 and call the meeting to order at 5.45. Thanks, everybody, for being here on a special occasion, a sort of non-regulatory scheduled meeting. I'm also glad to be here at this time, just remember to the meeting. Are there any agenda remits? Can we add some discussion to communications to the community at maybe the end of this meeting and either talk about what the executive committee wants to communicate to the community or what the full board might plan? Yeah, sure, so we can add 2.1.3, or actually that's 2.2, I guess, is communication. And I'll just say that, you know, I'm fine with that. I do want to try to keep to our hour timeline as we've already made a special effort to, so what have we had time for? I also will suggest that because we have guests this evening that we'll reverse the order of our two Act 46 items in and address the hour to Twin Field first, so that we can get our friends free to go. Any other agenda revisions? Any public comments and correspondence? Executive committee comments. So you want me to get a sign-in sheet, I didn't do it. So you all set the names? I think we have everything. I'm gonna ask people to go around and introduce themselves, actually, that's great, so. Okay, so we'll move to 2.1.2, which is on here as the Twin Field proposal. So I guess before we get started, Bill and I can report out on kind of our, making a connection with Patrick and Mark on the last night of the Twin Field board. And then we can ask if our colleagues would like to say anything as well, but I guess first we'll go around and do some introductions. So I'm Matthew DeGrode, I serve on the Worcester Doty School Board, and I'm the chair of the Washington Central S.E.U. Board. Dorothy Namler from Calis-Hoyd. Steve Look from the East Palm Field-Ear Board. Patrick Healy, I represent Marshfield, and I'm also the chair of the Twin Field School Board. Bill can both superintendent of schools for Washington Central. I'm Kari Bradley from the U32 Board. Chris Winters from the Berlin Elementary Board. Brian Telly-Farrow from the Romney Board. Mark Cochlear from the Superintendent for Washington Northeast Supervisory Board. Chris McBeth from the Romney Board. Rick Keane from the Calis Board. Thanks. So if anyone's aware that the Executive Committee voted at its last meeting to authorize Bill and myself to reach out to the Twin Field Board about exploring a possible conversation about collaboration, what that might look like, if there's any interest, et cetera. So we did that. Our initial meeting was, last week, I think it was Friday. Yeah, I already can remember. Friday? Friday. And we just had a brief meeting here at the Central Office and really didn't come any conclusions but just kind of talked about what we've been asked to do and trying to get a sense of if there was interest. I would say the response, I think Mark and Patrick didn't speak for themselves, but the response was more or less, we've always been interested in conversation we just never had anyone to talk to. And Twin Field had a board meeting last night, so we asked if it would be useful for us to go. We did, had a spirited conversation there last night. I think anyone that's been in an Act 46 conversation can imagine many of the different dimensions and aspects that came up. But generally speaking, the board, I think, and again, they can speak to themselves, but my sense of that meeting was that there was some interest at least in having a conversation. And I had suggested an idea that each board might appoint two board members to work with the two superintendents to kind of take that conversation to the next level, maybe coming up with a list of questions and topics and a sort of initial discussion. And we could do that for Washington Central this evening. We could talk about sort of the procedural aspects of that. And then the Twin Field Board has another meeting, I think, in a couple of weeks in which they could take that up as well. So Bill, I don't know if there's anything else to... No, I think it was very positive and optimistic, the meeting that four of us had here last Friday and last night of, hey, let's talk about opportunities. And no limits to the conversation or balance we're put on it. And it was like it's worth the conversation. And I like something I've heard from Patrick for two or three years and I'm always going to talk about what's going to provide more opportunities for students. So that I think is a spirit that was had last night and that's the spirit I saw from the Twin Field Board. You said it was very spirited, but that was an overall tone that I heard of the different opportunities. So are there any questions or comments from the executive committee members before I... Invite Patrick and Mark to say anything you'd like to say? Hearing none. Well, we're open to discuss. We want to know what are you guys all about. We'd like to learn more about your schools and see, you know, we probably, you know, kind of stay up here right now in the clouds a little bit, find out, you know, figure out something, what about game plan? What, how are we going to leave the conversations and what we're going to talk about, you know? We should normally just start with who are we and some of the demographics, numbers and stuff. And then, you know, you look at strengths and also realize, let's make a list of what the questions from our public are going to be. So that if we get to that, but it's always, you know, I always like to think broad first and then start zeroing it. We have no idea about this, but we just want to talk. We're excited. So we're excited that somebody wants to play and wants to play, you know? And we just need to, you know, I'm always excited to get out and see other schools and talk to the schools and see what they're doing. My perspective on this is, I think that there are great things that you folks do here. And I think there's some great things that we do at Twin Field. My suspicion is that neither side knows what the other is good at and what the other could bring to the table. And I think, you know, in terms of representing the interests of Twin Field, I think there's some good stories that we can share with you to help you to understand why we think Twin Field is a successful school. And we want to hear from you, you know? What your strengths are. You know, I think in thinking about what I heard at the board last night and what I've heard over the last, I don't know, what do we decide? Three and a half years that this has been going on. The focus at Twin Field has always been on what are we doing for our kids and what is the best, are we doing the best things that we can for