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[Music] good evening Wakefield and welcome to the town council meeting for Monday June 10th 24 um I’m Vice chair Ed D Browski sitting in this evening for chairman Michael mlan who cannot be here for personal reasons tonight um I’ll call this meeting to order at 7M and I ask everyone to rise for the Pledge of Allegiance I ALG to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands one nation under God indivisible with liy and justice for all thank you everyone for that I see that we have in attendance the other six counselors again councelor mlan not able to be here this evening uh with that we’ll move on to public engagement which is item number four of the agenda I believe uh Mr Mayo we have two in studio um individuals correct yes we do yes correct and uh the first um I’ll call up will be Mr John Chrisley just a reminder for everyone in studio and those watching at home public engagement is limited to uh 3 minutes in duration uh generally there’s not back and forth but instead this is an opportunity for you to present to the council to give some thought to your comments um and any further followup we can have it at a later meeting so with that if you could identify yourself with your name and address please good evening um John Chrisley I live at 19 Humphrey Street um I’m a member of the Safe Streets Wakefield group here in town and on the agenda tonight I know you’re going to be discussing some of the design elements for North a um and I’ve presented it at previous meetings I just wanted to emphasize a couple of key Design Elements uh first want to thank the town for getting uh the construction is underway on North a the new wider sidewalk is I think is already showing progress you see more people out there walking uh a lot more engagement you know on the on the road uh and so the wider sidewalk is I think showing some real showing some success early on um and I want to speak particularly about the uh the Northbound bike lane and the flex posts um I think I would strongly encourage the the council to you know reaffirm the addition of the uh the protected bike lane which are the flexible posts uh that are slated to be removable by the public works department uh the flex posts are are a form of protection um they provide vertical delineation for both drivers um and for cyclists about where they should be be riding um and they’re also deterrent to uh motor vehicle operators who may be texting on their phone um or otherwise uh engaging in distracted driving uh we’d rather have the the edge of the cars hit the uh the flexible posts than uh a person on a bike um I think that’s primarily their key their key benefit um and I think with those additions it’ll be a great uh a great component of the whole Road redesign for north hav um so I just wanted to encourage the the council to uh adopt that part of the the design that bill Renault has worked so hard on thank you for your time thank you very much Mr chrisy I appreciate it um next in studio I believe we have Mr Ted dueling so again if you could just identify yourself and your address thank you yeah uh Ted dueling also officially George dueling I go by Ted 11 muri La um yeah U I also want to concur that the improvements are fantastic on North a it’s just it’s a pleasure and breath of fresh air to see and timing myself um I’m in favor of the uh what I call removable Flex post as well so I just came from a course and driver retraining I teach for the national Safety Council and um our class is full of repeat offenders uh Speeders um people that are impaired Lane violators on and on uh every class is full we talk about something called int intentional blindness and that’s when a driver is either on a cell phone handsfree or holding the phone and what the studies say is 40% what’s in front of them they don’t see when they’re on the phone scientific studies so one of the things they don’t see are small things like cyclists they have this tunnel vision where they seiz things ahead but they’re focusing on the phone call uh there’s a lot of distracted drivers out there so I’m here to speak for the the young families uh that will be riding in those bike lanes and they’re going to have complete faith in the safety of them they feel the way you put in place if it’s there it’s safe to be used and without those um removable Flex posts I don’t consider it safe I’d be reluctant because there’s too many spots where a driver heading north would want to turn left and a car behind him might not be patient enough to wait and might sneak onto that space where the cyclist is if they’re distracted they may not look in the rearview mirror and see the cyclist coming along it’s also beneficial for the drivers because it’ll keep the cyclist that might want to pass another cyclist from crossing over into the street which is a common thing um you know cyclist um break rules too and this is a nice safety barrier I I can’t imagine going without it when you have the opportunity to put it in there and it will get used it’ll get used a lot probably right from the GetGo because it’s such a great asset to have and again I think people are are just fully trusting in the system you put in place and without those Flex posts I don’t think it’s safe enough I I see the people that come in my class and I hear the stories every day and and they’re just horrific um you have an opportunity to make it safe and prevent something bad from happening if they don’t go in there I think it’s inevitable that at some point it car is going to cross into a cyclist lane or cyclist is going to cross into where a car is and it may be a frequent occurrence this gives you an opportunity to reduce that possibility it won’t eliminate it but it’ll certainly make it considerably safer for all the people that are going to go out and use it so uh again it well done I’m really impressed with it and thank you for your time thank you so much Mr duing for your for your comments appreciate it you are perfect you and and good evening Madam clerk um online do we have anyone uh online this evening for public engagements no the only other one um is the one from Vincent vessa who sent in uh a public participation form but didn’t want to speak okay and I have that here so I’ll just read it aloud for my my colleagues and for the public this was from um Vincent Dessa of 37 Green Street and he writes I’m concerned about what will be the apparent width of the new bicycle lane on North Avenue it appears that it will be too restrictive this is even before the installation of the flex barrier much narrower than the prior marked Lane I would like to hear further discussion about this during the June 10th meeting right so with that it seems we’ve covered public engagement for this evening so we’ll move next on to item number five which is um our presentation portion of the meeting and our first presentation is the youth Council update uh and I would invite up uh chair um Ali atoui and um Mr Collins the adviser to the youth Council and and good evening gentlemen thank you for being here I know you have a PowerPoint presentation so um once you’re set up um you’ll be good to go all right thank you and for those watching the youth Council was created um within the last couple years and it’s an it this is an opportunity for for the community to understand all the various projects and initiatives that the youth Council has been working on um over the course of the last year we also have it on the screen here as well for you if it’s helpful that way uh thank you um good evening everyone um so yes so I am the chair Ali atwi and um this is Mr Collins who is serving as our Civic engagement mement adviser to the youth Council and I’m very excited to present to you all um kind of what we’ve been doing over the P this past term we’ve had a very um busy term and I’m very uh proud to say of all the proud to tell all the um interesting work that we’ve been able to accomplish so we move to the next slide oh oh we have the clicker thank you um all right so to introduce um just to um to just to give an overview of what the youth council is for those that may not be familiar so we’re an organization of weak field youth aged uh 13 to 18 that work to empower youth voices in the town uh through the promotion of various initiatives as well as advancing certain policy through uh local government with this platform and our members learned the process to effectively Advocate involve themselves in town issues Implement different projects that benefit the general uh youth population of the town uh as well as other different um components that we um try to pursue uh and during this term we consisted of 11 voting High School members and three voting Middle School members as well as one non- voting alternate um as for our adult advisers uh Katherine Dinger served as our adult adviser for the majority of this term before departing uh last month and Mr Collins served um as our new um Civic engagement uh adviser so uh as for our organization action just a general overview of that uh to manage our different initiatives and policy goals uh we break the youth Council down into different subgroups um the primary one is the communications and Outreach subcommittee which handles all our messaging and public Outreach through our Instagram and Facebook pages as well as the facilitation of certain uh initiative discussions um we’ve also worked to create different working groups to focus on different um components as we did for the grant project we created our finance working group to to handle the grant project as well as the potential budget that we um that we were able to um execute with that um and just furthermore we uh assign lisons for all of our members um and this is a key point of collaboration and facilitation of discussion um between the youth Council and other boards commissions and organizations and just to to highlight some key ones uh that we’ve that have been especially relevant uh as we’ve worked um the school committee BB Library Council on Aging Safe Streets uh Human Rights Commission um as well as many other uh boards in addition to the Town Council um and this is just uh a photo of us at our kickoff meeting back in September so very nice to see the engagement that this drives forward for our youth uh into town so now I’m going to get into some of the specific initiatives that we’ve been able to accomplish over this past term so one of the foremost of these initiatives was the intergenerational tree project which was spearheaded by uh Vanessa Westlake who uh chaired the uh who chaired the finance uh working group um so she worked uh to write a Massachusetts cultural Council Grant to receive the funding for this project um and so the general uh basis of this project was to create a multigenerational art project that was designed to bring senior citizens as well as the youth Community together to create um a mural and to be that to be displayed in public spaces throughout Wakefield following a dialogue that just to to benefit the connection between the youth and senior community of Wakefield and once approved this project um was held at the senior center on April 3rd and was promoted through our Network um so for the outcome of this event we saw a turnout of over UH 60 Youth and seniors of Wakefield um showing that uh the success that it was able to gather from the community uh the art created during the event allowed the community uh to engage in dialogue and connect the different Generations which was the goal of this event as a whole um and so the final art project is currently being worked on by a wmhs art student using the leaves decorated during the event hence the name the the tree project um and once complete the final tree will travel around different uh public spaces in Wakefield um right now uh that is still in uh is still in the works and we are hoping to hopefully have it at the BB Library once it’s completed so now um this was a much larger um initiative that we were able to uh that we’re still pursuing actually uh which was school culture and support so we first started this this discussion based on the results of the youth risk behavior survey um in which we were we kind of saw numerous concerning statistics that we largely connected to to school culture in a in a wider sense I know that the term kind of has a loose definition so it really does connect to a a wide array of different um of to different facets of our school Community um and then we had an extended discussion which I found very powerful very insightful into the the personal and um the personal outcomes that different students have uh dealt with uh in the school Community kind of their different experiences uh detailing the essential role that school culture has played and many issues ranging from bullying to depression to General School engagement as well as how we might be able to take action uh on it uh as the youth Council and so what this led to was we kind of split it into two separate components so the first component was the Galvin Middle School action that we took so Mr Collins uh primarily took this on took the lead in formulating a survey based on our discussion and additional guidance from the youth Council and the Galvin uh positive School culture team that he works a part of and this survey garnered much response and its results were included in professional development that was led by Mr Collins and its results truly demonstrated the need for more consideration for school culture so I did include some statistics um from the survey that I can talk a little bit more about um but before I do Mr Collins would you like to say anything uh on the the survey as a or anything with the galin school culture yeah I think for me it was just really powerful hearing um all of the youth voices and kind of the their um need for certain supports and certain things and I think just being at the G Min school for six years I think myself and all my colleagues definitely want to do um you know all of the things we can do to support the youth but sometimes we don’t um know what to do or the right thing to do or what youth really need so I think in my role as um serving as the adviser for youth Council but but also connecting that back um to the schools it was really beneficial to kind of amplify some of the voices and and incorporate that into some of the professional development um that we did this year and I was able to have a a small little panel of Youth um to kind of bring in some of those voices and kind of um what I perceive to be the most valuable for staff to hear because that’s ultimately what we’re there for yeah and it was really interesting hearing that teacher perspective as well because often times we focus on school culture as focusing on the students But the teacher play a very uh instrumental role in that and seeing how they can Advocate better for their students and that was uh a major takeaway from this and kind of like specifically talking about the survey um some things that we were able to point out was that were that uh students a lot of the time worry about grades and that interferes with their enjoyment of school um that behavioral issues were noted by many students and it was actually interesting to see students advocating for more uh more strict engagement of of rules I thought that that was an interesting takeaway from that but at the same time they want to be more involved in the ru making process to show to to sort of shape it in a way that’s more effective to to actually changing the rules to make them more widely accepted um over 70% of the students uh stated that they lacked this decision-making process um as well as there was a sizable minority of students roughly 30 to 40% of students that consistently and the various questions that that we provided with them who stated that they do not that they do not feel respected by other students that they um often times see students made fun of and at the same time do not necessarily feel compelled to stop bullying when they see it due to the various social pressures that are uh associated with that um and another thing that was really interesting to see was and this was more in the open response section of the survey was the um transformation of bullying as a whole changing it from the way that we’re often taught to address bullying kind of like the the physical part of it and even like the very uh visible verbal part of it but right now we’ve we’re we’ve been seeing it turn into more implicit more subtle um ways that that can still make a very painful impact on students but are less perceptible to teachers and administration so that was really interesting um but also we were able to find positives as well like many students still see uh teachers as beneficial resources when they’re upset breaking rules or are being bullied at the same time so those still the role of teachers cannot be understated in the school community