 Okay. We are recording. Good evening. Good evening. It is March 12th, 2024. This is the regular meeting of the CRC. It's now 631. I'm calling the meeting to order. I have a quorum here present, and I'm sure everyone else will find their way in very shortly. I'm going to go around just by the order of what I see on the screen and ask if you can hear us and see if we can hear you. So, Councillor Haneke. Present. Patricia D'Angelo. Present. Councillor Ate. Present. And Rune is present. And we'll check in with the Zomek and Rob Mora in a couple of minutes. We have no public hearings tonight. And we will see if we have anyone in the audience. We do have a couple of people in the audience. And so the next item on the agenda is general public comment. And this would be public comment on matters within the jurisdiction of the CRC. And residents are welcome to express their views for up to three minutes based on the number of people. So three minutes would be lovely. And the CRC unfortunately does not engage in a dialogue or comment back and forth on a matter raised during public comment. There may be an opportunity to speak again after our action items. And we'll keep an eye on hands for that. So I'm opening up the floor to anyone in the audience who would like to speak. You're welcome to do so now. Please raise your hand and we'll let you in. I'm not seeing any hands being raised. Again, maybe we'll have some opportunity later in the meeting to talk about the action items tonight. So let's move to action items. And I'm actually looking for Jennifer Taub, who's going to do a short update. There she is. Short update on the ZBA vacancies and just sort of the status of that. Jennifer, can you hear us? Yes, I'm sorry. I was having trouble connecting. OK, ZBA update. We are the only time the committee could make it of my first meeting form was our regularly scheduled meeting on March 26. So I polled the applicants and all but one could attend. So then I tried for our next regularly scheduled meeting on April 9 and all the applicants that could attend except for one, a different one. So one applicant is going away a second week in April and one is away this third and fourth weeks in March. So I send out a new poll to everyone yesterday, applicants and CRC members hoping that either we can do Friday, March 29 or the next week, which is of April 1. I've heard from five people and we do have a date in common for those five. So I would just ask if you could all respond as soon as you can. And then I will if I don't hear by tomorrow from the applicants and have it responded, I'll contact them each individually. So it looks like it will hopefully be sometime the first week in April. But it's there's 12 of us. One of the applicants, I should say for the ZBA has withdrawn. I think she's pursuing another couple of committees. So there's 12 of us are trying to schedule and it's feeling like trying to schedule the council retreat, but we'll get there. Is there any possibility we could schedule two nights where we had six of the applicants and the other six on another evening, if that would help? The problem is it together and then not debrief until after the second one. Yeah, I don't know. I mean, that might. Yeah, so let's see if we can get this because again, we have this thing with different. Yeah. Yeah, but we might have to do that. But hopefully not. And then I hope this when we start rescheduling for the planning board vacancies. Yeah, that's another topic. But coming coming soon. I want to let's see. So again, once once the dates are established, they request for their statements of interest will get will get put out so that we get their statements of interest approximately 10 days before the interview date. So it gives us time to post them and make them the public documents that they that they are. Thank you, Jennifer. I know that's a task and I was very glad that you offered to do it. It's just housekeeping. Yeah, you do. I'm here and I could give you the whole time. OK, everybody settled. We're all we're all here. OK, let's go to Rob more. I see him in the audience and I hope you all had a chance to read what he presented when in our packet. It also got posted on the website and it is a summary of the implementation by Rob that I think Dave, you and Rob helped put together, correct? Yeah, thanks, Pam, it was mostly Rob. But yes, we have discussed it over the last couple of days and also talked some with Paul Vakumin about it. Good, good. Rob, do you want to how would you like to present this? Because it looks like there is some opportunity for or some suggestions of word changes and we'll have to sort of reopen our documents, if that's the case. Yes, that's that's right. Do you want me to just kind of skip the first section and go right to the more of the implementation and go over that first then we can go back to a couple of changes in the bylaw or it's up to you. Actually, it would be helpful to talk about the implementation itself and then maybe come back and structure the wording if there are word changes. OK, so then this is mostly the second page of the memo and the schedule of implementation. And this is based on the Council taking action by May 1st, basically, is how I kind of laid this out. Expecting that if you do move this along to the Council, Council in April, you know, taken into account the 14 days waiting after the decision around May 1st, there's one way we would be in a position to start doing something. So in the schedule of implementation, following the adoption of the bylaw, May 1st to September 1st of this year would be the ideal time period to bring on one of the two inspector hires that we needed for this program and our management or program assistant to support the program. So these are these would be the first two positions, you know, dedicated solely to, you know, anything related to building the inspection program. By July 1st, we'll just for a moment, hold on, excuse me, Mandy, can you pull up Rob's memo? That'll be that'll be, I think, easier for us to follow. Thank you. OK. And as a reminder, as far as staff needed for this program, we have our lead inspector currently on staff. That's Ed Smith took over John Thompson's position. And this program, as it's designed now, will require two additional inspectors and one administrative assistant. But at that early stage, I'm not proposing that we need to hire both inspectors, just one and the program assistant this year. And then that will get us prepared for July 1st revision of the fee schedule in the program so that all the renewals that happen this year on July 1st, according to the proposed fee schedule that you have worked on. The following year, six months, I'm sorry, January, July 1st through January 1st is my estimate on what it's going to take to really build out the system that we