the kids? And as long as we're having conversations with that is kind of the main artery running through it. I can say it that way. I think that the possibilities are almost limitless because at the end of the day, we love the kids that we have. The community loves our school. And I think that those are both, those are two good attributes to bring into any kind of a partnership that we might form here or elsewhere. I mean, we're not currently talking to anybody else, but Barry was the other SU that the agency secretary kind of flagged as a potential partner for us. And we haven't had this level of conversation with them because right now they're stuck in the 706 process. And I'm trying to find out if they are anywhere near getting unstuck, to be perfectly honest because we want to explore all of our options in the sense of what's good for the kids. But as Matt said and as Bill said, the conversation so far been very, I think positive and cordial. So I haven't seen any red flags, nothing that I'm concerned about or worried about going into further discussion. So I'm looking forward to seeing what we could do together. We talked last night at the, we, the board talked last night. Some of the members talked last night kind of stridently about making the case of the state board, you know? And I think as soon as we start talking to the state board about any conversations that we have with any other district, that's going to start to influence their thinking on where it places. They kind of left us hanging out there unassigned and unmasked at the moment. So, but we do intend to go to the state board and report to them on, you know, we've made contact with new folks and how those talks are progressing. And, you know, I suppose it's possible if we never get to sit down and bury them, you know, they could turn into a theta comp lead as far as the state board's concerned. We'll see what they're thinking is. Somebody asked me the other day, well, what are they going to do? I'm like, I don't know. I don't think any of us really know. We all have our concerns and fears, but we'll see, we'll probably find out. We're at the end, we're in the end point of this three and a half year trip, and we're finally going to find out where we've been traveling most times. But I'm glad that we're talking. Seems like the compatibility of the community is going to be pretty good with the, you know, I'm curious if it would be better than the area. I don't know how to judge that. I mean, I know, I've heard people say that and I've heard people say otherwise. So I don't, you know, I don't know how to, I don't know how to assess that right now. I'm not saying you're wrong, but I don't know enough about it. What I would assess it as students are going to be compatible with students all the time. So sometimes we have to put the parents in the community to the side and just say, hey kids, how can we make it better? Because whatever we have, you know, there's a little disgruntleness between Cabot and the point field. But when the kids come over for summer school, we had summer school shared over our hundred students, many from Cabot. They all play well. They all work well together. Sometimes it's the grownups that have issues. Cabot players are playing on a twin field soccer team this year. We have a cooperative sports agreement. That's going well. You know, they wouldn't play otherwise and they're happy to be playing. So, you know, it's like Patrick said, it's usually, it's not the kids that are having difficulty with this. They'll adapt to pretty much anything. It kind of comes to that. It seems like trying to do things in a way that the communities keep their identity in all of it. And I just, I think that's one of the great fears, probably. I mean, I've witnessed this whole process statewide. You know, it's impermanent and felt. However, that, I think it's a good idea to look at this, but keeping that in mind, I think that helps adults. Sure. Like the transition. So we are an example of that in 46 because playing field in Marshfield got together in the late 60s to develop the high school. Cabot had a choice at that time, but they stayed separate. So I think we're kind of like, our mentality is just different than separate schools and separate towns. And, you know, we kind of have our school in the middle of the two towns. It's actually a Marshfield, but it doesn't matter. It's in the middle of the two, you know, playing fields over here in Marshfield's here. Geographically. Yeah. Yeah, that's a good. So what we thought of that, that was a good idea. I was probably thought of together, you know, that's why it didn't work. So we're not playing field versus Marshfield. So I do just want to acknowledge that, you know, there is this huge towering question mark over what's going to happen with the state board. And, you know, I guess as nobody really knows what's behind door number two, but just acknowledging that there are some sensitivities potentially around that, around, you know, what you're communicating with the state board, how it may look, you know, these kinds of things. So, you know, we'll do our best to try to, you know, respect that and be sensitive to it. And vice versa, I would hope to. But, you know, I would just echo, you know, what all of you have said, which is that the most enjoyable part of the conversation was the very explicit focus on, you know, what we might be able to do together to produce better opportunities and better outcomes for kids. So that's what excites me about this conversation. So with that being said, you know, we can have some more discussion. I assume since the committee already voted to pursue this, that there is interest in pursuing it. So before we might entertain a motion around, you know, designating a couple of people to do this, I guess I just wanted to ask, first of all, if there's any objections to moving forward that way. And then secondly, if there are people who either are interested in doing it or would like to nominate someone. Well, as far as people, so, and I'm not trying to suggest, and Kari's the U32 rep, we're gonna have two people. I think it's essential that one of the two people be from the U32 board. Because there has to be, I feel like it's strong. And, you know, I would say one from the elementary and one from the high school. But I feel strongly there has to be someone from the high school in those two positions. But we only depend on the executor's committee members or any board member from the board. What I would say is that we- We cannot be here. I mean, that raises the procedural question, which is I think that tonight we can probably