so that was definitely beneficial to see and for the other part of this school culture was the the action that we’re taking at the wmhs so myself and Katherine we first met with uh the school adjustment counselors to better understand the school support system at the high school and we coupled this with the previous youth Council discussion and we saw a lot of areas for increased awareness primarily through the the the tiered system that exists at the high school which uh many of us did not previously know about talking about how guidance counselors are the initiating point for a lot of support discussions but many students and this was Amplified during our discussion as well many students do not feel feel necessarily that they have uh a connection with their guidance counselors or they may feel intimidated to actually uh initiate that connection with their guidance counselors so from there we had a discussion with the guidance director uh David Robinson and a plan is currently in motion to increase student awareness and accessing the various facets of the school support system especially starting with the guidance counselors because once the guidance once a meeting with the guidance counselors can occur we see the wide breath of the school support resources being being able to be uh accessed by the by the youth and so right now we are working on making an infographic and uh executing an awareness campaign for the start of the school year beginning with the nth grade orientation and then making a video to Showcase all of this and make the guidance counselors appear more accessible primarily from the student standpoint um showcasing that so that way students uh more feel feel more comfortable uh accessing that which altogether promotes a more positive School culture and following that uh we engaged with the Civic action projects which uh I’m sure many of you have received emails from various students um talking about this um so the Civic action projects are these government mandated projects completed by both eth and 11th grade students to increase youth-driven Civic changes however we at the beginning of this term we pointed out the problem that many students run into that they don’t necessarily have the resources to see these issues even when they’re passionate about them to come to fruition uh due to the obstacles that they might face uh therefore the youth Council through this in this term uh has been serving as a resource uh to bridge uh The Divide between students and actual um action and assist individual students with making their civic action projects more likely to be implemented and so at our last meeting uh seeing this actually being realized uh we are working with uh a student who reached out to us talking about making uh School sports at the wmhs more affordable and we had a long discussion about how kind of um just because athletic fees might be um less expensive and even though a often times they are very expensive for families that are are unable to afford them um the associated cost of participating in school sports might uh prove too big an obstacle for some students to to support without their um without a financial burden for their family so that’s kind of seeing the the Civic action projects um being aided by the youth Council uh another thing that we focused on was financial literacy which I know has been uh a major Focus for many individuals in the community so after a discussion initiated by a separate project of Amed aan the youth Council uh did discuss the merits of financial literacy and how it affects us as young members of society who will assume who will Who will soon assume uh much more influence over our own Financial statuses talking about different things like uh student loan debt um different uh things talking about credit cards how to how to um do your taxes and different things that make us and we believe that with a financial literacy course and we discussed this thoroughly that through such course we would be able to serve as more uh educated and well equipped and secure individuals uh of society um to protect ourselves and truly uh create the best future for ourselves uh financially um with the best resources that we have um and we voted in favor of recommending uh adding this financial literacy course to the state curriculum as it would be beneficial to Wakefield students and students across M Massachusetts and I drafted and sent a letter to senator Jason Lewis the chairperson of the joint committee on education um to advance this cause so um this was uh the open mic night was another event that we uh successfully pursued um which uh Sophia panetti initiated this project uh through her liaison to the recreation department um and I worked with her to execute it um we did this to both highlight the albon cultural exchange um which is a great location um to provide a fun experience for attendees um we also set up a hot chocolate bar which was uh very uh fun to see um we had a lot of performers come and it was generally a great opportunity for Community engagement which was definitely a highlight from this term um as well as the farmers market bike ballet that we were able to pursue this past summer um led by Safe Streets working group leis on uh Juliana Spalding in which the bike ballet was set up at the farmers market every Saturday the ballet was consistently staffed by both uh members of the youth Council uh uh youth action team members of Safe Streets and and other members of the community which was definitely great to see as it was widely used by a lot of um community members um as it as it provided a safe method um to to to safely store their method of transportation while they enjoyed the farmers market and we’re currently looking at different uh options to reimplement this during the summer so that’s definitely something to look forward to and Beyond Wakefield this was one of one of the more interesting parts that we’ve been able to do during this term um This was um very interesting because we were actually able to engage with other towns to um sort of assist them in their own youth Council Endeavors we met with actually we met with mden Massachusetts um with their uh youth uh Civic engagement um Council there uh to discuss they they wanted our input on how we have been able to function as the youth Council um and discuss our strategies as a youth government organization impacting local government because they were at the time looking to emulate the youth Council in order to implement um their own youth counc in molden on the on the basis of the youth Council and we assisted them through Insight various through various points of insight such as our leaon roles how we engage with the two different town boards and how we kind of ACC and how we organize our initiatives and policy goals so that was definitely interesting to see we also worked with we also had a meeting I mean um with a uh youth group in Wakefield England actually um to cooperate with them talking about transatlantic cooperation which was definitely very interesting opportun for a lot of our members to see that um so definitely great to consider um and just to highlight some other youth Council initiatives um the snow angel shoveling program return this year for the third winter um despite minimal snow uh this winter it was still a success we definitely did have some some snowier days um uh Nathaniel chines uh who was another youth council member led a project to bring back recycling Club at the galv and and increased recycling Methods at the school as well uh which was great to see that uh engagement with youth uh with youth Council liaison uh youth council member annab Beth gorl has been involved with the BB library and gaining data about Library usage and program benefits was great which was also great to see and we have continuously worked with the Wakefield Human Rights Commission to volunteer at many of their events and promote their information as well so with that um do any of you have any questions that we could answer so I I’ll just remind everyone that um if you could just wait to be recognized if you have a a comment or a question uh for the Youth Council we can just stick with one at a time so if anyone has any feedback first off um thank you so much for the presentation thank you for all the work you’ve you in the council have done and um thank you also uh Mr Collins for what you’ve been able to to do as well and and Miss dingra obviously before as well for her work I’ll open up to any comments or questions if anyone has councilor shines thank you thank you so much for the update and um I will say as someone who was uh the town council’s liais on to the youth Council for a couple of years and have seen you know Ali and and other members of the youth Council really sort of grow up through the youth Council it’s um I you know one of the things that I I really uh I think distinguishes us as a community is the fact that we have such a strong and vibrant youth Council and and every time I see your meetings I’m always just inspired by the level of discussion the level of Engagement and uh just the amazing creativity that goes into some of these projects the intergenerational tree one is a great example where um you know it’s one part part of this this work that you’ve done to kind of engage with different parts of the community in a really positive and thoughtful way and I I just am so excited to see it happen I’m also excited about the fact that it feels like this year there’s been probably more engagement at the school level and and Mr Collins I really commend you for being a part of that as well I think that’s been another great uh addition to the youth Council this year is your presence and the way that you’re able to kind of connect in a very direct and real way to uh to the youth Council I know have kind of appointments coming up which is great but I would also say um you know I know we’ll have appointments next year and potentially in the fall as well if we have any any positions that aren’t filled encourage everyone to apply for this who has any interest I I again have just been so impressed with everyone who’s gone through it and to see again you know kind of the way that you know folks have sort of grown in there and and the way that you guys do a great job of mentoring some of the younger members of the youth Council has been really gratifying so thank you for everything that you do and uh really exciting work this year absolutely thank you so much thank you councelor chines anyone else comments or questions councelor so just echoing what councelor chin said a great job by youth Council I’m always impressed when Malden wants to copy us so you might have to call Mayor Gary and tell them how great our youth council is so just one feedback uh Mr Collins and I feel like I do this every year the emails that I get from from your students are amazing I think I’ve responded to four I think I have three more to respond to they are so great if we could not get them in June it would be even better because then we can actually work with them so they they actually I think you know the emails that I got were about biking in town so I sent them to the safe Street working group and there they had some questions or ideas for DPW that I sent that way there’s any way we can get them you know before April vacation then we can actually work with the students and I know I’ve said this before so it’s really great every year we try to and especially now having the youth Council involved that’s been really great um and going into next year I think we’ll consider that a little bit more too about even just the way I know that there’s a lot of emails that get sent as well so we always are looking at way to the letters are so impressive they really come at a policy problem and come with the solution and come with personal stories and so you know next year I’d love for them to come and and uh provide comment on their suggestions right so we can just do that before summer vacation starts I would love it but they’re so impressive every single inquiry and like I said I’m halfway through responding I’ll get I there be a lot I know I think it’s the alphabetical is what I’m thinking but thank you thank thank you very much councelor but anyone else coun but chime in as well I have two eighth graders now so I had I and I I I you know I unlike you I have the person at home prompting me have you responded yet have you responded yet so I like I feel like I’ve gotten all my answers out but it was amazing more that they touched on every issue that like John and I addressed in the um during the campaign but also like just ones you hadn’t thought of like oh skate park and just interesting things that would never come to sort of within my vision that I’m like oh that that is a good point and that’s an interesting take I think that’s Ali that’s what you want want out of the youth council is you know none of us are youths here so we actually can’t have that Vision as to what’s important and what’s vital for that next generation of Wakefield resident and that’s great to it’s been great getting feedback on that thank you and thank you councel Vincent thank you acting chair baski I appreciate the presentation um my question was I applaud the financial literacy course did you get a response back from from the senator cuz I saw the letter was dated February um no we did not get a response back from the senator and I understand that this was one of the things that was swept kind of um to the side uh during I believe this uh term of the um of the Massachusetts legislature so we’re hoping to continue to reaffirm this and I know that actually another this was another major topic of the Civic action projects as well I had many um peers in my classes um try to pursue this as well because I know that this is a topic that is very relevant to the students of Massachusetts uh and w field of course um but I think that definitely pursuing this again because even though it might not be the most apparent issue uh for the legislature right now I definitely think that it’s one that they they should consider just because of the implications that it can have um for all of our successes really because uh the more financially literate we are the more likely we are able to make the right decisions um that really bolster our future so yeah I just spent the weekend with my two 30-year-old children and I’m still giving them financial literacy advice and we had our own little course but that’s I really applaud that effort thank you Council carne I just impressed with your presentation and you on to detail that you worked in adults your age I think it’s impressive thing to do I I wish you luck in the future and hope you keep on doing the good work thank you the best of the best I think everyone has said it you you have really done a great job um this past year so thank you for your leadership for one and thank you for all the efforts of so many you committed um um students our next Generation within our community it’s great to see that indeed and again thank you Mr Collins for your leadership so with that um thank you Mr atui and Mr Collins for being here tonight um the presentation is online if anyone wants to see it on our website certainly and we’ll obviously have this meeting available as well for anyone who may have missed it tonight to watch it um at their pleasure so again thank you appreciate you being here thank you very much I really appreciate it question I don’t think it’s for it’s more do we have a replacement in town for there will be one one coming yes okay thank you again um we’re gonna jump around a little bit on the agenda so we’re going to stick under item five but we’re going to go to 5f because I see Mr mcrell is here and and from a timing perspective we’re going to jump to the friendly 40b um update for Mr mcrell you could just identify your sure good evening Mr chair members of the council for the record attorney Brian mcgrael with offic is at 607 North Avenue in Wakefield uh thank you welcome um the council might remember that uh we were here not too long ago regarding the possible uh friendly 40b as we termed it at 484 and 504 Salem Street um and it was agreed at that meeting that we would move forward uh with due diligence items um on this uh so that both parties could uh after the due dilig make a determination if it would be appropriate and beneficial for both parties to move forward with a friendly uh friendly 40b process for the properties at uh 484 and 504 Salem Street uh since that meeting there was initial initial an initial step that had to be made um and I did that through uh Mr Reno the atton engineer to reach out to the Department of Transportation to see if there would be any state involvement uh because of the intersection proximity to Route 128 it was determined that there would not be so we are now ready to formally move forward with the with our due diligence