying to be competitive. We're trying to you know pay a little bit more. So, it's a whole different and there are other people that think that the study is a good

idea.

Yeah, I've heard I've heard some people think that it's it's I I think it's one of those things though where it's like it's and I mentioned it to the chief like it's the study or something else. we we're really we're very limited in what we can spend and you know I didn't really get the warm and fuzzy that the that the study was more important say than like an admin vehicle

and I think I remember asking him that you know so uh if we think the study is more important then then you know certainly but what do you think what do I think I I think that it it's never been done so the my opinion is that um can they go Maybe another round with not getting a vehicle probably. I mean, you know, but I think this this gets the department back on track with

how many police officers do they really need? It's never been done before. I mean, we and and I think the comment was also made that, you know, the a lot of the officers that are working now are pretty much getting burnt out because they're working all these shifts. you know, it's hard to get it's hard to get people into the department uh just because of um the work life balance um

that they have. But, you know, I it's I I feel this is an investment to one way or another, we're going to have to either say, "Oh, we've got enough. We need more or but I think I think trading it for an administration vehicle is a fair trade."

I I would say that. Yeah. Yeah.

I would say in this sense it is. Yeah.

And he, you know, the chief did mention that that crews were important and I think that like, you know, I mean, if there is money to fund one, then like as Terry suggested, that's better than zero.

Yeah. And we've put off vehicles before in the past. So, um Okay. So, you want What does the committee feel feel like? I agree with the tases. think that that's that's a no-brainer, I think, because it's we've kind of maybe the study and then and then one of these maybe one like 45 or whatever divided by two.

Yeah. So, we'll put 45,000.

We don't have a lot of money, but I think we're doing well with putting reserves aside, planning for the future, you know, and that hasn't done for a long time.

Yeah. And and and you know these vehicles, look at them. Every year they just keep Yeah. They go up by like 10 uh not quite 10% but Yeah. And I believe he said that the vehicles that were like 240 a couple years ago. 250 for four.

Yeah.

Crazy.

The vehicles that we had approved in the fall, I think they're getting those in.

Are they at 296 I think is what that total cost was. So it's that's four that'll be four brand new vehicles to replace.

Yeah.

Yeah. I I think we can hold off on that until we figure out the other departments. And if there's anything left, if we can throw them one, great.

If not, then it is what it is, you know.

So, 142,000 there.

Public works admin. Which ones did you say, Chris? Were Did we um Oh, we haven't Oh, yeah.

We've done DPW. I think we did. You did 400K right for for road maintenance.

Road maintenance. Yep. Yeah.

So, we're at 542 right now.

Yep.

And realistically, we really only have like another 500,000.

Um because we have 3.1 3.1 million. And I think we'd like to keep at least a million to roll over.

Yeah. And I think that number should be probably a little higher.

I agree.

So, so that leaves us with uh this the library, which is a $50,000 study, the library.

So, the only thing we're doing in in public works is just uh is the road maintenance, $400,000.

So, the library was $50,000 for that study.

She she has she has a good point about that library being backwards nowadays.

Oh 100%.

100%.

Oh, yeah.

I just I was glad to hear glad to hear Steve talking about things that they didn't think were that important, but they met with the town administrator and he said, "You should put it out there."

I think that's good.

It makes sense just and that's and I think I mentioned that on to Steve is like it'd be nice to see a 10-year plan like Yeah.

because if you know you're going to need a truck and it's going to last 10 years, just put a place marker there. Same thing with a boat. I think I told him that four or five years ago with a boat.

Just put a just put a just put a marker there. Even if you don't need it, at least it's there. And if you can want to kick it down a year or two, you can do that.

Right now, it's like all of a sudden you come like we need 90,000. Like where did that come from?

Right.

That's really difficult to, you know, like for us to have to plan for that.

Bruce, what were you going to say about the study for the Were you going to say something about the stud?

No, it just be, you know, you know, who do you talk to, you know, to get something like that designed? Do you talk to uh Mass and say, "Hey, listen.

We've got this project. We'd love to have, you know, a couple of kids out of the engineering class or something or architectural class to do something and see what they can come up with before you even spend money because I feel like these studies are done by people people from the field who are retired and I don't think that they're done with the the mindset to what you know really make this more

efficient. I think they look at what the gu what the guidelines say or what the standards are and all of that." And I don't think they think out of the box much. I think they just go back to what they know.