take a decision to move forward with this. We would probably ask on the 26th if they care of something for the boards to ratify that essentially as a. Who are running some time in each level? Are we running into a time in each level? Yeah, in terms of picking, you know, it sounds like sooner is better for everyone involved. I would suggest the sooner to start the conversations, the better. And I would suggest that in my opinion, Matthew had offered this last night and I thought about it over the 24 hours that there's a place where you want, there needs to be bigger input and bigger discussions, but to move things faster, move things forward more quickly to have a smaller group is gonna be a better way of doing that and trusting that to a group to go do that work. To gather the, it's not making decisions, but it's to gather the information. Well, I'm just, and my point is only that need it to only be someone from the Executive Committee or it can't be someone else to you. Like anyone in this room who is a board member who's here and has shown interest. Yeah, I mean, I'm open to any suggestions. I do think that the people in this room are up to speed on this already. So maybe have an advantage in terms of getting out of the gate quickly, but yeah. To go further, I'd be willing. You can. I'm willing. I don't have any particular bent to do it, but I like Stephen's thought that 32 is half a student body engineer over there. Scott, too, if you're interested. Okay. You've been in this fight, but that's not how much. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. Scott's a nice guy. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Sorry. I'm gonna give him a friend. No, I'm happy. Obviously, to be part of anything, any constructive conversations, and I would share the U32 board and with you as a representative of that executive committee, if you wanted to do it. I have full confidence in you as well, but if you thought it would be good to mix up and not have just two smart junior people, if that's an issue. Rock, paper, scissors. Yeah. Yeah. I'd be willing to entertain a motion to appoint two people, to engage in an exploratory conversation with the U32 board. Is there a problem with the rate? A problem with? Three people. And do you folks, the twin community being three? Well, no, we have no problems with numbers. Okay, then would we appoint Stephen, Card, and Scott to engage in exploratory conversations with the representatives from the Twin Field Board? Community. Is there a second? Second. Is there any discussion? Hearing none, all those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Opposed? Abstentions? Thank you. So yeah, thanks for being here. All right, thanks. We can set you free. Can I just get the three names so I have them? Scott, I know. Stephen Look, L-O-O-K-E. Kari, K-A-R-I, Bradley. Mark, you and I can email them together at list. Yeah. I know you have, what, two weeks to your next meeting. Yeah. I thought it would be a great, it's a possibility it may plus a little bit, it's not a good way to split a fine. Yeah. No, that goes. I do know how that goes. But Mark and I can put together some information back. It's probably pretty quick on budgets and demographics and things like that. Great. Justin, we are welcome to stay. You're also welcome to go. I think I saw a little book. I saw legal on there. Yeah. Thank you very much. Don't face it, cut it in your water just a minute. Thank you for coming. All right. Nice to meet you. Yeah, of course. All right. So we will move to 2.1.1 as it is on the agenda. And essentially the background of this, I'll just sort of give you my thinking of why I felt and built, I think also felt that we should be, we should call this meeting. And I'll invite Scott also to comment on this. It's the document is one that he drafted. So Scott, to his great credit, has been working on trying to imagine or think through, analyze maybe what would be possible ways of addressing what for lack of a better term, I'll call it the debt issue. If we were to be mandated to consolidate by the state board on their issues with plan. And this two page document that was shared around was the fruits of his labor. So there's a kind of legal argument in here about why it's appropriate for us to do this. And then there are four different options of what might be done. When I got this from Scott, I looked it over. I thought there's some interesting stuff in here but I'm not a lawyer. I felt completely unprepared to comment on sort of the legal aspects or ramifications of this or even evaluate it. So I thought we should probably engage our attorney to review it and kind of give us some thoughts. Bill had a conversation with our attorney. It quickly became apparent that we might need two attorneys given the particular specialties involved here. And that became apparent that the costs of engaging two attorneys to do hours of research and cross comparison and do a written sort of evaluation of this could get high pretty quickly and that's something that someone other than myself and Bill should be weighing in on. So the point of bringing it to the executive committee is to discuss, do we wanna pursue? Do we wanna engage attorneys to conduct a legal review and maybe give us even beyond what's in this document their opinion of kind of what the law says about debt consolidation and what is possible and what's not possible? And if we do wanna do that, then do we have a certain amount of money that we can willing to spend or do we wanna cap it at a certain level and these kinds of things? So that's the point of bringing it to the executive committee. I'd like to back us up just for one second. Same topic. I'm trying to understand exactly what our options are around articles of agreement because as I read through this stuff more, I'm less confident we can be proactive. So I don't know if either of you have any thoughts around that as I re-read everything a week ago and particularly on the state boards thoughts around who could change articles. It seemed to me those were the articles period and there was no opportunity to propose an alternative proactively. It could only be done after the fact and they were suggesting who could do that after the fact. Yes, since that's come out, there's a lot more delineation than there was in Act 49 about amending articles. I will tell you the first in depth read where I actually read every word was today. I just haven't had a chance to go through it with that and started to write off a timeline and like which articles could you do that in? That which ones could voters amend and they have a summary at the end of the document