process which will include as I itemized in my letter a traffic study um um preparation of preliminary architectural designs and context massing plan to take a look at what the project would look like from various U locations um meetings with with the Department of Public Works engineering department on utilities uh drainage uh components of the project uh delineation of the wetlands with the Conservation Commission that will be a formal filing with the Conservation Commission which is pretty standard to make sure that we all understand the wetlands and and we’re on the same page and what the wetlands lines are on the property uh and then also meetings with with the uh community and economic development director Erin keran uh senior Town plan at Samantha Elliott to look at the local initiative um regulations and guidelines so that could be presented to your Council so everybody has a full understanding of that process so my client is uh ready to move forward on that expend um some sub substantial sums sums of money um to do that and we had talked about the uh possibility of the council designating um a member um to go through that process with us so that when we report back um you’re a council uh designate member will have participated in all of these processes that I’ve laid out um so that you will actually have a representative that can can report back to you directly and not just hear from us so that our request is um for the council to designate member to to work through that process with us and again as we said uh these items that I’ve laid out um these are not limiting in any way so and I stated that in my letter so as this process evolves uh there might be other things that your design member requests which we would be open to or once it comes back to your whole counsel there might be other counselors or the whole Council that would want something else looked at uh but this gets us started um and and tries to move the process and as we stated um back when we came uh there’s no commitment to this until we get through that process and we all evaluate and see where we stand and maybe at that point we move forward or we both say you know this was a great process but it’s not going to work for either one of the parties or both of the parties hopefully it will so Mr mcrell you’ve laid up this the steps here the the action items and you mentioned about the the council designate can you help the public and in this Council understand what kind of timeline you’re projecting or looking at at this point the the the due diligence process I would say we’ve already got the we’ve already got a traffic study ready to go to be reviewed by the traffic advisory committee we didn’t want to submit that until we had a designate so they could look at it and participate in that um we’ve already have an architect retained um who’s working on this um I would think the whole due diligence process could be probably three or four months I don’t think it will take that long summer might slow it down a little bit and at what just to clarify before I open up to questions and comments um and at what point in the process are you suggesting that a Town Council doign need be be involved now Fourth Way okay y okay all right so because when we we go to the traffic advisory committee for example with our traffic study um you’re designated member you know would I would think want to participate that and perhaps ask questions or or maybe ask us to uh you know enhance the traffic study a little bit um however we just would like that you know it the way the friendly 40b process is is designed is is that the um the owner is working with the town and we would like to try to work with you from from day one um so you’re fully informed of the process great so with that I’ll open up to any questions or comments of the council okay seeing done for right now um I’ll take Vice chair’s prerogatives as pitching for chair and I’ll say that um I expect on our next meeting agenda we would have um a Vote for This Town Council design if it if it pleases this body to do so so I’ll make a note for the for the chair so he’ll know that for next time um all right great um while we have you Mr mcrel I I realize that the Fourth of July is coming up um and that means we have the best PR in America and we have a viewing stand that looks that that has a viewing of of a not so great um building uh across from the Americal could you provide the public in this Council an update as to where things stand with with your client on that project I can just be with me so I can give you an accurate update okay um so as you’re aware that project has been permitted with a zoning board of appeals um currently in uh interior demolition is taking place uh that should be wrapped up within a week the final cleanup on that so when you look at the building now it doesn’t look like anything is happening there but it all is inside the building everything is stay engaged in the rear of the building purposely not to uh cause disruption on Main Street so the dumpsters are in the back of the building in all entrance and in the demo work takes place in the back of the building um once that is done which it basically is a structural engineer because you might recall there was a recent fire in the building so a structural engineer has been hired they are going to go in and and analyze the structure of the building uh especially as it relates to the construction of the parking garage which is going to take place underneath the building to determine what portions of the building can remain and what portions will have to be raised and reconstructed as part of the project um once that is complete then um our architect Phoenix Architects will prepare the construction documents based on what the structural engineer States the total time frame for that with the structural engineer in the architect with the construction plans is approximately four months for that process once those construction plans are completed then we’ll be in a position to apply for a building permit and construction will commence um once construction commences I’ve been informed it’s approximately 18 months from start to finish okay so um as far as what people can be expecting to see then in the coming weeks it sounds like it’ll continue to be rear rear access activity so correct yeah I don’t think you get I don’t think you’re going to see a lot there until you know I would say at this point the fall because you know because the four-month period for the structal engineer work and then you know to put the to put the architectural construction document plans together is a process that’s a that’s a timely that’s a very detailed process that the architect works with the structional engineer to draw those plans and just to remind the public that’s watching you your clients had been here before the architect had been here there had been drawings um rendering so the expectation would be that once a structural engineer determines how to make those drawings work on that site what people have seen before is what they would expect to see as the end product yes that’s a very good point so the plans that you’ve seen the plans that are always presented to the board of appeals um their renderings they um they’re not detailed plans as far as construction is concerned um but the board of appeals always put a condition on that what you’ve showed us is what we’re going to get um so what they actually have a condition that our architect and site civil have to actually certify uh when they apply for the building permit that the plans that are the construction plans match the plans that were approved by the board of appeals um so but um the construction drawings deal with a lot of the calculations the loads the beams and and stuff that I don’t fully understand but um they’re a lot more detailed and until somebody has all of their approvals and they’re ready to move forward they never do the constructional uh drawings because they’re much too expensive to do without knowing what direction the project is going to go so it’s a natural process this was hinted a little bit because of the fire uh that took place in the building and slowed it down a little bit great with that I’ll open up to any questions or comments of of councelor councelor Carney Brian my my recollection is that there’s two different structures they part of it the front is wood and in the rear aren’t there isn’t there a concrete block it’s like a cinder block yeah cind block and you’re going to try to you’re going to try to make that hole and use both yeah we’re going to try to reuse the building because the cinder block uh um Council County will be where the parking garage is going to be so that might come down it it could be it could come down and be reconstructed exactly where it is um or it might be reused and that’s part of what the structural engineer will tell us okay thank you Mr other questions or comments um I would say if not I think I think I speak for the council and the community the message to the to the owners is that this has been a long overdue project so anything and everything that can be done to expedite it I think would show a tremendous amount of Goodwill to the community that’s waited very long for this yes understood and we have you know I have no problem um as we move forward here to come with um my client with the project um superintendent um to continually give updates to the council if that would be helpful I think that would be incredibly helpful I won’t speak for everyone but I’ll speak for myself I may we get through the summer and then we would in in the fall and Earnest when it sounds like there’s going to be more activity I think regular updates and I’ll pass the message on on timing being important please do thank you yes you just F me in again on where are we this is the former molise right obviously and that’s that so and I don’t see see anything in the zba just when was it presented before the oh God I don’t have the I don’t have the uh the permit in front of me um okay Council Butler so you know I I would be guessing but I would say within the past year approximately okay well I’ll pick it up thank you Mr that I can send copies of the uh zba decision through the the town administrat if that would be helpful sure or maybe just I mean I don’t know if the others care you just s to my email that’s fine I can send them through Steve and Mr MC while we have you um before we let you go if if we’ll just jump next item six donations 6A is 200 Quant poet owner LLC if you could great if I could have address that raro M Gallow um join me hi hi good evening and welcome I’m Mara Gallow representing Caba cabat and Forbes thank you Marissa is a senior project manager with cab cabin and Forbes um so where we before you tonight as you know I corresponded with your Council um last week um regarding uh 200 400 Quant power Parkway um on behalf of 200 Quant power owner LLC of which Caba cabinet Forbes is a principal and involved in um and Marissa is here on behalf of the uh ownership entity uh this relates to the construction of the multif family development and restaurant project at 200 400 Quan power Parkway um the project was approved by the board of appeals by a decision f the town clerk in this case it was August of 2022 I’m sure your council is aware that the project is well underway uh and really proceeding in in in Fast and and diligent fashion um we’re here tonight because as part of our approval uh the zoning board of appeals um put conditions on the uh special permit um and uh they did there was some specific conditions that I’m going to go through uh that were that evolved from correspondence uh by the board of appeals and discussions with uh the Wakefield traffic advisory committee and in the Department of Public Works um there’ll be other conditions for this project that will be coming to you at a later date uh as the project construction proceeds that deal with open space commitments um Public Access um that is not what we’re here to discuss for tonight because all of them through the uh zoning board decision have have various timelines uh these ones we’re going to talk about tonight have timelines that are somewhat of the essence that we want to proceed and get these done to be in compliance with our special permit um so um what these conditions these conditions to this that we’re discussing tonight involve Financial contributions to the town of Wakefield uh either in the form of work to be performed or actual cash contributions uh and the only way that they can move forward with the town pursuant to mass JN Law chapter 44 53a is as you’re aware I’m sure they have to be accepted as a gift um so the the first condition is work that is going to be done in qu power Parkway um independent from our project the town uh was planning on some significant improvements to quanap power Parkway uh that the timing of this was pretty good in relation to our project uh because of our impacts um we were asked to perform that work as part of our project instead of the Town paying for it um that um work is determined by the town engineer Mr Rau and and our client working together was determined that that work has an approximate value of 1,7 $150,000 um so the first contribution would be a contribution to the town of Wakefield to perform the work um from the project that has been specked by the town of Wakefield through the engineering department of Quant power Parkway significant improvements of Quant power Parkway that my client will do it was also contemplated by the board of appeals that if we didn’t do the work that we would make the financial contribution of 1.75 million instead of doing the work we’ve opted to do the work uh in uh Mr Renault is in the process of finalizing the permitting for that work which is going to get underway um pretty quickly so that’s the first um condition put on by the zoning board of appeals um that we would like you to accept um the second condition relates to um a financial contribution in the amount of $600,000 uh to the town towards future intersection roadway mitigation um the of impact just generated through quow in the town um this could be this would be spent at your discretion um but it was a it was a figure that was derived with the traffic advisory committee um is a recommendation and with the town engineer uh and my client agreed to that uh it’s probably that a lot of this work would go in the area of the project and it would benefit the project so my client was fine with making this contribution made sense um the next contribution um is uh for uh the amount of $1,300,000 and that will go towards the water quality improvements to Lake quow through the so-called Main Street project or other similar W water quality enhancement projects identifi by the town of Wakefield clean Lake Committee in authorized by the town um this money was a contribution was um discussed uh quite frankly with the friends of Lake WOWT who were very uh participatory in this project with a a common goal of helping clean the lake um and this project that will go to the um um Main Street project will have direct impacts on Lake quapa from a water quality standpoint um it’s a significant contribution that I think uh the community is going to see benefits as a whole for the water quality and this does not even include the water quality improvements on the site itself so um through the Conservation Commission and the zoning Board of Appeals there are numerous conditions on this project that the water quality coming off of that site going into the late lake is going to have dramatic Improvement compared to what happens today um and this $1.3 million is totally independent on that and this will be spent on mitigation on the Main Street side of the lake for a lot of the neighborhoods that that flow into the lake and will mitigate the uh runoff and treat the run off before it goes into the lake so that’s 1.3 million and then the final um condition of the zoning board of appeals um is that um the applicant make a contribution to the town in the amount of $225,800 uh for the inflow infiltration fund um to um do work around town with the sewers to prevent groundwater from infiltrating into the sewer system which is a benefit of the town as a whole um so the total value of the uh contributions as conditioned by the zoning board of appeals is approximately 3, 875,000 and we would respectfully request that your Council accept those uh pursuant to master and LGE chapter 44 53a uh my client is in a position that the financial components of this that they are ready to deliver uh the checks or check within the next two weeks perfect well um Mr MCG we would respectfully request that every time you come before us you’re making such offers well but with that I’ll open up to any questions or comments councelor Carney it’s it’s considerable amount of money and it’s very impressive but it could be very small amount of money and the