 Yeah, that's recording. You're good. Good afternoon everyone. This is the March 23rd meeting of the joint capital planning committee. And the first thing I need to do is make sure everyone can hear and be heard as. And I will just go around the screen and just so everyone knows that. I think he sent a note. I think he sent it to everyone that he would not be coming today. He authorized us to move ahead. Pam. Here. Alex. Yeah. Farah. Here. Jennifer. Here. And Mandy. Present. And for feel free to tell me when I say your name wrong. I'm Alex is trying to train me. And it's perfect today. Thank you. Okay. My daughter's middle name is Mora. So it's very helpful. Right. Yes. So I think, you know, in between last week and this week. Sean, I don't whether he emailed it to everyone, but Sean came up with another recommendation from Sean in the town manager. That reflects what we're going to talk about today. And he also went ahead and revise the tables based on what we did last week, which was the changes and then moving money into roads. So Sean, do you want to speak first and then we can go to the actual document document. Sure. Jennifer, I can't remember where you was last week to want the meeting you missed. Yes. Would it be helpful to review quickly the. The. We went over some recommendations from the town manager that changed the plan. I can go through them quickly if it would be helpful to you just to kind of give you an update where we left off. Sure, that'd be great. Thank you. All right, so let me just pull this up real quick. And just so people know I did do draft minutes, but I didn't get to listen all the way through the video. So I didn't wasn't sure they were in the correct order was my notes, but I sent Jennifer the rough draft minutes so she didn't have to watch the two hours. All right, so just quickly recapping what chain or what we discussed last week that was different from the plan as presented initially. So reductions to the interior interior exterior maintenance, sort of general facility capital money bucket of $50,000 and this is to reflect that we have some prior year articles that haven't been fully spent and so when we're looking for areas to reduce this plan that was an area that we thought made sense. HVAC replacement server and communication room. This is a project that's just more urgent than as we've gone through this has become more urgent. We're going to look to use old again that sort of general capital money bucket to pay for that. And so we've been able to pull that off the plan. No change. Oh, so I'll just mention this change as we go through this is what Kathy alluded to. So we started going through the application for the body cameras, the grant application for the body cameras. And it's one of those ones where we have to apply the spring and the award or possibly be in the fall. And to avoid any, any potential perception that there's a planting or any type of issue there. We think we would rather pull this off the plan. That's this in the capital improvement program in that section that sort of puts has projects that when funding comes available, we would move forward with put it there. And then we would come back. Once we, if we get the grant in the fall, we would determine what our shares at that time and come back to the council in the fall for an appropriation. So again, just to avoid any potential supplanting issues we would pull this off this three, the 251. John, can I just ask a question I should go along or anyone. So my question on that is, as you go through the deliberation one of the issues we raised is 50 the counter how many we need. So that's going to be additional discussion and then also discussion. So that will be happening as you apply as we apply for the grant and I don't know, I think we talked about this a little bit last time. The chief agreed with you 50 is probably too many. He didn't quite go, he didn't go want to go down to half, which I think is what you had proposed, but he had gone to the 3540 range. And the reason for that is that there are certain events throughout the year were sort of all hands on deck in terms of staffing. And so we wanted to make sure that everyone could have their own at that point. But he did reduce it down from the 50 number by about 20%. Okay, no, I just, I'm going to take notes, but that's fun. I mean, we don't need to know that right now because that's going to happen over time. Yeah, and depending on the grant, again, it could be, you know, I've got to look at the grant a little bit closer but the grant will pay about $2,000 per body camera so depending on their cost we, there may or may not be a town share. Okay. Thanks. So back to the next section of the school so same thing as with the town we reduced the interior exterior upgrades and ADA improvements by 50,000. This is similar to what like I said at the town where there's prior year articles that haven't been fully spent so when we're looking for areas to reduce this one made sense. Field maintenance equipment. This was 310 or so and included multiple phases for field equipment. And when we submitted there was a phase one and a phase two, we decided best to just proceed with phase one for FY 24, and we moved phase two to FY 25. So this would fund the first batch of field equipment that Guilford proposed, and then we would see how that goes and then look for the next phase and FY 25. Where's your sidewalk plow was that in that set. No, that's in vehicles. Okay. Don't worry we didn't add it back. This is based on the Amherst recreation. This is based on the conversation with Ray harp the recreation director. He had prioritized the top dresser over the irrigation system improvements. Top dresser wasn't initially presented so we've put that in, and we've pushed the irrigation system improvements out. And then the parking lot we haven't changed that that will help to be a conversation between the DBW and recreation around how to make the best use of that money. So in the school or the vehicle section so again the sidewalk plow for 200,000. We've pushed that out to give more time to evaluate is that the most cost effective way to address the sidewalks, the snow plowing related to the sidewalk so that's been pushed out to FY 25. And for the school bus electric school bus we added in the, the town share that will eventually get reimbursed through the grant so that's what this 200,000 is, and we propose for that to come from prior year closed capital. So that we're not taken away from current year resources to cover something that will be reimbursed. There's a special education vans there was a $35,000 request there. We had the capital or capital cost escalation reserve fund that was approved in FY 23. There's still funding there and so I'll work with the schools to put this 35,000 against that reserve funds that we can pull out of the capital plan. And the last one is the cruisers and talking with the chief we're able to reduce the number of cruisers being proposed for FY 24 from four cruisers down to three cruisers to get to be more consistent with their replacement schedule. And so that saved about 75,000. So all of that. Not including the place here. All of that not including the body cameras yet because I haven't factor that in or have an address about but those other changes besides the body cameras resulted in us having available funding of 467 instead of a deficit of about 200,000. And then the conversation went to how to allocate that which the group was leaning towards roads and sidewalks, among some other topics to be discussed. And that's how we got here. Thank you. That was very helpful. Can I just, I think the one new element is the, there's now an additional 251,000 that would go to that 467,000. So, maybe if it makes sense to people before we go through the other content of the report. I think we agreed last time to allocate all for 467 to roads and sidewalk and then we left unresolved whether some to road some to sidewalks and I picked a number. And the reason I picked the numbers I either asked Paul or Sean one of them is what number would you like us to pick. Maybe 100 to sidewalks and the rest of roads. I mean it wasn't a, you know, it wasn't an informed, other than a reaction. So my, my question is the, on the 251 that just appeared would I would be in favor. So I'll do it as of also putting that into the road bucket. So I'm just opening it up for discussions just of this one new piece of information we have Pam's hand is up and then Mandy. Thank you. So looking back at the previous five year plan so that would have been the FY 23 one, and in the reserves and stabilization we had, we had quite a lineup of funds that were being set aside for stabilization. So, FY 23 was shown at 500,000 FY 24 was projected to put in a million for FY 25 a million 1.150, then that down to 900,000 600,000 but all in all fair amount of money about four or $5 million being put actively into stabilization. So in this round, one year later, we, we are showing $0 being put into stabilization. And, you know, before we have the complete agreement or conversation about putting the, the found, the found dollars from, from this review into roads and sidewalks and I just wanted to have a quick conversation about capital. Yeah, it's okay Kathy if I respond to that. Yeah, yeah. So, just to be clear, last year's plan, it proposed pulling money from capital stabilization so taking money out of capital stabilization to support the capital plan not to put money back in. And the, and the reason why that was is prior to updating our planning for the four building projects for all the rising interest rates and construction costs. Previously was to finance the fire station the DPW and the Jones library from this from our capital allocation here, and just use reserves for maybe the first six or seven years to cover the high years of the debt. And then we enough of using reserves. So that was the plan for using those capital reserves in the past. And a year later with construction costs going again high and interest rates going high we've modified that plan to look at. Would it be better financially just to save up and fund the fire station completely not having to borrow for it to save the higher interest rates. So why the plan has changed in that way is that last year was used to kind of top off and cover some of our debt for the first five, six or seven years. And we've changed our thinking a little bit in the last year because of the economy to try to save up and use those reserves to actually just avoid borrowing for one of the projects. Thank you. It was not, it was not money going into. No, unfortunately not I wish it was. Sam it was a revenue source, not an X, not a flow out. So I guess, I want to get to Mandy but one question is we, we have pretty substantial deficits in 2627. And we're not showing any draw on, on reserves to help. So you might want to speak to that after we deal with first the body count issue. And my question. So, Mandy. Yeah, with the body camps what I heard from Sean was, they'll be essentially pulling it off of this not because we might not have the expenditure but if we allocate it, we might