and there's some pieces that are 60 days and this I have not mapped out. I need to write it out myself to really fully comprehend it about what can be done through a transitional board to voters to do between 60 days and 90 days after the articles become approved by the state board and I don't have all that detail done yet, Steven. But that was part of what I was working on this afternoon for around an hour just trying to map that stuff out of which articles and there's not only, there's a time and there's a who can do it and which ones can even be done by voters or the school board. And there's a prior to 90 days and a after 90 days and after a year and I know that some of you in this room have read them a lot more than I have so I wouldn't say I'm tired. I guess that's what I'm trying to cage the ones that may have perhaps read them more. My reread and thinking through it is the articles they have listed are the articles that will in fact be imposed. And prior imposition, we have no input. Post imposition, it suggests there can be input and who should have the input? Should it be voters? Should it be board? Should it be that stuff? But I could see nothing in the language that said we could propose alternative articles prior to a forced merger that became forced. Everything was post merger and I couldn't be wrong. I mean, it's just my reading of it and we all know it's not the easiest stuff to go through. So my concern would be if we're gonna, it would be if we're expending money on lawyers to review something that none of us may be in a position to favor or not favor because it'll be in the hands of a transitional board. It won't be in our hands. Don't necessarily think it's a wasted or a bad decision. And just before I'm comfortable spending money, I would like to have an understanding of if it's proactive or reactive. Well, you know, that's an intro, it's like a cure you're setting on this. A possible strategy would be, too, with that transitional board. I don't know exactly how that's going to be created, but I'm assuming that's going to come out of the existence of... It's spelled out precisely. It's the chair and clerk of every existing board. So the question is, could we actually kind of informally come up with, you know, a basically an agreement that those members, we know who those people would be and that we actually do do the research now, but then there would be more or less a rubber stamp. And it would be a, you know, it would be a step, it would be depending on honor in that case because it would not be, they wouldn't be bound but essentially if we did the homework and we did it within the bounds of how that's defined in the law, then we'd be able to basically predetermine what those new board members are going to adopt. I don't know, it's just a thought there. You know, that's, they are us, right? I mean, it was essentially they are made from our board members. I guess my point is what I'd like everyone, encourage everyone to do. I mean, it's just my reading interpretation for everyone to closely reread and stuff around. And the articles that the state board has presented, it's all in the first couple paragraphs because I just took that we had two or three months to propose alternatives. And then when I read it in depth, I didn't see that. I didn't see that we have two or three months to propose alternatives. What I saw, what I saw, just me, was that these would be the articles. And then once they're imposed, these would be the way the articles could be amended. But it would have to be post-merger. So I don't see anything, stopping us from exploring this proposal and seeing what the legal ramifications are whether it can be done, can't be done through the different options. And if we're looking at a post-forced merger time frame, that sounds fairly short to begin with. I think not having this information at the outset of the beginning of that time frame would be problematic in terms of decision making. I think we can certainly get answers and you wouldn't buy any transitional or transitional board, but it could be advisory. And this is a hot burning topic for everyone involved. So I think having the answers to the extent that we can get from legal perspective at the House would be helpful. That's smart, because I think time is going to hit us if we wait until we won't have the time given those deadlines. Well, and I'll go ahead and do that. I'm a little bit, well, not confused, but I definitely got the idea earlier on that the state was going to put out these articles of agreement and that we would have 90 days or if we start now more than 90 days to, I got the idea we could write our own. So, but maybe I'm not going there whether that's right or wrong. And what I'm going at is then if their articles of agreement are what are the default articles and we can't change them since the debt, the transfer of property and debt of merged district is in those articles. If we're not going to be able to change them, I definitely want to know if I can use one of these, but I think we don't really know what we can do at this point. Maybe Bill does, maybe somebody does, but I have the feeling that we thought we were going to be, I remember being a board reader. It's where we thought, folks, you got to get your act together. You're going to have to work on these articles and the budget and do this and that. And now all of a sudden you're saying, no, we can't do anything. And I find that I just, I don't think that, I don't. My take is that you're all partially right that we will have these articles handed down to us and then we will have a period of time, I think it's 90 days, to amend certain ones. Certain ones. That'll be one of the jobs of the, I think it's one of the first jobs of the transitional board is to set a meeting date and decide what will be proposed. And that, it's 90 days, I think we have very little time to get ready for that. That's right. What I would suggest is that we do have some legal analysis of what our options are, specifically around what articles could be amended and then, specifically around the debt. And that we have that information for the next executive committee that we can. I agree both part of the. And we'll just get a sense of what type of legal expertise we need in terms of types of lawyers and what our anticipated potential costs may be. Well, that's, I talked to Scott Cameron about that. And Scott said, if you want a written opinion, he said he doesn't know how many statutes this is gonna have to cross reference into municipal law along with educational law. We talked about that he was thinking that he may need to work with