need, our electronic system, building out the open gov module for being able to handle inspections, developing the inspection checklists, planning how we're going to make the selection of properties and units to be inspected over the five year period. Probably a lot of outreach and notifications to go out to property owners, giving advance notice of the inspection program and changes to the bylaw. But by July, by January 1st of 25, that's what I'm hoping we're going to be ready to start phasing into the inspection program. So as you can see here, the first year is really phasing this in. So you can think of the five year cycle as really being a six year cycle in the initial round. So that first year gets us start to build the staff, build the system and start conducting inspections and kind of work out any of the issues that we need to during that timeframe so that when we get to July of 25, we're really ready to complete that first one-fifth of the inspections needed to start off that formally start off that five year cycle. So it isn't until March of 25 through July of 25 that we'll be ready and need that second inspector. That's really as we're getting getting scheduled and notices out for a large number of inspections to meet that approximately 500 per year according to the numbers that Mandy put together on the fee schedule. So July 1st, 25, the July 1st, 26 is the first year. That's the first, you know, about 500 inspections completed in the first of the five year cycle. And then just to be clear, and as I note above in some of the language and talk about AFTERS that, you know, that takes us through 2030 to complete the five year initial inspection cycle. Probably going to any questions for that section before talking about costs, if you like. Yep. Any questions for Rob? I have I have one if no one helps in in looking at your first year, I had sort of noted that it looked like you had a year of leg room and that's exactly your elbow room. That's exactly what you described. So you have currently there's a lead inspector and you also have some administrative assistance. Is is it expected that that person would end up and you're able to you're able to track and manage, you know, various inspections and different program and the rental program currently with that person. The duties would be in addition to what that person is currently doing. Question mark and and and yeah, I think that's basically my question. So let me talk about that. I think the two staff people you're referring to is our lead our lead code enforcement officer, Ed Smith. What we want to make sure doesn't happen is that we lose what's being done currently. So, you know, Ed is as John was extremely busy and cannot take on more work. Ultimately, the lead inspector will will be just that the lead role to the, you know, the provide guidance to the other inspectors probably have a more of a presence in the office to deal with people that walk in to the counter or phone calls that come in that require, you know, immediate attention by an inspector and and that will continue. So we don't want to lose, you know, the complaint response that occurs now, and that is the bulk of that position. And we we don't have a dedicated administrative assistant to the program. We share staff in the office for all the functions, including planning work that goes on and the the person that probably does the most with licensing and permitting is Steve McCarthy, who is our licensing coordinator. And he handles the the kind of he takes the lead on the renewal process, notification, reminders and tracking kind of our numbers, you know, who's outstanding and have permit renewal due. And then, you know, as available, one of our other administrative assistants or management assistants will help out with the kind of the processing of the application itself and issuing the permit. So that can all continue. And then wherever possible, we're going to have to find a little bit of time here and there to really get this started. But I am proposing that we hire an inspector and a program assistant dedicated to this program as early as May. You know, that's probably best case scenario. But, you know, hiring isn't easy right now for for jobs. So I'm expecting it could take a little bit longer. But in a perfect scenario, we would have people on staff in the next couple of months following the adoption of the bylaw. We have the funding for that, so we could talk about that later within both our current budget and in moving into future budgets. We'll prepare for that. And we've had those discussions with the town manager already. So, yeah, I think, you know, there's a little bit of room for, you know, inconsistent kind of helping out between all staff, as we always do. But, you know, really no room for anybody to take on a whole new program and regular, you know, work, work or tasks for this program. Thank you. Councilor Hannake. Yeah, thank you. When you were talking about the program assistant and the building out of the electronic inspection program, a question popped into my head, which was right now the connection between failed inspections or police calls and all that used to show up on GIS and other systems is broken or doesn't work because of the back end no longer talking to each other. Is this build out and develop the electronic inspection program also going to include that sort of public reporting of inspection failures calls, maybe not the dispatch log calls, but the inspection side calls and the rental permit things similar to what used to be findable on GIS? Yes, that's a must. Going forward what I can't commit to is replacing everything else that that used to do. So we used to be able to get zoning permits and building permits and, you know, it's a big loss. And, you know, we know that IT knows that they will develop a solution to that in time. But as we build out this component, all of those documents will be readily accessible. If you happen to have used open government all for anything that we are, you know, using it for now, building permits, food licenses, alcohol licenses, you would see that that is all available. So it would be even better than that because we're looking at we're using Burlington, Vermont as a as a good model for some cases of what we want to do with some mapping modules that are available through OpenGov to show where things are happening and then, of course, getting inspection reports and checklists and results posted there. And those things that are done now with building inspectors are electrical plumbing inspectors and health inspectors are all using it electronically in the field with iPads. It's all immediate. So, you know, when there's a decision made, it's it's updated really quickly and available to the public. Can I ask a follow up? Yep. So is that system I know if I want to look