not qualify for the grant due to state laws on, well it's already allocated to get a grant because it would supplant the allocation and state laws doesn't allow that. And so they don't want it allocated right now but they're not sure how much of the grant would, if we get a grant how much would pay for the body camps, and they're going to get it. And so I would rather recommend that we don't that Paul, essentially either put into either don't allocate that 261 at all, or put it into. We've done a capital reserve fund, I think in covert year or something that was like general capital reserve fund or something that that could go for any capital. We've called it Sean back in 2021, and maybe maybe add a line for that amount that's general capital and then we recommend that it first be put towards body cams if necessary. And if not necessary depending on whether you know if necessary and if approved by the council right because you have to get the surveillance tech bylaw approving the use of the body cams. And if not approved by the council or not necessary because the grant covers everything, then the recommendation be the next spending be X and that can be roads that can be sidewalks but I'd rather not allocate it to roads and sidewalks when we might need it for body cams, depending on what happens. Kathy, can I respond to that quickly. The only. That seems like a reasonable approach. We typically, we don't want to have general capital that has really no thoughts attached to it. I mean, we, I, there's no thoughts. We don't want it just to be so broad that if we're asked what is this used for we. So this might be a time where what Pam was describing might make sense, which is contributed to the capital stabilization fund. It's there. And then in the fall, we, it could be pulled out it could, there could be a vote of the council to pull it out to support this if needed so you're, you're kind of stashing it away for capital purposes now that we have that stabilization fund is another option that could be considered. Alex. Thanks. Yeah, I'm not really sure what I think I mean what many just proposing is in some sense is kind of what we had sort of agreed to last time which but it was to put it into a general sort of. I think we called it like a safety bucket so it could go towards some of the purchases for police and fire that we're pushing off into later years if we didn't need it. I guess I have two questions one, the amount that we have right now. It doesn't sound like it's going to be 251,000 because there's going to be some grant money available. And I'm always hesitant to throw 251,000 aside if we really only need to be throwing, you know, 75,000 aside for these potential bodycams and, and I guess what comes to mind is, you know again. There's a lot of residents, right. The residents have brought requests, you know, again to us that we can't really do anything with at this point you know and we have recommendations around, you know, tack and what should do but I'm wondering if we could take those additional funds, and, you know, and I think Sean you actually suggested this previously and I kind of poo pooed it but here I come back to it what, you know, for sort of like, if we're going to charge tack whoever with sort of looking at these things do we do we give a bucket of money so that that happens and would part of this funds be a way to do that. Just thinking out loud. Okay, I'm going to. I'm just looking to, I want to make sure everyone else has spoken I, I like that ideal, a lot, Alex, and I was going to argue both the body cams at the chief is going down to 35, that's a substantial reduction from tip to from 50. And if there's grant money coming in that's another rejection that's substantial. So I would rather just push that into it's a category because I don't think we had a long discussion on a need versus a want for those I understand where where this is coming from. So I think there needs to be more discussion. So when I flipped to the roadside, we've got clamoring out there by residents, and it's pretty much all over town. So I think doing something toward, since there was a big chunk of the proposals we got the roads, or road safety, including flashing lights, and doing, if we can do it fungibly the way she just suggested, Sean, but, but I think it's, it's really really moved on this and you know I'm doing it in a looking at the elementary school building project looming where people are wondering, what are my tax dollars buying for me as they're being asked to spend more on tax dollars so I just think it's really important And then I have one last question before I open it up to everyone. I've had a side conversation with no answers on I, we've got ARPA money we haven't yet allocated, and we can allocate it to capital kinds of things. It can't just be an ongoing operating cost we couldn't fund a road with it. So I'm wondering, Sean, which if any of the big ticket items, including the, the pumper truck, which doesn't hit us this year but then hits us in in out years. Those could be done with ARPA money, it eases the stress on this capital budget a little bit. And so I'd put the bad body cams if we end up needing, you know, $50,000 rather than 250. So I'm asking it as a question in terms of other sources than the 10.5% for capital, which is what we're we're struggling with. And I'll just, I'm raising that and I know there's not an answer for it. So, but I just want to know if it's even on the list of potentially eligible is okay if I respond and say a couple of things. So the safety improvements. Yeah, I think you could allocate sort of like we do for the transportation plan you could allocate funding for safety improvements or road, you know, road and sidewalk safety improvements or something like that. Because because we do have projects so we have sort of a sense of the types of things that they're going to be used for. In regards to the ARPA, you know, working with Paul some point, hopefully in the very near future there will be a conversation with council around the plan for the rest of that money. So I don't want to complicate that since it's, it's on track to come to the council at some point soon. And then full disclosure because I don't want you to make a recommendation and then hear something completely different come out. And Pam you already raised this but I think the more we've looked at it the more we think we need to do something there is with tree planting. So there are various trees throughout town that have some issues going on with them through different diseases and you've probably heard about different things going on with trees. I think there is an interest to put a little bit more money into the tree planting and removal bucket. We modified that bucket so it could include tree planting but we didn't originally increase the appropriation there. So, just so you all know, I know that's on his mind is putting, you know, somewhere 30 or $40,000 more into that category to support annual tree planting. Mandy. Okay, this is kind of off topic but I'm looking at the out years right. And, and it goes to something Kathy was saying about our money but but say the 250 for body cams if we don't think we need them for body cams at all. I'm looking at all of the Crocker farm stuff coming up, particularly next year crackers got over a million dollars in facility requests that are roofs windows and HVAC, all listed as borrowing. So, I guess one of my questions is, could some of that be used, could some of the, you know, the 260 from body cams be used to lower the borrowing amounts for that or start those projects earlier, I don't know how dire farms say replacement windows are or something, you know, like there's a HVAC replacement that probably can't be done in stages but windows might be, you know, have we thought about some of that reducing the instead of borrowing for all of that, using some of this money to start those projects earlier and at all. I don't know whether the school committee wants that or anything but I was just trying to look at some of the bigger projects that are in these out years. Yeah, no it would be. If we can reduce future borrowings obviously that makes everything easier and gives more flexibility to future years so with the, you know if that was the recommendation was to, if the money is not needed for body cams to put it towards reducing these projects, then that's something that would make sense in my mind. You know, there are a lot of projects at Cracker Farm. You know, one of the things we use the plan for is, you know, so we don't lose track of these things but as they get closer, we reevaluate is it really needed in the upcoming year so the likelihood of doing the HVAC the replacement windows and the roof on the same to your span is probably aggressive. But we'll see. Again, I think next year will when the school submit their plan. We'll see if that space is out more based on sort of the urgency of each of those. The other thing it doesn't include and it may not include unfortunately, but we'd like it to is MSBA participation. And their accelerated repair program. Again, they may that program's been ended we don't know if that will come back so. And I don't know if the cracker farm roof is has gone to like the 28 years of age that has to be in order to even be eligible at this point. So, but yeah, so we'll relook at though that cluster of big projects and if, if there's a recommendation to try to use this flexibility to reduce that we can look at that too. Alex. I don't know if our wants to go first and she hasn't said anything yet. Okay. So, not not to bring the elephant into the room into the elephant into the room. But library, right. So the library is not a certainty at this point, because it requires an additional vote of the town council to appropriate the funding. I have no idea how that's going to go. But I guess I just want to remind this group that if the project doesn't move forward, the necessary expenditures don't go away. And for those of you who may not be following the library as closely as those of us on the library are, you know, as the chair of buildings and facilities committee, I can tell you that of our four boilers we're down to three. We're hoping to have a year left on that boiler but it's a lot of hoping going on right now. So the library is working there is an internal working group of which Jeremiah plant Rob more Sean, Stephanie, George Hicks are building person and Sharon are on so the town is working on a plan. Again, the timing is is awkward on this but and I don't know how it's all gonna come out but I just want to make sure that this group as we're thinking about these future, you know, out years understands that, what we've heard consistently from Jeremiah plant in this setting is that it takes a year, you know, it wants to decide on a replacement boiler it takes a year to get that boiler so if we're lucky. We have that year so our best case scenario is we get to, you know, where it's time to close the library down for the project and we know everything's on order because that's part of the project. The worst case scenario, for me in my opinion, as the