someone like Paul Juliani who does the fiscal piece of it but there's the educational piece of that. And he said, I asked him what he thought for time. And he said, Bill, I don't know right now because I don't know what I'm gonna infer and how deep he wants us to go. And he said, what do you think? And I said, well, I would think that ranges with different board members on how deep and how exhausted. And that's when I came back to Matthew and said, I think you should have a conversation with the executive board about the dollar limit because it's $250 an hour for all the different attorneys we use that's our retainer, that's our billable piece depending on which of the four attorneys we use. But that's what we have for the agreements. Can we kind of stage into this, Chris, and you've got ideas. Obviously, I mean, we could get into a real rabbit hole here but it's our way we can engage them at that superficial level and then develop that understanding of the deeper we go. I mean, I'm guessing that this would be really hard to, there's gotta be a lot of law around this that's gonna be referencing. So, I mean, I- There's probably not much law around this. Is there a strap? No. It's an animal. And I think there are. It's a lot. It's an animal and it's kind of like 146 and it's probably even the death. Scott, did you give me opinion? Yeah. But it was a leak, it was a thought opinion that if you liked that, you didn't give it to me and write it, you gave it to me verbally over the phone and I'd be glad to tell you it's legal opinion and you'd have to decide if there's a board if you want me to do that in the executive session. And I'm not trying to do it that way, I just wanna know where you go before I tell you what he said. Sure. You know, why his thoughts were about it. Well, regardless of how it's been, I think it's prudent for us to set up a legal fund with some kind of parameter, some kind of boundary or, but to set it up and to allocate some funds because regardless of how it's been, I think we need to have funds available to ask lawyers questions. And maybe it's more initially not a deep dive, but what are the thoughts on this or what are the thoughts on that? Or as we head into this process, we would like you to look at what the state board has said and make sure we're understanding the interpretations that kind of stuff. Could be used anyway, but I think it would be prudent to set up a fund so that it's available. So let me come back to that in a second, but I wanna, well, I'm sorry, go ahead. I just thought our question is, to Rick's talking about the rabbit hole, I can't imagine that we're the only set of school districts that are wrestling with this issue. And has no one else looked into this already that some of the legwork might have already been done, that we can somehow access or perhaps share the costs beyond our walls, our towns, if there are other schools that might be also looking, this would be helpful. Just a thought. I just wanna give Scott a chance to speak to this because he brought it forward. So I wanted to, thanks. And answering your question, Chris and you, Brian, if there were such a place, I would love to get to know it because the whole thing has felt kind of lonely all this time. There are very definitely other districts that are wrestling with debt issues, but I guess they haven't been going down those rabbit holes as much as we have. And thank you, Matthew. The reason why I sort of did this, this paper is just to have something, having in mind the very tight timelines. I wasn't thinking so much about the legal aspects of it. For me, it was mostly just sketching out how we could address the debt issue if we had to. None of these solutions is very good, very satisfactory. They're all very messy and cumbersome. And that is in fact, one of the reasons why we did that section nine alternative proposal. However, all of those four, in my view, are better than the default articles. So my thought in drawing this up was basically because for what you were mentioning though, it crosses boundaries from education to municipal law as well as from education governance to municipal governance. So since each one of these options involves the town, then there should be consultations with the town if they're gonna be affected by this. And those, given that the tightness of the timelines, I was thinking those consultations could perhaps begin, even in the absence of no legal opinion saying which option is okay, which maybe is not okay. It may be possible through the consultation process to quickly narrow down what the town can live with and what it's just not acceptable so that we wouldn't have to get opinions on all of the options, but just on those which seem to be at least somewhat acceptable. I don't know if that would make things more efficient, but it's part of an education that I think I know I study and I imagine that other boards, both school boards and select boards will do as well in trying to just grasp what the implications are. Yeah, I mean I would like to say a couple of things. And I think we're talking about a kind of nested bunch of issues all at once. I don't know to what extent folks have had the opportunity to review the entirety of what the agency at education has said were the least. It includes the default articles, commentary, a whole timeline of what's supposed to unfold when. It's a beast and it really, this is a tiny thing is like having a, if they mandate a merger, we're supposed to have a new union district wide public meeting in which all voters would be invited, it's warned. They would come, transitional board members would be sworn in. There's a whole laundry list of like decisions that the public is supposed to vote on from the floor about sort of how things are supposed to proceed and what's gonna happen. Then there's a choice to some extent about whether we wanna schedule a second then union district wide public meeting in which voters could choose to vote to amend the articles that are amendable per sort of what the state board is saying. Meanwhile, you've got this transitional board coming online, you've got a budget having to get worked up by the spring, it's nuts. And so there's both the just sort of purely practical and logistical kind of aspects of having to wrap our collective minds around that and has discussions about how will we prepare for that. And then there's a question of also I think, I think there are differences of opinion about to what extent or to what lengths we might go to resist some of this or try to change it, what kind of costs we're willing to incur in order to try to change or resist some of