up a property card for my house or anyone else's house in the GIS system, I don't have to log in with a username or a password is, you know, but when I went to OpenGov to try and find, like at one point, Rob, you forwarded me to the rental application program to see what people signed on the application. I think I had to log in and create a username and password or something. Will everything you just talked about, is it now available without an actual login or are to, in order to see all that, do people have to have their own logins? The login gets you access to more information. So, you know, there are pieces, depending on which program it is, there are pieces that can be seen just by clicking on the, the permit type and seeing the address and that there's a permanent open or active. The login gets you more detailed into the attachments and seeing some of the discussion that is happening between either inspectors or applicant and inspector. So both. And I think we'll have, we haven't had these discussions with IT yet, but we'll have to decide what can be done with this, this part of that program once we learn how to use it. So we don't use this type of program for anything else yet. You know, this has the ability, it has the ability to do everything from inspection checklist, permitting, ticketing. We can do it all. I think Cambridge and Brookline are using it. And our IT department has been in touch with them. So that's, that's what that six months will figure out how that gets done. But our goal is to make it as my goal is to hopefully make it as easy as possible to get access to that information. Like it once was through the mapping system, which was really easy to get to. Thank you. Any other questions for Rob? You want to talk a little bit about expenses. And the cost of the program. Yes. So a reminder, and you have all seen these numbers are close to these numbers. The full program expenses $477,580. And that the breakdown is right below that with the two lead, the lead inspector, the two new inspectors, the program assistant vehicle allowance for those inspectors. Within this program. An estimated legal budget and then just a small advertising. Which is an account we have already, but adding $500 to that account. That's why it's called printing and advertising. Because that's the way it's listed in our budget now. So that, that total is supported in part by the expected revenue that Mandy put together the $406,000 based on the. The, the concept for the fee schedule. That was last reviewed and adopted or recommended by the CRC. And as you can see, there's a remaining. There's remaining funds needed to cover all the expenses. And that's where we'll use part of the strategic partnership money, which is $100,000. And that's a five year commitment that we have now. And we're into it one year already. So that's at least for the next four, three or four continue, you know, years from, from now. The next section is, you know, kind of the costs. And this was more for our discussion with the finance team. The costs that might start immediately and going forward in the first year, building up to that full program. And that's the breakdown for the initial program expenses is, you know, for our best case scenario of having inspector, an inspector and an admin hired for the last couple of months of this year. That's the $32,000. Some general expenses to get things rolling and building the program. And that's, that's funded out of surplus money in our account right now and our budget right now, because we've had a vacancy salary position for nine months, which more than covers these costs. And that's salary plus benefit package. When we're using any of these estimated figures, you know, the lead inspector doesn't earn $112,000, but that includes the benefit package that goes along with any full time position. The second group of figures is what I would expect when we're operating in a full, the first full year with that new staff person, two staff people leading into the, the first full year of the program. And then, you know, again, we're building ourselves up to that full program. During that first year. We're going to be able to do that. And we're anticipating we'll be able to conduct 100 inspections. And that's reflected in the. The revenues that'll be collected, both by the permit fee and the new schedule and those, that small number of inspections that we'll. Likely be able to conduct in the first. First year. So that's the $347,000 total. Revenue collection. Any questions for Rob. I had a question about the technology that you mentioned. And I wondered in the budget estimate breakdown. If there needs to be a technology budget. I know that software software programs are unfortunately expensive and the, and the renewals of them is expensive. Are we going to be adding. To the technology cost. And then the second question is general expenses. I think are sort of those shared overhead. Everybody pitches into cover cost of. Maybe you could explain a little bit what the general expenses are. And that's it for now. Yeah. So at this point, we're not expecting to have to purchase any new technology. We, we've made our purchase to open gov. We have it available to us. It really comes down to a lot of time. It's, it's time for it staff to build it to a certain point. And then it's time for our own staff to take it from there. So. We've been through this with the building permit modules, the licensing. And it's months and months of work for our staff. And it has to be staff that understands what the program is going to be and what, you know, what that checklist is going to look for, what the code reference might be. So at this point we're, we're not anticipating any big purchases. Just have to dedicate the time for it. The general expenses, you know, we're, I'm hoping to do some little bit of advertising and outreach. As soon as we know that we're moving forward with this, the bulk of general expenses is usually auto allowances and equipment purchases. So if there's, you know, tape measures, rulers, cameras, cell phones, you know, things that need to be purchased. That that's what I'm capturing in general expenses. And for the purposes of the initial couple months of the program, that was just a really rough number just to get a figure in there for our finance team to understand that there could need to have some, some money available from our, from our surplus. And then this was important, you know, for us, as we come to the end of a fiscal year, what, what I'm, what I need to do is estimate the amount of money that I need to kind of reserve for expenses that we're anticipating. And that's, you know, that's what these numbers do for the finance team so that they know how much is actual surplus that they can count on for other purposes for the talent and how much we