You know, I'm going to offer to do the stud. You want me to do it?

I think I think when Dena was um she was talking to us, she was more of um you know, they're not looking to knock down walls and and No, but bust windows, improve the layout and prove Yeah. They try to get the most efficiency out of that whole space. But I think to do that there might be some like study might show that go like because I you know personally I look at

it going like that entrance downstairs should be the main entrance.

Yeah.

And and the circulation desk you know when I look at the UMass library the circulation desk is right near the entrances. So that's the first thing you see before you actually get into the library. It's like a choke point. So this way you're meeting you know guests as you go in. And even upstairs it's not a choke point. It's like, well, it used to, you know, it used to be when it first started because nobody

knew about going in that back door and then they made that all a little bit more handicap accessible instead of the ramp and more people were starting to use that. The kids are using it more and they're downstairs and you've got the room downstairs. So, everybody started using that. So, everything started focusing because if you park in the parking lot, you have to go out of the parking lot and down the sidewalk.

So, it changes. So, you know, like I can I can see if you want to compete to North Thomas, if if you took that back that top entrance of the back where it is now and you cut that off and put a wall through there that you could actually have a nice room.

Mhm.

And then everything else could be library and then worry about the downstairs.

I think it's funny that people complained about that libraries for so long. Why do we need it? What why do we even need one library these days, you know?

Oh, yeah.

And then we see why.

We're thinking of um it's one of those tough things where I mean so do you want to do it or do you want to just put it out for um knowing that you know is that an option? Is it an option for Cody to reach out to see if we can get something going at least if you get I think that number is I think that number is high personally.

Yeah. I think it's 50,000 is a lot of money. It's not like an architectural study, right? She seems like she seems like she said it was she thought it was, you know, she was just airing on the side of caution.

Yeah.

The number.

Well, I think yeah, she used the number that I think that u Cody had recommended.

Yeah. Had recommended. I think could come in at 25 or 30.

We could do it for 20 half of that.

Yeah. I mean, I I don't know. And I don't want to like limit it and then have it be an absurd number. Now they using their their their own money to cover the rest.

I just think that that's like when the when the MB MSBA comes in, they look at what is going to be worth it, right? They make recommendations based on that. They don't make recommendations based on what would be the best and what would be this, you know, the highest standard for these things.

They're splitting a portion of that bill. So they want to make sure that whatever products they're using, whatever services they're getting are going to be the most efficient. I mean, not cheap.

That's a good way to approach things.

Yep.

The most efficient.

I I I I think we table it to see what what what we need with the schools and then if we need to, I think we can go back and Yeah. And I'll leave it green for now and then um because I think that puts us at like 592,000 left.

I can see that. No spent.

Oh, spent. Okay. So I didn't see that fall.

Yeah. I mean it's not it's not it's not it's not time sensitive at this point and everything else like that and just throw out the ideas and it's great that she brought it up because now it's at least it's in the forefront of the thought to start looking into.

So the last one is the schools.

Yes.

So the schools just to put it into perspective save the highest for last.

Yeah. And I think if you took out 100 100 million get about four took out the if you took out like I had mentioned this and the roof you're looking at you know a lot of money.

Yeah. Still a lot of money.

So So I I took notes when Mr. Kylie was here. Yes.

And projects that we could do in the summer would be the school bus replacement, the asbestous containing building materials. So the floor replacement project and then the technology hardware are the three that can get done in the summer. all the others and Bruce was the one who who asked these questions. Uh they could wait till the fall for um for the playground, the telephone, um the track, uh

um the maintenance truck is something where they it would be a nice to have.

And same thing with the bathroom renovations. So if we just if we just did th those three that is $675,000.

So that is the school bus replacement, the technology hardware and the flooring.

Those are all ones and they were all summer can be done in the pro uh summer can be accomplished.

Bathroom renovations.

The bathroom renovations was something where he is a two.

Okay. Yep. Right. Um the only other one that's a one I think that we could potentially put towards playground.

No.

Oh, not playgrounds.

No. Uh some that he was okay if we could partially um fund would be the HVAC repairs and replacements.

That's something where if we put some money in there, they can keep going with the work that they're doing.