it. And that's a conversation quite honestly we have not yet had as boards and one that we have to have very, very soon. So that's a much broader sort of constellation of things than just the debt issue. And I would suggest that we really need to, we can't really get into that conversation tonight, but I would suggest that we at the very least need to get into that conversation of our next executive committee meeting in two weeks and that we will need to get into that conversation at the carousel meeting on the 26th. It will form I think a substantial part of the agenda that evening. And with that in mind, I would really encourage strongly everyone to read those documents as mind-numbing as they are to look at because there's just incredible information in there. I think Alan Gilbert on our board called it breathtaking, he was really kind of shocked by the speed and scope of which things are supposed to unfold. Is the intent to just, it's almost like a shock and awe where you just don't have time to do anything where it, it tends to mean like that is written, maybe what we should do is refuse to do it. Well again, so I want to have that conversation tonight. I hear you where you're coming from, but I think if we start down, that's the radical to me is that we start talking about that will be here until two o'clock in the morning. No I get it. But the, I don't know. I mean it's, maybe it's probably a shock and awe thing, but I think you could also read it as someone working backward from the dates that are in the law about when the union districts are supposed to be operational, July 1st next year. If you work backward from there and all the things that have to happen are for that to be the case with the state board's plan coming on November 30th, you know, someone kind of drew up this game. But you know, there is, in this process, there's been modification, or supposed modification, discussion all along the way. And I can't, you know, this rigidity is kind of odd to me because we haven't even hand articles, we haven't had a lot of misinformation until the 11th hour, you know. And to me, this is a strategy that we've seen since the beginning, you know, forcing us into this world and not really giving time to be able to put thought and effort into this. I mean, this is not the mark of people that know what they're doing in terms of logistically making this kind of change. Unless it's done with intent, I don't mean to stop here anyway, but, I mean, I fairly, I mean, watching this process, I mean, it's been done with some thought and effort. And this really bothers me, you know, I don't know where this is coming from. When everyone, even in this room, and I'm sure all the municipal municipalities around the state, or many of them, are, you know, we're really uncomfortable with this. And now, you know, we're still being in front of, I mean, every single bit of input that we seem to be put in, seems to be peeled away and peeled away. But, and to me, this is more like a Nazi approach. I mean, honestly, this is not democracy. These are our communities, these are our schools. This really bothers me that we're even being forced into this. You know, I think we need to put as much work as we can into figuring out what we have to do here with these articles, but it's sounding like we're putting a lot of work in, and it may be for nothing. We are we going to still be forced into that same, you know, still right toward the bolt-on, you know, and that should, and I really, you know, the more I see this, the more it really makes me angry. And we say no, we just say, no, we're not doing this. Take support, come and take our schools. Maybe that's where we go. Sorry, I hear you. I do. And I, I, I, I'm sorry, yeah. No, you go ahead, Matt, and finish that. And I would like to say something. I would like to have that conversation, but we have 12 minutes left in this meeting, and I really do have for personal reasons to go, hopefully at the scheduled end of it. But I just want to note that, that there is a very large conversation, many large conversations to be had, and we have to, and again, I'm suggesting that we queue them up that way, as I've suggested. We also need to have a conversation, I think, about whether we may need to have a more frequent, you know, meeting schedule, or a different kind of meeting schedule this fall as an executive committee, where, you know, we're meeting every two weeks, maybe we're scheduling three-hour meetings, because it just seems to me like there's a ton of stuff we really can be talking about. So. I just want to, one comment. Act 49 was written that was not, was to make people in section seven for it, we proposed it not be as strict, any stricter than the preferred models, and this to me is stricter, but never mind that conversation. I think the most important thing for our district, because that's what we worked on so much, our biggest complaint was the debt issue. So for me, either hiring somebody or getting a verbal opinion from the legal people regarding these four options, to me, something about that is the most important thing right now, then having more meetings is good, but I think that's where we need to start, because if we can fix anything, that's the one we need to. I agree with that completely. I just have a suggestion on going to the lawyer, that we have a letter from Paul Giuliani from back on February 28, 2017, we asked him this question, so we could start with that letter, and he had given us an option and asked specifically the new lawyer, if it's not Paul, but I suggest that we start with Paul, if we could use, he had said that in Title 16, in section 723, there's a small piece that said if something is agreed before, you could, within the districts, before the districts is to exist, that's the part that Marty, I don't know if you guys, Marty and I have been working on for a little bit, so if we could just start with that letter, I don't want to spend, personally, I feel like we have, I don't want to go in a rabbit hole. I think we gotta use the result, we spent three and a half years looking at Act 46, and there's a lot of stuff that we forget that we had looked at, so let's try to use the stuff that we have, have him look at the options, which my only problem with the options that they are right now is that they haven't been shared with the boards and that there's more numbers that need to be done for those, in my mind, for those options to be realistic. So I think it's a good place to start, but my only suggestion is like, could we just stick with Paul, maybe say it's a couple of hours, and then if there's an opening, then we do