want to reserve for ourselves. Jennifer. Rob, will you be able to come to the council meeting and give the same presentation? Because I sometimes think we've, we've completed this, but we do have to kind of sell it to the council. And you've done a very good job of, of explaining it here. Thanks. Yeah. I'd expect that I would be invited when this is being discussed. David. Yeah, there might be an interesting segue. I'm not sure if, if the group is ready to, to discuss kind of where we go from here, but, you know, again, all the credit in the world to Rob for, for diving into this, you know, headfirst with you all and, and putting this on paper. As he referenced a couple of times, we've had conversations with, with, you know, weeks and weeks ago with the finance committee, but, but this proposal has been honed in recent weeks with Paul and with his finance team. And so we've had some pretty recent conversations about your process as it relates. Yeah. Yeah. I think, as councilor top just mentioned to the, the full council considering this, but also how do we, how do we dovetail that with Paul's budget process. That is going on right now. So. Maybe I'll pause there. Certainly. You know, Rob has been involved in all of those conversations, but I believe there was discussion of bringing this to the council in early April. I'm not sure. You know, if those dates have been. Talked about or, or discussed the first reading in early April, but obviously the sooner the better. So that this can, as I said, kind of dovetail with Paul's process of presenting a budget to you all. Thank you. Yeah. Thank you. Thank you. Yeah. Well, I can, I can. Jump in on that one and take Dave's lead. With my thoughts. I think. Rob's plan is well thought out. And he's found the places in the bylaw and regs where we'd need to adjust because it's essentially, as he said, become a six year plan instead of a five. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So that's about it. We were talking about a five year plan. I. I. I would love to see this. I don't know whether it needs to be have a first reading or both a second reading yet that that's for. Other people to decide we technically already had a first reading of all of this. So maybe we go into a second, but maybe it's since it's a one day agenda. If we can be done tonight for at least a first read. And April one for a vote personally. I think the sooner we can. Get it on the agenda to talk about the better. Because it gives Rob more time. I think our April meetings are April one and. 15. No, April one and eight. One and eight. And so, I mean, we could do the one and eight too, but I wouldn't want to put it past those times. That's potentially two readings. Two agenda items and two of the next three meetings. And I think it's doable. And I would, I would ask our chair, assuming we finish the changes that, that Rob had done and revote recommendations today. I'd ask the chair to urge our president. To get it on two of those three or one of those three, depending on whether they deem, we need two readings or one. So, so that we can, we can act and, and give some certainty to our inspections department. Cause I think that's sometimes it's harder to have the uncertainty than to know one way or the other. Yep. Thank you. Jennifer. You're muted. I'm sorry. I'm looking at my calendar correctly. Do we really not have a council meeting between April 8th and May 6th? Yeah. So we really do. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So we really do need to look at April 8th. I think for the second reading. So I will, I will be sitting in on the scheduling meeting. Tomorrow. And if not tomorrow, well tomorrow and possibly return on the 20th, but I think that I can go with a very strong message that, that this is preferable, especially if we have any desire of getting it implemented. Yeah. Like we were presented by the, the come off date for the renewal of, of. Permits and the implementation of the fee that was proposed by finance committee. And then finally again, by us. So that would. That. for message to deliver. Are there any, before we go to the wording, and again, as Mandy said, adjustments in wording as a result of scheduling and structuring the implementation, are there any other general thoughts on what Rob has presented so far? Jennifer? No, it's just, it's really great to see it after all these years, like it's implementable. So thank you. I think it's come a long way since our last meeting, because we actually see that it can happen in his budget. So fingers crossed for the council. Great. Oh, I appreciate that you will be sitting in on agenda setting tomorrow, you referenced. So that's good, I may not make that meeting. So I appreciate that you'll be there. And again, I think as soon as possible, that I'm sure Paul has been briefed on this, he's well aware, but I just wanted to reemphasize that point about dovetailing with the budget development process. Did I miss anything? I'm just gonna ask Rob, is there anything that I might have missed specific to that meshing of this proposal, the council's timing, and Paul's budget development that we were gonna raise tonight? No, I think we've covered it, and the Paul and his team has been given our figures, whether or not they're just kind of held in the background until the council makes their decision, but they know exactly what we're trying to do here. Okay, good. On that note then, there seems to be general consensus or at least no one's speaking up that they don't like this proposal. They don't feel comfortable with the implementation plan. I'm going to take that as a consensus that everybody can support this and speak positively to the council as we bring it forward. When we get this scheduled on the council agenda, I will absolutely make sure that Rob is invited and Dave is invited to be able to be there for resource. And at some point we would need to sit down and talk about what we wanna present in terms of just an overall, because I think it deserves being so complex. It deserves some sort of presentation. So I will be looking for suggestions on that as well in the next few days, week. All that said, shall we go back to the suggested word changes and I'm going to look at Mandy to say or sort of lead us in reopening our document since we voted to approve it on the 27th. I guess I would ask for a motion to consider modification to this document. Does that make sense? I think we just vote yet another recommendation or update instead of like reopening the recommendation because I mean, last one was after a prior recommendation on a prior version. Sounds good. The, right now the document we voted last meeting is what is up the revision from February 27th. In this document, Rob is suggesting, I believe correct me if I'm wrong Rob, the only change being delete that section. And