chair of buildings and facilities is we decide not to move forward with a project. And then we have the failure and then we have another year which then means we're going to have to rent equipment so on top of the repair we have rental and that's a cost. We're working on getting right now for town so they at least know what that rental would be. And I again don't know when we start triggering. I mean there are a lot of repairs that come into play and I'm not sure those numbers that we're looking at for library get any less for the town they could be more. And as we have these excess funds you know we sort of conveniently not talked about library costs in JCPC and you know since we've changed over to the charter. There used to be a lot of discussions in JCPC around looking at the cost. So, as we're looking at sort of this extra money, and we're putting it to other things I think that's great but I just don't want to lose sight of. If the project doesn't move forward, these costs don't go away for the library, and we are correct me if I'm wrong, Sean probably gonna have to borrow for whatever work that we do. So I just, I just the library like it's not a set deal and so I just want people as we're talking about funds and where they go, not forget that that that's sort of the situation of the library at the moment is that we have our fingers crossed that that the systems make it but it is likely we might have to have some kind of rental situation. So whether that goes into JCPC or whether you know we don't we don't have that bucket of funds like we do for everybody else right we don't have these contingency funds we don't have, because we just sort of haven't really it's tough to be running two plans simultaneously but I just don't forget that it exists. So, just to build up what Alex said, the debt is in the plan so if for whatever reason, it doesn't move forward. We have to make some big changes to the way the plan looks because you would take the debt from a building project and we'd replace it with whatever the repairs are. That would be approved and as they would move forward. So there would be a big structural change in how this looks, depending on how that goes forward. It's, if you look at that last page on the debt Jones appears twice with really big numbers, you know it's, it's not attached to what you just said about getting rid of, you know, fixing the boilers, but it's, it's, you know, it's, it's substantial. I had to find the printer so small on these, Sean that my eyes have trouble finding it but it's in twice. So, yeah. So as I mentioned last week I'm all about roads but I'm glad that Mandy Joe brought up Crocker farm because you know I'm hoping the school project goes through but at almost 100 million more than it would have been six seven years ago. We still have a school that has a whole lot of problems, Jim playground roof. I mean I'm a croc, I'm a former crocker parent and I know it's a bad situation and Alex lives in the building now and she knows that as well. So I'm glad you. I would be for that. I mean I would support that part. As Mandy Joe suggested. I also just wanted to second what Alex, since you brought it up about the library or Alex, I've been thinking about that since our buildings and facilities meeting this week, but I'm glad Sean spoke to that. Thanks. So I have a question on what we want to say in the document. You know, so, so here's a potential version of what I'm hearing and it won't be very well worded but Alex will help me word it well. Alex got given another 250 is 251,000. And we have two potential ways to use it that would that we're recommending to the town manager one is to create a bucket that's called road safety that could potentially be addressing some of the resident proposals or types of proposals that were brought forward if there's a decision positive. The other would be to see if anything on the Crocker next year list, could and should be undertaken in the FY 24 list, and we would leave those decisions to the, the powers that be since we know we can't pick off, we can't, we can't pick off different ones of them not knowing whether it's it's ready to move with that wording work. So that it's either going to a road sidewalk bucket. No one says it's going to be a little less than 250 one because they're coming in with another 30 for trees, tree removal so I mean we need. We can say something during this discussion it was that that line items going up so the net is really something more like 220 whatever the number is I mean we'll make sure the numbers right does, does that wording work for what we're recommending. So, I, I hesitate to put it to the bucket for road and sidewalk safety, I think is how you described it, because, you know, in our conversations and Alex has been a big proponent of that. It's not just the projects that don't up brought forward right and so I would hesitate to say, well let's put it there and if those projects those particular projects are found worthy. Give it to them because that doesn't seem equitable to me about around town, you know I think I, I had some comments in our report about that where I think we, we really want to see a study on road safety and where throughout town those improvements would be and find a way to do that with some sense neutral criteria that doesn't depend on and who knows how to advocate in the right spot. I don't think I can support sending it to a bucket that would be spent based on who knows how to bring their projects to a specific. So you're saying don't don't link it to specific projects is where you're. That's one of my concerns so that you know and but at the same time what I'm hearing from library we've heard in this discussion before about, well schools have a facilities fund town has a facilities fund but library doesn't even have a facilities fund right. So that's what those costs are going to be. And then there's the Crocker issue I actually am moving towards sort of Pam's original suggestion which is, let's, let's actually allocate some to the capital stabilization fund with something in you know allocation with something in the report about here are places we think it could be spent given XYZ or look at Crocker look at the, the library, things like that but I think this to me it would be better spent looking towards some of the big facility projects then. Road and sidewalk safety, given the uncertainties about our facility projects. So, Pam, you can talk but I think we, we have a disagreement so yeah. And I was actually leaning toward many Joe's suggestion, which was, which was think about Crocker. I appreciate Alex's conversation about the library being in a similar situation but I. I think that it feels like Crocker is going to be what I really don't want to see is the haves and have nots of a brand new school and and Crocker which we know needs more kids, you know the same age roughly as the other ones. If we were to put this into the into a stabilization the capital stabilization account. We just have this conversation again and another time. I think we need to just say it goes into this bucket. TAC is a transportation advisory committee may come back with some good recommendations on road safety projects. The library has a certain number of needs and we just literally kick this can put it in the bucket kick that bucket down the road a little bit and don't make a decision within this organization today. I don't know. The other option is to put it to a vote today and say, we feel strongly that this money this found money goes toward tax. This is only a recommendation to the town manager and then he you know he will then he will then listen so to the extent we can put it to a vote and we can indicate the majority wanted a specific but there was also a minority we can do that in the report to him so he doesn't have to listen to the tape of today's discussion or read our minutes. Or we can see whether there's wording that we all can support. I would continue I'm comfortable with saying if there's anything that would be moved up from Crocker. I would advocate doing that on, and then otherwise put it roads and road sidewalk safety, including a general allocation but to extent any. There are clear criteria, many I wasn't going to anchor it in specific resident proposals but if there are some of the kinds of things people are suggesting that had been on the list anyway. They don't tend to be on DPW useless let's let me, you know they don't tend to think of blinking lights that tell you you're going above the speed limit. They resist those. And we don't have any policy, you know we don't have attack policy so I be comfortable working working very generally, and that Paul would then work through maybe it we end up end up doing one somewhere under that category and the rest goes to the general roads and sidewalks so it's not taking to 30, but I, I that I have a strong point of view on. Putting crocker in not returning it just a stabilization fund but but giving a signal from this committee that we put a priority on roads. So I'll stop talking but that's that's where my vote would be depending on what kind of wording we can come up with Alex. So I'm just going to echo what I had heard you say was not tied to the specific or at least the way, please say I heard it is the way I wanted to hear it, which was that we were recognizing these projects are bought forth by people who know the process but there's a larger issue and the money would be for once we get through so that was how I had heard it as well. I don't know if you can check in I don't know whether Jennifer or Sean have any comments but I'm always leery of creating priorities that may not be brought forth by like if school committee is not saying crackers are number one priority like I don't want to. I mean, you all know I'm there every day, but like, I don't want to make I don't want to make priorities for the school committee. If, if I'm not against it at all I would love just money going into cracker, but I just want to be mindful of sort of this found money and what we do with it and I think it's really easy to start picking off projects but the reality is everything. Everything that got pushed out right is being pushed out and many of these things that we've pushed out. And having been on this committee for what seven or eight years like there are some things that we've been pushing out for four and five years so I guess I just want to pause and and make sure that that that we're sort of looking holistically at where the the these found dollars should go and I don't know the answer to that I just again want to give pause. Jennifer. So, let's see. I don't. I don't, I don't think the school committee hasn't like had a specific discussion and vote on this. So, I can't share any information on that I know for me personally as a school committee member and as a former Crocker farm parent, I'm in favor of that of prioritizing Cocker Farm, I don't think it would go against anything that the school committee has decided or has, has, has, has said or has prior like I don't think it's it's it doesn't wouldn't go against anything that the school committee has decided or