question is in regards to Lake cor power Main Street side what what generated this number in the sense of are they talking about reducing the amount of uh flow coming off the streets around the lake into the lake I think that’s I think could Mr Reno speak to that uh Mr chair just because that’s his did you come up to the microphone just so we can hear you yeah step aside for minut please hey folks Bill Renault Town engineer um yeah so we had identified a project uh three four years ago at this point now um where we going after grant funding that Consolidated a bunch of the outfalls at the lake um also in put uh treatment systems essentially in line um so it’s basically just a larger project to take um all that section of Main Street and make sure that we’re treating the stone water before it gets into to the lake so it have significant uh phosphorus and nitrogen removal that’s been the focus that’s part of what causes the Alo blooms obviously so um so that’s uh a project that we went after uh grant funding for uh two different rounds and we’re unsuccessful in both rounds unfortunately um and that estimate um was the number that we had for the project um and what we were requesting the grant funds for so you think we can considerably reduce the amount of of flow coming of course you know everybody knows this fertilizers or people maintaining The Lawns that they never used to do that that’s what’s happening to the like yeah so we’ve identified that the numbers so like the nitrogen I think was somewhere around 70% removal and then uh for the phosphorus I believe that was only 50% somewhere in and arounds there but we’ve you know done the analysis and um you know we’ve identified a bunch of locations um as we worked with um with the um with the cab cabin for folks on the Quinn AAL Parkway design we identified some other treatment systems that we may look to implement that are a little bit smaller um so that may um you know that that would also enhance uh some of those numbers that I’m talking about too so thank you I compliment you for being a to of it I so I had to ask that question thank you thanks any other questions or comments about there yeah you might as well stay up here bro um so the the 1.3 million in sort terms of water mitigation and Lakefront cleanup what percentage is that of what we would expect as to actually clean up the lake like are we you know is giving us a 1.3 million that’s going to solve something that is not you know so we reduce our pollution by 20% but it’s still going so I don’t have that answer yet so I don’t have that answer yet so we’re in the process now of actually doing sediment testing um within the lake to determine what approach we should use um to to solve the um the the the pollution in the um in the alop plum so that’s been a focus and we’re working through all of that this this 1. um 3 was identified for specific project where I was looking at um you know obviously consolidating those outfalls and treating the outfalls before before submitting those before because again my feeling would be if it could cost us 1.3 million to do a significant cleanup of the lake then it’s silly that we’re having CCF do this for us when we if we could have done it years ago and when was the 1.3 million estimate made that would have been done 3 four years ago at this point now do we think that’s still like cuz everything else has risen well ially in cost we found some other um you know other alternatives to what we’re originally proposing that would be smaller um you know smaller in size so um that would make you know obviously it’s a cheaper product too that we would be doing so it’s like newer technology using screens and filters as opposed to bio retention areas like we’ve been doing around the lake so far and I think the other thing that I’m always uncomfortable with coming sort of from the financial world I’m never comfortable with giving somebody the option of either writing us the check or doing the work themselves because then if they’re doing the work themselves then it’s not 1.75 million true and if you know if they’re giving us the cash that means the job’s more than 1.3 so like I guess that’s that’s where I’m mildly uncomfortable with this whole with the US taking 3.8 million and being like cheerleading it on I’m not sure you’re probably getting ripped off I I I wouldn’t agree with that statement no I know Council chines I mean just as a a a couple of points of context so um be that as it may I I think our role here today is just to accept the donation the the conditions have already been put in put in place by the the board of appeals so I don’t think we have any sort of legal bearing to be able to change sort of what those commitments are we can say no we could uh but you know then we’re also saying no to $3.8 million and the the project has already been permitted the 3.8 million you’re not saying no to $3.8 million because you’re not getting 1.75 they’d already told you that uh you’re getting 1.3 for fix up and you’re getting 600 towards something so we’d be saying no to2 million want if I may we’re we’re saying no to $2 million that doesn’t change the fact that the project is already permitted right so I I think that’s you know regardless of sort of the decisions that were made I mean that this was something that was negotiated through the zoning board of appeals as as they have the ability to do you say that the zoning board of appeals to move forward with the project we have to accept it we have to accept the gift for them to move forward no that’s not correct I think we have to accept the gift to move forward with the mitigation payments we have to we have to present the gift to you for acceptance so the board of appeals they can’t not going to condition something on another board’s approval they they can’t do that so the the the special permit says that we only have to make the contribution if you accept it so you’re right councilor chines if it’s not accepted the project goes forward but um ccnf walks out pretty happy because they just saved 3.875 million if we could put a in this just for a second um Mr rendo if you could just jump back up on this one point because it sounds like that that is the question so um as I understand that the concern is that a check for 1.75 million for the quantum power Parkway improvements we would be assured that we’d be getting 1.75 Million worth of improvements can you maybe just speak that that’s Town cost so obviously for us to do with prevailing wage it’s more expensive it’s definitely cheaper for them to build it um you know themselves without a doubt I mean we could you speak to like what the over like so you you know what you want in this Quantum power Parkway Improvement you know what you’re looking for could you maybe speak to the involvement you have from an oversight perspective so that at the end the deliverable is what you would have expected it to be had we been handed 1.75 so yeah so part of the agreement was that if we would design and permanent that they would build it for us so it’s like any other any other contractor that we bring in you oversee you have to approve it and sign off and it’s not to your specifications then it that it doesn’t get a exactly signed off on exactly so in in some ways the 1.75 million whether it’s a check to us or it’s the equivalent of that work that you can sign off on ultimately we’re getting the same end result I understand it correctly exactly y okay correct so does that lay a little bit of your concern it’s less about the the cash to us and more about the end result product that is overseen by and approved by yes although it seems like it’s a it’s sort of a fake argument because they’re building a huge condo or a huge complex there they were going to spend money on a road to that anyway it’s not like we had a grand design around Quan power Parkway if that stayed an empty office building we weren’t going to do anything there so so yeah I mean like let’s not talk about it as a gift they were always going to build a road like let’s not overly you know romanticize what this is I I would Char I think I think it’s a great effort I I compliment uh you I compliment uh the developers this is uh this is even getting more positive this is something we weren’t expecting did anyone expect this money coming in tonight I didn’t so now there are they’re offering us moneyy I’m saying the 1.7 money it’s it’s a road that they’re going to build anyway we weren’t going to build that road what would you do the the the the that the where would you the the W power Parkway improvements are an independent project of the town that was designed by the town in the pipeline of the town I guess I mean bottom line is um Mr Reno you you’re on the town side of this you’re the Tator so I guess from your perspective you know are how do you feel about what we’re getting with respect to this particular I I I think it’s a terrific offer from the developer and that they were willing to do this for us I think this is a a win for the town we’re going to get a wider shared used path area they’re they’re going to have Paving with you know um reconstructed they’re replacing a culvert that’s there um all of those are winds for the for for Wakefield for sure and they’ve all been designed by my group um we also got included um additional Stone want treatment so I mean they may have repaved that that’s possible but they’re doing a lot of other work beyond that they’re doing gr of curbing there’s a there’s a whole slew of work that they’re doing so it’s it’s not you know I wouldn’t get stuck on the number I I look at it as you know the the end result the project that’s that’s how I look at it and this you said was in the pipeline so this would have been taxpayer dollars used at some point in the future had we not had this fun coming yeah well I mean I identified it in context with the project so you know I wouldn’t say that I had it queued up at this point that that’s probably a stretch fair fair assessment okay good any other comments or questions counc chin uh Mr chair can I uh move that we accept the uh the donation uh from cin cabon Forbes as laid out in the orders of condition from the zoning board of appeals seconded quick question for you Mr Mullen can we take all four of those together or do we need to take them separately I I would use a single motion okay so just to clarify Council Chin’s and you’re looking to accept the total of approximately 3.875 million with the four different correct so that’s including the uh the $1.7 million of ink kind work for quanap power Parkway the $600,000 for intersection and roadway improvements the $1.3 million for water quality improvements related to the Main Street project and the $225,800 which is a very specific number uh for inflow and infiltration improvements okay I had 1.75 down for the first one is that correct Mr mcra yeah a value of you know approximate value of that okay okay so with that we have a motion um on the floor in a second do we have any discussion on this okay seeing none then the motion before you is is the acceptance of a total of 3.875 million from cabinet cabin Forbes with the town’s thanks um all of those in favor all of those opposed okay so the motion carries uh five to one um with um councelor Butler being uh in in the negative all right thank you thank you cabinet cab Forbes for for your contribution and we look forward to you being a very good neighbor hopefully for our community and we’ll be back Mr chair with these other items that I talked about correct you know some of which will be very intriguing to the board that they’re actually going to request them to maintain some of the public land along the lake because they have a vested interest cabit cabin and Forbes stated very early in this process they are now a citizen and they are very committed to Lake Juan power um and being involved in the improvements to Lake war power going forward they have a vested interest in doing so because they’re probably the largest property owner on the lake so any improvements to that Lake uh improve the value of their property going forward so they are committed to the lake and moving forward I know this body loves Green Space sidewalks and trees all across town so I just encourage cabin cab for to keep that in mind we will thank you indeed thank you thank you Mr chair can make one point want to uh thank have cab for the great partner with the town but I really want to uh congratulate uh uh Mr mcgrael whose oldest son is getting married this weekend and so I want to wish you all the well all the all the best this weekend have a wonderful time and um I won’t call you all weekend okay I’ll be officiating the wedding it’s a great day it’s a great congatulations thank you appreciate that comment and thank you again thank you okay now we’re going to jump back to the agenda in our order um this is item 5B which is the North Avenue uh Flex polls discuss um this is one of two discussions that um chair mlan had asked that we um begin this evening and so there will be no votes taken this there are opportunities and uh chairman mlan is looking to um set up a a a general system whereby there are items to be discussed and considered by the council and then at at this a follow-up meeting or the next meeting more likely in most cases um there would be a vote relative to that so uh for this evening’s purposes we’re only um getting a bit of a of an update and over viw there’s been a lot of discussion about these Flex poles along North a obviously there are none there now that is under construction still I know we have Paving more yeah yeah so we have patching going on uh by the curbing um currently um the plan is that the sidewalk will be topped next week um so we’ll be in time obviously for the parade that’s a priority for us um one of the items that we’re trying to still work out is um the timing on the patching um so the patch there for the water main work that was done a couple years ago uh obviously needs a little bit of a brush up so that’s uh we’re trying to coordinate all of that work at the same time obviously prior to us um doing any painting um you know based on the project that was approved previously uh regarding the flex post at this point we haven’t purchased them um I know there was some dialogue so obviously we didn’t want to spend the money on it until we uh got the thumbs up uh so we’ve evaluated a couple of options um one option that I like uh was a um kind of a a larger base it’s about a 6t by 9 in base um that um essentially has a uh the suppos that sits on top of it we’d be looking to space those out say every 40 ft or so um and you know they’re removable um we’re not and we’re actually not putting them in the pavement we talked about that at the you know when we approve the project we don’t want to damage the pavement by by drilling it in um these way uh they’re pretty significant uh pretty heavy they’re about 130 PBS or so so they won’t be picked up and moved away um that was obviously a big one for us that we didn’t want to have that happen so um you know I’m figuring we could come in with a proposal show you kind of the layout how we were planning to do this um and you know how um you know what what they look like we can definitely provide that um if there’s any feedback on colors or any of that type of stuff I’m happy to obviously follow the guidance from the council great so with that I’ll open up to any questions or comments uh councilor Carney yeah Mr chairman I’m I’m opposed to this um I ride the lake every when it’s good weather every weekend um and I’m I’m a little lary about the sidewalk right now we’ve got a huge sidewalk there and I’ve been pushed about another 3 4 ft into the road and I’m concerned about flexol I write I ride through uh uh Su ofal every day and that’s not working there and there are there’s some controversies right now in the city of Boston what they’re trying to do in there uh I think the bottom line is perfect perfectly honest with you I’m going to start riding my bike 5:30 6:00 in the morning I’m going to riding on that sidewalk when there aren’t people in because I’m not going to ride in that street it’s a little I’m a little liy of it right now and make that road a little bit thinner and the fact that how how wide are we going to make the Ed the uh the bike path how the so the the bike lane is 6 feet wide and then we have 2 to 3 feet of Gore strip to break up between the travel Lanes travel Lanes will be 11 and 1/2 ft each with um a one foot uh shoulder on the inbound Lane coming in that’s what’s that was what was approved at the the council so the lanes will be different sizes uh no they’ll be they’ll be uh 11 1/2t travel Lanes the travel Lanes will be 11 both both both both Sid both yeah so that’s about what so if you if you’re at um if you’re at the quinal Parkway uh light those are uh 11 and 1 half fo Lan one’s 11 one’s 11 and 1/2 so when you when you lay out the road it’s going