that is a deletion, but essentially a deletion from the bylaw and an insertion of a slightly different wording into the regulations. So it's not a complete get rid of it, it's move a slightly different wording to the regulations, but I'm sure Rob can explain it more. Yeah, Rob, would you like to? Yes, so that's exactly right. So I didn't think that was necessary if we work on a addition to the regulations, but if you, so that's the piece that would be deleted. And if you go back to I1A at the beginning of the inspections section and the last sentence there in that first paragraph, what I saw there was that the last phrase there and provisions for phasing in the inspection requirement upon adoption of the bylaw. So we already kind of set up for doing what I am proposing to do in the regulations. So that language was already in there. So I think with that, we're expecting to see something in the regulations and we don't need to have that, I see any longer if we deal with it in the regulations, which we do for the regular five year inspection cycle. So let's just get some language in there to deal with that initial round following the adoption. Rob, I was going to ask on this five C once the program is implemented in order for the bylaw to stand on its own again. I guess we've adjusted the regulations. Is this phrase going to be necessary again it just says shall undergo within five days the effective date. So it sounds like that's already, we will have already kicked that off. We already have passed that point. Right. So once, you know, even with this language, once we got past the five years, it really doesn't serve any purpose. And we don't want to commit to the five years as you saw in the implementation schedule. So just like the language that I'm proposing for the regulations will have no effect after the first six years. And it will, you will defer to the routine inspection schedule in the regulations at five years unless it's changed in the future to another timeframe. Anyone want to, any other comments? So I support removing it from here. I do too. Shall we make a motion to remove that item, which is? I see. I see. Thank you. I lost my place. Oh wait, I one see? No. I, yeah, I one see. Correct. Let's go through all of them and then we can vote on it. I think the only one in this by, in the bylaws. In the, in the regulation. You want me to pull up the regulations? Hold on, I'm, I'm, I just confused myself. Yeah, we are, we're, we're in the general bylaw right now. Yeah. Okay. Anyone want to make a motion to accept this change? So I'll make a motion to, I guess, revise our recommendation to include the deletion of section. I one see of the general bylaws of the proposed general bylaw. I'll second. Take a vote. Any other comments before we vote? Okay. Councilor Ette. Aye. Senator Patel. Yes. Patricia DeAngeles. Aye. Councilor Hanneke. Aye. Cameron is an aye. So that is unanimous deletion of aye ones. Now we go to the regulations. Yeah, a second. Apparently didn't have that one open. So this is a regulations. So section B1, B2. Rob is proposing deleting the highlighted, highlighted phrase. And it actually reflects more closely the, the previous phrase, which is on a frequency deemed necessary by the principal code official. This too would be deemed necessary by the principal code official. I think it makes sense personally. For your reason of it matches the other one, but it gives Rob even more discretion and Rob's department more discretion than, but not less than annually required an annual or more than annually. And this one says, well, you know, maybe it needs to be 18 months or two years. We're not so concerned that it's 12 months. So I think it allows the department to tailor the inspection based on the concerns that the nuisance property violations were causing. I'd like to add that I think this is the this is probably the one remaining phrase that attempts to link nuisance activity, nuisance behavior and violation to any kind of not threat, but just reason, reason and rationale for potential denial of a permit that if we have not linked it completely to a violation just declining a permit can no longer be linked directly to the number of violations. And so this phrase here be one to the one be to was one of the few tools that was left to say because this is a nuisance property because it's and that and a nuisance property is only when it's consistently and and and and excessively nuisance that they also are penalized because by having additional inspections and it was the cost of the inspections that was the the the penalty, I guess you could say. So I'm I'm OK with with removing that phrase if we feel we can accomplish the same thing without it. So, you know, when I was rereading the bylaw and the regulations, you know, this I think the reason why I suggested this is because just what you said, it was the last remaining piece. And I did listen to the discussion the CRC had with Chief Ting last time and the decision that was made to not have that really solid connection between permit issuance hanging on to your permit, your permit and violations of the nuisance property bylaw. So I thought this was troubling, especially the way it's worded, you know, just to be found in violation of the section, not necessarily even being deemed a nuisance property. And, you know, all the things that we built out before that were pretty much undone through the discussions. And, you know, I just didn't I just didn't think it would work well that that we would have to put a property if found in violation into an annual inspection program. In fact, there might be plenty of situations depending on how the police department enforces three point two six. There might be plenty of situations where we don't do any inspection at all. So man didn't, you know, making it a required inspection just didn't seem right to me anymore. I'm I'm I'm back. Did we just lose him? Yeah. When she's oh, she can't get the mute off. You're here, but you're muted. Pam here. Sorry about that. I just it just blanked out. I think my my Wi-Fi cut off. OK, sorry about that. I think I got the gist of what Rob said, and then he froze. Or I froze. So so any other covers? Mandy, you have your hand up. I actually did because, you know, I actually even more after what Rob said like this, because we actually wrote this as maybe subject to. So so if they're found in violation, the code and principal code official could put them on a more frequent schedule than the five years, but they don't have to. But if it was maybe subject to, but not less than annually, it would either be a choice of every five years or at least once a year, even if the violation from nuisance property didn't necessarily go to a health and safety concern, say, and so by removing that, but not less than annually. With the May, I almost