has said so I would be I'm comfortable going comfortable moving forward with that. Alex, but I was thinking it's the way we could word it we're not going to pick. And it's just it's more of, it's more if the things on Crocker's next year list would have been. There was a strong purpose on this year's list and there just wasn't any room for it that they at least get to have a second look without us picking that would be a discussion. And you have a better sense of how much bargaining you did before the five year plan arrived to us in terms of, you know, we don't have any money for that can you move it to another year, you know, you, you, you clearly did a lot of work to get it as near to balanced as you could be with us. So I don't think we were going to suggest do it with Crocker but more if there were something that would be better to do sooner that that we leave that to the schools plus you to decide was the way I was thinking of you know, Alex, not a, we're going to. Oh, there's one for 80,000 letter or let's do the curtain or, you know, these were all Rupert came and laid them out for us in a very logical way a year ago on a he did talk about that whole roll out for Crocker. So, Alex. I think that Sean is a pot I mean I guess what I'm wondering is, is our direction, more that we want to hold this money. I mean what I'm hearing really is either building needs or, you know, road and safety needs and I don't know if we as a group want to choose between those priorities and, you know, we have a lot of aging infrastructure in our town and you know we have plans around it but I don't know whether we can make a general bucket you know if we decide that buildings are our priority. Again, maybe this goes back to sticking in in the capital reserve fund but like, you know, do we set that money aside for whatever building blows up that we're not right like I mean the police department HVAC was on last year and it got pushed off and now we don't have a choice it's not on this year because it has to be dealt with right and that's going to continue to happen because we have aging infrastructure throughout our building so. Again, while I very much advocate for Crocker Farm I'm wondering, again, does it need to be more of a recognizing that some of our systems I pick your building may not make it and do we set the money aside for that or do we prioritize, you know, public safety around roads. That's a good question. So, I guess I'll just lay off some of the things I'm thinking we have a lot of capital needs coming up with the building projects. I think I would apply the funds or recommend using the funds in any way that gives us the most flexibility going forward. So reducing debt, I agree with because that's that gives us more flexibility put it in the capital stabilization fund I agree with because that gives us more flexibility. That's a safety improvements idea because we heard directly from residents and it does seem important. My worry there is it's expands the world of capital for us we haven't really had that safety improvement bucket in the past so now there's another bucket of capital every year that we would be looking at and given what we know is coming up I worry about that. For the, you know, I know I said, I don't mind that idea, but I think I'd want to look and see if there's other ways we can fund that those safety improvements. Before we start send aside money specifically for it. Either through chapter 90 money or through grants or through other things that we can do. I think we still want to have the planning piece that Mandy Joe described or we, we come to the plan for townwide how we, how we identify safety improvements. But the funding I think maybe we wait one more year to see what comes out of that and if there's other funding sources we can look to. Again at the end of the day we're we're talking probably about $100,000 because we are going to probably still seem need some money for the body cam cameras. You know, either more or less depending on whether we get the grant. So really it's what did we do with the balance that might be freed up. And I think just recommending that to in a way that doesn't hinder any other projects is the best way to go. But ultimately it's your decision as we look to you to make these tough decisions. So I think we have two possible ways of saying this that we, you know, we're talking about such in the great scope of things $230,000. It doesn't even barely buys us a bus right. Yes, that's for sure. It certainly doesn't buy us an electric bus. So we could say, you know that with this change there's 230. We, we would, we recommend looking on whether there's anything on the building list that should be done sooner on roads and sidewalks to give them a priority. And at with with discretion of the town manager, this could include road safety. And we just leave that as is that not saying X, Y, or Z, that we just leave it as that bucket. And the other alternative that Pam originally came up with is say, we're willing to give away $100, $230,000 of this year's capital money and put it back in reserve and in a capital reserve that could then be with that would require a council, a two third council vote to take it out of there for specific projects. So I think that is more cumbersome than, than allowing it to be in this flexible category to move forward. But those, those are two very different ways of writing this. And I lean toward the first. I would, I would seek Alex's help to make sure it's written generally enough that we're not saying it goes here or there. And, and we could get the language back. So, Pam. Just help me think through. So if, if it goes into just sort of, it's sort of held held in a band and not put into capital stabilization, because that leaves us more flexibility and then town council doesn't have to vote that appropriation. And so then where does it hang out. So since it's our. And when does it get actually specifically voted on as a, as a, as an appropriation. From us, it's a recommendation. Paul might well say I'm putting it here. You know, having heard this, so that what we're going to see as the council and the whole town is something that zeros out. And the money has been put in one of these line items having heard from us. Okay, so that's the point so we wouldn't have to come back to this in these narrow categories. As I said, it's, it's only $230,000. So it may be administratively easier to put it all in one having considered what we're saying is some possible. So we are not at all a final say we are just giving a sense of this group discussion on what to do with it and they won't, we would be, I've never seen the capital, any capital budget come in with money unspent. So I would say it will be, it will be allocated by the town manager somewhere. And since these categories, I mean we say roads and sidewalks those are like which roads which sidewalks, what are we, what are we actually, it could be crosswalks if the sidewalk has to be prepared with a cut in it, you know so DPW has a lot of discretion on what exactly it's doing with it. So it's so Pam is that helpful you know we're not actually creating a line item here we're creating a recommendation that we're not going to tell you which bucket to put it in, but give you an idea of potential places to look. Mandy. I think I could support a doc, you know, a recommendation that says, look at the out year facility projects, and see if any of them could, or would be better to do sooner rather than later with this money. Particularly if they get us off fossil fuels a year earlier or might save operating because of insulate, you know, pick whatever right you know, not necessarily always energy sustainability improvements but but something that if we did it a year earlier. Even something like I could foresee Crocker farm windows right there's windows at the bank center I think I've been looking at some of these facility things right windows at the banks if done a year earlier might just save operating heating costs and put in better windows right to sort of say look at the facility out years and see if anything is right to be done now because and could fit within this money and then if not consider more roads and sidewalks with it. Instead of sending it to say capital stabilization I think I could support a recommendation like that. I'm typing that up I that would, I think that for me that works well. For far. Just a wording question so just to go back to what Pam was calling saying what would we call this bucket could it be something like the JCPC flex fund or something. Is that a possibility. I'm hearing Sonya on my shoulder saying no. Possibility. We'd have to look into again. Generally we want the capital projects to even within for example Jeremiah sort of general bucket. We have ideas of how that will what improvement projects that will be used for for sustainability again. Stephanie's bucket she has sort of a list of ideas of what she'd use it for. I don't necessarily want to have something that's in the, in the capital world that's not related to something. I would, again, it's not a bad idea just I know Sonya is yelling at me for that same idea several times. So, okay. And, and, and again, Paul can allocate these to align. We can create what we've just said here's, here's, look at this and then go here. Okay, I did that. And this is where it landed so so we're not. We're not even creating a bucket here we're creating possible uses of this money. Pam. I would second Mandy's position of looking at looking at those out here facility improvements that that could be handled sooner. And also Sean's comment about trying to reduce debt in out years. So I think that's to me, the helping reduce debt and out years would be a really big, a really big factor. Okay. I will take a stab at writing that up and sticking it into a document that will replace that whole long section on body counts. Okay, and Sean can tell us that it's not 251 it's you know subtract the trees we're talking about whatever the number is. And so I think we've made it is everyone comfortable with that that that's going to be the wording you know look at first facilities and what could be done, what if anything could be done sooner, anything that could reduce debt. And if there's nothing that jump jumps off the page I won't write it that way, but then put it into two roads and sidewalks. If you want to consider safety or something like that we can do that just and we don't have to use the safety if that gets you into trouble, Sean so I'm willing to listen to don't create a new, a new way for people to be coming in. So, yeah. Can I just clarify because what I typed and maybe I misheard was, look at the out your facility projects see if any of them would be better to do sooner, particularly if they would provide sustainability improvements or save operating costs, and done within these funds. Basically anything that would reduce debt and if not then send the roads and I thought I heard you say Mani j or capital stabilization fund. Did you not say that last part. My mind's changed on that. So no, I didn't say it's capital stabilization but but I think I forgot the or