to be after the 6 feet for the bike Lan yep then you can have 11 and 1/2 ft on either side of that which is about the side size of Main Street at this point in other words you can have two 22t right away yeah we shift the we shift the center line over so the the the it’ll shift from The Wider sidewalk side towards the smaller sidewalk side correct so if all of a sudden we decide later on to take those down the the road is going to be thicker on one side than the other yeah we we still have pavement to so curb to curb we still have 30 uh 36 ft so that’s what’s there currently um that’s what we constructed it to yeah all right I didn’t want I didn’t know the gentleman came tonight to speak in favor of it uh of of the thing I did not want to speak I didn’t want to you know lay this off to another meeting but I when we do finally vote on this I’m I’m against it and I’ve heard of a lot of people who are against it uh I believe this is something that that a group of people have decided this is good for the town and I I personally think it’s bad now just to clarify too it was added by the council so we didn’t include it in our original proposal they were added by the council correct so okay Y when you presented you you asked if it was part of your recommendation it was not part of your recommendation time it was not no you you asked to add it as a board okay okay um thank you councelor Carney um any other questions or comments Council shines Ju Just a couple of comments I um I I do think that it’s worth trying this for a season and and one of the things I want to reinforce is what we liked about the flex polls when we talked about this and I I went back and I watched the meeting where we had a pretty lengthy discussion back in I think it was December of 2022 what we liked about it was the fact that they were flexible meaning um we weren’t making any structural changes to the roadway they were something that we can add in for a safety barrier and something that we could take out at the end of the season so that it didn’t impede snow removal the beauty of that uh is that if we decide that for whatever reason they don’t work out we can take them out we still have the striped bike lane there uh but we can take them out without doing any major roadway construction and so you know I think there’s a lot of strong feelings on on sort of what these posts are and what they mean the beauty of the fact that they are removable means that we can test it out in a relatively lowcost no risk way uh and so I I think it makes sense to move forward um I think it’s a pretty good solution I think that at the end of the day if we don’t end up using them permanently you know it’s a big town and we have a lot of materials that we use in different places I’m sure there are other uses that we would find for the stock uh and so I I hope that we we put them forward because I do think that they represent uh a good safety barrier not only for bicyclists but as uh Mr duly mentioned earlier uh for for cars as well uh given that not only does it prevent bikes from going in or cars from going into the bike lane it prevents the opposite as well so I I think it makes sense to move forward and hope we’ll hope we do so next week or the next meeting when we talk about this so thank you councelor chines go sorry take councilor Vincent councelor Vincent thank you thanks for being here tonight Mr rno if these poles are 40 ft apart how many po do you anticipate putting in and where would it start where would it end on so we would be ending well it’s kind of difficult to say because we also have to lay them out with each driveway too so 40t it can’t be a hard and fast rule for 40t so you know we haven’t done that analysis yet because we haven’t purchased them so um when we go to purchase them we would we would do that I also didn’t want to go and just buy them if you folks want to make it 50 feet or something to that effect so um obviously I’m open to to feedback on this so um however we want to handle this if we want them or don’t um you know we have time this isn’t something that’s happening and its eminent tomorrow by any stretch of imagination so we’d be in July looking at probably painting um in all likelihood so the decision would need to be made you know prior to that to prior to us painting that would be about when we’d want to know uh on the paint side and then you know um I can give examples of what these look like I think that’s probably important too cuz they have a pretty substantial base the ones that I’m looking at because you know again I don’t want them to be picked up and removed I also don’t want them to blow over all that type of stuff so originally we were looking at the ones that are like the um in your uh crosswalks it says you know do not you know uh yield to pedestrians that type of of post is kind of what we were looking at initially um the ones that I found um at one of the um seminars I attended um seems to be a little bit more robust and and will will hold up better so um and they’re actually easier to remove stack and and um you know kind of they disassemble and whatnot so but I can explain all that to you I mean if there’s a color difference or something we can happy to to look at they have a they have a black one that has um kind of the reflective stripes in it so we could do something like that so it doesn’t look as Stark I know some of the comments that I’ve heard and and and have been provided we’re talking more about them being like the yellow and orange you know colors we don’t necess have to do that they can be more of a black style that that is a little bit more context sensitive um but again I’m open to suggestions on all of that so thank you sure thank you go ahead coun but or but we could alphabetically I beat it now so yeah uh coun B um so just ballparking how much do we think we’re going how much do each of these cost or how much do we think that it’s going to cost to they’re in the hundreds they’re in the hundreds each and we’re looking at I mean it’s uh about a mile a road is a little less so probably a 100 of them somewhere around there yeah so it’s like 10 grand yeah okay and then how much like when someone runs into them because now do you just replace the pole or do you have to replace the whole pie just the pole yeah it’s a r it’s a rubber base like so think yeah that’s what I assumed so I I guess look and this is to you John the bike lane is being painted and going in anyway like that’s happening folks it’s not dissimilar to you guys telling me about the cabit cabit and Forbes building that is going to happen so why wouldn’t we put in these polls that sort of you know potentially give people I I just think it I’m not you know I didn’t vote for or against the bike lane but now that it’s going in like you might my feeling is you should test out these polls by the way you see if like you know maybe night one some kid takes out seven of them and then you have to uh yeah no offense Al not doesn’t have to be some kid thank you councelor Butler councelor but yes so um so just a couple of things one um Mr I really appreciate what Mr dueling said earlier about that this is also to help drivers and and so to protect the people biking and walking um I think that’s really important I think we try it for a season it’s not too costly of an investment um I’m going to disagree with counselor Carney a little bit I I have biked in Somerville recently and from what I hear they they protect bikers and bikers are really appreciative people who bike their children to school actually Somerville has a lot more bikers than we do um and so it’s doing well in Somerville so I think we tried here and then I just wanted to say um I I’ve walked the lake once since the the sidewalk has been completed and I just wanted to say thank you to you and your team because that wider sidewalk which is getting lost in all of this makes it safer for walkers and people with strollers and uh little kids on tricycles and so I think it’s a great project that we’ve started and I want to see it finish through um and just one more thing uh you know uh just to talk about emails and Communications we do get we get just like I get a lot from the high school students and their Civics um program I get a lot of emails and Communications about people that want us to try the flex poles and so I just wanted to say that out loud that there are people in our community who want this thank you councelor but um one question U Mr Reno for the next meeting would you be able to have any photographs of something that’s Sim to like a like a 6ot bike lane than with the 2 to three foot Gore strip yep so people could kind of visualize that I know we we’ve always had the the cross-section drawings which is are one thing but I think being able to see what six feet plus a two or three plus a road you know what that looks like okay yeah I see what you’re saying yep I can see what I can do I mean I yeah I should be able I would say like with and without the you’re looking for a photo kind of showing is that to kind of show yeah like an actual yeah an image that would be I think that would probably be helpful because the drawings are great but I think the the actual photographs would be you know um help us help to go the decision- making even more yeah okay so with that councelor shines just sorry one other question um I’m this was my assumption but I I just want to make sure I clarify this so with or without I mean based on the design of the roadway with or without the flex poles the travel the lot width of the travel Lanes is the same regardless it’s 11 and a half feet that’s what we’re proposing so but I mean that doesn’t change if we have the flex poles or not because we’re already striping them okay yeah yeah so it’s going to go the the poles will be placed within that what’s called a Gore strip so it’s the hatched area that you see when you driving those are called Gore strips and so we would put it in there okay thank you Council Carney just a followup question to what jonan just asked you’re going to take six week six feet of the current roadway away more than that so be more it would be more than that right so 6 ft from the lane and then another it’s 2 to 3 ft is how we designed the cor strip so it’s closer to 8 to so with again response to what Doug said there’s not going to be a lane there if we if we don’t put up the the post it’s it’s going to be this you you’re going to make make a lane by putting Post 6 feet out I don’t know if I’m following you there’s going to be you’re the curbs of the post and make a 6 foot space right yeah yeah you could we we were already painting it right so you already going to have the paint so we would have the you know the the um you know the bike lane painted with a Gore strip so that like kind of hatched area yeah and that would be like a buffer so you have a buffer with the with the hatched area and then you’d have your two travel Lanes so you know I I guess I’m not following I think for people so to just to clarify so off the off the the wide sidewalk there’s going to be a 6ot wide bike lane yep then there’s going to be 2 to 3 ft of buffer next to that and then the road would begin for for vehicular traffic exact so the the bike I’ll say the bike lane configuration if you will will be anywhere from 8 to9 feet off the curb correct so you we’re taking 8 to n feet of vehicular traffic yes uh and the V vehicular traffic starts 8 to 9 ft off off off the curb so so C right now where the street L is laid out you’re taking 9 ft off of that yeah and then make it two different lengths that’s yes that that’s the math that’s EXA so again 11/2 ft is what the lanes are that’s what’s there when we get to um the Quin intersection we also have another section further down by the Galvin where it actually Narrows even more so we have a 10 and a2t Lanes there um where we have that uh the turn lane to get into the Galvin so you know we we have some of that you know space so you can kind of help to Vis visualize what this will end up as um when you’re driving down there you know you know whenever you’re driving down on North out so that’ll be how wide those those travel Lanes will be and on the visuals piece too um Mr Reno is there a way that we would be able to either um see a photograph in that kind of um Lane span of 11 and 1/2 ft where you had say two fire engines Crossing at the same time or a tractor trailer and a fire engine is there any way to kind of see what that in a photo that’s I don’t think I can do make that happen or we could we have 112 ft across town though right we theoretically could have that even with two of our fire trucks right have them you want to Stage the fire truck so we can get a it that’s what you’re asking for to see what what that looks like I I may I talk to the fire chief on that if he can do it if he be willing to do it that’s a bus too a bus or a bus or what whatever the whatever the widest vehicle would be I’m assuming it would be a fire truck but I don’t know if that’s the case so if that so if we can see what it looks like if two fire trucks are crossing what does that look like okay okay I’ll see I I can’t I I’ll see if I can make that or even if we can’t do that at least at a minimum just what the schematic would be of that you know so that definit do that I think I think the visuals proba would probably help this this group and just a reminder chair the the visuals will be helpful but that when presented to the attack both the fire chief and the police chief uh signed off on the flex pole as a pilot program yeah so they did at that meeting yeah and we had a and we did have a site walk meeting as well where we talked about it as well so again you know and I look at it this way um you know it is paint that’s going down in removable Flex post if we want to modify in the future there’s nothing here that would not allow you to do that in the future so you know what what I think is the really the controlling factor is where the curbs ended up and you have 36 feet still so um curb to curb so if it down the road the bike lane doesn’t happen or you folks don’t don’t care for it or whatever it has to happen we still have the ability to to modify that pretty you know on the cheap so just a little bit of of paint change so all right so this is a two big continued uh Mr R know you’re back here at our next meeting in two weeks time um I expect that the chairman um will be um asking for a vote at that time relative to these Flex polls so no votes this evening so if people can be thinking about it I encourage the public to reach out to to town hall or any of of your town counselors about this issue as well great thank you for your time appreciate it see next item on the agenda is uh item 5 C this is uh the 48 communities uh you may Mr chairman can I make one more request to bounce things around you can Mr very quick on your feet um the wcat group we will jump to item the chair is there from that WC working group and I I would invite up David Watson I think Mr Watson and Mr Mayo will be tag teaming this one good evening Mr Watts welcome thanks for joining us David Watts Jr currently chair of the wcat working group I didn’t expect to be here I expected to be back there but um which was my understanding at the last meeting but we’ll do what we can I can jump in good you’re you’re here to help well yes but um uh the chair who’s a member of the working group uh Mike mlan has the actual report that was going to be presented here tonight they report huh they have the report they do have the report okay so if there are any questions or comments then we can do that and Mr Mayo if I can I can give a real thumbnail so just for the public for the public so the um the Town Council created this committee because there was some concerns that as people’s habits change in regards to how they get information um less people are getting cable they’re they’re streaming they’re going to other other uh products um YouTube I guess so the way the wcat receives its Revenue to run all the programs that they do and the wonderful program they do is from part of your cable and cable bill and you may have noticed that when your cable bill comes in portion is paid for local access Peg access fee part of that goes to to wcat part of that goes to the school department for their programs so that number has been slowly uh declining because less people are getting capable of getting rid of it um so there was some concerns in regard to that and how things would go forward because you would note that actually um you know what wcat is receiving has been reducing over the years although not as much as we once as we feared people seem to be keeping that in Wakefield and maybe it’s because there is um more more construction and maybe people are getting in in the new apartments are getting cable so um the Town Council set up this committee to kind of take a look at this and see what can be done um and we met um I think four