feel from a legislative point of view that it makes it more likely that this section could be used or would be used and implemented by our code officials because they can choose two, three, one and a half if they want that instead of having to choose one or five, which is how it was written before with that phrase. So I actually like the removal even better for that reason that I think will actually get more benefit from it. Thank you. Any other comments, any other thoughts? Let's make a motion. I can make a motion to we have another one. We have another regulation. Let's go to B1A1. That can't be right. So this is proposed to be a new section. And I thought it would be clear just to keep it separate on its own to deal with the phasing in following the initial bylaw adoption. So as that, you know, five, six years from now, it's we either shrink it from the language or just ignore it because it wouldn't be applicable anymore and we would go to the the first provision for inspections every five years. So so my language and feel free to modify it. But the intent there was to just establish that. What we talked about earlier is that that first year is going to be a slow start. And it's really year two of six, where we really start doing the bulk of the inspections and with a goal of getting to 2030 to complete the first round, I thought it was worth being clear to landlords and managers and owners that, you know, unless they're on some other special inspection program because of violations or problems, the second inspection is not going to occur, not going to occur until after July 1st, 2030. So those first hundred units in year one will you know, both be the the ones that get to go first and see how things happen and also the benefit of possibly an extra year waiting for renewal. So that that's the way I was suggesting we approach it. Jennifer. Yeah, I was just going to say, I think that's anything we can do to for clarity. And it is a good thing. So I think that's great that as much as there can be less confusion and to show that it's. You know, really not so onerous, I think, is a benefit. Yeah, I just have a couple of requested changes. Since adoption and effective dates are different, I would change all references of adoption to references to effective date because there's a 14 day difference in there and you can't actually begin enforcing until it's effective. So I would say begin immediately following the effective date of the bylaw like this and continue to be phased in during the year following the effective date instead of initial adoption like this. And then the other thing, the other one, I I'm not sure this last phrase and this section deleted from the regulations needs to be in here. So I would just delete that just because I don't think it needs to be there. It could be deleted earlier, in fact, but it's not. I don't think that's a self sort of self executing deleting of that section on July 1, 2030 by that language. And so I figure we might as well just delete it since it's not necessary. So I would do that. Any comments about that? Rob, did you want to respond to that? Yes. Mandy, just if it matters and I think those are both two good suggestions back at the bylaw language, it does say upon adoption of the bylaw. So I was just being consistent. If it matters to say effective, if you want to go back to the bylaw and revise that to be upon effective date of the bylaw. That makes sense. Councilor Ortega. This is just a question regarding clarity. The first round, does that refer to inspections that are made within the first year in the sense that if there is this five or six year window, does that mean that each year counts as one round? But what exactly is the limit, the time limit of a round? Rob, do you want to answer that? Mandy, go ahead. No, I wasn't going to answer that. I was going to respond to Rob's and think about think out a lot about the use of the word adoption versus effective date. OK, Rob, would you like to respond to? So, yeah, when we refer to around, you know, we're talking about all of the units in the program being inspected the first time. So that's over the full duration of the five or six years to all the way through 2030. So although they might start immediately and continue to be phased in, it's really getting through all of the twenty four, twenty five hundred units that are listed in that that detailed fee schedule. Did that did that answer the question? Yes, it did. Thank you. Mandy. So adoption versus effective date, right? The bylaw says and maybe we can change one here in the regulations. The bylaw says and provisions for phasing in this inspection requirement upon adoption of the bylaw. I think that's the correct use of adoption versus effective date, because the regulations adoption is when you voted to do it. And the regulations will say, how are we going to phase it in once we know it's a law, even if the effective date is two weeks, two months down the line? So I'm not sure I'd recommend changing the bylaw in that sense. I think what concerned me was the the inspections may begin immediately following you said adoption of the bylaw, but they can't actually begin immediately following adoption because the bylaw is not actually effective for two weeks. So you've got that two week period where you're still in the old system. So how do you do inspections under this one when this one's not actually legally in effect yet? So I think this this first one needs to be effective date. But then reading this other one and continue to be phased in during the year following, I think that one could be adoption. I think that could be either way. Because essentially the issue is there's two different dates we're dealing with. And you can't do anything legally under this bylaw until the effective date, but you can talk about adoption, which is two weeks earlier. I would agree with that changing the second one back to adoption. It seems like adoption is sort of the generic term of of it being acted. And rather specific, as you as you pointed out, would be effective date. I think that's that's fine. And I also agree that we wouldn't have to change the bylaw accordingly because it's really talking about generically adopting something. Rob, comfortable with this? Does it accomplish what you need? Yes, sounds good. I saw the I saw the thumbs up. I took that as a yes. OK. There was one something that caught my eye if we could scroll down just a little bit. And I'm not I'm not intending to rewrite this document, please. But number four, just above the number two, it says change of ownership within six months of a change of ownership, residential property shall be inspected. Can somebody remind me if if this applies to new newly created rental units as well? Or is it just a rental an existing permitted rental unit that changes hands? So