reduce the borrowing part of the first facility side to. Okay, so I'm going to if not it's going to go to roads then that's where everybody's in agreement on that. Yeah. So, everyone's in agreement. Great. So we just balance the budget again. So can I can I update you on another conversation that's sure to be lengthy. Not straightforward I guess it's probably the best way. So we talked about the school bus the electric school bus and what to do with that. So I did have a meeting with Rupert actually Rupert and Stephanie had a meeting and then I caught up afterwards. We talked about the proposal for a new electric school bus and then also what to do with the batteries for the existing electric school bus. So, again, there's sort of two paths that could, we could. Well, there's multiple paths but two of the past that we could go forward with our as is so we leave the $150,000 in there for the batteries for the Eli and some of that money has to be spent. Figure out the issues with the Eli and there's a dashboard issue that needs to be fixed before they can determine the condition of the batteries. And then we would look at the batteries and replace them when they're needed and then use the line going forward. Assuming there's no other mechanical problems with the line which has not been consistent with our experience to date. And we would move forward with the grant, which would put $370,000 towards an electric school, a new electric school bus, leveraging a $200,000 grant. The 370 would be for the school bus and the charging infrastructure to have a dedicated fast charging fast charger put in for the new electric school bus. So that's path one. Another path would be move forward with the new electric school bus and the grant as described. Instead of putting the money for the E lion towards preserving the E lion, use that money to buy a new regular bus gasoline or diesel whatever that they decide to go with and look to dispose of the E lion. It would save a little bit of money to be a little bit less expensive than the 150 and it would give the schools of more reliable option than what they currently have. And then they would still have a fleet that would have one electric school bus or the way they have it now. Again, that option is not as green as the first option, but the first option while green is not really hasn't really reduced a lot what it's reduced diesel output because they're not using the bus at all right it's just one less bus that they can use completely. So, you know, talking with Stephanie and Rupert there's pros and cons of each of those options obviously. I think they, that's where we kind of landed. And we're looking for input as from this committee, which way you would recommend Mandy. Yeah, I have a question if we go option to where we dispose of the E lion and we get a new hybrid bus a new electric bus using the grant money. Do we need new charging infrastructure or does the charging infrastructure that's there for the E lion. Yeah, like what what would happen with that charging infrastructure that's already there, could it be used for the new. Yeah, that's that last time that's one question I failed to get the answer to. I don't. I know the current charging infrastructure is not necessarily fast charging infrastructure. I mean it's not it's faster than typical but I don't believe it's the fastest that they make. And I believe that's what they were trying to get with the new boss but I will get the answer to that question definitively. Sorry, and didn't they say that part of the grant was that you had to take the charging it like I thought it was a package. Maybe. Yeah, my recollection was it was a package deal like you had to get both of them together was my recollection you couldn't parse it out. Okay, that then let me ask the next question which is I think there was a second separate charging infrastructure on there for other hybrid vehicles with the E lion charging infrastructure if it's the level two I assume the charging infrastructure for the new electric bus is the level three. And I don't know whether the E lion is a level three or a level two but if it's a level two could that infrastructure replay or be used for the vans and stuff like would we need to go dormant with that or because I think there's other charging infrastructure. I think the one school bus charging infrastructure at 50,000 is in the thing right now and so would we need that if we get rid of the E lion because could that be used for that. Yeah, I'll, again I'll find out the answer of whether there, I don't know enough about whether that charging infrastructure specific to a bus versus if it's all the same and it just, you know, you can plug into something else so let me get the answer to that. Well pending pending those answers. It seems that it seems that be would make more sense in the long run. I understand we don't necessarily want to add more diesel to our fleet. But we also need a reliable vehicle so pursuing the new evos and and the grant. It's kind of a trade off but I would certainly mean that direction. The point is that I did talk to Rupert more about Highland and that was the public comment to that effect around Highland at the company that has been working a lot on leasing of electric school buses and working with school districts to take advantage of whatever rebates or grants are out there. So I've reached back out to Highland to ask kind of where that's left off and what if there's any other information they need from us. So Rupert and mine's thinking was, if we do get a new electric school bus that we own that'll allow them to see how it works see if it's more reliable than our previous one. Again, see if it operationally is a good fit and then we could look to Highland to see if, you know, going forward when we look to get more electric buses. Consider the leasing route. Once they determine that it's a good fit. Jennifer. Yeah, I'm encouraged to hear you talk about Highland I think that's, I think that's a, that's a possible wonderful solution for us. I think it would be really short sighted for us to buy a diesel to invest in a diesel bus I just feel like that's not not not where our values are not where we want to spend our funds. Yeah, so the only the issue comes down to how much of the capital plan we want to allocate to buses. So as Rupert said, they basically have to buy a bus every year. They have eight or nine buses and they last about 10 years so so essentially they're going to be looking to buy a bus every year and the question is, are we going to be buying, at least until we figure out whether the new electric buses meet our needs. And until we get a proposal from Highland to see what a leasing option we even look like. They can't really forgo the purchase of buses. I'm going to talk to Rupert that two or three buses that are pretty old and in poor condition that they need to address. So, so one way that if we do not go with the repairs for Eli and they need a new bus to replace that one. And Jennifer, the issue with that is $150,000 of a battery, and you might be putting it into a vehicle that still doesn't work. But that seemed to everyone like good money after bad money you know if we don't even know whether it's going to come. Is it up in Canada right now under. I don't think the bus itself is up in Canada so we had to come down from Canada to do some work on it and diagnose sort of what the issues were. Again that bus was purchased completely with a Department of Energy grant. So this would be sort of our first major other than time which has been a lot of time invested, the first major financial investment to that bus. If we were to do it. Can I just ask one question and then I see both Mandy and Alex on path one and path two. Is there, is there a path three that if we didn't want to buy the battery for the bus that a lease might cost a lease for one bus might be 30,000 a year, if we could find out that you know so that we get another bus but we don't have to spend $450,000 for an electric bus, and we don't have to spend 125,000 for diesel bus. So that's my, is there a path three and then I don't know whether you always have to buy really big school buses or whether you can buy the smaller school buses and are there any, you know, by smaller you know 40 seater 30 seater, but look like bigger bands and are there hybrids out there, and I don't know the answer to that Stephanie was telling me, I saw her at an event over the weekend and she said, you know, we can buy a lot more of those small bands with this amount of money than we can buy a bus and and probably have as big a carbon impact, you know, on in terms of the, what we're trying to get out of these, so that we should be thinking about the whole picture not just each vehicle one at a time. That was just her view. And I personally have no ability to make this decision, Sean. I mean I just to point Stephanie is looking into, I think, I think we would all prefer to start with the vans, because the additional increase, increase costs is not as much for the vans to go to a fully electric van. Rupert had identified there's some issues with getting it certified to transport students. But I know Stephanie and Rupert looking at that together to see if there's a way to look at our van fleet going forward and try to electrify that. So I see Mandy, Alex, and Jennifer. A couple more questions from the conversation it sounds to me like the Eli and hasn't been working for a while, meaning we've been operating one bus down for nearly a year. So I guess I'm unsure how important it is to replace the Eli and versus say the diesel bus that's dying right that that's really old if the Eli if we've been operating without the use of the Eli and at all for a long time it must not be in all the bus schedules is my assumption right. It's just put more wear and tear on the other buses, the backup buses because they don't have that one again that would be one of our newer buses that would be a sort of a frontline bus. But since it's not operable it means we're using one of the spares which is just an older bus. Okay, and then I'm looking at the capital plan again and buses, they say they need one every year basically but in our five year capital plan we've got buses for three of the five years. And so I guess one of my questions is, do we need to buses this year, or can we add a bus to the FY 25 budget somehow to give us more time to figure out the possibilities, I guess, right, about Highland and all, instead of buying a second brand new one or a brand new diesel, because if there's three two or three diesels that are in bad condition. It would, you know, at least at Highland for three versus one is probably a better incentive for Highland to work with us right. So, so I guess that's my other thought is could we push at least a of two buses what the potential for diesel out a year, as we investigate this other. And then my other question is with the E lion. How much money would it cost to figure out the console issue that you guys keep talking about to see if it really, if that does quote, fix it versus not allocating the battery issue since we don't actually know if the batteries