times here at wcat um had some very robust discussions some very interesting discussions and what we found out was a few things um number one is um as I mentioned the percent decline in Revenue was not as steep as it had been the Curve seems to be flattening I’m a little bit of an optimist and I’m thinking when some of these new units get um uh tenanted like at tarant Lane like at 200 cor par cor Parkway some of the others that being built actually some people may get cable so maybe we’ll have a few more subscribers so I’m I may be The Optimist on that I’m not sure that that’s shared by everybody in the group um also um uh the executive director Ian who stepped in here has done a great job in kind of reorganizing the um Department um and really eliminated what was an operational deficit of 86,000 has eliminated that for this year so that’s all really good um on the not go so good side um we were hopeful that there would be some State streaming legislation that would actually uh provide a a source of funding that would come directly to not only the town um but would also go directly to local cable stations uh um unfortunately that kind of got bounced around in committee and the um the the actual law that went into committee um which I thought wasn’t too bad myself um there was going to be a a charge to the to to the streamers um I think that um one fifth would go to the state two fifth would actually go to the town for General Revenue and twoth would go would go to the uh cable company well that went into committee after a lot of a lot of uh iterations what came out was very different and basically I think there’s another committee to study this so I think it was going to be a while before streaming any streaming money comes our way um so what we decided that um uh and the only other thing we talked about or one other thing we talked about is during this whole back backdrop wcat is working with a lot of construction that we just walked through to get here this evening outside the backyard um and we want to make sure that the new uh WCA Studio which will be in the new building um will be set up because wcat has budgeted uh $60,000 to for you know as far as new equipment and things like that um we want to make sure that we are able to Parlay that as much as we can in the new building so what the committee decided to do was um that um all the great uh service that wcat does that they do look to develop a plan to increase uh production services and get some other income from that that um wcat the Town Council and Town Administrator Monitor and a Lobby for the various streaming bills with an eye towards funding local cable operations and that the wcat working group be deemed a standing committee um and we meet periodically uh but not less than annually to review financials budgets and progress in other areas as well as provide update updates to the Town Council so I think the bottom line is that um uh because of uh work that wcat did um the issue was not as dire as we thought going in we still need to keep an eye on it and work together and make sure that we get that incredible service that we continue to get from wcat but a great group um we we’ve looked at a lot of the financials and um uh I’m very anxious to see as some of these new buildings come on whether we actually see some new subscribers so that’s in a nutshell it’s really just an update there’s no action for the Town Council to take but we’re certainly open to any questions or comments terrific well thank you for that Mr mayo and and thank you to the work of of the working group and and uh Mr Watts’s chair anyone have any comments or questions for either Mr Mayor or Mr Watts counc Butler what’s the annual budget for what does it cost to run WC I’m I’m not on the wcat board I’m actually on this committee as a as a media professional although I have been um with wcat on the board in the past and we’re going to welcome Ian mcder who’s The Who Behind the camera and behind the scenes our our executive director of WC good evening welcome good to see you um so to answer your question um our current annual budget which usually decreases by about 7 to 8% yearly uh is currently at $350,000 from from this um element of whatever we fundraise so the cable money specifically is at about 350,000 and then so operationally we were running at a bit of a deficit so we were spending about 400 uh yeah so the situation that we had had uh just to catch you up from previous was the um the employment Bill the employee Bill along with all other sorts of um expenses had gone past what our budget would have been this year um but through uh several people leaving and new people coming in um we were able to readjust our employment costs uh to come just under what the number is that’ll stay for a year or two couple of years um but with the expenses of everything else um that will start creeping back up again and we will end up at this same problem the other problem from an industry point of view is that uh and I’ll use Verizon as an example they announced some time ago that they were planning to get out of the business that would be 45% of your income yeah yes yes about 45% of the income um and there aren’t new cable companies coming to the four uh RCN is is uh still declining in in subscribers that would leave Comcast as uh pretty much the lone wolf in Wakefield if Verizon does uh decide to pull out and they have reduced their contract terms to five-year terms where previously it was 10-year terms uh going back to the beginnings of of cable in Wakefield yeah I mean and that’s that’s what they’re saying there’s almost zero chance that Verizon gets out of the Cable business um but outside of that like Steve and this is I guess for us is there a reason why we can’t set a budget for them that is extraneous of what the cable companies pay us and then so we set a budget of $425,000 for wcat and then like we do with every other group we get grants or money from the cable companies you may not be aware councelor Butler that w is a 501c3 nonprofit corporation it’s not a town dep it’s not a town Department okay we do I think we do run that through our um it’s to meeting it’s it it it it’s run through because the do requested that we do that’s a failly new thing that was never in the past we never did the original uh funding legislation for Community Access was a 100% pass through whatever came on the franchise fee which is what you see on your bill would pass through a community to the uh local access organization um I would say most of the access organizations are 501c3 nonprofits going back to the origination of it in the late 70s and the legislation doesn’t allow like Internet only customers do not pay anything into this only you get cable TV and that’s who drop cable but keep internet wcat and the town the the school department lose that funding yeah years ago the when they were first putting out the cable bill in the ’90s 8S ‘ 80s 86 80s um the discussion and the argument in the back doors was that okay you can tax the cable part but not any other services that we do because at that time they had things like QVC and home shopping they didn’t want that part because that’s that was their greater portion as I understand it they didn’t want that getting taxed as well because otherwise we probably would have had millions of dollars at that point But to answer your your your question uh councilor Butler um this um board and the town may very well decide at some point that there needs to be some supplement to this service with tax with tax levy would we be able to do that if it’s well we might pay for services we’re going to pay to okay you know so yes pay for WCA pay for yeah pay for doing our meetings and things like that so that that’s something that may be on the horizon because there was a value ad here that we’re looking at see the other problem the streaming Bill this is the second or maybe third iteration the bill has come up and it has been allowed to die at the end of each session prior to this and unfortunately between the changes that have been made to the bill and the fact that the session this year ends early because it’s an election year it’s going to be very hard to get action in in the current legislative session to help not just wcat but all of the Community Access stations in the state and there are quite a few so I think our plan is maybe to meet um uh kind of kind of uh I thought we thought T about maybe a date in September or October when SE when the audit was done of of of their numbers to kind of September is the next meeting um we’ve talked about quarterly meetings going forward um because not enough is changing fast enough to Warrant monthly meetings sure okay well it sounds like the so this is continuing to be a working progress um and we’ll get good uh updates going forward thank you again to the working group for your time um I also notice um Ian that you have awfully good Lighting on you and I think that has to do with your your role within this this studio I’m kidding um thank you so thank you Mr Watts thank you Mr mcder and thank you Mr Mayo for that that’s very helpful all right um moving on to item uh 5 C this is the 4A discussion um this is otherwise known as the MBTA communities um act you might remember that for those watching um at home uh this there was a discussion at town meeting relative and and there’s ultimately a vote on a couple different iterations of of plans U regarding this this 40a uh MBTA communities and this is a a state mandate relative to um the opportunity for a set amount of housing as a matter of right within uh MBTA um uh transits um this was placed on the agenda by by coun by chairman mlan in the hopes that we would at least begin to have um a little bit of a discussion in terms of where we go from here as a community relative to this um to this uh requirement we are required by the end of December of this year to to be in compliance otherwise we uh face potential litigation and uh loss of certain uh in income streams from various grant opportunities uh it’s obviously a very controversial topic and there’s been a lot of debate across the state I’m sure most people are fully aware of you know what the arguments are this is more um discussing what a path forward may look like relative to um how we consider addressing this going forward and so councilor chairman mlan wanted to open this up for um any thoughts people had in terms of how we would reconstitute or constitute any sort of um entity that that would look at this um and be involved with this going forward and then he had some ideas of his own relative to that but he was looking for any thoughts people had amongst amongst the six of us Council Carney the one thing that concerned me uh as we kind of weeded through these the possibilities and the planning board came up with a third alternative was there were people who had no idea you know um that this was even affecting the neighborhood no idea so the only thing that I think is important one of the things I think is important I should say is that once we come up with a plan that we use either our telephone services or mail building or something to let every person know who lives on that street affected that they are are being affected so give them due warning that that this is happening to their neighborhood the other thing is I think we have a town planner now Mr chairman is can we use that town planner to come up with all of the various op possible uh scenarios we could come up with and then we can discuss them and argue and and discuss and come up you know and debate which which are the best ones uh I think that’s one possible approach in terms of a configuration or composition anyone else have any other ideas relative councilor chines sure um a couple of thoughts on this and I I know I’ve I’ve been sort of ruminating on this probably immediately after uh day one of town meeting and the spoken with you know some folks individually as well um I think a couple of sort of principles for us to think about it one is that first of all timing is going to be tight and you know while fall town meeting in December 31st feels a long way off uh just as we look at the calendar whatever the plan is to bring to town meeting we probably need to finalize that around September so that we have time to refer it to the planning board for the hearing that they have to do Under the charter meaning that we basically have the summer to to gather feedback and so I know we um you know we’re hoping to kind of have a discussion now and kind of coales around a direction at our next meeting I don’t think we can let that go past the next meeting because the the calendar is going to going to fly away um you know I I think a couple of sort of observations from town meeting and the discussion that we had um two I think are are particularly Salient one is I I think there there is an appetite for doing something that’s above sort of a a so-called minimum compliance map and so I I do think that’s one um sort of guidepost that we we probably need to follow I think the second is because we effectively had three different maps that we were kind of talking through a town meeting I think that generated a lot of uh confusion I mean this is really complex stuff um you know it it is difficult to understand any zoning change and when you have basically like three zoning changes that we’re kind of talking about all at the same time uh it’s a lot and so as I think about sort of what makes sense to me is I would love to have a process where um you know we maybe put together three sort of th straw man options and have a public survey and a public meeting this summer to kind of get some feedback on then and then based on that direction try to coales around one option that goes in front of town meeting um process-wise how we do that whether that’s a subcommittee of Town Council that kind of puts those together and works with the town planner to kind of get that information out there I think that’s an appropriate way of of working through it uh we can figure that out sort of next time in terms of if that’s the right approach and kind of who would be involved uh but I think doing something to try to focus on sort of you know some of the key variables that we talked about meaning is it just downtown focused or is it downtown in Greenwood is it you know something where we try to uh create a district that’s maybe a little bit larger because fewer units are allowed by right or something that’s smaller where more density would be would be allowed I think there’s some sort of Concepts that we should try to test through a survey this summer and then use that to come up with a plan that again hopefully has as much support as possible certainly among our Council um but you know even more broadly in the community before we go to town meeting in the fall thank you Council chines any Council Vincent thank you in the the last process there was an MBTA 48 working group who did a lot of the assessment that councelor chines is talking about and then they made their presentation to the planning board I’m a strong Advocate that the Town Council should create a subcommittee and take over that role and work with u the director of strategic planning and whomever else we and the Town Administrator deem appropriate to work on a town Council subcommittee to make sure that we have compliance by the end of this year we get elected to make tough decisions we ought to take the lead on this and create a subcommittee that’s what I’m going to be an advocate for the next time we meet thank you thank you counc Butler I think the only other thing I would say is that we need to make it clear to people to the town’s people and to the voters what the costs of saying no are are well we didn’t do they did they just didn’t do a great job of that they didn’t and by the way we everybody knew that we had this second town meeting so there was there there’s a huge appetite to say no that first time the question is is if you know and this is probably why if the Attorney General wants to get this enacted she has to be hard on Milton because if she’s not hard on Milton then nobody’s saying yes so that’s the issue is if if we go into town meeting and it looks like towns are getting away without doing it you can bet your bottom dollar that our town meeting won’t vote to do it either great all right um I’ll say that uh chair chairman mlan was inclined to look at perhaps forming a subcommittee of of this body a three member subcommittee which obviously um would be an option that we could consider um I do expect that he would be looking for a vote to that effect of the next meeting so if anyone is interested in in being a part of that I’d encourage you to reach out to a chairman mlan relative to that in advance of our next meeting um and I would say that to your point about Milton the the scheduling by the SJC has done communities no favors because the oral argument on that won’t be