I read that as an existing unit that has a permit that changes hands, but already has a rental permit because something that is newly created would need to apply for rental permit. And in theory, once this program's going on, would need to be inspected before that permit gets issued. So this is sort of one of those long term ones that it's been five years or four and a half and they're not up or three years and it's changing owners. It's going to get inspected. Good, thank you. Any comments about the changes that were recommended that were suggested and that have been locked out here in this conversation? I'm looking at Pat, you haven't said much. Just want to make sure you're on board. I'm not hearing any comments, so I'm going to ask for a motion to accept these changes. So I'll this one's not going to be as artfully worded. I'll move to recommend to revise our recommendation to include the amendments made on March at March 12th CRC meeting. Second. You jotting it down. It's like stating that it was easier to state what that amendment was the last time. So effectively it is revising our document to include the changes made on tonight's night. Yeah, and I will send both of those new documents out. Thank you. So let's go back to the conversation about just sort of the implementation if we could and just wait to vote. Oh, sorry, thank you. All those in favor, let's go around the room. Pat D'Angelo. Aye. Councillor Ate. Jennifer Taub. Aye. Councillor Haneke. Aye. And Pam Rooney is on the aye. So we have unanimously accepted the recommended changes. And thank Rob for suggesting those. Cleaner is better. Step by step. So I will be hopefully if I'm going to write to Athena and just double check that I can get on the agenda tomorrow as well be part of the the agenda setting meeting to try as much as possible to get this to the council for if it's decided that it needs a first reading and a second reading would try to get the first reading for April one, the second reading for April eight, if that gives it enough time or if there somehow has to be a two week period in between, I don't know. No. There doesn't have to be two weeks in between. The bylaw needs posted on the bulletin board for two weeks prior to the vote. The current unrevised one might still be on the bulletin board from the first reading in like November, Athena might know so that it might already be there. But if it's not or she wants to post the revised one that we're recommending, that would just need posted by the 25th of March for an April eighth vote. OK, so that's that's a week, two weeks from now, essentially. Yeah. OK. So we have revised documents. They have been voted and approved by us. I'm just asking just to double check that any of this need to go to GOL. It did go to GOL first and came back to us for some further tweaking. Mandy. Yeah, so it's all been through GOL and we have maintained a record of the changes from that version to what is going back to the council. The referral was to come back to us, not to sort of restart the whole process and send it back to GOL or anything. Obviously, if the council says this is so much we need a GOL review, they can send it back. But, you know, my thinking is send it back to the council. They can see what changes we're making and whether they believe versus as a, you know, from the one GOL reviews and reviewed and declared clear, considered an actionable and they could make that own determination if they need it or not. But does that mean that we need to make sure that that the GOL version is in the packet as well as our finished product? So the practice changes version we've been looking at is the GOL version with changes. So if we put our tract version in as well as a clean version, the tract version shows the difference between what is being asked to be adopted now, our new recommendation and GOLs voted clear, consistent and actionable one. So all those things in red, we just saw show the difference. Okay. So I had I had very carefully and we can we can reverse what I did, but I had very carefully accepted all changes and made a nice clean copy and was going to put that in the packet for the council so that they wouldn't be confused by stuff. Yeah, so I will create a clean end of tract. I what I was doing today was off the ones I sent you last week. So they were the voted ones from last time. And I will send those and the clean version along. Right. Right. OK. And part of the presentation, I guess, could explain why there's a tract change version in the packet, but that the motion is to adopt a fully clean version of that. Yeah. Yeah. And then before some of you got on this evening, I did ask Mandy Joe about the the wisdom of including the nuisance by law that we've already passed as part of the same package. And she suggested that perhaps the nuisance by law might be reported on separately just because it is it's obviously very linked. It's very much connected to the topic. But if it ended up for some reason getting handled in a different manner, it wouldn't hold up the rental registration by law. So that seems to make sense. Andy, I agree. But but I would also urge you tomorrow at agenda setting, at least my thoughts are to try and get them all on the same agendas that we shouldn't sit on nuisance that the urge for this entire package to be on the same agendas. Nuisance will obviously need two readings and it needs to go through GOL yet. I don't know whether it has or not. So it can't go on an agenda till it's out of GOL. So it might not be able to go on the same ones. But it would be if possible, it would be great if it could. But just because it has some extra review that this one might not need at this point, because they were on different tracks to begin with. It might not be possible, but maybe it is possible to get it through GOL before April 1st for a first read for nuisance. I don't know. OK, we'll give that a try. Any other thoughts on that? Sounds like not. OK, I think we I think we have wrapped up the conversation about rental registration and nuisance package. I'll call up the joint package. Um. I am ready to move on to another item on the on the agenda. If any any final questions for Rob, he would be free to go and with deep felt gratitude for all the hours and patients working with this committee over the last two count them two years. It's been a slog, but it's been so incredibly helpful to have you walk through this with us because you're you're in that world. You're doing it. Thank you very much. Thank you. Thank all of you. Thank you. Enjoy the rest of your evening. Will you allow to buy like a bottle of something for staff? Dave's going. No. Thank you, Rob. Next agenda item is approval of March 13, 2024, meeting minutes. February 13, February 13, two, two is not March. Two is February. It would be impressive if we could