What school was that in? Do you remember?

That was uh I remember this. That was at the Dartmouth High School was was where not at the middle though.

He's got multiple schools.

Multiple schools. But I think like I think it was like primarily to get the high school cuz they had that if we did the tour there was one room that was like incredibly hot and I think that would, you know, help pay for that. So if we did have any money to throw towards stuff, I think the HBAC repairs and replacements would be a wise um and then everything else could wait

till the fall or we just Yeah, I know when he comes in front of us with the flooring, he usually does uh he's doing sections of the schools.

So, he's done a lot already. He's done a lot of bathroom repairs already, but he's continuing to do sections of the schools as they uh as the funds become available. So, okay.

And I think he said I, if I recall, I believe he did have some money left in bathroom renovations. Not a lot, but it was still a little bit.

Yeah, it was a it was a small amount in that article.

and he's done a the school has done a fantastic job with the bathroom renovations that they've done. The pictures that they've shown have been pretty pretty outstanding.

So, if we do that, just those three uh sorry, some additional 675 plus 542, you're at 1.217 217 million not including the library or any funding for the uh HVAC and we have if we save a million we're at 2.1 and I think the goal is to to have a little bit more right this year than we normally do for um a bunch of different reasons.

So why don't I put these together um for our next for our last meeting for our final meeting. I'll put I'll run this list, put them together, get get the balances, and then um also include the four candidates uh for the next meeting.

Wednesday.

And um you have it.

Uh when is the next meeting?

Yep.

Well, whenever the You want to do it like next Tuesday, like a week from now or what do you think?

Yeah, that that's okay with me.

Next Tuesday.

I could I could do it in the middle of the day, but I So, I think I think that leaves us with um what I could do it Monday morning for people.

Sorry.

Monday. I got It leaves us with I got to go see my friendly doctor million. Okay. in um in free cash which which allows us if if 1.9 is a lot and we want to do 1.5 that'll allow us to fund the library potentially throw some money in HVAC.

Yeah.

And then maybe do one cruiser.

Okay. You're right. Yeah.

You know what I'm saying? So like 1.5 will it's I don't know if that one because you may not get that cruiser now until the fall.

Right. So if that's the case, we can kick that back to the fall and then yeah, you know.

All right. So we have some wiggle room we can Yeah. I think with what we've done it leaves us with potent you'll tell us if 1.5 is a reasonable amount to carry forward or if the 1.9 is more advantageous for us to carry.

Okay. Yeah, I'll have that ready for the next meeting. Um we'll I'll run the um the spreadsheet too. So we have just looking at the items that we've approved uh that have been recommended actually preliminarily recommended. Um so the 24th doesn't work.

How about in the morning? I could do noon time or the afternoon.

Uh noon time.

I can I have Wednesday or Thursday, too?

Yeah. Either way is okay with me.

Does Wednesday work?

Wednesday is good for me. I don't know.

Is it Wednesday?

You guys can go ahead and No, no, no. Value your input, Terry.

What day are you talking about?

Wednesday the 25th.

What? How about what works? What works for you, Terry? Well, u Monday after like 10 um Tuesday afternoon, uh Wednesday, no. Thursday, no. Friday afternoon. That's why I say if you guys So, Monday after 10.

Yep.

I can make that work.

I can make that work.

Yeah.

Can you?

Yeah. Yeah.

So, like Monday, what time?

10:30.

Yeah.

Okay.

So, the 23rd at 10:30.

Great. Thank you.

Yeah. No worries.

So, do you want to listen to like what like 10:30 to 12 probably or something?

Uh, yeah.

Yeah, approximately in this room.

So, the next thing or the final thing on the agenda would be minutes and I forwarded those on. Those are the February 18th minutes.

A motion to approve those minutes as written.

Seconded.

Okay. Motion made and seconded. All in favor? Hi.

Hi.

I think I was at that meeting.

Go back and look at the attendance.

There's been so many meetings. Go ahead.

Okay.

No way. No way. I resigned. I'm done.

All righty. So, uh, that is it. I'll have this all together for the next meeting and then we can go forward.

I'm sending out a calendar invite to you.

Motion to adjurnn.

Okay. Motion to adjurnn.

So, second by Terry. All in favor. All right. Thanks. Thank you everybody.

Thanks.