heard for so some time and so by the time a decision comes out it it may be after a lot of community Town meetings or it may even be into 2025 for all we know so that likely won’t be a lot of guidance you know regardless um I think the expedited hearing was moved to October yes indeed indeed so you by then I mean we’re probably talking anywhere from like 3 to four months you know before we have um any any but I think we talked about that we would have missed out on like $2 million of funding I think what we need to talk about is what do we think we’re going to miss out on going forward like that is like it isn’t the costs of what we what we’ve already gotten but what what are the things that we might be putting up for grants that we’re not going to get now if we say no I think yes so that you really need people to understand what the costs of no are right so the estimates were 1.5 to $3.5 million for the town and another $1 to2 million that gas and light would lose out so close to $5 million for our town and we have an obligation as a Town Council to like we have a fiduciary duty to pass something by the end of the year cuz that’s a lot of money to say no to and so I hope whoever is on that committee thinks about getting to consensus and then uh sharing using our communication tools Steve like our Communications manager and other to explain whether it be through a website a mailer rooc calls as counselor Carney said to explain that losing 5 million upwards of $5 million dollar should not be an option for our town thank you councelor but uh uh CC chines and just to sort of piggyback on that when we talk about $5 million we’re talking about $5 million in the relatively near term like that is not a long-term number I that is stuff that is in the pipeline at the Town level at MLD right now and so I I think councelor Butler to your point like there are real dollars attached that kind of got lost in the discussion um and again it’s a complex topic right and there wasn’t a lot of time to present it and so it I I get it but I I think that those are real numbers and those are real numbers over the next couple of years I mean there’s a longer term issue of if we were to be out of compliant for multiple years that5 million dollar number goes up pretty significantly Council Carney yeah I my my recollection of the a town meeting had nothing to do with that the agument of town meaning was that I believe you had the arrogance of a of a planning board who went forward against what all of the public was saying to them and that’s what caused all of the bad feelings and of the pressure it had nothing to do with the benefits of losing anything Doug it’s the fact that people said they’re being affected so now we have to go somewhat apologetically cuz some some people in this town we have no choice they’re going to be affected you know that okay PL of the part of the district is going to include streets that we have no choice they’re going to be affected so to them we have to explain to them what the effects are what could possibly happen but then the the streets that are they’re outlining that we might add to meet that minimum and I I think I might disagree with you Jonathan on the fact that you want to go beyond the I think that’s what caus I misunderstood you that okay so getting back to that minimum and the the safest minimum we can come with and make sure the people understand it and and just to be clear there was an option for the the minimum that councilor josi put forward and that that was also rejected so there was a proposal that had the minimum and we did have that so and I voted against that and I told Browski is the fact that the people he added had no clue at this point in time there was no time to notify the people on the west side that were at it so some people get get left out so that’s the issue is make sure the people know ahead of time and we might at the beginning say okay this Core group of people you have no choice this is going to be part of your distance so you better to be thinking about it and then how we’re going to add to that to get to the minimum is is that’s going to be the that’s going to be the hard work indeed so um again so if if anyone is interested in being a part of the subcommittee um would I expect that um there would be a motion to that effect and then once if that committee is created then at that point um the the chairman would decide who’s who’s appointed on to it um just my own personal perspective on this is that um I think the planning board failed to listen to the people that it represents and ultimately that was the the downfall of of this entire discussion and if you don’t listen to the people that you represent um the people will will respond and I think that’s what we saw at town meeting relative to that um all right so that’s a to be continued we’ll uh pick up that discussion at our next meeting in two weeks time um item 5D on the agenda is uh Town Council goals uh chairman mlan had asked that uh everyone um think about what some of um his or her goals were for the year and so I’m just going to go around in no particular order um and and just ask that if you could just highlight um a few a couple or a few of the goals that each of you have for this upcoming um this this year this session um and from from here I expect that the agendas going forward will be crafted to um give deference and and reflect the goals and priorities of of the council we’ll also get a sense of you know what some of the more popular issues are relative to uh the year ahead so with that um why don’t we begin with um councelor Vincent I right okay thank you I’ll make this pretty easy um my goal is one and it’s housing I got elected in 2022 and the first project I worked on was the affordable housing trust fund which had been recommended as far back as 2015 and hadn’t been were hadn’t been enacted fortunately it was enacted at town meeting a year a year and change ago um also the Town Council was kind enough to allocate $200,000 recently in arpa money per my request for additional money for the affordable housing trust fund I have 10 months left in my current term and I I want to emphasize getting more control over 40b I think it’s imperative that we get a new housing production plan approved and get it certified as quickly as possible I respectfully disagree with prior decisions of the Town Council not to renew the 2015 the 2020 housing production plan for an additional 5 years I think when you look at our subsidized housing inventory numbers between December 20120 and 2023 um R zba Who unfortunately has not been able to invoke the Safe Harbor provision because they have to show a 2% increase in Shi numbers over one year but if we had a certified housing production plan the goal is or the the um requirement is for one year to push back on 40 BS you need to have 0.5% increase in your Shi which is 57 units and to get it certified for at the 1% level which allows the zba to push back on 40 BS for two years is 14 units between December 2020 and June of 2023 we added 292 Shi units so I think that it’s it’s absolutely imperative that we get a new HPP approved which is a lengthy process that will take probably into early 2025 because you also have to give three months to the housing authorities to then look it over once we present it to them and then after we get it approved try to get it certified how I plan to achieve that goal is I’ve already had two meetings with the director of strategic planning U the Town Administrator has created or is creating a housing advisory committee to work with the director of strategic planning to support housing production plan efforts I have asked the Town Administrator and our chair if the Town Council could have a seat on that housing advisory committee and if so I am volunteering to sit on um as the Town Council me liaison to that housing advisory committee I also ask um the our chair to assign me again to be the Le on to the Housing Authority the Wakefield Housing Authority I want to be involved in as many of the different housing components that the town has over the next 10 months so I can achieve these goals thank you thank you councelor Vincent councelor Carney yeah I my main goal is is to get through the MBTA redis um and my other concern is uh you know um person I’ve worked with for many years at Town count town meeting got up and talked about his concerns about the school budget getting getting Beyond its limitations and the effect it’s going to have on on the town on the long term um and I think we ought to be concentrating a lot on our future expenditures here cuz sooner or later things this the avilability of monies is going to start to get a little less and a little less and we’re going to have to start working with more stringent um controls over our finances and um I think that’s something something than I want to concentrate my time on terrific great thank you councelor Butler sure I I also probably want to you know I I come to us from the finance committee so I’m definitely focused in terms of understanding our budget and understanding not just our goal our goals for New Growth and really trying to expand our growth because again if we want to remain a great Community we still have to continue to grow but we shouldn’t grow you know we’ve historic grown with you know some degree of profiteering by local businesses and that probably needs to be addressed and really recognized as you know we have a lot of you know we’ve have issues with downtown we’ve had issues with housing and we keep sort of rubber stamping the same sort of behavior and probably it calls on us but it also calls on other boards of ours to like make changes and make hard decisions rather than just looking at what is and is not allowed and sometimes saying No thank you councelor Butler uh councelor but um so some some overlap I had I had five things uh that I said one was getting 4A and BTA communities passed by the end of the year um second was the completion and progress of all the arpa funded projects that we approved including the senior center of Renovations economic projects and housing fund um I’d love to work on a better formal process for grant writing particularly in HHS and DPW I think there’s a lot of money out there um to help with our economic forecast um I hope we continue the succession planning conversations that we’ve uh started including hiring of the new positions and replacement of some vacant positions and this is something uh the fifth is something we talked about in the past and we haven’t got it off the ground but I think uh I’d love to see a Transit committee so a way to talk about microtransit MBTA bus advocacy the senior van kind of all of that under the transit um umbrella in town teric thank you councelor but and councelor chines to round it out uh thank you I have uh I think four buckets although I suspect I I probably lumped a few things in some of the buckets so it may be more than four goals and all is said and done uh the first bucket is related to uh facility project so obviously for me um you know the continued uh progress and successful completion of the Wakefield Memorial High school project is is really Priority One uh the completion of the senior center Renovations as councelor but mentioned that we we Invision through through arpa funing uh as a second priority I think there is a great opportunity to activate some space there and create some more programming uh for seniors as well as uh others in the community so I’m I’m excited about that uh and and I think as part of that sort of facility goal also coming up with a plan for the DPW facility so this has been something that’s sitting out there for a while uh you know we we funded a feasibility study that came back with uh some some very large price tags that probably aren’t sustainable but there is work that we need to figure out and I think we need to address what our long-term kind of prognosis for that facility is uh second priority is uh continues to be in the area of sidewalk expansion so I’m I’m really excited that we have a bike and pedestrian plan that’s identified some of the areas where we need to be building and and renovating and restoring sidewalks uh we just need to bring those to completion and and I would say as part of that you know continuing to activate some of the spaces around the lake where we have the ability to do um you know not necessarily sort of full like bike paths or whatever but you know trails and things like that that allow people to access more of the shoreline uh third goal is related to the small business incubation fund that we uh talked about with our arpa funding uh that you know myself C Dan councelor Dey had all worked on uh we we’ve allocated money to it but we do need to have a legal structure for it so that those dollars can be used and not clawed back by the federal government and so that that’s a key priority for me is making sure that we have that uh in place uh and then fourth uh looking at our plans for the herd school property the Butler Avenue property uh and potentially the five Common Street property uh next to town hall and I think the stet tales with with councelor Vincent’s focus on housing uh and finding ways that we can activate those spaces to address some of the housing needs in town thank you Council chins uh I just have I have three uh downtown downtown and downtown uh that’s something that um the Invision Wakefield goes back to about 2018 we have um two really significant projects coming out in up upcoming fiscal years relative to the street street Scapes um and I think that’s going to be transformative uh but I do want to see that our business community be able to um to thrive I want to be able to see us um really have robust economic development in a way that we haven’t before I’m encouraged by The Economic Development Council that has been meeting regularly now and the kind of work that’s being done there and the in the ideas um that we have um going forward so I’m really looking forward to continuing to work with it with that group in in in the year ahead as well as with DPW on the Invision project which again has been going back now six years uh the other two I would just ad would be uh roads I think um making sure that we are doing a much better job with our roads management but I think we have still a ways to go we went from less than a mile a year to about six miles a year but we we need to do better and and that’s that’s a longer term plan and project and finally working on uh focusing on on cleaning up our lake with with obviously the ultimate goal of it becoming swimmable and I do think that that’s something we can all see within our lifetimes um with the kind of technology and Innovation that that’s out there so uh those are some of mine for for the the coming year ahead well thank you for that and again I expect chairman mlan will take this you know and help this will help to craft um the agendas going forward and some of the priorities and any any other work that we’re doing uh going forward Council CH did did uh chairman mlan have any priorities that he was prepared to share or do we just not know that I don’t have them I know he has priorities but I I would defer to the next meeting for him to offer them directly okay thank you I’m certain he does though um moving on to our next item item number six donations we already covered 6A but so we’re on to 6B the library so I’ll entertain a motion to um accept an amount in the total $1,227 so moved seconded moved by councelor chin seconded by councelor bu any any discussion and it was not no just for anyone watching at home 15,000 of that amount 15,000 of the 200 of the 15227 was actually a um a friends of the library and that was from the book sale that was recently had so that we express our our gratitude and thanks for that so with that we have a motion that’s been seconded all those in favor all right I see a vote of six to zero the motion carries thank you for that moving on to item number seven this is um appointments this is going to be our last vote of the evening uh this is this relates to an unexpired term uh for the Housing Authority tenant representative or also known as the town appointed tenant board member um this is a term that is uh needing to be filled through April of 2025 so it’s under a year uh we’re looking so we’re filling out the remainder of an of an unexpired term the we have five candidates that have been identified uh that have submitted and and have been identified in our packets uh we have one candidate Who provided U supporting materials um and four others who identified um that they’re interested in in in going forward um before we just take a nomination I I’d be open to accepting uh or having any sort of discussion relative to a process of how to you kind of best think about um you know identifying what we’re looking for in in these candidates we have very limited information save for one candidate