approve tomorrow's meeting minutes. That doesn't happen today. Being clairvoyant, of course, we can. How about how about February 13 meeting minutes? I'll make a motion to approve the February 13, 2024, meeting minutes as presented. Second, the Angeles. If no comments, let's go for a vote. Jennifer. Yes. Councilor Ate. Aye. Pat. Aye. Mandy. Aye. Ham. Aye. Vanimously approved and those will get updated and put in the put in for posting so that the the rest of the world can see them. I don't have any announcements except the next meeting, which is, which is the 26th of March, right? Yeah. And then a quick preview of the next agenda items. And I think I had on here, nuisance and rental registration by law, transmitted to council. And I think that was simply, you know, if if if we're still in the process of transmitting it and having it put on the agenda, we'll just do an update on that. Make sure that everybody is aware of where we stand. We do need at some point to talk about planning board vacancies and starting the process for that. We have two potential two people whose term ends. And we would want to start preparing for that process as well. Let's see. The other thing that we talk about and I think and I think Dave has mentioned that once we part of the conversation is how to roll out the solar bylaw. And I will let you know that I had a really nice email back from Christine Brestrope, the director of planning who responded to a list that I sent to her saying these are the these are the categories, all the different topics of the proposed excuse me, of the draft bylaw. And these are the committees and these are the the kinds of staff that seem to be appropriate for providing some input to the CRC for those different topics. And she said, great. Look forward to working with the CRC and she would like to make a presentation or at least meet with us on the 26th to begin that conversation of the moving parts and the pieces that we need to put together to start building that bylaw. We were given a draft, obviously drafts get get worked on. And I think one of the key components will be interaction with the or input from the staff and input from the various committees in town who have expertise in certain arenas. We would love to tap that, including the planning board. So I think having Chris as sort of the liaison to all this is really important sense, we'll be working on this bylaw, essentially in parallel with the planning board. Any other thoughts? Anything else that should go on the agenda next time? Dave. Yeah, thanks for that outline of solar bylaw. And I did speak with Chris and I'm going to meet with the planning staff next week to talk about that outline for the 26th. And perhaps you and I, Pam, can talk in the next three or four days about what that might look like. My one concern is, you know, having just can thank Rob for his two years of attending your meetings and all that time. My one concern about solar bylaw is, you know, how many, you know, how many meetings will it be? How many staff will need to come having multiple staff come on one night? I just I think we need to kind of outline how to be as efficient as possible, because, you know, every one of these staff members has a full plate. And when they attend a night meeting, you know, it's time consuming for them, their families, and also may have a ripple effect on on their work day the next day if they flex or or whatever in terms of time. So I just want to be efficient in our process, because we know the community is very, the community is also going to want to weigh in, I imagine, pretty extensively on this. So it's been a while and Chris is the right person to start with on the 26th because she's done so much of the work with the committee writing and feedback and all of that. And, you know, I know Stephanie, Gicarello has been around the table as well, but just trying to figure that out. So maybe you and I can talk them and kind of chart out how that how that could go and which staff might come on which nights. Yeah, predictability, that's all. But it's exciting to to have some things moving off your plate and new things coming on. So thank you. Maybe we can do the solar bylaw with two reeds. You know, the first read on the 26th. And then now I'm just just kidding. Sure, it's all down. Thinking optimistically, we can dream. Mandy. Yeah, I would request that we start if we're going to start it on the 26th, that we start with a general discussion of hearing thoughts, concerns, anything committee might need, not just from Chris, but from other staff or other places, you know, things like that. I haven't looked at it in a while, but I remember my first impression of it was, wow, it needs a lot of work. And my second impression was, hmm, there's a lot of things in here that the AG has said on town bylaws that they won't accept on town bylaws. Ars doesn't if we adopt something that doesn't go through town bylaw, but that has said that's not doable. And so I'd like to potentially start with just a much more general conversation of where are we going and what are our goals and what does that look like before we get into sort of the nitty gritty? Sounds excellent. It's in line with my thinking. What I will put in the packet for next time is the list that I sent to to Chris Brestrup and it was simply sort of draft bylaw section by section and potentially what input might be needed on those different topics. So I'll put that in the packet. It's just a study guide, if you will. And to start the conversation going, Jennifer, you got your hand up. Yeah, I was going to ask along those lines. Is it possible, like as soon as you have the study guide or if there's reading material, like I know Pat said, because you had worked on it before, if there's anything that can be put up this week, whenever, so that the committee can start, you know, have some background, because it's not an area we're all really that familiar with, that would be helpful. Yeah, thank you. I will I will put in as many a lot of information that will keep repeating, you know, if you will. But it will at least be it will at least be in our in our SharePoint file folder for for the next week. That's helpful. Yeah, OK. Anything else? It is ten of eight in the any pressing business. If not, we could get used to this. We could we could adjourn. Thank you, Dave. Thanks, Dave. Do we have to vote on that or can we just adjourn since there's so much trouble in the world of the council right now? I thought that a chair could adjourn at any time. I'm seeing Manny, but she's muted. Sorry, our rules don't indicate anything like that in theory, but the business is done. And I don't I would word it is without objection. If there's an objection, then you got to vote on it. No objection to ending early. Thank you, everybody. Thank you. Thanks, Dave.