are bad. I'm just logging questions for Rupert right now is Alex. That was actually going to be my question was, we have 150,000 but we know that's for a new battery, and, and I, it would be good to know what those costs are because I'm wondering, you know, if the investigation is, you know, 25 grand that leaves us 125 grand if we decide it's not worth fixing to then lease or do whatever it is we're going to do. So I guess, from my perspective, you know, and I guess to sort of Jennifer's point about, you know, where we try to keep our values rate is, is, you know, do we just make the recommendation of, you know, like put this money toward keep this money toward buses, and if we can maintain an electric fleet whether it's releasing or, or repairing, you know, at the end of the day, Rupert's got to make that decision with town about what makes the most sense. And the other thing I would remind the group about the vans is we contract with five stars because we can't keep enough drivers for buses so if we are expanding our, our, our, our vehicles to be driven, you are exacerbating what is already a very difficult issue for the district in terms of finding enough bus drivers so that's as well as increasing your operating budget because you're hiring more more. So if that has consequences, if, you know, we go that round. Jennifer. Yeah, I just would hate to see us put another diesel bus on the road for this. Because we feel like there's no other option right now because we need to do something now and I just, I would hate to see that's like a long term, like a long term solution to a short term problem. And so to many those point can we put it off for year or as Kathy mentioned is there a third option and so I know that we contract with five star for some of our from some of the buses that serve our students is there a way to just like add a bus to the five star contract for during this interim period as as a way to solve this, this interim, you know problem that we have. I have a great suggestion, we, Sean isn't a growing list of not path one path to but. Well, I warned you this was not going to be a straight forward. Comment question sort of piggybacking on what Jennifer said, I mean like, how many buses do we really need. I mean I see the bus every morning and it's not full. No, I mean I don't know what that's like throughout town, but I know enrollment is down and also since covert a lot of parents are driving their kids to school and picking them up. So I guess it's more a common question like how many are really being used fully. And I mean I'm sure someone's looked into that but it's just the number of parents driving their kids to school has really increased so is that going to affect things down the road I don't know but just add that to your list I guess. No, and I know again the, ideally, I know parents want to drive their kids to school for different reasons. It would be great if they didn't and they use the bus from an environmental impact standpoint I think that's the thing that I've heard Mike and Rupert say different times. They have to have, especially at the elementary level there's there's more strict time requirements or how long kids can be on the bus. And for anyone that's over a certain distance away they have to make sure there's a seat on a bus for those students. You know we're talking about the diesel bus versus electric bus. It would be great if we somehow could figure out a way to really get people to you know some sort of movement to get people to use the buses more. So that they're maximizing their usage and also just less driving time for cars. You cut down a lot of fuel usage just from that. But I will add it to the list. So can I ask since we're, we're trying to get to report we can endorse with $150,000 line item that says replace the battery. You, you have the ability if that line item stays in there to make a decision about these alternatives correct. Yeah, no I think we have direction. I'm hearing is do whatever we can to not buy a new diesel bus. Right, and that they're, they're, they're potentially a range of ways of dealing with this is, do we need one less bus can we do the five store contract as an interim thing till we figure out whether there's a leasing arrangement anything but we just keep that line item. And then you, you and Paul and Rupert by you figure out how you word this but since you have to have a line item that's directed toward a particular product. You figure out by June 30 or something on what, what that line item is is that how you would. Yeah, I mean we could just, we could put it towards bus improvements slash, you know, new bus slash repairs or something like that and it would be used for, you know, either to replace the other type of bussing cost. But I think in your report, again, if I'm characterizing it correctly you should put something around. Again, not, not replacing with the diesel bus if at all possible. Okay. So is everyone comfortable with that and then we were keeping the electric bus as it's listed right now in all its glory. Yeah, Pam. I resend my comment about buying a diesel boss. Okay, so Alex who is Alex went through, just so you know she's, she's turning into both the scribe and she's got control over the document right now. She took all of the edits you sent in far and Sean made corrections because I managed to mistype some of the numbers so he'd already corrected fact checked it in terms of the numbers match things. So, what I wanted to see whether we have it's 216 now are people ready to move to anything substantive in the document and Mandy sent in some wording, wording questions comments about statements not so much about these recommendations but some of them. So I didn't whether you want to go through my page or just call them out so we could get to a quasi final draft. And then we would, so my proposal here's a proposal to and then we can figure out how you want to proceed is that we go through the discussion Alex captures it I'm taking notes to. We do a revised version, and we send it back out to everybody to see if that captured it but we take a vote today that this, in essence, is what we want to do, and then, knowing that there's word. What's the word you use Mandy Scribner edits the, the just missing words there's a period there's a good editor sharp editors I sees there's some flaw in a sentence so. So then we. So the, otherwise we will need to meet next week. So that's just keeping people we're at 217. If we want to go through the document does, does that work for everyone to just zero in and I don't know who else had any Mandy you were the only one that really flagged a few areas to that was not just about the wording but but what do we really want to have done here, you know, it wasn't so much the wording do you want to start out with your your areas. I can start out with the things I flagged so people know I think some of them we've covered right so the first one was on page three about the tack and street safety and all and I think we've covered that in conversation today already in terms of my concern regarding the wording of what it was. Under that was the facility and state sustainability funds that that just talked about we now have a lot of these sort of flexible funds and there didn't seem to be a mention about whether the library should have its own facility fund that we had. I don't know whether we've gotten to a recommendation, but it had stuck in my mind of we talked about it and I didn't see it anywhere in the document. Did we want to make a recommendation regarding the possibility of the library having its own facility fund, similar to the town and the schools facility funds that are these flexible ones to do repairs over the course of the year. Do you want me to go on. Yeah, so just so everyone knows because I didn't share Mandy's but what her rewording on the tack. She liked the idea of the process but she really wanted a neutral set of criteria that came up with a policy so that there would be a way of assessing. And I thought it was a good, I ship, I did send it on to Alex so she has that and I think we agreed and we didn't talk the Mandy one, I'll send it to you Alex. And I actually revised that as well Mandy do so I was going to say I don't know that that Kathy's had a chance to look at mine but I actually made similarly substantive changes so we'll see how ours. And she did it in a common bubble rather than a wording change, Alex. I think it was there and I just didn't I wasn't looking at bubbles. Yeah, have to look at a common bubble. So on the library trust of the library bucket so it came up really briefly so Alex why don't you speak to that first. Yeah, I actually it's funny I did to say I paused and but we didn't really agree to anything and you know how I am since we didn't agree to anything I didn't put anything in. You know, I have mixed feelings at this point I mean creating a bucket that doesn't have any money in it seems kind of weird. I don't know whether it's just more a recommendation that in future years we think about establishing a bucket like we have for others, and then make that part of the. I had taken it sort of is that future year recommendation not necessarily for next year but more of a, as we've done these, we noticed the library doesn't have its own in future years, consider that possibility, including whether or not the project is done right even, even if we do the project at some point in the future there will be maintenance funds to it. Right and I think again like I pointed out that one time is that it did used to exist I think we didn't used to have like buckets but it did used to exist but when the project started it got removed and I think as we created this buckets for the other company, other, you know areas we just. There was no need to create a bucket for the library per se so yeah I'm, that's fine with me. I'm going to be comfortable doing that one of the things Sean, the other thing that came up Alex when we were talking about it is. We do three of them, or do we do a mega that is for the small list, you know a list that is gets worked out and I don't come down one way or the other on it because what I've noticed is that a whole bunch of Rupert items. You know his bucket, he's itemized we're doing these, and then his bucket, you know his group is painting a room, you know, fixing a window because and it's that $10,000 threshold you know these are smaller ticket items that until you add them up. Other other towns might call them those operating costs because you're supposed to do small repairs along the way and you're operating budget, but this is pulling them over, you know so, and the schools are doing the same thing whenever it's larger they're doing it, and then the school general thing has a bunch of miscellaneous that don't rise to level of we're, you know, doing something more significant. So that's so just, I'm comfortable with doing that in the future we may need a similar type of flexible fund for the library, putting that sentence in others are comfortable with that. So Alex maybe you want to weigh in so. So the school fund is managed by the school facility director, the