who who we obviously have more um so I I think we’re working with very limited information here I I’m looking for the five candidates where they they were at page 40 44 in the like PDF yeah I can identify them by name and um so they are uh Katherine Florance um Jeff foxen Ed cting Joan paa and Denise Ferrara um but we again we have very limited information on these candidates aside from the one candidate uh Miss uh florant Who provided a resume and other information I believe I believe the if I read the notice correctly I found yes they were asked we asked they asked for them to fill out those applications correct so only one person filled out an application um all five filled out the form there was a form that was provided and all five subm did fill out a form the problem is the form doesn’t have very much information you know their name and why they’re problem comply with the state requirement because this is the state appointed representative the we were the ones that um that appoint them they just had to complete that form only and they did they complied with that but that doesn’t give us supporting information to in order for us to discern in my opinion who is the best candidate to fill that position that one person went above and beyond positively and provided you know additional information to us the other ones it wasn’t that they didn’t provide additional information because they chose not to they just were complying with the state requirement of what they had to fill out which was a one-page form that puts us in a difficult position trying to figure out who’s the best candidate and In fairness any any appointing authority because it’s very we have very limited information to from which to work off of the only other thing I’d mentioned i’ i’ call on your your uh institutional knowledge Mr Mayo I know that when we’ve had similar situations in the past and there has been someone who has run for this position we have considered this body has considered that um in making an appointment basically is that that has been tradition right not not it’s we’re not bound by that by any means but it is tradition so I just put that out there for what it’s worth so with that um I don’t think we have much to work off of so M Mr chair just a question um I I don’t know if um if chair mlan I believe he is the liaison to the Housing Authority I don’t know if he had any feedback on this or he didn’t um he he he he he didn’t have much feedback no on it um and I asked that partly because in the past when we’ve done appointments the other thing that has been helpful is we often get a recommendation from the body to which the individual would be appointed and um you know particularly you know boards like the zoning board of appeals where they look for sort of balance of skills I find those recommendations to be really helpful and uh you know if we don’t have it today that’s fine but I I think if we can start to kind of set that as an expectation with appointments and I I know Miss Dalton has has done a good job when we do kind of the large number of appointments of of soliciting that feedback uh but I at least personally as you know 17th of the appointing authority find that feedback to be incredibly helpful I I agree I I think you know given to what we have now though um so we can we I’ll accept the nomination now one suggestion I would have just as a one of seven is that I think we have the fullest picture of Miss flant she has run before she has a resume she submitted to us she has um housing uh Authority experience and she was on the finance committee so that and I think she’s like a chemist or something to it she said in her so I would just suggest that Mr CH I’ll move to uh to appoint Katherine Florence to the Housing Authority for the uh the the state help me up Council vent the state subsidize yeah representative I apologize Town appointed tenant board member seed yeah so is there a second second okay any further discussion seeing none all in favor by a vote of uh all those I’m going to abstain abstentions of not sufficient information to make a decision all right so with that we have um motion carries a vote of five uh five in favor and with one exstension uh counselor Vincent all right thank you for that and I I do think that’s an inherent flaw in this this form because it doesn’t provide much information uh the other appointments are appointments that are actually made by um the chairman and for those watching each um with the turnover of leadership each each chairperson has the ability to um name members of of this Council to various um liazon uh capacities so I’m going to just go through it’s it’s kind of like the emmies or the Oscars right we need a drum roll here and I’m sure CIT can do it so I’m I’m just gonna go through know why I didn’t want to be here so I’m the messenger I’ll leave it to that just kidding uh so with that we’ll start with with councelor Carney so councelor Carney congratulations you have been assigned as liaison for the BW Review Committee the environmental sustainability committee the commission on disabilities and the Council on Aging that one by default uh councilor Butler you have been assigned as liaison to the BB Library the gas and light department the master plan committee and the youth Council councelor but you have been assigned to the Human Rights Commission the capital planning uh economic Development Council traffic advisory committee and the recreation department councelor chines you have been assigned to the permanent building committee the school committee Health and Human Services and the police department councelor Vincent you have um graciously I believe accepted uh warrants again and been assigned to the historical commission the housing authority and the fire department uh count uh chairman McLean will be on the wcat working group The the finance committee leaz on as the the chair always is the affordable housing trust and the school building committee and I have been assigned The Economic Development Council the veterans Advisory board and the Department of Public Works so congratulations to all the winners that with that we’ll move on to item number eight which is licenses our first uh license item 8A is CL is a class two license renewal for New England Detroit Diesel Allison uh Inc doing business as vintage Automotive I’ll entertain a motion for the approval of that that license renewal so moved seconded move by councelor chin seconded by councelor Bud any discussion seeing none all of those in favor I vote of six to zero motion carries next item 8B entertainment license for library and this is for the for Plaza Jazz u i I hope this will be unanimous uh with that I’ll accept a motion uh move to uh approve the entertainment license for BB library for Plaza Jazz with enthusiasm indeed seconded with enthusiasm Move Motion made by councel chin seconded by counselor but although any discussion I can’t stand Jazz but I’m voting okay fair enough now I have to say something app appreciate the honesty as the father of a daughter who’s put out two jazz albums I enthusiastically endorse this all right fair enough who knew this was going to be the most controversial thing we talk about this is going to be the front page of tomorrow’s item uh so with that um there’s been a motion that’s been secutive see no further discussion all those in favor vot a 6 Z the motion carries unanimously item item number nine is fiscal year 2024 warrants we have warrants 42 44 and 46 and I’ll turn it over to uh councelor Vincent so my assignment to do it another year does that make me a winner or sure in the eyes of the beholder I suppose I actually enjoy doing the warrants um okay so warrant number 42 is 9 868 million of note uh 1.4 million of that was group in Insurance 2.97 1 million of that was um with the light department and 2.6 million in change was the Town Council and um that was for wo Memorial High School uh number 44 is 2.89 million in change of note 1.3 million was with the treasur department and $818,000 of that was the light department and um the one thing I will note is that there was Tree Service of $199,000 and that was um for trimming branches uh near the wires at the new energy Park and the last one is number 46 that was $8.2 million and change 2.2 million of that was the light department 2.36 eight million of that was Public Works and um $858,000 of that money was with the treasury Department I also note that the MW assessments that we have to we provide 10 of those payments per year $333,000 um and $682,000 collectively are for the water and sewer rates that we played it we paid at MW thank you thank you councelor Vincent any questions for councelor Vincent just have one quick question from Mr Mayo on that um the tree trimming of almost 200,000 was that identified or or budgeted in when we talked about the energy Park do you happen to know by chance I don’t know that off off the top of my head but I think it’s a light department expense okay anyway just us yeah right but still I mean ultimately rate payers nonetheless right ultimately rate right I’m pretty sure it was part of the budget and cost of the project um moving on to item number 10 that is the approval of our minutes from our May 13th uh meeting do I uh do we have any suggested Corrections relative to those or they look good as presented I’ll make a motion to approve seconded all right um motion made by councilor chines seconded by councelor but any discussion seeing then all those in favor vote of six to zero carries unanimously item number 11 is announcements does anyone have announcements they’d like to to make before we conclude this evening councilor chines um I have a few first of all um since uh this is our our first meeting since uh the class of 2020 before graduated I just wanted to um extend our congratulations as a council uh to the class of 2024 uh as well as our moving on classes this year the classes of 2028 and uh 2032 uh it’s you know I mean we saw with the youth Council presentation today I mean we we just we turn out some absolutely amazing young people here in Wakefield and you know every year I feel when you know you hear about the graduating class and you hear the speeches and some of the accomplishments you think think wow like I mean these folks are amazing like no one’s ever going to top it and every year you know I have the same sentiment so I I just want to pass along our congratulations and let everyone know from again the graduating class of 2024 and our moving on classes how proud We Are of you as a community and how grateful we are for everything that you do to represent us well um couple of other exciting things I’m really excited uh I had mentioned a few uh meetings ago that there was a group in town uh that has been working on in a porch Fest uh and uh that porch Fest is actually scheduled for Saturday September 7th so really excited for that I know they have some venues lined up and are looking to get um some uh some acts lined up I know they’re also looking for volunteers this is a community-led uh effort though certainly uh they’ve had a lot of help from um our community and economic development director uh Aron Cinda as well as others in town but uh encourage folks to sign up for that and to mark your calendars because that’ll be a a a great event to look forward to uh and then finally I just wanted to mention uh and councelor Bun mentioned this earlier um you know because it is the end of the school year a lot of us have been getting those kind of calls and emails about the uh the Civic action projects both uh in the eth grade at Galvin and in the 11th grade uh at the high school uh and you know the two observations that I would make are first of all again just wow uh you know uh the the caliber of the projects the questions the the idea is that our students have have been amazing um I hear the teachers continuing to apologize for me when I join Zoom meetings and respond to emails just for like you know bothering us and I just want to say you know for me it’s absolutely no bother it’s it’s an absolute joy to hear from to hear from some of our students uh and I would also say it’s an absolute Joy just to get a sense as to sort of what’s on on their minds and uh again counselor but mentioned this as well but I want to reinforce I I’ve had three or four different groups both at the middle school and high school level uh reach out to me about bike and pedestrian safety and so we’ll be talking about it more next time and and again you know with one particular project but I I just want to make sure we don’t lose sight of the fact that you know this is a priority for uh for our young people and you know while they may not be old enough to vote yet um you know they they do have a stake in the future of the town and I hope we take that feedback seriously so thank you thank thank you councelor chines councelor Vincent thank you um than two weeks ago Mr mayo and I hosted a meeting um to get some folks together to talk about the soldiers and sellers Civil War Memorial rededication ceremony um the work’s going very well on the repairs on the figurines and the company that specializes this and is doing the repairs is going to be coming out in June to actually work on the pedestals and to work on the monument itself um the meeting that Mr mayo and I hosted had the superintendent of schools the school committee chair the chair of the historical commission the chair of the veterans Advisory Board Jen McDonald and um Ann W from Public Works brainstorming ideas about what we want to have when we want to have it we penciled in uh June 1st 2025 and the reason we penciled that in is the memorial was originally dedicated on June 17th 1902 um April of next year is the 160th anniversary of the end of the Civil War and um Dr Lion’s very astutely reminded us of when the children get out of school and we wanted to have it on June 1st because there is a collective um decision to make sure that we have the elementary middle and high school students significantly involved in the rededication ceremony so we’ll continue to have this is a little bit different than you know Memorial Day veterans Advisory Board Pride Human Rights Commission there is no designated Town commission committee or board to do the rededication ceremony so Mr May and I decided to to start the process and we’ll we’ll provide you more information as time goes along thank you terrific thank you councelor Vincent any other announcements I believe it or not Mr Mayo yes um at our next meeting on uh June 24th um there will be the setting of the water sewer rates um even though MD MW will not have given us the final rates yet um but um uh joke con when his staff do a really really good job anyway and every city in town is in a bad place because it’s hard to not have the final rates but they’ve got a good idea where they’re going to be so my suggestion is is that if you haven’t been through the process before um use these next two weeks to set up a time to uh you can go through my office or uh talk to Joe or Ann Wade directly because it is a it is a a pretty complicated um uh process to go through so just want to throw that out there to make sure that you have time to sit down I’m happy to do it with you or and uh but Joe does a great job he and his team and um if if you go ahead of time it’ll be make make that evening much smoother thank you thank youest watching The Advisory boards meetings when they talk about this in detail that’s very educational thank you Mr chair thank you right um so I would just I’ll end the the announcements by wishing everyone a happy pride month we had a a very good uh Pride event recently I think it on June 3rd um we have a juneth event coming up actually on the 20th of June um so wishing a happy juneth as well and a happy Flag Day which will be on on this Friday the 14th we have a ceremony on the upper common at 7 p.m. finally I’d mention that on Thursday the 13th uh the the Wakefield Area Chamber of Commerce is having their annual meeting uh and Commander Shelby nicotin who is a a Wakefield native will be the guest of honor she’s a phenomenal person and has such a storied storied and distinguished a military career so I I would encourage you uh to to attend that meeting if you could uh all right with that um we’ll move on to item 12 matters not anticipated do we have any before this body tonight seeing none item number 13 I will entertain a motion to adjourn understanding our next town council meeting will be on Monday June 24th at 7:00 p.m. uh same time same B bat Channel so much second moveed by councelor chin seconded by councelor but any discussion seeing none all right all those in favor all right and with that I would just like to to send our thanks to Madam clerk uh Dalton thank you for being on and thank you also to the best team in the business those behind the camera at wcat uh with that uh thank you for joining us tonight Wakefield and good night [Music]