more, but that's good. I think we have a lot of resources in there already that we could take back out that we're not specific to those options, but it's trying to do something with the debt. I think that there's agreement within all of the districts that we wanna do something different that, it's not good or something, I feel like it's giving you all the debt, but the options are not favorable for either, right? So we have to figure out a way to make that work, if by any chance, and in 723, I'm not gonna read the whole thing, there's a little piece that keeps an opening to maybe have some conversations. That's part of this. Yeah, I don't know if you remember, Floor, but Paul said, yeah, the law allows it. This is why I refer to it as a head fake at this state board meeting, because it makes it look as though you can do it, but then when you try to do it, you can't. Well, because there's no exception, because we cease to exist, so what I'm trying to say is like, let's try to just give it to the lawyer, like explore the options and not spend too much time in this, because there's so many other things that we wanna make sure, we don't wanna lose all our time in this, because there's a lot of articles of agreement and we wanna be proactive, because we have very limited time. So I have a suggestion as a way to kind of tie this up and move forward. So again, I think this much larger conversation, critical though it is, is one we can't have this evening, but I agree with what Dorothy said. I think that on the debt issue, we've all discussed this enough and it's featured prominently enough in our AGS proposal, we've all adopted, and I think we all feel some level of discomfort on it, wherever we may stand on the larger issues. So it seems to me like it's probably worth asking an attorney some key questions. I think one of them is, and the default article that addresses the consolidation of assets and liabilities is article five, and article five cannot be amended by the board or by voters. So the first question is, do we have any legal argument for contesting that stipulation of if a state board is putting in? Is there any sort of legal grounds for us to say, well, that's not consistent with the law and actually we should have the ability to do something different there. That's the first question. And I think the second question is around, I think broadly speaking, if a transfer of property between a school district and a town could reasonably feature in some kind of way of dealing with assets and liabilities as they are transferred. There may be a third question about tax rates, which maybe is down the line. It also strikes me that because the debt issue is one that we have all expressed our collective concern of, to your point, Stephen, it's valuable for us to have a considered legal opinion about what even is possible for us to do about that issue or not in any eventuality, just to address your sort of concern about, are we doing something that I'm tilting it one goal, I think, a little bit, is how I would describe it. So that would be my suggestion and I think some modest amount of money, like, you know, in the three to $5,000 range to authorize, you know, for attorneys to get started on thinking about that stuff and maybe even hopefully, you know, who knows if they'll have anything for us to consider in two weeks or if it's gonna take longer than that, so I'd make a motion if it's a good point to do that. I was gonna say 10. I think 10 is a better. $10,000 at $250 an hour is 40 hours. I do wanna say a little bit of, you know, make the motion as you want, but you were just talking about a legal fund, you know, to deal with a whole host of issues, not just this one and we've already spent money on our 706B committee and so again, there's a larger question here about sort of what ultimate ceiling and money are we willing to spend on all this different stuff. That's why I don't live in the area about sort of jumping out of the game, but that's all I wanted to say. Remember that we've gotta live with this, so this is a place, if we don't get this right, we're screwed, so. Yeah, we're gonna spend a lot more on this. Right, yeah, we're gonna spend a lot more on this. Let me finish my motion. So it was to set a ceiling at $10,000 for legal work and I like the framing of your first two questions around what legal options may exist around this article. I'm not, I'm just trying to frame it. And then the second one, and I won't even attempt to use the same language, but I like those two questions as a starting point, so there would be a pool of money set aside with the understanding that the immediate concern is debt and starting with an opinion on what legal options can be recommended around that. And then again, whatever your second question was, your two questions seem like very good question to folks. The second question was about whether an exchange of assets between a town and a school district could feature in some theoretical mechanism. Is an agreement more or less an internal agreement? Wouldn't we just focus on these options for him to explore? Well, I think that's what Maddie's question does. Does that cover town, school? I certainly would encourage the attorneys to look at this, but I would ask them to go where their training and their sort of judgment would take them. We have to at least look at these and then go beyond with that, the debt, say, not everything else. And I would suggest that, because you raised article five Matthew, that we have any legal opinion that is done not be stopped by it, say, because ultimately we may be talking about a political situation in terms of making proposals to the state board, and if we don't get a legal opinion that goes beyond article five about what the tentative debt sharing options are, I think we'll be in a better situation if we do that. So, rather than just say, oh no, can't do anything about the debt because article five, you say, okay, what can we do, put article five aside, what makes sense in understats options, because then we just will have information and it turns out that we can't do anything because of article five, we'll know that. In terms of the... I'm sorry, because there's a motion, I just wanna see if we have the wording of the motion before you. All I have is that Stephen looked moved to set a ceiling of $10,000 for legal work to begin with asking, number one, what legal options may exist around article five, and number two, whether some exchange of assets between a town and school district as possible with the understanding that the immediate issue is debt. That's quite a motion. I think it's a very long