town fund is managed by the town facility manager. And I don't. I know they work the town facility manager at times works with the library with George at the library. I don't know how close and if, if you ask is if there was an urgent need that came up at the library capital need that came with the library the funds have been set aside with Jeremiah could be used there. So that would be the only thing I think your recommendations fine I think but I'd want to follow up with those two just to see how closely they work together and whether a third funding for one building is needed. But I'm just thinking you've also got the branches where Jeremiah is coming in. So two come out of the Jeremiah's so month repairs and months in, for example, would come out of Jeremiah's funding. Alex, the library. So two comments your comment actually about the bucket and items under 10,000 so pre pre adoption of the charter and posted jcpc that was always a very sort of hot topic for discussion was making sure that those items 10,000 didn't creep their way into jcpc because they should be covered under operating budgets, and they shouldn't be here so if we have inadvertently created a bucket that allows for that to happen. That's a larger conversation that we should probably recommend in the future that we talk about is, have we inadvertently created something that's not intended to be covered under jcpc. And also, I think, you know, the library has its own facilities manager so I don't know why we treated any differently than the school has a facilities manager, and the town does so. To me it makes sense of, if we're going to have separate buckets by facilities manager then we have three buckets if we're not then we have one bucket and everybody plays in it together but I wouldn't want to be in that room with that conversation of the three of them doing that so it from everything sort of working the same way that would make sense, and as to the the other the the branches those are owned by the town. So that's why they're under Rupert's buck under the town bucket I mean rather than yeah. Kathy do you want me to move on to my other comments. Yeah. I think we have a resolution on wording on that I didn't see anyone saying no so I think we've got. It's a little fuzzy but I think we can manage it. So my next one was a wording change in section be on page three the second paragraph at the very end the sentence read, you know it's talking about that the five year plan that we don't discuss the four building projects but the five year plan in the five year plan includes that borrowing and all and the last sentence was this assumed the sharp reduction of roads and sidewalks and then it said this assumes the council in town proceed with major building projects on the proposed timeline. And I suggested adding the wording and in compliance with the current funding plan, whatever that funding plan is, you know, just as a indication that we've put the whatever the council has agreed on in terms of how it's going to be funded what's going to be pulled from capital stabilization and all that's what's shown on the five year plan. And so if any of that changes that could change what the five year plan looks like completely. Similar to what Pam was actually saying of capital stabilization had some pools in prior years and now they don't, because we changed the plan. So if we go back to pulling it would show back up in the plan. So just adding that clause and that makes sense. Yeah. Yeah. And then I think I only had one other. Not even sure I had one other. Yes, I did. I just one question. You had one on fire was missing when I said one question on the five year plan for the end of page six the last sort of partial paragraph on page six that read the fight reads right now at least the copy we had the five year plan for three major years library DPW elementary school DPW. And so I didn't know whether you were trying to. Yeah, I didn't. Fire. That was a plan being paid fully by capital stabilization so you weren't putting that in, or I'm glad you flagged it because I didn't know how to write that in the document we received. It doesn't show up as costing us anything. And so everything was referencing off the debt schedules and fire a year ago was on the debt schedule and now it's not. So I think just rewording that that you know current currently it doesn't appear because it was not doing so if they aren't there still are for but the it doesn't appear on the debt schedule that we're looking at. Yeah, I think this is a sentence added. Where's the language where where you mean to just sorry I'm trying to page six the very last paragraph it's a partial paragraph on page six. It's under the wreck the title recommended capital plan one year budget five year plan next steps. And there's a point at which I talk about three rather than four is what yeah the third paragraph under that section starts the five year plan for three major building projects library DPW and elementary school and DPW period. It's like it's almost a half a sentence. It takes the sentence but then say the, you know, for major building projects you could even something that says, and fire, which some description that fire does not show up on this plan because the current plan is to pay for it out of capital stabilization 100% without borrowing or the current plan is to pay for that without borrowing or something like that. I could, I could help with that Alex just on a fixing that because I, I realized when I wrote it it's, it's, it's only not on that one page it's not that it went off the list. Yeah. It would show up on the five year plan if the 20 million plan to pay for was within the next five years but I think it's on like your seven six or seven, john seven or eight. So it's, it would be in that FY 27 FY 28 if we were to add roughly $2 million per year over the next few years. Yeah. You know city. I think we will make that working working accurate and herbs only comment, which he sent to all of us is that if anything, the sentence that says we face difficult choices. I think he wanted to put it in large caps with yellow shading or something he said it was basically you can't understate that the what what this picture looks like when you're looking at it over a period of time. You know, since we're actually being, I think everyone knows we're being pretty optimistic that we can build for the amount of money we've said for DPW and fire. I mean, especially when we're talking about fire, five years from now. So, who knows, maybe construction takes a plummet and there's people are eager to build, eager to build again. I actually heard with the school I mean it's not it's gives you a sense of the crunch one school that's already out. They got the bids, ready to go. And the electrical company that was going to do all the wiring and all the work went bankrupt, because they realized they could not honor what they had bid. They could not do the work for that amount of money. And so now it's, and it was a major, you know, it was a major regional contractor, and it was a combination of the cost of each of the the wires and everything else had gone up and the shortage of labor, and delays in the pipeline but they literally said we, we can't do it, you know, we can't do it for what we bid on and you know the bid was like six months or, you know, it wasn't like we bid on it two years ago or four years ago so it was a cautionary tale on what people are facing who are building right this year. And that was what this building was. Alex. Yeah, so I just in terms of edits that I made or comments that I had. I think Mandy Joe was done right. Yeah. On section be where it says the five year plan and other material in the capital improvement plan the last paragraph says we repeat our suggestion from last year that the town manager consider ways to profile major capital expenditures and enterprise funds and the Community Act in public presentations of the capital plan for a more comprehensive summary of capital improvements across all funding sources. I just don't think that's actually a discussion we had this year so if the group is okay with us restating that that's fine I just don't think we actually talked about it. We did that came up last year on as. I'm just checking if that's something. And you're right all I did was keep the wording from last year so. You know, and that just just so people know what I took a look when Northampton comes out, the mayor comes out with her CIP. It has all the big buckets, you know so even if it's just this is the town and general fund. And here's the enterprise funds that it's, we are in fact spending a lot in those funds on capital and they have reserved so it was a really, really, not completely silo them, but talk about them in some way and we, as you can hear from that vague wording we weren't saying how to do this. Yeah, so I see both Pam and Mandy. So Alex is asking whether we're comfortable keeping that wording since we didn't have a discussion. Pam. I wasn't planning to comment on that. Does anyone, let me put it this way does anyone object to keeping that wording. So, I don't object, but I wonder if we could have the region of capital spending and I know it's in the capital plan but it's buried sort of in the borrowing payment line right. So you would just ask, and you would put the regional budget to, you know, somewhere. Some sort of line that describes the regional spending budget to because it's in the five year plan because it's part of our borrowing payments, but no one ever sees anything about it really at least on our capital plan. Yeah, we could add as an appendix or something the region's capital plan. I think it's worth Hampton plan, Kathy, it's like 400 pages but they append a lot. No, no, it's not a bad suggestion. So, you know, we could append that in the future so people can see. And I was thinking, even if it was a hot link to another document that said there is a document that you can see so I wasn't trying to make it unwieldy. Okay. Can I finish my comments Pam or did you want to. Why don't you have a very different topic. Okay. The other thing I did was on the FY 24 capital request proposed to JCPC where you started to put what the what we changed or what the town manager proposed and how we got to I actually listed each one the original amount the savings so that everybody. I also made it more clear because I didn't want it to seem like everything got pushed because some of them are already being paid for so I just made a little more clear that some of them are actually being removed like we're not pushing every what's being pushed out versus what's not and where the savings was. Also, after that section added a little bit of a line just more as a explanation about chapter 90 funds and the fact that they've basically been level funded since fiscal year 12. So, today's dollars are roughly, you know, have roughly dropped by 43%. So what we can buy with state funds is significantly less so it's not just that we don't care about roads in our town it's that what the state provides is is is super lacking and we're trying our best to make up for that law so I just added a little bit of background. I think that's great and you know people want to see that you could I think you can share your screen I don't know whether we've got sharing enable but I think that's great. Those are excellent changes. You can see all my red. Yeah, so I just added you know roadside they continue to be a priority. I don't know how big that is. That's great. I just sort of talked about, you know, the 800 to basically chapter 90 money gets us three quarters of a mile. And I also clarified Kathy where you had talked about significant cuts in fiscal year 25 and 26 to be more specific that we're actually cutting the town's portion in half. The overall spending isn't like just so it was clear that it sounds putting a million we're only putting a half a million but you still get the chapter 80 or chapter 90 funds so I just clarified that a little bit. Yep. And I also clarify that as part of our deliberation, at least for me that any unused funds, you know we're bumping this up to over 2 million and anything that's unused would go into the next year. And then I just took out some of the editorial as you know I often do. Let's see. I think those were the only. These are Sean's changes. Oh I also added, we broke out everybody and then we left the library out. So I put the library in that we were only spending 29,000 on it so I probably have to go back and reduce that it budget by. Well I don't even because it's not even noticeable in the number but again, if we're pointing out every different department what we spend. I just wanted to point out what we spent on the library to be consistent. I think this. Oh I think I just added the language that Sean had said about the assumptions being used around. Yep. Oh, and I changed this because it's not securing funding it's you guys voting. Oh, sorry, and this is me making notes now about what Mandy Joe just said so. That's it. How do I and share. There's. Okay. Okay. So one quick, actually one comment on Alex's text in that paragraph you showed you know that the numbers and parentheses for each of the items is kind of a long list of a paragraph could be bullet them or something. My mind doesn't track numbers. I did the same way. I like bullets. So let's see I did. Or is it dunk dunk dunk dunk. You had mostly bullets except this one. So this is where right here is where we said, this is what the talent are proposed. Yeah. And then she was, and then she was talking about the one you just showed out where just said so much from the library so much for each of those. Done. Yeah, thank you. Thank you. So my, my comment is totally different again, maybe my last, the last comment I can make as a newbie. We have, we have the enterprise funds, but we never get to review their capital needs. We never get to look at their, their vehicles. I have no idea if they're charging, you know, if my water rate is reasonable, or if there are expenditures that are things that I wouldn't want to see them spending money on. At what point remind me please, where anybody gets to review their budget. Well, yeah, so the, so the town council is technically the water and sewer commission as well. And you will vote on rates and you'll see all the debt and operating as part of the, the annual budget. And Pam, I'll send you the schedule finance committee has a specific slot where we, where we do that, including they have stabilization funds in them, you know, so that we don't have to do all the capital out of debt. And we're drawing on, or we stabilization fund helps us play the debt service on the people. Yes. But the operating costs, the, the capital costs, the expected new and what that does to the rates. So that is a specific day that we see those and all their glory. Yeah, it'll actually start next month. I think we'll start discussing water and sewer with finance committee a little bit more, and then you'll see it as part of the budget. It occurred to me, I mean, that's, that's much money out of our pockets as our tax dollar is so it would be really important to review those. Was there any reason that they didn't come to JCPC to begin with. So we spend general fund right. Yeah, I'll look to you Alex in your time as enterprise ever come to JCPC. No, no, okay. I think because it's just enterprise funds are really standalone separate. It's like financial units for the town that they've never been included. I guess I would also say it's part of when we set the rates for water and sewer what goes into those rates are some of those, those capital costs so at that point you could have, could, you know, and then when you look at the budget and past the enterprise fund at that point say no or reduce it there or what when we do borrowing for them. We do approve them separately remember centennial and and things like that those come separately but we always you know they're sort of intertwined with rates and all more than the capital out of our these revenues are. Thank you. So are we, is everyone comfortable with, we've, we've done actually some substantive edits on the report and what we can do after this meeting I mean we got consensus around some of the wording. Alex can clean up her edits and send us a clean document for everyone to, to react to. And if you're willing and you send your comments just to me. We'll work toward getting a final version without having to come back and go through line edits and if there's any and then you would get to see that too so it wouldn't be that that just goes off without people seeing and so if people can get. Especially those of you who are particularly good at seeing the oddities you know when I type fast Alex caught most of them are caught others but I start one sentence and I forget to delete the pre existing sentence and just keep writing so I can get it done and so things that literally don't make sense if you read them too carefully. But does that work for everyone that we've got a report because then we can get to a final draft and get it out and what I've been doing as chair to report to the council. So I do like a one pager that says here's the report we submitted to the manager key things to know about it are the following and I don't do a recapture of every discussion we've had. I'm seeing yes so it's an Alex is very capable hands and then we will we will get a clean and Alex I think that means you just do a clean draft and then Sean. You will do get us the set of tables that because you get us a new set of tables but now there's another set of tables with the tree and ground one changes and bodycams disappears and whatever you call this this other line reappears. We'll update all that. So you can add it to the report. Okay. Are you looking for a vote today sort of in anticipation. So if I if someone wants to make a motion that would be great Mandy because then we will officially be doing that that would be great. So I just don't know what the motion looks like when the changes are still being made that's why I'm, I don't know. So you can we could say a motion to accept the report as amended subject to a final review of edit edits. Okay, I think I'm getting something so it's a motion to accept the report as inconsistent with the conversation on March 23 2023. And, and allow or give permission or permit the chair to forward to make final edits and forward to submit to Paul town manager. Okay, and we didn't assign a minute taker but since you very clearly worded that we'll make sure it's in the minutes that we. That's what we're voting on. Because I just go back and do it. And, and yes, so we'll figure out how to make sure the minutes is everyone okay with the wording of that motion. I second that. And we'll take a vote. Pam. Yes. Farah. Yes. Mandy. Hi. Alex. Yes. And Kathy is, yes, that's an unanimous. So we have 15 minutes left. If people are comfortable at this point that we have some members of the public. If we open it up for public comments. Yes. Okay, we are open to public comments. Raise your hand if you would like to join us and provide a comment. I think you're the host. I can't bring it in. Tony. Hi, Tony. Welcome. Hi, thank you. I just wanted to support the stance of not purchasing a diesel bus. I think that would be going backward in the stay in age and I think that a lot of creative solutions were suggested today. So whichever one makes most sense, whether that's contracting with five star for another bus, or, you know, speeding up a proposal, getting a proposal from Highland fleets, I would love to see the town move toward a contract with Highland fleets. If that's a viable option, but definitely please do not purchase a diesel bus at this point, it just seems insane. Thank you. Thank you for your comment. Anyone else. We have one other person. I'm not seeing a hand up. So I think, unless people have a final observation, I want to thank everyone I mean this has been terrific collaboration with and participation on a lot of much more difficult interactive decisions I think the last year, you know, because of the product because of some of the projects that we were we're focused on. And next year in the year after I just have to say it's going to be a whole another discussion because it was awfully easy to get to zero a balanced budget this year. So we'll see where we are a year from now. And, and Sean, a big thanks to you. I mean what what you have, what you have done to both get answers to our questions and then come up with a reaction, a thoughtful reaction on a we agreed with what you were saying and we're moving this or we're deleting it or we're chain altering it. It's impossible to get to this point without you so really thank thanks and I mean I think this committee, the point is for us to hear your feedback and to adjust the plan, you know, take your input and then reconsider some of the things that were in the preliminary plan. And I know the last few years that's worked really well you guys have given really good input that has resulted in a stronger plan. And to your point about future years being more difficult. You're probably right and the good news is when it does get more difficult it will hopefully mean that we have started a project, which which is ultimately our goal is to start one of the projects. I know it seems like just like breaking ground is alluding us. But when it does get more difficult, it'll force some tough decisions but again it'll mean we've moved forward on something. That'll be a fun process to go through with everybody. That that that is a really good way of looking at this as it's a positive evolution that we we are actually on our way to getting one of these done. So I want to thank you everyone and Alex will do her magic and Alex whenever you're ready I'll do a quick look just to match it against my notes and then we'll get it out to everyone. And again just to edit just back to me and then to the extent. You know, I'll either incorporate them right away or if it's some judgment calls that people were editing different things I'll work with Alex. I mean we're a good team on this. So, thank you and enjoy the rest of your Thursday we are adjourned at 250. Thank you. Thanks to both Kathy and Alex for doing that. Thank you everyone. Bye.