list. Just para, like the money, because the money is clear and you can talk about what questions this may subsequent me. So, would there be... I would take a friendly motion just to make a, my motion would be to set a $10,000 ceiling for legal work around act 46. Exactly. Okay, and there's a second. So, discussion. Any opinion that we get, we should be in writing because when you require a lawyer to put it into writing, they put in their rationale and verbal opinions can get mucked up and lost and you don't know, it may not get to the why that opinion is there, just that's my opinion. So, I would supposedly make sure we have any opinion in writing, even if it's more expensive because it confuses something, okay, and hold. In your hand. Next we might fill a lawyer night. I'm agreeing with you too. Yeah. Yes, go ahead. And just to follow on that, if it can include actual language, implementation language that would be, that would go in the article, because that's what has always tripped us up in the past when people say, oh sure, you can solve your debt issue. Just, okay, show me how, great, I just want to see it. And they've never been able to actually show language that doesn't. So, I would be very happy and I think insisting that there'd be something, they have something to show and I just sort of opining. Theoretical possibility. Yeah. That's one of my concerns about. I like following, I would be going back to Paula to ask if that's frankly one of my concerns about. What? Yeah. Can I make a point of clarification here? There's a motion on the table that specifically does not address specifics. It's just a one. And because my impression was no one wanted to talk specifics at this time. So I would like us to vote on the motion and then when we come together at our next meeting, then we'll begin to refine what the specifics were. If I understand you correctly, what you're saying then is that we would be asking Bill to wait to spend any of that money or engage the services of attorneys on these questions until we meet again. I was trying to suggest what the questions might be. And can I get pushback? On the border, we did have a motion in a second, just about the 10,000. We never had a vote on it. We really didn't discuss that. I would like to have a vote on that. And then if we want to go beyond that, we have to do that. Okay. So there is a call for a vote on the motion that's on the table. The motion is, Lisa, could you read it back once again for my sake? To set a ceiling of $10,000 for legal work around Act 46. And do you want to specify it to the debt or on that order to try? I'm going to say that's the motion. Okay, so that's fine. I just want to, that's it. Okay, is there any further discussion, excuse me? Yeah, I don't think that goes far enough. I don't think we want to wait two weeks to ask the question. The question is, do we have any legal options with regard to debt? So we got a yes or no to that and that would answer, that would set us on our next step in this journey. Well, wouldn't we want to say specifically what legal options? I mean, that you don't want to just, you know, I would like to know. The answer is yes, I'd like to know. Specifically. Conceptually, and then I'd like to know specifically, but I don't want to wait two weeks. I think as a point of order, you have to move to amend the motion. Okay, well, I will move to amend, friendly amendment to ask the lawyer to let us assess whether we have legal options with regard to debt. And if we do, some indication of what they are. In an amount not to exceed. $10,000. The person making the motion, I would accept that friendly amendment. As the person is setting it. Is there any further discussion about that amendment, or about the motion? Yes, friendly amendment to the friendly amendment to incorporate Scott's work as a consideration for the attorneys to look at. So it's not just a blank, because we've already discussed it as a blank. So I would move that as part of the attorney's consideration, they take into account Scott's two-page document, detailing the potential options. Could I ask if it would be possible, rather than including that in the motion language, that we just directly see if we continue to. That's fine, that's fine with me too. I got the direction. Okay. Is that why we just keep the motion a little bit more? You can grow up at the door. Is there any further discussion? Does anyone need the motion to run back again, so that we know everyone's comfortable? Okay, all those in favor of the motion, please say aye. Aye. Opposed? Abstentions? Motion carries. I guess I should have asked, actually, before doing that, Bill, to what extent the budget will bear, thank you so much. The budget will not bear, but the general fund will. Okay. So you're telling me, I am taking, I am interpreting as to use fund balance towards that. Right. Work. So we are six minutes over, and I really want to be respectful of everyone's time, including them. So Kari, would you be, is there anything really urgent that you wanted to bring about communication, something that we needed to get out right away, or do you feel like- I think we have, I feel our responsibility to communicate something to the public, either as a result of tonight's meeting or our next one. Actually, I think the next one would be fun. I'll just mention that the Doty Board actually decided to communicate something out to Worcester about sort of what's going on. I don't know sort of where, you know, rightly the communication responsibility falls or maybe it falls on all the boards, I don't know. But that maybe there is an event feel quite as- Well, we just decided to engage exploration with Twinfield. I assume it's going to be in the local media soon. Yeah. Right. It's a fair example. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So I'd rather they hear it from us, I guess, so. Yeah. It doesn't mean it's in any- I mean, it's right here. So I'm gonna give you some, just- Well, maybe not from us first, but- Well, I can communicate something out, you know, via from porch forums or wherever. So if you get it to me, I'll put it out. Yeah, just a brief statement saying about opening the conversation with Twinfield, certainly I could also just note that the State Board has issued its draft Articles of Agreement that we're grappling with. And we're on it. Yeah, we're on it. Or it's on us. I think grappling with it is a good term. Yeah. So our next meeting will be on the 19th. I may, if no one objects, plan for it to be a slightly longer meeting. I'll look forward to seeing you then. And there are no other matters than work adjourned at 6.53. Thank you.